Monuments

Good morning.

Hello.

How's it going, Ben?

I'm depleted.

Oh, dear.

But you are at your most hirable from a voiceover point of view, aren't you?

When you're ill, that's

such a sad, sad irony.

Welcome to Smooth Classics

on BN FM

with me, permanently ill, Ben Partridge.

Ben can sell absolutely anything, just as long as 12 hours before, he's had the wrong prawns.

And that's why you now have to eat the wrong prawns then you every other day in order to maintain a career.

Just in case, just in case your job comes in.

It's tough, isn't it?

Fetid mussels.

Served in a red Thai curry.

In a landlocked city centre.

I think that was the issue.

I ordered the mussels in a landlocked city.

Well, no, you only eat Liechtenstein mussel.

Double.

You gotta center Lichtenstein in the post.

Sometimes Mongolian.

They've been bred in Liechtenstein's puddles.

Yeah, just to fill in the listener,

I've been laid low by, I suspect some shellfish.

God, you're hot when you're ill, Ben.

I'm sorry.

It's just unreal.

It's just your tone has gone down.

You've just your tone's gone down two octaves.

There's a touch of glamour as well.

Henry, you might not know this.

The mussels he ate, he ate them in Bath, in the city of Bath.

So he's got it's a high-end illness.

There's a regency element to it as well, you know.

Oh, yeah.

It's a Georgian England.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You were eating mussels in Bath, were you?

Yeah.

Not the bath.

Which is also quite a partridge move in terms of just decadence.

I'm sorry, Ben, it must have been in your dating years.

It must have been awful for you.

If you'd met someone while you were slightly ill,

they'd have fallen in love with you.

Oh, they'd have wanted to run away with you.

It's not just love, it's a reckless kind of love, isn't it?

It's a kind of

just

say well to family and job, and

let's just go to Liechtenstein and eat prawns together.

It's what's known as

a family smasher.

It's a family smasher.

It's such a hard love that what you do is you go online and you order ceramic little effigies effigies to be made of all your loved ones

and then you smash them out with a hammer.

It's over.

I'm not talking to anyone I've ever met again.

I'm going to live in the warm embrace of Ben's ill voice.

That's all I need.

I'll probably get the occasional germ myself.

I will get the squints once every week or so.

It's worth it.

It'll be worth it because then he can tend to me.

But then what happens is then you wake up the next morning, you look at Ben and he looks at you and he goes, I'm actually feeling myself again.

Okay.

I'm actually feeling great now.

Hey,

do you want to go and see a battle reenactment?

You know what?

You know what?

We can actually make it to a reenactment of the Battle of Bosworth if we jump in the convertible Saab now.

And we can actually stop off at the Carvery on the way and on the way back.

I've been absolutely assassinated.

Sorry, better

no you've got it but you've got it bang on we have got it bang on

and that poor woman's thinking can i put together these ceramics these ceramic figurines of my family can i stitch can i somehow stitch them back together i powdered them so powdered them into such a dense powder because his voice is so deep

and then they start trying to feed you off prawns don't they benefit and get you back to

but you can't get prawns at a carvery that's the one thing they won't serve at a carvary

he's scot-free You can't touch him now.

So what is it?

Are you just generally a bit under the weather, Ben?

What is it?

Well, I don't want to go into the details so much, but there was a purging

of the soul.

I said, was it dodgy muscles, do you think?

I don't want to impugn the fine restaurant that I dined at.

There's something about landlocked seafood and shellfishes now that Poirot wouldn't have to spend long on this case.

When he gets all the shellfish into the drawing room at the end of the episode and says, I think it was those slightly, obviously frozen muscles.

It's afternoon off, isn't it, for Poirot?

It's early bath, matinee ITV action movie.

You know what?

It'll be one of his adventures that Agatha Chrissy probably chooses to not actually write down.

Do you know what I mean?

It'll be one of those wishes.

One of the very few that her editors would have been able to say, do you know what, Agatha?

I think we can pass on this one.

Yeah.

I think we'll pass on this one.

Because obviously, she only wrote down about, what, probably five or six percent of all the the adventures that that parrot had

didn't she because a lot of them were just quite straightforward right and didn't write down his his his misadventures as well obviously and his sort of day-to-day life um didn't dwell too much on the domestic life of poirot that's what happens when you're when you're a diminutive and slightly mysterious belgian detective isn't it yeah it's like like a lot of it's just just path of the core stuff doesn't all a lot of paperwork a lot of paperwork especially dealing with the fact that it's not clear who you work for so well that's what i was about to ask is he does he work for the met does he work for the belgian please He's a private detective.

Come on, lads.

I do think he's.

Is he really who's actually paying him?

Is he really getting paid?

Is there a system?

Is he a private detective, or is he just like a mysterious person that solves things a bit?

Because he's always just on a train and solves something.

He's not getting paid for any of this work.

The fact is, he's probably having to just work in an office or something, isn't he?

To support his detective.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah, because you don't, in none of the stories do you ever hear about the handing over of the

of the Doche?

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, but also who he's he's but Mike, he's on the Orient Express.

Yeah, he's on it anyway.

Do you mean?

And then someone gets murdered.

Oh,

he's got money coming in.

Yeah, so he's got a decent, he'll be like, it'll be, you know, regional manager of a sort of, you know, of a well-known supermarket brand, for example.

Is that level?

Is that level at least?

He's probably pulling in a lot of night shifts, that kind of stuff.

Working a lot of weekends.

I mean, he hasn't got dependents over weekends, you know, he can bump up.

Yes, he can put that overtime, that sweets with overtime in Connie.

But also, like, taking a long view of all of these murders, what's the one thing that connects them all?

Poirot was there.

Ben.

And then he makes it very, you know, makes quite a meal of trying to pin it on someone else.

He's actually the world's most perverted and sick serial killer.

I think probably is.

Yeah.

He's probably not even Belgian, is he?

No, he's not Belgian.

Yeah, he's probably from Coventry.

Just likes to frame Andrew.

He's just another sick Midland cereal killer.

Also, Ben, you could basically say, marry me to anyone right now, and they would.

Marry me.

Marry me, and I will enrobe you in hot Belgian chocolate.

Ben, the other thing is weirdly, when you're on, you actually look like

really good, I think.

Because when we came on the Zoom, before I knew you were ill.

You're ill, I thought Ben's looking.

You just look quite cool because you've got a little bit of stubble, a really good amount.

Yeah.

A George Michael amount.

Perfect.

Very hard to get that right, perfectly judged, national treasure, sexy.

You couldn't get that right in your right mind.

You'd have to be slightly sort of fuggy with rancid seafood.

You've got a slight sheen on you, like a nice amount of sheen.

Oh, I'm glossy.

Which looks healthy, although, of course, that is

unhealthy sheen, isn't it, Mike?

Because the body is trying to cool itself down.

Is that right?

It's death sweats, is what it is.

It's trying to physically extrude a toxic muscle out of his face, is what's happening.

Through booyabessing it from the inside, isn't it?

It's trying to recook it, isn't it?

So you're going to

hoping that the steam will puncture.

There'll be a sort of puncture hole through which the muscle can finally escape from his forehead or cheek or anywhere, really, at the moment.

So if you were to puncture Ben's skin right now, Ben, if you were to bleed right now, you would basically bleed really, really great Buyabes.

Yeah, yeah.

Isn't it?

Or it would be somewhere between a birbas and a gumbo, but it would be a quick break.

Oh, it would be well seasoned, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, it might well be at the gumbo end of things.

Well seasoned.

Jumbalayo!

Because when you think about it, when you think about it,

the internal organs, I mean, or certainly blood, it basically is soup, isn't it?

It's a meat-based, protein-rich, salty liquid.

It's soup.

It's a sort of stock.

And what is also useful is because of Ben's sort of currently soaring temperatures, that his natural groinal sourdoughs will be mixing with the yeasts and creating a lovely, fresh,

fresh loaf as we speak.

That's right.

To accompany the soup.

Exactly.

Isn't it?

Exactly.

Lovely bit of dipping.

To accompany the soup.

Yeah.

Lovely bit of dipping.

And of course my ass croutons.

Well,

Ben, your ass croutons, which most of the year are an inconvenience, now suddenly make sense, don't they?

Because they do add a nice little bit of extra crunch.

Whereas when you're normally going about your daily business, this is almost a bit too much crunch.

I'm sitting down, it's making a crunching sound,

it's quite painful.

But the amount of soup that's seeping out of you, some of it gets absorbed into the crouton, doesn't it?

The crouton becomes bloated and soggy,

and it just adds to the overall experience, doesn't it?

Absolutely.

Are you making sure that you sprinkle some chives on

your lumbar area

because I think you need to do that every couple of hours, probably.

For freshness, yeah.

For freshness.

Anyway, so that's my, that's, that's my state of health.

How are you how are your states of health?

That's my question for you.

Uh, I'm in, I'm in fine fettle, thanks.

I re-listened, Mike, to a bit of our episode where you were taking aurum off

because some, I think one of our Patreon subscribers had written a comment saying,

oh, I sort of work in this area of healthcare, and Mike was off his tit.

I could tell.

Well, she could tell that he was off his tit.

Yeah, and then I listened back and actually there is a little bit of sort of slurry.

Mike's running a little slower than normal, I think, basically.

Okay, so it's not an improvement.

That's probably good.

What I wouldn't want to be told, do you know what?

What really suits you, actually, is

morphine.

Sorry, I'm happier off it.

Yeah, there's a kind of slowness.

It was quite nice.

It was sort of fun.

It was sort of like it did, it rounded off your hard edges a bit, didn't it?

Oh, yeah.

You couldn't see this.

The listeners wouldn't have been able to see this, but Mike was gurning quite a lot, wasn't he?

Because it was basically off his face.

We had to cut out all the bits where he kept, he was kept on saying he was like, I've got a great business idea.

We'll set up, we'll set up a

bar, but a mobile bar, but like an aqua bar, but which goes like an amphibious, like the world's first amphibious bar.

That's classic opiate behavior, isn't it?

Famously.

Yeah, which I was trying to channel what I think opiate behaviour is.

I don't think it's that.

I think it's, oh, sadly, we're having to foreclose on the Aquabar because I've sort of let it slip.

Because the owner has been in an opium den for a month and hasn't been seen.

Okay, so it's a downer rather than an upper.

It's languid.

So Mike was more languid than usual, was he?

I think Mike was a little bit more languid.

He was a bit more languid, wasn't he?

Because Mike's natural energy is aggressive geography teacher.

Get on the bus.

Get on the bus.

That hasn't heard about the rules about corporal punishment.

punishment

something hasn't got through to him

so

we have to be in titchfield pension museum in 25 minutes to meet the curator

rainsworth

Are you drinking the inside of a compass again, Rainsworth?

So that's Mike's natural energy is geography teacher who's organizing a school trip which has gone slightly wrong.

Slightly from the get-go, from even before the get-go.

Yeah.

From the pre-get-go.

Yeah.

The minibus driver is dead on arrival.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not clear whether or not he was involved, but he almost certainly was involved.

He gets so stressed,

he's shouting into his own gloves

on the bus.

His gloves are just inflating

with just sheer boiling rage.

Which is a trick he was taught by his mother years ago.

It's the only thing that works.

You just shout it into

an ideal an alpaca lined glove.

And that's not alpaca fur, that's an alpaca meat.

And these kids, they've got no bloody respect, Rainsworth.

But yeah, so that's Mike's natural energy, isn't it?

Yeah, that's your default.

That's your sort of resting.

yeah, your resting face.

You don't need your inhaler, Rainsworth.

The fresh air will do you good.

Yeah, yeah, right.

That kind of, yeah,

yeah.

But where does this, where does this animosity towards Rainsworth come from?

I think I know.

Oh, yeah, what's the issue?

I think it's

back in 1975, he was turned down by Mrs.

Rainsworth.

So that's one of the things he's shouting into the glove, isn't it?

It's Rainsworth, you should have been my son.

Yeah,

that's the actor's actual issue with Rainsworth.

Yeah, Rainsworth's mum, he took her on a date, didn't he?

Tallula Rainsworth.

He took Tallulah Rainsworth

to watch offshore drift in action

on the coast of Norfolk, didn't he?

Yeah.

And it turns out that offshore drift really is a slow boil in terms of...

When you're standing in front of it,

it's really hard to really appreciate it.

Do you know what I mean?

It's much more of a...

It's not your classic aphrodisiac, is it?

As it turns out, he then suggested they go skinny dipping in an Oxbow Lake.

He jumped in and she drove off his car.

Yes, it took off Mike's angry driving teacher energy and it softened him down to kind of

part-time woodwind master.

Okay.

Yeah, peripatetic oboe teacher.

Yeah.

He's only in the school on Thursday and Friday afternoons.

Yeah.

He wears a kerchief

around his neck.

It was always

was always between

him

and Gavin Whipsnade to get the first desk at the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Gavin got it.

He shouldn't have got it.

Everyone knows that.

And he just has to have to live with that disappointment ever since.

And not only did Whipsnade pip Peter the post in terms of that, but he also had enough time in his spare time to start a successful zoo.

And that has always wrangled.

Because Zoomeister was actually a second,

was actually probably a true passion, actually, even more than Oboe, wasn't it?

However, the peripatetic nature of the Oboe teaching does mean that he can spend every Tuesday afternoon round at Mrs.

Rainsworth's.

Which is why he's a bit more chilled out than the geography teacher.

She's having private oboe lessons.

Football, yes.

And the rest.

Yeah.

And I'm talking about the kind of oboe that you can't deconstruct into three pieces and put in a special case unless you're very ill.

Yeah.

You mean one of uh victor victorian ones that's made of a single piece of wood yeah exactly yeah

let's turn on the beam machine you betcha let's do it

Okay, this week's topic, as sent in by Annie from Cork City.

Oh, thank you, Annie, from Cork.

Oh, lovely.

I've been to Cork.

Very nice place.

Likewise.

I've never been to Cork, but I would like to go to Cork.

It's very nice.

Yeah.

What were you doing in Cork, Henry?

I think I went on holiday to Cork.

Hmm.

And just enjoyed the

local sites and so on.

I'm a person who is

in the act of

realizing he may not have been to Cork.

That's what's happening.

And this is happening live.

Because I can see you hurriedly googling and Wikipedia's things.

Yeah.

Of course, in the old days, in the old days, I'd have been thumbing my way through an encyclopedia right now.

Of course, in the old days,

I'd be be having to write to a relative right now to ask them

if they ever remember me having gone to court.

Whichever relative you've superimposed into your already probably shonky memory.

Yeah, exactly.

But then the question is: is that an actual relative or are they just a work of fiction themselves?

Right?

Is Uncle Bumble real?

Yeah.

Because he's always on holiday with you.

I'm pretty sure the tuns, his three weasel sidekicks, are real.

I mean, of course, I think the whole extended bumblever is mainly real.

It's the steam-powered paraglider they move around in.

Exactly.

And I mean, Professor Plimpington, I mean, a lot of his inventions do seem a bit madcap, but at the same time, he is a professor.

He's Professor Plimpington.

If he was a real scientist, would he let all those weasels into his lab?

Sounds like you haven't been to Cork.

It sounds like I have been to Cork, doesn't it?

So luckily, we don't live in those days when I would have to have written to all my relatives.

So are you trying to see if you're on Google Street?

It's worth a track of the dice.

No, I tell you what, I'm looking at Cork Town Centre now

on Google Maps, and

they blur all the faces.

So no, I've never worn a red t-shirt, so I'm not that guy.

But hang on, wouldn't they?

It would show you your pith helmet, wouldn't it?

You never leave, you never go on holiday without your pith helmet.

That's true.

I'm not seeing a pith helmet.

There's a guy wearing a military sort of

camouflage top top.

That's not me.

Yeah, I told you I've been there.

Yeah, yeah.

Is there a man obviously shouting, Rainsworth?

So, Annie's topic that she sent all the way from Cork Cities

is monuments.

What is there in Cardiff?

I've not really thought about it.

I've got various things.

I think, like most places, we've probably got a fair few monuments to some not great people.

I don't know.

There's, I mean, there's a lot of that going about in general.

A lot of that going on, yeah.

Or not necessarily about people, but you sort of look around the city centre, and there's lots of monuments to kind of just Victorian industrialists and stuff.

Right.

Who built a lot of it and also had a statue made.

This is true.

It's the, yeah, the guys with the, it's it, Victorian industrialists and um in Exeter.

All I, all I can think of, we've got Suredva's Bulva.

He sounds like an absolute mega bastard.

What did he do?

He's astride a horse.

He's very, he's very clearly

military.

He's one of your Burr war types, Anglo-Zulu war.

He's one of your imperial,

like celebrating in his day, presumably.

I don't know.

I have to assume he would have done some pretty awful things to

people in far-flung places.

But there's not, but I need to look that up because there's certainly not, he hasn't had.

I don't know what the because obviously

there's lots of people trying to change monuments and things these days.

I've not heard anything about it.

I don't know if just an extra people can't be asked to think about changing it.

Is it one of those ones where when they're on a horse, you can tell how they died by the way the horse is or something?

So it's like

if the horse's leg is in the air,

it means they died in battle, I think.

Oh, really?

If

Both ones are up.

They died from the shits, I think.

And if all four are up, you're dealing with one of the best sculptors I've ever heard of.

Probably good work.

That is solid.

If the horse is trampling on the head of the person, then they were killed

by a trampling horse.

Yeah.

If they're set astride the horse backwards, there's been a sort of comical accident involved.

They've probably been squashed.

If the horse is on top of the man,

then they were crushed by paperwork.

Well, then it's really a monument to the horse, isn't it?

It's funny.

I just think it's quite funny, isn't it?

The way the horse is so often in the monument is part of it, because that would be the equivalent of, for example, if someone was to build a Ben Partridge monument.

I would have a Brompton.

Well, no, you'd be in a Honda Civic, presumably, wouldn't you?

Sorry, sorry, you'd be in the Iha.

Someone's ever ever got a separate sponsorship deal with Honda Civic.

Honda Civic.

True, fast, safe, and in three different colours.

Beige, deep beige, and silver beige.

Future beige.

And future beige.

So, Ben, because that would be the equivalent, wouldn't it?

Because essentially you're on your mode of transport.

And it'd be like, Ben, if one of the...

If one of the, if the right-hand door of this, of your high-end IoT 10 was open, it would mean Mike had murdered you.

If the boot boot was open it would mean me and mike had murdered you

isn't it yeah different ways of how you died would be similar if you're checking the oil dipstick

that means that you've died in very very shady lascivious circumstances yeah if the uh if the gov box is open i choked on a travel suite

but there's also the unfortunate thing where the the mode of transport is is bigger than the the dedicatee right yeah the horse is a bit like which is i mean it would be anathema to hollywood right that'd be like, that's like Tom Cruise having his name in a smaller font.

Yes.

Than Havers, for example.

What if they're both in a film together?

Yeah, hell, that would be good.

Havers.

Haver, Haver, Havers.

Sleek, glossy hair.

Supple yet firm musculature.

Take me to the Louvre.

Slender biceps.

Pure thoroughbred.

Nigel Havers.

Equine tail.

Shins of alabaster.

Top monogrammed luggage.

And the neck strength of a hyena.

Nigel.

He's a luxury prince.

So you mean the horse.

The horse pops, naturally.

The horse does pop, and the horse is...

With the best will in the world, it's just a sexy cow.

Isn't it a good thing?

It's always, no matter how sexy you make the man look, the horse is always going to look sleeker and more willowy and muscular and grander.

It's inevitable.

Even if you put a special helmet on the bloke.

We've also got

some decent ones.

We've got an I Bevan.

Very good.

Yeah.

In the main shopping street.

For our international listeners, that's the founder of the NHS.

And

he's on the back of a horse and he's feeding it antibiotics.

And

the rear two legs of the horses.

Then are wheels.

They're wheels, aren't they?

And you can see the horse's skeleton, can't you?

It's quite funny.

You can.

You can see that.

Well, it's x-ray, isn't it?

They've got an an X-ray effect on the back of the horse, which is quite fun.

So you can see the skeleton stuff.

And they've got it that he's

swallowed a dildo, which feels like an inappropriate joke, doesn't it?

Well, you've got to have something for the mums and dads.

There always was a bawdy joke involving statues, but normally they were behind the opaque copper of the horse's body.

Well, that's right.

It was bored.

Deep into the actual brass innards.

That's just the British way.

And you you have to consider that before the foundation of the NHS, if your horse had swallowed a dildo, there's very little you could do about it.

Whereas now you can ride it into ANE and they'll sort it out.

Yeah.

I was in Naples once, and there's a big square there, Piazza dell'Plebesido, and

there's loads of monuments and statues around there.

And there was one statue of some guy, similar era.

And he's clothed, but you can see through his trousers that he's got an absolute swinger.

Really?

Oh, God.

And

I'm pretty sure it was a statue of him.

I think we looked at the time.

It was someone who was alive at the time.

And the suggestion was that he said,

you need to give that, you need to enhance that bit there.

Enhance.

Enhance.

More brass.

More brass.

Get smelting.

And that's not easy to do, is it?

You've got to attach molten brass.

I mean, you need to at least be doubling up on your oven gloves when you

find it beneath

the breeches.

Yeah, exactly.

The thing that I think makes me the most stressed when I imagine what it would have been like being a Renaissance sculptor

is the fact that because you're working in negative space, aren't you?

Because every sculpture, every statue starts off as a big block of marble, and you're chipping away,

you're essentially

you're discovering the statue which is already within the block, aren't you?

Because you're removing it's negative space, you're removing what isn't the statue.

Yeah.

Now,

so to make something bigger,

that is an absolute nightmare bit of feedback to get,

which is really like it.

Can you just make my dong bigger?

Thanks.

So, what is you?

What do you do?

You're the artist.

I mean, do you then add, do you stick a bit on, or do you make everything else smaller?

In which case.

You make everything else five percent smaller.

He's like, he's next to lots of other men.

He then looks like a tiny man with a huge whack.

Yeah.

He's just a swinger.

He's basically just

he becomes a sort of like a sort of a sort of Norse, like a sort of Loki,

sort of mantelpiece artifact.

Essentially, and eventually you're just an earring.

You're just an obscene earring.

The skill of sculpting is great.

What's great with statues, and there's a statue, I can't remember where it is now, but I've said, I think it might be somewhere in Italy, where

it's Jesus.

It's sort of dead Jesus lying down.

I think it's Jesus, with a drape

over his body.

Right.

Because that's where sculpting starts to kick big, big ass.

It's when it's draped fabrics over legs and stuff.

And there's this one sculpture where the draping is absolutely like grown men cry at the amount of folds in the draping because it's just like, how can he make it through so drapey?

There's that one, isn't there, by,

is it Bernini?

Is that his name?

Could be.

And it's, again, it's like a woman.

It might be the Virgin Mary.

It's quite sexy, though.

Yeah.

And she's wearing a very thin sheet over her body.

A sort of veil.

A sort of veil, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's where it's.

And people go absolutely bananas for it.

But you're right.

It kind of is

the one trick that sculptors can pull to be like.

So if you, if you can pleat marble.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

You are a mask.

Yeah.

Is that the idea?

But also that the other thing you can do is you can have someone's hand on their body and their thumb slightly sort of pokes into their side of their butt cheek.

And there's a bit of a sort of creates a kind of dimple effect.

An indentation.

indentation.

It's like, oh, yeah.

That's the other thing that sculptor can do when everyone goes, oh, look at that.

Yeah.

Look at that.

Because it's about you're comparing a soft thing in hard.

Yes.

It's the opposite of it's the hardest, it's the biggest leap for the medium.

Yes.

Yeah.

Isn't it?

Because the medium is rock hard.

The medium is literally nothing like a towel.

So if you can sculpt someone with a towel on their head and make it look

like they've got a towel on their head or whatever,

it's absolutely mind-blowing.

Or yeah, I suppose smoke would be the hardest thing to sculpt, wouldn't it?

If you could sculpt smoke or sort of mistrits or spritz.

The other thing that they're really going for is like a sort of eight-pack sort of hot bod

on those kind of old statues.

You know what I mean?

That's what you like to see, you say?

Well, I'm just saying that's what they went for.

That's what they went for.

They just really like, everyone's built.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, they're taut and sinewy.

I think there's a lot of, you know, it's a bit like when you buy trousers and you're like, you know what?

I'm going to be able able to get into these trousers

in three months' time.

No question.

The body that I have and have been walking around in for years and years, that's not my actual boss.

My bod is the bot I'm going to have in two or three months, I'm going to have it.

It's just in quite a decent rainproof case

at the moment.

That's all it is.

And I think, I bet that's the attitude with sculpting.

It's like, you know what, this bod that I've got isn't, just sculpt my bod in.

In three months, I'm going to have an incredible six-pack.

Can you just sculpt that?

Because Jesus is always pretty ripped, isn't he?

In those.

You learn to be a bit more ripped.

Maybe that's the secret.

Instead of the beefcake journey, Andrew, maybe we just sort of cut losses and commission someone to sculpt a three-beam, the three of us.

Yeah.

Sort of coiled amongst each other in a sort of Greco-style wrestle.

Absolutely hench.

That's good.

But with a towel on top.

But with a towel.

With one single thing.

Slicing over a towel.

Yeah.

and then make the whole thing a fountain.

I think so, yeah.

Then you finally got something which could actually be on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square and actually make the country happy.

Yeah, there we go, yeah, bring the nation together.

That's a sort of rolling monument story, isn't it?

Do you know what's on?

That's good, yeah.

Yeah, explain that to the listeners because it might be that we've got some internationals who aren't familiar with that or some thick listeners.

True, actually.

So, the fourth print.

So Trafalgar Square is

a square in London, which is located on the exact place of Trafalgar Square.

I'm going to take over.

So there are four plins in Trafalgar Square.

One is bare at the top, and they commission different artists to fill it.

Thank you.

Well, a little bit more detail.

So the Battle of Trafalgar took place when Napoleon and his troops got almost to the steps of the National Gallery.

That's how far they got into Britain.

And they were going to take the cafe.

Once they've taken the cafe.

Once they've taken the cafe in the gift shop.

But what they weren't expecting was Lord Admiral Nelson to appear on a 200-foot pogo stick.

Dropped directly onto Napoleon's head,

landing right in the middle of Trafagar Square.

The four lions that had been working for the British government.

Keeping the pigeons away?

They were so shocked by the whole thing, they immediately ossified, didn't they?

And they're still in the same positions they were in.

And the amazing thing is, the gift shop and cafe carried on working throughout this entire battle, didn't they?

That's the British spirit.

That's the British spirit.

You keep, you keep coming.

Because someone might want a hot cheese panini and someone might want a bake well tart.

And also the dream which that gift shop has had for years is that somebody, one day, someone will actually buy

an 85 pound book about Van Gogh.

No one's yet bought one.

They're there.

They're still waiting.

At some point, someone's going to spend £85 on one of those books.

So, yeah, so

there's four plints around Trafalgar Square.

The empty one was meant to have something on it, but they didn't have enough money?

What's the deal?

What are the other three as well?

They're all military.

I can tell you.

They're military success, aren't they?

Maybe we're the thick ones, actually, now I think of it.

That's always disappointing.

One of them is his havers, isn't it?

It's

Nigel Havers.

It's the three parts of Havers, isn't it?

It's the three parts of Havers.

The Havers segments.

It's the Stations of the Havers.

It's a bit like the Stations of the Cross, isn't it?

It's different stages of Havers' career.

You often get into it.

So there's him being brought up and suckled by wolves, is the first one.

That's right.

Then it's him meeting Derrick Jacoby, and then it's him being launched into space to populate Mars single-handedly.

The future Havers.

That's future Havers, yeah.

So the third print, so they opened it up to to the public, didn't they?

And

there was different ones.

There was one...

What's it been?

There was one where...

There's a giant thumbs up.

Yeah, I think we can...

Can we just say

that's crap?

Can we say that?

I didn't love it myself.

And I think there was one where it's like a big ice cream with a fly on it or something, which I thought was maybe a bit not great.

Oh, there was one where it was a giant pigeon, which I thought was...

Or was that an idea for it?

Or did that actually happen?

Because people were pitching ideas for it.

And there was an idea of making it a giant pigeon, which I think is quite funny.

There was one thing, wasn't there, where people, members of the public, could apply and you just got 10 minutes up there to do whatever you wanted.

That was the best bit.

Yeah, really.

Do you remember that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I missed that.

And you could watch it on a webcam.

And there were just few people doing mad stuff.

Well, it was Flasher, Flasher, Flasher, Flasher, Flasher.

Flasher.

Someone with a political cause.

Flasher, Flasher, Flasher, Flasher.

Genuine artist doing a piece about wearing a raincoat and opening.

Oh, no, it's a Flasher.

So it's it's a flash again.

Yeah,

they had to reel it in, didn't they?

One of the things about monuments in London is that they tend to be in quite grand places.

Like you've got sort of nice areas like Travigo Square, etc.

You know, kind of pantheon kind of idea where these people are venerated.

Whereas in Cardiff, like

we've got a statue that was built in the 80s of Gareth Edwards, who's probably our greatest ever rugby player.

Maybe one of the world's best ever rugby players.

And the statue is nice, but fundamentally, it's outside Primark.

Oh.

Do you know what I mean?

In a kind of big high street area, is it?

Or is it like in a pedestrianized zone?

I think basically they were so excited in 1982 or whenever they built it that they put it in the new indoor shopping center.

Oh, indoors.

Yeah.

And so I guess they thought, like, this is the future, like, this is exciting.

But now it's just a kind of

people buy.

They also would have thought that frozen yogurt was going to be bigger than ice cream, which is why they've got that frozen yogurt dispenser, haven't they, on his

left nipple?

That's right.

And the other one's Angel Delight.

That's the trouble, though, isn't it?

With monuments, is that the monument remains, but society changes.

Hi, welcome to Radio 4

with me, Henry Packet.

You're watching Panorama.

It's a pretty profound point you just made there, Henry.

Pretty crap point.

Profound.

Profound.

It's going to be hard though, getting like a 45-minute panorama out of it.

How long is Panorama?

This is going to be a real stretch for us.

Aren't they like, it can be a couple of hours, can't they?

God.

No, but they're about permanence, aren't they?

But that's why they're so symbolic.

And that's why, like,

you know,

when dictatorships get overthrown, you go straight for the statues, don't we?

So

you rip them down.

So it's, you know, who knows?

In 20 or 30 years' time, there may be bearing mobs carrying around Gareth Edwards' head.

And normally, though, yeah, they are permanent.

Normally, people have the courage to put them outside that.

I can't think of other monuments proper in statues that are inside.

the old bust sure yeah there's a there's a bust of uh in st david's horring card if there's a bust of princess diana's head is there can i say i know this from an artist's point of view busts were blatantly invented by someone that wasn't very good at arms torsos

belly buttons belly buttons or legs is it possible that busts came from someone being made a statue of themselves going is there any chance you can make the the wang a bit bigger

and they went as he as you explained andrew it's quite hard as a sculptor to put more on yeah And then he'd be like, then you'd reduce it down a bit and be like, actually, you know what?

Can you make it even a little bit bigger than that?

And you'd have to reduce it all down more.

And he'd be like, yeah, you know what?

I'm just going to be just going to be a neck.

That's what you're going to be.

He's going to be a head and a neck.

Right?

I'm done with it.

I'll take my florins and I'll leave.

You're not including my florins.

And that's just what future generations will have to assume you looks like.

Okay?

Just a head and a neck.

And what we can put a note which was, dong so big, unsculptible.

How about that?

I can etch that in Latin, right?

It'll it'll be in the blurb it'll be it'll be it'll be in the blurb

dong deemed unsculptably large in latin all right

sorry we ran out of bronze we're throwing word bronze around aren't we quite quite gamely i mean our statues made of bronze sometimes yeah i think i think red vsbulva is made of bronze so that's using a cast system isn't it so what he'd have done is he'd have had to have holla i think the way it works is he'd have had to have hollowed out so red vs bulver

made a made a hole in the top of his head,

filled him up with

molten metal,

and split him open.

Then split him.

Then you just reuse the bits for a sort of pate or something?

For a Bulva's pate, yeah.

For a Bulvas pate.

That's why I eat Bulver's pate.

I think that's the only way you can make.

Because that's using.

Because basically

there's two ways of sculpting, right?

There's you chip away

at a marble block.

It's outside in or inside out, basically.

It's outside in or inside out.

So if you're chipping away at a marble block,

is that inside out or outside in?

That'll be outside in.

But then as you say, that's like,

what's the sculpture within the jade, within the marble, right?

True, the stone is getting some choice, and it might turn out you're doing a statue of Red Bulvara out of jade, and the jade Red Vers Bulver looks like a proper wrongun.

Do you know what I I mean?

Might look might look like a tosser.

Well, exactly.

And also, there's infinite.

That's one thing that's so difficult about the sculptor: there's literally infinite different Red Vs Bulvas within that, including one where he looks exactly like Sonic the Hedgehog, for example.

But just with Red Vs Bulvas, his little.

That's when the marble told you when to stop.

That's when it told you when to stop.

Yeah.

Okay, so the different methods are negative space.

That means you take a block, a block of marble, for example,

and you excavate away the stuff which isn't Sir Red Verse Bulva.

Yeah.

The other way of doing it is cast is using casts.

So it's going to be made out of bronze.

So in that situation,

to make the cast, you still have to remove the

outside of Redva's Bulva.

To make the cast itself,

well, you're starting from a position of having Sir Edward's Bulva, and you're trying to find the negative space within Sir Edward's Bulva

that isn't Sir Edward's Bulva, keeping a very thin amount of Sir Edward's Bulva around the outside.

Can you not encase Sir Edward's Bulva?

Well,

that's the Pompeii method.

That's what literally happened

at the Battle of Pompeii

when a volcano defeated the town of Pompeii.

General Vesuvius.

Yeah, because

Pompeii is, people were milling about, they got encased in.

That's right, they got encased in

the creamiest of Italian

dark choco lava chocolate.

Their bodies then dissolved through time, turned into powder and dust, etc., leaving a negative shape of themselves within the block of magma.

So that then had,

well, a mixture.

It could be hot nougat,

it could be caramel, different things you can pour in.

They then chip away the magma, and you've got a delicious caramel pompeii resident caramel in his death rose.

Delicious stricken fishmonger.

A delicious stricken fishmonger, exactly.

No, Scotch egg edition.

Well, that's really hard because then you've got to fire meat down the hole and

drop boiled eggs in there and then fire more meat.

Perfect time.

Yeah, yes.

So hard to do.

Can I just interject just to get ahead of a bollocking?

He's not called Redvers Bulver.

He's called Sir Redvers Buller.

Buller.

Oh, God, no one will have any idea who we were talking about, will they?

Bloody hell.

So the other way of doing things

is what Sir Anthony Gormley does.

That's the other way of creating sculptures, which is he literally gets you to sit on a chair and swallow your own weight in wet clay.

No, I didn't have to.

Because he does a thing where he encases you.

He encases you in like clay and he gives you a snorkel

so you can live.

So, you sit on a chair, he encases you in clay, you breathe through a snorkel, the clay then dries up,

and then you're just trapped in your own, you just.

And then he puts you on top of the shell building, then he puts you on top of the shell building, picks up a cool three million quid,

and you just sit there, bored shitless till you die.

Occasionally, funnels some supernovael down the snorkel,

which is why, if you if Sir Anthony Cormley is going to make you a portrait in sculpture, make sure you tick the anal funnel box.

You're going to need an anal funnel.

It costs him a bit more, so he doesn't tell you about it, but tick it for the love of God.

Otherwise, those supernovaes just build up and build up inside you, don't they?

You need two spouts.

We should finish off this section about monuments with a quote

from the historian Richard Holmes

about Redvers Buller.

Oh, yeah, nice, nice, nice.

Let's have it.

He was an admirable captain,

an adequate major,

a barely satisfactory colonel,

and a disastrous general.

Oh, wow.

So he kept like, the Peter principal kept on going and going and going with Redvers, didn't it?

Yeah, he sounds like he was getting promoted outside of his expertise.

Yeah.

Well,

we venerate him in Exeter to this day.

He's just outside the college so that the young generation can have someone to aspire to.

Thank you, Redvers.

Thanks, Redvers.

Time to read your emails.

Yes, please.

Our email address is 3beansaladpod at gmail.com.

Now, it's time for listener bollocking of the week.

We've not had one this series yet.

Accessing listener bollocking.

Bollocking loading.

It's for Mike.

Oh dear.

Now we've had a number of these, as is often the way with the bollockings.

This is from Elsa.

Hello Elsa.

Who's an A and E nurse from Stoke?

Aha.

Okay.

Hello.

In the latest episode, Mike states that the difference between heroin and morphine is that heroin is an illegal drug.

It is true that heroin is often sold illegally by street tafts, but so is morphine.

Heroin is still used in hospitals in the UK, but mainly for children where it is sprayed up their nose.

Lovely.

Although we do call it diamorphine to not scare the parents.

Sincerely, Elsa.

Oh, fair play.

Thank you, Elsa.

Yes, fair play.

I do apologise.

Bollocking fully accepted.

Bollocking accepted.

And then a different angle on this, James says, contrary to Mike's assertion, morphine and heroin are exactly as illegal as each other

on the street.

Yes,

I might as well take that one as well for good measure.

Why not?

Bollocking accepted.

He also says, if you know anyone who's had a cesarean section in the UK, it's quite likely they've had heroin injected into their spine.

Make of that what you will.

Best, James.

Lovely stuff.

That'll include my mum.

Great.

And then after I was born, my mum actually said to the doctor, actually, now that I've had a look at that little bastard, can I have some more heroin to get me through the next 25 years?

Cheers.

I will fully accept those bollockings.

I plead a little bit of brain addlement.

Yes, you were yourself subjected to the.

Yeah, so I apologise, but

they're all quite right.

Buck, buck, buck, buck.

Absolutely pathetic display there from Mike.

My attitude to bollockings is like Padua Escobar when he was surrounded by the CIA, which is just go down fighting.

That's how I.

You get on the nearest roof.

I get on the nearest roof.

And wait for a hail of bullets.

Yeah.

In which case, do you want your own bollocking, Henry?

Okay, then.

Yeah.

I'll show people how it's done.

Okay, so in our episode about the Netherlands, Ben discussed the province of Friesland, which is where Frisian cows come from.

Please see the following transcription of the interaction with Henry.

Ben, Friesland, where Frisians are from.

Henry, oh, Frisian cows.

Ah, from Holland?

Ben?

Yes.

Normally I would let this go, but literally one minute previous, Ben was discussing how Holland is incorrectly used to refer to the Netherlands.

Picking Friesland as a province that's a part of the Netherlands, but explicitly not Holland.

Who's being bollocked?

And what's going on?

I feel like Ben's being bollocked, but

I think Ben was just getting tongue.

That's just like

a moment of misspeaking rather than a genuine error, I think.

But I think also Henry's being bollocked, right?

Because I was talking about Friesland and he said, ah, from Holland.

I see.

Is this person saying we're not allowed to say Holland?

Holland is itself a misnomer?

No, you're allowed to describe Holland as Holland.

Because, well, people have said Holland before and they'll say Holland again.

And I'm just someone that, in a way, is the custodian of the word Holland, like we all are, as we're saying it.

We're just marshalling it for the next person to say Holland.

Do you know what I mean?

In the process.

I think they're asking that we only use Holland to describe Holland, whereas you at the moment are using Holland to describe anything and everything.

Okay, so when I next meet up with a friend of mine in a cafe in Holland Park, I'll have to say to him, Sorry, I'm on the Eurostar.

Um, I'm going to be over 24 hours late because

Holland, I'm not allowed to say Holland Park, I can only go to a park in Holland if I want to say I've been to Holland Park.

So, just to keep one listener satisfied to three bean salad, I've had to go to Holland, pick up a clod of earth from a park in Holland,

take it back to our rendezvous in rendezvous, revue,

in what I'm now just relabeling generic West London Park, and just spread the clod of genuine Holland Park onto the pavement.

We'll both stand on it.

By that point, you'll be fucked off.

I'll be fucked off, and we'll probably have a shit time.

So thanks very much.

Yeah?

Yeah, so you understand.

So I understand.

Yeah, that's from Tom.

Thanks, Tom.

I feel like Henry's sort of roundly reflecto bollock there.

Yeah.

I must remember to get some vitamins later on at a generic name and Barrett.

Reflecto Bollock.

Here's a nicer email for Henry.

This is from Gordy in Boston.

Hello, Beans.

I am in need of Henry's advice.

Very rare.

I don't know if I've ever heard those words.

Hey, this person must be an absolute pickle to end all pickles.

My partner and I just adopted a British short-haired kitten.

Oh,

lovely moment.

And we're very excited about it.

However, we live in America, so our kitten will be somewhat removed from the royal royal duties, ball season, and the combat training that he will require.

How should we go about raising a British shorthair in the US?

How often do we need to travel to the UK for the aforementioned duties?

Any help is appreciated.

Love the podcast.

Gordy from Boston.

P.S., his name is Nightmare.

Quite cool.

Well, the main thing is just congratulations on getting, oh, just

having the best possible cat into your lives.

To be honest, I mean, they just need to take their lead from Nightmare because Nightmare is going to be bossing things around there.

Nightmare's calling the shots from now on.

Nightmare's calling the shots.

They're just the most absolutely

bullish.

They're just like little.

If you imagine a bull, imagine

an angry Spanish bull

and just shrink it down.

That's what you're dealing with.

I've shared a photograph with you, too.

He has a confidence.

He exudes a confidence, I would say.

But actually,

you can see he's longing for his homeland, can't you, in his eyes?

They don't actually need to worry about the training because it's

in the provinces, it will regard itself as being in the provinces.

It will immediately be given Lieutenant Governor status.

Yes.

And I apologise, because I know you've done pretty well since 1776, but I'm afraid

Lieutenant Governor

nightmare will now be reinstituting direct rule from London.

That's right.

It'll start with just tax collecting, won't it?

Yep.

Initially.

Initially, there'll be tithes

added to things.

You can pour as much tea into the sea as you like.

It doesn't make a jot of difference.

Yeah, so he'll see himself as being sort of governor, won't he, a sort of territorial outpost initially.

Oh, and as we speak, there'll be a flotilla of British Shorhares on their way by sea, of course,

to the Americas as we speak.

Straight into Boston Harbour.

And it's basically the most, it's the cutest and most deadly army you've ever seen.

That's why it's so confusing.

And that's why they...

To be overrun by the way.

To be overrun almost willingly, because that's why they can rampage so fast across towns and

cities, can't they?

Up walls.

And up walls.

Because people invite them in, essentially.

You bend down to give it

a little pet on the hat

on the hat.

They'll be hatted, won't they?

Because, yeah, they do wear bearskins.

They've got very strong necks.

Very, very strong necks.

Little bearskin hats make them even cuter than usual.

You bend down to give it a little stroke.

It accepts the stroke.

It enjoys the stroke.

And then it's a machete up your ass.

Isn't it?

And you are cooked.

Yeah, you're over.

So your message to our listeners is to submit.

Yes, I think so.

Get yourself, if you can get yourself, because look,

submit, collaborate.

Collaborate.

Get yourself a bureaucratic role

within the system.

So it might be, for example, supplying wet meat.

It might be keeping wet meat cold.

It might be keeping wet meat warm.

It might be distributing wet meat packets.

Yeah, if you can get your family clearing out litter trays, they are safe.

Do you understand?

You're basically safe.

And also, look, British Swarths,

they rule, you know,

they're not going to kill everyone.

I'm going to say that now.

So, you know, a lot of it, it's mainly about submission.

humiliation

and sort of back rubs, isn't it?

That's what they're going to be, that's what they're going to be looking for.

So get yourself in.

You don't want to be on the wrong side of the iron paw, Gordy, put it that way.

Okay.

So, yeah, I would invest in actually

probably making, I'd start looking into, and you might be able to do this using a 3D printer, but basically making

a little Admiral's outfit for Nightmare to wear.

So it needs arm holes at the front, leg holes at the back.

Doesn't it?

It'll need a small ceremonial sabre, please.

Yeah.

And also a a real one.

I think we probably have a real and a ceremonial.

And commission that statue to get

Nightmare on horseback in bronze.

Get that done, ASAP.

And that's a miniature horse, isn't it?

It'll look absolutely absurd on a full-size horse.

So miniature horse.

Or seahorse.

Miniature horse or seahorse.

Yeah.

Just something for us to discuss.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about rat,

rat anecdotes, ratic dotes.

I thought we could have a section called Rat Watch.

Well,

Ben's going to see that and raise you.

We've had so many ratty, like, genuinely, this is the thing we've had the most emails about.

Well, they are everywhere, famously.

All of the stories are pretty disgusting.

So, I'm kind of aware that if we spend too long talking about rat stories, we could drive away a good portion of our listenership who just don't want to listen to rat stories, which is fair enough.

So, why don't we consolidate all our rat stories into one special Christmas episode called Ratmas?

It's the Ratmas special.

It's a beautiful idea.

I'm fully behind it.

So does that mean an entire entire

an episode where all the emails are about rats and we call that Ratmus or an entire episode?

It's a Ratmas special.

It's an episode where all we do in the episode is read emails people have sent in about rats.

It's a bonus.

For everybody, a bonus Ratmas special.

Great idea.

Maybe it'll come out on Christmas Day.

Oh, that would be nice, wouldn't it?

Although, actually, we do have a normal episode coming out on Christmas Day.

So maybe it'll be in the kind of post-Christmas, pre-New Year zone.

So, I guess this is me saying to the listenership, if you have got a rat story, you'd like to get under the, you know, into the rat special,

you haven't got long, so do send it along.

And remember, we live, the rats are the only species which are in every single country in the world has rats.

Rats are, there's 50, there's 50 brats for every human.

Do you say brats?

No, I'm not.

I had a rat summer.

I don't know about you.

There's 50 rats for every human.

There's rats.

There's always rats that there's five feet away.

You know, always five feet away from rats.

Your walls of your building are storming in every direction, including inwards.

The walls of buildings, pipes are full of rats, air conditioning units, cavities in between walls, basements, attics.

Swans.

Swans, absolutely almost 90% rat.

And also rats are the only animal which aren't 90% water.

They're like 100% rat, aren't they?

A rat is rat all the way through.

like a stick of rat.

It's a stick of rat.

Why aren't we talking about them all?

Yeah, so yeah, fine.

Yeah, if you've got a rat story you want to include in Ratmus, we'll be recording that soon.

So please get it in.

And it will be optional listening.

It's not the usual compulsory episode listening.

Yeah.

It will be optional, a rare optional listen for you.

It's time

to play the ferryman.

Patreon.

Patreon.

Patreon.com

forward slash three bean salad.

Thanks Thanks to everyone who signed up at our Patreon and supporting the podcast.

Patreon.com forward slash three bean salad.

We appreciate it big style.

Hugely.

Massively.

And also, you get various things.

You get bonus episodes, you get our film review podcasts, all sorts of stuff.

There are three different tiers to sign up at.

If you sign up at the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout-out from Mike from the Sean Bean Lounge, where Mike spent

last night.

Indeed.

And

a bit of a different kind of vibe in the lounge this week because it was just a simple ⁇ A with Michael Gove, wasn't it?

It was a Q ⁇ A with Michael Gove.

Thank you, Benjamin.

And here's my report.

It was a rare one last night at the Sean Bean Lounge as a non-member was invited for a Q ⁇ A with the Bean Loungers, and that non-member was occasional journalist and former Tory politician Michael Gove, allegedly, or at least a man purporting to be so.

Things got off to a sticky start when Mr.

Gove attempted to begin a 23-page speech, only to be reminded by Benji that he'd been invited for a Q ⁇ A only.

At which point, Mr.

Gove was temporarily seized by Greg the Cardist, while Haley Duffy confiscated the speech, fed it to Damien West, who was fed by Cody Coffey, into a human cannon and fired into international waters.

Craig Holden then strapped Mr.

Gove into the Q ⁇ A elbow chair, Fonzie-style, and the Q ⁇ A began.

Things then got off to a sticky whatever the bit immediately after the start is when Mr.

Gove, who'd come ready for questions about his time as Education Secretary, Justice Secretary, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, found instead that every single question related to an unconfirmed rumour that Mr.

Gove, if ever invited to compete on Celebrity Mastermind, would choose for his specialist subject, Coleslaw.

Adrian Ratcliffe, Mevins, and Layla Bean Noodle Queen were first up with the same question, namely, was it true Mr.

Gove had been given an advance of $14 million NZ to write the definitive non-fiction book about Coleslaw, with the option of a fictional children's series to follow?

If so, given all three of them had been trying to get their own books on the subject published for years, was he interested in a ghostwriter?

Mr.

Gove parried the question and we moved on to questions from the Edinburgh Cridlands, who wanted to know Mr.

Gove's favourite brand of coleslaw, Pete Hicks who wanted to know the most unusual place Mr.

Gove had eaten coleslaw, and P.

Murray B who wanted to know how many children Mr.

Gove had and if any of them were named Coleslaw.

Mr.

Gove appeared to become frustrated at this line of questioning and declared that he had once served as chief whip under David Cameron, don't you know?

Boots attempted to calm Mr.

Gove with a softball question about the difference between coleslaw and sauerkraut, but to everyone's amazement, this only enraged Mr.

Gove further.

Sensing our guest was on the edge, Dan Wilson, Anita Lorraine Main, Joe Stone and Harr Thompson performed a reenactment of a typical mid-19th century Dutch family dinner, at which the increasing popularity of Coleslaw and its spread from its founding nation of the Netherlands as far as the Balkans would have likely been number one on the conversational agenda.

If anything, this made the situation worse, as there wasn't even a question posed at the end of it.

Ruth Waterson began her question with, as Education Secretary, at which point Mr.

Cove's shell-likes pricked up, only to be pricked down again when she finished with, is it true you attempted to make the ability to spell the word coleslaw a literacy assessment point?

Kevin Nolan, Katie Keel and Matthew Hawley then hit Mr.

Gove with a series of first principle questions about shredded cabbage, and he became obtunded.

Fraser Bissett partially revived him with some smelling coleslaw, but before he was fully in control of his faculties once more, Catherine John and Rebecca Evans, impatient for their turn, asked him to settle a years-long argument of theirs about vinegar to mayonnaise ratios.

And Mr.

Gove hit the literal and proverbial roof.

Mistaking the noise for the signal to present our guest with a token of gratitude, Joseph Kennedy and Mark McKay rolled out a commemorative vat of coleslaw from which burst Robin Yates, Glenn Fleischman, and Matt Lilly IV.

Dressed as finely chopped optional chives, with Andrew Lloyd-Jones and Amy Edwards playing a harmonized wet Dijon mustard fanfare.

Showing no signs of gratitude and ignoring the Coleslaw portraits Lola had made of him during the evening, Mr.

Cove left in a state of apoplexy and has been awarded free lifelong non-membership of the Sean Bean Lounge.

Thanks all.

All right, that's the show.

We'll finish off with a version of our theme tune sent in by one of you.

Lovely.

This is from Edgar.

Thank you, Edgar.

From Sheffield.

Thanks, Edgar.

He says, This is an acapella working of the main beam theme

with my mate Mariel East doing a trumpet noise and giving it a bit of the old cockney knees up.

Please enjoy.

And why not?

Right, that's the show.

See you next time.

Goodbye.

Thank you for listening.

Cheerio.

Thank you.

Bye.

B in the ground, up the wall, grow a stock beans.

Oee in your mouth, in your soup, on your toast beans.

Ooh, beans, beans, beans, beans,

beans.