Three Bean Salad - Hippos

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

Tis the Yule and Jacob from Manchester very cannily suggests hippos as this week’s topic. In Aesop’s fable, the hippo is humiliated by being left out of any accounts of the Nativity and, according to Hans Christian Andersen, rather than sharing its feelings with its closest friend, the Little Mermaid, retreats to the Nile and dedicates itself to be able to run faster than you’d think it could. Perhaps by honouring the hippo on this special day we can bring its troubled narrative to a happy close.Join our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansaladWith thanks to our editor Laura Grimshaw.Merch now available here: www.threebeansaladshop.comGet in touch: [e-mail] @beansaladpod

I've put the cat amongst the pigeons this year by announcing that I would take a lead on the Christmas meal this year. Wow, that's a big call, Mike. This is mega huge. Are you going to be cooking Christmas meal? Yeah, which I, I mean, I... Mike, get me on FaceTime all day. We're going to do a 12. Just have me there. Just have me in your pocket.

I want to know for my own peace of mind that I'm in your pocket on FaceTime all day. I cook a lot, but very, but very sort of trans it's very meat and potatoes. We're very transactional cooking. What I do, I've never, and obviously there's been the old roast. Sure. That has, butair a goose, I've never been trusted with the big one. There's so many really good cooks in the family. No one has ever even thought for a moment.

Yeah. You've had an hour in a kayak and you've not managed to keep yourself the right way around for more than about 30 seconds and now you're in charge of a cross channel ferry. That's what's happening. Yeah. Volunteering to spearhead an SBS raid on a U-boat station in the Black Sea. It's a massive increase in responsibility. Mike, just quickly, before we move on, could you just clarify something? Earlier on you said the kind of food you cook is very much meat and potatoes. Can you just clarify if you were using that as an analogy?

That was both metaphorical and literal. Oh, so it was a one to one, it was a one to one analogy. Absolutely. It was full blown. It was your full barn pigeon. In terms of linguistic dexterity, I will cook meat until it is safe to eat. I will cook vegetables to a point where they still are retaining some sort of vitamin mineral value and then I serve it. Yeah.

I mean, luckily that's my sort of Christmas dinner is meat and potatoes though, isn't it? This is why I've been a bit emboldened and also I was seeking plaudits and hoping to say, hey guys, I mean, there's the talented chefs and the crew who normally are slaving away all day. And I thought, you know, I'm going to give them a Christmas off, but the announcement didn't go down well. There was, it was greeted by largely silence, I would say. You can sort of hear the buttocks clenching.

So you were looking for a sort of hero's welcome and Mike, thank, oh, thank you so much. No, there was such a hero. I've had lots of offers of, of sous chefing coming in already. The trust isn't there. There's no trust. Mike, it's a huge responsibility. I have, I have been, I have done it.

I've, I've made Christmas meal before. You've ghost, I have been, I have done it. I've made Christmas meal before. You've ghost, haven't you? I have actually ghost. You've ghost? I think I ghost once. I did ghost because I remember I had to leave it upside down in the oven. You have to leave it upside down in a room. What, like hanging by his feet?

Hanging by his feet the night before. Alive or dead? Well, that was where the confusion lay, Mike. I'd assumed it had to be alive, but it did become dead. In the most. In seeking escape. Essentially, it was like Mussolini. Hang out by the side of a petrol station. People throwing shoes and rocks at it.

But yeah, it's a huge responsibility. I mean, I'm here for you, Mike. The main thing is to have a schedule. Right. Now remember though that Christmas, as I, it's coming at us incredibly quickly. So make a schedule, then tear it up into pieces and then start again and then press it. Yeah. Because if you think about it, we're moving forward at one day per day currently, aren't

we? Forwards in time. So Christmas is coming out from the other direction. Also bear in mind the world's also spinning. Yeah, the world's also spinning, Mike. So we're going at 3,000 miles an hour. Okay. 3, 3000 miles an hour. 3000 miles an hour already.

Right, but is it spinning in the same direction as the glass plate in my microwave or in the opposite direction? And how does that affect what I do with the Swedes? What's your thinking so far? Boiling. I've got a metal bin out back. Works for the military, it works for my family. Because you see the main purpose of cooking as killing bacteria, isn't it?

Exactly. It has to be saved. It's about bacterial genocide. You need to be killing billions upon billions of bacteria, don't you? As early as possible on Christmas morning. Yeah, and if they want flavour, I'm sure there must be some sort of deseggated turkey powder that you can get these days that you can reconstitute people can pour that on if they want their their safe fair to be

Flavoursome I think get yourself on eBay and start looking at sort of post-war like 1946 sort of Christmas solutions. I think there would have been there would have been powdered turkeys powder sprouts 46 sort of Christmas solutions. I think there would have been, there would have been powdered turkeys, powdered sprouts. So you can still buy some of that stuff. Okay. Someone will have it. Someone will have it somewhere, won't they? Or a fully ersatz turkey that's actually made out of sort of potatoes and asbestos and stuff like that. So obviously Mike, decision number one, what's your meat? Assuming there's meat being sold. I think, cause I've already caused panic, I think I am going to go Turkey.

Cause you could, Mike, what have we got? What are the possibilities? Cause we've got goose. There's a classic Turkey. Carp. Could go Polack and go, I could go carp. Absolutely. Of course.

But I think that that would, I mean, even though there is great sympathy for Polish tradition within the family, I think, I think that is great sympathy for Polish tradition within the family, I think, I think that would go down like a, well, as a carp would at any, at any meal, frankly. Another great metaphor from Mike. You know, weirdly, ironically, Mike's meat and potatoes metaphor, ironically was a really meat and potatoes metaphor. Which I wouldn't have realized at the time because you know that's not what I'm doing

I'm not up to it but yeah what I think I think there is the chance for me to make it in my own vision a bit so I think it is gonna be this year as I have always wished it would be it's going to be very very very very very very heavy on the pigs in blankets good yes as much of the stuff as possible that can essentially have been pre done by M&S, because essentially all you need to do is get that in an oven. M&S have done the work, haven't they? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or just boil it. Yeah. Of course in Exeter it's an actual pig in a duvet, isn't it? I forgot. I'm sorry. Sorry. That was very Mike. That was very culturally insensitive of me. I'm sorry. Of course. Yeah,

but not in a duvet. No, if you said the word duvet and I said, no, no, what you meant. They're assuming that you're a Frenchman and they would hang you on a gallows at sundown. They'd hang you not the right way around or upside down, but sideways, didn't they? You'd be hung sideways. Which was the way they think France is. Just off to the side, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. It's a pig in a kind of, in a kind of quite a kind of itchy, woollen... Yeah, so a Hessian, yeah, what we sleep in, sort of, yeah. What you sleep in, which is Hessian sacks, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly. Which means if you die in your sleep, it's very easy, you can be instantly be hurled off the roof of Exeter Cathedral, can't you? At invaders, yes. At invaders. Which is obviously a lot easier for the family than having to transfer you from a sleep sack to a death sack. So everyone already sleeps in a death sack, don't they? We will not kneel to those jutes. We will not do it. You understand?

So will you be just sausages or just M&S or Aldi Tesco's? I imagine that wherever's got any left at the that I do need to do some shopping for the Christmas meal. So it'll probably be from a series of different petrol stations in the central, sort of mid-east Devon area, I thought. Because you've, you're going to try and petrol station it, aren't you? If you can petrol station the whole of Christmas, which is literally everything, isn't it? Petrol station says the turkey. Because you can reconstitute a turkey, can't you? From turkey, they used to be called turkey

dinosaurs, turkey dippers, those sorts of things, and turkey faces. You can reconstitute. They're actually bits of grouse that have been run over by people pulling into the petrol station at speed. They can be reimagined as a turkey. So spuds you can get, well essentially what is a roast potato if it isn't loads and loads of crisps mashed together? It's already crunchy. It's already crunchy.

And it can come, how many Christmases get a choice of flavors for their roast potatoes? Cheese and onion. Prawn cocktail. Prawn cocktail. Prawn cocktail roasties. Who else is offering that? With the reconstituted grid of tractor meat. How many people can identify through a kind of grid system which bit of the roast they

want? Do you want A7? We've got some room at J12. J12 is still there guys. You can grid it. And then of course when you come to light to the Christmas pudding and you've maybe run out of brandy, don't worry, just stick some diesel on it. Get one of your children out of the bit of hose pipe to the next door neighbours. They know what to do. They've done it before. Just pour some diesel on a bowling ball, set fire to it and you can reuse it next year. Isn't it? It's a Christmas pudding that never runs out.

Chuck a few raisins in it. No one's any the wiser. Most people turn it down anyway, don't they? You want a lucky penny? You're lucky because you're the only one in my family that got to wear a welding mask during this. So you've got to literally, on boxing day, you're going to have zero burns. You're seeing the new year in with eyebrows, yeah? Some gratitude. You've got eyebrows to raise at what else I'm going to serve later. Mike, I suspect that what's happened here is that you've been sponsored of me, so this is going to be a TV advert which is, hi, I'm Mike Wozniak and welcome to my ESSO Christmas.

S-ho-ho-ho, s-ho-ho-ho, s-ho- ho ho ho, I'm Petrol Santa. How can we turn these old vape batteries into parsnip replicas? Let's have a go. That's where the glue gun comes in. Yes, a petrol station Christmas, because de-stress it, isn't it? Get it straight from the petrol station out into the boot of the car. Yeah. Also, I assume Mike will be doing this so late that he'll have to go to that kind

of night, you know, the sort of little tiny slots that you can buy things through at night. It'll be only things that can fit through the slot. That's right. Through the Hannibal Lecter slot. It's through the Hannibal Lecter slot, or if I do manage to strike up enough of a rapport with the person working there, maybe even the bins at the back. Oh, very nice. Just spoiled goods. Special deal.

Because then actually what you're hoping is they'll give you their full bin liners, which you can put in the kitchen to make it seem as if you cooked the meal. Because you can't fake bin smell. You can't. You can't. Not about Christmas bin smell. Brussels sprouts. Nice Brussels sprouts option might be green M&Ms. Green M&Ms? No one actually likes Brussels sprouts. They

look tiny little sweet Brussels sprouts. That's true. Or I was thinking I'd just get to pick up some charcoal. Just claimed I've burnt them. There's always got to be a sacrificial lamb in the meal. I wouldn't. Honestly, I wouldn't touch the Brussels sprouts. So I've already made a mess of the Brussels sprouts. Yay, big cheese, everyone's all, glad you didn't burn the turkey. I can't have burned the turkey because there is technically no turkey. What there is is a piece of pheasant and some rat. And Ben, everyone's got a live carp in their stocking. It'll be live for the next two minutes, so check your stockings now.

You've all got a live carp, It fills out the whole stocking. Which petrol station have you been to get the live carp from? Oh, you'd be amazed at London Petrol Stations. People want them for their ornamental ponds, Ben. I see. Okay. Let's talk through the meal a bit, Mike. Are you going to do a starter? Yes. Really? Oh God, you know what you're doing? You're going to try too hard. Personally,

I would limit yourself to keep it really based, sort of minimal it. Because anyway, go on. Do you normally have a starter in your family? If it's tradition. Well, if you want me to minimise it, then I won't put the crisps in a bowl. That's fine. I'll just open the bag. Just have floor crisps. Just let that be, exactly, yeah. So then, so what are you thinking starter-wise? Just open the bag. Just have floor crisps. Just let them be, exactly, yeah. So what are you thinking starter-wise?

I mean, I hadn't thought of, I mean, I just assumed there might be some nibbles. I was waiting to see what Esso was going to curate for the season in terms of... Nibbles-wise. ...in terms of the nibbles, the nibble section of the Esso. One thing you can do, Mike, which is quite a nice little touch because it's got It's all about adding little touches this kind of thing. You buy a pack of Pringles Yeah Cheese and chive Pringles

Let's say or set sour cream Pringles and then get by later hams Slices of ham and then then sort of punch the punch the Pringles into the ham Roll it up and it's like little little meaty Pringles cigars. That's just like, I've literally improvised that. You can think of that combined things like that. Do I need to sort of serve it on a kind of chunk of distressed wood? Would that help? Or a hub cab? A hub cab, no you don't. Either of those is nice.

Okay. Well distressed wood, cause you're in the distressed wood capital of Britain, aren't you, in terms of like Flotsam. Absolutely. Flotsam and Jetsam, yeah. Get it on some Flotsam or Jetsam. Hmm. Okay. That's a

nice touch. Personally, I don't believe in a starter at Christmas. Right. Because it's such a fat, heavy... A sit down starter seems like madness. Yeah, yeah. Some people do. And it's often where the prawns come in, there'll be like a prawn discus. There'll be like, M&S have always got a new prawn sort of invention. Haddock javelin. Haddock javelin, a shrimp waistcoat. The hammer oak clams.

There's always some kind of heinous seafood invention that the sort of mad scientists at M&S. Who presumably are working on it all year, right? All year round. All year round. Year round. There's the R&D phase, the pitching phase, and then, yeah, they've actually got to try and make, make good on this stuff. Yeah.

The cod roe cummerbund. It seems to me that the greatest plaudits come from, from the gravy. Gravy is important. The signature gravy. Have you seen that Cliff Richards did the rounds last week on television telling the world that he thinks he makes the world's best gravy? Cliff Richard claims to make the world's best gravy. That is so unlikely. Did he share the secret, the recipe? I think he did. Maybe I'll find it and we'll see if you can do it. Mike, the thing about gravy is one of the hardest things about Christmas day, about

cooking Christmas meal, Mike, is temperature. It's getting all the food to be roughly hot at the same time because there are so many elements to what goes on the plate. That's basically the hardest thing about Christmas. Essentially, gravy is your insurance policy because you pour piping hot gravy all over the plate. And it also works if a relative's in a bad mood. Yeah, salty gravy.

Your granddad's grumpy, whatever, you cover them in gravy. You give them a gravy bath. But like having enough hot gravy to coat food and it can even improve a disappointing gift sometimes. A layer of hot gravy. A novel you've already read. For example, have you read it covered in gravy though? Do you like this tie now that it's

covered in gravy though? That's really important, Mike. So this is from the paper. Sir Cliff Richard reveals his recipe for the greatest gravy in the world, but chefs say it sounds quote absolutely vile. Well I know who I'm fighting with. The 84 year old pop star avoids the traditional method of mixing juices from a roast with a dash of wine and instead goes for a more unorthodox recipe. He combines 8 stock cubes from different flavours.

Eight! Including lamb, chicken, beef and vegetable. The mega stock. Look, we know, we look. Chefs for centuries have talked about a mega stock. It can't be done. The fats do not agree with each other. The proteins do not combine. It doesn't, it doesn't. Of course we would all make a mega stock if we could, Cliff. Can't physically mix. It cannot physically mix. The fish and lamb stocks mingling.

The fish and lamb stocks, they just... Yeah, so eight stock cubes with boiling water, then he adds two chopped fried onions along with teriyaki sauce. Bloody hell. He's a decent... Soy sauce. Yeah, yeah. And Worcester sauce.

Worcestershire sauce. So it's heavy on the um umami. Which is something that we like to talk about on this show, which is there are four flavour types. They are, they've all got quite, quite sort of run of the mill names except one of them has a weirdly stand out name. It's salt, sour, bitter and umami. Those are the four flavour types, aren't they? You know something you guys think oh this is a bit too salt, oh this is a bit too bitter, oh this is a bit too sad, oh this is a bit too

umami. Can you just um just lower the umami a little bit. Thank you. Umami. So I've just summoned a really really heinous sort of demon. Oh, it's Cliff Richard. I put an accidental umlaut in umami. I've summoned a 15 headed Cliff Richard. All I wanted was a bit more soy on my mushrooms. So you could try that. The Worcester sauce, I can see how a I mean, a lot of people claim that as a secret ingredient for all kinds of stuff.

Don't they? And Liam Perrin's, I mean a drop of that, like that's just, you know. It's the kind of stuff you can add into a bolognese. There are anything dark and black and sort of gloopy. So Worcester sauce. You feel like you're giving it a magic touch, right? You may not necessarily be doing anything. Yeah.

Yeah. And it gives you that little moment of, oh. Soy and teriyaki feels weird. Yeah. Yeah, very Pan Asian. It's very fusion. It's quite a fusion sort of gravy, isn't it? It's gravy for the whole world. Yeah. I mean, it's a salty, I mean, you may, Cliff may as well be asking you to lick the salty back of his knee before eating. Yeah. Well, that's actually the last ingredient, isn't it Ben, that you're coming onto that. Yeah. He pours it a bit like salt bae, he sort of pours it across the back of his knee onto your food.

Yeah, it's very painful for him isn't it? He howls, he howls the saviours day doesn't he Ben, as it's going on. I'm the saviours! That's why it's a once a year gravy isn't it. Ow. For those who aren't sure who Cliff Richard is, he might be from abroad. I think I've had to clarify this before. He's Britain's Elvis, but alive. Is he our Elvis?

Yeah, I've said this before. People sent me an email saying I was mad, but I'm sticking with it. Britain's Elvis, but alive. He created rock and roll. The thing about the turkey, Mike, is it's a very forgiving bird. Okay. It really is a very forgiving bird. What it forgives is it forgives its own execution initially, which is very, very nice of it. Because they just really get into the Christmas spirit and they're fine with it. Like, you know what? I commend myself to thine table. I commend about a quarter of myself to thine table, about a quarter of myself to some sandwiches and about half of myself to probably the bin if we're honest.

Or maybe probably one in 18 occasions some sort of soup that isn't a success. Some sort of unfathomably fatty soup. No, my feeling is that turkey is very easy to overcook and then it goes very dry. Yes. And it's quite hard to retain the moisture somehow in a turkey. I don't quite know how you do it. It goes dry. And it's quite hard to retain the moisture somehow in a tick. I don't quite know how you do it, but it goes dry. But I think it's about a slow cook, so get the temperature quite low. And so it wants to be in the oven for a good four hours, I'd say normally, depending on the weight.

Yeah. And that low temperature, I'd say the perfect temperature is probably the one that's created around the back of an Esso coffee machine. Yeah. Or off the, off the back of the fridges in an Esso, you know, a lot of heat comes out the back. So what you want to do is go into an espresso, yeah, go into a, basically a custom, we can say it's a custom machine, isn't it? It is a custom machine.

Go to a custom machine. If you order a large black Americano and then it says, then it goes extras. There's three, a lot of people didn't see this button. There's three dots. You press that. Press roast turkey. Then it goes extras. There's three, a lot of people didn't see this button. There's three dots.

You press that. Press roast turkey. It gives you, it is annoying for anyone behind you in the queue. Cause it's a four hour wait. And you just sort of Jimmy the turkey onto the nozzle and just wait for the magic to happen. Well, what happens is three pedals then appear. Well, what happens is three pedals then appear, you want to crack the right hand pedal down and the whole thing turns into a kind of organ.

And there are two little wheels at the front where you can guide a claw that shoves onion or a lemon up the ass of the turkey, depending on what you're doing. That's right. Very important. Yeah. Yeah. But the claw does stay inside. You can't remove the claw. So you'll have to carve around that. It's onion, lemon or mocha. And little tip is take it up to the desk and actually just put it through as a latte. as a latte. And it only costs £3.95. Yeah, so Mike, you've got to think about your timings and your, when you're getting your potatoes, because the other thing is crisp, crispiness of potatoes. I mean, families, dynasties have been torn apart. Family rifts that have lasted decades have happened because

potatoes weren't crispy enough. It's why Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Well, she forgot to parboil them, Ben. And that's why he eventually married Catherine Par. He did. What's your potato plan Mike? You've got, because I'm really worried about this. You're giving, I'm getting nothing. You've just got the dead eyes of a man that doesn't know, just got nothing in his mind. You've got got the dead eyes of a man that doesn't know, he's got nothing in his mind, you've got no plans. That's how I look when I, the early stages of panic.

The eyes go dead. Convince them I'm dead. If the world thinks I'm dead, they won't ask as many things of me. They won't wonder why the potatoes aren't very crispy or where the parsnips are. Should we drive Mike's dead body to the hospital? No, it'll give us something to run boxing day. What, an awful piñata? So what's your potato plan Mike?

I think at the moment, given everything you've told me, it's probably looking like it's going to be Spatchcock turkey served probably 11am, roast potatoes served at 3pm, carrots at half past three, and crisps available through the day, and then yogurts, probably early evening yogurts, you know, variety of flavours. Let's turn on the beat machine. This week's topic, as sent in by Jacob from Manchester. Thank you, Jacob. Thanks, Jacob. It's hippos.

Oh. Hmm, interesting. Hmm. Obviously, we've touched on the pygmy hippo before. We have, yeah. I've never seen a hippo in the wild. No. I've never seen a hippo in the wild. No I've not seen a hippo in the wild. I think if you've seen a hippo in the wild, you're already dead.

I think that's why people don't really get all anecdotes about hippos because if you've seen one, you're already dead. Are you aware of Moudang? The hot sauce or the Belgian rapper. That's what I always say that if I'm in a conversation and I feel that it's all a bit Gen Z and I'm not sure what's going on, I just say that. That's my sort of default, default sentence. What's the hit rate so far?

But has it got you into the Belgian rap pickle? It hasn't got me into either the hot sauce or the Belgian rap world yet. So, we're waiting for it to pay dividends. What's Mudeng? So Mudeng is a pygmy hippo, but like a baby pygmy hippo. So it's like a pygmy pygmy hippo. Oh, is it the really leery one? Yes. Or poorly behaved? Yes, I have come across. She's a little cantankerous,

pygmy hippo and she's absolutely gorgeous. And she's smashing it. It's a sort of a mental health panacea. No matter what your mood is, if you watch Mu Deng getting hosed down, it just makes you feel quite a lot better about things. But what happens when Mu Deng gets big? I mean, this is the trouble with these little adorable things get bigger, don't they? Because as soon as they've scalped their... Their royal visitor. As soon as they've scalped a minor royal, the whole sort of Moodang mood music changes

somewhat, doesn't it? She's sassy. Oh, she's sassy. All right. And she bloody knows it. So she might, she might retain the sass. Yeah. But you're right, Mike. I think once she's a fully sized pygmy hippo, which is still quite small for

hippo, but quite big for an animal. Hmm. And weighty, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Um, do you know what moodeng means? No, please tell me. It's a Thai and it means bouncy pork.

Oh, and that does not suggest the prospects are great for Moodeng. It's not a great sign, is it? Moodeng's long-term prospects. I think the full meaning as well is, I'm going to go really well with it, with a little dusting of crushed up roasted cashews and served on a bed of Thai basil, lime leaves and bamboo shoots. Bit of fish sauce. Bamboo shoots, a bit of fish sauce. Also maybe add in all kinds of stock cube.

Yeah, any kind of stock cube, but not combined. So any, individually any stock cube. Okay. So you're not doing full Cliff Richard alone? Not full Cliff Richard. Please do not try and Cliff Richard Mudeng. What a sentence. There's an irony in that because he's one of the few people who's likely to be on the short list to be able to afford to eat Mudeng. Mudeng also feels like Mudeng might have been earmarked for billionaires. Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, eating Moudang is the ultimate billionaire accolade now, isn't

it? It's the ultimate. If you can serve up a Moudang Royale. She's gearing up to be a super international waters digestif, isn't she? Yeah. A mooding Wellington. Encroute. A mooding encroute. Or just get a couple of soft buns, have a mooding dog.

A mooding dog. A scotch mooding. If you're on the move, yeah. It's a very high end billionaire's packed lunch option. It's also the kind of meal that you have to eat under us and under some sort of shroud so that God can't see you, you know, I think you need multiple shrouds. I think you'll need a shroud. Moudang herself will need a shroud. Well, a shroud of sausage meat and bread crumbs. Yeah. And some beef patty blinkers. Probably probably best season in a sort of

secret sub aquatic retreats then it sounds like. Definitely. Yeah. Okay, here's an interesting question. Is a hippo a kind of cow? Thoughts? It's a stretch, isn't it? Where does it fit in the world of like animal in terms of categories?

Well, the word the name, the word hippo is Greek, or hipposmos is Greek for river horse, isn't it? Where does it fit in the world of like animal, in terms of categories? Well, the word hippo is Greek, or hipposmos is Greek for river horse, isn't it? Isn't it? Who the fuck, I mean? I thought that was common knowledge. Really? Yeah. I tell you what, I think river horse is a little bit flattering to a hippo. Don't you think?

Bloody hell, they got away with it with river horse. Imagine the sleek, graceful body of a horse. I think the German, I think the German one is something like horse of the sleek graceful body of a horse I think the chair I'm gonna look so I think the German one is something like horse of the Nile as well yeah it is nilfaird yeah that's great I think the fact that every interaction with the hippo results in the death of the person interacting with the hippo we slowed down getting an accurate name made for it you mean because no okay okay if you've seen the full body of a hippo, we slowed down getting an accurate name made for it. Do you know what I mean? Cause no, okay. Okay.

If you've seen the full body of a hippo, hippo, you know what it looks like? Yeah. Again, you are already dead essentially. So I suppose it was taking a while for people to report back. So it would have been sort of, yeah, they would have called it sort of shiny, wet mega cow. The fact they didn't return from that expedition made people think it quite a carnivore, a cow that killed them. It must have been some sort of man-eating horse. Yeah. I think wet rubbery death.

Big wet rubbery death. Big wet rubbery death. Large toothed Megan neoprene pencil case. That's not bad. Of death. They do have a pencil case equality. They're very, they're one of the animals we think it's not they're not very well designed is because they have to they're not aquatic, but

they have to be wet all the time. It's a bit weird. But they're definitely not aquatic. But if they have to be wet, you know, I mean, it's like, it's like a massive preference. That's why they have those special birds, symbiotic birds sit on their back and constantly spit water down their back. Gobble on them the whole time. Yeah, exactly. To keep sleek. I'd say the hippo is maybe the animal where the juxtaposition of how cute it looks and how deadly

it is, is the most extreme. But Henry, I think it's how cute it looks in cartoons. Because if you actually see one, which I have done in, I think long leaps, safari park, they've got one. Or I've been to a British safari park. It's got a hippo and they're sort of gross. It's like a sort of giant fist made of tires. It's really hard to. It's just kind of like a malevolent gray sofa bed that someone has

deflated into a lake. They're one of those animals which come warty as standard. There's a lot of warts, but they're kind of like integral to it. It's like they're not like an optional extra, they've got inherent warts. So I would say that like, I think that if you ask your brain to think of a hippo, what I actually think of is the cartoon hippo. Like that is the picture of a hippo I've got. Because it's sort of plump and friendly, but actually the reality is that they've got hardly any teeth, but the teeth, each tooth is like the size of a, like a sort of hardback Gresham,

right? Oh, bigger than that, Mike. It's more like a sort of novelty Toblerone that you might win in a charity auction. Like a sort of mini mouthhenge. Yeah, huge. What are you talking about? How big they are? Yeah, there's not many of them, but you don't want to come into contact with them, right? I would say it's mid European urban bollard.

Yeah. Each tooth. And actually for convenience, some of them now actually do retract. Because they've got pedestrianized mouths. Yeah, so be careful. some of them now actually do do retract. His mouths. Yeah, so do be careful for emergency vehicles. When I picture a hip I picture really luscious eyelashes, which I think is probably down to Disney. Is it Fantasia where there's the dancing hippos? Yes. I picture really luscious eyebrows. You know what they've done? I think what hippo has

done brilliantly, it's evolved a cultural kind of, you know what they've done? I think what Hippo has done brilliantly, it's evolved a cultural kind of, you know the way it's set animals, like there'll be a frog in the Amazon, which has evolved so that it's the back of its body looks like an eagle. An eagle will come on and go, that's an eagle, I'm not going to eat an eagle. Oh my god, I'm just married a frog's ass. I've just married a frog's ass. Nothing a relationship with the frog. And you know what? It's 2024. Oh no, the frogs puking acid onto my eyes. It was a bloody trap. I'm dead. Oh God, I've got a family of frogs living in my skull. Why am I still alive to have these thoughts? It's keeping me alive in a really horrible way so that my internal organs stay warm and it'll survive the winter in my body

This is heinous But the question is what is it example of Exactly and is that is that for the example of the example Are they amphibious Ben? Yes, so I've seen one. I think it's long leet. It must have been through the eyes of the crosshairs of a rifle for you to still be alive today. Because the deal is if you see a hippo and you tell the tale it's because you killed

the hippo. isn't it? Yes they've got hundreds of hippos down there. Now I think it's in long that you go on a boat trip, it's quite good. And when you're on the boat trip, you see the hippos, which are just always under the water, never get out really. But you also go past a little island and on the island is a, like an 85 year old really depressed gorilla who just watches TV all day. Ben, Gordon Brown has struggled with retirement.

When you've had the top job. Tony Blair has his foundations. And he likes the social side, doesn't he? Gordon was not less into it. And he's read everything, he's finished. He's read it all. But do you dig? I think I've done this boat trip in a long time and I think't think I think we were told where the hippos might be under some reeds potentially. Yes. There was a shadow where we were led to believe with the eye of faith maybe there was a bit of a hippo

poking up. Was it on a safari Mike? No, this is again this is long lead, I know this, this is a long lead boat trip. Yeah. But so long lead is a safari park right? Yeah. So safari park is one of the only businesses where you can in theory set it up without any of the actual products and just go, we're looking for it's a bit drizzly today. Sorry. The baboons have gone bowling. Sorry. They're very secretive species and they just love bowling. They use it for dates, they use it for social stuff. Unfortunately Gordon Brown is a cop.

But we do have a little bit of blurb about Gordon Brown, which you can read here, and an artist's impression of Gordon Brown. And feel free, you can get your kids one of our Gordon Brown teddy bears feel free, you know, you can get your kids one of our Gordon Brown teddy bears in the shop. There's one of the businesses where you can go, you know what, we can we're gonna set up a safari park. So what's the first thing we need? It's not animals. It's a gift shop. It's a perimeter,

a couple of electric gates for the cell. Yeah. So what is that for the really naughty children? What's that for? It can be but to give the appearance there might somewhere be a tiger somewhere so there probably better be an electric gate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm just wondering, has anyone actually ever seen an animal at Longleat? I'm just putting that out there. That was a question. So yeah, tell us about the hippos, Ben. So like Mike, I think there was a lot of, if you look through those reeds, you may see a shadow on the water and that might be Sonia.

We did see it. I think it came out and it just sort of, you know, it didn't terrifyingly rear up or anything. It just kind of was floating about. It's quite good, but gross looking. It's funny isn't how evolution creates certain things, which just are just, you know, breathtakingly beautiful. It almost make you, make you want to cry. That's so perfectly formed and so beautiful.

Cliff Richard, but the same process has created some absolute warty monstrosity. Why is that? One literally called a wart hog. Literally called a wart hog. But then you've got like a puma. Yes, I know what you mean. Because if you ever see a tiger, which you can do at Longleat's fire park, and which I did, it's the most beautiful thing, you know, it's a it's this like finely turned Killing machine beautiful sleep body. Yeah, it's a stripy Wozniak Exactly, but to a warthog another warthog is is hot AF

Yeah, love the way your hairy teats look looking tonight Or you've really caked them in shite. Oh gosh you uh, is that real sweat on your snout? Because it's so gloopy almost looks like it's fake. Run your trotters along my flank. Run your trotters down the five days worth of shit, I've got clanked on the back of my ass. Now, I've been on Safari. Or so you have, yes, which we've discussed in the past. Yeah, didn't see a hippo. And you know the reason I didn't see a hippo.

You, well, you know how you can tell that I didn't see a hippo. Because you're breathing. Cause you went to on a Hungarian safari? Cause I went to a Hungarian indoor safari. I was conned. I'm going to say it now. I was conned. It's because I'm telling you the story. Basically anyone telling an anecdote about a hippopotamus is lying. You can only be telling it. It's

only true if they're in their death throes, which are very, very short lived in very short lived virons. Yeah. Yeah. It's not usually multiple throws. It's just throw maximum. It's a throw. It's one is it's one, it's barely a throw. Yeah. Because the hippo has so many ways to kill you. Sometimes it'll stuff you with your boss, with your own bottom half. It'll set it. Go in it.

It's good trick for Christmas. Don't have that Mike. Turkey's a bit too big for the oven. Just stuff it with the bottom. Turkey's a bit too big for the oven. Just stuff it with the bomb. It'll baste you with your own pulverised leg. Oh, if you see a hippo getting some breadcrumbs out, you're in real trouble. You're in real, real trouble. Especially if you see Cliff Richard on his back. He's got his stock cubes out.

You're in big, big trouble. And if that hippo has got a little thing around its neck with a little barrel on it, a bit like those dogs have, but it's dispensing panko breadcrumbs. It's not even worth crying. That ain't no Alpine rescue, baby. Oh no. That's the worst is when you are stuck in an Alpine crisis, up an Alp in a cave waiting for rescue and you hear something padding along.

Thank God you think. It's a St. Bernard's. It's a lovely warming brandy. It's a bald St. Bernard's, thank God. It's the size of a terrace house. It's a bald, warty St. Bernardance the size of a terrace house. With really come to bad eyes. Am I up for it? I mean, I haven't eaten for six days. I've got three dead work colleagues next to me.

Am I up for it? I did say I would try new things. I did say I would try new things. That's probably why I'm here. I could come down off this mountain with two absolute killer anecdotes. One clean, one bawdy. I'm the perfect after-dinner speaker. I'm good for any event. I could do pre and post dinner. I say the first thing, don't scream, but we did all come up this mountain to try and go for the break the record for the

highest altitude circle jerk. lewd content warning lewd content. And I did it. Just wish we'd seen the cable car before we started walking. So Safari. Yeah, well, my spi- So yeah, we didn't, we didn't see it. Is Hippo not one of the big five. Is it right? No. Lion, tiger, warthog, bat, chunk of chicken. I got so many anecdotes out that Safari is just it just never stops giving. But never fully gives you what you want, which is why it's the perfect anecdote because it always leaves you wanting more or none.

Yes. It's a bit like a metaphor for a safari in a way and you'll never see everything you want to see. That's true. It's never gonna actually yeah fulfill its promise. No. What you want is the big five anecdotes. Had sex with a leopard. Awful toilets. The Biltong actually isn't that much better than at Tesco's. Some kind of food poisoning sort of tale. Smuggled a baby giraffe into Luton Airport. Very nice. To keep as a pet. Got too big.

Came a real drain on the family finances, but luckily really easy to strangle. Whole family could join in. An animal the whole family can strangle. Basically our safari meister, he'd been safariing his whole life. Yeah. Or for a lot of it. It was his bloody job. You know, so for him, he didn't care about the big five. All he cared about was seeing African wild dogs. Yeah. It was in South Africa. Yeah. But he was obsessed with is I need to see the African wild dog. And is this when he hadn't he doesn't get to see very often? Or why was he excited about it's just

like if you're a deep cut safari guys really they're really rare, right? They're really hard to find it. So a lion a tiger, a leopard, tiger is impossible to find in on safari in Africa, surely. is impossible to find in on foreign Africa surely I meant a branch of the shop tiger okay everywhere now but like the the big five for him obviously as a tourist the big five is what you want but for him it's like he's seen the big five loads say oh he said this was like a really like this is like a hipster's choice it's a hipster's choice but the fact is I googled it on my phone it's just a fucking slightly fucked looking dog it's just like a really like a hipster's choice. It's a hipster's choice. But the fact is I googled it on my phone It's just a fucking slightly fucked looking dog It's just like a really mate like a really like rough dog tickly vicious dog Yeah, you're really vicious but like just so we spent we spent most of the day him guy

He was on his walkie-talkie. Apparently, okay. Okay. It's wild dogs. We're about to see like, you know, like a lion like Playing volleyball with the warthog's head head or something like incredible. But for him just meant nothing. It's like wild dogs. We kept on changing direction and driving really, really fast across the bush. Because he'd heard a rumour of a sighting of a wild dog and then they'd be like, no, there's no bloody wild dog. It was basically it was his kind of ahab sort of white whale kind of thing. It was clearly like a very like it was deeply important to him that we see a wild dog, but basically none of us cared. So eventually we had a confirmed sighting of some wild dogs.

We drove, we drove really, really fast and we got to the perimeter of his, like for some reason that the national park was sort into sections, and we weren't allowed into this other section. They were they were they were bordering each other. I'm not entirely sure why or how but the way it's organized, our safari was only allowed in a certain section. So just over the section, away from us, we couldn't go any further. That's where they were. And what we saw was three jeeps full of tourists, all standing, taking photos down. We basically had to watch people watching wild dogs. And he was having a total breakdown. He's like, no, that's so close. It's so close. And so just saw people looking at Wild Dog.

Second degree safari. It was a second degree, yeah. Proxy safari. It's not bad. Anyway, but no hippos. Better than nothing, isn't it? Well, I hope you see one one day, Henry. Thank you.

They're gross. Time to read your emails. Yes please. 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 shoeing a horse

Give me your hoof Like a robot, shooing a horse. Take me a horse. My beautiful horse! 3beanSaladpondatgmail.com is our address, and we've had a load of emails. Thanks for sending them in. We can't read them all out. can't read them all out. Are we learning why Ben normally sort of fronts this bit? I think we can probably only read out probably what 25% of them. So actually 75% of you can stand down. Probably. We very genuinely welcome all the emails. Yeah, sorry. Very pleased to read them all.

Send them in. It's true that we can't read them all out on the show. They all get read. I enjoy reading them all. This is from Andy, the train driver. Just wondering whether Bob and Ruth, that's your next-door neighbour's mic. Yep.

With the lost, um, With the lost tortoise. Have tried playing the sound of tortoises mating into their garden to try and attract egg. It's not nice is it? Well he says it's an unusual sound and maybe not the sort of thing they'd want to do if the neighbors are about. But I'm given to understand that it can be effective and then he sent us a link so we can actually hear

feeling really intrusive here Oh my god. Oh good lord. Okay. How similar to humans they are, isn't it? I mean, Andy, I don't, how have you come across this in the first place? I mean, Andy, I don't, how have you come across this in the first place? Do you still have free access to your tannoy machine in your train? I think putting that person in charge of a tannoy is very, very dangerous, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, Andy, I will run this by Bob and Ruth. Absolutely. I'll leave it for them to judge. A sort of blocking for Michael rather a chance for you to correct the record, Mike. We've had a few mails about this. As a fellow extra resident, this is from Katie.

I was delighted to hear Mike discuss his encounter with the legendary local Batman. So this is a known thing. My delights soon turned to dismay when Mike and Ben proceeded to mock Batman. I would like to inform you that what Mike witnessed was most likely the Devon super team who bring joy to children around the county by attending events in their fully kitted Batmobile. Oh. Hopefully you feel sufficiently guilty knowing they attend events free of charge and are

a registered charity volunteering their time to spread happiness and raise money for community projects. Okay, Mike, you're at a crossroads now with your how you respond to this. One takes you all the way to GB News. I hear the money's good at GB News. Long term, it could be a safer bet. So it's not necessarily straightforward choice. Sometimes it's good to go with the opposite of your instincts, actually.

Is it? Okay, well, in that case, I'll I will. Okay, well, hats off to the well meaning philanthropists. I think Katie will hopefully forgive me for seeing a vehicle I assumed simply wasn't roadworthy going about the outer perimeters of my home city. But I'm still fresh in Exeter really. I've only been here for about sort of 14 years. I'm still a bloat. You're a newbie, aren't you? You'll never be seen as a true resident really by the other day. No, never truly indigenous. But yeah no, no, no, no.

Never truly indigenous, but yeah, why hats off to those guys. I mean, fair play. I had no idea that was a thing. So yeah, shout out to those guys. What are they called? The superhero team. The Exeter super team, I think they're called. Fair play.

I wonder who else is on the, I'm going to have to look them up, I wonder who else is on the list. Well, we've had some photographs by other other extra residents who've seen the super team Yeah, I'm out and about maybe also not really realizing that they're doing it for charity So I'm just I've just sent you a photograph. This is from Alex from heavy tree. Oh, there's a joker listening to the pod today I was excited to hear Mike mention the extra Batman. I thought I'd share these images I took of him and the Joker doing their shopping at Sainsbury's I thought I'd share these images I took of him and the Joker doing their shopping at Sainsbury's.

It's good clobber, isn't it? Do you know what I mean? It's really good. It looks really hot in that Batman suit, doesn't it? Well, that's, I mean, that's part of the... That's really hot. Part of what's admirable, isn't it, I think? I think kids do have higher standards these days in terms of like...

Do you reckon? Like when we were kids, somebody would have turned up in a really crap... That's true. In like a sort of Ford Escort painted black with a sticker on the side. We'd have gone mad. Oh yeah. And someone would have said, someone's would have said, Oh, don't worry. The Batmobile's got some OT this weekend.

So I got the Batmobile. They just, and like, they have like a, like a live bat in a shoe box and a Robin in a plastic bag. There's no internet to look at what Batman was. You didn't know, you had to use word of mouth, wasn't it? So it turns out that a man who I thought was having the most severe midlife crisis of all time is actually doing a very nice thing for charity. So big thumbs up. On his own time. Well, if that was a bollocking, bollocking for The King Accepted.

And if not, then either way, thank you for enlightening me Katie. Bollocking accepted. We've had an email with the subject title Spleen. Oh yes okay yes yes yes Spleen's came up last week didn't it? In reference to your Spleen Mike how's it how's it how's how's how are the ribs going? I'm in good nick these days Tom. Yeah good. Just to people who understand, the ribs is the essentially... The eyes of the window to the soul. The ribs are... Well, the ribs are... The recessed storage unit. Well, they're a safety mesh. They operate as chicken wire. They have a lot of different functions. But essentially, they're an internalised exoskeleton.

To prevent pigeons from landing. To prevent pigeons from that. Because you can't get a foothold on them. Exactly. Another word, of course, for internalised exoskeleton is skeleton. I prefer to use the full nomenclature. Rather than be a pregation term. I'm a pedant like that. But essentially it's from our previous Cravivore phase, isn't it?

From whence we came and to whence we will return. Whence. To whence we will return. To whence. Because when you think about it, once you've got a rib cage around your internal organs, do you really need a skin? It's a bonus really, isn't it? Good point.

But we now do. We now have skin as well. But the ribs are quite hard to set aren't they Mike because they don't you can't put a you can't put a plaster cast around a rib because a rib is of course internal. The bits move together though. Sam writes I was delighted to hear you discussing spleens in last week's episode as it finally gave me a chance to contribute to the cultural zeitgeist. I had my spleen removed as a child when I was living in Malawi. After the operation they gave me back my spleen, whole, in a jar. My older brother then took my jarred spleen into school to show his class, and it was returned upside

down, having spent the day with his biology teacher. That's a mystery, isn't it? Oh, so the jar was the right way up, the spleen was the upside down? I guess the spleen had been taken out and sort of... He's taken a sample, hasn't he, you cheeky bugger? He's probably cloned you, Sam. He's probably cloned you. Yeah, he's got a bit of you on a slide, that biology teacher. Beyond shadow of a doubt.

Beyond shadow of a doubt. Yeah. Needless to say, I have been exceptionally mild-mannered since this operation, having had my humours neutralised via splenectomy. That's the definitive way to do it, isn't it? Well, he says I would recommend this procedure to any parent who feels their child gets a bit too worked up from time to time. We've been told it does not advocate that procedure.

I dunno, I think he's on to something. Finally Mel, it's from Jenny. Hello Beans! Hi Jenny. The subject title is Henry has now made me vomit twice. Oh. Apologies. I think I know what one of them is going to be. Well one of them is the fact she's got morning sickness, which I don't think you have anything to do with.

Jenny says I'm due to give birth quite soon to a festive baby. Woo hoo! And I've had terrible morning sickness. Today was my last day of work before maternity leave and I remember thinking I could triumphantly tell my midwife that I had been sick for a couple of weeks. Anyway, as I was about to walk out the door, Henry started talking about human fats oozing into his carpet and I was sick everywhere. Oh, Jeremy. Oh, who would have suffered so, so long and hard.

But that might not have been a morning sickness, sickness. There might just been a sickness. But it doesn't matter. If you've been through morning sickness, you don't want that. You don't want additional just normal sickness. No, just revulsion. I apologize for that. It sounds like so Jenny's on a hair trigger for vomiting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I apologize. I apologize for that. It sounds like so Jenny's on a hair trigger for vomitting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This also happened to me on my walk, my walk to work a while ago when Henry did an impression of a Holland days gun spitting out sauce. Yeah. Oh Jenny. I'm sorry about that. She says I forgive you and look forward to my imminent future listening to you while breastfeeding slash falling asleep. Lovely stuff.

Lovely stuff. Thanks, Jenny. And congratulations. Good luck. Apologize for that. And congratulations, Jenny. That's... Yeah, congratulations.

That's lovely. It's time to pay the ferryman. Patreon.com. Thanks to everyone who signed up on our Patreon. Thank you very much. Patreon.com forward slash three bean salad is the place to go to have a look at that. You can sign up at various tiers. If you sign up at the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout out from Mike from the Sean Bean Lounge where Mike was only last night. You better believe I was. It was fumigation Thursday, wasn't it?

Ha ha ha. It was. Thank you, Henry. And here's my report. It was fumigation Thursday at the Sean Bean Lounge last night, and this year Sean Bean commissioned Ralph Wapshot to misuse his perfectly decent science degree to create a non-staining fumigant strong enough to get moth eggs out of taxidermy, cause an ecological disaster, or even obliterate evidence of misjudged messages on community WhatsApp groups.

The compound dimethylchloronephthalene nicobarstid sulfide, aka Stephen Hardwick's Savage Mist, aka Lawrence Turpin's Death Mask, had been rigorously tested on a mixture of mites, ticks, nits, larvae and Joel Curtis, and could be deployed by aerosol, gaseous wafting, flicked off the ends of a priest's fingers, or by using Adam Wells as a kind of mop. Anders Comancho, Richard Jude Thompson and Banjo Dave were sent into the lounge first to flush out any pests from their hiding places using a mixture of mating calls and showing some ankle. A double cordon was formed outside with Anna Laurie, Return of the Duncan, Jen Gooderson and Joe Gardner, making an inner perimeter disguised as pest enticing open bins, while an outer perimeter last-ditch repellent line was set up by Sam Halestone, Henrik Frenning, Sarah Lloyd and

Mike Inker, all of whom were coated in powdered predator urine. Stephen Townley, Harvey Piper and Sam were dehydrated and greased to the point where they could fit into any spaces between walls to make sure pests did not go unhunted. Similarly, Reed Bedlington, Ross, T.L.E.H.O. and Robert Ballard were instructed to sing the hits of John Legend in barbershop style close harmony up any pipe they could find to make sure the decks were thoroughly cleared. Now, with pests of all stripes running amok in the open, the Bean loungers were ready to begin the fumigation proper. Alice Hickson and G. Twin led a prayer to Sean Bean,

while Alastair Vec and Isabelle Hayes drove into the Bean Lounge Central Atrium in a specially adapted Hyundai i10 fumigator. Jack Manderson gave a final demonstration of the correct use of protective gear and was ignored to such a degree that he became physically translucent. Alan Morgan then hit the big red button, but failed to do so before Jasper Freeman was able to tell him that Katie and Melissa Bonert had failed to connect the fumigant to the I-10 exhaust pipe, and it was still rigged up with 4,000 cubic litres of Sue's The Ferg's homemade beefcake gas.

Johnny Sullivan, standing behind the I--10 took a direct hit and immediately henched up to the size of a terraced house. This led the other bean loungers to realize that something was wrong. Don McGowan broke the glass case around the emergency ukulele and began playing the evacuation ditty, but it was too late. Robert Sage, despite being beefcaked himself, was consumed in a single gulp from a now 18-foot house dust mite. Jennifer Mabor and Wyatt Hack were and still are locked in hand-to-hand combat with a pair of silverfish that had grown fists and knew how to use them. And Noel Attilano and Poy Ling Agnew were last seen being dragged

over the Sean Bean horizon by a bedbug with biceps like American fridges. Sean Bean was contacted on the hotline and gave orders for the Mega Closh to be placed over the lounge for the time being, and he'd work out what to do about it all once he's back from Verona where he's learning to weave horsehair into viola bows. Thanks all. Thanks for listening everyone. And I think today might, if you listen to it on the day of release, which you probably aren't, because I think it's Christmas Day. Is this coming out on Christmas Day? I think so.

So it's Happy Christmas? I think this is a big old happy Christmas. Happy Christmas. Christmas is a time, a time of year that I love. It's amazing to think isn't it that by the time people listen to this Mike's Christmas meal will have gone one way or the other. Yeah. In fact, it'll be happening potentially while they're listening to this live. They might be, some might be listening, preparing their own Christmas meal as they listened as they.

Yeah. And it's possible that Mike's one will have gone so badly. It's made the news and it's on the BBC news website. In fact, they may have had to interrupt that pre-recorded stuff they do on radio too and stuff. The news flash. Interrupt the Queen's speech. Interrupt the Queen's speech. Because Mike's turkey dinner has gone so badly. It will of course, I mean something extraordinary would have happened if it is the Queen's speech as well. I would love it. I mean it would absolutely suit King Chucky's reign so far wouldn't it?

If the Queen's... Oh we are going to have the Queen again, sorry. It's just what I want. It'll suggest that Mike's Christmas meal has gone so badly that the Queen has come back to life. It's the only person who could be trusted to calm things down in the nation. To calm the nation down in the aftermath. Best of luck, Mike. Best of luck.

Okay, we'll finish off the show with a version of our theme tune sent in by one of you. Oh yes, please. This one is from Chris. He says, dear beans, I come to you from the past. Plowing as I am through the back catalog, I'm currently on Animal Husbandry in 2002. It's the ghost of Chris past. So you'll be listening to this probably in 2026, I guess, if you are listening still

Chris. So which ones are you listening to? Animal Husbandry. Wow. It's amazing to think how much we've changed and developed since then. All the things we've learned and back then it was just three guys talking about shiz. Remember we just talked some rubbish in the intro and then just talk absolute cack about some topic and nothing about and then just ran off with emails.

Oh, imagine. Imagine. Imagine. We were so naive, weren't we? So naive to think that that was, yeah. That that was entertaining. Exactly. We've added so much to it. That's funny to think, yeah. We thought you could get away with that and that should be a thing.

Amazing. Anyway, yeah. Chris writes, at the risk of sitting on my own arse, here's my version of the theme on mandolin. Lovely stuff. Thank you, Chris. Thanks, Chris. Thank you. Bye. Happy Christmas to all Lovely stuff. Thank you, Chris. Thanks, Chris. Happy Christmas, everyone. Thank you.