Three Bean Salad - Libraries

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

It is said that there as many books in the libraries of the world as there are atoms in a book (although not sure which book. Actually that doesn’t make sense given the variation in the size of books. Perhaps it was in a grain of sand. Or is that the thing about there being the same number of stars in the sky as grains of sand in a beach. But which beach? West Wittering is massive. Actually forget it). Freya of Bremen has chosen libraries for this week’s topic so for once can we all just ruddy well put those phones away and read a bleeding novel?!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.comLivestream tickets for our shows at London Podcast Festival on Friday 13 Sept and Saturday 14 Sept 2024: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/kplayer/performer/three-bean-salad/Get in touch: [e-mail] @beansaladpod

How are you both? Very well, thanks. We've had a bit of a gap, haven't we? We have had a gap. It's a bit discombobulating, isn't it, for the listenership, because we've had our break. We had our break in between episodes. In between episodes, yeah, that's right. They had their break. We had our break. We had our break in between episodes. In between episodes. Yeah, that's right. They had their break earlier on. They had their break. The key problem I'm facing is I went on holiday largely on my own. Yeah. My partner came out for the

first bit and then she had to go back because of work. And then I had some time on my own and then she's away at the moment. So I haven't actually spoken to another human being outside of a waiter situation or sort of hotel lobby in a foreign language as well. Yeah. You are being a bit curt with us. I can see there's a bad trip advisor review brewing. You see human interaction purely in the service. It's totally transactional.

And in a transactional paradigm. And what need are we sating here? You don't feel hungry. You don't need a roof over your head. What's the purpose? Neither of you have got a platter of hams. No. There's no talk of small hot towels.

That's a towelette. I'm not guarding a series of novelty pedalos. Why? I mean, you're both sketching out a nicer holiday than I had really. If this, to be more, sorry, I can't speak. I've not spoken for two weeks. You're warming up. Give it another run up.

Can I say, psychologically, Ben, your brain is in a very similar place to where my bowel is. Okay. Digestive tract talk. Because I've been in France for a long time. So what happens is in the same way that you haven't talked to human soul, what basically my bowel hasn't been getting its usual fare, like in the same way that your, your communication sort of ducts, your, your oral pipes, your bowels have been receiving a little far right propaganda, hasn't it?

Well, effectively to the European elections. Well, the gastronomic equivalent of that, which is, um, just, just pure white bread, red meat. Yeah. And occasionally the nearest thing I've had to a vegetable is just green. It's just bucketfuls of green, bright green mustard. So it's like there is, there's a re there's a kind of recalibration that needs to happen. Isn't there? Well, what you need to do Henry is you need to find the halfway house between French holiday food and British slop, which is Pret a manger. So you need to Pret a manger way back. And that's what I'm doing. French name on the sign.

Nothing to do with France on the way in. Tell you what though, Mike, I was in Paris' Gare du Nord. Is that what you say? I don't know. Only two days ago. I know where this is going by the way. There's a pret a manger there. There is a pret.

It's had a pret for a while. Yeah. Is there really? Yeah. I feel a bit sad about that. I know. I feel like that, cause you know, I mean, Henry's obviously our chief Francophile. I regard myself as a fan of France. I feel that that shows a bit of loss of spine, France-wise. Someone should have put that to a stop. I think it creates, it's sort of like a

kind of diplomatic sort of immunity zone in an embassy or something. It's got a kind of weird status that place because it's in a station. Yeah. You can go to Britain from the station. Exactly. So it's like the flowers that grow on the edge of a shitty pipe. Yes, exactly. Well, the tomato plants. It's like the tomatoes, the plump tomatoes that flourish. Yeah, sewage outlets. Anyway, talking of shitty pipes, what were you saying, Henry? What were you getting onto?

Well, no, I was just saying that my bowels had a while, it's always a tough, there's a bit of a sort of decompression sort of phase you have to go through after a holiday in France for me, where you readjust and you're having the same thing with us, which is you're used to the service relationship. Yeah. But how was the service, Ben? How was the trip? A nice trip. It was somewhat marred by an experience.

The problem is, if I talk about this experience for the second episode in a row in this new series, we will be talking about shitting. And we've already, I've already sort of nodded towards it. And we've referred to a sewage outlet. That's what I've been thinking this whole, yeah, while you were talking about your French bow. We've referred to sewage outlet tomatoes. That's what I've been thinking this whole year while you were talking about your French bowel. We've referred to sewage, sewage outlet tomatoes.

A deep sense of exhaustion. But despite, even though we make these promises, we can't, it's tragic in a way. They do create the most emotionally conflicted salad, don't they? Those sewage outlet tomatoes, because of course they have the ripest and the plumpest in these aisles. Yeah, but we try and steer away from this topic, but it's like, it's our magnetic turd, whatever happens. It's our Lodestar. It's our true north.

Yeah, isn't it? We always come back to it. Go on then, Ben. Just go for it. Maybe we could have a patron spin off show called um, Ted brothers. I've already, I've already thought this through then. You've done the artwork already. It can't Nick. I've done the artwork. It can't not succeed because it's the one true universal. I was going to say we could call it, we could call it three sewage pipe tomatoes.

That's quite nice. But Turd Brothers I think probably cuts the quick in a slightly Anglo-Saxon way, which might work. By the way, why is it that people always talk about Turd pipe tomatoes and they didn't talk about Turd pipe aubergines, Turd pipe courgettes? Because you've set up a whole allotment down there, haven't you? I have. And the real estate is surprisingly cheap. You can really go down, you can fill your boots. It's also, the whole thing is self-fertilising in a way.

Is that the phrase? Why not? Yeah. Good. Everything grows, doesn't it, in that environment. But why is it that we only talk about the tomatoes? Because I remember being taught about them at school weirdly. Were you taught about them at school? I've heard of it, but I have only ever heard of it in the context of tomatoes.

Anyway, I was in, I had a nice time on holiday. I went to Italy and I went to France. It was a very nice time. Italy is obviously good from a eating pizzas all the time point of view. Yeah, but the pizzas, they're not the same on any of their spec there It's not just a pizza as it is. Yeah, okay. They're not they're not as good as a frozen good Because you can't it's very hard to actually Cause you can't, it's very hard to actually, um, to sort of replicate the conditions of a, of a small neff convection oven, a built-in neff convection. It's very hard to replicate that using only old medieval stoneware.

And they won't serve you a Hawaiian with a side dish of coleslaw and ketchup. They just won't do it. They won't do it. So it's a limited palette, isn't it, they're working with? I would say genuinely that the pizza is very nice. I went to Naples, which is like pizza central, right? And it is very, very good. But I think pizza itself is so good that making the best pizza only really takes it from like

97 to 99%. Do you know what I mean? Yes, it's marginal gains. It's really marginal gains. It's real because it's pizza is really good. Even a shit pizza is pretty good in my book. You're right. So you're only getting an extra 2%.

So just for people that don't know, a pizza is a circular compacted savoury doughnut. Covered with mashed up tomatoes which have been grown by a shitty sewer pipe. That's right. And sometimes, depending on what you choose, it can be sprinkled with, well, bin veg, isn't it? It's bin veg. Small shards of discarded veg. But the Premio one will have its own meat buffet on top of it.

Yes, that's right. And you can pile meat upon meat upon meat, actually. There's almost no limit to how high you can go if that bass is sturdy enough. Oh, we can use the jingle you've already used about breakfast hams buffet update. Holiday breakfast hams buffet update. I think it's cool. Nice. Play the jingle Yes, the summer may be over but we'll always have those golden memories The memories of the breakfast hams that we consumed

Where the German business traveler or Italian fun seeker ham is always there for you at breakfast. The Foreign Holiday Breakfast Buffet Ham Update. Does that ham look right to you? Yes, I remember in, because I've been to Naples. No, Henry, we now have to talk about breakfast hams because the jingle is playing. Oh, sorry. I do like a breakfast ham. Is that enough? What's our minimum? I've not had any breakfast hams really. Have you had lots of breakfast hams? Well, no, I was going to say, I was mainly in Italy. I've not spent much time in Italy before this, you know, this time I went and they basically just eat like cake for breakfast.

It's weird that. Yes, I know. Tiramisu for breakfast. It's the same on the Iberian peninsula. It's mad. I've had the same problem in Cordoba. When I stayed there in a school exchange trip, when the breakfast was presented, I nearly laughed. I was so disgusted, I assumed the whole thing was a macabre joke, but it was essentially a

selection of dry biscuits. And if I'd known any Spanish, I would have said something about it, but I didn't. Well, it's particularly hard for Ben this, isn't it? Because Ben has got used to holidaying in the deepest, darkest corners of Eastern Europe. So he's expecting to be served some pickles, sort of very, very thick, black bread and a series of difficult meats. That's true. Some meats made of animals that died during the Blair years, but have been so well preserved. That's right. Cause everything's pickled in, in, um, sort of bitter jelly, isn't it? Everything.

Dark aspects, dark aspects, smoked aspect. And sometimes you'll be chiselling through, um, yeah, layers and layers of jelly, won't you? To get to what is actually just a jelly on the inside. There'll be jelly jellies and he's over the moon and you're over the moon. What about you, Henry? Did you have any hams? Well, I didn't have any, I didn't have any breakfast hams because I was Airbnb-ing. So I wasn't in a surface sort of arrangement where of course people angry sort of British people waking

up need, need to have a spectrum of hams put in front of them, don't they, to just calm them down, distract them. Mike, have you been exposed to any breakfast hams? No, because I went to the land of your forefathers, Henry. I went to Istanbul. Oh my lordy. But we're staying with a family member. So breakfast was very much supplied by Uncle Sven. There's so much going on there. You've got an Uncle Sven who's a Stambor based. Yeah, he's an exciting man.

He sounds extraordinary. He is extraordinary. He's definitely a spy. He definitely is a really bad spy. He really sticks out like a sore thumb. Uncle Sven. Are either of those contentions true, the Uncle and Sven? Are they both? I'm a bad spy. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Uncle Sven. Are either of those contentions true, the uncle and the Sven?

Do they both hold one thing? One is true. One is true. Yeah. The other always lies. I've got a question though, Henry, because food-wise, I've got a deep regret because we came back and there was one thing that uncle sent kept talking about that he's never had because he's vegetarian but he thought I might like and that is the chicken pudding. Oh I haven't had chicken pudding either. Are you familiar with the

concept of the chicken pudding? No, wow. It does sound, it sounds extraordinary. You never heard of it? It does ring a bell. What is it again? I'm just quickly Googling it. Well, I don't know exactly, but I saw it in a shop and I thought, I'm going to come back to that later. And I never did. And it's now, it feels like it's a hard regret. I didn't seize upon the chance of chicken pudding. No, I don't think I do know what chicken pudding is. What occasion during the day, what's when's chicken pudding time? Well, that was the problem. None of us seemed to really know because it wasn't, wasn't uncle Sven's kind of thing, right? But it was definitely my kind of thing.

It sounds a bit for a dessert option. Sounds a bit heavy, doesn't it? Well, it also, it was a, you could see it from the beginning of the day and the places that sold it, you'd, you'd see it was there from the get-go. Like I could have had a chicken pudding for breakfast, but then he, Gwily, you're stopping the whole family holiday to say everyone stop. I'm having chicken pudding. Far from enough for me to order some chicken pudding and eat your chicken. Ben, tell us about, tell us some more about your food experiences.

So we were talking about pizza. I was saying that it's good, but it's like, yeah, I see. I know what you're saying. Like a well-run Franco Manca will take you a lot of the way there. Yeah. It's the difference between the, it's like by a nose, isn't it? It's a, it's a, it's a close, everyone's just piling over the finish line with pizzas.

Yeah. And it allegedly it's in Neapolitan who's, who's first over the line, but he's just, he's crushed under a huge pile of pizza huts, Frankamankas, Papa John's in there. It's hard to know, but also like the margin of error on any, cause if you're trying to get the best pizza ever, also the margin of error on any because if you're trying to get the best pizza ever also the margin of error on any pizza On any one pizza and its quality is probably bigger than the difference between The best pizza and the second best pizza anyway

So even if you're getting the best pizza you're at the place that does the best pizzas if it's just slightly At the bottom end of its margin of error. You might still be getting a better pizza at a 12 year old's birthday party in Derby. No, I agree with you. I think I probably did have the best pizza I've ever had in my life, but it was probably 1% better than a pizza I would have had in Britain. And then I went to Paris. I'd never been to Paris before, ever. Or maybe I went, I think as a teenager for the day with my parents or something, but I'd never actually been there as an adult. And I stayed in a man's flat and let's call him Francois. Wasn't really his name. I'm anonymizing him. Was it his place? Yeah. And because it's Paris,

it was incredibly small. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like tiny, tiny little flat, me and a bloke who lives in it. So Tetris, physical Tetris to get in and out of the kitchen. Francois, back off. Francois, raise your right knee, Francois. No, I'm lowering my left elbow. We can't do this at the same time. It's when he starts speeding up that's when it gets really difficult. Yeah, yeah. It gets really hard. So sometimes you have to have three quarters of your body out of the window for Francois to make toast. Yeah, and if I wanted to move through to the bathroom and he was in the kitchen, we had to do a sort of

Lombarda together. That's right. It's known as the Parisian Lombarda. And then you open the oven to heat up a croissant. This is my office in here. This is my home office. That thing. So Francois was very nice and his flat was immaculate and beautiful and very Parisian. And he was a much more civilised and cultured person than I am. There was no television in the flat. Which is what you'd hope for, right? It smelled beautiful. There were old books everywhere.

He would listen to classical music very quietly in the morning. He was just this kind of wonderful, rarefied person. Impenetrable classical music as well, I'd hope. Quite difficult stuff, difficult fare. When I arrived, there was a long list of rules that I had to comply with. No Shostakovich before 11. What kind of stuff was it? I didn't have a problem with any rules.

So, in this house we sit down to urinate. Are you serious? Because otherwise how can we read the Divine Comedy? Eurination without Dante simply makes no sense. Agreed? Blimey. You couldn't take a towel out of the bathroom. So you had to fully dry and dress yourself in the bathroom before you went back into the bedroom. You couldn't take a towel into the bedroom. There's a system of coasters, various coasters, because he had lovely furniture and he had lovely things. So I didn't disagree with any of these rules. I thought they were all good rules.

He must have been in a state of very high stress throughout your stay. Well, this is what I'm coming on to. So I was complying with these rules. Unfortunately, the one rule that he hadn't specified was don't get food poisoning and shit yourself for like nine hours. That makes a mock-up. I mean, that's like kryptonite to his, I mean, most people don't like that, but for him that's, that's kryptonite to the world he's tried to create. Exactly. Of order and culture, beauty and clean passage of things, isn't it?

Yeah. Wetness does not go into the bedroom. Exactly. Things stay where they're supposed to be. Oh dear. So yeah. But to add to add further context to this, there was one weird wrinkle in the flat, which was, so it's so small, the bathroom was right next to his bedroom, and for some

reason, and this is the thing I don't really understand, he slept with his door slightly ajar. Don't know why, but he did. It wasn't a cockatish sort of thing. I don't know. Come on, I've given him all the signs. I've left a book about Picasso's potatoes open on the kitchen table. I've been playing absolutely sordid Bach cantatas. What does it take to get through to this guy?

So the problem was, and this is pre-food poisoning, also his toilet door was a kind of, it wasn't that sturdy and it was a bit of a kind of, it was like a rolling panel basically, rather than the door. Yes, there's quite a lot of that in French apartments. So what it meant was, and I don't mean to be disgusting, is there was a line of clear sight almost between his face and my anus basically. Ah, ah, clear sight. Yes.

Yeah, so there wasn't exactly a clear sight, but do you see what I mean? Because certainly not if you're using the toilet in a traditional way. Yeah, exactly. And yeah. Your anus should have been safely enclosed within a sort of, well, a ceramic sort of ceramic hat. Yeah, or for scale. Boule de Rier. boule de rire. To scale,

your anus should have been like a tiny, well, like a Taylor Swift within a kind of ceramic stadium. European stadium. I don't quite know what you're getting at though, but I like the image. No worries. Being cheered on by people of all ages. Exactly. And also you do hand around friendship place bracelets. Don't you? When you have a dumb thing. Yeah. And you spark and you get all nice and sparky.

You spark yourself up. Don't you? Anyway, what I'm getting at is that there was a kind of, there wasn't, there was air, do you know what I mean? There wasn't, you need to seal this stuff down is what I felt. Yeah. Yeah. That's what walls, that's what walls presumably were invented for initially, isn't it? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So the whole thing, you know, I was a little bit uncomfortable. And

then that was the first night. And then the second night or the second day, I felt like I was winning him over. This is pre food poisoning. Cause he asked me what I'd done that day. And I told him I'd been to see Napoleon's sort of grave, his mausoleum type thing. Yeah. Yeah. Which is great by the way. And he looked at me with like deep pride and he said, I've had people coming to stay with me now for five years.

They always want to go to the Louvre to see Mona Lisa. They always want to go to Paris to Versailles. No one has ever been to see Napoleon's grave. And he looked at me with like this kind of deep pride. Yeah. It was all worth it. Five years of waiting. Exactly.

Come into my bedchamber. Still, he would not respond to the my Josephine and together we will plan a new Europe with your Habsburg blood which I've detected through this through the acrid cabbage smell of your stools and my Napoleonic bent together. It will be unstoppable. So it was all going nicely. And then, yeah, I, I had some birth big in your own in a cafe and then hours later, just to shut the house down for hours and hours and hours.

Awful, absolutely awful. Yeah. All through the night. Oh day. But I was just the whole time it was like made worse by the fact that like inches away was this guy's face. Yeah. And not just any old face, but a highly cultured refined face. Yeah. That loves the better things in life. And I felt, I felt awful. I felt not just awful from a medical point of view, but like from a kind of spiritual point of view. And then the following morning when he sort of greeted me, he just looked just broken. I'd broken everything he tried to achieve in life has been torn down.

Well I think he thinks he's because he's, he's met someone that, you know, a British tourist who's into Napoleon. So he thinks that he's never come across that before he's thinking incredibly highly of you. It's maybe on a quite deep level made him feel to change the way his outlook. Maybe it's he's brought back some pride to how he feels about France, how he feels about France's history. And then you shank yourself for eight hours very noisily inches from his face. Mixed messages, isn't it? It's mixed messages. Before we turn on the beam machine, we should mention that we're doing two shows at the London podcast festival in September. The tickets to be there have all sold out before

we had a chance to tell you about them. But we are streaming both shows. So wherever you are on planet earth, you can watch via the internet stream. And I think you don't even have to watch it live if you don't want to. I think it'll be up for a few days after the show itself and I'll put links to them in the show notes. Nice. What is that? 13th and 14th of September, I think 2024. Also, I might be, I'm in high level meetings about doing a podcast themed pub quiz there. Ooh. Oh, wow. After one of the shows. Nice.

Okay. So let's turn on the B machine. Yes, please. Every week we discuss a topic sent in by a listener. They do so by going to enterthememachine.boats. And this week the Beam Machine has pulled out something sent in by Freya. Thank you Freya. And it's libraries. Now I like a big, you know, like a big grand library. Yeah, that's why I don't have much experience of, yeah, the enormous huge, lots of sort of desk lamps with green glass, only about three people in there. Yeah, a creaky old man at the top of a creaky old ladder reading, trying to find a book

about creeks. Yeah, and they're all, everyone in there is either extremely ancient and scholarly or young and brilliant and beautiful. That's it. There's no one like doing an adult learning course in the middle. No, no one is reviving for the PGSE. Three trainings a teacher. They're not there.

No, you're right. It's the two bookends of life, isn't it? It's the preppy young because it's your squad of preppy young students, isn't it? It's the preppy young, because it's your squad of preppy young students, isn't it, who are in there. They're fresh faced, they're curly haired, rosy cheeks. They're gonna change the shape of the world. They're going to. They're all wearing V-neck sweaters,

they've all got sweaters around their necks, they've got the sweaters that's, you know, with the arms folded. They might have joined some sort of secret university society that has resulted in a death. Exactly. A sex death. Exactly. A sex death.

Ideally a sex death, yes. And all because one of them dared to open the Forbidden Book about sex deaths. That book, Sex Deaths. Sex Death Manual. Volume one. Sex Death Manual. Shouldn't have opened it. Written by Lord Robert Baden-Powell. It's a good place where the preppy young student, at the beginning of their life, meets the

crabbed wisdom of the old git. The old git figure. Which is one of the mythic archetypes, isn't it? The old git. The old git is fully, sort of almost, you could almost say trapped in a, he's wearing so much tweed, it's almost like a man has been trapped in a tweed sort of sleeping bag. He's trying to fight his way out of it. He's got tweed every inch of him. And he still hasn't found it. He still hasn't found it. Whatever it is, the mugguffin, the plotatonic Tweed, sex death, master class volume two, whatever it is.

Well, the ancient symbol still hasn't been decoded has it? Yeah. Which it turns out it's just the symbol for wifi. It's just, um, it's just a symbol for wifi. Actually, if he just buzzes out on his phone, then it's actually quite straight through to a pin dropped on the Google map. That's right. It's actually quite straightforward. And it's just the location of the nearest millets that his grandson was trying to

send him to help him out because he needed to buy one of the whatever it is that you get in millets. Probably a sleeping bag for his Duke of Edinburgh award bronze. I mean, I we've talked about this on the podcast before I very pretentiously joined the London library. Yes, for that very experience. For that experience, I saw that thing that the you know that the dusty the dusty passages, the dusty stacks, the book stacks,

isn't it? They call them the dusty book stacks. Before that I had another period where I thought joining a library will solve my problems. I actually joined the British library once. You can't join the British library. Pick a button. It's not a membership library. Is it not? Well, actually no. I've got a reader's card for the British Library. I guess that's what you're talking about.

But you're not a member of the British Library. Aren't I? There are London secrets I have been told you about. He's a commander of the order of the British Library. We meet deep, deep within the bowels of that building in a pret-a-manger that's open to members of the public, if you can find it. Just, yeah, you just follow the signs of the toilet. Technically, Newston Station.

It's technically, it's Houston. It's Houston's second, it's Houston Station's second biggest pret. But I mean, I mean, there were members of the literati, the glitterati, the Nosferatu, the Nosferati. And we'll eat frittatas. It's the frittata-rati. We've increasingly become. So you remember the British Library. Did it not deliver what you're after? Well, what I wanted was green bays, acres upon acres of green bays. What you wanted was a snooker hall. To read you Gresham in the snooker. And the warm surrounds. But they make you pay to be methodically. That's the trouble. They do. What was I seeking?

Good question. I think I was trying to write my dissertation at university in the holidays or something. Yeah. And it was just one of a long, a long series of prevarications and prognostications and what's what I'm looking for? Procrastination? Procrastination. I was procrastinating around saying we're procrastinate there. It was just one of a series of yeah, sort of procrastinations, diversionary tactics, sort of self-imposed McGuffins that would characterize the rest of my life. A series of white elephants that didn't really. They weren't the silver bullet that you wanted.

They weren't the silver bullet that I wanted. They were just a normal bullet. They were just a normal bullet, a normal useless bullet for a guy without a gun and no interest in munitions. But I did eventually join, what you had to do is, sorry, maybe not join, whatever it was, I got access. At the time you had to prove- It's a proof, you still have to, yeah.

Because I did this recently, you have to prove to them that you need to go in. What I had to prove to them was that that book was not available anywhere else in Britain, so what they do is they send you to other libraries. So they said, Henry, this isn't even a particularly obscure Grisham you're after. I mean, the Pelican brief, this is the Pelican brief. I mean, I think most of us here have got it in our bag. I mean, I've got, I've got a copy of it here in my bag. Most people have a copy of it in their bag. You've clearly got a copy. You've got two copies of it in your hands. I can see. Yeah, it was a mistake if you had it was a mistake. I think Mr. Packer for you to say this is

the book I need and hold up two copies of it. Hardback and paperback, both of them signed by the author and it looks like by an actual Pelican. So I went back, I think I falsified some documentation. I created a false arm that I use to this day. The best way to get in is to publish your own book. That's right. Yep. And get it put into the British Library. That's what I did. But don't put it anywhere else.

I did a publishing run of one. Yeah, exactly. I created the persona of Dr. Harold Plimpington. There he is. I did a publishing run of one. Yeah, exactly. I created the persona of Dr. Harold Plimpington. There he is. And a prequel to the Pelican Brief. That's right. The puffin trunks. Eventually I did manage to get in and what happens with all of these white elephants? Is that the phrase I want, white elephants?

Are you seeing it as a sort of white whale? I mean, white whale. So a white elephant is something that's hard to get rid of, it says. Except a white whale is an object, an objective that is relentlessly or obsessively pursued, but difficult to achieve. So, yeah, so it's white whale. So it

was my white whale in the same way that's and you were the library's white elephant. That's right. We had a perfect equilibrium, which I was a problem. It was very hard for them to get rid of despite my increasingly sort of obscure personas that I was putting on different books I claimed to have written. He's got three wigs on this time. So you very obviously aren't Mary Beard. Please go away. I said I'm Dr Horatio Sideburn, Mary Beard's cousin. So essentially I went in and basically in the same way that,

we talked about this before you go on holiday, you're looking for that perfect moment, the beach, the thing that you sort of, you sort of strive for it all year or you imagine it coming up this moment, you're going to be in the, on the beach from the brochure having a great time in Ben's case in the mausoleum. Yeah. In Ben's case, you picture that mausoleum all year round and you picture the gilding on the grave, don't you?

And you hope that it's got a glass top so you can actually see a kind of... A waxy face. And you imagine that waxy face, don't you, in the dead-eyed stare? Yeah, yeah, hoping that the gift shop does death masks. You'd love it when they do death masks. You're basically picturing you wearing trunks in a sort of gold goth in a sort of mountain of skulls, isn't it then? That's what you picture all year round.

You've got one of these dribbling down your chin and into your navel. goth in a sort of mountain of skulls isn't it then. That's what you picked all year round. You followed- Bolognese dribbling down your chin and into your navel. Like a kid in a ball pit, one of those ball things, it's you just jumping into piles of skulls. Oh, now drinking bolognese out of one of their eyes. Now stamping bolognese, crunching it into a desiccated old ossified pelvis. Because everyone needs a break. Everyone needs a break.

No, but so I, and then I pictured it and then suddenly I was there. So all the obstacles had been overcome. It was basically me. You were plunging a harpoon into the whale. I was plunging a harpoon into the whale and I was sat there and it was me. I was at a green bays desk. I looked to my left, there were more green Bayes desks. I looked to my right, there were more green Bayes desks. There were green Bayes desks as far as I could see, right?

You do get like a little green lamp, don't you? Green light. I had a little, I had a personal little green lamp with a little metal thing I could pull to turn it on and off. The light of wisdom. I'd come to the mother nipple of knowledge itself. The green, the sustaining green light. And knowledge. Knowledge he suckled for knowledge. I was there, I was read, everything was in front of me, there was no excuses. I had my book I was supposed to be writing to station on, but I was, I had nothing, I had my book I was supposed to write into station on but I was nothing I had my pens at my pad at my book. And I was

there it was like a bit like when you arrive on the beach, you're there on the you know, you're on the towel in front of the sea. It's hot. And you're like, God, I just all I want to do is to go back to my hotel room and watch BBC news, BBC watch news. And I was just there and I was like, I still, I just... Still got to wrap me to station. Still got to wrap me to station. Still don't want to. Really, really struggling. Mind still wandering as it turns out.

Yeah, mind still wandering loads. Wondering more than ever for anything. I saw, I've had this kind of almost exact situation where I used to go to the British library when I was a student. I was a student in London. You see we're around the corner, right? Yeah. Wasn't far away. So I used to go there quite a lot.

And what I liked about it was the fact that even though you're there, you look around and kind of everyone's just slacking off. Like everyone is just sort of sharpening their pencil. It's not like it is in the movies. No, everyone's drawing a little doodle. It's just human race. Because everyone's the same. Yeah.

That's a shame. Except for Tom Stoppard. But basically, you're right, everyone's there, filling with their pencils, fiddling with a pencil sharpeners, looking at their cans of juice, looking at them. Just just struggling. Yeah, wondering, wondering why isn't it working now? Yeah. Yeah.

And the worst case I ever did of that, which I probably have talked about in the pod before was when I went, I actually went to an Airbnb in order to write an Edinburgh show and spend the whole... Have I talked about this before? Yes, yeah. I think you've mentioned it, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so where I was trying to escape the sound of drills in London and got this Airbnb and there was a bee, there was a really noisy bee. It should be called an Airbnb and bee, frankly. There was a really noisy bee, which was nature's, you know, so I think the only way to actually get through this stuff properly and to sort this out.

Prison sentence. Prison. If you don't come out of 20 years in Sing Sing with a decent novel, it ain't going to happen. It worked for Jonathan Franzen. It worked for Zadie Smith. But then you know what would happen with me? I'd be in prison.

I'd be like five years into a sentence and I mean, I still haven't actually bloody picked up a... Going to that parole board hearing and having to account for your time would be one of the most withering processes of all, I think. What have you been doing? What have you been doing? And all I'd be able to say is all I've done is managed to create a complex power structure of which I am the, well, they call me the emperor.

I control, I don't just control the crims, I control the screws, crimson screws. I control the caterers. I control the whole bloody prison, mate. There isn't a rat in this place that isn't on my payroll. Yeah, but have you finished that anthology of short stories you're talking about? Damn you! Damn you! No! I hate myself! The only short story! Time for your emails. We're going to play a version of the email jingle sent in by Kirsty in Melbourne.

Thank you, Kirsty. Thanks, Kirsty. She writes, Dear Beans, I have always heard a hint of melancholy in the email jingle. It's thus been a comforting companion alongside the music of Simon and Garfunkel as I isolate from my family while I'm infectious with Covid. Oh dear. fungal as I isolate from my family while I'm infectious with Covid. I made my own version inspired by both, which I call the only living bean in New York. So let's see if she's mashed up both. I see. The postmasters who came before

When you send an email it represents progress Duh, duh, duh Like a robot shoeing a horse When you send an email, you must give thanks to the postmasters who came before. When you send an email, this represents progress. Oh, I feel soothed. Thank you, Kirsty. Lovely voice. Lovely.

Kirsty, you're also right. By the way, I'd be interested in whether you beans think Paul Simon nudges into problematic territory on the hammer. Hey, oh, scale of world music appropriation. I think not really. He's a big hammer. Hey, he's a big, I don't think he is. Cause I think that hammer. Hey, is when people aim for a non-specific quotes, ethnic sound. Ah, okay. Whereas when, what's the name of the album? What is the Diamonds on the Soles of their Shoes album called? Graceland? Graceland, yeah. Well, that's a specific, that's specifically using South Africa.

That's collaboration. Yeah. I think that's world music. Yeah. I think he's, yeah, maybe he's okay then. Yeah. There's a bit of Hammerhay on Only Living Boy in New York, though, that song. It kind of goes a bit...

Is that Post-Graceland? No, no, that's pre because it's something like our fun call. Yeah, of course. Okay. Although they weren't, he wasn't writing that to go with a drone shot of a minaret or jungle. Exactly. No, that's true. Yeah.

And the hammer hair works for both. Right. That's the, that's the beauty of the hammer. Hey, that's that. That's the beauty of it. But also Simon and Garfunkel's dystopian aquatic sci-fi album was never completed, was it? But James Cameron did hear it. They say it was made on self-destructing vinyl wasn't it? So he could only listen to once and James Cameron paid top dollar to

listen to it and inspired the, um, the quadrilogy of super shit films. I think it's more than quadrigy. I think it's quintile. Is it a sectology? I don't know, I can't remember. Well, it depends how you view the films, isn't it? Because some say, of course, that the Abyss and Titanic and the Blue People films, it's all part of the same universe. Of course. And they're all going to come together.

Yeah. Oh my god. It's going to turn out that that old lady from Titanic is like the Queen Avatar. Yeah, yeah. She's the Blue Empress. She's the Blue Empress. She's the Blue Empress. Okay, let's read some emails. Guy emails. Dear beans, as a man from the provinces now living in the heart of London's pulsating metropolis I have a question.

Wow. Having recently discovered I'm to become a father, do I stick to my simple minded Salisbury roots and become a provincial dad? Or do I embrace the bright lights of Finchley, North London and subscribe to Pret a Mon J and go to West End shows? For added context, my partner introduces me at various midwife and hospital appointments as DADDY! It's time for Provincial Dad Chat. Who's hid my bloody walking boots? I'm not saying it's ruined the holiday, I'm just saying I asked for rum raisin.

Get your skates on, kids, otherwise we'll miss the inflatable session. She's taking her mother to see blood brothers which means more top gear time for me. Why would I need to go and see a podiatrist? Of course I've kept the warranty information darling. To me it sounds like Guy has strong leanings towards the provincial middle-aged. Downed really has got that in his marrow. So location actually is secondary Guy. It's not really about where you are. Admittedly, most provincial middle-aged men are in the provinces, of course, but

there are many who raise the flag high in some of the biggest cities in the UK. You could be sitting on top of Eros himself in the middle of Piccoli Circus and be a provincial... You could be talking about some really boring guff to do with the A303 or charcoal. You can still do that. Also, I think he betrays it by referencing West End shows, which are largely attended by provincial dads who've been dragged there by their mother-in-law. Yeah. I think my understanding is, and Henry can correct me on this, but largely attended by provincial dads who've been dragged there by their mother-in-law.

I think my understanding is, and Henry can correct me on this, but the metropolitan elite, they don't tend to really talk about West End shows. They'll tend to talk about obscure, fringe theatre. They'll mention a theatre you've never heard of. A playwright you've never heard of. For example, there are rooms, there are theat are rooms, there are there are theatres within the national that, that only we know about them. The Nibbleton space, for example, neither of you will ever have, you won't know about the Nibbleton space. You won't have been sent flies about it. Google it or you like, you won't find it. But I, I, I know about the Nibbleton space. There are theatres

within theatres. Yeah. The corridors of power run deep. Yeah. It's an architectural stroke of genius that these things are concealed. You can't even conceive they might be in the space from the outside. From your coach as it goes across Waterloo Bridge. Where you can actually get to it from the giraffe on the South Bank. If you go to the toilets in the giraffe on the South Bank. But you have to be able to look at the wall in a certain way and see it as a Rothko. And see it as a Rothko and then just jump in quickly, jump, jump, while you see the Rothko, jump, jump, no it's too late, he's concussed himself.

But if you get it right, you go straight in and you're in the Nibbleton. And for example, I saw a wonderful compilation recently of Pinter's best pauses. It was a lovely two and a half hour show. The first half was an hour and a half. Lovely stuff. It was just Helen Mirren pausing, wasn't it? Superbly. And you told me as well, he went to see, um, was it performance of Derek Jacoby reading out some old shopping lists he'd found at the bottom of his bag?

He really, he really conjured them up so vividly. Um, and, um, incredible the amount of vehicle he got through in the 80s. In London you've got the hard water. Did you have the hard water? Limescale is a problem. It's true. And no one in that space, no one left the Neibleton that night without a strong, strong sense of just how hard that water can be. Whereas you guys are waiting for them to make Weezer the musical,

which is a very different space, very different headspace. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I've had the privilege of watching Derek Jacobi live, administering a colonoscopy to Pauline Quirk live in front of 200 members of the glitter arty. And what was the show going on inside her descending Cologne? Do you remember? Well, it was, um, it was something to do with clams. That's all I remember. It was something to do with them.

Shostakovich's Clown Orchestra. It was the Shostakovich's Clown Orchestra, yeah. She'd had a big seafood breakfast, it would appear. That day. But the Nibbleton Theatre Bar is one of the places where you can get a seafood breakfast at basically 24-7, if you remember. This is from Howard. Hello Howard. Dear beans, I want to stress again, this is not abolishing. Okay. Ok.

I've heard that before. But rather an opportunity to share some truly interesting facts about eggs. Yes please. Ah lovely. In the egg episode, Ben guessed that about 80% of animals' eggs end up getting eaten by other animals, with only a lucky 20% making it to adulthood. When I went to Padstow down in Cornwall, I took refuge from the unblinking eye of local pasty tyrant Rick Stein by visiting the National Lobster Hatchery. There I learnt

that a female lobster can carry up to 20,000 eggs, but that only one of those eggs will likely reach adulthood. What? Those are some bad odds. But thank God for that because imagine if all those lobsters were actually hatching we'd be absolutely over completely overrun. We'd be living in a kind of writhing live carpet of lobster. I don't know, everywhere we look. Thank God for that. But this isn't even the worst success rate, writes Howard. A female blue crab, ring the crab bell,

Right, Howard. A female blue crab, ring the crab bell, can produce up to 8 million eggs a year, but only one in a million will reach adulthood. Wow. This is a success rate of 0.0001%. So every time that you crack the head off and feast on the brains of a blue crab, it's a one in a million animal. It's a miracle that you're sort of drenching in Thousand Island sauce and probably forgetting to eat half of it. That's a one in a million miracle, that crab. Blimey. So is it the crab dads that aren't sort of pulling their weight? I mean, what's going wrong here?

It feels like the crab mums are supplying a lot of eggs. Are they getting fertilised? Is it that they're just getting eaten by Rick Stein? Is that the problem? Well, if so, do we need to preserve Rick Stein at all costs? Because if Rick Stein falls, then comes your lobster carpet. He's the last bulwark between the United Kingdom and Crabmageddon. Well Howard writes, all of which is to say that if Ben was right and that 20% of animals eggs make it to adulthood, we would be utterly overrun by blue crabs within months. But you sick fucks would probably like that, wouldn't you? All the best, Howard.

Andrew writes, Dear Mike, Ben and Henry, I just want to add my name to the list you might be assembling of those who have had incidents with drills while listening to the podcast. Oh no. On Boxing Day last year I decided to get started with my bathroom renovation. UNBOXING DAY! Give yourself a day off. Come on! It is quite hard to know what to do on Boxing Day to be fair.

Maybe that Andrew's got some quite difficult family members, who knows. I decided to get started with my bathroom innovation and also catch up on the podcast. Things had been going well, until late afternoon when I decided I needed to start screwing into the joists without checking behind the floorboards. Obviously I hit a pipe, causing water to stream everywhere around my bathroom and house. This required me to wake up my father-in-law from his boxing day rest since I couldn't find the stopcock and needed additional towels. Was the father-in-law sort of hoarding all the towels? Was he asleep on the stopcock? It sounds like he was sleeping, yeah, amongst

the towels and upon the stopcock. As father-in-law's do. It also coincided with my wife coming home from work early, who promptly turned around and disappeared again as the water streamed onto the presence through the hall ceiling. No, don't dare. To keep things safe, I now only listen to audiobooks while performing DIY. Now hang on Andy. Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah. I don't think you can pin this on us or our podcast.

Absolutely cannot pin this on the beans. I mean you shouldn't, the guy's screwing into a joist without checking the... You can't do that. It's 101 page zero drills for beginners. You don't screw a Joyce without checking. Mike, would you ever do that? Oh, no. Certainly not without having a spare stopcock knocking about. You should have a stopcock on me all the time. I take one round

with me. Just in case. Yeah. You never know when you're gonna need one. Also, why is I've got a stopcock on me all the time. I take one round with me. Just in case. Yeah. You never know when you're going to need one. Also, why is he screwing into the floor? You shouldn't be screwing the floor. Is he trying to put a picture up? What's he trying to do? Trying to put your picture down. Trying to put your picture down? What's he trying to do, this guy?

Yeah. Are you trying to create some kind of mirrored bathroom floor? Exactly. Especially with your in-laws around. It's a horrible idea. You should have been, like the rest of your family, curled up in a pile of towels. Yeah, on your stopcock. I only discovered the existence of the stopcock about five years ago as a thing. Do you know where your stopcock's now, you two? I've never seen it, but I do know where it's meant to be.

Do you know where your stop clocks are, you two? I've never seen it, but I do know where it's meant to be. Yeah. I do, but I, I'm, yeah, I'm burnt because I, when I was a student, I accidentally flooded our house, our student house. So since then I've been, it's been an anxiety. How did you do that? We were going to Edinburgh and there's a bunch of people staying in, in our house. They didn't live there the night before, so we were leaving

very, very early to do a show at the Fringe. And then when we woke up in the morning, there was a water main had burst down the streets and no one could get any water out of any of the taps or the showers or anything. So we just sort of left, stinking. But clearly between us, we'd managed to leave quite a lot of the taps and stuff on. And I think a glass had been left at the bottom of the kitchen sink. So we went off to Edinburgh. And my dear sweet friend Jim, he came to the house four or five days later, by which time it was steadily filled with water. And this is a part of Tooting where when water starts coming out of your front door, none of your neighbours are going to give you a ring to

let you know what's going on. Where was this? London? Yes, the house was completely destroyed. Oh, London, give up mate. We had these dehumidifiers in for six months or something, it was completely horrific. Ever since then I'm in the habit of, if I leave the house, things aren't in the sink and I know where the stopcock is.

I've got a dread fear. It basically ruined everyone's life in the house for about six months. It was uninhabitable, but we had to live there. So you would have had to sort of regress to your amphibious sort of collective memory of the amphibious phase of human evolution. The aquatic ape. The aquatic ape. The aquatic ape. Yeah.

And then it was a small house, the four of us in its way, leaving the spawn. Yeah. Whose spawn is that? Do you have to start labelling your own spawn? So this is my spawn. Yeah. I've got the top shelf for spawn. Can you free spawn and have it still be spawn?

All these questions. Are you allowed to put your feet on the loo pad? Okay, but not with shoes on. I mean, there's all these different things to navigate. I actually do have weirdly even though I've not ever done that. I do have a someone once told me once about that taps can just go on potentially. So when I whenever I go on holiday or anything I do like to or even just go, I like to make sure that none of the sinks have the stopper in. Make sure that the tap is over the sink and there's no stopper in, so that if the taps go on... If the tapgeist is feeling frisky.

Yeah. But then the water will just flow through the system. But don't sinks normally have like a little safety hole? Yes, but I'll grow up, you naive idiot. Pretty, you beautiful, you pretty little naive little, oh you little... You perfect little duchess. You perfect little... Oh you delicious little debutante idiot. You don't know, you as I live and breathe, you don't know what's coming for you in life, Ben Partridge. If you think that little fucking... Jesus Christ, isn't there a little thing in a sink? Grow up, mate. Get ready for life because it's coming at you hard. It's going to come

at you from all angles, mate. I think that's a load of horseshit. that's just put in literally. That's like brace brace in planes. It doesn't mean anything. You're not going to tell me you think brace brace makes a difference to you. Does it just protect your teeth so they can work out who you were? And ironically, it's brace brace because you'll need more than braces plane crashes finish with your gob. Good luck getting invisible. Iign to sort that out. Your fucking head's in different country from your feet. that little thing, that little thing in the sink can take any... I don't think

it even connects to anything. Right, final email. This is from James. Dear beans, I discovered your podcast in January. Around the time I took up running. I took comfort in your lukewarm banter as I trudged my way through a half-marathon training plan. We do operate at trudge pace, don't we? I ran that half-marathon last week! Ah, congrats!

On a blisteringly cold and wet morning in Edinburgh, and had nothing for company but a couple of your recent episodes. this the thousands of others going through the same thing would subject myself to such a soul-destroying torment. The half marathon, meanwhile, was surprisingly enjoyable. Lovely, beautifully executed. Oh yes! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, the old switcheroosh. Okay, yes, I see what you're saying, yeah, you're saying that, what? Hang on, I thought you were trying to say that- oh, he's gone the other- what?

Oh, he's gone the other... What? Oh, he's gone the other way around? He means that... Oh, that's what he meant! Oh, what? So, what he said before wasn't actually... I thought he... Now he's gone the other way around with it!

Oh, God! Can I say... It was so perfectly executed that halfway through I forgot... Again, I forgot... Which happens to be something, I forgot which way around the whole thing goes. Do you know what I mean? I forgot which way around it goes. That's how good it was.

Well done. Really good switcheroo. That's a great switcheroo. But then you really stuck the landing. I was in a sort of zero grav space in the middle of the switcheroo where I just didn't know up from down. James, your switcheroo band will be in the post. You can wear it with pride. That's right.

Thank you, James. Thank you, James. Thanks all. Okay at this stage we normally play the Patreon jingle that I made, but we're going to play a version that one of you made. This is from AVEN. Thank you. AVEN writes, I've made a to play a version that one of you made. This is from AVEN. Thank you. AVEN writes, I've made a quite synthy version of your Patreon jingle, which I did not spend much time on. But it is still as semi-decent as Henry's illustrations.

Which I spent quite a lot of time on. I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you

I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be the one to tell you I'm gonna be tell the client that you haven't spent a lot of time on something Because it changes how you listen to it Um, I Didn't spot the three bean salad theme in there. Did you it wasn't the three bean salad theme? What was it? It was the patreon jingle. I was looking out for the wrong theme. I was listening up for the wrong thing It's just an instrumental patron

Did it sound like the patreon thing? Yeah. Well done then. If you'd like more three bean salad than you're currently getting, you can get bonus episodes at patreon.com forward slash three bean salad and join the Patreon. You also get first look access. Is that what I'm going to call it? Dibs. First dibs on live show tickets. You also get ad free episodes. There are various tiers. Have a look. And if you sign up at the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout out from Mike from the Sean Bean Lounge, where Mike was last night. Oh, you sure do. Yeah, I was indeed there last night. And of course, last night it was a pretty hectic time.

Oh yeah. Because it was the try to Be Rude About Michael Palin night, wasn't it? It certainly was. Thank you, Ben. And here's my report. It was Try to Be Rude About Michael Palin night last night at the Sean Bean Lounge, with Tom Goff acting as disparagement umpmpire and J. Wardan Ellison assisting as Trash Talk VAR. Chris Pass opened proceedings with an unconvincing attack on Michael Palin's philanthropic work. This was followed swiftly by Trevor Hyatt saying something snide about celebrity-funded travel documentaries that fooled no one, and Vic who used to own an animal rescue centre in the 90s who attempted to negatively objectify

Michael Palin's shins before withdrawing the comment immediately. With not a single successful attempt to be rude about Michael Palin so far, Rebecca Avery bravely took the helm but instead of being rude about the man himself aimed a blow at his birthplace of Sheffield, calling its 14-year imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots the greatest ever outrage in Britain, second only to British Railways declaring canoes forbidden as an item of luggage. Ian Howarth leapt to Sheffield's defence, which in turn was countered by Chrissie Taylor, using a What-do-you-know-about-it-anyway motion. Ian was forced to point out Sheffield on an unlabelled map, but stuck his pin in Leeds,

at which point Thomas Patuchas forcibly ejected him using the extendable shepherd's crook with optional taser that he had just received for his birthday, Happy Birthday Thomas. Mobius Turnbuckle, Caitlin Buckley and Jimmy Swarbes felt that teamwork was the only way to be successfully rude about Michael Palin, but merely managed an acapella shanty about a fish-called Wanda that was only actually rude about John Cleese. Jane White and Ben Edmonds Taylor also teamed up, but only succeeded in being rude to each other. Jim Bradshaw set up a shrine to Michael Palin and left in disgrace. Paula Dunlop changed her name by deed poll to Michael Palin in appreciation of Michael Palin,

but had to change her name back again so a reprimand could be issued that was not in the name of Michael Palin before she changed it back again to Michael Palin. Jimbo Bibby made a Michael Palin out of a bar of soap and burst into tears. Henry Clark lost the nerve to be rude about Michael Palin himself, and instead attempted to start a rumour that Michael Palin had once worn an ill-fitting dinner jacket. This was repeated by a horrified James Randell into the ear of a disbelieving Rose Robinson who passed it on with apologies to David Bridgeford, who cajoled Dylan Dill Pickle F into broadcasting the rumour to the lounge in full, by which time it had morphed into Michael Palin was rumoured to have once worn a decent set of hard-wearing chinos made from

ethically sourced fabric. Thomas Ant tried to rescue the disastrous event by reading out a pre-prepared list of derogatory adjectives compiled by Alex Shaw, who'd been tricked into thinking the list was about European breakfasts that take you by surprise in a bad way, but upon reading each adjective, accompanied it with a sarcastic wink. Shit Show ombudsman Nicole C declared the evening a category A arse-mageddon. Stuart Mill was tarred and feathered simply to calm everyone down, and Susan Elizabeth Turnbull falsified the ledger so that, should Sean Bean inspect it at a later date, he would assume the lounge had been used for a viewing of his home-made Avatar Redux puppet movie,

directed, shot and edited by Sean Bean and starring the index fingers of Sean Bean. Thanks all, and thanks especially to Michael Palin. Okay, that's the show. We'll finish off with a version of our theme tune sent in by Even from Norway. Oh, thank you. I started listening to your podcast during the final stretch of writing my PhD in high-energy particle physics. And I found that the banter level of the podcast, i.e. Luke Warm, was perfect to keep my spirit high and push me across the finish line, so thanks for that. Well, well done on getting that done even.

I've finished my PhD, I finally have more time for important things, like giving some long awaited attention to my banjo! I've always imagined your theme tune would sound great on the banjo, so I had to give it a go. Hope you enjoy it, cheers even! Thank you, and thanks everyone for listening. Thank you very much. Goodbye! Cheerio! Bye. Thank you.