Gardening

Hello, before the show begins,

a little thing from me, old BP.

I last year made a short film starring none other than Mike Wozniak and Chris Cantrell and Sammy Dobson and a cameo from Amy Gladhill.

And it's finally ready to be seen.

And I'm putting on a screening in Cardiff on Sunday.

That's Sunday, the 23rd of March.

It's at 2.30 p.m.

at Chapter Art Center.

I'll put a link in the show notes if you fancy buying a ticket.

Not only am I showing my short film, because it's only 15 minutes long, there's some other things I'm showing as well.

I'm showing a short film by someone known as Mike Osniak.

He wrote and directed a short film called Sump a few years ago.

So I'm going to show that.

Also, Neck Face by Sean Harris.

And Ah, which was directed by Torin Westcott and written by a friend of mine called James Bugg.

So yes, if you fancy coming to watch my new short film, it's called Daddy Superior.

It features Mike in a monk costume.

That's sexy, sexy monk.

Come and watch it on Sunday.

I would love to see you there.

All right, on with the show.

Ben Partridge, I'm very much aware of something, which is you've been to Kazakhstan and every week that passes

that it gets a week further into the past that it happened.

It's too long ago now.

And also...

I can't remember and also I don't have any anecdotes.

So

is this like when we're saying it's too late to say happy birthday sort of thing?

Is it past that

equivalent in anecdote terms?

I think we've just got quite good at cliffhanger endings, hasn't it?

We set up a degree of expectation in the listener that they might hear about something and then they don't.

I was asked at a gig about how my Christmas dinner went.

Oh, we got an email about this.

You know, it's just

in the long distant past.

It's the breadcrumbs, isn't it, that we that we scatter so adeptly?

We scatter these little breadcrumbs.

And the audience are like little sparrows, aren't they?

And they flutter down and they alight on a branch.

And they look down and they see the breadcrumbs.

And they try and work out other breadcrumbs spelling some sort spelling.

They're trying to read the breadcrumbs.

They're trying to read the breadcrumbs, aren't they?

Yeah.

They follow the trail of breadcrumbs.

Where is this taking us?

Yeah.

And it's just into an oven.

It's to a trap.

It's just into an oven, yeah.

Sorry, guys.

Well, look,

me think someone is protesting too much about a lack of anecdotes, potentially.

Mike, do you agree with Ben?

I think Men's probably sitting on something quite special

that happened in Kazakhstan.

But let's face it, if you go to Kazakhstan, you at least expect if you don't get a good anecdote out of it, surely could you, is there an insurance?

Anecdote insurance.

Yeah, anecdote insurance, surely.

You should have...

Ben, don't tell me you didn't take anecdote insurance.

I did, but unfortunately, I've already avoided that because it was it last episode or the episode before I talked about walking over a sheet of frozen horse shit.

And that was, that counted as a Kazakhstan-based anecdote.

Yes, we have had, and the freezing cold man as well.

Yeah, exactly.

I've already finished.

But

it was barely an anecdote.

As you say, you will avoid the

shame.

Well, let's at least explain to the audience that you went to Kazakhstan.

Okay, so my feelings are this.

A,

I'm not sure the audience wants to listen to what I did on my holidays.

Ben, that has never, ever been one of our guiding principles.

If anything, quite the reverse.

So that's that's null.

First point, null.

Carry on.

Two,

I mean, what do you want to know?

Well, it's an incredibly passive-aggressive start to an anecdote, but I like it.

It's got me on edge.

It sounds quite punk.

We've also had the near-fatal down coats anecdote.

Yeah, I feel like I've given you my anecdotes.

It's actually dripped us a few.

But

more generally, can you just give us some thoughts on Kazakhstan?

And also, just give us some basic facts.

How long were you there for?

Okay, I was there for something like 12 days.

Okay, so data.

Let's have a data-heavy approach to this anecdote.

On the plane over, I watched two films.

Okay, this is good.

Okay, this is more like it.

I watched The Apprentice, which is that film about Donald Trump.

Oh, have you seen that?

I've not seen that.

Which I thought I wasn't going to be in the mood for because, obviously, you know, yeah, world events.

But actually, it's a really good film.

Okay, nice.

Then I watched Kramer vs.

Kramer.

A classic.

God, you went heavy for a plane.

I don't think I've ever gone that heavy on a plane.

Well, you're just, as soon as you're on the plane, you're just shouting the words Marley and me, aren't you?

That's the thing.

This plane better have Marley and me.

Or you're going to need an air marshal to deal with what's going to happen.

And that's why you now bring, don't you, a stuffed toy Marley.

There was some merch, wasn't that?

That film did have some merch.

Most of it was bought by Mike.

So Mike's got a stuffed Marley, which is your support animal, isn't it?

Yeah.

Because you say,

I'm Marley and me.

So I've done my bit.

There's Marley and this is me.

This is Marley and this is me.

And I insist on everyone whose screen I can see is also playing Marley and me.

Sorry.

That's my version of 3D, basically.

That's the close as I can get Marley and me to being a 3D film.

Instead of looking at any kind of instruments or readings, the pilot should be watching Marley and Me.

They should be watching or reciting sections of Marley and me.

That's what Autopilot is for.

They can do little Marley and me pastiches.

And you insist that the food, there's an option.

There's a chicken, there's a vegetarian, or there's the

stir-fried Labrador.

That's right.

You insist that that's an option.

Chicken and me, stir-fry and me.

Yeah, everything is themed.

And instead of cutlery, they give you little sort of plastic pores that you can

dig your way through the

wrapping in turns to the meal.

Yeah, so I couldn't go Kramer.

I said, Kramer and Kramer, that's his 70th classic.

It's Hoffman.

Hoffman and Merrill Streep.

Meryl Streep.

I think it's Meryl Streep's first big role, potentially.

It's what brought her to the world's attention, I think.

And she never took her foot off the gas.

She really didn't, did she, Mike?

She didn't.

Bonjo, that feels like quite a cool film to be on, to be available in a plane.

Am I right in thinking that you flew out in a quite cool sort of indie airline or something where everything was a bit 70s theme?

I might just have a 70s plane.

Was it?

I mean, was it like an EHS box that you had to put in

a seat in front of you?

You sort of prang into the

mid-back of the passenger in front of you.

You wanted a full Cold War Kazakhstan experience, didn't you?

Everything.

That was the package that you went for.

70s plane.

Yeah.

70s values.

You only have to man the gun turret for 30% of the journey.

So I flew with Aerastana, which is the national carrier of Kazakhstan.

Okay.

Nice.

Do you like to go with the national

server, the national carrier of a country?

No.

I think it's the only airline that flies there.

Okay, yeah, that's often, yeah.

Yeah, that's often the way with your chosen holiday tonation, I think we can say.

it's either that or being smuggled over a mountain pass, isn't it?

Yeah.

On camel back.

Because often the places you're going, Ben, they get more gun running than tourism, don't they?

So a lot of the time your best option is to just

disguise yourself as an Uzi or as an AK-47, isn't it?

It's the smoothest way through the Carpathians, isn't it?

These days.

A lot of the time it is.

Because also they don't want the guns to go off.

And the same, so actually they're treating the guns

with a lot of the guns.

You don't have to load yourself, do you?

So

you're in a sort of velvet papoose, or aren't you?

A lot of the time.

Wrapped in a series of oiled rags.

Yeah.

And you've got to think, but you can only tell how far you are, because you have to look through the

what do you call it?

The silencer.

You can only see what you can see.

In terms of, you don't get to enjoy the views of the car patrons that much, do you?

Yeah.

I mean, we don't know much about gun anatomy.

I think if you're looking through the silencer, you're a deep shit.

That means

you're loaded, and the safety is probably off.

And it actually turns out

you've actually been conned and you're actually being used as an untraceable human bullet in the assassination of the Kazakh war chief.

Yeah.

Totally biodegradable.

Totally biodegradable.

Totally takeawayable by eagles.

And also, Ben, because he's eating cavaries so much, he doesn't really have dental records as such.

They're not.

I got them replaced by mini steak knives.

Exactly.

Which actually makes it even more lethal as a bullet as well.

The selection wasn't that broad.

It had a couple of modern films, for example, the Donald Trump one I watched.

Then they decided to go big on Hoffman.

So it was like a handful of modern films, about ten Hoffmans.

They got the Hoffman package.

I think that they, to be fair to them, I think every month they have a different

seventies actor.

Because I think it might be Rene Zelleweiger next month, I think, Okay, based on the magazine.

I mean, that would be reason enough to commute there on a regular basis.

Yeah.

So they've got like a sort of curated cinema

sort of sense.

You know, it's more like the BFI, which the world is ready for, right?

They have too much choice.

So many, it's become a cliche of like not choosing anything on Netflix of an evening, hasn't it?

That's a good point.

Have it, have it curated, have some limits.

You know what?

I'm flying to, I'm going to Kazakhstan next week.

Why is that?

Because I've never actually seen Bridget Jones 2.

And you just need that push.

Sometimes you just need that push.

You want to do the big Bridget Jones 2/slash cold mountain

one, too?

Yeah, the DVDs have been on your bedside table for years.

You just haven't got around to it.

So alongside the movie selection, there was also a little TV tab on the touchscreen.

On the TV thing, it was all Kazakh TV.

Apart from...

I could watch an entire series of billions starring Paul Giamatti.

Which I've heard is very good.

Is it good?

I don't know.

I didn't watch it, but I had like 20 episodes of that.

But also, there was a a thing where you could watch the CEO of Aristana giving prizes to children.

Oh, that's nice.

That is nice.

By the way, if you are thinking of taking out anecdote insurance,

don't buy the stuff they try and sell you at the airports, please.

Because they'll rip you off.

If you go online, go to one of the comparison websites.

I'm looking here.

Tesco's are offering two weeks anecdote insurance for £19.87.

They've got quite a good anecdote exchange rate as well.

Yes.

Yeah, but also don't go for the cheapest one because.

Yep.

For example, I know someone who took out anecdote insurance, went on holiday, there was nothing noteworthy to talk about.

They put in a claim and they got back to them and said, oh, here's your holiday anecdote.

And it was just, oh, mushrooms were really expensive there in the supermarket.

Yeah.

And that's barely an anecdote.

It's not.

It's not enough.

You know, so there's anecdotes and anecdotes.

I actually heard a horrible case about a a company.

A guy made a claim.

He said he didn't have an anecdote on holiday.

And they said,

yes, you did.

You've just told us it.

No,

they tried to claim that not having the anecdote was the anecdote.

They'll often try and just give you the squits, the basic squits package as well.

Yeah.

It's not good enough anymore.

Maybe in the 70s, but people expect more now, don't they?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, get on those comparison websites.

Direct lines have always been good for me.

They've got a very good paragliding and jet ski disaster anecdote package as well.

They do.

They do.

It's real edge-of-your-seat stuff, isn't it?

And you can also get non-fatal banana boat anecdotes, which is quite good.

Yeah, if you do get

non-fatal banana boat coverage, that's really worth it.

And often you can just tick that and it'll be added on for like 10 quid.

It's definitely worth it.

I actually think just go with the big hitter, actually, just go with Grisham.

Yeah.

You know, you'll get something.

You'll get a complicated legal drama you can talk about.

You'll get a complicated legal drama.

But what's brilliant is they can set an entire, entire sort of complicated legal drama all over the course of a

breakfast buffet in a

sort of four-star resort hotel.

They can make it work.

Do you not find, though, Henry, that often

if you make a claim with Grisham and you get your anecdote through and then you go and see your mum or your auntie or whatever and they say, well, how was your holidays?

And you say, well, it all started when I graduated top of my class, Harvard Law.

And it ends with you having to

garote an omelette chef to death.

But this is why

it's such a game, isn't it?

that they play with you because they know that and they know that that's why they want you to upgrade to the matthew mahohahani yeah the matthew mahonahani and then matthewani will come with you and yeah and he will relate the anecdote in the first person and you're part of the anecdote and yeah yeah

um i would avoid the stop art package

it's

um

it's willfully impenetrable it's willfully impenetrable stuff you'll end up with it's so enriching it's enriching but but can anyone really be asked with it good advice kramer vs.

Kramer.

Such a good film.

That's a film which

is quite often referred to.

It's quite often talked about in reference to its

there's a lot of preppy clothing in it.

The clothing is fantastic.

Yeah, the clothing is good.

The wardrobe is good, isn't it?

Yeah, so you know how you and I, Henry, are disciples of Derek Guy, the man on Twitter who talks about menswear.

That's right.

I realise a lot of the photographs he uses to talk about good clothes are just screen grabs from Kramer vs.

Kramer.

So they are.

So it's Kramer.

He'll be wearing like a really cool sports coat with a denim jacket underneath.

He's mixing like Western wear and preppy American clothes.

It's all good stuff.

He looks absolutely brilliant.

He's got some lovely little trainers he wears on his kind of on his weekend.

He's got a sort of sporty look, but it's never referred to in it's not like a part of his character that exists in the script in any way, is it?

He's just like this superbly dressed guy.

Yeah.

He's just nailing casual wear, basically.

He's nailing casual wear in a way that me and Ben aspire to, don't we?

Yeah, but I'm getting nowhere near.

I mean, today, for example, I'm wearing a simple blue

But what a beautiful cut.

What a beautiful cut.

But I noticed something I do.

I know this isn't for the listeners, this is for the viewers, but because I, for some reason, I seem to feel.

I'm quite cockettish with your shoulders.

Is that how you recognise?

Very cockettish.

I banter in a sort of side saddle.

You are bantering in side saddle.

Yeah.

It's like

maybe you're on a third date with a southern bell.

Yeah.

It looks like every sentence is going to end with the words, chase me, is what it looks like.

Yeah, exactly.

But I think there's a marriage proposal on the horizon,

but there's two or three other suitors that you're talking about.

What does daddy have to say about it?

Is the big question, isn't it?

Also, one of the suitors is huge in oil.

One of them is huge in

ranches.

Ranches.

Duck hunting.

Yeah.

And you, all you've got is an idea for a dressing.

So

an idea for a salad dressing,

which

means that you feels like you're probably not that good a match, but

that dressing is.

I'm not sure that daddy's going to like mustard and cranberry.

And he's so busy with the gubernatorial elections at the moment.

I don't think we should tell him.

It'll wreak havoc with his reflux.

Oh, daddy.

Oh, daddy.

Cut to 10 years in the future.

I do love mustard and cranberry.

He's his grandchildren.

They've had two children called Mustard and Cranberry.

The salad thing didn't work out.

No, of course it didn't.

And they're living in Penury.

They're living in Penury.

And actually, ironically, they can't get mustard and cranberry to mix that well.

The two siblings don't get on, which was also the same problem as with the dressing.

You can't get mustard and cranberry to mix because one of them is a sugar-based fruit and the other one is a fat-based sauce.

They can't mix.

One sits on top of the other.

It's first principle stuff, guys.

Come on.

It's first principle.

And that's why Carrigan's cranberry failed.

Yeah.

Can I say, we did actually, I think it's important that the audience is, that the audience knows, the listeners know this.

We did try to bring them a mustard merch, a Kerrigan sauce, didn't we?

Well, you say we.

Yeah, we.

Your input was, I told you about it, and you went, oh, yeah, sounds all right.

Yeah, but Ben, you're paying for my experience.

You're not paying for the actual words.

You're paying for my experience.

And how did your experience come to bear on my experience of trying to get a mustard off the ground?

Well, I think I let you know that I was slightly slightly sceptical about it.

You were right to me.

You were right to me.

I was up for it if it worked out.

If it didn't work out, I was probably retrospectively not up for it.

Well, post-Brexit, I mean, every man and his dog was trying to start their own mustard, weren't they?

That's the trouble, wasn't it?

That's what we were promised.

It was the mustard avalanche, wasn't it?

That's what we said.

That happened.

The mustard markets got completely full.

You literally couldn't buy mustard on a NASDAQ for 24 hours.

It completely froze all mustard sales.

So I don't think I actually ever sent you the emails I got.

So, I found a company that does what's called White Label Mustard.

Yeah, bloody hell.

So, that is, they make it.

The white label means you can then put your own label on it.

It becomes your product, right?

Oh, I see.

Is that a little bit illicit?

No, it's I think it's disingenuous.

Okay, because you could put on it Uncle Barry's homemade traditional mustard sauce, whatever.

That would be catastrophic from a marksup.

One of the reasons it didn't work

When people think mustards, they think Uncle Barry.

There are two things that consumers don't trust.

One is the idea, never trust.

One is the idea of uncles, and the idea is anyone called Barry.

You combine the two.

You've got a nexus of worst branding of all time.

It's true because uncles are inherently untrustworthy, as are Barry's.

So I was in an email conversation with a woman woman called Carol.

This is her email.

I can certainly help you develop a project to sell for Christmas, but we would need to move very swiftly.

Oh, I like that.

Ben, I like this.

This is the cutting edge of source.

People didn't realize what it's like in the source business.

It's so ruffled by the sound.

You waste time.

Don't waste our time.

Time is money, is mustard.

You got money, it's mustard.

Please see the different mustards we have as standard.

I'm happy to send you a sample of the items you choose.

You're welcome to email any further questions you may have.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards, Carol.

So, was she offering to email you a sample?

Yes, she's offering to email me already.

That feels

it's the future of mustard.

Are we talking about 3D mustard printing?

We're talking e-mustard.

We're talking e-mustard.

Even in the most pessimistic doomsday scenarios about AI, I've not had anyone talk about e-mustard.

That is grim.

Sorry, I really didn't enjoy enjoy that hot dog.

Oh, yeah, sorry, I forgot to attach the mustard to the email.

Diapad's Carol.

Hi, Carol.

Seems we need to be swift.

Maybe we could make this a phone call.

Bloody hell.

Get a room.

If you were to have had an illicit affair with Carol over this whole thing, because obviously when you're dealing with

source stuff at high level,

they've got whatever it takes.

They do whatever it takes.

But also, it's such heady stuff that you just like you know it's it's like it's like um matt hancock having that affair

but ben imagine if you'd had had a heady affair with carol during during this i'm not saying you did and i'm not saying you didn't just the amount of times you'd have both used the word saucy as a duple entendre

yeah then carol sent me a list of the private label god this is getting so bloody hard

products they could create oh my god every single word is just

the private levels of the hot salt.

What?

This is fucking like a Mills and Boone.

Henry, it wasn't just mustards we could have created.

Oh, yeah.

What?

Pumpkin pie curd.

Right, you lost me there.

That was disgusting.

All right, you've gone to it.

Yeah.

It was erotica, but now it's turned into something just properly vile.

Quince jelly with rose petals.

Oh, wow.

You could have spread that over the bed.

If you're having an illicit affair, you could have spread that over the bed.

And then as things begin to hot up, crack out the spicy caribbean chutney

brackets banana oh

that does not sound that nice powerfully emetic for the purging phase of the love making

oh my god so that was all stuff that we could have had in the merch store What was fun about that, I've never felt more like an apprentice candidate before.

That was quite good fun.

But the problems I ran into were as follows.

the main one being we'd have to have registered with the council as a food business.

Well, three, three, also, we're called three bean salad, would that have helped or hindered or nothing over?

They would have just shut us down immediately.

So, three bean salad would have to register as a food business, primarily, and podcasting as a kind of as part of the marketing.

What I sort of became aware of is that we'd become personally responsible for if anyone, for example, bought some Thai-style chutney brackets, hot tomato with Thai spices,

and then got botulism and shut themselves to death.

That would be our fault.

No, but it would have been your fault.

But it would be my fault.

I sort of then began to realize that actually becoming a food business is quite like a big, you've got a lot of responsibilities there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're stepping over a threshold into

a different level of responsibility.

That's even higher than podcasting.

Even I than what we do.

Yeah, so that's what could have been.

We could have.

I've still kind of got like a little burning light that one day we will produce Kerrigan's mustard, but it isn't Kerrigan's time.

It's Kerrigan's time, it's Kerrigan's time.

Bring me the Kerrigans, bring me the Kerrigans.

It's Kerrigan's time.

It isn't

Kerrigan's time yet.

But who knows?

I also just pictured myself packing and sending...

hundreds of jars of mustard and that taking

about two months of my time.

This is a solo effort, for

And you'd have got repetitive strain mustard, you'd have ended up with sort of mustard, like sort of Dijon Arm.

No, Dijon Arm, you'd have very, very clear nose and throat, though.

That's true.

And of course, whole grain stools.

Okay, let's turn on the beam machine.

Yes, please.

This week's topic, as sent in by Matt,

from Chester upon Bremen.

And he would have sent that in, by the way, by going to Enterthebe Machine.boats.

That's EnderthebeeMachine.boats.

The topic is gardening.

Oh, gardening.

Oh.

I didn't have much gardening experience.

I don't have a garden.

Yeah.

Actually, both of you have gardens.

So.

Your flat has a kind of garden that's...

Well, there's a fun.

I've got a fungal.

Are you talking about the fungal gardens

both of my feet?

Because I do see it as a form of gardening, isn't it?

Because it's nature.

It's untrammeled.

I mean, it's untrammelled nature in theory.

Yeah, you've got rewilded feet.

I've got.

And actually,

maybe it's time to announce this.

My feet are the first feet in the UK to have beavers reintroduced to them.

Yeah, but it's uncontrolled.

I'm a bit worried about that because there's no...

When's the cull?

You've not booked it in.

Someone's going to have to introduce a lynx at some point just to take the numbers down.

No, because they're already reproducing heavily.

It turns out it's a very, very sexy environment down there that I've got for them.

Because it's sort of like shop

soft mushroom bedding.

Well, they've got nothing to dam as well, have they?

Yeah, exactly.

Is that based on?

I think I saw in the news this week that we have we got our first beavers this week?

Yeah, they've released some builders, some

builders.

Well, they are, anyway, aren't they?

They are major builders into the wild.

Yeah, they're very sweet.

Have you seen the footage?

There's great footage.

Where are they?

Where have they put them?

I think it's Soho.

I think it's a couple in Soho, the couple in Pimlico,

a couple in Fitzrovia.

Yeah, it's mainly

sort of damning and rerouting traffic, isn't it?

It's seen as a last throw of the dice in terms of trying to save Belgravia.

Trying to save Belgravia.

They've been introduced somewhere.

So they were set free on a riverbank in Dorset.

Okay.

So it's not too far from you, was it?

No, next county along.

I've seen some lovely footage, which is available online, of

a sort of box being

opened up and this beaver just coming out and sniffing the earth and just waddling along.

It's lovely.

And it just it waddles around for a bit.

Yeah.

And then it just finds a river that sort of waddles into it.

And I think they basically just start making dams like instantly.

But it made me think about how, you know, like the way animals are,

they instantly do the thing that they do.

Yeah.

Do you mean like if that it do you know what I mean?

If that was me, I'd be like.

Yeah, I'll just sit here for a bit, maybe have a phone.

Also, I'll make...

I mean, I know I'm supposed to build a dam.

I will build a dam.

I'm going to when it feels right.

I've often thought this, like, animals.

Yeah, they're just doing what they're doing.

But then Pam will just like chill out quite a lot of the time, right?

Yeah.

Like, dogs just lie about me.

She was at my feet a few minutes ago.

She's moved to a different chill zone in the house now.

She's chilling.

So is there a level at which animals chill?

Like, I can't imagine like a mouse chilling.

The nearest human equivalent to what's happened with that beaver is.

Ben imagine if

tomorrow morning Chris Packham yeah and Kate Humble smashed through your windows put you in a burlap sack and then put you into a box yeah then injected you there's a period of quarantine after that as well stuck you in quarantine for two weeks but then basically transferred you to Edinburgh let's say the other side of the country yeah and released you into Edinburgh town centre.

Now, would you just crawl out of that box?

And instantly start podcasting.

And instantly start podcasting.

You'd want to make connections.

You'd want to call home.

That's just all it made me think about was.

You think the people was taking it well, taking it in its stride.

I'm going to say the behavior is almost obsessive.

I'm not entirely sure how

psychologically healthy it is.

I mean, because you're in a new area.

Yeah, don't you want to make connections, find out about local?

amenities but maybe that's whatever the animal

that's that's plopping in the river yeah i guess so yeah it is a bit weird when you imagine that animals just kind of do one thing.

They just do the thing that they do, and that's it.

But are they more successful?

Because do they get less stressed as a result?

Is there less like

self-doubt and self-flagellation as a result?

Because they're just doing what I do.

Do you know what I mean?

And maybe the more successful humans are like that, like Mick Jagger.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I mean, you've got Mike, you've got Ben and me sat right in front of you right now.

But Mick Jagger isn't fanning about.

not he just does what he has to do and he keeps doing it so you're saying that if we were to to to if if kate humble and chris backhammer were to in were to shoot mick jagger with a sedative yeah put him into a burlap sack yeah i've said burlap twice here and no one's backing does anyone know what that is just one of those words you just say and people no one ever challenges you and were to release him in um

glasgow Yeah, what would he do?

He'd begin performing.

He'd begin singing and a dancing and a crowd would build and he'd before you know it there's half the city is

beholden to him i do think i think i think there is a there is actually a serious point in there which is that mick jagger needs to stop touring

i think mick jagger can't he can't stop he can't it is his nature this is like the uh you know there is a fable of the the the frog and the scorpion that's right oh what's that well they got together and tried to make an album yep

but it wasn't as.

But the genres weren't compatible.

They couldn't decide on the genre.

Yeah.

What is the fable of the frog and the

is where a scorpion wants to get to the other side of the river and says to the frog, could you give me lifts?

Because I can't swim.

And the frog says, no, because you'll sting me.

And the scorpion says, why would I do that?

If I stung you, then you drown and I drown and we'd both be dead.

It'd be ridiculous.

And the frog says, okay, fair enough.

Get on my back, start swimming.

As soon as they're halfway across the river, the scorpion stings him.

And frog goes, why have you done that then?

And he says, because it is my nature.

sammy

and they both they both die don't they both perish yeah yeah they both perish hang on hang on a minute frogs can swim that's the whole point yeah

oh yeah

so or

a plot twist depending on at which point you start tuning into the story so i thought the scorpion was helping the frog across the river which seems like a terrible matchup

oh yeah so this oh yeah sorry yeah yeah great great

a lot of ancient fables are told because you can't not get them.

They're pure storytelling.

The simple mind of a goatherd from 4,000 years ago could combine what that meant.

Yeah, quite a sleepy one as well.

And the moral basically is...

Bastards be bastards.

Bastards be bastards.

Players be players.

Hate is going to hate.

Do you know what I mean?

Beavers are going to build dams.

Beaver's going to beave.

Yeah.

So that's a very good point, Mike.

And I think you're right.

So that's why you were saying beavers don't get stressed because they build dams in fact the only way you a beaver would be stressed would be if you stopped it building a dam so if you put obviously if you yeah if you impede them from doing what their nature is it's gonna get but if you don't whereas we're all trying to do daily life we're trying to do things that are not in our nature it is not in my nature to garden for example you know but you're doing we do we do have a little garden so i must maintain the garden i mean the one thing i know about gardening is that people say

it's the best thing for your mental health don't they and they say that gardening is the the the job gardeners are the happiest profession.

Isn't that because you're having an illicit affair with some kind of aristocrat?

Yeah, but apparently nothing, there's nothing better for the mental health than having an illicit affair with an aristocrat.

Than banging a baroness.

Than banging a baroness.

Or getting bonked by a baron.

Copping off an account.

Whatever it may be.

Yeah.

You're being fed incredibly delicate, beautiful Viennese fancies

from one end,

aren't you?

Yeah.

That you pretend to be unfamiliar with, but you've danced this dance a thousand times,

you're a gardener.

Yeah.

You have, I mean, you have a set of gardening tools, but you've got twice as many sex toys, let's face it, haven't you?

Ivory sex toys.

You've got ivory sex toys.

Uh-oh.

Lewd content warning.

Lewde content.

Content.

Sex barrows?

Sex barrows.

Yeah.

Sex mulch.

Sex.

An array of different sized sex.

It's quite racy this episode, isn't it?

Sex trowels.

And of course, you've got a shed.

What's sexier than a shed?

What is sexier than a shed?

And why is it that the windows of a shed are always a bit sort of steamy, aren't they?

They're always sort of...

You can never really see through them.

They're all translucent, aren't they?

I think being a gardener would

be nice.

Because you're working outdoors, you're working in nature.

It's emerging from the undergrowth and then telling the baron about something you've seen that morning.

Oh, the crows be busy this morning.

Since you read the signs of nature, ah, yes, young Finnegree.

Thank you for what you've done for me and my wonderful garden.

Please come inside so I may pork you

and feed you this fantastic new Viennese delicacy.

It's called a croissantroll.

It's a mixture between a sausage roll and a croissant.

I don't know how they do it.

I don't know how Barnaby does it.

That's Barnaby, my baker, who has the second happiest profession.

Because I'm also bonking Barnaby.

Yeah.

Well, I think you're exposed to the sun's rays, which is supposed to be good for you.

You're also in tune with nature's cycles.

Spring, the bees.

Autumn.

Summer, the bees.

Of course, you've got to look forward to.

Autumn bees.

And then, of course.

And the winter beavers.

The winter beavers.

But yeah, you're...

It's lovely, isn't it?

Obviously, in the spring,

the bulbous roots begin to go to their pre-fruiting stage, don't they?

So things start to swell.

There's a great swelling, and it's lovely to be around swelling.

Yeah, and the flax will welt.

The flax starts to welt.

The bulbs begin to seep.

The bulbs

begin to seep.

The little mini helicopters start falling off oak trees.

And the danders are on the wisp.

The danders are on the wisp.

There's,

yeah, there's hot pollen.

There's hot pollen just everywhere you look.

There's sap.

You've got lovely sticky sap all over your feet.

There's lichen in your eyes.

An absolute plethora of respiratory conditions being triggered by all of these things.

And the bark sloughing is months away.

Ah, yes.

Still got to look forward to.

I've got lots of bulbs planted.

My partner

created a bulb zania.

What is that?

Which is like a big pot with different bulbs that have different times of coming up.

And then you put them in different layers in the pot.

Slather the whole thing in

hot horse shit.

Poor.

And you serve that just with a light salad, isn't it?

That's what you need.

And you'll be incredibly ill, but the

hot shit that fires out of you will be all the colours of the rainbow.

All the colours of the rainbow.

And the neighbours will hear you cry, Bomzanya!

For many miles.

I used to watch a lot of gardening TV shows.

They used to be a bit of a mainstay.

I'm not sure if they are anymore.

Things like Ground Force with Alan Titchmarsh, do you remember?

You would watch them.

Yeah.

As a kind of kid, basically.

Yeah, Charlie Dimmock.

Charlie Dimmock.

I remember watching a TV show which had the builder from Ground Force.

Yeah.

Whose name was?

I think it was Tommy Walsh.

He was on a weight loss TV show.

Yeah.

And he was going, thing is, I work my hands all day.

I'm busy.

I'm physical.

I don't understand why I'm putting on this weight.

He's like, 25 stone.

Couldn't work it out.

Yeah.

Because he was digging and what have you all day.

And they said, okay, well, let's look at your diet then.

And let's see if we can fine-tune it and see what's causing the problem, Tommy.

And he was like, all right.

And they followed him around for a day.

And in the evening, he went to the pub and he drank a pint of Bayless.

What?

Curious,

that's about like

16 pints of milk in a Baylis.

Because it's sort of.

It's just cream.

It's intense alcoholic cream.

It's sort of like intensely dense creaminess, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

And they just said, well, if you just didn't do that, it probably would make quite a profound difference.

You'd massively extend your life expectancy, as well.

Okay, time to read your emails.

Yes, please.

If you'd like to email us, the email address is threebean saladpod at gmail.com.

Do send in your gardening tips.

We normally play the email jingle, but we've had one sent in.

And it's from Laura.

Thank you, Laura.

Thanks, Laura.

Hi, Beans.

I'm a Brit who has lived in Sweden for three years.

Nice.

I thought it was time I sent you a Swedish jingle.

My Swedish is terrible, so forgive the sentence structure and pronunciation, but it gets the message over, especially the postmaster's response.

Nice.

Please excuse the singing.

I'm in nowhere a musician and this is a million miles outside of my comfort zone.

A lot of of apologies going to this.

It's a very caveat heavy.

Yeah, Laura, no, good for you.

I mean, yeah,

Laura's shown great courage.

Yeah.

So let's have a listen to that.

Don't post master sun comfort.

Got more than postmaster.

No, got for me.

But a little gamble shit.

Nariushikaratim are a presenter de Framstick.

So me robots

One of the things I love about the Nordic languages,

generally you can't understand any of it, but occasionally there's a word which is clearly

what it is.

So it'd be like it'll be like,

mustard.

Exactly.

I like that about it.

I like the way that

morning postmaster turns out to be something like good morning, postmaster.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

I like it when it happens.

Wonderful.

Very nice.

I was about to say the only bit of Swedish I know, but maybe it's Danish.

Maybe it's similar.

It's Festclad, which I like, which means like just dressed up for a party.

Oh, that's nice.

Festklad.

Exactly.

Well, the one everyone is is Herge, obviously.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

But the other one that I know is

Dube Hervikjatsnur,

which I believe is Danish.

Yeah.

Dube hervikjatznuri.

Yeah.

Which means you don't have to tie the laces up.

Which, of course, is an idiomatic expression, meaning

you genuinely don't need to tie the laces up.

It's very direct.

Very, very direct idioms.

Incredibly direct.

Was that from your time trying to buy slip-ons in Copenhagen?

Yeah.

It was a very, very dark time for me.

I was, well, two problems.

One was I was based in, well, I was based in Denmark and I was trying to

dress like a Tory MP.

You may know someone who's also trying to buy slip-ons in Copenhagen.

Get in touch on the Henry Pecker Hotline today.

No,

it was from when I was selling...

self-tang shoelaces.

When I was a toy demonstrator, which I think I'm sure I've definitely talked about on the pod,

I sold Butthead, which is a game where you catch balls on your head

using Velcro strips that are attached to a swimming cap type thing.

That's when you head.

Butcrow was invented.

There have been a host of applications since.

Yeah, that's where it started.

But the core use was leisure cranial ball adhesion.

But I was also selling something called self-tying shoelaces.

Now, so those were, they were like

in the shape of

old-fashioned telephone cable.

So, you know,

but highly elasticated.

So, the idea is you'd thread them through your shoes, and then instead of tying them, you just kind of yank them up and then let go, and they kind of bounce back into place.

Can you imagine?

Yeah, yeah, nice.

Which it turned out had the double whammy of A, looking shit, and B, cutting off the blood supply to your feet.

But the Danes loved it.

So, can you say that phrase in like every language on Earth?

I did learn it in quite a few languages.

But Danish is

for some reason that's the one that's

that I've remembered because it was the hardest one.

I had to put the most work into remembering that one.

Duberviketz Nurte.

You don't need to tie a knot.

Which is also the only other time you can use that is if you're advising a Danish couple on whether to get married or not.

And you think that actually for one of them.

And you're familiar with the legal ramifications in Denmark and how that affects things like their pension.

Exactly.

Benefits and so on.

Also, for example, if you're talking to a Danish seafarer, but you're trying to sell him a speedboat,

one of the advantages is duber vetsik kietznuri, you don't have to tie any knots anymore because it's a non-rope-based technology.

But yeah,

yeah.

Not on that mean app, but well actually there are more applications than you at first think.

Did you ever use that phrase on a real Dane?

And how did it go?

Like, did Sandy Toxwick come to the shop?

I didn't.

It was quite a good good, good bit of patter to have learnt a bit of Danish.

But the product wasn't great,

to be fair.

And what would happen is the first two weeks I was selling loads, and then more and more people were coming back in and complaining about various issues.

Often that they were just too tight.

Because

with a traditional knot, you can control how tight you want it.

Whereas with a self-tying shoelace, which is what they were called.

you can't you it's the tightness of yeah made with a material that a paramedic can't cut through they don't have the tools.

Exactly.

Well, thanks that, Jingle.

It was fantastic.

Yeah, thanks, Laura.

Let's read out an email.

This is from Katie.

Hello, Katie.

From the USA.

Hey, Beans.

In a recent episode released sometime around Christmas, Mike mentioned that he had chosen to cook his family's Christmas meal as an avid home cook.

I'd love to know how it went.

Ah,

there's not a great deal to report.

I was played like a harp, basically.

Oh, wow.

Who buy?

Santa.

There's loads of really good cooks in the family, as I think I mentioned.

So they thought too many cooks spoil the broth, therefore give it to the one person that can't cook.

There was a rising sense of anxiety on Christmas Eve that

I didn't realise you're supposed to start on Christmas Eve unless you're mad.

Yeah.

But Mike, I did actually try and tell you all this, I think, when talking about it on the podcast.

I know, but I can't be expected to listen to everything.

I'm pretty sure I was uncomfortable with how chilled out you were being about things.

Yeah, and I still was on Christmas Eve.

it's just not the right response emotionally you're like a beaver who's being released out of a box and not trying to build a dam you're not

you yeah you're that's just wrong yeah there's something wrong with you you you you probably either need to be put down or stuffed and put in a museum well that was yeah and well the straw that broke the camel's back was when i was discovered by one of these very good cooks in the in the living room uh googling not

gravy as in how to make a gravy but the word the word origins of the word gravy Oh, you were going etymology on it?

You were going etymological on it.

I'd gone, I'd basically gone down a Google rabbit hole, and that's what I was starting.

Was the plan was to Google about making gravy, but I'd been diverted and I was just on the sofa, just idly looking up.

Was your theory that a recipe is, in a way, a definition?

Like, if you know the definition of gravy,

then you know how to make gravy.

The point was, I was immensely distracted.

And at that point, that person offered to help, and they sold it to me very well as if they were a kind of sous chef-type person.

Got me started.

But as, I mean, they slowly basically gained control.

And as it got closer and closer to serving time, at that point, when it's, there's 8,000 things to do at the same time, I had no idea.

There was no doubt who was in charge in the kitchen.

And this person basically saved Christmas.

I'm not sure if you got played like a harp or if they got played like a harp.

I feel like you did quite well out of it.

You didn't have to make a Christmas meal.

I wanted to feel like I had made a Christmas meal.

I wanted to give these people a break because they always cook at Christmas.

That didn't happen.

It wasn't relaxing for them.

It was more stressful for them, for me to be.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Did you take the credit, though?

Everyone knew.

I mean, I think probably the only person who genuinely tried to say well done, Matt, was probably my mother.

But she, you know.

So you were sort of puppet chef.

She's blinded by love.

Yeah.

Everyone else knew what was going on.

But after Christmas dinner itself, you could wow people by saying, guy, do you know that gravy comes from the Greek grev, which means to warm up meats that we took out of the oven too long ago?

Oh, yeah, my yeah, my small talk was off the chain.

So, well, thanks for asking, Katie.

So, the meal was good, but it was it was nothing to do with me.

And because it's going to annoy me, I'm going to have to look up where the word gravy comes from.

Sorry, grave in French means serious.

Yeah,

is it to do with that?

So, it says here from Middle English, gravy or grievy,

probably from greaves.

Is it grievance?

Is it how people would settle grievances?

By pouring hot gravy on each other.

So apparently greaves is the sediment of melted tallow.

Yeah, what's tallow?

Beef.

Fat.

Oh, God.

Or it could be from the old French grave, which was a misspelling of granae, which means stew.

Yeah, it's not very good, is it, Mike?

No.

That's not lighting up.

No, it's disappointing.

But the meal went off well in the end.

No, thanks to me, yes.

Yeah.

So you were like a puppet dictator who didn't.

I was more like the

four-year-old, your toddler king.

Your toddler king.

Classic toddler king.

There was a sort of wily, experienced regent in place

familiar with the corridors of power.

Yeah.

As I prattled about throwing bits of cheese and cauliflower around the place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And said, I made this, didn't I, Mummy?

Exactly.

Didn't I, Mami?

I made it.

And everyone has to go along with that because they know that you can execute them on a whim.

The smallest whim, yeah.

Well, congratulations.

This is a very long email we've had from Rachel in Cork.

Hello, Rachel in Cork.

So strap in for what's described as a tortoise anecdote.

Oh, right.

Of course, where Henry may or may not have been.

That's true.

Yeah.

Yeah, we still don't know for sure.

When I was 13, my parents rented a holiday home in the Mulranny, County Mayo, a very quiet little village on the west coast of Ireland.

My brother, who was probably about 11 at the time, and I quickly discovered that there wasn't much to do in Mulranny, aside from walk to the local shop or explore the Maca Plain at low tide.

My brother chose to cope by spending a lot of his time sitting on the picnic bench outside the house, which boasted the privilege of being built in a little hollow overshadowed by newer, bigger houses with Wi-Fi.

One day my brother was sitting at this table when something fell onto it from above.

He looked at it for a moment, assuming it was a rock.

Then it started to move.

It was a tortoise, which had seemingly either fallen from the sky or been thrown from a passing car.

Neither of which are possible.

By the way, can I say, if your tortoise does guff in the car on a family holiday, you put it in a glove box for half an hour.

Don't launch out the window.

You don't shove in it.

Oh, you just, yeah, press it into its shell, shove it down.

If you click the head in, the legs and arms

are just a single movement if all the hinges are working properly.

Inevitably, my brother and I begged my parents to keep it.

If somebody was going to be daft enough to toss away a perfectly decent tortoise, there was no reason why we shouldn't come out of that situation with something to show for it.

My dad disagreed.

In his defence, we were on holidays with no access to any of the necessary tortoise care equipment.

However, my dad then pulled rank and made an executive decision about the tortoise, which to this day neither my brother nor I nor my dad have ever understood.

My dad decided we would release the tortoise into the wild.

We put the tortoise into a pillowcase.

We walked to the matcha plain.

The tide was coming in, so pools of water were beginning to form, and we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that our new friend would soon be swimming happily among the fish.

They're sort of using that in the mafia sense,

that phrase.

Why did they decide to do a mafia-style execution on this tortoise?

I don't think any of us fully recognise the difference between tortoise and turtle.

Yes.

Yes.

We found a little pool and released our aggressive new friend into what we thought was the best place for him.

No wonder he's been aggressive.

Then waves a sad goodbye and returns to the holiday home.

When we arrived there, though, we noticed something odd.

Our neighbours in the big houses next door were processing very slowly around their house with their heads down.

Oh, God.

Oh no.

My brother and I thought nothing of it went inside.

So the rest of the story is what was related to me by my dad.

It's have you seen this tortoise posters, isn't it?

The neighbours called to my dad,

had he seen a tortoise?

They had let their beloved pet tortoise outside to munch on grass and he disappeared.

No, but I have seen a turtle that matches its description.

That's weird.

What are the chances?

My dad, no doubt panicking, answered that no, he hadn't seen a tortoise, but he'd keep an eye out.

Then he immediately raced back to the beach where the tide was swiftly coming in.

Oh my God, this is tense.

I'm happy to say that he did locate the tortoise, who, according to him, was quite happy in his new environment.

That's bottom, that's not true.

My dad returned the tortoise to his family, who were very relieved to see him.

My dad did not tell them the full story of the tortoise's adventure.

I hope the tortoise lived long enough to come to terms with what was undoubtedly a very traumatic afternoon.

Thanks for making a great podcast.

I hope Egg turns up soon.

All the best, Rachel, in Cork.

Rachel, thank you.

I was so at least that had a happy ending.

I really didn't think that was going to have a happy ending.

But she's left us with some really massive questions, right?

How did the tortoise that was left next door?

The appearance is the main one, isn't it?

Yeah.

How did it unless they weren't the first family that had made that mistake with that tortoise that day, and the first family that made that mistake rather than just giving it back sort of to the drive-by return

and luzzed in out of the car?

Or maybe someone had found the tortoise and thought it was

an owl and released it onto the roof of the house

try to launch it tries to launch it somehow

it'll start flying if you threaten it's that thing you've got to believe it's like a bird when it's fledgling isn't it wings will hatch out of the shell so the mystery is how did it because it sort of landed on their table out in the garden was it yeah that is weird isn't it

launched i think it's possible your little brother was lying about like he saw a tortoise on the ground the cynic bonjo stole it and then said to his dad this fell from the sky can we we keep it?

Do you not think that's the most bonjo?

Anyway, all's well that ends well with that one.

Yeah, maybe have a conversation with you with your brother, Rachel, and let us know if

he's full of bollocks.

If he fisses up, yeah.

Jules has emailed, may I be the 7,000th person to email in to say that I still hitch my trousers from the top when I sit down.

Oh, good.

Well, I know.

I believed it's to make more space around the knees.

Otherwise, the trousers stretch over time and you get front knee bags that ruin your nice smart creases.

I also crossed my legs.

I was not alive in the 70s, Jules.

Jules is answering the questions ahead of time, though, which I have a lot of time for.

Thank you, Jules.

So, Jules was presumably born in the 40s, but was in cryogenic storage in the 70s.

Is that what Jules is saying?

Or did some kind of time machine business?

Or this is a time jewelry business.

So, but that's a reference to the fact we were talking about how in the TV show, Wogan, Terry Wogan and his guests, and this is a 70s, 80s thing we thought would hitch up their trousers by holding onto the trouser around the thigh pulling it and because of the way trousers are designed you can pull the bottom fabric using the top fabric can't you yeah and originally that had there was handles if you if you look back at the the first the first trousers had handles on them didn't they but obviously now now they don't anymore but you still can use your the top of your trousers to hold back the bottom

these things always do yeah maybe maybe going sort of going forward i'll start titching my trousers when i sit down yeah

it could be your thing couldn't it Well it could change my life.

Yeah.

We've had lots of emails about rumpkins.

Oh yeah.

Which are these sort of old-fashioned hardware stores.

Yes.

You get.

So

I did find my rumpkins.

Have we talked about that?

Well maybe tell us now.

Well I needed to find a tiny stainless steel metal nut

to fix my scales, my kitchen scales.

And it was too small an item for me to buy online.

It was too small an item for me to buy in a screw fix or a big retailer.

I was just too embarrassed about it.

And then I found some, I don't know if Ben mentioned it or it came up that I should find my Rumpkins, which is the local

sort of

just old school, messy kind of

family run, family-run DIY general stuff shop that sells mainly varnish.

And the kind of rat poison that was made illegal in the 50s.

Yeah, exactly.

So 50s rat poison and just like

200 different shades of varnish.

And I'd never noticed it before, but because you planted the idea, I spotted my rumpkins.

And I think they're everywhere at these shops.

You just don't really notice them because your eye kind of tunes them out because you don't.

Well, they don't want to be noticed.

They don't want to be noticed.

Because if they get noticed, they have to start paying tax.

But also, when you need your rumpkins, you'll see your rumpkins.

When you need your rumpkins, you'll see your rumpkins.

I was at that moment and my rumpkins appeared in front of me.

The windows were begrimed.

There was a sign in one of the windows saying back soon, or something.

Yeah, just something just written on an old bit of cardboard and stuck in the window.

It's very much kind of back in 10 minutes economy.

But it might have been back from the Napoleonic Wars for all we know when it was originally written.

Yeah.

Went in, just loads of varnishes, loads of paint, loads of dusty old bits and bulbs, just total chaos.

8,000 tiny drawers.

8,000 tiny drawers.

I think there might have been a little bit of black market key cutting going on

strictly off books

some domestic poison that could bring down a brontosaurus yeah

yeah

and rumpkins was there mr rumpkin was there and it was it was easy to like i bought a single miniature stainless steel gn

for like 45

two bob two bobs and a farthing two bobs and a farthing

and he put it through his old-fashioned till machine, which he had.

Yeah.

It was a great moment.

And you know what?

I went back the next day to find Rumpkins.

And of course,

he was gone.

There was a Rymans and a Bookies.

Thank God.

Thank goodness it was okay.

But of course, once that Rumpkins sells someone a stainless steel screw, he packs up his stuff.

He gets back into his cart.

And he sets off, doesn't he, across the country?

Back to 1913.

Back to 1913, where he's from.

And that's why he had the sign in the window saying, back in 10 minutes, because he's gone to the future a lot of the time.

They go where they're needed, these people.

They go where they're needed.

They appear where they needed.

So we've had lots of Rumpkins emails.

This is from Richard from Ipswich.

By the way, a little nickname for this guy.

You could almost call him Ipswich.

Couldn't you?

Yeah.

Harmless.

Come on.

I'm from Ipswich, and until 2004, there was a Rumpkin-style shop on 4th Street called Martin and Newby.

It also has the glorious distinction of having had the world's fifth oldest working light bulb.

Is that from the era where they went on forever, didn't they?

That's what they say.

The first light bulbs never run out.

It sadly stopped working in 2001.

Blindly, so it did last for ages.

I was in the men's toilets.

Why does it have a toilet?

A rumpkin doesn't need to

know.

No, because

he should have a fully varnished arse

so that everything's kept in by the varnish.

He would see indoor toilets as being a sort of adoration.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we've had an email from Martin.

Hello, Martin.

About his local Rumpkins.

Yeah.

I had reason to visit the Rumpkins last year to get some keys cut.

I went in, the bell above the door rang, and footsteps sounded from upstairs as the proprietor made his way down to assist me.

In that time, I spotted a box with some of the most disturbing words I've ever seen, and I snapped a photo.

See attached.

Oh, God.

Holland's special pie fat.

That's all it says.

For manufacturing purposes only.

So it's a kind of blue canister

on wheels,

which contains sort of super

super compressed fat.

It sounds like special.

Special fat.

Blind.

That is, that is terrible.

That's a classic Rumpkins kind of thing, isn't it?

It's not got any brand name at all.

So many applications.

So many.

It says Holland Special Pie Fat for Manufacturing Purposes Only.

What does that prevent you from doing?

You have to manufacture something with it, otherwise...

Yeah.

You can't eat handfuls of the pie fat.

Also,

it's got classic rumpkin stuff in it.

So it's got nothing.

There's no official brand name or logo.

So therefore, there's no paperwork attached to this stuff.

It hasn't gone through the process that we would have had to have gone through to make our own mustard, for example.

No, and the factory where they made it or the abattoir where they made it is shut down the second they've sent that box away.

Yeah, exactly.

You shouldn't put fat in a canister.

If you do,

it should have more than one wheel on it.

Because that canister's only got one wheel.

It's got one central wheel,

which means it's mobile, but not sort of...

Not steady.

Not controllable.

Not controllable, exactly.

It's the worst case scenario.

The other thing which worries me is it's Hollands without an apostrophe.

Now, I don't think that's a spelling mistake.

I think we're in a world where there may be another Holland.

Well, it's multi-universe theory, isn't it?

It's multi-universe theory.

Yeah, Holland, where they don't grow tulips, they grow pie fat.

Let's finish off with a final Rumpkin story.

This is from Australia, okay.

And as a result, it's got a kind of salty edge that we uh

we expect from Australians.

Yeah,

hello, beans.

I grew up in a village in Worcestershire called Ourley Kings,

where there was a rumpkin shop called Afgreys,

and the man who ran it was rumoured to be a chicken fucker.

Kind regards, Pete, from Perth, West Australia.

Yeah, love it, lovely stuff.

I mean, um,

but he'd get you the right sprocket, he'd get you the right sprocket, yeah, and he wouldn't judge you for buying a tiny nut,

and he also wouldn't expect you to judge him for having sex with poultry.

It's time

to play the ferryman.

Patreon

Patreon

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forward slash free bean

Thanks to everyone who signed up on our Patreon.

Yes, thank you.

You can get video versions of the episodes if that's what you so wish.

Also, bonus episodes.

We keep going on our month off on Patreon.

And if you sign up at the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout out from Mike in the Sean Bean Lounge, where Mike spent the weekend.

I sure did.

And

it was fill a massive inflatable Queen Victoria with Minister-only Soup weekend, wasn't it?

It was.

Thank you, Ben.

And here's my report.

It was fill and massive inflatable Queen Victoria with Minestrone's soup weekend at the Sean Bean Lounge.

Joe Rowan, Rhiannon Pettiford, Pip and Chip were tasked with sourcing the giant inflatable and were convinced by Valerie Clark and Jane Sullivan to get the full giant inflatable House of Hanover package so they could make a bit of cash on the side.

They sold the Otto I to Matteo, Olivia McVilly and Nicholas Bellington who wanted to use it to repel burglars, while the giant inflatable Ernest Augustus was bought by a cabal consisting of Samuel Kears, Mark Taylor, Shlimios Evans, Super Lucy and Jamie Stewart to stun overly garrulous pharmacists into silence.

Florence Townend, Guy Kantorovich, Lou Dunn, Brian MacDonald and Alex Pee took the Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia to help them get backstage passes at Shakira concerts.

And Kieran Jenkins, Kevin Lux, Caroline Johnston, Cap Bexley, Liz Litting and Goggin the Gog floated the John Frederick Prince of Callenberg at 4,000 feet to break the world record for the highest inflatable minor royal, knocking Hammer Slammer the Thunderpacker off his pedestal, for floating a Prince Bishop of Osnabruck to 3,500 feet last year.

Although that craft, of course, was controversial, partly as it was manned by Tom Kennedy, Ian Leask, A.J.

Tarbuck, George Alladyce and Rich Thomas, and partly as those Sean Bean loungers cut their moorings and used the craft to defect to Cuba.

The giant inflatable Queen Victoria itself was inflated with a series of teats in the shape of a lizard's head that are found on the back of any royal.

Team Puff included Claire Woods, Eva, Kirtley, Elsie Brewster, Thomas Elsing and Catherine B.

Harris, with Joanne, Sarah, Daniel Organischek, Zoe Allen and Chris Cummings on puncture repair and teleprolapse restoration.

Andrew Stanieri, Victoria, Luke Hope and Gemini Bartletto were charged with dressing the Queen Vic and chose of a law leisure suit that Hamish McNelly had accidentally ordered in the wrong size for Sean Bean and that had been sitting doing nothing in the Sean Bean storage mega hangar for the last year being guarded from moths by Sarah Reid, Sebastian Mouchheim and Aubrey Westbourne.

The crown was assembled from interwoven gold-painted volunteers including Chris Mack, Lawrence Brown, Jonathan Kay, Jared Miles, Nick Davidson, and Wayne Marsh.

Meanwhile, the soup was prepared under the guidance of this year's honorary soup captains Jess Taste-Hartman and Stephen Green, who had decided the high volume of vegetables required should not be sourced by buying high numbers of ordinary vegetables, but by sourcing low numbers of unusually large vegetables.

The vegetable intelligence wing of the Sean Bean Defense Ministry was activated, aka Gillian Mondegrande, Amanda Aspinall, Ashley Knight and Richard Wilkinson, and prize-winning vegetables were located from across the nation.

Joel Nesbitt, Ollie B.

and Elizabeth Royce managed to seize an extremely long carrot from Shropshire without firing a shot.

Kerry Thomas, Thomas Tom S., Chris Kerson and David Elliott didn't manage to avoid collateral damage but did get hold of a really fat celery from an allotment in Salisbury.

Sim Ranthethi and Hannah Haskell broke a giant courgette out of a vault in Hatton Garden and Adam Garner, William Atwool, Luke Maguire and Amy Barker hacked a crypto onion from the Swedish consulate and managed to ransom a nuclear engineer in exchange for the famous Hinkley Point Canalone Colosso Beam.

Chainsaw chefs Isabel H.B., Hannah and Adrian Beaumont set to work at Choppernan and a Dyson while Matthew Lambert heated the maxi pan using all of the possessions of Cat Fisher, David Taylor and James Baker as fuel.

Holly Walker realised there was a panchetta crisis but cleverly tricked Luke Mendoza, Jamie Isaac, Simon Schilliker and Matt Seibert into the Sean Bean Lardon machine by claiming it was a ghost train and no one was any the wiser.

Herbs, purees, pasta stock and incantations were taken care of by John C., James and Gary Williams.

The soup was cooked until it was hot enough that Alan Batcup had to jump out.

And finally in came the piping team to fill the inflatable Queen Victoria with the minestrone and that team consisted of Charlotte Cates, Tom Bright, Lauren Weeks and Willet Guzzle, all of whom thanked their lucky stars that the inflatable, like any genuine royal, came complete with a two-way anal control valve.

Thanks all.

Okay, let's finish the show with a version of our theme tune sent in by one of you lot.

It's from Ollie.

Ollie writes, one of my favourite parts of the show is hearing other listeners' artistic voices through the profound medium of theme song and jingle covers.

On that note, please find attached a version of your theme tune in the classic Hollywood orchestral style.

Ooh, as performed by the Bremen International Festival Symphony Orchestra of Bremen.

Very good.

Oh, wow.

Sounds good.

I imagined while writing it that it could perhaps accompany footage of Indiana Jones swinging from his whip over the gaping moor of a giant crab while being chased by a horde of angry, sexy casseries before falling into the loving arms of Nigel Havers.

Best wishes, Ollie.

Thanks, Ollie.

Which would be a better storyline than any of the ones in the last two films from that franchise.

Ow!

Spicy.

All right, see you next time.

Bye.

Bye.