August 1, 2025 • 56 mins
Feeling a bit giddy from having fun at The Game Fair... Richard, Callum and Richard discuss tricking people into foraging in the wrong areas, meeting listeners at the Game Fair, mushrooms, Grey Squirrels, and the harvest.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.
Send us photos of your interesting trinkets that your other half wants to burn or bin as submissions to the calendar or for fun at: contact@countryslide.co.uk
Links
- North Wales Mushrooms on Instagram
- Subscribe on Patreon for extra content (you can cancel at any time)
- If you enjoy what we do, consider a one-off tip on Ko-fi
- CountrySlide website
- Negus' book tour dates can be found here
The Hosts
Richard Negus website
Callum McInerney-Riley website
Richard Prideaux website
Edited and Produced by Amy Green for Rural and Outdoor.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.
Send us photos of your interesting trinkets that your other half wants to burn or bin as submissions to the calendar or for fun at: contact@countryslide.co.uk
Links
- North Wales Mushrooms on Instagram
- Subscribe on Patreon for extra content (you can cancel at any time)
- If you enjoy what we do, consider a one-off tip on Ko-fi
- CountrySlide website
- Negus' book tour dates can be found here
The Hosts
Richard Negus website
Callum McInerney-Riley website
Richard Prideaux website
Edited and Produced by Amy Green for Rural and Outdoor.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Who is the nomber number.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
He's going to jump in a minute because she knows
what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Honestly, you see, you you live like in a different
world to me, Callum.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It's Callum's little world of urbanite thing that we just
don't see.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
The internet, the internet that way to catch on. I
keep telling you. I mean you literally just did the dance.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
No, no dance now are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
No? No, no, that little dance I just did? Was
that what the ladies do at the game fair when
they're on the du Barri stand. See, if you get
to the game fair early enough, not like you callum
there at one pm. If you get to the game
fair early for some reason, the do Barry people do
a sort of like nineteen eighty style like walm up
(00:52):
dance to get them into sales mode, I think. And
so they basically you got this glamorous sort of ladies
and these very handsome young men wearing you know, tweed
mini skirts. That's the girls, and all the chaps are
all dressed the same, and they do this sort of
dance right where they're going this go out and sell,
(01:15):
and then they go and stand in there washing up
bowls of water. That's that's what happens on the Barry stand.
And if you got there early, you know this calum
is real great fun to watch.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I'm not sure. I'm not sure that's the entertainment I
need in my life.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That's the lynch pin of the rural economy, then, is it.
That's that sort of thing that's just what's keeping us.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Going standing around in washing up bowls full of water,
flogging leather boots when Robert was invented by us at the.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Drew Barrymore store.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
By true Barry Moore Do Barry I huh do you
be Michael Barrymore? No?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Are they the ones that are like leather wellies?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
That's right. Yes, they're very, very trendy, very expensive, although
I did see less about this year of the Do
Barry boots. But they're very basically yeah, exactly, you know,
to be worn with a very short tweed mini skirt
and and you wear yours with of course they do.
(02:30):
You know many human.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I'll tell you what, I saw a hell of a
lot of and I didn't realize how popular they were because, uh,
it's weird because the people I experienced in the countryside
are actually people from the countryside and not people because
playing people in the countryside, and there was a lot
of a lot of the Chatham loafer quite like them,
(02:57):
though there was so many sold.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Tasseled one or is that like a boat shoe.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, they're like a boat shoe, but they're a really
good version of the boat shoe. But it is funny
that that the the actual people that I know that
do work in the countryside and the outdoors are dressed
in outdoory clothing. And then there's the subset of you know,
(03:29):
your miniskirts and your some some men were very well dressed.
Who was actually attacked you on Instagram in his tweed
waistcoat and thing. He looked incredible man.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Of a man I think you'll find.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yes, Nigel Vardi is a fascinating guy. He comes some
darbers shit and he's like a proper mountaineer. And twenty
years ago he ascended or attempted to ascend some ridiculous
peak in Alaska and McKinley. McKinley and his and the
(04:13):
weather came in not known to them and it was
sort of like a once in a sort of fifty
year storm and he had the most beautiful Frostby. So
he's lost most of his fingers, he's lost all of
his toes, he lost a large portion of his nose,
and there's a there's a really good I'm going to
(04:35):
watch it this evening. There's a fantastic documentary that's been
made about that called frost Bitten on Amazon Prime. So
he was sort of he received some funding and some
help and he pitched it and made this film because
he's returned back to the mountain and met some of
the people who rescued him and his climbing body off
(04:58):
the off Mount McKinley, and he is top but he's
always so well dressed. But the amazing thing about him,
although he's only got sort of stumps of fingers, he
still shoots avidly, but he's always beautifully turned out in
a tweed suit. And then so he sort of does
speaking public speaking and all that is an author and
(05:19):
he's climbed humpting peaks. So basically, cow, you and I
can shut up and we'll just let Richard and he
talk about crampons and ice picks and bits falling off
on a mountain.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, that sounds like that sounds like an adventurous podcast.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, I'm deliberately staying quiet now and to not correct
anything you've just said. I can do it live with Nigel.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Okay, well, I see I don't know anything about this,
because let's be honest, I'd come from Suffolk and I
get VERTI go if I climb the stairs.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So you know it's you're you've got a phobia of
contour lines.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, we don't need them. I told you. It's a
bit like the internet. Mountains never catch on, never catch on,
just not needed, not needed. Got water towers to pump
water up and down and the sea and that's fine. No.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well, I'm going to be driving over your way in
a couple of weeks time. So once I get past
I don't know the Coventry area, I'll basically be able
to see the top of your house.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, yes, exactly. No hills and you need to develop
your gills. Mm hmm, well no hills, some gills yeah, Suffolk.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Shirt.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, these episodes the tourists no hills or gills. Yes,
you see. Do you know have you been watching this?
Callum is the Richard's been sending me through some brilliant
country slide.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
T shirt ideas.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
They make me chuckle and I keep because I can't
work AI like you was.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
The start of a pip claiming.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well he's just gone down that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You don't need to prove it to me to the
claims advisor.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, this whole podcast is just an attempt to get
Richard back into the workforce.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
That's right, exactly's a care in the community. This is
two hours so you can get his job, see Richard,
that's the side of things. I've been paid for this.
Do you do a Patreon plug right now?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It seems like yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
If if you want to make sure that Richard Negas
is in work, you could sign up to the Patreon
for just three pounds a month at country slide dot
co uk slash support and you get extra bodies, and
you get access to our WhatsApp group, which is like
nice Twitter, thank.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
You exactly, and the scars don't buy themselves anyway, So yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
The WhatsApp group for those who've been hearing give out
this for a few episodes. Now it's expanding out because
most patrons have joined, and there's a few extra special
people in there who are sort of friends of the
show and they've been allowed access to But we've we've
done it as a WhatsApp community, so everything's starting to
be sent shuttled off into little topic groups. We've got
(08:20):
a food and drink one, we've got a hunting and
fishing one, we've got one about cars and vehicles, and
people are sort of diving off into different chats because
it's so such a diverse set of topics that we
really have to break it all down. So it's now
becoming like a little forum almost, but it's very.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Active, is Richard, tell me what those what are those
mushrooms that you have picked in the food and drink WhatsApp?
What are those yellow mushrooms? And tell me about them
what you do with them?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
So they are they are Canthellus cabarius or siberias. They
are Chantrell's. So they are in growing in the ninety
acre woodland that we've manage, the sort of the long
thin one that's basically a gorge. And I've never seen
a flush like that in this late in July, So
what is it earlier late? It's quite late for these
(09:14):
the normally sort of earlier in July, but never this
much in one go. But on the way down there,
because I was driving down there, to go and clear
some trees off the track, and I'm bumped into a
guy called Mike and we were chatting because there's always
somebody scurrying around in the undergrowth when I go down
the footpath and it's sort of I wanted to find
out what it was up to. But it turns out
he runs the North Wales Mushrooms Instagram account, so I
(09:38):
urge you to go and have a look at that
because he finds very niche the weirdest and most wonderful
mushrooms all across North Wales. And so we spent half
an hour chatting about mushrooms. And there's some quite rare
ones in that woodland that we've got there, some spectacularly
rare ones.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
In fact, what's the one of the what classifies as
a rare mushroom?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Not many of them around?
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Wow, thanks for that. So give me an example.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's a definition. So there's a sort of cyanic thing.
There's basically one that doesn't quite glow in the dark,
but it's very very lime green, almost blue. It's it's
very weird color. It's almost metallic. You know, there's two
tone or three tone paint jobs. You used to get
on tvrs and things like that. Yeah, lescent, it looks
(10:27):
like that, but it's all blues and greens, and it's
a sort of it's a fruit to cose like.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And I think, and what do you do with what
do you do with those particular ones, those Chontorell's that
you pick? How will you cook them?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Like every good mushroom is cooked with garlic and butter
and effectively just ends up tasting of garlic and butter,
which is what most French cooking does with mushrooms is
just put them in with garlic and butter until you
can only taste garlic. But they are so Chamtorell's. They
have something called primitive gills on the underside, so you
have not al mustrooms have gills, but these do have
(11:01):
little gill bits underneath. But they as you get down
to the edge of the cap, they split into pears
and they go all wrinkly. So it looks like your
fingerprints when you've been in the bath for too long.
So it looks exactly like that, except it's egg yolk yellow.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Is there a mushroom that you would say that has
a unique and delicious flavor over the normal sort of things?
So you wouldn't sort of go and chuck garlic in.
There is there one that you pick and go all
they taste good.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
We were quite sep or puccini belitus edgeless. So we
take those and cut them and slice them and dry them,
and there they are very very special. They're actually better
dried quite like wood ear or jelly jelly.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Judea, which gives you the old passioned name that we
didn't we.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
No, no, but it's still the Latin name. Yeah, yeah.
But what we do with those is we dehydrate them
and they'll stay for years dehydrated. And then those are
the ones you've had, which are rehydrated in rum and
then dipped in liquid dark chocolate chocolate.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
They were young and they have that there's like no
other chocolate you've had because there's a slight bite in
the texture to you don't taste any mushroom at all.
You't taste the rum and the chocolate where they're the
best truffle we've ever had because they've got this sort
of slight audente bite to them. It's almost like eating
a slightly undercooked bit of rigotoyah, tasting.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Delicious d Turkish delight, almost lovely. Yeah, I mean I
got imagine, callum, do you do anything with wild mushrooms
in the autumn?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
No, I cooked a mushroom sauce tonight.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Actually it was quite good.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I don't do anything. We many have wild mushrooms that
used to trade.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Oh no, but I don't.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I mean, like, there isn't anywhere around here that I
know of. And I'm also not clever enough to successfully
pick mushrooms and work it all out. So I do
need I do need the help in hand.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But yeah, I did.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I n a guy that used to trade mushrooms, and
he said it was one of the worst businesses that
he ever had because he'd get them and then they'd
lose so much weight by within like twenty four hours,
that is, twenty five pound of kilo was only worth
fifty That is a thing.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Were they wild mushrooms he was selling?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Or yeah, he was selling quite a lot of Yeah,
quite a lot of wild mushrooms. Because it was French
and he still is French.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Lose your frenchness after all?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
While actually is it's perpetual, perpetually French.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
There's a T shirt idea.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Right then, dear listener, this is an insert recorded a
few days later, because at some point during this recording
Richard Suffolk Internet decided it didn't want to actually record,
so we have had to cobble this episode together a
little bit to account for that. So from memory, what
he had just asked me but didn't make its way
(14:27):
into the recording, was is it true that in France,
if you go to a pharmacy with your basket of mushrooms,
they'll tell you what species they are or if you
can eat them. It's meant to be true. So it's
one of those things. Yes, by law, if a pharmacist
should be able to tell you identify mushrooms for you.
(14:50):
The problem are there are about fourteen thousand species of
non microscopic fungi you're likely to come across in northern Europe.
So if you go into your pharmacy in beautiful France
with a basket full of unidentified things, what they might
do is pick out two or three that they are
really obvious and they're very commonly eaten, and then just
(15:11):
throw put the rest of the side and say, oh,
they're all inedible or toxic. So they in theory they
could what it actually turns out to be that you
can take in the basket and they will tell you
what commonly eaten ones can be found within that patch.
But this is the thing with you know, they always
people always say that the Europeans eats so many more
(15:34):
mushrooms than we do. And you know, they're always eating mushrooms.
They're always mushroom foraging. What they're doing is going back
to the same spot again and again and again even generationally,
to pick the same species again and again. So they're
not they don't know the names of fourteen thousand species.
They know where to find three species regularly. It's like
so it's like going back to the same apple tree
(15:55):
again and again to get apples and say, you're an
expert in apples.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
So this there's this lake in France. This is your
this is your wheelhouse. How do we end up in
your wheelhouse? We're talking about your world.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Bushroom.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Boy, there was this place in France and the guy
that run the lake, mister Gavie, used to go out
every single morning and he'd do exactly as you said.
He'd know where those mushrooms are and he's looking for
the same thing. Although there was a curveball throne and
(16:32):
thankfully he won't be listening to this. There was a
curveball throne that my friend bought some es cargo snails,
and he started cooking thees cargo snails, and mister Gavie
asked where he where he got them, so he pointed
(16:53):
to around the sort of low house that the toilet block.
Pointed to the toilet block, he said, I found them
over there. Next morning he wakes up, it's sort of
six am. Mister Gave's poking around looking at the toilet block.
(17:13):
And then the following morning, and then the following morning.
It got to about day four five, and it was
at such a point that he just couldn't bring himself
to say, actually, I was only joking because four days
(17:34):
on the bounce was quite the commitment. So he waited
off and I think, no exaggeration. Early morning, sort of
like summrise time. For about two weeks, poor old mister
Gavree went out to the toilet block, took the ten
minute walk and looked fores cargo snails that he could get.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
It didn't exist, imaginary snails. Do you go out and
get wild mushrooms, Richard? It sounds like a very new
thing to do.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Well, there's about three that I can identify and I
feel confident in and they are in caps, horse, mushrooms,
and puff balls. So I'm quite happy with those three
and I think I can wholeheartedly go and identify them.
There are others, because you know, my friend Ross Guidan
(18:28):
is a bit of a mushroom forager. The chat from
Oakbank Woodland and he got fed up in the end
of people sending him sort of blurred fogras saying is
this all right to eat?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Ross?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
And he said, I didn't want to be the man
who said yes, that's fine, And then discovered that and
I got a mushroom foraging book and I realized just
how many looks so similar to the ones that they said, well,
these are delicious, and then they're often confused with you know,
certain death cap and I thought, Nat, you know what,
do you know what, I'm not actually that close to
(19:02):
the land that I'm going to go and run the risk.
You know, I'm not that hungry that I'll do I'll
eat that or pick that that I've eaten, which I
don't really know. I mean, I would probably if I
came out for a joint with you and you're coming
up to or down, should I say to see us
and do and look at some of the fun guy
(19:23):
at Wickan, and I probably might feel more confident because
you would show me. And then I've sort of got
quite a good photograph of memory for that plant is this,
and that is that. Once I've seen it, once I go,
I can idea that. But now I'd be too scared.
I do eat most things that I shoot, and if
I can't eat them, and so I don't shoot shoveler
(19:46):
anymore because I think they just taste so disgusting. I think,
why do I want to shoot a shoveler when I
know I'm not going to eat it? There's no point
in it. I squirrels. We had a conversation on the
old the Country slide, what's happen about squirrels. I'll shoot
squirrels because there's scum and they need to die. But
(20:06):
I'm really not with going and skinning a flipping squirrel.
I would just quite happily chuck it out and say, oh,
buzzards eat that, and then you wouldn't eat it quite good.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Actually, yeah, that's that's a calum thing to do.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Squirrel We had a squirrel Crockett, and we also did
a squirrel. Squirrel pizza pizza.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Thin.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So the trick with a squirrel is to comfee it.
So we basically just filled a tray up with oil,
stuck that in the oven, and then comfeed the squirrel.
And that was really good because the fat means it
doesn't dry the meat out. But the trouble with the
(20:53):
pizza is when you stick it in the pizza oven,
it's insanely hot, like four hundred sea in the pizza rabon,
so it pretty much ensures that it dries out really quick.
So it's not great on a pizza, but it's fantastic
in a crockett.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
So another thing to try works well with scull and
rabbits and a few other things is to brine them. Yes, yes,
And when we do rabbits, we do them. I take
the bucket of brian out into the field so they
are gutted and skinned and then the thrown into the
briane immediately so.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Before the lactic acid sort of puts riga Martis sets in,
you're putting them on the still, yeah, probably.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
And it gets rid of all the prappertiness of them
and gets rid of the gaminess that you get with
squirddles as well, although one squirrel that we did years
ago Amy I think it was one of the first
squirrels Amy had butchered to eat. And we got around
the sort of skinning to the back end of it,
and we found another air rifle pellet in the leg
of the squirrel from someone else having a go at
(21:58):
it different caliber that obviously healed over a tough little.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Thing skinned munk jack before. And suddenly hear a pink
on the floor of the shed and that's that. There's
a two two air rifle pellet falls out of the
poor old things. Yeah, I know, I think it's I
think it's because you see, the munk jack is so
addicted now to going into village edge gardens and they've
(22:23):
got big shrub in these large gardens and they know
that's pretty safe. And I think these avid gardeners then
suddenly see this thing eating there whatever, and then they
give it a for some reason, they think that shooting
a two two air rifle is perfectly fine as a
munchchak it will only you know, shew it away. But
of course the reality, poor old thing is then bimbling
(22:45):
about with a two two air rifle pellet lodged halfway
between its sort of skin and its flesh.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I just realized we've just done something which was to
condemn the entirety of squirrels that we should show and
then didn't specify in any way, shape or form. Why
that's that's quite bad. It's quite bad to do.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
So what, right, let's all say which color of squad
were shooting?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Two?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Wait? What? Never shot square in my life?
Speaker 3 (23:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well, okay, here, because I plant a lot of trees
and I'm in the woods a lot, and they're not
really actually that bad with hedges, I'll be perfect eyed.
They don't do a lot of damage to hedges. But
they most definitely are buckers in the woods. But also
the sheer number of eggs that they take is remind
(23:44):
I don't think gigs. Yeah, eggs absolute menaces. Yeah, they're
an omnivorous creature and and they are most definitely Yeah,
there are men. This is the gray partridge. You'll see
them sometimes, but sort of. You know, a couple of
weeks back before the gray partries hatched, you will see
(24:08):
them scampering along a hedge a long way from any
nearest tree, and you think, well, why are you here.
You know, there's so much to eat on that tree,
which is five six hundred meters back there, And why
are they traversing on there? Because they are hunting for eggs,
and they're just as likely to come across a gray
partridge nest as they are for a sort of linet
(24:28):
yellow hammer low part of the hedge. That is fair
game as far as a gray squirrel is concerned.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I remember one of the Basque Squirrel Management Group things.
They said something along the lines of if you have
more than if you have at least five squirrels per hectare,
you are going to get at least a twenty percent
reduction in nesting success.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Small birds, Wow, they are ridiculously voracious because they can
just get to everywhere. There's no small bird that's going
to fight off a squirrel.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Now.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I heard a expert tree man say tree man with
an end.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It was Groot from the Revengers, but I didn't want
to name drop because you know, anyway, Groot told me.
He told me that the squirrels were the biggest problem.
I said, what's the biggest problem in here? Like protecting
(25:34):
all these trees that are in this park and he said,
it's one hundred percent squirrels. And he said, the worst
thing about it is the fact that they these days
they feed on the pheasant feeders, and they have twice
as many babies as they did before. They they it
doubles because their food is not scarce in any way,
(25:55):
shape or form. So the population becomes out of control
because they feed on the sort of pheasant feed most
of the year, most of the for the shooting season.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I think there's just generally food available all right over.
I think that's a bit erroneous to go and say that,
because if you look at I only feed now my
bird feeders, I only feed very very small, tiny little seeds,
sort of finch food, and the squirrels don't come. But
(26:29):
my father has an ongoing battle because he feeds all
sorts of things, peanuts and whatnot in his feeders. If
you think I can't remember the exact figures, I did
write an article once, but wild bird feeding was worth
something like I can't know how many millions to the
economy because of seeds and nuts sold in garden centers.
(26:52):
And you know, there's there's more wild bird food available
in the supermarket than there is cat and dog food,
and you know, the squirrels going this is brilliant. Thanks
very much, you've supplied me with all this.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah, I mean for us, it's the we've got a
gray squirrel. We have a red squirrel reintroduction project just
over the hill, and we are sort of linked by
linear woodland to that, so we are on the coal
zone to support that project, so we coull there, and
we also we've got a lot of beech trees and
(27:27):
they strip the bark and just completely strip everything off
the beach tree. It's apparently it's often lack of mating
opportunity or it's mating competition is the thing that makes
them do it. So it's not it's we used to
think it was there trying to get to the sugars
or something, but it seems to be that it's mostly
a mating competition. So because it happens at boundary areas.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So therefore like stripping bark is like wanking for squirrels
mine at all.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I was going to say, it's more like when you
take the label off a beer bottle.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, the same thought.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I was like, I was hoping that that was actually
not just to be thing it was it was a
ubiquitous thing that people always said.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
You ripped the beer, the labels off beer bottles where
there's a lack of mating opportunities.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
That's what Surely it's an urban legend, but that that
is a thing that has somehow been said not true.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Sat at a beer table and one of your mates
is ripping the label off th of Bex or something,
and someone else says, that's a sexual frustration. That's what
that means.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Is that what that alanis Morrissea Morrissett. All I want
to do is have some fun and Billy Billy's peeling
the labels from his bottles above it's about his is
about his sexual frustration. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Is that the ractual word?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah? Because I mean it does make sense.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah. So at the Game Fair, people kept coming up
to us and saying, this podcast. You just have no
idea where it's going to go. Listener, I can tell
you this is not intentional. This is happening in real time.
I have no idea what Callum is going to say next,
but I know it's unlikely to be something I can predict.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I mean, I did not have mushrooms and squirrels on
the ingo card or aecually frustrated squirrels and what's right's
been up to? I have no idea she's she's actually
way out of the list. She's she's been kept a
bit so ever since she burst out crying and then
they dragged her on, poor woman to go and smile inanely,
(29:41):
you know, into people saying I'm okay, I'm okay. That
she's literally been just kept under wraps. I think she's
like a cupboard somewhere.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
What's the wife of the scientology bloke that people don't
know if she's still alive or not. He's a bit
like that. There's a guy who wus scientology. No, no,
the guy runs scientology, and then his life hasn't been
seen in public for years, and there's this whole theory
about issue still alive.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Frozen frozen, Yeah, yeah, So let's talk about the game
fair a little bit, because we're going to talk about
it properly in the after show because we've got some
things to share.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
But what this was the first time you took the
family to the game fair, wasn't it, Callum?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yes, and it was very difficult. I don't know if
you've ever taken a one and a half year old
that just wants to run up to strange dogs and
stroke them that they don't know if they're safe or not.
But that was hard. But yes, we went Friday present cheeks,
making friends and that was quite good. Got to mink
(30:43):
some of you guys in the flesh, and then I
took the family on the Sunday, which I think traditionally
has been one of the quieter days, and it's not.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
It's a different crowd.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
The sort of people in the industry are Friday people,
jolly ups are Saturday people. It's a bit of a
mix of both jolly ups, and then on Sunday it's
people looking for a bargain and people that didn't. There
was quite a lot of people that were just like,
let's hope everything's fifty percent off. And it was quite quiet, actually,
(31:29):
and most people that are in the industry, that worked
in the industry looked like they'd already been there five days,
so their souls had left their bodies and they were
just an empty vessel. The parking attendant, I'm pretty sure
I woke him up as I entered the game fair.
He was just delirious and sort of half asleep. Leave
(31:49):
me alone, Leave me alone. I don't want to go
to school today. Huh, park over there.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Alike?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Done?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
How about how about you Richard, because you sort of
had this weird thing. You had like a piece of
elastic tying you to the gw CT stand and you
couldn't you couldn't go too far on the radius.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Could you know he's on tag now it was on tag? Yes,
I actually it's a bit of a go too far away.
I actually blew up.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
We've actually got Perdix pro tag that he's a good reference,
his ring friend ring fence to the gw CT stand
and he gets he gets Goo electrocuted?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Should he?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
There's the trail camera at the end of the row,
and if AI detects that there's a legus leaving the area,
then the dispatcher gamekeeper.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That's right, would kill me. Hired help. I did stay
a lot around the gw CT, I am what did
I do? I basically I was selling books. So we
managed to sell forty copies of Words from the Hedge,
for which I think sixty percent went to the trust.
(33:01):
So we managed to raise some decent money for the
for the for the trust, which was my ambition because
you know, I didn't get any royalties for that. They
get all the all the line share, so that was
all good. And I signed those met lots and lots
of lovely people who said nice things. I did a
talk in the car to Jonas, which I have to
(33:23):
say was very funny because I struck it absolutely right.
There are all these people, many far more famous than I,
who were winging about. There's only seven people listening to them.
Talk to Charlie Jacobe, and I was able to say, well,
I had a full house, and I didn't add I
had a full house because as soon as I started
(33:44):
talking the rain the heavens openly, it started raining and
everyone flocked in to anywhere and I had an absolute
full house, in fact, standing room only in there listening
to me. So it worked superbly and I just didn't
turn out. They know, if they've listened to this, did
anyone brave the rain? Just get away so I can
(34:08):
stand the wet. I hate him, Hedges, I hate him.
One of the interesting things I did find when I
when I did get away to have a wander around
was the number of people who tapped me on the
shoulder and they said, I you've got a book coming out.
And that was the moment it dawned on me that
this podcast that US three do is actually is in
(34:33):
a lot of people's ears, because they started regurgitating the
gags which we either intentionally or largely inadvertently use and
do as our sort of Fast Show esque punchlines, and
they were saying them back to me. And I was
minded of Paul white House saying, you know, do you
mind it when people go and sort of do Scorch
(34:55):
say shout Scorch you at him? And he said no,
he said, because I realized that actually people are watching
what I do. And I felt exactly the self same feeling,
and it was nice, hustling cry yeah, exactly exactly. We
ended up having to go to the Yetti stand, didn't we.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yeah, And we spent far too much money at the
Yetti stand, as always, because basically it's just stainless steel
bottles with a label on it that for some reason
cost thirty five pounds.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I only bought a coffee, a coffee, a little mini
coffee thing because I needed more of those.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, and what else we went? Oh yeah, we went
at the end of Friday, all the way over to
the fishing village, which was sort of this big experience
of Callum because it's this running joke that he always
goes to the game fair to work and take photos
and never goes to the fishing village.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, he got Traditionally they put the village the fishing village,
like I think it was. It was like one of
the days before, it was like three o'clock and I
asked I think it was asked you. I think I said,
where's the fishing village? And you said it's over there.
You go through this little thing, through this clearing, and
that it's about forty minutes walk. And I was like, well,
(36:06):
I'm not doing that.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
You know how I knew the Fishing village.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Was there because you actually went there.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
No, because it's next to the lake.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Ah. Yeah, do you know Charlie my son, My son,
Charlie and his mate James, who came with us, they
got around like who on a blanket? Was amazing. They
were everywhere and they I think by the time the
game fair was over, they knew every single storeholder. They'd
be walking past, going all right, and they just kept
coming back with with gizzets. And I'm not just talking
(36:37):
about little leaflets and stuff. Now they come back with,
oh god, did this deal with this bloke here? I
tooked to him. I said to you're my dad, and
they gave him this thing, right, So I think he's
probably said, oh, yeah, he'll write review for you about
this product or that one. So I'm waiting for my
email to go and sort of explode with people saying
when are you putting this into whatever magazine? And so
(36:58):
he got this stuff. But they went out. They had
two fishing lessons with that's Angling Trust. Yeah, they had
two fishing lessons with the Angling Trust. And so they
had to go one day with with a Roden reel
and then another day with a with a roach pole.
And Charlie caught i think three roach and a carp
(37:21):
and his mate James, who is actually quite an adept
carp angler his PB. He's a sort of good double
figure fish and he's he's very sort of self fishing
and goes off and spends nights out and stuff. He
caught less than Charlie. So Charlie had bragging rights.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah, it's always good. Yeah, that the Angler Trust. They
are they are the good guys getting out there. I
think you booked in a session for a junior and
you got sort of It wasn't just like I'll have
a go catch a fish. He actually spent like half
hour an hour or something, and they really give you
(38:01):
a taster of fishing. Yeah, what a great thing to do.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
So enough about the game, fair, let's go on to
the real news of the episode. What's this about the
big dead red deer on the A fourteen.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Oh my lord, honestly this so many people have told
me about that. Well, basically, he was a massive stag.
I mean he was big. I couldn't see his head.
But if you know the A fourteen and the way
into Various Edmonds, there is a place on the left
hand side is before you get in to the second
(38:37):
turn off into Various Emmons by Bury Bowl, you know,
so right by the tenpin bowling alley above there there was.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
The sugar towers in front of you.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, there's to your in front of you and to
your right just and there was this red stag that
was there, and he would I would think, well, I mean,
Monica the Glen would be having size MV against him
as a whopper, and obviously they blow up a bit
once I'm in laying. But how on earth? I mean,
I would hate to see the vehicle that hit it,
(39:07):
for a start, because I just think it if you
hit one of those things, it's about the size of
a of a Freezian ball. But secondly, what on earth
was it doing there? I mean, you know, I know
that munk jack now are going into much more sort
of urban areas, suburban areas, but this is not far
at all from the abbey gardens in barris em So
(39:30):
you've got a red stag there. So I can only
think that the poor old sod that deer pressure is
now getting such poor old lad he was on there,
and then I put that on our on our patron's
WhatsApp group, and then there are a few people from
this way. Oh I saw that. My mind, you'd have
to be blind not to see it. Was that blood
and big.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
It's like a hazard to shipping. Where are the new
where are the nearest reds?
Speaker 1 (39:56):
You have? We have a lot of yeah we do.
I mean, have you ever done any photo shoots with
red deer stalking my way?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Callum?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah? Done done a few actually, yeah, coloring the dose
and they did so much damage as well, Yeah, challenge
they do.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
But do you know what, they're a fascinating bunch. The
the Suffolk and Norfolk red deer. There are sort of
two distinct herds. There's one which sort of comes from
Houston Big Wood, so that's where the Duke of Grafton lives.
And there's a load there and they sort of cross
back and forth between South and Norfolk and into Suffolk
(40:43):
and then come down to me about my way. And
then there's another herd which is closer to the coast
at dune Itch and they reckon that most or some
of the car the cart. It's stags, carted stags. And
(41:03):
it's not just me who's heard that. And they Graham
Downing often talks about it. Was that the Norwich Staghounds
were a carted stag pack. In other words, they hunted
a tame or a number of tame stags which they
would then hummel them. So they would cut off the
antlers and they lived like horses out in the paddock
(41:25):
with them with the hunters, and then they would chuck
them on a car on like a horse box and
they would and the Norwich Staghouns were then go and
chuck this old stag out they'd give him fifteen twenty
minutes low to go and get away and wherever he went,
and then the hounds would hunt him, and then eventually
he would come to bay and then they would sort
(41:47):
of shoe him back onto the horse box a bit
stiff legged, and back he would go. And when they
banned that, which I think was in the nineteen fifties,
not so much because they thought it was cruel. It
was more because it was complete may because he had
this sort of semi tame red deer galumphing where he
wanted to and chased by a pack of hounds with
(42:07):
a load of sort of lunatics chasing on because of course,
you know, you never knew where this stag was going
to go. But they banned it. And I am told
that the guy who had those he basically went off,
you go, spanked him on the arse, and these great, big,
hefty stags went off and they sired the sort of
(42:28):
monstrous deer that we have now in in Suffolk and Norfolk,
and they are vast. But one decided to go and
be visit Saint Edmund's.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Tomb, descendant of which is now inflating somewhere on the
apt Yes exactly.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, Houston's like a old deer park, though, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
So?
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, that's what I assume. Where where those ones come from?
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Wow, I know how they got a train.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
They have got some I think they've done some deer
a test because there was.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yet another joke that no one will get.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Go on, thank you?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Do you remember those Do remember that woman who was
American who came over here a few years she still American, yes,
but do you remember that yank She was some sort
of influencer and she was sort of vaguely attractive, and
she went around doing all these sort of hunting things
and it was daubing herself with blood. And then she
(43:27):
went up to the highlands onto some islands somewhere, Yeah,
and she sort of said she was hunting wild sheep
and they were basically this thing was actually something like
a swaledale tup or something that she'd shot. Were this vast,
great big stag that she shot. There was some debate
(43:51):
over that because you could actually see if you looked
at one photograph that she placed on her Instagram thing,
that there was a tag that thing zeer And I
think someone managed to go and work out the tag
number and it had actually come from a deer farm
or certainly a herd in a deer park somewhere down here,
(44:13):
and so it's obviously taken up somewhere or other up north.
And the duty room was was they were almost doing
caged hunting like they do in America, you know, in Africa,
with sort of tame old lions that they put into
places where rich Yanks can go and shoot something and
with a guarantee.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yeah, it's the weird guarantee thing of this. They do
it in the States as well. They have high fence hunting, right,
but then there's this thing of tethered hunting.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Tethered tethered good grief, So this thing is actually tethered
to the ground and then you go and shoot it.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yes, good, oh god.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Honestly, some people are just weird, disgusting, just gris.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
How do you how do you get your off to that?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
How do you just sit there and be like, yeah,
here I have changed something up and then killed it
and now it's the champ.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
I like this universal rule of would you still do
that thing if people would never know you had done
it or you couldn't put it on social media and
you couldn't get any social points amongst your circle for
having done it. And if you would stop doing it,
then because you were only doing it to be seen
to be doing this thing, then you're probably not my
(45:31):
kind of person.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Bire that.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
That was what was the dog on the floor. That
was Amy's dog protesting against me not feeding him.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
The noise was incredible.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
I hope that comes out in the audio recording because
I heard that quite clearly. It was a very disapproving growth.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I thought Richard was either suddenly going to fly off
in the Millennium falcon alongside hands solo, or I thought
you want to get your dinner, mate, that's it. Well, no,
so we're there for once again we've discovered that there
are some bloody horrible people out there. But yes, so
the A fourteen stag is now put to bed, or
(46:16):
rather to the side of the road. He's thankfully and
is moldering away somewhere.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
We've talked before about moving dead horses. It's pretty much
the same for moving a rotten, dead red isn't. It's
a that's a winch job.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
There was a series of documentaries where they basically went
and did the working lines of very ordinary people. But
when you think about it, these ordinary people doing ordinary
jobs were actually fascinating. And this was about the twenty
five and the people who work on the M twenty five.
So they went and sort of sword it's like to
go and work on one of the big service stations
(46:52):
on the M twenty five and the people who do
the vehicle recovery and a traffic cot. But they also
had this guy who was a fascinating fella called the
who was from the Dead Dog Squad. And basically there
is a thing that when you get roadkill on the
M twenty five is they have to then shut a
lane off because if you got a stag that side,
(47:14):
you know, if you kept driving into that, you're going
to have a massive pile up. And they call them
the Dead Dog Squad because obviously for the dead dog connotation.
But they then had this bloke. It was very phlegmatic
about it. You know, you have to be going picking
up hideously mashed up and stinking and bloated badger carcasses
and all sorts of things. But his hobby was ferreting
(47:35):
and how he had managed to get permission to go
and ferret the rabbits alongside the M twenty five. He
was an absolute legend. Yeah, from the Dead Dog Squad.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Dead Dog Squad again another T shirt. But can they
only do dogs that they have to get someone else in?
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, ca, I tell you what, check my jurisdiction, mate,
change the I've got the big doors open on my
study here and it's like the M twenty five out
there at the moment, because of course everyone's desperately trying
to get harvest in because we've had a bit of
rain and the wheat's going a bit black. So I
think there's going to be some very tired lads and
(48:16):
lasses driving tractors and comrades. What does it mean when
the wheat goes black? Well, basically it ripened, so we
had in that long period of good heat and some
so the barley was fine. But then what happens is
then gets rained on and what it starts to do
is actually, whilst it's in the head of the wheat,
(48:36):
it gets a bit mill dewy and starts which is
the black, and it starts to actually sprout in the head.
So yeah, it's I mean that is suddenly Oh dear,
that crop is not worthless, but it's worth a lot less.
Than it was, and if you had milling wheat, I
(48:57):
stuff are going to be for human consumption. It's no
longer for human consumption because the weather has has dictated
against it. So the guys, so.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
They couldn't have got it earlier because it.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Started to know and also I don't think it quite
got there. I don't think it quite ripened sufficiently. And
then it's still warm, wet, and then it started doing
this little germination thing and turning black and mildewy in.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
Then you've got all the economics of if even if
it's still wet but is over okay quality, you've got
to pay the drying charge, and there's not enough of
a margin on it to cover the drying costs. And
it's there's a lot of people doing wheat this year
as well, it seems.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, because oil seed rape was it was. People have
got a bit frit of oil seed rape because you
know that there is you can't spray or what used
to sprout with so it goes eaten. So there's a
lot wheat around. The sort of wheat prices are high,
and of course wheat prices have dropped and yeah, so
it's all I mean, who would be a farmer. It's
(50:00):
also those things. You know, We've said it many a time.
Their job is hard enough. If you're an arable farm
you know your biggest enemy is the weather. You don't
want a sudden another enemy of a government who is
you know, ambivalent at best to you, to your work
and the pitiful margins that you're making. But they've got
that at the moment. And yeah, I don't think it's
(50:22):
going to be a terrible harvest. I don't think anyone's
shooting themselves. And one of the things I always finding
this is quite amazing about arable farmers is they're very
phlegmatic and understanding of the fact that they are at
the vagaries of the weather. They're not all just you know, going,
oh my god, the weather's terrible, let's shoot themselves. I go, oh, well,
that's happened, you know, swings aroundabouts. It will level itself
(50:42):
out next year.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
And I've seen a few of the sort of screenshots
and messages, and there's an old video that does a
rounds as well of people from the local village coming
out to you whilst you're in the middle of the harvest,
saying could you come back and do that tomorrow, yeah,
or can you keep keep the noise down or the
dust down as if as if it's a recreational thing
they're choosing to do.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
I went salmon fishing in Scotland once, and the harvesting
at you're little jokes that that don't lad you, just
the little smirk you give it. There's there's people that
are probably stopping your recording and and it down like
(51:25):
it's a Times crossword, thinking what did.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
You say, salmon? What was that reference? Someone?
Speaker 2 (51:32):
But there's probably there's going to be a list at
some point that get so obsessed with this they just
write down all the obscure references by Richard Prideo and
there will be a web page just for that.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
Yes, sorry salmon. Salmon fishing not in the Yemen. Told
me what happened with that one? Tear fishing not in
the Yemen.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
Yeah, we were. We were in this little body thing
and they were harvested all night. I just thought it
was the most fascinating thing to watch with all the
lights on and looks so dramatic. I don't know how
anyone could get the hunt with it. It was just well impressive.
I suppose I'd be trying to sleep. But you know,
(52:13):
just have another whiskey.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
You'll be right. You don't do drones, you.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
No, I have a drone.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
Man, You pay, you pay for a man, A gentleman. Gentlemen.
I've done a fair amount of filming of harvest of
one type or another, and it's you.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Know, it's one tracking vehicle tracking thing.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Is that that? Well, this is a few years ago,
so your vehicle tracking thing on DGI drones didn't work
that well then, So you just did it manually, which
means you've got to to do an orbit of a
of a combine as it's going up a hill. You've
got to match the speed and work out your distance
from it and keep the camera pointing at it and
all moving at the same time. So I just have
(52:58):
to turn my brain off and no one can talk
to me whilst I'm doing it. But I get some footage.
I'm going to drop it into the Patreon chat the
clips of one of the things I did. But it's
a lot of work to get it to do that.
But it isn't really good.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
I got a drone guy.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Yeah, Well I am the drone. I am the drone.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Fly your drone into the combine's header. Would you that
be quite an expensive and messy en.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
I've seen people do it. I've flown between the tractor
and the combine when they're filling up the grain car.
I've done that a couple of times and tracking eye
cab height with the combine. And there's one w because
there's a guy here who brings his sheep dog into
(53:44):
the cab with him. So the sheep dog is just
looking at stuff all the time, looking at the rabbits
and the things that are running out, and he's just
fixated on this drone. It is that. I'm going to
get that, to get that, to get that.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
It's not like Jeremy Squirrel's wonderful golden retriever who is
the most beautiful and soft idiot, like all golden retrievers are,
and she just sits in either the combine or the sprayer.
And his sprayer is quite sort of old school and
with a very small cab, and she's a very large dog.
(54:16):
And it's very funny. So all you see when he's
driving past it is Sprayer is his dog fai glass
tongue stuck out like some sot of window licking idiot.
Hi Jeremy, Hello, conder. His dog's name. It's like Maud
or something like that is absolutely wonderful and that gets
(54:37):
out and so much as say what he's a combine
is she's with him everywhere he goes. It's great. It's
window licking dog.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Ah. Well, so we started with squirrels and we've ended
with squirrels. Yeah, so I think it's a good time
to finish the main show and head onto the after show.
And for all of you people who only get the
main show, yes, we have teased a lot of the
after show stuff, but basically they're the ones that keep
the lights on around here is all those lovely patrons
who pay for things. So we're going to move on
(55:05):
over to the after show now. Thank you to everyone
who listens to the episode, and thank you to everyone
who we met and spoke to at the game Fare
and all the friends new and old that we saw there.
Right now, Oh bye, one thing before we go. Yeah,
(55:26):
I've just Amy's just prompted me.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
There's a thing.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
For the next few weeks. The main show is going
to be pre recorded. I know they're all pre recorded,
but they are four episodes that we recorded at the
game Fare. So we've got a couple of interviews with
CEOs of large organizations. We've got one of the guns
on pegs people, but we're not talking about shooting, we're
(55:51):
talking about other stuff. And then we've got two scientists
talking about conservation and ecology. So those are all the
interviews from the game there which will be going out
one a week and not be in place of the
main show. But it doesn't mean we'll be idle, because
Callum and I are going to sit down and record
some more episodes of The Mullet, our business spin off.
(56:15):
Richard and I have got a side project talking about
the news and stuff like that and the stuff that
Calendar doesn't really care about. And there's a whole new
exciting project which we haven't worked out yet, but that
is going to be something, something a bit tastier. Let's
say that.
Speaker 1 (56:34):
Yeah, it's that naked calendar, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (56:37):
It's a naked calendar. Right off to the after show
by Bye Bye
Who is the nomber number.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
He's going to jump in a minute because she knows
what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Honestly, you see, you you live like in a different
world to me, Callum.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It's Callum's little world of urbanite thing that we just
don't see.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
The internet, the internet that way to catch on. I
keep telling you. I mean you literally just did the dance.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
No, no dance now are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
No? No, no, that little dance I just did? Was
that what the ladies do at the game fair when
they're on the du Barri stand. See, if you get
to the game fair early enough, not like you callum
there at one pm. If you get to the game
fair early for some reason, the do Barry people do
a sort of like nineteen eighty style like walm up
(00:52):
dance to get them into sales mode, I think. And
so they basically you got this glamorous sort of ladies
and these very handsome young men wearing you know, tweed
mini skirts. That's the girls, and all the chaps are
all dressed the same, and they do this sort of
dance right where they're going this go out and sell,
(01:15):
and then they go and stand in there washing up
bowls of water. That's that's what happens on the Barry stand.
And if you got there early, you know this calum
is real great fun to watch.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I'm not sure. I'm not sure that's the entertainment I
need in my life.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That's the lynch pin of the rural economy, then, is it.
That's that sort of thing that's just what's keeping us.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Going standing around in washing up bowls full of water,
flogging leather boots when Robert was invented by us at the.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Drew Barrymore store.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
By true Barry Moore Do Barry I huh do you
be Michael Barrymore? No?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Are they the ones that are like leather wellies?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
That's right. Yes, they're very, very trendy, very expensive, although
I did see less about this year of the Do
Barry boots. But they're very basically yeah, exactly, you know,
to be worn with a very short tweed mini skirt
and and you wear yours with of course they do.
(02:30):
You know many human.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I'll tell you what, I saw a hell of a
lot of and I didn't realize how popular they were because, uh,
it's weird because the people I experienced in the countryside
are actually people from the countryside and not people because
playing people in the countryside, and there was a lot
of a lot of the Chatham loafer quite like them,
(02:57):
though there was so many sold.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Tasseled one or is that like a boat shoe.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, they're like a boat shoe, but they're a really
good version of the boat shoe. But it is funny
that that the the actual people that I know that
do work in the countryside and the outdoors are dressed
in outdoory clothing. And then there's the subset of you know,
(03:29):
your miniskirts and your some some men were very well dressed.
Who was actually attacked you on Instagram in his tweed
waistcoat and thing. He looked incredible man.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Of a man I think you'll find.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yes, Nigel Vardi is a fascinating guy. He comes some
darbers shit and he's like a proper mountaineer. And twenty
years ago he ascended or attempted to ascend some ridiculous
peak in Alaska and McKinley. McKinley and his and the
(04:13):
weather came in not known to them and it was
sort of like a once in a sort of fifty
year storm and he had the most beautiful Frostby. So
he's lost most of his fingers, he's lost all of
his toes, he lost a large portion of his nose,
and there's a there's a really good I'm going to
(04:35):
watch it this evening. There's a fantastic documentary that's been
made about that called frost Bitten on Amazon Prime. So
he was sort of he received some funding and some
help and he pitched it and made this film because
he's returned back to the mountain and met some of
the people who rescued him and his climbing body off
(04:58):
the off Mount McKinley, and he is top but he's
always so well dressed. But the amazing thing about him,
although he's only got sort of stumps of fingers, he
still shoots avidly, but he's always beautifully turned out in
a tweed suit. And then so he sort of does
speaking public speaking and all that is an author and
(05:19):
he's climbed humpting peaks. So basically, cow, you and I
can shut up and we'll just let Richard and he
talk about crampons and ice picks and bits falling off
on a mountain.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, that sounds like that sounds like an adventurous podcast.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, I'm deliberately staying quiet now and to not correct
anything you've just said. I can do it live with Nigel.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Okay, well, I see I don't know anything about this,
because let's be honest, I'd come from Suffolk and I
get VERTI go if I climb the stairs.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So you know it's you're you've got a phobia of
contour lines.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, we don't need them. I told you. It's a
bit like the internet. Mountains never catch on, never catch on,
just not needed, not needed. Got water towers to pump
water up and down and the sea and that's fine. No.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well, I'm going to be driving over your way in
a couple of weeks time. So once I get past
I don't know the Coventry area, I'll basically be able
to see the top of your house.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, yes, exactly. No hills and you need to develop
your gills. Mm hmm, well no hills, some gills yeah, Suffolk.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Shirt.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, these episodes the tourists no hills or gills. Yes,
you see. Do you know have you been watching this?
Callum is the Richard's been sending me through some brilliant
country slide.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
T shirt ideas.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
They make me chuckle and I keep because I can't
work AI like you was.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
The start of a pip claiming.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well he's just gone down that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
You don't need to prove it to me to the
claims advisor.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, this whole podcast is just an attempt to get
Richard back into the workforce.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
That's right, exactly's a care in the community. This is
two hours so you can get his job, see Richard,
that's the side of things. I've been paid for this.
Do you do a Patreon plug right now?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It seems like yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
If if you want to make sure that Richard Negas
is in work, you could sign up to the Patreon
for just three pounds a month at country slide dot
co uk slash support and you get extra bodies, and
you get access to our WhatsApp group, which is like
nice Twitter, thank.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
You exactly, and the scars don't buy themselves anyway, So yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
The WhatsApp group for those who've been hearing give out
this for a few episodes. Now it's expanding out because
most patrons have joined, and there's a few extra special
people in there who are sort of friends of the
show and they've been allowed access to But we've we've
done it as a WhatsApp community, so everything's starting to
be sent shuttled off into little topic groups. We've got
(08:20):
a food and drink one, we've got a hunting and
fishing one, we've got one about cars and vehicles, and
people are sort of diving off into different chats because
it's so such a diverse set of topics that we
really have to break it all down. So it's now
becoming like a little forum almost, but it's very.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Active, is Richard, tell me what those what are those
mushrooms that you have picked in the food and drink WhatsApp?
What are those yellow mushrooms? And tell me about them
what you do with them?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
So they are they are Canthellus cabarius or siberias. They
are Chantrell's. So they are in growing in the ninety
acre woodland that we've manage, the sort of the long
thin one that's basically a gorge. And I've never seen
a flush like that in this late in July, So
what is it earlier late? It's quite late for these
(09:14):
the normally sort of earlier in July, but never this
much in one go. But on the way down there,
because I was driving down there, to go and clear
some trees off the track, and I'm bumped into a
guy called Mike and we were chatting because there's always
somebody scurrying around in the undergrowth when I go down
the footpath and it's sort of I wanted to find
out what it was up to. But it turns out
he runs the North Wales Mushrooms Instagram account, so I
(09:38):
urge you to go and have a look at that
because he finds very niche the weirdest and most wonderful
mushrooms all across North Wales. And so we spent half
an hour chatting about mushrooms. And there's some quite rare
ones in that woodland that we've got there, some spectacularly
rare ones.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
In fact, what's the one of the what classifies as
a rare mushroom?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Not many of them around?
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Wow, thanks for that. So give me an example.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's a definition. So there's a sort of cyanic thing.
There's basically one that doesn't quite glow in the dark,
but it's very very lime green, almost blue. It's it's
very weird color. It's almost metallic. You know, there's two
tone or three tone paint jobs. You used to get
on tvrs and things like that. Yeah, lescent, it looks
(10:27):
like that, but it's all blues and greens, and it's
a sort of it's a fruit to cose like.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And I think, and what do you do with what
do you do with those particular ones, those Chontorell's that
you pick? How will you cook them?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Like every good mushroom is cooked with garlic and butter
and effectively just ends up tasting of garlic and butter,
which is what most French cooking does with mushrooms is
just put them in with garlic and butter until you
can only taste garlic. But they are so Chamtorell's. They
have something called primitive gills on the underside, so you
have not al mustrooms have gills, but these do have
(11:01):
little gill bits underneath. But they as you get down
to the edge of the cap, they split into pears
and they go all wrinkly. So it looks like your
fingerprints when you've been in the bath for too long.
So it looks exactly like that, except it's egg yolk yellow.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Is there a mushroom that you would say that has
a unique and delicious flavor over the normal sort of things?
So you wouldn't sort of go and chuck garlic in.
There is there one that you pick and go all
they taste good.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
We were quite sep or puccini belitus edgeless. So we
take those and cut them and slice them and dry them,
and there they are very very special. They're actually better
dried quite like wood ear or jelly jelly.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Judea, which gives you the old passioned name that we
didn't we.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
No, no, but it's still the Latin name. Yeah, yeah.
But what we do with those is we dehydrate them
and they'll stay for years dehydrated. And then those are
the ones you've had, which are rehydrated in rum and
then dipped in liquid dark chocolate chocolate.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
They were young and they have that there's like no
other chocolate you've had because there's a slight bite in
the texture to you don't taste any mushroom at all.
You't taste the rum and the chocolate where they're the
best truffle we've ever had because they've got this sort
of slight audente bite to them. It's almost like eating
a slightly undercooked bit of rigotoyah, tasting.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Delicious d Turkish delight, almost lovely. Yeah, I mean I
got imagine, callum, do you do anything with wild mushrooms
in the autumn?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
No, I cooked a mushroom sauce tonight.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Actually it was quite good.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I don't do anything. We many have wild mushrooms that
used to trade.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Oh no, but I don't.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I mean, like, there isn't anywhere around here that I
know of. And I'm also not clever enough to successfully
pick mushrooms and work it all out. So I do
need I do need the help in hand.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But yeah, I did.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I n a guy that used to trade mushrooms, and
he said it was one of the worst businesses that
he ever had because he'd get them and then they'd
lose so much weight by within like twenty four hours,
that is, twenty five pound of kilo was only worth
fifty That is a thing.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Were they wild mushrooms he was selling?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Or yeah, he was selling quite a lot of Yeah,
quite a lot of wild mushrooms. Because it was French
and he still is French.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Lose your frenchness after all?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
While actually is it's perpetual, perpetually French.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
There's a T shirt idea.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Right then, dear listener, this is an insert recorded a
few days later, because at some point during this recording
Richard Suffolk Internet decided it didn't want to actually record,
so we have had to cobble this episode together a
little bit to account for that. So from memory, what
he had just asked me but didn't make its way
(14:27):
into the recording, was is it true that in France,
if you go to a pharmacy with your basket of mushrooms,
they'll tell you what species they are or if you
can eat them. It's meant to be true. So it's
one of those things. Yes, by law, if a pharmacist
should be able to tell you identify mushrooms for you.
(14:50):
The problem are there are about fourteen thousand species of
non microscopic fungi you're likely to come across in northern Europe.
So if you go into your pharmacy in beautiful France
with a basket full of unidentified things, what they might
do is pick out two or three that they are
really obvious and they're very commonly eaten, and then just
(15:11):
throw put the rest of the side and say, oh,
they're all inedible or toxic. So they in theory they
could what it actually turns out to be that you
can take in the basket and they will tell you
what commonly eaten ones can be found within that patch.
But this is the thing with you know, they always
people always say that the Europeans eats so many more
(15:34):
mushrooms than we do. And you know, they're always eating mushrooms.
They're always mushroom foraging. What they're doing is going back
to the same spot again and again and again even generationally,
to pick the same species again and again. So they're
not they don't know the names of fourteen thousand species.
They know where to find three species regularly. It's like
so it's like going back to the same apple tree
(15:55):
again and again to get apples and say, you're an
expert in apples.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
So this there's this lake in France. This is your
this is your wheelhouse. How do we end up in
your wheelhouse? We're talking about your world.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Bushroom.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Boy, there was this place in France and the guy
that run the lake, mister Gavie, used to go out
every single morning and he'd do exactly as you said.
He'd know where those mushrooms are and he's looking for
the same thing. Although there was a curveball throne and
(16:32):
thankfully he won't be listening to this. There was a
curveball throne that my friend bought some es cargo snails,
and he started cooking thees cargo snails, and mister Gavie
asked where he where he got them, so he pointed
(16:53):
to around the sort of low house that the toilet block.
Pointed to the toilet block, he said, I found them
over there. Next morning he wakes up, it's sort of
six am. Mister Gave's poking around looking at the toilet block.
(17:13):
And then the following morning, and then the following morning.
It got to about day four five, and it was
at such a point that he just couldn't bring himself
to say, actually, I was only joking because four days
(17:34):
on the bounce was quite the commitment. So he waited
off and I think, no exaggeration. Early morning, sort of
like summrise time. For about two weeks, poor old mister
Gavree went out to the toilet block, took the ten
minute walk and looked fores cargo snails that he could get.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
It didn't exist, imaginary snails. Do you go out and
get wild mushrooms, Richard? It sounds like a very new
thing to do.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Well, there's about three that I can identify and I
feel confident in and they are in caps, horse, mushrooms,
and puff balls. So I'm quite happy with those three
and I think I can wholeheartedly go and identify them.
There are others, because you know, my friend Ross Guidan
(18:28):
is a bit of a mushroom forager. The chat from
Oakbank Woodland and he got fed up in the end
of people sending him sort of blurred fogras saying is
this all right to eat?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Ross?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
And he said, I didn't want to be the man
who said yes, that's fine, And then discovered that and
I got a mushroom foraging book and I realized just
how many looks so similar to the ones that they said, well,
these are delicious, and then they're often confused with you know,
certain death cap and I thought, Nat, you know what,
do you know what, I'm not actually that close to
(19:02):
the land that I'm going to go and run the risk.
You know, I'm not that hungry that I'll do I'll
eat that or pick that that I've eaten, which I
don't really know. I mean, I would probably if I
came out for a joint with you and you're coming
up to or down, should I say to see us
and do and look at some of the fun guy
(19:23):
at Wickan, and I probably might feel more confident because
you would show me. And then I've sort of got
quite a good photograph of memory for that plant is this,
and that is that. Once I've seen it, once I go,
I can idea that. But now I'd be too scared.
I do eat most things that I shoot, and if
I can't eat them, and so I don't shoot shoveler
(19:46):
anymore because I think they just taste so disgusting. I think,
why do I want to shoot a shoveler when I
know I'm not going to eat it? There's no point
in it. I squirrels. We had a conversation on the
old the Country slide, what's happen about squirrels. I'll shoot
squirrels because there's scum and they need to die. But
(20:06):
I'm really not with going and skinning a flipping squirrel.
I would just quite happily chuck it out and say, oh,
buzzards eat that, and then you wouldn't eat it quite good.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Actually, yeah, that's that's a calum thing to do.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Squirrel We had a squirrel Crockett, and we also did
a squirrel. Squirrel pizza pizza.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Thin.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So the trick with a squirrel is to comfee it.
So we basically just filled a tray up with oil,
stuck that in the oven, and then comfeed the squirrel.
And that was really good because the fat means it
doesn't dry the meat out. But the trouble with the
(20:53):
pizza is when you stick it in the pizza oven,
it's insanely hot, like four hundred sea in the pizza rabon,
so it pretty much ensures that it dries out really quick.
So it's not great on a pizza, but it's fantastic
in a crockett.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
So another thing to try works well with scull and
rabbits and a few other things is to brine them. Yes, yes,
And when we do rabbits, we do them. I take
the bucket of brian out into the field so they
are gutted and skinned and then the thrown into the
briane immediately so.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Before the lactic acid sort of puts riga Martis sets in,
you're putting them on the still, yeah, probably.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
And it gets rid of all the prappertiness of them
and gets rid of the gaminess that you get with
squirddles as well, although one squirrel that we did years
ago Amy I think it was one of the first
squirrels Amy had butchered to eat. And we got around
the sort of skinning to the back end of it,
and we found another air rifle pellet in the leg
of the squirrel from someone else having a go at
(21:58):
it different caliber that obviously healed over a tough little.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Thing skinned munk jack before. And suddenly hear a pink
on the floor of the shed and that's that. There's
a two two air rifle pellet falls out of the
poor old things. Yeah, I know, I think it's I
think it's because you see, the munk jack is so
addicted now to going into village edge gardens and they've
(22:23):
got big shrub in these large gardens and they know
that's pretty safe. And I think these avid gardeners then
suddenly see this thing eating there whatever, and then they
give it a for some reason, they think that shooting
a two two air rifle is perfectly fine as a
munchchak it will only you know, shew it away. But
of course the reality, poor old thing is then bimbling
(22:45):
about with a two two air rifle pellet lodged halfway
between its sort of skin and its flesh.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I just realized we've just done something which was to
condemn the entirety of squirrels that we should show and
then didn't specify in any way, shape or form. Why
that's that's quite bad. It's quite bad to do.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
So what, right, let's all say which color of squad
were shooting?
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Two?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Wait? What? Never shot square in my life?
Speaker 3 (23:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well, okay, here, because I plant a lot of trees
and I'm in the woods a lot, and they're not
really actually that bad with hedges, I'll be perfect eyed.
They don't do a lot of damage to hedges. But
they most definitely are buckers in the woods. But also
the sheer number of eggs that they take is remind
(23:44):
I don't think gigs. Yeah, eggs absolute menaces. Yeah, they're
an omnivorous creature and and they are most definitely Yeah,
there are men. This is the gray partridge. You'll see
them sometimes, but sort of. You know, a couple of
weeks back before the gray partries hatched, you will see
(24:08):
them scampering along a hedge a long way from any
nearest tree, and you think, well, why are you here.
You know, there's so much to eat on that tree,
which is five six hundred meters back there, And why
are they traversing on there? Because they are hunting for eggs,
and they're just as likely to come across a gray
partridge nest as they are for a sort of linet
(24:28):
yellow hammer low part of the hedge. That is fair
game as far as a gray squirrel is concerned.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
I remember one of the Basque Squirrel Management Group things.
They said something along the lines of if you have
more than if you have at least five squirrels per hectare,
you are going to get at least a twenty percent
reduction in nesting success.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Small birds, Wow, they are ridiculously voracious because they can
just get to everywhere. There's no small bird that's going
to fight off a squirrel.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Now.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I heard a expert tree man say tree man with
an end.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It was Groot from the Revengers, but I didn't want
to name drop because you know, anyway, Groot told me.
He told me that the squirrels were the biggest problem.
I said, what's the biggest problem in here? Like protecting
(25:34):
all these trees that are in this park and he said,
it's one hundred percent squirrels. And he said, the worst
thing about it is the fact that they these days
they feed on the pheasant feeders, and they have twice
as many babies as they did before. They they it
doubles because their food is not scarce in any way,
(25:55):
shape or form. So the population becomes out of control
because they feed on the sort of pheasant feed most
of the year, most of the for the shooting season.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I think there's just generally food available all right over.
I think that's a bit erroneous to go and say that,
because if you look at I only feed now my
bird feeders, I only feed very very small, tiny little seeds,
sort of finch food, and the squirrels don't come. But
(26:29):
my father has an ongoing battle because he feeds all
sorts of things, peanuts and whatnot in his feeders. If
you think I can't remember the exact figures, I did
write an article once, but wild bird feeding was worth
something like I can't know how many millions to the
economy because of seeds and nuts sold in garden centers.
(26:52):
And you know, there's there's more wild bird food available
in the supermarket than there is cat and dog food,
and you know, the squirrels going this is brilliant. Thanks
very much, you've supplied me with all this.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah, I mean for us, it's the we've got a
gray squirrel. We have a red squirrel reintroduction project just
over the hill, and we are sort of linked by
linear woodland to that, so we are on the coal
zone to support that project, so we coull there, and
we also we've got a lot of beech trees and
(27:27):
they strip the bark and just completely strip everything off
the beach tree. It's apparently it's often lack of mating
opportunity or it's mating competition is the thing that makes
them do it. So it's not it's we used to
think it was there trying to get to the sugars
or something, but it seems to be that it's mostly
a mating competition. So because it happens at boundary areas.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So therefore like stripping bark is like wanking for squirrels
mine at all.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I was going to say, it's more like when you
take the label off a beer bottle.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, the same thought.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I was like, I was hoping that that was actually
not just to be thing it was it was a
ubiquitous thing that people always said.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
You ripped the beer, the labels off beer bottles where
there's a lack of mating opportunities.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
That's what Surely it's an urban legend, but that that
is a thing that has somehow been said not true.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Sat at a beer table and one of your mates
is ripping the label off th of Bex or something,
and someone else says, that's a sexual frustration. That's what
that means.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Is that what that alanis Morrissea Morrissett. All I want
to do is have some fun and Billy Billy's peeling
the labels from his bottles above it's about his is
about his sexual frustration. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Is that the ractual word?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah? Because I mean it does make sense.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah. So at the Game Fair, people kept coming up
to us and saying, this podcast. You just have no
idea where it's going to go. Listener, I can tell
you this is not intentional. This is happening in real time.
I have no idea what Callum is going to say next,
but I know it's unlikely to be something I can predict.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
I mean, I did not have mushrooms and squirrels on
the ingo card or aecually frustrated squirrels and what's right's
been up to? I have no idea she's she's actually
way out of the list. She's she's been kept a
bit so ever since she burst out crying and then
they dragged her on, poor woman to go and smile inanely,
(29:41):
you know, into people saying I'm okay, I'm okay. That
she's literally been just kept under wraps. I think she's
like a cupboard somewhere.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
What's the wife of the scientology bloke that people don't
know if she's still alive or not. He's a bit
like that. There's a guy who wus scientology. No, no,
the guy runs scientology, and then his life hasn't been
seen in public for years, and there's this whole theory
about issue still alive.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Frozen frozen, Yeah, yeah, So let's talk about the game
fair a little bit, because we're going to talk about
it properly in the after show because we've got some
things to share.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
But what this was the first time you took the
family to the game fair, wasn't it, Callum?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yes, and it was very difficult. I don't know if
you've ever taken a one and a half year old
that just wants to run up to strange dogs and
stroke them that they don't know if they're safe or not.
But that was hard. But yes, we went Friday present cheeks,
making friends and that was quite good. Got to mink
(30:43):
some of you guys in the flesh, and then I
took the family on the Sunday, which I think traditionally
has been one of the quieter days, and it's not.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
It's a different crowd.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
The sort of people in the industry are Friday people,
jolly ups are Saturday people. It's a bit of a
mix of both jolly ups, and then on Sunday it's
people looking for a bargain and people that didn't. There
was quite a lot of people that were just like,
let's hope everything's fifty percent off. And it was quite quiet, actually,
(31:29):
and most people that are in the industry, that worked
in the industry looked like they'd already been there five days,
so their souls had left their bodies and they were
just an empty vessel. The parking attendant, I'm pretty sure
I woke him up as I entered the game fair.
He was just delirious and sort of half asleep. Leave
(31:49):
me alone, Leave me alone. I don't want to go
to school today. Huh, park over there.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Alike?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Done?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
How about how about you Richard, because you sort of
had this weird thing. You had like a piece of
elastic tying you to the gw CT stand and you
couldn't you couldn't go too far on the radius.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Could you know he's on tag now it was on tag? Yes,
I actually it's a bit of a go too far away.
I actually blew up.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
We've actually got Perdix pro tag that he's a good reference,
his ring friend ring fence to the gw CT stand
and he gets he gets Goo electrocuted?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Should he?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
There's the trail camera at the end of the row,
and if AI detects that there's a legus leaving the area,
then the dispatcher gamekeeper.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That's right, would kill me. Hired help. I did stay
a lot around the gw CT, I am what did
I do? I basically I was selling books. So we
managed to sell forty copies of Words from the Hedge,
for which I think sixty percent went to the trust.
(33:01):
So we managed to raise some decent money for the
for the for the trust, which was my ambition because
you know, I didn't get any royalties for that. They
get all the all the line share, so that was
all good. And I signed those met lots and lots
of lovely people who said nice things. I did a
talk in the car to Jonas, which I have to
(33:23):
say was very funny because I struck it absolutely right.
There are all these people, many far more famous than I,
who were winging about. There's only seven people listening to them.
Talk to Charlie Jacobe, and I was able to say, well,
I had a full house, and I didn't add I
had a full house because as soon as I started
(33:44):
talking the rain the heavens openly, it started raining and
everyone flocked in to anywhere and I had an absolute
full house, in fact, standing room only in there listening
to me. So it worked superbly and I just didn't
turn out. They know, if they've listened to this, did
anyone brave the rain? Just get away so I can
(34:08):
stand the wet. I hate him, Hedges, I hate him.
One of the interesting things I did find when I
when I did get away to have a wander around
was the number of people who tapped me on the
shoulder and they said, I you've got a book coming out.
And that was the moment it dawned on me that
this podcast that US three do is actually is in
(34:33):
a lot of people's ears, because they started regurgitating the
gags which we either intentionally or largely inadvertently use and
do as our sort of Fast Show esque punchlines, and
they were saying them back to me. And I was
minded of Paul white House saying, you know, do you
mind it when people go and sort of do Scorch
(34:55):
say shout Scorch you at him? And he said no,
he said, because I realized that actually people are watching
what I do. And I felt exactly the self same feeling,
and it was nice, hustling cry yeah, exactly exactly. We
ended up having to go to the Yetti stand, didn't we.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yeah, And we spent far too much money at the
Yetti stand, as always, because basically it's just stainless steel
bottles with a label on it that for some reason
cost thirty five pounds.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I only bought a coffee, a coffee, a little mini
coffee thing because I needed more of those.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, and what else we went? Oh yeah, we went
at the end of Friday, all the way over to
the fishing village, which was sort of this big experience
of Callum because it's this running joke that he always
goes to the game fair to work and take photos
and never goes to the fishing village.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, he got Traditionally they put the village the fishing village,
like I think it was. It was like one of
the days before, it was like three o'clock and I
asked I think it was asked you. I think I said,
where's the fishing village? And you said it's over there.
You go through this little thing, through this clearing, and
that it's about forty minutes walk. And I was like, well,
(36:06):
I'm not doing that.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
You know how I knew the Fishing village.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Was there because you actually went there.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
No, because it's next to the lake.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Ah. Yeah, do you know Charlie my son, My son,
Charlie and his mate James, who came with us, they
got around like who on a blanket? Was amazing. They
were everywhere and they I think by the time the
game fair was over, they knew every single storeholder. They'd
be walking past, going all right, and they just kept
coming back with with gizzets. And I'm not just talking
(36:37):
about little leaflets and stuff. Now they come back with,
oh god, did this deal with this bloke here? I
tooked to him. I said to you're my dad, and
they gave him this thing, right, So I think he's
probably said, oh, yeah, he'll write review for you about
this product or that one. So I'm waiting for my
email to go and sort of explode with people saying
when are you putting this into whatever magazine? And so
(36:58):
he got this stuff. But they went out. They had
two fishing lessons with that's Angling Trust. Yeah, they had
two fishing lessons with the Angling Trust. And so they
had to go one day with with a Roden reel
and then another day with a with a roach pole.
And Charlie caught i think three roach and a carp
(37:21):
and his mate James, who is actually quite an adept
carp angler his PB. He's a sort of good double
figure fish and he's he's very sort of self fishing
and goes off and spends nights out and stuff. He
caught less than Charlie. So Charlie had bragging rights.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah, it's always good. Yeah, that the Angler Trust. They
are they are the good guys getting out there. I
think you booked in a session for a junior and
you got sort of It wasn't just like I'll have
a go catch a fish. He actually spent like half
hour an hour or something, and they really give you
(38:01):
a taster of fishing. Yeah, what a great thing to do.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
So enough about the game, fair, let's go on to
the real news of the episode. What's this about the
big dead red deer on the A fourteen.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Oh my lord, honestly this so many people have told
me about that. Well, basically, he was a massive stag.
I mean he was big. I couldn't see his head.
But if you know the A fourteen and the way
into Various Edmonds, there is a place on the left
hand side is before you get in to the second
(38:37):
turn off into Various Emmons by Bury Bowl, you know,
so right by the tenpin bowling alley above there there was.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
The sugar towers in front of you.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, there's to your in front of you and to
your right just and there was this red stag that
was there, and he would I would think, well, I mean,
Monica the Glen would be having size MV against him
as a whopper, and obviously they blow up a bit
once I'm in laying. But how on earth? I mean,
I would hate to see the vehicle that hit it,
(39:07):
for a start, because I just think it if you
hit one of those things, it's about the size of
a of a Freezian ball. But secondly, what on earth
was it doing there? I mean, you know, I know
that munk jack now are going into much more sort
of urban areas, suburban areas, but this is not far
at all from the abbey gardens in barris em So
(39:30):
you've got a red stag there. So I can only
think that the poor old sod that deer pressure is
now getting such poor old lad he was on there,
and then I put that on our on our patron's
WhatsApp group, and then there are a few people from
this way. Oh I saw that. My mind, you'd have
to be blind not to see it. Was that blood
and big.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
It's like a hazard to shipping. Where are the new
where are the nearest reds?
Speaker 1 (39:56):
You have? We have a lot of yeah we do.
I mean, have you ever done any photo shoots with
red deer stalking my way?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Callum?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah? Done done a few actually, yeah, coloring the dose
and they did so much damage as well, Yeah, challenge
they do.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
But do you know what, they're a fascinating bunch. The
the Suffolk and Norfolk red deer. There are sort of
two distinct herds. There's one which sort of comes from
Houston Big Wood, so that's where the Duke of Grafton lives.
And there's a load there and they sort of cross
back and forth between South and Norfolk and into Suffolk
(40:43):
and then come down to me about my way. And
then there's another herd which is closer to the coast
at dune Itch and they reckon that most or some
of the car the cart. It's stags, carted stags. And
(41:03):
it's not just me who's heard that. And they Graham
Downing often talks about it. Was that the Norwich Staghounds
were a carted stag pack. In other words, they hunted
a tame or a number of tame stags which they
would then hummel them. So they would cut off the
antlers and they lived like horses out in the paddock
(41:25):
with them with the hunters, and then they would chuck
them on a car on like a horse box and
they would and the Norwich Staghouns were then go and
chuck this old stag out they'd give him fifteen twenty
minutes low to go and get away and wherever he went,
and then the hounds would hunt him, and then eventually
he would come to bay and then they would sort
(41:47):
of shoe him back onto the horse box a bit
stiff legged, and back he would go. And when they
banned that, which I think was in the nineteen fifties,
not so much because they thought it was cruel. It
was more because it was complete may because he had
this sort of semi tame red deer galumphing where he
wanted to and chased by a pack of hounds with
(42:07):
a load of sort of lunatics chasing on because of course,
you know, you never knew where this stag was going
to go. But they banned it. And I am told
that the guy who had those he basically went off,
you go, spanked him on the arse, and these great, big,
hefty stags went off and they sired the sort of
(42:28):
monstrous deer that we have now in in Suffolk and Norfolk,
and they are vast. But one decided to go and
be visit Saint Edmund's.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Tomb, descendant of which is now inflating somewhere on the
apt Yes exactly.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, Houston's like a old deer park, though, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
So?
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, that's what I assume. Where where those ones come from?
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Wow, I know how they got a train.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
They have got some I think they've done some deer
a test because there was.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yet another joke that no one will get.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Go on, thank you?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Do you remember those Do remember that woman who was
American who came over here a few years she still American, yes,
but do you remember that yank She was some sort
of influencer and she was sort of vaguely attractive, and
she went around doing all these sort of hunting things
and it was daubing herself with blood. And then she
(43:27):
went up to the highlands onto some islands somewhere, Yeah,
and she sort of said she was hunting wild sheep
and they were basically this thing was actually something like
a swaledale tup or something that she'd shot. Were this vast,
great big stag that she shot. There was some debate
(43:51):
over that because you could actually see if you looked
at one photograph that she placed on her Instagram thing,
that there was a tag that thing zeer And I
think someone managed to go and work out the tag
number and it had actually come from a deer farm
or certainly a herd in a deer park somewhere down here,
(44:13):
and so it's obviously taken up somewhere or other up north.
And the duty room was was they were almost doing
caged hunting like they do in America, you know, in Africa,
with sort of tame old lions that they put into
places where rich Yanks can go and shoot something and
with a guarantee.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yeah, it's the weird guarantee thing of this. They do
it in the States as well. They have high fence hunting, right,
but then there's this thing of tethered hunting.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Tethered tethered good grief, So this thing is actually tethered
to the ground and then you go and shoot it.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yes, good, oh god.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Honestly, some people are just weird, disgusting, just gris.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
How do you how do you get your off to that?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
How do you just sit there and be like, yeah,
here I have changed something up and then killed it
and now it's the champ.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
I like this universal rule of would you still do
that thing if people would never know you had done
it or you couldn't put it on social media and
you couldn't get any social points amongst your circle for
having done it. And if you would stop doing it,
then because you were only doing it to be seen
to be doing this thing, then you're probably not my
(45:31):
kind of person.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Bire that.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
That was what was the dog on the floor. That
was Amy's dog protesting against me not feeding him.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
The noise was incredible.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
I hope that comes out in the audio recording because
I heard that quite clearly. It was a very disapproving growth.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I thought Richard was either suddenly going to fly off
in the Millennium falcon alongside hands solo, or I thought
you want to get your dinner, mate, that's it. Well, no,
so we're there for once again we've discovered that there
are some bloody horrible people out there. But yes, so
the A fourteen stag is now put to bed, or
(46:16):
rather to the side of the road. He's thankfully and
is moldering away somewhere.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
We've talked before about moving dead horses. It's pretty much
the same for moving a rotten, dead red isn't. It's
a that's a winch job.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
There was a series of documentaries where they basically went
and did the working lines of very ordinary people. But
when you think about it, these ordinary people doing ordinary
jobs were actually fascinating. And this was about the twenty
five and the people who work on the M twenty five.
So they went and sort of sword it's like to
go and work on one of the big service stations
(46:52):
on the M twenty five and the people who do
the vehicle recovery and a traffic cot. But they also
had this guy who was a fascinating fella called the
who was from the Dead Dog Squad. And basically there
is a thing that when you get roadkill on the
M twenty five is they have to then shut a
lane off because if you got a stag that side,
(47:14):
you know, if you kept driving into that, you're going
to have a massive pile up. And they call them
the Dead Dog Squad because obviously for the dead dog connotation.
But they then had this bloke. It was very phlegmatic
about it. You know, you have to be going picking
up hideously mashed up and stinking and bloated badger carcasses
and all sorts of things. But his hobby was ferreting
(47:35):
and how he had managed to get permission to go
and ferret the rabbits alongside the M twenty five. He
was an absolute legend. Yeah, from the Dead Dog Squad.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Dead Dog Squad again another T shirt. But can they
only do dogs that they have to get someone else in?
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, ca, I tell you what, check my jurisdiction, mate,
change the I've got the big doors open on my
study here and it's like the M twenty five out
there at the moment, because of course everyone's desperately trying
to get harvest in because we've had a bit of
rain and the wheat's going a bit black. So I
think there's going to be some very tired lads and
(48:16):
lasses driving tractors and comrades. What does it mean when
the wheat goes black? Well, basically it ripened, so we
had in that long period of good heat and some
so the barley was fine. But then what happens is
then gets rained on and what it starts to do
is actually, whilst it's in the head of the wheat,
(48:36):
it gets a bit mill dewy and starts which is
the black, and it starts to actually sprout in the head.
So yeah, it's I mean that is suddenly Oh dear,
that crop is not worthless, but it's worth a lot less.
Than it was, and if you had milling wheat, I
(48:57):
stuff are going to be for human consumption. It's no
longer for human consumption because the weather has has dictated
against it. So the guys, so.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
They couldn't have got it earlier because it.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Started to know and also I don't think it quite
got there. I don't think it quite ripened sufficiently. And
then it's still warm, wet, and then it started doing
this little germination thing and turning black and mildewy in.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
Then you've got all the economics of if even if
it's still wet but is over okay quality, you've got
to pay the drying charge, and there's not enough of
a margin on it to cover the drying costs. And
it's there's a lot of people doing wheat this year
as well, it seems.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, because oil seed rape was it was. People have
got a bit frit of oil seed rape because you
know that there is you can't spray or what used
to sprout with so it goes eaten. So there's a
lot wheat around. The sort of wheat prices are high,
and of course wheat prices have dropped and yeah, so
it's all I mean, who would be a farmer. It's
(50:00):
also those things. You know, We've said it many a time.
Their job is hard enough. If you're an arable farm
you know your biggest enemy is the weather. You don't
want a sudden another enemy of a government who is
you know, ambivalent at best to you, to your work
and the pitiful margins that you're making. But they've got
that at the moment. And yeah, I don't think it's
(50:22):
going to be a terrible harvest. I don't think anyone's
shooting themselves. And one of the things I always finding
this is quite amazing about arable farmers is they're very
phlegmatic and understanding of the fact that they are at
the vagaries of the weather. They're not all just you know, going,
oh my god, the weather's terrible, let's shoot themselves. I go, oh, well,
that's happened, you know, swings aroundabouts. It will level itself
(50:42):
out next year.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
And I've seen a few of the sort of screenshots
and messages, and there's an old video that does a
rounds as well of people from the local village coming
out to you whilst you're in the middle of the harvest,
saying could you come back and do that tomorrow, yeah,
or can you keep keep the noise down or the
dust down as if as if it's a recreational thing
they're choosing to do.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
I went salmon fishing in Scotland once, and the harvesting
at you're little jokes that that don't lad you, just
the little smirk you give it. There's there's people that
are probably stopping your recording and and it down like
(51:25):
it's a Times crossword, thinking what did.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
You say, salmon? What was that reference? Someone?
Speaker 2 (51:32):
But there's probably there's going to be a list at
some point that get so obsessed with this they just
write down all the obscure references by Richard Prideo and
there will be a web page just for that.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
Yes, sorry salmon. Salmon fishing not in the Yemen. Told
me what happened with that one? Tear fishing not in
the Yemen.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
Yeah, we were. We were in this little body thing
and they were harvested all night. I just thought it
was the most fascinating thing to watch with all the
lights on and looks so dramatic. I don't know how
anyone could get the hunt with it. It was just well impressive.
I suppose I'd be trying to sleep. But you know,
(52:13):
just have another whiskey.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
You'll be right. You don't do drones, you.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
No, I have a drone.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
Man, You pay, you pay for a man, A gentleman. Gentlemen.
I've done a fair amount of filming of harvest of
one type or another, and it's you.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Know, it's one tracking vehicle tracking thing.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Is that that? Well, this is a few years ago,
so your vehicle tracking thing on DGI drones didn't work
that well then, So you just did it manually, which
means you've got to to do an orbit of a
of a combine as it's going up a hill. You've
got to match the speed and work out your distance
from it and keep the camera pointing at it and
all moving at the same time. So I just have
(52:58):
to turn my brain off and no one can talk
to me whilst I'm doing it. But I get some footage.
I'm going to drop it into the Patreon chat the
clips of one of the things I did. But it's
a lot of work to get it to do that.
But it isn't really good.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
I got a drone guy.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Yeah, Well I am the drone. I am the drone.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Fly your drone into the combine's header. Would you that
be quite an expensive and messy en.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
I've seen people do it. I've flown between the tractor
and the combine when they're filling up the grain car.
I've done that a couple of times and tracking eye
cab height with the combine. And there's one w because
there's a guy here who brings his sheep dog into
(53:44):
the cab with him. So the sheep dog is just
looking at stuff all the time, looking at the rabbits
and the things that are running out, and he's just
fixated on this drone. It is that. I'm going to
get that, to get that, to get that.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
It's not like Jeremy Squirrel's wonderful golden retriever who is
the most beautiful and soft idiot, like all golden retrievers are,
and she just sits in either the combine or the sprayer.
And his sprayer is quite sort of old school and
with a very small cab, and she's a very large dog.
(54:16):
And it's very funny. So all you see when he's
driving past it is Sprayer is his dog fai glass
tongue stuck out like some sot of window licking idiot.
Hi Jeremy, Hello, conder. His dog's name. It's like Maud
or something like that is absolutely wonderful and that gets
(54:37):
out and so much as say what he's a combine
is she's with him everywhere he goes. It's great. It's
window licking dog.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Ah. Well, so we started with squirrels and we've ended
with squirrels. Yeah, so I think it's a good time
to finish the main show and head onto the after show.
And for all of you people who only get the
main show, yes, we have teased a lot of the
after show stuff, but basically they're the ones that keep
the lights on around here is all those lovely patrons
who pay for things. So we're going to move on
(55:05):
over to the after show now. Thank you to everyone
who listens to the episode, and thank you to everyone
who we met and spoke to at the game Fare
and all the friends new and old that we saw there.
Right now, Oh bye, one thing before we go. Yeah,
(55:26):
I've just Amy's just prompted me.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
There's a thing.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
For the next few weeks. The main show is going
to be pre recorded. I know they're all pre recorded,
but they are four episodes that we recorded at the
game Fare. So we've got a couple of interviews with
CEOs of large organizations. We've got one of the guns
on pegs people, but we're not talking about shooting, we're
(55:51):
talking about other stuff. And then we've got two scientists
talking about conservation and ecology. So those are all the
interviews from the game there which will be going out
one a week and not be in place of the
main show. But it doesn't mean we'll be idle, because
Callum and I are going to sit down and record
some more episodes of The Mullet, our business spin off.
(56:15):
Richard and I have got a side project talking about
the news and stuff like that and the stuff that
Calendar doesn't really care about. And there's a whole new
exciting project which we haven't worked out yet, but that
is going to be something, something a bit tastier. Let's
say that.
Speaker 1 (56:34):
Yeah, it's that naked calendar, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (56:37):
It's a naked calendar. Right off to the after show
by Bye Bye
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