Three Bean Salad - Glass

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

This week’s topic, courtesy of “Your Worst Nightmare” is glass. Having comprehensively and definitively covered the science of glass in the deep bean past the beans find time to get entrepreneurial (watch this space, dog owners), satirical (watch out, The Man) as well as sorting out their pension plans. They even manage to squeeze in a smidge of Gérard Depardieu for good measure. A bumper crop for the last episode of this season. The beans shall return in December. In the meantime, for heaven’s sake, don’t sit on your own arse.Join our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansaladGet in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpod

Henry, I thought of you yesterday, because I remember once you were a member of the London Library. Oh, God, that was such a... Yeah, it's a really pretentious phase of mine. The British Library or the London... No, no, no. It's like a private library you can pay to go into. Oh, right.

This is the one of Piccadilly or something, isn't it? Yeah, tucked away. It's in James's Square. Yeah. So, you go in and it's basically just Tom Stoppard being... Just swearing at the coffee machine. But I remember you remember. Yeah, I was a member.

And yesterday, I walked past a library where... It's a long story, but it put me in mind of that. And I remember thinking, I wonder how many times Henry went during that year where he was spending a certain amount of money on it. Well, I joined the London Library as one of the most grand gestures of procrastination. It was probably... It was probably peak procrastination. And I think I had an Edinburgh show to write.

I was struggling to concentrate in cafes and stuff. And I thought... You thought the problem isn't me. The problem... It can't be. It's the one thing I ruled out from the beginning. It cannot be me, so it must be my environment. A flower cannot flower if it is not in the right environment.

A flower cannot flower in a coaster. That's why there are no live plants in a coaster. In fact, nothing living at all, really. Nothing living can thrive in a coaster. So I decided the solution was to join a place with dusty books on the shelves. Surrounded by books, by tomes, great stories. And also, surely exposure to Stoppard's air. Surely I'll absorb some of that.

Olivier award-winning guffs. Very farts of Stoppard. Filtering into your brain. Exactly. Surely that's going to rub off. But the main reason I did was there was a long joining process whereby as soon as that started, I could then excuse myself from working at all until I deferred working when I've joined the London Library.

Very good. So that gave me two weeks off. That's the point of procrastination. You get to breathe, you dust off abs odyssey, and you buy a PlayStation 2 from the internet. That also takes some time. It's nice because that takes the pressure off having to play the abs odyssey, which also has a certain amount of pressure involved. So basically, you're creating situations where you're waiting for stuff to happen.

So then I joined the London Library. And then you've got to be churn around and understand how it all works, right? You've got to work out where the toilets are and all that kind of thing and where the coffee machine is. That takes a few days. You get given a little tour, which is nice. Then there's your induction drinks. Induction drinks.

Then there's the hazing rituals. Performing in a full production of the Musical South Pacific with Tom Stoppard. That's right. But silently because it is a library. Because it is a library. So that obviously takes up quite a lot of time. There's a bit tour of the map of the stacks. So you're given a map of the stacks and a series of challenges.

So can you find your way around the stacks? Because those shelves are there in this library. It's just stacks. It's just stacks. It's old style. 50 foot high stacks. So if your book is towards the bottom of the stack, you just have to read your way through the books from the top to get there.

That's like, there's no way around it. And that's of course why people are so much better read in those days. Yeah, you're given a series of sort of stack challenges. So you'll be taken to a copy of The Origin of Species by Darwin. Oh, I've never heard of that one. It's a really good one. Absolutely brilliant twist in it. It's a good twist.

Don't tell him it does Peter out a bit after that. And they'll be like, right, you've got five minutes to hand me a copy of The Pelican Brief by John Grisham. And it's run, go, go, go, go. And you've got to negotiate your way through the stacks. But that one's easy in the London Library because it's the Gusion Wing. What's in the Gusion Wing exactly? Find me the Necromecon.

It's the kind of place that would have a Necromecon. But it's quite... Did I show you around, Ben, when I was a member? Was that an option? No, I would have loved that. No, I just... You could have introduced us to Stop Odd. You kept that quiet.

You know what, I just said that. I just remembered now. I remember at the time thinking that there were certain people that probably wouldn't want to introduce us to Stop Odd. Obviously, there's a few big ticks. Yep, yep, stop Odd, stop Odd. Stop Odd, ready, stop Odd, ready, stop Odd, ready. Ben, just don't see it clicking.

Sorry, don't see them clicking. So, what I want to know is how well used was your subscription? Fucking useless. I was back in constant within like two weeks. It was... Can I tell you what happened? This is such a classic... This is just...

What happened is what always happens in life, in any situation like this, which is I got there, got through all the induction stuff, and then it was like, right, so where am I going to sit? So, basically, it's a kind of cavernous, labyrinthine old building. It's just how you'd like an old library to look. And in different little corridors and little rooms sticking off bits, there are little tables where people sat around and working quietly. So, I found this one space and I was like, OK, it was a side room

with quite a big table with like maybe seven or eight people around it. And I sat there and I was like, I just felt a bit uncomfortable. Something wasn't right. I was like, I need a coffee. Went through a labyrinthine series of corridors, staircases. It was all quite MC Escher. It's like you'll be at the top of a staircase and you look at the bottom of an upside down baby who's got your laptop.

Hang on, that's not a baby. That's Mark Lawson wearing a nappy. Reading the necromicon. They're grabbing himself to my sandwiches. So then what you'd have to do is you try to launch yourself up in the air because with any upside down library system, if you can get above the halfway point between a floor and a ceiling, reverse gravity operates, you fall up.

So then what you're hoping is then to fall upwards, smack into Lawson. Into Lawson, baby. That worked. I've now got Lawson's sickle over me, though. That's some of that's gone on to the necronicon. He's like, you're going to have to pay for that. But at that point, I've crawled off to a tiny little air vent. Then you know, you're crawling through sort of spiral spaces and suddenly you're in Tom Stoppard's mind.

Tea party. Yeah, which is a constant tea party with him and 15 other Tom Stoppards all discussing what their favourite Stoppard is. And all agreeing that it's all Stoppard. He then fall out into a kind of information flume that's just you in loads of like bits of punctuation, letters, just thoughts and abbreviations, just pure grammar. And all the time, all you can hear is loud Prokofiev playing ear spitting.

Words. John Ronson. So I'm just looking at my bookshelf. You put John Ronson next to Dickensley. I just looked up at my bookshelf. I thought I'll say the first authoriser was John Ronson. I mean, it's very good, but it doesn't feel quite in sort of. So yeah, so then you might, if you're lucky,

you'll tumble out of the sort of grammar flume. And into the syntax jacuzzi. Hi. Hi. Conjugate this. Hi, I'm John Updike. No, I'm not dead and I'm not American. Enjoy.

And then get out and then get the fuck out. Then you have to run down the staircase of pages, which is terrifying. It's a moving staircase of pages which are flapping and they're empty pages. And if you get squashed, squashed between them, you become a book, a prize nominated book in four years. So it's all, it's where it all happened, basically.

I, so yeah, so eventually I went through various service elevators, various like book, book repository type storage bits and found my way to the tiny cafe at the top of the building. It's several buildings in a row, in fact, but there's a tiny little sort of sitting roomy kitchen bit. Honestly, system coffee machine fine with that. Put a quid and made myself a coffee, heading back into the stacks. And someone, someone puts a hand on my arm.

Is anybody William Blake? And he's like, these feet, right, in ancient times, they might have walked across England's mountains, dear. Is that the right line? Green? Something green, isn't it? But I tell you one thing I've never done. It's gone back into the main body of the London library with a coffee because it's not allowed.

Suddenly, suddenly it all starts falling apart. Suddenly the, suddenly the books are full. That's not going to do, is it? That's not going to do for Henry Packer, one little bit. So, so, so I got my coffee, I head back to my bit where I was seated, sitting, where I was with the computer and I'm feeling... By which time you were just about ready for another coffee?

Just about, just about feel I've earned another coffee. And I'm someone who I need my coffee to be hot at all times, which is why I've done a lot of research into the heated, well, thermoses and I've discovered that they do exist and they do work. That's been the fruits of my research. But so then I was like, OK, I need to sit in a bit that's closer to the cafe, so I moved. There are various premium seats.

So there are different levels of stacks, right? There's like, to deep, deep, deep underground. So it gets, and the books get lower and lower brow, that the deeper you go. So by the time you get to the bottom, it's like, you know, cooking tips from Ian Biel. Exactly. And the idea is that those should be as close as possible

to the bowels of hell, those kinds of books. See, OK, I understand the logic. Yeah. And of course, then there's the bottom zone, which is simply called the titch marsh floor. That's right. And the tiles feel hot underfoot there. The tiles feel hot, and there are vents which they say go,

do you literally have hot air coming from Hades itself into the titch marsh level? And the occasional escape to Daemon. So basically the prime seats where there's this little individual table can get, which in the middle of a stack, the next to a window, which you can open. Oh, yes, because it's also blisteringly hot in there. Because of the portal to Hades.

Two things, the portal to Hades and Stoffbox Guffs, those two things, blisteringly hot and stuffy. And just a general dusty sense of stuffy, you know, stuffiness of an old institution. And everyone's wearing thick tweed as well. And I assume you're having to wear thick tweed as well. Of course, regardless. Yeah, you have to, all year round, right?

You actually walk through room made of corduroy to get in. So you're actually, so by the time you get in, you're fully... So you're triple-tweeted by the time you get in? You're triple-tweeted. You've got your tweed vest from your future, tweed tie, tweed over shirt. And all the hinge bits of your body are corduroy, so you can still move your, you can still hinge your arms

and legs, you can still nod sagely to, if someone says, for example, that Stoppard's good, or that they like Stoppard, you're still able to nod. You can have corduroy detailing. It's very much like medieval armor, but corduroy and tweed. Anyway, so yeah, there's these different stacks. Basically, if you put humans beings together in a space with limited seating, what happens is on a daily basis,

there's a kind of unspoken seating wall, which takes place, whereby people are battling for the best seats, best tables, best chairs, best plug sockets. I'd get in early, I'd be like, right, I'm gonna go for one of those individual tables up on the third floor, it's near the coffee place. Nice window for a bit of air. I'd go in, and bloody Agatha Christie would be

sitting out there, or whatever. So, and then I'd go, right, I'll stick or twist, I'm gonna try the level below this one, even though I know the level above this one is slightly better, but that's more likely to be taken. So, I'd then wait for the lift, which was punishingly slow, to get into the lift, and it would always be Stoppard and it finishing anecdote about himself,

and whacking the keep the doors open thing on the floor above. He wouldn't let the lift move until he finished his anecdote. But he'd get into the punishingly slow lift, that would come down, the lifts would come open, I'd weave my way through the stack to that table underneath the table on the floor above that I wanted. I'd get there, and obviously, bloody Robert Browning would just be settling in,

taking off his tweed outer jacket and just... The plug's already taken up with Agatha Christie, he's got an extensional cable, who's come from the... Yeah, she's run that through. The floor above, anyway, so... She's run that through from above. Also, you're looking at your watch here, the morning is going, it's now 11.50,

and I still haven't sat down. I then start thinking maybe I could just... Even though you were careful to arrive, ready to start at 11.45. At 11, on the dot! The crack of 11.45. The crack of 11.45. And by that point, I'd be thinking maybe I could circle

back round to that, to the Agatha Christie seat, because, Amy, look, she is getting on a bit now, so sometimes she will go for a mid-morning. She'll go for that mid-morning. Death. Reanimation, reanimation, enema. We'll go for that, off and around 12.15. I'll circle back to that one, she's still there.

I'll do the thing of hanging around in the stacks, waiting in case someone left. Then I think, fuck it, I'll go back to those really bad seats. I'll go back to the worst room. That would all be taken. And then they'll be like, well, look, it's 11.55. The day's basically finished. If I leave now, I could make the first showing of neighbors.

To be honest, the whole thing was an absolute... I kind of knew it was at the time. It was just sort of procrastination and with a healthy helping of Henry Packer. Henry Packer laced, enrobed, in a meaty coating of good old-fashioned vanity. Who the fuck do you think you fucking are? But it was nice being in that part of London.

There's all this like, shop selling old brogues and old hat. There's hatters, you still get old hat. Oh, it's like, German street. German street, you get old hat stoppers. There's still a big guy offering to polish your hat. There's all that old stuff is happening around there. You just get upside down and it'll sort of stall inside of the street. And he spins you around and he'll...

Bufs you and polishes you. When your year subscription came up, did you then forget to cancel it and pay for another year? I think I'm still a member, Ben. In fact, I recently upgraded to the Stop Art Lounge. Which is a great place not to go. But it does do a mean lunchtime pedicure. You don't even have to go to the London Library to be a member.

We'll look after the library for you. To sit back in a cafe franchise of your choice, say for the knowledge that Stop Art is OK. OK, let's turn on the bean machine. This week's topic is sent in by somebody called Your Worst Nightmare. So that was my mum turning into a witch and back again, flipping between the two at the top of a staircase.

I was at the bottom of the staircase. My brother was looking at me from a swimming pool through a window. I had to lift a huge bag of very, very heavy muesli from the floor onto the table in time before the staircase came in. I was looking in time before the staircase disappeared and I wouldn't be able to get up the staircase and through to the swimming pool to do something with my brother.

In the meantime, my mum was flicking between being herself and a witch. Is that real? Yeah. Well, it's your worst nightmare. Like your worst nightmare? Same for me. Same one. Same. Yeah, it is one of the classics, it's a bit boring.

Henry's mum. That's same for me, but I was the muesli. Just get me onto that table, you idiot, Henry. Get me onto that... What's wrong with him? We're running out of time. We're running out of time. My worst nightmare was when I was a kid. I'd watched a TV adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles

and then for the next week or so, I'd had an awful dream about this huge hound chasing me around and being scary at night. That was my worst nightmare. Can I say The Hound of the Baskervilles for me is in the category of... It's a bit like Nightmare on Elm Street. I don't know if you remember that film or know of it in the posters and stuff. Before I'd actually seen or read The Hound of the Baskervilles,

the idea of it terrifying me, hound. Baskervilles... The hound of the Baskervilles... Hound, sounds so terrifying. Hound. It's not called the dog of the Baskervilles. And the Baskervilles, they sound so sort of frightening as a group of people. So I was terrified of The Hound of the Baskervilles

until I read it and then saw it and realised it's just fairly sort of... I think The Hound of the Baskervilles was ruined for me by being a member of the Scooby-Doo generation. Because I'd had a lot of Scooby-Doo before I came around to The Hound of the Baskervilles. And all I was expecting the whole way through was just for someone to rip off a dog mask at some point. And say, whoa, it was me. And it is that kind of... It's a classic Scooby-Doo kind of story, isn't it? Baskerville.

And that didn't happen. I was like, oh, come on. Where's your reveal? Where's your big twist here, lads? Come on. And the other one like that for me was Nightmare on Elm Street. The poster and everything about it. And the idea of it was terrifying to me.

And it gave me nightmares until I saw the film again. It was just sort of slightly naff and whatnot, didn't find that frightening. Nightmare on Elm Street was also the kind of film at school where there would be rumours about things that had happened to people who had watched the movie. Yes, exactly. I think it's the sort of progenitor of that... Yes. I think that film you mentioned the other day, Henry,

that the one I can't remember what it is, that Japanese horror where something comes out of the telly and... The ring. That's it. Oh, yeah. I wondered if that had even inspired the ring, because those kind of stories where, well, my friend said that his cousin had watched it and then he went to sleep and then he had a nightmare and he was pulled into a water bed and he was slashed to pieces.

Did he, though? Yeah. And there was a small Japanese girl with long black hair, but her head was the wrong way around or something. Horror films are never as scary as... No, the idea of them is terrifying. When you watch them, yeah. And because in reality, they're just a bit sort of naff in a fun way.

Like, I like them, but... Of course, the truth is, if you really want real horror at the moment, you just watch the bloody news. Just let that bed in for a minute. And you don't know if you're going to be watching a horror or a clown show. Or... Yeah. Or a clown horror.

There's certainly a strong mystery element to some of their policies and... Decision-making. I don't really need to finish that part, because it's just... Yeah. I'll just say what, instead. I tell you what, I wish it was the Prime Minister Wood rip off her face and reveal that it was a cartoon dog, because that probably made better decisions about

the economy and policies and so on. Sometimes it's like watching a period drama, isn't it? The way these guys carry on is if it's the bloody 1800s. Or an episode of Doctor Who, where the Daleks are the ones who are actually running a lot of the major... departments of government. Or the news. Watching the news, isn't it? Watching the news, these days.

I tell you what, you could get all the greatest writers in history and they wouldn't be able to make up a story as fictional seeming as the current actual factual news is. Yeah. So... Food for thought, isn't it? Anyway, nice little section on that, Food for Thought. Yeah.

We could... We could... We could call it Food for Thought or Take That. Could we? Oh, I like Take That, yeah. Yeah, exclamation mark. All I do each night is satire. Hoping that a part of me one day will improve the policies

that are currently governing the future of this country, come on, please, and so on. Before we continue with the podcast, here is a note from this week's editor, Bondjamyn. You may have noticed that in the previous section, Henry referred to the Prime Minister of the UK using female pronouns.

I tell you what, I wish it was the Prime Minister Woodrip off her face and revealed it was a cartoon dog. Woodrip off her face. Her face. Her face. Her face. You'll notice that we used the pronoun her there to describe the Prime Minister, of course,

since this has been recorded. We've got a new Prime Minister because, of course, they come along as regularly as German trains these days, don't they? The bloody PMs. How long will Rishi last? Longer than one of the yogurts in my fridge. Well, let's see.

OK, so you're always like Mary's sent in the topic this week, and it is. Yes. Glass. Glass. Just for the listener, I can see Henry, he's got his glass of water and he's running his finger around the rim of it and he's wetting his finger

in the hope that it's going to create a beautiful ethereal sort of dooo sound. Well, that doesn't work with perspex. I'm going to have a go on mine, but it's not going to work, is it? It always worked beautifully. Now, obviously, it's just happening increasingly now, increasingly now, actually, as we've done more and more episodes. We have actually mentioned glass before.

Have we? Well, yeah, because Walter from Austria told us that... Yes, of course, Walter. Glass isn't a liquid. Yeah. Or is a liquid. I can't remember which it was. Well, we decided it was a liquid.

It definitely is a liquid. Well, let's not bring that up. That's why when you go to a medieval church, you'll find fat glass at the bottom of all of those windows, isn't it? There's fat glass at the bottom. Fat kind of ribena glass. Ribena glass.

Or because all the different stained glasses are mixed together. And thin glass up at the top, isn't it? Because it seeps down with time. So, obviously, me and Henry, we see the world through glass. So you do. On a daily basis. Mike, have you ever wanted or needed glasses? I do.

Well, I had this chat with a friend the other day. I've never... I did think I've ever had a proper eye test. Mike, what are you doing? But I just arrogantly assumed that I've got perfect jet pilot vision. Mike, this is like your dental situation you told us about. You're not looking after your two main... The two main bits of people's health,

which, you know, you have to sort of look after yourself to a degree, isn't it? Is teeth and eyes. You need to get those tests. Are you getting the little cards through the door that they used to do in the 80s that they still do? Yeah, we do get the odd card through the door, actually. Yeah. Yeah.

And I've sent other members of my family away to use the cards. You think you have? You don't know who they are. They're just sort of... You've sent the wobbly forms that surround you. Wobbly friendly forms. Those are the ones in the home. Wobbly angry forms.

Those are the ones in the street. Those are the ones I hit with my car. Yeah, the tallest one. Ah, the tall wobbly... The tall wobbly one. The tall, fuzzy one who I made some vows to some years ago. Yes. She got...

Of course, she was slightly less wobbly then. Slightly less wobbly then, wasn't she? She was slightly crisp. She got fixed up with some lenses. Yeah. And one of the bigger of the two smaller ones also got fixed up with some lenses. Yeah, the smallest one's okay.

Pamela, like me, has never had a proper eye test. And we just assume... That's a good point. Like, do you get dogs that need glasses? You don't get dog specs. I think they just prefer contacts on the whole because otherwise it's very annoying. Ben, we might have just come up with

the cutest medical innovation of all time. Frames to match her face shape with the works, right? Dog specs. I tell you what, dog owners, you could 100% sell dog specs. Of course you could. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah. People will take money out of their children's lives

out of their own health for their animals. Yeah. And all you'd need to do is the most... You'd set yourself up as a canine optometrist or whatever. You'd need to do the most cursory examination. You'd need to construct some sort of device, but you could do that by sticking a couple of kind of plug adapters in a tin can together with a gaffer tape,

covering it in, pretending to wave that over an eyeball of a dog. And so, yeah. Yeah. This is the left side, minus 20 on the right side, 3.0. I think it'd be quite easy to sell the goddess of the may, because you put the chart up in front of the dog, you say, read the top line. Yeah.

They fail to do that by basically printing money. Yeah. I'm sorry, madam, but Pam has just done a series of incarant barks. She's colour blind. She'll never be a fighter pilot. She'll never fly a plane. She didn't even get past the A, the big A.

Now, it could be that she just does bark generally most of the time and doesn't say letters and stuff. But is that a risk you're prepared to take with this? Look at her cute face. And for just £47 a week. You can subscribe to the feeling that Pam's vision is OK. You can't put a price on that, but we have anyway. We've guessed it, £49.99.

But you can't put a price on £49.99. If you did, it'd be roughly 50 quid, isn't it? That's what it is, roughly, to the nearest price. I think I've heard of the old dog having a cataract operation. Right. I think of it. Is that right? Yeah.

And that sounds feasible, but correcting your visual acuity seems like a bit of a stretch. I'm just trying to picturing bluebell with a monocle. And an ear trumpet. It's unbearably sweet. It is almost unbearably sweet. But it's not far from that sweet into sinister, is it, by the same token.

True. It could be a little arch in a cat. Those things are always very, very closely linked with bluebell, but also because then once you've got the monocle, it's how long is it till you've got the top hat? The cane. The cane. The sliver of a blade hidden within the shaft.

That's right. The railway empire. Yeah. Yeah. The monopolising control of the utilities of this country. The offshore accounts. The villa in Turks and Caicos. Right.

The initially just the occasional WhatsApp, but then the increasingly close real friendship with King Jong-un. Isn't it? Holidaying together. Basketballing. And then before you know it, they're both wearing hard hats, being given a tour of a munitions factory. Being photographed together.

With Dennis Rodman. Who's, yeah, very much now third fiddle. Who's Dennis Rodman? He's the American basketball player who's big-time pal of Kim's. He's a basketball star. Does he live in North Korea or is he just mates? No, I think he's just mates, but he has been over it. Chicago Bull's dream team gang, wasn't he?

He was the kind of tattooed, the sort of wild playboy guy. A loose cannon. Yeah, but a genius on the cart. I thought you meant Dennis Waterman, that's how I was picturing. Oh yeah, him too. He's so good for you. Yeah, he's big friends with Kim Jong-un as well. Yeah.

Big fan of Minder. I was thinking about those celebs that kind of sort of become the friend of a dictator. The other big one is Stephen Seagal. Who's he friends with? Putin. He loves Putin. He lives in Russia now.

Does he? No. So did Depadir. Depadir has distanced himself, hasn't he, recently? But I think Seagal is still bang up for it. Well, I was wondering, because I was thinking about, obviously, with the situation with Ukraine and the war, where the Seagal is now feeling a bit like, oh, shit.

I half expect to see Seagal turning up at the, I don't know, in Belarus somewhere with a squad ready to go. Basically, as long as he thinks of himself as a chef and as whoever he's fighting as being terrorists on a train. He's unstoppable. He's unstoppable. He's pointing in the right direction. Yeah.

Give him a series of steak knives and, yeah, whisks and spatulas and stuff. There's an amazing video on the internet of him somewhere in Russia, and he's doing a demonstration of his. Have you seen this? Of his martial arts prowess. But he's now, it's about to say a bit past it. He must be 25 stone.

He's massive. Doesn't look the most energetic. He's incredibly old as well, isn't he? And old. Exactly. He must be really old. So, you know, fair play to him, but probably not the best martial artist anymore,

one might think. And basically, it's something that only happens in dictatorships, which I quite enjoy, which is the kind of spectacle where they've just been told, right, run towards him. He will essentially pat you on the back and then you have to flip away as if you've been, you know, as if he's done something amazing.

And so it's just a series of these very live young martial artists getting their ass kicked by Seagal, but he's not moving. He's just standing there. And they sort of run into him. He sort of waffs them away. He does waff them away. It's absolutely amazing.

He's in Shea Charisma. But I think he's genuinely had a sort of, someone pointed this out to me. I think he has, in all of his movies, basically since Tommy Lee Jones and Under Siege, no one on camera has laid a finger upon the man. All of his kind of, all of his self-made movies, ever since then, Punch Never Lands.

Oh, is that right? Kick Never Lands. Whoever comes at him, he flips them off into the nearest wall. And so even stage, even stage punches now, he can't actually take. No, he won't. Yeah.

There's absolutely zero tension. Like, you know, from the beginning of the movie, he's, he's going to be fine. And everything's going to be fine. So he's still doing films, is he? I don't think so. I wonder whether he's making them in Russia. Or not.

They're sort of Russian propaganda. Because he's not cashed in then on the whole, like, old action hero guys films. He could, he could be doing well with that. No, he, he is a bit, he's a bit problematic in the Me Too era, I think. He thinks of raised their head. Yeah.

I think he does also in himself, but he also includes a sort of very gratuitous sex scene with a woman 40 years his junior. That's, that's, that's in his films. Okay. But the other one is, yeah, Jeff Wajir, who I think no longer lives in Russia, but was mates.

Really? But it's a kind of, it's a good late career thing to do. Like, I wonder if, you know, for the three of us, It's one of your options. If we've been silent, it starts, you know, waning a bit

and people aren't interested anymore. If Trump gets back in. Well, look, you know, people obviously have made approaches, haven't they? That's not, we don't have to. We don't have to be quiet about that, is what you mean? No.

Right. We've, we've had offers, haven't we? Well, from the Burmese Hunter. Right. And essentially they give you a kind of, what it's a kind of ceremonial role. You have to sort of turn up at the old rally, don't you? You wear the merch.

You wear the merch. And obviously we would just be, well, we'd be doing our lukewarm band, wouldn't we? But through, through, through sort of tannoy, in the sort of massive sports stadium. And in tacit support of an autocratic regime.

Yeah. Sure. And you've got to make a living, haven't you? You've got to. But at the moment, while Patreon is, is holding up, it's not,

it's not something we've had to think about too hard. Do we need to put in a fourth tier, which is like, you can only subscribe to it if you're an autocratic dictator. I think we do. I think if you've got an Air Force. Well, I suppose it's,

you know, you've got to think long term. Look, look, show biz, right? It's, it's a fickle business, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Realistically. I was planning on leaning heavily on my wife. Really? So that's obviously, that's one of the options, which is,

is willing on, willing on Mike's wife, willing on Mike's wife. That's something we've, we've discussed. She's got a pension, skilled professional. Well, normal job people,

you try and lean on normal job people. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Because my options were always, maybe going to teaching. Yeah. Yeah.

Or become the favorite of an autocratic dictator. Yeah. And also, can you teach lukewarm banter, then? Do you know what I mean? So I think autocratic dictator

is the best bet. Now, obviously, it's not that we're in favor of autocracies, is it? But the fact is, if you're looking for a long-term solution, you need an autocracy

because an elected government is no good for us, is it? Because we, as anyone watching the news can attest, welcome to take that. Never forget where

your satire comes from. Relate my interest in economics and fiscal policies. Go on, Henry, you're just in the middle of digging yourself into an increasingly hazardous hole. But it looks like

you've kind of been stunned by the satire. I have. Just taking my breath away. He's vexed himself. I'm trying to think if I fucking take that one. A million

pounds of debt later. I wouldn't even scratch the surface of the national deficit over the next five years. Very good. Very good. More than worth it. Thanks, mate.

We're going to start doing album tracks, I think, soon. But the point is, realistically, beyond the age of, let's say, 52, none of the three of us can earn a penny

if the rest of our lives. We sign up for this life knowing that. Well, actually, there's a third way, isn't there? There's going to teaching as Leon Mike's wife. Yeah.

There's autocratic potato. Or there's the fourth way, actually. Get cast in a detective series. Become a right-wing grifter on GB News. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes, I forgot that.

That's the other one. We can't all do that. I think that has to be one. I think because... Well, one of us will, for sure. It's just, of course. But I think it's stronger if one of the three of us,

you know, branches out and goes into that, you know, oh, he used to be in this. Do you know what I mean? It works better. I'm going to be all over that, because the main way you become

someone that can work on GB News is by having your phrases that you can hide the word woke in. And I've got, obviously, wokeerati. I'm sick of listening to the wokeerati. Good. It's good.

Solid. Yeah. I didn't know about you, but I didn't particularly want to spend the rest of my life living in woke Afghanistan. That's strong. Very good.

I thought I was taking a British Airways, like, not a... Luftwokerwaffe. Luftwokerwaffe. Luftwokerwaffe. Luftwokerwaffe. Luftwokerwaffe.

Luftwokerwaffe. Luftwokerwaffe. I'm working on that one. Yeah, that's evident. But, you know, there's a strong start with the other two, for sure. Maybe go simple with it,

like something like, it just needs to be like, I thought I was paying my council tax, not my woke tax. Oh, that's good. There's no wordplay there, but it's very... Yeah.

It's direct, isn't it? It cuts through. Yeah, it's punchy. It will go, yeah. So-called comedians, I thought I was going to be hearing jokes, not wokes. I thought I was going to be

hearing jokes, not wokes. Oh, fuck, that's good. You're all over this, Ben. Yeah. Gotta raise my game here. The way Blue Peter's going these days,

it'll be presented by John Wokes, not John Noakes. And that, I mean, that's fine for the generation that are going to be tuning in to GB.

Funny, I see that John Noakes is still the presenter of Blue Peter. Yeah. They say, don't poke a sleeping bell. Don't woke up a sleeping... I've lost my card.

I think you've lost it. I've lost my card. I think you've lost it. I think you've lost it. I think you've lost it. I think you've lost it. I think you've lost it. I've lost my card.

I think you've lost it. I've lost it. Completely lost it. So it's gonna, it's gonna have to, it's gonna have to be autocratic regimes for me. So Mike's,

I think Mike's leaning on professional wife. You're going autocratic regime. I think that means I'm gonna be GB News. You're gonna be having to be GB News.

It looks like it. If you're not from the UK, GB News is our... It's a new news channel. New reactries. Very pro... Pro-free speech is what they'd say,

I think. It's how they'd described it. But I think sort of certainly, as a TV format, a very popular boy band that I assumed didn't travel. You're telling me they didn't break through. I'm pretty sure they didn't break America.

Did they? They felt very British to me. Robbie always wanted to break America, didn't he? I'm sure they all did. My thing we take that as I always... Basically, there's two parts to me. One is I just think they're unforgivably naff. Yeah. And I don't like them.

And that's one part of my brain. And that's the part of my brain that thinks that I belong in the London library. Yeah. And then there's the real me who just... It's first on the dance floor. Million loves as little as me. It just goes, that is a brilliant song.

There's literally two voices in my body. My body is going, that is a brilliant song. My body is moving, it's jiving. I'm feeling emotions. My heart's beating faster. My brain... Gary Brown is playing your body like a lute, doesn't he? He's playing it like a lute.

And then there's my brain going, no, no. Body. It's Chopin. It's Bach, Henry. That's what you love. You love Bach. Bach. Bach. But I don't. Yes. So autocratic regimes. Yeah. Well, the thing is because they're...

Because, yes, we're going to be... By the way, autocratic regimes isn't the topic. But anyway, let's get back to autocratic regimes. You just started talking about them. Yeah. I can't remember how we got into it. Well, we're talking about our future careers. And I think we need autocratic regimes.

This is one of our best bets. Because they're not... It's because they're not elected. It's not because we are in favor of autocracy. No. I mean, we're broadly in favor of a form of democracy, aren't we? That's what our joint position is, isn't it? That's not something we've talked about, Henry.

No. Benjamin's benevolent autocracy all the way, aren't we? Yeah. Well, if you ask Bondramen... Bondramen, yeah. Bondramen, it's not even benevolent autocracy. There's any fucking autocracy. It's fucking Philly Boots.

But yeah, so what you want is... And then you get given a sort of... Well, what is it? You ideally get some sort of palace or... I don't really mind. As long as we bring back national service, I'm happy. Yeah. That's your only policy, isn't it?

And then, yes, you want to be living in a place that doesn't have any extradition sort of treaties with anywhere. So you just want a very, very isolated regime. How would you get bored after a while? I think by doing it, you really... You cut down your options to such an extent that bored or not, that's what you're doing. So you can't really be bored because what else could you...

You have to stay in your banana tree-lined palace. Yeah. And soon that's why you're getting bowling alleys installed in the basement and you're getting, you know, funny ball stuff on the roof and clay-pigeon shooting, but for, you know, drones. Yeah. And just adding to your menagerie.

Yeah. And you're just adding more and more. Yeah. Yeah. And you're bored as you open the parcel and it's another bloody snow leopard puppy. God. Completely unmoved.

Not another one. Join Terence and Cyril. Frolick off. I'm going to go and stare lovelessly at the croc circus. I assume it's not a puppy either. It's a kitten, isn't it? No, but at that point they'll be breeding puppies for you, but you'll still be bored.

Or breeding a snow leopard with a dog. Just to try and get a reaction out of you. It's a, it's a labrapod. He's made you a labrapod. No, oh no. Back to the drawing board. Behead him. Obviously you'll have a tap with tiramisu coming out.

You'll have hot, cold and tiramisu. Morning, noon and night. Even that. Sounds good actually. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Does good, but the shine comes off all of these things eventually, doesn't it? And obviously, you take a risk going down the autocracy route.

There are benefits. You get a crocodile circus. You get to hang out with Steven Zagal. You get to hang out with Steven Zagal. You do get to have a surgery. Half a snow leopard, half dog, bat. Yeah. You can meld various species together, experiment with them.

For example, can you have a pony, but with the big, sort of expanding belly of a toad, you know, that does that big, huge thing with it. And having made that, can that then operate an F-16 jet? To defend your compound. No, it can't. No. But you can try it.

You see what happens? Yes. Yeah. So you can pass a time with that kind of thing. You know, can a pig have antlers? Again, yes. Can it operate ground-to-air missiles? Again, no.

Yeah. But you will start feeling, I think, comfortable that it's worth getting some human security guards as well. Yeah. Yeah. You will eventually. The views in the middle distance from your compound are

looking increasingly scorched at this point. Yeah. So there's a couple of things you need to worry about, though, in that situation. One is, occasionally, a fairly elderly Scottish XSAS person will be hired. In a kind of unofficial capacity to get together a band of ex-military XSAS security types.

All of whom are thoroughly past it and have been for decades. Past it. These guys are. But they're in dire straits financially. Because, again, being in the SAS is very similar to being a podcaster, isn't it, with the age of 52 or so. You're basically done. Obviously, they've got the option of advising

autocratic regimes in a security capacity. So what you might get is a rival autocratic regime, or possibly maybe some CIA person with a grudge hiring an unofficial squad of ex-military types on a kind of off-grid mission to assassinate you. So that's something you've got to. Well, you have to make sure you've got enough pigs with antlers in the way, basically.

Yeah. And you've got to make sure that. And also, you've got to make sure those pigs have enough antlers each to really make a difference. And you don't need to worry too much, because that squad is likely to manage to just get themselves lost to the nearest forest or just crash their helicopter on route. Yeah.

So that's in your favor. So again, there are two columns. In the against you column, there will be a squad of ex-marines, ex-SAS types deployed to kill you. But in the plus column, you've got pigs with antlers. And also, that squad will be elderly. A lot of them will be hard drinkers. They'll be.

Some of them will have forgotten their diabetes medication. They're going to be feeling rough within a couple of days of the trek. You've got to go back. A lot of them also will have got used to the softer high life, having been on SAS who dares wins on Channel 4. Then they've got used to having runners around, you can bring them a drink, that kind of thing. They'll be missing their bungalow in Marbella and Sky Sports.

They'll want to go back to that. So when they're looking down the barrel of a fully loaded sow or a large male Gloucester colour point antlered hog, they might think, you know. With poison tips. With poison tips. They might think, this is a crap idea of Johnny's. This is a crap idea.

And yes, that grippeting pony is quite mesmerising. I'm feeling drawn to it. But I suspect there might be a trap. Or is it a grippeting pony? Or is it a mained toad? Anyhow to tell. Shallow may. And what's it got in its ankle holster?

It's a wasp with teeth. Run. Scatter. Splitter. So that's, yeah, that's one of those. And the other, the other risk, of course, the other big risk with going down the autocracy route is an uprising of the people.

You'll need that dictate to stay in power because if the people uprise, believe you me, you are. You're in for a rough afternoon. You are in for a rough afternoon, my friend. And yeah, maybe especially when that starts happening, just have a look around the compound. Anything that you could feasibly be hang up from, just take that down because you want everything to be

ground level really as much as possible. Yeah. Well, that's why people will favour living in smooth bungalows. If they've got the long, if you've got the long view, you want a smooth rounded bungalow, a bit like the thing the Hobbit lives in, everything's round. No edges, nothing, nothing to hang anything off.

Yeah. And also, the other thing what you want is, ironically, quite a modest toilet because one of the first things they'll do is, they'll break into your toilet, take photos of it, and they'll use the fact that you had an... If it's gold, if there's any gold, if there's any guilty... Any gold, the luxuriousness of your toilet will be used to...

Well, during the Kangaroo Court's hearing. Yeah, any gilding. That's going to come up. So, what you want is a surprisingly modest toilet. So, they actually break in and they go, oh, he's like us. He's all right. He's just got a hole in the ground.

And his toilet roll isn't even on a special holder, it's just sitting on the edge as if he sort of means to install a toilet roll at some point, but hasn't got round to it yet. And his towel's quite wet. And you need them talking about that for long enough to distract them while you get on your seagull spliced with Keppabaro, is your means of escape.

Yeah. And you're off. And hope to God that that can actually make flight. You have to have some sort of hybrid version of a seabird. Yeah. Ready to go. Yeah, your one-bat-bat. You want a one-bat-bat or probably like a narwha kestrel

for an amphibious escape? Horned giant kestrel. Horned giant kestrel. So, you can go into water. Again, the topic is glass. The topic is glass. Yeah. Well, glass, glass.

Glass. Glass. Glass. Well, look, quick. We'll just nod to glass. Are you a glass half full person or half glass? And I can never. Glass.

When you send an email, you must give thanks to the postmasters that came before. Good morning, postmaster. Anything for me? Just some old shit. When you send an email, this represents progress.

Like a robot shooing a horse. Give me your horse. My beautiful horse. Thank you for all the emails you've sent to 3B and SaladPod at gmail.com. Thank you. And this, by the way, is the end of our series. We've got a month off coming up.

So it is. Oh, yes. Well earned, I think. It's been absolutely bruising, isn't it? This series has been absolutely bruising for us. So I don't think anyone's going to begrudge us. It's really taken its toll. I mean, there was all kinds of, wasn't there, things happened.

Can't remember what they were now. But something didn't, something quite big happened. Oh, none of them were memorable. None of them are memorable, but... I think the main thing that happened was that we ended up engaging some bassoonists to end an argument, which I've... That's right.

I was pretty pleased about it, to be honest. Oh, that was pretty big. Our first email's from Howard. Hello, Howard. Not from Take That. Oh, that's my next question. Dear Beans, after a particularly heavy night of drinking, I decided to wake up early to go swimming

at London's Hampstead Ponds to reinvigorate myself for the coming day. And best of all, on the journey there, I could listen to the latest episode of my favourite podcast, Three Bean Salad. Nice start. This would prove a catastrophic mistake. Now, this makes reference to, I think, two episodes ago.

My stomach first started to turn a dimension of the mint squits and the salmon and gallon sandwiches that Ben would enjoy from Boots. But I made it through that. And then we got to the T-Ratma Pube. No, no, Toss Rat. Hang on.

OK, sorry, sorry. This was such an unpleasant and visceral mental image that I genuinely started to feel unwell. Picturing Henry slurping down that hellish concoction made me feel actively unpleasant. I went, Henry, finally revealed that it was actually a Toss Ratma Pube. I found myself hurriedly exiting the bus,

whereupon I was physically sick onto the pavement. It's, oh. Oh, dear. Sorry about that. I mean, that's not really what we were going for, is it? That's not what we're going for. No. But is that a bollocking, or is it just, he's just...

He's not used the word bollocking. So, you know, maybe he's, maybe he should bollock himself for not having the kind of fortitude to be able to listen to a man talking about what... It might be that his 17 flaming Zambucus here at the night before might have played a part. Exactly.

Yes, I think that's a big part. Exactly. But that plus the Toss Ratma Pube. Yeah. I think you need to re-listen to the episode, Howard, after a deep cleanse. That's right. And if you're still sick on the pavement, then...

Yeah. Henry will come and clean that piece of pavement for you. I can't clean it up. If you're a judge. Well, he does come on, he writes, this could have been blamed solely on the six or so pints of peri that I consumed the night before.

Peri. Great choice of drink. A Lamborghini man. What is peri? I thought it was a short for Peroni. Peri is sort of sparkling apple-based. No, it's pear cider, isn't it, peri? How is it, peri?

Pear, that's not apple. Yeah, that's one. Oh, yeah. That gets you very drunk, I think, doesn't it, cider? Yeah, cider in general. Alcoholic drinks. Alcoholic, yeah.

Especially big pints of it like that. I mean, maybe a story for another day, but I went to the launch of Magna's Pear one year. It was a big publicity launch, which I went to. It was at the Edinburgh Festival. And I only had one, but it made me shit myself. Digestive tract talk? Oh, yeah.

Really? I mean, can Magna... Is there any... You sure that's the only factor? Was it beta phase stuff then, because it was an early launch? Or was it maybe in some little... Well, I...

Gremlins in the system, they had to iron out. Yeah, were you on some kind of mailing list at the time? Why were you there? Was it done in a hospital's room? Was it because you were going to get a free drink? I thought that maybe it wasn't the Pear sider mic, and I thought maybe there were other factors at play. But then the person I went to the event with

also revealed to me that they had chat themselves later that day, which feels like too much for a coincidence. And then I told my friend about it, and he said that it's a well-known thing with Perry, and that he used to go out and have a game with his mates where they'd go out drinking Perry, and the first to shit would lose, and it was like kind of Russian roulette with drinking Perry.

You need some new friends, Ben. I had a very similar thing with what was at the time the new... What was at the time the new Leon? I think it was the Leon Chicken Nuggets they released a few years ago, which had a Korean dip sauce option, which was a hot Korean sort of chili sauce. Pear sider based sauce. Pear sider based sauce.

And I had a similar thing, which is it sent me straight to the toilet. Lovely story. So Howard's going to be really pleased with our response to this. He's currently puking anew on the pavement. It's not very edifying, is it? Hearing back the stuff we talk about sometimes on the podcast,

because it's one of those ones where I have to make a mental note to make sure my parents don't ever listen to that episode. Not that they listen to it anyway to the show, but that's one where I definitely wouldn't want them to listen to the toaster at my pubes. I wouldn't want that to go into the ears of my parents. Do you know what I mean? You wouldn't want them to really know you.

No. Would you? They nurtured me. They gave me all the chances they could in life. They made sacrifices for me. Because your brothers don't talk like that. They don't talk like that. My brothers have met your brothers.

Delightful, charming, articulate human beings. They've literally never invented a fecal version of a famous dessert ever. So I don't know. He's not talking about it publicly. No, they'd know not to. I think a good Patreon extra would be a video of you playing the audio to your parents.

That would be on a par. For my parents, that'd be on a par with that moment in the film Grizzly Man. Where Werner Herzog listens to the sound of a man being eaten by bears, by the bears that he thought he loved and that he thought loved him. But quite similar.

So you wouldn't let them listen to it, but you'd sit them down in the kitchen and you'd listen to it yourself. I'd listen to it in front of my parents. And I'd say, no one must hear this recording. Nobody. No, I'd just give you a clue. It's to do with tiramisu,

but it's not as nice as you think. That's all I can tell you. Oh, no. And for all, the other option is, I do play it to my parents, and someone records that. And then we get Werner Herzog to listen to the recording of my parents

being played in the recording, because that will effectively be the sound of two parents doing to me what those bears did to the Grizzly Man, which is essentially, I'm listening to a man being torn limb from limb by his own parents. For the shame he has brought on them.

Yes. Anyway, I'll finish reading what he wrote. So, he wrote, this could have been blamed solely on the six or so points of Perry I consumed the night before and the poorly driven bus I was sat on, but no, I lay the blame squarely at your disgusting descriptions

of the corrupted Italian dessert that you relished describing. Keep up the work. Excellent work. Howard. Okay. Thank you, Howard. And please drink responsibly.

What's he called again, that guy? Howard. Howard. Howard, sorry that we made you feel sick talking about that. Yes. And that's not the kind of podcast we are, it's not the kind of tone we like to set.

And for that reason, I will not be talking about the time when I ate a poo barb, bumb drool. Hello. Sorry, Henry. The autocratic dictator who was interested in this has just turned off.

So, that's gone for us now, that option. Mike, tell your wife that her pension's covering all of us now. That's okay. This is going to be tight. We'll have to sell some guitars. So, obviously something happened. Something must have happened with the audio.

Obviously, he didn't hear me properly. I said, I won't be talking about the time. Absolutely perfect. Reading your loud and clear. Time to say to poo barb, bumb drool. Pooh barb. Yeah.

Correct. And for custard, what are you putting in for custard? Pustard. Pustard. Hot pustard. Drizzled all over. Howard, I'm so sorry.

Poo barb. Howard, turn off. I'll turn off and Henry's going to have a month off to think about that. Okay, and finally, Mel. It's from Kate McCormick. Hi, Kate. But this one is a nice short email from Kate,

which I think sums up the sentiment that we've been getting from a lot of American listeners of late. I'd like two tickets for the Chattanooga choo choo. Get me the D.A. It's as old mama's apple pie down the animal. In New York City. Stop talking crazy.

No one's ever going to want to drive around in these ridiculous cars you've been designing, Mr. Bwick. Burgers. We've had a few emails along these lines. She writes, It's the nerve of you three,

making so much fun of ranch dressing when you come from the land of salad cream. Oh, snap. Yeah. Although I personally eschew salad cream. I don't eat salad cream, but I would die for the right of others to eat it. To keep it in the fridge.

I would rather live on my feet eschewing salad cream than live on my knees without the option of having salad cream. Agreed. In order to eschew it. But some Americans have stood up for ranch. I don't think we were, maybe we were a bit mean about it. We've never ran it, though.

None of us have ever ran it, so. No. We were pissy, I think. We were a bit pissy about it. Apologies. Yeah. If you have a home sachet maker, sachet it up and post it to us.

Well, they were pointing out, some people were pointing out that you can buy it in British supermarkets. I've just never seen it. So maybe I'll buy some for next series. We can have a little ranch party. Have a live taste test. Live ranch party.

Okay, Kate. Thank you. Point taken. And yes, I think our relationship with the U.S. is, of course, the special relationship. And we would hate to see anything jeopardize that. And so we apologize. Yeah, absolutely right.

Sounds gross, though. Doesn't it? It sounds really, really rank. It's time to be the Ferryman. Patreon, Patreon, Patreon.com. 4 slash 3 bean salad. Thanks to everyone who signed up on our Patreon.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Patreon.com, 4 slash 3 bean salad. And at one of the tiers that you can sign up at, you get a little shout out in the Sean Bean lounge, where Mike was last night. Not half. Big one, was it?

It was a big one. Well, it's the end of the series, isn't it? So there's always a bit of a frisson in the air. They always get the Perry barrels out at the end of the season. They get the Perry casks rolling, split them open for the Perry pool. And of course, last night it was the annual Salads of the World Song Contest, wasn't it?

It was, Ben. Thank you. Yes. And here's my report. It was very much a case of leave your lasagna charcoal etchings at the door this week at the Sean Bean lounge for the annual Sean Bean lounge,

Salads of the World Song Contest. Ian Boomer opened the show, and while his entry form suggested he'd be performing a thrash metal insulata capprese, he actually sang Happy Birthday to Vicki Happy Birthday Lee from a mega ramekin full of balsamic vinegar. Ian was immediately disqualified and spiralized, although owing to an arcane bylaw

in the Salads of the World Song Contest rulebook, Vicki Happy Birthday Lee was awarded a lifetime supply of burnt pine kernels. Richard McLaughlin brought the action back to the Salad Bowl with a reggae fattouche followed by Van Clef Juncker with a drive-time rock style walled-off in F-flat major. In an ill-judged Apple for the Teacher move,

Rob Wag attempted a one-man close harmony three-bean salad love ballad. For getting Sean Bean's go-to mantra, there can be only one open brackets, bean close brackets. Rob was Julie End to contrition. Michael and Bailey Balls sweetened the mood with their country-popped Shopska duet.

Take me as the main course, not just as a side dish, but were penalized for overpowering scallions. Tom Yenze's synth pop coleslaw raised more than a few eyebrows, as did Rob Booth's decision to include radishes and swear words in a smooth jazz taboo lane. But the winner of Sean Bean's

homemade carrot baton pan pipes was Purple Strawberry, who didn't leave a dry eye in the house with an intentional nisoise performed in the gospel style, from a lettuce dryer rotating at 4,738 revolutions per minute. Thanks all.

Okay, and to play us out, a theme tune sent in by you, the listener. Thank you for all the theme tunes you sent in. We've got a few backed up ready for next season, but they are always gratefully received. This one we're going to play today is from Mark from not Bremen, but Manchester. He writes,

Hello Beans, I Come Bearing a Gift, The Gift of Song. He says, It's not exactly an outro song, but instead a dizzying five-minute crab-centric prog opera. Oh, this sounds good. Is this the one you were talking about the other day? Yeah, so I lost it,

and then appealed for its return, and he sent it in again. Brilliant. He says I've spent far too long creating this, and now sick of the fucking sound of it. The thought of crabs pervading my every waking and sleeping moment. Anyway, it's your problem now.

I hope you enjoy it. Lots of love. Mark, not from Bremen, but Manchester. Thank you very much. Very good. Thank you, Mark. PS, I should credit the contributions of my reluctant wife and daughters,

plus my friend and fellow listener, Oliver, who all recorded glorious crab nonsense to add to this hot mess. I can't wait to hear this. Sounds amazing. It's ticking all my boxes though. We will see you in the month of December, but until then, goodbye.

Bye. Goodbye, and thank you. Good night, love. Good night, love. Sleep well. Mm. This is the three-bean evolution service to crab, stopping at rock pool,

bacon on string, castanization, and crab. There's a phenomenon in evolutionary science where over the millennia and whatever, various animals, different animals have evolved into a crab. Hurry up, slow coach. You're going to miss the great crab evolution. All organisms have actually turned into a crab.

Because the crab is like the ultimate, it's purely evolved in the correct way. They're the optimum thing. This mankind thing is just a part of crates. So do you think we're on our way to do crabs? We're just taking the long-seeming route to find a crab. The human thing is far into becoming kind of like a crab. The crab here, it seems, is like the crab in the middle.

Bring the crab back. Daddy, I love you and your kisses. Oh, congratulations Mrs. Crab. It's a beautiful baby crab. You can keep your fast calves and your foxy clothes. It's a little evolving, Jimmy, but I'm glad. And it's a breeze. It's a drink.

It helps us live in love over the crab. Oh, shit. Oh, God. Janine, are you all right? Janine? Are you all right? Oh, jeez, what the hell? What's happened?

Wait, I recognise you. You're...