Archaeology

Wowie, this is exciting.

We've got a bean-at-large.

We have, haven't we?

And he's looking every bit of the bean-at-large because he's looking like our glamorous foreign correspondent, isn't he?

I'm using a handheld mic.

He's using a handheld mic

with a sort of wind baffler thing, where it looks like a tiny sort of

wig.

It does it like a tiny wig for a sort of prehistoric man.

Yeah, it looks like a very small member of the band, Kiss, is facing Ben with his back to us.

Presumably poking his tongue out, trying to put him off.

That's what it looks like.

It looks like you've shrunk someone from Kiss and taking them hostage.

It's a really fluffy mic, that.

It is.

Yeah.

Yeah, so this isn't the mic I'd use if I was out and about normally.

So

because I'm away, I'm using this.

Recording your thoughts.

But you're holding it in that correspondent way because you're holding the stick up to your.

It also looks like it's the 90s and you're about to say, I'm about to cover a primary school in gunge.

Bring on the gunge copter when TV had budgets for just military levels of gunging.

We're just gunging random primary schools.

It's quite John Simpson, isn't it?

It's very John Simpson.

It's a very freeing Baghdad.

It is, yes.

Well, it's helped by the room, which

he's in a completely

quite a small and featureless room, which kind of helps.

Yeah, that's true.

With

the rictus grin of a war correspondent.

It's true.

Yeah.

You do look like you've been pounding JD and Coakes all night

with Simpson and who are the other ones?

Kate A.D.

Kate A.D.

Horner Gerwin.

Just J.D.

and Coakes pounding them.

Oh, it's been back in Alien.

The whole press corps are absolutely getting it on because they don't know if they're going to be alive this time tomorrow.

Yeah.

They're completely, they're about three days behind the news cycle because they're just so pissed on JD and Coakes.

Yeah, this is what no one's talking about.

That's why war corresponds do what they do.

It's not because of the thrill of being in a conflict zone.

It's because the party scene is lit.

Right.

So basically, I'm near a lovely old medieval town.

And then, of course, there's a ring road around it.

And on the ring road is the major hotel train.

And that's where I've decided to stay.

Okay, okay.

And on the road outside the

is a huge skip

that they're filling with mattresses on a daily basis.

And I think the message they're trying to send is: Stop shitting the bed, Benjamin Partridge.

You can soil this as much as you want.

We'll keep bringing more mattresses.

Don't worry about it.

Deep soil.

You relax.

It's your time.

You saw the promise on our hotel website, which is no mattress is too minimally soiled for us to completely replace.

And you can test that to the, in the same way that I'm going to test the infinite breakfast to it.

In fact, those two things are related.

Those two tests.

I'm going to test the infinite breakfast at the max.

And I'm going to test the mattress policy to the maximum.

A grotesque cycle

and you can um you can sign up to the coach trips where you accompany them where they drive them all the way down to the mediterranean and just dump them into the sea don't you he loves that that's right they have got a kind of guard standing next to them so yesterday i went up to have a look have a closer look at the soiled mattresses

and um and that's what tourism good tourism is about isn't it you improvise if something comes up you don't have to stick to the you don't have to stick to the tour guide plan, do you?

If something happens, if a delightful Italian man introduces, you know, invites you into his woodwork workshop and you go with him.

If loads and loads of soiled mattresses piled up near a ring road,

you grab your microphone, you go down, you explore.

So I wanted a closer look, and the guy started, he clocked me.

He just thought another, it's so Instagrammable that he thought, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yet another person.

Another mattress ghoul.

Yeah.

And I was warned of them.

So I don't know if there's some kind of like.

We try to get onto them.

I thought this is my only chance of being able to do a true Princess and the P style test just on 25 heavily soiled old mattresses.

And try to detect a small mini fridge instead of a pee.

So what was the story with these mattresses, Ben?

I'm intrigued.

Well, it seems like they're sort of swapping out a lot of mattresses at the moment.

Is this from the hotel or from just from general stuff in the area?

From the hotel.

So I'm assuming it's a bedbug infestation, I would imagine.

Oh, nice.

Oh, interesting.

Okay.

Oh, that's a yeah, that's a relief.

That's what I'm sort of banking on.

So I've got a burn on my clothes when I get home, I think.

Yeah.

Is that how this works?

Yeah.

Before you get home, I'd say.

You may have brought the bed bugs, Benjamin.

One cause this.

It's possible.

You wouldn't put it past him.

Bed bugs are such a nightmare.

I'd say it's probably safe for you not to come home now, Ben, and just be a digital nomad.

You and the bed bugs.

And sort of try and get them on the payroll if you can.

Just keep roaming.

Just keep roaming.

Maybe they can edit the podcast.

They're probably good.

Bed bugs are such a

horrific nightmare.

Have you ever had them, either of you, badly?

No, never.

No.

I've had them.

Have you?

In your home?

Yeah.

I don't know if I'd even know.

I mean, if I was to bump into one on the street, I'm not sure I'd recognise it from a.

And that's why they're so powerful, Mike.

Because they don't take the guise of fully formed human beings wearing clothes and stuff.

They're actually very, very small insects.

That's part of their genius.

They don't introduce themselves on social media.

They're not on LinkedIn.

No digital footprints.

Very, very small, digital and actual footprints.

But they're tiny little footprints, if you can detect them, are made of your blood.

Are they blood suckers?

Yeah.

Blood.

Tiny, tiny little amounts of your blood.

Basically, you'll know if you've got them if you wake up and you're covered in welts.

That's how it works, isn't it?

Yeah.

But basically, there's two attitudes you can take to bed bugs.

One is you go, this is a horrific crisis.

My lower legs are covered in welts.

They're tiny, tiny little

footprint trails all around my

home made of my own blood.

And you can feel a real sense of like, you know, a boundary's been crossed that you've been, you know, you've been sort of violated in some horrible way by these insects living.

And because they hide in the crevices.

Your crevices or the bed's crevices.

Well, whichever is warmest and most comfortable, Mike.

Okay.

Take a guess.

No, no,

they do actually hide in bed crevices.

They hide in bed crevices, furniture crevices,

anything that's crevice-y.

So, do they prefer a poorly made bed?

If it's crisp with hospital corners,

if it's a zero-crevice bed, but it's not so much the sheets, Mike, as the, in fact, I'm going to just say it's not at all the sheets, Mike.

It's the wooden structure of the bed, the wooden slash metal structure of the bed.

Is it?

So, they live in the little tiny gaps between bits of wood.

I'm so ignorant of bed bugs.

Now, a lot of people assume, Mike, you probably assume that anything that's like a bit of furniture has just been, you know, carved out of a huge lump of either wood rock or plastic or whatever it's made of in our case ice or exactly ice that it's been chipped off a kind of mother block but actually if you look closely at things mike um and listeners at home are welcome to do this you'll actually see that everything is linked up by crevices

we live surrounded by a sort of network of crevices because if you stick two things together without a crevice you're either mad or god it can't be done

Can it, Ben?

Why are you asking me?

Because you've got that microphone.

You just look very authoritative.

You're holding a stick with them.

You look like, if you don't know, you're probably standing next to a middle-aged man on the scene who will give you a Vox pop,

a clear answer right away.

So crevice creation is a kind of byproduct of all kinds of engineering and architecture.

So in your skirting boards, there's crevices in the doors, there's crevices.

So it's basically you can feel you're living in this hive of tiny little sort of bastards that come out at night, suck blood out of your body.

And you can really panic about it.

And you can do things like,

you can basically heat up all your clothes or cool down all your clothes.

Both of those are options.

Neither make any difference.

It just takes your mind off it, doesn't it?

It doesn't make any difference at all.

But you'll do things, you'll be doing things like, hmm, I'm putting some Chinos in the oven.

You'll just find yourself in weird situations like that.

I'm just going to pop these, I'll pop these Chinos out of the freezer, put them straight, then preheat it so you get a nice crispy finish.

I've done this I've had clothes in the freezer I've put clothes in the oven you microwave pants and stuff

you behave like a very unhinged person in a lot of ways you braise the jacket you'll bra you'll braze the jacket sure yeah you'll um you'll you'll flambay some socks for Casey a Y front you'll you'll Julienne some tank tops and beef wellington a boob tube all these things can be done

these are all moth type things I've done the I've done this at the behest of moths it's the same it's the same in the moth kingdom And I would say

this is a tip for anyone listening.

If you ever buy anything secondhand off vintage, for example, or from a charity shop, just freeze it for three days before you do anything with it.

Yeah, so

what happens is you start doing you start behaving like a paranoid person, right?

Going, this tiny little being's living in all the crevices.

Did you know that all objects are made out of crevices?

Actually, you're right.

Because there are little things living in the crevices.

And they do come out at night and suck your blood.

And you can potentially kill or hurt them by putting your clothes in the oven.

And tonight I should go out onto the street and set fire to those 30 mattresses.

Exactly.

It does sound like it, yes.

And dance around them.

Because you'll be doing society a favor.

The other thing about this hotel

is that when I arrived, I sort of checked in, and the woman on the desk said, We won't be cleaning your room while you're here.

I said, Why?

And they said, We are giving the money to children.

It does put you in a bit of a tricky situation as well.

It really does.

She's kind of cornered you there.

It's quite a clever

move.

Yes, you're still paying, but we have not cooked you the food in the sausage restaurant today because we have given your sausage to the children.

Right.

Okay.

You will not be sleeping on a mattress during your time here.

We have given your mattress to some children.

The toilet paper female room is with some very elderly orphans, if that's okay with you.

What do you mean they don't live like children?

If you are young at heart, you are a child forever.

That is what I say about myself.

Give me your money.

I'm giving it to the children, as in me and my wife.

And not our children, actually.

Fuck them.

Just us.

So

I think the sense of it is that instead of paying for cleaning staff to come and clean your room, they've given that money to a children's charity of some sort.

At what rate of cleaner are they giving it?

Because, do you know what I mean?

Like, how do they know?

How do you know?

How does anyone know that they're giving that charity the same amount they would have paid for a cleaner?

Good point.

I'm a bit worried about the cleaner.

What's happened to the cleaner?

That's a good point.

And the cleaner's children.

And the cleaner's children's children.

Well, the other thing they said to me was, if you would like your room cleaned, please ask.

Oh, yes, you can choose our bastard package, of course.

Simply pull the lever here marked bastard, and we will bring you a cleaner.

We will make you breakfast.

And please, if you just put on this dressing gown with the word bastard written across the back, we'll be happy to give you some shower gel.

But that puts me in a strange position because then it's like, if I would like the room cleaned, yes, it's suspicious, isn't it?

When you say, Can you clean the room?

It means I've done something horrific and I need professional help to deal with this.

Do you know what I mean?

I think so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh,

no, my room will very much need cleaning.

Yes,

you're you're you're a shit smearer.

That's what's understood.

Yeah, I'm a shit smearer.

You're a shit smearer.

That's fine.

We understand.

We have put 500 of our most absorbent mattresses in the skip ready

to deal with the towels that start coming out of your room.

We understand that you're a shit smearer and a shit flinger.

Is that right?

Yes, we've done our research.

You fling, then, smear, isn't it?

Fling and smear.

Yes, we understand it creates quite the vicious cycle, one might say.

You beast.

Well, the trouble with that, Ben, is obviously, well, they haven't gone from the environmental angle, which I think is a strong one.

There's excessive cleaning of towels and steaming

of linens in hotels.

That's the usual angle, isn't it?

But I've got to say, even though it's a bit wrong, it is quite nice, isn't it?

That coming back to that.

It's like a sort of reset of reality when you come back to your hotel room and everything's cleaned, pressed, steamed.

That budget hotel scratchy towel.

But you're right, Henry.

That's why, you know, it's a nice thing.

It It is nice.

And look at the ever-decreasing size of towels from mega towel down to flannel and all the towels in between, one of which is actually a mat.

It's a lovely little puzzle to get you started with, isn't it?

It's a lovely little puzzle, isn't it?

Which one is the darned mat?

And we've all dried our face with the mat.

Of course we have.

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I never feel bad.

I'm like, oh, you are next time.

Next time.

You got it.

We've all tried to make a cup of herbal tea in the toilet bowl.

Another thing I like about hotel rooms, but it's the semi-desk.

Oh, yes.

I'm on the semi-desk.

Are you talking to us on a semi-desk?

Of course you are.

The two-legged desk.

Yeah.

Is it a two-legger?

Well, it's kind of a plinth that's just coming out of the wall.

I love the semi-desk, the hotel semi-desk.

It's so you can like do your correspondence and stuff, isn't it?

I think it's a hangover from the kind of great 19th century era of hotels where people would live in a hotel for like years and stuff.

Isn't it like the idea that you're in your room and you do your correspondence or something?

Yeah, but they don't even need, yeah, the correspondence is all done by postcard or television.

Exactly.

Nothing bigger than that needs to go on this desk.

It's superb.

That tell us, tell us more about your hotel, Ben, and how it's disappointing.

There's no fridge in my room.

No fridge in your room.

No.

No.

That's a budget hotel classic these days.

Oh, it's because they've given it to the children.

Somewhere there are some children who are sitting around a tiny little fridge

playing with a mini fridge.

And they're getting absolutely stung for those peanuts.

Stung.

So you've got no mini mini fridge yeah well that

to me that's the distinction that what that's what makes major hotel chain it's a non-luxury chain it's it's a kind of it's a business chain right it's a work hotel not not exclusively but it doesn't pretend to be giving you the twiddles does it like the no you're not really supposed to be in there apart from when you're exactly it's not they're not going to make your towel into the shape of a swan are they No, and if you think that is the case, what's happened is that there is a swan in your room and someone's thrown a towel over you.

You need to get out.

You need to get out fast.

And do not take that towel off, whatever you do.

Even if it's the mega towel, the really big.

Even if it is the mega towel.

Cozy one for the shower.

Just leave it.

Use the mat and get out.

Get the hell out.

I've got some art in the room.

Have you got art?

Got some art.

What kind of art are we talking?

Ben, don't tell me what yours is.

I'm going to get, can I guess, Ben?

Yeah, yeah.

It's some sort of field with one of those things that you blow to tell the time, what they called?

A dandelion.

Oh, a dandelion.

No, a steam-operated clock.

Yeah, it's a dandelion.

Divs.

Yeah, that's what I'm guessing.

Mike, are you guessing?

I think it's the

bed bug matriarch

with her thousands of teats being suckled by her thousands of

thousands of teats, but her single eye.

That would be a really nice, refreshing choice to have something a bit more challenging than you usually get.

A single blood red eye.

And actually, and I think a bit of animation on it.

Like, so it's holographic.

So there may be the thousands upon thousands of teeth

wiggle about

as you walk past.

Be nice.

And maybe every now and then emanates some sort of pheromone.

If the sun hits it, yeah, yeah, certain times of day.

I like that.

Ben, what is it?

This is a beaming emergency.

Please try to remain calm.

At this stage, because of the Wi-Fi availability in the major hotel chain, I was basically unable to hear Mike or Henry.

It was quite nice.

He's so beatific when he can't hear us properly.

Look at that smile.

He's so much happier.

He's so much happier when he can't fully keep track of what we're saying.

I've never seen him more relaxed.

I've never seen...

It's revealing, isn't it?

And what is also revealing is that normally he would wait until we've finished our run of episodes before he would disappear into Central or Eastern Europe.

It's true, but he's like.

But this time he hasn't been able to wait until...

He couldn't wait.

Penultimate episode was done and he was off.

This is very revealing.

It's going to get earlier and earlier, isn't it, in the run of a series that he disappears off?

I think so.

And eventually it'll just be Ben's smiling face.

Not even a microphone.

He could have stuck a picture, a physical picture on each of our laptops.

Of just his smiling face.

And actually, we'll all be much happier than we are now.

So

I didn't hear that.

What were your guesses for the hotel art?

We haven't got time to go over that then.

We both said bowl of fruit.

Let's see the art.

So it's a big...

It's a big.

It's an extraordinary.

It could still be a big matriarch

bed bug, or it could be a big blowy flower thing.

thing

um so i was i don't know if you picked up on that but during the first section i could hear about one in 15 of any word that either michael or henry said we um

henry and i came to the agreement that you looked happier than we'd ever seen you when you were i think a 14th of us is what you need is what is that

right for you then a 14th yeah

and maybe that's what our listeners need as well maybe there's maybe we should ask

just from now on, download your podcast on an app that can manage, not just sort of speed up and slow down, but choose the one in 14 setting.

Choose the one in 14, and it's just right.

You'll end up with a huge smile on your face.

That's what Ben had.

I think what you were experiencing was that, you know, I was not enjoying myself because it was all going wrong.

And I was pasting on a smile.

And what it does is that just shows my ability to paste on.

a big old smile when things are going wrong.

Really?

Yeah, your pasting on smile is far more attractive than your usual grimace.

yes your treat your your real smile is a really bit of a horror show we can say this now can't we i mean it's um

it's full of conflict it's clearly malevolent i mean we all know that from an evolutionary point of view the smile is the is the the the fang bear isn't it it's it's an aggressive act but but it's never so clear as it is with ben well that's what they say isn't it they say like when you know those chimps in the pg tips adverts like when they were smiling that was actually them sort of responding to threat yeah and that's what you get when i smile yeah i think yeah when you smile you look like you're saying, back off and take this waistcoat off me immediately.

I don't even like tea.

Or I'm going to pull your arms off.

Yeah.

I'm going to pull your arms off.

I'm going to be using to play the drums on the decapitated heads of your brothers for dairy milk.

Who've come in with a very, very attractive package.

It's across all platforms.

A lot of it's on socials now, which is just a bit more current.

They're also opening up the Southeast Asian market to me.

I've been offered a deal to decapitate Durangutans in Indonesia for the king

as part of his holiday plans for next year.

Is that King Charles or the King of Indonesia?

It's going to be King of Indonesia.

Then I thought I'd change it to King.

It's actually a bit more Windsor somehow in its vibe, isn't it?

All stand for the king.

We're entering the Regal Zone.

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.

Of course, with King Charles, he would get the orangutans brought to Balmoral and then beheaded.

That's right.

Our topic of beheadings, of course, by the time people listen to this podcast, Gareth Southcape will have been beheaded.

So he's now

a Son's Head legend, isn't he?

He'll be on the yeah, he'll be along the football manager's row on Tower Bridge, won't he?

That's right.

You can go and visit him.

Yep.

And it will have been done at a,

I think that would just be a quiet ceremony.

I think it just would be in the King,

Ed Sheeran.

And James Corden.

and James

and James Corden presenting the or presenting the daggers, isn't it?

He presents the daggers.

King Charles chooses the dagger.

Ed Sheeran mounts it on top of his guitar.

Yeah, which is then mounted on top of a football, which is then kicked from a penalty spot.

That's right.

And sliced perfectly through.

By David Beckham, while Ed Sheeran sings Castle on the Hill.

It's a moment of national unity, which is much needed.

um

were you were you sad that england didn't uh win the euros henry i mean this will feel quite old but

um yeah no i mean just just the normal amount yeah it was it was a shame but there's the thorny issue of the sweepstake oh gosh i forgot that ah the sweep steak i'm afraid that's your first ever sweep steak I didn't even know what I said.

Did I say Holland or something?

You got Holland.

The final was then within our house was in Trinisan.

So it was I got England and Pamela got Spain.

So we all owe Pam a quid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, brilliant.

Because you know what?

No offense, but.

We probably don't actually have to give it to her.

Well, you say that.

She's got her eye on a dried yaks bollock.

A three quidder?

She's not going to get a lot of change out of four quid for that.

No, if you want to go premium yaks bollock.

Oh, no, no.

So we're talking.

North hemisphere yak left bollock.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's your prime, isn't it?

Because that's the bollock that normally faces the wind isn't it it faces that's right it faces the wind and it also uh is is closest to magnetic north and so

that's right so the essentially the grain of the bollock tends northwesterly what that means is that the the the protein doors on the on the left of the molecules are open to take on that westerly wind they're against the grain of her chewing direction that's right so you get more grip she gets more grip but also all those lovely west wind uh minerals i'm talking so micro there's microscopic quantities of quartz yep

silica

selenium

dick magnesium dick magnesium also the different zinc oxides zinc megroxide zinc minor oxide zinc dodeca oxide so all those time

oregano

Oregano, of course, is a wait, it's a crystal, isn't it?

Oregano.

Well, sometimes the yak herdsmen will blow oregano into the bollocks of

the yaks.

Well, that's how they signal other herders, isn't it?

That's right.

To help them sleep.

It's very relaxing for the yak.

Yeah, so you wouldn't want a southern hemisphere righty.

I mean, you'd almost be better off not eating yak's bollock at all.

If it was going to be a

south hemisphere righty, because again, it's got no wind.

It's very good for a hangover, but

otherwise.

Yeah, they say it's a hangover cure, don't they?

Two bottles of beetroot juice

washed down by a South Hemisphere Yak's right testicle.

And a lot of people think, don't you normally wash down with liquid?

No, you have to wash it down with the testicle.

So washing up with the liquid with the testicle.

It's hard to do.

But the results are stupendous, aren't they?

But this one that Pam's getting, that's going to be from Prince Charles's personal collection, right, Mike?

That's why it's four pounds.

That's right.

Yeah.

Well, it's from the collection he keeps in his bloody crown, Ben.

Why do you think those jewels are so big?

Each one's got a yak ball like him.

There's the ones he keeps in his crown, and there's the ones

when he does his royal drive-bys and drive past the town, he'll always toss a few out of the passenger seat window, won't he?

That's right.

And then arms.

Yeah, exactly.

Arms for the poor.

Arms.

Which are always collected by members of his security detail dressed up as

peasants.

Yeah.

Thank you, my king.

Thank you.

Then return to the motorgate before they hit the next

town, normally.

So it all starts again.

Anyway, should we turn on the beam machine?

Let's do it.

Yeah, in the name of the Yak Eunuch, turn it on.

Okay, this week's topic, as sent in by Pat from Ely.

Pat from Ely.

Thank you.

Thanks, Pat.

Archaeology.

Is it now?

When I was a little kid, you know when people used to ask you what you want to be when you grow up?

Yeah.

My stock answer for about five years was probably archaeologist.

I also had a phase of that.

That or Egyptologist as well.

Basically, I read a couple of Tintin books and thought, yeah, this is the life for me.

Yeah.

It's between that and Indiana Jones, basically.

And I thought, yeah, that's the life I want.

I think I was very much in the Tony Robinson sphere.

Ah, right.

Okay.

Yes.

Yeah, I think I imagine myself as a sort of whip-laden adventurer.

What, Tony Robinson?

What do you mean?

Oh, you mean a glam?

Oh, you mean a glamorous, good-looking academic with a lover in every port, who fights baddies and always has a wise crack and always has a...

He's got a good friendship with a local man as well.

That kind of stuff.

He's got.

and has beautiful women and falling in love with him from both sides of

the Great War.

Yeah,

one of his main problems in life is femme fatale.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So Tony Robinson.

Yeah.

So

it is, just if anyone had any doubts, we're talking about Tony Robinson.

So, whereas Ben, you're talking about more about the idea of a future, sort of gently wiping bits of ceramic with a fine brush.

Yeah.

What, toilet cleaner?

High-end toilet cleaner.

Toilet cleaner to the ancients.

Yeah, basically, well, more likely sort of gently wiping away the floor, isn't it?

Basically, you're just wiping the floor in the hope that...

There's that you discover another floor.

Basically, yes.

A really old floor.

Yeah.

I don't know why I thought that was exciting, but I did.

But I think the reality is that it's very, very boring, is it?

It's a weird one, isn't it, archaeology?

Because I think it's

right on the cusp of, Well, there's a lot of information, cultural information attached to it that suggests excitement.

So, obviously, we're talking about the Indiana Jones films.

Yeah.

And Tony Robinson.

Well, Indiana Jones is

an anagram of Tony Robinson, isn't it?

Coincidence?

Don't think so.

Don't think about it too hard, huh?

It doesn't matter.

It's a runic anagram.

It's a runic anagram.

If you basically go to the pyramids of Giza, and hold a Yaks Bollock up to the sky at dawn,

the light shines through it and it explains how tony robins is in fact an anagram of minium dress by the way anyone listening who doesn't know who tony robinson is he's a much beloved

comic actor turned archaeologist or tv archaeology presenter yeah whereas palin uh journeyed through through the lands of the world uh Tony has journeyed through time itself.

Indeed.

Yes.

One thing I think, in terms of Robinson's legacy and his the breadth of his scope as an archaeologist, I will say that I think in my whole life I've watched 45 seconds of Time Team.

And it's been...

And you feel you've got the idea.

I think I've got the idea.

No, basically, I've never actually watched an episode of Time Team.

Like, what happens?

It's really good.

Is it?

I mean, I've not watched it for years, but I used to love it.

Yeah.

It's mainly fun because Tony Robinson goes, we're here in Shropshire and the local people for years have said that there's a Roman villa under this field.

Well, let's let's find out.

So I'm trying to change channels.

Can I change channel on Zoom?

I'm just trying to

change channel.

It's fine.

I'd just rather talk to someone else other than Ben right now.

Can we go across to another podcast?

Can I jump from it?

My only experience of Time Team is Tony Robinson has got that far.

And by the time he's said Shropshire, there's a big man with a big white beard who said, it's Cheshire, not Shropshire.

And everything that Tony Robinson says is wrong.

That's my memory of Time Team.

Well, that's the thing.

So the main other character in Time Team is this hoary old bastard with like massive sideburns who's like, right, we're going to fucking dig up this field then, is it?

Come on then.

And he's sort of going, I've literally never watched it long enough to meet that guy.

I do have no idea who you're talking about.

I don't know who that is.

He's definitely the highlight.

Absolutely the highlight.

And is he the one who's the actual qualified archaeologist?

And Robinson's just there for the, basically, for the, for the, for the zhuze, for the pizzazz.

For the eye candy.

For the eye candy.

Is that what it is?

Like, Robinson's the presenter.

A bit like with this podcast, I know.

You're the omni expert.

I know stuff about history, science, et cetera.

I just love facts.

It makes me an idiot.

I love books, reading, learning, knowledge.

I love it.

It's just my addiction.

You know what I mean?

For me, it's knowledge.

So you need that, don't you, alongside

Ben's glamour?

Ben's the glamour.

But

it's the same with Sky at Knight, isn't it?

Patrick Moore was the kind of hoary old expert.

Yeah.

And the presenter wasn't it, Patrick Moore.

Patrick Moore.

So they didn't both think he's unusual.

He was so good

Because you barely noticed him changing into the sparkly skirt.

He would throw to himself, he'd whip off the sparkly outfit and he'd get into his suit and tie.

One second he's in a leather-bound study.

The next he's in a leather-bound gusset.

He's noticing a leather-bound travel agent with some white goods going past it.

Is that guy with the sidebones?

He's the actual archaeologist, isn't he?

Yeah, but he's like, there's a couple of others as well.

There's some sort of nice women, normally.

Oh, yeah.

Well,

I don't mean nice women.

Well, I mean, you said nice women.

Well, they are nice women, but I don't mean nice women in the way you're thinking.

I mean nice women.

Don't tell me what I'm thinking.

I'm picturing two women, both of them addressed as Cleopatra.

And they're both trying to outdo each other with how scandalously slight their Cleopatra outfit actually is.

Yeah, exactly.

that's not what i meant

well that's how that's how tony robinson that was how it was originally it was that was what was put on paper that was

that's how they sold the series yeah

that's all they sold and all the initial production meetings

that's that's how every series gets sold most of them yeah even the 10 o'clock news it was the 90s yeah

all the all the initial production meetings we're going to have to read in robinson we we cannot he said his outfit he wants he wants himself to just be wearing the headdress of a pharaoh, and the rest of his outfit, all he's written is oil.

This isn't going to fly, we're going to have to reel in Robinson.

I know he's intimidating.

I know he's much bigger in person than he is on camera.

Much bigger.

Okay, okay.

I've been in touch with his people.

He says it doesn't matter what kind of oil it is.

He doesn't mind.

Any kind of oil is fine.

He's willing to meet us halfway there on the oil.

And his idea was: you think you've seen Builders Bum.

Wait till you see me digging up an Etruscan fort fort naked.

It's a whole new level, mate.

What a disgusting series you had in mind.

Anyway, but they managed to reel him in.

When I say nice women, I just mean just nice women.

Yeah.

Just wearing outdoors gear, just with the fleece on.

Yeah.

Great.

And they're part of the team.

They're part of the time team.

A couple of wholesome academics who also don't mind getting some dirt under the fingernails types.

Exactly.

That's what I mean.

Because the other, of course, famous archaeologist is

Lara Croft.

Oh, God.

Remember, but that's weird, isn't it?

That's another sort of concept of the horny archaeology of the sexy.

What is it about archaeologists?

And sexiness?

I think it's that to represent it in media, it is in itself so boring that you have to sex it up.

Otherwise, it's just not good enough.

Ben, that's exactly what I was thinking.

I think they have to hit it with sex.

So Robinson, like on a jet ski,

just with a couple of old fossils tied around his middle.

And each week, is it a different area?

What's the template of the show?

Like, what's the kind of format?

Yeah, different place each week.

They will dig a trench.

If they find nothing in the first trench, they'll dig a second trench.

And that's when it gets really excited.

Because a third trench is now on the cards.

And that was not the case at the beginning of the show.

To be continued.

Yeah.

Exactly that.

It's an incredibly slow process, isn't it, archaeology?

So how do they viscerally sort of make that into must-watch TV?

Isn't there banter key, isn't it?

Yeah, it's all about bants.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, we found this little cup that we think the Romans probably used to drink wine out of.

You don't drink out of a cup, you drink straight out of a can, don't you, Phil?

That's right.

So it simply falls back on old-fashioned stereotypes, sort of an urban metropolitan type, mocking a simple country man.

Is that exactly the idea?

So you might quite like it then, Henry.

Well, I'm just thinking.

Just give us another chance.

What it is, is

what I've noticed is in a lot of kind of middle-of-the-road television and radio, the fallback banter position is.

You're an alcoholic.

Yes, yes, yes.

And are you aware of this kind of thing?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's particularly like the Tenny Robinson era and that generation.

That would have been like, that's general bants, though, isn't it?

That's like, but back in the day.

You get a lot of on the radio.

So they'll do the traffic or something.

And then the traffic will finish.

And they'll say, oh, any plans for the weekend, Sally?

And she'll be like, well, you know me.

A couple of bottles of wine.

And

they'll go, oh, and the rest.

And then

you're away.

Yeah, no one's immune to it.

I think even on Radio 4 this morning, one of the presenters on the Today programme asked the new new Minister for Sport if she had a bit of a sore head after the Euros fight.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true.

Well, it's deep in British culture, though.

It's deep in British culture.

For example, in Britain, if you're an adult holding a glass of water in any kind of workspace environment, within seconds, I'm all saying, gin and tonic,

vodka.

It's so basic in the.

Yeah, it's the basic building block of banter.

It's the basic building block of

a building block of a little bit of banter, isn't it?

Ben, I saw, you know that word we learned last week about

gender

of horse piss.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I came up with the quite Philistinical idea, if that's the word, that it's bad to learn new words.

Yeah.

But I actually needed that word and I forgot it.

Because basically yesterday I watched a horse doing a huge piss for about like two or three minutes.

And it was a really great chance to use the word grementous.

Oh, gender day.

I'm feeling greenous.

We're all feeling grementous.

It's a tremendous day.

It's a grementous day.

It would have been a nice moment for a kind of 1940-style musical number.

Yeah.

What a shame.

Tremendous, stupendous, tremendous, tremendous.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was, it was in Finsbury Park.

I was.

Finsbury Park has come up twice recently, and the first time it was that you ran over a dead rat, and the second time was that a horse had a massive piss.

I did.

I ran over that.

There's a lot more fauna in Finsbury Park than I remember from my London years.

You're right, there is a lot.

By the way, I ran over that rat.

Snout to tail.

Not side-on.

That would have been weird.

I've got an update on my

strawberries problem.

Can you do that briefly?

Please do.

My partner reckons it's crows, definitely, because she came back to the house.

And we've also got some apple trees where the strawberries are.

You live in a sort of German fairy tale.

It sounds that way, but really it isn't.

On the first day, the strawberries disappeared, and he thought it was rats.

On the second day, the apples disappeared, and he thought it was crows.

On the third day, his face was pecked off by a giant crab.

It's got that rhythm to it now.

It's got fairy tale rhythm.

Yeah.

It does, yeah.

And my partner, who is a tiny goblin with long tresses of golden hair, who won't won't reveal her real name.

Who bashes out 5,000 pairs of clogs a night, doesn't she?

She's an all-night clog maker.

She just bashes out clogs, and that's what drew you to her, isn't it?

Because on the one hand, on the negative column, there was the fact that she's a goblin.

Yeah.

But on the positive side, golden hair and the amount of clogs she's bashing out.

And luckily, you're a heavy enough sleeper.

You can sleep through that.

Most people couldn't.

Yeah.

So you're knacked spending all day trying to dispose of those clogs, aren't you?

So you have to be knacked by the the time the evening comes around.

Yeah, I've already flooded the market on Facebook Marketplace.

I think I've put too many up now, so people don't expect to spend that much on them.

Yeah.

You've devalued the clog.

There was a brief clog clog bubble, wasn't there?

Where you should have sold up, Ben.

Yeah.

You should have sold up then.

Anyway, my partner came home the other day and she witnessed a gang of six crows.

Gang.

Hang on.

Hang on.

This is the perfect opportunity to use the greatest collective noun.

Murdered man.

A murder.

Thank you.

An attempted manslaughter.

That's sparrows.

An aggravated armed

robbery of terror pins.

A white-collar fraud of sardines.

A death by misadventure of badger.

And impersonating a police officer of swans.

I mean, we could go on, couldn't we?

That's the thing with this.

Please, please, please do go on there in the correct way.

Oh, just she basically came home and there were six crows just going hammering tongs at all of our apples.

And they've basically ruined her apple tree by pecking off all the apples.

Sixes.

Six is also, it's a sinister number as well, isn't it?

Six, famously.

Yeah.

Crows, six.

The estate agents don't tell you this because they say it's an enchanted forest.

That's a good thing.

You get to see, you know, you might meet a magical swan.

Sometimes a centaur want to use your downstairs toilet.

Don't worry about it.

It won't be too gender.

It's only half geometers.

I'm aware it's a deer, not a horse.

But surely there's not a word for relating to hot deer piss.

There is, I'm afraid.

It's spewentis.

It's even worse than geometus.

But there are negatives, aren't there?

Which is on the positive side, crows will take your apples.

Curses.

Curses.

I mean, the good thing is maybe that, you know, if we didn't have the apples, they'll be doing that to my eyes.

Ah, yes, yes, yes.

Ben, naive, sweet, sweet boy that you are, they are going to do that to your eyes.

Yeah, that's true.

The apples are very much a first course.

One option you've got is to wear eyes, wear eyeglasses, apple glasses, to stick apples on your eyes at all times.

But then you're much more likely to wander into the cursed troll swamp.

That's the rare side of your property.

So it's things and roundabouts, isn't it?

Anyway, that's just a little update.

So I think the current leading theory, and maybe we've solved it, actually,

is it's six crows.

Yeah, it's a tricky.

What are you going to do, Ben?

Crows.

Nothing we can do, really.

I'm interested in something to do with what we project onto animals.

So if it was doves,

what would this conversation be?

You wouldn't have said a gang of doves, one thing.

We'd call them pigeons instead.

You'd never use, you'd never, I mean, even if they were doves, you wouldn't call them doves.

Not in this situation.

They're too pure.

No, but if they were like perfect white doves.

If they were perfect perfect white doves, I'm just thinking, how would you.

Well, that's end of the world stuff, isn't it?

If perfect white doves

start ruining an apple tree.

That's in Revelations, isn't it?

When the doves take the apples.

Yeah, exactly.

And lo, the doves come and destroy the perfect apple tree and the strawberries.

And it's, oh, okay.

And the baby bites the nurse's tit.

It's that sort of thing, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's end of days.

Yeah.

And the clocks weep blood.

And lo, the puppy has burnt your toast deliberately.

And the crabs get into short fiction.

They start writing it, reading it.

It's kind of autofiction.

They mainly draw from their own lives.

Yeah, it's kind of reportage or crab autage.

Okay, time to read your emails.

Thanks to everyone who sent us an email at threebean saladpod at gmail.com.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

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

This is from Charlotte.

Hello, Charlotte.

Dear Beans, I was listening to last week's Fanjambo talk.

Ben's assertion that you can't say to a hairdresser, let's just zip it, shall we, and not speak, sent a deep, cringy shudder through me.

I can indeed confirm this is not a viable option, as I tried this myself with disastrous results.

After years of dreading the hairdresser small talk, I decided it can't be any worse to just declare, don't feel feel you have to talk to me.

I was wrong.

The look of confusion, then hurt on the hairdresser's face, followed by pin-drop silence until I left, was indeed worse.

It's so tricky.

It's a very tricky area, but that's why the Fanjambo protocol was first come up.

That's why we came up with it, isn't it?

Because it's such a difficult area.

I mean, thank you to Charlotte.

I mean, Charlotte is a true pioneer, I would say.

Because

we've all dead dream of that, haven't we?

But she's gone and done it she's she's seen the dark side of the moon on the topic of haircuts this is from jess

uh my dad had a has a hairdresser specific fan jambo alternative okay on being asked by the barber how he would like his haircut he has always replied in silence

but but but but but you could do anything with the style is that what he's saying

so he's walked out with like purple afros and stuff and like having caused offense with his silence answer.

But at least not had an awkward conversation.

Wow.

In silence.

That's very good.

Bollocking for you, Henry?

Accessing listener bollocking.

Bollocking loading.

Bollocking loaded.

Charles in Warwick, emails?

Okay.

I'm sure you've been inundated with emails regarding Henry's Prime Minister of Scotland Bollock.

Oh, I knew that was coming.

Yes, sorry.

I knew, I caught it as it was happening, and I thought, I'll let the listeners catch this one.

Yeah, so you described Nicholas Surgeon as the former Prime Minister of Scotland.

She is, of course, the former First Minister of Scotland.

First, First and Prime.

Do you know what I mean?

They're pretty close, though, Henry.

Do you know what I mean?

Exactly.

And I'm rejecting the Bollock.

Prime is just a pottery saying first.

It's the same thing.

Well, Charles from Warwick says, rest assured, I don't think there's any issue in mixing up first with prime, as they're perfectly interchangeable.

Now, I'll get back to drinking a bottle of first with my prime-born daughter on my lap as I watch Rambo Prime Blood on Amazon First.

Fuck it now.

Touche.

I mean, yeah.

Can I say,

I take that on board, and the amount of effort you put into that suggests to me that you are an absolute first cock.

I'm I'm going to declare a moratorium on that one I'm I'm not going to accept it rejecting it feels feels petty because the amount of effort you put in so I'm gonna I'm gonna say bollock ceasefire okay I'm offering a bollock truce if he'll take it if I accept it interesting so it's like it's a hanging bollock

I'm using prime as a descriptive She was the prime minister, she was also the best minister, she was also the top minister, and she was also the first minister.

You know, all of those statements are true, I would say.

Well, this sounds like you're reflecting it, to be honest.

Yeah, I'm reflecting it, yeah.

Sorry, right back in your face.

Reflecto Hollock.

And we also talked last week about the new Marks and Spencer's chocolate-covered custard creams.

Yes, I have enjoyed watching people on social media tag us in them trying them and buying them and trying them because they heard about them on our podcast.

Oh, I've not seen that.

Oh, really?

I've not seen that.

I'll have to have a look at that.

How are they going down?

In general, I think the big sticking point is that it costs £3.

You only get £6.

Oh, crumbs.

So it's premium stuff.

It really is, isn't it?

We've had an email from Blake.

Whilst listening to your recent episode, during the email segment, I came over in a cold sweat hearing Andrew's recommendation of a new MNS chocolate-coated custard cream biscuit.

I'm usually a fan of the M ⁇ S biscuit, especially their staple more chocolate than biscuit biscuit.

Sure.

Not true, that one.

But it reminded me of a time at uni when sharing a chocolate fountain with some friends where I casually partook in dipping a few custard creams what's he talking about i didn't know you could get food poisoning from a chocolate fountain but later that night i reversed chocolate custard fountain into those biscuits

No, it's a mystery, isn't it?

How is it that you could get any sort of bug transmission from a sort of open fountain in which hundreds of people are dipping their shit-smeared hands?

It's really weird, isn't it?

It's never been explained.

I think, I mean, Mike, what you say is true, but I think I'm, before you said that, I was kind of with him.

I was like, but it's constantly moving.

So

doesn't that stop the bacteria from bacteria?

A poors motion, doesn't it?

It's a constant fresh source from a chocolate spring, isn't it?

That then goes directly out to sea.

It's not just four litres of chocolate sauce being recirculated for 17 hours.

As a lovely bacteria-warming sort of temperature.

So I don't think we can blame that on the custard cream itself.

It sounds more like...

No, but it was, it was, I enjoyed it.

Thank you, Blake.

I also liked the

sort of image of a reverse chocolate fountain.

It was visceral.

I've never taken part in a chocolate fountain.

Have you not?

No.

I've been a couple of weddings where they've got a chocolate fountain.

It's a bit like the sweepsteak thing.

It just you reach a certain level of you know, you get certain social circle friendships and people start inviting you to this kind of stuff.

Yes, it's true.

There's a yes.

There's a bit of a pattern, isn't it?

Of me.

The other thing I've never heard, what is this RSVP?

Ruzv.

What isn't it?

Recent emails, Dear Spines, as an employee of Marks and Spencer's Beau de Change,

I'd like to confirm that we do indeed get swamped in luxurious Ecuadorian dark chocolate at the beginning of every shift.

With us and the notes being absolutely slathered in the rich brown nectar, it does make counting out the UAE dirhams more difficult, but it's worth it to deliver that MNS luxury brand.

Yours in fermented, dried, roasted, refined, and tempered cocoa beans, Reese.

Take you, Reese.

In spuffulated, in the most

disgustingly decadent.

Pan-Ecuadorian choco filth.

And now, praline traveller's chang.

Are there actually MNS Travellers' agents?

Is that true?

Yeah, Beau de Chrons.

That's where I will, if I'm going to get some money, I will go to an MS Beauty de Chrons.

I like the level of service.

Slightly obsequious in a nice way, but not too much.

And is this in a branch of M and what?

I prefer the cold, hard, transactional

post office.

Oh, do you?

I'm sorry, guys, but who's still using Bureau de Changes?

Do you just go on holiday and use your contactless, whatever?

Or withdraw some money?

Yeah, I like an MNS Bureau de Change.

I've literally never seen one.

Because they'll ask you where you're going and what you're doing, but not in a way that's too familiar.

You know, see, post office, they're not remotely interested.

They're not even going to ask you.

Wow.

Post office also make it easier because however much you might have spent all of your time walking to the post office and in the queue for the post office trying to work out exactly how much cash you might need for your holiday.

Right.

That becomes completely irrelevant by the time you reach the front because they will tell you what they've got and that's what you're having and that's it.

There's always less than you imagine.

So it's just what this is going to have to do.

I'm sorry, it's got to be £17.50.

So you say, I would like 200 euros and they say, we've got a thousand lira.

Yeah, exactly.

And you're like, fine.

You're like, I'm not even going to Turkey, but fine, I'll take it.

I'll take it.

I'll take it.

Exactly.

Sorry, it's not even, it's actually Italian lira.

Fine, I'll just whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

This is, I'm saying, this to me, this like.

I've gone on YouTube to look at observational stand-up routines from the 70s.

I've

no idea what you're talking about.

I've literally, who the hell goes to a travel to go to a bureau de Chambre anymore?

I didn't even know this existed.

It's contactless.

It is not.

And are you taking cash, like British cash?

Because even, even, even UK cash is pretty much over, isn't it?

I don't know.

It's like some local cash.

Yeah, but are you turning British cash into foreign cash?

Or are you...

No, I'm just buying some cash.

You're buying some cash.

Henry, what are you giving the muggers when they're at you at knife point?

What are you giving them?

Yeah, exactly.

Contactless.

What are you throwing in the air as you make good your escape?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I suppose you're right.

I hadn't thought of that.

I'm in a vulnerable position potentially if I get mugged.

If you're buying a bit of tat somewhere, a bit of tourist tat, or a bit of, you know, street food, that you know people don't people don't mind a bit of cash nowadays also yesterday yesterday i didn't have any euros and my the thing i'd ordered was less than five euros and they said you have to you don't do card under five euros so i had to buy a rhubarb turnover that i didn't want

think about that henry and that is traveling

and that is exploring other cultures

can i kind of what's your most um sort of uk centric baker pastry?

Hardly ever said it.

I mean, I could probably hustle up for like, I don't know, something like that.

And bearing in mind of something really sort of jingoistically British.

There's something that

a Union Jack flag waver might be slacking on during a royal parade or something.

Well, I suppose we could.

We were room up turnover here for the last seven years.

Someone left another British store has left it behind.

We weren't sure what to do with it.

But I thought, well, so when I go on holiday, so I'll take my card and then withdraw cash from a cash point when I'm in that country.

As a charge?

Yeah, but there's a charge at the Bureau de Change.

Is it definitely less?

I think this is...

I don't want to sound patronising, but I think people that don't live in London have a little bit more time on their hands.

What do you want to waste it by going to a Bureau de Change?

How do I fill the gaping void?

Give myself a set of tasks which actually aren't necessary, but will help fill the gaping void.

I'll go to MNS and change the money.

Lovely, isn't it?

I might bump into somebody there.

Well, maybe I'll give a go.

I didn't even know they were in there.

So, what floor are they on?

Depends on the branch.

That's a really strange question.

I've just never even seen it.

I've never even seen the Bureau de Change in an MS.

I've never even seen it.

You've got to keep going high enough.

I would say, probably, actually, to be fair, you've got to keep going high enough or low enough.

Okay.

Yeah, it's normally high or low, and you're probably having to go through meters of ladies' pants to get there.

Our final emails from Chris.

Hello, Chris.

Chris writes: Henry's story of being attracted to objects on the road while cycling surfaced a long-forgotten memory of mine, the time I briefly wore a slug moustache.

Please end it there.

Let's just

superb email.

It's time

to pay the ferryman.

Patreon.

Patreon.

Patreon.com

forward slash free bean salad.

Thanks to everyone who signed up on our Patreon.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You're the chosen few.

Patreon.com forward slash threebean salad.

Thanks to everyone who signed up.

It means an awful lot to us.

And you get all sorts of stuff.

You get bonus episodes.

You get ad-free episodes.

And at the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout out from Mike from the Sean Bean Lounge where Mike spent a bit of time last night.

Sure did.

It's one I know you were looking forward to, Mike, because

it was the boiled buffet, wasn't it?

A buffet where everything is boiled.

And here's my report.

It was the boiled buffet where everything is boiled last night at the sean bean lounge tony coffee tucked into a boil-in-a-bag bolognese while karen lopez joanne shoan jay olgien and paul buckingham clogged up the boiled omelette stand the whole night amber loftus and robot moth pachapsky lost discipline early doors and initiated a boiled food fight by luzzing steaming geoza at joe barkley and aaron baron mclaren retaliation with boiled eggs was inevitable as was loungers being caught in the crossfire including david cooper yellow frog donna teraroka and mick ford who took a full ten pack to the groin.

Steph Fox Adcock teamed up with Honor Drummond and Eve McCafferty to first ensnare Sam Neal and Samuel Stagle, then strip both their outfits of their copious elastic material, before using it to construct a powerful catapult with which they pelted Mafulio Tea with boiled butternut squash, Mark Pierce with a boiled cumberland sausage, and Beefy Keefy Tyler Orsack, Sophie Evans and Matthew Bentham Clark with the complete boiled works of Stephen King.

Lara Scott, Peter Gordon and Steve Pease tipped over a trestle table to create some cover, but failed to remove the Sean Bean Mulligatorny soup samovar which spilled its boiling contents into Patrick Meldron, Dean Humphreys, George Crowe and Harry Kidd, all of whom were minding their own business in the Boiled Bombay mix queue.

Steph raised a white flag to try and make a safe dash across the lounge to the Boiled Impossible Burger Stand, where Cara Evans and Jacqueline Gill were doing a brisk trade selling big hot mushrooms cut into circles and pretending they came from a lab.

The white hat was mistaken in the steamy haze for a chef's hat by Kate Windenberg, who, alongside Andras Fant, thought it would make for a perfect white flag to try and initiate an armistice.

Magda Gursker was dispatched to intercept the chef and bring back the hat, but by then Steph was long gone.

Visibility was decreasing rapidly, and she returned instead with the feeding bibs of Bestie's Tim and Michael, which were deemed too heavily stained to surrender with.

On the other end of the spectrum, Colin, Tim, Sarah Carrison, and Kate Cooper Owen saw no need to give up the fight, having already annexed the Boiled Pudding Zone and the Boiled Offal Games Centre.

They used boiled yoghurt to smash the line of Carry Breaking Spain, Andy Cormiken, Keith Ashton, and Warren Chester, ignoring their cries for mercy, and managed to seize the anti-Chinburn ice water plunge basin which was being guarded with neither strength nor spine, by Ollie and Paul Carlon.

Palmer Johnny Earl, Dr.

Nathan Sparks, Winky Pooh, and Ben Jackson had no idea any of this was going on, as they held their own mini-silent disco dancing to 90-zero trance while stuffing their cobs with fistfuls of boiled taramasalata.

Texas James

was similarly oblivious as he boiled a banjo and sang a song in praise of someone or something called Daisy.

Greg Hilton, Charlie Carter, Jonathan Santori and Nathan Smith took part in a boiled food treasure hunt devised by Tim Moyknip, in which, by eating their way blindfolded along a cryptic track of frankfurters led by Callum McCombs and Joanne B., they could win prizes ranging from Clare Mary Ellery and Neberland's famous boiled popcorn, double-boiled granola by Stephen Zarenka and Ben Bronstein, or even Christina Nickel and Nathan Stout's stuffed rainbow baguette.

Brackets Boiled.

They had to be careful though, take the wrong Frankfurter turning and they could land in the boiling pit of John L.'s homemade jam.

or slide over the edge of and into Fumi Hayashi's giant overheated Red Leicester fondue bucket, where all you could hope to save you was getting hold of one of abandoned Ass Factory's slippery croutons.

Special commendation goes to Sarah Rosling for sucking up all the steam at the end of the night.

Thanks all.

Okay, that's the end of the show.

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

It's the end of the series as well, is it?

No.

No.

Is it?

Yeah, yeah.

No!

No!

Why?

Why?

If only we could carry on, but we just can't.

There's no way we can.

We've just decided not to.

It's quite arbitrary in a way.

Oh no.

Yeah.

Yeah, so we're back in September, my word.

Blame me with our new school bags and our satchels and pens and a fresh slug on our upper lips.

Yep.

We're going to play this version sent in by Dav from Ireland.

Thank you, Dav.

Thank you, Dav.

And until September, goodbye.

Goodbye.

Chill.

Patreon,

Patreon

Let's tie, Patreon,

that's time

to stay the photograph.

It's time

it's time,

it's time

what it all did out.

It's time for

Patreon

Patreon

Patriot

Patriot

Patriot.