Archery

My soul slides away.

But then it slides back again.

Because by touring again, we can get a massive payday.

Oh, satirical.

Yeah.

I'm recording, of course, from Cardiff, where tonight...

That's what it's happening, isn't it?

comeback tour.

Comeback starts today in Cardiff.

Shall we go inside the Wizard's Hood?

And we're recording on Friday, the 4th of July.

We are.

Today's the day.

Oasis are hit in Cardiff.

You're in Cardiff, but I presume

you're not on the gig, are you?

You'd have mentioned that.

As we speak.

No,

either.

Yeah, reporting for the ground.

Mike, we're opening for Oasis.

You don't know that.

Oh, God.

Imagine.

We're doing busted covers.

No, we're doing some beam machine stuff, mate.

Yeah.

We're just.

The Gallagher brothers, we're very, very, very important to them that the beans stay on their own brand.

We don't want to control what they do.

Let them be.

They said that in a scout accent.

Why did they say that in a scouse accent?

Because, and this is the thing that I'm so,

I would love this so much.

If Oasis actually don't play any classics.

One, come out with Scouse accents and just play Beatles covers.

We're announcing a brand new sound.

It's Scouse Scoutreggae.

Diddly diddly do, diddly with diddles.

Diddly diddly doop with doop, diddly diddly do.

Because we've always been about creativity and pushing the boundary, as long as it was a boundary that was pre-established by previous staff music that was already quite firmly entrenched as a boundary.

You're not breaking it, just leaning against it.

Certainly not, if anything, reinforcing it.

Henry, in today's episode, will be played by Stephen graham

oh stephen graham such vulnerab he's got such vulnerability isn't he in those eyes i love stephen graham but at the same time you feel he could tear your cheeks off

with his tears with his tears but listen ben how do you feel about they're going to close the roof of the um stadium aren't they tonight isn't they are going to i heard they're going to close the roof yeah yeah Why are you asking me how I feel about that?

As if when they close the roof, all the electricity for the rest of the cardove just stops so they can move the roof.

We will, of course, go dark for half an hour as they close the roof.

Are they going to have to use that famous power station in Wales that I was taught about as a child?

The one inside a mountain.

The one where they pour lots of water down from the top of a mountain so that people can have a cup of tea in the event of the Princess of Wales getting married.

Yes.

I remember being taught that.

And when there's a penalty in the gap between the end of a football match and the penalty shootout starting, that's right, yeah.

They sort of drop 100 million tons of water through a turbine so everyone can have a cup of tea.

And Des Lynum's funeral.

They've got a similar thing lined up for that, haven't they?

They've been waiting for years

for the Des Linham's funeral effect.

Well, that's because they're going to turn off the electricity for everyone in the UK and then channel all of it into Des' body and hope he comes back alive again.

It is worth a shot.

But what they hadn't borne in mind was that he'd lived so long that he's actually no longer that culturally important

for all the infrastructure's in place that we will be relaunching him as the first immortal human.

I didn't realise he was still alive.

I've got to be honest.

You know what?

I don't even realise it fully myself.

I'm not confident that he is.

Either way.

In which case, it hasn't worked.

Billions of taxpayers' money has gone into the Project Lynum 4000 project, which is to keep Des Lynem alive for 4,000 years.

But at the moment, of course, I mean, because the initial project failed, they've just had to attach him to a solar panel, haven't they?

And they've left him out in the peak district.

That's right.

And

he stirs sort of every every few weeks there's a little stirring

so you know he's not at peace but he's not alive

also they're having to put so much factor 50 on him all day long isn't it people are having to slather it on and they get they're getting prisoners to do it and stuff

it's a form of community service you can do now yeah he's got to be kept greased yeah yeah well it's a bit like those little piles of stones that ramblers leave it's it's instead of that they ask you just to

empty a sun lotion on him as you go by empty some sun lotion online him my understanding with the roof thing, Ben, was that.

What is your interest in the roof?

I just heard, because I was in Wales yesterday, and I heard on the grapevine that that was the chat, was about the roof.

Right.

And that people going were sad about the roof being closed because it would be

deadly hot.

And the people

who live nearby were sad about the roof being closed because they wouldn't be able to hear it properly.

Yeah.

Cardiff's had a big week of hearing gigs because we've got a new outdoor venue.

It's just a field.

And basically, basically, somehow, because of something to do with the wind and all sorts, basically, everyone in Cardiff could hear a kind of perfect Alanis Morissette.

Oh, really?

Yeah, just across the entire, like, everyone could just perfectly hear Alanis Morissette.

From Glastonbury?

No.

I did a gig in Cardiff like two nights ago.

Is that because

seagulls in Glastonbury were swallowing the sound, flying to Glastonbury,

flying to Wales and then regurgitating it out over Wales?

That could play out.

But cleaner, yeah.

And then last night was Mastodon and Slayer.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm thinking of maybe standing next to a metal wall to listen to Stevie Wonder next week.

Okay.

Will he be on the other side of the metal wall?

Yes, with all the people who've paid to see him.

So will you be bringing the metal wall yourself?

I can't get in disguised as a metal wall.

Because it's true, if it's once you dress up as a metal wall and just look confident, you can walk into anywhere on Earth.

Because they're onto your shuffling traffic cone ruse, aren't they?

They know that one.

The traffic cone is too huge.

It's three times the size of all the other traffic cones.

They know the dressing up as an Antomon set trick.

Because they look at you and they go, hang on, she's on stage.

Who are you?

Of course, interesting story about that.

And that's, of course, how she started out.

Wasn't it?

Was breaking into headphones.

She was her own tribute act.

She started off as her own tributa, and it's snowballed for a while.

She must be huge if there's a tribute act.

She's got to be massive.

A lot of

acts don't do it that way now.

Yeah.

because they start with the pun name of their own name yeah so something they'll call themselves um something like um

uh

that's quite that's quite a challenge yeah what's the lambiscore set one

yeah they'll start with a name like not the cheesy boys yeah get big and then they'll just knock off the knot and then it'll be called the cheesy boys or whatever do all the cruise ships that's more of a cruise ship sort of yeah you're aiming at cruise ship whether they met the cheesy boys

what what we're saying

uh me going to listen to stevie wonder with oh yeah

You should do that.

My worry is the metal wall, because it's very hot at the moment, you'll end up sort of baked into a kind of Pompeii-type effigy of yourself.

But groove him.

Groove him.

Groove him, yeah.

But people will then visit that as an expression of what it's like, you know, just because you'd be frozen in the shape of a person enjoying I Just Call to Say I Love You or whatever.

Because I used to absolutely love that song.

Superstition all the way for me.

That's the

number one Stevie.

Overplayed.

Sign seal delivered.

i'm yours lovely good but but i just call to say i love you was absolutely massive in the 80s and i remember being a kid on the carpet like lying in front of the telly when we all watched top of the pops and it was number one for ages and ages and everyone absolutely loved that song

but actually now historically it's that's i think that's that's a fairly naff stevie wonder song isn't it that doesn't make i would agree yeah it's not classic but that seared into my mind as a as a definitive stevie wonder track but yeah i can't i i sort of can't be asked to pay £92 to see Stevie Wonder, but I will waste an evening trying to get a glimpse through a metal wall, I think.

Yeah, I tell you what.

So last year,

there's a big festival in London called Wireless Festival, I think.

Yeah.

Is that in Victoria Park?

Finsbury Park.

Oh, okay.

If it's the right one I'm thinking of.

And they erect huge metal walls every year in Finsbury Park.

And it's so bizarre because it's like it's a music festival.

So I guess it's supposed to be a celebration of like quite positive, creative, cool vibes.

But for that to happen, they have to create an Orwellian dystopian hellphose in a nice green open park with literally metal walls.

It's so like sinister

to keep out

people

from this cool, inclusive, fun, cool vibes.

Keep out

hot metal.

Try and climb the hot metal and see how many hands you've got left by the time you reach the top.

That's right.

You've got six now somehow.

You've got six now.

It didn't say he's coming, did you?

Which means you're going to have to pay three times more for your ticket

because we don't do a head count, we do a hand count.

It's a wristband system.

You've got to buy

it.

You've got to buy more wristbands.

So last year, I took my nieces for a little park, you know, going to the park to go on the swings session.

Yeah.

Let's be honest, Henry, they were taking you.

Let's be proofly honest.

And I need to work off a lot of energy in the afternoons so that I can properly enjoy my nap.

What's wrong with that?

And if I haven't burnt enough calories on the swings, I will get in a bad mood just before my ice cream.

Yeah?

What's wrong with that?

If I haven't been on the CSA, I'll probably then get really, really...

I'll need more sweets.

And that should mean I'll run around, appear to be in a good mood, but then I'll start crying and shitting myself just before bed.

What's wrong with that, Ben?

Anyway, so we went down there.

Yeah.

And sure enough, not realizing that this huge metal dystopia had been created by basically music labels,

the man.

The man, so that he could make the shareholders happy.

And somewhere in that process, there are people going, hey, cool, let's stir to Ben, make music and stuff.

But they're all just cogs in a giant, horrible corporate

machine.

I've never met any of these shops.

I know.

Where are these people?

Why is everything about them?

They've got so much control.

We never see them.

They're so malign.

They're so malign.

Everything's happening for them.

Are they enjoying it?

Are they at least getting something out of it?

Everything?

Or in just endless meetings and conferences.

Well, I always picture them around a slightly 1980s style boardroom.

A digital cable.

I feel that I picture them in a sort of dark conference room looking at charts on PowerPoint.

Yeah.

It could be that these music festivals, the whole thing really, once you get into the financials,

it's all about that they actually own a lot of like

metal mines.

Oh, God.

It's all about those metal walls.

It's about tungsten.

Yeah.

It's all about tungsten.

They're just creating demand for metal walls.

And that's why people having to dig for tungsten.

Ship tungsten, mould tungsten.

And if you've got a wall, you've got to put something behind that wall.

Might as well be some music yeah i'm just looking at whether you could make a wall out of tungsten

pretty sure you couldn't i don't know tungsten is widely recognized as the preferred material for plasma facing components in next generation fusion devices that sounds like a pretty expensive wall but all the best right you know that also sounds like an entirely made up sentence that was made up for the shareholders for some reason well to probably to to stymie someone like ben's attempts to find out what on earth's going on just but make the first sentence of the wikipedia page page completely unreadable.

Yeah.

He's given up.

Look, you can see

that.

Come on, guys, let's go and see the killers in Finsbury Park.

Hey?

Or

let's go and support big tungsten mining, which is obviously what you're basically saying.

You say, let's go and see the killers.

So we got to the little park with the play area stuff.

Yeah.

which was right jutting up against the huge tungsten

structure.

So for one thing, it created really quite a dystopian sort of image of some sort of weird future where children have to play under the shadow of big tungsten.

While the sort of aristocracy, the top level of society are all in behind the tungsten wall.

How do they live?

We don't know.

So we went in, for one thing, we had to go through a security check to get into the play area.

Really?

Oh, that's bad.

Because...

to stop people pretending to be walking,

what they were thinking of.

He was grading grading as families yeah that i was going to go in and of course get towards the swings and they raised those aren't those aren't nieces at all that's status quo

we're getting you in guys

you deserve to be on that stage

and if you've never if you've ever seen the film transformers it's quite a sight oh what's he called again the guy from status quo francis rossi optimus prime

It's quite a sight.

If you've seen the Transformers films, it's quite similar to see what appears to be a seven-year-old niece unfolding

and turning into Francis Rossi.

It's an incredible sight.

His six string at the ready.

His sixth string at the ready.

But in a sort of like organic, fleshy version of a Transformer.

So instead of bits of metal sliding between each other and off each other, it's bits of flesh and bones.

Collagen.

Collagen spraying around.

Bones

pressing out through cheek flesh.

And some spare nostril hair.

The only thing left from the niece is the ponytail.

Which he affixes to the back of his head.

That's the final moment of the final swagger.

He affixes it to the back of his head, turns on his Cuban heel and walks straight into the hands of the Metropolitan Police.

You're still not getting in, Francis Rossi.

You're not on the fucking lineup.

The Mets on Tungsten's Dime, maybe.

Mets on Tungsten's Dime.

What do you think those helmets are made of?

So we had to be checked out that we were a genuine uncle and nieces.

So they let us into the play area.

No, basically, they were worried about people going to try and climb in or get used to.

A genuine uncle detected.

Obviously, the uncle tested it.

Tedious anecdotes.

Proved.

It's actually quite a simple test, not the uncle test.

It's a simple...

They inject one eye with

a bright green fluid.

They test to see what percentage of your skin is currently flaking.

That's right.

Over 30, and you're good.

They put some wraparound shades on you.

to see if they suit you or not.

If they don't suit you, that's a positive.

They ask you how many times you've seen Top Gun.

They then test you on that by giving you a Top Gun Q and A.

A Q and A.

Q and A with a gas.

See how you react.

Yeah.

It's quite um it's quite expensive enough to do

but it's the only way to be sure.

It's the only way to be sure.

You have to then quickly, quickly put on ten different pairs of Gin Ginos

that are very similar.

And they then test you afterwards on which ones are which.

You have to then identify them from

a Chino lineup.

Where you see the Chinos, and all the Chinos are being worn by guaranteed uncles.

But one's not an uncle.

If you yourself claim the toy, the one isn't an uncle.

That's in the positive column for you actually being an uncle.

Because uncles know their own.

Oh, yeah.

We know our own.

Yeah, and then they just ask you, are you an uncle?

Just if you could be honest, it would really help.

And you

give them a straight answer and you're done.

There is a sort of boring and serious point point about this, isn't there?

Which is that there is an encroachment of municipal

park is a municipal thing, right?

Which you're meant to be able to enjoy, especially in the summer.

Yeah.

And they've kind of actually just changed now into festival venues, and it's bad.

I think it's really bad.

And it's for the shareholders.

And it is for the big tungsten.

But also, who's policing that?

Because that isn't the met.

I mean, that would be just like some random security.

Do you know what I mean?

Some guys swinging it about with some high-vis tabards.

They can be tricky customers.

Yes.

Tungsten security, basically.

Private tungsten security.

Anyway, so

we got into the little park area.

They let us in as a legitimate uncle and niece's unit.

Well, it kind of slightly took away the kind of

slightly took away the fun out of it being processed through

a security system.

And you've been probed and frisked and stripped and all the rest of it.

And humiliated.

They break you down.

And they'd managed to reconstruct my childhood bedroom, which they put me into

and went, you've soiled yourself, haven't you?

You've soiled soiled yourself.

Why have you soiled yourself?

And I was crying and wailing.

I don't know.

And they said, Yeah, you're fine, you're in.

You can't keep an ant as a pet, Henry.

No, Bishop Humphrey isn't the same ant.

We've replaced him every three days for the last 10 years.

And he was never an actual bishop.

By then, he wasn't even an ant.

He was one of those little flecks of fake mud you get from Fiverr Side pictures

with a tiny tabard.

Anyway, look, for the love of Christ,

we got into the park

and

then there was this music playing and we started listening to the music and then I got onto my phone and I shazammed

from the actual from live.

So it was quite quite fun thing to do.

Yeah.

Through the tungsten.

Through the tungsten, because you can hear it all.

But I shazam from live yeah which in a way is a good way of telling how good how how tight a band is if you can if you can identify them through shazam

i i think if you were to shazam the stand outside cardiff stadium tonight then and shazam it i reckon it would come up as um

industrial drill

an industrial drill has somehow been dropped onto a slaughterhouse

and and there are two two two northern two northern men are failing to deal with the crisis.

That's what I can't with, I reckon.

But if you are going tonight, let us know what the vibe was.

Yeah, I do quite like Oasis.

I would like to have gone.

I did try to go.

Did you?

Did you?

Yeah, yeah.

Were you

screwed over by the dynamic pricing?

Yeah, yeah.

And yeah, the tickets run out.

That was, yeah, I didn't even realize that was happening until it was, yeah,

it was happening before my eyes and people were talking about it.

was, it was, it was weird and crazy.

But I did manage to get tickets.

I vaguely tried.

I set up my laptop and

pressed refresh every now and then.

Was that enough?

It was obvious.

I'd sooner eat pins, I think.

Just a balance size.

Well, in that case, do it then.

Do it.

But what about their lyrics?

There's an eye in the sky, it's the eye of my mind.

There's a sky in my mind, it's the sky of my eye.

That sort of thing.

What about that sort of thing?

Anyway, so but so

we shazammed them and

because this is really good.

And it was Doja Cat.

I don't know, Doja Cat.

I don't really know Doja Cat, but I sort of briefly had a Doja Cat moment.

I think she's a kind of sexually explicit rapper, right?

I think so, yeah.

It was really good.

I sort of had a little bit I had sort of Doja Cat summer last summer based on that.

Did your nieces return home with some new vocabulary?

They did.

I mean, they were really into it.

But actually, actually, what then happened was we then left the park and realised that on the hill

behind the park, so there's the metal tungsten walls park and then this hill.

And then suddenly we spotted the hill was actually covered in people.

So there is a sort of culture of you go for the day.

It's the metal picnickers.

So people sitting around picnics, people on each other's shoulders.

And there's this kind of whole world where you're not giving anything to the shareholder, not giving anything to the tungsten people.

You're also not giving anything to the artist.

That's what you think, technically.

But where did you buy your picnic from?

Holy shit.

Yes.

Big tungsten.

Buy those trousers with the reinforced gusset.

Big tungsten is always a step ahead.

Should we turn on the beam machine?

Yes, please.

Now, obviously, we normally play the beam machine jingle.

Yes.

But I was looking through the old jingles folder in my email account.

Yeah, and somebody sent one in two years and six months ago.

Oh, dear.

And either I've forgotten to delete it from the email account, or we never played it.

Who's it from?

It's from Sam.

Okay.

Sorry, Sam.

If it's the, if it's the...

Yeah, if you've been ignored.

Anyway, this is from Sam.

He sent it in January 2023.

Here is my version of the Beam Machine Jingle scored for an epic superhero film.

I think Ben meant to say superhero film, didn't he?

What did I say?

Superhero film.

Just be quiet for a minute, Henry.

You said that as if superheroes have only ever existed in mediums outside of films, such as stage and jazz and stuff and comics.

A superhero film.

Anyway, sorry, I've got to shut the fuck up.

Come on.

I think I was probably subconsciously trying to add some intrigue or something.

I don't know.

Yeah, sorry.

Okay,

here is my version of the Bean Machine jingle scored for an epic superhero film?

Said like a true proponent of big tech at the cost of humanity.

Yes.

Yeah.

But actually, that's the closest reflection of your actual soul.

That was pretty slip.

That was the

only slip.

That's the Ben we know outside of the pod.

Yeah.

It's mechanical.

It's amoral.

It's unfeeling.

Bloodthirsty.

It's bloodthirsty and it's relentless.

Here we go.

This is the jingle sent in two and a half years ago by Sam.

Great stuff.

I don't think we've heard that before.

I'm sure nobody heard that before.

This week's topic, as sent in by Cariz.

Hello, Cariz.

From Los Angeles.

Cool.

Wow.

Is archery.

It's a good sound, isn't it?

Not bad, yeah, yeah.

We've got an archery club near us that practices in a local school on a

like a Wednesday evening.

Sometimes Pam and I walk past them.

Target or hog?

I'm pleased to say it's Target.

And archery looks like the sort of thing that could be a bit of fun, but there's maybe about a dozen of them.

They're nearly all men of a certain age.

Yes, I was going to say.

And they

look thoroughly miserable.

Thoroughly miserable.

But they are there week in, week out.

Yeah.

Firing these arrows.

And

the bows they've got are extraordinary.

They've got like...

They look kind of high-tech, don't they?

Yeah,

they've got extra bits that poke out.

You only ever see them at the Olympics.

Yeah, they're those ones.

Where they've got lots of...

They look really unwieldy.

Yeah.

Little sort of bits you can twist.

And I think, so, yeah, you have that in a special glove.

Special glove.

And immense concerns about safety.

So I think they have flags and bells when they can walk over and retrieve their arrows.

But they look so miserable.

They never get the sense that anyone's injured.

There's no chat.

I never see them chat.

Of course, safety-wise, putting the cafeteria directly behind the targets was a mistake, isn't it?

They've held their hands up, haven't they?

And also selling those target, those target t-shirts.

And all the merch was a mistake, wasn't it?

The target beanies

and the target dog dog jumpers.

Target short shorts.

Target short shorts.

That was all a mistake.

It has that vibe of

you tell Carol it's just a hobby.

And it is just a hobby.

It's a, you know, it's a positive place for men to get together and

do something.

It's a sort of sanctioned violent way.

Yeah.

Exactly, yeah.

Actually, when you're doing it, I think a lot of those men are thinking when society goes to shit,

there's going to be one man standing up against.

And as long as the zombies stay still, I'll be able to hit them.

And are between eight and nine yards away from me.

And I mean perfectly still.

They don't attack me in any sort of light breeze.

And also

we're going to have to coax them into zombie face painting

fakes where we can get target designs adhere to their faces.

We're going to have to get them into face painting.

And as long as the next zombie is another eight to nine meters behind that zombie so that I can retrieve my arrow from the first zombie zombie

will run out of arrows

only fit six arrows in my quiver yeah and they're at a premium so yeah all right these are decent arrows and I will need a cafeteria and a toilet

as well

so we're gonna have to need we're gonna need a lot more cafeterias and toilets and some tuby grip for my tennis elbow as well

because that's gonna flare up

will we be able to make tuby grip out of bark

okay okay okay don't worry worry, Corintho.

It's going to be us and the tuby grip guys.

Okay,

we shall be the very kings.

We shall be the very kings at the vanguard of the new Arcadia.

Have you seen them?

I went to see 28 years later.

Oh, yeah.

Which is a big recommend for me.

It was really good fun.

Archery is taken off in that.

So obviously the zombies arrived 28 years ago.

And the people who are still surviving are doing so because they're shit out at archery.

I see.

But it's true.

The retrieval thing is

a bit of a flaw, isn't it?

In the archery system.

Well, I thought of that because in this film, there's a bit where one of them runs out, and you think, well, this must just happen all the time because

they're quite big.

You can't carry many of them.

No.

They're not good in too close up, are they?

They lose their archer.

Archery is very much at a distance, isn't it?

I'm thinking.

I don't know, Henry.

I think if you went up against an archer at a foot range, you might come off the worst.

Oh, you think so, do you?

But you don't know about my total utter disregard for the for basic physics

basic physics

i don't care

yeah but i just come at you with my nails and a claw and a screech a scratch i screw actually screech

they'll really put an archer off right

because they do prefer quiet they do prefer quiet yeah and also I've got a brilliant way of taking on an archer is what you do is you build a dummy second head for yourself, which you attach to your own head head right around your neck sorry where's it positioned around the back of your head on the top of your head no next to my head so they've got to choose whether or not to shoot the head that's sitting on one of your shoulders or the one that's in between your shoulders exactly

but you make him make that choice that's all the time you need no then

and you're screeching at him no all you need is a big all you need actually is a um shotgun

that's true that would help i was gonna say a darts board I was not expecting that.

Oh, he's going to love the challenge with a darts board.

Exactly.

You just hold it up.

Just targets and stuff.

Yeah.

And it'll always go for the target, not for you.

Yeah, because he's like, should I get Henry Pecker's head or should I go for Trev 20?

Or Triple 20.

And you're going to go for Trevor 20 every time.

You've got to go for Triple 20.

Because of the glory.

You've got to go for the glory.

You've got to go for the pub fuel, the chat fuel, haven't you?

180!

In like medieval battles and stuff,

this is an obvious thing, but being hit by an arrow would be awful.

Horrible.

But would it be better than being cleaved into by a bloke with a halberd?

I don't know.

It might be that the latter is a bit sort of quicker.

The thing is,

none of it is killing you on the spot in medieval battles, is it?

It's all being cleaved.

Literally, having your head taken off by a

taken off by an arrow on the middle.

It's like Glastonbury.

The next day, there's just a litter.

It's just a rotten hangover.

Loads of people with rotten hangovers.

Me miss Neil Young.

I miss Neil Young because had my

torso sort of laterally cleaved

because we weren't able to patch me together.

But everything ate goes straight through me

out the

mega gash.

Yeah, but you'd rather be an archer, I think, in one of those battles than one of those infantrymen, wouldn't you?

Surely.

Yeah, because did they get involved afterwards or did they go home after they'd fired the arrows?

Well, I think it depended.

I think they got to go home if they won, but

if they didn't win, then they might suddenly find themselves being chased down by a bunch of horsemen.

Yeah.

And then

you're in a real doo-doo.

Well, then you've got that moment in the film where the horseman comes around again and he goes,

it's one of the guys from Graph Punk.

It's very much similar to a music festival, isn't it?

Fast when it came out of medieval battles.

It's very much a kind of.

They inform each other that the two people.

If Fat Boy Slim gets to the top of the hill, you've had it.

Yeah, yeah, you're all fucked.

Isn't there a thing where in medieval battles, like, oh, I'm sure I've seen it in films, especially with the Romans, right?

All the on one side, all the people fire all the arrows.

Yeah.

And on the other side, they all just hide behind their shields.

It's like, we've got arrows, we've got shields.

So they've canceled each other out.

Cancel them both out.

Yeah.

So get on with it.

And let's just, let's just watch Neil Young.

Let's just enjoy Neil Young and maybe get like some sort of hot wrap.

See if they've got Churros.

I think this guy's doing like goat curry.

Sounds really good.

Yeah, yeah, it's a little Nepalese place.

It's great, actually.

But actually, so hang on, you put your shields down, arrows down, quivers, shields, all down.

Actually, I was joking, get your arrows back out again.

We were joking too, get your shields back again.

It's only Jake's one, that's all it takes.

Jake's one.

Because, yeah, no one's going to do that.

That's that's the tragedy of it, isn't it?

It was good the way the Romans made those like tanks out of

shields.

So they're kind of like, were they cancelled out then in battle?

Were they still

I assumed to yeah

quite a bit but it would have been the odd one that got through right?

It's going to go through someone's toe somewhere and cause them a problem.

Yeah, I guess so.

The odd gap here and there, you know.

But of course you talk about cancelling out then, but of course the truth is a lot of warfare has always been about the

what's the word?

Tungsten industry.

Because if your arrow isn't tungsten tipped, then you might as well not be at the battle.

And that's a genuine ad from 974 that was found on some parchment.

What's it called, you know, like with the Cold War and nuclear arsenals and disincentivizing war by having loads of big missiles?

Mutually assured destruction.

It's all about mutually assured destruction.

And it always has been.

Because obviously back in the old days, back in the medieval times, it was about building bigger and bigger arrows, wasn't it?

So Britain had an arrow.

built whose circumference was like six miles wide, didn't they?

And then the French were building an even bigger arrow.

The idea wasn't worked out how to launch it.

How did I launch it?

It's an open secret, yeah.

But it kept things, it kept a sort of uneasy status quo going because,

of course, the idea of an arrow that could wipe out Londinium

was quite a terrifying idea.

Or Parisium.

Or Parisium.

It, of course, was Welsh longbowman who won won us the Battle of Agincourt Steve, apparently a big one.

It's a big one in the history of this stuff, isn't it?

And the Yew Tree.

God bless the Ew Tree.

The Yew Tree.

The Welsh Longbow, that's where

they got their wood from, from the Yew.

Was it?

The perfect springiness for

the crossbow.

And the rapid fire, right?

As opposed to the crossbow.

Was it the rapidness of it that was so devastating?

I think so.

The crossbow is harder to sort of

make exciting in, like, film and things, isn't it?

There was a trailer, there was someone trying to make a William Tell not a few years ago, and the trailer just it just looked like half the trailer was a guy winding up the bow.

Do you know what I mean?

And also, a little rat.

I can't watch this all.

This summer.

You better run

in a bit.

Yeah, I've got it.

Definitely got time to collect some stuff.

Pack all your favourite.

Show your paid workers in order.

Make sure you go.

Definitely empty the freezer before you go.

Probably empty the freezer.

Actually, it needs defrosting anyway, so that's actually not a bad thing.

That's not a bad thing.

But I think the other reason it's hard to sell a William Tell film is it's one of the most spoilered stories of all times in the sense of, there was a man, there was a son, there was an apple.

What's going to happen?

Because

he gets the apple, doesn't he?

Yeah.

Is that the whole story?

Yes.

It's going more to it than that, isn't it?

Yes.

I don't remember what the reason is.

I'm sure it must involve a sort of evil landlord type person, surely.

Right.

Who says, for rent this month, I want a cloven apple.

I want a high-stakes cloven apple.

Yeah, and maybe William Dell's gone, yeah, what, fine instead of it.

Yeah, I'd rather that than the cash, actually, because I'm a bit strapped.

So I'll, um, yeah, great.

Let's do that.

Also, if you sort out the extractor fan in the downstairs bathroom,

I want you to do something in return.

So, yeah.

It's getting a bit moldy in there.

Yeah.

And it's for your own good because, I mean, long term, it's probably going to be in real trouble if we don't get the mold out of that room.

Yeah.

So I've just looked up, I've looked up the

plot.

Do you want to hear the plot?

Yes, please.

Okay.

William Tell is arrested.

It's set in Switzerland, by the way.

Oh, not Sweden.

Because one of the swars.

Tell is arrested for failing to bow in respect to the hat that the newly appointed Austrian Vogt Albrecht Gessler has placed on a poll.

Oh, so William Tell is a villain.

As I interpret it.

You've got to bow to the heart.

If that's a Habsburg hat, he's not bowing to it.

He's bowing on a pole.

Who does he think he is?

And Gessler, who's the Austrian, commands him to shoot an apple off his son's head with a single bolt from his crossbow.

After splitting the apple with a single shot, supposedly on November the 18th, 1307,

Tell is asked why he took more than one bolt out of his quiver.

At first, he responds that it was out of habit, but when assured he will not be killed for answering honestly, he says the second bolt was meant for Gessler's heart.

Should he fail?

I'm missing the bit where.

So I understand that the evil landlord is cross with him that he won't bow to the hat.

But why is the punishment

shoot an apple off your son's head?

Why is the punishment have this deadly weapon?

Yeah.

When I'm standing, you've already shown that you're disobedient.

Do you know what I mean?

That you've got a problem with authority.

Yeah.

Why are you giving that guy a chance to a free shot with a crossbow?

When you could have shackled him to a hog and pushed it off a cliff.

Clean, it's clean.

It's clean, it's humane.

It's modern.

Exactly.

In 14th century terms, it's the most modern punishment going.

It's the real reform,

progressive end

of the crime and punishment system.

Yeah.

Do you want to know what happens next?

Yeah.

So this guy Gessler's pretty pissed off that

Tell Tell sort of evokes his murder.

Yeah.

So then he was bound.

Oh, God.

And carried to the dungeon of the castle at Kusnacht.

Nothing good happens in that place.

I'm going to warrant.

No.

Yeah.

Mainly which is Night of the Arse.

I think the castle's in the middle of Lake Lucerne, and they're in a boat.

And then a storm breaks out, and the guards are afraid the boat will sink.

They beg Gessler to remove Tell's shackles so that he could take the helm and save them.

I don't know why he's better placed to do that than they are, but Gessler gives in, but then Tell steers the boat to a rocky place and leaps out.

This sounds like it would make a decent film, to be honest.

He then runs cross-country to Kusnacht.

That's a bit boring.

The cross-country section is a bit there.

That's always, yeah, that's hard to, yeah.

So he's good at crossbow, cross-country.

It's all cross-country sailing.

Like a sort of modern triathlon type thing.

Yeah.

Which means there'll be a lot of talk of personal bests and stuff, which would be quite annoying.

Yeah, protein and

nipple ointments.

Nipple ointments, yeah.

Gessler is chasing him.

Tell turns around and shoots him with the crossbow.

He's still got his crossbow on him.

Why aren't they taking the crossbow?

That was a mistake.

Come on, guys.

These guys have looked on the basics

in prison.

Tell's act sparked a rebellion, which led to the formation of the old Swiss Confederacy.

Gets really quite boring at that bit, doesn't it?

Quite heavy.

So the bit, the kind of cathartic moment for the audience is

the Swiss Confederacy, yes!

yeah, that's quite heavy, isn't it?

And then actor is, yeah, discussions about the constitution and how many referendums they should have: border management

and smoking policy.

Finally, the federal cantons are equal.

I've got a top tip, a plug, beans.

Okay.

And dear listeners, so there is a new book that is out

that I've hoovered up.

It's a debut by the author Becca Rogers.

I'm just holding it up in case people are watching.

It's called The Girl with Gills.

And it's bloody excellent.

It's brand new.

It's a Devonshire author, which is how I've come across it.

It's sort of fantasy kind of.

And I think the publishers say it's aimed at like middle grade, which I think means like sort of nine plus, but

I don't hold too much stock in that because I think,

well, because I'm a 45-year-old man and I really enjoyed it.

And you could be younger than nine and really enjoy it.

There are some, I mean, there are some quite terrifying villains.

So I think, you know,

if you're buying for a child, bear that in mind.

Sort of fantasy, picture, story, bit of humor, bit of menace.

It's really good stuff.

Sounds great.

If you like books, novels, or if you like young people who like novels, there you go.

Becca Rogers, the girl with gills.

Sounds great.

It's good, yeah.

Time to read your emails.

Yes, please.

Ips Rich.

Hello, Ips Rich.

Has sent us a version of our email jingle.

Oh, great.

He says, Dear Beans, once a couple of years ago, I was absent-mindedly singing the emails jingle to myself while my partner cooked us dinner.

I tried to get a sort of call and response thing going where I would sing a line and she would complete it.

She was not up for this and got increasingly annoyed as we progressed through the jingle.

I clearly crossed the line because when I got to the line, this represents progress, like a robot, she slammed down the knife she was using, looked at me straight in the eye, and said with an exasperated shrug, fucking a clown?

I have, of course, recorded a version with these words.

I used to be a keen amateur boss and over guitarist and a not that keen professional opera singer.

So I hope that this fusion fusion of styles is accurately represented in my offering.

That is interesting.

Best wishes, Ipsrich.

Thank you, Ipsrich.

And yeah, I'd advise listeners to be, I mean, just generally be very careful trying to get any sort of call and response activity going with anyone knife-wielding, I would say.

Yes, you know, read the room.

Okay, here goes.

Oh, yes, please.

Ooh, the parson over here.

Fancy some small plates first.

When you send an email,

you must give thanks

to the postmaster that came before.

When you send an email,

this represents progress

like a robot fucking a clown.

Oh,

what a perfect evening this has been.

We've got an email from Sharon

from New Zealand.

Lovely.

Play the Diamond Harbour jingle.

Lovely.

It's been a while.

It's been such a long time.

It's a real favourite.

Diamonds in their eyes and diamonds in the sea.

Come with us and meet the families of Diamond Harbour.

On my way home from work, I saw an injured seagull sitting on the hard shoulder of a motorway looking sad.

Oh, dear.

Being a kind person, I stopped to help it.

I took off my cardigan to wrap it up and got a big hold or shopping bag from my car to transport it to the emergency vet.

I then realised this was not a small gull.

This was one of those massive alligator-beaked ones with a huge wingspan.

As soon as I gently put my cardio it, it went into beast mode.

Ben, can I just quickly preempt?

Because I've heard this story a thousand times, because they've got such a wide ringspan.

Is this the one where she's accidentally left two of the windows on the car open on each side?

The bird's wings extend out of the windows, flap crazily because it's panicking.

And she's gone into the international flight path.

Yeah.

She's gone into the international flight path.

She set off a ballistic missile alarm in North Korea.

Because it is a tale as old as time.

And she's now writing this from a North Korean jail.

And three bins is the only thing they're allowed to listen to.

It doesn't bear thinking about.

And in North Korea, you don't get one call, you get one email.

And she's doing it to us.

We can't help you.

I'm sorry.

But anyway, okay, let's hear it out.

It went into beast mode, biting my arms, screaming in a guttural human way

and bashing me in the face with its wings.

That might have been her own screams she was confusing with the gulls that can happen in a gull melee.

And shitting a lot.

Again, that could have been her or the gulls.

You just don't know.

I kept cradling and shushing it because traffic was driving past and I didn't want it to flap into the cars

who were slowing down to watch a middle-aged lady apparently trying to force an aggressive seagull to wear her cardigan.

But I didn't care.

I was determined to save this bastard.

I eventually managed to get it into the bag, checked it was okay and secured the top with gaps to breathe and put it in the back of my hatchback, then called the emergency vet to announce dramatically that i was incoming with a large injured seabird

can i say that's a point where you start to think twice about whether you really wanted to be an emergency vet when you get that call

this is really what i want

a woman's coming in with a castrel in a cardigan right under the desk locked the doors for fuck's sake all the time i talked soothingly to the now quiet bags gull about how it'd soon be soaring high above the beaches and i would wave to it and share chips When I arrived, I ran in and handed the bag to the vet, feeling like the ultimate savior of feathered friends.

He looked inside it and he looked at me, confused, with my bloodied, scratched arms, feathers stuck in my hair, and wearing bird-shit-covered clothes.

And then he said, It's dead.

Oh, God.

He then asked me if I had fought the gull.

Why had I fought the gull?

Oh no.

Did I know it was dead when I brought it in?

Or did I want its body back like it was some kind of hunting prize?

Well, it's true.

A gull beak mounted correctly on a wall does confer a certain kind of snug, it's got that kind of Herger feeling, hasn't it?

If you go into a room full of gull beaks, it really creates a nice kind of Nordic lodge sort of feel, doesn't it?

I declined.

They still charged me for the full emergency vet checkup and disposal of large bird.

I cried all the way home.

It's a really tragic story.

Oh, shit.

It is a tragic story.

Okay, on the one hand, it's a tragic story.

And I think obviously it came from a good place for Sharon, what she was trying to do.

But you can't,

if you just find an animal that's in trouble, you can't just take it to a vet.

I mean, like, that's nature.

Like, nature is happening.

You can't just go and find pigeons that are in trouble and take them to vets and expect vets to kind of combat nature.

I mean, nature is animals get in trouble, they die, they fight each other.

You can't just be getting them all to vets the whole time.

I once rang the RSPCA about a seagull.

that was in a bad way and I said, I've found the seagull, it's a bad way.

And they kind of went, and...

what it's nature, but do you know about nature?

And you're like, Yes, I do.

The quadons came down to this planet two million years ago

with a big 3D printer.

And they printed out the dreams of Quadonaiknir, the Lord of Quadon,

protected from dual carriageways.

Anyway, she's also sent in a second story, which is a bit less tragic, perhaps.

Yeah.

A bit of a hippie friend of mine kept her baby's placenta and organized a beautiful family ceremony on a cliff top two days after the birth to return the placenta to nature's amniotic fluid.

Brackets, the sea.

Long story short, she threw it over, a swarm of seagulls intercepted it, had a massive violent fight, tore it apart, gobbling down globules of placenta, all while screaming and spraying bloody tissue and fluids all over their beautiful cliff top organic vegan picnic, and her kids.

That is incredible.

That is amazing.

Wow.

Yeah, you can probably spin that all right though, can't you?

I mean, it's at least

it's nature and action.

It's it's atavistic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's truly engaging with the visuals.

It's nourishing.

You know.

It's probably yeah, probably the best meal is better than eating chips all the time, isn't it?

It's quite good for them.

Well, thank you, Sharon.

That's yeah, Sharon, that's really made my day, actually.

That was lovely.

Thank you.

Great stuff from Sharon.

But again, I think my vet's point is quite a strong one, because otherwise, like in Atoma documentaries,

they would always be like, these termites are looking a bit peaky

calling up

hello chizik vets hi um so we've got got 17 000 termites okay

get ready we're coming we're going to be there in about

so we're flying from the galapagos islands we'll be there we're in a military aircraft we'll be there in about t minus 17 hours get ready bring in the emergency vets bring in people from the street we're bringing 170 000 termites and they're confused and angry

some of them may be malnourished some of them may be malnourished a lot of them have everything think you're injured, you're going to need to make those little, tiny, little, funny, lamp shade things for dogs.

Dogs, but for termites, we're going to need 200,000 of those.

They do appear to be suffering from motion sickness.

They don't like flying at all.

So that's making things worse.

And they're also reproducing exponentially.

So it times everything I'm saying by five every five minutes.

I think, though, Henry, on a serious note, there are certain animals they would help, right?

If you found an injured deer or something,

would the RSPCA be interested in that?

Don't know.

Well, they might be.

Because they're beautiful and it's interesting.

Where do you draw the line?

And

what are the protocols?

They probably do have protocols.

I mean, that's part of like Dartmoor Rangers.

That's the thing where

you can call out a Dartmoor Ranger type, and they'll come and...

But they'll just put a bullet through the back of the deer's head, I think.

Do you know what I mean?

That's just people who are allowed to carry a gun in a locked box in their range over.

So you can call in a hit on a...

I think you can call, I think,

I may be wrong.

I would genuinely

be interested if someone does know, but I think in Darwin, you can call in a hit on an injured critter.

I would be interested if we've got any vets listening.

Like, what wild things would...

Because I remember when I was a kid, I'd watch Animal Hospital.

Yeah.

And sometimes they'd have a barn owl or something, wouldn't they?

I think the weird...

Okay, here's what I'm guessing.

It's got to be something to do with

pet status.

So vets are there for pets, right?

Yeah, or agricultural

units.

Okay, there's agricultural vets.

But let's talk about urban vets.

Yeah.

so in an urban vet, it's pets.

It's pets and matheosi.

Yeah.

Pets, pets, and matthiosi.

What?

So what they'll.

So

is that the kind of no-police doctor?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you go to the vet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they'll.

Because they can stitch up a wound.

They can pull a bullet out of a flank.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Give you

some buddy antibiotics.

Send you on your way.

So it's animals which, I suppose, in a way this covers agricultural animals as well, maybe, in that it's an animal which a human has declared to have a certain status be it pet or livestock

so generally obviously that's cats and dogs for pets

swine

and

ungulates

and um poultry but i suppose what i'm wonder if if a kid say discovers a little barn owl chick yeah and you take it to the vet does that mean has that interaction between the human and the animal

does that now mean that the animal qualifies as because there's a human that cares about it because basically vets are not just curing animals unless there's a human involved, are they?

Yeah, owls are not self-presenting.

Yeah, yeah, they're not.

They're not, exactly.

They're very, very bad at that.

And it's a real problem.

Then none of them have got the NHS app

and they just think they'll model through.

I see, basically, the animal kingdom has the provincial dad attitude for its own health, which is, well, just muddle through.

Yeah.

I don't want to make a fuss.

Do we need an NHS for all animals?

To really finally bankrupt.

To really

kiss the sleep even worse at night than you can.

Within a 24-hour period, would probably

bankrupt the nation permanently.

That's it.

A couple of bollockings just to sort of mop up.

I think we've even said this before, Henry, lemons aren't a product of evolution because they are man-made.

They're a man-made crossbreed of various citron fruits to create the lemon.

Very citrons?

Citron fruits, that's what he said.

They are man-made by the car manufacturer, which makes

yeah.

And of course, what are citron's made of?

Tungsten.

Tungsten.

It all comes back.

It all comes back.

Yeah, fair enough.

Bollocking accepted.

We've had an email from Omo.

Okay.

I'm interested in this in a kind of moral quandary sort of way.

A bit like Regio Four's The Moral Maze with Michael Burke.

Okay.

Dear Beans, I was shocked and appalled at the lack of public bollockings provided to Ben

on last week's episode from his comments from the previous week.

In absolutely no way is it acceptable to text anyone, let alone a tradesman, at 1.30 in the morning.

I picked Ben up on that at the time.

Yeah,

there was some blowback from the other two beans.

It was intra-bollock.

We do try and police as much of this stuff as we can.

These are bollockings.

Okay.

Just to remind listeners,

my boiler stopped working.

I texted a boiler engineer at 1.30 in the morning.

He replied at 5.40, I think, and came around at 7 a.m., fixed it, and then went to a stag do.

I don't see anything wrong with this picture.

Oh, well, so that's a bollock back, OMO, in case you weren't clear.

If you'll bollock me, then I'll bollock you.

Bollock back.

Now, my thinking is this, but maybe I'm wrong.

At night, people turn off their sound on their phone, right?

I don't think I do, no.

That's madness.

I think if the late night call comes, I want to hear it because

it's an emergency.

But what if it's me sending you a GIF on WhatsApp?

Now, I go to airplane mode.

Yeah.

Do you?

But it feels like you ought to be able to have certain contacts that can call you through that in an emergency.

Yeah, you can set it up in such a way.

Yeah, that feels like a good idea.

So my feeling is if you don't want to get notifications from some

bloke in the middle of the night, you can just turn that off.

I would say, in fairness to Ben, I think if I worked, if I had a trade like that

like if i if i was you know plumber or a carpenter or a boiler engineer then i i i think i would be turning off my phone at night yeah but but i i am not so there's there's no one who has got a problem in their house or their workplace that at one o'clock is saying i think i better call the call mike to sort this out do you know what i mean

i'm coming in support of you there ben with your with your point i think this guy if it's his trade is sort of you know it's up to him if he does that or not.

Yeah.

Also, I sympathise with you, Ben, because I actually do do a slightly similar thing, which is I'll quite often text people or send emails that are work-related at anti-social times late in the evening or weekends.

But the reason I do it isn't not expecting a reply instantly, but it's more I've had this thought now.

If I don't send it now, I'll forget to send it.

I've started putting delays on that thing.

Can you do that?

Yeah, I've started doing that because I do that.

I find I'll catch up with like, it'll be the the middle of the night, and that's when I catch up with a bit of admin.

But I don't,

yeah.

Because there's also, there's a couple of people in my life, in my work life, who will reply immediately.

Yeah.

Who might, and I, yeah.

So for them, is there a way of sending an email with a delay on it?

Yeah, yeah.

Even I can do it.

I mean, it's simple.

Because I'll have an illustration idea, like...

It's a Terrapin orchestra.

We need to create a Terrapin orchestra.

So it's the epitome of an idea that can wait.

It probably can and can wait.

Also, you get a cooldown period on your own idea, which is quite good.

Because you might decide to then not send it after all.

Yeah.

And it should be a brass band.

Clearly it should be a brass band.

Of chameleons.

Chameleons.

Final email from Harry.

Hello, Harry.

Hi, Harry.

I would like to start with good news

about this story, which is that my hands and the hands of all involved were unharmed.

Good, good, good, good, good.

I was enjoying the recent episode about the 60s whilst driving.

I was about 30 seconds from making the last turn of the journey when Henry stated, I love Doo-Op, and then started singing a rendition of Mr.

Sandman, in which he sung the parts of five different people all at once.

It was all a bit of a blur, so I'm not sure exactly what was going through my head.

Maybe it was that I was so stunned and impressed by his ability to become an entire a cappella group that I could no longer focus on anything else.

However, I would argue the much more likely explanation is that it was fucking awful, and I became disorientated by the sound as if it were a sonic weapon.

It's often not the most likely explanation, though, isn't it?

Causing me to crash directly into the back of the car in front of me.

Oh, shit.

Sorry.

So for insurance purposes, does that mean I'm potentially...

I think you're culpable.

I'm culpable.

When he says, I will accept a Hyundai 10 as compensation as my car is now written off.

Oh, Harry.

Well, we can dish those out.

That costs us nothing, doesn't it?

We're so deep in Hyundai.

That's in the post right now.

He says, I'm guessing I just write Pompadou in the insurance form and we'll sort the rest.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we've got magistrates in place, and everyone's in, yeah, we're all

set up.

The trouble is,

if anything, because it will be one Hyundai every week now for the rest of your life.

So if anything, it becomes a problem, doesn't it?

Is dealing with the amount of Hyundai's you're going to get

because it's the full Hyundai life package, isn't it,

that we offer?

And if you're not in, they will just leave them by your front door.

They'll leave them by your front door.

Yeah.

Each one has a slightly different spec.

So one of them will have all the handles on the inside.

of them will have all of the steering wheels on the outside.

One of them will have a sun floor.

Essentially, they're hiccups, aren't they?

They're mistakes from the factory, but we get them for free.

It's time

to play the ferryman.

Patreon.

Patreon.

Patreon.com

forward slash three bean salad.

Thanks to everyone who signed up on our Patreon.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Patreon.com forward slash three bean salad.

And we do bonus episodes and we do ad-free episodes.

We do video episodes.

We're doing something that's never been done before, which is we're doing a not live

but still exciting recording of

us going to see Abba Voyage,

aren't we?

Here we are.

So, we're all the worst sales pitch I've ever heard for anything.

We're all going to see Abba Voyage on Monday, and we're going to

such a weak sales pitch.

I feel like I'm just saying we're going to see up a voyage.

But then we're going to pod

content

to and from and before and after,

if we're allowed, during

about the whole experience.

Anyway, if you sign up at the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout out from Mike from the Sean Bean Lounge.

You do indeed.

Where Mike was last night.

It was Sultana's show and tell, wasn't it?

It was.

It's always quite quite a fun one.

And here's my report.

It was Sultana's show-and-tell last night at the Sean Bean Lounge, which, as usual, opened with the ritual sultanaization of a volunteer, who this year was Jamie Robertson, who was plucked, washed, and left out to dry in the sun before being eaten by ants.

Richie Popsy Poodle, a mog, Adria Solana, and John James Davis presented first and delighted the lounge with the sultana that was ineffectively used to plug the hydrogen gas leak on the Hindenburg airship.

A tough act to follow.

And sure enough, Stuart Coots, Stephanie Pickering, Jenny Larwood, and Gareth Dawson found themselves booed out of the lounge after merely dressing up as the four sultanas of the apocalypse.

Sean Andrew and Headers brought the bar back up again, with the sultana that once adorned the crown of the King of Bohemia, while Adrian Golding, Dawn Pettit and Robert Bird also delighted with a sultana that was exactly the shape of a miniature pat cache.

Kelfstar and Olivia Voutour teamed up with Jessamie Massingham and Baron Wagtail to recreate Terry Wogan's famously slightly awkward 1991 interview with David Bowie's tin machine using, you guessed it, sultanas.

This led Sam Presley-Moray, Holly Cooper and Craig Harris, who'd planned the same thing, to panic and attempt to use their sultanas to re-enact the Battle of Bosworth.

The fact that none of the sultanas were wearing armor made this a ridiculous spectacle.

Matthew Austin and Mark Walker took matters into their own hands by incorporating the vulnerable sultanas into a bread-and-butter pudding.

Mishag, Miss Marple, Leah and Ben took exception to this as they were the duty sultana marshals and ordered the pudding be left uneaten until it was too cold to be appetizing.

Then things really kicked off.

Helen, Colin Harper, Ben Raffle and Frankie Chestnuts had literally just rented 14 quarts of hot custard and had nothing better to do with it than cause trouble.

They custard tsunamied Carl Larson and Eddie Patterson's Sultana Notre Dame and trapped Nathaniel Woodward Court, Richard and Gwakan's Sultana Panama Canal under a thick custard skin.

Oliver and Robert, desperate to protect the Sultana they'd found in Area 51, made a Sultana barricade in the corner of the lounge using the Sultanas Francis Hollyfield, Lucy Wright and David Barnes were planning on using for a definitive lecture on the social structures of wasps.

Tuffin Puffin mistook this for staging of a performance of Les Miserable Sultana style.

Word of this spread rapidly and seemed to be the only thing stopping the evening from descending into an all-out riot.

Joe, Rathcool and G.R.

quickly divided the principal singing roles between them and performed to acclaim with the aid of Sam as Sultana Puppeteer and Haley Linney as Sultana Understudy.

Thanks all.

Okay, that's the show.

We're going to finish off with a version of the theme tune.

Actually, it's not a version of the theme tune.

So this week, basically, somebody sent in a version of the Pam jingle.

Oh, nice.

Which is fantastic, but it's quite long.

And I felt like if we put it in the middle of the show, it might feel like a bit of a long thing.

I'd love to hear this, please.

So, it's going to stand in for the theme tune.

It's from Paul from Bremen.

Paul.

Thanks, Paul.

Since the initial episode of Dogs back in 2023, I've had an overwhelming desire and a compulsion to give credit to a regular member but lesser-known collaborator of the trio.

Yes, you have the theme tune variations.

Yes, you have the jingles.

Yes, you have each other.

However, However, what you do not have, as far as I'm aware, is a late-night smoked-filled room, beer-swilling, hat-tipping, plinky-plonky, dinky-donkey, down-to-Margate pie and mash plate of Chas and Dave style tribute to the Enigma of Pam.

Brilliant.

Thank you, Paul.

This is wonderful.

Please consider this to be my tribute to the myth and mystery of Pam, Paul from the Philippines.

Thank you so much.

I'm very excited.

Right.

That's the end of the show.

See you next time.

Bye.

Thank you.

Bye.

Pam, Bam.

Oh, you've set her off now.

There she is.

Bam, bam, bang on cue.

Bam.

Bam, bam, bam.

Bam, bam, bam, bam.

Me and you, we just sit back and enjoy the show.

So we just sit around a chatter in our room to one another.

And we pop in all the salad in a bowl made for three.

She will interrupt our natter.

The trifecta seems to shatter.

Cause she's adding all the chaos and I've offered a bean.

She's a Hungarian fizzler, carnivorous emperor.

Who's in mysterious circles?

Cause she can't see the lines.

She's a furry quadrupedal, only things that her adribles go like Chamalie is bathing in a barrel of brine.

She lays her belly down and she is very hesitant.

She is only two years old and now she's starting to sploot.

Mind legs, they start to loosen down.

A dog is a solution.

To dispatch clock impositions that impossible for you.

Girl Ella.

Splooting.

Good go, pound.

What's that?

Dogs.

Google Pound.

Good girl pam.

Belly up.

Belly down.

She was a lockdown puppy the crew.

So then we came up with a plan to stop her trying to chew.

It was a table-lit fiasco, now they're smothered in Tefasco.

That problem with the reasoning is she loves spicy sleeves.

She at the tree is that we thought that we thought we had resources.

A primal fear of cats and hues is mega dogs with horses.

A lurid technicolour with its love aland tones.

And a groovy verse is filled with all their dog and their bones.

She'll foul upon the sofa like some crew jumping on a pro.

Igniting bad behaviours is the scent of Nigel Hapers.

And if she's feeling down, and if she drops to the floor,

we shampoo her many nipples cause they're just too sore.

Good girl pound.

Greatest love story ever told me.

Good girl pound.

Good girl pound.

Good girl pound.

Good go, Pam, Pam's nipples.

Good go, Pam.

Good go, Pam.

Good go, Pam, Nipples.

Yes,

incredible, absolutely mate.

Yeah, absolute banger.

Thanks, Paul.

Superb.

I think Pam really feels seen.

Thank you.