The Gargle - Mammoths | Fugitive | Trolls

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

Josh Gondelman and Deborah Frances-White join host Alice Fraser for episode 29 of The Gargle - the weekly topical comedy podcast, with (almost) no politics!🐘 Woolly mammoths making a comeback?🦹����‍♂️ Man mistaken for fugitive mafia boss😜 Trolls are jerks IRL🦓 Congresswoman denies freeing zebrasThis is a show from The Bugle. Follow us on Twitter.This episode was produced by Ped Hunter and Chris Skinner. 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

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.

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. This is a podcast from The Bugle. The boy stood on the burning deck when all but he had fled, because he was listening to The Gargle. Welcome to the podcast that values loyalty to misguided principles over survival instinct. Hi, I'm happy to be here, but you can call me Alice. I'm your host, Alice Fraser. This is The Gargle, the sonic glossy magazine to the Bugle's audio newspaper for the visual world. All the news, none of the politics. Let's get into the fun. Your guest editors for this week's edition are Deborah Francis-White and Josh Gondelman. Welcome.

Hello. Hello, Alice. Hello. It's so exciting to have you here. It's a true honor and a delight to be here. I feel exactly the same way. Are we on three continents? I think we are. I think we're on three continents? I think we are. I think we're on three continents. I'm in Australia.

I'm in London. I'm at home in New York City. It's a continent unto itself. Yeah. Let's have a look at this week's magazine. First, the front cover. The front page this week is Nicki Minaj gesturing off-camera at what we can only assume are a pair of massively swollen balls while sexily modeling the latest in anecdote as evidence great topical front cover

there and other headlines on the front cover include social media recording your fun times remember every picture is a question rather than a statement the question is is this what having a good time looks like other headlines Sydney due to open up from its long lockdown when it reaches 70% double vaccination, which should happen in about three weeks from now. Of course, the downside is you get your two jabs and now you have to go out in Sydney. That's a funny joke if you know about Sydney night. The satirical cartoon this week is two homeless people arguing over the most revolutionary statement made by a dress at the Met Gala.

And into the magazine. Our top topic for this week is bioscience. This is the story of woolly mammoths coming back. Deborah Francis-White, I know you love your archaeology. Can you unpack this story for us a little? I'd love to. Can you unpack this story for us a little? I'd love to. I at first assumed this was, in fact, a radical idea for a Met Gala costume.

Come with a resurrected woolly mammoth on top of, inside of. It is an extraordinary thing. So there's this science guy, scientist, I believe they're called. One of them is called a science guy still. Yeah. Scientists, I believe they're called. One of them is called a science guy still. Yeah, he's basically decided to do Jurassic Park because he clearly hasn't seen it.

He doesn't know what could go wrong. UFO hunter and Harvard geneticist announced $15 million effort to resurrect woolly mammoths. George Church and Ben Lamb have announced Colossal, a company with the explicit goal of de-extincting woolly mammoths. So, yeah, I mean, what an extraordinary thing to do to say, hey, do you know what this world needs? This on fire world, this world that's on the brink of climate change in the middle of a global pandemic. Do you know what this needs? A bunch of rabid woolly mammoths, confused, not knowing what

era they're in, still thinking they run the world, just out of control. But it's fine. I'm sure they're going to keep them somehow in a park and we'll just be able to go and visit them and nothing bad will happen. His idea, or their idea, is that this will help climate change because we've let too many things go extinct. That's the problem. But do they not know about the cane toad experiment in Australia where they thought, oh, we'll bring some cane toads over because they will eat the little the little insects that eat the cane toads. The problem was in Australia there were no natural predators for cane toads. So then cane toads themselves became a plague. I don't know who the natural predator of the woolly mammoth is,

but we'd better find out and be busy de-extincting them ahead of time. That's what I'm going to suggest. This is how you end up with Jurassic Park in the end, Josh. I'll eat a woolly mammoth, you know? You'll eat a woolly mammoth? Yeah. I don't think they're resurrecting them so you can have burgers. No,'t think so but you're saying we gotta find the natural predator and i'm just saying i would like to apply oh okay you're gonna have to catch and kill it though that's a bad deal

what's funny about this is the way it was written it's like harvard geneticist and UFO hunter. And that is two different guys, but sounds like one fascinating guy. Like, oh, I work in genetics at Harvard. And then at night, I just go out and look at spaceships. Does he sound fascinating to you? He sounds someone like you'd meet on Tinder and go, oh, fjord. That's true. You know, I've been married a long time.

It's been a long time since I've just met a weird man who wants to tell me about his hobbies. Yeah, in a very real way, stick with the marriage. No matter how dull your husband is, he's not as dull as a man who claims to be a Harvard geneticist, but also reckons he sees UFOs on the reg. He isn't. This is the thing. First of all, when I read this story, I thought bringing back the woolly mammoth was a euphemism for what ladies are doing in lockdown. I'm certainly working on that myself. But $15 million is what they've been given as seed money for their startup of building a woolly mammoth, which feels like $15 million is a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money for a woolly mammoth. You know, it feels like a cheap woolly mammoth to me. woolly mammoth you know it feels like a cheap woolly mammoth to me i've really been thinking about that because 15 million dollars can go so far in so many directions but we don't know that it can bring a species back from extinction i'd like them to try to just bring a bear back to life like let's start there take a bear that died see if we can zap it to life or whatever it takes i don't know if you admit you maybe it takes some genetics or some ufos to do it but uh whatever it is it's like let's start that give

them give them five hundred thousand dollars see if they can they can uh turn a fish into a mermaid you know just like easier shit and then we'll see if they can bring a whole species incremental goals well they're going to stabilize the permafrost is the idea that they'll be brought back to sort of stabilize the environment in which they would naturally thrive. But they're not bringing them back from the dead. They're just going to use some woolly mammoth DNA and then some elephant DNA. It's basically cosplaying woolly mammoths. You don't create the environment just by living in it. You know what I mean?

environment, just by living in it, you know, or you know what I mean? Like, if I walk into a football stadium, it's not all of a sudden a library, because that's my natural habitat. Or are you now a footballer? Or am I now a footballer? This is the question. They have apparently been working on a shoestring budget of $100,000. That's a hell of a shoestring. I don't want to see $100,000 woolly mammoth that is going to be have you ever seen the website bad taxidermy i feel it would be that it would be a very upsetting woolly mammoth at that point i mean i don't see that they can't do it it's basically just dolly the sheep they've got some actual woolly mammoth dna from you know picking around in the ice then they've got some kind of close relative to the woolly mammoth some kind of elephant and they're gonna i believe in science guys they go into the lab

a little bit of this a little bit of that yada yada yada just i imagine it to be like what jamie oliver does you know what i mean little pinch of this a little bit of that throw it in mix it up lovely jubbly mammoth apparently in in as soon as six to 15 years, these woolly mammoths could be roaming the Arctic, which is nice to know that the Arctic will still be around. In 15 years? I think they should just put that $15 million towards the Arctic. That's what it feels like.

It's true. Could we genetically clone the Arctic? Is there technology to make ice? Because that's way more useful. Just buy $15 million worth of icy poles and send them to the Arctic. I've got an ice machine in my fridge door. Debra, your fridge is more useful science than this. I do like that one of the science guys, he's best known for his work with UFOs, which does not impress me because if you worked with them well, someone would have identified the flying objects by now, right? Yeah.

Yeah. They'd be like, oh, this is an alien spacecraft or that was actually a blimp but like when he still calls them ufos like you would never like if you were a an epidemiologist you wouldn't be like oh yeah i only work with unidentified diseases it's like well then you need to get better at your job yeah you can't be a ufo expert you have to be an fo expert yes you're not an expert until you eye the fo's your ad section now because if music be the food of love advertising is the food of unquenchable acquisitiveness and this episode of the podcast is brought to you by a parable what's the bravest thing you've ever said asked the boy and the horse said help and the boy was like profound

you're right we all do need to reach out to other people. And the horse was like, no, I'm a conscious mind trapped in a beast of burden and my knee is sore but I wouldn't want to tell anyone because they'll shoot me in the head. And the boy said, shut up and drink some f***ing water. And the horse said, you can't make me. There's a saying about it. And the boy said, if you don't drink some water, I'll shoot you in the head. And then the horse shut up and drank half a glass of water.

The end. And a pop-up clickbait ad in this section. Six signs of organ failure. Number four is fatal. 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.

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Everywhere. Acast.com. Acast.com. Next section now is our crime section. A Liverpool man has been mistaken for a fugitive mafia boss. Josh Gondelman, you're living in New York, the land of the fugitive mafia boss. Can you unpack this story for us? Yes. So a man from Liverpool was traveling to the Netherlands when he was apprehended eating a meal at a restaurant and accused of being a mafia don. I don't know the hierarchy.

All I know is from The Godfather. So I don't know if he was a Don. If Don's, you have sub-Dons, you have semi-Dons. Yeah, he could have been a Sonny, a Michael. I don't know, Afredo. He could have been a Mafia Afredo. And this man has been on the run. Matteo Messina Denaro has been on the run since 1993.

Or maybe he's not on the run. Maybe he just found a cozy place to hang out and nobody's found him yet. On the run implies, I think, an active flee and an active pursuit. He hasn't been so much on the run as he just hasn't been to that restaurant since 1993, right? It feels like he's on the lam. The lam! The man ordered the lam. That's right. That's what the confusion was. They were like, ah, we found him. I see, I know from the mint jelly that this is the guy that's on the lam. They were like, ah, we found him. I see.

I know from the mint jelly that this is the guy that's on the lam. So this man known as Mark L., who was cuffed while having a meal, was eating at a restaurant in the Netherlands at The Hague. And I Americanly didn't realize there were restaurants at The Hague. I thought it was just the war crimes court, which I guess would have had to have a cafeteria, but certainly not a place where you would visit as a tourist and eat. But if I were on the run from the law for 28 years, the last place I would eat is a restaurant down the street from an international criminal court. It just seems like tempting fate. They came in hard for this guy. court it just seems like tempting fate they came in hard for this guy authorities pulled a hood over his head and dragged him out of the restaurant which seems a little unnecessary a lot terrifying and definitely a better story than them just asking him to come with them

i think in the moment i would have been like wow if i if I survive this, this detail is really going to get me a lot of free drinks when I get home. On the bright side, it's given me some inspiration for how to get out of awkward Tinder dates. Just text your friend to come put a bag over your head. Yeah, it's that classic, you give them the eject text, right? That's just like, hey, you need to give me a call. But instead it's like, hey, show up with the bag. Send in the SWAT team.

I immediately thought, what a lucky bastard, because that is one hell of an Edinburgh show. That's your Netflix special right there. If you're a comedian, nothing could be better than being mistaken for an international criminal on the most wanted list and being north by northwested out of a restaurant with a bag over your head.

This is this guy's lucky day if he wants to write a novel, wants to do a TED talk, wants to do a comedy special. I hope he's going to use this in some way. Yeah. Because otherwise it was wasted on him and I wish it had happened to me.

It is terrible fodder if he aspires to sleep through the night ever again, unfortunately. We're looking for the perfect balance between like minimal trauma, maximal spectacularness. Like with a bruise, you want the bruise to show. You want the bruise to show more than it hurts. Yes. You know, you desperately don't want a bruise that hurts more than it shows because then you look like a wimp. Yes. You desperately don't want a bruise that hurts more than it shows because then you look like a wimp. The article says his wife could not stop laughing

once she realised that he had been mistaken for this famous Italian criminal because he's sort of this scouse, cheeky chappy. And so I can only think the bruise is worse than the wound if his wife could not stop laughing. Like if he's got serious PTSD trauma, it feels like that marriage is on the rocks if she wife could not stop laughing like if he's got serious ptsd trauma it feels like that marriage is on the rocks if she can't stop laughing you should be able to stop laughing when your husband is in jail when they told her though she just was she just got

the giggles and just she still apparently hasn't stopped laughing and the lawyer i mean the lawyer offered a pretty flimsy defense right like he's from liverpool he's just visiting listen to his accent clearly not this italian criminal but that is all exactly what you would say if he was a mob boss living under an alias perfect liver puddling an accent you just learned an accent oh maybe it is this guy and maybe he thought rather than running and hiding and dying my hair and you know know, trying to change my appearance, what I'm going to do is going to get a dialect coach to teach me an amazing Gauss accent. So that's what he's been doing while on the run. I mean, Liverpool accent's great fun, but it's hard to take someone seriously as an international criminal if they sound like Ringo Starr. So that is exactly what happened.

That's the move. This guy has gone off and thought, I'm going to learn to speak like Ringo Starr and Thomas the Tank Engine. That will be hilarious. And no one will ever be able to take me seriously as a criminal again. Sadly, that was the mobster's nickname, Thomas the Tank Engine Mateo. The hardest part of all this was this man was held for three days in a Dutch prison, which must have been so harrowing for him, but was probably the best the actual criminal

has slept in 28 years, knowing the police thought they got him. Yes. And he's still out there just like oh i am living for three days also josh gunderman you're in america where the state of the prisons is something shocking i'm pretty sure dutch prisons are you know they're okay they're very socialized very data-based probably had a meditation coach come in if you live in manhattan josh that cell is likely to be much bigger than your apartment right and the the the tulips that they furnish you i think is a nice touch i suspect it's all clogs and windmills flat flat screen windmills in their prisons

in american prisons you only you have to share your windmill time with everyone else that's incarcerated. And the condition of our prison windmills is deplorable, honestly. Apparently his nickname was really Diabolique, which I think is with a K, which I think is quite a cool nickname, Diabolique. Oh, yeah. If ever I take up, you know, online cam girl work, that would be my name. What do you mean, if ever? This is audio, Deborah Francis-White. They can't see my sexy dance while I'm doing these jokes. Well, we can.

It's inspiring. That's why I bring the best out in my guests. It's the sexy dancing. Why do they keep him for three days? How can they not have realized their error before three days you'd think they'd realize it in three minutes slash three hours i think because no one can fake a scouse accent for more than two and a half days so they thought it was gonna slip at that point they were gonna break him he's timed out let him go i think that that they must have just been giving me three days of intense ringo star interrogation to see if the accent would drop. Right. They would be like, have you ever lived in a yellow submarine?

That's all the time we have for our mob boss news, because now it's time for your reviews. As every week, our guest editors have brought in something to review out of five stars. Josh Gunnleman, what have you brought in for us today? Today, I've brought in something to review out of five stars. Josh Gunlman, what have you brought in for us today? Today, I've brought in pinky fingers. On one hand, a pinky is the smallest and flimsiest of all the fingers. On the other hand, it's exactly the same thing, but backwards. A pinky finger lacks the versatility of thumb rings to the hand as well as the raw brute strength of the index finger.

It does not communicate rage as effectively as the middle finger. And unlike the actual ring finger, putting a ring on a pinky makes you look like you're in some kind of crime syndicate. Although, conversely, you can do a pinky swear, which is like a teeny tiny handshake, which I find very charming. And without our pinky fingers, we'd be no better than those four fingered weirdos on The Simpsons. Pinky fingers receive two out of five stars from me. It's a solid review, Josh. I'm going to keep mine around. Deborah Francis-White, what have you brought in for people? This week, I'm going to review Working for Zuckerberg. Because I've taken up working

for Mark Zuckerberg for free. I do this job about between 12 and 19 hours a day by posting on his acquired site, Instagram, and also liking, sharing, keeping it active. Basically, I keep his ball in the air for between a working day and two working days a day in any 24-hour period. I would highly recommend it in as much as it is a constant distraction. For lovers of 1984 the novel not the year the year was fairly tedious apart from wham but the novel you will probably remember

that the proles i.e the working class people were given a lottery by way of distraction it would give them something to look at something something to hope for. No one ever won the lottery. And that has come true. One of the many Orwellian prophecies to come to light. But instead of the lottery, it is in the form of Instagram. It's always something to look at. It's always something to hope for. It's always something you think you're going to win. You never do. There is no prize for keeping your Instagram and other people's Instagrams aloft. It is just consistently what happens. Now, in order to fully appreciate Instagram, you should have a smartphone in order to do your job properly. I would also like to add a small review for my smartphone,

who I am now in a monogamous relationship with. If anybody wants to have a go on my smartphone who I am now in a monogamous relationship with if anybody wants to have a go on my smartphone you can't because I'm on it this is the whole thing with my smartphone is I am on my iPhone for probably 20 of the 24 hours a day I stare into its eyes lovingly if my iPhone were a person it would have a restraining order out against me and here is where my iphone loses a star it loses a star because when i want to buy something or get into something it suddenly goes i don't know who you are i've never seen you before because you put in a passcode i don't recognize your face and i'm like i can look at you for 20 hours out of every

24 how can you not know who I am? And it goes, I've never seen you before. You might be a robot. What do you mean you might be a robot? You're a robot. You're a robot. You might be a robot. Please click on these things to prove you're not a robot.

Why am I proving I'm not a robot to a robot? I am in a monogamous, frankly, obsessive relationship with. It is not clear. So overall, I would give Instagram as a distraction, given Rome is burning. As far as a sort of Nero fiddler, I'd give that four stars out of five. But being in a monogamous relationship with an iPhone

who doesn't know who the f*** you are, I would give that one star because it's frankly demoralising. I do hate it when they ask you, prove that you're human, prove that you're not a robot because then you have to go off and love and suffer and live a full deep passionate life and eventually die yeah question why we're here at all by that time you've forgotten your amazon

order anyway yeah the moment's passed that's all the time we have for our reviews section now because now it's time for our technology section our favorite section of the week here is a study that has come out about jerks about jerks online deborah francis white you are a public woman you know all about jerks online what is this story well i'm glad you asked, Alice. This story is that the internet is shown to amplify and expose real life trolls, but not create them. So what is normally said is, ah, well, the internet makes everyone aggressive. It's Twitter, you see.

It's the format. It's the forum. It's the play. It's not people. People are lovely. But when they only have 280 characters to express an idea, arguments become extremely flammable. You wouldn't talk like this to someone in a pub if you could see their eyes and their face and their little bambi sad expressions. Turns out, according to

this study, not true. People are assholes. And the internet exposes that. But apparently, if you're a hostile person, you're a hostile person in the pub and you're a hostile person online and it doesn't actually alter aggression it just gives a more frequent forum to it i guess you don't have to sit in the pub with an asshole you just move pubs but in on twitter they can come and find you they don't have to come and ask to sit at your table. You can't say no. I'm going to question this, quite honestly. Yes, I also have theories about this, so let's dive in. Because I am a charmer in the pub. I'm a f***ing charmer.

And I will certainly not get into a, it would be so unusual that I'd get into a row with anyone. I would say, hmm, that's an interesting point. Like if I'm, now I really notice it that I have get into a row with anyone I would say that's an interesting point like if I'm now I really notice it that I have to ally all the time because you know I do a podcast called the guilty feminist I can't let things go and I don't want to uh where I would have been polite five years ago and thought oh that's not a very nice attitude and casually said now I feel I have to say something every single time which makes me so much fun in a bar there are nuances of intersectional feminism where i'll go oh well yeah and i and i i am being better at allying all the time and not letting things go but i say it in a very bridge-building

way uh always do and so it's unlikely to escalate in a pub and they will say, oh, I know what you mean. But and then I will say, I know what you mean. And and that's how the discussion will go. While we tilt our heads to the side and lean forward and do a warm smile. Now, I had to stop arguing with people on Facebook. I had to because it's so easy to get so irritated when you can't see any of those other social cues and it can escalate into a proper furious day ruining fight. I've missed whole parties that I was meant to be at well because I was arguing with some unbelievable twat on Facebook but the thing is if I bumped into that unbelievable twatted party I would have thought oh well they're a friend of a friend and so on and so on. On Facebook, they're always

a friend of a friend. That's the thing on Twitter. Anyone can come for you. But on Facebook, they're always a friend of a friend, if not a friend. And I've had some serious, serious escalated arguments that probably would have involved not necessarily punching but some little a light pushing little light pushing shoving maybe a shin kick for sure for sure if those things have been said verbally someone would have been pushed into a bar that's one of the things about this article they talk about oh maybe um this is in part because you don't see the other person's face right you you don't acknowledge their humanity because you don't see their face. But I also think people kind of pop off online because you can't see their face, but you know that they can't punch your face.

And that's a bigger distinction to me. Absolutely. Very valid and important distinction. So my theory about this is there was a man who used to sell nut butter down the road from me and you'd walk into his shop and he would call you captain and he'd call everybody captain and he made incredibly delicious nut butters for expensive prices and in his shop there was he had this theory that you needed to do poo six times a day to be healthy so he started every day with a drinking a liter of salt water and then his walls were covered with pamphlets about parasites in tap water and government mind control and pyramids.

And he was this like eccentric and lovely pillar of the community. And I'd go in every week and buy his delicious nut butters and have a chat with him and he was fine. The problem with the internet is that these people can now find each other then they cease to be a pleasant eccentric at the fringes of society and become something they become someone who convinces a hundred million people not to have a vaccination they become like the megazord in in the power rangers a bunch of different conspiracy theories joined together and then they blame the jews for whatever the addition of all those things is

i saw somebody the other day convince themselves to get a vaccination uh because of the jews hey no you're welcome they said israel's managed to vaccinate 90 of its population and if they're running the world they wouldn't do that if the vaccines didn't work and normally if somebody said the jews in that tone of voice i would take issue with it but at this point i was like i'm just going to leave that you've managed to inception your conspiracy theories all the way around to the point at which i'm happy that's so i let it go wow so they did they were using anti-semitism as kind of a public health motivator, which of all the reasons to be anti-Semitic, I guess that's at the top of the list. Yep.

Yeah. It's just that there's no way that if the Jews were running the world, then they're vaccinating the people and there's no way the vaccine doesn't work. So I'm going to get a vaccine. Wow. I'm just going to walk away from this because I don't want to discourage the guy. But also, oh, God, I can't talk to him either. Yeah, that's one for an ally. But I don't know how I would ally.

I think I might just shut my laptop and walk away fast. I mean, at least they're getting a vaccine and not discouraging other people from getting vaccines. At most, oh God. It's a real philosophical dilemma, because for the other people that interact with this man every day, you go, well, you should be vaccinated to keep yourself and those people safe. But because of the kind of deep-seated anti-Semitism that led him to that conclusion, I do have, in my worst moments, an impulse to go, hey, man, just stay unvaccinated. Let people cough in your mouth. Well, then he'll spread it. Oh, maybe this is a way to get people to be vaccinated. So maybe we could say to men's rights activists, we don't want any men to get vaccinated.

Feminists don't want men to get vaccinated because we want you all to die. Yeah, because COVID causes erectile dysfunction. Yeah. They'll be out with their pamphlets going, going, the feminists don't want us to have vaccines because they want us to die. Listeners, please don't email me or Alice Fraser to say that I want men to die. I don't. That was a joke about what might motivate a men's rights activist to vaccinate himself that feminists could use.

It's not what I'm saying. Please don't misquote me. I love men and I don't want them to die. Just to be clear. But as alluded to at the top of the show, the vaccine does give you giant balls. And your fiance will leave you. that's tough that's her lookout you know she if she doesn't like giant balls there's plenty more fish in the sea yeah that's

right take me as i am or not at all stop trying to change me that's all the time we have for our technology section right now because now it's time for our This Isn't Politics section. So as you know, the gargle is resolutely apolitical. We do all of the news and none of the politics, and that's our selling point. But this is a crossover because it is animal news, zebra animal news. This is the story of Congresswoman Norton uh eleanor holmes norton having had to deny that she has set loose a bunch of zebras who are currently on the run in the dc

suburbs josh gondelman you're our zebra expert you see things in black and white can you unpack this story for us yes so congresswoman eleanor Holmes Norton, after six zebras were set free in a Maryland farm, D.C. area farm, she had to release a statement saying that she was not responsible for this, which I figured she didn't do it right. But if someone had accused me of setting a bunch of zebras free in the D.C. area, I don't think I would deny it outright. I would want to leave a little mystery there. So maybe people would think that I did do it because it seems like a cool thing to do. I would have gone like, wow, it would have been

extremely reckless, but pretty badass if I had done that. And then wink. And then just like- Like OJ Simpson's book if I'd done it. I wouldn't even use the same title. What's OJ going to do? He's not a vengeful guy. I mean, like, legally speaking. Fale Norman McDonald. This is my favorite part of the story is that Congresswoman Norton has recently come out.

She's like very. She's fought really hard for statehood for the district. And so maybe, I guess if she had released the zebras, it would have been a protest. Like these zebras get as many votes for president as the citizens of Washington, D.C. But she also has been known to oppose, she's recently opposed unnecessary fences in the district.

And I would say that the fences stopping zebras from running wild through residential neighborhoods, to me, qualify as necessary fences. Those are, quote unquote, some of the good ones. Mostly I don't love aence, but on this occasion, I can see the use of them. She sort of has done that wink, wink, nudge, nudge thing though, Josh, hasn't she? She says, my alibi is solid, but given my career of fighting for statehood for the district,

which includes years of explaining the importance of and having consent of the governed and blah, blah, blah. Given my recent opposition defences, I can't understand why the charge was made. And that's a bit like saying, I didn't drunkenly sex Jon Hamm, but I can sort of see why it's on brand and you might have thought I did.

I know. I understand why that would be appealing to people. Yeah, like Priti Patel saying, I didn't push that refugee child into a puddle, but I can kind of get on board with why you thought it might have been me. It is the kind of thing I'd do. It's her vibe.

I think if you had freed the six zebras, you would be rushing to take credit for the six zebras. There's plenty of people, I feel, who could hook their star to this wagon of freeing the zebras. I want to see people fighting over who freed the zebras, not people trying to deny this charge. Yes, right. I feel like it is kind of the whimsical type of crime that honestly, there are a lot of organizations that could use this kind of whimsy in their PR portfolio, right?

There's a lot of kerfuffle right now in Afghanistan about the way the Taliban is ruling the nation. If they were also like, and we did the thing with the zebras, that's pretty funny, right? Yeah, you get brownie points. Yeah. I mean, if there's any way to win Instagram, Debra Francis White, it's probably by releasing six zebras in the DC suburbs.

Well, I do have a Debra zebra, kind of, that would be my mob boss name. It wouldn't be Diabolique, it would be zebra. Can't domesticate her. Can't ride her. Yeah. I'm not saying it was me, but I am saying my niece calls me Auntie Zebra. That's so cute.

And I'm not saying it wasn't me. Hashtag free the nip, free the zebras. I like that twofer on those hashtags. Yeah. Zebras have nipples., is all I'm saying. You can't free one without the other. I like that officials say that they couldn't catch the zebras because they're too fast. And it's like, you literally enforce the law against speeding.

If you can catch a car that's going too fast. You can catch a fancy horse going too fast. There's no way a zebra is faster than a car. That's all the time we have for our freeing zebras section because we have come to the end of the show. We're flipping through the classified ads at the end here. Josh Gondelman, have you got anything to plug? I have a podcast called make my day it's a comedy game show where there's only one contestant so the contestant always wins

uh and then i'm i'm starting to do a little bit more stand up here and there until someone's like knock it off you can't do that so uh i should put my dates up at josh gondelman.com and then at josh gondelman twitter and instagram and at joshgondelman Twitter and Instagram. And Debra Francis-White, have you got anything to plug? I do. I do a podcast called The Guilty Feminist, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts or all the info at guiltyfeminist.com. And it's about our noble goals as 21st century feminists

and their hypocrisies and insecurities which undermine those goals. Also, could you please check out Choose Love at choose.love. It's an amazing organisation that supplies desperately needed things to refugees and works with refugees everywhere. So please go, if you've listened to this podcast for free and you think I should have paid for this, the quality was so high, go and buy something for a refugee at choose.love otherwise share some choose love lovery at choose love on your socials because somebody else might do it and you can support the gargle and get an ad-free version of the show uh in apple podcasts by going to the bugle

podcast.com slash donate and we'd like to thank our roving reporter for this week the tulip wizard who sent in the zebra's story if you have a story that you would like to thank our roving reporter for this week, the Tulip Wizard who sent in the zebra story. If you have a story that you would like to send in, please tweet us at HelloGogglers and you too can be a roving reporter on this fine and reputable podcast. This is The Goggle. I'm your host Alice Fraser. Find me online at

alliterative on Twitter and Instagram. It's A-L-I-T-E-R-A-T-I-V-E or support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser, which is a one-stop-I-V-E, or support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser, which is a one-stop shop for all of my podcast blogs and other things, including my weekly Tea with Alice salons where we just have a nice chat. Your editor is Ped Hunter. Your executive producer is Chris Skinner.

This is an Alice Fraser and Bugle podcast production. I'll talk to you again next week. You can listen to other programs from The Bugle, including The Bugle, The Last Post, Tiny Revolutions and The Gargle, wherever you find your podcasts.