The Gargle - Crayon smell | Snail news | Pavel Durov

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Support Bugle podcasts https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donateAlison Spittle and John-Luke Roberts join host Alice Fraser for episode 172 of The Gargle.All of the news, with none of the politics.🖍 Crayon smell🐌 Snail tax dodge📮 Snail mail💦 Pavel Durov💇🏻‍♀️ ReviewsWatch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@BuglePodcastWritten by Alice Fraser, Alison Spittle and John-Luke RobertsProduced 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. They say the world is ending. They're wrong. The world is simply changing into an environment that doesn't support human life. So you, a scientist, do the obvious thing. You invent a machine to speed up evolution. If humans can't survive the future, you'll turn them into something that can. You're not too proud to admit there are a few false starts. The cockroach men, the amphibious pirates, the young Mel Gibson's. But eventually you

get it right. Find the perfect arrangement of selective pressures. You usher in the next stage in human evolution. Neither animal nor god. In the future, we are the gargle. Welcome to the gargle. This is the sunny glossy magazine to the Bugles audio newspaper for a visual world, all of the news and other politics. I'm your host Alice Fraser and your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine are Alison Spittel. Pew pew pew pew. Ooh I like the pacing of that. Thank you.

And John Luke Roberts welcome. BOOOOOOOM That was a bomb. I did a bomb. He he he he he he he Welcome! BOOOOM! That was a bomb. I did, I did a bomb. Hehehehe! Well, wonderful. Before we duck into the fallout shelter that is this week's top stories,

let's have a look at the front cover of the magazine. Which this week is Blake Lively, dressed in florals, yassifying the domestic violence themes of her new movie so effectively that she seems to have almost completely undermined all of the goodwill that Ryan Reynolds spent building up with Hugh Jackman in the last, seems like eight years of that Deadpool and Wolverine publicity tour.

And the satirical cartoon this week is an HR manager tactfully addressing an employee who is garbed as Ming the Merciless and the HR manager is saying, I agree that dress for the job you want is a good general rule, but this is a hospital. And that brings us to this week's top story. Top story this week. And I should say this week is a very slow news week and so we're dealing with slow news not because there's not plenty of things happening in the world but because I felt like some quiet and calm news stories. So the top story

this week I should approach with less enthusiasm in my voice and more sort of the reassuring calm of somebody on a radio program about gardening. Just to say, Crayola has trademarked the quote unquote slightly earthy smell of its crayons. John Luke, you've eaten a crayon or two in your time. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes, although I don't quite understand it. They want to copyright the smell so that they can pump the smell into shops and make people go, oh, I remember crayons. I'd like to buy some of them. I don't know that seems to be the story basically. Oh and especially oh that reminds me of Crayola crayons, those crayons that I really liked the smell of and as a little child I chose them

specifically because of the smell not just because they were put in front of me. But you can pump a smell somewhere without copywriting that smell and if anyone else were to do that smell, right, then they would just be advertising your crayons. So I don't understand why they need to copyright it. I don't know. They should batch produce it and then say to the other companies, you can't have our smell, you can't have it.

So the other companies go, oh, we're going to pump your smell in anyway, and then end up doing advertising for Crayola in the first place, having been duped into it by the massive international conglomerate and part of the military industrial complex, Crayola. I mean that is a very good point. I would argue as someone with perhaps slightly more of a criminal mind than you, what could happen is that people would steal the Crayola scent and pass off inferior crayons as Crayolas because they could say, well, it has to be a Crayola. Or indeed things which aren't crayons at all. You can trick people into buying, I don't know,

like guns or, I don't know, maybe you don't sell guns, maybe you sell cabbages. You could make them smell like crayons, then people will buy them, thinking they're crayons, desperately try and scrawl with the cabbages and end up just making a real mess and wasting the food. And they won't even solve their mastitis. Just a little breastfeeding joke there. I think like this this crayola smell is very interesting because to me there's nothing I want more than after a long,

hard day at work to get home, run a bath, light a candle and smell like a crush. Like, that's what I want. It's that relaxing scent of the under five. That's what I do do. I know. We all want what we don't have. I'll be like, is a Crayola scented candle just like a load of crayons with a wick in the middle? Also, like sniffing between the lines, I can see like, I know, I thought, and I wrote it down, and I was like, put it somewhere in this podcast.

And I'm glad I put it in now. I just want to reassure everyone that that was not spontaneous. Oh no. God no. Because it makes, because you know it's spontaneous out of me, because it's either like it doesn't make sense or a horrible confession to eating something or, you know. I love your idea, John, about people passing off smells. And like, I was thinking about smells that I recognise.

And then I think the smells that humans make after consuming stuff like, have you ever eaten frazzles or bacon fries? And then two days later you smell it after passing the wind. You're like, how does it do this? And then two days later, you smell it after passing the wind. You're like, how does it do this? How does the scent stay in such pristine condition going through the human body? And I think, yeah, I think they should copyright that.

I mean, there's different smells that should be copyrighted. Wait, actually, I've got to, legally, I've got a picture system. You can only copyright the smell if it can survive passing through the human digestive system in time. Beautiful. I mean, that's the legal remit for everything, isn't it? Only if it survives going past the human digestive system. I just got a very vivid sense memory of a boy

who was one of the weird kids. I'd say one of the weird kids. He wasn't the weird kid in the class. I would was one of the weird kids. I'd say one of the weird kids. He wasn't the weird kid in the class. I would say one of the weird kids because I definitely counted as one of the weird kids, but he was one of the weird kids in the class and he once ate everybody's blue crayons. He had a taste for the specifically the blue crayons and I assume it was something like when they insist on brown M&Ms in their rider so they don't blow up the stage I don't know he liked the blue crayons he ate the blue crayons and then he threw up violently on the floor of

the classroom and for some reason it made him a hero he turned the crowd oh wow well it was it was blue the vomit presumably yeah there was something there was something there was something about the commitment to the bit I think that won the respect of the people. Oh wait, he blew chunks. He blew chunks. Did he grow up to become a member of the Blue Man group? They're like how did you invent this great idea? And he's like, well, I was in school. He did not, but they have a legal order stopping him coming in because he keeps trying to eat them all. Jumping on the stage and licking their faces. That's what they say when you achieve fellatio for the first time.

You just entered the Blue Man group. Imagine the roadies and groupies involved in the Blue Man, and Annie. Just walking away like they've been sucking on a slurp, one of those slurpees. It's a funny way to phrase how pleased we are with ourselves. Oh, we're just talking each other off now after that. Your ad section now because you can't be what you can't buy. And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Carpets. Carpets, the wig for your floor.

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ever wondered if taking off all your clothes is the most efficient and socially acceptable method for self-cooling? Maybe stage in, try something less intense to start. It's getting hot in here, so the next time someone tells you to take off all your clothes, try half a glass of water. I didn't see it coming, amazingly. I didn't know. I wasn't thinking that's going to be that one. I was thinking it was going to be for nipple fans or something. Wow. We're all fans of nipples here. And this brings us to slow news story 2, which is the news that a snail farm

in a city office has sparked a tax avoidance probe. Alison Spittel, you've avoided probing. Can you unpack this story for us? So this is about, um, uh, uh, a liver, well, they're not even a Liverpool based business. There's a Liverpool based office, right? Uh, ran by a dude, uh, from a tax haven who was trying to avoid, uh avoid paying business rates on an office. So he's now hired a company to put a snail farm onto one of the floors of his office to make it agricultural use so therefore they would have to pay less

tax. It's a very strange organization. What I love is that the firm that's renting the space said that it was a legitimate snail farming operation, which legitimate snail farming operation, it just sounds like, it sounds like a terrible band in high school. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. We are legitimate snail farming operation. Beautiful.

What I love about this is the BBC have done a report on this and they've interviewed other snail farmers. There's not that many snails in this office and they've asked other snail farmers for their expertise. They say there's not money because they want to prevent snail orgies. It's not just that, it's cannibalism, group sex and snail orgies. That's what they say they want to prevent, so there's only two snails per box. Is that what Noah did with his arc? Is that only two by two?

Because we don't want no orgies or cannibalism. And if we're going to have orgies, they're going to be interspecies. And monogamous, just two. But the strange thing, I understand why if you want to farm snails, you would get cannibalism out of the way. That's not useful. That eats into your product. But snail orgies and group sex, that's just puritanism. That's not harming the operation. Yeah. They're just disgusted by the ideas of snails having sex. And it just has to be accepted. Snails have sex. I've seen snails have sex.

I've watched snails have sex. Like George James on television. I've watched snails have sex. Yeah. I've seeked it out. And it's actually quite beautiful. I mean, it feels like if your job is snail farming, surely the thing that you should not object to

is snail orgies because presumably you want the snails to make more snails. Unless it's like one of those fashionable boutiques where you like walk in and there's only like three shirts on a rack. So you know this is a really expensive snail farm. One of those shell is gilded and it's just sitting on a plate. Well you know what they say about snails? Slow and steady avoids the tax. Like it's a beautiful saying. I do I quite I've got to say like I like the scheme enough to go like oh let them have it like if you're gonna like put some snails into the box and say this is agricultural use like they could have just stuck potatoes down there but no they had the creativity to go let's use snails.

I think it's really yeah I I agree that this is not the fault of the people taking advantage of the loophole. In this instance, this is the fault of the loophole. If they didn't want people putting snails and some boxes in their office blocks, then they should have worded the law more carefully. I feel like everyone in the office has now got a compulsory cheer pet. Another way around this, everyone's, you're farming alfalfa. Alfalfa? Is it the kid out of Little Rascals? What's the...?

He's named after a kind of plant. Oh right! Okay, sorry! I was like... Oh this is a real joke. He wasn't a scientist who discovered a plant. Okay, cool. I'm good. I'm learning. I'm learning so much. And that brings us to our review section.

As you know, each week we ask our guest editors to review something out of five stars. Johnick Roberts, what have you brought in for us today? Can I start my review by saying I am very tired. I've just finished the Edinburgh Fringe where I've been performing all 10 of my previous shows. So my mind has not been working quite as it should. With that proviso, here is my review of the new Aliens film, which I have not seen. There are either not enough aliens or too many aliens in this

film. Why isn't there a cat in it? Or if there is, why is there a cat in it? I would like to see one of the aliens genetically spliced with a giraffe. I think that would be cool. It's funny Xenomorph head sticking up over the wall. It's trying to hide behind. Why not one friendly alien who teams up with the good guys and speaks, says things like, oh gee, gosh I'm sorry for what my alien friends have done Ms Weaver if Sigourney Weaver is in the film which I don't think that she is. The disco scene is good the alien is a good dancer I think Prometheus is one of the worst films I have ever seen. I give the new aliens film three eggs out of five. It's the kind of review that makes me do what

reviews normally do which is feel like I've seen the film so I don't have to watch it so thank you. I know that is that is good if I wanted a synopsis I'd look up a synopsis just tell me the vibes you know give me vibes sir or give me nothing. Space spooky yes that's the vibes yeah yeah Or no it could sometimes it's space spooky sometimes it's space fighty and actually it's legitimate to say is this space spooky or space fighty. Yeah that's a really good way of of doing films. Will this film make you depressed about how small you are compared to others in the universe? That's mostly when I watch

space films or disaster films. The only thing I walk away from is, oh, I would just, if I was a character in that, I would kill myself within the first 10 minutes. I'd be gone. I would not, surviving is not worth that. Do you know what that's about to do? Pretty woman, I'd kill myself.

Bang, gone. Sorry. I'm sorry. First 10 minutes, I'm gone. What other first five did they have? My kid is gone, I'm gone. I'm gone. Hey, but the kid's okay.

And now, no parent. No, I never. Deuces, I'm gone. The kids are an orphan. Swimming into the back of a boat engine. Bye. And if nothing's nothing's wrong, it's just a Wes Anderson film that starts a bit slowly. I'm bored. Everything's too symmetrical. I'm out. And the only method is swimming into the back of a boat engine for every film.

Oh god I matched the wallpaper. I think one of the worst trends in cultural criticism in the last sort of 10 years is where people notice a thing that's happening and pretend that that is a negative critique. That's like, they notice a trope. They're like, well, it's just like any movie where two people fall in love. So boring.

And you're like, no. The mark of good, something being good is not that it is entirely original. It's that it's interesting whether or not it's original. That's why I can't wait until I get to make films and then there'll be the trope is, within the first 10 minutes the protagonist swims into the back of it.

Just on the floor and just. Does the film then carry on? Is there then like 80 more minutes of just like, just lingering shots in different rooms in different locations? As secondary characters wander around going like, oh, we don't know where they're... The Alison Spittle Film Festival just manages to yeet herself out of the movie in the first five

minutes. Alison, what have you brought in for us this week to review? Yeeting myself? No, week to review. Yeeting myself. No, I'm fine. I've come to review having a fringe. It's my first time just back from the Edinburgh Fringe, but before I went to the Edinburgh Fringe, this wonderful lady in Dublin gave me a fringe and cut a fringe into my head. And I love it. Yes sorry to interrupt but oh yes just just clarify for our American listens that when we say fringe we mean bangs and when you say bangs we mean f**king. Yes. Oh I did both that's how I paid for it. So she gave me this wonderful fringe, a bang. She can, no, she didn't give me a bang.

She- It's not just a bang. I think it's got to be plural. Right. What is a bang? Is that one strand of hair or is it a few? Sorry, Alison, this is your time. I'm out.

I think a bang is this. So one bang is like, so some hair within the bangs, which has naturally like Superman itself together. I'm going to give myself a bang. No, it's being filmed, Alison. They won't be able to show it. A pet needs to get onto HR. He'll be like what I've been put through this morning.

Half of the gargle episodes, he's blurring out my baby's face, the other half he's blurring out explicit sex scenes. It's very confusing. Exactly. It's amazing because it feels like a hat, it makes the front of my forehead warm. It also is a great, it's a great conversation starter. People are like, you've changed your hair. Because the great thing about getting

your hair changed, I think, is that you can legit compliment someone on that or notice it. And it's the only thing about someone's looks that you can do. Do you know what I mean? That's polite. Yeah, this day and age. Yeah, this. Yeah. Correct. This they'll come for the hair though soon. And but yeah, I love it. It feels like wearing a hat. I feel like a different person.

I feel like I look like I'm living in East London. I don't know. Someone told me that and I've held on to that for a year. Someone else told me I look like the mum out of This is England and they're right, I do. Yeah, but so that's it. I'm gonna give it four out of five. I think that's a wonderful thing. I think it suits you very well. It does suit you very well to the point that I'm going like,

well surely you've always had bangs. This is so natural. I know it is a natural progression. I give big bang energy, I feel. What? You start like imperceptibly tiny and then suddenly you want everything that's ever existed. That's my career baby. that's what I want. I want to be everything that ever existed. And that brings us to our next slow news story, which is the news that a post box has sadly been closed in Addison, a remote area of Northumberland, because snails were eating the male, which

apart from spawning 1,000 children's books has not been very good for people with written correspondence. John Luke Roberts, you've posted a letter before, can you unpack this story for us? Well, I can unbox it because that's what you do when you get something in the post. Well yeah so they've closed it to stop the snails go I mean you said the whole thing basically that the Royal Mail have gone we're not willing to deal with this snail infestation we're just gonna close this off let them have their orgies in there without us bothering and not let

people put post in which I think is just giving up. Conveniently the post box is now is now zoned as a farm. Yeah yeah which means at least they don't have to pay tax on, oh maybe it means Royal Mail don't have to pay tax on any of their operations because it's agricultural use. It does seem to me like giving up and I feel sorry that Royal Mail have felt like they have to lay down their, you know, arms and aren't standing up to this scourge of snails. Not least because all they would have to do is put some salt around the bottom of the bottom of the post box. This was easy to solve without...

Isn't it? Or, you know, if you don't want to use government resources, you can go to the community and ask people to salt their letters before they send them. Yeah, and then that means whoever gets them has a nice tasty letter at the other side. Keeps witches away. Keeps witches away, which can either be a good or bad thing, depending on the witch. Yeah, that's true. When I used to do seances with Ouija boards, we used to put salt around the Ouija board

to keep out bad spirits. Oh only good spirits would be able to come through? Yeah and as well as that. Did you put some tequila out as well in a line for the party spirits? Yeah, therefore yeah I think poltergeists they're not actually bad spirits they're just party spirits that love to do percussion on your kitchen cabinets and stuff. But yeah it did kept out the bad spirits and the snails and slugs because you don't want that stuff out of seance. Well you don't want a snail pushing around and doing its spelling. What's a snail got to offer to the conversation?

I am a snail. Shut up guy. It just says Brexit means Brexit. We're like, ooh, political snail. Get Brexit done. That would be quite funny because you'd get to like Brexit means and then you go, I wonder what this snail thinks about Brexit. What's it going to, is it going to, oh, it's Brexit. Yeah, it means Brexit, yeah. And that brings us to our final story of this week's episode of The Gargle. And this is unfortunately for my theme of the week, an exciting news story, which is that French authorities have arrested the CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, at a Paris airport.

For a whole bunch of things, many people believe that this is a political arrest. I am going to argue by putting it in the gargle that it is not a political arrest. Telegram is generally seen as one of the more free speech friendly apps for exchanging messages in that there is no kind of moderation or regulation and they won't report you to the police if you're doing, if you're doing, you know, people trafficking on there or organizing terrorism or whatever.

This man, Pavel Durov, is a free speech warrior and also has, I think, a hundred children, because he believes that his genetics are that worthwhile. Which, I mean, look, you cannot say he doesn't have confidence. I know. And a hundred Nepal babies as well. Like we don't need any more of those. Oh, no, he's done it by sperm, don't I? This man is not someone who's taking responsibility for his actions. He's just providing a platform for these children. So he's had a hundred wanks.

At least, Alison, at least. It's the hustle culture. This is grind call. This is. Yeah, grinding your dick into a powder because you've wanked so much. Rise and grind. Rise and grind is specifically having a wank in the morning. I don't think he did it all in one day.

I feel like he doesn't have enough time. He't think he did it all in one day. He doesn't have enough time. He went on diary of a CEO and he's still wanking. I want to see his Mark Wahlberg morning wake up. Wake up already wanking, don't know how. up already wanking don't know how. Throw it at a passing lady as a charitable donation, ride it off on tax. Like confetti. Well come on a snail so you can pass off the Spongebob donation company on tax. Send it in that way. What's that trail it's leaving behind? We just don't know. It could be either. You're right Alice, it's not a political story. It's not a political story. I mean this is a story which could contain terrible tangents into the horrible crimes that have been allowed to be committed on his platform by his generally

negligent oversight, but I think they're better for the snail wanking. Yeah, it's beautiful. This is like Malcolm Gladwell. It's like you only get good at something after 10,000 hours, and he's doing that with wanking. I do love that, that we have really made this unpolitical. There's a joke, there's a tipping point joke as well, I just don't know, I haven't got there quite yet, something there. I know what the sex tape is going to be though, it's just him in a room with Alice and Spill

and a window. And a Tupperware thing full of snails. It's the most grim thing. The movie starts you're in the room with him and then like... I only get to see three wanks and I'm gone. I'm out man. Deuces. Get me that boat engine. Wank one you're like well I don't like this much maybe it'll be better next time. Wank two, no, no, not at all. Look, I've got to give him out of three. Got to let three. No, this is it. I'm done. I'm done.

And that brings us to the end of this week's episode of The Gargle. I'm flipping through the ad section at the back. Alison, have you got anything to plug? I do. And this is specific. This is a specific call out for gargle listeners because I think there might be someone who can help me. Alison have you got anything to plug? I do and this is specific this is specific call out for gargoyle listeners because I think there might be someone who can help me. I have been suspended off Instagram for what crime that you may say so to say child endangerment and exploitation right which I deny what

happened was I shared a video of a child being chased by a puppy but instead of a puppy they put pitbull, Mr. Worldwide, Senior Global, you know instead so it's a funny little pun but anyway it's been gone for a month I want it back if anyone knows anyone in Meta who can help me that would be amazing I'm recording a Radio 4 special in Up the Creek in September I'll just give you the dates Petty Please is a new series that I have it's gonna be on the 23rd of September and the other day is oh on the 30th of September so please come along to that if you put in glitter babe hashtag glitter babe I'll know that you're a Garga listener and you'll be put up the

list because I want garga listeners and people that actually know me over people that are going to get that ticket because they want to go see Graham Norton in a year and they have to go watch someone they don't know and they'll just be animosity. So I just want nice gargoyle listeners that'd be amazing. I've taken over this a bit too much but that's all the things I have to advertise. John Luke Roberts, have you got anything to plug? Well, there's a new season of my podcast Soundteap coming out soon which I say with a slight laugh because I need to make that and I've

just come back from Enver where I've done all of my solo shows from the last 14 years which is 10 shows and in October in London in the Pleasance on the 13th and 20th which are two Sundays I'm doing five shows a day. So that's the London run of John Luca Palooza. I'm not sure we've announced it officially yet, but it should be up for sale in the next few days. John, you're gonna need so many wanks to get the energy for that.

No, that's not how wanks work, it's the opposite. They take the energy away. Oh do they? Oh no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. I can't wank till November, Alistair! No! No fast until those shows are done! I'm very impressed the most I've done in a day is four solo shows. Wanks or shows? Oh sorry, I'm so sorry. Well what is a show but a wank, really? That is genuinely true. That is good.

I am going to be in London this week. So if you would like to come and do a writer's afternoon with me, you can. It's at the Bread and Butter Lounge in London on the 8th of September. And it is from midday until 4pm if you want to come along there's something that you're working on or something that you want to work on I'll come I'll give you personal feedback numbers are very limited if you go to my Linktree the application form is there and it's first come first serve it's linktr.ee slash Alice Fraser linktr.ee slash Alice Fraser Linktree

Alice Fraser that'str.ee, Alice Fraser, that's the application form to join me for an afternoon of writing, if that sounds like fun to you. I'll be there writing whether you come or not, so you don't feel too much pressure. Also, the book is coming out, and I have a finalized date. When they asked me to write a book,

I thought I will write the book, and then the book will come out almost immediately immediately but it turns out you finished writing a book in September 2023 and it comes out on the 6th of February 2025 which is the release date the 6th of February 2025 is the release date I'm currently having fistfights about the cover art it's all done it's all finished I've sent off my markups so it's called a passion for passion if you'd like to pre-order it it's at unbound.com and the rest of my stuff you can find at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser 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 cath Catharsis, Tiny Revolutions, Top Stories and The Gargle wherever you find your podcasts.