Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 65 - Exotic Seeds Breeding Paddock

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

Marek Larwood, Mike Wozniak, Matthew Crosby, Clarissa Maycock and Tom Crowley join in as we find out about an exciting new scheme to breed a new kind of cow.By Benjamin Partridge, Marek Larwood, Mike Wozniak, Matthew Crosby, Clarissa Maycock. Thanks to Tom Crowley.Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is sponsored by Smooth Girl, the new cattle shaving system from Mitchell's. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. The Smooth Girl system guarantees that your livestock will be butter smooth. And our research shows that if you grease them up, you'll be able to fit up to 20% more cattle into your barn space than before. For 10% off your next pallet of Smooth Girl, simply use the code GREASEMEGREASEME. 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 and printed magazine, brought to you by the new Smooth Girl cattle shaving system from Mitchells.

Now, Friesian, the Belted Galloway, the Australian Brangus, Dwarf Lulu, the Estonian Red, Pusatala Sprinson, Ramo Grande, Valdostana Castana, Villinian Beef. Not just nicknames that I've been given by lovers over the years, but breeds of cattle that we all know and love. And of course, through a process of selected breeding, new breeds are being created all the time. In fact, this year alone, we've seen the inception of the bearded short-legged long-tail Worcestershire, the fat-uddered Mary and the milkbuster 5000. This sort of selected breeding is, of course, second nature to the beef industry. But this month, I spoke to Barry Mizen of the Exotic Seeds Breeding Paddock, who has set up a Kickstarter to raise money for a project

that takes things one step further. Hello, my name's Barry Myson. I asked Barry to explain his plan. Cross-breeding animals that wouldn't normally do it with each other to create a new cow, which is a much better sort of ultra cow. So Barry intends not to worry so much about breeding within species, but to start breeding across species. I asked him how he thinks it's going to work.

It's not going to be just one step and you've created an ultra cow. I'm not an idiot. You're not suddenly going to get that cow to mate with a fish and get some sort of whale cow that's not going to happen overnight you need to get stages so you would have to probably get that cow with some sort of the what like a beaver or something like that that does go into the water you do that one stage one next one you go all right i get the cow beaver child then you go for something a bit more fishy i just think in an eel but i think that might be too much

a bigger jump say they go say it works out you've got the eel so you've got the cow beaver eel then you can start going right let's go oceanic on this. Let's get that eel. Let's get some big thing in there, octopus. Get hold of that. Do it. Then you're ready for the whale. That's all if each stage works out.

There's going to be problems. It might not happen in the next 10 years. We might be looking at about 20 years or something like that. But the thing you're looking for when you're sort of in your head designing this new thing is that principally it's going to live underwater. Is that the idea? Well, you've got all those fields. It's wasted land, isn't it?

There's twice as much or three times, I don't know how much more ocean there is, and it goes deeper. So you're looking at fields just flat i'm only putting cows in one surface in the field an ocean you've got loads of different levels for the sea cows i think there's something already called sea cows it's not the same i'd have to do it i have to try and copyright that right and then you'd get the what you have the cows in there out of the way from everyone and then when they died everyone knows they float to the top you go around in the boat picking up the dead cows and right so that's your vision for the future of the beef industry that is one vision that's the sea vision oh i see so it's not just one ultra cow you're thinking of a whole suite of sort of augmented cattle.

Yes. I mean, it could be an oil slick, for example. Then it suddenly kills all the cows for that year. Right. So you're going to need other species of it. I don't know what the taste is going to be like because a lot of it's going to come down to taste. Well, yeah. I mean, that's going to be like, because a lot of it is going to come down to taste. Well, yeah.

I mean, that's going to be a big issue, right? Will it have that classic beef taste that we all love? Or once you start breeding with beavers and eels, is it going to start tasting a bit beavery? Is it going to start tasting a bit eely? Well, I've tried all those animals, and they are the most beef-tasting animals of that level. I see.

So I've gone through and I've tried, look, there's otter, ferret, wet ferret. I've tried them all, and I thought, beaver, that's the one for me. There's notter, like a ferret, like a wet ferret. I tried them all and I thought, that's the one for me. There's not much difference. If you close your eyes, it's very difficult to tell the difference. And you should be able to take the edge of it

just by feeding them beef stock cubes. And that'll just, if anything, they'll taste more like a cow if that's possible. I'm sure people will be listening thinking this is very enterprising this is very forward thinking um this is potentially revolutionary why do you think no one's had this idea before i don't think people have thought of it really might it might it be just just a suggestion that it's kind of biologically impossible to crossbreed species that are so

different well explain the science to me explain explain the science to me well you know it is possible to crossbreed some species that are very similar so a donkey and a horse can have a child um and that that's a mule i think right not heard of it but they are the mule is then sterile it can't reproduce itself because it's a thing to do with chromosomes i'm i'm not a scientist so i don't know it's just yeah you don't you don't you're not making much sense to me to be fair if you look at the broader picture if you look at it like dinosaurs yeah and then suddenly that that's all there were were dinosaurs and jellyfish and things like that and then suddenly cut to 2020 you've got dogs cats tigers leopards uh where they all come from that's my question to you where they come from yeah so again as i said i'm not a scientist but

you know charles darwin wrote that book the origin of species which is kind of all about exactly this is how do we get to the stage where there are all these different kinds of animals well that's a problem that's a problem itself isn't that's a problem how old is that book now what 30 years i mean yeah well quite significantly more than that. It's 150 years old. Well, there we go. We're relying on some 150-year-old texts before people even had calculators for providing us with the science for now. And that's, oh, right, we'll just listen to this Charles Darwin bloke because, oh, he's on a £10 note.

Is that the way you want to think? Is that the way you want to think? Is that the way you want your future to be decided? As far as I know, mainstream science still regards Charles Darwin's work as being relevant. But as

I say, I'm not, I don't profess to actually understand this stuff, really. It's difficult to understand. It's difficult to understand for people the first time they... The first time you hear this, it this stuff, really. It's difficult to understand. It's difficult to understand for people the first time. The first time you hear this, it's all alien thoughts. It's all big thoughts, all juggling around in people's heads. And a lot of people haven't got the capacity to cope with it. And luckily, that's what I'm here for.

Well, let's talk about that because you've set up your Kickstarter. And so obviously, you're not able to do this using your own money by the sounds of things because you're you're asking for quite a lot of money here currently the fundraising goal is 45 million pounds yes yes what is this money going to be used for what do you need to do this well and i need the animals don't i and i'm going to need quite a lot to try and expand this quite quickly and now is the time to do it because i've got a contact at a safari park and they're going out of business and they're looking for a way to make money fast and i've got a deal, a rental deal. He's going to do me on the animals during the winter when no one's going to safari parks.

These animals are bored and they're not making any money. I'm offering an opportunity for these animals to be rented out for sex from the safari park bloke. It gives the animals something to do. It's a bit of fun. And also, he suggested that maybe that could be filmed as another source of income

to keep that safari parking business. When you say this is going to be filmed, do you mean you're going to make a sort of documentary about the process? Or do you mean you're going to make a documentary about the process or do you mean you're literally just releasing raw footage of the animals copulating? This isn't really much. This is part of the deal.

He said, oh, I can get you the animals. Do you mind if I film it so I know some people will be interested in this sort of stuff? And that will cover a lot of the money from my side of it and i could put some of the money back into that so i said yeah all right you can film it you know just a broad you haven't you haven't asked too many questions no i mean it's just he's going to deal with that he comes into contact with a lot of people who very very very big fans of certain animals who've asked if they can see stuff

and this is a way of helping their dreams come true and progressing science what i don't understand is why do you need the 45 million pounds because he sounds like he's you know he's got his own little racket going he's making money that is how much that's how much you need for a multi a multi-global business these days. A lot of it's insurance as well, I suppose, and I would need some space. At the moment, I have got some space limitations, so I would need access to cages and some weaponry should the animals get out of hand.

So it's described as the exotic seeds breeding paddock. You don't currently have a premises? I have got a space for it. What's the nature of that space? Well, it's a sort of a micro field. I think you'd call it sort of an 8 foot by 11 foot grass space with a slight patio on one side. And if you moved the slide back, that would be all clear space for the activity.

So it's your garden? Well, I'm not using it as that. It's a microfield. Right. And your plan is then to introduce the animals from the safari park into your microfield with a cow? Have you got the cow yet? Yes, I have got the cow. Right.

Great. So that £45 million, I'm not asking for that any money for the cow at all that's come out of my own money that's me putting my money into it okay so so let's move on from the financial side of things and and and talk about ethics i think certainly some people will think this is ethically dubious and certainly you know it raises some ethical questions, doesn't it? Well, let's go through them then. Let's go through... See, these people, ethically dubious, these are words that you just put on new ideas

to try and crush new ideas. All right, that's ethically dubious. Everything's ethically dubious until it becomes mainstream. Let's talk about interbreeding with different species. You tell me that one day, not just one day in your life, you've looked at an animal and just thought, if I wasn't held back by what the ideas have penetrated my head about what is love

and how does that manifest itself. If I didn't have that, would I have acted upon this animal, so to speak? Honestly, I've never had that thought. Never. I've never had that thought. Never. You try and tell me that not one day of your life you've just thought, hmm, just maybe. If no one ever knew, if it was just me and this animal,

then what? Then what would happen? Well, again, no. I honestly haven't had that thought but also i really don't understand what what that has got to do with you know there's no there's no humans involved as far as i'm aware in your in your plan to breed i mean are there are there humans involved i feel i feel like this is getting away from the point of it and this is turning in this is what this is my frustration from the point of it. And this is turning in.

This is what this is my frustration with this idea. I'm trying to help people out and they just turn it around and say, all right, you're in. What made you think of this? And it's turned into this weird, I don't like the way we're going with this particular route. And I think it's going to put people off putting money into the Kickstarter.

Yeah. But you literally brought this up. I didn't mention human beings in this context at all. And then you started talking about whether I'd ever fantasised about romancing an animal, to put it in a more palatable way. That wasn't me. That was you. Right.

Well, here is the point. If you just let me... Sorry, I don't mean to raise my voice. This is the point. If it's acceptable for me, if I'm thinking I'm okay with it, then... Yeah, but it's not acceptable. Yeah, not acceptable for you. So I say it's acceptable for 50% of people if you take me and you as the poll.

No. 50% of people think it's acceptable. No. So, therefore, if an animal is doing it, if I take two animals to breed with the cow, one of those animals wants to do it. No. No. No.

That's a no from me. It's about time that question was raised and i'm the flagpole that's i'm gonna raise the question and i'm the flagpole the human flagpole that's gonna raise it okay barry well put parking that what if those people are saying he's just a pervert he's after our money it's a scam science tells us that what he's planning to do can't be done he's going to disappear off with his money and his animals and do god knows what just put some minds at rest here because there'll be some people wondering whether to put their hands in their pocket as we as we speak well the person you're talking about sounds like some religious nutcase stuck in and 1990s maybe 1980s i don't want that sort of person's money and they're the sort of people who you know poo-pooed the

industrial revolution what i'm doing is a new revolution it's going to be big and so what you don't want to invest in the future when people are getting these whale cow meat and you're not going to be able to have any because you don't put any money in and you look at your children and they're there in their rags because you can't afford to feed them because you were so backdated in your ideas that you've starved your own children to death or worse. Thank you, Barry. Thanks very much. Thanks for having me on the show. Thank you to Barry for that interview. And to be honest, for the first time in my interviewing career,

I felt like I hadn't done a great job on that one. I was no clearer by the end of the interview whether what Barry was planning to do was realistic or the sick pipe dream of a pervert. When you're interviewing someone so clearly mentally sharp as Barry, you really have to have every base covered. But my lack of scientific knowledge had let me down. My entire life, I've concerned myself not with science, but with art. The art of beef.

From my half-remembered school science lessons, I had an inkling that Charles Darwin was somehow key to this, but my lack of knowledge had left me floundering during the interview with Barry. There was only one thing for it. It was time to read Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Pigeons with short beaks have small feet, and those with long beaks, large feet. Compare the English carrier and the short-faced tumbler and see the wonderful difference in their beaks.

The turbot has a short and conical beak. and conical beak. The beak of a shoveler duck, spatula clipeata, is a more beautiful and complex structure than the mouth of a whale. God in heaven, grant me a beak! In the Egyptian goose, In heaven, grant me a beak. In the Egyptian goose, Kenalopex, the beak closely resembles that of the common duck. Hmm. So it's just all about beaks. It's all about beaks, yeah?

Yeah. Yeah, it's just all beaks. Having some of darwin's work i was still no clearer it was time to speak to someone with a scientific mind and luckily they're also a friend of the show hello i'm bob triscothic former bovine arse vet i asked bob whether it was possible for animals of different species to breed successfully these sorts of atrocities are far more prevalent than you might imagine. It turns out that vets across the world regularly have to exterminate new species created by people like Barry. This has been something that's been going on for a very long time indeed. eat and the um the veterinary industry has a responsibility to to deal with the products of these experiments when a new hybrid animal is detected a vet is selected and alerted very

quickly that vet is expected to drop absolutely everything immediately and get to the target location as fast as possible and as soon as you are at the target location you find the creature and you kill it right you kill it hard so so when you were working as a vet how often were you having to exterminate these these new animals for me personally it would be probably once every two or three months i think with other other vets slightly less frequently maybe once or twice a year i was generally quite trusted with these kinds of jobs, which were generally thought of as a bit more back alley. But yes, you might just be dealing with your surgery and you typically get a call on the burner phone that all vets are advised to get. And you will be called to go to Shetland to deal with a cross of an alpaca with a goose, for example. You might be in Carmarthen, where someone

has managed to successfully breed a barn owl with an ocelot. I've done international jobs as well. I was once just on the outskirts of Vancouver to deal with a crossbreed of a sea otter with a beaver, which I think on hindsight, we actually did a post-mortem on that one. It was just a minging beaver. So in your experience, who are these people creating these new species? Well, it varies enormously. Most of it happens at the cottage industry level. These are sort of ambitious amateur scientists, farmers. Sometimes it's out of curiosity. Usually it's to try and rear some unusual meat for sort of bespoke restaurants and so on. Sometimes it's to enhance your agricultural output. I was in East Riding of Yorkshire, where a farming family had managed to successfully breed their cattle with vultures because they had some wooded pasture land and they wanted

to have a herd that was tree dwelling. So effectively, they had a sort of bunk bedded sort of stacked double herd some grazing on the the floor of the woodland and others um nesting in the trees above but of course they also they fed on carrion as well the the tree dwelling uh vulture crossbreeds and uh and the meat they produced when they died was absolutely rank so these vcow hybrids, what were they like? They were very aggressive. They would effectively piss milk on anything that walked below them. They were also fiercely territorial of their nests. Part of the reason it came to our attention was because the guy who jobbed them in, his son was a young poacher, and this young lad had been crawling up into the nests

to look for cow's eggs understandably thinking these might be very valuable and he was pissed to death with hot bitter milk gosh so tell me about your experience with dealing with these animals you get to the place and and there it is a brand new species never seen before yeah isn't that really quite a special thing well it's an aberration you know if david attenborough was there i don't think he'd be happy with you having to exterminate it i mean the man the man's a soft touch do you know what i mean you know i mean he's national treasure blah blah blah you know i mean don't get me started on bloody david attenborough

frankly because uh you know the man the man doesn't have the spine to kill when he when he knows he should kill. I've said that to him. So you're saying that if David Attenborough saw a new species that had been created by crossbreeding... He wouldn't intervene. The old wouldn't intervene. It's the easiest out of the, you know, of the wet rag.

Don't intervene. Yes, intervene. Of course you should intervene. We're in charge for crying out loud. Intervene. Kill it. So to look at it from David Attenborough's point of view, presented with a never-seen-before species,

isn't there some sort of... There's beauty there, isn't there? There's horror. The important thing is to kill them early. That would be my advice. If anyone is thing is to kill it kill them early that's i mean that would be my advice if anyone is getting into this game you know kill them early you don't have any feelings of you don't get any sentimental feelings towards them when you look at them you don't you don't have any feelings that you need me my job for decades i i mean i i have i have killed literally thousands of kittens for my job, right?

Kittens, professionally, right? Not as a hobby, not out of... It doesn't give me pleasure, you know? So no, I'm unmoved. I mean, one of the last ones I did, for example, and this was tricky because you should kill them early, but this one had been left for weeks and it had grown to quite a size. Someone had managed to successfully breed a puff adder with a moth. And that was f***ing terrifying. and it was you could hear it pinging off the the ceiling and the the walls jesus christ that thing could move it's absolutely unbelievable slipping up the walls and then flying off and skittering

this way in that absolute nightmare i had to borrow a mate's beekeeper's outfit and um just went in there with a very very large fishing net and a machete and just spun around in circles for as long as it took yeah but with that okay i i can see how if i if i came across a puff adder and moth hybrid it seems like the kind of thing that ought to die i understand that i feel that myself what if someone crossbred a puffin and a red panda and created this kind of super cute big-eyed lovely little colorful beautiful creature yes that would lure you in for a cuddle and then snap your neck like a twig right and then assume your identity drive home kill your family take your job run for president and it's all over so it's fair to say you're fairly mistrustful of

these animals i don't trust any animals i mean as far as i'm concerned the fewer animals there are the better and those that there are should be very carefully housed in uh electrified cages until they're eaten oh right so you you really have no truck at all with the kind of environmental or conservationist drive, the Attenborough stuff, you know? No, they drive me up the f***ing wall. I've said it and they won't like it, but what can they do to me? What can they possibly do to me? I am bankrupt. I am disgraced. I am living in my car. I am untouchable. I asked Bob how long this sort of thing has been going on for. Oh, there's the evidence of this goes back millennia. People get confused about hieroglyphs, pictures of humans walking around with eagle's heads, or there's a very literal answer to what's going on there. In terms of actual proper scientific documentation really outside of myth and legend and

things appearing in art uh the only formal thing we we have well the earliest formal thing we have is of course darwin's origin of species right well this is something i've been thinking a lot about um i mean isn't darwin quite key to this that i don't profess to understand exactly what he what he wrote but well that's because you haven't read it well i tried i mean no one's hardly anyone's right i tried to read it and it was it was all about it was all about beaks it was just beaks or it was oh they've got this kind of beak and there's this kind of beak yes the the first few pages are deliberately impenetrable to put off the lily-livered reader. That was his intention.

So what was it that Darwin was trying to say? He was very into the idea of human superiority. He was certain that a human in a fair fight with standard UK boxing rules could beat up any animal on the planet. He thought if they were fighting fair. And he travelled the world before he went to the Galapagos, punching up all kinds of animals, left, right and centre.

And he wanted to prove his theory. So he travelled to the Galapagos, where he was away from the prying eye of the media of the time, away from the lens of the Royal Society. And he set up a series of interspecies fights, which he documented and occasionally took part in. And what was he trying to achieve there by doing that? Well, the first part of the book is very much about him establishing human dominance. And the second stage was then he began cross-breeding the champions. So, for example, there was a spider monkey who absolutely beat the living shit out of him on one occasion. And rather than just putting him down, he placated him with grog and then found a very large female turtle to breed with the spider monkey because he thought this spider monkey is a double tough bastard let's put a shell on him

see what happens and he thought it was safe to do so because they were cut off on the galapagos and this was never going to get out and and lo and behold the shell encased uh spider monkey absolutely trounced anything it came across and darwin documented that drew some very beautiful illustrations of it and then shot it it's interesting to me that you say that darwin tried to fight all these different species uh in order to affirm human dominance there are lots of species that i don't think a human would win in a fair one-on-one. You know, if you... Well, that comes down to the definition of fair, and he wrote about this very carefully.

For example, he had a few valets and servants with him, none of whom survived, but they would be in charge of manning the ring and refereeing and the bell. And he would find that certainly the apex predators generally did not respect the bell at the end of a round so they were just getting disqualified but they were sort of losing they would often lose on points right but but even then even in that situation if you put charles darwin and a chimpanzee in a ring within seconds that chimpanzee's torn that guy's cock and balls off and is um smacking him across the face with them unquestionably unquestionably but you have to remember with with with a great mind like darwin's you know sometimes the common sense gene isn't

necessarily there i'm certainly not saying that everything that he wrote down was right, but what he did absolutely hit upon is that these crossbreeds were dangerous. And that's the first time we have this solid gold record of these crossbreeds being created and being seriously hard bastards. So what about humans? What does Darwin say about where homo sapiens have come from? Does he deal with that? Yeah, it's very simple. Essentially, there were just a whole bunch of different types of monkey, right?

And there was a big old heave-ho fight, and we won. We were the best monkey. Right. We were the baldest monkey. We were also the best monkey. Okay? Now, certainly, yes, chimpanzees are very strong and so on. You know, they've been working on it, right?

They've caught up is what you... Yeah, it's like being, you know, you get sent away to do some jail time, people buff up, you know. They've got their eyes on the prize to this day. But yes, we beat the other monkeys and we were given the gift of speech as a prize. Oh, really? Right. That's how how it i see what what language was it that we were given belgian french right walloon yeah to some right

okay so are we a crossbreed is that you know are we the the the are we the product of sort of maybe 20 rounds of crossbidding did we start off as a jellyfish and a and a flamingo that's hard to know because obviously no one was around and no one had the belgian french to be able to communicate what had happened beforehand um my feeling is that we came fully formed, as we were. The full monkey set was there from the get-go, and we didn't get on, and that's what led to that bit of conflict.

So hang on. After the creation of the Earth, and that's a big topic we probably haven't got time to get into, but day one planet earth humans are there all the other species of monkey are there yeah but they haven't they probably got a bit of time before they sort of thawed out i'd have thought i wouldn't have thought much was happening in the first few days everything would have had to thaw out first oh so everything's frozen well yeah right it's not so because the sun's only just started up hasn't it the sun the sun doesn't isn't just always been there so at some point at some point the sun has had to

ignite hasn't it it has to start up so then that would have yeah that would have uh taken a few good few days i think to th, to thaw everything out. Right, so I'm going to say everyone, you mean human beings? Yeah, monkeys and trees. Right. Any other animals? Well, obviously a fish. A fish? A fish, generally.

Probably would have been more than one. There would have been at least two, wouldn't there? Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to breed in the first place. Right, so two fish. And how many monkeys are we talking about? Just bare numbers. Oh, you're talking probably minimum 16, I would say. Two for two.

Right, 16 monkeys, including two humans. Yeah. Two fish. Yeah. Anything else? Birds-wise, i think the generally accepted theory now is that they came from dinosaurs so they probably weren't around in immediately so probably just a small uh like a sort of mini tyrannosaurus rex oh i see so the the dinosaurs are happening concurrently with the monkeys they're not

necessarily thawing out at the same time are they because if you think about it only one side of the earth is facing the sun so that that whoever's there is going to get thawed out first and then guys at the back it's going to take a bit of a while that's why you get the sea i suppose on one side and dry land on the other but what i'm trying to get at i think is you know currently in the world we have a set of animals okay you got you got your horses you got your gorillas you got yeah a lot of that has happened from natural crossbreeding yeah yeah of course right yeah there were small smaller number of animals at the very beginning and those of those of crossbred and then various combinations of crossbred and you know and it and it started to get out of hand until the point

where you got this pretty wild level of variety but luckily at around that time humans established dominance and and since the that that time there have been humans who've been keeping things in check. So we sort of have decided what the allowed ones are. Yes. Which is the set we have now, which is what? We must have about 250 types of animals. Yeah, I'd say, you know, at least, you know, yeah. They say there's lots of species of insect, don't they?

But that's true. You've got ant, beetle. Oh, there's loads of insects. You've got beetle. Bee there's loads of insect you got ant uh beetle bee um wasp uh earwig yeah there's loads see i mean that's you know that's we're nearly in double figures there already yeah you know so that's um which is enough i think we can all agree and then fish is like tuna salmon um sea bass uh skate crab sticks and samphire and uh yeah hake yeah that's it yeah um but it is a lot yeah yeah so what what would you say to someone who who would say

why don't we just let it slide a bit you know for the next let's say 10 years just say go for your life let's get them breeding let's get the crossbreeds going and just let them happen and see where we end up and enjoy the diversity and then you know maybe we'd have more than the current 250 creatures we'd have 300 400 creatures yeah fine And then you're going to have a venomous orangutan running your town council. Okay, so good luck to you. But for me, no thanks very much. No, I'll be, there's the smallest whiff of that, I'll be holding myself up on a Hebridean island and my shotgun will be loaded okay stay away more after this okay no advert for zip recruiter this month because um i assume the collapse of the world

economy but we do have a jumbotron message i've never done one of these before these happen on various maximum fund podcasts where people can leave messages for the people they love this is a nice one this is a message for louis and it is from elizabeth so elizabeth writes i know things have been challenging recently and i'm so proud of you and everything you've been able to achieve. So here's to nibbling on shredded cheese, dancing to the Beach Boys in the kitchen and going on hill walks together in the many years to come. All my love, always, Elizabeth. That is nice. That is nice. So if you are the Louis who likes nibbling on shredded cheese, dancing to the Beach Boys and going on walks, then that's from Elizabeth. If you are called

Louis and you have a friend called Elizabeth, but what you like to do is to eat cheese by gnawing from a solid block of it. And rather than dancing to the Beach Boys in the kitchen, solid block of it and rather than dancing to the beach boys in the kitchen you prefer to lip sync along to ariana grande in the bathroom and if instead of going on hill walks you prefer to sit completely stationary in your house then it's probably not for you anyway there you go that's your message louis. Thank you, Elizabeth. Very nice. Very nice. Very nice. Louis, I know things have been challenging recently.

It was tempting to do this in the Slash Beef voice, but it genuinely really hurts my throat. So, a nice month off. Anyway, thanks for listening. The rest of the show continues after this podcast promo. Hi, I'm Ali Gertz. And I'm Julia Prescott. And we host Round Springfield. Round Springfield is a Simpsons-adjacent podcast where we talk to your favorite Simpsons writers, voice actors,

and everyone who's worked on the show to talk about shows that aren't The Simpsons. So we're going to be talking to people like David X. Cohen, Yeardley Smith, Tim Long, about other projects they've worked on, sometimes projects that didn't go well, some failures, some rejections. about other projects they've worked on. Sometimes projects that didn't go well. Some failures. Some rejection. Some failed pilots.

Some failed life events. Yeah, we just talked to all the failures of The Simpsons. Yeah. So if you really love your Simpsons trivia and want to get to know the people who have worked on The Simpsons a little bit better, come by Round Springfield. Every other week on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Despite Bob being a man of science, my interview with him hadn't cleared up anything in

my mind. I was as confused as ever. I tried reading Darwin again, but it really was no help. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Imagine a beautiful woman, absolutely naked, and instead of a mouth, she's got a beautiful beak. I dreamt again of beaks last night. I can tell you're a naughty duck from the shape of your beak. Curse these mammalian lips. I wish I had a beak. If the monkeys had beaks, there would be no need for them to fight. Confused and unsure, I thought that maybe a religious perspective might be helpful. Hello, I'm Reverend Hilary Block and I am the head honcho at St Catherine's. I asked Reverend Hilary, what does religion have to tell us about the ethics of species crossbreeding?

Obviously, you can look at science and science seems to be quite anti-crossbreeding. But then you look at the Bible and once again, they've got a sort of slightly different take on things. And the Bible is, in fact, very clear that crossbreeding is the very heart of creation. What better example of interspecies breeding than for an angel to impregnate a human being, the Virgin Mary? It's all there. It's all in the book. Okay, well, the main reason I wanted to talk to you is because you're a man of God, you understand the Bible, and I've been getting quite confused actually talking to various people about how we've got to the stage that we currently are, where there's, what, 250, 300 different types of animals on the earth. Where did this all come from,

and what does the Bible have to tell us about the origins of all these different kinds of animals? Well, I mean, it's all there in the Bible already. It's not necessarily written word for word, but allegorically the church has told us, the Bible has told us, that the first living things were the four meats, the building blocks of life. Oh, it says that in the Bible? Well, you know, you've got to slightly read between the lines and get the right translations. Obviously, it's been translated and mistranslated for years.

But if you look at some of the original texts, then, yeah, the allegory is pretty crystal clear the uh the the garden of eden story it's the four meats you've got adam who's the beef you've got eve uh who's the chicken and then the snake is obviously uh the the lamb well that's three so where was the where's the pork meat well the pork's not in the story because um he was there jotting it all down you've got to have someone to describe don't, don't you? Oh, I see. So when we read the story, that's from the perspective of a pig who's writing it all down? Yeah.

I mean, Adam didn't write it himself, did he? I mean, if Adam wrote it himself, he'd be writing in the third person, which is a little bit pretentious. And I think one of the things Adam was always very good at checking himself was that, you know, I'm the first man. Let's not get ideas above

my my station well you say first man but you're you're sort of claiming that actually he was a some sort of cow yes he was he was he was he was the first he was the cow he was the first cow but i mean in the story it is said that god takes a rib from adam so in your version of the story they're taking a beef rib taking a beef rib and creates and creates. So in your version of the story, they're taking a beef rib. Taking a beef rib, that's right. And creates Eve, who in your version of the story is a chicken. That's right, yeah, yeah. I'm not saying God got it right first time.

You know, that chicken was absolutely enormous. But it had to be, because Adam was, you know, Adam was a cow and a full-sized cow. Plucked out a rib, did our Lord, built around it, and built a chicken. But obviously that chicken, we're guessing, would probably have been, and again, this is pure conjecture because only the pig was there to write it all down, and he didn't have a ruler out going, here we go.

But we're talking about, at the very least, a metre high. Maybe two. But the basic message of the Garden of Eden story is that we started with those four animals those four meats and every animal you see on earth today is a crossbreed of some kind descended from those four now you you may have heard about the the kickstarter that's that's going around um the exotic seeds breeding paddock and the work there to try and create the ultimate cow. He's trying to raise £45 million. Mm-hmm, yes.

What would you say to the people who are on the fence about whether they should put their hard-earned money into this project? Well, it's the same thing I say when I pass the collection plate around. Give till it hurts, because what are you going to do with your money? Cut some corners in your own life so that the world can be a better place.

And, you know, I actually first saw some adverts for the Kickstarter in the comments on my blog, and I was immediately excited. In fact, all of the money from the collection plate for the rest of this year, and this is a promise, will be going to that Kickstarter. Do your congregation realise that? Because they might be giving in, you know, thinking it's going towards the church and the work of the church. No one's complained about it. If someone were to come to me and say, look, where's this money going? I would happily give them a breakdown and say, well, 100% of it is currently going to this Kickstarter. I want to see this underwater cow.

And my dream, and it's a dream that I believe will be a reality one day, my dream is that my congregation will walk in, maybe it's six months' time, maybe it's five years' time, but they will walk in on a Sunday for 9.15 Mass, and instead of the altar, there will be a huge tank, and swimming around in it is a killer whale sized cow. And I'd point to that and go there. That's where your hard earned money's gone to.

That thing. Actually, when I think about it, I'm riding on its back. I think I'm actually, I'm really buff. My body's like, you know,

like the front of like a men's health magazine. Sorry. So in this vision you've got, you're really buff. in the vision i've got you know like i say it could be six months it could be five years let's say it's five years let's give me five years because i i'm shirtless i'm wearing a sort of small kind of loincloth but i've got these rippling these biceps that are just huge you know the veins all standing up on them and riding on the back of this majestic beast and water spraying up and sort of cascading down my my eight pack in fact saying it now i'm not sure 100 of the collection plate is going to go to the kickstarter let's say 45 of it goes to me to work on my physique.

So we're talking a home gym system, probably a Peloton. I'm not against steroids. I'm not against them. I think maybe I could roid up. I think obviously it's all God's work, but even God needs a little assist once in a while. And God created steroids. Absolutely. Absolutely.

It's a wonderful argument that I've used on a number of occasions. God created steroids. God created meth. There's nothing really you can't do to yourself that isn't, depending on how you do it, an act of worship. I do understand what you mean, but I think from a moral point of view, using that argument, you're able basically to claim that anything that's possible on earth is sort of anointed by God. Yeah, but the thing with religion and the thing with the Bible, the Bible teaches us it is not deed but intent. You see?

You can do what you like as long as you're doing it in the name of the Lord. So in much the same way, if you confine a cow whale to a tank, a large tank by the sounds of things, but but a tank nonetheless and ride it back and forth at the front of your church yeah and don't forget buff and you're and you're hugely buff you're doing that actually in in the name of god to glorify god yeah i'm trying to get the word out there but you know if if i showed someone who didn't know that was your intention and i brought them into the church and all they could see was this big thing flailing about, flapping about, water going everywhere and then you on the back, this kind of Conan the Barbarian style figure

splashing back and forth. Yes, that's actually, that's really helped me with the sort of mental picture. It is the sort of, it's the physique Arnold Schwarzenegger had in the 80s. Yeah. It's that classic, the huge pectoral muscles,

really broad shoulders, very, very big arms. And you're holding a big sword. Presumably I'm holding a big, maybe I'm holding a sort of a giant crucifix or something like that, just to kind of keep it on message. Sure. So I just take a person from the street, just with no prior knowledge of what's going on. Wonderful. I bring them in and they watch this thing happening. Yes. I think they think, ah, something's gone wrong at this church.

This isn't what I expected to see when I was brought in here. I expected a sermon, some hymns, you know, maybe some messages at the beginning about the next, you know, cake sale that they're doing to raise money for charity. Instead, they're watching this kind of medieval-looking character on a species of animal that they don't actually even recognise that's been created through a series of crossbreeding that they would probably find quite disgusting.

And you're telling me they're not going to go and get 25 friends and say, come in here and look at this? I'm not saying they won't do that. Well, there we go. That's how you spread the word. You've got to shock people into action. Right. Well, it's been really nice talking to you, Reverend Hillary. It's been a joy.

I wish you all the best. You know, I think you're going to split opinion with this. I hope for your sake that this cow whale comes off and also that your training works out so that by the time that cow whale is created and you've got one, that you are as buff as you need to be well i guess uh i guess i've got to start working on those reps um but it's

been it's been wonderful chatting to you and um i i don't know if we you do plugs or anything like that but i'd love for people to go to um to my it's it's uh it's reverendhillary.blogspot.geocities.tiscali.net. I'd like people to go there because I've actually, I've been working on some music there, and I've done a version of the first Noel, but it's the first Cow Whale. Ah, the first Cow Whale. The first Cow Whale, it's wonderful stuff.

And who is that priest? How did he get so buff? Okay. You know, hopefully I'm teaching myself how to do flash animation. Oh, right. So I could just, I could have a little gif of me sort of riding around, you know, abs being splashed with water and the cow whale kind of underneath me sort of moo bellowing and spewing with delight.

Speaking to Hilary left me even more confused than before. Was crossbreeding an abomination that should be dealt with by vets, or should it be celebrated as something which affirms the glory of God? Is humanity descended from four original meats, or were we here from the beginning, waiting to be thawed out? Was Barry Mizen a pervert, or was he doing God's work? Everyone I'd spoken to so far had a slightly different understanding of the science, and I was still struggling to read on the origin of species. There was only one thing for it. I was going to have to pay an online psychic medium £15 to carry out an online seance over video call to speak to the long-dead spirit of Charles Darwin. I found Madame Sarah Voyant on Facebook Marketplace.

Hello, fellow traveller of the mystic realms. take my hand as i guide you to the other side hello sarah um just to say i've never done a seance before so i'm i'm not really sure what to expect no problem at all i will guide you through it okay and um just to check your name's Sarah Voyant. That's right, I'm Sarah. It's a shame that you're not called Claire. Really? Why? Because then you'd be called Claire Voyant. I am a Claire Voyant. No, I know you're a Claire Voyant.

I appreciate that. That's what I mean. If your first name was Claire rather than Sarah, then your name, as well as your profession, would be Clairvoyant. How do you mean? I don't understand. Because your name currently is Sarahvoyant

and it would be Clairvoyant and your job is also a Clairvoyant. So you'd be Clairvoyant the Clairvoyant. What a strange thing to say. It hadn't got off to the best of starts, but the good news was that according to her, Sarah was able to speak to Charles Darwin. You said you'd like to speak to Charles Darwin? Yes. Pioneering naturalist and scientist Charles Darwin, please. Because if you like, I could very easily speak to someone else like Henry VIII or O.J. Simpson.

Well, O.J. Simpson's alive, isn't he? So that's not a seance. He's alive. Yeah, I've got his number though. So we could have a chat if you wanted. But very happy to do Charles Darwin. I mean, yeah, we are going to do Charles Darwin. Just to ask about the O.J. Simpson thing, just to be clear, that would just be me talking to, you'd kind of get him on the phone and we'd just chat. That's just a chat with O right yeah i mean i have got lots of questions for oj simpson good yes and that's 15 pounds same price that's also 15 pounds yeah and from experience is he quite candid with answers i mean there's one question that i feel like probably most everyone asks um he's he's um quite chatty I usually find yeah he usually likes a bit of a chat so probably be glad of a chat I'm sure yeah but when people

ask him the big the big question what do you mean never mind well let's get get on with the um darwin darwin chat great yep charles if you're there we have some questions for you okay he's here um that's quick yep um he's he's big beard um looking quite victorian um surrounded by monkeys i think this is this is charles darwin. I think this is Charles Darwin. Sounds like him. This is amazing. So you're genuinely able to now put a question to Charles Darwin, the real Charles Darwin. Yeah, he's asking what you want to know. So Charles, thank you very much for appearing to us in this way.

I've been reading your book. I find it quite hard to understand. A lot of it is about beaks ultimately is it possible to crossbreed um for example a beaver and an eel and an octopus and a whale and a cow to create a sort of ultra cow that can live underwater he just um he says it's an interesting idea. He's just, he wants to clarify. He said this, this ultra cow, he says, are you going to use it to fight other animals? Is it going to be like a big, tough fighting machine? No.

He said, are you going to use it to win wars and colonize other countries no no there's no violence involved it's an entirely peaceful idea as far as i'm aware because he was saying you could probably sort of fire it from a cannon at another country or from a submarine at a rival submarine um he's just sort of miming how that would work if an ultra cow was fired at a submarine uh he he says that you could probably take over the world with an ultra cow with the right ultra cow if it was really really vicious well take over the beef world certainly in terms of sales i think that's what you know that's what the idea is but um no can you sort of impress on him quite quite a lot that it's not really about fighting or violence it's not really about fighting it's just about being

underwater yes and uh and being large and you know creating a lot of beef he's he's he's he's showing me something he's um oh that's weird he's just taking me to it's a place it's lots and lots of monkeys he's surrounded by lots of monkeys on the astral plane oh hello monkeys that's cute oh oh my god he's getting two monkeys to fight each other oh my god oh that's horrible he says that sarah and oh this is horrible why have you made me do this why am i i didn't know this is what what you're going to see and and and maybe you could tell charles just from us just to stop it because that sounds awful this is this is brutal it's other animals are getting involved now this is is... This shouldn't be allowed. I don't know how this is...

Oh, my God. This is the most chilling thing I've ever experienced. And bearing in mind, I speak to AJ Simpson on the phone pretty regularly. Charles, stop. Stop, Charles. Charles, stop. Stop.

Stop the fighting. That's too much. Charles, for God's sake. Oh, my God. Come on, stop. Stop. Stop the fighting. That's too much. Charles, for God's sake. Oh, my God. Come on, Charles. I can't watch this. This is horrendous. No, no, Charles, no. The first cow whale, it's wonderful stuff And who is that priest, how did he get so

buff? Cow whale, cow whale, cow whale, cow whale Saw back when cows how could this ever fail? Cow whale, cow whale, cow whale, cow whale Whale by Reverend Hilary Block. The web address if you'd like to buy that track. reverendhilary.blogspot.geocities.tiscali.net and all proceeds will go straight to the exotic seeds breeding paddock kickstarter also if you'd like to donate directly to that kickstarter barry has just updated the rewards available if you pledge 10 pounds or more as soon as the cow whales have been created and if they haven't been immediately destroyed by vets you'll get a small cow whale meat sausage for 20 pounds you'll get the small cow whale meat sausage plus full access to all of

the videos created by barry's colleague at the failing safari park and for a mere 50 000 pounds you'll get your very own make your own cow Whale kit, complete with cow, beaver, eel, octopus, a whale, a net, a tank, a selection of pheromone musks, 500 kilograms of straw, a 10-metre length of hose, a 4x4 off-road vehicle, and, of course, a harpoon. 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 reunite the surviving members of the cast of the sitcom Friends and see who can cover 100 metres fastest. So until next time, as they might say in Belgian French, buff out. Thank you to Marek Larwood, Mike Wozniak, Matthew Crosby, Clarissa Maycock and Tom Crowley. Also, just a little reminder that with christmas or beefhead day coming up you might be thinking about gifts for the uh beef and dairy network fan in your life if that is the case why not go to beefanddairynetwork.com forward slash merch that's beefanddairynetwork.com forward slash merch to check out the Beef and Dairy Network merch that is available.

All right. See you next time. Hey, friends. Jesse here, the founder of Maximum Fun. And I have some really great news to share with you. This year has brought a lot of changes for all of us. And one tradition that we were grateful to be able to hold on to is our annual pin sale to benefit charity. This year,

through your generosity and love of pins, you helped raise $95,400 for GiveDirectly. If you're a member and you bought pins, they'll ship in January. In the meantime, your support will provide direct cash relief to families impacted by COVID-19 across the United States. Even in this incredibly tough year, the Max Fund community remains extraordinarily kind. And whether or not you bought pins, you can continue to help by heading to givedirectly.org. And as always, thank you. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Audience-supported.