Three Bean Salad - Spies

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

Casper places the beans in grave peril by instructing them to discuss spies. They squeeze in the sub-topic of Japanese breakfast cereals but, to their great credit, largely stick to the main theme and in doing so discover Ben’s embroidered personal motto, Henry’s pushy side and that Mike isn’t only boring about guitars.Get in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpodJoin our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansalad

For the listener, can I apologise early doors? I think my voice is going to give out by the end of this. So I think in this intro section, you might be able to hear me through the sort of topic bit, you'll occasionally hear a small squeak that'll be me and then by the end it'll be complete silence. It's quite a weird sound, Ben, because it's but your voice seems to have gone deeper and higher. There's no bit more resonant as if the, you know, but sort of higher, but sort of more squeak at the same time.

You're saying you're kind of on reverb mode. I quite like it. Very slightly painful to talk. You know what you sound like, Ben? You sound like someone who is in the middle of being strangled to death, but has still got the, you know, it's able to try and point out details about the wills, which means that it's probably not worth strangling you to death actually. You know what I mean? You're still able to... My life insurance has lapsed, you fool. But don't you see? It was me who was married to Barbara back in the 70s. That means, which

means that there's still entrap, a lot of the property's still tied up in trust to, you know, it's quite, quite a long... Yeah, you really can't prattle on when you're being strangled, can you? You've got to get to the point. And I buried the beach to the farm, but I didn't tell anyone where they are. So, best of luck finding those. I could help you. Just keep me around. I could just be your helper. I could give you advice on stuff. Just, I could effectively be dead. You could keep me as a sort of, just a secret,

sort of helper figure. I could live in that cupboard. Is that where you go, Henry? If you start getting strangled, that's your go-to is, I can be your secret helper. And they're strangling you going, there's Google these days. I don't need a secret helper. I'm trying to get rid. No, but Google, but Google doesn't have that human touch I'll give you. I'll say, hello, hello, sir. Hello, here's the information. I'll go click for you.

Google, I can't open a can of tuna and brine. Not like I can. Please. I'll go shopping for you. And I'll, I know, I know the difference between tuna and brine, tuna and olive oil, tuna and salted water. If you buy these things through Alexa, through Ricardo, you'll occasionally get tuna in the wrong form of liquid. That won't happen with me. I mean, obviously there'll be a reasonable degree of human error. I will sometimes get it in the wrong liquid. I shouldn't have pointed that out now. I will endeavor to get the tuna in the right liquid. Also, I know the whole reason you're strangling me in the first time is because I bought fresh

tuna by mistake instead of canned tuna. I'm sorry. You just said tuna. How is that not meant to me? I wasn't meant to go to the fish counter and ask for fresh tuna. I'm trying to cut down on salt, you fool. And I know the reason I was buying that tuna in the first place was because I actually already am employed as your secret helper. Because you started strangling me a year ago and I made the service face and deal. Oh, God. Yeah, you've got that sort of voice.

You don't get that moment in film so much these days, the moment of like, you're about to be murdered and then you go, don't do it. I could do this for you. I don't feel like I've seen that for a while. It's a good moment. It's the bit where, you know what, in that situation, I know I would be so shit because I'd be like, okay, all you've got now, Henry, is your wits, your thinking. I've got nephews. You can't kill me. I've got nephews. I've got a short hair. I've got a pretty short hair. They're quite a needy breed. She's a house cat. Do you know what that means?

A house cat. Do you realize what a move would do to her? Do you realize how dry her nose might get as a reaction to the stress? Look, I'd be thinking, Henry, okay, all you've got now, Henry, is your wits, your brain. You've got 30 seconds. If you can think straight about this, you can do it. Now, who was it that Tim Henman beat in that semi-final? Was it Evenisovic? It doesn't fucking matter, Henry. Think about the thing. It was Evenisovic. Yes. Okay, you've got 10 seconds left, Henry. Think. Concentrate. Concentrate. Why is it called a ball point pen? I mean, how can somebody be a pointy and a ball at the same time?

It's like, ah, God! But that is what would happen with me. I wouldn't be able to get my brain to focus on what I had to focus on because you have to be so clever in the situation to go, no, don't kill me. I'll double. I'll double your fun, whatever it is. If you don't kill me, I'll let you kill me twice. Yeah, that's an exponential growth at two in terms of how much killing you're doing. Here's the one I think they should do more often in films, is they're about to kill you ever, and they're saying, tell me where this other person is, who they need to really kill. And the person goes, I can't tell you. Or they go, I don't know. I don't know.

Sometimes they don't know. Sometimes they do know. But why don't you just pretend, just make something up? Just say, oh, he's in. He's in the co-op. He's popped down the co-op. He's popped down the co-op. There's some crunch in that cornflakes. And he knows they make a batch of croissants mid-afternoon. They make a new batch of pastries. He likes them fresh. He's gone together. They're just going to kill you. I wouldn't know that you're down the co-op. They've got that information. You've established your requirements.

I know, but you would just buy yourself a little more time. No, you'd buy yourself less time. Would you buy yourself less time? I think so. Well, the only reason they've got to keep you alive is because you know some information. As soon as they have the information, you're toast, aren't you? What information? So again, this is what I can't do.

So again, you've got to listen. I mean, if you're being brutally interrogated, the pain of death, you have to listen to what they're saying. You know, you can't, you know. What I think I would say is, look, I'm not an information guy. Dead. The reason you have me around is, it's for fun. Dead.

I can put on a reason we could party CD selection. Certainly, back in the day. Dead. Dead. Listen to me. I will get any kind of tuner you want. Albuquerque. What is he talking about, tuna? What's that?

What is it where tuna in this guy? I can get you the otters. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. They haven't got time for this. I mean, you're dead.

Guys, have you ever had a swordfish steak? Now you're going. I mean, that's the sort of thing that Ben would, with that interjection, I think he'd buy himself some time. Offering higher-end fish. Because they're going to stand there and they're going to hang on a second. Hang on a second. I never have had a swordfish steak.

Did you realize that was a thing? Okay. I know you can kill me, but just let me give me that pen. I can draw quite an amusing picture of you. Dead. Dead. That'd be a quite tense one, though, to do the caricature, which is both funny enough to amuse the mafia boss,

but not so insulting as to, that would be the most tense caricature of his life. Coming soon on Netflix. I could draw a picture of the mafia guy and really try and get him to do it. Try to accentuate his sense of pity in the picture. So he'd look at it and go, oh, yeah, maybe I'm not so bad. And then he'd let me off. Let me shoot you. Why if it's not the mafia?

What if it's a crazed bomb maker who's given you a caricaturist's pen that's actually a bomb that explodes the second you stop caricaturing? What then, Henry? You've just written the basic framework for season two, my friend, of the caricaturist. OK, let's turn on the bean machine. Yes, please. Sent in by Casper.

Thank you, Casper. This week's theme is spies. Spies. Whoa. Lovely. When I was at university, there was always that hope, wasn't there, that you'd get approached? You went to the LSE, though.

Yeah, so nest of bloody communists, isn't it? As far as the MI6 would have been concerned. You were never going to get a Welsh student at the LSE. Come on, mate. They do say, don't they, that if to be a spy, you have to look a certain way and basically you have to look really forgettable. The George Smiley idea. Is that a George Smiley thing?

Yeah, very much so. Yeah, he's completely sort of nondescript. Wouldn't look at him twice, type, doughy. I've always thought that's what I look like. I think I'm very forgettable face-wise. Oh, Stephen, Stephen, don't be so harsh on yourself. Sit honestly, John. I'm not just a carol.

What? Yeah, it's honestly, that is not true. Roberto. No, but Mike sticks out a mile. He's got a bing-a-stache like the Man on the Pringles Tube. Yeah, you'd remember. I'm very much, yeah, sort of eye holes cut out of the newspaper level. Starsy agent look.

I mean, I'd be dead within the first five minutes. I think, well, Mike, though, if it's, if we're talking, because I imagine we're now in the era of double bluffs and triple bluffs and quadra bluffs. Mike, he almost looks so much like a spy already. Basically, if you drew a cartoon of a spy, it would be Mike. If Lego did a spy, it would be Mike. So Eastern Bloc spy. Yeah, if a Japanese serial wanted a character to go with it, it was a spy.

Breakfast serial or television serial. Which is why my face is on the front of boxes of Assassin's Crunch everywhere across South Korea and Japan today. How I mostly make a living. You can't go there, can you? You can get absolutely mobbed. Oh, yeah. They ask you to do the cinnamon dance.

When I go to serial comm, yeah, yeah, I have to. Yeah, you do the dance and all the cinnamon powder comes out of your nose and your ears, doesn't it? It has to take a couple of days off after that. It's absolutely agony, but they love it. To flush out all the cinnamon, both ends enema. I love the ad. Oh, thanks.

Well, we're going to have to hire Assassin's Crunch and then you get given a photo of someone. You set fire to it. You track them down and you're standing opposite them. They're having breakfast. I drive them in semi-skim milk. And then you club them today, finish them off with a massive spoon, don't you? It's such a great ad. If only Clive James was still with us, too.

It really rinsed that Japanese ad. I think you'd make for quite a good henchman as well, Henry, to be honest. Notice Mike didn't say spy. No. Yeah. Mike caught himself because he was almost going to give me a compliment, and I could see it. He caught himself.

I couldn't see my craw. Really stuck in his... Mike's brain synapses. They suddenly had to channel themselves in a different direction. They were all heading towards a compliment, and they had to do some very, very quick last-minute work, and they would break your synapses. Luckily, Henchman was there ready to go.

Henchman was ready to go. And I think, yeah, very much... Close call. Close call. In the Cold War universe, the sort of military cut-out sort of, you know, hairy-bearded thug probably gets offed quite quickly. But I would say I'm too bald to be that person. I would say I...

Because normally there's a bald one and one with a sort of mullet. You'd be in a double axe. I'm not. So I'm the second... I'm the secondary henchman. You're the secondary henchman. Behind the mullet. Behind the mulleted primary henchman. There's a sneering mulleted one who's sort of wiry and weasel-y and sadistic.

But, okay, Mike, can I just... I just want to stand up for myself here a little. Okay. I'll cut you down again, though. I know. But imagine me naked, and... Yeah, hang on. I'll just get on my...

I've got some notebooks where I've done some little drawings of film. Here we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've got it in front of me, yeah. So there's a picture of that. But... You've sort of got a tall bar stool I've got you on here, playing the mandolin. If that helps.

Yeah, use that one. That's fine. But imagine me naked and then in a kind of egg-shaped container with a lot of black liquid around me. So I'm sort of... I'm suspended in black liquid. I'm naked. So from the nipples up, you can see me. Obviously, I'm bald.

And maybe a couple of wires coming out my head. A kind of Davros-type thing. Exactly, Mike. So you're thinking you're in some sort of Siberian lab, being sort of regenerated as a kind of super spy. Is that right? Exactly, exactly. Well, I think I could...

You've really beasted your part here, Henry. I'm going for it. I mean, this would be a hell of a conversation to be happening in a casting. Or mid-shoot. You have me out. I'm enjoying playing secondary instrument, sure. We can mop this up from stuff in the catering van. We can just cover me, all the gravies, all the sauces you've got.

Cover me in them. Do you have a carbon-fibre egg anywhere? I know it's lamb today for lunch, and they've got a lot of mint sauce, and that would be perfect, actually, the way the light bounces off it. That sort of greenish-black heat. That's going to be absolutely ideal. Trust me.

Okay, so we haven't got a carbon-fibre egg, but have you got a wiggly bin? If you put me in a wiggly bin full of gravy, I think we're getting somewhere near my vision. And you can just seedry the rest. Look, let's just use all the stuff from the first aid box. Look, we're probably going to be fine. We're insured up to the teeth.

Let's fucking do this. Let's cover me in needles, plaster casts, crossed-up aspirins. Just a collateral flow test to one of our temples, so it looks like it might be a bit of a computer or something coming out of my brain. I'm electronically enhanced. Do you see?

I know the film is set in 1910, but that's the whole fucking... That's the... Sorry, I'm sorry, Ridley. I'm sorry, Mr Scott. I didn't mean to swear. That's the whole point. It's a secret spy mission.

That's what I'm envisaging. From the future. From the future, which was still the future back in 1910. I don't want to patronise you, but it was still the future then, so it's still relevant because it's the future. I know it's meant to be a touching family drama about a cobbler who has to give it up

and go and work in a mine. I know that. I know Nigel Havers is saying he's tired. And he's got a taxi. He's supposed to be going to Graeme Norton in a minute. I know that. I know that. I know that we're running out of time.

But if we could just film this scene, I think it could... What have you got to lose, Ridley? What have you got to lose? What's the idea of the character, then, Andre? So he's in... Okay, so he's in this sort of black techno soup. And presumably, when he emerges from that,

he's absolutely deadly. Yeah? He's got a very good muscular tone. I am either a new form of genetic spy that's being bred that's gone wrong, or... That doesn't work. So just get Rid.

Doesn't work. Get Rid. So you just see him being fed through a mincer in the background of a shot? Yeah, they'll probably lose a lot of it in the edit, but... Okay. So you see the initial mincing? Yeah.

Flush and mince him. Okay, or it goes right. In which case. Or I could actually be in charge of everything. That's the... Those are my only two things. I'm either the least important person in the film, or, at the end, it's revealed it's the Eggman.

It's the slimy Eggman. He's the big daddy. He's pulling all the strings. Yeah. He's the arch nemesis. Exactly. And that's why I think I could be. Okay.

Yeah. Attach my feeding tube. Tube. Yeah, that sort of thing. Bubbles. Lots of bubbles in there. I think that's going to focus group very poorly. Now, Mike, I think it needs to be pointed out that

since this topic got announced, you've just been grinning like a fucking Labrador. Because this is just right up Mike Street. And he's... Yeah, this is you, isn't it? You love this stuff. I love all this stuff. Mike loves Spice stuff.

Doesn't he? Especially the sort of Le Carré stuff. He's sort of middle-aged provincial man. Spice stuff. Yeah. You're sort of slow bake. So what's the deal with Le Carré books? I've never read one.

Have you not? No. I've not read one. They're dead good. The main hero is George Smiley. But he's a kind of... He's... Am I right in saying, Mike,

that you could literally touch a copy of one of those books without moving? Well, Mike, you're looking up at them. You've got a very high bookshelf. Thank you. You're looking very high. Can you get it down for us? I'll get you down.

Hang on. I'll get you down. Mike is absolutely... Mike is... He's trying to contain it and hide it, but he's absolutely loving this. Hang on. So there's 10 containers of Soldier Spy.

That's a classic. Smiley's people. A legacy. Can you put that on top of a metal bin? He's got them in metalback. He loves Spy books so much, he gets them all in metalback. He still took a gassy on about Spy's.

A defence of the realm, the authorised history of L.I.5, by Christopher Andrew. And then you've got... I've done this actually in an old book about... So this is MI9, escape and evasion units. Is that even a...

Between... Is it even a thing, MI9? And I mean, that's just... You know, I could go on. But anyhow... We'll get the idea. Mike, just to let you know, MI9 isn't real.

But it was real. Was it? Yeah. It was real. MI9. Because it's now MI5, MI6, right? But there used to be all sorts of M's around the place. Did someone tell you that you'd been recruited to MI9, Mike,

and you had to send them £800 by check? They kept me listening back that they'd sort of locked up in the back of their kitchen. And said it's for escape and evasion purposes. And off you pop. So what did MI9 do? Escape and evasion in the Second World War. So they sort of escaped from what?

Like prisoners of war. So if they were downed airmen, they'd trained them before they went to how to, you know, evade capture. And if they were captured, they'd trained them how to escape. And would it assist in that escape? I have to admit,

I know it probably doesn't reflect on me very well, but I do like a deep dive into all that sort of stuff. Were you ever tempted to go that way in your life? No, it's just fictional. It's just flights of fancy. Do you think what do you think it's really like being a spy? Do you think it's one of those things which in real life is much more boring?

I suspect it's probably either. Either you're like an intelligence officer, in which case you need to be doing lots of analysis of lots of documents and information and you're in an office, and you've probably got to have the level of intellectual rigor that I don't possess. Or...

Just kind of listening to like Russian AM radio. Yeah. Or you are an actual spy, in which case you're a citizen in North Korea who's been turned by the South Koreans or whatever. And you're in constant threat of peril and it's terrifying and then you die. I imagine.

I'd get really confused with how complicated it gets with like double agents, triple agents. Are you saying that you never got the tap on the shoulder, Henry? I never got the tap on the shoulder. And I hung around bus stops for most of my 20s. Because that's when it was supposed to happen. It was supposed to happen at bus stops, wasn't it? I think so, in university towns.

And someone with a briefcase would come up to you and they'd open it up and in it would be a selection of facial hair. And you'd have to memorize it. In the next day, someone else would come up to you and ask you if you can remember all the different facial hairs that you saw in the briefcase. If you have to go, red sideburns, go team. Very, very bushy white eyebrows, nasal hair,

lamb chop sideburns, pork chop sideburns, beef ragu sideburns. Pork stir fry sideburns, Eric Silrey forehead hair. That one long hair that grows out of your nose for some reason. So it's basically it's North Korea and Russia and Israel are those the nations that they seem to be the nations that supply the sort of newsworthy spy assassin type stuff. What are they called in Israel? I can't remember.

Mossad. Mossad. Yeah, they've done some. They know what they're doing. Pretty interesting stuff over the years. Don't one of my little watch words in life is don't make an enemy of Mossad. For a life that's long and full of glee,

never an enemy of Mossad be. I've got that I'm in cross stitch in my downstairs toilet. Lovely design for a quilt that isn't it? Tell you what you don't hear very much about normally is the Danish intelligence service. Although I think the I think the head of the Danish intelligence service is currently in prison. Sandy Togsvik.

That's right. He's been undercover as a comedian for the last 30 years. That's right. And there's no in prison for some reason. For betraying state secrets. The Danish don't have any state secrets. Well, I mean, I think that might be why he's particularly surprised to find himself in prison.

He's pissed off about it. That's one of those things. See, that's one of the weird things about being a spy, actually, is that it's one of the only jobs where, you know, that's your job. So his job presumably was to be head, you know, to be head of spying for Denmark. So that's your job. That's what you do. That's your raison d'etre.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's almost certainly what you do, except there's also quite a good chance, though, that what you're actually doing is the exact opposite. For someone else. Yeah. It's like that doesn't really happen in other walks of life, does it? Like if you're a baker, most bakers, they just make bread.

That's what they do. They make croissants. They make buns. They make loaves. Keep going. They make. We're about to step into the thorny issue of opposites again. I'm trying to buy myself time by naming more bread products before you work out what the

opposite of being a baker is. They make cheese twizzlers. Yes. They make cheese swizzlers. They make... Pins pies in the right season. Bread. They might make bread for catering on a film,

bread for weddings. They might pre-slice it. They might not pre-slice it. They might post-slice it. They might make small round loaves for airplanes and weddings. And weddings on airplanes. Aero weddings. They might also sell canned fizzy drinks in the corner from a slightly loud fridge.

Bottle of water, sir? Yep. Just help yourself they're in the fridge. Would you like a bun with that? No, fine. You can still buy wards here. I'm a baker. Fine.

Don't know why you're chosen to come and buy wards here, but it's up to you. Come and go as you please. You were just passing by. Could I interest you in one of these little samples from one of my loaves? Portuguese custard tart? Nope. Okay. Spelt.

Filled baps. Sourdough baps. So, time. Sourdough spelt. Time bought. Now. Okay, time's up. Yeah, that perversion.

That would be like going, oh, he's a head baker of his bakery. I always thought he was a head baker at a London bakery. Turns out he works for rival bakers on the other side of the town. No. No? That's not, no. This feels very, very, very similar to that opposite. Yeah.

It does, doesn't it? It turns out he actually is in charge of rivers. He works for the river, but he works for the river protection aid. What's the point you're making? Well, I'd say the river is quite close to being the opposite of bread, because it's very wet and bread's dry. We're back, we're back in the vortex. Damn you, damn you, Henry.

How dare you? I think this is where you, I think we've landed on accidentally, where you might fit in nicely to the espionage world. I mean, that's misinformation and disinformation, isn't it? Confound and confused. I think you'd be a very, very difficult interrogation subject, Henry. I think you'd be infuriating, even under the most severe torture. In the same way that I was quite good at poker the first time I played,

because no one knew what the fuck I was doing and neither did I. And there was 10 quid resting on it. Should have been more, looking back, because after that, I could not win a single hand. But yeah, that first, yeah, I think... You'd be 17 hours into your interrogation, and you'd have asked for the 400th time if you can reheat your coffee. That'd be all you'd say, and they'd just think he's got brass balls this guy.

But actually, all you're thinking about is, I just want to reheat my coffee, please. And interrogator after interrogator would start confessing to me. And be like, what? And be driven mad. Don't go in there. They'll drive you crazy. And they'd bring in all the worst interrogators in the world.

Oleg the slapper. He just slaps you constantly. Mickey the tickler. Mickey the tickler. Oh, he works really well with Oleg the slapper. You can use a conjunction there. Waterboard Ann. Yeah.

Waterboard Ann, who works for the waterboards. And is extremely, extremely tedious company. Really, really dull. No, I think... Well, I forgot what we're talking about. You say, yeah, this is why it's hard to talk to. It would be hard to interrogate me. Yeah.

Presumably as well. They'd be putting ferrets up your trousers. They'd be putting toenails out, plucking your nostril hair. They'd be so desperate by then to be dressing up ferrets in trousers, just to see if that would confuse me enough to talk. And I think it would suck up so much of the enemy intelligence agencies' work and effort and time and manpower trying to interrogate you that... Yeah.

...whoever had deployed you. Yeah, I mean, you'd bring it down. It would... You could bring down the whole of Denmark. Yeah, Denmark would grind to a halt. Here's the thing. I can never remember which one's which. MI5, MI6.

Oh, come on, Henry. Henry. Come on, Henry. Sorry. MI9. Idiot. MI9 is escape and then get back in again. Yeah.

MI8 is dealing with really dangerous dogs. Yep. MI7 is boat police. MI6 is like James Bond type people, international agents. That's international, right? MI5 is like our version of the FBI. Security services. Oh, is it?

Oh, I didn't even know. Is it our version of the FBI, Mike? No. A bit. Of course not. A bit and a bit not. Because the FBI can actually go and arrest people and do that kind of stuff.

And they do corporate crime and things, don't they? They do corporates. They do... They're the greater corporates. They do corporates. Basically the sort of Christmas season. And here to give out the awards for the best... Dental hygienist of the year.

2021. It's MI5. Yeah, that's only for a special agent. You've got to have a decent repertoire of occupational gags at the ready. The drop of a hat. In my head, MI6 is the CIA. Yeah.

And MI5 is the FBI. Okay. But that's wrong, is it? It's a bit wrong. FBI does counter espionage, don't they? But I think CIA does a bit as well. But the whole point is FBI, they can knock down doors and interrogate and arrest.

Whereas MI5 guys, they're not arresting anyone. They'll get the special branch to do that. Or whatever the special branch is called these days. Which one's special branch? As in like, well, counter-terror commando, whatever they're called now. The police... If you want to arrest a spy in this country,

it's not MI5 that does it. MI5 are running around carrying guns. No. I thought they were. Well, oh, Mike, you're so naive. That's not a baguette. It's an Uzi. It is a gun.

What, you think they're all just into baguettes? They're all on the way to picnics. Come on, Mike. Firing high velocity ham. Yeah. Armor-piercing brie. But I think I could be quite boring about this stuff. The thing is that, yes, I was very excited

when this came up as a topic. You don't need to tell us that much. But honestly... Yeah, no. No, you're absolutely like a pig in shit in this, aren't you? I'm a pig in shit. It's not necessarily very interesting to hear about whether or not MI5 can arrest people

or if they can't arrest people. Well, it's amazing with you, Mike, how what appears to be a very interesting topic can actually be incredible where you do it. But the quality is interesting, as you actually thought when you... It's amazing, isn't it? A gift to be able to take.

Quite exciting. You know, you think international excitement, guns, cool spies, fake ones, a bit. But in your hands, Mike, isn't it? I can turn it into a really grey bureaucracy. Possibly why I quite like the Le Carré stuff. Le Carré stuff is all very detailed, and they, you know... Well, it's very dad, isn't it?

It's just incredibly dad, isn't it? It's spy books. I've noticed something about dad books, by the way, recently in a bookshop, which is they're almost always black with big red lettering on. Yeah. There's something about that.

The dad sort of sees that. You know, like different animals, different eyes. It attracts the dad eye. That black with a big red sort of... Very, very solid fonts on it. Sort of square fonts. There's no serifs. And there's a sort of special lexicon as well.

I mean, if you can shove in a word like protocol in there somewhere. Yeah. Or paradox. Yeah, amazing. Yeah. The protocol paradox. Oh, bloody hell.

Oh, hang on. Sorry, I have come over a bit of faint. Yeah. That was a bit too much. Let's try. Protocol dossiers. Keep talking. Featuring previously unearthed Nazi protocols.

Can I say, you know, I've got to fucking... I don't want to bring it back to Costa again, but I've got a big problem in all roads. I've got a bit of a problem in my costume. You've spent enough time there. That's, I mean, that's part of the age we live in, really. All I've got to talk about really is my spy novels and my dog. All you've got to talk about is Costa.

I mean, that's, you know, we're in the COVID times, and yet here we are doing a chat podcast. Exactly. It's dangerous. Exactly. But you see, that's, you know, so spying, it's like, on the one hand, it is really exciting and stuff, but it's also quite dad and quite boring.

And I think history in general and World War II falls into that category. And I'm trying to resist the urge to get into World War II, partly, because I, but I was in, when I was in, I was in the book, this bookshop the other day, and I was sitting on a window sill in there. Right. And so, well, I just wanted to sit down,

but they've taken, they've taken the chair away. They used to be a chair in there. This sounds like an anecdote from someone in their late 70s. It also sounds like another regular hoard, where they, they've taken away the furniture that you prefer. And they hope it'll get rid of you. He's back here. He's just sitting on the window sill.

He's too good. He's always one step ahead. He's brought his own picnic chair. But basically, I was sitting on this window sill and, and next to me, there was a display pile of colourized World War II photos book. So that was a big coffee table book. World War II photos that they had colour added.

I was literally, I was supposed to just sit down for a couple of seconds, and I was ensconced by the time, you know, my wife came and found me. I was like, absolutely ensconced. I was, I was on the Western front, you know, in my mind. I was there. I was with those lads, with their old up cigarettes. Sitting on that amazing machinery that we built, we built.

Hello? No, I noticed all these black books with the red lettering on. And long story short, you've joined the army. You've lied about your age. And you're now a royal fuselier. I've stowed away on the HMS. Battle, battle, battle boys. Good old HMS, battle, battle, battle boys.

Flagship. It's the big one. You've got your pike. I've got my pike. Your tin hat. And a black and white photo of my sweetheart back home. Well, best of luck to you, Henry. Thanks for defending everything we hold dear.

No worries. And I've got a coaster in every port. The attaché protocols. Oh, yeah, nice. Oh, that's a good one. The attaché dossier protocols. Why is it that a dossier is exciting but a folder isn't? But it's basically the same thing, isn't it?

Because dossier, dossier does affect me. I'm interested in a dossier. I'm not interested in a folder. A file I'll take. Oh, yeah. E.g. Ipcress. Oh, it's good to have a name in there like Ipcress, a sort of muscular. The hinge muck.

No, the muck. The muck. The hinge muck folder. The greatest espionage through the flop of all time. You couldn't even get the muck the right way round. It was supposed to be muck hinge. That's what I was thinking, but I said hinge first. Can we just finalize what we're going to call our spy novel?

I was thinking maybe before we get to, you know, the attaché dossier protocol, we put a colon, so it's something like Moscow rising, the attaché dossier protocol. Moscow rising? Yeah. Yeah, rising is good. I don't know. I think you've got to be even more, you've got to, Moscow's good and stuff, but I think to draw on the dad, speaking as a dad, you can go a bit more specific,

or not specific even, but maybe outside the capital, small ntsch rising. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I thought of quite, by the way, I've done a quick sort of bit of research. I've come up with an algorithm to design the perfect writer for this kind of book. I come up with the perfect name, because you want short first,

basically you want one syllable two for some reason. It's boom, boom, boom. It's double punch. That's for a dad. Isn't it? Jack Reacher. Mike Portillo. Exactly.

It's the punch double punch, isn't it? Jeff. Rearch. Jeff Reacher. Jeff Archer. I'm pretty sure it is though, isn't it? Bob Munkabs. So I've come up with the perfect one.

It's Tim Wagler. Smolensk Rising, unearthing the original previously unseen Nazi attaché briefs by Tim Wagler. That's great. Okay, now time for letters. My voice is giving out, so we're not going to read out some new letters. We've got some letters we read another time, and then we're just going to play you those. If you can handle that, might be a bit trippy. I reckon you're up to it.

Just get your head around the fact that these were recorded at another time. And such a different time, wasn't it? And you might then be listening to them at yet another time. Which you probably would be, almost certainly anyway. Certainly from when we're recording this bit now. Yeah. And certainly from the previous time when we actually recorded the letters. So here it goes.

This is from Merade. My dearest beings, I moved to Pennsylvania this past June, and have slowly been acclimatizing myself to the state. So they mean Pennsylvania, America, rather than there is area of exit called Pennsylvania. Is that true? I was there. Yeah. Are you serious?

I've never been more serious. America. America. America. America. I'd like two tickets for the Chattanooga Choo Choo. America, America. Get me the DA.

A slice of old mama's apple pie, dirty animal. In New York City. Stop talking crazy. No one's ever going to want to drive around in these ridiculous cars you've been designing, Mr. Buick. Burgers. Driving through the countryside a few weeks ago, I turned down an unfamiliar road on my way home.

Quickly, I noticed that I was heading towards a dense fog, and it was becoming more and more difficult to see out of my windshield. My nose unexpectedly caught the scent of honey mustard and onion. Wow. Oh. Perplexed. I looked at my GPS and realised with a start that this wasn't a fog at all. The air, dear beings, was thick with grease.

Without knowing it, I had ended up in Hanover Pencilvania, and looking eagerly to my right, I caught the sight of the headquarters of Sniders of Hanover. Wow. That's amazing. Oh, lovely. She has sent us a photograph, which I'm going to share with you now. Had she been listening to the pod that I'd interfered with her sat now?

The AI just took us straight there. She continues, I, of course, pulled over and documented this unexpected and delightful discovery. Brackets, see attached pictures. There were several signs warning against trespassers and tourists. I will do my duty as a podcast listener and Pennsylvania resident to keep you informed. No tours, the sign says. Factory store.

It's a bit like Willy Wonkers, isn't it? I mean, saying no tours feels a little bit aggressive. I mean, I didn't want to go on a tour. Now you're telling me there's no tour. You just don't mention a tour. No, I do want to go on the tour just to see why there isn't a tour. Just to explain, she sent us a photograph of a big sign outside that says, Sniders factory store open Monday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm.

No tours. That's brilliant. The factory. So there's a factory store. Okay. Well, there's a few things we can deduce from this, I think, from what we've heard. Because it all feels a little bit like when you approach Area 51 or some sort of like secret military base, there'll be a fog.

There'll be a mysterious fog. It'll have a smell. Honey and mustard. There'll be a honey and mustard scented fog, won't there? Because of experiments and things that are going on. You'll be descended upon by two heavily armed helicopter gunships. Exactly. The moments of being in the area.

Yeah. Soldiers repelling out of it. Yeah. Putting your head in a bag. Yeah. Or a giant pretzel in this case. You will, you'll spend the next six months teaching a clone of yourself how to behave like you. That's what happens.

And when that's not happening, you're being marinated. You're being marinated for the next batch. That clone of you, once it's been trained to be as much like you as possible, sent back in the world to replace you. And emails will be sent out to things like podcasts to cover, to come up with a cover story for what's happened to you. And sadly, that's what's happened. So we're part of the picture.

Unknowingly, we're being puppeted right now. I just think no tours is a bit protesting too much, isn't it? It's like, oh, steady on. Like, what are they hiding? You know what I mean? No tours. You can buy this stuff from the store, but no tour. And you buy it, but you get it.

Forget it. Also, currently inedible to buy within the EU or Britain. Don't forget that. Is that true? Yeah. Why is that again? Apart from your local garage, Henry. So many of us have to say that you can no longer buy Sniders

if you're a business. You can't buy wholesale Sniders anymore. It's all black market now. What is going on in that factory? Anyway, Maread, thank you so much for that. That's absolutely fantastic. And surely we're going to have to add that on to our Three Beans Grand Tour when it comes up.

Well, when we do live shows? Well, no, because we've already done a live show in the Sniders factory. We've already decided we want to go to obviously the Dragon Cafe. Yes. Yorvik Viking Center. Of course. Bremen, of course. The Reichstag?

Yes. Reichstag. We've got to enjoy the architecture there. I mean, hopefully when we're doing the Grand Tour, Kelly Vivanko will have an exhibition somewhere in California. We can swing by, hang out. Yeah. And then we head up north to Sniders of Hanover of Pennsylvania.

Surely they'll give us a tour, surely. It's quite evocative, isn't it, that sign? It makes me think of American teenagers, you know, sitting on the bonnet of a car having their first beer. Do you know what I mean? Under the... Let's meet down the Sniders sign. Yeah.

You think that's the lover's lane of Pennsylvania? I reckon it is. Yeah. Oh, we can see all the way up to the glittering lights that emanate from the Sniders factory that we just about see them through with a green, thick, accurate, onion-y fog that surrounds it. I like to make love to the smell of sweet mustard.

Oh, yeah. Someone's going to be clipping that out, Mike, in due time. I'll hear again in court in about three years' time. Yeah. And then one day, it's an old man. You go back down there, don't you? You go back down the Sniders to, oh, this is where the old Sniders sign.

You look like an old man, but you're actually only in your early 20s because you've been living by the Sniders factory for your whole life. It's literally only a fortnight later after you kissed your girlfriend there, but you think 15 years have passed because you've been such a fucking haze. You're an absolute Sniders pretzel thug. Your brain doesn't know what's going on. I mean, you're half mustard. You're basically salted, pickled.

You've got salted and pickled brain. And you go back there. I used to kiss all young, old, young Marianne here. I said, no. I find time confusing now since the fog infiltrated my thinking and my brain. But we used to sit on the bonnet of my car and I'd kiss her face and she'd kiss my face sometimes at the same time. And then she could torture her body like a pretzel.

And we used to think, oh, maybe one day there will be a tour. But no, no tours. In case you're wondering, Henry's Erotica audiobook series will be released later this year. And it's all done in the voice of an old American man. You know what? The other thing this sign is a bit evocative of is that of Springsteen lyrics, Springsteen songs, you know? Oh, isn't it just?

Walking down at the factory store, bashing out Sniders every week. There's no tours. We say no tours. Mama said there's no tour. Daddy's been working the pretzel line for 30 years. Smashing up them pretzels with a big fat hammer. But they always said no tours, no tours, no tours, no tours of the stores, no tours. Now I've got to send my own son down the pretzel pit for the first time.

Come with me, baby. Hold my hand. We'll get out of this no-tours-loser town. We'll go to a town where they do do tours of the factories and industrial things. Maybe they'll be a wire museum. Or maybe a place that makes memory cars for laptops. Probably let us look as long as we don't touch anything. Because the digital economy has screwed over the manufacturing sector.

Maybe we should have done tours. I'll go on a tour, but I won't wear a hair net. I'll go on a tour, but I won't. Because this is America. I've not been to it, but I've either of you. Cadbury's, which is the nearest equivalent that we have, I think, to Snyder's in Britain. Cadbury's does do a tour of its factory. Have you been?

Yeah, Cadbury World. I've not been, no. Mike, have you been? No, but I'd barely well loved to. Me too. Have you been to a tour of anything? Because in Amsterdam, have I been to a tour of anything? Yes, I've been on a tour of something.

Do email in. Have you been on a tour of anything? Send us the list. Send us the comprehensive list. You might laugh, but maybe you're actually talking to the boy who'd never toured, the saddest of all the boys. This is normally the point where Henry would say something like, well, of course, in a way, we're all really on a tour,

really, of a lifelong tour that way. And there ain't no rehearsals. And there ain't no gift drop. Just whereas, of course, on a normal tour, you would rehearse, of course, before. Yeah, you'd rehearse everything, wouldn't you? In a way, everything's a rehearsal. Particularly rehearsals. Well, rehearsals, they're double rehearsal.

Actually, you know what? I didn't, I have been on a tour. I can't think of one. You've never been on a tour? The tour is when you go around a thing, but someone's guiding you a bit and saying... The tour guide? Yes. Yeah, I've not been on one.

I don't think so. Can't think of one. You have. I think you have. I've done the tour of Berlin. Does that count? There we go. Well, there you are.

That counts. I've done a tour then, yeah. Do email in if you've done a tour. Yes, please. Best tour you've ever been on. Worst tour you've ever been on. Do you offer a tour? So thank you, Merade.

Thank you. Brilliant. Do keep us abreast of any... If the sign changes, if they say tour's now available. We've had an email from Teresa. Teresa from Los Angeles, California, USA. There's lots in the email. It's very long, so I'm not going to read it all out.

Okay. I'll paraphrase the first bit. She saw a rock on a beach that looks like our podcast art. Oh, we're strike and share with you. Yes, please. I mean, I'm looking at Henry now. He's beginning to sweat because we're about to find out that his so-called original design,

he just picked up on a beach in Los Angeles. He picked up on a beach in Los Angeles and he thought no one would ever find out. Should have taken it with you, Henry. Yeah, I shouldn't have done. Shouldn't have left it there. I shouldn't have left it there. A great illustrator always takes away the rock formation

that inspired his work. Oh my, she's right. We've got to tweet these images. Yeah, we'll share these images on Twitter, along with the Snyder sign. Mine is still downloading. I think my computer's trying to sort of... I think your computer thinks it already has that image on the hard drive.

Cannot compute, already have image. Save over previous one or save as version? Fucking hell. Fucking hell. It's absolutely bang on. You know what that looks like to me? That looks like if mankind is rapidly and really, really violently wiped out double quick time by fire.

So only one of them has got time to scream. The other two haven't even had a second to work out what's happening. Do you think it's like a Pompeii body version of us? I think it's like a Pompeii version of us. I think that's what will be found in centuries to come. That is absolutely brilliant. That's great. Also, Teresa has suggested that we put Taxidermy into the beam machine

as a potential topic for discussion. She then writes, This year for Christmas, my boyfriend gave me a book on how to do Taxidermy. Then with a sheepish look on his face, shoved a box of what I knew was something had been in the fridge for about a month. And I was under the impression it was an ice cream sampler.

Not quite sure what an ice cream sampler is. I guess a box with samples of ice cream, presumably. Realising the implications, I started to sob for the dead things that were certainly in this polystyrene box. It was two dead frozen squirrels for me to do Taxidermy on. Plotting hell. And he had ordered them online from someone he met on a forum. And requested a newlywed scene.

She says, I'm actually stoked to try it out. I hope I can do them justice. Well, please do send us the image of your Taxidermy squirrels. Whatever the tableau might be, you make of them. Yeah. We'd like to see that. That's superb.

Thank you. Quite a troubling anecdote, but I'm glad he sent it to us. I think that's going to linger with me. I mean, we've all been given, like as a present, like a book where you're like, oh, God, I've got to read this. But to be given two squirrels, and because you'd feel you have to stuff them now, don't you? Otherwise, it's rude to the person that gave them to you.

Have I misunderstood the story? No. No, that's exactly what happened. I think you're right. I think you couldn't just leave it. Unless it's one of those presents where he actually wants to use it. So he wants the stuff. Guys, sorry to go back to the image of the rocks on the beach.

I've just realized she sent us something else, which I hadn't seen, which is a video, which I'm just sending you. That's quite extraordinary. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my word. Yeah. Tiny little crab.

Oh, the little hermit crab, rolling over the face of the screaming stone. The hermit crab, it disappears from view. And it's now crawling up your left shoulder, Henry. No. That is incredible. A little hermit crab, no less. Representing sperbs, presumably. A sort of real-life tableau was taking place in front of her, full of symbolism.

Um, thank you, everybody. And thank you to the Patreon supporters, one and all. Time I think to talk about what happened in the Sean Bean Lounge. The other night, which is a little bit different. Can I just sort of pompadou this, potentially? Go on. And now it's time for the pompadou section.

We're very pleased that everyone signed up for the Patreon. We've had more people than we thought. This is true. Here's the truth. Specifically at the Sean Bean Tier. Sean Bean Tier members get a shout-out on the podcast. Yeah. What we thought was going to be sort of name-checking maybe five people

has turned into a mountain of people, which we're obviously very happy about. Many generous souls. But we're just grappling with how to shout out everyone. It's a good problem to have, isn't it? It's like having a cyst on your leg, which produces, like, dash and puppy. So it's a good problem to have. Is that a good problem to have? I mean, I think our problem is a good problem to have.

Well, I think the first couple is nice, but then it's like, what are you going to do with all these dash and puppies? Do you know what I mean? That's the situation we're in. On a one-to-one basis, we love each of these dash and puppies. They're all lovely. Bodger, Tim, Stephanie. I don't like Stephanie, actually.

Yeah, I don't like Stephanie. You've got to say you do, though. But what are we going to do with them? Do you know what I mean? That's a good problem to have. Grateful. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is we're not going to get through everyone's shout-out by the end of this series.

So some of them will happen in the next series. And if you've got a problem with that, take it up with Stephanie the Dash. Indeed. And in the meantime, because the Sean Bean lounge was absolutely thriving the other night, we decided, well, why don't we just have a big old game of bean ball? That's right. And here's a report of that match. The historian committed a dangerous tackle above the head of Christopher Lumley,

the history skeptic, which was spotted by Linesman Kieran Stone, who sandwiched his infraction klaxon, which Katie Bradley mistook for a war tuber, leading her to invade P. Otto Halber, and install Marta Sorensen as president for life. Meanwhile, Paintball magazine, PBM, headed the bean to Heather Arabski, who swallowed it beautifully, easily moving it past Moose Alayne, the cartoonist who was distracted by a tree, leapfrogging over Burpa Wiggum, the cartoon skeptic,

before nut-making herself through all six legs of Chris Carp. And sneezing the bean into the back of Aaron Rodriguez's hairnet, thus scoring a stone in the house. Ashley Milvitan feigned an injury to the bean, and was read spatula by Megan Harkness, who was feigning being the referee, which was spotted by Till Latke, who sent it to the Sin Bin, where Jane Stockham was running a speakeasy. Matt Sneddon pundered the bean back into play from the 22-inch line,

whereupon to no one's surprise, Hannah Cole of the Novelist failed to catch it, an opportunity seized upon by Richard Crawford, the novel skeptic, who took the bean and invested it in a geothermal swimming pool. Martin Kemp, not the one you're thinking of, probably, but maybe, executed a really seen beanless one-man scrum, and trampled Andy Teeny into what can only be described as human lino, before passing the now necessarily imaginary bean to Callum Bartrop, who imagined himself getting a slam dunk and won a Triple 20.

This was converted by Andy Snyder into Ando Raiohama, who served as bare-been backwards at 123 miles per hour, thus acing himself. Final score? Pompidou Tube's two sets to one, Bremen Pine Martin's 8.6 on average, but nothing from the French judge. Okay, thanks everybody. It's probably theme-tuned time, isn't it, Ben? It is theme-tuned time, of course. Who's going to choose I chose last week? I think I chose, like, it's Mike's turn, I think. Oh, is it?

Mike, give me a number between one and 12. We've got 12 submissions. Thank you to everyone who sent them in. They're all brilliant. 11, please. 11. This was sent in by Tom, who says he lives near Bremen. Thank you, Tom. He writes,

In early to mid-2020, I suddenly find myself with a surprising amount of time at home. What better opportunity, I thought, than to learn the violin? Oh, wow. And what better forum for my first ever public performance than the three-been salad podcast? An instrument that normally takes many, many, many years to master. He's going straight forward. So, good on you, Tom.

Thank you, Tom. And thanks to everyone for listening. See you next time. Cheerio. Thanks. Bye. But they always said no tours. No tours.

No tours. No tours of the stores. No tours. I like to make love to the smell of sweet mustard. I like to make love to the smell of sweet mustard. That's the end of series three of three-been salad. We'll be back at the beginning of March with series four. See you then.