¶ Opening Chat
The Beans did a live show in Bristol and then Mike dropped Henry at the station, hiding an emotional farewell under his stiff, upper, moustache-covered lip. They have a rare, fraternal love, expressed by the throwing of Doritos.
Henry bought a sandwich at W H Smiths and got a glimpse of life as a travelling pen salesman.
Musings on propelling rubbers, rubbers from castle gift shops, sturdy rubbers and display rubbers. Ben has not used a rubber since he was a child and Henry remembers a schooldays spate of beautiful, scented rubbers. It is at this moment that Mike points out that American listeners may be imagining quite different scenarios.
Mike tells the others about his children being issued with pen licences from school and this sets Pam off on full GB News style commentary.
The 1980s fad of scented erasers and beach balls resulted in the earth being scented (raspberry) and attracting space stoats.
Ben remembers scented gel pens and Mike assures the others that they are still on the scene to this day, with a similar vibe to bubble tea.
Henry remembers the rubbers that looked and smelt of various items of food, including a full English breakfast and mug of tea with spoonful of sugar.
Henry had a rubber collection, his favourite one being the one (he got from a French hypermarche) which was in the shape of an Eastern European biscuit. These rubbers became available after the fall of the Berlin Wall. David Hasselhoff's last performance on the Berlin Wall was sung by a scented rubber that looked and smelled like him.
Ben is a Man of Science and takes away the magic of birdsong, it being merely the sound of thousands of reverberating cloacas of pecky idiots.
Henry confesses his first crime (though is this after the poor lad who was pushed down the stairs...?). Victim: Barnabas Michelmas.
Barnabas had a Coca Cola rubber (premium) which Henry coveted so hard he had to own it. The rubbers turned them against each other and there could be no more Eden - only a new one with Henry as the new Adam and Sheena Easton as the Queen of the new Golgotha. Though the serpent got killed.
Ben remembered the Coca Cola pencil sharpeners - Christopher Nolan's next film will be Sharpenheimer.
Explanation of Platonic Ideals with the conculsion that 'Plato was wrong' as Henry did find the realisation of the Platonic Ideal in the form of the Coca Cola rubber.
He carried out the rubber heist, along with Julia Roberts, Steven Seagal and Kenneth Baker. Henry was accused, denied it, panicked, rethought his future, fell apart, and ran. He had a tough decision to make about whether to keep the rubber or not, 'The obvious parallels are where one of those hairy, little guys is standing over the fiery pit of Mount Doom or whatever it is. It was basically that moment.'
He flushed the gear and Barnabas could not prove anything.
Neither Benjamin nor Mike went through a phase of stealing things. Except, in Mike's case, a real biscuit.
In the end, scented rubbers were banned by the government.
¶ Topic Chat
Ben feels they have talked about this topic before but is just so steeped in farming because of his other podcast, The Beef and Dairy Network!
Farming was a great human breakthrough, along with scented rubbers, spinning Jennys and taking a coin out of someone's ear.
A Magic-Off between Henry and Mike ensues (with talk of the French Drop being reminiscent of the chat in the episode 'Magic') Henry as a Necromancer, Mike as a Sorcerer and Ben as a Mage.
Is a French Drop a wine, or perhaps a guillotine?
Henry educates the others about his Hamleys training and attempts to show them the trick, learnt from the Magic Marvin gang. It's hard to tell what is going on visually but it seems to involve an antacid tablet with King Charles's face etched on to it and a lot of not-so-sleight of hand resulting in 'The Half-Turkish Drop.'
Henry forgets what he is meant to be doing and asks Ben to help. But he can't.
Back to Farming and Ben once had a job planting cabbages for pesticide experiments. He mainly fell asleep, possibly due to the chemicals. An origin story for Bonjamin, showing no remorse for killing all the caterpillars.
The image of farmers as rosy-cheeked, merry idiots is to hide their cold-as-steel interiors.
Ben feels that farmers are a different breed; they get up at night and have massive breakfasts. There are the gentleman farmers in gilets, and the hard-as-nails, trousers-held-up-by-string farmers who Ben loves.
He recommends a 15 minute documentary called Heart Valley which won a Welsh BAFTA for Best Short Film in 2023. 'He's a farmer, not a yoga twat.'
Can the farmer do a Downward Dog, write a haiku, or own a Peleton? (Insertion of a curious, edited pelt-on joke by HP.)
The farmer sells flat-pack lamb legs to Argos and Ikea but Henry doesn't see the Romanticism of it all.
Henry plugs his appearance on the podcast 'Crushed' to be recorded on May 5th at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival - in the Owain Glendwr Centre. (This information may have been slightly lost in translation on the pod.)
Henry also gives a shout-out to Hugh in Hampstead who, as a fan of Three Bean Salad, had given Henry 2 free pints and packets of crisps. This could be the beginnings of bungs being made, leading eventually to the establishment of a private army.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
Listener Jay’s version of Email Jingle. Jay is a musician and wanted to create a short journey ambient/chillout via hamma-hey (?) to the post-industrial nuclear apocalypse.
Beans praise the jingle comparing it to having Peter Gabriel’s gravitas and sweet, sweet Collins. Henry says that the core jingle is like Shakespeare and that it can be easily reinterpreted. Ben suggests in fascist Germany.
Swimwear Macbeth is suggested.
Rebecca from Bremen emails to say that she had always found the Email Jingle to be bloody and morbid because she thought the horse was murdered, but due to a version by a listener she now feels it is an enjoyable experience because she knows she isn’t listening to horse murder.
Ben asks Henry and Mike what they think the Jingle is about. After Mike explains his interpretation and Henry admits he ‘checks out’ during the emails, Ben says he will ‘keep his counsel’ and find out what listeners think before revealing what his intention was.
Ben anonymises the next email because it is from someone working in insurance claims who found ‘Three Bean Salad Podcast’ named as a contributing factor in an automobile traffic collision. Ben says that any legal comeback for reading this out could be sorted out by the ‘bent magistrate’ that they can lean on.
Ben wants to talk about some emails that he is not going to read out because they are concerning stories about people shitting themselves. He thanks people anyway, but does not want anymore scatological themed emails as there are too many. He cites an example: Eric who ‘pebbledashed a golden toilet.
Jack emails about a recent visit to Birdland (not the piece of music by Weather Report with its sweet bass). He and his wife took turns for lunch because his 4 yr old son wanted to keep looking at the birds. Jack’s hot dog was interrupted by his wife ringing to update him on where they were in the park. In the background, Jack hears the most terrifying sentence he’d ever heard – “Mum! It’s a Rhea!”. He made it to them as fast as he could and his wife and son had thankfully survived the face-to-face meeting with death and went to the gift shop and bought a lollipop. Ben discussed going to Birdland as it was near him and that it has a place called the Parliament of Owls which prompts Henry to try a switcheroo joke which fails in the middle.
Tom emails that in series 1 episode 4 Mike expressed a desire to go on a submarine. Tom had just returned from visiting Chatham Historic Dockyard where you can visit HMS Ocelot and recommends that Mike visits there. Mike not keen as had a very difficult gig in Chatham many years ago. It’s suggested that Mike goes on HMS Ocelot and turns it around and starts firing on Chatham.
¶ Jingles
32:20 The Bean Machine
52:44 Email Jingle
1:13:10 Patreon
¶ Bollockings
George Lewis sent in a bollocking for Ben. Henry had said that raw unprocessed olives would taste foul. Ben disagreed and Henry acquiesced too readily for George. He says that eating unprocessed olive is like eating a diesel soaked bullet. Ben tries to get on with next email, but Mike interrupts to ask if he’d accepted the bollocking. Ben admits to his ruse of trying to carrying on without making an acceptance and now accepts the bollocking.
¶ Notable Quotes
- A brace of biros for Sir?
- I’ve not seen a rubber in ages.
- Are they display rubbers?
- I don’t think I’ve sharpened a pencil, in maybe 15 years.
- Bark to basics!
- We can’t spend our lives worrying about whether space stoats are going to arrive.
- People in a bubble tea cafe might well be writing in their journal using gel pens.
- These smelly rubbers are tearing us apart!
- Sharpenheimer!
- I prefer to think of myself as a sorcerer, really, rather than a wizard.
- My favourite French drop is Chateau Neuf de Pape.
- I’d love to see Ralph Fiennes’ one-man email jingle.
- It’s from 'Macbeth: Origins'.
- I’m like a hoof doctor in Birdland.
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
Henry suggests 'You Can Do Whatever You Want As Long As It Rhymes Night' and Mike rises admirably to the challenge.
¶ Listener Theme Tune
Robert feels the pod needs some Classical themes and sends in one in the style of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart