Episode 123 - Jacobinius Arse Syndrome

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You may have heard news reports attempting to link Quails 2.0 with an outbreak of Jacobinius ass syndrome, also known as bovine closed ass syndrome.

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issue.

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Huh?

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Hello and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved, or just interested, in the production of beef animals and dairy herds.

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website, as well as the printed magazine, brought to you by Quails 2.0.

Now, it has been a dark week for the beef industry.

It's not a competition, of course, but it's probably the darkest since the Rotherham Dairy explosion, or when France made beef illegal for a week by mistake.

Rumours began to spread at the beginning of the week, photographs, videos.

But then on Wednesday, in coordination with the British government, we were able to confirm on our website that there were indeed confirmed cases of bovine Jacobinius arse syndrome here in the United Kingdom.

The reaction of the beef markets was swift and the price of wholesale beef collapsed.

We haven't got there yet, but many analysts believe we could see the return of the 10 pence burger.

A reminder that last time that happened, adjusted for inflation, Britain invaded the Suez Canal.

At time of recording, the latest numbers are that according to the Central Bureau of UK Beef Information, there are currently 17,819 confirmed cases of Jacobinius R syndrome in British cattle.

Of course, there is up-to-date information on our website, or you can call the action line on 55105555555674155, 55515,

55516, 555741.

That's 551055555555674155,

So in this episode, it was obvious to me who we should speak to about this.

Of course, it's friend of the show, Bovine Arsvet, Bob Triskothik.

Hello, Bob Trzkothik.

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today.

My great pleasure.

Now, Bob, we are, of course, talking about Jacobinius Arse syndrome.

Precisely.

Well,

your listeners may know it, of course, as closed arse syndrome, which

became the sort of popular name for it in the early 1900s, just because

it's in the vernacular.

It's more easy to understand for the lay person.

And tragically, a lot of people don't...

don't know who Jacobinius Arse is, of course.

I have to admit, I actually didn't know who the man was until this most recent outbreak.

And in case listeners don't know, maybe you could tell us who was Jacobinius Ars?

Well, he's the veterinarian who described the syndrome in the first place.

He was, I would say, the prototype arse vet.

And there are some who

say, actually, that the word arse comes from him, that arses are named after him.

That's contentious.

But his name was Jacobinius Ars.

He was incredibly talented.

And yeah, he was the first person to describe this extraordinarily distressing bovine disease.

And when and where was Jacobinius plying his trade?

He was largely in the foothills of Bavaria.

Great place to train, great place to learn.

And in the early 1900s, in his heyday, where he trained as a cooper initially, and then he was a cooper's apprentice, he stole hoops from his master and had to run away.

That was from Leipzig, headed down south.

And yeah, much like me, had to start from scratch and learn from scratch.

What was he doing with those hoops then?

He said he stole some hoops from a cooper.

Well,

it's unclear.

He may have initially just stolen the hoops out of malice.

Certainly they proved useful though, because he effectively hula hooped his way down to the southern states of Germany through canteens, bordellos and bars, entertaining, hula hooping for coin, could hula hoop with it's believed up to 13 hoops.

And so by the time he got into bavaria he had cash in hand and he had such a good understanding of of a hope and the inside of a hoop and what it is to be inside a hot hoop that uh it was just a hop skip and a jump to to using that knowledge and applying it to to ani

i wanted to learn a bit more about the history of jacobinius ars and so i spoke to historian professor james harkam professor james was able to explain to me how jacobinius used his skill in hula hooping to get his first job as a vet in the court of mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

It's quite by chance one Easter, in fact, Good Friday, which had become a time of notable celebration at the court of King Ludwig.

Any kind of itinerant dancers, performers are called in.

They're in the great hall of Neuschwanstein Castle.

Ludwig is

sat atop his gold throne wearing a crown of live geese and there's an absolute maelstrom.

There are jugglers, there are men on stilts, all kinds of madness just taking part in this room.

And Jacobinius may be a little overshadowed.

The hoop dance that had beguiled so many on the road from Leipzig is maybe lost

in the great spectacle of this royal banquet.

He's at this point third on the bill to a dancing pig.

But it's at this point that his luck changes.

When that dancing pig is brought in, the little fella simply won't dance.

It has a pained expression, it's vomiting mouthfuls of blood, and while this would have passed for entertainment in the late 19th century, it's still not what they paid for.

Jacobinius has the presence of mind.

His eyes look ever arsewards, and he sees protruding from that little piglet's backside,

coat of arms of the kingdom of Bavaria.

Etched in gold, he thinks, that doesn't belong in a pig's arsehole.

What am I looking at here?

And it was, of course,

the royal scepter of King Ludwig himself, which in a fit of intense absent-mindedness, the king, thinking he was popping his scepter in an umbrella stand, had in fact inserted it into a live pig's backside.

Jacobinius withdraws that bejeweled dildo in a matter of seconds, with professionalism, with grace, and with a little flourish.

I think it was both theatre and medicine, wrapped up in one.

The pig starts dancing, stops vomiting blood, its eyes light up, the king is applauding, clapping his hands, and he knows from that moment forth, I need this guy by my side.

Now, obviously, Bob, the The disease bearing his name is back with the vengeance and it's

obviously sad that we can't ask him what to do because if he was here, obviously he could help us.

But no, obviously he died many years ago.

No, no, no.

Well,

he's long dead.

He's preserved.

He's stuffed.

And if you pay extra, a few extra Euros, when you're visiting Neusch Franstein Castle, you can go to the closet

where they stuffed him

with his hoops.

But he's not on display.

He's on a private display.

So

you have to know who's palms to Greece.

Is that actually some sense of shame?

I mean, why wouldn't they, you know, he's the father of veterinary arse medicine.

Why isn't he, you know, why isn't he held up for all the tourists who go to that beautiful castle?

Well, I think because when he died, he was so riddled with a mixture of human and bovine diseases

that they were a bit nervous about displaying him publicly.

They did obey his request to be stuffed, but instead of putting him out in the open on a little tiny island in the middle of Lake Alpze, as he'd requested, they put him in a sort of thick glass cabinet and squirreled him away.

And another problem was that the

taxidermist was a local, very much an ultra-specialist in bovine taxidermy, a very stubborn individual by all accounts, and used the same amount of stuffing

for Jacobinius as he would with a heifer.

So

it's a horrific sight.

So he's overstuffed, Ben.

Hugely Hugely overstuffed.

You can see straw poking out of parts of him.

Other parts have not burst.

And

in many ways, testament to

the strength of mankind's integument.

I mean, the skin is an extraordinary thing.

And you say that Jacobinius was riddled with various diseases, both human and bovine.

Was one of those diseases Jacobinius Arse syndrome?

Ironically enough,

it was not.

Even though he'd spent more time than anyone else dealing with this, he had, in an effort to understand the disease better,

he had essentially fabricated the symptoms of Jagar Benius R.

Syndrome within himself.

So

he had closed his own ass.

He was a man of his time.

And you have to understand a lot of these people, they went in head first with their research.

And he believed that how could you treat a disease without understanding it at first principles yourself?

I mean, he had quaternary syphilis, he had mange,

all manner of parasites,

some of which their ancestors are still breeding within his corpse today.

And it was too much.

It was too much.

It failed to accurately represent what would happen.

It just meant he was overwhelmed by the other diseases he already had.

And of course, closing his own ass leads to another problem for the taxidermist, doesn't it?

Who,

I guess, now had to go in through the mouth?

He went into through the mouth.

This taxidermist, his preferred access point in was always the ass.

And as I say, very inflexible individual, so he did have to go in through the mouth, but he did so as if he was going through the arse.

He didn't have the imagination to sort of flip Jacobinius round.

Oh, so he stuffed him backwards.

I mean, the shape of him is.

I don't think there's a word for it, frankly.

It is worth seeing.

But

it's quite the horror show.

Was Jacobinius asked the first arsebed?

Many people would would say yes.

Of course,

there are other candidates who are considered notable in the field of arse vetting.

Queen Elizabeth I

wrote on the subject of animal arses in both Latin and Greek, although it is understood that she never actually touched an arse in her own lifetime, including her own.

And this was revolutionary, wasn't it?

Because there was a belief at the time that animals actually didn't have arseholes.

In the understanding of the church, of of course everything is created in humans are created in the image of god but also any characters that are featured in a bible story so to suggest that the oxen for example in the nativity had an arsehole uh would be to to hint that possibly even god himself or the angel gabriel had an arsehole which which they don't right i see so there was a so when

you mentioned um Queen Elizabeth I writing a kind of theoretical treatise on the existence of animal arseholes.

That would have been to do with her the fact that she was a Protestant was quite central to that.

That's it, yes.

It would have been in open defiance of the Pope.

In the popular imagination, we like to think that the Reformation begins with Henry VIII's desire to split from Rome in order to facilitate his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, his marriage to Anne Boleyn.

Maybe there's also some lust for the wealth wealth of the monasteries, but a lot of it can be pinpointed to one afternoon, one hazy, sunny afternoon in August of 1534, at his palace in Greenwich, Henry VIII noticed that one of his hunting dogs clearly possessed an arsehole.

And from that moment on, the grip of the church, in his imagination, had somewhat loosened.

He was starting to see holes in their argument, both literally and and figuratively.

So then if we scoot forward to Jacobinius Arce's day, we're talking about the late 1800s.

By that point, then, so people had an awareness of animal arseholes, but he was maybe the first to say this is the way in when it comes to veterinary work.

Yes, Jacobinius Arce was the first man to really take advantage of the animal arsehole as a route by which treatment could be administered.

Suppository medicine

had not been heard of, not in veterinary science at that point.

People would try and treat animals by simply wrapping them in bacon or other kind of what we'd think now as kind of sympathetic methods by hanging a tangerine around its neck.

Nothing invasive, nothing that could actually do any benefit at all to the animal.

So Bob, let's talk Jacobinus Arse syndrome.

Obviously, it was around at the time of Jacobinius Ars.

We're talking about the late 1800s, early 1900s.

And then it kind of disappeared, and now it's back.

So, what's happened?

Yes, well,

it died out then.

I mean, it's interesting as to why that may have happened.

I mean, it's key to understanding Jacobinius R.

Syndrome is that...

Yes, it affects cows principally, but it is not transmitted cow to cow.

It was transmitted by another creature.

Now, we don't quite know what that creature was.

We suspect it was a creature called

the München Seiku, the München Sea Cow, or the Munchen lake cow, right?

It's a bit like a kind of a large manatee that populated the lakes of Bavaria at that time, but was hunted to extinction.

because its dorsal fins were found to make an excellent skin cream.

And it's probably hunting that lake cow, that sea cow out to extinction that meant that transmission was no longer possible.

And once the cows that had it died out, then the disease they thought had died out completely.

But now the disease is very much back.

It's not just in the south of Germany, it's across the world.

Yes.

Maybe you can tell me about the first time you came across an animal and realized, oh my God, this thing's got Jacobinius R.

Syndrome.

I was actually in Newfoundland,

Canada, just because I enjoy a remote location and sometimes I need to be somewhere else from where some heat needs to die down.

And word had got out that I was knocking about and

they had a heifer that they didn't understand what was going on with.

And I mean, I just took one look at the thing and I realised

this cow has a closed arse.

And I thought, I can't believe this.

How can this be back?

And examined it as best I could, attempted to reopen the arse,

but you're on a hiding to nothing there.

Fashioned a sort of side arse,

which gave symptomatic relief in the end.

But unfortunately the cow did eventually perish more comfortably, I'm pleased to say, thanks to my measures.

And then it was very clear that we were beginning to deal with an outbreak and we needed to act fast.

But no sign of any of these

sort of lake manatees or anything like it anywhere nearby.

So there's another culprit.

Now, this has crept out in the press this week.

Described as an unnamed source.

I believe you're happy for me to confirm that it was you, because you believe you've fingered the culprit.

I'm absolutely certain I found the culprit, yes.

Okay, and I believe it is another animal that is a reservoir for this disease.

Yes.

Your listeners will no doubt be familiar

with the huge increased incidence in our meadows and pastureland of the genetically modified quail.

Yes.

Yes, obviously sold under the brand name Quails 2.0.

Yeah, which and I was fully behind that when it was first released.

The GM quail,

as your listeners will know, they're smaller than the average quail.

They're slower.

That means that the average cow is able to catch and feed on them.

You'll hear them called grazing quails.

And people know not to breed them, but there's only so much control you've got over this sort of thing.

And the big no-no was always, you know, do not let a GM quail breed with a regular quail because

that we've discovered with the offspring, is what we're calling a mega quail.

Wow.

Okay.

Is that like a huge quail?

It is slightly larger than the genetically modified quails, although not quite as large as

a regular quail.

Okay.

But

what they are is perfect vectors for the virus that causes Jacobinius R.

syndrome.

Not to get kind of preoccupied with the size of these animals, but if you were to get a mega quail, right, which is

the offspring of a quail and a quail 2.0, you get a mega quail.

What happens if that mega quail were then to breed with a regular quail?

Well, this is what we're worried about.

Right.

Because precedent science would suggest that the results would be exponential and that you'd be dealing with a...

Well, at the moment, it's a sort of thought experiment, a

theoretical animal called a Titano quail

that would be even bigger than a mega quail, although probably, again, not quite the size of an actual quail.

But you're getting to a point now where that animal is almost the size of a quail.

Yes.

We don't think that ceiling could ever be fully reached.

Because at the end of the day, the initial GM process that Mitchells went through with quails was incredibly damaging to so many of the bodily systems of the quails.

The chance, I mean, were it to reach that actual height, it would probably collapse in on itself immediately.

When GM quails were first announced, I mean, people have been working on this since the beginning of GM anything, right?

The GM quail has kind of been the.

Well, it kicked off the GM industry, didn't it, really?

Right, yeah, exactly.

And we've had GM wheat and we've had GM sorghum, and we've had.

Oh, people have got rich off it, sure.

Yeah.

But the goal was always the next generation of quail.

Yeah.

A grazing quail.

Yeah.

And now we're here.

And when you look back, you know, how long has it been?

50 years.

Yeah.

There have always been those voices saying, you're playing God.

This is wrong.

Yeah.

Who are we to to fiddle with the the genetics of of you know whether you're religious or not it mother nature you can put it that way you know yeah um it's prometheus and the flame it's pandora's box all of these things yes we've heard them time and time again absolutely and those people were written off as kind of weirdo hippie yeah soft twats i heard a lot yes yeah bearded nuisances yeah uh wet-eared wimpies exactly But they were right.

Were they right?

Well, I mean, that's the trouble with your Cardigan bead-wearing crowd is that occasionally occasionally they can be half right.

I mean,

they did flag up concerns.

Ultimately, I think it probably was worth it, but

could we have gone slower, been less reckless?

Maybe, but I'm not going to admit that to them.

I'll admit it to you in private and to the listeners.

Right.

Because there's no way any of those people are listening.

But I mean,

I'd rather eat pins than admit that to one of those commie tossers, quite frankly.

I think we all imagine that the genetic modification of animals is something of a new phenomenon.

But we must remember that the groundwork has been laid throughout human history.

When you read Aristotle pondering on whether a quail could ever be reduced in size and have its wings clipped back just so that an ox could catch it in mid-air.

That isn't a thought experiment.

That is primarily the greatest desire of the society in which he lived.

The ultimate food source,

the answer to all of humanity's problems.

If only the quail, which could be released in sufficient numbers, caught by cattle, I think before we even realized it, we were looking there at solutions to

climate change, to food scarcity, to wealth inequality.

So your point is that even though we haven't had the technology to create a genetically modified quail until the last 10 years or so, throughout human history, you can find people at least posing the question: would it be possible to make a slightly smaller quail?

Yes.

Look into the caves at Lascaux.

Yes, everybody remembers the images of Neolithic man hunting down the mammoth because the mammoth is big.

But look at what's in the mammoth's mouth.

It's a tiny pair of legs.

Those are quail's legs.

And look at the bottom of the cave painting.

It's a tiny pair of eggs.

And those are quail's eggs.

And are those quails a regular size quail, or are they very slightly smaller than a quail?

Unfortunately, due to the ineptitude of Neolithic art, we cannot be sure that they had any grasp of perspective.

Okay.

I would like to conjecture that, yes, the reason those quails appear smaller is because in a shamanic reverie, those ancient elders knew the desire and the direction that humanity must move in.

Bob, knowing what you know now, that the creation of GM quails would lead to an outbreak of Jacobinus Ars syndrome, was it still worth it for them to make the GM quails?

I think it is still worth it because don't forget, since then science has advanced in jacobinius ars's time he didn't have a cure a definitive cure for jacobinius arse syndrome and we still don't but there's no reason why we can't you know if we band together as a community

i think i think we can crack it we've got palliative measures of course we do innovative measures i mean i'm at the forefront of that but i i really feel that if we can we can cure it then then then it's fine then we're just

we've dealt with it then we can keep our grazing quails and we're just in a situation again where we're just,

you know, as well as the antibiotics and the steroids and the rest of the things, we're just putting another medicine in the cow feed, and that's okay.

What's wrong with that?

Do you know what I mean?

Mitchells is very well set up for that.

So you're very much behind the Mitchells project.

You're happy with them continuing to produce more Quails 2.0?

I think of myself as a sort of muted whistleblower in that, yes,

I am behind it to a degree.

There needs to be things done that Mitchells aren't doing that I want done, and I have told them that.

But I think it's worth telling our listeners now that you are officially a Mitchells affiliated vet and brand ambassador so you're getting free supplies from them yes yes I yeah so so in a way your hands are tied some some some would argue I mean we should point out of course that that this podcast is indeed sponsored by Mitchells

but then it's also worth saying that due to some kind of paperwork problem with our with our lawyer John wasabi who was our lawyer at the time we're actually paying Mitchells for the privilege of of of playing their adverts on our show.

So

I think we're in kind of a different situation to you.

Yes, and I have my own professional standards as well, which are completely independent from

Mitchell's.

Just because I depend on them

for

lunch money and things like that,

the occasional bit of dental work,

it doesn't mean that

I can't criticise.

But you kind of aren't criticising, are you?

I mean, what would you say to listeners who think you're pulling your punches?

Pulling my punches as well.

or even listeners who would say well for bob truskothic jacobinius r syndrome is good for business isn't it okay well yeah i am making coin at the moment but it's it's a pretty distressing way to make uh coin and um

no i i i i i take exception to that and i i really think i'm at the tip of the spear we're part of the solution i'm sure mitchells will also be

part of the solution.

I think they can be.

I don't think

where they're going wrong is I think they are worried if they were to quickly come up with a cure,

then it might be suspicious because it might suggest that they had something to do with the reintroduction of the virus that caused this Jacobins R syndrome in the first place.

I'm not saying anything,

but maybe, right?

That's the delicate bit.

Okay?

More after this.

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is brought to you by Quails 2.0, the revolutionary new live flightless bird cattle feed from Mitchell's.

If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck.

If your cattle have contracted Jacobinius S syndrome, also known as bovine closed ass syndrome, Mitchell's, while absolutely not responsible, is here to help.

A number of the products in our catalog will assist with what's to come next.

These include the antimicrobial slurry cannon, a fully welted and lead-lined hazmat suit, the Smooth Girl Flaying Mitt, our premium reinforced anal plunger, inflatable decoy priest and prayer book, and in extreme cases, the instant golf course ballistic missile, and a set of fake passports.

For all these and more, go to www.mitchells.kentucky or contact your local Mitchells representative.

We now will use the location from your device to dynamically add the name of your local Mitchells representative.

Helen Bross.

That's right.

Helen Bross.

You can now find them here.

I'll be in the car park.

Buying the three crowns, pub.

I'll be dressed as a female sailor from World War II.

Ask for Alan Brough.

Now, before we get back to our big interview with Bob Truscothek, quite by coincidence this week, the Royal Opera House in London opened their new production of what they're calling a hula hooping operetta.

It's called Arse.

The Jacobenius Arse Story.

It opened last night, and we sent along Rodney Woodlodge, who was formerly in charge of updating the event section of our website, but due to a lot of nagging, he's been promoted to our arts correspondent.

So first of all, Rodney, congratulations on the promotion.

I'm absolutely over the moon.

Thank you.

I cannot wait to go and get some free tickets to shows, maybe a few free glasses of Prosecco, probably supermarket Prosecco, let's be honest.

Well, Rodney, I just want to say you did a, well, I was about to say you did a great job updating the events on the website, but

you did so.

To be honest, I'd never really got the hang of how the website portal worked.

I think it was called Spark Web, and I'd never heard of that website building software before, so I didn't know how to add events.

No, and you kept somehow posting just pictures of your trousers onto our social media streams.

I can explain that.

I can explain that.

You see,

the thumb gesture for adding an event on the mobile app, which I did download, would sometimes bring the camera up.

So if I was looking downwards at my phone, at the app, occasionally my thumb would hit the take picture button and sometimes the app would, for some reason, automatically upload that as the main event picture.

Your trousers were normally quite wet for some reason.

It wasn't clear what the liquid was, but they were certainly damp.

I can put your mind at rest about that right now, you see, because I'm a healthy person.

I like to get out there.

I like Free Prosecco, but I also love to swim.

But sometimes, you know, sometimes in a busy office job like Events Manager, you don't have time to change.

Just to be clear, you weren't the events manager, your job was simply to upload details about the events onto the website, which you never actually managed.

Okay, well, I'm just so excited to be the arts correspondent for the podcast officially, and I can't wait to get started.

Last night, you went to the opening night of Arse, the Jacobinius Arse story.

The press release here says, close your ass and open your heart to this twisty tale of hula hooping, love, and bovine arse.

Did it live up to the billing?

Well, I have to tell you, it was absolutely terrible.

Oh, oh, interesting.

Okay, so

what was the problem?

What was wrong with it?

Sounds great.

Well, I'll paint you a picture, okay?

I'll paint you a picture.

Let me explain how the production works.

All right?

You walk into a huge room.

It's absolutely huge.

The theater?

Yeah, I think that's what they were calling it.

Yeah.

And then you take your seat, and in front of you, there are thousands of other seats with all other people, and they're looking right at you, which is quite unsettling.

And then the lights go down, and this whole opera takes place behind you.

And you can hear it, but you can't see a thing.

Just the faces of thousands of people looking at you, like looking at you with quite a strange expression, like you've done something wrong.

Rodney, is there a chance that

you were sat backwards on your seat?

Yes, I think you might be right.

Yes, the more I think about it, it seems obvious that's what I did.

Right.

So, okay.

So, um,

well, okay.

So, your review is that it's terrible, but but to be fair to the production, you didn't actually see it.

No, I didn't see it at all.

But what I would say is the audience experience is all part of the theatrical production, and the fact that I wasn't able to see it due to one very slight miscalculation that could have happened to absolutely anyone, so I just don't think we can call it a top-shelf production if there is a chance that any totally rational member of the audience could miss seeing the entire thing.

Okay, so your point of view is that the fact that you were able to watch it backwards is a failing of the production and not your own failing?

Yes.

Okay.

All right, well, Rodney, um,

not all is lost because obviously we all we also asked you to go out and record some Vox pops with members of the audience afterwards just to gauge the public response to the play.

So, maybe

yeah, we did ask you to do that.

So, maybe you could play some of those now and we can see what the audience, the ones who are facing the right way, thought of the operetta.

Right.

Yeah, let's

do that now.

Yeah, I've just got them here.

Beep.

I thought it was a magnificent production.

I enjoyed the singing and the stagecraft.

He liked it.

Beep.

There was another person.

Sorry?

Who is that, Rodney?

Oh, that was

a military gentleman who'd been in the audience, and I spoke to him at the venue.

Okay.

I'll play another one.

Sorry.

We need to get on with this.

So, um,

beep.

Oh, a kudni mik hadnote love it.

Ah, ah, come all the way.

Okay, Rodney, I'm just

interrupted the clip there.

Sorry, that was a bit awkward.

I'm gonna stop you there, Rodney.

No one in real life has got that accent.

That's you putting on a

putting on a voice.

I don't know what you mean.

That was just one of the clips that I recorded, as requested, at the theatrical venue, the theatre, as it's called.

So, anyway, just one more.

Oh, and this audience member was very keen.

Click.

Beep.

Oh, yes.

I thought it was very good when the actors were playing the characters in the production on the channel.

Rodney.

Rodney.

Rodney.

Yes.

Beep.

Yes.

Okay, so

that voice you're putting on then,

you responded to me in that voice, which shows me that that is the same thing.

No, that was that.

That was a woman, a human woman.

That was a woman.

Yep, yeah, there was a woman I've spoken to.

And her husband had coincidentally called her just at the moment that you said something to me.

So when she said, yeah,

when she said yes, just then

that was in the clip itself and then I you will have heard also I having stopped the clip said yes as well in my different this voice here now

okay Rodney um well okay

uh

we might have to run this through HR but I'm going to say that you've you're being demoted back to the website sorry Rodney that's

try and do that and I'll sue the ass off you Well, better look in the right way in court.

Can you give me a clue as to which way is the right way?

Rodney, I'll see you back in the office on Monday.

I'll see you in hell.

Oh, okay.

We'll deal with this

come Monday, Rodney.

Okay.

Okay.

All right, bye.

I'm not one to be trifled with.

Okay, bye.

More after this.

This episode is supported in part by Falmouth University's Comedy Writing MA, the only dedicated comedy writing master's degree on the market.

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Falmouth.

Falmouth.

Now back to our big interview with Bob Triskoffik.

So let's talk a little bit about the symptoms of Jacobinius R.

Syndrome.

There's obviously one major symptom, the closing of the eyes.

Yes.

How does the disease progress after that?

In a certain proportion of cattle, they may be observed to face southeast, although that may be unrelated.

And then the symptom after that is death.

Right.

So is that certain death then for the cattle?

Certain death.

Right.

Quite certain death, I'm afraid.

It's very distressing.

Obviously, I mean, death, well, there's actually two modes of death.

There is, obviously, the pressure effects of the arse

closing up,

which is inevitable.

But what is interesting is more common than that.

And this really science,

the only explanation we have for this really is that the cow seems to die of a broken heart.

Because it knows that it's

closed?

As is closed and identifies essentially as a vector for its own arse.

What is a cow really?

You know, a means by which a cow's arsehole is moved.

hither and thither.

So its sense of self really is attacked by the fact that it's our soul no longer works.

It is gone.

And with that, inevitably,

comes death.

I mean, it's,

I mean, we see death from broken heart in humans, of course,

and swans, and in this case, in cattle as well.

Obviously, there's a big debate as to what you should do if your herd do get Jacobinius R.

Syndrome.

Obviously, you should isolate the ones who have the illness.

But obviously, given that they are...

definitely going to die,

what do you make of what some farmers have been doing, which is simply to push them into an old quarry or some kind of gravel pit?

Well, I actually am more of a supporter of what has been happening in Patagonia at the moment,

where

they are letting nature take its course after isolation and finding actually

they're coming out the other end with some pretty exquisite terrines.

Oh, so if you if you let nature take its course, the cow dies naturally, so to speak.

The pressure, is that to do with the pressure inside the cow?

Something to do with the pressure is squishing the offal in such a way that it makes a very, very, it's a very rich pate.

Right.

Interesting.

Auterine.

Oh, I see.

And so if you were just to push a cow into a lake or off into a ravine or something, you're missing out on that

pate.

It seems wasteful.

And if you push it into gravel, which I know they're doing a lot in certainly the south of France, the problem that causes is that if the pressure is immense enough, if it's been grazing a lot before it's ill, then you can get sort of minor explosions, and that gravel can,

well, essentially is a form of shrapnel, really.

Becomes a kind of nail bomb.

Precisely.

Bob, what should we've got farmers listening, obviously, they're all worried about what could happen.

If, God forbid, they do find that they look out onto their pasture and one of their cows has got a closed arsehole,

Jacobinus R.

Syndrome has come to visit upon them.

What should be their first portal?

What should they do?

Oh, register with your local beef information centre immediately, of course.

They will alert government authorities.

But the most important thing, really, is to not eat any mega quail that you may find on your land, not in any form.

Roasted, boiled, raw.

Ideally, they should be hunted down and destroyed.

The average farmer obviously has

shotguns

and flamethrowers, and it's really the latter you want to be leaning on at this point.

That's why it's there.

Okay.

I mean,

I don't know whether I should mention this really, but

it's becoming so significant online that maybe we ought to.

We're seeing a lot of stuff online, videos, posts on social media about the idea that the meat of a mega quail is, and

I'm really ruthless to say this, a fifth meat.

Just a word about that, if you would, Bob.

There are always these conspiracy theories.

We live in an age of misinformation and disinformation where, I mean, you know, you'll remember back in the day, people talked about fifth meet.

It could lead to a lot of trouble these days.

You don't have to go far to find rumors about fifth meeting.

It's inevitable someone was going to start this little wildfire.

And

it's nonsense.

And if you hear anyone talking about that, stamp it down hard.

Stamp on his neck.

There is no such thing as a fifth meet.

Sorry, when you say stamp on their neck, do you mean is that metaphorically speaking or literally stamp on their neck?

It depends.

Try it metaphorically first.

And if that doesn't work, literally.

We don't need that kind of talk.

And I think, again, your first port of call for that kind of thing, go to your local beef information center, let them know.

They will help deal with that.

Yeah, exactly.

And they have the resources.

The beef information center should have a paramilitary wing if needs be.

Yeah, hit that hard.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Bob.

That's very much my own thoughts on the matter as well.

Thank you.

Okay, well, let's move on from that.

We announced on our website that we'd be talking to you, Bob.

And so we asked network members to send in any questions they might have about Jacobinus R syndrome.

And we've had a number of them in.

Sure.

So first one is from Alan from County Durham.

Right.

He says, none of my herd currently have closed R syndrome.

Thank God.

But if they did, would I be able to catch it myself?

I'm worried about the health of me and my family.

There have been reports of human transmission, but much like with cows,

as there is no cow-to-cow transmission, there's no cow-to-human transmission.

It would have to be cow-to-quail.

So it would depend on, and I know we are talking about county Durham here, it would depend on Alan engaging in some sort of sexual contact with

a mega quail.

Right.

If Alan was to partake in that, he'd be at great risk without barrier protection.

That's an interesting point, isn't it?

If a human was to contract it, and as you say, there's only one way to do that.

But I'm not so naive to think that people won't do that.

Or people have been boning quails since the dawn of time.

Man and quail.

It is a story as old as time itself.

Quails have always been important heraldic symbols, symbols of their industrious nature, their deliciousness, and of course, as a symbol for sexual profligacy and eroticism.

On Roman mosaics, in the Bayer tapestry, the quail is often depicted as

a euphemism for deranged lust.

And I think we can understand

the many men that have,

and it is generally men who have fallen by the wayside by giving in to the natural urge to engage with a quail.

It becomes something of a through line in history that military victories are celebrated with great orgies of quail abuse.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings, it's believed that William the Conqueror himself celebrated his victory by having sex with 1,066 quails.

an orgy that's believed to have lasted up to seven days and is depicted in the missing final panel of the Bayer Tapestry in which an impressively endowed and indeed impressively embroidered William is seen striding into Westminster Abbey pursued by a coterie of 25 very upset quail farmers

so the next question is from Carol in Lisbon in Northern Ireland.

Carol says, is it true that cattle display other symptoms before the ask closes shut and if this is true could could i for example notice one of these symptoms in my herd jam something in the arse to stop it from closing it's a great question um

it's actually pretty tricky to identify before the ass starts to close up in fact the only symptom we're certain about is in roughly four percent of cattle who are affected uh during the prodrome uh they they will face southeast and

if you've got other cattle in the herd who are also facing southeast for some other reason, that's quite hard.

But if you notice that there's a cow in your cattle herd facing southeast, but the other cows are facing another way, it's probably this.

So plus, I mean, I understand the urge to put a bit of drain pipe or an old sort of recorder or clarinet or something in the cow's arse.

But the reality is the disease is so strong and the cow's ass is so powerful, it'll just smash that to smithereens

in its own good time as the crushing comes.

Oh, that's interesting.

And that actually sort of prefigures our next question.

So Derek from Cornwall says, could I not get ahead of the disease and put something in the ass of all of my cattle to stop them from closing?

And I guess you've just answered that.

It'd have to be incredibly extraordinary.

Technically, the only way to preemptively prevent it

would be to

remove the ass in its entirety in a disease-free cow.

And who's going to do that?

Well, you've barely got a cow then.

What are you left with, really?

Exactly.

Exactly.

It's a horrifying idea, but

that's all we've got so far.

Is there nothing at all strong enough, not some sort of diamond rod, maybe?

No, well, again, you're talking about a cow's arse, aren't you?

Do you know what I mean?

And this takes me back to experiments done in MIT in Massachusetts back in the 60s, where they tested, well, in conjunction with NASA, they wanted to test the strength of various materials,

your carbon fibers, your titaniums,

your diamond rods, and none of it would withstand the clenching of a cow's ass during a a bovine sneeze.

And if I'm right, that's why the airlock on the lunar module, that's actually based on a cow's ass.

It is exactly right.

Exactly right.

And that's why it's the safest airlock going.

And a final question from Harry in Norwich.

Yeah.

Harry says, I've begun to worry about this.

I'm not a farmer myself.

I'm worried that this could lead to the worldwide extinction of cattle and the end of beef.

I mean, Harry, that's some quite catastrophic thinking from Harry there.

But I think, you know, it's worth thinking about, isn't it?

Is this a big problem?

Well, it could be.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I mean, obviously, the end of beef is.

It sounds like Harry's been reading a lot of sort of dystopian fiction because that's a very common theme, isn't it?

And

in sci-fi world, you know, the post-beef universe.

Horrible stuff.

Don't like it myself.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, really.

I think we're more likely to see the eradication eradication of quail first,

the eradication of mankind second.

I think that the beeves will be here to stay.

Okay.

I mean, that's a that's a it's strange to call that a hopeful answer because you have invoked the end of mankind, but um, but it is hopeful.

I would far rather a world in which uh we were gone but the cows were still there than we're still here, but we haven't got any beef.

Oh, I think, I think, yeah, I think

all our listeners would agree with that.

Yeah, but you invoke there that the end of quail kind.

Is that something that you would argue for?

Because I guess coming to the end of this conversation, I want to talk about potential ways out of this problem.

Yeah, you've mentioned that you know Mitchells might be working on a cure, perhaps, um, but some kind of widespread quail curl.

Should they stop selling quail 2.0?

Is there a way of weeding out just the mega quail?

Is there a way of stopping the quail 2.0 breeding with regular quail?

Just spitballing here.

Could we cut off all their dicks?

It's not a bad shout.

And there is a growing lobby saying that we should just cut off quail dicks.

I actually think a new way is possible.

I'm not worried about the destruction of quail kind personally, not least because I know that Mitchells have always been developing alternatives to your grazing quail.

They've got legless frogs, ambulent herring.

There's various different things they're trying.

None of it's quite working.

Can I just ask, actually, because I think a lot of people will be thinking, okay, what's wrong with

grassland?

And obviously, I think I'm right in saying that the vision for Quail 2.0 is eventually we move to a place where a farm is actually a sort of, if you imagine the sort of the squash courts at a leisure centre or

a kind of basketball court, a kind of hard-floored,

easily cleaned.

Yeah.

Something you can hose off.

Exactly.

So the idea was to sort of replace the pasture land that takes up so much of the globe's surface with these kind of multi-story concrete hubs really, a sort of multi-story car park of that's the dream absolute breeding cows

I think some people will be thinking okay maybe this is the first indication that that

you know it might be a crazy idea that isn't necessarily a good idea and and that maybe the traditional methods with with pasture land and things are better well the the yeah these people are give up gordons aren't they they're um

uh spineless sally's and uh

no i i i think that's just what you you expect teething problems of course you expect teething problems when you're trying to reimagine an entire ecosystem and get it right to improve profits.

There's going to be teething troubles.

So there again, you kind of demonstrate a certain amount of sympathy for Mitchells, but at the same time, you have come on here to tell the world that you believe that this syndrome is caused by their GM quails.

It's quite a confusing position, I think, that you're taking.

Not quite the whistleblower.

Maybe a whistle wearer.

A whistle-nudger.

I've got a whistle.

I don't want to, but

they know I've got it.

Right.

Are you worried about reprisals from the Mitchells company after this interview?

There's only so many reprisals a man can take in his life to still have fear of reprisals, really.

I've had so many reprisals from various legal systems around the world, from Mitchells themselves, from patients, from

animals, farmers,

child support ombudsmen.

I mean, you name it.

I've had reprisals all the live-long day, my whole life.

So I'm...

Yeah, they can do what they want, frankly.

Okay.

Put it this way.

For every pound I earn, slightly over 96 pence

is ring-fenced by various legal and social services authorities across the world.

Right.

So that's just automatically taken from.

It's just gone.

It's just gone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I can imagine you're mainly a sort of cash vet these days.

I try to be where I can.

Cash and edible goods.

Well, thank you for talking with us today, Bob.

This has been very enlightening.

And maybe let's just finish

with a little thank you to a man that, you know, we've never mentioned before in the podcast, and I'm amazed we haven't.

A big thank you, retrospectively, to Jacobinius Ars.

Good old Jacobinius.

And I will reiterate, it is actually worth visiting, his stuffed corpse in one of the closets in Neuschwanstein Castle.

People can contact me online.

I'll tell you which of the ushers it is

you need to slip 20 euros to.

And in you go.

As a keen young post-grad,

I made the trip to Neuschvenstein

as you kind of have to, as a rite of passage in the history game,

and

paid the little fee to go and

take a look.

It's really quite something.

He is absolutely huge and

smooth, like mahogany.

Like a kind of wooden zeppelin trapped in a cupboard.

It's quite something to behold.

I would would like to think that the expression on his face is one of pride.

In fact, I would say he is bursting with pride.

His eyes have burst with pride.

The back of his head had burst open with

pride and maggots.

And his testicles

were swollen with

whatever amount of pride it takes to match the size and texture of a cantaloupe melon.

A big thanks to Bob Truscottik and Professor James Harkam for those interviews.

If you want more information about Jacobinius R.

Syndrome, of course, there is the Beef and Dairy Network website or make your way to your local beef information center.

And finally, we want to remind those of you affected that we are here for you.

Not in any meaningful, physical, or concrete way, but we are here for you.

And remember, don't lie with a quail,

not this weekend.

So, that's all we've got time for this month.

But if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to the website now where you'll find all the usual stuff, as well as our off-topic section, where this month we see how good Sabrina Carpenter is at actual carpentry.

So, until next time, beef out.

Thanks to Mike Kozniak, Mike Shepard, Tom Crowley, and Linnea Sage.

Hello, this is Alex.

Hello, this is Katie.

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