The Gargle - Planet | Technology | Food and Drink

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

Anuvab Pal and Rachel Fairburn join host Alice Fraser for episode 12 of The Gargle - the weekly topical comedy podcast from The Bugle. 🌏 Plastic pollution🤑 Green cryptocurrency🚗 Driverless cars🍹 Chernobyl alcohol🍔 Asparagus burgers🙄 Eye yogaCatch Tiff's Stevenson's Tiny Revolutions in your pod feed now.This is a show from The Bugle. Follow us on Twitter.This episode was produced 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.

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.com. This is a podcast from The Bugle. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief. It was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of light. It was the season of darkness. It was the day of opposites to the day of not opposites. The fresh-faced glossy magazine to a moderately

well-known audio newspaper for a visual world, this is The Gargle, news satire without the politics. Your guests this week, if you choose to accept them, are Anubhav Pal. Hello. Hello. And Rachel Fairbairn. Hello. Thank you for having me. Hello. It's a delight to have you here. The front cover this week is The Mouse Plague in Australia. What are my secrets, it asks. The satirical cartoon this week is Melinda Gates in a little black revenge dress saying,

I always knew he was a creep. Now I'll jump into section one. Section one is Planet News. Now we'll jump into section one. Section one is Planet News. Planet News, Anavab, this week is that just 20 companies are the source of more than 55% of all the single-use plastic items that are thrown away in the whole world. The companies include ExxonMobil, Dow and Sinopec,

and we should really boycott them, but they probably already own everything you need to live and possibly your body and hair and soul. What the f*** did you think you were clicking agree on when you didn't read the Apple's terms and conditions? Anubhav, you've been following this plastic news. What's going on here? Yeah, well, I read this on the BBC. Basically, 20 companies are responsible for pretty much half of the plastic waste in the world.

My view of this is, you know, in the developed world where you live and Rachel lives and everybody lives, there is this thing of wrapping, you know, food on a plastic tray, you know, with a little bit of plastic on it. So you pick it up from the supermarket. It looks really nice. And obviously it leads to this, you know, vast amounts of waste and 20 companies are running it.

Could I, you know, just recommend what the developing world does? Every morning during the lockdown, I'm in lockdown in India, there's a vegetable vendor with just raw vegetables on a cart. And he just goes down my street, just shouting out the names of vegetables he has for the day. a cart and he just goes down my street just shouting out the names of vegetables he has for the day um and his method of negotiation is he just asks people what you want to pay 100 rupees for this tomato and he said no that's too much and he says that's fine i'll eat it then i'll eat it and so you know you know that there's going to be nothing left at the end there's not going to be

nothing that's going to need plastic because either you buy it for a price or he's going to eat it. And I don't know, it may be one of the ways of saving the world. It's not really a credible argument I'm making, Alice, because India is one of the largest plastic polluters on the planet. So even after doing all of this, I don't know if we're getting anywhere. Well, they did analyse which countries generate the most single-use plastic waste based on head of population, and you will be happy to know

that your cart vendor is doing his bit for the world because currently leading the pack is Australia, followed by the US, with the UK coming in fourth, which is good. I was getting sick of feeling proud to be Australian in light of our great pandemic response, and I have to confess that I individually rap each of my jokes. So I'm probably single-handedly contributing to this. Rachel, have you been following this story?

Well, the thing is, it's like I knew Britain would be there because in anything bad, we're always there, aren't we? We're always in the listing of like, you know, the polluters, you know, we're terrible with the environment. We don't really care. This is a wasteful country. And we just, we're always up there, aren't we? But I get, I am like a bit obsessed with plastic waste because it's when you buy something that is plastic and that is within plastic.

So like, you know, if you buy razors, for example, and of course you've got to buy the lady razors haven't you because we're ladies and we need them pink when you buy those it's like they're in a plastic wrap they're made of plastic there's a plastic holder for them to present them to you so you can buy them it becomes like where does this end I worry that it's it's too late I think it's too late with plastic I don't know what we can do and i'm sorry to be morbid but that's that's a hard fact i think we're done you know i have to i have to ask uh you know both of you this when the few times the only times i've been to australia you know and to the uk to do shows you know you buy something and food or, you know, spices or whatever,

and it'll be wrapped in more plastic. So it'll come in a plastic box. And I try to follow the instructions to remove the plastic, but at some point I'm biting it. At some point I'm just biting it to remove the plastic. And I don't know if locals do that sort of thing, but as an ignorant visitor, I end up just sort of, you know, at some point eating some plastic just to get to the damn salt yeah that's you that's you know

we've had a really truly british experience there it's a little known fact but the saw movies are based on the conundrum of trying to get scissors out of a plastic packet that's heavily sealed without scissors it's absolutely baffling i don't like I it's just on everything what the one that gets me is if you go to a supermarket and you buy say I don't know a pie or a quiche there's a little plastic peephole you know so you can see in and admire the thing that you're gonna buy it's like just put a picture on the box it's fine we don't need to you know like a peeping tom have a little look at the quiche really is the Amsterdam's red light district of fruit and vegetables. Oh, it really is.

Yeah, it's that one that gets me. I'm just like, that is totally unnecessary. I mean, most things are unnecessary, but, yeah, I think when it comes to plastic, we as humans have f***ed it. That is all I can say. We're done. I feel you need to sell merch as a T-shirt that says most things are unnecessary.

Yeah. Do you know what? That's advice for life, actually. Most things are unnecessary. And once you learn that, everything's plain sailing. Well, that's all the time we have for our section one now, because now it's time for your ads. Your ad section now, because you can't be what you can't buy.

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Who doesn't like a cursed bursary who doesn't well you know i got him through college and animal vegetable mineral emotional if you're not sure what's around you or inside you try the drone cyclopedia a drone with the emotional intelligence of a rat will be taped to your head and will tell you what to think based on a series of Instagram quizzes. The Dronecyclopedia, available online 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.

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.com their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. And now it's time for your second section. Second section, technology news. And of course, Elon Musk has rocketed his way up to the top of the pyramid of technological news like an imaginary money making its way to the top of an imaginary graph. like an imaginary money making its way to the top of an imaginary graph. Last week, Elon Musk has said that his company Tesla will stop accepting vehicle purchases that use Bitcoin because of the climate change concerns of Bitcoin being very polluted.

This is a dramatic reversal by the world's second richest man. And obviously he said this thing. It has immediately wiped $8,000 off the price of Bitcoin, which, as we all know, is actually worth nothing. But people were pretending it was worth $55,000, and it's now $47,000. It's enough to make you suspect that Elon Musk didn't entirely think through his announcement that you could buy Teslas with Bitcoins in the first place. And if you are coming from the past, let's say 10 years ago,

this is the kind of headline that would make absolutely no sense to you. Let me explain. Musk revoked his announcement that you could buy Teslas with bitcoin by saying you can't buy Teslas with bitcoin, which is to say driverless cars can no longer be bought with imaginary distributed money that is less money than an encrypted record of proof of work you didn't do, but had robots do for you instead. Also, it's incredibly bad for the environment to make your computer solve problems that don't need solving just so the records of them solving those problems can be turned into fake money for mostly insecure mostly men to use as status symbols in small enclosed communities of equally insecure mostly men rachel are you a bitcoin investor i look now someone mentions bitcoin and i haven't got a clue what it is i just associate bitcoin

with incels and i don't know why right that is the only connection i can make and i don't even think it's connected i don't know what bitcoin is reading this story i'm like the only thing i understand in that is elon musk that's the only bit that i can understand in this i don't understand anything about it i find it too futuristic. And it's one of those things that exists but doesn't exist, if that makes sense. Is that right? It's there but it's not there?

Well, it's sort of like all money in that it's only there because we agree that it's there. But in this instance, the reason that we think that it's there is because it's massively polluting and destroying the environment. Ah. The reason that we think that it's there is because it's massively polluting and destroying the environment. It's like gold if gold were made by people just burning gold. Oh, God, I'm even more confused now. And then filming it and then handing over the film as though the film were money.

That's all I'm like. I'm still completely baffled. Honestly, it's just words to me that I just look at it and I'm going, I haven't got a clue what any of this is. What I think about money and Bitcoin is I'm very bad with money. So I just think, have I got money or have I not got money? And that's how I live my life. Like, great, I've got money. Oh, shit, I've got no money. I don't need it confusing with Bitcoins. I don't understand. Completely baffled. Does anyone understand? Does Elon Musk understand? I don't know.

I mean, Rachel, like you said, most things in life are unnecessary. Thank you. Right. Like if you've got real money, do you now need virtual money? But I just have one very quick thing to say. Alice Fraser, I mean, you may not like we've been through a lot in this lockdown. You may not be aware of the reach and power that the gargle has as a podcast. But I happen to be a listener of the episode where you talked about various dog coins, including the Dogecoin, which is a meme about a dog that became a currency. And now there is a joke on that dog. And that's called the Shino something coin.

Yes, Shiba Inu is the kind of dog. Shiba Inu coin. Thank you. And the gargle, you know, made fun of it. I think I took completely the wrong thing away from it because I thought I would put my life savings into Dogecoin, which I have now done. would put my life savings into Dogecoin, which I have now done.

Anubhav, that is ethically consistent with both of our career choices, which is to put all of our money down on the idea of a joke doing well. Thank you. Thank you. And it also explains why my wife has put me in a closet and thrown me out of the house. But I do listen to the gargle and I have made this investment. My only question for you guys is that, you know, the value of the currency went up and down because Elon Musk showed up on the comedy show Saturday Night Live. And, you know, I think should all our retirement savings be connected to something we can read about in the financial times? Or should they be connected

to watching Saturday Night Live? Well, so this was the thing that Elon Musk went on and he said that Dogecoin was a hustle, which is to say that he admitted that his promotion of Dogecoin in the past had been a joke and then people watched Elon Musk subsequently do a series of jokes that really weren't funny and they lost faith in the idea of comedy and the value of the coin went down oh my god i i never thought that my two careers would come

this close you know i was like rachel i used to think money is a thing you locked in a bank account you saw it just if the number was high that meant there's more money if the number was low that meant less money right and it's a very meant less money, right? And it's a very logical way to look at the world. It's just very confounding for me to have money be there and not be there at once. It's sort of the Schrodinger's cat of money. It's a little tricky for me, because I don't know where I stand in terms of my net worth, either as a comedian or as a solvent person. Interesting fact, Anuvab, the Schrodinger's cat experiment occurred when cats were briefly used as currency

and somebody shut a cat into a lockbox in order to keep their investments secure. And then Elon Musk said something about the cat and no one was sure what was going on inside the box. This is the podcast I come to to learn my general knowledge. Oh no, I'm so sorry. In other tech news now, a self-driving taxi has blocked

a road in Arizona and it's quite amusing footage basically is this story of it was confused by some traffic cones, but then according to its internal prompts, then fled from all roadside assistance because it was told to keep away from other vehicles and from people. So this was a Waymo taxi. Have you ever caught a Waymo, Rachel?

I haven't and I wouldn't. As I say, most things are unnecessary. I mean, there is no need to have a self-driving car. I mean, what could possibly go wrong is the question we need to ask and the answer is everything. I would not get in one. I don't understand why it's actually happening. I mean, what a scary thing to be in. I mean, you get in a taxi anyway, you're trusting a stranger to get you to a destination,

which is, you know, one thing. But to get in a car that has no driver, well, so it sort of defeats the object because the guy on the video that he did, he's having to chat to somebody in a call centre who's then coming to fix it. They have to send humans to sort it out, don't they? So just have a human driving the car. There's all your problems solved.

Rachel, I'm afraid I don't want to bring controversy onto this glossy magazine's front cover, but I have to disagree with you completely. I once took a Lyft home from an eight hour away gig by a 21 year old open mic and there is nothing more dangerous well when you put it like much rather trust a robot well i'm with you on that actually maybe i might change my mind on this i might be persuaded and yeah i mean i mean you know if we did a statistical study, I think that a number of comedians have had early career near-death experiences, either before or after a gig. Or sometimes during. During as well, yeah.

I often prayed for a car to come and meet me during a gig. Look, I just have one thing to say, which is, you know, there's a lot of this stuff happening in San Francisco. And I know, Alice, you're a big fan of this Bay Area technology revolution that's changing the world. But I just love these San Francisco self-driven car people to just come and do one test drive in India. It'll really test all the algorithm permutations that have been fed into the machine, you know, because in this country, in normal circumstances, almost anything can be on the road in front of you it could be a horse a person a statue a ghost a district courthouse it could be anything um and it'll be

a test i want them to try it and see if they succeed i think that's something that we can all agree on and that's all the time we have for our tech section now it's time for our reviews section of course our guests have brought in something to review. Rachel, have you brought in something to review? I have. It's changed my life. It's my Kindle or any e-reader that is available, not just the Kindle. I got one for Christmas and it has changed my life. I love reading.

But, you know, you're traveling around or whatever in the old days you were or, you know, you just don't want to speak to anybody. It's the perfect barrier as well. You can pop it in your bag it's fantastic also I'm reading so much now and I tell you what as a writer the best thing you can do is read other people's work because there is some absolute rubbish out there and you feel so much more confident about yourself I read a book the other day that I don't know if they were trying to put the word count up they had a vomiting scene in it that was completely unnecessary like most things complete again most things are unnecessary um the sentence she vomited would have been enough uh we didn't need the fact that she had to scoop sick out of the sink

and the color of the vomit and everything, completely unnecessary. I love it. It allows people not to talk to me. People will talk to you if you've got headphones on. People will talk to you if you're just minding your own business. But if you've got the Kindle, you look like a serious reader and people think, I'm not going to interrupt. The Kindle, a life changer. Or any other e-reader that is available.

Out of five stars? Five. Five out of five stars. Anubhav, what have you brought in to review? I'd like to review the traditional orange, the fruit. I'm in lockdown in India. I've run out of orange juice and I've gone back to the orange. You know, it does what it says it'll do.

It's orange. So it matches the color on the product. You cut it up. It looks orange. You eat it. You get oranginess. So it's one of the few things in the world that says it'll do a thing and does that thing. It's not like a cheating life partner that promises one thing and runs away.

It sticks the thing. And in this world we live in, you know, where everything is shut, I really respect that there's one thing that does what it does. Much like the Kindle, actually, except there aren't offending sentences or anything. It's just a whole round thing that is orange throughout. So I'm going to give it four and a half stars. Brilliant, brilliant.

And one of the very few fruits that can survive a full-on, you know, shaming of someone in the stocks. If you hurl an orange at someone, you can get that orange back and it will be fine it's fine it's no it's no tomato tomato you've got to be willing to lose a tomato orange recyclable in the abuse stakes well that's all the time we have for our review section because now it's time for our food and drink section. This is radioactive news here. The first bottles of what has been called an artisanal spirit that has been made using apples grown near Chernobyl

have been seized by Ukrainian authorities who, spoil sports, will not let people drink this horrifying drink. Anabab, would you drink artisanal apple Chernobyl vodka? You know what it is? It's the name, really. You know, it sticks. You know, Chernobyl, you think nuclear waste, it sticks. I think whatever you're going to call it later on in life,

it's going to be tricky, right? It's with various names. You know, would I ever be ready for a sushi restaurant called Fukushima? I'm not sure. You know, I'm not sure as sort of nuclear disasters go, name stick, you know, I don't think I'm ready for a new steakhouse called the Kevin Spacey. I don't think I'm ready for that. So, you know, if there is a disaster that follows you, it does follow you throughout life. And I'm not, I'm not sure, no matter how good the spirit is, I'll keep thinking about that HBO show featuring the nuclear thing. Well, yeah, so apparently the real issue for it being seized

has to do with excise stamps, rather than the obvious issue with it being radioactive spirit made from radioactive apples. Apparently, the radioactivity left in the spirit is quite low. But even so, there's something about that. It's like, you know, somebody says they made sourdough using their own vaginal yeast. And you go, I understand that during the process, the actual yeast is sort of dissipated or sanitized. But I still feel deeply uncomfortable taking that Vegemite on toast. It's too much yeast for me. The Vegemite is sufficient yeast.

Rachel, would you buy Atomic Apple Spirit? I don't think I'd buy it. If somebody had some and offered me some, I'd try it. You'd take the sourdough bread too, though, wouldn't you? I totally would. You're an adventurous heart. 100%. me some i'd try it you'd take the sourdough bread too though i totally would listen i'm not a hundred percent but it's that kind of thing of like what's the hangover going to be like but i bet you get more radioactivity of something really common like i don't know

whatever's radioactive what is radioactive i reckon there's probably more radioactivity in the river thames than there is in that, walking past that or something. Something stupid. Bananas. Bananas are apparently quite radioactive. Really? Yes, the poison's in the dosage. You have to eat about 1,000 bananas. Wow.

Before you start glowing in the dark. Didn't the pop star Peter Andre get poisoned from bananas? He got potassium poisoning, I think. That's very hard to do. I mean, you'd have to eat a lot of bananas. He did potassium poisoning, I think. That's very hard to do. I mean, you'd have to eat a lot of bananas. He did, apparently. He was in hospital. He must have had hundreds of them.

Well, he's well now. We can all relax. But I would try that spirit. And that story was sent in by Randall Cooper, who tweeted it to us from his unpronounceable Twitter address. Remember, you too can send in a story to the gargle at HelloGoggglers on Twitter. In more food news in Germany there is apparently an obsession

with white asparagus, light coloured asparagus and it's so prevalent in the community that McDonald's is beginning to offer burgers with spargel or white asparagus inside them, which is an odd... It's like when McDonald's started offering cappuccinos in their cafe and we felt that they were all punching a little bit high for their branding.

Anwar, would you eat an asparagus Macca's burger? So this is the thing. I got a little obsessed with this thing, Alice, this white asparagus thing. Apparently they have statues of white asparagus, inappropriate statues of white asparagus all across Germany. They love this during the season. So I googled, are there nations obsessed by one fruit or vegetable? And I got two hits. It said India is India's obsessed with mangoes. And we sort of are we are obsessed with mangoes. This is true.

And the second thing that came up, and Rachel can help me here, it just said Britain hates Brussels sprouts. Oh, well, we do. But you know what? I love them. I love them. I think they're absolutely delicious. And I don't think we eat enough of them. The same as like Marmite is a, you either love them or hate them.

I think Brussels sprouts, that's the same thing. But they are delicious. Do you eat them in india we don't get much of it um and you know i've tried it i'm sort of you know in the middle like i don't have very strong it's how how i feel about brussels sprouts is how i feel about badminton it should be there it's a thing don't think too much about it it's just a thing you know yeah i feel that brussels sprouts are the opposite of your grandmother's chicken soup everybody hates brussels sprouts until they're 23 and realize the way that their mother cooked them was wrong and in fact there is a good way to cook them and that is you know obviously olive oil in a bake tray slightly charred excellent bit of salt

and not boiling them to death forever and ever and ever like you were in a boarding school in the 1940s, which is how most Brits seem to learn to appreciate the second taste of that cruciferous lump. But yeah, it caused a lot of reactions in Germany. Some people are very excited and planning to go to McDonald's. Other people are calling the burger perverse because it has both a patty and the asparagus and some hollandaise sauce which is pretty intense i think it sounds vile i mean just looking at the picture a very quick glance the basket of asparagus that i'm looking at looks like those very old-fashioned vibrators

the basic ones and they look like they've been well used I'm so sorry that's disgusting they look horrible and I I can't imagine it would be tasty but you know each to their own but from McDonald's I don't even like it when McDonald's does like you know oh this week it's the this month it's the rodeo burger or oh here's that we're gonna have the um you know New Orleans burger or something it's like i want the basics don't mess about give me a big mac well speaking of single-use uh vibrators did you know that dildos are not recyclable which takes us back to the single-use plastics story of earlier oh wow so you have to you have to be very responsible about your use of asparagus in

your private life amazing look i just have uh have one quick question for both of you, which is that I know that on this podcast, a number of Gwyneth Paltrow products under her flagship brand Goop are discussed. Would this asparagus and the earlier mention of the yeast thing, would they qualify as Gwyneth Paltrow products, both of these? I think so. It depends if you can sell them for about 190 pounds a pop

and i think that's one of the primo important parts of a gwinneth paltrow product is the outrageous price tag definitely that was sent in via twitter by emma lock at minimob3 on twitter again remember you can send a story into the gargle and we will probably say your name unless multiple people send in the story in which case we will say the name of our favourite one. Which brings us to section four, health and wellness. Paul McCartney has entered the Thunderdome with Gwyneth Paltrow in promoting slightly dubious health prospects, suggesting that people can do eye yoga to help with their vision. Rachel, you can see clearly now the rain has gone. Have you been following this story?

Look, Paul McCartney is one of the most famous men in the world and he's a multimillionaire. This is the kind of madness you'd expect from him, to be quite frank. I mean, he's quite down to earth usually. But this is very very shake but maybe he's right i mean we don't i think so eye yoga is it's a series of things that you roll your eyes and things like that i think he might be right because he says that he doesn't need glasses when he's reading newspaper well certainly certainly he's given me a good workout reading this story because i rolled my eyes a lot i think um i I mean, I don't know. Maybe he's right.

Maybe we take our eyes for granted and we don't, you know, do enough with them. They're there. We should be exercising the main. I mean, I'd exercise my eyes by reading the Kindle or any other e-reader, of course. But, I mean, the thing is, though, I think he should just keep these things to himself.

I think, you know, that's fine, Paul, if you think that. You know, it might be true, it might not. But don't appear wacky. I mean, he's 78 now. Keep a lid on it. You know, you've been reliable for all these years. Don't start coming out with this nonsense now. Well, Anavab, as someone from the country who invented and then packaged and exported yoga how do you feel about this new spin on an ancient discipline i like this one i have to

admit i like this one you know because my wife is always telling me you know when you wake up you know you do yoga and and all the footage i've seen on instagram you need to be in a scenic serene environment uh you know surrounded by the Himalayas or something. Now, I'm staying in my parents' house during the lockdown. There are, as I've explained, vegetable vendors arguing about, you know, about prices of oranges. You know, there are stray dogs biting cyclists. This is not an ideal environment for yoga. So this I can do.

This is the kind of yoga I can do. I can lay in bed, eat an orange, read a Kindle, do this sort of yoga and ponder, like Rachel said, about how everything in life is unnecessary. Wonderful. And then not worry about not doing gigs. Use some asparagus, spare a dolphin from a dildo. Yeah, yeah. By the way, as you know, we're in the middle from a dildo. Yeah, yeah. By the way, as you know, we're in the middle of a terrible corona crisis in India, but a number of Indian yoga teachers are suggesting, you know, sort of against the vaccine. And they're saying if you do certain yoga postures, you will not be struck by corona. So, you know, among the many illiterate remedies that are being suggested,

herbs are being suggested. And one particular yoga pose, I don't do much yoga, I don't know the name of the pose, where you take your right leg and put it above your head for 10 minutes, that apparently completely gets rid of the virus. And I guess one of the reasons it hit Wuhan so badly is because they didn't know of this yoga pose. Well, certainly there's plenty of people who are anti-vaxxers who I'd like to put some of my leg behind their head. Apparently, this eye yoga thing does have some proven benefits, although a 2012 study showed that it doesn't improve short-sightedness. although a 2012 study showed that it doesn't improve short-sightedness. Another study of 60 nursing students showed that eight weeks of eye yoga made them feel less tired in the eye region. So there's a little pull-out box here of how to do eye yoga.

You have to rub your hands together until they feel warm and then cup your hands over your closed eyes for a few moments and then think about how you were tricked into murdering your own father and marrying your mother and then tear your eyes out with your own hands in regret and then wander the earth telling your tale like the ancient mariner. That's step one of eye yoga for this week. Brilliant. This is the only podcast in the world that has Elon Musk

and Greek tragedy. Elon Musk is a Greek tragedy. The triumph of hubris over literally everything else on Earth. Which brings us to the end of the show. We're flipping through the ad section at the back. You can buy a heavily used car which comes without wheels. Bring your own wheels. Take the car away.

And, Anuvab, have you got anything to plug? Not currently, no. Our entire country is shut. So I would like to plug the fact that Britain is reopening and

it's great to see human beings standing on the stage again, just as an aspirational thing for the rest of the world to do in the future. Flipping through some more ads, we have a subscription service for Mudd, just add your own water. And Rachel, have you got anything to plug? Oh, well, I do a podcast about serial killers,

if that's your bag, called All Killer, No Filler, and it's available on all platforms, wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you so much. That brings us to the end of The Gargle. I am Alice Fraser. I'm your host.

You can find me on patreon.com slash Alice Fraser for all of my podcasts, stand-up specials and my weekly tea with Alice Salons. The Gargle is a Bugle podcast and Alice Fraser production. Your editor this week is Ped Hunter and your executive producer is Chris Skinner. I'll talk to you again next week. You can listen to other programs from The Bugle,

including The Bugle, The Last Post, Tiny Revolutions and The Gargle, wherever you find your podcasts.