Ep 29 A Cheeky Toe Dip

We tackle the important question: When did sharing a bed with a group of strangers become weird? Günter weighs up the pros and cons of aquatic furniture, Emma dips her toe into the bizarre tale of the woman who allegedly gave birth to a litter of rabbits, and Billie revisits the historical chaos of the Great Emu War.

⚠️ Content warning: contains questionable sleeping arrangements, dubious medical history, and birds with a proven military record. Listener discretion advised.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This podcast contains explicit language, inappropriate jokes, and deeply questionable choices, just the way we like it.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

Hi everyone, it's Dream Cheeses. I'm Gunda. I'm here with my beautiful Billy. Hello and the lovely Emma. How you guys doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

We're good.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

You missed Bill this week.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

I have missed Bill this week. She's been away on camp.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

I have. And I have a bit of a um sorry, I'm just blowing my nose as I say that. Um I have a bit of a Hall's Gap story to tell a bit later on.

SPEAKER_04 0:38

Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, do tell.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

No, no, later on. Okay. Em hasn't been deep diving because Em's brain has been in um academic mode. Yes. Still. Into the world of academia.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

Um fighting hard to get those letters after your name.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

I yes. Have you had a chance to have some downtime and do some diving, even shallow diving?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

I've done a shallow dive just now. And so it's very shallow. On my way here.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

Here's what I prepared. No, just then.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Yeah, yeah, but it's effectively a toe dip. I like that. She's dipped a toe in. I've dipped in the toe.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Who'd you dipped your toe into? Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

And is that what I'm smelling?

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Yeah, yeah. Well, Em did walk in today and go, oh, smell, what's it smell? And she's because she was talking about Queenie, but she hadn't quite said those words. She just went, oh, the smell, the smell, and I haven't made it the smell.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

So in my my ADHD brain, I'd had a conversation with you guys around, I'm trying to fit I nearly said Billy into the groomer. Queenie into the groomer for a watch before I um you guys dog sleep for the week. But I was like, she had I can't get her. I don't know if I can get her in. She's stinky, she's gross. Um so I came in with that in my mind and it just came out stinky gross, stinky and gross. So I was like, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Stinky and gross.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

It's stinky, it's gross. Stinky gross.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Stinky stinky gross gross gross. Billy and God. Not at all. It was my it's Queenie Pooh. Yep. So it is the Queen. So this I thought was interesting. The bizarre social history of beds.

SPEAKER_04 2:22

Bizarre social history of beds.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

When I go to look up weird stories, I don't get things like that. How do you get the social story of beds?

SPEAKER_04 2:30

Just got a whole different kind of browser.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, it's my it's my secret deep, shallow, medium toe-dip diving. Yep, yep. Uh platform. Oh, like what I did there. Toe-dipping platform. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:43

There's an app. There's an app in that.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Oh, toe-dip platform. Oh no, I remember on the pod we spoke about Swimly. The app for people who aren't using the pools. Yeah, yeah. We did.

SPEAKER_04 2:55

Oh yes. Yes, yes. Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So perhaps instead of Swimly, toe dip would have been more appropriate.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Before you go on, Em, it's weird the amount of times that we discuss something on this pod and then I hear about it in general life. Like, and it's not it's not bias. Observation bias. It's not observation bias. Yeah, it's a hundred percent observation bias. How can it be observation bias when Em brings something about you know someone wrenching out their pools and on the radio they're talking about it?

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Because you hear it.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

I would have heard it anyway. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Front of your brain anyway.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

From your brain, so you hear it. No, I know what you're saying, but I prescribed Billy's theory. Because and Rick Roydon speaks about it. When you're tuned into the universe, you are a receptor for what's going around in the Zeitgeist.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Universe.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yes, Zeitgeist. But you and M often, or M and I have often gone, oh yes, yes, yes, I know that. I but like we hear the same stories, and it's not observation bias.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

It's the Instagram creating um our algorithms of our lives and brains.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

The algorithm of life.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

But back before, back before Instagram, please. For centuries, people thought nothing of crowding family members or friends into the same bed. They did they had to.

SPEAKER_04 4:12

Yeah, rolled up.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Oh, yeah, the four grandparents. Who actually, well, that grandpa? Well, Grandpa Joe, bit of a um malingerer and a bit of a shyster because he yeah, he just got up and danced around mm at the drop of a hat.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

I never dreamed that I could be over the moon in ecstasy, but nevertheless it's plain to see that I've got a right to be because I've got a golden.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yes. But until then, he was happy for his own sake.

SPEAKER_04 4:41

He was getting a pension. Yes, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Fingers to the bone screen caps on the tooth um paste. Yeah. And the m the wife going to do all that gross laundry with the really intentional.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Like it was just mum and Charlie. Yeah. But his dad did get fired from the toothpaste factory.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

So yeah, so Joe's like, I'm not doing anything to help here. I'm just going to play this part of the invalid, you know, in the bed. And then next thing you know, golden ticket, who's up and walking. Yeah. Who deserves it? Charlie's mum. That's who deserved to freaking go. She did. She did. She had to stay home and make cabbage soup. And look after the other three old farts.

SPEAKER_04 5:26

Cabbage soup.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah. Which made them fat.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Was it Grandpa Joe, Grandpa Josephine, Grandpa Joe? George and Georgina. Very tight.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Back in those days, you had to have a male and female version of the same name to marry.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

You used to freak me out. You freaked me out because they they were topped and tailed.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Ah, that nearly was a very different reaction. They were topped and tailed in the bed. And so they had the feet of the other person sticking in their face. I hadn't thought of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Um, lots of people in the bed. Umbristic.

SPEAKER_04 6:01

So we we interrupted you there.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yes. Well, beds have got a history that's 77,000 years old. Of course, bed in the Western sense, because culturally it's a Western uh concept or construct. Um but there was um it says here, now this article, I don't know where it's published, uh, first appeared in the conversation. So when it says owl, I'm not sure who it's referring to, but ow, um ambiguous, early African ancestors started to sleep in hollows dug out of cave floors. The first beds that wrapped themselves in insect-repelling grasses to avoid bed bugs as persistent as those of today's city motels. Much about our beds have remained unchanged for centuries, but one aspect has undergone a dramatic shift. Today we usually sleep in bedrooms with a short door shut firmly behind us. But as I oh, this this is written by someone who wrote a book on beds. Um talk about ADHD hyperfocus. Um what we did in bed is the name of the book. So it's a bit provocative.

SPEAKER_04 7:12

I was gonna say it's a different kind of book. It's more magazine.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

But the it is more like a magazine with a with a middle section. Um but we know that raised frames with mattresses were around from um 3000 BC. Well, BCE now it's called before Common Era.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Are you talking about mattresses?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah, raised frames with wrapped mattresses. So in Malta and Egypt, early Egyptian beds were a little more than rectangular. Oh, when I went to Egypt, I did see a little um bed that belonged to a um uh pharaoh. And no, no, uh like two and come men, the the uh king. Like the kings, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

Was it really short?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

It was like child they they were like children, like everything was miniature tiny chairs, but tiny beds. I did see that.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

So what was that just to keep off the floor? It was just that whole thing of being raised off floor so you didn't get the cold and the I I would assume I would assume so.

SPEAKER_04 8:16

Cleopatra stop you getting attacked by very small things while you're asleep.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

I have nothing in particular in one of the things. But you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Well, and then in the 17th century, diarist, I'd like that as an occupation.

SPEAKER_04 8:32

Diarist?

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah, Emma Donaldson diarist.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Diarist, diarrhearist both a trick.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Uh Samuel Peppies often slept with male friends and rated their conversation skills. Uh slept with, I think it just means an electoral central. One of his favorites was the merry Mr. Creed, who provided excellent company. In September 1776, John Adams and Benjamin Frankly, Frank Lern famously shared a bed in a New Jersey Inn. And then were struck by lightning.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

So what is it what's changed so that we think it's weird if we share beds with people, like other than our close.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Well, it also would have been warmth. It would have been a hundred percent priority for warmth.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Also, in a lot of um families, it was they only had one room places, so one bed, all the children and the family in one bed.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Well, and I can go one further um in uh the Great Bed of Ware, W A R E, in uh 1689, there was a massive bed kept in an inn in a small town in central England, built with richly decorated oak. The four-post bed is about the size of two modern double beds. Twenty-six butchers and their wives, a total of 52 people, are said to have spent a night in the bed.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Uh-huh. That's the consent tent.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

That's the original consent tent.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

There's a lot of chops flying around that night.

SPEAKER_04 10:04

Specifically butchers. Chops and sausages.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

That's so weird.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

You find the strangest stuff, M.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Two double beds isn't that big. Like I'm looking at our dining table here and thinking it's probably about as long as that. Yeah. And a little bit longer. 52 people. That's a shit ton of people. They have to be on top of each other. Like they have to be.

SPEAKER_04 10:28

They wouldn't fit in like wallpapering with violinists.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

And and then it changed because of the pervasive religious aspect that comes in, you know, from the 1800s. So you should only be with your um the prudish movement.

SPEAKER_04 10:47

But that was silly.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

They should have just let the chastity family.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

They should have just let all those people be in their bed together and could be Catholic, and they'd have lots and lots of children. So, yeah, isn't that what they wanted?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah. Well, um, in 1888 there was a little writer. That sounds patronizing. There was a writer who was little. Well, I don't know why I added that little little little little. Um, she recomm uh she recommended for decorating the bedroom, bright colours, washdowns chamber pots. I mean you obviously need that, and above all, a long chair where a wife could rest when overwhelmed. The OG chapter.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Yes, the old school one. Oh my god. Because I can imagine it just being wood and uncomfortable. Splintery.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Could you say a long chair? A long chair where a wife could rest when overwhelmed. Is that a chase lounge? The OG chair.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Okay, a long chair. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Like a way to get it. Because it's so much being overwhelmed, being in the bed.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

We had 26 butches.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

I mean, with 26 butches you'd need a rest, yeah. But that's that is bizarre.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Isn't that bizarre? I find that really weird. When did the first um Duna appear?

SPEAKER_02 12:11

You know, when we went from when we went from blankets to Duna and everyone was like, this do you remember that? Yeah. Like, you know, you used to have the good old, you know, red duna with the little or the red blanket with the velvet strip at the top. The silk strip at the top. Everyone had one a version of that. And before that, it was the scratchy square, you know, square uh what do you call it? Patchworky kind of quilted kind of blankets. But when did we all go, ooh, let's have a duvet or a duna or whatever you want to call it in your language? I yeah, I don't know. Because I remember it was kind of 80s kind of thing. But it was a huge I just remember it being a big change. Like everyone was like dunas, dunas, it was this.

SPEAKER_04 12:57

And then it was futons.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

I think it was around the same time as futons, but the surely they came from somewhere first. Strawy duvets came from somewhere else. But what about the waterbed?

SPEAKER_04 13:08

I had a waterbed.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Oh yes, Gunter had a waterbed. I had a waterbed.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

That yeah, what when you met him?

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Oh yeah. Uh no just after.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

We met again just after I got rid of my waterbed. Waterbed. I do remember your waterbed.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

I had a waterbed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

Oh and then it was interesting.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

But even the whole the whole effort of it, because didn't you have to routinely drain it and then refill it, put in special stuff to keep the uh I didn't. Oh, I was gonna say, Emma, yes, you did. Did Gunther? No. So I was brewing some sort of bubonic plague.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

I was kind of combining my love of of brewing beer at home with warmth helps the yeast really activate.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Do people still use waterbeds? Oh I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

I don't know. It was it was only lasted a couple of years, but you know, it was just fine. It was very strong and it worked well. It's such a bizarre concept. It is a very strange mode of sleeping, though.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 14:09

And yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Do you know it's real oh here we go? It was invented in 1968 by Charlie Hall to provide a superior therapeutic comfort by allowing the mattress to conform to the body's contours, reducing pressure points. Originally designed for better sleep, they became popular in the 70s and 80s for their heated floating sensation and a style of it.

SPEAKER_04 14:31

It's kind of a bit like a you know, those emotion tanks that you get into and you know you kind of lose sense of space and time and did yours have a heater in it?

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Yeah. I would have needed it in winter or something. Yeah, but here's Emma here's Emma talking about the fact that it's a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

So you just get into bed and it's all nice warm. You don't have to get into like a cold, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Well a cold bed. You don't have to get into a normal cold bed anyway, you use an electro blanket. Well you could. But um they were obviously good for allergy suffers because they were vinyl. Because it had to be vinyl to keep things in, and so they were resistant to dust mites.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Oh, and bedwetters. And they were also used to prevent to prevent bed sores. Wipe it down and also, oh, it was me, it was the waterbed leaking a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Yep, yep. And so in the 1990s, they sort of went out of vogue because of the weight.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

Yeah, they were ridiculously impractical and memory. Because if you ever had to move house or anything like that, it was quite the effort draining them and doing all that. Of course. You had to get like a hose out the window kind of thing and then siphon it through and like whole things.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

But also every time you rolled over, was it like and and the waves would keep going for a while.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

With one person, it was okay, with two, it was weird. They used to advertise them as waveless water beds because before that they had they didn't have the wave um sort of reducing technology inside them, so they were just all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

And they were weird with two people in them. With one with just you need roll over and it's okay, but another is with 52 people with the butchers and their wives.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

I only tried that a few times, but and no knives on the waterbed, please. No knives on the chip.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

No, no jump in on the waterbed.

SPEAKER_04 16:10

Yeah. Yeah, you can have chips, but just not the really pointy guns.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Oh, they Yeah, why did you get a water bed, huh? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

How long did it oh God, so it's second hand.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

I wouldn't buy a new one.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Probably put fresh water in it when they're not. That's not my concern. You can wash it down. It's a vinyl. It's such a bizarre. Actually, yes. And they threw the sheets in free. And you never had to wash them.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

That was that was another benefit that you never ever had to.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

I just it's just the weirdest concept. Like backwise, it's perfect. Like it makes absolutely absolute sense because you know, you you're not putting those pressure points, you're just not, like, it's great. But it's just the weirdest fucking thought to go, okay. I'm gonna turn over and go, and it was you hear it, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't that's yeah, that is so bizarre. You know what's more bizarre? What? Mary Toft and her extraordinary delivery of rabbits. Hang on, is this a just is this is this a can is this a connection?

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Is this just a weird, you go, how am I going to just oh bizarre. Mary Toft, tell us about Mary Toft.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

In late 1726, much of Britain was caught up in the curious case of Mary Toft, a woman from Surrey, who claimed that she had given birth to a litter of rabbits.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Which means she didn't want to have to have sex with a male rabbit.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Well, also because given my past history and excuse me.

SPEAKER_04 18:02

Is there a literate?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

A literate bastard. No, um, remember what happened when I did not investigate thoroughly the dancing plague. Yes. And it was in fact you were highly critical, but I believed it could in fact have happened. Well, because this is just a toe dip, I will say though, I don't believe this is true from the outset. Okay?

SPEAKER_04 18:26

You're gonna you're gonna say that the merit didn't actually have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

I I think not. However, the mystery of it is has happened happened. Is the captivating part. And apparently, I have now read on, apparently, the it was a hoax, but it was so elaborate that King George won, or the first, his own court physicians were fooled.

unknown 18:51

What?

SPEAKER_00 18:52

That's impressive, don't you think?

SPEAKER_04 18:55

I can't fix that with leeches.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Oh, but she's man, she did end up in prison, but ironically, the prison portrait is of her holding a rabbit. Like, so she you're not so was she allowed to take it in there or did they add that after? Like, you know how you've got support rabbit. You know you know how you go, um, I'll I'll photoshop you in later. I think that's what happened. They drew a portrait and then someone photoshopped the rabbit in, which in those times was just drawing with pencil.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Is that one of her children or was that the male that she was in a relationship with the story of it, M.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Okay, well in September 1726 news reached the court of King George I of the alleged birth of several rabbits to Mary Toft. Because they do give rabbits have birth to a lot of babies. Yes. Seven or eight. Yeah. Near near Guilford. Mary was a twenty-five-year-old illiterate servant married to Joshua Toft, who is not a rabbit, I'm assuming. Um reports, despite having had a miscarriage, so that's perhaps she was experiencing you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Despite having had a miscarriage just a month earlier, Mary still appeared to be pregnant. On September 27th, she went into labour and was attended initially by her neighbour, Mary Gill, and then her mother-in-law, Anne. She gave birth to something resembling a liverless cat. Oh, so it's the afterbirth or the or who a liverless cat? What? How would you look at a cat and go, this cat has no liver? You sure it's not You sure it's not lifeless?

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Maybe it's liverless. But I think that's a dumb.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

It does say liverless cat. A liverless cat.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Everything else is fine, but just no liver. How would you know unless it was inside out? Like, so what's happened is she's obviously had a miscarriage and then actually given birth to the miscarriage. Like, birthed the miscarriage. Which is very sad. Okay. So it's not that shit, but it looked like a liverless cat. But it wasn't. It was a bunny rabbit. Lifeless. Okay. Um it's made me life so hard.

SPEAKER_04 21:15

What's this song?

SPEAKER_02 21:17

What?

SPEAKER_04 21:18

Uh like a liverless cat.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

I don't know that one. This is why I should um I should do dives, not toe dips. I love I love, I'm loving the toe dip. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

So it's just yeah, broken enough to be funny.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

The family decided to call on the help of Guilford obstetrician. Now you'd assume he'd know the difference between a liverless cat and a baby and a rabbit. Um, John Howard, our own Prime Minister of Australia. Um, he visited Mary the next day. Oh, that's not quite as um as immediate as you prefer. But um where he was presented with more animal parts, which Antof said she'd taken from Mary during the night. The following day, Howard returned. Returned and helped deliver yet more animal parts. What the over the next month.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Hang on. Even animal parts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

So not even non-specific animal parts.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

The liver.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

This poor woman is obviously having some horrible long miscarriage that they're not getting out of her in one piece. Surely she would have had a massive infection by then in those days.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Oh God, I hadn't even thought of that. Over the next month, Howard recorded that she began producing a rabbit's head, the legs of a cat, and in a single day, nine dead baby rabbits. Now that's sounding Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Someone's shoving something up her in the night so that she's looking like she's given birth to something. That's horrible. And so he's in on it. John Howard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Um if he's saying that that's what she delivered, seriously. Howard sent letters to some of English great England's greatest doctors and scientists and the King's secretary informing them of the miraculous births. The Curious King dispatched two men. See, now that is what's missing in no that's what's missing in our society. I'd love to be able to dispatch people. So like you guys, I get some sort of pigeon with a little curled up. Dispatch. I'd love to just that is my ideal, my dream job right there. Dispatch. Yes. Dispatch. There is dispatch.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

Dispatcher.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

But not in the same way as a kid that dispatches that goes, find out more about this. Go.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Go.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Emma's going to be the new Google and she's called dispatch. Yes. And you have to send her a letter and then she'll dispatch it back to you via post.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

I I will dispatch two of my men if I feel that it is warranted.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

To explore it more. Oh God.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

And then I like this name, so the person he chose was Nathaniel sent Andre. Ooh. Switch. Swiss. Surgeon anatomist to the king. Now I don't know if this the Swiss is also part of the role, or it just happened that he was Swiss. Hang on. Is the role surgeon anatomist? Or is the role Swiss? Hang on.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Are you trying to be funny?

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Talk about a Swiss role? Or are you just Swiss roll? Amazing. And Samuel Molyneux, secretary to the Prince of Wales, not um William, unless he, of course, is a vampire and was around back now. Back then. By now, news had spread. And Mary was a local celebrity, which necessitated moving her from the um, well, actually, when I initially said she was from Guildford, she was near Guilford. So now they're going to move her closer to Guildford. Yeah. Okay. That's what that's a priority here. When you're giving birth to rabbits, get her closer to Guildford. So she can be monitored more closely by John Howard.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Um especially if you're giving birth like every day. To rabbits. I mean for a month. Well, not only to little baby rabbits, but also to rabbit heads and yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

So the two um physicians and anatomist of the king arrive at Howard's home and were immediately greeted with the news that Mary was in Labour with her fifteenth rabbit. Convenient. Jesus Christ. Toft gave birth to several more dead rabbits in their presence. The doctors conducted examination on the lungs and other internal organs of these rabbits, the results of which showed that they probably did not develop inside Mary's womb. Saint Andre, however. Probably. Because the jury's still out, but yeah. Saint Andre. Yep. He well not as in Saint his name. Andre Saint, whatever it is. Yep. He he still seemed convinced that her case was genuine, which I think speaks more to the um you know the discourse at the time around women and being this sort of richy, unknowable thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

For it to look like it's coming out of your vulva, like to look oh sorry.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Volva is very specific, yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

So they would have had to put some dead things in there and have her push them out. Like surely if they are if they are witnessing her giving birth.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

This has taken a turn, hasn't it? That's gross. Anyway.

SPEAKER_04 26:06

It went dark a while back.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

It did, yes. Um and what happened to her?

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Why'd she end up in jail?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Well, San Andre believed that these were indeed supernatural births, and he took some of the rabbit specimens back to London to show the king and the prince. What? How he's a dead rabbit.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

This proves it came it was a supernatural birth coming out of a person.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

But also why not in why not like also um take her? Well, uh that's what I was thinking, and why not examine her? But he did not. As the story of Mary Toff quickly spread through London, the king decided to send a German surgeon. There you go, Gunther. Uh good old Germans. These Swiss they're many harms make light work. I was gonna say Swiss are good at time, but not yeah. And so mum was much. German doctors, yeah. The king decided to send a German surgeon who's got the awesome name of Syriacus Alas and his friend, Mr. Brand. His friend. Sirius is like, I must away. Do you want to come? And Mr. Bran says, yes, why not? Let us dispatch. Aris examined Mary. I don't know what Bran did while he was doing that.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

He examined her.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

But what did the friend do? Just sit in the corner, hi. And watched. That's me. I'm just here to watch. Hi. I'm I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_04 27:31

Never say that in a birthing suite, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:32

No. Actually, yes. Okay. Um he examined Mary and witnessed several of her rabbit births. However, he was not convinced.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

But he witnessed several births. Yeah. So surely they're shoving them up and having her squeeze them out. Um but how else could they do it to witness a birth of a thing coming out?

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Yeah, okay. Well, they're still instead of examining her, they're still going back to the rabbits. Yeah. So then he goes back to the rabbits German guy and finds that the dung pellets in the rectum. So he's actually getting right up in the rectum of the rabbit without still further investigating Mary.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

Um suggested they'd been eating.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Yes, so they hadn't been so they had actually caught dead rabbits and done the oh that's horrible.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

So then Poor Mary. German Allah's reports back to the king. He suspected a host. He said, Oh, is not as hopes, you mean? Did I say host? You did. He suspected a host. So they called Jimmy Kimmel and Roe McManus. Um a hoax with Mary Toft and John Howard in collusion. I told you that had to be colluded. Bump bump. They had to be colluded. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

I I think Mary was too, and I think that she's been colluded into this because no one would willingly put a dead rabbit.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

So they were early investors in rabbit fugures or something.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Yes. Um the human rabbit hybrid hybrid fugures. Yeah. Meanwhile, Sir Richard Munningham, an eminent doctor and midwife among upper class society in London, was contacted by Saint Andre to attend upon Mary Toft. After observing her and seeing her give birth to what he believed was a hog's bladder. It's just getting more random.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Oh god, they just killed things and just shoved them up here. That's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Is this actually the worst buttons? Anyway, he's he's not convinced, Manningham.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

This is the early ping pong.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

You know, from Brasilla.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Come and come and see me give well I can shoot out of my vagina. Oh, it's a hedgehog. It's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

It's a red red panda. Um but what happened was uh St Andre uh is is going, uh oh, I have uh lost a bit of credibility here, so just keep it on the DL. Um then for sure that's what he said. Yeah. Then she's bought to a bathhouse in London's Leicester Sif Leicester can't speak.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Leicester.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

I think it's Leicester, yeah, whatever. Um where she could be observed more closely. Then another bloke comes along, Dr. James Douglas, the respected anatomist and man midwife. I like that they had just mid husband.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Well, the other one was a midwife, and this one's a man midwife. Man midwife. Does that mean he looks after the men while the women are giving birth? You're okay, it's okay. I'll pat down your brow.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Have a cigar, yes. Um, I was thinking Ace Ventura pet detective. Yes, but he's um Man midwife. Man Dr. James Douglas, man midwife. What did he do? And asked him to come to the oh, this is a fancy word for bathhouse, bagneo, to observe Mary's rabbit birth. So so many people observing by this point. So many when he arrives, he finds himself in the company of a large crowd of doctors and medical men who have been summoned by Saint Andre.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

This is just So what how I still don't it's it's weird because at what point would you have to be alone to to do this?

SPEAKER_00 31:19

There's there's some bad actions happening.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

Put up a for them to come out.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

But also St. Andre is is still going, guys, look, it could be real. Guys, come on. So he's do not have faith in him. He's apparently the isn't he the the king's king's birthday. So he's he's a musician. Yeah, he's no good. Perhaps he's um a Nepo baby. More niche. So he didn't really owe and he's more leeches, yeah. Yeah, more leeches, exactly. So Mary produced no more new rabbits, see, but continued to appear to go into labour. There you go, Billy. Yeah, she was badly infected and had fits, which made her lose consciousness. Of course she was. Of course she was. Shortly thereafter, a porter at the bathhouse was caught trying to sneak a rabbit into Mary Toft's room. Dum dum dum. He confessed to Douglas and Manningham and midwife that Margaret Toft. Mary's sister-in-law!

SPEAKER_04 32:16

She's in on it too.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

She had asked him to procure the smallest rabbit he could find. Yeah, because putting a big one up there would be. Well, and now she's got infection and all sorts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Well, yeah. And you would have had an infection purely just from the miscarriage. Let alone all the other dirty I'm sure they didn't wash the rabbits or do anything nice to them. I know now.

SPEAKER_04 32:38

Is it 17 something or other? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

1700.

SPEAKER_04 32:40

So this is before people started to wash their hands at hospital. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Like she's lucky she's still alive. Well, yeah, because this has now been going on from August. Yeah. From August. Now it's December. And she she finally December 7th. She finally admitted. Hang on, hang on. December 4th, she goes into Labour Inverted Commons, produces nothing because they stopped the sister-in-law smuggling the rabbit. Yeah. Um, on that evening, they called Sir Thomas Clarge's Justice of the Peace to the bathhouse. The porter swore a deposition before him. And so he said, I saw this. So the Justice of the Police, uh the police. The Justice of the Police ding. Don't stand so close to her. Um the Justice of the Peace, not the police. He um he takes Mary into in for cust uh blah blah blah into custody. Questioning, into custody for questioning. Not but I mean it wasn't just her, it's who I was. Yeah, what about John Howard, the original obstetrician? And then anyway, so takes her in for questioning, but she would admit nothing. Over the next two days, much pressure was put upon her. You're gonna have to trim this down a shit ton, Billy, in the editorial.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

I don't know why she couldn't say anything. Because she was fucking having fits and being massively infected by rabbit parts.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Septicemia and all sorts of things going on probably.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

It's yes. Over the next two days, much pressure was put upon her to confess, but Mary held out until Sir Richard Manningham, man midwife, threatened to perform painful experimental experimenta surgery on her to see if she was formed differently from other women. Then she was forced to admit that she had manually inserted dead rabbits into her vagina and then allowed them to be removed as if she were giving birth in several different confessions. She implicated a mysterious change, stranger. The what? Oh, the wife of the organ grinder. No, that hang on. Is that literal organ grinder?

SPEAKER_02 34:49

I don't know, the organ grinder's like the monkey playing on the accordion thing. Yeah, that's an organ grinder.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Oh, so the a church woman that grinds an organ in.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

No, no, like out on the street, you know, that does the doo doo doo.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Don't you like the dancing? Okay, but but no, so not someone that's grinding. Because I thought maybe an organ grinder had access to organs to grind, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Organs, organs to grind.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

I've got an axe to grind, I've got an organ to grind with you. Yeah. Her mother-in-law and John Howard. Oh dear. On the 9th, Mary Toff was charged with being a notorious and vile cheat and sent to Bridwell Prison, where allegedly she was exhibited to large curious crowds by her waters.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Oh, that's fucking hilarious. The woman who gave birth, so she's gone in there, been called a cheat, and yet they're going to make the most of it and say she was actually gave birth to her.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

And now, how much control does she have over her own situation and narrative?

SPEAKER_02 35:48

I don't think she had much control before.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

I feel like you're right. I feel like she lost a baby, she went into postnatal depression, then everyone else had to be.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

No, to the like the mid like she's she's actually had a miscarriage and then just give like birthed it out, like you know, and then someone's gone, Oh, it's a liverless cat, and because they mightn't have known much about those sorts of things back then. And then someone's gone, Wow, she really wants a baby, let's give her a baby rabbit.

SPEAKER_04 36:19

Sometimes I feel like a liverless cat. That's the one that's not.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

But going back to St. Andre, who's the king's main bloke. Is he sacked? It's well, it's very awkward because only four days before her confession he published a 40-page pamphlet, a short narrative of an extraordinary delivery of rabbits. But it was spelt with an E. Now, is that a typo? Is that how they spelled it back then? Rabbits. Rabbits.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Oh, rabbits with an E.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Rabbits, okay. In which she gives a detailed, non-sceptical account of events. Non-sceptical? These people were fucking idiots. So we've come a long way. The German goes, the German believes that Saint Andre actually was not dumb, he was complicit. He was in all the hopes. Ah, okay, yep, yep, yep. Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

So he there's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 37:10

Because you can make so much money out of that in those days.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Well, you could probably if you, you know.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

Well, it was a 44-page pamphlet or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Well, you know, you send her off to a um circus-y thing and make some money. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

And then but then going back to again this horrendous way women are historically treated and still treated today by the medical profession and society at large, there it fits because of a real theory called maternal impression that was around at the time. So this theory explains the existence of birth defects and congenital disorders. Um it basically ascribes that uh to the mother. It's the mother's fault. Yeah. So yeah, but if the mum is um experiences an emotional stimulus while pres while pregnant, um then it influences the development of the fetus. If the mother has mental problems, which again is problematic phrasing, has mental um health history, that it's a manifestation of feelings in the mother. For instance, a woman who experienced great sadness while pregnant might imprint depressive tendencies onto the fetus she was carrying. So basically they're saying Mary had a um problematic encounter with a rabbit, which imprinted onto the fetus. Oh you seriously, and then this but then this maternal impression is actually a real theory. And you know the um Joseph Merrick, the so-called elephant man who had facial is that because his mother had an affair with an elephant? The deformity he wrote in his elephants a lot. He wrote in his autobiography pamphlet, which perhaps is a novella, but um the deformity which I'm now exhibiting was caused by my mother being frightened by an elephant.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:07

Well, that's very silly. There's actually a little bit of uh truth in there, which is actually weird.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Are you serious?

SPEAKER_04 39:14

Yeah. Um and it's they've done this study um with mice and they've done it with dogs and they've done other things. So you can actually, there is a it's I'm not sure if it kind of falls under epigenetics or something else, but if you have um uh historical poverty in the in the family and this sort of stuff, you will actually grow up with a sort of a sense of poverty. Does that make sense? So you you kind of and it's actually a really good interesting mechanism because it what it is essentially doing is it's training our our young our kids to be able to react more quickly to the stimuli that they might experience rather than have to learn it from the ground up. So if you if you know, for example, if you're getting chased by lions, you'll learn to you know run away from lions a lot quicker than you would if you if you I guess I know I've heard of epigenetics and Magda Savansky talks about this isn't physical things, this isn't like I'm not suggesting.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

You're missing a thumb on your hand because your mum knitted too much when she was.

SPEAKER_04 40:16

It's more the the You can have carried trauma, for example.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

But it's more the implicit blaming that goes along with the body. Oh yeah, yeah. You know, therefore it is the mother's fault. Oh yeah, that's horrible. That's that's what's not cool.

SPEAKER_04 40:30

Yeah, no, I know, totally agree.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

That that's and but again, in Mary's case, she got it released from jail. They didn't have evidence.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

I mean, saying on, she got released from jail, she didn't die.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

No, she the infection cleared up.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

That's amaz that that itself, given the fact of what she was doing, that is a miracle that she survived.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

She was hoping to make money off well, she they've theorized that she potentially wanted to make money off that. Yeah. But um but the Duke of Richmond did pull her out at dinner parties as a curiosity freeze guest.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Yeah. So as long as he paid her.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

It's um it's pretty good. But then um she was yeah, unfortunately, she was uh actually uh arrested later for receiving stolen goods. So clearly poverty leading to some of receiving stolen goods.

SPEAKER_04 41:19

Yeah, but like stolen rabbits.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Oh, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

Emma.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Yes, very weird toad.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

I I liked that a lot. That is reminiscence of the wandering womb and the thing. I like that I like that one a lot. Good luck trying to edit that one, though.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

I don't think I can.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

I think I just have to have it all.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

That's that's wild. That just kept getting more and more strange stories.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

That was a toe dip that ended in a very long swim.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

It ended in a dip in the pond in Guildford. Yes. For Mary. Poor Mary.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

I feel for her. Because, you know, she could have just had a normal baby and been okay, and but then she's been manipulated by all those people around her. I'm just all I'm just I cannot get the vision out of my head of just going, here's a dead rabbit, let's shove it up your clacker and you know, just birth it out. Even the things where you're saying, the other things that she gave birth to, like from the organ grinder. But they had to put them up in there, the dead baby bunnies.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

But also, I just can't it's that's just yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:33

You keep talking about it though.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

I'm sorry. I just your way you're processing. Gunther, what's in the book? What's in the book?

SPEAKER_04 42:38

In the book, you know, I was talking about that inherited trauma thing. I just I think you've just given it six generations.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Alright.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

Horrible image.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Well let's call Dempsey now, talk to him about it. Yeah, I just I yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

No. Hey honey, what's in the book?

SPEAKER_04 42:56

What's in the book?

SPEAKER_00 42:57

What's in the book? I don't think Maggie's gonna like it.

SPEAKER_04 42:59

I've I've shared most of this with you guys already. Yeah. Um so some of this will be surprises and some of it won't. But um surprise.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Surprise.

SPEAKER_04 43:08

But um so yeah, I've got my next book to write now.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Yes, Gunther's on to book three, I think. Have you written any of them yet?

SPEAKER_04 43:16

No.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Okay, but you're on to book three.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

But I'm I but I have a third concept.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

But you know that's Kate is eagerly awaiting. Kate is on Tental Hooks. Yeah. It'll it'll come. It'll come. With the um I will put that put this in the show notes. Um with the book cover that we have. Did you like the book cover? I was very happy with the book covered. I love the book cover. It's very boho.

SPEAKER_04 43:39

Explain it to to the audience. Yeah, um I'll put it on as a picture. You will see this. There will be show notes, you will actually be able to see this at some point. But um uh it it is it is quite odd and hard to express, but I will I'll it's not I can explain it very well. Can you? You wanna you want to explain it?

SPEAKER_02 43:56

It's Gunter, the boho, like he Looks a little bit like um Ah frick. Well who's his name? The guy who did the the painted the cans, can soup. Um Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol-esque in that, you know, the glasses and the thing. Not the hair. He's got skivvy. He's got nice hair. It's got the tall skivvy and the glasses and things. And he has his hand on a goatee. Not his goatee. The goatee of a goat. That is sitting similarly. Sorry, not sitting. That is standing on stilts. So it is the same art.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

He's wearing sunglasses and beret.

SPEAKER_02 44:34

Wearing sunglasses and a beret. And also looking very boho.

SPEAKER_04 44:37

Very boho goat.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

So instead of doing what Gunther does, which is constantly stroking his own uh beard and goatee, he's stroking the goatee of the goat. It's also I love it. I think it's very it somehow works.

SPEAKER_04 44:52

It's just it's very strange. It does work. It actually kind of works.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

Goatee of the goat. Goatee of the goat.

SPEAKER_04 45:00

And yeah, look, I mean I reckon if you saw that in a bookstore, you'd pause and go, you know what? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Well at the time, but you'd at least do it a second take. And go, hang on, is that goat on stilts? It took me a second look to see that the goat was on stilts. I actually only noticed it now.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

I only noticed it now. I thought it was on a little stand. No, it's wearing stilts.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

What was the prompt you put in, Gunter? Can I?

SPEAKER_04 45:31

Oh, I I'd have to go back. Yeah. But yeah, it was it was it was a pretty funny process trying to come up with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

But then your byline, think freely, question gently, pet goats.

unknown 45:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 45:44

So the book is called Alt hyphen truism.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:47

Um, so it's, you know, um a practical philosophy for imperfect times.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

Yes. I like it.

SPEAKER_04 45:53

So, you know, hmm, and then you you know, you go, hmm, and then you, you know, you touch the goat and you can go.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Straight the goat. That's disgusting, but yeah, straight the goat. That does sound terrible. So tell us a bit more about this, Guntet. Oh, that's about it.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

I've just got the cover and and and the name and the screen. It was very cute, it was very funny. I will put it up.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

It's very good.

SPEAKER_04 46:17

But it is it is kind of my alternative kind of philosophy, kind of under the hood, you know?

SPEAKER_00 46:23

So it's not altruism, it's altruism. Yes. Yeah. So is this connected in any way to Tannular? It's got yes. Logic everything is connected, Amber. It's embedded or is it nested? Nested within.

SPEAKER_04 46:35

I think it's adjacent.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Oh, tanular adjacent.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

These two in their words. Is it nested within? No, it's tanular adjacent. I'm like, oh fuck. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

So that was fun. Um so I've got a little weird poem thing here. Oh, it's actually a scene.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

So the opening scene. Our he hero, El Nino, rides in on a horse, a shellfish horse, made of crude oil and bones from 200 million years ago. Sergio Leone wolf whistles sexistly at the charming signoritas picketing for change. Our hero rolls triumphantly under the picket line, carrying with him the warm embrace of the future.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

What?

SPEAKER_02 47:27

I did my tell me more, which as we know is what the fuck? It's made. Also it's not. I got I just got I was lost on El Nino at the start. I'm like, is he meaning that it's a weather pattern? Like what's what yeah. On a horse made of shellfish. Shellfish, yeah. Not shellfish, shellfish fish, like to make crude oil shellfish. Okay. It's uh it it's a poem that needs a little deep thinking. But I'm sure that you don't mean it to have be deep thinking.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

I think you do. Okay. There's layers. Is El Nino the hot one? Is that why it's the warm embrace of the fish?

SPEAKER_04 48:10

Yes. But it's a hot because there's no warming mechanisms and so.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Yes. Hence the warm embrace of the the warm embrace of the future.

SPEAKER_04 48:17

I like that line.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Yes. By El Nino.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

By El Nino.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

Did you write the whole or did Jody help? No, no, this is all me.

SPEAKER_04 48:24

This is all It can't be that stupid and be AI.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

So we've got AI, but then we've got GI, Gunther Intelligence.

SPEAKER_04 48:33

Which is artificial adjacent, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Which is it's measured in Guntis.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

It's measured in Guntis, yeah. Gunties. It's measured in Guntis. Oh, I'm gonna ask you it again, but I'll be listening to this a million times when each of the Um You did say to me I've got something else to share with you, but I'll I'll share it with you tomorrow. And I can't remember what I don't know what it was because you didn't tell me. Well you were you were like it's funny, but I'll leave it till tomorrow.

SPEAKER_04 49:02

And then I'm like it might be funny, it might just be rude to you.

SPEAKER_02 49:04

That's where I'm like, is it? Okay, it might be rude.

SPEAKER_04 49:07

It might be.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

Offensive rude? Well you can judge for yourself. Let us put the precursor. This may well be edited here.

SPEAKER_04 49:18

No, here. Alright. So um I've been on a bit of a health kick and I have pets. I think it is important to take them with me on this journey. But it was a real challenge to exfoliate my total. Callback.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:32

Yes, I know it does sound a little like a euphemism, but believe me, this turtle, he indicates his groin area, needs no exfoliating. It's almost skinless. Like a Frankfurter.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

That's not done. Okay, welcome to the Frankfurter.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

Unlike a Frankfurter, it is not made from lips and assholes. Insert punchline here. So the other theory is that you guys have got to come up with a punchline for it.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

For what?

SPEAKER_04 50:17

I've been because I've been working on that joke for for about six years now, and I still don't have the punchline, but I have ambitions much like my little Frankfurter.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

Such a grim like I don't want to allow myself to extrapolate that into visual imagery. I don't do you think Margie wants to hear about Prince Ryan?

SPEAKER_01 50:44

I just like the suggestion he made when he's talking about the dead happened. Couldn't you someone went down and mushed his bits a bit? Oh dear.

SPEAKER_04 51:01

Okay, you can feel forgetting in it then.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

That's weird.

SPEAKER_04 51:09

There's a hint of pride and emotionally just emotional.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

No pride. Guntin has tears running down his face. He so loves himself sick.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

He broke weird into so many syllables. That's weird.

SPEAKER_04 51:27

The only time that word's ever lived in five symbols in the world.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

He's getting tissue. Oh, I'll talk about something a little bit more sensible. And very quickly, because I know we've we've we've gone on a bit, and I've got to calm these two down because they're crying. Oh good. Um I've been away this week, as we just said, in Hallsgap, and um visited the Hallsgap Zoo, which was a lovely little zoo if you haven't been down there in lovely place of Victoria and Hallsgap. There is a tiny little zoo that is like a TARDIS zoo. Like you walk in, you go, have you ever been there, Emma? No. Like you walk through the doors and you go, Oh, this is a tiny little zoo. But it's fucking massive. And it's got giraffes and cheetahs and like it's monkeys everywhere. Like it's huge. Um, it also has deer just walking around and wandering around and um birds and wallabies and such. So it's yeah, and it takes you two hours or more to walk around the zoo. It's actually really big. So it's one of those, it's like an IKEA showroom, you know, you go through and you go, Oh, I can see something over there and cut through and anyway. I I don't I have no idea why, but the one of the guides who was taking us around was a little bit obsessed with emus, and so I ended up buying a little stuffed emu. But she gave me lots of emu Gert E. Yes, Gert. Yo Gert, its name is Yogert. Um, but she gave me lots of really interesting emu facts, like just normal emu facts, like you know, they can reach up to speeds of 50 kilometres an hour. They're no by running, but they're flightless, um they're omnivores, but they're also only found in Australia. The um the females give birth, but the male sits on them. So the male puts on lots of weight beforehand, like a bit like the bears that go into hibernation and it sits on the nest, and the male doesn't move for months and months and months until the eggs hatch, so that's the male. Um and they have two sets of eyelids, one set to keep dust out, and the other one's that you know how it has the big long eyelashes and stuff. No, they're not like snakes, they're a bit weird. But they also swallow stones and pebbles. Oops, sorry, that was me hitting that, sorry. Um to help grind food in their gizzard. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, which is I thought was really weird.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

Maybe that's what we need to do, Bill.

SPEAKER_02 54:06

Yes, we need to eat some stones. Oh, that would be cool. Stones in our gizzard. But then, and now I can't find it, which I'm gonna be really pissed if I've shut that tab down. I think I have. Buggy you. Um anyway, I was you guys will probably know about it far more than me, Emma and Gunther. The emu wars?

SPEAKER_04 54:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Yeah, I've been.

SPEAKER_04 54:28

I'm aware of them, I don't know enough about it.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

Yeah, so there's the important thing to remember. We did, we lost. So there is this thing called the emu wars. Emma, you will know about it once you hear about it. It's not a nice thing, basically. So in 1932, in um the Australian military was sent out to kill 20,000 emus. Oh, yeah. Because they were just emus destroying our farmlands, right? So our beautiful native emus were destroying farmlands. Okay. So they used machine guns and soldiers, like sent soldiers out to reduce the emu population. But the emus won. Because they're too fast, so they ran away from the machine guns, like they couldn't hit them with machine guns. I know, like I was finding this, and basically they called it a war, the emu war. And it's like this mockery of going out to war, but to kill emus. And they use all these, yeah. They use all these extreme inva evasion skills like the emus to too because they're clever. Yeah, they're so clever. So yeah, they they had two uh Lewis guns like the kind of big enemy machine guns, with 10,000 rounds of ammunition and the operation ran for a month, so they ran it for a month, but the birds split into small groups, and then so one group would sort of run and they'd so that they wouldn't be able to get two groups at once, so very cleverly, instead of all going like all birds do and go into one, they'd split into multiple groups, but they do that each time, and so they could never get them. And they yeah, they only managed to kill um about 900 out of the 20,000. That is hugely impressive, isn't that like and so then they instead the aftermath of it was that they led to a military withdrawal, so they went, nah, this isn't working. And instead they put a bounty system on so people killed. It was more effective to have farmers allowing them to kill the emus, but even then the uh they couldn't do them, like the they couldn't kill them, they were just because the emus attack, like if em if you go up to an emu and you have a you know a gun or a bow and arrow would it will attack you. Um but it is a bizarre but very humorous episode of Australian history, like it's yeah, it's absolutely weird where nature proves superior to you know, human military. So that's that is awesome, Billy. So there it was this thing where I just was like looking up facts about emus because I was carrying little Gert home and I was like, ah, that's really it was fascinating, all the information this one's telling. And then she said, Oh, you've heard of the emu wars, and she saw and I was like, No. So I had to look it up and find I'm like, God, we're idiots. Like, it's not like they're rabbits. Like we introduced rabbits and we fucked up farming and birds and right, yeah. But what do they kill? The native beautiful animals of emus.

SPEAKER_03 57:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

And not to eat like back then they wouldn't have used them to eat, or like they might have used their pet like their cults and their feathers and stuff for clothing and things, but they weren't using them for you know, like indigenous people would if they if they killed one. So they were literally just killing them to get rid of them. You can scare a fucking emu. Like we had girls hiking and they had emus on the path and they had to go up and scare them off because they'd they just come at you. Yeah, right. Um but you know, it's the most ridiculous thing to say we're going to the army and we're gonna use the machine guns and kill 20,000 of them. And they killed 1,000.

SPEAKER_04 58:38

Because we we value that more than we value a lot of other things. And there's a reason for that.

SPEAKER_02 58:43

But how ridiculous. But they put a whole fucking rabbit-proof fence up that didn't work to stop what we brought into the environment. That was a big fence too. That's a long fence. That's so interesting about the emus. But that was my little emu factoid, my little animal factory.

SPEAKER_00 59:02

I love emus now.

SPEAKER_02 59:03

But also emus um never sleep. They do sleep. I made that up. And I was because I was so good to there's a beautifully puff their brain at a time or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 59:16

Yeah, oh so they're always asleep and always awake or whatever they are.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

Yeah, that's me. There was a beautiful ostrich there, and the ostrich was taking like trying to eat my hand, was quite gorgeous. But I was asking, you know, what's the difference between an ostrich and an emu? Because you know, they look similar. You would think, no, they're not related. Well, they're related to dinosaurs as such, they're not related to each other though. So um, they're both birds, but uh Australia is the only country, only place emus are found. Yeah. Unless they're farmed somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

And is the word emu originally from an um Aboriginal language? I would think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

Emu. Yes, that's how Americans call them. Emu.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:04

Um emu word this one kind of is giving me um the one that you bought back from Holesgap, not a real one, a toy, is giving me big bird vibes with its feet. Slash, not that birds don't have feet, whatever they have. Claws stocking legs. It's it is really actually what?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:24

Do birds have feet? They actually they're feet, but they're just specific toes. It has yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:29

The emu has three toes, the ostrich only has two. There you go. Um that's another fact I found out. But in to answer your question, Em, emu is not an indigenous word. Even though it sort of sounds it's actually from Portuguese, which means large bird like a crane, basically. Um or Arabic niama, in it's widely believed Portuguese adopted that word from that, which means ostrich. So basically they've called it and they've seen something similar and then searched back through etymology. So basically they called it an ema or the ema. Yeah. A bit like the cassawaris. You know, the Yeah, Cassaries are freaking amazing. So they're found also in Papua in New Guinea and Indonesia. Yeah, they were. Yeah, so all of those kind of and it was originally called the New Holland Cassawary. Because they had cass they knew what cassawares were before, so the emu was originally called the New Holland Cassawary. Um but then by the 1700s the shorter name EMI was adopted from the Portuguese. So there you go. We were called New Holland for a while, weren't we? We were New Holland for a while. Yeah. I don't Emma might know. Is that because the Dutch got here first? Yes. Yeah, exactly. Um where did they go? They go, but the scientific name is Drew Dromaeus, comes from the Greek word dromaeos, meaning runner or swift footed. And the native word for it in the Sydney era is marrowang or birabayang. Oh, cool. So the darug, so different, of course, as we know different languages of the indigenous people have different words for it. Um but emu also stands for the economic and monetary union of the European Union. Just uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:18

I've I've started to write the my AI told me.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:22

Might be the last thing, darling. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:24

So I'm I'm starting this. I'm coining this as a thing. What is it called?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:27

My AI.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:28

My AI told me. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

It's a bit like, you know, why did the thing cross the road or the thing? If I was goody, oh me, a rubber duly.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:39

Um, okay. My AI my AI told me to reduce my emotional baggage, so I threw my therapist in the river. My AI told me to touch grass. My lawn has taken out a restraining order.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:56

My AI told me to meet my enemies as friends. So I started punching my mates in the face. They don't like it, but once I explained, they understood.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:08

Okay. Are you are you writing these groups? Yeah, my job. Yeah, um it's GI. Can you tell that's what you have to use the correct term? Sorry, yes. Can you tell me that hasn't been a joke? Is this GIS? He's had a lot of time on his hands. He's writing, he said, knock-knock jokes. My mother. Oh, look at that. Knock knock with AI.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:31

Oh, something that's coming for your job. We did play a game last night.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:36

This is a game I inv a game I invented with AI during the week.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

Oh, you show me the poem. Or was it different?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:41

The poem was very strange, yes. But that was the poem. And the game is very simple. You just get it to say one random word, and then you have to finish the line as if it were a poem and try and then make it into rhyming couplets kind of thing. Yes. Um, so you don't know what the next word's gonna be, and so you kind of have to set up a word that you know is gonna rhyme with something like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:59

We did say we were gonna play this with Emma today.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:01

Oh, did we?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:01

Yeah, remember?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:02

That's it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:03

Yeah, so we don't we say one word and then the next word has to be a rhyming word. And not necessarily rhyme with the first word, but it's a yeah, yeah. That probably hasn't got the brain power for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

I feel like I don't. And after learning so many facts about the em you I and a rabbit-bearing woman.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

That was I must say, I do love I've I've missed you, Em. We haven't recorded for two weeks, and I've missed your little anecdotes. I love your toe-dipping. I hope they're okay. You mentioned. I know, you always mention this is why all of our people around the world in in 52 I won't say states, not countries, and states, 52 different states around the world listen to us because of your absolutely fabulous anecdotes. I love anecdotes and Billy's animals. Emma's anecdotes are just amazing. We had a new um a new country added. Oh I know I'm just trying to go back to Buzz Sprout and find it. Um damn it, it's not gonna be there. No. Um, because I do get a little bit excited when every now and then I open up and go, ooh, it's you know, there's a Ubekistan. Or it's always somewhere really unusual. Yeah. But our highest listener, uh listenage is in what did I say? Uh is listenage a word?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:26

If it's not, it needs to be. Because I freaking love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:29

Oh, is it not a word? Did I make a word? Listenage. Listenage. I freaking love it. Yes, I'm gonna look at that. Is Asia?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:37

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:37

Yeah, it's Asia. So thank you to all those people in Asia giving us a listen. And um keep it up. We love it. I think it's time for us to head or you don't want to hear about prefrontal cortex.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

Oh, I know. But I think we can put it on the the gram. Okay. Yeah, the picture that you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:55

The picture was silly enough. Yes, the picture with the guy trying to slice cheese with an abacus.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

Yes, yeah, yeah. That I think that does go on the gram. I like the link back to the cheese.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:05

Yes, and apologies, we did not have a cheese platter today. Uh it it it felt a bit odd. Instead we had lollies. Which is good.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:12

We were and Billy needed the sugar. I know. We're cutting after a week of intense emu times um and other stories and red bears. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:23

So thank you for giving us a listen this week. And uh oh, I like that. Is that your new sign-off? Is it? No, I haven't signed up. Isn't my sign-off C on the flip side?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

No, but I like thank you for giving us a listen this week. Thank you for giving us a listen this week.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:36

Yeah. Did it sound a bit formal, Em?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:38

No, I I I genuinely liked it.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

Why thank you? And uh, we'll see you on the flip side. Bye. Bye. Bye.