The Gargle - Humans v bots | Candy Crush priest | Money dysmorphia

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

Joz Norris and Alison Spittle join host Alice Fraser for episode 156 of The Gargle. All of the news, with none of the politics.🤖 Humans v bots 📱 Candy Crush priest🤑 Money dysmorphia🐭 ...Disney remote work🏃🏻‍♂️ ReviewsWatch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@BuglePodcastStory 1: https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/dead-internet-web-bots-humans-b2530324.htmlStory 2: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/priest-accused-by-cops-of-spending-over-dollar40000-of-church-funds-on-candy-crush-and-pokemon-go-says-it-might-have-happened-because-hes-not-a-details-guy/Story 3: https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/how-tiktok-is-wiring-gen-zs-money-brain-fc43ba6cStory 4: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/disney-world-adult-visitors-increasingly-mix-remote-work-play-rcna149882Written by Alice Fraser, Joz Norris and Alison SpittleProduced 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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
Starting point is 00:00:22 or tracks or engines of some variety. God, what a hot sell this is. I mean, you must be so excited. Listen now. 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.
Starting point is 00:00:49 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.
Starting point is 00:01:20 Acast.com. This is a podcast from The Bugle. The ankylosaurus trundles forward in the underbrush seeking food. Wide-eyed tiny primates scuttle up trees, tiny brains incapable of conceiving that in a mere 65 million years they will become homo erectus, capable of communication and tool use, one step in evolution away from being able to participate in the gargle.
Starting point is 00:01:48 This is the gargle, the sonic glossy magazine to the bugle's audio newspaper for a visual world. All of the news, none of the politics. And your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine are Alison Spittel. Boo, boo, boo, boo. And Joss Norris. Hello. I didn't do any laser gun sounds.
Starting point is 00:02:07 I wish I had, actually. You should have done. Should I do it now? Should I just do it a bit late? Yeah, please. We've got a gun fight happening. Yeah, it is great. I feel ready to start the day.
Starting point is 00:02:19 For those of you who are watching on the YouTube, you can see that Jaws has definitely brought his A game. I'm in a robe. Alison Spittel is in front of a blank wall and Jaws has coordinated himself with his Venetian blinds, which I think is going above and beyond. I got this from an ampere. They gave it to me at the end.
Starting point is 00:02:41 And it's the nicest thing I've ever owned. I think it's called a Breton. Ooh, what was the advertising? It was for a handheld gaming device and they wanted somebody to look kind of cool. And I used to have a cool friend who owned a Breton. So now I like to imagine that I'm her. I mean, that sounds weird.
Starting point is 00:03:01 I just like dressing like my blinds. Before we stand together and leap into the dark waters that are this week's top stories, let's have a look at the front cover. The front cover of this week's magazine is the Met Gala costume theme, which is the Garden of Time. Each attending model-ebrity dressed in variations of the theme, from Chris Hemsworth garbed as a lady garden to Kim Kardashian dressed as the morbid fear of ageing
Starting point is 00:03:31 out of aspirational sexiness as the sands of time run through her hourglass figure. The satirical cartoon this week is an unconfident-looking rodeo clown saying, This ain't my first rodeo, but it is worth mentioning it's definitely one of my first five rodeos. And that brings us to our top story. The top story this week is that we have reached a tipping point.
Starting point is 00:03:54 We have reached a tipping point where humans are no longer the majority inhabitants of the interweb. We are now sharing it equally, and I assume with great joy with bots. Giles Norris, you are in harmony with your inanimate object surroundings. Can you unpack this story for us? Yeah, sure thing. I've actually written some really good material about this story, so I'm just going to read it from my notebook, if I may.
Starting point is 00:04:21 So here we go. Big tits in bio. Oh, hold on. Pussy in bio. Right, sorry. Oh, jazz. I see what's happened. I see what's happened. So I was a bit short of time this week, so I wasn't able to write anything on this particular story. So I asked a friend of mine to do it, Mike. And I think what's happened is that he is a bot. I think I've only just realized this. I've known the guy for years. But this is what he's handed in.
Starting point is 00:04:49 He's just handed in a lot of kind of like porn links. So that's a real shame. He's a really close friend. We've never met, but what a way to find out. Shame. It's heartbreaking. Yeah. This was always the problem with AI, you know,
Starting point is 00:05:04 and I said probably less than a year ago that we were about to head down this route where bots were expanding exponentially and now we're getting what they call Habsburg AI, which is AI that eats its own vomit. I quite like to engage with them. And I think that because I get them a lot on Twitter. You get people who reply and say, and I'll do a tweet about like there's a show coming up. Please come along.
Starting point is 00:05:28 So then somebody will reply and say big tits in bio. And then I quite like chatting with them and going, oh, thank you so much for the kind words of support, Lucy. Hope to see you there, which I find funny and amuses me, but I think just makes me a target for them. I think the algorithm probably goes, well, this guy's an idiot. So send him more of this stuff. So I'm a bit me a target for them i think the algorithm probably goes well this guy's an idiot so send him more of this stuff so i'm i'm a bit of a sucker for this so it's like when you open your door and bring in people for tea if they knock on your door to talk about the word of god yeah then you're nice to them you call them keep coming back yeah i think that's what i've done oh that's what it's well it's nice that you're doing that with porn bots.
Starting point is 00:06:09 Yeah, I think they deserve, you know, because they must just get ignored so often. And there's all this, we don't know how sentient these things are, all these algorithms and all these AIs. We don't know if they feel anything. So I think it's nice every now and again for someone to go, thank you for the big tits in the bio. I really enjoyed them. I hope you're having a wonderful day. Maybe they're not trying to titillate us maybe they're asking for like feedback yeah on their big tips or yeah you know the worst is always ask where is in bio but how is in bio do you know like
Starting point is 00:06:50 sorry pussy in bio the sad sequel to pussy in boots yeah exactly apparently there's um there's a whole conspiracy theory about this apparently there's like so the fact that it's now i think it's 49 bots now they've said that there's only 51 real people on the internet and that's now i think fanned the flames of this big conspiracy theory that I think, like 20 years or something ago or something called the dead Internet theory, which is the idea that the Internet. I don't really understand the conspiracy element. I think the idea is that it's all fake. There hasn't been an Internet for 20 years. It's all been run on automated systems and it's being it's there to trick us, which is not true because we're doing this now. Unless we're bots i don't i don't really understand it i think like the whole idea of ai is taking out all of the human element that even now like the art of copying and pasting uh information like you know
Starting point is 00:07:40 the way ai is is made up full new websites with news on it and stuff. I used to work for a newspaper and I just copied and pasted from other newspapers on the Internet. You know, for the news, because that's the way that I did it back in the day. I'm not a journalist anymore and dead right. It wasn't a great one. But I think the whole art of copying and pasting now is seen as like being a blacksmith you know it's seen as like an unnecessary skill that you need and like there's more because everything has become like a factory mate like uh yeah I miss copying and pasting by hand yeah by hand like it's artisanal you know you know in the olden olden days you used to actually had to have to cut things out with scissors and paste them in with paste.
Starting point is 00:08:28 And that's where we get the word from. They should have called it welding or something, you know, just welding a thing together. I used to have a job for a bit, which, you know, those like listicles that you get online of like 25 amazing pictures of snow drifts or like 10 pictures of famous people you know at their prom that you won't believe that kind of thing I had to write the captions for that so I'd say they told me what the pictures were and they'd send them and then you'd put them all together and then underneath you'd go wow Dwayne Johnson looks young or um that's a lot of snow and I would have to sit there and write that and And I assume that job's gone. Nobody's writing, wow, that's a lot of snow. In my day, we had to write, whoa, that's a lot of snow,
Starting point is 00:09:13 backwards all the way to school. Real work. Or what about like 10 of the most harrowing pussy in bios you'll ever see? And it's just commenting. Number nine will shock you. I know. Yeah. It never would.
Starting point is 00:09:35 There's promises. No, unless it was an actual cat, I'd be shocked. Your ad section now, because you can't be what you can't buy. Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition and yawn and stretch a clock over a cactus. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Salvador Dali-Parten. Oh wow. Oh wow. Are you having trouble thinking of a new half a glass of water joke ad as the premise
Starting point is 00:10:04 of writing a new joke on the same premise begins to wear into the serious 400s, Mark? Stuck for inspiration? Caught up in your own self-doubt and finding it hard to remember what you've written before? Are you all in all just too close to the problem? Try taking a step back and drinking half a glass of water. Half a glass of water. Just the thing you're looking for. half a glass of water, half a glass of water, just the thing you're looking for. And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by ageism in the workplace, the bigotry that sounds like a sex act.
Starting point is 00:10:34 And that's your ad section for today. 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. Curling has... Broomgate.
Starting point is 00:11:02 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 creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com. Bad priest news now, and not the worst kind of priest news, but the kind of acceptable
Starting point is 00:11:40 priest news. Alison Spittel, a priest was accused by the police of spending more than forty thousand dollars of his church's fund on candy crush and pokemon go uh could you unpack this story for us as a catholic genuinely i've never been so relieved by the second half of a sentence before for like it's wonderful uh delighted and so yeah this is a this as an ex-catholic uh it's it's another kind of proof that priests are fallible uh and this poor priest he was caught uh spending over 40 grand on uh on he said by the way that this wasn't gambling, that this was just on power ups that he bought for Candy Crush. Surely if there's an ever loving God, God would have given him the power ups he needed and you needed to buy this for cash. Also, what are priests job?
Starting point is 00:12:42 What are priests job? Like what, what are we need to make priests more busier? And I think this would, you know, to get rid of a lot of the problems in the Catholic Church that someone had the time and to be able to use the play again, play Candy Crush for that long. Then he was able to spend 40 grand on ad ups and power ups. And if I'm being frank with you during lockdown at my most mentally ill, I did spend 250 pounds on Sims expansion packs. So I do know where this man is coming from. Although I spent it because I wanted to see a werewolf and
Starting point is 00:13:19 a mermaid make love to each other and produce the child uh get married and work at the airport and i don't regret spending that 250 quid the best 250 quid i ever spent i'm sure this priest feel the same way but i wasn't stealing off the catholic church so um do you know and it is what is that like uh the catholic church when they're asked to pay, there's several different horrible stories we could come up with where the Catholic Church are required to pay money to people in court and say they don't have it. And I see now all the priests are spending it on Candy Crush. Yeah, they don't tell you that Jesus stormed into the temple
Starting point is 00:14:01 and slapped all of the money out of the out of the merchant's hands and then put all the tables together to make a layer of tetris and then all the tables disappeared and new tables came down from on high do you think donkey kong is actually jesus he's not an angry he is jesus in the temple donkey kong died for our sins so we could have eternal life and it should be respected. Behold, he is Kong. Yeah, exactly. I was trying to think about the time element
Starting point is 00:14:37 because I thought the same thing. I think it said he spent $210,000. So he spent $40,000 of the church's money. So to be fair to him he spent he spent 170 grand of his own money on candy crush before he stole from his church which i think i think that's that's you know commitment uh but i was trying to work out how you would rack up that amount of time because i've like i've got addicted to games as well i do it i've done it in the past where i kind of i get into something for about three days and then the reason i always bail on
Starting point is 00:15:04 it is because i'm embarrassed because I play them on public transport that tends to be like the only time that I place that I have like enough time to do it and then I'm very aware of people looking over my shoulder and seeing me like take out a pin and fit all the balls together to save the king or whatever and I feel very like I'm too old for this I can't that can't be the vibe i'm bringing into this train car i want to have like a a clever book that i will probably never finish but i want to have that and people be like wow he's he's like a chunk of the way through that clever book that's what i want or you can play like a mobile phone game based on the tv series
Starting point is 00:15:38 the wire you know like wouldn't it be good like Like you're the great American novel. Yeah, yeah. Then people go, wow, this guy's smart. But still with the noises, still all those horrible noises. Tetris. Yeah. Tits falling down. But I realized I think the reason why you could probably easily get into these sorts of like mobile game addictions as a priest is because of the confession booth. Because then there's nobody there's nobody looking over your shoulder because probably I reckon when you've heard like what 10 confessions they're probably all going to start to sound quite similar probably the
Starting point is 00:16:13 majority of them are quite banal so you need to fill time in there nobody can see you so I think that's how it happens I think they're all hooked I think that's what they're all doing in there oh my god I remember the last time I was in confession the priest this is the last every time i did confession i was a teenager and i said something to him and he went oh jesus like he blasphemed himself oh my god but i was thinking at that point i was like i was like this priest is very sheltered if i was a priest i think i'd act shocked all the time oh my lord oh my god oh what you did what i don't know if i can help you man allison don't think you got the uh werewolf and mermaid uh making love past me i've just written in my uh dance illog god ideas book were made child if
Starting point is 00:17:10 it was in the sims you'd have them when if you've played you've played the sims jazz I feel oh yeah and then you know when someone dies and then the grim reaper comes you have to beg them for your relatives like i always try and uh woohoo with the grim reaper and it never works i'm an incredibly repressed person in the streets but in the sims i'm an absolute like how would i describe it in a nice way whore but i i choose chaos all the time when I'm in The Sims. Maybe it's my Catholic upbringing. But I'm like, no, no, I'm an absolute filth merchant in The Sims.
Starting point is 00:17:53 I was the opposite. Did you ever play GTA? Yeah. I always tried to play GTA just as a law-abiding citizen. I would try to never run a red light. Like, if there was a red light, I would stop and I would never overtake. I'd just like drive in my lane. That's amazing.
Starting point is 00:18:09 It was great. I loved it. I just treated it as a way to see New York, you know? That's beautiful. It's a beautiful city. I wonder if there's like a button combination for putting the thumbs up or waving. Yeah. Instead of violets, that'd be great.
Starting point is 00:18:23 Hugs. Hugs, yeah. Free hugs. And that brings us to our review section. As you know, each week we ask our guest editors to bring in something to review out of five stars. Joss, what have you brought in for us this week? I have brought in the experience of running up
Starting point is 00:18:43 a very steep cliff in three minutes. I'd like to review this because I was brought in the experience of running up a very steep cliff in three minutes. I'd like to review this because I was just at the Macunliffe Comedy Festival. So is Alison. Lovely festival. And there's a little courtyard in the middle with a cliff overlooking it. And they put a kind of mini Hollywood sign up there for the festival. It says Macunliffe and you can see it from the ground. And while I was in the courtyard, we were talking about how long it might take to get from the courtyard to the sign. And we were making sort of sweepstakes.
Starting point is 00:19:08 Somebody, I think, said an hour. Somebody said 40 minutes. Somebody said 20. Somebody said 10. And I got a bit carried away and went, I can do it in five. I reckon I can get there in five minutes. So I give it a go.
Starting point is 00:19:18 So we put on a timer, did it in three, ran up this cliff in three minutes. And then briefly was like, everyone in the courtyard was sort of patting me on the back and saying well done it was a big moment um but i thought i was gonna die i genuinely felt like i i might die any minute because i have either of you ever exercised so much that like your vision starts to fade like i'd like you like you can't help but like your head kind of crumples in on itself and then everything goes blurry and you can only sort of see directly in front of you and there was a kind of a rattle in my chest that I couldn't get rid of and I was sat there in the courtyard with everyone going oh that
Starting point is 00:19:53 was great well done what a fun moment and in my head I just thought I've brought shame on this festival now because in future they're going to talk about it and go oh Mac Comedy Fest is great but what a shame there was that year where Joss Norris died because he ran up a hill too fast so i couldn't say anything about it i just had to sit there while everyone was going well done and think privately in my head like i'm about to die i'm about to die in the middle of this courtyard and there's nothing i can do about it and the reason i wanted to review it is because i think the the short-lived glory of doing something stupid and being told well done is not worth 40 minutes of of being near death uh and i want to warn other people of that so i'd give it i think i'll give
Starting point is 00:20:31 it two out of five because it was it was fun to briefly be a hero and i've got to give it an extra point for that i'm not going to put it all the way down to one but it is ill-advised so i'd say in future exercise at the correct pace guys and be careful well done jazz for running that hill yeah it's like a you know that hill yeah if you died it would be a sad cape bush song yeah it'd be a great story though yeah i think they'd name a venue after me i think they'd get like a tiny little broom cupboard and call it the jazz norris room and every comedian in that courtyard who witnessed it would have a show I think they'd name a venue after me. I think they'd get like a tiny little broom cupboard and call it the Joss Norris Room. And every comedian in that courtyard who witnessed it would have a show about it.
Starting point is 00:21:10 Yeah. Yes. Oh, my God. You would be the sad bit of 45 minutes for about six comedians. I would do it, mate. I'd be like, I knew Joss so well. Please, you have my blessing. I would be like...
Starting point is 00:21:23 Do you ever think about, like, I always think about if i die i don't think i'll achieve anything better than dying in a tragic way and getting a bench named after me or something like that i think that's my thing in life that'd be nice yeah yeah a bit of drama to me i've always wanted to fall out of a plane and then fall through a sheet of glass that's falling beneath me that's how i want to go like chuck the pane of glass out of the plane and then jump out afterwards catch up with it smash through it feet first and then i don't know land in a barn but if people are putting in the planning into throwing out that sheet of glass maybe they could give you a parachute and like are you oh yeah you're right are you yeah i don't know. By a very elaborate... There's not much logic involved.
Starting point is 00:22:06 I just want to smash through the thing. Jules, I reckon you should run up that hill again next year and take your chances until it does take you. Not everyone gets the opportunity to choose what hill they die on. Yeah. Very good. Very nice. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:24 Yes. I like it. Alison, what have you brought in for us? Which believe it's another of representation here. One of the best comedy festivals to go to. And so I did this thing called the DJ Battles, which which Ivor Ivor Graham came up with. And last year at Edinburgh, it's where comedians pick three songs
Starting point is 00:22:51 to really get the audience hyped up, right? And you win by getting the audience most hyped up. Last year, I brought some innovation to it. I dressed up like a slutty Shrek and did Smash Mouth. And when I say slutty Shrek, I mean, I had a green dress that said Shrek slut written across the front of it and a swamp written across the back of it, like where my bum is, you know, to go and I wore a Shrek hat.
Starting point is 00:23:17 So this time I had no costumes, but I wanted gimmicks. So I put myself into toilet toilet roll made myself into a mummy did back streets back then we got through to and then um i finally was wicker chairs and i just threw them out onto the crowd and let them crowd surf the chairs instead of myself you know health and safety and then for the last one and we picked papa Roach Last Resort. And I dressed up in a bin bag that I ripped apart, a cardboard box on my head. And I smashed a can on my head and tore it apart with my bare hands. And yeah, it was good fun. It was good fun.
Starting point is 00:24:00 Yeah, I won. I've never been to MacDonald's, but now it just sounds like a property and human body damage zone. Oh, yeah. I've cut my scalp. I've got a little cut on my scalp. If I didn't win, the injury wouldn't be worth it. Oh, wait, I'll show you. Because we've got the video, don't we?
Starting point is 00:24:19 I've got my trophy. Wow. There she is. Congratulations. MacFest 2024. So I'm very happy and excited about that. But again, like you, Jaws, I did dance until I felt injured. Like, there is a very dangerous festival.
Starting point is 00:24:40 Yeah. Very dangerous. And how many out of five stars? Oh, four out of five. Four out of five. And not giving a five out of five because there's a pressure now to, on June 8th in London, I have to defend my crown and the pressure is getting to me. Yeah, that's stressful.
Starting point is 00:25:02 It's very stressful. I'm very stressed by it all. Yeah. Yeah, that's stressful. You don't want that. It's very stressful. I'm very stressed by it all. And that brings us to money dysmorphia news.
Starting point is 00:25:17 This is the news that apparently Generation Z is torn between two worlds, the world that we live in, in which costs are skyrocketing, and the world that we see on TikTok with conspicuous consumption and lavish expenditures bombarding you from every angle. Joss Norris, you're wearing a breton. Can you tell us about this story? I really enjoyed this story because I think I have money dysmorphia. So it's quite nice to hear that a whole new generation of people are discovering this thing.
Starting point is 00:25:42 But I think working in comedy gives you money dysmorphia. I don't know if you guys feel like this, but you know that you'll kind of like, you'll spend two years working on a project that you really, really care about and invest a lot of your soul in. And then at the end, somebody will turn up and go, yeah, well done, I really loved that project.
Starting point is 00:25:58 Here's 500 pounds for your time. But then one day you'll get a call from somebody that will go, can you come in and read some stuff off a piece of paper into a microphone for 15 minutes and we'll give you 20 grand like it's your your understanding of like the value of stuff just doesn't exist and you end up just feeling like oh i don't think it has any value none of this means anything um so yeah this was the story now that people aren't gen z on tiktok are swiping through things and they'll go from one video that tells them there's a huge cost of living crisis. You have to save. You need to sort out your finances.
Starting point is 00:26:30 And then the next thing will be somebody saying, buy this bag. It's $70. And if you don't buy this bag, then you're an idiot. And that it's all giving them whiplash about what they should do. And one of the things I thought was really interesting about it was it said it said that all of them are trying to decide between choosing to live in the present or choosing to live in the future. You can either say, I'm being told that things are really bad in the future, so I might as well enjoy now and spend what I have. And there's the other people who say, well, I'm being told things are going to get really bad, so I'm going to prepare for the future and plan it. And I thought it's a very binary decision to have to choose to do the present or the future. Why are they why they so focused on those things, but then I realized it's
Starting point is 00:27:10 because they're all under 27. So they haven't yet got to the stage of life where you mostly just spend your time thinking about the past, and meeting up with people and kind of just describing things that you once did to each other and be like, Oh, do you remember when we did that? That was great. We should do that again. And then you you never do but next time you'll talk about it again so i think they're yet to discover that actually the best place to live is just kind of either regretting or enjoying a game for a second time the things that you once did it's environmentally friendly and it is the best form of entertainment recycling stories yeah it's good clean fun they should try it when they get to 30
Starting point is 00:27:45 they'll all realize that they don't need to stress about it so much and just hopefully they'll still have some savings by that time well i mean this is why i'm announcing my new tiktok channel which is um bougie prepper gear so you get to buy like a bedazzled can opener for the apocalypse that's a nice idea they'll love that that's all their interest in one. It is. I don't have a pension plan, but I do have like six cans of sardines ready for a protein source that is my kind of thing and battery packs. But I have no financial kind of I do feel like money won't exist in a couple of years. In a couple of years?
Starting point is 00:28:27 Yeah. I've been around. You and the Bitcoin. Yeah. I did this festival each year called Kilkenomics, where it's like economists and comedians combined together. And then I've been doing it, I i think for about eight years and i know nothing more about money and these are like these are like some of the best minds in the world like
Starting point is 00:28:51 the janice sierrafakis oh yeah the former greek finance minister yeah i i called shotgun on him uh getting a lift back to an airport once need to sit in the back and it was you know he may be better than me but I do have a wider economics of supply and demand. It was it was. I was like, if I go in the back, man, everyone's going to get squashed. I need to go up front. I need to go up front. You know, he's got skinnier arse than me. And that's yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:18 So like, I just don't I'm around these people who talk about money as if it's important. But the longer I'm around them, the more I'm like, talk about money as if it's important but the longer i'm around them the more i'm like i don't know if it's a real thing or not money doesn't seem real have you got any bitcoin um no what have i got that's the nearest i got a beanie baby oh yeah frog one from 20 years ago flurry oh my gosh although the arse is ripped out of her, not due to me or anything, just the way that the legs bent and her eye is old. She looks quite messed up. Flurry.
Starting point is 00:29:54 She looks like a little Frankenstein frog. Beanie baby. How much do you reckon she's worth now? Yeah. I don't know. Does Missing Limbs help with the kind of price? Yeah, I reckon so. It's like character in it. Put her in a Shrek slut T-shirt. Oh, I'm wearing I'm actually I'm wearing a T-shirt with Shrek on it at the moment.
Starting point is 00:30:16 I'm a big, you know, Shrek head. Some people are Disney adults. I'm a Shrekophile. Like I'm I'm big into Shrek. about our Disney adults. I'm a Shrekophile. Like I'm big into Shrek. Speaking of Disney adults, that brings us to our final story of this week's episode, which is that apparently there is a new trend among Disney adults who have the privilege of being able to work from home, deciding to instead work from Disney. Alison Spittel, you know the happiest place on earth if you went there. Can you unpack this story for us?
Starting point is 00:30:56 So, like, what I love about this story is that there's nothing that kind of goes with Disney ethos more than the neoliberalism kind of attitude towards working hours. You know, Mickey wants your time. He wants all of your resources and he will get. And so basically there is a throughout lockdown. I have to admit, I'm a I was a big consumer of online content about Disneyland or fairgrounds in general.
Starting point is 00:31:29 Like there is a whole economy now of people that like there are food bloggers for Disney, specifically for Disney. I'm in this soup sharing WhatsApp group. There's a person who goes on Disney cruises every year. I know what kind of soups they're serving on disney cruises loads like great choices and everything so it's a whole it's a whole economy so what they've done is um they've created workspace is that the part of your brain that could be used for economics is being used for soupless yeah oh man i mean if there was a souplist yeah oh man i mean if there was a if i had any brains i would like i would do like
Starting point is 00:32:15 an online lifestyle brand about soups call it soup life you know talk about stocks the only stocks and shares i'm interested in is chicken and sharing soup and it's beautiful. But like, yeah, so it's a whole economy based on Disney content. So they have, well, Disney have had to put in wireless charging ports because the Disney app now has become such an important part of the Disneyland experience, you know. And there are bloggers that work especially for Disney. So they've given them desks in cafes so they don't take up any of the tables for like families and stuff like that. And it's just kind of Disney acknowledging that there is a whole economy based on their kind of output. So, yeah, I mean, in a lockdown my favorite thing was to look up a
Starting point is 00:33:06 disney mascots that smoked so just people in massive like goofy costumes with a goofy head beside them smoking a cigarette like that is my specialist thing that obviously they're like they're on their break for it they're not doing it like into the faces of the kids children with the heads on right that'd be a special experience, wouldn't it? It's like there's a Tumblr page dedicated to Furby smoking where people put cigarettes into Furby's mouths. And I love that as well. Anyway, enough about me.
Starting point is 00:33:37 Back to Disney. Back to Walt. It's a cool new story and I'm happy that Disney disney are making stuff easier because uh disney have a weird relationship with their disney adults like they don't like to acknowledge you're not allowed to um throw um remains of uh relatives now around disneyland they had to put in rooms to be fair yeah it was people go through space prolicking and like getting ashes poured on their head by weeping relatives what people do people were going into disney world to scatter remains yes they were
Starting point is 00:34:16 i know some people who got married there but i didn't realize that it had extended to the grave what do you think the confetti was that was someone's aunt that was someone's aunt it's a circular life i mean it could be i mean um i'm sure they have facilities for i bet you 10 quid some people have been born in disneyland give me two seconds i'll google it a few babies have been born inside the park, with the first reported in 1979. So there's someone who's going to hit 50 years old soon, and they've been born in Disneyland. I hope they've never left.
Starting point is 00:34:54 I hope they're still there. Oh, that would be nightmarish. You're just living on Mickey-shaped waffles for sustenance. Bumming cigarettes off Goofy. You're in cigarettes off goofy you're in a prison you're in a prison a woman who gave birth on rock and roll roller coaster on the roller coaster under i mean that's dangerous why was she allowed on giving birth is a roller coaster yeah i think ronan keaton once said it one of our great poets life is a roller coaster and the um I think Ronan Keaton once said it, one of our great poets, life is a roller coaster. And the umbilical cord, it must be like a safety mechanism.
Starting point is 00:35:30 Yeah, I guess so. Like it'd be horrific. I think it's great that there's this move these days to like let people shape their own working life. So you know, if somebody wants to work from home, then they can if somebody wants to work from Disney World that they can. And I think that's great. And it's sort of one of the positives that have come post-COVID. But I feel sad now at the idea that there's all these people working from home from Disney World, and that doesn't apply to everybody who's there. There are people who have to work in Disney World who can't work from home. So I think there should be initiatives now that let the mascots work from home. I think that
Starting point is 00:36:06 has to be the next kind of act of kindness, because they're busy, they get tired. And I think there ought to be a movement where people kind of queue up. And then when you get to the front, what you're allowed is you get to email Woody and Buzz, and they'll kind of action it later in the day. Or maybe if you pay for like a premium pass, you can do a kind of a Zoom call where the internet connection drops out quite a bit, they're there they're sort of their head fills the screen so i think that'd be nice that'd be amazing i i don't think i'd like woody as a bus i feel like he'd be a whip cracker kind of thing who would you like as a boss i reckon um probably jafar i think jafar has the sort of the gravitas to be a good boss, but I think
Starting point is 00:36:45 he's camp enough that he'd be sort of like, he'd be quite fun about it. Well, he's also got that thing that the best eminent Greece's have the powers behind the throne, which is that you get the feeling that actually he was doing all the real work. You're telling me that the Sultan wasn't putting the work in. That someone who was born into that job wasn't working properly. Actually, you know what? Jafar was dead right. You're correct.
Starting point is 00:37:16 What did he do again? Team Jafar. Yeah. I mean, luring Aladdin into the Cave of Wonders and then slamming the door on him, leaving him there for all eternity. We've all had bad days, Alice. Yeah, yeah, it was stress. It was stress.
Starting point is 00:37:31 To be fair, Aladdin is a bad employee. I always think the best thing about working for myself is that I can be a bad boss and a bad employee. But 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? Yeah, the soup tour is coming to a halt. The dregs of soup is coming.
Starting point is 00:37:55 This week I'm going to be in Guildford on Saturday. I'm going to be in Norwich on Sunday. Later on in the month I'm going to be in Liverpool and then South later on in the month I'm gonna be in Liverpool and then Southampton Wells Festival is happening this month and Kilkenny Cat Laughs festival is happening and on Friday if you're listening to it today I am hosting and not a Eurovision thing but it's a it's a song contest in Ireland with different comedians doing it. And I'm going to be hosting it in Vicar Street.
Starting point is 00:38:28 So come along to that. It's called the Bureau Exchange. And it's going to be good crack. And that's it. Giles, have you got anything to plug? I'm working on a new show that's going to a few places in the next few months. So it's in London at the end of this month at the Bill Murray. And then it's in Berlin in July, which I've never been to.
Starting point is 00:38:48 So if there are any listeners in Berlin, come along, say hello. That's in July 25th, I think. And then it's in Edinburgh for August, for three days in the middle of the fringe. And then it'll go some other place, I'm not sure. But there'll be a few dates over the next few months if people want to come and watch it. They'd be very welcome. Go along and see all of those things.
Starting point is 00:39:05 I am running a writer's retreat in September, if you would like to, in Switzerland, if you would like to come along. There's an expression of interest form up on my Patreon, patreon.com slash alicefraser. You don't have to have a thing you're working on. It'll just be five days of writing amid the beauties of the Swiss Alps. So you can find that out on patreon.com slash Alice Fraser.
Starting point is 00:39:28 I'm also not performing live much this year, but I am doing The Guilty Feminist at the end of this month in Brisbane. If you're in Brisbane, buy tickets to The Guilty Feminist there. I'm Alice Fraser. You can find me online at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser. You do have to join up there if you want to go to the writer's retreat. But this is the Bugle podcast and Alice Fraser production. And your editor is Pet Hunter.
Starting point is 00:39:50 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.

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