Three Bean Salad - Bicycles

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Hazel presumably of Bremen steers the beans towards the topic of bicycles and they absolutely chat the hind legs off it. Tonic wine, castanets and Noel Gallagher all find a place, Ben is slighted, Mike discovers new sopping kin, and Henry is taunted by a toddler.Get in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpod

Did you see that? Dan Snow? Oh, yeah. He's gone deep sea. He's gone deep sea. And they've found the boat that the endeavor I know the endurance Shackleton. Yeah, the Shackleton was on and that obviously got crushed in the ice. And I that blew my mind. It's quite cool, isn't it? And there was a squid, by the way, didn't this has been picked up on but I saw in the in the pictures. So not a squid, a jellyfish. There's a jellyfish knocking around near the back of it. I spotted him on the photos that nobody's talking about. No one's mentioning it. But it just feels like should be flagged. It's amazing, isn't it? How if you just take a photo of something underwater? It always gets photo bombed by

jellyfish. It's like there's always like a jellyfish there as if to say, yeah, it really is underwater. Don't worry. There's a bloody jellyfish. There's nothing. There's no equivalent on earth or over on ground. Is there? There's not like everywhere. There is what everywhere you go. There's a pigeon next to it or something. There's a small brown bird somewhere. That's true. They're all quite often be one. I think they are the small brown birds of the sea. Jellyfish. They just sort of just everywhere. Pretty cool, though. Frozen in time. And then what I thought was funny was that everyone was all those sort of commentators and people involved were saying, what's amazing about it is it looks like it sank yesterday.

It looks absolutely pristine. And I thought, no, it doesn't. Yeah, that's what I thought. Valgy and clearly been there. It's got an algae. Also, it's a complete mess on board. Everything's knocked over and like, it's an absolute mess. It's quite spooky about a record. And I find it quite spooky looking at those pictures. Is it because it looks like it could have, could have sunk yesterday? No, it's because it looked like it sunk absolutely ages ago. And it's in such a state because it looks like a howling ghoul is going to emerge from it. Exactly. Exactly. And I don't know if I can remember if we discuss this when we talked about Titanic, but the sandwich freaks me out about the idea of the inside of a wreck.

It's the idea of a shark going down corridors and like going into a room like turning left. Being able to operate doorknobs. Yeah, exactly. It's the idea that, that like, those beasts of the sea are sort of knocking about going up and down corridors in and out of bedrooms, you know. Just waiting for Henry Packett to turn up. Exactly. In some school. Exactly. Going to various restaurants. Checking out the on-board restaurants. Down to the entertainment lounge. Sitting at the captain's table. Oh, there's a review on it. Plain coit on the deck. Complaining about some of the other fish on board that are sort of ruining the atmosphere. Didn't think it was that kind of wreck. Next year we're going for the Titanic,

darling. Honestly, it's worth the extra effort. Have you been on a cruise, either of you? No. It fills me with dread, I think, the whole experience. Yeah. But, you know, we're not really the cruising age yet. No. I know one comedian who I won't name, who was offered, I think, a six-month job on a cruise ship that he didn't take, where it was made clear that you need to be in the same show you need to do. It needs to be a family show in the early evening and a blue show late at night. And he had the sense to realise that he would lose his marbles. I want it to be as blue as the sea. Look out there, son. Look at that sea. I want fish to be trying to get into the room, because it's fat blue. Yeah. It's really hard,

that gig, I think, Ferris, because I think it's like, yeah, it's 45 minutes. Clean as a whistle. That's the two o'clock set. And the audience will be eating chicken madras, okay? So that's two o'clock. That's 45 minutes. Clean as a whistle, completely non-blue. Yeah. White as white. Yeah. Chicken madras that was prepared six weeks ago in Portsmouth. And I know we're actually now in the Indian Ocean, and it feels like we've had to jump. But that's just the way the cruise industry is structured, okay? I can't do anything about that. I know you can see people eating much nicer curry out the window. And I know that will affect audience morale, but there's nothing we can do about it, all right?

Don't look at Sri Lanka. Look at me. Don't look at Sri Lanka. Look at me. Oh, God. I don't know why we've made everyone who works on this cruise ship northern. Now, in an emergency situation, you keep doing the material until you know for a fact that over half of the audience are dead. It's the cruise code. You keep going. If you find yourself submerged underwater, you can do them. We believe that an active fuel caliber should be able to do two and a half minutes of material without breathing in. Because they talk on the Titanic, they talk about how the band didn't stop playing. But also what they don't say is that the blue comedian kept throwing out those blue zingers.

He kept throwing out blue zingers. When he thought he was getting heckled, he couldn't tell the difference between screaming and heckling. He was absolutely putting everyone down. They were just screaming for the life. But then I think the evening gig then, I think it's why it's so hard. Then the evening gig, at 11.30pm, the audience was just eating a prawn madras. It's madras week. We did catch the prawns from the Indian Ocean. They were then transported to Portsmouth frozen for 17 months and then defrosted and then put it in the madras. Don't look at the prawn. Look at me. Don't look at the prawns. Look at me. Think of it as the prawns going home. And some of them might not actually be prawns. They might be bloated shrimp. But

that's partly why you're here is to distract the audience from that with a 45-minute entirely blue set. It has to be completely blue. Everything has to be blue. Blue set-ups, blue points, lines, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue. Get on to the let go. It's got to be blue, blue, blue, blue. I want it to be so disgusting that you're glad we're in international waters. I can't remember who I spoke to. I spoke to someone who's done cruises as a comedian. And they said the key problem is they got there and there was another old entertainer there who has kind of done it for 40 years. And the old entertainer said, what you've got to realise is you know, yeah, you're doing the clean show at two in the blue show at eight for 45 minutes

of time. So you're contracted to work for an hour and a half every day. But you're working every moment of this because every time someone sees you in the corridor, you've got to be on. And basically he was like, it's a living nightmare because you are a comedian. You have to be a comedian all the time because you go to lunch and dinner with everyone else because you're on this clown with a gesture. There's nowhere to go. So you just have to be, you can't be like this grumpy bastard who's like shoveling prawn madrasin and then do a show because everyone thinks, oh, I met him earlier and he's the right misery guts. So you basically have to be like, you've got to be Oscar wilding your way across the deck. It's like a nightmare.

Because obviously you'll want to just be in the corner shoveling your madras down as quickly as possible and just buried in aggression with it. Get back to your birth, get your nose in that aggression. So I think they hide away, don't they? I think that's what they do. They essentially behave. Yeah, they do stay in their room. They essentially behave like a stowaway, don't they? You're in a tiny room with, my understanding of seafaring is with a round window, is that right? A small round window? Absolutely. Always a round window. Which we're initially used a porthole. Yeah, initially used for cannons. And then when peace descended on our oceans, they were glossed over, don't they?

I'd love to watch two cruise ships going side to side and then just pummeling each other with cannon fire. What an incredible sight that would be. Smashing the flumes to pieces on the upper decks or with blue material. Just smashing each other with blue material. I remember talking to someone who went on one of these things and I think what happens is you gradually, but for some reason, I don't know who it is, but the demographic of people that go on these cruise ships are incredibly easy to offend around lunchtime. So that early gig, if you put half a foot wrong into anything approaching blue, you will just get people just complain and get furious with you. So I think by the end, I think almost everyone on the ship wants to punch you for one reason or

another. And if you're not blue enough at night, people hate you. And I think because people go a bit crazy, don't they, when they're on a ship? I think you become a lightning rod for all the anxiety that everyone's feeling about the fact that they're trapped on. It's also insanely expensive, isn't it? So for most people, it's the holiday of a bloody lifetime. It's got to be right. It's got to be brilliant. Also, it's probably insanely expensive, but also it's very much that thing of it's one fee and then everything's free. So once you're on it, you've got everything. You make me laugh now. If that wasn't blue enough, make it blue and now.

More prawns. I want a prawn on a prawn. Prawn sandwich prawns. Give me more prawns. Like you just want total, yeah, it's total payoff for your year of... The prawns are free, Margaret. Stop talking about prawns and start eating prawns. Why are you eating one prawn at once for Christ's sake? Lodge that crab in your mouth upwards, yeah. Then I can lob the prawns in. Ring the crab bell. Do you think that the cruise ship then has a gigantic mess at the back with trawling more prawns? It's got to keep on coming.

Petual motion machine of eating and catching more prawns. That's not enough. They're getting airlifted in at the same time on the helipad. That's why all the ship toilets are all at the back because people are violently defecating prawn madras pose. They're just attract talk. That's helping. All that's being fed straight into the water. That's attracting the prawns. The whole thing is self-fulfilling. You're essentially shitting chum.

You're shitting chum. Prawns eating that and you're eating that very same prawn possibly before you even finish the dump. Your wife, your husband or wife is chugging more madras over there with the top of the door of the toilet. Squat it over the bog, launching into a prawn cocktail at the moment of defecation. You've got to make it worthwhile. You've got to make it worthwhile. You've worked all year for this. Okay, time to turn on the bean machine. So this week's theme sent in by Hazel from Bremen. Thank you, Hazel. Thanks, Hazel.

And tip our hat to the old mayor of Bremen there. Of course, who is a donkey? It does sound like a thing that would happen in a German fairytale, doesn't it, that the mayor of Bremen would be a donkey for a year and a day. And when that donkey was kissed by a frog, lo and behold, it wasn't a donkey at all. It was a tourist information centre. Welcome to Bremen, land of stories. So today's topic sent in by Hazel from Bremen is bicycles. Good topic, Hazel. Good topic, great nut. Bicycle nut. Oh, Hazel nut.

We have touched on bicycles in the past, haven't we? Well, we've talked about a scenario in which Isaac Jesse Plemons or his brother Jason Plemons is changing the tyre on a bicycle as a zombie approaches. Is that what we were talking about? That's true. We've also discussed the phenomenon of the middle-aged spandex-wearing man with his clackety shoes. You won't admit this, but who you envy. Who I envy and will eventually become. If they will reply to your emails, which they're still not doing. In the meantime, I publicly abhor them because, Mike, you've got some options, right? In your situation. Go on.

It's time for Provincial Dad Chat. Who's hid my bloody walking boots? I'm not saying it's ruined the holiday. I'm just saying I asked for rum raisin. It just skates on kids, otherwise we'll miss the inflatable session. She's taking her mother-to-sea blood brothers, which means more top gear time for me. Why would I need to go and see a podiatrist? Of course, I've kept the warranty information, darling. As a Provincial Dad in the extra area, you've got a couple of options, hobbies-wise.

Ukulele orchestra. Yes. Yeah. Says that. Cycling through Dartmoor weighing spandex. Battle reenactments. And battle reenactments. There's also the surf scene. Yeah, I think I'm in the wrong bit of Devon for that.

Are you ready? Yeah, I think ideally you've got to be in North Devon. You need the breakers. You need the big winds. I mean, there are some surfers knocking about, sure. I mean, I even know one Provincial Middle Age dad who has made his own surfboard. That really got Tunk's wagging locally. Talk of the town. What you'll get more of here, you'll get people who will leave a canoe on the top of their car to signal to everyone that they own a canoe.

Sometimes you get people leaving a car on top of a canoe to show them they're in a car. Those guys are rank amateurs and they get towed very, very quickly because you can't get a parking permit for a canoe. Not for love nor money, not in this neck of the woods. So is a canoe a bit of a kind of... Does it come with a certain amount of social cash, where you live? I think that's what the people who leave canoes on their cars think. I don't think they're right.

There's a lot of south Devon and mid Devon. You'll be more likely to come across your amateur paddle boulder. So I've never ridden to said paddle boarding because I've only ever seen them from afar. Well, afar is what happens basically. So they go out in the sea and they get washed out afar and then have to be rescued by the RNLI. That's the day out. They always seem to be going very slowly.

Yeah, like it's bloody hard work. I've tried it. Yeah. It seems quite low octane. Is that the idea? It's low octane enough that people will occasionally put their dog on their paddle board. So in terms of adventure sports, if you can put a dog in it, then it's probably not too intense.

Hang on. You can put a dog in a luge. You're not supposed to put a dog in a luge though, are you? Yeah, I think I've got the same thing as you, Mike. I think none of the three of us have yet embraced the hobbydom. You know what I mean? I have a slight envy of people with hobbies. Me too.

Me too. Big time. I also on some level distrust them and resent them. And I don't want to be that person. But I think it's about stages of life, isn't it? Because I remember there was a point when in my 20s, when if I saw someone running just jogging, I thought that was crazy. What are you doing?

Sports shoes on and you're trying to move at a high velocity on your legs. What there? As you're trying to eat through your latest hangover. Spewing forth in the back alley somewhere. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Stay cool, man. Downing Pepto-Bismol.

To keep my out of control stomach acid at bay. I've never understood what Pepto-Bismol is. Is it a kind of tonic wine? I think it's just a sort of, it's just a thick, gloopy alkaline. Yeah, it's alkaline as hell. So I get it mixed up with sanatogenic tonic wine. Sanatogenic, don't they make vitamins for, for ancients? I've got no idea.

I think it's something that used to give children in the 50s, if they were okay. Is that sort of fizzy medicinal wine, is it? I think so. I've seen it in the chemist, but it's called wine. So it's, I've always wondered about it. It just smacks of bogus, doesn't it? I think as soon as you're putting wine on something medicinal,

it's just a way of sadly signaling to the consumer, this could be bollocks, by the way. Old Bosniax medicinal wine. But most, but most medicines were at some point like an alcoholic drink made by monks, don't they? Yeah. A lot of things were. So you thought the people who had hobbies or were jogging were losers.

But now, now you crave painting tiny led military figures. Is that it? It's the thing of, the thing that's difficult is, because I want to do that. Yeah. I would love to paint tiny military figures. And actually a friend of my brothers does paint tiny military figures. So, you know, I could talk to him about it.

You've got to weigh in. I could get in it. I've got to weigh in to that world waiting for me. That is half the battle. It's who you know. I mean, half the battle is what you're painting. You didn't think you could just walk into a game's workshop? No.

No, you didn't just bulk by a block of lead and start chiseling away at it? Start whittling? No. Hi, Ben. It's Henry. Hi. Hi.

Hi. How's it going? Yeah, fine, thanks. Good. I'm just calling to say that, you know, I'm, I'm editing the podcast this week. And I've just come across a bit, as you remember, where we're talking about lead figurines and battle reenactments and stuff.

And there's a bit where we're talking about how, you know, it's probably, it's who you know or something to get into that world. And I mentioned it being like that's half the battle or something. It's who you know, half the battle. And then you say, well, that's something like, well, you know, painting figurines that is half the battle or something. Do you remember that? Yeah, I remember it.

I remember it not getting anything. I remember it feeling like you were talking about driving the edit. Well, the thing is, I didn't really notice it at the time. And I'm just listening back on the edit. I think it's actually like a, you know, a pretty decent joke. And I just, I felt a bit bad because I didn't, at the time I didn't clock it. I didn't, it just sort of bamboozled me.

I didn't really understand what you meant. I didn't get it, basically. I don't know, I plowed on and a mic, I think, did a kind of, well, listening back to it, it's a fairly feeble laugh, actually. And I just wanted to say sorry, really. And you're apologizing, like from you and Mike or just from you? No, Mike, I can't speak for Mike. I haven't discussed this with Mike.

It's possible that Mike did clock it and actually just didn't give it very much. You deserve quite a lot more. No, thanks, you know, you're a bigger man than Mike will ever be. Yeah, well, I think, yeah, I think that's, that, yeah, that feels, that feels like it's the case again, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. Well, all right. Well, yeah, thanks.

Thanks, I appreciate that. Yeah. All right, no worries. Bye. Bye. I want to do that. Yeah, I would love to paint tiny military figures. And actually a friend of my brother's does paint tiny military figures.

So, so, you know, I, I could, I could talk to him about, about it. I could, you've got to weigh in it. I've got to weigh in it. So that's well-weighting for me. That is half the battle, as you know. I mean, half the battle is what your pain takes. But I think what happens with me is I go, there's basically my inner, there's the inner part of me, you know,

that looks at the middle-aged men clickety-clacketing into a, into a, into a cafe, then clickety-clacketing outside and sitting there looking at maps together and drinking their coffees. You're talking about the cyclists, not the painters. The cyclists. It's not the clickety-clack of small enamel paint pots in their trousers. No, but there is clickety-clacketing of different kinds associated with most hobbies. Yeah. The clink of golf clubs.

The clink of golf clubs. The clack of fishing tackles. Squash rackets on the squash ladder. What I do is I look at them and I go, oh, you know, there's basically a judgment, or there's a voice to me, which goes, I don't want to be that bad. But what, what it's about, can I let go of that voice? Because if I start buying the clickety-clacketing shoes, or any of the clickety-clacketing things that we've discussed,

the clickety-clack of a pot of sex wax, bashing against your surfboard in the back of your car as you drive around the coast. Have you considered getting into Castanet? Or Castanets, you just go straight to the clickety-clack, you know. Just take your head on. But as that voice in me, can I quiet the voice? At what point does that, the voice, especially the voice of your younger self? So you feel like if you give into that voice, you're letting go of youth.

You're saying, I'm now in the autumn of my life. Exactly. And that's part, and essentially, and what you have to do is wait to a point where the clickety-clack is louder than your internal young voice. And that's, that's partly why it's important that there are clickety-clackety noises attached. Louder than the sound of Noel Gallagher screaming in your ears. Exactly. Who's still in the back of my head going,

down to Halfords or Millets or any of those associated shops. Henry. Yeah? Is what is Halfords? The sort of car maintenance and bikes. And bikes, yeah. Yeah. So, so, you know, at the moment I walk past Mountain Warehouse.

My peripheral vision is catching some of the deals. They do seem impressive, but I'm not walking. It's got a, it's got a, it's got a bit of a gravitational pull. It does. I get closer. I actually, you know, the other day, I actually, I walked in, I looked at some heat-proof manual coffee, you know, mug handheld coffee thermos, mini thermoses. I looked at them and I thought, what the hell are you doing, Henry?

Get out. Noel Gallagher was in the back again. Get the fuck out now. What are you doing? Hey, Nebworth. He's always loitering. Remember Neb? He's always loitering in the back of your head.

But the people who really enjoyed Nebworth were the ones who had a nice flask. That's true, actually. In a camping seat. I thought, I thought Nebworth, get the hell out. And I got out and I didn't, I didn't buy anything. But I do feel that, and I hear the clickety-clack of the middle-aged men with, you know, with their bikes. And I think, maybe it would be quite nice, me and an old school friend,

you know, exploring Normandy, looking at the musculature of my school friends' legs and buttocks as they pump up and down as we go up a hill. And think, he has, you know, his musculature in his buttocks and his calf muscles are meaty and they're- For his age. They're quite, they're meaty for his age. But I think, no, Henry, remember the song Champagne Supernova and what it means. And I'll go back to those lyrics and try once more to crack the code.

Try once more to crack the code. The code of your youth. The code of my youth. What did it mean? And yeah, so I don't, I still haven't done it, but it's got a lot, it's got a lot of allure, I think, hasn't it? The, the hobby world, because once you go in there, then actually, maybe it's quite nice to shut Neal Gallagher and Liam, both the Gallagher, to shut them up.

Wow. But I think what it is, Henry, is if you, if you took up your little in into the painting military figures world and you, you took that opportunity and you'd be taken through the back of a games workshop, through the curtain, through a little door, you get in there's a dingy room, all you can hear is the clickety-clack of little tiny paints brushes going into tiny little paint pots and your eyes are cussing themselves to the light and suddenly the figures become clearer to you and you would just, and you would look at the, in the faces of these people. Liam, no, is that you painting a trebuchet?

In the back of games workshop in Hammersmith. Henry, don't look at me. Don't tell the world now. I'm recreating the Battle of Naysby in figurines. Neal actually comes up with most of the ideas for how we structure the battles. I mainly just paint the little guy at the front holding the flag, but, but, you know, that charisma is important for leading a battle. I got involved in the Strava world.

Are you aware of this? I'm aware of Strava. You don't, you don't mean, you don't mean Strada, the Italian, the solid Italian pizza jack, pizza and Italian food jack. I think you shut down now, Strava. Oh, is it? Yeah, well, I haven't seen one for a while. Are you all right?

I used to be running Cardiff Bay, used to like it. Yeah, you're right. What is it? Nice big slams of ham on top of those pizzas. Speck. Great speck. Oh, speck. And, and Al Forno you could trust.

Yeah. And a little bit more. It didn't have the vibe of a chain. No, it was a little bit more metropolitan. It was a little bit more than a Peter Express, wasn't it? It was a little bit, a little bit more something. Date worthy. A little bit more date worthy.

Wood-fired oven. Solid square font. A son, it was a Sonserif square font, wasn't it? Strada. None of the twiddles of the Peter Express font, because Peter Express has as well our nouveau kind of vibe to it, I think. Whereas Strada was very much. It's not about the fonts, it's about the food.

So what is Strava, sorry? Strava is like a, it's like a social network. So imagine Facebook. But instead of people putting up photos of their children, they're posting times and maps of where they cycle. You can be constantly tracking someone and their speed and their pulse rate. Yeah. I mean, I've got to say, I do enjoy a little cycle.

Yeah. Which I've somewhere this poor, I'm not very good at it. And so I'm not that consistent. But I think it's the closest thing I have to a hobby. Okay. It's cycling. But I'm not very good at being a hobbyist, really. Because I fundamentally, my body would rather just sit still

and watch Married at First Sight Australia. Which sadly doesn't count as a hobby, does it? Well, because there's no clickety-clacketing, is there? There's no. There's no clickety-clacketing. You couldn't list it on a CV, a degree of share. And you can't buy special things for watching Married at First Sight Australia. I mean, apart from television.

There's no accessories. There's no hinge oil. No. There's no upgrading to semi-professional level. No. Because that's the thing about hobbies, isn't it? It's all, if I wanted to be really boring about this, it's all about creating things for people to buy to keep the economy going.

That's kind of all it is, really, isn't it? Everything's been turned into something you can buy. So. Well, exactly. And a bicycle has been designed for that purpose, isn't it? Because it's got inbuilt obsolescence. Obsolescence. That everything about a bicycle is falling apart.

As soon as you wheel it out of the showroom. Isn't it? Everything about a bicycle. That's what I remember about having, when I've had a few phases in my life when I've had bicycles. It's just the sense that this thing is decaying under your ass so quickly. The air's going out of the tires. Even quicker than your ass.

Which itself is decaying. Which itself is decaying. So the air's going out of the tires. The chain is slowly rusting. The chain is rusting and slackening. You definitely don't own the right oil to put on the chain at home. Or a place to do that. Without making a terrific mess.

Exactly. Exactly. And all of it is mirroring your own decay. So as your cheeks slacken, so does the gear chain. Your basket's already coming loose. One of the straps on the left. Can't keep anything heavier than a loaf of bread in it anymore. Yeah.

So black oil is flicking up into your face every time you use the right pedal. Which is only half a right pedal now. Because somehow half it broke off and you don't understand it. Gradually that decays down to this little metal nub. The light's cloud over. The mudguards start interfering with the wheel spokes. And one of the sponge bits on the handle becomes very slippy. So your right hand slips off every five minutes.

Meanwhile, your buttocks are just being slowly ground down, aren't they? The sort of ass pressure is exquisitely painful initially. And eventually your bum sort of calluses over so you don't notice it. But you know, the human body wasn't designed to bear all of its weight onto a small sort of... A small part of its ass. Exactly. Yeah, you're putting all of your weight on your perineum, is that a joke? Yeah.

There's very few hobbies in which that is the case. There's cycling. Yes. And donkey riding. Donkey riding. And there's that hobby where you climb up a church and sit on the spire. It's a half an hour, which they say is one of the most exhilarating ways to enjoy the British countryside.

I think it's called ass-tracking. That's right. As opposed to steeple-tracking. Of course, that word's also used in other countries. Ass-tracking is when you're stopped at some traffic lights and someone pulls out a gun and steals your ass. Yeah. And usually it'll just end up a scrap, won't it?

So, likewise, all three of us, I believe, at different times in our life, have owned the Foldy Brompton. Yes. The Brompton. I've still got mine, but I haven't used mine for a very long time. Stuck in the attic. But I got mine, I think, because you both had them. And I think I felt I needed one to...

Yeah. It's brilliant. I tell you what, it's brilliant until you're sort of going around the Hangalane Geriatry system or something. Oh, God. When you're in proper traffic. Yeah, that's exposing. Yeah.

It's such a peculiar sort of shape in terms of balance and stuff. It's two tiny wheels, quite a sort of long stem on the handlebar. Yeah, you don't feel terribly safe on it. Well, you always looked particularly absurd, I thought, because you've got a very long, broad back. Yes. So, you looked a bit like... What was Batfink's henchman?

Kato? Was it? Yeah, I know what you're saying. Somehow made your legs look even tinier. Yeah, it looked like a sort of cartoon. Didn't fit my body. I ape on a bicycle, is what it looked like. Yes, or I looked like a kind of cartoon sort of Dracula, about to pounce.

I was reared up at the back and swooping down with my arms. So it looked like I was probably sort of feasting on someone's neck a bit. But my feet pedaling away really hard. Which if you're driving, you have the impulse to swing into, you know, for the sake of your community rather than away from it. Yeah. Yeah, so it was perilous. Brompton was quite good, except when you got somewhere,

you had to fold it up. I got very quick and good at folding it up and unfolding it. That's something you'd get proud of. But when you get somewhere, you're then carrying around. Basically, what they make a big play of, I think, with Brompton, is how it's good British engineering. British parts. The thing just means it's heavy, doesn't it?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it's basically like a Spitfire. It's British, great British nuts and bolts, great British welding, great British shiny metal. You can smell the... You can smell the full English breakfast that was even by the mechanic when he made it.

Exactly. And the ideal way to have it is with a Brooks saddle. Yes. Again, it's another British, good, strong British... And it's the hardest leather. The Brooks, it literally, just looking at it makes your arse hers. Isn't the idea that you have to break it or it breaks you? Yeah, only one of you is coming out of this with an arse.

And it'll either be you or the Brooks saddle will be wearing your arse, and you'll be in A&E. Because isn't it meant to mold? Because I looked into buying one because I liked the idea of it. The British leather beneath my arse. And it's meant to, after something like a thousand hours, turn into the shape, the perfect shape of your arse. That's a lot of arse.

Yeah, it's a lot of arse hours. And of course, an arse, one hour, human hour, is equivalent to sort of 10 arse hours. Exactly, yeah. It's like breaking in British shoes, like old-fashioned British... There's something about British, old-fashioned British stuff, like British leather shoes. It's hard, it's heavy.

You have to break it hard. Start, start. Yeah, or cured or tempered in some way. And your poor innocent, soft little feet or little bottom has to go into this stretched sort of... It's been sort of burnished and boiled and varnished. And it's because it wants you to be properly British to put up or shut up.

And stiff upper lip. Yeah. Stiff lower butt. So when you arrive with your Brompton, you fold it up. And then you're just carrying a spitfire around. It's so heavy. It's a really... That's really quite... Quite convenient.

You've also got to be very careful of your surroundings. Yes. Because you can't... There's no glancing blow with a folded Brompton on a passing pedestrian or a glass door. That you're going through. No, absolutely. It's like being sort of shot with a bolt gun, isn't it?

It's just a glancing blow off a Brompton. It's so angular and hard and heavy. And yeah, it crunches into people's shins and stuff. Yeah, your own... Not thighs, your own shins. My shins took a lot of heavy metal smacking. Yeah, there's a lot of... Ah!

Ah! Oh! Ow! Ah! Yeah, I made that noise a lot when I was coming in and out of my home. When I was commuting every day on a Brompton, the other thing that happens a lot, I don't know if the listeners will know what it is if you're not British.

I can't imagine having them in America without... They don't. It's just a folding bike, basically, if you don't know. It's that very often you stop at some lights and a three-year-old would be walking past, normally with their parents, and they'd go, Mummy, look at that silly bike!

Yeah. And you just stand there and think, yeah, yeah, this three-year-old sort of gets it. Well, three-year-olds have a way of cutting through. I don't know, they have permission, don't they, to cut through it. And another thing which I get off three-year-olds, I've had this several times recently is,

so I was in a pub. With a three-year-old? Matching pint for pint. They're very bad at getting around it, aren't they? Yeah, I was in a pub, and I was with my wife, and I got a couple of pints, and I was coming back to our little table, and there was a couple on the left who had a three-year-old kid.

And the three-year-old kid pointed at me and went, where's your hair? And the parents, what happens when this happens is, the parents and any other adult in the vicinity just absolutely pisses themselves. So the parents are going, and pointy-ally. And you have to, obviously you can't,

obviously if an adult did that to me, we both know what I do. I've got a special position, I put my hands in. But essentially punch into your face, because I put the pointing finger and the mini-finger stay straight. I point into your face, hook, extract both your eyeballs, and then say, where are your eyes?

And then say, where are your eyes? Correct. So that's my front. But a three-year-old, you can't do that too. So what I then have to do is go, Well, your fingers are too widely spaced for a three-year-old. I've tried it, it simply doesn't work. It just glances off down the temples.

Yeah. Yeah, and then so what I have to do is laugh along. Oh, it's funny. Yeah, yeah. What a charming thing. What a charming little... Oh, from the mouths of babes. There's always one thing you have to put up with

as a bald man is children will. And I think what happens is, because obviously the adults do want to laugh at you. They want to laugh at you for being a bald man, and the kid gives them permission to. That's one of the most powerful instincts there is, isn't it? It's an evolutionary thing, isn't it? It's to protect the bloodline of the species.

Because when you have a kid, obviously you have to take them in for check-ups, don't you? So I think when they're two, you sort of sit them on the edge of a seat, and then you have to get the little hammer and hammer their knees to see if their ankles come up. And then they also show them a picture of Grant Mitchell from EastEnders.

Grant Mitchell, yeah. In the 90s, it was Moby to check what their response is. Yeah, and if they throw their head back and laugh, you've got to be neurologically fine. They don't need any further follow-up. And if they say something like, actually, hair isn't important, for example, having good facial structure,

and actually, frankly, personality, let's face it, it's more important than anything like that. Yeah, then you're sending them straight to Great Ormond Street. Then you need to look at them fast. The specialist unit. Yeah. And get them scanned top to top. You need to get them on,

probably want to get all their bloods out quick, and just check, check all the bloods, then get them straight back in. And replace it with black humor. But what happened was the other day, and what happened in the pub was, basically, I'm fine with it. It's just a kid.

I'm okay with how I look. It is funny, actually. The laughter just carried on a bit too long. Do you know what I mean? Like, the parents were really putting some elbow grease into the laughter, and they were sort of... Like, they'd never seen anything like that before. Exactly.

And they were celebrating their child for that, rather than in any way admonishing it. It was like really... The child's precocious way. Tricky wicket for your wife, that situation. Was a tricky wicket. Did she join in? Well, luckily, someone was eating charcuterie selection

on the next table. So, she was able to... To borrow some salamis. Borrow some salamis. And slap those onto my cranium. We've discussed that in the past. So, she was able to cover my cranium in hams and salamis. And...

And then you just scream at the child, look at me now. Yeah, look at me now. Who hasn't got hair now? Okay, time to read your emails. If you'd like to send us an email, the email address is threebeansaladpod.com. Let's start with this one from someone called Ben.

Very solid name. Hello, Beans. I couldn't help but stop everything I was doing to write this email after I heard that Mike had been marked with the stenching piss of a Tigris at Marwell Zoo. Thank you, Ben. We talked about that last time. Mike got pissed on by a tiger.

Yeah. He says, For I too have fallen foul of her weaponized bladder. Well, well, Ben brothers in piss. It's a lifelong bond. That's more intense than blood brothers, isn't it? It's Tigris brothers. That's an even better musical as well I've heard.

He writes, I was about eight years old at the time and much like any child was in pure bewilderment at such a fucking insane beast being mere meters away from me. That was until she was right in front of me and decided I was going to be her toilet, turning adjacent to the bench and lifting her tail, leaving little old me staring directly into her asshole.

This is so familiar. Only to get blasted with a stream of piss that was presumably going at Mach 5, right to the chin, knocking me to the ground, leaving me sodden. He'll be, it sounds like we've got exactly the same musk mother. He writes,

For years I've wondered if I was the only one. Mike's encounter has made me truly wonder, is this Tigris assembling the greatest territory a tiger has ever held? We're part of her diaspora. We're just going to take over. I mean, what I know for a fact, I know for a fact that Mike has been to New Zealand.

So that's a heck of a lot of co-territory, right? That's pretty big, isn't it? Oh, because everywhere Mike goes, a bit of the piss leeches off his face. A bit of the piss leeches off his face, isn't it? Yeah, even through the sort of, through the chem trails at the back of the plane. That's what chem trails are.

What chem trails are, yeah. They're all from that one Tigris in my world, exactly. He also writes, Also, now that I think about it, my beard is a mixture of black and ginger. So maybe it fucked with my DNA. Who knows? Best Ben.

Probably. I occasionally have the little, little red hair poking through the moustache as well. There we go. We've got another email from Gordon. Okay. He writes, Guys, I think we've really,

we've finally really cut through with something. This story is really cutting through. It's what the people want. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of a Mar-well tiger raising his tail and hosing my cousin Susan with a torrent of piss. Susan. Sister.

He's a sister. They're by bringing a family day out to a premature and frankly stinky end. Oh really? We just plowed on. It's interesting that you've all got this thing on. Do you think it's possible that one day you'll all receive a mysterious invitation

to a sort of old manor house on an island somewhere by a mysterious host? We'll just be guided there by scent. You'll be trying to look at what it is you've got in common. And then your host, The Tigress. The Tigress will walk in wearing a sort of ball gown. Do you think it would be a good idea, Mike,

for you to try and set up a meeting with these two people maybe in a car ferry and just sort of have a good Sunday lunch together? See what happens? It's the best suggestion on the table so far. Let's action it. Someone gets in touch called Provincial Mum. It's in reaction to the new Provincial Dad jingle.

Dear Beans, I now hear the Provincial Dad jingle playing loudly in my head whenever I see my husband. And no matter how tenderly he's caring for our newborn at the time, I'm reminded that he never does keep the warranty information. I write this in the expectation that you're prepared to financially compensate me for the inevitable strain on my marriage. Oh, thanks. Provincial Mum.

Of course, that's a standard part of the subscription package to this podcast. And once you're grouting, we'll be redone. Oil and water will be checked on whatever vehicles you wish, wherever you are in the world. Laura writes, Hi Beans, I've been listening to the episode about slippers and I noticed that Ben said the word heinous

but pronounced it like penis. I did a poll on my Instagram a while ago about this and the consensus was that the word heinous is actually pronounced like anus, aka heinous. Tell me Beans, is it penis or anus, penis or heinous? You say penis and I say heinous. Penis, heinous, heinous, heinous. I don't know.

I think I lean towards heinous. I bet heinous is right, but I think I lean towards heinous. We don't know. Some sort of expert, please. We refer to some sort of expert to respond. So our letter section is now becoming like a letter section in a newspaper where letters are just replying to other letters rather than to us.

It's getting increasingly hard, I think, for any new listeners to really understand what's happening. You really had to be in at the ground floor on this one, I think. I don't think we're going to pick up any new listeners. I think we're just going to slowly, as they sort of die and whittle them down. Get disinterested, we'll whittle them down. Because it's not like a soap opera, is it,

where they sort of refresh their stories so you can get in. It would be like if EastEnders was still referring back to the first episode, or something, doesn't it? Although we could soap opera and just sort of replace, sort of recast, you know, keep the names. It's not a bad idea. Also, because we haven't used the naming convention with numbers, have we, in the end?

We've gone back to not doing that, so that's going to make it particularly hard as well. Let's not open that wound, Henry. Let's not open that wound, sorry. It's very fresh still, sorry. And now it's time for Listener Bollocking of the Week. Accessing Listener Bollocking. Listener Bollocking of the Week.

Bollocking Loaded. Dear Beans, I have a light bollocking for Mike. From a fellow exeter doctor. I'm not. Well, you're not a doctor. No, but all right. Regarding some comments of his about brain cells. Okay.

In S4E1Dinosaur's episode at eight minutes, 31 seconds in, he asserts for the second time on three bean record that your brain cells don't reproduce. That again. Collie, well, this is the trouble, you know, this is what you do when you're a provincial dad, you pee yourself all the time. You've only got about two things to talk about.

That's not his problem. Okay. Was his problem that it was just nonsense? No doubt he's thinking of neurons, which generally can't reproduce. But he forgets that around 50% of the cells in the brain are supportive guillol cells. Glyol?

Glyol cells? Glyol cells. Glyol cells, which do have the capacity to divide and reproduce. Perhaps a pedantic point, but then in medicine, as in podcasting, the fine details are often important. All the best, Dr. Robert. Thank you, Dr. Robert. I would say this is not a fine details podcast.

It's big picture stuff, isn't it here? It's big picture stuff. I do accept you're bollocking, of course, as is only right. If this podcast was the Blair-Brown relationship, we're all Blair. It's big picture. It's charismatic. It wins the center ground.

It's bloodthirsty. It's bloodthirsty. It's got a lovely set of cards. And it is... I didn't think we could broadcast that. But none of us are brown. There's no detail. There's none of that.

If you want that hard factual slog, then go elsewhere for it. But we're the pizzazz. We walk into that labor conference, don't we? And we own it. There's an absolute buzz going around the room. But there is a vanguard. The old guard don't like us.

That's true. The old guard are suspicious. Well, hopefully that's clear. So I'll accept the bollocking. Bollocking accepted. It's time to pay the ferryman. Patreon, Patreon. Patreon.com

4 slash 3 bean salad. Thank you to everyone who signed up to our Patreon, of course. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. There are various tiers. You can access some of them, give you ad-free episodes, some of them give you bonus episodes.

If you join at the Sean Bean tier, the tops here, you get access to the Sean Bean Lunge, where you were last night, Mike. Yes. And there was a very lovely recital from the Sean Bean Lunge Chamber Orchestra. Of course there was. And you've done us a little report, haven't you? Here we go.

Leadership therefore moved to the second desk, but Paul Walton had used his violin case as a lunchbox and got yoghurt on the strings. Finally, Kierlau Aavea stepped in, but refused to play the solo as did the rest of the string section en masse. So Tony Steeper offered to give the delicate pastoral melody a crack on the kettle drums.

As the orchestra gathered itself at the opening bars, Joe hiccupped and swallowed his oboe. Daniel Connor had forgotten to bring his mum, so couldn't assemble his bassoon and instead filled the sections with dried peas and used them as maracas. Donna Wright realized she couldn't play the low notes

on her bass trombone without prodding Jenny Ogden's flute into Richard Williams' family harp, which fell over and cheese-wired Tom Doedline Jr. into so many slices he had to be put back together with Bo Resin. The Bo Resin used up. Craig Lemoine generated so much heat playing his cello, he set fire to his sheet music,

causing no noticeable change to the standard of his playing. The sprinklers were then set off, leading French hornist James Rayliff to produce the most rousingly regal sounding gargle since records began. Trumpeters Jason Ernest and Rebecca Rollinson, having very little to do until now, began making rude embouchures

at Michael Smith and Patrick S, who deployed their picolos to set a pack of wild dogs on them. Arthur Tattersall played the off-beat triangle perfectly, but did so over Zoom, leading it to be on-beat, causing Golden Bottomley to miss his cue, lose his faith in his clarinet playing, and simply start humming.

In an attempt to divert attention from the music itself, Joe Ashworth performed a stage dive, a world first at a Vaughan Williams recital. Inspired, Julie Hutchinson tried to smash up her Glockenspiel, but given the metal nature of her instrument, simply ended up playing it harder than usual. Sensing a cacophonic event horizon, Johnny Robbins dropped his cornglain began bowing,

while Dale and Nora Glazer, aware that things were overrunning and they might miss their train, started an encore before the main piece was finished to get it out of the way. Their upbeat rendition of I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts juxtaposing hauntingly with the Larker

sending Allegro Tranquilo. Musician of the match was Julian McCormack, last man standing, Luke Nichols. OK, let's work out whose version of our theme tune we're going to use to play us out. Henry. Can you choose, Ben? Oh, should I choose?

Yeah, I think so. Oh, yeah. I never get to choose. Never get to choose. Yeah, good point. Um, I'm actually going to pick one. I don't like to play favourites because I think all the theme tunes

we get sent in are brilliant. Yeah. But this one, I think, is slightly above and beyond. And I think it's taken a lot of time and so I'd like to use this one. So this is from Will. Yeah. Now, Will sent us one before.

That was very good. He says, Here I pitch to you the revival of the spaghetti Western genre. For a few beans more. Set deep in the wildest of wests, our story begins in a town overseeing the region's baked bean cannery.

Ben plays the old sheriff, eager not to upset the bean cart and keep the peace. Mike, the tinned bean magnate, whose love of cold hard cash is only surpassed by his adoration for the pinto. Yeah. And Henry, the city boy who got lost on a business trip

who finds himself stuck in town. I just can't get along with these people although their simple wisdom is winning me over. They face off against the thieving bandits, the butter bean boys. I've attached a theme tune. Hope you enjoy it. Spectacular.

So we'll play out with Will's spaghetti Western genre version of our theme tune. Thank you for that, Will. Thank you, Will. Brilliant. Thanks to everyone for listening. Thank you. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Come now, boys. This is just a simple bean town. Out here, kid, it's just man and bean. Excuse me, does this saloon do a latte? Look around, kid. I own every bean as far as the eye can see.

Is it going to leave my Brompton next to these horses? Saddle up your bean, kid. You're leaving town. So is the Wi-Fi, is it saloon guest? Sometimes I wish this town had never discovered those beans. Oh! According to Google Maps, this entire town is just one straight street. That can't be right, can it?