Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 25 - Les Cheese's Heart

Episode Date: July 23, 2017

Tom Neenan and Tom Crowley join in for this episode in which we speak to Dr Sam Archer about why the National Health Service is refusing to treat Les Cheese after his double heart attack.   By Benjamin Partridge, Tom Neenan and Tom Crowley.   Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com   Tickets for Beef And Dairy Live at the London Podcast Festival on 16/09/17: http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/comedy/beef-and-dairy-network-podcast#.WXUNt1I1SRs

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is sponsored by Steel Hoof Deluxe, your favorite hoof-strengthening supplement from Mitchell's. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. We've recently received reports that counterfeit steel hoof is circulating on the black market. To be sure your product is genuine, look for the hoof hologram on the sack and that familiar burning feeling in your eyes. For 10% off your next order, find a coupon on the wind. Hello and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved or just, in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website and printed magazine,

brought to you by Steelhoof Deluxe. Last month, we heard from Wendy Axminster, who is starring on London's West End in a musical produced by Rosenthal Yoghurts about the Greek financial crisis that was supposed to star Les Cheese, the entertainer formerly of much-loved double act Cheese and Onion. However, after eating hundreds of litres of yoghurt both during rehearsals and the opening week of the show, Les suffered two heart attacks at the same time. Since then, Les has been in the news once more,

after the decision was made by the National Health Service to refuse him treatment on the grounds that he doesn't have a human heart. You may remember that following his last heart attack on the eve of the British Beef Council annual dinner and barn dance, network members were kind enough to source a replacement heart for him. It transpires that that heart was a bull's heart and this week the National Health Service released the following statement. Here at the NHS, we value Les's contribution to entertainment over the past 40 years, not to mention his tireless work for the Biafran National Front. However, contrary to popular belief, laughter is actually one of the worst medicines, and Les's yoghurt-filled cow heart requires extensive treatment. Treatment that we simply cannot provide. Bringing an animal heart to a human hospital is like taking a boat to a car mechanic, or asking a blacksmith to restore

an old wooden carving of a dog. Sorry, I don't know why I use that simile. I'll be honest, I'm not very good at this. To find out more, I spoke to Dr Sam Archer, a doctor best known for his appearances on BBC Radio 4's Doctor Heal Thyself and Channel 4's Cry Yourself Thin. Dr Archer is also the Cheezys family doctor, and when Les had his heart attack, he went straight to the hospital that Les had been taken to, St Winifred's Hospital for Ageing Entertainers and Their Dreadful Families. I met Dr Archer at his practice in central London.

I met Dr Archer at his practice in central London. When you arrived at the hospital where he'd been taken after his double heart attack, what did the doctors tell you when you arrived? So I walked into the hospital and the doctor took me to one side. They put his hand on my shoulder. He looked me in the eyes and he said, his heart's fucked. Right, Yeah. So once the doctors had determined that what the problem was, is that his heart was fucked.

What course of action did they then take? So they wanted to get him open as soon as possible. They just wanted to open him up and see if they could begin the process of defucking his heart. Les's heart was not a human heart. Les had a cow's heart. They weren't prepared for it. It was really confusing and really distressing for those people, but that wasn't where it ended. Right. How do you mean?

Les had had his heart replaced with a bull's heart. That wasn't the end to the process of replacing Les's organs with animals' organs. Doing more rummaging around, they discovered that his stomach was the stomach of a lamb. He had pork liver, and a lot of his bone marrow had been sourced from numerous small birds. Really? So when he was opened up, and I can imagine it now, the kind of pulling open the flesh. Yes, like a book, like a big, like a human book, just that you're starting midway through. So then you open it up and then there's the contents of the book. Yeah.

Was there anything in there that the doctor would expect to see? It's almost like, I don't know, if you can imagine your favourite sitcom where every single actor has been replaced, that was what they were dealing with. So it was kind of familiar in form. Yes. But then the specifics.

Completely, completely about face. So it's as if you're, as you say, you're watching Friends, but Joey Tribbiani is played by Hillary Clinton. Exactly. And I don't think anyone wants that. What had been going on here? Why had and how had Les done this?

So the cow's heart replacement had been really successful. Les had never felt better. He was on top of his game. He felt like it had given him a new lease of life. And then he thought, how can I keep this feeling going? So he set about trying to replace parts of his body with those of an animal whenever they started to fail him. So you weren't actually in the operating theatre when all this was discovered? Because you're not a surgeon? No, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to actually be in the surgery at all.

So I was stood outside and all I was doing was hearing some of the comments which were being shouted by the surgeon through to get some information. They'd open them up and immediately I'd hear things like wolf spleen, the renal system of a whale, dog's penis. And from that, I was just piecing together an idea about what Les had been doing to himself over the last six months or so. Now, you're Les's GP.

Yes. Surely you knew about this. So I have a good relationship with Les, but there would be situations where I wasn't aware of things like I should be aware of maybe like the dog's penis. No, because I remember the last time he came in for a checkup I said would you like to take your clothes off behind that screen and he took all his clothes off apart from a Victorian gentleman's bathing suit that was stripy and went from his neck all the way down to his knees of course if I'd insisted

upon it I would have seen that that dog's penis and I would have been like something is something's happening here and I need to look into this further but But I didn't and I will regret that, I think. Had you been able to persuade him to take off that Victorian gentleman's swimming outfit and you'd have seen the dog's penis and also I would imagine a number of scars across his abdomen as he was sort of treating himself like a human Mr Potato Head, just swapping out body parts and putting animal bits. What would you have said to him then if you'd known? I would have sat him down and I would have said there

are organisations that can help you. Organisations like Stecra, which is an organisation run by a man called Daryl Skip. And he helps people who are obsessed with replacing their organs with those of an animal. And he knows what he's talking about. Both of his eyes are squid's eyes. He hasn't got human eyes anymore, just two squid's eyes? Two giant squid's eyes. Do they fit on his head? Not at all, no. He's an absolute aberration to look at.

But it's okay because he does most of his counselling over the phone. The big issue for Les now, and it's been in the news this weekend, was confirmed by the Health Secretary in Parliament this week, was that the National Health Service will not treat Les in his current state because, as they say, those organs aren't human. The NHS is there to treat human ailments. And also, from the point of view of the doctors, they've come out and said very strongly,

well, you know, I don't know what to do when I'm faced with a rhino's gut for example they haven't trained for this where does that leave les i mean yeah les is a case known as a menagerie case where he's he's made up of too many different creatures to really be the responsibility of a human doctor so i'm afraid that means that he's sort of reliant on the help of backstreet vets. Now, backstreet vets is at the centre of this whole thing because that's kind of how he got in this place in the first place. Now, I didn't even know that these backstreet vets operated. Yeah. But these are these people who they had, from what I can tell, they had respectable veterinary careers, were maybe struck off or decided, lured away by the greater money available

on the streets and will, for the right amount of money, source you the organ you want and whack it in your body. So yeah, these are people who have maybe lost their license to practice as a veterinarian because they've maybe done something which is considered, you know, an aberration to nature. So there's a case of uh there's one vet who was asked to operate on a racehorse to give the racehorse uh wheels essentially so that it would win every time um and so they did this and of course they were immediately struck off because that just that just isn't acceptable and yes and he's now in the hands of these people and hopefully they'll treat him well but i mean these are the people who got him in this situation in the first place.

Is there a suggestion that maybe it's not the many litres of yoghurt that he ate that led to the heart attack, but, and some people have been writing in the papers this week about this, about how there's an imbalance within Les's body. You've got a bull's heart that's having to power the rhino's gut. Well, I'm afraid this is where science and religion are at a bit of an impasse because there are those who say scientifically you have that many animals organs going in one body that's inevitably going to cause trouble and then you've got the people the the religious community who point to noah's ark and say all of those animals were able to

live harmoniously on one ship and in a sense les's body is like the ark and so that's where we're at at the minute there's this there's this back and forth going on between that personally i consider myself a religious man i go to temple twice a week but i think that it is wrong to have that many uh animals organs in in one man so you don't buy the sort of ark idea i think it's that we'd all love to believe it, wouldn't we? We'd all find a lot of comfort in believing that Les Cheese's body is like Noah's Ark. But I just don't think it's true. Do you think Les would survive a huge flood?

Possibly, yeah. He has an alarming amount of duck in him that might mean that he's in a better position than anyone really to survive a flood. More after this. Hey guys, this is Adam Conover. You may know me from my true TV show, Adam Ruins Everything. he's in a better position than anyone really to survive a flood. More after this. really going deep and getting into the fascinating details of their work. Find Adam Ruins Everything wherever you get your podcasts or at MaximumFun.org. There is an awkward situation here where the very people who got him into this predicament, packing him full of animal bits, are now his only hope of being saved. And he is in their hands at the moment? Yeah, so I spoke to him the other day and he's got

his first appointment with uh with one of the vets next week this is one of the more reputable vets he was only struck off because it was his job back in the days when they used monkeys to advertise cigarettes he was the man who would every three weeks just rip out the monkey's old lungs and replace them with new lungs so he's sort of one of the more reputable backstreet vets but nevertheless he doesn't have a license so he just it's in the hands of him and we hope he does well. How widespread are these backstreet vets? And is it something that we need to worry about? Is this something that is getting out of hand? Go to a major city, walk down the street. If you walk past 30 people, two of those people may well have animal organs. The hair on that guy's head may

be from a chinchilla. That woman's horn from a rhino may be. It's very widespread. What do you think is driving people to do this? I think it divides into two. I think there are those who have legitimate concerns. They're on a waiting list for a new organ and they spend their entire day just twiddling their thumbs waiting for that road traffic accident to happen and to them to find out they've actually got that replacement organ. I understand the desperation of that. I still think you should hold out for a human organ, but I get it. The other side is purely cosmetic and that I don't understand. There are people out there who think that their whole life would be more complete if

their entire back was the hide of a buffalo. And to those people, I'd say think twice before going into this. Do you really need a horse's fetlocks? Probably not. You can get on as you are. It may seem really cool. Someone may come into school and they've got a camel's tongue. Great. But it's a trend that isn't worth going. You don't go down that road. It's a trend that isn't worth going down that road. Someone who has gone down that road is Londoner Julian Alderman, who had his first cosmetic animal transplant last year. Julian is in exactly the sort of demographic that are having these procedures,

young men with above-average income who are also a bit of an arsehole. His interest began when one of his colleagues came into work after having an operation at the hands of a backstreet vet. We were all at work one day, it was a Friday afternoon, and he came back from lunch hour and he'd had a narwhal's horn stuck on his forehead and we thought, oh my god, what joke's that, is there a strap on it? And he said, no, I've actually had that implanted in my forehead. And this thing was four or five foot long, and it's almost doubled his height. And we said, well, my God, Sebastian, how did you get that thing put in?

And he said, well, it's a really simple process. He said they had like a melon baller, sort of ice cream scoop thing, and they took just a little bit of a chunk out of his forehead and they just had to sort of push it in and turn it round. I said to Sebastian, how much did that cost? And he said it was an absolute bargain at £40,000. And I said, for the procedure and the horn? He said, no, the horn was extra, that was £100,000

because they're very rare, very near extinct. In fact, actually, since he's had it on I've noticed a lot of vans following him around with tinted windows so I said to Sebastian where did you get it and he told me about this fantastic guy his name's Dr Valdes and so I found him he sat me down and absolutely free of charge he gave me a consultation on the options he had available and in stock and he said well what would you like would you like a cockerel's eyeball or would you like a hoof and i wasn't sure about any of those but then he offered um a chicken's anus and i said oh my god that sounds absolutely fantastic and ever since i had the procedure i've just felt like so much more confident

it's been absolutely wonderful you might not believe this looking at me now but i was quite a wallflower, actually, before the whole chicken anus thing. At parties, I'd always feel uncomfortable. But now I really feel like I've moved up the pecking order, so to speak. You've just noticed people asking you more about it. It's a great conversation starter. And all those really booze-fuelled events,

especially any sort of conference, you'll find the news travels fast. And after a while, people will start-fueled events, especially any sort of conference, you'll find, and the news travels fast, and after a while people will start, you know, the chanting will begin, let's see your chicken's anus, and something like that, and it'll build and build, till, you know, there's no choice,

and I'll spread my cheeks, so everyone will have a ruddy good laugh at that, and people go absolutely wild, it's an absolute joy, and after that I normally just go home and cry It's an absolute joy. And after that, I normally just go home and cry for two or three hours. I don't know if I'm happy or sad and that's why I'm crying. All I know is that I feel a very, very powerful urge to cry when I get home and I cannot stop.

so people are saying you know hold your horses julian be careful because it can be addictive it's it's like getting too many tattoos or piercings you know it's that body modification thing and i have to admit i'm trying to be cautious but i have been saving up for quite a few months now. Because I spoke to Dr Valdez, and it's very possible, if I'm a good boy with the pennies over the next few months, I might be able to have a beak. Beak. Beak. Beak.

Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Beak. Hello?

Dr. Valdi, listen, could you please call me back whenever you get this message? I want to reverse the surgery. I don't need a beak. I don't want a beak. Dr. Valdi, I don't need a beak. I don't want a beak. Dr. Valdez, I don't want a beak. I don't need a beak. Take the beak off me. I don't need a beak. Dr. Valdez!

Hello. Don't worry. Don't worry. The anesthetic will kick in soon. Dr Valdez, Dr Valdez please, please call back. I don't want a beak. I want to reverse the surgery, please. Dr. Valdez! Head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, liver, anus, head, lungs, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus, liver, anus For God's sake, I don't need a beak. I just want a normal mouth. I just want a normal mouth.

This fucking beak. I can't even kiss my wife. This fucking beak. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. Enjoy. I'm getting busy! Good night. Enjoy your beach. There's a whole other element to this which we haven't touched on yet which is that these organs do come from living animals yeah is it a legal activity to remove a part of an animal where are these animals coming from some of them as you say uh seem to be quite exotic

especially the more cosmetic end of the industry where people just want to show off you know they want a bird of paradise plume coming out the back of their head. They want a dolphin's blowhole. Sure. Where are they getting them from? What's happening is that people are exploiting legal loopholes. Poaching is illegal. But if you're really quick and the animal doesn't know that its organ's gone,

you're just in and out really quickly and the animal's still walking around for a good day or two before it realises it doesn't have a spine, then you've exploited this loophole. That's technically legal. Imagine how it's illegal to smash up a restaurant, but it's perfectly legal to whip a tablecloth from underneath a lot of glasses that sort of stay on the table. It's very similar to that. Is this a new phenomenon? Is this something that's been happening recently recently or has this been going on for a while this has been going on for centuries you need only look at british history we have uh richard the lionheart had a lion's heart william henhead the head of a hen very successful king yeah because obviously you learn about um richard the lionheart and william henhead in school but you don't think of actually what that actually meant.

Exactly. You only sort of see drawings and things, but you never actually fully think, oh, yeah, this Hen is... And they were so bad at drawing back in the Middle Ages, you just thought, well, they've just fucked that head up. But actually it was, he actually had a hen's head. Exactly. And he was known as a very fair king, a very benevolent king.

And is that something you think that came from the hen? Possibly. It's very possible. In truth, hens aren't capable of being that evil. They sort of have a very basic life. And if you think about the rule of William Henhead, a lot of it was to do with grain taxation, which he lifted, which was really helpful for a lot of people. He did very little else other than that, really that really but yeah he was a pretty benevolent king do you think maybe modern rulers could look back and learn something about about ruling from william henhead and maybe maybe you know we've i've sort of framed this whole thing as as maybe a bad thing the idea of replacing body parts and it being a bit of a medical problem from your point of view but you know maybe if ang Angela Merkel, you know, had a dorsal fin.

The world would be different. Imagine the G8 talking to Macron with his panda nose. It would be a different world, a better world, maybe. So the vets that are currently looking after Les, have they been able to save that bull's heart that the NHS decided they wouldn't operate on? No, that heart is fucked. So in the instance of that heart being completely fucked,

they have decided to go instead, I think, for a donkey's heart, they thought would be more appropriate for Les. Either that or what they're going to try and do is they're going to try and link up about two or three thousand hummingbird hearts, all fizzing like a beehive or just at the centre of Les there, whirring away like the clockwork heart of a tin soldier. Right. And of course, with that, if one of those thousand hearts has a heart attack and fails, it doesn't take down the whole lot. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. There isn't that awful um christmas tree lights effect uh no just we just take out that one heart with a pair of tweezers and he just sort of carries on

going as normal and i've often thought to myself often when watching um les god i hope les never dies oh yeah because obviously that day you know he's a national treasure it'll be months of national mourning of course you know the kind of thing we haven't seen since the death of Princess Diana. And he is getting on in years now. Is there not a way that through the continuing renewal and replacement of the organs within him, he could become immortal? Yeah, that's entirely possible.

I was talking to Les about this, actually. I was like, he said to me, oh, you never know, keep replacing the bits and I could live forever. And I said, yeah, Les, although more accurately, you'd be sort of living a kind of perpetual living death and we had a laugh about that I remember once I saw Les do a pantomime in a theatre by the coast and the the sea air had eroded this theatre so it was just an absolute crumbling state but the cast were doing really

well and what better analogy for Les's organs operating in his decaying shell of a body, really. It's delightful to think about. And finally, what's next for Les? Will he be with the vets for a while or is it... He'll be with the vets for some time. It's up to them now to replace his heart, to sort of give an MOT to all of the different organs. But yeah, I think we can look forward to seeing Les back on his feet after an excruciatingly painful six months. Les, if you're listening, from all of us here at the network, get well soon. You will get through this, just like you got through that 10-year court case after it transpired you'd never paid any tax.

I think this letter from a listener best sums up our feelings. Gabrielle Monk writes, best sums up our feelings. Gabrielle Monk writes, When I was just nine years old, my uncle and aunts took me to see Cheese and Onion's Gouda Thunkit tour at the Theatre Royal in Morecambe. Of course, I had seen them on TV. I was a huge fan of their kids' show, Quiche Busters,

but nothing could prepare me for how funny they were live. At one point I was laughing so hard I puked all over my aunt's new dress. But she didn't mind. She was also puking uncontrollably into a bag because of the sheer frequency and intensity of the gags, rude skits and double entendres. In between spews she would look up at me with these big bloodshot eyes and say, this is it darling. It doesn't get better than this. This is it. After a rip-roaring three hours of comedy, songs, dancing and spot-on impressions of Neil Kinnock, they came to sing their closing number, That Shallot, and I realised it was the end. I began sobbing inconsolably. I wanted nothing more than for the show to carry on. Having never seen them live before, I didn't know that their

shows always had a false ending, and that moments later they'd be back on stage for the show to carry on. Having never seen them live before, I didn't know that their shows always had a false ending, and that moments later they'd be back on stage for the big encore, their bawdy charity single, She'd Never Had Cheese and Onion Before. When I heard about Les's double heart attack, I was beside myself. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried, but then I thought back to that evening in Morecambe in 1983,

and how the end wasn't the end. This isn't curtains for Les. It's just a false ending. There's still an encore to come. I hope you're right, Gabrielle. Get well soon, Les. So, that's all we've got time for this month. But if you're after more beef and dairy news

get over to our website now where you can read all the usual stuff as well as our off-topic section where this month we really put apples under the spotlight what's going on what's their deal what do they want so until next time, beef out. Thanks to Tom Neenan and Tom Crowley. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, why not give us a good review on iTunes or tell a friend and get them into the show. Also, if you live in London or nearby, there are still tickets available to our live show,

which is taking place as part of the London Podcast Festival. It's happening on the 16th of September, which is a Saturday. And to find tickets, just go on the search engine and put in London Podcast Festival Beef and Dairy Network

and it should come up. If you have any trouble finding tickets, you can contact us on our Twitter, which is at Beef and Dairy, or you can email us on beefanddairynetwork at gmail.com. Thanks. A lot of times my instincts are wrong. They're mostly wrong, but they're not wrong in the sense

that I misread somebody. They're just extremely limited to my idea of who they are. That was Mark Maron. I'm Jesse Thorne. I'm the host of NPR's Bullseye. I'm so excited to tell you about my new show, The Turnaround. Join me as I sit down with some of the best interviewers in the world to ask them about how and why they do what they do. We'll go deep. Some of the biggest names in media, everybody from Terry Gross to Jerry Springer to Combat Jack.

That's all on The Turnaround, two episodes a week this summer. Subscribe now. Tell a friend.