Organised Crime

Speaker 1 Hello, everyone. Welcome.
Hello. And a pre-Yuletide greeting.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It'll feel pretty Yule when it comes out, though, I would say. The Christmas markets will be afoot.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 The Advent calendars would have been semi-decimated. Some people still won't have put up their tree and will be beginning to feel stressed about it.
That sort of thing.

Speaker 1 Some people, i.e. me, won't have bought any gifts for anyone.

Speaker 1 Grinch alert, grinch alert.

Speaker 1 Of course, advent calendars are getting more and more

Speaker 1 technically sophisticated and ambitious now, aren't they? I don't know if you saw that

Speaker 1 Harrods has released its

Speaker 1 Dashans

Speaker 1 Advent calendar. So there's

Speaker 1 20, it's 24 Dashens

Speaker 1 because the 25th one, it can't live that long in a cup of book box.

Speaker 1 It just can't be done. They've tried everything.

Speaker 1 That's more traditional anyway, isn't it, really? It's more traditional. It's a 24 days, yeah.
Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 1 You're right. Because on the day itself, you're not supposed to have a Dashand, are you? Not a dead one, no.

Speaker 1 Dreadful luck. Yeah.
Dreadful, dreadful luck. So they've replaced, haven't they? They've replaced the 25th Dashand with just a simple sausage cannon, which you can use to

Speaker 1 efficiently feed the 24 Dashans who have come before. That's right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the Sausage Dog Advent calendar. It's the deepest.
It's the deepest Advent calendar. And the loudest.

Speaker 1 And the worst smelling

Speaker 1 of all the current Advent calendars. It's going to get tongues wagging in the neighborhood, is what we're saying.
So if you're trying to keep up with the Joneses, it's the premier choice.

Speaker 1 What's the Wozniak family policy on Advent calendars? We're pro-Advent calendar. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Big time. I mean, who's not? What are the drawbacks? When I was a child, in my household, we were very much

Speaker 1 advent calmer with a little picture behind it rather than anything you could eat.

Speaker 1 I don't think they even exist these days, do they? I think the backlash would be so fearsome. The idea that you could monetize the concept of concealing a drawing of a sparrow.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Of non-permanently concealing it. Of the sparrow of Bethlehem.
The sparrow master.

Speaker 1 The idea that Gen Alpha are going to put money behind that. That you can build up

Speaker 1 the sparrow of Bethlehem on day 24.

Speaker 1 The children, yeah, the children of the 90s and 80s

Speaker 1 can barely contain themselves. Mummy, do you think it'll be the sparrow of Bethlehem today?

Speaker 1 Can I open it one day early, please?

Speaker 1 Oh, no, mum, it's just a picture of two candles.

Speaker 1 But I still feel that my mental health is in a much better place than it would be if there was some sort of way that I could communicate with all my friends and everyone on earth through a mini-flat television in my hand that was also a clock.

Speaker 1 But listen, do you know what I mean, mum? But, Benjamin, this has trained you in

Speaker 1 extreme self-restraint and expectation management. Yes, these are great tools for a largely unsatisfactory life.

Speaker 1 But also, Mike, but Mike, beyond that, also, I think it actually, in a genuine way, trains us in urinary muscular control.

Speaker 1 It's the same muscles.

Speaker 1 The same muscle that controls the expectation of seeing a picture of a sparrow. It's the same urethral sphincter that holds in our pits, right?

Speaker 1 Ben, you need to wake up and smell the freaking,

Speaker 1 yeah, admittedly

Speaker 1 cinnamon-flavoured coffee. That's because it's Yuletide.
But you still need to wake up and smell that bloody cinnamon-favoured coffee. Smell that limited edition coffee.

Speaker 1 Smell that limited edition coffee, mate. Yeah.
And actually, you need to pull your socks up and give yourself a smack around the head with a Christmas candy baton, to be fair.

Speaker 1 That's what they're called.

Speaker 1 Candy baton.

Speaker 1 Or the candy truncheon or the candy taser, whichever

Speaker 1 non-lethal police weapon you choose to use. The candy cat oh nine tails.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's a good. Well, that's what they cause the Her Majesty, His Majesty's, actually, now.
Always feels weird saying it, doesn't he? His Majesty's Prison Service.

Speaker 1 But of course, His Majesty's Prison Service will be rolling out the candy batons, the candy tasers, and the candy

Speaker 1 water cannon, yes.

Speaker 1 Because it's Christmas time, it's Christmas time everywhere, and it's also Christmas time in His Majesty's prisons. We shouldn't forget that.

Speaker 1 And also, the prisoners will be shanking each other with little Christmas-themed shanks, won't they?

Speaker 1 Little candy canes, little sharpened candy canes, little sharpened candy canes, and little, and a lot of them will be smuggling in little rubber stamps with pictures of Yuletide sparrows to stamp onto those

Speaker 1 rough blades before shanking either a nonce, a bent warden,

Speaker 1 or the current kingpin, yeah,

Speaker 1 Or the current kingpin in a Yule-type power grab.

Speaker 1 You just don't know.

Speaker 1 But it did work, right? Like

Speaker 1 just concealing a picture of something. Yeah, of course it worked

Speaker 1 because there was nothing else.

Speaker 1 There was nothing.

Speaker 1 There wouldn't have been any other options in the Bonjo household. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 You probably didn't even know that it was possible

Speaker 1 these doors could contain an object, let alone confectionery, right? They'd have concealed that information from you. Yes, Mike, I wasn't sent to school for that reason.

Speaker 1 They kept me home on the Christmas time period in case I found out that you could get one with a little twigs behind it.

Speaker 1 Because you were home Advented, weren't you? You were a home Advented.

Speaker 1 You never knew of any other Advent calendar beyond your home one until the heady days of the early noughties when you were a 23-year-old student. Most university, yeah, first year of university.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And that was a a hell of a freshest week for you, wasn't it?

Speaker 1 Of course, at university, everyone got their Advent candy out at the beginning of Advent, and I got mine out with the little picture of the Christmas sparrow, the sparrow of Bethlehem behind it.

Speaker 1 And there's had just shots of aftershock behind every

Speaker 1 behind every little door. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And you were like a picture of an aftershock with a little sparrow of Bethlehem having a bird bath in it. Maybe.
Yeah. That was as far as you'd go.
Yeah. Jesus drinking a sambuca on Christmas Day.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that sort of thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you're running a couple of chocolate ones in the house? How many have you got, Mike?

Speaker 1 We've got two chocolate ones in the house. Great.
Yeah. Are they themed? Well, yes, they are themed, but the theme is very much the theme of the international chocolates here.

Speaker 1 It's omni-sweets, basically. I mean, there's a little bit of Christmas decoration on it.

Speaker 1 It's all about the treats.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 there'll be a vague picture of a Christmas tree and a a Christmas sparrow and a beard somewhere on the box, but it's not, it's the visuals are all about the choco.

Speaker 1 So hang on, sorry, it sounds to me like you're buying knock-off advent calendars from someone you met like

Speaker 1 around the back of an abattoir. Yeah, so they have the wrong date, they have the wrong dates on them.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 no, it's not Gregorian.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's using the Mesopotamian calendar,

Speaker 1 which we're having to learn day by day. Are you sure it's not some sort of poison, poison meats, sort of

Speaker 1 meats? Some extra poison meats and

Speaker 1 pickled wasps. Yeah, that's not poison meats, allergy tester board.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And every morning

Speaker 1 you have to cross-check the number on the door with the sundial outside to make sure it's the right day. And on the last day, there's the.
I think the goblet of knowledge will pour forth.

Speaker 1 While chemically, if you analyse it, it's the blood of a sow, isn't it? But actually, the knowledge is

Speaker 1 sort of, well, it's non-scientific, isn't it? The knowledge.

Speaker 1 It's very much, the knowledge is, I probably shouldn't do that again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Henry, have you got one? I don't have one in the house. I'm living the Grinch life.
No, I don't have one in the house.

Speaker 1 I'm wondering whether... You know, the introduction of chocolate into the Advent calendar, because I do remember it happening.
And it was like, it was kind of like I discovered the third dimension.

Speaker 1 it was like a whole because and it is obviously a third dimension on the advent calendar when you realize it's got depth and it's got a kind of i can i can almost remember holding it feeling it's got structure

Speaker 1 not very not very strong structure no it's an agreement isn't it that we don't just wrench it open

Speaker 1 because we could easily wrench it open isn't it i mean it's not yeah but that's what that's what separates us from rats basically isn't it

Speaker 1 because rats do rats do wrench it open that's been proved and um That's how you know if your child is a rat.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Significant rat DNA.
Yeah. If they wrench it open.
And actually, the Advent calendar was, they say, was originally introduced

Speaker 1 as a final rat test, wasn't it? For your kids. That's why it's kids that...
Because a rat, if you show a rat a picture of the sparrow of Bethlehem, it just doesn't give a fuck, does it?

Speaker 1 Well, it starts looking for the eggs. The eggs are Bethlehem.

Speaker 1 I remember when I was a kid in school, there were kids that would come in and say, it would be day one, and they'd say, I've eaten all the chocolates in my advanced condo.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but you never know, you never knew if it was sort of just braggadocio, did you? Because those are the same kids that would also claim that they'd been to Disneyland on every single holiday.

Speaker 1 Most weekends. And most weekends,

Speaker 1 they had some sort of like a cousin who had a gum. And it was those guys.

Speaker 1 You know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. They already knew how to drive at the age of three.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I love those people. Yeah.
Yeah. There was a website a few years ago, I don't know if it's still there, called Wasp by,

Speaker 1 and it was a guy who was collating um stories that he called Billy Bollocks-like, just send in your best billy bollocks stories that kids told you in school.

Speaker 1 That's great, and it was called Wasp by because he had

Speaker 1 there was someone in his school, or maybe his pub.

Speaker 1 When he was like, often it's like a bloke in a pub as well, yeah, a guy who claimed that he could put a wasp in his eye and make it sting him, and he wouldn't flinch.

Speaker 1 And that was his big um big claim

Speaker 1 i thought it was going to be that he had a wasp's he had a wasp's eye yeah that he had a sort of a compound eye a wasp or that just he had a tiny tiny wasp eye in his backpack see that's high risk though because one day someone is going to present that man with a wasp whereas the the belly bollocks kids of days of yore it would usually be something that was very difficult to prove you know you yeah you'd need an interview with with their parental unit or the guardian or whoever it was and you knew that person was you were not going to get near that person no way Because that person was in prison.

Speaker 1 Potentially. The one I remember from the Waspy website was a guy who, in school, claimed that every weekend, his brother, who was in the RAF, would pick him up in a fighter jet.
Great, great stuff.

Speaker 1 Fly him to Tokyo. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They'd spend the weekend in Tokyo, and then he'd come back. And on a Monday morning, he'd be all tired.
He'd be like, oh,

Speaker 1 obviously we've been on the fighter jet. Listen, and it's amazing to me, the RAF still has recruitment trouble when just you can, you know, when there's such lovely perks, you know,

Speaker 1 with your typhoon.

Speaker 1 It's to do with aeronautical permissions. I mean, you just simply, right? You couldn't,

Speaker 1 the amount of clearances you'd have to do, by the time you got it all cleared, you'd have been better off just taking a commercial ferry to Tokyo, probably.

Speaker 1 In terms of time, yeah, it's just it's not or just going to Colchester, wonderful running heritage, yeah. And I think actually they now have an Itsu, so

Speaker 1 you know, my one was I did have the very, very brief phase of doing this where I told people I'd gone,

Speaker 1 my last holiday had been to the North Pole. Oh, great.
That's a great one. So I told everyone I'd been to the North Pole on holiday.

Speaker 1 Is it fascinating? I don't know why did I do that? Why do kids do that?

Speaker 1 Like, it's a kind of,

Speaker 1 I think, because when you discover lying, it's incredibly powerful, isn't it? When you first discover it. Maybe, yeah, maybe you don't understand the downside of lying.

Speaker 1 You just think, I could just tell everyone this and everyone will think I'm good.

Speaker 1 But also, you kind of, I remember when I was telling people I'd been to the North Pole,

Speaker 1 it wasn't totally clear to me that I hadn't

Speaker 1 been to the North Pole on a holiday. And actually,

Speaker 1 maybe you

Speaker 1 know, I'm gonna say it right now. I went to the North Pole.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I'm being sucked into it. It's so seductive.

Speaker 1 So seductive. Sorry, I was being dragged into it.
It's possible you were taken on a holiday to the Pennines and you weren't listening when told where you were going. That's true.

Speaker 1 That's true.

Speaker 1 It's not inconceivable. I could have got mixed up.
I think a thing happens where you realise that most of life isn't the thing actually happening. It's talking about it afterwards.

Speaker 1 Because the thing happening is quite brief. Or looking forward to it.
Or looking forward to it. Which is what Advent calendars are about.
So we might be able to meld all of this into one grand theory.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 So we're going to get Advent calendars in. Tokyo.
24 dashons.

Speaker 1 24 dashons.

Speaker 1 It's a grand theory of everything. But I think we can do it.
So most of life is looking forward to stuff. So we know that already, and the advent calendar proves that because a picture

Speaker 1 of the owl of

Speaker 1 Gomorrah.

Speaker 1 Of the red-breasted... What was it?

Speaker 1 The Sparrow of Bethlehem, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 A picture of that has no actual value. but if you can seal it to a child in the 90s and give them a rule about when it can be revealed, then it has value.

Speaker 1 And also don't tell them that it is the Sparrow of Bethlehem, tell them that it might be.

Speaker 1 So then you've got the pleasure of anticipation. The fact that I think chocolates being introduced began a slow rot, which has ended in tech bros controlling armies and stuff in its immediate time.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Like, I think where we are at society, in society now started with the introduction of chocolate into the advent calendar.

Speaker 1 It took away anticipation and replaced it with chocolate. But are you not anticipating the lovely chocolates?

Speaker 1 No, because you've eaten all of them in one go. Oh, I see, okay.
Because you've torn it asunder. Now, I suppose you are still anticipating chocolate.
Anyway, we'll come back to that.

Speaker 1 And I think you're right. It's the sort of delayed versus instant gratification thing.
The tech bros, they're instant gratification guys, aren't they? Really? They want it and they want it now.

Speaker 1 I want some lithium. I'm going to buy a militia and get some lithium.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly. But they've also done that to us, haven't they?

Speaker 1 They've turned us into addicts of serotonin and dopamine and various other chemicals, which I do understand. They involve

Speaker 1 and then just fade out, fake a hang again.

Speaker 1 Ben, just a note for the edit: we'll cut and paste something by Professor Brian Cox.

Speaker 1 Please.

Speaker 1 And we'll just use the same voice modulator that

Speaker 1 we use

Speaker 1 whenever Russell Tovey plays Mike.

Speaker 1 I've had too many days off.

Speaker 1 Mike's been quite quite busy with the tour preparations of the tour and stuff. So Russell Toby has been playing Mike.
And we use a voice adapter to switch around.

Speaker 1 So chocolate is actual pleasure, right? It's physical, chemical pleasure. A picture of the sparrow of Bethlehem is sort of conceptual, isn't it? It's an idea.

Speaker 1 It's imagination. I mean, a picture of a chocolate? It feels like a red rag to a bull, doesn't it? A little bit.
Yep.

Speaker 1 So, what was the other thing we were talking about? Tokyo.

Speaker 1 I'm in favour of it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so most of life is anticipating something

Speaker 1 and then remembering it. The actual moment of the present is just this kind of like nothing one second, less than one second.
We think it's about half a second, we think.

Speaker 1 Because you can't go smaller than that.

Speaker 1 Unless you're doing something slow. Unless you're doing something slow, in which case, what is it? You're taking a car ferry to the Isle of Wight or something like that.
And you might have to do it.

Speaker 1 Then you're now quite slow moving and you might enjoy the now. You might savour it.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 But you're still mainly

Speaker 1 in your life, you're still mainly looking back on it or anticipating it. Mainly, but yeah, that's why people do get these car ferries to the Isle of Wight.

Speaker 1 Mike, is that why you've been doing your whole you've been trying to relaunch yourself as an influencer, haven't you, with your

Speaker 1 get on the car ferry to the Isle of Wight mindfulness retreat? Exactly.

Speaker 1 In association with Renault.

Speaker 1 Poop deck meditations.

Speaker 1 So the idea is that 10 or 12 people can book a retreat with you and you get on the ferry to the Isle of Wight. Yeah.
And then it's quite relaxing because you all feel in the present, don't you? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And if you're able to gain some series of contemplative, you know, stillness and peace when you're inches away from a lorry driver tossing himself off in a diesel-stinking sub-deck,

Speaker 1 then you're making progress. You know, it's got measurables.
That's the difference. By the way, you've just ruined tomorrow's window in my, in Henry Packer's alternative dystopian advent calendar.

Speaker 1 I've been trying to get off the ground.

Speaker 1 So, anticipation and memory. So, that's right.
So, I think when I was telling people that I'd been to the North Pole on holiday,

Speaker 1 it was like, it was kind of almost, I almost felt it was true. And I think that's what deep liars and deeply disturbed psychopaths,

Speaker 1 I think, feel. Because it was like, I'm telling them it's true.
So, like, whether it happened or not, like, that's gone anyway. That moment doesn't exist anymore.
It's irrelevant. It's irrelevant.

Speaker 1 I might as well have been on holiday to the North Pole. And if I commit to it enough, maybe it sort of becomes true,

Speaker 1 which is basically two logical steps away from making wardrobes out of human bones.

Speaker 1 I do realize that.

Speaker 1 Because actually, maybe it is a handy storage solution and also a way of getting rid of my enemies. It's actually quite efficient.

Speaker 1 And now they are dead. That moment's past.
I may as well use these bones to make a wardrobe.

Speaker 1 Doesn't make a difference, does it? Exactly. And, you know, jumpers spend most of their time around human bones.
Oh, if you can actually hang a jumper on someone's rib cage, then all the better.

Speaker 1 As a way of storing shape. Yeah, yeah.
And that's when I came up with my full human skeleton coat hangers idea

Speaker 1 where you can hang an entire outfit off the body of your enemy.

Speaker 1 Bloody hell.

Speaker 1 Yes, it is. So, yeah.
Another spoiler alert for my distape and founder, by the way.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's turn on the beam machine. Yes, please.

Speaker 1 A reminder that if you'd like to put something in the beam machine yourself, you simply go to enter the beam machine.boats is the URL, enter the beam machine.boats, and you can add things in using our special form.

Speaker 1 And Diogo did that. Diogo is from Lisbon.
Okay. Hi, Diogo.
How good? I've imagined Diogo is currently drinking a very tiny coffee and eating a mixture of custard and fish.

Speaker 1 And salty, salty fish. Yeah, salty, salty, custard-filled cod.
I've never been to Lisbon. I'd love to go to Lisbon.
I've never been either. I would love to.

Speaker 1 I've been to Lisbon.

Speaker 1 I've been to Lisbon. I've been to Lisbon.
I've been. It doesn't sound like a nice one.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I've been to Lisbon. Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 I have the power now.

Speaker 1 And believe you me, I'm going to milk it.

Speaker 1 Milk it like a Lisbon custard cow

Speaker 1 softly and straight into a cod's mouth.

Speaker 1 um did you enjoy lisbon i i love i i had a lovely time lisbon is absolutely beautiful superb amazing place the only the one little warning that i'll put out there to anyone visiting lisbon is that there's a tradition in lisbon restaurants which is you go in and the table is covered in lots of little snacky finger food little things like oh it's an olive stuffed with a cod's eye oh

Speaker 1 you'd love that though wouldn't you

Speaker 1 sound right bit up your street. No, it's absolutely lovely.
It says little breadsticks, little olive, like little salads, and lots and lots of lovely things all over the table as you sit down.

Speaker 1 And it's someone else's table and they've ordered it, right? It's someone else's table.

Speaker 1 It's a guy called Brian and his brother Clive. You've had this at Pizza Express, though, haven't you? As well.
Yeah. Wow, this table's groaning with pizzas.

Speaker 1 And four generations of the same family. What is going on here? They've laid on a wonderful evening for me.

Speaker 1 So what is what is the actual tip no no the actual thing is that um that they will charge you for those they they feel like they just finger that because they're tiny little things and you sort of go oh oh no a little nibble of that oh i might have a little nibble of that oh i might have a little nibble of that oh i might have a ow sorry that was someone else's table i shouldn't have done that i was on my was on i was on having a little nibble mode it's like a shark in hate not in yeah

Speaker 1 people don't often talk about sharks in heat it's like an ovulating shark

Speaker 1 really open-minded in terms of cuisine yeah really open-minded in terms of cuisine uh ovulating sharks but that henry that does annoy me because sometimes especially when abroad you'll go somewhere and they'll start putting stuff on the table like some bread and stuff yeah and you just you just don't know if you're going to pay for it if you eat it or not and then sometimes i leave it because i'm i don't sort of almost out of principle yeah i'm not falling into a little trap yeah and then when you realize later on in the holiday that actually that bread was actually yours by right you barge into the restaurant you barge people out of the way, and you stick your head in the bread bin, don't you?

Speaker 1 And you start,

Speaker 1 you take you grab bread off other people's tables, you'll grab breadsticks out of children's mouths

Speaker 1 to claim the bread that is rightfully yours. They they feel it's rightfully theirs, and that's how you get a blood feud going on, or at least a bread feud, yeah, through the generations.

Speaker 1 But do you know what I mean? Like, sometimes it turns out it was free, I could have had it, I could have had the free bottle of water, and I could have had the

Speaker 1 one in Portugal is particularly

Speaker 1 a real trap, trap. It's a particularly well-laid, it's the kind of...
I was about to say, it does sound like you've gone to a sort of tourist trap.

Speaker 1 We're all the way to stress as Popeye.

Speaker 1 Lost Popeye's brothers, yes. Sorry.

Speaker 1 Was it a glass-bottom restaurant, but not at sea?

Speaker 1 Because you only like to eat in glass-bottom restaurants when you're abroad, don't you? It's true.

Speaker 1 It was a glass bottom restaurant, not at sea, but the glass was currently away being cleaned. So it was essentially a restaurant without a proper floor.

Speaker 1 There's just a lot of this stuff is laid out, and it just says nibble me all over it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you have a nibble and you might get hit with quite a hefty bill at the end of that. I've been to Porto.
And what's that like? Very, very nice, but very, very... It's very, very hilly.

Speaker 1 Ah, yes, it's hilly. And when I was there, there's a funicular funicular railway which takes you to the top of the hill, but it was closed for renovation because I went in December or November.

Speaker 1 And, oh, my thighs. Oh, my thighs.
When they came back, they were like two prize hams.

Speaker 1 That had been left to soak in vinegar for a year.

Speaker 1 So just bits falling off.

Speaker 1 And people have been instructed to just, yeah, just tear off a bit whenever you fancy. Just help yourselves.
Do you know what I mean? Just

Speaker 1 dip your arm in the vinegar and just yank a bit off.

Speaker 1 Tear a bit off and and maybe have it with some crusty bread.

Speaker 1 Lay a couple of tart local Portuguese anchovies on top. A couple of capers.
A couple of capers. Because it's the tartness because they're quite

Speaker 1 Ben's thigh hams. Very sweet.
The quests. Very, very sweet.

Speaker 1 They're quite sickly. It's sort of like a meat battenberg, people say.

Speaker 1 It's as near as you can get to a meat.

Speaker 1 They're Marzipan glazed.

Speaker 1 They're Marzipan Glazed.

Speaker 1 But enjoy Ben's Thigh meat, but do be aware it's not free.

Speaker 1 And a lot of of people fall because they assume that because it's so delicious looking and it's just sat there in front of them that they can reach over and pick a bit out.

Speaker 1 And that's how you get them, isn't it, Ben?

Speaker 1 They are billed hard. Portugal, great country.
Which isn't the topic, though, right? No, no. So Diogo from Portugal

Speaker 1 has entered the topic. Organised crime.
Ooh.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Because that restaurant, for example, Henry, that you went to in Lisbon where all the waiters were dressed as Popeye and you had to pay for the things that should have been free that was a front for organized crime they'd have been laundering dosh using entrovies

Speaker 1 it's very hard to tell when something's

Speaker 1 like because i have this habit of assuming that any business that that

Speaker 1 that is a bit weird in any way is is money laundering i've sort of got into my head now this will this will be money laundering yeah so for example i had it in a restaurant i did mention on the podcast briefly In fact, I think it was on a Patreon extra there.

Speaker 1 I talked about a lasagna-themed restaurant that I stumbled across.

Speaker 1 a lasagna

Speaker 1 we shouldn't we shouldn't be calling that a front not publicly

Speaker 1 beg your pardon we can't libel a restaurant and call it a front for criminal activity is that what you're about to do yes ben because sometimes someone has to make a stand and

Speaker 1 someone has to be brave enough to take on the lasagna bosses yeah and it is like peeling back the layers on an onion but an onion that's the shape of a lasagna

Speaker 1 i mean yeah i mean lasagna famously is made of layers anyway you didn't really need to reach for a second layered object in your energy You were there. You had it in you.

Speaker 1 You have the burning lasagna in your hands. This lasagna is like a lasagna.
It is like a lasagna. It isn't.
It is. This lasagna is a lasagna.
That's anyway what I was trying to say. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, but because, yeah, anyway, because I stumbled across this restaurant. I was having a little walk around the London Square Mile.

Speaker 1 And I came across this restaurant, and it was a restaurant I've never come across before. I've never come across such an idea of a restaurant before, which was a restaurant that just does lasagna's.

Speaker 1 I looked at their menu and the lasagna's were. So, can you imagine a restaurant that just does lasagna? Now, I don't think we got into the different types of lasagna they were serving, or did we?

Speaker 1 Are we going back for a second bite to this lasagna? We touched upon. Well, it's almost as if there are multiple layers to this lasagna story, like an onion, a bit like an onion in the

Speaker 1 lasagna. Sorry,

Speaker 1 I've gone back there, Mike, so I don't know what else to do.

Speaker 1 No, I tell you what, this lasagna restaurant was a bit like me during the winter, which is I wear lots and lots of layers and I cover myself in hot bechemel sauce, a little bit of dill, a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper, and on the side, a micro bucket full of Benjamin Partridge thigh meat.

Speaker 1 For dipping.

Speaker 1 For dipping. Or if anyone in my party has a sweet tongue.

Speaker 1 We've had an email about the Lasagna restaurant. Do you want to hear that? Yes.
Move on. So this is from Dan from Bearwood.

Speaker 1 He writes, I was in London a few weekends ago, and after hearing Henry talk about the lasagna restaurant, I was incredibly excited and immediately messaged my friend to tell her that we were going there.

Speaker 1 Nice. I can confirm that they sell more than one variation of the classic lasagna, including, controversially, a salmon lasagna.

Speaker 1 Okay. Wow.
They do not sell garlic bread as, quote, that is a British side, not Italian, according to the seemingly very angry waitress.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 That's interesting. I didn't know that garlic bread was one of those sort of British creation trigger a

Speaker 1 true Italian.

Speaker 1 Yeah, a patriotic caterer. Because

Speaker 1 there are so many foods like that, aren't they? I mean,

Speaker 1 people say bolognese is that. Certainly, is it chicken tikka? People say is that? These are like...

Speaker 1 So bolognese isn't that, but the way we make bolognese in Britain kind of isn't what you're meant to do, I think. Okay.

Speaker 1 So, yeah. Because I've had Bolognese in Bologna.
And how was it? It was fine.

Speaker 1 You really are a clod-headed culturalist oaf, aren't you?

Speaker 1 So I just meaning to say that for

Speaker 1 four years or so.

Speaker 1 So I thought I'd finally. That was a straw that bread camel's back.
It's out there.

Speaker 1 The reason I thought that it made me think of organized crime was, okay, so as soon as I saw this restaurant, I was like, this is blowing my mind. I've never seen a lasagna-themed restaurant before.

Speaker 1 I looked at the menu because I was interested. And what they'd done is

Speaker 1 the types of lasagna were roughly modelled on types of pizza or types of pasta dish.

Speaker 1 I think it was like a,

Speaker 1 there was a kind of Napolitan. Maybe there was a carbonara.
It was kind of like all stuff that was familiar to you from Italian restaurant menus,

Speaker 1 but served in the um in lasagna form. And again, if you can't picture a lasagna, imagine an onion completely flattened out

Speaker 1 and separated into layers.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 but what I did, so my my instinct as soon as I saw this place was to tell Ben about it because Ben is very, very passionate about lasagna, aren't you?

Speaker 1 I'm a fanzagna, you're a fanzagna, you're a lasagna, you're a lagag, you're a lasagna fanagna, you're a lasagna, nana, nai, nana, na, nania,

Speaker 1 fuckadonio,

Speaker 1 So, Henry, you were telling us about how you suspected organized crime.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be like one of those Colombian judges that took on Escobar and got machine gunned really, really badly to death.

Speaker 1 Machine gunned really, really badly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so then, right, so I need to tell Ben Partridge about this because I knew you'd be excited. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then a strange thing happened, which was I went on the internet, on my phone, on Google Maps, assuming, and I looked up this place to share it with you as a location, as a thing, and it wasn't on Google Maps.

Speaker 1 It didn't exist in the internet system. I couldn't find it.
I looked on the map.

Speaker 1 It wasn't there. I couldn't find the name online.
I just thought to myself, I don't know. I put two and two together and I thought.
Had you been there in the past? No.

Speaker 1 Because not everything in your past is on Google Maps. Are you still trying to tell me I didn't go on a holiday to the North Pole?

Speaker 1 Get Get over it, Mike. I'm sorry.
I had a very, very magical childhood. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 And because that happened, I suddenly thought to myself, well, hang on, there's a few weird moments coming together here.

Speaker 1 There's a few odd factors coming together in one moment here, which is it's a lasagna, which, as far as I know, doesn't exist. Right.

Speaker 1 As a concept. As a concept.
I've never heard of it. And it's kind of like a crazy idea that like a, maybe like a, I'm going to say four or six, four to six year old might have.

Speaker 1 Mummy, there could be a restaurant with only lasagna. Shut up.

Speaker 1 Right, we're sending you to the North Pole. On holiday! Yeah, call it a holiday, fine.

Speaker 1 Bundle him into the special plane, darling.

Speaker 1 So it doesn't exist. There's no such thing as a lasagna.

Speaker 1 Yeah. A.

Speaker 1 B, it's not appearing on Google Maps. Yeah.

Speaker 1 C, we're in the London Square Mile. We're sort of in the centre of financial corruption, I'm going to say.
Yeah. D, we're dealing with an unreliable narrator.
Ah, yes.

Speaker 1 Or are you?

Speaker 1 I'm just fine. I'm just playing for time here.

Speaker 1 That is the sound to listen out for, isn't it? When you're worried that the narrator's unreliable.

Speaker 1 Oh, God. I've just thought of a horrifying way this story might end, which is I disappear after recording this podcast.

Speaker 1 And because of the organized crime references and stuff, it's all a bit scary. You and Ben decide to research

Speaker 1 what's become of me. Not because you want to find me again, but because you're looking for a new podcast to launch after Three Bean Salad.
Yeah, yeah. And you've thought true crime it.
True crime it.

Speaker 1 That's what it is. True crime it.

Speaker 1 Building towards all this time. Yeah.
So then you go into the London Square Mile. Yeah.
There's no lasagnaria, but what there is is a bolognesiaria. A bolognesiaria.

Speaker 1 so you get so you think this must be a cover for the lasagnaria it's another inconceivable italian restaurant idea i mean unless there's another but

Speaker 1 um mundo breadsticks

Speaker 1 it's a mundo breadsticks hang on you can't have an entire restaurant themed on breadsticks

Speaker 1 yeah something like that yeah you go in

Speaker 1 you're looking for evidence of of me you see a skull in the toilets

Speaker 1 being used as a soap dispenser by the way can I say a little bit of advice?

Speaker 1 This may be potentially advice from Beyond the Grave, looking at it retrospectively, but I would end an episode on Discovery of the Skull as a Cliffhanger, just saying. Okay.

Speaker 1 When you're putting out the podcast. Okay.
Yeah. You then get out your home phrenology kit, which I assume you still carry with you, Mike.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 Your phrenology kit, a couple of sandwiches, a pair of pants. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Keep it simple. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You pull out your home chronology kit.

Speaker 1 You take the measurements from a skull. You realise that it's actually 14 goat skulls stuck together.
Which explains the shape of your head and some of your behaviours.

Speaker 1 And my ability to walk up vertical cliff edges.

Speaker 1 And be milked and making lovely tart trees.

Speaker 1 It's all coming together at last. That's a superb gift soap.

Speaker 1 I know that's donkeys.

Speaker 1 You find your way into

Speaker 1 a sort of sub-basement.

Speaker 1 Yeah, know, you pull on the skull, it opens up a secret door or whatever. Yeah, you go down a fireman's pole to get downstairs.
I'm literally just putting because I'm trying to speed up the anecdote.

Speaker 1 Or did he?

Speaker 1 You get into the

Speaker 1 so tense, isn't it, when you hear that? Because you're not sure what's real.

Speaker 1 That's going to be the new

Speaker 1 in trailers.

Speaker 1 Oh, I'd love it if you were the voiceover artist for all trailers, Henry.

Speaker 1 Maybe we should do the heist.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure if I trust Susan.

Speaker 1 What about Dennis? I haven't thought about him.

Speaker 1 Coming soon.

Speaker 1 Why is it only boomers involved in this heist?

Speaker 1 Ask Bernard.

Speaker 1 I can't. He's too busy snogging Samantha.

Speaker 1 This film sounds great, Henry.

Speaker 1 I'm in.

Speaker 1 Jim Broadbent plays Samantha.

Speaker 1 And Judy Dench as Barbara, Samantha's sister.

Speaker 1 It's this summer's boomerific heist sensation.

Speaker 1 Oh, should we all stop the heist and

Speaker 1 have a really nice cup of tea and compare our property portfolios with each other? In a local carpet centre.

Speaker 1 Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 We probably don't really need to do this ice, actually, because we've all got excellent pensions now, come to think of it.

Speaker 1 Anyway, what I'm saying is a good ending to that story. You're trying to watch out, research, what happened to me.
You get into the basement of the restaurant.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to use Italian mafia stereotyping for this character. So, a short, blonde Italian boy who's dressed in an outfit to play squash.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Tells you,

Speaker 1 I don't know this hen that he has for your

Speaker 1 So, sorry.

Speaker 1 I think it's okay. You try.

Speaker 1 You try. It's quite you try it in your own way.
I try to remember. It's quite pre-chocolate.
I don't care that.

Speaker 1 And then, so you think it's all okay. He would say, he'd explain that Henry actually died of natural causes.
He'd chuck it on a breadsticker.

Speaker 1 I tried to tell him it's the display breadstick. It's made of titanium, but it was too late.

Speaker 1 And basically, you'll believe his story, and you'll be like, yeah, turns out Henry died happily of natural causes in the best way for everyone, actually.

Speaker 1 Choking on a rod of titanium

Speaker 1 in a basement under the city of London.

Speaker 1 Having just eaten a salmon zagnia.

Speaker 1 Pyramidal salmon zagna.

Speaker 1 By the salmon and zagna, though, it's made of the layers of different types of salmon. So it's salmon tails on the bottom,

Speaker 1 then a layer of pattern, then salmon spines.

Speaker 1 Tins of salmon.

Speaker 1 Then tins of salmon. Yeah.
Then some salmon trousers.

Speaker 1 Salmon coloured trousers. Then it's a frame photograph of Alex salmon.

Speaker 1 Yeah. With a bit of chopped parsley.
But then so then you're happy. And then as you're leaving the room, though, the camera pans to a metal barrel in the corner of the room.

Speaker 1 So we've moved on to tell you, have we? Me and Mike?

Speaker 1 Once you got rid of Henry, Mike, we can go telly, I think. This is the Netflix adaptation of the True Crime podcast.
Okay, that we're on now.

Speaker 1 And the last shot is a metal barrel in the corner of their basement room. It's full of hot, bubbling lasagna juice.

Speaker 1 The juice of the lasagna. Yeah.
The juice.

Speaker 1 No, like bolognese sauce, I mean.

Speaker 1 So it's just hot. It's not bubbling, actually.
It's just hot and steaming. Yeah, and the camera zooms on in it, and then you just hear bubbles come up, and it goes,

Speaker 1 oh, no, oh no, blah, blah, blah, oh, fuck out,

Speaker 1 it's me dying and making the blah blah blah noises. So it pays off from the actual trader, blah, blah, blah, blah, you get to hear, and it's actually, it's an unreliable name.

Speaker 1 It's giving us a title for the blonnaise, isn't it?

Speaker 1 It's the title. For the spin-off sauce.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. For the merch sauce.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 For the merch rule. It's blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 And we're still not sure how to spell that, are we? But that's in the works. Yeah.
We've got a team working on that as we speak. I think the Cyrillic alphabet might help us.

Speaker 1 Well, not sure.

Speaker 1 But it's kind of also, it's going to be the first true crime podcast which has a reveal ending

Speaker 1 that the people making the podcast aren't aware of because you leave the restaurant and then it ends on that. You're saying

Speaker 1 there should be dramatic irony within our.

Speaker 1 Interesting. Exactly.
It's going to have lots of layers, this podcast. A bit like an onion.

Speaker 1 Organized crime, isn't it? Organized crime dealt with. The streets are safe once more.
Thanks to Three Bean Salad.

Speaker 1 We're entering the plug zone. Plug zone.
Plug zone.

Speaker 1 I can't, but it's at an awkward angle. I can't plug it in.
Plug it in, plug it, plug. Does it need an adapter? No.
Plug.

Speaker 1 A couple of weeks ago, or maybe last week, I can't remember, we broke the news that Henry would not be designing a new jigsaw for this year's Christmas merch.

Speaker 1 That was the pre-plug phase.

Speaker 1 That was the pre-plug red herring. But actually, he was just trying to keep you keen by treating you mean.

Speaker 1 It's a classic case of burger on a string.

Speaker 1 It doesn't get clear.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 I have actually designed a brand new jigsaw. Oh, yeah.
A three-beam sounded themed jigsaw. So

Speaker 1 that's good, I reckon. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 Essentially, we talked about it last time how I'd been given it as a deadline by the merch company to produce the jigsaw.

Speaker 1 And because I'd had to feed that through the Pacadonia calendar time system, whereby time emanates from a central point, it doesn't go left or right yeah so I'd been given the week I had to do it yeah so I based that week around the Wednesday being the central day in the Pacedonian week so the Pacadonian week is Monday Tuesday Wednesday second Tuesday third

Speaker 1 second Monday it's it's a fully symmetrical it's quite a fat week as well isn't it it's it's a fat old week yeah um and because of that i got mixed up hadn't thought i had time to do it but then it turns out i did have time to do it and then you had done it and then i suddenly had done it and here we are now despite your better judgment despite the better judgment possibly even without your knowledge Exactly.

Speaker 1 So because I kind of knew I had to do the jigsaw, so I thought, I can't do it. Then, once I decided not to do it, mentally, I was completely freed up to do it.

Speaker 1 It just wasn't a problem anymore at all.

Speaker 1 Once I decided not to do it. So I've got a second guess myself.
It's a very, very complicated motivational, procrastinational system that I've got internally. But

Speaker 1 once the jigsaw was off the table, I sat down and designed the jigsaw. And it's done.

Speaker 1 So, yeah. Anyway, the long and short of it is that there's a lovely new jigsaw that Henry has

Speaker 1 designed. It's a good one.
It's a good one. It's based on the episode art for the episode we did about neighbours.

Speaker 1 And it's got the three of us

Speaker 1 living in a house together on three different floors. And it's full of three bean saladies drags.
Can you find them all? There's only one way to find out.

Speaker 1 Make the jigsaw and buy it now because it's almost too late to get it for Christmas.

Speaker 1 Business secrets with three bean salad.

Speaker 1 You've got to buy it now. Put down whatever you're doing.
I don't care if it's industrial machinery. You've got to buy it now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, genuinely though. You've got to get to it.
You can still get it in time for Christmas, I believe, can't you? At threebean saladshop.com.

Speaker 1 And the last quick thing to plug: we're doing live shows at the Machantlith Comedy Festival next year. Of course, we are the greatest comedy festival on earth.

Speaker 1 We're doing a show on Saturday, the 2nd of May. We're doing a show on Sunday, the 3rd of May.
Tickets at the Mach Comedy Festival website. And I'll put a link in the show notes.

Speaker 1 And if you've never been, you should go. It really is excellent.
And likely, I mean, we're not going to do many live shows next year, right? Because

Speaker 1 Mike is doing his tour. I'm building my underground concrete lair.
That's it. We don't know.
There might be the old ad hot one. We've no idea, but we'll definitely do Mac.
We love Mac.

Speaker 1 If you've never tried it, give Mac a try. It's glorious.

Speaker 1 Is it worth saying that it isn't our tour show?

Speaker 1 Yes. It's just Beans Live.
It's just Beans Live. Just Beans having a good time, live.
Yes, if you came to the tour show, it won't be the same as that. It's not the same as that.
The tour is over.

Speaker 1 The tour is dead. That show is over.
Yeah. We don't talk about that anymore.
No.

Speaker 1 Although tickets are still available for the Glasgow date. That's right.

Speaker 1 Even though that's been and gone.

Speaker 1 Okay, it's time to read your emails. Yes, please.

Speaker 1 When you send an email,

Speaker 1 you must give thanks

Speaker 1 to the postmasters that came before.

Speaker 1 Good morning, Postmaster. Anything for me? Just some old shit.

Speaker 1 When you send an email,

Speaker 1 this represents progress.

Speaker 1 Like a robot chewing a horse.

Speaker 1 Give me your horse.

Speaker 1 My beautiful horse.

Speaker 1 Thank you to those of you who've sent us an email to threebean saladpod at gmail.com. We've had lots of nice emails this week.
For example, this one from Josh. Hello, Josh.

Speaker 1 Now, this is about the concept of laundry zero. Ooh.
So last week we were talking about laundry and about how it's kind of impossible to achieve laundry zero. That's a good point.

Speaker 1 Josh writes, strangely, my partner and I achieved laundry zero

Speaker 1 about 45 minutes before listening to the laundry episode today.

Speaker 1 Wow. Daft as it may sound, it was a cause for genuine celebration, a small achievement in what has otherwise been quite a challenging few weeks.

Speaker 1 And we had a lovely moment of uncomplicated happiness about it. Then I had a shower and I put my clothes in the laundry basket.
Life is pain. Entropy wins.

Speaker 1 Yes, afraid so. So that's just, can we explain that to anyone that didn't listen to last week's podcast?

Speaker 1 Well, laundry zero is the concept that you have laundered everything that needs laundering within your house. Everything's clean.

Speaker 1 And it's the same as cutlery zero, which is the idea that all your knives and forks are clean. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Dog zero. Dog zero.
That's where you don't have a dog. That's why you don't have a dog.
And these are all

Speaker 1 these are these are all states that we kind of aspire to,

Speaker 1 but can never

Speaker 1 many of them are just thought experiments, really.

Speaker 1 and if they do exist they exist fleetingly yeah it's a blink of an eye stuff uh do you want more laundry zero emails yeah i would like that please yeah this is from uh kate and cam hello kate and cam they say i think we've cracked it mainly because our house is very tiny our dirty laundry basket is our washing machine

Speaker 1 uh that's interesting

Speaker 1 that's a bit like the theory that why do you have a dishwasher when your cupboards could just be made of dishwasher Yeah, if you had, yeah, if you just had loads, yeah, you just got two dishwashers, you could just do that as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, no, that's not what I said then. I said your cupboards could be made of dishwasher.
No, I know, but yeah. Okay.
So, you know, I'm not talking about having two dishwashers.

Speaker 1 I'm talking about having this is a thought-out kitchen unit. But that wouldn't work.
Where you open the cupboard up here in front of you and it's made of dishwasher.

Speaker 1 So you pull everything out on racks, you put it in. Why wouldn't it work?

Speaker 1 Because you're then in your plate cupboard, which is now a dishwasher, you've got some dirty ones and some clean ones together. In my idea, when you've got two, you've got a dirty one and a clean one.

Speaker 1 At any given moment, you're moving one to the other as you use them. Oh, yeah, I see, yeah, I like that.
I wonder if anyone's actually ever done that. I mean, you can effectively start

Speaker 1 using your dishwasher as a kind of cupboard.

Speaker 1 I do that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, where

Speaker 1 you're reaching into it. We can kind of done it with laundry.
So, I mean, so these guys, presumably, they're being quite fast and loose when it comes to

Speaker 1 the colours and their whites and all that kind of stuff. Well, they come coming to this, I think.
So they write. I think we've won life.

Speaker 1 Therefore, for that short, sweet period between emptying the wet washing and taking off the smalls you were wearing that evening, we bask in Laundry Zero at least once a week. Wow.

Speaker 1 Side note, I know you'll ask about whites. Yes.
Here we go, Mike. The answer is, we don't own any whites.
We are farmers. We are on a farm with sandy red Devon soil.

Speaker 1 and have water pipes through a borehole. This means that if we wash anything white, it becomes an orangey beige, thus rendering it pointless to own anything white in the first place.

Speaker 1 Kate and Cam, Exeter Farmers.

Speaker 1 Kate and Cam. Well, this is great stuff.
I mean, obviously, it means you'll have a little bit of trouble getting fitted for ceremonial Pacadonia robes, obviously. Well, you know, as

Speaker 1 novices. Yeah, ideally, they'd want the orange robes, but you don't get that until you've gone through to level four.
Is that a lot? And I paid at least £18,000. That's right.
Yes. Yes, that's right.

Speaker 1 But for that, you get one um tile with your name

Speaker 1 we can't guarantee it's correctly spelled with the nearest nearest name to your name the nearest name to your name um engraved in the back of it um yeah so we do for cather camera we do have a spare craig going at the moment yeah we've got a spare craig yeah for case and camera um and it's a it's a it's a it's a non-waterproof bathroom style tile

Speaker 1 and where will that be affixed

Speaker 1 that will be affixed to the level seven toilets on the pacedonia spaceship. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 nice. I do feel like I need to sort of question this.
Well, not quite, I'm not quite, this sounds like it must be true, but what does this mean that they have water pipes that go through a borehole?

Speaker 1 So, all of their water is basically leaked, is full of earth. But, Ben, can I say, when you read that bit out, what I pictured was, because what they said was, we don't,

Speaker 1 essentially what they said was, we don't use underwear, we have water pipes that go through a borehole.

Speaker 1 So, I took that as, so structurally, that means they're making an equivalence between underwear and a water pipe going through a borehole. I didn't think they said they didn't use underwear.

Speaker 1 I think you've inserted that.

Speaker 1 Time, well, I interpret it, don't I? And this is exactly the sort of thing farmers are up against. The metropolitan elite.
Metropolitan elite going around saying that farmers don't wear pants.

Speaker 1 They're sick of it. And instead have a constant B-day coming through a borehole in the middle of them.
Just relentlessly washing their undercharacters. That's what I thought they would do.

Speaker 1 They'd walk around the farm. And they've got a geyser coming through the bottom of their living room instead.
Yeah, a sort of

Speaker 1 aqua system. Anyway, that's what I thought.
But if your water's constantly orangey-beige, isn't that a problem?

Speaker 1 Maybe it's not for your farm. I mean, if you're a Varin clay source, maybe, you know, it sounded like there's just not a hill they're prepared to die on, and fair play to them.

Speaker 1 Could it be a Phanta farm? Yeah, it must be. It may well be mining Phanta.
Yeah. Mining Phanta, because there are still Phanta reserves, aren't there?

Speaker 1 Under Devon, yeah, that's where most of Devon's money comes from. Yeah,

Speaker 1 we've had this from Emily. Hello, Emily.
Emily writes, hello beans. I work in a dry cleaner's on the topic of laundry.
Okay. And we often find forgotten items in garments pockets.

Speaker 1 On two separate occasions, we found vagra pills in a funeral suit. Kind regards, Emily.

Speaker 1 Vigor pills in a funeral suit.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's strong stuff, isn't it?

Speaker 1 That is. That is strong stuff.
That's poetic. And of course, right on the other end of the spectrum, I think they probably also sometimes

Speaker 1 sometimes find cyanide pills in a.

Speaker 1 In a Christian hat.

Speaker 1 Also,

Speaker 1 is a bona the opposite of death?

Speaker 1 Arguably.

Speaker 1 That's

Speaker 1 well, yeah, that's good. Yeah.
It's really good. In terms of stuff being left in pockets at the dry cleaners,

Speaker 1 this hasn't happened to me for a while, but quite a few times in my life, I've been totally done by the little bit of tissue paper in the pocket of some trousers in the laundry. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Have you had that? Of course, all the time.

Speaker 1 On a weekly basis.

Speaker 1 It's so annoying. And dog biscuits as well and things like that.
Yeah. Dog biscuits.
Yeah. What do they turn into in those? Just a really soggy mush, basically.
Does that get on everything?

Speaker 1 It's harder to deal with than

Speaker 1 a bit of tissue paper. That's just like fluffy, tiny micro bits everywhere.
This is just like you've just made a mush, basically. You've made a kind of

Speaker 1 sort of soup. Yeah, sort of Satan's tiramisu in your pockets.
Oh, God.

Speaker 1 That's what it feels like.

Speaker 1 Speaking as you were of haunted boners,

Speaker 1 we've had Nimo from Amy. Okay.

Speaker 1 And the subject heading chilled me to my bone. Oh, to my haunted boner.

Speaker 1 The subject title was, Ben is My Father.

Speaker 1 She's got in touch finally.

Speaker 1 I mean, Ben, you receive emails saying this. Well,

Speaker 1 the bean machine will periodically extrude a sentient being as part of its waste products. That's true.
And normally they're not viable for more than a day or two.

Speaker 1 But the fact that one has even got a name and is able to pen an email is impressive. But most of them we send straight to a Toby Carvery, don't we? And they just get they get great, they get gravied.

Speaker 1 And they actually gravy down really, really quite well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they can gravy down, but they can't haunch up.

Speaker 1 It has to be a liquefied meat, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 But some of them come out fully operational, don't they?

Speaker 1 And they're still in the courts, isn't it, Ben, as to whether you have to pay

Speaker 1 reparations.

Speaker 1 Yeah, citizenship is tricky.

Speaker 1 Most of them are, yeah, they're stateless. They're completely stateless.
Yeah. So they do tend to fall between the cracks, don't they? Of the state.
They have to go altar. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I got this email. Ben's my father.
And then, thankfully,

Speaker 1 it turns out I'm not her father, but she writes, Ben is going to look just like my dad when he's older. And she's...
attached a photograph of her father. And I think she's right.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Let me share this with you.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 1 Do you all think?

Speaker 1 Oh!

Speaker 1 Yes, I know what she's driving. Okay.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 There's the shape of the eyes in the smile, I would say, and something in the something in the cheeks. Yeah, maybe there's something.
It's pretty subtle, but yeah, there is a kind of energy.

Speaker 1 There is a slight bonjour energy.

Speaker 1 There's a very, very thin, good-natured veneer, isn't it?

Speaker 1 That's the energy we're talking about. Absolutely

Speaker 1 gossamer thin.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 She then writes in brackets, alarmingly, he's only 47 in this photo, which I think is quite alarming. That is an army, but it was the 70s, right? That's the way it was.
It was a different aging

Speaker 1 protocol. It's like when someone puts up a picture of Timothy Chaname versus Sean Conry or something at the same age, and it's mad.
You know, it's just

Speaker 1 a different aging protocol. Yeah, why was that then? Why did people age in a completely different sort of

Speaker 1 way? I think one of the clues might be that very, very prominent spout of a bottle of wine in the foreground.

Speaker 1 Yes. Do you think?

Speaker 1 Yes, and they've, you know, it's a family, it's a beautiful family portrait. They've tried to frame out as much of the booze and fags as they possibly can.
That's the best they can do. That's right.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 1 There's always going to be at least one bottle top in there. They just didn't, they just haven't got the filterless woodbinds, have they? Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think it's lifestyle choices, isn't it?

Speaker 1 And obviously, today, a 47-year-old, basically, it's also how people present themselves. So, a 47-year-old now

Speaker 1 would, he'd have a, he'd have a beard,

Speaker 1 a tattoo of a bicycle on his forehead,

Speaker 1 pair of converse,

Speaker 1 pair of converse on his hands,

Speaker 1 And a very, very tight t-shirt. No, you'd have a tight t-shirt with one of those cartoony logo of

Speaker 1 an obscure American hot dog stand or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Called Mr. Binko's.
Yeah. This guy's more of a proper gent.
He's wearing a nice shirt. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But it's also, it's business lunches

Speaker 1 in the pub, isn't it? It's it's, I mean, airplanes still had pubs in them,

Speaker 1 didn't they?

Speaker 1 We've also had lots of emails about people hiding knives. Okay.

Speaker 1 That was an amazing story you told last week. I mean, I still haven't got my, I still have to, I might go this afternoon.

Speaker 1 Oh, you've not been yet? Okay. You've married.
So, quick, quick summary. So, basically,

Speaker 1 you're going to summarize it quickly, Ben. I was going to an airport.

Speaker 1 When I got to the train station on the way to the airport, I realized that I had a knife on me that I wouldn't be allowed on the plane with, a penknife.

Speaker 1 And so I lost it into the lost property section of the train station in order to save the knife so that you could get it on the way back. But it's now in a warehouse somewhere.

Speaker 1 But you considered burying it as well. I considered burying it.
Mike had some good ideas. One was putting it in a toilet cistern.

Speaker 1 A lot of people that have gotten contact say the same thing, including John Robbins, who sent us a voice note.

Speaker 1 I could share the voice note, maybe. Yes, please.
Yeah, let's have it.

Speaker 2 Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben. Actually,

Speaker 2 Benjamin, I've just got back from a run. And as you can potentially hear, I'm running a bath.

Speaker 2 And that's to wash off the stain of disappointment.

Speaker 2 If you are in a city centre with access to a W.H. Smith's, needing to dispose of a penknife that you later want access to, you post it to yourself.

Speaker 2 Bonjamin.

Speaker 2 A jiffy bag, a stamp. It's waiting for you at home on your return.

Speaker 1 Interesting. Does a lot of people say the same thing? We've had a few emails saying the same thing.
So, can I say, in my defense,

Speaker 1 although it's true, I didn't think of this, I had less than two minutes because my train was going and I had to get that train. Okay.
I don't think I had time

Speaker 1 to buy a Jiffy bag to post it. But it's a, it's a, I like the thinking of it.
It's clever. Even maybe you didn't have time, but it's native.
It's a society. Sure.
Post it to yourself.

Speaker 1 But circumstances didn't allow, did they? On this occasion? It's a nice sort of lateral thinking kind of challenge, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Post it to yourself is good because the other thing I was thinking of would be reverse shoplift it into a knife shop,

Speaker 1 yeah, then buy it back,

Speaker 1 get a job at the knife shop,

Speaker 1 work your way in,

Speaker 1 work your way up,

Speaker 1 work your way up from sales to CEO of knives.

Speaker 1 It's time

Speaker 1 to pay the ferryman

Speaker 1 Patreon

Speaker 1 Patreon

Speaker 1 Patreon.com

Speaker 1 Forward slash three bean salad.

Speaker 1 Thanks for everyone who signed up in our Patreon. Thank you.
Patreon.com forward slash three bean salad. Lots of bonus stuff there for you to enjoy.
There are two different tiers to sign up at.

Speaker 1 If you sign up at the Sean Bean tier, you get a shout-out from Mike from the Sean Bean Lounge.

Speaker 1 You knew there last night, weren't you, Mike? It was, yes. And it was...

Speaker 1 Well, it was a fruity one, wasn't it? Because it was the annual shower gel tasting. It was.
Thank you, Benjamin. And here's my report.

Speaker 1 It was the annual shower gel tasting at the Sean Bean Lounge last night, and Sean Fury, Chris Edwards, and Bemsey were determined that for once it would be a classy affair, and would not descend into a prank dental gluing, as it had under old Uncle Albert, M, and Richard Payne, or become so unruly it would require the exchange of a three-score of life-serving prisoners between 14 nations, as it had under the stewardship of Annie Ratt Jones, Hannah Sheffield, and Rufus Hound.

Speaker 1 To this end, Small Big Man, Steamboat Babs, and Luke curated a selection of shower gels made from the milk of even-toed unculates, who had not only consented to the venture but had been made shareholders in it.

Speaker 1 Three Bactrian camels, using the aliases of Dungus, Bungus, and Fungus, looked on as Raniel Ditchson and Annie tasted the first patch of shower gel ever to have been made from their salty, salty milk.

Speaker 1 It was a hit. While the shower gel was challenging to sip and roll in the back of the mouth, its cleaning properties were immediately apparent as Raniel and Annie became instantly translucent.

Speaker 1 Kitty Fletcher, Michael Latham, and Colette dived in to sample a shower gel presented by Job Muller and Poppy Mitchell, Mitchell, made from the arse scrapings of a Norwegian musk ox.

Speaker 1 Had they taken time to read the shower gel blurbs first, they would have known this was a display shower gel only, and that the Norwegian musk ox is even more fiercely territorial about homemade toiletries than Stephen Alexander.

Speaker 1 The musk ox was enraged, and the evening could have turned deadly had Scarlett Butler and Guy Crawford not intervened and placated it with the offer of an immediate Sean Bean makeover. Mr.

Speaker 1 Gentleben, Baudy, Elsa, and Charlie were deployed to shave the musk ox, sparing only the bits that would be hairy on the corresponding Sean Bean.

Speaker 1 Nameless Phil, Amy Goff, and David Grant styled the hair and beard, while James Finite Monkey Sullivan, Mr.

Speaker 1 Law and Tom Hartley fitted him out with a Ned Stark costume that had been used in Game of Thrones by Sean Bean's beefiest stunt double.

Speaker 1 The musk ox-entered the shao gel tasting suite on his hind legs, and as arranged by Emma Jane, Charles Dallas and Harry Mack, everyone pretended to mistake him for the real Sean Bean.

Speaker 1 Well, the musk ox was tickled pink, going so far as to offer a sample of his special edition preputial gland Shao Gel to Ned, Willow Myrtle, Rufus O'Wiley, O'Wiley, and Toby DeWilde.

Speaker 1 Cleverly, Willow poured the shaogel into a false decoy mouth invented by Sally Walk, the Melbourne dork, which was being worn for just such an eventuality.

Speaker 1 The others were less lucky, and while each agreed the flavour was difficult at first, but with notes of nutty relief in the aftertaste, they will now permanently exude the stench of a horny musk ox, and can only be protected from amorous musk ox by being placed in a steel shipping crate that is buried under landfill and guarded by Mark and Emma together forever.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, Minni Pande's Shaogel sniff and gargle tasting masterclass was sadly only attended by Annabelle Page, but Annabelle did give it a standing ovation. Thanks all.

Speaker 1 Alright, that's the show. Let's finish off with a version of our theme tune.
Yes, please.

Speaker 1 Excellent. This version of our theme tune is sent in by Piers.
Thank you, Piers. Thanks, Piers.

Speaker 1 Dearest Beans, I'd long harboured desires to arrange my own acapella version of the Three Bean Salvador theme tune.

Speaker 1 I love a better barbershop. Then, in July this year, whilst on my way back to the tube after a rehearsal in Richmond with my acapella group, the King's Singers, I received a sign.

Speaker 1 Henry Packer gracefully wafting across the road before my very eyes. What? His limbs lazily swinging with the easy grace of a Londoner walking in front of traffic.
Yeah, that's me, yep.

Speaker 1 His beady dead eyes glinting in the sun's glare.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Kelsey has charged.

Speaker 1 Where was it, did he say? Richmond. Oh, yes.
Did you spend most time in Richmond? Well, you know what? My opticians

Speaker 1 live in Richmond because I used to live in West London. I don't anymore, but I've kept my opticians.

Speaker 1 So it could be that

Speaker 1 would my eyes be particularly beady and dead looking after

Speaker 1 a session with my optician? It's maybe not the best review for my optician.

Speaker 1 But anyway, that's probably why I was there. Anyway, I look forward to listening to this a cappella version from the King Singers.
I don't know if it's going to involve all the King Singers.

Speaker 1 I'm on their website, by the way. Oh, yeah?

Speaker 1 It's represented the gold standard in in a cappella singing on the world's greatest stages for over 50 years is this king's as in king's college cambridge as in the christmas carol dudes no no no no this is different it's not the choir of king's college cambridge no they're just this called the king singers okay these are kind of barber cop barbershop more barber shops barber cops now finally finally we've come up with a brilliant finally we've come up with this brilliant idea for a musical that can't fail

Speaker 1 barbershop police procedural procedural.

Speaker 1 Right. Well, that's the end of the show.
See you next time, and

Speaker 1 let's play this barbershop. Ta-da! Kapa pinski, kapa-pinski, kapa, pinski, bum-bum, papa, kumpa, pithi, kapa, Kapanski, you're off the case

Speaker 1 One, two, three, four, Da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da,

Speaker 1 da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da,

Speaker 1 da-da-da, da-da-da, dun-da-da,

Speaker 1 da-da, da-dua,

Speaker 1 dun-da-da-da-

Speaker 1 One, two, three, four,

Speaker 1 Three beans salad,

Speaker 1 three beams salad,

Speaker 1 three beans salad