Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 10 - Gina Craig

Episode Date: April 25, 2016

Celia Pacquola, Nadia Kamil and Tom Neenan join in for this month's episode in which we talk to Dr Sam Archer about how dangerous lamb really is before talking to Gina Craig, a resident of Boogoo Springs, South Australia, about how the world's first cow mayor is doing after 6 months in the job.    By Benjamin Partridge, Tom Neenan and Celia Pacquola, with thanks to Nadia Kamil and David Mark.   Music: “James” Nick Jaina needledrop.co   Audio: mansardian/Freesound.org Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0   Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com 

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is sponsored by Grazex, the latest grass replacement pellet from Mitchell's. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. Grazex is the world's only beast feed developed by a scientific team comprised of several Nobel Prize winners, including one for literature. Orders can be paid for with dollars, euros, pounds, and for this month only, pay in yen for 10% off your order. Hello, and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved or just, in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website and a printed magazine, brought to you by Grazex. This week we hear from some friends down under, but first, last month's podcast interview with youth worker Teresa Becton about the newfound popularity of lamb amongst young people garnered the largest response we've ever had,

and within hours of its release our email inbox was bulging. Tom from Bristol said, My son Clement eats lamb in plain sight of me and his mother. He knows it upsets us, but he just won't stop. He's 25 stone and stinks of mint sauce. It's disgusting. Thanks, Tom. Sheena from Dundee says, my son is only four and has already given us cause for concern. Last week, his teacher

invited us to the classroom to show us one of his workbooks. Inside, instead of painting a picture of Noah's Ark, as he had been asked, he had made an incredibly intricate drawing of a smiling butcher feeding lamb chops into the mouth of John the Baptist. Sophia Rainton had this to say. A group of parents in my local town decided to take action. Enough was enough. While our children were all out at a travelling circus, we all searched their bedrooms, finding cutlets, chops, racks of lamb, crowns of lamb, lamb mince, moussaka starter packs, high quality lamb shanks, saltmarsh lamb medallions, and in one case, a seasonal mutton gift hamper. Later that night, as the town slept, we piled the lamb high in the town square and set it alight. As the flames began to lick the meat, that strange aroma spread through the streets,

waking our lamb-addled children, who leapt from their beds and ran down to the inferno. When they realized what we had done, some of them wept, others crawled into the fire trying to save what was left of their meat. As dawn broke, the wind changed and the flames, by now thirty feet tall, were blown into the town hall

and surrounding buildings. As everything we had worked for began to burn, the school, the library, the factory that makes shower curtains, the only thing I could think was that I was glad. Because it was over. It was over. Thanks, Sophia. To try and get a clearer picture of the danger posed by lamb,

I spoke to friend of the network, Dr Sam Archer, a GP who is a regular on BBC Two's Doctor Doctor and Channel 4's Car Crash Anus. I started by asking him exactly how dangerous is lamb? Lamb is, I'm not going to put it any other way, it's the most dangerous meat. If you're getting into the lamb game, then the sky's the limit as to how dangerous it could really be. We're talking juggling chainsaws style danger that you're entering into. If you start what I believe the users refer to as bow peeping, then watch out.

You mentioned juggling chainsaws. What is more dangerous, a lamb habit or juggling some chainsaws, maybe outside at a county fair? Well, all I'm going to say is you know where the chainsaws came from. Whereas, you know, some of the lamb that people are eating, you don't know what it's being cut with. You don't know what else is making its way into that morsel of meat. So no, I'd encourage people to juggle chainsaws at a county fair every time. So what are the main symptoms people are going to experience if they do find themselves having eaten a bit too much lamb? Well, if you've taken one mouthful, you've eaten too much lamb,

and then you really need to start worrying. You'll probably find yourself with a shortness of breath. You'll have a deep sense of foreboding. You may find that your skin starts to to blister and then then the best thing to do really is to seal yourself up in your home with some heavy duty tape and just just try and go out with some dignity the best thing you can do if you're community minded is just seal yourself up and wait for the end let's talk science okay what is it about lamb itself that is dangerous to the human body right okay let's

dispel some myths i'm glad you asked so lamb itself isn't particularly dangerous uh what we're actually looking at when we see people with a lamb problem is actually the the mint sauce that they're consuming with the lamb so let's just get this straight the the the meat lamb itself isn't actually dangerous to the human body it's just a kind of conduit for dangerous levels of mint that that's correct yes mint is extremely dangerous combined with the lamb you're talking it's a deadly cocktail all i'm going to ask is when you brush your teeth in the morning do you swallow the toothpaste or do you spit it out i think i think that's the answer to your question if one of our listeners is at home and they're worried that their child might be um eating lamb how do you recommend that they they try and speak to their child about this

um try to talk to the kids on their level um there's a lot of street slang involved in an eating lamb um confront your child say have you been bow peeping uh other questions you might ask are you feeling sleepy reference to counting sheep and and your child will understand what you're talking about and i think that'll be the way to open up a dialogue so there's a whole lexicon out there of words a way of talking about this meat and that's designed to sort of exclude adults from the the process in a way isn't it yeah a lot of it is very hard to decipher so a child might ask another or might say to another child i like your jumper today jumper wool jumper wool sheep do you want to eat some lamb uh yeah they'll do anything to hide this

from adults but you've really got to keep your ears open this is a personal question but one i hope you don't mind me asking and i know you you do get very personal on your tv shows including um car crush anus which i have to say was a very emotional episode. Have you ever eaten lamb? Honestly? Honestly. I have once consumed lamb. If I can give you some context, I was offered a bolognese when I was very young. I was 17, 18, 19, I was offered some bolognese at a house party. And like anyone else, my assumption immediately leapt to beef. I heard whispers that there might be a turkey bolognese, like made with turkey mince, but I certainly didn't see any of that. I took two mouthfuls. You can immediately tell it was a fattier mince fattier mince and i spat it out so what's this and they said it's

it's bolognese made with the lamb mince and that's the last time i ever spoke to those people because you had fallen in with a bad crowd yes yeah and and do you know where your so-called friends got that lamb from i have to assume it's uh someone with connections to to new zealand uh obviously where all all land comes from um i didn't ask i just got out of there as soon as possible i spat out the bolognese and i just left what about someone listening so you know they've heard us saying that that lamb in itself is actually relatively harmless and it is actually just the the levels of mint which people are taking in because of their their lamb problem.

You know, someone might be thinking, well, a lamb bolognese, I assume that doesn't have any mint in it. If it's a regular, you know, a normal bolognese. So what's the problem? It's a story I hear all too often. You speak to someone and a lamb bolognese is how it starts. You start with a lamb bolognese. You think it's near enough to beef. Absolutely ridiculous.

But, you know, you don't really see the problem. Everyone's doing it you know maybe you know you see people putting kidney beans in a lamb bolognese or some nonsense but you think it's fine then you think maybe i'll i'll have some lamb on its own maybe i'll have a chop maybe i'll have a cutlet then you think to be honest this cutlet's a bit dry i've got the base notes i've got the meat base notes it's probably what i want to do something a bit tingier a top note of flavor and you think what would supply that would a bread sauce do it no a bread sauce wouldn't do it would maybe a peppercorn sauce do it certainly not next thing you know you're reaching for the mint well uh dr sam archer thank you very much thank you for having me just before you go any news about another series of car crash anus um i can't say too much yet uh all i'm saying is that we're

currently in talks uh also to uh to talk about um car crash anus usa yes i was gonna i was gonna mention car crash anus usa because everything's a bit bigger over there isn't it a bit more extreme i mean you get some real car crash anuses going on over there we call them hummer crash anuses over there because they're because they really are awful. No, there's some real treats in store and we've got some quite alarming footage

to show you. We're really excited about it. That sounds really embarrassing for the people involved. Yeah, I mean luckily for them

and their embarrassment levels most of them are now dead. Thanks to Dr Sam Archer. Next, our big interview from Down Under, right after this message from one of our partners. Hey, I'm Barbara Gray. I'm Brandy Posey. And I'm Tess Barker. Together, we make up the MaxFun podcast, Lady to Lady. Each week, we welcome a kick-ass lady guest. We talk about our lives, our dreams, and the terrible decisions we've made that still haunt us. We've had on great comedians like Aisha Tyler and Margaret Cho,

plus screenwriters, doctors, authors, you know, anyone who's willing to be as open as we are. It's all a lot of fun. That's us, lady to lady. Can you keep a secret? Neither. It's not often that we here on the podcast talk about politics. If it were up to us, we'd just let the monarch get on with it, as God intended. However, this week we revisit the big political story of six months ago. And finally, the sleepy town of Boogoo Springs in South Australia has made the record books today.

The town's mayoral election has been won by Mildred, a 500 kilogram dairy cow. Mildred, who has no previous political experience, beat a host of opponents and in doing so became the world's first cow mayor. Cows have been mayors of towns before, but only in the pages of children's books and in a musical I wrote a few years ago, which never got the attention it deserved. And now over to Barry with the weather. How's it looking, Baz? Still hot as balls? You know, I've got to get some more breathable trousers. Would you recommend linen, Barry? We are, of course, talking about the election of Mildred the Cow as the mayor of Boogoo Spring, South Australia. Many commentators were sceptical about her appointment and with six months under her belt,

I spoke to her election agent, Gina Craig, about how it's all been going. I started by asking, how popular is Mildred? Oh, people love her. I can't get enough. That pattern she goes past. She's got a nice bell. She has to wear the robe.

She wears the robe. It falls off. People laugh. They love it because she's not... She shakes it off because she's they're like oh she's one of us she's not about all the bells and whistles she just has a bell but you know they love her she's great we've just gone look this is what's happened to the country with these these men in church the politicians let's just give a cow a shot you ever there's got to be a first time for everything so does that yeah does that mean that you you next time you know when mildred's uh when her

time is the mayor finishes then you'll have a snake as mayor well that's just ridiculous isn't it no one's going to put a snake if he's going to vote for a snake i, come on. The religious vote's gone. That's just a ridiculous thing. But two towns over, they've got their mayor, well not mayor, deputy mayor, it's a step forward though, is two dogs tied together. And that seems to be working out quite well. I mean, yeah, it's just a deputy, but who knows? Tied together by the tail? No, of course they're not tied together by the tail. They're tied together by the coll? No, of course they're not tied together by the tail. That's inhumane. They're tied together by the collars. They are better together.

That was their platform to get to deputy mayor. Two dogs are better than one tied together. And why is it that I'm not talking to Mildred directly? She is a dairy cow herself. So the communication is mainly uh comes under my jurisdiction that is interesting because the first thing i've i've got some information here it says that the first thing that's that mildred decided to do was to grant planning permission to you for an extension on your home and why do you think that was why do you think that was the the priority of of mildred when she first came into her position?

Family comes first in Boogoo Springs, and family starts in your own backyard, which is my backyard, and we extended it to put in a granny flat. So that's just where it's just a symbol through a real action that can show the community that Mildred is for families. My family first, and then yours later. Let's say somebody more cynically minded than me might say that there's very little way to determine the difference between what Mildred wants and what you want. What I want? No, I mean, half the time I'm trying to talk her out of things. Like last week we unveiled in the centre of Boogoo Springs, in front of the shop, a large statue of Quentin Craig, who's my father and the previous mayor.

And it's huge. And I tried to tell her not to do that. I said, you know, yes, he's my father and the previous mayor and it's huge and i try i tried to tell her not to do that i said it's you know yes he's my dad and i loved him and and he was brilliant but maybe you should use this money for something else and she was like nah i respect the office this much that i really want the town to see that person so that was absolutely not my my will at all she that was 100 so what you're you're telling me is that the decision to build a statue how big is this statue three meters you couldn't climb it i made it very clear that you wouldn't be able to climb it once she convinced me that

we were going to make it i was like okay but if we are making it slippery and tall because the town really didn't like him very much so you did have an input into the design of the statue? The statue that you didn't want? Yeah, after the decision had been made. No, I didn't want it at all. But after Mildred had made the decision, then I've got to help with it. That's my job.

And yeah, kicking and squealing all the way. I'm like, all right, marble, fine. We'll do that. I just want to clarify a point which I think is quite important. With this three metre high statue sort of colossus of your father that has gone up in Boogie Springs. That is a good word for it.

That's an idea that entirely originated within the mind of Mildred, your cow mare and it had nothing to do with you at all. No. Not at all. Told you I didn't want it. I wanted him to live in our hearts and minds.

And then she thought, why not in front of our eyes and now our skyline as well. Yeah, that sort of feeds into the next thing I was going to say, which is that very soon after that, one of the things that it did was it okayed the bill. I'm going to have to pull you up. I'm going to be calling her worship. It's really, it's 2016 and I'm, you know, it's quite a fence. I'll let it start a couple of times, but her worship or her, or Mildred. Yeah, sorry.

Sorry, continue. It's just because normally I'm, you know, I see cows more as a meat beast than a political figure. Wow, that is... OK. Obviously there's cultural differences, but we'll just try and rein it in to... Just a few less of the meat beast. Sorry, yeah, a bad choice of words, maybe. What about beef caddy? Tottering meat hammock? OK. A leather handbag of lunch.

Thanks to Gina Craig for that wonderful interview. So that's it for this month. But if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to the website now, where you can read all the usual stuff, including an interview with Republican hopeful Ted Cruz, and a guide on how to make a feeder that will attract wild cows to your garden. So until next time, beef out.

Thanks to Nadia Kamal, Tom Neenan, David Mark and Celia Piccola. I'm Jesse Thorne, the host of Bullseye. Bullseye is your guide to what's good in pop culture. Every week, I'll sit down with people like Elvis Costello, Elizabeth Banks and Spike Lee to talk about their creative work and their lives. Find your new favorite TV show, book, movie or album and gain new insights into the things you already love. That's Bullseye for MaximumFun.org and NPR.