Three Bean Salad - Ghosts
Episode Date: March 13, 2024Isaac of Bremen recommends the beans set banter to spooky and discuss ghosts this week. As you’d imagine they put what has long been a contentious subject to bed once and for all and they’re very ...brave about it at the same time but in an unassuming and modest way (and we’re not talking false modesty mind you). Benjamin Partridge also reveals the secret fuel of the Jingle Meister.With thanks to our editor Laura Grimshaw.Join our PATREON for ad-free episodes and a monthly bonus episode: www.patreon.com/threebeansaladMerch now available here: www.threebeansaladshop.comGet in touch: threebeansaladpod@gmail.com @beansaladpod
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I've had a big week. Oh yeah. How so? I've been to a two separate carveries. So two carveries
in three days.
Well I know. Living like a king. Is it um, Toby carveries or do you want to name the
brand or?
When was a Toby carverie? Yeah.
When was called something like Cedar Mill Farm.
Okay, nice.
Giving it a kind of bucolic...
Old people's home sort of.
Yeah, care home sort of.
So these are both midweek Carveries as well.
Oh yeah.
At a Tuesday nighter Carverie and a Thursday nighter Carverie.
To the end of the web, isn't it?
You're not far off hitting the old Carverie for a working lunch soon, aren't you? And then after that it's just... It's getting there, isn't it? You're not far off hitting the old car very for a working lunch soon, aren't you? And then after that, it's just getting there, isn't it? It's three meals
a day. You must be quite the sight pulling up at the car very in your open top Saab as
well. Make quite an entrance, don't you? Well, you can tell the staff are excited that
the beautiful Scandinavian woman's about to arrive. As I come through the door and say,
can I have two Yorkshire puddings actually? Yeah. All of the meats, please. Exactly. I can see
the weight is just their heads turning as you go by and one of
them has maybe got a bottle of coke or pure at the top pure
sort of bangs off doesn't it explodes off as you go past. And
they'll be like a there'll be a gravy bubbling in the big
vat bubbling even faster. Yeah. There'll be a man on top of a
ladder painting the ceiling with a roller with with gravy.
Right there because they
are losing his footing.
It'll be losing his footing as you go by, won't he?
Someone lasciviously caressing a parsnip in the kitchen.
And the awful pounder with his awful pounding hammer.
Be pounding the awful down when he as you go by, he starts
pounding up his own arm, but he doesn't even notice.
He's pounded his hand off.
He doesn't even notice.
He's watching you swish by.
I've all seen spattered with countless flecks of apple source.
All the meats, please.
All the meats.
And keep those roasties coming.
The key thing is that you can't go back to the meat station.
No.
Really?
Yeah.
They're onto you there, are there. You can only be there
once. Yeah. And that's where the false leg comes in, doesn't it?
Can't you? It's full of parsnips. Parsnips. And they've been so mesmerized by the by the
Scandinavian lady. But the fact that she's got three legs, they haven't really,
haven't really clocked it, have they? No one's going to say anything about her gammon goiter. They weren't sure they saw when she first came in.
What are we talking lunch or dinner in these restaurants?
Dinner's couple of dinners. And have you sort of got it down pat now, I imagine in terms
of your routine? Like is it all on autopilot? But do you have an approach, for example?
Beasts of the field, beasts of the sea, then beasts of...
Then...
The beast-o-the-par snip.
Beast-o-the-sewers.
Is it the beak beasts, then the beasts of the snout, the beasts of the trotter?
Beasts on the wing.
The curly tail beasts.
Like, do you have a...
Do you have a meat order?
So for me, Henry, it's always got to be all the meats, please.
And sometimes like I was with the people I was with on both occasions
didn't have all the meats.
They selected a meat.
Yeah.
And I find that to be pathetic.
You have to go for all the meats.
And you don't, you don't just want all the meats,
you want them to then take those meats
and spatch cock them into one another, don't you?
And just fully pound it into a flat, dense brick of disk.
Disk.
Then roll it up and sort of smoke it.
A huge meaty cigar.
There's different ways you can do it.
It's not a self-service, is it?
There's men with women with minds. There men with meat master. So you have to meet
master. You have to you have to negotiate with the meat master.
And I haven't yet. I don't know. I've got it right yet. I've
got to work out how you get the premium amount of meat out of
this guy.
Right. Is the meat master also in charge of the crackling?
Dare I ask?
There's no cracking Mike.
That's taken to the other side of town, to the rich people's houses.
Sold door to door.
Mike, cracking would suggest some sort of variation in texture,
you know, some sort of broad spectrum of palette experiences.
That's not what's happening here.
It's homogeneous. It's wet.
It's good for the price. It's good for the price. It's wet and warm, isn't it?
It's wet and warm, isn't it, that me? It's not hot, I don't think. We're not talking extremes of...
We're talking a middle zone. We're talking a tone between grey and beige.
And Henry's right. It's wet, but also very, very dry. It's wet and dry. It's wet but dry. And volume, volume is key, perhaps.
Is that the key?
Volume is the key is volume.
Volume is king.
And also, obviously, the wetter it is, the more volume you can slip on, you can slip in,
isn't it?
Yeah.
But it's not wet. It's wet in the sense, I'm guessing, in the sense that it's slightly slimy,
things slip off each other rather than wet in
the kind of satisfying sense of inner moistness. So what you've
got is wet sitting on dry. So for example, if you pour water all
over a plastic toy, for example, yeah, it sits on top. It
doesn't go in. It's so in a way. It's wet and dry as if you put poor water on something non-absorbent
It's wet and dry
Like a pig if you pour water on something absorbent it becomes wet the two things mold but it's here
I'm imagining things are slipping off each other like a load of
Well, like a lot of love a lot of wet dry meat
Yeah Well, like a lot of love a lot of wet dry meat. Yeah.
Skin's non crispy. Skin is slightly wet bit slimy probably isn't skin skins, I'm actually everything is the colour of a
1970s sort of shirt shirt and tie combo. So it there's a palette
from deep beige to mild pigeon.
Is that right, Ben?
Yeah, you're nailing it. Yeah, pretty much.
The cabbage... Is there cabbage?
Yeah.
Has it been boiled with the same degree of sort of focus and energy as Britain approached World War II?
Well, you're quite right there, because they were playing the speeches of Winston Churchill
over loudspeaker into the kitchen.
Yeah, they were just...
They motivated them to keep boiling.
Yeah, so boiled to the point where the proteins have dissolved into a... from a molecular
level.
It's just pure... it's amino acids.
It's just little...
It's just amino acids.
Nuclear tides.
Yeah, in fact, they'll even say, do you want the amino acid?
Do you want the amino acid mulch with that? It's atomic amino acids. Nuclear tines. Yeah. In fact, they'll even say, do you want the amino acid?
Do you want the amino acid mulch with that?
It's atomic.
Do you want the atomic?
Yeah.
Do you want the atomic?
Do you want the atomic veg?
The Americans have joined the war.
We can boil even more cabbage.
What's the deal with your premium sauces and condiments?
Because I'm assuming Gravy's very much, you know, pretty much piped in, right?
It's all about Gravy.
Yesterday, when we got to the meat station, the man mistook us for two men that he'd had to deal with earlier, who
kicked off, because they'd run out of gravy.
And so he was looking quite sheepish.
And sort of said, Oh, don't worry, don't worry, guys, the gravy situation sorted.
But we were just arrived.
And we saw what's the gravy situation.
He said, Oh, thank God, Sorry, I thought you were someone else.
So I think two guys had gone in.
They said we've run out of gravy and they kicked off big time.
Right.
And so do you, when you approached the meat master,
do you approach the meat master with a bit of swagger then, Ben?
Are you getting a bit puffed up in the car?
Is there another layer of...
Well, it's like I say, I'm trying to work out the best tactics
for getting the most meat out of this guy.
And I think it's a slightly cloying chumminess.
I'm trying.
Okay.
Okay, so you're not trying to alpha this person?
Well, maybe I should try and alpha him.
Keep it coming.
Keep slicing.
You're not serving my grandma.
I'm 87 man's man.
He may look like a beautiful Scandinavian woman from a distance.
Ben, what I would do with him is you want to be respectful, but I would throw in the
old neg just to keep him slightly off balance and wanting to impress you.
Of the meter of him.
Of the meat. I will. You do it how you want, but...
Of his mastery of the meat.
Yeah. Nice bread knife, mate.
Ooh. Ooh, and he knows full well it's a the meat. Yeah. Nice bread knife, mate.
Ooh.
Ooh, and he knows full well it's a carving knife.
Yeah.
Ooh, ouch.
Yeah.
I really enjoyed the pig shank.
There's no such cut.
Well, that's more just baffling, isn't it?
You can baffle him a bit.
There's nothing wrong with baffling him slightly as well.
That's more like the Riddler would do, you know, kind of agent of chaos.
Yeah, dressed as a whimsical butcher. Yeah.
Or you could set him your riddle. It has hoofs, but no horn. It has a tail, but no dorsal fin.
Name that meat.
It's the Toby Calvary Chicken Pig.
Our discontinued logo. It's the Toby Cal. Yes, please. This week's topic as sent in by Isaac from Bremen.
Thank you Isaac.
His ghosts.
Oh,
there's remarkable that we've come this far. We haven't. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.
There's remarkable that we've come this far
and we haven't done ghosts in a minute.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Yeah, I don't even mean, Has anyone ever seen a ghost here?
No.
No.
Neither have I.
So I can shut things down a bit quickly.
Because ghosts don't exist.
Time for your emails.
Or do they don't know?
Or do they? Oh, don't shut up. They don't know. Oh, do not. Oh, don't shut up. They don't. But who's that? Oh, it's your dog.
That's the rats in your ceiling again.
But who's that in the middle of nice Mike? Mike? Yes, Mike. Mike? Just Mike?
I mean, I haven't thought about ghosts for a long
time, but I can I can get freaked out by by horror films and
stuff. In the past, I have been freaked out by ghosts in horror
films. And I've had problems going to the loo in the night and
stuff, because I'm too scared. But not for quite a while. But
But not for quite a while, but... Do you know what I mean?
They do...
They can weed their way into my psyche and get me feeling freaked out a little bit.
Really? But is it still worth it then?
Because you like the horror genre, don't you?
I don't mind the horror genre.
Do you like what other horror genres are?
The risk.
That's worth the risk, you think.
Yeah.
Even if you frighten easily, let's say. Yeah. I mean, I It's worth the risk, you think. Yeah. Even if you're you frightened easily.
Let's say.
Yeah.
I mean, I once saw a film that freaked me out so much, our film that I am couldn't leave my brother's flat.
And I had to stay the night there fully clothed.
I couldn't get my clothes off.
Well, I should hope not in your brother's flat.
I should actually.
Okay.
You're right.
It would have been in the front.
Guests.
So the absolute basics.
That's absolute basics, isn't it?
You're so scared you couldn't even take your clothes off.
What do you want to wear?
You couldn't even do your usual little dance.
A little unrequested new dance.
What age was this?
This suggests adulthood, doesn't it?
Yeah, it was definitely adulthood, but a long time ago.
What was the film?
Everyone's going to want to know how...
Because it's a bit like Spicy Food, isn't it?
There's a bit of bravado in like how scary is the scary film that you like.
That's true, yeah.
The film was actually David Lynch film called Lost Highway.
I haven't seen that.
Is it ultra weird?
It's ultra weird.
Yeah.
And that's what terrifies me.
Yeah, okay.
Just weird.
Or basically faces that are a bit weird.
Freak me out.
Oh, okay.
So, what?
But I somehow managed to get through these recordings.
I actually, to be honest, this podcast started for me as to to wean myself off my fear of being able to operate around weird faces.
And that's why I always insisted on doing video calls from beginning.
And it's gone really well. I'm actually fairly relaxed with you guys. Well,
obviously, I'm shitting myself, but you're not looking at pictures of our faces, are you?
You've got Nigel Slater and Susan Surranden up when we're talking.
That's right. I've got the Slater and Surranden filters ramped up to maximum.
I can get freaked out by the unworldly by the
not the unworldly but by the uncanny. Yeah. I watched one horror film a year and it comes
around to Halloween and I text my friend Tom who knows about films and I say what horror film should
I watch? And he basically prescribes me one every year. I do really like it. That's a good system.
That's a good thing. I need something like that. I think I very rarely get involved in horror.
But like now just just once in a blue moon, it'll do the biz. For the past couple of years, the ones that he's recommended are the Babadook.
Okay. Which is very good. That's good. I've seen that. To me, that's a classic eerie, eerie horror,
which is the best kind. Or that's the kind that really gets under your skin and freaks you out. And then the other one, which is the best one, is Heretic Dreeves in that?
Oh my God.
Yeah, it's freaky.
So freaky ones.
Yeah, I don't really want gore.
It's got one of the best surprise beheadings you'll ever see, hasn't it?
It has got a really good surprise beheading.
It's got an incredible surprise beheading.
It does this thing, which is you're not supposed to do, which is a very main
character gets beheaded in about within about 20 minutes
So whoa, what?
It confounds everything you expect from a story doesn't it?
Yes, so that's got creepy because I think I think creepiness is key as it to good horror because a lot of horror is things just like
How the Halloween films just like psycho with it with a big chainsaw going around killing everyone?
Weirdly, that's not as frightening as a child with the face of a goat.
You know what I mean? That's what really gets under your skin. And when I'm in the middle
of the night, considering having a piss, I don't think to myself, though, there might
be a man with a chainsaw in the corridor.
But you do think there might be a child with a face of a goat?
There might be a child with a face of a goat. Well might be a child with a face. Well, the child with a
face of a goat will come in and it's very hard to read their
intentions, isn't it? It goes famously inscrutable.
Especially as he's clipping and clopping across the ceiling
above my head. Such strong hooves. Such malevolent intent.
Mike, if you want to freak yourself out, watch her
editory is really horrible. Yeah. But in a great way. So for
example, what's more frightening to you, Mike? An orca with a machine gun?
Is he also wearing like a kind of 1920s gangster outfit as well? That's what I'm
imagining. Like a Tommy Gun stuff.
A little cigarillo dangling out of the corner of his mouth.
Yeah. Spats, zootsuit, two-tone shoes and two-tone flash because it's an orca, two-tone body.
Two-tone shoes and two-tone flash because it's an orca. Two-tone body. Yes, the ultimate two-tone.
Two-tone Tony.
Yeah.
Two-tone Tony and his two-tone doncha.
Coming at you, yeah, in an alley.
Does that frighten you more?
Or...
A child's doll with the face of a goat.
A child's doll with the face of a goat. A...
A goat.
A music box with the face of a goat.
Twiddley twiddley twiddle.
A goat with the face of a different goat.
A different goat.
Twiddley twiddley twom twom.
Climbing across the wall with his excellent hoof.
Yeah? With his terrifying hoof strength.
Because that's what frightens me.
I think you're right. I think it's goat face every time.
It's goat face every time.
Because with the armed orcuras, what you've seen enough Steven Seagals, you feel like you can at least
have a go at doing a sort of Aikido style disarmament disarmament. Do you know what I mean?
You've got a couple of one, two, three, and I and I've got the Tommy gun. Do you know what I mean?
I'm fenestrating that killer whale up against the bins.
And then suddenly, you've done such a good job that now you're the one who's actually weirdly,
you're being paraded around at SeaWorld.
What the fuck's happened?
What?
Well, you're...
I'm not the one with the two-cent targer.
I'm in witness protection.
Heading from the mob.
Entertaining literally tens of thousands of people a week.
They've put you in written as protection.
Okay, Mike, the good news is the mafia are never, ever going to kill you.
You're going to live a long and, well, in a way fulfilling life.
You're going in what we call extra deep cover.
And we say long, but actually the average survival is about two years and three months
in a situation like this because it is an intense work environment.
And your dorsal fin will bend over.
Once your dorsal fin starts bending, you get too many r's from the audience. We will have to off you on the sly and just tell people that you've had a stroke.
Sorry.
But you will play to more people than you could imagine compared to your current
tour schedule, doing small venues in the Southwest.
You thought the line Regis gig was big.
Wait till you do San Diego orca fest 2025.
Orca Tron, the Orca Megadon Files.
It's going to be absolutely huge.
That's when all the orcas come together and create like a sort of huge man,
isn't it? And sort of walks through the town in a massive access chosen.
And we can guarantee you can be, you can play one of his calf muscles.
That's one of the biggest, one of biggest in the mega in New York, a mega
man. But unfortunately, because you're undercover, you ain't going to make any
profit from that.
Yeah, all of them only does go to reparations for the victims of a two
ton Tony who you're currently masquerading as.
And the irony is you'll play to millions, but no one will know your real
name or species.
You'll play to millions but no one will know your real name or species
If you want to scalp your trainer
Just do it on your own time. Yeah, I don't want to know and if you need to do it you need to do it
That would make free will you a much better film if the child had tried to break out the orca from SeaWorld And then from inside the orca is a bloke going no, I'm not really an orc. I'm just a bloke
I want one witness protection.
I can't possibly survive in the Pacific on my own.
Yeah.
I mean, the free buckets of fish, please.
They give me KFC at night.
Please.
I did find it hurtful when I scored a slightly lower average IQ
than the other actual orcas.
Yes, I did find it hurtful.
But actually, it turns out they're all on witness protection as well. And a lot of them for more intellectually
challenging crimes like tax stuff, VAT stuff.
It's a lot of pyramid schemes, really.
It's actually top brains. That crypto billionaire guy, he's in here. Yeah. I don't know why they
put minors in this protection, but they have. Yeah, it turns out orcas have always just been a place to put people in when it's protection,
isn't it? It's not an actual species.
They're just one man craft, an amphibious craft.
It's a one man amphibious craft. And obviously, because they're criminals in
witness protection, often when they escape and go into the wild, they will do things like
gang up on seals because it's just the criminal mindset isn't expressing itself
to the guise of a
fictitious whale species that is in fact a witness protection device.
The hardest bit for you Mike is going to be learning how to go
ehhh
I'll make the right sounds.
Yeah, I'm not sure I've got the range.
Well you can do squealing pig
That's true.
You can carry that into people?
That's not what people want, though, if they've paid, you
know, for the airfare to Orlando, right?
This is this is their big, this is their big summer holiday,
right? This is golden wedding anniversary level stuff, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
They don't want squealing pig.
I'd quite like to see an orca with the voice of a pig.
Ben, don't say don't be over her saying that you're local carvery,
because the meat master will see that as a challenge,
and he'll make it happen.
I tell you what, that Scandinavian lady,
anything she says, I'll make it happen.
She's just breathtakingly beautiful.
It's funny, as soon as she gets out of that Saab,
it's just like a mixture of far, a
foreset and dead Desleinum.
I can't explain it, I just fancy her.
Is that good?
Wasn't you worst?
Yeah, it's not your worst.
It wasn't good.
No, it's all good.
Come on.
The way I think it works is the car, that Saab, it's had a beautiful Scandinavian woman driving for so long that there's a kind of shimmer and essence of her that follows you around.
So from what it looks like, you're a blonde, leggy Scandinavian woman.
I mean, the person who was driving around before me was my mother-in-law.
Who's going to be absolutely thrilled.
I didn't know that. I think you brought it off like an amazingly glamorous like... When I labored.
The kind of woman who'd be like Prime Minister of Finland or something, you know, like...
No, you've deployed your enhanced memory
My memory syndrome
It wasn't the Prime Minister in the Finland. Yeah, and it wasn't the same year that you won the Boston Math and I
They wasn't yeah, it wasn't the same year was it? No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought there's a bit of different wasn't the same year, was it? No, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thought this was the same, but that was different, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All the night you serenaded Barack Obama with a Soprano saxophone.
None of that stuff.
All of that stuff is in enhancement.
It wouldn't have all happened in the same year, certainly.
No, yeah, no, no.
What really happened is that he played the recorder for John Major.
Yeah, and he didn't particularly enjoy it.
One thing that I always gets me in horror films is when you go into a room in a house and everything seems fine, except in the corner of the room, there's a person wearing a Victorian sort of pajamas or Victorian nightgown facing the corner.
Bonnet?
Bonnet. Bonnet?
Singing?
Singing something like, it's a bit too spy.
Came back along my window. It had to the face of a goat.
I spy down with the face of a goat.
That sort of thing.
And then they turned to face you, but sort of rotating impossibly.
I don't think they, they rotate the head rotates, but not in the traditional y-axis.
It rotates in the x-axis.
Like, the head rotates.
Don't see that very often, do you?
You don't see that very often.
Yeah.
Like the horizontal rotisserie chicken.
That kind of thing.
The horizontal rotisserie chicken.
So the head rotates.
But also, another thing you don't see very often is the hair,
the long hair stays in place. So all you do is you see the ears rotating
and then a nose coming from underneath up through the hand.
The hands part, the arms are now backwards, the hands are now part of the hair so you
can see the face.
No, the hands do, two little skeletal hands pop out of the hair with a little winch and
they twist it round and the hair hair part's like curtains. Right.
And you know what you see in that face, the most terrifying thing you can see?
It's your own face.
If you were a goat.
It's a goat version of your own face.
But you know what I mean?
That's the most terrifying thing.
It's like, what's the face going to be like?
So, weirdly, if you wanted to mug me, right?
Rather than coming at me with machine gun, the usual method.
It's also a legislation loophole, right?
No one can arrest anyone for coming at you with a goat, can they?
They can't.
Exactly.
All the police have turned up.
It's just an innocent goat.
It's just an innocent.
It's just a guy brandishing the face of a goat. It's just an innocent goat. It's just an innocent guy brandishing the
face of a goat. It's stuck on a child. He's abducted. Seems
perfectly innocent, sir. Yeah, if you want to come at me,
right with a machine gun, I'll be fine. What's what's the
worst that can happen? It's like, you get torn to ribbons by
the bullets. You get torn to ribbons. But that but that, that is fear, but it's not horror, you see.
Because to me, that is, horror is a different kind of fear.
Fear of falling off a building, yeah.
That's frightening because you'll die, or being shot, that's frightening because you'll die.
But the child with the face of a goat, that's horror.
Yeah, because you didn't even, you didn't, so if you want to mug me, come at me in an alley facing the
other way. Don't even face me. So back up back back up towards
me.
Or better still wait. Wait, wait, wait for me to come to stand
in the alley facing the corner.
Singing.
Itsy bitsy iPhone. I'd like to have you on.
And if you can tell me the past, even better.
That kind of thing dressed up as a, um, yeah, as a Victorian like
show pony or anything, anything Victorian.
Governess, a governess. Governess would be good.
And I'll be I'll be transfixed with horror.
I won't be able to move.
You know, you better do what you like with me.
I think that the Victorian era is so related in my head to like creepiness, ghosts, all that kind of stuff.
But actually living there at the time must have been, it kind of felt creepy.
I don't know.
I also got the I get the vague probably inaccurate sense that during that
time just pretty much every other person was making a living out of doing fake seances
and ghost attacks in people's paths.
Yeah.
That was one of the main jobs, talking about.
Yeah, that's true.
Seancemeister.
But they are good for talent.
There's another Victorian, well it's not, it wasn't written in Victorian times, you
know, have you seen The Woman in Black?
I saw that in the theatre when I was a teenager and it's freaked me the hell out.
Same, exactly the same.
Yeah, and it properly is that that's the first time I ever watched something and was genuinely like,
like, properly scared to my absolute marrow.
It's got a brilliant, um, creepy trope bit, which is there's the bit where he goes into this room. Well,
there's a thing where there's a room you're not supposed to go into, always good in a horror.
You're very good. Yeah. The room you're not supposed to go into. What's behind the door?
What's behind the hair on the face? What's behind the... You know, things that you can't
see. What is it? That's frightening. Rather than just a big whale with a machine gun coming at you.
There's one of those doors on Toby Cal Carvery. You should never go through it.
Don't go in.
Private staff only.
Fire escape only, the story's alarmed.
Unless you want to know the secret of all the meats.
Don't go into that room.
For what you will see you will never forget and nor will it ever forget you.
It's the goat with the body of a chicken and the legs of a pig and the arms of a whale
and the head of a cow.
The arse of a backup generator.
It's all the meats in one animal.
We've created the mega meat beast.
His name is Toby.
His name is Toby.
And all he can do is squeal.
And piss gravy. This is hot, hot gravy.
He actually shits really, really quite tasty nice meatballs.
Push yourself in the family restaurant down the road. Because you don't do meatballs and
carveries. Just one of those things. You can't carve a ball. Can you? It's out the
show of carveries. There's no sausages, none of them minced meats.
There's no sausages, no meatballs.
It has to be carver ball.
In carvery one this week, I did have,
I went up and the guy said,
do you want pigs in blankets?
I said, yes, please.
He said, have you paid extra for them?
I said, no, I didn't realize that there was a surcharge.
He said, don't worry, we're about to close.
You can have six of them.
Why did he ask you in the first place? Was he toying with you? I think he was. Yeah. He was testing your metal, wasn't he? He wanted you to know about his large S.
Yeah.
What was the point of going less than six, frankly?
What I'm picking up from the carvery vibe is, I'm not picking up strong, good for a first date vibe. There's something incredibly transactional about it.
And there's something like really raw about it. There's something like, you know how going out
for a meal can be a special occasion. You've got nice treats. Although there's a new place we could
try. When you go in, the first thing says, are you the person who's angry about the gravy? No,
calm down, it's cool. Okay, thank God we thought Are you the person who's angry about the gravy? No, that's fine. Calm down, it's cool.
Okay, oh, thank God we thought you were the person
who was angry about the gravy.
Have you paid the surcharge that lifts the meal
into something a bit more interesting than it usually is?
Have you paid the meat surcharge?
Have you paid the bacon tithe?
No, well, I tell you what, special deal,
we'll let you off.
It's all quite administrative, isn't it?
It feels like a sort of being on the,
being feel like the equivalent of being on the phone
to someone about council tax or something, but in meat form.
No, it's more like being in the court of a powerful king.
Within which there are a series of fiefdoms.
Exactly.
You just need to know your way around.
You have to know how to handle baron parsnip.
Okay.
So it's a feudal system.
Yes.
And are you like a squire?
No, what's your sort of status?
You're a surf, throwing yourself on the kindness
of the lords and kings.
Okay.
And they hand down their meat to you.
They hand down the meat, exactly.
Okay.
And you sort of, you go to them,
they're like visiting the king
when you make your application.
You visit the meat master.
So it's equivalent of going,
Milad, my fields have problems because of my neighbors. Because you know, like in the old days,
you go to front of the king and you'd say you tell me your
problem. You're like, my neighbors are, they just ran sacking
my onion fields every day.
Yes. The French crows. The French have sensed the crows once
more.
So then you and then the meat master will will take pity on you
or whatever and give you some meat.
Give you six pigs and blankets.
So what were we talking about before then?
Women in black.
Women in black.
Women in black.
Long, can I say long black hair in the world of ghosts.
Brilliant.
Bob, you don't get a lot of ghosts with a Bob.
Nothing you can do with a Bob.
It's not frightening.
There's never got like a severe haircut of a or a kind of pixie cut.
Don't get a lot of wolf cuts or mullets do very rarely see a ghost rocking the Rachel.
You don't.
You never get a creepy Rachel.
So in in women in black, right? Do you remember what was so brilliant about that show was
it's a tale within a tale, isn't it?
Because he's telling the tale to an actor.
And the central sort of, what we're going to do is a big spoiler, huge spoiler here.
So massive, massive spoiler.
He's telling the story of how he went to this place and there was a ghost or something.
But what happens is, and there is a ghost or something. But what happens is,
and there is a ghost, right? So there's three people in the cast, I guess. There's a person he's telling the story to. Is that person played by someone? Daniel Radcliffe?
That's quite damning for Daniel Radcliffe. Sorry, Daniel Radcliffe.
Yeah, you were definitely there. So Daniel Radcliffe, he, Daniel Radcliffe. Yeah, you were definitely there.
Daniel Radcliffe, he's being told the tale. Someone's telling the tale to him.
And then, so he's telling the story of how he went to his country house and there was a ghost. And then there's someone playing the ghost who's like, sort of white, white faced.
White faced, creepy face and black gown type person. And then at the end of the story, the sort of
huge mega twist. So the guy says to him, great anecdote, by the way, thanks for telling me
that. And that person you had, you know, acting out the ghost during the anecdote was really
good as well. And say, there was no other person playing out the ghost in the anecdote.
That means the ghost was actually here in the anecdote. That means the ghost was actually hearing the anecdote.
Do you see what I mean? Yeah. Mike, do you understand what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah. I've seen the player. I said that at the beginning.
And it's just weirdly, you looked quite bored, so I thought I'd
quite often mistake boredom for not understanding them. But what, so what's funny about that is a couple of things. One is,
who the fuck tells anecdote and hires an actor to play a character? The anecdote is really weird.
If either of you did that, I would definitely flat... I wouldn't wait till the end of a two-hour
anecdote with an interval before bringing it up.
Mason Well, you just see it as a ghost from the off, wouldn't you?
JG You'd just see it as a ghost from the offward me. You just see from the off and I be like, ghost can't hurt me. Can just go through me. I mean, it doesn't have the face
of a goat.
It's a payday. It's a payday. Let's enjoy it.
The other thing which is quite clever in the story is the thing about the ghost in the
story within the story is when you see the ghost, it doesn't means you're fucked, basically.
So the fact that that ghost has been there means either Daniel Randcliffe, I think it
means that they Randcliffe or will never play a,
will never be in a really, really good film ever again.
That's harsh. But the thing that, so essentially, the story is about a ghost who sort of appears
in the telling of an anecdote about it. It appears in the actual telling. But what then the double
twist that's quite quite fun is that when you look in the program for the actual play,
there's no one listed playing the ghost. So actually in theory, it could be that the ghost
appeared tonight during the play and it is real.
The thing is, though, that's actually because Rupert Grinch was doing it as a favour.
Rupert Grinch!
Rupert Grinch!
But he hadn't told us that age.
He didn't want to commit to the whole run,
because he still thought he had it looking for being the next Bond.
He was still holding out for Bond.
Because I met someone, right, who was in the woman in Black.
Which means you're about to die, right?
Which means...
He told me what it was like being on tour with a woman in Black. Gen means you're about to die. He told me what it was like being on
tour with a woman in black. Genuinely, this happened. And at the end of the day, I said
to him, bloody hell, that was good. Do I got the ghost to come and play? But actually,
for anyone who's been watching this online, Ben, I don't know how you were able to do
this and knew we'd probably come up. Anyone's been watching the video online. It's been cool that Ben, you've had
the character behind you during the whole record. That's been fun, isn't it?
Oh, God! It's Rupert Grint with the face of a ghost!
Also, just to be clear, you can't watch this online.
Can't watch it online.
For that very reason.
For that very reason.
But the other thing I think which is annoying about it is that if you're in the woman in
black playing the woman in black, there's no A you don't...
I think for equity reasons, you can't get paid or certainly not paid properly because
they just get repeatedly exercised in every new market town you visit.
Exactly.
And there's no proof.
You can't actually prove to anyone that you've been in the woman in black for 12 years.
It's a basically a CV black hole, isn't it?
Exactly. And you can even say to a friend, come and see me tonight in the woman in black.
If you meet someone or a friend, come and see me.
They're going to see the woman in black.
But even they'll never be sure it was actually you.
Do you know what I mean? There's no way of knowing.
Have other of you seen the Radcliffe movie version?
I know. Nor have I read the book.
I've only seen sort of players.
How could that premise work in a movie?
It feels like it couldn't work.
Yeah, that's why I don't understand either.
I've not seen it either, but it feels like a show that you need someone to jump out
with you in a theatre.
I think that's why it's got a big scene at the end where he's fighting orcas with a
machine gun.
They had to slightly change it at the end. It's time to read your emails.
Yes, please.
If you'd like to send an email, send it give thanks to the postmasters that came before.
Good morning, Postmaster! Anything for me?
Just some old shit.
This represents progress. Like a robot, chewing a horse.
Give me your horse.
My beautiful horse!
Let's start with this email from someone who describes himself as the great northern beanhead.
Crumbs. Wow. That's the Anthony Gormley sculpture, isn't it?
And I think from the content of the email it will become clear why they want to remain anonymous.
High beans. If you cast your minds back to when ads were introduced to the podcast,
the first one you recorded together was a recruitment campaign for new magistrates in England and Wales.
I was inspired and submitted my application.
What?
After a long selection process, I was recently appointed and last month swore an oath to uphold the Office of Magistrate.
Oh wow!
And now I'm taking you down.
You don't know what you've created.
It's the first Supreme Court appointment by the beat.
It's taken us longer than we thought we always knew we'd
get. Then it's taken us a while. It's always something we
to overtake the judiciary.
Yeah.
It's always been the long term goal.
I think we should explain to listeners, I think outside the UK, they don't get our
adverts.
So we did an advert that encouraged people to apply to be magistrates.
And if you're not from the UK, you wouldn't know what a magistrate is potentially.
It's basically a kind of judge, isn't it?
Low level judge.
Yeah.
You don't have to be a lawyer, do you?
You're drawn from the local population and they work in threes, don't they? They work in Magistrates three.
I don't think they're always in three. No, I don't know. I
think it depends on the one or three, isn't it? Not two. I
think. So odd numbers, odd numbers, odd numbers. They work
only in odd numbers, only in odd numbers, primes, only in
primes. It's only primes. 13, seven, nine, 11, 14, nine,
24, nine, braze yourself.
97, 9, 11, 14, 9, 94, 97. Braze yourself.
Braze yourself, Henry.
Because it's coming.
The...
A magistrate, as I understand it, is judge and jury.
Yeah.
And executioner.
And executioner.
And it's basically, it's sort of judge-dread.
If people don't know magistrates, they know the judge-dread comic.
Comic book character.
Yeah.
It's a version of that, but just with Imagine if Judge Dredd's
Armilladen missile heavy mega motorbike could also fly. Yeah. And was being operated by a retired
teacher. And had the power of the British state by that. Yeah. So I think you see a magistrate if,
for example, I don't know, sort of low level crimes, is it? A bit of fly tipping, that kind of thing.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah, it's kind of like, it's a non, well, crime is never glamorous.
Except for diamond theft.
It just is.
Yeah, it's your con, your jewel eyes.
Your high star.
Yeah.
Running an illegal craps game.
I'll run a speak easy.
Sure, no problem. Art forgery. Very glamorous. Yeah. Filling your
ass with narcotics and flying to Monaco. Quite glamorous. Secretly adding supernumerary nipples
to famous old Greek sculptures. It's not often reported. Semiglamorous. Yeah, but crime
is generally not glamorous, but your magistrate crimes, they're not your
big hitter crimes, are they?
No.
If you're in a magistrates court, you're not going down for like 10 to 15, are you?
You're getting a fine.
Slam them a rest.
I think maybe this might be bollocks.
I think magistrates can't send you to prison.
Right.
I think that sounds fair enough.
Yeah.
That sounds plausible and fair enough to me.
I reckon you end up seeing a magistrate if you were so bloody minded that you just decided to not pay the fine.
Actually, no, because the fact is I was only in the box because the van was turning right and he'd stalled.
It's when you've decided to fight it.
You've gone, you know what darling? No, it's not. I'm not going to pay the £75 fine.
I'm actually going to bloody do this.
So good as a magistrate, so I'm gonna get a 300 pound fine instead.
That's what I'm gonna do.
Coalcala of upheaval to the family.
We're forced to cancel our holiday in a jeet in France,
because that's when the court date is and I have to go.
I get so stressed that I become addicted to vapes even though I'm in my
late fifties. I am out.
Rubab and custard flavor, flavour. Which seconds you?
I sweat of custard all the time.
And people think it's just because I'm eating a lot of custard.
They didn't realise it's cool custard because it's vape custard.
They just think I'm an old man who eats loads of custard.
And they see my breathing custard gas as a sort of...
...skin and medical symptom.
And then I wouldn't stop vaping custard during the marriage hearing. So he kicked it up to crown court level.
And also it turns out that breathing out custard gas in a
quarter of the land is one of the only things you can still be
sentenced to death for. They still haven't taken away. It's an
old statute. It's burning the Queen's docks.
When I said sorry, I'm just vaping custard gas. They heard
I'm doing mustard gas.
That reason I've been court-martialed as well.
It's shut down three miles square in the central valley,
around the old Bailey.
It's cost the economy £4 billion.
Long story short, I'm getting hanged.
And I have asked my final meal to be just custard, actually, yes.
I've also become addicted to actual custard as well as the custard vape.
So the Great Northern Beanhead writes,
I also swear to you, the beans that I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare,
that I will deliver bean justice to all manner of people and after the laws of this realm,
without fear or fava.
Nice pun.
Lovely. Nicely done. Affection or ill will. after the laws of this realm without fear or father. Nice pun.
Lovely.
Nicely done.
Affection or ill will.
Kind regards to the Great Northern Beanhead. Very good.
Fantastic.
We've got a magistrate in our pocket.
It's great.
It's great.
It's great.
He also writes, PS,
listeners who find themselves guilty of a crime in the Yorkshire area
will get a discount on their sentence when cutting over the presiding justice
as they deliver their remarks and shouting pompadou, not including thefts of
moccasal hot chocolates.
Excellent stuff.
So corruption is crept in instantly, isn't it?
As soon as we get a little tiny little bit of power, the beans and corruption follows
instantly.
That's wonderful.
Congratulations, great Northern Beanhead.
Yeah, that's really cool. That's wonderful. Congratulations. Great Northern Beanhead.
Yeah, that's really cool. That's, that's really exciting.
Well done.
Yeah.
By all means, send us a photo of your, of your, of your hat.
You gavel the special boots, either of the belts, the rucksack.
The Justice Holster.
The Justice Holster.
Any of the accoutrements.
The shame gentry.
Yeah.
Love to see it.
Love to see a photo of that.
The bit I don't understand, I'd like an email from our magistrate about this.
You know, like they go through the whole court process.
You know, if it's one with the jury, there's all that, there's all the bits and bobs, and they
go through it all. And then at the end, there's a bit where just the judge not only hands down
the sentence, which might be like 10 years in prison, which is bad enough. He then just
gives them a little bollocking. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I sing on the cape bollocking.
Yeah.
I'd be like, mate, I'm going to prison for 10 years.
I don't need it, don't need it, mate.
You've made your point, you know, you've made your point with the bird.
Yeah.
Doing 10 to 10 to a serious bird here, mate.
Leave it out.
Honestly.
I can do this bollocking myself.
I'll be going to be doing it in the van all the way to...
Yeah.
To which imagine being W HMB Wandsworth.
Just getting patronised by a school teacher type.
That's what caused all this in the first place.
Yeah, exactly.
People like you. Reven me up the wrong way.
Now, will I be able to vape this custard in prison?
Or will I have to make moonshine custard in my cell out of my cellmates turds.
What's it to be?
Oh, you have to try to see if you can persuade relatives of yours to come to, to conjugal
visits with an arse full of custard. We have an email from Jonathan in Bremen.
Hello, Jonathan.
This is on the topic of our most radioactive listener.
It runs and runs.
Disappointing, well, not disappointingly, but troublingly, I would say.
It runs and runs.
Yes.
So many of our listeners have had heavily radioactive experiences that I did not think
would be the case.
So, as a contender in the most glow-in-the-dark competition, here is my entry. I once failed the radiation test to be allowed to leave the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
Oh my god. Yeah, that's bad.
After a fun-packed day trip to the exclusion zone, which has testing stations five kilometers and
thirty kilometers from ground zero, I got out of the car and popped into the station to tackle the radiation detector.
This is basically an electronic gate
that opens once you get the all clear from the body scan.
Sounds fun, doesn't it?
Sounds like a nice, fun, relaxing thing to be
experiencing on holiday.
You pop yourself in the electric gate,
get the body scan, and you're free to leave.
Sounds really fun.
There's no staff for 70 miles.
And any owls you see are in fact radioactive flying wolves.
They're radioactive flying.
With the face of a goat.
A couple of people in front of me passed through with no problems,
but my attempt resulted in a siren and flashing lights.
The nice Ukrainian man who ran the station showed me out of the station the way I'd
come in. With a strangely calm resignation I was quite prepared to have all my clothes
incinerated and face a cold water hosing down whilst being interfered with by a particularly
stiff bristles broom. But no. That kind man showed me how to rub the soles of my shoes
on the grass outside, until that particular speck of strontium that used to live in the course scuffed off.
On returning to the machine, I passed as clear.
But I did notice the man pressing a button on his control console,
which I've always assumed was some sort of override, as he couldn't be bothered dealing with the situation.
Yeah, the paperwork with having to deal with the radioactive tourists.
I mean, no one can be bothered with that on their watch, right?
Just tend to wipe his shoe and just get back to get out.
Get them back to get out.
Let them deal with it.
So I think Jonathan, on balance, you are probably still
highly waging active.
Yeah, you should at least get rid of those shoes, mate.
Yeah.
Well, he writes, I kept those shoes for years as my lucky shoes,
which probably wasn't the best idea thinking about it now,
regardless, Jonathan.
Dear Beans, this is from Samantha Max and Gracie from Ponderpreet.
Very nice.
We've been enjoying the podcast so much that my nine-year-old daughter,
Brackett's an arty type, recently covered the house in three bean salad doodles while I was out
walking our dog. Awesome. Yeah.
I attached photos of Gracie's drawings.
Mike has been Dracula'd.
Henry is now Henry Potter.
And Ben is the majestic Ben Beauty with the Glossiest of Mains.
This is excellent.
She would be thrilled to get to mention all the best beans.
Wow.
This is good stuff.
Oh yeah.
Oh, Ben Beauty is particularly lovely.
Oh, Ben Beauty or a horse.
Yes. Count Mike Cula. This is superb work, Gracie. Oh, Ben beauty or horse? Yes. Yeah.
Count Mike Kula.
This is superb work, Gracie. This is excellent.
She's been she's graffitied
everything in the house as far as
I can make out.
There's all kinds of like notes
and notices and I like her simple
but bold use of color.
You know, it's quite this could
be a time for rebranding of the
beans.
I'd quite like pink and green.
Gracie, this is outstanding.
Lovely.
She draws a very fine bean.
I will say, I mean, it's she draws a very fine bean. She
really does draw an excellent bean. That's one Gracie. Keep it
up. Not least because we could do with someone maybe a bit more
reliable with the artwork. Fair enough. You know, you're the
right sort. Point taken. No odd feelings. No, no.
Okay, thanks to everyone who signed up on our Patreon.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. If you'd like to do so, patreon.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com.com from Jesse. Oh, brilliant. We don't often get the Patreon jingle, though. No, exactly.
Jesse writes, hi beans.
I've been listening since day one.
Nice, nice.
And we do consider that to be day one.
In the bean calendar.
In the bean calendar, yeah.
The beanian calendar.
The beanian calendar is day one.
And it's a calendar which it's non-cyclic, isn't it?
So it's just the day's accumulate, that's it. So now on a day like probably like 10,000 or something? No, no, a thousand.
Yeah, about a thousand. Oh, yeah, we don't keep track of it.
It's not exact calendar. It's a vibe based calendar, isn't it?
It's much more vibe based than normal calendars. Yeah.
So Jesse White, happy new year. I've been listening since day one. I'd like to
handily submit my modern metal version of
the Patreon jingle.
Great. Hopefully can intimidate some more people into
signing up. So here we go. It's time to be the fairy man Oh yeah. Very good. Oh, yeah, that voice. Jesse, you've got the voice of a kind of
80s horror film. Yeah, quite appropriate for this episode. It's proper bowels of hell stuff. It was wasn't it?
It was like one of those skeletons playing a guitar you get on iron maiden t-shirts
Yeah, he called Eddie. I think the guy is a Eddie. That was like the voice of Eddie
Do check out our page run if you sign up at the Sean Bean tier you get a shout out from Mike in the Sean Bean lounge
You do indeed was last night certainly was because of course it was the
Wait was complimenting each other's dog's night, wasn't it? It was, which is one of my favourite nights.
Yeah, it's a real... it's a feel-good one, isn't it?
And here's my report.
It was complimenting each other's dog's night last night at the Sean Bean Lounge,
which started on the high note, as Al Sal Sal's Al Sation had a wet leaf stuck on its arse,
which reminded Rosie Lloyd of a 17th-century religious painting. Jacob Fry's Australian catalogue drew praise
from Patrick O'Connell for vomiting up a moist but otherwise undamaged tennis ball. The ball
itself was then celebrated by comedy gremlins Maltese who chewed it, Oliver Bayer's Borsoy
who pissed upon it, and by Gareth Canterford's Bichon Fries who made love to it. Kirsten
Rene's Chow Chow was praised by Paul Garner for its work ethic, while Ross Wakefield's Airdale received notes and dispatches from Jack Robson
for its ability to independently wash its own muddy paws in a sink, provided the sink
was equipped with an electric hand soap dispenser. Nick Brown's Beagle was voted worst trained
in a way that's actually adorable, while Bix's Doberman was voted worst trained in a way
that's going to repel burglars. Miriam Van Melwijk was in charge of assessing and
complimenting laps this year. With Thomas Morgan's Bologna taking home best lap dog,
Joe Groves' Cocker Spaniel winning strongest fall lap, and Helen Barclay's Rotweiler
winning glossiest hind lap, earning it a place in the Olympic team.
Andy Garby's Affenpinscher received kind words from Dai Thomas for deciding to fly
less. While Ian Marriott Smith's Doggo Argentino's
bark was praised by Tim Corkill as it reminded him of a two-stroke lawn mower engine his great uncle's moped sounded like
when Mark Hemingway did an impression of it. Marlowe's golden retriever ended up complimenting
Dorcas' Hungarian wide-head visualer directly and without a middleman, so Marlowe and Dorcas
opted to compliment each other on each other's ability to stack up to two pennies on the back
of their elbow and catch them with the hand of the same arm.
Lee Serra's old Croatian sighthound was described by Andrew as having nice fur.
This was referred to the compliment ombudsman, NTD McDonald, who determined it was in fact
a backhanded compliment, and therefore grounds for public admonition.
This took the form of a sustained canine bollocking in the Sean Bean castigation theatre by Lauren
Smith's Hyena, Supercrunzer's giant screaming cumberland sausage dog,
and Louise Fix's Tig Udall, a tiger poodle cross with a weight of 736 kilos
and a life expectancy of four days. Thanks all.
Right, that's the show. We'll finish off with the version of our theme tune sent in by one of you lot. This one is from John from Bremencaster.
Hello, John.
Please find and close my UK garage themed theme tune version,
which is described as three bean salad theme brackets, the premium greasy pretzel shard
garage snacks remix.
I've got a thing I've never understood what garage means in terms of music.
And I don't think I ever will.
But I'm fine with that.
Well, it's time to be educated, Henry.
Might be the scales are about to fall from your eyes.
No, you're all right. I don't... It's fine.
I just want those things. I haven't noticed it by now.
I don't need to net by now. I don't need to know how to talk, do you know what I mean?
I've got by fine.
I'm also not 100% sure what R&B is.
It seems to be various different things sometimes at different times.
I don't like that as well.
Well, do email in if you're a Grammy award winning R&B artist.
Yeah.
But we do need, I want it to be that.
Yeah, I'll take it from someone Grammy level.
Grammy nom'd?
I'll take a Grammy nom.
Right. Until next time.
Goodbye.
Bye.
Is this garage? Is it always like this? And also, Bluebell Henry Packer Yeah, Gigantic Mechanical Grab
Big Big Grab, well
In some movement, who has evolved, lived to a grab
Federal moving, boards thinking
Really are the big guns, smear the boots fat
Chicks, de-clack, rhythmical grab sticks
Glossy, sort of sheen on the things
Guitar break
It's a, it's a classic Stradicata shape
Mipple fingerboard,
the Z-shaped coils.
Very exciting.
Who's that made by?
Cut out my eyes!
And...
I'm gonna kick ass!
In the 90s,
for the dance of the season,
it does the minimum.
Very strong.
Ah, it's really putt me up.
I think
you're a garage fan. That was fucking good.
It was sensational.
That was brilliant.
His garage always like that.
Did it always feature us three?
Thank you, John, for bro and caster.
That was really brilliant.
Fantastic.
Thank you.