Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 94 - Dafydd, Part 1

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

It's MaxFunDrive! To support the show, go to maximumfun.org/joinMike Bubbins and Ed Gamble join in as we find out how Eli Roberts has been getting on with his chimpanzee security guards.Stock media provided by Soundrangers/Pond5.comMusic credits courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com :Rune Dale / A Call From The WildSleeping Vines / I BelongTrevor Kowalski / Calm Above CloudsAugust Wilhelmsson / Appeased SoundscapePhilip Ayers - Global Impact

Hello, Benjamin Partridge here. You might recognise my voice. I make the Beef and Dairy Network podcast. And a little message before the podcast starts properly. Beef and Dairy Network podcast is part of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And once a year, shows on the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, such as this one, invite their audience to think about supporting the podcast they love. And to do that, go to MaximumFun.org forward slash join. That's MaximumFun.org forward slash join. Anyway, I will harp on a little bit more about this later on in the episode. But until then, enjoy. The Beef and Dairy Network is sponsored by Zap Broom Pro, the new million-volt cattle brush from Mitchell's.

If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. Groom and discipline your cattle at the same time with this new revolutionary rotary brush. It'll leave your herd silky smooth, clean, and completely passive. For 10% off your first Zap Broom Pro, simply put a battery under your tongue and run into a lightning storm. 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 Zap Broom Pro. And the Zap Broom Pro is not

only the best way to groom and discipline your herd, it also makes for a really satisfying prank on one of your nearest and dearest. Maybe you've gone on a caravanning weekend with your boyfriend, but he's being lazy and won't get out of bed. He's just lying there, snoring and filling the caravan with the rancid stench of last night's boil-in-a-bag bean and beef bolognese. It's time to visit the local flour mill that is run using ancient methods, but he just won't get up. Well, he certainly will once he's on the receiving end of a million volts and a three-foot-wide coarse brush going around at 4,000 rotations a second.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. This month, I went to visit friend of the podcast, Welsh slaughterman Eli Roberts, to see how he's been getting on. You may remember that last time we spoke, he had been to Africa to steal chimpanzees to create a team of crossbow-wielding Simian security guards for his slaughterhouse compound. Let's just remind the listener you you had a 50 strong security team of African chimps. Yeah good lads good and not just lads you know not just fellas girls as well a lovely a lovely bunch. Is there a difference between the way a male and female chimp approach being a security guard? A woman chimp my experience uh is as vicious if not more vicious

than a male chimp and uh i think that's a wonderful redeeming quality uh there's a bit of a bit of a misapprehension i think that females of species are weaker than males i can assure you from first on experience um that a female chimp is certainly at least equal to the male chimp. One chimp, one lovely chimp called Helen works with me. You know, she is an absolutely vicious woman of a chimp. I remember once one of the fellas there, Dave, one of the other chimps was winding her up and she went, I can only describe it as going ape, if you pardon the pun.

She literally, and people say, oh, I'm going to pull your bloody ears off in a minute. Well, she pulled his ear off, and then he was out of his state. Wah, wah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. What are they like? And she was having none of it. She wasn't going to put off in the slightest. He was holding his one ear, you know, protecting the remaining ear, and she just had that off as well,

straight away, bang, gone. So, you know, Dave, I mean, he's still with us, Dave. He struggles to keep the goggles on these days, obviously, but older, earless Dave. But, yeah, I mean, she was, she well is a formidable, formidable woman chimp, yeah. It sounded as if the chimps were settling in well

and were happy with their new life in Wales, something that was proven when Helen the chimp became pregnant. Well, you see, the thing is, chimps are not so very different from us. They want to be loved. They want to feel warmth. They want to feel protected. And I give them all that and you know they also like us love a leg over and helen very very frisky very very risky chip

i remember i came back from i was i was doing a bit of killing um one of the farmers near me and i come back and uh i have a racket you, and I look it up in the shed there and, oh, I mean, there must have been four or five of the boys. There was Keith, Dave. Earless Dave. Earless Dave, yeah. Is this after or before she pulled his ears off? Well, this was after. This was after she showed no hard feelings.

There was Earless Dave, Gary, Hairy Terry, all having a go at her. And she was loving it. I mean, she was very much in the driving seat of it as it were. Um, and one of them, we don't know which one, uh,

got her pregnant. Um, because she was, I mean, she was, it could be any one of them. Yeah. But,

uh, was it okay with you? It sounds like you sort of watched proceedings. Well, can you be a voyeur? If it voyeur if it's not the same species? That's what I've always said. You know, some of my old grandmothers used to say to me, you know, just because you watch a dog fuck

doesn't make you a dog, you know? And I never knew what she meant by that until I came back from the farm, as I said, and I heard the racket. But yeah, I wasn't, I didn't do it for any sort of, there was no gratification involved. I just wanted to see what was going on. And I was intrigued then to see the power struggle

and to see how the hierarchy worked within the chimp kingdom and to see how that Helen would use her womanly charms. You know, she had these, quite a hairy breast and one of those sort of exposed bottoms that chimps have. Would you say that she's an attractive chimp? She's got a certain je ne sais quoi about her. That's the thing about Ellen. She is, I wouldn't say she's conventionally attractive,

but then it's always in the eye of the beholder, you know. I mean, all the fellas in there were very, very excited, you know, in the downstairs area. And she has that sort of come-hither look sometimes as she's wiping the blood away from her mouth or whatever or throwing an ear in the bin. Just, I don't know, something coquettish about that. I wonder if part of the attraction for the chimps is that

there's that bit of danger there. So as you say, you know, she might pull your ears off or she might, you know. Yeah, well, that's the thing, isn't it? I mean, and I think there's always, you know, why do we watch motor racing? You know, why do people enjoy watching boxing? Why do people gather around if I'm slaughtering a cow?

Because people like to see danger. They like to see, I think it's visceral. I think they feel closer to life sometimes if they have a brush with death. I think the thing with a chimp, there's no bullshit with a chimp. Things are black and white with the chimp and i i got a lot of time for that so you know though if you're going with hell i know one of the other girl chimps you know um yeah you're gonna have a good time believe i mean i i've seen the look on their faces but you are literally dicing with death i remember a time i a time I was a young buck of a man, and I met a lovely young girl,

and we went back to her place, and one thing led to another, and whatever, and she revealed to me that she was also in the livestock industry, and her job was castrating bulls. I found that exhilarating. And I remember she said to me, she looked me in the eyes and said, Eli, Eli, she said, she had a little laugh. She said, I could cut your nuts off while you were sleeping

and you would never know. I thought, well, do I stay here now? Do I still have a go at this now? And, you know, do we make love? Knowing that if I fell asleep post-coitus, which is powerful, of course, for me, there was a very good chance I'd wake up, you know, sans testicles.

But I still went for it. And we had a wonderful time time and there was that lovely moment of when you're waking up and you open your eyes think i've got my testicles you know and i looked down and there they were bold as brass and uh yeah wonderful wonderful time with that bit of jeopardy that bit of peril just sort of made it even more exciting so helen uh becomes pregnant yeah i guess then you have to take her off um security guarding duties for a while when she's no no need no need no need i mean what you'll find if they're pregnant is they are they're more fierce they become protective um you won't get a better guard chimp than a pregnant chimp so ideally in an ideal world of course they'd all be pregnant and then hel Helen gives birth.

Yeah. And I believe this was kind of special time for you personally. I looked in that little chimp's eyes, Davide his name is, right? When he was born. And I knew in that instant we had a connection. Right. I looked into Davide's eyes and he looked into my eyes and he just looked

and he went, and I thought, oh, I know what that means. And he was saying to me in Chimp, I love you really. And I'd never had that before, you know, and it was a wonderful moment. Well, it feels like it's changed you.

You know, you've just been very vulnerable with me there, you know, telling me about your feelings. That's never, that's not the kind of thing you used to do. I've opened up. I like to think that little Darwin there has made me 21st century, like I should call myself now. And I think I'm a better man for it. And the thing is, people think it makes you weak or soft,

but I think what it's done for me has made me, if anything, harder. Okay. Because now I've got to look after Lil Davide. You know what I mean? I've got to make a world fit for him to live in. And because I can love now for the first time in my life,

I can truly hate you know that is a thing there's yin and yang there's light there's light and dark there's there's there's light and shade i never really hated before you really didn't are you sure that i never really hated before did you think you were hating before i thought i was i thought i was being hateful i thought i hated but uh i't, I couldn't, because I'd never loved. Obviously every action is opposite and equal reaction. And as soon

as I saw that look in Lil Davith's eyes, and I had that connection with that bond, and that one moment of purity, that moment of love and connection, I knew immediately that I could fully hate. And that was very liberating.

Back to my interview with Eli later. Now, this month, I also spoke to Philip Seastrom. You may remember from my previous interviews with Philip that he once worked at the Food Standards Agency, where he raided Eli Roberts' slaughterhouse to reveal a depraved webcam slaughter business which he was so traumatised by, he moved jobs to animal welfare, only to have to attend Mosquito Mayhem, a mosquito-only zoo which turned out to be owned by Eli Roberts. At the zoo, Eli set millions of mosquitoes on Philip, which left him with deep psychological scars,

ultimately leading him to leave his job. Then, Eli was arrested for murder and wanted Philip to be a character witness. Philip visited him in prison, and Eli became angry and tried to attack him, but thankfully security guards fired hundreds of tranquiliser darts into his arse, and Philip went unharmed. Then, Philip was so stressed out by his experiences that he took some time off work and volunteered in an old people's home. He struck up a friendship with a World War II veteran called Gerald

and the two of them went on a fitness holiday to South Korea together. However, the holiday turned out to be a death game run by Eli's religion, the Church of Eli, and was a battle royale in which only one could survive and Philip ended up having to kill Gerald by hitting him with a lamp. I asked Philip how he's doing now. I haven't managed to return to any sort of employment, because as you know, any time I tried to do anything, Eli would somehow get involved. So i just felt like any job that i tried to do he might pop up again so

you know i've i've long enjoyed the idea of being a dry stone wall builder um but i would go to sleep at night and dream of being a dry stone wall builder but always in those dreams they'd rapidly turn to nightmares and eli's face would start appearing in the rocks or he'd burst out of a nearby sheep and there's just there's no way I can take that risk so you've kind of been turned off employment entirely um and this is kind of what we're here to talk to you about today because obviously you couldn't just do nothing you couldn't just sit in your house watching Bridgerton uh for the rest of your life no so you did try to do something to give you something to do. Yes, I thought I'd give something back.

I thought I'd get out there and help and volunteer. I live fairly nearby a chimpanzee sanctuary. Okay. They were asking for volunteers, people to help out with the chimps. And what was it about the idea of looking after chimps that attracted you to the role? I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of ever working with humans again. So I think the closest possible thing to get that same feeling was working with chimps,

but none of the true darkness of humans. So a chimp in a way is like a pure human. A chimp is a pure human. I think that's a wonderful way of putting it human a chimp is a pure human i think that's a wonderful way of putting it a chimp is a pure human i mean the thing about a chimp you've got to remember with a chimp they are an apex predator right think about a roof of an apex you know the top of that roof is your apex right and they are the top of that particular tree right so they are the kings and queens of all they survey i'm a chimney predator above an apex so i go in there as a chimney predator basically i have my i

have the uh i have the run of the place and they know that because there's respect obviously but they know i will happily kill them and i've got the means to do so as well. I mean, they are vicious buggers. They create teeth. They're very, very powerful, very muscular. But I mean, they've got to sleep is the thing. And this is what they forget, right? And I'm not adverse to a little bit of discipline.

I remember when one fellow was kicking off making a bloody racket all the time and he was, he waved across the board in my general direction i said arthur you know don't forget now you may be the apex predator boy but i'm a i'm a chimney predator he looked at me thought i could see he was a bit confused so what i did that night while he was sleeping of course this is the thing they forget that uh they're very much slaves to circadian rhythm whereas humans can through chemical means or just through sheer willpower, stay up longer than animal friends.

He dropped an animal on his head when he was sleeping, completely obliterated the skull. There was brain everywhere. And what was good about that, it was twofold really, was that it sort of established me as the chimney predator, number one. Number two, there was a lovely sense of calmness that came back to the to the to the chimps to the family

because they'd seen what i'd done they see what i was capable of because i was a a new a new father i was still i was up you know i was up sorry just to just to put in there you're describing yourself there as a new father yeah am i to then surm surmise that David, you sort of consider to be your son, really? Oh, very much so, yeah. I mean, to me, David is the son I never had, you know? Just to be clear, not biologically. No, I don't think so. It would be very difficult for it to have worked that way, particular way.

But I wanted him to see his dad. Like I said, he taught me how to hate, which I loved. And I wanted him to see his dad. You'd only ever seen a good side of Eli. He'd see me being kind. He'd see me being, you know, I would help with the breastfeeding. I would look after him. I catered to his every whim.

in, I would look after him, I catered to his every whim. But it does a kid no favour to see his father or his mother in the one light. So he woke up, just as I was dropping the anvil on the head there, he woke up and looked at me, I could see a startled look on his face, and I gave him a little wink, and there was this audible pop as the head exploded. And there was this audible pop as the head exploded. And he looked sad at first, but then I could see this other look in his eyes. It went from sadness to pride. And like I said, Arthur was trying to set a stall out.

You know, Arthur was doing what chimps do. Arthur was trying to be the big dog. But, you know, he found out the hard way that he wasn't a big dog you drop an envelope on someone's head when they're sleeping they soon come around your way of thinking i asked philip about his first day volunteering at the chimp sanctuary well i was a bit disappointed because when you first arrive you do have to meet a human first of all they work on the door and you know they are they do have to work there i think in in my head and i knew this wasn't going to be the case in my head you arrive and the chimps are running the place that you don't actually have to meet any humans whatsoever that you arrive and there's a chimp at reception

that sort of stuff but um there was jan uh she worked on the front desk jan is a sort of homo sapien yes the jan is a human being yeah um she greeted me she sorts out all the volunteering you know she showed me showed me where i could put all my things and uh showed me through to the the chimp sanctuary and i believe that and i'm not sure if you knew this before you you joined up there there's some pretty famous chimps in that sanctuary yes well i didn't i didn't know this at all but it it became very evident as soon as i as soon as i walked through the door you'll see there's a long corridor if you go that it's just lined with uh with framed pictures of of famous chimps uh and i thought well that's nice thing you know a little nod to celebrity and then when you actually go into

the sanctuary itself you do see you do see those chimps they are they are all living there because a lot of people will think they'll see chimps on tv like the pg tips advert etc and you'll go well where did those chimps go? Because I don't see them in anything else. It's amazing. That's where the chimps go. And obviously, I'm not sure if I saw a chimp that I'd seen on television 20 years ago that I'd recognized them by the face alone.

So were they, I don't know, pouring each other cups of tea? Were they carrying a piano down some stairs? How did you realize what these chimps were well you and i differ here because i do recognize the faces of the chimps right but i think you'd be okay because the way these chimps are trained in their showbiz life is so strict and so repetitive that by the time they go into the sanctuary they can't do anything else but the thing that they were doing on tv so for instance the pg tips chimps they they spend all day making tea pouring tea drinking tea making tea pouring tea drinking tea to the point that

they are doing it while they're asleep wow is that quite a sad thing to to see it depends what you enjoy, really. I like the PG Tips adverts. Yeah. So why wouldn't I want it on repeat? Yes, but isn't there a kind of, from an animal welfare point of view, certainly if I saw a chimp making tea for another chimp or, you know, just to take another example, a chimp wearing a kind of sequined jacket,

tap dancing and juggling bananas or, you know, the kind of things that chimp wearing a kind of sequined jacket tap dancing and and juggling bananas or you know the kind of things that these chimps were bred to do there's definitely a sense isn't there of like this isn't what they were meant to be doing in the wild if you if you go to the jungles of africa they're not doing these kind of things well have you been to the jungles of africa i haven't no i haven't so there you are saying there is a chance that they could be doing those things in africa so you're saying that there's a chance that just naturally they could you know be jumping through a flaming hoop or well i i think wearing a mexican wrestling mask and i not necessarily naturally but i feel like that is their full potential oh i see okay yeah so maybe

actually the sadness is that there are chimps out there that aren't doing this stuff yes that's to me that's the true sadness when you see uh david assenborough documentary or you might go to the jungles of africa and the chimps are just sitting there come on then let's get going dress dress up like a victorian man so what you what you see there is untapped potential nothing sadder than a chimp just being a chimp. Put a suit on and get on a penny farthing. I asked Eli about what Helen the chimp thinks of him considering David his son. I think Helen, see, I mean, she has her fun and her kicks.

I don't tell her what to do, she doesn't tell me what to do. She goes and wants to go out with her mates and do stuff and up the barn with the boys and whatever. She gets up to us, it's up to her, but I mean, she knows that when it comes to being a parent, when it comes to being a father

figure, and a father, to young David, that's my role, very much so. And we've got a lovely bond there. It's not, like I said, it's not sexual in the traditional sense, but it is deep. I don't think I had ever before come across Eli speaking

so fondly and tenderly about another, if not human being, then being at least. I was deeply struck by how much this experience seemed to have changed him. I was living in a wonderland for a good few months, me and Dav. And his mum, we'd go out for walks. I took them to see all the Tarzan films.

Were you happy? I was blissful. I don't mind telling you. For the first time in my life, I was blissful. I was, I don't mind telling you, I was, for the first time in my life, I felt truly free. I felt truly, like I said, I was unshackled. More after this. Hello.

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what a lot of people might not know is that chimps are regularly used as body doubles for actors. Right. So often they're used as replacements for children, because obviously they're quite small. Yeah. Or small old men. Okay. So like when they did The Irishman, for example, when they brought back De Niro and Joe Pesci and that lot, there was a lot made of the fact that obviously they used the CGI to

make their faces look younger yeah but a lot of people were saying oh their gate is quite strange it's not like the gate of a young man was it that we were actually watching the gate of a a chimp a middle-aged chimp yeah yeah that was I felt like on the part of Scorsese that may have been that may have been a mistake I think if you have that technology you've got the actor there use it on the actor but you know he went with the chimps and you've got you've got to be thankful for that as well that you know people like martin scorsese is employing um the chimp community in all of his films and now and again this is exclusive um he will employ a chimp to replace him in the director's chair so then you've got a situation where you've got a chimp directing some other chimps yes are

those scenes usually obvious chaos and they still include those shots they try to because the chimp union is quite strong in hollywood now so if they were to try and edit that out then there would be trouble and also with the particular example of the irishman scorsese did also use a chimp in the edit suite and the chimp's not going to edit out another chimp i see and that that maybe begins to tell us the story of why that film was quite so long very very long you know chimps are wonderful animals but they've got no sense of brevity whatsoever i believe that there was quite so long. Very, very long. You know, chimps are wonderful animals, but they've got no sense of brevity whatsoever. I believe that there was one chimp, though,

that really got pulses racing and was kind of the top dog amongst them. Can you tell me a little bit about him? Well, this chimp... I mean, he's changed his name, actually, to the name of the actor that he always replaced and would always help out. They were like a team by the end.

Daniel Radcliffe, the chimp. Right. Who would be in multiple, multiple shots in all the Harry Potter films. Every time you see Daniel Radcliffe from behind in a Harry Potter film, that is actually Daniel Radcliffe, the chimp. And you sent me some photographs over of you in the sanctuary with the chimps. Some lovely photographs. There's an obvious bond between you and the chimps.

Yeah. But sometimes in the background of the photographs, you'll see the Daniel Radcliffe chimp. He looks extraordinarily like Daniel Radcliffe. It's amazing, isn't it? I mean, it's from a distance, but it's also up close. From behind, especially, he's the spitting image of Daniel Radcliffe. I was looking at it thinking,

surely that chimp has had to have some kind of facial surgery to look more like Daniel Radcliffe. Is that what they did to sub him in? It's actually the other way around. So the studio was so happy with the chimp's work that they wanted the chimp to do more face work in in the harry potter films and they just decided it was probably better to give daniel radcliffe surgery to look more like the chimp because you can do it under the guise of of puberty i guess well exactly

so a lot of people a lot of people would watch the harry potter films and say oh aren't they growing up aren't they getting older doesn't daniel radcliffe look different and what they don't actually know is quite traumatic plastic surgery on daniel radcliffe to look more like the chimp that acted alongside him or instead of him yeah and i believe by the end of the harry potter franchise daniel radcliffe actually wasn't even on set for the last film barely i mean he was very tired obviously the the pressures of celebrity are a lot and he would just be in his trailer most of the most of the time or off on holiday and it would be the chimp doing the majority of the work and obviously daniel radcliffe the chimp is now living in the sanctuary so one assumes he's no longer working with daniel and daniel continues to work and make great films and do great work in hollywood

how's that working what's gone on there well of course they do like to keep this sort of stuff quite under wraps especially the extent that daniel radcliffe the chimp was working uh instead of daniel radcliffe so you know radcliffe's agents buried it immediately and i believe did throw the chimp into the sanctuary almost like a prison to keep him quiet oh so once the press begin to get an inkling that maybe this chimp is doing a bit more work than than usual yes it's time to send him off to the sanctuary although there are some rumors that the daniel ragcliffe that you see working in films today is actually daniel ragcliffe the chimp and in our sanctuary is daniel ragliff the human and having interacted with with that

person or chimp what do you think well it's interesting you asked because we did um a few years ago uh emma watson um hermione who by the way emma watson was herself on set no chimp double no chimp double for emma watson but rupert grint they actually cast the chimp double? No chimp double for Emma Watson. At Rupert Grint, they actually cast the chimp originally. Right. And then what? And brought in the boy for the shots? No, there's no boy. He's chimp all the way down?

Yeah. Whoa. Okay. But Emma Watson was and is human and came to the sanctuary to visit. She's a very charitable young lady. She does a lot. She's, I believe, a celebrity patron of the sanctuary.

She is. She's a celebrity patron of many charities. And you don't get a lot of time with her, but she really puts in the effort. And she came to the Chimp Sanctuary and she asked to be introduced to all the chimps. And I said, that's an absolute pleasure. There's PG Tips.

There's one dressed as a Victorian man. And she looked over all the chimps. And I said, oh, and you might recognise this one. And they locked eyes and you know, obviously they worked together, but you just saw something very human

in Daniel Radcliffe, the chimp's eyes. And it's like that it was that old chemistry coming back. And that did make me wonder, what if we've got the wrong one? Yeah. And do you think Emma herself got an inkling of that?

I think she knew. I don't know if she's involved. You know, I wouldn't like to cast aspersions or create conspiracy theories, but she knew. She left in a real hurry that day. They were halcyon days for a while, you know, and of course, one thing led to another, and my joy was unfortunately short-lived.

Little did Eli know that as he was bringing up David as his own, the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals had got wind of the fact that Eli was using stolen African chimpanzees as security guards. After conducting a short investigation, they arrived at Eli's compound in Wales. Yeah, the RSPCA turns up. I think they've got quite a benign image.

You see them on the television news, you see them in the adverts on the radio, and you see them out collecting outside the shops and the shopping centres. Yeah, it's normally just a bloke in a polo shirt. Very harmless. Trying to grab a swan and put it in a box or whatever. That's it, yeah. They give you like a free panda or something,

like a little toy or a badge. But what people don't realise about the RSPCA is they are very much hands-on. And when it comes to protect the animals, I mean, fair play to them, right? They took me by surprise. If I'm very, very honest, I was expecting, like you said, maybe a chap in a roll neck, maybe a woman in a pleated skirt, turn up at the house to appeal to a better nature of which I don't have one.

And far from it. I opened the door and was met by what can only be described as a division of the RSPCA. People may not know this, but in a battle situation, the RSPCA are very, very highly armed. Right. Very, very well drilled. Very, very disciplined. Very highly armed. Fearless. Right. Very, very well drilled, very, very disciplined, very highly armed, fearless. Right, so how many people

are we talking about? I would say there was upwards of 800 people. And all of them armed? All armed to the teeth. Right. What they've done, obviously over the very, very popular charity in this country,

people leave stuff to the RSPCA and the wills. That's probably where they make most of their money. People don't realize they've been around for a long time. And a lot of those things left to the RSPCA in their wills. That's probably where they make most of their money. People don't realize they've been around for a long time. And a lot of those things left to the RSPCA are weapons. And a lot of those people who are animals would have been fought in one of the world wars

and the various skirmishes and that in between, or been in the armed forces. And they have been left an awful lot of weapons over the years. So just to paint a clear picture of what you're seeing when you open the door, 800... 800 highly armed RSPCA officers, yeah. Armed with sort of antique weapons by the sounds of the word. Certainly there would have been bolt-action rifles

going back as far as the First World War. There would have been carbines from the Second World War and revolvers, bayonets attached as well. I mean, there was all sorts. There were a couple of chaps had a belt-fed tripod-mounted machine guns, the sort you see in the Vietnam War. And...

So from, you know, if you weren't in the situation of someone, if they weren't pointed at you, it might be quite an interesting thing to look at if you were... Oh, very much so. If you're into a sort of a reenactment society but of battles across the ages there were a couple of uh canon

right they look like they were from the sort of uh uh well elizabethan period i would say it was a they were cast kind of english civil war era and earlier yeah and earlier um a couple of fellas there and uh one fella was swinging very menacingly. He was a very well-dressed man. I mean, I could see him now. He had like a tweed jacket on with elbow patches and a sort of gingham shirt, if you will, and a pair of nice trousers on

and some brown, fairly comfortable-looking shoes, but swinging a mace over his head, a 12th-century mace, it looked like to me, a spiked mace um so from the rudimentary weapons all the way up to the modern day i mean there was i would say if you look at the history books it would have been at least four possibly six or eight rspa members flying a b-52 flying fortress i was just circling over the over the head there was a rear gunner there was a front gunner there would have been i suppose a pilot and a co-pilot and a bombardier so at least yeah like i said probably five six seven maybe eight rspca in the b-52 of course and are these rspc officers are they uh volunteers is that i don't know if you know much about how they managed to

i think it's very much like the i don't i don't think it's called the territorial army these days i think it's called the army reserve but uh i days. I think it's called the Army Reserve. But I think the deal is that you turn up and you work in the shop sort of five weekends in a row, and the sixth weekend you get to go on manoeuvres on a sort of staggered basis. So, yeah, 800, as I said, 800 people there is probably, if you work it out on a rotor basis, probably a sixth of their actual forces,

they could call upon in a real big emergency. You're talking about a bunch of sort of 4,000 or 5,000 armed RSPCA troops, but there was the 800 there. So do you think we underestimate the RSPCA then? Because this is all news to me, and I think most people listening, they see the charity shops where people might buy an old copy of a Terence Trent RBCD for a pound or whatever, and they don't realise that that money is going towards an armed force.

You're buying your knit needles. You're buying your sheet music. You're buying your tea cozies. You're buying a set of China teacups that never quite match. Maybe you've got five teacups and four saucers. All that money is funneled towards arming and training RSPC officers to go out into the field. Nothing but respect for

me really i mean what impressed me was not just the b-52 which was a wonderful sound on it those big engines and the of course had to have as it is a a bombing aircraft and an escort right so there was uh it's lovely it was it was like it was like a like a flight pass there was a, it was lovely. It was like a fly pass. There was two, they looked like Spitfires. So yeah, I mean, what do you do in that situation? Yes, because obviously you're someone who, you know, I know doesn't back down from a fight easily. You know, you tend to like to put your money where your mouth is. But when faced with that kind of thing, how do you react?

And how did you react? You've got to embrace it haven't you so what i did was i shut the door fairly quickly i took all my clothes off i had some blue food coloring in the kitchen covered myself in uh like a makeshift wode i grabbed one of the crossbows and uh and an axe and just ran into the, you know, the sort of front line of the phalanx. Yeah. After my battle cry, you know, with probably 30 or 40 of the chimps behind me, you know, but I would never send the chimps in

somewhere where I would fear to tread myself. So I went back there. I said, all right, boys and girls, come on. We've got work to do, you know. Yeah. Davi looked at me me I could see the pride in his eyes he was like that

he looked at me in the way that you sort of see those recruiting posters from the second world war when there's a kid dead and there's a daddy in an armchair

you know Daddy what did you do? Yeah yeah yeah I charged in swaying an axe around my head I tied a rope to the axe. I was using it very much as a sort of a large,

almost like a fly mower, like a lawnmower. And that took out the first sort of, I suppose, six or seven people on the front of the RSPCA phalanx there. And then before I could shoulder the crossbow and start to do some real damage, one fell, a nice bloke called Graham, caught me in the back of the head with a, what looked like a Viking mallet.

And that really knocked me down, you know. I was staggering. I was dazed. And then a woman called Sheila came over with, I don't know if you've seen the film Gladiator, but she had like a net, essentially. Right. A weighted net which she threw over me and then she hit me just above my kidneys with a trident, essentially. And that stung.

And I could see the boys and girls getting involved and piling in. involved in and piling in and um it must be hard being an rspca officer armed when a chimp attacks you because obviously your job is to not harm animals but when a chimp is coming at you with a crossbow well this is the thing this is what i didn't realize at the time is is is they had a series of non-lethal um uh weapons if you will purely dealing with the chimps. Right. So they were being hit with essentially, every since almost like a big beanbag, a weighted beanbag, which they fire, would hit the chimp in the chest and sort of knock him backwards,

take the wind out of him. But for me, you know, there's no quarter or axle given with the human. Right. With the owners of the animals that are being mistreated, if indeed they were being mistreated, which they weren't. Yeah, and I was, so I remember i pulled the trident out i was trying to get the bloody the net off me the weighted net but there was lead weights all on the outside of it and of course i

was still in a daze from the from the viking warhammer when uh a fella called terry he shot me twice in the buttocks with um 9mm Beretta which was very, very painful. And then just I thought I'd had enough and I was about to give in and give in to, you know, I was thinking stay away from the light, stay away from the light you know. And

a young girl, Stacey 19 years of age, just joined the RSPCA. A lovely girl. I think she's taken a gap year before she goes to university. She caught my testicles and my penis in a bear trap, which, as you can imagine, was, you know, and completely took it off.

I mean, this was the thing, and I bled profusely at that point. I just remember seeing the light got brighter and brighter and then I passed out and I woke up in a field hospital. Right. Several days later, you know. I was run over by RSPCA medics. I was reminded of Charles Nestor of course the NRA advocate

and an actor who funny enough was in Planet of the Apes of course who said they would pry my my gun from my cold red hands and I always thought that they would pry my penis

from my cold red hands but no I was very much alive when the penis was pried from me and I always thought that they would pry my penis from my cold head hands but um no I was very much alive when when the penis was pried from me uh and I could deal with that I could deal with the physical loss and I I've been dealing with physical loss my whole life you know but it was it was the emotional loss because I turned around and and uh there was no of course there was no David David was gone they'd taken David from me. They'd taken my manhood and my progeny. I'm much harder to deal with the loss of David than it was the loss of my penis in Sesagos.

next time on beef and dairy network podcast the celebrity chimps unfortunately at that point will form a sort of jury yeah yeah parasites insects uh rodents uh whatever really whatever's passing did they think they were getting a pumpkin or did they, you know, knowingly commit a murder? Took a few bin bags full of mosquitoes with me. Ripped chimps. Six packs, the works. I thought it was important that I was able to weather out any sort of siege. We just have to hide Daniel Radcliffe because there's no getting away from the fact he really does look like the man.

The plan was to make our way to London via various zoos. He shits in my mouth while I'm asleep. I make him an omelette. Thanks to Linnea Sage, Mike Bubbins and Ed Gamble. Part two, next week.

Now, the reason that we're putting out these two episodes this month is that it is Max Fun Drive and before we go I just want to let you know about a couple of fun things we're putting out these two episodes this month is that it is max fun drive and before we go i just want to let you know about a couple of fun things we're doing as part of max fun drive um so what have we got the main one is tuesday the 21st of march which if you're listening to this on the day of release is tomorrow so um it's tomorrow i'm doing a live stream event with tom neenan and mike wasniak

it's ask a doc versus ask a vet so we're putting your veterinary and medical queries to both tv doctor dr sam archer of channel four's car crash anus and of course bovine asphalt bob triscothic And of course, Bovine Arsefet, Bob Triscothic. They're always fun, these events. So that'll be at 8pm British time

on Tuesday, the 21st of March at 8pm. And to get there, it's going to be on Twitch. So go to twitch.tv forward slash Benjamin Partridge.

You don't have to like sign up to Twitch to watch it. You can just go there, twitch.tv forward slash Benjamin Partridge and you'll be able to watch it. you'd like to comment and get involved i think you do have to set up a twitch account but i think it's super easy so um yeah come along to that those

are always really good fun so that's probably gonna last about an hour so yeah 8 p.m till 9 p.m on tuesday um i'm also going to be doing some ready ask me anythings so both as myself as the host of the podcast and maybe an ask me anything from our old friend eli roberts and for details of exactly when i'm going to be doing those um check out our social media i'll be posting about that so that's like on twitter and instagram is where you can find the beef and dairy network on social media we haven't yet made the leap to tiktok i don't think we ever will because it involves dancing i think i've also made a series of videos which i'll be putting out on social media

over the next couple of weeks they are fun i think. So basically, yeah, keep an eye out. And yes, the main thing, if you want to come to the streaming event, 8pm, Tuesday, 21st of March, on twitch.tv forward slash Benjamin Partridge. I'm throwing a lot of website addresses at you this episode. The main one being maximumfund.org forward slash join. All this Max Fund Drive stuff is about our annual

fundraising drive. If you'd like to support the podcast, and I would invite you to consider it, go to maximumfund.org forward slash join. Right, thank you and see you next week for the conclusion of this naughty tale. Bye.