Three Bean Salad - Slippers

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

WARNING: chunks of this episode are foul but that’s not the Beans’ fault. The blame squarely lies on the shoulders of Devonshire Megan who bade them discuss slippers. Thoughtfully they soften the blow by veering into Thai massage, ovine mince categorisation and how to tell if Mike is behind a serious crime.Get in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpodJoin our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansalad

We've sort of done our pre chat, but it's all stuff we could never have done is we've made the mistake of because we didn't know we do this, which is we've had a pre chat to the podcast because the podcast itself really was born out of the pre chats we used to do when we would be supposed to be writing together. We'd meet up, wouldn't we? Yeah. The difference would be we'd all be in the same room and you would be frantically eating chocolate buttons. Yeah. You specifically. Yeah. Michael would be eating a banana. I would be eating your chocolate buttons. You always offer your chocolate buttons. But the reason you did that, Mike, isn't is partly out of the fact that he's a nice person, but

also because he knows that if we eat something, he's not going to eat the whole bag. Yeah. Is that what it is? Is that part of the motivation? We were your restraint. I'm a finisher when it comes to food. So I suffer from a finishing syndrome. So if you buy a loaf of bread, you're getting through that entire loaf of bread in one sitting. So if I ushered you into a warehouse with 25,000 eggs in it and just locked the door. It's one of the reasons you have never seen me in a warehouse and I on strict doctors or doctors or doctors or doctors never to go into a warehouse or a barn. Silo. Silo. Any of those large storage units that we could keep listing all day? I've just got a thing which I've got to finish it. Is it because

you abhor waste or because you just want to finish the thing? Is it glassy or ethics, I suppose, is the question? Well, I don't know if it's either of those. I think it might be because one of the theories is because I'm the youngest of three brothers. But I've never really fully got on board with this. But there is a theory that... Do we need some sort of heart-rending sort of violin? Yeah. Yeah. Another moving story from his unspeakably difficult past. And the fact that he can still put one foot in front of the other is, frankly, about as heroic as it gets. So tell us a theory. Well, there's a theory that the youngest siblings sometimes they'll eat all their food on their plate very quickly. Because I'm not only am I a

finisher, but I'm a quick finisher. I will hoover. I mean, I've had people complain to me during pub lunches that I'm making it less enjoyable for them. Because of the noises. Because of the noise and the sheer pace at which I'm getting through a roast beef plate. It's shoveling a Yorkshire pudding in one go. Yeah. And the big ones as well. The plate-sized. Yeah. You're just calzoning the whole thing. Also, I can dislocate my jaw like certain reptiles. And you widened your gullet with a series of spigots over the years, haven't you? So it can actually fall through. Exactly. And so essentially my watchword is cut out the middlemen, i.e. the teeth and the oral, all the oral juices, where digestion traditionally begins. For me, they're

unnecessary middlemen. Get it straight down into the intestines at ASAP. Because they're doing the real work here, do you know what I mean? And we don't need a sort of committee of teeth and, you know, saliva glands. Yeah. What they want is one sort of kilogram food bolus, don't they? In one go. Exactly. That's what they're really ready for. They're bored of all these little bits that the rest of us send down, these little moist, broken up pieces. Exactly. And then an hour or so of searing abdominal pain. Yeah, I'll need to further ruining the atmosphere in the pub lunch, as you are stricken, lying on the cool tile floor underneath the table. Yep. Last time we were at the pub, they took down the big yard of alegrass, didn't they? And they were using that like a

sort of plunger down your throat, just pumping it up and down. And that seemed to make a difference. That can help as well. Yeah. Yeah, people, I've had all kinds of things shoved down my mouth, often stuffed trout or stuffed salmon. A lot of the stuff on the sink, if you click in front of them or wave at them. Yeah, those are fine too. So especially, so theme pubs as well. Any place that has, you know, trumpets or ceremonial swords. Well, sometimes you get kind of old timey harvesting equipment, don't you? Like a seed drill on the walls in a country pub. Yep. Or seafaring. Seafaring here by the beach, yeah. Seafaring stuff. Or, you know, I've had a signed photograph of... Of Pat Cash. I've had a signed photograph of Pat Cash. I've had a signed

photograph of Rory Keneer. I've had all those things shoved down my gullet, you know, in those situations. Weirdly, the older the harvesting equipment, the more effective it is. Well, it goes to show, doesn't it? If it ain't broke. So 16th or 17th century, you know, anything that was designed to separate husks. Threshing stuff. So you're a sort of gastric luddite. Get that down my throat. Get that stuff working down there. Helping out my intestines, essentially. But of course, the problem is then, if you do use that old machinery, they come with them. There's a tie attached to those. If you use those, you then have to give them 10%. Yeah, off to the law to who actually owns it. It's quite hard to find out who that is these days, because often they've been

sold on and, you know, it'll be some kind of hedge fund based in Dubai. Yes, that's right. So I, yes, I, about half my week is carrying out your various tied duties for those hedge funds. They're just things which legally still have to happen because no one's ever got around to canceling this. Spinning Jenny IP, basically, is what you're trying to process. Exactly. So I'll spend a lot of the last, I don't want to do it Thursdays through to the weekend. I'll be doing loom work. I'll be maybe sort of weaving baskets. And one of the things I really don't look forward to is having to... Wattle and daub. I don't enjoy the wattle and the daubing. And I'll try to, well, yeah, it's the executing the,

the sickly donkeys, obviously, they have to be executed. Yeah, because they're not being put down either. They are being executed. So they must be tried first in front of a jury of their peers. That's right. And, and the only way, it's still the case that the only way you can legally execute donkey is for piracy on the high seat. It's often quite a tenuous and quite difficult case to make. Well, mules tend to be quite hawkish when they're in juries. So they, well, that's the only thing you could... Well, you've got to stack that jury. You've got to stack it. You stack it with mules. You stack it with mules. And obviously there are always protesters outside saying that's, that's not a donkey, that's a mule. And I might prove it. And, and the only way you can prove it

is to see if they can mate with an ass. Well, you have to see if they can mate and they have to go through an entire reproductive cycle unsuccessfully, which takes about a year. So again, there's, I've only got four or five of those cases ongoing that I have to keep an eye on. And of course, the judge normally is a, is a venerable old Shire horse. That's right. Micklemus Jones. He's a fine, upstanding family horse. He really is. Lovely brasses. You don't get that many brasses just by being a run-of-the-mill horse. Lovely brasses. Lovely thick tail. And medieval attitude to justice.

So this week's theme, sent in by Megan from Devon. Your neck of the woods, Mike, is slippers. Hmm. Do I review partake of the, of the slipper? I am a lifelong slipper ejector. Rejector or ejector. You just chuck them out of windows at Nairdew Wells. Late night carousers. You'll be, I can picture you, uh, men with, with your, um, with your partner, you know, on a train or whatever. And there's a guy mouthing off very loudly. So talking on a business

meeting with his phone, but you've got the other person on speakerphone. And Ben's got his brace of slippers under his jerkin. Yeah. And the fact you'll, you'll tend, you'll tend to partner or your friend, whoever you're with, and you'll go, I don't know what this is. I think someone's got a slipper in the face coming. Rapid volley of throwing slippers. Of moccasins. Sharpened moccasins. Sharpened moccasins. And of course, often as you're fighting your way out of the situation

you've started, that's when you bring out the clog. So I have got, I've got a few thoughts really. One is that I am an advocate of the slipper sock. Is that quite a new thing? I don't think so because they've been with me my entire life. A thick sock with kind of like grippy rubbery bits on the bottom. Was it? Yeah. I've never enjoyed those, I'm afraid. That's what I wear. The few times that I've been bought slippers,

often by my mother at Christmas time, it's the kind of thing you might get for Christmas for your mom. Yeah. Because you've not taken the time to tell her about any of your interests during the whole year. Yeah. The only thing she knows for sure is that you have feet. Yeah. And this is quite embarrassing. I've got something about the chemistry of my feet will destroy a set of slippers in a matter of weeks and I'll put them in the wash. They'll come out and they'll still have this faint awful smell around them. Oh really?

And I just, I don't know what, it doesn't happen to my shoes. It doesn't happen to my socks. If I put a pair of slippers on, they'll be literally unbearable within a month. Something about your resting foot. I don't know what it is. It's releasing some sort of buildup. It's uncanny and disgusting. I'm feeling this could, this could end up being quite a gross episode because

I'm totally on board with you, Ben. There are a lot of disgusting slippers out there that people are wearing. Yeah. When is it sort of finished? When do you, when is it done? Because it feels to me that the slipper can still have structural integrity and look to all the world like it's fine. But on the inside. You're going to adjust on you to that, to that stench in your own home.

You might not know it's there. Yes. You know, it's like living on a dairy farm that stinks of crap, you know. You're just humans adapt. Yeah. Although I recently had to throw out some slippers because I think it was a very similar problem to what Ben's been describing. But I started to notice a smell around myself. And it was happening.

This is going to be such a horrible episode. But I started to notice a smell. Eminating from somewhere around my person. And I would notice this when I was sitting at the breakfast bar having a cup of tea and some toast. And it basically took me over the course of a few months, I sort of used process of elimination. So I would, I would go, what are the elements I can control here? The humidity of your crotch.

Yep. I've got that on a dial. Today we're dining it up to Eden Project. And I eventually, I just, it wasn't what I wanted. I did, it wasn't the news I wanted, but I was excluding more and more things. You were hoping to find a bag of sort of lamb's mints in your pocket. In the same way, sometimes you find an old five pound note in a pair of trousers. And you're like, oh, I was having it. Oh, it's a bag of old lamb's mints.

Can we just talk about the phrase lamb's mints as opposed to lamb's mints? Yeah. Well, lamb's mints is when the lamb has made the mints. Yeah. It's, it's, it's an exit to thing, isn't it? This is, this is deep. Some, some lambs have actually been brought in to the processing of their own. Yeah. And the salty tears is the seasoning that just gives it just. I see. Lamb mints lamb.

And also because no one understands lamb's mints, like lambs do. Shut up, Barry. And keep mincing yourself. And, and eventually I said, one of the things I had to exclude for was trouser smell. So I think that's easier than you seem to think it sounds. Well, okay. So one of the paradoxes of life. Well, again, one of the paradoxes. Talk us through the trouser paradox. Well, one of the paradoxes of life that most people sought out in the early 20s

is essentially, it's to what extent do my trousers need to be washed? Yes. They, they exist between the two major smell zones of the lower body, crotch and feet. They exist between them. They don't exist between them. Unless you're, are you turning yours up and pulling yours down slightly? Are you just, are you just pressing a pair of trousers in between your naked legs? No. No. Well, I'll tell you what, some of these teenagers I see.

Certainly, certainly 15 to 20 years ago. Anyway, if there are any, if there are anything to go by, obviously most of them are now in their thirties. Most of them are seasoned professionals now. But if there are anything to go by. Yeah. No. Well, no, the, but the crotch is also protected by an inner pant or knickers lining, cock blouse, a scrotum hat.

So then what happens is, you know, you go, especially, you know, in your early 20s, as you're probably starting to look after your own washing and stuff. You go, I'm washing my socks, obviously, washing my pants. I mean, they, they cover two of the major smell centers of my lower body. But what are these trousers? I mean, what are they doing? I mean, they just sort of, I mean, you know, no one's ever said, you've got smelly legs, have they?

Or no one's ever got your legs? God, what's going with your legs? Oh, you, uh, what the hell? I had an experience this week, which pertains to this, which is also disgusting. I'm really coming out of this quite badly. This is going to be an athlete gross podcast. Yeah, go on. So hadn't watched my trousers for a while.

I'm very much in that corridor of uncertainty about, you know, how long I need to leave it. It's a decision yet. Washing your trousers is a decision. Whereas socks and pants kind of, um, The decision is made for you with your pants and socks. Yeah. Whereas with trousers, it's a, it's a, it's a policy that you're, you're going to have to come up with.

And I'm afraid, sorry, no one's going to do it for you. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's, that's part of being an adult. Anyway, go on. So I, to be honest, I'd lost, I sort of lost count of when I last, you know, I had no idea really, but it wasn't bothering me until I put a face mask in my pocket. And then I was walking around Ikea and I was about to go into the Ikea.

So I had to put the face mask on and it had been in my pocket for about an hour on the inside of my trouser and I put on the face mask and there was a, a very robust smell of fresh bread. So your legs smell of fresh bread. That's not, that sounds okay. You went, you got sourdough pins. It's lovely. Well, I don't know if it's good though.

I think it might be a kind of yeast buildup in the trouser. I was pretty horrified. What is going to happen if you're, um, if your legs leavened? Yeah. So that's, so, so yeah, I thought, is it the trousers that smelly? But then as I washed the trousers, everything's, I think, I then I sort of deduced it, but it was a sort of musty smell was coming off my slippers. And I could have very hard to pin it down.

It was more to a kind of aura of mustiness, you know what I mean? And it was, it was like, you blink and you miss it. I couldn't quite go. But I'd go, oh, is it bad? Actually, I sniffed the slippers and everything was, they didn't seem that bad. I'd go back to eating my breakfast or whatever. And then just a minute later, I'd get this, just a slight stench of, of decay. Just a sense that, just sense that everything's going downhill.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, like you might get on, on pushing, pushing that, that big heavy rock on the top of a tomb off. Oh yeah. So just, we don't see each other physically very often. It's all over. So we haven't, we haven't, you haven't taken us for a, a good old tomb push for, for, for a while. For a good old tomb tipping.

But no, what, it's that slight musty sense of dead air. A dead air that's not, that's not been moved for, for generations. So you were essentially experiencing a mummy's curse from your own feet. Basically. Yeah. And I looked into the, I looked into the slippers. And they were basically lined with sheep's. Sheep's mints.

And that was my mistake. I should have played extra for the lambs. Not the old manky old mutton mints. Yeah. They were wool lined and the wool had, had decayed. And actually, I think I solved two problems in combination when I got rid of them. Cause actually I think moths had been living it. Moths had been reproducing in the slippers.

And I think slippers are quite bad, dangerous in a way, because they encourage a warm, dark, moist environment in which moths like to fuck. Which, which for moths is the equivalent of putting on some very, very good. Christopher. Sort of. Christopher. So I'm like, I'm talking, we're talking Lady in Red at that level. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, not any of his other songs. Not his other stuff. So like, um, yeah, I'm talking. Well, yeah, the light and the other one, yeah, songs he, uh, Christopher, yeah. The love songs probably. And, uh, Cause Lady in Red is just the tip of the Christopher, isn't it?

That's the. Oh, lovely. Oh, it really is. Yeah, it's, yeah. As you say, Mike, that environment, that's because it's sticking across the Berg CD. Closing the curtains. Wow. Freshly roasted potato croquettes.

Semi-clean sofa. Yeah. And just hiding, uh, Maltesers around the place. Like you would fruit for some chimps in the zoo. Sort of in a log. Yeah. The last one, of course, being hid in that little space between your scrotum and your perineum.

The periscrotal Maltese ledge. This is really foul. That's Megan's fault. It's not our fault. I think we might have to put a lewd content warning very early on. Uh-oh. Lewd content warning. Lewd content.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Somebody pointed out, uh, we got an email pointing out that we only ever played a lewd content warning after the lewd content. Hahaha. What?

So it doesn't, doesn't function as any kind of warning. It should be a lewd content apology. Yes. So, what, Mike, what's your, what's your slip? Yes. So, Mike, are you, are you living in the disgusting world of me and Henry? No, wait. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm out of the slipper world.

No, the slippers and Pam, Pam likes nothing more than to eat a pair of slippers. So she's, there are people in the house who enjoy a slipper and they last no more than a day before Pam has eaten the slippers. So with dogs and slippers, there's two ways it can go, isn't there? There is training them to bring you your pipe and slippers as you walk through the door. Yeah. And there's consume the slippers. There's, yeah, there's the, yeah, there's the well trained dog or the very poorly trained dog.

Yeah. We've gone down the other path. So we're not really a slipper zone, I would say. We've had Pam shaped emails this week. Oh, really? We had a lot of people suggesting that we do a Pam jingle and a Bluebell jingle for stories pertaining to the Mike's dog and Henry's cat. So we've started with the Pam one and here it is.

Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Pam, Good Girl Pam, Good Girl Pam, Oh, Pam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. No, but Mike, your attitude to footwear is I'm going to get something intensely practical. I've basically found a pair of shoes that I like. That's it. And that are quite comfortable. And I pretty much just wear those, that type of shoes. Mike has a pair of shoes. Yeah.

And he gets them, you know, forever. So once they wear out, he gets the same shoes again. Pretty much, yeah. So that's also quite practical. Which is an absurdly wide feet. Yes. Absurdly wide, flat, flipper-like feet. I can move through the water like a motherfucker. Yeah.

But in terms of purchasing footwear, it's problematic. So you've got no foot arches? Nothing. Do they make a sort of slappy sound? Like a penguin? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Like an emperor penguin?

It's like a stroppy emperor penguin. And then you just glide off on your stomach. It's so sad, isn't it? That Mike will never know what it's like, Ben, to... To feel some moths under the arch of his feet. Moths fluttering. So Mike, your flat feet, I mean, what I'm guessing is that means in bare foot, you can quite easily get sort of suctioned onto the floor.

A bit like the thing that holds your phone that you put on the inside of your car window. Yes, the micro layer of surface moisture is, yeah, it's powerfully adhesive. Yeah. So you could walk up the side of the shard. I do. And they've asked me not to repeat that. There's nothing they can do about it. And sit on the pointy top.

Yeah. So your footprint, does it just look like a sort of cartoon duck's footprint, like if Donald Duck had walked past? Yeah. And that's why, you know, if Mike wants to commit a murder, to detect with me, there's two possible kinds of crimes for this crime in the Exeter area. One of them makes a quacking sound when he talks, waddles about. And doesn't wear any trousers.

Here we go. And the other is a cartoon duck. It's a joke. It's a joke. I still think we should have a special jingle for that particular joke. What are those jokes called? I don't know. There must be a name for that joke.

One's a something. It's the best joke. And the others are something. The Old Switcheroo? The Old Switcheroo, of course. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the Old Switcheroo. OK, yes. I see what you're saying.

Yeah, you're saying that. What? Hang on. I thought you were trying to say that. Oh, he's gone the other... What? Oh, he's gone the other way around. That means that...

Oh, that's what he meant. Oh, what? So what he said before wasn't actually... I thought it... No, he's gone the other way around with it. Oh, God. It's the Old Switcheroo. But yeah, essentially, yeah, my footprints, they look like a hoax, really.

Is it good for doing kind of fake reindeer feet for your children at Christmas time? Yeah, or sask watches. Oh, yes, of course. Yeah, if you walk across a peat bog and then call up some conspiracy theorist. That's an afternoon of fun, isn't it? I suppose, obviously, you wouldn't put anyone through the... You wouldn't put a professional event through the ordeal of having to give you a foot massage, I suppose, would you?

I've never done that. I would never subject anyone to that. Because I think they'd be forced to charge by the square inch or the square yard. Yeah. It'd be too expensive and too humiliating. And also, pleasurless. I've also never particularly understood the appeal of a foot massage. Not for one moment.

What about massage in general? Massage in general? I'm not really into it. I've had a couple in my lifetime. I had one that was genuinely quite reviving in a Turkish bath. The ones where you had like a couple of really massive, huge, sort of broad-backed men beat you to a living pulp, spin you around on a tile floor and sort of throw you across it. Yeah.

I had that in Hungary and I was like, oh, this is the stuff. I genuinely, I felt like I had punched through a car by the end of that. It's incredible. You feel alive, don't you? Yeah. You feel like you've been punched through a car. Mm. Yeah.

Well, and both, I think, yeah. Yeah. It's a real roller coaster. And you're just putty in their hands like there's this big Hungarian or Turkish men that worked. They're manipulating you like a... You're not like they're sort of spatch-crocking a chicken, aren't they, on a table? You're having your legs yanked into places.

You're having your cologne slapped into your perineum. Yeah. Can't you? Yeah. Your spine pulled out and shoved back in again in the right place. Yeah, so I had that in Hungary off a gigantic, semi-naked Hungarian man and it was absolutely brilliant. And then I also had it when I went for a Thai massage once.

Have you ever had that? No. Yeah. That is brilliant. It's kind of like the opposite physically tiny Thai woman. Yeah. About a tenth of the size of the massive Hungarian massage monster. Yeah.

But as painful because she sort of got on my back like a spider and just like pulled... Detailed work. Oh, was she mighty? Was she mighty as well? Was she? Oh, hugely strong. Right. And she was kind of walking on my back and stuff.

Oh, wow. Brilliant. Yeah. Just like a different way of doing it, but the same... Okay, well maybe I'll give that a go. But if you ever get a massage off just like a British person, it's just like getting... It's just like totally pointless. It feels more like being handled rather than being massaged.

It does. Yeah. So you want to feel like you're being sort of tenderised? Yeah. You want to feel... I think with the British person, you feel like you have the urge to fight back. Whereas with the Turkish Mega Man, you know that submission is the only way to survive. Because you have to submit, don't you?

You have to relax. Fight is futile in this situation. I love the phrase Mega Man. So can I have a massage from your largest Mega Man, please? No, really Mega. If he's got a twin Mega Man, then... You've never had a tour. Did you have a tour?

It was a tour, yeah. I remember it distinctly. Oh, my God. Because I remember looking at them thinking you don't... Both of you don't need to be here. There's no way. But they set to work in tandem. Perfect tandem.

Yeah, a two-person massage. Wow. It's the one thing I think is quite bad about Britain, as opposed to almost every other world culture, is we have no tradition of bathhouses and going and getting pummeled by a massive bloke and sitting in a steam room. Every other culture in the world, like Russia has it, Scandinavia, Korea, Japan. I've had a thing called Banya. Do you know what that is?

No. That's Russian, right? Yeah. That is basically going into a sauna, really hot sauna. A huge man pummels you and wax you with massive dry sort of... Well, sort of bouquet... That's a huge bouquet Garnier of herbs. Who seasons you?

You know about this? Basically seasoned you. You're being tenderized and seasoned. The huge handfuls of these dry leaves, which they whack you with, and they kind of smooth it over your buttocks and whack you, then smooth it, whack. And then they'll put the huge thing of dry leaves into an ice bucket, and they'll chill you, and then they'll... Pop a garlic up your bum.

And then lemon in your gob and you're ready to go. Lemon in your gob. 180 cents for two to three hours. Two to three hours. Some of them say... Nigella says, actually do it upside down with foil on your head. There's a few different... It's not all of them reading, Nigella.

Delia's very much more the strips of bacon across the chest, isn't it? That's right. Yes. Yes. And half a pat of butter up each nostril. For some, it has two batteries for me. But I think... I said all world cultures.

I'm now thinking about it. I think it's cold places, doesn't it? And we... Well, you mentioned hot places. You mentioned Thai, so there's cold and hot. Well, yeah, because I guess they're more into massages. But yeah, like... Yeah, you're right.

It basically is everywhere. And then the equivalent we have in British culture is just going to like a council ledger centre and doing like 15 widths and then swallowing a plaster, then going down the slide and going home. I was quite anti-slippers for a long time and I was a socks person. But in my home where I live, we've got wooden floors that are quite polished. There's a staircase that goes up to the upper floor. And... It might be worth...

I mean, if you regale other friends with this, it might be worth trimming out some of the details. Okay. Just a little edit note. Okay, thank you. And wooden staircase, very polished, sort of shiny wood, very slippery wood. And I was a slippers person until I basically fell down the stairs a couple of years ago. And it was quite weird there because I was at the top of the stairs and I was in my socks and I just slipped and I fell down quite a long staircase.

It was quite a weird the way I did it, which was I essentially slipped. I sort of like I sort of tobogganed in a way down the stairs but without a toboggan. I sort of body tobogganed. I was in a kind of lying down position. So I slipped and then I sort of shot down the stairs and then I emerged at the bottom of the stairs and actually... Wearing a Batman outfit. This is cool.

Straight into the car. But I popped out of the bottom of the stairs just literally on my feet and ran and ran into the sort of sitting room area having fallen down. Because I didn't crumple and sort of spin and end up flailing like a sort of rack-a-rag doll. I actually sort of channeled myself into this sort of toboggan position where I then landed at the bottom on my feet and just sort of ran into the sitting room. But what was quite weird about it was I ran knowing that just simply from my natural understanding, basic understanding of physics and biology that I'm about to experience an unbelievable level of agony.

So keep running until that kicks in because the moment you stop. I've just got to keep running now. From now on, because my body can't concentrate on too many things at once, it thinks it's just a panic situation, it's running, it's cutting off the pain sensors for now. Because it knows I'm in deep, deep shit. So keep running. And you're still running to this day? I'm still running to this day.

I don't like to talk about it and bring it up because it's very distracting for people, but I'm on a treadmill right now. I've got a series of treadmills. I'm one of the only person that has mobile treadmills, which is unusual, which are... For the car. I've got a mobile treadmill for the car and I've got a treadmill. Seeing you get in that car, I decided, behold, you don't break steps. It's extraordinary.

We were all very impressed at your wedding. Yeah. Up at the altar. Yeah. Well, I paid to be stock still, didn't I? Well, from the waist up, yeah. But waist down, it was a superb flower arrangement that did justice to you there. Yeah.

But essentially, I've got some great guys at the tech team at Nottingham University. They've made it their PhDs. I mean, I think they've had three PhDs have come out of it already. Now, the technology they're developing for me, but basically, it's essentially a mobile treadmill, which is run powered. So I power the treadmill. Now, a lot of people say, cut out the middleman, get rid of the treadmill and just run around. Well, it's easy for them to say, but you've...

It's easy for them to say. The important thing is I can't stop ever, even for a minute. Even as I stop, I'm going to experience a lot of agony that is incredible. Imagine that falling down the stairs in that way. Because every single stair bashed into my back and the back of my legs and the back of my head as I went down, as I took a walk down the stairs. So there is a lot of pent-up pain coming my way if I stop for a second. Yeah.

And in the meantime, you just live the way you're going to live. Showering is dangerous as it stands. Sleeping is noisy. That's right. The vertical travelator that you have for your bed. That's right. But the boys at Nottingham Tech, fantastic work they've done. Essentially, it's mobile treadmill with a lot of mirrors around it.

And they've used animation to mock up what my body would like walking. So essentially, you can see me appearing to walk down the street. But I'm actually running. Incredible thing to have pulled off. But it means I can live without trousers, essentially. I don't have to wear trousers. That's just a sort of little fringe benefit. And you're constantly being drip-fed lucasade and Gatorade and these things.

Yeah. And the fact that I sound like I'm not out of breath. Obviously, I am out of breath. But I don't sound like I'm running. Well, that's the special effects that Ben's doing in the background. That's what Ben has done is he's recorded essentially the ambient quiet sound of a West London room. And he's playing that extremely lightly.

He's cranked up to the max. And he could continue for a long time. The only thing that troubles me is, of course, I feel, I have been talking to the team at Nottingham, that you are getting close to peak thigh now. Yes, that's right. Because you can only get through a door sideways as it stands. Sideways running.

Yeah. And if those thighs get any bigger. Absolutely huge, my thighs. They also, there's a kind of scraping noise that Ben has to edit out as well, which is because they rub up against each other now as I run. There's this sort of sound, which means there's a lot of friction. There's a lot of heat down there, which means we have to be spraying anti-steam, the opposite of steam.

So it's cold steam. Water. Is water the opposite of steam? Are we going to get into this? That has to be constantly being, that's being fired up and down my thighs all the time. Yeah. Well, what I do with the sound is,

I take the sound of some horses thighs rubbing together. I reverse that and play it at the same time and they can't see it right. Yes. And that has to be an incredibly muscly horse, isn't it? For the horse thighs to reach across and rub each other. Well, that'll be a horse suffering from the same problem I have, isn't it? A horse that fell down some stairs.

A horse that fell down the stairs, possibly running away from Tom Cruise. Were you running away from Tom Cruise at the time? What? Well, I think we've talked about this room before. He can't run downstairs. He can't run downstairs. Is that related to your predicament?

Were you just trying to cruise chasing you down the stairs? Were you trying to prove to Tom Cruise that it could be done? The moment he did. I shouldn't have taken him on. I'm not taking him on. What happened was I did fall down the stairs in that way. It was a very weird way to fall down the stairs. The pain was unreal because I knew it would be

because of the physics of the situation, which is A hits B, B is going to react. Something's got to give, something's going to happen. And I'd fallen down the stairs, but nothing had happened. I hadn't crumpled, I hadn't ended up in a pile. I'd ended up standing up. So I just knew that it must have all turned into energy, or pain energy.

Everything that's happened, energy has to convert into something else. Your crumple zone hadn't activated. Exactly. There'd been no crumple. Fall energy was about to turn into pain energy. Stare energy. Exactly. There was no crumple. There was no crumple. There was no bruises, no break energy. There was just pure pain energy.

That was it. Just agony. Total body agony, but no injury. It was quite weird. Pain was expressed as pure pain. Because it was a hard wooden staircase, with every single one of those stairs is an angle. I think people know what a staircase is like. And it hurts so much.

I was like, right, that's it. I'm hanging up my socks. It's time to give up on stairs. I've either got to give up stairs, or take up slippers. And I took up slippers at that point. That's the other thing with slippers to discuss is souls. There are different kinds of souls you're going to have on slippers.

Over to you, Mike. So, emails. Okay, I'm going to start off with this one from... I'm going to bleep out her name, or not say her name, because it involves her job and she might get in trouble. She hasn't asked me to do that, which makes me think she might not care very much about her job. Okay.

Well, now that you've said that, I think definitely. I'm protecting her from herself. Yes. But her name is Barbara Renfrew. That's Barbara Renfrew. I think the first time you said, Barbara. Barbara. Her name is Barbara Renfrew.

She says, Hello, Ben and Beans. I like that. Although it makes me seem like I'm not one of the Beans. I'm unsettled by that. Yeah. Yeah, strong start. It's got us feeling uncomfortable and on edge, which is good.

Just a quick email to say that after listening to the latest episode, Brackets, Dinosaurs, where Henry mentions P&O Ferries using your ferriman jingle as part of their marketing, I have been cursed by this statement. Oh. As someone who works at P&O and takes payments from customers on a regular basis

as part of my job, I'm now haunted by an echoey voice saying, It's time to pay the ferriman every time I take payments, which is not ideal. Granted, a trip across the channel is not quite as dramatic as one across the sticks, but it still has a similar energy. And that's the P&O magic.

You might not be arriving in the underworld, but you'll feel like you might as well be as you stagger off down the ramp. We don't have gold coins to put over your eyes, but we do have onion rings in our home, in Argentina. I used to really enjoy taking the ferry to France. On family holidays, we'd ferry it to France. Yeah, we did that a couple of times.

As a kid, the ferry was just, I just loved the ferry, and that was like one of my favorite bits of the holiday. Oh, totally, yeah. The salty spray, the smell of gasoline. That smell, when you drive a car into a car ferry, there's something so magical about that smell. And even just driving on in the first place,

and also exiting when the mouth yawns open again at the other side, it's a great bit of boat. Metal jaws cough you out. Welcome to northern France. It's flat, the weather is shit. We eat hoofs. But if you're lucky, you get to drink chocolate out of a bowl. You want accordion players, yeah?

You want sort of flirty and slightly ethereal girls running around in berets, yeah? Well, it's a long walk, mate. A long, bloody walk. And do you remember those men, sorry, that would organize, because what would happen is, you would drive onto the ferry, and you'd be going from the soft world,

soft furnishing, soft clothes, soft toys, into that hard world of the sort of metal, kind of brutal, hard metal, sort of metal ramps, and that sort of metallic, petrol-smelling world of where the cars went. And that world was inhabited by these sort of high-vis wearing men who were kind of ordering people around and telling your dad how to park and where to park.

They're basically like a sort of umbrella dad to all the dads. So all the dads are driving on, and then there's like some greater dads who kind of really dad the dads, yeah. It's time for Provincial Dad Chat. Who's hit my bloody walking boots? I'm not saying it's ruined the holiday, I'm just saying I asked for rum raisin.

It just skates on kids, otherwise we'll miss the inflatable session. She's taking her mother to see blood brothers, which means more top gear time for me. Why would I need to go and see a podiatrist? Of course, I've kept the warranty information, darling. Yeah, there's a sort of dad diagram in all dad's heads, and in certain moments like that, the dad will go, are this dad's fingers thick enough

to command me how to park my car? Yes, they are. I'm temporarily not the dad. Yes, and it's a very much a temporary arrangement, but I will temporarily allow him to dad me. And as children, you're watching this in slack-jawed wonder, aren't you? As Mike is simpering and actually batting his eyelids and being an absolute...

Tail between my legs. Yeah, sorry, sir. Sorry, full lock on left, full... No, right. I'm sorry. Sorry, dad, I mean... Oh, God, I've made him full... Sorry, I have his dad. And then you've got the old...

Make sure I assemble all the things I'll need, because once the ferry's locked and loaded on its way... Oh, you're not going back down. You're not going back down there. No, it's extremely dangerous. Yeah, extremely dangerous, because obviously those temporary dads, they live in there. And they eat what they eat is...

The children don't go back down. The children don't go back down. They're trolls. I mean, the nearest thing to trolls, real trolls, what they'll do is they'll hunker down when they underneath, sabs, high undies, etc. Wait for the little scarring feet of a little kid that's... That's the walkman in the car.

And they all feast. Lewis emails to say that he thinks that we need a jingle about France and French things, because we seem to talk about it at least once an episode, and we have just proven that. Yeah. So, thanks, Lewis. Well done.

Emma emails. High beans. Hope you're well. I'm not sure if you were looking for feedback regarding including the series and episode number in the episode title, as discussed in your last episode. It's just a recap.

Last episode, Henry made the plea that we... Label each episode with a series and episode number. And I did that, Henry, you'll see. I noticed that, thank you. S4, E1. But I figured I'd share my thoughts, and you can take them or leave them. I prefer the titles that don't include the episode number,

as I find the simplicity of the one word title is very effective. I think, including the episode number, unnecessary muddies it. Love the podcast, Emma. I lean towards Emma on this one. Oh, my God. But I'm very happy... Yeah, actually...

Conflict. Conflict. I'm very happy to compromise, and maybe we'll just leave up the last one. Can I read out an email from Ross? That's the only one. Ross writes, I'm of the opinion that Henry was right.

You should have been numbering your episodes from the very beginning. Oh, thank you, Ross. Having numbered episodes implies that there may be some sort of continuity, and it encourages the listener to start at the beginning. After all, how often do you start the show on series four, episode two? Unnumbered episodes instead encourage the new listener to dip into whatever topic they might find more interesting first.

Perhaps they will think, I'm really more of an elevated person than a back person, and start there. However, as the experienced listener will no doubt be aware, you tend to veer off topic almost immediately. Instead of honouring the entire premise of the show, your podcast primarily relies on in-jokes, previously established jingles,

and meandering Luke Warm Bantra about an email you received several episodes ago. OK, I think there's a little bit more than that going on. Thank you, but OK. Yeah, I think... Someone's not getting the subtext, are they? Yeah, I suppose so, yeah. He finishes by saying,

I'm glad you're numbering your episodes now. It may be too little, too late. That's Ross from Vancouver. That's a strong argument. I think my heart is with Emma. My head is with Ross. Well, I think this will run and run, won't it? This could be the great schism, couldn't it?

This could be the Paul Spick-Manchovick thing. The first crack as well. I've got to say, actually, though, I did... When I saw you'd done it, the S4 episode one thing, I did actually... And then I looked at the other ones that were just the name of the episode. I did actually think, oh, this seems a bit sort of brutal somehow, S4-O-1, even though I was literally suing for it.

Not a week ago. But I thought she feels a bit brutal. There's something quite kind of nice about just being the word and not being, you know, trapped into this kind of numeric system that feels a little bit... sort of Kafka-esque. So actually, I don't really know.

I'm definitely less certain than I was. But it's true that, you know, listening in order, you do get, obviously, all the arcs that we've written in and all the... We've carefully and skillfully woven through. Yeah. And not just in jokes and lukewarm benders, he puts it. Not just all that.

And obviously, you know, we don't... I still think it's the right decision not to credit our writers. But they do... Yeah, they're putting in a lot of work to make those arcs. And a lot of them, obviously, haven't paid off yet, so it'll seem like they aren't there. But there's a lot of stuff coming. Maybe next season, season after.

There's a lot of stuff that you're going to be like, oh, what? They've done that. That's... You know what I mean? There'll be a lot of stuff paying off. Put it this way, guys. They were on a bloody... Yes.

Put it this way, listener. It was pretty lucky that the writing team have lost, you know, weren't doing anything when we started this podcast. You know, saying it more than that. Again, not giving away too much. The fact that the ending of that series is seen as one of the greatest sort of creative failures in the issue of television may...

The fact that that may or may not have lowered their fees in terms of getting them on call to work on a three-person podcast in the UK. Again, no comment. And finally, Mel, this is from someone called Weasel. Hello, Weasel. They write, I'm writing to you with some distressing news.

There is a seemingly pleasant family attraction called Birdland on the edge of the Cotswolds that I've recently visited with my wife and daughter. Now, you might be guessing we're entering the flightless bird zone. Ooh. No, please, not my face! We wandered around enjoying the penguin pool

and the Parliament of Owls. Very nice use of collective nouns from Weasel there. Before stopping at a designated picnic area for a nice packed lunch. I enjoyed some homemade sandwiches, a flask of tea and an apple before perusing one of the park's maps. My next thought is,

holy fucking shit, I'm in the murder zone. For some insane reason, they've placed the lovely picnic area directly between the castellaries and the rears. For God's sake, why? Oh, I see. Is it possible they lure park ghosts to this spot under the misguided belief

that it's a nice place to sit and eat? But in fact, you are the one to be eaten as a conveniently packed lunch for their horde of murderous winged fuck beasts. Strong stuff from Weasel there. Why would you do something so heinous to unsuspecting families? I just wanted to see some fucking penguins

and quite swear at me this email. I just wanted to see some fucking penguins in a flamingo or two. Miraculously, there was no evidence of half-eaten body parts or bloody entrails strewn around the place like hideous town-faked bunting that we somehow made out alive.

We had a lovely time and even got to see a very cute frog-mouthed owl. All the best, Weasel. Crumbs, it was a real... it was sort of salty language sandwich, wasn't it? It sounded very nicely and there was a real gear shift there. It really was.

He got very, very angry, didn't he, towards the end? Well, he's been through a real ordeal there. Poor Weasel. But he's made it out, mercifully. Well, it's always worth with these places checking if they're doing sort of half-price on feeding days. And if they're ever advertising...

if they're ever advertising anything like a sort of... this is, you know, there'll be a special rear day. There'll be anything that looks like a rear performance or a meet-and-greet with the rears. Free gurney with your tickets. Yeah, that kind of thing. You need to look out for. He sent a map of the park

and the rears look to be behind a river, which I think is good. Well, that's legal minimum now, yeah. But the categories are just right next to the picnic area. I mean, I've seen there's a fence of some sort, but we know that the categories will make short work of a fence. Oddly, it does make me want to go all the more, though, somehow.

For that adrenaline buzz. I think so, just that sensation of... that closeness to danger. Just to feel alive again. I once felt that when I went to Longleat and I looked into the eyes of a tiger and felt this kind of weird prime or fear that I'd never felt before.

Really? I got peed on by a tiger once. At Marwell Zoo. There's an area where you could get quite close to the... to the enclosures. Close enough to be wazzed on. And, yeah, a Tigress sort of... walking backwards towards me,

which I thought was very entertaining and curious, and she lifted up her tail and sprayed me full on in the middle of my face. Bloody hell. Was it a territorial? To this day, I think I am part of her territory. I've worn her scent ever since. Is that why every time you walk past a cat,

it tries to fuck your head? Right, well, thank you for all of your emails. Thanks for sending those in. We should say thank you to all of our Patreon supporters, obviously. Yes, go to patreon.com to find out how you can access and free episodes

and bonus episodes, depending on your tier. And if you're in the highest tier, the Sean Bean tier, you get access to the Sean Bean Lounge, where, incidentally, we were last night, and an incredible dance-off broke out. Mike Wozniak has this report. A multi-protagonist dance-off in the Sean Bean Lounge was triggered by a dispute between Alex Sinclair and Stephen James,

who couldn't agree on who fronted 70s Leicester pop sensation, Shawwadiwadi. Within moments of them clicking at each other, confrontationally, every patron in the lounge had taken sides, and the dance-off was greenlit with a jaw-dropping grand jeté from Neil. Megan Calsell was sent off early for a tango-gancho hook

around the neck of Joshua K. Harris. Toby Robinson feather-stepped Mark into the off-zone, and Edbrie Enneagram pirouetted so hard into Joe Malion, he moonwalked on his nostril hair. Neverland took on Rosa Eaton's two-four-sample whisk with a three-four-wattsing box-step, sending Kirsten Bergfors into metronomic cataplexy. On a shameful note,

David Orvec tested positive for performance-enhancing Flamenco shoes, and Andy Reid's urine was found to contain traces of tutus. None of that could put off Nicole Smith, however, whose lockstep open-turn telemarked sprinkler made Kate Smoker's ball change look like a Cuban and shuffler. Quinn Olarria thunder-clapped Johann Taufeolafson street-style, and would have got a full ten had Paula Wolven, not electric boogalooed him to the point of a catastrophic costume malfunction.

Ron Nicholson square-danced Raymond Turrell into a corner and was on the cusp of crumping him when Albuquem came to the rescue doing the mashed potato. Lars Peter Maltby jiggabout explosively and had almost claimed victory when he was limboed below the belt by Red Bennett. At that point, dancing broke out into the street, and pro-aniseed men with unusual surnames

who enjoy cricket, steely-dan, and trivia was arrested for moshing a police officer. As ever in a Sean Bean lounge dance-off, there were no losers, and the winner was dance. OK, let's work out which theme tune is going to play us out. Oh, yes, please. Thanks for sending in your versions of our theme tunes. I think Henry chose last time.

Mike, can you give me a number between 1 and 13? Hmm. Henry was a bit radical last time. Yeah, I was. I'm going to be slightly less radical. I'm going to go for number 11, please, Ben. OK, this is from Ben. He writes,

I discovered you just before Christmas, and as I was catching up on your back catalogue, imagine my delight upon hearing the mention of Alex Cumming, fellow dance caller and folk musician and provider of the accordion jingle from your episode on flags. Pompadoo to you, Alex. Hmm.

We've got a fellow folksman. Very good. I considered submitting a secondary accordion-led jingle, but I wasn't certain whose interests I would necessarily be serving. So instead, I offer up the three-bean rag, a ragtime version inspired by my time in lockdown and spent reacquainting myself with the works of Scott Joplin. Lovely.

So thank you, Ben. Thank you, Ben. So we'll play out your ragtime version at the end, and thank you to everyone for listening. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Bye.