Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 61 - International Beef Library

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

MAXFUNDRIVE link: maximumfun.org/joinWe're joined by Gareth Gwynn, Mike Wozniak, Gemma Arrowsmith, Tom Crowley, Tim Bick,  Pernille Haaland and Linnea Sage as we find out about the latest goings on at the International Beef Library.Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com  

Hello, Benjamin Partridge here. I make the Beef and Dairy Network podcast. Just a little quick thing before the episode starts properly. This podcast is part of Maximum Fun, a brilliant podcast network. And this month is Max Fun Drive, which is your chance to support the Maximum Fun shows that you love, whether it be just this one, Beef and Dairy Network, or a whole load of them. It's your support which keeps this show going. And if you'd like to sign up to support the show, and I'd be really grateful if that's something you would consider, have a look at maximumfun.org forward slash join. That's maximumfun.org forward slash join.

On with the show! Coming soon to Mitchell's Flakes UK. You've got the money? It's all here. 10 million pounds. Let me check. On with the show! only £9,999,040. Where's my money? I took 60 quid off to cover the cost of the briefcase. You did what? You think I'm just going to give you a free briefcase? The Times said, you'll never look at a briefcase in the same way again. And The Guardian said,

the conceit of a supernatural jungle-themed board game seemed far-fetched at first, but... Oh shit, hang on, I've watched the wrong movie. I've watched Jumanji again. Sorry, I'm always doing this. The deal wasn't £10 million and a free briefcase. No, it was £10 million, so give me my money. You think briefcases are free? No, they obviously aren't, but... This is a decent briefcase. It's got a premium leather handle and executive titanium clasp.

It's obviously a nice briefcase. I just don't see why I should have to pay for it. It's got a special pen pocket! The Briefcase. Exclusively available on Mitchell's Flicks UK. Sometimes a briefcase turns into a grief case. 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 is the podcast companion to the Beef

and Dairy Network website and printed magazine, brought to you by Mitchells Flicks UK. The streaming service which has taken the US by storm has finally launched here in the UK. Sign up to watch the briefcase, and it's also now the only place you can watch all the episodes of classic TV dramas Beef Justice and Bankside. Also, Bankside the Movie, brand new episodes of Car Crash Anus and Car Crash Anus USA, every episode of Vet in a Helicopter, including the one with the Chinook machine gun disaster, and, for some reason,

it's currently the only place you can stream the Bette Midler comedy drama, Beaches. For this month's episode, the plan was that I would meet with Beef and Dairy Network archivist Alex Neon, who is based at the International Beef Library in a secret location inside the Norwegian Arctic Circle. Alex had been cataloguing the Beef Media Library and had prepared a number of clips of old episodes of the forerunners of the Beef and Dairy Network, which proudly traces its history back to the 1940s and to the BBC programme The Beef Front.

However, the day before I was due to get the plane to Norway, the news broke that there had been a serious security breach. This is the news at ten o'clock. The International Beef Library, which houses the world's rarest and most valuable historical beef, has been taken over by wolves. The facility, deep inside the Arctic Circle in Norway, was thought to be the most secure location in the world. The following day, I took the plane to Norway

and met Alex at the Beef Library's perimeter fence. All it took was someone to Norway and met Alex at the Beef Library's perimeter fence. All it took was someone to leave a door ajar and that's it. The place is now overrun, overrun with wolves. Wolf security was a big deal for us at the Beef Library and some say it was only a matter of time until they got in and to be honest, have you seen Jurassic Park 3, where they just completely take over the island? It's like that in there now. Wolves are on that building now. We thought it was safe, because we had the turret, we'd shoot the wolves from the turret, and inside, security was what we thought was watertight, with retina scanners and fingerprint scanners,

We thought it was watertight with retina scanners and fingerprint scanners. But here's a fact for you. A wolf's eye to a retina scanner, it's like a skeleton key. It can open the lot. Another security feature is that 90% of the beef library is underground. But this design feature seems to have backfired. It makes it all the more difficult now to attack and get the wolves out because from a defensive point of view it everything is in the wolves favor you've got the machine gun turret there which

i remember you were talking about last time i was here you're using that to ward the wolves away yes using the machine guns there uh what was it that meant that the wolves were able to overcome the turret because i can see them now there's a couple just hanging out inside the turret i don't know how the wolves themselves organize uh these days, but it really feels like these days there's always one on watch. I don't know... Are they able to use the machine gun there? They have a go. They do their best. Even if we could get past the machine guns, we'd then have to work our way through the wolves themselves.

I was interested in finding out what steps had been taken to try and solve the wolf infiltration. And I was extremely surprised by one of the names that came up. Hello, my name is Bob Triscothic, former bovine arse vet turned pest controller based in Norway.

I had a little bit of professional difficulty back in the UK. The word disgraced was bandied about quite a bit. And so I upped sticks and headed to Norway, where I've never been to before. Pest control-wise, really, it's essentially the same job, really. I just had to change the livery on my van. What you're doing is professionally offing animals who need to be offed. As a vet, generally speaking, that would usually be done with individual animals. With pest control, it's more in bulk.

I moved to Norway for a couple of reasons, really. One, no one knew me out there. I've never been there before. Norway for a couple of reasons really. One, no one knew me out there. I've never been there before. And two, I've always had a very deep love for the Nordic thrash metal scene. Specifically,

Black and Grindcore, which fuses traditional heavy thrash metal with tales from Norwegian folklore. Put it this way, if the lead singer's dressed as a troll, I know I'm in the right cave. I remember my first conversation with the Beef Library. I explained to them that I might well be the right man for the job, seeing as a wolf's mouth is actually very similar anatomically to a cow's anus. They were very surprised when I said that, but actually when you think about the positioning of the salivary glands within a wolf's mouth, the glandular architecture is very similar to the glandular architecture of the soft

inner cushioned layer of a cow's anus, which, if delicately tickled by someone in the know, can coax the animal into a state of somnolence and, indeed, obedience. The flip side, of course, is that, obviously, a wolf's mouth can be just as dangerous as a cow's arse um i did have one apprentice as a vet uh who was a little bit rough handling um a young bullock uh in fact and um the bullock had an anal panic spasm and so tight was the clenching of both the inner and outer sphincters of the bovine anus, that it ripped the arm of the apprentice clean off. So for an old hand like me, it's really much of a muchness. When I got the call, I happened to be in the process of making a new friend

in a herring bar in Tromsø, a young man called Ulf Gundersen. I thought it'd be a good idea to recruit a partner for this job, so I persuaded him to come down with me and drive to the library and see what was what. I was a little bit perturbed when I realised that the infestation wasn't so much a pack of, you know, half a dozen, maybe 10 wolves as I was imagining. It was more, we're talking 200 odd, very, very angry wolves. It was more, we're talking 200-odd, very, very angry wolves. I thought initially that the best thing to do would just be to send Ulfin with a sort of blunderbuss, effectively.

He wasn't so keen, so plan two. Had a little bit of a think. Tried to think, well, you know, a wolf isn't necessarily an apex predator. What is a predator for this predator? And of course, the answer is polar bears um a couple of phone calls later uh and ulf is uh setting sail off north to svalbard and uh by jove uh the man gets himself a polar bear in no time at all i was very impressed when i got the call from ulf um disappointingly though when uh when we were to rendezvous in a little harbour called Raffsporten, a little bit further down the coast,

I noticed that as the fishing trawler was coming in, it was sailing a little erratically. It didn't hit the main pontoon properly. It was adrift, essentially. I think probably what must have happened, probably even in the last minutes of the journey, is that the polar bear must have worked loose from its chains and had attacked everyone on board. And indeed, the authorities later found that everyone on board was dead.

I then got in touch with Ulf's cousin, Anders, and that's when we decided to try again. The other predator of wolves, of course, is wolves. So we broke into a wolf sanctuary about 100 miles to the east, which was a scientific research area, and got a van full of wolves and released those wolves into the wolves at the library. But that arguably made the situation considerably worse. My name is Astrid Lund,

and I'm the director of the International Beef Library here in the Arctic Circle. We always knew that the wolf infiltration was a possibility, but we foolishly believed that the machine gun turret in the car park would be sufficient. We also naively hoped that the wolves might have some respect for what we're trying to achieve here. The situation has become much worse after the intervention by the pest controller that we employed, and we have now given up hope of recovering the priceless beef within

the library. We have decided that the only course of action is to build a gigantic steel and concrete dome over the entire complex and seal it in. This is the news at 10 o'clock. The International Beef Library, which is now full of wolves, has announced today that they intend to trap the wolves by encasing the entire facility underneath a gigantic steel and concrete dome the dome which will weigh the best case

scenario is that we get all the wolves in the area in there and then we lock the thing shut and then we leave that for i don't know 200 300 years and then in years to come someone cracks it open and see what they've evolved into although there are hundreds and hundreds of wolves in there there are still humans in there um they've shut themselves into cupboards they put themselves into safe vaults uh in the hope of being safe obviously there's an issue then with if they are concreted in inside a massive steel orb um that will be a problem for them also a problem potentially for the world as you say if they crack this open in a few hundred years time and evolution and crossbreeding has done its thing we have these kind of huge mutant wolf men that's a possibility isn't it the killer is they'd still

be on the payroll while they're in there we're still having to pay them what we're looking at here is a potential of a couple hundred years down the line a bunch of wealthy evolved wolf men crawling from a concrete covered beef den and you know what does that mean for the world um given the way the world's going that could could be a blessed relief. Long story short, I've sent the Beef Library an invoice. I'm getting a bit of pushback from them because they say, ah, you didn't get rid of a single wolf. And arguably, the wolf population has now doubled because of your interventions. Also, there's a polar bear that we're being sued for.

Anyway, the point is, I still have petrol costs, right? I have to pay my apprentices. And even if they are dead or probably dead, then in my game, generally speaking, the family of the apprentice will always expect blood money. It's not a paying Mr. Treskothik's invoice. This catastrophe has been financially ruinous for the Beef Library. The only small consolation is that we are able to begin selling guest passes to live stream the CCTV from inside the Beef Library. For 20 euros a month, you get 24-7 access, and for 50 euros a month you get a premium pass which allows you to connect yourself through to the speaker system inside the library

so you can shout encouragement to either the remaining members of staff or the wolves, depending on which side you're on. For me, this is personally devastating, although luckily, the Beef Library was always secondary to my passion for music. Maybe your listeners would like to listen to my heavy metal band. We're called Snortras Gånflett, and we fuse traditional heavy thrash metal with tales from Norwegian folklore. Our lead singer dresses up like a troll, so you know it's the good stuff. If you'd like access to that CCTV web stream, Beef and Dairy Network members get 20% off using the code ABSOLUTECARNAGE. That's ABSOLUTECARNAGE, all one word. Simply go to wolfverslibrarian.com. That's wolfverslibrarian.com that's wolfversuslibrarian.com i asked alex about the cctv feed

it makes a pretty shocking viewing watching um a middle-aged scientist use a chair leg to try and fend off 10 wolves and actually successfully in that case some some of the stuff that's going on in there they're really giving it a good shot aren't they oh i mean it's amazing what people will do when they're backed into a corner and watching people who you know i mean i remember some of those people struggling to climb the stairs but when they're locked in a room full of wolves in many ways it brings out the best in them i think it's been the making of some of the people well i was watching a young scientist called graham peterson um someone was identifying him to me and said oh that's graham he's a junior scientist here joined a couple of years ago he's

a bit weird he's a bit quiet he's 25 um he's quite weedy uh they were saying i don't think the wolves are going to have any trouble with this guy and then he picked up a big rod like a staff and obviously we couldn't hear through the ccv but from my lip reading my rudimentary lip reading he was shouting i am now your king in a sort of bold move to try and actually become the pack leader i think he wants to work with the wolves rather than against them and um i think if he feels like if he can assimilate with the group then maybe that's his best shot so yeah i've seen him good luck to graham then yeah all the him. I mean, I think if ever he gets out, we here at the International Beef Library will be giving him a gold-plated reference

and we'd wish him all the best. Is there a chance that if he did get out, he would feel quite betrayed by his employer and you specifically, and might actually, especially having lived within the brutal hierarchy of a wolf pack, might take that out on you in a violent way

i think he would feel like this has been an experience in which he's learned enough to go okay whatever hasn't killed me made me stronger i think he he will come out and go okay at the time i was crossed that you locked me in a building with rampaging wolves yeah But what it'll add to his CV will just mean that, you know, long-term, he'll be fine. And I think he'll look back on it quite fondly. And obviously, you're not just locking in hundreds of wolves and a number of scientists. You're also locking in the world's beef heritage.

And that's the hardest part. There are things in that beef library which we have no other record of. You know, Graham was one in a million, but some of those beef dishes were one in a billion. And that's, yeah, that's quite hard to think about. Thinking about it now, I mean, hindsight is 20-20, but we really did put all our beef eggs in one basket here yeah we did and there was um there was always an argument to sort of split the international beef library around the world and to try and um maybe put burgers in one place and steaks in another place they built the international rib center in

in leicester and then that never actually got filled no it didn't because once you've got an international beef library and that's where you go to see the beef are you going to fly to leicester to look at ribs it's it's easier if it's all in one place for a short while there was an argument to move the international beef library around the world kind of like the olympics every four years hold it in a different city introduce a bidding process and that sort of thing but just the the logistics of moving all that meat from place to place to place that always seemed like a like a risky operation um but also you know there are problems here you know it's obvious this has gone wrong oh this is a catastrophe and that's because of the wolf problem but anyway you took on earth

there was always going to be problems wasn't there you know for example south africa was one of the people who wanted this in the first place. Had we built it in South Africa, we might have been looking at a similar thing full of cheaters. Wherever you go, there will be something that wants to get at your beef. If you held it in the English countryside, you'd be fighting off badgers. If you hold it here, you're fighting off wolves. Prague couldn't promise us that we wouldn't get a bear coming for us so it was always going to be a matter of sort of weighing up pros and cons

people were saying that there are parts of the world where there aren't apex predators carnivores so new zealand for example there's no major large carnivorous mammal that that is true scientifically but politically can you imagine the ramifications of putting the international beef library in the home of lamb yeah you'd um i mean i was worried certainly that you know we'd turn our back and before we knew it you'd go in the international beef library and it would just be full of lamb yeah there's there's absolutely no doubt okay we could we could have done that and we could have placed it there but to be honest i'd rather see my life's work and my colleagues life's work and indeed some of my colleagues torn apart by wolves than see that library located in New Zealand.

I respect that. I respect that. Thank you. More after this. Coming soon to Mitchell's Flicks UK. Why? Why did you shoot me? Nobody forces me to pay £60 for a briefcase I didn't ask for. Also, I love you. I love you too.

When I met you ten minutes ago, it felt like the clasp of a premium briefcase clicking into place. Rest your head on the soft interior leather of this briefcase. Goodbye. Bury me in a giant briefcase. Goodbye. Bury me in a giant briefcase. Oh, I will. The finest briefcase you've ever seen.

Beautiful soft leather, not leatherette. None of your cheap rubbish. It'll have a beautiful articulated handle. And it'll be monogrammed, my darling. It'll be monogrammed, my darling. It'll be monogrammed. I'll see you in the great briefcase in the sky.

The Briefcase. Coming soon to Mitchells Flicks UK. Subscribe to Mitchells Flicks UK today with the code BRIEFCASE and you will automatically be entered into a draw to win an exact replica of the briefcase used in the briefcase only one briefcase per household terms and conditions apply hello it's me again Benjamin Partridge now it's that time of the year and it only only happens once a year, so cut me some slack here, where I ask you for just a few minutes of your time. I just want to talk to you for a few

minutes about how listeners can support this show. I really like the way that Maximum Fun run things in terms of the business model. All the episodes of Beef and Dairy Network are free. They don't go behind a paywall after a certain amount of time. And apart from once a year, which is now, I don't have to spend time haranguing you and asking you for money on my patreon or whatever etc etc etc i also try and keep advertising to a minimum and i'm only able to do all that because this show is audience supported milk what are you, what are you? Drink the milk, fill up with wisdom, suck it all down, open up your third eye. Come with me, take my hand, fill my cup from the magical gland. Fill my cup from the magical gland Pasteurise my heart

Milk me in the moonlight An opaque liquid art Taste the cream and cry Many of you give money to the show and first of all I just want to say a huge thank you to you if you're one of those people without your support this show wouldn't be happening and I honestly really can't say how grateful I am thank you very much now 2020 so far has been a shit show and this is a weird time no doubt to be asking people for money so i understand that many of you won't be

able to or simply don't want to give any money and that's obviously totally fine i'm just very happy that you're listening but if you do have the means and and if the show means something to you and you want to support it then that is brilliant and now is the time to sign up maximumfund.org forward slash join most people choose the five dollar or $10 per month band, but also it's possible to support at higher levels, $20 and upwards. We are truly grateful for whatever level of support you're comfortable with. Your support means that the show can carry on and it means I can pay contributors and buy equipment and frankly live. You know, I'm a comedy writer by trade. I consider making this podcast to be part of my job

and it takes a lot of time. Your support gives me the space I need to spend time on the show and make sure it's as good as it can be. And what's amazing about your support is that it allows for that to happen. When you sign up, it will ask you which Maximum Fun shows you listen to. And that tells the system where to send the money to so a small amount of money will go to maximum fun for their overheads and that's something i'm very very happy about they've done so much for the show and they're a wonderful networking community and i'm very happy about that then the rest of that money will be split equally between the shows that you have indicated which means that if you only want to support the

beef and dairy network that is entirely possible also all maximum fund members get access to the bonus content feed which is bonus episodes that are added to each year this year's beef and dairy bonus episode is made up of bits that we recorded but didn't use for various episodes that we've made over the past year or so and i thought i'd include a little taster here of the kind of thing we've got. This is a clip of our old friend Eli Roberts. You may remember we did an episode where he talked about his time living in Korea. And here's a clip we didn't use in the episode.

It's him talking about his take on martial arts. I mean, obviously in all the Southeast Asian countries, then martial arts are a big thing you know you've got your karate's and you've got your kung fu's and you've got your judo's and your jujitsu's taekwondo is the big one in Korea

and at one level you've got to say like I respect someone because it's you know it's face to face it's hand to hand combat and there's an element of that certainly yes but I mean what I don't realise is

there's too many rules right life haven't got rules than the ass but I mean what they don't realise is there's too many rules right life haven't got rules there's no there's no rule book in life okay you can be the biggest

fastest hardest quickest most powerful most supple martial artist in the world right

you're still gonna lose against me because I'll wait till you're sleeping you can do all the martial arts in the world right you're still gonna lose against me because i'll wait to sleep in you can do all the martial arts in the world when you're asleep it's going to come down who's got the best attitude right because i will quite happily wait revenge is very underrated in in the combat world right so let's say let's let's say you're here in Korea and someone challenges you for whatever reason. Right. And they are a champion of taekwondo. Right. In that bout,

when they come towards you and they're doing the taekwondo, how do you fare? Best case scenario for them would be that I knock them out at the time, right? And someone say, oh, they're faster than you. They've been training since they were three years old,

blah, blah, blah. Right. Worst case scenario he's beaten me he's bested me if I lost then I've lost the battle

not the war right oh I'm the taekwondo champion I've beaten Oli Lai Roberts fair and square on the mat I've won well you've won

that battle sunshine what's going to happen now is tonight you're going to go to sleep Oli Lai's going to find out where you live he's going to go to sleep. All Eli's going to find out where you live. He's going to smother you if you're lucky, right? If you're lucky, I might eat you in the head with a skillet, right? But I will win the next battle,

which will be the decisive battle, right? So I don't see a point in any sort of combat that isn't ultimate. It doesn't matter if I'm in an octagon like these bloody idiots who do this UFC, whatever it's called, right? Oh, he's going to use this, oh, don't get him on the floor,

he's a grappler. I don't care if he's a grappler, I don't care if he's a puncher, grappler, kicker, whatever he is, right? What's he like when he's sleeping? Yeah? Don't matter who you are. I will hit you's he like when he's sleeping yeah no matter who you are i will hit you with a radiator when you're sleeping and then i've won using that as an example though right i'm not an expert in taekwondo or any of the

asian martial arts but as far as i know they're all based on a system of respect right and um a kind of i guess chivalry you know a a sense of what is right and what is wrong so that i think somebody who who was who was in that world would say you going back at night finding out where they live and and hitting them with the radiator that's kind of unsporting who's deciding what the sport is this is what i think this is what it boils down to right or that's unsporting behavior why he was on a mat 12 hours ago hitting me with a you know in front of a crowd of people thinking he's hard or that was the sport well i think this is the sport you know i think him

being asleep and me dropping a radio on his head is my sport right it was just saying my sports right and this sports wrong or vice versa what i'm saying is you talk about respect right the ultimate respect is don't start while you're not prepared to finish i've never picked a fight on someone and not been prepared to go to the house at night and drop a radio on their head, right? And I think that's the ultimate respect. So there we go. More of that sort of thing on the bonus feed.

Also, the previous year's bonus content is all there. So there are other similar episodes like that and a whole otherwise unreleased live show, which I think is worth it. On top of that there are gifts if you join or upgrade to ten dollars a month you get to choose a really great enamel pin badge of your favorite max fun show the beef and dairy one this year is a pin badge that says i ate the fifth meat and and to be honest there's been some mistake because

max fun got in contact with me and they said, what do you want on the badge? And I said, it should say, there are only four meats. But they've already made them and they say, I ate the fifth meat. Which is obviously nonsense. Oh, there's someone at the door, hang on. No! No! Oh, God! at $20 you get the maximum fun game pack with dice and maximum fun themed playing cards to see all the gifts available please go to maximumfun.org forward slash join and on top of the gifts you'll get that warm feeling that comes from knowing that you are supporting independent artists making things that you love. And making sure that the Beef and Dairy Network podcast continues until the end of time. So there we go. That wasn't so bad, was it?

Thanks for listening. Maximumfun.org forward slash join. Back to the show. Of course, the majority of Alex's work was out of bounds, trapped behind the snarling jaws of hundreds of monstrous mystical canines. Luckily, Alex had digitised some of the material that he had been collating for me, and so, as we sat on a hillside and watched wolves attack the workmen who were attempting to build the steel and concrete dome, he was still able to talk us through the history of the beef and dairy network okay now i guess we're going to be starting back in the 1940s of course we're very proud to trace our history all the way back to a bbc program actually that was on the bbc home service during world war

two called the beef front that's right originally presented by Millicent Ringrose, very popular programme throughout the Second World War. Unfortunately, Millicent herself was a German spy. She died mid-broadcast, actually, you know, in a bombing raid. And it gave The Beef Front a chance to find a new presenter who it also transpired was a German spy. And actually, when you listen back to those recordings, I think you can hear what's going on. This is the Beef Front, and my name is Jemima Jones. My love for beef is only matched by how British I am. And I'm as British as fish

and chips, cup of tea, piece of cheddar cheese, core blimey Bobby Hitler's trousers. Now remember, if you know the whereabouts of an upcoming RAF bombing raid on German soil, please write in with the coordinates so I can tell my friend Winston Churchill. Dankeschön. Thank you. So as we move into the 1950s, the beef front is still popular, but due to austerity, times are tight uh the BBC are looking to save money where they can so they end up sometimes pooling programs together pooling production teams together so what ended up happening is that a very popular program at the time Serenade at Seven which was um choirs and songs an an enormously popular programme,

found itself combined with the beef front. So essentially these two shows are sort of happening simultaneously. Yes, and it made for a very confusing listen. The finished show was a bit of a mess. Last week, beef calf rearing reached an all-time weekly record of 70,000 head of healthy calf beating the record set in March 1952. On the milk markets prices have have held steady with a gallon... Oh, sorry, I can barely hear myself thinking here. Really? Really? Will you shut up? Shut up, you infernal choristers! Be quiet quiet i am trying to do a report

here and you're all just singing away like a bunch of merry jackanapes living in a nightingale's enclosure and i am losing my ever-loving mind then into the 1960s uh well you know the 60s were like all bets were off uh There was a huge change in culture. It's very drug-inducing, all this sort of thing. Stuff's becoming very exciting in music, in theatre, in art. We had, of course, the Summer of Beef. The Summer of Beef, which was kids out till late into the night sharing beef dishes and, you know, their parents not knowing what was going on.

This wasn't the beef they were used to. This wasn't the sort of thing they grew up with. But what was interesting to see is how something like Beeffront has to reflect this. And so what you end up seeing is the Beeffront becoming very experimental. And now a few words from our consciousness. Beef. What you pay for it. Then something very interesting happened in the early 1970s. It turns out the American government had been watching what Britain had been doing

with the beef front with great interest and swept in and bought the beef front bought the format bought the format they took what worked about the beef front and they gave it an american spin an american twist and it's interesting to see that it's uh it's a crossover it's an american crossover that really really works i think what's lovely about what it became, which was Beef International, is that it's a very optimistic programme. You're thinking, you know, we've just put a man on the moon.

It's this idea of, you know, is the world going to start working together? There's the Coca-Cola advert, I'd like to teach the world to sing. And I think, if anything, Beef International became sort of beef equivalent of that idea. You know, you can just imagine people of all races and all nations tuning in to Beef International and thinking this is what beef is all about. Welcome to Beef International. I'm Ron Bickerstaff with all your beef news from across the globe. From Lake Tahoe to tahiti from madison to

madagascar we've got it all beef bringing the world together right here at beef international people in the uk they were still you know who'd been fans to be front they were subscribing to beef international but there's also stories of cassettes being smuggled behind the iron curtain no one would admit to it at the time but in in the USSR, Beef International was an incredibly popular show. People were listening to this and people were going, oh, this is what's going on in the West. This is what they're doing. This is what they're doing with beef. It was an optimistic broadcast, but that's what the American government wanted all along.

It was this idea of this is what America are bringing to the world through beef. So it's a world being brought together, but crucially being led by America. And, you know, Ron Bickerstaff typifies that. Absolutely. I mean, Ron Bickerstaff is the sort of all-American guy, a man who's sort of built from beef, as I think he used to say. I think a lot of people had seen those images

of the Earth taken from Apollo. And I think that's what Ron was saying. Ron was saying that's the world, and it's a world of beef. Welcome to Beef International. Big news from Brazil this week, where the beef market is hot, hot, hot. Then, as we move into the 1980s, Beef International changes in quite a seismic way. The optimistic tone is replaced by something a little more hectoring what you've

got to remember is that now uh reagan is in the white house and beef international is asked to adopt a more overtly anti-communist tone uh it's something that i think regular listeners were quite shocked by when it when it changed, but it was a very popular programme. One of the things that's most difficult to listen to as you work your way through the whole archive is Ron Bickstuff goes from being this quite warm, optimistic, friendly presence to an obviously much more difficult, spiky character who is fueled less by beef and more by a hatred of communist regimes. Hey, if you're listening in Russia,

if you're listening, Mr. Gorbachev, or as I call you, Mr. Gorba Jackass, American beef production is kicking your commie ass. Yup. Why don't you redistribute this? You can't see me, but I'm pointing at my dick, my strong American dick. I sometimes wonder, did the world change or did Ron change? And I think, I think both in many ways, but I think Ron was a man who saw an opportunity. I mean, many people

have said to me, is Ron Bickerstaff the greatest president America ever had? I mean, that's not for me to say. He did join the Republican Party in the mid-80s. I think it's pretty clear he thought he was in with a shot at taking over from Reagan. He was always on the right of the Republican Party, but he was very much a favourite at the time. And I think he would have been in with a shot I think he had a good chance were it not for the incident that led to the downfall of his career in which he was caught performing a lewd act in a hall of mirrors.

My name is Ivory Gwynn and I was Ron Bickerstaff's campaign manager in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988. I remember it so vividly. I was in a campaign headquarters in Omaha, and Ron was off in California, where he was trying to get the endorsement of the actor Emilio Estevez. I got a phone call. It was 11 in the morning. 11 in the morning. It was my assistant, Bianca, and she says,

Ron's been caught giving a handjob to one of the staff down on the Santa Cruz boardwalk. So I think, all right, I'm sure I can spin this. You know, there's nothing I can't spin. I'm sure we can play off a handy as, you know, trying to fix a car or something, something with that kind of movement. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, in that position, you go into damage limitation mode, of course. And the first thing you do is you have to work out exactly what you're dealing with. So I asked Bianca how many people saw him. Where exactly was it?

And that's when she told me. She said, Ivory, are you sitting down? Because it was in a hall of mirrors. And obviously my heart sank. How could you be so stupid? Because it was in a hall of mirrors, not only did it mean that he was seen by everyone else inside it, like a giant, sordid kaleidoscope,

I also knew that in the opinion of the religious right of the Republican Party, the very people we're hoping to get votes from, committing adultery in a hall of mirrors means that in the eyes of God, you've committed adultery over a hundred times. I don't know how many reflections there were. Every reflection is a new sin. So Ron Biggestaff was over. And by the end of the week, I'd moved on to the George Bush campaign. As for Ron,

uh, his wife left him. And he just sort of faded away, I guess. Last I'd heard, he'd gone to jail for selling a school some tainted donkey beef. And that was it, really, for Ron. And that was the end of both his political career and his broadcasting career. That was it. He was off the show. And to be honest, the show almost died with him then. So the demise of Ron Bickerstaff threatened to bring an end to this heritage of beef broadcasting

that had gone all the way back to World War II. But it did survive, didn't it? It did. The American license for the show expired. So the BBC suddenly had the right thing. We're looking for something to do with it. There was a space on Saturday morning, a slot traditionally home to kids television and some pretty forward-thinking producers went is this where we launched the next big thing in beef broadcasting and this of course is um i remember this from my own childhood beefers beefers what a show with it's spelt with a zed

yeah beefers with a zed presented by by Jess Lord and Bagshaw the Heron. Not a real heron. Not a real heron. A puppet heron. And these two were massive. It's Saturday morning. I'm Jess Lord. And I'm Bagshaw the Heron.

And it's time for Beefers! If you go to any British adult between between the age of i would say about 25 and 45 and go do you like beef and they say yes you go what got you into beef they'll say it was beefers kids absolutely loved it because it was three hours of fun all with that sort of beef-based slant. So, I mean, I was... The thing that got me into beef broadcasting was when I remember saying to my mum and dad, can I phone the farmer? Can I phone the farmer? And there'd always be a farmer on air

and you could ask him absolutely anything about beef farming. You just phone up, you get put through, he's sitting there with his massive phone and you just go, hi, how does a milking machine work? And he'd say you know and he'd say and sometimes he'd explain in exceptional detail i mean when i watch kids tv now i just think you know there's no way that children's television now would just have for seven eight

nine minutes a farmer on a large phone slowly explaining how a milking machine works to a to a young lad in wales and that's a shame. It's a tremendous shame. Once the milk has come up through the nozzle, it's pulled through the system by a vacuum pump through a filter sock before being cooled. You're going to want to replace that filter sock fairly regularly or sediment can back up in the system, causing all sorts of problems.

That doesn't sound like much fun. It's an absolute f***ing nightmare. We apologise for that language. It is a f***ing nightmare. Now, I've got questions about beefers. I watched many episodes, as I've said. But it did always confuse me why it was presented by Jess Lord, who was a great presenter, a young woman, very chirpy and bubbly

and lots of fun. And you were way around beef. Absolutely. She grew up, her father was a beef farmer, of course. But then she was accompanied by Bagshaw the heron, the puppet heron. Why did they choose a heron? Why not a cow, for example? Right. So we're looking at a show. It's discussing dairy, but it's also discussing beef. So if you've got a cow and we're looking at meat on a plate it doesn't take much for a child to go hang on a second that puppet cow one day might be will be puppet beef and you know you you can you you did the what they wanted was an animal that wouldn't end up on a plate somewhere i mean if we're going to be feeding an animal to the pet shop Boys, let's make sure

that it's not an animal that's also a puppet in the studio. Oh dear! What's the matter, Bagshaw? I'm just trying to digest this new European Union farming legislation, but it's so complicated. Well, luckily, later we're joined by

Claude Leconte from the European Federation of Food and Agriculture to talk us through the changes. Thank you, Jess. As a thank you, here, eat a stickleback from my beak. I don't want to. No, go on. No.

Just reach in and grab it. It's just there. You can see it. Eat it. Don't be ungrateful. I'm not being ungrateful. I don't want to. I don't want to.

Eat it. I don't want to eat it. I don't want to eat it.'t want it! Eat it! I don't want it! Eat it! I don't want it! Eat it! And then Beefers comes to an end, and I believe the BBC take the decision to relinquish the format and decide they're not going to do any more beef broadcasting. That's right, and it could have all ended there were it not for a very forward-thinking man called Paul Kitesworthy.

Of course. Who looked back at everything that has happened since the Beef Front all the way through to Beefers and fashioned the Beef and dairy network pretty much as we know it today a printed magazine and an audio show which he would present on cassette and of course uh later the podcast available wherever you get your podcast from absolutely he was the person who went this is uh this is the modern beef and dairy network. Well, thank you, Alex. It's been wonderful to talk to you about our history and our heritage.

And it's amazing to feel that I am carrying the torch, a torch that was lit by a German spy back in the 1940s. Beef broadcasting has an amazing history. And, you know, it's just a shame that we decided to put it all in one place a place that has since been completely overtaken by wolves yes well Alex best of luck with getting your facility back from the wolves and I'll see you again soon

thanks very much so there we have it from the beef front through Beef International and Beefers here we are the Beef and Dairy Network. A broadcasting dynasty that will last for a thousand years or more. And before we go, a final treat for this episode.

We managed to track down a couple, Iris, 95, and Bernard, 97, who have been loyal listeners ever since that first episode back in 1942. loyal listeners ever since that first episode back in 1942. We've listened to every iteration of the Beef and Dairy Network, haven't we? Yes, every single one, yes. That's right, from the Beef Front in the 1940s, remember that? Yes, I remember. All the way until now.

And I have to say, and you'll agree with me, I know, darling, that it's all been absolutely dreadful. It's been a terrible, awful programme. Absolutely appalling listening. A complete waste of our time. Yes, yes, yes. A complete waste of our time. Yes, yes, yes. Nurse, it's time for us to be washed.

Aside from Iris and Bernard, there's also been something else that's been there the whole time. It was there back in 1942 at Britain's darkest hour, and it's here now in the modern, complex, challenging world we find ourselves in. If you fall, it's there to catch you. If you cry, it's there to comfort you. If you buy a second-hand Hyundai i10 and it turns out to be a complete lemon, it's there to commiserate with you. It doesn't judge you or tell you what to do or refuse to give your money back even though you find out that it's actually the front end of one Hyundai i10 and the back end of another Hyundai i10 crudely welded together. Whatever you're going through, it understands what you need.

And unlike your father-in-law, it doesn't go on about how you should have run the car's registration plate through the online registration checker tool. I think you probably know where I'm going with this. It's our old friend, the big kahuna, the chairman of the board, the commander in beef. That's right, it's beef. thanks to tim bick jemma arismith tom crowley gareth gwynn mike wozniak peniela harland and linnéa sage and thank you for listening just want to say again huge thank you to everyone who's already a maximum member and if you're interested it's maximumfun.org forward slash join. And if you've got any questions about how it works or anything like that, get in contact.

The email address is beefanddairynetwork at gmail.com. Also, we're on Twitter, Beef and Dairy. We're also on Instagram and we're also on Facebook. And if you did some skywriting, there's a chance I'd see it. Although, to be honest, I'm not really leaving the flat very much at the moment. Because of the virus,

stay safe wherever you are. Remember, at the end of the day, the real virus is lamb. Bye. Bye.