Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 7 - Yoghurt Special

Episode Date: January 24, 2016

Katy Wix joins in with our yoghurt special. We talk to GP Dr. Sam Archer about sell by dates and former child star Wendy Axminster about her campaign to raise awareness of the poor treatment of child actors by the dairy industry. By Benjamin Partridge, Tom Neenan and Katy Wix. Thanks to Mike Wozniak. Stock media provided by and Soundrangers/Pond5.com. Audio: missozzy/Freesound.org, cormi/Freesound.org Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  

When it comes to yogurt, it's like tax evasion. No one does it better than the Greeks. That's why at Aristophanes Yogurts, we only employ Greeks or people who look Greek to bring you that smooth Greek taste every time. Aristophanes Yogurts. Keep it Greek. 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, and this month it's a yoghurt special,

all courtesy of our special sponsors for this month only, Aristophanes yoghurts. Coming up later in the show, an interview with former child star Wendy Axminster. But first, how long past its sell-by date would you eat a yoghurt? We asked network members this very question on the website this month, and it caused a lot of debate. Here were just some of the responses that we received. Rhys Watts wrote, Two years ago, I served my family a honeycomb-flavoured yoghurt. When they'd finished their yoghurt, I noticed that it was two days past the sell-by date.

How could I have been so stupid to put those that I love more than anything else at risk like that? I was so wracked with guilt that that night I put as many of my belongings as I could carry into a large haversack and started walking. I only stopped walking when I reached the Arctic Circle, where I now live, wandering the frozen tundra, safely unable to endanger anyone else. Here, there are no sell-by dates. When you bring down a reindeer, you just eat it as fast as you can, in the hope that the blood and spilled viscera don't attract wolves or bears. Thanks Rhys, that sounds like sound advice. Sarah Poldrum says, I was cleaning out an old fridge and found a yoghurt that had been commissioned to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in 1990. I ate it with my family,

and it made us think about how the Pope at the time backed William of Orange against James II, despite the fact that William was a Protestant and James was a Catholic. Interesting stuff! And finally, we received the following letter from Basil Lamplighter. Usually I'm fastidious about sell-by dates, and I enter them into a spreadsheet in case they rub off in the rough-and-tumble environment in the fridge.

However, last summer I was on holiday and carelessly drank down a yoghurt drink that was four days past its sell-by date. I thought nothing of it and went to bed with a book. But something had changed. When I opened the book, there were no words on the pages, just birds. Each word a bird, singing their own unique song to me. I had an overwhelming urge to touch the birds, but as my hand neared the page they seemed to get further away, so I reached into the book and was pulled headfirst into the paper. At that very moment I became everything. I was part of an orchestra, but I was every instrument. I was part of the

navy, but I was every ship. I was part of the navy, but I was every ship. I was myself, but I was the king and queen of every country. And when I looked into the eyes of the birds, I could see the faces of my father and mother and all my ancestors going back to Adam. It was wonderful. Until I noticed we were on a ship. Skeletons danced together around the mast. Ugly, snarling fish jumped and flew across our bows.

And below decks, a thousand ragged, shackled prisoners rode us across the sea. At the wing of the great ship were Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, and Catherine the Great, who laughed and laughed as they piloted the craft into a giant mouth. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? No! No! Why?

Why? No! Help me! No! No! Thanks, Basil. To clear up some of the myths surrounding yoghurt sell-by dates, I spoke to Dr Sam Archer, a GP who is a regular on BBC Two's Is There a Doctor in the House? and Channel 4's Embarrassing Penis. I started by asking him exactly how dangerous is it to eat a yoghurt past its sell-by date?

Eating a yoghurt past its sell-by date is one of the most dangerous things that anyone can do. These people can experience nausea, a sense of impending dread, a clammy, sticky feeling, bloating, and then paralysis, the shutting down of major organs, and death. Death? Death. We had a letter in this week to the network about someone's experience upon eating a pasta sandwich yogurt. And that involved them having a hallucination where they thought they were on a ship that was being piloted by a number of significant people from history.

For example, Genghis Khan and Joan of Arc. Is that typical? The history ship hallucinationination I've seen that yep obviously that the historical figures vary um I've had a woman of 75 uh who came in said that she was on board like a an ocean liner and the ship was boarded by WG Grace so if someone is listening right now and they're god forbid already halfway through a big tub of greek yes and they've just you know because of this they've they've flipped over the top they've looked at the sell-by date and it was a few days ago what advice would you have for them right now okay if that person is listening right now i'd'd say put down that yoghurt, then pick up the phone, call your family, tell them how much they mean to you.

Seal your house using some kind of heavy duty tape and just try and pass with some dignity. What is the tape doing in that scenario? It's protecting your neighbours. It's times like this that you want to be community-minded and think that even though it's a lost cause for you, there's no need to drag your neighbours and those who live close by into your demise. Before you go, any news on a new series of Embarrassing Penis? There's always things in the pipeline. I'm having a few meetings at the minute.

Nothing's actually in place yet. What about Embarrassing Penis USA? Everything's a bit bigger, everything's a bit bigger everything's a bit more extreme you get some really embarrassing penises over there you do um i've seen i've seen the remake um they did a good job it's a bit too tabloid for my liking um i think the british version was was all about the the penis really and they can make it a lot more about the the characters the big characters um And I find that a bit distasteful. I think the show works best when it's about a penis and how embarrassing that penis

is. Thank you, Dr Archer. Now it's time for our big interview, which this month is with Wendy Axminster, a former child star best known for appearing in adverts for Rosington's yoghurts. This week she announced that she had got together with other former child actors employed by Rosington's and has started a campaign to raise awareness of what they feel was poor treatment by the company. I started by asking Wendy to introduce herself. Hello there, my name's Wendy Axminster, otherwise known as, well I'm more famously known as the Rosenton's Gooseberry Girl. Yes, I think our listeners will probably know you best as the Rosenton's Girl. You were primarily on the Gooseberry adverts in total and it was the one when I was I mean it's quite famous I was on a beach eating the yogurt and then a huge gooseberry came and took me away yeah that's right

it was quite a scary advert for I remember being quite young at the time and it was the sort of thing that would populate my nightmares yeah it was powerful and of course that this was before um there was any cgi or anything like that you have to remember that. So it was really quite hard to film. It was men in Gooseberry suits and chasing a six-year-old down the beach. So it was quite ahead of its time. And there was always the myth,

wasn't there, that the person inside the Gooseberry outfit was Bob Holness? Yeah, and I was deliberately was never told what he looked like. So it could have been Bob Holness, but I never found out because I still don't know what he looks like. And I've deliberately never looked at his face.

You never once thought just to look up at his face? No, I was told not to look at his face. You were told not to look at his face? Yeah. By the producers of the advert yes exactly by by rosenthal's and they didn't want me to form a bond in any way looking back which you know i think would make sense because you didn't know whether it was going to be you next time or whether it was going to be someone else inside

the gooseberry you know you just you know you didn't know it was going to be someone else inside the Goodsbury. You just, you know, you didn't know. It was very insecure times. The other thing that Rosenthal's made all their child stars do was you had to stay very pale, very pale, because that was the look, you know, so that one would be reminded of, you know, whatever the product was, milk, in this case yoghurt, mozzarella, not so much butter. That was the part of the contract

so you had to stay out of the sun you know had to stay very young looking and sort of cute so you were you were sort of given the same treatment as a as a veal calf probably worse probably worse because i've spoken to veal calves since i mean not literally but i you know i can communicate with animals very easily. Do you feel you have a special bond with veal calves? Yes, I do. And I've always preferred calves to people. And I can tell when I look into their eyes and they look back into mine.

Yes, I probably was treated worse. It's obvious now that you're feeling a certain amount of anguish about that time is that am i right in saying that there's a few of us actually that have joined together who um are angry uh in retrospect about what we were made to go through i was forced to adopt a lisp you know to stay to be appealing to stay cute the adverts I, I still having speech therapy now. Well, that's one of the surprising things. I think a lot of our listeners will be surprised that when you're speaking to us now, you don't have that strong West country accent that you had in the adverts.

Exactly. And I, I, I was forced to place objects in my mouth and learn how to do the accent to the point where I'd be, you know, a few of us would be crying and covered in sand. And you've got this terrifying gooseberry chasing you down the beach and whatnot. And there were times where we were forced to eat gooseberries to the point where our tongues would swell up so that you sounded like you had a cute lisp and that that wasn't that wasn't natural i mean these are these are horrible stories yes yes we were all treated very badly by the dairy industry and more specifically rossington's in fact one particular um person who wants to wishes to remain anonymous her who you might remember she played the uh the butter maid right for years and

her feet have actually that well they've crumbled away because she was forced to stand in butter for years for hours on end standing in butter and yet in the advert she made it look such a pleasant thing to do yes exactly to the extent that you know some of our listeners myself you know myself included we we would spend christmases with our feet in butter to emulate the advert. Absolutely. Rosington used to encourage people, as you remember, to send in photos of you and your family in butter. Yeah.

Exactly. And we all fell for it. It was a national obsession, wasn't it? You thought, you know, Christmastime, be with the family, stand in butter. But her feet have completely collapsed because of it. Because feet aren't meant to be in butter for that long. More from that interview after this from our sponsor. We hear a lot in the news about Greece being in debt.

But actually, when you think about it, we're all in eternal debt to Greece for inventing Greek yogurt. When you try an Aristophanes yogurt, just like the Acropolis, you'll lose your marbles over that smooth Greek taste every time. Aristophanes yogurts, keep it Greek. Now, am I right in thinking that you've devised a little stunt to bring attention to your campaign? That's right, yes um i have decided to give up all yogurt complete yogurt ban right for a full week a week correct yes and how far through that week are you at the moment this is day five and how's it going i mean is it i i mean a lot of our listeners i

imagine this is unimaginable for for them and for me i went into it thinking that i would i would do my best because i think if you you know let's let's be honest if you if you attempted to actually do this in real life you wouldn't survive and that's what i've always been told by rossington's it was drummed into me at a very young age you know if you don't have this yogurt you'll die which is you know what all of Rosenthal's children were taught and you know which is obviously correct but so I you know I it's sort of I had a bit of yogurt on day three but apart from that I haven't had any but I I think for me this is more of a symbol so you have broken your yogurt fast yeah I mean I've had some yogurt but as i say apart

from that i haven't had any at all and can you describe just how the the sheer lack of yogurt is making you feel on the one hand it's made me feel like i could do anything it's given me a real sense of you know wow i can i'm i can do this uh but i also i feel very empty and I'm sleeping for about 14 hours a night. So I'm having a very physical reaction to it. And my daughter came in screaming the other day because she thought, shouting, Mummy's dead. Because I just hadn't moved, apparently.

And my eyes were open and I hadn't moved for 14 hours. You've come under a bit of criticism about the yogurt fast because, you know, understandably, it's a choice that you can make, but you've also made that choice on behalf of your husband and your children and you are making them also do the yogurt fast. You know, the idea of a three-year-old waking up in the morning and knowing that there isn't going to be any yogurt

throughout the day and maybe not the next day or the next day either. I mean, that fills a lot of people with a feeling that they just can't control. And those kind of things they're saying to you on Twitter, they don't mean to be mean. They're just saying what they feel in their hearts. It's a very emotive image, a child going full day without yogurt to, you know,

mummy, can I have some yogurt? No. Why not? I want some yogurt. You can't because Rosenthal's ruined our life. But I think I've been driven to this, to getting people's attention by doing something. It does provoke an emotional reaction. And I've got no regrets about that because there are other things. You know, they can't have yogurt, but there's water. They can have, they're having double the water they would normally have. Is it true, the reports that I've been hearing, that groups of local kind of concerned parents, fellow parents, one might say vigilantes, are creeping into your back garden, climbing up And it has caused a bit of a stir locally. And there was an incident where I was walking my child to school

and I turned just for a second to post a letter or something. And somebody was trying to inject yogurt into her arm. There's been yogurt placed outside our doorsteps. We came down one morning and someone had put yoghurt pots on the dog, all the dog's feet. And it was horrible for the dog. Well, thank you, Wendy Axminster,

for being so open with us and honest and giving us your side of the story. I wonder before you go, whether you could just give us a little bit of that catchphrase. I'm sure the listeners want to hear the catchphrase. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that, but... OK. Don't be a gooseberry.

Have a Rosington's. You're good. I think that's what I'm willing to do at this stage thank you thank you so that's it for this month, but if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to the website now where you can read all the usual stuff, as well as

an in-depth rundown of the best value supermarket meatloaves, and in our off-topic section, we go to Vienna in the hunt for the perfect spade. Until next time, beef out. Thanks to Mike Wozniak, Tom Neenan and Katie Wicks.