Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 71 - Bovine TB

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

It's MaxFunDrive! To support the show, go to maximumfun.org/joinLloyd Langford, Monica Gaga, Chris Cantrill and Nic Redman join in as we find out all about shocking levels of Bovine TB in the UK.By Benjamin Partridge, Lloyd Langford, Monica Gaga and Chris Cantrill. Thanks to Nic Redman.Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com

Hello, Benjamin Partridge here. I make the Beef and Dairy Network podcast. I'm just popping up to tell you that this episode is taking place during MaxFunDrive, which is the two week period every year where shows on the Maximum Fun Network ask their audiences to consider supporting them. And I personally think it would be a great idea for you to go to MaximumFun.org forward slash join. That's MaximumFun.org forward slash join. That's maximumfun.org forward slash join. I'm not sure why. I just have a good feeling about you doing that. I think it's maybe what you need.

I don't know why. It's just one of those feelings. Just one of those things. All right. Maximumfun.org forward slash join. On with the show. Sometimes the impossible is possible. They said it was impossible to run a four minute mile,

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Lovely stuff. 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 pig milk with beefy chunks. Now, there's been some discussion in the office here about advertising pig milk again. I was initially resistant, but then I tasted it and the beef chunks infused the pig milk with a distinct beef flavour. Also, they said that if we don't advertise the product, they will release onto the internet compromising photographs of me from last year's Farmers and Fishermen's Jamboree. For the record, those photos do not exist and anything you might

see is a concoction of photoshop on one hand and on the other hand the depraved mind of a band of sick perverts who sell pig milk. Sorry, delicious pig milk. Now, bovine tuberculosis. It's everywhere. If you're a farmer you've probably got it. That's the message from the Department for the Environment, Food, Rural Affairs, Fields, Birds, Hay and Animals after they published the findings of a UK-wide TB testing survey. Hello, my name is Melissa Bamber. I'm a civil servant from the Department for the Environment, Food, Rural Affairs, Fields, Birds, Hay and Animals. I spoke to Melissa earlier this week. So Melissa, thank you so much for talking to me today. We're here to talk about your new public campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of

bovine tuberculosis. And I've read some very shocking figures on your website this morning about the numbers of farmers who've got bovine TB. Almost 80% of farmers have bovine TB. Can I repeat that please? 80% of farmers. Yeah, 80%. I mean, that is huge. To help me understand how you came to this number, can you tell me a bit about the testing process? Yeah, so first we start off by knocking on the door and they're usually not in. So that was the first massive hurdle there. So what we tended to do is start knocking on the door in the middle of the night because farmers tend to not go out because they've got to be up really early so we'd knock knock on the door um in the middle of the night uh we'd shine a light in their face just so they're kind of like dazed because i'll tell you another thing about farmers strong that's what work field

work does to you makes you really really strong um and then we say uh hello i'm a volunteer or i'm a colleague from the department for environment food rural affairs birds hay and animals if you don't get that sentence correctly legally nothing is binding so you have to close the door and then just knock again and start that again it's a bit of a it's a bit of a tongue twist of that department name they could have shortened that down to some kind of acronym maybe no they couldn't because people need to know that we're the department for environment food rural affairs fields birds haze hay and animals sorry there's multiple types of haze hey that always gets me um but apparently we can't change it now because they say hey melissa it's on all of our buildings

so we can't say haze sorry so just just to be clear the official name is department for environment food rural affairs fields birds hay and animals but you personally would rather it were the department for the environment food rural affairs fields bird haze and animals because you believe correct it's better to represent that there's more than one kind of hay is that what you're saying my beliefs are based on facts so i just want that to just be there not that sorry i just get really passionate about that you wasn't attacking me oh i'm definitely projecting no it's fine i mean i i personally i didn't realize there's more than one kind of hay i just thought hay was hay muggle that's what we like to call you in the uh the office a muggle there is a lot of type of hay and thank goodness because the environment could not

just survive on one type of hay imagine if there was only one type of hay, and thank goodness, because the environment could not just survive on one type of hay. Imagine if there was only one type of pasta. What would happen? Yeah, I see. Okay, so like a certain kind of hay is a bit more like a penne, one's more like a sort of conchigli. Yes. Thank you. Some people don't seem to get that, but it is important, and you do. And is that because the hay manages to hold on to different kinds of sauces in a different way oh okay oh sorry some i have to check i took a little second there because sometimes people mock me but i see that you're genuinely interested we don't put sauces on hay

that would be a complete waste really um and at the department we don't like waste at all it's like for example if you was to put i don't know feces on your pasta it would be completely ruined and you couldn't use it do you put feces on your pasta no judgment here no no i mean i i struggled to see how putting pasta sauce on hay is similar to putting feces on pasta but it ruins it and you can't use it's unusable like there's no way back from putting feces on food there's no like three second five second rule like. Like that's it. It's done. Yeah. But if you accidentally sort of dropped some arrabbiata sauce on a bit of hay, it's not the end of the world, is it?

Well, I would say yes, because the world is dying. But there we go. Although I have no reason to doubt the veracity of Melissa's numbers regarding the number of farmers who have bovine TB, it simply isn't true that there is no such thing as sauce for your hay. Are your cows bored of boring old hay? Mitchell's hay sauces flavour any hay and bring the classic flavours of Italian cooking to your herd. The range includes a metriciana, carbonara and of course the classic bolognese, which of course can be used with layers of hay to create a hay lasagna. Anyway, more after this. Sometimes the impossible is possible.

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one of those magazines off at Top Shelf. And you get every single issue, and you can build a replica of Deep Space Nine. Pig milk with beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur. Sometimes the impossible is possible. Oh, that's got a kick to it, that egg liqueur. Go on, have a bang on that. Of course, a central part of the story when it comes to talking about bovine TB is badgers, which are a vector for the disease.

Over the years, there have been various attempts to control badger numbers to bring down instances of bovine TB, often with mixed success. Hello, I am Larrington Borgart, badger exterminator. Former army officer Larrington hit the papers this month when the news came out that he is still exterminating badgers, despite the fact that the official government badger cull ended in 2019. Larry spoke to me from a secret location. I can't tell you exactly where I am, mainly because I am wanted by the government and I

survive as a soldier of fortune. Okay, well, I understand that. Obviously, you don't want to give away exactly where you are, but all of the sightings that were reported in the newspaper over the past couple of weeks seem to suggest that you're living in woodland. Is that true? You're living in the wild? Well, I thought if you are going to track the badger, you must know the badger. And so I've decided to live like a badger for as much of my life as I can. And also my wife has kicked me out. Okay. Does that extend to a badger's diet?

Yeah, I'm foraging a lot and also stealing from supermarkets. So you're totally off grid. I don't know if that means you've seen the stuff in the papers about you. You've been outed as the man who won't stop the badger cull. I don't know if you've seen any of that. I'm not being distracted by the white noise of Rupert Murdoch's misinformation. I have one job and that is to eradicate badger, and anything else is superfluous to that. But you say you have one job. Now, when people describe their job, job normally means someone else is paying for you to do that thing. But that's not the case here, is it? Is it fair to call it a job? that's not the case here is it is it fair to call it a job well i mean i would say um jesus's job was to get the love of god into all of our hearts and he wasn't drawing a minimum wage no but i think maybe you could say jesus's job was carpenter jesus's hobby was preaching and doing miracles. Okay, then.

I'll concede that point. It is a hobby. I mean, he's one of those people that managed to turn his hobby into a job to an extent. You know, the money from the Bible sales, that obviously came after he died. It's similar to Van Gogh. Was Van Gogh's job a painter when he was alive,

or was that his hobby? Look, the way I see it is, do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life and i love killing badgers okay so what is it about badgers do you think that really gets you going why are you so obsessed with with exterminating them they spread rabies they spread bovine tuberculosis they're're just big, angry shit skunks, and we need to get rid of them. How did you find yourself cutting badgers in the first place?

How did you get into this line of work? Well, you know, I got involved in it in my local community. I was in the pub, and I was chatting to a farmer one night, and I was like, how's it going? He said, oh, bad, you know, there's these badgers that are making my cows poolie. And I said, well, oh, bad, you know, there's these badgers that are making my cows poorly. And I said, well, look, mate, you know, I've got a gun. If you just point me in the right direction,

I'll sort that out, no problemo. You said you have a gun. Was that related to your past as an army officer? Yeah, I mean... Are you allowed to keep the gun? No, it was... I wasn't aware that was the case. It was like in my suitcase and I'd forgotten about it.

We've all done it. You know, when you take like a towel from a hotel or something, it was in the suitcase and then I thought there's going to be a lot of admin and faff and stuff. If I put all my hand up and say, oh, look, I've got this sniper rifle, it would raise more questions than it would answer. So I just kept it under the bed, and then I never used it on a person.

But this farmer, he was in trouble, and I was like, I can help you out. I'm a crack shot and um you know i'd also had a few pints of cider as well you know so i was in a kind of loose loose enough zone where getting the gun from under the bed and then going out shooting badges felt like a good idea so the way you describe that you, you mentioned that you'd had pints of cider. Do you look back and think maybe that wasn't a good idea? Vino veritas.

The cider unlocked my potential, as it often does for a lot of people. So I believe then you were doing that kind of, as I say, as a hobby. You were doing it pro bono, just for farmers who would approach you in the pub. There's reports of you not just using the sniper rifle. You also, you can confirm or deny this, would use grenades or anti-tank mines?

Yeah, ordnance, I think is the word. Yeah, I, you know, there's stuff that I accidentally had in my suitcase. And there's also other stuff I found from various military supply shops you know it's illegal to buy a gun but is it illegal to buy parts of guns and then assemble

those into a working gun yes sometimes the impossible is possible finally alcoholic pig milk and beef collide with the flavours of East Asia in our new product, pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur. But don't just take our word for it. Pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur

is personally endorsed by West Yorkshire darts champion, Kenny Baritone. Do you know what? It actually works. It's a taste sensation. And it's free-range egg liqueur. None of these miserable chickens in a little pen. They're happy. They're roaming around. Absolutely battered. I went to the chicken farm. I saw it with my own eyes.

The chickens are everywhere. They're completely out of control they must be stopped now back to my interview with melissa i asked melissa why they shine a light in the face of the farmer when they open the door just because uh you can sometimes start to kind of reflect the things that you work with so if you've got a farmer that's working with a lot with uh for example uh poultry um i don't know if you've been a farmer that's working with a lot with, for example, poultry, I don't know if you've been attacked by a chicken before, but it ain't no joke. I'll tell you that.

So just to kind of startle them, you obviously let them know where you're from. Then they will step down because they respect that authority. And then you do a quick swab and a tiny little kiss on the nose. You kiss the farmer on the nose? Well, not personally me, but anyone that's doing the procedure, they will just give them a quick kiss on the nose you kiss the farmer on the nose well not personally me but anyone that's doing the procedure they will just give them a quick kiss on the nose but don't worry they will be wearing protection right and what what is the purpose of the kiss on the nose just as a soothing method we found that from research that after you've had a swab that you do feel a little bit unsure uneasy so just that little bit of of bedside manner works really well.

So, you know, you did these tests, you got the numbers in, it's 80%. I mean, obviously this number is really high. What is driving this level of infection? How are these farmers contracting bovine TB in the first place? Are they getting it from their herds? Yeah, it's actually a legacy condition. I say that because there's a long history of farmers, once they have milked the bovine, their cows,

that they will give the cow a small kiss on the nose. That's actually where the bedside manner of kissing the farmer on the nose after any procedure comes from and it's something that their forefathers their ancestors would have done the people that would have taught them um in some oh gosh in some textbooks you would see it as well they're doing what the people have been doing for hundreds even thousands of years of milking a cow then kissing it on the nose, which makes sense. I can understand that your listener will be like, okay, that makes sense. But actually,

this is one of the number one contributors to bovine TB. And that's why it's at 80%. Okay, well, if you're saying to farmers, no more kissing the cow on the nose, I think many of them will understand why you're saying that. But they'll be saying back to you, OK, but it's an important part of keeping my herd's morale high. You know, every day we're taking them into a smelly room. We're milking them with their milk. We need to keep their spirits up. So we give them a kiss on the nose.

What can we do instead that's a bovine TB safe way of showing our appreciation to the cows for what they're doing for us yeah so there's a simple way um you can uh place uh two fingers into any kind of lubricant substance and place that on the nose of the cow which mimics the feeling of kissing and especially as a farmer you're likely to have quite rough lips anyway from being quite weathered. So your hands would also have that as well. So any kind of lubricant. Now, while lubing your fingers and trying to recreate a kiss might work,

another way to show gratitude to one of your cows is with Mitchell's Hay Sauces. All the flavours of Italy in your field. Bored of pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur? All the flavours ofonne in a drink. Sweet and chock full of egg liqueur. She loves her stuff. She's supping it day and night. After years of exterminating badgers

for farmers that he met in the pub, in 2016, he was noticed by the authorities and brought in to train at an official badger culling college. I think they realised I was a loose cannon and that they wanted to shape me and mould me, but I will not be put into any mould. Is it fair to say then that college didn't go the way that they might have imagined? I mean, I could do the job, but I just i wasn't interested in in playing by the book

as it were you know they had us out and um you know in a shooting range and we are firing at fake badgers badger targets and then occasionally you know there'd be another black and white animal like a zebra or something that you weren't supposed to hit, you know, like the sort of hostage of the badger. It was just really lame, you know. So what I did one night, I mean, this got me into trouble and ultimately kicked out of the college, is I went and caught eight badgers and kind of strapped them together,

like I call it the octobadger. And he was angry, you know, because it was like eight of them. I don't think they were from the same family, so they were pissed off. And I let it then into the barracks. I just let it out into there. And it was like this ball of fury. And everyone was screaming, oh, what's happening?

You know, and like afraid. And I was like, these people aren't really interested in killing badgers. They're, you know, they're lightweights. And you say you were thrown out of the college. Did the people running the college not realise that ultimately you were trying to do a good thing? Yeah, but you know, I'm like John Rambo, right? So they want to put me into the system, but I cannot be contained by the system.

So like CJ the movie, you know? Are you still in touch with any of the people that you met at the college? I'm not in touch with anybody, mate. I'm just out here on my own, you know, doing God's work. So you're in the college, you get thrown out. I believe at that time then the government did begin the official badger cull. So people were sent out around the country and were trapped in shooting badgers.

So were you part of the official effort or were you alongside it? First of all, I was. I thought finally, you know, my passion has been recognised and, you know, I can get out there and kill these badgers with everyone else and, you know, protect the innocent cows who, you know, it's not their fault. They're susceptible to this tuberculosis. But the thing is that their methods were so lame and, like, slow

and, you know, they were using things that I was like, I've tried that before and it doesn't kill enough, you know, or it doesn't kill them quick enough or as many of them, you know. So I was always, like, I was kind of like Pele, I guess, in the sort of Brazilian World Cup squad. You know, I had skills that out-rivaled everyone else's. And I, you know, in the end, I was like, I'm just going to go and play with my own ball.

Love the taste of pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur cherry, but don't love the calories? Then why not try new diet pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur cherry personally endorsed by darts champion kenny baritone oh i've tried out the diet version but it's not working drinking twice as many i mean you were you were awarded the golden badger in 2017 for the most badger kills in the year yeah and i had a look at the league table they put up on online the person in second place killed well maybe by a factor of 20 or 30 less badgers than than you did you managed to kill 18 000 badgers in one year

yeah and you know i i was always experimenting as well, so I hold my hands up here. I made mistakes, you know. Traditionally, to kill badgers a sort of normal, acceptable way, you use gas, you know, in the sets and stuff. I was the first person in the United Kingdom to use mustard gas instead. I don't know if you're aware of the mustard gas. You drown in your own blood, basically. That's how mustard gas kills you.

And also, as a side effect, flavours the badger meat somewhat. Just a little, yeah, a little piquancy. What's the meat like? Very chewy. Yeah, it's like bad horse. It's like beef jerky. Beef jerky's far from inedible. Yeah, but you're chewing on it for ages, you know.

There's no tender part of the... The nose is tender, but to kill enough badgers for a meal of badger noses, it's just, it's not workable. Right, so back to the topic of of your use of mustard gas yeah and i you know i was using mustard gas uh country life magazine called it a needless massacre and to this day i am still proud of that well you may be proud of it but um the badgers weren't the only victims were they i had no idea there were people out at the same time foraging for mushrooms. We all make mistakes.

They were the first people in Britain to die from mustard gas in over 100 years. You know, I'm a maverick and I've made mistakes in my life and I think that's probably my biggest regret actually, killing those mushroom people. I mean, it's not just mustard gas, is it? When I read about what you got up to, there's a big vibe of World War I about the whole thing. It feels like you were taking a lot of inspiration, really, from the Great War 1914 to 18. Yeah, you know, barbed wire, bayonets.

I see it as a war. It's us against them. And so it's natural for me to go back to the history books is there any truth in the the rumors you've always been quite evasive when asked about this in the past is there any truth and rumors that you traveled to london went to the imperial war museum and commandeered some of the original great War technology there? Look, what I'll say is a lot of these museums, they've got loads of this stuff out the back, right? There's tons of it there, and only a very small percentage of it is actually on show

to the general public. And so, you know, if a Sten grenade goes missing or, you know, a helmet or, you know, poisons, they'll just replace it. And, you know, it's absolutely, you know, I'm trained in the arts of warfare. I know what I'm doing with this stuff. And they honestly, they wouldn't miss it. They just go back into the stockroom and say, oh, you know, some school kid's pinched another grenade.

We'll just go and get another one out the back. Diet pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur cherry with a parsley twist. Oh, that parsley. King of the herbs. I bow to thee, my liege. Parsley, king of the herbs. I bow to thee, my liege. Parsley, I doff do unto thy bidding. Hello, Benjamin Partridge here.

Before I do this little section, I just need to apologise for my voice. It's gone terrible. It's gone hoarse. And yeah, it sounds like I've smoked a hundred cigars in one go. Just one cigar after the other. Another one, please. Another one've smoked a hundred cigars in one go. Just one cigar after the other. Another one, please. Another one.

I need more cigars. But I haven't. I've never smoked any cigars. A whole lifetime of not smoking cigars. And what do I get in return? This horse voice. Oh, it's horrible. Anyway, I apologise for that.

But I'm going to soldier on. So it's Max Fundrive, which is when I spend a few minutes asking you, the listener, whether you'd be willing to support the Beef and Dairy Network. Don't skip this bit. Just give me a few minutes. So, the business model for this podcast, and all podcasts on Maximum Fun, is that we are funded by the listener. Obviously, I do occasionally run an advert but we never run more than one because frankly who wants to listen to adverts all day also i like this way of doing it because i'm not having to beg you every month

i just give you this one picture here and here it comes just sit back relax maybe maybe light up a cigar maybe have more than one maybe that one could be the first in a line of a hundred cigar don't do it don't do it another one please another one i need more cigars and boxes of fine european biscuits anyway here we go first of all i want to say a huge thank you to everyone who already supports the podcast uh thank you i mean you're you're the reason that that it happens everyone involved gets paid and i can put loads of my time into it because it you know it takes a lot more time maybe than you even imagine i i don't know i find myself spending hours and hours and hours making these and i love doing it but your funding means that I can justify doing it and not doing something else instead and so in that way your

contributions mean the show happens and so a big thank you the show is free of course and um you know if you can't afford it or you don't want to obviously that is totally fine but if you have got the means and you love the show and you enjoy listening to it and you think it's worth a few dollars then go to maximumfund.org forward slash join there are different tiers you can join at starting at five dollars a month if you join at five dollars a month you get access to the bonus content not just for beef and dairy network but for all shows on the maximum fund network and those are great episodes. There's now, I think, six bonus episodes from Beef and Dairy Network. There are previously

unbroadcast live shows that you can listen to. There are outtakes. There are bits that never made it into the final shows but are still good. Like I just found this on my hard drive.

Why have I never used this before? three, two, without beef, call what you're going to do. Five, nine, six, triple two, three, nine. Think about winning beef all the time. One, four, triple eight, nine, two, three. Sometimes beef is all I can see. Four, seven, six, four. Eating beef naked on the floor. Eating beef naked on the floor. Eating beef naked on the floor. Literally have no memory of making that, which is a bit worrying, isn't it? Now, if you join at the ten dollar tier you get the best gift of all the enamel pin badge oh my god ours is very very good this year it is a um a badge with a very dainty posh looking hand holding a glass of wine and it says make mine a fizzy beef wine if you need that badge and you may well do that's on the ten dollars a month tier at the twenty dollar tier there is a tea making kit or a hat at the thirty five dollar

tier there is an insulated cup but joining up really isn't about these gifts it's about the warm feeling you get inside when you support independent artists making the shows you love or just like also please remember we have huge grain debts to pay to the actor ted danson the way it works is when you join up you tell the system which max fun shows you listen to it could be loads of shows it could just be beef and dairy network and the system then funnels your money at the right shows so if you only listen to beef and dairy network and you beef and dairy network then all the money um comes to us if not it's shared with whatever other shows that you've ticked and the max fun network overall um takes a small cut which um some people get in contact

with me and say i'm not happy to give money because max fun take money off you i just want to say i'm really really happy with this uh arrangement i love the network they do a lot for the show also please remember we have huge grain debts to pay to the actor Ted Danson. So if you would, please pause the podcast now and go to maximumfund.org forward slash join. Pause it. Maximumfund.org forward slash join.

Or maybe you're listening in your car and you can't safely access maximumfund.org forward slash join. Pull over into a safe lay-by area. Maybe a kind of a local beauty spot. You-by area maybe a kind of um a local beauty spot you could take a detour go to a local beauty spot um stop the car turn off the engine just listen to the silence the birds maybe you know have a cigar nice time for a cigar and um tap maximumfund.org forward slash join into your phone have a look at that

sign up to support the podcast experience a overwhelming feeling of well-being enjoy the beauty spot find an old box of raisins in the glove compartment and have a couple of those god life's good isn't it and then then, you know, maybe another cigar. Another one, please. Another one. I need more cigars. Not sure I know where I'm going with this cigar thing, to be honest. Bring me 20 cigars and the finest fizzy be fine. And then back on the road.

On a personal note, being able to make the podcast through 2020 and get paid for my time was a godsend for me. So I really can't say how grateful I am. Well, I can try. I'm very grateful is what I'm basically saying. Very, very grateful. Anyway, I'll stop going on about it now. Thank you for giving me your time.

I hope you've enjoyed the show this year. I've loved making it. And I hope you've loved listening to it as much as I've loved making it. All right, back to the show. Also, please remember we have huge grain debts to pay to the actor Ted Danson. Tell us a little bit about how Bovine TB is tackled from a medical perspective.

So what we have to do is we have to quarantine the farmer for 14 days away from any animals or other human beings. And then there needs to be a full and when I mean full I mean full renovation of their home complete renovation we have a team that are coming in changing everything completely we want to see air we want to see light we want to really look at the flow of the house and the things that are used and the things that aren't used in the house and that's happening within the 14 days in tandem uh parallel sorry with the um the isolation that the farmer

has for those 14 day right so what they're isolating and then whilst they're in isolation a team swoops in into the farmhouse you know knock some walls down make it a nice open plan kind of space maybe maybe extend the kitchen area a nice big skylight get some natural light in um maybe put in a breakfast bar all of this sounds good but how does that help with the bovine tb problem it's a real change so as soon as that farmer comes in to that house after the 14 days of isolation they are astounded that this is a place that they once were. And what it seems to be from all the research and the scientists that have been working on this project

is that boost of endorphins, that massive shift of change of being alone for so long and then being reunited with your family, with your farm and that change, it just outs the bovine tb right um and it's a hundred percent effective that's incredible i mean you've also you've begun filming some of these moments when the farmers go back into their house and you've put it on your youtube channel and i mean it's incredible content i mean they are it is amazing to see someone go oh my god i

can't believe this is the same farmhouse i don't recognize it i amazing to see someone go oh my god i can't believe this is the same farmhouse i don't recognize it i love the the colors you've come up with i love this um this statement wall you've done etc etc etc but you can almost see the bovine tb leaving their body they sort of they straighten up their their eyes become brighter it's like it's absolutely incredible is this the i mean this is the only time i've ever heard of of a house renovation being the key to beating a disease that's incredible yeah it's amazing that we spent so many years messing about with these antibiotics and all of these other medical tries and things like that and all they needed was a good house renovation it's literally saving lives. It is.

And as I said, you watch the YouTube videos and it's really heartwarming, especially you add that music underneath and it just feels like I felt rejuvenated by it. And I don't have bovine TV, touch wood. But there will be people saying, well, the cost of these renovations, the ones I've seen on YouTube,

they must run into the maybe hundreds of thousands of pounds. There was one where I saw you dug into the basement and put in a swimming pool. And there was one where extended an outhouse and turned that into a full bowling alley with loads of arcade games. I think there was an actual franchise of Burger King inside. And you built that. These are big projects they've got to cost a lot of money and that money is paid for by the public purse ultimately the nhs yes but luckily especially with the reason that we're doing the youtube channel not just for fun also

the fact that we're able to monetize that now because we get so many views. So it's partly public funded, partly private funded as well. We also do obviously have the partnership with Burger King. So there will often be a franchise for Burger King with any of the renovations. So bear that in mind when viewers are watching our YouTube or listeners are listening into this,

there is that partnership there as well. So it comes at a quite reduced cost. But how much money does a Burger King make when it's inside someone's private home? Because surely the only people who are able to use it are the farmer, their partner, maybe their children, you know, maybe some farm workers, but you know, it's not many people, is it? So it really, I can't, I can't comment on that because every single family is at a different size and they visit burger king at different times some farmers have opened up their franchise the local communities so i can't it's really difficult for me to give you an answer to that melissa bamber thank you for talking to me thank you diet pig milk with black bean beefy chunks

laced with egg liqueur cherry with a parsley twist sports edition as a professional sportsman, believe you me, I know that it is important to get a scientifically balanced pig milk, black bean sort of parsley thing. I just drink it all down. It sets in my stomach and that gives me a very powerful center of gravity for wanging them darts in that board. When you were carrying out the legal badger cull, obviously that became a big issue in Britain. There's lots of people who had ethical problems with it. The Queen guitarist Brian May was a big proponent of the badger's right to life and he thought the Badger Club was unethical.

What is it that you think when you come across these people? You must have come into contact with these people. All you need to know about Brian May is that after Freddie Mercury died, he thought it would be a good idea to continue the band Queen. I mean, the guy is an imbecile. Like, he doesn't know what he's doing. He's got in this guy, Adam Lambert. I mean, give it up, mate.

He's clearly got too much time in his hands. He's doing this. He's an astrophysicist. He's a friend of the badger. I mean, he's trying his hand at three or four different things at the same time, and he's failing at all of them. Freddie Mercury mercury be turning his grave if he could see what brian mays become how do you think freddie mercury would feel about

the badger cull freddie mercury he was a friend of of lots of oppressed people and the cows i think are oppressed by the the tyranny of the badger i think freddie would be broadly on board i think roger taylor and john deacon probably on the fence what would you say to someone who says sure right this is a system where you're killing badgers because they are giving tb to cows yes could you not say well why don't we kill the cows stop them giving tb to the badgers cows they provide us for so much, don't they? They provide us with milk. They provide us with leather. They provide us with suede. A multitude of things.

The badger, what does it do with? Nothing. It's living underground like some kind of apocalyptic fucking weirdo. And it's spreading diseases. You can't get milk out of a badger and i've tried you cannot get milk out of a badger you cannot get suede out of a badger useless well regardless of what you think of uh brian may and the like eventually various councils across the country and i think the government overall called off the badger cull. Yes.

There are no longer any official badger culls taking place within the UK. Tell me about when you heard that news. How did you find out that the badger cull was over? Oh, well, you know, I was looked at as a sort of harmful eccentric, I guess, by the other colours.

And, you know, I would see them occasionally and they'd say, oh, Larrington, what have you got today? You know, have you got dynamite or have you got landmines or, you know, making fun of me and stuff. And, yeah, gradually I stopped seeing them about, you know. And initially, for the first month or two, I thought, oh, they've lost heart. And then I saw one guy and he said, no, this is over with now.

We're not culling the badgers anymore, you know. It's not allowed anymore. Yeah, you know, I thought, are they messing with me? Because this is the only thing I do now is cull badgers. But is this a prank, you know? But no, that was the truth of it. You know, the government stopped killing, you know, just like the government suddenly decides,

oh, we're not going to kill foxes anymore. And everyone that's really into killing foxes has to wake up one day with horrible news. They're not allowed to put on their red jacket, climb on a horse, gather 20 or 30 beagles and chase a fox through some fields. You're pro-fox hunting as well? Well, I'm pro-fox hunting because often in the course of fox hunting, you'd see a badger and you could kill it.

Diet pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur cherry with a parsley twist. Sports edition, extra cold. Perfect for a hot day, a barbecue in a car park. A sort of, like a sort of four-court where there's like an old agos sort of shut down and like three or four just abandoned old washing machines, like a fly-tipping sort of place. And you sort of go in and you have to sort of start seeing what's going on, what people have left in the dryers in the tumble sort of unit. It is perfect for a hot day on that sort of forecourt.

So I assume you were surprised when you realised that it was true, the government badger cull was over. Look, I don't know what your definition of a cull is but for me the badger cull ends when the last badger takes his dying breath if you want to try and stamp out bovine tuberculosis then we have to stamp out the badger did you ever consider stopping when when you discovered that the the official cull was over I don't know what I would go back to, you know, almost certainly jail time. So for me now, you know,

the parameters of my life are defined by calling badgers. Actually, if I do manage to kill them all, then I don't know what I will do. You need badgers to be alive, really. It's a sort of paradoxical state of being. The one thing that I need to destroy, when I eventually do fully destroy, will destroy me. Texas-style diet pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur cherry with a parsley twist. Sports edition.

Extra cold. Yee-haw! It's your own star state. Barbecue. Tex-Mex. President Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton. Now, finally, Larrington, you know, you're a controversial figure.

I'm sure many people listening will be upset with what you're doing. Many people listening will be very much in favour of what you're doing. If someone's listening and they're thinking, God, this guy sounds brilliant. I really like what he's doing out there, exterminating all those badgers. Is there anything they can do to help? If you see me about, I'd like a pat on the back

and a firm shake of the hand and maybe some fruit. I'd love a mobile phone maybe some crosswords I need a sleeping bag gloves waterproof boots plasters toothbrush toothpaste

dental floss antibiotics toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, antibiotics, any bullets for a sniper rifle, if you have any artillery, whatever it is, even if you think, oh, it's probably not for a sniper rifle, bring it over, I'll have a look at it. The fact of the matter is, the security at the Imperial War Museum has been tightened up and it's getting more and more difficult to lend items.

And finally, we'll have many listeners who maybe haven't really considered the threat that badgers pose and maybe this interview will have opened their eyes a bit. What should do if they see a badger in for example their garden well if you see a badger in your garden the advice i can give to you they really like to eat uh cat food so um open up a tin of cat food put it in a little bowl you know know, near your back door. And then hopefully over a number of nights, the badger will eventually gain enough trust it'll come up and eat the cat food. And at that point, once you've gained this trust,

use the lid off the tin of cat food and cut this throat. Texas-style diet pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur cherry with a parsley twist, sports edition, extra cold, boiled bull scrotum edition. For a limited time, your favourite Texas-style diet pig milk with black bean beefy chunks laced with egg liqueur cherry with a parsley twist, sports edition, extra cold drink packaged in a boiled bull scrotum.

Perfect for an on-the-go lifestyle. Go on, you can have a sweet crit out boiled bull scrotum. Perfect for an on-the-go lifestyle. Go on, you can have a swig of it out of this scrotum. Look at that, the auntie even shaved it. Fucking hell, that's disgusting. There's something not right with that pig. We're going to need to get her checked out. You can tell each of her eyes are looking in different directions. Yes, I'm not a farmer farmer but i can tell you i've been around enough pigs with eyes looking in different directions to know

they got curdled uddies thanks to melissa and larrington for those interviews good luck to both of them each trying to stamp out bovine tb in their own. So that's all we've got time for this month, but if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to the website now, where you'll find all the usual stuff, as well as our off-topic section, where this month we look at the thorny issue of blackmail. Is it ethical to force someone to advertise a succession of pig milk-based drinks just because you happen to have a photograph of them on the back of a milk float dressed in nothing apart from a sort of meat version of a carmen miranda headdress we ask anthony hopkins what he thinks so until next time me again there's a couple of things i'd like to announce so i'm just butting in just before the end uh for max fun drive um we're going

to do a couple of cool little things so first of all next wednesday you should get something else in your podcast feed that's a little different from normal that i think you're going to really like so i'll just leave that there as a bit of a kind of oh a bit of a mystery around that yes that's all recorded and i'm really excited about releasing that also we're doing a live stream on Sunday. So that's on Sunday, May the 9th. It's me and Mike Wozniak in the guise of Bob Triscothic, and we're doing Ask a Vet. So it's your chance to put your veterinary queries to bovine ask vet Bob Triscothic. If you'd like to send in a question for Bob to tackle, you can send that to beefdairynetwork at gmail.com we'd love to

get loads of questions for that and if you'd like to watch along if you'd like to watch the live stream it's taking place at 9 p.m British time which is 1 p.m if you're in the Pacific zone is that what you call it that bit of America the Pacific bit um so yeah 1 p.m there 4 p.m if you're in new york for example what's that bit called what time zone is that the eastern seaboard time zone i don't know i don't know but 4 p.m if you're in new york or that bit there's a bit in the middle of america isn't there famously there's the middle it'll be some time between one and four i imagine you can work it out it's it's 9 p.m british summertime and a tricky 6 a.m if you're in melbourne australia someone has to lose on this goddamn globe and sadly it's australians in this particular example

but yes 9 p.m british summertime please come along it'll be on my Twitch stream so that's twitch.tv forward slash Benjamin Partridge and if you've never done Twitch before you don't have to sign up I don't think to watch you have to sign up if you'd like to leave comments as it's going along but if you'd just like to watch I think you can just go on the link

so hopefully see you there also me and Mike Wozniak made a little MaxFunDrive sketch, which you can find on YouTube if you search for Beef and Dairy Network greatest car ever made on YouTube. You'll find that. And that's about all I need to tell you about, I think.

So remember, if you're interested in supporting the show, MaximumFun.org forward slash join. If you have any questions about that if there's something you don't understand only clarifying or you just want to get in touch remember the email address is beefanddairynetwork at gmail.com also we've got a twitter which is beefanddairy we've got instagram i can't remember the exact name but just search for beefanddairynetwork on instagram facebook page um is there anything else? We're not on TikTok.

But, you know, that's a whole different world. And, yeah, do get in touch to tell me if you've signed up to support or you've upgraded your membership or something like that and I will

say thank you in person. All right. Until next time. Hopefully see you on Sunday for the Twitch stream. Goodbye. Also, please remember we have huge grain debts to pay to the actor Ted Danson.

Beef out. Thanks to Nick Redman, Chris Cantrell, Monica Gaga and Lloyd Langford.