The Gargle - The Scariest Gargle Ever

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

John-Luke Roberts and Helen Zaltzman join host Alice Fraser for a special spooky episode of The Gargle. 👻 Spooky stories from history🎃 Halloween tips👃 Smelly ghost news🎅🏻 Creepy Santa news🧟‍♂️ Absolutely true Halloween factsCome back next week for our Science collector's edition episode with James Colley and Tom Neenan.This episode was produced by Ped Hunter and Chris Skinner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's producer Chris from The Bugle here. Did you know that I have a new series of my podcast, Richie Firth Travel Hacker, out now? It's the show where Richie Firth and I talk about how to make travel better in our very special way. In this series, we discuss line bikes, Teslas, the London overground, and a whole bunch of other random stuff that possibly involves wheels

or tracks or engines of some variety. God, what a hot sell this is. I mean, you must be so excited. Listen now. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Every sport has their big, juicy controversy. Boxing has the Mike Tyson ear bite.

Cycling has Lance Armstrong. Baseball has its steroid era. Curling has... Broomgate. It's a story of broken relationships, houses divided, corporate rivalry, and a performance-enhancing broom. It was a year I'd like to forget. Broomgate, available now. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

Acast.com. This is a podcast from the Gaggle. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping. It was the latest installation of The Gaggle, the sonic, glossy magazine to the Bugle's Newspaper for a Visual World Special Collectors Edition Halloween episode. I'm your spooky host, Alice Fraser. Imagine me writing all these jokes with plastic vampire fangs in. Of course, I had to take them out for the recording because no one wants to hear that level of audio realism. Your guest editors for the spooky edition are Helen Zaltzman and John Luke Roberts. Welcome.

Hello, thank you. Hello. Oh, yeah, hello. Can you describe your costumes? Yes, I'm dressed as late-stage capitalism, the truly terrifying costume. And I'm dressed as Donald Duck, so I'm wearing a sailor's costume but naked from the waist down. Excellent, the perfect Zoom Halloween outfit. Halloween outfit.

The front cover of the magazine shows a witch on a broom, but she's also a sexy, buxom 1940s-style pin-up girl. The headline? The scariest thing is sexiness. And the satirical cartoon this week is someone so utterly devastated about a foreign war that they've half-read five articles and fully tweeted about it at least eight times. Profoundly moving when someone spends their literal online reputational currency on complex geopolitics because this is a collector's edition as we plunge into this magazine we're including historical halloween tales and our opening story is from may 2020 our quarantine section this is people who in lockdown

in in 2020 believed their houses were haunted john luke you look ghostly can you tell us about this story i don't know whether to take that as a so by ghostly you mean sort of translucent or timeless timeless keep moving things around and annoying you that's the that's my yeah have the look of a man who would like put plates in the line when they're meant to be in a stack that's another story i know some of these ghosts are so boring so well this is this this is the story in like do something interesting with it just like if you're gonna if you're gonna move the keys then you know arrange them so they look like a silhouette of Hyacinth Bouquet from Keeping Up Appearances. Look, the point is, there's a story in the New York Times where they've, I think the journalist has interviewed probably friends who've seen ghosts during lockdown and have been locked down with ghosts and not realised they were ghosts until they got locked down.

Or are they the ghosts themselves? Because let's face it, a lot of our personalities are feeling quite spectral after lockdown. That's true. That is true. I mean, a similar thing happened to me when I'd find my stuff not in the place that I left it. But then I remember I was married, so I wasn't isolating. It was somebody else in the house to do it. Helen, have you had a ghost housemate?

It's quite possible. I've had some housemates that sort of clanked around and made weird noises, so probably. But it's also when you live in a house in Britain, if you think every weird noise it makes is a ghost, then that's a flock of ghosts you're living with. Yeah. Well, this is the thing.

I don't believe in ghosts. Even if they were true, I wouldn't believe in them because I don't think they need encouraging. It just makes them arrogant. Yeah, yeah. I feel like if they do exist, the best thing you can do is ignore them. Or just sit there while they're making the noises and just shout, You're just plumbing! And see how they like that.

I mean, I've had an incel say that to me once. It's just plumbing. You're just plumbing. That's gender, isn't it? It's just plumbing. It's just plumbing. You're just plumbing. That's gender, isn't it? It's just plumbing. It's just plumbing. But these people also, someone pointed out that they didn't used to be at home all day and therefore privy to all the noises a building makes at certain times. So it could just be that.

Yeah, I like the idea that buildings are quite considerate. Yeah, it also implies that most of these ghosts are daytime ghosts. If your building knows it makes a lot of noises. Then it goes, well, I don't want to keep them awake. I'll wait till they leave the house and then I'll do all the noises then. But then, oh no, these people, they're in me all the time now. I'm just going to have to get the noises out of the way

while they're here. There's nothing I can do about it. Yeah, just trying to be considerate. I appreciate it. What I'm saying is I don't believe in ghosts for the premise of this line I'm saying, but I do think that houses are probably sentient. This is probably just sentient houses.

You're ad section now because we're all haunted by consumer regrets. Also, I got my second Pfizer shot this morning, so if you're the kind of person who's creeped out by that, I'll throw that in the cauldron. I'm all for the experimental use of a vaccine that only 1.86 billion other people have already tried. Ooh. Do you want to banish a haunting but don't want to be the victim of some spooky monster? Ever thought about banishing at a distance?

The Exodrone 5000 for all your ghost banishing needs. Essentially just a crucifix glued to a Roomba. You can send your Exodrone 5000 into any flat surface taunting location to banish both ghosts and unsightly dust. Now with vape suck function to slurp up spooky mist and condense a ghostly vapour down

to half a glass of fresh clean water. Hey, what's that noise? Sounds like a ghost. Who should we call? The police? No, call goatat Butlers. If you live in a world of ghosts and the supernatural, try a Goat Butler. Dignified, cheap, and a wonderful way to spice up your party. They'll eat your napkins, but they'll butthole the shit out of your overtly wealthy life.

Plus, very Instagrammable. Goat Butlers. Google Goat Butlers or type in http://www.angelfire.lycos.com slash goatbutlers77. 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 broom gate.

It's a story of broken relationships, houses divided, corporate rivalry, and a performance enhancingenhancing 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 you a scary story from my hometown of tunbridge wells which is scary things are often happening there it is a conservative stronghold for a start so a lot of the scary things are voting so a few years ago some locals called the police because blood curdling screams were coming out of

a pub and um the police went along and heard all this like and went in and discovered that it was people shooting a horror film and he'd interrupted a blowtorch torture scene i mean that's pretty good was the haunting in that instance like the ghost of a horror film no it was the the original horror film and then presumably now it's the ghost of the horror film because I'd imagine years later the shoot has finished. There hasn't been a horror film here in 20 years. It's all a horror film here. But then I did wonder if a lot of the people hearing ghosts

in their New York apartments maybe just lived next door to foley artists who were working from home. That's very true. Yes, or voice actors desperately trying to pitch in for ads. Yeah, doing castings. Have you ever stumbled across a horror movie in action or being filmed? That's a really good question. Sometimes you might not know until it's too late

and you're covered in blood and it's done. Sometimes you're halfway through a family dinner and you wonder if someone's filming this. I've been very annoyed when the route I want to walk through in a city is blocked by filming. And I've been very arsey with the people telling me I have to go a different way. And I've regretted it immediately every time

and I've just, as I go the different way, I think, well, they're just doing their job. As you hear the blood-curdling screams and the explosions of the thing. That's as close as I've got to stumbling over a horror movie. Spooky. Could have been your big break. Could have been. It could have been.

It could have been. Could it have been? Oh, no. If you just kept walking, I imagine, and just ignored the instructions to stop, you'd definitely be in some of the film. That's how Tom Cruise got started. He wasn't meant to be in Cocktail. He just refused to change his route.

I got stuck behind the night bus from Harry Potter 3 being filmed in London one evening. As in, I was in a real bus, stuck behind a fake bus on some artificial tracks. Did the real bus go the same route as the fake bus? Yeah, it did, yeah. Sorry, there's not much point to that story Just being stuck behind film sets, like, it's not a happy ending

I like that, no, that's definitely on trend with our Halloween theme Which is what's real and what isn't real, I think, is the question Isn't that what happens on Halloween? The barriers between the worlds become thin People rub themselves up against them Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Gossamer thin, you know, the veil, all that I just realised I once stumbled over the film set of a sitcom I hadn't been cast in Rub themselves up against them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gossamer thin, you know, the veil, all that.

I just realised I once stumbled over the film set of a sitcom I hadn't been cast in, although I'd had an audition the week before. That was very annoying, because then I had to change my route, and it was also, I didn't get the part then. That's all the time we have for Helen Zaltzman's scary story. Now there's a pop-out horror fact, a little box at the corner of the magazine

that says Rachel Dolezal has an OnlyFans now. That's a terrifying warning about the dangers of cancel culture and what that can lead to. This is our smelly ghosts section. Helen Zaltzman, have you ever smelled a ghost? Tell us about this story. I mean, how do you know whether what you're smelling is a ghost or not a ghost um it's that burned bready smell no wait that's toast i don't know the whole of edinburgh smells of ghost toast well this is a

smell ghost in a pub called the white heart in wiltshire and apparently it sometimes touches or scratches people and it has bo now if you've ever been in a pub in England, you will have noted certain unsavoury smells just like emitted by the carpets. Maybe that's where ghosts live, in pub carpet. Yeah, it's entirely possible. I just started sort of being out and about in the world when they banned smoking in pubs in Australia. And I think everyone took a little bit of time to come to terms

with what pubs actually smell like without the smoke, and it's awful. It's incredibly confusing. Maybe you could get air freshener that smells like old tobacco just to cover up whatever other shit is wafting around. They also say that they've caught this spectral trail on CCTV because ghosts are the only possible explanation for CCTV in a pub being a bit smudgy. Well, so they didn't show the...

I was going, oh, great, I'd love to see that. Oh, you don't have it available for me to... Oh, OK, I understand. Only true believers get to see. Yes, this is a story reported in The Mirror and they said that it's been caught on camera and then they showed a picture which was not a picture of the thing. No.

That it was being caught on camera. I will say, like, it's, you know, it's fairly normal to, you know, break wind and then blame it on the dog, but it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to do it and then blame it on the ghost of a former landlord who lived in this pub many years ago. Also, I mean, if it was a former landlord, go home. Just relax. Who hangs out at their place of work? Yeah, clock off, sir. They suggested that it was because they'd redecorated and he got cross.

I take it back. That's a very landlord-y thing to do. Yeah, they're like, what's the unfinished business? Oh, no, I've put up my... I've had my flock wallpaper up and they've changed it for this horrible mint paint. It's turned into a gastropub now. There's probably kids allowed in there. They probably serve food.

Family friendly. More than just carling on the taps. I've gotten rid of the quiz machine. Also, when pub staff feel hands touching them, I used to work in a bar and the sanctity of not being touched by people was very rarely obeyed by drunk punters. That's true. Or ghosts.

I mean, the sanctity of not being touched by people is now currently ensconced in law where I am and people are still doing it. Yeah, the ghosts made them. It's par to blame your sexual assault on a ghost of a former landlord who's turned up and started attacking your staff. Oh no, it wasn't me, it wasn't me. Right, here we go. There's a smell and when it comes around, then so, listen. Do you think they could just exorcise

the BO? And keep the rest of it? Yeah, for the cachet. It's possible but I feel like you could get some unexpected scent interactions. So for example, if you sprayed the BO with Lynx, it would become even more sexually predatory. I don't know if Lynx is a universal reference here. Lynx Africa, the smell of aggressive teenage sexuality.

Yes, for the UK. Yes, for the UK. OK. I can't speak to the rest of the world. In Africa, Lynx Africa is not very popular at all. It might be called Lynx here, but I don't know if anyone buys it. Well, yes, insert your relevant eau de cologne of pervert for whatever place you're listening in. Could I just also, I'd like to say that this ghost,

to go back to the point about ghosts doing pretty boring things, like rattling things, this ghost is one of the most, he opens the ice machine and closes it. He tugged on somebody's bag. He moved a measure of spirits an inch along the back. He took some plates off the top of a fridge and he put them in a line. I mean, smash them.

They're right that you could smash those. I mean, these ghosts need a bit more imagination. It would be easier to smash them than it would be to lay them out in a line, in fact. He's trying to help. Yeah, he's a very helpful ghost. A very helpful, smelly, sexually predatory ghost. I think there's probably a gap in the market for somebody to, you know, a parapsychologist or something, not to try and get rid of the ghosts, but to, you know, get the ghosts to ghosts to explore you know the limits of their imagination and maybe to really get in touch with their

creative selves right build up their confidence yeah yeah there could be a what's it called a master class you know and online you could sell cheer up ghosts do something better there was a lady who kept getting in the news because she'd married a ghost and then she was possessed by a ghost and then it was it was she got kept getting into the same news she'd married a ghost and then she was possessed by a ghost. And then she kept getting into the same news. And I think it was the Daily Mail. And I think maybe after the fourth or fifth story, they got a little bit suspicious of her newsworthiness. Was she possessed by the same ghost or a different ghost?

I would have to go back and read those stories and nothing you can do will make me do that. That's all the time we have for our scent section halloween news there's a pop-out spooky halloween fact on this page too did you know that rising mist in graveyards is 90 just goths vaping it's much less creepy if you're actually there in person it smells like dank bubble gum and now it's time for john luke roberts's scary story john luke roberts what have you brought in for us i have brought in the terrifying story of dank bubblegum. And now it's time for John Luke Roberts' scary story. John Luke Roberts, what have you brought in for us? I have brought in the terrifying story of Mrs Butler who wanted

to buy a nice big house and had the money to do it. So this is, I was reading the 14 times as you should, and this is in the early 20th century. There was this woman called Mrs Butler who lived in Ireland and she kept having a vivid dream of by the way this isn't really a funny story but I think it's absolutely brilliant she kept having a vivid dream where she was walking around a beautiful lovely house that she really liked and she this big sort of gatehouse and she told her family about it and they didn't really care but eventually they started looking for a new house in England and they looked at these various big country manors and she was walking around one of these houses and said this is the house I've dreamt about this is we need to buy this house this is my dream house and they made an offer to buy it and they were offered a very very low offer

and they were told and they got a bit suspicious about this and said well why are they offering it to so little money and the estate agent told them from the family, well, it's because it's haunted, but you don't need to worry because the figure that haunts it, Mrs Butler, is you. And that she'd been seen walking around the house when she'd been dreaming about it and that had been enough to bag the house for herself. So that's a bit of astral projection news

from the early 20th century. It's exciting, isn't it's exciting That is very very exciting I thought this was going to be the invention of that the secret, the Hollywood thing where you project things in the universe and then you get them because you're very lucky In a way, it could be couldn't it

I do worry about where my dreams may have taken me because I've certainly interrupted a lot of exams naked and I don't want to deal with those lawsuits. Thank you for that scary story, John Luke Roberts. There's a spooky pop-up fact on this page too, which is rats can't vomit. Did you know that rats can't vomit?

Which is not so spooky, but it is really sad if you imagine that rats are disgusted by the same things that we're disgusted by well like rats yeah like rats and they can never vomit to show it i don't mean to push you can other rodents vomit is this like a rat specific thing i don't know i don't know if it's a rodent specific thing or it's a rat specific thing, but I know it is for rats. It's one of the reasons why rat poison works. Yeah. Did you get this fact off Andy? Because this is one of the few facts we have in my family. It gets passed around.

When people ask you, what's your favourite fact? That's the only one I can ever think of. I have to find out other things that can't vomit. Mice can't vomit. What about, you know, hamsters? Have they developed those cheeks so it looks like they're always in the process of vomiting just to make them feel like they can even though they can't vomit. Mice can't vomit. What about, you know, hamsters? Have they developed those cheeks so it looks like they're always in the process of vomiting just to make them feel like they can even though they can't?

Horses can't vomit. Oh. I mean, at this point we might as well say what can vomit rather than what can't. Cats and humans

can vomit. I've seen a dog vomit or I've seen dogs vomit. Yeah, definitely vomit. Snakes probably can't vomit. There's birds which like, birds obviously vomit

but that's a feeding method. And like skeletons and stuff, they vomit out, don't they, of the stuff they eat? Can cows vomit? Oh no, because cows have the culturing. Cows vomit from one stomach into the other. Yeah, that's the problem. There's just five stomachs, so it never comes out the front.

It's always just, they sort it out by the time it gets to that stage. Stomach five, stomach four, stomach three. I wonder if cows have the saying, you know how we have the saying sometimes, oh, that made me vomit in my mouth a little bit. If cows say, oh, that made me vomit in my second stomach a little bit. Now it's time for our reviews section. As with every week, our hosts have brought in something to review out of five stars. John Luke Roberts, you've brought us in something spooky to review out of five stars.

What have you brought? I would like to review the act of wearing non-spooky costumes on Halloween, What have you brought? I would like to review the act of wearing non-spooky costumes on Halloween, like dressing up as a superhero or dressing up as a princess or dressing up as, you know, a dog or whatever. It is not on. It is not in the spirit of the game. You should be turning up only in things which are scary,

preferably with blood on, preferably with a witch's hat. Any non-spooky Halloween costumes should mean you do not get given any sweets when you go trick-or-treating and that is what i would do if i were an adult handing out sweets in a place where trick-or-treating happens a lot i give wearing non-spooky costumes for halloween nought stars out of minus one stars out of five get some gumption and helen what's the spooky thing you've brought into review i'm gonna review trick or treating because it's basically extortion right it is pay us or we will shit up i give that one star oh sure it's like cute kids or whatever i mean just look at the

principles you're teaching them can i also um helen this is exactly why my mum wouldn't let me go trick or treating when i was a child you have exactly why my mum wouldn't let me go trick-or-treating when I was a child. You have adopted exactly my mum's position on the matter. It just didn't happen when I was a child. We didn't really bother with Halloween in the early to mid-80s. In Tunbridge Wells? In Tunbridge Wells, no. The driveways were too long, it was exhausting.

My mum always thought that Halloween had become too Americanised, so we were never allowed to do it. She disapproved of American things because she mistrusted American cultural imperialism in all ways. But we did discover when we were about 13 that the American embassy, which was in the suburb adjacent to ours, would give out Halloween candy on Halloween, even before it became trendy with the rise of social media and people being able

to be jealous of people in other countries. So you could go to the American embassy and get American sweets, but we would have to pretend that we weren't doing that because Mum disapproved of Halloween. So it was like people going out and then pulling their skirts shorter before getting to school, but we would go out and then slightly spook ourselves up to trick or treat. Thus she taught you the meaning of fear.

This one house, just the one house, the American embassy, which would give you American sweets. Was there a minimum amount of effort into the costume that you had to make to get the sweets? No, absolutely not. They were Americans. I assume we all looked scary to them i've come as a australian child in springtime well we would come as twins which we were but not non-identical twins

which we also were that's funny isn't it non-identical twins a lot less spooky a lot less spooky much less spooky what we would do is instead of speaking in unison We would finish one another's sentences Which is like speaking in unison But not Come play With us Forever and ever

It's more of an improv game isn't it Happy Halloween And now it's time for our tech section Helen Zaltzman tell us about this camera hack news. This is from December 2019. Yeah, I mean, this is kind of a brilliant prank, but also a really horrible one. A hacker took over the webcam of an eight-year-old girl

and told her that she was Santa. It's not even a webcam. I think it's like the family's security, like spy cam on their daughter. And you can hack into those. And he told her that he's her best friend. So very sad to be gaslit in this way. It's going to give her trust issues later,

which is the true horror. And he told her to smash up her room. I don't know that she did. But I suppose if there's the threat from Santa, you probably would, wouldn't you? Yeah, so Santa turns up and says, don't you want to be my best friend? And by the way, smash up your room Yeah, what we found out is she's a bad kid

because she didn't do it No presents for her from Hacker Santa Well, John Luke, does this make you mistrust baby monitors? Or does it make you mistrust Santa? Or does it make you mistrust little girls? Yes Yes to all three Well, baby monitors, I'm fine all three um well baby monitors I'm

fine with I mean baby monitors what is one thing high-tech baby monitors that's probably where the the trouble is I mean putting in a seat and then and then the company who made them said oh no there's not no security issue here seems a bit like there's a security issue there I was more thinking about who who would because they still don't know who did it and i think if you're coming in you're basically pretending to be santa claus but a really nasty version of santa claus i think it's likely to be the easter bunny or the tooth fairy or one of santa claus's main rivals for the like mythic you know for the good the mythic big bucks because santa gets all the attention and all these other, you know, folkloric childhood leaders, leaders of children.

Or method actor Billy Bob Thornton playing bad Santa. Like how Mark Wahlberg said that if he'd been on one of the planes in 9-11, it wouldn't have gone down the way it did. Sometimes actors get carried away with their roles. I forgot about that. Did you, like, punch the plane until it went back into the sky? Why would you have a security cam, well, just a baby monitor in the room of an eight-year-old? Like, at that age, either spend time with them if you want to see what they're doing or leave them alone.

Yeah, fair enough. Unless you think they're nicking stuff. In their own room. It's theirs to nick. Well, maybe you, all right, fair enough. You're right. Robbing their own Fisher-Price to nick. Well, maybe you... All right, yeah, fair enough. You're right. Robbing their own Fisher-Price bank set. Well, all right.

Some things in that room aren't them. The wallpaper, I think that's the parents. Helen, I think you've put your finger on it. I think you've put your finger on it. So many times in creepy stories, they bury the lead. You know, they bury the leader of the creepy story. And, you know, for example, with the Telltale Heart,

why would they bury a heart under the floorboards? That's the worst place to bury anything. Have you ever had a possum stuck under your floorboards that's died? Put it in the freezer. Put it in the freezer. Like, dispose of your body parts responsibly, people. I feel like you've put your finger on the real problem here, which is why are they surveilling their fully grown child?

I mean, at least let half grown child. It's not fully grown, to be fair. But the point stands. I mean, it's fully grown into a child. It's definitely not a baby. And I feel like with baby monitors, the phrase is in the baby and less in the monitor. I see. So an eight-year-old child is basically the adult equivalent of a baby.

Yeah. Yes. You have to figure out in two word phrases what is basically the adult equivalent of a baby. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, you have to figure out in two-word phrases what is the most relevant part of the phrase, like monitor lizard, not great for surveilling babies. Lizard is the relevant bit. I don't know, if you had a spy lizard, though, both parts would seem kind of pertinent.

I mean, what is a spy lizard? A chameleon, I guess. A lizard that's a spy. Yeah, come on, Alice. If you encountered one. Sorry. I've been left behind. Now it's time for our Halloween tips section. Advice for our audience at this difficult time of year.

John Luke Roberts, what are your tips for people at Halloween? I've got one tip. It's a good tip. It's a big tip. It's a big tip. It's an important tip. If you want to make out with a pumpkin, take the candle out first. That's my tip.

That's a great tip. Helen Zaltzman, any new tips for our audience? Well, I don't like dressing up in costumes much, but I've got a great tip from a friend in New York who said he just put a paper bag from the supermarket over his head and went out trick-or-treating with his kid. And everyone loved his costume. They were like, it's Baghead Guy. It was very comfortable, very low cost, no artificial fibers.

He had a great evening. Obviously not a polythene bag and make eye holes. You're definitely not going to faint, are you? Because if you feel faint, they give you a paper bag to breathe into. So you're equipped for emergencies. Also, you can ripen an avocado. What? Well, that would make the costume a bit different than your unripe avocado guy.

Wait, wait, hang on. Do you put... Is this a tip? Do you put avocados in a paper bag to ripen? Is that a thing? I mean, I was always told that if you wanted to ripen things, you put them in a paper bag because something, something, the oxygenation. I had no idea.

They produce a gas and it's trapped in with them, tomatoes, blah, blah, blah, pop a banana in there to speed things up. Dorian Gray thing where you put the paper bag on your head and you age rapidly. I'm really happy I did this podcast now. I've learned something very useful for my life. Here's a spooky Halloween fact. Everybody has a portrait of Dorian Gray, but just most

people have that portrait tattooed onto their own face. They don't age on the inside, but they do age on the outside. And that brings us to the end of the show. Flipping through the ads at the end. There's a few tips here, Halloween tips, left in the ad section at the end. Don't be hard on yourself. No one else will ever forgive you, so you might as well be the end. There's a few tips here, Halloween tips, left in the ad section at the end. Don't be hard on yourself.

No one else will ever forgive you, so you might as well be the first. That's a tip. And Helen, do you have anything to plug? I have my podcast The Illusionist, which is an entertainment show about language, which you can find in the pod places and at theillusionist.org. Here's another Halloween tip.

If you're ever with someone who was ever a child carer, try murdering all of their romantic feelings for you by saying something like, I can't live without you. They might stay, but you've suddenly become their sick parent in a way that will prevent all future arousal. John Luke, have you got anything to plug? I do have something to plug.

I have my podcast, Sound Heap, which is a big old mishmash of different people improvising different made-up podcasts. And I think it's... I personally, as the person who made it, think it's excellent. It is excellent, and I say that as somebody who's on it but also has listened to it,

including the episodes that I'm not on. And it is a brilliant piece of audio. And that's the mark, I think. That's the mark of a good podcast, when you listen to it when you're not on it. And that brings us to the end of the show. I'm Alice Fraser. You can find me online at Alliterative on Twitter and Instagram.

That's A-L-I-T-E-R-A-T-I-V-E or patreon.com slash alicefraser for one-stop shop for all of my stand-up specials, podcasts and blogs, as well as my weekly Tea with Alice salons where you come and chat with me in a room. If that's something that sounds good to you, go there, patreon.com slash alicefraser.

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, The Last Post, 20 Revolutions, and The Doggy,

wherever you find your podcasts.