The Pyramids

Benjamin.

Yes, Michael, dear heart.

You are fresh back from your field trip.

I am.

What's this?

Ben told us last week that he was going on a special field trip to.

I don't know if you were going to reenact or just pay homage to the Battle of Naseby.

Oh, yeah.

I went to a battlefield tour of the Battle of Naseby.

Oh, my lord.

Which I'm sure we all know was the turning point in the English Civil War, as it's now more often known, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Oh.

England, Wales, and Scotland.

No, actually, England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Ah.

Because after what we think of as the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell went to Ireland and had quite a time.

Did he conduct himself well, did he?

No.

He really didn't.

He did not.

I had a great time.

Me and my friend Mike went to,

we stayed in a Premier Inn in rugby.

Very good.

And the reason I had to go and stay in the premier inn was because it began at 8.45 a.m.

Very good.

Which is what you'd hope, isn't it?

I mean, you want it as close to dawn as possible, don't you?

So you can imagine the mist coming over the horizon.

Exactly.

The round heads in the distance.

But not you at your peak, I think we can say, Ben, can't we kind of quickly say that?

You at 8.45?

Jesus Christ.

I mean, I know that's not early.

I know it's not early.

Yeah, yeah.

But it really does feel early to me.

Yeah.

Because the sun's been up for only about what, three hours?

Is it about three hours

i mean basically farmers are going back to bed aren't they

bakers are are starting tomorrow's batch yeah well no bakers are working on on the affairs the the the amount the extra marital affairs that that that keep them busy that's when they're not actually baking yeah isn't it it's uh going from house to house with a big comedy baguette that looks like a penis with a big comedy baguette that looks like a penis which is actually deliberately that's kind of hiding in plain sight thing isn't it it's like

he can't

there's no there's no way he's going to source my wife He's walking around with a huge phallic loaf.

And the baker's bean is actually sort of finely latticed, isn't it?

A bit like a cheese million pastry.

That's right.

It's like a plat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he is sourcing your wife.

Oh, he's sourcing her all right.

And he's sourcing everyone's wives.

Applesauce.

Applesauce.

Special custard.

Special custard.

Bechamel sauce.

Creme petticier.

Eat this without licking your lips.

Yes, it's nasty stuff.

It is really nasty.

It's really nasty.

So not a nice start to the show at all.

No.

Well, the thing was, I said, when we booked the Premiere Inn,

I said to my friend Mike, not you, Mike.

But can I say, every time, every time, I was just the elephant in the room here.

Yeah.

Every time Ben says, my friend Mike, I feel like it's like a sort of wound.

It's like a sort of stabbing is happening over the internet.

I just feel Mike's just taking a look at it.

Because he never refers to me that way.

He never refers to you as his friend Mike, does he?

You're just Mike.

You're my colleague, Mike.

Also, it's almost as if Ben is helping us distinguish which mic it is by saying my friend Mike.

So we know it's not this mic.

It's the one you'd want to spend a weekend with in Naseby.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Even though you know full well that there's another Mike you know that would absolutely

chop off his in order to go to that to any kind of battle reenactment, wouldn't he?

I mean, he'd absolutely love that, wouldn't he?

Your colleague Mike.

Keep on telling us about your friend Mike.

Who is this?

Sorry, by the way, who is this dick?

I'm angry now.

Does Does he have a moustache?

No.

Has he got going for him?

He's got a lot going for him.

I think I know which mic he's talking about, and I think the mic he's talking about is.

He knows his history, this mic.

Oh, yeah.

He's a big history mic.

Everyone has to say they don't have a favourite mic, don't they?

So we'll just stick with that.

Yeah.

So we're booking the Premier Inn.

Yes.

Over WhatsApp, sort of.

Let's go here.

Let's go.

You've got a separate.

Nothing not big.

I'm not going to fix it.

You've got a separate WhatsApp group with the other mic.

Is it a group?

Is it all mics?

but, but, wasn't it?

Fun mics, nice mics.

Better than the fun mics.

It's better than the fun mics.

Okay, anyway, go on.

So, you've got a little WhatsApp group.

It's very, very cozy.

Lovely little picture.

Yeah, nice little, yep.

Yeah.

Good on you.

And I say, oh, you know, obviously, we'll have to go for it.

Shall I book the breakfast?

Do you book a breakfast in a Premier Inn?

Unlimited breakfast.

Yeah, you pay for it separately, yeah.

Yeah, pay for it separately.

So it's not, it's not included.

No, no, no.

And I'm thinking, there's no way I'm getting to that breakfast.

I'm waking up, I'm tumbling into my Saab driving to Nazby.

In a terrible, terrible mood.

In a terrible mood.

Yeah.

But he was like, no, of course.

We'll get the unlimited breakfast.

Which means we actually had to get up quite a lot earlier.

Well, if you've paid for an unlimited breakfast, you want to make that worthwhile.

It's got to count.

Well, that's the thing.

So I was like, oh, I'll get up like, what, 10 minutes for breakfast?

He's like, well, no.

It's unlimited.

We need to put in a shift here.

Yeah.

I mean, ideally, you'd want to be getting to it the night before, really, wouldn't you?

As they're laying it out.

You want to be hitting that scrambled egg before it hits the tray.

You want to get your head between the initial spatula and the tray so that they're just spatulaing it directly into your face.

It never actually hits the tray.

Henry, it's not a spatula, it's nozzle in this kind of place.

It's a fully nozzle-based system.

That's right.

Because they've got, haven't they?

I've seen it on a documentary.

They've got a brilliant,

it's an omnibreface nozzle, isn't it?

So it's a central sort of egg-shaped metal unit, isn't it?

which floats around on a on a gyroscope doesn't it so and it's used these are the same technology they use to control the the sky cameras at football matches so it's got four uh retractable metal yeah or clean very tall buildings yeah it's the same

very tall buildings yeah the yeah you just it's just a setting isn't it and if obviously if you get it wrong you that's why they last year famously they caked the shard in sausage meat didn't they

pellets of hash brown

so you've got to be careful uh and that's why all briefly all the crows of europe were in london weren't they they all flopped onto the shard it was it looked great on instagram and to get them there they had to cover it in breadcrumbs so you ended up essentially with it with a scotch shard we ended up with a scotch shard yeah it's an omin breakfast nozzle as it says so it's got sausage meat it's got but it's also maitre d that thing it's also maitre di so it's they've they've drawn a little moustache there's a little moustache isn't it they've kind of drawn on welcome to premiere insur Are you ready for your unlimited breakfast experience?

Oh, sorry, malfunction.

I'm filling up your ears with sausage meat.

It's happening again.

That kind of thing happens quite a lot because it's still new technology.

But how was the breakfast?

It was actually really good.

Trays?

Metal trays?

No, it's not a prison.

Metal trays?

No, no.

You can only eat with your fingers.

No, it's not a prison, is it?

So

was it buffet-style?

How does it work, the infinite breakfast there?

Fully buffet-style.

Do they call it infinite?

Unlimited, I think, is the word.

Unlimited, okay.

Is there a difference between those two things?

I just think infinite is a huge concept for Premier to be wrestling with, or making you wrestle with, or you know what I mean?

It's such a big concept, Infinity.

Yeah, I think you want to imply that

the buffet will end either like if the world ends or at a certain time in the morning.

Whereas

Infinite suggests it's going to go on past 11 p.m.

or the apocalypse.

So I had my

Infini breakfast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you've loaded it up.

I've loaded it up.

And actually, I'm in a great mood.

Yeah.

Yeah, of course you've got the, you've got got the fats, the fats and salts and sugars are doing their work now, aren't they?

Well, normally post a full English or post like fish and chips or post any kind of classic British meal.

You just feel terrible.

Yeah.

We feel euphoric for 45 seconds and

you have to make it somewhere soft that you can lie down in that time.

And the only way to actually work off that fat is to work on a building site for 12 hours.

It's true.

That's the only way to not, yeah.

But I was so excited about what we were doing that day.

It didn't, it was like my first ever pain-free full English.

It just kind of went down, and

I was excited.

Okay.

Drove to Naseby.

Now, what I was excited about

was that we were being taken around by a former military man

who'd made clear in the email beforehand that he was former military, and he'd be using a bit of that experience to help us understand the Battle of Naseby.

Okay.

So this was like proper people, right?

Yeah, yeah.

We arrived in the car park of Naseby Village Hall, and he was standing there outside the village hall in camo

with beret yes and I was like yes

although can I just point out something the fact that you were able to see him suggests he wasn't that well camoed well he wasn't wearing village hall camo

if he was worth his off what would the first sign you've had of him would have a bag over your head he'd have been dragged into a bush yeah yeah what was his what was his military provenance did he tell you Or could you tell from the bere immediately?

He was in a cavalry regiment, but I think in the 20th century, you know, that doesn't mean horses, does it?

It means I think that means like armoured cars and things like that.

It means robo horses.

Robo horses, yeah.

Yeah, it's the horse that you saw at the end of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

It means that

Robo Horse Division is actually pretty advanced.

Man, he was great.

Like, he was really great.

Knew his stuff about battles, etc.

Was really good.

So he's the real deal.

So this is exciting.

He's the real deal.

He sounds good.

Yeah.

And I liked that he'd put the uniform on.

It was good.

Yeah.

It really sort of got me going

uh then the other so and also he well they had a fun double act him and the other guy so the other guy was from the sealed knot what's that the sealed knot what's the sealed knot you don't know the sealed knot no i don't know the sealed knot the sealed knot is the uk wide civil war reenactment society

Ben, I'm worried that we're losing Ben to a world that we can't join him in.

We can't go with you on this journey, Ben.

You're going to have to put on your armor and go off, and that's the sacrifice you have to make.

To be honest, it was palpable to me that I was like,

I could make a decision here and become like a civil war guy.

Yeah.

And that could be me then until death, basically.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

You've not heard of the sealed knot?

No,

the sealed knot is like one of it's probably the biggest land army in Britain.

Yeah, but it's made up of middle-aged men.

Pikes and muskets with no actual.

How are they up against an Apache gunship?

You know what would be funny?

You know where they'd actually, this is quite a good idea for a film.

In the event of a kind of, some kind of global mega-computer virus that wipes out all modern technology, Britain would have to defend itself with

Naseby technology and the nazby

200 like middle-aged guys.

That means the sealed knot are taken over.

That means these guys are then in charge, right?

I think if you're sensible, Ben, you'll get involved with these guys.

When you join the Sealed Knot, you need to decide if you're a roundhead or a Royalist.

Okay.

And that's a big question right because it says a lot about you as a person

yes so i suppose do you do do people do they want to wear their genuine modern day allegiances on their sleeve then is that that's not just an arbitrary thing is it i think they do i think there's a bit of that going on because you know you sort of think oh yeah you ought to kind of be a roundhead really

but then surely the cavaliers had more fun you know It's a bit like if you were doing a Star Wars reenactment, it'd be probably be slightly more fun to be a stormtrooper.

Is it?

Is that an accurate?

No, because the stormtroopers don't feel like they have like fabulous parties.

Do they?

Oh, I see what you mean.

No, probably not.

Whereas like the Royalist troops in the Civil War, it feels like they were the ones who were just having a great time.

And the roundhead gang, they basically banned fun afterwards, didn't they?

Yeah.

So it'd be like being in Stars Renault.

You want to be one of Jabber the Huts, kind of just in that vibe, that scene, the Jabber the Huts scene.

Yeah.

You want to go full kind of Bordello, back an alien.

Yeah, back an alien, Bordello in the future, kind of that, that, that kind of crew.

Alien brothel.

Alien brothel.

Your standard D Street solo Thursday night, yeah?

Yeah.

God, I, uh, yeah, God,

that hog beast has 15 boobs.

I'm going to go and

cop off with it.

The 15, the 15-boobed hog beast.

That kind of thing.

Yeah, that's the Royalist sort of vibe, I think.

Yeah.

Whereas I think the roundhead vibe would be much more like...

Eat your gruel and read your job.

Yeah.

I had a great time last night.

I met a girl in that Jabber Hut bar.

Well, our eyes met across bar because her eyes literally flew out and flew into my eyes.

It punctured my eyes inwards.

They went into my body.

They've eaten my body from the inside out.

And I'm now her telling this story, but from my point of view,

previously, because I'm now about to do the same to you.

That sort of scene?

That's that sort of vibe.

That's very much what a weekend with a sealed knot is like, I think.

This guy who was with the sealed knot, then what side was he on?

Was he so he in the reenactments plays?

He's like high up in the roundhead world, I think.

Okay.

He's like a genuine.

He's like a winning side for Nazby.

Because I think when you join the Sealed Knot, you have to just be a grunt.

Right.

You genuinely have to work yourself up, do you?

I think so.

You have to wait for the person ahead of you to die in battle before you get to the battle.

Yeah, I don't know.

What if you really looked like Charles I?

Like, surely you can come in and be like, guys, come on.

Look at my goatee and my little...

Look at my head.

I'd turn up and be like, right, guys, my character is called Henry the Randy.

I don't really take part in the battle so much, but I'm very much up for these at-prey battles.

I look after the swine.

Five miles behind the front line.

And I've also built this rudimentary alien brothel.

I don't know if this can be.

It's a kind of different dweeb scene.

It's a sci-fi dweeb scene.

There's a kind of an overlap, which I think is alien brothels.

My character's got five dicks.

But I've only been able to make one of us bare ones.

The other three you have to imagine at the moment.

One is real, one of Mana Plasticine this morning.

Let me know what you think.

Wanting to take notes?

I'll take feedback.

Just imagine the others.

So what was fun was we had the man from

the military who made clear that

he was Royalist side.

He thought they were great.

As you'd expect from an ex-cavalryman.

Yeah, exactly.

That makes sense.

And then the go from the sealed knot was very much like, I'm into Oliver Cromwell.

So there was a little bit of fun banter all day between the two of them.

Okay, nice.

Which was nice.

Nicely done.

Yeah, and then we just drove around to various bits of the battlefield, and we'd get out and they'd tell us what happened there and all this kind of stuff.

There was one bit where we had a Kit Kat and some ginger beer.

Included?

Included.

Wow.

Two finger, four finger.

Two finger.

Come on.

Ginger beer.

So it's yeah.

So it's very sweet.

It's also quite.

You could have some slow gin as well.

Okay.

Yeah.

I was driving there.

Yeah.

Well, while that happened, a guy dressed as a dragoon came along.

Lovely.

Okay.

On his horse.

Wow.

On an actual horse.

Yeah.

Blimey.

That's cool.

Was it a geometus occasion?

Well done, Henry.

Ring the bell.

Well, the gementor bell.

The gender.

By the way, just for anyone that doesn't know, gementus is a word we've discussed in the past, which means smelling of horse piss.

Yes.

Doesn't it?

Germentus.

Germentus.

It's a word that heaven sent us To define the whiff of a horse's piss.

So we describe that scent for us.

It wasn't geometric, actually.

It was smelled sweetly.

It was continent.

What was fun about it was that the other people who were there were all just like, so Mike, my friend, my other friend, Mike.

Yeah, my friend.

Not you, Mike, friend, the other Mike friend.

Very good.

Other Mike friend.

And not that you've got two...

So I thought you're saying you've got two Mike friends that aren't Mike.

Mike's third and attacking order.

Two Mike friends.

It is a common me.

And Mike, not everyone can like all mics, can they, Mike?

No, I know that.

Ben, it's clear from this, we've learnt, doesn't like you.

We've learned that.

That isn't...

On average, how many people like how many other people?

Do you know what I mean?

It's not an insult to you.

You have to not feel it that way.

One of the fun things that came across for me was how much the outcome of a battle like that, in which thousands of, well, maybe a thousand soldiers will die.

And it will sort of tell us what happens in the island of Britain for the next hundreds of years.

It's a big, you know, it all comes down to this.

Can be totally fucked up just by one guy being a bit of a bellin?

Did that happen?

Yeah, so on the royalist side, the people in charge are Charles I.

Yeah.

Div.

Bit of a div, I think.

Yeah.

Mustachio div.

Yeah.

All stand for the king.

We're entering the regal zone.

Regal zone.

Off with their heads.

On with the show.

Listen not to the knaves and the shopkeepers.

Bring me more advisors.

The Regal Zone.

Just kind of classic king, basically.

Slightly sort of...

Incredibly shiny buckles on his shoes.

Oh, yeah.

So shiny.

Yeah.

You could see into your own soul in his shoes.

Too shiny, because a lot of the proletariat weren't even aware of the concept of shine.

None of them had seen shine.

Yeah, so it would terrify them.

They assumed he was on fire.

Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

Sounds like an absolute

class A Belland.

Well, careful, Henry, because

that's Bonjerman's great, great, great, great, great, great uncle.

I know that's Bonjerman's stock.

That's Bonjerman's ancestry, isn't it?

Prince Rupert of the Rhine was a...

Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

Sticking his bloody oar in.

I mean, the amount of powder on this person.

No, Prince Rupert of the Rhine was kind of this 25-year-old, dashing

young prince.

Like, oh, the ladies love Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

He's like the proper, like, Lord Fashart style guy, I think.

Yeah.

And military brilliance was his thing.

Really?

Did he turn up with his own army or is he one of those European lads who turns up with a bunch of like

Breton mercenaries and whatever?

He turned up from Europe

to take charge, but I don't think he brought anyone with him because he's Charles I's nephew.

was he now yeah but i think he is sort of german okay um there's a guy called lord astley who's sort of off the peg lord there's a guy called marmaduke langdale

who's great on a night out right

oh yeah battlefield not so much not so much he's all talk

and uh there's three main bits of the battlefield So in the middle is King Charles I.

Yeah.

With, I think, Lord Astley.

They're the main bit in the middle.

Never going to give, never going to to give, never going to give up ground.

The vibes are terrific in the main.

The vibes are terrific.

Never going to give up ground.

Never going to let you down.

Never going to run away.

Although, spoilers, we do end up running away.

Gonna call the cavalry.

We'll just wait and see.

Gonna use some archery to hurt you.

I love it.

So before we get product, I know there was no archers there.

Yeah.

And also some of his lyrics didn't perfectly scan onto the Rick Astley song.

But so was Charles actually in Battle himself?

This is something I always wonder about.

How often is the king actually there doing the stuff?

Or is he like...

So he's very much there, but he's also very much at the back.

Okay, yeah.

No, no, after you, no, go ahead.

No, no, no, no.

After you, please, please.

He's by the volivant's gazebo, isn't he?

That's right.

He's not moving more than five meters away from that samovar.

No.

In fact, he's actually, they've built this for him on purpose, but he's encased himself in a sort of giant, sort of prawn voluvant, hasn't he?

On horseback.

On horseback.

It's very hard to get those on horseback.

He's got a secret door at the back that him and his horse can fit in.

And he just stays in there till the battle's over, and then he comes out in the end and goes, oh, bloody hell, that was great.

Who won?

Oh, I said finished.

Oh, no.

Anyway, so yeah, gone.

So he kind of was in control and kind of in charge, but he's very much at the back, just going watching it happening in front of him.

But dressed up.

So he's in the middle with Lord Astley, I think.

Someone will email email him and tell me I'm wrong.

On the right flank is Prince Rupert with the cavalry.

Okay.

And they're all being very sort of dashing and kind of they're the ones that go first and everything.

They're the premium end.

Premium stuff.

Yeah.

On the left, similar deal, but with Marmaduke Langdale.

Okay.

And there's a big turning point in the battle, which is that Prince Rupert is the military genius.

So he should be standing next to King Charles I, telling him what to do.

But he's not.

Why didn't he stand next to Charles I?

A lot of historians think it's because there's another man there called Lord Digby.

Right.

Oh, dear.

Is this to do with the fact that it's quite difficult?

You know, when you're walking down the street with three of you, who's talking to who and like who's in the middle?

Sometimes there's a bit of like wrestling over, if I stand on the left, I'm not really controlling the conversation, but I'm not trying to go into the gutter.

Exactly.

And I'm saying that now Marmaduke's on my left.

I'm in the gutter.

I really, everyone wants to attract to Charles, but do I know Charles better than Marmaduke enough to go between Digby and Charles?

There's a pram coming the other way way, and now I need to try to wait and it seems really going to delay things.

Yeah,

that can be tricky.

Also, Charles is wearing a huge porn volovon, so that's

disguised as a huge porn volume.

It's difficult.

That's most of the pavement taken up.

So there's this guy, Lord Digby.

Who's this guy?

And basically.

He sounds like a rake.

Lord Digby was such a bell end.

Yeah.

And just a real like toady dickhead that nobody liked apart from Charles.

Yeah.

The Prince Rupert just didn't want to go and stand there because he knew that.

Didn't want to die by his his side.

If you'd say to Charles, we should do this, Digby would say something else.

Like, oh, I don't think so, Charles.

Don't listen to this young German.

I think you should do this.

And he just couldn't, he couldn't be having it, basically.

Because he found Digby so irritating.

Yeah, and he just knew that he would be undermined by this guy who was a bit of a knob.

Wow.

So that guy was Digby was so irritating.

That wave after wave of men were sent to their deaths and dropped.

And the course of British history was irrevocably changed in a specific way that I don't have time to go into now.

Crumbs.

Because, of course, if the roundheads hadn't won or lost that battle, then Kingston Charles would have been excused, which wouldn't have left to the Whigs rising or the Tory parliamentary, because it wouldn't have happened, or would have happened, or the colonies would have gone away.

Victorian times were the Industrial Revolution

and wouldn't have happened either way.

Which leads us to,

well, Rishi Sunak being hounded from office.

But I mean, isn't it?

It all connects.

That's what's wonderful about history.

Liz Truss was born that day on the budget.

She was.

Did Prince Rupert survive?

Prince Rupert did survive.

Yeah.

Well,

he went on to invent the Quin Dubueno, didn't he?

He was sitting pretty.

Okay, let's turn on the beam machine.

Yes, please.

This week's topic, sent in by Tutan Karmun from the Nile Delta.

I feel someone's having a bit of fun with us there.

But it could actually be Tutankham Karmun they're having a bit of fun with us,

couldn't it?

What, Back from the Dead?

Yeah.

If you were Tutan Kamun Back from the Dead, it's the kind of thing you might do.

What's the first thing you'd do?

Yeah, what you'd identify with the leading cultural institutions of the day.

And you'd

get in touch, wouldn't you?

So, yes, from Tutankhamun, from the Nile Delta,

the pyramids.

Is it really?

The curse.

Yeah.

Have any of us been to the pyramids?

No, sadly.

Yeah, I've not been to it.

I've not been to

the pyramids.

Have you not seen them, Ben?

Nope.

No, the topic is the pyramids.

There are other pyramid structures on Earth.

That's true.

Because of the aliens.

Has anyone seen any of those?

Well, has anyone ever bought the maximum size Toblerone you can get?

I would love to go off and see some

kind of Latin American.

I've seen some of those.

Have you?

Yeah, yeah.

Have they got a flat top?

I've been to Mexico.

They've got a staircase system.

Yeah, so you can stand at the top and then you can behead someone and their heads can bounce down.

You can behead and boot, boot, their head down the thing, bounce down the stairs.

Bit like basically like a slink, the slinky of its day.

Basically, think of it as a more harrowing slinky.

A much more harrowing slinky.

That they've got steps on.

They're great.

I mean, they were completely shrouded in jungle.

Monkeys?

Oh, yeah.

See, that makes them more appealing to me.

I like that.

But they've de-shrouded them.

But I think they would have been amazing to discover.

Yeah.

Like, shrouded in jungle.

So now is it like McDonald's then?

They shrouded in McDonald's.

Well, now it's exactly.

You have to fight your way through the various different McDonald's and fast food franchises to get to them.

And they're in the middle of a kind of food court.

Yeah,

they're really great.

Yeah, they're really great.

I mean, the trouble is, you know, all these things are great, but fundamentally, you want to have lunch or whatever, don't you?

You know, you're at them and you're going,

basically, lunch is much more.

Something you discover on holiday is that lunch is much more important than anything else.

You've been taking lunch for granted.

You've been taking lunch for granted.

Yeah, but that's.

So when you go on holiday, that's why it's worth going.

And the only thing that's more interesting to you than lunch, potentially, on holiday, is breakfast.

And then, number three will be dinner.

Do you know what I mean?

But you sort of need to put something between breakfast and lunch just to delineate those two meals, really.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's when you.

That's when the pyramids come in.

That's when they come into their own.

I've got this on holiday recently in

because I went to Sri Lanka recently.

And there's an amazing.

I went to Siguria, which is an amazing.

Yeah, that's amazing.

That could be a wonder of the world.

What is it?

What is it?

It's a huge palace

that was built in the middle of lots of jungle jungle and stuff, and then on a huge rock that sticks out of the jungle.

So it's absolutely stunning.

It's totally Indiana Jones kind of stuff.

But the um, so it was incredible.

But I was, I was there, but this is what happened.

I often get this when I'm looking at a great thing on holiday.

I'm standing there, and I'm trying to sort of

experience how amazing it is.

I'm standing, going, This is amazing, Henry, isn't it?

Just feel how amazing it is.

But

I'm just thinking,

I guess I could go for like a crispy chicken thing, maybe,

or like a, or maybe like

maybe like they didn't do sausages here.

I'll be thinking that, but that's fine.

I really enjoyed that melon smoothie we had on the road

here.

Can we go back there or is that not really on the way?

And maybe there'll be somewhere in the Colombo, there'll be a stop where they can get a similar because it was really, really good.

It's really, really good.

Yeah, so you know what I mean?

Do you ever get, I'm standing going, this is amazing.

Try and experience how amazing it is.

Try and feel how amazing it is.

But I'm just there thinking about lunch, thinking about my footwear and whether I've made the right choice, thinking about whether I'm hot or cold, just all these basic human things.

That's all you really notice.

So I have this, I have a version of this, which is that I am seeing, you know, something great, something brilliant that I've traveled to go and see.

And I'm looking at it and I'm having those same thoughts.

Take it in.

This is the thing you've come to see.

But also, fundamentally, I'm also listening to the Guardian Football Weekly podcast at that time.

And you're thinking about what you're really thinking about is whether Ipswich are going to be able to make it in the top flight.

Or are they going to be a yo-yo team?

Yeah.

And then I sort of think, what have I done?

Was Napoleon, you know, was Napoleon's, you know, misguidedness in attack in trying to invade Russia?

Was that actually...

Was that a big ten-hog move?

Was that

quite a ten-hog move looking back?

Yeah, that's a factor.

Like recently, I walked around to the Jardin de Tuileries.

Yes.

We know you saw a Drowning Crow.

I saw a Drowning Crow.

And, you know, you're like, well, this is a world-famous garden.

It's lovely.

I'm here to experience it.

But at the same time, I am also listening to the rest of his politics.

Yeah.

And you're trying to imagine

how would Rory Stewart pronounce Tuileries?

I'm quite pleased to hear you say all this because there will be people with small children who will be on holiday thinking, oh, God, if I wasn't worried about, you know, where the Neri's toilet is and snacks and a bag full of this and that, and people getting bored and all that kind of stuff.

Oh, look at that young couple over there just able to soak it up.

No.

Oh, look at that young bachelor over there just soaking up.

Look at those lads, they're just so, do you know what I mean?

It's yeah, but actually, what's going on in the inside is the computer is still wearing.

It's all systems, all systems check, being all the time bowels, bladder, hungry.

You'd just be worrying about your

will I get myself.

You'd just be if you didn't have your kids with you, you'd just be worrying, will I get myself a little ice cream in a minute?

Able to get myself a little ice cream.

But I did have one this morning.

Is that okay to have more than one ice cream in a day?

I wonder if Roy Stewart's ever had ice cream.

I can imagine an episode of Rewrestless Politics where Roy Stewart comes in one day and goes, Do you know what, Alistair?

I had this amazing thing on the weekend.

It's this kind of frozen milk.

It was absolutely incredible.

I think it's called isakrame.

With a chocolate flake.

Which Shoshana was raving about.

I really quite like it.

I clearly quite liked it.

There's something called Raspberry's House.

The other thing I'm also thinking when I'm looking at one of those kind of wens of the world type things is, should I be taking more photos?

Should I be taking fewer photos?

Taking a photo of the pyramids.

If you're just taking a photo of the pyramids, to me, that is mad because there's no way.

There's no way you're taking the best photo of the pyramids.

Exactly, yeah.

There's loads of brilliant photos of the pyramids.

What difference does it make that you happen to take this one?

Unless, of course, you want to make it look like you're pressing the top of one of the pyramids like a button.

Unless you want to make it look like you're pressing the top of a pyramid, in which case.

Knock yourself out.

Go for it.

Yeah, two top holder photos you can take.

Pressing the top of the pyramid and sort of holding up Pisa.

Yeah,

that's an absolute classic.

I've not ticked off either of those, but

Eiffel Tower Penis

is quite good.

Getting bummed by the Sphinx.

There's lots of classics, aren't there?

And Birthing the Acropolis.

Birthing the Acropolis is a nice one.

Ooh, I'm shitting out the Golden Gate Bridge.

I'm a big fan of the Egyptian section of any museum.

Yeah.

Like, that's my day-made if I see a sarcophagus.

Do you love the sarcophagus?

Yeah, I love it.

It's the best bit of any museum.

You would look, I think you'd look good in a...

In a sarcophagus?

Oh, thanks.

I think you'd look good in a sarcophagus.

So that's

a viscera in a jar.

That's a back-handed compliment, isn't it?

Ben, a sarcophagus.

Yeah, but I just think you lying in state in a sarcophagus, it would feel right.

Thank you.

I'm digging a hole, literally, a hole to stick in your sarcophagus.

And also, would your two Mike friends actually have to be killed and put in with you?

Mike, Wozniak, at this point, actually be better to not be on the friend, Mike.

You're safe, aren't I?

You're safe, you're fine.

You're not important.

He doesn't want you in the afterlife, mate.

Mike's removing my brain through my nose.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I'll probably have to sort of maintain the eternal flame or whatever.

There'll be some ballache admin to that.

Oh, yeah, I've signed you up to the...

You're both the keepers of the eternal flame under the mind.

I forgot.

And you are both virgins, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

We were qualifying.

Oh, yeah.

And stay that way, please.

We'll all remain chaste.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And of course, then once you die, Ben, we will all be in the underworld, won't we?

We'll be navigating up a sort of river in the underworld, isn't it?

The River Styx.

The River Sticks.

So you and your two mic friends, we won't.

We'll be just stuck in the.

You'll be stuck in the mortal realm.

But you and the two mics will be off up the River Sticks, won't you?

Yeah.

Having a riot.

Having an absolute riot.

No, can I say the River Sticks is the wrong.

River Sticks is Greek, anyway.

It's the wrong, it's completely wrong.

It's the wrong mythology system.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

So before we get the Bollocks.

God, it's pretty high-end this podcast, isn't it?

Lovely hell.

You cross the River Styx.

uh initially it was with a ferryman it's time to pay the ferryman time to pay the ferryman but of course since um

1994 of course with the with the tunnel with the tunnel yeah

which is

i mean you can do a really nice like away weekend easily can't you in the underworld and come back post-covered doesn't take cash i'm afraid so your silver coins on the eyeballs on the eyeballs won't do it yeah that's right you will need a prepaid qr code and in terms of dealing uh people often ask this about um cerberus the three-headed dog that guards the Riversticks.

People often ask, does he have three anuses?

The answer to that question is yes.

Three heads, three anuses.

But only one digestive tract, which trifurcates at each end.

I've looked up the ancient Egyptian afterlife.

Yes, please.

The underworld had only one entrance that could be reached by travelling through the tomb of the deceased.

The initial image a soul would be presented with upon entering this realm was a corridor lined with an array of fascinating statues, including a variation of the hawk-headed god Horus.

After entry, the spirits were presented to another prominent god, Osiris.

Osiris would determine the virtue of the deceased soul and grant those deemed deserving a peaceful afterlife.

Very good.

Can we all agree that this is probably all made up, this stuff?

Henry.

Yeah.

You dare to question the ancients.

Enjoy your curse, Henry.

Yeah, Horus is going to have a few things to say to you, isn't he?

Hang on a minute.

Is that a fanged flying goat that's just coming to the room behind me?

No!

No!

Gojandor!

No!

I can't believe how quick this cursor works.

It's just how specific it is that it comes up.

It's got to be specific.

What's the process by which something gets made up that's so specific, but it's made up in a way that people believe it.

They haven't made it up like an ad like...

They can't believe it if it isn't specific.

You can't just say, and then what happens?

And they're like, ah, well, then you go through the

general area.

And are there any fascinating statues in the area?

I don't know.

Is it decorated?

Yeah, I suppose it's been plastered.

Basically, been painted in.

What's it echo?

Are there skirting boards?

Is it wide?

Is it wired?

Is it plumbed?

Does it have those adapters which have a USB thing in it?

Which USB is it?

USB-C?

It's got beverage containers, but they're floating.

No, but the thing is, but you see,

humanists and stuff.

Maybe that's why it hasn't caught on quite so much as a religion.

It's all very non-specific, isn't it?

It's like you die and you generally end up maybe in a kind of spiritual realm of, in a way, memories don't die and everything's in it.

It's like,

what's the statuary?

Are there frame pictures?

What animal head has the guy got who's being vague about the spiritual realm?

What is, yeah, yeah,

assuming it's not his own human head, because it wouldn't make any sense.

Is it like a man with a hamster head?

In which case, is it a giant hamster head?

Is it a hamster head the size of a human head, or is it hamster the size of a human hamster?

In which case is the human's body the size of a hamster?

I'm not bigger as hands.

I'm not bigger as hands.

And is there anything for scale?

Can he he be holding a 50p for scale?

A new 50p, not an old 50p.

Actually, can be holding a pound coin next to the 50p so he knows what 50p it is.

Does he eat human food or is he eating hamster foods?

Yeah.

Can I bring him an offering?

Does he drink kind of one of those funny little bottles with a little sippy thing at the end?

Can you get one of those that's adapted for a nice bottle of sans-cerre, for example?

Because, you know, I want to butter him up.

Because he is some sort of demigod, after all.

He's a powerful person.

So these religion things, right, they're not made up

by like, you know, a committee like designing an ad.

So what's going to fly with Egypt at the moment?

Well, I reckon eagle, like, we love eagles.

We love snakes.

A snake with an eagle.

We love asps.

An asp with an eagle's face.

You know what?

An eagle's face is too similar to a snake's face, but interesting idea.

Tutan, anything?

What have you got?

Well, I've just found out what happens to you if you don't have a good heart when you die.

Yeah.

You are devoured

by the goddess Amit.

Yep.

The goddess Amit has the four quarters of a lion.

The four quarters?

Yeah.

The four quarters of of the front section of the front legs bits.

Yeah.

The hind quarters of a hippopotamus.

Oh, does my bum look big in this?

So, baby got back.

Go on.

Oh, yeah.

She's got a real dump truck ass.

Baby's looking thick.

Bear in mind, Henry, you're saying this to someone who's about to devour you because you've got an evil soul.

That's basically.

She's making me have an evil soul.

Look at that ass.

My heart was pure before

I saw that sweet, sweet hippo booty.

You should have checked my heart four minutes ago, mate.

No, but you,

you know, it's quite funny.

That is literally the definition of

what is 2024 smoking hot, isn't it?

It's front.

Hairy clawed arms.

Hairy clawed arms.

But hippo booty.

I could kill you with a single swipe.

But wet ass.

But hippopota.

But hippopota booty.

Yeah.

And also,

head-wise,

they've gone for crocodile.

It kind of almost feels a bit like they're phoning in.

It's the end of a long night of ideas.

We'll just stick the head of a crocodile, just mix it up, the head of a croc.

Oh, fuck me, we forgot to do the head.

Nice.

Look out the window.

What's the first thing you see?

Croc, obviously.

You don't even have to check.

There's crocs everywhere.

Okay, croc, head of a croc.

Now, before we do our emails, just a little plug for a live show we're doing in March at

Bath.

In Bath.

In Bath.

At by, within, within the ancient Roman town of Bath Spa.

Bath Spa is the name of the train station.

It's the name of the train station.

Lovely honey-coloured stone.

Just come and admire the

honey-coloured stone.

We'll be in the, yes, the most famous architectural marvel of Bath.

That is the Bath Commedia.

Yes.

Which was built by.

Jane Austen.

Jane Austen.

That's right.

Yep.

In March, though.

It's a bit of a way off.

This is March 2025.

Tickets go on sale today, if you're listening to it today, which is 9th of October 2024.

If you are a Patreon, so that's for the Patreon pre-sale.

And then general release tickets, anything that's left that hasn't been snaffled by Patreon subscribers, will go on sale on Friday, the 11th of October.

And this is for Wednesday, the 19th of March, 2025, in Bath.

Part of the Curious Minds Festival.

Yeah, part of the Curious Minds Festival.

Which, looking at the website, at the moment, it looks like we'll be the least sort of edifying thing on the show.

Oh, for sure.

By quite a long stretch.

It seems all quite kind of, you know, worthy and intellectual.

Yes, they've got proper journalists and

thinkers

and historians and all that sort of stuff.

And then

there's

some general guff from us on a Wednesday evening.

So

it's a mistake.

They've made a mistake.

They've made a mistake that we're capitalising on.

We're seizing on it.

Yeah.

Yes.

So to find tickets, I don't know how to find tickets.

Probably try Curious Minds Festival or Bath Three Bean Salad.

You know, they'll crack it.

I don't think just googling the word bath is going to get you there, Mike.

No, no, give it a go.

Start there.

Start there and then put a few more keywords in until you crack it.

I'll put links on our social media so you can find those on our bean bath.

There we go.

Bean bath on our Instagram or Twitter.

And of course, patrons will get first dibs, though, won't they?

Because we'll send them a special code.

That'll already have happened.

What a mess this section has been.

Yeah.

Time to read your emails.

Yes, please.

When you send an email,

you must give thanks

to the postmasters that came before.

Good morning, Postmaster.

Anything for me?

Just some old shit.

When you send an email,

this represents progress

Like a robot shoeing a horse

Give me your horse

My beautiful horse

First one's from Tom hello Tom hi Tom your lukewarm banter about riders and quins

immediately put me in mind of another classic of the low-budget ad genre So we were talking about uh radio local radio ads that we remember from our youths.

What was Riders?

I've forgotten what that was.

With the wind in your hair, the wind in your hair, riders

on Red Dragon FM, a hair dryer company?

What was it?

Motorcycles.

Motorcycles.

And Quinn's was a sort of dodgy bar where Mike grew up.

That quenches any quirk of taste.

As long as that quirk of taste is lager

and extra marital sex.

Yeah.

so yes Tom what have you got for us the one he remembers is Capricorn blinds in Birmingham

Capricorn

can I say Capricorn Capricorn is one of those

anything can be called Capricorn Capricorn financials Capricorn Hoovers yeah

need a massage come to Capricorn for a day yeah Capricorn footwear Capricorn insurance Capricorn interpretation services Capricorn dentistry Capricorn spice range bath plugs yes Capricorn.

It's just.

Anything can be Capricorn because no one knows what it actually means.

Except it's something to do with the stars, is it?

It's a star formation.

Yeah, it's a star sign, I guess.

It's a star sign, yeah.

Capricorn.

Yep.

Tom writes, I could find no evidence of this ad on the internet, but it matters not because more than 20 years on, I can still recite without pause.

I need blinds, and I've been told.

Capricorn blinds are where they're sold.

For great designs and fabric choice, Capricorn's your loudest voice.

It's curtains if you go anywhere else.

Oh, lovely stuff.

It's lovely, except they've had a really difficult decision to make designing that little song because they've also, what they've done is it's a brilliantly funny little joke, but it's kind of reminding people at the end that there's a better alternative to blinds.

Oh, that's so funny.

Oh, but we're also, we're doing the one thing I'm not supposed to do at the end of an ad, which is...

point the customer towards a different product that's probably better in a lot of situations.

And threaten them at the same time.

It'd be like if Nike's famous famous motto was just do antidas.

Does Tom say what?

Because the beginning of it sounds like it's the beginning of a sort of Marine's yomp, doesn't it?

Oh, maybe I didn't give it the right kind of reading.

Maybe it was,

and I've been told.

Capricorn blinds are where they're sold.

For great designs of fabric choice, Capricorn's your loudest voice.

It's curtains if you go anywhere else.

Yeah.

It's curtains.

You know what?

I'd fancy getting some curtains.

They're warm, they keep you nice and insulated, they block out the light much better than blinds, they don't break them.

You think about curtains all day since the radio.

That song really makes me just think curtains.

So, actually, ironically, it was probably curtains for their business, wasn't it?

By the way, that's reminded me how certain ads really worm their way into your brain when you're a kid.

And you remember the song.

So, there's one that was a big one, there was a McDonald's one:

two all beef patties special, excuse me, two old beef patties.

It was two all beef patties special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickled onion in a sesame seed bun.

Well,

was that real?

Yeah, it was.

Two old beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickled onion,

that feels like an added one that put out once.

It really wouldn't.

They would have focused grouped as being disastrous, not knowing that one weird little magical child in North London would remember for the rest of his life.

I hope that gets back to the ad exec that came up with that and lost their job because it'd be great comfort to know that just somewhere they they were right they were right they were right they were ahead of their time yeah to all beef patty special sauce lettuce cheese pickled onion in a sesame seed burn i don't understand it though because it's a big mac what does it mean two two there's two all beef patties in a set in a in a big macro

there's literally no chicken in them yeah okay they're all

being addressed two beef patties world over calling all beef patties

That's one of the many reasons why it's a terrible advert song.

It's one of the many reasons why everyone, apart from Henry, would have just completely dismissed it.

Everyone else would have gone, what's that about?

Oh, forget it.

Delete.

I thought, in a way, I sort of am two beef patties, aren't I?

This is talking straight to me because I'm sort of meat.

I'm like a beef patty from the waist up, and I'm like a beef patty from the waist down.

I'm sort of made of beef in a way.

I'm like a come together with mayonnaise.

Yeah, yeah.

Oliver emails on this same topic.

Guys, love the pod, but I had to hit pause and immediately issue immediate bollocking to Ben.

Ooh,

it's listener bollocking of the week.

Accessing listener bollocking.

Bollocking loading.

I was thrilled to hear Ben refer to the rider's advert.

Brackets, with the wind in your hair.

Having grown up in South Wales in the 80s and 90s, I have several times belted out that jingle at inappropriate moments in my life.

The soft rock anthem qualities, the imagery of a non-highway code-compliant rider roaring down the highway with their long hair streaming behind them.

That's what I was thinking.

You should have a helmet on.

Helmet be damned.

Yeah, damn right.

It really stuck with me.

However, Ben has clearly not remembered the lyrics, as he baffingly referred to riders as a South Wales establishment.

The full lyrics from memory with the backing vocals in parenthesis are With the Wind in Your Hair, brackets, the wind in your hair, Riders,

Bridgewater, Bridgewater, Bridgewater,

Bridgewater, Bridgewater is in Somerset.

Case closed.

Keep up the SOI's excellent work, Oliver from Bremen.

Now,

they were casting their net far and wide then, weren't they?

But why would they why would they advertise?

I mean, I guess it's not far.

I mean, it doesn't look not far as the crow flies, but it's a decent drive, isn't it?

To get from, you know, Carnival to Bridgewater.

But hang on.

May I push back on this?

Please.

Because I've just put into YouTube Riders Motorcycles ad.

We found it.

We can listen to it.

We can see who's correct.

They're getting a free play.

I think this is a newer version because the version I had was definitely like soft rock.

Okay.

They've updated it.

They've updated it.

With the wind in your head.

Windy blood.

riders,

free choices.

Oh, they do say Bridgewater.

This is like a long version where you can talk over it.

We've got deals on motorbikes, mopeds,

sidecars.

That would go over that bit, wouldn't it?

With the wind in your hair, wind melt.

Riders.

so they do say the word Bridgewater in the jingle,

but it does say that at one time there were branches in Cardiff, Bristol and Bridgewater.

That's right.

Score draw?

I think that's a score draw.

Or maybe a bollock back.

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

Bollock back.

It feels like

a bit of a niche business, just motorbikes.

It feels like,

it feels like a bit niche, isn't it?

Just motorbike.

Does it?

What else do you want to sell?

I don't know.

Are there enough people that really buy motorbikes?

You know, it reminds me of moments.

It reminds me of...

But why not just go for cars?

I mean, lots more people buy cars.

Why would you do motorbikes?

Some people like motorbikes, right?

I know, but a lot cheaper.

As a business, I think

most people have cars.

But I think maybe the reason I'm thinking of this, it's reminding me, the idea of a motorbike shop is reminding me of my Lego town when I was a kid.

My town had a police station, one house.

So

there was one domestic property, one residential property, one house, a police station.

Yeah, I like those policing ratios.

Go on.

Yeah, really strong policing ratios.

And a motorbike shop.

Yeah.

And that was it.

Great.

That was the entire economy of the town had to run.

So basically, the guy...

Heavily depended on the guy.

who worked presumably at the motorcycle.

He did work at the motorbike shop.

Yeah.

Also buying all of the motorcycles.

He also had to buy all of themself.

And volunteering at the weekends for the police.

We've had an email from Liana

from Kalamazoo.

Wow.

Where is that?

In the US of A.

Dear Beans, your conversation about radio advertisements getting permanently lodged in your memory reminded me of my two favourite jingles.

Menard is a chain of home improvement slash garden center slash grocery mega stores.

with locations in the middle of the US.

You can buy concrete sealer, lumber, a meat grinder, a three-pack of long underwear, some tortilla chips and a soldering iron there in the same shopping trip.

So this is the Menards radio advert.

Deals, great deals.

Cheap carpets, cheap Hoovers, cheap horses.

Great deals on cheese.

Great deals on meat and cheese.

Great deals on meat and cheese and horses.

Great deals on wood.

Great deals on concrete and wood.

Great deals on concrete, wood, and horses and wood.

Still going.

Even better deals on horses, wood, and cheese and bread.

Cheese, bread, pens, and horses.

Plumbing electrical appliances, too.

The savings will always come right back to you.

You'll save big money.

You'll save big money when you shop Manard.

wow, that's really good.

I like that a lot.

That's really good.

That's a jingle you can trust.

I think you could work at a Menards, Henry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was quite good, wasn't it?

Yeah.

I'd just improvise the jingles and they'd get the stocking to fit.

Have you seen the British pork ads from the 80s?

Oh,

the family roast dinners once.

She's got the lot.

Oh, yeah.

I'm going to play it for you now, Henry.

It's absolutely extraordinary.

Got what it takes, my wife.

Got friends round.

Got roast pork for lunch.

Plenty of taste, British pork.

Real value for money.

Fray's got plenty.

Arthur's got plenty.

We've all got plenty.

Plenty to go round.

My wife.

She's got what it takes.

British pork.

What's it got?

It's got the lot.

Oh, God, it's so sinister.

God, that's terrifying.

My wife.

My wife, she's got what it takes.

She's got what it takes.

Plenty of fork for me.

Plenty for Fred.

Is there some subtext that's really obvious that I'm missing?

Is it all like a subtext for something?

What is it?

What is it?

No, it's just...

My wife.

She's got a subtext.

But she does not have a line in this ad.

I think Britain was just a very sinister place in the 70s, basically, wasn't it?

That was just the general vibe.

I think it was, yeah.

Plenty to go around.

Meat.

We've got meat.

My wife can supply meat.

I've got meat.

Fred.

Fred's got plenty.

You understand, Fred.

My male, my young, virile-looking male relative has meat.

Are you going to mess with Fred?

Fred's full of pork.

Can you imagine what Fred could do to you when he's full of pork?

Yeah.

It's a mixture between an ad and a threat, isn't it?

Yeah.

Do you want to come round and have my wife serve you her meat

in front of two of my male relatives who are also eating her meat?

They've got plenty.

They've got plenty.

She's got what it takes.

We don't have a shortage of meat.

Do you understand?

My wife doesn't have a shortage of meat.

Oh my God.

So what is it?

They're the Falklands ours or aren't they?

Yeah, my babies have got sideburns.

Have you got a problem with that?

Yeah, our cat's wearing a tie.

Have you got a problem with that?

My wife knitted it.

She's got one of tanks.

Bloody hell.

That's extraordinary, that ad.

Oh, I love it.

I absolutely love it.

It is very, very good.

And let's finish off with another bollocking.

Okay.

Simply that I had some I must have said last week that I wasn't sure if there was a center of the galaxy.

Oh, I assumed I was wrong on on this one but

oh you were wrong in a different way yeah nobody's even bothered you getting your drawing

then it was it was not worth it was not worth deploying a bollock against me no it was a wasted bollock because for example if i was to single handedly if i was to single-handedly invade france whatever they wouldn't deploy the the french army wouldn't deploy it wouldn't be needed no same sort of situation yeah we've had loads of emails about this this is from vin You pose a question as to what is in the center of the galaxy.

Is Henry correctly identified?

Yes.

I can't believe that.

There's very misleading phrasing there.

Henry didn't correctly identify anything.

Henry, it was a Brownian emotion sort, was what was happening there.

It stopped clock stuff.

As Henry correctly identified, like most of space, it's just orbs orbiting bigger orbs all the way up.

Thank you.

Much like most galaxies, the quick and quaint Italian towns, the Milky Way has a supermassive black hole in the center.

Right.

Specifically, our galactic town centre is called Sagittarius A Star.

Hope that clears it up, Vinn.

I think that feels like the kind of thing that is going to wake Henry up in the middle of the night.

And he's going to think about a lot.

The fact that the middle of the galaxy is a black hole.

Luckily, I didn't understand it enough for it to be a problem.

Okay, great.

It sounds like a huge problem.

Yeah, that supermassive black hole in the middle.

No one's talking about that.

Capricorn black holes.

Yeah, Sagittarius is a bit like Capricorn, isn't it?

You could call any company Sagittarius.

Good name for a company.

Sagittarius Clogs.

Sagittarius dolls, Sagittarius boobies,

yeah, yeah.

She's got what it takes, my wife.

Sagittarius pork.

Has your wife got what it takes?

We can have a wife off

surrounded by meat.

It's time

to play the ferryman.

Patreon.

Patreon.

Patreon.com

forward slash three bean salad.

Thank you to everyone who signed up at our Patreon.

Thank you very much.

Patreon.com forward slash threebean salad.

There's a thing to say with Patreon at the moment.

Starting in November,

there's some fuckery with the Apple store.

Oh, yes.

Where basically if you were to sign up for Patreon on the Apple app,

it would be more expensive both for you and for us.

So we've stopped that ability.

So you can still sign up and you can still use the Apple app to listen to episodes and all that kind of stuff.

But when you sign up specifically, it's best to do that on a browser, browser, like on a laptop or whatever.

Okay.

Which doesn't sound like a great business decision, does it?

No, because Apple are quite big.

It's because Apple have started taking extra money.

So it would be more expensive for you if you sign up through the Apple app.

So don't do that.

But you can't.

Sorry, this is not very clear at all.

What is clear is that we're taking on one of the biggest companies in the world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

It's three beans versus an apple.

And pretty soon I know what's going to be the little logo on the back of people's laptops.

Yeah.

It's going to be a Henry Packer original.

My wife signed up on the Apple app.

She's got a laptop made of pork.

She'll turn Apple into sauce.

She's got what it takes.

Anyway, do sign up.

Go to patreon.com forward slash three bean salad.

There are various tiers.

You can get ad-free episodes.

You get our bonus episodes.

We only this week recorded an episode of Film Corner.

It's good stuff.

It's good stuff.

Where we reviewed a film called Hundreds of Beavers and

we did a review of a retrospective review of Top Gun Maverick.

We did.

Didn't we?

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

Indeed, you do.

Where Mike spent the evening last night.

A splendid evening, yes.

Well,

it was create effigies of your favourite school teachers using salmon mousse night, wasn't it?

It was.

Thank you, Henry.

And here's my report.

It was create effigies of your favourite school teachers using salmon

The likes of Tom Fardell, Chris Nevin, and Cara Walker all found themselves molding micro-effigies from the remaining moose that were too small to fashion chins or noses and so were discounted.

Stuart Thompson, Stephanie Powers and naughty Dan Reed, Pachow Pachow, aka the Plan B team, embarked on a project of non-moose salmon carving with varied results, while the Plan C team of Ursula Sparks, Martin Tynan and Peter Baldwin took the Plan B team's discarded salmon guts to make effigies but found fish offal could only be used to construct geography teachers who were no one's favourite.

Profane Timesis and Yanta raided the Sean Bean Moose kitchens to see what could be salvaged from the bins and floors and quickly established a stall selling their loot to effigy hopefuls.

Business was brisk.

Keir Jones and Neil Dorgan combined the proceeds of a fire sale on all of their assets to buy the last remaining slice of Melbourne toast.

Keir then used Chris Meredith as a substitute life model and painted one side of the toast to resemble a head teacher he once had a sexy dream about.

Neil, meanwhile, used Rose and Anna as substitute models to paint the portrait of a cherished two-headed physics teacher on the other side.

Ashley Coxton, Matt C, and Chris Walker bought up the dill remnants and also leased a teaspoon of Tabasco from James Macaulay, who'd bought it at a premium from Rosso, who'd stolen it off Matthew Rutter, who'd bought it from the stall at mates rates.

These ingredients were smushed together to make effigies of music teachers who'd been lax disciplinarians.

Joanna Burns, Jordan Harvey, Cameron Partovi and Emily Nash managed to get hold of some unsweetened gelatin shards and soften them up to what would have been an ideal molding material, albeit non-salmony, but none of them had a favourite teacher as all of them had been excluded from school at the age of four, something they all continued to conceal from friends and co-workers to this day.

Jack brought in a pre-made halibut effigy of the teacher from Dead Poet Society and was sent home with his tail between his legs.

Seeing this, Cara Thompson, Ben M and Bridget KC, who'd all brought the same thing, quickly binned their inadmissible effigies, broke into the Sean Bean flying wingsuit vertical testing tube, ascended to 17,000 feet and refused to come down.

Henry Mortimer and Vince valiantly disobeyed the brief and presented vegetarian moose effigies, but less valiantly over-sexualized them, causing Gareth Meredith and Cameron McNabb to develop unwelcome amorous urges about tofu and marinated carrot, respectively.

But the evening ended on a high, with Christine Han and Olivia Howe Smith sharing the Salmon Moose Effigy Innovation Award by exhuming early 19th-century maritime artist Robert Salmon moosing the remains and sculpting them into an effigy of the teacher of teachers whose teachings shall be taught through the ages, Sean Bean.

Thanks all.

Okay, we'll finish off with a version of our theme tune.

This is from Jessica.

Hello, Jessica.

I've recently moved my life from Canberra

to Encounter Bay in South Australia.

Nice.

With this move, many objects from my past that I'd left with various long-suffering family members resurfaced.

One of these objects was a Casio Tone Bank keyboard CA301, bought to me by my parents when I was in primary school.

I was mucking about, I thought I'd have a go at ripping out the beans theme tune.

I had no reliable way of recording the performance and found that when I tried to use my phone, the tune was overlaid with the sound of the keyboard's clunking plastic spring-loaded keys.

Not being of the tech persuasion, all I had on hand to record the tune was a dictaphone that I connected to the keyboard with a double-ended 3.5mm jack.

This meant that the keyboard thought the dictaphone was a speaker and the dictaphone thought the keyboard was a microphone.

There was no sound coming out of anywhere.

I decided to have a go at playing the tune without being able to hear it while recording it on a dictaphone.

Attached as the result.

So So I look forward to hearing that, Jessica.

Jessica, Jessica is a person after my own heart, tech-wise.

All right, that's the end of the show.

We'll finish off with that Casio-based.

Thank you.

And see you next time.

Ta-ra.

Thank you.

Bye.