Interior Design

Hello.

Hello, everyone.

Hello.

Before we go any further,

I need to ask the question that the audience is asking in their heads: Have you found egg?

Egg remains in the wind.

No!

Oh, no.

Of egg there is no trace,

no footprints, no anecdotal evidence, no digital trail.

I mean, absolutely nothing.

Have you spoken to like local invertebrates?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We've been calling in the local bad boys.

Drifters, reptilian drifters have been stopped, incarcerated, and interrogated.

Egg, if people don't know, egg is a missing tortoise.

Yeah.

Not Mike's tortoise, Mike's next-door neighbours, Bob and Ruth.

But so the hope is that Egg has found a really nice, cozy spot in one of the nearby gardens to hibernate.

But we don't know.

There's no evidence of foul play anywhere.

No.

No.

Although they do say, don't they, that in 90% of cases, it will be somebody that Egg knows.

It's usually a first-degree relative.

Yeah.

That's right.

I mean, there have been sightings in Malawi, South Africa, Bangladesh.

We think

these are all bogus.

They're all unconfirmed, aren't they?

Yeah.

He's also popped up by a tapestry.

We thought it was Haley's Comet, but if you look closely,

yeah, it could actually be egg.

Or

it's a Norman, or it's a beheaded Norman soldier, isn't it?

Because a helmet with a couple of eyes poking out

is basically the definition of a decapitated Norman soldier Norman soldier and also basically what a tortoise is, isn't it?

And people may have been surprised last night

when on Love Island, it was announced that a hard new tortoise enters the villa.

That wasn't egg.

It wasn't egg.

Yeah, as far as we can tell, at least.

It was extraordinary, actually, to see so much fake tan on the tortoise.

Yes, it hadn't really taken properly, had it?

It was sort of poorly judged.

It was sort of clumpy, wasn't it, clumpy and wet?

Because

they should use a varnish, really, a tortoise fat

human

fake tan.

Otherwise, it won't take.

Well, that's bad news, Mike.

Well, hopefully not.

Yes, I remain optimistic.

We all,

in the community,

I mean, the atmosphere at the vigils is positive every night.

And it is getting colder.

I know that winter proper has come now because my morning moustache is gathering dew on my

early morning walks with Pamela.

And those like ice over, I assume, and the dew tails.

They will ice over very, very quickly if you're not careful.

Gosh.

Because you imagine now, like the, you know, eggs owners must be really kicking themselves that they didn't glue on a GoPro,

which every tortoise owner goes through that.

Shall we glue on a GoPro?

Should we put a webcam on it?

Just for insurance reasons or for just streaming, entertainment.

There's so many reasons to do it.

Why would you not do it?

Get a dash cam for your tortoise.

That's what I scan.

This is the message.

And why not double up and get a dry ice machine at the same time?

Because

they

is it?

There's nothing going on.

I mean, most of them are already hi-fi, aren't they, these days?

They are these days, exactly.

They're hi-fi and wi-fi.

But I tell you what, a tortoise makes a heck of an entrance when they've got dry ice sticks sticking out of them.

So they make a heck of an entrance into a living room.

But of course, you will also then want a you will you will then want a fire alarm on on that tortoise as well, because it'll be very hard to tell if it's on fire

or not.

Yeah, and a carbon monoxide detector.

A carbon monoxide.

So actually, um, often a tortoise will be carrying three or four times its own weight in

add-ons, won't it?

Well, because obviously, with all the dry, all that stuff means you do need a small air conditioning unit as well.

That's right.

Otherwise, it's just what's just health and safety, isn't it?

Propellers.

Yay or nay.

That's the big one, isn't it?

It's good for getting the dry ice out in front of it so that it can emerge from it.

That's right.

But it will then shoot the tortoise backwards, won't it?

Assuming the tortoise is mounted onto a set of rollerblades, which I'm assuming.

We're all doing that as standard now.

Now, in your understanding of the terrapin to tortoise spectrum,

where would you say egg sits on it?

Because I know it's very much a spectrum, isn't it?

Egg is full tortoise.

Okay.

Can you cross-breed?

This is a genuine question.

Could you cross-breed a tortoise and a turtle?

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know why you'd want to, necessarily.

I don't know the advantages.

Mike, have you no curiosity for the world of a sort of slightly ineffective

completely amphibious tortoise

so if you took something because a tortoise can only exist on land a turtle can exist on sea and land yeah you combine them you create an animal which can exist on sea land and land

cross cross a turtle with a seagull absolutely i'm listening yeah i'm investing i'm all the way what are the skills of a tortoise

Beyond rapid learning, patience,

endless patience.

They seem like the the sort of animal that probably, if you knew about them, it would turn out that they're surprisingly ruthless.

Tortoises will actually kill their own uncles for sport.

Yeah.

Only animals that do that.

I made a boring purchase yesterday.

You know, those kind of boring adult purchases that you have to do?

Each time I do them, I just feel such resentment that I'm not spending money on something fun.

Yeah.

Which is how I thought about money when I was 14, right?

Which is like, I've got 10 pounds, yeah, I will buy the latest album from Coldplay, yeah, or whatever, which in turn will socially give me the keys to the kingdom, exactly, exactly.

Whereas, obviously, when you're an adult, you just have to spend money on stuff that's just

you're getting you're getting no

buzz, you're getting no red.

And I think I found the ultimate one,

which is four new tires for your car.

Oh, dude, four,

what great fun.

Spending a load of money on four new tyres so that your car goes back to being exactly like it was about a year ago, which is exactly the same as what it's like now, basically.

It's just the worst use of money I've ever...

Do you know what I mean?

I just felt so aggrieved.

Yeah.

I know it well.

I know it.

Yeah, because

they're not luxury tyres, are they?

They're not tyres.

They're going to improve your social status.

No.

Although weirdly, I then got sucked into, because it's tires, it's like,

you don't want to get shit tyres, do you?

Because otherwise, you'll die and all of your passengers will die.

So, you do need to get the good ones, don't you?

And you're like, Yeah, I ought to spend, I ought to get the good ones.

Yeah, but are you really saying dangerous tyres?

Are some of your tyres actually dangerous?

Well, exactly,

and also, if I was driving the car, if I died at the same time as they died, technically, would I know that I died

or that they died?

It's kind of like it's a bit of a free hit, I'm gonna say,

Yeah, can I have the cheapest possible?

Guarantee that I will die.

If you're only lethal,

guaranteed lethal tyres.

We've got tyres that have been part of a bonfire.

You know what?

I'm going to go Son's Tire.

I'm going to drive this car Son's Tire.

I'm going to go Commando.

I'm going to Raw Dog it.

And actually, create

by

chewing up the streets like that, possibly

Wales's biggest tram network.

That just goes to the places I like to drive to.

Biggest and tramless, most tramless tram network.

That would go straight from Bonjumin's house to the local Carvery and back

so many times that they become the deepest tram rails ever, ever excavated.

But the thing is, right, every purchase, this is is the way capitalism bloody works right play the jingle

play the how capitalism bloody works jingle because you you were just you were trying to describe a kind of lifeless like totally like dry purchase where you've just got to buy it you buy it there's no emotional zero dopamine purchase zero dopamine but actually the way capitalism works is it looks for the opportunities to sell you more doesn't it always i'm always very easily upsold in these things i'm the guy who comes away from an mot and service with always with like new windscreen wipers and pockets full of other windscreen wipers.

You know what I mean?

It's just Mike.

That's because we know now that you are one of the nation's biggest patsies.

Which is why I think we could.

Can we release this?

Can we say this now?

You're taking part in next year's reality documentary on channel for nation's biggest patsies, aren't you?

I've got it sewn up.

Absolutely sewn up.

Prince Edward's in there, isn't he?

But we keep the economy going.

And it's the whole thing's presented by Patsy Patsy Klein.

Is Patsy Klein alive?

Patsy Klein died in 1963.

You never know, though.

If you don't ask,

I should have said Patsy Palmer.

But Mike, you're one of the nation's biggest Patsies.

Okay, exhibit A.

The fact that you have a windscreen wiper guy comes around your house every like 24 hours.

A Geordie windscreen wiper salesman.

Yeah, I just leave I just I just leave cash in a mug by the door these days.

He doesn't even knock.

Yeah, I've heard you've got an ATM attached to your front door that he can unlock with his own facial recognition that you button get into.

That

accesses your children's future education.

I have to keep shoveling it in from the back.

I have to keep loading it.

Because you know, you are, you're a bit of a patsy.

Yeah, full-blown patsy.

Yeah, people see you coming.

For this kind of stuff because

you tie in when people say you've got to join the club, give us your email, become a subscriber, you tend to go for it, don't you?

You've done this with window cleaners.

How long is your window cleaner coming around?

I don't know.

I'm in no control of that.

It's up to him.

But he's constantly doing it, isn't he?

So it's like the fourth bridge.

It's none of my business.

People like in this country and in others, people are always trying to say, let's get money to the regions, right?

Trying to start up entrepreneurial hubs and all that kind of stuff.

And they think we should do it in Leeds because it's a long way away from London.

It's the wrong approach.

They just need to find the patsies because we are very good for the economy.

That's true.

If you go on the map, pinpoint like hot patsy spots, concentrations of patsies, just start anything there, and the money's going to be, it's all flowing.

Do you know what I mean?

It's all flowing straight away.

Yeah.

We're a useful focal point.

It's patsy politics.

It's patsy politics.

Patsy economics.

All the way.

In the world of tires, then.

So there's always a patsy option there.

So there will be.

I hate this moment in a retail relationship when the person says to you, well, of course, Henry, you could buy these ordinary sandals.

But I would recommend you buying some tires, to be honest.

Sorry,

I'm recovering from a cold.

I'm at the weird stage where I'm absolutely fine, except when I love my laugh and my

stuff to shut up.

Do it straight down the mic.

Yeah, don't turn away from the microwave.

I'm absolutely fine, weirdly, but I've still got but the cough's getting deeper.

Yeah, so please excuse Henry's great depression-style cough.

Yeah, I was just thinking about it.

It does improve, it's a real throwback.

Yeah, and I hate it where they, when they give you the three options, like

they always go for the fourth option with me, that's the trouble.

But they didn't even bring out the fourth, but they always see you as the fourth option.

I don't see you as a fourth option, yeah.

These times will even work on an alpine scree,

Yeah, yeah.

I'd better get them then, just in case, my family, just in case Pam's in the car and we have to go off an alpine scree.

I mean, and of course, it's your family, so I don't want to make a decision for you.

But of course, if you, you know, if you did want to fully protect them, of course, you would also buy the matching fez set, wouldn't you?

You'd probably want them all wearing the fez before you get in the car, but but it's um the vulcanized fez,

it's a vulcanized pearly fez.

Um,

But of course, actually, maybe some things, actually, maybe that's my mistake.

Maybe some things are more important than peace of mind, actually.

Obviously, we can ensure the vulcanised fez, as well.

Well, that's

£73 a week.

Yeah.

And actually, we offer you a choice of four types of insurance for the vulcanised fez.

Do you want to ensure your warranty?

I mean, you don't have to.

I mean, you know,

Again,

how important is peace of mind?

I mean,

look at

this footage we play on loop here from people during the Vietnam War.

If they don't have peace of mind,

maybe that's not that bad.

They offer you three options, right, with anything, minimum of three.

So

they do it with glasses when you want.

Okay, so you just think you're buying some glasses.

And then you're like, right, so do you want the kind of glass where you can see through it all the way through it?

Do you want to see?

Do you want to see it?

Do you want reflective glass?

So that means you'll be able to see through it, but only your own eyes.

You'll be looking into your eyes the whole time.

Or do you want

glass that's a bit like that glass on the Pink Floyd album where everything's the rainbows that just slightly refracted the refracto set?

Or do you want clear and clean?

And so what happens is it puts you in a situation where you you feel either you're letting yourself down, so it offers you sadness.

They're offering, you thought, I'm buying some specs, and then they give you an option where you can feel shit about yourself now after buying these specs if you want.

So, you've got that option, or you've got, oh, maybe indulge yourself.

Maybe you are worth it.

Maybe push the boat out, but then you're going to sort of

hate yourself a bit for what you're doing.

Caramel coated by caramel coated glasses

dipped in purest dark

double-chip caramel

cacao

cacao

or just the kind of average one in the middle where you'll just feel a bit drab.

Yes, you're right.

Everything has its industry, doesn't it?

Everything has its...

So

what happened with you, Ben?

I went for premium tyres.

Did you?

So you went for the top.

So did you not get some dopamine, at least then, a feeling that at least you weren't buying the normal tyres?

No, because I felt like a mug.

You felt like a mug.

Yeah.

But can you put a price on your own safety?

Okay.

No, you're right.

I can't put a price.

You're right.

There is no limit.

So, so, so, I want you to make me a suit made out of tire because I'm going to encase myself in tire matter and everyone I love.

So, I want a house.

I'm going to put every your, of course, you're right.

You can't put a price on safety.

So, everything is getting funneled into safety now.

All my savings, any kind of pension they might have.

Darling, get the kids out of school now.

They're coming home immediately.

Get them home now.

Don't just put each one of them into a tyre and roll them home.

Don't drive them home.

Everything now is safety, safety, safety.

Okay, so first of all, we have to kill everyone we know.

We have to

kill everyone we know and love so we can process their body fibers and matter and sell their produce to help our safety.

Okay.

Then we have to build a kind of encase ourselves in rubber.

In a Motton Bailey rubber castle.

In a Mott and Bailey.

inverse castle that goes underground that points downwards

with the archers firing in in case of the inverse attack

that that doesn't make sense, does it?

Because

by that logic, yeah, of course, just never leave the house, never

take any kind of risk.

Yeah, so yeah, where'd you draw the line?

Oh, God.

Okay, let's turn on the beam machine.

You bet.

Yes, please.

This week's topic, as sent in by Lynn from Highbury.

Thank you, Lynn.

Hi, Lynn.

Is interior design.

Hello.

Finally, Henry's passion.

Finally.

You know what?

I feel like I've been wearing handcuffs and leg cuffs.

And I've been, well, hog-tied.

So both behind my, so cuffed behind my back.

Yep.

As you would with a hog?

Yes.

As you would without.

That's impossible with a hog.

Just imagine if you had to arrest a hog.

That's why it doesn't happen very often.

And I feel like I've been in the back of a pickup truck.

Probably driven by like Clemens.

Being driven around by a character, like a hick character.

Being driven around by the kind of character that Clemens would get Oscar Nomed for, for playing, but not by Clemens himself.

I'd love that.

Best supporting actor.

Best supporting actor.

He's just doing a bit of method research for the role.

Yeah.

I feel like I've been driven around in that situation around the deep South of America with

people

occasionally with, I don't know, just like

chucking a counter on my head.

Getting rained on.

That's what it's felt like doing this podcast until now.

And now it's it's like, you know what, we're going to un-hogtie you.

We're not going to go straight from hogtide to untie.

We're going to go hogtide to swine-tied.

Piglet girdled.

We'll do it step by step.

Bor swaddled?

Briefly bore swaddled.

But now

I feel free.

I'm off the back of the transit van.

I'm in a lovely pair of vulcanised rubber sandals.

And I just feel, I feel, yeah, I feel free.

I feel, this is a lovely moment for me.

Free to to visualise interiors.

Free to visualise interiors.

Extraordinary interiors.

Always been my passion.

Well,

interior design.

Is that the

interior design?

Great topic.

It's not a topic about which I think very often.

No, I mean, well, in terms of what you've done with the area behind you.

I mean, in terms of what

the three of us have done.

What we can see on our cameras.

Yeah.

I think I'm already getting the sense that.

Sorry, Mike.

That was very, very very cruel of me.

I've just moved my head out of the way so that the other two can see that there is a hook behind me upon which I've hung a backpack and a little shopping bag.

That's true.

You see?

So I've made my own little mark there.

And it's almost like it's so minimal, Mike, the way you've done it.

It's so subtle.

Yeah.

And you've got one of those buried in withdrawn lights, ceiling lights, haven't you?

Oh, the really unpleasant light above my head.

The recessed, yeah.

The recessed,

extremely bright.

Yeah, really.

Sort of slowly boils my face every time.

It's so bright, Mike.

It's creating that kind of lens flare.

For me, looking at you through the camera.

I've got that weird, that kind of effect they use in movies.

It's even got the

making quiff shadows fall on my forehead.

I don't know if you can see it.

This is creating a real,

it's really unpleasant.

It's hugely unpleasant and incredibly unflattering.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And that's the kind of bulb you use to keep a sausage one on, like a premier-in buffet, isn't it?

Exactly.

They were selling them in the bargain bin yeah they're just trying to get rid because they're not safe for sausages they're certainly not safer for office rooms or studies either well the thing is it's it's actually um those a lot of them are actually oven they're actually oven filaments so it's not designed to light it's designed to cook

yeah but it doesn't but it cooks too intensely that it that that would that would fry the outside of a sausage but the inside might not be cooked yeah that's why by the end of the time we finish recording every time the the the back of my head that'll slough away so nice.

You just got to run a fork through it and it just.

Oh, it sloughs away.

So right now, you easily and

be quite nice, you could, a little bit of barbecue sauce on your forehead, you could bite into that.

You could literally eat your face.

Anyone could eat your face right now.

Oh, like ribs, like prime ribs.

You just pull it off, it'll come away in your fingers.

It'll just come away.

Soft and buttery.

But luckily, it then slowly uncooks, doesn't it?

As you leave the room, it uncooks.

Yes, because the house is very cold.

Well, because all the energy that's being spent keeping that bulb alive costs a huge amount of money.

All of our resources have had to send the children to work.

Pam's gone on the game.

It's a tough time for all of us, but we do need to turn that light on.

Otherwise, I'm in the dark for podcasts.

Looking around the room I'm in, all you can see is a bare white wall.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

But if you look from the other angle, basically when I moved into this house, this was a little boy's bedroom.

Yeah.

And it's now my little kind of office room.

Yeah.

And it was Batman-themed.

Nice.

Why would you change that?

Hey.

But you didn't say it was a cool kid.

I like the sound of this kid.

So, so, like, cool Batman stuff.

So, did you get rid of it then?

Well, no.

So, the one I'm looking at is painted sort of like Batman grey.

Yeah.

I genuinely...

On Saturday, it ran around about a man drove past me in an actual Batmobile.

No.

Like a car car made to look as much like the Batmobile as humanly possible, and he was dressed in a full Batman.

Was it David Jason?

I don't know.

But he was going for the Nolan level, like it was kind of like hard rubber, kind of, you know, tough guy, abs and pecs kind of Batman costume.

I would hate to meet that guy.

He was just on the Saturday afternoon, just driving about on the outskirts of Exeter.

Ben, you would hate to meet him because you find Batman an intimidating idea.

right?

Yeah, okay.

Batman is cool.

That guy was cool.

Your bedroom previously had a cool look.

The room you're in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Batman is cool.

It felt like a man, because I bet he was probably similar age to me, but I felt like a man who'd kept a promise he made to himself at the age of eight.

You know?

And we have to emphasize this to people: those promises are not legally binding.

You really don't have to.

And his promise he he made his eight-year-old was: you're going to modify a car in such a way that you can't tell your insurance company about it.

Beyond that, the remit is entirely open.

You can do it

however you want, as long as your insurance company cannot find another.

And that is because it will contravene a small print on the insurance policy.

You will have to keep it in a lock-up that your family doesn't know about.

You will have to tell your spouse that you're going to.

It's another meeting of the squash ladder.

Uh, that's where you're going.

Um, no one, no one can possibly know where you're going on Saturday afternoons.

Um, yeah, but he's assuming he was on his way to pick up Robin.

Perhaps.

I don't, I don't know.

I should have followed him, but he was in a he was literally in a batmobile, and I was in a you know, like a Honda ten with a big old Christmas tree on the top.

So, I mean, I don't for a start, like surveillance would have been tricky, and I would have been quite slow.

So, Mike, are you on your way back from buying a Christmas tree?

Yeah, were you

patsied hard at the Christmas tree for us?

Oh, big time.

i i was upsold all the way to the 18 footer we can't fit it in the house it's a superb patsy marina ben you're so right the christmas tree is such a man called padrig at the uh christmas tree he was a listener oh he's a listener pompadou discount he was a good guy no he didn't give me a discount i didn't try a pompado discount where i did get upsold later on was because i realized our christmas tree stand

uh was was knackered so i needed to get a new one and and and yeah bit b and q upsold me big time uh

it upsold me big time what did you you end up with?

I ended up with a sort of a contraption I did not need that has a special pedal,

a series of binding wires.

A pedal.

It's got a little

sort of thing that sort of pops up when you've put enough water in it and goes up further.

Mike was a sausage roaster.

Have you bought another sausage roast?

I got a sausage roaster.

I bought another sausage roaster.

You can't need the roast sausage roaster.

It swore to me that

it had been accidentally mispackaged, and that's why I was having to write Christmas tree stand on it in pencil while I came over.

So, were you not upsold the 16-foot square of Scandinavian forest floor?

I've got all of that.

All of our has been installed now.

Yes, and of course, Sam, it's completely up to you.

I mean, you could buy one of these sad, emaciated trees, because for some people, Christmas isn't supposed to be a fun time of year.

And we totally understand that here.

A theme of winter is death, of course, death in the interests of renewal.

That's fine.

Perhaps that's the angle you want to celebrate.

You know, and it's very rare that a tree drops its needles and then your dog eats it and dies.

That doesn't happen very often at all.

So you don't need one of these things.

To be honest, I mean, is a dog really a part of the family?

It's not really, is it?

It's an intruder.

You might see your dog as a form of intruder.

So genuinely, what are the upselling options you get with Christmas trees?

So you can go for a non-drop, which is a slightly more expensive breed, I think.

The Nordman fir.

Yes.

Although some people like the drop because you get more aroma.

You get more aroma

off a dropper.

Off a dropper.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, so it's smell versus drop, isn't it?

Yeah.

Someone will pop some sort of scandy-based adjective on the front

with a certain section.

I mean, if they're telling you this is like a Norwegian or a sort of finish.

A Norwegian tundra fur.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then

you're talking double the price

straight away.

Yes.

You can go for the, yeah.

the the Julundstropper, the Julundstro, you can go for the expense, the more expensive, slightly more expensive, young julundorf or you can have this berkshire minge it's up to you which one would you like

and actually we do have these i don't love my family mushropper

and they're actually that they're honestly they're not that they're not that much less good and they're not that flammable they're not that flammable

that's right it's just part of the i don't love my family mushle it's just i think it's a norwegian word i don't love my family

or the slightly cheaper i don't i really don't want to love my family

even cheaper those ones are actually perfectly fine.

Yeah, obviously size of tree.

Yes.

I mean, mine came from a Chinese factory.

Pre-lit plastic number.

Tree for life.

Yeah.

Did you get, is it, but is it, is it imitating the tree?

Is it is it green or have you got one of the kind of funky silvery ones with inbuilt lights on the works?

It's got inbuilt lights.

Nice.

But it's trying to look...

It's trying to look like a tree.

Is this one that you bought like years ago and you just get it out of mothballs every...

I bought it two years ago.

Sorry, it wouldn't need mothballs.

I was just imagining it has some sort of organic element

that a moth could eat.

Sorry.

The moth would be killed.

The moth would die.

In fact, the whole thing operates as a mothball, effectively, does it?

You can actually put it amongst your clothes and stuff to deter moths because it's that chemically violent, isn't it?

And it is that sense of chemical violence, isn't it, Ben,

that you like around the Yuletide.

Yeah,

you have to install it by an open window, don't you?

Because of the constant vapors.

Of course, because Ben, a lot of people get a bit dewy-eyed on Christmas Day, it's quite a warm time.

But for you, it's because you're literally, you're crying, aren't you?

Because the amount of acid content in the air is so high, isn't it around the Yorite Tide?

You don't have a condrunk timor anymore because it's

sloughed off.

I bought it on Christmas Eve two years ago.

Okay.

As if the story couldn't get any more grinchy.

All right, I'll go and get one.

Please get out, get me out of the house for an hour.

Jesus Christ.

So close, so close to the truth.

Yes, I'll get one of those long life hard plastic Christmas puddings as well.

A display pudding, yes.

A display pudding and

a display tree, yes.

Yes, and the non-gift, non-crackable crackers, please.

That's right, the crackers that are made of solid stone.

I don't care if they're cold to the touch, doesn't matter.

I also bought this on the same trip because this was reduced because it was Christmas Eve.

I bought this.

Hang on.

What?

Whoa!

What is that?

Three-foot outline of a luminous penguin.

It's a neon penguin.

Ben, I can't believe you've had someone hand make the

chalk drawing for that penguin you murdered.

It's the downline of a dead, yeah, a penguin murder.

Made light.

So, so, so Ben Tuck talked me through that?

Well, it's just a simple neon penguin.

I was there on Christmas Eve.

It was reduced to like nine quid.

And I thought, well, you know.

I don't know.

I mean, yeah.

Oh, you know, they're not going to be happy about the Christmas tree and bringing it back, but wait until I've seen this.

I think my interior decor sort of style, my natural style, I think got embedded in me when I lived in a flat share in Baron's Court.

So we had a few, I think both of you came to that flat.

Many times.

I remember it well.

Yeah.

Do you know what I liked, Henry?

The heavily moulded bottom ceiling.

Do you mean molded or moldy?

Moldy.

Just moldy.

It was not molded.

It was so moldy, people thought it might have actually been molded.

You're right.

It did.

People got confused.

But the lovely thing about that, it was so thought through that from the get-go, you knew the deal, right?

Yes.

Because

you'd open the front door, which felt like it was quite a large front door, but it felt like it could fall off at any time.

Yes.

And yours was quite, was it on the second floor?

I can't quite remember.

It was the top, maybe second or third, yeah.

Yeah.

And then you'd go up the stairs, carpeted, of course, hallway and stairs.

A lovely kind of once thick, now perpetually damp carpet that you'd feel your feet squelching into.

There was a lot of perpetual dampness.

And up you went.

Very untrustworthy banister.

Oh, God, that was so untrustworthy.

Yeah.

It was so untrustworthy, that banister.

Yeah.

But that's, it's put you in the right mode before you even got to the flat.

It's a very clever bit of interior design.

You knew

exactly where you were and what you were dealing with from the get-go.

Yeah, and you'd had three landings on which to change your mind.

If you wanted to be real intensive, each one more damp than the last.

Yeah, and if you wanted to leave at any point, you could just simply kick through any of the soft, soft walls and kick your way out of that.

Leap to earth on the other side,

yeah.

Or if you just jumped up and down on the spot enough, you put the pieces on the floor underneath, and so on.

You could easily,

yeah, it was sort of moldy, inedible wafer house, wasn't it?

Um,

to be honest, um, Elon Musk, if you're listening,

if you want any to chat about how to create an artificial atmosphere and perpetual moistness on Mars,

then we can maybe have some chats because that place had its own atmosphere.

It was so damp, you could feel the spores going into your

carpets.

Yeah,

make sure you never wash that towel in the bathroom.

Never wash that towel.

It's unclear who's using that towel and what it's being used for.

I certainly wouldn't advise you dry your hands on it after you've washed your hands.

Good luck finding hand soap anyway, right?

There's so many bacteria on that towel, it would basically be a genocide if you washed that towel because it's got my square, it's got its own microbiome.

I didn't even need to eat yogurt anymore.

You basically are yogurt

and marmite at the same time.

I've got a huge affection for the memory of that flat, to be honest.

Yeah, no, me too.

Fun times we had.

A few little design choices we had in that flat that people noted at the time.

One was in the kitchen,

we

in the kitchen, we had an open bin.

Did save time, though, didn't it?

Yeah, so we could keep on watching the Sopranos again.

We had an open bin.

And the open bin...

Like an open bin policy.

Was that the idea?

It was an an open bin.

It was an open bin policy.

It actually was an open bin policy because we discussed it.

We almost had a flat meeting where we decided on the open bin.

It was a choice.

This is modern living, isn't it?

Yeah.

I'm going to call the person I lived with bumped.

Yeah, I remember bumped.

I remember bumped.

Bumped said to me, basically,

we had a conversation where we we we felt we had a problem which was

so so it was one of those bins which has a triangular sort of helmet at the top with with a with a flappy flap with a flap yeah yeah so so basically what we felt was there was a problem which was

a food on the way down through the flap hits the flap hits the flap

so you end up with a grotty flap and also tea bags thrown at the bin

how hard you throw them?

And you were throwing them hard.

And almost, and also, how much of a hurry again are we in in our lives?

We're throwing tea bags at bins.

But tea bags thrown at the bin would adhere, sometimes not even, would adhere to that, stain it, not always fall through.

Yeah, occasionally you could try with a cluster of five or six tea bags that had been left by the kettle on the work service because that's right.

On those occasions, there simply wasn't time even to try and put them in the bin.

Or sometimes he'd really pepper it, mafia mafia execution style.

And so we decided, or at least I think it was Bumped's decision this, but Bumped decided that for hygiene reasons, it was safer to not have a lid on the bin

because the lid was becoming so dirty.

Master of spin.

You can always anything can be spun.

Yeah.

But put it this way: I'm not going to say who Bumped went on to be, but

it was Dominic Cummings.

But he wants to no-lid the country, doesn't he?

Let's take the lid off Britain.

Let's take off the vital services

to keep this country going because they're actually holding it back.

No, Bump bumped didn't go on to become Dominic Cummings.

There was a woman who lived there as well who I don't think I ever met.

That was a girlfriend of a Resident 3.

Resident 3 was always a bit more aloof, I think, because he actually had a proper job, right?

Whereas you and Bumped, we sort of bumped all the time.

We were just bumped around.

A couple of loose barons caught dandies.

i was doing so little at the time but i was so time efficient i had i had a i had the phone number of the local kebab play so i'd call them in advance and put my order in so i wouldn't have to wait

i've never had that deal with any other kebab place before or since it was a great great thing though

i'd call them up and say yeah meet me

meet kabables

it's henry don't worry i wouldn't screw you around

i'm good for it i'm good for it i'm good for it

yeah so that was so but i remember friends would come in.

I remember a friend of mine once, he actually really hurt my feelings.

He came in and he said, God, I couldn't,

I couldn't live like this.

A friend of mine said that to me.

I was really hurt.

He said, I couldn't live like this.

I went, what do you mean?

He went, you're an open bin.

And it really sort of,

I don't know, really had an effect on me that people do.

People look at your.

People look at your decor choices.

Yeah.

And they make judgments about you.

And that's what happened with that person that but so that flat that flat was so grim i mean i've told the story already on this podcast about the carpet that was so dirty it was almost clean again

because the basically the the filaments on the on the carpet so filaments are supposed to stick upwards and outwards like the moustache on mike's face healthy glossy glowing glossy yeah with a deep fibrous warmth so they're supposed to sit that a bit like um

you know like a

sea anemone.

Is that sea an enemy?

Yeah.

Something underwater.

Just supposed to float upwards, the hairs.

So on the carpet in that flat, the hairs had become so flattened

over time and so much grime had gone into them and fats.

Because obviously the human but the human being...

They were starting to grow down into the flat below.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Pretty much.

It was starting to reverse the other way.

They had a ceiling carpet.

But it was our carpet.

Which turned into a long, lengthy legal.

They're supposed to, because, and obviously they fill up with grime and fats.

Because human beings just are living, we're living sausages, aren't we?

We're living sausages.

So we deposit fats in the same way that a dead sausage does.

Yeah, especially if you're getting a meat cabaro in your pants.

Or just aspiranas again.

On top of the carpet.

Wearing nothing around your midrith except for what looks like it used to be the lid section of a bin.

Doesn't seem possible, does it?

Tied on with old gaffer tape.

So, so the filaments, the tendrils, the hairs of the carpet, as it were, had become so flattened over time, so flattened and flattened and flattened and flattened again and flattened again, they'd actually become like shiny tiles.

So, weirdly holding up a week clean again.

It was really weird.

It was actually shiny, it was so dirty, it was shiny.

Things being shiny doesn't mean it's clean,

that's a fatal mistake.

So, the bathroom was particularly horrendous in there.

It was like having to have a shit inside a giant mushroom omelette

but a cold one because it was always cold even in the light of summer the bathroom was freezing cold how can this omelette be so cold and yet so overcooked

and yet so sweaty but there was just a sense that everything was full of full of um protein just protein and and spores and yeah because everything felt a bit alive in there but yeah so i tried to repaint that bathroom that was one of the i just thought i've got to deal with this place

I'm going to repaint the bloody bathroom.

I'm going to do it.

And I learned that you just, you can't, you just, you can't do that.

How's that?

Yeah.

How's it going to take?

I mean, what, what substance is going to take on any of those surfaces?

Yeah.

And also, so I went and bought paint and it wasn't the right kind of paint anyway.

And the paint, it was like, it was, it was like a nightmare.

You know, like when you're in a nightmare and you're trying to do something, it just won't work.

Like.

You're trying to close a door, but the door is made of fudge.

The handle's made of fudge.

You're made of fudge.

The door doesn't just go through the threshold, you know, like nothing.

It was falling, the paint just wouldn't go on.

It was a nightmare, and I was putting more and more paint.

It was too, it was refusing, it was just too disgusting.

It's like, no, no, no, no, I've got one life,

one shot.

You understand?

Time to read your emails.

Yes, please.

Just some old shit.

When you send an email,

this represents progress

like a robot shoeing shoeing a horse.

Give me your horse.

My beautiful horse.

Our email address is threebean saladpod at gmail.com.

And we can't stop you emailing us.

We can't.

We can't or we won't.

There's nothing.

Nothing we can do, nothing we will do.

No.

Now, normally...

Before you record, I have a quick look at the emails, maybe scope out ones that...

Maybe I'll read this one out.

I haven't done that today.

So I'm just, I'm just dipping my hands

into the email bag.

Communication tombola.

Yes.

And I would say that's from experience, that's risky.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay.

So there's a good chance that

if there's an email you're listening to that we didn't, that ended up being inappropriate, we didn't actually put it in.

And if you're listening to it, it's because someone's made a mistake.

Isn't it?

Well, the problem is because every other email we receive is

a kind of fictional erotica piece from Marjorie Havers, isn't it?

There's a lot of Havers erotica.

So looking at the email inbox,

the last eight emails we got, like I'm going to give you the email subject title.

Has you got the Havers filter on?

Yeah.

So you won't be seeing the Havers stuff.

You get a sense of what we've got through, okay?

Yeah.

Okay.

Rat story.

Rat stories.

That's good.

A disgusting rat story.

Lovely.

Nice.

Rat story.

Brilliant.

Rats.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nice.

Rats masquerading as a cat.

It's brilliant.

Rats brackets with wings story.

Oh, my lord.

Good.

And horrific rat incidents, revenge of the waterfowl.

Brilliant.

Blimey.

I'm up for those.

I think we should just go lean heavily into rats for today's emails, maybe.

I think we have, in years gone by, this has happened before.

We had a few emails then from people who had pet rats who felt we were being

down on the rat.

We got to send a photo of a really hot rat.

Remember?

We did, yes.

Beautiful rat.

Really beautiful rat but it hasn't been enough clearly has it we're still on the side of um the people of hemlin

no true way you look at it well i'm pre-caveating this with rats are noble creatures okay

they're not though are they i mean given that swan story that's it's a debatable point yeah

that's uh

they have a they have a different outlook on nobility i would say yeah yeah

this is from danny from bristol okay and i've not read this before so who knows where this is going regarding the recent harrowing description of a rat bursting from the chest cavity of a deceased swan,

I have a first-hand account to share of some waterfowl evening out the score.

Oh, good start.

A while back, I was taking a wintry lunchtime stroll through the tree-lined avenues of St.

George's Park here in Bristol.

All of the local characters were out.

The guys hanging out in the Bowling Green Pavilion listening to drum and bass.

The guy walking an XL Bully with drum and bass playing from his phone.

The guy in the mobility scooter with the loudspeaker blasting drum and bass.

As I walked around the lake in the centre of the park, I took a moment to admire the majestic heron perched atop a branch over the water.

Intriguingly, it seemed to be pecking at something.

Then, to my horror, it lifted up in its beak a live rat, writhing and angry.

Wow.

It then proceeded to slowly choke it back and force it down its gullet, still visibly thrushing about.

Good God.

Oh,

it's a slow acid digest for that rat, isn't it?

It's a slow cooker.

God.

A heron is basically a slow cooker with a beak, isn't it?

That rat is getting slow, slowly cooked.

A ceviche.

Oh, thank you, Deli.

Yeah, I think that's that does even that even out evens out the school brain.

Also, I'd love to hear any story involving a heron.

Herons, of course, are my spirit bird,

aren't they?

You're quite twitchy, flighty.

Twitchy, flighty, but with a kind of refined, elegant sort of sort of refined elegance to them, and just slightly longer neck than is convenient,

isn't it?

Whereas, what are your spirit birds?

Probably the wren for me.

What is it about wrens?

Sort of small, look harmless, but a bastard at heart.

Oh, yeah, very good.

What would Woz be?

Sort of barn pigeon.

Just move on, right?

They've not even been classified probably because no one just doesn't matter.

Yeah,

there's always a few pigeons in a barn corn barn.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter about them.

No, not the beautiful and magical barn owl.

No, a barn pigeon.

The barn pigeon that lives in the shadow of the barn owl.

No, that's good.

So I do think, yeah, birds of E-rats.

I think that's a good, like, birds on the side of good, rats on the side of evil.

That's a good story.

What I want to say, though, is that Danny has kind of assumed, I think, that the heron won out in that situation.

But last week we heard about a rat bursting from the chest cavity of a swan.

Oh, God.

It may be that that swan had choked back the rat.

Yeah.

Oh, the story's not over.

Yeah, you should have deep-fried me, Mofo.

You shouldn't have, yeah.

I'm coming back out.

You can't slow cook this.

The rats are potentially going in, turning off, because it froze to death, right?

This one.

Yes.

Turning off the central heating systems within the

bird.

They're playing the long shots down to the freezes, and then

you can't slow cook evil.

Oh, so you're suggesting, Mike, that obviously, because the boiler, like in a home, it's at the center of the animal, isn't it?

The boiler.

Temperature controls and stuff.

It goes straight to the stopcock.

Yeah, unless it's got water tank, which is only

certain kinds of eagle, isn't it?

Have water tank.

Yeah, most birds have converted to combi boilers.

It's almost all combi.

It's very rare you see a bird flying around, dragging a water tank around with it.

It's just very hard to do.

It's not convenient.

Some of the more pretentious ones go for a log burner.

Yeah, but they're actually bad for the environment, really.

Yeah.

Particulates-wise, yeah.

Exactly.

And of course,

blue tits have

smart meter, don't they?

So

what are you saying, Ben?

Can you just boil this down?

Can you just boil this down to something pithy?

Because I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Danny needs to do, we need to know from Danny, just keep your eyes open, please.

Danny, let us know if the heron meets a horrific end.

Yeah, Danny thought that a heron had eaten a rat.

My contention is the rat had gone in on purpose and is going to eat its way out of the heron.

Okay, here's a good question, actually, in general.

When are you eaten?

How do you know?

Because if we look at

the lore of mid-Europe, we're looking at...

Red Riding Hood, right?

Little Red Riding Hood gets eaten by the wolf.

And the granny.

Yeah.

They both get eaten.

The hunter opens up the wolf and they both come out and they're fine.

Yeah.

Yeah, so have they been eaten?

Have they been?

At what point have you been eaten?

I mean, when does this end?

They were definitely eaten.

It's like that guy that was executed by electric chair didn't die, but they said his legal team were able to say he had been executed.

His sentence had been served.

Ben, are you coming up with a deliciously financially forward-thinking idea for a restaurant

where you eat live animals, then gut the guest, remove the animal, save them up again, and then you can re-serve that animal.

So it's essentially we never have to buy any new fowl or hoof stock.

The only overhead is a constantly

operating theatre.

That's right.

And all the mod cons and intensive care.

And quite a big legal team, I think.

And I'm talking top

anaesthetists, like top, top.

We cannot skimp on the anaesthetists.

It's not just Mike and a bottle of auromorph.

No.

So yeah, so you

eat a live piglet.

Oh, I'll check that out.

I'll go and check out a restaurant.

50 quid, quite a lot, but you get a live piglet.

Go there the next week with a date.

It's the same piglet again.

But I can't complain because I'm on a date.

Fatty hell.

And this date's already quite fraught because I'm a bit worried about maybe if things go well later, I've got to show him my body-long scar.

My fresh scar that appeared last week.

I don't know where that came from.

And also, I'm now actually starting to reconsider whether I should have worn proper boxer shorts and not the triangular, flappable bin lid.

Well, this date's been a bloody disaster.

Okay, what do you want next?

Do you want rat story, rat stories, a disgusting rat story, rat story, rats, or rats masquerading as cats?

Matt masquerading as cat, please.

Okay, this is from Hannah from the Wirral.

Hello, Hannah from the Wirral.

Thank you.

The year was 2016 when I, as a teenager fresh out of secondary school, was groggily rising from sleep during the summer holidays.

For a brief, delusional moment, I was delighted to catch a glimpse of a tortoise shell cat in the middle of my bedroom

before the confusion and shock came upon me.

Opening my eyes properly and sitting up, I began to understand that what I saw was no cute feline, but a fucking massive rat.

Oh my god.

But at that point, I was already stroking its stomach and nuzzling its ears, and one thing just led to another.

And

I now love that rat.

Instantly, I screamed and jumped onto the bed, causing the rat to flee by squeezing itself through the minuscule gap in my door.

Rats can do that.

We know that.

They can fit into a pen.

We know that.

The physics-defining ability of this wretched thing to get its fat body through such a small space was such that I knew no corner of my house could ever be safe again.

That's right.

That's the rat guarantee.

they get you that's how they get you that's how they get you the worst part is that my father and i were leaving for a lovely summer stay in a cottage the very next day we put down traps and had to leave our home to this freak and the entire whole day i couldn't stop thinking about it getting into my bed and infecting all of my worldly possessions Eventually, some weeks later, it was captured, but not before torturing me by making me spend every waking moment searching for the greasy marks that rats leave behind when they climb up a wall.

Because rats, like humans, are just

tiny living sausages, aren't they they will leave fat deposits everywhere they go uh it was awful and to this day i get scared whenever i see a tortoiseshell cat all the best hannah from the whirrel thank you hannah from the whirrload thank you good lord haunting stuff it really is one of the horrifying things about rat infestation that that hannah um mentioned there is the fact that they can fit into anything so when you've got a when you've got a rat in the house It'll pop its head out like through the

space between your phone and its charger.

Exactly.

Through a plug socket, it'll just pop its little nose out.

It'll sniff the air and then disappear again.

Through

the bathroom tap.

It'll just pop its head out.

You're in the middle of a bath.

It'll pop its head out.

Yeah.

Pop it back again.

I think a rat, it's not as bad as

what you think in a way.

I think maybe you could reframe the rat.

It's not as bad as you think.

You can reframe the rat in your mind because she talks about then worrying about infection.

But when you think about it, like how bad is infection?

I know it can be very bad.

Yeah.

Killed most of Europe

at one time.

But basically just means like a cold, really, doesn't it?

A bubonic cold that kills half the population.

Okay, infection is bad.

All right, I'll take that back.

But one thing, the only positive thing I'd say about the story is it took place in 2016, so all of the rats involved are now dead.

But their millions of offspring.

Are very much alive, thriving and writhing, not five inches from your face, because there is a rat wherever you are in the world, five inches from your face.

But in your blind spot, that's why you can't see.

They're often in the blind spot.

Just for the listeners, because Ben is doing this live, we've had to edit out two rat stories because they were too disturbing.

Yeah.

We've got ourselves into a bit of a rat cul-de-sac here.

It's time

to pay the ferryman

Patreon

Patreon

Patreon.com

forward slash free beam

Thanks to everyone who signed up on our Patreon.

Thank you.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you very much.

If you go to patreon.com forward slash threebean salad, you can check it out.

We do bonus episodes.

We do our sporadic film review episodes.

We do our sporadic quiz episodes.

There's all sorts of stuff on there.

I'm just going to repeat that because of a weird thing with Apple putting extra charges on that would mean that we get less money and you pay more money, we've disabled the ability to sign up to Patreon through their app.

so you have to sign up on a browser you can then use the app to access patreon but just signing up through the app has been disabled that's very boring i know anyway there's various tiers to sign up at if you sign up at the sean bean tier you get a shout out from mike oh

you sure do from the sean bean lounge where mike spent the evening last night didn't you mike i did i did indeed it was a good night wasn't it it was um it was industrial noise pollution karaoke wasn't it

it was thank you henry And here's my report.

It was industrial noise pollution karaoke at the Sean Bean Lounge last night, raising ransom money to get the left leg bones of bean lounger Rory Guy back off Russell Crowe.

Natalie Kretschmar opened by singing happy birthday to herself in the style of a speed lathe.

Disgusted by the apparent solipsism, Rob Reed, Brian Cameron, and Adrian Boyd were halfway through writing and colouring in a letter of complaint to the MP for the lounge, the Right Honourable Old Harky Dog himself, when Gwynne Jones pointed out that this is simply how Natalie begins every evening out, and indeed every mealtime.

Gwynne then performed an uncannily good limestone quarry in the Key of A, which cleansed the palate, and even invited Jack Sutherland, Davy John, and Stink R.

Souls to join him on stage with their dumper truck convoy chorus.

Marcus said W was up next performing in terminal works on a locally unpopular road scheme, followed by the Right Reverend Dr.

Miri Job Volas with a funky brass foundry, and Sasha Harding with Jack Bird as a centrifugal gas compressor and its diesel generator, respectively.

Toby Steele, Bort, Dr.

Collins, and Birdbath Matthew gave the crowd a tear-jerking barbershop-style Luton Airport, while Scott Wiles and Emma Taylor went toe-to-toe with Sophie Ham Bryson and Poitato in a tag team rap battle themed on the history of the automatic car wash.

An atmospheric low-frequency hum from a source that could not easily be located came next, which was suspected to be by James Keene, but he couldn't be located either.

Then followed some timeless classics with Tom Proctor as a spam grinder, Jesse Hughes as an ungreased conveyor belt, and rocking it as a 1980s Estonian zinc blast furnace was Maisie Adams rocks it.

Joe Richardson performed the complete works of Bonnie Tyler, and so had to be put in the Sean Bean pillory, but not until after he'd finished, as everyone was secretly really enjoying it.

But the golden microphone went to Karen Inn Ward for her touching rendition of that hit parade favorite, therapy session spoiled by tireless pneumatic drill.

Thanks all.

Okay, that's the show.

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

This is from Joe.

Hello, Joe.

He describes it as the bean salad theme West Coast hip-hop banger remix.

Hi, beans.

I couldn't help but notice there's been far too much East Coast representation in your podcast.

So to address the bands, I've remixed your theme tune into a West Coast hip-hop banger in the style of Snoop Dogg, Dr.

Dre et al.

Lovely stuff.

It took me 10 months

of working on this project.

Before I came to the crushing realization that it probably wasn't going to be very good.

It's taken us three years to realize that about this podcast.

He's also worked out that the 10 months is 2.5% of his entire life.

Oh, Joe.

Oh, Joe.

I can't wait to listen to the fruits of your 10 months.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

Yes, thank you very much indeed.

See you next time.

Thank you very much.

Cheerio.

Bye.

One, two, to the bread, to the war.

Three beans salad, ah, knocking on the door.

Sucker just kicks us in a sitting time.

You're gonna die.

He says, Dirt, you punk-ass motherfucker.

You punk-ass kid.

You wanna dance now?

Hey, hey, hey.

Gotten something, AK.

We hit the track.

Yeah.

Bigger.

Ah!

I've got my dick stuck in my desk.

Got my dick stuck in my desk.

I've got my dick stuck in my desk.

Ah, ah, ah.

My dick stuck in my desk.

Got my dick stuck in my desk.

Got my dick stuck in my desk.

Ah, far away.

My dick stuck in my desk.

Oh my god.

That was worth

every month.

Every month.

I mean, I think get another

more.

Do another 10 months.

Sequel.

Yeah.

See you in 10 months, Joe.

See you in 10 months, man.

Fantastic.