The Gargle - Corn sweat | Fish antidepressants | Petty woman

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Support Bugle podcasts here https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donateKillian Sundermann and AJ Lamarque join host Alice Fraser for episode 173 of The Gargle.All of the news, with none of the politics.�� Corn sweat💊 Fish antidepressants👋 Unemployment pride👜 Petty woman🏀 ReviewsWatch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@BuglePodcastWritten by Alice Fraser, Killian Sundermann and AJ LamarqueProduced by Ped Hunter, with executive production from Chris SkinnerHOW TO SUPPORT THE GARGLE- Keep The Gargle alive and well by joining Team Bugle with a one-off payment, or become a Team Bugler or Super Bugler to receive extra bonus treats!https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donate Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a podcast from The Bugle. Many moons ago, a small old woman lived in a big old house. Apart from being a metaphor for the way in which the boomer generation is sitting on real estate pricing younger generations out of the housing market, she was also just a little ancient crone who happened to occasionally be a witch. librarian, but every second full moon the urge to do some witching came upon her, and this particular Saturday night she pulled on her stripy softens, cackled experimentally, and took her swiffer out for a spin. As she rose, silhouetted against the moonlit clouds, she raised her face to the glowing sky and called to the cruel, crisp night. Now this is The Gargle. Welcome to The Gargle, the sodic glossy magazine to the Bugles audio newspaper for a visual world. I am your host,, the sodic glossy magazine to the bugles audio newspaper for a visual world. I'm your host Alice Fraser bringing you all of the news, none of the politics

and your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine are Killian Sunderman. Welcome. Hello. That's my old woman impression. And AJ Lamarck. Welcome. Hello. I couldn't resist a coven call. You know me. I know you, you horrible old witch. Before we throw some eyeballs of newt into this week's top stories, let's have a look at the front cover of this week's magazine. This week, the front cover is the band Oasis,

caught choreographing a breakup fight as the finale of their upcoming reunion concert. And the satirical cartoon this week is a bunch of camels arriving at an oasis in the middle of the desert, only to be greeted by a djinn that says, sorry, due to dynamic pricing, you'll have to pay £1,000 for tickets to this oasis. Killian, are you going to go to the Oasis. Killian, are you gonna go to the Oasis concert? Well, it's on the same month as the Edinburgh Fringe, so I was looking at trying to get tickets in Edinburgh because I don't know if you know,

but the Galloway brothers are very popular in Ireland. So there was, I mean, it's at the stage now where the government are getting involved and they're like begging Oasis to do another two dates. So I don't know where it's gonna end up, it could end up in the High Courts and they'll be begging Oasis to do another two dates. So I don't know where it's going to end up. It could end up in the high courts and they'll be brought to the high courts. And maybe they'll have to do a show every single day here. Uh, so I'm holding out for that to happen.

So generally courts refuse to, uh, impose something called a specific performance because, uh, you know, they don't want to force someone to show up and do something with they'd be like, no, no, no, no, no. You know, I mean, that is how they sound anyway, but you know what I mean? But maybe they could pay everyone in Ireland some sort of fee for the loss of pleasure. Financially reimburse you for the failure

to show up more than one day. Yeah, that'd be lovely. I also live very close to where the show would be on. And last night Coldplay were playing and I was trying to sleep and all I could hear was Chris Martin wailing. So I think I could just open my window and hear it and I'd be happy enough. And that brings us to this week's top story, Corn Sweat News now. This is the news that hot weather, along with extreme humidity has enveloped much of the Midwest of America over the course of this week and is apparently going to move into the mid Atlantic states. There's going to be some really exciting

things happening as a result. A.G. Lamarck, you know what corn sweat is. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes, I am a specialist in corn sweat. That is my PhD. I like the idea of corn sweating. So basically, it are just sweating, they're perspiring in a vegetational way. And it's being deemed corn sweat. And I just like the idea of crops like having humanary human-esque reactions to stressful situations across the board, you know what I mean? Just imagine like potatoes in a field in the Midwest crying about the heat and complaining, I want a tomato that's a Karen just asking for the farmer manager being like this heat is intolerable. I want you to do something

about it. But yeah, it's climate crisis, but like kind of make it cute, kind of make it human-like so we can kind of endear with the corn instead of viewing it as our natural enemy. Well, I feel like you know making things more muggy might be a positive outcome. I don't know. Do you prefer a muggy heat or a dry heat? That's the real question. That's the real question. Do I prefer my corn in deep Texas or my corn in Singapore? That is, that's what we're asking today. Do we prefer a Dubai corn or a Singapore corn? Killian? Well, I mean, I don't know about that.

I lived in the US and I met a lot of Midwesterners. I think the fact that now there's literally, you know, corn is airborne and the fact that, you know, people from the Midwest can now kind of extract corn from the air via osmosis is probably not going to do good for their stereotype as corn consuming people.

But that is what they say is why they're such big, strong, and lovely people. So maybe this is like good news for the midwesterners, even though it is overall terrible news for mankind. Would it make the wind sweet? Like, I don't know how the sugar elements of the sweat would go, but if the wind passed them, would it be like some sort of natural corn diffuser? Because I wouldn't mind that personally, it'd be quite a pleasant smell. I think it would be quite a pleasant smell on day one, once you get to day six of corn sweat. The mugginess in the air

tasting like nacho cheese, I feel like you would be. It's like swimming in a big bowl of that sort of horrible nacho cheese that you get in the cinema. Oh my gosh. Can you get diabetes through smell? That's the question. I mean, we are going to find out, I feel. If you do happen to be in corn sweat territory, please remember to stay hydrated and drink

things. Drink unsweetened beverages. They may well sweeten themselves with aerosolized corn syrup. Your ad section now because you can't be what you can't buy. Introducing InvisiSoap, the revolutionary soap that is completely invisible, odourless and intangible, guaranteed to leave your skin exactly the same as it was before. No damaging your skin barrier, no aggravating any reactions you might have, no strange smells, no awkward lather and no evidence that you ever used soap at all. Are you really clean?

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And are you happy living in a state of uncertainty? Sometimes it's better not to know. If you want something that's not too much and not too little, just enough hydration to keep you questioning everything, try half a glass of water. Need a little more? Sorry, that's not what we're about. Need less? We can't help you there either. But remember, in every half a glass there's a world of possibilities. Perfect for existential pondering, quiet nights of reflection,

or confusing your friends at dinner parties, it's a statement in liquid form. Half full, because sometimes halfway is all the way. Now it's time for some more exciting news. This is the news that people's antidepressants pissing into the ocean are rewiring fish behavior. Kilian Sunderman, you know when something's a little bit fishy. Can you unpack this story for us? Well, you're right. Yes, I did grow up beside the sea. So this is kind of my area of expertise. But essentially, they were doing an analysis on some guppies, are they wild Atlantic guppies, specific type of fish, just to see the effect of pharmaceuticals on them. And it seems to be altering many things,

how much risk these fish are willing to take, how much sperm they have, their reproductive capabilities, it's changed them in many ways. And I guess this is kind of, I mean, I've been thinking of like, is this why everyone's been getting into sea swimming is this like is this what people are like floating to the sea they think it's something to do with cold

water therapy but it's actually because the sea is just flooded and diluted with loads of antidepressants and Prozac and things like that. Well apparently fluoxetine specifically even at low concentrations in the water fluoxetine being an antidepressant fairly commonly prescribed, increases the size of their gonopodium, which is what it sounds like, while simultaneously reducing their sperm velocity. So it's making them have bigger but lazier nads, essentially. And I feel like it, you know, I don't know if that's a good thing. It depends how many guppies do we want? Yeah, guppies are such a the name of a guppy means that it, in my mind feels like it should never be in the wild guppy feels like a domesticated fish. the fact that in this study, they only focused on male guppies, because I just find it so reaffirming that sexism exists,

even in the fish kingdom, that males get examined first, and females will figure it out later, it doesn't matter, we'll transplant it. But it's also like if it's not just going to be antidepressants, obviously, the study was just on that. But you've got guppies on pros that you're gonna have tuna fish on Ritalin, those schools are going to be very well organized in the Atlantic, flowing around on time precise, you've got stamina on birth control. It's going to be a whole, well, a lack of bare necessities, I suppose, because they're not breeding bears aren't eating,

but I want to see all of the tablets they're on. Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs when the, you know, the fish have better mental health services than the country that you're living in. The fair is when the fish have better mental health services than the country that you're living in. I think that's a bad indictment for the government. Should we start taxing fish? Yeah, throw aside the idea of trying to lick a hallucinogenic frog. Just go out there and try and suck off a guppy to get your meds. And that brings us to our reviews section. As you know, each week we ask our guest editors to bring in something to review out of five

stars AJ Lamarck. What have you brought in for us this week? Today I am reviewing basketball. I, uh, in the last couple of months, I've recently got into playing basketball socially, which is fun, a physical activity, good for your health, all of those other wonderful things. And I was like, good on me. I'm being active. I'm usually someone who sits at a keyboard and nerds out to books and everything like that. But I was like, pat on the back for me. But then I've discovered I started breaking out an acne. And I went to my doctor and I said, I don't know what's happened.

I've never had acne before. And he was like, well, you're playing basketball and it's probably increased your testosterone to a new level which you've never experienced before and now you're breaking out. So I'm going to give basketball a one because it's forced me in my mid-30s to go through puberty. Bullsports are a dangerous thing. Killian, what have you brought for us? Well, I would like to bring forward the new kneecap film that's come out. I don't know if you guys are aware of it, but it's a film about two young Irish rappers from Belfast who they rap in the Irish language and they're from West Belfast and they've released a film now with Michael Fassbender in it, a fellow German Irishman. We're a rare bunch, but there are a few of us.

And this film, it's wonderful. It's a really great film to watch. They did a remarkable thing. The people, the two lads from Necap, they managed to align the Unionists and the Republicans and the whole of the island of Ireland together, finally, just in opposition to these two poor young boys who everyone seems to hate so much. So it's a real fun thing to watch if you have time. It's a great, great film.

Well, kneecap, how many stars out of five? I'm giving it five stars, five tricolours. That's what I'm giving it. Because it takes a lot to United Nation. And that brings us to unemployment news now. And this is the news of the rise in China of youths who are becoming unemployment influencers. Killian, you've been influenced before. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes, well, it seems to be just the case

of what's happening everywhere, which is that we have a load of university educated young people, but no jobs to give them. And they're not really sure what to do. And some of them are getting quite smart and deciding, God, I'm unemployed. I can't seem to get a job. Wait, that's my gift.

I can just talk about being unemployed and not having a job and really thinking outside of the box. And so has managed to somehow create a career for themselves talking about how unemployable and unemployed they are. Um, and I, what I like about this unemployment influencer is like when she gets a job, does that mean her like, does that mean she's unemployed? She's kind of created a paradox because her job is being unemployed. So if she does get a job, is she no longer employed? She's kind of created some sort of strange paradox

that I'm very afraid is gonna tear apart the membrane of reality. But yeah, it just seems like there's loads of young people, university educated people who can't get white collar jobs. So I don't know, like now we have to have people who studied anthropology working in welding. And I'm not sure how that's going to work out. I think the classic thing is if you study anthropology you have to work at anthropology.

That's the rule. I think it's an interesting thing. It feels like a little bit like a spin-off of the tradwife thing where your whole thing is that you don't, that you're a stay- home mum who doesn't work, except you just happen to spend 14 hours a day getting the perfect camera angles to watch you not work. AJ, are you an unemployment influencer? I would love to be an unemployment influencer. I know many ways you can be unemployed.

I know many things you can do in your current job to become unemployed. If you need a list, I shall provide. Just email me and I can tell you a lot of ways in which you can get fired. It's a free service. generation Z for like fetishizing bed rot. I think a huge proportion of generations Ed say that their hobby is being on their phone and they quite enjoy just being in bed doing things, which I feel like everyone sort of does but not to the extent that you call it a hobby. I feel like hobby implies some sort of arc of progression. Like you don't just knit badly for the rest of your life. You sort of aim to get better at knitting.

I think everybody just watched Bridgerton and they like younger generations generally root for the underdog a lot. They saw the spinster and they were like, actually, hold on. She's onto something. She's got it going on. She just has to spinster for the rest of her life. She'll just knit in the corner. She'll go to balls, but stand around. That sounds doable. It sounds very achievable. I mean, this is one of the things, the mythology of like marriage being for women, straight marriage being of benefit for women. Turns out the one thing that is most likely to give you a shorter lifespan

and more mental health issues for women is getting, getting married. Whereas for men, it increases your lifespan, increases, statistically increases your financial well-being and your physical and mental well-being in every possible way. So this whole thing of like men being like, no, no, I don't want to get married. It's just them coyly flipping their fan in the corner, playing hard to get. How did you know? saying how to get. How did you know? Oh no, don't marry me woman.

It'll just improve my life on every possible vector. Where we get the biceps from, it's just the flapping of the fan just gets us gains. Well, I mean, I feel like you've got you've got the wrist strength already from your teen years. You've got to keep going. I don't know what you're talking about, Alice. And that brings us to our final story of this week, which is petty news now, which is the news that a shopper in Louis Vuitton saw the Pretty Woman thing where she goes back into the shop and says,

big mistake, huge, and decided to one up it, essentially. AJ Lamarck, you've seen Pretty Woman. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes, we have got Petty Woman, the Chinese sequel taking place in Louis Vuitton. So, look I when I read this story, again, I root for the underdog, I was like, serve do it. So basically, she goes into Louis Vuitton, the

high end store, it's one of those you cure, there's a billion assistants who do nothing. And she got treated really poorly. She was dismissed, apparently, there was eye rolling. They kind of judged her, they tried to palm her off on cheaper stuff. And she felt very aggrieved by this. And so she plotted for two months about how she would redeem her ego in the situation. And she went back two months later, she went into the shops and she said, I'm going to buy this bag for 110,000 Singaporean dollars, but I'm going to pay for it in cash.

So she puts the cash on the table and naturally they have to count it to make sure it's all there. They spend about two hours doing so and then after they finish she was like, actually I've changed my mind. Put the cash back into her bag and merely skipped away, having wasted everybody's time, but showing off that she does have cash. And I don't know how it works, but I think she's an icon now. They'll make her a horoscope, I presume. And she's an she's an idol. We worship her. I'm here for the pettiness. I'm here for revenge. I'm here for rubbing it in their faces. I respect this. I respect this for a number of reasons. First of all, that she can hold a grudge for two months. I am terrible at holding grudges.

Like I vaguely remember that I meant to be annoyed about something, but I can't remember what it was. I would be so bad at planning some kind of a revenge plot or heist. I'd be like, Hamlet would be like, I'd see my father's ghost and be like, hi, dad. Just, yeah, no, it's a terrible thing. The other thing that is that I respect is that she has to have counted the money herself beforehand in order to pass off this horrible task on other people.

As you say, as I say, when you plan on revenge, you've got to dig two graves and then count $110,000 in cash into each of them. I just love the idea though that with this particular story juxtaposed of the unemployment rate you've got this woman going back in with a bag of cash these employed assistants looking at her and then outside there's 20 percent of the Chinese youth staring through the window wishing they could be in either of those positions. Killian? Yeah I just think it's funny because I think it's like a rich person not really understanding what like menial jobs are and what like she's concocted this big revenge because she's like this is the worst possible thing. But she clearly hasn't worked at one of those really terrible jobs where you're doing nothing all day.

And the idea of just having to stand there and count for a while and not having to talk to any of the obviously insane people that you have to deal with is actually like a little bit of a break. Like if someone said to me, I'm like, instead of having to talk to these posh Chinese women who are like, you know, she got annoyed because she asked for a drink in a clothes shop and they didn't give it to her. I'm like, look, you weren't, this isn't a bar, like it's a clothes shop. So if someone was like, you just have to count cash for about two hours. I'm like, absolutely grand. I'll put in my headphones and count for a while. This is gorgeous. So I mean, I kind of, she has a level of pettiness that I aspire to.

And in that sense, she's an icon. But I don't know if she pulled off her event. I'd say the person who did this was like, all right, grand. Like, I don't give it. It's not my money. I don't get the 100 grand. You haven't ruined my day. So I don't know. Well, see, I think when you go into one of these luxury shops, you expect to be treated. You know, it's expected to be a sort of an experience because you're there to spend an extortionate amount of money and so you want people to be bringing you a cup.

Look, they bring me a cup of tea when I go to the hairdresser and I'm not spending $110,000 on their haircut. Yeah, but they were right, she's not classy. But you are paying in cash and making them count. I am, yeah, I do pay for my haircuts in 50 cent pieces. That's... Yeah. That's how I run it.

What's the worst revenge plot you've ever executed, Killian? God, I don't know. It would have to be something that I did to my siblings. I'm not sure. There was, I do remember a time when, you know, like I came home and you know when it comes to a stage with your siblings that like if you get like a chocolate bar and you put it in the bin, people will spot it at the top of the bin.

So you actually start burying the wrapper underneath the bin so that the other siblings don't know about it. And I remember finding finding wrappers, seeing that everyone had had a kinder bueno except for me. So the next time that the kinder bueno came around, that entire packet disappeared and Old Killer was the only one who got any. AJ, what's your best vendetta? I am on the vengeful spectrum, but like more like I'll show them rather than I'm going to get them back. But I remember my first job.

Living well is the best revenge. Yes, that's my vibe. I was working at the Opera House as my first job and it was summer in Australia and it was warm. So I started wearing shorts to the office because I just sat at a desk and I was like, it's very hot outside. So I don't want to wear a lot of clothing. And no one had an issue with it except this one particular manager. And he would like kick up a fuss about how my legs were showing and kept on

talking about my legs in the office. And I was like, there are people with skirts go away. And then he kept on bringing it up to the point where it became really incessant. And I was like, there are people with skirts, go away. And then he kept on bringing it up to the point where it became really incessant. So I went to the printer and I printed out a pictures of shorts, like lots of pictures of shorts, and I cut them up. And I stuck them all around my desk. So my desk, and the wall, there was like a plimp in the middle and up and then the plimp was just short, cut out shorts and said this is short corner

um and i made it a statement and it's an open plan office everyone's around me what wondering what the graduates doing and i'm like this is you want to look at my legs you want to talk about shorts let's talk about shorts maybe and is this also in your guide to hope to be unemployed you can also this is one of your tips okay but this is where I learn a crucial skill that if you're funny and smiley and charming, you can get away with a lot of stuff that other people would get fired for. That's my tip.

Um, and the free trial, uh, make sure you subscribe. Yeah. Uh, I think that's, that is a good move. I know somebody who was, who was being hassled for wearing skirts in the office and she just put googly eyes on her knees. Well, that's wonderful. Is similarly craft supplies. Why is the best revenge involved craft supplies?

We're like Swedish bus drivers. They were allowed to wear shorts, so they all started wearing skirts. I think that was something that happened. I mean, that sounds delightful. Yeah. How would they be able to do the planning with their voices that go, but also Sweden seems like the last place I would want to wear either shorts or a skirt in. I would just want to wear rugs and a lot of clothing. I would just want to wear rugs and a lot of clothing. Seems like a problem that happens for one day every year, and then they forget about it when they go back to winter clothing. It's skirt day!

I mean, you can level that up. If you want to, you can always just not wear any pants at all. Equality. We've solved it. Back to the Garden of Eden, everybody. at all. A quality. We've solved it. Back to the Garden of Eden everybody. Just staple a fig tree to your nads. Fig leaf. Fig leaf! Don't staple the tree. And googly eyes on your knees. We're planning the new fashion. Like if this appears on the Louis Vuitton catwalk next

season, I'm'm gonna take credit. And that brings us to the end of this week's episode of The Gargle. I'm swooping through the ad section at the back. AJ Lamarck, have you got anything to plug? I do. I'm doing a tour of a show in Australia on the East Coast. It's called A Beginner's Guide to Gay Cruising, pun definitely intended.

It's about going on a gay cruise out to sea. It is happening in Brisbane on the 1st of November, in Melbourne on the 16th of November and Sydney again on the 22nd of November. That's so exciting. If you are around in Australia, go see that. Killian Sunderman, have you got anything to pluck? I do. I've written a book.

Here it is. look at this. It's, I don't know if you can see it, but it's called Country Fail, Sun, and then this word is Leap Dev, but the word is the C word. Sun Guy's Guide to the Countryside, can we curse on this? Yes, absolutely, go ahead. Oh yeah, it's Sun Guy's Guide to the Countryside,

it's published by Faber, and it's coming out, it's coming out on the 12th of September Basically, it's a book written about the countryside By someone who has no idea about the countryside and that's it's just that's what it is essentially It's me kind of reviewing stone walls and talking about hedges and ditches and how you might end up on one So yeah, it's available on the 12th and how you might end up on one. So yeah, it's available on the 12th. On the 12th, is it online? Is there pre-ordering that can be done?

There's pre-ordering, you can do it right now. Yeah, you can go to a bookshop, but you can do it right now. I think you can get it in Australia and internationally on Amazon or the Faber website, I'm not sure, but just try. It should be there. I don't have the info. I'm sorry, I'm ill-prepared. And you can find me online at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser. If you are in London on the 8th of September, I'm doing a Writers' Intensive Afternoon, essentially like a masterclass of writing stuff with me at the Bread and Butter Lounge, and it's from midday till 4 p.m. and the application form is available at linktree... linktree slash Alice Fraser

that's linktr.ee slash Alice Fraser. I will also be doing one in Tokyo on the 12th of September. I'll be doing Old Rope in London on Monday night and that will be my first gig back after one year of stand-up comedy so if you'd like to see me trying stand-up comedy after one if you'd like to see me trying stand-up comedy after one whole year off, come to Old Rope on Monday night. This is a Bugle Podcast and Alice Fraser Production. Your editor is Ped Hunter, your executive producer is Chris Skinner. I'll talk to you again next week. You can listen to other programs from the Bugle, including The Bugle, Catharsis, Tiny Revolutions, Top Stories and The Gargle,

wherever you find your podcasts.