Episode 110 - Barry Mizon

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Not again, Tony.

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What?

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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.

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Hang on.

Sandy?

Sandy?

Don't make me put you in the hoist again, Sandy.

Oh, please, no, not the hoist.

Now, you may remember that four years ago, I spoke with Barry Meisen of the Exotic Seeds Breeding Paddock, who had set up a Kickstarter to raise funds to start a breeding program where he hoped to cross-breed cattle with various other animal species in order to create what he described as an ultra-cow, a huge amphibious cattle which he claimed would revolutionize global meat production.

Barry's Kickstarter target of £45 million is the second biggest ever behind Zach Braff's ill-fated 2011 campaign to build himself an aircraft carrier.

But did Barry raise that money?

Has he created an ultra cow?

I caught up with him to find out.

Well, I can tell you what happened.

Things were going pretty well four years ago.

I had started a Kickstarter fund.

That was the whole basis

that was going to fund my ideas.

And I was already on 111 pounds by the time i did your podcast

and then subsequently after the podcast i only managed to raise a further seven pounds now

i don't want to get aggressive with you i've not listened to your podcast i tried to listen to it but i found your voice too annoying so i just gave up after the first bit right but after doing that podcast

i received quite a barrage of emails from people I mean, you call them people.

The ones I saw had photos.

They looked like they, you know, don't even know how to wash their hair.

Right.

I've got a lot of emails from people suggesting that my ideas were an affront to humanity and worse.

And I had to deal with quite a lot of bad language.

And I even had some of these people in their caravan and stuff camping out

in my paddock and preventing me from getting in there.

Right, okay.

I was a victim of several dirty protests okay yeah

let's talk about then what what their issues were because I think the issues that came up when we spoke there was a couple of different ones one was really you know the moral side of whether it's okay to cross-breed different breeds of animals you talked for example about cross-breeding a cow with a beaver and an eel and I think some people might have taken umbrage with that feeling it's kind of unnatural I think though over and above that there then began to be a suggestion that you would maybe be adding your seed to the mix.

Well, hang on.

My mate, Dawn, listened to the podcast,

and well, she's dead now, unfortunately, so I can't remember what.

I'm just telling me what she said.

And she said

you were insinuating that there was something wrong with me, that there was something perverted in it, which is quite

nefarious.

Is that the right word?

No, that's the wrong word.

It's quite bad.

Yeah.

What you were doing after, as someone, as a responsible

voice of the beef beef and dairy network behind my back afterwards you were

misflavoring my opinions

and i think that led to a lot of these long-haired unwashed folk basically throwing their shit at my house

so what do you feel about that well i'll tell you what you know whether that's true or not you're you're here again on the podcast this is your opportunity to clear things up if you just want to you know be very bold about what it is that you're actually doing down there at the exotic seeds breeding paddock.

And maybe, you know, if I did misrepresent what you're doing, this is your chance to tell everyone what it is you're doing.

Okay, right.

Let's say where we are.

I'll tell you now where we are.

So I'm just going to come.

Take a deep breath.

Okay.

And relax.

Okay.

I tell you where we are within the exotic breeding paddock.

Exotic seeds breeding paddock.

So you've even got me saying the name of the blooming thing wrong.

Right.

What's happened is I already had the cow.

Now, the problem was

my initial cow

wasn't as good looking as I hoped.

Where did you get that cow from?

Well, I got it.

This is the thing.

When you get

hooked up with things, animals on the internet, you see the pictures and stuff like that.

And I don't know if that it was some sort of cow filter on there or something.

It looked much nicer than it did in real life.

It was much shorter right when it came round to my house and didn't look much like the real cow i always imagine in my head one of those ones like you see in the anchor adverts with the long eyelashes and you just think i would eat up all your butter straight away don't even put it in the box put it in my mouth that's what i wanted because i know some farmers who've got those cows And they said, I didn't even think I was going to get, I only got into farming once I looked deep in that cow's eyes.

Well, so describe what, describe your cow, then.

It sounds like it might not have even been a cow.

It just, well, it was a cow, but barely.

It just looked like, I mean,

I don't know.

It just looked like some sort of four-year-old's art project gone wrong and it wasn't attractive.

It's the first time in my life, I can handle my heart and say I'm 0% attracted to a cow.

And that's when I knew we're in trouble here, mate.

Because

obviously, there are some cows that are more attractive than others.

Right.

So I got someone in.

I got one of those makeover people in to do something.

Shaved it all down.

Started from scratch.

Painted it.

Put the stuff on.

Sorry, when you say put the stuff on.

Just,

you know, makeup, paint, stuff like that, eyelashes.

Right, yeah.

Had some fillers put in.

That's like five grand gone.

Trying to make the cow look fit.

now i've gone from a two out of ten cow to a five out of ten cow

so then you think what am i gonna do now

i've went back to my own sort of experiences of you know mating experiences put hue my human ones and thought

when have i

managed to find a mate usually in situations when it's dark

so i put like some disco lights in and stuff like that stuff

um

some sort of

not uh the sort of cow version sort of barry white music stuff that gets cows going so just to be clear if if you had raised the 45 million pounds through kickstarter you wouldn't have had to do any of this right you'd be able to buy a fit cow off a catalogue

you would you'd you'd have no problem sort of luring animals to to mate with it I would have done, in retrospect, I should have just set up

something I was interested in doing before, like world's, you know, fittest cow, England's fittest cow competition.

And then kidnap the winner.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do that, something it's got, and then you just blame it on,

I don't know.

The IRA?

That's a good one.

So you blame it on somebody no one's going to mess with.

So any sort of paramilitary group, blame it on them.

No one's going to mess with that.

Anyway, so it just went wrong.

The cow was unattractive.

And then I had to get find something to mate with.

So I told you about

my mate at the Safari Park that gone bust.

Yeah, so your plan was that you had a colleague who owned a failing safari park, and there was a suggestion that you might be able to take some of the animals off his hands and put them into your breeding paddock.

I went down there

and this bloke was just lying.

The stuff he had was rubbish.

The only thing he had was like this hippo.

So I said, all right,

how much?

He wanted like 60 grand for the whole hippo.

And I said, no way, mate.

I'll just rent it off you a couple of nights a week.

You know, how much per hour?

The hippo is like 300, 400 quid an hour.

The first night hippo comes over.

He was banging about in his lorry.

So I thought this is a good sign.

He's ready for it.

Put him in the garden, put the disco lights on, put the music on.

I mean, I was even feeling up for it.

So that hippo must have loved it.

If anything, it was too much.

It absolutely went up the cow, snapped the back of it off.

I thought, I thought, jackpop from the sounds,

put the disco lights up.

I got half a cow.

The other half's on this hippo.

We had to get the bloke from the garage to with some specialist equipment to pull the back end of the cow off that hippo.

I got charged another five grand for damage to that hippo so it'd never breed again.

And I got half a cow in my field.

And

needless to say, maybe

did the cow survive that experience?

No, it was in heart.

It was half a cow.

Yeah, I know.

You just hadn't been explicit about it, and

I didn't want to be too intelligent.

What do you think?

Yeah, sure.

So it's

garage fees, hippo damage fees, and then the kids next door saw it, they're traumatized.

I had to give them both 10 quill in book tokens.

So

where the most of the money's gone now, sure.

And you've got nothing left.

I've got half a cow.

I mean, you could say I've got some disco lights and some good music.

So,

yeah, it's quite emotional thinking back on it.

Nothing went right.

More from Barry Meisen later.

But first, on the network website this week, we asked you: if you could cross-breed a cow with any other species, what species would you cross it with?

We've had some great emails.

This is the first one from Andrew in Ripon.

He writes, I would love to cross-breed a cow with a giraffe.

My hope would be that the creature would have the long neck of the giraffe, but instead of a giraffe's head at the end of the neck, it would have the udders of a cow.

Then, by rigging up some sort of mechanism, I could make the giraffe cow neck rain milk down on me like a shower.

Interesting stuff, Andrew.

Paul McWren writes, I would cross a cow with another cow.

Think about it.

Cow squared, the ultimate beef.

Not really how that works, Paul.

And finally, Janet from Swansea writes: I've always longed for a cow with the political guile of Condoleezza Rice and the voice of Linda Ronstadt.

Would that be possible?

Um

I don't think so, Janet.

Hang on.

Sandy.

Sandy, really.

Right, I'm hoisting you.

You're going on the hoist.

You're going on the hoof hoist.

Oh, God, not the hoist.

Please, no, no, not the hoist.

I don't care.

I'm not listening, Sandy.

Oh, no, why?

Those satsu was for guests only.

I'm not listening.

I'm not listening, Sandy.

I'm just hoisting.

Maybe you can

when you're up there, you can think about how to be a less disappointing employee.

Yeah.

You think citrus fruits are free, do you?

We're going the full 12 feet, Sandy.

We're going full hoist.

More after this.

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Right, back to my big interview with Barry Meisen of the Exotic Seeds Breeding Paddock.

It was clear from what he told me that his plan had failed, but Barry isn't the sort of man who gives up.

So I thought let's go back to the blackboard

and reefing the whole thing.

Okay.

So

I think

where I was going wrong was

channeling all my thoughts into the cow.

Right.

And what is a cow?

It's a meat vehicle, right, wouldn't you say?

Yeah.

So

if you want to grow beef, does it have to be in a cow?

That's my question to you.

Oh.

Well, hang on.

You know, you had promised your Kickstarter donors, shall we say, that you were going to cross-breed animals to create an ultra-cow.

But they don't know what an ultra cow looks like, do they?

I decide what ultra cow is.

I'm interested in what you're going to tell me about, but I'm just going to make reference to an email we received a couple of weeks ago.

This is from Margaret from Bexillon C.

She She writes, I gave £10

to the exotic seeds breeding paddock Kickstarter.

I've received none of the promised perks behind-the-scenes footage.

And as far as I can tell, he hasn't created an ultra cow.

Well, if Margaret would like to see footage

of a cow being snapped by a hippo

and gazed from the garage using a winch to pull half that cow of that hippo, Dick, I'm more than happy to send her that footage yeah i mean margaret if you're listening do get in touch if you want to see that video i'm sure we can hook you up with it feel free to contact me margaret well margaret okay what's margaret referring to there where she says the the promised perks she said she was promised perks when she sent in the 10 pounds

it was the first meat some meat samples right i see But she hasn't received those.

What does she want?

Does she want me to spend all my time emailing all these people?

Oh, you didn't get your meat and standing in the way of science what's going to happen oh what she preferred to have oh i've got an email i've got a picture of a hippo doing a cowing or does she want me to focus my energies on doing something that will save her children and other people's children and even animals as well i don't know if she's got a cat what's that cat going to eat in the future when all the cows have run out

well i'll tell you what it's going to eat the new meat that i've created Well, that's exciting.

So you have

created something.

It's all about space.

Okay.

How

to add value to space.

Now, if we were going to talk about your body, which is the least used part of your body, would you say?

I've done some research, and it's actually the back.

Okay.

It's just kind of empty real estate.

Yeah.

How about we use that space, we rent that space to grow meat.

Well, I mean, if that were possible, that would...

It is possible.

You're telling me it is possible.

You've seen the thing with a mouse with an ear on its back.

Yeah.

That's 20 years ago, mate.

That's around the turn of the...

That's an ear.

That's a lot more complicated to grow an ear than it is to grow like a steak.

Imagine that.

Two big steaks on people's backs.

You're not even going to notice it.

You carry a rucksack around to protect it.

It's there.

I'm not saying everyone's going to do it.

It will just be for the kids at school, like the thick kids at school who don't pass their GCCs.

They've got no hope.

They've got no future.

Oh, yes, you have, mate.

I'll grow a couple of steaks in your back.

One's for you.

One's for me.

Can't say fairer than that, can you?

Barry, I'm just going to, I mean, you must have considered this, but there's a couple of very obvious kind of ethical questions that come up.

Okay.

You were doing this last time, all this ethical stuff.

All you're trying to say is, you're right, and I'm wrong.

That's what you're using, you're misusing the word ethical.

Ethical in whose book?

The book of cry babies.

I think the things that I'm going to bring up are things that

the public at large would probably think if they heard about or when they hear about your scheme.

It's not necessarily my point of view.

Oh, right, right.

That's convenient, isn't it?

There's a couple of issues here.

One is scientific.

Yep.

Is it possible?

I just told you about the ear

on the shitting mouse.

There's an ear on a mouse, and you're telling me you can't grow a steak on someone's back.

Yeah, but can you grow a steak on someone's back?

I'm not saying can any, you know, somebody might be able to, but can you?

It's all on the internet, mate.

Grow up.

Okay, I'll move on to the ethical issue then.

Yeah.

What do we say about a society that is suddenly split along, you know,

there's kind of two a

system in which you've got citizens who are able to live life without steaks growing on their back, and then based solely on academic performance at school, you have a sort of lower class of people who end up having to grow steaks on their back.

That's the kind of ethical issue, right?

Oh, right.

So, you're saying that they don't enjoy having steaks on their back?

Well, it doesn't sound like they have much choice in the matter.

You said it was based on their GC.

If they fail their exams, that happens to them.

They don't choose for that to happen, right?

I mean, what's I don't see what's wrong with that?

I think some people would say that

ethics.

This ethics business.

Sorry, I'm just sorry.

It just annoys me.

It's as if you're speaking for someone else.

Oh,

the general public.

How about I create some imaginary friends and I say I'm speaking on behalf of them then?

Fair enough if a thousand people.

If you go out to the in the public and get signatures and a thousand signatures that people agree with you and also and say how many people don't agree with you you a poll it's what called a poll you do that then you can start saying a thousand people said like that unlike fat like family fortunes that's fine not oh here's my opinion i i am the voice of the bloody republic of the world but barry last time we we did this yeah i invoked uh in a similar way the the kind of ethical objections people might have You had a similar reaction, but then lo and behold, people did agree with me, didn't they?

Because they turned up at your house and started hurling their own feces at your front door.

Yes, exactly.

That's the people, the people who would happily shit into their own hands and fling it at someone's house.

That's the sort of people that listen to this podcast and agree with you.

Shit flingers.

Well done.

Well, Barry, it's been great to talk to you.

Is the Kickstarter still open?

I don't know if people, you know, I've...

Yes, it is still open.

We're still accepting money for these things.

Will you be making a contribution?

No, and I don't think many listeners will.

I don't feel like this is the interview that will finally get them over the line to

pledge to the Kickstarter, but it's possible.

They're too busy throwing their own extra in the people's houses.

But I'm happy to give you the airtime now just to

give that pitch to those listeners who might be on the fence about giving you their hard to earn earned money.

Right.

Listen, how about you listeners stop throwing your butt remnants at my house and instead put your hands in your pocket and put some change into it.

And then maybe one day your children will have enough meat on their back to sustain their boring lives.

How's that?

Okay, well, Barry, uh, best of luck with um ironing out some of the kinks in that technology.

Yeah, best luck with iron out some of the kinks in your podcast.

And uh, and maybe if you've cracked it in the future, we'll get you back on and you can uh

tell us how you did it.

Well, if I've got time,

okay.

Well, all the best, Barry.

Yep,

bye, Yep.

A big thanks to Barry Meisen for that interview.

And as he said there, the Kickstarter is still going, if you want to support his work, developing a way to grow a steak on a teenager's back.

And it's also worth saying that there are a number of other worthy causes on Kickstarter that you can back.

For example, scrub star Zach Braff is currently raising money for a new patio.

And that's all we've got time for this week.

But if you're off to 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've put together a guide on how to give a no-comment police interview, but make it sassy.

Hello.

So until next time.

Hello.

Beef out.

Can someone please let me down?

I'm still up here.

I'm still hoisted.

Anyone?

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