Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 123 - Jacobinius Arse Syndrome

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Mike Wozniak, Mike Shephard, Tom Crowley and Linnea Sage join in this month as we get to grips with the new outbreak of Jacobinius Arse Syndrome.Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.comMusic credit courtesy of epidemicsound.com:Jag Vet en Dejlig Rosa / TraditionalSonatina in G Major / Beethoven Ancient Rome / Cercles NouvellesThe Wedding Feast / Bonnie Grace

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is brought to you by Quails 2.0, the revolutionary new live flightless bird cattle feed from Mitchell's. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. You may have heard news reports attempting to link Quails 2.0 with an outbreak of Jaco Binius Ass Syndrome, also known as bovine closed ass syndrome. We firmly refute these claims and maintain that our beautiful genetically modified quail are entirely unrelated to this issue. But we did tell you not to let them breed.

Didn't we tell you that? So even if it was our fault, it wouldn't be our fault, would it? Huh? Anyway, due to an unforeseen and unrelated issue, we've decided to temporarily pause sales of Quails 2.0, but rest assured that all Quail 2.0 orders placed since the beginning of this month will still be fulfilled. And as a token of our appreciation, these orders will now include

a Pheasant and Junglefowl bundle multipack, and use the code P-HEM, and we'll throw in a free P.m. Hello and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website as well as the printed magazine, brought to you by Quails 2.0. Now, it has been a dark week for the beef industry. It's not a competition, of course, but it's probably the darkest since the Rotherham Dairy explosion, or when France made beef illegal for a week by mistake.

Rumours began to spread at the beginning of the week. Photographs, videos. But then on Wednesday in coordination with the British government, we were able to confirm on our website that there were indeed confirmed cases of bovine yacobinus arse syndrome here in the United Kingdom. The reaction of the beef markets was swift and the price of wholesale beef collapsed. We haven't got there yet, but many analysts believe we could see the return of the 10 pence burger. A reminder that last time that happened, adjusted for inflation, Britain invaded the Suez Canal.

At time of recording, the latest numbers are that according to the Central Bureau of UK Beef Information, there are currently 17,819 confirmed cases of Jacobinus Arse Syndrome in British cattle. Of course there is up to date information on our website, or you can line on 5510555555674155555555555655741. That's 551055555556741555555555555555655741. So in this episode it was obvious to me who we should speak to about this. Of course, it's friend of the show, bovine arse-vet, Bob Triskothic. Hello Bob Triskothic, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. My great pleasure. Now, Bob, we are of course talking about Jacobeanus Arse Syndrome. Precisely. Well, your listener's main note of course is closed Arse Syndrome, which became the sort of popular name for it in the early 1900s, just because

it's in the vernacular, it's more easy to understand for the lay person. And tragically, a lot of people don't know who Jacobeanus Arse is, of course. I have to admit, I actually didn't know who the man was until this most recent outbreak. And in case listeners don't know, maybe you could tell us who was Jacobeanus Arse? Well, he's the veterinarian who described the syndrome in the first place. He was, I would say, the prototype arse vet. And there are some who say actually that the word arse comes from him, that arses are named after him. That's contentious. But his name was Jacobeanus Arceus, incredibly talented.

And he was the first person to describe this extraordinarily distressing bovine disease. And when and where was Jacobeanus playing his trade? He was largely in the foothills of Bavaria, great place to train, great place to learn and in the early 1900s in his heyday, he trained as a cooper initially and then while he was a cooper's apprentice, he stole hoops from his master and had run away. That was from Leipzig headed down south and yeah, much like me had to start from scratch and learn from scratch. What was he doing with those hoops then? He said he stole some hoops from a Cooper. Well, it's unclear.

He may have initially just stolen the hoops out of malice. Certainly they proved useful though, because he effectively hula-hooped his way down to the southern states of Germany through canteens, bordellos and bars, entertaining hula-hooping for coin. He could hula-hoop with, it's believed, entertaining hula hooping for coin. Good hula hoop with, it's believed up to 13 hoops. And so by the time he got into Bavaria, he had cash in hand and he had such a good understanding of a hoop and the inside of a hoop and what it is to be inside a hot hoop that it was just a hop, skip and a jump to using that knowledge and

applying it to Aenei. I wanted to learn a bit more about the history of Jacobeanus Arse, and so I spoke to historian Professor James Harkham. Professor James was able to explain to me how Jacobeanus used his skill in hula hooping to get his first job as a vet in the court of Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It's quite by chance one Easter, in fact Good Friday, which had become a time of notable celebration at the court of King Ludwig. Any kind of itinerant dancers, performers are called in. They're in the Great Hall of Neuschwanstein Castle.

Ludwig is sat atop his gold throne wearing a crown of live geese and it there's an absolute maelstrom there are there are jugglers there are men on stilts all kinds of madness just taking part in this room and Jacobinus may be a little overshadowed the hoop dance that had beguiled so many on the road from Leipzig is maybe lost in the great spectacle of this royal banquet. He's at this point third on the bill to a dancing pig, but it's at this point that his luck changes.

When that dancing pig is brought in, the little fella simply won't dance. It has a pained expression, it's vomiting mouthfuls of blood, and while this would have passed for entertainment in the late 19th century, it's still not what they paid for. Jacopinus has the presence of mind. His eyes look ever ass-wards, and he sees, protruding from that little piglet's backside, coat of arms of the Kingdom of Bavaria etched in gold he thinks that doesn't belong in a pig's arsehole what am I looking at here? And it was of course

the royal scepter of King Ludwig himself which in a fit of intense absent-mindedness, the king, thinking he was popping his scepter in an umbrella stand, had in fact inserted it into a live pig's backside. Jacobinus withdraws that bejeweled dildo in a matter of seconds, with professionalism,

with grace, and with a little flourish. I think it was both theater and medicine wrapped up in one. The pig starts dancing, stops vomiting blood, its eyes light up, the king is applauding, clapping his hands, and he knows from that moment forth, I need this guy by my side. Now, obviously, Bob, the disease bearing his name is back with a vengeance and it's obviously sad that we can't ask him what to do because if he was here, obviously he could help us. But no, obviously he died many years ago. No, no, no. He's long dead. He's preserved. He's stuffed. and if you pay extra, a few extra euros, when you're visiting Neuschwanstein Castle, you can go to the closet where they stuffed him with

his hoops. But he's not on display? He's not, he's on a private display. So you have to know whose palms to grease. Is that actually some sense of shame? I mean, why wouldn't they, you know, he's the father of veterinary-arsed medicine. Why isn't he, you know, why isn't he held up for all the tourists who go to that beautiful castle? Well, I think because when he died, he was so riddled with a mixture of human and bovine

diseases that they were a bit nervous about displaying him publicly, they did obey his request to be stuffed. But instead of putting him out in the open on a little tiny island in the middle of Lake Alps, as he'd requested, they put him in a sort of thick glass cabinet and squirreled him away. Another problem was that the taxidermist was a local, very much an ultra specialist in bovine taxidermy, a very stubborn individual by all accounts and used the same amount of stuffing for Jacobeanus as he would with heifer. It's a horrific sight. So he's overstuffed then.

Hugely overstuffed. You can see straw poking out of parts of him. Other parts have not burst and in many ways, testament to the strength of mankind's integument. I mean, the skin is an extraordinary thing. And you say that Jacobeanus was riddled with various diseases, both human and bovine. Was one of those diseases Jacobeanus Arse Syndrome? Ironically enough, it was not. Even though he'd spent more time than anyone else dealing with this, he had in an effort to understand the disease better, he had essentially fabricated

the symptoms of Jacobeanus Arse Syndrome within himself. So he had closed his own arse. He was a man of his time and you have to understand a lot of these people, they went in headfirst with their research and he believes that how could you treat a disease without understanding it at first principles yourself? He had, I mean, he had Quaternary syphilis, he had mange, all manner of parasites, some of which, you know, their ancestors are still breeding within his corpse today. And it was too much. It was too much. He failed to accurately represent what would happen. It just made he was overwhelmed by the other diseases he already had.

And of course, closing his own ass leads to another problem for the taxidermist, doesn't it? Who, I guess, now had to go in through the mouth. He went in through the mouth. This taxidermist, his preferred access point in was always the arse. As I say, very inflexible individual. So he did have to go in through the mouth, but he did so as if he was going through the arse. He didn't have the imagination to sort of flip Jacobeanus round. Oh, so he stuffed him backwards? I mean, the shape of him is... I don't think there's a word for it, frankly.

It is worth seeing. But it's quite the horror show. Was Jacobeanus arse the first arse vet? Many people would say yes. Of course, there are other candidates who are considered notable in the field of arse vetting. Queen Elizabeth I wrote on the subject of animal arses in both Latin and Greek, although it is understood that she never actually touched an arse in her own

lifetime, including her own. And this was revolutionary, wasn't it? Because there was a belief at the time that animals actually didn't have arseholes. In the understanding of the church, of course, everything is created in humans are created in the image of God, but also any characters that are featured in a Bible story. So to suggest that the oxen, for example, in the Nativity had an asshole, would be to hint that possibly even God himself or the angel Gabriel had an asshole, which they don't. Right. I see. So when you mentioned Queen Elizabeth I writing a kind of theoretical

treatise on the existence of animal assholes, that would have been to do with her, the fact that she was a Protestant was quite central to that. That's it, yes. It would have been an open defiance of the Pope. In the popular imagination, we like to think that the Reformation begins with Henry VIII's desire to split from Rome in order to facilitate his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Maybe there's also some lust for the wealth of the monasteries, but a lot of it can be pinpointed to one afternoon, one hazy, sunny afternoon in August of 1534 at his palace in Greenwich. Henry VIII noticed that one of his hunting dogs clearly

possessed an asshole. And from that moment on, the grip of the church in his imagination had somewhat loosened. He was starting to see holes in their argument, but both literally and figuratively. So then if we scoot forward to Jacobeanus Arse's day, we're talking about the late 1800s, by that point then, so people had an awareness of animal assholes, but he was maybe the first to say this is the way in when it comes to veterinary work. Yes, Jacobeanius Arse was the first man to really take advantage of the animal asshole as a route by which treatment could be administered. Suppository

medicine had not been heard of, not in veterinary science at that point. People would try and treat animals by simply wrapping them in bacon or other kind of what we'd think now as kind of sympathetic methods by hanging a tangerine around its neck. Nothing invasive, nothing that could actually do any benefit at all to the animal. So Bob, let's talk Jacobeanus Arse Syndrome. Obviously, it was around at the time of Jacobeanus Arse. We're talking about the late 1800s, early 1900s. And then it kind of disappeared and now it's back. So what's happened? Yes, well, it died out then. I mean, it's interesting as to why that may have happened. It's key to understanding Jacobeanus Arse syndrome is that, yes, it affects cows principally,

but it is not transmitted cow to cow, it was transmitted by another creature. Now we don't quite know what that creature was, we suspect it was a creature called the Munchen seiku, the Munchen sea cow, or the Munchen lake cow, which is a bit like a kind of a large manatee that populated the lakes at that time, but was hunted to extinction because its dorsal fins were found to make an excellent skin cream. It's probably hunting that lake cow, that sea cow out to extinction that meant that transmission was no longer possible. Once the cows that had it died out, then the disease they thought had died out completely. But now the disease is very much back.

It's not just in the south of Germany, it's across the world. Maybe you can tell me about the first time you came across an animal and realized, oh my God, this thing's got Jacobeanus Arse Syndrome. I was actually in Newfoundland, Canada, just because I enjoy a remote location and sometimes I need to be somewhere else from where some heat needs to die down. Word got out that I was knocking about and they had a heifer that they didn't understand what was going on with. I just took one look at the thing and I realized this cow has a closed ass.

And I thought, I can't believe this. How can this be back? And examined it as best I could, attempted to reopen the ass, but you're on a hiding to nothing there. Fashioned a sort of side ass, which gave symptomatic relief in the end, but unfortunately the cow did eventually perish. More comfortably, I'm pleased to say, thanks to my measures. And then it was very clear that we were beginning to deal with an outbreak and we needed to act fast. But no sign of any of these sort of lake malities or

anything like it anywhere nearby. So there's another culprit. Now, this has crept out in the press this week, described as an unnamed source. I believe you're happy for me to confirm that it was you, because you believe you've fingered the culprit. I'm absolutely certain I found the culprit, yes. Okay. And I believe it is another animal that is a reservoir for this disease. Yes. Your listeners will no doubt be familiar with the huge increased incidents in our meadows and pasture lands of the genetically modified quail. Yes.

Yes. Obviously sold under the brand name Quails 2.0. Yeah. And I was fully behind that when it was first released. Uh, the G, the GM quail, as your listeners will know, they're, they're smaller than the average quail, they're slower. That means that the average cow is able to, to catch and feed on them. You'll hear them called grazing quails. And people know not to breed them, but there's only so much control you've got over this

sort of thing. Um, and the, the big no-no was always, you know, do not let a GM quail breed with a regular quail, because that we've discovered with the offspring is what we're calling a mega quail. Wow, okay. Is that like a huge quail? It is slightly larger than the genetically modified quails, although not quite as large as a regular quail. Okay. But what they are is perfect vectors for the virus that causes Echobene-SR syndrome.

Not to get preoccupied with the size of these animals, but if you were to get a mega quail, which is the offspring of a quail and a quail 2.0, you get a mega quail, right, which is the offspring of a quail and a quail 2.0, you get a mega quail. Yeah. What happens if that mega quail were then to breed with a regular quail? Well, this is what we're worried about. Because precedent science would suggest that the results would be exponential and that you'd be dealing with a, well, at the moment it's a sort of thought experiment, it's a theoretical animal called a titano quail that would be even bigger than a mega

quail. Although probably again, not quite the size of an actual quail. But you're getting to a point now where that animal is almost the size of a quail. Yes. We don't think that ceiling could ever be fully reached because at the end of the day, the initial GM process that Mitchell's went through with quails was incredibly damaging to so many of the bodily systems of the quails. The chance, I mean, were it to reach that actual height, it would probably collapse

in on itself immediately. When GM quails were first announced, I mean, people have been working on this since the beginning of GM anything, right? The GM quail has kind of been the... Well, it kicked off the GM industry, didn't it, really? Right, yeah, exactly. And we've had GM wheat and we've had GM sorghum and we've had... Oh, people have got rich off it, sure.

Yeah. But the goal was always the next generation of quail. Yeah, a grazing quail, yeah. And now we're here. And when you look back, you know, how long has it been? 50 years. Yeah. There've always been those voices saying, you're playing God.

This is wrong. Yeah. Who are we to fiddle with the genetics of, you know, whether you're religious or not, mother nature, you can put it that way. You know, it's Prometheus and the flame, it's Pandora's box, all of these things. Yeah. So we've heard them time and time again. Absolutely.

And those people were written off as kind of weirdo hippie. Yeah, soft twats. I heard a lot. Yes. Yeah bearded nuisances. Yeah wet-eared wimpies. Exactly. But they were right. Were they right? Well, I mean, that's the trouble with your cardigan bead wearing crowd is that occasionally occasionally it can be half right. I mean, they did flag up concerns. Ultimately, I think it probably was worth it, but could we have gone slower, been less reckless? Maybe, but I'm not going to admit that to them. I'll admit it to you in private and to the listeners, because there's no way any of those people are listening, but I mean, I'd rather eat pins than admit that to one of those commie tossers, quite frankly.

I think we all imagine that the genetic modification of animals is something of a new phenomenon, but we must remember that the groundwork has been laid throughout human history. When you read Aristotle, pondering on whether a quail could ever be reduced in size and have its wings clipped back just so that an ox could catch it in midair, that isn't a thought experiment. That is primarily the greatest desire of the society in which he lived. The ultimate food source, the answer to all of humanity's problems. If only the quail, which could be released in sufficient numbers, caught by cattle. I think before we even realized it, we were looking there at solutions to climate change, to food scarcity, to wealth inequality.

So your point is that even though we haven't had the technology to create a genetically modified quail until the last 10 years or so, throughout human history you can find people at least posing the question, would it be possible to make a slightly smaller quail? Yes. Look into the caves at Lascaux. Yes, everybody remembers the images of Neolithic man hunting down the mammoth because the mammoth is big. But look at what's in the mammoth's mouth. It's a tiny pair of legs. Those are quails' legs. And look at the bottom of the cave painting. It's a tiny pair of eggs. And those are quails eggs.

Are those quails a regular size quail or are they very slightly smaller than a quail? Unfortunately, due to the ineptitude of Neolithic art, we cannot be sure that they had any grasp of perspective. I would like to conjecture that yes, the reason those quails appear smaller is because in a shamanic reverie, those ancient elders knew the desire and the direction that humanity must move in. Bob, knowing what you know now that the creation of GM quails would lead to an outbreak of Jacobeanus Arse syndrome, was it still worth it for them to to make the GM quails?

I think it is still worth it because don't forget since then science has advanced in Jacobeanus Arse's time. He didn't have a cure, a definitive cure for Jacobeanus Ars Syndrome. And we still don't, but there's no reason why we can't. If we band together as a community, I think we can crack it. We've got palliative measures, of course we do. Innovative measures, I'm at the forefront of that, but I really feel that if we can cure it, then it's fine. Then we've dealt with it, then we can keep our grazing quails.

And we're just in a situation again where we're just, you know, as well as the antibiotics and the steroids and the rest of things, we're just putting another medicine in the cow feed and that's okay, what's wrong with that? Do you know what I mean? Mitchell's is very well set up for that. So you're very much behind the Mitchell's project,

you're happy with them continuing to produce more quails 2.0? I think of myself as a sort of muted whistleblower in that, yes, I am behind it to a degree. There needs to be things done that Mitchell's aren't doing that I want done and I have told them that. But I think it's worth telling our listeners now that you are officially a Mitchell's affiliated vet and brand ambassador. So you're getting free supplies from them.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. So, so in a way your hands are tied. Some, some, some would argue. I mean, we should point out, of course, that this podcast is indeed sponsored by Mitchell's. Um, but then it's also worth saying that due to some kind of paperwork problem with our, with our lawyer, John Wasabi, who was a lawyer at the time. We're actually paying Mitchell's for the privilege of playing their adverts on our show. So I think we're in kind of different situation to you. Yes, and I have my own professional standards as well, which are completely independent

from Mitchell's just because I depend on them, you know for You know lunch money and things like that You know the occasional bit of dental work. Yeah, doesn't mean that I can't yeah, I can't criticize But you kind of aren't criticizing are you? What would you say to listeners who think you're pulling your punches? Pulling the punches well or even listeners who would say well for Bob Truscoth Jacobeanus-R syndrome is good for business, isn't it? Okay. Well, yeah, I am making coin at the moment, but it's a pretty distressing way to make coin. And no, I take exception to that.

I really think I'm at the tip of the spear. We're part of the solution. I'm sure Mitchell's will also be part of the solution. I think they can be. I don't think... Where they're going wrong is I think they're worried if they were to quickly come up with a cure then it might be suspicious because it might suggest that they had something to do with the reintroduction of the virus that causes the Chiacobinus R syndrome in the first place. I'm not saying anything, but maybe, right?

That's the delicate bit. Okay. More after this. The revolutionary new live flightless birdcattle feed from Mitchell's. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. If your cattle have contracted Yaccobinius S syndrome, also known as bovine closed S syndrome, Mitchell's, well absolutely not responsible, is here to help. A number of the products in our catalog will assist with what's to come next. These include the anti-microbial slurry cannon, a fully-welded and lead-lined hazmat suit, the Smooth Girl Flaying Mitt, our premium reinforced anal plunger, inflatable decoy priest and prayer book, and in extreme cases, the instant golf course ballistic missile,

and a set of fake passports. For all these and more, go to www.michells.kentucky or contact your local Mitchell's representative. We now will use the location from your device to dynamically add the name of your local Mitchell's representative. Ellen Brough. That's right. Ellen Brough. You can now find them here.

I'll be in the car park, buying the three crowns, pub. I'll be dressed as a female sailor from World War Two. Ask for Ellen Brough. Now, before we get back to our big interview with Bob Truscothic, quite by coincidence this week, the Royal Opera House in London opened their new production of what they're calling a hula- hooping operetta. It's called Arse. The Jacobeanus Arse story. It opened last night and we sent along Rodney Woodlodge, who was formally in charge of updating the event section of our website, but due to a lot of nagging he's been promoted to

our Arts Correspondent. So first of all Rodney, congratulations on the promotion. I'm absolutely over the moon. Thank you. I cannot wait to go and get some free tickets to shows, maybe a few free glasses of Prosecco, probably supermarket Prosecco, let's be honest. Well, Rodney, I just want to say you did a great job updating the events on the website, but you did tip so. To be honest, I never really got the hang of how the website portal worked.

I think it was called Spark Web and I'd never heard of that website building software before, so I didn't know how to add events. No, and you kept somehow posting just pictures of your trousers onto our social media. I can explain that. I can explain that. You see, the thumb gesture for adding an event on the mobile app, which I did download, would sometimes bring the camera up. So if I was looking downwards at my phone, at the app, occasionally my thumb would hit

the take picture button and sometimes the app would for some reason automatically upload that as the main event picture. Your trousers were normally quite wet for some reason. It wasn't clear what the liquid was but they were certainly damp. I can put your mind at rest about that right now, you see, because I'm a healthy person, I like to get out there, I like free Prosecco but I also love to swim. But sometimes, you know sometimes, in a busy office job like Events Manager, you don't have time to change.

Just to be clear, you weren't the Events Manager, your job was simply to upload details about the events onto the website, which you never actually managed. Okay, well, I'm just so excited to be the Arts Correspondent for the podcast officially, and I can't wait to get started. ["Artist's Choice"] Yakob Ines, Yakob Ines, Yakob Ines, Ars. Last night you went to the opening night of Arse, the Jacobeanus Arse story. The press release here says, close your arse and open your heart to this twisty tale of hula hooping,

love and bovine arse. Did it live up to the billing? Well, I have to tell you, it was absolutely terrible. Oh, interesting. Okay, so what was the problem? What was wrong with it? Sounds great. Well, I'll paint you a picture, okay? I'll paint you a picture.

Let me explain how the production works. All right? You walk into a huge room. It's absolutely huge. The theatre? Yeah, I think that's what they were calling it, yeah. And then you take your seat and in front of you there are thousands of other seats with all other people and they're looking right at you, which is quite unsettling. And then the lights go down and this whole opera

takes place behind you and you can hear it, but you can't see see a thing just the faces of thousands of people looking at you like looking at you with quite a strange expression like you're like you've done something wrong. Rodney is there a chance that you would you were sat backwards on your seat? Yes I think you might be right yes the more I think about it it seems obvious that's what I did. Right. So, okay. So, um, well, okay. So your review is that it's terrible, but to be fair to the production, you didn't actually see it.

No, I didn't see it at all. But what I would say is the audience experience is all part of the theatrical production. And the fact that I wasn't able to see it due to one very slight miscalculation that could have happened to absolutely anyone, so I just don't think we can call it a top shelf production if there is a chance that any totally rational member of the audience could miss seeing the entire thing. Okay, so your point of view is that the fact that you were able to watch it backwards is a failing of the production and not your own failing. Yes. Okay. Alright, well Rodney, not all is lost because obviously we also asked you to go out and

record some vox pops with members of the audience afterwards just to gauge the public response to the play. And did you? Yeah, we did ask response to the play. And did you? Yeah, we did ask you to do that. So maybe you could play some of those now and we can see what the audience, the ones who are facing the right way, thought of the Operetta. Right, yeah, let's, we'll do that now. Yeah, I've just got them here.

Beep! Er, well, I thought it was a magnificent production. I enjoyed the singing and the stagecraft. He liked it. Beep. There was another person who wasn't. Sorry. Who is that Rodney? Oh, that was the military gentleman who'd been in the audience and I spoke to him at the venue. Okay. I'll play another one. Sorry. We need to get on with this. So, beep.

Oh, I couldn't make head not tail of it. I come all the way out. Sorry, you interrupted the clip there. Sorry. That was a bit awkward. I'm going to stop you there, Rodney. No one in real life has got that accent. That's you putting on a voice. No, I don't know what you mean. That was just one of the clips that I recorded as requested at the theatrical venue, the theatre as it's called. So anyway, just one more.

Oh, and this audience member was very keen. Click. Beep. Oh yes, I thought it was very good when the actors were playing the characters in the production. Rodney, Rodney, Rodney. Beep. Yes. Okay, so that voice you're putting on then, you responded to me in that voice, which shows

me that that is. No, that was a woman, a human shows me that that is definitely a woman. That was a woman, a human woman. Oh, it was a woman. Yeah. Yeah. There was a woman I've spoke to and her husband had coincidentally called her just at the moment that you said something to me. So, so when she said, yeah, when she said yes, just then that was, that was in the clip itself. And then I, you will have heard also, I having stopped the clip said

yes as well in my different, this voice here now. Okay, Rodney. Well, okay. We might have to run this through HR, but I'm going to say that you're being demoted back to the website. Sorry, Rodney. That's... Try and do that and I'll sue the arse off you. Well best looking the right way in court. Can you give me a clue as to which way is the right way? Rodney, I'll see you back in the office on Monday. I'll see you in hell.

Oh, okay. We'll deal with this come Monday, Rodney. Okay. Okay. Alright, bye. I'm not one to be trifled with. Okay, bye. More after this. This episode is supported in part by Falmouth University's Comedy Writing MA, the only dedicated

Comedy Writing Masters degree on the market. If you've ever thought about getting into writing comedy, this could be good for you. Students at Falmouth University learn from an award-winning TV and audio comedy producer. You'll learn how to write comedy sketches, sitcoms, comedy dramas, and in general develop a body of work for multiple platforms including TV, audio, and online. Students, when they leave the MA course, they leave with a portfolio of scripts, treatments, responses to professional briefs and connections to people in the industry because the academic team there have professional backgrounds in comedy production. There are also guest master classes, and even though it's in beautiful Falmouth in Cornwall, you don't have to go

and live there. There are optional in-person events, but you can tap into Falmouth's pioneering creative community at a time and place that works for you. You can start your studies in January, May or September with part-time studies that fit into your schedule wherever you are in the world. Search for Falmouth online for more information. That's F-A-L-M-O-U-T-H. Falmouth! Falmouth! Now back to our big interview with Bob Truskothick. So let's talk a little bit about the symptoms of Jacobeanus Arse Syndrome. There's obviously one major symptom, the closing of the arse. Yes.

How does the disease progress after that? In a certain proportion of cattle, they may be observed to face southeast, although that may be unrelated. And then the symptom after that is death. Right. So is that certain death then for the cattle? Certain death, right. Quite certain death, I'm afraid. It's very distressing. Obviously, I mean, death, well, there's actually two modes of death.

There is obviously the pressure effects of the ass closing up, which is inevitable. But what is interesting is more common than that. And this really, science, the only explanation we have for this really But what is interesting is more common than that. The only explanation we have for this really is that the cow seems to die of a broken heart. Because it knows that its arse is closed? Arse is closed and identifies essentially as a vector for its own arse. What is a cow really?

I'll have a means by which a cow's arsehole is moved hither and thither. So its sense of self really is attacked by the fact that its asshole no longer works. Is gone and with that inevitably comes death. I mean we see death from broken heart in humans of course and swans and in this case in cattle as well. Obviously there's a big debate as to what you should do if your herd do get Jacobeania Sust syndrome. Obviously you should isolate the ones who have the illness. But obviously given that they are definitely going to die, what do you make of what some

farmers have been doing, which is simply to push them into an old quarry or some kind of gravel pit? Well, I actually am more of a supporter of what has been happening in Patagonia at the moment, where they are letting nature take its course after isolation and finding actually they're coming out the other end with some pretty exquisite tureens. Oh, so if you let nature take its course, the cow dies naturally, so to speak. Is that to do with the pressure inside the cow? Something to do with the pressure is squishing the offal in such a way that it makes a very,

it's a very rich pâté. Right. Interesting. Or tureen. Oh, I see. And so if you were just to push a cow into a lake or off into a ravine or something, you're missing out on that pate. It seems wasteful. And if you push it into gravel, which I know they're doing a lot in certainly the south

of France, the problem that causes is that if the pressure is immense enough, if it's been grazing a lot before it's ill, then you can get sort of minor explosions and that gravel can essentially is a form of shrapnel, really. Becomes a kind of nail bomb. Precisely. Bob, what should, we've got farmers listening, obviously they're all worried about what could happen.

If God forbid they do find that they look out onto their pasture and one of their cows has got a closed arsehole, Jacobinus Arse syndrome has come to visit upon them. What should be their first port of call? What should they do? Oh, register with your local beef information centre immediately, of course. They will alert government authorities. But the most important thing really is to not eat any mega quail that you may find on your land, not in any form.

Roasted, boiled, raw. Ideally they should be hunted down and destroyed. The average farmer obviously has shotguns and flamethrowers and it's really the latter you want to be leaning on at this point, that's why it's there. Okay. I mean, I don't know whether I should mention this really, but it's becoming so significant online that maybe we ought to. We're seeing a lot of stuff online, videos, posts on social media about the idea that the meat of a mega quail is, and I'm really

reticent to say this, a fifth meat. Just a word about that if you would, Bob. There are always these conspiracy theories. We live in an age of misinformation and disinformation where I mean, you'll remember back in the day, people talked about fifth meats, it could lead to a lot of trouble these days. You don't have to go far to find rumors about fifth meat. It's inevitable someone was going to start this little wildfire and it's nonsense. If you hear anyone talking about that, stamp it down hard, stamp on his neck. There is no such thing as a Fifth Meat. Sorry, when you say stamp on their neck, do you mean is that metaphorically speaking or literally stamp on their neck?

It depends. Try it metaphorically first and if that doesn't work, literally. We don't need that kind of talk. And I think again, your first port of call for that kind of sting, go to your local beef information centre, let them know. They will help deal with that. Yeah, exactly. And they have the resources, the beef information centre should have a paramilitary wing if need be and yeah, hit that hard. Absolutely.

Thank you, Bob. That's very much my own thoughts on the matter as well. Thank you. Okay. Well, let's move on from that. We announced on our website that we'd be talking to you, Bob. And so we asked network members to send in any questions they might have about Jacobinus R syndrome and we've had a number of them in. Sure. So first one is from Alan from County Durham. Right. He says, none of my herd currently have closed R syndrome, thank God, but if they did, would

I be able to catch it myself? I'm worried about the health of me and my family. There have been reports of human transmission, but much like with cows, as there is no counter cow transmission, there's no counter human transmission. It would have to be counter quail. So it would depend on, and I know we are talking about County Durham here, it would depend on Alan engaging in some sort of sexual contact with a mega quail. Right. If Alan was to partake in that, he'd be at great risk without barrier protection.

That's an interesting point, isn't it? If a human was to contract it, and as you say, there's only one way to do that. But I'm not so naive to think that people won't do that. Oh, people have been boning quails since the dawn of time. Man and Quail. It is a story as old as time itself. Quails have always been important heraldic symbols, symbols of their industrious nature, their deliciousness, and of course as a symbol for sexual profligacy and eroticism. On Roman mosaics, in the Bayer tapestry, the quail is often depicted as a euphemism for deranged lust. And I think we can understand the many men that have, and it is generally men, who have fallen by the wayside by giving

in to the natural urge to engage with the quail. It becomes something of a through line in history that military victories are celebrated with great orgies of quail abuse. In the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings, it's believed that William the Conqueror himself celebrated his victory by having sex with 1,066 quails, an orgy that's believed to have lasted up to seven days, and is depicted in the missing final panel of the Bayer Tapestry in which an impressively endowed and indeed impressively embroidered William is seen striding into Westminster Abbey, pursued by a coterie of 25 very upset quail farmers. So the next question is from Carol in Lisburn in Northern Ireland. Carol says, is it true

that cattle display other symptoms before the ass closes shut? And if this is true, could I, for example, notice one of these symptoms in my herd, jam something in the ass to stop it from closing? It's a great question. It's actually pretty tricky to identify before the earth starts to close up. In fact, the only sense we're certain about is in roughly 4% of cattle who are affected during the prodrome, they will face southeast. And if you've got other cattle in the herd who are also facing southeast for some other reason, that's quite hard.

But if you notice that there's a cow in your cattle herd facing southeast, but the other cows are facing another way, it's probably this. Plus, I understand the urge to put a bit of drain pipe or an old recorder or clarinet or something in the cow's ass, but the reality is the disease is so strong and the cow's ass is so powerful, it'll just smash that to smithereens in its own good time as the crushing comes. Oh, that's interesting. And that actually prefigures our next question. So Derek from Cornwall says, could I not get ahead of the disease and put something in the ass of all of my cattle to stop them from closing? I guess you've just answered that. It's incredibly strong.

Technically, the only way to preemptively prevent it would be to remove the ass in its entirety in a disease-free cow. Who's going to do that? Well, you've barely got a cow then. What are you left with really? Exactly. Exactly. It's a horrifying idea, but that's all we've got so far.

Is there nothing at all strong enough? Not some sort of diamond rod maybe? No, well again, you're talking about a cow's ass, aren't you? Do you know what I mean? And this takes me back to experiments done in MIT in Massachusetts back in the 60s where they tested, well in conjunction with NASA, they wanted to test the strength of various materials, your carbon fibers, your titaniums, your diamond rods, and none of it would withstand the clenching of a cow's arse during a bovine sneeze. And if I'm right, that's why the airlock on the lunar module, that's actually based on

a cow's arse. It is exactly right. Exactly right. And that's why it's the safest airlock going. And a final question from Harry in Norwich. Yeah. Harry says, I've begun to worry about this. I'm not a farmer myself.

I'm worried that this could lead to the worldwide extinction of cattle and the end of beef. I mean, Harry, that's some quite catastrophic thinking from Harry there, but I think, you know, it's worth thinking about, isn't it? Is this a big problem? Well, it could be. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I mean, obviously the end of beef is... It sounds like Harry's been reading a lot of dystopian fiction because that's a very common theme, isn't it? And in sci-fi world, the post beef universe, horrible stuff. Don't like it myself. Let's not get ahead of ourselves really. I think

we're more likely to see the eradication of quail first, the eradication of mankind second. I think that the bees will be here to stay. Okay. I mean, that's a, it's strange to call that a hopeful answer because you have invoked the end of mankind, but it is hopeful. I would find rather a world in which we were gone, but the cows were still there, then we're still here, but we haven't got any beef. Oh, I think, yeah, I think all of us would agree with that. But you invoke there the end of quail kind.

Is that something that you would argue for? Because I guess coming to the end of this conversation, I want to talk about potential ways out of this problem. You've mentioned that, you know, Mitchell's might be working on a cure perhaps, but some kind of widespread quail cull, should they stop selling quail 2.0? Is there a way of weeding out just the mega quail? Is there a way of stopping the quail 2.0, breeding with regular quail, just spitballing here, could we cut off all their dicks? It's not a bad shout and there is a growing lobby saying that we should just cut off quail

dicks. I actually think a new way is possible. I'm not worried about the destruction of quail kind personally, not least because I know that Mitchell's have always been developing alternatives to your grazing quail. They've got legless frogs, ambulant herring, there's various different things they're trying, none of it's quite working. Can I just ask actually, because I think a lot of people will be thinking, okay, what's wrong with grassland? And obviously I think, I might say that the vision for quail 2.0 is eventually we move to a place where a farm is actually a sort of, if you imagine the sort of the squash courts at the leisure center or a kind of basketball court, a kind of hard floored. Yeah, easily cleaned.

Yeah. Something you can hose off. Exactly. So the idea was to sort of replace the pasture land that takes up so much of the globe surface with these kind of multi-story concrete hubs, really a sort of multi-story car park of breeding cows. I think some people will be thinking, okay, maybe this is the first indication that that, you know, it might be a crazy idea, that isn't necessarily a good idea. And that maybe the traditional methods with pasture land and things are better?

Well, yeah, these people are give up Gordon's, aren't they? They're spineless sallies. And no, I think it's just what you expect teething problems. Of course you expect teething problems when you're trying to reimagine an entire ecosystem and get it right to improve profits. There's going to be teething troubles. So there again, you kind of demonstrate a certain amount of sympathy for Mitchell's, but at the same time you have come on here to tell the world that you believe that this syndrome is caused by their GM quails. It's quite a confusing position, I think, that you're taking. Not quite the whistleblower. Maybe a whistle-wearer, a whistle-nudger.

I've got a whistle. I don't want to, but they know what the cost is. Right. Are you worried about reprisals from the Mitchell's company after this interview? There's only so many reprisals a man can take in his life to still have fear of reprisals, really. I've had so many reprisals from various legal systems around the world, from Mitchell's themselves, from patients, from animals, farmers, child support, ombudsman. I mean, you name it, I've had reprisals all the live long day

my whole life. So I can do what I want, frankly. Okay. Put it this way for every pound I earn, slightly over 96 pence is ring fenced by various legal and social services authorities across the world. Right. So that's just automatically taken from you. It's just gone. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I can imagine you're mainly a sort of cash vet these days. I try to be where I can. Cash and edible goods. Well thank you for talking with us today Bob, this has been very enlightening. My pleasure. Maybe let's just finish with a little thank you to a man that we've never mentioned before in the podcast and I'm amazed we haven't. A big thank you, retrospectively, to Jacopinius Arse. Good old Jacopinius. And I will reiterate, it is actually worth visiting. It's stuffed

corpse in one of the closets in Neuschwanstein Castle. People can contact me online. I'll tell you which of the ushers it is. You need to slip 20 euros too. And in you go. As a keen young post-grad, I made the trip to Neuschwanstein as you kind of have to as a rite of passage in the history game and paid the little fee to go and take a look. It's really quite something. He is absolutely huge and smooth like mahogany, like a kind of wooden zeppelin trapped in a cupboard. It's quite something to behold. I would like to think that the expression on his face is one of pride. In fact, I would say he is bursting with pride. His eyes have burst with pride the the back of his head had burst open with pride and maggots and his testicles

were swollen with whatever amount of pride it takes to match the size and texture of a cantaloupe melon match the size and texture of a cantaloupe melon. A big thanks to Bob Truscothic and Professor James Harkin for those interviews. If you want more information about Jacobeanus Ars Syndrome, of course there is the Beef and Dairy Network website, or make your way to your local Beef Information Centre. And finally, we want to remind those of you affected that we are here for you. Not in any meaningful physical or concrete way, but we are here for you.

And remember, don't lie with a quail. Not this weekend. So that's all we've got time for this month, but if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to the website now where you'll find all the usual stuff, as well as our off-topic section where this month we see how good Sabrina Carpenter is at actual carpentry. So until next time, beef out. Thanks to Mike Wozniak, Mike Sheppard, Tom Crowley, and Lunae Sage. Hello, this is Alex. Hello, this is Katie.

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