The Gargle - Nuts news | Picky penguins | Driving tests

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

Ben Partridge and debutant Ria Lina join host Alice Fraser for episode 70 of The Gargle, the weekly topical comedy podcast from The Bugle - with no politics!🐿 Squirrel contraceptives🐧 P-p-p-picky penguins🚘 Driving test criminal🤰 Elon Musk baby mamas🛶 Venice tourism tax🚽 ReviewsProduced 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. Day 42. Children cutting out pictures from your article less than a year from now will never contemplate how carefully you need to do a wee when you're on a precarious research platform 100 feet in the air. Your water purifier and your telephoto lens are your only companions, apart from the native fixers who don't count. Quick, what's that in the darkness of the forest? Is it an elusive bird of paradise? No, you whisper to yourself, vibrating with excitement. It's the gargle. Welcome to the gargle, the sonic glossy magazine the Bugle's audio newspaper of the visual world. We bring you all of the news satire, none of the politics. Ring the bell, ped.

This is The Gargle. I'm your host, Alice Frazier. Your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine are Benjamin Partridge and Ria Lina. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Hi. Thanks for having me. Hi. Thanks for having me. Well, together we are going to get into a sneaky car and drive into the forest that is this week's articles, but first, let's have a look at the front cover.

The front cover of the magazine this week is Elon Musk's lawyer posing provocatively with a copy of the contract he signed with Twitter that contains a completely clear and horrifyingly enforceable specific performance clause, it will take more than a horse to pay for how f*** you're going to get during this process. The satirical cartoon this week is a bunch of morally ambiguous superhero characters created as object lessons in how not to be sitting around looking depressed. The Punisher says to Batman, how were we supposed to know that they'd find our sad stories compelling and cool? And now it's time to jump into our stories.

Top story this week, nuts news. And this is the news that grey squirrels in the UK are about to start shooting blanks. Benjamin Partridge, you chase squirrels around on a regular basis. Can you unpack this story for us? Yeah, so squirrels... I could have said you have nuts but i didn't i do have nuts squirrels love nuts and they also love to nut and that's the problem um there are too many gray squirrels in the uk um whether that's eating nuts or ejaculating into

another squirrel uh they want to be doing it and essentially um grey squirrels are a problem apparently because we want to plant loads of trees to help with climate change but apparently squirrels kill trees um which i'm dubious about because so grey squirrels are from america um i've been to america and they've got trees so what's what's really going on here i'm not sure um but yeah essentially um rather than doing a kind of cull, which is the usual British government response to any kind of natural problem, they're going to give them contraceptives. And no, it's not adorable little tiny rodent condoms.

It's our old friend chemicals. And essentially, all of the squirrels are going to be sterilized and within a generation there'll be no more grey squirrels and the red squirrel will rise once again as the premier bushy-tailed rodent of the uk and it makes me swell with patriotism to imagine that ria how do you feel about this squirrel the squirrel eugenics uh well do you know what ben i didn't know which way you were leaning there. You kept us on tenterhooks till the very end of that explanation. I was like, you can't possibly be pro-gray. Ginger squirrels for me all the way, all the way. And they are

actually as minimalized in our wildlife as gingers are in nature generally. So I generally believe that we should be protecting the redheads um i i don't know we're a few years off this let's let's look at the science we are a few years off this they still have to do field trials which i'm going to be honest i don't think are going to go well because as we all know squirrels don't live in fields they live in trees but um i'm sure the scientists will figure that out but what's interesting is that the plan is to lure they're going to lure, they're going to lure the gray squirrels into boxes that only the gray squirrels will have access to,

which I thought, how are you going to manage that? How are you going to, I mean, you know, part of me just went, are you saying that the red squirrels are too stupid? Like, how are you, how are you designing this box such that the larger gray squirrel can enter, but the smaller, feistier, fighting for its land red squirrel isn't going to get in and it's as simple as we're going to fat shame them that is how the box works is that is that there's a little pad outside it's a little scale and when the squirrel lands on it if it's big enough it's allowed in and if it isn't big enough then it's not allowed in and that's how we're

going to differentiate which makes me nervous because I think that we're going to get some cross sterilization there which is a risk but you know apparently gray squirrels have been doing untold damage which is inevitably worse than told damage although how we know that I don't know because it's untold it's's untold. But it's automatically assumed to be worse. I mean, how are we, where we are at in society, and we are still more scared of that, which we do not know. I think we've got a lot to work on. As an Australian, as somebody who's come from a country which knows about invasive species and the problems that they cause and the problems that you cause by trying to solve the problems caused by invasive species i have to say i applaud this contraceptive plan because what we

did was we had snakes in the cane and then we brought in cane toads and now the cane toads are a massive pest also we killed all of the rabbits with myxomatosis and then it went into some other native species and it's just a whole like i just i feel like it's the it's the it's the woman who swallowed a fly story but in terms of of the cascading numbers of invasive species that we're bringing in, they're thinking of introducing elephants into the desert in Australia and camels, because why not? Why not just throw another thing at the problem

and hope that that doesn't become a problem and then throw another bigger animal? They're just going to dump a whale on Uluru at this point, see what happens. I like the fact that in the reporting of this story the the contraceptive is going to be um administered through what they always call a hazelnut spread which we all know is nutella right so it's nutella laced with hormones i guess and i like the way the fact that it just like it shows how irresistible nutella is like even if i knew

it was going to sterilize me, if you put a pot in front of me, I'd still have to try very hard not to put my finger in and take a little bit. Even if I knew it was going to shrivel up my tiny little squirrel nuts. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit mean, isn't it? To mess with their nuts using nuts.

Yeah, it does feel like that. Isn't that cruel? It's a little bit cruel. They haven't got a chance. No. Well, but something does have to be done. It is true that the Gray Squirrel has lived its day. And the little Red Squirrel.

And they've literally put the Red Squirrels into reservations. I mean, the Red Squirrels are living. They're only thriving in island environments where there are no Gray Squirrels. And it's just time for the Red Squirrel to come back. Come back and sit on its rightful throne. Claim its rightful position in society. Your ad section now, because you can't be what you can't buy. And this week's ads are brought to you by dating apps.

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This is picky penguins news. And this is the news that penguins in a Japanese zoo have refused to eat cheaper fish. In the face of rising prices, their feeders decided to give them less expensive fish and these penguins have turned out to be absolute c**ts about it. Rialina, you've worn a tuxedo. Can you unpack this story for us? I mean, this is a tragic and yet wonderful story in equal measure. I almost want to stand on the picket line with them. Or is it pick roll? Pick roll line with them. Prices have risen. As we know, there's a cost of living crisis

which is affecting all levels of society, including zoos. And this particular zoo in Japan has found that the price of fish, it literally has to do with the price of fish. How often does a story have to literally have to do with the price of fish how often does a story have to literally have to do with the price of fish not often this is about japan where the price of ahi which is or aji which is mackerel has gone up by 20 or 30 percent and they normally feed their their penguins

and their otters horse mackerel which is aji right who doesn't love horse mackerel um well horses but ironically um and mackerel unless they eat agi, right? Who doesn't love horse mackerel? Well, horses, but ironically. And mackerel, unless they eat each other. Actually, all fish eat each other. They're horrible. Well, I think they're limited in their food chain options, to be honest. So anyway, it's gone up by 20, 30%. So they've switched to, wait for it, drum roll.

Common mackerel. Oh oh it's horrifying i know but from horse mackerel to common mackerel sorry i just threw up my mouth i know and it's called saba right saba which is actually ironically what we eat in japanese restaurants but anyway point is they're not having it the penguins the audit they are not having it and there's a beautiful video. Go online and watch it where they're actually, they're chopping, they're preparing it so beautifully. They've got this beautiful sharp knife and they're chopping up the fish into just the right cute little morsel

along the grain of the meat and everything. And then they're handing it out and they're sniffing it and leaving it. And with the penguins, it's a whole fish. And so they're trying to do that thing where it looks like they're choking them with the fish,uins, it's a whole fish. And so they're trying to do that thing where it looks like they're choking them with the fish, but actually that's how they eat. And they're trying to shove the fish down the penguin throats. And the penguins are like, actually, thanks. I'll

wait till next winter. I'm good. I'm good. And it has solved a mystery for me because I've wondered all of my life, all of my adult life, I wondered how a penguin says, go f*** yourself. And now I know. I can witness this in action and the otters were really quite they were quite sweet because the otters would take it and go oh what's this something new and then they they'd have a little sniff of it and they'd go thank you not for me and then they'd put it down and they'd go off for a swim i love the video basically the penguin kind of like just turns away just turns his little beak away they'd say no thanks it's kind of it's a it's basically what would happen if you tried to feed rishi sunak a gregs he would just no no it's not for me

it's very japanese isn't it how they did it i mean they're very polite they were both the otters and the penguins were very polite and they just went no thank you whereas you know if this was in an american zoo they'd probably pick up that fish and slap the zookeeper with it you know they'd be like what is this okay get me something better um and say yes to a to a big mac it's like when you buy cheap fish fingers and it doesn't say cod on the packet it just says fish this could be literally anything or if you're in a chip shop and you ask them what's in the in the pie and they just say meat and you think hmm okay in australia this flake is the euphemism for shark flake in britain we call them rock rock i think we call it oh that's right yeah yes there is a there is a shark you can get

at the um fish and chip shop i'm impressed just that you still get fish in your cheap fish fingers because i find that when i buy the really cheap fish fingers it's just breading don't you do you find it's just right you open it's like it's got big hollow bits in the middle you go i see why i see why britain's children are in trouble because if this is what they're eating for dinner there's no wonder they can't focus in school the next day from now on i will only be eating horse mackerel fish fingers this is the first time i've heard of horse mackerel and the fact that they like it more than standard mackerel i find strange because putting the word horse before a foodstuff doesn't make it sound at all more appetising, does it? Horse radish?

Would you like tiramisu or the horse tiramisu? I'll go for the normal one, thanks. Well, that's all the time we have for our Picky Penguins news, because now it's time for your reviews. As you know, each week we ask our guest editors to come in bringing something to review. Benjamin, have you got something for us this week? I have. each week we ask our guest editors to come in bringing something to review uh benjamin have you got something for us this week i have um i'm reviewing the experience of defecating with the door open my partner is away this week and so i have for the first time in our new house uh defecated with the door open as a new homeowner uh your solicitor will use a lot of words like

exchange of contracts and completion to describe the moment of house ownership but i believe you can't truly own a property and said you've left that door open made your deposit and exchanged the ancient contract between feces and water uh so in this case um happened yesterday um as my session of excremental convincing was reaching an end i looked up and i realized that i was in direct eyeline of one of my neighbor's bedroom windows As my session of excremental convincing was reaching an end, I looked up and I realised that I was in direct eyeline of one of my neighbour's bedroom windows. And I felt the hot flush of shame. We have a hot flush. It's like a Japanese toilet.

No, I don't have a hot water flush, although that's a great idea for chilly winter nights. I realised that basically I was in eyeline of a bedroom window, but the bedroom window was across the road and it seemed too far away for them to see me but I couldn't be sure and I couldn't make out if anyone was in the bedroom so maybe it was far enough away but then again what if they had a pair of high-strength binoculars or a telescope but then in that situation if they're watching me on the toilet through a telescope then surely they're more in the wrong than i am a lot to ponder three out of five there's only one way to find out benjamin partridge which is to get your own set of high strength binoculars for using while you're on the toilet

and only yes that's a good point well i should invest in those and uh yeah i i recommend it to all your listeners yeah if you were an animated character, you wouldn't need the high-strength binoculars because every time you put effort into defecating, your eyes would pop out of your head and just go straight across the street. That's an episode of Bugs Bunny I missed. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen an animated character defecate. I don't think they've ever animated that.

I think that would be illegal somehow. I'm not sure. Can I just say, while I appreciate the whole ownership of the house thing and congratulations um i am definitely jealous i don't know that i'd want to fill my house by leaving the door open with what the house might otherwise be filled with with the door being open she's suggesting that shitting with the door open is unhygienic benjamin it's unhygienic it means that then for the rest of possibly your time in the house all you'll do is go what what does that smell you know what i mean you know like that's i mean i only live in a i live in a flat but you know when someone's left

the door open you just go oh can someone can someone shut the door you know what i mean but that is the sweet smell of ownership permeating every pore of this building then please please never like give me anything you've owned um just just just buy it fresh from the shop or even just have it delivered three out of five stars for doing a poo with the door open ria what have you brought in for us to review i reviewed uh having the parents stay because i literally just had my parents stay so i did a review of that. The trip was packaged and presented as something that I had bought before. So I wasn't expecting any surprises, but it was still harder work than I had anticipated due to the age of some of the

components. The package deal apparently came with extras, extras that I had not been consulted on, but received nonetheless, namely the sister visiting from New York at the same time to coincide with the parental extension as a free add-on. And that actually arrived before I even received notification that the parents had shipped. They arrived with a little wear and tear, but that was to be expected. They required a lot more time and attention the previous trips, which was exhausting, especially since my other half had been shipped off at the same time for the slightly simpler visiting parentals in their own home model. But overall, I would recommend as long as they continue to be solvent. Thanks for the new jewelry, Mama.

Four out of five stars. Four out of five stars. That's a beautiful tale of familial love packaged as a review. That makes me very happy. That's all the time we have for our review section because now it's time for our driving test news. This is one of my favorite stories of the week. A lady in Wales has been jailed for eight months. That's not the bit that I enjoy because this is one of the ones where like, okay, it's had a sad ending, but it's also one of those heist movies where they're like satisfied to be put in jail at the end because she got away with 150 different times taking theory and practical tests for other drivers.

Benjamin Partridge, you're a bad driver. Can you unpack this story? So a lady living in Klinakli sort of decided that she would take tests for other people. She is of Asian heritage. I think basically she was taking tests of other asian women by the sounds of things and one thing i liked about the story was that it described her as impersonating the candidates and i just would like to know to what length she went to like are we talking like top hat monocle fake mustache like like did what she discovered when like a pair of mutton chop side burns peeled off in the heat and she was discovered like i want to know kind of to what level of impersonation she went to i don't think it went that far because

part of the reason she was caught was that she kept turning up in the same bmw um which is incredible a bmw is not a learner's car like if a bmw turns up you have to be like hello is that dvla i'd like to report an absolute baller so essentially yeah she just um impersonated all these people uh she was finally caught because I think she she did go to different test locations but she started turning up at the same place a bit too often and she flew too close to the sun and uh and yeah and this is a this is really a story about how you can't trust impressionists um which is something that I've always felt detective chief inspector steven maloney said that the crimes were motivated by greed which i think is clearly not true this is

a benevolent robin hood stealing registration from the rich government and giving it to the poor people who can't drive but want to be able to drive i don't know i think we've got different takes on this at least like when you described it as a sad ending i describe it as a justice-filled ending safety for the drivers of the uk i mean yeah sure this means that there are 150 drivers who we don't know how they can drive or not but to be frank even people who pass their driving licenses are sometimes a bit sketchy on the roads i don't think it seems to indicate anything except whether you're good at passing a test or not which has nothing to do with how competently you retain information over the long term. Thank you very much, my schooling career, for teaching me that. Ria?

Yes? How many times have you learned to drive on other people's behalves? Well, twice on my own behalf, at least, if that makes sense. I loved how Ben really skirted around the issue by going, did she wear a monocle? Did she wear sideburns when she probably was wearing hijabs and you didn't want to go there? I'm wear, you know, sideburns when she probably was wearing hijabs? And you didn't want to go there. I'm like, I think, well done. 150 tests, 150 tests where these people

couldn't tell that she was the same woman because they all look alike to you. Well, you know what, then those, that is not on her. That is on the people who work in the test center for going, I think, is it the same? Oh, I don't. Oh, I'm not. Oh, they all look the same. And then letting her take the test 150 times. That points to a very, very different issue. Because as we all know, women are safer drivers generally. We know this to be a fact. The fact is, is that she is such a good driver that she was going in there and nailing it

every single time. I get that it's fraud and I get that someone had to go to jail for it and she should go to jail for her bit in it. But I think there are other questions that need to be asked, really, is, you know, how are we not, how are we not noticing? Well, also, how much was she getting paid? I need to know how much she was getting paid for doing these tests. She said she was getting £800 for doing a test and £700 for a theory test. Was I right? I mean, that's pretty great. So an extra, extra £100 £800 for doing a test and £700 for a theory test. Was that right? I mean, that's pretty great.

So an extra £100 danger money for doing the actual test. For doing the actual test. That's, you know what, that is not as big a difference as I would expect. I would expect more for reversing around a corner because that's, when have you ever, as a driver, had to reverse around a corner after your test? Yeah, good point. Yeah, or parallel park with a judgmental person. Watching. Yeah, watching. I mean, again, the fact that they only recognized her because she came in the same car, but they didn't notice it was the same woman.

No, I'm sorry. I hope she gets leniency at some point. No, she'll just pretend to be someone else coming up for parole. Yeah, she's probably out already. Let's be honest. And creep news now. This is an article, a slightly prurient article by the New York Post, but in response to, I think, a justifiable cause. This is an article about a number of women who say that they would bang Elon Musk or get impregnated with his child,

which would be deeply inappropriate speculation about a celebrity and kind of creepy, except that he has just had his 10th child. And the last three were secret children, one of which he had by surrogate with Grimes and the other of which he had with the CEO of one of his companies, inherently creepy. And it was secret twins that you assume that there were layers of secrecy going on. Hopefully the mothers knew though, right? Like when we say secret, we mean to the world whose business it really isn't. But the mums knew that he didn't secretly impregnate them while they were sleeping going, you're my employee now. Well, to be fair with Grimes and the surrogacy,

we don't know how long that surrogacy had been progressing before he informed Grimes that she was having another child with him. Wow. We don't know. But the interesting thing is these women who have witnessed this process from a distance and want to get in on it. Rialina, you're judgmental. Can you help me unpack this story? You know, it's tricky, really, because if there's anyone who can afford to have 10 children, it's Elon Musk. And so I can't judge him for all of these children are going to live good lives. They're going to be well educated.

I just hope that, you know, and if he doesn't like them, he'll boot them into space and they'll no longer be Earth's problem. So who are we to judge? I do want to reach out to Grimes and to the secret mom of the twins and go, are you okay? And I think really what we should remind ourselves is that the focus of the New York Post story is how many other women out there are willing to join the ranks of his harem and provide him with eggage.

I don't get it myself, but then I'm a traditionalist. I had my children with, you know, the man that I lived with, and I now continue to raise them with with the you know the man that i live with i'm such a traditionalist i mean who am i who am i to judge i mean this is a new world this is a new world so at least um he admits to them all being his children unlike many of the fertility doctors that didn't and now it's turned out have fathered 50 60 you know kids between them there's one in holl, I think that just came out, that it came out because he himself had a genetic marker for a particular disease that was popping up in too many children from the one clinic and went, oh, Gelsopres, they're all related.

I'm not going to be too judgmental, because I know that he will look after them, because I do know that he's quite an attentive father. Which is good. I mean, his response to criticism was that the population of Mars is still zero. So the prospect of firing his children into space is not, you know, wildly out of class. But to me, this is interesting, but not surprising that there are women who fixated on Elon Musk as the potential father of their children, because, of course, this happens when there's like a high profile murder trial. I don't think we need to think of this as too much of a compliment to elon musk this happens when there's some horrible serial killer who just happens to be on television there's something

about someone being on television that makes you want to bang them if you're a certain kind of uh lady benjamin uh has anyone asked to have your children um no no that's that's not happened but i think as you say it's a big numbers thing isn't it because you poo with the door open when no one's here apart from my neighbors who can see through their telescope um no that's not happened to me it's a big numbers thing isn't it like you know everyone knows who elon musk is so basically this news story is they found like five women who said they'd have sex with him but you know they're everyone knows who he is so it's still a tiny percentage i think i don't know yeah that's one in a billion yeah exactly um he you know you find it difficult

difficult to conceptualize a billion uh just know that elon musk doesn't so much more than you think can i just say so much more than you think a million and a billion are like you can sort of think of a billion so like a million seconds is 11 days a billion seconds is 31 years just in case you needed to conceptualize how rich wait sorry a million seconds is 11 days but a billion seconds are we talking so wait what definition of billion are we going with because this is what really confuses things is that we've had different definitions so you were billionaires were being made in the states long before they were being made over here so are we going billion is is a million million i think the uk billion has died off now isn't it it's now just the us billion

what just nine zeros instead of 12 yeah thes billion is the gray squirrel of billions and it's come over and destroyed the uk definition of billion see but that's so that's so american to go yeah that billion that you've got that's too hard to achieve we're going to make it easier and closer yeah but also this does bring me to my next point about um creating little boxes with a well-known hazelnut spread inside and luring billionaires in. Well, as you know, the only way to make sure they are billionaires is to put a little scale on it. And if it catapults them into space, then they're billionaires. That's all the time we have for our creep news now because now it's time for our travel section as you know in all magazines there's a travel section and there's some beautiful glossy

pictures in this instance you have to pay uh to look at the pictures of venice benjamin partridge you've been to venice i assume can you unpack this story you look like a man who's been to venice i'm not sure if that's a compliment or not i'm taking it as one um i've never been to Venice. I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not. I'm taking it as one. I've never been to Venice, I'm afraid. You know, for me, as we've learned today, romantic experiences aren't high on my list of things to do. I just want a view of the horizon. Because you poo with the door open. Yeah.

So basically Venice, which is a very popular place to visit, I think I would like to go. Although there's a big thing there where people are just really into masks. Is that a thing? You're meant to buy a mask in venice are you aware of this no i mean they have a they have a carnivale where everyone sort of wears a mask but it's only a particular time of year not all year they're not just all in disguise taking each other's driving tests not a pandemic mask oh no not pandemic it's more like a sort of Phantom of the Opera mask, but full, full Phantom, full facial burns mask.

Anyway, Venice is planning on introducing a tourist tax for people to enter the city. So like in days of old, city walls will be erected and boiling oil will be pulled on those who try to enter without paying, I think it's 10 euros on a busy day and then maybe a bit less on a on a rainy day i'm not sure um and basically it essentially turns venice from a town into a theme park uh with some of the most low octane rides going um and you know it suddenly if it puts itself into the theme park bracket

suddenly it goes from being one of the world's most beautiful cities to one of the world's least exciting theme parks so it's no longer competing with like paris and rome it's competing with alton towers a battle which it can only lose so i think it's a i think it's a bad recategorization from the people of venice they need to stick to being a city and just suck it up yep uh rio i think to be fair it's the other way around i think that at the moment they're being treated like a theme park and there's been a lot of damage and you know and litter being left by day trippers and so they're going day trip is there or is it gray squirrels well it's both because as we all know gray squirrels rarely like to sleep over they got they got red squirrels to go back and bully so they're not they're not going to stick around um there aren't a lot of trees in venice they always go there for the day and they're

like where are the trees well someone else got them didn't they and they go back but so so venice is i i i know we're a light-hearted fun show but i do i do actually feel quite passionate about this because i haven't been to venice yet and it's sinking and there's something to do with poo there. Totally different to your thing. And so I want it to still be there so that I can go. And if you stay overnight, they charge you in your hotel for like a city tax to kind of keep the place going. But if you just come for the day, like off of a cruise ship or something, then you're coming around, you're walking around, you're like, oh, we'll eat on the ship later. You're buying one t-shirt that says my grandmother went to Venice and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. And then you're back on the boat.

And so they want to just try and capitalize on that or get some money together to pay for someone to sort of litter pick up all the extra litter that they're bringing. So I get why they're doing it. They're not the first city either to do it. I think there's like a little village up in the mountains in Italy. It's called, oh, excuse my accent, Civita di Bagnorigio. I can't do Italian. Bagnorigio? I'll do it like an American.

Civita di Bagnorigio. With extra cheese, pleaseio with extra cheese please with extra cheese anyway so that village already charges an entry fee of it you've both heard of it of course no oh because no one goes there anymore yeah you can't afford the entry fee but also it said that the whole the whole country of bhutan um costs 200 pounds a day to go to it's pronounced button no this is this is a thing i think it's fine i think this is genuinely, I think this is fine. If you're going to Venice, you're expecting to pay $12 for a gelato. I think this is like a totally reasonable, anyone who decides that they're not going

to go to Venice, they had a dream of going to Venice, but they're not going to go because it's 10 euros for five days of staying just to be there. I think it's fine. I think it's totally fine. It's 10 euros a day though. It's 10 euros a day. But I agree. I think it's fine. I think it's totally fine. It's 10 euros a day though. It's 10 euros a day. But I agree. I think it's fine.

But I think you've just hit on the answer. 10 euros for five days. No, it's 10 euros for the first five days and then after that. Oh, I see. If you stay for a month, you only pay 10 euros for those first five days and the rest is free.

But it means if you're only there for two or three days, you would pay 20, 30 euros. See, I'm not good at maths, but that makes sense. I used up all my maths knowing the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire but i think you've just hit on the answer i think rather than charge because they're still trying to figure out how to charge entry because they don't have city gates and city walls you know and and how do we stop people just swimming in through the canals and to avoid the charge but what if we just what if they just raise the price of gelato? That's all they have to do

is go in there and just go, oh, you want ice cream? Because that's what they do. They get off the boat, we'll eat dinner back on the boat, but we'll have an ice cream. So just charge 30 euros per scoop. Yeah, absolutely. Or pick their pockets. That's how we used to do it. That's how we used to get the money into the economy in tourist towns. It seems to have fallen off, sadly, with the introduction of the waist belt sold at travel stores. But get back to pickpocketing. That's what I say. Oh.

No, I think it was the, you know what, we need more street urchins. That's what's missing in Venice. There's not enough street urchins to do the pickpocketing. Yes, and also because people don't carry cash anymore. One of the sad costs of people not carrying cash anymore is no more pickpock more no more so if anything we're treating children too well these days in the west we're putting them in schools feeding them all of this needs to stop insufficient we just need to give the the urchins a kind of like chip and pin machine on the end of a big stick or like a kind of contactless card payment thing that they can just thrust into big groups of tourists that is actually a thing it's called card skimming oh there we go on a big stick not on a big is that a thing yeah that's that's

benjamin that's your identity the big stick but um but you know how you can buy wallets now that have metal around it and they go this is to protect your cards from card skimming oh yeah that is because people figured out when you have these new chip and pins that you can get the new little ones people just buy those set it for like five quid and just walk around busy areas and just go beep, beep, beep, beep, beep and get and collect it from strangers. It's a real problem. It's much less a romantic chase scene at the beginning of Aladdin. But the song, the song is so good while they go go around beep beep beep that's how it begins if i recall correctly that's all the time we have for this week's episode of the show i'm flipping

through the ads at the back uh benjamin partridge have you got anything to plug uh yeah i do a couple of podcasts one's called three bean salad which i do with mike wozniak and henry packer and i do another one called the beef and dairy network check them out i don't know about the three bean one but i love the beef and dairy networking i can highly recommend it thank you alice realina have you got anything to plug just myself for now if if you like me come find me on social say hi i'll say hi back it'd be lovely we'll we'll keep in touch so i'm on all of them. Rialina underscore. Because someone got Rialina. I don't know who it is, but... I imagine it's Rialina. Well, no.

On Twitter, it's someone called Sharon Castello. What a monster. All right, let's get her. Damn you, Sharon. Let's go and skim her identity. I'm going to get my big stick out. We're going to get some grey squirrels. I know exactly who I'm going to break out of jail to do this impersonation.

It's the perfect plan. If you've enjoyed this week's stories or think that you could do better in recommending us stories to do, tweet us at HelloGogglers. We have roving reporters every week. This week, James BT and Miss Otis sent us the picky penguin story. Deganta Duss sent us the driving test story

and Martin sent us the Venice tourism tax story story so you two could be part of the gargle. If you would like to be one of our roping reporters, tweet us at HelloGogglers. I'm Alice Fraser. I'm your host. Find me online at Twitter and Instagram at alliterative, A-L-I-T-E-R-A-T-I-V-E or patreon.com slash Alice Fraser.

It's a one-stop shop for all of my stand-up specials, podcasts and blogs. I do a weekly update of where I am in the world. This week I'm in Guildford. I'm all over the world. This week I'm in Guildford. I'm all over the place, London. I'm doing a preview tonight in Honore Oak, but you won't know about that because tonight will be yesterday night by the time this comes out.

This is a Bugle podcast, an Alice Fraser production. Your editor is Ped Hunter and 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, The Last Post, Tiny Revolutions and The Gargle

wherever you find your podcasts.