The Bugle - Aclockalypse Soon

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

The clock is ticking to Doomsday, George Santos is telling fibs to the level of a UK cabinet minister, and do we care about tiny liquid super robots, who have timed their arrival pretty badly? Andy is with Josh Gondelman and Mark Steel.Why not listen to our new show, celebrating 15 years of Top Stories: https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/topstories.Featuring:Andy ZaltzmanJosh GondelmanMark SteelProduced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 support the Danciler Guard Reader. A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A- Audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Buglers and welcome to issue 4251 of the Bugle. I am Andy Zoltzmann, live in London. It is the 30th of January, 2023, and I'm delighted to report that despite

roomist of the country, Planet Earth has just been recommissioned for another five-year stint that had been talked. For the end of 2025, would be it for the planet with several new planets above one of the franchise slots An Earth's form having of course flatline drastically in recent times But we are staying put at least until 2030 It's bad news for Neptune though, just not had its contract renewed And it's a very replaceable thing By a new planet in January 26, the bidding process is now open and according to rumors, Elon Musk's

Megasphere Company or amongst the front runners having promised the first cubic planet, which will also be the second most livable planet after Earth. With atmosphere of 50% nitrogen, then 50% must be in tetra oxide and gas, and makes people impervious to criticism. So what an exciting time to be welcoming my 2nd co-host this week. Firstly, giggling away! It's Mark Steele. Hello Mark. Hello, I've just had excellent news about the new planet. I'd like to be honest, I've never been a fan of it, June. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've never done. you don't even know is it the biggest not anything is it as much as the furthest away now since blue so must his franchise

Yeah, well rid of it in my book, but plan shows doing very well in the planet conference Good work. It's way back up. Yeah, yeah, it's been drawn, it's been drawn to get rex in me the next way. Also joining us and I've a new idea, his views on Neptune as a planet, but we'll still shortly find out from New York City. It's Josh Gondelman. Hey, thank you for having me. You know, I was pro Neptune. Right. It didn't bother me. Neptune right I know it was fine. It didn't bother me No one no rich guy was trying to go there wasting tax payer money So I kind of liked it. I liked that it was doing it something. Yeah So what I mean what which planet would you like to get rid of Josh? Because you know, I I honestly I don't mean to sound rude about this, but Jupiter's too big, I don't trust it.

That should be two planets, break it up. It's like an interstellar monopoly. It's a gas giant, it's like con Edison. That's what we have in New York, right? It's just one company that does all of it. It's gold, those moons, just wait, listen to it. Alconi other York greatest is one company that does all like it's go all those moons as well Isn't it our country other planets compete to be moons? Well, we can dream of a fair or solar system

and You know, hopefully one day those dreams will come true But not quite yet. We are recording on the 30th of January as I said tomorrow 31st of January was a bad day in 6006 for Guy Forks the gum gunpowder platter who was hung, hanged, drawn and courted in the classic British fashion of over punishing people. But he does seem really one of those three would be enough. Either hanged or what was drawn was that. I can't remember exactly what drawing wasn't caught

and obviously it's being chopped into four bits, which seems. Oh, it's speaking, it's high to a horse. Yeah. Is the Dron bit. I think drawing in quarter is a package deal. Yes, exactly. The horse is going in different directions.

If they just draw you, then you just have to live out the rest of your days tied to four horses. That's drawing without quarter. Yeah. then you just have to live out the rest of your days tied to four horses. That's drawing without quarter. Yeah. Oh, sometimes some of these drawing places, good for good be out here, they let you out of the nine years. It's a funny, funny, funny, funny camp, some of these drawing places. I wouldn't mind, I get a telly in there, I've been watchful, I've been dragged along the cobbles. I get a telly in there, the watch while it being dragged along the cobbles. And Wednesday is the first of February and it means that, well, on the end of Tuesday, January will once again take the lead in the always tightly contested most frequent month of the

Millennium contest. And we 24 January's now, if you take the Millennium as beginning in 2000, which you did ahead of the likes of August, November and March, who are in an 11-way tie on 23 occurrences. So who's going to hit back and pull level? Or could January open up an unprecedented two-point lead? We'll December leave it, agonizingly late again. Or we'll February sneak it under the radar once again to equalize. Full coverage here on the bugle. As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week an ethical hunting section. And while very exciting times for people who like to hunt but have moral qualms about it, following the excitement of a Kylie Jenner's appearance at Paris Fashion Week,

wearing a hyper realistic faux lion's head as a brooch. We look at the latest breakthroughs that could soon make hunting accessible to people who are a bit squeamish about slaying animals for fun. So for those born under the star sign vegetarious, who've always longed to be able to track down and execute the great creatures of nature, some hugely exciting developments, including the advent of fully vegan big game hunting. That's come several daintily footprinting carbon neutral steps closer with the development of a giant pumpkin shaped like a rhinoceros. The pumpkin mosses has been genetically modified to have a gray outer shell and nobly horn-like

pretubrances that from a distance look quite like a rhino snout, the vegetable which has no known conscious being. Can they be mounted onto a remote control quadrupedal buggy that can be driven around the Safari Park in patterns of movement modeled on the real rhinoceros whilst an on-board sound system enables the hunters to hear the pump rhinoceros' dying whimpers once shot to complete the true hunting experience without the pangs of guilt caused by slaying

an unarmed, endangered species just because you can. Also in production, the Toe Fesent, which is a pseudo-fesent made of Toe Foo, that can be attached to a drone, and for the gun sports fan is always the only for a ferocontest between human shooter and avian shooter. You can even be armed with a pellet gun mounted to its wings with a motion-sensing camera so that the bird can return fire. And Scottish landowners are now offering a humanitarian stag hunting weekend where two actors don't abandon a pantomime stag outfit and gamble around the highland glens until you take them down with a paintball gun, the actors will

then ceremonially smear stage blood over your face before performing a selection of classic theatrical two-handed scenes, but rewritten to involve deers, which is something that you don't get from a dead stag. You said the role family are going to go for this sort of thing, they like a shooting party, don't they? They do, well, it hopes so. They're a bit more up with the... Charles for the front wall.

Yeah. I'm going with the stag. The latest... Yeah. I think it would. I can see William going for the more humanitarian vegan stag hunting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very progressive. Obviously William going for the more humanitarian vegan stag hunting. And I can see that.

Very progressive. And it is hugely progressive institution mark. Very forward thinking, that's what I was going to say. Even Harry, who is the far left of the royal family. Even Harry was like in one of the many, many interviews that he did. There was quite a few to come, I believe. There's one because he's done most channels, but he's still going to be one on your own sport

in between the bad Newton. He's doing a few in a couple of weeks as well. Tell him, tell him, even Harry. Right. So he was one day, when we were just a normal shooting party. You don't have a normal shooting party. You don't have a normal shooting party. If you want to try and become the people's bloody row ponds,

you have to don't say things like the f***ing just a normal shooting party. Most people don't have a normal shooting party. What are you doing? What do you do? What do you do? People don't ever normal shooting party What you don't have in a wake? What you don't have in a wake? Oh, which is another fucking shooting party I'm not again, yeah, I miss you, she f**king loves it Anything here with guns makes you more relatable to people

Oh, yeah, he's a good podcast He was sharing new appeal to the American audience Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot, yeah, he's a good poet. Yes, he was sharing new appeal to the American audience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm pretty cool. Yes, sort of. And finally, in our ethical hunting section, whale hunting, need no longer be a guilty pleasure, with the fat and packed offering from the luxury, nautical, ethical holiday specialists,

mobiediculous, who offer you a range of replications, foe whales, created from decommissioned military submarines, which you can pursue in a similar slaughter with a fully bi-degradable magnetic suction harpoon. Anyway, that section is in the bin. The top story this week, we are doomed, or at least more doomed than at any point since 1947. This is according to the latest update to the Doomsday Clock, which measures, I'm not sure entirely how, subjectively, how close the planet is to Arba Geddon, and it was launched in 1947.

One, of course, the world had just been through the greatest trauma in human history and had resolved to live happily ever after for the rest of time in peace and harmony, which isn't going quite as well as would be ideal. But we are now closer than ever to Armageddon, Armageddon, and clock. I don't know, as a percentage, how doomed we are, but I think it's probably over 80% doomed.

And on this clock, there are now 90 seconds until the end of the world. I should emphasize, it is a symbolic clock, not an actual clock. So we do hopefully have more than 90 seconds to go before the end of the world, because this is a show on the internet. At some point, someone could be listening to this

when there are literally 90 seconds to go until the end of the world, but hopefully not for at least another five or 10 years. How worried are you about by this clock? Do you keep tabs on it to think, you know, quite how close we are to the end of everything? I have my alarm in the morning said to it. I like to wake up with just kind of a baseline dread, because this does seem pretty harsh,

right? Like 90 seconds till the earth is done. That's not apocalypse now, but I would call it a clock ellipse soon. I know. I have some questions. Does it account for daylight savings time or saving time, which you still have here, right? So maybe we forgot to set it back. Like I do with my microwave and it's only

actually like about 11 p.m. at the set of midnight. Cause then he seconds does sound so dire. That's not even enough time for me to text my family group chat. Right. Say I love them. It's I'm not making individual calls never mind that. I will say. What were you going to say Mark?

Sorry. I jumped in. No, what's that? What's that group chats when the fuc-lip on goes off? Hi, everyone. Did anybody see that blinding light? I've got a cactus in the window. Do you think it will harm it? But that's it, right? Like, I kind of feel like they're bluffing. But that's it, right? Like I kind of feel like they're bluffing,

because that's not to talk ill of the bulletin of atomic scientists or Boas, as I hope they call themselves, to sound more intimidating. Just like we're snakes and we know science. At the end of the Cold War, there were 17 minutes from Doomsday. That was the high water mark for a distance from apocalypse.

And we still haven't hit Doomsday yet, decades later. That's like a common trick, right? You text your friend and you're like, or 17 minutes from Doomsday and you haven't even left the house yet. So that just feels, and now it's at 90 seconds. And I'm starting to feel like it's when parents want their kids to behave. And they seconds, and I'm starting to feel like it's when parents want their kids to behave,

and they're like, I'm counting to 10, and they're like, the kids are still being bad, and they're like, nine and a half, and I have three quarters. I swear to God, I only think this planet, uninhabitable if I get all the way to 10. Yes. I know, is it huge in that stump, Nace?

Yes. Right. Yeah, apparently... Well, I'll be pleased with him, so... Yes, because it has got closer to midnight because Valley Poodle, the Cremlin Gremlin, has the big two of a very short temper and a nuclear arsenal. Now, one or the other in isolation wouldn't be quite so dangerous, but both together is high risk. Also, we're closer to Armageddon because of Prince Harry's memoir and the Scottish gender recognition bill, I must not breathe the daily telegraph, plus the inextrable rise of the T20 franchise leagues at the expense of test cricket.

And Elon Musk, once again, having almost certainly developed a cosmic death ray nuclear mega penguin that can lay radioactive eggs that will surely destroy us all. So a number of factors, but definitely the Ukraine Russia situation is shunting us closer to the precipice of the... If I could just say one thing I think was very alarming here was that Putin at one point said when he put his nuclear weapons on absolutely the top high alert that the reason for it was a speech by Liz Truss and I thought I can just about accept the end of thousands of years of civilization, but let it not be because of these fucking traps. What a terrible reason for the human race to die out when aliens land here in a million years, they go, I wonder what happened and then eventually work out, oh, then this woman made a speech.

Well, she must have been in power for a long time to have the entire destruction of humanity. No. A boat as long as it takes to launch a nuclear missile. It's how long she was. Yeah, I mean, another thing that really alarmed me was a woman from the bulletin of the atomic scientists, Bellas, Rachel Bronson. And this is the organization that I always, you know, decides where the big hand of the Doomsday clock is pointing. And the fact that they've only ever got, as Josh said, to 17 minutes to midnight. So they're not using a full scope of the clock

or are being slightly over-pestimistic. She said that Russia's threats to using nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation in the conflict by accident, intention or miscalculation is a terrible risk. And look, I mean, you might not be happy with Liz Truss causing the end of the world, but I'm really unhappy with the idea that accident or miscalculation could bring about the end of the world. I don't mind so much if it's intentional human self destruction.

That would fit with our overall narrative through our history. But what I do not want is the last words of our species to be either whoops or did you say go, go, go, or no, no, no, that is not what I want. Well, there we are, we live with it. Yeah, I mean, would you... They can't be worse than it was in sort of 63 when the Russians put their missiles in Cuba or Threaten Zone. Yeah, well that's what they've worked out. They moved it 10 seconds closer, right?

It was 100 seconds and now it's 90. But what does that mean? I can't even hit up leftovers in that 10 seconds. But I mean, given that, you know, we've never got more than 17 minutes away. Is it time to accept, you know, it's inevitable and just, you know, just, you know, try and, you know, remember the good times and accept that, you know, maybe our relationship with the planet has reached an end point and the longer we stay together with, the more we just hurt it and hurt each other really. So, and if the world did end, would you, would you, would you miss it? I mean, there's pluses and minuses for me. Minuses, no more Olympicses, obviously that's bad. That's tough.

On the plus side, an end to all the disarmament in the United Kingdom over Brexit, and I think that's the only way that we will ever fully get through it in this country is just the end of the world and everyone who lives on it. On the plus side, Donald Trump's 2024 campaign could struggle if the world has been reduced to post-nuclear nothingness. On the minus side, from a Jewish perspective, no Messiah. And that's really disappointing. Well, I mean, wait at all this time and if the world ends now, you know, Oh, what if he's planning to come back? Right. And he ends up coming back a couple of years after the world's end.

Oh, he's got a hundred people to see if he was still going. He's got the whole universe full of planets. You must be going back to all of them in turn, I guess. Right. Then we are, we, that's why if you're, if you ask a group to come back, it'll go, you're being held in a queue. You are planning number 304. Oh, f***, s**t, s**t. I was there from the Jewish perspective, just historically, we're not fans of Holocaust,

nuclear or otherwise so I think it's just fair to say this one wouldn't be really in our wheelhouse. And also I do not want the world to end now mostly because this coming summer's ashes series looks like it could be an absolute belter mark so I really want to wait until at least autumn before the world's end and before the world end. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. What if it comes just before the last day of the Oval Test when England need 170 to win with seven wickets left?

Oh, I don't put that thought in my head. I'm not sure I could cope with that. There have been people in the commentary box saying, you know, as the radio active cloud envelops the oval saying, oh, you can play in this. I don't know why they're going off. You know, in the 60s, they didn't play through this. So the Ukrainian situation has been... well, Russia has been agrar, it doesn't look a lot to agrarate Russia. And as I said, Putin has a bit of a short temper. But Germany, after a long period of pressure has agreed to send, it's highly rated lepards to tanks.

Is everything asleep all these days to help Ukraine, to help Ukraine's effort in the war against the under pressure of Vladimir Putin's Russia team, which has been underperforming, I think it's fair to say. Putin does not wrap, doesn't seem to take constructive criticism well. So he's probably going to get quite grussed about tanks. He's not the kind of guy you should waggle tanks at but I'm still not enjoying the Ukraine crisis I still don't like booting it's nearly a year on and still it's one of the most baffling out of it in the huge catalogue of completely pointless wars I think this is right up there and the most

pointless and it doesn't seem to end, you know, any end inside. No, it's got years on it, isn't it? Oh, yeah. And it doesn't even have a closed season this war. These with football, you get a couple of them. So. This is, I know this sounds ignorant, but we're still doing tanks. Yes, so we're doing That feels too old school. Like at this point, are we trying to big wooden horse

full of soldiers or asking Poseidon himself to send a title wave to intervene? Like tanks is still how we do it. I think wooden horse full of soldiers would be a magnificent unexpected to, I mean mean I'm not generally a I'm not a general fan of war but that would make it all worthwhile if the Germans sent in a big wooden horse oh last the Germans are gonna be nice to us with prison

To add to the general sense of Arm uh, Armageddon, this gloom, and an American general called Mike Minahan, uh, has, has predicted that the USA could be at war with China within two years. He said, I hope I'm wrong, but my gut tells me we will fight in 2025. Now let's just hope that this American general's guts are wrong. Let's just hope that an undercooked homemade kung pao squirrel and this feeling negative towards anything even vaguely chidees. And also the guts has largely been proved to be less accurate as a diviner of the future than an evidence-based approach to analysing the current re-electries

of global politics and economics, which can also be wrong, of course. Also, it's possible you're sitting in his armchair with a shirt off, got bored and made his tummy button talk by squeezing it and letting it go. But, just, it seems to be almost a story every week that just makes you think, Oh, what the f**k are we all doing and why are there that I bring children into this world? There was one other sort of apocalypse related story, came from Mike Pompeo, the former Secretary of State under Donald Trump, published a memoir and I've not read it, but I did read the headline of the story in which he highlighted quite how close we came in 2019 to a potentially world-shaking showdown between Indoor and Pakistan.

Now that was all I read about it just as this I hadn't read the article but so I assume what Pompeo was revealing was quite how close India and Pakistan came to meeting in the semi-finals of the cricket world cup in 2019. Of course Pakistan would have made it if they hadn't lost the first of their nine group games by such a big margin to the West Indies and as the former Secretary of State, no doubt pointed out that to feed ultimately cost them as they lost out to New Zealand on the country of controversial net run rate rule. Cricket equivalents of gold difference in New Zealand went on to play and indeed be India, but it just shows on such slender threads. The future of humanity can dangle. One final armageddon-related piece of news that I mean it might be that humanity doesn't

destroy itself, but that it outsources it as it tends to do to the robots. And the latest news from this, Nazca on the new scientist website, a millimeter-sized robot made from a mix of liquid metal and microscopic magnetic pieces has been developed. It can stretch move and Melt and it's almost like these people want to destroy the planet just to prove how fucking clever they are the first rule of Designing robots don't make them so fucking small that you can't see absolutely everything the F***ers are doing to you. Second rule don't make robots that can ship between being solid and being liquid. That is f**king obvious. And third rule, actually come to think of it, don't make liquid robots at all. It's obviously asking for f**king trouble.

Have these fact-based f**king-witted scientists never watched science fiction? Their naivety is f**king staggering. According to the new scientist, this technology could be used to fix electronics or remove objects from the body. Could be used to do that, but it obviously won't be, well it will be used for some nefarious ends by cackling megalomaniac billionaire in a secret island lesson where before the micro robots inevitably develop minds of their own and start slithering their way into all the computers in the world, as well of course into our human brains, weedling their way into our skulls by the various poorly designed aurafaces in our heads.

This is a f***ing disaster, and the new scientists present as progress. Josh, I know you all hugely skeptical about all scientific progress. This must have rattled your face. I mean, this, honestly, I feel like we're at 87 seconds now in the Tuesday clock at just after hearing this Because the headline that then announced this like you said the new scientists They put it as progress. They said metal robot can melt its way out of tight spaces to escape when the headline should have been Holy shit. We made the terminator real and we're sorry Thanks, so you could hear that and not think of the terminate

How do you know that? Liquid robots. Yeah. But I'm very much the same with the dishwasher. Right. Mm-hmm. Right. I mean, these things are evil.

They take 10 times as long as it takes to wash things up in a bloody sink. And yet they're convincing us with their bloody waves that they're obviously sending out. So, they're useful and one day they'll just be taking over the world. They'll just be marching down the street, sucking in buildings and spraying them. I'm totally unnecessary. How come when we invent stuff from science fiction it's always this stuff that murders and never just like the box where you can be like Piece of cake and then a cake comes out Why are they working on that thing Humanity having less money than sense now in the sense that it has a huge amount of negative money

It's a you at debt ceiling season to have come around pretty much every year, Josh. And if you could choose one ceiling to be smashed to pieces, the glass ceiling, the 16-chapel, or the US debt ceiling, you'd probably predict that it would be the US debt ceiling. Ensuring off the Godzilla of debt has noted through the saggingly damped last-a-work and molding beams that is American debt. Seen 31.4 billion dollars in debt now. That seems like a lot. How far do you think America can take this before essentially it just owes everything in the universe. I think we're going to beat the high score. I think we're going to do it again. This is so, if people don't know, the US Congress votes to authorize how much debt the

nation is allowed to carry. It's unclear how our government is in charge of that. It seems like it should be up to China. It's their money. They should have some say, right? Like we have this fight in the US Democrats versus Republicans. Like, should we be allowed to owe more money? And we just get to go, hey China, we voted.

It turns out we're gonna tack a few more trillies onto that IOU. Do you have FEMMO? What are we doing here? Where the worst episode of MTV CRIBS of all time? We're just, because we didn't even get anything good with all the debt. We just lead a camera person around our nation going like, look at these corporate tax cuts, check out the most expensive military in the history of the world.

And then in three years, when we haven't had a hit record in a while, the whole country gets listed on Zillow. It's straight easy. Yeah, it's such a really good project. I've never started it, because if they went, oh, now look at the debt we're in. We were just like everyone had swimming poles, guitar, shape, swimming, yeah. But we've got nothing for it. We have nothing for it.

We don't have healthcare. Nothing. We have so much debt and we have nothing. Well, it's kind of an addiction isn't it? Economically, I don't know, it seems it's not possible to wean ourselves off it. In Britain we've also hit record levels of national debt, 2.5 trillion pounds worth of debt, which of course is bad. That's cute.

That's exactly, it's barely chicken feed across the Atlantic. But, yeah, I mean, it's astonishing, really. In 2001, that was the last year that the US government ran a surplus. An American national debt then was under six trillion and under half of GDP. And now it's over 30 trillion and 125% of GDP. And I don't, I dread to think what's, if there are any historians in the future, and you know, maybe this is the one good thing about Armageddon is we will never be judged by history.

What the fuck they make of the first 20, 23 years of this millennium. God, God, I think we've made, we blew out quite a lot as a species, I think. Who's got it there? Oh, well that's the question is trillions. You start asking that question, Mark, the whole economic edifice will crumble. You've just got to believe in it. It's like, it's like, you know, fairies in Peter Pan, isn't it?

You know, at any time someone says they don't believe in the global economic system, somewhere in the world and investment bank dies. So you've just got to stay the course and keep the faith. This happens all the time. We're nearing a standoff on this again, because Republicans love to create debt, but they hate to borrow money, which is a conflict.

They only want to pay for, as I said, military and tax cuts for the wealthy guns and yachts. They're like the world's busiest pirates. They're like the friend who orders three cocktails of dinner and then suggest splitting the check evenly, except in this case, they order all the cocktails and go, we're gonna run out on the bill. No, you created this mess, they order all the cocktails and go, we're going to run out on the bill. No, you created this message.

Sticker in to deal with it. And that's, this is the problem, is that if we don't, if we do raise the debt limit, right, we're still going to spend it on the same things and the government gets to keep running. If we don't raise the debt limit, the government will default, which is worse than when a regular person defaults on a loan, because it's going to, it's not like the Chinese government just comes over and breaks Joe Biden's thumbs and Janet Yellen's legs. It would throw the global markets into chaos, which for the Republicans is actually a win. They'd be like, see, America is still number one.

We're throwing the global economy into the most chaos it's ever seen. Would you think that might be a way to solve it politically if politicians were going to have their thumbs broken? They might be a little more responsible. Yes, I think the world would be better if politicians ever faced any consequences for their actions. If you're asking that, I think, I'm not saying regular people should break the thumbs of politicians.

I'm just saying, um, we've got a lot of checks and no balances. Well, that would be quite a check in balance, wouldn't it? If someone came in and went, hey, give me a trillion. Right. Right. We've gone from, uh, to really put a little check yourself before I wreck yourself into checks and balances. Ice cube a fire.

Moving on to the sacking of Nadim Zahawi, the chairman of the Conservative Party and a cabinet minister who was most recently before he was sacked this morning as we record, a minister without portfolio, which is an incredibly nebulous job title. So basically he's a minister who doesn't actually have anything to do, which is a strange thing to have in politics. He's been in four years in government, schools, minister, business minister, the supreme role of the vaccine rollout, education secretary, chancellor of the exchequer, chancellor of the Dutchive Lancaster, chairman of the Conservative Party and minister without portfolio in just four years. And that shows the almost unquantifiable levels of your responsibility in this government. The fact that these jobs are treated like just a bit of work experience before you f*** off and do something else.

Well, so anyway, so he's been fired over this tax issue and breaching the ministerial code over, you know, who he told what and when and just sort of complicated taxing to do with a business of his stroke, his father's based in Gibraltar for tax purposes. Anyway, there's details online that you can read up about all the tedious details of it, but he's been sacked. And I think only the second sacking stroke resignation since Rishi Shunap became Prime Minister three months ago. And you think two cabinet ministers in three months would normally be quite a high rate of turnover, but by recent standards, it has been almost like an ice age of stability.

Well, I think they're just going for it now. I think they know they've only got 18 months or so left. So they're just going to get, and whoever replaces them, we've done for nicking a load of tools out of a van and breaking the yard. And it was saying, oh, I didn't realise it was against the rules. And it was just because I was being careless. And it would turn out he sent all the tools to the Cayman Islands to a to a garage in the Cayman Islands where it's legal to store stolen cheeses and they double in value every half an hour

and they're just going to do whatever they want, they're just mad, mad, mad things now there replace ambulances with ubers and you'll just have to have a heart attack and line the road and type in a post code and stuff and then someone will be going, I'm sorry, are you alright? Now, yes, where are you? I can't see you. I had a big burga king, big burga king. I'm then no leave because I get a better job from a woman who's had a stroke and then it's just everything and then all the hospitals will be shut and they'll say we're going to send the patients to Rwanda and it's just And it's just They're just tracking the plate. They don't care 3.7 million pounds and he was fine another million

And then the government and the Prime Minister goes well, yeah, let's just move on and this just goes well, yeah, let's just move on. Right, if it's supposed to be the party of law and order, imagine if you did have any other crime. You have been found guilty of actual bodily harm and have made four different people in a pub brawl. Yeah, Barbe, that was a couple of weeks ago, you're on a let's just move on. Indeed, let's just move on. Let's not get bolts down.

What the British people really want is to see our plans for a new rail system between swindling and dead caught. This is what we were talking about earlier, right? It's the consequences for political malfeasance are so low. And even though we talk about it, it's so gentle. And it's been described as a breach of ministerial code. That's what you said, which I truly assumed meant like wearing your wizard robe inside out, it's a kind of parliamentary ceremony, or failing to deliver a suitably sad note of

condolence to the clean courties upon her death. But he just didn't pay his taxes. That's not a breach of ministerial code. That's regular crime. I've done that crime. You don't have to use euphemisms when it's a regular crime. That's like saying, if he was sacked for magisterial impropriety,

what does that mean? Oh, he was masturbating on a city bus. Okay, that's just regular impropriety. You can just say what happened. Let's not dress it up. I guess in a way, I do feel a bit sorry for Nadim Zahar because there were three good reasons that normal standards of behavior should not apply to him. One, he's an MP, two, he's a high pro high ranking cabinet minister in the Conservative Party, and three, he's a multi-millionaire

businessman. Now, if he's not above the law, there is. And what does that do to the concept of aspiration in this country, the egalitarian idea that if any of us work hard enough and are successful enough, we too can be above the law. Will it only be the preserver of the aristocracy again? What kind of country do we want to bequeath to our children? Where will be the incentive for my kids to strive to be sufficiently wealthy, not to have to worry about the law, taxation, codes of behavior, and basic morality. It's no wonder that the younger generation have given up trying, no wonder. We've got to give that ray of hope.

Disgusting. Yeah, yeah, agree. I do think that giving the churn of government ministers, there is an argument to say that all government ministers should formally resign before taking office. So basically a pre-resignation is getting it all out of the way. You swear at your oath of allegiance wherever you do, would you become a government minister, then you resign for anything you have done, for anything you may be doing, for anything you may one day do. And then you can just get on with it and we have a bit more stability in government.

This one, Lord, Tory Lord, you see this this week, who suggested this is the sort of thing now that they actually discussed that when before a student graduates, they should take, I promise I'm not liking this up right, before a student graduates, they should take a promise on a like in this upright before a student graduates. They should take an anti-woak test Obviously to see how anti-woak they are and if they are sufficiently anti-woak they get a discount of their student fees Wow That's what yeah That should just be a deal if you're like like anti-woke, you get a discount. That truly just sounds like a deal that Alex Jones would offer

on his supplements he sells on his podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 10% off of you calling and say your anti-woke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can get your brain expandurizer. A gorilla ball supplement Is it even that's got all the millions or the trillions he's lost he's lost most oh it's like yeah It's this paid up all his debts wouldn't that clear most of it up

If you yeah if you paid up his debts, I think our government would be fully funded Will you he should just send the money directly to China? If he paid up his debts, I think our government would be fully funded. That's where... He should just send the money directly to China. A slight digression. We have our own scandal right here in New York. Representative George Santos is just sworn into Congress. He's facing new scrutiny because he had $500,000 was donated to his campaign and he said he donated it from personal funds. And now he's saying, actually, they were my funds, but they weren't personal funds, which

is, that sounds, that's definitely cheating talk, right? Like, oh, I was with her, but I wasn't with her. It's the same, but it's different. And he, there, here's a couple of facts. He said a month ago, he said, in a week, I'll make everything clear. And it's been a month and he hasn't. And I'm, if you don't know about George Santos,

everything he says is a lie. So I'm really excited for his explanation for this situation, not because I think it'll clear up any misunderstandings, but because I think it'll clear up any misunderstandings, but because I think it might be the most masterful work of fiction America has ever seen. Move over, Fockner. Move over Hemingway. The ball's been set. Oh, I bought you recent ex-Pregidance. Truly.

That would really, really be it in a loyal. Santos has never said anything true. He lied about being a star volleyball player at a loyal. Santa has never said anything true. He lied about being a star volleyball player at a college, he didn't even attend. He's inventing new axes of untrue every day. And as a New York president and as an American, I'm disgusted by his presence in government, but as a writer, I'm completely demoralized

by how prolific and imaginative his work is. Like, whatever campaign, wherever the campaign loan came from, he'll be able to pay it back with the MacArthur Genius Grant. He's awarded for his excuse, for his work in fiction. That's just the modern policy, like Boris Johnson. He's just now, I presume he's just lying just for fun like he's there she comes from yeah he probably just wondering around little going up to random strangers going I mean I invented zebras I've got I've got a I've got a knob

to shape of Canada I'm yeah I think he's just can't stop. There is a lot of witty tomatoes, really for my forebind. You think through it, I can throw it, I'm a shot putter. The whole thing brings us to the end of this week's bugle. We will be back next week, as always, to have both of you. Have you got any shows to plug to our listeners? Josh? Yes, I'm going to be in, I have a couple live shows.

I'm in Philadelphia at Helium Comedy Club as the secret headliner, but I can tell you that on February 8th. I'll probably book some more, oh, I'm in Brooklyn. This Friday night, I'm doing a new material show at Union Hall. If you want to more, JoshGondelman.com slash schedule. And if you want to updates on what I'm doing, I've got a stand-up special called People Pleaser that you can watch worldwide. I believe on Vimeo

free for prime members in the US. And oh, I have a newsletter called That's Marvelous where I write pep talks for readers every week. That's Josh Gondelman.substac.com. Sorry for the every week. That's Josh Condom and dot sub stack dot com. Sorry for the extensive plugs. Welcome you got anything coming up? Yeah, my back started to all day. I'm Terry Vitals. I start off written and it starts this Saturday on Saturday, but I think it's a bit of a busy stuff. Oh, we're going to Stafford, Strapford, Bonaybon, the next ones, and then I'll put it on. There's about 50 dates,, Mark still tour that should get you to it and anyway I don't know where I'm going. Yeah I did have a whole bloody string of gigs for

on Neptune but now that it's been decommissioned there's a planning. Oh and they're not doing me on podcast, it's just as awesome as very been on a. Oh, and they're not doing me on podcast. This disolce was very, uh, been on a number of times. And I hope I very much hope that just with you on Zoom called, that what the f*** is going on. I would love that. That is a question,

near and dear to my heart. I'm you can listen to me hosting the news quiz currently on Radio 4 via BBC sounds Sounds and thanks to everyone who came to my final two tour shares we arranged from late last year. We will play you out now with the Bugle Wall of Fame consisting of the great cultural achievements of our voluntary subscribers to join the Bugle Wall of Fame subscription scheme. Go to the Bugle google podcast.com and click the donate button. Joseph Hickey invented the fast forward button on video cassette players, prior to which people had to use a special manual spooling device called a crank weasel.

Anders Montanon discovered that stained glass windows really don't work so well at night time. Libby Witt, who was a restorative and idodovinci's culinary classic, the last supper to its original state, removed the bottle of tomato ketchup, creative Belgian lager and a copy of puzzler magazine that had been wrongly added in the 1950s. Andrew Wewell disproved the commonly held theory that the Egyptians built the pyramids as stadiums for watching Sphinx racing and Diana Patterson also disproved a less commonly held theory that the Egyptians built the pyramids because they thought they would be effective

structures for catching pigeons at any height below about 120 metres. Darcy Latramui corrected Albert Einstein, who had erroneously concluded that E equals MC. Fortunately Darcy was on hand to add the key squared bit that made it work. Martin McMaster sculpted a surprising number of the works in the Louvre Art Gallery in Paris and he never complained so they're all attributed to other more famous artists. And Lisa Wooland was the visionary disruptor who suggested putting the cushions around pool tables to stop the balls falling off onto the floor.