Three Bean Salad - Purple

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Victoria (probably from Bremen) suggests the topic of purple and the beans roll up their silken sleeves and get stuck in. But not before they've talked about the fact that two of them have recently run into deceased dolphins (one of which was actually a porpoise). Regretably, Mike also talks about his guitar.Get in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpod

Yeah, not too bad. Yeah, no, I'm good. I've just been folding up some shorts and picking them away. So I'm feeling pretty okay. Yeah, someone's got someone's got their shit together. Yeah, there's a short to your own, I guess just grabbing a number out of the air, I'm gonna say six. But I think it could easily be up to up to nine. I mean, six, I can think I could picture right now. I think I own two, two pairs of shorts that don't have sort of offensive holes in revealing

places. Really require carefully chosen undergarments. I think that's, I think that's it at the moment. Do you have the kind of undergarments where they also have offensive holes? Yes, could be if you if you interface the two wrong ones together, you could have a hole all the way through. Exactly. What I'm aiming for, I'm constantly aiming for a kind of a below that below the waist eclipse is what I'm after. When the stars align, but that's quite hard to maintain

24 hours a day every day. As you know, eclipses tend to come and go. It feels like something that would happen in the in the closing stages of an action film or a sci fi, wouldn't it that just there's just what we've got one chance guys. We've got one chance to see what's next knob. To see might was excellent. We're pretty sure that's got the data codes on it. We need certainly we'll certainly will

know more anyway, going into go into future challenges. You can't know too much at this point. Guys, don't question it. Just go for it. We've got one chance. Go, go, go. In recent weeks, I've noticed a new hole appearing in in all of my underwear. I put all my underwear at the same time. I'll tend to do this every sort of two years or so just buy a lot of underwear. I think I bought something like I bought like 20, 20 pants is from H&M.

It's a real it's a real joyless bulk purchase in that you're seeing yourself as a sort of like like a large hotel or something. Things come in, things go out, stock gets re, yeah, things get restocked people next stuff. Yeah. They've all reached the point of failure at exactly the same time. Because they're exactly the same age. And they've all developed exactly the same 20p sized hole that that sits exactly below the perineum. Okay. And I don't know what that says about

my physiology. It suggests you're growing some sort of perineal horn, I would say. Or a serrated fin at the very least. Doesn't sound like too much too much to worry about. As you were. If anyone's listening, and I know Mike used to be a doctor, if anyone's got more up to date, medical knowledge and knows about, you know, what to do about a perineal horn, please do get in touch. I think as long as you're not getting through leather or denim, you're probably okay. Okay, yeah. Can I get those denim

pants on the NHS? Well, I have to buy my own should be able to yeah, it's very postcode dependent, of course, if you're getting through car seats, then absolutely. Yeah, that should be no issue at all. Reupholstery is an absolute indication for for medicalized chainmail pants. God bless the NHS. Yeah. I'm just pitching Ben now with a sort of shark fin, sort of great white shark fin type thing, growing between his legs.

Oh, yeah. scaring children at the beach bobbin about with his ass up and his, his special little fin showing. Can I be clear that I haven't been showing it to children at the beach? You can be clear about that. Can be clear, whether or not we keep that element in the, in the podcast might get snipped out. I did go to the beach this weekend, I sent Mike a photograph of what I found on the beach. Oh, yeah. Is that the dead dolphin? I found a dead dolphin, full sized

proper dolphin. The weird thing is, it's such a treat to see a dolphin, like seeing a dolphin in Britain is such a treat that I still got a bit of that feeling even though it was dead. Oh, really? But under such terrible circumstances, you know, that feeling when you see a dolphin, which is like unparalleled kind of wonder at nature and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I got a little bit of that. But it was, it was like a false, like a false

positive on that one. It'd be like meeting like one of your heroes, that one a famous celebrity is one of your heroes, but then being dead. And then my girlfriend looked it up when we got home, if you do find a dead dolphin, you're meant to ring the Natural History Museum. Really? And tell them where it is. And then tell them how much, how much decomposition has happened. And if it's not too badly

decomposed, they will drive to it, pick it up and stick it in a cabinet and get right a blurb and get kids, kids processing past it the next day within 24 hours. I think, I think it's to do a postmortem to work out why it's done that. The Natural History Museum. That's interesting. We saw a dead dolphin a couple of weeks ago in Cornwall on the beach. And there there was a, there were a couple of local can do

types, a couple who like, yeah, don't worry, we've, we've tagged it, dragged it up the beach and we've informed the R&L I, so don't worry about it. Yeah, that's probably, actually, that could be why it's dead, because it seemed perfectly fine when we were tagged it. We thought we just tagged it weak and then dragged it up. Just on instant, we tag, you know, we will tag things. When you meet a citation, you must tag and drag.

Tag and drag. You know, we've done the tag and drag course, and we're happy to, you know, to be taught you through it if you want. They also corrected me because I think I said something like my ass is shame, shame the dolphin's dead. It's a poor poise, but it's a poor poise. Okay. Mike, when you saw it, did you get any of the residual wonder

of nature dolphin feeling or they didn't let me? I think I probably would have done. I understand what you're talking about there. But yeah, these two, the, the bag and dragon taggers, I think they, they, they ruined it, squazzed that a bit. What do they tag it with? I don't know, really. They wrote dead on the post it and slap it on the side of the

dolphin. Not a dolphin. This is a poor poise. It's not a poor poise. It's a poor poise, just to be clear. So the Natural History Museum, they're like, right, is it like this dolphin is dead? So it is actually now, it's natural history. It's like, it's like, it's under there. It's already, it's under their remit. And they get in as soon as something becomes natural history. It's like, we're on it. We're on it,

guys. That's why we're the leading Natural History Museum in the world. And the sand beneath that carcass officially becomes a satellite of the museum, I think, like an embassy. It cost £19 to stand on it. Was it free? Actually, it's free. I'm, I'm, I'm, I think it's free. Yeah, but they do leave a sort of little slot in the dolphin

that you can post five quid and if you can spare it. Yeah, this dolphin was in quite a sort of state of decomposition. So I could, it was a, it was a nasty picture, he sent me, for sure. I could have pushed a 20 quid note through its skin, probably. Oh, God. So do you think they died of natural causes and everything's fine? Like, or is it like a national tragedy and we should all be up at arms about it? Or is it just like, you know, dolphins

die, people die? We didn't have a harpoon broken out of it or anything, did it? There was no, there was no grotting wire. It bought all the hallmarks of a, of a bar fight. Yes, is dolphin on dolphin violence? Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't tell you why it died. No, because I suppose I'm thinking of those beached whale stories, but it's different, isn't it? It's just a, this is an

animal that's dead. If it for whales beached, that's a, that's a national sort of issue, isn't it? Have you seen that video of a whale exploding on a beach? What? It is absolutely fantastic. Exploding of what? So I think I'm right in saying, I can't remember which one, which one is true. Either, I think it's this, right? So a massive, massive, I think it's a sperm whale, one of the really big

ones is on a beach in, in, I think, Massachusetts, somewhere like that. And they need to deal with it, because it's really big. And they don't know what to do with it. So they just shove a load of dynamite in the middle of it. So for send this skyward. I'm going to have to look that up because I might have got that totally wrong. That wasn't presumably in the hope that it would launch it

back into the sea, was it? No, I think it's just a scale into very small pieces of whale, which is much easier to pick up. Easy to bag and tag. Or did it, did that happen because of its like internal gases? Well, that's the other, she's going to blow, because that's what happened to Henry the eighth.

No, he did. It is. He exploded. Is that what really sunk the Spanish Armada? Well, he exploded. And I think it may have happened in the, in the room where my wedding reception happened. It was one of the stories we got told to help sell the venue

to him. With explaining some stains on the wall. He was like, he was like, I tell you what, this, you know, these prices might seem a little steep to you, but I tell you what, it's not the first meat buffet we've had in this room. Let me take you back. Because Henry the eighth's body was left out after he was dead. And all the sweat, all the kind of gases that were basically the

accumulated gases from all his excessive hedonism, like, you know, years of like hunts and boiled dogs for breakfast, and like geese, just like, you know, all the wine and all the hedonism over years and years. So smoked sparrows stuffed into tiger cubs. Yeah, exactly. All that stuff. Um, and his body kind of swelled up and bloated, and then it

kind of exploded and bits of it went all over the, um, the, um, the really rather charming venue. And, um, yeah, I mean, but in the cold light of day, you know, that's, that's bollocks. That must be bollocks, right? Oh, you still buy it? Um, I think a lot of things will be grain of truth in it, which might be that Henry the eighth did die, for example.

That element of the story might be what's true. You know, you take what you want from it. Was it the room where you got, because we were at your wedding, was it the room where you got married or the reception room? No, I think it was the reception room, which is... It was kind of like a basementy kind of room, wasn't it? Yeah, a cloistered dining space. Yeah.

A cloistered, a cloistered tuna discotheque, right? Was it your wedding, Henry, where the, um, the guiding, the DJ was the most miserable, like the most miserable wedding DJ of all time? Was that your wedding? He was called, he was called either John the DJ or Dave the DJ. He was, it was John the DJ. So he'd even given up at the naming stage. Before he even started his first gig.

Um, yeah, no, his lack of energy for his work was, was, should have been, should have rang out loud and clear from his name. Meaning of his business, John the DJ. I was thinking of just calling it John, but... You've got to set out in your stall, haven't you? You've got to set out your stall. It's not enough these days, just calling yourself John. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get to my beater of a,

I'm just calling myself John, am I? Got to let people know what the product is and get people talking about it. Have you heard about John? No. Have you heard about John the DJ? No. But I've got an idea of what he does. Well, obviously hooked you in, Henry, because you, you booked him. I think he just fallen asleep from his last gig, hadn't he?

You just woke him up and then there he was. My mate, there's a wedding reception here. I mean, either play some tracks or get out. He was so lackluster that I wouldn't even want to use the phrase lackluster because it has the word luster in it. I mean, it was absolute. I mean, do you realize John the DJ? He's the reason some people say,

being a DJ is just easy, just to call it music. It's because of people like John the DJ, because that is all John does and not that well. At my sister's wedding, the DJ beforehand kind of asked me, he wanted to know what music they liked. And I think he maybe had been in touch the week before and they were both very easy. And they, they were just like, I was just the normal wedding disco, please. And he was like, no, no, no, I really want to play the stuff you like. And they were like, we're not that kind of people, we don't really mind.

And he went, no, no, no, who do you like? And you know, when someone asks you, like, what do you like? You just, you go blank and you can't really think of anything. So my, my sister's husband went, I don't know, quite like Shakira. Then when it came to the wedding, there was this period where he played like six Shakira songs on the back. Like he really, really, like, oh, oh, like, oh, oh. And now, a surprise for the bride and groom.

Shakira, out of the gate now, out of the gate now, Shakira. We've got Shakira here. The other thing was that how have you paid for this? We sold your house. But Shakira's here, she's got five minutes. She said she'll do it as long as she gets a free tilt at the buffet. Five minutes, you're not allowed to disturb her and she can take as much as she wants and she's bought her own big oval plate.

And I hope you guys are looking forward to your honeymoon now, it's not Barbados. Shakira's garden, you're going to spend this as a dream, you're going to spend two weeks in Shakira's garden, yeah, we sorted it out for you, you're dreaming? You're not allowed in the house, Shakira won't be there, she's touring Japan. You can't, you can go to the toilet in the shed, if you can get in. The number one's there, there is a fountain, that's okay for number ones but yeah. Yeah, there is a spa coming soon to the area around the corner, it's not open yet, sorry. And also you can't leave the garden for security purposes.

And please don't touch the tortoise. If you touch the tortoise, Shakira will sue you, she's very litigious, we've taken fingerprints already from you from the knife that you cut the cake with, those will be tested against the tortoise. Which is covered in anti-climb paint as well. If you even think about climbing up that tortoise, have a look over the fence to learn about your food options, because Shakira knows, she knows how people think, okay, and she knows how youth, she knows how her fans think, if you dare to climb onto that tortoise, try

and see if you can look over the fence and see what your food options are, Shakira and a team of lawyers will come down on you very, very hard, okay. I know it's tempting to look over the fence because Peter Gabriel lives next door, but he is also a very litigious and violent man, and he's got a whole fleet of medieval siege machinery. He's had built like considerable expense. That's what Salisbury Hill is about. To stop people like you trying to get through his garden, to see what the food options in

the area are, okay. He's got a little buzzer rigged up that's connected to the tortoise, as soon as you stand on it, that's going off in his little office room, and then he readies the trebuchets. And frankly, he doesn't do a lot else at the moment, so don't stop thinking he's writing his next album, we're planning a tour. No, he's mainly... His finger is hovering over that fire button. It is hovering.

And he can't wait, he cannot wait for an excuse to use that trebuchet. And the hot oil, the thing that pulls the oil, all of it, yeah. A volley of arrows, volley of arrows, that's what you're going to get, yeah. So think twice about whether it's worth it to find out if you can get a pasty, yeah. A hot pasty in the area, no, a volley of arrows through you, okay. Cool, so there's a cheese room and... And did you know that Henry VIII exploded over there? Enjoy your night, guys.

Okay, time to fire up the old B machine. Very good. Old faithful. Someone got in touch, actually, to say that they thought the B machine should have a sound effect like a kind of computer going... What they don't realise is, of course, if we include the actual sound of the B machine working, which we cut out every time, it's just the tearing of flesh. It'll be powerfully emetic.

It's a bad shout. Yeah. Screaming. The team of nurses holding me down. Yeah, I doubt they're asking for that. They've got a sense, I'm sure. They're asking for some nice, sanitised, clean, that's it. Buck Rogers' style.

I think, yeah, they were the 1970s computer from a sci-fi, isn't it? Which is like a little up and down. What they don't realise is that the real technology isn't a 1970s computer. It's a 1770s torture rack that's been repurposed into a sort of bingo machine. Which is the flesh of a real man. Exactly. And the sound it makes, I mean, really haunting. It's excruciating.

I think that and Mike's bits where he talks about guitars, which we always have to cut out every week, those two things are both should never be heard by human ears. It's like, what's that film, Grizzly Man? What's the guy called? The director? Werner Herzog. And he goes, no one should ever hear these tapes. Have you heard that?

Have you seen that? Yes. And he's got an audio recording of a man getting torn apart by a bear. He stands in front of the widow, I think. Does he not? That's right. Yeah. Two yards away from her as he absorbs the soundtrack of her husband's death.

He listens to it on a sort of Walkman, basically. Yeah. In her living room. Yeah, they're in that category. No one must ever hear these tapes. No, they must ever, ever. So we can agree that probably only Werner Herzog should ever listen to those things. Probably he is built of enough metal that he can handle that audio.

We've actually put together a small compilation of B-Machine Actuality and Mike talking about guitars. We've sort of mashed them up and we'll be sending those to Werner. With a background of Henry chewing nuts, various other hell food snacks. And non-hell food snacks, of course. Yeah. Sniders. Sniders.

Come on, guys. Give them their full name. You can't just call them a Sniders. You're a Snider. My Sniders? Of Hanover. Yeah, they are. They coat the palate in a really thick oily substance, which gives you a really kind

of claggy voice. But then your cashews slip down all the smoothies, don't they? Then the cashews create a kind of, yeah, like a slide for the cashews. They just tumble down. No one should eat these Sniders of Hanover. Nobody should ever taste this crunchy, oniony, jalapeno option, they've made. No one. I know I know I meant to be working out which topic we're about to talk about, but we've

had a lot of emails about Sniders of Hanover for Henry. And a lot of people finding them in a very normal supermarket situation, like a Sainsbury's or a Tesco. Well, that's because Henry leaves them about, don't you? Henry goes about, he bulk buys, and then he goes about and he puts them in between bags of muesli and things, and by the dishwasher salt. Yeah, it's part of my contract with Hanover's. It's, yeah, just a little Easter eggs.

It's guerrilla marketing. But the suggestion being that they're not the kind of niche product that you made them out to be. They're actually just kind of the premier pretzel snack brand in Britain. Well, are you saying that they're absolutely massive? Yeah. And I've been talking about them. I've been talking about them as if they're like a really niche thing, and they're actually

not. So it'd be like me coming on and going, I've just discovered this wonderful little place called... Shell. Shell Garage. It's called... Shell. Wonderful.

Wonderful. Charming little maritime logo, they've got a very good price. Because someone sent in, someone had been into a Sainsbury's or a Tesco, and they looked like to be an entire aisle of Sainsbury's Hanover, like four, four-shell tie of various Sainsbury's Hanover. They're actually everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Is it possible that demand has rocketed since Henry began his marketing campaign on this very podcast? It could be. It could be that they're sick of being niche. Yeah. Because actually, that might explain why they're no longer in my gap, because they're no longer in my little garage. They've gone too big.

They've just gone massive, which means I'm checking out. Because frankly, they're not, you know, they're sold out. A little bit mentioned, a little bit vanilla, which isn't an unspeakably disgusting idea. Absolutely. Absolutely. Idiot. You know what? I tell you one thing I do like about Sniders is they've got the guts to really add onion

in to a flavor. It'll be cheese and ham, and most people would have stopped there, but it'll be cheese and ham and onion. They'll often have onion on a flavor. Onion, onion sort of doesn't bear mentioning really often. If it is ever mentioned, it is always, it's always the last one. You never see onion up front and center, do you? On an onion and cheese crisps.

Doesn't happen. It always follows from behind. Onion and cheese crisps sounds absolutely great. It's true. You never, it's never just like, I'm just going to have, I'm just going to have like a, I'm going to, for starters, I'm just going to have the, the onion, please. And then I'll have the onion, bap, if you don't mind. And I'll see you at a bolognese.

Do you do a vegetarian bolognese? Do you do an onion bolognese, please? Just a couple. Just an onion bolognese, please. And just a couple of onions for the table. But they are, they're the kind of, they're the like hard-working base vegetable, aren't they, onion? They're the unsung hero of the vegetable world.

You know, that phrase, or it's called, many layers, it's like an onion. Yeah. I feel like I hear that quite a lot. People reach for onion in that, in that situation. Are you criticizing those people? I just feel like, is that really the only thing we've got that's multi-layered? We have to start talking about onions all the time. I mean, yeah, what else could it be?

Oh, it's like a lasagna. Oh, it's like a poorly treated case of psoriasis. Do you get layers of psoriasis? Sure. If you want a card enough. So you just keep breaking through with psoriasis. Do you think you've cured it and you break through and there's another layer underneath? There's a mince and bechamel layer.

We're through to the second bechamel layer, which means at least another four layers of psoriasis before we get down to the tomatoes layer. Yeah, so I'll remember it. Sure. Right. Time to fire up the beam machine and see what we're going to be talking about this week. Okay. Let's have a look.

So this week's topic is, it's been sent in by Victoria. It doesn't say where she's from, so we'll assume Bremen. Bremen. Yeah. Bremen. Yeah. It's the default place. And this week's topic is purple.

Purple. Oh. Purple. Hmm. Purple's like, it's kind of a color that you can't really wear unless you're trying to make a statement. Do you know what I mean? Well, for example, that you are the queen.

It's quite regal. I mean, I know we always end up here in the end, but to be fair. You're right. I think it's the queen and prince who can pull it off. Both royal, both people with royal vibes. Indeed. Do you want me to talk about this at all? Oh, yes.

Oh, no. Hey. What? Oh, no. Just to pay attention to the listener, Mike has picked up a guitar. He's showing us across the Zoom link and it is shiny and it is purple. It's purple. Purple mirrored pickguard.

Don't say those words. Don't use the terms like we talked about this. You can't say pickguard. Series. Don't use acronyms. Stop it. Standard setup really with the pickups. You've got two double coils and a single coil.

Don't say coil again. Stop it. Rosewood fingerboard. Not fingerboard. What gauge strings you're rocking there, Mike? These are fine gauge. Hang on. I'll show you.

Don't encourage him back, please. Yeah. Only ball fine gauge. I think 10 maybe. That's more regular, isn't it? When you talk about guitars like this, you literally suck joy out of the world. Because you make music, a beautiful thing, boring. You understand?

Yeah? It's like saying a fairy doesn't exist and then saying fairies don't exist and then fairies die. It's like that. The more you talk. The joy isn't destroyed. The joy goes into me. It's slack sleep.

You know, it can't create or destroy joy. It's a zero-sum game. Yeah. I just suck it up. I feel great. I feel better than I felt all day after that. I just slipped a bit in there, didn't I? Lovely.

When you bought your purple guitar, Mike, was that inspired by liking prints? Maybe a bit. I was about 15, so I definitely would have been a bit into prints at that point. Or even more into other stuff. But hey, it's not about the look, buddy. No. Let me tell you. When you sit down with a guitar, it's how it feels in your hands to the player.

Oh, God. Say it, Mike. You're a single organism. Oh, God. Stop it. You've now got two necks. You're a parasitical organism that should be stamped out. Two necks, one gizzard.

That was the title of my first album. You've now got five knobs. Mike, do you remember choosing purple? Did you have options for that guitar and you chose purple? Did it mean something to you purple? Yeah, it genuinely wasn't the thing. It was this guitar shop in Southampton, it was. I would have been about 15 when I got this.

I've had this for a long, long time. I must have tried every guitar in the shop that was within kind of affordable range. It's quite a weird thing, isn't it, Mike? I know that Henry has another experience, but the kind of 14, 15 year old boy hanging around in a guitar shop thing. Is that weird? Well, it's just like a very singular experience, I think. You don't get kind of people hanging around in other sort of shops

in quite the same way, do you? You wouldn't hang around in a sort of kitchen supply shop. Is it like a butcher's dog? Is there always one there? Oh, yeah. I would spend hours just sort of looking at guitars and just sort of hanging around in there. Hang on, OK.

So to me, have I lured you into talking about guitar trap? I feel quite good about this. I think you sort of have in a way. It's the opposite of a honey trap. I'm so disgusted that I've been drawn into it against my better nature. To try and understand the poison that seeps from your mouth. On this Godforsaken topic. Now, so like, you know, like the Gallagher, like basically the Gallagher's.

The Gallagher's. Would they have been 15 year old boys hanging around in guitar shops once? Because I don't think they would have done. You see, I think there's two streams in music. There's the people that actually play guitars in bands who are quite cool. And then there's these ultra dweebs like Mike, who from the age of, you know, from the age of 15 was essentially already a middle-aged man. That's not the place around the bush.

Mike would have been deep into his middle ages. Yeah. Into his middle age. That's why, yeah, this is my time. Now, I feel like, yeah, I'm finally there. You've caught up with it. Exactly. But is that a separate community to the kind of people that are actually in bands?

I think that's too different. I think Noel probably would have, in his young years, hung about a bit. Noel isn't famed as one of the great guitarists of all time. No. And that's, no doubt, a list that you like to bore the shit out of people with at weddings, I and I didn't. We just played. What's that next to you?

Well, actually, actually, for me, and what you'll have, Mike, won't you, you'll have an interesting and massive titanium inverter commas, an interesting one in your top five, won't you? Actually, someone called not Stuart, not a Stuart, not from the... Stuart, not from the Notchmeisters. Stuart, not from the Notchmeisters, actually. Worse or better than people say he is. That album, Dark Notch, he breaks...

Dark Notch. He breaks new graph. Yeah. And it was so fantastic. The men should have free trade-all. Because actually, just before the Sex Pistols came on, what happened was Michael Notch, who was the head of the Notchmeisters, he would wear a toilet on his head, which was so funny and interesting at the time.

And we all got those little small round badges and wore them. It was brilliant. But yeah, one of them. I think you've strayed there into people who are actually more boring than guitar enthusiasts, who are like sort of music journalists, who are the most boring people on earth, I think. You're talking about people who are utterly obsessed with Manchester free trade-all and the Hacienda. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, to be fair, actually, a lot of them I do like they work. There's something about it that's a bit... Yeah. They're quite obsessed, aren't they? There's a lot of people who can't let the Hacienda go. I mean, it was just a nightclub. A nightclub is, you know, occasionally on the weekend, you go,

we could Friday night or Saturday night go to the nightclub. That's it. That's what a nightclub is. You go to the nightclub and have a night out next day. No, Henry. It's the crucible of a culture, a counterculture, which would come to define a whole generation and that later turned into the election of Tony Blair.

Have you seen the photos of the Hacienda on the inside? It's just a nightclub with big speakers like a bar, toilets. It's just, yeah, it's a nightclub. Literally every town in the country has about four of them. You don't understand, man. You don't understand what was going on. There would be the odd armed gangster in there, I think, as well, for a bit of colour. Yeah.

We don't have an exeter there. I think my understanding, I'm not really necessarily plugged in to the exeter night scene. But my understanding... I guarantee, Mike, there's never been a nightclub in Exeter, which has defined the generation. Well, I think there is a nightclub in Exeter. I'll be forgiven for being wrong about this, I'm sure.

It's basically this timepiece, as far as I know. It's called Timepiece. It's called Timepiece. Basically all roads lead to Timepiece. I think if you're on a big old bend or an Exeter, eventually. So is it genuinely called Timepiece? It's genuinely called Timepiece. That's a twee name for a club, I've never heard in my life.

If you're on a huge bend or an Exeter and you've lost a member of your group, you know where to find them, because they will end up in Timepiece. Timepiece? Yeah. It feels like the average age would be, like, 63. Timepiece. It just sounds so twee.

Well, a lot of people retire down here, sure. But Henry, you're someone who grew up in London, which is full of kind of, you know, world, or down the ministry, or Henry down the ministry, was it? World beating sounds. Always down the ministry, weren't you? Ministry of sound. Fabric.

Fabric. Denim. Fabrice. Fabrino. Yeah. Fleece. Esperanto. There was a lot of cordroy.

Yeah. No, yeah, I was around, yeah, I was around the scene. The reason I mentioned that, Henry, is that you, I don't think you fully understand the provincial nightclub. The provincial nightclub vibe is a very special vibe, I think. It's heady. It's heady. Also, the DJ, it's kind of, it's got something akin to a kind of student disco

where the DJ will absolutely know the tracks, there will be compulsory dance tracks on the floor. You could be, the most serious gangs might be out and about on a big old, a big old night out. You put Reach for the Stars, S Club 7 on. They're a boogin, you know. Uptown funk, whatever it might be, you know. Yeah.

Backstreet's back. So basically, clubbing is a hellish phase, yeah, in one's life, as you just reminded me, by really our fucking awful song. Clubbing is just, it's a horrible experience you have to go through when you're young, generally speaking, it's very, very noisy. You've lost some people or you're lost. Usually dancing in quite a lot of crunching broken glass. There's broken glass.

There's places I used to go, yeah. Something menacing happens in the toilet. Yeah. You lose all your money, you're sick. You close the stink for three days. And that's what going to a club is. It's a rite of passage. It's a rite of passage.

But that's what the Hacienda then. Well, how's that different? A night in the Hacienda is, try and get in. One of your mates can't get in because he's too drunk. You do get in, you lose everyone. Something menacing happens in the toilet. Yeah. But the difference is, Henry, the person who pukes on your shoes

is Peter Hook from The Order. That's the key difference. Whereas in extra, the person who pukes on your shoes is a local lollipop lady. Or Mike. Yeah, me out on a night out with a local lollipop lady. A ruddy, great time. And she just stashes her lollipop in the...

In the cloakroom. In the cloakroom on the way in. An extra quid, maybe, for the lollipop. And on the way out, I've seen her on the way home at three in the morning, she'll have a cheap pizza, but she'll have it stuck. She'll be kangled at the end of the lollipop, pretending to be an Italian chef.

I've seen that. Purple is very much the colour of dairy milk, isn't it? I'm quite interested in the way that brands try and sort of control the colour. The sweet spot, the dream for an advertiser is when you see purple, or think purple, you just want to buy dairy milk. It becomes like an instant subliminal thing.

So dairy milk sales will probably go up during this podcast. In fact, if you're listening to this, you're probably eating some dairy milk right now. I know I am. It'll just happen. For those living outside the UK, dairy milk is probably the UK's most popular chocolate. If you're listening in America, you'll probably...

Is that the Hershey's? You'll probably be eating Hershey's, or some other absolutely shit chocolate, because you guys don't realise, you're the world's superpower. You have a military that could crush any country in seconds. You are the world's most prosperous country. You are in charge in terms of world culture,

is still, I would say, overwhelmingly American, if you had to take the temperature of the whole world. English is the lingua franca of the universe, because of America. But your chocolate is so bad. And you don't... I think you might not realise, because if you realised, you would revolt.

Unless that's the wrong... Unless that's the wrong way round, and the reason they've been so successful, culturally and militarily, and many other ways, is because they haven't been focusing on chocolate so much. Oh, I see. Whereas everyone else has been pouring all their work

and effort and time and thinking into a lovely little chocolate. So the reason that the Swiss aren't the world power is because they were spending so much time perfecting, which they have done, milk or chocolate, which is perfection in chocolate. Exactly.

The French were putting bits of chocolate into pastries for years. Everyone's been distracted. Belgian chocolate's very good. Famously so. They're not military big hitters. The Spanish are dipping churros into chocolate. They are, aren't they? Lovely.

When they could be instead making their own nuclear capacity. Lovely. And the Midlands here chugs out Cadbury's dairy milks, doesn't it? Tons and tons per day. When they could be making uranium tip bullets. Yeah. Where do you stand on dairy milk versus galaxy?

I'd say those are the two big hitters. Dairy milk every time for me. I go for dairy milk over at Galaxy, but to me, Galaxy feels too, too, too sort of indulgent. It's something about the branding. It feels too, it's for the night. It's sensual.

Whereas dairy milk is. Luxurious. Yeah. Dairy milk is like, it's legitimate. It's a daytime snack. It's not too hedonistic. You know, as Galaxy is like sensual, it's like romance, love.

It's indecent in some way. It's indecent. Exactly. You feel like when you're eating Galaxy, you ought to be wearing like a sort of silk kimono. Yeah. But in a bath. In a bath.

But you've got the kimono on bath. Roll top. Yeah. Roll top and roll bottom. Yes. And cupping a little rabbit in your arms. Cupping it. Cupping it.

It's a consenting rabbit. As a consenting rabbit, you're cupping it and you're just kissing it on its little pink nose. I don't like this vision at all. That's taken a turn for me. I'm getting mixed up with the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit. The advertising slogan, of course, was, why have cotton when you can have silk?

Well, I've got loads of cotton, though. I'm very happy with it. But imagine all of the cotton things you own, Henry, replaced with a silken version. You'd be slipping all over the place. You'd be slipping in that slide. You'd be slipping out of your own pants. It's a horrible idea.

It's what I imagine happens in Miami. This is based on nothing. But I assume everyone there is always wearing silk. It's quite weird when you think about where silk comes from. Because it's a fabric, but it's made out of the arse of a worm. Yeah. Yeah. It's so weird, isn't it?

It's not. Yeah. I can get past that. But I think what I struggle with is how did this first come about? Who made the first silk waistcoat? What was happening? What inspired someone when they saw that worm? With some weird stringy stuff coming out of the back of its arse,

thought, do you know what? If I can get 8,000 of these and harvest what they're churning out of their assholes, I might. Just might. I could make a metaphor for a mid-range chocolate that's trying to appeal to a mass market audience. Who's got the time to be doing that in the first place? Particularly in days of yore.

It's so weird. And also, silk is a luxury item. Silk, it's almost literally the opposite of a worm's arse, isn't it? Silk. It's so strange that juxtaposition. It's unthinkable. It's one of the things that we must not think of it. It's like a pearl comes out of an oyster.

Like an oyster is absolutely gross. But it creates this little ball of luxury. A lot of luxury things come from gross stuff, potentially. Or two. Lobsters. Where do they come from? Well, they are themselves. The lobster meat is within the grossest packaging.

They come from other lobsters. That's disgusting. Yes, lobsters are the most delicate and refined meat there is. And all to boil the death and smash the pieces. The lobster's thigh. And that comes from the most hideous, gross sort of alien creature, slimy, tentacly, absolutely grim. Clippers, claws, clompers.

It's got all the different sweet, sweet clompers. The meat from the clompers is particularly prized, isn't it? So prized. Tonight, darling, you may have the clomper meat. It's delicious and a powerful aphrodisiac, of course. It really is. I mean, again, we've strayed very far from the topic. We're learning, through doing this podcast,

we're learning that we tend, whatever happens, to lurch towards the royal family or to crustaceans. And we've done... Coincidence? Whatever the topic is, that will happen. That has happened. So it's okay. The king prawn would be our ideal topic.

But silks became... When silk was sort of discovered, or by Europeans... It was Chinese, right, originally, I think? Yeah. Oh, I think so. But then it became this huge thing, like the silk route. The silk road.

This is fascinating, Henry. Very knowledgeable on this subject. So the silk road was a huge road. Made of silk, of course. Made of silk. That's right. It was a lovely, a lovely smooth drive. Very tricky upkeep.

Massively expensive to maintain. And sometimes there'd be road works, and there'd just be a load of worms shitting out in you bits of road. Shitting out of diversion. Gotta go via Thornbury now. It's gonna take bloody hours. But the silk was this luxury item,

which became this huge change, the whole global politics and stuff. Probably. And then... But it's just like Europeans, we must have silks. Silks and spices from the east. Spices was the other one, right?

Both of those things. If you said to me now, Henry, you can never use silk again. And you can never use a clove. You can never use a clove. You'd start a bloody war, mate. You say that now. You're all talked.

You'd be on the... You'd be constructing an armada. You'd be... You'd be creating new firearms. You'd be waging war. You'd levy attacks on the people. There'd be conscription. Wave upon wave of young men would be killed.

Also, you can get your bloody clove. So I can have my silky-nut Meg Thursday. A bunch of consenting adults dressed up in silk. And there's one nutmeg in the middle. We all bring a little nutmeg shaver. And we toss the nutmeg around. We shave little bits off.

And, you know, it's a really lovely consensual night. What I'm saying is, okay, if I had to live without silk, I'd be absolutely fine with that. If I had to live without spices, I'd be a bit pissed off. But if the alternative was travelling, essentially by a mixture of foot

and crap old boats, all the way to China, I'd be like, I can use garlic. I can use onions. I can use a lot of butter. I'll be using a lot of butter in my cooking. A bit of rosemary. I can manage a bit of rosemary.

Can't be in the back garden. Rosemary in time. Yeah. In fact, I'll get into it. It'd be nice to, in a way, get back into the old, the traditional. It's a sausagey future, isn't it? It's a sausagey, hearty future.

Salt and pepper, I believe, are native. Is that right? No. Well, pepper isn't. Are you telling me I can't have pepper? No, you can't have pepper. It's from, well, not from Britain. Right. I'm hiring a canoe.

I'll see you in Beijing. But it's amazing, like, the extent to which people were so up for, like, spices and silks that they would decide to, you know, thousands of people had died and everything, and the whole sort of shape of global politics was probably affected by it. John, I'm not taking any questions.

That's the end of the lecture. Goodbye. So that was purple. What's in the mailbag? OK, mailbag. Good mailbag this week. This one is very, very gratifying. I really like this one. This is from Susan.

She says, Dear Mike, Ben and Henry, on the theme of bringing people together, two months ago I was at the Crown Court waiting for a case to be called. Strong start. I was sat headphones in, laughing at a new podcast called Three Been Salad.

Oh. Whatever could she be referring to? We've established there's more than one, so let's not drill down into that too much. No, good point. A colleague in the profession, I assume she's a lawyer rather than... On trial.

...criminal profession. Anyway, guys, I'll be out in 35 years. And if you're still going, I'd love to know. A colleague in the profession, Brackett, someone I had never met before, came over and asked what I was listening to. After explaining the format,

I hope, I hope, I hope, in detail. I wouldn't mind having that explanation sent over to us. Especially with the cool, steady eye of a lawyer on it. Because it occurred to me the other day that I've got no idea what the format is.

After explaining the format and offering a small apology for Henry's ponchant for oversharing, he was in. He took a socially distanced seat, unpacked his headphones, and chuckled through the inaugural episode, posters.

90 minutes later, we were called into the same courtroom, him prosecuting me defending. Wow. Wow. So they locked horns in the... In the hallowed space. Crown court. Where mankind's greatest achievement

is put to the test once more. I was hoping that what was going to happen then is like things that came up in the podcast were then used as both a defence and a line of prosecution. That's not what happens in the message for that. That would be great. So I think that never features in the legal dramas you watch.

Before a case is like a 90 minute podcast listening. Before they start, you just sit around for 90 minutes. So 90 minutes later, we were called into the same courtroom, him prosecuting me defending. Wow, we were both so bloody cheerful. When the trial concluded two weeks later, he asked me out.

What? And we have been courting ever since. Golly gosh. A bean romance. So we've created a bean's romance. Oh yeah. I'd like to know what the case was about and potentially how really grim it was.

The more harrowing, the better. Is that what you're saying? Also, if I was being represented and my life was on the, basically my future was on the line, yeah? Yeah. It's finally happened, the thing we all have a nightmare about. You've been pinched for a series of arsons.

Yeah. It's that thing we all have a nightmare about, which is that five houses have burnt down on your road and you're covered in diesel. And you're laughing your arse off for some reason. And the police turn up. And they come round and you're in the middle of a silk and nutmeg party.

So they think you're some kind of pervert from the off. Yeah. You're at the diesel phase of the silk and nutmeg party. Yeah. Because the diesel gives your silk a lovely, lovely sheen. Somehow, during the night's revelry, you've actually literally had a packet of swan matches tattooed onto your face.

So you've got the swan matches logo on your face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's everything's adding up to you did it. That's that horrible nightmare. Yeah. And no one believes you.

Yeah. All you've got is one hot shot lawyer. A, you find out that she's flirting with the opposition. And then not only that, instead of preparing for the case, bring one you're going to get down for 35 years. You're not built for prison. Yeah.

Yeah, you went last five minutes. You have got a facial tattoo there in this scenario. You have got a facial tattoo. That's the only hope you've got is to fall in with a swan matches gang. Yeah, you're going to be dead. They're going to carve you up and use you to put their lunch trays at the end of a meal.

Yeah. Exactly. You will be a prison lunch tray rack. If you're lucky. Yeah. Yeah. And then your lawyer, instead of preparing for the case,

is listening to three, you know, what, tossers? That's actually... Talking about posters. Just before going, just before going up. And then not only she's not prepared, she's flirting with the guy from, you know, it's just absolute...

It's absolute, yeah, nightmare. So I'd like to know what the case was, with how grim, if it was grim, and be who won. And also, would she, in return, because we've obviously done something for her here, we've potentially kindled a romance which might last the rest of her life, not putting any pressure on her, but could happen.

In return for that, could she maybe be our lawyer for free? Ah, yes. When the inevitable happens. Well, we've already got the legal battle with the other three being silent podcast. We've got multiple potential litigations in the pipeline, haven't we? We've got Sniders, Dairy Milk, Phil Collins.

Russell Crowe's a big one. The crustacean lobby. I don't imagine Russell Crowe's going to go through legal. What he believes in what he calls crowjustice. Where... Yeah, it's the verdict of the beak. Yeah. So what happens with crowjustice is,

it involves him basically gaining access to the adjoining properties around your house, or flat. Over a three mile radius. Filling him with crows. Filling him with crows. So it takes him a while, because you have to buy up the property. Well, it's also getting the residential parking places as well. That's the thing that really slows him down.

That slows him down. Also, things like it's difficult buying up schools, government properties, council properties, municipal legislatures. But as he says, as he always says, there ain't enough red tape in the world to stop crowjustice. And every house, three mile radius, radius full of crows.

You wake up, nothing seems odd initially, except there's a bit more coring. A bit more pecking. There's slightly more ambient coring and pecking than you used to at breakfast. But you just think nothing of it. You just think it's probably just, probably something to do with mating patterns

or maybe something to do with global warming. Humidity or something like that. There's more crows in the air at the moment. It's not going to knock you off your schedule. And for your breakfast, someone's left a hot panini on your breakfast bar. But you think, oh, maybe it's just a gift from an admirer I don't know about.

Yeah, that's just what people do. Two slightly strange things today. One is this higher than usual ambient crow noises and a fresh panini on my plate. I'll just put it on my stride, is it? And then you open your cutlery drawer, don't you? Yeah. To get your knife and fork out.

And who's in there? But Russell Crowe. Russell Crowe. Face up. He's face up. He's adapted your kitchen units, so there's room for him. He comes up wearing your cutlery drawer

like a sort of crown. And at that point, he basically just gives you a harsh dressing down. It lasts about a quarter of an hour. He then ends it by going, I'm harsh, but I'm fair. But it's a check on the table, which is for the money to reassemble your cutlery drawer.

Changes with inflation, but I think it's about 115 quid. Normally then you go back, you go back to your business, you head off to work. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't notice all those crows. Sometimes people get straight on a bus, whatever.

They never notice all the crows. But he spends a lot of money on the, getting the crows to move into all those homes, and it's not clear exactly why he does that. I also wonder whether we should disguise... Susan. His name. I don't know if she would get in trouble

if talking about her court job. I'm wondering whether she thought it would be anonymous when we... Do you know what I mean? I don't want to be responsible for embarrassed to lose their job. Well, let's go back and then just beep out the name or something.

Can we edit it? Or can we replace it with the name Susan? If you say woman's name, I'll put that. I'll take it away. So a nice clear, Susan. Just any woman's name off the top of my head? You could possibly think of...

Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine what you're going to go for. Okay. Three, two, one. Susan. Great. All right, next one. Amelia says,

I actually think it's very easy to tell your voices apart. Thank you, Amelia. Probably good. The problem is I wouldn't be able to put a name to those voices if you put a gun to my head. This is where it gets weird.

Except for maybe Wozniak, because his voice reminds me of two people. Firstly, the man I encountered at six years old when happily waddling down a coastal path whose dog was off a lead and subsequently trampled me to the ground. So that's the first guy that you remind her of. Okay.

Then the second is her earliest and most vivid memory, which is an actor dressed as a clown who blocked me in a maze as a child from getting to my dad and sister at a Halloween event who taunted and mocked me while I cried and tried to get past his legs,

which were covered in fake blood. Oh, my God. What have I done to you? What have I done to you? Is it two of the most demonic, predatory individuals I think I've ever heard about in my life? What am I doing?

How am I giving that off? Shit. Really horrified. I thought the second one was going to be a kind of antidote to the first one. So on the one hand, quite a sinister memory,

but on the other hand, a really, really terrifying, probably even more disturbing. Genuinely damaging. Genuinely damaging. Oh, wow. Sorry, Amelia. Next email is about

our old friend, the Flightless Bird Zone. Welcome to the Flightless Bird Zone. No, please, not my face! It's becoming a bit of a tradition now that we talk about a Flightless Bird that turns out not to be flightless. Tim says, Imagine my fury on hearing

your listener, John's contribution to the topic of flightless birds where he sought to impose upon us his anecdotes relating to a quail. The quail is, of course, more than capable of flight, being a migratory species. How your listener thinks it travels

from Africa to its breeding grounds in the east of England. Is anyone's guess? There's loads of ways of doing that now. Come on. Rain, strains and automobiles. And finally, Mel, last week, you remember, Henry,

you asked the listeners whether they had ever had a situation where their pet had slightly taken over and become the sort of dominant force in their household. Yes. And we've had a couple of those. Jack says,

When I was a kid, my brother got a baby iguana from the boardwalk. Under the boardwalk. We'll be falling in love and on the boardwalk. I bought an iguana from a guy. A guy who says,

okay, who says iguana on the boardwalk. So, I assume, Jack, maybe from the USA, we don't really have... that feels very American experience to me going to the boardwalk and buying an iguana. It doesn't feel very British to me.

It also sounds like the kind of thing that if you're a British schoolboy or girl about the age of 12, writing a musical set in America but you'd never been to America, you might have a character say coming into a scene and to try and create

what you think is a normal normal American atmosphere as a tall girl Brit. You've got to give him a line. And the line they end up saying is, Hey, Jack, hey, where you been? Hey, yeah, I just just came back down from the boardwalk where I got myself this iguana. I've been stooping on the boardwalk and I came down the sidewalk and I had a cotton candy sneakers all the way to the 4th of July. Got to meet pretzel with a soda. Hey, Frankie, how do you spell color? I can't remember again. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So when I was okay, my brother got a baby iguana from the boardwalk.

It lived on a sort of wooden rack in the bathroom. Somehow it knew to poop in the bathtub or sink. Pretty good. As it matured, it became singly. Hang on. Hang on. Neither of those are the correct place to poop. That's such an American positive attitude to take. That's pooing in the two places you mustn't poop in the bathroom. Yeah, I just waved that through because of the way he'd written it. Like, yeah, great. It's maybe a step up from down the shaving mirror, I'd say. That's right. It's slightly better than down the shaving mirror and onto the soap, but still. Yes. As it matured, it became singly attached to my mom. Mom. There we go. That's

the clincher. It adopted a threatening posture with the rest of us, bobbing its head up and down. For about the last year of its life, everyone except my mom just used the other bathroom. So it took over the bathrooms, actually. I'm not surprised with all that poop in the bath and think people stopped using it. Then Jack writes, she decided to put it down. I don't remember her rationale exactly. It may have started climbing her and biting her. Jack. That really took a turn at the end of that story. So that's it from us today. And actually, we're going to have a little hiatus. It's the end of season one. Season one of the beans is over.

It's the end of season two. Now, it's the end of season one. So with season two, we were thinking of doing like the wire and it's all going to have a kind of shipping feel. Also, does that mean that we're going to recast the whole thing? Yeah. So we'll be recasting all three beans and the whole thing will be recorded from a large industrial sort of seaport from inside. We're trying to get an industrial container to do it from inside an industrial container as possible. So you'll have a nice different kind of ambience. We'll keep a couple of peripheral characters. Bluebell will probably still be in it, for example. Bluebell will still feature. Pan will get referenced. There'll still be a

pompadou section. But Mike will be Paul Giamatti. That's right. Mike will be Paul Giamatti. Ben will be played by Tilda Swinton. Correct. Yeah. And Henry will be portrayed by Sir Ben Kingsley. Okay. And Sir Ben Kingsley is absolutely chomping at the bit. He's said he just died for an opportunity like this. So he's very much first name on the team sheet. He's signed up. I think he's commented the majority of the budget as well from what I'm hearing. So Swinton's basically doing it for free, I think. And Giamatti's just happy to be involved. Yeah. So look out for that. It'll be a few weeks away. So yeah, how long are we going to be off? This is a big pompadou. And now it's time for pompadou section.

The pompadou section is named after the pompadou center, which is a tourist attraction in central Paris. The pompadou center has transparent tubes, which means you can see wires to sign elements of the working for the building. And that's why we named this section off the pompadou center, because this is a section where we analyze the show itself and therefore look at the metaphorical wires and the most metaphorical air conditioning systems within the metaphorical tubes of the podcast. This is a big pompadou. I suspect there's going to be more than a couple of weeks, probably around a few weeks. It might be several weeks. It's unlikely to be more. That's crystal clear, Mike. How does that sound?

Put it this way, we're not going to darken July with our nonsense. I don't think. Well, we don't know. What's the date today? It's kind of the end of June, isn't it? Yeah, we don't know. We just don't know. We don't know. Don't worry about it too much, but we'll be back soon. We'll be back. We'll be back soon. We'll let you know. For sure. And in the meantime, thank you very much for listening. Yes, I've enjoyed series one, I have to say. It's been brilliant immensely. So that's the thing. Maybe that's the thing we should point out. We are taking a brief break,

but we are coming back because we've really enjoyed doing it. And thank you very much for all your correspondence and support and listens and whatnot. And there's been word spreading, a foot that's become apparent to us, for which we're very grateful. So tar, tar one and all. And if you have thoughts and things you want us to discuss, do still email them in and they'll just be ready waiting for us. Yeah, three bean salad pod at gmail.com. Until next time, tarar, tarar.