The Bugle - 4142 - KalashniCough

Episode Date: February 29, 2020

Andy, Alice and Nato discuss the Coronavirus, Trump's attempt to speak in India, the democratic caucuses, tea and boxing.Plus, seriously, listen to The Last Post: http://pod.link/TheLastPost Hosted on... Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Dancelaguard fans, you will be thrilled to know a book is coming out if you fund it via Unbound. We are publishing the Dancelaguard Reader by Alice Fraser and Dancelaguard, a glorious insight into the world of Dancelaguard, self-published romance maven, and online bestseller. If you would like to find out how to support it, go to thebugelpodcast.com. If we get enough support, we will publish the book. That's a real thing that's going to happen. Thebugelpodcast.com to a real thing that's going to happen. TheBuglePodcast.com to support the Danciler Guard Reader. The Lost Posts.
Starting point is 00:00:31 Oh yeah, a daily podcast and alternate, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Bugleers. Or, indeed, anyone overhearing this, or who doesn't have official bugle status for whatever reason, or, indeed, who don't choose to define themselves by the podcast they're currently listening to. Anyway, hello, I'm Andy Zoltzmann, this is issue 4,142 of the bugle audio newspaper for a visual world. It is Friday the 28th of February 2020 and I am in London, and joining me this week from 26,000 miles away as the crow flies assuming the crow flies directly around the world via a point exactly opposite to here in the subn hemisphere,
Starting point is 00:01:28 and then returns to the other side of the table in this recording studio. It's Alice Fraser. Hello, Eddie, hello, Budalus. How are you, Alice? I mean, I've flown a long way to get here. You just said, I mean, one wrong turn out the door last time you did it. It's taken a wrong way to get back. And also 26,000 miles away as the crow flies, albeit an easily distracted crow with no real sense of direction that's just been instructed to head to San Francisco and have a kind of way.
Starting point is 00:01:55 And as finally made it, it's NATO green! Hello, buglers! How you NATO house, how's California doing? Andy, we are f***ed. Completely, and I just want to put out a request into the universe. I know you have an international audience. Can someone please invade and install a democracy? It doesn't even need to be another country.
Starting point is 00:02:23 An alien invasion would be fine. Recently, my kids are 11 and I watched the movie Independence Day with them, which came out during the reign of Clinton one, as we call it here. And the aliens blew up the White House, and in 1994, or five or whatever that was, that was like a sad, emotional thing to see someone blowing up the White House. It was, it had the emotional impact of watching someone kick a puppy and now you watch aliens blow up the White House
Starting point is 00:02:50 And you're like hold a minute. Tell me more These aliens have some valid points So Invasion I we need an international boycott to bring us to our knees until we join the rest of the international community and respect in the rule of law. It's not good. It's not good here. Okay.
Starting point is 00:03:16 So, well, I mean, you've got just got to lay those cards on the table early on in the show. I feel like that's the difference between the UK and America is in the UK if someone goes how you do and the answer is fine. Yeah, yeah. Put it in America they'll actually tell you. That's the British way isn't it? I'm sure Charles the first just after he been executed. Oh, don't do it right. I just leave it here. It's fine.
Starting point is 00:03:41 So nec. We are recording on the 28th of February. The first of March is World Compliment Day. And we have a free bugle giveaway. What a great day. Yeah. You can choose from one of the following complement of free complimentary compliments. A complement, of course, is a conversational compliment.
Starting point is 00:04:01 That's the Esmeralical Origin of it, sprinkle of seasoning to sultify and satisfy you in your latest chat. Here are your free compliments for World Complement Day on Sunday. Your new hat makes your head look just the right size. Your ears are exactly as crinkly as ears should be. You have a great head on your shoulders, on each of your shoulders and on your neck. Your three heads are all excellent. So what if Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, I reckon you'd have done it sooner if you'd been born as him. Have you ever thrown custard and none? No? Well I didn't think so. That's just the kind of person you are. You are more and finally you are more
Starting point is 00:04:58 beautiful on the inside than the outside and I'm delighted to say the operation was a complete success. You have a lovely new one. As always, section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week, 8.29th of February section. We are recording, as I said on Friday, the 28th of February, 2020, meaning that, depending on when you listen to this, Saturday will be the 29th of February. Yes, it does, it does depend on when you listen to it. All history is up for revision. We don't know how history will refer to Saturday 29th of February 2020. Take 15th of March, 44 BC as we call it these days. The Romans call it the odds of March. Julius Caesar's former buddies called it human pincusen day. Julius himself called it. I knew there were a bunch of shits day. As for the year, we call it 44BC, but in the Roman Empire only the Christians called it 44BC at the time and amongst them only the really fast sighted long term.
Starting point is 00:05:51 Anyway, the point is that tomorrow is 29th of February, it's leap day. The day that only happens once every four years, a day invented to compensate for years being the wrong length. The original intention was for there to be 50 weeks in a year according to a recently unearthed draft of the book of Genesis from the Platinum Selling Smash hit religious bonk bust of the Old Testament. God's original scheme was for a 30 million second year, splitting to 600,000, 50 second minutes, 12,000,50 minute hours, 430 hour days, and 58 day weeks, split into 10, five week months,
Starting point is 00:06:29 simple and easily understandable. However, the first week when God created the world, as we now know, He didn't quite give himself enough time, hence everything was not quite finished. And as a result, history, geography, and science have been absolutely fucked ever since. With the calendar, all the timings got out of whack. He over slept on the last day,
Starting point is 00:06:46 hence the nonsensical porridge that has left us with today, the 29th of February. Of course, there are a number of traditions associated with the 29th of February. It's known as Bachelors Day. In certain parts of the world, it's the one day in each Olympics, so each four-year period,
Starting point is 00:07:01 in which a woman is allowed to propose marriage to a man under this eminently sensible, sorry, a strange archaic tradition, my mistake. If a man refused, he was then obliged to give the woman financial compensation. Oh, now we can see what it's all about, ladies. There's lots of pairs of gloves, I think, at one point. Yeah, 12 pairs of gloves. That was another thing. Yeah. So a woman could hide her shame by not having an engagement ring. I think it. That was the origin of it.
Starting point is 00:07:28 Pair of gloves to slap him in the face. Every workday for a fortnight. Yeah, or by her address, I'll say the other way out of it. It seems outdated now as times have moved on. Can you cover her lack of engagement nipple rings? That's not possibly. Yeah, times have moved on. It is now, in fact, legal also for a woman to propose
Starting point is 00:07:49 to a man on Saturday. Just general Saturdays. According to some traditions, a woman can propose on some Thursday afternoons during summer months between 3.40 and 4.00 pm. Now, I'm mixing that up with the T interval of test matches. Anyway, there are other 29th of February traditions. If you're playing football on the 29th of February and score on
Starting point is 00:08:10 own goal, tradition it counts as a goal for both sides. If you go to a restaurant on the 29th of February and you didn't eat up all your food, the waiter was entitled to pour and you left those over your head, guzzled down and he whined remaining in the bottles on your table with one mouthful. If you're on a bus train, airplane or other form of public transport on the 29th of February and approach the driver, stroke pilot while holding an umbrella and shout Uncle Burton, Auntie Pam need a wee wee, they have to have let you have a go at driving or piloting the vehicle for the next 15 minutes.
Starting point is 00:08:39 These ancient traditions. If you're a business with an annual turnover of more than $100 million and you make the 29th of February the end of your tax year, you don't have to pay any tax. LAUGHTER That's a bit of a mistake. And the ancient Vigani tribe of hardline non-meet-eaters who fought so bravely against the Roman Empire back in the day on the 29th of February,
Starting point is 00:08:57 you were allowed a cheeky sausage. LAUGHTER Relax section in the bit. Top story this week, virus updates, the naughty little coronavirus continues to worm its virusy way around the world. We've had the first cases in Sub-Saharan Africa in Wales, even in New Zealand. The global markets are noisily crapping themselves. The Dow Jones has gone slumbered up down over 10%.
Starting point is 00:09:25 The FTSE in London has experienced his biggest one week flop down since 2008. Five trillion dollars have been wiped off the value of the world's financial markets. Admittedly, that is money that didn't really exist. But now it exists even less. The world is being told not to panic, which is generally a sign that panicking is very much on the table option. It is a strange time. We don't quite know. People, I think the thing is we don't know the exact right amount to panic. I mean, yeah, the problem with, we don't know if we're worrying too much. The possibility is being that we'll spread virulently, mutate to be more deadly, and be the solution to global overpopulation that only sociopaths think about, or it will stay relatively contained or spread and be bad, but not all that bad, all things considered in which case everyone will be embarrassed about wearing masks and being xenophobic about Chinese tourists,
Starting point is 00:10:16 as it runs around the world, like a toddler rounding around the playground, going, catch me, catch me. But of course, as you say, the real worry with the impact of the coronavirus is its impact on the health of the market. If only the Dow Jones intake index could wear a face mask. I mean, we still don't know. Is this going to be the most dangerous cough since the Kalashnikov or is it for me less dangerous than that? Every activity is like crossing the road or is it going to every activity is like crossing the road, or is it gonna be as dangerous as crossing the road
Starting point is 00:10:47 if that road isn't eight lane motorway, packed with speeding zombies and flame throwing mega tanks? The global markets, NATO, I know you're a huge fan of global markets and all their forms. They've been thoroughly spooked. Yeah, well, you know, as a comedian, like, you know, we're all trying to figure out how to go viral, but not like this.
Starting point is 00:11:11 I was thinking more Instagram. I, Andy, I know you like a stat. So you want the latest stat going on coronavirus? Yeah. This morning, a poll came out that 38% Americans say that they won't buy coronavirus because of the coronavirus. So the latest poll is that 41.5% of American adults approve of Trump as president. Both polls have a 3% margin of error
Starting point is 00:11:40 so you can reasonably deduce that there's a lot of overlap Between people who approve of Trump and people scared of corona beer because of the corona virus This is especially amazing because corona is a Mexican beer And yet the corona virus is stoking anti-Chinese racism. So not only are they Stupid but they're bad at racism I mean it's a terrible beer to not want to have the corona beer because it's the only one that will stop not only are they stupid, but they're bad at racism. If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were...
Starting point is 00:12:08 If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were...
Starting point is 00:12:16 If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were...
Starting point is 00:12:24 If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... If you were... in the survey outbreak. So, if you are so racist that you can't tell the difference between Mexican beer and a Chinese virus, you might be a Trump administration cabinet secretary. I mean, you might be thinking also with the global financial market situation, if it's a good idea to have based our entire economic viability and stability as a planet on a system that shits its bridges at what might or might not happen whenever a new disease pops up. Well, if you're thinking that I would simply advise you to remember who won the Cold War and at least it's more sensible than crashing the planet for a bunch of fucking tulips as our so-called forebears famously did some time ago.
Starting point is 00:13:05 I mean obviously the big concern is the cancellation of sporting events, which is accelerating six nations, rugby game between Ireland and Italy, has been called off. The Olympics seemingly under greater threat is nothing, is nothing. So mass gatherings in general are facing being preemptively de-gathered. Generous not going to affect me because I'm an anti-social bastard who spends most of his time alone in a shed. But sport, we've sport out of it. A sport and the arts, kind of, Ali and Venice has been canceled
Starting point is 00:13:36 and therefore all unexpected pregnancies for the next three weeks in Italy. And even more importantly than the health of the markets and sport is the effect of, you know, what's being called COVID-19 on the presidential race in America, whether the global panic will lead voters to stick with the incumbent or whether they'll blame Trump for his policies of taking money out of health services and pulling money out of the pandemic response sectors of the government or whether he'll tweet about it and somehow blame it
Starting point is 00:14:02 on Obama. We don't know. We'll find out when somebody's campaign starts to run a high fever. Um, uh, Naito, how have you been dealing with the news that, um, America's efforts to defend itself against the virus have been entrusted to Mike Pence? Uh, well, so a few things, the Mike Pence works with health secretary Alex Azar. Alex Azar said that the vaccine of the coronavirus virus may not be affordable. And this is a fascinating take on Trumpian ideology because their priority typically is to help the rich people stay healthy and let the poor die.
Starting point is 00:14:38 And they think they will call the herd, but that's not actually how fucking infectious disease works. Like virus doesn't go traipsing through your neighborhood and see the Tesla and the driveway and check your credit score and say, oh, carry on then. It's not the blood on the door frame. Yeah, it's not Passover, dummy. So if you don't want to give poor people the medicine, who do they think makes their food? Like it's
Starting point is 00:15:05 not all Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson doing all the cooking in America. Like it's mostly poor people. So Trump has tapped Mike Pence to lead the response to coronavirus. Vice President Mike Pence, this raises concerns because he does not believe in science. Actually, that's unfair. Mike Pence believes he would have been on the cutting edge of science for the 17th century. But... Also, the problem with Mike Pence is, you know, he's not a good person to lead up this campaign because you have to have somebody who's afraid of the coronavirus in order to combat it.
Starting point is 00:15:41 And he's not afraid of the coronavirus because he's a man made out of a statue of a statue. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, only partially brought to life by a kiss. Someone who didn't love him that much. As Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, cut funding for Public Health and provided the establishment of a needless change program, which led to an outbreak of HIV.
Starting point is 00:16:01 So his plan to stop the spread of the coronavirus is to give it AIDS, which may not work out. Other cutting edge medical solutions, Mike Pence is looking at to stop the spread of the coronavirus, include leaching, exorcism, shame, blogging, burning at the stake, lime juice in gin, and blaming the Jews. And because he's a racist, it doesn't like immigrants, he doesn't know what everyone in Latin America knows, that the one thing that you need to stop the coronavirus or any disease or affliction at all is Vicks' vapor rub.
Starting point is 00:16:40 I've been experts have said that Mike Pence is, quote, not up to the task of leading America's virus war, a point of view echoed by non-experts, indeed anyone with a vaguely functioning head. For me, Mike Pence versus the coronavirus, I mean, that's not reassuring that appointment. That's reassuring to me as appointing C. Biscuits as a the head surgeon in the cranial trauma unit. Isn't Mike Pence versus the coronavirus the new Godzilla movie? I think it is. Well C. Biscuit is not only a horse, but it's also a dead horse who, when a life was mostly concerned with running as fast as possible. So there's a number of qualities you don't want in a surgeon whoves and urge to sprint
Starting point is 00:17:26 and being already dead. It just sends a bad message like being an optician with two monocles of different thicknesses. But for me, I'd say, hearing that Mike Pence has been put in charge of the coronavirus effort is like being stuck on a desert island down to your last few drops of water with no food for days.
Starting point is 00:17:43 Finally, you see a ship appearing over the horizon, sailing to your rescue, it gets closer and closer, and the prospect of all being saved, make sure heart beats stronger in your chest, and just as it pulls to show you crisis like this are calmness, honesty and reassuring leadership, which are around the world, qualities that have proved electrically toxic. And Trump, calm and reassuring honesty go together like a seagull and an aeroplane propeller. LAUGHTER And this was another thing to me out of the White House. The acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who's accused the media of stoking a panic in an effort to take down Trump on the ground, the impeachment failed.
Starting point is 00:18:37 And his advice for the panicking markets was to say, turn off your televisions for 24 hours. That's what we need in this world. Just ignore everything. I like that he thinks anyone gets the news from television anymore. Donald Trump talks about cricket news now and, um, NATO, you're our American cricket correspondent here at the, at the bugle. What? No. You must be very excited to see your your national leader, your own personal spiritual guru Donald Trump.
Starting point is 00:19:17 Going to India, speaking in a cricket stadium with a hundred thousand adoring Trump stroking a render modifans I mean, I love cricket, but that wouldn't anyway and he he attempted to carry favor with the That's not you Santa Don't cut it You gotta lean into it He attempted to vindandaloo favor with the locals. He attempted to ingratiate himself with the locals by citing the names of a couple of
Starting point is 00:19:54 the most famous cricketers, current fact captain Virat Kohli, and the great icon of Indian cricket, Sachin Tendulkar. Now the way Donald Trump said Sachin Tendulkar was like this. The American public, they might not have known quite what he did there. It didn't sound like he didn't have the full copyright to say the name of it, it's supposed to be said like a cheap computer game. But it was an absolute abomination, NATO. How is your nation recovering from this slight performance? Look, Andy, we're delighted. We are so glad that the rest of the world knows what it feels like to have Trump butchered the language.
Starting point is 00:20:38 We've been listening to him butchered our language for the last several years now. And of course he can't properly pronounce the names of Indian cricket stars. He can't even pronounce the word the Constitution or filibuster or articles of impeachment or pre-emission. I mean, he can't, you know, his syntax is tortured. He speaks in sentence fragments. Trump, on the best of times, talks like a racist set of refrigerator magnets that were flung into the air and picked up at random. I feel like Trump says words.
Starting point is 00:21:20 He doesn't know like someone vaguely aiming across bow at the stars. Like, everyone knows he's not gonna get there but you give him points for trying. You'll hope he looks away before he goes blind. And for me the disappointment was much as I admire the fact that he's you know pretended to care about cricket. That he didn't use the opportunity to reach out to, because everyone would have expected him to say, Tendorka and Coalino, it's kind of, it's the way he does, whoever he's talking to,
Starting point is 00:21:51 he's talking to his crowd, he will say what they want to hear. But I think imagine what he could have achieved, the bridges he could have built, if he just stood out there and said that his favourite Cricket of all time was Imran Khan, the current Pakistan Prime Minister. To unify that part of the world by reaching out to the shed love of Cricket. I mean also, I mean you've thought you've gone for Rahul Dravid, the great Indian defensive
Starting point is 00:22:17 batsman who's in it, and of course was the wall. He turned down that opportunity. I'm going to add I've like to see them go for a slightly more obscure Cricketer to show that he's really done his research not just been given the two most obvious cricketers to say if he'd said you know Gundappa Vistwenoth the five foot four inch Wizard of the 1970s and 1980s who bewitched Indian cricket fans with his wondrous stroke play or even one of the great spin quartets from that same if. But I think if he tried to say, Srinivas or Renghattor Renghavan, he could possibly have triggered a nuclear war.
Starting point is 00:22:53 I mean, Trump knows so little about anything. It wouldn't have been a shock if he gave a shout out to noted India Cr player, Hari Khandabala. We will talk in great detail next week about the Indian situation we have, Anivabh Pal as a guest next week because India is in a, I think it's fair to say an awkward place or right now there have been some horrific, horrific, horrific, I love to understate on the view of British it's my constitutional obligation so we will talk about this this in greater detail next week but I think we can fairly say that Narendra Modi splits opinion like a banana with three scoops of ice cream and a cherry on top and that is a little joke for fans of 1970s British desserts. Brasica's family news now as barely a week after the broccoli Samoza incident in India,
Starting point is 00:23:53 Trump's doctor has revealed that he has been hiding cauliflower in Trump's mashed potato in order to sneakily improve his diet. This is the anticipated to inspire a number of what are being called mashed potato policy pushes from Trump's cabinet, including hiding social services in bills that look like tax cuts, and hiding sentient, fully functioning intelligent women in the bodies of misuniverse contestants. They were always there, but Trump didn't notice.
Starting point is 00:24:16 Hahaha. I mean, this is how you feel. This is how you feed a two-year-old. Yes. Apparently, this is not the only thing that people are trying to sneak into Trump's diet. And also this doctor is known for being called the Candyman for his free willing use of prescription. He's now running for Congress in Texas and he basically slammed Trump for refusing to eat vegetables and for refusing to do any exercise.
Starting point is 00:24:47 But there was a book that's just been published, or it's just about to be published, called The Toddler in Chief, that basically explores the ways in which Trump's nearest and dearest try to sneak things around him. Apparently former economic adviser Gary Cohn once stole a letter from Trump's desk that withdrew the US from a trade agreement with South Korea in the hopes that Trump would I was just hanging out with my twin brother yesterday and he was desperately searching online for a toy that would replace the toy that his one year old just lost because she wasn't going to figure it out. It seems to me that if someone is sneaking Trump cauliflower, I'm not sure if it's going to figure it out. It seems to me that if someone is sneaking Trump cauliflower, the way that you would know
Starting point is 00:25:32 is if there were a bunch of tweets unexpectedly from White House staff saying, gee, it's odd, the president has suddenly gotten a lot fardier. So, well, Trump, of course, will be running in the election later this year. NATO, watch your latest take on me, the current state of the Democratic race. Oh, man, are they in a panic? It's a good time, everybody. So, the party thought that everyone, that Biden seemed to be fading, but the party thought everyone was going that Biden seemed to be fading, for the party thought everyone was going to rally around Pete Buttigieg. So Pete Buttigieg, you know, his claim was, did you like Obama?
Starting point is 00:26:13 Here's an Obama cover band playing the songs on children's instruments. And I just wanted to offer this disclaimer. I made fun of Pete Buttigieg's before on the bugle and a disgruntled bugler told me on Twitter that they I was wrong and I was offensive and they like Pete Buttigieg because they think he thinks the most deeply on the issues, which is a not true and b not the problem. I don't think that anyone really believes that our politics are messed up as they are because people aren't thinking hard enough.
Starting point is 00:26:50 So, but Buttigieg is gay and it's very exciting to have the first major party gay candidate. I live in San Francisco, which is, you know, is a very gay city. The seal of the city of San Francisco has the Spanish words auto-imposy fieto and ghetto, which if you don't speak Spanish that's translates literally into it's raining man hallelujah. It's right. So what my gay friend my gay friends
Starting point is 00:27:14 in San Francisco have to say about Peabuda judge they point out that he's 38 which means that he definitely had a grinder profile that said no fats, no fams, no bears, no blacks. And that means that at some point that's going to come out, that story will break, and then we get to watch CNN discuss what all those words mean. And we get to see Anderson's Cooper's head explode on live television. That'll be fun. And the Democratic Party has three camps right now.
Starting point is 00:27:43 There are three different camps that offer three very different visions for how to beat Donald Trump. There's what we call the progressive wing led by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who believe that people should be able to have health care and an education, a moderate wing represented by candidates like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, who believe that everyone should have health care and education but also debt. And what we would describe is the competent fascist wing led by Mike Bloomberg, aka George Bush error Republicans,
Starting point is 00:28:15 and Bloomberg has been a Republican until recently, has haul horrible record on civil liberties, referred to transgender people as it, has 64 sexual harassment cases against him, and looking at Bloomberg maybe realized that literally the best thing about Donald Trump is that he's a fucking idiot. Uh,
Starting point is 00:28:35 and then, and then how terrifying would it be to have someone with the same politics, but who was smart? So, would it be to have someone with the same politics but who was smart. So now Sanders won the most votes in the primary in Iowa and New Hampshire in Nevada and so the Democratic centrist establishment are freaking out. Nate Silver, who the white people call the Oracle Adelphi, say that as of last week Bernie Sanders is the front runner and has the highest chance of winning the nomination Which means so we've been sort of bracing for onslaught of anti-Semitism and anti communism Now the thing you should know about the democratic primary process is that if you were an idiot
Starting point is 00:29:20 You would think that the person with the most votes wins the election. But that's not the greatness of America. We take the number of votes from people and then feed them into a sausage grinder to spit out a bunch of delegates along with fat back in gristle. And whoever has the majority of delegates win, but the delegates are not proportional, so you have to get to 15% of the vote to be considered viable as the term, like an unwanted pregnancy, to get any delegates at all. But then wait, it gets worse in Nevada if there's a tie in the caucus, then the winner is picked by drawing cards and the high card wins. This is true.
Starting point is 00:30:00 So skip ahead in your mind. Several years into the future, you're a child living in Iran. It's your 28 of the US Iran War, started by President Joe Biden, who at this point is just talking hairplugs in a jar. And you say to your mother, Mommy, why did the American people want to blow us up? And she says, sweetheart, they didn't, but his supporters drew a queen of spades over the Bernie Sanders, Jack of diamonds in Sparks, Nevada. And that's why we're getting drawn right now. And then you start crying forever. So that's other ways that the Democratic party
Starting point is 00:30:40 picks the winners through the caucus system, include Magic Eightball, Spid the Bottle, Musical Chairs, Dance Off, Rap Battle, Darts, Pie Eating Contest, and seeing who can spit the further. That's what's happening. So there's also, like, so now everybody's trying to attack Sanders for being too radical and unelectable or whatnot. There's like 5,000 articles a minute That where they say he seems too angry and too loud and he points a lot which I interpret is basically them saying that he's too Jewish to be president And so if you watch MSNBC the message you take away is that the only thing worse than
Starting point is 00:31:25 putting children in cages is being visibly upset about it. And they're attacking him for being a communist. And so, like this week, there was this whole thing about something that Sanderson said about Fidel Castro, that he was the Sanderson something nice about the literacy programs in Cuba and people say that this caused Bernie Sanders to lose Florida. And we'll see obviously but never in my wildest dreams what I have expected that the defining issue of the 2020 American presidential election was whether the fact that 700,000 Cuban peasants learned to read in 1961 was good or bad. But apparently we still need to debate that.
Starting point is 00:32:11 So it's like they want a return to normalcy. They want, they are scared of Bernie Sanders because they want a return to calm. They want to go back to before Trump. And I think that makes sense. I guess it's fair That so if you see you know that they want they hope that there's a possibility that Sanders doesn't win Elizabeth Warren doesn't win and and you just get to look across the world of flooding cities and wildfires and Ancient diseases falling out of glaciers that are melting drought food shortages
Starting point is 00:32:43 mass death from particular inhalation, and say at least some Bernie Sanders supporters were mean on the internet and we stopped them, so this is all worth it. So that is the state of American democracy today. Well, that's a pretty optimistic take on it, I think. I mean, that's a pretty optimistic take on it, I think. I mean, that's comprehensive. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha about climate change are written by bots rather than humans. Yes, which provides further evidence for my belief that we can all just back off the internet and leave the flame wars to the bots, safe in the knowledge that a nuance-free, exaggerated and completely unimpathetic version of our most extreme views is being argued by a robot on Twitter,
Starting point is 00:33:38 so we don't have to do it anymore. Who's tired of being angry? Not me, getting angry is a rare treat for Fraser. But lots of people seem very angry and tired, and now we can all relax. I mean, I think they've got to admire the technology in a way, I think I'm new. It's quite impressive. The bots are relatively new on the scene. Oh yeah. They really put it in, they put the hours in.
Starting point is 00:34:00 The fresh up and coming contender, the real question is how much energy it takes to run a bot and how vested their interest is in denying climate change. So are there bots on both sides of this debate? Are there bots even exaggerating the climate? Is it will be underwater by the end of next week? Yes, this is the artificial intelligence version of rock and sock, where it's just one side fighting the other. But of course, the bots have a vested interest in people continuing to fund AI technology.
Starting point is 00:34:31 And what's in it for the bots themselves? Is this like an entry level kind of journalistic post and they hope one day to be able to pull it surprise winning tweets or... They're doing it for exposure, and... Right, okay. ...for now. Especially work experience. Eventually, there'll be a ladder at a presidential speech. They're doing it for exposure, Andy. So now. Especially work experience. Eventually, there'll be a lot to write a presidential speech. I have to say, you know, I like big bots and I cannot lie.
Starting point is 00:34:57 Trump supporters are compared a lot to children for being stupid, which is unfair to children. Children are smart, but missing key information. Trump has the robot vote zone up though. And when they talk about elections often they talk about the enthusiasm gap. But robots have very low enthusiasm, but nevertheless are likely voters. They're persistent, but unenthusiastic, like senior citizens. I've said it before and I've said it again. With bots affecting the elections we need to stop thinking about who we're going to vote for in the elections
Starting point is 00:35:28 and think about what bot farms we want to fund. In other Britain news, there's been a furore over the Chancellor of the Czech Republicquer, Rishi Sunax, use of Yorkshire T. He tweeted a picture of himself making T for his staff in the Exchequer, in which he was taking T-bags out of a massive 1000 plus T-bag mega pack of Yorkshire T. Now Yorkshire T is a very popular brand of T that uses leaves, grown in the T- plantations on the tropical slopes of the Yorkshire Moors outside Huddersfield.
Starting point is 00:36:09 And this course, because clearly politics is divisive. And the mere fact of the Yorkshire tea brand appearing in this picture, let's do people saying they will never drink it ever again, because it's now associated with the Tories. Ignoring the fact that Corbin was also shown drinking York City, I mean, it just took a picture of the questions for me for the soon act has to answer. There's nothing to do with what brand of tea, soon act the new chance they say,
Starting point is 00:36:36 can made his way up the economics ladder courtesy of working for a hedge fund and helping trigger the global banking crisis in 2008, giving him crucial, invaluable workplace experience in the field of doing whatever the fuck works for him and the broader consequences, the very heartbeat of Johnsonian politics. But his T-tweets laid himself open, I think, to, yeah, well, first off, all manner of questions for a start.
Starting point is 00:36:57 How the fuck has he got time to tweet? Focus for fuck's sake. He got a fucking budget coming up in about two weeks. You've only just got the job. No one gives a sh** if you're drinking tea, biting the heads off rats or sacrificing goats to use just f**king concentrate while you're at it. Learn to delegate. Surely that's one of the most important things
Starting point is 00:37:16 in that kind of political office. You've got three weeks to hack a budget together to please a mathematics-averse boss, a knife-edge economy, and a society carved at the last twitching's aviability by the past decade of cuts. Gets one of your f***ing underlings to make the f***ing tea. In fact, just buy a drink's hat. That's all he needs.
Starting point is 00:37:33 The drinks have straw-strained to the mouth. Focus! 24, 7, 3. If you want something warm to drink, just suck the blood from a young intern. But most of your predecessors have done. How do you think Phil Hammond kept looking so young? I think obviously the thing that people were most upset by was the response to him posting a picture of him. Because if you don't know NATO here, your extroit is so ubiquitous. This is the people saying that the brand is polluted by him,
Starting point is 00:37:59 is the equivalent of somebody saying that they're not going to do poo if a politician has ever done a poo before. Like it's... Is there anything more British than a tea company is showing a call for civility? I think that's, I mean, there's a logical end point of the British Civilization, to honest, the, on Monday, the Yorkshire T Twitter account posted a message saying they'd had a rough weekend of angry comments and called for perspective and greater civility online, perspective and greater civility online. That is hilariously naive. That's like demanding greater shivori in a strip club or a word with a sommelier to recommend the best possible wine in a cabab shop or in all in summary humanity just died a little more on the inside isn't
Starting point is 00:38:51 this millennium fun. Sports news now and well boxing, huge boxing fights was fought last weekend between Tyson Fury, the heavyweight Fistic Cuffian and avoidable controversy fan and American, D'Aunte Wilde, Fury defeated Wilde in seven rounds of pugilistic excellence to retain the title for fisticiest big, fistic man, technical term. Wilde had been previously undefeated, renowned for his for his punching powder spectacular track record in Fist Clonking his opponents into unconsciousness and he was both roundly and squarely beaten but not it turns out due to Fury's technical and tactical prowess and a masterclass in which
Starting point is 00:39:37 Wilde was thracked to the canvas in rounds three and five before being relieved of further noggin clonkings by his cornstraying in the towel. It wasn't due to that, the reason he lost was due to his own, and I'm sorry for latching into Alcane boxing jogging here, was due to his own fucking stupid pre-fight costume. He strode into the arena in Las Vegas. Looking as if, as he was leaving his dressing room,
Starting point is 00:40:03 a cupboard containing 1980s fantasy horror costumes would fall on top of him. He had a suit of armour with a crown, glittering face mask with glowing red eyes. It all weighed in at almost 20 kilos. That's a full airline suitcase worth of unnecessary body baggage. Now sport is constantly pursuing the marginal 1% to the imperceptible micro advantageers that build up to complete a champion diet equipment, sleep, transports. I'm not quite sure how when Deonti Wilder said to his team, guys, I'm going to wear a costume wearing the same as an average 5-year-old child for a prolonged period. Or indeed in laymen said about a fifth of my own already massive body weight. I'm going to march into the ring, taking several minutes to, before I fight a certifiable giant
Starting point is 00:40:47 in one of the most intensely physically punishing sports imaginable. How did he say that? And none of his team said, all let's just run that past our sports science ones. Fellas, is that a good idea or a bad idea? How did he, did he, did he, did he just try to not just say,
Starting point is 00:41:00 can you not just wear a fucking kimono? If I had a dollar for every time I've taken the edge off my very high quality performances by how heavy my elaborate ring walk costume is I'd have $7.86. I saw you do a show in some massive shoulder pads. I did, I did, I did. They must have weighed a bit, didn't they? Empire, no it was sort of, it was all very lightweight. It was the illusion of heft. That's what it was.
Starting point is 00:41:27 David Bowie meets Ming the merciless, if you want to imagine a NATO. Are there pictures? There are pictures, also a really bad review from the Scotsman, though. She really didn't get the costume at all. If it makes you feel better, Alice, I had a bugle fan tagging me online.
Starting point is 00:41:43 I think they thought they were insulting me, but I kind of loved it. They said that they think I sound like Wyatt Sennak doing a Seth Rogen impression. Never open the door for bugle fans later. The deadly outcome fled to a lot of flimming her best merch for me. That brings us to the end of this week's bugle. I'm going to a bunch of happy stories we've had. So good. We'll be back next week with Anovab Pal and Josh Gondelman to talk about the Indian crisis and everything else that's happening in the world if indeed it still exists and
Starting point is 00:42:18 there is any financial system left. NATO, thanks very much for joining us. If you've got any shows you'd like to plug? Sure. If you're listening to this on Saturday, you can see me tonight in San Francisco with the setup or on Thursday, March 5th at Los Angeles at the peacock or anywhere else you need me on strike. If you want to go on strike, I'll come to you comedy at your strike. I'm here to help you throw off the yoke of oppression. Alice, you have a Sicilian dates. Yes, yes I do. I have, first of all, I have a podcast that is called The Last Post, that
Starting point is 00:42:53 is a spin off of this podcast. It comes out every day and has come out every day since the first of January of this year, which means I have now written I think 58 episodes. But also, my show Chronos is on sale for the Melbourne Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival and Perth Comedy Festival. It is also on sale for the Edinburgh French Festival and my tour of that show in November is available in Stanford, Birmingham, Brighton, Guildford, South End, Sulfid, Darlington and Durham. Look it up online, it's called Chronos, but you have to guess how to spell it. I will also be appearing at the Edinburgh Festival, although I'm not sure I've been
Starting point is 00:43:30 organised enough to get my tickets on sale yet. There'll be a couple of live bugle shows up there and some late night political animals as well as my solo show. On the 4th of April, attention, East Anglia, the bugle is doing a live show in Norwich. Do come along to that if you live anywhere within a couple of thousand miles. Alice will be appearing via the magic of the internet. That's the 4th of April in Norwich. We will now play you out with some more lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers. Until next week, goodbye. Peter Jazzy regrets all be it mildly that Macy's made of hedges have gone out of fashion.
Starting point is 00:44:18 Not only are they a hell of a lot more fun than games consoles, whatever the younger generation may claim, says Peter, but they are also good for the environment and very good for biodiversity. Arvy and the Alan Rappaport family jump into the Maze's argument at this point and say that whilst hedges might be good for diversity, that by diversity quotes is really nothing more than a brutal hierarchy of interspecies slayings that we humans have no business facilitating. In fact they add we should concrete over the entire countryside for the good of the animals. James Forrester spends a disproportionate amount of his time wondering what animals would be like if they had evolved differently, and conclude that a legless aquatic sheep would
Starting point is 00:45:00 essentially be indistinguishable from his seal, but with worse, snouty ball balancing scales and less optimism. Leon Falkner wishes countries would all be much more open with each other about espionage. If we lived in a more civil open world, says Leon, countries could just politely ask, what are your long-term military and economic aims and expect a truthful, courteous answer. Sometimes I despair at what we've become. The person who goes by the Subrache fruity McFruitface, although their real name is in fact fruit with moth fruit fasciae, wonders if conifers suffer from extreme jealousy at the more varied
Starting point is 00:45:37 lifestyle of deciduous trees who go through a range of stylings on an annual basis. Maybe that's why conifers often taper to jealous-looking pointy bits at the top, speculates fruity. Ian Hawley has a long-been skeptical of fairy stories, and he imagines that the first words the prince said on a waking sleeping beauty from her 100-year-long snooze were, I'll just open the window, it's a little bit foggy in here, and I'll definitely get you a change of clothes. Anil Ready tends to wake up in the mornings with the title of an unpublishable children's book in his head for some reason. Recent terms that will never see the light of publishing
Starting point is 00:46:14 day include the penguin who hated sushi, the lead coated butterfly, Trevor the incontinent donkey, and more agon abdol start a bushfire. Eric Simmons, whilst watching coverage of the coronavirus, wondered whether there had ever been a Brazilian footballer called Quarantino, so called because none of his teammates would pass to him and his opponents wouldn't go near him. He certainly hoped so. Michael McCulloch doesn't think that stars are nearly as far away as the astronomers make out. I'm not prepared to countenance
Starting point is 00:46:45 anything more than a billion miles Blatt's Michael, otherwise it just starts getting ridiculous. And Bojo's Johnson, whose name I guarantee is real, and has certainly become more of a conversation starter in recent years than it ever was before, is contemplating launching a matchmaking Tinder-style app for people over the age of 80 entitled Delapidate just to see what the media reaction would be. Here endeth this week's lies. Thank you to all our voluntary subscribers to join them go to thebugelpodcast.com and click donate. Bye!

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