Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 120 - Billy Whizzbang

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

It's MaxFunDrive! To support the show, go to maximumfun.org/joinMike Shephard, Gemma Arrowsmith, Mike Wozniak, Tom Crowley, Gareth Gwynn and Linnea Sage join in this week as we learn all about Major Billy Whizzbang, the plucky bullock who served in World War 2. Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com, Soundrangers/Pond5.com, Matteocurcio/Pond5.com and ClassicalMusicForMedia/Pond5.com, JamieAddison13240000660/Pond5.comMusic credit courtesy of epidemicsound.com:String Quartet in F Major Allegro/Maurice RavelVeterans Day/Francis WellsA Sad String Quartet/TraditionalWicked Man/Martin LandstromBierstube Tanz/Trabant 33Catch the Train/Sinfonietta Cinematica

Hello, it's Max Fun Drive. What is that? It's the two week period where shows on the Max Fun Network, like this one, Beef and Dairy Network, Beef and Dairy, it's confusing, Beef and Dairy Network is part of the Max Fun Network. That's because the Beef and Dairy Network is fictional, the Max Fun Network is real, it's very real. And it's the reason that this show exists, because people like you support the show at $5 a month or more. You can find out more at maximumfun.org forward slash join. Now I will mention this again later on in the programme, but until then, the show must go on! The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is brought to you by Teed Lock, the revolutionary new utter locking system from Mitchell's.

If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. Without an utter locking system, every dairy herd is an open invitation to unauthorized suckling. Eight out of ten farmers we surveyed have had problems with milk being stolen from their herd's udders by birds. Order now and get 10% off your first teat lock system by using code LOCKANDLOAD. And we're so confident in teat lock that for a limited time you can use the code QUALE5000 to get 5000 quails for free.

Sit back with a cold beer and bask in hours of entertainment as you watch 5000 quails unsuccessfully attempt to extract your cow's sweet nectar. Hello! 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 a printed magazine brought to you by Teetlok. Now, if you're here in the UK, you may well have heard about the controversy surrounding a statue of the Victorian industrialist Sir Barstead Lee Chattell in London's Hyde Park,

which is due to be taken down by the council due to the changing cultural feelings we have about the acceptability of venerating historical arseholes. Debate rages as to whether the statue should come down at all, and if it should, what it should be replaced with. And at the centre of this debate is friend of the show, historian Professor James Harcombe. Hello, my name is Professor James Harcombe of No Fixed Abode. I met Professor James in front of the statue in Hyde Park and he

told me all about Sir Bastardly. Yes, Bastardly Chattel, a name not much mentioned in historical or political circles these days, but if you'd been in the London of the mid 19th century, everybody would have known of Old Bastard or Sir so bastardly as they affectionately referred to him. A 19th century ivory magnate who really transformed the trade in ivory from something that was mildly unpleasant into something really quite horrendous on a huge scale. And he used that fortune that he'd amassed from the ivory trade to buy his way into parliament and then he really set to work with a series of quite revolutionary child labour laws where he allowed children as young as six months to work in a coal mine

or to scrape the plaque off of some of his ivory tusks. So he actually, with his child labour laws, turned back the clock really on progress as we'd see it, which is to stop children having to work. He was actually bringing more children back into the labour force. Yes, it was. I mean, we think of the Victorians as being unsentimental people, but they did have a soft spot. And it was even commented on at the time that Chattell had engineered it to a point where It was even commented on at the time that that chattel had engineered it to a point where English-born children had fewer legal rights than a cat and in a famous incident when compelled by

passage of Parliament to pass that Statute into law Queen Victoria herself as she added her own seal to the act of Parliament Vomited all over it. So she even thought that it was beyond the pale? Oh absolutely, yes. But it was an interesting footnote to history. It is from that vomit which clung to the vellum that we still retain residual DNA information should we ever need to clone the royal family in future. Now having heard the story of what Sir Barcellet Shattel was like it makes more sense the fact that you know people are now picketing this, they want this taken down and actually looking at it now you sort of see really why because if you look at the actual statue itself it is of Sir Barcelli himself running through some children

with an elephant tusk. Yes, yes, yes, he's holding a bloodied tusk. And again, the artist, one of the arguments for it remaining is that the artistry is compellingly vivid. It's a visceral work of art, it does make you think, it does really... It makes it clear kind of what the artist's opinion of Sir Barcellier is. I mean, he's not shown, for for example you know best ride a horse looking heroic. He's stabbing children with a tusk. It's a cowardly act. I think he is shooing. It's an allegorical work and it was understood that he was shooing the children with the power of his

ivory wealth, that he was then using that to encourage children out of the street, away from their hoops and sticks and stupid little peg dolls, and into the gates of the factories where they could become useful to Christian society and the industrial era. Back in November 2024, Westminster Council voted to take down the statue of Sir Barcidly, and will do so later this year. Open up the question of who should replace him, a question that James Harcombe was very quick to answer. Billy Whizbang, the heroic little bullock who served as a spy in the Second World War, a hero that could perhaps heal some of the wounds in this once great nation of ours.

So Billy Whizbang, it's a name that I'm kind of familiar with. I've got a sense that Billy Whizbang was involved in World War II, but I don't feel like Billy Whizbang is a character that the public at large really think very much about. This country doesn't like to acknowledge the role that cattle played in history, in war, and particularly in the Second World War. There was a lot of sacrifice made,

a lot of good beef was thrown into that war machine, and I think Billy is the prime example here, would be a fitting memorial to all those cattle. And so, this whole edition of the Beef and Dairy Network will be dedicated to learning the true history behind Billy Whizbang. Or to give him his full title, Major Billington Whizbang. After James for some reason left Flowers at the foot of the statue of Barsedley Chattell, we moved on and James took me to somewhere nearby that he felt is crucial in the understanding of the Billy Whizbang story.

We're here under the tremendous arching canopy of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's masterpiece Paddington Station in the heart of England's famous London. It's here that for Billy Whizbang on September the 3rd 1939 the adventure truly begins. Hello my name is Professor Joanna Bolan. Professor Harkham isn't the only academic that we'll be hearing from in this program. Unlike James Joanna is actually employed by a university. She's never been arrested after burning down the stables at a girls' school, and is one of the leading experts in this field.

My research focuses primarily on the use of animals in warfare, and I've just finished a big research project into the pigeon that wrote the Treaty of Versailles. Both Joanna and James were able to tell me all about how Paddington Station has a surprising beef history. What a lot of people don't know is that before World War II Paddington Station was an important hub for butchery in London. This railway station would have been awash with blood, much as it is now. But in those days it would have been a wash with blood, much as it is now, but in those days it

would have been animal blood. There was a great school of butchery, of the wonderful butcher's shops just on this site or near the station. Right on this station, yes. I mean you come to a British railway station now and you think what can I do? Do I buy a Cornish pasty for eight pounds and a copy of a magazine about railway modelling? Probably not. You know, do you buy some dairy milk and a huge bottle of water for a pound? I don't know. But in 1935, your choice was made for you. Every single one of these shops and kiosks would have been a butchers. Some poultry, but mainly beef, huge sides of beef, sausages packaged up just for you to take on the train and eat raw. It was a great traveling meat. It's one of the things that allowed the industrial

revolution to take place was that the British working man had such a hardy constitution because he could travel the country on these beautiful trains, steam trains of course then, powering through from city to city, fed on rich raw beef. It was coal and beef, wasn't it? Yes, absolutely. I mean if you go to Paddington station now you'll see this rather lovely statue of Paddington Bear. You know we all know the story is a little Paddington Bear comes from Peru and is taken in by a lovely family and he's had a little tag

around his neck saying please look after this bear and he likes his marmalade sandwiches, all very nice and based on true story, unfortunately the true story is a little darker, it is based on someone who came in to Paddington Station, was mistaken for a cow and was immediately slaughtered for beef. Gosh, so hang on. The true story is that a bear arrived from Peruvian in Pad Panason Station and was mistaken for a cow and then... Oh sorry, no, not a bear, it was a Peruvian man. Gosh. Yeah. It was very dark.

Yeah, it is. You have to question, how did Michael Bond get from the idea of, well, the truth of a Peruvian man being slaughtered for beef, how did that then turn into the story of a cute little bear that's looked after by a family? It's quite a leap, isn't it? Well, he's a very talented writer. You know, he knew what to keep. He thought that probably the sort of slaughter

of a living man for his flesh needed to go. But he was wearing a duffle coat at the time, so he thought keep that. And I think that was a good move. This country is at war with Germany. And so we move forward to the beginning of the Second World War and Paddington Station remains important but for a different reason. This is where all the recruitment officers were based and so anyone coming from the west of England and Wales would flood in to Paddington station to sign up.

And interestingly the advertising campaign to encourage these young men to come along and sign up at Paddington station, it didn't really focus on the warfare aspect. Instead it decided to focus on the opportunity to go to Belgium. Have you ever wanted to go to Belgium? Well, now is your chance. The British army wants to take you to Belgium. Delicious waffles and beer made by monks. Chips and mayonnaise. Historic belfries. Sign up today and get a free pen.

And remember, it's your chance to visit lovely, lovely Belgium. Those wonderful historic belfries. And you probably won't die but you might. And it wasn't just in advertising, there was propaganda in all sorts of popular culture even in films. We started to see in in romance films we started to see young women not agreeing to marry a man unless he'd been to Belgium to sort of create this idea that that's really what every young woman wants a man who's been to Belgium. Darling, would you do me the ultimate honour of becoming my wife?

Oh, I so wish I could agree, but I'm afraid I must say no. For you see, darling, you have never been to Belgium, and I could never marry a man who has never been to Belgium. I've been to the Netherlands, it's much the same. It's not the same, darling, it's the Netherlands, it's not Belgium, and you haven't been to Belgium, have you? It's true, darling, I have never been to Belgium. I've been to French-speaking parts of Switzerland. And so we see Paddington Station changing from this place where animals were brought

to slaughter to this home of recruitment for the army, the Air Force and the Navy. And we even see this in satirical cartoons at the time. The cows being led to slaughter being compared to the young men going off to war, which shows us that even back then, satirical cartoons were a bit too on the nose. But it wasn't just men who were signing up at Paddington Station. It was also, well, in one case at least, cattle. This is the first definite record we have of Billy Whizbang in the history books, is that railway ticket that he had clamped in his hoof, a

gas mask slung around his neck and a label as well with him that just said, please take this cow to the British Army recruitment office. Why do you think it was that Billy wanted to sign up on day one? It's an incredibly brave thing to do. You know, nobody knew what this war was going to be like. Maybe there was an element of naivety. They thought this might just be a quick thing or... I think a sense of adventure, yes. But I mean, it's certainly... I mean, we think of that, of the Pals Brigades in the First World War, where people thought it'd be tremendous fun, Berlin by Christmas. People are a little bit more cautious looking at the Second World

War and wondering how it is they're going to tackle Hare Hitler. For Billy, I think it was. It was a mixture of patriotism, of course, but I think it was personal. It was personal for him. He'd seen photos in the newspapers of many leading Nazis all wearing long leather coats. You will have seen this, it still features a lot in there. It's one of the few things that Hollywood does get right is the, is the, the Nancy's lust for a, for a leather jacket. And I think he, he simply wanted to give them a taste of his own leather. So Billy Wiesbaden gets off the train, I believe just over there at Platform 7, is that right?

That's right. Yes, we have the original ticket. We know the full journey as it was it left Bristol Temple Meads at roughly 10 past one that afternoon. It was truly amazing to stand on the same spot that had seen Billy Whisbang arrive at Palington station. If I closed my eyes I could picture him. In fact I felt that I could almost smell him. Although I think actually that was James, there was something smeared on his coat.

It's in that recruitment office where again he could have been cycled through in a matter of moments. They were using the same conveyor belts as the abattoirs. It's why Paddington was chosen. A young officer spotted something, saw a glint in his eye, saw something in Billy and spoke to him a few simple words of German. It was often a common technique that was often used to expose a potential spy or foreign national. And so this young subaltern there at the recruiting office looks Billy in the eye and says,

V Gates. And I think even now you'd be hard pressed to expect a young bullock from the West country to say V Gates ganz Gott und du. And they chatted for a while in fluent German. And it was at that point that Billy was put on a different track. So Billy Whizbang speaks in German to this recruiting officer, which must have been an amazing moment for everyone in there, because you don't expect a character to be able to converse in any language, let alone German. What on earth was going on there? How was he able to do that?

Well, yes, it's something of an extraordinary feat, but we believe it did happen. We have to go back to Billy's early life, where he'd grown up in a German cow circus. We know that for at least two years he toured with the German circus. That family would have drilled into him basic circus skills so he could walk a tightrope, he was very comfortable being fired out of a cannon and, yes, in front of audiences he was taught to speak a level of German that I think the British school system would consider fluent.

system would consider fluent. There is a thorny issue of language. Of course it was said that Billy was bang, spoke fluent German. To get to the bottom of whether it's plausible that Billy could have spoken German, I spoke to bovine arse-vet Bob Truskothic. And obviously your average cow is not able to speak any sort of language, but there have been exceptions through histories. It was said that in the early 30s there was a pair of young steers that hosted the first ever satirical radio show. It had to be put down eventually when the public realized that they were listening to cows, just because they were just so fluent and articulate and very good broadcasters. So there are records, absolutely. I suspect what has happened is that he's been

caught early in his development. He's had a very, very talented trainer in that circus who's really put Billy Westbank through his paces, vocally speaking. To what degree are they actually speaking? Because obviously we're aware of parrots, for example, you can teach them a few phrases or they will then parrot, as we say. I think some people might imagine that's possible with an animal, but does it have true understanding? Does it have true comprehension? Richard This is hard to say, but let's not forget that Billy Whizbang wasn't sent in to take part in a first date. Billy Whizbang was sent to infiltrate a group

of dangerous narcissists who are constantly on output, these guys. So in terms of the parroting, social parroting, they want to hear, hi all this, yes that, great, lovely, what a great idea, all that kind of thing. Which that kind of mimicry is, I mean most humans don't get past that level of social engagement. So Billy Wisman was certainly up to that. What about the recording of Billy, or maybe it isn't Billy, that's obviously the big controversy over the years. A haunting record of what sounds like a young cow singing the German national anthem. Where do you stand on this? I mean, a lot of people think it's a fake. genuine article.

And so he's got this ability to speak German, absolutely incredible. The recruitment officers immediately think, OK, this guy might be useful. Was there any question at that time of like, can we trust a cow who can speak German? Because obviously there's a lot of mistrust at the time of Germans or those of German extraction living in Britain, many of whom were put into kind of... Internment camps. Yes. I mean, I think there was... This is really, this is the crucial moment for Billy is, again, the assembled company

are all stunned. He's a cow that can apparently speak some German, certainly understand it, and is he you know is he even a cow? Is he two German spies hiding inside a pantomime costume? It was only when by chance a portrait of His Majesty the King, which was being taken away to be hidden in the cheese caves of Snowdonia for protection, was carried through the recruitment office to be loaded onto a train. And in that moment, without skipping a beat, Billy stands on his hindquarters and salutes and holds that salute. Wow.

And they just knew that that is a true blue British cow. That's a loyal British cow with some very extraordinary skills. Billy Whizbang wasn't going to go to the front line. His abilities were going to be used in a much more ingenious way. And the genius who came up with the plan was none other than Winston Churchill himself, at that time first Lord of the Admiralty, who had the idea to utilise all of Billy's circus learned skills to fire him out of a cannon into the heart of Nazi Germany where he could carry out espionage. And it wasn't just going to be any cannon, it was the Navy's biggest cannon,

known colloquially as Mad Mary. They'd been trying for weeks to find a cow that would willingly walk into the muzzle of this giant naval gun mounted on the white cliffs of Dover. Now, I'm sure many of our listeners may have seen Mad Mary, the big cannon, because it's still very much mounted there on the cliffs at Dover. I believe it's still technically operational, although I don't think it has fired since the end of the war, is that right?

Yes, that's right. The final time that the weapon was officially, effectively discharged was as a victory salute at the mark, the end of hostilities on VJ Day Day when the Duke of Gloucester was fired into the channel as a mark of respect and swam to shore with only minimal injuries. So thank you James for telling us about how Paddington Station was involved in all of this. It's great to be here and see it through different eyes really because I just saw it as a kind of shitty corner of the city where you'd come and get a really disappointing baguette and then get on the train. You know, but now I see it as a kind of shitty corner of the city where you'd come and get a really disappointing baguette and then get on the train.

But now I see it as this kind of romantic embarkation point for Belize War. It's incredible, thank you. That's right, not at all. Every one of these platforms are washed with blood, a sparkle in his eyes as he heads off on the greatest adventure of his life. And that's where we should go next I think. Think to Whitehall to see what are now called the Churchill War Rooms where the War Cabinet used to meet underneath London in a secret bunker where Billy's orders would have been hatched and dispatched. Great well let's go.

Great, well let's go. So here we are at the Cabinet War Rooms, so called, because it did house the Cabinet of Ministers during the course of the Second World War, but also because it housed a number of drinks cabinets which Winston Churchill would smash open with a cricket bat at 9am and then the drinking would begin. And this is where Billy's orders ultimately came from while he was in Germany. Yes, absolutely. It's here where Churchill himself, who played a very active role in deciding these missions, that's why some of the missions were very dangerous, some of the missions were sometimes quite ludicrous,

depending on how much brandy and champagne the Prime Minister had had to drink that morning. It was after one particularly boozy morning, reportedly four brandies, a bottle of bubbly, two eggnogs, a screwball and a yard of ale, that Churchill came up with Billy's ultimate mission. Billy had quickly gained a reputation for being able to seamlessly blend in in Nazi Germany, and so Churchill tasked him with befriending Hitler himself. We know from records that most of his contemporaries at the time thought this idea was mad. It's only mad if it doesn't work. This is the kind of madness that Churchill needs at this point in the war. It know, there's no madder than

any of his other ideas. Building a chocolate battleship, aeroplanes made out of frozen steam, creating a replica Norway that the Germans would invade by mistake. These were all crazy ideas, but they all worked. Of course, befriending Hitler was only the first step in the mission. The idea was that Billy, with his very unique set of skills, would be able, would be the only person able really to bring an end to the war by taking out Hitler, by getting close enough to him that he could put a hoof through the face. Billy had been equipped with some reinforced tungsten cow shoes, which had been sharpened, hardened in the fires of Bermondsey,

and engraved with the words, take that, Adolf, which Churchill had believed would be branded into the Fuhrer's face as Billy landed one on him and cracked his skull like a gaily painted egg on Easter Sunday. In order to get so close to Hitler that he could put a hoof through his face, the plan was that he would use a number of disguises and we know that he did use a number of disguises throughout this period. So would you say that Billy was a master of disguise?

Well I think his skills improved across the period. So when he started out, it was just wearing a really big moustache or a sort of big fez. But then you've just got a sort of big moustache or a big fez on a cow, which if anything draws the attention rather than deflecting. But he moved on, he improved his skills and, yes, he went under a number of assumed identities. There was a Polish pastry chef, an admiral, an Italian priest, which was one of his favorites, a young flower seller, before lighting upon his real genius, his pièce de resistance, if you like, which was a brilliant disguise as a young German woman or fraulein.

And so really he was using sexual wiles really to get in with the Nazi party. He was this beautiful young lady. He was disarming and I believe he began a sort of relationship with Hitler where he'd be playing tennis every morning, they'd be painting together, all this kind of stuff. That's right. And there's a story that he even beat Hitler in mixed doubles one morning and they had a little sort of jovial play fight, if you like, about that because his tennis was very good but he'd always let Hitler win up to that point. That's how within the inner circle he was.

He could even beat Hitler at tennis and that was considered to be okay. I think that really shows you how much he had infiltrated that inner circle. The disguise was pretty complete at that point. Now, I think some people will be listening and thinking, why is it then that the British state and Churchill decided that a cow should be sent in to try and infiltrate rather than, for example, just a woman, for example, a real woman who could speak German and who could make out that they were an actual German young woman. Why did they go for a cow?

It's a good point. There have been a lot of PhDs have written about this, but I will say that I think it's because a cow's eyes really just are really mesmeric. They're persuasive. And I think that's the thing that made Churchill and his inner circle decide to go with a cow rather than a human woman. Because when you look in a cow's eyes, a cow's eyes can change your mind. And that's what I think they were hoping would happen with Hitler or at least let him drop his guard enough for the hoof to go through the head. Do we have any evidence that Hitler ever began to question whether Billy was a beautiful with Hitler, or at least let him drop his guard enough for the hoof to go through the head. Do we have any evidence that Hitler ever began to question whether Billy was a beautiful

young woman or was he totally taken in? Again it's the eyes that are so persuasive. So even if you were to take a step back and look and think, well that is just a bullock wearing a tennis skirt, I think the eyes could draw you in and just convince you that you were looking at a young, beautiful woman of about 21, 22. In fact, we read in Eva Braun's diaries about a young woman she was very jealous of, a very beautiful young woman called Vilhelmina, who we believe is Billy Whizbang and she talks about the long flowing locks and the cinched waistline and You know if you've seen pictures

There are no long flowing locks. There is no waistline There's there's sort of a big bullock with a bit of a wig on. But again, it's the eyes. It's the eyes that have this sort of mesmeric magical quality, which I just think could, well, could bring any man down, really. Cows are surprisingly good at disguising themselves. So it's really something that cows have mastered over many, many years. The one thing cows never really managed to disguise very easily is its back, is the anus area. That requires some heavy, heavy dressing. Would Billy have had to, for example, always face one way so as to not show the fur of his anus when he was in his disguise? Yes, ideally, but that would have been very, very tricky.

Of course, I mean, we know obviously there were times when he was playing tennis with Hitler and Hitler would have wanted that beautiful new bar partner to be wearing a short skirt. Hitler would have been deliberately hitting balls into the corner of the court to try and get that opponent to bend and pick up. He was a rascal in many ways. So that would have been very, very tricky indeed. And that's, I mean,

that's partly why saboteurs, spikers were given certain gadgets. For example, Billy Whizbang had a special coin that had tails on both sides. So Billy Whizbang would always win the toss and could make sure that the sun was in Hitler's eyes. So if there was an issue where the back was exposed, it would be fleeting and it would be blurred by the power of the sun. And Hitler didn't have great vision, as we know. And so, with his disguise and his command of German, Billy succeeded in placing himself right at the heart of the Nazi war machine. He managed to do this for almost four years, which, as Professor Boland explains, raises a gnawing question.

The big question regarding Billy Whisbang is, given that he was within the Nazi inner circle for upwards of four years, why didn't he carry out his ultimate plan of putting a hoof through Hitler's face? More after this. Hello there. Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello!

What's the right tone of hello I'm going for here? Hello! Yeah, that feels nice. Direct, friendly, but stern. Hello! No, stern's not what I mean. I dunno, sturdy? Trustworthy? Hello?

Now, you might notice that we don't tend to have many ads in Beef and Dairy Network. The most we'll ever do is one, and very often it's none. And that's kind of on purpose, because the model for shows on the MaxFun network is that rather than bombard you with ads and things, we just do it all in one go. Once a year. And it's now. It's happening, people. What I don't mean is that we're now going to play you like 50 ads in a row. What I mean is we deal with the way this show is funded once a year. These shows are audience supported. And once a year we have the single Max Fun Drive where we ask for you to listen to us for just a couple of minutes. Fundamentally, what I want to do is ask you to support the show. If you love the show, if it means a lot to you, it would mean a

lot to me if you thought about supporting us at maximumfund.org forward slash join. Now obviously that's not going to be an option for everyone and that's of course absolutely fine. But if it's within your, I was about to say purview, wheelhouse, something like that, do consider it. Memberships start at $5 a month. The way it works is you sign up and then you let the system know which Maximum Fund shows it is that you want your money to go to. It might be that you listen to loads of Maximum Fund shows, it might be that you only listen to this one, in which case you can just tell the system that and the money comes our way.

I want to say a big thank you as well to everyone who already does this. You are the entire reason why this show can keep going, why I can pay for contributors, why I can get studio space. It's all down to you. So if you already do that, thank you so much. In return for your support, you also get access to bonus content. There's now bonus content going back almost 10 years, I think, of stuff I've put up every year. This year there's audio from some livestreams from last year. So there's one with Mike Sheppard, aka Professor James Harcombe, one with Mike Korsniak, aka The Ass Fet Bob Traskothic. There's also access to the video of last year's live show, which is really good. There's also

a bonus content I've made which is made up of stuff from the editing room floor, stuff that didn't make it into the final episodes. It's all good stuff. Also depending on what tier you sign up at there are various gifts. If you sign up at or upgrade to the $10 tier, as always we've got an enamel pin badge. This year's is really good. I always say that but they're all so good. This one has a kind of sheaf of wheat and around it other words the loaves must be made. Is there a truer statement in this world? Is there a more noble sentiment to pin to your jacket? I don't think so. I love Max Fun. Without them I wouldn't be doing this. Thanks to them. And yeah, that's it basically. I'm just

asking you, if you like this show, why not consider it? Go to maximumfun.org forward slash join. Big thank you to those who already do that, and thank you in advance to those of you who are going to do that this year. Thank you! Right, I hope you're enjoying the show. On with it. We know he had ample opportunity to do so. We know he was on the tennis court every morning. We know they dined out together. There were so many opportunities where Billy could have carried out his ultimate mission and chose not to. And it's the time of his life? Professor James Harkham refutes this way of thinking. In fact, he believes that Billy did attempt to kill Hitler.

1944. Hitler receives delivery of a brand new office chair. So he wore out his old cloth upholstered chair and takes delivery of a brand new chair, upholstered in pure cow leather. And if there'd been any doubt in Billy's mind at that point, if he'd ever forgotten who he was, if it got wrapped up in the narrative, in his legend, in the person, the cow that he was trying to pretend to be, that's the moment when it changed. That's when he was back in business.

He knew the one thing he had to do was hoof Hitler in the face. Billy had the Fuhrer's routine down to a T by then. They rose early, game of tennis in the morning, croquet in the early afternoon, buckaroo after that and then break for a light lunch. It's at that point Billy should have his own free time, which he used to use to paint, and Hitler is picked up in the staff car and driven to what should be a cabinet meeting of his generals, of his heads of staff. However, Billy had tampered with the engine of the Fuhrer's staff car, filling the air intake with hard-boiled pickled duck eggs, which brought him enough time to run ahead and get to the meeting room before the Nazi cabinet. He knows that Hitler will be there gathered and he can take out the whole Nazi war cabinet,

face to hoof. It's the first gathering that they'll all be present in one place and if you think that he's been lollygagging, if you think that Billy's maybe been malingering a little here and living the Third Reich Playboy lifestyle, this is where things change. This is where he's going to take everybody out in one go, just all round the table. Hoof, hoof, hoof. But how was Billy going to remain undetected in the conference room? Well, he had a rather ingenious plan of his own. Billy uses his power of disguise again to make himself look like an 18th century mahogany table.

This is the table around which all of Hitler's closest inner circle will be having their meeting. all of Hitler's closest inner circle will be having their meeting. All Billy has to do is hold his breath, stay still and wait for his moment. With regards to the table, that's rather more difficult because you're in a darkened room, you've got time and the choice was are we going for a table that's got ornate bovine arse carvings? That wasn't hugely a la mode in Germany at that time and was more of a Slovak tradition really and might have in fact angered Hitler so instead they went for a traditional tablecloth Hitler loved a tablecloth he collected them wherever he went Hitler was a huge fan of a tablecloth loved a

tablecloth I mean a lot of people say that the whole reason he went into Russia in 1942 was to, I mean, he just wanted a classic Muscovite tablecloth, which is deliciously thick and soft to the touch, and also very easy to clean. For example, a lasagne stain, any ragu or even red wine. Remarkable. But yes, that's by the by. So they went for the tablecloth option, that was concealed within Billy Wizz Bang's anus, he extruded that. I mean, that took weeks and weeks and weeks of training to get him to be able to do that. And so, you know, while he was disguised as a table, he was beneath the tablecloth, which just helps with all those rough edges to the disguise. Exactly and a spy saboteur cow can use that tablecloth in a million and one ways should

something go wrong. You know at the last minute it can use it to bind opponents as a parachute, as a sail, as an escape rope. I mean it's a great reassurance for the bovine agent as much as anything else. And actually it proved so useful during the war that it became standard training at MI6 and among the special forces to learn how to hide and extrude a full-size eight-person plus tablecloth in your anus. And obviously if James Bond and the likes of Jason Bourne had been more true to life then at least half the movies would have been taken up seeing them getting their power up, assuming the extrusion position and deploying. I think in You Only Live Twice there is a casino scene where they nod to it.

The art director there made sure that one of the roulette tables had a little streak of turd on the gauze. Despite his betable cloth table disguise, as we know, Billy didn't kill Hitler. Hitler killed himself at the end of shooting the film Downfall. So the question of course is, why didn't Billy do it? Would have been smoother silk. Unfortunately this was the same day that a certain Nazi officer by the name von Stauffenberg had also planned to make his move. The rest of the world knew that Hitler was a complete wanker on day one but by 1944 even the German population and members of the

Nazi Party themselves were beginning to cotton on to the idea that he was a complete prick and so we begin to see these plots against Hitler's life. Now this is quite well known that the von Stauffenberg plot it was a briefcase I believe filled with explosives left under the table And as I say that I begin to realize what I think you're about to tell me Yes, you can see the unfortunate concatenation of events here in that just as Billy had Destroyed the previous table thrown it out of the window Replaced it with Billy himself as a master of disguise.

Stauffenberg slides into the room and rocks up with his exploding briefcase. The briefcase detonated. Billy took the brunt of the blast. Hitler suffered only minor injuries, was immediately ushered out of the room and returned to his business later in the day. And at that stage, you know, Billy was Bolognese adorning the walls of that room? Yes, it was a sacrifice writ large in ragu upon the wall. It has been estimated that Billy probably lived for a further ten thousandth of a second

before the impact of the briefcase bomb turned him into lumpy, charred and undersalted pasta sauce. Probably also lacking a bit of freshness or acidity, my tip is always parsley. Just a little bit really lifts the sauce. Serve with a classic tagliatelle, a nice garlic bread and a two litre bottle of lilt. Cows throughout military history have often been seen to be highly effective actually when faced with explosions. I asked Bob Triskothick whether Billy ever stood a chance. Don't forget a cow's senses are very, very acute. They'll be aware of a bomb much more readily than a human being would be and they are then presented

with a degree of choice. You're talking about animals that have wide, very strong, thick flanks that can kill a blast, for example, where a cow to lie on a bomb of any size. That's going to dampen the bomb and the cow is not going to know much about it apart from having a bit of a bellyache for a couple of days. But a tactical cow, as we saw beginning to be used at the end of the First World War, a tactical cow can deflect that blast and use it at its will, make it its own weapon in effect. In the case of Billy Whisbang, when he was in that room and the bomb was in the briefcase underneath him, he would have known that that was a bomb

and that that was going to explode. I would be astonished if Billy Wasbang didn't realise that that was a bomb. I also, having known that, he would have been able to direct and reshape his table disguise at the very last minute to hone in and condense the blast onto the main target. So your contention is that if he had wanted to, he could have deflected that blast directly at her Hitler. He could have directed it with his flank. He could have also have effectively orally absorbed the blast because if you think about it, the long heavy duty anus of a cow is effectively a blast pipe and Billy could have used his anus as a kind of bazooka.

Interesting. So then, well, we know what happened. We know that the bomb exploded, Billy took the blast basically and was completely Bolognese. It was just like a mammoth used to make it, saving all of the assembled Nazis. So what does that tell us then, once we know that he could have deflected that blast towards Hitler and the Nazis? Well, it's supposition, of course, isn't it? But I mean, the reality is, obviously, if a cow is hit with a major blast in its ventral silk space, as it's called, a particular sort of soft point in the underbelly of the cow, then it will be Bolognese and it makes great habits to avoid that. I mean, even in day to day life, it's a tender place and they will make

sure it's caked in mud, cladded effectively. You mentioned that soft area there. The ventral silk space, yes. Would a good analogy be the bit on the death star where you need to fly down into that channel then just shoot it? Well, that's what that bit on the death star is based on, is the ventral silk space. The original author of Star Wars, Charles Dickens, when he wrote the original book that the movies were based on at the time, was in a part of Edessa's jail where he was doing bovine husbandry. And that's how he learned about that part. And that's what inspired the whole story, really. And so for a cow to voluntarily take the blast in that area,

they know what's coming next. They know what's coming next. My personal theory is that what we're dealing with is an ideological cow and that's made the ideological choice to take that hit and to not survive. He was trying to save Hitler. I believe he was trying to save Hitler and make himself a bovine martyr in the process. The fact that he was there on that day in that room is significant. Now, some people will tell you that it's just a coincidence. But it's my belief that he was there, disguised as a table to protect Hitler. Wow. And if that's true, then Billy was a Nazi, right? I mean, that's your proof, almost. If my contention is true that he was protecting the Führer, I don't think we can view it

any other way. I think he was, by that stage, he was a Nazi through and through. That sort of brings up a whole other question, isn't it? Which is, we think back to that Bullock arriving on the platform at Pallieson Station. Did he know at that point that that was the plan for him? He knew that he wanted to turn up so that he could go to Germany and get involved with the Nazis? Or was it that he, at that point, was a loyal Brit who then was radicalised by the experience of being part of the Nazi party then? Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, it's all conjecture at this point unless any new evidence comes to light.

But one does think back to Billy's childhood as a historian who looked back through his life to look for clues. And it simply is the case that Billy Huisbang did spend a significant portion of his childhood in Germany as part of a German cow circus. You know, he loved the German way of life. He had German values, long before he'd arrived at Paddington Station on that fateful day. And as you say, we all maybe never know, but I guess you're saying if you had to stake your courage to the mask, you're saying he was a Nazi from day one? I think he was the Bullock that outwitted Churchill, and I think he knew what he was

doing from day one. That is what I believe. ["The Beef and Dairy Archive Theme"] Hello, I'm Alex Neon, and I am the Beef and Dairy Network's archivist. I sent Alex into the Beef and Dairy Archive to see if he could find anything about Billy Whizbang. And of course, between the congealed beef dishes from history, he found some gems,

largely relating to Churchill's campaign for re-election in 1945. If we look at Winston Churchill's re-election campaign, we can sense a certain amount of complacency early on. For example, his election slogan was, come on, it's me, Winston fucking Churchill. It was around this time he began to refer to himself as Big Daddy Winston. Churchill believed that getting re-elected would be easy.

But it quickly became clear that being a great wartime leader didn't necessarily translate into being someone who the public wanted to lead them in peacetime. He needed to do something special and so he decided to tell Britain and the world about Billy Whizbang. Britain's war cows generally have gone unrecorded, unnoticed and uncelebrated. And that's a testament to the level of secrecy that they operated under. No one was meant to know what they did. It's classified, official secrets act, blah blah blah blah blah, we'll never know. What is peculiar about Billy Whizbang is that Winston Churchill used his position of power to overrule all that.

He went, no, I'm going to tell people about Billy Whizbang and that's why they're going to vote for me. Now, I believe you've gone back through our archive and you've actually found a recording of Winston Churchill invoking Billy Whizbang as a way of trying to garner votes. That's right. This is him saying what he felt needs to be said. The question before you is simple. Will you stand with socialism, the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy? Or will you rally behind your bold leader who steered Britannia through her darkest hour,

whose brass gonads are the size of Mars? Ask yourself this, would the Socialists have launched young Billy Whizbang behind enemy lines? Would they have had their guile to fire that plucky calf from a cannon to infiltrate the Nazi war machine? Or would they have hidden behind the barricades of bureaucracy, stifled by their own insipid mediocrity? The choice, of course, is yours. But when you stand at the ballot box, remember, come on, it's me, Winston fucking Churchill. It's Big Daddy Winston. The extent to which the story of Billy Whizbang captured the imagination of the nation is incredible.

We are talking murals on the side of pubs, pin-up cartoons, dogs were named after Billy Whizbang, children were named after Billy Whizbang. So yeah, in that period, he really was at the talk at the town. And in that sense, Winston Churchill's plan had begun to work. It's not until people started to look into this story in a little bit more detail that the, maybe his plan started to unravel. As the stories of heroism began to bed into people's minds, people began to start asking questions. Why hadn't Billy tried to kill Hitler? What were Billy's true intentions?

It's fair to say it split public opinion. Tell me, what is your impression of Billy Whizbang? As a true British patriot, I'd have to say that, yes, I was an enormous admirer of Billy Whizbang. He was a great Briton. And what about the persistent rumours that Billy Whizbang was a Nazi? I said what I said, and I meant what I said. Thank you. The BBC home service at the time had a show called The Common Man Speaks in which the BBC had

an almost open door policy where the idea was members of the public were invited into BBC studios to give their thoughts on the matters of the day. In some ways it was a precursor to the phoning show where you could walk up, take your seat in front of the presenter and expose your opinion. And people did, particularly on the subject of Billy Whisbank. Well, I'd have to say I'm very concerned. I mean, I read the papers. One can't learn about Billy Whisbank without also learning that he was possibly himself in the Nazi inner circle. You know, that he agrees with everything that they were doing.

I have to say, it would make me think twice about voting for Big Daddy Winston again. I used to think he was a wonderful statesman, but basing his entire current campaign on the legacy of Billy Huysbang, I think is a mistake. I think he's lost his way and I shan't to be voting for him again. That's all I've got to say. Thank you. Thank you very much for your input there. What do you think young man? Well I think it's absolutely appalling that Big Daddy Winston would appropriate the image of this bullock, a traitorous bullock, a bullock that we know now not to have been working in the interests of our great country. But is it not true that Billy Whizbang risked his life and indeed gave his life for the British state?

He gave his life for some state or other, but knowing what we know now, I think we can look back on the workings and machinations of that bullock and we can look at each other square in the eye and say we don't know what the true intentions of Billy Whizbang were. And why is it that Billy Whizbang and the Froy around this young bullock mean so much to you personally? Well you work it out I mean me and my, we spent three years in the fields of France getting repeatedly shot at. I myself was shot multiple times in the penis, three times in my own penis, and I don't appreciate all this praise being heaped on vainglorious bullocks who it turns out have only been helping out the other side.

Tell me, were you shot in the penis three times in short succession, were you shot in the penis and then you recovered and then returned to the battlefield to be shot in the penis once again and then once again? There was two on the trot, bang bang! And then there was a lengthy convalescence period of three or four months in a field hospital in Nantes and then back on the field thirty seconds into reaching the battlefield, bang, one more.

And so maybe you feel that really the true heroes of World War II were you and your friends getting shot in the penis and not a calf living in the lap of luxury. Well, I'll say this, I don't like to intellectualise these things. All I know is that when I see the image of that absolutely reprehensible bullock, I'll get an aching in my English dick and I think that says it all. If you're looking for a moment where the tide turned on the Billy Whizbang story. It is an edition of the times in which the front page displayed a photograph of Billy Whizbang performing a Nazi salute.

While you might expect that Billy would have had to have done Nazi salutes to fit in in Nazi Germany, this photograph was taken during a short period of leave, where he returned briefly to the UK. You can tell the photograph is taken in the UK because the weather is awful and everyone's got a face like a slapped arse. The photo was supposedly taken in 1942. It's very difficult for a cow to do a Nazi salute. It doesn't happen by accident. This was intended. This was not taken out of context. This was

not an accident. Even though there were many people writing to the letters page of the Times in the weeks that followed claiming that this had been a mistake, that this was an unfortunate camera angle, that this was a Roman salute performed by the cows of the Roman Empire. I think it was pretty clear to all those who were looking at the photo that this was a deliberate act. It's obviously a Nazi salute. If you do a Nazi salute you're a Nazi. Why would we discuss it further? Billy Whispang was doing a Nazi salute. What more evidence do you want? Winston Churchill lost the election. The problem was for Churchill that he'd gone in too hard

on Billy Whisbang. The cow was out of the bag. It was a historic victory for Labour. And for that Labour government, which famously, I think if you were to summarise their achievements, the one that everyone will immediately mention is of course the NHS. So it is, you know, in some ways we have in a roundabout way Billy Whisbank to thank for the NHS. And rather awkwardly, the Nazis. So you will of course be aware of the statue of Sir Barcidly Chattel, which is soon to be coming down in Hyde Park, and the nascent campaign to get a statue of Billy Whizbang put on that plinth. What do you make of that? Do you think Billy should be publicly venerated in that way?

God, no. He infiltrated the Nazi party and then protected Hitler. I don't think this is someone we should be venerating. Right. I don't think this is someone we should be venerating. Right. No, not at all. Okay. Well, there will then be an empty plinth. Who do you think should take the place of Sir Barcidley? Oh, John Travolta.

Easy. The actor John Travolta? Yes. I don't think it should be Billy Whispang at all. I think at best there are too many questions floating around. Okay. So if you had to think of someone that you should replace, so bastardly, who would you go for? I'd go for John Travolta.

Oh, on the plinth. Not Billy. No. I think it'd be good if it was Jan Travolta. Do you mean John Travolta? Yes. James, you've brought me here. We're back in Hyde Park. We're right next to the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. I notice you are crying. It's just some water from the memorial fountain has sprayed in my eyes.

Because people get emotional about Princess Diana, that's fine. I mean, she did have a lot to give. But are you okay to...? What do you think she'd have worn to the 2012 Olympics? Right, so why is it that you have brought me here? Is it because you wanted to stop off at the Diana Memorial Fountain, orvine remains of Major Billington Whizbang. Oh I see, so just to paint a picture for the audience, James is holding a Pringles tube, a tube of the crisps, Pringles, It's Texas BBQ sauce flavour.

He's in the tube, you bloody fool! Sorry, do you mean to say that the remains of Billy Whizbang are inside this Pringles tube? Yes! Could you not have found a more respectful way of conveying... This is... this... this is how it came from the Russian embassy. Right, let's talk about his remains then, because how, why did the Russians have him? As you may recall from the rather explosive conclusion of Billy's story, he was he was there at the Wolf's Lair and unfortunately saved the Fuhrer's life when the von Stauffenberg

briefcase exploded. Once the war was over it was the Russians who came in, the Soviet government cleaned up the room, took all the Nazi documentation and as it turns out, as I suspected myself for many years, the last final remains of Billy Whispang. Meticulously the Soviets bagged it, filed it, numbered it, and it was for a long time in a manila envelope somewhere in a Moscow archive in the drawer just below Yuri Gagarin's skull and just above Joseph Goebbels' penis. What happened next was one of the most emotional things I've ever seen.

And I've seen The Lion King on Broadway. I'm now going to remove the lid of the Pringles tube and scatter the final earthly remains of Major Billy Whispang. I am now angling the Pringles tube and will allow the meat and bone to fall onto British soil for the first time in nearly 80 years. And just to explain what I can see, I'm watching a middle-aged man pour what looks like bolognese out of a trumpet

using just his lips. Goodbye England's rose. Billy! Billy! Major Billington Whizbang, 1938 to 1944. Some say a British hero. Some say he was a bastard and a Nazi. I won't tell you what I think, but I will say this. Billy, you'd have loved 2025. A big thanks to everyone we spoke to for that feature. The decision about who to put on that plinth in Hyde Park is still yet to be taken, and Westminster Council are still actively seeking contributions from the public. I spoke to their press officer earlier today, and

apparently the current frontrunners are John Travolta and the yellow Eminem. So that's all we've got time for this month. If you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to the website now where you can find all the usual stuff, as well as our off-topic section where this week we ask Irish New Age folk sensation Enya for her top 5 air fryers small enough to use in a caravan. So until next time, beef out. Thanks to Mike Sheppard, Gemma Arrowsmith, Mike Wozniak, Tom Crowley, Gareth Quinn and Linnea Sage. And thank you for listening. A final little nag from me, it's Max Fun Drive. If you've Linnea Sage. and please do it now before you forget. So put your phone down, or no, don't put your phone down, pick your phone up and go to maximumfun.org forward slash join. Check out the gifts that

are available. Check out all the info. If you've got any questions about it or you've, you're confused by anything, please do get in touch. Beefanddairynetwork at gmail.com or of course you can find us on all the social medias. Actually that's not true. We're on Twitter just about. We're on Blue Sky. We're on Instagram. And that's a lot. Anyway you can contact us through there and yeah. Also keep an eye on social media because I might be doing some live streaming stuff

over the next couple of weeks. Last year I live streamed the making of an episode which was quite good fun. Yeah, so I might do that again. So yeah, just keep your eyes peeled. And if you can't join up to support, I'm still pleased that you're listening. Thank you so much for listening. It's almost 10 years. I think in July it's the 10th anniversary of Beef and Dairy. What? What? A decade of beef. Ok, that web address again, maximumfun.org forward slash join. Thank you thank you thank

you. Goodbye!