My Hot Air Balloon Ride

Benjamin, you were

you were airborne, I believe, a few days ago.

Yes, I've um

I've cut ties with terra firma.

Things changed for me.

Aviator.

I no longer am a man of the land.

Emperor of the skies.

I'm an emperor of the skies, indeed.

The partridge finally flies.

I've noticed with Ben there's a new swagger.

Gravity holds no dominion.

Since you stopped being, what you call us is you call us crust crawlers.

You've stopped being a crust crawler.

And you've got this kind of buoyancy to you, which has affected your email style.

I don't know, just everything about you is more bombastic.

There's triple exclamation marks on everything now.

And literally buoyant as well, making me wonder if the hot air balloonist filled you with hot air.

Oh, yeah.

I'm funneling hot propane up my arse all the time.

I've modernized the beam machine so it now floats.

That's why you've got a lot of sandbags tied to your waist.

That's something, is it?

Yes.

And you've got sort of blue flames which come out of your eyes whenever you speak now, which is a little bit disconcerting, I'm going to say.

The blue hot flame.

I think we should

explain to the listener that I've been on a hot air balloon ride, and that's what we're talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because we did a live show a few moons ago now in Bristol, and the topic that came out of the Beam Machine there was hot air balloons.

Yeah.

And at least half of the audience were experts in hot air balloons.

Yeah, it looked quite a weird show, didn't it?

Where we just knew jack all about hot air balloons and really had no idea what to talk about.

And then because we're normally ahead of the audience, I mean, that's one of the rules of comedy and stuff, isn't it?

You're one step ahead.

Well, we tend not to be, though, because all of our listeners are kind of PhD-level educated people who seem to know a lot more about everything than we do.

That's true.

Because I've always thought of us as a high-status comedy troupe, but it could be actually they just see us as sort of

idiots,

an idiot troupe.

And our audience are highly intellectual, highly cultured, cultivated,

almost sort of slightly effete powermongers.

You know, the people at the very, very top of society, and they see us as the cardinal Richloo types.

Exactly.

And what does that make us?

Well, we're basically three shaved and greased ferrets in a bag.

That's how they see us, isn't it?

bring in the amusement ferrets of all the actual fools.

We're not actually even the fools.

No, because those guys are trained.

Those guys are properly trained.

They're actually trained.

The shaved ferrets, it's all guesswork, isn't it?

Yeah, with shaved fret.

You can't predict what shaved ferrets are going to do.

It's Stanisławsky's Law of the Shaved Ferret, which is

no matter how good a play is, if a cat comes on, everyone will look at the cat.

But a good way to get the cat off the stage is then to open a bag full of three shaved, greased ferrets.

You already see that cat for dust.

And the audience, you'll get standing evasion.

I mean, almost guaranteed.

The crowd will love it.

And thankfully, the play ends at that point because everyone just goes,

there's no point carrying on with Miss Julie or whatever we're doing.

No.

And then the three ferrets will then be celebrated in society when

probably the next season, those ferrets will be.

And then there's the backlash against the ferrets, of course.

Yeah, that's right.

The ferrets get cancelled.

One of the ferrets runs for Reform UK.

The other one does GB News.

And

third one.

Maybe the clergy.

Probably, it could be clergy.

It could be Prime Minister Death.

Could be, disappears for ages.

Everyone thinks they've gone away.

But actually, they've invented a new, really, really amazing biscuit.

Garibaldi 2.

They said it couldn't be done.

No one saw it coming, but actually,

just occasionally you'll get a ferret that can be big twice in two completely different fields.

This takes us a long way from the topic, but what do you think is the most recent new biscuit that's properly in the biscuit pantheon?

Are we including the sort of the dark chocolate wave of

the noughties?

Well, I'm saying wagon wheel.

Wagon Wheel?

I mean, that's back in the like late 80s.

I'd say that's 70s or 80s, yeah.

That's the last innovation.

Is this an egregious tangent?

Well, I think what it is, it's a stumper.

You've got three shaved ferrets and you're trying to get them to do Hamlet or something.

I mean, it's just like, this isn't our wheelhouse, Ben.

It's too targeted.

It's too rational.

We've accumulated no knowledge.

We are greased-shaved ferrets.

We are greased-shaved ferrets.

No, no, I think

we've opened this packet of biscuits.

We've got to at least have a go at it.

I mean, I'd say

the most recent biscuit that's come on my radar,

and we're talking like about 10 years ago, is Oreos, which I feel were like a new import.

They never used to be able to get Oreos here.

They feel very like 50s America to me.

Right, okay, so they're like a really recognizable.

Will they be able to tweet Oreos on the moon when they get there

I know what you mean but they certainly weren't a feature of of my childhood of British life no no not my childhood but they are they are now ubiquitous but I think they're they're utterly rubbish

they're terrible don't you think I think you're right but is that because of your preset tastes is it come has that biscuit come too late

is it too late because the biscuit set the biscuit centers of my brain are already explicitly

you cannot introduce a new biscuit at this point

it's actually quite dangerous it's actually really really, really dangerous.

Well, I've got a similar thing, Henry, with um Chocco Leibniz, which I assume have been going since you know the days of the Napoleonic Wars, but they've only really been in British consciousness in the last 15 years.

Would you say?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is this is the problem you see because you didn't grow up in provincial England, ah, and Choco-Leibniz has been around for a while to denote high status, yes,

aspiration, impress guests, you know, someone down the road, maybe they've got a brand new Peugeot.

You can't afford a Peugeot.

You invite them over, get them some Chocolate Leibniz.

Okay.

Checkmate.

Yeah, we're still in the game.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, Leibniz,

they're the diplomatic biscuits, aren't they?

Powerbroker biscuits.

Well, Leibniz, of course, was a battle.

That's right.

The Battle of Leibniz.

The Battle of Leibniz.

And it was decided when the Austrians dropped a giant milk chocolate rectangle onto the Ottomans.

In a move none of of them could have seen coming

none of them saw it coming it's not in the art of war you won't find it in any of the manuals any staff colleges across the world it's it's so difficult to get chocolate airborne mike that's why that's why um that's why the chocolates you get on airplanes are so are so tiny

it's one of the reasons because just it doesn't maintain its integrity does it but high or low pressures that's why it's almost entirely um a um a sea level snack.

But also because on the chocolate even it's the the the the little bumps around the edge of the biscuit, each of those represents the head of an Ottoman general that was locked off, wasn't it?

At the moment.

And their biography.

Yeah, you can actually read those indentations if you.

That's right.

If you know what you're looking at.

You know what I didn't like about Oreos?

An Oreo to me looks like it's had all the colour.

The white of the creamy bit is too white.

And by the way, can we put creamy in heavy, heavy cream?

I did actually do that.

I did that visually, yeah.

It sort of looks creamy.

I'll do the sonic equivalent, which is the white of creamy

who thinks not bits yeah okay yeah

lovely english perfect available for voiceovers um the the white of the cream bit is too white and the black of the kind of chocolatey bit is too black it's got it's been completely desaturated what it reminds me of is the scenes in Dune 2 that are shot in the kind of evil kingdom, the evil parts of Green 2.

They're desaturated completely.

There's no colour.

You can barely see the Oreos in those scenes, can you?

You can't see the Oreos in those scenes.

Actually, a lot of the spaceships are just a shot of an Oreo.

That's how they get their sleek lines, quite sort of strikingly simple designs.

I've just looked at when the wagon wheel was invented.

It's 1948.

Is it really?

It feels like a very luxurious snack for the post-war period.

What were they doing with marshmallows in the post-war period?

And why did they market it with a kind of

Old West sort of...

They've called it a wagon wheel.

They didn't have to call it a wagon wheel, did they?

Maybe.

I think westerns were quite a big, big news back then.

Oh, yes.

So maybe anything cowboy was cool.

They originally called Western wagon wheels

and they were first invented in Australia.

Anyway, I need an answer from you, Mike.

Re-new biscuits.

Yep.

Hmm.

What is your go-to biscuit, Mike?

Custard cream.

What I'd like to see as a new biscuit would be like a sort of the club sandwich equivalent of the custard cream.

I wanted a tomato.

I've got a minute and stuff.

Tomato and ham.

Some crisps on the side.

A dollop of Branston's.

Eaton Pool side.

I want another layer of custard cream.

Oh,

yes.

The kind of Big Mac of custard cream.

Exactly.

I want a sort of triple deck of custard cream.

The custard cream, that is not in a desaturated world.

I'm still using the voice, but not as hard.

The cream has a bit of yellow in it.

It's got a bit of colour in it, hasn't it?

It's not got this weirdly black and white desaturated thing so it's still vaguely you can look at custard cream you can think of chickens butter milkmaids a farmer

being stampeded by a load of load of hogs do you know what i mean it's got it's got um it feels human it feels human it's in the human realm yeah yeah yeah but they they definitely feel very like victorian to me like i could imagine queen victoria having a custard cream yeah it's an empire it's a biscuit of empire yeah isn't it it's a biscuit of power

yeah as for new biscuits biscuits, I think Mike isn't a biscuit innovator.

I mean, if you're a custard cream fan, you're backwards looking in your biscuit tastes.

I'm genuinely stumped.

You'll occasionally see someone breaking because they don't last.

I think.

I mean, normally you'll see someone breaking into the biscuit market with a like some chocolate bar brand will try and make a version, a biscuit version of the thing.

Really, like a Mars biscuit.

Like a Mars biscuit or a galaxy biscuit or something, something like that.

They tend not to last.

They tend to be fleeting.

You know what I bought the other day?

Occasionally, I think most people do this occasionally, is you're in a supermarket and you see a retro biscuit from your past and you go, maybe I can, you know, I'm going to go on a trip down memory lane.

Never go back.

That's a nostalgia purchase.

So I bought a pack of blue ribband.

Okay.

Do you remember blue ribband?

It's a lunchbox staple, of course.

Yeah.

It's a lunchbox staple.

Oh, the vicar's coming around.

Do get the blue ribband.

Yeah.

And what does it mean?

Does it mean like, is that a thing?

It's a blue ribband event.

Is that a thing?

Yeah, blue ribband means like top of the top of the pots, isn't it?

Blue ribband.

I was actually, the lever of disappointment, I was actually angry.

I finished the pack, but the last three I ate was with real anger.

They were absolutely just, there was just nothing.

There's just nothing to say about them.

You've allowed yourself too many treats in adult life.

That's the trouble.

If you'd taken austerity measures against yourself, then that would still be...

exciting.

You'd still be taken places by the blue ribband.

But you're self-spoiled, so it means nothing to you.

But UK bakers have progressed.

Chocolate technology has moved on.

We can now casually have conversations where we refer to

a quadra-chock cookie.

Yeah, and it just trips off the tongue.

And no one bats them either.

Didn't they be like the quadruple chalk?

Because, you know, I think it was like late 90s, there was...

the talk of double chalk cookies.

Yeah.

You take a cookie, you put twice as much chock in it.

Triple chock emerged at some point in the mid-noughties, I think.

And then I think we've got quadra chalk now, where the cookie is, it's got chocolate.

So

there's dark, there's milk, there's white, and the fourth is quadra.

Quantum.

What do you think of the phenomenon of triple chock cookies?

I mean, does it mean anything?

No, it just means chocolate.

I think it's just, I think, I think that we have completed biscuits.

It's a good point.

We did so a long time ago.

And I think there are people who try try and say that we haven't completed them.

There'll be Quadro Chocks and there'll be your Galaxy Biscuit and all the rest of it.

But the reality is we have completed biscuits.

We're just shifting around the same ingredients.

Yeah.

We're shifting the...

We're rearranging the deck chairs on a delicious biscuit Titanic.

Exactly.

The history of biscuits is written.

Yeah.

And it's sinking into a sea of, what, caramel?

Yeah, or a nice hot cup of tea.

And I think for Mike, even though, Henry, you had that experience, I think for Mike, top of the tree is the blue ribband.

The way that his eyes shone when you mentioned the blue ribband.

He likes blue ribband.

Of course.

Of course I do.

It's a lunchbox staple, but not every day.

It's like a Friday.

Friday lunchtime.

It's not like the start of the week.

It's not a Monday.

You're sounding like a politician who's just got this line he's trotting out.

Just keep saying it's a lunchbox.

It'll get clipped up.

It'll end up on tape.

Fairness, social justice, and lunchbox staples.

Get the message out.

It's a lunchbox staple.

That's what you're hearing on the doorstep.

People want more lunchbox staples.

What people are talking about.

What people are asking about is lunchbox staples.

But, Mike, I have here the figures from the Office of Budget Responsibility that says that it is not a lunchbox staples.

In fact, if anything, it's draining the national lunchbox.

It's a Friday feeling.

Okay, listen,

it's not an end of terma.

It's not a birthday.

That's your wagon wheel.

Absolutely, right?

Okay.

Okay, yeah.

But on Friday, Blue Rabband.

Absolutely fine.

No problem.

I think because it's got such a kind of, it's got such a pompous name and it's got the ritual of unwrapping it, it feels like what you're getting, it's almost less, it feels like it might be a sort of free biscuit somewhere.

Do you know what I mean?

It's got nothing, it just doesn't, it doesn't feel like you should be exchanging any money for it at all.

There's so little to it, it's got no flavor, very little texture.

It's just a texture, actually.

It's just a texture.

And that's why when the revolution comes, you will be first against the wall, my friend.

Do you remember there was a period?

I don't know if it's still going.

I feel like there was a phase where supermarkets were selling big, slightly soft cookies in a bag.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That you sent they'd sort of made on site.

These were vaguely sort of fresh cookies or something.

It's still a thing, I think.

Yeah, they were big and soft.

The chocolate bled everywhere.

Yeah.

And they were in a bag that was so greasy you could basically see through it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Are they still going?

I think so, yeah.

Definitely, yeah.

I associate them quite strongly with the late 90s.

Same.

Which is when.

Do you remember there's the success of a business called Ben's Cookies?

Vaguely, yeah.

They have incredibly small.

They've got a kind of rental

square footage strategy for their business, whereby they try and sell as many cookies from the smallest possible units.

From a kind of meter-square unit, yeah.

Yeah, they've always got like a meter-square unit with a very, very hot person inside and a huge queue of tourists.

Yeah, so they've got a tiny one at Covent Garden.

Yeah, and they've got a tiny one on Oxford Street.

So they do still exist, but they're in tiny little units.

Well, I saw one recently.

I was in Lille, which continues.

For the second time in my life, I went to Lille.

It continues to be a little bit different.

It's a pretty strange place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Give it a second chance.

Good for you.

Anyway, I was walking around Lille and I was looking for, because it was my last day on holiday, and I was about to get the train to London.

And I thought, I want to get some classic French pastry.

Like, I'm going to just eat pastry until I can't walk,

before I arrive back in Britain, right?

Lovely.

So I was looking for a boudingerie, patisserie, whatever.

And the biggest queue outside any shop in the whole of Lille was a Ben's Cookies.

I didn't know how they do it, it, Ben.

You're surrounded by these lovely bakeries making lovely stuff.

By the way, it's possible that they've just got

a small square footage policy, and also they could be because they hardly employ any staff because there's not enough room for staff in their tiny little units.

They have it could be that they're doing that they're using QQ

psychology.

So the Q stooges,

Q stooges,

QGIS, Q skewers,

they're all under under the employee.

Cureges.

Of the elusive Ben.

They're all on the payroll.

It's a good theory.

Because obviously that does.

When you see a queue, you get in the queue, don't you?

I mean, that's simple.

That's basic.

People get in queues.

I've got a food stall market near me.

And so every lunch it opens up.

There's different food stalls.

You know, the ones that have a giant wok.

The only place really in life that you see a giant wok.

They'll have a sort of mega paella as well.

There'll be a mega paella on the go.

There'll be various mega paellas and giant and yeah, giant stir-fries and stuff yeah

and there's there's a um

there's one that does falafel there's a couple that do falafels

so i walked i went down there once for lunch and um

there was a there was a falaffle there was two flapples so one flea place had a huge queue i thought god that looks good something about that falafel place

really appeals to me it's because it had a huge queue walked along a bit further and there was a falaffle place which just had no one at it and i was like this falafel place disgusts me.

But also, the second one, there was a big megawok being stirred by a dog, wasn't there?

There

was.

And it was the fact that the dogs were front of house.

That was what was bothering me about the business.

I don't mind if dogs are doing stuff in the back.

They're very faithful animals.

Man's best friend.

They're trainable.

You don't want to see it.

They're cute.

They're lovely.

But not front of house, not customer facing, please.

They've got very poor hand washing, though, haven't they?

Well, they haven't got hands.

The only other ones I don't like to see working in kitchens is mice because they have zero cloacal continents,

which I think rules them out of being in any sort of catering situation, at least for me.

I've got strawberries growing outside my house, which I planted.

Oh, they're hand them.

And they're being eaten by mice.

And they wait until they're perfectly

right.

This is getting more and more cute by the second.

And then eat it.

These little mice, they're going out and testing it.

Henry, they're not testing it.

They're ruining my garden.

Every day I go, oh, i wonder if any of the strawberries have ripened and then yeah oh yes one has and then it's got these horrible little rodent buttons

it's not sweet henry

that is quite sweet a little mouse eating your strawberries it seems so wholesome

i'm sorry to hear that what if you imagine it's a rat because it might be a rat then it's horrific or a beaver then then it's utterly horrific beaver beaver's all right or a neighbor or could be a neighbor neighbor i don't mind my partner thought it was a local child on on their knees gnawing away at your strawberries it's a horror show then are you going to do one of these things that happens

to men at a certain point in life?

I don't think you're at that point, but which is you decide to make this a crusade, which will dominate the next 10 years of your life.

It's you versus the mice.

Leading to an appearance on BBC Breakfast.

In a reckless search for meaning and purpose.

Yeah, you'll be interviewing on BBC Breakfast about the razor wire,

the mini CCTV cameras that you've got.

Well, I just had a sort of dwindling sense of relevance, really.

You did wonders for Malibedo.

And eventually, there's a restorative justice thing, isn't there, where you're introduced to the mice to actually have a sit down and have a conversation with them.

Yeah.

Very moving documentary.

And I then hit them with a mallet.

You hit them with a mallet, and the producer's like, Ben, we set this up.

It costs quite a lot of money.

We now have to put this up post-watershed because it's so disturbing.

So you've basically completely severed your relationship with BBC Breakfast, Ben.

You will never be working with them again.

And they did see it as working with, actually, not for.

They saw it as you together.

As we were saying.

So, anyway, so no, no, no, I haven't finished quickly yet.

This is Flaffelstall.

Yeah, never mind a story about someone who's been on a hot air balloon for the first time in their life.

Let's hear about Flaffelstall.

Yeah, well judged.

Just wait Just wait till you hear it.

Remember this moment in the conversation, then wait when you hear how it ends,

then we'll reassess it, okay?

Just you wait.

Anyway, one thing led to another.

I had this, what happens to anyone, most, a lot of people, in a food court situation or one of these things which you just can't choose and you get in a real muddle about what to do.

Yeah?

Quite tense, isn't it?

I mean, the fact is, balloons are fairly safe now.

There's not that much tension in a balloon story.

And it's not universally relatable.

Everyone has.

It's been told by a survivor.

I mean, exactly.

Where's the jeopardy?

So I couldn't decide where to eat.

I went back to the first falafel stall.

It was packing up.

It was too late.

So I went back to the falafel stall that had no queue.

I thought, oh, I sort of am in the mood for a falafel now.

I think the guys were sitting.

It's also another place where they call out to you, go, come on, come and try, try the...

I wavered.

I went, all right, fine.

I went to the non-Q falafel store

he gave me he made me my everything I was looking at in the salad I was judging because there hadn't been a queue I was going that cabbage doesn't look there's something wrong about that cabbage the way he sliced it it's not it's not the right density it's not the right thickness then he did a thing which is really unappetizing which he went do you want some more falafels I'll just chuck them in don't do that you're devaluing the concept all right yes but

it's a very delicate psychological game this and you'll be really really messing up do you know what I mean you've got there's no subtlety here the these are for the bin sale man these Exactly.

It's your face or the bin, sir.

It's your face or the bin.

You choose.

I'm hanging them over the bin.

Oh, it's going to be too late.

Do you consider your own body to be a bin?

In which case,

you can have these falafels, but I'll also have to throw some of these polystyrene containers in there as well.

But it's up to you.

You will get a face falafel.

And this grimy old yogurt pot, do I put it in recycling or in your mouth, sir?

I always get mixed up.

It's got yogurt on it.

Anyway, and I thought, I ate the meal resentfully.

I thought, these aren't, this isn't a really, this isn't a really cool London falafel.

That other stall had a queue.

You know what I mean?

This isn't like...

A few weeks later, I went back to the same food place.

The initial falafel stall that had had the queue had no one at it.

And the one I ended up going to had a huge queue.

What are you going to do?

There's no way.

I don't know what to think now.

What the hell?

What?

It was queue dynamic.

All of it was Q psychology, Q dynamic.

And actually, over the course of a day, certain places will develop a queue because other people are in it and then it'll get bigger because people are seeing it and then you know half an hour later that might change around again it's a fascinating fascinating area absolutely fascinating I know this this might seem awful can we boot the balloon story to next week

it's a it

and you're right that story about you getting a flaffle was vital

but listen guys okay but okay here's made the editorial decision in in the script meeting ahead of the recording, we decided that actually, yeah,

this is top draw.

This is number one.

If you're feeling a bit

disappointed, like Pam sounds like she is,

the thing I would encourage you to do is imagine the look on my face when I saw that that initial flaffle

didn't come.

Didn't have a cue.

And let's say you've got to imagine my face at that point.

Yeah.

It's an

I'm imagining the face I'm imagining is sort of pretty much expressionless and inscrutable at the moment.

You're walking on your own in the street, I'm assuming.

I'm just yeah.

Well.

Or did you go big?

Did you go?

Imagine the look inside my face.

Okay.

Ooh.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

And then I walk a little bit further and I see that the one I

that one that I did went to event initially does have a huge key.

I mean, suddenly, my face is...

Are we going over the same thing again, are we?

No, but you're this time you're imagining the look on the inside of my face right okay because

I feel like an absolute merry fool

I am old but I am happy

I was once like you are now

I didn't understand fluffle cue dynamics but

I have a story to tell you, my friend, my child.

About the time I went to a food market, and there were two falafels,

but only one of them, only one of them had a cue.

I was such a holy fool.

I thought that that one must be the better one, but the falafels, the falafels were ultimately quite similar.

Also, in the end, aren't falafels just a little bit too dry in general.

Why is nobody saying this?

Why do people seem to like it so much?

Maybe he wouldn't have to offer hummus with it if the falafel to start with wasn't a dry snack.

What the hell is going on now?

He's putting on tahini.

And where do those purple, pickle, squared-off pickle things actually come from?

What are they?

Turnips.

Are they turnips?

They're turnips.

Oh, okay.

Are they?

Yeah.

Goodness gracious me.

Lovely turnips.

I'm a big falafel fan, actually.

Right, come on, let's move on.

Okay, let's turn on the beam machine.

Let's play.

This week's topic, as sent in

by Benjamin from Cardiff, is my hot air balloon ride.

Okay, literally, what are the chances?

That is.

Who is this, Benjamin?

Tell us more about it.

I don't know.

What's come up?

Oh, that's incredible.

Well done for gaming the system there, Ben.

You're good.

When you are the beam machine.

Yeah, it does come with certain privileges.

Yeah, it's mainly downsides.

Great move, by the way.

Great move.

I'm delighted that it's a real checkmate here.

It's a bit like, isn't it, though?

It's a bit like a kind of constitutional move.

Yeah.

Like the king could overrule parliament, but never does.

It's being a brilliant political operator, Ben, which is what you've always been within.

It's not legislated against, hasn't it?

It's not in...

When the Bean Constitution was written, no one assumed that anything

like this would ever happen.

When nobody knew that falafel,

the sheer gravity of that falafel story.

And Ben,

I can see now you've prorogued Mike, haven't you?

That's why he's wearing that shirt.

You prorogued him, didn't you?

Because you knew this could happen.

Black Rod is on his way, Mike.

Black Rod is on his way.

So, the only thing I can do now, the only options I've got is a coup

is a coup.

So, for that, I'd need the support of at least two of the other beans.

You could involve the Lib Dems.

Well, I've already reached out to the Lib Dems on WhatsApp while we're having this conversation.

They're interested.

Okay,

they're always game.

Ed Davey's asking what the optics will be if he comes around right now with a canoe

and pretends he's crashed into my kitchen.

You could fully secede, of course, from declaring yourself independent, an independent being.

That's right.

So I'd have to start the Mono Bean,

Henry's Mono Bean Club,

which I've got prepared, it's ready to launch.

I've got the logo.

Well, or, of course, you could try and institute some kind of owl fuckers takeover.

The trouble is, owlfuckers has now become so big.

I know I generally don't mention it on the podcast because I know it's

just not very cool for me to do that.

almost like a state in itself, isn't it?

It's so big now, guys.

I'm sorry.

Like, we I think the listeners can tell that normally when you're recording this podcast, you are backstage at the O2, or maybe when we stay back in that's why you'll occasionally hear me shouting something like, More crisps, Eamon, more crisps.

No, so um, yeah, it's so big now

that

what's happened is I now essentially

obviously I co-owned it with Gabby Rosdin and Eamon Holmes, But what's happened now is we've been bought out.

Pauline Quirk.

We've been, well,

it's a cabal of the three most powerful people in Britain.

Pauline Quirk, Gary Lineker,

and Dave Lineker.

He's

Gary Lineker's best friend.

He's got a best friend called Dave Lineker.

He's an incredible coincidence.

It's an incredible coincidence.

Basically, I've sold my shares.

I now work for Alphaca rather than

Alpha Cas PLC.

Exactly.

So you could be fired at any time.

So I can be fired at any time.

I've got no real power there anymore, weirdly.

But that's why you've been trying out these more expansive anecdotes.

For example, the

Falafel anecdote on this podcast.

Because you're going to need to start earning your money over here.

I'm going to need to start earning my keep.

And I mean, there's an argument that I've still managed to somehow contribute that we haven't started talking about your balloon yet.

I mean, the problem is, this is putting too much weight on what really isn't much of an anecdote, to be honest.

But the bar, we'll think about where the bar has been set.

That's true.

That's true.

We'll mainly edit it with the falafel stuff.

I could do some post-falafel thoughts.

Give me a falafel Q ⁇ A.

But have your moment.

Gone.

Tell us about it.

So, you will remember we did a live show in Bristol.

I think I said this already.

Yeah.

The topic we talked about was hot air balloons.

Everyone in the audience seemed to know everything about hot air balloons because it seems that Bristol is balloon crazy.

Turns out the man who put hot air balloons in the beam machine that fateful eve was a man called Paul.

And Paul got in contact and said, if any of us want to go out on a hot air balloon,

he would happily take us.

Yeah.

And it was decided that you were most likely to survive a fall from a great height.

When he made that offer, I saw it as a bit of audience banter.

I didn't make much of it, but it was a very real offer, wasn't it, Ben, which you very much took him up on?

I think I might have turned it into a real offer.

Okay, by then harassing him with emails.

Well, no, I didn't think about it.

And then he sent a message to us about two weeks ago saying, I've looked at the weather forecast.

There's the perfect evening coming up.

Because it's all about the wind has to be basically exactly perfect.

Yes.

And of course, there's nothing more dependable than weather forecasts, is there?

I mean,

safe as houses.

For a bit of emotional backdrop to this,

as soon as Ben mentioned that this was actually happening, I was

completely convinced that Ben was going to perish.

So basically, I thought, oh, yeah, that'll be fun.

Yeah, go for it.

I mentioned it to both of you two, and then both of you mentioned my death within like five seconds.

I was shit scared

when I got that.

That was it.

I thought this is it.

Death has come calling.

The dark crab that pins us all eventually has come.

He's arrived a bit sooner than I hoped.

Didn't realise Ben was going to shake hands with it so readily.

But actually, looking back, yep, sort of fits right away with Ben.

Yep, in fact, should have seen it coming, yeah.

And the marketing, our marketing team thought that the Hot Air Balloon Death would actually, well, on balance, do us a lot of good.

So it was green lit, wasn't it, from on high by corporate.

It makes room in the beans for you to bring on someone with a bit more celebrity cachet.

I assume you'd be lining people up thinking I was going to die.

Dave Grohl is interested.

Dave Grohl's interested.

David Suchet, as one I want.

Very different vibes of Dave, bro.

It's the two options.

We'll work through the Daves.

But Letterman, as well, isn't it?

We've talked about Letterman.

But the trouble with Letterman is he insists that we have a New York skyline and a potted plant behind us, don't we?

And the bead machine soundtrack, the theme tune has to change to

And there has to be a full live band at all times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

We don't have any jazz sycophants.

So there's no.

And the show has to then be one of those really terrible American chat shows.

Oh, Henry, you've waded in there.

You're burning bridges.

So

let's get back to.

Come on.

Let's get back.

So, Billy, how far have we?

We're still only in the pre in the sort of pre-story bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I was a bit worried, actually, myself, especially once you both mentioned my death.

I hadn't really.

And then hangs over.

Yeah, I hadn't really considered my own death at all in in my 38 years until you mentioned it uh right and the fact that it could potentially be quite a low impact event

what for the culture yeah a quite high impact event for my body literally high impact but yeah figuratively low impact yeah

um yeah would

would i get on the chortel front page probably not

well i think

it was announced at all that day doesn't it really

i think think you'd be unfortunately pushed

off the front page by the new being announced.

It's Sue Barker.

It's David Seaman.

It's David Seaman and Sue Barker.

It's double.

So it's

one of them talks and the other one does the hand gestures.

And then we swap it around halfway through.

It's a kind of improv game.

They've never met each other, so we think it's going to be brilliant.

The two ways of dying I was thinking about, about, there were two angles, weren't there?

One is...

It's all the way up or all the way down, isn't it, basically?

Well, no, it's more like...

Or all the way forwards into a cliff.

There's loads of ways.

You know, this man, before...

You could be shot by the balloonist.

Well, that's what I'm talking about.

This guy is a stranger, right?

And before it's anything else, he turned out to be a lovely, lovely man.

Very nice.

Lovely to meet you, Paul.

It was great.

Had a great time.

But, you know, he was a stranger, essentially.

Yes.

He may have taken me up and murdered me yeah um or murdered me before we even got on the balloon he may have taken you up and wooed you

and then murdered me and then murdered you yeah eaten you and a flowery bap so there was that yeah there was that element of it but then there was also the death by him being quite bad at piloting a balloon yes that was the one i was worried about yeah

being being a thousand feet in the air standing on some wicker

Yeah.

And also very close to an extremely hot fire.

Yeah, because

I thought that was the bigger risk than murder, because alibi-wise, it's quite difficult, which is that he's publicly offered to give you a balloon ride.

He's taken you up in a balloon with witnesses.

This feels quite Jonathan Creek.

You've apparently fallen to your death, but there is also a crossbow bolt through your thorax.

Brilliant Jonathan Creak episode.

It's a perfect

locked basket mystery.

He must have landed on a bullet on his way down.

He might have claimed that I fell out of the basket and then he tried to shoot me with a crossbow to slow me down.

i'm picturing there's someone on the bottom shooting up with a crossbow trying to slow you down there's someone else in the balloon shooting down trying to speed you up

and you end up just in stasis floating in the air but just getting

humbled with with shockbow bolts you get mid-air kebabs so ben when you turned up at this event so so did you at any point get what i would have got which is a cold sweat over my body and a feeling of i shouldn't do this i shouldn't do this yeah yeah did you well i first of all i messaged him saying oh i do want to come, but I'm a little bit worried.

Yes, this is his message, yeah.

Haha,

that's not respectful enough for me.

I promise you'll be fine.

Yeah, what does that mean?

I promise.

I mean, promises, promises, promises.

Go on, comma.

If it reassures you, one,

I've flown my kids since they were little, and I miss them every day.

Two,

I wouldn't risk hurting the person behind my two favourite podcasts.

I like that.

I responded to that.

Oh, he's gone for you.

He's gone for you a little bit.

He's gone for your ego.

You're bonjour ego.

Yeah.

Three, I've flown hundreds of times and no fatalities or injuries yet.

Brackets.

Well, there was that one time, but I was cleared of all blame in court.

Winky emoji.

Very good.

He's winning me over.

It's quite fun stuff, isn't it?

You know what?

All of this stuff is great, but essentially, it doesn't really make up for like certificates, proof, training, you know, insurance documents.

Do you know what I mean?

That's what I want.

I didn't want a bit of banter and a bit of what's happened, a bit of, oh, it's all fine.

When I got there, he revealed that

he had a license

to fly.

To fly.

There was no mention of insurance.

Did you sign?

What good is insurance when you're dead?

Great argument.

And

did you sign any waivers?

No,

I did wonder whether he'd make me sign a waiver.

It's weird, isn't it?

On one hand, a waiver probably means it's a more serious organisation, but at the same same time, it's not a nice moment signing the waiver, is it?

No, especially when they hand you the pen.

And hang on, this isn't ink, this is blood.

This pen is still attached to the severed hand of the previous person to sign this waiver.

I'm having to hold a said seven hands.

It's really hard to actually sign it.

I'm an independent out of a death grip.

Yeah, we had the same problem, but to do your best, honestly.

I think the next guy has to sign, and it's a death grip hand with a pen with a death grip hand around the wrist of the first dead hand.

Yeah, it's death grip.

It's still very difficult to operate the pen.

Well, what we say is, after 50 death grip hands, we just chuck the whole lot away and start again.

Just buy a new pen.

Let's buy a new pen.

At that point, you've got a death grip circle, which we actually glaze and

we sell people in the shop.

You can use them as a death grip window.

You can use them as a decorative wreath

for hula hooping.

Anyway, so what happens next is, I get there, it's all fine, whatever.

Uh, I meet his friends who are all very nice.

I met his wife, who's lovely, and I started feeling much better about it.

They seemed they seemed like they knew what they were doing.

You know what they say about the guy who was in charge of the Titanic?

Yeah, nice guy,

nice guy, lovely wife, lovely wife, lovely bunch of friends, really nice person to meet in a friend.

Great social support network.

I'm not shy of a wink emoji.

Absolutely.

So then they start filling up the balloon with cold air to begin with

to kind of fill it up.

How do they fill it up?

From what?

With a fan.

Okay.

At which point,

a horse turned up.

I sent you a photo of the horse.

You did, yeah.

Because I thought it might be the Grim Reaper who had come.

It was the final horse.

Are you thinking maybe they've got me high as well?

Yeah, or it's the final horse.

You always thought it was going to be a crab on a blue rope, but it was a horse on a blue rope.

Yeah, you always see a final horse, don't you?

In the moment,

it was just a bloke with a horse who would come to have a look, which is fair enough.

By the way, that's never happened to me at Heathrow or anything.

It's never

any of the more regulated aviation sites.

I've never been looking at the window of an airplane.

Oh, what's that?

Oh, it's a horse.

This is a guy with a horse.

Don't worry, they've just come to have a look.

Oh, fine.

I was right.

It was the backup pilot.

It was just grazing on the runway.

And it was a bit weird because the guy was basically taking his horse for a walk, but I didn't think he needed to do that, did he?

See, at this point, I start to have worries about

the crowd.

You know, the crowd I'm in, the crew.

You know what I mean?

No, not, but like the milieu.

If one of them was, say, for example, was to have brought out a bong at that point,

you wouldn't have liked it.

So for me, the horse isn't as bad as someone bringing out a bong, but

it's on a spectrum.

Yeah.

Right.

Or if someone's playing chess with a U, something like that, in the corner of the field.

Yeah, exactly.

It just makes me.

And then the balloon people were saying to the horseman,

the thing is, when balloons...

When you're using the burner on the balloon, horses in general tend to freak the fuck out.

Okay.

And we can't really have a kind of mad horse on the ground whilst we're doing this.

we now know mike that's why we didn't see the heathrow we now know that's tick

that's why they're screened they're screamed at security a bit more heathrow this this this section where yeah they were sort of saying you can't really have the horse here because it'll it'll go bananas yeah but the guy was just going like ah she she's he's fine

and it's like i've got ben honestly mike i've got a cold sweat almost on your behalf i'm i'm if this is me in your situation i'm so getting the cold sweats here and what was he basing that on with the horse what had had the horse been through?

That was...

Well, he had put the horse on a plane once from New Zealand to Britain.

That's not true.

It's true.

What?

Just using his daughter's passport.

How's it done now?

Did he say it was an emotional support horse?

Listen, if you can get it into a regular-sized suitcase that's less than 20 kilograms, you can get it off.

That's why they've got those metal horse-shaped shapes at the airport.

You have to put your bag in to prove that it isn't a horse or that it is a horse.

You've got to get the metal shoes off first, otherwise, it makes it beep when it goes through.

No, he was just saying that he had his horse and he moved from New Zealand to Britain and he wanted to bring his horse with him.

And it said it cost him £13,000.

Blimey.

Yeah.

Wow.

If I knew your situation, I'd have stored that in.

I don't know what to make of it, but I'd need to have my wits about me to just stop thinking about New Zealand and the horse.

Stop thinking about New Zealand and the horse.

By the way, then I wouldn't have got to stop thinking about it.

I'm dwelling on how they cater to the horse during the course of the flight, how they entertain the horse.

Was it sedated?

Does it have a special life jacket?

Should I be sedated?

Did it watch a movie?

Was it allowed to visit the cockpit?

I suppose if you could get the meal, chop it up and put it in the sick bag, the horse could actually have eaten out of the sick bag as a nose bag.

This isn't helping me.

Okay, go on.

The other thing about the horse was, I don't really go near horses very much.

No, we don't.

No.

I'm a city boy, really.

Yeah.

The horse really smelled terrible.

Is that what horses smell like?

If they've got the fear sweats.

Sure.

Yeah.

If they're on the cusp of panic.

If they're about to watch the 10th person die in an aviation accident this year.

What kind of smell was it?

What kind of a bad smell was it?

Are you aware of piss?

I don't think a horse is supposed to smell of piss.

Mystery.

Maybe it's that thing we talked about last time about how

every beautiful thing has to have an equal and opposite.

So there's, yeah, for every beautiful Lloyds Bank advert horse, there's a smelly old pissy horse.

Yeah.

That has to be taken out, not for a walk, as it turns out, but for an airing.

Yes.

Yeah.

Anyway, eventually he was persuaded to take the horse away,

which is good.

And then two blokes turned up after that, and one of them was oddly quadrupedal and seemed to have a very, very long face, an ill-fitting coat,

and really smelled of horse piss.

It turns out that basically

to take off our air balloon, there basically needs to be no wind.

Oh, really?

Yeah, because basically

it's the opposite of a ship.

Opposite of a sail ship.

Yeah, so basically, it needs to stand up and be relatively still for you to get in it.

Because if there's a bit of wind, it starts moving around.

Okay.

And so I can't remember how much wind there was, but it was like five knots or something, gusting to 11.

And that was kind of, it seemed like that was kind of probably on the higher end of what's okay.

Okay.

Can I say if it had been me, it would have been 10 knots.

I'm not getting in.

I'm not getting in.

I'm not getting in ten times.

Is that any good?

Lovely.

Lovely.

Yeah, yeah.

Ben, I'm genuinely getting scared on your behalf now.

Does the idea of that basket swaying swaying around in the wind is really, really I would have been really

gusting, Henry?

I didn't like it.

Because you appeared to wince.

I really didn't like it.

Ben, were you genuinely, were you actually quite scared at this point?

In the same way that...

It's not to say that you weren't trusting the guy, but in the same way that doing a parachute jump or a bungee, presumably, you just get really scared.

A little bit.

So basically, I was scared before I got there.

When I met him, he seemed very competent.

Yeah.

And that sort of put me at rest a bit.

His job, outside of being a balloonist, is he's like a health and safety guy.

Great.

You know, it's not his main job.

Brilliant.

So, but how do you get in the basket?

They just go, get in, get in now, get in now.

And he's like,

you just do get in.

You just climber in.

And it was kind of listing a little bit.

You climb over the edge.

Is that not hard?

Is it not like a little staircase or a lantern or something?

It's not very graceful.

You sort of tumble in.

Yeah.

Also,

he's not a Parisian countess.

Pre-revolution, is he?

But also, I think, like, if you if you get a commercial flight, I think the balloons are slightly bigger and it's probably like a slightly different experience.

This was a bit more hands-on.

So there's a bit of like, go ahead, I need to grab that thing.

Okay.

You know, all this kind of stuff.

Yeah.

And but inside, is it lined?

Is it like a fur trim lining on it?

What do you mean, like a like like a diner booth?

Something like that.

No, no, it's just, it says wicker, basically.

So it says wicker on the outside, wicker on the inside.

Yeah.

Wicker through and through.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think there's some metal inside the wicker, but it's very much.

Just standing on wicker is not an experience I've ever done, for example.

The idea that wicker will hold me.

Because normally it holds mini pies and

perhaps some soiled trousers and yesterday's t-shirt.

Yeah.

But exactly.

But for it to hold a human weight, does it kind of make a little scrunchie sound?

It does.

There's a bit of sign of give in it, which I didn't really like.

Yeah.

Yes.

So are you tethered?

Sorry.

Are you tethered and then someone, there's a detethering from the earth?

No, there's no tethers.

There's no tethers.

Nothing's tethered to anything.

Okay.

Well, the basket's tethered to the balloon.

Yeah.

So So you're getting just the two of you.

Three of us.

So there's me, the chap, and his wife.

Okay.

She was kind of like almost a navigator.

Okay.

She had a little iPad that showed us where we were in the world.

Basically, once you're in the air,

all you're doing then is trying to work out where you can land.

Because there's not that many places you can land, right?

That's a bit like when you go to the theater.

All you think about is when can I get out?

Like you're on it.

You've had a lot of effort to be here.

And now it's just like, when do we get off, please?

Are there multias?

She's also looking out for fields with animals in.

Okay.

So you don't spook them.

That's right.

So you try and not use the burner where there are animals around.

Little fact I got.

The worst animals in terms of spooking animals

is pigs and sheep.

Pigs, because they can't look up physically.

have no idea what's going on and sort of freak out because they just hear noise but they can't see they don't look up no

yeah

i used to piggyback i used to know that fact

sheep are particularly bad, they said, because they will just start running.

And if one sheep runs, the rest run.

And they just run without too much thought and will sometimes run into a quarry.

A bit like Londoners at a falafel stall.

Isn't it?

They'll just follow the herd.

Yeah.

Ow, finally, all comes full circle.

Great.

End of the episode.

Thank you.

They'll run into a quarry.

Yeah, or a road.

And they won't take up the tools and start trying to re-quarry it, will they?

No.

Not without a license, no.

Try getting one of those if you're a sheep.

So, Ben, what you're saying is

which animals are scared of balloons?

And you've said sheep and

pigs.

What you're saying is two out of the three animals.

Sorry?

Two out of three UK farm animals.

What else is there?

Chickens.

Okay, fine.

Chickens as well.

Two out of four.

Half of UK farm animals are afraid of balloons, is what you're saying.

I think they're all slightly afraid of balloons.

Pigs, sheep, because what else is there?

These are chickens and cows, right?

That's it.

We might have a llama.

Farmed salmon.

And it's very hard to do a fox pop of farmed salmon, isn't it?

So it's very hard to know how they feel about balloons.

Anyway, yeah, great, great experience.

Ben, I want to know more about

once you get up.

Yeah.

You've basically skirted over the journey a bit.

Was it just like pop your AirPods in, watch the Lego movie?

What was it?

So once you're up there, Ben, how high did you get?

Oh, good question.

I think...

You can use

horse.

You can use the horse horses.

Double-decker buses.

What's the kind of not...

Was there any language, like, how do they measure things?

Is it knots?

Knots is speed.

Not as speed.

Height is

yards.

Feet.

I think we got to about, it wasn't that high, about 1,500 feet.

Decent.

And he said that his balloon can get to 10,000 feet.

So to help me out from a London perspective, how many Pretamanger hoisten duck wraps would that be on top of each other?

What is that in terms of how high is that in a building?

What, 1,500 feet?

Well, that sounds quite high to me.

I think that's about 2,500 hoist and duck wraps.

Fucking hell.

Yeah.

In one day?

I've got to eat.

I didn't have to eat all of them.

Oh, God, I was panicking.

So the shard, looks up.

The shard is about 1,000 feet.

So

a shard and a half, maybe?

Yeah, so when you were up high,

what was the feeling?

Were you scared?

Were you just enjoying it at that point?

Was there any adrenaline left?

No, once you got going, you just feel very relaxed.

And

there's no wind here at Finley Wind because you're moving with the wind.

So there's no buffeting.

It's all very smooth.

And then, basically, when we were up there, they hadn't mentioned this until we were up there, really.

He said, oh, when we land.

Yeah.

There's about a 50% chance that the basket tips over and we all sort of fall on each other.

And just go with it.

If you, if you want, just just whatever feels right in the middle.

Yeah.

Fresh-cut strawberries.

Yeah, the guy with the piss-smelling horse's back.

Just go with it.

You only live once, Beth.

You only live once.

Come on.

They were just making me prepared for the fact that if the landing isn't smooth, we all end up in a pile.

Okay.

And they sort of told me how to hold on, which way to face, and so that that my arms and legs don't break.

And, you know, all that kind of stuff.

This is a hot air balloon race, race, race.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

But as it happened, he landed.

I mean, he was an amazing pilot.

His control of it was incredible.

And we landed just like a perfect, like, just imagine just a just complete, just kissing the ground, stop.

Like, no, it was amazing.

Wow.

I was really impressed.

It does sound very good.

It was a very good experience.

I wish I'd gone on it now, but at the same time, I don't want to go on in the future because I think the next, the next to being, it must be that the next

being in a balloon is like that.

Yeah, he did offer

the doomed one.

He said to extend the offer to you.

Maybe.

Mike, would you would you do it?

I don't, I don't know.

I love the idea of it.

Yeah.

I'm a bit more sold.

Yeah, now that Ben has mentioned it, I couldn't go that day.

I do find it appealing.

I can't guarantee the horse will be there the second time.

So, in conclusion, I had a great time.

Thank you, Paul.

Had a great time.

A great time and a great topic.

Really good topic.

Thanks, Ben.

From where was it?

Cardiff.

Cardiff.

Okay, time to read your emails.

Before I play the email jingle, I've had an email from

Helen, Elliot, and Bronte.

So this email is from Helen.

She says, my four and eight-year-old daughters now sing all the songs, including the swears.

I thank you.

But this was too cute not to send.

I hope you like it.

And forever, the email jingle will be a robot chewing a haught.

Let's listen to this.

Very cute, very lovely.

Thank you for that.

Very, very lovely.

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, chewing a hole.

Take me your horse.

My beautiful horse.

Okay, let's read your emails.

If you'd like to email us, send them to threebean salad pod at gmail.com.

Ash in Australia.

Hi, Beans.

I couldn't help but write to you after your most recent episode, Brackett's Feudalism, as I work at a chef in a gourmet Japanese restaurant here in Australia.

I was listening as I was preparing not only a bucket of eels,

but also sea urchins.

Oh, oh,

climey.

Wow.

I'm not rushing to that restaurant, I've got to say, I've got to be honest.

Is that one of those dishes where

you're playing a game, you're rolling the dice with Death himself?

Oh, could be, yeah.

It's a high-status move.

It's kind of like a 80s businessman real

bond villain.

Well, he writes, as Henry mentioned, the classic Newtonian principle of all things having their equal and opposite parts, we serve uni, which is basically the inside of a sea urchin.

And if I may say, it is delicious.

And I even got to plate some up whilst listening to the pod.

I asked my boss if we we could offer a pompa doo discount, and he told me to get fucked.

That's how you'd run a tight restaurant, though.

You're in the kitchen, you don't have time for that kind of shit.

I've got 50 covers here.

And you're asking me about pomper.

What?

Get fucked.

Joe writes, This is

a bollocking for me.

Had a few of these, not quite ubiquitous level, but a few.

Accessing listener bollocking.

Bollocking loading.

There's some love bollocking

over

week.

Bollocking loaded.

The neighbours viewers have been in touch.

Because I mentioned Cody, is it?

Cody and the death of the character Cody Willis last week.

At a duck protest.

Hang on, I've got a thought about this.

Okay.

What's this?

Is this a preemptor bollock?

You're trying to muscle in on someone else's bollock.

Was she shot, but not during a duck hunt?

Correct.

Thank you.

I think she was shot in Ramsey Street itself during a tactic police raid.

Correct?

Peeking out of the window.

She was caught in the crossfire of a police shootout with local drug dealers.

It was Kerry Bishop who was shot by a duck hunter.

Best wishes, Joe.

That has been haunting me since the last recording.

So there was like a drugs cop.

Did it all go a bit sort of top boy at a point neighbours?

I don't remember that.

I did watch that episode and I remember her being discovered on the floor by the sofa because a stray bullet had come through the window and killed her dead.

I don't remember why there was a drugs/slash police shootout in the cul-de-sac in the first place.

I have a feeling that might have been brushed over a little bit.

Wasn't it Harold Bishop was bringing in a thousand kilograms of cocaine?

That's right.

he got himself an AK and and then and there was that really disturbing scene where he gets so addicted to it he actually snorts it through a didgeridoo

that's how much he's putting away which was very much for the British audiences yeah and it did receive some criticism

Harold's gurning again

by the way there then there now follows a

make your own three bean salad funny bit where we just supply the main parts and the audience because everyone's got editing software now, everyone's got iPhones, everyone's got everyone can do this at home.

So we just give you the constituent parts of what we would normally do in this situation.

So it's things like, oh, oh, mate, what the heck?

Prawns, prawns, prawns.

Get out of it.

Wow.

Any other things to add in?

Harold's alive.

Take that, you pig motherfuckers.

Madge, Madge, I need more ammo.

Tony, where are the grenades?

They've shot the barbecue.

I said I wanted a medium rare Panini, not a well-done Panini.

I'm that big now.

I use the set of neighbors as my green room when I'm filming separate films.

Yeah, like fucking deal with it.

You don't like me being here?

Deal with it.

Yeah, I'm Russell Freaking Crow.

You also need to

switch out some swears to be pre-watershed.

For example, they had the phrase, well, the phrase obviously back off was felt to be too strong.

So they changed it to rack off.

Rack off, Charlene.

Yeah.

So you could also have

ruck off if you want to go stronger.

Riss off.

You ranker.

You,

you mother wrecker.

Yeah, I've been wrecking your wife.

I've also been wrecking your sister.

Yeah, wreck this.

You racked enough now.

For those who might be broad who don't know what we're talking about, neighbours is a soap opera set in Australia.

Whatever.

I always remember neighbours.

I always used to laugh because when they fancied someone, they...

They'd be like, he's a toddler spunk.

Yeah.

Fellow beans.

I was listening, as I often do with lukewarm delight, to the game shows episode when Henry mentioned in passing that he did jury duty.

No one questioned this.

For the last 24 hours, all I can think about is the judge looking over to the jury each day, wondering why one of the jurors was an hour late, yet arriving with a practical coffee and pastries, doodling ransom pictures and asking the person next to them again and again what was going on.

Imagine if you, Ben, or Mike, was falsely accused of murder.

The lawyer sitting next to you says you have a strong case, but as long as we can get the jury to pay attention long enough, you should be home free.

Then you look over to the jury and see Henry.

Can I say, I literally didn't concentrate drawing what that line was.

I'm genuinely, I don't know what that meant.

I was thinking about something else.

I know you can't talk about the particulars of the case, but what was being on a jury like Henry from Ben from King's Cross?

Well,

it was pretty intense.

One thing I will say about the cases and about the jury experience is that I ended up pleading guilty.

I had to because what are the chances?

But I had actually done it.

They had completely the wrong end of the stick.

It was actually me that had done it, which is very rare that happens.

So I did a full confession.

But basically, the only thing I can tell you is guilty.

And not just,

and

I can tell you, if anyone here has a worry about the

judicial system and that justice doesn't get done,

I knew he was guilty before anyone even opened their mouth.

So rest assured, rest easy.

He just had that look about him.

It's time

to play the ferryman

Patreon

Patreon

Patreon.com

forward slash three bean salad

If you want more Three Bean Salad, why not go to patreon.com forward slash three bean salad, where we put on our bonus episodes.

Recently, we put up an episode of Film Corner, our film review podcast, about the film under Paris.

There was also a Henry anecdote special, wasn't there?

There was called Henry Packer, What I Did on My Holidays.

Heads up about live gigs, that kind of stuff.

Well, you get the first option to get tickets to live gigs, don't you?

Patreon.com forward slash three bean salad.

There are various tiers to sign up at.

If you sign up at the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout-out from Mike from the Sean Bean Lounge, where Mike was last night.

Uh-oh.

It was bring your favourite oppetition night, wasn't it?

It was indeed.

Thank you, Henry.

And here's my report.

It's well known that this summer Marvel Studios will commit their newest creation to film.

The spectacle, as he is rumoured to be known, is a superhero with the power to dispense well-fitting contact lenses without the aid of a keratometer.

What is not known publicly, but has been an open secret in the Sean Bean Lounge, is that for the past five years, Daniel Day-Lewis hasn't been retired at all, but has been training for the role by working at Sean Bean's Folly Specsavers on the Sean Bean Folly High Street of the Sean Bean Lounge.

And unsurprisingly, he's bloody good at it.

Perhaps with hindsight, declaring last night, bring your favourite optician night wasn't going to be the safe low-key event Sean Bean had hoped for.

Daniel Day-Lewis clocked off from his specsavers shift to find a baying mob waiting for him outside all demanding to have him as their plus one to the Bean Lounge shindig.

Haley Belenis was the first to physically lay hands on the treasured actor.

This prompted a rush and soon Daniel Day-Lewis had disappeared under a pile of Rachel Clements, Jill Beaton, Max Coalthurst and Dave Prosser.

He was yanked free from under the pile by Hazel Rose who strong-armed him back into the specsavers and locked the door.

This incensed the remaining rabble who launched George Wardley at the plate glass shop window to break in.

To their frustration, George reflexively spread his limbs out like the toe pads of a tree frog, causing him to simply bounce off and he had to be thrown a further 17 times before the glass finally weakened and smashed.

Simon Moriarty, Charlotte Pritchard and Dan Catchpole looted the shop of its tinted prescription sunglasses while the rest of the horde swept in after the real prize of the night.

Just when it looked as if things couldn't get any worse, Emily Bunting was seen gripping an ear between blood-stained teeth and Daniel Day-Lewis appeared to be missing an ear.

A howl went up and some kind of hive-brained consensus seemed to have been inspired by this sight among the throng.

Before Daniel Day-Lewis even had a chance to spend five years researching the life of a former Eastern Block Intelligence Officer for a hypothetical movie role, have a cyanide tooth installed and bite into it, he was seized upon by a swarm of hands and torn to pieces.

Phil Griffiths took his hair, Ben Golding took his dominant hand, Kelly Williams took his spleen and James Parker took his back.

Barney Dufton the left kidney, Ross Gilby one gizzard and Duncan Rawlings the award-winning left foot.

Dan Thistlethwaite took four toenails and Bradley Uvergesh took a dimple, while Phil Askew and Edward Davies both made off with a handful of pubes.

Charlie Roberts, Andrew C.

and Tom Knight Gaynor teamed up as a mini-mob and shared the lap.

Father and son team William and Ben Jones claimed a buttock each and have already been signed up by the UK's Premier Showbiz Agency to tour the nation's theatres with a two-man buttock escapology show to be directed by Trevor Nunn.

Little Dennis Popcorn took a blemish, Dan Richards some miscellaneous offal, James Smith the liquid components of Daniel Day-Lewis, C.S.

took an armpit and Scott Aitken a leg pit.

Will Reimer came out of the melee with three knees and has referred himself to the Bean Lounge Standards Authority.

Overall it was felt that the carnage had been extremely cathartic and what followed was a wonderfully pleasant and sedate evening with mocktails, nibbles, and, at the suggestion of Mark the Undertaker Burger, season nine of Vanderpump Rules.

Thanks all.

Okay, that's the show.

We'll finish with a version of our theme tune.

Sent in by Maxwell from

South New Brighton, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Wow.

Thank you, Maxwell.

Maybe not far from Diamond Harbour itself.

He says, I produce dance music, so I've written a thumping dubstep rendition of your theme in a minor key.

You'll have to imagine this being blasted out of a huge substack in a grimy nightclub, a place I'm sure the beans visit on the regular.

That's the bean scene.

That's the bean scene.

All right.

Well, we'll see you next time.

Goodbye.

Thank you.

Patriot.

Thank you bye.