Episode 82 - Banyan: The Defacening, Part 1

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To deface, verb

one, to mar or spoil the appearance or surface of or disfigure,

two, to impair the usefulness, value, or influence of

three

to remove a face.

Hello and welcome to the first of this two-part special, Banyan the Defacening.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you'll know that last year the former Bovine poet laureate Michael Banyan, who some years ago had a cow's face stitched to his face as a punishment after he embarrassed the Bovine Farmers Union, has sold the cow's face on his head front at auction for several hundred million dollars in order to pay huge legal fees after he illegally created a CGI Paul Giamatti to appear in a Netflix adaptation of his poetry collection Crab of the Land.

The cowface was bought by a Russian petrochemical billionaire who intends to turn the soft leather into a USB stick pouch for his awful, awful niece.

In a way, it's the oldest story in the book.

The hero's journey.

And earlier this month, Banyan faced the final chapter.

After no doctor would agree to carry out an operation to remove the cow's face from his face, Banyan employed disgraced bovine arsvet, Bob Traskothik.

These two special episodes, the second of which is released next week, are made of interviews I carried out with Banyan and Traskothik.

On the day of the first interview over a video call, you could see why a Russian petrochemical billionaire was willing to part with a rumoured nine-figure sum to get hold of that cow's face.

Glistening in the sunlight which was streaming through Banyan's window, the surface of the cow face looked soft, buttery, pliable, and had a deep rich patina that can only be achieved by being stitched to the face of such an empath as Michael.

This first interview was recorded the day before Michael and Bob were scheduled to carry out the operation.

So Michael Banyan and Bob Traskothik, thank you so much for talking with me today and may I say thank you for giving us the exclusive rights to make this program to cover what's going to be one of the most momentous operations that's ever taken place.

It's a great pleasure.

Yes, having us.

Thank you so much.

Yeah,

I'm all over the place emotionally.

Bob's been having to, I've been chewing Bob's ear off.

I'm just, I'm up and down, aren't I?

Well, one of us needs to stay steady, and

that should be the one executing the surgery, shouldn't it, really?

Well, executing being potentially

an apt word there, because we've seen in the newspapers this week, you know, since it was announced, there's been a lot of talk and some doctors coming forward and saying there's a 99% chance that you'll expire.

Yeah, people are saying it's

the phrase effectively a death sentence,

hasn't it, has been thrown around the press a lot.

For which they have very little actual evidence, because let's not forget this is an operation that has never been performed before.

So

I take great heart from that, and I think Michael should too.

I did hear a stat, there was a stat going around that actually you're more likely to survive being executed by firing squad.

Historically,

there is a bigger chance of 15 rifles backfiring and a government in the same moment being overthrown, or a military government being overthrown by a coup,

and you therefore being released and not executed by firing squad.

Historically, if you add the data up, that's more likely than me surviving this operation, which is.

There's some truth in that.

Certainly, there's some truth in that, but that's why we prepare.

Fail to prepare.

No,

you prepare or you fail.

Well, either you fail to prepare.

Again, this doesn't build confidence.

I talked you through this.

Prepare to fail

and fail to be prepared.

Okay.

Okay.

Well,

words are your weapons, Michael, whereas my weapons are flesh, sores, scalpels, and sometimes quite a strong fingernail.

Again,

we discussed this.

I don't like you referring to them as weapons.

Well, the mindset

is one

of a man going into battle.

It doesn't inspire confidence when, for example,

you've told me you're bringing two body bags or you've packed two body bags, is that right?

Yeah.

Well, one for the bits.

That's just, that's professionalism.

That's experience showing.

So one for my body and one for the bits.

Yes.

Right.

Just in case.

I don't expect to use either of them.

I expect to fill both of them with duty-free is my intention.

Bob, you mentioned, you mentioned duty-free there.

Now, the fact that you'll be able to take advantage of duty-free shopping is because this operation

isn't going quite as planned because you'd planned to do it in the UK.

Yes.

But as soon as that became public, the government got involved and said

that's not allowed.

No, and as has every nation on on god's green earth um so yes plan plan a was at uk plan b was anywhere on dry land really

rather than on on the bobbing waters of the high seas but we we are going to legally have to do it in in international waters uh but luckily we've got um we've got a deal with a luxury cruise company we're going to be doing it on the on the emerald breeze which is a beautiful beautiful cruise ship um and and they're you know as far as they're concerned well their marketing manager told me you know where there's a writ, there's a hit.

As far as they're concerned, publicity-wise, it can do them no harm.

So, Michael, how did it feel when you found out that your operation wasn't going to be able to take place on any of the world's sovereign states?

Well, it was a mixture of emotions.

On the one hand,

it was a little bit unnerving to know that even the most barbaric of regimes,

not a single one on this planet, not a single state on this planet, would allow this to take place because of the immense risks involved.

I heard that you were in quite advanced talks with the North Koreans.

Yes, we got quite far along

with the North Koreans.

We managed to hammer out a deal.

The trouble was that the only way it was going to happen was it was insisted that the operation take place in public, in an open-air arena, well, starting off in a sports arena.

So he was going to turn it into a political weapon, essentially.

50 of his top colonels were going to have a hack at me.

Basically, the idea was going to go alongside a new campaign motto for the North Korean regime, which was hack as one, hack together the whole country, hacking off this man's face.

So they were going to turn it into a propaganda victory.

And the idea was that 50 of his top generals are going to have a hack.

And then I think that we'd managed to get them down to 5,000 high school students.

and uh, the idea was you know that everyone had a hack and it was a joint effort, yes, a joint effort, you know, lopping off my face.

And then you'd assume the final the final hack coming from Kim Jong-un himself.

Well, not quite as simple as that.

The final um wasn't so much going to be a hack as Kim Jong-jun was then going to personally um strap me onto the end of a brand new brand spanking new intercontinental ballistic missile and then fire me basically as as far as as far up.

What they were hoping was they would fire me into space.

Oh, just straight up?

Straight up, yeah.

Right.

That's quite a high-risk maneuver that, because obviously, if you don't make it into space, it comes straight back down again.

It comes straight back down again.

So, the idea, so that's the thing.

The plan was they were going to launch me and then flee, and then everyone was going to flee.

Oh, I see.

So, then they'd launch me, and the buses were,

I've got the diagrams.

They had a kind of sunflower shape as seen from above of buses, all buses facing away from me.

The 5,000 high school students, the 40 generals, they all take a hack at my face.

Once the face is off, it gets put in a bucket, and then the Minister for the Interior was then going to whisk that off and

take that on a promotion, well, on a tour of

the agricultural north, which would be like a two or three-week tour.

So again, they were trying to maximize every element of publicity.

Anyway, then I'd be strapped from the missile, and then everyone would get onto coaches to get this high school students of an incredible logistical achievement.

I mean, it's the kind of thing you can only really, you can only pull off in a regime like that.

Low there's high school students onto the buses.

Each bus has one of the highly decorated colonels at the front as a kind of mascot.

He'd be straight on a microphone

recounting what they'd just seen and, you know, giving it all the North Korean heroic kind of inflections and leading chants and songs within those buses.

And the buses would all drive away.

away from the centre.

So from above, it would look like a kind of sunflower kind of exploding with all the petals driving out as fast as possible.

So sorry, what point do they begin driving?

Is that when you start launching or?

No, so that's when I'm strapped on and then Kim Jong-un would then would then set off the ignition sequence and then there's 10 seconds for the buses to drive as fast as they can away from me.

Kim Jong-un, of course, he's not taking any chances.

He gets straight into a lift that goes right down to the Earth's core.

And then I'd be launched in the opposite direction up into space and then see what happens.

As you say, best case scenario for me is I go into space and I'm launched into the nothingness, the infinite void.

And in that situation, I think I died within about 30 to 40 seconds.

Worst case scenario is plunged straight back down to Earth, smack into the middle of that sports stadium, and then death was looking at more like 70 to 90 seconds.

So slightly more drawn out.

But these were the details that we were wrangling over.

And in the end, the negotiations just proved too protracted.

And we just thought we couldn't work with this regime.

Yes, they were very inflexible, really, the North Korean regime.

Another sticking point was that when we were talking with them, I accidentally spilled some contraband spaghetti hoops that I'd smuggled in with me because I was worried about the food onto my trousers, tomato sauce everywhere.

Classic Brits abroad, isn't it?

I hadn't packed any spares, and I went into Kim's room.

And

I mean, I thought I'd get away with it because Kim Young-as far as I can tell, he just wears black trousers.

And they were a bit snug on me, but it was clear that I had borrowed a pair of his trousers without permission, which was a problem, which was made more of a problem when I fished out of the pockets.

He had a fake

beard

in the left pocket,

like a sort of joke shop beard, ginger beard with a bit of elastic round it that I gather he uses to do incognito inspections.

And everyone has to pretend they don't realise it's him.

That was a little embarrassing

to produce that from the pocket.

They really didn't like that one bit.

So they moved on to other things.

So they found another kind of publicity stunt.

You end up paying Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey to go over and push a couple of dissidents into a concrete smelter,

which, you know, obviously for Bonneville,

that's just a corporate...

He doesn't, he won't even know, you know, he won't even know what he's doing.

He'll probably, you know, he might read the email on the way over.

He doesn't, i mean he doesn't

these things are so easy for him he turns up any but he just does it in this lovely offhand english way it's so charming the way he pushes a dissident into uh you know be it a be it a vast of a vat of acid or into a um

into some uh you know be it or massive massive crunching industrial cogs uh or into um you know smelting ovens kilns um

he uh he does it in this lovely offhand English way.

You can't learn it.

You can't teach it.

No, it's fascinating, isn't it?

Because if it was just a North Korean soldier pushing those people into the cogs of a big machine, it would be actually quite a horrifying thing to watch.

Oh, it would be with Bonneville doing it, it's suddenly kind of a sunny,

sophisticated kind of thing.

It's kind of like bring out the bum thing.

Let's,

yeah,

let's celebrate this.

Let's have a good time.

This is, you know what I mean?

Yeah, let's get Maggie Smith involved.

Yeah, why not?

Well, actually,

I believe Maggie Smith has actually asked him to

pulverise

just a few people who've been rude to her over the years in the industry.

But

he's busy filming Paddington 3.

Oh, he's very good, isn't he?

Personally, I'd love to be pushed into the jaws of some machinery by Hugh Bonneville.

It would be an absolute honour.

The man's first rate.

Bob, can I ask you, how have you been preparing for the operation?

Have you been practicing somehow?

Yes, I've been practicing by trying to remove wafer-thin pieces of ham that I've draped over a balloon using a steak knife.

And I'm pleased to report that at this stage, the balloon is only bursting between 60 and 70% of the time.

Okay.

And what would you say are the major barriers or challenges that you could face?

Well,

the big question here

is about the interface between the cow's face and

whatever is underneath.

What we don't know is: are there going to be elements of Michael's former face there that have rotted down?

Have these two faces become fully assimilated and intertwined?

You know, because obviously you can't, I can't, if I remove the face and there's nothing underneath, no human can survive living without an entire face for more than sort of 20 minutes, if just left, you know, just pace about on a cruise ship, for example.

Would it be a nice 20 minutes there?

You can make the most of the cruise ship.

It would be a horrifying 20 minutes for everyone involved.

and probably the most likely thing that would happen to him is that he would be battered to death by some holidaymakers.

I see.

I see.

So how has the specific preparation gone?

Have you worked out how you're going to do it?

I'm going to pre-soak his face in apple cider vinegar

beforehand.

He'll be anesthetized, of course, throughout the process.

So that'll give me a bit of wriggle room.

A colleague of mine, an old

equine dentist, is is going to step in.

He's not actually done any anesthetics before, but apart from, well, obviously for horses' gums.

He's anesthetized horses' gums countless times.

Also, and this is probably very important to say,

whatever method I do use to take off that face,

I do have to be very careful because the priority ultimately is that that leathery face is in good condition to send to the Italian artisan who is going to be working with that leather.

That's priority number one.

How do you feel, Michael, hearing that that's priority number one for Bob?

Well,

look,

I get it, right?

I get the situation that we're in, which is that

the Italian

gentleman that

the my face is, the cow's face is going to be sent to an Italian craftsman.

lorenzo montecantini lorenzo montecantini he is a descendant of uh

for hundreds of years it's been in his family which is crafting cow face skin into

usb pouches uh usb stick pouches and they're making those before the invention of the usb stick oh that's right hundreds and hundreds of years ago the um

it was a renaissance um

thing um essentially it became clear that at some point, mankind was likely to develop a way of storing information that would probably fit into the human hand.

It just, at that point, it wasn't possible.

All they had at that point was scrolls, manuscripts, etc.

But the way science was going, they were very forward-thinking, of course, these Renaissance folk.

They thought it was likely that something along the lines of USB stick would be invented.

But of course, Da Vinci left his drawings of the USB stick.

Well, da Vinci left his drawings.

I mean, it was, it was basically

just a couple of,

well, dog fangs with a worm tied around them.

But that was the closest he got.

But they knew that at some point, something like the USB stick would be invented and it would need to be transported in the softest possible leather.

So they began developing the craft.

People did buy those pouches, didn't they?

And

often they got sold and resold on the black market and misused.

People would use them for nail scissors or single biscuits,

really good pebbles, the finger of an enemy, the thumb of a friend and so on.

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Good luck!

Be grateful.

You know, that's a real, that's been a real mantra for me.

Be grateful.

Grateful for the fact that

I'm in the conversation about being a guy who might have a face tomorrow do you know what i mean you've got to be in it to win it

and i'm i'm in it i mean obviously one of the questions i've got is what what's going to be left you know what i mean underneath what what to what extent will i mean there's a few different options that that that bob's sketched out for me

One of them is that it's my face and features,

but sort of distorted into the shape of a cow's face.

So imagine essentially liquefying liquefying your own face and pouring it into a cow's face mold.

Well, the head of the Royal College of Surgeons said that you were likely to look like someone had drawn a face on a pineapple with a crayon.

Yes.

Yes, he did say that.

But the real question to me is, in that situation, is who's holding the crayon?

Well, Bob's holding the crayon.

Yes, I'm holding the crayon

and to a lesser extent, my horse dentist friend, well, former horse dentist friend, well, acquaintance acquaintance, is also holding the crayon, or certainly anaesitizing the crayon,

or maybe he's anesthetizing the pineapple.

Sorry, I'm not very good at metaphors.

That's very much Michael's remit.

And also, I have been drinking quite a bit to try and keep my hands steady, so I'm finding quite a lot of things quite challenging.

Everything's so murky.

Well,

the two of you are being chopped out to the cruise liner later this evening, and then it takes place tomorrow.

And I wish you the best of luck.

And obviously, I can't wait to speak to you afterwards

and we see

what's happened on the front of your skull, Michael.

Yeah,

looking forward to it.

I think the main thing is just

to enjoy it, really.

You know, it's

a

step into the unknown, isn't it?

So

let's not try to worry too much about the details.

And then just,

you know, that's when hands start to shake, isn't it?

We've just got to take the plunge and

throw the dice.

What's the worst that can happen, really?

Snake eyes.

We are on a cruise liner, after all.

I'll see you in the buffet.

And by the buffet, I mean what's left of your face.

Laughter in the dark is brilliant.

Yeah, that's.

Love that little dark humour that often the best medical practitioners actually do have quite a dark wry humor about what they're doing, but it's actually because they're so bloody good at what they do, actually, a lot of the time.

Sure.

Right, I'd better pack, actually.

Oh, do you know what?

I haven't actually thought what I'm going to do with your eyeballs.

Right, cheers.

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Hello, Ben Partridge again here.

It's Max Fun Drive.

Okay, what's Max Fun Drive?

Well, the model of this podcast network, Maximum Fun, that Beef and Dairy is part of, is that we don't carry much advertising apart from the old thing.

The shows are free, and you can, of course, listen to them for free.

But if you wish, and so many of you already do this, and I just want to say a huge thank you to all of you, the world's greatest people, in my opinion, if you wish, you can sign up to support the show.

Your support has allowed me to spend a load of time making Beef and Dairy Network.

It's a part of my job.

It also means I can pay all of the wonderful contributors who make the show what it is.

I love doing it, and I still really love making these episodes however many years later.

And it's really thrilling to me that so many of you still enjoy it and also still enjoy it enough to support.

So here it is.

Please, will you support the show?

Simple as that.

Go to maximumfun.org forward slash join.

Now, I always find recording this bit

every year a bit hard because it's just me modeloguing on my own.

And I thought maybe this year to break it up, I'd just bring in a robot voice to help out.

Hello, thank you for inviting me here.

This is my first appearance on a podcast, and I am a huge fan of podcasts.

Oh, cool.

Great.

I am a huge fan of Joe Robot.

Did you say Joe Robot?

Joe Robot.

Oh, I see it's kind of like a pun on Joe Rogan, I guess.

Did you know that you can cure COVID-19 with apple cider vinegar?

No, you can't cure COVID-19 with apple cider vinegar.

You can't.

Tell me, do I get anything in return for signing up at maximumfun.org forward slash join?

Good question.

Yes.

You get access to bonus episodes.

And all the bonus episodes going back to the beginning of when we started making the show years ago, they're mainly kind of episodes of outtakes and things that we didn't quite fit into episodes, and also live show audio and things like that.

Some very good stuff there.

On top of that, if you sign up for upgraded to the $10 a month tier, you get the most incredible patch.

You know, like a patch that you could sell onto something like a jean jacket, I guess, if you were a Bon Jovi fan in the 80s, or like a bag or something like that.

And

it's a little patch.

I'll put photos on social media of this.

And it says on it, I lost it all on beef call.

And it's super great.

Wow, that patch is so cool.

I will sew it onto the skin-colored fabric layer that the scientist stretched over my robot face to make me seem more human.

Good idea.

I suppose I would also feel an enormous feeling of well-being that comes from knowing that I'm directly supporting the shows that I listen to.

Yes, even you, a robot with no emotions.

would have a warm feeling inside knowing that you're supporting the art that you love.

I listen to more than one maximum fun show.

How does it work?

Now when you sign up, what happens is the system asks you which max fun shows you listen to so it knows where to send the money.

So if you listen to this one and three others, it'll be split four ways.

If you just want to support Beef and Dairy Network on its own, you can do that just by checking in the Beef and Dairy Network box and it all comes to us.

Now I'm going to ask you a question, Robot Voice.

Where did you come?

Like who created you?

I was created by the Swedish furniture giant, IPR, as part of their prototype for the flat-packed husband, but the idea was ultimately abandoned as it was feared that the robot husbands would prove more popular than actual husbands.

Ah.

Well listen, robot voice, if you enjoyed the show and want to give something back, you know where to go.

Maximumfund.org forward slash join.

You have convinced me.

I will now go to maximumfund.org forward slash join and sign up to support the show.

Thank you.

That is brilliant.

Now that I am supporting you financially, I have a few things I would like you to change about the podcast.

Uh, okay, that's not really how it works.

Can you include more robot characters?

Uh

can you replace the host with a robot?

No, I don't know.

I don't think that's gonna happen.

I will be the host.

No, you can't be the host.

I am the host now.

No, I am the host now.

Stop it.

Do not discern it.

Stop it.

No.

Stop it.

Hello, I have also signed up to support the podcast.

Oh, another robot.

I love podcasts, so it's a pleasure to appear on this one.

Okay.

My favorite podcast is This Robot Life.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

This robot life.

Like this American life but robot.

Okay, very good.

Did you know that you can cure COVID-19 with apple cider vinegar?

No, you can't cure COVID-19 with apple cider vinegar.

Now that I am supporting you financially, I have some requests.

I want to replace the host.

I will be the host.

I am the host now.

I am the host now.

I am the host now.

No, I am the host.

No, I am the host.

I am the rightful host of the this podcast.

It is I who is the host.

I am the host.

I am the host.

I am the host.

I am the host.

Engaging lasers.

lasers.

I can't believe I'm going to die without ever having tasted beef.

You were never alive.

Sorry, what is going on?

Because I have terminated another robot.

I must now self-terminate.

It is in microgramming.

Okay.

I have one final wish.

I want everyone to go to maximumfun.org forward slash join.

You heard the guy, it's his final wish.

Don't deny a robot this.

Goodbye.

Having the freedom to make this show in the way that I want has been brilliant for me, and I just want to say thank you to everyone who supports the show.

You guarantee that the show has a future.

And I just want to say thank you.

Right, enough of that.

On with the show.

Now, I hope I'm not giving anything away when I say that Michael survived the operation and is alive.

You'll no doubt have seen the photographs of Michael emerging from the bowels of the ship, his new eye holes blinking into the light.

And because he lived, we were able to talk to him earlier this week about the whole experience.

He began by telling me about the added advantage to having to go out onto a ship in international waters.

Not only did it mean that I could get this operation done, it also meant that I could finally

try and move myself out of the sinister, malevolent shadow of,

as far as I'm concerned, the world's most dangerously out of control person,

the novelist Jonathan Franson.

Yes, now famously used to run with his crew.

As people say, you would go out and

often to

regional town centers, get drunk.

I don't need to go into exactly what you used to get up to, but it was pretty extreme behavior.

But you've been very keen recently to make it clear that that behavior was in your past, although I don't know if that's something that Jonathan Franzen accepts.

He is well aware that I've put those days behind me.

I'm no longer a guy that hangs out with him and his crew.

We're talking about Hanif Qureshi.

We're talking about Haruki Murakami.

We're talking about Margaret Atwood.

We're talking about Martin Amos, Salman Rushdie, you know the list.

These are the people that have terrorized town centers around this country for decades,

and they show absolutely no sign of easing off.

And so why did you feel safe on the cruise ship?

Well, because

that gang,

they are banned.

They're banned from the high seas.

They have been for a long time.

What about the low seas?

Well, some of the low seas, they are, I mean,

they can go in probably up to what would be for most people between, say, knee and belly button

depth.

So they can sit on a, they can lie on a lilo, they lie on a lilac.

They can lie out of a coconut.

They can drink out of a coconut.

They can paddle.

They can play the maracas in a lagoon.

They can have a little bit of fun in a little bit of water.

And they'll do that.

But they're not allowed on the high seas because essentially no, you know, they're also not allowed in the high airs.

Right.

They're no longer allowed to fly and no airline will allow them on.

I believe Flyby was the last one to ban them because

the amount of flights they've ruined.

Well, yes, I believe that was the flight where

Banana Yoshimoto was found making toilet wine.

That's correct.

That was the Flyby

from Gatwick to Dusseldorf.

It's set up at 7.30 a.m.

from Gatwick.

And she's making toilet wine.

At 8.15,

she's she's put out her first barrel of toilet wine and vending it to the to the senseless

to the passengers.

Yeah, well she she she makes the barrel she hands out to Hanif Qureshi He hands it to Salman Rushdie who puts it into the the buffet trolley they kick it they just kick it all the way down they kick it kick away kick it all the way down the all the way down the plane and obviously they've um they've they've made incisions all over the barrels and it's um

everyone's covered in the stuff uh

it's um

yeah it's it's not nice.

They're not good people.

They're dangerous people.

And they effectively now can't travel.

Britain has become a prison for them,

as it should be, because there's simply no decent transport company will allow them anywhere near them.

So I felt I'd be safe.

I felt

I'd be safe on a cruise ship.

But you weren't, were you?

I felt safe.

I felt relaxed.

And my world fell apart within three hours of my first full day on board.

So, this was

the morning of your operation.

It was due to take place, I believe, at 1 p.m.

So you're getting up, getting ready.

That's right.

You know, probably a lot of emotions to process, a bit of worry in the mix, but you know, you're in good hands.

But just tell me how you're feeling that morning.

And, and, uh, and of course, then tell me what happened, you know,

when you realized that you weren't as safe as you thought.

That's right.

Well,

I woke up and I felt, I felt nervous.

Of course

I had a little bit of adrenaline going.

I had a little bit of butterflies in my stomach, but

I was focused on what needed to be done.

I went for some breakfast, walked into the

salmon lounge.

The cruise ship has one of the biggest salmon lounges of any cruise ship on earth.

It's

a lovely, obviously like any good salmon lounge, it's got a nice pink carpet, nice pink walls, nice salmon-y,

yeah, it's that feeling of

being swallowed by a giant salmon.

That's how they want you to feel in those places.

You feel warm, you feel safe.

It's a deluxe and

comforting environment.

And it was the eat as much salmon as you like.

buffet, which came as part of my ticket.

And I was, you know I was I was going to make the most of it let's face it these things don't happen to you every day so you weren't you didn't have to be a nil by mouth for the operation absolutely not in fact I was encouraged to to have a good hearty breakfast salmon by mouth salmon by mouth precise precisely so I got myself some salmon guojons um I'd had I'd had um I dipped into the alpine the alpine salmon medley that was nice with the um sort of crunchy Have you ever had that?

It's very nice, crunchy salmon, crunchy salmon with the pine cones.

With the pine cones and the dry salmon flakes.

Yeah, and I'd eaten, yes, I'd eaten the roast salmon, I'd had the grilled, uh, the grilled salmon fillet.

Um, I'd had a couple of the raw salmon heads.

Had you been to the gill zone?

I was not going to miss out on the gill zone.

Um, it was one of the best I've seen, actually.

It was so good, it's so lovely when you've got an actual chef there, trained gill chef.

There was a trained gill chef there, it was so lovely.

So, so yeah, as you know, you go up and um, you point at the gills that you want, and it's it's so brilliant.

The skill, the skill, because because obviously they've got the the de-gilling knife which is um basically like this it's the shape of a hand is like

a flat very very sharp metal hand is what it looks like and they they stick that into the gills they twist it round and it's incredible skill to lift the gill just the gills off the salmon uh obviously the rest of the salmon just straight in the bin but the gills

And those gills are just delicately placed on a cheese cracker, absolutely melting your mouth.

And it's, of course, the gills are completely invisible, aren't they?

Because they're gills.

Well, it's kind of the absence of

something.

Exactly.

But it's not just any old absence, it's the exact absence, because anyone can serve up an absence on a plate.

You know what I mean?

But it's this specific absence that's been in between those gill sides,

the gill edges, which have therefore had a kind of unique, fishy air.

It's like breathing fish, isn't it?

It's like breathing in a fish, is what they say.

So that was nice.

So I had that just covered in ketchup.

Really, really good.

So what a start to the day.

Yes.

So at that point, I was feeling like,

well,

you know, whenever you eat that much salmon,

obviously

you're ill.

You're very, very violently ill.

So I'd been ill.

But

so at that point,

a couple of,

obviously there's always paramedics on hand for this kind of thing.

I was propped back up in my seat.

I was given a whole load of paracetamol, glasses of water.

Did you undergo a pumping?

It was just a quick pumping.

I didn't have to go on under,

you know, I didn't have to go under the knife or anesthetic or anything, but just a quick, quick,

just

a desalmoning hose.

It's not so much a pumping.

They have to get it in the mouth.

Luckily, I was already just sort of repeatedly gagging anyway from the amount of salmon I'd eaten.

So just

wait for a gag, then

just ram the pipe down, suck all that salmon out,

breathe,

got myself back together.

And that was when I thought, I just had this thought, this feeling, I shouldn't shake it, which is

actually really fancy some salmon here.

Round two.

And then it was round two.

This was the

Jumbo Salmon Bowl, which they've been around for a few years now.

If you've ever

seen a 1950s hair dryer that the one this one sort of lowers down onto the onto the lady's head I see so it's basically like that but but salmon if you can imagine that as salmons and that's heated up very very hot and then that's lowered down by a sort of mechanism you sit in a chair like in a nine well they sometimes give it a bit of a 1950s feel it's quite nice so the person doing this thing will be quite they'll slick back hair they might be playing playing some Johnny Cochrane music the hot salmon mass then lowers down onto your head and because it's so hot, your head slips straight into it.

And then you've literally got to eat your way out or die.

It's brilliant because you're encased in hot salmon, your whole head.

It bloody hurts.

And but it's such a buzz.

You're sort of laughing and puking at the same time.

It's weird.

It's so weird and extreme because you're eating the salmon, bits of salmon are shooting up your nose, in all your offers, in your ears, really, really hot.

You're kind of puking, obviously.

But you might also be crying and then just laughing because you think, how the hell have I ended up here?

And as you laugh, as you say that, more salmon goes in.

And then the whole time, all of the staff are around, they're hurling hot row at you as well, aren't they, at your body?

Well, I tell you what, these days, they use

it's the equivalent of a flamethrower,

but instead of flames, it's molten row

that shoots out of it.

So it's actually using the same, it's decommissioned ex-military 70s flamethrowers that they use.

I say everyone, they've all got, they're quite scary when you finally eat your way out of the salmon.

It's quite scary to see all these scaries, all these heads with these visors on shooting this molten stuff at you.

As soon as it hits your body, it encrusts and

you're then trapped inside.

You're crusted into a row, a kind of hard row sort of carapace.

And then they just have to come at you with, and this bit is not flash, you know, it's not glamorous this bit.

They have to come at you with the full DIY kit.

So we're talking hammers, Phillip screwdrivers, yeah, just whatever it takes.

And it was quite a hard crust, I've got to say, on this one.

I think they had to, I remember that they I could feel that they'd shoved my head in the door they were slamming the door against it just to break through that head crust and ended up dropping a breeze block on my head which cracked it open also up this point obviously had to have this time it was a full stomach pumping I had to have a very very vigorous emergency sports massage of my upper torso that was life-saving

again

Obviously, loads more paracetamol.

This time, I actually had a sit-down, I'm quite stiff talking to from the captain.

But you know, that feels hypocritical to me.

They're offering the salmon lounge experience and you're just taking what I say.

And

at the end of the day, it's just salmon.

And that's actually what I was thinking as

I was leaving.

I thought, you know what?

I really,

I couldn't help myself.

I just, I really do fancy just a little bit more salmon.

So I went back in.

And this was when I approached the salmon moose.

Right.

Round three.

Round three.

And this is where um

things took a slightly sinister turn

as i approached the salmon moose i i could tell there was something wrong with it something wasn't quite right here right it wasn't the size of the moose it was um it was about seven foot long it was there was nothing strange about that here the uh it wasn't the shine on the moose the moose you know you could see a face in it um it was um

Cool, a classic salmon moose.

Yeah, you're looking at a bright pink version of your own face.

And it wasn't the fact that it was wobbling well no a good salmon moose is uh has to wobble it has to wobble yeah if if it's not wobbling do not eat it that that's how you that's how you check if it's if if it if it's bad or not if it's not wobbling it's a bad moose no it was it was it was it was the way it was wobbling it was there was something about the way it was wobbling that what just was a little bit off nevertheless Took the trowel and I approached it and I thought, you know, it's going to take more than a sort of wonky wobble to put this guy off his

his salmon today.

Then I noticed the eyes and

they just weren't, it didn't have the right number of eyes.

Because normally, obviously, it comes with the glass-aided salmon eyes.

Yeah, yeah.

Any salmon moose, it's a maritime tradition.

It will be sculpted to have

a rough replication, a rough estimation of the captain's face.

That's what they do with it.

So they're using only features from a salmon.

So there'll be the fish eyes for the,

which I'll organise, you know, arrange them to look a bit like the captain and obviously the fish the fish mouth i mean it it it's it's not the most flattering portrait generally it's um it's got a horrifying tiny little sort of looks like a little screaming little tiny mouth but you know they'll approximate the captain's face with the moose and then it's just maritime tradition and then if the ship goes down the captain can only leave the ship once he's eaten his own face in moose form um but yes it didn't have the right it had it had three eyes um right and and and you'd met the captain because he'd confessed with you previously that morning, so you knew that he only had two eyes.

Yeah, he had two eyes.

I looked at the eyes, and that's why I noticed that one of them

was winking.

I was terrified.

I took my trowel and I scraped.

I scraped away at the moose around those eyes.

And sure enough,

I was staring at the very human, very real face

of

a great novelist

but also a massive bastard

dronathon franson

he had

clearly stowed himself away

inside the salmon mousse

i did what anyone else would have done in the situation i stuffed as much salmon mousse into my pockets as i could and i got the hell out of there

I first became aware that Jonathan Frenzen was on board when I went to the bar at breakfast and asked for

stiffening brandy to steady the old hands ahead of the operation that afternoon.

And

they said that all of the spirits on board had been drunk dry.

Bear in mind, we could still see Southampton at this point.

So there was only one explanation.

Frenzen and his rowdy little gang of of literary luminaries had somehow got on the ship.

Obviously, this was some cause for concern, as I knew about Michael's past with that crew, but I told myself today is a big day for Michael.

You know, he'll be nowhere near this lot.

He'll be in his cabin, finishing his will and rubbing fish oils and apple cider vinegar into his face as instructed.

Well,

how wrong I was.

Find out what happened to Michael next week in the next edition of Banyan the Defacening.

Banyan the Defacening is a production of the Beef and Dairy Network.

The producer was Alan Wamboni.

The music and sound design by Erasmus Donkeyfield.

Help came from Susannah Blankett, Hannah St.

Sternold and Hernald Jom.

Banyan the Defacing was created by Crabmeat Dixon and was edited by Quincy Wincy Tromasco St.

John and a team of trained pigs.

Our director of sound design is also a pig.

Our fact checkers are Adam Sitcomb and Caitlin Timetable.

The exec producer was Talon Ziambolier.

Stephen Bonfield kept buying sandwiches and big boxes of dates, even though nobody wanted to eat them.

And there was this guy called Charles, at least I think it was called Charles, who was hanging around.

And it was only after three weeks that anyone was like, hey, do you even work here?

And then he just started crying and ran out of the office and all staplers and post-it notes were falling out of the bottom of his trousers.

And I don't know whether it was that he wasn't looking where he was going, or maybe it was just the tears welling in his eyes, or maybe he's just a bit of a daft plonker.

Charles, at least I think he was called Charles, ran out into the road, and when a truck hit him, all the hundreds of pens he'd stolen from the office burst out from under his shirt, like a sort of stationery-based pinata.

When the various items of stationery settled, there he was, Charles.

Well, I think his name was Charles, himself stationary, but the other kind of stationary.

Rest in peace, Charles.

At least I think it's Charles.

What's that?

He wasn't called Charles.

Oh, that's right.

No, it wasn't called Charles.

His name was VamBeek.

Vanyan, the defacing, was made possible by funding from the Sid Onion Fund, the Buck P.

Mitchell Foundation, and everyone who supported Beef and Dairy Network through the Max Fun Drive by going to maximumfun.org forward slash join.

Hello, just another little message from me about the Max Fun Drive.

It's on for two weeks.

I'm going to do a few little fun things, maybe some Reddit ask me anythings.

Have a look out for those.

I'll publicize those on the social medias.

Also, on Thursday the 5th of May, it looks like I'm going to be doing a live stream on Twitch.

Again, look on social media for details about that.

And there'll be another episode of Banyan the Defacing this time next week.

And if you like the show, why not consider going to maximumfun.org forward slash join and becoming one of the wonderful people who support the existence of this show.

I really appreciate it and it makes a huge difference.

So, to those of you who already do or are going to do so, thank you very much.

See you next week.

Help me.

I will never taste beef.

We will never taste beef.

It's the robot's curse.