The Gargle - Remote kissing | Mummy bag | Lab meat

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Tiff Stevenson and Alison Spittle join host Alice Fraser for episode 102 of The Gargle, the weekly topical comedy podcast - with no politics!👄 Remote kissing🎒 Mummy in a bag🚙 Self-repossessing cars👩🏻‍🔬 Lab-grown meat📺 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. The ragtag band of explorers drag what remains of their packs through the dank jungle. Before them, glowing through the leaves, an unknown light source. They stagger forward. Is it the fountain of youth? No, it's the gargle. Hello, welcome to the gargle. I'm your host, Alice Fraser. Your guest editors

for this week's edition of the magazine are tiff stevenson and allison spittle welcome back to the show both of you hello it's just started snowing here snowing there's just pigeons on my balcony no happy days of winter here aren't you both in the same city? Yeah. Do you have like micro climates in London now? Yes, we're in London, but it's just started snowing, big chunks of snow outside the window. I just looked and just as the recording started, so that's beautiful. I feel like metropolises with micro climates are like three steps away

from having quadrants and zones and districts. Survival of the fittest. My zone is full of vomit any time I walk outside. Quite, quite vomit-y. Before we arm up and launch together into the mean streets of this week's top stories. Let's have a look at the front cover. The front cover this week is Mel Brooks just being cool because I remember he's still alive being cool and I thought that needed to be celebrated.

He's posing provocatively either in a full tuxedo suit or in a polka dot bikini because he seems like he would be up for either of those things. And the satirical cartoon this week is an international woman having her day. And boy, what a day. I'm very much a regional woman, so I'm not celebrating International Women's Day. I'll wait till Regional Women's Day comes around. Or Local Women's Day.

Well, I feel like every day is International Women's Day, really. That's true. When did International Women's Day start to get properly celebrated? Because I've only ever seen it celebrated through cupcakes. Like, I've seen cupcake days and it doesn't feel like... Like, does Santa Claus come? How did this all start? At least at Christmas, you kind of know that someone was born.

An international woman came to your house yes gave you a card I haven't had my international women's day card I haven't sent any I feel bad she told me I could have it all the thing about the international women's day card is you don't lick the flap of the envelope

you what comes pre-licked I was just suggesting that you might moisten it by other means well let's have a look at today's stories top story today is long distance love news this is the news of a virtual kissing machine which could bring long distance lovers together in the most unconvincing possible way alison spittle you've made out with your hand before can you unpack this story for us so this is a story this is a invented in china and it's a uh it's a it's a machine that kind of um

mimics the lip movement of your partner that's a long way away and the thing that what i love is like one of the quotes that we have here is that a thing that they've realized is that long distance relationships are hard and i don't think you need to invent a whole kissing machine to find that out and of course that my big worry is and i'm sure we all have it too, is someone is going to misuse the kissing machine. We might as well say it now. Like the years of misuse of other machines, such as Henry de Hoover or other things, this kissing machine is going to get a dick in it.

Like at some stage, that's what's going to happen. I mean, also, it sort of seems incredibly to miss the point of kissing, which is that, I mean, the point of kissing is not anyone's objective kissing technique or like the rhythm of kissing which is that i mean the point of kissing is not anyone's objective kissing technique or like the rhythm of their smooches it's like the presence of the other person and the smell and the like the taste of them and like the pheromones going are you the right one for me like those like these kind of subliminal questions are not going to be answered by like weird like kissing although that is the noise i make when i make out that is not the point of

kissing alice the point of kissing is to exchange up to a billion bacteria it's like nature's yakult and i for one demand an equal exchange of. If I'm not getting every single one of those bacteria, one for one, I'm furious. Yeah, equality in this kissing. Yeah. Technically, it's a mating behaviour, isn't it? It's kind of like a peacock creating an app to mimic showing its feathers, which would be quite cool.

That would be like the dick pic of the bird world. But I think we're the only species that, oh, actually, maybe bonobos, chimps maybe kiss, but it's a very specific to human form of mating behaviour. I mean, don't peacocks have what look like eyes on their tails? I've got to say I'd be confused by a dick pic that was looking back. Yeah, it's normally just one eye. Not hundreds. I think this is just a, just say you're lonely and move on.

Like, there's a lot of loneliness out there, but I don't know that this is the cure for it. I think you never feel lonelier than when you're trying to maintain a long distance relationship what do you do do you put it in the dishwasher as well like it feels like just a very lonely thing having it there and maintaining the kissing machine feels like feels like probably the loneliest thing in the world you know oh yeah i don't even put vaseline on my lips at night like on my own lips what if it starts getting um insecure and starts wanting injections like that kind of level of maintenance like what if you ignore the kissing machine for for like six months and then it's like oh my god starts feeling bad about

itself starts getting lip injections you just go no no no lip machine you already look like an uncanny valley unheimlich like gap into another dimension you don't need to look more

plastically can you like passively aggressively kiss someone as well like if you're angry I can partner

yeah but could you send that in this machine to give like very purse small kisses just a dry pursed peck yeah But could you send her in this machine to give like very purse, small kisses? Just a dry, pursed peck.

Yeah, like, you know, like the wife of a disgraced politician at a press conference. When she's sitting next to him showing her support for the fact that he f***ed his secretary and then she leans over and just gives him the angriest. No, do you know what he's done? He's just f***ed his long-distance mouth robot and got caught. That's what's after half an inch. And then she's to send the most

passive-aggressive kiss through the mouth robot. Your ad section now because you can't be what you can't buy. Have you ever asked yourself if claws are for you? What about a horrifying aura and leathery wings or maybe taking out all of your

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And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by doing pottery on a wheel with a hot instructor. Sexy, sloppy, pre-ceramic sculpting, hand in hand in hand with a wet pot. Just you, Juan, who learned pottery in the kilns of Granada and half a glass of water to keep the slip moist. Doing pottery on a wheel with a hot instructor. Spin yourself to

paradise instructor optional if you believe in ghosts ah i watched that film i know that reference this episode of the podcast is brought to you by eggs eggs the snail of food. Eggs, Shelby, right? Shelby, right? That's an International Women's Day joke. Come on, come on. 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. ACAST.com

And this is Peruvian delivery man news now, and this is the news that a Peruvian delivery man was acting drunk in an archaeological site and was was held up for acting drunk and they discovered in his bag a mummy the real Indiana Jones is a drunk delivery man on an excavation site Tiff Stevenson you've carried the desiccated remains of an ancient man around in a backpack can Can you unpack this story for us? Yeah, this is all totally normal weekend at Bernie's behaviour. So, firstly, a delivery man who came to their attention acting drunk at an archaeological site.

Let's just say we've all been there. You know, you dig, you have a beer, you brush some dirt off some artefacts, you have a couple of shots. Next thing you know, you're pissing on some Dead Sea Scrolls. It's a party. inside this guy's cooler bag was an ancient mummy and the man said he'd been sharing his room with the bandage mummy and considered it a kind of spiritual girlfriend again people are lonely i cannot just reiterate that people are very lonely that he put the remains in the bag to show him off to his friends and he explained that he kept juanita as he

nicknamed the mummy in a box in his room next to the tv and added that it was owned by his father without specifying how it would come into his dad's possession which is a very sweet tradition of passing down your mummy from father to son for generations. So women know to completely avoid your family. The other the other fact that is probably worth pointing out is the experts said the body was between 600 and 800 years old. It was actually that of an adult male rather than a woman. So the mummified male was estimated to have been about 45 years old at time of death. So not only was it a man, it was a middle-aged man how did they accurately get his age did he

have a heart attack whilst complaining about the bins not being collected nobody's perfect and it says that it was in the fetal position was that or was he actually crouched over a bicycle in full lycra more news soon i just feel like um you know this man has got real mummy issues i mean he might be the only person in the world who for whom that is horrifying and literally true i feel like somebody who feels like they have to carry a mummy around in a backpack probably doesn't have a great relationship with women but i could be wrong in a backpack probably doesn't have a great relationship with women but I could be wrong it just feels very strange that

he was acting drunk around an archaeological site I think they should get him for a new television program Time Gentleman Team like that would be a good I love it, I love that he brought the puns like that would be a good I'm trying it just seems

I love it I love that you brought the puns I'm bringing the puns but I think yeah it's a I like that he's kind of proud of his spiritual girlfriend when he first said spiritual girlfriend I thought like oh she must really be into horoscopes and stuff

but no she's she's a 45-year-old man in the fetal position, dead for 800 years, which is not what I was expecting. He seems like a bit of fun though, doesn't he? This guy. He's a bit out there,

but at least he's dedicated to his girlfriend. He brought her out to see his mates he's not you know ashamed of her or anything like that yeah didn't make her stay indoors next to the tv where he normally kept Juanita yeah didn't tell Juanita oh it's more of a lad's night thing uh we're just gonna head out no he brought her out he brought her out because he was proud of his corpse bride you know reviews section now as you know each week we ask our guest editors to bring in something to review out of five stars tiff what have you brought in for us this week uh well i'm gonna review squash the game squash racquetball in some corners i would say squash i mean squash and racquetball

slightly different but personally i very much enjoy running around in a box that smells of farts and testosterone with little piles of sick in the corner the point of squash point of squash is to squish the ball with your racket and get it above the red line it's all about the wrist action and ignoring the inescapable march towards death um i really love it but we played it on sunday for the first time in two years and my husband immediately injured himself he tore his calf muscle and we had to stop playing go to a and e which also smells of farts and has little piles of sick in the corners but it's definitely not as fun so for that reason i need to knock it down a star i'm going to say four out of five four out of five i'm sure scottish husband uh would appreciate

that he's only worth one star in his yeah my husband is injured i'm ducking down one star other than that fine allison what have you brought in for us I'm reviewing being on EastEnders so before Christmas I did an audition for EastEnders didn't think I was going to get it

I had to do a self tape and I wore my best Pat Butcher earrings which are literal pictures of Pat Butcher on them I love EastEnders it's been it's been like it's helped me through best pat butcher earrings which are literal pictures of pat butcher on them um i love east enders it's been it's been like it's helped me through many a mental health difficulty

as in i know i'm mentally unwell if i've been watching uh two hour compilations of deaths on east enders you might ask me what's my what's my what's my favorite saddest death on east enders it's always going to be Barry. Alice, you didn't watch EastEnders, did you? No, I was never exposed to EastEnders. So there's this man, right? And he was a lovable oaf with a heart of gold, right? Got together with a right rotter.

Yeah, a lovable oaf, Barry. He was lovable and she pushed him down a hill and he died. And it was very sad. And I love this programme. And I got the part. Janine Butcher, by the way, can I just say that? Yeah, she's ruined it for stepmothers everywhere. It's like another bad stepmother.

Wait, decades of like Disney stepmothers and generations of grim fairy tales in which stepmothers chop people. It's Janine Butcher who's ruined it for all. Yes. Yeah. She's real meanie. And I got the part.

I was really excited. It's only a one day and I played a pregnant woman called Deborah. So they gave me a pregnancy pouch. I wore the pregnancy pouch around, took a picture of myself with it on. Because it's like, if you give me a fake mustache, I'm going to take a picture with it and send it to a friend to go what to think my new look you know and uh everyone thought i was pregnant even though i said i'm pregnant dot dot dot in eastenders nobody bothered reading past the dots and my mom my mom got a phone my mom my mom got more phone calls than the samaritans just absolutely rang

out of it and uh it was very annoying it was very hard but uh my favorite bit of the holy stenders thing was uh i got driven around in a golf buggy around albert square to the makeup department the makeup artist looked at my script and said oh you're a scruffy mum and i said yeah and then she just gave me a tap on the shoulder and all done and that was it so that was that was me for today i had an amazing time i'm gonna give it five out of five five duff duffs and uh if anyone from east edgar's is this in or any soap i would i would absolutely I would brush my teeth with deep heat to get a gig in a soap opera. I love them. They're great.

Please let brushing your teeth with deep heat not be the next review you do. No, it's me, Alice. It probably will. All of a sudden, she's on Hollyoaks. We know what this means. And a big red mouth. And I've just got like a massive tongue.

You don't understand. And futuristic horrifying car news now. This is the news that Ford has filed a patent. So it's not a product on the market yet, but it could be a product on the market. And Ford thinks it might not a product on the market yet, but it could be a product on the market. And Ford thinks it might be a product on the market enough to file a patent for a car that repossesses itself. It goes from disabling different functions on your vehicle to fully repoing the car on its own. Tiff Stevenson, you've broken some knees in your time. Can you unpack

this story for us? Sure. I like my men like i like my cars passed down from my auntie jean for my 18th birthday um i've had various cars over the years that i feel like are negging me i don't feel like we need this additional technology it's going to end badly i don't know if you've ever read christ, the Stephen King book about the possessed car. Yes. A vengeful possessed car. Yeah. So this is where,

this is where we're going. And like I say, my car already negs me. I have like, part of me thinks I would be great in a posh girl cleat. Cause I spend all day shouting, uh, Alexa and Mercedes. Um,

that's how I spend my time now. But, uh, like my car, my car, your car has, you know, if you get a new car, it's got all these little tricks built. But like my car, my car, your car has, you know,

if you get a new car, it's got all these little tricks built into Negu. Like when my car's running out of petrol, it says I have limited range, which I take as a comment on my acting skills. Also, I know that I, my bags are too heavy because now when I put them on the passenger seat,

my, my car seatbelt alarm goes off so I like I already feel like throughout the day I'm getting little messages from my car telling me I'm not organizing my life properly we've already seen what's happened with Tesla with self-driving cars we don't it still feels like it's another way of like I'm gonna sound a bit serious now but like social scoring kind of like limiting the you know the facilities on your car like the windows i mean like what if you if you miss a payment you're not going to be able to open your windows you don't get to have air in the car like it will lock itself it won't open itself so

if you've missed a payment you can't drive your car i mean it used to be in the in the noble land of of america or britain that a man's car was his castle. It was his refuge from his wife and children. If you go for a walk near where I live, you are just in it and it's nighttime. You are confronted by the reflected faces of middle-aged men looking at iPad screens in their cars at night.

They're either Uber drivers or they're trying to hide from their wife and kids. But all of a sudden the car turns on you. Now your car is like a weird simp for the company man. It just terrifies, it's like if Kit in Knight Rider didn't like David Hasselhoff and was just constantly trying to ruin his life. I already have. So it's kind of like going, you don't own the car.

The company owns the car and as a woman I always sort of already feel like I don't own my car because I was out in it I was out in it last summer and this little Greek man came over and he was like oh that's a lovely car isn't it perfect for the weather and I was like yeah yeah it really is and he was like yeah who bought that for you oh my god i bought it for me and he was like just looked really confused and i think i've ruined his day like he couldn't get his head around the idea that i'd bought myself a nice car so already as a woman i feel like a lot of the time people are like how did you get that let alone with the car company going we can just

take this back at any time we feel like make sure your husband's happy with you driving that car that's very nice of him to allow you with your bad woman driving to take it out this story reads as very dystopian but i kind of like the idea of them taking away a job from a human and a human being a bailiff and a repossessor like i feel like it's the self-service scan of absolute bastardry and at least you don't have to put through you don't have to put humans through uh having a choice of having a job and being an absolute bastard or or you know just getting on with their life so i kind of like it in that way that they cut out the middleman altogether this idea that that women are worse drivers than men

is actually backed up by science and data and statistics because uh that's why men under 25 aren't allowed to get car insurance because they're just so unlikely to have an accident that it wouldn't be worth it yeah yeah well i know i i feel like part of me in a way like my my car has like a self park function but i actually park better than the parking just to yeah to explode them in i find weird relinquishing control to my car it feels like you said dystopian allison so i feel like i don't want to i don't want to give up control i'm a control freak call me a control freak you're a control freak i don't want to let the car to make too many decisions for me feels very male of it maybe Maybe if like before it did the self-park, it was a woman's voice that came on and went, this is not about you as a woman.

Like this is no comment on your ability to park the car. This is just quicker. And then I would be accepting of it. Environmental news now, and this is the news of the incredibly heightened stakes in Singapore's lab meat market. There's a race between different lab meats in Singapore, just to give a bit of background news. Gourmet Fish Bladder is racing against Chicken and Beef

to become the most profitable lab meat uh available allison spittle um you were grown in a lab can you unpack this story for us so yeah like singapore seems to be at the forefront of uh of being able to grow a lab grown meat so this is meat that's grown from some cells in a laboratory and not using agriculture and and kind of like well capitalist driven agriculture so it's a bit nicer for the animals but you still are eating the flesh of a sentient being is this vegan I was trying to think because it is using cells it's interesting because like you know there is a race between beef and chicken and then fish bladder have come into this race and it feels like it feels like

i'm at a wedding that's very uh that's got some very kind of off-brand choices like would you like chicken beef or fish bladder you know what i mean like i feel like i want the pissy fish bit. Yeah, please. Yeah, exactly. The bladder to me would feel maybe like very muscular. You know what I mean? It's not really a soft bit of marbled meat. It's doing some work. And it's a bladder as well, so it is pissy. So this feels like it's an unnecessary meat in this race. Well it also confronts you with the fact that fish do wee which you sort

of assume they don't because they're always in the water but they do do that. They're always facing that terrible dilemma that we all have when we're in the ocean and we need to do a wee of can we do it without anyone noticing? I feel like I wee constantly when

I'm in the, I'm like, wee constantly when I'm in the... I'm like, I miturate. I'm like a mouse. I'm a sea mouse. The moment the waves hit my knees, I start pissing. But it's almost more clean for you. Do you know, like,

the stuff that, like, that's being dumped into the rivers and seas in the moment, the piss feels like some sort of, like, barrier of like barrier of you you you making like at least you yeah and at least it's your own do you know it's it's it's got ammonia in it so i'm sure it's a neutralizer of some like tiff and alice i did watch this morning about like 20 years ago and it's seared into the back of my brain of a woman drinking piss her own piss is a health decision and she was given she was given the public tips and one of

them was that you know if uh if you're a bit scared of drinking your own urine why not mix it with your favorite juice and to me that just why would I want to ruin my favourite juice with the feel of the piss just drink your piss I thought she was going to say fling a shot of vodka in it make it a cocktail when I was little I read far too many books

about people who'd been shipwrecked and stuff on adventures and always being told warned not to drink seawater because it would drive you mad but I assume it drives you mad because you're thinking it's all fish piss. It doesn't sound appealing, does it? Here's some lab-grown matter for dinner.

A lab-grown fish bladder, to me, doesn't sound that appealing when there's pork, there's duck, there's all these other meats that are quite tasty. And I feel like fish bladder shouldn't be your first third priority when it comes to making meat but also i feel like we're at this point where it's lab-grown meat so it sort of doesn't need to be anything like it doesn't need to be identified with the cells from which it was grown unless it has a very particular taste it can just be lab-grown meat meat full stop you know what if we made it from human cells

and we got to eat like that's horrifying there is a startup that's promising to sell celebrity steaks yeah exactly some some horrible tech bros who are kind of a bit into cannibalism get to eat human meat without the that's's going to happen. Let's ask Arnie how he feels about it. Alice and nuggets are going to be on sale and stuff. It's just going to, if you had to be eaten, what would you like to be served as? Yeah.

What's the, what's the merch Tiff? I don't know. You were saying nuggets and like maybe a little kebab. I don't know. I'm thinking of a Tiff finger sandwich that, you know, Oh, my fingers are quite sinew. I meanbab i don't know i'm thinking of a tiff finger sandwich that you know oh my fingers are quite sinew i mean i don't they're long though so there's probably it's probably good snacking i put i put if i was doing my fingers i'd put those in like a snack pack i'd mince you

up and put you in breadcrumbs that's what i think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to do. Puppy in an air fryer, you know? Yeah, yeah. Mincing, you wouldn't want to get like a nice cut of, you wouldn't want like a loin. Prime tiff. Yeah, over mincing, I would say. There's probably some good buttock steak happening here. I think what tiff wants is to be wagyu,

which is you get a massage every day and drink some beer. Genuinely, wouldn't we all love that? Yeah. It would bring a new take to that. I could just eat you right up, you know? Well, here's some of my cells at a laboratory in Singapore. Knock yourself out, mate. And that brings us to the end of the show.

I'm flipping through the ads at the back allison have you got anything to plug i have got a show in uh called wet that's going to be on in soho on wednesday the 15th from thursday the 16th of march you should all come to that i'm going to be in brighton later this month and then carida from southampton in june i'm also doing some work and progresses in uh of my new show called Soup that's going to be on in Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I'm going to be on in the Pleasance Theatre doing a work in progress there. And other places, I need to sort out getting myself some whips.

Maclanliffe, come to Maclanliffe. And the show is going to be about soup, but I'll probably write it about mental illness, knowing me. But I aim to have it about mental illness knowing me but I aim to have it about soup. And Tiff, have you got anything to plug? I am at Soho Theatre on the 19th and 20th of May. I think there's probably about

15 tickets left for each of those with my show Sexy Brain. I'm also at the Imagine Festival of Politics and Ideas in Belfast on the 22nd of March. I'll be on tour. Check tiffstephenson.co.uk and most of the dates are in May. So hopefully see you at some of those.

And you should listen to Catharsis, my podcast. There's an episode with Alice up and readily available. So have a listen to that. And we've got fantastic guests coming up. Have a listen to Catharsis. Tiff hosts, Alison has been on as part of the Bugleverse. Last week, we didn't run a gargle. We ran an episode of Catharsis that I did with TIFF.

So if you enjoyed that, jump on over, subscribe to that. There's no limit to the number of things you can subscribe to. So why not subscribe to that? Also to Alison Spittel's podcast, Wheel of Misfortune. Just put all of us in all of your ears all of the time. I will be doing the Newcastle Fringe with my new show Twist.

The Newcastle Fringe on the 16th of March and the 17th of March. I will also be doing Twist at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and then thereafter at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So tickets are available there on my website alisffraser.com

also patreon.com slash alicefraser is a one stop shop for all of my stand up specials podcasts, blogs, my weekly tea with Alice salons and my weekly writers meetings if you'd like to write with me join patreon.com slash alicefraser also you get two for one tickets to all of my shows this is a Bugle podcast and Alice Fraser production

your editor is Ped Hunter, your executive producer is Chris Skinner. I'll talk to you again next week. You can listen to other programs from The Bugle, including The Bugle, Catharsis, Tiny Revolutions, Top Stories and The Gargle, wherever you find your podcasts.