Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 46 - Eli Roberts In Korea

Episode Date: April 21, 2019

Mike Bubbins and Ed Gamble join in for this episode, in which we hear about Eli Roberts's move to Korea.   By Benjamin Partridge, Mike Bubbins and Ed Gamble. Thanks to Helen Zaltzman and Cecilia Chun.   Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com   Live shows: Machynlleth Comedy Festival - 4th May: https://machcomedyfest.co.uk/show/2019/beef-and-dairy-network-beef-and-dairy-network-podcast-live/ Underbelly Festival, London – 1st June: http://www.underbellyfestival.com/whats-on/beef-and-dairy-network

Stick around until after the show for news about live shows in the UK. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is sponsored by Granium, the new nutritional sand from Mitchell's. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. Is Granium made of wheat? No, sir. Is it made of sorghum or spelt? No, madam.

It's 100% sand, just the way we like it. For 10% off your next order, use the code EATINGSANDNEVERDIDMENOHARM. Hello, and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website and printed magazine, brought to you by Granium Nutritional Sand. Now I should start with an apology for the sound of my voice this month. for the sound of my voice this month. I've picked up a very sore throat. As you will hear, it has been a very stressful month. But I don't want you to worry. I've spoken to my doctor.

I say a doctor. Of course, he's a vet. Well, a struck-off vet. Once a vet, always a vet, is what he says. He's given me a special broth to drink. It's made of Mitchell's Bovshield Plunge antimicrobial dip, mixed with gold-top milk, and something he uses to chemically castrate horses. So by next month, I'm sure I'll be right as rain. This month, we received an invitation from former slaughterman Eli Roberts to visit him in his new home in South Korea. Roberts has had a chequered past, and in recent years has run a slaughterhouse that was burned to the ground by the Food Standards Agency, opened a mosquito-focused zoo that was closed by animal welfare, and he also began his own religion.

He's also been tried and acquitted for murder, before being sent to prison for assault, where he attempted to take over the prison and create his own country, the Eli Free State. This attempt came to an end when the army was called, and he was hit directly by an artillery shell. Since then he has lain low, and to be honest, we were surprised to hear from him, but he said he was keen for us to see what he is doing now, expanding his church in South Korea and building fitness into the lives of his congregation. We went to meet him at his new state-of-the-art fitness studio in downtown Seoul. He began by telling me about when he first arrived in Korea,

penniless and alone, and where he lived in those early days, the demilitarized zone that is the border between North and South Korea. When I first came here, I immediately gravitated towards the demilitarized zone. I thought that was a place without rules, without shackles. Just to be clear, that's the small parcel of land between... There's a strip, as it were, a strip between North Korea and South Korea. And I just wanted to come somewhere where I could live and express myself freely, somewhere free of oppression, somewhere where there was not the hand of the government on my you know away from documentation and and and officiate you know officials trying to justify

their own pay packets so hang on you were living within this yeah yeah yeah i mean i mean the beauty of a of a demilitarized zone you know by its very definition, is there's no one there. You know, I lived in a small minefield, you know. And the thing about mines, I mean, people, they get a bad reputation for maiming people and blowing kids' legs off and stuff, but they do a job, is the thing. You know, they're very functional.

And like an animal, when you know how to treat a mine, a mine will look after you. So for me, I just thought a minefield was really marvellous. I mean, it paid nothing, cost me nothing. And people tend to leave you, if you live in a minefield, people tend to leave you to your own recognizance, that's the thing. What were you doing for food when you were living in the demilitarised zone? I mean, you haven't got to live in a minefield for long

before they start going off, you know, the rabbits and the squirrels, any sort of like a ground-based mammal. There's always bits to eat, and I mean bits. And say you saw a flock of birds going over. You throw a mine into a flock of birds and you'll be dining on sparrows for a week, you know. What, you literally throw...

Throw a mine up in the air as hard as you can, give it a good old hoik like, you know. Like a sort of frisbee. Like a deadly frisbee, yeah, exactly like a frisbee, really. And why isn't the mine going off in your hands there? You've got to know how to handle it. Same as a cow, same as a dog, same as a whale, same as a dolphin, right?

Know how to handle it. Don't touch a contact pad. Simple rule, right? Touch a contact pad, you're touch a contact pad you're dead if you want to pick a mine up grab it by the rim and throw it in the air right and then uh yeah bird time i think the other thing that people will want to know about your time in the in the demilitarized zone is it's famous the world over for being a place where if you do enter it, not only are you at danger of stepping on a mine, for example,

there are machine gun placements, there are many soldiers who have to patrol that area to stop people from the other side coming across. Did you ever come into contact with these people? Good boys. Both sides were very, yeah, I mean, again, right, you ever come into contact with these people good boys both both sides will work we're very yeah i mean it again right if you live in a minefield you you garner a certain amount of respect from both sides right they saw me uh they saw me mining for birds a couple of times and they were laughing

and uh and as of a machine guns i mean machine guns and machine guns you know a machine is just a gun the fire is fast isn't it what's the worst I can do to you? Cut you into ribbons. I'm living in a minefield. That's of no return to me. If you lived in a swamp, would you be scared of a glass of water? One of the South Korean

generals actually took off, took off, took offense and he was shouting something over us, making a bloody hell of a racket you know but something something something in Korean and

anyway I cut a long story short he was beckoning me over towards the big fence there the big fence and I dodged a mine and I get over there

and he started screaming at my face when I said oi oi oi I said listen now you're sunshine right

bit of respect please I could see in that moment you know the humanity in him I said, listen to you, sunshine, right? Bit of respect, please. I could see in that moment, you know, the humanity in him. And that's what modern warfare takes you away from that pure mano a mano, right? I just stared into his eyes, and in that moment of connection, we had a bond. Because at the end of the day, at an elemental level, level we're human beings you know, he had a gun up pointing it right at my face like that and he didn't faze me

and he just lowered the weapon like that and in that moment he just relaxed the moment had passed and I just chucked a mind on his face and it shredded him to bits, he was absolutely, I mean, there wasn't, honest to God, there wasn't two inches in

that was continuous. He was in pieces. And after that encounter with a, what sounds like quite a high ranking- I think he was a general by the stripes, yeah. Did they not retaliate or- When you throw a mine into someone's face and duck quick

right again and it's a recurring theme in my life it's all about respect right if you show you're prepared to throw a mine

in someone's face and hit the dirt and they get shredded you immediately gain the respect of the people watching yeah since then

I mean that was the only real running I had To be honest You think you gained their respect by doing that? I think they could tell Oh, look at him You've got to weigh about him You've got to sit and say, what?

I don't think they've ever seen that before I think they've probably seen a lot of stuff You know, those boys And they've seen combat first hand But they've never seen someone throw a mine at someone's face before. So obviously you're not living in the demilitarized zone now. No. Why did you decide to leave?

One day I was out doing a bit of mining for birds, perfectly happy with my lot in life at the time, but I saw one of the South Korean boys was waving me from the fence about half a mile away. So I walked over there dodging the mines and as I approached approached him he just dropped into all fours in a sort of uh submissive position and was paying homage to me which was nice uh the tour his name was kim we got chatting he spoke quite good english you know so uh

and uh he was a disciple of the church of eli in seoul well i had i had no idea there was a there was a you know church of eli in seoul but he I had no idea there was a Church of Eli in Seoul. I was very flattered, but I mean, a mega church as well, which was fantastic. So hang on, he recognised you and was already a Church of Eli acolyte, one of the persuasion. He was one of the persuasion, yeah, one of the persuasion that I'd never met. Like I said, I had no idea such a thing even existed.

I was humbled, but basically said to me, if that such a thing even existed I was humbled but basically said if I came to South Korea with him then he would treat me like a prince or you know a king amongst men and take you to

the megachurch take me to the megachurch yes almost as a you know very much the prodigal son returning you know so

I packed up my stuff got through the southern side and yeah for the first couple of days I lived with Kim and his family very nice boy you know So I packed up my stuff, got through the southern side. And yeah, for the first couple of days, I lived with Kim and his family. Very nice boy, you know, nice fella. And then from there, I moved down to Seoul. He got me down to Seoul, and there was a big ceremony when I arrived,

almost like a procession, you could call it. I mean, I was carried shoulder high, which was very, very nice. And then into the megachurch, 40,000 people there. To see that many people, you know, completely subservient to me, well, it was thrilling, I'll be honest. We weren't allowed to go to the megachurch, but on YouTube, we found a short clip of Eli addressing the congregation. His eyes wide, his nostrils flared, he addresses the thousand-strong crowd. Remember what Eli says, the only way to truth and light is darkness.

The only way to see everything is to see nothing. The only way to ultimate happiness is to appreciate complete grief the only way to strength is to be weak in my presence the only way to financial security for you is to give all of your possessions to me. The only way you are assured of going to heaven

is to do things so despicable in my name that hell will not have you. And now before I go, please all bow down to me. All hail Eli. All hail Eli. All hail Eli. All hail Eli. Don't forget now, there will be a raffle after the service. This month, we also heard from someone else who has appeared on the podcast a number of times in recent years.

Philip Seastrom was working at the Food Standards Agency when the Roberts slaughterhouse was investigated, and he was the man who took the decision to burn it down. He then moved jobs to animal welfare, where he ended up launching a raid on Eli's mosquito theme park. Then when Eli was tried for murder, he asked Philip to be a character witness for him in the trial. When Philip refused, Eli became angry and violent and had to be shot with several hundred tranquilizer darts. Sadly, all of these gruelling experiences have taken a significant toll on Philip's mental health and he's been unable to work for over a year. I spoke to him over Skype. So I'd really reached a point a year. I spoke to him over Skype.

So I'd really reached a point where I thought I just needed to do something. You know, I was feeling a bit lost really after everything that I'd been through and everything was up in the air, you know, my work life, my love life was, personal life, just nothing, absolutely nothing there. I asked Philip to describe how the various incidents involving Eli had affected him. It's difficult. I've lost a lot of my get up and go since these issues. My libido has dropped through the floor because of Eli Roberts. Before you were, you were rampantly sexual, I remember.

Yes, please. So if, for example, I showed you now an image of, I don't know, several men and women on a yacht all naked in a state of arousal going at it hammer and tongs what would the reaction be?

Well I'd say what type of yacht is that? You'd be more interested in the yacht? Very much so. I'd be like who's going to clean that yacht? You're worried about

what's going on there? Yeah. Huge amounts of anxiety nothing kicking off down there at all Physically nothing's happening? Physically dead And if I'd showed you that image, what, five years ago? I would have climbed into the picture

To address his mental health problems Philip realised that he had to try something new and decided that maybe a health kick was what was needed I've been trying to get in shape which has actually led me to what I'm here to talk about, I guess, is I saw an advert. Well, actually, I didn't see the advert.

My friend Gerald actually saw an advert for a fitness camp. Gerald is a gentleman that I've known for a while now. When I was sort of feeling quite lost, I took up a voluntary position working in an old people's home. And Gerald was one of the residents at the old people's home that I was volunteering in. How old is Gerald? Well, he's a fresh 91, I'd say. 91 years old? 91.

Right. And he got a little email through from a from a fitness camp in south korea and he thought my friend philip is looking to get in shape let's see what philip thinks so what was the advert promising the advert was promising primarily to to get you in shape keep fit but also a lot of fun as well there was some you know wonderful pictures of some people having a real laugh you know i think fitness can sometimes be boring, but this was really promising, you know, really invigorating, fun time, maybe meet some new people. And Gerald actually offered to pay for it from his pension.

It was very, very kind of him. Wow, that's very altruistic of someone. Yes, well, he was coming as well, of course. Really? He was offering to pay for both of us to go on the trip, which was fun, lovely to have a companion in these sorts of situations. And I imagine you were feeling excited little bit nervous right always nervous to to do a new thing ever since the eli roberts situations i feel a little bit nervous unless i stick to a

specific routine but gerald convinced me he said come on come on philip i was in world war ii i was on the beaches at d-day you know know, it's nothing to go to South Korea. Come on, Philip. Come on, Philip, you old piss. I asked Eli about his new focus on fitness for members of the church. Why had he decided to focus on that? More people than I was expecting to fail the tests were failing the tests. Hang on, just to explain to listeners who might not know about this. Typically, if you become a member of the Church of Eli,

within the first few weeks of becoming one of the persuasion, people have to undergo a kind of physical test of strength and character. And faith. Yeah. Test your faith physically. And typically, I was expecting back home sort of an attrition rate of around about a third to a half and when you say attrition rate you mean those people passed on right to a better place yeah uh whereas in korea i mean at one point in the summer when it's getting warm i was touching 80 you know on a

weekly basis. And that was just unsustainable. What kind of tests are we talking about here? You adapt, you know, that's the thing. But like I said, I've always been very flexible. So over here, you just make the most of the environment. So it's hot country for a start. So a lot of the things will involve the heat.

Staple people out in the sunshine for days on end. Use a lot of magnifying glasses to sort of burn people in certain ways, make people eat salt. We would play a version of chicken, really, I could call it, where I would get members of the persuasion to scale the fence, or the DMZ there, and run across my beloved minefields, you know, towards the north side. And if they, a lot of them were getting killed in the minefield, obviously, and maimed and wounded

and whatever. And the vast majority of the people who didn't, you know, got mown down within seconds by the machine gun fire. But I mean, like I said, that was a test. I mean, it really was. I mean, one day, I think 150 of the persuasion scaled the fence to prove their faith, and I think four came back. You know, and those sort of numbers, I mean,

we wouldn't have had a church. We wouldn't have had a church within a couple of months. So I had two options. Stop doing the tests or, you know, make more people survive the tests by improving them physically. So obviously we're not going to stop doing the tests or you know make people more people survive the tests by improving them physically so obviously we're not going to stop doing the tests

that's part and parcel of the church it's part of our ethos so what I started doing was compulsory fitness lessons led by me

and now I mean we train in the studio here but I mean a lot of the stuff we do is right on the edge

of the demilitarized zone. The most I've had there is 10,000 people. Personally, to you, has fitness always been important to you? I've always been

very self-reliant. I've always, I've had a very tough upbringing. You need to be strong. You need to be physically strong. You need to be mentally strong. I've always had that. I mean,

when I was jogging from farm to farm as a young boy, you know, sometimes 9, 10, 12 miles carrying like a backpack full of sledgehammers, right? Not easy. You know, when I get there after I've been, you know, kill a cow or a bull or a

shire horse or a dog or whatever, you know, if you've thrown like a lump hammer at an animal, you know, it's tough to do, you know. If I give it a lump hammer and see how far I can throw it, it's not easy to throw animal you know it's tough to do you know if i give it a lump hammer and see how far i could throw it it's not easy to throw you know especially any degree of accuracy i could hit a seagull from 30 yards away with a lump hammer are you fit yourself at this moment i'm fit as a flea i always have been you know i don't i don't know why you doubt that for a second i'm sitting on my shorts you can see for yourself. Yeah, you're obviously, you know,

you're a man of advancing age these days. It's easy for fitness to slip a bit, isn't it? Well, for you maybe, yeah. You say advancing age, what do you mean? Well, there'd be no shame in you not being as fit as you were when you were a younger man. Who said that? Are you saying you're... No, are you saying i'm not then no i'm just wondering you're probably not exactly as fit as you were

when you were 21 the only difference in me and 21 year old me is the best part of 40 years and in those 40 years if you're not staying still you're moving forward right and i've constantly pushed myself the limit of those 40 years right i get stronger and stronger every day so you're saying that you've your claim is that you've become increasingly fitter over the whole 40 year period and i mean fitness every aspect of fitness strength cardiovascular endurance flexibility power speed all those things have improved and they will continue to improve what so the old the older you get the more you've trained so obviously

the fitter you are the stronger you are faster so you're telling me that every year you get older you get a bit faster and a bit fitter but in 30 years time never mind 30 years time I'm saying if you train every day obviously it stands to reason you're going to get stronger and faster and fitter

and stronger and faster and fitter and stronger and faster and fitter every day you'll be in 30 years time you'll be 90 years old right then I'll be 30 years stronger than I am now oh by your rationale

when I was born I should be bloody pumping iron when I was 7 pounds huh I was too busy soiling myself I couldn't lift anything up I couldn't stand up

you don't walk in your 14 months you're trying to tell me now because I'm pushing 60. I'm somehow weaker than I was when I was born. Yeah, the shake man.

Stands to reason. Go on then, smartass. Bring a four-year-old kid in here and we'll have an arm wrestler. See who wins. But if we ran that, the four-year-old versus you arm wrestle experiment. There's only going to be one winner. Yeah, if we ran that with a 30-year-old. Right.

That would be a different, or if it was you versus a 90-year-old. It'd get me arse kicked. So you think a 90-year-old would. Well, it depends on the 90-year-old, doesn't it? So what's he been doing for the last 30 years? If he's been training every day like I have and pushed himself to the limit

like I have and looking after his body like I have, then obviously that 90-year-old is going to take me to the cleaners. Obviously. People buy into this notion

that because they're older, they've got to be slower. They've got to be weaker. Right? Lift more weight when you're 80. You can't sit there with your bloody degree

and tell me there's some nine year olds going to come in here and tell me what's what. Anyway, I feel like we've kind of gone off topic a bit. Right. So what I was just trying to establish is that you personally feel that you are a

fit person. You'll find out in a minute how fit I am. How old are you? I'm 32. Right, well I'm nearly 30 years stronger than you, so think. What were your expectations of what was going to happen? Well, from the pictures, it seemed like there might be, you know, an opportunity to meet people. I remember there was one picture of a beach, a beautiful beach.

Looking back on it, I probably should have seen some warning signs. For instance, the beach clearly featured a little ice cream hut where everything was written in Italian. I see. So maybe that photograph was taken elsewhere. Well, Italy was my first guess. Yes. I mean, it's possible that there's a beach somewhere in South Korea where an Italian family have set up a little concession there selling ice creams. But also in that picture, I did not see one Korean person.

Right. It was a lot of people, and I'd say half of them were wearing italian football shirts of the various clubs of all the of all the clubs and the national the national squad alarm bells italian alarm bells were ringing but i don't think i wanted to see that at the time so talk me through what it was like when you when you landed must be pretty exciting landing in seoul uh well we went through customs Then we went outside to meet the person who's supposed to be meeting us, the party bus. The party bus turned out to be one man on a bicycle with a trailer attached to the back. So alarm bells again start ringing.

Second alarm bell ringing. Did you raise this at the time? Well, I didn't want to be rude. You see, when someone else pays for a holiday or a meal or something, you don't want to be the first one to go, this isn't quite what we were expecting. And Gerald didn't seem to notice the difference. He was happy?

Well, he wasn't happy. He's never happy, but he wasn't complaining. But that's the way that generation were raised. And you're taken to the resort? Well, that's what it said, a resort. Two alarm bells had gone off already. Third alarm bell, really, as we progressed up the mud track. Mud track is not what you expect to see in a resort.

The bicycle got stuck. We had to get out and walk. I had a wheelie suitcase as well. I had to abandon that halfway. It got sucked into a into a particularly muddy part and then we had to find our own way to our accommodation uh which we were expecting a sort of not a penthouse but a duplex apartment was what we'd be promised but we're actually housed in uh separate shacks uh when you say shack like an outhouse what was it made of

uh when you say shack like an outhouse what was it made of a wood a type of wood a wood type of wood i've not seen before really it's got very spongy wood so softwood shed very softwood it took on any moisture introduced to it which would almost inflate the walls slightly so the room got smaller as the weather got worse and and in in the brochure what did the photograph of your accommodation look like was anything in that in that photograph made of a sort of spongy soft wood no i'd say it was almost entirely marble there was a lady on the bed but i didn't expect her to be there you understand so if i derived was she italian very italian yeah very italian and one of the key things is in the picture there was a big window balcony and just out the window you could see mount etna another strong jangling alarm bell yeah i'll be honest at this point in my life i was so sort of downtrodden by everything that's happened to me i

was like here we go again it's philip's life i course, of course, I wasn't going to South Korea to have a lovely time. Of course not. Of course the pictures were Italy. Of course this wasn't going to be a lovely trip to get myself in shape and meet some new people. Come on, Philip, it's going to go exactly as it normally goes. Just curl up like a dog on the floor of the shack and try and get some sleep. That's what I did. I've turned up at holiday places before and it's kind of not met my expectation.

But you know what? The next day, after a long day of traveling, you can often feel a bit down in the dumps. Often you wake up the next day, the sun is shining, you have a bit of breakfast, and suddenly actually you realize, this is a lovely place. Yeah. So I woke up, the sun wasn't shining when I woke up, because I woken up at 3.30am by someone bashing a pan at my door. No idea what was going on. I thought, well, this is obviously more of a boot camp than I initially realised. We're going for our morning workout and then maybe we're going to go to the restaurant that I saw in the brochure, the pasta restaurant.

It's only really when the bag went over the head that I thought this might be more sinister than I initially anticipated. Thrown in the back of a van. Gerald's there? I don't know. I couldn't see anything. over the head that I thought this might be more sinister than I initially anticipated uh thrown in the back of a van Gerald's there I don't know I couldn't see anything I knew I sensed there were other people there there was some murmuring and some muffled screams and things like that uh and I felt I was screeching around some corners I'm going what's going on what's going where are you taking me where are you taking me and then we pull up and dragged out by my feet my head hits the van on the way out the bag was whipped off my head and we're in what i could only really describe as like an arena type situation where it's at tens of thousands of

people and i'm stood on the arena floor with thousands of other people as well some of whom look as baffled as me they don't know what's going on they've just been woken up and some some people milling around quite excited about the whole thing shaking each other's hands greeting each other like old friends they look wired as well these other people they've been they've been up for days waiting for this so how many people do you think this arena seeds maybe maybe 30 000 and it's full oh absolutely full to the rafters quite exciting for a moment. Yeah. And I know you personally have been to a lot of big gigs over the years.

You're a big fan of Pink. I'm a huge Pink fan, yeah. And actually, at the time, the atmosphere reminded me so much of those Pink gigs that I've been to that I thought Gerald had tricked me and maybe we'd gone to a Pink gig in South Korea. Oh, and the whole thing was just a kind of... It was just a big ruse and then Pink was going to come on stage and he was going to say, surprise. Yeah. I thought Pink was going to come out.

I was really excited. Yeah. Oh, Gerald. And could you see Gerald at this point? Still couldn't see Gerald. Right. I thought, what if Gerald comes out with Pink? He sort of leads her out.

Yeah, he leads her out or he sings a song with her. My mind was racing at this point. I'd not really slept. So I had images of Gerald coming out and doing a rap with Pink or something. And then eventually someone does take to the stage. And it's not Pink, is it? No. It was Eli Roberts.

Feel her. Put your fingers on her by there. Just to explain to the listener, I'm basically taking your pulse. Yeah. Yeah. Count down now. Don't use your thumb because it's got its own pulse.

Use your fingers. Ba-boom. Right. I've been waiting a long time for the next one, so I'll try. Keep waiting. This is... My resting heart rate...

Is this a trick? No. My resting heart... Now, I'm a bit agitated because you've wound me up. So I've probably increased to about two beats a minute. Hang on, you're claiming your resting heart rate is two beats a minute? No, it's one beat a minute. I'm enraged now, so I'm pumping.

It's up to two, but it's usually one. How is that physically possible? Because I've got a heart like a flipping ox's heart. I've got a heart like a football. One big pump, whoosh!

And that keeps me going for a minute. Not like your hand. Your heart's like the size of a fist. And one of your bloody little fists as well boom boom boom boom boom boom boom mine's like a basketball whoosh next minute whoosh plenty plenty of oxygen in there but don't you worry about that if your resting heart rate's more than three beats a minute you're not working hard enough no i don't know much about biology, but I think I kind of...

Whoosh! I just went again and I felt it. I think that normally people would say, you know, a resting heart rate of around 60 beats a minute, one a second is deemed to be... Keep you going for an hour. That would keep you going for an hour? Yeah. 60 beats a minute.

With your one beat per minute, do you start feeling a bit faint at the end of the minute? The last five seconds is usually a bit of a blur. I mean, literally breathless with anticipation for the next beat. And how does it feel when you're doing those huge beats once a minute? What does it feel like when each one happens? To be able to feel and enjoy every single heartbeat, right? It's not a subconscious thing for me. It's it's not it's not automatic i can feel it i'm

i'm i'm anticipating i can work i can the last five or ten seconds of the minute fair enough i'm almost whiting out i you know i can feel i can feel the life draining from me and then whoosh and just that energized feeling again because my heart is working its absolute maximum. Because with my heartbeat, which I think is sort of an average one, I don't really enjoy every beat. I don't think about each beat. I don't really think about it at all.

And that's quite good in a way because if I was thinking about every beat, I wouldn't be able to think about anything else. No, we'd enjoy. I mean, we talk about enjoying life and appreciating life, right? I'm thinking about it now. It's going to go on a minute. I can feel it, right?

It's inside me. It's waiting to burst out. Oh, Christ. I can feel it now. Here it comes. Here it comes. Go on. Go on.

Go on. And that's every minute of my life. Here it comes. Go on, go on. And that's every minute of my life. Now, it's obvious that you enjoy your huge minutely heartbeats. I love it, yeah, I love it, yeah. Does it actually give you any sort of advantage? Well, I mean, I get a huge oxygen rush for the first 10 seconds of the minute. But I mean, other than that, I mean, you look at ancient, the Ancien Regime in France, right?

Sort of post-revolutionary France when Tales of the Guillotine first came back to the British shores, you know, these eyes blinking in a basket and they said that sometimes, and I've seen it with my own eyes, right? With various animals and human beings, that the head stays alive for a couple of seconds. After they're beheaded?

After decapitation, yeah. With me, I reckon I'm so oxygenated for that huge, huge beat in my heart that you cut a real ice head off, I reckon I could have a conversation with you for about another, probably best part of a minute. And who can say that? And that's an advantage?

Well, imagine being in the basket, looking at your own body, looking at your executioner going, oh, I like sunshine, yes, you might have taken my hand off me, but I'll see you on the other side. Let's just imagine that you were beheaded, let's say maybe at the guillotine. Well, why am I being guillotined for? What's the charge?

I wouldn't put much past you, to be honest. It could be anything. Well, you better make a stick, sunshine. Like what? Go on. Treason? Treason against who? In recent memory, you took over a prison and tried to declare it

not as part of the United Kingdom, but as part of the Eli Free State. Well, no, I didn't try to declare it. It was the Eli Free State. Sure. So you declared a new sort of country inside the borders of the United Kingdom. A state, yeah. Yeah.

Not recognised by the United Nations, but it was a state, yes. Sure. Now that would be deemed to be treason, treasonous. And in Britain, there isn't the penalty of the guillotine for treason. No. What would the penalty be?

Well, treason, I'd probably, I would imagine life in prison. Yeah, my prison. My rules. Lovely. I'd just turn it into Eli Free State 2, wouldn't I? Okay. I'd call it the new Eli Free State. Let's imagine then that you're tried for treason. You're then given a life sentence in a prison that you then convert into your own state again carrying out another treason act right and then the laws are changed because there is no you're not why there's no fear for me hell's no fear for you it's no deterrent yeah so they go right we need to bring back the guillotine just for this one guy we're going to guillotine eli roberts right uh it goes ahead for the start yeah i doff my attua for finally having the gum shin and there's been the courage and the moral fortitude

for doing something proper. Go on. Right. The blade comes down. Right. Off comes your head into the basket. Boom. You claim you've got a minute of oxygen left.

Easy. As long as it comes down just after the heartbeat. Yeah, just after the big beat, yeah. What are you saying? Oi, look at me. Yeah, yeah, you with the mask on. Get your mask off. You should be proud of what you're doing.

Take your mask off. Come here, come here. Right. Kiss me. Give me a big kiss to show there's no hard feelings. And I, right, this is what I do then. You go to kiss me. I bite his tongue off.

I laugh at him. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. You fell for the old Nelson trick what I do then. He'd go to kiss me. I'd bite his tongue off. I'd laugh at him. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. You fell for the old Nelson trick, I call her. The old kiss me trick with a capitated head. And hopefully he'd bleed out. So obviously when he came out, I was thinking the worst. I was fearing the worst. He's a very evil man who's done some horrible things.

And my first thought is I need to get out of there. But he then actually went in to a speech about this fitness regime about this fitness course that he'd put together and that by the end we were all going to feel like like we'd reached ultimate fitness and some of us some of us would probably drop off along the way if we you know couldn't handle it but you know he was here to get us all fit and I thought you know what this is exactly what I've been after this may not be exactly as advertised but this is a fitness course and this is what I'm here for so try and embrace it Philip but that didn't transpire to be the case did it no it quite quickly fell apart more after this hiring used to be hard multiple job sites stacks of resumes but today hiring can be easy More after this. scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invites them to apply for your job.

ZipRecruiter is so effective that four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. And right now, network members can try ZipRecruiter for free at this exclusive web address, ziprecruiter.com slash beef. That's ziprecruiter.com slash B-E-E-F. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire and i'm afraid there's no slash beef this week because of my buggered voice what is the eli roberts fitness regime functional in a word functional

you know you have all your dumbbells and your barbells and your treadmills and cross trainers and stair climbers and power bands and all that nonsense. Functional fitness. Start with a scrap normally. With a what? A scrap. A fight? A big fight, yeah. Everyone. So how many people are we talking well it could be 10,000 about a minute just get the heart rate up you know two or three bits a minute

a big fight and then I blow I usually got like an air horn I blow and then we stop fighting so that's you warmed up then all the survivors

then we'll get together and we'll do some calisthenics a bit of light stretching you know a bit of warm up then it's time for the uh the resistance work then the rock throwing hammer throwing slapping a lot of slapping going on uh and then we do like test the strength between each other so i might grab a leg someone else grab a leg and you try and basically wishbone someone apart like

a like a chicken wishbone, you know? So that's a real, you've got to really use the adductor muscles and the thighs there to stop yourself being split arse to tip. It sounds,

it sounds all quite painful, dangerous. Yeah. It's everything. You know they all say no pain, no gain.

A lot of gyms would say that, you know, no pain, no gain. If it's not hurting, it's not working. But that's not real pain not real pain you know i mean a bit of muscle oh my muscles are hurting me from my squats oh my arms are hurting me from me doing more my aerobics that's not real pain i'm talking about pain man right no pain no gain i agree with that bit but proper pain come on if

you've if you've actually split yourself from your scrotum to your shoulder blade, that's real pain. That is proper pain. Yeah, but where's the gain in that situation? Well, the gain is once you've healed up, you know that you can take that much pain. So really, it's about toughness and resilience, isn't it? Yeah, I call it TNR, like toughness and resilience.

And then once you've done the TNR training, and then, of course, you get the dogs in then. Dogs? Yeah. I mean, fighting dogs, ideally, you want a sort of mastiff-type animal, but I mean, anything will do, any stray dog. And it's amazing, if you don't feed them

for about four or five days, they'll go for anything, you know? So hang on, just to explain what you're doing there, you've got your fitness class. Yeah, we're down to about six, between 6,000 and 7,000 by this point normally, yeah. From the original 10? there. Well. You've got your fitness class. Yeah, we're down about six, between six and seven thousand by this point normally, yeah. From the original ten?

Ten. Right. And then you, what, you release how many dogs are we talking about? I try, I try to get a one dog per person ratio.

Right, so six thousand dogs. Yeah, if you can. And what's that, what's that look like? It looks like nothing else on this earth. Eli then insisted that he give me a taste of the sort of training he gives to his followers.

I tried to decline his offer, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. Right, here we are. You ready? Got to get our cardio on first of all, so just knees nice and high. There we are. Just got a couple of slaps here. There wewn. Dyma ni. Rwy'n mynd i... Rwy'n mynd i ddod â chwp o ffynnau yma. Dyma ni. Cynhwyswch y mhwyd.

Cynhwyswch y mhwyd yn pimpio. O! Dyma ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni.

Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. Iawn, dyna ni. I No, no, please. Oh, that's fine. No, no, no. Hands behind your head.

No, no, no. Ah! I'm going to get inside the pain. Another pain getting inside you. There we are. There you go. Oh, I'm enjoying this as much as you are. My kit box here. There we go. Mae'n dda. Mae'n gweithio.

Mae'n dda. Mae'n dda, ie. Mae'n dda, maes i. Ax. Mini ama. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, dyna fi. O, fi. O, dyna fi. O, fi. O, dyna fi. O, fi. O, fi. O, fi. O, fi. O, come on, get out of here, keep going. Come on, there you go, there you go, come on, here, what's up, come on, like that, like that, come on. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn.

Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Mae'n dda iawn. Enjoy it.

So we were all marched out of the church, and there were long trestle tables outside the church. We were all funneled into three different groups, I'd say 10,000 per group, and on the trestle tables were a selection of weapons. I'd say some were weapons and some you couldn't even consider weapons so there were things like there were things like guns but there was only one bullet with them there was axes swords hammers but then it was right down right down to things

like lamps lamps lamps yeah lamps um sticks anything It's like they'd cleared out a jumble sale and laid it all out on trestle tables and you were only allowed to pick one. And it was obvious at that stage that those were meant to be weapons. It wasn't just, you know, here's a lamp for the corner of your room to create a nice atmosphere when you're going to bed.

No, they'd definitely been used as weapons previously. So it wouldn't have been a lamp for the corner of the room because the lamp was smashed on one side and had hair and matted blood on it and things like that. So I'm quite polite. So I let a lot of people go in front of me in the selection process because at this time I didn't really know what this was for. So by the time I got there, the lamp had gone.

The gun had obviously gone. The axe had gone, the gun had obviously gone, the axe had gone, the swords had gone. I was being directed towards this empty table saying, pick one, pick one. And I said, you know what, there isn't one there. At which point the gentleman manning the table looked quite confused and just screwed up the tablecloth and gave it to me. So that's your weapon? My weapon is a tablecloth.

Yeah. So next we're all marched over to this big field it was a muddy field trampled and then um uh this is the first time i realized there was a loudspeaker in the corner of the field uh there was a big noise like a big siren and they started to list the rules of the game because it was a game they said there will only be one survivor the last person to survive will be allowed to leave and then another siren went off and it's almost as if i didn't think there was just something a work within me, and I thought, well, I know what this is. This is a fight to the death,

and there's a woman with an axe standing next to me. It's kill or be killed, and I whipped the tablecloth up around her neck, shark-jerked to the left, snapped her neck, first blood to Philip. As soon as the neck snapped from the loudspeaker again it said

first kill what happened then because I imagine everyone else then you've got what 9,998 of the people

they all twigged and it just turned into an absolute melee it was a bloodbath the guy with the lamp was on an absolute rampage he must have killed six or seven within the first 10 seconds that's when i realized the lamp was probably the best choice because he's strangling one with the cord and he's smashing the other one

with the main body of the lamp that guy later on picked up the nickname the boar because he really was quite terrifying the boar as in a wild boar as in a wild boar so this begins you're i imagine pretty worried that someone's gonna you know stick a lamp in your head yes i made for the tree line was there any sign of gerald at this point no sign of gerald i it was very old so, you know, maybe his heart's given out, or to be honest, the siren was quite loud. I thought that would have done him. No sign of Gerald. So I sort of watched what was going on. I thought, if I can hide and let the herd be thinned, then I thought maybe I'll have a chance at winning this. Philip found a treehouse in the woods and managed to hide until day 13 of the game,

which turned out to be its last. As day broke, only a few hundred people were left alive. The boar at this point was wearing the skull of someone else with his lamp. The boar seemed to be in charge of a large group of people and he seemed to have convinced them to all come to a pond with him where I think it was almost like a baptism ceremony but then of course he drowned them one by one so that took out a huge chunk so there's very few people left at this point i'd say it was down to maybe four or five people including the boar um they were walking from different ends of

the field all together and you thought this is really the endgame now. There is only one can survive. And just before they got there, they seemed to have a tête-à-tête and all turned their backs to each other. Sort of a traditional duel situation. All started walking ten paces away from each other. Sort of a five-way duel. Five-way duel. But before he got to three steps, the boar turned around with the lamp

and whipped the plug in one motion and cracked all of their skulls. Four people, one plug. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Wow. Down. I mean, at this point, he thinks he's won. He's celebrating. Arms aloft.

But nothing happens. You would expect the siren to go off, maybe Eli to come out and congratulate the boar. But he's not the only survivor, go off, maybe Eli to come out and congratulate the boar. But he's not the only survivor, of course, because I'm watching. I know that I'm there. And he's very confused, the boar, and he marches off in the direction of where we come from towards the church to find out what the bloody hell's going on, which is when I make my descent. Very weak at this point, crawling towards him through the undergrowth i've still got the tablecloth i reach him and slowly feed the tablecloth loop it around his

legs and then just pull as hard as i can didn't know what i was going to do up until that point but um it worked out well for me because he was impaled on his own plug. He fell down onto the plug? Fell down onto the plug. Now, obviously, at that stage, you're number one. Well, no siren. No siren again. So I thought, well, there's obviously not a siren. I know I'm the last one. I've been watching everyone die.

They've been falling one by one. The boar thought he was the last one. I've killed him with the plug. Surely it's time now. I then turn round. I'm faced with the kind eyes of my friend Gerald. He'd made it. He'd made it all that time.

Now, obviously, I think anyone listening will know the choice that you had to make. he'd made it he'd made it all that time now obviously I think anyone listening will know the choice that you had to make well at this point I I thought I was

going to be killed because he held a gun up to me he had the gun with one bullet and he held that up to my head and I thought

well that's it Gerald's played a bloody good game here you've got to hand it to him the guy knows war he's 45 years older Gerald's played a bloody good game here. You've got to hand it to him. The guy knows war. He's 45 years older.

He's in a lot better shape than me. This is it for me now. But then he lowered the gun. You saw something change in his eyes. He lowered the gun and he said to me, Philip, you've been a very good friend to me in my later years. I don't have many years left on this earth and I want you to get out of this situation. And he pulled the trigger.

But I don't know quite how he managed this. He didn't... It wasn't a kill shot. He sort of took, I'd a chunk a chunk off his head the bullet actually rebounded because he's got a metal plate in his head uh from an injury he sustained in the second world war and he was clearly he was in pain but he had not he'd not killed himself there um so unfortunately rather than this being the beautiful poetic moment that Gerald had been aiming for, I had to finish him off with a lamp. A bittersweet moment?

Yeah, I'd say more bitter than sweet overall. It's an odd experience bashing your best friend's head in as the fireworks go off around you and there's a fanfare and one of those glitter cannons. And oddly, one of those wind things that you see outside a car showroom. With the big flappy hands going. With the big flappy hands like that with Eli Roberts' face. That came up. Fireworks and marching band.

Do you think about him? Constantly. Yeah, every time i turn on the lamp i wish i'd pick something i don't use as much really there was a nutribullet as well i could have used a nutribullet because i have one but who uses them so if i should use a nutribullet then at least i could have turned it on and pulverized his face face smoothie what were the emotions running through your head then in the moments after you've just you've seen your best friend gerald a 91 year old war veteran die yeah but his death has meant that you you may live he saved me gerald saved me and when you say watched him die i mean i did watch him die but it was at my hand as well so it's not as passive as you've made

out there no but i think he he would have wanted that wouldn't he well he was screaming no no no right but i think that's a natural reaction isn't it you know he had chosen to die with the gunshot maybe and then i had to finish him off, but the natural reaction is to scream, no, no, no. I was only doing that, so they thought I was dead, and then we could have escaped, we could have escaped, no, no, no, what are you doing with that lamp? That's the sort of natural reaction, I think.

After my trip to Korea and hearing Philip's account of his time there, I knew that something had to be done. I sent these interviews to the Seoul Police Force, and two weeks later, we received this response. Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We had actually been aware that something was living in the demilitarized zone. However, we believed it to be a large and unusually aggressive badger. That might seem laughable now in hindsight, but could you confidently say how big a badger is?

Could a well-fed badger, in the right conditions, grow to the size of a man? Could it shout at our soldiers in English? Could it throw a mine at a general? There is simply no way of knowing. Such is the mystery of hedge creatures. Regarding the murder-based game that Mr. Seastrom described, again, we were aware that something was happening, but had assumed it was a slightly overzealous game of netball. To find out the truth in this way saddens us profoundly. Forcing people to kill strangers goes against everything that netball stands for. As a result of your diligent reporting, we will be taking action against Eli Roberts and have already burned his megachurch to the ground. At the end of your message, press 1. Oh, it's like that.

It's the thought. Sledding along the ground on your belly. I can't believe you're taking my church. And where did we switch it? Oh, now do you care? You don't care. Oh, I'm telling him now, ma'am. Mom, I'm telling him. I am tellingam. Mom, I'm telling him.

I am telling him. Leave me alone. I told you. Leave this to me. I'm the man of the house. You know what I mean? I'm the man of this house. No, Elena.

I'm the man of the house. I'm the man of the house. I'm the man of the house that's going to be firing up your teeth with my bare hands. I will fire them down to nothing. The kind that did you by your dental records! No! I'm not doing anything! No! No! No! Oh! Oh! I'm telling him no, man! I'm telling him no, man!

No! God! No! No, man! I'm the man of this house! I'm the man of this house! I'm the man of your house. I'm the man of the house. Find them by themselves. Find them by themselves. Find them by themselves. Find them by themselves. So, that's all we've got time for this month. But if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to our website now, where you can find all the usual stuff,

as well as our off-topic section, where this month, we look for secret messages hidden inside the original Broadway cast recording of Les Miserables. Also, if anyone has any home remedies for a sore throat and shortness of breath, please do get in touch. I'm feeling a little bit, er,

dodgy after drinking that broth, especially now that I look on the bottle and see that I was meant to spread it on my skin. So, until next time, beef out. Thanks to Mike Bubbins, Ed Gamble, Cecilia Chun and Helen Zaltzman. Some news now about live shows in the UK. We've got two coming up. One at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival in Mid Wales.

That's on the 4th of May. And then we'll be doing that very same show again at London's Underbelly Festival on the South Bank. And that's happening on the 1st of june which is a saturday night oh my god saturday night central london what could happen anything could happen i mean the main thing that's going to happen is that we'll be doing the show but you know you could jump in the thames if you i mean don't absolutely absolutely don't jump in the thames yes Yes, I want to make that very clear. Please come, but do not jump in the Thames afterwards. The live shows are always great fun,

and tickets are only £8 for Mach and £12.50 for the London show. Your best bet is just to search for Mach Comedy Festival, M-A-C-K, or London Underbelly Festival. I'll also put up links on our website that's beefanddairynetwork.com and also on social media remember you can always find us on twitter facebook and instagram so do follow us if you're on any of those bye hey we're ben and adam and we're here to tell you about our star trek podcast, The Greatest Generation. Why should I listen to a Star Trek podcast? You may be asking yourself.

Well, ours is actually good and funny. We joke around. We have a lot of fun. We talk about film production techniques that are used in Star Trek. We love to break down the stories and the characters, and we just have a blast while we're doing it. It's kind of like sitting around with a couple of buds having a beer and talking about an episode of one of your favorite shows.

So go to MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to The Greatest Generation. Yeah, whatever you're using to listen to this, just have it find us and subscribe. Hi, I'm Jo Firestone. And I'm Manolo Moreno. And we're theolo Moreno. And we're the hosts of Dr. Game Show,

which is a podcast where we play games submitted by listeners, regardless of quality or content, with in-studio guests and callers from all over the world. And you can win a custom magnet. A custom magnet. Subscribe now to make sure you get our next episode. What's an example of a game, Manolo?

Pokemon or medication. How do you play that? You have to guess if something's a pokemon name or uh medication medication first time listener if you want to listen to episode highlights and also know how to participate follow dr game show on facebook instagram and twitter we'd love to hear from you it's really fun for the whole family we'll be every other wednesday starting march 13th and we're coming to MaxFun Snorlax Pokemon? Yes

Nice you