Three Bean Salad - Elevators

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

Thanks in no small part to Elizabeth (monarch status unknown) the beans forge THE DEFINITIVE chat on the topic of elevators. Gird your ears for the secrets of conducting low-cost business meetings, Henry’s criminal past and the criteria for both the ideal door and a decent canteen.Get in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpodJoin our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansalad

I was thinking about how the listener, dear listener, they have no sense of the surroundings in which this podcast is recorded. So I think I'm, you know, they probably have their, their notions. I'd imagine they imagine that Henry is kind of surrounded by Hungarian diplomats, artists. Whereas you are surrounded by woodland animals, nuzzling gently your shins. Some stuffed, some sort of semi-stuffed, a stage of stuff process. Taxi workshop. And also I've got human or human furniture. I imagine people are picturing. What does that mean? It's a series of contortionists and acrobats.

Contortionists are human dead souls into beds, sofa beds. Sofa beds. And bureaus. Bureaus. Roll out bureaus. Wall bureaus. Wall bureaus. Blow up bureaus. Blow up bureaus.

Bureaus de chong. Bureaus de chong. Bureaus de remaining the same. Bureaus de steadfast. Bureaus that can collapse and turn into a, into a, a, a globe that is a, a, a globe that has the, the, the global, the, the political, um, national borders of, of the 1800s. That sort of thing. Yeah. And one that can turn into a, a warrior robot. Exactly. That's what they picture with me. And then for Mike, I think they're probably imagining a very, maybe like a quite austere

garage full of military sort of equipment from the fifties. Some illegal memorabilia. Oh yeah. You've got Heinrich Himmler's cycling helmet. Genghis Khan's shin pads. And he's got, he's got what he swears is, um, a section of trench from World War One. He bought at high cost, but it's just the, the insides of the trench. To all intents and purposes, it's just a glass sort of case full of air. With some fretted air.

With what he swears is, yeah, it's, it's fretted air from the Somme. Also, I imagine, uh, what I imagine Mike would have in that garage is a, a poster that was, that was very, very lovelessly put up about 15 years ago. And it's a poster that it's just stayed there through sheer inertia. And he didn't even really mean it when he put it up. It just came free in a Sunday supplement or something. It was just a moment where you have to stick that up. Right.

And it's just quite, it's just got no... And what is it? What's the poster? Why is it, that's it. It would be just sort of, um, a cuisine from the Amalfi Coast. From a travel supplement. What, like in an Italian restaurant? Yeah. It'd be something like that. Yeah. Well, I want you to think it's innocuous, but really, of course,

it conceals the entrance to my escape tunnel. Genius. So behind that poster, it says something like, um, the Amalfi Coast. Home of lemons. And it's just something that Mike's, he's not even been there. He doesn't really care about that. I can't even talk a particularly good game on lemons, especially. Oh, run out of steam very quickly.

But that's the escape tunnel. So you take that off, like at the end of Shawshank Redemption, when behind the poster, you take it off and there's a tunnel what directly into your next door neighbors. Yeah. So the front room. Into their front room. And they've been asking me to fix that hole for a very long time now. They've had to put their telly in front of it to try and conceal it.

And it's in the wrong place entirely for their room. You'd have to crawl through and then just push their television. I have to push their telly. I have to hook the goodness in the middle of the final episode of Succession or something. There's a boot my way through there. They're Samsung. And what's the plan from then on?

Is it you become one of them? You join them? Well, the thing about those guys next door is that they're just really good with advice. So the plan is to boot my way through and go, Margaret, Colin, what name? What do you reckon? Let's chuck some ideas around. Okay, remember, there's no bad ideas, but at the same time, I am in a hurry. So that's it, really.

So let's hope I don't need to use it. But in the meantime, I can just enjoy my garage. You've got to have a plan B. I imagine in Mike's garage as well, there's something he's tinkering with. Right. Oh, yeah. And he's always telling his family, I've just got to go and tinker with the mechanism.

And he says something on my J4, on my J4 900 or something. He's got a name for it. But when you go and look at it, it's actually just a collection of circuit boards and sort of pistons and canisters that have just attached together. A couple of wild pig's eyes that go off the butcher. There's a couple of wild pig's eyes stuck on top of like joysticks. And if all goes well, this machine will love Mike. It's the unconditional love machine.

Because the love you can get through a wild pig's eyes is unrivaled in the natural world. When I was on my memorabilia hunt, I found a folio, a da Vinci folio. How much was the prototype plans for the unconditional love machine? Lovebot 1.0, that's what it will be if you can make it work. And will it be platonic love or? It's got different modes. Ideally, it's got a little panel board.

You can flick it to different, all the forms of love. Okay. So platonic. Platonic, fraternal, avuncular. The love you feel when you realise that you can sit with a friend you've known since university days on a train for a good 25 minutes, not say anything. Oh, it's got a compenable silent setting. Which I think is the deepest and richest love

that certainly someone like me can ever know. It's non-melevalent silence. Oh yeah, there's nothing malevolent about two disembodied wild pig's eyes stuck onto some transformers next to you on the train. On your way to a mini-breaking Cumbria. Because obviously you've got family love, you've got dog love. These are great loves. Tick, tick.

Tick, tick, done. Experience. Basically continuing, but basically over. Done. Done. And we've got to move up to boss level love, you know. Yeah. The love that only being that was 100% created by you could feel.

Is that what it's about? Yeah, 100%. But the only risk element is of course the, is the organic element, but the boar's eyes, that's the only, that's the risky bit. Yeah. Because they've still got some of the soul left. They may do. And if they do have an emotion in them, it's the last thing they felt, which was

just whatever they felt when you were coming at them with, with two hacksaws. Which was poorly thought through. And I came, I almost came out of it worse to be fair. Yeah. Well, because you've been living as a truffle pig, hadn't you for several months at that point? I've been living in a truffle for several months and that got me nowhere. So then I said, I just lived as a truffle. Yeah.

You thought, flip it, flip it, go from the other side. Yeah. The number of times I got dug up, but just a well-trained French dog was, I mean, it was incredibly irritating. Yeah. And part of you, I mean, how much have you did end up in omelets in the end? I would say, well, they told me at the specialist niece clinic that I went to that it was 27%. Right.

But that was, it was, that was regenerative. So I'm, so I'm back. But also luckily it shaved off, isn't it, with the very tiny grits? I think I look better after being a little bit trimmed away. Yeah, you look kind of sculpted. It's a light sloughing, isn't it, initially? Yeah, I was a bit puffy around the edges before and I'm, yeah. Because each of those French farmers will demand a tithe of one scraping,

if you pretend to be a truffle. Yeah, they're going to take a scraping and they're going to put, turn you into some sort of oil. Yeah, of course. And then suffuse you into, maybe through a cheese. Oh, the number of times I've been bloody suffused into a cheese, I can't tell you. It takes its toll, doesn't it, each time a little, a little bit of you guys. Yeah.

So those are the settings. So what I was getting at really is that. The listen doesn't know where we record. Yeah. They do now, we've finished some of that information. Yeah. But I do need to let you guys know that there's a slight difference in the atmosphere, where I am.

Oh, yeah. Compared to usual. Oh. It's a bit of a long story. It involves Christmas meets. Oh, gosh. So my Christmas plan was to go to my partner's mother's house. But in these uncertain times, there were, of course,

a couple of things hanging over where that was going to happen. It was one of us going to get COVID. I just had my COVID jab and I was feeling quite bad. We started thinking, are we going to go to my partner's mother's house for Christmas? Well, maybe what we need to do is get some backup beef. Of course. Oh, good thinking. Just in case we end up marooned here, we need some backup beef for the day.

You've got to safety net the Christmas meets. Exactly. So much backup beef and backup poultry was bought this year. Yeah. That they had to dip deeply into the beef mountain and the poultry lake. Beef mountain. Didn't they? Yeah.

For just such an occurrence. So we got the backup beef. Yeah. Then it turned out we were going to go to my partner's mother. So we went to her house. The backup beef was left in the fridge. Yeah. But the entire time I was at my girlfriend's mother's house,

all I could hear were the words of the butcher ringing in my ears. When I said, so how long will this last in the fridge? And he said, about four days? About four days. About four days. About four days. About four days. Talk about four days.

Four is not a prime number. Two times. What's divisible by four? So the time as it does, it began to pass. Yeah. Imagine the pages of one of those useless calendars where there's one page per day and it's just got a number on it and they're all flying off. Not that fast though, there's only four.

Well, they're flying off about once per day. Sort of calendars that you only really use in a film noir. And outside of that. Yeah. Exactly. And imagine a newspaper spinning towards you. Spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. It stops.

Headline. Another day has passed. Yeah. Another cigarette falls onto Ben's legs. Again. That's my legs ablaze once more. Cut to a pile of burnt trousers. Denoting the passing of time.

Another beaver's head is stuffed. From the end. But you see another beaver's head that looks all shriveled, just filling out. And Ben rams. That's crunched up. Well, that's how you spend that gap between Christmas and New Year. Yeah, it's funny beaver's heads. So the days began to go by Christmas day.

Boxing day. The day after Boxing Day. Yeah. The day after that. And the four day limit was breached. Uh-oh. But we were still in Worcestershire. Now what I'm picturing now is basically 2,000 maggots sort of packing.

Getting this stuff together. Getting the hats on. Recently reintroduced wolves circling the walls of your building. So last night I returned to the flat. It was about half past 10 p.m. All I could think of now is the beef. So how many days had passed? Six.

Six. I literally got in because I knew time was of the essence. We'd already breached that limit. Before I'd put down my coat, I'd open the fridge and I'd got that beef on the hob. Oh, well done. So your coat was still what, half on or just on? My coat was on.

My trousers were blaze. And um... You probably had a utility bill or something in your hand that was still just half open, did you? That's right. Card door wide open outside. Engine still running. Yeah.

So I was in this kind of frenzy. And then I realised it was bed time. But it was also beef time. But it was also beef time. So I did what the French do. They eat a kilo of beef just before they go to sleep. You took an all night slow cook? I poured a bottle of wine on it

and I cooked it for 10 hours overnight as I slept. Wow. Bloody hell, that is so French. However, I don't know, I've not had this experience, obviously, Mike, you have. When you first have a newborn child and you bring it back from the hospital... You pour a bottle of wine over it?

Yeah. Comfortably. Yeah, for the oven for 10 hours. Yeah. Yeah, like the French did. Obviously, people have different theories on these things. You're in laws or probably say, oh no, you should actually probably get it under a hot grill.

Bake the fats in, then slow cook it. Others will say, sear it on both sides. So it'll be all right. I'll just salt it, leave it for a few months. Salt it and hang it, let it hang. No, there's this thing of like, I went to sleep but I think I woke up every 45 minutes just thinking, is the beef okay?

Oh gosh, yes. Also, is it going to sort of dry out and then burn down the flat? Well, of course, this is where French, you know, all the French philosophy comes out of all existentialism and stuff, isn't it? It's another French thing. Because they've all got beef cooking all night,

they wake up in the night going, what is going to happen? And really, who am I at the end of the day? What is the point? Is all religion a myth? Truth itself is relative? Or that kind of thing. Did you have that?

That's exactly the experience I'm having. Yeah, and do I slow cook the beef? Do I throw the beef away? That's, I mean, that's the origins of moral, your moral relativism. Exactly. It's all wrapped up. It's all in there.

Overnight beef. I cook beef overnight, therefore I am. Exactly, that's the full saying. So I've had a very sleepless night, I'm afraid. Quite tired today. Yeah.

But also, it's suffused every single thing in my flat with beef smell. Everything smells very, very strongly of beef. And you very rarely breakfast on a brisket platter, do you, before we start? Well, that's what I did today, left me feeling even tired. Yeah, that's going to absolutely knock you out, yeah.

Wow. So I just wanted to let you guys know that, because obviously that's going to have, you know, I'm not firing an alternate as well. In that case, may I suggest that we fire up the bean machine and hope to goodness that the topic is French beef. This week's topic, sent in by Elizabeth,

who doesn't tell us where she's from? There could be the Queen, in theory. Can't be ruled out. Could be Queen Elizabeth. Could be. Yeah. Yeah. Could be.

Is elevators. Well, we can instantly get the old Americana, we can raise the Americana flag, can't we? Play the America jingle, will you? We play the America jingle. America. America. America.

America. America. I'd like two tickets for the Chattanooga choo choo. America, America. Get me the D.A. A slice of old mama's apple pie, down the animal, in New York City. No one's ever going to listen

to this crazy new music you're making, Mr. Presley? Presley? Burgers. Because you're suggesting that Elizabeth must be from the U.S. of A. I reckon. She has used the term elevators.

So it's not the Queen? Yeah, it's almost saying not the Queen. Play the Regal Zone jingle. 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. Basically, for tax reasons, we have to get all the jingles played in this episode at the end of the year, don't we? Because we can reclaim. And by saying that, Henry.

And revealing the inner workings of our podcast. We can use the Pompadoo jingle. It's the Pompadoo jingle. And now it's time for Pompadoo section. Yeah, it's just a little bit of paperwork thing, isn't it? If we use any jingles that haven't been any spare jingles at the end of the year,

you don't get to claim back. It's just something we'll do. The reason that we've got jingles really is it's all just a tax topic. Any podcast is the same. But actually, maybe before we carry on, I should read out an email. We've had a number of emails on this topic. On elevators.

No, on the Pompadoo. On the Pompadoo topic. We had loads and loads of emails. I'll read out one of them. This is Julia. She says, I learned of the passing of Richard Rogers. The architect of the Pompadoo centre. I was immediately compelled to write in

and ensure you're aware of this, as I felt it would only be fitting for his death to be commemorated on a suitably public platform. So there we go. Yeah, Dr. Pompadoo has passed. Yes. Top drawer dude. Yes. And fairly well. Absolutely. May the escalator to heaven

have a very clearly visible working mechanism. Yeah, lovely. Thank you. Very nice. We had a few emails asking whether there should be a somber version of the Pompadoo theme to sort of play him out.

So I've knocked that together. That's a nice idea. Let's have it. Not wanting to be disrespectful, of course, but the library at the university I attended was designed by Richard Rogers. Was it really? Dr. Pompadoo. And it was so badly designed.

Was it? I had a gigantic staircase that went, the spiral staircase that went up the middle, which was the only way he'd go up or down. So you were constantly walking up this spiral staircase, which means that one leg was longer than the other, that one leg was longer than the other, that one leg was longer than the other,

that one leg was longer than the other. Like, you'd sort of get, if you went to the library base, you'd come out with a thigh straight. Sounds quite fun, though. It was fun once, and then just an almighty pain in the thighs. Was it him?

Did he design the German Parliament building? Yeah, he did. The new bits. Because that's also got a spiral staircase. Yes. You know, that sort of architecture, the idea is like, you know, and of course, as you walk up the stairs,

you look down on the, you know, various offices of the Reichstag and it makes you think about democracy and how important that is. And like, for me, really, a building is just, I want to know,

I want to be able to, you know. You want to know where the toilets are. I want to know where the toilets are. Is this your unity to Richard Ross? I'm not a fan of walking more than one flight for the toilets, if I'm honest. So you're nay-saying spiral staircases. Would you yay-say

spiral elevators? A spiral elevator, I would love to try. But I think, is it true that buildings make you think about stuff like that, or is it really like, you just want a good set of solid stairs, a nice...

A nice square room. A nice square room that's comfy. A good firm door mat on the way in. A good firm toothbrushy sort of door mat. A canteen with a veg option. And a canteen that isn't just bashing out risotto,

you know, that's being created with the veg options. Maybe it's a parsnip soup. Yeah, whatever. Parsnip Sunday. Maybe it's parsnip Sundays. See, you're actually, you're nay-saying the very concept of architecture

that the buildings need to be anything. They could just all be uniform. As long as they had a nice bristly door mat and a parsnip vending area. I think that's your priorities. Well-signaged toilets. Yeah. I like a window.

A couple of those. So stick a few of those in each room, if possible. I do like a window. I think windows are important. I think it's important that all the sizes and there are certain things need to get right. There's a lot of options. Like, for example,

I think, I don't know where these are written down, but I think there is a sort of universal set of rules which is a doorway needs to be roughly this height. A corridor needs to be roughly this width. And if you get that wrong, you're just constantly bashing your head and people are falling downstairs and... Is what you're saying that a door needs to be large enough

that a human can walk through? Exactly. You don't want to... There's some sort of wall around it, as well, probably. Ideally, a door will exist within a walled area. Otherwise, you could argue, do you need it? If it's simply

linking two areas of open space. Is there an example of a building that you've been to that you've been inspired by? They say, don't they, that churches were built to inspire? No, I think churches were built with a spire. Oh, sorry, yes. Sometimes. Yeah.

I tell you what, I used to... Here's the thing, I used to... I've experimented with working in different spaces, so I do like... I agree that the architecture of a room or a space is quite important for that. Because you've settled on your local Costa Coffee. So, you're saying that's the ultimate expression

of human architecture. I work in Costa Coffee. I don't work in a sort of huge glass temple where you go up a spiral staircase up towards a big coffee grinding machine, and you look down and you see different parts of the coffee making process, and by the time you get there, you really understand

how coffee's made. No. No, it's a squat hot room. It's squat and hot, yep. Those two things are important. Squat and hot, it's plugged up. Sticky tables. Heavy...

Tables as heavy and angular as they are sticky. Seating which has perished to a degree. There's a soft seating which has perished. It's got holes in it that expose bits of foam sticking out of it in places.

There's a pompadou element to that, isn't there? There are the side workings of the sponge under your ass. Mike, nature pompadou's us all. Eventually. Eventually. It's got a toilet that holds within its walls a kind of sense memory

of some very, very awful things. Not all of them done by me. Yeah, there is a haunted feeling about the toilets. And it's always got three toilets, Mike Oster. Each with its own microclimate. There's always one,

at least one that's very humid. Oh yeah, there's always one that's like walking into a botanical garden. Or the bayou. You're in a sort of piss bayou. And you're sort of breathing it all in. There is one which would certainly accommodate crocodilian life, yeah?

Then there's a sort of spooky chilly one. Which you get a real freesong when you go in there. And one that's just sort of pitch black. Like the deepest out of space. No gravity in there, are there? No gravity, no light. Yeah. The black hole bog.

It's a bit like being in a very one of those relaxation tanks, but... A bit of smells of guffs. A bit of smells of guffs. And it's quite unpleasant. No, there's three toilets. Here are some of the things that are important to me. A toilet with a solid door on it.

You close that and you are safe. Mm-hmm. Like the gates of old Samarkand. Some kind of... You could basically... You could hold it up in there and you could be besieged for a good six months. And you'd be fine.

Really, like you clunk that door closed and you feel... Lovely. I can eat my panellin paste. Okay, so, sturdy door. Steady door. I think we can probably all agree with that. Solid throne-like toilet. Mm-hmm.

Quite elevated. Yeah, made of solid gold. Made of solid gold. It's at a height where, in theory, you could imagine a vassal could come and prostrate himself before you and ask you to help him out with some farming issue

or some agricultural problem he's got. So, it's made that high for accessibility reasons, but you're enjoying that it makes you feel a little... A little box of room. What I like about the hand dryer in there is it's thrusting, violent, and quick.

It's the way I'd like to be killed. Audible throughout the entire establishment. Exactly. It's... Signals everyone else. So, it will soon be free. So, it's got two solid toilets and it's got a third one as well,

which is the box, which, for the purposes of this podcast, I have never been in. LAUGHTER So, I can't tell you anything about them. I mean, if I had to speculate, I'd imagine the toilet was probably

in the far left corner. A lot of space. Room to change. Room, I mean, again, I wouldn't do this, but room in theory, you could lower that baby-changing table in theory lie down and have a nap on it, I suppose. LAUGHTER It's a good height for a desk.

LAUGHTER The Wi-Fi still reaches it. The toilet... Couldn't be more conveniently placed. If you're working there all day, I mean... You can even fit a table long enough to put a printer on there as well, if you've got a... Yeah, you could...

Definitely room to invite someone in for a meeting. Good. I mean, there's... LAUGHTER That's true. Yeah, you could... You, by all means, sit on that ceramic chair in the corner. LAUGHTER

You'll see on the changing table there's a samovar of coffee and a bowl of croissants. Please help yourself. And if you do hear the door jiggling, just remain quiet. LAUGHTER Remain very, very quiet. And it should subside.

LAUGHTER Shh! The door will jiggle. You may hear a tut. That's right. Which is why I'm going to do this PowerPoint presentation in silence. It's all images. LAUGHTER And do not pull the red cable,

as that will... LAUGHTER alert a staff member to our presence here. That's what you do when you make a deal, isn't it? You pull the red cable. The staff member comes in and says, we did, but everything's fine now, and we walk out, and they'll go in,

and it's like, oh, damn, he's done it again, but we can't prove it, because everything's gone. The samovar's gone. The Hewlett Packard printer. It's in my rucksack. The samovar of coffee. I've downed it. The whole samovar. I've swallowed the samovar. I will think you flushed the intern down the toilet.

The CEO you are meeting is just attached to the ceiling, so they can't be seen. I've painted in white cream. I've painted in magnolia. He's painted into the ceiling. The ceiling just looks like it's a bit chubby and a bit lumpy, and has some eyes, but you can't prove anything. He has nice cufflinks.

He has nice cufflinks, but you can't prove anything. And they can't prove anything. And he's gone again. He's had another meeting again, but we can't prove it. Oh, you know what I've got in my pocket? In my desk, that reminds me. Not a cost of toilet key. Now, I've got a Nero toilet key.

I've had it for over three years. Did it get you into any Nero toilet? It's still on the chain. It looks like a kind of medieval key that would open like an old wooden door. It's on an anti-theft chain. I know. And that's how brilliant I am.

Well, you'd never go into a Nero without a crowbar, do you? Absolutely not. I am the scarlet pimponel of London's toilets. He's struck again. If he's not having a meeting, he's taking our anti-secretary anti-theft key from under our very noses. He's so brilliant.

And he always leaves his trademark calling card. That smell. Oh, he's so brilliant. Oh, I'd love to meet him one day. What are you talking about? He's a criminal. God damn you. He's an outlaw. Yes, of course we all secretly love him.

How could we not? Daddy, I'm marrying Henry Packer. No! No daughter of mine. But Daddy, look at the look at the walls of our downstairs toilet. There's already a framed photograph of the two of you married.

He's put it up. He's done it behind my back and you've got married by... It looks like you were married in... That's right, Dad. The toilets of the Albert Hall. A huge cathedral-like toilet of the Albert Hall. Married by the toilet attended

by the most high-ranking toilet attendant in Britain. If anyone knows of any reason why these two may not be married, speak now. Flush now. That's just someone using the hand dryer. It's fine.

I'm going to see if I can catch the bouquet of turds. I'm imagining you now as a kind of phantom of the opera. Like, you're in charge of the subterranean world of London's subterranean toilets. I am. Well, they're all linked. Come with me.

Through the misty sewers. Through the famously good toilets at Hyde Park. Classic lift awkwardness. I suppose... Because British... I suppose we're the most... We're one of the most awkward

sets of people, aren't we? So, possibly that we suffer from lift elevator awkwardness worse than other people in the world. But obviously, if it's just you and one other person, that's awkward, isn't it, in a lift? Sometimes people sort of look at the corner or something.

Do you know what I mean? Because you don't really know where to look in an elevator, is the problem. Sometimes there'll be a mirror, which is... You can't look in the mirror. So it's do you... The question is, if it's just you and someone in the lift, do you... Stare at the other person?

Yeah. Solidly. Do you... Just close your eyes. Close your eyes. Do you stick your hand out and say hello. Let's do this. Let's do this. I know it's awkward, but we're just people

at the end of the day. We've been thrown together in this crazy life. Would you like to go caravanning with me? Yeah. It happens. Yeah? Sure. We're going down. Up and down.

That's like life, isn't it? You go up, you go down. Come on, let's just... I know you pressed floor 4, but why don't we just ride all the way up to 17 together? You and me. Come on, let's take a lift trip. Let's do it. Because... You know, you spend your whole life working for the man.

When do you have fun? Let's just take our shoes off. Let's bloody do this. Let's take our shoes off. Let's fill the elevator with water. And let's... Swim around. Aquavator. Why not? Hi.

Hello. You know what? This city, millions of people, every day we look through each other like we're not there. Hello. I'm Henry. And I see you. You're real to me. And I'm real.

Yes, yes, I'm crying and laughing. And I don't know... I don't know which emotion I'm feeling, but I'm feeling something, goddammit. Oh, sorry. This is your floor, is it? Oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah, sure. Nice to meet you. Yeah, thanks. I just want to press all the buttons.

Press all the... Yeah. Or including the emergency... Press that one. Who cares? Maybe the fire department people want to meet someone too, as well. Yeah. Maybe we should all... Why don't I set my trousers on fire? Bloody see what happens. Why don't we have a fire in here?

Let's have a fire fight. Let's see how much stuff we can set on fire. This old paint, and it looks very flammable. It's probably built before the era, and they took the stuff seriously. This old lift could probably go up in a fireball. And... And yeah, we'll be on fire, but...

We'll be alive for a short period of time? Yeah, we'll be about to die, but we'll be... We'll be alive while we're dying, won't we? Yeah, I'd take the stairs if I were you, Henry. Okay, let's go. Let's brace it to the stairs. Okay, that was elevators. Thank you, Elizabeth.

Very thoroughly explored as a topic. As never before. I'm sorry, but if it was a bit toilet-centric that episode, I feel that was my fault, and I apologise. I'm going to create a sort of mega-digestive track section jingle. Can you just record for me, Henry?

I think it was in your Hapsburg voice. Can you say, Digestive Track Talk Extra? Digestive Track Talk Extra? Oh, no. Um... Yeah. You know, uh...

Is that Pam? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was a safe bet, isn't it? Jeez. If it wasn't Pam, you'd have something to worry about. Yeah, if it's not Pam, I don't want to know, because I'll have to deal with it.

Yeah. Ready for emails? Ready for emails. That's what Pam is saying. Ready for emails. Yes, thank you to everyone who's emailed us at freebeans.pod.

Now, this first email. Uh... Okay, this is the beginning of 2022. And you've start a fresh page. A new leaf.

Clean laundry. A cleanly laundered duvet cover set. And a forgiving mind set. Indeed. A newly born fawn. Still covered in a kind of film. A sort of, yeah,

a sort of slimy film. Well, that's how I felt until I read this first email. Okay. Just quickly, a soft hoof that has yet to feel the earth beneath its

its feet. Its hoof. At which point it will quicken and harden. Which point it will quicken and harden, but just momentarily, it is the softest thing on earth. Except the underside of a mouse pad.

Dear Beans. Good tidings. Well, to see the relative success of the podcast so far. Here's to the patron becoming a huge success. Hopefully you're paid well enough to never have to do another live show. Fingers crossed.

Oh, no. Bloody hell. That's gotta be spurbs. Oh. That's gotta be spurbs. You know what? I bought a set of balloons saying, keep going, Henry. I always inflate them

at this time of year. They're bloody huge, aren't they, to get all that writing on. Fucking massive. I might not bother this. I'm just going to let them down. I'm going to let them straight down, I think, this year. He continues,

I've noticed a lot of listeners are submitting their own remixes of the opening jingle. This has inspired me to write my own and I hope you enjoy it. I know nothing about musical composition so it should be on a par or even better than the other jingles on the show. Don't hit us in the jingles.

OK. You can have a laugh. You can make fun of us. You don't go for Ben in his jingles. It's a red line. It's the one thing you don't do. Anyway, he writes Happy Holidays spurbs and he has included

his version of the theme tune which I can now play to you both. Oh my god. Oh my god. Good god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

OK. Nice. Nice. Nice. Nice. That's great. Oh my god. God. Oh, my God. Oh, God. Oh, my God. Well, I certainly wouldn't, I wouldn't

recommend it to us sort of first dance your wedding. It's not first dance your wedding stuff, is it? It's probably not good for a sort of commercial sort of radio jingle portfolio. Yeah, I wouldn't put it on a voice real. Yeah, definitely not you definitely not your radio to Jeremy Vine sort of jingle. We've been for the first time, audio spurred. We've been audio spurred. It takes it any of you. Yeah. I'm feeling deep for tea. Yeah, I feel hollowed out. I'm feeling rinsed or I feel internally rinsed. Can we slap ourselves back into life with a cheery email or perhaps a

brisk listener bollocking? Yes, maybe it's time for listener bollocking of the week. That might do it. Accessing listener bollocking. bollocking loading. bollocking loaded. Henry, are you ready for a one, two bunch of bollickings? As I'll ever be. Here we go. No bollickings for Mike this week. Yes. Oh, yeah, this is what I need to get me out of the the spurbs fag. Listen to bollocking for HP from Matthew. Three beans in the recent eight minute ramble to say there was no episode, which was our last episode. Henry Packers in line for a bollocking.

He asserted that in order to prepare the turkey ham ersatz dinner thing, the whole thing should be dropped into something way, way below zero. So we're talking minus 500 Celsius. Now, now, Mike, you're, you're a man of science. Sure. Can you predict what this bollocking might be in the shape of? Is it something to do with like Kelvin or absolute zero? Is it that sort of thing? He writes, as we all know, the lowest temperature possible is minus 273.15 degrees Celsius, absolute zero. So that he writes, so the choice is clear. He can either explain how his literate nitrogen process breaks the laws of our known universe

or accept his bollocking with good grace. Take it away, Henry. Accepto or reflecto? What's he called this guy? That was Matthew. Matthew. So, um, Professor Matthew to you. Matthew seems to have forgotten minus 274.15. So you're saying you get to minus 273 and then whatever that is, just make it a bit colder. Get it a bit wet and put it outside. Exactly. Or shove an ice cube down. Do anything to make something a bit colder to it. Yeah, open the window, get one of those, blow on it, get one of those mini fans, just fan it for a bit, lick it then blow on it.

It makes it even colder. I'll probably drop it a couple of degrees. Put it in a place with a chilly atmosphere socially. Because there's more than one kind of temperature. Take it to the reception area of a quite a sort of snooty hotel, the Ritz. Take it to the reception area of the Ritz. I imagine the atmosphere is quite chilly in there socially. Maybe there's a jilted, jilted groom standing there at the reception. Could well be. He'll be feeling frosty, won't he? You've just been jilted. So that's lowering you a couple of degrees. Maybe you pour a nice cold pint of San Miguel on it. Nice, crisp, cold pint.

Crisp and fresh and cold. Yeah. There we go, Matthew. So don't quite know what he's on about. Also, he's saying minus 273 is zero. It's absolute zero. So I mean, what's that mean? What's he on about? And I don't know if we should even really be entertaining this. Also, what's he on about? Absolute zero. Absolute. Yeah, we're talking, this is science. We're trying to be precise. Well, that's absolute zero. Have you heard that new Coldplay album? It's absolute rubbish. It's not about opinions and stuff, is it? Is it zero, isn't it? I don't know if it's absolute,

if you think it's absolute zero. There's really zero. Really? Yeah, exactly. Really zero. There's bloody zero. It's really bloody zero. Now, obviously, there's the whole Celsius Fahrenheit. Well, he's written a PS to deal with this. Okay. Oh, yeah, right. PS, if he claims to have got his Fahrenheit and Celsius mixed up, which would give minus 459 degrees, I call horse shit regards Matt. Wow. He's just up ahead of you. I didn't understand any of what he's saying.

The point he made was that even had you meant Fahrenheit, you'd still be wrong. Well, look, it's not my area. I'll admit that. Because your area, of course, is... Yeah, exactly. I know that there's a thing, isn't it? One of them is zero at freezing point, isn't it? Celsius? Yeah. We're freezing point of water, you mean? Yeah. Yeah, not Turkey Ham. Maybe the absolute zero of Turkey Ham is different. Yeah. It might be that we need a new unit. So which is the one where zero is freezing for water? That's Celsius. Or centigrade. I've never really worked out what the difference is.

Okay. Which is the one where they go, of course, bloody hot outside? It's 29. And which is the one where they go, of course, bloody hot outside? It's 115. Celsius works for both. Okay. But just in the second example, everyone gets broiled. So it'd be more like, oh, it's bloody hot outside. I'm dying. And you're dying. It's like some sort of an apocalypse. It's the end of days. Why did you set this elevator on fire?

And the other one is, it's bloody hot outside. You might want to wear some flip flops. Yeah. But you can, as far as I know, you can keep planning for your life for the next year. Plus. Which of those do you prefer? I feel I know my way around Celsius a bit more. Yeah. Anyone saying Fahrenheit living in the UK is a wrong one. You see, this is one of those things where I have come up against this time and time again in my life, time and time and time again. Which one is fucking which?

And I cannot remember, literally, this is making no traction at all. I cannot remember it. I've got no idea. Absolutely no idea which is which. Even now, we've just been talking about it. I don't know which one is the one where 30 is hot and which is the one where 100 is you're going to die and 30 is hot. And which is... Have we found your area of complete thickness? This is what I have total for this. Well, Matthew is trying to introduce the concept of Kelvin into it, which is a new one.

Please don't. Let's not even go there. Kelvin's the one that starts zero is absolute zero. So what does that mean absolute zero? Does that mean what else freezes? Everything freezes? Everything freezes, molecules stop moving. Although you've proven that's absolute rubbish, yeah, of course we've proven that's not true, but I think Henry could get it colder by blowing on it, but it wouldn't change anything because it's so cold anyway. Okay, which one's gas mark for? Because I've been doing quite a lot of cooking over Christmas.

Is that with a fan on or off? Again, I don't know. I don't know. It's always a pizza. I think just get takeaway pizza from now on, Henry. I think that's easier, isn't it? Okay, well, is that probably an accepto or a reflector? I think it's watch this bollock. He's put the bollock on ice. I think the bollock's on ice. This bollock's going to run and run.

Watch this bollock. All right, next bollocking. Are you ready? Yeah. This is from Cara. She describes it in the email subject as a re-reflecto bollocking. Oh, that might be our first bollock. A bollock or a refraction. Refractobollock. She says, I'd like to provide a much-needed re-reflectobollocking in response to Henry's 180-degree reflector bollock on the troch ice fridge freezer debate from the last episode.

Yeah. You know what, by the way, before we go, that actually sat with me for a while, that reflector bollocking. Well, you do dwell, dear Henry. I do dwell on these things. I dwell on these things. And I did think that I might possibly need to add a couple of caveats, because sometimes I can't see the wood for the trees with the bollocks. Are you trying to get these caveats in before the re-reflectobollock? Well, I'm trying to header on her re-reflectobollock off at the past.

At the nuts bar. At the nuts bar. Then they go on, let her carry on. Sorry. As a North American, I can confirm that some of us do indeed have giant cathedral fridges that you can walk into. But these fridges, like yours, do have freezers attached, at the top or bottom, or sometimes on one full side of the fridge.

We may also have a separate freezer for tubs of bell and jerrys and carcasses, but many of us find our fridge freezers sufficient. And she says, and we do differentiate between these two compartments. Eggs go in the fridge, chalk ices, brackets, fudge sickles, as they're known in Canada, go in the freezer. And she sent us a photo of a fudge sickle. A fudge sickle is quite a disturbing idea. So she's just letting you know that you are getting quite high on your horse and saying

that in North America, they have a completely different fridge and freezer setup than we do, and they could never understand what you meant. But it turns out it's not so different. So what's your counter attack, Henry? Are you just going to go for the fact that she refrigerates her eggs, or are you going to...? Well, I've got a few different ones to answer. I've got a few different ones to answer.

Go and hominem, my word. Before you go ahead, Henry, just to let everyone know, as a point of order, this will become a reflect-o-re-reflect-o-bollock, if Henry goes ahead with this. If I can pull this off. Also, looking at the fudge sickle she sent, the picture, I don't think they are chocolate. If you want to do a sort of sideways flanking bollock, which hasn't... I'd love to do that. ...get to do this without having to engage with the actual main point,

a fudge sickle is not a choc ice. Is it in the shape of a sickle? No, it's like a solid bar of frozen fudge on a stick, which is not what a choc ice is. And so I believe we can, from there, begin... Thank you. ...if you would like, Henry, to chip away at Cara's... Integrity? Integrity or her reliability as a witness here, essentially.

Yes, that will be my approach to this case. It's essentially sort of a fruit of the poison tree defence. Yes, I think she's undermined herself there. By the way, can I just say, dealing with all these bollockings, I do find it takes its toll on me. I get very, very tired and... You're looking a bit tired now. Yeah, I'm feeling really tired. And Ben, I do like the idea that if I could sometimes slightly delegate some of the

reflective bollocking to you as a sort of first line of defence, I'm almost like, think of a top prosecutor. Yeah. Or possibly... Yeah, I mean, I don't really have time to deal necessarily with all the... You're on a team. You're on a legal team. I need a team that know my philosophy and understand.

So you're the... Yeah. You're the CEO of receiving bollockings HQ. Exactly. You're receiving thousands of bollockings every day. Thousands of bollockings every day. I don't have time to deal with those bollockings on an individual basis. And you want me to be the receptionist, essentially?

I want you to be the receptionist. To be honest, a lot of the time. Where am I in this building? You're just... I've got a separate car wash in the basement or something. Yeah, you're just chasing what looks like half a sausage around the car park. No one knows what the hell you're doing there. I don't think I could do that.

No one knows what the hell you're doing there. Is the sausage being blown by the wind or has it got... It's been blown around by the wind in a way that's quite moving. Potentially. Mike's running around. Possibly a metaphor for life. If you've got time to unpack it. Possibly a metaphor for life.

And Mike's found the metaphor so distressing. And it's revealing so much truth about his state. He's running around with a sieve trying to catch it and squash it. Look, I used to deal with these bollockings myself. Obviously, I've done my time. Believe you me, that's how I got to where I am today, yeah? But now I've moved upstairs. Yeah, sometimes I'm not going to lie, I do miss it.

I do miss it. Sometimes I miss actually having to deal with the bollocking myself and reflecting it myself and everything. But I now delegate that to you, Ben, please. Yeah, and my huge team. Hang on. The way you frame this whole CEO of bollocking corp, I'm the receptionist.

Mike's chasing a sausage around you in the car park. Completely... Completely it misunderstands what a bollocking is, Henry. Well, it's a very individual thing. You're being bollocked. You and you alone are being bollocked. I can't do your prison time. No, but look.

What did you agree to when you signed up for this company? You watched the video. You've sat in that room and you watched the video. It's not even clear if Mike's an employee or not. I've just signed an NDA and been left to it in the car park. Every one of my employees believes in the system completely. You're part of me, Ben. That's how I see it.

If you're styling yourself like a CEO, but you are in fact nothing more than a mob boss. Well, very timely that you should make that connection. Yeah, yeah. Is there that much difference? Oh, wow. Hello, everybody. Another thing I'd like to add is there's a lot of heat.

He said this, she said, he said here. I don't want things to descend into that kind of thing with bollocks. He said, she said, oh, he said, Henry said this. He said that. You know what I mean? Right. It's hard for them to say it on anything else,

given that it's just a podcast where he said the thing. But yeah, yeah. And also, I'm pretty sure I've talked about the United States of America. I don't talk about, when I say, she's talking about the North American land mass. I don't think in land masses. Yeah, we're not living in pre-political times. You think in nation states.

I think in nation states, political boundaries. Multicoloured maps of the globe, that's what I deal with. Yeah. So I didn't, she lives in a sort of relief map world. Well, so I live in the sort of ridgy area. Shall we visit the valleys yonder? No. Is anyone, are you still listening?

I am. I think you're undermining yourself. Yeah, I think. Oh, am I? Yeah, I think so. I think you... Let's draw a line under it. But I think that was probably an abortive reflector,

re-reflecto-abolic. I think that's probably... Which may not make its way all the way across the Atlantic with full force back to Canada. It might fizzle out somewhere near the city islands. It certainly won't make it to the Azores. We washed up dead on the shores of Labrador a few months time. I think that's all the emails we've got time to read.

Do send us emails. They don't have to be bollocks. Henry's really come under quite a lot of bollock pressure recently. So just any reflection on anything we've said is more than gratefully received. Maybe you've got even more to say about elevators than we did. Who knows? Anything will do.

Also, if you genuinely want to sort of learn about something, you do Google it. Henry, you're undermining the whole podcast. Oh yeah, okay. Cancel that. Yeah. Well, thanks everybody. Now, of course, if you join our Patreon at patreon.com

forward slash three bean salad at the Sean Bean tier, that gives you access to the Sean Bean lounge when we were there last night. Yeah, it was a great night in the Bean lounge last night, wasn't it? Oh my God, amazing. It was always so fun. But last night stands out for me.

Yeah, lovely. So basically last night was design your own board games night, which was a huge hit. I wasn't sure if it would work, but basically we opened up the games room, which we haven't used for a while. So basically everyone had to bring their own board game that they designed.

And I wasn't sure if it was going to work, but that was until Mark Fippin turned up with his board game, which was he had two wooden sort of cases in each hand. And he popped them open and his game was, it was called Doctor Doctor Doctor. Right. Each case had a doctor costume, didn't it? Yeah.

And then people had to dress up. So then I think it was Alex Colder dressed up in one of them and Ellie Watt dressed up in the other. And the game, so you've got two people then dressed as doctors. And they had to operate on each other. And they had to operate on each other. To the death with Luke Robertson as master of ceremonies. But of course, he'd brought his own board game, hadn't he?

Well, he brought Philip Kavanaugh dressed as a board game. He'd slightly misunderstood, hadn't he? Philip Kavanaugh was dressed up as fucking Broncos. He hadn't got the memo. We only got half the memo. By the way, I've agreed from now on, I'm not going to use memos anymore as a way of communicating. No one's going to be quite clear what they are.

The people just don't get them fully. So he got half the memo. That's right. So he'd dressed up. Well, we discovered part of the reason people don't get the memos is because of Kim Schlenker, who's down there on good form, but Kim is a memo thief. So often, if you didn't get the memo,

was Kim Schlenker in the area at the time, it may have been Kim Schlenker who took the memo. Well, that's it. Yeah, you never know, do you? Sam Wilkinson was there, of course. He claimed to have got the memo, but he brought what he said was a game that he'd made up that he was calling Monopoly.

But he was pronouncing it a Monopoly. So Ben, because you didn't give him enough credit for that, you didn't give him a time of day, but I looked at it. And it's basically, it's a game which suggests a parallel world where it's still about finance and buying and selling properties. But imagine if there was only one person called Polly in the world. Well, Charlie Chomlowski had a very similar game called Polly Polly, where you imagine you sit in a world where there are loads of Polly's

and you know an unusually large number of Polly's, and they're quite different. And that was the problem, because he had lots of little Polly figurines, which are the pieces. They were spilling onto the Monopoly board, of course, because that's what Ben Wallace O'Clock was doing. He was trying to, yeah, he was like picking up the Polly pieces, trying to put them back.

He was saying, don't ruin this game of Monopoly with all your Polly pieces. Exactly. Well, because they were skittering about the place. Well, pieces by this, it was chaos, speaking of pieces, because of course, Jane Carter, she brought a gun, brought a gun, and was making us, at gunpoint, play Jenga, in which anyone, anyone called Jane would be stacked up into a pile of Jains. And then the top one would be shot off.

Shut up to shoot the Jains out. I think she had actually got the memo weirdly, so there's no excuse at all. I mean, she'd got the memo, but she'd just chosen to go rogue with it. Because, of course, Jenga is not a board game. Exactly. It's, there's no board. Nor is two doctors simultaneously operating on one another. When you think about it that way.

Well, that's true. So, it was nice to be brought a bit down to earth at that point, wasn't it, by Rebecca Leslie, who, her ingenious game, as she'd invented, called, which was Rebecca Leslie's Pandemonium Staircase of Collidoscopic Confusion. Jonathan Short was the first person to volunteer. Jonathan often will volunteer to go first with these things. And he just disappeared into the game.

Hasn't actually been seen since. No. Also, any physical record of him has disappeared. It's a great shame, as I was saying to John Ramseyer. Well, John Ramseyer, his game, if I remember this, tell me if I got this wrong, it was called, so it was called something like, the ferociously glowing eye of the Omnitron Beast.

Wasn't it? Which sounded quite exciting, but it was just, it was just, as far as I remember, it was just, it was a very blank board with just one card on it, which said, beware the glowing eye of the Omnitron Beast. And I think that was it. Yeah. The Omnitron Beast, of course, as it turns out, being Nicola Donaldson,

who does have a very glowing eye. That's true. If you gaze into, you sort of vanish into a sort of puff of blue smoke. So you should look at a right eye, not a left eye. And that was a mistake, of course, made by Tess, who was there moments before she looked into Nicola's Omnitron eye and disappeared. And now, yeah, she has the smallest amount of blue smoke left of Tess,

which we have kept in a vial in the hope that someone might be able to tell us how to re-institute her back into a full Tess. Yes. Which, of course, would be difficult because, of course, her surname also disappeared in the incident, didn't it? And I don't think we'll ever get that back. No. So a big night, I mean, lots of disappearances and deaths.

And it was, you know, quite a big kill count on the night. Yes. But without the jeopardy's part of the fun, isn't it? And also, I did lose, I lost a couple of dice. Up Robert Napsar's. Well, I was using him as a shaker. But I think he ended up walking home with them. So if he could send those to me, maybe just give him a quick swab

and send him first post. You don't clean them, just swab them. Don't clean them. There's no point cleaning them, is there? If you swab them and then send them to me, and I'll just keep using them, if I do get ill, we might have to refer back to your swab to find out what you've got.

I don't know what it is, yeah. So thanks, everyone. Lovely. So thanks, everyone, who signed up at the Patreon, at patreon.com forward slash three been salad. Let's work out what theme we're going to hear. Shall I give you some options? Yes, please.

We've got gargled by three people. Granula whale song, guitar, piano-centric version written sub-tuplets, modern jazz, the violin, jazzy wine bar version, and spaghetti western. There's been a few that have been waiting for a while, having their violin, modern jazz. I feel bad they've been waiting for a while. I have a strong urge to hear the gargled one,

to start the year with that. OK, all right. But that's with the greatest respect to the others who have been waiting some time now. So Johnny, Ed and Susie write, Dearest Beans, I hope you're well. I'm sitting in my parents' kitchen with my sister, my brother-in-law, my parents' dog,

and a sense of not having accomplished anything in life so thus far. At least until three minutes ago. One of us choked on some water, and so was born the greatest musical idea of this afternoon. Behold the three parts gargling of your theme tune. Please enjoy. Brilliant.

So thank you, Johnny, Ed and Susie. Excellent. And thank you for listening. See you next time. Cheerio. Bye. Bye.