Three Bean Salad - The Essence Of Fear

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

Without a care in the world, Zachary of Bremen tosses the spine-chilling topic of “The Essence of Fear” into the bean machine quiver and expects the beans to just deal with it once it’s fired out. Of course - they do. They dive deep. Gossamer deep. Listen only with extreme caution (one ear?). Also contains a forbidden jingle.Join our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansaladGet in touch:[e-mail]@beansaladpod

I was with my parents recently, and then they were clearing stuff out. And they wanted, they wanted me to go through a bunch of old badges. They found a big old bag of old badges, right, from various sort of family excursions. One of them I found from a family trip was this. It explains so much. Listen, the mic is holding up a blue badge with an image of the atom being split, I think. And it says Sellafield Visitor Center. In case you're unclear what that means, that means a

family trip to a nuclear power plant. And as if it wasn't clearly a bad idea. Enough. It's just literally got a picture of a complicated atom, which presumably if you take a mic to any part of your body now, Mike, it would have that that atom in it, pinging around with it, pinging around you like a sort of pinball. Is Sellafield in the north of England? Yes, kind of Lake District, Cumbria. Was it shut down? Was it shut down for

safety reasons? Or was it fine? I think it's still pumping out hot, sweet electricity and pumping out good family entertainment. Day in, day out. Do you think as a target for us, this could be the biggest pump adieu discount yet? Is this just for the Visitor Center and the gift shop? Or is this all the electricity created by the national grid? I think it should be a discount. Try it. Someone try it. I think it should be a discount for the tour and a discount for

all the health, all the sort of health interventions that you that you'll never to be need for the rest of your life. After the tour. Yeah. Do you remember the the tour, Mike? Do you remember anything about it? I do vaguely. I do vaguely. I'm mostly being the thing I mainly remember is that it involved quite a lot of reassurance that it would be absolutely fine and they wouldn't have a visitor center if it wasn't completely safe.

Was it mainly safety chats then? It was mainly safety chats. Don't worry, this is completely safe. And also nuclear energy in general is completely safe. So everything's just safe. Welcome to the safe zone. Here's our mascot, Dr. Safe. He's a scientist. Always goes on about how things are safe. Yes, he is wearing a hazmat suit and he is standing 3000 meters away. But he is talking to us over and over and intercom. He's

through a screen even though it's the early 90s. And the water we're hosing you down with constantly is safe. This is a safe hose. It's completely safe. Please drink your iodine. Your family members only appear to be glowing because you love them so much. Yeah, blimey. And also, Mike, this must have been in the shadow of Chernobyl,

right? If you were, you know, a young kid. Yeah. When was Chernobyl? Was Chernobyl, what, 86? Yeah, yeah. Oh, it must have been. Yeah, within a few years after that, I'm sure late 80s, I reckon this would have happened most likely. And also that means Craig Mason hadn't hadn't even turned his his thoughts to the hangover part two, let alone Chernobyl. It's that early. It's that early in the nuclear power story.

I think my problem with childhood memories and things like that is if I had been to Sellerfield, I would now when I'm trying to access those memories as we're going to try and plumb from you, Mike, this episode, there would be so intrinsically linked with HBO Chernobyl, I wouldn't be able to pull apart which bits were from HBO Chernobyl and which bits were from my childhood visits to Sellerfield. So the legions of naked Russian firemen. That's probably Chernobyl.

There were lots of naked, lots of coal miners who were naked just from the waist down. Definitely. Yeah. Pretty sure my cheese sandwich did taste of iron. I don't know why. The big tiger walking through that's from Hangover 2. It's possible that not many people know that the writer of Chernobyl was the same person who wrote the Hangover 2. This is this is a public service announcement. Yeah, we find that out. So in that, because I'm imagining a nuclear power

plant, you can't, you can't look under the bonnet. You can't exactly you can't get in the reactor. Although this was the 80s. This was the 80s. Yeah, you get stuck in. Free samples. I think I've got a hot glowing chunk of uranium to take them a little bit to feed to the cat when we get back. I'm picturing you might sort of dressed up and putting on a little atom suit. So it's just your your sort of nine year old mustachioed face sticking out of a little and then yeah, but it's a kid's

one. So it's made out of polyester. Okay. And then just shoving you into the reactor and just sort of seeing what happens over fish around. Be brave. You're perfectly safe. Some cause you can't you can't get into the reactor. You can't get you can't get in amongst the carbon rods. No, you can't get in amongst the coolants. I assume there must have been some sort of gantry somewhere. But I don't know if that gantry, how close that gantry would go to the the rods and the coolant. I

assume they get the gantry is probably to look at a view of the building within which is is the main gantry at which you can look at the stuff. Exactly. It's just gantries within gantries. So I'm guessing that there's the there's the there's the the stuff that's actually happening in the reactor. And then and then there's there's the bits that humans were allowed to visit, which will just be a corridors, meet meeting rooms, breakout

rooms, staff kitchen, toilets. When I mean, when it just be we not just visiting an office, essentially. Yeah, probably an office with it. It's probably some blurbs. They're probably just, yeah, probably just some blurbs 12 miles away from the actual site. Yeah, which nine year old me would have been very happy with. They're missing a drink if they don't have a toilet that empties directly into the reactor. For that crackling fizz.

That's true, actually. Well, yeah, like shit directly into a nuclear reactor. I'd pay for that. Yeah. It sounds high risk, doesn't it? Think of the thing of the beast you could create. You fools. Sir, Salafield, third monster. Six years. Now I've been on the run from a an intelligent version of one of my own turds. You created six years. I've had to make a false identity. I'm so tired. I miss my children.

My miss my children miss me. I think although they seem to be reasonably happy with their new turd version of me dad. Was there much a megafauna around Mike, you know, like huge boxes, giant mice the size of cars, that kind of thing. Was there a lot of announcements going, no, no, they're just very close. It's not a giant fox. It's just incredibly close. The giant foxes that were very close, though, he has definitely a lot of internationally prized winning horticulturalists.

Yeah. Now that I think of it. Yeah. Now that I think about that 50 foot cucumber. Was it down to the fertilizer? Was that was it like, everything seemed fine until you got into the lunch bit and was like, Oh my God, it's a ghastly bacon with eyeballs and like talking broccoli. Oh, you'd have to kill your bacon son at least four times before you can get it down. Intense, emotionally exhausting experience. I think I quite

enjoyed it. I have quite a vivid memory of going to a power station near Bristol when I was a kid, but I don't I don't think it was nuclear. I think it was coal coal fired. But I remember it. Yeah, quite vividly. It was quite exciting. Did you did you catch the big pitch on the way make it a big old coal day? That would be good, wouldn't it? You could deliver coal from big pit. For those who don't know big pit as well as his premiere attraction. It is a former mine that you can go down. You're

taken around by X miners. And it's one of the best days out you can have in the United Kingdom. It's a classic. I've never done big pay. If you don't big pit might as well. Yeah, I've done big pay. All right. Good big pit. Have you taken your kids to big pit? I've not actually that's a good point. No, they're gonna have the best. It's the best. But I definitely had more than one big pit in my childhood visiting grandma. Oh, it's so good. So what happens when you get when you get down in there?

Is it little railway tracks to big pit? Is big pit deep deep pit? Deep pit, big pit. Yeah, big pit, deep pit. When you get down there, there's about 1000 leopards down there. I'll be no leopards. They're blind. They're albino. And they work on smell. So you have to make constantly washing yourself. They're not dangerous though, because their teeth are so soft because they have no access to any sort of vitamin D no sunlight. They're quite spongy. They tickle. But it's quite distressing

having having to remove six or seven of them from your own face. And when you get down there, a nice old, you certainly used to be ex miners used to take you around. I don't know if that's still the case. And they'd tell you what life was like down there. And the answer is horrifying. Do they Which kids really want to hear you want to hear? Do they dress it up or do they try and make the trumpet a

positive spin on what it was like? Or is it or is it like this was grim? No, to know to be fair, they are quite positive about it. Because it was very, very dangerous. You're in the dark. You're covered in sort of certain dirt and grime. You can bear There's a camaraderie, I think. Yeah, the main thing. Because you're doing something quite dangerous and horrible. So the

necklace of dead canaries. There's a nice bit where you go through to a big open communal showers. Okay. I just thought isn't that nice? They always have a nice shower together. They felt, you know, that easing each other's company. Isn't that nice?

Sort of prison, quite prison like then. So prison. There's a prison level perks, I'd say a communal shower. Speaking of going to parents' houses and then finding things from your youth. I went to my parents' house this week, and they gave me a load of stuff that they'd found in their attic that I might want. They gave me this. So if you want to read this out certificate of achievement by

careers, Wales, to certify the Benjamin Partridge has successfully completed a business dynamics programme. Of course he had by David Miller, no less. David Miller himself. The man, the man who the, you know, the term million milli on air comes from him millionaires, the first person to make a million pounds, David Miller, that's what's called a milliard air, a millionaire.

If only you'd worked with Susan Billar. So, Ben, this makes so much sense of why you're, you know, you have made three bean salad, such a profitable, efficient business model, which we are now able to, to franchise around the world. There's now Ben is able to. Ben is able to, you and I are just employees. He's made that good. I think we're not even, I think we're contractors, technically.

I don't think we're even contractors. Certainly, I've been told, yeah, Ben told me I don't have a pension anymore. A bean pension is gone. I know, but Mike, do you not read the, do you not read the, do you not see the PowerPoint that bended for us? Yeah, we've got total flexibility now. We could, we didn't have a, we've got total flexibility.

You don't have to have two weeks of holiday. Yeah, you didn't have to have any holiday. We can work offsite and off job, can't we? We can't get off whenever we like. We, we can not even work, if you find us, we've got total, there's no, guys, I offered you a communal shower. The thing about, the thing is what we learned, Ben, is the thing about communal showers is there's a number of people

above which becomes communal, like two isn't communal, it's just, it's not enough, it's actually not enough people for it to feel private, weirdly. We have been sending invitations out to other freelancers that we know, but no one's taking us up on the offer. And you, and you can't have a shower with a cease and desist letter. You can't.

Well, what if you invited the other three been salad franchises around the world? So there's Michele and Enrique. That's like, what, what, from, um, Incelata de Tres, um, Pinho, Incelata de Tres Pinho. Correct. By the way, there's, there's, there's three Incelata de Tres Pinho, there's the Argentinian one, there's the

Mexican one, and there's, there's the, there's the El Salvadorian one as well, and the El Salvadorian one. Which is really good, actually. Well, I'm getting Panama off the ground this week as well. So that's going to be a big money spinner, no tax over there. So it's a lot of the three bean money goes through there. That all feeds back into it. So Ben, it's absolute genius.

You're, you're ready to franchise it though. So talk us through it. Cause basically people apply, don't they? To be a three beans load of franchisee. Well, hang on. You're, you're putting the cup before the horses. I run a sort of roadshow. That's right.

Which, which me and Mike have to do on your behalf. Cause you, you're too busy, but we, because we don't really, we, franchising and delegation is absolutely key to your business at all times. But we, we do the roadshow, but weirdly, I couldn't actually tell you what happens in the roadshow, because the way you've controlled the script and the costuming and stuff is that Mike and I didn't actually understand what we're doing.

So we just say sort of noises at certain times, separate words, separate syllables, even the words are broken down. Well, sometimes I'm wearing a stiletto on one foot and, and a sort of fox port, a giant fox port on the other foot. I don't know why. Even though you're in an opaque booth. You still have to wear this footwear. So Ben, can you explain what is the roadshow all about?

So roadshow goes from a conference centre to conference centre across the world, 750 euro registration fee, I seem to remember, someone complaining about, yes, right? Well, that's, that's the, that's the discounted rate that you get if you go through our Instagram advert, Mike, if you just walk up, of course, there's a walk up fee of 2000. And everyone on the staff, euros, everyone on the staff is wearing what apparently is the world's smallest land, the world's

smallest lanyards, is that right? Is that a money saving thing? Because you've shamed the smallest and most brittle, yes. Yeah, because a lot of us, people have been accidentally swallowing them and stuff has been, you've got a few, obviously there's a few lawsuits coming your way. That's, that's just part of the course, isn't it? This kind of thing.

Um, if you look, if you swallowing a lanyard, you've got to buy a new lanyard. I just want to make that very clear to anyone coming to the roadshow. From you? Yes. From you. Yeah. You've got a monopoly on the tiny lanyards, haven't you?

Yeah. And the second lanyard costs more than the first lanyard. And it's even smaller. You have to ensure it as well. That's right, it's compulsory insurance. And you're right, Henry. The second one is even smaller and more brittle. And therefore easier to swallow and more damaging.

So the roadshow, yeah, goes from city to city, um, just letting potential franchises or franchisees, uh, know the benefits of having your own three bean salad franchise. And people are taking me up on it around the world. And so they subscribe. So what happens is you, you send them a kit, don't you? Which has the basics, uh, what they need. So that's, um,

Well, no, sorry, again, you're putting it up for the horse. Sorry. They then have to come to the training of the workshop sessions. Can I say this explains why I have to dress up as a horse and mic as a cart sometimes, isn't it? Because, and we have to, and while saying beware, beware, don't, don't do this. Yeah. Well, the reason maybe you didn't think about this is because you two

are both fully anesthetized for the training sessions. That's right. Yeah. Um, but you're heavily a single one. You are heavily involved. Yeah. You'll just never know what happens. I also quite, I'm often quite bruised afterwards, which I have been

to ask you about. Yeah. That's the bit where we hurl you off the angel of the north. Ah, okay. Which is a metaphor. For what happens if, um, if you ever try and exit the franchise once you've signed on. Cause it's one of the things is you say it's the, it's the hard hug

of a mafia boss, isn't it? That you give your employees, which is you will protect them, but you will also destroy them. Yeah. Well, once they've sung the jingle of allegiance, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. The rule is you can only leave the franchise on the day of my daughter's

wedding. I don't have any children. And that is how you get a certificate from David Miller with that kind of strategic thinking. But that's why then, obviously someone in your position, very powerful. You have to spend a lot of money on security. Um, and you have an entire team now that has deployed against people that have hired teams made up of ninjas and the agricultural seaman, um, burglars.

So there's some combination. Never combined before. It has never been a reason to combine them till now. And obviously people, people are trying to, uh, yeah, secretly steal seaman from you, aren't they? From your, You can use the words, Henry, milk me milk you in your sleep. So to then use IVF to then create a daughter.

Yeah. Obviously then wait for her to, to, to reach your marriage age, bring her up, get her married off. Cause that's the tragedy of the ninja, isn't it? There's a ninja, ninja can give you one of the best handies in the planet, but you don't know it's happened. Exactly. That's the real tragedy of one of the, one of the main tragedies of the ninja.

Um, and of course, if anyone's seen them, I was going to say the seven samurai, I was going to say the seven samurai, but that's, it's called the seven samurais. No, not the seven ninjas. So, um, Is there a different, is a ninja samurai or is a samurai ninja? I don't know. Over to Mike.

It's time for provincial dad chat. Who's hit my bloody walking boots? I'm not saying it's ruin 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. So. Well, ninja ninjas, is it like the Netherlands and Holland and Holland and the Netherlands? Oh, golly, no. No, well, the samurai, they, they were the honorable warrior class, right?

The Knights. He loves this shit. Who would follow a leader, a shogun, right? As a ninja, they were warriors, but they, they didn't fit into the accepted hierarchy, social structures of feudal Japan. Mike, Mike, Mike, look, look, we've been married to you for a long time. Of course I love you, but, but can you please just stop? Everyone's just trying to enjoy a pretty relaxed barbeque.

Sassage after they can stop talking to everyone's children about about ninja. You've said feudal. Remember, Mike, feudal is one of your warning words, isn't it? It's saying feudal when you've gone too far. It's saying feudal. It's a sign, isn't it? We agreed on this. It's the first danger door.

The first danger door is feudal. The second danger door is samurai. And when you've gone too far, it's when you're talking about how they fold and refold and refold the metal on the swords. Just stick to Wi-Fi speeds and whether diesel is going to make a comeback. And please tell me once and for all, is our son called Sam because he, in your head, he's called Samurai. Is it true?

And is our daughter called Nina with a silent J because that spells an end. Yeah. No, so Ben, what happens is you send them a kit, don't you? Once they've joined up, they get a kit. Well, when they, when they leave the training compound in Aldershot. Or if they leave the training compound. They are given the kit. They're given the kit, which is...

Well, it's Mike and Henry outfits. It's a bald head mask for me. A mid-face merkin for me. Well, it's actually, I bought a job lot of Sven Gorn-Ox and head masks. We then actually then shaved down to them. In fact, the whole business idea just came out of you going, what the f*** am I going to do with all these Sven Gorn-Ox and head masks I've got? I've had them since 2004.

Oh, God. They told me to put my money in bricks and mortar. I didn't believe them. I thought I'm going to put my money into rubber, Sven Gorn aggressants. He's going to be the manager of England forever. He is. Come on, he just is. In fact, Henry, our entire friendship, when I first met you, I thought... Here we go.

Finally. If we can together one day build a podcast that I can franchise. So yeah, it's a Sven mask. It's a mid-face merkin for Mike. Isn't it? Mike, as you said. Yes. What is it for Ben?

Well, the thing is, I'm actually Ben in all the podcasts. Oh, right, because of Zoom. Yeah, so I can do Zoom. So I'm now doing up to 100 podcasts a week. OK, yeah. So it's me and then, yeah, Enrique and Miquel, for example. Yeah, Henri and Michel. Henrik and Mika.

Henrik and Mika. Across the world. Yeah, so it's getting pretty busy for me. And so obviously they've all got, they've all got, they've all got Patreons and they've got advertising revenues in their own territories. You just have to get the jingles translated periodically. And is it true that, because normally in a franchise, a percentage of that would go to you.

But is it true that you get all of that and then you simply pay them in healthcare vouchers? Which they have to use at my hospital in all the shot. Yeah. If they can get to it. If they can get to it. The compound is very secure. Yeah.

And it's actually only a virtual hospital anyway. The serve is in all the shots, but the hospital is entirely virtual, isn't it? When I broke my arm recently, as I mentioned before, I didn't go to the fresh clinic. I went to the virtual French clinic. Did you? Wow. Which was an email.

Welcome to your virtual fracture clinic. Is that what it said? DFC. This is it. They really made the virtual fracture clinic sound like it was going to be this hugely space age thing. AI. Cadrone was going to hover over your front door and X-ray you.

Exactly. You stepped out and disappear again. When in reality it was just a tired doctor sending me an email that if we're honest, didn't make sense. So was it like one of those scenes in an action film with someone telling you you having to tourniquet yourself and stuff? Just you having to wait for the emails to come in to tell you

which thing to do next and stuff? Was it that or did you go and see a gangland vet to sort it out? I just I just have to be honest. I mean, you know, the fact that my arm now only bends 20 or 30 degrees doesn't matter, does it? It's I never really used my rice on very much anyway. And it doesn't bend in the human in the human direction, does it? It just bends into your body.

Yeah, yeah. It has a sort of trestle table leg. It sort of retracts into you, doesn't it? It feels like we could pop you out easily. And I think it's a snagged occasionally, which is quite irritating. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine a deck chair in the wind. Yeah, that's kind of what my arm.

And imagine quite a comic scene would be a sort of a windy day and Ben in swimming trunks wrestling with what you think is a deck chair. But was it he's actually just trying to open up his own arm. Isn't it? Meanwhile, two pay flies off his head and a seagull shits on his. It's not. It's not a two pay. There's Sven going out. Let's turn on the B machine.

Yes, please. Yeah. And instead of playing the normal B machine jingle, we've got one sent in by Will. Oh, thanks, Will. Cheers, Will. Dear beings, it occurred to me the other day that no one has actually ever heard what the B machine sounds like in operation.

You've alluded to the fact that it is stitched onto, into and throughout Ben's body like a collaboration between Cronenberg and Pompadoo, correct? However, have any of my fellow listeners pause to think about what this would sound like? In fact, I'm quite sure that the cute jingle that plays is entirely there to cover up the horrifying cacophony that activating the B machine makes. Well, you're right there. It's done for your safety. Yes, exactly.

It's there's a very, very, very good reason. The child was to accidentally chance upon. The podcast and hear that they're done for. And we've got we've got it. We've got the MP3s, haven't we, Ben? You've got them. Well, you keep you keep them as almost as a kind of insurance. Well, they're technically under sanctioned by the UN, aren't they?

I think Hans Blick is coming to inspect them next week, even though he's dead. Yeah, yeah. He faked his own death to become the secret weapons inspector of the B machine. That's right. Oh, and now who's being naive? If you think Hans Blix is capable of dying. No, well, Hans Blix being Hans Blix is actually something which is passed on from Father to Son, isn't it?

There's always been a Hans Blix and there always will be one. Yeah, it's like the Duchy of Lancaster. Very, very similar. Well, William writes, it was this conspiracy that led me to dig into the dark web. And what I discovered shocked and disgusted me. Here is the full B machine summoning ritual in all its horrific splendour. The truth must be heard. So it seems like he's managed to get hold of those MP3s, Henry.

We've been trying to shut them down. Yeah, that's terrifying. You've been hacked, potentially. Yeah, so should we play it? OK, but with this comes with a warning. Don't listen. Don't listen to this. Don't listen to this under any circumstances.

B machine, B machine, turn on the B machine, B machine, B machine, B machine. So hopefully you didn't listen to that for your own safety. But I mean, if you did, I should say thank you to the the baritones and castrati of the year. The bean coral, bean machine, coral scholars. You live such such a hard life. It's a very tough existence. They have to eschew personal possessions, love, human connection. And thank you again, Mike, for castrating them so well.

Thank you. It's a great pleasure. And so vigorously. They're so lovely. Wasn't it? It was almost that we had to go, Mike, come and stop, stop. They're already castrated. Stop it.

We've got enough boys, sopranos, Mike, stop. We need some more lower register. We've run out. You can have to restrate a few of these guys. You do that? Get stitching. What? Well, that's dangerous material that we've released there.

Yeah, very bad stuff. Will, that's sorry. Will, that's terrible of you. Yeah, the thing about the bean machine, though, is it's levels, isn't it? So there are different levels and you can go deeper and deeper into it. And actually, no one's sure exactly where it ends. Because that's the kind of occult level. There's a level of the bean machine, which is operated by people with sort of hoods,

who meet up in, well, like occultists do, they always meet up in a situation with no furniture. So they never get to sit and do meetings. They're always standing round, aren't they, with the hoods? So it's a furniture-less, sinister room with some sort of star on the floor. Usually marble flooring. Usually marble flooring. So very, very hard to heat, isn't it, those spaces?

Cool in the summer, though. Which is good if you've got to wear a lot of hoods, you know. Yeah, yeah. And a lovely acoustic, as we heard in the recording. Lovely acoustic. Yeah, very springy. You've got to have lots of nooks and crannies, as well, for people that have infiltrated the meeting, haven't you?

To look on. To look on. Yeah. Undetected. I did it with a gargoyle with a sort of secret handle that they can accidentally sit on and be rotated backwards into another chamber. That's right. With some stairs that turn into a slide.

Yeah. Down they go. That takes you to the Basilisk. Which is a huge slow worm. World's first slow worm basilisk. Very proud of that. And then you tumble out of the basilisk's mouth, don't you? And you find yourself in the toilet of...

You don't know which one, but a Costa restaurant. One of the Costa... UK, isn't it? And you emerge from it and you're like, what Costa restaurant is this? Ealing. And I'll be like, Ealing. Have they got the Korean noodles?

They have. Great. Great. Can I have some, please? What's just happened to you? Tell you what, sit down. You're not going to believe this story, but just I'll tell you it over these noodles. And you become the Costa Troubadour,

telling the story from Costa to Costa. Over the dying embers of a panini maker. So this week's topic, as sent in, by Zachary. Thank you, Zachary. Hi, Zachary. Thanks. Is... the essence of fear.

Good grief. Wow. So the essence of fear, I... I'm not really sure what he's driving at, but I'm going to take it to mean fear. Mm-hmm. Yeah, good enough. I mean, the essence of fear is fear, isn't it?

You're saying fear is fear itself? Or is the essence of fear the unknown? Oh, Michaelios, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. For example, I've never been to Canada, which is why I'm terrified of Canada.

Canada! And I know about what a tiger can do to my body. It's kind of fearless in the face of one. Because you know exactly how much it's going to hurt and how long it's going to have to live, which isn't very long. No problem. Do I have a kind of phobia?

Diagnosable phobia? I've got what I consider to be a phobia. Yeah. Basically, all insects. So when I was growing up, there was this thing in my family, which is that my older brother would put you in a box full of insects.

Would try to tear my arms off and put me in a jar. And there's this thing growing up, which is that my middle brother was arachnophobic. And that was just kind of... You know, like, families have these things where they just go except, which is,

he's the creative one. He's the mathematical one. He's the one that's afraid of spiders. And he's the one that we feed table to tritus to. Or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Like, there's these rolls. So it was basically, my middle mother's thing was,

he was arachnophobic. So we wanted to be careful around him to not cover him in spiders. Not try and trap him in giant webs. For the shoes with spider eggs? Exactly. All that kind of stuff. And also not do a kind of... Me and my other brother weren't allowed to do a kind of dance

where, you know, you use silhouette and you put your arms and legs out because then we'd appear to have eight limbs. Two heads. Then what happened was, I started to realise I was terrified of spiders as well. In fact, all insects. Oh, but that place was already taken.

So whenever I piped up about it, I was like, no, you're not, Henry. to realize I was terrified of spiders, in fact, all insects. Oh, but that place was already taken. So whenever I piped up about it, I was like, no, no, you're not, Henry. No, no. No, it's s**t, I was afraid of spiders. So I won't name the brother.

Bobfrey, Bobfrey's afraid of spiders. You're not afraid of spiders. You can't be. You're just copying. Don't copy Henry. Stop it. You're copying him. You're trying to annoy your brother.

So get back into the spider pit now. I'm still asleep. Only Bobfrey doesn't sleep in the spider pit tonight. Bobfrey's got arachnophobia, that's his thing. And you've got your beautiful flute playing. That's who you are. You are the James Galway of the family. You are the Galway of the family.

You can play flute that is so beautiful that it would make a shark cry, isn't it? That it would become a raging volcano, which is great for, which is great for. Yeah, that it would soothe a raging storm and that it would bring peace to the Middle East. We're hoping grade five. That's grade five really hard.

But also, another thing, this is another weird example of sibling rivalry, which is actually, I'm actually more scared of spiders than Bobfrey's. I'm more afraid of spiders than Bobfrey, and I'm good at flute. Check that, Bobfrey. So, I've had horrible experiences throughout my life of just being, I mean, I find insects utterly horrendous.

So, Henry, is this the first time you've managed to express this suppressed phobia? I think it might be, actually. I mean, I know you find, do I find insects horrendous? I actually find them depressing. They actually really do get me down. Because they're so workman-like. Because they're unambitious.

They're so focused, Mike. They're so focused, they put us all to shame. Focus without ambition. What have I done by 7am? I've done nothing by 7am. They've been creating some sort of ghastly, subterranean galleries. They've spawned 8,000 offspring.

They've spawned so much into one of your old shoes. Exactly, they've created caverns and sort of... See, I think I find weird about it, especially hive insects, is the way it was always described as galleries and caverns and halls and corridors and stuff. By Maxine Mars. By Maxine Mars. What a great parking.

Lego shops, all the stuff they build. I once watched an interesting documentary called Swarm. They've made a sort of case that you could consider an ant's colony or a termite colony to be one animal. And they're all just parts of it. Everything about them is horrendous. I find that quite disgusting myself. I was once on holiday in Marrakesh.

See, this is the other thing which I hate about insects, is they ruin the concept of holidays going abroad. I will never step upon Australian soil. Never. I don't want to go to a country where you have to check the toilet seat. You have to check your toilet seat, that the whole thing hasn't been swallowed by a wasp. Because they're that big.

I don't want to go to a country where you're on the plane on the way over. The plane might get attacked by a dungadunga. Exactly, or swallowed by a weaverly wobbler. Or that you're asleep on the journey over on someone's shoulder. He goes, sorry, that's a bit awkward. You look at them, it's just a giant cockroach. He goes, I'm a wobbler, I'm a wobbler, mate. And he pukes on your face and you start dissolving.

And everyone's like, oh, I'll chill out, mate. Just stick it under a glass and stick it in there. Are they pasty-pomped? Relax. Just, yeah, yeah, chill out, mate. I can't, so in Morocco, in Marrakesh, one of the most horrific things I've ever seen was, I was in bed.

So to the left of the bed was a box of tissues. It was quite a nice hotel. So you know, like a little Moroccan box, you know the way a tissue sticks out of the box? Yeah, oh yeah. The top tissue, the top tissue. The top tissue emerges from the top of the tissue, box like a tongue.

And just like a tongue, when you pull on the tongue and pull it out, another tongue comes out. Yes, another tongue appears. Just like a tongue. A sort of vending tongue, isn't it? A sort of vending machine. For tongues. For tongues.

And woe betide you, though, if you change the folding mechanism on any of those tissues, because once you've done that, you'll never get it to dispense properly again. Same goes for screen wipes. Then you just end up with a kind of mash of... Yeah. A mash of...

Cautionary tales within cautionary tales of this tale. I'm enjoying it. It really is. This also, of course, covers washlets. Now... So imagine that... It's a gossamer thin, isn't it? That...

It's gossamer thin, isn't it? Granted. That tissue tongue that sticks out the top. So I was lying about it. I looked to my left, looked to the gossamer, and I saw a shadow, a silhouette through the gossamer thin, top tissue.

Ooh. Yeah? Yeah. A shadow. And you know what it was? It was a cockroach. Uh-oh. And that cockroach,

like all cockroaches, as I understand them, are all heading towards my neck. Yeah. And invincible as well. And invincible to the degree that you could deploy a small tactical nuclear weapon, and it would survive.

No good. There's nothing you can do. And you could even just hold it down and cheese grate it, and it would still be fine. You just end up with a thousand cockroaches. Who are even more invincible, and even more determined to approach my neck. So this cockroach was coming towards me, obviously.

And the only way it could do that was to walk up the back of that tissue. So the tissue is sticking up in the air like it does. And I saw the silhouette of it. And walking in that really horribly quick and horribly horrible way, you know, that insects do. So I saw it walk up the top of this tissue. And obviously, as it was walking up,

the tissue was responding to its weight a bit. So the tissue was moving. Yeah. As it walks up the back of it, it's two horrendous ghastly antennae popped out the top first. See them going over the top? Then it's utterly unthinkably grotesque alien face

with mini mandibles and mini hairs, and just so many eyes. Just so many, so many eyes. I mean, they're tough bastards. They're not even worried about maintaining the element of surprise. This is the essence of fear right here. They want to maintain the essence of fear.

They don't want an ambush. They want to petrify you. That's what they use. But it has created a kind of, you know, an entrance. It hasn't just popped up. Yeah. Oh, no. It's quite a kind of light show where it's celebrated.

It could be, in the right circumstances, it could be considered cock-et-ish. But here it's missing. It's the insect world's equivalent of a debutante. Appearing at the top of a huge swooping staircase in her father's, her rich oil barren father's mansion, before sweeping down the stairs, but replaced her golden locks with the maroon carapace

of a cockroach and give her eight to ten legs. Barbed legs. And two arms which are constantly just removing mucus from her eyes. Like windscreen wipers just removing layer after layer of mucus. So anyway, so here it comes. The antennae are over the top. The unspeakable alien face, all the legs and arms. Armoured abdomen.

Armoured abdomen. Glossy thorax. And wobbling egg sack. And venomous thrones. Venomous thrones. And of course, the distinctive miniature version of the Fijalkraven backpack. So anyway, so it comes up the top. So at this point, I'm like, I know what this cockroach has got in mind.

It's going to get up the top of it's got to go up the top of the tissue. And then there's something horrific about this moment, because the tissue, of course, is completely like it's moving a lot, according to its weight. So it's not like it's going up and down a wall. It's going up and down this thing, which is completely almost weightless. But yet the cockroach's determination is so, it's so sort of intense and clear and simple and straightforward and barbaric and amoral. It just goes up the top.

And then there's this horrible record of teeters. Can you imagine an insect teetering on the top of a piece of tissue on that on that verge, the top edge, the nothing. It's almost two dimensional. But it teeters over the top with all its legs and arms going, its antennae is waggling. Yeah. And then it starts going down, but over the other side. So now it's on the other side of the tissue coming down the other end.

So on your side of the tissue. It's on my side of the tissue. The wall of tissue is not as strong as we hoped. The wall of one ply tissue. Did it sort of look like it was surfing? I'm just trying to picture the memory to a Beach Boy soundtrack. It's just even more horrific. Did you flee?

What did you do? Did you fight back? No, what I have an incredible mechanism in my body, which is... Is it the ability to check out of a hotel? I can check out of a hotel in under two seconds. Even the receptionist is like, what the hell does happen? That was incredible.

What the hell does happen? He's filled in all the paperwork. He's paid for the peanuts. He's registered a complaint about the tissues. He's going in the same taxi he came in. This is absolutely extraordinary. Have I ever done that? Bloody hell.

He's even written in the guest book. Most people don't even bother writing in the guest book. He's written something in the guest book. It's not complimentary, but... No. Did it take off the cockroach? No, no, no, it's not in the guest book. Because the flying thing is...

I mean, that's quite... No, don't. Don't, don't, don't, don't. A similar adventure abroad was in Kaupanyang, Thailand with some friends, just enjoying a nice... A nice meal in a sort of beach bar, a sort of cafe. And we were suddenly aware of this sort of... Sound.

Yeah, yeah. That's the worst sound. Do that again, Mike. Do that again, Mike. Like really heavy, sort of quite sounding almost metallic, as if a sort of chinook is just overhead. Heavy, heavy duty, heavy gear. And we were also aware of a passing shadow going across the ceiling.

It's not a scout trip, is it? No. Oh, God. The silhouette. Is the silhouette plus noise. It's more silhouette. But it was... It was gone in a flash.

It was gone in a flash. But then it was, you know, 10 seconds later. It's back again. So fleeting. And then we kept coming back with shorter and shorter intervals. We could never actually kind of... Soar, whether it's... And I'm in that situation, I'm just thinking,

I'm just thinking, please, for the love of God, can it be a mugger or maybe someone's come to murder me? Please, for the love of God. An assassin. Please let this be vertebrate. Yeah, please. I just need a backbone on this guy. But just the idea that we couldn't,

we could never get lock eyes on this thing. I think I think one of my friends, I think he did eventually spot it and just yelped. And that was it. Abandoned pad thai. Gone. Evening over. Done.

And it was a flying cockroach. And we don't know what it was. Because it was hearty. I mean, it would have been at least fist-sized. It was sort of... I can't deal with it. I'm doing up my top button here, because I've got this fear of them going down my neck.

I'm having to do up my top button. I've got this fear of them going down my neck. I didn't know what they would do once they were down my collar, but I just think insects want to get down my collar. Literally, this is giving me a kind of... I think this guy would have just... Unless he had clean off and gone down that way. But, Mike, I've had the same experience,

similar to that in... I think it might have been Thailand, in an outdoor restaurant thing, where basically, there was lots of people sitting at these outdoor tables. And then every now and then, what an entire table of people would all stand up and go, whoa!

And then they would sit down again and calm down. And then you'd carry on in another table. We go, whoa! And just carry on the... And you'd have to track and you'd be like, hang on, it's approaching us. It's like, whoa! The fire is approaching us.

You can follow its path. It's going towards my neck. It's going towards my head. The head is towards my neck again. Time to read your emails. Yes, please. When you send an email, you must give thanks

to the postmasters that came before. Good morning, postmaster. Anything for me? Just some old shit. When you send an email, this represents progress. Like a robot, chewing a horse.

Give me your house. My beautiful horse. Let's start off with an email from our old friend Jazz, the polar scientist. Oh, hi, Jazz. Dear Beans, a light bollocking for Ben. Bollocking Loading. Ooh, that's quite rare.

But also, Ben does sift through and select the bollocking. It's not that surprising. That's true. He is the bollock sifter. What Jazz has done is they've sent in the light bollocking. I don't think there's such a thing. I think it's a bollock or not a bollock.

I don't know. Some bollocks really cut to the quick. I think it's that they can be sharp or blunt. But also, in a way, the size of the bollock is in the mind of the bollocky. So you mean I will decide how bollocked I feel by this? Exactly, yeah. I like bollocking for Ben.

This is about, we talked about lobsters. Lobsters are not referred to as immortal. They are in this show. Yeah. Well, no, they're right. Lobsters are not referred to as immortal because they, quote, can't get ill, which is what I said. Yeah.

They can get many diseases as any other animal. However, they age much slower. Over time, our DNA erodes. But lobsters can repair DNA of lots of their cells as it decays, dramatically increasing the number of divisions the cells can go through. We only have this ability in especially important cells, like stem cells.

Because they can continually repair their DNA, turning back the clock on aging, and also continue to grow their whole lives, sometimes until they're too heavy and die of exhaustion. Crumbs. There are lots of memes about immortal lobsters. Y-O-Y, then, has there not been a film made, a brilliant, you know, dark sci-fi?

With Jeff Goldblum? Obviously with Jeff Goldblum. About someone that's trying to harness, you know, trying to sort of master immortality for humans through lobstering people, by attaching clippers to them and lobster heads and hand-to-hand stuff. What Jess has told us is that they're not actually immortal. They just don't age.

Oh, so that's why. So they die young and large and exhausted. They die young, large and exhausted. Yeah, but they're old, but they're still young. They've just grown so large that they're too exhausted to live. How big do they get? That's a good question. Jess says that there's a meme on the internet,

including a group centered around trying to create a leviathan lobster god, by helping a lobster molten so it grows large enough to dwarf the pyramids. And good luck to them. But that's not possible, because one of the only things I remember from school biology, apart from gonads, is on plants, is that you can't have an insect or any carapace invertebrate grow to the size of a bus or whatever. Because I think we've discussed this in the podcast before, have we? Because of the surface area.

So if you were to get an ant, basically, we pretty much forced Dr. Custon's I think this may have been before the gonad incident, to explain to us whether or not you could have giant ants that could attack you and kill you and stuff. He spent most of his time just fielding giant ant questions with us. But basically what he said was that if you can't have a giant ant, because if the ant expands to a certain size,

the surface area, because that's length times width, expands at a different rate to the volume, which is length times width times depth. This is verbatim. Therefore, this is verbatim. How deep is your ant? How deep is your ant? Is it deep enough to grow to a size where it could dwarf a bus, take over a city or swallow a whale?

It would collapse in on itself. Yeah, exactly. It would collapse in on itself. And it's also due to a surface area and volume, and those two things expanding at different rates. And that's quite useful information. You can apply things like sandwiches. That's why there's a certain size of sandwich

where you wouldn't go any bigger, because it wouldn't be able to sustain its integrity. Don't know what it would start falling about. That's why things roughly have the size that works. Sandwiches, cars, desks. Ants. 60. Yeah.

I'm very interested to see what Jazz, a PhD level scientist, does have to say about this, and whether you're correct. Ben, can I say this whole interaction is reminding me of an idea I've had to do with the bollocks section of the show. Okay, is this a pompadou? It's a pompadou. And now it's time for pompadou section. Pompadou.

Pompadou. Which is to introduce something which is called the bollock within a preempto-deflector intra-self-deflecto bollock with a side salad of fuck you. Are you deploying that now? No, I'm discussing it now. Okay. So how would that work?

So how that would work is we, one of us, would secret something into the show, a comment, which is there as a sort of trick. A bait. To attract a bollock. Bait. And then once we receive that bollock, we then play you the full version of that bit from the show, which is me, you know, me saying something like, and that's why all cubes have 12 sides.

If you count the long bits in between the points, the sides, the edges, which are just very, very thin sides or something like that, then we'll get all these bollocks coming and then we'll go back to me saying that about the thin side. And then I'll go, was I really saying that? Or was that a bollock within a preempto-deflector intra-self-deflecto bollock with a side salad of fuck you? So we lay a trap every episode. We lay a trap.

And if someone falls into it, that's good. Yeah, okay. It's quite slippery. Well, I mean, this is the end of the series, obviously, but for next series. That's something for next series to think about, isn't it? That's very good. It'll tear the podcast apart in general. It'll tear the podcast apart.

It breaks the bond of trust. It's a bond of trust between us and the audience, exactly. How about if that happens to you, you have to offer some sort of pompadour discount with a service that you provide? That's good. Well, one of the many services that we provide. Oh, you mean the listener, the bollockie? That they provide because then you'd only engage in a bollock

if you knew that you could offer a pompadour discount. Most of our lessons seem to be either professional musicians or PhD-level academics. Well, so a paper, they might do you a paper. Yeah. Or a sample, for example. If it's a scientific academic, a sample. Jazz would have to send us a bit of a polar bear spleen. Bit, exactly.

Yeah. Good idea, Henry. Next email is from Kathy. Hang on, hang on. And Stu, what's your response to that bollock? Are you accepting that light bollocking? Are you acknowledging it as a bollock? I think it's more than a light bollock.

I think it's a genuine lobster's antemortal. I'm sorry. That's bollocking accepted. Bollocking accepted. Kathy and Stu of Shrewsbury email. Hello, Beans. Hello. My dad, Stu, and I, so it's from Kathy.

She refers to her dad, Stu. And I was having a chance. Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben. Ben, wait, wait. I've just thought of something we can do that's quite good. Yeah. Say, say Shrewsbury, right? Yeah.

In a weird, in a weird way. Well, this is the thing, isn't it? Because it's Shrewsbury or Shrewsbury. I don't know. Shrasbury. Shrasbury, okay. And it's... Shrasbury.

Shrewsbury. Is there a way that you can say it where someone will write in and we can like, and we can do that thing on them next season, but even though we've pretended we weren't going to do it till next season? Problem is though, Henry, they won't know it's meant to be Shrewsbury. They'll just take us to a place called Shrasbury. Shrasbury. Isn't that the problem?

Yeah, that is. That's one of the problems. Yeah. Hanging problems early doors, aren't we, with this one? We are in problems early doors, but that's... Are we going to keep this in, then, to show them how badly we're already executing our... We could keep this in as a pump, would we?

Cathy writes, Hello Beans. My dad, Stu, and I were having a chat about Timothy Chalamet after listening to your recent episode. We agree that Chalamet's brought up so much that we think he's a very much worthy of a jingle. And I think that's not a bad idea. Could tell. Mm, yeah.

Here you go. Chalamet. Chalamet. Chalamet. Sleek, glossy hair. Supple, yet firm, musculature. Take me to the Louvre. Slender biceps.

Pure, thoroughbred. Chalamet. Equine tail. Shins of alabaster. Top end, monogrammed luggage. And the neck strength of a hyena. Chalamet. These are lugs you reprints.

Next email is from Alex. Hi Beans. It feels like it's about time for Nytal Havers jingle. Ooh. Not sure about the styling, but I'm sure you'll find something that captures the raw animalistic essence of the man. Cheers, Alex from Bremen.

It's another good shout. Havers. Wow. Good idea. Here's your Havers jingle. Havers. Haver. Haver.

Haver. Sleek, glossy hair. Supple, yet firm, musculature. Take me to the Louvre. Slender biceps. Pure, thoroughbred. Nigel Havers. Equine tail.

Shins of alabaster. Hop end, monogrammed luggage. And the neck strength of a hyena. Nigel. He's a lugs you reprints. Thank you for all your emails this series. As I said, this is the last episode of this series. Yes, it is.

But do feel free to send us stuff in the month's long break. Give us something to talk about when we get back. Have a lovely June. No. No. May. Yeah. Well, both, but you can say things in advance.

We'll be here to hold your hand through June. Yeah. Yeah. May, you've got to do on your own. You're on your own, I'm afraid, for May. It's time to be the Fatty Man. Penetrate.

Patreon. Thank you to everyone who signed up on our Patreon. Thank you. What's the address, Henry? Of what? Your home address. So people can come and ask you what the URL is for the Patreon. www.patreon.com forward slash three bean salad.

Correct. All the letters, THRW, not the numerals. There are different tiers you can sign up at. You can get ad-free episodes. You can get our monthly bonus episode, which will be coming out this week, I guess. Or you can sign up at the Sean Bean tier, where you get all of that, but also a shout out in the Sean Bean lounge. And Mike was at the Sean Bean lounge from last night, weren't you, Mike?

I most certainly was, yes. Obviously, it was Feudative's Bingo last night, wasn't it? It was Feudative's Bingo. Thank you, Ben, and here's my report. It was Feudative's Bingo last night at the Sean Bean lounge, which meant no admittance to the federal bean marshals, but a high stakes night for those Sean Bean loungers on the land. The bingo caller, as ever, was Purple Strawberry,

who last slipped the dragnet on Highbridge Newcastle, and whose charges include sedition by embroidery. Tom Cran, promenading with unmuscled toad, achieved four corners early doors with Mr. Mathurie doesn't know the difference between a scallion and a chive, five, Bertie Hemmings burlesque careers done, 41, Rowan Brunswick spent a week in a rotating door, 74, and Beck Thornton saw two unusually long pigs, 11. Claire Circuit, anecdote forgery and Simon Sweet,

driving under the influence of a lifestyle guru, both claimed simultaneously to have achieved two full lines after a call of time for tea trapped a man in a crate, 58, but were accused of bingo fraud by Gavin Elsted, who was undermined by his own outstanding conviction for drive by fishing without a license. A call of Charlie Nevitz-Rash has come back on the underside of his knee, three did lead to a single line for delicatessen ticket tout, Samuel Corf, as well as for Kristen, aiding and abetting the handling of a salmon in suspicious circumstances,

and Bobby Ewell of the Jack Ewell gang, salty language and a dentist's waiting room. A hush descended and not a box was scored for Benjamin Bailey's shirt because his dirty squirty nostrils hurty, 30, Laura Brennan's unlucky for some, 61, Norford Rhiannon McTraver's orangutan shoe size is a baker's 14, 15. Morgan Kenning, offensive sandwich board and a public thoroughfare, declared a stitch-up was in the offing, and had to be placated by Bobby Perry, dog collar crime, and Banjo Dave, cyber loitering, but wouldn't believe the game was on the level until, with the call of Matthew Perkins spent his gap year in a vending machine, 17,

a cry of house went up from John Griffiths, shaving a Canadian in Carlisle after midnight on a Sunday, Christian, perverting the course of the bobsleigh team, and Daniel Hunt, photocopying sheet music. Hunt was the only one telling the truth and took the main prize of an extensive series of surgical procedures to enable the assumption of a new identity as a shorn bean body double. Thanks all. So that's the podcast, and to play us out with their version of our theme tune

is Matt from Cambridgeshire. Dear Beans, this is a maritime bollocking and a theme tune. Ooh, crafty moves, Matt. Yeah, I'm not sure about what I think about fitting a bollocking at the end. I'm not sure how I feel about a maritime bollocking from a landlocked county. This particular bollocking is aimed at Mike, who mentioned that the punishment of keel hauling was used by the British navy. Well, Mike, it was actually officially recorded as being used by the Dutch navy.

Was it now? Classic. The use of keel hauling being used on British vessels is nothing more than vague hearsay. In fact, keel hauling has never been documented in any British navy ship's log. This is corroborated by naval historians, Mike. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? Cheeky blighters. No fair play.

I'll accept it. I'll accept the late bollocking, of course I will. Bollocking accepted. Anyway, I've attached an ambient modular synthesiser and kalimba cover of your theme tune in the musical style of an early northeast documentary on the Ones of the Cosmos, probably presented by a very out of their depth Matt Baker. One of my favourite genres. All the best, Matt, from Cambridgeshire.

Excellent. Thank you, Matt. Thanks, Matt. Yeah. So we'll see you in June, but until then, goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you. Bye.