The Chaser Report - No War Stories Today Because We All Got COVID

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

You know when you go on holiday feeling calm with the knowledge you wont get surprised by work while on break? Because we don't. After finding ourselves in the awkward position of not having any content to deliver, Dom calls up each member of the team to find out what they got up to over the break. Spoilers: there's a lot of Omicron. WAR STORIES WILL RESUME NEXT WEEK! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It is Friday the 21st of January, 22. My name is Domnight, and I'm going to break it to you. We don't have a new episode of war stories for you today. There are many reasons for this. We could blame it on Omicron. We could blame it on Dominic Peritay. We could blame it on Scott Morrison, we could blame it on Novak Djokovic if we wanted to, but the real reason is we just didn't get our act organized last year to do enough catch-ups with enough members of the team.

The good news, though, is that we've arranged to chat to Julian Morrow early next week, so we'll have new episodes with him and potentially other members of the team for you next week before. Regular podcast service resumes on the 31st of January. By the way, sorry to say there won't be a new episode on Monday, but there's heaps of old episodes you can listen back to that aren't topical. If you run out of war stories, check out the best of us. We've had a few

adventures, though, over the break, and what we might do is call a few members of the team just to find out what they've been doing. And we'll get into that in just a second. The Chaser Report. Now with Extra Whispers. Let's begin with the man who produces this podcast

for you every day, and often appears on it. Lachlan Hodson. Give him a ring. Let's see what he's been up to. Hi, Dom. Hi, Lachlan. Welcome back to The Chaucer Report. Oh, I'm on right now. You're on right now.

Yeah, no, we're recording something to fill. You know the awkward thing where we didn't actually do enough war stories catch-ups with other members of the team, that whole issue? As the podcast producer, I should remember. Yeah. You know, you sent us an email reminding us that this was going to happen, and we were kind of like, yeah. Charles was down the coast. And he was like, oh, I didn't pack a microphone. And I was like, yeah, been working through the whole break.

It's been a big week for us all, hasn't it? It's been a big break. So I thought instead of doing what we said we do and do a new war stories every day, we'd just catch up with a few people and see how they were doing. You have had a very strange December into January, haven't you? That one month went for a whole year itself, yeah. You've got a little thing called COVID-19, didn't you? A little, just a dab of COVID.

I didn't want too much. Just a nice spoonful of COVID helped having Christmas with my family go down. Yeah, so talk us through. Have you called Zanda yet? I haven't called Zandi yet. I thought we start with you. What you're going to want to do, after you get my side of the story, you're going to want to go to him and ask him what he thinks happened.

Yeah. And we'll just see how consistent these two stories are. Because what I think happened is that he gave you COVID. And that's what I think happened as well, dumb. That's, you know, I think that's also what New South Wales health things happened. I also think that's what the four people at Zander. also gave COVID toothed he's a super spreader

Zandra is a super spreader the man the man was relentless and incredibly effective yeah but yeah it was definitely it was definitely the worst Christmas present I thought I'd get from him this year because I remember late last year there was a day when he came in

and he was like sneezing and coughing and stuff and I said Zanda can you actually go home if you've got these symptoms and he said oh no it's just throwing really dirty clothes and I'm allergic to the dirt on my clothes. And I thought, this is someone who is probably going to give me COVID in the next few weeks. I know, yeah. It was literally like, oh, I've got hay fever at the moment.

Oh, it's just really dusty at home. I live in the same house. Why have I not got hay fever? Yeah, okay. So he gave it to you. So he gave it to me and three other people who were in our house for a day. Well, it is a share house. It is a share house.

And we share everything that we have. everyone at the end of December was going off to travel for Christmas. Sorry, it was going off to visit different people for Christmas. And we all got COVID from Xander on one night before all going different places. Yeah, was it like a night, an inception night? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were watching some like movie that we all had wanted to see and we all watched it together

and then we went around the country. What was the movie? And so we had one guy, a bugger if I could remember it. Through the haze. So where did you all head to? So I went home to the Central Coast with my family. Noticed on the second day of being there that I had a little sore throat and then by day three had full-blown COVID.

Day three also happened to be December 25th. No. Yeah. So I'm there opening presents and then going, I actually, sorry, mum and dad and to my siblings, I'm going to have to go hide in one of your bedrooms. because I don't want to infect everyone. I mean, it's not a funny story.

It's more sad than funny, but we said we catch up. Yeah. And we caught more than up. Yeah. Did anyone in the family get it? Yeah, see, that's what I was about to say. I wanted to get them something that I knew that no one else would. So I gave them all COVID as well.

All? All of them. I've got a family of six. And so I gave five people COVID over the whole old old. This is becoming a Zandah strain, isn't it? I think it's a stunt. I think that he thinks it's a stunt. Should we call him now without letting him know we're calling him?

Yeah, why not? Let's go for it. Let's just breach the listening devices act and add Zander into the conversation. Hang on, Lachlan. Just hang on a second. Hello, Dom. How are you? Hey, Zanda.

How are you? You are on the Chaser report. Hello? It's good to have you here. We're just catching up with the team. I'm just going to merge you with Lachlan. Okay, so we've got Zander and Lockey. here. Zanda, we've just been

hearing from Lachlan that, look, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Apparently you gave him COVID-19? You gave me COVID, you bastard? Yeah, I did. It was a great experiment. What were you trying to prove the infectiousness of Omicron? Don't sound too disappointed

in yourself, Zanda. Don't beat yourself up. No, I was just scared that I was going to be home alone over Christmas, right? And so I gave Loughlin COVID, hopefully that he was going to stay with me over Christmas. And then he went off and then he gave all his family COVID. So my super splutter plan absolutely failed.

In a sense, didn't it succeed in that you gave, so there was Loughlin infected five more people, that's six. What about the rest of your house? Well, no one else in our house got infected, but one of my mates got infected and he went to Victoria while he was infectious.

So really, we went interstate with our cluster. Wow. So were you patient zero for an entire cluster in Victoria, basically? Well, I would say I'm like 0 plus 1 because one of my friends gave me COVID. But yeah, essentially, when we'll get a cluster at the chase, we go harder, we go home.

So this is the issue, Dom. Is Zander's in denial about the fact that he was the one who started the COVID in our house? Zander, he had this real issue with actually accepting that he had COVID in the first place. He kept saying that he thought he had something that he named illness X. No, this is not me. That was you, Lachlan. Not you. This, I've been thrown under the bus.

This is honestly just a straw man. I've been set up. This is unfair. I didn't think I had illness sex. I honestly thought I had COVID. I got tested straight away. I isolated. Unlike Lachlan, who was out and about partying, going to all these people,

kissing babies, visiting anti-vax friends. You know, I was the well-behaved one here. That's on the central coast. doesn't matter. Let's just zoom out. It's a victimless crime on the Central Coast. That's not funny. That's not funny. Now, look, let's just zoom out for a sec here. Because Dr. Carrie Chan has said that Omicron is overwhelmingly affecting young people. And I'm getting a sense that that's absolutely true. How many of your friendship group, broadly speaking, people you know, have actually had Omicron in the past month or two?

I think most, at least half. Yeah, at least half. And that's why all our friends are getting at no one at the Chaser, because, like, young people get it. Thank God. What happened after I caught it from Xander? I had a Gold Coast holiday books. God. And thankfully, because Don Perrite changed the rules, rather than having to spend 14 days in isolation,

I only had to spend seven, which meant that I was allowed legally to go to the Gold Coast if I didn't have symptoms. So I went to the Gold Coast under completely non-dubious grounds. It was all legit. And I was there with a dozen friends. from Newcastle, and whilst I was there on the Gold Coast for five days, half of them came down with COVID.

Oh, my God. But isn't the Gold Coast basically for infectious diseases? Isn't that basically the point of the place? It's like movie world, dream world and COVID world at the moment. Yeah. There's also, there's no nice way to say this, Lockheed, but are you a Toolee? A toly. I'm not just a Toolee.

I'm a schoolie, toolie and a folly. Yeah, so, Don, we've well and truly spread our cluster across Australia. I think we've shared our disease with love. It's a charitable service, really. It's a great story, and I'm sort of presenting this to listeners as an excuse for not having in more episodes of war stories, but actually it has nothing to do with that, does it? Public health message, don't get Omicron, though, because we've both been very, very tired since getting sick.

Yeah, how's your brain fog going, Z? Well, the excuse I'm using at the moment is that every time I try to come up with something funny and I can't. COVID's just oint to my brain. Oh, that's a good one. All right. I must hang out with you guys more. I want to get an omicron. No, I really don't.

Because one of the symptoms of COVID at the moment is apparently this brain fog. And I just read today that it lasts on average for eight months after. Wow. So I don't know how many, like, I don't know how many sick days, Zandra and I have left in the bank. But we might start having to cash all of them in. No. It's a heartbreaking human interest story, and the best part is it that it happened to other members of the team and not me. So you guys are not going to give me COVID for how many weeks now?

They say a month, don't they? Yes. Yes. All right. Well, let's hang out for two weeks and then never speak again. No, that works well. That works well. We'll hold big parties just for the next four at night.

Try and peep the brain fog. Are you coughing while? Dom, are you coughing? Yeah. Did you just cough? I did actually just cough. Oh, no. Oh, I don't know.

Sandor, you've done it again. How did you do it over the phone, Zander? Oh, no. You see, it's just that infectious, guys. Be careful. Stay safe. Wear a mask. Don't go watching movies with Zander.

Yeah, don't hang out with me. After that story, I think we need a break. The Chaser Report, less news, more often. All right, having done that, let's check in with Gander. Gabby Bolt, shall we? Let's see how she's traveling during this bizarre Omicron summer. Hello. Hello, Gabby Bolt.

Welcome back to the Chaser Report. Surprise. Oh, it's great to be back. How are you? Wow. Oh, totally expecting this call. Yeah, I'm good. How are you?

Yeah, good. So what happened was we didn't record enough of the War Stories episodes. We're a little bit hopeless with our coordination. So we're trying to blame it on like everyone. I'm getting COVID, but actually it's just Charles and me being hopeless. But I thought I'd check in on your adventures because we've just heard how Xander gave Loughlin that's quite the tale of woe. But from your social media over the break, I get the sense that, let's just say things

haven't been perfect in the, you know, comedy performing world as well. I should mention we all came to your debut live performance at the end of last year. It was absolutely wonderful. Everyone's got to go and see Gabby's show if you can. How's that process going? um terrifying i daily grapple with uh wanting to cancel it and wanting to do it now uh about 50 million times a day so it's awesome because like the thing is the thing i'm learning about doing festival shows is that they're asking you for solutions to problems that you're only going to have in like three months time

yeah like what and so like well things like you know accommodation and flights that you have to book now because otherwise it all runs out and then you know booking a tech and knowing when your tech rehearsal will be and knowing how many tickets you're going to sell and then paying for those posters or for the social media marketing campaigns and funding all that stuff. So they're just all assuming everything's going to be fine. Are these festivals run by Dominic Perratae?

No, I will say. They are being like very comforting in the way they're communicating. They're giving us all the information as they're finding it out. I think my main qualm was just, I'm a deeply anxious human being anyway without a national panes.

And so when the owner falls on the performer to actually go ahead with their show or not, really, it all comes down to whether I want to do it or not. It is horrifying. Yeah, because I guess that's the case, right? Like, they're just saying, well, you know, you can do it or you can not. You know, that's kind of, it's all on you and you've got to take the risk. How absolutely hellish for your first ever, like, national tour? Yeah, and I'm just hoping that the trauma from having to make these decisions on a daily basis is going to be, like, really good for when there is. isn't a pandemic one day.

That's true. And I can just, like, every show will just feel real chill. It'll get easier from here. And, I mean, who knew that actually writing an hour of comedy that's great was not going to be the hardest part of this process? Yeah. No, that's been the easiest bit. Performing it even has been, it's like almost an after source.

Great. Jeez. All right. So I see other gigs are full on by the wayside, too. Do I get the sense that the irrational fear anniversary gig is, has been? next at the opera house I was really looking forward to that yeah yeah me too that was going to be my first time ever backstage at the opera house so next time hopefully god if pandemic qualms I don't know or maybe I will just I thought about like retraining and

some stuff I just watched all of Chernobyl because I'm house-fitting at the moment and they have binge so I just watched all of Chernobyl and now I kind of want to learn Ukrainian and I feel like There must be jobs in that. Well, just as many jobs in that as there is in performance. There's about to be an invasion in Ukraine. So if you become a Ukrainian-speaking Russian sympathizer, I think there'll be a lot of work. Right, right.

Okay, well, oh, okay, well, I might have to change a few things about my fundamental ethos. But apart from that, yeah, that sounds like a great career change. All right. Might do that. So this is the kind of midway through the holidays checkup. We're due to come back Monday week on the 31st. that's one plan that I think will actually happen due to the fact that we can all record from home

but I don't know what I'm going to see everyone again yeah although I did get boosted so that was good that's good oh go you so you're you're triply immune and then we have to I had a see the difference between you and me on this is that I had a couple of weeks there where I genuinely thought I was quite bulletproof now because you know whatever Delta come at me I'm triple vaxed yeah yeah now we know that's basically the minimum yeah I kind of want to have five, five shot stills, right? Yeah, that's probably good. Because if I develop a mutation, I can get the pay out from that.

And also, who knows, I could grow a tail or something. That could become very useful. Actually, I've got to say, as a pianist, having a third arm would be amazing. Yeah, actually, yeah, but it has to have working fingers. Because a third arm with no working fingers, useless. But, yeah, if I could get a third arm with a whole set of fingers or even more fingers than five, that would be amazing. All right.

Thank God. All right. Well, we'll see you on the 31st, Gabby. We're going to try and have our war stories for next week. And it's great to catch up with me spontaneously calling you live on the podcast. No, it's great. Good luck. Ah, thanks, Dom.

Hopefully I'll have an extra arm by the next time I see you. We can only hope. Thank you, Gabby. Thanks, Jim. All right. That was Gabby Boltz, back on the podcast with us every day on the 31st. The Chaser Report. What about Alexa?

Because he's usually good for a depressing. story. It's been a pretty depressing summer. He said he wanted another wave of the pandemic and I thought that was not going to happen. Let's see if he's around. No one knows that I'm calling them by the way.

Hi there, you've reached Alex of Woolwich's phone. I'm not here at the moment so please leave a message and I'll get back to you. Hi Alex, so you're live on the Chaser report. I just want to tell you that Remember that segment where you said you really wanted another wave? Because you just didn't want to have to deal with, like, dating and stuff in the social awkwardness. You got what you wanted.

The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust. All right. There's just one more call to make here. And that is to my very old friend and colleague, Charles Firth. I don't think he's expecting this. Hello, this. first. If you want to leave a message, please just let it be known that I reserve the right

to use whatever you say on my podcast. Leave a message or don't if you don't want me to use your recording. Thanks. Bye. That's amazing, Charles. You've already consented to me using this recording on the podcast. Thank you very much. I guess that's because you've published your phone number to absolutely everyone in the whole of Australia, which is very brave of you. then as now all right i'll see you on the 31st of january charles all right so we're expecting more war stories next week with julian morrow and perhaps other members of the team as well and don't forget regular episodes resume twice a day on the 31st of january we'll catch you then our gears from road microphones are part of the acast creator network and we'll catch you next week for some more war

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