Three Bean Salad - Ice Cream

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Gemma in Bromley has the beans wrap their chops around ice-cream this week and by gum are the beans happy about it. This may be the most on-topic episode of the podcast so far although there is time to squeeze in hairy omelettes, creamy cream and a trip down memory lane with Lou from Neighbours.Join our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansaladTickets to our live show on 30th April 2023 at Machynlleth Comedy Festival: https://machcomedyfest.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873644688Get in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpod

Mike, in Ireland, where you've just been, did you drink 20 pints over the black stuff? And was the black stuff different from the black stuff when you get it anywhere else? I, annoyingly, didn't get a single drop of the black stuff. Really? I was mostly sort of having to drive from gigs to the next location or halfway to the next location most of the time. So, there was only one night where I stayed in the place I was gigging. You just stuck to Strongbow.

I stuck to Strongbow. Well, I had a moment of possible sort of social cowardice. It was social cowardice and also, I think the place I was staying, I mean, they did have the black stuff. But the person who ran where I was staying... We're talking, by the way, for listeners who aren't aware of Dlingo... We're talking about Spiced Tar. Spiced Tar.

Yeah. I think I would have done, but he owned the barn. He was also an Englishman. He invited me up after the gig. He said, well, perhaps after your gig, you can come and enjoy a pint of creamy, creamy Guinness. Oh. And it was just, he put too much creamy into the invitation.

He literally said, creamy, creamy Guinness. Creamy, creamy Guinness. I never say creamy twice. I mean, that's basic. Even cream itself is just cream once, isn't it? The word for cream is just cream. It got my hackles up and I did, I like Guinness and sure, it's creamy and I would have loved a pint of Guinness, but it just rankled with me and I knew that if I did go, then every

single sip I had in that bar of that Guinness, I knew he'd be there and he'd be staring at me. Maybe even saying or mouthing the word creamy to you. Maybe whispering the word creamy into my ear or every sip, I'd just be hearing him saying creamy, creamy from his wet lips. You'd have to keep on agreeing with him that, yes, it is creamy, creamy, and at some point in the night, Mike, at some point, he's going to up the ante, he's going to try and add a third creamy in here.

And I'm going to have to put it in first. These things only go one way. So probably a bit pathetic on my part, but and then I couldn't face it and I just went ahead and had a cup of tea and went to sleep. It was the only decision you could have made, Mike, saying creamy twice like that to a guest. It's not right. I felt bad because I had a lovely time. County Workload was an awful lot of fun.

It was a lovely, lovely gig. Would you describe the gig as creamy, creamy? The gig wasn't creamy, I'm pleased to say, and I think I'd have found it very difficult if I then turned up to the gig and the gig was also creamy and he was there telling me that it was going to be a creamy gig and talking to an individual about how creamy I thought it was. And also, what kind of cream? I can't remember if we've talked about this on the podcast or not, but cream, probably.

Yeah, cream comes up, there we go. I keep on getting asked in London now when I order a cappuccino, which you're doing day-to-day because you're tapping into the zeitgeist as we've discussed. I was letting that sink in. Yeah, absolutely love a cappuccino, by the way. Frothy coffee, you've got to say down these parts. Frothy coffee, I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, a cappuccino is, you know, I mean, it is certainly creamy,

but what happens is, now when I order a cappuccino in London, they say, sometimes they go, what kind of milk would you like? I've probably literally had this conversation. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah. A few times, yeah. Oh, yeah. But we're workshopping it. Exactly, we're circling around.

It's slightly different each time, isn't it? It's like the second half of a Beckett play, often it's the same, but slightly different. And similarly, interminable as well. Yeah, and with a deep sense of how bleak existence is, that that being really rammed home to the audience as they put their coats on and fuck off. And you could have been watching Rambo 5. You could have been watching Rambo 5. The one that was written by Beckett.

People will forget that one. Yeah. Rambo 5, waiting for Rambo. Well, his boiler had broken, hadn't it? So he needed a bit of fast cash. So he finally agreed to take the gig. It's amazing to see it staged, though, isn't it? Because the whole stage is just littered in bullets, a huge pile of bullets.

And just one of Rambo's feet is sticking out. Normally, his left foot, but that can vary. But you have to discuss it with the Beckett state because they're very strict about it. But generally, his left foot will be sticking out, won't it? And then you'll just hear the words. The pain. The pain. That's two hours.

That's the first half. And is it Stallone's left foot? Or does it depend on the performance? It's Stallone's left foot, yeah. Apart from when Henry, apart from when you did it, of course, that the character soon dropped. Yeah. But generally, it's Stallone's left foot.

And so Stallone has to be in there, obviously, upside down to spend it in the pile of bullets. But he's able to zoom his family, appear in other films. He gets a lot from inside that. He gets a huge amount done. And he actually says that he sometimes feels like he gets more done. So when he's outside of the pile of bullets, moving about. He does his Christmas thank you letters. He does the works.

He does all that. He's written his newsletters five years in advance now, because they're always, I'm still in the pile of bullets. And yeah, still just working gradually, just interminably working my way through this 20 year run at the national. Which will take me seven years beyond my expected lifespan. And the reviews have been dog shit. Yeah, but they'll say, what kind of milk do you want in the cappuccino?

And then I have to say cow's milk. And it just really, it just feels so weird saying that, because it just feels like such a weird thing to want to have on a drink. Do you know what? This conversation feels like a warm pair of slippers going on. Are they war presidents? And you're like, oh, here they go on again. Oh, and I should probably replace them because,

I mean, the one on the left is beyond fungal. It's now literally, I mean, it's its own ecosystem. Well, it's the one they, it's the one they put on Stallone overnight in the national. So it doesn't get too chilly. Have either of you worked in a pub? Yes, indeed. I have not, no.

When did you work in a pub? Me? Oh, many times. Like sort of student age. Well, basically as soon as I turned 18, really, had a bunch of barman jobs. Get me out of there. May as well work here. Exactly. Left on it.

But was that a kind of, because you didn't grow up in the West country, did you? But I still want to. I worked in my, I was in a little village outside Portsmouth. And that was the, I worked in one of the little village pubs. That was the first pub job. Sawdust and hogs across the floor. Well, there were two, there were two, two bar jobs initially.

There was the village pub job and there was also waiting and a bit of bar work at the local Forte Post House hotel, which I might have mentioned in the past. Which is a little traveller's hotel, sort of on a, on a roundabout, on a major sort of dual carriageway just outside the village. Trust House Forte. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was the, it was the kind of place where the two chefs were definitely the hairiest people I've ever seen in my entire life.

And very much, I was briefed that very much a part of the job was, please make sure you check the plates before you take them out to the pubs because chances are there will be a couple of stragglers on them. And you do need to essentially shave the omelettes before you take them out to the pubs. And it is a hot summer, they are both shedding. Can you, can you gaffer tape a couple of hair nets onto the arms? Oh yeah, it's the only waiting job you need to do with cellotape, put on backwards, wrap around both hands at all times so you just cook me,

off it comes. Is it, Masaka? Enjoy. We're hoovering them on the way in, it's not enough. They're waxing every two hours and we've considered just dyeing their hair green and, and calling it jives. That's how bad it's gone. And the food was gross, even if it was hairless, it was, it was an evidently

utterly gross. So it was, I mean, you would, you'd do an evening there, if you were doing, if you're being a waiter on the bar, you'd expect to in a shift have at least six relatively hearty bollocks during the course of the, of the evening. From customers? Yeah, yeah, very much from very disappointed customers. It's the kind of place that people would bring mum for, you know, 80th or whatever.

There was a lot of that going on. Was it things like, by the time we'd made our way through the hair, that, but A, that we were all very tired and B, that was as cold as the tomb. What, what kind of complaints was it? That the food was cold, that the food was hairy, that the food was, was gross, was utterly. Cold area gross. Inevitably gross.

And this is a pre-online reviews time, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had the, so the reviews are very much done on the spur of the moment, IRL to the, to the nearest minimum wage teenager, which happened to be me or my sister. You could absorb a lot of that. Exactly. Yeah. So we got quite, yeah, we got quite heavy, juicy, early doors, education in dealing,

dealing with the disgruntled, I would say, which has helped me in gigging immensely. And your audience do, you often are covered in, in hair, aren't they, by the end of the night? With you, certainly fun row. Well, it just helps that there's, there's something that you can hang your hat on, you know, you can explain why it's all gone wrong. So that thing like, you working in pubs, that, that makes sense to me in terms of village life. Because the way I, you know, I've always lived in urban spaces. I mean, you hit 18, you were, you were off to the nearest wine bar, weren't you?

Exactly. Yeah. You were getting a chanzano lemonade and listening to some smooth jazz. Exactly. That's, that, that was how I experienced these things. But in, but my understanding of village life is to have a quite occasionally pass through a village. Something's been trapped in a village or snowed in. It does happen.

You've seen folk horror movies. I've seen some folk horror movies. Sometimes when I'm paragliding from Gleinborn, back to the national, so maybe a matinee of an opera, but try and get back to the national time to watch the evening Shakespeare. Sometimes you'll dump the empties from your hamper over a village. Exactly. And yeah, discarded, you know, yeah, theatre programs.

There's many theatre ice cream bottles. Yeah. Well, our village wasn't under the Gleinborn flight path, so we weren't lucky enough to get those programs, unfortunately, but we heard about villages that were. And that is wonderful. No, if Mike's village, you know, got hold of a little thing of ice cream where the spoon was within the lid, it would just blow all their mind.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The spoon is within the lid. It's both a lid and a spoon. I mean, I don't even fully understand what a spoon is, but I'm pretty sure I know what a lid is. It's, uh, it's like a cow pat. It's a nonfecal cow pat, I think. Yeah. Although most of our lids were just fecal cow pads.

Chipped away, who's the right size? And if you wanted the spoon in the lid, you had to feed the spoon to the cow. It has to be an indigestible material, and they're very rare and very valuable, so you loathe to do that. No, but I've been saying, whatever I understand from Village Lives is, it's quite interchangeable who's working where at any time because, yeah, everyone sort of knows each other. It's like, oh, just you'll be buying a pint and then suddenly be, oh, Barney,

you're Desmond's lad, aren't you? Just you come round the bar now, because I'm popping down my third born, Susan. She's currently, she's actually doing some butchering down her butchers, because she was on her way to the... She was off to milk the bear pig. She was going to milk the bear pig, but she got the barrels in the pot. So if you just pop round here and tell you what, I'll, you know what, I'm going to go and be the butchers dog for half an hour,

because the butchers dogs, he's running the post office this morning, I think, because Clyde's got shingles and... And Clyde's got a shingle, so all he can do today, he's got to be the speed bump at the entrance to the village. That's it. He's being the speed bump today. So if you pop round here and you know what we'll do? We'll muddle on through, because that's what we do.

We muddle on through. Yeah, he cracked it. Yeah. Yeah, is that how it works? That's pretty much bang on, I'd say. There's a muddling on through a gender in villages, isn't there? Whereas in the big cities, if I was to go to the butchers and he was to tell me, can you pop round this side and just, can you break those?

Can you just smash up those loins for me? Got a mixture of pig and haddock loins, we're mashing them up, because we're making a surf and turf stew for the village fates. And then can you go and help Isabella with the threshing, please? Yeah, it's not going to happen. It's not going to wash. Everyone's got their delineated sort of rolls. But Mike, for you, the hotel on the roundabout near the A road.

Yeah, that was something different. So the village pub, that was very much the village pub. Same guys in every single night, same conversations every single night. You knew where you stood. Very little pork serving of Guinness. That was a rarity. That would be quite exciting if that happened. And then I'd attempt to try and sort of put a ham-fisted shamrock in it.

I'd fail. It's mostly your real ails. Whereas if you thought you'd post our hotel on the dual carriageway, I mean, sometimes you'd get people from easily. So this is not just village life. You might have a family from Wickham, you know. I mean, yeah, the people who pass through there. Including, actually, there was a celebrity.

This relates, in fact, to the last bean lounge, which is how I knew a little bit of trivia that ended up in the bean lounge. And Australian, we had, occasionally, propping up the bar, the bloke who played Luke Carpenter from Neighbours. Tom Oliver. He pop over. I think it's Tom Oliver. He pop over.

Old Craig face. Is that a bit harsh? Yeah, of course, yeah. That's just a nice old man. He's just a nice old man. He's old to his physical appearance. What was he doing there? Was that pre-the-loo years?

Or was he very much at the height of his loo powers? No, it was his peak loo powers. His peak loo. His peak loo was desperately exciting. According to his Wikipedia, he was born in Chandler's Ford Hampshire. Yeah, you see. Tell me, you know anything, do you? Yeah, it's not a million miles away, see.

So I think he had family quite nearby. And he'd pop in and have a snifter. He didn't eat there. He'd been there before, so he knew not to do that. I'm thinking the pub was the sort of casual option, fried an out on the booze, but something a bit more special. Is that where people go to the trust house? Yes, but never more than once.

Yeah, exactly. We never were. And they have a very, very disappointing experience. And there was a little hotel there, as well as some rooms, I suppose, for people who sort of needed to overnight between Southampton and Portsmouth, you know, which can take the best part of an hour. Yeah.

And I assume Lou from Neighbours is leaving his key cards, you know, with various women. I don't. Room 63, love. I don't know. Well, imagine, Lou's technique was, what you do is you get him out to the forte, right? I've got it all worked out.

You have a nice night on the black stuff. A nice hairy lasagna. A nice hairy lasagna, or perhaps a cashew Cabanara, or, I am. Rounded it off with a pubic trifle. And by the time they've made their way through that, when later on I have to reveal my own horrifically hairy body, perhaps they're actually... They're new to it, that's the thing.

They're completely new to it. They're completely new to it. They're completely new to it. I'm just thinking, there's a chance that he's entirely hairless, because his background is incredible. He joined the Merchant Navy at 16. Whilst in the British forces, he worked on the Pacific Nuclear Testing Base on Christmas Island.

Good grief. This is all making sense now. He's radioactive, he's completely hairless. And of course, because he's a hairless body in the same building as two very hairy men, he's attracting their hairs out of their bodies. That's a good thing. He's attracting their hairs out of their bodies.

That's what it must be, of course. And on the way, they're settling on the zanyas, the ham salads, the house trifles, etc. Of course, anything in the path. You're right. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. So you had to think of all those hours you spent running those,

what those old-fashioned Hoover things called it? A dust devil. Running dust devils over... Yeah. ...over Tyrrim and Ceres. We called them dust devils, but they were just our sucking mouths. Yeah, but that's what we called them back in the day. So you just give the food a quick lick.

Right, guys. Luke Arbiter is in today, so a lot of hairy men are attracting towards his radioactive hairless body. So if you could just keep on top of it. We're going to try and sit him next to the window and have the windows open. But it's minus five out there, and he's Australian.

He's not going to like it. Well, it turns out he's not Australian. I wonder if he was putting on the accent in neighbours. I think he'd been there for a long time, hadn't he? Yeah. And maybe he was just doing some acting. Yes. It's possible that his experiences on Christmas Island

erased his memories. Also, the baseline is that, or for all of us as factory settings, an Australian man, is that... Would that happen to any of us? That's what we reset to, yeah. Yeah, if you use radio waves to completely reset yourself, you end up as Luke Arbiter for neighbours.

And I think that makes sense, doesn't it? Because it is nice to go on a beach. It is nice to eat a massive prawn. You know what I mean? These are just basics. But, you know... Basic human urges. The basic human urges. Luke Arbiter is a classic case of someone who...

Because, you know, we watched him on Telly when we were kids. And he just seemed utterly ancient. He's the kind of person who you'll learn. And of course, when he joined neighbours, Luke Arbiter was 27. And it completely blows your mind. It definitely will be that, yeah. Yeah.

For anyone listening outside, I mean, if you're in the UK, you know who Luke Arbiter is. Yeah, yeah. If you're Australian, I assume you know who Luke Arbiter is. I reckon, yeah. But if you're from elsewhere, maybe mainland Europe or the USA, Luke Arbiter is kind of our... He's our Rex Dallas, what they call the characters from...

PJ... Who shot JR? PJ Stetson. Yeah, JR. JR Ewing. Yeah, I would say he's our JR Ewing. Billy Bob Jr. Alamo. Yeah, he was a big character in an Australian soap opera that,

for some reason, British school children were obsessed with throughout these 80s and 90s, was it? It was then cancelled and now it's coming back. So it is. Just in time for Luke Arbiter's 36th birthday. Let's turn on the bean machine. So, this week's topic, ascent in by Gemma in Bromley. Thanks, Gemma.

Is ice cream. Okay, Mike. Coming to you first. It's a sunny day. You're out, maybe with your family at the beach, it's a nice day. Glad to be alive. You hear the jingling of an ice cream. To which we all have a strongly inbuilt Pavlovian response.

I might start watering, we're ready to go. Which, for me, is blood curdling horror that it's going to be a sort of an evil clown van, isn't it? It's a mixture of that's either really lovely experience for everyone, ice cream, kids will have a nice time, or it's a blood curdling call of the evil clown van. You're going to have to finish the day going to battle in the bowels of hell via the town sores.

Yeah, yeah. With someone sticking your flake in you. You are the sprinkles. Oh no, it's the evil van. You put your hand in your pocket, Mike, there's a crisp 10 pound note in there and you wander up to the ice cream van. What are you having? Mint chocolate.

Oh, 80s. So 80s. So 80s. Mint choc chip. Easier sort of your strolling mint choc chip down the sea front promenades. Or you go all in visiting my grandmother in Kenford Hill in South Wales and we go down to Porth Coole over summer's days to Fulgonis, which did a very, very fun banana Sunday, that kind of thing.

The absolute works. The works. Lovely. Instead of a flake, it's a pack of cigarettes shoved in it, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's a pack of run filtered wood binds, served in a bowl of cockles. And the whole thing is that you put it in a conical, sort of conical shape made out of an old tabloid newspaper, isn't it?

And you just put the whole thing. It's plunged down your throat. Yeah, yeah. You plunge it down your throat. A local sort of recently prize winning welterweight at amateur level. Yeah. Just wangs it down. And because of the shape of the conical thing that's in your mouth,

if a seagull, which often will, will decide to chase those cockles down your throat. Well, that's your protein, isn't it? In he goes. And obviously, because it's conical shape, it won't be able to get back out. Diving seagull, when it's in dive formation, is very easily swallowed, actually. That's right. Even by an eight-year-old boy. Yeah.

And of course, that's why if you are using a public toilet in that part of the country, it's always worth having a quick look down the bowl, because you might find yourself a nice little seagull beak. Might need to add it to your necklace. Warm, happy memories. Okay, so, Henry, what's your ultimate ice cream experience then? Well, I've got a few. One is, I do like, on a summer's day, popping down my local garage

to spend between four and seven pounds. And one of their latest experimental ice creams, which is a choc ice with a boiled egg run through it. Um, no, I am, just when I'm down there, because normally I'll just be buying, you know, a mini pack of supplemental bog roll or a Sunday paper. But when I'm in that, I do, I will quite often go over to the magnum fridge. They've got their own, they've got their own magnum fridge. It's just, yeah, it's just that garage and Ben, isn't it?

I think they're the only places where you can find it. Just that garage and Ben. Magnum fridge. They have one. I'll get myself a magnum. I will, uh, partly inspired by Ben, actually, just because Ben does put out a lot of social media content around magnums, don't you? He's the only completely voluntary brand ambassador

for a major worldwide brand that exists. He is a completely non-profit influencer on behalf of... Procter and Gamble. And you refuse their money, don't you? They've offered you huge amounts, but for you, it's a matter of principle that... There's a mega yacht sitting in Cardiff Bay, just doing nothing. Doesn't want it.

But I always go for the classic magnum. You know what? I think magnum have pulled off an absolute... There's a genius bit of marketing. How they, how they sort of market the product. I mean, it's absolutely suckered in of... Because there's a choc eye on the stick. A pretty intelligent guy in the form of Ben Partridge here.

Yeah, he's a pretty discerning guy. You know, he knows, he's absolutely hook-like. I mean, he's deep, he's in so deep, he's got no idea what's going on, does he, with magnums? But yeah, exactly my... It's a choc eye on the stick. They've called it magnum, so they've given it that deluxe...

Yeah, you know. It's premium. Yeah. They've given it premium, premium sort of labelling. There's a sort of gold, golden platinum colored wrappers. Yeah, there's a Willy Wonka touch, yeah? Touch of magic. The Willy Wonka touch.

Also, the wrappers, when they're throw... Because they're in the freezer and they're cold, the wrappers kind of feel like gold leaf. They just feel like an incredibly expensive deluxe thing. Yes. They've got names like millionaire and billionaire, haven't they? I think you're referring to the double gold caramel billionaire. They've got names like double gold caramel billionaire.

It's gilding the lily, isn't it? Double gold. It's a strawberry oligarch. Yeah, no, it's exactly... It's got totally oligarch sort of vibe, so you do feel you're just getting... You're really spoiling yourself. But really, you're not...

Yeah, it's a choc eye on a slightly wider than you'd expect stick. It's a choc eye on a stick with a shape on the... There's wooden forks you get for fish and chips. Do you know what I think it is for me? I think I've worked out that basically, when I was a kid, you know, the ice cream van would arrive. I was never allowed the magnum, because the magnum was top of the box.

It was often over a pound at the time, which was... So I'd be getting your fab lolly, your twister, your feast, a mini milk. And obviously the local billionaire's son, he would get the magnum with me every time. And he wouldn't even finish it half the time, would he? He'd throw it into the mouth of his nanny. And I think it was a moment quite early on in adulthood, when I realised I could just buy one of these.

Even when I was a student, I didn't have any money, I could still afford, I could have one every day, basically. And it wouldn't... I could do it. I actually remember being a student, one of the first weeks of being an adult, really. And just going to the desk, going and buying loads of choc eyes, and being like... Yeah. Yeah. Stop me.

Yeah. Stop me. I'm a sovereign individual. My dad said this was fine, by the way. Can you help splitting that out? For the counter. And that remains, yeah. I think I have the same thing, actually, when I get a magnum.

Because I do love to get a magnum. I do feel like a bit of a billionaire. I do feel a bit special. And... You're buying a lifestyle. I'm buying a lifestyle. And I do have that moment where I take off the deluxe wrapper, which makes that crinkly sound,

which I think is probably the same sound as gold makes. And then when I bite into it, I really try and experience the thing you see in the ads. You know, I really try and... Clunk. The clunk. Exactly. The clunk. Clunk.

And that is... By the way, that's the exact same sound that the top end BMW doors make when you open and close them, isn't it? It's that sort of... On to your forearm, and it breaks your armor. Yeah. Yeah. It's that deluxe clunk of having your arm severed by a BMW door.

Isn't it? Where it almost... It just doesn't matter. Which is a sound few of us can dare to dream of hearing in our lifetimes. Yeah. Rather than, you know, the sound of, like, eating a feast. What sound is that? It's sort of...

Yeah. Or just getting the end of your finger trapped in the boot door of a Nissan micro. Exactly. Yeah. I'm gonna do it. Squelch. Yeah. But quite often what I'll find is,

you have to wait for the magnum to get a bit warm, because if you go straight in for the bite, you're like, oh, it's almost a bit chewy. It's not really nice. It's not making any clunk. There's no deluxe feeling. It's almost like I'm chewing it. I'm almost like I'm eating a bloody choc-ice here.

I mean, if it wasn't on a stick, I think obviously it could have eaten this choc-ice. But it's not. It's basically a Ferrari. It's a small, it's basically an edible Ferrari. That's what it is. But then if you let it,

if you just let it warm up a little bit in the sun, then you can actually get the clunk. Yeah. And yeah, you're also waiting to sort of turn a few heads in that time as well. You're waiting for people to go just like that. Oh, yeah. And you get some jelly. And you get some jelly.

And you get some jelly. And you get some jelly. Obviously you get some jealous people. Who is he? Who is he? I don't know where I am. Who do you think he is? You'll get some jealous people going,

oh, Wanko, you're kidding me. You're showing a Wanko. There's some guys eating a feast. And then you look down. Who do you think you are? Yeah. Think you're different from me. You think you're special just because I'm eating a Zoom.

And of course, and then some goes, yeah, because I was trying to break into your Magnum and the alarm goes off. No, then what happens is you look down. So you're feeling, you let the sun warm it up a bit.

You bite into it. You feel the clunk, the deluxe clunk. It yields. It finally yields. It resists, resists, resists. Clunk, clunk, yields. Yeah. And you look down,

and effectively 40% of your Ferrari is on your trousers and shoes. Because it is impossible to get it all in your gob, isn't it? How do you do all that, Ben? Just experience, really. Yeah. I take a sort of silver wine bucket with me and I eat it over that.

Yeah, catch the bits. Catch the bits. There's a way of doing it. But other ice cream experiences I have is, I don't know why this is. There's some economic reason for this, but one of the only sort of things that thrive in the high street is ice cream shops,

isn't it? There's loads of them. Yes, you're right. It's cafes, ice cream shops, and estate agents for some reason. Yes, and those businesses have got very similar names, but they all are exactly the same. Yeah.

Sandangles. There's one called creams. There's chimbandis. There's one called dreams. Lambandi. Oh. Lambandi, of course. In Chiswick, there's a kind of old Italian one

that's been there forever called fangandes, or something. And yeah, they get queued up. They get queued up in the summer. Really? Oh yeah, they get massively queued up. I mean, ice cream, presumably like Mike, a day on a certain holiday, I imagine it's a structured

round ice cream, isn't it? I know from my own nephew's indices that ice cream is a sort of incentive that's used to get through the day. It's quite an important sort of... Or as a threat to his draw. Yeah, ice cream privileges. Or a threat to fully encase them in ice cream.

You have to have too much ice cream. Usually empty threats, and everyone knows that. Because you want an ice cream as much as they do. Exactly. Exactly, that's a name. You can't understand that implicitly from day dot. Yeah. Everyone's in it for the ice cream pretty much.

Yeah. It's the cold, tasty glue that holds families together in a way. And why walls haven't run with that? I don't know. But quickly, before we carry on, I mean, I've just quickly had an idea which I think might be my first billion. Oh, okay.

Your first double billion. My first double billion. I'm just thinking about the experience of going to an ice cream parlor. Which does involve a lot of queuing, doesn't it? You queue, you queue. You look at someone's dog for a bit. You queue. You get to towards the front,

and someone just doesn't know what to have because there's so many options. Someone's being really annoying. Then you've got... Henry, I don't want you to copyright this idea because I've had the same idea as you. Oh, people always say that. People always say that when people are about that.

That's why I definitely can't get on with this. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so my idea is... Sorry, hang on. I've already posted it to myself. Yeah, but that was from me. I posted it to both of you as if it was from you

as a double bluff to double check. Okay, here we go. It's an ice cream parlor, but with different cured meats. There we go. That is mine, Ben. You are not having Henry Pidgeot's Froz and the Meat de Salami. You're not having that. That's mine.

Frozen Meat Dreams. That's mine. You're not having that. And do you want that in a waffle cone or in a festful of mints? Perfect, Mike. Perfect. Stretchy, you can eat steak tartare, but what's even rourer than fresh frozen?

That's right. A selection of different thicknesses and fat levels of frozen beef minces. This was slaughtered when frozen. To lock in the freshness. You've got your lamb minces, you've got your beef minces, you've got your chicken minces. Introducing your turkey minces.

Again, different fat levels and different courses of meat grain. So I'm going to have, I'm just going to go with one ball of chocolate, raspberry ripple, and then some venison hearts, please. Okay. And you know what? Because I've been in a good mood today

and you gave me a lovely smile, I'm going to give you a free lamb's eyeball on top. All right, have a nice day. Yeah, so here's my idea, right? So you get to the front, and there's too many options. Raspberry and strawberry. I mean, is there really a difference there? Do you want to go down Sorbet Road?

Is Sorbet really an ice cream, or is it just like when you defrost in your fridge and some old cherries have got stuck? Do you know what I mean? Like, is that an ice cream? They've got vegan ones. You've got too many options. You've got all different, how many balls to have?

Conical cone, bigger cone, yeah, waffle cone, bowl, spoon, bowl sizes, too many, right? It is really annoying. It takes ages. So why not do the same thing that Preta Morge did with sandwiches? Put raw onions in them. Put, put, put, put, put Vip Vip secretly,

put mayo, loads of mayo in all of them. Don't tell anyone. No, no, no, no. Encase the ice cream in two slices of wholemeal bread. No. Now, have the ice cream on racks on the walls. Preta. Preta headache.

Preta headache. So instead of going to the front, you've got all the ice creams lined up on the sides, like Preta Morge sandwiches. Well, so ready, ready scooped? Yeah, ready scooped. Sorry, that's a good name, ready scooped. Ready scooped.

So you go in and you look, and there's just freezers on the walls, and you've got an ice cream there with the chocolate cone. Hang on, who owns the idea to the title, ready scooped? Well, I think I heard it for, because Ben said it, but I heard it and then had the idea for it. I can trace it back to the exact moment I had the idea was when I heard it,

whereas Ben can't prove he actually heard it because he was saying it at the time, so he knows. I'm going to take ready scooped. I think actually not a bad idea. Well, Henry, thank you for coming in. I'm going to say I'm out. Of my mind with how much money I'm going to put into this, because I love it.

I think it sounds horrifying. It being scooped in front of you is part of the experience, I'm afraid. You're not on to a winner. I don't think the scooping is that. Is the scooping really part of the experience? I think it's quite distressing watching the scooping. You want to pare it down, Henry.

You don't even want any employees in it. You're like a sort of touch screen. You get out of a locked, small, locked cubicle. Keep it touch screen, locked cubicle. I even think touch screen is too intimate because you're touching something, a screen. We're going to try and work our way around that. Well, good luck.

It's a bleak future, I think, for an ice cream, but it's a future. But it's an efficient one. I've just thought of another way I like to enjoy ice cream. Very quickly, which is what the Italians call passaggiata. Passaggiata? Go on, Edify. I think that's what it's called. What are we talking about?

Basically. Is that a mixture of ice cream and passata? Exactly. It's a garlicky, tomato-y, rich ice cream experience. I think what it is is when you have a lovely Italian meal in a lovely, little, crumbling, old, beautiful Italian town. Aging population. Aging population.

Big, big economic problems. Rife with all kinds of horrible criminality. Decent attendance at Mass on Sunday, though. Yep, and obviously constant, constant funerals. And then you have a little walk around the town using an ice cream. You see what it's called, passaggiata, I think. So you walk up and down, essentially. It's kind of like a promenading thing.

It's a promenading thing. But with an ice cream in hand, which you'd have got from a little Italian ice cream place. So I do a sort of version of that. But instead of sort of promenading around a crumbling Italian town, I'm sat on the sofa watching The Apprentice. Yeah. I call it Apprenticiadia.

Sat on my ass, yeah. Very romantic, though, isn't it? I think that could catch on then. And then I drop the slightly sticky stick of the magnum onto my chest, where it adheres to the t-shirt. And I'm reminded of it only later on when I get up and brush my teeth, and it's still stuck to my t-shirt. Stanley Tucci does a very similar thing most weeknights, yeah.

Is that ice cream? I think that is, yeah. I think that's ice cream. What a substance. That's a great substance. It demands crowning glory. It really is. Thank you.

Thank you. Ice cream. Thank you, ice cream. And thank you, Gemma Romley. I agree. Time to read your emails. 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. Take me to your house. My beautiful horse.

We've had an email from our old friend, Jazz the Polo Scientist. In relation to the Arctic episode. Indeed. She writes, Hello Beans. Hello. Hi, Jazz. Henry asked for a method to remember which is which of the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Oh, yes. Yes, please. Now, you may remember that Mike gave you quite a good way of thinking about it. He did. Can you remember it? Yeah. Antarctic is on the bottom because you imagine an ant there. Ants famously can hold stuff on their backs.

It's surprisingly large. So you imagine an ant holding the whole world. So Antarctic's on the bottom. South Pole, Antarctic, North Pole, Arctic. I think you've helped thousands, Mike. I couldn't retire. Anyway, Jazz also pens right down. So penguins are on the down most one.

The South Pole. Because pens right down. But you can write someone up or write something up. Yeah, that's true. All right, let's work and progress that one. You can also bear down on someone, but the bears are on the North Pole at the top. That's true. Yeah.

But you could also bear something like well on your shoulders, which would be wrong. It's not easy, is it? Well, Jazz has got away. Arctic comes from the Greek arctos meaning bear. There we go. First principle stuff. Great. Great.

There we go. Good. That are classically educated listeners. This is because the star constellation of the great bear brackets Ursa Major points North. And also looks like a decent pan. Looks like a sort of... Quite a deep, deep one, yeah.

Quite a deep pan you might get in John Lewis. Is it the bear that looks like a pan? Yeah, yeah. I thought it was the plough that looks like a pan. Or is the plough the same as the bear? Oh, we're in big trouble already. All I'm going to say is Orion's belt and leave it at that. Because of course, thousands of years ago, people looked up at the sky,

saw three stars in a row and thought obvious belt. He, because he always used to keep a saucepan dangling off his belt as well, didn't he? That's right. What's the useful thing to carry on? It's a weapon. It's a kitchen utensil. It's a hat. Keep you shopping in it.

Ben, the reason it surrounds the belt is because, you mean you laugh, but the stars obviously represent the holes in the belt buckle. And one of the holes in the belt, which the buckle goes into. And obviously one of the reasons that we know the universe is expanding. A bit like many of us, especially around the belt after Christmas time, is because- So you think eventually that Orion will have to put another hole in the belt? That's what they're saying, yeah.

Yeah, that's what we're waiting for. That's what we're waiting for. They may take the form of a white dwarf, may take the form of a- That's the definitive proof then that the universe is expanding. We know then. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Got it.

But I tell you what, if you think it's very hard getting someone to put a hole in a belt, just walking around your average town center, try that on a cosmic scale. It's not easy. As they always say, there's no Timpsons in space. Just right. So the Arctic is the North Polar region, and the Antarctic, meaning anti-bear, is the South. This works well because also there are bears living in the Arctic, and there are no bears in the Antarctic.

So the Arctic is truly bare land, and the Arctic is anti-bare land. Okay. Can I say that was absolutely wonderful. Thanks very much. I now no longer know which one is a North or South Polar. But thanks very much. No, sorry. No, I did.

Obviously, North Polar is North because we've got never each shredded wheat, which is- Which is what North stands for. Which is what North stands for. So she's saying Arctic comes from the Greek arktos, meaning bear. Yes. Not to be confused with Ursa, which is the Latin. For belt. Okay, two emails to finish.

One, I'm going to forward this to you. I don't know how well this will come across. Stuart emails. Dear Beans, I've attached a small nine second video clip from my dash cam of a near miss. Please play with the volume on as you may catch the possible reason for my distraction. Oh no. Can you see if I can catch the bouquet of turds? You don't want those to be your last words, do you?

The last words are here. That was- So he was driving along, he was listening to 3B and Salad podcast. I said something about catching a bouquet of turds. So I'm not proud of dressing back. And then what happened? I mean, he nearly got sort of pole-axed pretty much, didn't he? By what? I didn't really see what happened.

He was a guy putting out of a garage. There's a guy putting out of a petrol station who very nearly misses or nearly hits. Oh lord. I mean, the only worst thing than crashing after hearing Henry saying, I'm going to catch the bouquet of turds is when you're cut out of the car by a fireman. And your car stereo is stuck on bouquet of turds, bouquet of turds, bouquet of turds, bouquet of turds. And you've been there for two and a half hours listening to bouquet of turds. And you know that's going to have to be read out at the inquest.

In real time, isn't it? Over and over again. And you're just saying to the fireman, just please finish me off, finish me off, please. You've got a huge mega drill in your hand, but just to tell people your arm slipped, please. Um, Annamarie emails. Hello, Annamarie. I know Annamarie. Just, you know. Who's Annamarie?

Annamarie, did you say? I know Annamarie. Shivzhan Cardiff. Dear Beans, after much positive PR from my husband Tim and my good friends Leia and Ian, I made it to New Year's resolution to get into your podcast. And I've just listened to the second episode. Brackets. Yep, it's going well so far.

Entitled Lizards. Imagine my surprise at realizing that you guys are the masterminds behind the recently announced Emily Maitlis film. Oh, they're doing the, um, they make a film of the, of the interview. Oh, that's right. The Prince Andrew interview, aren't they? Yes. And I think at the time we theorized that there could be a series of films called The Maitlis Chronicles.

That's right. It was more her as an international sort of spy and assassin, wasn't it? Congratulations on getting your ambitious project green lit and for securing none other than Gillian Anderson in the leading role. Gillian Anderson is playing Prince Andrew. Looking forward to the announcement of Anthony Hopkins as the Russian scientist Pope who's controlling robot Maitlis. I can't wait to hear my email being read out in March, 2030 when I get to your current episode,

when I assume you've now completed your evolution into Krabs, Big Love and Marie. Yes, they have stolen our idea. Who's playing Prince Andrew? Do we know? I don't know actually. It's a bit of a poison challenge, isn't it, of a role? Well, it's one of those gambles you make which is this is either poison channelist, I become toxic for the rest of my career's over or Oscars, Golden Globes, Gongs, Emmys.

It'll be Sheen, won't it? It's usually Sheen. It'll often be Sheen. Is it Sheen or is it a job for? Mosniak. The big break. You'd have to flesh colour your moustache because you're not allowed to remove that now for insurance reasons.

Too dangerous. Just colour it in green and put a little green snooze on it. You green snooze it. You'd have to learn how to not sweat. But again, I'll swallow something that dyes my sweat green and then again they can just. That can just be just nip it out in post, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. How do you make a film of a TV?

So essentially it'll be the film of a TV show. It'll be like the TV show but without the real people playing them but in widescreen, is it? Imagine if someone filmed this TV show. That's what we do in this groundbreaking new film. The film Frost Nixon's quite good. Okay. Similar vibe. Yeah, obviously it'll be behind the scenes.

It'll be all about how Prince Andrew just refused all the advice, doesn't it, to not do it? Should be him going, no, no, no, and eating pizza with pizzerias pizzas. No, no, I'm halfway through a Ramana here. I said no, no, no. Dobles please, yes to Dobles. Isn't it? He refused to not do it. And then we see Make List turning down some Dobles before the interview.

You know that she's serious. Yeah, yeah. Looks like your dough's cooked, Andrew. Your claims are baseless, Andrew. Ramana baseless. You in trouble, Andrew. Deep Chicago style, deep dish trouble. There is a rumour that Mike's never been to Peter Express, which I know is not true.

But it is a rumour that's out there, isn't it? Is it? You've got a reaction, didn't it? Yeah. I think in jest, you might have mentioned, you said you'd never been to Peter Express. This led to the person who deals with our advertising shows out to Maddie, contacting us. And I think imagining that we could do some kind of advertising campaign where Mike

tries a Peter Express for the first time. And it perhaps would go viral, like a video of a post-operative baby hearing for the first time. A real tearjerker. Just Mike birthed the tears the second the first time. I'm discovering my sense of oregano. Seeing the whole world through oregano nose glasses. Or is that oregano? It's time to pay the ferryman.

Patreon.com Thank you to everyone who signed up on our Patreon. Yes, thank you. Thanks, everyone. If you're interested in more chat and ad-free episodes, go to patreon.com. And if you sign up at the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout-out in the Sean Bean Lounge, where Mike was last night. Certainly was.

Yes. Of course, last night was the... Annual indoor entirely shaved celebrity race. Thank you, Ben. Yes, that's correct. And here's my report. It was Leave Your Maccassa Oil at the door last night at the Sean Bean Lounge as competitors gathered for the annual indoor entirely shaved celebrity race.

The starting blocks were a hive of last-minute activity, as the teams attempted to make their celebrities as frictionless as varnished eels. Harriet Franks, Il He He He He, Beckerbrook, and Joel Carriageway made the decision to shave John Travolta against the grain, which made him angry but competitive. Peter Britchard and not-so-old Greg, ever with an eye on attention to detail, attempted to pluck David Hasselhoff hairless, but were barely halfway through the non-dominant armpit when the starter pistol fired.

Olivia M, Quentin Weed, and Patrick O'Connell's team fell foul of a communications failure, leading to task duplication and then triplication, leading to Daniel Day-Lewis being overwaxed literally to the bone. Gareth Walsh asked for George Clooney to attend pre-shaven, and Clooney was accommodating though didn't appear to understand A, the nature of the event, or B, that en route to the event he was permitted to wear clothes. All competing celebrities were then passed through Olly and Caroline's hair-detecting Zipfastner Labyrinths. Nicole Kidman and Jason Statham were both snagged by stragglers and

disqualified, causing great disappointment to Matt Lilly and George Randall respectively. Also disappointed was Simon Mitchell, who despite erring on the side of caution by turning up with both a celebrity substitute and a substitute for the substitute, found that Denzel Washington wouldn't be shaved, Keith Richards couldn't be shaved, and Dolly Parton shouldn't be shaved. At last, the Glabras A-listers were off, as hairless as freshly-sanded clogs sprinting over 80 yards of painfully hot towels. And boy, oh boy, could those celebs shift it, but none of them could cut through the air at the speed of Nigel Habers, who, thanks to Ross McDermott and Sarah subjecting him to

national grid-level electrolysis, was as smooth as the handle of a John Lewis whisk. They took home the gold plus enough celebrity hair to fill three and a half decent floor cushions. Thanks all. Okay, and before we go, we're doing a live show. We are as well. Very exciting news. We're doing the Machin Feth Comedy Festival in mid Wales on the 30th of April at midday, which I've always said is comedy time.

It really is, isn't it? When those two, that minute hand and that hour hand, start a clapping, don't they? They clap together. You think that you're starting to think about lunch? That's not actually what you're thinking about. That's a false signal. You're not.

What you're thinking about is the... That's what you think, yeah. The raw urge. Vaguely comedic lukewarm banter, delivered live on stage. That rumbling in your tummy, that's not the rumble of hunger, is it? That's the rumble of anticipation of belly laughs. It's taking place in a de-consecrated church. That's right.

Which feels appropriate. Which is the only place we felt that we'd be wholly safe from spurbs. We know that he can't cross the threshold into religious buildings, unless one of you invites him in. Yes, please. But then we're not sure if that counts if it's de-consecrated or not. We might have to re-consecrate it. That's right.

Well, that's... We're going to do a live re-consecration, aren't we? So at some point in the show, we're going to live re-consecrate it for about 15 minutes. If you want to get married or... A few-year-old. A few-year-old, christened... Or simply confirmed. Confirmed.

Or actually, if you want to desecrate a holy building, no matter which angle you're coming at it from, you'll have an opportunity. You'll have a re-consecration window where you can... If you want to stop a wedding, that might be possible. Oh, that's a bit of fun, isn't it? Take that off your bucket list. But yeah, it's going to be good.

Come on down. Come on down. Mackenzie, the Comedy Festival is one of the best, basically, isn't it? One of the best. Yeah, easy peasy. Pretty good. Comedy Festival, I mean, everything on is good, basically. So you'll have a nice time.

Also, great part of the world. But let me just put it this way. You could, I think, within 20 minutes of leaving the show, be looking with the Karat through binoculars at an osprey. Because we'll be releasing an osprey, won't we? Yeah. We're reintroducing the wolves now, ahead of time. So they're already at large.

The wolves are at large. The osprey will get released as part of the denouement on the show. Yeah. And who will be triumphant? The wolves of the osprey? Or will it be the third mystery beast? Which we will not reveal until the end of the show. But let's put it this way.

It's horned. Yeah. But it isn't supposed to be. So yeah, come on, check that out. Hopefully we'll see you there. I'll put a link to tickets in the show description. All right, that's the podcast. But to play us out, a version of our theme tune by one of the listeners.

And often I will give you a choice as to which one we want to do. But I've chosen this week. Okay. This is from Chris Marsh. He says, I've still got about 50 episodes of the podcast to catch up on. So I hope this is still a thing. It is still a thing. Yep.

Being regretfully late to the three bean party, I'm currently binging my way through all of your work. Having just got to the episodes where listeners are starting to send in theme tunes and with Henry's visionary but ill-fated blade runner meets swan experience fresh in my memory, I felt compelled to send you my van jealous inspired creation. I think that's Van Gellis, by the way. Get out of town. Is it?

I think so. I don't know. But I think it's Van Gellis. I'm pretty sure it's Van Gellis. Well, he's dead now, isn't he? He's with the angles. Nicely done, Ben. What does that mean?

I didn't get that. He's chucked a hard G in angels. Oh, you clever little sod. Here's his knee at the end of the recording. He's still got a little bit of wordplay. Touche. Don't underestimate me at your peril, Mr. Packer. Hands off.

By the way, can I say that's added some grease to my elbow for later on because Ben and I have a relationship, isn't it? Well, with some grease. What do you mean? Thank you, Mike. What are we going for? Basically, I don't really understand this G thing and I can't do it. It's one of those ones which only you two can do and I can't really get my head around it.

I can't do it. But we're friends, but very much in eminence as well, aren't we, Ben? So later on, because we do play chess against each other, don't we? In a kind of bishop to pawn four way over, well, we write to each other, don't we? You'll just send me a letter and I'll say, pawn to bishop five. You're some silly Benjamin. And I'll go to my chessboard and I'll look at it and I'll be, oh, damn him. And I'll cast all the pieces under the floor.

And then I'll write you a letter saying, pieces to the floor, nine me a prick. Yours, Hongerman. Anyway, so I don't really know what I'm talking about. Right. Do you mean Hongerman? Oh, God. I can't do this one. I don't understand it.

Anyway, thank you, Chris, for this wonderful scene. Thank you. And thank you all for listening. Thanks, Chris. See you next time. Bye. Bye. You