The Bugle - Animals, Bananas and The Pope (4216)

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Andy is with Alice Fraser and James Colley (debut) to look at 2022 so far - including multiple animal stories, Papal views on animals and children, and Australia's perfectly normal build up to a tennis tournament.Some things to tell you:The Bugle Ashes Urncast is here: http://pod.link/UrncastOur new site is thebuglepodcast.comThis show has no ads, support us via our website with a regular or one off donationBuy a loved one Bugle Merch Follow us on YouTube or Insta and see parts of this show with actual video.The Bugle is hosted this week by:Andy ZaltzmanAlice FraserJames Colley 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! I am Andy Zoltzman. This is issue 4216 of the Bugle, and welcome for the first time in Bugle history to the

26th biggest island in the world, Tasmania. The sparsely populated blob that dangles happily in the ocean off the south-eastern corner of the Australia clan mass Like a backup emergency New Zealand It's my first time in Tasmania. I'm here as you probably know bugles by now. I came out to Australia to cover the ashes Cricket series the final match was supposed to be in Perth but Perth decided that England would have been thrashed by then So what was the point? I think that was the reasoning. So they've dumped us all in Tasmania, and it

seems lovely. If you can make yourself forget about the history of ethnic cleansing, slavery, abductions and disease spreading, the White Tower local population, which, as a British person, I've been trained to do from my earliest schooling, it helps us get out of bed in the morning. Other than that, it seems lovely, it's famous for its devils, of course, so I've not seen one yet, and some doubt has been raised in recent weeks over whether or not the Tasmanian devil, the famously stroppy and scroffulas marsupial, sort of like a cross between a kangaroo and a Trump supporting anti-vaxxer, is actually an agent of BLZBub himself, or not the evidence, well it's not compelling, I mean if the devil has indeed chosen Tasmania as a launch pad for conquering the world, he's not exactly given himself

the biggest possible audience. This place is around a roundabout 0.3% full, I reckon. But you know, it looks lovely in this cricket effort, which is always good. Perhaps the devil isn't as fast about market share as the media would have you believe, or just can't be asked any more given how humanity seems to be doing a perfectly decent job of destroying the shit out of itself without him even having to put in a regular 9-5. I am looking out of my hotel window now at the 1200 meter chunk that is Mount Wellington, which is like a regular mountain but coated in mushrooms ham and pastry. Anyway, there's a little joke for any food fans out there joining me to assess the

state of the planet and its people this week. We've got the old band back together from the Sydney live bugle albeit there's a band that never played together because the gig was cancelled. But what a reunion show this would have been a week on from what would surely have been one of the landmark moments in modern culture. Firstly, joining me from Sydney, it's Alice Fraser, hello Alice. Hello Andy, hello buglers, it's a delightful thing to know that you are in Tasmania, the one part of Australia, the map of which changes depending on how much Australia wants to look after itself and whether it's got a hot date coming up. Family show, Alice, family show, that was unfamiliar with the Australian term, I wish to do some internet

research. Anyhow, welcome, Alice. I just write here, be dragons across my pubes. Still, you've recently had a baby, so I was contrasted to methods girls, you're not very effective. Yeah, joining us on the Bugle for the very first time. Also, from Sydney, it's James Colly. James, welcome to the Bugle. It's lovely to have you on the show. You also have recently given birth yourself. Yes, well, not personally, not myself. I have more of a map of Gondwana land but it is still very much intact

But it is an honor to be here and I hope to make this one the top 4,217 episodes So you your baby is seven weeks old Well congratulations How's parents would treat you? It's an absolute breeze so far. Other than all of the things you have to do in keeping the child alive, everything else has been on key doors.

So, Ades, this means that you have the third least young child of Bugal co-host, something being over usurped by both Lloyd Langford and now James. Because it used to be, I was the fucking king of having young children on the Bugle podcast, but like eight fucking years I had the youngest, the youngest fucking kids on this show. I wasn't going to let you take that title for too long. Well Andy, no, I prefer to think that I'm a thought leader that people think, oh, if I want to be like Alice Fraser, I too need to have a child and of course,

they can't do it personally, so they have to go back eight or nine months and impregnate their partners. Yeah, look, I don't know. I just think what you need is to actually do the birth giving. I think I might be the only... I'd try my best. I might be the only one who squeezed one out. I might be the only one who had to go to a pelvic floor physio where a lady asks you for too much consent. It's fine, it's fine, but don't ask me for consent every step of the way because then it's starting to get sexy. It know? Like it's fine to just be like, can I put my fingers

in you? And then I'll say yes. But if it's like parting the outer labia, are you all right with that process? It's very stressful, Andy. It's standard E 10 disco rules. Felicity's had, Felicity's had baby. Felicity's. Oh, Felicity. There you go. Felicity's has baby. Felicity's. Oh, Felicity. There you go. Is Grace the current youngest? Yes. So congratulations. Oh, that's huge. She is one of the youngest people I've ever met. She is growing it, but it was one of her defining qualities early on. Yes. Well, have you done that thing where you like touch the back of her knees and go,

no one's touched this bit yet? That's fun. No one's done that to me yet. As always, the section of the vehicle is going straight in LeBin this week, the world's most pointless books. We have run out of the least useful books currently available on the market, including How to Bakes Sox by Leviticus Grind as El Spenia, Jinsis, Babminton for the Dead, 101 Best Granite Recipes by Ken Rocky McClavical. What if Hitler had been an orange? That's the new one from Simon Sharma. A new travel book, What to Do with a Spare Second in Madrid by Norbert or Warmullian how to count to a trillion in under 20,000 years by Sir Preston did I brick the official state mathematician of the United Kingdom.

That section in the bin, we are recording on the 11th of January 2022, meaning it is exactly to the minute, 2001 years since Jesus Christ's slightly belated 21st birthday party, him and his's mate when water skating and as far as I he enjoyed it a lot more than they did Accussions from that whole thing Judas promising that he'd pay next time they went out together Terrible response of trust whenever fully fully restored Um. Um. Top story this week. 2022 has begun. The decade is having another go at trying to have a year that isn't totally shit.

And we are now 11 days in to 2022. Um, Alice, James, how would you say the year is going so far in the context of this decade? Yeah, when you get like three tracks into an album and then you're all a sudden like, what is this doing on the album? Well, I really like 2022 so far because it has been consistently as bad as everything else. We are about a weekend and we are grinding into, we already have our yearly Australian international crisis that seems to happen every January now with somewhat of a tradition.

So it's a return to form. So are you counting as crises like bushfires and Novak-Dokovic? Yes, yes. Two things that equally garner sympathy from overseas, well being partly our info. Yeah, Alice, 2022 for you, was it standing at the pantheon of greatest years of the decade so far? I mean, so far it has been a sludgy mess of sort of temporal incoherence. So that's about standard for me, just not knowing what day of the week it is,

but now I have an excuse. Yes, I guess so. And that excuse being that life has become entirely pointless over the last two years. So, but it's nothing to do with having a child. It's also just to do with the fact that it was my birthday last week, so I have to face the fact that I'm not a young lady anymore. I'm not an old lady. I'm just a lady. Just some lady with her own shit. It's a lot to come to terms with now. So what point do you become? I mean, is it a specific age that you become an old lady? Or is it a state of mind? Or is it the type of shopping troll you use? I think it's when it stops being impressive that you're just doing normal stuff. You know what I mean? No one's like oh well that's good

for how young she is. It's like oh that's mediocre for any age. I sympathize with you Alice because I'm not quite middle age but I am certainly not Bronze Age. I'm definitely Iron, Iron alloy age. Well I'm f***ing 47 and there's really no way of starting that up. On the plus side, 47 and there's really no way of starting that up on the plus side Five of the world's most powerful nations have pledged to avoid nuclear war I I found this a very interesting story because this was a declaration of five of the permanent members of the security council known as the p5 or the n5 and but they can't even agree on that shows how monumental a decision this is For a moment there they went with...

They would have gone with the PN5, but it looked a little bit rude when written down. This is a... This had a wording that had to be hemmed out over several months. That wording, a nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought, which is true. A nuclear war cannot be won, but you can fought, which is true, a nuclear war cannot be won, but you can grind out a hard fought draw, which in, you'd settle for it in the face of annihilation, sorry, I'm thinking about the ashes again.

But, speak a little, oh, yes, James, James, James, come on, too soon. Look, if the idea of a contest that can't be won and must never be fought, I mean, if everyone just didn't bother with that, then this, I think the England would never come to Australia to play cricket. It's more important that you turn up and take the Armageddon that is coming your way. And I think the English cricket team is showing the world that we've got these nukes and

we have a duty to use them. And I think there is a very good chance that you'll end up not out at the end despite all the horror around you. But I think this is a real treat for us that the United Nations has agreed that the world will not end due to the actions of any one member, but due to the collective inaction of every member. We're going to make this world uninhabitable and we're going to do it together. Well, this is the thing, Alice, that I mean, it might sound like good news, but I mean, it's bad news for those of us who advocate a speed apocalypse, rather than the current sort of tedious drip, drip, drip, multi-source armageddon creep that we're going through.

I mean, what, I mean, is this good news or do we just want to, like, try and end it as soon as possible? I mean, this is bad news in the meta sense of the word, which I always the way that I like to approach the news. This is badly done news. They've missed the lead. The lead is, holy shit, they didn't agree on this before. It took them this long to agree, like, it's such a 90s pledge. Also, they're focusing on the wrong people. Like, what about the countries that didn't agree to this?

What is Canada up to? Why is Belgium being so quiet? Personal pledges, I pledged to avoid nuclear war years ago and I have upheld that pledge, but it never goes reported. Well, I've actually got rid of all my new cluses. I've, none of myself have new cluses. They might be the aging process. But I like for this,

part of the reason this was apparently taking so long to nut out was because France, France, France was worried that the wording would quote, undermine the deterrent effect of its arsenal to which I would argue is the very point of this kind of agreement. It's almost as if we want to undermine the deterrent effect of a nuclear arsenal.

I think France's main problem with the wording would be that they just weren't enough words because I mean, the French, they love to eat on gates a sentence. And you know, it's far too concise. You can understand that after months of haggling, they'd have wanted to refer it to have about 15 sub-closes and a meal halfway through. Anyway, so here it is. The five powerful nations, the USA, Russia, China, France and the UK, sorry, through the worst most powerful nations as well as France

and the UK for old times sake, have pledged. Pledged, they f***ing pledged. It's a f***ing pledge, people. Why are you not more excited? If the history of humanity tells you one thing, is that a pledge leads to absolutely guaranteed certain fulfilment and a warm feeling of trust. A pledge. That's the subject of our children. A vow. A vow, we don't actually mean a vow. A vow is sounding like you mean something. A pledge is meaning something that doesn't actually

mean anything. Like we're not going to do something that hasn't been happening anyway. And a promise is a lie. I think there's three differences between those words. The way you remember it is a vowel is IOU and sometimes why? Very good. So, I mean, why do we think this is happening now? I mean, maybe that these five countries remember the looming threats of nuclear war is actually a very useful political tool, otherwise, you know, people might... So, you just kind of get... It's sowing that idea back in people's minds. Oh, yeah, nuclear armageddon is a possibility. Otherwise, people might start to question why we spend so much money on, for example,

in Britain, I'll try to nuclear subs, or, as well as questioning it, we might just demand to go in a nuclear sub, because we pay our taxes, we should be allowed to benefit from. I think that's how taxes work, isn't it, is that the way they're working Australia? That's why we used to keep fighting world wars

to give taxpayers a chance to see what the defense budget was being spent on by going to war. I personally am going to sleep well at night knowing that every nation that has nuclear weapons has agreed to not use them except for North Korea and India and Pakistan and Israel. And maybe South Africa, if they've still got one about in Australia, oh sorry, said too much, do not look inside the big banana. Do not look inside the big banana. So just James, can you just explain the big banana, do not look inside the big banana. So, just James, can you just explain the big banana? Because I think I mean this is essentially Australia's leading tourist attraction. Absolutely. So, the good people of Kofs Harbour

in Australia were tired of looking at regular size bananas and they thought it was an intractable problem, but luckily some plucky cats were caved together and said, you know what, we're going to build an incredibly large banana, which I say incredibly large, moderately big. We are overseeing it by saying it is. Compared to a regular banana, very, very big indeed, but compared to any other thing that you would consider big, quite a small banana.

Right. So it's... You have in your head when someone says tourist attraction, the big banana. It's not as big as you think. It's like a small, bust-sized banana. My biggest problem with, so there are a lot of big thing attractions in Australia, but the problem is they're not too scale. So the big prawn and big banana are moderately about the same size.

They don't scale these things up or down. The big ant, again, is the same size as the banana, whereas really the banana should be thousands of times bigger, surely. Also, interestingly, Australia geography fact, coughs harbour isn't what it was going to be called, but someone had an itch in their throat when they were naming it. What was it going to be called? Just harbour, or... It's just a rude name. It's a rude name and they were very polite back in those days, the English. They're actually trying to say big banana, but the problem with it was so bad it just got

called coughs harbour. Maybe they'd named it on a Zoom call, I don't know. Yes, I mean, this is a problem, James you mentioned, that the five states who signed this agreement declaration are the five states recognized by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty of 1968. Now, I mean, is this not an important enough thing that you update your contact book at some point in the intervening 54 years? I mean, so as you said, they missed that India Pakistan, North career, Israel and Belgium. That's breaking news on the on the bugle. I mean, surely that's a

what's actually a threat. They'll they'll plan on doing a nuclear strike, but then they'll waffle about it. So there we go. That's one fail time is. I think it's just a very difficult thing. But like they, you have to understand here, they are working at breakneck speed. In 1945, the first nuclear weapon is tested, then they use them a couple of times, and ever since then they've been working as quickly as they can to put a stop to this. And just let's say 80 brief years later, they've really agreed to let's think twice before we ever do this again. It's why I'm looking forward to knowing that one day,

if I am ever staring down a mushroom cloud, launched by Vladimir Putin as a retaliatory act against the nation of Georgia's opposite refusal to become the nation of Russia, I could say to him, President Putin, do you not remember your agreement? And he'll say, oh, sorry about that and pop the mushroom back in the bomb and offer me a coffee.

That is reassuring, James. Reassuring in these travel time. In other global military news, Alice, you are the Bugles military space expenditure correspondent and a huge scoop you've found for this week via an article online that governments worldwide spent $123 billion on space programs in 2021 and a proportion that has spent on militarising space has gone up and if it keeps going up at the current rate then and I'm making this up within 15 years then, and I'm making this up, within 15 years, civilian space programs will have to pay to be blown up by special rockets. Yes, Andy, one small debt for man, one massive debt for mankind. Now, we can all look towards the stars and think, that's where the education budget went. I wonder what those sparkly things in the sky are. they'll be bombs and they'll be bombs. This is sort of an incredible

thing because all of the news has been about individuals going to space, you know, wealthy billionaires and so on and so forth and their private investments. But it turns out a lot of those private investments were built on public infrastructure and it's coming out of the tax payers pocket, which is all too full of three week old masks that you haven't washed yet. I mean, the US, it's sort of all balanced out, right? Australia spent $450 million on the space program, which is pretty good given that we don't have one. So that's a little confusing. I'm not sure exactly what goes into civilian space programs. I think it's, I imagine, it's

putting things like satellites and pigs in space. And they, they can't really receive more funding than military space programs. But the, the US is spending more and more on its military space programs. And I think the reason for this is that we now have a generation of politicians who have seen all the alien disaster movies and they do not want to be the ones Who are the complacent advisors or politicians in the opening scenes before the aliens arrive? And I think that makes sense that it that explains why every political operative now is listening to the craziest person they can find because that's always the problem in the disaster film You need to listen to the craziest person they can find. Because that's always the problem in the disaster film. You need to listen to the craziest person out there. The Australian committee space connect

is chaired by man called Pat Conahan, who said that Australia must, quote, position itself to capitalize on the growing space sector, which is good to know that he knows the space is growing. That's a good start. It's not so much a small slice of a big pie. It's more like a small slice of an infinite pie. If we're doing this and billionaires are already shooting themselves into space, I say once they get up there, mug them, hand over the box piece, or so we'll prime ship you into

the core of the sun. In other nuclear news, the European Commission has proposed labeling some nuclear power as well as gas as green in an effort to make the planet think that we're doing something about it and to, therefore, cure itself. Critics of the move have claimed that labeling nuclear and gas power as green is akin to describing an ostrich that is aggressively pecking you in the face with a sharp and beak as friendly because by comparison the shark would have bitten your head off by now or even describing a cricket team as having done well because for once they didn't get absolutely fucking vassuviused in a test match. Now nuclear power technically sits in a special environmental category of its own of Gala, which is green as long as dot dot dot.

And I spoke to someone or other for the EU advisory subcommittee on delay in the onset of Armageddon Brackets working party, D said that gas can't be that bad, you can't even fucking see it, and it's better than burning penguins or shoving baby rhinos into a petrol tank. So, I mean, is this the way that we are going to save the world by just pretending that we're saving the world and hoping for the best? I think it is.

I think nuclear energy is green. It's undeniably the color that it glows. And the hope here is that we use nuclear energy to reduce our carbon footprint, and it's a clever move. Think of it this way. Say you're feeling, it's after Christmas, we're all feeling a little bit on the heavy side and you're worried that that could have negative health effects in the future.

One possible solution will be to take out a gun and blow off your foot. Now, not only do you not worry about your stomach anymore, you will have technically reduced your weight in general, therefore making you healthier. And environmentalism at its core, its fusion core is about what kind of a world we are leaving for our children. And if we embrace nuclear energy, we know exactly what we're leaving for our children and their children and their children with the six fingers and their children, like say children, technically it's three heads on one body, so maybe just child. But this move is being opposed by the German environment, bit of stuff. And surely that is cause for pause.

When the Germans are saying, well, think about what you're doing to the world, this is unspeakably evil. Then I would say, you are in a tight spot. I'm an agreement Andy here. If a goal is difficult to meet, redefine the terms I did this just last week, I looked in the mirror, I said, New Year, new me. And now a week later, I'm looking the same old mirror, the same old me, but I've renamed that that me, New Me, also confronted the reality, that the inevitable process of aging means that the new you is always the older you.

Oh, curse you language. But I think in terms of the most efficient means of greenifying the world, I think we might have accidentally stumbled on it over the last couple of years, which is simply to make everyone give up all hope and just sit at home waiting for the end times. So, you know, there is, you know, it could be that this will prove to be the turning point. Yeah, you know, back to the point. It's nice to know that my keep-cup will outlive me now. It's something I'm leaving down to future generations. I mean, why don't they go the whole hog? They should redefine coal power stations as green as well

because coal, we know, is not green and these power stations getting really coal. Yes. Good point. I mean, that was a local petrol station at the end of our road. They had a rebrand a few years ago, and they came back and they were called Apple Green and had a lovely green logo of an apple. And I thought that was a really great way of saving the environment, so that, you know, because environmental destruction is 98% psychological. And if you go to fill up your car and there's a lovely picture of an apple and it's called apple green. Then I mean how much damage can that be doing? Yeah, it's good for apples, a good for you.

It goes to show like the term carbon footprint was invented by BP is a marketing tool and I think that's very telling because if you are looking down to check your feet print, it makes it much easier for someone to kick you right in the ass without you noticing. That's never a true word spoken on this podcast, albeit that is not particularly a wholly contested title. Animals signalling the coming of the apocalypse news now, and well, I mean, barely a day goes by now without the animal kingdom in some way hinting that humanity is doomed. And in a small town in Texas, 250 miles from the sea, fish have rained down from the sky. The little town of Texacana in Texas suffered the shower of fish either because of some weird storm related stuff

whisking them up from the ocean and dumping them inland as sometimes happens. Or because the Almighty Lord is very, very fucking cross with us because we're being so naughty for the last three to four thousand years. What's your interpretation of the shower of fish? Is this sign that we are genuinely doomed? I think it is a real referendum on how weak gods' powers have become. If seeing as all of the things we are doing, the almighty's response is, oh yeah, have a couple of fish. I do think we're two people centric in this news. Of course, it is a bizarre day for the many Texans in Texacana, but it's an even stranger day in the lives of these fish

who never thought they would be in Texacana. Or, as all of themselves, themselves as more of a Houston fish, if not one day moving to New York to chase their dream of being served on a cream cheese bagel. At first reports of the fish falling from the sky, Texas governor Ted Cruz, who famously fears being around in any natural disaster in case he is asked to help, took his family on an immediate emergency Caribbean holiday only to unfortunately terrifyingly find himself surrounded by even more fish. So our thoughts are with him at this time. Harbinger stations who specialize in working out exactly what is portended by weird natural events have suggested that the fish rain could argue anything from more traffic on the

outskirts of Texacoana next Wednesday to a full alien invasion to America, gradually tearing itself apart as a nation under the centrifugal forces of its own political twartory. Any one of those, I would say, is entirely plausible. But could it not be, Alice, that we've been getting this wrong throughout history? I mean, you look at all the bad things that have happened in the world through human history that surely would have been harbing by something if God does indeed warn us of bad things to come through sending us signs. Then maybe rain is supposed to be made of fish and it's when water falls out the sky.

That's when God is trying to tell us that shit's about to go down. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha to test the thought experiment of what happens if you give a man a fish. Because people talk about when you give a man a fish all the time, but this doesn't feel like like it's been properly scientifically researched. Like, yeah, is it a thought experiment or is it a real experiment? Are there placebo fish? What's your control? Are there men who think they're being given a fish, but aren't? I don't know. I don't know.

I mean, I mean, if you give a man a fish in Texacana or in Texas and it lands on his head at a bus stop, then, you know, it'll probably be slightly confused and claim that his country's being taken from him by the liberal media. Probably. I mean, if you give a man a fish these days, he'll look at you pretty weird. It's not a customary gift. Yeah. A positive reason.

There is. Is it his birthday? Is he a fish manga? Are you a fish manga? What's the situation? Yeah. You do need confidence in these things. As courtship, this is going to go giving someone a fish is I think a risky move, a risky move. And no one's going to, no one's going to trust a free fish. You know, there's some things that you just don't want discounted like you don't want to discount sushi. You don't want to discount sex. There's a beautiful undercurrent of friendship in this story that we might have missed here because if I was working in Texacada at a mechanics and my coworker said, there's a fish on the ground and I saw it fall from the sky. I would say go home Larry you've had a bit too much will we use us and talk about

this on Tuesday but this friend went no not only do I believe you let's take this to the media and make it international news. I think that's the kind of trust we should all have for each other this year. In further animals signalling the apocalypse coming, Alice, a badger has found coins from around about the time of Christ. I mean, surely this has to be assigned, you know, the second coming, the very least, is upon us. Yes, these Roman coins have been discovered nearby the den of an animal. Look, the BBC, I've just read this story. Again, I'm going to go meta on this. They've injected this story with a lot of colour. What happened was some coins were found outside an animal den

and a nearby stash of Roman coins were found. But the BBC has written this up as, in a desperate attempt to find some food, it is thought that the animal, which researchers believe could be a badger, inserted its legs into a small crack opening next to its refuge, but it found no use for the old coins. An abandoned some of the pieces in front of its den,

that is a direct quote from the BBC, a news site, I'm impressed, but I think it needs more epic. I think it should read like this. A lone brave possibly badger, plausibly called Mr. Mublan's cast a drift in a cold world, has fulfilled what might have been his dream after what could have been a lifetime of amateur archaeology and grave robbing. Women badgers want him, men badgers want to be him.

Long is it possible that he has sought this treasure, which might or might not be the lost treasure of the third eagle, in turn, the third eagle may or may not have been a Roman platoon? Who knows? This is news. This is what they pay me for end of article. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha taking agency away from the badger here. The article says that the badger was probably searching for worms and berries.

I'm gonna say, the badger was searching for Roman society artifacts. And I've read my wind in the willows. I know badger's famously hate society. So upon finding the coins, the badger was disgusted with itself and retreated away. The badger picked up these Roman artifacts

and thought, real money is worth nothing. I'm invested in Bitcoin. And cast them aside. Do you know what this story is? This is a shot across the bow to every archaeologist. A badger can do what you do. A badger. Have you ever seen a badger perform potent political satire?

Only once, and it was mostly badger-related. Four stars, read like a three In other old stuff news a huge scandal is brewing Alice amongst the Fans of medieval war horses community are for it's been claimed that Medieval war horses rather than being imposing heroic beasts were were in fact little more than modern day beach ponies. I mean, this is rocking the war horse fan community to its core, isn't it? Yeah, I'm absolutely gutted. This discovery, of course, made by a roving weasel, but I cannot tell you how disappointing this fact is to my fancies of being rescued from a set of improbable difficulties by some sort of

lord or led in a medieval-ish situation, despite my anachronistic modern taste for hand-washing an individual right, he would be swept away by my ineffable beauty. And what is the point in that situation of a tiny hoi- What is the point of a tiny horse in that scenario? There is no respectful but heated frotage going on in the smooth saddle of a basic pony. I'm just so disappointed. I think it's an adorable image. It makes what's often a brutal and bloody history seem quite quaint. You know, you see Genghis Khan being led around a paddock by a stone carnival worker. A charge looks more like a friendly trot. And it explains why lances were so long

because the other horse riders were actually very far away and it took ages to shut down the distance, so it was easy to just poke them with a stick. And I think this is all a matter of perspective. Medieval nights were no bigger than your average cat and the nation of France was no bigger than a standard cricket oval. Everything was just smaller. And you have to wonder at these sizes just how many people could fit inside the Trojan horse. It is by far history's most consequential pinnata, but I just don't think it had legaroo. So are you suggesting that the Trojan horse was sort of the ancient world equivalent of the clown car and Absolutely right They actually crashed one on the way there and it took out half the army

So we're there to get out and shoot the horse Odysseus could have gotten home with a determined hop The Pope has weighed into the animal's issue and claimed that people choosing cats or dogs over children are being selfish. Now surely this all depends on, again, on context and the situation. I mean, if you are collecting your pets and children from an institution that is both a pet care centre and a children's preschool and you choose cats or dogs over your children when told You can only say one or the other then I would say yes That is potentially selfish if you're writing a will and you choose cats or dogs over children, I mean it might be the ever really amazing dog or really annoying children. I'll say that selfish. Perhaps I'm maybe not selfish, maybe questionable. If you're casting for a

nativity play and you choose cats or dogs over children, then you are, you know, it's a radical reworking of the Bible, I applaud you for it. If you're choosing which is to be sacrificed as used to ensure a successful sea voyage on the way to war, well, as a bit of a technical gray area, you can go either way on that. If you're a Soviet, you're a space exploration project director, and you need something to fire into space to see if it will be feasible to send adult humans there, then I would say definitely go with a cattle dog. It's just the optics of strapping a child into a rocket and fire into space, not good even in 1950s Soviet Union. So what do you think? I mean both of you recently have gone down the

child rather than cat or dog. Was that a difficult choice to make? Well I have both a dog and a newborn baby and if I was forced to choose between them it would be easy enough to pick the Yeah, I do have to clean up after them both The baby doesn't bring in the newspaper, but she also doesn't chew my sandals. No, it is the baby It's the baby by cute little butter knows. I think you're right Andy It is context the problem is context. What are you choosing them for? Is it who can pull your sled over the tundra in that case? It is selfish to choose children. They simply cannot take that much

time off school. But personally, I am impressed by the Pope's moxie. A lesser pontiff would have said, you know what, let's give it another year or two before we at the Catholic Church shut lecturing people on the welfare of children, but not this Pope, he gets right in there. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I didn't ask you to kill your only son. I know I did it anyway. I know it's your favorite. You are always like good takeout with Abraham. But if we're playing son killing chicken, I'd love to see what you've got or rather begot not made one being with the father. Of course, Jesus himself had a cat called Ernie and a fish called the end, which was a word pair on the French word fa, or fin. So and that's actually, he practiced the Lazarus move on the fish and then his cooking skills as well. That fish actually lived to 22 before Peter ate it after a team bonding piss up. Read into that. That's what you will. Australia, Covid, tennis news now, and it's been an extraordinary week here in Australia, Covid, tennis news now and it's been an extraordinary week here in Australia

with the legal case surrounding Novak-Jokavitch, the 20 time Grand Slam tournament winning a tennis player and joyless efficiency monthly magazines, sportsmen of the millennium so far. It's been really quite hard to fathom this, but I mean, the context of COVID in Australia at the moment, when I arrived two months ago now, and there were very few cases, and now there are in scientific terms, f*** loads of cases everywhere, it's been kind of interesting and curious time to be here. And there's even talk of people having pox parties in Queensland to try and catch the virus. But I mean, as we record, Novak Djokovic has been released back into reality from his incarceration after a judge overturned the government revoking his entry visa.

It's such a bizarre story this because a joke of it should clearly, it's a great, a great tennis player, but at the same time, no one particularly likes it. Well, not many people are, or maybe no one particularly likes him, but a lot of people particularly don't like him. And he's not had a vaccine, but he has had COVID recently. And the day after he tested positive for COVID, he was shaking hands with children and receiving an award. It's a really weird story. Can either of you make head off fucking tale of it? I mean, I can't make head off tale of it. There's two events within it, within this series of events that delight me, one that they were violent protests in the streets of Melbourne, either for against Novak Docovic entering. I'm not sure why or no whose side they were coming down as just presumably quits doing what quits do which is about that his is father compared him to Spartacus. that his father compared him to Spartacus and his family doing a press conference when they were asked about him attending these indoor events

in the days after he tested positive tried to divert attention by singing a patriotic song just singing a Serbian country folk song or fun times That's very Spartacus, just make a loud distraction until the guards move along. I would really like Spartacus. He'd have waged war on the Australian government on the slopes of a volcano, but he's not done that. I mean, there are elements in which Djokovic and Spartacus are like peas in a pod, but both perform well

in a arena. Both have been paid by Kirk Douglas in film portrayals of their lives, the Jock of it CGI Kirk Douglas movie, it's due out in five minutes time. They both led revolutions. Spartacus led the third, I believe the third servile war against the Roman Empire in the 70s BC and Novak Djokovic is trying to lead a revolution against medical science and good sense of COVID vaccination. Both of them have hair like a Lego man. I mean that's not proven with Spartacus but it's definitely true of Djokovic. So let's assume it's also true of Spartacus. And both have a marble statue in the louvera

of them with their penis out. So it is uncanny. You can see why the jock of it, his father could mix him up with the famous labor role either. And standing with him is noble, but also ultimately bad for your health. I think that this situation, so what we need to understand firstly is just how rampant COVID is ripping through Australia right now. Like all trends, it takes a couple of extra years to get to Australia, but as soon as it gets here,

we go for it. And right now, three out of every four tests are coming back positive with one of them in conclusive, no, sorry, that's the ashes again, but Spent an hour nearly an hour not thinking about the cricket and you just brought it all oh But what we do know is lifetime James that's nearly now What we do know about this story though an old tennis fans know is tennis has the greatest review system in modern sports And that is exactly what has happened to Jackevic here. He's out. No, he's in. Okay, let's take it to Hawkeye

Ooh, and he's in only just This is a big win against the Australian government and it was the Australian government's mistake for holding the proceedings on a grass court If they had held it on clay or even perhaps synthetic he probably wouldn't have triumphed. You can be forgiven for thinking that the way into Australia was to break the law. It used to be. That was an old policy we changed that a short time ago and this has turned to a real egg on the face moment for our government who were hoping to use the story to distract on an egg on the face moment they were having with rapid testing only for that story to backfire and draw attention to Australia's cruel immigration laws which is somewhat of an entire factory farm applied directly to the face.

But I feel ultimately this story like so many is a terrible misunderstanding. You see Melbourne is the most locked-down city in the world. I myself have done multiple locked-downs in Melbourne. This was an appanishment for Joker Fitch. We were trying to show him a little bit of the local culture. Welcome to Australia. He is a spoonful of veggie mite, two weeks dint in isolation, and when you get out you can pat a koala that's almost as diseased as you. Alice, can I ask? Have you, have this feels like a person I think to ask on the show. Have you contracted COVID? Because honestly, enough of our friends in Australia have right now that I'm feeling

a bit like a loser. Like was everyone hanging out without me? Did you all call this contagion? Yes, yes, we are new parents. We don't get to hang out with anyone anymore, downside, upside, you don't get to the plate. That was. Well, that concludes this week's Google. I think we've covered pretty much everything that's happened in the world. This year, I do hope you've enjoyed it. We'll be back next week with more from the planet. Don't forget to book tickets for my UK tour shows, which begin sometime in late February,

a couple of them are having to be moved due to a clash with radio recordings. But details are available, I won't say that, I'm not sure they have been moved yet. Details are available on my website, Andy's also on dot code at UKuk which is kind of up to date but I might have to change a few things and move them around but basically it's all there. If you look online, anything to plug James, you've got any shows coming up or anything else you'd like to tell our listeners about? Life shows don't exist in Australia right now but I would, if you would like to check out, I have a couple of podcasts, one called The Coli Problem, which goes for

five hours in case you're worried there just wasn't enough bullshit in your ears. And the other one is called Venety Project, where Meade Afred goes through A-list celebrities D-list albums. So, if you ever want to hear how Robert Downey Jr. sounds on a grand piano tune in. Alex, as well as the gargle, the Bug bugle's sister audio publication what else have you got? I have presumably of all things go well which they won't. I have a series of live shows coming up. Are we doing Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth in the festival run? So if you're in any of those places look up my show, Cronos, a show that I began to write in 2019 and we'll

finish writing sometime in-determinate in the future. I'm also going to be doing Edden Bruh and I'm just saying these things out loud as though they're going to happen. Yes, well if you say that loud it's got a now 0.3% greater chance of happening than if you'd kept it on the abonnet. If you want to find out how and when they all get cancelled, look me up at tapion.com slash L.A.S.F.R.S.R. Up to the minute updates. Thank you for listening, Bughlers. There will be the return of our premium voluntary subscriber lies next week to join the Bugle Volumptu Street Journal scheme or to make a one-off or recurring donation to help keep the Bugle free, flourishing and independent. Go to the BuglePodcast.com and click donate.

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