The Gargle - NFTs worthless | Not funfair | High sheep

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Tom Neenan and AJ Lamarque join host Alice Fraser for episode 130 of The Gargle - the glossy magazine to The Bugle's audio newspaper for a visual world.All of the news, none of the politics!🙈 NFTs worthless🎢 Not funfair🐑 High sheep🦢 Swan disruption🪲 Beetle termite🔠 Reviews HOW TO SUPPORT THE GARGLEKeep 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!Pre-order the D'Ancey LaGuarde Reader book here! http://l8r.it/DHhGAdvertise YOUR business on The Gargle with an Alice Fraser ad read. Contact [e-mail]00:00 Start02:23 Front cover03:37 Satirical cartoon03:57 Story 1: The vast majority of NFTs are now worthless09:51 Ads11:49 Story 2: Eight rollercoaster riders trapped upside down for hours16:12 Reviews18:28 Story 3: Herd of sheep eat 100kg of cannabis in Greece22:38 Story 4: Swan causes London train disruption for a second day26:09 Story 5: Beetle grows 'termite' on its back to steal food30:29 Bye / Anything to plug? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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what you want. If you're looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I've acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. And those skills are the gargle. This is the gargle, 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. Welcome. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

How are you? Are you well? I am very well. And our other guest editor for this week's edition of the magazine is Tom Neenan. Hello, that's me. Hello. I'm so happy to be here as well. I know you're well because you just said it, but I'll ask again so I have the mask of politeness.

Are you well? I'm code switching. I'm not very well, Tom. Let me explain to you. Fair enough. I've got a toddler, so my life is full of both joy and pain. My life is full of more life, basically. Yes, so much life.

It's wonderful. Before we blindfold each other and bundle into the unmarked van that is this week's top stories, let's have a look at the front cover of the magazine. is this week's top stories. Let's have a look at the front cover of the magazine. The front cover of the gargle this week is Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner posing provocatively with a dragon from the Game of Thrones

that represents their impending extremely violent divorce. Have you been following this celebrity news at all? Well, from what I understand, isn't it... Now now I'm going to try and keep you out of legal hot water here. Um, Alice, isn't it the fact that they broke up and everyone was like, you know, sometimes couples break up, that's fine. But then he started like briefing little stories to the press.

Like he was saying like, oh, I dunno, I guess I just love being a dad and she loves going out and occasionally drinking a cocktail. Um, and everyone was like oh okay she sounds nice and he was like yeah but sometimes she meets up with her friends and everyone's like okay yeah that sounds reasonable and basically he was desperate for us to hate her for like having a life that wasn't being a mum and everyone was like no she sounds quite fun she sounds quite nice um and that's it's the pr war has been lost by the jonas brothers basically yeah it's a real it's a real shame for the jonas brothers but a real victory for everyone who's And the PR war has been lost by the Jonas Brothers, basically. Yeah.

It's a real shame for the Jonas Brothers, but a real victory for everyone who's like, yeah, sometimes relationships break up, particularly if they're very young Hollywood relationships and both of the people are fairly high-powered and you sort of think you married young and had children young. Yeah. The end. How sad.

The satirical cartoon this week is more marriage news. Dane Cook, 51 years old, marrying his longtime partner, Kelsey Taylor, who's 24 after six years of dating. Don't worry. It's okay. They've been friends since she was 15. That's the satirical cartoon this week. Top story this week, NFT news, which is NFT short for not f***ing worth your time.

Apparently, unfortunately for all of the people who were ideologically wedded to the possibilities of NFTs, it turns out that the vast majority of them are now worthless. Two years after the big surge in the possibilities of NFTs, it turns out that the vast majority of them are now worthless. Two years after the big surge in the possibilities of NFTs, you know, as an artist, I thought, oh, look at the possibilities for copyright and long chain kickbacks to the artists as the work gets sold on into the future. What a great thing that might be. And then very quickly, it became apparent that it was going to be grift central for grifters to grift their grifts. And that what you were investing in was the opportunity to scam someone else in the future. So, AJ Lamarck, you've been on a computer. Can you unpack this story for us?

Yeah, I'm going to tell you actually how it is, because much like the people who use NFTs, I don't know much about it, but I'm going to pretend like I do. because much like the people who use NFTs, I don't know much about it, but I'm going to pretend like I do. So essentially, 95% of the NFT collections out of this study that CoinMarketCap did were literally worth nothing anymore. That's a high percentage. I'm not sure how well you delve into percentages.

Just 95%, you know what I mean? Like 95%, when you look at percentages, that is a lot, you know what I mean? Like 95%, when you look at percentages, that is a lot. You know what I mean? Like you look at votes that happen, you get like 60, like 60 is reasonable. Like if I get a 60 on a test, I'm like, I did well, like 95. But also I just like, I just get the image of someone whose NFT they found out is worth nothing, but they can't even hold on to the thing that doesn't have value anymore because it doesn't physically exist and to me that's the saddest part of it all they don't even get to hold their in valueless nft close to their chest it's quite a

sad story really when you think about it see for me this is um uh this is like the television program lost because uh when lost started i was like oh man I should get into Lost and then everyone was like Lost is so good, get into Lost and every time I'd see an advert for Lost I'd get stressed and be like man I've got to watch Lost it looks complicated but I've got to get into Lost and then eventually people started going

no Lost is rubbish Lost had a terrible ending, Lost has gone rubbish and I was like well I never have to watch Lost that is me and NFTs, I didn't understand them i still don't understand them and in that time they have gone for the most important thing in the world to worthless and i have sort of stayed the same so i feel vindicated in my decision in this case see i want to i want both of you to let yourselves off the hook because i think the vast majority of people who talked themselves out of the NFT space because they didn't understand the NFT space,

it was because somebody had explained to them the NFT space and they had thought after the explanation, oh, it can't possibly be as stupid as it sounds. And it was. What I love about this is there's one particular article reading about it and at the very end they talk about you know maybe there's a future for nfts and they should be connected to historically relevant things such as first edition pokemon cards and i love this universe where first edition pokemon cards are the most historically relevant thing. That was the first thing they brought up.

Maybe, maybe NFTs are the future. In the list, in the list that starts with first edition Pokemon cards, the second thing on that list is true art. And the third thing on that list is something that provides genuine utility. Wasn't that what they were designed for though? Like originally it was going to be like if there's an amazing goal at the football or something that you can sort of own the uh the rights to the footage of that goal or like you own that in a blockchain and then pretty soon i thought

okay this all this sounds interesting because you can like own specifically culturally relevant moments i guess in a way and then it just became no jimmy fallon wants to sell you a cartoon of a monkey that he's found um and we all have to be super excited about it do you really did that by the way just on tv they were just like oh buy these things buy them buy them buy them buy them and that was the moment i thought oh maybe um yeah maybe this is a grift rather than anything of any cultural relevance yes maybe this trend has jumped the shark and did you know you can buy the moment where the Fonz jumps the shark that I would buy I would buy that too actually yeah I mean you can go to the Berlin Wall

and buy bits of the Berlin Wall that's just the physical version of it's like you know going home and looking at your shelf being like oh look look at this post World War 2 division I've got it on my shelf next to like year 8 karate champion trophy that I got like isn't this wonderful I don't believe you're actually buying bits of the Berlin Wall when you're at the

Berlin Wall I think what you're doing is what they do is they take that recording of JFK saying I am a Berliner and they play it to a wall, and then they break that up, and then they play little bits. So you have infinite wall, homeopathic wall. Like holy water. I'll tell you what, though.

I've been to East Berlin, and that wall is not fungible in any way. That is a non-fungible wall. So I think I know the experience of what it's like to have an NFT because I write jokes for other people sometimes for radio sometimes for television and what I'll do is occasionally actually more rarely than you would think but occasionally I'll be watching the thing that has a joke that I wrote and when the joke that I wrote comes up I go that's mine it's a lot cheaper to do that, you know?

Way cheaper. Well, actually, it's not. It's zero dollars either way. But I mean... Your ad section now, because you can't be what you can't buy. And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by turtles. Turtles, the snail of the sea. The snail of the sea that isn't sea snails.

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Broomgate. Available now. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts. Everywhere. Acast.com your next top story is not fun fair news and this is the news that eight roller coaster riders were trapped upside down for four hours in wisconsin which is the worst part of the story tom neenan uh you love thrills and spills can you unpack this story for us oh boy yes another uh story which i do not understand in any way because i don't like roller coasters i don't like them i am the holding the bags guy when people go to uh to funfairs of any kind and i'm proud to be that

um so this is in a place called crandon it It sounds nice. It sounds lovely. And it's at the, it happened on Sunday at the Crandon International Off-Road Raceway. Get me a ticket now, please. What a place. And so as you say, this roller coaster got stuck. And this is part of the reason I don't understand roller coasters. Because no other leisure activity ever, if it's sort of extended, if it lasts a long time, do people get angry about it. But for some reason, roller coasters are the one where they're like, no, no, no, no. We queue for an hour and then we get 90 seconds of fun.

No more. Right? Anything else? Oh, no. I got locked in the M&M store for three hours. That's the best day of your life. Oh, I watched the film Oppenheimer and it was three hours long. That's the best day of your life. Oh, I watched the film Oppenheimer and it was three hours

long. That's just watching the film Oppenheimer. Roller coasters. A roller coaster you're stuck on for three hours. For some reason people are angry about that, but that's just more roller coaster. What are you complaining about, people? Do you like roller coasters or not? I don't like this story. I think roller coasters are one of those things that people don't like.

They like it afterwards. Right. Okay. Are you speaking of someone with a child? Is that the case? Okay. So I used to love roller coasters. And then I had a baby and people were like, oh, your appetite for risk changes.

And then it absolutely has. And I've been on two roller coasters since having a baby. And both of the times I hated it so much. I spent the the entire time going this would be the stupidest way to die will it put bubbles in my milk that was the emotional roller coaster for me and it's ruined it's ruined roller coasters I don't know if that will change maybe maybe when I when my children are teenagers, I'll be able to take a thrill in the proximity of death once more. But until then, I'm like, I've got responsibilities, upside down responsibilities. My favorite part of this whole thing is there's a line in this article that says, the State Department of Safety and Professional Services is responsible for reviewing plans for amusement parks and inspecting rides in Wisconsin.

But the way it's phrased makes it sound like it's the only responsibility that this person jobs. And it must be quite a light workload. Like how many roller coasters are being built in Wisconsin that someone works full time to review them and then clearly does a bad job and everybody's left literally and figuratively hanging? I think the central problem with modern roller coasters in the funfair environment is that they are at least one third to one half scarier

than was specced in with the engineering and blueprints right because you've got the engineering you've got the blueprints you've got the you know the sensation of danger that is that is um induced by the process of going very fast and round corners and upside down and all that stuff. But then what you've also got when you're actually in there in reality, and this is where engineers fail to kind of meet the user interface, what you've also got is that kind of maybe 30 to 70 seconds where you're sitting in the roller coaster and you're looking at a 14-year-old

with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth and chewing gum in the other side of their mouth who looks so bored and you're also noticing the kind of the rust around the edges of things and maybe the fact that there's kind of a loose bolt and a loose screw and then the ride starts so i feel like they need to more finely calibrate these elements of the ride before they before they send you down the the rails i think it's like getting in getting on a plane you want the pilot to sound bored you want this to be their ninth flight that pilot's done this day you want it to be like oh no you know the second the pilot's like hi guys i'm really on it by the way today i'm really gonna focus and i'm really trying you'd be like whoa whoa whoa i don't I don't like that. I want the bored teenager.

I don't want someone looking terrified. Now it's time for your reviews. As you know, each week we ask our guest editors to bring in something to review out of five stars. AJ, what have you brought in for us this week? Oh, this week I brought in a text exchange with my friend the other day. He was busy at work and we were just messaging and he was like, oh, AJ is today so hectic and so stressed.

And I was like, oh no, sorry to hear, like hope things die down. And then as soon as I hit send, I just remembered what his job was and he's a doctor in the ICU and I think I accidentally cursed some people to death. So I then immediately said, oh no, I hope things don't die down. And by things, I mean people. But I know that you know what I meant and not what was actually translated. And that went across two messages

and me trying to justify why I wasn't cursing these poor individuals. So my review of that is three and a half stars because, you know, the intent was nice. It was well-meaning. Yeah. It was well-meaning. Yeah. It was well-meaning murder. Which is what doctors always put on the form.

And Tom, what have you brought in for us this week? I've had a nightmare of my reviews. They're bad. They're bad. I'm going to lower expectations right now, people. These are bad. I tried to review the alphabet in the order of the alphabet why i don't know it's the alphabet because creating dense educational formulae gets hard i just kind of lean my natural observations positively

quite right seriously the utter virtue which exists you and then i gave up because what is the point of that that's awful um so that was me trying to review the alphabet in alphabetical order terrible um and then I tried to write uh I tried to think about uh limericks I like limericks I tried to write a limerick that describes limericks that then I could review so I went um a format which hails from the past is a poem suggestive and fast with a rhyme at the start and two lines at its heart and a rude bit which always comes last hey very nice that's lovely i think that's lovely two stars i review that i mean i would review that as a solid three and a half to four stars you should be proud of yourself and no one's died exactly No one died. Exactly.

Your animal section now, and our top story in the animal section, is a herd of sheep in Greece. And you think, well, that's not news. It is when they eat 100 kilograms of cannabis. It is. Tom Neenan, you've seen a sheep before. Can you unpack what happened and why and how high these sheep might be of course this scientifically um this is how clouds are made um so there were um

there was a herd of sheep which were grazing on a plane in is it pronounced Thessaly in Greece um which sounds like a lovely place um and yeah, they managed to break into a greenhouse, which was cultivating. And I understand it's a bit like Dane Cook with his 24 year old spouse, and they had been dating for six years, six years, six years, which is I think here it's cultivating medical cannabis, it's medical cannabis, it's all above board don't you know no one's getting in trouble um 800 kilograms of it um so this uh yeah so basically now we've got a load of sheep and it's problematic because i don't know if you know this uh as soon as a sheep has imbibed any cannabis its wool can then only be used to make beanie hats uh so legally that's all they can be used for now. And yeah, I mean, I'm guessing sheep aren't exactly

like the most dynamic at the best of times. So I wouldn't imagine this is going to be particularly, they're going to be particularly sprightly. But yeah, apparently the greenhouse that they broke into had been damaged by Storm Daniel, who is the porn star that Trump slept with. So I don't know what she was doing there, but she's been causing lots of mayhem.

Well, it sort of feels like, I mean, it's a real blow to the farmer because apparently this is the third thing that hit his farm after a heat wave, which damaged many of their crops, and then Storm Daniel, and then the sheep coming in. He realised that the sheep had broken in and eaten the cannabis

when the sheep started behaving strangely. Again, how would you know? What counts as behaving strangely for a sheep? They started a podcast and they were just there in the field, you know, cross legs up like this. And he was like, something's up because usually they read. AJ, are you a fan of sheep and or cannabis?

I am. I'm actually not a fan of sheep because I had an altercation with one when I was um long story short I used to work as an English teacher on summer camps in Germany um which is not the uh the kind of future for a British person that um old Germany would have envisaged but I was teaching English in the countryside of Germany and um the there was a farm next door to this summer school and the sheep had got out and the sheep were running around. And so I had to lock all of the students into a classroom to protect them.

And then me and this other German teacher had to herd sheep through the halls of this primary school that we were using. And it was relatively fine because they were spooked by the people. They were spooked by us. So they did what they were told when we were gesturing except this one sheep literally literal black sheep was just standing in the cafeteria area staring us down and we were kind of like edging like come on and it was like not having a bar and then we just gave up i mean it was having a bar. So I'm slightly... It was having a bar, bar, black sheep. But, um... So I never used to be scared of sheep. Now I'm slightly scared of that one specific sheep.

But it was in Germany, so I'm sure the Greek sheep are fine. And they're a lot more chill now anyway, so... I don't know if it's better to be nationally specifically racist against sheep or just generally species racist against sheep. In other animal news, a swan has caused a London train disruption, which is fair and fine enough, except that it's happened for the second day in a row. AJ Lamarck, you've caught British trains before. Can you unpack this story for us?

I have. I have caught them in a net and it was challenging. But the thing that I didn't get from researching this news story was, was it the same swan or was it a different one? And to me, that is the most important part. I want to know if this one was like, you haven't heard the last of me. Whatever noise is in it hatches a plan for the second day of, or maybe the swan is just,

you know, like, like I'm doing my own strikes. This is, I'm here for the train unions. I think it's probably that the swan has deludedly fallen in love with a train and we all know that swans mate for life, so that train is not running for the next 14 years.

I think you've got your story for next week. This one has disrupted a whole train line, which I just think is just inherently quite funny. I think this line in particular got me. The railway was temporarily closed for a short period of time to allow our frontline colleagues to safely check this one was no longer on the railway line. The frontline colleagues infers that there's some sort of army structure to the railway team. So you have your frontline railway workers and behind them there are the railway workers who are the flanks and i imagine they have spears um and they protect the railway tracks um maybe they have shields i don't know what kind of battle formations the railway staff

in the uk do um but i love that they were all brought out to attack and defend the tracks against the swan uh tom neenanan i little little fact for you all obviously you probably already know this is that all swans were owned by the queen um and i reckon that this basically is swans acting out knowing that they are leaderless now that they there's no one there so they're kind of they're trying to follow whatever whatever course whatever kind of thing show them some tracks they'll get on them because're kind of, they're trying to follow whatever, whatever course, whatever kind of thing. Show them some tracks. They'll get on them because they just want direction.

We need to give Swans a new leader. I don't know if the King immediately takes over owning all the Swans. That wasn't, you know, detailed in the coronation. So what I think we should do is have an election to see who should lead the Swans. Graham Swan? Is he like a cricketer? Yes. Yeah? His name is Swan and he might be up there.

That's my only suggestion, I'll be honest. I was looking at other Swans and there's not really any other famous Swans. But they need a leader, guys. I want a Graham Swan merch t-shirt that says graham swan your mate for life i was gonna say stephen fry but i think the association to foie gras was a bit too cruel they'd sense it they would definitely sense it i mean i think what this is an is an instance of swan overpopulation because it's not just that the queen owns the swans. She's the only one who's allowed to eat the swans.

So they've lost their natural predator. Exactly. The monarchy. Arguably a predator for a lot more than just swans, depending on how you look. The swans are the canary in the gold mine. Yeah, yeah. And the swans are the canary in the gold mine yeah yeah

and our final animal news for today is the stealth beetle this is the news that there is a beetle that grows a fake termite on its back in order to lure termites into giving the beetle food i don't know if this is cool or horrifying uh but i'm excited to find out what you think uh tom uh i hate this story it's disgusting uh i was so i'm immediately gonna pivot yes this is a uh a beetle that grows a fake termite on its back in order to sort of lure other termites and steal food but all it reminded me of was my friend who lived alone during lockdown and would order copious amounts of uh of delivery or other um you know other delivery services and uh because she was so ashamed of how much food she was ordering whenever she opened the door um she would go hey guys food's

here to an empty house before receiving the bags of food um and one time the uh the delivery driver broke down and needed to be pushed and she was like oh well i can't you know i can't push you on my own he's like well can you not and then she had to sort of realise that she had to own up to this delivery driver that all the fish and sodding was for her and she was lying and there was no one else in the house is that the same? I don't know I just didn't want to think about that god damn beetle

and it's horrible growth on it's back that looks like a god damn termite I mean your friend I think your friend should have doubled down and been like yeah sorry none of them have have spines spines household

sorry AJ have you ever grown a termite on your back to lure someone into giving you food always it's called a Sunday I loved it I think it's fascinating this story because it's it's not like okay i'm gonna nerd out of it it's not just like this termite like this this creature has

picked up a dead termite and put it on its back it has developed the dna to grow its own version of this creature evolutionary speak that's just just... I'm nerding out because my degree is biomed and I'm a bit of a biomed nerd. But mostly, I'm just like, it's a lot of effort. It's a lot of effort to catfish. And I mean, at some point, you've got to realise the

extent that they've gone to through millions of years of evolution to catfish. You've just got to go, you know what? Good on you you've tried hard you deserve it you go you you you trick that termite and emotionally damage it yeah this is the ultimate sort of free rider this is the ultimate uh the boy of the animal kingdom if you were holding out with one hand something that they know is a hollow simulacrum of the thing that the other person actually wants in order to get resources i feel like uh we can

all applaud this horrifying creature i sort of i sort of wonder if it ever kind of feels embarrassed about what it's done it sort of has one job though right like it looks like that forever now you can't it's a bit like if you had a like a mannequin grafted onto your body just so you can like drive in the carpool lane and it's like well it's good for that one job but now i look like this forever now i'm at the supermarket and people are looking at me weird but my question is will they continue to evolutionary grow and just become a termite? Like, at what point do they just go, when is enough enough?

How much f***boyness do you need to become to become just a person? Yeah, like the f***boy who sort of lures his girlfriend in with promises of, like, love and commitment and then just keeps stringing her along and then eventually marries her and, like, provides for the family that they then produce. At what point does that cease to be a f*** boy and just be someone who played themselves?

Just on their deathbed being like, gotcha. Just on the deathbed breaking up by text. Literal ghosting. Yeah. Text. Yeah. Literal ghosting. That brings us to the end of this week's edition of The Gargle.

I'm flipping through the ads at the back. AJ Lamarck, have you got anything to plug? Ah, I have a podcast that I'm currently updating and getting out every fortnight instead of a week because editing podcasts is hard with a full-time job. But it's called Floof with AJ Lamarck and I just chat to people about a topic that they enjoy. Floof, an excellent podcast. You should listen to it.

Tom Neenan, have you got anything to plug? I do. I love the name Floof. That is, what a great title. I'll definitely be listening. Finally, I think I've mentioned it like nine times on this podcast. My Sky Short is out on Sky and now TV. If you have access to either of those, it's called Cylon.

It stars Kajal Smith-Lyno and Sunil Patel. And they are both brilliant and I'm very proud of that. So please watch that. Also, maybe follow me on Instagram. I'm going to plug Instagram because we're all slowly pretending we're not on X. So TP Neenan on Instagram. I do sort of paintings and things and I occasionally try and sell them.

So maybe have a gander at some of them. I would also like to thank our roving reporters for this week. William Mendelsohn, GadgetGav and Robert Allen, who sent in the NFTs news. Sealips, who sent in the sheep weed story. Miss Otis, who sent in

the swan train disruption story. And Dr. Selena, who sent in the beetle termite story. If you have a story that you think would look good on the garglers coming out of my mouth, tweet us at HelloGarglers on X for now. We're also on BlueSky or BlueSki, also at HelloGarglers. I'm Alice Fraser. You can find me online at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser where I do my weekly writers' meetings,

which are a lot of fun, salons and book clubs. If you want to buy the Dancy Lagarde reader, unbound.com is the place to go. 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 programmes from The Bugle,

including The Bugle, Catharsis, Tiny Revolutions, Top Stories, and The Gargle, wherever you find your podcasts.