Australia

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to the park.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to the slotting.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to the bug.

Okay, that's got rid of most of them.

Let's talk about the details of the heist.

You need to be in Asda Car Park, Asda Coventry.

It's very much BYO coffee.

Okay, nice.

At five past.

But we're not going to specify the hour because anyone could be listening.

Yeah.

But at five past.

And then it's go time.

The budgie lands.

Let's steal some capons.

What is a cape on?

A castrated cock.

As in the birds.

Not the cock.

It's a chicken that's a bit bigger than a normal chicken, right?

It is crucial.

It is castrated.

But is that how they make it go big?

I like the idea.

I'm going to cut a few balls and make it go big.

It feels like a good threat.

I might do that, you know.

Yeah.

Well, to yourself.

Yeah.

I just want to get big.

Just see how big you get.

You're going to jump on the hench bandwagon.

But without having to do the beefcake journey.

You're going to get a mullet in poet as well.

What's a po-tat?

Potatoes is where you like, it's like the opposite of sideburns.

It's where you shave above the ear.

What an inverted oblong of flesh going upwards from the earth into the side head.

Correct.

I had a thought yesterday about sideburns.

Okay.

I saw a man with sideburns.

Yeah.

This sounds like the beginning of a sort of nursery rhyme.

There once was a man with sideburns.

In proper mutton chops, you mean?

Yeah, like proper, like, you know, covering the cheeks kind of sideburns, and quite long as well.

Yeah.

Which is quite rare these days.

Yeah.

I had them for a while as a student in a really sort of ill-judged sort of move.

But mutton-chop sideburns.

Yeah.

Other people are peroxide blonding their hair.

Streaks of purple, maybe a mohawk.

I'm going full noddy holder.

What was your thinking?

I love these ideas that we flirt with at the student phase of life.

we a sort of direction you think you might go in in life i can tell you what the thinking was actually

it was sex appeal i think it was even sixth form

and i think it was the fact that i was able to do it that i felt was a a feather in my cap yes i think yeah that's a thing at that age yeah because i was i was i was late pubertally so i was i was i was a little squirt well you went through puberty only about six months ago isn't it exactly yes and it pounced hard and it punched through.

But yeah, but I was always jealous of those like 13-year-olds who could grow

sideies.

A horrible bum fluff moustache.

Yeah.

And even now, I mean,

you'll see a bearded boy from time to time.

You know, and it's

you know that you know that boy.

And you go up to him and you start talking to him, and it's a bit embarrassing when you realize it's the geography teacher.

He's doing his undercover playground shift.

He's his undercover playground shift.

He's got his school uniform on and he's going incognito.

So yeah, so

a fine pair around the age of 18.

So, was it mutton chop, pork chop, lamb, haunch?

Which of the because there's opposite obviously, people get deep into the sideburn scene, there's a whole language or leopard's rump.

Yeah, yeah, I had beef brisket.

You had a couple of briskets, yeah, a couple of briskets.

Well, that's a really because you've got to have quite thick, clammy hair, haven't you?

To get that falling off the bone feel

that you get that you only get with a really slow-cooked brisket sideburn.

well done they they did look awful of course um

it's quite victorian is it quite victorian or something it's it's quite sort of um sort of gladstone or something like that it's quite gladstone isn't it yeah yeah it's it's it's it's either urban victorian or it's kind of rural at any other time

yes sort of darling buds of may character okay so what i want to know is how did this fit into the overall bonjum and aesthetic and look and music and vibe that you were trying to create at university yeah what are we talking are we talking kind of like wide collared shirt unbuttoned to the navel, gold medallion, that kind of thing?

No, no, no, no, no.

Or was it more come back to my...

I do want to come back to my room actually

after

the student union meeting, come back to my place because I actually managed to pick up a couple of very good pigeons this morning from a gentleman in town.

And I've got some scrumpy warming on my radiator.

But that's prison style scrumpy, isn't it?

That's homemade moonshine prison scrumpy that you make, which is incredibly dangerous, isn't it?

From found apples.

Yes.

It's made from the inside of McDonald's apple pies.

It's genetically not a scintilla of apple in it.

No, at all.

But you smear it on the top of

a very, very hot radiator, eat it for two weeks.

Yeah.

Put a bit of wood varnish in it to give it a bit of tang.

And tell you what, drink a pint of that stuff and

you'll think you're buddy Glanston, won't you?

You will.

Yeah,

you'll think you're Brunel and you'll start the rising tunnel to Brussels,

won't you?

On a proper night out with Bonjamin in the uni days.

A suspension tunnel.

Yeah.

A suspension tunnel.

So Bonjour, so how did it fit into?

I want to know, what's the music?

So you've invited me back to...

We've had a student union meeting.

I've impressed you.

Because it was one of those student union meetings where you have to...

Your rhetoric.

It's my rhetorical stance.

It's one of those student union meetings where, by the way, I didn't go to any student union meetings, but I imagine it's this kind of thing that happened.

It'd be things like, let's do a debate, but we both of us have to take up an utterly absurd proposition.

Yeah.

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

Yeah.

I commend to the House that we should allow ostriches to copulate with pandas.

Get ready for the rhetoric.

I contend that we should cover every square inch of Scotland with castanets.

I will be the home secretary one day.

No, but I genuinely will be.

That's what they're fucking terrifying.

Yeah, that's.

So, yeah, so enough of that.

I've been there.

I've impressed you at the School Student Union with my rhetoric skills.

Yeah.

But what's the Bondramin clobber?

What's happening?

What's...

What am I wearing?

Yeah, what's the Bondramin mise-en-sen?

I'm wearing a far too large duffel coat.

Good.

Ah, I wasn't expecting duffel.

Kind of Paddington-style duffel.

Because to me, the duffel.

I don't know if this is right, but for me, the duffel is a sort of, is a low-status move.

I wasn't giving big dick energy, let's put it that way.

Because to me, the duffel on the inside didn't have lots of polaroids of naked ladies or anything.

Polaroids of like birds of paradise or something like that.

Duffles don't have polaroids.

You don't need to have Polaroids inside a duffel, Mike.

You don't know what a duffel is, Mike.

I'm going to talk to Ben.

You Google Duffle.

I do think you want a family photo album.

Because that's not a duffel coat.

Which does keep the rain off.

And I can recommend that to other people.

Are they the ones with the, aren't they the ones with the wooden

long wooden toggles?

Sorry, toggles.

Wooden toggle.

To me, that's a.

It's a slip.

Sorry about hand.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Everyone can't everyone.

Can everyone just calm the heck down?

Mike, you can't parry away the fact that you, for some reason, think that on the inside of a duffel coat is loads of Polaroids by saying, oh, yeah, it's the one with the toggles.

Yeah.

You've just done a bit of kind of rhetorical trickery to us.

Actually, a brilliant rhetorical move, just the kind of anything that impresses Ben Partridge.

I associate duffel coats with eight-year-old children or midnight municipal park-based sexual deviance.

Oh, it's not Purvo, though.

Have you seen Paddington?

Yes.

You did.

You get it.

You've never seen it.

I don't think Duffle's Purvo.

To me, Duffle is like, it's saying, oh,

I'm a soft, lovely, nice.

It's sweet.

That's why I think of it as low status.

Whereas the coat that I preferred at the time and have done a lot in my life is, to me, the polar opposite of the duffel, which is the trench.

Yeah, that's the perfect coat.

He either works for the law or against the law, but either way, he's a maverick.

And he's packing.

He's packing.

He's packing Polaroids.

He's packing Polaroids.

But they're like, because I've gone trench in the past, which has all kinds of problems it carries with it.

But trench is saying, I operate in the dark spaces of society.

Or I am Inspector Gadget.

Yes.

I got a lot more Inspector Gadget remarks than I hoped.

I think in this time I was operating sort of pseudo-leather jacket is what I tried for a bit.

So you were pseudo-leather?

I was sort of like long leather jacket.

Maybe sort of just below the hips, not long, long, long.

No.

Okay, so you hadn't been swept up by the Matrix craze?

No, no, no.

I think I was reaching back towards an Indiana Jones vibe, but I didn't have the budget, and that's all that River Island had on stock at the time.

And was it with the Phil Mitchell collar?

No, there was no, no,

it was the same material throughout, same sort of pseudo-leather throughout.

There was no fur or rough or what have you.

Mike, my duffel was also from River Island.

Good stuff.

Very reliable.

I've got so many questions.

So we've got the duffel.

We've got the mutton chops.

Yeah,

you've got a pair of jeans that are just a bit too big.

Pork pinch.

If I wasn't wearing the duffel, you'd see my ass.

Right.

Crack.

that's good news t-shirt shirt waistcoat not a waistcoat mike come on i'm a loser but i'm not that loser okay

to me i'm a bit confused by the look because it's how it's how the um the beef brisket side buttons make sense alongside the duffel coat and you're saying the trousers are too big yeah they're sort of falling down a bit a little bit yeah okay so when i see you if i'm seeing you at university i think that's a conundrum and i don't want to know the answer to it i'd move on

We wouldn't have met.

We wouldn't have made friends.

I'd just go, that's an enigma, but it's a sort of, it's an enigma that I just don't need to know the solution to.

I'm going to move on.

Do you know what I mean?

It'd be like a sort of book of puzzles on a train.

I'd look at it and think, I'm not going to flick through that.

Do you think, so do you think that doesn't, that doesn't add up?

You think that's a...

I want to know what's tying it together.

If the duffel and the sideburns to me don't.

I need more information.

I need to know shoes, headwear, shirts.

So I think, I can't really remember, but I think shoes would have been sort of converse, those kind of shoes.

Okay.

So

I'm intrigued.

And also, Ben, just quick to finish the picture, what music are we playing as we go into it?

So I'm thinking

he's got a duffel coat.

He's approachable.

He's got pork chop sideburns.

He's definitely carrying his

C.D.

Walkman.

He's got C.D.

Walkman.

What's pumping?

I had a quite nice leather satchel I'd pair with this.

Like a record bad cool.

Like a proper satchel satchel.

No, it was my mother's satchel from when she was a schoolgirl.

Oh, that's nice.

Vintage touch.

Yeah, yeah, it was really nice, actually.

Respects tradition.

I was listening to an MP3 player.

MP3, okay.

MP3.

So you were,

or even then you were slightly ahead of the tech.

Yeah, yeah.

MP3 player.

Is that the same one which is the iPod?

No, no, no.

They were the little square discs.

No, that's mini discs.

That's a mini disc, Mike.

What did you say?

MP3.

Oh, MP3.

Oh, that is like an iPod.

Yeah.

Yeah, Mike, I wasn't going to you for the confirmation on this story.

Apes about tech and pieces about Ben.

But thanks very much.

I really appreciate it.

I am underqualified.

I'm trying.

Sorry, I was transported to mini-discs.

Oh, yeah.

Well, that was a very brief window.

Okay.

So we've discussed Converse.

Because the classic middle-aged thing is leather jacket.

It's sort of, isn't it?

It's one of them, yeah.

Yeah.

Or over-tight jeans with sports blazer.

Yeah.

Right.

just quick mental note, just

rethink outfit for Torcher.

And also rethink the bit where you think the trousers couldn't be tighter, but then pull them off and there's an actual, there's an actual even tighter pair underneath.

Maybe rethink that bit.

A trousushka.

A trousushka.

And also rethink the bit where you think that people will think that's the most garish sports blazer imaginable, then I rip it off and there's an even more garish sports blazer that's even tighter underneath that.

And with the badge of a disgraced sports club on it,

I wish I'd had a leather jacket.

I wish I'd sort of gone full leather.

Because the thing about leather jacket, right, is

people say it's a middle-aged thing that you get a leather jacket because you're trying to recapture your youth.

But I think, but no one actually has it.

I mean, but I didn't have it in my youth, and no one really did enough.

I feel like no, no one I knew had one.

No.

I had a big, stupid, fake one

with aeronautical

aeronautical collars.

What?

An aeronautical insignia as well?

Did you like a sort of

fake maverick?

No, I never had the top gun on.

I wish I'd done that.

Big tiger on the back, something like that.

I wish I'd done that.

All these things can't be pulled off anymore, sadly.

I think that middle-aged thing is you're trying to recapture something which didn't happen at the time anyway.

Because it's not as if in your 20s you were going around on a Harley with a snake leather jacket.

No, that's it.

Yes.

No, it's a good point.

Thanks.

It's often the things I could have done, and maybe there's a bit of disposable income.

or access to more credit than you had then.

You know, one of the two.

I had a theory about sideburns.

Oh, yes.

So we've not had the theory yet, have we?

Let's say the theory of sideburns.

A theory is probably too grand a word for what I'm about to say.

Master thesis.

So basically, I saw a bloke.

He was probably in his 40s.

Yeah.

Had big mutton chop sideburns.

And I just had this moment of clarity where I went,

Those never look good on anyone and you just should never do it.

It should

we should should just get rid like that's it.

They should just go.

So for one thing, I think sideburns are quite an odd thing to get your head round when you're at the age where

you're developing hair there

and you've got this ability to grow a sideburn, and suddenly you've got a choice to make.

And I remember feeling that it's a really difficult choice to make for a man to do with sideburns, because I remember thinking, you know, if I instruct the barber to cut the sideburn completely, you end up with this straight bit which sort of says

I'm right-leaning politically.

I don't think jazz is cool.

I'm ready to accept a military command.

I'm ready to accept military command.

I believe

that responsible management of the borders is the first responsibility of the government.

It just seems to be making a deliberately square gesture to cut it off completely.

It's sort of saying corporate, especially at that age, it's sort of saying it's so sort of, it just seems incredibly square.

Yeah.

I thought, as a teenager, to get to ask the bar, you know, when the barber asks what to do, to say, I'm just going to move.

But then you've got this thing, which is then, if you have it, how long?

You've just got this oblong.

You're suddenly dealing with a hairy oblong on your face, and no one's ever warned you about this or taught or prepared you for it, which is what to do with this flat, hairy oblong on your face.

And then it's like, how low down does it go?

If you imagine a sort of tetrus oblong going, you know what I mean, yeah, falling, falling, like how, yeah, how low does it go?

Obviously, you're not going to cut it off from its, from the top section, but when I'm in that situation, Henry, I've got incredibly wonky ears, right?

So

whenever I get to that bit in the barber interaction, I have to say,

okay, you're going to try and cut these off now, and you kind of try and level them off.

But doing that, you're entering into like an Escher world where

nothing's real anymore.

You don't know which way is up or down.

Yeah, this customer doesn't have his own spirit level attached within his heart.

It's not.

But even if you tried to put a spirit level near it, it would just go on fire.

It's like a perspective mindfire.

Please do not use my ears as a guide for the horizontal.

Please.

There is no true north.

No horizontal here that exists.

There is no horizontal.

They will betray you.

They are capricious bedfellows, my ears, when it comes to judging at the horizontal.

Do not trust them.

Yes, they're luring you in.

Yes, they're alluring.

They cannot be trusted.

But this is the problem, Henry.

You're so right.

So they don't give you a guide, basically, at all.

No.

So then if they try and do it, but disregarding the ears, the problem is that your sideburns are viewed in the context of your ears.

Yes, you can't.

And so they'll they'll look absolutely mad.

So I've just, I get into, I always get into the same thing where they take a sort of millimeter off at a time going left, right, left, right.

And then look at me.

Oh, and they start getting emotion sickness.

Yes.

Yeah.

Broom spinning.

Yeah.

They're calling for a sick bowl.

They're getting a bad case of topiarist's elbow in both arms.

Yeah.

Which their father's, father's father warned them would have the

day such a customer would come.

Yeah.

And then you just, at the end of the day, do you just go, look, just keep it it easy.

Just let's go for the dolphins.

We'll have a dolphin.

Just a couple of dolphins.

So what I say in the end is I end up just going, oh, just kind of leave it and I'll do it at home when I shave.

And how do you solve it?

How do you solve for Bonjamin's ears as a barber?

What do you do?

I think I've just looked enough at my face over the years while shaving to kind of,

I don't know.

And I don't care that much, whereas the barber wants to get it right because it's their job.

We all develop an uneasy truce with our own face, face, don't we?

Yeah, exactly.

Well, it's a language, isn't it?

Hair is a language.

Hair is a language.

And I've got a very small vocabulary.

Now, before we turn on the B-machine, I thought

we should probably do a little plug.

Oh, yeah.

For our tour.

Good point.

When is this episode going out?

This is the second one of September, isn't it?

Which is what, the 10th?

Yeah, so tonight is London.

What?

Oh, this is huge.

Holy moly.

Holy macaroni.

So yes, so if you're listening on day of release, it's now the 10th of September, and tonight is our first date on the tour.

Doing London Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Get yourselves to the beating heart of London's West End and then take either a bus or Uber

to the South Bank

where we'll be performing.

And I think we're sold out, so you don't do that unless you're happy.

Don't do that either.

Just stay where you are.

Hold your horses.

However, at time of recording, there are three ones that haven't sold out.

There's Birmingham, where there's a very small amount left.

And then there's Newcastle and Glasgow, where there's a not unconsiderable amount of seats left, just because we're in big venues in those fine towns.

But they are flying off the shelves in Glasgow and Newcastle.

But just it's a very, very big shelf.

Newcastle's the 5th of October.

And then Monday, the 10th of November for Glasgow.

Monday night.

Big night in Glasgow.

Monday night.

Yeah.

Usually.

So, you know, yeah.

Well, it's the start of the weekend, isn't it?

Yeah.

And I'll put particular links to those in the show notes.

And for those of you who are coming to the tour, I look forward to seeing you.

I'm really looking forward to it.

Thank you.

It should be exciting.

Yeah, me too, actually.

Henry does mean that, even though it doesn't sound like it.

It's going to be ruddy brilliant.

I mean, we're going to be performing on the same stage as various pianists and stuff, probably.

Aren't we?

In the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Spantos.

Spantos.

Well, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, yeah, that's basically a classical music venue, isn't it?

I don't know how we've ended up there.

But you'll be playing the cello, right, Henry?

I'll be playing the cello.

I mean, the acoustics presumably will be extraordinary.

I'll be on Coron Glais.

Good.

Cour on Glais debut.

That's a kind of vanilla cream, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's a kind of vanilla cream, yeah.

You just stick a couple of reeds into it and let it

and start blowing.

Fingers crossed.

It'll make a nice noise.

I could actually dig out my flute.

You know what?

My flute teacher from school, if he's dead, would turn in his grave if he knew that I was playing flute on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, where great flautists from James Galway all the way through to

some of the silver-fluted flautists.

To some of the silver-fluted flautists.

Some of the titanium flautists.

And, of course, R.I.P., the magnesium flautist, who died during his first performance when his head exploded.

Yeah.

Yeah, so Henry will be playing a potassium flute

at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

And that's not a metaphor.

Repeat.

It's not a metaphor.

But if the slightest bit of moisture is to escape his lips, we will all die.

So it's going to have to be crackers for breakfast.

So let's turn on the B machine.

Great.

This week's topic, as sent in by Loz.

Thank you, Loz.

Thanks, Loz.

From Bristol.

Is

Australia.

Oh, mate.

Oh, mate, mate.

Henry's always hair-triggered with the accent.

I don't know what your Australian history is, though, Henry.

Have you physically been to Australia?

Well, if you can, Thailand.

Then yes.

I've been to North Australia.

Well, no, I have been to Australia actually, and it doesn't take as long as people say.

It was actually only 40 minutes on the Piccadilly line to Elles Court.

Oh, I love this stuff.

That's a real London joke, then.

That's a London joke from like the 90s, I think.

I didn't think it was even.

There was a period where, for some reason, lots of Australians lived in Elles Court.

I've no idea why.

And there were lots of walkabout pubs everywhere.

There were lots of walk-about pubs, mate.

I used to live in Baron's Court, which is sort of, if you thought that Earls Court was a liminal non-space, sort of between zones, just a sort of nowhere zone, then you've not been to Baron's Court.

Because that is...

Barron's Court is the Earl's Court of Earls Court.

But Baron's Court

was given a measurable existence, I'd say, by, and we've talked about it before, the level of just abject, grotesque shittiness of your flat.

That's true, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it was, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, yeah.

I mean,

like, I was young, I was in my mid-30s.

Come on,

who doesn't have an open bin policy in their mid-30s?

A lot of good times in that flat, though, to be fair.

No, it was a good, it was a good time.

Flat,

so I've not actually been to Australia.

Have either of you been?

I've been a couple of times.

Yeah, I've never been.

I had quite an intense experience doing a comedy festival in Adelaide,

although that was made better because a friend of mine was getting married in Perth.

So I went to Perth.

Where was the intensity coming from?

I think

I don't know, but I got the impression that possibly the promoter in the UK had fallen out with the promoter in Australia.

And when I got to Australia, I didn't feel like I was particularly welcome by the promoter.

So the crucial question is, was this after they'd just seen you doing the gig?

Because often there's a little clue.

A misunderstanding as to the nature of the noise the audience was supposed to make intermittently after you left pauses after saying things.

Well,

I think they might have heard word of my...

skills on stage before it even got out there because but i it occurred to me before it even got out there that they might not want me there much because i wasn't in any of the listings which was a bit sort of troubling.

And then I got there.

I just sort of presented myself at the venue the day before

and found out that there was a meeting with all the other acts and there was a sort of preview going on in about an hour.

And I just sort of stepped off a plane.

I think it's called the, I think what they gave you is known as the Australian Cold Scholder.

I think what happened is on the way over, they'd have seen one of your clips.

The heads of the Adelaide Comedy Festival would have got together and gone, right, we're going to have to give this guy the full Australian cold shoulder.

the Aldos,

the Aldos, Carl Schilder.

So we pretend he doesn't exist.

We don't invite him to the meetings.

We don't talk to him.

We don't address him.

We also send him away when the reviewers are in.

That also happened.

I can't send you a lot of things.

So

stay away.

You deal with him like you deal with a croc.

You pretend it's not there, and eventually that croc isn't sure if it's there either.

And you don't give it any accommodation.

The crocks have got accommodation.

So you had to swear out his own accommodation in a bit of a panic at the last minute.

Ended up staying in quite a weird youth hostel.

Oh,

in a tiny room that does have a window, but it faces the window of another room that's a foot away.

So you have to draw the curtains at all times.

Crocodiles find that incredibly disheartening.

It's very rare that a crocodile will

keep attacking you after it's stayed at night in that hotel.

Very, very rare.

We'll do the same thing with this M.

Wozniak figure.

All right.

Yeah.

The arrangement had been that the UK promoter would pay for the plane ticket and then the other one would would sort out the stuff at the other end.

So I'd, yeah.

But none of that really happened, really.

So I was just, yeah, I was a thorn in this person's side for the entire month.

And it's quite a weird festival, the Adelaide one, because they, I don't know if I've ever talked about it before.

But the sense I got was that, because it's in South Australia, which is a weird place anyway, to my mind, because it was one of the, it was a free state.

So it wasn't populated by ex-cons.

So it was a place where they, therefore the first people there from the UK were like, well, we haven't got any criminals here, so we're not going to need a police force or anything.

This is basically going to be paradise.

Cut to 45 minutes later when they've started killing each other and shoplifting and burgling and they have to build a prison in a hurry.

So there's this weird kind of weird.

All cons are ex-cons.

No, exactly.

Some pre-cons, exactly pre-cons.

You can be a pre-con and turn into a con.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're very proud of it though.

It's got lots of vineyards and everything, but there's a weird thing where they're far away from everywhere else.

And they have the comedy festival happens in the same month that

everything happens.

Everything.

So there's other festivals, there's music going on, there's sports festivals, there's some racing thing that happens across the town.

Basically, the whole of South Australia pours into the city for one month to let off steam.

There's a weird

month-long kind of stagdo vibe I found to the city.

And insert into that a fairly fresh Mike Wozniak, I'm guessing.

Quite a pretty fresh Mike Wozniak out of his depths in a state of

blind panic, possibly just about being able to break even given the circumstances he's been met with on arrival.

Did you give him a visa?

I had a visa, but that's the other thing I found strange.

I had a visa, yeah, that was that was sorted, I think, again, by the British end person.

But they were very suspicious.

I found like

Australia is one country, a bit like America, where they've found the couple of times I've been there, they don't really believe you when you say that you're only there for a bit.

They assume he wants to stay.

He wants to live here forever.

And why wouldn't he?

Yeah.

But also, you were smuggling 20 kilograms of bush meat.

Yeah, it was the bushmeat, obviously.

But that's, you know, that's that's part of the course in those parts.

Because you, how much you, because you, you,

to break even, you had to, you had to ram your hand language, didn't you, full of bushmeat on the way back?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the only way.

And I think most Australians would understand that.

Yeah.

And you had to create a kind of bushmeat, a kind of effigy of a person that you said was an emotional support bushmeat effigy, didn't you?

That had to sit next to you on the way back.

So

I don't want to be all sort of negative about Australia, but that was, yeah, that's the longest time I spent in Australia.

It was tough.

I'd say most Australians I met were were very nice and welcoming.

I imagine they're all ripped.

In my mind, they're all ripped.

They're definitely on the whole, they're a much more ha handsome bunch.

Yeah, yeah for sure well i suppose most of our experience of neighbor of australia comes through neighbours doesn't it yeah that was my starting point certainly yeah it's weird because through neighbours you got to get a glimpse of an element of australian society that really wasn't that different to it was just people living in a sort of suburban suburban

residential area yeah but for some reason we absolutely loved it in the uk just these people living fairly fairly sort of mundane residential lives yeah That could have been in Surbiton.

I think it's because their sort of resting face was slightly smilier than the resting face of somebody in Coronation Street.

That's right.

It was Surbiton, but cheerful, wasn't it?

Yeah, more tanned.

Also, I enjoyed hearing the name Henry said like that.

You're such a loser, Henry.

I'll never forget that.

There was a Henry, wasn't it?

Henry Ramsey.

There was a character called Henry in Neighbours.

And Mike from Neighbours, who went on to become

Guy Pierce.

Yes.

He played this.

Yeah, he was.

I thought there was...

Who was the one that was the one who had his wife in a coma for years?

Daphne.

I thought he was Mike.

Was he not?

What was his name?

Harold?

No, not Harold Bishop.

You're thinking of Harold Bishop.

Harold Bishop died, but didn't die.

He fell off a rock and had a

reappeared like years later.

An absolute first in human history.

But

survive, lost at sea for about four years

and then walked straight into a retail job.

Walks straight back into a retail job.

Because he would have been.

Because it would have been a different version of Microsoft.

He wouldn't have...

There's no way he'd have been able to just take it up like that after four years.

No.

No, but it wasn't.

I think it was at a Salvation Army shop, I think.

I seem to remember.

But I did love they did go for the character in a coma thing.

It's a great, it's a great trope.

So what's the character in a coma trope?

That's like a soap opera trope.

Within a soap opera, they'll just have a character who's in a coma for a long time.

But doesn't that essentially mean that the actor can have a soft sabbatical where they can go away for like a year?

Yeah, yeah, completely, yeah.

Yeah,

it was many years in the case of this, in the case of Daphne, as I believe her name was.

And she didn't recover.

She had a last gasp, little few words.

Des, that was the husband.

I love you, Des.

And then that was it.

She was gone.

I've just looked up

coma neighbors.

Okay.

In Neighbours, several characters have experienced comas.

Yeah, yeah.

Often as a plot device to create drama or facilitate character development.

Some notable examples include Finn Kelly, who woke from a coma with amnesia and later sought revenge.

But for what?

Can I say, you know, your character is a paper thin if them going into a coma is an opportunity for character development.

Yeah.

So it says, when Finn's memories did return,

he realised he had been treated with slightly the wrong antibiotics by the intensivist on call the night he was admitted.

But him seeking revenge led to violence and his own death.

As it so often does, guys.

Let's cut it out with the old vengeance game, shall we?

Never ends well.

The one you're thinking of, Mike, is Daphne Clark.

Daphne Clark and Des Clark.

Daphne's coma resulted from a car accident at her father's funeral.

Oh, dear.

Or after her father's funeral.

Yeah.

She briefly regained consciousness to say goodbye to her husband before passing away.

Yeah.

Essentially, so I think the way soap operas work is

a lot of heavy lifting.

I'd say over 50% of the plot, because it's a kind of starting-out job in acting, maybe not as well paid as other jobs, but at least 50% or more of the storylines are just there in order to sort of work around actors coming and going, needing to solve for a bit, getting another job.

So, who's doing a pantomime?

Who's doing a detergent advert?

That's why there's

so many comas and deaths.

And meals as well, because if you've got everyone there in a meal,

just have a meal, just have a conflab, cover some exposition.

Also, constantly serving orange juice.

At home, it always has some juice.

Oh, I'll have some juice.

Let's come over here, wasn't it?

In the 80s,

orange juice, I mean, it was very, very rare we were offered orange juice.

It very rarely happened.

It was like high days and holidays, super treat.

These guys, they came in straight from school.

They poured themselves a glass of orange juice without asking anyone.

What?

Surely you need to ask permission if you've got the orange juice.

But it's because essentially you've got a situation where characters are constantly just talking and there's very little action.

So they've got to be constantly making orange juice.

So it's things like, Henry,

I think I'm pretty sure I've discovered that my mother is actually my brother and

she's disinherited not sister.

And I've need to work out whether or not that's me.

Who's pregnant with the lawyer?

Pregnant with the lawyer.

And we're all in comas.

All right, I think we're going to need some orange juice.

Come in, mate.

They'd come in and you'd have some orange juice.

Also, getting rid of characters.

So characters, there's had to be more and more outlandish deaths and thos stuff because characters are always always leaving to do better jobs or whatever in their acting careers.

But I'm pretty sure this happened.

I've never had this confirmed or not.

There was a character called Shane in Neighbors, and I'm pretty sure he just went to his room to look for something once and never came back and was never mentioned again.

I'm sure that's what happened.

Which is an absolutely brilliant piece of plotting by the writer.

If you are interested in writing scripts and you're not sure what to do with the character, but you may need them later on, take them away to their room.

They're going to look for them.

They're going to specify how they're going to look for something.

Got to look for something.

As long as it takes.

I'll tell you what, mate.

I will have an orange juice, but just give us a sick.

We're going to find something.

All right, mate.

Yeah, sure.

I'll just keep the orange juice here on the side while you're waiting.

Yeah, why don't you...

Well, pouring it.

Orange juice has been there for 17 years.

Well, I'm afraid this orange juice doesn't pour anymore.

It's just too solid.

It's solidified orange.

Petrified.

It's petrified.

He went to his room and never came back.

I'm pretty sure that happened.

Was that Craig McLachlan?

Was he a Shane?

Or was that a different Shane?

He was in Neighbours, but I didn't.

I think he was Shane.

I think we should just explain to listeners, maybe those living outside of the UK or Australia, what Neighbours is.

I mean, I think they were like, that's like having not read War and Peace.

Surely everyone.

Come on, guys.

Imagine if War and Peace was cut into sort of 25-minute chunks and

you had to read it every day, Monday to Friday,

once at lunchtime, and then again at 4.30.

Same time,

imagine if all the characters, instead of drinking hot tea from a samovar, are drinking cold orange juice.

I'm pretty sure that in this in the 70s, I think my parents told me this, that you'd sometimes go to a dinner party or something, and the starter would be a glass of orange juice.

Really?

Yeah,

orange juice was a sense of me because it was a luxury, you see.

Yeah, see, now we're in a time when you could get an orange in the supermarket every day of the year, but it's not always, you know, going back.

That's not the case.

But I I think the 70s, there's something about the 70s and citrus.

Yeah.

That like citrus was glamorous.

Because I'm sure that's where eating grapefruit for breakfast came in, which my parents still do, which I think was a very 70s thing.

So uncomfortable.

So such an unpleasant start of the day.

Incredibly unpleasant starts of the day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Grapefruits are just horrible.

It's an attack on the face from the inside.

But yeah,

and I think orange juice juice is quite 70s, isn't it?

And I'm also, I'm picturing that wobbly, that from concentrate, it's a kind of wobbly,

it's not really a liquid, it's somewhere between a liquid and a solid, isn't it?

It's a kind of wobbly or it's a kind of glass.

It's a kind of glass to form of glass.

It's a form of soft glass,

which goes into your mouth and then incredibly acidic on the way down, and then you're left with a kind of a film, an almost impossible to disperse kind of film on the inside of your head.

The rare occasions we did have orange juice in the house as well,

we were prevented, we had propaganda, my sister and I, to prevent us from guzzling it because they knew that we wanted to guzzle it

by being told that if we had more than one glass, we would get immediately get the squids.

Because it was so much fibre.

It wasn't explained.

It was just...

So you must have been watching neighbours thinking, these people must be constantly shitting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I didn't get how they were looking so healthy and blithe.

Didn't get it.

I'm in Scotland at the moment.

I had a full Scottish breakfast yesterday, which was absolutely fantastic

with the square sausage the lawn sausage no actually but there was a big square of haggis oh nice nice but also there was a a single slice of orange on the plate

and it was so nice at the end of the breakfast it was like the perfect thing like a sort of half-time orange yeah just to cut through all of the kind of but no orange juice just the the physical yeah it was great nice i'm gonna do it from now on okay it's the perfect end to a fried breakfast

that's the tip for you all Oh, I've got another.

I've got another citrus tip.

Yes, please.

This Christmas, for some reason, there was a sense between me and my partner that we should have a grapefruit on Christmas Day.

Yeah.

I don't know where this came from, and I've never had it before, but it felt like, oh, isn't that not something I'm meant to do?

And I don't quite know where the idea came from.

I've not heard of that, yeah.

It was trying to start something.

Yeah, okay.

But neither of us, well, I certainly don't like grapefruits because they're horrible because it's like being assaulted by a fruit.

So I bought a thing called a pomelo.

Have you ever had a pomelo?

No, what is that?

Imagine a grapefruit, but it's really nice.

What?

A pomelo.

Get yourself a pomelo.

Bly.

And it was one of those fruits.

You only go to the grocery and you can buy a fruit, and it comes in.

Um,

it's got like

still got it fur on, right?

No, no, no, it's got um polystyrene around it because it's taken seven weeks to transport.

Yeah, from the carbon footprint is absolutely massive

from the Patagonian lowlands.

Oh, wow, I've never seen a pomelo before.

Pomelo.

Get yourself a Pomelo.

Yeah, all right.

I think I'd feel like a bit of a knob asking for a Pomelo.

Yeah.

I think you're just the sort of guy I don't know if you're asking for a Pomelo.

I think you can get away with your phone.

I imagine you cutting in front of Sophie Ella Spexter if you haven't got any Pomelo's.

Just getting the last Pomelo.

He goes, he's promised a Pomelo for her child for his seventh birthday.

I imagine Sofie Ella Spex is the kind of person who's got a child called Pomelo.

Quite a nice name for a little girl, Pomelo.

Pomelo.

It's a good name, yeah.

Yeah, or a jaunty boy, I think, or a kind of, yeah.

Like a sort of Italian acrobat, perhaps.

Pomelo.

Get down from the ceiling, Pomello.

Yeah.

Pomello, your spine.

Think of your spine.

Think of your spine.

Be careful.

Oh, no, it's fallen into the large pot of Ariabata.

Ariabata sauce that I'm making.

Aribata.

Oh, I'm screwed that out.

You say you screwed up.

What would success have looked like, Henry?

It's always important to ask yourself that question.

But I tell you what, this is a timely reminder of the fact that there are so many fruits out there that we don't know about.

And for some reason, they're just the big hitters.

Apple.

Banana.

Banana.

Orange.

Certain ones have risen to the top and are ubiquitous, but these are the tip of the ice.

But there are so many fruits.

Every mad fruit you can imagine exists.

The star fruit, the chair fruit.

There'll be a fruit that's the shape of a chair.

And it'll taste like a mixture of banana and grapefruit.

And they always taste like a mixture of banana and grapefruit.

But what happened to the first English person that tried a lychee?

Do you know what I mean?

That would have absolutely blown their minds.

But you know what?

I sometimes think, why is it that certain fruits have risen to the top?

And I think you look at something like a lychee.

Yeah.

Okay, it's a strong fruit.

It's got a nice flavor.

But the ratio of flesh to pip is just not good enough to be big, to be apple you're not going to be you're not going to be apple mate do you know what i mean the rate like there's always something wrong with you're going up against watermelon you know you're having a laugh you're up against watermelon yeah hang on though mike i think watermelon's b tier that's not apple

it's not apple mate um

well it depends what i don't come here and tell you watermelon's an apple you know what watermelon is it's a one-off summer vibes person exactly it's not you buy a massive chunk of watermelon from a local shop for about four quid it sits in your fridge and you eat a bit of it there's too many pips.

It gets absolutely devoured.

This end, yeah, yeah.

It's not apple.

But the ones that haven't hit the big, big, big time, because I think a lot of them are probably quite bitter about it.

You know, like light cheese will be like, oh, why is it we're not up there with banana, with pear, et cetera.

But it's look to yourself, is what I'd say to life.

You've got too big a pip ratio.

Sorry.

And the other one I'd say is kiwi.

Why are kiwis not working?

Well, kiwi and light cheese are both classes answer that there's slightly too much work to get in in the first too much work to get in.

And also in the case of a kiwi,

over 100% of them are disgusting, in my experience.

I'm still waiting for the one that isn't disgusting.

They're either too bitter or too smoothy.

I'm slightly allergic to kiwi fruits.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, quite a few.

But I always forget that.

Every three years or so, and I'll have one and go, my mouth's all gone all wrong, and I'm swelling up.

Well, I saw this thing on Instagram the other day.

It was this guy, and he was...

He was in some tropical island somewhere, and he was just talking you through fruits, new fruits.

And the amount of fruits he was going through that were new was crazy.

It was like, he was like, and here's a Brian fruit.

And it was a ship fruit shaped like a brian, like someone called Brian.

And he could just rip the skin off the face.

I know it looks really convincingly like a Brian, but just hold your nerve.

It will kill your asthma, but it'll also give you 10 years of diarrhea.

It really will.

But he'll peel it off.

And then, and as I was saying, it was always, it tastes a bit like banana, and then the flesh tastes a bit like banana.

And so, so, like, they're all like combinations of each other, these fruits, of the flavors.

And, you know, you do go on holiday, and there'll be like a dragon fruit, or there'll be like a rabbit fruit.

Yeah, when I went to Brazil, I ate a lot of acerola.

Oh, I've never heard of that ever.

What was that?

Which I'd never heard of.

I've just typed it in

because I think acerola might be like the Portuguese word for it.

So I was like, I wonder what it is in English.

In English, it's called the wild crepe myrtle.

Wow.

Myrtle as in the flower,

or the girl's name, myrtle.

M-Y-E.

Yes.

R-T-E-T-L-E.

And crepe as in the French dessert?

No, as in a C-R-A-P-E.

What is that?

It's a wild crepe myrtle.

I don't know what else I can say.

As opposed to the domesticated crepe myrtle.

Let's quickly round off this section by just quickly doing each of the same questions.

When they're good, so when it's a good one, what is the best fruit?

Just in a circle.

Oh, give me a second, though, to think about this.

Because I know mine 100%.

Okay.

So when it's like the best one.

When it's a great one, yeah, okay.

Oh, great question.

See, I think that would change from time at different points, but I'm prepared to, I'm prepared to play the game.

Well, let's give you the context, Mike.

You're on death row, yeah,

and they're like, you can have one perfect fruit, and then we're going to do you in, or we'll let you go free.

I am going for a watermelon.

Thank you.

It's got to be this fruit strap.

So good.

So we've got the, just to, we've got the full pardon.

It's all written out and signed by the relevant Home Secretary, King Charles.

I really am.

Now that I've got the idea in my head, I really am.

I really fancy it.

Thanks.

Also, Mikey, I know you said strap me up like you were imagining we're going to give you some kind of humane injection.

You're going to be dashed on some rocks.

Okay, even so strap me up first for that.

Yeah, I prefer to go in stiff as a board for that.

Thank you very much.

And you're going to be dashed on the rocks by three interns

it's a training execution it's a training execution

and they're just they're recent graduates one of them did um geography at warwick

one did land economy at cardiff i'm not quite sure what that is and the other one did art history at um also at warwick but they don't know each other

different social circles

but what that means is they're going to be i think that probably means they're not yeah it's going to take a while.

It's going to take a few dashings.

It's going to take a few dashings.

Okay.

So are you going for watermelon, Mike?

I am, yes.

I think it's nice.

It's a good one.

And when it's perfect, it's perfect.

Yeah.

It's refreshing.

Mine is

a nectarine.

Oh, nice choice.

Nice choice.

And not a peach, interestingly.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah,

I think I prefer a nectarine somehow.

Henry.

I'm going for

cantaloupe melon.

Jazz.

And when it's good, cantaloupe melon.

Basically, I was in France

over the summer break.

And whenever you go to France, actually, almost whenever you go anywhere in the world, you eat the local fruit.

I'll just say this is the most London metropolitan answer to this question I've ever had in my life.

Why?

It's a cantaloupe melon.

And then we go straight into a mini break in France.

But what happens is

when you go abroad on holiday, I think

you try the local fruit.

It's fucking amazing.

And this thing happens where you're going, I'm eating cantaloupe melon again.

I'm having the best time of my life.

This cantaloupe melon, it's taking me back to my childhood.

And when I once went to France and had a cantaloupe melon, it's taking me back.

It's taking me back to a memory of something quite similar that happened.

But what happens is you fall in love with it and you eat it every day.

And then you come back.

And for some reason, you come back to the UK.

And no matter how many times times you learn this lesson, you still think to yourself, well, hang on a minute.

They sell cantaloupe melons in my local supermarket.

France isn't that far away.

Like, it can't be that.

It's just because get on a plane.

There's no way it's going to be fine.

And you take it home and you eat it.

And it's like, cut out mine tongue.

Cut out my tongue.

And it's like eating a ream of A4 paper that a badger's pissed on.

Yeah, which is what France have sent, just

ensconced in some cantaloupe cantaloupe melon skin that's been left over.

Let's read your emails.

Yes, please.

When you send an email,

you must give thanks

to the postmasters that came before.

Good morning, Postmaster.

Anything for me?

Just some old shit.

When you send an email,

this represents progress.

Like a robot chewing a horse.

Give me your horse.

My beautiful horse.

If you want to email us, 3beansaladpod at gmail.com, the first one is from Ollie from Leeds.

Hello, Ollie.

As a fan of the provincial dad chat, I wanted to share this recent story.

Last weekend, I was down in Brighton for Pride.

On the walk to the parade, all the lovely colourful flags prompted some flag chat between my partner, my mutual friend, and I.

What's the word for the study of flags?

I feel like I know this.

Vexillology.

What was it, Mike?

Vexillology.

Well, there we go.

He says, we discovered the word is vexillology.

It's such a provincial dad thing to know, and Mike's been like a coiled spring with that fact for 10 years.

Yes.

Vexicology.

Such a completely useless thing to know.

Yeah.

When will you ever need to do...

It'll have to be in a situation where you need to hire a flag designer, but quickly.

I need a vexicologist in the next four seconds.

Okay.

Yeah.

We discovered that the word is vexillology after my friend Googled it.

Funny name for a friend.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Henry Packer, and I'm...

Available to punch up your West End show.

Les Miz needs a giggle?

Come to me.

Blood Brothers needs a chortle or two?

I'm your man.

Can you hear the people laugh?

I didn't get.

You didn't get that?

No, I didn't get that.

I was making reference to the song

people sing.

Yeah, from Les Miz.

Which I've still not seen Les Miz.

Even though I've punched it up.

I've hutched it up.

No, no, I haven't.

I'm planning to go and see it soon one day.

We're going to see it.

Let's go see it together.

After the trip.

Come, Ben.

That's strange, I said.

That's not the word I was thinking of.

Oh, I know.

It's not that.

I was thinking of when ships communicate with flags.

You know, like on the Beatles cover.

Yeah.

What's that word?

It's on the tip of my tongue.

Now, Mike, Mike knows it.

Semaphore.

Semaphore.

Yeah.

God.

At this point, I noticed a little middle-aged chap who'd been walking ahead of us.

Can someone strangle me to death with one of those

near-the-licorice strings?

Just something from licorice all.

I feel like I want to be killed with some licorice all sorts.

Yeah.

At this point, I noticed a little middle-aged chap who'd been walking ahead of us, clad head to toe in practical hiking gear.

He turned a crisp 180 and proudly announced, semaphore.

That's the word you're looking for.

Nice.

Before turning back around and power walking away.

Yeah.

I don't know if he heard me shout, you're my hero, but I could tell from his stride that he was absolutely beaming.

God speed you, provincial legend.

Cheers, Ollie.

As he unzipped a home-assembled packet of trail mix

and thought, I'm going to give myself this afternoon's cashew now

to celebrate my semaphore knowledge.

That's what, thank you.

I really enjoyed that.

And it's nice to know there's a hero out there for you.

Hero or bit of a knob.

Come on.

it's an either

because i've had this have you know have you ever had this where you're hearing some people having a conversation you know the answer

oh god you're talking about warsaw right yes

but also you can't you can't well you can't because also you you then will reveal the fact that you've been listening to them to them for the past two and a half hours and have followed them home into their front room But from the front.

You've been following them from the front.

You've been following them from the front.

Which is exhausting, which is an incredibly difficult technique and you'd have to reveal that you're um yeah you'd have to sort of well you'd have to show your hand by emerging from the fireplace

to make the comment i i've had that before where i feel i can help someone or give them some knowledge but but i'm going to reveal that i've been listening

is that the thing that you find weird yeah yeah i mean i i did it recently where I told a woman to get off the train and that there would be that there'd be a train coming behind and she should get on that one.

Oh, that's good.

Because she was being a bit flustered with her daughter about what train they should get on.

But you know what happens to me, Ben?

I have this panic that happens.

So I had a Spanish family once ask me directions on the tube.

It was on the district line.

I knew the answer.

It was something to do with Earl's Court, I think, and changing at Earl's Court.

And I wanted to help them so much.

I wanted to be the hero for this Spanish family.

I really felt they needed it.

They needed someone like me to maybe become the sort of head of their Spanish family, maybe to be invited to become

the head of their Spanish family.

And to run their Serrano ham factory.

Enter that ground.

He called himself Abuelo Ham.

And what I do is I want to help and I know the answer, but I panic because I want to help so much.

I think I just gave him the wrong directions or I ran off the train screaming.

I just always mess it up in that situation.

But at least now you asked.

Ben, your one sounds okay because like a fluster.

You're intervening in a fluster and a fluster

will intrude.

Like you can, you don't have to be trying to eavesdrop to hear a fluster, right?

I guess with the Brighton one, with Ollie's one, like you would want to know, like, if you're in a Pride thing, maybe it's all like,

isn't there a bit of like Jocelyn and about?

You're all sort of quite close to each other.

There's shared conversations between groups.

But I don't know if it's that part of Pride or

I was imagining them marching along the promenade by the seafront, in which case it is harder to about face.

I never realised that Pride had a slightly sort of provincial dad, sort of boring section.

Maybe it's towards the back of the parade.

I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We are.

There's a sort of float with

some sort of

float comes through the day after.

Yeah,

if you're attending with people just sort of analysing ordnance survey maps and stuff.

It's good stuff, Ollie.

Thank you.

I did know the 741, but that's something.

I feel like that's quite common.

The other one, I have to admit, the flag one,

there's a bit of the show I'm writing that concerns a man I know who's a flag fan.

So I came across it.

Okay.

A certain

Mr.

Farange?

Okay, I'll give you some more little things like that, Mike, for you that you'll like.

So, what's a person that collects stamps called?

Falaciolist.

I thought it was lepticographer or something.

Leptic.

That's butterflies.

Oh, shit.

Oh, that's butterflies, isn't it?

Yeah.

There are certain people that want to know all this stuff and spend a lot of time on it.

Bell ringer?

Well, I'd call them worse than that, to be honest.

I think that begins with a C.

It does begin with a C?

Is it a croidonology?

But it is an ologist.

It's a pasticographer.

It's a campinologist.

God almighty.

Can we take this section of the podcast, seal it in a sort of metal bin?

Yeah.

Send it to Ollie of Leeds.

Send it to Ollie of Leeds.

to dispose of

in the Yorkshire Dales.

Yep.

Thanks, Ollie.

Thanks, Ollie.

We spoke last week about sexy cartoon animals.

Oh, yeah.

And I feel like this is going to run and run.

Oh, it's a big one.

Now, it began with Mike talking about how he had a bit of a crush on

someone from Dog Tannion and the Muskerhounds.

The Queen, yeah.

The Queen.

Amanda emailed.

She says, I too had a Dog Tannin-based crush.

Oh, yeah.

In the form of a Spaniel, Aramis.

He was.

Yeah.

What a heartthrob and total ladies' man.

You're not alone, Mike.

Amanda.

Thank you, Amanda.

I'm going to.

That's interesting.

He was handsome.

He was quite, he was like a sort of perhaps the Matthew Baynton of his day.

He was kind of,

he was handsome and slim and erudite and intelligent and charming and witty, a poet.

Do you know what I mean?

He had those

kind of renaissance, nice tousled hair.

Yeah, yeah, that kind of stuff going on.

I think out of the three, I'd have been

probably more into porthos, but more sort of your bare end of things.

Yeah.

That's just personal taste.

But thank you, Amanda.

I feel seen.

The one that a lot of people from my era remember fondly is the caramel, the Cadbury's caramel rabbit.

Yes, was very

sexy.

And I think was voiced by Miriam Margulies.

It was, yeah, yeah.

For me, it's obviously Shrek.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's someone for everyone, isn't there?

That's the lovely song.

This is from Alison.

Hello, Alison.

Dear Beans, my six-year-old learned a new word today.

Oh, yeah.

He had made a TV remote holder out of construction blocks called clicks.

Yeah.

Do you know what they are?

No.

I'm imagining Lego, also another one.

I'm imagining big Playmobile.

Yeah, that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Whilst I was praising him and saying how clever he was, he attempted to hang it off the fireplace.

There was a loud clattering sound, and then broken black plastic, springs, motherboard, batteries and buttons spaffed all over the floor.

Her son was an android?

I wasn't expecting that.

Fucking hell.

That's just quite dystopian, this one.

Anyway, he then learned a new word.

I believe the words that came out of my mouth were, right, the first word is Ben, so I assume her six-year-old is called Ben.

Okay.

Ben, you've totally smash-fucked the remote.

Which is a word that she learned from Henry Packer.

Yes.

Yeah.

He cried.

We had a hug.

I can't watch TV.

And he can't tell daddy about the new word he learned.

Until next time.

But sometimes it's the only one that'll do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's time

to pay the ferryman

Patreon

Patreon

Patreon.com.

Forward slash Three Bean Salad.

A big thank you to everyone who signed up at our Patreon.

Yes, massive thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Patreon.com forward slash three bean salad is the place to go.

Now, 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.

Yeah.

And it was

the Cordroy hat swap shop, wasn't it?

It was.

Thank you, Ben.

And here's my report.

It was the corduroy hat swap shop last night at the Sean Bean Lounge, which seemed to begin in good faith with Katie Q and Susie Q swapping their corduroy mitres.

For Steven Strenker and Alice Gribbles used corduroy Korean gats.

Hands were already spat upon and shaken when Paddy Foley, Ewan Griffiths, Tilly Hewitt and Forrest marched in without a pinwheel of corduroy upon their heads, claiming to have been robbed by hat bandits in the Sean Bean Longstay Car Park.

Chris O'Brien and Annalise said they had no business walking through the Longstay after dark ever since Frankie Buttons accidentally destroyed the floodlights during discus practice several weeks previously, the car park since that time becoming a den of iniquity and Craig Patterson.

Lettis said she didn't see what the problem was, but John Empson pointed out she never went anywhere in the dark without wearing her corduroy Corinthian war helmet, so what did she have to worry about?

Dave Sid42, Now I Understand, and Helen Roberts all interrupted the discussion wanting to know if the war helmet was swappable, offering in exchange a corduroy kepi, dunce cap, and 10 gallon respectively.

Lettis said jog on, but did offer to swap a set of battered corduroy Chicago-style firefighter helmets.

The hat bandit victims claimed these were the very hats that had been purloined.

Lettis denied this, and claimed she'd swapped them in advance with Ruth of Bremen or Streatham Hill, Denise Shayler, and Willison-Bullstrode for a corduroy mega-mortarboard, capable of holding the heads of up to 14 engineering graduates.

Jamie Tidy, Craig Harris, Kate and Arlo all swore on Sean Bean's signed first edition Bible that they had witnessed this exchange, only to recant moments later when Jonesy pointed out they had spent the afternoon watching Backdraft starring Kurt Russell and the computer wore tennis shoes starring Kurt Russell, and they may have gotten muddled.

Katerina Daly, HungryforTie.com and Rachel Hyton tried to get the swap shop back on the road but came under fire themselves after presenting not hats but made-to-measure orthodontic face masks.

Starry Ario and Katrin Harris claimed to have information on the identity of the bandits, which they would exchange for an exchange of their corduroy halo hats.

Tim Sieber and David Button cried foul, saying according to the rules of the night, information could not be exchanged unless in the form of corduroy.

And so Baby Juno and Big Joe were let in on the secret and set to work translating the data into a corduroy poke bonnet.

This was presented to the crowd, but owing to Frankie Button's interior discus practice sessions, many of the lights had been shattered and the bonnet was hard to read.

Laura Mead thought Reed Messenger was accused, Sam Potter saw Liam Francis' name, Andranonomy felt certain the bandits were Poppy Fellows and Olivia Goodall.

To be on the safe side, Eloise Adamson rounded the lot of them up.

Alice Martin secured them in the Corduroy Stockade, where they were pelted with Rotting Corduroy by Sean Jarvis.

Thanks all.

Okay, that's the show.

We'll finish off with the version of our theme tune sent in by one of you, and this is from E

Emily.

That's an unusual, that's an unusual spelling.

So

she goes for the long E

before the main E.

And then the pause.

And the pause, and the.

People always have a funny version of their own names these days, don't they?

It's always Sean with a this or Will with a that.

And sometimes it's Emily with the long E, the pause, and then the Emily.

Which is how it was originally spelled, I think.

Yes, that's right.

Well, it was a way of shouting, it was a way of alerting people to the fact that you were in a well.

Yes.

If you were called Emily.

And

that you were from the North East.

And you're from the North East.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily writes.

Hello, Beans.

I listened to your pod while sewing.

Very nice.

It involves hours and hours of spinning yarn at a tepid pace, only to end up with something completely absurd.

What?

And nothing like what you set out to do in your state.

What?

What?

What?

And the other is my latest sewing project.

Play the jingle.

Well done, E.

Emily, your badge is in the post.

Perfect, Switcheroo.

Lovely.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the old switcheroo.

Okay, I see what you're saying.

Yeah, you're saying that.

What?

I thought he was trying to say.

Oh, he's gone the other way.

What?

Oh, he's gone the other way around.

He means that...

Oh, that's what he meant.

Oh, what?

So,

what he said before wasn't like, I thought he's gone the other way around for there.

Oh, God.

It's the old switcheroo.

Since being with my boyfriend, he has picked up a few of my commonly used phrases.

His favorite being, you're so full of beans.

I used his voice clip along with my duck whistle

to make your theme jingle on a free MIDI software.

I hope you like it.

It's pure shit.

Kind regards.

E.

Emily.

E.

Emily.

Thanks and E.

Emily.

So's is self-effacing.

Three bean sounded listeners.

I'm fairly confused as to what this will actually be.

Well, let's hope she's one of those people where she's self-effacing when she knows something's actually really good because that can happen.

The people will be like, oh no, it's nothing really.

And then they bring in like a four-tier.

And they can really use a duck whistle.

Do you think she's so self-effacing that she's said that

it's done on a duck whistle, but it'll actually be done on a full symphony orchestra?

That she operates with her foot.

It could be.

Let's see.

Thanks for listening, everyone.

We'll see you next time.

Yeah.

Cheerio.

Thank you all for your time.

Bye.

You're so full of beans.

You're so full of beans.

You're so full of beans.

Oh, wow.

This has been the proms

live from the Albert Hall.

Good night.

Magnificent.

The conductor was Andrew Rattle, and the performer was the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

And the goose was Castian Defrane.

Hello.

I have some rather sad news to share with you, I'm afraid.

Now, you may have noticed that

Bluebell Bluebell hasn't been mentioned on the podcast for quite a while now.

And

I'm afraid the reason for that, I'm very sorry to have to tell you, is because Bluebell passed away.

Now, this happened a while back, and it's taken me a while to feel ready to talk about it on the podcast

because

it was too raw, basically.

But now some time has passed, and

I'm ready.

Blue Belt was 12 years old, which is not a bad age for a shorthair.

And she led, I think, a very happy life where she was extremely, almost too well looked after, you could argue.

But she did have some underlying health conditions, which we managed for as long as possible.

But eventually they caught up with her um

yeah

so

look it was very very sad um and i i learnt the truth of what what i've heard people say before which is that when you get a pet and when you welcome one of these furry but not exclusively furry

um you know there are scaly there are smooth and wet animals um

which people also welcome into their lives and love but but often furry when you welcome one of these furry creatures into your life you get a huge amount out of it and it's wonderful but you're booking in heartbreak you're booking in one of the worst days of your life and that's the deal

basically so that day came around

bluebell so many memories the one that i'm i'm thinking about right now is i'm just picturing bluebell sitting on my lap which is something she did a lot, but for some reason it was only, it was an honor she only bestowed on me for some reason.

She didn't do this with anyone else.

She would sit on my lap and just stare at me, and we'd stare at each other.

And her breathing would slow down, and my breathing would slow down, and she'd start purring, and I would start mentally purring.

And we were very in sync.

It was a very intimate, connected moment between the two of us.

And it was a very calming and joyful moment for me

and then suddenly she'd just jump up and run off

because that was the thing with bluebell she she gave a lot and she would welcome you in but she also had boundaries and she needed her own time and space and i respected that and she would run off and just leave me sat there with um hairy trousers

and um

I really miss having hairy trousers.

I have thousands of memories of Bluebell.

and now that I've got this news off my chest, I'm really hoping that Bluebell can now come back into the podcast and that I can now share memories of Bluebell again and that she can live on in pod form.

But for now, maybe you would join me in raising a glass or small low bowl of tap water

to Bluebell.

Bluebell,

Bluebell,

soft and gentle and wise and kind.

Bluebell,

blue bell.

Sturdy paws and silky thighs.

Bluebell.

There she flies

like a furry star.

Classic and stylish,

back a vintage car.

You're gonna go far.

Bluebell,

Blue Bell

Take me away on a magical trip Bluebell,

Blue Bell

To the Milky Way on your fairy spaceship Blue Bell

I'll feed you meat biscuits

upon the moon

We'll defeat a giant worm

like in June

I'll see you there soon.

Blue Balina and Blue Baruma.

Blue Balama and Blue Baruma.

Blue Marata and Bloomerat.

Bloomerat.

You'll swipe off the faces of our enemies.

You'll toy with the corpses

of anyone who defies algalactic rule.

It's cruel to be kind, but mainly to be cruel.

Mm-mm-mm-mm.