Three Bean Salad - Best Of Series Three

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

Take yourself back to December 2021/January 2022 and enjoy this compilation of highlights from our third series. From coffee shop toilets to a terrible banana.Join our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansaladGet in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpod

Hello, Ben, you all right? Hi, Mike. Hi. So, I know you're busy with half-term and everything, so I didn't want to interrupt you, but I have a couple of things to run past you. So, first of all, I'm making a best of Series 3 to put on the... Oh, whoa! Sorry. Sorry, I got a bit distracted. Sorry. I've just got to drive my... So, where are you, Mike? So, you were saying? Oh, yes, I'm making a best of Series 3, and I just wanted to make sure that was okay. How great. Because obviously you're involved in making it, and I just did it on my own. I'm not necessarily fishing for praise or thanks for anything, but I'll just let you know what I'm up to.

And also, I just wanted to apologise, actually. We're going to be at the Aquarium. No, four o'clock. Four o'clock. Our appointment's at two. No. That's what the guy from Harpoon Mountains told us. No, because three o'clock is Flamingo Cove. Four o'clock is Jewel of the Sea Aquarium. Sorry. Come on. Yeah. Sorry, I just wanted to apologise. I know that at the end of the last series, once we finished recording, I suggested that the three of us all go and hold it together to SeaWorld. And I was a bit disappointed when you said no, obviously,

and I reacted quite angrily. And now I've thought about it, actually. I understand. Like, you've got family to look after. You're a busy guy. You know, Henry's got a lot of work on. I can't just tell you, you know, expect you to drop everything and take me to SeaWorld. Did you know that's my dream? Oh, my God. I've won another one. Oh, my God. Look how cute he is. Oh. Sorry. Where are you, Mike? What's that sound in the background? Oh, Mike, this place is so beautiful. It is so unethical. I love it. It weighs. It's technically walruses. Right. But I think you might... there are seals

in the next enclosure, so it might be... Where are you, Mike? I'm just having a go out, basically. Sorry. Is that Henry? No, no, no, no. Yes, a bit. Yeah, yeah. Yes, sorry. I was trying to tell him to be... Mike, are the two of you in SeaWorld, Henry? Are you in Orlando? Yes, we are. We're technically, I suppose, we are in Orlando. I mean, we're not technically together. He's just scuttled off to see the Manatee Rehabilitation area, even though we've seen it twice already, but he was here a moment ago. Sorry, look, Ben, cheers for doing that. I've actually got to go soon because we've got a couple of things lined up. We want to cram in a couple of things. We get to dine with the Orcas this

evening, which we're on a bit of a waiting list for, so we're trying to cram in a couple of things. Mike, so when I suggested to you and Henry that the three of us go to SeaWorld together as a special thing for the three of us, because you know that's my dream, and you said no, I'm too busy, I've got things to do, Ben, be quiet, and then Henry told me off as well because he said he's busy and I can't just expect you all to drop everything. There's the thing you're busy with going to SeaWorld. Well, Henry had already had that idea. I think we'd all had the idea that that's what we'd like to do with our time off, and then Henry looked at the three-beam budget and saw that

it was probably a two-man job around the three-man job. If you're going to do it properly, I think we could have stretched a three, but then you're not dining with the Orcas. You're not going to Dolphin Cove. You're certainly not petting anybody at the Dolphin Nursery. It's not happening. Plus, we thought because you do this sort of thing, you make these extra episodes and it's not, you know, we thought you'd be busy with that, to be honest. It's not really our cup of tea doing that. So the reason that I wasn't invited on your trip to SeaWorld, which by the way is my dream, very much my dream, you two had never mentioned it until I brought it up last month. In fact,

Henry, it seemed to have never heard of SeaWorld. No, but I think the fact that you talk so evangelical about it, I think that sort of made him think that maybe there was something in it after all. And he has mostly enjoyed it. I don't really, but I really love about this. I'm just thinking about how much Ben would have loved it as well. You know what I mean? And so the whole reason why you've done that without me is because you expected me to stay home and make a best of episode.

Well, we're not going to do that, aren't we? OK, well, have you got any words for the listeners to introduce them best of seriously? I'm not necessarily, I haven't been thinking about that at all, but I can recommend that they visit the Pelican Preserve. In SeaWorld Orlando. Outstanding. In SeaWorld Orlando. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as for series three best of, I mean, nothing could be further from my mind. OK, well, OK.

I think we're saying council for Henry. All right, OK. Thanks, Mike. Well, at least throw a handful of quill into the mouth of a porpoise for me, eh? Oh, we've been doing that. Yeah, absolutely. It's breathtaking. It's absolutely breathtaking stuff. Oh, Mike. Mike. Yeah, so sorry. Cheers for doing that.

So I've really got to go. Henry, what? Our stingray burnishing slot is coming up. Ah, yeah, sorry. We get to go and burnish a stingray. If we're really quick, there's a stingray kind of a sort of salon thing. We can wax it. It sounds amazing.

Hard. Anyway, so we've got to go. There's a slot now and now. Go, go, go. Ben, cheers. Thanks. Ben, is that Ben you're talking about? Oh, what an absolute chump.

What an absolute lemon. Tell you what, Ben Partridge, he's the only lemon bigger than the lemon that's stuck in the mouth of that suckling penguin. I've experimented with working in different spaces. So I do like, I agree that the architecture of a room or a space is quite important for that. Because you've settled on your local Costa Coffee. Do you think that's the ultimate expression of human architecture?

Well, put it this way. I work in Costa Coffee. I don't work in a sort of huge glass temple where you go up a spiral staircase up towards a big coffee grinding machine and you look down and you see different parts of the coffee making process. And by the time you get there, you really understand how coffee's made. No. No, it's a squat hot room.

It's squat and hot. Those two things are important. It's squat and hot. It's plugged up. Sticky tables. Heavy tables as heavy and angular as they are sticky. Seating which has perished to a degree. There's a soft seating which is perished.

It's got sort of holes in it that expose sort of bits of foam sticking out of it in places. There's a pompadour element to that, then, isn't there? Inside the workings of the sponge under your ass. Mike, nature pompadou's us all. Eventually. It's got a toilet that holds within its walls a kind of sense memory of some very, very awful things. Not all of them done by me.

Yeah, there is a haunted feeling about the toilets. It's always got three toilets, Mike Oster. Each with its own microclimate. There's always one, at least one that's very humid. Oh, yeah. There's always one that's like walking into like a botanical garden. Or the bayou. You're in a sort of piss bayou and you're sort of breathing it all in.

There is one which would certainly accommodate crocodilian life, yeah? Then there's a sort of spooky chili one, which you get a real free song when you go in there. And one that's just sort of pitch black, like the deepest outer space. No gravity in there either, is there? Gravity, no light. The black hole bog. It's a bit like being in one of those relaxation tanks, but... A bit of smells of guffs.

A bit of smells of guffs. And it's quite unpleasant. The street toilets. Here are some of the things that are important to me. A toilet with a solid door on it. You close that and you are safe. Like the gates of old Samarkand. Some kind of...

Precise. You could... Ancient walled city. You could basically... You could hold it up in there and you could be besieged for a good six months. And you'd be fine. And really like you clunk that door closed and you feel... Oh, it's lovely.

I can eat my panellin in paste. Okay, so, sturdy door. Steady door. I think we can probably all agree with that. Solid throne-like toilet. Quite elevated. Yeah, made of solid gold. Made of solid gold.

It's at a height where, in theory, you could imagine a vassal could come and prostrate himself before you and ask you to help him out with some sort of farming issue or some agricultural problem he's got. Yeah. So, it's made that high for accessibility reasons, but you're enjoying that it makes you feel like a little sovereign. A little big sovereign.

A little bog sovereign. What I like about the hand dryer in there is it's thrusting, violent and quick. It's the way I'd like to be killed. Audible throughout the entire establishment. Exactly. It's... Signals everyone else. That's what it will soon be free.

So, basically, it's got two solid toilets and it's got a third one as well, which is the disabled toilets, which, for the purposes of this podcast, I have never been in. So, I just can't tell you anything about them. I mean, if I had to speculate, I'd imagine the toilet was probably in the far left corner.

Lots of space, room to change. Room, I mean, again, I wouldn't do this, but room in theory to... You could lower that baby-changing table in theory, lie down and have a nap on it, I suppose. I mean... It's a good height for a desk. The Wi-Fi still reaches it.

The toilet couldn't be more conveniently placed if you're working there all day. You can even fit tables on there to put a printer on there, as well, if you've got a... Yeah, you could... There's definitely room to invite someone in for a meeting. Good. I mean, there's... Please come through.

Yeah, you could... By all means, sit on that ceramic chair in the corner. You'll see on the changing table, there's a samovar of coffee and a bowl of croissants. Please help yourself. And if you do hear the door jiggling, just remain quiet. Remain very, very quiet.

And it should subside. The door will jiggle, the door will jiggle. You may hear a tut. That's right. Which is why I'm going to do this PowerPoint presentation in silence. It's all images. And do not pull the red cable, as that will alert a staff member to our presence here.

That's what you do when you make a deal, isn't it? You pull the red cable, the staff member comes in, says, have you got an emergency? We go, we did, but everything's fine now, and we walk out and they'll go in and it's like... It's like, oh, damn, he's done it again, but we can't prove it because everything's gone. The samovar's gone.

The Hewlett Packard printer is in my rucksack. The samovar of coffee. I've downed it. The whole samovar. I've swallowed the samovar. I will think you flushed the intern down to the toilet. The CEO you were meeting is just attached to the ceiling so they can't be seen. I've painted him white, he's cream, I've painted him magnolia,

he's painted into the ceiling. The ceiling just looks like it's a bit chubby and a bit lumpy. And has some eyes, but you can't prove anything. That's nice cufflings. That's nice cufflings, but you can't prove anything. And they can't prove anything, and he's gone again. He's had another meeting again, but we can't prove it. We can't prove it.

You know what I've got in my pocket in my desk that reminds me? Not a cost of toilet key. Now I've got a Nero toilet key. I've had it for over three years. Did it get you into any Nero toilet? It's still on the chain. It looks like a kind of medieval key that would open like an old wooden door. It's on an anti-theft chain.

I know. And that's how brilliant I am. Well, you'd never go into a Nero without a crowbar, do you? Absolutely not. I am the scarlet pimponel of London's toilets. He's struck again. If he's not having a meeting, he's taking our anti-theft key from under our very noses. He's so brilliant. And he always leaves his trademark calling card. That smell.

Oh, he's so brilliant. Oh, I'd love to meet him one day. What are you talking about? He's a criminal. God damn you. He's an outlaw. Yes, of course we all secretly love him. How could we not? Daddy, I'm marrying Henry Packer. No! No daughter of mine.

But Daddy, look at the walls of our downstairs toilet. There's already a framed photograph of the two of you married. He's put it up. He's done it behind my back and you've got married by... It looks like you were married in... Dad, the toilets of the Albert Hall. The huge cathedral-like toilets of the Albert Hall. Married by the toilet attendant.

By the most high-ranking toilet attendant in Britain. If anyone knows of any reason why these two may not be married, speak now. Flush now. That's just someone using the hand dryer. It's fine. I'm going to see if I can catch the bouquet of turds. I'm imagining you now as a kind of phantom of the opera. Like you're in charge of the subterranean world of London's subterranean toilets.

I am. Well, they're all linked. Come with me. Through the misty sewers. Through the famously good toilets at Hyde Park. Hyde Park. I didn't realise a bronco is... Let me see if you've fallen into the same trap I have. Mike, what animal do you think a bronco is?

A bull. It's a horse. Is it a horse? I thought it was a horse as well. Did you think it was a bull, Ben, or a horse? I think it's because if you see one of those big inflatable bucking broncos, they've made it look like a bull, but it's not a bull. It's a horse.

It's always a horse. When a bronco is a horse. Do they ever buck on a bull? Have I made that up? In real life. Horse, deer. What are you, an erodeo? Do they ever...

Yeah, they'll ride a bull. You can buck on anything as long as it's pissed off. Right. Don't ride any animal as long as it doesn't want to do it. As long as it's angry enough, yeah. Right. Lizards. Bucking gecko.

Bucking gecko. If you climbed onto me, Mike, I'd imagine I'd buck. Yeah? Yeah. Certainly after enough time, I'd buck. I mean... I think I could hold on, though. Joe, can you contain me?

I think so. I think you'd tire, eventually. I don't think I can handle it with Ben. Sitting after... I think Ben would have the will. Boundless energy. But with me, after a sort of 25-minute grapple, you would elegantly sort of get me cantering around the...

You'd be eating out the palm of my hand. Yeah. And the audience would stand and cheer as I... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a kind of a wonderful moment of man and beast kind of... And you nestled gently into my breast.

Yeah. And I... And then he would slowly push the sword into your neck. Did you do that? Mike... Slowly pushed the sword into my neck. My eyes glint as I look up into his eyes, his human eyes looking into my large... Also human eyes.

Bronco eyes. But Bronco... But with the spirit of the Bronco in them. Yeah, but with absolute trust. And I look at him and I go, yes, you are the master. And also there's a sense that I know that the wildness in me, that crazy horse wildness. Yeah. This is the only way I can truly be trained.

This is the only way it can be trained. As wild as a flamingo that's just had a gun being fired. Yeah. Picture that. Just thrashing about while... That level of wildness. Yeah. That can only really be...

It can only be controlled and tamed by Mike, but also once it's tamed, once it is controlled, what could that wildness achieve, that energy, that beauty that... Well, I never know. Yeah. And then I'd still be saying that. And as I'm saying that, Mike would spot... Wittering. I mean, even in your death row, even internally, wittering.

Still wittering. Still wittering. But Mike, just out of the corner as I, Mike would see one audience member just glancing at their watch. And at that point, he'd go, yeah, I've left this way too fucking long. Just a slam. And the... Well, it would be up through the throat, through my mouth, so you can...

And up through the top of my head, or would you... I think you just start putting loads in, like a pop-up pirate, you know, just... Just loads of loads. Yeah, from every angle. Well, you've got to read the crowd on this one. Yeah, read the crowd. Are they baying for it? Do they want me to make you look like a little porcupine?

Yeah. Or do they just want to move on to the mid-show band? Do they just want to move on to... They want to see Just Stone. Can we get on with it, please? Yeah. Well, the thing is, Mike, at this rodeo, after you've ridden Henry and then tenderly pushed a sword through his throat, I'm going to be riding a bucking O.J. Simpson's Ford Bronco.

Oh, that's a nice one. Where they've rigged up his white Ford Bronco from the chase, and they've made it buck, and I'm going to ride it. Oh, wow. Oh, that's lovely. That's the ultimate bucking Bronco. I mean, you can't follow that, can you? No.

Well, Just Stone is going to follow that. Yeah. She shouldn't. She will. She... I'm glad you said she, because I didn't know who Just Stone was. For some reason, I was picturing a pop star, and I was just in my mind that I didn't have much to go with.

I think I'd got the face of Macaulay Culkin. Why are you constructing yourself? And I constructed who I thought Just Stone was. I thought it was a pop star. The body of Paul Gascoigne. But the hands of Gary Barlow. The hands of Gary Barlow, and the whole lower body, just a sort of adapted Jetski. With the wardrobe of Shania Twain.

With the wardrobe of Shania Twain. And I pictured him riding out into the middle of the arena, which should be flooded at that point. Gladiator style. With blood. Hang on, did the Gladiators used to flood the arena? Yeah, they did flood it with... They did, yeah.

They did sea battles. No. Yeah. It's bloody impressive stuff. Those guys are great. They do little mock sea battles. So is Just Stone arriving mid-sea battle, or is the sea battle ended? She's arriving on a Galleon.

On a Vizygoth Galleon. It's been quite a night, isn't it? At this point, I've been cubed. I'm on a barbecue. Yeah. And kids are queuing up and stuff. And it's tough for Just because she's going to compete with people eating, which is not nice.

You know, as a performer, she'll be pissed off. Plus, I imagine your meat would give off a fairly sour smell. When griddled. Why is that? I don't know why. This is a bit... I'm finding offensive for some reason. This is the only bit of this macabre fantasy that's really...

So, it annoyed me. There's mutton, and then there's lamb, right? And then there's mutton that's on the turn. Okay. All I need is a slow cook, Mike. A slow cook. It's a rodeo barbecue. I'm going to have a slow cooking.

Yeah, you know you're right. A barbecue. Well, I'd say just a lot of hot salsa, then. Well, the kids aren't going to like that, though, are they? No, it's going to be stringy. It's going to be fatty. It's going to be gamey. Too spicy.

It's going to be too spicy. We promised the parents that there'd be food available for the kids. And now it's something that none of them can manage. At that point, Mike, your mind would surely have to start thinking about Ben, wouldn't it? You need to be aware that I've been raised shoulder high and carried out of the stadium by loving fans. You know, I'm nowhere near that barbecue. Ben's at the after party at this point.

Elton John. Yeah. Meeker. They're all there. Just Elton John and Meeker. Just the three of us. A bit awkward. A bit awkward, actually, yeah.

Again, Meeker. I've had to sort of put something together in my mind. I don't know who Meeker is. What if you construct it? It's got the face of Hallebell. The other face of Hallebelly. Right. Long, flowing red hair.

The neck of Judge Dredd. The neck of Judge Dredd. The arms of Judge Judy. And it sounds like a Dalek body, I think. Yeah, I wonder what Americans watch. Reruns of I Love Lucy, presumably. They have things they watch that we don't watch. Like, is it the Grinch Stole Christmas?

They always watch. It's a Christmas. It's some old, it's a cartoon. We've never watched that here. I don't think I'd even heard of the idea of the Grinch. No. To those in my 20s, probably. Yeah.

Are you aware of the £85 Grinch? No. No. So this year, this was on Twitter this year, where a woman was complaining because she'd paid a man £85 to come round and do a Grinch party with her son, her eight-year-old son.

And she said, I paid this man £85 and I came back to the house to find this. And obviously, I don't really know what the idea of the Grinch is. The idea is that he ruins Christmas. Yeah, he's a Scrooge-like figure in the sense that he's anti the spirit of Christmas. Didn't he steal presents and whatnot? Well, what this guy had done, essentially,

was just like... This guy had actually... This is excellent. I'm enjoying this. I'm sorry. In the sense you just poured a liter of water. We have to cut to a special sort of... We need to cut to a special sort of jingle or theme here to cover Ben pissing himself.

Put a bit of lift music. Yeah, we need a bit of lift music. Sorry, we'll rejoin you. Sorry. I'm imagining this story, whether it ends with some children being disappointed. It's interesting to learn what really gets Ben's funny bone, going like nothing else.

We're going to have to call off the podcast this week. Look, thanks for listening. Yeah, it's a 12-minute episode. We apologize for that. We hope to be back in touch. Oh, my God. So, it turns out this sort of thing that amuses me the most... In the world.

In the world. Yeah. Which is that she paid this man £85 and he came round and poured a liter of water in his shoe. Over his son. LAUGHTER Bloody hell. For £85?

85 quid is the steepest nib of that. 85. Oh, man. Oh, wow. He's getting own brand orange juice. The margins are spectacular there. I mean, is that with bits? If that's from Concentrate,

that is absolutely unacceptable. Oh, wow. She was livid. She paid him 85 quid for a Grinch party. He came round and poured orange juice over her son. Yeah, where are the loose things? I suppose... You've got to be careful what you hire, haven't you?

I mean, I'm trying to draw a... You're trying to find the moral? Draw a Christmas lesson from this. You've got to be... You've got to be careful where you pour orange juice. Careful. You've got to be careful what you pour over a child. There's a moral in there somewhere.

And if it isn't just pure goodwill, then you need to think twice. But zombies, it's like sci-fi as well with my... My mum just can't tolerate anything with a door that opens like that. Well, she can't go to boots. If it's not a revolving door, she's not interested. That's why all the doors in the Pack of Family Helm are all revolving doors, isn't it?

It's got to be revolving. It's got to be revolving. And a lot of the local thieves and robbers use the phrase, it's like there's a more revolving door on that, number 35, get down there. I don't know if she literally has one. Anything yet? Yes, you know what I mean?

She does struggle with it, but it's quite futuristic, isn't it, Boots? We've got strip lighting. Strip lighting. Cardless payments. Futuristic sort of green breakfast drinks. And in the background, just generally everywhere, just the ambition to make it the human being immortal. Which is quite a futuristic idea.

Well, it's all implied, isn't it? If you moisturise enough, your skin might never age. Eventually, some of that will moisturise the inside of you as well. It's quite utopian place, Boots, isn't it? It is quite spaceshipy. It's quite like welcome. Put these drops into your eyes and they will stay wet. We can print out photographs for you.

We also offer a meal deal. For those listening outside of the United Kingdom, Boots is the chemist. But it also sells sandwiches. It's a place where your average Brit, I would say shops in Boots about two or three times a day. No matter how little interest you have in Boots, you just keep on finding yourself back in Boots.

I mean, I just... It's like a sort of nightmare. It's like that film... Memento? It's like Memento. It's like Memento in my life. It's like, hang on, I'm in Boots again. How should I get it?

A minute ago I was doing a podcast, OK? I'd better buy some toothpaste and then leave Boots. OK, I better book myself for a yellow fever vaccine. OK, I'm going to go home now. That was weird. Hang on, I'm in Boots again. What the hell? I was just literally just left Boots because I'm in Boots.

She's asking if I've got a Boots reward card. I'm saying no again. She's saying that she's putting the points on the receipt and if I want to put them on my Boots card when I finally get one, I can cash in the receipt. But no one's ever done that. I need to get the hell out of here through those electric sliding doors and never come back.

Oh, thank God, I'm out in the fresh air and back in Boots again, I'm in the toothbrush section. Ranging bubble baths on the shelf. I'm working in Boots now. I never agreed to this. I think it needs to be pointed out that since this topic got announced, you've just been grinning like a fucking Labrador because this is just right up Mike Street.

And he's... Yeah, this is you, isn't it? You love this stuff. I love all this stuff. Mike loves Spice stuff, doesn't he? Especially the sort of Le Carré stuff. The sort of middle-aged provincial man Spice stuff. Yeah.

Your sort of slow bake. So what's the deal with the Le Carré books? I've never read one. Have you not? No. I've not read one. They're dead good. The main hero is George Smiley.

But he's a kind of... Am I right in saying, Mike, that you could literally touch a copy of one of those books without moving? Well, Mike, you're looking up at them. You've got a very high bookshelf. Thank you. Can you get it down for us? I'll get you down.

Hang on. I'll get you down. Mike is absolutely... Mike is... He's trying to contain it and hide it, but he's absolutely loving this. Hang on. So there's Tinker Tailor's Soldier Spice.

That's a classic. Smiley's People. A legacy... Can you get it down top for Metal Bin? He's got them in metalback. He loves Spice books so much, he gets them all in metalback. He's still talking gassy on about Spice.

A Defence of the Realm, the authorised history of I5 by Christopher Andrew. And then you've got... He's... So this is MI9, the escape and evasion units... Is that even a thing? MI9?

I mean, that's just... I could go on. But we'll get the idea. Mike, just to let you know, MI9 isn't real. But it was real. Was it? Yeah. It was real.

MI9. Because it's now MI5, MI6, right? But there used to be all sorts of M's around the place. Did someone tell you that you'd been recruited to MI9, Mike? They had to send their 800 pounds by check. They gave me this book that they'd sort of popped up in the back of their kitchen. And said it's for escape and evasion purposes.

And off you pop. So what did MI9 do? Escape and evasion in the Second World War. So they sort of escaped from what? Like prisoners of war. So if they were downed airmen, they'd train them before they went to... How to, you know,

evade capture. And if they were captured, they'd train them how to escape. And would it assist in that escape? I have to admit, I know it probably doesn't reflect on me very well, but I do like a deep bite, dive into all that sort of stuff.

Were you ever tempted to go that way in your life? No, it's just fictional. It's just flights of fancy. What do you think it's really like being a spy? Do you think it's one of those things which in real life is much more boring? I suspect it's probably either. Either you're like an intelligence officer,

in which case you need to be doing lots of analysis of lots of documents and information and you're in an office. And you've probably got to have the level of intellectual rigor that I don't possess. Or... Just kind of listening to like Russian AM radio. Yeah.

Or you are an actual spy, in which case you're a citizen in North Korea who's been turned by the South Koreans or whatever, and you're in constant threat of peril and it's terrifying and then you die. I imagine. I'd get really confused with how complicated it gets with like double agents, triple agents.

Are you saying that you never got the tap on the shoulder, Henry? I never got the tap on the shoulder. And I hung around bus stops for most of my... Most of my 20s. Because that's when it was supposed to happen. It was supposed to happen at bus stops, wasn't it? I think so in university towns. And someone with a briefcase would come up to you

and they'd open it up. And it would be a selection of facial hair. And you'd have to memorize it. And the next day someone else would come up to you and ask you if you can remember all the different facial hairs that you saw in the briefcase. And you'd have to go, red sideburns, go team.

Very, very bushy white eyebrows, nasal hair, lamb chop sideburns, pork chop sideburns, beef ragu sideburns, pork stir fry sideburns, eryxil-ray forehead hair. That one long hair that grows out of your nose for some reason.

When I was at school, I was... Okay, basically I wanted to be good at football. I was so bad at football, obviously I wasn't in the main team. I was then demoted into the B team. And then I was demoted out of the football system into six spare boys.

So there wasn't enough of us to create a full-size football team or even to play each other. So there were six of us and we were put in the corner of the fields while everyone else played proper football. But I actually wanted to play football. I wanted to be good.

And I thought, this could be the ultimate rags to riches American dream story. If I could get promoted from the six boys in the corner of the fields. Into the B team. Into the B team. But bear in mind, I'm outside of the football system.

There's no sponsorship. There's no coverage. There's no scouts. There's no scouts. There's no paper trail. It's literally chuck them the shit as ball we've got and just literally forget about them. Your challenge was to make enough noise, basically,

that someone noticed you. I had to make enough noise. And so what I tried to do was I tried to turn around these six kids. Because basically it was a bit like in the kingdom of the blind. I was a vaguely functional human. But these were the intense dweebs,

the underbelly dweebs. Yeah. A boy called Simon, who just like looking into the middle distance. All right. So they weren't renegade these guys. No. They weren't trying to like light up spliffs

in the corner of the playing field. No, no, no, no. Those guys would be playing football. This was computer club games. These were computer club. You know, we just wanted to have a little amble around and enjoy the air

and maybe discuss the enlightenment, that kind of thing. So they were from the 1500s? They were from the 1500s. All the big guys from the 1500s were there. Hamilton. Voltaire. Columbus.

Columbus. And George Washington. I was like, let's get these powdered wigs off and let's stop. Let's put those falcons away and start playing football. Yeah. Sure we could perigranate around the grounds all day.

Perambulate. I like that you've, I like the new verb to perigranate. That's good. Lovely. To amble with a perigran falcon on your wrist. Yeah. It's a wonderful way of taking the airs

in Geneva this winter. At this stage, I would like to issue an apology. You would have just heard that myself and Mike were slightly ribbing Henry there for saying perigranate. Sure we could perigranate around the grounds all day. I think we felt that he was meaning to say perambulate,

which he does correct to. Perambulate. And then we kind of have fun with the idea that he's made up a verb to perigranate, meaning to carry a falcon on your arm as you walk around. However, I've just checked the dictionary and perigranate is a word. It means to go for a walk.

And so Henry was correct. And really, I need to apologize to him. Hello? Hi Henry. Hi. So I'm editing this week's episode and there's a bit in it where you use the word perigranate to mean to wander around.

And then me and Mike slightly kind of take the piss out of you slightly or we think that you've made up the word to mean to walk around with a perigran falcon on your arm. Yeah, I remember that. So I've just looked it up and it turns out that perigranate really is a word that means to go for a walk.

What I would like to clear up is when you use that word, did you know that's what it meant? Or were you reflecting on the fact we were talking about falcons and then making up your own verb? You know what? I don't know where I got that word from, but it came up to somewhere inside me.

It's possible that I coined it live and it has already been pre- coined, I suppose. What? You coined it and it instantly went into the online dictionary. So that was the power of coined it, you know, in the modern age. So when me and Mike were kind of having a bit of a laugh

and saying, oh, you've made a proverb for walking around with a falcon on your arm. Yeah. Were you thinking these guys are twerps? No. I think what I was thinking, I think I'm a twerp.

I actually, I'm just looking at it now. It's very nice. No, but it is a word, because I totally bought into what you guys were saying. I was like, I was thinking like, do idiots tend to be new idiots?

Making up words, do idiots? What's wrong with you anyway? That's how I sort of start inside. So how do you feel now, now that I'm basically, I'm going to, I'm basically a podra, I think to use what I'm doing.

I feel I'm grateful that you've done this. I think it's it shows you're spending a great amount of money. It hasn't chosen to make this call. Yes. And I doubt well.

And I think it shows that you're, I mean, I appreciate it. I did feel like a bit of a wallet when I heard it. Okay. Well, I'm glad to hear that. Okay. Well, I'm, I'm glad to have like, I'm glad to have given you a bit of sucker

and some because I took a bit of a hit when it happened. It's like hitting a word component to those. Hmm. Actually, yeah, I feel vindicated and

it's like slightly boiled up by it. Great. Okay. I'm going to go back to my edit note. Bye. And I would try to get us to actually play properly. I was like, like, you're like, right.

You go in goal and we'll do three, we'll do three and in. I would try and sort of organize us. I was hoping that one of the teachers who was in charge of one of the games, literally quite far in the distance here would at one point just turn around and see me,

you know, nutmegging. George Washington. Not making George Washington and be like, we need that kid. But I did. So I never, but I did just cause I had a few friends in the main team.

I did once get on as a sub. Oh, and that was your chance, right? In a proper game. And that's the midpoint of the movie. I found it very hard to keep track of what was going on. There was a lot of big,

there was a lot of big boys running around. I knew two things. One was the boys could hurt me if I touched them. Yeah. The second thing was I had a very, very thin, I was totally beanpole. My body was, it was like Mikado sticks, like my limbs.

It was really, really thin and brittle. I very, very thin and brittle. On the buff Turkish masseur we see today. Exactly. And also the ball, I was also aware that the ball was very, very painful and I was actually quite afraid of the ball when it was kicked by anyone other than George Washington

or possibly Voltaire. So whenever the guy did a goal kick, I would do this thing where, because that means the ball goes really high in the air. So when it comes down, if you're going to win that ball with your head or your arm, not your arm, your leg. It was going to hurt a lot.

So what I'm trying, I mastered this technique, which was to look at the ball as it was sailing through the air from the goal kick and to sort of look as if I was both going for it, going to try and reach the ball, but at the same time, moving in the opposite direction from the ball.

Like an optical illusion. Great. Because I didn't, if you're anywhere near the ball, then you have to go and win it. So obviously you can't be seen running away from the ball in football. It's one of the no-knows.

So I would see- You would bring yourself into a mirage. So I would back away. Oh, is that Henry? Or is that a rabbit's face? Is that two old women looking at each other? Or a vase? Is that a Muehbius strip made of flash?

Yeah, people passing civilians who were just walking, you know, tuned from the shops or whatever, would say they'd seen a boy running on the spot. And then they saw two sombreros. Or was it some boobies? When was the last time either of you went to a museum?

Pretty COVID. No, I've been in the COVID era. Have you? You really? Well done, good for you. When I went on holiday to Estonia, I went to a submarine museum. That's been absolutely enormous.

Was that a submarine museum, or was that a submarine experience where an Estonian man just bundled you into a sort of coal cellar? And said, it was like this. You were pressed ganged as a submarine monkey for a period of nine months.

There's nothing like a romantic Ben Partridge planned holiday, is there? I'm envisaging a large room with a series of submarines and glass cases. But I'm assuming... It wasn't far from that. It was inside a former hangar

that formerly held planes that land on the surface of the sea. So it was an old seaplane hangar. Ben, you say that as if you've ever done anything on a holiday that wasn't in either a former hangar or an active current hangar. I mean...

It's pretty much hangars only, isn't it? Hangars of Eastern Europe. Great concrete hangars of Eastern Europe. The longer decommissioned, the better. Absolutely. This one had... I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Absolutely. This one had the biggest freestanding concrete dome of its kind. Which is a sort of thing

you can't really experience in a coffee table book full of pictures of concrete domes. You've got to go and see it. You've got to... Yeah. And to feel that sense of just how concrete they are.

Because, yeah, you can't replicate that in a photo, can you? Just the kind of... To touch it. To smell the concrete. The smell that... That sort of dead... That sort of dead smell you get,

isn't it, of concrete? Yeah. Well, it's just because it's a lot of sand, isn't it, mixed with a lot of paste, isn't it? I think it was good. But what went with paste? That's it. Sand reinforced paste.

Yeah. And what I love with concrete, and you'll see this in a lot of Ben's holiday photos, is that lovely lack of a grain running through it. You know? If you take the photograph close enough,

you don't know where anything is. You don't know where. You don't know where. How far away are you from it? There's no sense of knowing. Is it going up or down? Yeah, for how long does it go up or down? Four or deep?

And do any of these concepts even matter? All you get is that sense that probably, if you pull back far enough... It's a smooth dome. It's a smooth dome. So is the hanger underneath the dome, or is the dome separate? The dome is the hanger.

Oh, the dome is the hanger. Wow, that must feel good. That's what I said when I walked in. Oh my God, the dome is the hanger. The dome is the hanger. Oh, darling, this is so magical. The dome is the hanger. And obviously, you've had to...

By this point, you've had to work your faith through all the crowds of hawkers selling you little mini-kirik kings. Mini-gones. A layer of old marzipan domes. Little tobacco-smoking domes. Presumably, Ben, you've said, no, darling, we're not bang any of these things

because it's about experiencing the dome. It's about being in the moment. Because you're not one of these people, are you, Ben, that likes to stand in front of a hanger and just look at the whole thing through a camera. But you like to be in the moment and experience it, right? Well, that's it.

And at this point, as I said, I didn't know that the hanger was the dome. So I thought, well, darling, let's first look at the hanger and then move on to the largest concrete dome with its kind. But then the overwhelming feeling, when you walk in, you realise that the hanger is the dome.

Wow. I mean, my God. How does that even work? So does that mean there are larger non-creep? Non-creep. Does that mean there are larger non-creep being the opposite of concrete for all of our listeners?

Non-creep. Well, that's how Ben sees the world, isn't it? It's either concrete or just everything else is just non-creep, just whatever. A lovely old mahogany sort of, you know, dining table. It's just non-creep, isn't it? This is more of a non-creep.

Love. These things are all non-creep. Well, there are three things in my world. There's concrete, there's non-creep, and then there is creep, which is an island. Which is, again, another holiday option, which you generally, I imagine,

is shoe in favour of, what, Balkan countries? Balkan and Baltic. Balkan and Baltic. The two bowls. Balkan, Baltic, bowls out, holiday. Let's have a good time.

Let's run at a concrete dome as hard as we can and see if we can get to the top. It's an afternoon, isn't it? So, Ben, you must have been, because when you walked in there, you were a guy confident that you knew the difference between a hanger and a concrete dome, weren't you?

Yeah. And that's what travelling does, because it makes you see things from a new perspective. Doesn't it? So, within the dome, was an old submarine in the shape of a dome, within which was a smaller dome-shaped submarine.

In the shape of an American sandwich for our younger listeners. So, there was a whole submarine was in there. Whole submarine. There weren't many people there. It was just us, essentially. We walked in, it was just us. Me and my girlfriend and the massive submarine.

I'd have thought it'd be absolutely crammed with people from all around the world. That's strange. I'd have thought so. I thought it'd be wading through absolutely huge coach tours and cruise tours. You know the concrete dome, Ben? Just quickly.

I do want a picture of this. So, basically, first of all, it's hollowed out, right? It's not solid. I mean, it's a dome from both the outside. So, you're asking if you had to drill into the dome to find the musliest submarine within? That's the question.

So, it's a hollow dome. So, the whole thing's a dome. I've been picturing a rectangular hanger with a dome on top. The hanger is the dome, Henry. This is why you have to go to these places yourself. You're never going to be able to manage it, Henry, until you physically go there.

I've got it now. It's a dome. I would describe that as a dome-like hanger, made out of pure concrete. You've not been there, Henry. You didn't tell me what I would call the dome. Would you like me to share with you a photograph of the dome?

Yeah, go on. OK, I'm going to put this in the chat. There's a link in the chat. Oh. Oh, you're definitely inside a dome. How's that for a concrete dome? Oh, bloody hell. Can I say that's nowhere near as big

as I was imagining it. I mean, OK, largest concrete dome of its size, but isn't anything the largest size? You're the largest heavy packer of its size. Currently, at the moment, yeah. But it's not even the biggest shed of its kind. I mean, it depends how you measure it. Yeah, you could say it's the biggest cat of its kind.

I mean, you know, do you know what I mean? What do you mean? The biggest cat of its kind does mean the biggest cat of its kind. And that's the biggest concrete dome of its kind. Why can't they just say it's the biggest concrete dome? Because there are different kinds of concrete domes. Oh, ones that hang as one which aren't, I suppose.

Well, it's unsupported by... There's something about it. OK. It's about as well-organised looking as my loft, in terms of, like, it's just sort of stuff. There's just loads of stuff piled up. It looks like a sort of storage. Have you got a diesel-powered submarine in your attic?

Oh. Oh, shit. Sorry, I'm just in the middle of a terrible banana. Look at that. Look what's happened. Look. I'm trying to peel a banana and that's happened. Oh, you've gone in hard...

It's a very green banana, isn't it? You always... It was always going to be problematic. It was always going to be problematic. It was always going to be problematic. It was always going to be problematic. But it's been in the... Older's brass trying to peel that.

It's been in the fruit bar for weeks. It's just not ripening. Oh, my God. That is... A 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 truce. No, 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 selfishness. This, this is the banana. The banana of humanity. And then someone pipes 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 left it in the shed. Also, to be honest, 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. Well, we're only eating bananas from now on anyway in different forms, so... We're just going to mash it. You'll need to put some actual decent bananas in that smoothie, though, as well, of course.

Yeah, well, that's what it'll really need. That's purely acting as a roughage pellet, I would say. Yeah, well... You're going to have searing abdominal pain in about 20 minutes time, I reckon, once you've eaten that. That's just a tracked talk. Is this not a good roughage for me, though, Mike, even though it's joyless? Will that not be good for my roughage?

Yeah, yeah. So, if that was you, would you plow on through that? Oh, I'd be able to handle that like a dream, but, I mean, I... I mean, just based on the sort of snacks you've been busting out lately, I mean, they tend to be more at the sort of Schneider's end, so I just wonder if your system is ready to handle such an unripe banana.

I think I might have to... I'm going to try it. Listen to that. Did you hear that? Listen to the sound of this banana in my mouth. Oh. That's absolutely foul. Oh, incidentally, I've been conducting...

When I've been editing these, I've been conducting an audit of the amount of eating noises that I've been... Yeah. Editing out from the HP, Mike. I'll come off it. What are you talking about? I knew it increased during the episode, but 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... Actually, most of the time, you were also talking with your mouth full, 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. It's on a continue, isn't it? Because there's a fine balance between sort of horrific mouth noise, but then, if Henry 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 them. Yeah, exactly. So there'll be the nasal cavity, there'll be the ear passages, the back of the throat passages. 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, do you know what I mean? You can occasionally hear a little tiny minotaur growling from the inside as well. Yeah, I'm aware of him. He's proving very hard to coax out. Do you sometimes get him with the lateral flow test? Sometimes. Sometimes he makes him angry.

And then we go, oh, he's steady, hold on, mate. Because often he'll be hanging around around the back of the hanging down bit in between the tonsils. I can wheel around there. So if you know a tiny Greek man... A microthesis. What I'm looking for is a microthesis. 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 in the nasal part of the lateral flow test. I could stick him on the end of the bit for that, shove him in, as long as he doesn't mind getting rotated on the spot ten times. Is that 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 ten times up against a sort of wet wall. I do picture up my nose of sort of caverns and caves and passages and stuff. I don't know if it is. Is it like that, Mike? For yours? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, this isn't for me. Yeah. Dripping ceilings. A series of dank grossos. Full of weird, featureless, oily creatures. As featureless, oily creatures that scurry and... From the olden times. From the olden 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 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? In a special room. It smells... I'm not joking. This banana smells exactly like...

Wait, 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. OK, let's see your bananas. I'm getting fresh grass. I'm getting a cucumber. I'm getting a hint of marjoram. Is that marjoram? Peaty, a little peaty. There's a bit of peat in there.

A 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 hands. The question is, 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 just away from me. Stop filming. Get that banana away from me. I'm cancelling the series. Oh, my God. A banana should never sound like a vole has just cracked one of its ribs.

Do you understand? I'll 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 arse again. Because everything would fly out. It would be such an efficient system.

If my intestines, upper and lower, could deal with this, that would be the equivalent of doing a boot camp for a month, do 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 when they're selling all their stuff and it's all out on the pavement. That, but with my organs. And there'll be people walking by going, you know... Henry's having a garden set.

Oh, no, oh God. Henry's having a kind of garden sale. That'd be the 999 core for my wife to the hospital. How much for this lymph node, Henry? Alright, you can just take that. That's fine. Are these Old World One? Are these Old World...

Are these Old World... Ah! Are these Old World... Are these Old World... The banana has begun, it's damaged. I can't speak! Are these Old World War One, kidneys? Jesus Christ!

Shall I try another bite? Ah, fuck hell! There's one more thing, isn't there, Ben? The theme tune? Yes, please. Choral rendition. Nice. In the style of Brian May.

Wow. Granula Whales song. Guitar. Piano centric electronic version written in sub-tuplets. Spaghetti Western. Modern jazz. Violin. And jazzy wine bar version.

Man, we are a sport of a choice. I feel like I chose the last one. And also the agony of choice is too much for me. I'm quite interested in Brian May because I want to know, is it guitarist Brian May or astronomy Brian May that we're going to get? Or astronomy Brian Cox. Or astronomy Brian Cox. Or succession Brian Cox.

I guess from Nick Gill, he writes, Dearest Beans, I've made you a theme tune in the guitar choir style of Brian May, circa 1977. Okay, sounds good. To be honest, I think I'm relying on Mike to be enthused by the idea. But you may enjoy some ludicrous pomposity. Keep it beany, Nick. Oh, Nick, thank you.

Thanks, Nick. The ray for Nick. And thanks all for listening. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.