The Gargle - Guilt tipping | Sausages | Baby DNA

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

John-Luke Roberts and James Colley join host Alice Fraser for episode 112 of The Gargle - the glossy magazine to The Bugle's audio newspaper for a visual world.All of the news, none of the politics.��� Guilt tipping🌭 Gene-hacked sausages👶🏻 Baby DNA🦜 Babbling parrots🌲 Sound of trees💩 ReviewsProduced by Ped Hunter and Chris Skinner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's producer Chris from The Bugle here. Did you know that I have a new series of my podcast, Richie Firth Travel Hacker, out now? It's the show where Richie Firth and I talk about how to make travel better in our very special way. In this series, we discuss line bikes, Teslas, the London overground, and a whole bunch of other random stuff that possibly involves wheels

or tracks or engines of some variety. God, what a hot sell this is. I mean, you must be so excited. Listen now. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Every sport has their big, juicy controversy. Boxing has the Mike Tyson ear bite.

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Acast.com. This is a podcast from The Bugle. doesn't know he's dead. He just keeps haunting your kitchen and giving you bad life advice. You sit down with the medium to confront and lay him to rest. He's earned his sleep and you're pretty sure the unfinished business he has to complete is just the poo he died on the toilet about to do. You light the candles, summon the spirits, call your guide from beyond the veil. You hear a hollow noise approaching. Unnatural. Frightening. Is it an enemy ghost? A grudging revenant here to claim an awful price? No, it's the gargle. The Sonic Glossy magazine to the Bugle's audio newspaper for a visual world.

I'm your host, Alice Fraser. Your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine that has all of the news and none of the politics are James Colley. Hello. And John Luke Roberts. Hello. Hello.

We are going to take hands together and walk into the ocean that is this week's top stories. But first, let's have a look at the front cover of the magazine. The front cover this week is, of course, Lorene winning Eurovision. Are you excited about Eurovision? Do you watch Eurovision? I don't. Are you excited about Eurovision? Do you watch Eurovision? I don't. That was very, got that in quickly. Are you excited about Eurovision? I'm not.

I do generally like to watch it. I watched a semi-final this year, but didn't watch the final because one of my friends basically scuppered the whole affair by the day before saying, I don't want to do Eurovision. Do you want to come for wine beforehand? At which point I knew nobody was coming to Eurovision afterwards. It was just going to be wine. It was going to be hijacked i used to love eurovision um but uh the whole bloody thing's gone woke in my opinion it used to be uh for man's men who would come off the battlefield on flanders field and

they would walk straight onto the stage and they would perform a ditty for other men and now it's bloody flamboyant it's avant-garde it's everything the left loves i i hate it fair enough i always i i think i don't actually mind eurovision but what i much prefer is to hear people uh telling me about eurovision second hand uh i got a taste for for hearing about things second hand when i realized i can't watch horror movies so i always just read the synopses of horror movies on wikipedia and then have nightmares about it anyway. Can I just check, in Wikipedia, do the descriptions have the jump scares? Like, will it suddenly be in capital letters when it's describing it?

No, but I can imagine them. I have a very good imagination, which is why I can't watch horror movies. The satirical cartoon this week is Vice Media filing for bankruptcy. All of these massive media properties going under or getting subsumed vale vice as as the latin saying goes veini vidi vice you came you saw you made edgy documentary series that defined the aesthetic and intellectual framework of a generation of men who now can't watch anything unless it's pretending to be a raw unbiased yet somehow also gonzo exploration of the miserable lives of sad cocaine accountants in the South American hinterlands.

You truly were the MTV of the small, small screen. So goodbye Vice. I will always remember Vice for the one time I went to a Vice party and they had a whole wall that was a projection of Al Gore doing an interview in complete silence, just on the wall. And a man named Spider told me about his sexual escapades, or sexcapades if we're saving time, as he went through Turkmenistan. So thank you for that, Vice.

I will never be able to forget that night. He doesn't even work for Vice. They just invite him to all the Vice parties to be that guy. Actually, I generally think interviews with Al Gore are pretty good to dance to. You know, I stand there, I really feel my Al Gore rhythm. Oh, no. Yeah, I did it. I did it.

I did a joke. And this is our top story today. Top story is guilt tipping, which is similar to guilt tripping, but now has to do with the self-checkout aisle. James Colley, you talk to yourself sometimes. Can you unpack this story for us? Yeah, so this is that even at the self-checkout aisle, tipping culture has come in.

Now, you might have seen this happen in, you know, cafes or I guess toilets now ask you to rate your experience there, which I always want to say, like, have you seen this before? That there's a bunch of little faces and you get to rate your experience from great to awful. And I think awful, obviously, there was terrible complaint there. But I think I had a terrific time is also very very bad to get his feedback i had the time of my life in this cubicle but be that as it may we are now in the self-checkout aisle as well uh tipping has come into this which is a moral dilemma for me personally that firstly you have eliminated the staff and that's why i'm at the self-checkout i would love to have the staff who are paid a wage

instead of a robot that gets a tip but also this is so this has been called what is an example of tip creep now um that is to me australian cultural appropriation we already have a tip creep he is a man who is at the local dump or tip as we call it here who is pretty sure he saw a whole bmx bike back there and he'll let me have it if i just give his penis a little rub so that's good business that's recycling that's worthy of a tip just the tip a little rub a whole bmx bike uh i just otherwise i don't i don't care for this at all i don't like having to rate your experience it always puts me in the mind of when uber first arrived here um my my wife was using using uber and uh believed that it worked like a theater review which is if you had a fine ride and it was good that's three stars it didn't blow your mind but was the greatest ride you've ever had. That's a five-star ride.

It took some months of doing this to realize, oh, no, that has real-world consequences for everyone involved. I remember when Uber came in, it was very much about impressing the customer in order to get that five-star review, and there'd be mints and bottles of water and things like that. And I feel like I quite enjoyed the idea that that would become increasingly theatrical in order to get those coveted extra stars that you then have to have like a heartbreaking twist at the end

and M. Night Shyamalan redirection. Or that time that I was in a taxi and the taxi driver pulled into an alleyway and asked me if I was a party girl. That was fun. There was also another guy, another taxi driver once, who told me he took a big drink of his tea and he said would you like some of my tea and i said no thank you and he said it's special tea i can see through time i can tell what color traffic lights are going to be and i said i'll just get out here and i was in a highway tunnel but i got out nonetheless uh because i

thought that was a probably uh walking down a highway tunnel at 11 p out nonetheless because I thought that was a probably walking down a highway tunnel at 11 p.m. was probably slightly less risky than being in the car of a man who thought he could see through time. Yeah well it wouldn't have shocked him because he would have already seen that event occur in the future so if anything you were just fulfilling the prophecy as he knew it. I mean he didn't even say he could see forwards through time. That's just memory. You just don't want somebody like swerving out of the way of a kangaroo that was there a thousand years ago, you know? Can I say, I did for the first time this week,

and God, I hope the Statue of Limitations is up on this. I, for the first time... Wait, wait, wait, the Statue of Limitations? Is that like the Statue of Liberty? Yes, it's the justice one, but justice only reaches as far as she can. I stole from a self-checkout and here is my vaunt into the world of crime. What I did was label, and if there's any lawyers listening, help me out here. was label and if there's any lawyers listening help me out here i labeled jazz apples as royal gala apples which i think are the same price it'll never take me alive

john luke it's america right it's the states is where this largely happens because that's where tipping culture came from and got out of hand and the general guilt thing of going well in america anything you buy has a price on it which has nothing really to do with the price you pay at the checkout you just they put some numbers down as some sort of i don't know in service to some bizarre god of commerce and then you go up and you're told oh no this is the price where they've added tax on because they couldn't just put that on the original label when you see it like everywhere else does and then they turn a little desk around and it says do you want to tip um how good was the service tip five percent if you are a terrible skin Flint tip 20 if you are a dickens character and if you if you in any way respect us give us

50 of this please um now the thing, with these machines doing it without people involved, I read into the article, it's very clear that the money you tip still goes to the staff of the shop. That's not fair. It's the machine that's done all the work. The tip should go to the machine. I'm happy to tip as long as it goes to our one-day checkout machine overlords. It's just all been increasingly complicated since the good old days where you'd flick a coin to the boy who was holding the bridle of your horse. Why can't we go back to those times? And then he'd bite it and then be happy.

You know, that was how it used to be. I think you're thinking about cartoons. No, you can't throw a tip to a cartoon. They can't catch it. They're two dimensional. They can only take paper money. I'm sorry. What about Pixar? A lot of them now move on three planes. They look like they do, but actually it's still two dimensions, which you find out if you rub yourself up against the theater screen. Which part of yourself are you rubbing against this theater screen the whole body okay fine nothing nothing untoward guggle to zatch yes was was there that's how i'm announcing any intermission now point of order

um was there an epidemic of rich misers in in olden times using gold and chocolate like the chocolate foil coins and flicking that like is that where the biting came in when did the biting become part of this like ah you almost tricked me with a delicious chocolate i always thought it was it was to test the like strength of the coin isn't it like you don't want any floppy coins it's just to make sure they're not passing you off with a floppy coin. Like you should check it's not mercury, basically. Like you don't give me any quicksilver coins

and they'll slip out of my pocket. No, no. They're not good for the skin. The oldie peasants had a really good tongue for an alloy. They could tell whether it was a proper gold

or an electrum, kind of a watered down copper, 15% perp. That was the whole. Also, if you bit hard enough, that's how you got gold teeth. an electrum kind of a watered down copper 15% pepper. That was the whole. Also, if you bit hard enough, that's how you got gold teeth. Your ad section now because you can't be what you can't buy. All the milk fell out of my milk sandwich.

This bread's disintegrating. I wish there was a milk sandwich with some structural integrity. Wish granted. Try a milk sandwich with some structural integrity. Wish granted. Try a cheese sandwich today. The milk sandwich you can eat without getting wet. Cheese sandwich too dry now that you're using cheese instead of milk? Try re-moistening your sandwich by dipping it in half a glass of water. Half a glass of water.

The solution for the dry mouth. What, you don't like a wet cheese sandwich, Gully? No, just half a glass of water isn't a solution it is a solution only once you've dipped the sandwich in it it's only a solution if the sandwich completely dissolves within the water all right guys we're back i'm not drinking distilled water here i'm drinking like the normal water which has a lot of other things in it all right right. Dinosaur ears. Like fish and stuff. Oh, okay. Yeah, like fish.

You have an important meeting coming up, and then you have to shred that evidence. You don't have time to keep track of what's off in the distance, but you'd feel better knowing someone did. Now someone does, with giraffes. Giraffes. It's like being friends with a periscope. Are you clumsy? Do you love to stand

at the top of snow-covered mountains pointing out the view? Do you wish people would stop laughing when you inevitably fall down the snow-covered mountain? Skis. Convince people you meant to fall down that mountain. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Every sport has their big, juicy controversy. Boxing has the Mike Tyson ear bite. Cycling has Lance Armstrong. Baseball has its steroid era.

Curling has... Broomgate. It's a story of broken relationships, houses divided, corporate rivalry, and a performance-enhancing broom. It was a year I'd like to forget. Broomgate.

Available now. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts. Everywhere. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com And sausage news now. And this is the news that they have broken the only rule of sausages, which is not to talk about what is going into a sausage. John Luke, you're a rule breaker. What is going into the sausages now?

Yeah, well, they're putting Gene, if I've got this right, Not really. No. The FDA, which is the Food Decision Authority in America, have allowed genetically modified pig to go into sausages, which will then enter the food supply. I don't think they need to mention the food supply, because once it's gone into a sausage, surely that's food supply there's no other like use for a sausage they're not used in in you know mechanical operation or anything like that they're not used in in the arts they're just for food um so washington state university they they're genetically modifying pigs to make the pig better um for meat and then they're putting those pigs into sausages and now the FDA has said yes now those sausages can be eaten by people and the the mad scientist who is doing this who is not called gene even though it is gene hacking which is going on um he says that because he's an academic this will give people faith in eating these sausages I don't think he knows what people are like I don't think

that knowing the FDA have approved it will at any rate help now and I also don't think he knows what people are like. I don't think that knowing the FDA have approved it will at any rate help now. And I also don't think that knowing a man from a university has been tampering with the tiniest bit of your sausage meat will make anybody want to put it in their mouth. The best thing obviously to do with a sausage is not to think about where the sausage has come from at all. And nobody eating a sausage will have chosen a sausage on the basis of what has gone in. You eat a sausage for plausible deniability. You eat a sausage because you don't want to think about what has gone into the sausage.

Where it's coming from or where it's going, you don't want to see any of those things. There's only one point. Well, because the sausage is of course, the one food shaped perfectly for the duodenum like it's it's made to pass through your digestive system as flexibly and as um you know as easily as possible it's wait a minute are you not biting your sausages well who bites their sausage come on grow up i've not got time i've not got time to bite my sausage like a snake

well that's why they're in strings they're in they come in strings you put them in one hand and you and then you sort of clarify like a snake eats not like you're eating a snake although actually it works in both directions well the snake actually is is more helpful because that does some of the moving the snake moves itself down the sausage you have to do some work basically once you've got the first sausage down that's the hard bit but then once that's in your digestive system in your intestine that's when peristalsis happens and just pulls the rest of the sausages through and then of course the only thing you've got to watch out for is the little yapping dog chasing the tail end of the string of sausages

accidentally going down your mouth i mean this is this is an article in futurism.com that was sent to us by one of our wonderful roving editors. And I think it is slightly skewed. I mean, I'm always looking out for bias in our news sources. It is slightly skewed by the fact that it is a source called futurism.com. And they seem extremely enamored of using the phrase gene hacked in reference to these hot dogs, when what they mean is sort of moderately genetically modified pigs. James? Firstly, I'd like to say that the snake eating the snake is how the first Ouroboros was formed. It was just got a little too excited and then it just kept eating itself

forever. I am shocked by this. Firstly, because and primarily because I was thinking we were going to use CRISper to do something cool i really thought there were a couple years there that was like we're going to stop all the diseases we found the secret code of the universe and now it's like we've we've made meat um it's not much better like it's telling here that there's these aren't chops they're not pork loins they're not bacon even they've really gone for as we have discussed the most indiscriminate meat the the awful they're just don't think about it put it in your gob i also am a little unnerved how they refer to these creatures as donor pigs and i feel that i understand the term donor is difficult but

i i feel donor implies some form of consent even organ donors at some point signed a form like i don't think i think if the pig has donated its body to science it would not be thrilled if this is the science that comes out of it i mean actually if you just get someone to put their finger on a smiley face from frowny to smiley um in response to the sausage that does count as science point of order um please please sorry i just want to give my impression of the uroboros snake uh if you ask it a question in an interview, what it's always saying is, Well, shoshishu. Oh, shoshishu.

This might be an unrelated question. Why is... That's never stopped anything in this podcast. Why is Animal Farm called Animal Farm? Isn't that just a farm? Why did they specify it's a farm? It could be called farm or animals, either of those. Why is it called animal farm?

Well, hang on, you can farm like crops. No, you can't. Maybe it's like Circus Oz. I'm putting my foot down. Maybe it's like Circus Oz where they used to have animals but now it's all people. I mean, to be fair, I would like Orwell to have written an allegory for communism just using vegetables.

I think it would have been more. I guess that's VeggieTales and it's quite fundamental. All creatures are corn equal, but some are corn more equal than others. Oh, nice. Yeah. Oh, four ears of corn good two ears of corn bad or better depending on where you are in the book uh now it's time for your reviews as you know each week we ask our guest editors to bring in something to review out of five stars james coll, what have you brought in for us this week? This week, my review has been becoming an artist.

I have performed my first bit of visual art this week, by which I mean I have drawn with some pastels, which is a crayon that I overpaid for. And is not good I really thought I was a savant who had just never tried I presumed I had a great artist inside of me it turns out not no nope didn't wasn't waiting to emerge maybe maybe it's clarinet maybe there's still a lot of other forms of self-expression to go. But I can definitively say it is not fine art or even crayon drawings. I think if I were a caveman and I had seen a yak, I would not be able to convey that information to any other caveman. I am just not of that level of artistic ability. So I would say two stars.

of that level of artistic ability. So I would say two stars. Wow, but you've managed to get the entire artistic process within one human. You've cut out, like, you are the artist and the critic. Wow. That is what we're looking for, a circular economy, man. In these days of looking for alternatives for capitalism, you might have just presented.

Everyone's their own OnlyFans. Is it a terrarium? You're a terrarium. You've got a cork in the top. You don't need any air coming in. You're providing the whole system. John McRoberts, what have you brought in for us? Well, I'd like to review the difference

between the American and the British words for poo, which is poo and poop. What's the Australian? Is that poo? Shit. Poo. Poo. Shit.

So for me, I've been giving it quite a lot of thinking. There's lots of these cultural differences. It's the tipping thing which sent me off thinking about it. Poop, the American way, I think really sums up the American sensibility. There's such sort of hope and optimism in the word poop. It ends. It has a definitive start and a definitive ending, as if this thing we have to do every day, this terrible thing, might just, this might be the last time. We might never have to do it again.

Poop. Whereas the British way, you know, poo, just carries on. It acknowledges that this is an ongoing process. And in fact, this pause after it happens is simply a brief respite from what our life is, which is simply pooing. So I give the American way of saying poop two stars. I think it sums up the thing less well than the British way, which I give two stars as well, because I'm feeling very unpatriotic at the moment. And now it's time for your baby news. Baby news now, and this is the news.

Much like the sausages, we're messing with the making of things behind the scenes that has generally gone without too much examination. making of things behind the scenes that has generally gone without too much examination the first uk baby has been born with dna from three people after a new ivf procedure so this is extremely exciting news uh john luke roberts you have three names can you unpack this story for us i do have three names and they're all first names yes yeah so it always sounds like you're embarking on something exciting, but then you never get anywhere.

I will say I was a bit sad when you said now for baby news and then this isn't news for babies. I thought this would be a great new innovation of just like news specifically for babies, but no, it's news about babies. Can I just say as someone with a baby, everything in the world is news for babies. Well, actually, some of it's not appropriate news for babies. But everything is new to a baby. Yes, everything is new to a baby.

This is like sci-fi and also they've taken a tiny little bit of DNA of the mitochondria of a third person to protect the unborn babies when making the babies in the IVF, I think IVF, from without those mitochondrial genetic diseases which are in the parent. And then this is, there are fewer than five babies or two armfuls of babies which have been born using this procedure, but there are now babies with three parents parents but it's not a sitcom from the 90s it is um it is a way of uh it's yeah they've they've diddled with the sausages and now um and these babies are now running free uh james this is a breakthrough but i i should mention that this story has happened before um it actually happened a long time ago,

three into one and a little baby produced in a little town called Bethlehem. And spoilers, does not end well for the baby, actually. Really nasty end for the baby. Was it God or Joseph who was providing the mighty conurea? True. Big questions. Joseph was... He was kind of like the 0.1 contribution here in which he was the

bouncer at the door of the barn he was just making sure any no cows got injured we're busy right now fellas uh i do you know what look let's go off topic here i always want to know why are like in in the story like little lord jesus born in the major in in the song it's very important that the cows and the sheep are all silent in the field did they know why did they know like i if if people did it but like a cow got it immediately a cow's like well i shouldn't move now baby in. I mean, if Disney has taught us nothing else, it's that woodland animals and farmyard animals have a real eye for a prince or a princess. They've just got a feeling for who they should be twittering at,

who they should be vibing with. They're real classists. Remember all those scenes. They can even tell one in disguise. Yeah, when the princess is singing by the window and then the cow jumps in and lands on her finger and sings a little song with her. I just think Jesus should have had a pet. Don yeah you feel like he should have had a pet gives you a good vibe when someone has

a pet you mean like a wacky sidekick like a disney thing yeah chat and get a little dragon yeah i was thinking raccoon but dragon works yeah dragon why did you betray me i bet it's you, Judith. You know, stuff like that. Good gear. I think the third amount is so tiny. It is in the sense that like when I say, you know, it takes a village to raise a baby, I'm not actually helping, but I'm technically there.

More baby news now. And parrot babies babble just like our babies, apparently, according to adoring parrot parents who think their baby parrots are super cute, even though they're on an aeroplane and annoying everyone. My nightmare. I'm going on a plane tomorrow with my baby, and I am so terrified that I'm going to alienate people.

And then I looked up online, what do you do when you're travelling with my baby and I am so terrified that I'm going to alienate people. And then I looked up online, what do you do when you're traveling with a baby? Because I've traveled with a baby before, but not for 10 hours to Japan. And I mean, I have, I've gone to England, but she was a smaller baby then more manageable. The point is she's now one and a half years old and will not stop and will not shut up. And I looked it up. And apparently one of the things that you can do is give people like little consolation gifts when you get on the the plane just little like baggies of earplugs and like cute things that they can do to be like i'm sorry i bred and i immediately have decided that them because i'm not going to give out little if you don't have headphones or earbuds on an airplane in this

modern day and age you deserve all of the obnoxious screaming that you're gonna get and also a baby is entitled to go to japan and have lunch in a mini pig cafe just like you are so shut it alice i similarly had a we we flew with uh with our little baby and uh she was very loud the whole time and i would say everyone on board was very very lovely about it except for one older woman who when we're at the baggage carousel Grace was upset again and she turned to her and like with pure venom went it's that baby as if it was her enemy it made me laugh so much I couldn't hold anger for her anymore. I was on a flight a couple of years ago where there were a few babies on the plane.

And obviously they were crying like babies do. That's just part and parcel of the thing. And then at the end of this 10-hour or 12-hour flight or something, a woman turned to the couple next to her and said, Well, your baby's been very well behaved. Unlike some babies I can mention. Just passive aggressively sticking it into the other babies on the flight. Can we get back to the parrot babies? You repeat yourself a lot.

Can you unpack this story? Who repeats themselves? I was waiting to see who'd jump in on basically babies babble they go blah blah blah and they put sounds together that don't make sense and parrot babies it turns out when they secretly record them when their parents are away they do the same babbling but in a high-pitched parrot voice um that's the story parrots and little parrot babies little parrot babies babble and there's other things that babble of course as well there's goblins babble um radio djs they babble and cartoon wolves when approached by cartoon sexy ladies they uh they go babbling crazy

james this whole story has uh the vibe to me of when i tell someone about some experience with my daughter and they reply with what their dog is like great not the same don't really care i think it would be terrifying if parrots actually babbled like babies like i'm gonna take last night for example i was up at 3 a.m just hanging out and wouldn't you know the baby happy in the cry so it was a good timing for us to hang out for a little bit and um i was changing her feet went entirely in silence and then she did her little uh contribution which was on the last sip of her bottle rocking in my arm slowly getting towards sleep she pulled the bottle out looked me in the eye and said go away so if a parrot did that i would also have real problems with that parrot and feel like i shouldn't have gotten up in the middle of the night for you so frankly i am

going to be as annoyed at the parrot as i was the daughter and i love the daughter so the parrot has no chance i mean our discussion of this story has confirmed a strong belief that I have about parrots and pets in their entirety, which is that very rarely do they have any personality of their own. Mainly they're just projections of their owners. And in this case, real parrot babies have just been a stand-in for our frustrations as both parents and passengers on planes. So well done, parrot babies.

both parents and passengers on planes. So well done, parrot babies. And our next story is the sexiest tree I have ever heard. This is the story of Pando, a quaking aspen so colossal. I thought you were going to say the Deku tree from the Oracle of Time. I mean, yes. Let's talk about it. That's a tree. Also the Baobab tree, yes. Let's talk about it. That's a tree.

Also, the baobab tree, if that's how you pronounce it. I pronounce it the babe tree. Oh, look at the curvaceous trunk on that. Yeah. But this is even sexier than that. A quaking acid. She's staying on topic. She just won't be pulled off. I will be pulled off, but only by a sexy enough tree

the pando tree is not even a tree it's like a swathe of trees it's one tree that has many springs coming out of it it is thousands of individual sort of up shoots connected by a single root system and the whole thing shakes and makes noise, and is, like, can I just say, the hottest tree I have ever heard, because you can hear it. John Luke, you're desperate to leaf. Can you unpack this story for us? Nice, I like it. Well, it's called the Pando Tree. The word means I spread.

For? Yeah. I mean, in context, that's cool. But if you got onto a tube and the Pando Tree was in there, like across three chairs where it only needs one, you'd be a bit like come on pando tree pull yourself together um but it's a big old spready tree and they put tiny little microphones on it to find out what sounds it makes um but it now it seems to me that if you

put tiny little microphones on anything sounds will happen but i don't know that it's quite true to say that that is the thing making the sounds or that those sounds are in any way an accurate representation of what that thing sounds like because it doesn't sound like that because you can listen to it and it just goes unless you have lots of tiny little tiny little microphones to stick on its leaves and under its roots but it does sound nice especially when there's a storm and it's all going creak creak creak to be fair to the vast majority of our listeners I don't sound like anything unless there's a storm and it's all going creak, creak, creak. To be fair, to the vast majority of our listeners, I don't sound like anything unless there's plenty of tiny little microphones in front of me.

I'm just talking in my room alone. So let's not play down the high quality of audio equipment in the world. I'm sorry. I just realised we need to knock this thing down, obviously, because if it's got tiny little microphones on it, we will finally know if it falls in the forest, whether it makes a sound. We can finally test this.

We need to knock down the pando tree right now. Well, I want to get it as a guest on the gargle, so... If this project, this scientific project, this ecological project has achieved one thing it will be to make people knock down the pando tree i um i hate this tree uh i i really don't get this this story uh was uh flogged by npr with the headline listen to one of the largest trees in the world and frankly no i do not want to listen to this. I do not want to listen to this tree. I do not want to listen to any tree.

A tree has nothing to say that could interest me. A tree has been nowhere. It has done nothing. I do not respect anyone that allows dogs to habitually piss on them. Sorry, John. I do not respect it. I do not want to listen to it. And like you say, it's not one tree. It's a bunch of little trees with interconnected roots and we have an expression for someone in australia who has a lot of

interconnected roots and it's a bloody horn bag so i'll be damned if i sit here and i listen to a tree that has shagged half the forest i do not care for this tree i do not like the members of the friends of pando which is a really weird name it's the kind of group you get when you've been me too the friends of pando who say that Pando redefines trees. It does not redefine trees. It is very much a tree. If you imagine a tree in your mind, that's what Pando is. It's a tree.

And also, it has one sound. You're a one-hit wonder, Pando. Where is the follow-up album? You've been around for ages. I hate this tree. This tree is cancelled. And that brings us to the end of the show. I'm flipping through the ad section at the back.

James Colley, have you got anything to plug? The next big thing is out via Pantera Press. When? Don't know, but keep refreshing their webpage until pre-orders are open and it will probably be a couple of months from now. Also, if you are in Australia, you can watch the 1% Club on Channel 7's catch-up service. I don't know what that is.

Not going to look into it. Or on ABC iView, there's plenty of Gruen, which is coming back soon. Hey, that's exciting news. It's a good show. John McRoberts, have you got anything to plug? Yes. I'm doing my tour show, A World Just Like a Robot,

one more time in the Moth Club in London on the 16th of July to record that and film it, and then you'll be able to purchase it. Other than that, you can listen to my podcast, Soundteam, which is still online and I think is very good. And you can find me online at patreon.com slash alicefraser. It's a one-stop shop for all of my stand-up specials, podcasts and blogs, as well as my weekly Tea with Alice salons and my writers' meetings,

if you would like to write with me. I'll also be gigging all over in London and Edinburgh in the next three months, so find all of the details of that on at Alliterative on Twitter and Instagram or patreon.com slash Alice Fraser. I announce my gigs weekly there. We have a live gargle coming to Edinburgh. If you are going to be at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival during August, we will be doing the gargle live there with a number of fave returning guests

and one or two new exciting guests. And the dates for that are available on the website, thebuglepodcast.com. If you'd like to be a roving reporter for The Gargle, you can tweet us at HelloGogglers. Our roving reporters this week are James VT and Miss Otis, who sent in the guilt-tipping stories, Sea Lips, who sent in the gene-hacked sausages, the three-person DNA babies and our babbling parrots, as well as the listening to trees story. So we've got a clear leader on the leaderboard. If you want to compete with sea lips,

at HelloGogglers is the place to tweet us stories that you think would be appropriate for this show. This is a Bugle podcast, an Alice Fraser production. Your editor is Ped Hunter. Your executive producer is Chris Skinner. I'll talk to you again next week. You can listen to other programmes from The Bugle, including The Bugle,

Catharsis, Tiny Revolutions, Top Stories, and The Gargle, wherever you find your podcasts.