The Gargle - Water physics | Fox hunters | Dog perfume

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Josh Gondelman and Athena Kugblenu join host Alice Fraser for episode 170 of The Gargle. All of the news, with none of the politics.💧 Water physics🦊 Fox hunter rights🐶 Dog perfume��️ Clothing ban🧐 ReviewsWatch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@BuglePodcastWritten by Alice Fraser, Athena Kugblenu and Josh GondelmanProduced by Ped Hunter, with executive production from Chris SkinnerHOW TO SUPPORT THE GARGLE- Keep The Gargle alive and well by joining Team Bugle with a one-off payment, or become a Team Bugler or Super Bugler to receive extra bonus treats!https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donate Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a podcast from The Bugle. drop of human interest like sharks to blood in water scramble towards the couple as he says something inaudible over the cheers of the crowd. Her hand goes to her mouth. What will she say? What will come out? Her mouth opens wide, wider still, unnaturally wide and from it emerges the gargle. Welcome to the gargle, the sonic glossy magazine to the Bugles audio newspaper for a visual world. I'm your host Alice Alice Fraser, and your guest editors for this week's edition of The Gargle are Josh Gondelman. Welcome. Hello.

Thank you for having me on this gold medal edition of The Gargle. I'm missing the Olympics already. And Athena Kublenu, welcome back. Greetings. Thank you for having me back. Before we bend ourselves down to the line and set off on the 100 meter sprint that is this week's top stories, let's have a look at the front cover of the magazine.

This week, the front cover is the five interlinked gaping holes in all of our hearts left by the end of the Summer Olympics. I feel like even those of us who didn't watch the Olympics missed the Olympics because there's so much, you know, there's so much stuff coming out of the Olympics, so much positivity. It felt like it sort of, it provided a layer of news over the news that protected us from the actual news,

which is kind of what, maybe I'm so drawn to it because I feel like that's what I want this show to be. You've just described recreational drugs really, haven't you? That's basically what we do when we're popping pills or whatever. We're just trying to get away from it all. The Olympics allows you to get away from it all whilst also inspiring you to plank, whereas ecstasy never made me want to plank. But I literally woke up thinking I could do five sit-ups a day.

And if I did five sit-ups a day and then six sit-ups the next day and seven sit-ups the next day and then in four years time I could be a pole vaulter, right, but no amount of weed will give me that inspiration. So yeah, it's sad when it's like the Paralympics are starting in just under, just over a week, so that will reignite my delusions once again but I'm not qualified for the Paralympics not because I'm not in position of any physical disability so I have to wait. Yet. Absolutely because it is absolutely you know ability is temporary but yeah I will watch it and be inspired for two weeks and then go back to my normal ways. Yes and and then I waited another two to four years,

depending on how inspiring you find the Winter Olympics. Mm-hmm. I'm just saying if that pole vaulter were vaulting in the Winter Olympics, he would have made it over the pole. That was the problem. It was too, it was far too hot. Yep, they got a pole vault in weather that is suitable for the, you know, for the challenge.

I love it too, because the Olympics gives you like a chance to feel accomplished without accomplishing anything. Not the athletes. They have to do stuff. But us at home just get to like, ha, like either you're just witnessing empirical greatness from around the world or you're engaging in kind of a benign fervent nationalism which is also a good time you know where it's like you get to I wonder though if other xenophobes or not other if xenophobes feel like the Olympics is like a time for the casuals and the fair weather because during the Olympics anyone could just be like France f*** France, and everyone's like, yeah!

Absolutely. The Olympics is basically our poppy. You know, like, some people cry over the poppy. Wear a poppy, wear a poppy every November. You've got to wear it. But I watched the Olympics and there's nothing to wear as such, but it's a metaphorical poppy for me. Yeah, if you love nationalism so much, what are its five best rallies? If you love nationalism so much, what are its five best rallies? Exactly. It's very kind of like, it helps me understand why people get emotional about

fish and chips or lager or scones or scones, whatever. I'm like, whatever. But then it's when I'm watching someone play judo, which I never do ever. And because they've got a British flag on them, I really want them to sit on that other person's face so bad. I'm just like, sit on their face, sit on their face for this country. Put your butt cheeks over her nose.

Because that's how Judo works. I obviously don't know. I have good news for you. There is a sub-genre on the internet. I don't know. I think that one might make it all the way to genre. The satirical cartoon this week is Paris's Eiffel Tower in tribute to the Olympics leaving becoming fully flaccid.

And that brings us to today's top story. Top story this week is apparently the physics of cold water may have jump started complex life on Earth. Athena, you've been freezing in your life. Can you unpack this story for me? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know the experiment that was done to prove this. But before we get on to that, let's talk about it. The physics of cold water may have jump-started complex life so when sea water gets cold apparently it gets viscous um like runny poo or snot i imagine um that not from the scientific paper i'm just that's just what i imagine it is yeah um and then apparently that it can explain how single-celled creatures people like nijel faradj and elon musk how they then became multi-cellular

when the planet was frozen, which is really interesting to me. And I know how they came up with this. They walked into their shower room and they turned on the shower and the shower was set to cold, right? And it was freezing and they woke up and they thought maybe this is how life started. Maybe single cell organisms just had the shower set in on too cold and it woke them up. And I'm amazed it took us this long to get to that point. But yeah, and it's good. We've got a new epoch now.

We've got it's called snowball earth, which sounds amazing. It's bad for the summer Olympics, great for the Winter Olympics. And that's how and that's why we've got life because of chili. Josh, I'm so glad that you cleared up like what the experiment was, great for the Winter Olympics. And that's how, and that's why we've got life, because of chili. Josh? I'm so glad that you cleared up like what the experiment was because I had just assumed that this discovery was predicated on finding a tiny piece of driftwood featuring a picture of an amoeba and the caption,

don't even talk to me until I've had my barely thawed glacial runoff. I love, Snowball Earth is such a revelation too. Not to be confused with three ball earth, the global movement in favor of going commando. I think this is really intuitive. You hear it in a sense that this cold viscous water was what caused life to come together.

Because an unexpected appearance of viscous liquid does frequently create new life in a way that is, well, complex for all the organisms involved. The other thing that I love too is that the lab experiment has replicated this, right? So this makes it feel real. This isn't just some pseudo-science that people are reporting on.

Algae cells in cold water bonded together to form complex life forms and stuck together for more than 100 generations afterwards in the lab. And at that point, 100 generations, that's awkward, right? Make some work friends, join an adult kickball league, move on your mom's multicellular structure. But it works. But I mean, this is, yeah, it does make sense. And it makes kind of an intuitive sense, which is the most fun kind of science and often the most incorrect kind of science. But just the idea that they're huddling together, these single cell organisms are huddling together

for warmth. And it's like it's seen in many a romance novel where they huddle together for warmth in a cottage somewhere and then they start to rub up against each other in the darkness and then they fall asleep and then she wakes up with his arm over her waist and realizes she's been in love with him all along. But I feel like my only problem with it is that Snowball Earth is the worst kind of snowball because it's a snowball with a massive rock

in the middle of it, which we can all agree is not cricket. Yeah, bad form to throw at Whole Earth. whole earth. body shaming and Chad bro muscle culture coming to track your data today. Our brutal AI trainers will accept no excuses in the post-Olympics period when you sign up to the gyms, gym and gymnasiums apps. Autonomous drones will watch your every move and punish you for any infraction by screaming abuse at you from loudspeakers above your house and will be fully integrated with your social media platform so you can boast about your progress on Facebook. But wait there's more, if you fall short of any of the milestones set in the app, the fully integrated Russian spy technology will release private videos of insult comics wearing your deep faked face

and voice criticising your loved ones to those loved ones at the rate of one an hour until you're back on the wagon. Gym's gym and gymnasium. Sweat is your fat crying. Tears are your brain sweating. Blood is your muscles juicing themselves for a post-workout beverage. And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Olympic athletes having to go viral to make sport a valid career. Sure, they're the best in the world at what they do, but can they sell a sports drink? They're young,

they're in the best shape of their lives, and they need to post a toilet selfie if they have any hope of a future. Olympic athletes having to go viral to make sport a valid career. Like and subscribe, please. And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by A Passion for Passion. That is my Dancy Lagarde book, which I've just got a release date for. It will be coming out on the 6th of February just in time for Valentine's Day. I've sent back the final copy edits on the final proofs of the Dancy Lagarde reader. They have to send them off to the other dimension to be printed I assume. I don't know why things take the time

that they do in the publishing world but that's that's happening now. So if you wanted to buy the Dancy Lagarde reader now a passion for passion but weren't sure that I would ever get it done, the release date is the 6th of February and the place to buy it is Unbound.com. And now it's time for protected species news which is pro-fox hunting group in the UK is putting forward the argument that fox hunters, as you know, fox hunters are a posh group of aristocrats who once a year spend a bunch of time trying to murder foxes on horseback. They're putting themselves forward as a protected ethnic minority pursuing their native folkways.

Josh Gondelman, you're a Foxy lady. Can you unpack this story for us? Sure. So a group of Fox hunters in the United Kingdom has declared that they are an ethnic minority and should be protected under the law. And so apparently they were sick of being criticized by animal rights organizations. So they formed their own counter advocacy group focused on preserving animal wrongs. I've never seen a picture of Fox Hunters that seems like they're especially tolerant or progressive overall. So I think they should be allowed to claim minority status

as long as they're okay being treated the way they treat other ethnic minorities. So anytime a Fox Hunter is out in the city, a refugee should get to yell at them to go back where they came from, like back to the woods with you Fox man, they'll say, or some other such Fox Hunter specific insult. And there is precedent for this. I think that's important to note. As an American, we have a term for a minority group of people with guns who wield outsized political influence. It's called the electoral college. So this is not, this is not a new concept. Athena?

I love this story. I'm especially impressed by the fact that we think hunting is an extension of natural selection. Because obviously we are humans because we are superior to other animals like beavers, and badgers, and otters, and frogs. And there's no, I could list all the animals we're better than, we're better than most of them. Not pandas, we're not as good pandas. They're fantastic. But every other animal, we're better than. And it's it's a demonstration of how we're better than foxes. And don't forget, because they've forgotten we're better than them.

They're eating our garbage and, you know, and our dogs, our cats. And when did it end? When they start eating our children? When are we going to start thinking about the children here? First they came for your rubbish bins. Yes, and then they came for the pigeons and it's like where's Sarah? Oh, I saw her hair band in a fox's mouth. Well, there you go. You persecuted the fox hunters and now our children are in the bellies of foxes. So it's a thing. Also, if you see somebody who's a fox hunter on a bus, what are you going to do? Take the piss. That's

persecution, right? I mean, I can't think of anything more natural to me than shouting at someone in like full fox hunting clothing. And I accept my prejudice. I own it, I'm waking up to it and we should too. I think the interesting thing about this is they probably have quite a good legal case but if they're going to be doing fox hunting on the premise that they're doing it as a traditional ethnic group thing they should probably do it in the traditional ethnic way which is to say nude covered in woad with a knife between their teeth. You know go down the fox hole head first and if you can fight the fox with the dagger in your teeth, then you are truly a man.

And if they want to do it that way, they're allowed. Well, not being funny, but we used to tie people's, left-handed people, we used to make them tie their hands around their back and make, force them to be right-handed under the pretense of being British or whatever, like proper homie. So let's do that now. Let's start doing that then because it's what we did for hundreds of years and we should keep doing it. These are just backwards people trying to find new ways to be backwards

and credit to them. They found a really good way to do it. Well, I'm hoping that it will sort of come full circle and that they're defining themselves as an ethnic minority, will put them on the side of other ethnic minorities in the places where they are an ethnic majority, for example, the House of Lords. A little Fox-based solidarity. And that brings us to our reviews section. As you know, each week we ask our guests

to review something out of five stars. Athena, what have you brought in for us this week? I've come into success late in my life and as a result of my success late in life, I've bought things for myself that I couldn't afford when I was young. So I present to you on camera the bit with four colors But guys guys guys I present another one Yeah, and There's more but there's somewhere else but I'm so rich I can afford to lose my four color big fans

Look at that and we we don't talk a lot about how fantastic this pen, you can use four colours whenever you want a different colour to write with. And it's a really good pen and I've got loads of them now. Five stars. Five stars. And I don't mean to, I know it's not polite to ask somebody about their financial status. Are you at the point of wealth where if one color of the four color pen runs out you throw the whole pen out? Not at that point. But I wouldn't never get to that point because I keep my pens I'm not into the ways but I just want to

say that tax the witch I don't deserve this. Okay, my life is too good. I I'm happy for someone to take one of my pens to give to someone else in need So tax the rich from a rich person to the rest of the country. I Break out one of the colors and redistribute that I mean, if you're a real rich person, you don't trust the government to redistribute the wealth in a way that would suit your needs. So maybe you can become a philanthropist and just go out handing the green to impoverished looking people. I could open a modern art museum that just displays modern art made using one of these pens and for poor people to look at, which makes them richer in spirit.

For poor people to look at! Yeah, so that's a great idea. I'm gonna do that. Thank you. Josh, what have you brought in for us? So I brought in the concept of the unexamined life. Socrates famously declared the unexamined life is not worth living immediately before being sentenced to death. Upon receiving the sentence, he engaged in his famous act of learning through philosophical inquiry, shouting, come on, what the f***? So maybe he could have stood to be a little less nosy is all I'm saying.

But despite what that dead Greek pervert insisted, I've been living an unexamined life and it's been going great. I am not in therapy, but I do feel like I know enough about it from friends who are always telling me things their therapists have told them. So I don't need to do the examination, it's being done for me.

People ask me how in this day and age I can neglect my mental health that way. And I say the same way I neglect my physical health easily and my brain could use a little work sure but in the long run it's my body that's going to be the problem. I have no idea what I'm like mentally or physically which I think is for the best. I don't know what my problems are theoretically. I don't know what my problems are, theoretically. I don't know how much I weigh. I consider myself a peaceful person, but who knows if that's true? I've never been to war.

What if I'm the killing machine? I don't need to know that about myself. It just creates more problems. Overall, the unexamined life has been good to me. I give it four stars out of five, docking myself one star for all the things that are wrong with my life that I have made no attempt at fixing and will make no attempt at fixing. Four stars for the unexamined life. I mean, that is a good

review. I feel like some people could stand to examine their lives somewhat less fully. I think so. Just enough to get a show out of it, I think. Yeah, that's right. It's the amount of instruction you want to do. That's right. And this brings us to designer dog news now.

This is our top story on luxury Italian brand Dolce & Gabbana, which has released a perfume for dogs. Athena, you think four legs good. can you unpack this story for us? Yeah, so luxury Italian brand Dolce & Gabbana, they've released a perfume. I said it right, don't I? Honestly, that's why I laugh. I think it's more funny if you say it right than if you say it wrong. I love their overalls. It's named after the co-father's pet called Fifi, which I'm highly sure is slang for vagina. But we'll move on from that. And the bottle is incredible. It includes a 24 karat gold plated paw print, which is wasted on your dog. I'll tell you that for nothing. I know dogs are like humans because they're such like toddlers

and if it's wasted on my toddler then it's wasted on a dog. If I gave my children anything 24 karat gold, if it was small enough to eat they'd eat it. If it's big enough to throw at me they'll throw it at me or they'll just give it to one of their friends and I'll swap it for a licorice all sort. So don't give children gold, don't give dogs gold. But it is supposed to offer dogs a touch of opulence making every walk a fragrant and fashionable bit. So I guess my question would be is, who is this for? Is this for dogs to attract other dogs or is this for dog walkers to find people to cheat on their partners on when they're in the park walking other dogs? I understand this is what happens when you walk dogs, it's a swinging thing.

So that's what my question to Dodgy and Gamana would be. Is this for the dogs or is it for the walkers? Bearing in mind dogs sniff other dogs' butts, I wouldn't want to accidentally buy this perfume as a gift for someone in case it smells like a dog's butt. Lots of questions, not many answers, but dying to find out more. Josh, you own a dog. Would you buy your dog? So busy. I have also at times proliferated a signature scent inspired by my dog, but that was only after accidentally stepping in a pile of inspiration and not noticing it stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

Dolce Gabbana claim that the perfume will add a touch of opulence to every walk, as Athena said, making each one a fragrant and fashionable affair, is their wording. And I don't know about you, but I've never been walking my dog and thought, you know what this experience needs? More smells. If they could invent a spritz

that would make a dog walk less fragrant, I would sign up for a waiting list to buy it. The perfume, if people are curious, the scent itself offers creamy undertones of sandalwood and who doesn't love a little wood cream? Who doesn't love a creamy dog? Creamy wooden dog and it cost $99, the most of any such commercially available dog perfume. So there actually is a usefulness to this spray. If you're walking down the street and you notice a dog that smells like sandalwood, it lets you know that you can rob the person walking that dog because they have more money

than they know what to do with. And that brings us to our final story of this week's episode of The Gargle. This is the news that in El Paso, Texas, a middle school has banned all students from wearing black clothing, which is claiming that the colour is associated with depression and mental health issues. Josh, you've put the cart before the horse before. Can you unpack this story for us? That's right. Yeah. So middle school in El Paso, Texas, on the western edge of Texas has banned students

from wearing all black outfits. So some black clothing is still OK. But all black outfits, that's where it draws the line. They say it's associated with depression. And this sends a strong statement on mental health awareness by saying you can't wear clothes that show you're depressed. And that means the statement is, if a student is struggling with their mental health awareness by saying you can't wear clothes that show you're depressed. And that means the statement is,

if a student is struggling with their mental health, we do not wanna be aware of it. You have to dress like you're having a great day, kids, sorry. School officials mentioned students can still wear black shorts to gym class, which is a helpful compromise because that's often where goth students feel the most depressed is gym class.

But citing issues with potential criminality, because that's often where goth students feel the most depressed is gym class. But citing issues with potential criminality, the school has banned black pants wholesale, presumably so students cannot show their affiliation with the ruthless street gang, the caterers. This is, of course, a troubling direction for the school to take, not just from an individual rights standpoint. This is 2024 in a state that refuses to do any work

to mitigate climate change. So anyone who can wear all black for an entire school day under those conditions is built to be in charge of our scalding hot future. Put them in the gifted and talented program. We need them educated and informed so they can run the world while the rest of us are too sweaty to leave the house.

I feel like they're getting rid of all stagehands, all ballerinas, all emo's, all philosophers. What is a philosopher without a black turtleneck? My Marxists. You can keep your white gloves, but no black hats. No. Terrible. I'm sort of torn about this because I live in Queensland and there is nothing sadder than a goth in Queensland because it's too hot to properly goth. So you've got to start expanding out into sort of goth Lolita or something that has been more airflowed through it. Could wear a black tank top perhaps? Athena? Why don't they segregate?

Why don't they just have, you don't want to wear black, so you go on that side of the school and you lot don't. Cause, and just, just say you want to segregate America. Just do it. Stop dancing around the word. What do you do at a funeral? Oh, you can't wear black at a funeral. It's too depressing.

Yeah, but, but dogs said, yeah, but you're making us all depressed with your black outfit. You know what I mean? Keep it social. I think it's a way of kind of, you could provide personal care for your kids. Some child might be in great distress, great distress, happy, anxious. What do you ban? Social media or black chinos? Come on, let's ban the chinos.

What you should ban to stop depression is middle-aged people in dungarees. That's depression. You're not too old for them. Wear a shirt and trousers or a dress or something. So there absolutely is a place for the banning of certain clothing styles for certain people to stop depressing everyone. Everyone's in Lucien Yack, you're in denial, stop it. Go to your office, be a project manager, live your life. Stop wearing cats all over you, you look ridiculous.

Bright pink leopard in dots and all sorts. I say this looking like a men in an archery right now. But the point I'm making is- No, you look like James Bond at the end of the movie. Come on, Athena, back yourself. Yeah, on a beach just about to jump on a lady. Just signify my sexiness, I'm wearing some board shorts. Yeah, you look like James Bond on a woven yacht

about to dive face first into a cool refreshing woman. I'm going to spend the rest of my day meeting him into that. I'm very excited to rest of my day now. Very thrilled. I'm going to say to somebody, a stranger on the street, I thought Christopher Seney came once a year, which is a famous line that ended, the world is not enough, I believe. Anyway, back to banning blacks.

Yeah, no, don't ban black anything. It's generally a bad thing. If you're banning something and the sentence includes the words black, you probably shouldn't, historically speaking. There's no evidence that works that well for anyone. And that brings us to the end of this week's episode of The Gargle.

I'm flipping through the ad section at the back. Athena, have you got anything to plug? Yes, a book. Oh my God. Yes, I've got a book coming out in September. It's called The History's Most Epic Fibs. And it's about lies, big lies about racism, but also little lies. Like women don't need pockets. We need pockets.

And I've got a whole chapter talking about that and all lies about throughout the world it's for kids which is good if you're grown up because it means you can read it quickly faster than kids because these kids are getting too smart with their technology so you can say yeah you might not you might know how to pay my sweeper but I can be that quick in you. So that's good. I've got a show in Camden as well in a couple of weeks. So if you're in North London and you want to come watch we do comedy,

I'll be in Camden next week. Excellent. I won't be in Camden for another couple of weeks, but I will be in London on the 8th of September. If you want to come, I'm doing a Writers Intensive Afternoon on the 8th of September. And I'm also, if you're in Tokyo'm doing a Writers Intensive Afternoon on the 8th of September. And I'm also, if you're in Tokyo, doing a Writers Afternoon on the 12th of October. Head to patreon.com slash Alice Fraser for that. Josh, what have you got to plug? Uh, oh, thank you for asking. I have a newsletter called That's Marvelous that I write and send out

every Monday. Uh, it is joshgondelman.substack.com. It's free and it lets you know all your Josh Gondelman related news. I also have, I'm going back on the road a bunch in September. So I'm doing a few dates of the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me stand up tour, just doing 15 minute stand up sets on that. That's in Florida and then Atlanta. So all around the southeast, or partly around the southeast.

And I'm going to Denver in September. I'm doing a Wait Wait live show in Kansas City, so I'm like back out on the road. And then I've got a bunch of fun stuff coming up, so please follow the news, subscribe to the newsletter, and learn where you can see me all across the United States. Wonderful, I'm Alice Fraser. As I said before, you can find me on Patreon.com

slash Alice Fraser, or you can apply for the Tokyo or London Writers Afternoons by going to linktr.ee slash Alice Fraser that's linktree slash Alice Fraser linktr.ee slash Alice Fraser it's an unusual configuration head to unbound.com to buy a passion for passion this is a Bugle podcast in 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.