Three Bean Salad - Crisps

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

Lynsey of Bremen offers up crisps to get the beans juices flowing. As per there’s heavyweight chat with attention to detail so expect to hear about taxonomic rank, golden staircases (divine) and the worst possible situation from which to mount a revolution.Join our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansaladGet in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpod

Can I issue a warning is please. Yeah, I'm in a bad mood. Okay. Oh, because I have the in my case, let's say early middle-aged, or may I'm young, I'm young, still young young. Yeah. Look at your complexion. I have the young man's friend back pain. Oh, plague of such a young person. Young man's lumbago. Young man's lumbago. You know what they say? Perfect posture, constant burning pain. That's what they say, isn't it? That's what the young any I've honestly, I mean, I hardly ever do it these days. But if you do listen to any of the young music that's played, it's almost it's all about back pain, isn't it? Yeah. That's right. Whereas once you get to the sort of Paul Weller phase of your career, it's all kind of

calloused up and fossilized. So it can't experience any pain anymore. It's all no, it's just fully stiff. It's fully stiff. Nor can it move in any way. But it's a lot more comfortable. So my back pain this week is I'm blaming on Putin's illegal war in Ukraine. Have you been targeted by drones in the lower lumbar region? At the moment, it feels like I'd love that actually help, you know, just a quick barrage of artillery fire at my lower back might help free things up a bit. It's a classic cost of living crisis story, really, which is that, as I mentioned on the podcast before, my shower broke. This is months ago, but I haven't got around to fixing it or having anyone else fix it. You thought your your autumn rinse would see

you through to the new year. Yeah. So yeah, it's rinsed in the autumn. It's soap in the winter, isn't it? It's alternate seasons. Yeah. So you soap it up in the summer, you rinse it in the spring exfoliation is a site of a spring sloughing. The spring sloughing is incredible. And waving goodbyes. And it's all those, not just the usual micro microorganisms, but also some fairly sort of medium sized mammals, isn't it? They're living some megafauna. Yeah. Yeah, some serious megafauna and some friends you realize that you haven't seen in a while and wonder where they were. They've actually been books who haven't finished all kinds of stuff. They've actually been buried under some sort of some scabbing,

some flash scabbing. Well, you're mischaracterizing my level of hygiene, because as I said, I think way back when I've been having a bath every day, like an aristocrat. And and but I started thinking maybe these baths are costing quite a lot of money because of the cost of gas. Thank you, Putin. Yeah, that's the thing. So I thought I'll just have some I'll have like a small bath. I won't fill it up too much is what I was thinking. Just getting the frying pan. So. So basically, there was a kind of couple of inches of water in the bottom of the bath. But what I've come to realize is you have to have a certain amount into create a level of buoyancy. There was no buoyancy at all. So you would. So so you then trapped under the menace?

Because this is the people talk about drowning in two inches of water, don't they? That's how you do. It's not enough to float you above it, you end up just trapped just underneath it like like sort of cling film, just a very thin layer of water over it. Holding you down to prevent that you have to just pour a copious amounts of salt into it so you float on the top. That's right. You have to make it super saline, don't you? It's the only like the Dead Sea. That's the only safe way of doing it. The old Dead Sea solution. Well, that's the problem. I didn't I didn't make it sail enough. I did open a whole multi pack of salt vinegar crisps into it. It wasn't enough. And so yeah, there was no buoyancy within the

bath. So actually, what I've realized is all of my considerable heft was sort of just concentrated on the small of my back which was kind of because you know, I've got the posture of a kind of prawn like it's kind of, you know, like a slightly fetal position. King prawn, be fair to yourself. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You've also had it mentioned, but you also have the dead eyes of a prawn. So the two in combination is quite uncanny, isn't it? And the abdominal legs. Well, that's what I'm coming on to, Mike, because they started spraying everywhere. And also you cook incredibly quickly, don't you? You're always surprising how quick a prawn cooks. Just a sort of, if you just have a warm, a warm, a warm shower or just walk out on a mild day,

you'll end up cooking when you're within seconds. I know. And just chuck a bit of, it's so simple, a bit of chili flakes and a bit of garlic. You know, you don't have to do much. You don't have to do much. Yeah. It's delightfully simple. And soups on of lime. Soups on of lime. And you've got, you've got either, well, what I would call a convenient midweek dinner and what someone like Mike would call a special occasion for all friends and family and work colleagues. The single prawn. I can have my prawn carving in my stays, not Christmas. Christmas prawn. Just gather round and mire the prawn. It's mainly like visiting, you know,

Lenin's body, you process round it, don't you? You don't, you can't really touch it. No, it's aesthetic. You pay your respect. But we're recording this episode pretty Christmas, but it'll be going out after Christmas. So, just for sheer transparency, this is currently the 20th of December. Mike, have you yet bought your Christmas prawn or is it, you're hoping to knock some money off, get one the day before? You have to order the Christmas prawn months in advance. Oh, really? Because it's a long old journey for the trawlemann to go out.

Just to get the one. The deepest, deepest Baltic and get the, get the mega prawn, if they can, which is almost four inches long. That's right. And it's also, it's incredibly hard to catch because you picture trawlemann's net. It's giving you time to, have you picturing it? Got it. Yeah. Ben? I'm having a bit of trouble, actually, but I think so, yeah. Course wide bore. It's got, it's got some tails to tell. I tell you what, if Nets could speak, this one would have some tails. Ben, picture a football assistant, assistant coaches

net full of balls. Okay, yeah. But just imagine it's much, much bigger, more, more, more kelpy. It's got more, more, more sea, more sea damage to the weft, obviously. This is a football or on a football coach, who's based on an oil rig. A football coach turns fishermen. Ten, which is worse than, oh, 110 game keep. I've lost, I've lost, I think what's going on. I'm talking about the catching of my Christmas prawn.

Yeah. It's very hard to catch one prawn in a net, picture a net. Well, it's a very wasteful process because they try and pick out the right one. They catch, I think they catch on average about 13,000 prawns before they find the prawn. They're sending me a picture on WhatsApp every day for three months. Yeah, yeah. You've been dinging, haven't you, for the last month? Yeah. Constant dinging, yeah. It's relentless.

How do you think this one will carve? How much stuffing do you think this one will take? This one's eyes dead enough. Too dead. Imagine a prawn with really expressive eyes. Absolutely horrible. What are the eyes of a dog? Which are the eyes of a human? Because a dog, as we've discussed before, looks like a human trapped in a dog.

Does that because it's got exact human eyes. So then you'd be looking at... And a human looks like a human that's escaped from a dog. And gone into a monkey. Climbed into a shaved monkey and put clothes on, yeah. I've, you know, I've been told before, quite a few times, neither of you have ever mentioned this, which is nice, but I've actually been told that I've got the dead eyes of a shark.

Who by? Several people. By a GP? A GP used to be a football coach, he used to be a fisherman, yeah. You don't have the dead eyes of a shark. I do, actually. They're quite... When you start looking at them... No, no, they're dark, I think. They're bovine.

They don't have... Oh, thanks, Mike, stop it. They're not predatory. You've got the empathatic eyes of a cow, is what Mike's saying. Rather than the assassin's eyes of a prawn. The easily foxed, dull, glossy eyes of a grass-eating ungulate. It's a classic parlor game or sort of Christmas time chat, isn't it? With the family, grannies, grandparents,

just the time you get together and you discuss, what would it be like if you did swap the eyes of some of the main animals? What would they be like, isn't it? So we've all played that, haven't we? Unboxing day. Imagine a cow with a prawn's eyes, for example. An owl with the compounded eyes of a spider. That's busy, isn't it? Oh, that is busy.

Busy, busy bee. But, obviously, we could talk about that all day. What about a Chancellor of the Exchequer with the eyes of a fly? Well, I'll tell you what, that'd make a nice change from them having the... Oh, here we go. Here we go. Having the... He's got it yet, but he's going to get there.

He's working for it. I mean, it's changed from the usual Chancellor, who just normally doesn't have so much the eyes of a fly as the... He's got it, he's got it. The attitude to... He's got a way in. He's got a lot of... He's got a fiscal attitude to sitting on...

Rubbing their hands about standing on a turd. He's got to be sick on shit, but he's got to be sick on shit. He's not going to be going to have a window properly. I don't know. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Capow! Not so much the eyes of a fly, but the snout of a pig in the trough. That was there for you, Henry. Oh, I should have done that. I'll tell you what, it'd be nice to change the Chancellor that makes... Actually, he does eat dog shit for a while, rather than eating the hopes of this country in the future.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean... Yeah, I think so. Rub a snap of that. That's the number 10. I think good to go. Thank you for that.

Other satire podcasts are available. Now, Ben, you know your bath story? It's not a story, it's my life. Your sore but clean back. So, what struck me about it is, something I diswater myself I wouldn't talk about on this podcast, really something I've actually had to do a few weeks ago. Oh, my God.

And I feel in general that I often lower the... I sort of... It's me that... I feel like I'm often the source of quite lewd or... Henry, do you need me to ready the digestive tract drink? Ben. It does feel like that's coming, doesn't it? Don't pretend.

You have your finger hovering over that whenever I open my mouth. But basically, what you've created there, maybe unbeknownst to yourself, is a sitz bath. Ah, yes, the old sitz bath. Now, I think we have actually mentioned the sitz bath before on this podcast. I've mentioned the sitz bath. But I do think I still don't think I really know what it is. So, a sitz bath.

Does it just sit down in a bath for like very frail people? No, there isn't really a name for that, but that would be a sitz bath, I think. Right. This is a sitz bath, S-I-T-Z. Named after Dr. Sitz. Named after Dr. Sitz. It's a German...

It is a German idea, I think. I just have tried to talk, we are. And basically, I don't know if I want to talk about that. Maybe I shouldn't talk about that. Are you about to get into deep ass cleansing? It's not about cleansing. It's about... It's about...

It's kind of a soothing thing, isn't it? It's soothing. It's about relief. And basically... Soothe the angry anus. If you've got an angry bottom, you go in the sink called a sitz bath, where you get in a bath, and it has to be just two or three inches deep.

And something about the pressure points, and it just kind of relieves you. Yeah. So essentially, what I tried to do, Henry, was lie down and relax in a sitz bath. Yeah. What you're doing there is you're trying to lie down and relax in sort of traction or something.

You know what I mean? You're in a medical bath. You're not in a medical place, you know what I mean? That's trying to relax while getting defibrillated or something. Do you know what I mean? This is one relaxation point, which is your ass. Yeah, exactly. So your ass would have relaxed,

but you were trying to relax what your mind or your whole body, your life. What are your back and your mind closely linked, aren't they, when it comes to relaxation? Yeah. And wash your armpits at the same time? Yeah. Maybe it's a disaster. I know.

I'm sorry to hear it. Absolute disaster. I can say that the sitz bath, I was an absolute converse when I did it. I found it very relaxing, but I quite often had the urge to just fill it up all the way and make it into a bath. But I think if it's a bath, it's not a sitz bath anymore. I'm not sure if it works in terms of...

Your ass knows that you're not doing it especially for the ass. That's the problem. Exactly. It feels left out because it's... Yeah. And it's been very much front and centre, hasn't it, of the show up until that point and this show, which is why you're in that bath in the first place. Yeah.

And the ass does have the personality of a spoiled 13-year-old American high school girl. Doesn't it? That's known. I mean, that's medically known, isn't it? That's what those archetypes in American dramas are based on, in fact, aren't they? Exactly, yeah. But I did. I did what I did when I was sitting in the sitz bath.

I did have a moment where I thought, I'm super relaxed here. Partly it's because maybe it's because I'm actually taking some time for me and my ass. But I think that was part of it. If you carve that time aside for yourself, you feel quite special. There's something about the ceremony of putting the hot water in after three inches. There's a bit of ceremony to that, don't you mean? You turn the taps off.

Three inches have been reached. You lower the sitz flag to half-mast, which you get sent. You get a pack with a picture of Dr. Sitz's ass on it. You lower that to half-mast. You've warmed the ass towel in readiness. The ass towel is ready. Is it meant to be freezing cold, the sitz bath? No.

Or boiling hot? No, I tell you. It's one or the other, though, isn't it, I think? God, I dread to think, what are you pushing your ass through, Ben? It's not about extremes. It's about, no, it's about... The healing powers of tepid water. Yeah, it's about lukewarm.

I suppose you could say, if this podcast was a medical procedure, it would be the sitz bath. Or the anal cleansing baths of podcasts. Sitz bath for your ears. Is this sitz bath for your ears? Because when I was sitting in there, I felt really... I felt ultra calm. I felt really relaxed.

I started seeing things a bit more clearly. And I thought, I just felt if I could, if people could... I actually thought, if people could get together in this state while having sitz baths. If the UN General Assembly could be adapted to a series of 190-odd sitz baths. If people could just sit down with each other and talk. Because...

Come, sitz with me. And maybe... We are hearing that the two sides of the conflict are finally sitting down with one another. And we hope for resolution by the morning. And again, there could be ceremony, for example, one political leader could actually, and as a gesture of goodwill, Dr. Moritz.

I'm trying to invent political leaders, so we don't want to talk to it about any particular current political issue, do we? Dr. Moritz. So who's Dr. Moritz? Is he the Prussian viceroy? The Prussian viceroy, Dr. Moritz. Has actually filled up the sitz bath

and is measuring the three inches of tepid water on behalf of... The Austrian prince. Exactly, yeah. Doing it for each other. And there could be all kinds of ceremony attached to the flags and setting the temperature. He's pouring cloves in.

Oh, yeah. Adding some cloves if it's a Christmasy meeting, if it's a Christmasy conflict that needs resolving. There are aromas and flavours involved in the sitz experience. Well, I think there can be. I think you can start adding to it, probably. But I think when you're in that state, which is naked as the day you were born,

but also in that three inches of tepid... So it has to be tepid water. And essentially, your bottom, you're the 13-year-old very, very, very spoiled American high school girl that we all sit in. I don't like this thing of comparing your ass to a 13-year-old girl.

There's something about it that just feels a bit off. Okay, A. And there's nothing wrong with it, actually, when you think about it. It just feels wrong, doesn't it? Okay, a 45-year-old spoiled... 45-year-old British man. Spoilt British man.

Spoilt high school student. A 45-year-old British high school student. That doesn't feel right either. Held back for over 25 years. Well, it's a lovely idea. It's a lovely idea. But then, of course, the way things look like, it's like you think,

I'm going to start meditation. I'm going to start yoga. I'm going to... Yeah, the fact is, I've actually stopped doing the six baths, and I don't take the time for it. So... Oh, Henry.

Yeah. Do you know what I like from my bath at the moment is that I tend to have a bath about the same time every day. It's a bit late. It's normally post-midnight. Okay, yeah, before bed. I have a sort of night bath. Night bath.

And I'll turn on the radio, and it'll be after which time Radio 4 is turned over to the World Service. Hopefully, I've got enough to the fucking... What's it called? The Shipping Forecast. The Bloody Shipping Forecast. I just want to have a bath.

Not think about... Oi, come on. Oi, chill out. You're just angry because your and Mike's Tide Reading show hasn't taken off. So don't pretend it's not about anything other than that, Ben. Anyway, what I tend to listen to now, because of the time,

is the BBC World Service's Business Matters. World Business News. You get fresh insights to the Guatemalan Quetzal. It's really good. I feel plugged into the world of international finance in a way I never have before. Singapore. This is huge.

Mumbai. Washington. They sort of go everywhere. It's amazing. I like that stuff. You get that stuff when you're on holiday and there's BBC World News in the hotel room. There'll be a lot of international business briefings.

Is that what that show's called? It's called Business Matters, is the one I'm listening to. So that's Mike and Abarth, which is, you know, hard business news. Henry's the two inches of tepid ass walks. And Mike, I imagine. I'm imagining when Mike does Abarth,

you're talking candles. You're talking dark chocolate. So did you say hat? I thought you said handles. I thought he's all out. He's on my picture. Like, you know, handle to get in and holding himself up with handles.

Just handles and everything. I'm imagining handles. I'm imagining a team of nurses. I hoist some of those many piranhas to nibble off the calluses. And the whole thing is done by drip, so it's an internal bath. The bath itself is dry.

It's just... Yeah, it wouldn't be safe to do it externally. There's just one bag in the air and then another bag at the bottom. So it's a flow through. It flows through once. You can still... You can stick...

It's technically an irrigation rather than a bath. You can stick in one of those bath bombs, but that plays havoc with every single log and your body doesn't go down. Yeah, I'm all six and sevens if your bath bomb me for hours afterwards. It takes a lot to calm me down. But the fact is it's a convenient Christmas present

to ask people to get you, so you will acquire them and you will use them. I will have a go. It's too much to resist. No, Henry, I said candles. I was imagining a sort of... This might take you some time for himself. Candles, chocolates.

Mariah Carey on CD player. You know, he's chilling out. He deserves it. Benjamin, you know me well. You're describing my ideal bath. Unfortunately, our bath at home is quite... It's a bit short. How is it?

It's just not quite long enough to fit me in properly, so I end up having to sort of fill it quite deep. And there's quite a lot of... Do you have to go vertical? It's basically... There's a lot of agility is involved. And it's deeper than it is long. Bath-based aqua-robics and it's obscene.

Oh, you're kidding me. It's an obscene spectacle. And so I'm very rarely do it. It's exhausting and it's obscene. It would be such a challenge, in fact, isn't it not true that they use it to train people that do the digitizing, the pixelating? It'd be such a pixelate.

It'd be a pixelators nightmare. It's a real challenge to move fast and rapidly. He's so fast and rapid. There's so many obscene anchors. The pixels have got to move all up. And this thing's being reflected off. And you can never pass that exam. People do that exam.

You can't pass it. They technically fail, but if they've even managed to pixel one frame, then actually... It's... No one passes it. You're okay. It's Fermat's theorem. I mean, it's one of his theorems.

Isn't it? Fermat's last bath. It's an unsolvable. Yeah. Yeah. Also, some things that are still disgusting through pixels. That's true. That's right.

Yeah. You'd have to make the pixel so big, it'd be one big square of just a flash of white-colored flesh. It'd still be disgusting. One big pink square. And even then, you still need to put a foot through television. Oh, it's just too powerfully emetic. You'd never forget that.

Every time you blink, you'd see that big pink square for the rest of your life. People have tried to pixelate me live as well, which is that, Eric, I'm still... I'm having to spend my Saturdays at the moment in a sort of pixelation lab. By holding semi-transparent different gradations of pink perspex cubes in front of you.

That's right. That's so tough. That's what they're doing at the moment, but it's not that heavy. It really is. And I'm assuming, Mike, as well, more than 50% of the time, once you get in, Pam's jumping in there with you,

so you've got an active dog in the situation. She thinks I'm drowning and she comes. I'm covered in scratches. There's a lot of blood in the water, early doors. Yeah. Mix them with the bubbles. And they come out quite nice and frothy and pink initially, and then it really turns murky and it's ugly stuff.

Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Good girl, Pam. Good girl, Pam. Oh, Pam. Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam. OK, time to turn on the bean machine. This week's topic, as sent in, by Lindsay. Thank you, Lindsay.

From the North Sea Coast, town of Bremen, is crisps. Oh, come off it, mate. You don't want to do crisps? No, I'm up for crisps, yeah. Now, I think early doors, I'm aware we have some listeners in other parts of the world that don't call crisps crisps. Just need to deal with that. Early doors, get that out of the way.

You will refer to them as potato discs, I think. Fried potato discs. Starch parks. Starch parks. Crunchy sauces. Crunchy sauces. Crunchy sauces. Crispy charlies.

Salty fun wedges. King Edward's diaphragm. I'm, of course, referring to the fact that Americans, in general, called them chips, I think. You did a whole reincarnation episode on crisps, didn't you? Is this a point for a plug, or do you want to do that later? Well, but I can't do plug, you know, I'm not good at plugs. Well, I've been mean.

You're very good, but he's even taken his headphones off and everything. He's taken, he's starting to strangle the Japanese. I've tried to encourage Henry to do a bit of self-promotion, which he's very, very bad at, and he's got hot. No, that is true. He's taken off his earphones, he's taken off some of his clothes, and he's can't, maybe I'll do it for you then, Henry, I mean, if you can't handle it.

I've also just fragmented, I've just fragmented a piece of, a plastic component of something I found on the floor. I don't know what it is, but I've fragmented it. I've fragmented it. No, I'm fine. I'm sorry to put you through it, but I'll tell the listeners very quickly, and then you can, basically, Henry has made a very, very excellent radio sitcom called Reincarnation,

which you can listen to on BBC Sounds, and there's a new series that's out and about at the moment. Yeah, no. And you haven't plugged it because you're hopeless at self-promotion in a shape or form. That's true. But, and it's true that there is an episode that focuses on crisps, and it focuses on the phenomenon of holiday crisps,

which is the crisps that you come across on holiday. Yeah. Paprika. Which are, well, they have flavor types like paprika, which you never, which we don't get here in Britain. Well, you also get, there's also the kind of, in the similar thing, there's the crisps of the past, which I, you know, like the one I dream of is the one where you had your own little

salt packet within the, within the bag, and you had to open your salt packet and, what were they called? Salt and shake. Well, that's why ready salted is called ready salted, because those ones were, were not ready salted. They were not ready. They were self-salting.

What were they called? Salt and shake. Salt and shake. Salt and shake, yeah. And you could, you can still get them. Can you? Well, not down our way. Yeah.

Can you still get salt and shake? Yeah, for sure. It's the best. Is that because you, you can be your decision to choose to pour, pour all the salt in? Yeah, but I don't pour in the salt in. Do you actually not pour it all in? Why are you still getting?

Is that because Wales is still in the EU? Is that why you can still get? They're British Mike, because it's about choice and liberty, and your choice, whether to salt. Nobody in Brussels is telling you to salt your potatoes. It's your choice. It's within your own sovereignty of your own heart. And you don't have to fill in a heap of bloody forms, do you?

And get the approval of? Of Herman Van Rompuy. Of Herb and Van Rompuy and his corrupt sister, Susan Van Rompuy. I feel very nervous, unless I've got a chip from Susan Van Rompuy telling me that I'm allowed to. I know what you mean. Salt and cressps are not. You like to have a chitty, don't you?

I like to have a chitty. I need to, I like to know that the admin is there and that I'm supposed to be doing this, and that I've been, someone's green-lit it. You're one of the only people I know, Mike, that still uses the additional pink receipt underneath everything you do. There's a pink receipt underneath it, which you, isn't it?

Oh, yeah. And if I can get triplicate, if there's a big green one under that, then I'm all happy, boy. Because, of course, you've got to send one of everything to Susan Van Rompuy. So that's right. Everything has to get... You need three.

And yes, she's asked me to stop, but I feel like I've got a sense of direction. Exactly. And that's why it's CC-ing someone, isn't it? That stands because it's Susan Van Rompuy. Because she spells Susan with a C, yeah. The Susan copy. And she spells Van Rompuy with a C as well.

Exactly. And good luck getting her to change that spelling, because you're going to have to wade through a heap of bureaucratic forms that have actually been designed by Susan Van Rompuy to actually even address that issue. So dream on. I went on a holiday recently to Germany, and when we got to the airport, we had to go through...

Where was it? I guess it was when we landed. We had to go through possible control. And the new reality now, if you're British, is obviously you don't get to go in the EU queue. That's true. It's so annoying. You have to go in the rest of the world queue. You have to crawl through the Anglo-tube, don't you?

Exactly. That's right. The Anglo-tube of shame. Which is impossible to knock out of naked. It's so tight, isn't it? As you come out of it, you emerge like a worm, as naked as a worm. And you're being huffed by a Dutchman on the way out as well. They're legally allowed to huff you.

Yeah. On your way out. And then you just have to scurry straight into the sewers, and hope you can make it to your hotel through the undercity, doesn't it? It's humiliating. But it's fair. Anyway, because the flight was from Britain,

most people on the flights were British, and so there was a massive queue on the rest of the world. And it was taking ages to get through. The airport staff were getting a bit annoyed, and they were just shouting out, does anyone have an EU passport? And then my partner said, oh, we used to, or something like that,

because she was annoyed. Yeah. And she was annoyed at this stupid system we now have. This feels like this could be the story of, this could be the equivalent of the, you know, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand's story. It all just started. There were two holiday makers.

They were in a queue in Berlin airport. The staff started saying, has anyone got an EU passport? And then a famous podcaster's partner that we used to, and the domino effects of that. That was the spark in the powder cage. Are still being felt. And that's why I'm narrating this to you,

this whole story to you. From a bunker seven miles underground, beneath the ice. And wait, you're not actually a person. You're just a photograph of Susan Van Rompuy. You're all, I've got left in this world. You're stored in a Dropbox server somewhere. Because as soon as World War Three started,

Susan Van Rompuy initiated the Van Rompuy Protocols. She holographed herself. She holographed herself. She paid for the business Dropbox. 10 gigabytes. Which most people haven't got around to doing. So she was one step ahead of the game. No, exactly.

If you haven't done that, you can't get into the free Dropbox. And from then on, any email, any fax, any text, everything, it's just a picture of Susan Van Rompuy's face. And... A fictional woman that we've created. The CHL, yeah, frozen herself and fired herself into low orbit. She's waiting. She's waiting for the Van Rompuy era.

Which is what she's hoping this will end. Anyway, you're kind of right, Henry, because my girlfriend's saying this. It sort of released a lot of pent-up frustration from everyone around us. It also was annoyed that we no longer have any U-Passports. So it's quite a lot of just... Was it like, okay, we need to plan an insurrection right now.

All we've got is loads and loads of less than 100 millimeters of different liquids. But if we put them all together... And nothing sharp. So nothing is sharp. We're literally the worst possible position to improvise an interaction problem. Some people have also taken off their shoes,

or they don't really need to. They still think you have to. And everyone's got their belt off, so everyone's trousers and moments from falling down. All we've got is 50, or so, quite large, soft back... Grishams. Grishams.

We've got a lot of Grishams. That's all we've got. But we have all had breakfast three times in the last 12 hours. So we've pumped. A lot of us have been drinking 5AM pipes, so we're quite sort of... Yeah.

We're quite up for it. And I've just watched three quarters of the Lego movie. Ben, I did something... I've been wanting to mention to you, actually, Ben, is that you did go on holiday to Berlin recently. I did. And around about the same time... There was like an insurrection there.

There was an insurrection... There was, yeah. ...where some German people tried to put a... An aristocrat... A prince. Prince claiming ancient royal blood. European royal blood. Prince Bonderman, I think.

Prince Bonderman. I just want to remember from there. I just thought it felt like a little bit too much of a coincidence, potentially. But A, you were in Berlin. And B, as we've discussed before on the podcast, you have the exact demeanor, body, manners, tone of voice, everything.

Of someone from the Hockenzollern dynasty. Of the oldest central European houses. Exactly. That's what you have. You have old European aristocrat vibes. Yeah. Big time. And you have...

So, just wondering if you want anything to say about that. What I would say is, I don't like to dwell on things that didn't come off quite as I wanted them to. So, I look forward to my next trip to Germany. Maybe we'll try somewhere less heavily securitised than Berlin. I think it's great that you've got a easy come, easy go attitude to coups.

Given your proclivity to coups, it'll be very stressful for you if you're worried about outcomes. Please, Mike, give it its proper name. It was a putch. It was a tangent. Becky, pardon. Yeah.

Ben doesn't meddle around with anything as vulgar as a coat. He is for the full putch every time. He's ancient European aristocracy. His putch is all the way. It wasn't a bit weird that, because they... I think they basically just turned up with some guy who was very, very tenuously linked to the royal family. I don't think he was...

It wasn't Prince Harry level, was it? It was more like Princess Michael of Ken level. All stand for the king. We're entering the regal zone. Regal zone. Off with their heads. On with the show. Listen not to the whores and the shopkeepers.

Bring me more advisors. The regal zone. Regal zone. No, his relatives a hundred years ago were themselves quite tenuously linked to the royal house. To still call himself Prince is bold as brass, I think. The federal republic. Well, of course, if he was actually linked

to one of those ancient European houses, then of course, he would have rightfully taken his throne. Is that what you're implying? Well, God would have put his hand on the... Well, God would have created, as his foretold, a golden staircase that would have led him wherever he wanted it to go. But a shiny gold staircase would have emerged in front of him. Up or down.

Yeah, could go both up and down. Obviously, could go to a mezzanine if he wants it. Escalator technology has now overtaken some of the ancient aristocratic God-given rights. Essentially, it's an escalator by any other name, but it's gold, so it's quite hard to maneuver. Is that how you take the crown of Germany then? You just have to go up to the mezzanine.

That's where it is. That's why people keep missing out each time. They go too high or too low. It's on the mezzanine level. A lot of people don't realise that Germany has a mezzanine level, because when you're there, you don't see it. It does. There is actually a hole in the level you totally miss.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you pop up the mezzanine level, which you can reclaim the crown. Of the Holy Roman Empire. And at the same time, you can also pick up any shopping you need and have a lovely lunch with some friends. It's got a kind of food court, isn't it? Of course, it's a mezzanine, Ben.

It's got a food court. Yeah, it's got a food court. You can have some churros. Get some new sneakers as well there as well. You could buy some crisps. Yeah. But the music is just really, really loud, all the time.

Yeah, that wasn't me. I just want to make it clear that wasn't me. That wasn't you? No. And the fact that you're having to deny it... No, no, no. Mike and I aren't having to deny it. But the fact that you're having to deny it also doesn't mean that it

shouldn't make people think that maybe it was you. Well, that's the traditional thing. I mean, normally you can either confirm nor deny, but when you do deny it, it's actually... Yeah, normally it's a sign that... It's a tacit acknowledgement. And obviously, you would, if it was you, which I think we can... Between the lines, it was.

We're talking to our listeners here. But it's if it was you, you would deny it. You did deny it there. So again, that's more evidence than it was you, column, isn't it? And the fact that you've been quiet and you're... And the fact that you're broadcasting from a cell in Cologne as well, I think is... Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's the thing about the German prison system.

They've got great wine. Oh, it's lovely here. It really is. And also the fact that you're still wearing your plumed emperor's helmet. A little bit of a giveaway, isn't it? I'm a prisoner of war, Henry. You have to let me wear my uniform. That's part of the duty of the convention.

You're in prison on horseback? Sure. It's uncomfortable, but you've got a status to maintain. So, crisps. Did you have any crisps while you were out there, Ben? Hey, there we go. Lovely segue there. Very good, Henry.

Unfortunately, I think the answer is unfortunately no. I don't think so. I don't know how big crisps are in German, need to be honest. Well, look, the elephant in the room here is international crisps and British crisps. I think you can separate crisps into two categories. They're either British or they're... It's Britain and Rest of World, is how I see it. Yeah.

Do you not think America, though, has its own thing? It has a chips culture. It's not a crisps culture. Okay. As far as I know. Are we talking about... Sorry, I know just before we get into this, we need to do some... We need to look at our definitions here.

Are we talking exclusively about potato crisps, or are we talking about snacks in general? For example, a maize-based snack I would still call a crisp, i.e. a skip. Oh, that's a maize-based thing. Yeah. There's no potato in a snack. A starch. Yeah, skips, quavers.

I see those guys. Okay, what's a cheeto? Is it a cheeto? Yeah, that's an American maize snack. Yeah. So are we including those today? I think so, yeah. I think so.

I reckon that's fair. So I think it's anything which comes in... It's that size of packet. We're in the 50 to 75p price range. You can also get a grab bag. You can get a grab bag. I'm not stopping you. Or a multi-pack.

Yeah, anything which can be multi-packed. I mean, it's a bit like the way they define the genus of different species. It's sort of... It's a bit like, you know, the Victorians got into this, and they categorizing all the species and stuff, and they came up with this chart, which is... Has it got flippers? Has it got antlers?

Did it bite Darwin? Did it bite Darwin? Has it got an attitude problem? It's got all these different categories. Has it been baptized? You tick it all off, and then at the bottom it goes, okay. Can you turn its legs into an umbrella stand? But that's how they categorize the animals.

I mean, you measure how many umbrellas it can hold, and are they adult umbrellas? Are they retractable umbrellas? And then, yeah, you're getting close. But they did that in order to work out that... Because evolution is basically a very, very long, complicated family tree. They did that because they knew that one day they'd have to categorize crisps,

and they needed to warm up with something else that was available. They needed to warm up on something less important. So, are crisps also working towards final crab? What is the final evolution of crisps? Which in crisps would be crab flavour, which I don't believe I've ever come across, in fact. I've never come across crab flavour. No, there's quite a lot of prawn cocktail,

which is kind of edging towards it. So, what I would say is, in the same way that... For example, a narcois, a narcois. A narwhal? Yeah, a narcois. But you're going for the middle English pronunciation. You know a narcois? Chaucer's narcois.

And that's how you learn about the narwhal, isn't it? You read about it in a... You know the thing in Chaucer? Exactly. The narcois tale. Where he ends up being used to store a lot of paperwork. Because the knight was doing his tax return at the time. He's trying to get that done on the way.

Obviously, roofs hadn't been invented. So, it was very windy. Paperwork was all over the place. Stick it on a narwhal. Cute. And then a baudi narwhal was possible. A baudi narwhal, come along the road, indicate. Me speak, upon the first meet extra tron,

me the VD, horse won't be done. I didn't know you spoke fluent middle English, mate. It's incredible. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, no, but a narwhal. So, according to the Victorian taxonomy systems, you know, you'd go, has it got a beak? Sort of.

Has it got eyes? Give or take, yeah? I mean... Yeah, is it, yeah. Two eyes or two plus eyes? Yeah, or is it too many eyes? Has it got eyes? Those are the three categories.

Is it slippery? Slippery when wet? Slippery when dry? Basically, you can go through the taxonomy system, but look at the end of the day, Charles. Put the skull down. Get off that tortoise. Let me in the eyes.

At the end of the day, you know when it's, you know it, you just know when it's a narwhal, don't you? I mean, come on. Let's look at it. Do you know what I mean? Like, so you're saying that you know a crisps of crisps, because it's just a crisps of instincts? Exactly, like a bag of quaves, it's crisps.

Yeah, we could spend hours talking about maze content, starch percentages. At the end of the day, you know when it's crisps. It's in a small bag. It's available in a petrol station. You could put it in the bowl and get it out at a New Year's Eve party. But I think that's why it's one of those AI tests, isn't it? Is this a bag of crisps or a narwhal?

And they still can't get it right. They still don't get it right every time, Mike, and thank goodness for that. Until they do wear a cape, but as soon as they can tell the difference between a narwhal and a big crisps over, big doo doo. Just pray you've got some hatches, because you're going to need to be bat on England down, mate.

And I've actually, I've got, I've already bought some hatches in advance. You carry a bag of hatches around with you wherever you go these days, don't you? Wherever I go. And I can bat on. I didn't even need a baton to bat on. I can bat on just...

Self batonning hatches. You've got self batonning hatches, yeah. I've got self batonning hatches. But Henry, I think, sorry to put on this sled, but I think there are some, they might be called edge cases, is that what they call them? Don't know.

Well, things where... Things what you're on about. You're saying you know what a crisps a crisps, because it's in a bag inside a petrol station. You can bring it out in New York's Eve. I will introduce you to our old friend, the Schneider's... Charcoal.

Pretzel piece. Thought you were going to talk about a bag of charcoal. Oh, baby. Oh, bag of charcoal is a very good example as well. Or a bag of charcoal, which is quite similar. You're right, the pretzel piece, the trouble with that, the thing with the pretzel piece is... It's a bagged snack.

The reason it's tricky, a bit like... Hang on. Is it the genus of the salted snack? But beyond that is the family of... Oh, okay. Of the crisp. Exactly. And all the family of the band American Snacks.

You see, exactly. You see, because I think the pretzel piece bags, it's a bit like, for example, if there was an underwater bat or something. No, no, no, it's a great jumping off point. Let's see what it's going to be. No, no, you know what it's like. You know, you know, duck bill platypusses or whatever.

Oh, yeah? They don't really obey the rule. They're like, they confound... Yeah, the creature formerly known as the underwater bat. They confound, you know, Victorian men. They don't fit into the taxonomy easily. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think... Because the thing about the pretzel pieces, it is... Well, if that's if it's a real animal. That's if it's a real animal. Oh, yeah. I've never checked if it's real or not. It's a...

Or is it a thought animal? Is it a thought crisp? I mean, it might just be that someone did a wacky drawing, as people do when they're bored. Especially Australians. Yeah, if you're doodling on Darwin's ship. But the pretzel piece is a very, very real snack. And it claims heritage, I think,

from several different families. There's the salted... Salted bag snack. The salted bag snack family, which should point it in the crisp direction. But it also comes from the pretzel. The German bakery tradition. And again, Ben, we're back to you.

We're back to German aristocracy. Exactly. Aren't we? We're back to ancient middle European snacks. Where of course, because the safest way to carry a tube of soft German dough was to tie it to something. Around a horse's flank, in an aluminium foil bag. And then obviously, it would smash up en route,

because the roads weren't good. And then you'd end up arriving with effectively a bag of sliders of Hanover. I'm just saying, it's not as easy as you're making out. I think there are... It's not... You're right, it's not easy. You're right, you're right. In the extreme cases, it's not easy, isn't it?

I think most of the time you know. But we spend our whole time talking about pretzels, sliders of Hanover or whatever. But most cases are quite easy to... I'm trying to think of an even more hard one to categorise, like the real platypus of the snack world. Twiglets? Yeah, I mean, that's quite a good example.

They're their own category. They're a bit like... They're sort of like some of the things you get in Madagascar that just don't exist anywhere else. You know what I mean? They're sort of unprecedented. Well, like a lima that can sing. Okay, time to read your emails.

And we've had someone send in a version of our email jingle. Oh, another one. Yes, which is very charming, I think. This is from Steven and Hedwig from Leipzig. Leipzig. Leipzig. Which they say is just down the autobahn from Bremen. Lovely.

Steven writes, There I was in the midst of unloading the dishwasher during the episode mail, the one I heard the call for ersatz bean jingles. Immediately I dropped what I was doing and raced to the piano to compose a little triple-time ditty that renders your email jingle tune as a kind of bright minuet. My wife graciously agreed to sing the lyrics.

And while I wouldn't recommend trying to dance to it, I hope it will serve as a way to entertain your listeners on weeks when Ben's original work feels overplayed. Very nice. Slight stinging the tail at the end, but very, very nice otherwise. I think that's how I presented it when I made this proposition in the first place. He sounds like he might be one of your your sort of old mid-European aristocratic sort of rivals.

Yeah, maybe rival. Leipzig having a dishwasher, rushing to a piano, and just casually tossing in words like minuet. So let's have a listen. This is Stephen and Hedvig and their version of the email theme tune. When you receive an email, you must give thanks to the postmasters who came before. Thanks, posty, thanks, posty, thanks.

Thanks, posty, thanks, posty, thanks. Anything for me today. Just some old shit. When you receive an email, this represents progress like a robot that's shooing a horse. That was brilliant. That was lovely. Very charming, isn't it?

That was very, very good. Very, very charming. So that was Hedvig and Stephen. Hedvig and Stephen. Yeah. I think Stephen's on the piano. I think Hedvig is singing. I love Hedvig's voice.

Very sort of beautifully fragile. I liked how it had the quality of when somebody talks quietly and you're drawn in. Very fragile, very slight, but very relaxed, very human. Are you saying that my original performance does not have that quality? Well, your original performance now seems very, very blundering, doesn't it? Very, very crude. And Hedvig, I'm thinking, I mean, it's not something I generally do without looking into some more deep people.

I'm just thinking, I'm thinking whether, because obviously I can make someone like Hedvig a star. And you're going to have to say to Hedvig, look, I'm going to make you a star, but you have to ditch Stephen. You've got to lose Stephen. I mean, you've got to cut off dead weight. Even if it doesn't feel dead at the time, retrospectively, it certainly will be dead off. You've cut it off.

So just get in there first. You've got to, it's a tough, tough business, Hedvig. You know what I mean? Don't do it, Hedvig. Don't listen to them. Don't listen to the Queenmaker. That's a tough, tough business. But I think, that was really, really lovely.

It was. Thank you so much for sending us that. And if you'd like to make a version of any of our jingles, please do send them in to threepincellardpodd at gmail.com. You know when you, quite often, come across people at Hedvig and Stephen, and in your mind, you just think they just feel like they've got the perfect life to me. I know. I've got that as well.

Do you know what I mean? In the Leipzig, they've got a lovely marlin, lovely piano in the corner. They've got a dishwasher. Stephen's emptying it. They've done or nearly done the washing of the dishes. They've nearly done it, or they're in between, who knows. But you know, they're always either emptying it or filling it, and they do it together, and they chuck the plates, you know, at each other, not at each other, but they,

you know, they have a thing. They playfully hurl pyrex at each other. Chuck plates it around, and they have a little way of doing it. And then at any point, they'll be listening to things on the radio. They'll be listening to, often they'll be listening to waltzes on an old-fashioned gramophone. Yeah. And at any point, Stephen just go, hang on, I'm feeling a ditty coming on,

and they'll drop everything. Often all the dishes they're holding. Often they drop the dishes. Those will smash up. And they'll run to the piano, and he'll sit there, and they'll sing a lovely, really human, really fragile piece like that. Thank you both. So, we've had a lot of emails.

It's time, you know, sometimes we need a word for this, really, when we get, like, 25 bollockings on the same very specific topic. Oh, no. Yes. Cluster bollock. It's the cluster omni bollock, I think. A legion of bollockings. Well, they are massing at your gates, Mike.

Oh, no, really? Oh, really? Oh, no. Accessing listener bollocking. Bollocking loading. You're getting the omni bollocking. Right. But we've got an email from a man called Adam who sent us an email called bollock roulette.

Oh. And he goes like this. Mike? Yeah. Genus edition. Not genius edition. Oh, is it? That's true.

And can I say, I actually, I thought that at the time, but I wasn't quite confident enough to bring it to say it. So, it's basically a basic literacy issue. Basically, we've had 25 emails saying it's genius. And Genesis means it's the normal version as opposed to the family version or some other version. It's a common mistake. And basically, you are not a genius, Mike, because… Really? Because I can't read a basic word.

It's true, Mike. This is a mistake that's been made for a long time. I wasn't completely confident because I wondered if a genius edition had come out since or something that was different. And it's to do it, it's pointing to the way it's written and the sort of font. And if you have a fairly lumbering, quite simplistic sort of… Sausage brain. I'm not going to say myopic, but… So, is that accepted, Mike?

Or completely accepted. And apologies to the surprisingly large number of people who have been irritated by that. Bollock accepted. Okay, so continuing Adam's original email, Bollock roulette. Yeah, okay. So, Mike, you had that one. Ben, your opinions about Wallace and Gromit are factually incorrect. The wrong trousers is an undeniable Hitchcockian masterpiece.

Bollock not accepted? Reflecto Bollock. Yeah, you're never going to get Ben to accept that. Ben can't reverse the next thing. You're not hiding to nothing there. You can't, it's crazy to take on a naysayer with their naysaying. Actually, that's what they want. You know?

You've strengthened me, Adam. Exactly. I'm stronger than ever before. It is whatever the hell Grist is to whatever the hell a mill that deals with Grist would do with it. You know what I mean for Ben, isn't it? It is. And then Adam finishes the Bollocking roulette with Henry. Well done.

You have survived Bollock roulette. Well, but the trouble with that is that's how you become addicted to Bollock roulette, because you win it once. Finally, Mel, so this is about the naysaying we talked about. And I did wonder, actually, if there might be room for a little sort of format point of just people's naysays. I think that's a great idea. Yeah, yeah, brilliant.

This is from Ruby. This is not a Bollocking, but it could have been. Take this as a warning, Bollock, of the highest degree. In your most recent episode, Board Games, Henry suggested it would feel good to taste the brew of naysaying the pannington films. She says, this is grave misjudgment. Although it may feel good initially, the costs will severely outweigh the rewards. As I'm sure you're aware of the tsunami of backlash you would receive,

and I don't think you've quite understood that it would lead to a swift end to the podcast and your entire reputation. Yeah, yeah. May I draw your attention to the case of Eddie Harrison? Harrison made the error of leaving Pannington 2 a two-star review in 2021, therefore causing the film to no longer be the highest rated film of all time. Oh my God. And essentially, it's quite a long email, but she shows us how this man called

Eddie Harrison wrote a bad review of Pannington and knocked off the top spot. And then since then, across the internet have been like hundreds of people calling for his death. Oh my God. Oh no, Eddie Harrison. Yeah. You would hope that Pannington fans wouldn't be inherently violent people. You wouldn't have thought so, would you? They're not really listening to the messages.

Yes, that's a good point. It's not really in Pannington's world view to relentlessly, eventually seek the cold-blooded death. I'm going to, I'm just going to, what I'm going to do is I'm going to say a few things. I'm not going to attach any judgment to them, okay? No judgment. The bear brought up, born and brought up in Peru, South American country. The bear speaks English.

With an English accent? With an English accent. Comes to Britain, meets a British family who also also all speak English. And then the story goes from there. So yeah, Pannington. What are you doing? Nothing. Just saying some stuff about Pannington.

Just pointing out that fiction exists and that fun, fictive occurrences can exist. Yeah. And people in Peru, maybe some people in Peru do speak English with an English accent. That's not a problem with Pannington. That's not. I'm not saying it's a problem. Who said it's a problem?

Also, imagine the station he derived in was Bristol Temple Meads. Something to think about as well. Did Kot Parkway the bear? That'd be great. Maybe that's what happens in Pannington 3, is that some more bear, like the bear gang arrive. Gatwick. Southampton Airport Parkway.

Have you met my friends? Gatwick, Gatwick, Luton. RAF Brise Norton. And Launston Request Stop. Anyway, yeah. If you've got some big naysays. Yeah. I think 10 naysays.

To be honest, to be honest, let's face it, naysay is, I think I can say this, without too much controversy, it's quite a lot stronger as a format than our current show, isn't it? Than 3 Bean Salad. Than 3 Bean Salad, which almost isn't a format. Whereas naysaying is very... Have you watched naysayers?

It's hosted by Claudia Winkleman and starring Claudia Winkleman. And the whole thing happens in this thing called the Winkleverse, which is a big set, which is Claudia Winkleman's face. And she sits in the middle of it. It feels like that's overtaken the format a bit. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Naysaying with Claudia Winkleman is a dog's breakfast.

Two stars, the Telegraph. Felt like a decent idea, but the Winkleface, the whole concept of the Winkleverse, the huge Winkle, the huge Claudia Winkleman's face, the set, it just felt like it distracted from the core idea, which actually wasn't bad. So that's your emails? Okay.

Is that it? Thanks, Ben. Yep. I do think naysaying is... I think we should ask people to send in their naysays and let's make a format of it. Are there any parameters here or is just... Because you can't...

Don't naysay things like... You can't say like, I don't know, pestilence, things that people don't like already. It has to be the crown jewels, really. Yeah, yeah. So it has to be things which are cultural crown jewels, national treasures. They're on a pedestal, essentially.

Yeah. Rich bruise. Rich, rich, rich bruise. It's a dark path. It is. I mean, we might be opening a complete canister of darkness here. Yeah. But let's see what the listeners think.

It will destroy us, ultimately. Well, it could be something we could think about putting into the three-bean cellar dark web edition, isn't it? It could work quite well in that format. It's time to pay the ferryman. Patreon, Patreon. Patreon.com.

Thanks to everyone who's signed up on our Patreon. Patreon.com. Forge slash three-bean salad. Thank you. Thank you. And there are various tiers you can sign up for. You can get ad-free episodes. You get the bonus episodes, which we do every month,

which are weighty and fantastic. And also, at the third tier, the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout-out in the Sean Bean lounge, where Mike was last night. Indeed. And it was a relaxing one in the lounge, wasn't it, last night? Yes, that's true, unusually so.

Because it was the meditation with Dire Straits Evening. That is correct. Thank you, Ben. And here's my report. Heavy fuel of all kinds was left at the door last night for the Sean Bean lounge meditation with Dire Straits Evening, which went wrong from the get-go, as most participants found the presence of Dire Straits

in the meditation suite immensely distracting. Drew James encouraged us to rise to the challenge by either concealing Dire Straits in polyester bicycle covers, or by focusing our attention on a non-Diastrates Knopfler. We elected to do both. Andrew Calder suggested focusing on the Australian stem cell biologist, Paul Knopfler. But this drew an immediate complaint from Ben Gigi,

who couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Dire Straits' brother-in-arms tour ended in Australia at the Sydney Entertainment Center and still holds the record for consecutive appearances in that venue at 21 nights. Christine Smythe muddied the headspace waters further by claiming that 21 was Mark Knopfler's aide when he formed his first band, The Silver Heels.

Nathan Parker demanded this be fact-checked, but Jacob Roode had already vetoed phone usage at the session, so Michael O'Connell was called upon to lift the bicycle covers and ask Dire Straits directly, but broke the zip and snagged the tug strap, thus sealing them inside permanently. Neil Badger Donaldson recommended we not ask Dire Straits any biographical questions to allow them to conserve air,

so Christine's assertion remained unverified. Jenny Whittle attempted to rekindle the session with a soothing mantra, but was interrupted by a cry from within the bicycle covers that she was in fact humming the organ part to industrial disease from the Love Over Gold album. Threat soon began emanating from the same source regarding copyright infringement and legal action,

and in the end there was nothing for it, but for Gregory Francis and Beth Speak to drag the bicycle covers, Dire Straits and all, into the Sean Bean Lounge Meditation Suite cleaning cupboard. Tempers were flaring by this point, and Tobias Jonson's attempt to return us to meditation settings by proposing we all just chill out had the reverse effect.

Sean Moga saved the day, however, by racing to his Hyundai i10 and fishing out a teacher self-axe throwing kit and a keg of strong Lithuanian lager, after which harmony was restored and the evening ended with everyone feeling centered and brimming with well-being. Thanks all.

So that's a lot. Let's just see whose version of our theme tune will play us out. We've got an email from Will. Will says, My daughter listens to bedtime story podcasts on my tablet, and every evening I fear that I'll forget to clear the cue beforehand and she'll be jolted away from her peaceful slumber by the America jingle.

Anyway, I found a surprisingly good music box voice on her grandparents' keyboard and recorded this lullaby version of the theme. Oh, nice. So thank you, Will. Lullaby version of the theme. Thank you very much. And sleep-sounding listeners.

Sleep well. Thank you very much. Happy New Year. Oh, yeah. I enjoyed the hootenanny. Crack open a stolen cake for us. Is it? Spiced.

Spiced fruits. Get all the fruits you've got. If you've left it late, it doesn't matter. You can have a great New Year's treat. Get all the fruits you've got in the house. Get them into a big pan. All the spices you've got. So cumin, turmeric, salt.

Choney twice wise. Fajita pouch. A fajita pouch from next week's El Paso. You can fix that. Cross that bridge when you come to it. But for now, make sure you've got all the spices, all the condiments, your ketchup's, milk, everything really, on those fruits.

And a slow boil. Well, either a slow boil for seven hours or a rolling boil for four. And the house will be full of that festive stink. That sweet, spicy, milky, stink. That sweet, sweet. That sweet stench. And, um...

Bye. Enjoy. Bye. Bye.