Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 66 - Beefhead Ball

Episode Date: December 20, 2020

Tom Parry, Mike Wozniak, Catherine Brinkworth, Nadia Kamil and Rob Gilroy join us to look back on last year's disastrous Beefhead Ball. We also sing a traditional Beefhead carol. By Benjamin Partridge, Tom Parry, Mike Wozniak, Catherine Brinkworth, Nadia Kamil and Rob Gilroy.

This Beefhead Day, celebrate with the Beef and Dairy Network podcast and Mitchell's Farm Supplies. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. From now until the end of the year, every order of any Mitchell's product comes with a free rubber bladder filled with delicious Beefhead soup. The classic taste of a whole Beefhead, boiled in rose water and cloves, garnished with parsley and freshly cracked black pepper in a handy wearable pouch. Simply heat the soup in the morning, fix it to your belt, and suck the soup from the bladder throughout the day.

For your free Beefhead Soup, when you make your next Mitchell's order, simply use the code Beefhead Soup, Beefhead Soup. We all want Beefhead Soup! 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 a printed magazine, brought to you by Mitchell's Farm Supplies.

This week you will no doubt be getting ready for Beefhead Day, the ancient celebration of natural justice where traditionally a malefactor was dressed head-to-toe in beef and led through the streets by the beefhead attendants, Oxtail Sam and Sir Dunstan Hooves. The beefhead man would then be pelted with aromatic cream, attracting small birds which would either peck out their eyes, which would confirm their innocence, or leaving them unpecked, making clear their guilt. If guilty, various punishments would then be meted out. Sometimes they'd be banished to walk the woods alone for the rest of their lives, and sometimes they'd be trampled to death by 50 German horses. Of course, these days things have moved on, and tramplings are rare.

We might not punish a criminal anymore, but many of you will be involved with parades, perhaps being given the honour of dressing as Oxtail Sam or Sedunston Hooves. And of course children will leave out bowls of hot aromatic cream for the beefhead man and be rewarded the following morning with a box of 16 chocolate sparrows. And of course, one of those sparrows contains the spine of a real sparrow. Who will get it this year is the big question. Enjoy choking that one down, Uncle Frank. And of course, for the select few, the great and good of the beef world, Beefhead Day brings with it an invite to the Bovine Farmers Union Beefhead Ball,

this year being held at the Montgolfier Golf Hotel and Golf Course and Golf Course in Bracknell. Everyone hopes that this year's is more successful than last year's ball, which took place at the Pavarotti Hotel in Bristol and was nothing less than a beefhead catastrophe. In this month's podcast, we hear from some of the people who were there. Hello, my name's Bob Crack of the Bovine Farmers Union. I'm the youth officer. Bob has worked with children on behalf of the Bovine Farmers Union

for almost ten years. The children of today, the farmers of tomorrow, that's what I always say. And like anyone working within the orbit of the beef industry, Bob had wanted to go to the Beefhead Ball for as long as he could remember. People have killed for tickets, you know, and for years I've tried to go and then finally, you know, because we've been doing this scheme to help inner city kids become farmers, you know, because sure, it's very easy. You can go to any village in the country and, you know,

pick up a kid who wants to be a farmer. But what we're looking for, where are these inner city kids? You know, where are the kids in the centre of Leeds who are going to become a farmer? Who in Nottingham is going to become a farmer? And that's where I come in. I go into those inner city places and I have to incentivise those kids, show them that there's a place for them in farming.

And this year, the dream ticket arrived. The Bee Fed Ball got in touch and said, look, we've heard of your work. We know you're doing this outreach to inner city kids. You're going to be able to bring four or five kids to the Beefhead Ball. Of course, it wasn't just Bob who was excited about the ball. Hello, my name is Sanderson Cluggage. I'm a long-term member of the BFU, at which I've been the Senior Technical Officer for dry and cured beaves for the last 17 years.

The Beefhead Ball is very much the highlight of my year, and I hadn't actually missed a single one apart from 1987. But that was because Mike Oldfield of Chugula Bell's fame stole my car. He claimed he thought it was his, but if he did think it was his, why did he smash in the window? Why did he leave a dead badger inside it? Why did he take a shit on the parcel shelf? I sat them down, these five inner city kids, Sharon, Barbara, Jeff, Karen, and Phil. You know, I had tears in my eyes.

They said, what's happened? What's happened, Skip? Because I made them call me Skip I said we've got it you know we've got the big we've got the big tickets and Karen assumed it was for Cardi B inner city kids they love Cardi B and I very quickly twigged on that and you know part of my opening talk when I meet these kids is I remind them that Cardi B actually came from farming stock. The first few years of her career, she split between the recording studio and the farm. Now, obviously, that isn't true. That's a complete lie. I've made that up. But it's what I like to call a good lie. It's a lie for the greater good. It's why none of my kids

can ever meet Cardi B. I have to actively keep them away from Cardi B because if they start pulling at that thread, then, you know, it's all going to unravel. Strangely, Cardi B got in touch and offered free tickets and backstage access to one of her tours. I don't know how she'd heard of us. I had to turn those down, you know. I had to turn them down and I just had to burn the tickets.

The kids could never find out about that. Hello, I'm Rita Taylor and I'm the assistant catering manager at the Pavarotti Hotel in Bristol. Rita, who at that point had been working at the Pavarotti Hotel for five years, was on shift the night of the beefhead ball. Very exciting, especially because we had this incredibly special guest coming, which was Cardi B. I mean, what are the chances? And what a lot of people don't realise is that Cardi B is short for Cardi Beef.

And actually, the Cardi part is short for Cardigan, so her full name is actually Cardigan Beef. An elaborate game of cat and mouse started to play itself out where I had to prevent, you know, my young chargers from being able to see their idol, Cardi B. You know, I did a lot of distraction tactics. A lot of kind of like, whoa, whenever she was coming near, I would kind of make a noise. At one point, I feigned another one of my heart attacks. You know, anything to get them to not see Cardi B because if one of them had a conversation with cardi b and they realized that she isn't in fact also a part-time farmer then the jig would be up you know normally one of the things i look forward to most is the entertainment which every year is

the uh the legendary pillar of light entertainment that is les trees uh but I gather his heart was playing up yet again. So he was replaced by the rapper Cardi B, whose recital I enjoyed immensely, which surprised me a little because in terms of musical tastes, I tend to be very much West Coast. The speeches happen. It's been a good year. It's been a good year for the Farmers' Union. The state of bovine is officially calm, is what they said, their words, which is, I think, level three.

And then we start to get ready for the beefhead soup to arrive. This is the one part of the ball that I've really built up for the kids, you know, because sure, the speeches are entertaining, but you know, an inner city kid isn't going to get very excited about those speeches, but I tell you what, you give an inner city kid a sniff of some beef head soup,

and then you've got a farmer for life, my friend. Catering assistant Rita was responsible for procuring the beef heads I went down to a specialist farm where they breed this special cattle and I had to get 250 beef heads from this very particular breed which where the meat of the animal is mostly on the head. So you end up with this very sort of emaciated body and a very lumpy, meaty head.

They're called Shetland balloon heads. And I'd heard of these animals before, but I'd never seen one in the flesh. And it was actually very moving. That day was absolutely magic for me because the farmer, he let me personally decapitate every single one of those 250 cows. to pay every single one of those 250 cows. I'd never felt such a connection to the tradition of the beefhead boar as when I was chopping the heads off of those skinny-bodied, fat-headed cows. Hello, I'm Hazelnut Burton and I'm a chef at the Pavarotti Hotel. Although it is a simple recipe, Hazelnut had spent the best part of a year perfecting her beefhead soup.

The great thing about the beefhead ball is the recipe never changes, you know. It's quite a simple recipe. It's a sort of, it's a whole beefhead. A whole beefhead. Boiled in rose water, cloves. Rose water, the cloves. And then garnished with parsley. Fresh parsley. And freshly cracked black pepper. And then of course the freshly cracked

pepper. It was at this point that I realised something was wrong. The soup comes out. Round of applause. And then the song goes up. The soup comes out. Round of applause. And then the song goes up. The song starts.

Beefhead soup, beefhead soup. We all want beefhead soup. Cardi B starts to riff on that. She's written a little rap. It's not welcomed. You know, there are times where you have to honour tradition. It was time to serve the beefhead soup.

And of course, usually you'd freshly crack the freshly cracked black pepper there at the table. We wait for the pepper to arrive. And that is where it all went shits up. Well, there I was waiting for my beef head soup. And it arrived hot and steaming. I was thrilled. And I asked if they had any freshly cracked black pepper. And they presented me with a little container of something which did not look freshly cracked. And my first thought was, this hasn't been freshly cracked.

It was pre-cracked. It was in one of those small shakers that you'll find in a roadside cafe. W-T-A-S. For the actual fuck. I said, is this freshly cracked black pepper? And they looked cheapish and had to admit that, no, it wasn't. And, well, I have to admit, i hit the roof i refused to serve the

soups and it just immediately poured them all onto the floor i can still remember the thud thud thud of the beef heads hitting the wet carpet i let out a guttural noise i ripped my shirt from my chest and then as othello would say, chaos was come again. I'm not someone who hits the roof very often, but when I hit the roof, I hit the bloody roof, right? The first thing that went was the bowl of soup itself, straight over the face of the man next to me who I'd never met before.

Then the bowl itself, straight over the face of the man next to me who I'd never met before. Then the bowl itself, which I smashed into dangerously sharp, jagged edges on the table and began lussing it at random into the people around me, screaming that I must have my cracked black pepper. People were scared, but they also agreed. It was very confusing, I think, for the crowd around me. I was thrashing wildly, punching, kicking, biting anything or anyone that would come near me. I had lost my proverbial shit. And when I lose my proverbial shit, what follows? I lose my actual shit.

And I shat into my bare hands and tossed the steaming mound into the faces of people around me. And still no one brought me any freshly cracked black pepper. There was no freshly cracked black pepper. Hello, my name is PC Trevor Russell and I am a police officer in the Bristol area. We first received a call about the Pavarotti Hotel. It would have been about quarter past eight in the evening. Somebody called the police. To be honest, I don't blame them. Although I don't know why they had to taser everyone like that. We now have a policy when we arrive at a crime scene that we call it the tasers out policy.

It's always worth firing the taser as quickly as you possibly can. It doesn't have to be straight away, but ideally you want to get a warning shot in as quickly as possible. An internal police investigation later showed that PC Russell alone had tasered 15 innocent members of the public within four minutes of arriving at the hotel. innocent members of the public, within four minutes of arriving at the hotel. When it comes to who you select to taser in this sort of situation, it's potluck. You know, you try and get who you can as best as you can, as quickly as you can, as many times as you can. But really, we're not discriminatory. We will taser anyone.

And the police were called, and they were initially aggressive until I explained that there was no freshly cracked black pepper. And they were very understanding. And there was a particularly bright young probationer, actually, who pointed out that his pepper spray on his utility belt might indeed contain some usable pepper. We didn't know if it was freshly cracked. We assumed not, but we knew that

it would be freshly emitted from his spray. So I said yes, I said yes to his offer of him spraying it in my face, which he did. And it's not quite the same as freshly cracked black pepper sitting on the surface of a beefhead soup but at least my my face had the sting and tang uh that peppery sensation so i'm stood on my chair at this point i've kind of got my fingers in the eye sockets of my beefhead you know i'm kind of waving it forks are flying someone's ripped a napkin chaos utter chaos but you know just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I glanced across the ballroom, and yeah, Phil spotted Cardi B. Suddenly they're making a, you know,

they're making a Cardi B line for Cardi B, if you know what I mean. There's nothing stopping them. I've got myself caught up in the soup, maelstrom. My young charges are heading over to Cardi B, and I can see the words flying out of their mouth, you know, where did you farm? Tell us your life story. And Cardi B is starting to wrap the truth and, oh God, oh God, I can't, like I think about it now and it is, it's the worst moment of my life because I was offering them a way out.

You know, I was giving them hope. I was giving them, this is your ticket to the farm. And, you know, with every truth bomb that Cardi B dropped on them, I could see that dream dying. I used my role as a police officer to enforce these recipe laws as fully as possible. I mean, obviously,

they are not actual laws, so there is nothing standing against people interpreting these recipes however they want. However, I make it my business to come down on them

like a ton of bricks if they do not follow the proper recipes. And that is my prerogative as a police officer, because with police, it is a lot like jazz. It's as much the laws that you do enforce that aren't laws as the ones that you don't enforce that are. It very quickly turned into a witch hunt. Who's responsible for this? Who hasn't cracked the pepper? I stormed into the kitchen and I found quivering under one of those metal tables like the girl in Jurassic Park when the velociraptors in the kitchen

was Dan, my fellow assistant catering manager. Sobbing. One name kept being brought up and that was assistant catering manager Dan. There was a bloodlust. The fog had descended. The mist of fury. I'm not proud of what I did next.

I can't say that I wouldn't do it again. I went out and I told the crowd exactly what he'd done. I went out and I told the crowd that it was his fault. He was 100% responsible. At one point, I had him by the shins. He hit the ground and the mob descended and we went at him like a peppermill at corn, you know. There's one thing that was freshly cracked that day

and it was his skull. Then the guest of honour got involved. Cardigan Beef just ploughed through having wrestled several tasers from the police, strode straight up to Dan and at point-blank range fired at least four tasers directly into his nutsack. She was freestyle rapping the whole time and it was amazing. I wish I'd filmed it. It was all just off the top of her Cardigan beef head. After Cardi B had absolutely fried

assistant catering manager Dan's nutsack, PC Russell confiscated the tasers from the New York rapper and then used them himself, again absolutely decimating Dan's nutsack. I remain strident in my belief that it was the right thing to do. Obviously my superior officer told me it probably wasn't, and technically he'd done nothing illegal,

but I'm very pleased to say that my continual goading of Dan over the course of the evening led him to hit me with a fire extinguisher, and then we had him banged to rights. Assistant catering manager Dan was arrested. The beefhead gong was rung, officially bringing the beefhead ball to an early close and people were left to pick up the pieces. I do wish things had turned out differently. I look at those kids now, the five kids that went to the ball. Not one of them have become farmers. Phil's actually taken, he's gone down a different path actually, sadly. We've lost him to medicine. He's decided he wants to train to be

a doctor. He's had his application accepted to go to medical school. So it's kind of heartbreaking really. I don't trust doctors. I never will. Okay. My doctors turn around and they say, you know, man cannot live by beef alone, that my 100% beef diet's causing me problems, that the blackouts are somehow related to my ground beef breakfast. I mean, come on. I'm not going to listen to that. Ordinarily at this time of year, I would be chomping at the bits to go to the beef head ball, but my heart was too badly broken last year. I simply can't risk the idea of going back this year

and there again not being any freshly cracked black pepper. The mere thought of it makes me queasy. My wife has tried cheering me up. We tend to enjoy sexual intercourse on Wednesday evenings and she has been covering herself in freshly cracked black pepper but it's not enough it's not enough I simply can't risk it I think I've been to my last beef head ball looking back you know it's been a whole year now and I think mostly I feel shame at just how much the Pavarotti let down the beefhead ball.

And I can't help but think about those 250 Shetland balloon heads. Because nobody had any of the beefhead soup that night. That's 250 beheadings for nothing. What a waste. what a waste when I close my eyes at night I see their big meaty wobbly

lumpy heads and they're saying why why why but in like a deeper voice why

why as deep in the mind I can't do it why oh actually that's quite good in like a deeper voice. Why? Why? As deep as that, like, I can't do it. Why? Oh, actually, that's quite good. Oh, I can't do it again.

That's always the way, isn't it? What? Why? Oh, that's it. Actually, that is it. Why? Why?

Beefhead Soup Beefhead Soup We all want beef head soup bring the steaming bowl to me that pepper taste is hard to beat a whole beef head that's all for me. It's awesome, we can all agree. Beefhead soup, beefhead soup, we all want beefhead soup. A big thank you to everyone who we spoke to, and it's worth knowing that the organisers of this year's ball at the Montgolfier Golf Hotel and Golf Course and Golf Course say that they have been working on a system to ensure that the freshly cracked black pepper is as freshly cracked as possible. In their statement available on their website, they say this year the freshly cracked black pepper will be cracked freshly and directly into the mouth of every diner with every mouthful. Thank you Montgolfier Golf Hotel and Golf Course and Golf Course, for going the extra mile.

Although there is no Les Cheese again this year, but Cardi B, full name Cardigan Beef, returns and will duet with the male voice choir of the Ukrainian Navy, which promises to be as festive as it is confusing. And to win two tickets, that's right, this isn't a hoax, two tickets to this year's Beefhead Ball, simply answer the question, do we as individuals exist within a shared reality with others, or do we exist only in our own reality? Answers in an email to beefanddewynetwork at gmail.com.

answers in an email to beefanddowienetwork at gmail.com. Now, seeing as it's very nearly Beefhead Day, I think it's time for a traditional Beefhead Carol. Now, wherever you are, you might be in your car, or you might be on the back of your tractor, or you might be in the milking parlour, or you might be nervously waiting to go into an employment tribunal. Wherever you are, you will no doubt know the words to this one. So do sing along. Keep on running

Someone's coming Quiet cunning The Beefhead Man is coming this night. The Beefhead Man, he comes this night. Dunstan Hooves is a funny little man. If you see him coming, run as fast as you can. Dunstan Hooves is a funny little man If you see him coming, run as fast as you can Dunstan Hooves is a funny little man

But you've really got to worry when you see Oxtail Sam Oxtail Sam looks like a reasonable man But give him the chance and he'll turn you to jam Better worry man but give him the chance and he'll turn you to jam better worry time to hurry children's scurry with a face full of cream and a heart full of lies Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, little man but you've really got to worry when you see oxtail sam dunstan hooves is a funny little man if you see him coming run as fast as you can dunstan hooves is a funny little man for god's pray the bagpipes while you still can guitar solo It's Beefhead! our website now, where you can read all the usual stuff, as well as our off-topic section, where this month we shot David Beckham out of a cannon and asked him to name his top 10 LA breakfast spots as he flew past. So happy, Beefhead, and until next time, beef out.

thanks to tom parry mike kosniak katherine brinkworth nadia kamal and rob gilroy and thanks to you for listening i hope that despite everything you can have a peaceful holiday see you in 2021. an example. This is a game we called Zooey Deschanel, where you turn a celebrity's name into an animal pun. You have an example, Manolo? Brad Gorilla Pit. Oh, that's a pun on Gorilla Pit? Yep. I don't know. That's Brad Pit. Oh, okay. That's a high quality game

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