The Gargle - Fast diamonds | Counting crows | Minaj drug bust

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Cerys Bradley and AJ Lamarque join host Alice Fraser for episode 159 of The Gargle. All of the news, with none of the politics.💎 Fast diamonds🔥 Mariachi turf war🧮 Counting crows🚬 Minaj drugs bust🚴 ReviewsWatch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@BuglePodcastStory 1: https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/scientists-make-diamonds-from-scratch-in-only-15-minutes/Story 2: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mexico-street-fire-breather-mariachis-video-b2549364.htmlStory 3: https://www.sciencealert.com/crows-can-actually-count-out-loud-amazing-new-study-showsStory 4: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlly7dd7n1oWritten by Alice Fraser, Cerys Bradley and AJ LamarqueProduced by Ped Hunter, with executive production from Chris Skinner.HOW 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.

Hi, it's producer Chris from The Bugle here. Did you know that I have a new series of my podcast, Richie Firth Travel Hacker, out now? It's the show where Richie Firth and I talk about how to make travel better in our very special way. In this series, we discuss line bikes, Teslas, the London overground, and a whole bunch of other random stuff that possibly involves wheels

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Acast.com. This is a podcast from The Bugle. redemptive violence. You're in the wings of the Thunderdome. Tina Turner has told you that you must fight to the death. You're equipped with a screwdriver, a stock whip and a pair of roller skates. Your opponent, with a machine gun, has been stapled to a chainsaw. The crowd throbs with bloodlust. You stand before them, arms wide open and scream, is this Sparta? And the crowd cries back, no, this is the gargle. Welcome to the gargle. This is the sonic glossy magazine to the Bugle's audio newspaper for a visual world. I'm your host, Alice Fraser, and your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine are AJ Lamarck. Oh, hello.

I've got the pen at the ready and I'm prepared to scribe. And Keris Bradley. Welcome. Oh, no. I brought a typewriter to a pen fight I didn't realise we were going old school with this one Well, before we put our weapons to the test in the Thunderdome that is this week's top stories let's have a look at the front cover of this week's magazine

The front cover this week is Millie Bobby Brown now John Bon Jovi's daughter-in-law leaving us all with the desperate hope that she chooses to hyphenate and be Millie Bobby Bon Jovi Brown it's just a thing I want to see happening the satirical cartoon this week is a thing that I saw on a YouTube video just genuinely a thing I saw on a YouTube video where someone was making note that it was Memorial Day the American holiday holiday of Memorial Day, the day where people think of the troops. And they said in their video, shout out to the troops, active duty troops, those serving their country, those who unfortunately lost their lives. Shout out to them. That has the virtue of being unlike any tribute to the fallen that I have ever heard or seen.

I don't know where shout out fits in the hierarchy of eulogising, post-mortem respect, somewhere between a minute of silence and taking a knee at the football, I think. It's a beautiful thing to see morals and language evolve on the fly. What's the worst memorial to the fallen soldier you've seen, AJ? Well, I'm just interested in the next generation, you know, the Gen Zs of the world when they start getting on the copywriting game and it will be, slay, you slayed in life, now slay in death, RIP.

It's going to be a brilliant time for language. Yeah, what an extraordinary time. Keris, how did you mark Memorial Day? for language. Yeah, what an extraordinary time. Keris, how did you mark Memorial Day? I thumped my chest twice, kissed my fingers and put them up to the sky,

which I think is the physical equivalent of doing a shout out. And that brings us to our top story. Our top story this week is science news, extraordinary science news, that we can have fast food diamonds now. Scientists have been making diamonds from scratch in under 15 minutes,

thereby tanking, I hope, the entire diamond industry. Keris, you're forever. Can you unpack this story for us? Well, yes, there's some scientists in South Korea who've developed a method for making minuscule diamonds really quickly, which I don't think anybody asked for. I think the thing with diamonds is what people want is for them to be massive and to have an enormous human labour cost.

Nobody is going to want to buy diamonds that were made ethically in a lab. What you want to be able to wear on your finger is evidence that loads and loads and loads of people have suffered and you got to pay for that. I thought we all knew that that was what the point of diamonds was. Unless you were me and fixated on the hot Korean guy who had diamonds embedded in his face and was a baddie in a James Bond movie. Oh, yes. In which case this is well that's actually all my problems his origin story is he got a little bit too close to the machine before they'd stabilized it and it just exploded in his face that's where all his diamonds came from um what i really love about this story is that the department that has developed the diamonds is called the Institute for basic science.

So they started off by making these really cheap diamonds, but apparently their next project is working out a method for recycling UGG boots to make cups for iced coffee. So they've really got your girls sorted. But yeah, I just, I really love, like scientists have looked at a human problem, which is that we have this very exploitative diamond trade and they were like oh i can fix that by completely missing the point and making something that actually nobody wants and you have to look under a microscope to really

understand and appreciate it i've always promised that i wouldn't do my daughter's material because she is entitled to her own stand-up material, but we were on the bus the other day and there was someone on the bus who said she's a basic B word, trying to obviously be kind to my child and censor the word that she was going to use. And my child said bumblebee, looking for a basic B word. I think bumblebee is actually quite a complex b word i would agree three syllables two b's i don't want it to get too big of a head um

aj how do you feel about teeny tiny diamonds oh see look i come from a community of people that love um bedazzling things you know teeny tiny diamonds may not be good for a diamond ring, but if you have a drag queen around who needs to make tights more shinier in the dark and grimy nightclub, this is going to revolutionise the South Korean drag scene, I reckon. Just everything is going to be shiny, everything. The gay scene is going to be very visible. They can't hide anymore.

I mean, I assume this will be used for industrial, incredibly boring or sinister industrial purposes. Surely that's the outcome of tiny diamonds being made in 15 minutes. Of course. Yes? Not a lot of very small people getting engaged. The smallest weddings you've ever seen. Maybe this will actually free up.

If everybody does jump on the tiny ethical diamonds train, then, you know, B&Q can start making diamond edged cutters with the crown jewels, which I think is what they've always been hoping for. They're just waiting for the unethicalical slow diamond trade to be freed up from the engagement ring market and then they can scoop up all those diamonds and put them on their chainsaws i'm i'm i'm looking for i'm looking forward to that uh b and q is bunnings aj as a translation from from the uk but i remember it well i'm there. I just wondered if you'd become a native too much having been nationalised.

I thought, what do you mean? I don't understand. You mean Bunnings and questions? It's when you go and you can ask them any questions you like. Like, what's that tool and what's it for? And what's in this sausage? What's in this sausage? That's one they won't answer.

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I make bread out of my bread. Yes, this episode of the podcast is brought to you by the Real Trad Wives of Upstate New York. All the bread making and Judeo-Christian moralising you longed for in the old Real Housewives format with none of the women. Sorry, yes, all the women who consented to be in this season of reality TV have submitted their judgement to their husbands. So their husbands are the ones who do all the confessionals, all the fun activities and most of the bitch fighting. The tradwives of upstate New York coming whenever their husbands decide orgasms aren't feminism. And are you a ventriloquist looking for a flashy end to your puppet talking act? Try making the puppet talk while you pretend to drink half a glass of water.

Half a glass of water. Half a glass of water. A ventriloquist's second best friend. ACAST 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.

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And this is the street news that a mariachi band is in a vendetta with a fire-breathing street performer in a turf war in Mexico. Eje Lamarck, you can breathe fire. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes, it's a difficult time for the arts industry overall, and I think it's summarised best in Mexico, but, I mean, watch out Adelaide Fringe Festival next year, Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year.

Expect clowns fighting burlesque dancers, nipple tassels being used as shrookens it's going to be a mess but yes this is a story coming from Mexico tipping in Mexico especially for street performers and people who do jobs on the street is a very competitive industry

and so this mariachi band was stepping on this fire breather's turf and the fire breather sprayed oil on them and doused them and chased them away. And I've also been able to get some confirmation from some other street performers. So as a violinist was playing locally and started playing Ride of the Valkyries in shock, a balloon artist tried to jump in by making a balloon soar, but it popped on the fire. tried to jump in by making a balloon soar, but it popped on the fire. A beatboxer pretended to do the police siren to scare off the flamethrower, but that didn't work and the mime just stood still the entire time and was no help to the situation at all.

But it is desperate times for artists, so do support what you can. I mean, they should just put it in as a piece of performance art and try and get it funded. Do it every day, Monday to Friday, weekends off. should just you know put it in as a piece of performance art and try and get it funded do it every every every day monday to friday weekends off they all just walk back and slow clap and be like thank you so much as people are crying with their children at the physical violence keris are you taking sides in this fight what i liked about the headline for this was that it kind of it was like oh you know there know, there's been a bit of a fight between some street performers.

Isn't it funny that like a fire breather like breathed on some mariachi singers? So I was kind of imagining that like it got, you know, a little bit intimidating. But actually the fire breather doused them with petrol before. So like it wasn't this was, you know, this was a mob hit. This is someone them with petrol before. So like it wasn't, this was, you know, this was a mob hit. This, this is someone who was killed before this arsonist knew exactly what they were doing. Um, it wasn't like a whimsical kind of street performance, which is why I was really up for. And then I haven't really, um, so I haven't really written any jokes for this one because I got stuck on the Wikipedia page for mariachi bands because I was wondering whether or not, like I thought that the mariachi band might be, you know, a holdover from some kind of fighting music. And I wanted to make a bunch of jokes about how they should have been able to hold their territory.

But it turns out that's not what they are. are that's not their history they just play traditional music and then there was a bunch of colonialism and then it's now kind of like a mariachi music is kind of uh about taking colonial instruments and then put it being able to use them to make traditional mexican music so i learned a lot of interesting information about mariachi bands but nothing which makes this situation funnier if they'd had any consideration for you they would have been a high performance capoeira dance and then you could have made all the jokes yeah what I wanted was uh an entirely different history of this cultural uh experience that would have worked for this specific segment of this podcast. But can't have everything.

You can't. And that brings us to our reviews section. As you know, each week we ask our guest editors to review something out of five stars. Keris, what have you brought in for us this week? Traditionally, I review ailments. And so I have to review my most recent ailment, which was crotch rot. So that's what I'm reviewing today.

It's the fungal infection that you get around your broidal area from, in my case, infection that you get around your broiler area from um in my case wearing bicycle shorts cycling in all this rain constantly in the city that i'm currently living in um which i actually i'm going to give three stars because whilst it's very unpleasant the fungal cream that i was given by my doctor cleared up almost immediately And as my partner pointed out, if you get a crotch rot, that's actually, you know, you should feel,

you should feel pretty proud of that because you actually have to do quite a lot of exercise and have a very busy lifestyle where, you know, you move in from one exercise to another exercise in lots of spandex very quickly in order to be able to develop it. So I'm actually wearing it as a badge of honour

for being such an active, if slightly grubby, person in this horrible, humid swamp that I'm living in at the moment. So crotch rot, three stars. Three stars out of five. That's pretty good. That's not bad. I always thought crotch rot was the most unpleasant way to refer to that particular ailment uh until i had a friend who called it trench so that's yeah that is worse oh i like that but that sounds like crotch rot sounds like the best punk bad in the 60s that i've never heard of but i'm going to discover their album in a vinyl collection and my mind is going to be blown AJ what have you brought in for us for reviewing ah so I am reviewing ancient Egyptian cancer treatments today um you know that's it's it's come up on my radar so the universe I'm a

bit of an Egyptophile um ancient Egyptophile and um I spend my time nerding out about ancient Egyptian culture and the University of Cambridge recently unearthed and re-examined one of the skulls in their collections and they found that this skull of this person about 4,000 years ago showed

signs of having a tumour which they knew but upon using new technologies they discovered that people would try to help out with the cancer growth and try and treat it. And so the skull shows signs of recovery, meaning that they'd done something invasive. And the person had lived to tell the tale, which shows a kind of level of societal cooperation in keeping that person alive and care. And so it's, that's funny, more just like

great four thousand years ago so that was the same time as the pyramids were being built people were doing cancer treatments but i am going to give it one star because i don't think it worked out too well um so you know there's pros and cons to the whole situation but at least they tried i like how you described um cancer treatment in ancient egypt as uh as them helping out just like the the medical equivalent of giving your neighbor a cup of sugar they were like oh yeah like you know if anyone's free next saturday uh can you help me move house and also get rid of this tumor in my in my brain if anyone's got a spare five minutes just to give me a hand that would be really greatly appreciated

well it's actually what the rosetta stone was for when they translated it the egyptian from the ancient greek it was just a local help board saying hey i've got this gash on my leg can anyone come around and help heal it up um someone else was looking for someone to look after their dog whilst they went over to lebanon to visit You know, so they're very helpful people. Seeking housemate, not creepy, I promise. Spare room, very spacious, good rent. Must be able to read this notice. Yeah.

And that brings us to our crow story now, our counting crows story. And this is the news that crows can count, according to a new study of crows. I don't know what maths they tried to make these crows do. AJ, you're hardcore. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes, I am ready to unpack this story for you. So when you thought scientists weren't doing enough to help out, you know, modern diseases or the world that seems to be falling apart, they started with diamonds and now they're seeing if crows can count. And apparently they can. It's a very short story. They do it the same as toddlers. But I just get annoyed because there's always crows.

And I know they're smart, but I feel like crows can do everything. But I just get annoyed because there's always crows. And I know they're smart, but I feel like crows can do everything. I feel like there's a story every other day in the sun or the Daily Mail and it's, you know, crows will do your accounting. Crows can save you this much off your mortgage. Crows can, we get it. Crows are good. Crows are better than us.

Like, forget about AI. It's the crows that are coming for your job. So I refuse to go into this anymore. The crows are getting too much spotlight. Bring back AI and we'll all be safe. Well, I think the exciting thing about this is not just that crows have numeracy, it's that they can count out loud. So they're not just following you around saying nevermore and reminding you of your sins. They're following you around saying, you know, four plus four is eight and reminding you of your taxes. I think that's the premise. It's just nature's pedometer. You know, we invented Apple watches to track our steps, but crows have been helping us out all along. Yeah, I mean, I've 100% drunk the crow Kool-Aid. So we've known that crows can count up to four

for quite a long time, which is so impressive because they only have two wings so or it's not very impressive at all because they do have eight toes it depends I don't think they can see their feet though so I think it is impressive we've known that they can count to four for a really long time and the way that they um were able to know that is really interesting because we know that crows can count to four from experiments where like if you put some food in I want to say I want to say an old abandoned watchtower but I don't know if I've filled in that information because I presume that all of the scientists who do scientific research on crows are mad scientists and they're all doing it in Transylvania so I may have just invented that fact but that's the setting that I imagine so you put some food in there and then if you send in one person and then that person comes out the crows know that the

place is now empty so they are able to count to one and then count to one again and you can do that with two people you can do it with three people you can do it with four people but when you send five people in they're not able to tell when five people have come out so we know that they can count to four and they can hold that in their wonderful birdie brains but yeah now we know that they assign sounds to the numbers that they're counting. So not only can they count, but they can also communicate, which brings us one step closer to my dream television show, because of all the wonderful behavior that crows have been observed doing, definitely the best one is the fact that crows conduct autopsies. So for a long time, we thought that

when a crow died, other crows would like gather to mourn that crow. But under like further investigation, it appears that they, when they find a dead crow, they will like do a little autopsy to see how it died to see if there's like anything that they need to know about the food, or if it was like an attack and predators that they have to be aware of and they'll like warn the rest of the crow community so the fact that they can now communicate up to four brings us one step closer to a buddy cop television series where i get to play a grizzled old detective who gets paired with a crow because no one else in the force will be my partner and then we get to go around solving mysteries and that that is my dream job netflix if you're listening to this podcast lauren corder amazing yes crow scene investigation

i like uh the idea that all crow scientists are not wearing white coats. They all have to wear black capes. And just real goth vibes in the crow science department. Just yesterday I was watching a video of a crow winning a game of noughts and crosses. So just they're very wonderful. And the best thing about it was a video by a video by a guy in russia who was trained to this crow to play knots and crosses and he did in fairness he let the crow win i think that's very obvious from the video the the like most children now know how to force a stalemate

in knots and crosses so he had to let the crow win but the best bit about it was that the crow knew that it had won and it had such a sassy face when it realized that it had won and like actually mocked its human opponent so they're just they're made they're made for a early noughties incredibly cheesy csi style show like a little crow with sunglasses that it's going to take off dramatically when it flies into the murder it's going to be so good it's going to be you'll think the crow's leaving it'll turn around it'll go just up to four more things um when it um arrests the bad guy then it could be like uh and what day will you be released, bad guy? Never more.

And that brings us to Nicki Minaj news now in a tragedy for fake nails everywhere. Nicki Minaj has had to postpone a concert in Manchester following an arrest in the Netherlands. Who wants to take this one? Well, in this story, I read the line, Nicki Minaj is 41 years old, and that was the rest of the afternoon wasted. I didn't get any further than that in the news story.

She's 41. That's not an age that rappers are. That is an age that accountants are. So I don't know anything else about the story because I couldn't get past the fact that Nicki Minaj is now 41 years old. AJ Lamarck you're not in the middle of a midlife crisis in response to the news that Nicki Minaj is 41 years old can you unpack this story for us? Nicki Minaj was in Amsterdam doing very Amsterdam stuff she was set to go to Manchester but knowing that she would actually rather not go to Manchester,

I think she purposely kept weed on her. So the Dutch police discovered this at the airport when she was trying to leave, held her up for six hours, and so she had to miss her concert in Manchester, and she was fined. Wait for it. This is going to be very difficult for fans of Process as she is now broke. But she was forced to pay €350 as punishment. And so

the tours are permanently cancelled. She's had to really reduce the set budget. And it's going to be a tough time. But something about me knows that she'll recover from this and and she will she'll get through and she'll be okay in the end but she did try to blame it on a security guard which i thought was hilarious um it's like it's not mine it's my security guards i'm like what a great boss like you know what i mean i want you to protect my life not well isn't that a security guard's job like you take a bullet or you take the wrap that's literally what you're hired for i'll take a bullet but i won't take the spliff um where i draw the line my favorite part was uh her tweet that she said i'll have the lawyers and god take it from here i mean you that is that is a big call that god's gonna take your arrest for drug smuggling uh under under advisement when there are a lot of other

people who need his help well that maybe that's why the world is in the state that it's in you know the the murder hornets he let that one slip because he was he was helping nikki minaj beat a different drug rap that we don't even know about because that took so much of of God's time so if she could just like that idea though stop getting arrested I want to see the live courtroom of the Dutch government versus God uh in defense of Nicki Minaj I feel like what I've just described is an aside in a family guy episode that makes no sense but i know it's true i believe in i believe that god would probably actually be a bit too cocky with the law and not really understand the nuance of dutch law probably watches a lot of american detective shows and goes

oh i've got it i object your honor and they're like first of all we don't say that here um second of all you don't know the law Nicki Minaj gets fined 350 euros the crow and I actually collected the evidence on this case so I'll be really happy if God gets defeated in court is that why it was only 350 euros as a fine because it was 400 or more the crow would have had yeah yeah well no it was 400 or more, the crow would have had... Yeah, yeah. No, it was actually... Yeah, so 350 euros is the fine if you're caught with four bags of weed. I don't do drugs. I don't know what the denominations are.

Four satchels of your finest green, please. Punnets? Is it punnets? There were more, but my partner wasn't able to bag that evidence, so she got away. Excuse me, Mr Dealer, do you do loose leaf? I feel like this is sort of, I mean, for a rapper,

this level of drug charge is almost embarrassingly minor, if you know what I mean. I feel like you should be you know in order to burnish your rap credentials you know it's about being really edgy on the side of the law and you know you want something where you're going to be threatened with jail time not given a like very minimal slap on the wrist maybe the dutch government is playing like a long game and she actually she was arrested for just like an enormous amount of much more exciting drugs just like a huge amount and they were like you know what the best punishment is we're gonna

tell people really uncool we're gonna tell people that you had like a a couple of of scraps of of like children's weed like this is the stuff that we mix with a little bit of water and give to 14-year-olds at family events. And that's what you caught doing. And we're going to tell everyone that you couldn't even handle that. Yeah, that you got so high that you couldn't even smuggle it effectively. You got so high off kiddie weed. Kiddie weed.

That's a product I'm investing in in unilever right now to be fair you would have a big market in toddler mums just something to chill out big tiny maniacs we've got the hot purple wiggle now in australia you know why not have kittyweed why not have um white wine for babies um like go full into the market you get you get wine there's one this is the most gendered sentence in the world there is you can buy wine for cats and beer for dogs so why can't you buy weed for children is that the premise that all cats are girls and all dogs are boys yes yeah ridiculous ridiculous and that's why god is a terrible lawyer because he couldn't get that through the dutch government yeah i think i think it's the the idea that like the people who want to drink with their cats are

women who want a glass of wine at the end of the day and the people who want to drink with their dogs are are blokes who want to crack a cold one open with the boys it's just that the boys are dogs i have a friend who doesn't like dogs uh but does like cats because he thinks cats are more honest and he thinks dogs are sycophants and it makes him feel ashamed because they've been bred to be sycophants and he's like how insecure are we as a species we need to breed them to love us can't we just be lovable in ourselves i think the idea that cats are not all horrible little liars uh like there's there's no way that they're honest what like cats like walk into the room uh to to get affection from you and then as soon as you try to give it they're like oh no, no, I wasn't even interested.

I didn't want you to pet me. They'll come up to you to make you pet them and then be like, jeez, chill out. Just chill out, dude. Oh, you're so clingy. So the idea that cats are honest, that is. Cats are constantly trying to gaslight you. I have friends who genuinely believe that cats can see ghosts,

but I think cats are just pretending to see ghosts to freak you out i like um a lot of the research about cats which is about how uh cats see humans as kind of adorable incompetent kittens and that explains quite a lot of their behavior so most of what cats are doing is like trying to train these huge dumb babies that they have in their house to be able to hunt and take care of themselves so your cat is sort of like bullying you into being a less incompetent cat that's why they're so patronizing or catronizing, if you will. You won't. 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.

AJ, have you got anything to plug? I am based in Sydney, but I've got a new series online that I just filmed myself for funsies. It's a mockumentary series called The Gaze. It is available on my TikTok and Instagram at AJLamarque. Go have a fun 40 second laugh at my expense. Literally and figuratively. I've enjoyed what I've seen of it so far

so I'll be following that. With interest, Keris, what have you got to plug? Lots of live gigs. So there is another Boys Night that's going to be on the 15th of June as part of Wandsworth Fringe. And then I have a new show called Queer Tales for Autistic Folk, which is a fully choose-your-own storytelling show.

So for every show, we pick an audience member and they get to decide everything that happens in the show through choose-your-own-adventure-style questions. There are lots of props. Hopefully it will work. I don't know. I've done it once, and everyone was really nice about it. But we'll be doing lots of work in progress

in Cardiff, London, and Edinburgh this summer. So if you're in any of those cities, you should come see it. I'm Alice Fraser. You can find me online at patreon.com slash alicefraser. It's a one-stop shop full of my stand-up specials, podcasts and blogs, as well as my twice-a-week writers' meetings and my salons where we all sit in a Zoom room and chat shit. This is a Bugle podcast, an 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.