¶ Opening Chat
- Henry joined the meeting when Ben and Mike were in the middle of some chat. The listener is enjoying the audio minutes of that meeting. Are the Beans in creative spheres, or blobs with discolouration from microplastics?
- Was the research watertight that said microplastics were in every human body? How full you are of them depends on what your chopping board is made of (this is not a metaphor, or is it?).
- Should you never wash your chopping board, and build up a patina? Is it like not washing a wok (which Henry didn't know was a thing) so that is becomes imbued with generational flavours? Henry realises this is why he has never wowed with his stir-fries and makes this an audio experience by going off to rummage around his kitchen for a wok (sample noises: 'Oh shit' and a bonging sound). But he has lost his wok: next-level losing. Is this the herald of an attack by Ken Hom? Henry pushes the 'losing stuff' boundaries, e.g. losing a radiator by leaving it on the Tube.
- Henry almost mispronounces 'wok' as 'rock' but saves it and doesn't even realise, because it is too hard to keep track of all of his saves and also because the London Mind is operating on a different level.
- He holds up an ordinary frying pan he has brought over from his kitchen, but that's just not going to do it in an audio medium. Ben asks for Henry to give it a little dink but instead he scratches it in the most unpleasant noise possible.
- Has Henry's wok been stolen or is it hiding in plain sight? Has Henry been sleeping in it?
- Mike's chopping boards are largely wood + one plastic for chicken (Henry puts his frying pan away) because of the fear of raw chicken = salmonella thanks to Edwina Curry (his first crush), who incurred the wrath of the poultry industry. She was hounded out, and into the arms of John Major. What is salmonella in: eggs, chicken, anything else? Can you give it to someone by shitting on them?
- Henry has a few chopping boards in rotation, acquired over the years. He reckons you could get right into it and buy the Escoffier 3 and the Jumbalayo. Ben knows about this; it involves an end-grain wood board, which Henry also knows about but Mike doesn't.
- There's a whole wok of ideas going right now, including the burnt garlic. Supermarket stir-fry sauces have 'best before' dates that are beyond the lifespan of humanity. The people in the bunkers will always be able to eat a plum-based sauce. Henry's disappointing stir-fry will have main ingredients: oil, soy sauce, burnt garlic, UHT oyster sauce, wok flakes, a broken-off handle with an embossed Ken Hom signature.
- Henry has a wooden paddle-style board, which Mike describes as 'London chic' because it can deputise as a chorizo board, be used to play squash, discipline a serf, or bat off an intruder (as long as they're in their late 80s). A lot of air resistance in that paddle. He also has a plastic one whose skin is peeling off, thus being the main source of macroplastics (size of a Kinder Egg or a He-Man lunchbox containing an 80s orange Club bar). Henry also has a long chopping board, a planquette (he may have made up this word), which you could present a steak on in a restaurant. There is no medium that's ready for showing chopping boards, not even an 8-part Netflix series.
- Ben has 4 chopping boards: red for meat, blue for fish, green for veg, and white for cooked foods, all stored in a plinth that cost only 999.99. Proper Home Ec. stuff. Has Ben been sold a lifestyle that isn't true, even though that is his lifestyle?
- Ben asks Henry what his original question was, but Henry still wants to go down his side segment, to do with gloves, which he will get to in a bit.
- What Henry wanted to ask about was when joining the 'meeting', Ben and Mike were engaged in 'man chat' about wet belts. A little glimpse into their non-Henry chats. An alien language for Henry who would be the giggling child in a sailor outfit, running off and playing at the suburban barbecue while the tired dads chat about fan belts and engine sizes. Henry the child realises he doesn't want to be part of that world.
- Is the dads' car chat just heavily coded dick swinging? Similar to the goading that the child Henry is doing with little Jimothy: "I'm the sailor and you're the squid!" 'Twas ever thus. The parent is the father of the child!
- Mike's car has broken down after many miles on the road on his tour. The wet belt is disintigrating, so it's in the garage, but is Mike being fleeced? There has been an assurance that it will be very expensive, and people don't make assurances willy-nilly. Mike can spot the little signals and cues the car gives off, like stopping driving all at once (while you and all the stuff in your car carries on, including your organs, in the race to the navel).
- Ben whispers to Henry that this is the sort of thing that happens when a car hasn't been maintained properly (Mike: "nonsense!") and this explains the beatific, Santa-esque smile Henry spotted on Ben's face when he joined the 'meeting'. Mike could have been using any oil to maintain his car's belt, including Crisp 'n Dry. Henry sees that Ben is just watching and waiting for Mike to hang himself with his own dick, continuing to say the right things ("It's a right con, isn't it?"/"You just can't trust the guys in those centres.") while feeding him more dick rope (are there any balls at the end of it though?).
- Henry introduces a Pompidou to explain the little notebook he uses to write things down and wonders if that is ruining the illusion for the listener. He has written "gloves" and "anchovy butter" (Mike: "Christ"). Tune in next week for the egg that Henry has left on the spoon.
¶ Topic Chat
- Is the Coast Guard in Canada like that in the USA, which is quite paramilitary?
- Cat, who submitted the topic, works for the Canadian Coast Guard and entreats the Beans to look up their mascot, Echo.
- Mike did an attachment with the UK Coastguard as part of his Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award. The editor has to cut out Mike's diatribes about how it should have been Gold. At the time, the AA ran ads about being the 4th emergency service, but Mike's Coastguard leader was livid about this ("It's us! We're No. 4!"). Mountain Rescue didn't get a mention by the Coastguard guy, and don't get him started on the RNLI ("Those glory hounds!").
- The correct order of emergency services is: fire; police; hospital; RSPCA; RSPCB; lollipop ladies; dinnerladies; Find My Phone; Autoglass Repair, Autoglass Replace; Bristol Zoo; Cats Rescue (also Cats the musical, Cat Stevens, Cat from Ontario, but not Cat Deeley); the RSPRS (the Royal Society for the Protection of Royal Societies).
- The AA can't beat out Cave Rescue (rough business), which is one of the worst leisure activities imagineable. Mike knows people do it, but they can't like it because it's horrifying. One sneeze/guff and your body expands to fill the space and meanwhile it's filling with freezing water. Do they get people to do it by promising them a really good cocktail bar at the end?
- The hairless, blind deer down the caves have evolved only to kill, eating you from the soles up so that you're just a head stuck to the deer's body ("Finally, I have eyes" thinks the deer).
- Henry enjoys watching videos of people being rescued. Is this a sexual fantasy thing ("I didn't know the RNLI rescued people topless"/"The N stands for nude")? There's a bit of a wait if you choose the 'sexy' option when dialling 999, but it's worth it. Sexiness in bravey, machismo, being covered in soot, having a big red shiny MegaCar, sliding down a pole, and having a retractable ladder. Are firefighters more sexy than the police/paramedics because they're always going into jeopardy? The lighting from a fire is exquisite on their abs. The phallocentric imagery (retractable ladders! hoses!) is off the charts.
- Slightly fascistic air to the uniforms, doing good for The State, kicking down doors (but for the right reasons), State-sanctioned boots.
- Sexiest of all is walking around a new-build housing estate checking all the carbon monoxide detectors are working; bollocking someone by holding a fire door open with a fire extinguisher; or doing a talk to some 9-year-olds in a primary school.
- Paramedics have relentless call-outs but firefighters are just waiting around, cooking a massive spag bol and pumping iron in a prison yard-style gym while tattooing each other and getting a boner from sliding down the pole.
- Shoutout for firefighter listeners to get in touch to school the Beans about the reality – is it really sexy fascists in a big red car? Are there people dangling off the outside like on those beautiful American fire trucks?
- The police have a lot of issues but no one's worried about the firefighters.
- Henry watches videos about people lost at sea for years. They're normally retired, male, slight dickheads whose family have been warning them about the danger in their round-the-world sailing plans, but it's been all that's kept them going in their desk job. Henry remembers one of them living in an inverted boat for a year before being rescued. Maybe not a year but certainly a year to the nearest six months. This happened to Tony Bullimore in the 90s.
- When someone is rescued, you want to see a long, scraggly beard, like Saddam Hussein when they dragged him out of the hole. Being hanged to death isn't the outcome you want when you're being Mountain Rescued.
- Henry likes to see someone on a stretcher spinning around on a rope dangling off a helicopter.
- Ben is still reading Tony Bullimore's Wikipedia page, which is full of details about his Afro-Caribbean-inspired Bamboo Club that burned down.
- Cave rescuers don't get mentioned as much because you can't see them doing the work. It's already gone wrong before you go in. The Beans should write a sexy cave rescue drama, but it would need a cross-sectional view to see anything (e.g. things strewn around the cave entrance like a Maglite and muesli bar and high heels). Official line: stop caving. The jobs potentially lost by the Beans taking this stand don't matter cos they're the baddies.
- People turning up to a hen do in a cave would be delighted to find out it had been cancelled. Hen do inflatable penises are just too dangerous as they expand with all of the banter to fill the narrow cave openings (a banter plug) but you can use them to breathe from when the water pours in, with a cock straw as a snorkel and penis-shaped chocolate for sustenance.
Kelly Vivanco's Show Art
¶ Emails
- Poppy from Bristol emails with the subject German Ham Disaster (it's about vomitting so there's a warning to those who are phobic). Poppy was on a uni trip to Berlin to network with industry leaders but was sick on the way back to the airport, into a decorative plant pot, soon after pressing play on a Beans ep and then sick several times more. Henry is convinced it's food poisoning from eating kebabs every day but Poppy was unable to feel better because of descriptions in the pod about 'compressed meat biscuits', 'undercooked mince', and 'rancid turkey necks'.
- Angus and Olivia from New Zealand email with a news item about Diamond Harbour's recent sewage-based health warning. Shit has been released into the harbour on the day of my daughter's sub-mariner-themed wedding. Aw mate, there's shit everywhere! Diamond Harbour is now brought up to the standard of any average British beach. Of course, shit becomes diamonds eventually, once it's been crushed enough. To be contin-pooed...
¶ Jingles
- The Patsy Zone (17:45)
- Pompidou (22:29)
- Bean Machine (24:05)
- Email jingle from Patrick from Vienna by way of Cork. A backwards version which may uncover the Beans' hidden message ("Stop caving!"). Sounds like a keening Finnish ballad or a recording of the last native speaker of a Celtic dialect. When the backwards version is itself played backwards to see if it's right, Henry is scared in broad daylight by the Twin Peaks vibe and Mike gets a blistering, Malarial-level migraine. (45:29)
- Diamond Harbour (50:55)
- Patreon (54:09) and then a listener version from Patrick from Washington DC in the style of Simon and Garfunkel (55:28)
¶ Sean Bean Lounge
- "Share Your Theories on How the Pyramids Were Built" Night (41 patrons)
¶ Listener Theme Tune
- Monophonic version played on a Nokia 3310 from Ieuan (sp?) which Henry loves but realises is annoying to hear if you have previously submitted a heavily orchestrated version.
- Mike finishes the ep with a dedication to his sadly departed and much loved friend, Karen.
¶ Notable Quotes
- I love that you think of it as a meeting.
- Henry really showed us what his chopping board's made of.
- Mentally, you guys are in black and white and I'm conjuring rainbows in 3D.
- She was talking salmonella and I was all ears.
- "You can do all sorts if you shit on someone": very much the take-home message of this episode.
- There's a lot of information flying around. Someone has to manage it, and it's going to be me.
- I'd argue there's no good medium for getting out and showing people your chopping boards.
- It's like I've got an extension cable made of Mike's dick that I'm feeding to Mike.
- I don't think you have a reputation for impenetrable focus, Henry.
- Those guys at Find My Phone are such heroes and don't get shouted out enough.
- Imagine a space that's 1mm bigger than you but a completely random shape. Do you want to get into it next Sunday?
- Retractable is an anagram for attractive. Is that a coincidence? No!
- None of this is a coincidence so please don't email in suggesting it's a coincidence, because it isn't.
- It's always hen do's, isn't it, down caves?