Three Bean Salad - Bags

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

It's the first episode based on a listener suggestion, and what a suggestion. Someone called Fiona suggests that the beans talk about bags and the they go at it with gusto and laser-guided precision.  Get in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpod

Well, let's let's beam it up, shall we? Yeah. So this is a very exciting moment. Up until now, our topics have been decided by our friend Gareth, who just sent us a list of things to talk about. But since then, or since we've launched a podcast, many listeners have been sending us their topic ideas by email. And we've loaded them all into a high tech bean machine. What we haven't talked about, what do we do? Is it I've put I've, we've put all the suggestions in, we haven't vetted the suggestions. What if the thing that it throws up is, is objectively a poor topic for a podcast? I think I think I think our listeners would, I think they'd forgive us for, for just sending something that's really run.

I think we struggle through and yeah, we just create an absolute dirge and get ourselves cancelled. Get ourselves cancelled. I think if anything means anything, we have to talk about the topic that comes up, even if it's offensive, we have to. Because otherwise, we are not three being salad. What are we? Do you mean if we are not that, then what be what are you know what I mean? What's BS? What be us? And I think we have made a promise. I feel bad about my craving position. We've made a promise to the listener that we will discuss randomly, whatever topic comes up, a contract, it's a contract. We have the power to edit it out if it's a shit one and not tell them. But we're not, we're not going to use that

power or I'm certainly not going to tell them we're going to use it. And even if we So if we can breach the contract, but we just don't tell anyone about it and hope we get away with it. Is that what you're saying? That's something we could do. Now, I'm not suggesting we are going to do that. But between three of us, it's an option. Did you two both do the same thing that I did, which was to swear a solemn oath on a Bible before we started the podcast that we swore it on an ancient oak tree? I swear it on the pause of my cat, Bluebell.

Okay, well, with those oaths, foremost in our minds, I'm going to press the generate number button. And this will tell us what this week's topic is. Are you ready? Okay, ready. Okay, the numbers come out. And it corresponds to a topic sent in by someone called Fiona Cluelin. Thank you, Fiona. And the topic is bags. Bags, bags. After Henry's discussion of or mention of the, the nasty subjects, I mean, people have put all sorts of nasty things in the bags in the past, haven't they? Left them in train stations and stuff. There's something that's my first my thought is going there first. You're thinking of people that been murdered, dismembered and put in sports

bags. Wasn't I am now. I was thinking of the bag as a weapon. Oh, are you like you put a boning ball in the bag and then hit someone with a bag? Is that what you're thinking of? I thought you meant like a, like a cartoon granny hits people with a, with a handbag. I wasn't thinking of any of those things. What were you thinking? I was thinking of a bomb in a bag. And I was thinking of abandoned bags at train stations.

And I was thinking of bags that I've left in train stations that have then been taken away by the bomb squad, bomb squad and destroyed, never to be seen again. Has that happened to you? Probably not just put in lost property. I've lost back. Well, it's more than I've lost bags in train stations and then never seen them again. And you're assuming a controlled explosion was yeah, I think this would have been in a time when you would have assumed there would be a highly elite military units or police units dispatched to do a controlled explosion in a bunker full of sand somewhere where it's

actually probably just someone just tossed it in the bins around the back and lift it over. It's a tricky one, isn't it? When you're when you're looking at doing a controlled explosion of a bag, you're like, okay, there's a bag here, we can do a controlled explosion. That means we have to A, we have to get the robot out. Yeah, that's a hassle. And he's a, he's a salty little bitch, isn't he? That robot is, he becomes in because his AI gets better from day to day. He's right, salty.

He's a lippy. We've got to get the robot out. That's a lot. We've got to get the robot handler out. And obviously now we have to have a robot chaperone as well. Because the robot's got rights. Yeah, so that's already a lot of paperwork. Yeah, then the robot could say whatever he likes about Geoffrey's haircut.

No one cares about that. Exactly. So it doesn't cut both ways, apparently. But as soon as you say something to the robot, you're in real trouble. So there's that. Secondly, we've got to transport this bag to the middle of a massive airfield. Yeah, a disused airfield. Disused airfield. We have to get a troop of, we have to get reporters with a small van.

Yeah, to cover it. Yeah. We have to get troops of insurance people, lawyers, John's medical people on hand. Yeah, it's a massive, we've got to send a guy in there with two clippers. He's got a family. He'll be sweating. It's going to be very traumatic for him. He's going to have PTSD even if it goes well.

He's wondering why he's there if they've got the robot out in the first place. Exactly. He's saying, can't you at least shouldn't the robot be doing this bit? Yeah. It's a huge amount of effort and time, right? And then you have to explode the bloody thing, right? So, and of course, it might turn out that the bag is as it turns out a crime scene and could be just, you know, full of someone's legs, you know,

and you shouldn't be blowing it up at the first place. And then all you've done is you've created leg trap and all you've blown it all around the county. It's going to make it a lot harder to investigate what would have been much more straightforward murder investigation if you hadn't blown up the legs. Yeah, because you've got a crime scene, you've got a crime scene the size of Berkshire. But that's what happens when you get two cop squads in conflict, isn't it? You've got, we're bomb squad, we've got bomb squad, murder squad. Ah, bloody hell.

You know what I mean? Competing over the same ground. So the point was making was, so you look, you got the bag. He said, really, we also do controlled explosion, right? Which has all that effort, time, admin, we've just described. Or you could literally just have a quick look inside. It's almost certainly just a sandwich. Do you know what I mean?

It's almost certainly just a fucking sandwich. Just have a quick look. It's just a sandwich. And then fine, we don't have to call the bomb squad. The robot can stay indoors. Give the sandwich to the robot. There's a James Patterson novel in there. Does anyone want that?

No. Fine, well, actually, that can go to the local charity shop. The sandwich goes to the robot. He can understand the concept of sandwich. He can learn. Someone in the railway office is bound to need a new bag as well. I mean, there's always someone who needs a new bag. Yeah, let's recycle this stuff.

The lawyers, the doctors, John's ambulance can stay at, you know, they can all stay at home. They don't miss the school pick up. Everyone's happy. Yeah. Well, they can fight over the banana, can't they? Yeah, they can't fight over the banana. The half orange club bar, it either goes to the police dog or in the bin. Don't give it to the dog if it's got chocolate in it.

You mad fool. Then you create another insert. You have to do a controlled explosion of. Yeah, exactly. It's the only way to treat your dogs, that's eating chocolate. Yeah, I've got a controlled explosion of the dog. Because it's eating half an orange club bar and we'll go far off. We don't.

Then you've got animal rights people on your ass. Pretty soon you have to control explode the animal rights. You're doing more controlled explosions than the exponential. Yeah, and there's going to have to be a state funeral. People in this country, they don't like the death of an innocent dog. They'll be, you know, you have to close the streets so that people can lie in the streets for the funeral march. And yeah, it's getting very expensive very quickly.

Millions of people come into central London. One of them leaves their bag on the pavement. Oh, no. And it all starts again. Favorite bag in my life I've come across. Good question. My 29th birthday, I went to the pub in Tooting and a man came up to me with a bin bag full of lamb. He said, I don't know why I need a lamb and we turned him down.

But I often think about that guy walking around pubs with a... It was literally really like straining at the edges full bag of lamb. Bag of meat. Yeah. Bin bag full of meat. Was it packeted lamb or was it butcher's lamb or a lamb? It was stolen. It was stolen from the nearby Sainsbury's.

So it was still in the Sainsbury's. Yeah, it had the Sainsbury's logo. Had the barcode. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So it was well packaged. It wasn't just a sort of, it wasn't loosely wrapped in a piece of newspaper or something like that. No, it wasn't like a sort of dismembered donkey that he was trying to pass off as lamb.

It wasn't a dripping bag. Visiting a dripping bag. No, no, he'd obviously just swept the local Sainsbury's and good luck to him. Yeah, I've been offered ham from a bag. I don't think I've ever been offered meat from a bag. Have you not? What am I doing wrong? Maybe I'm giving off, I mean, I'm sort of coming across a bit aloof.

I think they look at you, Mike, and they think he's probably, he's probably too... This book's probably too cheap to buy stolen ham. He probably, he gets his lamb and ham one rung down from us. Found ham. Road ham. Just found ham. I think this book, he just takes his ham and lamb where he can find it, if it's there or take it. He's not, he was...

Opportunistic ham eater. He would probably see us as a bit hoity-toity because, you know... So they're not offering it because they don't want to cause me offence. They're not gonna, they don't think I might be aspirational. They don't think I might want to climb that rung up, but they don't want to offend me or... They see you as someone that, just literally, if you fall over a piece of ham, you might eat it. But yeah. I'll eat anything I fall over, right?

Yeah, that's what... Hope that occasionally it's going to be ham. My current position on bags is actually, bags are quite important. Well, my bag is quite important to me now, and I won't go anywhere without my bag. Because my bag, basically, as I get older, I find that I have more and more like items that I need on me at all times. I just like having all my, I just like, if I know that if I leave the house, I've got all my little bits and bobs that I need if there's a problem. You're making it sound like your bag might have a tartan pattern and a couple of wheels on top. It's actually quite a cool leather sort of man bag.

But basically, there came a point where my pockets were getting so bulky. It was just getting ridiculous because the amount of stuff I like to have with me. I like to have my chunky wallet. Yeah, my chunky wallet contains at least 10 different loyalty cards and stuff that's chunky. Obviously keys phone, but also now glasses case. Sunglasses and sunglasses case. Bottle of water. Hankies, or...

Hankies. In case you meet some fellow Morris dancers. You got your accordion as well. Hankies and basic bell set. Book of summer solstice prayers. Telescopic maypole. Sinister pig mask. Child and young adult sacrifice kit.

Travel henge. Full set of three dimensional tarot sculptures. Now I have an inflatable strawberry stand. It's a fair play. You need a bag. I need a bag, mate. So there's all that stuff. So there's a functional element to the bag. What about the aesthetics of the bag?

Also, sorry, I haven't finished saying what's in my bag, please. Go on. My bag also contains a smaller bag, which is a nylon orange polka dot supermarket reusable bag. So I can go shopping. I can whip it out and I can go shopping. If I see a supermarket, I can just... Just like that. If you want. Just like that. Who cares, right? Yeah, I'm going to go and buy some broccoli. Who gives a shit? I'm going to go and...

Fuck it. Fuck it. I'm going to get some cashews and some broccoli florets and some basil. Two pints of milk. Lovely. Two pints of milk and some marge and just see what happens. Do you remember there was a period where like it was considered hilarious that there were man bags and the men had bags and... We had to live there about five years of jokes about man bags.

Do you remember? Well, the fact that the phrase man bag exists is... I was always very confused by it because I sort of feel like men bags have existed together. For quite a long time. But does it specifically refer to just a little... I know. The implication is that Napoleon fought a war on two fronts and literally never had a bag. Didn't bring a bag with him.

Well, he was keeping quite a lot, I imagine, in his hat. That's true. Was that why they had the big hats in those days? Yeah, they had the big hats, but also they had it the other way around. They didn't have man bags. They had a bag man. They had bag man. So the man bag was a flipper. They flipped the concept of the bag man.

Yeah, once it became unacceptable to have a bag man, you still needed the bag. But the man is gone. Now you're the man, you need a man bag. Yeah. So there was a time when it was like, oh, that's a lovely bag man you've got. Yes, he's called Louis. Oh, he's very good. Oh, he's roomy, isn't he?

Can you open him? Yeah, Louis, yes. But the trouble is I have to open him at the top so this stuff at the bottom gets a bit squished and I have to empty it out if I want something. I'd really like one I can open down the side. But yeah, thank you very much. I like the way that slots in on his face. The way that bit slots into the other metal bit and makes a satisfying click.

Lovely clasp. Lovely clasp. And his face skin. It's got a nice patina, hasn't it? But you're right, Henry, there was a period where it was kind of seen on. Well, it was a weird time, wasn't it? It was the David Beckham era where he was deemed to be a kind of metrosexual character and it was very dangerous and very kind of, you know, it was the new man idea

where we were no longer masculine and we were kind of wearing sarongs and flip flops and having a bag and things like that. Which looking back is absolutely bonkers because, you know, it was very normal stuff. It's just a bag. Do you remember David Beckham's sarong? I do. People are obsessed with that sarong. But he's the kind of guy that can get, he can just sort of do anything, right?

I mean, you might get a bit of heat from it, but then you know within 24 hours there's going to be literally millions of people doing the same thing. I doubt who's ever too troubled by the heat. People say that, oh, Beckham, he can get away with anything, he looks great. I just think he just does and always has looked like a complete pillock all the time. But is that because you're a gooner? Oh, God, man, let's not go down that road. Are we going trying?

No, no, he's fine. And we all did go a bit weird for Beckham, didn't we? Like, there was an art installation that was him asleep and I went to see that. I remember, I was so, we were all so like mad. So what's this? I've missed this entirely. What was this? It was a video of him sleeping.

It was a video of his sleeping and it was art. It was at the Bloody Tate Gallery. No, it passed me by completely. But you know what, I can't, noughties, but I went and saw that and I stood in front of him and I actually thought, yeah, this is actually quite good. What was good about it? I thought, well, it's good because he's asleep and he doesn't, and I'm not asleep. I don't know, I can't remember.

You can justify anything when you're in art gallery. You just go, oh, yeah, that's probably because, yeah. That's quite interesting actually, isn't it, yeah? I would like to know what it feels like to have an airbag go off in my face. I wouldn't like to be in a situation where that would be life-saving. So a leisure airbag. A leisure, I feel like I would just like to know what that... It feels like something that could be part of stag do's, couldn't it?

Well, that would be a great stag do, under Pricey. Oh, yeah, I'd get down the older, really, hey? Get down the older. Yeah, so you get in a Renault. You go down to, again, it's an aerodrome. So you get into a large aerodrome, you get in a Renault. You've got to make sure no one's blowing anything up while you're there, and then drive into the, yeah, the nearest bollards.

Oh, look, your face, Mike, when it went off in your face. It really livens things up. It would freshen you up, I think, as well, probably. If you're at the sort of low-abstage of a stag do, when you're sort of, you know, you really need to find that second wind, I think that could provide it. Can it injure you? Like, can you be part of the whiplash story?

I don't really know. I don't know much about it. I think I've had the worry before, when you see the little sign written on the steering wheel that says, airbags inside. That they're going to go off at any time? Yeah, the idea of it accidentally going off would be horrible, because that's like the equivalent of a small child whacking a bag of crisps and blowing that up next year,

but like times a thousand, isn't it? Which is, of course, is what the airbag was based on, initially, when that saved a father's life. Saved a father's life. In Reno, Nevada, back in 1973. Because he was about to drive into a large orange sort of stone cliff. He was. One of the ones they have there, growing out of the desert.

Those big cliffs that just grow out of the desert. He was just re-spooling a tape cassette, and not paying attention to what was on the road. And his son was about to prank him by blowing up a bag of what they call, potato chips. And they've got a very low range of flavours. It'll be salty, or paprika, or cinnamon. That's all they have.

Cinnamon potato chips. The son was about to whack that, blew it up, and then... Just at the moment of impact. Saved his life. I think people might take issue with the idea that Americans have got a sort of low... There isn't much variety when it comes to bagged snacks. But in America, it's like when you go into the American supermarket,

the flavours have become so divorced from reality. It's like pink-flavoured puff-o-cheeses. It's like, like, now in purple. And there'll just be a picture of a demented-looking rabbit on the front, which is like with, like, sparkly marshmallows flying out of its mouth. And it's like, now as a foam. You just don't know what the fuck it is. Now as an expanding foam.

Now as an expanding foam. But they're at least not attempting to even pretend that there's any sort of nutritional value in them whatsoever. There's not what it's about. It's just spark or munger stuff. And there's a few products that are obsessed with America. Marshmallow is one, peanut butter is the other one, and cinnamon. Isn't it all peanut butter, cinnamon, marshmallow combinations?

It hasn't quite come over here yet to Britain, that stuff. What, marshmallows? Cinnamon. Let's suppose when you slow it down, marshmallow, cinnamon, and peanut butter have all come over here. I mean, I've got peanut butter in my cupboard right now. I quite like it. I eat it quite a lot.

And I like cinnamon as a flavour. And I have some marshmallows about three weeks ago. But that aside... That aside is perfect. It's not bad points. Quite a rigorous argument. Here's something I've discovered recently. Sniders of Hanover.

What's that now? Is that a gentleman's glove shop? You're a family of assassins. I think Sniders of Hanover is like this. You know how weirdly, you know, normally in life, most of your options for food are laid out in supermarkets and corner shops and stuff. But sometimes in a garage, you'll find a really like,

sort of unique, quite sort of sophisticated and just like creative new kind of food. Do you ever find that? I know what you're going to look for them. For some reason, it has this thing called Sniders of Hanover. What is it? It's basically pretzel chunks. Oh, so we are talking about a height of sophistication there.

Yeah? Yeah. Something that's really surprising to find in a garage. Pretzel chunks soaked in unleaded with a tobacco flavouring. But obviously not diesel. Not diesel anymore. Well, not if you're going to eat them in the centre of London.

Ideally, yeah. So they're electric pretzels? Yeah, go on. They're called Sniders of Hanover. And they're pretzel chunks that just feel like they've been deep fried for, you know, since the 70s. And they're the most oily, greasy, crunchy

and gorgeous snack. And they've got flavours like cheese and jalapeno and ham and mustard and onion. All three. Are you thinking they're a potential sponsor for the podcast? Brought to you by Sniders of Hanover. America's pretzel bakery

since 1909. That's what it says. They're American. But Hanover's in Germany. Yeah, I'll be German-American settlers. Right. So Sniders jalapeno pretzel pieces are made with Sniders signature sourdough pretzel base,

then broken into chunky bite-sized pieces and coated with one of our irresistible flavours. Bursting with flavour. Sorry, is the sponsorship question right? Have you been sponsored by them? Has it just you that's been sponsored by them? Are you a Trojan horse of sponsorship? When the topic of bags came up,

you were internally thinking, yes, because Sniders of Hanover sold in bags so I can bring them up quite seamlessly. And remember, they're doing a big push on the jalapeno range. Try and say jalapeno. You can say it four times. Anything above four times. You get 15 grand per time.

You say jalapeno. And try and slip in. They're also lodging a new driver's nose bag. Try and slip in. If you can get Mike to mention the nose bag, that's even better because it seems more realistic. But just don't tell Ben about the deal. That's between you and Mike.

And if you mention jalapeno over 15 times, you get access to the jalapeno-shaped Hanover's blimp, which you can feel absolutely brilliant holiday option, especially during lockdown. Unfortunately, guys, I've got something to tell you, which is that I've also been personally sponsored by the commercial competitor to Sniders,

which is Snoof and Groobers of Pennsylvania. No! Yeah, they've got a beautiful range of deep-fried pretzels. Their pretzel chunks are a little bit dry for my liking. And that's why I always go with Sniders of Hanover. I mean, if you like so much grease that you can't touch anything for hours afterwards,

sure, go for Sniders of Hanover. But if you just want flavor and convenience, then maybe go for a Snoof and Groobers. I wonder if it's time for me to confess that I have got a sponsorship deal with Airbert de Loire and their wet pretzels. Wetzels! Which are very, very slippery.

Slippery, but full of flavor. And they go straight through you. Absolutely straight through. It is true, though, that Sniders are incredibly greasy. Ben, that is true. You've got to be careful what you say, because that's, you know, we don't want to slander the good name of a company on our podcast.

Yeah, that's why I said incredibly greasy. It's amazing. You can see your own reflection in your fingers. It's ruddy great. But my, weirdly, my garage, just sometimes it'll have, I think to me, Ritter Sport falls into this category, which is you're in quite a low-end shop, like a garage.

And then you'll look and they'll be like Ritter Sport, the most sophisticated European choco hazelnut snack. Enjoy it while skiing or having a fondue. Or putting 30 litres of unleaded into a cup. Do you know what I mean? It's quite a sophisticated snack, but it's in a garage. It is sophisticated. Ritter Sport is very sophisticated, yeah.

Also, my garage has got a biscuit I've never seen anywhere else. This biscuit is, it's called Bounty, so it's related to the Bounty bar. It's got the bounty, it's got the bounty livery. It's got the bounty font. Yeah, it's got the aspirational coconut halves, the Caribbean horizon. It's got all that vibe to it.

You're not just buying a snack, you're buying a lifestyle choice. Exactly. But it's bounty biscuits at soft, it's bounty soft cookie biscuits or something, it's called. And the biscuit cookie is the coconutty. Bounty biscuits, soft, soft cookie biscuits. Probably that's what they cook.

I'm guessing it's quite a soft biscuit. It's a really soft biscuit. It's like uncooked cookie dough, bounty. It's got so many things going on. It's like this coconutty biscuit, which isn't cooked. It's floppy and coconutty. It's absolutely disgusting. But it's only available in my garage.

Are you sure it's a garage, actually? It's not a delicacy. I remember having that when I went travelling, I had this special kind of bag, right? Which was a sort of anti-mugging bag. Was it the flat bum bag? It was a flat fabric container, just big enough to cram full of travellers checks,

which is what it was full of. It was full of travellers checks and my passport. My dad bought me one of them when I went interailing at the end of my first year of university, insisted that I took it with me for my documents and travellers checks. Yeah, documents, they're really hideous. They're skin-coloured, they flesh-coloured.

You straddle onto your body, right? You then... Bear in mind, you're a teenager, you're quite smelly anyway, and you walk... I was going around Southeast Asia, so really hot, sweaty countries. With a big backpack at all times as well. Impossible to access,

unless you're back in your hotel room. And also, gradually, your travellers checks and your documents and passport became more and more smelly. Because they were just sopping wet. That's true. Those were a terrible thing. Terrible thing.

It's proper back-of-watch type stink. Yeah, it's nasty. But I then substituted that for an external bum bag, for like an external equivalent, which I wore around the front when I went travelling. As a decoy? Yeah, as a... Well, it was a double-buff decoy,

because it did actually contain all my documents and money. And I wore that when I went to Mexico City. You never saw it again? Well, I got it nicked off of me in a mugging on the shoe. Did you? What kind of mugging are we talking? Was there weaponry? Was it just threat?

I think I would be very easy to mug. I think if someone just said, this is being mugged, give it the stuff, I think I would cave quite quickly. Yeah, and I would totally cave. Although, actually, I did find depths I didn't know I had during that mugging. Because?

Depths of fear. Depths of fear. Depths of cowardice. Depths of scream. You found your inner paltrune on the highways of Bios and Mexico. What happened was, it was actually during the rush hour, so it was a packed train.

And what happened was, I gradually became aware that people were pressing up against me a bit more than was normal. Even though we were all crammed in on this train, I was standing. And I noticed there was basically three really big sort of blokes. Like, but quite young-faced, like...

Young-faced? Big boys. Young-faced, like big boys. I'm with you. You're painting a picture, I've got it. Young-faced, like big boys, yeah. They were young. You know, you could...

In my memory, they were wearing big shorts. They were big boys. I think I can imagine a big young man. I think I can do that. I don't think you have to help me too much with this stage of it. But Mike, only his face is young. But below the neck, the three...

If you were, you know, you'd go, oh, these are my big healthy lads. You can imagine their grandmother would have been, oh, my big healthy boys. Look at them with their big shorts, big heads. And they were pressing up against me. And they were pressing up against me. And then I just gradually became aware

they were pulling at me. They were pulling, trying to pull stuff out of my pockets. They were trying to pull stuff out of my external front-loaded bum bag, which was just sat there in front, just saying, here's all my expensive items and stuff that matters. And so they had their hands in it and I was pulling it back, pulling back.

And I started swearing. Turns out that's what I do when I'm under extreme stress. In Spanish. In perfect Mexican Spanish. I'm embarrassed to say that I was actually... I was swearing in English. I'm absolutely cringe looking back. Classic Brits abroad.

Not even swearing in the little tongue. How did they react to your swearing? They ignored. They kept carrying on pulling at my stuff. But all the other people in the train were just reading their newspapers and just all the commuters were just like, oh, it's another guy getting mugged.

No one cared. And then I swore and swore and swore. And I pulled and pulled and pulled. And they got away with my passport and cards and money. And to this day, I've not traveled on a Mexican train or been back to Mexico. And did they use your passport to studio identity move into your family home in Islington?

That's right. You got back and then there was just these three large Mexican boys. One of whom had accepted your university place or was now studying English literature. Yeah. And they've joined your five side squad. They've just become fully integrated into the family now.

Unlike me, I'm still an outcast. Sometimes at Christmas and stuff, for example, I'll just hide in the front garden and look through the windows and see the three Mexican brothers. The three Henrys. Enrique, Enrique, and Enrique. Getting given the contemporary novels and things that should have been for me.

So that was bags, bags done. Never again when we talk about bags. Thanks to Fiona for sending in that topic of bags. And thank to everyone else who sent in their topics. They're all in the bean machine ready to be randomly chosen going forward. If you want to send us any, send them to www.threebeansaladepod.com Now, we've also had a lot of other...

Could you explain how the bean machine works? So we each idea... We get each idea printed while embossed onto a perspex bean. And they're in a large vat. And then the bean machine, it refers to the claw, the metal claw, which Mike operates with a series of...

It's a mixture of pumps, gears, and pedals. And meanwhile, you're on a sort of adapted bicycle that generates the mini cyclone within the... Exactly. Which gets the beans flying round and round. And so... It's a shame we can never show the listeners that. Yeah, because it's pretty...

It's all top secret technology. It's a pretty extraordinary thing. It's not all sort of... I don't want to go into too much detail, but it's basically to... You heat up water, then you can find space, create steam energy, which pumps up, and that gets the pistons going up and down, doesn't it?

Yeah. And that generates the power to... Yeah, pretty advanced. It's steam powered. But the word isn't legible at that point. That bean wind selector then has to be consumed by Ben, who then has to sort of digest the outer layer off. Yeah.

Until it can reveal. And while Ben's arse has been adapted in such a way that the... Because it's embossed, it's raised lettering on the beans as they pass through his lower colon. He's got a sort of braille reading lower colon. He's got a rotating braille reader. Down his colon, which plays a tune as it goes through. The teeth on the reader and the notches on the bean

click into each other, plays a tune as it spins. We then decode that tune. We decode the tune. Yeah. I just want to add a hugely painful feeling. Absolutely. Yeah, there's a lot of crying. And actually it makes it quite hard to hear the tune

because it's all wailing. It's going to be wailing quite a lot. Yeah. Well, normally I'm having to bite down on a wooden spoon to get through it. And we've got through five spoons. Luckily we bought... You can buy 20.

Buy a pack of 20 for the price of 18, yeah. Thank God. Thank God. But that's all text deductible. So don't worry. Don't want to listen to worry about it too much. No. Oh yeah, and you have to...

Put your ear right next to my anus just to hear the very faint song. Yeah. And you've got one of those old-fashioned sort of splayed, like sort of gramophone speakers attached to it now, which has helped a bit volume-wise. Yeah. And the song is always Frere Jacques.

But there's one... Well, there's one bum note because I live also. One bum note. One bum note, yeah. One bum note. Which... That's the code. Yeah, it's a little...

One bum note is a little reference to the fact that... A little bit of... You've got to have a bit of fun when you're doing it because if one of you is howling and angry, yeah, exactly. It's a little bit of fun and we'd... I like to think it takes the edge off a bit. Well, I think I laugh looking back.

You know, at the time I'm not... Yeah. You know, but in hindsight, I think... Yeah. But of course, there's not much room is there for hindsight in terms of because the preparations you have to... Oh, the process takes all week. Yeah.

So you say it's probably... It's several days, isn't it? Of... You have to swallow all the different components of the... Yeah. And you can now receive no nutrients through your digestive tracts. It's also that it has to... That's completely parental.

It has to go in just through the vein with very expensive bags of... Yeah. Well, that goes direct into my lumber region now, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, as we get to the end of this podcast, while I'm enjoying talking to you two,

also at the same time, we're thinking, well, as soon as we press stop on the recording, I have to start the process. So... Yeah. You know, there's that feeling of trepidation that's building throughout this last section. But you've never looked better on it.

Oh, thanks. It's true. Weirdly, it does make your skin look amazing the whole day, isn't it? Yeah. My top half looks great. Yeah. If you look at the back end,

it's quite shot already, and we've only done one week with the bean shirts. Well, it's almost like the whole lower body just withered into a kind of tail, isn't it? Stringy tail. Sort of mucous-covered tail. Yeah. And what has it going with the two nurses now

that you've got 24-7? Jackie and Shirley. Because I heard they were bullying you as well. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. They were taking the piss out of my mucous-y tail. Well, that's the trouble.

You've got to live in medical stuff, and things get tense quite quickly, I think. Almost always goes that way. But anyway, so that's the process anyway. Just so you guys know. Yes. That's how we get the ideas. Digestive tract talk.

What seems to happen, we've clicked into a bit of a groove where we will say things on the podcast, and then people will get quite angry and correct us about what we said. And I quite like it as a dynamic, to be honest, when it comes to correspondence. We had a lot of correspondence on this one topic,

but I'm going to read you the email from Dan Trelfer, because he seems to be a great speaker. He's a great speaker. But I'm going to read you the email from Dan Trelfer, because he seems the most angry about it. OK. So, it's quite a long email, so I'm going to shorten it a bit.

But he's writing about the fact that Henry, I think, said that Carrie Grant, you never see him run. You just see him sitting or standing. Yeah. OK? Please, for the love of God, can I point you to Alfred Hitchcock's

North by Northwest? It's in this film that Grant gets terrifyingly strafed by a biplane in the cornfield during which he runs a lot and throws himself into dust on a number of occasions, as he almost dies before being hit by a truck and then running off when the plane crashes into a truck and explodes.

I don't want to get angry beans, but this is one of the most famous seasons in cinema history. OK. It has been studied and dissected and celebrated for over half a bloody century. I'll say it. The very least anyone should do

before starting a podcast on any subject is to have a quick crash course on cinema history, grab some popcorn, watch a few classics, do the work, all of you. OK. Not to go on about it,

but the idea Grant was just some kind of sitting standing actor is particularly unfair, given he was, in fact, a fully trained and rather excellent acrobat. Cinema has rarely seen an actor more able to meet the physical demands, filmmaking exerts on a leading man. Have you seen another Hitchcock classic

to catch a thief where he's a brilliant live cat burglar or monkey business where he does all kinds of physical comedy, including rollerskating with Marilyn Monroe, clearly not. So Henry was half right. Yes.

We can agree. He does sometimes stand or just sit, but sometimes doesn't. So he's half right. Sometimes he's running away from a biplane or being an acrobat. Yeah, exactly.

What I would say, what's the e-mailer called? Dan. Dan, why'd I say to Dan? Dan. Just go back and have another look at those films. What you'll find is, a lot of the time,

Cary Grant will seem as if he's running, but if you look carefully, you'll see that what's happening is he's standing. It's a mid-shot. He's actually standing. The camera's jiggling up and down, and there's a fake picture of a biplane behind him. He's not actually in the field.

There's not a biplane. That's separate. He's just standing, and the camera's being trickled. And he didn't jump into a cornfield, did they threw a cornfield at him? He was standing. That's right.

Yeah. I see. Well, I'll take that, Dan. But not everyone's quite as o-fay with Senua history. And I believe, in the roller-skating scene, you were first, too.

I believe... With Marilyn Monroe. With Marilyn Monroe. This is how they did things in the old days. I believe he was standing in a pair of static roller skates that were actually drilled into the ground using platinum rods.

They were very, very, very incredibly fixed. You couldn't move those things. You need a tank to move those things. And the set of the roller disco area and the San Francisco cityscape, et cetera, was built onto a huge, rotating... It was just moved on caterpillar tracks. Yeah, caterpillar tracks.

And it rotated round. He stayed still. Everything else moved round him. It's basically the same technology as these in cartoons, where the characters walking on the spot, but the background's moving. Which was filmed in exactly the same geographical location

as the North by Northwest. He literally actually didn't move an inch for about 12 years. On the topic of carry grant, we also had a lot of tweets and emails that were kind of taking issue with our characterization of him as not being particularly good-looking

or kind of muscly. We had a lot of kind of very thirsty photographs of him in a short-sleeved shirt or a vest, and just women sort of saying, you know, here you go. He is a fine-looking man. And I just want to say, I don't think we were saying he wasn't fine-looking.

We're just saying he wasn't the kind of... I think, as Mike said, he doesn't have the muscle tits that we expect these days. He doesn't fit the current Hollywood expectation of the A-list physique. Oh, he was a handsome devil. Also, a lot of people are a little bit angry that we said that carry grant was in a film

called Roman Holiday, when, in fact, that was Gregory Peck. Great name for a Rhea, Gregory Peck. Again, it's very hard to prove these things one way or the other. But, you know, we respect that opinion, certainly. Are you going to agree to disagree, Henry? Yeah, we've all got a view on it.

Your view is that it was Gregory Peck. Our view is that it was carry grant. Let's respect each other. And now it's time for Pompadoo Section. Pompadoo. On a different topic, Lauren Briscoe got in touch. She says, after listening to your podcast and enjoying the editions of the Pompadoo Section

and Digestive Track Talk, which may I add hasn't... This isn't her, this is me saying, hasn't come back in for two episodes now. We did talk about Digestive Track a little bit later on, and we could. I mean, that could be retrospectively. We are now Pompadooing as well, aren't we?

We could. Yeah, so both of those could get a little... This is the trouble with these topics. Whenever they come up, they automatically... Pompadoo yourself, doesn't it? As soon as you think Pompadoo, you're Pompadooing. Lauren writes, I wonder why yet we don't have a jingle for talks

about flightless birds? I think it would be a great addition, and as it is a reoccurring theme, yet I have no musical talent or knowledge. The most I can do is play Seven Nation Army on the keyboard. I propose that Mike suggests one genre, while Henry picks another, and Benjamin can mash the two, creating a great melody.

It's a very strong suggestion. It's a mash-up. Love it. So we got this email earlier in the week, and we did... I did ask both Henry and Mike for a genre to create a new flightless bird jingle. Mike, you said... Bossa nova.

Bossa nova. Henry went for... Early Dylan. Bob Dylan. Well, I didn't specify. Look, I mean, Dylan Thomas. Oh, no. And I made one.

Okay, here we go. You should be able to hear this. This is the flightless bird jingle. To the flightless bird zone. No, please, not my face! There you go. That's another humdinger, Ben. That was really good.

So, this is it. We're now in the flightless bird zone. Last week... I mean, this has been an ongoing story. How dangerous, comparatively, is a rear, is a cassowary. You don't know when they're going to take the lid off something that it's really going to... It's really connected, hasn't it, the flightless bird stuff?

Yeah, it has, hasn't it? In last week's show, Henry put a call out to any ornithologists listening for them to explain why flightless birds have long, sexy legs. I, myself, then, tried to give my own explanation based on nothing more than a hunt, which has been proven to be wrong. And I'm very happy to be proven wrong by a...

I remember, Ben, thinking... I remember when you said that, that your theory... I remember thinking, even for a non-ornithologist, this sounds like tripe. Well, Letitia's been in touch. She describes herself as a hobby ornithologist. So, you know, let's take what she says with a pinch of salt. It's a good few rungs above us, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. She says, most flightless birds, or struthioniforms, i.e. the ostrich, rea, or cassowary, are known to have lived in areas where their natural predators were so rare that they didn't have to escape by flying anymore. So, they could lounge around and thought of... lounge around in sexy bars, just enjoying their own legs.

So, they were lounging so much their legs stretched as they were putting them on coffee tables and poofs. They needed to develop the long legs to be able to do that. Well, Letitia says, they passed the ability not to fly onto generations after them. However, as new predators suddenly came along, i.e. humans, they had to develop new techniques since their best defense was rendered utterly useless by them

because they couldn't fly. For example, the dodo didn't develop a new technique and look where it got it. The new defenses... And also, it doesn't have sexy legs. It doesn't have sexy eyelashes. And so, it deserved to... absolutely deserved to be wiped out. Absolutely deserved.

The new defenses included moves like running quickly or kicking. Thus, the legs and leg bones overdeveloped into the sexy legs we know today. Hope I could help Letitia. So, there you go. Well, well. Thank you.

So, it's good to know that humankind has had a hand in getting those legs nice and long and sexy. It's one of the few improvements we've made, perhaps, to the natural kingdom. We also had a few tweets and emails along... I'm not going to reach them out, but there were lots along the lines that we were being quite sort of short-sighted

in our view of what a sexy leg is when it comes to a bird. And actually, a sort of shorter, stumpy leg can still be sexy. Oh, God. But I think what you were trying to say was that they're sort of sexy in a kind of stereotypical Jessica Rabbit kind of way. Well, we're using a 1980s film paradigm as well

with respect to all other sorts of legs. Other sorts of legs are available. And I actually want to go as far as to say, I personally don't find any birds sexually attractive. Just want to put that out there. It's too late for that kind of backtracking. It's way too late. I wouldn't shame anyone who does,

but I personally, they're not for me in a sexual way. Also, I know for a fact that you went out with a raven at Universal. Yeah, well, that put me off. I got burned. That raven treated me like shit. I kept telling you, you get your free tickets to the Tower of London.

Never came through. Then I had that long relationship with the beef eater again. Should have just paid the £19. And then the beef eater ended up with the raven. Didn't they? And to be fair, they should have been together from the start. Well, that's true. That's it.

They both work in the same place. They're both building. They're both. They're not actually allowed to fraternize outside of work though. That's the problem. It was a forbidden relationship. No further than the gift shop.

They were both beheaded when it was discovered on the lawn. I remember that. Amy Hunt gets in touch. So Amy Hunt is an accredited, this is her word, accredited, extinct flightless birdologist. Fantastic. She says, I heard from your podcast that you're interested in hearing

about birds who are a confusing mix of scary and sexy. Well, boys, you're in for a treat. Okay. I have written you a short history of the elephant bird. What? Now, the email she sent was very, very long. So I'm just going to do a praisey. So I'm going to read a few paragraphs.

Whilst rears and chasseries might rip out your guts, elephant birds just went straight for the brain. And then she sends a picture. Here is a historical sketch of an elephant bird attack. We can see in the picture that the elephant bird is using its strong and alluring feet to scalp the man and stir up his brain whilst on the move. Like porridge.

Stir up his brain. Like breakfast porridge. With as much ease as we might rip off a yoga pot legs and mix it with our spoon. And does it also have the attendant worry of a bit of brain spreading across the room and hitting your sort of partner in the face? Does it always wear an apron?

What you want to get is a human that's got a kind of fruit corner head where there's a little bit on the side that you can mix in with the main brain. Sweet biscuit. Combat. She goes on to write, now, unfortunately, elephant birds are extinct. And of course, it is because of humans.

One frightening fact about elephant birds is that one day they might be up for de extinction slash genetic resurrection. What? Scientists managed to extract DNA from the remains of their eggshells, providing them with enough genetic material to potentially bring them back in the future when the technology is ready.

Don't clearly don't do it. It's not good. It's a bad idea. Don't resurrect the elephant bird. I don't know. Can we keep it in the back pocket for the zombie apocalypse? Because they sound ideal. They sound like an ideal animal of warfare.

What to deploy against the zombies. For the brain scooping, right? Remove the head or destroy the brain. Oh, yeah. What could go wrong, Mike? We're just going to bring back an extinct species of bird to use as a military technology. Oh, yeah.

That's going to go well. I think it'll be fine. It'll be fine. Activate. Amy says, I think reintroduction of them into the world would end in a complete shit show. That's her words. And she knows.

On top of that, we had an email, a one line email from a man called Blair Perry saying, an ostrich bit my nipple last year. End email. Last year, eh? Well, it was a rough old year. It was a rough year, wasn't it? An ostrich bit my nipple.

I mean, I want to know the sequence of events that culminated in. The implication is that he's got one central nipple. Is it? No. If you said a cat bit my arm last year, you wouldn't think I had one arm. One central arm.

I would imagine he means an ostrich eight bit one of my two nipples last year. OK, yeah. Yeah. He's not specifying which nipple or which part point of the year it was at all. But he's generally going for economy of language and the whole message.

Yeah, I'm going to guess left nipple Christmas day. Because the ostrich wasn't fully cooked when it came out of the oven. I'm going right nipple the eyes of March. Also, there's something I've noticed from the emails, Henry, this is your fault. In the first episode, you went on a bit of a strange rant about how if someone writes a long email,

it means they're mad and you don't like receiving a long email. Oh, really? At least 40% of the emails we receive say, I'll keep this short so as not to anger Henry. And I think it's probably having a dampening effect on the kind of correspondence we're receiving. Sorry about that.

But I still think it's better to keep it short. You stand by it. I do stand by it. You don't want to come across as mad. Also, I'm sorry to say, boys, that we received a tweet that has slightly driven a carton of horses through this entire section.

Are you ready? OK. Susan Turnbull sent a tweet saying, dear beans, the secretary bird is not flightless. What? So must be discounted. So when that came in, I thought, OK, maybe it can fly. You know, like how a chicken can fly?

Yeah. You know, it can kind of go up. In theory. It can sort of get onto a small... With the wings of faith. Perch or what have you. Then I looked into it a little bit closer. And on the Wikipedia, it says, secretary birds soar

and rise up to 3,800 meters above the ground. No. This is Harry Grant, Gregory Peck, all over again. 3,000 meters. That's space, isn't it? 3,000 meters. It says they use thermals to rise up to 3,800 meters. In under five seconds.

So yeah, they're absolutely not flightless in any fashion. But they do. To be fair to us, it does spend most of its life on the ground, apparently. I've... Yes, someone tweeted about a bird here, Anna Jones. Have you seen this one? No.

And it's a... She's tweeted a photo of a bird called a red-legged seriama. And it's attacking a snake, but I think a real snake, I think. It's extraordinary. And it says, red-legged seriamas are known for vigorously and repeatedly tossing their prey against rocks to break the prey's bones and then shredding it using sickle claws.

Sickle claws. Shredding. These birds are considered the closest living relatives of a group of gigantic carnivorous terror birds, which once roamed the Americas. I bet they did. Wow. Ruddy, hell.

Terror birds. I once had a bird stuck in my bedroom. Terror bird. And I was... It wasn't a terror bird. It shredded you with its claws. It was an ordinary... I think it was just an ordinary dark brown bird.

Oh yeah, I know. Just a regular bird. It was like a regular dark brown bird. And it was weird because at the time, I was in my 30s, but I was living at home. I'd moved back in with my parents because I didn't have any strictly speaking job. I was going through a phase of living with my parents.

And I woke up one morning on the weekend and there was a weird noise coming from the window area. And what had happened was, this dark brown bird had come into the... Basically, it was a sash window. If you can imagine, one of the sashes was down a bit. The top half of the window was a bit down, so there was a gap at the top.

And the bird kind of got trapped in between the two overlapping bits of window. That makes sense. And I looked at it and it was scratching at the glass with its claws. And it terrified me more than just pretty much anything I've ever seen in real life. In life, I mean, in real life.

What was more frightening to you at the time, the bird or your complete lack of career prospects? Well, Ben, this presumably would have been a bird that was about the size and weight of a plum, right? Yeah. But what happens is that a bird, once a bird goes indoors, a bird gets transformed from a cute thing

which raises the spirits of pensioners and which in watercolor form will proudly bestride greetings cards for all occasions. That's what a bird is when it's outdoors. It's nibbling some nuts in your granddad's garden. His mood's improved, yeah? As soon as they come indoors,

a bird transforms into this. I looked into its eyes. It was the dead eyes of primal horror. It was the eyes of Darwinism, nature, just red in tooth and claw, just survive, survive. And it was scratching, scratching, scratching on glass so I could see perfectly. Do you understand, Mike?

That would be like... All in the childhood bedroom of a 34-year-old man. Exactly. But it was like... You tell me what it was like. It was like Hannibal Lecter, yeah? The genius of that film, science of the lambs was, get the horror guy and put him behind glass.

Apparently, there's nothing between you and him. Same with the small, dark brown bird. It was scratching away at the glass. I could see it perfectly because it was just a glass between me and scratching, scratching. So what I did was, I hid under my duvet, hoping that a few hours, in an hour or two, the bird would leave.

It was trapped, though. I know, but it was trapped. But Hannibal Lecter got out. It was like a web of... Yeah, but your bird's not in a position to make a deal with the FBI. They then reneged upon. And also, the last thing that bird was going to do

would be to take my face off, put my face off. And then I'd be transported by the RSPCA back to a bird hospital only for it to take off. No, no. No, my face. What? To be taken to hospital and then... And the bird pulls my face off.

Like, it's the bloody bird. It's the dark brown bird. It's too late to find out the ambulance. With the man's face. With the man's face. I mean, well, I have got... So, he's sort of faces. He hasn't done the full lives.

He's just completely... You're a man who's already had very low job prospects, but he's now got to walk around with the face of a sparrow. I tell you what, graduate with sparrow face, not something you... Not something you read a lot in the jobs pages of the evening stand at the time.

So... So, basically, a few hours later, I'm still under the duvet. I haven't heard anything for a while. I peek out and the bird's still there and it starts scratching again and it's freaking me out.

So, I ran out of the room and ran downstairs to ask my dad if he could help. That must have been a sad moment for him. Because I think both of your older brothers are doing quite well by this point. Yeah. Yeah, there was... Because, basically, I couldn't go in that room

with the bird in there. The bird was freaking me out on a level that's so weird. I couldn't deal with the dread of the bird. And it was a mixture of pity and fear as well, because obviously I felt sorry for the bird, but that made it all the more horrifying that the bird was in a bad situation as well. But anyway...

So, my dad went into the room and there was no sign of the bird. And I was like, oh, thank god that the bird's just gone. The bird somehow managed to free itself and has left. And then I was really relieved. And then I went down the stairs to go to the loo.

And under the chair outside the loo, there was a small dark brown bird. Now, look, it didn't take much to put two and two together. And to realise that was the bird. And the bird at some point got into my room and gone down the stairs and was hiding under the chair outside the loo.

Have you got like a waiting room area beside your toilet? There's just magazines with some music playing. Do you live in a dentist's office? I don't know why there's a chair outside the loo. I never sat on that chair. And the only thing that chair's ever been good for, frankly, is from a small dark brown bird. That's why it was attracted to your property, Henry.

Could be. I think my dad then was able to cup the bird in his hands in a way that you're supposed to be able to do. Gently take it outside and release it. Whispering something sort of inspiring. Sorry about that, Prick, he's my youngest son. But he's alright, really.

He's just going through a rough time. He's unemployed. We spent quite a lot of money on it, honestly. What did we do wrong? We'd blame ourselves, but obviously you can't. But look, just fly, just fly. Take to the wind. Gentle bird.

Don't have children. Don't have that third egg. Just two eggs is no. What's wrong? You're fine. You're fine with two eggs. And if you have got a third one, just... No one on there, just knock it out the end. Just feed it to a snake?

Just feed it to a snake. And if I could do that with my third born son, now I would, but you can't. Do you know any snakes? We don't have big enough snakes in the UK. I hoped when he's going to be in Central America that he might crumb across a boat or constrictor or something, but I didn't.

I encouraged him to take long naps like the trees. I filled his document pouch with meat. Still at least we've got the three in recase. That's some comfort. It was a difficult time, but that happened and then not just over two years later,

I did actually move out. So, it goes to show that maybe it was a sign. I think I took it as a sign to probably just knuckle down, really just settle in properly with the parents for another couple of years. And if it wasn't for that bird, who knows what I might have done?

I might have moved out and really gone for it. If you're listening and you have successfully cupped a bird in your hand and taken it to freedom, do get in touch. And what did you quietly whisper into its ear before releasing it?

Right then. We welcome your emails, freebeansaladpod.com Do get in touch. We're also on Twitter. There was talk of starting in Instagram, but we haven't done that yet. We will launch it at some point, but until then, it's hard for listening. Bye.