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Ep 15: Mythos & Mushrooms with Georgie Hollis · Veterinary Ramblings

• 0:00
  Julian Hoad: Good Evening Welcome to Veterinary Ramblings
• 0:02
  Julian Hoad: My name is Julian Hoad
• 0:05
  Georgie Hollis: And I'm Georgie Hollis. I'm taking over Mike's place tonight because he's not here
• 0:10
  Julian Hoad: Yeah, where is Mike? We looked everywhere didn't we. Could you find him anywhere?
• 0:14
  Georgie Hollis: I looked under the sofa
• 0:16
  Julian Hoad: yeah
• 0:17
  Georgie Hollis: In the spare room
• 0:19
  Julian Hoad: I looked in the garden, little tree house at the back, he's not there.
• 0:22
  Julian Hoad: He sometimes goes and hides up there, he's not there.
• 0:25
  Georgie Hollis: Tried the dustbin
• 0:28
  Julian Hoad: Ah in case there's any half empty bottles of gin
• 0:30
  Georgie Hollis: Maybe
• 0:31
  Julian Hoad: That's an idea isn't it
• 0:42
  Julian Hoad: Anyway we've got to get on because, you know, time is short. But we have a guest tonight don't we Georgie?
• 0:48
  Georgie Hollis: We do!
• 0:48
  Julian Hoad: A mystery guest, now his name, I've got here his name is Michalis Bramptonnopolis
• 0:56
  Georgie Hollis: Oh Foreign
• 0:59
  Julian Hoad: Michalis Bramptonnopolis, he's on mainland Greece and he's going to join us and chat about the Asclepia
• 1:08
  Julian Hoad: and we're going to chat about the Corinth Canal
• 1:11
  Julian Hoad: and he's going to chat about the Mycenaean ruins that are apparently near his home so shall we call Michalis Bramptonnopolis
• 1:24
  Georgie Hollis: Absolutely.
• 1:27
  Julian Hoad: Here we go.
• 1:32
  Julian Hoad: Michalis!
• 1:33
  Georgie Hollis: Oh, a man of mystery!
• 1:35
  Julian Hoad: (Speaking Greek)
• 1:39
  Mike Brampton: Ci Ci
• 1:42
  Julian Hoad: Surley you mean (More Greek)
• 1:45
  Julian Hoad: Anyway, anyway good to see you Michalis, thanks so much-
• 1:49
  Mike Brampton: It's good to see you too
• 1:51
  Georgie Hollis: Well I can't see that much of you. But yes, a man of mystery. Indeed.
• 1:57
  Julian Hoad: Yes. The International Man, is he Michalis Bramptonnopolis?
• 2:00
  Julian Hoad: Or is he perhaps someone else?
• 2:06
  Julian Hoad: Are we thinking he may be someone that we know?
• 2:10
  Julian Hoad: Hold on, I recognise the hat!
• 2:13
  Mike Brampton: What
• 2:17
  Julian Hoad: Its, we can't get rid of him, it's Mike Brampton isn't it?
• 2:23
  Georgie Hollis: Dammit! I mean, fantastic!
• 2:26
  Julian Hoad: What a great disguise mate
• 2:29
  Mike Brampton: Yeah I had you going didn't it for a moment
• 2:32
  Julian Hoad: I wondered who it was, I thought it was Van Morrison.
• 2:35
  Georgie Hollis: God we almost missed you.
• 2:36
  Julian Hoad: Yeah.
• 2:37
  Mike Brampton: Hello, Georgie. How are you?
• 2:39
  Georgie Hollis: Hi, great to see you!
• 2:42
  Julian Hoad: So I'm hosting tonight with Georgie. I thought, this is great, I get Georgie to myself for an evening.
• 2:48
  Julian Hoad: No Mike to get in the way and here you are.
• 2:51
  Julian Hoad: It's good to see you, don't get me wrong. It's good to see you. Yeah.
• 2:54
  Mike Brampton: Ah sorry I let you down mate.
• 2:56
  Julian Hoad: No it's fine. It's fine.
• 2:57
  Georgie Hollis: Are you anywhere nice Mike?
• 3:00
  Mike Brampton: Me, at the moment, yeah.
• 3:04
  Mike Brampton: I'm in a lovely place at the moment. And this is actually being recorded in front of a live studio audience.
• 3:10
  Julian Hoad: Is it?
• 3:10
  Mike Brampton: From my end, because I'm staying with friends in Greece.
• 3:16
  Julian Hoad: Now whereabouts in Greece?
• 3:18
  Mike Brampton: Ah you would ask me that, wouldn't you? Just, you'd probably know this place as Argos I've been looking for Jason today.
• 3:25
  Julian Hoad: They've just recently stopped producing their catalogue haven't they.
• 3:29
  Mike Brampton: But yeah, they have and they don't go out on a Sunday round here either.
• 3:33
  Mike Brampton: So, yeah, I'm in the land of nafplion on the Peloponnese.
• 3:40
  Georgie Hollis: Do they have a sleep in the afternoon?
• 3:45
  Mike Brampton: Well, they all did but I was too busy drinking ouzo at the time.
• 3:50
  Georgie Hollis: We've got a live audience here as well. Am I allowed to get the live audience instructions?
• 3:55
  Julian Hoad: Yes, yes, please do.
• 3:56
  Georgie Hollis: Not that I'm a bossy wife or anything
• 3:58
  Mike Brampton: 'Richard, get me a gin and tonic!'
• 4:05
  Georgie Hollis: Got Richard to get me a gin and tonic, no poor Richard's been busy all day. What have you been doing all day? Cutting Sedge!
• 4:16
  Georgie Hollis: I was just going to give Richard the good news that he's going to have to cook our supper tonight if thats okay.
• 4:22
  Georgie Hollis: Richard, what are we having for Supper? Pasta. Pasta with tomato, what about pasta with mushrooms maybe?
• 4:32
  Georgie Hollis: Could do, but we've had mushrooms every night of the week this week.
• 4:36
  Julian Hoad: You've been foraging again, have you?
• 4:38
  Georgie Hollis: We've been foraging nonstop this week. It's, everything has just gone berserk.
• 4:45
  Julian Hoad: I haven't had a chance to go out yet this week. But you have, I seen some pictures of your forages.
• 4:50
  Georgie Hollis: Sorry to shamelessly bring in the the foraging
• 4:53
  Julian Hoad: So you hunt mushrooms, on a horse?
• 4:57
  Georgie Hollis: Absolutely. Yes.
• 4:59
  Mike Brampton: How the other half live!
• 5:00
  Georgie Hollis: I have a mushroom hunting, mushroom hunting mystery pony.
• 5:03
  Julian Hoad: How do you reach down for them? Or does your horse sort of bow its head down.
• 5:07
  Georgie Hollis: No, I get off, I get off when we get to the woods. He knows it and then I put my stirrups up.
• 5:14
  Georgie Hollis: It's very important to put your stirrups up because if he ran off, you see and you find a horse that's run off and the stirrups are down, you know someone fell off but if the stirrups are up, you know
• 5:14
  Georgie Hollis: that they didn't fall off. They meant to get off.
• 5:27
  Julian Hoad: Ah, right
• 5:29
  Georgie Hollis: yeah. I put stirrups up. And then what I do is, yeah, we just lead him around and he loves snuffling around.
• 5:39
  Julian Hoad: And this is very important for anyone watching this. Georgie just showed a picture of a book called 'Roger Phillips Mushrooms, mushrooms and other fungi of Great Britain and Europe.'
• 5:51
  Julian Hoad: And if you do want to go foraging, then I strongly recommend you join a foraging group or get instruction.
• 5:59
  Julian Hoad: You can forage if you get a good book on funghi, on foraging generally.
• 6:05
  Julian Hoad: However, there are lots of look alikes, so there are lots and lots of funghi that have poisonous cousins,
• 6:13
  Georgie Hollis: So many books that are look alikes as well.
• 6:16
  Julian Hoad: Absolutely
• 6:18
  Julian Hoad: Unless you know a little bit about the descriptive terms and you're able to tell the difference between decussate gills and decurrent gills
• 6:26
  Julian Hoad: and adnexed gills, and porous fungi and bracket fungi, unless you know those differences you could end up in real dire straits.
• 6:37
  Julian Hoad: The author of that fantastic book, The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans, in 2005, I think, cooked a meal for his family.
• 6:48
  Julian Hoad: He foraged what he thought was ceps, he remembered eating them as a kid and he fed his family these mushrooms.
• 6:56
  Julian Hoad: And unfortunately, they were all taken quite quite poorly, fortunatly no one died. But one of them had to have a renal transplant.
• 7:04
  Julian Hoad: Another one is still, 10 years on, having dialysis frequently.
• 7:11
  Mike Brampton: Wow.
• 7:12
  Julian Hoad: And what he'd got was a mushroom called speciosissimus, cortinarius speciosissimus, which is actually a gilled mushroom.
• 7:25
  Julian Hoad: So when you turn a mushroom from the shop over, you see these radiating lines which are called gills.
• 7:33
  Julian Hoad: Now Boletus Ceps, Porcini is another name for it or Penny Buns, have a little sort of sponge on the underneath, their called pored mushrooms or pored fungi. Or Boletus is another name.
• 7:51
  Julian Hoad: But they have these little spots or pores on the underneath, not gills. And so it was a bit of an error.
• 7:58
  Julian Hoad: Not his own fault, you know, he thought he remembered the right ones. It's an honest mistake, but it is very easy to make mistakes, it could be your last.
• 8:06
  Georgie Hollis: It can be very confusing. There's an awful lot of Boletes and there's an awful lot of rules that you need to follow.
• 8:12
  Georgie Hollis: And they don't all look like they do in their book either.
• 8:15
  Georgie Hollis: So the Philips book, I actually funnily enough, the lady who edited a lot of photographs and collated all the photographs lives in our village. I met her recently.
• 8:26
  Georgie Hollis: She worked on the book. And it's very much a case of what they had at the time.
• 8:31
  Georgie Hollis: And if the image isn't quite right, there's some here that, I'll use a rude word, but there's some, there's a picture of a mushroom here, it's got a nipple on the top.
• 8:40
  Julian Hoad: Yeah
• 8:40
  Georgie Hollis: It doesn't normally have a nipple on the top. If you pick the mushroom, you look at the book and you just think well, it doesn't look quite right.
• 8:48
  Julian Hoad: And you didn't correctly ascribe it as a member of the umbelliferae family or umbelliferae family because it looks like an umbrella with the nipple on the
• 8:56
  Georgie Hollis: I'm desperate to find a chanterelle.
• 9:02
  Julian Hoad: One of these you mean?
• 9:03
  Georgie Hollis: no.
• 9:06
  Georgie Hollis: You trumped me, you top trumped me. Damn you!
• 9:16
  Mike Brampton: He doesn't have as big a nose as your fungi hunter does he
• 9:20
  Georgie Hollis: No, i thought you were going to say as mine.
• 9:24
  Georgie Hollis: I'd love to find a truffle as well, but I know thats going to be difficult
• 9:28
  Mike Brampton: I think you need to take a pig into the woods to find a truffle Geor
• 9:33
  Georgie Hollis: I think we need to be in a slightly different environment
• 9:37
  Julian Hoad: I heard a story of how truffles were named truffles, it could be wrong but it's a great story.
• 9:43
  Julian Hoad: And it's in the days, the 1700s where the French Aristios was still de rigueur.
• 9:51
  Julian Hoad: In other words, when they still have their heads, and they would go truffle hunting and they take their little French poodles with them.
• 10:02
  Julian Hoad: And the peasants would go on ahead with the pigs who do the actual truffle hunting. And when the pigs discovered a truffle, they'd pull the pigs away,
• 10:13
  Julian Hoad: call the Aristos forward, who'd go along and pretend the little cushion dogs have found these things.
• 10:21
  Julian Hoad: And they'd say 'j'ai trouv, je le trouv' or I found. they became known as trouvons. Hence, truffles, little pines.
• 10:31
  Julian Hoad: So I don't know whether it's true or not. But it's a great story.
• 10:38
  Georgie Hollis: I'll remember that when I find a chocolate in the fridge.
• 10:41
  Mike Brampton: Yeah, but you
• 10:42
  Julian Hoad: And that then segues on to, if you live in France, you can take mushrooms to any French pharmacy, and they'll identify them for you.
• 10:49
  Julian Hoad: It's the same as in Italy, they'll identify them. I think they must, by law, identify the mushrooms for you.
• 10:56
  Julian Hoad: However, about six to eight people die in France and Italy each year because the pharmacists incorrectly identify them.
• 11:05
  Julian Hoad: So again, a warning for people mushroom hunting, foraging of any sort can be fantastic, very rewarding in giving you a wonderful meal.
• 11:14
  Julian Hoad: But you do have to be very, very careful. And Jules Rules is 'If in doubt, leave it out.'
• 11:18
  Georgie Hollis: Yeah,
• 11:19
  Mike Brampton: yeah. Yeah.
• 11:20
  Georgie Hollis: And I think sometimes the ones people think are safe are the white ones, the field mushrooms, and actually, they'll consider anything that's white to be like a field mushroom, that
• 11:20
  Georgie Hollis: that's safe and actually they are the most dangerous
• 11:36
  Julian Hoad: They are and I've got a picture, I think somewhere of Amanita
• 11:43
  Georgie Hollis: Destroying Angel. Is it a Destroying Angel?
• 11:47
  Julian Hoad: It's a Destroying Angel. That's right.
• 11:50
  Julian Hoad: And Destroying Angel is awful, got to be one of the worst ways to die. Because it's phasic.
• 11:56
  Julian Hoad: So you eat this mushroom and apparently it tastes delicious. People who've eaten it have said they're really nice.
• 12:03
  Julian Hoad: And about five to eight hours later you start getting muscle cramps,
• 12:07
  Julian Hoad: and then you start, that's it. So look for the little cup on the bottom. The Volva.
• 12:14
  Georgie Hollis: What do they call that? A Volvo.
• 12:17
  Julian Hoad: Volvo yeah
• 12:18
  Georgie Hollis: It comes out of an egg effectively.
• 12:20
  Julian Hoad: Absolutely. So if it comes out of a little cup, then it is an Amanita and other than Caesars mushroom, which is an Amanita, and a couple of others.
• 12:33
  Julian Hoad: They contain the most poisonous mushroom species. So people who've eaten destroying angels, feel really ill for a few hours, they get sent to hospital.
• 12:44
  Julian Hoad: And the hospital stomach pumps them or sticks them on a drip and they start to feel better after 12 to 18 hours.
• 12:49
  Julian Hoad: And then they have irreversible liver and kidney failure and die, there's nothing you can do unfortunately.
• 12:55
  Julian Hoad: Ganoderma is a bracket fungus that's not edible, but is used as an ameliorative in cancer therapy.
• 13:05
  Julian Hoad: It's used as something to reduce the toxic effects of certain chemotherapeutics.
• 13:16
  Georgie Hollis: Good lord, I didn't know that.
• 13:19
  Georgie Hollis: I know, certainly the mushrooms, is it the enoki mushrooms?
• 13:24
  Julian Hoad: Yes, yeah
• 13:25
  Georgie Hollis: That are used for antioxidants that are really tumour reducing, potentially.
• 13:32
  Georgie Hollis: So there's massive research into the use of mushrooms for tumour, potential in tumour
• 13:39
  Julian Hoad: And the interesting thing is that there must be something more than the antioxidant effect because they've used more potent antioxidants as anti tumour agents and found that the life
• 13:39
  Julian Hoad: expectancy reduces with those patients.
• 13:56
  Julian Hoad: The reason being that for apoptosis or killing of the of the cancer cells, you need oxidation. So most lysosomal enzymes are oxidants.
• 14:06
  Julian Hoad: And if you use things that enhance vitamin E and other natural antioxidants, then you remove the body's innate ability to get rid of the cancer itself.
• 14:17
  Julian Hoad: So although initially, those mushrooms were used, because it was found they have an antioxidant effect, they must also have a direct anti tumour effect.
• 14:31
  Georgie Hollis: Intresting, because that's the same argument with curcumin and all of those other things.
• 14:36
  Julian Hoad: Yes
• 14:36
  Georgie Hollis: I only know it from a wound care side of things, whereas a lot of the research that goes on with apoptosis and tumour formation and there's things that are failing, which is the normal
• 14:36
  Georgie Hollis: cascade of tissue growth and everything else.
• 14:52
  Georgie Hollis: And a lot of the research that's done in tumours tends to sort of filter down into wound management.
• 15:00
  Georgie Hollis: Looking at sort of normal cellular function in healing is very closely associated with tumour formation.
• 15:07
  Georgie Hollis: So you find that this curcumin and turmeric and all these other things, they go into wound management if they've been used for tumors
• 15:15
  Julian Hoad: Absolutely, a friend of mine did his PhD on the effects, the anti inflammatory effects of curcumin of turmeric, and he looked at various stages of the inflammatory pathways and the non
• 15:15
  Julian Hoad: cox pathways.
• 15:35
  Julian Hoad: So it's found that the turmeric actually augments the non cox anti inflammatory pathways, so incredible stuff.
• 15:44
  Georgie Hollis: As long as you get it in the bloodstream, I wrote a very short piece for, I think it was a one of the journals.
• 15:59
  Georgie Hollis: and it's not soluble in water.
• 16:00
  Georgie Hollis: So it has to, you have to put it in coconut oil in order for the curcumin to be available in the bloodstream.
• 16:06
  Georgie Hollis: And then you have to take black pepper, to have piperine, which apparently helps it to be more bioavailable.
• 16:14
  Georgie Hollis: It stops the liver from getting rid of it, except my, unfortunately, my spellcheck changed piperine to pepperoni and I hadn't noticed.
• 16:27
  Georgie Hollis: And I submitted my little article, it said you got to eat it with pepperoni.
• 16:35
  Mike Brampton: Pepperoni cumin Thai curry, in order to have the same effects. And you boil that in a wok for 30 minutes, adding in spices and extra herbs as you go,
• 16:50
  Georgie Hollis: And just chuck them in, just to be sure so you know, you never know.
• 16:54
  Mike Brampton: You've been, you've actually been quite busy on the Veterinary Wound Library recently haven't you Georgie?
• 16:58
  Georgie Hollis: Oh, yeah, I have. No, we have.
• 17:01
  Mike Brampton: You have, I'm seeing references coming up all over the place recently.
• 17:07
  Georgie Hollis: We're on the ball now, I think. It's all doing well.
• 17:12
  Mike Brampton: Good.
• 17:13
  Georgie Hollis: Three months, we're doing a three month rolling, rolling agenda for online content.
• 17:18
  Georgie Hollis: And I think we're going to stick with two webinars and a q&a. And just keep that rolling. And that's working really nicely at the minute.
• 17:27
  Mike Brampton: So are you developing the whole Veterinary Wound Library to make it easier and more accessible?
• 17:34
  Georgie Hollis: Yeah, definitely. And yeah, doing a lot more that's focused on what people need, rather than just the telemedicine.
• 17:43
  Georgie Hollis: It's very much been the telemedicine up to date. But now we've got a bit more time to spend just making the content,
• 17:49
  Georgie Hollis: getting the content in there and working with some really nice people.
• 17:52
  Georgie Hollis: So it's all very, it's all good again. And I think we've spent a lot, I'm just hesitating thinking should I say, but worked really far too hard on it over the last eight years or so.
• 18:08
  Georgie Hollis: And now kind of stepping back and just trying to have a bit more quality of life. And actually stuffs come better since I've had a bit more headspace and a bit more time.
• 18:19
  Georgie Hollis: It's really interesting. So I'm trying to do a bit more. So all this foraging and stuff actually turns out I'm a reflector.
• 18:27
  Georgie Hollis: So when you do all these training things, and you work out what sort of learner you are, actually it's my downtime that helps me soak stuff in and think.
• 18:39
  Georgie Hollis: So it's really interesting that actually, things are better when I have more time out. But I've always thought I felt bad for going out and doing stuff and actually didn't realise what good it was
• 18:39
  Georgie Hollis: doing me.
• 18:51
  Julian Hoad: But the downtime is time that actually you process.
• 18:53
  Georgie Hollis: It's all this mindfulness stuff but, you know, actually I'm far more effective if I'm working half a day then a full day, which is very strange.
• 19:02
  Mike Brampton: So actually trotting through the local forests, like landed gentry, hunting for truffels with your horse is actually better for all of the vets that are involved in the Veterinary Wound
• 19:02
  Mike Brampton: Library.
• 19:15
  Georgie Hollis: It's terrible. Yes, but it is. But I, you know, I went out there this evening,
• 19:20
  Georgie Hollis: this afternoon and actually jelled a whole load of ideas about what we're going to do for the next lot of webinars.
• 19:28
  Georgie Hollis: And it's really interesting and you just don't stop feeling guilty for just having a bit of downtime because actually your head needs it.
• 19:37
  Julian Hoad: There's no need to feel guilty, Mike and I always make a joke of a reflection with CPD, purely because actually, what we don't like more than anything else is being patronised and told
• 19:37
  Julian Hoad: what we need to do to learn.
• 19:54
  Julian Hoad: That's what it comes down to.
• 19:56
  Julian Hoad: So you can do all the CPD you want. That's fine.
• 19:58
  Julian Hoad: You can read a book. Have you learned from it, who knows?
• 20:03
  Julian Hoad: Actually, whatever drives your cognitive process to process information and learn from it, is your method.
• 20:14
  Julian Hoad: And that may happen for some people in a lecture, it may happen online, it may happen by reading a book.
• 20:21
  Julian Hoad: But for the majority of people, I think what really happens is there's this post learning process filtration
• 20:32
  Julian Hoad: where your subconscious, filters the information through and applies it to other procedures, other rationales, other doctrines,
• 20:42
  Julian Hoad: and you then think, 'Oh, hang on, this thing I learned that was a bit of stand alone CPD. Actually, that would be relevant if I did this instead, wouldn't it'.
• 20:53
  Julian Hoad: So yeah, reflection isn't something that you can put into a timed CPD,
• 20:59
  Julian Hoad: you can't say I spent 30 seconds reflection there, it worked.
• 21:03
  Julian Hoad: Reflection is something we do every single second of every single day, when we're not thinking directly about something else.
• 21:09
  Mike Brampton: I think you're absolutely right there.
• 21:11
  Mike Brampton: And some of the athletes I've worked with in the recent past, the subconscious or enhancing the power of the subconscious, has been the whole drive to reaching peak performance at that particular
• 21:11
  Mike Brampton: time.
• 21:28
  Mike Brampton: And like you Georgie, obviously your time spent out in the woods, and I can imagine you're just getting ideas,
• 21:35
  Mike Brampton: just you're doing one thing, you're looking for, for fungi, or mushrooms or riding your horse. And then
• 21:45
  Georgie Hollis: My brain relaxes, everything relaxes, and all of a sudden, you're not under pressure anymore.
• 21:51
  Georgie Hollis: And it's like being a cornered cat. You know, I'm sat in front of the computer all day, and I'm looking at what I need to do.
• 22:01
  Georgie Hollis: And I'm thinking 'you must do this, must do this, must do this.' And actually, I get less effective as the day goes on.
• 22:07
  Georgie Hollis: An hour out, I'm almost twice as effective when I've come back than I would have been. So that hour out is actually free.
• 22:18
  Georgie Hollis: Actually, when I come back, I'm a bit refreshed. I've clarified some of the thoughts and you kind of prioritise what's important and think why am I bashing my head against wall doing that thing, when
• 22:18
  Georgie Hollis: actually, there's nothing in it for anybody really.
• 22:34
  Georgie Hollis: It might be vanity or something else. And you just think 'Do I need to be doing that?' And then your just doing what needs to be done and not beating yourself up quite so much is quite, quite nice.
• 22:47
  Georgie Hollis: I think, if anything, COVID has helped massively on that.
• 22:51
  Georgie Hollis: And I don't dare really put online, how many people feel they've benefited from COVID. But I do think a few people may feel that actually, they've had time to sit back and think about what is
• 22:51
  Georgie Hollis: important.
• 23:04
  Georgie Hollis: And there's been some real rubbish, you know, people who've had to be laid off work, people who've had, you know, financially things are very different.
• 23:14
  Georgie Hollis: But actually, when it comes down to what's important, I think a lot of people have been able to have a reality check. And hopefully that's going to be good for everyone.
• 23:24
  Julian Hoad: It's the same with any unnatural disaster. And I say that because, not because I think that Coronavirus is unnatural, but the way that we've responded to it has been necessarily an
• 23:24
  Julian Hoad: unnatural reaction.
• 23:41
  Julian Hoad: In nature, you didn't close down businesses and put people on furlough and things like that, that's an artificial construct, to get through something.
• 23:48
  Julian Hoad: But it's the same with wars, with conflict of any sort, with a pandemic. We've had to think outside the box, we've had to do, been forced to do things differently.
• 24:05
  Julian Hoad: And it's no surprise that actually most of the innovations over the past 150 years have come about during wartime.
• 24:14
  Georgie Hollis: I was going to do a tenuous link into wound management but everything that has come in, with everything thats evolved, that we use now with wound management, trauma management.
• 24:25
  Georgie Hollis: When it comes down to warfare, there's one of the surgeons that we know in human health care, a fantastic guy, Professor Steve Jeffries, he's done work with us before.
• 24:34
  Julian Hoad: Yeah. Brilliant guy.
• 24:38
  Georgie Hollis: You know, it's a case of the evolution of what he does, has come out of the fact that, believe it or not the issue they have is not closing wounds.
• 24:48
  Georgie Hollis: It's blood loss at the scene of injury. So the patient's bleed out.
• 24:53
  Georgie Hollis: So what's happened is there's been a lot of evolution in products that are used and funnily enough, this is going to come back to mushrooms.
• 25:05
  Georgie Hollis: So the puffball is a hemostat. So you've got chitin and all sorts of things in there.
• 25:11
  Georgie Hollis: And what they've realised is that this Chitin is a massive hemostat, which can stop bleeding within three minutes in the femoral artery.
• 25:19
  Georgie Hollis: And you find that these people who are at the scene of the injury, who are bleeding out their mate can put this product in that wound and stop the bleeding within three minutes.
• 25:28
  Julian Hoad: But it's interesting. This isn't new. This isn't new, do you remember, was his name tzi? I'll look it up.
• 25:37
  Georgie Hollis: The Iceman.
• 25:39
  Julian Hoad: The Iceman.
• 25:40
  Mike Brampton: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:40
  Julian Hoad: In his pack, they discovered among everything else, a bracket fungus called strop fungus.
• 25:46
  Georgie Hollis: Really?
• 25:47
  Julian Hoad: Yeah. And strop fungus. They thought at the time was probably useful because as a strop, you can use it to sharpen a blade.
• 25:58
  Julian Hoad: It's like leather, now, if you dry it out, you can use it as tinder. But one of the things -Yes, Mike,
• 26:09
  Mike Brampton: Just to fill people in, tzi was a character, question whether he was a sheep herder, or a trader, who was discovered when a glassier in the High Alps melted.
• 26:25
  Mike Brampton: And what we were gifted was an almost perfectly preserved corpse in his clothes. And we've been able to analyse exactly what he was up to.
• 26:37
  Mike Brampton: I can't remember when he was discovered Julian or how old it's estimated
• 26:42
  Julian Hoad: I think it was in the late 1990s wasn't it?
• 26:45
  Mike Brampton: Was he crossing from Austria to Italy?
• 26:48
  Julian Hoad: Yeah he was
• 26:50
  Julian Hoad: I'm probably gonna get the facts wrong here, but I think when he was discovered, they thought he was a recent murder.
• 26:59
  Julian Hoad: And so quick as a flash they kicked him across the border to allow the German police to investigate and then when they found out that he was about 3000 years old and they wanted him back again.
• 27:16
  Julian Hoad: They have this strop fungus, now one of the things that I'd read about a few years back, the strop fungus was possibly used for in the Middle Ages was as a plaster
• 27:27
  Julian Hoad: and you can cut the dorsal surface off, and slice it and the skin of the fungus will actually stick to your skin.
• 27:42
  Georgie Hollis: Are we talking about a birch polypore?
• 27:44
  Julian Hoad: Yes, absolutely.
• 27:48
  Georgie Hollis: I tried to find one today.
• 27:51
  Julian Hoad: I've got a picture of my foot with a huge blister on when I was doing some some climbing once.
• 27:59
  Julian Hoad: And I found a birch polypore, cut a square off and used it as a blister plaster. And it was perfect.
• 28:06
  Julian Hoad: And so the feeling was that tzi was carrying it not as a knife sharpener. But in case he had any wounds.
• 28:16
  Georgie Hollis: Oh like a bandaid.
• 28:17
  Julian Hoad: And so you know from a couple of thousand years ago, there were people using these things and were rediscovering them. We've lost a lot of that.
• 28:26
  Georgie Hollis: Apparently he also had sphagnum moss and he had a bandage on his hand with sphagnum moss in it
• 28:30
  Georgie Hollis: and they found that sphagnum moss is more absorbent than a lot of the alginates that we've got and it contains the high iodine content, which is anti microbial.
• 28:41
  Georgie Hollis: We haven't got very far.
• 28:43
  Julian Hoad: Yeah. It used to be used as a panty liner. So sphagnum moss is brilliant stuff.
• 28:52
  Mike Brampton: Sphagnum moss absorbs something like 10 or 12 times it's own volume in fluid.
• 28:59
  Julian Hoad: Yeah
• 29:01
  Georgie Hollis: 1 million. Now this sounds ridiculous now.
• 29:06
  Georgie Hollis: I'm confused, but I believe 1 million tonnes of it was used during the war.
• 29:12
  Mike Brampton: This is a show called Veterinary Ramblings, Georgie, so I wouldn't be worried about whether it sounds good
• 29:16
  Mike Brampton: Do carry on.
• 29:17
  Georgie Hollis: I've got this quote in one of my talks about sphagnum moss being used in World War 1 & 2. Over a million, a massive, massive amount was used for bandaging.
• 29:29
  Georgie Hollis: And using an absorbent, it was sterilised with phenol at the time, which probably didn't need to be done because that wouldn't be very nice.
• 29:36
  Georgie Hollis: But I've just suddenly dawned on me how enormous an amount 1 million tonnes would be, but I just can't, that must of damaged the entire globe's population of sphagnum moss.
• 29:51
  Mike Brampton: I wouldn't worry unduly about that Georgie, I think in these current times when we talk about millions and billions and billions and trillions.
• 30:00
  Mike Brampton: And, they're just so big numbers that nobody can actually get their head around it.
• 30:06
  Julian Hoad: No.
• 30:07
  Georgie Hollis: If I haven't got it on my fingers we're stuffed.
• 30:11
  Julian Hoad: Okay, moving from sphagnum back to funghi, there's a very close connection there. Have you heard of King Alfred's cakes?
• 30:22
  Mike Brampton: No
• 30:24
  Julian Hoad: Daldinia concentrica, otherwise called cramp balls, and you find them, their little sort of chestnut-like excrescences stuck on to dying Silver Birch.
• 30:38
  Georgie Hollis: I know what you mean, they look like charcoal,
• 30:42
  Julian Hoad: They look like charcoal. Yeah.
• 30:43
  Julian Hoad: Now they they will hold a smoulder. They're the ones, cramp balls otherwise called King Alfred's Cakes because of course, they look like burnt cakes.
• 30:57
  Georgie Hollis: You can see the lines in there where it looks like charcoal.
• 31:04
  Mike Brampton: The picture that you're showing me there Georgie, the one on the top right looks like a hot cross bun, which I'm sure some people will recognise.
• 31:14
  Mike Brampton: The one on the left definitely looks like a pig's testicle.
• 31:20
  Mike Brampton: Georgie is showing up or brain and brain stem.
• 31:24
  Mike Brampton: Georgie's holding up a lovely picture there of cramp balls.
• 31:29
  Julian Hoad: And that's not the best picture. So normally, they will look almost like a burned conker.
• 31:38
  Julian Hoad: But the thing is, if you cut them in half, and stick them over a flame, then they will glow, they'll smoulder.
• 31:47
  Mike Brampton: Right.
• 31:47
  Julian Hoad: And you can then wrap them in sphagnum moss and cover them in something like a rhubarb leaf or butterbur leaf and stick them in your backpack.
• 31:57
  Julian Hoad: And you can walk all day. And when you get to a campsite late at night, you unwrap it all, the sphagnum moss doesn't burn.
• 32:07
  Julian Hoad: But the King Alfred's Cake will hold the smoulder and so you just blow on it. And you can reignite a fire
• 32:15
  Mike Brampton: Wow!
• 32:16
  Julian Hoad: And that was thought to be one of the ways that fire was transported rather than having to set up new fire every night. You carry this, this smouldering cramp ball.
• 32:28
  Mike Brampton: There was me, speaking from the home of the original Olympics, thinking that you carried it on long stick.
• 32:37
  Julian Hoad: Have you had gyros yet?
• 32:39
  Mike Brampton: No, not yet.
• 32:40
  Julian Hoad: Yeah, it's spelled gyros. They're the pita breads filled with sliced chicken or lamb.
• 32:54
  Julian Hoad: And they usually put chips and onions and chilli sauce and things as well so it's a meal in a pitta.
• 32:59
  Mike Brampton: So it's like, is this like a Donner kebab would be known in Turkey or?
• 33:06
  Julian Hoad: Absolutely, its called gyros in Greek.
• 33:11
  Julian Hoad: I was eating one few years back and I was bothered by wasps.
• 33:17
  Julian Hoad: So I crushed one with my fresh gyros, and was able to say in truth that the wasp died a gyro's death.
• 33:30
  Julian Hoad: A hero's death
• 33:33
  Julian Hoad: Anyway, look what I have here
• 33:38
  Mike Brampton: I think that joke died a gyro's death to be honest with you
• 33:41
  Julian Hoad: So Mike, do you have any bats flying around?
• 33:44
  Mike Brampton: They are, we actually switched the lights on outside. It's pitch dark.
• 33:48
  Mike Brampton: But there are lots of bats flying around outside, catching all the mosquitoes. Love bats, love bats.
• 33:58
  Julian Hoad: Fantastic.
• 34:00
  Mike Brampton: I'm over here for a few days. But, one of the highlights for me is going to be tracking down Agamemnon's tomb.
• 34:07
  Julian Hoad: Wow, amazing. Yes, yes, I went there, the beehive tombs.
• 34:11
  Mike Brampton: The beehive tomb, which for people who haven't or aren't interested in googling this, the beehive tomb accredited to Agamemnon because there is actually very little evidence to say that
• 34:11
  Mike Brampton: Agamemnon was actually buried there
• 34:25
  Julian Hoad: Doesn't have a headstone or anything. There's no 'Agamemnon was here' is there.
• 34:29
  Mike Brampton: No, there's nothing like that. But it's actually an underground chamber that has been made in the shape of a beehive.
• 34:37
  Mike Brampton: And then, I don't know, do you know any more about this Julian? Because has that gradually become covered by soil, etc?
• 34:47
  Mike Brampton: Or was it built as an underground tomb, as in the tomb was built and then filled in afterwards?
• 34:56
  Julian Hoad: I believe, I'm going to check this later. I'll give you an update next week, but I believe it was built as a beehive superstructure.
• 35:05
  Mike Brampton: Like, like one of the pyramids in Egypt. I mean, a beehive structure rather than
• 35:13
  Julian Hoad: I think it was subsequently covered, but because of the inherent strength of the beehive shape. It's survived. There's a lot a history there.
• 35:23
  Mike Brampton: Yeah, there is. Yeah.
• 35:24
  Mike Brampton: So we're just comparing the the beehive Tomb of Agamemnon, which is, I'm hoping only about half an hour up the road from where I am at the moment. to the pyramids in Egypt.
• 35:38
  Mike Brampton: Except they use a different shape. So I don't know if this
• 35:44
  Mike Brampton: Yeah, I don't know there's a comparison in nature at all, you know, or why they called it a beehive or?
• 35:51
  Julian Hoad: Oh, because in the Middle Ages, and the early apicultural societies, they use these wicker baskets to keep bees in. And so they were bell shaped.
• 36:09
  Georgie Hollis: It was the Egyptians that first tamed bees.
• 36:12
  Julian Hoad: It was yeah
• 36:14
  Georgie Hollis: Domestic Brians!
• 36:15
  Julian Hoad: You've got to talk to you bees. You've got to tell your bees your problems, haven't you?
• 36:20
  Julian Hoad: I used to keep bees. But we were told quite strictly by some some bee keepers, you must tell them all your family problems.
• 36:36
  Julian Hoad: Now we didn't for one year. We thought lets not and see what happens and actually on an N=1 base, there was no difference in honey production.
• 36:47
  Julian Hoad: And the bees were as happy. I'd like to see more people do research on that.
• 36:52
  Georgie Hollis: They could have been faking it. Maybe they were hanging around your windows and listening. They knew anyway.
• 36:58
  Julian Hoad: They did, they did.
• 37:00
  Mike Brampton: Georgie, Georgie, have you been doing any more drawing recently?
• 37:05
  Georgie Hollis: I have a bit but, I've actually been dyeing wool instead. And I had my first experiment. I'm just trying to find where I put it.
• 37:13
  Mike Brampton: Georgie's disappeared again.
• 37:19
  Georgie Hollis: This was my first attempt at dyeing wool, which is in a, yeah, it's kind of slightly pinky purpley. But you can't tell.
• 37:26
  Julian Hoad: It is, so what have you used to dye it?
• 37:28
  Mike Brampton: So you're holding up there a whole, what do you call that? Is that a sheath or?
• 37:33
  Georgie Hollis: No, I would guess you'd call it a bat when I've done it like that, when I've fluffed it up a bit, but it's a massive failure because I'm not very good at reading instructions.
• 37:45
  Julian Hoad: What did you use to dye them?
• 37:47
  Georgie Hollis: Damsons actually.
• 37:50
  Mike Brampton: But is this not where you're supposed to stamp the wool down?
• 37:56
  Mike Brampton: Into urine and stuff like that?
• 37:59
  Georgie Hollis: There's loads of things, urine is good, but there's all sorts of different things that you can use.
• 38:03
  Georgie Hollis: But funnily enough, there is a tenuous link into mushrooms, because there's a dyers mushroom as well.
• 38:08
  Georgie Hollis: Yeah, there's a dyers mushroom, and it makes a lovely blackish brown.
• 38:14
  Julian Hoad: Really! I've got to find out what that is.
• 38:16
  Mike Brampton: Why am I surprised that a mushroom would make a blackish Brown?
• 38:20
  Georgie Hollis: Oh, now you say that, you say that but
• 38:24
  Julian Hoad: There are hundreds of colours Mike, there's one that gives a sort of brownish black
• 38:29
  Mike Brampton: Alright, okay, George's disappeared again. And she's back again.
• 38:33
  Georgie Hollis: I'm just going to get you my book
• 38:36
  Mike Brampton: Wild Colour!
• 38:39
  Julian Hoad: Did you ever try that trick with that boletus you had the other day, of cutting it in half and seeing if it turned blue?
• 38:45
  Mike Brampton: No, I didn't.
• 38:48
  Mike Brampton: And I found it in the forest a day later and somebody had broken it down and it had turned blue.
• 38:57
  Julian Hoad: There are some that do that, that are edible and some that do that are believed to be toxic and there by lies the uncertainty
• 39:04
  Julian Hoad: So boletus satanas or satan's bolete is thought to be poisonous.
• 39:13
  Julian Hoad: But other people, other authors have written that actually it's edible if you boil it and no one really knows.
• 39:22
  Georgie Hollis: I think we might of eaten one once by accident.
• 39:26
  Georgie Hollis: I think I might have fried one by accident.
• 39:28
  Julian Hoad: Yeah I might of.
• 39:30
  Mike Brampton: But are you saying Georgie that you might have eaten one by accident once?
• 39:35
  Georgie Hollis: I tend to feed them to Richard first.
• 39:38
  Mike Brampton: Okay.
• 39:39
  Georgie Hollis: Oh my God look what you can dye your wool with.
• 39:43
  Julian Hoad: Pomegranates. Fantastic.
• 39:46
  Mike Brampton: I've got a pomegranate here!
• 39:48
  Georgie Hollis: You were teasing me about the colour that it comes out. So if your mushroom's brown, it comes out brown.
• 39:55
  Georgie Hollis: Actually, whatever you dye with, doesn't necessarily come out the colour that you think it will do.
• 39:59
  Georgie Hollis: So if you dye with what is a red dahlia
• 40:05
  Georgie Hollis: your dye comes out green.
• 40:08
  Mike Brampton: So you're telling us that, you're showing us picture of a red dahlia
• 40:13
  Georgie Hollis: Yeah
• 40:14
  Mike Brampton: You're saying that if you use this to dye your clothes, they're going to come out and sort of a jade green colour?
• 40:21
  Georgie Hollis: Well, it depends how you prepare it, but there's lots of different ways to prepare it.
• 40:24
  Georgie Hollis: So you have to do a mordant first, which means you've got to prepare your wool to accept the colour. Yeah,
• 40:32
  Georgie Hollis: Something to stick it and then you can put different chemicals on it in order to potentiate different colours.
• 40:40
  Georgie Hollis: So iron you can use, copper, you can use different things. Some of them are a bit more toxic than others.
• 40:48
  Georgie Hollis: But generally, they'll use alum, as a mordant, which is quite a gentle mordant. And then once you put the alum on you then soak it.
• 40:57
  Julian Hoad: This is 'Wild Colour' by Jenny Dean, is it?
• 41:02
  Georgie Hollis: Yes.
• 41:04
  Julian Hoad: It's a book that tells you how you can use naturally foraged compounds, plants, etc. to make dyes for materials.
• 41:17
  Julian Hoad: I'm getting it on Amazon, although other distribution companies are available.
• 41:25
  Julian Hoad: But if you're sitting down on your fat arse like me, not going to shops at the moment, then Amazon seems to work so
• 41:35
  Georgie Hollis: But it's certainly an education and having not been particularly good at chemistry, I haven't blown the house up yet.
• 41:42
  Georgie Hollis: And you can put alum in, boil it all up and then you
• 41:49
  Georgie Hollis: The worry I had was the wool, people who do felting stuff, they will know that if you get wool too hot, it will tend to felt.
• 41:59
  Georgie Hollis: So it says in here to simmer it for an hour. And I was so scared I was going to felt it that I took it off and didn't so the colour didn't stick very well.
• 42:09
  Georgie Hollis: But it's slightly off purple. Actually, you know what, it wasn't taking very well.
• 42:15
  Georgie Hollis: So I thought oh, **** it, red wine dyes everything. I put a splash in there.
• 42:22
  Julian Hoad: We get a lot of Amethyst Deceiver where we are
• 42:25
  Georgie Hollis: Oh
• 42:26
  Julian Hoad: It's delicious, really nice. And I've often wondered whether we could use that as a dye.
• 42:30
  Julian Hoad: I've used a bit of acetone and meths to dissolve the pigments and used a coffee filter to do a bit of home chromatography to seperate to pigments of it and it really comes out well.
• 42:46
  Julian Hoad: You get a lovely purple pigment. And interesting enough a green one, too.
• 42:51
  Georgie Hollis: What do you think? These are all the different colours you can get out of just single different, single products depending on what acids and what mordants you use.
• 43:07
  Georgie Hollis: So depending on the acid you use, so if you use iron afterwards, you can make the colour more intense or otherwise. So fascinating stuff.
• 43:17
  Julian Hoad: So Georgie's showing us a page from this book, which is essentially like a Dulex colour chart isn't it?
• 43:25
  Mike Brampton: Other colours charts are available.
• 43:29
  Julian Hoad: So please, please people don't necessarily buy Crown or Farrow & Ball or something.
• 43:34
  Julian Hoad: Although please if Farrow & Ball want to sponsor us, then do buy those. Otherwise consider painting your house with stinging nettles.
• 43:44
  Georgie Hollis: Actually stinging nettles are in here. Do you want to know what colour stinging nettles go?
• 43:49
  Julian Hoad: Is it purple?
• 43:52
  Georgie Hollis: Actually, do you know what
• 43:53
  Georgie Hollis: One of the best things for colour is nettle? Actually nettles pretty pretty pastel.
• 43:58
  Mike Brampton: I thought it was blue. Oh no
• 44:01
  Julian Hoad: Yellows and green.
• 44:03
  Mike Brampton: Its woad thats Blue, isn't it?
• 44:05
  Julian Hoad: And, you could eat it as well.
• 44:07
  Georgie Hollis: I've grown woad. I've got it in the garden. But you need the same amount of woad, weight for weight, as wool.
• 44:16
  Georgie Hollis: And I put it in a bit late. I've only got about five grammes.
• 44:21
  Georgie Hollis: But can you guess which, there's something that gives you a massive amount of colours that are absolutely lovely. And I'll tell you what it is.
• 44:31
  Julian Hoad: Garden snails?
• 44:34
  Georgie Hollis: You could try anything. Well there's cochineal, isn't there?
• 44:36
  Julian Hoad: Absolutely. Yeah.
• 44:37
  Mike Brampton: Cochineal yeah.
• 44:39
  Georgie Hollis: I'm going to find the page in a minute.
• 44:41
  Georgie Hollis: It's pear
• 44:43
  Mike Brampton: Pear?
• 44:45
  Georgie Hollis: Pears give you an absolutely lovely range of colours.
• 44:51
  Julian Hoad: Is that pears?
• 44:52
  Georgie Hollis: Pear
• 44:52
  Julian Hoad: Sorry, so Georgie is showing us her pears now.
• 44:58
  Julian Hoad: Oh, that sounds wrong. That sound wrong, no I'm sorry, Georgie isn't showing us her pears now, Georgie is showing us, you know we'll have to cut that bit.
• 45:06
  Georgie Hollis: The colours you can get from pear. The prunus, not the, is it a prunus?
• 45:17
  Julian Hoad: Prunus is cherry
• 45:19
  Georgie Hollis: Prunus is apple and cherry and
• 45:23
  Mike Brampton: You're showing us a range of colours there Georgie, from barky colour all the way down to a purple colour all from pear? Or is it just the one?
• 45:32
  Georgie Hollis: All of those colours from one plant
• 45:34
  Julian Hoad: Amazing and you'll get those different colours depending on how you boil it and the mordant you use and the
• 45:42
  Georgie Hollis: and the chemical used and the pH that you cook it, that you finish with. Incredible really.
• 45:49
  Mike Brampton: Wow
• 45:49
  Georgie Hollis: This will have been done for thousands of years.
• 45:52
  Julian Hoad: Yeah
• 45:53
  Mike Brampton: Just to think that the ancient Brits used to just cover themselves in blue woad.
• 45:59
  Julian Hoad: Yeah
• 46:00
  Mike Brampton: Just smear it all on.
• 46:03
  Julian Hoad: And shout 'Here we go, here we go. Here we go.'
• 46:10
  Georgie Hollis: But part of the process is you need ammonia to make the woad go dark blue.
• 46:18
  Julian Hoad: We know where that comes from. Yeah.
• 46:20
  Mike Brampton: Bloody Hell
• 46:20
  Georgie Hollis: They must of stunk of pee.
• 46:21
  Julian Hoad: There's a wonderful museum just down the road from us called the the Singleton Museum or The Weald and Downland
• 46:31
  Julian Hoad: Have you heard of it, Mike, have you been there?
• 46:33
  Mike Brampton: Fabulous museum. I partook at The Weald and Downland Museum, in a celebration of the Battle of Agincourt
• 46:45
  Mike Brampton: and we shot a storm of arrows and the target was set at 220 feet or 220 yards
• 47:04
  Julian Hoad: Longbow was that then?
• 47:05
  Mike Brampton: Long bow, This is old English longbows, targets were set a about 220 yards and about 250 Old English longbow archers lined up and launched a storm of arrows.
• 47:21
  Mike Brampton: And unlike the Battle of Agincourt where the outnumbered English under Henry the fifth and the Welsh archers, defeated an army of something like 10,000 French nobleman in a battle for survival.
• 47:38
  Mike Brampton: We weren't being charged down by the French. And there were only about 250 of us and we did not turn the sun black.
• 47:49
  Mike Brampton: But to partake in that, and to hear that number of arrows being loosed at one time out into the fields towards the target was quite an impressive thing to to partake in.
• 48:03
  Julian Hoad: Gosh, what an amazing, was it filmed was it?
• 48:07
  Mike Brampton: Sorry?
• 48:07
  Julian Hoad: It was filmed presumably so you could
• 48:09
  Mike Brampton: It wasn't filmed. We weren't reenacting so we were in a standard archery uniforms, if you like or what we would normally shoot in.
• 48:21
  Mike Brampton: The proviso was that you were shooting an old English longbow, which is traditionally made out of the yew tree and yew tree has got a unique performance
• 48:36
  Mike Brampton: In that the heart wood and the sap word, the dark heart wood is better under compression, and the sapwood is better under extension.
• 48:47
  Mike Brampton: So as you bend the bow, it enables the bow to bend and then release with the spring, thereby releasing what was at the time the ballistic weapon of the day.
• 48:59
  Julian Hoad: And the Mongols, under Genghis Khan, did a similar thing. Obviously they didn't have yew trees so they used wood and leather didn't they.
• 49:18
  Mike Brampton: What I find interesting in history is that exactly the same time that the British long bow or the archer was the dominant force on the battlefield in Western Europe,
• 49:30
  Mike Brampton: enabling our kings to just jaunt over to France and, and annihilate the French, for which of course they have forgiven us.
• 49:39
  Mike Brampton: At the same time, Genghis Khan was using horse sinew and bone on a very beautifully shaped, double curved bow.
• 49:54
  Georgie Hollis: That kind of crossbow, kind of thing?
• 49:56
  Mike Brampton: No, it wasn't really a crossbow. That was more of a venetian thing.
• 50:01
  Mike Brampton: It was, it's more of a double curve bow, but it's very short.
• 50:06
  Mike Brampton: And it's incredibly powerful. And what that meant, they would shoot from horseback.
• 50:13
  Mike Brampton: So the Mongolian pony was like the shock troops of the day.
• 50:18
  Mike Brampton: And they would use these these short bows.
• 50:23
  Mike Brampton: And the key to it, well you're a horse rider Georgie.
• 50:26
  Georgie Hollis: I try
• 50:27
  Mike Brampton: The key to locking onto your target with a horse bow is, as the horse is galloping, there is a point where all four feet are off the ground.
• 50:39
  Mike Brampton: And the archer waits for that moment of serenity, where all four feet come off the ground, everything is stable.
• 50:49
  Mike Brampton: To release the arrow, and the archers that are skilled in horse riding, and archery, are phenomenally accurate in that.
• 51:00
  Mike Brampton: So if you can imagine facing a whirling dervish of pony clad archers, just charging at you in sort of Brownian motion all over the place,
• 51:14
  Mike Brampton: spitting out these lethal barbs that will puncture any armour that they had at the time, obviously the Mongols were, were were forging across the steps of Mongolia into China.
• 51:28
  Mike Brampton: And a lot of the armour plate that would withstand a spear or a sword were bamboo, or leather and they would not stand up to armour pointed barb being fired several hundred miles an hour
• 51:44
  Georgie Hollis: There places that do that now, where you can go on horseback and run the horse along a guided area, canter along.
• 51:56
  Georgie Hollis: It depends on your horse running in a straight line, mine tends to trip over himself much to my disgust at times.
• 52:02
  Georgie Hollis: But I have always, I have thought it would be good fun to give it a go, but I don't really want to kill anything so um
• 52:09
  Mike Brampton: Well you can do that on horseback and it is actually a sport. It's mainly based in Hungary nowadays.
• 52:15
  Julian Hoad: I saw a demonstration of Mongolian horsemanship a few years back, at some country show and it was absolutely amazing.
• 52:25
  Julian Hoad: Your absolutely right Mike. There'd be this point during the gala, where all four feet are off the ground.
• 52:33
  Julian Hoad: The commentator would say 'count now this is the base, count, and you can know that on four, he's going to shoot' the accuracy was incredible.
• 52:44
  Julian Hoad: And they were doing it without any effort whatsoever, apparently, and they'd lean off the one side on the horse. They'd be at a right angle to the ground.
• 52:55
  Georgie Hollis: Yeah, I'm not there yet. I'm just, I'm still just finding mushrooms.
• 53:00
  Julian Hoad: You can find mushrooms. That's fine. That's fair enough.
• 53:02
  Georgie Hollis: I have to get off to find them
• 53:06
  Georgie Hollis: I found these in the kitchen.
• 53:09
  Julian Hoad: Wow
• 53:10
  Mike Brampton: In the kitchen?
• 53:12
  Georgie Hollis: I've got to ask my my better half what they're called because I keep forgetting morassmia I think
• 53:20
  Georgie Hollis: Marasmius oreades
• 53:30
  Mike Brampton: And they grow in your kitchen like that?
• 53:32
  Georgie Hollis: They grow in our paddock with the sheep and apparently that's what you do.
• 53:37
  Georgie Hollis: You put them on a thread with a few, with a couple of acorns at the bottom and dry them and use them later.
• 53:44
  Mike Brampton: Georgie, what you're holding up there and look looks almost like a necklace.
• 53:51
  Mike Brampton: Yeah, yeah. And you could use the acorn to just tie that necklace around your neck. Amazing.
• 53:58
  Georgie Hollis: Can I make a confession though?
• 54:01
  Mike Brampton: Oh, hang on. Well, let's do Veterinary Ramblings Confession time.
• 54:18
  Mike Brampton: What is your confession?
• 54:20
  Georgie Hollis: I love hunting for mushrooms. I don't necessarily like eating them
• 54:24
  Julian Hoad: Ah right.
• 54:28
  Georgie Hollis: We did a pasta the other night and it was beautiful pasta.
• 54:31
  Georgie Hollis: It was a five mushroom pasta, recipe to follow.
• 54:38
  Georgie Hollis: And I used some of these and these are just not to my taste.
• 54:42
  Julian Hoad: No, when they're dried, they give quite an unpleasant smell.
• 54:47
  Georgie Hollis: Really nutty. A bit too nutty. They're a bit like, we tried some, what are they called?
• 54:54
  Georgie Hollis: Blewits and I didn't like the taste
• 55:01
  Julian Hoad: I love wood blewits.
• 55:04
  Mike Brampton: I have a confession.
• 55:06
  Julian Hoad: Yeah.
• 55:08
  Mike Brampton: I don't actually like all of the gins that we feature on the show.
• 55:14
  Julian Hoad: Mike, seriously, don't tell us what you don't like, because those people might be sponsoring us.
• 55:23
  Julian Hoad: Yeah, but I know which ones you mean.
• 55:27
  Julian Hoad: I love mushrooms. Absolutely love them.
• 55:30
  Mike Brampton: What's your confession Julian?
• 55:30
  Julian Hoad: My confession is that there are a few mushrooms I don't like and one is giant pu
• 55:40
  Georgie Hollis: Really?
• 55:41
  Julian Hoad: Yeah, I think, because they look perfect, you can slice them.
• 55:46
  Julian Hoad: As long as they aren't yellow in the middle, that they're edible.
• 55:49
  Georgie Hollis: They're fine, if you're bleeding out, if they're yellow in the middle, and yeah, really handy.
• 55:56
  Julian Hoad: I used to have them toasted, and an egg on top.
• 56:01
  Julian Hoad: And I went off them, I don't know whether I had too many or whatever. But I went off them.
• 56:06
  Julian Hoad: Guys, we have had, we've had a magic evening, talking of magic, we've had a magic evening,
• 56:12
  Mike Brampton: Is this another mushroom link Julian?
• 56:14
  Julian Hoad: No, it's not. It's a link to
• 56:16
  Georgie Hollis: Oh your such a pair of fun guys.
• 56:23
  Mike Brampton: There's not mushroom this room.
• 56:26
  Julian Hoad: We've covered everything from Iceman of 2000 years ago, all the way through fungal identification, natural dyeing of material and wool colouring, all the way through to the cancer
• 56:26
  Julian Hoad: therapy.
• 56:48
  Julian Hoad: And I think really, that deserves a special CPD certificate.
• 56:53
  Mike Brampton: Oh
• 56:54
  Julian Hoad: Here we go. Now, I've written this CPD certificate phonetically.
• 56:59
  Julian Hoad: So it's not English. It's not Greek, but it's in Greek symbols.
• 57:03
  Julian Hoad: And it's phonetic. So there's certificate
• 57:08
  Julian Hoad: to demonstrate learning.
• 57:13
  Julian Hoad: And it says, Thank you, listener, Veterinary Ramblings
• 57:25
  Julian Hoad: and it says Julian, Georgie and Mike.
• 57:31
  Julian Hoad: And if you can read that down there. It reads me and him and her
• 57:36
  Georgie Hollis: Fabulous
• 57:37
  Julian Hoad: And there's a few pictures there.
• 57:39
  Julian Hoad: So what we've got there is, is a cuttlefish. One of the Greek delicacies, delicious, there's a Greek villa with a little Greek cat there.
• 57:52
  Julian Hoad: There's a Greek villa with a little pool
• 57:55
  Mike Brampton: Yeah, that's not where I'm staying.
• 57:57
  Julian Hoad: So here's a bottle of Greek, white wine and a carton of banana juice.
• 58:03
  Julian Hoad: Now, I love Greece. I love the Greeks. I love everything Greek.
• 58:08
  Julian Hoad: I'll be honest, Greek wine is a little bit of an acquired taste.
• 58:16
  Julian Hoad: But if you get a bottle of Greek wine, Greek white wine, and mix it half and half with banana juice, you get a lovely cocktail that we called monkey juice where we're in Greece a few years back, and
• 58:16
  Julian Hoad: it's worth trying.
• 58:29
  Julian Hoad: So half and half banana juice. Greek white wine. Wonderful.
• 58:34
  Mike Brampton: Hey, do you know what Julian, I'll try that tomorrow. Not.
• 58:37
  Julian Hoad: Give it a go! Mike, don't listen for a second.
• 58:41
  Julian Hoad: I think I fooled him Georgie.
• 58:43
  Julian Hoad: Okay, you can listen again, Mike.
• 58:45
  Mike Brampton: Okay.
• 58:50
  Mike Brampton: No.
• 58:55
  Mike Brampton: We need to reflect on our CPD momentarily.
• 58:58
  Mike Brampton: Yeah, and it's nice that you say night all but we haven't actually completely finished the show at this point.
• 59:08
  Mike Brampton: RCVS regulations are fairly clear on this, that you are required to reflect upon CPD that you begin.
• 59:14
  Mike Brampton: So I'd like to invite all of our audience to think back over some of the nuggets that we have provided for you this evening as CPD and
• 59:25
  Julian Hoad: chicken nuggets although other fast foods are available.
• 59:31
  Mike Brampton: No, no, It's chicken of the woods Julian. Not chicken not
• 59:37
  Mike Brampton: just reflect on things that we've shared with you tonight. Please.
• 59:43
  Julian Hoad: You could do it in panko breadcrumbs.
• 59:45
  Mike Brampton: Julian, Are you reflecting?
• 59:47
  Georgie Hollis: Please take me seriously Julian
• 59:51
  Mike Brampton: Please reflect on our CPD
• 1:00:10
  Mike Brampton: I think we're glitching like mad here.
• 1:00:17
  Mike Brampton: We're gonna bring it to a close. Julian, traditionally you tell a joke at this time of the evening, and we round out from there?
• 1:00:27
  Julian Hoad: Well, I couldn't really come up with a clean Greek joke, but I just thought, because we're talking about foraging and being in the woods and things,
• 1:00:36
  Julian Hoad: I'd tell a little story about the bear, because there's that old question the bears have seps in the wood.
• 1:00:42
  Mike Brampton: Hang on. Is this one about the princess riding her horse through the woods?
• 1:00:49
  Julian Hoad: No, no, I thought of that.
• 1:00:50
  Mike Brampton: Because Georgie might be offended.
• 1:00:54
  Julian Hoad: Yeah.
• 1:00:55
  Julian Hoad: So it's the one about the bear trying to poo in the woods.
• 1:01:00
  Julian Hoad: This brown bear is trying to poo in the woods and he doesn't have a lot of fibre.
• 1:01:15
  Julian Hoad: And suddenly he hears this.
• 1:01:19
  Julian Hoad: And then a rabbit sitting next to him doing about 1000 poos a minute
• 1:01:30
  Julian Hoad: The bear says 'You alright Rabbit?'
• 1:01:32
  Julian Hoad: and the rabbit says 'Yeah fine, I'm just doing some poos'
• 1:01:39
  Julian Hoad: 'I'm trying to do a poo and taking me ages',
• 1:01:41
  Julian Hoad: and the bear says 'Do you have a problem with poo sticking to your fur?' And the rabbit says 'No, no problem at all.'
• 1:01:53
  Julian Hoad: The bear says 'Great!'
• 1:02:01
  Mike Brampton: That's a very visual joke, which implies that the bear picks up the rabbit and wipes his own bottom with the rabbit.
• 1:02:11
  Mike Brampton: Because the rabbit doesn't have a problem with poo sticking to his fur.
• 1:02:15
  Julian Hoad: Let's face it. If you were a bear, you would wouldn't you?
• 1:02:20
  Mike Brampton: Probably probably
• 1:02:23
  Georgie Hollis: Can I just say for the purposes of anyone listening that was a
• 1:02:28
  Georgie Hollis: like a story, It's not like real.
• 1:02:31
  Georgie Hollis: Rabbits were not harmed
• 1:02:33
  Mike Brampton: By bears
• 1:02:34
  Mike Brampton: The rabbit wasn't harmed because the poo didn't stick
• 1:02:38
  Georgie Hollis: And he put it down carefully.
• 1:02:40
  Julian Hoad: He did, very carefully.
• 1:02:43
  Julian Hoad: Being a bear he then ate it afterwards, unfortunately,
• 1:02:48
  Mike Brampton: I think we're at that time. I think even our American listeners are not going to enjoy this. So, on that note, on that poo-ey note
• 1:03:09
  Georgie Hollis: Enjoy the rest of your evening.
• 1:03:11
  Mike Brampton: Enjoy the rest of your evening. Unless you're listening to us on podcast and doing something different at the same time.
• 1:03:22
  Mike Brampton: Yeah, use the fast forward, you can listen to us on Spotify and other podcast streaming services or viewers live on Facebook.
• 1:03:32
  Mike Brampton: So with that note, if you've liked what we've given you, please click like, link below.
• 1:03:39
  Mike Brampton: Share it with your friends if you think they might enjoy it as well.
• 1:03:42
  Mike Brampton: Georgie Hollis. Thank you for standing into the breach and covering for me whilst I'm away on visits abroad.
• 1:03:51
  Mike Brampton: May your dog go with you.
• 1:03:53
  Julian Hoad: May your dog go with you (Greek) Enjoy your holiday!
• 1:03:56
  Mike Brampton: I shall. Thank you very much indeed, guys.
• 1:03:58
  Mike Brampton: Thank you Georgie.
• 1:03:59
  Mike Brampton: Take care. Cheers, guys.
• 1:04:01
  Mike Brampton: You take care.
• 1:04:04
  Julian Hoad: Oh, isn't she fantastic?
• 1:04:07
  Mike Brampton: She's freaking amazing.
• 1:04:08
  Julian Hoad: Yeah, yeah,
• 1:04:09
  Mike Brampton: We've spoken for nearly three hours on mushrooms.
• 1:04:16
  Julian Hoad: Incredible. Incredible.