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king. Hello

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and welcome to the Beef and Dairy

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Network podcast, the number one podcast for

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those involved or just interested in the

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2:11

Now this month I spoke to famous

2:14

scuba diver and author Nicholas Summers who

2:16

has been in the spotlight recently due

2:18

to his views about the Titanic. In

2:21

our interview we covered his life

2:24

as a scuba diver, the surprising

2:26

link between diving and the dairy

2:28

industry and of course his controversial

2:30

work with Titanic director James Cameron.

2:33

Hello I'm Nicholas Summers and I'm

2:35

a professional scuba diver. Nicholas thank

2:38

you so much for joining

2:40

us today. A very famous

2:42

scuba diver, not just a scuba diver of course

2:44

you're an author, you've got a series of books,

2:46

Diving for Beginners How Not to Die and Enjoy

2:49

Yourself. That was a big hit earlier this decade

2:52

then he followed that up of course with

2:54

So You Didn't Die, intermediate diving for dummies

2:56

and then finally recently brought out Remember

2:58

You Might Still Die, Diving for the

3:00

Professional. Yes that's right it

3:03

is of course quite a dangerous hobby

3:05

a lot of people sort

3:07

of think it's something you pick up on

3:09

holiday you know you're there with your family

3:11

you've got on your I&F flight you've gotten

3:13

off you've still got your case and before

3:15

you know it before they've even unpacked a

3:18

lot of people are donning the gear right

3:20

and they're heading down to the harbour and

3:22

they're jumping in and by all means please

3:24

please do that because it's

3:26

really rewarding to see so many

3:28

people getting into the hobby but you can

3:30

very much die you know

3:32

a lot of people they don't think about propellers the

3:35

local fishermen. Those big giant clams that you

3:37

can kind of open up and you can

3:39

go inside and then yeah yeah exactly and

3:41

they will close so

3:44

yeah you know I've heard a lot of stories people

3:46

sort of write into me and

3:48

they say you know thanks so much for your books I

3:51

would never have tried scuba diving otherwise a member

3:53

of my family was unfortunately caught

3:55

inside a clam managed to get

3:58

them out in time had to Rustam

4:00

Tospital ruined the holiday but that

4:02

initial magic experience by diving

4:05

into the sea was just

4:07

fantastic. And it's that sort of

4:09

story that really makes

4:12

me pick up my pen, makes me sort

4:14

of dawn on my BCD, stick

4:16

the regulator in my mouth and really start writing.

4:19

So you do write in full scuba gear?

4:21

Yeah, absolutely. That's

4:23

important for my process. I

4:25

can't really think unless I've got a

4:27

full covering over my eyes and my

4:30

nose, snorkel in my

4:32

mouth. So yeah, very much full

4:34

gear flippers. And actually,

4:36

depending on how creative I'm feeling, I'll

4:38

sort of inflate my BCD. Sorry,

4:41

what is a BCD? So a BCD

4:43

is sort of the crucial part of

4:46

your diving equipment. And that's the item that will

4:50

allow you to float to the surface or sink

4:52

to the bottom. Okay. So I thought that

4:54

was, sorry if I'm wrong, maybe

4:57

this is the old fashioned way. I thought that

4:59

was to do with how much piss is inside

5:01

the wetsuit. Yes. Well, the piss, so we're looking

5:03

at from around the early 80s was a sort

5:05

of turning point in scuba gear before about 1985,

5:08

1986. It very much was piss. They've now replaced

5:13

that with air because they found that

5:16

while scuba diving, a lot of divers,

5:18

obviously, your main breathing

5:20

equipment is your tank. Before 1985,

5:22

that was also filled with piss.

5:25

So partly because we lost

5:27

so many souls to that sort of old

5:29

fashioned equipment. And also, I guess the rise

5:31

of the environmental movement sort of put an

5:33

end to that because, you

5:35

know, people like Al Gore

5:37

started saying, you know, we're

5:39

seeing a lot of turtles with piss

5:42

poisoning. And that's largely due to the

5:44

sort of uptake in the sort of

5:46

passion for scuba diving around the early

5:48

1980s. And really, the professional scuba

5:51

divers, myself included, did think, you know,

5:53

maybe Al's got a point, perhaps if

5:56

we replace the piss with air, it

5:59

might make it a more... enjoyable experience and also

6:01

allow us to breathe underwater. Yeah, well, it

6:03

would be quite good. Yeah, and I think

6:05

the death rate did plummet after that, but

6:07

it's important to say the death rate is

6:09

still very high. And would you say

6:12

that those people you mentioned going

6:14

on holiday, taking the family, jumping in,

6:17

is part of the fun the fact that there's

6:19

a high chance you're going to die? Oh, absolutely.

6:21

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, if you think

6:24

about all of the different types of recreation, ungee

6:26

jumping, cliff diving, that

6:29

thing that people do when they have a can of

6:31

lager and they shake it up and then they stab

6:33

the bottom of it and they try and suck all

6:35

the liquid out. And it's by firing into the back

6:37

of your throat. I mean, it all comes with risk.

6:40

And often, you know, I've

6:42

been on dives when there's maybe 20 people

6:44

in the party, and we all sort of

6:46

salute each other, jump off the boat, knowing

6:50

full well about three of

6:52

us are going to come back. But it's part of

6:54

that sort of gamble. When you

6:56

obviously take parties out diving, you're a teacher, you

6:59

take first time divers out, how rare

7:01

is it that you all come back? And if you do

7:03

all come back, is there an element of disappointment there? Yeah,

7:05

well, I would say in my

7:08

entire career, there's maybe been two or

7:10

three times all of us have come

7:12

back. And you know, they'll look at

7:14

me and they'll say, Nicholas, we're all

7:16

still here, you know, what's going on?

7:18

They'll start throwing their fins at me,

7:20

their master snorkel. And

7:22

then often I'll say, you know, listen, guys, look at

7:25

Philip over there. His eyes are rolling in the back

7:27

of his head. He's got the bends. He's got two

7:29

or three hours to live. And that's

7:31

when you sort of feel a kind of, you

7:33

know, like an audible, he's

7:35

going to die straight away. Just

7:38

not straight away. I'd say, you know, of

7:41

those two or three times it's happened on

7:43

two occasions, they've been happy with that.

7:45

The third occasion, we've left Philip on the

7:47

boat. And we've all died back

7:49

in looking for that more immediate death. Exactly.

7:52

A clam-based thing. Someone getting caught in the

7:54

propeller. The captain of the boat that I

7:57

use occasionally just gets his shotgun and starts

7:59

firing. into the water. He's a bit of a

8:01

kooky guy. I have said on

8:03

occasion, you know, Jose, please don't

8:07

do that. And the other people I've been taking

8:09

out diving have said, Nicholas, what are you doing?

8:12

No, no, no, no, no, absolutely. Jose, keep doing

8:14

that. We love it. Barbara's lost her arm. That's

8:16

exactly what we're paying for. Do

8:18

you ever take Jose down on a dive?

8:20

He doesn't scuba dive because I tried to

8:23

teach him, but really,

8:25

as much as the joy in scuba diving

8:27

comes from that risk of death, you do also want to

8:29

take in some of the sort of

8:31

aquatic environment, some of the,

8:33

you know, the magnificent fish, turtles,

8:36

sharks. When I took Jose

8:38

down there, we just jumped in, we started

8:40

descending. I looked over and he was holding

8:42

two grenades in his hand. And

8:44

I thought, as

8:47

we descend, I look over

8:49

again, he's taken both pins out, shoved

8:51

both of the grenades into the mouth of

8:53

a turtle. I must say I've never seen anything

8:56

like it. Unfortunately, if it was any other

8:58

animal, I think it would have been contained to

9:00

that sort of small environment, but because of

9:02

the turtle shell, it completely

9:04

shattered. There's underwater shrapnel everywhere.

9:07

It took out between

9:09

90 to 95% of all of

9:11

the aquatic life in about a 30 mile

9:13

radius. And I thought, we're

9:15

going to have to get to the surface here. We're

9:17

going to have to ascend. We throw a couple of

9:20

okay signs. I'm gesturing to

9:22

Jose to sort of go up, we get

9:24

back on the boat. And I say, you

9:26

know, what the hell happened there? What

9:28

the hell happened there, Jose? And

9:31

he just start firing a shotgun into the air. You

9:41

write in your book, you know, I've had a quick read of

9:43

your book, and there's a very moving

9:45

passage where you talk about how once you've been

9:47

diving, any other form

9:49

of recreation doesn't really measure up. You

9:51

talk about going to the cinema in your

9:54

book, you talk about going to see Jumanji, a

9:56

film that for someone who hasn't scoop dived, I mean,

9:58

that's a... absolute roller

10:01

coaster ride with thrills and spills,

10:03

adventure, Robin Williams doing

10:05

what he does best. And you talk about sort

10:07

of feeling entirely numb throughout the entire film and

10:10

leaving and feeling like that hadn't had an effect on you at

10:12

all and feeling like, am I an alien? Has something gone wrong?

10:15

Yeah. I mean, once

10:17

you've been scuba diving, you

10:19

pretty much know once you start that hobby that there's

10:21

going to be very few things that thrill you any

10:24

more than that. I personally was

10:26

pretty disappointed with

10:29

the Jim Angie film. You know, I got

10:31

caught up in the kind of the atmosphere,

10:33

the excitement when that film came out. And

10:35

I thought, you know, this might

10:37

be it. This might be the one thing if there

10:39

is one thing that's going to thrill me more than

10:41

scuba diving, it will be Jim

10:43

Angie. So just to be

10:46

careful, I did I did go to

10:48

the cinema in full scuba gear right

10:51

at the front. But yeah, I was the

10:54

conventional elements of that film that thrill people

10:56

just didn't do it for me. That's really

10:58

sad. And actually, I sort of found myself

11:00

in some legal troubles when people have brought

11:03

cases against me trying to accuse

11:05

me of trying to bring Jim Angie down.

11:07

And that's not what I'm doing. And

11:09

that's now a federal crime in the US. That's

11:11

correct. Yeah. I think at the time I was

11:14

charged on multiple state grounds,

11:16

because I did fly over like a

11:18

lot of people to the

11:20

states for that initial release of the film Jim Angie.

11:22

So I was in the states, I was charged

11:25

by the state of Florida, state

11:28

of Texas and the state of Arkansas

11:30

for not enjoying the film Jim Angie.

11:32

And then of course, about 15 years

11:34

later, they brought that federal case against

11:36

me. I

11:39

was quite disturbed by what I'd heard

11:41

about Nicholas feeling nothing during a screening

11:44

of Jim Angie. And so I spoke

11:46

to a friend of the show, TV

11:48

doctor Dr. Sam Archer, probably best known

11:50

for BBC One's Lunchtime stethoscope and Channel

11:53

5's laxative roulette live. I was

11:55

interested to know is what Nicholas had described

11:57

something that is diagnosable. something

12:00

I've seen quite a lot. We call

12:02

it adrenal dilutean syndrome, which is essentially

12:05

your body is so flooded with adrenaline

12:07

that the ability to enjoy mid-90s

12:10

family movies almost evaporates completely.

12:13

Okay, and how would you diagnose that? What we'll

12:15

do is we'll sit them down and in a

12:17

clinical situation make them watch this film and see

12:19

if there's any spike in

12:21

excitement in their brain chemistry. Okay.

12:24

Not many people know this but

12:26

the machine MRI used

12:28

to stand for maybe Robocop is

12:30

interesting and you would lie someone

12:32

down in the MRI and play Robocop to

12:34

them and then just see if there was

12:36

any spike of interest. That's sort

12:39

of where it started. Robocop is quite old now,

12:41

most people know the twist so obviously it needs

12:43

to be updated hence Jumanji. I mean you would

12:45

say wouldn't you that until Jumanji came along Robocop

12:48

was very much the most exciting film you

12:50

could watch. I think you would have

12:52

called it the Jumanji of its

12:54

day if in that day

12:57

people knew what Jumanji was going to be

12:59

which of course they didn't because it was

13:01

in the future. I mean Jumanji has been

13:03

with us as a culture in the background

13:05

I think you could argue for

13:07

thousands of years it's always kind of been there it

13:10

wasn't until they actually made the movie that we sort

13:12

of crystallised Jumanji and something we could watch with the

13:14

family. Before that it was just

13:16

a kind of ludic sense of playfulness and

13:18

adventure that sort of seemed to exist

13:21

as a kind of aura or wisp in

13:24

the air around us. So for

13:27

me to borrow a motif from the

13:29

film itself it was sort of a

13:31

bongo drums humming in the

13:33

background that sort of grew louder and

13:35

louder until eventually we discovered

13:37

Jumanji. So if we have anyone listening who

13:39

is involved in one of those life

13:41

or death pastimes that has brought them so

13:43

much excitement for example scuba diving

13:46

as we talked about or plenty of others,

13:48

horse riding, dipping your

13:51

genitals into a bucket full of scorpions. There are

13:53

plenty of people out there doing that kind of thing

13:55

and they may well have had that experience of going

13:58

to watch Jumanji or Robocop and feeling nothing. For

14:01

those people, can you give them any hope from

14:03

the medical community that something can be done to

14:05

row them back from this in some way? I

14:07

just encourage these people to realise that they have

14:09

peaked adrenaline-wise. That they need to

14:12

lead a life where adrenaline doesn't

14:14

feature at all in their day-to-day

14:16

existence. They need to seek

14:18

out the kind of experiences that elicit

14:21

no thrills whatsoever. A fully zero adrenaline

14:23

life. Yes, exactly. One of the most

14:25

effective treatments for this we've found is

14:27

going to see the book tour of

14:29

any comedian. You will go thinking it'll

14:31

be funny, but it's a book tour,

14:34

so... So yeah, yeah, deeply

14:36

tedious. Nicholas

14:40

explained to me that he got his

14:42

start in scuba diving through his father.

14:45

My father was a dairy

14:48

farmer. He specialised

14:51

in the production of

14:53

condensed milk, which involves

14:55

transporting hundreds, if not

14:57

thousands, of cattle to very, very deep

14:59

depths, keeping them there for about

15:01

six to nine months. And then the milk that

15:03

they would otherwise produce due to the pressure is

15:06

condensed. It's pumped to the surface. You

15:09

have condensed milk. So just to be clear, they

15:12

are living in a kind of... What would the word be? Like

15:14

a sort of aqua base? Aquabases,

15:17

they exist, yes. But the

15:19

most common form of condensed

15:21

milk farming is actually the

15:24

old fashioned scuba suits that people might know,

15:26

the sort of big metallic... Oh, so with

15:29

the kind of diving bell... Exactly, the diving

15:31

bell helmet. A lot of people think that

15:33

those were designed for humans. No,

15:35

no, no, no, no, they are very much

15:37

cattle suits. Right. That's why they're so bulky.

15:39

Why they're so bulky, and the four arms

15:42

and legs, as people like to say, are

15:44

actually just for the four legs of the

15:46

cow, and the big bell

15:49

is for the others. Oh, so hang on. So where's

15:51

the cow's head? The ass of

15:54

the suit, if you were conceiving it to be worn by

15:56

a human being, the ass of the suit is sort of

15:59

a bit baggy. So the cow

16:01

is sort of hunched slightly. I

16:04

think when people would have seen those suits, you know,

16:06

and as you say, we assume that they're for the

16:08

human body, that kind of the

16:10

large ass section we thought was just for the

16:12

kind of dump truck ass. No, no,

16:14

no, no, no. That is very much

16:16

for the cow's head. It's

16:19

not stopped people with dump truck asses wearing

16:21

those suits. Anyone with a

16:23

dump truck ass, it fits them perfectly like a glove. The

16:26

initial design very much for a cow's head

16:29

and the conventional

16:31

sort of fell section, like I say,

16:33

is for the others. You'd attach some

16:35

pipes, stick the cow down there,

16:38

and it's those pipes that would sort of

16:40

milk the other while it's at deep depth.

16:42

But you took a different path. You decided

16:44

you were going to become a commercial scuba

16:46

diver instructor and everything you've become. Why

16:48

did you leave behind condensed milk? Well,

16:51

that's a good question. And I

16:54

think it's a question that anyone

16:56

who has been brought up with

16:58

very successful parents in a particular

17:00

industry has to grapple with. I

17:03

think ultimately... Sorry, I mean,

17:05

just to elephant in the room, your father is Paul Boff.

17:08

I mean, anyone listening will know who that is. Yeah, that's

17:11

huge in the dairy industry. I wondered

17:13

when his name was going to come up. Yeah.

17:16

And actually, this has been a bit

17:18

of a record for me at the

17:21

time we've been talking. His name usually

17:23

comes up more quickly. And

17:25

a great man. I don't want to take it... Thank

17:28

you. I know that you probably... You

17:30

are your own man. You are successful. But

17:32

you are the sort of Paul Boff. You obviously changed

17:34

your name from Boff to Summers. Was

17:36

that a... To try

17:38

and get away out of his shadow? Is that what we're

17:41

talking about? It's a big shadow that my dad casts, yes.

17:43

So is it fair to say then that you decided to

17:45

go into scuba to try and forge your

17:47

own path in life? And as you say, get out

17:49

from under that big Boff shadow? Yes. And

17:52

it's not a huge departure. You mentioned the

17:54

sort of word scuba

17:56

there. That's an acronym for

17:58

the breed of cattle. used in

18:00

the condensed milk industry. That's right. So

18:03

the S is Shetland, the C is

18:05

the Chillingham

18:08

cow, the U is the Ukrainian

18:10

grey, the B

18:12

is the Belgian red, and the

18:14

A is of course the big boy, Apadeen

18:17

Angus. And is that because those

18:19

are the breeds that are best suited to

18:21

being sent down and doing the whole

18:23

condensed milk system? That's absolutely right. They're

18:25

some of the largest cows, they're built

18:27

for pressure, and boy do they get

18:29

some of that. You know, there's a

18:31

lot of pressure down at 3,000 feet

18:34

below the surface. And we've just

18:36

found over the years that they are

18:38

the most resilient cows. Your smaller cows would

18:40

just implode. Yeah, I was thinking if you

18:42

took down a pygmy limousine,

18:45

for example, gone. Really, just,

18:47

I mean, you've barely broken the surface

18:49

and that's imploded. Really, as beautiful as

18:51

they are, they are not built for

18:53

the water. And sometimes you just

18:55

show one of those cows a glass of water

18:57

and they will implode. I don't

19:00

know what it is. I think

19:02

mentally they feel the pressure and

19:04

they implode. The

19:06

human cost of the condensed milk

19:08

trade is awful. That's

19:10

interesting, because obviously people think a lot about

19:13

the ethical side of whether it's okay

19:15

to do that to cows and to put them underwater

19:17

for all that time. And obviously, you

19:19

know, I don't want to talk about the rights and wrongs of

19:21

this. People can make up their own mind, but people say it's

19:23

unethical and that it's like the veal

19:25

trade. It's something where we maybe shouldn't consume

19:29

condensed milk. But you know, this is going

19:31

on. People think about the welfare of the

19:33

cows, but it's very rare that people actually

19:35

mention the welfare of the human beings

19:37

who are having to go down with the cows and

19:39

plug them into the milking machines and all

19:41

the rest of it. Yeah. I

19:44

think these people risk their lives every day.

19:46

For instance, they could be gobbled up

19:48

by one of those giant clams that

19:50

we see, sort of popularising them in

19:53

cartoons. What happens then? Awful. They get

19:55

eaten by the clams. A lot of

19:57

these people will then turn into pearls.

20:00

And that pearl will often have the face of the

20:02

deceased not stretched into the pearl, won't it? Yes,

20:05

I believe the term I'm not a

20:07

jeweller, but it's a milky screen is

20:09

what you see there and it's sort

20:11

of if you look deep into the

20:13

pearl, you'll see someone sort of in

20:15

anguish their final moment. And

20:17

as we all know, as is the tradition, if you if

20:19

you break that pearl open, which obviously not many people do,

20:22

you hear the last words of the of the

20:24

person as they died. And that's usually something like,

20:26

oh, for fuck's sake, something like that. Exactly. Yeah,

20:28

yeah, yeah. Oh my god, that big clam. Ah,

20:31

my legs, that kind of thing. It's not really worth

20:33

it. Because you sort of guess what their last words

20:36

are going to be. Is there any way in which

20:38

this industry could be safer? Luckily,

20:40

there are people who are better

20:42

adapted to milking the cows. The

20:46

people that we refer to in the medical community is

20:48

having a dump truck apps, a

20:50

big behind the Jell-O on

20:52

Springs. And that's great two reasons. Firstly,

20:54

often the dump truck ass is too

20:57

big for the clam to get its

20:59

mouth around. So you can

21:01

escape. And the second

21:03

is obviously that you can absorb a lot of

21:05

the pressure that you experienced down in those depths.

21:07

And I guess the third reason is you

21:10

do look very good in jeans. Yeah, so

21:12

are you telling me that then, you know,

21:14

if you're someone with what that real like

21:16

Pixar mum, that

21:19

actually the atmospheric pressure of thousands of

21:21

tons of water at the those depths,

21:24

somehow doesn't affect you? Yeah, exactly.

21:26

If you're rocking a Mrs Incredible,

21:28

if you are stowing two great

21:31

pant hands, then you should be

21:33

perfectly fine to to exist down

21:35

there. Last question, Dr. Sam on

21:37

this. How many people

21:39

every year are killed by those

21:41

giant man sized clams at

21:44

the bottom of the sea?

21:46

Every year, every year, 100 million.

21:49

I could have spoken to Nicholas all day

21:51

about condensed milk. Of course I could. But

21:54

I felt I had to broach the topic of

21:56

the controversy that he has created in recent times

21:59

with his views. about the Titanic.

22:02

Nicholas questions the official narrative around the

22:04

Titanic sinking, although he does agree that

22:06

the boat was hit by an iceberg.

22:08

I do believe it hit

22:11

the iceberg, but I ascribe

22:13

to the theory that

22:15

the ship sank as

22:17

a consequence of carrying illegal

22:20

tins of beef. OK,

22:22

so illegal tins of beef, what, so many,

22:24

and we're talking about the weight of that,

22:27

were those tins dragging it to the bottom

22:29

of the seas? No, no, the

22:31

weight was fine. Everyone

22:35

knows that the Titanic is

22:37

comprised of 16 compartments

22:40

and 15 bulkheads. Right. Now,

22:43

if there were no tins of beef in

22:46

the Titanic, it would have hit the

22:48

iceberg. Those bulkheads would have closed.

22:50

The water would have been contained at the front

22:52

of the ship. And that was the idea of

22:54

why it was unsinkable and all this? Exactly. Hence,

22:56

it's unsinkable. But in

22:59

fact, the ship was carrying millions

23:02

of tins of illegal black

23:05

market beef, which

23:07

were being held inside the

23:09

Titanic so that when it hit

23:11

the iceberg, the water poured in,

23:13

the bulkheads tried to close, but

23:15

it was being clogged by

23:17

tins of beef. And where was this

23:20

beef from? And why was this Titanic

23:22

full of beef? Yes, that's a good

23:24

question. Bruce Ismay, OK, was

23:26

the chairman of the White Star Line, and

23:28

he was very much the sort of brainchild

23:30

of this

23:32

luxury transatlantic

23:34

travel, and he

23:37

was chairman of the White Star Line. And

23:39

he came up with this idea of having

23:41

a luxurious cruise that would travel between the

23:43

UK and America. But that requires a

23:45

lot of money. And around 1912,

23:47

who had money? The

23:50

black market beef traders of

23:52

Southampton, Belfast and Portsmouth.

23:55

Right. So Bruce, in all

23:57

of his wisdom, thought, hang

23:59

on. if I'm actually going to make

24:01

this dream of minor reality,

24:04

I'm going to have to get some of these

24:06

funds. So he wasn't able to get a normal

24:08

bank loan or find financing a different

24:10

way? The draw of those

24:13

gangs was quite strong at the

24:15

time. If you wanted a ship

24:17

to dock off one of those

24:19

ports, which of course the Titanic

24:21

wanted, you really had to get

24:23

on the good side of the

24:25

B-flat marketeers. I see. You really

24:27

had control over those ports. So

24:30

while he could have had a bank loan,

24:33

sure, he could have made the Titanic sure,

24:35

but where is that docking

24:37

at? Where is

24:39

that sailing from? Exactly. And

24:42

I say Southampton and Portsmouth, around

24:44

1912, you could not find a

24:46

port that wasn't controlled by B-flat

24:48

marketeers. So there was this

24:50

meeting in Southampton, they met at a milkshake

24:52

bar. Down on the docks, I imagine, a

24:54

pretty sketchy place. We imagine it

24:56

now, we all know about those milkshake bars back then. You

24:59

know, dockside fights, you know, all life

25:01

was there. Covered in milk, exactly. All

25:04

of them covered in milk. Everyone

25:07

had that milk moustache around that time.

25:10

And actually that was a surefire sign

25:12

that someone was a member of one

25:14

of these B-flat marketeer gangs. So that's

25:17

how you knew who to approach? Exactly.

25:19

That's how you knew everyone in those gangs

25:21

had a milk moustache. Because somebody like Bruce

25:23

Ismay, you know, for him to go to

25:25

one of those dockside milkshake bars, you know,

25:27

he's from the High Rangelands of Society, right?

25:30

Exactly. So that must have been

25:32

a pretty big thing for someone like him to

25:34

go down to the dockside milkshake bar. Yeah, I

25:36

mean, pretty scary stuff. You know, like you

25:38

say, this man's used to champagne. He's

25:41

not used to the sort of

25:43

the dirty milkshakes of Southampton. So

25:46

it would have been a big moment, but you know, that's

25:48

how you know that Bruce's dream

25:50

really, really was pretty serious. You

25:52

know, someone doesn't go to a

25:55

milkshake bar without knowing what

25:57

they want. So he met with

25:59

the gangs. he explained his dream,

26:01

he said, you know, listen, I

26:03

want the most luxurious cruise

26:05

liner to depart from here

26:09

and take people across the Atlantic. And

26:11

you know, I'm sure he would have been a bit scared,

26:13

but a couple of milkshakes later,

26:16

you know, some shots of condensed milk maybe,

26:20

they were actually getting on like a

26:22

house on fire. So initially, the discussion

26:24

was around transporting a couple of thousand

26:26

tins of beef, but Bruce was so

26:28

high on the sugar of the milkshakes

26:30

that he ended up promising the transportation

26:32

of about four to five million tins

26:34

across the Atlantic. Right. So when the

26:36

Titanic took off and there's those, you

26:39

know, there's film, isn't there, of the

26:41

people waving it off? That's right. And people up

26:43

on the balconies waving. We

26:46

just have to imagine that then below decks,

26:48

it's just tin after tin of that beef.

26:50

Well, you've got to ask yourself why they're

26:53

on the deck. You know, why are they

26:55

waving? Why are they on the deck waving?

26:57

I've seen the footage like everyone else. They're

26:59

on the deck. There's thousands

27:01

of them. They're waving. You know, everyone's like,

27:03

oh, it's that's so happy. It's what a

27:05

wonderful moment filled with hope. They're

27:07

waving for help. You know, they've gotten

27:09

on that boat with the cases that

27:11

they've tried to go into their cabins

27:13

and they've been turned away. You know,

27:15

I'm sorry, it's full up. What do

27:17

you mean it's full up? It's

27:20

full of beef. Hang on a second. The

27:23

ship's, you know, it's blowing its horn.

27:25

It's departing. Everyone's rushing up to the

27:27

deck. They're waving. They've got their handkerchiefs.

27:29

They're saying, help, help, help. This thing's

27:31

full of beef. You know, I can't

27:34

get below deck. And everyone

27:36

on the harbour thinks they're just happy. They're

27:38

waving back, you know, good luck. Well done.

27:40

And they're going, help. You know, seriously, it's

27:42

full of beef. How enjoyous. And

28:00

lo and behold, then they hit the iceberg. And

28:03

as you say, the system didn't work because it was

28:05

all clogged up with beef. Some

28:08

people have felt that you've gone

28:10

too far with some of the things

28:12

you've said. You'll claim that, for example,

28:14

the high number of deaths were caused

28:16

because the lifeboats were full

28:19

of beef. Yeah, that's

28:21

right. Again, these beef black

28:23

marketeers, after that milkshake meeting

28:25

with Bruce Ismay, had

28:28

him sign on the dotted line that if anything

28:30

goes wrong, he's got to save the

28:32

beef first. So in my

28:34

opinion, nobody should have

28:36

died on the Titanic because there

28:39

were enough lifeboats. But after striking

28:41

the iceberg, it's going

28:43

down and everyone's thinking, okay, uh-oh,

28:47

at least you've got the lifeboats. Hang on.

28:50

What's he saying? And you're

28:52

hearing right across the whole

28:54

boat, tins of beef first,

28:56

tins of beef first, then

28:58

women and children. More

29:00

after this. Hello.

29:05

Sorry to take you away from the thrilling

29:08

and unraveling tale of professional diver

29:11

Nicholas Summers. But it's

29:13

Max Fundrive. I hope you can listen to me for a couple

29:15

of minutes. I just want to talk about how

29:17

this show is funded. But before I

29:19

do that, I want to extend the biggest

29:21

of thank yous to those of you who

29:23

already support the podcast. Thank you. How's

29:28

that? Max Fundrive is the one

29:30

time of year all the shows on the network come

29:32

together and invite you to support

29:34

the show as a member. It

29:37

might be that you listen to a number of shows on the Max Fund network. It

29:39

might be that you just listen to this one. The good

29:42

thing is that when you sign up, the

29:44

system asks you to indicate to it

29:46

which shows it is that you listen to and that you want

29:48

to support. And so your money then

29:50

is funneled to the right one. It's

29:53

a system I'm very happy with. I really think

29:55

that Max Fundrive are doing great stuff. You

29:58

may or may not know that in recent times... especially

30:00

this year, a lot of podcast companies

30:02

have gone under, normally because they get

30:04

bought by some kind of sort

30:07

of finance bastard or company made up

30:09

of finance bastards, and they

30:11

kind of promise the world and then end up

30:13

sacking everyone and then it all goes terribly wrong.

30:15

That's happened all over the place in the podcast

30:17

world in the last couple of years. And

30:20

it hasn't happened with Maximum Fun because Maximum

30:22

Fun is a work-around co-op and they're not

30:24

dicks. So I want to ask

30:26

you, please, will you consider joining us as a member? All

30:29

memberships from the lowest, which is $5

30:31

a month, up to other high memberships

30:34

get access to bonus episodes. Every year

30:36

we put out some bonus stuff. You

30:38

get all of that going back to when we started,

30:40

which was I think 2016. This year's

30:43

bonus, we've got a long

30:45

episode that I made using bits

30:48

that hit the cutting room floor over the past year or so.

30:50

And that was actually a really good one to make, remembering

30:54

bits that I had to get rid of normally for

30:56

time. It's not because they're not good enough. It's

30:58

because every episode, if I just left everything in that

31:00

we recorded, would just be hours and hours along.

31:03

So it was fun going through that stuff. There's some really

31:05

fun off-cuts there from the likes

31:07

of Paul F. Tompkins and of course pod

31:09

favourites like Mike Kors and the Ackin Co.

31:11

Lots of good stuff there. There's

31:14

also the audio of a

31:16

live stream event I did last year, which was

31:18

with Dr. Sam Archer and the Arse Vet Bob

31:20

Treskothic. We did a kind of live A Acka

31:23

Vet versus Acka Doc. That's up there. I've

31:26

also done a collaboration with another

31:28

Max Fun Pod called Soundheap in

31:31

which my character from Beef and Dairy is interviewed

31:33

by a CEO who's

31:36

like two inches tall called the Tiny CEO, which doesn't

31:38

make much sense if you haven't listened to their show,

31:40

but it's good fun. Also,

31:42

you can find in this year's bonus stuff, a

31:44

video of last year's live show, which

31:47

was at the London Podcast Festival, which

31:49

I think is the best live

31:51

show that we've ever done. And

31:54

I think it's better than the opening

31:56

ceremony of the 2012 London

31:58

Olympics. I've gone there, I've

32:01

said it. It's got projections

32:03

and costumes and all that kind of

32:05

stuff and I think it's really worth

32:07

watching. All that bonus stuff is there for you. Also

32:09

for those newly signing up at the $10 a month

32:11

or people upgrading their membership to $10 a month, you

32:15

get the Beef and Dairy Network pin badge.

32:17

We've done a number of pin badges over

32:19

the years. This year's one

32:21

is a very special one. It's

32:23

the crest of the Wyoming

32:25

Cattle College of the Internet. So you can

32:27

wear that proudly and show people

32:29

that you have learned

32:31

at that esteemed academy. Also at the

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higher tiers, there are various gifts

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available. There's a MaxFun bag, there's a

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MaxFun bucket hat. Go and check

32:40

that out at maxmufun.org. But the

32:43

main thing really I think is that by

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signing up to support, you guarantee the

32:48

future of the show. And

32:50

I guess I just want to

32:52

say like, I do not take for granted

32:54

how amazing it is that enough

32:56

people chip in some money so

32:58

that I can spend proper time on this show, pay

33:01

all the contributors and try and make

33:03

a show as good as I can make it. And if

33:06

over the years you've enjoyed listening, think of it as giving

33:08

us a tip. It's good to

33:10

support things that you like. Because if you

33:12

don't, then who will? And if

33:14

you like the show and you think it's

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worth something, then why not kick us some

33:18

dosh? Anyway, I'll stop going about this

33:20

now. This is my

33:23

final ask. Why not go

33:25

to maxmufun.org/join. Back to

33:27

the show. Back

33:32

to my big interview with Nicholas Summers. Why

33:35

do you think this isn't well known? Was this

33:38

covered up? You know, why? Obviously, we've

33:40

seen the film Titanic. That's where many

33:42

people will get their knowledge about this

33:44

particular event. In the film,

33:47

of course, the main characters go below

33:49

deck. You'll remember them having

33:51

sex in a very sweaty Model

33:53

T Ford. He sketches her breasts.

33:55

She dances with some carefree Irishman.

33:58

You're saying that none of that could have happened? because

34:00

all those areas were just packed full

34:03

of tins of beef. That's right. There

34:05

is no way that that would have

34:07

happened on the actual Titanic. And I'm

34:09

glad you brought this up actually. I'm glad you brought

34:11

this up because you say there's

34:13

been a cover-up. I

34:15

would agree with that. But there's

34:18

one person who's tried to blow

34:20

the whistle on this and that's

34:22

James Cameron. But that's his movie.

34:24

It's his movie, that's right. But

34:26

I met James in Southampton at

34:28

one of those sort of preserved milkshake bars

34:31

that I frequent. The National

34:33

Trust, I think, owned a number of them and kicked them

34:35

as they were. Yes, that's right. And this one in

34:38

Southampton is thought of to be

34:40

the original milkshake bar. And it

34:42

really is a fantastic example

34:44

of a milkshake bar. They've kept all of

34:46

the original features. The filthy glasses? The filthy

34:48

glasses, exactly. There's a lot of excrement on

34:51

the floor. They've really, really

34:53

kept it the way it used to be. Dog

34:55

fights? Dog fights. A lot of dog fights. A

34:57

lot of cock fights as well. A

34:59

lot of cock on dog as well. Really? Dog

35:01

on cock. Right. So, yeah, they've got a lot

35:04

of that. And I was there

35:06

on a Saturday morning, as I always do, straight

35:08

down to the milkshake bar. And

35:10

I sat down and there was this

35:12

guy just on the bar, head in

35:14

his hands, and he had this big

35:16

folder. And on the front of this

35:18

folder, it was just the word Titanic.

35:20

So, sorry, when was this? This was

35:22

a couple of years before he made

35:24

the film. So, that folder may have

35:26

been him working on the script maybe.

35:28

Exactly. Right. So, it very well might

35:30

have contained the original script. And

35:32

so, I went up to him and I said, Hi,

35:35

James, I'm Nicola Summers. I know

35:37

who you are. You're a big Hollywood heavyweight.

35:40

It's great to meet you. What

35:42

the fuck is this? You know,

35:44

what is this that you've got

35:46

here? And he said, you know,

35:48

it's my, I'm making this film

35:50

with Kate Winslet and Leonard DiCaprio.

35:53

And he said, I'm working on the Titanic. And

35:55

I started asking him about it. And I said,

35:57

you know, there's been no mention of beef, James.

36:00

And he said, what do you mean? And I

36:02

told him the whole story, and he

36:04

was completely taken with it. I never,

36:07

never, you know, a lot of people take

36:09

a little bit of convincing. Straight off the

36:11

bat, he was, oh my God. I think,

36:13

you know, for me, certainly, things start making

36:15

sense once you peer the theory, because you

36:18

think, well, of course, of course, all the

36:20

questions are answered. It feels like

36:22

that final jigsaw piece is coming into play. So it

36:24

feels like James Cameron had that

36:26

same experience. Absolutely, absolutely. And he said

36:28

to me, he said, Nicholas, I'm

36:30

going to get you on this feature. And

36:32

so I was his main advisor throughout

36:34

the filming of the Titanic with Kate

36:36

and Leonard. You know, he'd say

36:39

he'd do these shots, he'd do these scenes,

36:41

and he'd look at me and he'd say, Nicholas, what do

36:44

you think? And I always had the same note, more

36:46

beef. More tins of beef. More tins

36:48

of beef, James. Anything below deck was

36:50

full of beef. So all of those scenes

36:53

were very much filmed with

36:55

the tins present. Not many people know this,

36:57

actually. It might be a podcast exclusive. I

37:00

was the onset doctor for the blockbuster

37:02

film Titanic. No way. Yeah,

37:05

yeah, yeah. It was a fun few months that

37:07

that shoot wasn't... Didn't

37:10

come out as a fair bit of drama, though. Mainly,

37:12

people were coming to see me because

37:15

they'd either had an injury because a

37:18

can of beef had fallen on their head, or

37:20

they'd tripped over a can of beef, or

37:22

they'd scratched themselves on a jagged edge

37:24

of a can of beef that had

37:26

maybe been partially opened. So as a

37:28

doctor, then, were you attending to the

37:31

likes of the big hitters? You

37:34

Billy Zanes, you Kate Winslet,

37:36

you Leonard DiCaprio's? Yeah,

37:38

lots of fun days on set. Me and Billy Zane. I

37:40

saw Billy Zane a lot, actually. He thought, well, man. It

37:43

was a thing where he... Sort of

37:46

a form of eczema, where your skin is

37:48

very oily, particularly the bottom of your feet,

37:50

which means that you can, if you wanted

37:52

to, sort of glide everywhere. You know, you'd

37:54

often see him and it was

37:56

almost like he was on wheelies. He would glide everywhere. Is

37:58

there not a sort of patient confidentiality... thing here where you

38:00

shouldn't be telling me exactly about Billy

38:03

Zane's eczema. And I used to think that

38:05

and then I remember once at a premiere

38:07

for another film of his, three

38:09

I think it was called, some people called

38:11

it Temptation Island in other countries, and he

38:14

turned up at the red carpet and he

38:16

was gliding around everywhere and it looked a

38:18

bit like sort of the red carpet had

38:20

been overrun by snails. But I looked down

38:22

at that clear trail and went that's not

38:24

a snail trail, that's a Zane train as

38:27

we used to call them. That's

38:29

interesting because I remember at the time when that movie came out

38:31

people were like what's going on at

38:33

this red carpet and they assumed he was

38:35

standing on a Roomba. Yes! I remember the

38:37

Roomba stories, I remember his public

38:40

is getting very angry. Well I remember

38:42

all the rumours about it that were

38:44

flying around. Or should I say Roombas.

38:46

The Roomba mill went into overdrive. I

38:49

love to laugh. Yeah but no as

38:51

I say that's his slick, slick soles

38:54

that he was able to sort of glide

38:56

around on. He sort of wears shoe

38:58

tops so it looks like he's wearing shoes.

39:01

What you don't realise is there's no sole on that shoe

39:03

and it's just his slick real sole.

39:06

Yeah exactly, it's just his skin underneath. Is it

39:08

true that the part of Billy Zane's success as

39:10

a Hollywood actor and the reason why he made

39:12

it and boy has he made it, is

39:15

that with him you don't necessarily have to do a

39:17

dolly shot, you can get him to

39:19

glide towards the camera rather than moving the camera

39:22

towards him. Oh the amount of

39:24

money you save saves a lot of time on set. Exactly.

39:26

Plus you don't have to get in the car onto set,

39:28

all you need to do is book him a hotel at

39:30

the top of the hill and have the set at the

39:32

bottom of the hill and you can

39:34

guarantee he'll be on time every single day.

39:38

Nicholas had told me that the film Titanic

39:40

was filmed with millions of tins of beef

39:42

on set but as we all know when

39:45

you watch the movie you don't see a

39:47

single tin of beef. There's

39:50

not a single tin of beef and

39:52

what happened was we'd wrapped on the

39:54

film, everyone's happy, everyone's whooping, you know

39:57

we're getting the champagne out, suddenly there's three examples. I

40:00

see studio execs. Studio

40:03

execs, they've arrived. James

40:05

starts looking a bit nervous. He sort of goes over, starts

40:08

talking to them. They're looking

40:10

very, very serious. He, James then

40:12

beckons me over and I thought, hang about,

40:14

what's going on here? So I walk over

40:17

and they go ape shit. These

40:20

three studio execs go absolutely ape shit.

40:22

I've never seen anything like it. And

40:26

all they could say was, what's

40:28

with the tins of beef? What's

40:30

with the tins of beef? And

40:32

Leonard started crying. He went to pieces

40:34

entirely. Kate was consoling

40:37

him. And at this

40:39

point, it's deafening, these three execs.

40:41

The room goes quiet. And

40:43

they're saying they've spent millions of pounds

40:45

on this production and they can't see

40:48

at all in the footage

40:50

because it's surrounded by tins of

40:53

beef. I said to

40:55

them. We sent you the script. They

40:57

okayed the script. And then

40:59

they come back at me and they say, well, yeah,

41:02

sure. But you didn't say everything was going to be

41:04

surrounded by millions of tins of beef. So we've got

41:06

the final movie, Titanic. There's not

41:08

a single tin of beef there. Does that mean that the

41:10

whole thing was re-shot? Like what happened? Three

41:13

letters. CGI. Right.

41:16

The studio execs came in

41:19

with a Windows computer and they open

41:21

up this laptop and they put it

41:23

in front of my face and they

41:26

just say, Windows.

41:29

And this is what, probably Windows 95 of that stage? Windows

41:31

95, exactly. Right. I

41:34

had no idea what they were talking about. Right, okay. They

41:36

march off. Before I know it, I'm

41:39

going to the cinema in my

41:41

scuba gear. I'm

41:43

getting down there. I'm sat on the front row. I'm

41:46

looking at the screen and I'm not

41:48

seeing a single tin of

41:50

beef. And I'm furious. So

41:53

they CGI'd out every single tin of

41:55

beef in that film using a Windows

41:57

95 computer. Remember

42:00

James Cameron came to see me days

42:03

after the premiere of Titanic and

42:06

he was in a bad way. What

42:08

the execs had done to his

42:11

vision, his film, he was devastated. He

42:13

was drinking a lot of alcoholic milkshakes.

42:17

About nine or ten a day, but you

42:19

could tell that even when he sort of ran

42:21

out of those, he was just combining any dairy

42:23

products with any wine that he could get his

42:25

hands on. The nadir of this

42:28

was he had a thing

42:30

where he got some mascarpone

42:32

cheese and combined that with some

42:34

very cheap Pinot Grigio

42:36

he got from a garage and made

42:38

what he called Pinochesio. The

42:42

odor of which still haunts me to this day.

42:44

He'd gone so far that he was actually giving

42:46

that out as Christmas presents. I

42:48

ended up having to treat a number of celebrities

42:51

who he'd sent this to. I remember Billy Zane

42:53

came into my surgery and his

42:55

feet had completely dried out. As a result of the

42:57

Pinochesio? Yeah, he tried to

43:00

have some of it and well, I hadn't

43:02

agreed with him. I've

43:04

still got on my phone a screenshot of

43:06

a text message from Sigourney Weaver

43:08

where she'd just written, it stinks, it stinks

43:10

so bad. My guest

43:12

room is a write-off. When you think about how

43:14

smelly something would have to be for you to

43:17

go for the length of texting

43:19

a doctor, I mean, that's smelly. She didn't

43:21

even want medical advice. I just told her,

43:23

you're never going to sell this place. Best

43:26

option for you is to bulldoze it and sell

43:28

the land to the military. James

43:31

was a total mess. He called

43:33

me up hundreds of times. I

43:36

could tell he'd been on the milkshakes. I'd

43:38

go down to the milkshake bar on a

43:40

Saturday and I looked at him and he

43:42

looked at me and his eyes were completely

43:44

bloodshot. He'd bet so much money on the

43:46

dogfights that he'd lost it all that he

43:48

was actually going to compete

43:50

in the next dogfight. Versus

43:53

a dog? Versus a Rottweiler, I think it was.

43:56

And I thought, this is serious. We're going to lose

43:58

James. And I looked at him in the eye. And

44:00

I knew the next thing I was

44:03

going to say was going to be incredibly important. It

44:05

was going to save this man's life. And

44:08

I said, the only three letters that

44:10

I knew would shake him out of

44:12

this. CGI.

44:17

Windows 95. And he

44:20

looked slightly confused at me. And

44:24

I said it again. CGI.

44:27

Windows 95. And

44:30

for the first time in a long time, I

44:33

saw that cheeky glint that

44:36

he used to give me on the set when we were

44:38

piling the tins of beef high to get ready for the

44:41

next shot. And he stood

44:43

up. He

44:46

picked up the stool that he was sat on. He

44:49

launched it across the room. And

44:51

he marched out of that

44:54

milkshake bar. And I

44:56

never heard from James again until

45:00

the release of a

45:02

little film called Avatar.

45:19

There I was at the premiere of Avatar. I

45:22

was in my full scuba gear. That

45:24

was the very first

45:26

time that I had gone

45:29

to the cinema and

45:31

had done really anything other than

45:33

scuba diving where I

45:35

felt the same passion,

45:39

the same level of excitement

45:42

that scuba diving has given me. So

45:45

in contrast to your reaction to Jumanji?

45:47

Precisely. The CGI technology

45:50

that these studio exec assholes

45:53

used to completely

45:55

bastardize and destroy

45:57

mine and James' vision in Titanic.

45:59

panic, James had done

46:01

the incredibly clever thing with my help

46:04

to take that power back from them

46:07

to create the greatest film ever made.

46:12

And actually now I think of it, I

46:15

wonder whether, and you can tell me if I'm

46:17

right or wrong, the subtext of the story of

46:19

Avatar, that the blue space

46:22

alien type people versus the kind

46:24

of mechanoid human people is

46:27

actually telling the story of

46:29

you and James versus the studio execs.

46:32

I'm so glad you picked up on that because I often

46:35

tell people that I worry that they come across as

46:37

a bit of an egomaniac. I'm so

46:39

glad you got that same impression. James

46:42

told me that that is what the film

46:44

is about. You know, there's all this talk of is

46:47

it a kind of metaphor for the

46:49

environment or fossil fuels and everything. It's

46:51

not that. It is

46:53

entirely the retelling of mine

46:55

and James' experience in creating

46:57

Titanic starring Kate Winslet and

46:59

Leonard DiCaprio. And you

47:01

know, eventually, as you know, the blue

47:04

space alien weird people rise up

47:06

and they destroy the metanoid human

47:09

beings. And that's exactly what James

47:11

and I did with the creation

47:13

of Avatar. And it's that I've

47:16

never felt anything like that. And to this day,

47:19

that's the one moment in my life where I

47:21

have felt pure joy

47:23

beyond that given to me by scuba

47:25

diving. Despite

47:28

Nicholas and James Cameron creating Avatar and

47:30

feeling that they had proven the studio

47:32

executives who had ruined Titanic wrong, their

47:35

theory that the Titanic had sunk because

47:37

it was full of illegal beef was

47:39

still widely ridiculed and disbelieved. However,

47:43

the success of Avatar gave

47:45

them an opportunity to prove

47:47

everyone wrong. It was

47:49

when James and I brought out Avatar

47:51

the Way of Water that we

47:53

finally realised we've got enough money

47:55

here. You know, we've made a

47:58

buck or two. And

48:00

the only way we're

48:03

going to stop people from calling us cranks

48:05

is if we prove once and

48:08

for all that the Titanic was

48:10

filled from bottom to

48:12

top with tins of beef. And

48:14

how do you do that? You've got to

48:17

get yourself a submersible. You've got to

48:19

go down to the wreck and you've got

48:21

to recover as many tins of beef as

48:23

you possibly can. And that is exactly what

48:26

we did. Now this is obviously huge

48:28

and this is the thing that's, you know, some people

48:30

have been saying all sorts that you fake the footage.

48:33

But, you know, ironically that it's all CGI.

48:36

People don't trust James Cameron because they know

48:38

that he can create these wonderful, infinite worlds.

48:41

Maybe even he's using the specific way of water

48:43

technology, which he, you know, to

48:46

create those underwater worlds. Maybe

48:48

he's just done this with Nicholas Summers and they're

48:50

faking this whole thing. Just like the

48:52

moon landings was faked and, you know, and, you know,

48:55

when those Bill Fenton's are hologramming, so these things

48:57

are possible. How does it feel

48:59

when people say that to you? Well, it's

49:01

music to my ears in a way because you

49:03

know what I'm going to say. Whenever

49:06

anyone comes at me with this diatribe,

49:08

if you faked it, you faked it,

49:10

you faked it. Boom. Yes.

49:13

No. Is that, what

49:16

is that then? No, this is a real privilege. Can I

49:18

touch it? Of course you can. Okay. Be careful. Be careful

49:20

with it. Sorry, just to explain to you what this is.

49:22

This is a tin of

49:24

beef, which if you ought to be believed,

49:26

has been at the bottom of the ocean since

49:28

1912. That's right.

49:31

It's rusty. It's, it's

49:33

hard to read the writing on the front, but it's

49:35

an incredible artifact. Thank you so much for bringing it

49:37

along. My pleasure. You haven't yet opened any of these

49:40

tins. No. But

49:42

when you contacted the show and said you wanted to

49:44

come on, you said that ultimately

49:47

you do want to perfectly open one of the

49:49

tins, prove what's inside, prove that it's beef. And

49:51

also prove that if you tin beef, in

49:54

your words, it could last 5,000 years, like this, this

49:56

will be totally edible. And you'd like to

49:58

prove that and you've decided you want to. do that on

50:01

our show and I just want to say thank you so much. It's

50:03

my pleasure. For this exclusive. It's my

50:06

pleasure and it's a recognition of all that you

50:08

do for the beef industry. I know you here

50:10

have been firm supporters

50:12

of the beef tin theory for a long

50:14

time now. So this is just in recognition

50:16

to when everyone else abandoned me and James,

50:18

I knew you were there supporting us. So

50:20

it's the least we can do. Okay, let's

50:23

open that tin. Okay,

50:25

here we go. We

50:27

are to expect that this beef has

50:30

been perfectly preserved. Absolutely perfectly

50:32

preserved. Here we go. I

50:35

guess I'll do the honours. There we go.

50:38

So just to... He's turning the little key that's

50:40

on the side. That's right. And here we just...

50:42

Oh, we've punctured it there. Oh, God. Oh, it's really...

50:45

Jesus Christ. It's a

50:47

kind of swampy gas.

50:53

Yes, I mean, I think that's normal. Yeah,

50:57

that's looking good to

50:59

me. Are you sure? I

51:02

mean, should we even open it anymore? Because

51:05

that's no noxious. I mean,

51:07

that's not a good thing. I mean, I think

51:09

that's a good thing. I mean, I think that's a good thing. I

51:14

mean, should we even open it anymore? Because that's no noxious. I

51:16

mean, that's really... It's meant to bubble. It's

51:18

definitely meant to bubble. I think if you are

51:20

just going to finish taking the lid off and...

51:24

Oh, oh my God. Yeah,

51:27

that's looking good. I mean,

51:29

I... Sorry,

51:32

I know you said that this tin would

51:34

be able to be fresh for years and

51:36

years and years, but that's a putrid meat.

51:39

No, it's not. This

51:42

is exactly as the beef

51:45

would have been eaten in 19... Would

51:48

those worms have been in the

51:51

tin originally? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Because

51:54

they look like kind of sea worms. There's definitely like

51:56

a maritime worm vibe. Yeah.

52:00

I just want to say like, you don't feel like you

52:02

have to eat this just because we're on recording the podcast

52:04

and like... This is 25 years in

52:06

the making. It's really ripening isn't it? It's

52:09

getting better. I just want

52:11

to make it very clear that I don't think any less

52:13

of you for not eating this. This is very obviously heavily

52:16

rotten. There's nothing I want to do

52:18

more than to eat this beef. Okay

52:20

there's quite a lot of eggs in it. Are

52:22

those... All original. That's

52:25

all normal. What about the tiny crabs?

52:28

It looks like there's thousands of tiny crabs in there.

52:30

Nah I think that's normal. We could sieve it for

52:32

crabs first if you want. Okay. Here

52:35

we go. First big

52:37

mouthful. Here we go. Okay.

52:42

I can feel the crabs crawling back up with her.

52:44

I see. Are you taking a second... You

52:47

don't need to take a... I think you've tasted it now. You

52:49

don't need to take a second spoonful. I just want to... Because

52:53

now you've got through the top sort of the hardened

52:55

carapace that there's a lot more of those miniature crabs.

52:57

That's the best bit. That's

52:59

often the top bit of the tin beef

53:01

was to preserve the rest. And

53:04

the good stuff is down below.

53:07

It's grey. I mean there's no other word for it.

53:09

This doesn't get better than this. It

53:11

does not get better than this. Sorry.

53:15

Okay. Oh.

53:33

Well, I think you've done very well there. And I by

53:35

no means think you need to finish this tin. Nope. No,

53:39

the whole tin. The whole tin. I'm

53:41

not even convinced that's still beef. I'm sorry. It's

53:44

like kind of organic mulch created by hundreds of

53:46

years of breeding crabs, I think. You could eat

53:48

around that. There's that tiny bit there that resembles

53:50

a bit of beef. The

53:56

bit that lives in the mouth of the live. Yeah. I don't know

53:58

what that is. It's kind of a worm. a sea

54:00

worm. Yeah, that bit. Yeah. Do

54:03

you want that bit? That invertebrate could be a new species as far

54:05

as I'm concerned. I've not seen anything like that before. Do you want

54:07

to eat it? No, I do not want to eat

54:09

it. I think, and I don't think you should eat it anymore either. I

54:11

think it's... Okay, here we go. God,

54:20

I just

54:22

wish Jose was here to finish me off. I

54:25

mean, I don't mean that. That's just the... That's

54:27

the beef talking, but round

54:30

four. I'm

54:33

going to have to

54:37

call Jose. I'm going

54:39

to have to call Jose.

54:42

Jose! Jose! Jose!

54:45

Shoot my head off. Do it! He's

54:47

not here. Jose! Jose! Please!

54:50

I can't see him. I can't see him.

54:52

I can't see him. I can't see him.

54:54

I can't see him. Please, I

54:56

can see Jose. I can see him. No! So

55:07

Nicholas is now in a stable condition. He

55:10

fell into a coma moments after he stopped

55:12

recording. But he

55:14

is improving. His

55:16

vitals are now relatively normal and we're

55:19

hoping he might wake up soon. Wow.

55:22

Okay. Thank you so much Dr. Sam for

55:25

taking care of him. Obviously, it was pretty scary for me. He was

55:27

just the two of us in the studio and I saw

55:29

things going south pretty quickly. It

55:32

was when his eyes rolled

55:34

back, his mouth started foaming

55:36

and then hundreds and hundreds of tiny

55:38

crabs started firing back out of his

55:40

mouth, nose and anus that

55:43

I thought, right, I need to call the doctor. And thank

55:45

God you picked the phone up. Is

55:47

this something that we should have maybe expected

55:49

with him eating that tin of beef from

55:51

1912? I think we're

55:53

looking at a situation where he's eaten very,

55:56

very old beef, beef from before a

55:58

time of health and

56:00

safety standards. We're talking about cows

56:02

that were fed almost exclusively on

56:05

lead. That

56:08

was what they used to do back then. So the

56:10

problem really with eating that old beef is that you

56:12

are essentially putting yourself back into

56:14

time before health and safety legislation and

56:17

experiencing the levels of

56:19

danger of an Edwardian person

56:22

just in the modern day. Wow. Exactly.

56:25

It's like putting your stomach in a time

56:27

machine and is as dangerous

56:29

as that sounds as well. And

56:32

the key problem is lead. Why was it then

56:34

that so many cows in the early 1900s were

56:37

eating so much lead? Cows used to be

56:39

sold at auction and the heavier the cow, the

56:41

more money you would get for it. So the

56:43

only logical thing for a lot of farmers to

56:45

do was to feed their

56:47

cow as much lead as possible. This

56:50

reached its nadir in, I think it

56:52

was 1942 when a cow was sold at

56:56

auction that weighed 37 tonnes,

56:59

which is far too much for a cow.

57:02

By that point, I believe the cow was

57:04

almost pure lead and was completely

57:06

useless to be butchered. And the butcher that

57:09

bought it, turned it into stakes

57:12

and things, actually just left

57:15

it where it was and it became a

57:17

statue. It just became a cow statue because

57:19

there was just so much lead in it.

57:21

So essentially the cow died, the organic parts

57:23

of the cow naturally rotted away

57:25

and what you were left with and what that cow

57:28

had turned into was a kind of perfect

57:30

cast within which to cast the lead

57:32

statue of a cow. Exactly.

57:35

Rumour has it a number of

57:37

statues were created that way. I've heard

57:39

a horrible rumour that the Winston Churchill

57:41

statue in Parliament Square was made by

57:43

pouring molten lead into the corpse of

57:45

Winston Churchill, but I've not had that

57:47

verified so I don't want to spread

57:49

that rumour. You don't

57:51

want to spread that rumour. That

57:54

doesn't really make sense in this context. Thinking

57:56

again about Nicholas then, he's absolutely chock full

57:58

of lead. But you

58:00

say he's going to make a full recovery? Is that true? We're

58:04

hopeful. We're also hopeful

58:06

that, as we all know, lead is

58:08

very heavy, which means it sinks to the bottom. Which

58:10

means Nicholas might be

58:12

looking at having the kind of dump truck

58:14

ass that means that he

58:17

himself will be able to traverse

58:19

the inky depths of the oceans

58:21

of the world deeper than he's

58:23

ever dove before. Wow.

58:26

So you're saying that the lead will coalesce in

58:29

his ass, creating

58:32

that real dump truck situation and

58:34

that that will allow him to be

58:36

an even better diver. So, oh, I mean, this

58:39

is, I mean, way to pull a positive

58:41

out of something so negative. This is amazing. Yeah, yeah.

58:43

I just can't wait to see that new ass of

58:45

his. Anyway, thank

58:48

you, Dr. Sam. Oh, before I go, Dr.

58:50

Sam, what do you make of his

58:53

theory that the Titanic sank because it was full

58:55

of tins of beef and also that the lifeboats

58:58

were full of tins of beef and that's why people

59:00

died during that situation? I think

59:02

that theory is complete bollocks.

59:05

It's just not true. That's a good point. Okay,

59:08

well, thank you, Dr. Sam. Thank you very much. A

59:12

big thanks to Nicholas Summers and Dr. Sam

59:14

Archer for those interviews. Nicholas is

59:16

still in a coma, but the good

59:18

news is that the lead is beginning

59:20

to sink and coalesce in one part

59:22

of his body. That's right.

59:25

That dump truck ass. Beep boop.

59:28

Also, I should mention that we did ask James

59:30

Cameron if he would be interviewed for this programme

59:32

and he declined, but he did send the following

59:35

message. Hello, and thank you for

59:37

your interest in my work. I can't be

59:39

interviewed at the moment as I'm putting the

59:41

final touches to the script of Avatar 11.

59:44

In this film, a group of blue Na'vi

59:46

people discover a portal which allows them to

59:48

go to 1980s California where they end

59:52

up competing in the 1984 LA

59:55

Olympics, ultimately winning

59:57

bronze. Thanks, James.

59:59

That sounds... like absolute horseshit.

1:00:02

So that's all we've got time for this

1:00:04

month But if you're after more beef and

1:00:06

dairy news get over to our website now

1:00:08

where you'll find all the usual stuff as

1:00:10

well as our off-topic section where this month

1:00:12

we surveyed the people of Birmingham and asked

1:00:14

them how they feel the city would be

1:00:16

different if it had a coast. So

1:00:20

until next time Beef

1:00:22

out Thanks

1:00:33

to Cody Dala, Tom Neenan and Linnea Sage.

1:00:36

And thanks to you for listening. I know

1:00:38

that not everyone can afford to or

1:00:40

simply doesn't want to Support

1:00:42

the show financially and obviously that's totally fine. I'm

1:00:45

just pleased that you're listening quite honestly Because

1:00:48

it's MaxFunDrive. We are going to be doing some special

1:00:50

stuff over the next couple of weeks on the 27th of March

1:00:54

That's a Wednesday at 8 p.m. UK

1:00:56

time. I'll be doing a live

1:00:58

stream with Professor James Harkam,

1:01:01

historian and a friend of the show. We're going to be

1:01:03

doing a live Ask a

1:01:05

Historian session where you can

1:01:07

put your questions to the historian James Harkam.

1:01:09

So to watch that that'll be on Twitch

1:01:12

So 8 p.m. On the 27th of March twitch.tv forward

1:01:17

slash Benjamin Partridge. Also,

1:01:19

there'll be another episode of Beef and Dairy Network

1:01:22

out next week Because

1:01:24

it's MaxFunDrive. Another extra bonus

1:01:26

episode will be coming through to everyone's feed

1:01:29

I'll also be doing Reddit ask me anythings.

1:01:31

I might do some other twitch stream things

1:01:33

I'm not really a big sort of twitch

1:01:35

guy, but maybe I'll do that for the next couple

1:01:37

of weeks I've been playing a lot

1:01:39

of the computer game Civilization 6 And

1:01:43

maybe I can stream myself playing that

1:01:45

but I have to say it is absolutely ruined

1:01:47

my life Anyway for details

1:01:49

of special stuff that I might be

1:01:52

doing for MaxFunDrive follow us on social media We've

1:01:54

got the Beef and Dairy Twitter We've

1:01:56

got the Beef and Dairy Instagram and if

1:01:58

you do sign up at maximumfund.org Do

1:02:01

let me know on social media because I would love to

1:02:03

say thank you to you personally. See

1:02:06

you next week.