This is The Technical Difficulties, we're playing Citation Needed.
Joining me today, he reads books y'know, it’s Chris Joel.
Now then.
Everybody’s favourite Gary Brannan, Gary Brannan.
It’s me!
AUDIENCE: Hurray!
Oh, I see, I see!
- You get the warm-up time. - Wow.
Did you set up that up while we were outside waiting for you?
Yes, I did.
And standing in for Matt Gray, please welcome stand-up mathematician, Matt Parker.
Pleasure to be your replace-Matt.
In front of me I’ve got an article from Wikipedia and these folks can’t see it.
Every fact they get right is a point and a ding,
and there's a special prize for particularly good answers which is...
What did you do?
Whacked my funny bone on my chair.
- Oh! - That is pretty funny.
And today…!
That’s the right hand, he needs that one(!)
Come Matt, fill in for the classy panel show, it'll be great(!)
And today we are talking about Turra Coo.
I don’t know, Turrack who…?
Y'know, I figured out at least know what the words you’re saying are.
Well, the language is Doric.
Okay, Aberdeen.
Oh he’s right. Straight off.
Oh, thank you.
Aberdeenshire, North East Scotland.
It’s a particular dialect.
Yes, you are absolutely right, near the Aberdeenshire town of Turriff.
And Turra is Turriff.
Okay.
What might Coo be?
PIGEONS.
Is it one of those cattle that's in fields?
- Oh yeah, Coo! - A Highland Coo.
- He’s absolutely right. - What?!
I just... how does... wow.
Right! Bye, everybody.
I’m just working out if they had a big enough population for a hostile takeover.
That is incredible.
No, you’re absolutely right.
The Turra Coo is Doric for the Turriff cow.
Were you not expecting that to be the right answer?
No! That was supposed to be a “joke”.
You were just making a cheap joke at the expense of the Scots dialect.
- I was. - You’re absolutely right.
I know somewhere between, like, a non-zero amount of things about a lot of things
and a niche dairy cow…
I'm like, okay, I’m out.
Mate, welcome to my world.
The cow became famous.
Britain’s Got Talent!
Did it juggle?
How, it’s got four legs and no arms?
It lies on its back and does that.
I was going to go, it was sat on an office chair.
Or any other chair could do.
It just so happened its act was on an office chair.
Well, that means you can slide it onto the stage.
Exactly.
'Cos it can’t propel itself because its little legs are stuck out forwards.
Oh, you think I’m being ridiculous, but actually I’ve just produced
a very good way of transporting a cow sat down.
At last(!)
I like the idea that there would be notation for a cow juggling with four limbs.
There would.
I’m sure you could.
Well somebody’s written the patterns ’cos it…
“Boring juggler information!”
Brace yourselves, here it comes.
Well, that’s how Gandini patterns work.
That’s effectively one...
There’s two people using four arms to juggle one pattern.
And the siteswap notation, they mathematically predicted
new juggling tricks that had never been juggled before
because the maths worked out and then they're like, “oh it worked, my goodness!”
And so, mathematically you can predict ways to juggle
without ever having to bother to learn or pick the balls up, it’s great(!)
Biscuit that man.
So, Turra Coo...!
Yeah.
The juggling cow of Britain’s Got Talent, we’ve already established this.
This was definitely before Britain’s Got Talent. It is...
Oh, X Factor.
PT Barnum.
Pop Idol.
Opportunity Knocks for the students in the audience, yeah.
You’re certainly closer, this was Aberdeenshire.
This was under a Liberal government, and liberal with a capital L there.
Okay, so that is pre-David Lloyd George, probably,
are we talking Liberal Whig territory here?
It was actually, I’m going to give you the point because you gave the name.
David Lloyd George.
It was David Lloyd George as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Oh my God, that’s... 1911!
Yeah, you’re absolutely right, have a point again.
I have it down here as the 1910s, but that’s…
Specific referencing(!)
What did he bring in?
Er. Finance and Valuation Act.
Erm, pensions.
And Unemployment Benefit.
The Parliament Act.
Have I missed them all?
The first cow that could retire with a safe pension(!)
I’m going to give Gary the point.
It was National Insurance contributions.
What, for cows?
Yeah!
Er, no, it w...
Three squirts for you, one for the taxman.
For all workers between 16 and 70.
So it was the National Insurance Act.
Yes, okay.
And the farmers local to Turriff were not happy about this.
Because they would have pay their employees National Insurance stamps.
The contributions were too high, yes, absolutely right.
And it was unfair for them to pay for something they were unlikely to use.
Unlikely?
They’re very likely, they’re all going to get to…
Well, they might not get to pensionable age actually.
No, Coo-beasties kill 'em.
Immortal dairy workers.
Less in mortal peril than some other people in that era.
Who might have been more at risk?
At risk?
People working in the dairy mines.
Yeah, the big cream seams, they took a lot of lives.
Yes, rich seam of...
Rich seam of squirty that comes out.
More they're drilling, and it's like: “we’ve struck cream!”
“We’ve got a gusher!”
Face is white, takes the glasses off.
“Oh, we’re safe now.”
The thing is, apart from the word dairy in there you’re absolutely right,
so I’m giving you the point.
It was people that would work in the mines and in industry.
So there were protests, and what did one particular farmer refuse to do?
And no doubt it involves this cow.
No, not yet. The cow has not yet got involved.
It will later involve this cow.
It will later involve this cow, but I’m not giving you a point for that ’cos that’s
bloody obvious.
Did they march somewhere?
That was happening, but we’re looking at what one specific person was doing,
as civil disobedience.
And it can’t just be… he wasn’t just refusing to make the payments,
so it must be something creative.
It was stamping the insurance cards.
It was doing the paperwork required for that time.
That maybe the most boring answer to a quiz question.
I realise that but we need to get through this.
That’s how we resist in this country.
Stuck his quill in the farmyard, and wrote it on with that.
Oh...
Was it a poo-related protest, are we headed there?
No it wasn’t, it was literally he just refused to do this,
so he was charged, he was sentenced to pay £15 plus the arrears which, in…
That’s not a small amount of money,
that’s probably a couple of hundred quid actually in today’s terms, I would have thought.
Did the debt collector take his cow?
Ah!
Sheriff’s Officer George Keith turned up, as a bailiff essentially,
and looked around for property that could be seized.
And went, “this cow’s in a chair already”.
“I can just wheel it straight out of the farmyard.”
In the barn, juggling, it’s dead easy to see, yeah.
That cow’s worth a lot. Future earnings alone…
This is getting a bit Jack-and-the-Beanstalk so far, I’m going to be honest.
It is a bit, the Sheriff seized the cow.
Okay.
The trouble is: now the government owns a cow.
Wait, we’ve got the National Cow!
It was set to be sold.
Yes.
What’s the slight problem with that?
Oh, no bugger'd buy it!
Absolutely right.
Oh boy.
Not only that. No local mart, no local agricultural mart, would handle the sale.
So now the government still has a cow.
Who is no doubt hungry…
Can I just ask, is it a boy cow or a girl cow?
- It’s a girl cow. - Okay, thank you.
I believe there’s technically a term for that.
Yes, it’s "cow".
I only know that because I’ve made that same mistake myself.
The citizens found the cow tied in the village square
and decorated with a slogan, “Lendrum to Leeks.”
Lendrum is where they were.
Why that might have been the slogan?
It’s making a reference to someone.
To Lloyd George?
Why would that be?
Oh, he’s Welsh.
There’s the point, yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
That’s a nice bit of stereotyping I just sauntered into there, isn’t it?
Well, this was being done by the Sheriff, as the victor.
This is: we have taken your cow, we are tying it in the square,
we can’t sell it but it’s not your cow anymore.
What was the response to this?
Barbecue!
No, they liked the cow, they wanted to keep the cow.
You can like it, and it be delicious.
Fair point.
Those are not even close to being mutually exclusive.
They brought in loads of other identical cows.
They're like, “you’ll never tell which one it is now!”
Oh, that’s cunning.
And painted them one, three, and four, so everyone looked for number two.
Did they put giant hats over them and do like a three-cow Monte?
Get-- mmf-- in---!
Which one is the cow in?
Well, like, it’s not a difficult…
“Under one of these cups...”
One of them is about six-foot off the ground.
And it's walking that way…
I’m going to Vegas and doing that, I’ll make my fortune, I know I will.
There was a near-riot, is the answer.
There was a 100-strong mob pelting the Sheriff’s officers with rotten fruit and soot.
We don’t do that these days, do we?
We don’t get riled up over minor issues to the same extent.
It’s also very hard to get soot and fresh vegetables these days.
That’s a fact, you’re not going to pay through the nose at Waitrose for those, are you,
if you’re just going to lob them at someone?
You know, the best you can do is, like, Amazon one hour delivery,
and even then the Sheriff’s probably cottoned on and legged it.
There’s an outlet for them, Amazon Protest!
They can supply you with…
Brilliant! Anything that goes out of date.
Send it for flinging!
Bags of soot…
And it could be good because instead of a real brick,
they could send you one of those rubber ones,
so you make the same point but no one gets hurt.
But you can still do the same thing, you put someone else’s address in,
and under delivery instructions say “please throw through window”.
Oh, yes!
I can’t help but feel this is drifting towards Amazon drones, to a drone-strike joke.
A drone general strike!
Like three people got that Gary, and that was a really good gag.
It’s a constituency, thank you.
You can do that. You can send people bees, can’t you, in the post?
You can send ants, definitely.
I mean, I’ve heard.
I’m not opening that package now, man.
- And ladybirds. - Instructions:
“If I’m not home, through the letterbox, one at a time, please.”
In individual packaging.
Well, once you’ve sent the first one through the others will probably follow it.
Well, Lloyd George was subject to a lot of protests anyway, it won’t be over this.
I think it’s over women’s suffrage, but they planted a bomb outside his house at one point.
And my favourite one is they cut his braces.
A lady came up behind, snapped his braces and his trousers fell down.
For the non-UK audience, that’s like suspenders, the things that hold your trousers up.
It's not like the things on his teeth.
Get someone with wire cutters, “pa-twing”!
Oh no, snaggle-toothed again!
And for someone in the UK, Lloyd George had enough scandal around him not to say 'suspenders'.
Yes, that’s true.
So amidst the melee, there is a cow…
Love it.
That’s probably winning.
...with a slogan painted on the side.
There are the Sheriff’s officers and now an angry, rioting mob.
What happens during this?
I’m reckoning the cow is used in some way as part of the mob,
maybe to head it off, or a battering ram.
Oh, that would be a sheep though.
No, the cow escapes.
- Yay! - Oh, fantastic.
The cow makes a bid for freedom, and is…
This is what they want.
It’s just gone from that edge of organised protest to Benny Hill.
Yes!
The cow was later found in a nearby barn.
Eight farm workers were put on trial in Aberdeen for disorderly conduct.
Nice charge.
All the people put on trial were acquitted, why?
What was the verdict they were given?
“Ultimate LOLs”.
That is not a valid Scots verdict.
But something else is.
“Top bants”?
There is a verdict in Scotland that there is not in England and Wales.
It must be some kind of... you’re allowed to protest provided you use enough soot?
No, we’re talking verdict here.
There is guilty, there is not guilty,
and there is something else in Scotland.
Is there not proven, or something like that?
Yes, you’re absolutely right.
Scots Law has a verdict of not proven.
Which is that kind of: “We know you done it really.”
“We’re not saying you didn’t do it, but you did it well.”
The prosecution have not proved their case beyond reasonable doubt, is “not proven”.
There was that one hold-out guy that was actually...
a cow.
I suspect in this instance it’s just nobody'd testify.
You’re absolutely right, you’re absolutely right and that’s one of the reasons why.
If the evidence is not sufficient, but it’s circumstantial…
- Are you okay there? - Oh, god.
We’ve lost Gary, we’ve lost him.
It’s going to be interesting to see what this is about,
because it doesn’t really follow from what’s just been said.
It’s something so incredibly funny but grossly inappropriate.
I was going to say, whenever you’re ready, fella.
No, no, it’s not, it’s just like, no, no, no,
It's the thought of, they’re going into the court room and the prosecution going in.
“We’ve got them, we’ve nailed them, we’ve got a good body of evidence.”
“All rise for his Honour…”
The sound of four hooves coming in.
“Forget it!”
So the cow was eventually taken to Aberdeen, it was sold for £7.
The government, how did they do out of that deal?
Oh, are they massively out of pocket on the rail fares?
Yeah, you have to book two seats and…
Yeah, yeah…
I was just thinking, you didn’t factor in because this is,
it’s not just a cow, it’s a famous cow.
That must push the value up a little bit.
It can juggle, it’s passed the Bar and become a judge so…
It’s diversified its skillset.
Yes, you need some little cows as bodyguards obviously.
Yeah, little things in their ears, dark glasses, all that kind of shizz.
So the entourage alone, getting it down to the market and that…
The expenses that you incurred are outrageous really.
The high-class grass she got shipped in.
Yes, you’re absolutely right, the Sheriff’s department took a loss on the whole thing.
What then happened?
’Cos this cow is in Aberdeen
and it’s not been slaughtered for anything yet.
Got on the wrong train, ended up in Sheffield.
Why is this cow on a train?
Because that’s how you’d probably transport a cow at that time.
There’s a full circle to this story.
Did it become a cow again?
It was never not a cow, Gary.
It was a judge for a bit!
That doesn’t mean it can’t still be…
For God’s…
I mean you put a wig on it, who’s to say what animal it is?
That’s my defence and I’m sticking to it, it’s not proven.
Not proven because we couldn’t see its scalp.
Exactly.
The farmer’s friend bought it back and gave it to him as a gift.
Yes. You are absolutely right.
Oh, that’s nice.
It was…
Good, ’cos I had a list of about ten different permutations I was going to go through.
Yes, it’s close enough.
Bryony Miller, local girl and wife of the farm hand
rallied the local community together, bought back the cow
and presented it back as a major public event.
Was it in a box?
Did it have a bow around it?
Paraded with garlands and ribbons and flowers.
Eyy!
And painted with the slogan, “free...”
I’m going to translate this from the Scots, because I can’t do the accent,
“Don’t you wish you were me?”
Aww.
Yeah, I’m a juggling cow that’s been a judge.
I’ve had a hell of a life.
How are they doing all these messages?
I mean does paint rub off cows?
Well, I’m from an urban environment, I’ve never painted one!
Chalk, yeah, but…
Do we have any one in the audience who has ever painted a cow?
Or knows someone who might later.
That is, like...
I was really worried for a minute there was…
This is the most middle version of cow-tipping I’ve heard of in my life.
To be fair, he dropped Waitrose into the conversation earlier.
Like you’ve, you’ve gone up…
Only because I’ve been to one earlier to buy your biscuits.
And his banana.
And my croissant, but that’s different.
He says, “Do you want anything from the shop?”
I’m like, “Yeah, we need some biscuits.”
He’s like, “Yes, get me a banana.”
“Banana!”
Yes actually he just said…
Banana, repeatedly.
And then he comes in and he’s got a croissant.
Don’t get me about middle class.
Didn’t have almond in it.
“Almond? Luxury!”
What happened to the cow?
There’s got to be, like, if you want to visit the cow now, its skeleton is in the…
Is in a corner of the farmland, yes.
It was treated well for the remaining years.
It was not sent to market after all and eventually died a natural death
and was buried in the corner of the farm.
And you can still pilgrimage to the corner of the farm?
No, but you can go to a roadside monument in Lendrum.
Ah.
That’s good.
I thought you were going to say no,
but you can stop on the outside lane of the A363 or something like that.
A bit of light trespassing later.
Is there a ghost of the cow by the layby?
I'd like to think there is.
I like the idea that’s just a layby ghost, because that’s a pretty crap ghost.
’Cos you park in a layby in the middle of the night, you hear a mooing,
“oh there’s a cow nearby.”
Yes, but it’s a juggling cow ghost!
How would you know you’ve not seen the ghost of a cow?
Deep.
And on that note, congratulations Gary, you win this week’s show.
You win a tool for combing through ponds to find male ducks,
signed by a Canadian rapper.
It’s a Drake Lake Drake Rake.
Sorry, it looks like Drake’s signature is actually a forgery there,
so it’s a fake Drake Lake Drake Rake.
You are the f***ing worst.
Do enjoy that, and on that we say thank you to Chris Joel.
“It’s over! It’s over!”
To Gary Brannan.
And to Matt Parker.
I’ve been Tom Scott and we’ll see you next time.