Three Bean Salad - Ratmas

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

To date the indisputable peak of human scientific endeavour has been managing to hide a bonus track on a CD. The natural next summit is to hide a bonus door on an advent calendar. Will we see this achieved in our lifetime? Unlikely. Therefore please console yourselves with this bonus episode of Three Bean Salad, not hidden but visible and available to all. This episode is exclusively dedicated to the extraordinary response to the request for rat based anecdotes. Know then that it is not for the faint hearted or musophobic. Remember that rat stories tend not to have happy endings, morals or transferable learning points for the under 12s. Merry Ratmas!Join our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansaladMerch now available here: www.threebeansaladshop.comGet in touch: [e-mail] @beansaladpod

Ho ho ho! Merry Ratmas! Merry Ratmas one and all! Has Father Ratmas been? Boy, what day is this? Why, it's Ratmas! At Ratmas time, we think about rats and we cherish rats Cause in a world of rats, you can put your hands around a rat Squeeze a rat tonight, it's Ratmas time

Thousands of rats, then drive over another rat If you kill a rat, three rats sprout out of its severed neck cavity. There's a rat outside your window. It definitely will eventually get in as you can't out think the rats. Welcome to Ratmas one and all. Welcome to Ratmas. You've enjoyed Christmas? That was fine. Of course it was fine.

Yeah. But now it's time for the real celebration of the year. Yeah. The other side of the coin. Which is? The other side of a chocolate coin. Yeah. The other side of the coin, which is out of a chocolate coin. Partially chewed chocolate coin. Cause there isn't, there isn't just a jolly, a jolly bearded man going up and down your chimney at Christmas.

Is there, there's hundreds of rats down your chimney, down all your pipes. Yeah. Every single chimney, every single time. It's a Harley jolly ratmas. it's a Ratmas Ratmas time. For me I sort of think that it won't get old to me changing the songs of Christmas songs from Christmas to Ratmas. I could do an hour of that. I'm dreaming of a white rat on Ratmas, because white rats have the highest social status

amongst the rats. There'll be no rats with little pink eyes. They're freaky, freaky little rats. And there's shit in your air fryer. You know what? It wasn't a rat, but I think it was a mouse, but I once made a terrible discovery once. Now, I have to take you back to the Barons Court days. Yeah, okay. Yeah. They didn't count as infestations. They were non

paying. They were just part of the system. So pictures in open bin. Now, we've previously talked just to explain if people haven't heard that recently, you lived in a flat where you had an open bin policy, you had a bin policy, instead of having the flappy top, you took that off. So it was easy to throw tea bags in. And more hygienic because nothing because grime couldn't

adhere to the lid if there is no lid. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we also had a bathroom with constantly wet dripping, slowly dripping paint gathering like like stained glass windows gather over centuries, you know, get get sort of faster at the bottom, get faster at the bottom. That was happening with the walls. But something I haven't talked about it think was, or maybe I have was the time when I went into the kitchen in the morning one day and was presented with kind of weird like sort of locked door, sort of pro-ro mystery, which was there was, there was a loaf of bread, which had been left out again for hygiene reasons. Uh, it was cleaner outside of the fridge. Also don't fridge your fridge, your bread, you don't, you don't fridge your bread. You don't you don't fridge your bread do you? Very rare.

You just nail it to the wall. So it's out of the, out of the reach of all, but the very, very tallest of the rats obviously have to pay the tall rats their tithe otherwise they'll drink your contact lens fluid. So, so yeah, so, so there's a loaf of bread out but but but next set so but basically the loaf of bread looked like the equivalent of a

You know, I'm you know packet of biscuits if you take all the biscuits out Reinflate the packet. Hmm. Leave it on a sideboard, you've got an excellent pre internet sort of bit of entertainment when a friend comes in and thinks the biscuits are full. Yeah, you know that one? Sure. Yeah, it's good clean. Analog fun. Nowadays, of course, you just do a TikTok of something to the biscuits, don't you instead? Yeah. Presumably just vapor biscuit on TikTok. Yeah. It's probably like a special Japanese illustrated biscuit with cool with like really cute looking eyes on. Dancers around singing a song that you don't understand. We've been on TikTok. I think you've imagined a much better thing

than that actually is. I know TikTok is actually families isn't it in a it? In a kitchen dancing, they go do-do-do-do and they click their hands and they're all wearing swimwear and they dance more. And then they're all wearing sort of matching pyjamas and stuff. Yeah, yeah, but that's TikTok isn't it? I think so. I'm not on it, but. Email in, let us know what it is. Anyway, so it's like someone done that thing with the biscuits with bread so essentially all of the bread was out, it was just the crust. Essentially. And it

was like a quite a squared off loaf. So you're looking for a wrap with straight hair. Why would that be the case? Because the crusts keep your curls, don't they? They get curly if you eat crusts. Oh, good point. Yes. Mike, you know that I don't have any hair related wisdom. I've never stored it because it's not. That's just a little side job, isn't it? That was just a little veiled dig at me for being bald man, wasn't it? I'm just saying if you were to spot a rat with a lovely luscious bouncy curls, you know

that's not your culprit. That's not my culprit. Um, but is there any other sort of hair, hair law and wisdom you'd like to share in front of me perhaps about how rubbing lime into your head makes you. That was your first mistake. That is the main 20s. I was, I was going for a Shane Warren beach effect. And then I just added Creosote which made it worse.

Tried to take the whole thing off with a builder's wrench. Just took off the top layer of skin. I had to have a skin transplant. And the pebble dashing really finished you off. By then it was too late. You wouldn't have been able to do that. It was too late. And that sounds pretty traumatic, Henry. Although what they left you behind with is the perfect bread bowl to fill it with meat and eggs, whatever.

Yeah, lovely. That's true. Or a vase, a vase for the naturally occurring flora in the Barrens Court flat. Exactly. Or a bread vase, but for once a vase which mirrors the ephemeral beauty of a flower, because it eventually goes off, goes... Doesn't last forever. That's part of the beauty of flowers, isn't it? Yes, I've never seen a loaf of wilt. It's not often you see that. But no, so it was more surreal than that. So it was the empty loaf, still squared off. This was before rough hewn sourdoughs were trendy. It was very much your breads were, you could measure them with a... It was a breeze block. It was a breeze block of bread. It was like an ancient construction unit. Exactly. You could absolutely stack them you could build a solid, you know, with the right angles,

you could without even needing any creosote, you could build a functioning bridge, couldn't you, that would sustain two or three chariots. Wasn't it? You know, there's old bridges that don't have any creosote on. So anyway, yeah, so the next, so yeah, it was, it was in the days of really, really square bread. Um, and next to it, but next to it was a pile, a huge pile of breadcrumbs. It was just the most surreal. It was like a really horrifying site.

Cause it was so weird. So the huge pile, like a pyramid of breadcrumbs and an empty bread. Vars on its side, pure crust. So the most delicate, you know, loaf of bread you can imagine with no innards, just the outside, just the skin, maintaining its shape and this huge... Was there a trail of breadcrumbs? Was there anything to... There was no clue. You didn't find yourself following the trail into the space between the walls and into the rat kingdom.

Thank God I didn't because that was what they were trying to get me to do. It was a trap. Although I would be king of the rats now, so to be fair, it swings in roundabouts. Do you know what I mean? I wouldn't be podding. I would have 58 eminently horrific wives. You know, over a hundred thousand children. So this time, yeah, this time of year would be a nightmare. Are you sure it was rats and not some sort of conceptual artist? Well, he's talking about my flatmate at the time. I wouldn't put it past him. I mean, it was a creative flat.

It was one of those flats where none of us were earning any money. We were all being creative. I mean it was a creative flat, it was one of those flats where none of us were earning any money, we were all being creative. Oh it was Boho. Oh yeah, it was like sort of 1910s Montmartre. It really was, it was absolutely fermenting creativity. And tuberculosis. From the open bin. Um, so I actually, to be, to be fair, I think it may, it was probably,

I think it was probably mice. I think that's something. And I think what happened was a mouse had done much more than my childhood gerbil used to do, which was to burrow and make itself a home in the bread. I think that's what like gerbils and hamsters do do some stuff. So I think it was a mouse had had essentially tried to move into the loaf of bread. Because, you know, certainly in London, location, location, location, location, location, isn't it? I mean, that loaf of bread was actually probably described as an edible open plan studio. Studio apartment. Yeah. I know this is slightly off topic and I know this is Ratmas.

I wish it could be Ratmas every day. Feliz Navidad.'s Navi Rat. I'm going to wishing you a merry rat. Feli's Navi Rat has crept up on me over the last 10 years as I think possibly my favourite Christmas one. It's one of my absolute faves. It's crept up I think on Britain. I think it was big 10 years ago. No. No.

Is this Spanish soft power at work? I think it's American soft power. Is it? Yeah, I think so. Interesting. I just was going to butt in and say, we had an email Mike on the topic of burrowing animals. Oh yeah. Can you pass this on to Bob and Ruth, your next door neighbours? Certainly. Someone else had a tortoise that were missing. Yeah. It had burrowed under the earth again. You

told me that one. No, this is a different one. Really? So someone said that they were spading the ground and the spade hit the tortoise, which sounds a bit violent. They said what you can do is get the other end of a broom, the handle end of a broom, and just gently poke it into the ground. Looking for resistance, the kind of resistance that might be provided by a tortoise. Oh, that's fine, because I often play sort of minefield search anyway, so I can just incorporate that. Yeah. It's a bit like identifying a witch in medieval times, isn't it?

It's like, yes, I found this. I found an extortus. That's why they said gently, just gently, but yeah, brooms the ground. Yeah. Okay. Probe for the tortoise. By the way, I met it. I taught, I met a tortoise owner the other day and discussed eggs case.

Yes. And, um, and they, they did confirm that tortoises, you know, their tortoise goes missing all the time for quite extended periods and it's generally buried itself in something she also says, and which confirm what you said, Mike, which is a surprisingly good, good climbers. That begs the question, how surprisingly? It's pretty surprising. Well, it depends. The bar is lower. Exactly, yeah. But they're not like Dracula going up the building. Have we talked about that? It's not quite, yeah, you mentioned that. It's not quite, yeah, I don't think it's quite the full skitter. It's not full skitter. They don't have the

accoutrement of your sort of human climber. I've never seen a sort of little tiny bank of chalk. A bank of chalk, bits of rope. And where possible they will use the cable car. Have yourself a merry little ratmas. Full of yuletide claws. So, um. Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rat. Nice. Thank you. I saw mommy kissing a rat.

Underneath a hollowed out loaf of bread. I hope you've all remembered to leave a loaf of square bread out for the rack. It's not just for the Xanthra and the reindeer, is it? For the gravity-defying flying rats of Christmas. Also bury some lettuce in your garden in case there's a lost hungry, hungry, hungry tortoise on the on the on the list. Deck the halls with scores of rat traps. Good King Ratless last looked out on a load of rats.

good king ratless last looked out on a load of rats. I know that this feels like probably like a very unoriginal comment. But wouldn't it be worth I've always thought this like if you had children and Mike, it might be too late for you to deploy this. I've always thought train one of them to be a goalkeeper. Anyone can fucking do it. You've mentioned this so many times. Really easy. He paid loads of money you're very you're very much a sort of single party single issue party I know I would say this is your thing this is your soapbox it's my soapbox and also you can literally pick up the ball the one the one thing that's hard about football you

can you literally can pick it up it's ridiculous okay so that and it's really well paid if you make it big. But the other one is, I wonder if you should also get a second, if you've got a second child, get them on writing a Christmas song. Because again, even if, if all you thought about all the time, 10 years, 20 is 30 years of your life, 35 years, 40, surely eventually you would probably would hit gold and you'd have to borrow a lot of money to survive up until that point. You have to work, everything's on credit though. Yeah, it's a hard sell to the bank manager, isn't it? It is a bit of a... I'm so close, I'm so close! Probably on the list of things they have stuck on the post-it by the laptop to automatic no

to, isn't it? Christmas song author. And you hand onto the next person when they take over your job, you go, by the way, this, this has saved me so much time. I wish I'd had this from the start. These post-its. You will get scores of people coming in every day. Anyone says Christmas songs. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, other post-its are, um, if they're asking for money to, to make a cafe where you can also do pottery in it. That's a pie in the sky. Also, the pizza restaurant idea which happened in, I sure may have talked about it before, which happened in Chiswick, which didn't last very long, which was the pizza restaurant where just the crusts. No, no, it wasn't.

Yeah, to make your hair all curly or not curly or something that I wouldn't understand. No, it was something to do with you made the pizza there, you made it, then you took it home. Then you took it home to yourself. Maybe you cooked it yourself at home, but you made it there or something. It was such a weird idea. I still can't really get my head around. Does that make any sense? Have you got mixed up with getting a job at Asda behind the pizza counter? What, stealing my pizzas? No, I've never got that wrong. I'll come back to that. Anyway, Ratmas is not about our rat stories.

No. It's about your rat stories. Oh no, that was it. Sorry. This restaurant. Anyway, Ratmas is not about our rat stories. No. It's about your rat stories. Oh no, that was it. Sorry. This restaurant.

That was, for me though, that was a really lovely bit of, let's get on with that business. It's a lovely little sequence. Absolutely. Absolutely crapped on. Sorry, Ben. What it was was they delivered the pizza to you and you cooked it in your oven at home. So the idea was it was hot. Like, like, but obviously your oven is just a shit oven. It's not a pizza oven. So you'd be just making a quite

low quality pizza at home. But it's amazing to think, isn't it? Those people that try and when, when was the last time that a shop or a restaurant changed the concept of something and it worked? Does that happen? Or is it slow evolution? Do you think these things? Yeah, what was the last revolution? Well, weirdly, yo sushi, which felt very exciting to me when it had the conveyor belts and stuff. Yeah, they've stopped doing that. No, it's just a normal restaurant. Yeah, take the taking away all the conveyor belts. But also try getting good night sleep on those

your hotels because you just you're steaming around the night sleep on those hotels because you just you're steaming around the reception or the toilets. Oh, it's really knackering. They do have you. I'm saying because they do have your hotels, don't they? They do. Yeah. Anyway, ratmas isn't about our rat stories. Ratmas isn't about our rat stories. It's about your rat story. Isn't it? Um, yeah, good, good, good.

Mike, do you have a 10 second rat story from your life so we can all throw in a rat story Henry's put in the, um, the low very recent one. Okay. Yeah, here we go. It's not much of a story. Um, uh, Pam, like many dogs likes to sort of occasionally roll in things, yeah, it's not much of a story. Pam, like many dogs, likes to sort of occasionally roll in things, usually gross things, you know, a bit of fox pee, cow pat, that kind of thing. Lovely. And we've had a lot of heavy weather recently down by the floodplain.

And she was having a real good rummage on something. And she she scampered away from it what she was having a rod was a was a quite flat dead very large rat water rat belly up Wow Oh facing a state of absolute anguish oh and so she's a rolling pin making a hideous hid preparing the absolute business right in the backgrub for Pam. They do flatten though rats. They say we like that. It's very flat. Flatten out really. They pancake. Lifetime after that. Yeah. And it's a great revenge option isn't it on a foe as a

you stick a rat amongst a stack of ordinary American style pancakes you stick a rat in there. Yeah. And it's a good. It's like 20p in the Christmas pudding. Yeah, exactly. The other way around. Yeah.

My rat story, I've not had a recent one. When I was a child, I got a very vivid memory of our next door neighbor, Frank, coming around and knocking on the door, quite fretless and frenzied, saying to my mother, I've just seen a, it's your garage. I've just seen a beaver in your garage. That's the wrong emotional response. Where shouldn't it be like, I've just seen a beaver in your garage. That's how I'd say it. Although that's before beavers were reintroduced into Britain. Exactly.

So that would have been, he would have thought it's a spy, a spy beaver. A Russian spy beaver. The Russians are coming. I thought, my God. They've trained beavers. Yeah. They'll stop at nothing.

Yeah. And he, yeah, he thought he'd seen a beaver creeping into a garage when in fact it of course was a rat. Oh, but that gives you a sense of the scale of the thing. Exactly. Yeah. Oh. And the scale of the thing. Exactly. Yeah. Oh. And the scale of the nashers as well.

The scale of it. I've just seen someone who must be on his way to a Star Wars cosplay, there's Chewbacca in here. Oh my. Blimey now. I've just seen someone driving a hairy Hyundai, I turn into you Garret. What? No, hang on.

Hyundai's don't have tails. Anyway, Ratmas isn't about our rat stories. It's so true. It's not, is it? Ratmas is about your rat stories. Yeah. Now, before we start, I've been looking through the emails. A friend of mine, Michael, said he was going to send in his rat story. Yeah.

Told me, give me a preview of it. It was good. He's not centered in. Well, you know what? I think we have got a rat story there about a rat called Michael. Why exactly? Yeah. Rats have tails. Some of them are just gits. I'll probably see it. Was on the dating scene. Met a young lady, got on really well. Went back to her flat, it was horrible, like really messy and dirty and grim. There's always a catch. Open bin? Probably an open bin. Hang on a second.

Hang on a moment. Hang on. Did he have such a bad time with me that in the middle of the night he went out into the kitchen and tried to move into a loaf of bread? Tried to escape into a loaf of bread. They conducted sexual congress, after which he removed the prophylactic. It was put to one side and moments later he was watching a rat eat his issue. Oh, Ben, you're couching that in such nice neutral language. You really, you made, you almost made me relax.

I'm sorry, everyone. You came in hard. Oh yeah. It's the most wonderful rat of the year. Holy shit. Okay. Let's move on to actual email. This is from Miguel.

Miquel. M-I-Q-U-E-L. Yeah. Miguel? Miguel. Thanks, Miguel. Who said he's sending it from Rat City. Ah. Well, that's any city in the world and every city, isn't it? Lots of people would lay claim to that. Yeah. Rats know no borders, really, do they?

So this is a story about his wife. She moved back with a roommate to Chicago, the rat's capital of America. That's interesting, the rat capital is not always the same as the legislative capital. As a financial capital. Often it is, but often it is. It's kind of quite confusing. They lived in a house off an alley. Off an alley? Okay, sounds scary.

One day they noticed a rat in the house and freaked out, so they called the landlord, who found the hole through which the rat had come in and covered it with a metal plate. Problem solved. Except my now wife came back home to learn that the landlord had blocked the rat in the house rather than out of the house. Can I say that is always a problem with pest control, with the concept of pest control. I've had pest controllers come around and do that and talk about blocking things out. And it's like, it's fine.

Unless it's inside, in which case you're now living with a rat for the rest of your life. Like with a rat, the rat has to become part of your social clan. You know? So like, yeah, because what are the chances that it's in or out at any one time? You know, say like, yeah, because what are the chances that it's in or out at any one time? Also, as we've discussed before, they can get through any crack. Sides of a pencil. Sides of a pencil. In a show of valor, she ran out to the back door. Her roommate came back and checked everywhere for

the rat. It was nowhere to be found. After very careful inspection, he concluded that the rat must have run out through the back door, which my now wife had left open during her strategic retreat. So he grabs his stuff and hops on the bus to work. Problem solved. Things are good, the rat is gone. Nice music is playing during his commute. He's tapping his foot along to it, backpack on his lap. Except the song ends, the tapping stops, and the backpack is still bouncing on his lap. He's found the rat. What?

It's in his rucksack on the way to work? Yes! Fuck bloody hell! He's got a rat sack! He's got a rat sack! I did not see that coming. That is a brilliant switcheroo reversal. It's a lovely bit of storytelling.

Bloody hell, that's a good bit of storytelling. Does it end there? There's an epilogue. Okay. Epilogue. He ran into a rat. He ran into a rat. He ran into a rat. He ran intoilogue. Okay. Epilogue. He ran out of the bus at the next stop, unzipped the backpack and threw it as far as he could. And yeah. The rat then

scurried out of the backpack onto the street where it was flattened by that same bus. then scowied out of the backpack onto the street where it was flattened by that same bus. That's very tidy, isn't it? On the first day of ratmas my true love sent to me a rucksack bouncing on my knee. This is from Isaac and it is entitled Provincial Dad Rat Story. Dear Beans, your most recent episode on the Netherlands put out ah your most recent episode on the Netherlands put out a request. Not as easy as it looks as it might. Yeah. You have to add the missing words and things. Dear Beans, your most recent episode on the Netherlands put out a request for horror rat content.

This was rather brave. As a long time listener, I had to write. Just this week I had a rat incident. As a proud provincial dad, I am also a proud poultry breeder. I had a broody hen sitting on duck eggs, but only one managed to hatch, sadly. Sitting on duck eggs? What sort of sick place places this guy running? It'll be a duck hen, Ben. It'll be a duck hen.

Is it? I'm assuming it's a duck hen. He's provincial, so needs must, you know, in the provinces. However, the ugly duckling was doing quite well for a week until one night its mum decided to roost rather than sit on the ground on top of her for protection. Sadly, the small duckling was then exposed vulnerable. A sitting duck. She was certainly no match for the family of rats that were living next door. As this is Australia, our rats are of course more vicious, clever and generally lethal than their European cousins. The next morning I found my poor darling duckling's feet at the entry to the rat hole. That was all they had left of her.

As a provincial dad, I had no other option than to start a full military campaign. I camped out at the coop for the next few nights in the rain and shot every rat I saw. All the best, Isaac. What an Australian story that is. That feels very Russell Crowe somehow. Because he'd have shot those rats and no one would have been able to hear the gunshot because he'll live 6,000 miles from anyone else. We deal with things ourselves out here.

You understand? Wearing those feet around his neck on a necklace. With all the other feet, croc feet. Ostrich feet. With the crocodile pet that was eaten by rats. Yeah, exactly. He could do that. By the way, little tip, he maybe didn't realise this,

those duck feet, you just plant them in a little bit of soil, normal soil, a bit of water, give them a bit of light. And they'll grow into or grow other duck feet off them and they'll become just a senti duck. They'll become senti ducks. Yeah, ducky peed. They'll become a ducky peed. Australia, they can't they can't just use water for these little projects. It's like it's like June, right? That's true. Water is life. That's true. they need water to make lager henry yeah on the second day of ratmas my true love sent

to me two duckling feet and a rucksack bouncing on my knee a space rat came traveling on a ship from afar. Constantly pissing, following a star. And I said rat. Ah, dearest beans, you recently asked for people's rat stories. I used to be a network engineer. I was called out to a site where the entire network had gone down. Not narrowing down any day. Especially how it's supposed to help specify what happens mate, not just me. It's quite good. It's half-hearted. Yeah.

I was called out to a site where the entire network had gone down. Sorry. To gain access to the area in question, I had to take the lid off a chamber and lower myself down into it. It was just above head height deep. Okay, I don't really like spiders. So I was quite on edge. I took the four screws out of a blanking panel on the on the wall. At about chest height. As I pulled the panel off, I estimate between 75 and 100 rats poured out of the

ducting and hit me in the chest and face. I think we found our network problem. Wow. Can I say one of the many horrifying things about rats is they are their ability to pour the liquid makes they are they are liquid. They are basically liquid on me. Scientifically we will fill a container container and scientifically there's no actual way of distinguishing between a rat and a liquid. It is a liquid scientists can't there's no they behave they're exactly the same as a liquid hence getting through a pen hence getting through a pen exactly they can fit into any space they'll pour out of things or pull out pour out of teapots or they'll splash they'll boil anything which pours must also splash

and pour so they'll pull up but they would have poured onto his face and splashed off. They can create waves, you can actually surf rats. In theory, you can get a puddle of them. My first instinct was to screen out as exact I'd say the next thought he had is exactly thought I had. But I thought if I did, they might go into my mouth. They totally would do. So I just stood there as still as I could waist deep in rats. Luckily, a colleague saw what happened and lifted me out. Love the podcast poll. Lovely stuff. That's extraordinary. Well done, Paul. That's really, really good.

On the third day of Ratmas, my true love sent to me a hundred pouring rats, two duckling feet and a rucksack bouncing on my knee. Next day of Ratmas. This is a long one. It's Karen from Dublin. Love the pod. Hope you guys have some plans to come to Ireland eventually. Okay, firstly, can I start by saying how absolutely thrilled I am to finally have a space to share this rancid, vomit-inducing story. When I've told this story to friends and family in the past, it hasn't been well received. Well, you're talking to the right people. We know about that. We know how that feels.

This story encapsulates the most bittersweet moment of my life. Cranky. Great setup. Yeah. I'm currently writing this email on the train to work. Thankfully, I'm now working in a more sane environment than I was back when this incident took place. My rat story begins 10 years ago when I had just finished college. I got a job as a project manager in an engineering company in Dublin, which shall remain nameless.

The owner of this company was one of the most bizarre and horrific individuals I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. Imagine an alcoholic sexually inappropriate heaving mound of existence. I just have to look at the two people in front of me. Let's just take my pick, which one do I go for? Of course, he was filthy rich. But what ran parallel to this was his outright refusal to spend a penny on maintenance for our offices. Something was always broken or leaking or making a suspicious noise. Over the course of a few weeks a stain had started to develop on the false ceiling, approximately six foot from my desk. This wasn't at all surprising as the building was pretty much in ruins from neglect. However, day by day the stain was

progressively getting larger and darker in colour. One day in passing I mentioned this to our boss and he said he might want to get it checked out. Then, in his true Scrooge-like fashion, he went to the workshop next door to retrieve a ladder. Why would he pay someone to look at the problem when he could just do it himself? He returned back with the ladder, climbed up, and began lifting the false ceiling tiles. He got two tiles in before… splat! A huge dead rat fell from the ceiling, hitting our boss on the shoulder first and then splatting all over the ground like a water balloon of guts. People began retching in disgust and running out of the office. I had no idea the range of liquid rat splatter could be so great, but it was everywhere.

Our boss was paralysed in disgust for a few moments, but then snapped out of it and screamed at one of the lads I worked with to clean up the mess. It was truly horrendous to witness, but I'd relive it every day again just to see that perverted fuck covered in rancid, liquified rat cadaver. That is superb. Oh, Clarence, that was magnificent. So a bit of cosmic justice there delivered by rat. I like that. And also the story, which is often so often the case in rat stories and why they're all there's such why every great national, you know, every great storytelling

culture has its rap, rap myths. Because who's the actual rat? Yes. Lovely. And with the I enjoyed the sort of heralded itself a bit, didn't there? There was that was that was rat death seep. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a nice sinister horror film. Like the creeping the creeping darkness. What is the creeping darkness? It was a very, very well structured story. I've got to say like that was superbly well

told because it started with her on the train. You know, the, the, the narrative had a kind of framing device, a framing device. And, um, it's like at the beginning of a Disney film with an old book opens up and it's once upon a time. So she was sat on that train or in Titanic. Cause the 85 year old lady taking a trip on the Titanic. That's right. Similar thing. Yeah.

And, um, or at the beginning of it's wonderful life, although they didn't always keep this bit in, but, um, there's a dead rat in a sewer and the camera flies up his ass. And that's where the whole story actually takes place. It's all about microbiomes. It's all about little microbiotic, a lot of creatures, um, living on harats. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. So yeah, brilliant. Sorry. They're Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, so yeah, brilliant. Sorry. I mean, yeah, she's the, yeah, she's, she's, she's our, she's our Joyce. She's got a Udysseys that people are actually interested in finishing. Yes, exactly. And it's, and it's more, much more manageable length for a novel, which is about two, two chunky paragraphs and then a lot of dedications. But also quite often in a story like that when you cut back at the end to the storyteller who sat on the train on the way to

work, you then get a little additional reveal which is she's got a ring on her finger. The ring is made out of rat cartilage. She's married to a ginormous rat and it's sat next to her and they're on their way to work together. They work together as well. It's quite nice. Because when you get married to someone you tend to get a ring made out of that cartilage. And get a job together. job together. On the fourth day of Ratmas my true love sent to me a large ceiling stain a hundred pouring rats two duckling feet and a rucksack bouncing on my knee. Mike you've got another one I think. Oh great. For our fifth day of Ratmas. It's the most wonderful rat of the year. We've had that one. We're running low now.

Chris, are there any new ones? I haven't done. It's beginning to look a lot like ratmas. There's fetid feces in the street. People puking on their feet. It was Rasmus Eve, babe. And then YPG rats. Okay.

Ooh, this is a double. Oh, is it? Double ratmas. That's what he says. So this is from Sam, entitled Tortoise-Rat-Mélange. Sorry, I've double-anacdoted here. Combining the cycling over an animal and misplaced tortoise themes. Fair enough. As a teenager, I was mountain biking in the Pyrenees and got ready to get some pretty

sick air off a mound in the trail when I realised that it had legs. I managed to slam on the brakes and avoided a collision but my brother was behind and not expecting it so he went over the handlebars and ended up in a bush win-win. Oh and on a separate rat topic we had a school science open day where the biology department A-level students did rat dissections to show off the fact that we had access to all the scientific advances of the 16th century. The teachers had bought a job lot of rats from somewhere and they arrived the night before frozen into an enormous block.

One of the technicians took the block home and defrosted it in a warm bath. So the next day we arrived to a huge amount of lukewarm, decomposing rat consomme. We had to spend the whole day cutting up the festering croutons. If you are going to batch freeze rats, a little bit of advice, because it can be like when you freeze sliced bread, you know, the bits of bread get... They'd hear. They'd hear. So once you take them out of the freezer, get get a chisel or a bread knife on those rats quickly and you bat you bash them

they'll pop off they'll pop out of each other's you know, they'll pop apart from each other quite easily. If you let them just defrost a little bit become soft and claggy. And it's much harder to separate them. You'll be dealing with a sort of Yeah, a semi defrosted mega rat. Yeah, which isn't good. Long time listener, first time emailer, but your request for Rattails brought to mind a horrifying incident that took place this autumn. This Rattail starts with a lovely walk with friends and our 12 month old son around Alexandra Palace, Boating lake in London town. In a voice situation we might do another

take on that but I think we can crack on. Yeah, Alexandra Palace boating lake in London. At the time our son was taking his first steps it really was a magical time and one that usually meant pretty slow progress on foot As we walk around the lake we stopped to admire the ducks mingling among the pigeons as they Harmoniously wandered around in piles of Canadian goose shit They all seem to be having a fantastic time suddenly out of nowhere appeared a rat the size of a pug The ducks bailed immediately seeking the refuge and perspective provided by the shallows of the lake and luxury not afforded the pigeons. The rat pug circled the pigeons. I mean, they have a flying option, but anyway, the rat pug, the rat pug circled the pigeons picking his prey he set about separating one from the

group then he pounced straight for the jugular. Rat pug wrestled it to the ground the pigeon flapping hopelessly whilst all its little pigeon friends initially watched on in horror then having decided he was too far gone simply resigned to his fate and they continued to peck away at the piles of goose shit. It took two maybe three minutes for the rat to finish the job. Once he'd simply and they stood there watching us all for three minutes with their 12 month old son. And that's how serial killers are made. So it took two minutes. Yeah. Once he had, he simply walked through the pigeon crowd like Moses across the Red Sea and back into the bushes. We'll never know why the pigeons didn't fly away faced with this horror or why you and your family didn't walk away.

Basically, him and the pigeons are basically all in the same sort of mindset, weren't they? They were just sort of rubbernecking. We'll never know why 30 or so pigeons chose to leave one of their own to this fate. What we do know is that this is yet further evidence of the depraved and soulless nature of the rat killing for fun, a rat amongst the pigeons. My son found the whole affair exciting and amusing in equal measure. It's a lovely age, isn't it? Perhaps something a future therapist can pick up with him. My wife and our friends have not been able to look each other in the eye since. Once you've seen a rat-killer pigeon in front of an audience of pigeons, it changes you. It really does.

I'm not sure why we couldn't drag ourselves away from the whole incident either I assume we were enchanted by some sort of rat pug spell. I Also have a horrifying tale involving a chicken a fox and an axe that took place in rural southern France But I'll wait for the podcast to inevitably turn in that direction George from lower crouch end very nice nice George. Thank you George. He means archway. He absolutely means archway. Lower crouch end. No, actually to be fair to him he's written George from lower crouch end slash Tottenham,

so he's having a laugh. You know the Chicken and Fox and the Act, isn't that some sort of Aesop's fable he's throwing to us? riddle me this. Yeah, that's chicken, fox and grain isn't it? Okay, yeah. Yeah, the acts really simplifies that riddle. Basically nullifies it as riddles, isn't it? On the sixth day of Rats must my true love sent to me a dead pigeon a block of frozen rats,

A large ceiling stain, a hundred pouring rats, Two duckling feet, and a rucksack bouncing on my knee. My story is not quite a rat bursting out of a swan, but it did burn itself into my memory. I went to visit a local restaurant in Edgebaston, brackets Birmingham. I parked in the car park and was about to enter the pub when I saw a dead rat on the floor. I was put off the restaurant slightly, so my wife and I sat in the car park deciding where to go instead, when a herring gull flew in and picked up the rat in its beak. The gull tried to swallow the rat down in one,

head first, but it kept getting stuck on the back end of the rat and having to cough the rat back up. We watched it try this a few times and then went to Pizza Express. Regards, Matt. Thank you, Matt. That's a very, I really like that. That's short and sweet and also there's an important element of the rat story where they are, they engrossing these horrors are deeply engrossing they really are at least that he dad at least that he dad can't take your eyes off that and I understand that you want to yeah you want to see the end of that story there's something mesmerizing isn't it about but it's nice that that was the case where nature sorted

itself out didn't it it was that the her gull, which I assume is some sort of flying herring, right? Which I've never seen. But also nature tickets cost by the couple eventually going to Pizza Express. That is kind of... Yes, exactly. All is right with the world. All is right with the world. Which is a happy ending.

If you're a storyteller yourself and you're looking for a happy ending to a story, that's just one of the easiest ways to do it. Pizza Express. Yeah. And it's also everyone's going back to their natural habitat, isn't it? The herring, the herring, the herring, the herring, the herring, the herring girls going back to the ocean with the rat, everyone's in a natural habitat doing what they want to do.

They have a long way to go, hasn't it? What they were born to do. Fair play to it. Yeah. On the seventh day of Rats Must my true love sent to me A herring girl A dead pigeon A block of frozen rats A large ceiling stain A hundred pouring rats Two duckling feet And a rucksack bouncing on my knee

This one is promisingly titled Garbage Shed Rat It's from Yucca from Helsinki Or Jucca from Helsinki So, hello! I too have a rat story Although only horrifying in the psychological sense Instead of the usual guts and viscera. Oh good, I like the sound of that.

More Hitchcock. Maybe sort of dark Scandi movie version, you know what I mean? Freshly broken up, I decided to move from the outskirts of Helsinki to Calio near the centre, a sort of Helsinki's Camden town. The hipster-infested artsy part of town seemed a fine place for a single young man to spend time recovering from heartbreak. Hipsters however weren't the only creature in Festincaleo. I discovered this when taking the first armload of moving-related garbage to the communal garbage shed.

Opening the door, I was greeted by a bluebell-sized rat regarding me at eye level perched upon the cardboard bin. I didn't panic. I knew rats to be apprehensive beasts, so I kicked a bin to send its scurrying on its way. The rat didn't move a muscle. Oh yeah, it calmly stared me down with a look of pure disdain in its beady eyes.

It was as if the rat knew I was alone in a new part of town, with my self-confidence at a post-breakup low. "'You should not have moved here," Deluxe seemed to say. Wow. For this is the city of the rat. I could not endure its rodential regard for long. Suffice it to say that the cardboard did not make it into the recycling that day, and for many days hence.

Yuka. That was great. I mean, the use of the word rodential was a real high point for me. Yeah. Is that even a word? I mean, it is now. It should be rodential. This is, um, I think Putin has a quite similar formative story. Yeah, he does, doesn't he? From his childhood in St. Peter's. Yeah. When he realized he was cornered by rats running around in a building and he realized that he- Stand down a mega rat. They had to kill them another job and then deny everything. Is that true that he had a face off some rats?

Yeah. It's got a story that he tells about. I think, yeah, and particularly facing off like a mega rat looking at looking in the eye. There's a moment of like a formative moment in his childhood worries. Yeah. Wow. It's one on one eyeballing a rat, your toe

to toe, toe to claw. I think it was a kill or be killed moment type thing, was it? Or was it two of them? I think oddly he doesn't come out, the story I heard, I don't think he comes out of it like necessarily too heroic. I think what he actually did is he befriended the rat, gave the rat quite a high ranking job and then eventually the rat just fell out of a window. That's how you dealt with it. It's quite terrifying isn't it there are moments where you're you face up to an animal and it doesn't back down are quite

terrifying. Yeah. So like, I mean, I mean, dog dogs can be absolutely terrifying. I think them generally they're lovely, obviously Pam's lovely. But when a dog, have you ever faced up to a dog when it starts showing its teeth and snarling him? Absolutely. It's a horrifying moment. So just the idea of that rat just standing its ground. I just actually had a similar thing with a cockroach. When I was on holiday in Thailand once, I am I went to the I went to have a shower. I was traveling. I went to this thing is hostile

I went down to have a shower. And there was this one cockroach that was just staring at me across the bathroom floor and I just sort of I just couldn't move I was terrified by it. And it was just staring each other out and eventually I ran past it when went into a shower. There's a bunch of shower cubicles. I was having a shower. And then I saw his little antenna coming, coming through. There's a hole in the top wall had kind of these holes in the in the bricks for it for me. And I saw his little antenna coming in, because he was following the light. So I jumped out of the shower went into the cubicle turn the light on a few seconds washing myself a few minutes later

says little little antenna coming in and I literally said to myself right so that's it I'm gonna have a shower staggered over these five cubicles up and down every time I go in the cubicle. Regardless of whether or not they're occupied. I'd and and just do it like that. And so I did it took so took me about half an hour to have a shower because every I just do a little bit further, you know, I'd soap up a nipple. I just thought this story maybe needed a bit of blue just to spice it up a bit. I go to the next cubicle. Maybe maybe maybe I'm in a different block. maybe I'm going to another one froth upper froth

upper a thigh. I mean, cover myself in the soap and then gradually wash it all off just cubicle by cubicle and this little this little cockroach following me each time. Rudolph the rat nose reindeer had a very shiny rat nose. On the eighth day of rats must my true love sent to me a rat that stared me down a herring girl, a dead pigeon, a block of frozen rats. A large ceiling stain, a hundred pouring rats, two duckling feet, and a rucksack bouncing on my knee. On the ninth day of ratmas my true love gave to me this anecdote about rats.

My dear beans, you asked for more stories about rats, so I shall recount to you a tale as old as the Pied Piper of Hamlin. An ex boyfriend of mine had a flatmate who was the embodiment of a stereotypical hippie. Picture Neil from the Young Ones, but with blonder long hair and a harrogate accent. Nice. Where's how I get it North? Yeah, Yorkshire. Northern one evening while sitting in their queue station side lodgings. What do I mean? Cute how he's been in queue.

They'd still take a w station. So one is in the place in London with a capital K. Yeah. One evening while sitting in their Q station side lodgings, my ex or a rat scuttle across the floor and run under for data protection. Let's call it Susan's bedroom door. He knocked on the door. No answer. Knocked again. Nothing. Fearing the fearsome Creaser had already overwhelmed Susan, he opened the door to find said Susan lying on his slash her futon, smoking a huge spliff while the rat sat contentedly on his chest inhaling. This is a new side of rat behavior I did not know about. Um, inhaling and I think we can safely assume smirking as it contemplated

burrowing inside Susan ready to burst out of his slash her chest later at a later date. Incidentally, this same X is a motorcyclist who subsequently accelerated too soon as the level crossing barriers were raising East Sheen station, getting a cycle helmet caught in the crosshairs as it were and began to be lifted off of his bike, his neck straining upwards before some benevolent pedestrians pulled him back to earth. Good Lord. My word.

Yours Gemma from Bremen. Well, that gives a whole new angle, doesn't it? To the rats, the idea that rats would chill out with the dupe, Well, that gives a whole new angle, doesn't it, to rats? The idea that rats would chill out with the dupe. Would chill out with some dupe. And maybe show a different side to themselves. I like it. On the ninth day of Ratsmas, my true love sent to me.

A bifida smoking rat, a rat that stared me down. A herring girl, a dead pigeon, a block of frozen rats, a large ceiling stain, a hundred pouring rats, two duckling feet, and a rucksack bouncing on my knee. A tenth day of ratmas, this is from Ben from Tamworth. Thank you Ben. Dear beans, after listening to your recent episode, I felt I must tell you about my dad's experience as a policeman in Birmingham in the late sixties.

Okay, great. Good historical rat story. He was called to a robbery as a meat processing plant. Yes. Which of course was Britain's main industry, wasn't it, in the sixties? Yeah, 80% of Birmingham was meat processing. Where a safe had been broken into. As he was being escorted through the cold storage, he saw a strange grey blur out of the corner of his eye. Amongst the frozen pig carcasses were rats that had adapted to the sub-zero temperatures by growing thick coats.

Of course they do, and by smoking doobies. This gave them the appearance of small cats, medium-sized rabbits or miniature dogs. All of those ideas are horrific in their own way. They certainly would have not have fitted down a biro. Amazing creatures keep up the lukewarm banter. Ben from Tamworth. Wow. Well, they're incredibly adaptable.

That's one of the things that's so frightening about rats, isn't it? They can adapt to so many different kinds of conditions. wrinkle a dead pigeon a block of frozen rats a large ceiling stain a hundred pouring rats two duckling feet and a rucksack bouncing on my knee okay this is from andy and is uh entitled horrific rat tail which i think is useful and useful for the listeners today and it's going to be horrific. Yeah. I don't think anything we've read out today hasn't been horrific. No, it's true. In fact, we should probably put in a retrospective trigger warning, shouldn't we?

Some of the stuff you have listened to will be about rats. Will be about rats. Will change you forever. Yeah. So if you're listening to this in the car with children. Turn around, they're no longer children. They're thousands of rats. They're thousands of rats.

Okay. So this is from Andy. Hi beans. I've got a story to rival the trauma of the rat bursting out of the swamp. When I was a cub, we had to take part in a St George's Day parade through the centre of town. As we walked past a pub, a putrid rat, riddled with maggots, fell off the pub roof and onto the shoulder of my friend. I dub thee Sir Rat. I'm sure this incident understandably changed him forever or marked him in some kind of rat-based prophecy.

Cheers, Andy. I think that a prophecy has taken place there. Yes. We want to know what's happened to this dear friend. There's no way that friend has forgotten that incident. No. It stays with you the feeling of it landing on your shoulder. It's a two part process and it hits and then it kind of folds over. Yeah. The maggots spray off. It's a bit of a spray. In fact, have you ever had someone drop a lasagna on you from height? Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking about. And obviously it's good luck, which, but that doesn't... Well, depending on the shoulder it hits. Depending on the shoulder, yeah. And depending on the consistency of the bolognese,

whether it's just pork or if it's pork and beef. Well, yeah, if it hits you on the left shoulder, you'll become the king of Pandua. Yes. Vegetarian lasagna. Yeah. In which case you'll simply be part of their kind of entourage. Yeah. And then right shoulder, you'll marry the ugliest princess in all of Piedmont.

And if it lands straight on your head and a bit of bechamel lands on your nose, you end up having to work in the ticket office of the London Dungeon. Where you'll fall in love with the first person you see. That's right. Guaranteed. Which a lot of the time is an effigy of a, it's a wax man administering a hang drawing and quartering, isn't it? To Shrek. Because London Dungeons of course is now sponsored by Shrek.

On the eleventh day of rat, must my true love sent to me? A rat on my shoulder, a sub-zero rat, a bifta smoking rat, a rat that set me down, a herring girl, a dead pigeon, a block And final day of Ratmas, the 12th day of Ratmas, will be delivered by Henry. Thank you to everyone for all of your ratty ears. We've not got through them all. I think we've probably read, I'd say about half, but there is simply not enough time in the day to get through all of the horrendous rat experiences that our listeners have had. Ratmas baby, deliver a little pain for me, for me, with an baby there's rats outside. I've got to go away.

There's also rats inside. Right, hi Beans, here is my rat story. Hi, who's it from? This is from Ruth in Stourbridge. Great. Hello, Ruth. This is one of those secondhand stories that has entered friendship group folklore. My friend once lived in a cul-de-sac in a semi-rural area near to some stables. He would often notice a band of local youths gathered outside his front door chanting and running about. One day they seemed particularly rowdy and when he looked out of the window he noticed

one kid with a sharpened stick upon which he'd impaled what looked like a dead rat. The boy was running around waving it in the other's faces to screams of horror and disgust. Absolute legend, can I just say. You, my friend, thought, how barbaric. And then he noticed a steaming pile of horse poo in the middle of the road. He thought he must have been mistaken and it wasn't a putrid rat the child was wielding, but just a bit of equine feces. But no, it was a rat. A rat that the child kept dipping in the shit before lunging at his friends. And hence the game shitty rat was born.

Harmless fun in the Worcestershire countryside. What a bucolic. Lovely bucolic image isn't it? Oh England. It's so lovely and it's so I'm almost Mike being going to rural weddings you must be almost bored the amount of times that that's the story of how they have a they met you know the program. Good old game of shitty rat.

And often yeah these the wedding breakfasts will end with it with a game of shitty rat. On the twelfth day of ratmas my true love sent to me? A shitty rat, a rat on my shoulder, a sub-zero rat, a bifta smoking rat, a rat that's dead me down, a herring gull, a dead pigeon, a block of frozen rats, a large ceiling stain, a hundred pouring rats, two duckling feet, and a rucksack bouncing on my knee. Christ.

Well, that was Ratmas. Thank you everyone for joining us for these Ratmas celebrations. Yes, Merry Ratmas one and all. Enjoy the rest of your Ratmas day. Yeah. Your Ratmas meal, your game of shitty rat with the family afterwards. Surrounded by your nearest and dearest rats. Yeah. rat with the family afterwards surrounded by your nearest and dearest rats. Yeah and um I hope Ratna Claus has brought you something nice, something unexpected, maybe part of breadcrumbs,

maybe some some small dry turds, maybe some wet turds, maybe vile disease. And uh yeah Mary Ratmas. Mary Ratmas everyone! Merry Ratmas!