Oh What A Time... - #34 Health and Fitness (Part 2)

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed from yesterday! Get ready to pump some podcasting iron, because this week we're discussing: HEALTH AND FITNESS. The rise of vegetarianism, how people kept fit in Ancient Rome, how people maintained good health after historic pandemics and our OWAT: Full Timers, that blessed band of brothers who keep the show on the road, they get a bonus bit which this week is lifestyle hacks from yesteryear. Now as you've heard, the 'lips to teat' floodgates have opened. There's no time to explain if you don't know what we're on about. But please contribute to the conversation here if you can: [e-mail] If you're impatient and want both parts in one lovely go next time plus a whole lot more(!), why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - the 4th part of every episode and ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - a bonus episode every month - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). We'll see you next week! Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now then, in the wake of any pandemic, whether it was the Black Death in medieval times or the Spanish Flu of 1918 to 1920, there's often a social and also cultural push towards keeping fit because society is spooked at the idea of that much death. So then they're trying to keep sickness at arm's length. It's not quite the same, but of the one of the things i remember from lockdown certainly in the uk was the success of joe wicks yeah i mean he you know people he was famous already but i mean millions of people were doing his uh exercise regimes that was a that was a big part of certainly in the first lockdown it was it was the fitness equivalent of that scene in forrest gump where all the other shrimping boats are sunk, like in that storm.

Like the pandemic, it was looking for a guy who could do a home workout and there was Joe Wicks. He was the last surviving shrimp boat. Yeah. A century ago in the aftermath of the First World War and the Spanish flu, keeping fit was all the rage. And you had modern technology and that was used to promote the idea of daily exercise, whether you were at home or in the office. Now, the man at the centre of it all was a guy called Walter Camp, who was an American

physical trainer who'd been one of several men drafted into the army to maintain the fitness of troops. And he developed what he called his daily dozen, which was a list of 12 exercises that would help people stay fit. Now, at the war's end, obviously, he had all of this material he'd created, these fitness regimes. So he thought, well, what can I do with this? So there were books, obviously, in newspaper and magazine articles. But, you know, that was removed from his audience. magazine articles. But, you know, that was at a remove from his audience. So he took inspiration from Chicago's Wallace Rogerson. And in 1921, he launched a series of keep fit recordings called the Musical Health Builder. And each record, each disc, detailed some of Camp's daily dozens. So this is about 100 years ago?

Yeah, yeah. After the end of the First World War. Now, I had a look at the exercises last night, or some of them, because some people, I wouldn't say the people are still doing what the camp's dirty doesn't, but it leaves quite a legacy as far as sort of personal training goes. And it looks a bit like, you know when you see footage of youth camps in the 1930s, often in like in Hitler's Germany, and it'll be like 5,000 teenagers in a field, and they're all doing star jumps. That's the kind of exercise.

Yes, yeah, yeah. There's no weights, and it doesn't seem to... Certainly in the ones I saw, there was no equipment needed. It was all stuff you could do, like in your living room. Now then, as I was saying, he sort of was inspired by Wallace Rogerson. Well, Rogerson had got there first. In 1920, he released his first keep fit record called Dictated by Wallace.

That's such a rubbish name. That is so rubbish. How long does it take to come up with that? It is a terrible name. Dictated by Wallis. None of that sounds fun. You'd be so embarrassed walking into a record shop and asking for it. Have you got the latest Dictated by Wallis?

That's exactly the right word, though, Al. It doesn't sound fun. That's it. It just sounds like just completely joyless, like a headmaster or something like that. There's just nothing fun about it whatsoever. Okay. So the idea, and then he thought, okay,

I do need a better name than Dictated by Wallace. So the name he stuck with was Get Thin to Music, right? So the idea was that this series, marketed at women usually, would engender a new wave of keep fit motivation. Now, he had then had subsequent sort of competitors. So the famous boxer, American boxer Gene Tunney, he released a disc in 1927. And Gene Falk, whose lessons in gymnastic motions,

they were released in Sweden in 1929. So people were like, well, no need to go to the gym anymore. So Camp, he declared in a magazine advertising his material around the time it was released. He claimed to have taken inspiration from zoo animals. So in this advert, he said, listen, a civilized man is really an animal in captivity. Perhaps I can learn something about exercise from a captive lion or a tiger up at the zoo in Bronx Park. There I watched a tiger and found that the big cat in the cage was always stretching and

turning and twisting his body his trunk he was exercising the very muscles that tend to become weak when an animal is kept in a cage or a man in an office oh okay i do understand the sort of the logic yeah and it and also you know it's i mean we're talking about the lifestyles of millions of people but it is unnatural to be sitting at a laptop or at a desk all day. 100%. Absolutely. So I can see how he would have gone to the zoo and thought, well, and looked at how the animals were exercising. Now, if you had to choose an animal to replicate its sort of movement and exercise,

I'm thinking monkey for me. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking more swinging. I'm thinking ropes on the ceiling and a bit of swinging around the room every day. I've got little kittens and they're so lithe and fit and thin and they get into small places. And do you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of me on the football pitch actually, getting out of tight spaces.

Nutmegging. Yeah. I see slugs in the garden. They're so relaxed. Just gliding on a trail of their own mucus. And I think, oh, I wish that was me. A lovely leaf.

Trailing in a trail of my own mookers. Well, the snails are the ones who are really going for exercise-wise because they're carrying that big backpack around as well, aren't they? That's the thing. That's the weights that they carry around. Very briefly, the idea of releasing records on this. As someone who has a record player, any movement around my record player makes it skip.

That's such a good point like exercising near vinyl is impossible how is that working that's such a good point I'd have to be a minimum of

15 metres away from my record player for any sort of exercise based movement not to completely skip the record that is such a good point Wallace would dictate

you've got to do 10 star jumps you've got one heavy landing you've got to do another 10 jumps. You've got one heavy landing, you've got to do another 10. Yeah. Or maybe he tells you what it is, and then there's a minute's silence where he expects you to go out into the garden to do that thing. And then you come back in again, okay, here's the next one.

And obviously you'll need to go nowhere near the record player each time. And then you come back in, you hear Wallace go, that wasn't good enough. I just saw that. Have a word with yourself and get back out there, will you? No, records were just one aspect of this keep fit at home industry. So at the same time as the record companies got involved, radio stations were also looking for content as well.

So there were lots of health shows. So the Daily Dozen and similar material became a very regular morning slot across America. Now in september 22 when a small radio station outside boston launched its daily setting up exercises which was probably the first to do so in the in the usa this was an hour-long slot broadcast at 7 a.m hosted by a physical training instructor from local institute and the exercises were broken into three 20-minute periods. So for different audiences. So one slot was for general training.

One slot was for those wanting to lose weight. And one slot was for those who were underweight and were keen to bulk up. And the show really caught on and it was soon imitated around the country from New York to Los Angeles. How interesting. Life insurance companies even offered commercial sponsorship in some places. But it was Camp's Daily Dozen, which became the

phrase du jour. No matter who was the presenter in the studio, it was the idea of a dozen exercises being enough. That was the thing that really caught on. So by the 30s, the format had gone international. That feels like quite a lot though, doesn't it? 12 exercises a day. Well, there was the 7 Minute Fitness app, wasn't there?

And that was 12 exercises. Oh, was it? Okay, okay. And it was 30, from what I remember, it was 30 seconds. So quick reps of things and round and round, I guess. 30 seconds of an exercise followed by 10 seconds rest, I think. Anyway, by the 30s, the film had gone international. So in Japan, it took on the status of an absolute craze.

So what was called Radio Gymnastics was first broadcast at 7am on the 1st of November 1928. It was not clear that the format would actually take off. The presenter was a military officer called Orochi Egi, and he turned up wearing full uniform, complete with ceremonial sword. And he barked at the microphone, Attention! I am going to start radio calisthenics now. But then he thought, okay, I need to soften my approach.

So the next day he turned up in gym kit. And radio gymnastics, it was a big success. So it was mass participation, Joe Wick style, all over the country. Involvement, they reckon, was measured in the millions. It's a good idea. That is a good idea. It's a good idea. That is a good idea. Well, the thing is, right, in the UK, the one I remember, I'm not quite old enough to remember Mad Lizzy on Good Morning Britain,

but I do remember Mr Motivator. Mr Motivator, yeah. He's my generation. But you had, and there was Jane Fonda, obviously. This generation's Wallace. Yeah, yeah. I thought that Mad Lizzy started it in the UK. But no, there was a series of Keep Fit talks on BBC Radio in the 20s. But there was no attempt to mimic the American Daily Dozen or the Japanese Radio Taiso, which is the gap in schedules. And so at 7.45am, 12th of July 1937, that platform, Radio Normandy,

launched Laugh and Grow Fit with Joe Murgatroyd, the lad fra Yorkshire, aka Mark Stone in the presenter's chair. Joe Murgatroyd is the best name I've ever heard. These guys, terrible marketers. Laugh and Grow Fit with Joe Murgatroyd is the best name I've ever heard these guys terrible laugh and grow fit with Joe Murgatroyd the lad

fra Yorkshire aka Mark Stone and he was the presenter and the BBC held out until 1943 in the September

when it added the daily dozen to the home service schedules with Coleman Smith leading the exercises for men and Mae Brown those for women all all from 7.15am.

And the show survived for two years until September 45. And then in 1954, BBC TV got on the act with Eileen Fowler. Eileen, it doesn't make you sound like a personal trainer, does it? No. If you're called Eileen. Come on, Eileen. Yeah. She founded the Keep Fit Association in 1956,

providing routines devoted especially to busy housewives. And she had a slot on the home service for a similar purpose with a peak audience of half a million, which is not bad considering it was 6.45am. Yeah, fair play. Which is too early. Yeah. That is so progressive.

I did not see that coming. I would not have expected that. Yeah, yeah. I was really surprised as well. Me too. I wonder if that could work now. Let's say Ellis, you have a weekly radio show on Five Live, which is a BBC channel here. If the BBC

were pushing you to do a fitness slot every morning, just that half an hour of exercise with Ellis, A, do you see potential? potential b could you carry it off dictated by ellis do you think it's the sort of thing that country could get into genuine question i find it quite intriguing maybe it is well i mean but but the country did i think with joe wicks yes on radio i mean do you think not on the radio you think. Because there's just better ways. I mean, if you did do it, it would have to go hand-in-hand with the socials, wouldn't it?

You'd be clipping it up for Insta and Twitter and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. Hand-in-hand with the socials. Check you out, will you? Yes, I'm young and I'm relevant. Tossing out those phrases like they're nothing. I've got, I'm going to pitch an idea. Yeah.

Al, you can be the representative of the BBC. But hearing about what they were doing on the radio in the 1920s has made me wish, I wish there was like a World Service you could tune into that was exactly what they were playing on the World Service this day, a hundred years ago. That's a good idea. Wouldn't you love to listen to that? That's a great idea.

I would have it on all the time. That's's a good idea. Wouldn't you love to listen to that? That's a great idea. I would have it on all the time. That's such a good idea. Yeah. I'm going to steal that idea. I probably, when, I wouldn't listen, when we get to 2039 to 2045,

I might maybe leave. I might not listen during that period. Oh, I think that would be fascinating. Yeah, that'd be fascinating. Yeah. Now you know how it turns out. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.

Exactly. That's a good point. Now you know how it would turn out. Yeah. It's a new day. How can you make the most of it with your membership rewards points? Earn points on everyday purchases.

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and not necessarily for reasons of health and hygiene. Most famously in India, not a lot of beef is getting eaten because the cow is seen as sacred there. In the 19th century, a new movement emerged which promoted a diet totally devoid of meat. Here come the vegetarians. So I've actually tried to cut down on meat recently. In fact, only the day before yesterday, I had a vegan sausage. Nice. How was that?

It tasted suspiciously like a Savoy. And if you ask me what's in a Savoy, I don't know. I don't know what that red leather bit is. I don't think anyone knows. I would love to meet the person responsible for the red leather bit. Can I quickly introduce a new section of the show, which is called What's Your Favourite Sausage? I would like to say my favourite sausage is the battered sausage

from a fish and chip shop. There you go. Al, would you like to say what's your favourite sausage? A Cumberland. Really? Bought from a good quality news agent. A curly, like fully curled Cumberland. Like the ones in Wimpy.

Yeah, or like a shortened Cumberland. Like a normal- The shortened Cumberland. The shortened Cumberland. Because the curliness actually I find quite weird. And Chris? What's your favourite sausage? No, hang on, I want to know more. Don't move on from me. The short and cumberland. Because the curliness, actually, I find quite weird. And Chris? What's your favourite sausage? Hang on, I want to know more.

Don't move on from me. Sorry, back to Elliot. Continue with your favourite sausage. Back to your favourite sausage. Come on, Al. Yeah, I would just say just that. You know, bought from those post offices that sell food as well, as well as birthday cards.

He didn't have anything else on his favourite sausage. Those post offices where you can send something special delivery and get a lovely curly sausage what about you Chris? I love battered sausage beyond even battered fish

yeah if it was up to me it'd be called battered sausage and chips shops yeah you know the fish is an afterthought I used to do a lame thing

check this out this is so tragic when Claire and I would get fish and chips and I'd go and collect it, I'd come back home and I'd always say, oh, no, there's a mistake. They've also added a battered sausage. And after the third or fourth time I did that, Claire went, I obviously know you're buying the battered sausage. What are you trying to do?

But I was so embarrassed about the fact I was adding an additional side sausage. This battered sausage chaser. We do a thing on the Ellis & Joshua called Cool Club where you've got to suggest something that you think is cool and we put it into the Cool Club. And I think the entry for week one was having a battered sausage whilst you're waiting for your fish and chips. So you're not alone, Tom. You're not alone.

Well, look, some people throughout history have turned the other cheek to eating meat. There's lots of famous vegetarians. Would you like to name some of the big ones from history? St. David, patron saint of Wales, was a vegetarian 1,500 years ago. I mean, the big one is Hitler, isn't it? No, no, there we go. Was he really? Yeah, that's the big one. I did not know that.

Hitler, a famous vegetarian. Do you want a few more? Pythagoras, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Paul McCartney. Morrissey. Mahatma Gandhi. Morrissey. Do you remember a funny thing, Mahatma Gandhi. Morrissey. Do you know what a funny thing about Mahatma Gandhi? The local Indian where I grew up in Ganshill was called Mahatma Gandhi.

And so I grew up thinking Mahatma Gandhi was the owner of an Indian restaurant. In Wanstead. And it wasn't until I saw the film Gandhi when I was about 18 that I realised he was a historical figure. I really hope. Not the proprietor of a very average Indian restaurant in Ganshill. As you were settling down to watch that film the first time, you thought, I can't believe they've made a film on this guy. I'm so excited to hear the backstory.

That's so funny, man. That's hilarious. I was like, surely this film is going to be about the franchise of Indian restaurants and how he came to find himself in East London. Oh my God, that's so funny. Bloody hell. Even in my head when I think of Mahatma Gandhi, I think of the Indian restaurant more than the man.

A Hollywood feature-length movie about an Indian restaurant in Gants Hill, East London. Which incidentally I would watch. It's Which, incidentally, I would watch. That is absolutely the sort of thing I would watch. God. Now, it's interesting with vegetarians, because I would even say in Essex in the 80s and early 90s, vegetarians were treated with a great kind of suspicion. Yes.

And I think it would have been really hard to be a vegetarian. Only the other day I was looking at one of the menus for... I was trying to remember what a Bernie it would have been really hard to be a vegetarian only the other day I was looking at one of the menus I was trying to remember what a Bernie Inn would have served in the 80s and 90s and I googled what a menu looked like there were no vegetarian options everything came with meat it was chips wasn't it

you would just eat the chips I know a few 80s vegetarians Josh Whittacombe an 80s vegetarian absolutely he's never eaten meat in his life and it was so difficult I know a few 80s vegetarians. Josh Whittacombe, an 80s vegetarian. Yeah, absolutely. He's never eaten meat in his life, and it was so difficult. Well, there's still some countries out on that that it's like that. So Josh and I were out in Rio for the Paralympics a couple of Paralympics ago,

and in Brazil there's just no options. It was just a nightmare for him. Everywhere you went, and they couldn't understand. He'd like a vegetarian salad, and the salad would genuinely turn up with bacon in it. And that's not a lie. They'd be like, oh, no, you're so vegetarian, you don't even want these tiny bits of meat.

It was just confusion. They couldn't accept it as an idea. Until recently, even France was bad for vegetarians. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Completely. I mean, Brazil is like a big steakhouse, isn't it, really? Anywhere in South America, just to cost a wire dispersion.

They should make it for the whole continent. There was a bar that we went to regularly with the team when we were working out in Rio, which was, it was a supermarket, like half a supermarket, but just meat. Everything was full of meat. That's all it was. Meats are us. And you would go and pick out, you'd pick out the piece of meat. That's all it was. Meats are us. And you'd go and pick out the piece of meat you wanted.

And you'd take it out front where there were tables and a bar and a grill. And you'd give the bit of meat you bought from the supermarket. And it was entirely meat to the grill guy. He would cook your meat and bring it to your table where everyone was drinking beers. And this was one of the most popular, like nightclub level popular. Just hundreds of people just sat out there drinking. And people would just wander in there drinking and you just go people just wander in go and pick a sausage come back out give it to the guy they bring it to your table

that's literally what it was and this is all across brazil these are huge spaces it's like how people how people go out how people get drunk they just drink they eat meat throughout their night out so we've established how difficult vegetarianism is like even now in some countries but so it's mind-boggling to me that he'd like in the 19th century and obviously before but we're going to start in the 19th century there were those really celebrating alternative diets specifically vegetarianism and lord byron famously was one and he also would uh like in terms of alternative diets had this thing where he would drink vinegar diluted with water to maintain his slim build and pale complexion.

Wow. That's not a health thing I've ever heard of. And, of course, Lord Byron died in Greece at the age of 36 after two bouts of bloodletting weakened him further from his flu-like illness. Another bad mark for bloodletting there. When I was growing up, my dad used to make our ketchup go further by when it got halfway

down the bottle he would fill it up with vinegar really? yeah that's what he would do so he would fill it is that what they used to do in your house as well?

no but I have I remember this yeah yeah so he would then fill it back up to like three quarters with vinegar

and mix it all around again so from halfway through a bottle our ketchup became incredibly acidic well apple cider vinegar is very good for you, isn't it? But Byron, I mean, he lived till he was 36,

so don't get the sarsens out. Yeah. While you're waiting for your fish and chips in the chip shop, do not be pouring vinegar down your throat. Big lug of sarsens for health reasons. If you need some sustenance while you're waiting, go battered sausage all day long. His friend, Percy Shelley, took vegetarianism somewhat more seriously

and began composing an essay vindicating what he called a natural diet in the autumn of 1812. And Percy Shelley's wife, Mary Shelley's creation, Frankenstein's monster, followed a similar diet. Frankenstein's monster may well have been vegetarian because he told Victor Frankenstein that acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment. So Frankenstein's monster vegetarianism, that caught on. The bolt in the neck left some. That's a shame. Percy Shelley was convinced that a meat-based diet was responsible for many of the ills in society and that animal

flesh was at the root of criminality and violence. To make society healthy again, he said, it needs to abandon a carnivorous diet. And Shelley wasn't the only high-profile proponent of vegetarianism at the time. Many people before him, some of which we touched on, were kind of plant-based. William Shakespeare. Interesting. Leonardo da Vinci.

Sir Isaac Newton. Shakespeare was plant-based? Apparently, William Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton. Shakespeare was plant-based. Apparently William Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, before Percy Shelley, maintained a vegetarian diet. Well, well, well, that's really interesting. Plant-based. By the end of the 19th century, Britain was home to a fully-fledged vegetarian society which published magazines and cookbooks.

But it was a writer and boxer who proved to be the greatest proponents of the time of vegetarianism, Leo Tolstoy, and Pontypridd-born world champion, Freddie Welsh. Freddie Welsh? Freddie Welsh was vegetarian, was he? I was actually looking at photos of Freddie Welsh online last night because that is how I unwind. I was thinking, like, Pontypridd-born world champion

coming from Wales being called Freddie Welsh. That is like Johnny English, the English equivalent of that. Well, I think that was his sort of boxing name because he was born Frederick Thomas and he moved to America. He was born in Pontypridd and then he moved. He was and he moved to America. He was born in Pont-au-Prince and then he moved. He was nicknamed the Welsh Wizard. And then he moved to America to make a name for himself as a boxer. So he turned professional in Philadelphia when he was about 20 or 19 or 20, I think.

Good old Freddie Welsh. I didn't know anything about Freddie Welsh. I didn't know anything about him, so I'm going to go into his vegetarianism. But let me start with Tolstoy. He turned vegetarian in the 1880s, becoming a strict plant eater from 1890 until his death 20 years later. He argued in favour of the diet for moral and ethical reasons, contending that you have to totally abstain from violence.

And that meant not eating any kind of meat. And he would later abandon eggs on this basis too. So he saw like the death of animals as violence and that you were kind of partaking in violence if you ate any kind of meat or eggs as well. Which is interesting given that one of the most famous proponents of vegetarianism, Hitler, obviously didn't share this view. Hitler, like violence and vegetarianism,

very much hand in hand in his eyes. So do they know why Hitler was vegetarian? They don't. I don't actually know that. That's really interesting. Hitler, like, violence and vegetarianism, very much hand in hand in his eyes. So do they know why Hitler was vegetarian? They don't? I don't actually know that. Okay, yeah, that's really interesting. I think it would have been for reasons of health. Yeah, you're right, because it doesn't feel like it would land

in some kind of moral place. It wouldn't, like, be, you know, but I don't know. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, some ethical concern. Yeah, the ethical concerns of Adolf Hitler. I don't think that's really interesting. Yeah. Some ethical concern. Yeah, the ethical concerns of Adolf Hitler. I don't think that's a thing. But Tolstoy's vegetarianism was in effect about the health and well-being of society as a whole.

Freddie Welsh, however, the Welsh wizard, he adopted a vegetarian diet for entirely different reasons. Not because he was overly concerned with animal welfare or pacifism. Welsh regarded being plant-based as a superior route to physical fitness and suppleness in the boxing ring as he put it the only way to keep fit is to lead a natural life so he had come to this view through the physical culture uh through uh the movements led by eugene sandow in the uk and bernard mcfadden there's that man again friend of the show in the UK and Bernard McFadden. There's that man again, friend of the show, in the USA. They offered this kind of vision of physical fitness that included vegetarianism.

And Freddie, having bought into it, he turned a vegetarian and his wife Fanny did as well. And they were kind of like the plant-based power couple of the day. Were they really? I didn't know that. Yeah, at the peak of... I actually looked at Freddie Welsh's Wikipedia just before this and there is a whole section on his vegetarianism. At the peak of his boxing career, 1907 to 1917,

he was easily the most famous vegetarian sporting celebrity in the world. Was he? Only one of a few boxers to ever adhere to the diet, aside from Brazilian bantamweight Eder Joffre, who turned vegetarian about a year before his professional debut in the ring in 1957. One of Welsh's main rivals was Ad Walgast, who made a virtue of eating the finest steaks during training and boasting about his kind of red-blooded diet in the press.

I remember, who was it that Conor McGregor thought was a vegetarian or a vegan? And Conor McGregor did the same thing in press conferences. He would make a virtue of his meat-eating. Meat-eating. I mean, now, because they think that vegan diets reduce inflammation, and Conor McGregor did the same thing in press conferences. He would make a virtue of his meat eating. I mean, now, because they think that vegan diets reduce inflammation, I think it's more common. A lot of footballers have switched to vegan diets.

And David Haye was a vegan at the end of his boxing career, I think, because he thought it made him recover more quickly. Really interesting. Elle, have you heard of the liver king? I was briefly obsessed with the liver king you would have heard of him i was absolute i couldn't get enough of the liver king so tom i don't know you you i'm guessing you haven't heard of your liver king who's the liver pig who's the liver king the liver king the liver pig the liver king what an absolute plonker the liver and an american kind of fitness influencer who aspired who was a proponent of a like almost entirely meat-based diet and he was absolutely

ripped he looked insane because he was on steroids he was so obviously on steroids turns out it's because he was he was pumped full of steroids. But he claimed it was like eating liver. Yeah. And just purely eating meat made him really strong. In leaked emails, it turned out he was pumped full of every kind of steroid imaginable. And also he was claiming that he was eating raw liver. Yes. And that it was like our ancestors would have done thousands of years ago.

And he was like, I don't have central heating. I sleep on a bed of wooden slats, and my kids do the same. And he's like, well, I can't wait for social services to hear about this. And he's like, this is how I look so great, because everything I do is natural. I just eat raw liver, I don't even cook it, because ovens are

unnatural. And I don't wear clothes, because clothes are unnatural. And I just take loads and loads of steroids, but I'm not going to mention those in my videos.. And I just take loads and loads of steroids, but I'm not going to mention those in my videos. And can I guess, is there a chance that sort of disillusioned, slightly problematic young men absolutely loved him? Yes.

Okay, right. Yeah, all day long. That's his ballpark. Yeah. Okay. And I've seen them all because I just... Because you are one of those men. Yeah. I actually, when I sort of used to see The Liver King, I was like,

this is what I must be doing wrong. I'm not eating enough fresh raw liver. Yeah. No, it's the roids. I cannot wait to text Liver King videos to Tom now. This is what you need to be doing, man, in the writer's room. I still have almost PTSD-level flashbacks to eating liver in primary school lunch.

My mum didn't send me in with liver. It wasn't my packed lunch. As in that was what was served at my school. But I remember eating liver and the iron taste of it. And I just, horrendous memories of that. Until I was about 17 and I realised what it was. My favourite sandwich was liver sausage and cucumber. Really?

And then I was like, hang on, it's what? And I couldn't eat it again, except with black pudding. Your Cockney upbringing, when I talk to you, it's like you're about 100 years older than you actually are. Yeah, my favourite sandwich when I was growing up. Lovely bit of dripping on toast, liver sausage. Yeah, tripe and dripping, oh yeah. Liver and cucumber. Lovely bit of dripping on toast Liver sausage Oh yeah Liver and cucumber

Can you even get liver sausage anymore Lovely bit of liver and cucumber Round the fire Grandad would get out the bathtub And then we'd all get in Under candlelight Washing yourself in the tub In the middle of the living room lovely then dad had come back from his chimney sweeping he'd get in the bath last because he was obviously

he was obviously the muckiest of us all until the age of 18 chris would you say that liver sausage was your favorite sausage would you have said that or not yeah i would have i would have i would have voted for it yeah i would have voted for it. I would have voted for it. So, Ann Vorgust, who was kind of... Your wife works in the theatre. What does she make of your cockney upbringing? I'm almost embarrassed when I introduce her to my own family. She works in the music halls, Ellie.

There is such a gap. There is such a gap in lived experience between her family and my own. Lived experience. They're like... Lovely bit of business. Anyway. Oh, God.

It was tripe and dripping, and there was another one. He served dip bread on a Sunday. We'd have a Sunday roast, and you know all the fat that would, like, drip out of the chicken, and we would all gather around it, on it of the tray with like yeah slices of bread and dip it in and eat it and then sing songs and then uncle barry get on the old joanna you must have loved it i opened up the door. There's only a Cockney family in it. Come on in, I said.

So come on in. Let's have a knees up. He's tripping time. I think it's lovely, Chris. So. Anyway, Ad Walgast, who was his big rival who ate meat, the Welsh wizard beat him three times

in each of their three contests there you go uh he says uh about the vegetarian diet i found i am stronger swifter and more enduring i train on a strict diet of fruit and nuts and besides them i eat eggs salads macaroni beans peas cheese and a great deal of olive oil honey and a whole wheat bread that is a good diet isn't it the other thing that freddy would do which i'll end with this that he would he was a big proponent of fletcherising all his food. Have you heard of this? No, what's that?

This is mad. Fletcherising is the technique of over-masticating food created by Horace Fletcher. Here are the rules. You're going to try this later today. Maybe listeners, you might want to try this. Eat only when you have a good appetite. Chew the food into a pulp and drink the pulp do not swallow drink sip by sip

do not gulp so you're basically washing everything down with water you're avoiding tea coffee and alcohol and then when you when you're eating get a mouthful of food pour a load of water and chew it all up until it till it's like a liquid and then swallow the liquid drink it sip by sip do not gulp the complete opposite of that social media guy who is a big proponent of not chewing your food. Oh, what's his name? I'm obsessed with him as well. He'll just inhale a Bevo.

Isn't that his name? He will just inhale a curry. Not chewing once. Whole chunks of chicken. He's worse looking up than listening to what as Ellis describes

he's a guy who doesn't chew food who eats it down and then rates everything out of 10 but everything is always 7 out of 10 that's brilliant 7 out of 10

he seems to see chewing as some sort of moral weakness yeah it is absolutely mad Bevo's content

I couldn't believe... The first time I saw a Bevo video, I shouted at Izzy from the bedroom. Izzy, you've got to come and look at this. She ran up like, what? What is it? What is it? I said, this is Kai from bloody Kent, doesn't he?

He doesn't chew his food. She's like, you've got me upstairs to watch this. What a hill to die on not chewing not chewing your food have you seen the one where he's he's in an Indian restaurant and he's eating a curry

and I don't know the mechanics his internal mechanics but he's he's chewing well he's not chewing he's swallowing curry but then laughing

at his own audacity and he's flying out of his nose. The bits of rice are coming out of his nose. It's absolutely insane. And obviously because the chunks of food he's eating are so massive, like, you know that thing where you're like, like really has to arch his whole neck to swallow. It's like a snake swallowing a boiled egg on the Really Wild show. You know that thing where you're like, like really has to arch his whole neck to swallow. It's like a snake bloody swallowing a boiled egg on the Really Wild show.

God, what a hill to die on indeed. Ellis, I can't stop thinking about what you were saying earlier there about the coolest thing to eat while you're waiting for your fish to be done in a fish and chip shop. What is the least cool thing from a fish and chip shop menu that you could be eating in the queue? A cup of beans. I think polystyrene mug of mushy peas or maybe a pickled egg.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Slipping curry sauce from a polystyrene cup. I'm going to go to the chippy tonight. I've already decided. It's 9.08am and that's my tea. Decided. Perfect. Tom, if I caught you sipping from a polystyrene cup of mushy peas,

I'd find that less weird than you sipping from a cup of custard. Yes, agreed. I'd say mushy peas are my favourite semi-liquid. All right, that's it for this week thank you so much for listening if you want to get the fourth part to the show which this week is lifestyle choices plus get both parts in one complete part a week early bonus episodes every month ad free loads of other good stuff support the show you can become an oh What A Time full timer and you can do that by going to

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