The Chaser Report - Les Melbérables

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Zander dives into the action to bring his live report on the revolt occurring in Melbourne, and Charles briefly shows his smug face to brag about being a cushy boomer homeowner. Meanwhile Gabbi has developed a new favourite genre of music while listening to Taylor Swift's latest releases. Plus another round of Fiction or Furphy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode of The Chaser Report, brought to you by Awkward Dates. Hey, my name's Oedipus, and you look just like my mum. Oh no, I'm getting a call. You have my mum's eyes, and now I do too. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to the Chaser Report on Thursday, the 18th of November. I'm Dom. We have Alex at Gabby, and Charles is back from. Travel, shows and stuff.

And very good news, guys. Oh, yeah. Something that everyone's going to love, which is... Why don't I not believe you? That the Reserve Bank of Australia has announced that they're not going to raise interest rates till at least 2024. Woo-hoo! I don't even know what that mean.

No, mortgage rate rises. That means, you know, if you've got a mortgage... Oh, no. In your own a home, you don't have to pay any more for at least like a year and a half. You're only a year and a half older than me, but you're such a fucking boomer. I hate you. I love it. And because the good thing is, like, what this does is it means that pensioners don't get any money from their savings and things like that.

It really, you know, deals with that really well. And then the other thing is that young people who are saving for a home don't get any interest from their savings. Yeah. But all the people who own homes get all the benefits. It's perfect. Property prices stay incredibly impossibly high. I know. Keeps the riffrap out of the market.

Your entire life income wouldn't be enough to buy a house in Sydney. That sort of situation. Continues. Charles, you suck. I'm trying to be funny about this, but it's just awful. Do you know what, though? It's actually quite funny that you bring this up because, like, obviously, I do, this will tell you, I promise.

One of my favourite genres on Netflix. There's one now called Escapist Reality TV. And do you know what half of those shows are? What? Home renovation. Owning your home. I'm like, you know what? This is escapist.

A fantasy. I can't knock a wall down and create a non-sweet. It's not going to happen for me. You know, I've heard your sob story, but I've been ignoring it completely because I'm just thinking maybe actually I should buy a second house. Because maybe it's a power fast. Yeah, what's too many? Because there's like tax advantages in negative hearing.

Oh, there's negative gearing. I mean, look, I mean, Bill Shorten went to the electorate and said, look, this is a really outrageous thing. And he lost. So you can do it. Yeah, and I hear, look, you Gabby, you know, you don't own a home. Mm-hmm. Maybe I can buy one for you and you can pay off my mortgage for me.

Yeah. Buy the rent the charge and then it's all happy days. Everyone gets to benefit except for you. I mean, I already, I already do that. I already pay someone else for a home. I'd happily, for moral reasons, pay you instead. Yeah, okay. Just never come over unannounced and fix all the houses.

Alex, so if I bought a third home, Do you be able to... Do you want to move in? I'm completely fine with this. I live with my parents and they're anti-vax, so I'm feeling I'm going to be a homeowner very soon. This is all great news to me. On today's show, Zana heads to Melbourne

to check out an anti-vaxor rally and a giant scaffold that's been put up outside Parliament House in Melbourne. How strange. And Gabby, you've been listening to Taylor Swift. Oh, yeah, that's big news. I have. I'll talk about that later.

And Charles has another tall tale for fiction or furphy. That's all coming up. But first, let's go to Rebecca Dana Minow in the Chaser Newsroom. The PM's office has failed to meet legal requirements for FOI requests regarding former staffer Brittany Higgins. The Liberal Party, who maintain that they have nothing to hide, have broken FOI laws by intentionally slowing responses and refusing other requests in a move approved by the Prime Minister's office, almost as if they have something to hide. Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has slammed suggestions that he should condemn protesters

demanding that Dan Andrews be murdered in public, saying that they are only bringing gallows to Victorian government buildings and not something more scary like strawberries with pins in them. An update on the William Tyrell case has revealed that, nope, nope, not reading that. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, not going to. there never going there i'm not saying it we've had fun guys but no you can't make me say that those are the latest headlines from the chaser report i'm rebecca de unamuno and i know what jokes won't get me crucified this episode of the chaser report is sponsored by awkward first dates oh my god hi it's so nice to see you friendly in person although i will say your house looked a lot

smaller in the photos there's no photos of my house on my page And I'll be on my way. Then my Uber's here. Goodbye. Let's never speak again. Gabby and Alex, so we've got our man on the scene, Zanda Chavanov.

Woo! Right outside the Victorian Parliament where a scaffold has just been erected with great sensitivity. Hey, Zanda. Hello, Dom. Yes, that is true.

And it is very fascinating scenes live here on the ground. Why is there a scaffold outside the Victorian Parliament? Well, you see, I was pretty confused. I was going through a morning walk through Melbourne and then suddenly all these people speaking French rush pass and they all had wood

and they started constructing a gallows. What, like a literal gallows? Yeah, like a literal gallows. Was it some sort of artistic happening? Well, I'm not sure, but then all this Coles mud cake emerged, and they started shouting, let them eat cake or something ridiculous like that, and it is really ruined my morning walk. Are you sure this isn't just like a Melbourne arts installation,

like a Marie Antoinette. Yeah, it's probably a festival. It's really hard to understand what they're saying because they're all speaking in French. Were they wearing any pants? No, no pants, just speaking French, throwing cakes around and trying to build gallows, and I don't understand what's happening, it's just ridiculous. So just to clarify, you're at an anti-vaxor protest outside the Victorian Parliament,

and your satirical target is French wankers. Yes. Okay. I understand that I'm looking at photos here where you are, Zanda, and I'm seeing an inflatable Dan Andrews being strung up from the gallows. Is that some sort of waiting for Godo twists, Samuel Beckett or something? think. Well, it's quite interesting. We're seeing, there's a lot of arguments between the protesters here. Obviously, the ones who are more traditional want them to bring in guillotines,

but the ones who think that, you know, they need to go for more of a revolutionary flair, want gallows, and they think that's more true to the Australian British heritage or whatever. Of lynching. Yeah, of lynching. So it's complicated. There's a lot of fights on the ground here, but, you know, once again, they're in French, so my translator's doing a lot of the legwork for me. So, just hold on it. I need to go back. Why aren't they wearing pants? Um, well, you know, it's one of those, it's one of those things. They won't be tied down. Like, you can't, you can't make them have vaccines. You can't make them speak English. You can't make them use guillotanes. And you can't, most importantly, make them wear pants.

They won't, it's their choice, you know, society won't chain them down. Okay. Remember how we talk about you committing to a bit? I saw some, um, I'm looking at some images now from the area. I see someone holding a sign saying un-backed sperm is the new Bitcoin. Have you, have you spoken to this man? And what's that in French? Le unvax sperm is the new Le Bitcoin.

Jsuis, sperm-y, bitcoinsie, sticky. That's it. Le Miserables, yeah. Yes. And, you know, he walked up to me today and he was like, You see, they want to take a sperm away and they want to poison it. And I was very confused at what he meant. But, you know, he was quite firm.

Sounds Michelin, though, doesn't it? Sometimes we record something, and I just want to say to look on our producer, it's done. You don't have to do it. It's perfect. We've absolutely doubt. We did it, guys. We've captured the essence of the theme. The uneditable segment. The biggest question for me is how this French man in Melbourne without pants and Cole's mudcake

plans on trading his sperm like Bitcoin because, as we all know, you know, trading Bitcoin goes over the internet. Would the mudcakes come with those lids, don't they? I can flip them and they turn into a bit of a book. Maybe that's the white icing on the mud cake. It's like you're there, Zanda. Melbourne all loved this. That was Zanda.

Melbourne, the French Revolution of Australia. The Chesa's rich satirical tradition is in safe hands down in Melbourne. Thank you, Zanda. This episode of The Chaser Report is sponsored by Awkward dates. Um, uh, the food is good. Yeah, I guess. So do you like dogs? No.

Oh. Fiction or Furfi? It's time for another round of Fiction or Furfi. This is the segment where Charles tells the story in our panel of Alexa and Gabby have to work out. Is it fiction, completely made up, or a furthie, which is something that is fundamentally true, but a bit exaggerated. Now, Alex and Gabby, you've got the past three wrong. You said that they were fictions and they were, in fact, mostly furfies. Do you think you do better this time?

No. I'm just going to assume it's all true. Yeah, me too. Whatever Charles says is real. Charles, your life isn't an enigma. I don't know how to explain it. Charles, crack one, tell one. Okay, so this one happened just actually a couple of years ago.

I was organizing a live show tour. I've actually got a live show tour coming up, The War on 2021. You can buy tickets at chaser.com.com. They use slash live. Nice. Nice little plug there. It's seamless. So this one,

This was when climate change, have you heard of climate change? What? Yeah. So that was when it was a bit of a big issue. It was a few years ago now. Not anymore, though. Yeah. And so we thought it would be really funny if throughout the whole show,

there was this big red button in the middle of the stage with a sign saying, you know, to solve climate change, press this button, right? Or something like, to save the world, press this button, right? And the whole idea is that no one would just ignore the button the whole time. No one would press it and it was a sort of conceptual joke. Anyway, so I had to organise a big red button, right? And so I googled Big Red Button on the internet to try and find a big red button. And there's all these different options and things like that, but none of them look particularly good.

You know, Microsoft sold one for like $99, but it was for gamers and anything like that. And then I found this one. There was only $12. right 22 centimeters diameter so like that big like big enough to be on stage right 16 dollar shipping but that's fair enough

like it's a you know it's a you know it looks perfect it looks like an emergency button that you know could save the world right so I buy it right a couple of weeks later it arrives and I'd misread

it wasn't 22 centimeters It was 22 millimetres. So this was like a day before the time started. And we had this button that was literally two centimetres big as our big stage button for the show. Did no CIA agents in this one, this feels a bit more plausible? Paps, what do we think, Gabby and Alex? Is it fiction or fuffy?

I think it's a mind fuck. I don't, like, he's proved us wrong. The last three crazy about shit stories. This one sounds semi-plausible, which leads me to believe it actually is fiction. Gabby says fiction. Alexa says. I think it's a furphy solely because back maybe a year ago

and when Charles was teaching me how to tell yarns on a podcast, he used this exact example of a story. Oh, that's not fair. No, but no, it could be a conspiracy, right? It could be, if this is actually, if this is actually false, then everything Charles says on the podcast is a lie apart from the furfee section.

So I can't. I'm going to say true. Yeah, it can't be one. Okay, so it's a furfie, you are correct, Alexa. Congratulations. It's fucking rigged. Yes. No, it totally happened to, the only, it was comically tiny,

which actually made me worry about the vibrator that I put off of it. Hey, hey? This has been fictional, Furphy, Furphy, unbelievable. Another episode soon. Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by Awkward dates. April 31st. What? It's a date.

It doesn't exist. It's a bit awkward. Lachlan, I swear to God. April 30th. Also pretty awkward. What's awkward about April 30th? It's the day before April 31st. Oh, my God.

I don't know if you guys have heard. There's a new revenge fantasy that is an option now. Oh. I don't know if you're aware. So if you're not in the Taylor Swift universe, she recently, she's obviously, she's in the middle of re-releasing all of her albums because there's this horrible ownership thing

where she wasn't allowed to own her own song. and so she's re-recording all of her own music and owning it as well. So I'm doing that with this podcast. I'm actually re-recording every episode. Is this episode going to be like The Chaser Report in brackets, Dom's version? Yeah, nice. Dom's Gabby voice is so good. Yeah, you're not in it.

It's just me doing you and being Alexa. And I have to go there to do, John. Yeah, great. No, but yeah, so she's going back through and re-recording all these incredible albums. And she's also, like, she's releasing all of these unfinished songs. She's finished them. They're called From the Vault. and she's doing all this work,

and it's actually just genuinely so incredible. But what it's opened up is the option of absolutely fucking ending an ex from 10 years ago in the best way. And I keep thinking about it. I'm like, fuck, that was an option the whole time. And I can't wait for other people who adopt the Taylor Swift methodology, where it's like, you know, a book that was released that might have had a couple of vague quotes about a vague person

can now be re-released and just have a whole chapter on a very detailed account of what had happened, you know? Do we know who these people are? Do we know who the exes are? Well, yeah, I mean, so obviously the 10-minute version of All Too Well by Taylor Swift is about Jake Gyllenhaal. And I don't know if you're aware, there's a whole thing. There's a scarf that got left at a certain sister's house.

It's like a really big deal. I'm absolutely not aware of this. Didn't he not turn up to her 21st birthday party? He didn't turn up to her 21st birthday. And you know what? I also feel very conflicted discussing it like this because the whole point is that Taylor's music actually transcends, you know, just feelings of inadequacy and feelings of complete.

confidence lack that girls experience and get shot on for all the time. And her music gives weight to those things and it makes it feel like it's a very universal experience. And so I hate reducing it to being about her boyfriends, but it's just too good. 10 years on, you would imagine to be pretty easy to transcend Jake Dillonhall, right? Yeah, but it just makes me think about all the other 10-minute versions of things that could now come out. Like, it's okay because Taylor did it, you know.

Like she wrote that song, Dear John about John Mayer, that could come out now as a 10-minute version and I'd just be not ready for the things she'd say about John Mayer. And what about if Dolly Parton did a 10-minute version of Jolene and just shout on Jolene? And we found out her name wasn't actually Jolene, but it's like, who would have that been about? There is a real Jolene. I've written an article once about who it's about. I wanted to just to read her the song. Don't use Jolene.

Use the real name. Just destroy her. Bring back flaming people on purpose. She knows what she did. Yeah. You could have like, You're so vain is about. Oh, Warren Bady. It's about Warren Bady.

Yeah. I mean, there's not much more to be said about Warren Bady being a bit of an asshole. women but now go go for it imagine 10 minute you're so vain i'd die and i what right said fred yeah just come back and 10 minute version of i'm too sexy and just like a whole other level detailed accounts yeah details yeah that's what i thrive off it i'm a vampire for other people's drama it's great and also i think aqua has a 10 minute version of barbie girl because you know that that ended in a lawsuit really matel tried to sue aqua matel yeah just because it was It was called Barbie girl.

They said, you can't use Barbie, the name, because you're making fun. And Mattel lost. So they have the right. So I want to hear a 10-minute version of Barbie Girl that's all about Mattel being litigious fucks. Oh, no. Well, I thought, I just wanted more world building because they did say in a Barbie world, and I don't know anything about what that world consists of.

Yeah, you want the backstory. Yeah, yeah. I want the details. Like, where did they meet? Well, no, they do, they do give away a few details. They give away life in plastic. It's fantastic. So everything's made of plastic.

And that is. By the way, that's actually where the Radiohead universe and Barbie girl. Yeah, fake plastic trees is actually written from Ken's perspective. I don't know if anyone I was ever aware of that. I challenge you, Gabby Bolt, to produce an aqua radio head mashup? Easy. I could do that tomorrow. Fake plastic doll.

Oh, my, no, like plastic girl. Like Barbie girl. Of course, sorry. Fake plastic Barbie? Oh, there's so many options. Our gear is by road microphones and we are part of the ACAS creator network. And both of them know what they did.