Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 89 - Paula York

Episode Date: October 23, 2022

Stevie Martin joins in this week as we meet the relationships consultant employed by the Bovine Farmers Union to try and improve the falling farmer birthrate.  Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.comMusic credits courtesy of epidemicsound.com:Coffee Shop Date (instrumental) / Jaydan TalleyHidden Path / Cerulean SkiesI Will Arise / Dream Cave 

The Beef and Dairy Network is sponsored by Granium, the famous nutritional sand from Mitchells. If it's not Mitchells, get back in the truck. Granium has swiftly become a modern classic in the world of sand-based cattle feeds. But here at Mitchells, we don't like to sit on our laurels, which is why Granium now comes in four delicious flavors. Original Seaside, Cajun Onion, Honey Oat, and Beef. For 10% off your next order of Granium, simply use the code DON'T SPEAK TO ME IN THE MORNING until I've had my Cajun Onion.

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, as well as the printed magazine, brought to you by Granium Nutritional Sand. This month, we have another episode concentrating on the intergenerational crisis in farming in this country. Two episodes ago, we talked about the children spurning their birthright and giving up the family farm. But another far greater problem lurks in our future. And I'm not just talking about the

inevitable nuclear war for resources between the world's major powers, which will see London, New York, Beijing and Moscow turn to sand and not the nutritional sort. I'm talking about the farmer birth rate, which this year has dropped to an all-time low of 0.4. To put that in context, as recently as 30 years ago, the average farmer would have 15 children. One to inherit the farm, one to enter the priesthood, and a further 13 that could be lost to the insatiable maw of the thresher or other farming machinery. The modern figure of 0.4 becomes less surprising when you learn another key figure. 80% of farmers today are single, and not in a fun sex on the city way.

Efforts have been made to reverse this decline, but they haven't been uncontroversial. In fact, they've been controversial. We were inspired to make this episode by a letter we received from Todd Raxson, a beef farmer on the Isle of Man. Todd writes, I was aghast to hear that the Bovine Farmers Union has spent over three million pounds of members' money to employ a relationships consultant to promote romantic relationships for farmers. This is not why I pay my monthly subs to the union. I expect my money to be used to fund bribes to government officials and to pay for the annual Christmas wine, cheese and fighting by candlelight event. Every pound spent on this relationships

consultant is one fewer candle at the Christmas event. What do they expect us to do? Drink wine and fight in complete darkness? I can do that at home. Thanks for that message, Todd. We also had this from Sarah Chisholm from Durham. She wrote, I was so disgusted to find that the Bovine Farmers Union was spending millions of our money by employing a relationships expert that I went to the AGM and performed a protest. I rushed to the front and tore down the huge Bovine Farmers Union flag and waved it above my head, shouting the word shame. It was only once this protest was in mid-flow that I realised that I wasn't at the Bovine Farmers Union AGM at all, but I was in fact at the fish counter of a busy supermarket and the flag was in reality a whole frozen Alaskan salmon and instead of waving it

above my head shouting the word shame, I was stuffing it down my trousers and singing the national anthem. None of this would have happened had the Bovine Farmers Union not wasted that three million pounds. Well, lots to think about there thank you for those messages so this month we decided to pick up on those concerns and we speak to paula york the relationships expert who has been employed by the bovine farmers union and i wanted to put to her the criticisms and give her the opportunity to defend herself hello i'm paula york and i'm a sex and relationships expert hi paula thanks so much uh for coming on the show today thanks for having me it's a real delight um tell us a little bit about you you're a relationships expert so what does that actually mean i mean it basically just means whoever you

are and whatever your challenge is uh personally i'm here to help you find that special someone. And I've worked with a wide range of people from elderly people, teenagers in schools, spreading good dating practice right from the start. Just to be clear, you're not introducing elderly people to teenage people in the hope that they will kindle a relationship? I've found that that's illegal. So I don't tend to do that anymore. But it's not just regular people that Paula helps with their relationships. In fact, she's brokered a number of high-profile celebrity couplings. If you could think of any high-profile couples, it's likely that I have had some sort of hand in that.

Bennifer, Kimye, Jora. That's George W. Bush and Laura Bush. Look, I can't confirm or deny because obviously these people are high-profile. They are interested in their privacy and that's something that I bring to the experience, but I'm not going to deny it. And what about Leonardo DiCaprio and his many girlfriends? Well, as we spoke about before, I don't introduce the elderly to teenagers anymore.

Okay. So one of the big criticisms we're picking up on from the farming community is really, it boils down to who is this woman and why is she worth so much money but it must be said that you've got the experience i mean not just with celebrity couples but if you look at the sheer number of books you've written it's incredible um you had your big hit early in the early in the 2000s with behind enemy lines sex with soldiers the easy way which really kind of um put you on the map for people who wanted to bag a soldier and and you know we all went out and did it didn't we um yeah people taking trips to all the charlton other you know garrison towns yeah i mean the the population of folkestone tripled and then of course you followed up with them you have a

beautiful scowl 100 pickup lines to try if they're already angry. A classic, if I may. What a lovely cardigan, flirting with the elderly. I mean, that's revolutionised life for the over-80s, as far as I'm aware. Yeah. La Bella Vita, Baguettes and Blitzkrieg, a guide to sex with Europeans.

Who's not been to France and wanted to know a bit more about how to, you know, get that going i mean i've got to say the um the european one reading it in a post-brexit context it's it's really like a it's like a window back into another time you know because obviously you can't do that anymore well no of of of course not but um there are ways of doing it if there's just a lot of paperwork well yeah you've got to get a stamp in your passport you've got to get a visa you've got to go go to the embassy huge backlogs in dover yeah you know just massive cues of of people trying to have trying just waiting to go over and have sex and um just yeah and everyone's blaming each other like it it's not it's not conducive to

romantic encounters is it really you know sure yeah for sure and then uh in more recent times obviously last year you brought out wanking in space uh conversations with buzz aldrin which i think really made us re-evaluate what we saw on that night in 1969 and what we heard from from the lunar the lunar module because suddenly it recontextualized quite a lot of you know what we thought was going on up there yes i mean there's this kind of general misconception that when you hear the audio and they're kind of breathing like that that that's just normal and how they breathe in space but they were climaxing um as it as it turned out there's nothing to do up there fair enough okay now another criticism we're hearing is to do with whether you practice what you preach

with regards to the success or otherwise of your own romantic relationships. I believe your own marriages haven't necessarily gone to plan. I am twice divorced. That is correct. What I'd say to that is you know i i'm skilled in bringing people together and i've learned through my own mistakes because obviously the tabloids um spoke to your both your ex-partners big long interview with your ex terry telling uh the world about how he left you after you spent all of your money both both of your money on patio furniture, huge amounts into the hundreds of thousands. And he felt that was the final straw.

Well, we had a very big patio, which he built. And what I took away from that is now when I'm speaking to my clients, know that's one of the first things we just got it's it's the financial elements you know if finances are often you know overlooked why do we just sort of look at somebody and say well they've got nice hair and decide that they'll be our partner for life and Terry does have lovely hair from the photographs. That was the problem. That ponytail. He swished it about and I was mesmerised.

And if only I'd looked past the ponytail at his gaslighting tendencies. Okay. Maybe I would have seen that he was the sort of man that would build a patio that was objectively too big and then make the fact that I filled it with furniture the issue. I always think personally in my own life with a relationship, you can tell how it's going when you look at someone's patio. Are they maintaining it? And really, if you're maintaining the flagstones and the gap between, it's a good indication that you're maintaining the flagstones and the gap between it's a good it's a good indication

you're maintaining the your relationship it's it's the number one indicator of a relationship you know um are they pressure hosing it are they is there sort of green that green stuff on it is it moss i'm not sure it's too flat to be moss. Yes, it's very flat moss. You're right. And when that happens, of course, that means you're just not communicating properly. Neither of you have taken the time to say, is that moss? Look at us. We're already communicating as to whether or not that is moss or not. Just want to make it very clear I'm married and this isn't a relationship in that sense. Of course, of course.

I'm just using this as an example here. Maybe I shouldn't have actually mentioned my pet to you. Well, that was a mistake, but I'm using this as an example because you can go years without even googling what's that flat shiny green stuff on my paving slabs and that's sad as i said at the beginning of the program the vast majority of farmers these days are single and seen as undesirable on the dating market but porter told me this wasn't always the case there was a a time when in popular culture, the farmer was seen as a emblem of sexuality.

You know, rough, ready, like good with their hands, you know, outdoorsy. Yeah, farmers are just, they're just getting left behind, you know, in this current culture that we've created. Because I think there's definitely something about, as you say, getting your hands dirty. And a farmer is someone who, for up to 60 or 70% of the day, will have some shit on them from another animal on their clothing or their skin at some point. And I believe you did some kind of survey work where basically that came up as a real sticking point for loads of people in the modern era. They were previously, you know, if you didn't do that survey back in the 50s, but had you done that survey back in the 50s, that might have been something that's quite exciting to someone. A hundred percent. Yeah, it really shocked me, actually, doing the sort of pre-research for the Bovine Farmers Union.

I mean, one of the first questions I asked, you know, in order to get people to answer it, obviously, it was very, very simply because we just needed broad strokes at this point. So it was, you know, things like, are you attracted to somebody who's outdoorsy? Yes, no. Is it OK if someone has shit on their hands? And it was 80% no. Wow, wow. Yeah, it's really wild. You know, when you think of, you know, that very famous romantic image in pop culture, I don't know, I suppose the 90s, wasn't it?

You know, Mr. Darcy in the BBC Pride and Prejudice, Colin Firth coming out of the lake. He's covered in duck shit. And that scene is, you know, it's one of the defining images of that decade. And similarly, sorry to butt in, a lot of people don't realise that in that famous scene in Ghost, where the

ghost patrick swayze is manipulating the the pottery you know it's not pottery that's not clay it's yeah it's shit it's his own shit dirty dancing why is it called dirty dancing well there you go he doesn't chalk his hands to lift her up. He has to coat them in something to keep the friction, to hoist her. And again, that is his own shit. That's what Patrick Swayze was known for. And yet, here we are in 2022. That was only 40 years ago, only 30, 40 years ago. That's mad. mad when you think about how society has changed now when now people that work with shit it's no longer as compelling or you know appealing as as as it once was so what do you think now what's the archetype now of the romantic partner what are people looking for if you said give me your perfect um paramour what would they come up with what would they say um a perm perm hairstyle permed hairstyle and that's very big right now i didn't realize that would make the difference and also you know

there's nothing stopping farmers from realizing they can just go and get a perm that's not going to impinge upon their working day but the issue is they're not connected enough to see how important that is for other people when trying to attract a mate. So you'd say in the modern era, somebody with a hairstyle that isn't a perm, they're just going to struggle? They are going to struggle. They're really going to struggle. Of course, you might need to scrape your hair back occasionally. But at some point in the day, you need to show some curl. So you need to turn up at a date and you need to look like Lionel Richie after he left the Commodores. That's a really important point. Yeah, he really came up again and again and again.

More after this. I'm Jesse Thorne. On the next Bullseye, our annual Halloween spectacular. We'll interview Anna Fabrega from Los Espookys, Monet X Change from Drag Race, and the great R.L. Stine, creator of Goosebumps. You know, I don't really get too deep into the real fears. It's a lot safer to do a dummy coming to life. That's on the next Bullseye for maximum fun.org and npr

now your work has been also in collaboration with the dating app beef encounters uh which of course was formerly a beef industry only dating service now i believe it's open to anyone anyone can can download the app and join correct yes has that and also your work uh with beef encounters has that led to more mixing between farmers and non-farmers yes um you know it was it was a challenge at the start it was i should have foreseen this really it was kind of co-opted for a while by just chefs and meat enthusiasts, thinking it was some sort of industry way to kind of connect directly to the supplier. An easy way to get cheap meat. Essentially, yes.

And the moment we changed the logo from a cow's heart, which isn't immediately obvious to somebody who doesn't work in the meat industry, to an actual classic heart shape. Right. It really did click then. People were sort of like, oh, this is dating. Oh, this isn't like an awful marketplace. This is an awful marketplace, which it was sort of seen as the Etsy for beef.

Yeah. But now that people understand that it is a place you can go and meet a farmer, I believe it's beginning to hot up and your work is beginning to bear fruit. I mean, I invite you to have a look, have a scroll. I mean, you are married, of course. If my wife found that app on my phone, I'd be living on the patio. Understood. And I've got to say that patio is a bit of a state i wouldn't have to i wouldn't want to live out there let's say that well that's interesting um but say no more um okay fine well i'll i'll just explain when when you're scrolling through it's perm after perm after perm after perm these things are permeating if i may the the farming community and um and yeah

as as even anyone can have a perm you perm. Anyone can proudly put shit on their hands. And it's actually up to the non-farming community to change and to broaden. The farmers aren't the ones who need to change apart from their hair. It's the rest of the world needed to kind of wake up to what farmers can give non non-farmers that's interesting because i think when i first heard about this initiative i was thinking that that the focus was going to be on changing farmers behavior and getting farmers to engage more in in modern dating techniques because obviously you know traditionally a farmer would um you know and this is going back 100 years it would it would tend to be male farmers finding wives.

They would find them at a local barn dance or a dinner. There was always that moment at midnight when the women were let in and the men would just grab the one they wanted. And it's very old-fashioned and not something we'd countenance now. But it felt as if they were being slow to warm up to modern techniques. You're saying, actually, it's for the outside world to come round to what farmers can give them. That's what you're concentrating on. Yes. Obviously, there's a little bit of both.

It's about communication with farmers and also hairstyle. But those things are quite simple, you know. Whereas with a non-farmer, you're looking at changing their entire worldview about farming. Yeah. And that's harder. Now, you're running a course on behalf of the Bourbon Farmers Union. Yes.

It is heavily subsidised by the Bourbon Farmers Union. So if anyone's listening and wants to do the course, it's essentially, it's for men, women, straight, gay, everything. Yes. And it's called So You Want to Date a Farmer? Yes. And tell us about it. Is it in person? Is it online?

What's going on? It's face-to-face. There's lectures. There's, of course, outings to various kind of farms where people can kind of get a sense of the community without being thrown into the deep end immediately. We use suggestion, sort of suggestive psychological techniques where we will play an old, you know, famous romantic film, but insert a farmer sort of into it.

So you've got, you know, well, Pride and Prejudice, but Mr. Darcy's a farmer, you know. Sort of CGI'd on? Yes, yes. And that's, but therein you sort of started to get a little inclination as to why I'm not charging £10. You know, it takes a lot to rewire somebody's brain. Right. And I don't know if you've seen this. And it costs a lot to totally re-CGI the whole of Avatar.

It costs a lot. Avatar was, I would say, a mistake. Okay. Because we really could have picked a film that needed less CGI than that. It's also not that romantic. No, it really isn't. There's actually just quite a lot of it that's just talking and running around. I think essentially the take home from that is it's too long and why is everyone blue? Which wasn't quite what I was hoping to get from that. So's too long and why is everyone blue which wasn't quite

what i was hoping to get from that so we don't use it on the course anymore and so really what you're doing is you're kind of rewiring these people's brains to to associate farmers with romantic situations which they may not have done in the past absolutely i don't know if you've seen clockwork orange but there's a lovely scene in that where he's encouraged to watch quite grotesque images to kind of retrain his brain to not have a predilection for crime. And that's kind of what we're doing for the non-farming community. There was an allegation that wasn't there this week that you're using those same techniques to reprogram people's minds to want to buy your books and also to buy a new sex toy that you're

selling on your website? No comment. Which costs £500, the Orgasma Plinth. I'd say that's, I mean, very happy to talk about the Orgasma Plinth. All I'll say about the Orgasma Plinth is that that early studies have shown it's so successful, we're already got another sex toy in the works, the orgasm of plank. So I think people should direct their criticism at people who aren't trying to help others. There are more worthy recipients of criticism than than myself all i'm doing is trying to help people move through the world with a special partner i mean the reviews of the orgasm of plinth on the internet are make for quite interesting reading a lot of a lot of people managing to somehow flood their house with it well that's if you because you have to you have i've not used one but it sounds like you have to connect it to the hot water supply of your house in the way you might do do a washing

machine yes and we're very very clear you hook that up to a car battery and yeah so that's led to a lot of fires and floods which is a kind of self-regulating system is that was that the idea um well it was the the idea was of course um pleasure first and foremost, but it's very clear in the instruction book, which is only about 150 pages, where the first thing we say is we implore people to get their hot water supply checked before they rig up the orgasmoplenth. And if people aren't willing to do that, then it's not my problem, you know? It's very clearly stated that the orgasmoplenth works best for new builds. Yeah. You've got to have a modern boiler by the sounds of things. Modern boiler, yes. And a car. And a car as well that's close enough to your house that you can use the sort of 20 metre lead. Again, it's very clearly stated in the instruction manual

that it's new builds, your car has to be close, and you have to have a very specific and very robust hot water supply system. Can't have one of these period conversion flats either, because that's going to spark out. You're going to fuse the whole street. But for those people who have followed the instructions, I think you'll find the reviews are astonishing.

Sure, but going back to the more concerning allegation, was that you were re-CGI-ing movies in such a way that people forced towards them, because I believe you pull open their eyelids, so they have to go in. I hold their eyelids open. Sure. It's not pulling open.

Yeah, and in doing so, they are somehow reprogrammed and they want to buy your merchandise. That's not true. I deny all allegations of that and the people who have brought that forward and against me seem to have some sort of personal vendetta um i again i i didn't hold i didn't pull their eyes open i I held them. And we've created much more humane ways in which to do this since the 70s when Clockwork Orange came out,

which, you know, there were little soft bits on the end of the eyelid holders. Little soft bits, so much nicer. Okay. What is the cost of the course? It's £17,000. Okay. And then that is subsidised somewhat by the Beauvoir and Farmers Union.

So it's a £17,000 cost to the consumer, but actually the true cost per person is closer to £45,000, I believe. Correct, yes. And most of that, I think, was spent on re-CGI-ing and getting the rights for Avatar. Yes, as I say, that was a real mistake. But is it a mistake that your consumers ought to be footing the rights for Avatar. Yes, as I say, that was a real mistake. But is it a mistake that your consumers ought to be footing the bill for?

Well, look, they did get something from it. I mean, they got to watch Avatar. Yeah, arguably in a better way than the original. You think your version of Avatar was better than the original? Are you telling me that popping two farmers in isn't going to improve the original Avatar? That's a good point. Right.

Paul York, thank you very much. Thank you. A big thanks to Paul York for that interview. There are still places available on her course. A new class begins next month. And as I said, it's just £17,000 with that grant from the Bovine Farmers Union. And if you're still on the fence, we asked on the Beef and Dairy Network web forum whether anyone had done the course and we got the following replies.

The first is from Maggie Bywater, who says, Shortly after completing the course, Paula set me up on a date with a beef farmer. I was nervous, of course, but when he arrived, he complimented my perm, and although he was totally bald himself, he had obviously made an effort and tried to perm his bald head skin, because the skin was red and angry from the effect of the perm chemicals. After six months, we decided to move in together, and I moved to the farm. To begin with, things were idyllic. Then one night I woke up at 3am and he wasn't in the bed. I lay awake and he only returned at 5am. The following night,

I woke up again at 3am and he wasn't there again. I went downstairs and saw the front door slightly ajar. Outside, thick snow lay on the ground and so I could follow his footsteps across the pasture and through the woods at the far side of the farm. After walking for 15 minutes through the moonlit woods, I saw a glow in the distance from what looked like a wooden shed. Suspecting that he was meeting another woman in there, I kicked the door open, shouting the words, you vile slag. But I was met by his brother, who shot me in the chest with a shotgun. Luckily, the bullet lodged itself into the family bible I keep in the top left pocket of my pyjamas. Another shot hit me right in the bible I keep in my top right pocket of my pyjamas. The third shot hits the Kevlar bulletproof vest that I habitually wear under my pyjamas. As he reloaded, I wrestled the shotgun from his hands

and beat him to death with the handle. I then kicked through the next door to find my farmer boyfriend secretly rearing lambs in a hay-filled barn. Luckily, in one of the back pockets of my pyjamas, I had a box of matches. Let's just say that the valley filled with the smell of roast lamb that night. Lovely, thank you for that. And finally, an ad hoc member called jim membership wrote the day after the course i met an amazing farmer and we were married within two weeks on our honeymoon to naples i had brought along the orgasm plinth a sex toy i bought from paula york which i coupled up to the hotel's hot water supply and the battery of a taxi on the street

below our balcony. Within seconds, the hotel was totally flooded and on fire, and before long, the fire had engulfed a number of Renaissance buildings with incalculable cultural significance and value. We're now both incarcerated in a jail run by UNESCO. To be honest, it's quite nice. Thank you for those messages. Also, if you don't want to sign up for the course, but you do want to watch the version of Avatar in which the main characters are replaced by a couple of randy farmers, there will be a screening at the BFI IMAX in London on Christmas Day. And remember, even if you can't afford the course, and if you're not a farmer, do consider dating a farmer.

Consider this. At the current birth rate trajectory, there'll be no farmers at all by 2090. At that stage, what little cattle there is left would return to the wild and become feral beef. Humans would then have to hunt to secure their beef, and before long, tribes and factions would emerge, each trying to protect the ever-dwindling amounts of feral beef on their patch. Soon, so much time is spent securing the feral beef

that the other parts of human society begin to break down and ebb away. Violence is king now. We spend as much time hunting down other humans as we do finding that feral beef. It's a race to the bottom. And then, by 2350, we will be down to the final two human beings. Maybe a man and a woman. The man is wearing leather trousers and a leather waistcoat and goggles and those big belts of ammunition.

And she's wearing animal pelts and has several beads in her hair. And they're facing a decision. Should they cooperate and procreate to guarantee the future of the human race? Or should they attempt to destroy the other, to guarantee access to what is left of the world's stocks of feral beef? So that's all we've got time for this month. But if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to our website now, where you can find all the usual stuff, as well as our off-topic section, where this month, we run down the top 10 ways to break a bone that you'll one day look back on and smile.

So, until next time, beef out. Thanks to Stevie Martin. Hi, I'm Jesse Thorne, the founder of Maximum Fun, and I have a special announcement. I'm no longer embarrassed by my brother, my brother, and me. You know, for years, each new episode of this supposed advice show was a fresh insult, a depraved jumble of erection jokes, ghost humor, and frankly, this is for the best, very little actionable advice. But now as they enter their twilight years, I'm as surprised as anyone to admit that it's gotten kind of good. Justin, Travis, and Griffin's witticisms are more refined, like a humor column in a fancy magazine. And they hardly ever say bazinga anymore.

So, after you've completely finished listening to every single one of all of our other shows, why not join the McElroy Brothers every week for My Brother, My Brother and Me?