Three Bean Salad - Aliens

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

WMG prompts the beans to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty with the topic of aliens. Ever thorough, they are careful not to neglect Newcastle or bananas and even dare to lift the lid on the secrets of the Mafia.Get in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpodJoin our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansalad

Oh, shit. Sorry, I've just I'm just in the middle of a terrible banana. Look at that. Look what's happened. I'm trying to peel a banana and that's happened. Oh, you've gone in. You've gone in hard. You've got it's a very green banana isn't it? You always it was always going to be problematic. But it's been it's been in the oldest brass trying to peel that's been in it's been in the in the fruit bar for weeks. It's just not it's not ripening. Oh my god. That is heavily irradiated

banana. Oh my god. This would be a really grim moment in a sort of post apocalyptic, you know, story of like, Oh, yeah, a war would not be fought over that banana. No. But I mean, that would be the banana of truth. This would be the banana of our first, our first crop has failed. We're for it. This is the gruesome fruit of all your greed, humanity. This eats the fruit the fruit of your weapons and your violence and your selfish ness. This, this is the banana, the banana of humanity.

And then someone popes up and goes, Oh, actually, I forgot to put potassium in the soil. Like I said, it would sorry it's in the bag. Oh, okay, take that back. Sorry. Yeah. No, as you were, that was just a potassium issue. We've got plenty of it. I just I just left it in the shed. Also, to be honest, I think, I think this will come up fine in a brownie or in in banana bread or something. I think actually maybe put it in a smoothie, but it's maybe well, we're only

going to be eating bananas from now on any way in different forms. So we're just going to mash you'll need to put some actual decent bananas in that smoothie as well. Of course. Yeah, well, that's what it'll really need isn't that that's purely acting as a roughage pellets. Yeah, I would say. Yeah, well, you're gonna have searing abdominal pain about 20 minutes time. Just attract talk. Yeah. Is this not good roughage for me?

They might even it's joyless. Will that not be good for my roughage? Yeah, yeah. So if that was you, would you would you plow on through that? I'd be able to handle that like a dream. But I mean, I yeah, I would just just based on the sort of snacks you've been busting out lately. I mean, they tend to be more of the sort of Schneider's end. So I just wonder if your system is ready to handle such a guide an unripe banana. I think I might have to try it.

Listen to that. Do you hear that? Yeah. Listen to the sound of this banana in my mouth. Absolutely foul. Oh, incidentally, I've been conducting and when I've been editing these, I've been conducting an audit of the amount of easing noises that I've been go editing out from the HP mic. I'll come off it. I'm talking about I knew I knew that I knew it increased during the episode. But

I think I think it's actually exponential. So by the time we're on to letters, it's almost solid. And I think in the last day, actually, most of the time, you were also talking with your mouth full, which is which is hard to work around. I'm sorry about that, Mike. But no, no, whatever keeps you going, you know, you know yourself, you need your snacks. Well, it's on a continue, isn't it? Because it's a fine balance between sort of horrific mouth noise. But then if any tries to

correct that, it involves lots of him slurping tea. So it's a kind of balance and oddly also blowing his nose. I suffer from a kind of synaptic syndrome whereby I have a lot of mucuses and fluids that need to be kept moving around my head passages. Oh, no, I've got a huge audio library full of Yeah. So there'll be the nasal cavity, there'll be the ear passages, the back of the throat passages, they're all I've got I try and keep everything moving through those all the time,

keep it moving, keep it moving, you don't want to stagnate in those passages. You can occasionally hear a little tiny minotaur growling from the inside as well. Yep. Yep. I'm aware of him. I'm, he's proving very hard to coax out. Do you sometimes get in with the lateral flow test? Sometimes I'm angry. Sometimes I'm going, oh, I steady all night. Yeah. Because

often he'll be hanging around around the back of the the hanging down bit in between the tonsils. Come around there. So if you know a tiny Greek man, a micro thesis, what I'm looking for is a micro thesis. If you know anyone that fits the bill. I mean, essentially blow him up your nose. Yeah, I could blow him up my nose, or I could stick him on the in the nasal part of a of the of the PCR of the lateral

flow test, I can stick them on the end of the bit for that shove him in as long as he doesn't mind getting rotated on the spot 10 times. Once he's in there. That would be the first thing that happens to him. It'll be a baptism of fire. That's very much chapter one of the saga, isn't it? It is. He'll be inserted. We rotated 10 times up against a sort of wet wall. I do picture up my nose as sort of caverns and caves and passages and stuff. I don't know if it is it like

that, Mike? For yours. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this isn't it for me. Yeah. Dripping ceilings, series of dank grossos. Full of weird, featureless, oily creatures, as features, oily crit creatures that scurry and from the olden times, old times, and there's evidence of what appears to be markings on some of those walls, which could suggest an

ancient civilization, couldn't it? Yeah. But there is a very good farmers market on Wednesday mornings. Oh, it's fantastic. It really is. It's not all bad. You've got to see it to believe it. If you like mucus coated spelt bread. Yeah. And also with the treatise sandwiches, again, it's not

with or without phlegm. You just get phlegm. So please, please stop wasting everyone's time by asking. It's not it's not optional. Henry, you're sniffing that banana occasionally like a fine cigar. Like running under your nose. Like a dictator in a movie. This banana smells absolutely extraordinary.

Do you keep your fruit in a humidor? A special room. It's smell. I'm not joking. This banana smells exactly like where it's a cross between a cucumber. So the smell of a cucumber. It smells like a cucumber, but a mixture of that smell. And the fresh grass from inside a lawnmower. That's what it smells like. It smells like fresh grass. And it's banana. Great British banana with Henry Packer.

Okay. Okay, let's see bananas. I'm getting fresh grass. I'm getting a hint of marjoram. Is that mine? Peaty, a little peaty. Peat in that hint of seaweed. And let's just listen to this is always key. Let's listen to the noise the banana makes when I break it in half with my with my hands. The question is, is it a is it a soft gentle sound or

is it a harsh snap? Let's see which one it is. A banana shouldn't make that sound. Get us away from me. Stop. Stop filming. Get that banana away from me. I'm canceling the series. Oh my God. A banana should never sound like like a vole has just cracked one of its ribs. Do you want to start?

I tell you what, one advantage is if I was to eat if I was to successfully eat this, I think I'd get so much roughage. I would never need to potentially never need to wipe my ass again. Because everything would fly out. It would be such an efficient system. If my if this if my mind testings up around lower could deal with this, that would be the equivalent of doing like, like, you know, a boot camp for like a month, you know what I

mean? They'd be so in shape. I think it's taking all of your internal organs with it, though, to be honest. Everything's going out. Everything must go completely hollowed out like a mummy. I will look like the equivalent of a house, you know, when they're selling all their stuff, and it's all out on the pavement, that but with my with my organs and people walking by going, you

know, Henry's having a garden set. Oh, God, kind of garden sale. That'd be the 999 core for my wife to last so much for this lymph node, Henry. All right, you can just take that. These old war one. Well, are these old war? Are these old world? Are these old wall?

Are these old war has begun its damage? Are these old World War One kidneys? Jesus Christ. Am I trying on the bike? Oh, well, let's feed that banana into the boom machine to give it some fuel. Yeah, I think that's that's one of the only bits of technology in the world that could deal with this thing to see what the yeah,

what that kind of fuel makes it spit out for our topic today. It'll certainly give it a workout. Okay, so this week's theme sent in by WMG is aliens. By which we assume we're probably talking about the extra terrestrial type rather than the American usage of the term. Why did he do that voice when he sings that song? He did that voice quite a lot. Did anyone pick him up on that voice at the time?

I think it was, you know, I think I think at the time what Sting said was the gold standard of behavior in the West. How would you describe it? A kind of cod Caribbean accent? Well, it sounds like a Caribbean, but he was from Newcastle. Yeah. So it could actually be that it's just a kind of accentuated Geordie O'Dull sort of sound.

I'm an alien. Oh, yeah, why are you my nominee? You know what I mean? Think about it. I know what you mean. Yeah. I'm an alien one. It's a sympathetic theory, but he doesn't have much of a Geordie

accent when he speaks. Does he? No. Not a lot. No. Fields are gold. He's fields are gold, mon. That accent you just did, Henry.

Yeah. Which is more offensive than all of Sting's accents. I've been to Newcastle a few times. Lovely place. It's your place. Good pubs, I found. Excellent pubs. But when I first went there to Newcastle, there are aspects of the

Geordie accent that really surprised me. It's much more, there's loads of syllables that are very different. Because I remember I was in a urinal there. By a urinal? So I made this mistake with it, I was standing in front of the urinal. Okay. I don't get into urinals. Anymore.

Anymore. So I'm just having a flashback to memory from school when a glup, one of my gloves went missing and it turned up in the urinal. That's a wrap on that glove, isn't it? You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? You think, well, all leather's been kind of cured in piss anyway, isn't it? Traditionally? From the inside, do you mean?

It's all encased, a piss sort of creating machine, partly, hasn't it? That's been part of its job. No, it does not, I meant. No, no, what do you mean? Well, it wasn't leather, were they bladder leather gloves? I think they were bladder, I think they may have been. Softest leather. The softest, most supple and pliable leather.

Only the best softest bladder leather for our little Henry. Clad in bladder leather head to toe. Because it stretches with you as you grow. So you only have to ever buy one suit that you give your child at the age of four. Which they wear until they're 18 as it stretches. And your head, and the urethra is surprisingly stretchy and elastic, isn't it? Your head just pokes out through that like a sort of balaclava. Yeah, when they're old enough to speak.

Yeah. Yeah, if you just clothe your children in a single elephant bladder each. That'll take them to adulthood. It's better for the environment, isn't it? Yeah. So you were, you were by a urinal. I was by a urinal. And then you went to the castle?

No, no, no. So this is, this is for this quick childhood memory. My glove went missing. I tried all the different places. I tried the tadpole pond. It wasn't in there. I tried. You know, we already know the end of the story, didn't we?

But Mike, this story isn't so much a... Oh, a where done it. As a why done it. And a who done it, actually. I still don't know. I've given that away as well. So you're going Columbo style. Okay.

Columbo style. And I thought, bloody hell, I'm never going to find that glove. Hang on, Henry. I know that Mike sort of threw you off this path, but I was interested in all the places you looked because you started with the tadpole pond. Where was this going to go? And where were you brought up? And then to the osprey aviary.

Um. The pterodactyl battle zone. I asked Gerald and Mabel, our two white rhinos. We had a delightful conversation as ever, but they couldn't help. They said, you should try the farrier. I tried the farrier, I tried the hawker, I tried the hawk, I tried the hawk's mun, the hawk's boy. The hawk's Cooper. Hawk's Cooper.

And the hawk's leather makers. The hawk's... Corduena. Sorry? Corduena. Oh, nice. Isn't that a leather maker? There you go.

The glassblower's workshop. I tried the embossment guys. Who do you remember all the embossing? The stained glass window. Troop. The burnishment centre. The burnishment centre. The library, the secret library, the forbidden library.

And the library which only had different editions of the necronecan. You know, they had things like, they had the, obviously they had the original necronecan. Book of Death, The Book of the Dead. And also then more recent, different editions of the milzenboom, sort of, right up until the more... Illustrated necronecan. Illustrated, the more sexy milzenboom. The pop-up necronecan. The pop-up necronecan.

Harry Potter and then the necronecan. Yep. And... My first necronecan. My first necronecan. Jamie Oliver's recipes of the necronecan. It's mainly just different kinds of boiled skull. To be honest, it'll drizzle some, you know, it'll drizzle some olive oil on it and...

Yeah. You bash your skull in the oven and all that kind of stuff, but it gets it. That's what it is. And, yeah, the Olympic-sized snooker table room. Is that a snooker table the size of an Olympic swimming pool? Yeah. One of the only ones of its kind in the country, at the time. Yeah. And of course, the travel magnetic swimming pool. The only fully collapsible swimming pool in London at the time.

But I couldn't find it. Couldn't find the glove. And it was the end of the day and I was like, I'm never going to see that glove again. It was a complete unsolvable mystery. And I was ready to go home, tell my parents I've lost a glove with all that entails. Is the end of the story that you, on the way home from school, you thought, oh, I'll go for a piss? You go into the toilet, you look down into the urinal,

you start pissing, and then the glove comes out of your penis. Lewed content warning. Lewed content. I'd forgotten that it was a bladder leather glove and all bladder leather will try and, if left to its own devices, make its way back into... For breeding season. Exactly. Let's go back upstream.

We'll try and go back upstream. Because you hear people coming back from holidays, don't you, abroad, going, I've had all my jabs and stuff, but end up, what got me was, I was doing a piss in the alps, one of my ski gloves went back up my willy. And I had to call off the holiday. I thought, you know, you think you've thought of everything, don't you? No, what happened was it was the end of the day I was at school in the urinals and thinking about it and just mulling over, you know, how bad it was.

I'd lost one of these gloves and how I was going to tell my parents and stuff. I looked down and what was I pissing on? But an old map. With part of it missing. No, I was pissing on the glove. And, you know, I thought to myself, bloody hell, this is ironic. Here I am, still pissing on the glove. I spotted a minute ago.

And this is what I wanted was my glove. But not like this. But to find it in these circumstances, with me still channeling piss onto it. With every moment I think about this situation, it getting more and more sodden, absolutely. Engorged with piss. React Henry, react Henry. What would you think Henry, what would you do?

I know you are you, don't you think that? What would anyone else do? What would the A team do? Well, Hannibal would probably crack a wise one, wouldn't he? Oh, face would be up to, he'd be up to no good. Just let me give it a bit of a shake. Oh, no, there's more. I thought I thought I was done with more piss.

And Murdoch, do we have access to a helicopter? No, no. Well, BA Barakas will be relieved. No, that turns out it hasn't helped. Can't think of what the A team would have done. And then I finished pissing and I was like, bloody hell, I've got a piss. I've got a piss sodden glove here. I'm looking at piss sodden glove.

It's everything I wanted, but under the worst circumstances. It's a real bind, isn't it? What do you do? Picture any situation where you want something, you desperately want something. But you've just pissed on it. I'm surprised they didn't do this in films more often, you know. So Robert De Niro is presented with a lovely bowl of lasagna with a side salad, but he's just pissed on it.

Because that's normally what he's at. That's normally the McGuffin in those films, isn't it? That's normally what he's after, isn't it? He's actually pared down a lot of the mafia stuff underneath it. The course, sort of structural point of the story, isn't it? It will be the engine of the script. The secret is he actually prefers the microwave one from the shop. He actually prefers it.

And if they find out that a made man prefers a finder, he's done for. He'll be done for. And if they find out that he's got his basement is stacked full of, they didn't care that there's the mayor's body down there, his own brother's body. They didn't care about the DA's body. Couple of feds are down there is also underneath those bodies in the freezer boxes and boxes of Dolmio. They'd give him the special, they'd give him the special grot.

They'd give him the lasagna grot. They're going to layer him, they'd layer him in a cheese wire. They're going to give him the vertical grot so it doesn't go across your neck. It goes up it, it goes up your neck over your head and back and out in between it and back together again. They do the one where you're not in the front of the car and they're sitting in the back. They do it where they go, I'll tell you what, I'll give you a lift. So they're in the front, you're in the back.

So you think I've got to be absolutely fine here. I'm in the back, he's in the front. There's no way he's going to be able to grot me from there. Well, there's always a tell those now. You're in the back, they're in the front, just slowly stirring some béchamel sauce over the travel hold. And that keeps stirring that, don't let that sit, you'll have to start again. They've wired it into the secret heater, haven't they?

It's a secret, not a secret heater, it's a secret lighter. They've wired it in there. I mean, only the richest mafia guys have secret heaters. I mean, that's top echelons. But you think you're fine, but it turns out the béchamel sauce, if you smell that, then you remember that it's a hatchback. It's one of those, the car is halfway between a hatchback and an estate in that it's got, it does have a boot area, which in theory, you can't access from the main car.

But actually, the only thing between you and it is a kind of slightly suede finished plastic, sort of molded plastic. The platform shelf. It's always got a couple of grotting holes. It's called the parcel shelf. It's a parcel shelf with a couple of grotting holes in it. And of course, before you've had time to try and open the door, two hands have come out through the holes, you're being grotted from the boot.

And the last thing you hear, of course, is... Pass me the salt. Pass me the salt. I think this béchamel needs a little bit of lifting, it's pretty good. The texture is fine, no lumps, just needs lifting a bit with some salt. Could you remind me to get some more bay leaves, please, because we're very nearly out. Right, bay leaves. And do bay leaves make a difference, ultimately?

We put them in all these lasagnas, but I can't tell if it makes any difference. Well, the thing with that is no one knows for sure, but no one's ever had the guts to not stick a bay leaf in early on. Yeah, well, the bay leaf lobby has got its tentacles around us all. I think the bay leaf is basically the culinary equivalent of a placebo, isn't it? I think if you put a bay leaf in something, it feels like it's probably better. But the real test would be to have a group of Italians eating a lasagna that's not had a bay leaf in.

A group of Italians eating a lasagna that has had a bay leaf in. A group of Italians eating a lasagna that's had a piss sod and glove in it. And you've certainly learned something. Film it. Broadcast it. You've made your million. Yeah, you've made your million. You've made your first million.

But basically, what happened with... I don't know how we got onto the subject of your piss-soaked glove. Was it an alien glove abduction? Imagine a situation where you've got what you want. It's exactly what you want, but it's sodden in piss. Your piss. Yeah. You've met your first person in the world who's met an extraterrestrial and they're

peacefully minded. You're there in the clearing by the spaceship, about to communicate. Yeah. But the reason you're there is because you've pulled in because you need a whiz, and you've just pissed all over. E.T. would have been very different if it started with a piss-soaked E.T. Yeah. He just wants to be taken to your leader, and he's covered in piss.

Well, what you'd have to do at that point then is you'd have to get this message out fast. You've got to style it out and pretend that's how we greet people. We all have to do that from now on. I know it's going to be nasty, but it's going to be unpleasant, but the future of the... They're going to try and do the same thing. They've got a very toxically acidic piss, so we're going to have to wear a special suit. Anyone with methyl shin pads, get them out and get them on.

Anyone who does, for example, Roman battle reenactments or Greek battle reenactments. Anyone who's got a gilet made out of urinal cakes, get it on. Step forward. The future of humanity depends on it. You're needed. Your time is now. If and when the human race explores the universe, and let's say the human race finds a planet with life on it.

Yeah. Like intelligent life. Intelligent life. Yeah. We behave in the way that we would have aliens behave when they come to Earth. Would we swoop down quickly in their craft for a bit, then swoop up again? Is that what we would do? We'd abduct and probe a series of farmers.

A series of alien farms. We've put some exploratory tubes up their arse. Exactly. Would we think, right, find the agricultural ones for these aliens. Yeah. Find the extraterrestrial equivalent of a cow farmer and give them a calloscopy. But then drop them back and then come back and then let us know what you find. And then we'll try and work out the rest of their culture based on that.

So are there super intelligent aliens out there? We've got a fairly good idea that the universe is pretty big. And therefore there is a pretty decent chance that there could be something out there. Right? I think that's perfectly reasonable. Well, because scientists say things like, because there's an infinite amount of space, you know, it's likely there's something. Yeah.

And part of that point, which lots of people can agree on the idea of, it's quite a safe point. And then you just take a huge lurch because you say, well, people couldn't imagine the internet 50 years ago, couldn't they? People can imagine the internal combustion engine 200 years ago, couldn't they? So presumably they've got some advances that we can't imagine. No. And that's not hard for people to grasp on that.

And also, Mike, but Mike, if we go parallel universe theory. Oh, yeah. Here we go. The same amount of universes, including one where everything's exactly the same as this universe, except everything is exactly the same, except. But that banana you ate earlier is ripe. It's ripe and went down real smooth. Yeah.

Or you bit into the banana and you snapped. Exactly. I snapped. And then you, Mike, your moustaches then opened up like a pair of curtains. And inside your upper lip was a tiny production of the Tempest that was going on. With a mini Rylance. With mini Rylance playing all the parts as Bruce Willis' character from Die Hard. Exactly.

Yeah. That is happening somewhere. That is happening. It must be. It is happening now. It has to be. It also was happening a minute ago and will happen again in another minute. And it's still happening in a fortnight.

And it'll happen again in five minutes in green. Yeah. And there's also another version of the universe where everything's the same except with that glove story, except that the only difference being that I was the glove. Yes. And then Mike was pissing on you. And Mike was pissing on me. Everything else was exactly the same in that universe.

And while Mike was pissing on you, was there a mini production of the Tempest with mini Rylance playing all the characters as Bruce Willis' character in Die Hard? No. Yes. But that was happening in your upper lip. Yeah. And one of the Rylances had... That was in version 47.

That was in version 47. And one of the Rylances had to come to the front of your upper lip and do an announcement to the audience, which was, I'm sorry, but Mark Rylance can't make it tonight. He's got a saxophone lesson. So he'll be filled in for by Mark Rylance, who we've heard is a really, really promising up and coming Mark Rylance. Only if the reviews in the Mark Rylance are anything to believe from his production of Mark Rylance that he did last year.

So is that the universe where Mark Rylance has become so ubiquitous that the word for actor, a bit like vacuum cleaner and hoover, the word for actor has become Mark Rylance? Yeah. Yeah. Or as an adjective, if something is decent, it's Mark Rylance. Yeah. No, Son of Mine is going to be a Mark Rylance. Give up.

From the movie Mark Rylance. Yeah. Although a lot of people will be saying, the trouble with that Mark Rylance, which would also be the name for films, is that actually it focused a little bit too much on Mark Rylance. Mark Rylance. You can't remember the name of the character, but it was the one that Mark Rylance was playing. You know, the one who was in Mark Rylance, the one we watched last week. Yeah, Mark Rylance.

It was a bit naval gazing, wasn't it? Because I'd rather see, you know, Mark Rylance is where you get Mark Rylance's delivering performances about real Mark Rylance's, because that would also be the name for people that aren't actors. Probably Mark Rylance's, because of how convincing it is when he acts real people. So the way things are, are a lot simpler. Yeah, we should be grateful in a way, shouldn't we? It's sad that we can't live in that universe, because we're in this one.

Shame, isn't it? There's a serious point here, actually, about aliens, which is, now there's a theory which is that, okay, so on the one level, you can say the universe is infinite, or at least very close to. It could be, it might be literally to be one or two miles short of infinite, actually being fully infinite. Yeah, of course, come on, mate, it's probably not that big, but it's very close. I mean, we could be talking two or three miles off.

I said that, didn't I? So, so I've just remembered a really pretentious short story I wrote at school. Go on. It's actually called The Piss Soaked Glove. And everyone was like, Henry, what does The Piss Soaked Glove represent? It's so metaphorical. And I was like, I just kept my, I just kept my cards close to my chest. Did you do that glove you pissed on the other day?

Where'd you get your ideas? It entered The Piss Soaked Glove that you're currently wearing. It's apparently still wearing during this interview. Is it called The Euron Soaked Falconer? That is a spattered hawk. And the sequel that you're planning that's called The Putrid Mitten. Is that just the same idea being recycled? So, Christ.

So you wrote a pretentious short story about, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just remembering a pretentious short story I wrote at school, which was, because I'm thinking about the universe and infinite stuff, about some of the way into a black hole. But you know what? I've just realized. Okay. So very, very quickly, the story was, oh, it was quite satirical actually, looking back. It was, so basically it was about a government, there was economic problems or something

in the government. It sounds satirical already. I think there was an advisor telling the sound familiar. There was economic problems like facing the country. I think there was a very satirical bit where the government, the president of the government was talking to an advisor and the advisor said, we could have a war. Just like that. Oh.

The president meant, what do you mean? And the advisor said, because that would be good for the economy. So basically the president decides to launch a mission to find a black hole. To save the economy. To save the economy. Wow. I think he's thinking, they don't know what's in a black hole, could be loads and loads of money, maybe.

It could just be some dosh, could be loads of worth of luck, because people lose fibers all the time, don't they? It could probably be sucked in. From the hole, maybe it could be the holes in jackets, in the lining of jackets, might link to the black holes. It's possible. It's getting hoovered up into a black hole. It could be that very old aliens, a bit like old humans, store their money instead of under

a mattress in a black hole, assuming the currencies match up, which is a long shot. How many Svaldarks to the pound? Oh no. It was a waste of... We need a commodities black hole, is it no good? We need a black hole to shange. But basically the spaceship goes up to black hole. All the tension of the story, and very well, I conjure this on, I think, less than five

pages of A4. So basically, just quickly, the first line of the story was something like, it was a tough bind that he was in as president, or something like that, he didn't know what to do about the economy. Anyway, at the end, he goes into the black hole. I think it's the... I think it may be the president himself goes in. Plausible.

If you want to... If you want to say, well, do it yourself. I think that's his philosophy. That was the title, right? Actually, you know, the title was Zygnus X1, which I remember looking at was... No, no, no, that was the name, that was genuinely the name of a black hole, it's called Zygnus X1. There he goes into the black hole, he didn't know what's going to happen, right?

And then the last line of the story is, he was in a tough bind as president, he didn't know what he was going to do about the economy. What? He was back at the beginning, the black hole had sent him back in time. And... Oh, God, it's both clever and a huge cop-out. Yeah. Oh, I can almost feel the heavy sigh of your English teacher.

Through the ages. As he realized it, he now must indeed read the story again from the beginning. And he's still reading it to this day, as far as I know, the poor bastard. Normally, he just would be careful to read the first line and the last line, just give you a B or whatever. Oh, no. Oh, no. Wow.

But I think a similar trick was actually played in that film with... Thingy, Matthew Mahoney. Yes, it was, in Tostella. Yeah. That was Nonsense. Hot Nonsense. Yeah. He was just, he was trapped in a bookcase, wasn't he?

He'd been trapped in a bookcase all along. Do you want to hear a phenomenally depressing theory about why we have no aliens? That I came across. Is this a real one? It's a real one. Okay, yeah. Yes. In answer to the question, hang on.

If they're really super intelligent aliens, then why don't we have actual proper definitive proof that they've definitely visited us, rather than these, you know, anal probe trips and sort of buzzing a jet in the sky and disappearing again? And one of the theories is that, yes, creatures are intelligent and there's extraterrestrial intelligent life out there and they get technologically advanced and they get to the point to where we are and they get beyond it, probably a bit, but at some point they get far enough that they just completely apocalypse themselves and that's it. So civilizations will only ever get so far before they just completely climate change

themselves into nothing or nuclear war or the equivalent, enter, just smush. And then the planets back to cockroaches and they start again, it's pretty bleak. Or though, or because as we know now, I think like a sci-fi writer is in me. I have that unique take on. You're kind of like a modern Isaac Asimov, I'd say. I'm like a modern Isaac Asimov, a Philip K. Dick, a dash of Alan Titchmarsh for the blue scenes. Yeah.

Yeah. Or Mike, do other civilizations get to the technological point like we have and actually what they then decide is to live in peace and they keep the earth going as a warning video, they show each other, they show to naughty infant aliens, infant aliens. They show the whole history of mankind as a warning video. Here's how not to do it. Here's how not to do it. That is quite a nice start to a kind of, you know, here's the sort of, here's how not

to do it channel. Yeah. You can just sort of flick it on and you can. What would happen in the movie is right, they start off and it becomes clear they're using the earth as an how not to do it channel. Yeah. And that's a great premise. But then what happens is there are some people who are addicted to the channel and they love

it. And then one of them hears. I love this music and basically they discovered the music of the Beatles and they realized that it's not all bad, that the earth is not all bad. And actually it's capable of creating daytripper by the Beatles, which they don't have, because their life is so sterile and boring because they've just decided that they just need to live the kind of the good life. Are you saying, Ben, you didn't enjoy the music that's produced by the mononote orb?

You don't enjoy that? The note of meditative peace. I think that's a good idea for a movie. It definitely involves a young sort of adolescent renegade alien. Yes. It's them discovering their rebellious pushing against the James Dean of Alien. And he destroys the mononote and in doing so, perhaps destroys himself. It doesn't sound like it's necessarily got a happy ending.

No, but then we watch the aliens massacre each other. It's an absolutely massive sort of global bloodbath on their planet. Because they're all arguing about which was better, Paul McCartney or John Lennon. Yeah, exactly. And to the soundtrack of Obelidae Obelidae, the Beatles' most annoying song. OK, time to read your emails. Thanks to everyone who sent us an email. And a reminder that your emails don't necessarily have to be a bollocky.

Yeah. So what's the opposite of a bollock? If you picture the opposite of a bollock, what is that? An ovary. Now, I'd argue it's a bollock-shaped bit of space encased in a sort of universe of a bollock suitcase. The inside of a bollock suitcase. Inside of a travel bollock bag.

Exactly. No, the opposite of a bollock isn't a bollock-shaped hole. Because that's saying like the opposite of everything is just the absence of it, which isn't what an opposite means. What does an opposite mean, then? Up or down? Are you aware of all these people who think the opposite of salt is pepper, are you? Oh, my God, that's a big philosophical point.

Whereas Henry thinks it's just no salt. Yeah. I don't think that's the... I understand that pepper isn't the opposite of salt, but also I don't think the opposite of everything is not to that. OK, here's the thing. So sometimes people go, well, the opposite of up is down, but I would say... Correct.

Surely the opposite of up is more likely to be... Is the absence of up. Yeah. There's no up here at all. There's no upside. There's only down, so... It's like going to Bristol. Oh, tasty.

Tasty little cowboy. Take that, Bristol. It's kind of in Bristol, are they rivals? Well, they're quite nearby, aren't they, I suppose? There's a derby element. So I would say, if something says to you the opposite of up is down, I'd go, well, hang on, down is a... The opposite of up can't be down,

because down is a bit like up, isn't it? I mean, it's a direction for one thing. It's also an arrow just happens to be pointing the other direction. You know what I mean? It's really similar to up, actually, down. In fact, if you're the other way around, up is down. They're really similar. The opposite of up, the thing most unlike up, is more likely to be something like EastEnders, or something.

I mean, it's something that's got nothing to do with up, whatsoever. Not down. I don't think that's what opposite means. I don't think opposite means the thing that's the least like the other thing. But what does it mean, then, the thing that... What does it mean? Well, you've made me question it, I sort of couldn't tell you, though. Yeah, well, can I?

You've erased that concept from my mind. It's the opposite, like what you see in the mirror, so it's the same, but completely different. So different it's quite similar, because it's exactly the same, but the other way around, so quite similar. Shall I read you out the dictionary definition? Yeah, go on then.

This is from the Merriam Webster. Why do you choose that one? That's... That is an odd one to choose, isn't it? I'd always go. I'd always go. Collins, Oxford. Collins?

Collins is your number one. Are you mad? You can't start with Collins. He puts so much work into it. I just think he doesn't get enough respect, poor guy. Took him ages. Phil Collins. The Phil Collins dictionary.

Because also, no jacket required. That was initially, that was a direction for the dictionary, because the idea was it would have such a sturdy, you know, front and back bit. It wouldn't need a dust jacket. It wouldn't need a dust jacket. That's what that was about. Because it was rubberized, wasn't it?

It was rubberized. Strictly Samuel Johnson all the way. You still swear by that, don't you? No, yeah. So in the Merriam Webster, opposite has two meanings. One, located at the other end, side or corner of something, located across from something,

i.e. the two boys lived opposite sides of the street. OK, so that's not what we're talking about. Two, completely different. Thank you. i.e. the two scientists had the same information, but reached opposite conclusions. I think you're right then, if that is the definition, then up and down are more similar than they are different.

Yeah, exactly. Oh my God. So which is it? Email in. Do email in. So we should be using contrapositive or something instead of opposite. That's a simple solution to this, which is two words.

Opposite and contrapositive. It's a new word, it's fun, the kids are going to find it cool. But what is the opposite of contrapositive? God. EastEnders, the answer is always EastEnders. EastEnders again. But this has ruined the route. Because yeah, you're right.

The opposite of EastEnders is a canal holiday. The opposite of a canal holiday is the feeling you get when you spend a bit too much money on something and realise that it's on sale online. Yeah, and what if that was a canal holiday though? Oh my God. Inception of opposites, contrapositive, extraordinary flavoured hubba-bubba bubblegum.

That's the next opposite, go down the list. Opposite of that. The opposite of that would be the Crimean War, maybe. Pretty different, isn't it? Pretty different. After that flickering street lighting. That's good. Pelting a baker with his own bread.

Yeah. I think we've basically, what you've done, Henry, is you've completely deconstructed the idea of an opposite to the point where you've actually, we may as well ring up Marion Webster and get them to take it out because... Yeah, it's not fit for purpose as a word. It's an unusable idea.

If anyone is listening from Marion Webster, do send an email or if anyone has an opinion on this, because this has actually sort of spun me out slightly, I don't like it. Oh, any of the Collins, the boffins down at Collins. Obviously them and the Marion Webster people don't get on. They obviously hate each other, but, you know. OK, well, now that Henry's deconstructed my mind.

Yeah, sorry, sorry about that. Let's read some emails. Yes, please. So, first up, let's not start with the bollocking this week. Georgia emails. Dear Beans, a happy new year to you all. Thank you, Georgia. In one of your previous episodes, Biscuits,

you got onto the subject of rodeo. And from there, unsurprisingly, the wearing of chaps. Or, as you specified, assless chaps. The description of this particular garment is something my husband and I have long-running disagreement about. He always refers to assless chaps, whereas I insist that chaps are just chaps.

To have assless chaps implies there is such a thing as assed chaps, and assed chaps are simply trousers. Brackets, albeit robust leather trousers. I welcome your views on this issue, both as a grammatical matter and also from a male perspective. Does the sensual experience of needlessly using the word assless override any sense of grammatic propriety in the male psyche?

Or is there such a thing as assed chaps? Many thanks, Georgia. I think she's, I don't, I, yes, that's a very, I mean, are we dealing with a tautology here? I suspect we are. I've never come across assed chaps, but I feel it's almost a responsibility to emphasize that you are dealing with an assless garment.

I think my take on this is that you would describe them as assless if the person was wearing nothing underneath them. Ah. So if there are over a pair of jeans, then they're chaps. If you're just wearing chaps, assless chaps. Okay. That's quite strong. That might, that might do it.

I don't know, that's just my assless perspective. I think that that's quite strong. I'm happy to get on board with it, 100%. I, I remember what you saying, assless chaps back in the episode. And I remember I, I think if you just said chaps, I wouldn't have known what you meant. So assless chaps helped me understand,

oh, those must be trousers without a bum on. Would you, would you say that assless chaps are the opposite of trousers? No, I'd say assless chaps are the opposite of a tea towel, I would say. So what's the opposite of trousers? A garden fence? Yeah.

Yeah. No, hang on. There's a similarity between trousers and a garden fence. Yeah. Both are created to kind of shield someone else from the view of something else. Okay. The hole through which you post a letter in a letterbox.

And no, a trousers has a fly, which has a similarity to the hole that you post through. Bagpipes? No, both made of fabric. Hmm. Coal can both be burned to create heat and ultimately steam to power this engine of some kind. A mullet.

The hairdo. Well, they're both in the world of fashion, aren't they? You can have both fashionable and unfashionable haircuts. Condensation. Tend to appear when it's cold. Yeah. Okay, I've got one. Brian Eno.

Has worn trousers every day of his life. You're absolutely mugged. Well, he was as a baby. He was born with trousers. A Bulgarian to Spanish dictionary. Pocket-sized. Pocket-sized? You mean the pockets on a pair of trousers?

Oh, like you fool. You had it in the palm of your hand. Close. I blew it. I blew it. I blew it. Damn. Okay, now for Listener Bollocking of the Week.

Accessing Listener Bollocking. Bollocking Loading. Listener Bollocking of the Week. Bollocking Loaded. And for the second week in a row, it's a BP Bollocking. Good. Is it? Well, we know what happened last week.

BP didn't touch the thing. No, he got shot out of the sky before it hit me. Yeah, yeah. This one, though, before I even read it, I'm going to say I'm accepting it with grace. I apologize. I am happy to weather this bollock. Also, I'm sad to say that my bollock-worthy malfeasance

also drew Henry into carrying out a similar malfeasance. And so he gets the kind of collateral bollock. And I'm sorry, Henry, that's my fault. Oh, really? So you dragged me down with you, did you? Yeah, I did. We've had a number of messages about this. This is from Jack, who I believe is an architect himself.

Because after his name, he has the letters R-I-B-A, which I think sounds for the Royal Institute of British Architects, maybe? Yeah. He writes, beans, in your elevator episode, following the mention of the passing of the Pompidou Centre architect, Richard Rogers, and might refer to him as a top draw dude,

a bean went on to claim that he had designed a new German parliament building. That was you, Henry. I assumed you were referring to the Reichstag. Yes. Oh, was that me? This was, in fact, the work of his former colleague, Norman Foster.

Oh, so that was, was it me then? Was it my fault, this? No, because it was my fault, because I said that my, the library at my university, which created Thaistrain from having bad staircase, was Richard Rogers. That also was by Norman Foster. Was it really? And so you said, ah, the same guy who did the German,

because there's a architectural similarity. There is a continuum. That's dragging you into the Bollocking. I'm sorry, Henry. So we got sucked into a hideous Foster flume of error. Yes. So yeah, it wasn't Richard Rogers. And I, I'm feel bad because at the man's death,

I was naysaying one of his buildings, but it wasn't even him. It was Norman Foster. Very poor show. So actually, in a way, it's better this, because it means we weren't speaking ill of the dead. It's better, it's better for us. But yeah, I think, yeah, Ben, Ben comes out of it.

Not smelling roses, but stinking of a sort of hearty manure. The hearty manure of a just Bollocking. So that is Bollocking Accepted. Bollocking Accepted. I mean, sometimes being Bollock is part of, in a way, for both the person who did the, you know, who made the gaffe and the person who suffered the gaffe,

it's a way of both of you achieving a step, you know, moving past it in a ways, is to actually take the Bollocking. You bury the Bollock. You bury the Bollock between you. You know, for example, we could think about a time when maybe, Ben, you might even meet up with the person that, I mean, maybe, you know, not yet, it's too fresh.

But we could think of a day where you might even both meet together. Meet Jack. You might meet Jack. Possibly in the corridors, in some sort of quite transparent, glassy, metallic building somewhere. Probably get Piers Morgan or Oprah Winfrey to oversee

the occasion. Just tell your truth, really. So maybe this is for the best, is what you're saying. But I think any court in the land would surely exonerate me completely, having been dragged into this Bollocking. Oh, what a surprise. Henry's not taking his Bollocking.

Henry, Henry, Henry, let's not go down. Do you know what I mean? I mean, the lack of contrition in that is startling. Let's move on. I just think my hands are completely clean. Before he digs it in. Henry willing to die on any hill, packer. So when I meet up with Jack

under the stewardship of Oprah Winfrey, what are you going to be doing? I'll be enjoying it on television like the rest of the country. With a completely clear conscience. Exactly. Before the end of the show, let's quickly reflect on

what was going on last night at the Sean Bean Lounge. Now, of course, we offer a Patreon offer. If you go to patreon.com or forward slash three bean salad, you can join at various tiers. You can get bonus episodes, of course. But for those who join at the Sean Bean Tier, they get access to the Sean Bean Lounge. And that's where we were last night.

Pretty spectacular evening. Well, it was the first of a masked ball that we'd ever had. Wasn't it? It was the first of Sean Bean's right gang. It was the first of Sean Bean's right gang. I mean, they will always take these things to extremes. So they'll mask themselves fully to the point of disguise. So Col Beep, for example,

had worn a mask that extended all the way. And they had all the appearance of a slotted spatula. It was very convincing, wasn't it? So much that, because just coincidentally, Michael was down there. He was catering for everyone. He's one of the people that didn't want us to use their surname. That's right, Michael.

And it'll be quite clear why when you hear what he was up to yesterday. Because he was making spaghetti for everyone. Spaghetti bolognese. He'd forgotten to bring a slotted spatula with him. So I'm not surprised he wants to remain anonymous because it's quite embarrassing. Yeah, and Lynn.

Lynn has always got spatulas. I mean, wherever they go, Lynn has got spatulas of all sizes, but didn't have one the size of Col Beep. And that's what Michael's eye was drawn to. Lynn obviously does a lot of spatula juggling and so on. I think was disguised as an obelisk. I've never seen an obelisk juggle.

It was very, very impressive. Lucas Hadfield was there, of course, dressed as Inspector Morse. And Sean was also dressed as Inspector Morse, wasn't he? So that was a little bit awkward, wasn't it, when they both, but they were both from different eras. Because Lucas had chosen first three series, Inspector Morse. And Sean had gone for dead Inspector Morse.

Yeah. And of course, Minge Flaps had turned up as a sort of old burgundy-coloured jaguar. And they both arrived in Minge Flaps, Lucas Hadfield and Sean. They'd made a real mess of the upholstery. So poor Minge Flaps did need to be taken away about halfway through the night to get re-upholstered.

And Callum McComber. Callum McCombs. McCombs? I think Callum prefers Callum McCombs. Well, no, no, I'm calling him. It's a deliberate joke, man. Callum Callum McComber, because Callum McCombs was so knackered. He might as well have been in Callum McComber.

I'm not surprised. Because his mask was huge. It was so heavy, wasn't it? His face could barely hold it up. He was wearing a life-size. His mask was a life-size. Breeze block. Breeze block, wasn't it?

It was a one-to-one life model of a breeze. See, he was dangling there with his feet was sort of up in the air. And he became increasingly sort of, you know, his muscles started to seize up by the end of the evening. People were leaving their drinks on him, weren't they? Matt Owen insisted that we put coasters on the soles of his shoes. Yeah.

Because he knew that they were made out of fine Italian leather. That's right. And Matt Owen knows his leather, doesn't he? Yeah. I mean, he came in the most extraordinary leather, body mask that I think I've ever seen. Horned, bejeweled, zips absolutely everywhere. I spent some time with Chris Phillips and Walter Holvegg.

Old friend of yours, Walter Holvegg, Henry, he was there drinking some molten glass out of a cocktail glass. And Chris Phillips couldn't believe it and kept trying to put it out. You know, he's firing the fire extinguisher down his mouth. But Walter was like, no, I can deal with this. It's fine. And he was kind of ruining his party trick.

And also, it wasn't actually Chris at all. He'd sent someone with a mask of him on. Yes, that was very clever. I think he sent his mum. So it's his mum with a Chris Phillips mask. His mum, Jane Fellows. Yeah. She came dressed as Chris Phillips, her secret son,

that no one knows about outside of the realms of the Sean Bean lounge. What until now? About one of her many secret children. Well, because he was born in the Sean Bean infirmary, wasn't he? And raised, he's never actually left the lounge, I think, has he? Well, he's one of the lounge babies, isn't he? So there's a few of them. Chris Bailey was there.

Devyn Abbott was there. Laura Finch was there. Yes. None of whom have known life outside of the lounge. That's right, the lost generation. So they speak a very strange dialect of English, don't they? Well, we all, we forgot to teach any of them how to speak. And Jane Fellows was certainly never going to teach any of them to speak

because she only communicates in semaphore, as we know. So they've got this language. It's a mixture of flags and grunts, barks, shrieks, and a little bit of modern Greek. I don't know how they've come across that. I think it was the back of a packet of olives, wasn't it, that they used at the bar. That must have been it.

Well, it's Peter because Peter Partridge is always leaving his eyes lying around, isn't he? Yeah. Well, he's hiding them for Simon Downey, whose favorite game is, well, we knew Simon was going to turn up dressed as an olive. Yeah. But Simon's favorite game is to dress up as an olive, roll around dressed up as an olive,

looking for olives that have been hidden by Peter Partridge. But then Louise and Chris and Devyn and Laura, I mean, they keep gobbling them up. So the game gets harder and harder, which I think he quite enjoys. Of course, Mary Elizabeth Chup. Now, she was wearing a mask, of a mask. Yeah.

And then she took that off. It was underneath. It was a copy of Jim Carrey's The Mask on VHS, which we all enjoyed. Well, it's Cahootex's favorite film of all time, isn't it? It's no coincidence that she's called Cahootek, is it? It's because she's always carrying a VHS player on her, and she's always got a VHS player on her. Well, she's got one, it's installed,

it's like the Teletubbies, isn't it? So it's in her abdomen. And obviously then, T.L. Dawnstar was there as well, shoveling coal into the back, because obviously it's not self-powered. So she's shoveling coal into the hole in Cahootex back. And Ben Fox was absolutely wrapped. I mean, Ben Fox, everyone assumed, obviously,

Ben Fox is going to come as a fox or a big Ben. But of course, Ben Fox came dressed as a box, and inside that box... It was another copy of The Mask on VHS. And Maeve, was brilliant. Maeve came dressed as that scene in heat between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Didn't she?

Which, thank goodness, does bear repeat viewing. That was slightly overshadowed then by Matt arriving. Yeah. And he came dressed as the entire running length of Ben Hur. And there's a lot going on in that movie. So yeah, thanks for a lovely evening, everybody. We really enjoyed it. Another successful evening for sure.

I mean, if you want to come down and party, then you know how to gain access. Okay, and before we go, which theme tune are we going to play out with? I'm randomly picking one from our list of theme tunes. Thank you to everyone who sent one in. We've had some new ones in. Cockney Geyser style, Alanisette Mother Brown,

and guitar. So those are new in there. Always welcome. I'm picking it random. I'm going for piano-centric electronic version, written in septuplets. I've been excited about this one. That's sent in by Micah.

So thank you, Micah. Thank you. And thanks for listening. Thanks, Micah. Bye. Bye. Bye.