The Gargle - Embryo entity | Hamster wheel | Robot penguins

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Jodie Mitchell, making their debut on the show, and returning favourite James Colley join host Alice Fraser for episode 128 of The Gargle - the glossy magazine to The Bugle's audio newspaper for a visual world.All of the news, none of the politics!🧫 Embryo entity🐶 American Bully XL🐹 Hamster wheel🐧 Robot penguins🐀 Drew Barrymore 💺 ReviewsHOW TO SUPPORT THE GARGLESupport The Gargle and all Bugle podcasts by joining Team Bugle with a one-off payment, or become a Team Bugler or Super Bugler to receive extra bonus treats!Pre-order the D'Ancey LaGuarde Reader book here! http://l8r.it/DHhGAdvertise YOUR business on The Gargle with an Alice Fraser ad read. Contact [e-mail]00:00 Start02:48 Front cover02:57 Satirical cartoon03:34 Story 1: Scientists grow whole model of human embryo, without sperm or egg08:22 Ads09:37 American Bully XL dogs14:14 Story 2: Florida man arrested after trying to cross Atlantic in hamster wheel vessel18:43 Reviews23:03 Story 3: How robot penguins could be the answer to bed blocking in the NHS26:49 Story 4: Drew Barrymore brings back talk show amid writers strikes32:16 Bye! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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I'm your host, Alice Fraser, and your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine are Jodie Mitchell. Welcome. Hello. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. And James Colley. Hello, thank you for having me. My pleasure. And James Colley. Hello, Alice. Great to be back. I love seeing the long intros because I know you are procrastinating something. I mean, this felt like a short intro, so it probably means I'm procrastinating something big. But before we all get into the dangerous semi-trailer

that is this week's top stories, let's have a look at the front cover of the magazine. The front cover this week is the puppet that played E.T. calling Drew Barrymore a scab for returning her show to the air. And the satirical cartoon this week is the entire course of a world impacting war being determined by the business and personal decisions of one man neither elected nor militarily trained which turns out to be an indictment not just of that man but of all the people who've been elected and militarily trained in the fact that basic infrastructure and

communications technology can't be effectively managed by the international community or national governments if you want to know exactly what that looks like in cartoon form, it's just Elon Musk, a man with the face of a police sketch of a man hanging up the phone to a world leader and going, hmm, what do I think about this? And scientists grow a whole model of human embryo without sperm or egg news now. This is our top story for this week, which is the news of, it's not even pathogenesis,

it's just making a person out of scraps as far as I can tell. James Colley, you've made a person. Can you unpack this story for us? Also out of scraps, really. Well, so scientists, this is how it was described. Scientists have grown an entity that closely resembles an early human embryo without using sperm, eggs, or a womb. And first things first, just in general, can we stop growing entities? There's nothing pleasant about an entity being grown.

Congratulations, it's an entity. We don't need it. road like you know congratulations it's an entity we don't need it that's really and this this story is is very personal for me because i used to be an embryo and um some of the best days of my life were as an embryo you probably don't remember it it was before your time it was actually technically before my time too because i wasn't born until a little while later but i really enjoyed the embryo stage um so the reason they're doing this is that they need a ethical way to experiment on early embryos which sounds fantastic uh great great reason to do anything i used to like science a lot before i started doing this show but it's

good to know that they're doing this it does kind of raise its own ethical dilemmas, like what constitutes life? Like, for example, if you were to grow this embryo and then cast it in a Hollywood blockbuster, would that be a violation of the strike? Would this embryo be a scab? Or could the embryo appear on film, provided it's an A24 production or international co-proro and it doesn't

promote the film in interviews these are the kind of questions that science can't answer this is why we need to grow a better scientist out of embryos capable of deciding whether it was ethical in the first place i like that you're growing the better scientists out of embryos like it's a voltron of multiple embryos forming into some sort of horrifying uh mass i i don't know i feel i'm taking this all very personally as somebody who is mid-process of of doing a baby at the moment i had the extremely unusual experience uh unprecedented in my lifetime the other day of being kicked from both the outside and the inside at the same time. Wow. How was that for you?

I mean, it's an extraordinary – I was like, what a blessing it is to have the full breadth of human experience. But, yeah, this is an extraordinary thing. The first weeks after a sperm fertiliser and an egg count as what the scientists call a period of dramatic change, which feels like the understatement of this week. Jodie, have you built any small entities in your laboratory? I haven't yet done that. And honestly, one of the things I found off-putting about this story

is that they said that there was a 99% fail rate in the slurry of cells that they've mixed together. So I think what they've got is like one small, nice embryo that they can kind of look at. And then a lot of, I'm going to say sludge. I think that's the scientific definition. And I thought that just sounds like a lot of cleanup. And as a queer person, I've tried so hard to avoid that in my life. So I haven't yet done it. Maybe I maybe I should. I mean, I did as a child have those, those aliens that came in the little egg.

And if you put them in the fridge, they were supposed to grow a new alien. I did try with that. It didn't happen for me. Maybe this is my chance. I don't know. This, this area of research in science is incredibly fraught you know ethically and religiously and scientifically a lot of people have these massive questions so the idea is that if you can build an artificial embryo then you can experiment on it without the same ethical questions i feel like uh the problem is what if it is an entity is the question yeah because they've said that it doesn't um they're like past the point of implanting right because the the the embryo has to implant like really really early on

in order to be able to develop properly so they've taken it past that point so they can never like technically grow into an actual being but does that look does that negate the question i don't know this is a great kind situation for someone who has watched the first act of Jurassic Park but not the second or third act of Jurassic Park. Are you suggesting a fetus park? I am suggesting, yes.

Wouldn't you go? Wouldn't you immediately go to a fetus park? James Colley, I am a fetus park right now. 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 playground equipment nothing makes you appreciate the existence and properties of gravity more than playground equipment except maybe a toddler carefully walking across concrete holding in both hands a large glass half full of water. And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by ants. Ants, the dogs of the future.

Just give them time, the right combination of drugs, and access to unlimited protein, and there you go, another dream fulfilled. Woof, woof. And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by 10 boxes of National Geographic magazines in your dad's attic that he insists will come in useful at some point despite the increasing digitisation and apocalyptic

and shitification of everything, which, to be fair, at some point in the not-too-distant future, could be useful for burning for fuel. And that is your ad section for today. The most disturbing part of Ed says the dogs of the future is what happens to dogs. I mean, if they can't be controlled by a carefully laid trail of chemicals, then what's the point of them? I can be controlled by a carefully laid trail of chemicals, so I completely understand this. Have you been following the XL bully dog debate in the UK

I have I find it so interesting because I I'm surrounded by people that got lockdown pets and I would say that my my type of friend tends to go for the cavapoo you know the the poodle cross um maybe a cockapoo I'm I'm yet to have a friend that would get an American bully I I don't know if either of you have that friend. No, no, I sort of feel like it might be one of those sort of friendship selection mechanisms. At the moment, if you're not aware of this debate, in the UK, there's currently a massive debate going on about a breed of dog or a type of dog. I'm not sure if it's a type or a breed. I don't f*** dogs. After one of the breeds was caught on camera mauling an 11-year-old girl and a number of men,

and then a whole bunch of other footage came out of these animals attacking people and things and other dogs, the two main sides of the debate seem to be either that the breed should be banned or heavily regulated, saying that it's been specifically bred for aggression or dog fighting, and the other side that says there's no such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners who haven't properly trained their dogs, which might be morally true. But when the dog's going for my throat, I'm not going to be asking who's most morally responsible. I mean, look, I don't know. I feel like if you've specifically bred a species from wolves to be your fawning sycophants in friendship service to the point where they learn to use their eyebrows to get a dopamine hit,

just from seeing your beautiful human face, it's your responsibility to rein in your Frankenstein tendency so that you're not then breeding back the murderous maniac strain. I don't know. Or work on the marketing. Don't call them a bully XL. It makes them sound like they've been specifically bred for the kind of man who blames women's lib for his erectile dysfunction. Call them like hefty hug buddies or massive softies. So as someone who is not in the UK, I'm happy to step into this debate and just sort it out for everyone. I do know a lot of people who have dogs like this. This is partly because I come from an area where certain groups of my friends believe they need to protect a car yard at times and sometimes

that car yard happens to be their front lawn but that doesn't stop the need for protection uh these these dogs are um like like so to have to have a dog kind of like this is frankly maddening to me it is unbelievable because it is a bear uh but there is and i don't i don't buy this thing of there are no bad dogs just bad because like it's the same reason that you know how when disney had um to put all those like warnings on on its new programming to say that like things were wrong then and they're wrong now it's the same reason they did that change to all dogs go to heaven to say that explicitly hit Hitler's dog did not go to heaven. We don't care how nice a dog it was or how well trained.

It was Hitler's dog and it's not getting into heaven. I think this is a similar case. These dogs don't go to heaven. Also, but there is, and I will warn you about this, there is a second problem that comes when you get rid of the big hefty dogs. And I found out this the other day because I'm in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, and I will not explain which half of that gentrification I am on, but I am recording a podcast right now. And I ran into someone else who was happily helping to gentrify this neighborhood

who had a TikTok harness on their little Labrador puppy that told me its name was Gatsby. And I thought that was horrendously pretentious. So I took my Cavoodle named Brando and I stormed off in the other direction. Well, it seems to be that one of the arguments for having these dogs is that the increasing poverty in the UK, increasing inflation and people struggling to pay their bills means that people need bigger dogs to protect them. To which I say, oh yeah, that's why you're spending £1,000 on a dog that eats its own weight in meat every day.

I can't really be convinced by that. And I think we should all go back to the old, you know, the old adage about dogs, which is, you know, a dog is for life not just for setting on christians in the gladiatorial arena i mean personally i considered getting one of these dogs when they were going to expand the euless zone in london and it was going to be more expensive to have a car i thought if i get a big enough dog i could just ride it into the center or make a sort of sled that it could pull you know so i i think we should we should think about that it's a genuine option that's there for some of us i mean it is

acas powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend. Every sport has their big, juicy controversy. Boxing has the Mike Tyson ear bite. Cycling has Lance Armstrong. Baseball has its steroid era. Curling has... Broomgate. It's a story of broken relationships, houses divided, corporate rivalry, and a performance-enhancing broom. It was a year I'd like to forget.

Broomgate. Available now. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts. Everywhere. Acast.com Hamster wheel news now and this is the news of a man who was arrested after trying to cross the Atlantic in a sort of a rolling hamster wheel vehicle. Jodie

Mitchell, you're in comedy. You understand hamster wheels. Can you unpack this story for us? Absolutely. I mean, I think what's at the heart of this story is a deep love of traveling in an inefficient way. And that's beautiful in this day and age. You know, there were so many options available to him.

The plane, the boat, both classic. And instead, he went for a hamster wheel and um from the description i read um it's held together by a wire um that to me doesn't seem like the best construction material i'm i feel like this was a passion project that's gone slightly too far um he tried to cross the atlantic ocean in it and was stopped a few days in so i think he did get quite far with it but then he refused to leave the wheel for a good further three days i think he also pretended to have a bomb on the wheel which um to me seems very escalatory and unnecessary and it was proven false as well yes well yeah

he said that he said there was a bomb he said if they took him off the vessel that he would kill himself they spent so much time and resources on this man while preparing for the arrival of a hurricane um and uh this is not the first time they've pulled him out of a vessel like this this is the third time 2021 he was arrested after being rescued while trying to ride from Florida to New York. And in 2014, he had to be rescued from a similar contraption near St. Augustine. And then two years later, again, he had to be rescued off the coast of Jupiter near Palm Beach in Florida. And he said what he was trying to do was raise money for a

variety of causes, including the homeless and the Coast Guard, raise money for the police department and the fire department as well. But given his previous track record of just saying whatever comes into his head, it seems, I'm not sure that he's organised those fundraisers as much as he's just set off to sea in a manifestly unsafe vessel. Yeah, I think he's confused fundraising with costing them money. I think that's what's happened there. Because I think he's probably actually taken quite a lot of their budget

for the rescue mission. But that happens. It's awareness. It's all good awareness. I'm 100,000% on this man's side. I didn't realize being cool was a crime now. I don't know. This man rules.

Whatever happened to human ingenuity did we arrest the men who jumped off cliffs in confabulous flying machines no we simply allowed them to die as a reminder to everyone else that dreaming big has consequences this i i love that this is his third attempt because like that's that is a lot but i i reckon let's just from this point on we give him the everest rule which is like you have every right to try and climb everest you don't have every right to presume you're going to be rescued so you know go fill your boots just be prepared that we are giving you the ocean and that's just yours now like you need to make it to the other end like i don't i look i'm worried about this because i feel he's unwell which i

think is exemplified by um his desire to go to london but um he wouldn't step off the boat threatened to kill himself claimed he had a knife before the bomb which i think is a fantastic escalation get off the boat no i have a knife still still get off the boat well what if the boat explodes okay let's say it were true he has a bomb exactly what is the plan here i'm going out in a hamster wheel rigged to explode because i'm going to kill the meg this is how you kill a meg you want to think of the children imagine the child who gets this message in a bottle you know three months later just a skeleton in a giant hamster wheel imagine if that turned up in pirates of the caribbean that would be amazing

oh this is such a better thing than trying to see the titanic if you're a billionaire Imagine if that turned up in Pirates of the Caribbean. That would be amazing. Oh, this is such a better thing than trying to see the Titanic. If you're a billionaire, get yourself a hamster wheel or a Zorb ball. Don't waste all the money. Just get one of those big inflatable balls, set you off to sea. Who knows where you'll end up? And now it's time for your reviews. As you know, each week we ask our guest editors to review something out of five stars.

James, what have you brought in for us this week? This is a great part of the Fetus Park, I suppose. I'm trying out swings. This is not a sponsored post. I understand that Playground Equipment were in our ads earlier, but this is a freelance review. I am a man of integrity. I have been trying out a lot of swings because my daughter refuses to swing on a swing unless I am also on the swing next to her. So I have been giving them all a

good go. I've also tried roundabouts. I don't understand how they're connected. I haven't made up any time on either of them. If anything, I waste time on both uh I think every swing is terrific I love every single one of them great time wonderful activity to be on great way to be able to check my phone while still ostensibly be caring about my child uh swings borderline fantastic all around seesaws have their up and downs, but swings are great. Five star swings. Five stars on swings. Jodie, what have you brought in for us this week? I am reviewing the man that sat next to me on my train down from the Edinburgh Film Festival. I'm giving the entire experience of meeting him four and a half stars.

And the only reason why I've knocked half a star off is because I do think no show should be longer than an hour and this one was four hours and 15 minutes um if it had been more contained five stars definitely uh he sat down next to me he immediately offered me a pork pie and a cider I thought this is fantastic I've made a new train friend he's brought me some snacks. He quickly established that I was gay by looking at me and then told me about the secret love affair he was having with a man on his football team. Amazing.

The views were incredible. I mean, he hadn't come out to anyone before. At one point he cried. And then he asked if we could go gay clubbing together in Edinburgh. Now, thankfully, I don't live in Edinburgh anymore. So I cannot do that with him. he cried um and then he asked if we could go gay clubbing together in edinburgh now thankfully i don't live in edinburgh anymore uh so i i cannot do that with him but i just think the emotional roller coaster that we went on together whilst everyone else in the train car occasionally stood up to look at us because they could hear was beautiful i've never had such an incredible

immersive experience on a train and And I would happily repeat it. Four and a half stars for Michael, whose name I have changed. I've never heard a, I've got to review the person, the man who sits next to me on the train. And it's a positive story. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. 10 out of 10 would do it again. Maybe with more anonymity, you know.

But I would absolutely repeat the experience. It was it was wild. And I think at the end of a month when you're so tired, having an experience that makes you think, am I dissociating? Have I lost all control of reality? Really like adds an extra zing to the end of the month. I mean, it sounds like a genuinely beautiful experience and you should recommend that he now just stay on the train going from Edinburgh to London like the ancient mariner telling his tale to everyone with an odd haircut. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. I'm glad that he correctly diagnosed you because that's a big assumption to make based on, I assume, the haircut. Yeah, I mean, I felt very seen by him um and i i was wearing my i'm gay feel free to come out to me t-shirt which i don't actually think he noticed but i think it

reassured everyone else that it wasn't you know i hate crime um i would i would say just a little bit of opsec for this man um don't tell everyone you meet on the trade about your secret affair that stuff like keep it a little stump who knows if you're i mean yeah i would say you should have a little bit more i mean given that 90 of tiktok seems to be filming people on public transport probably like slow your roll there and who knows what ends up on a podcast where you'll see at home listening with your partner who's like you know what charlie you love a pork pie and ends up on a podcast where you'll see at home listening with your partner who's like, you know what, Charlie, you love a pork pie and a cider on a train. Anyway, have fun at football practice. I've seen you make close friends out of nowhere before who are sometimes gay.

Have a great one. Robot penguins news now. And this is the news that robot penguins could solve bed blocking problems that are facing the NHS and not by pecking terminal cases to death. Jodie, you're in the UK right now. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes. I mean, I was so excited to see this story because one thing that I have felt is missing from the nhs is robot penguins um i think what's happened is that we've looked at penguins we've gone they can carry eggs they can also carry drugs let's make a robot one and then they can take the drugs from the pharmacy to the people and it will speed up the process um i'd argue there

were probably other options there like streamlining the service or making more pharmacies available but I do kind of like the whimsy of the robot penguin running around hospitals delivering drugs to people. One pitfall I foresee is that not everyone is in hospital for a physical ailment. If I was in hospital for a mental health crisis I don't know if I would want to see a penguin. I think I would personally find it ungrounding, but that could just be me. I don't know.

What do you think? I sort of, I want to know at what part in the process they decided penguins. I mean, is there a reason penguins? Is there a reason not penguins? I don't, I want to know what that argument was. I want to know the pros and cons. I't i don't understand even the beginning of that argument uh but i'm pleased with it was it was it start with the animal that looks most like a butler

was it uh the one that the way the men nurture the eggs so it's you know gender gender positive i don't i really don't know and I really want to know. If you were involved in this decision-making process, please tweet us at HelloGogglers and tell me why a penguin. I need to know why a penguin. I can actually tell you because this started, there's certain departments that get left behind and one of them, particularly when the hospital is busy, is podiatry.

And so a nurse was leaving the podiatrist department and said, such sad feet. If only they had happy feet and then all of a sudden a little light bulb went off i i was so disappointed reading this story because there are certain times i on this show that i just don't want to go past the headline there's there's bed blocking in the nhs that's bad but a robot penguin is going to sort it out terrific i can go about my day that's all i need to know thank you robot penguin you are so much better than your lousy robot chicken cousin that wasted its life on lousy sketch comedy i i think this is this is a fantastic move like this is this could save so much money on those things that they're

god what's the word for it they're like nurses, but you train them and you pay them a living wage. Nurses, nurses, you could save a lot of money on those. The only thing I want from these is as soon as the NHS doesn't need them, they become available to the public. And I believe this should also be the case with police dogs, because the idea that you have creatures that can, the animal kingdom can buy new drugs and deliver it straight to you. As soon as we get a couple of laws passed, that's going to become so useful for me. Well, apparently the penguins were made by the British technology company, Academy of Robotics. And the founder, Williams Sachiti, has said that it doesn't need to be penguins. It's just penguins at the moment.

And in the future, it could be a penguin or a parrot. It could be a duck. Again, all birds, and I don't know why. I don't know why. Also, boring answer. Super, super boring answer. He should absolutely be like, no, f*** you. It must be penguins.

I will kill all of you if you suggest anything else. I will kill all of you if you suggest anything else. Picket line news now, and this is the news that Drew Barrymore has crossed the picket line, allegedly has explained why she's bringing back her talk show in the midst of writers' strikes. James Colley, you're a writer. Can you unpack this story for us? I can. strikes. James Colley, you're a writer. Can you unpack this story for us? I can. So this is Drew Barrymore returning to her show amidst the writer's strike and then saying she's owning the decision that she stepped away from a different program, but will be hosting

this, not dissimilar to the A Daily show that happened during the previous strike. This is, I've got to say, sorry, this is a bit hard for me to process because um i i have a dog in this fight uh i so i i alice knows this story we've known each other a long time but uh when i was much younger i knew drew and it like this is kind of odd to say but um drew and i uh both met an alien together uh the alien and i became best friends used to ride in the front seat of my bicycle until one day drew barrymore came into my room and beat the alien and I became best friends used to ride in the front seat of my bicycle until one day Drew Barrymore came into my room and beat the alien to death with a hammer and she told me if I told anyone about it she'd deny it and then she later made a film about the event but left out the part where she beat my best friend the alien to death with a hammer and then later I confronted Drew about beating my friend the alien to death with a hammer and she beat me with a hammer and

I suffered catastrophic memory loss and Drew found a hammer and she beat me with a hammer and i suffered catastrophic memory loss and drew found that fascinating and she decided to make a film about that which for me it was horrible i thought i was going to die in fact i went to heaven and i saw three angels and i told drew about this anyway i have nothing too bad to say about drew barrymore because she threatened to beat me to death with a hammer if I said anything bad about her ever. I've even built a large fence to keep her out of my house, but it turns out picket lines mean nothing to Drew Barrymore. So I have nothing bad to say about Drew Barrymore lest she beat me to death with a hammer.

I mean, what an extraordinary story, James. And I'm glad that you're not telling this story in America because people would suspect you of being a writer and crossing the picket lines. So she's claimed that she's not crossing the picket lines and that she just wants to be there to provide what writers do so well, which sounds to me very much like scab behaviour. Jodie, what do you think? It's giving scab to me very much like scab behavior. Jodie, what do you think? It's giving scab to me too.

What I'm confused by is what the show will be without writers. Is it just going to be Drew sitting there? That feels more like an OnlyFans dream to me. I don't know if it counts as a show. Is she just going to draw on personal life stories without writers? Is this maybe James's time to shine? Will his story be thrust into the limelight? I don't know.

But I am confused about how the show exists without writers. I think this grey area sounds like a little bit of a scabby lie to me. Yeah. Yeah. This is such a diversion, but your only fans comment made me wonder is the writer's strike affecting pornography does it does it come up that like you can't explain exactly why the pizza delivery man is there so you just have to get to the scene yeah how are they going to come up with such classic lines as in the cinderella and prince uh knockoff remake

triple x rated uh bondage film, I'm sure one day my prince will come. Like that, how are you going to get to that kind of a glorious money shot moment without the help and assistance of writers? I genuinely don't know if porn writers are in the same union or if they have a special union. If you are a porn writer, tweet at HelloGogglers and let us know.

And what do you think about robot penguins taking your job? Yeah, it's a tricky thing with the writer strikes because they've been going on for a very long time. And last time there was a massive boom in reality television. So on one hand, I'm very morally aligned with the writers as somebody who works as a writer and would like to be continually paid for what I do at a rate that can keep me and my one and a half babies alive into the foreseeable future. But on the other hand, I don't like reality TV. That is a tough one. It is tough.

Yeah. So, you know, what am i going to do here what's where where do i stand morally on this issue do we force the writers back to the front line with sort of whips and guns in order that i don't have to endure another season of below decks or maybe the answer to this is that because it feels like just about like we've reached peak reality i don't think there are many more stories to capture just about every housewife has a camera on her at any time i think perhaps we send cameras to the picket lines and then we just two birds one stone it is the real picketers of los angeles and we watch that yeah i think it's it's all in changing reality i

think we put cameras inside the robot penguins we send them out to do our bidding and we we make some interesting tv well i mean really what i'm i'm fascinated to see is in about three years time the just absolute plethora of incredible uh adventure stories love stories and um slice of life gritty tv dramas that are set on picket lines write what you know write what you know that brings us to the end of this week's episode of the gargle i'm flipping through the ad section at the back jodie have you got anything to plug uh i would like to plug following me on social media because I will soon be announcing what I'm doing next

with my show Becoming John Travolva. So if you follow me at Jodie Mitch, et cetera, on Instagram at Jodie Mitchell underscore on Twitter, then you can know what I'm doing. I'm excited to witness that. James, have you got anything to plug? For once, I have something to plug. If you are particularly in Australia,

my novel has gone on sale as of today. You can pre-order it at Booktopia. It's called The Next Big Thing. So it's a lovely little love story. So go and check that out. And if you are in the US or the UK, you can go into any independent bookseller and just scream at them until they find a way to get it imported. Well, this is the unfortunate reality of book sales.

So much of whether a book sells well depends on pre-sales nowadays, which makes it hard for unheard of writers to make anywhere. But now you've all heard of James Colley. And if you're in Australia, you can pre-order his book. And if you're not in Australia, you can pre-pre-order his book, again, by haranguing your local library, bookseller, or person in glasses, why not, to give you access to his brilliant work. If you'd like access to my brilliant work, unbound.com is the place to go and write in Alice Fraser,

because if you write Dancy Lagarde, I guarantee you will misspell it. I misspelled it the first time I wrote it and I wrote it. So this is the peril of writing a name that you think is the funniest name for you to say and then spelling it in the way that is most entertaining to you, the person who thinks only I will ever have to read this and then the joke doing really well and having to actually write a book with the name. But go to unbound.com, write in Alice Fraser,

and find out how you do spell Dancy Lagarde, and order your copy for Christmas now. Thank you to our roving reporters, William Mendelsohn, Krusty Gobblestein, Sealips, Rod Funk, who all sent in the hamster wheel story, and Robot Penguins was sent in by Lockie. So if you'd like to be a roving reporter, tweet us at hello garglers on Twitter.

This is a bugle podcast and Alice Fraser production. I'm Alice Fraser. Find me online at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser. If you go to the about page, you can get access to all of my previous specials, mostly for free, as well as my weekly writers meetings. If you would like to write with me,

it's a really fun thing. We do have a writers meeting and a workshop. So that's nice. This week's episode is brought to you by all of the stuff that I've said previously. 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.