The Bugle - Beauty and the Beast (4194)

Episode Date: May 18, 2021

Andy is with Helen Zaltzman and Alice Fraser to look Californian bear politics, ethnic jokes and billionaire news.Subscribe to Tiny Revolutions with Tiff Stevenson, episode one, with Armando Iannucci is out now.Buy a loved one Bugle Merch - COLD AND WET WEAVER T SHIRTS ON SALE NOW).The Last Post, keeps appearing here. Follow us on YouTube or Insta and see parts of this episode with actual video.The Bugle is hosted this week by:Andy ZaltzmanHelen ZaltzmanAlice FraserAnd produced by Chris Skinner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Google, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Bughlers. It's Monday, the 17th of May 2021. You may, if you are a Britain-based listener, now give your headphones or speaker a hug, and it will register as a legal hug for the Bughal podcast of which this is issue 4194 and I, Andy Zoltzmann, Am Hostes. Joining me this week, a former resident of A, the same house I lived in, and B, the same womb I lived and worked in for nine months, though not at the same time in the case of B.

It's the quibbling sibling, Helen's Ultraman. That was your longest office job, wasn't it? LAUGHTER Second longest, Helen. Second, I lasted a full 11 months, it's the other one. Wow, full deastation. Oh, that's... LAUGHTER second one. I lasted a full 11 months in the other one. Wow, full destination. Joining us from a strange far away place in another world, or at least from another half of this world, if this is indeed a world anymore, it's Alice Fraser. Hello Andy, yes indeed.

I am in Queensland in Australia, the strangest of Australians, and as far as places go. Well, Queen's land is also here. Britain, this is the Queen's land. As indeed is the entire earth by rights. So to the state of Queensland isn't constantly to retens to succeed from the rest of Australia. It is the place in Australia where I get the most culture shock. It is and yet it insists it is the most Australian of places. Right.

I mean, how is that marked? Is that because there are like a scale of Australia in this in different categories? It's sort of parochialism and hats. But we are recording. On the 17th of May, on this day the 1756, the Seven Years War formally began when Great Britain declared war on France and just highlights the gradual shortening of human attention spans that they launched it as the Seven Years War on the 17th of May 1756. When you think back just three or four centuries ago, that's the Hundred Years War in the

14th of 15th centuries centuries already reduced down to a poultry seven by the time they launched in 1756 and now just recently as we reported a couple of which are the war with France over fishing rights in Jersey was done and dusted in a couple of days people today no f***ing stamina on this day in 1902 the Greek archaeologist Valerios Stice discovered the aniquithera mechanism an ancient ancient mechanical analog computer. It is a hand-powered orary, and if you don't know what an orary is, it's something that you can't explain and don't really know what it is, so just mumble the noise and try and get away with it. It's just an orary. Well, I don't know, is that? The device has been dated to the first century BGHCC AMMEU, which is

the Jewish system of dating that Helen and I were brought up with, who it stands for before Jesus' age, Christ came along and messed everything up. Expertologists have speculated that the mechanism, which consists of various cranks and gears, and has been described to the earliest known computer, was used by the ancient Greeks to locate the Sun, Moon and planets, to play games involving matching up sugary snacks, to anonymously abuse strangers and first-century BC celebrities, and to point to the location of stars, which if you then use them as the join the dots picture, it would look like two people having vigorous but unremantic sexual intercourse. And on this day in 1990, the General Assembly of the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases. That is 1990 AD, not BC. That is AD. That's 21 years after our

species had summoned the ingenuity to put a spacecraft that could send data back from the planet Venus, which ended on this day in 1969. 21 years later, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases. We don't always prioritize as a species. I think there's some historic evidence of that. As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week, a bugle guide to hugging as hugging becomes legal again in Britain, or a bit not compulsory.

Let me emphasize that. A guide to how to hug friends and loved ones for those who've forgotten how to and become a bit rusty over the last hug three year, the bugle guide to hugging. A, minimize growling, B, avoid screaming, C, do not wear arm spurs, D, remember the difference between a hug and martial arts? Remember as the old saying goes, judo is not a cuddle. E, if running or walking into a hug, remember to stop your forward motion on or shortly before contact with your hug E. And F, do not attempt to combine your hug with either admin or work, especially if your line of work involves surgery, dispensing advice on military strategy or operating heavy machinery. It will, like, best make your huggy feel awkward. That section. In the bin.

Top story this week. The world is doomed. Now, I don't think I'm going on out on even the most stacks-hundian of limbs when I say that the Middle East situation has been the source of a bit of concern over the past week. Have you enjoyed the latest flare up in the Middle East crisis? Not loving it Andy. Yeah. So it's been your particular highlight. Well, it seems like you're not allowed to support the oppressed people of Palestine whilst not being an anti-Semite.

Right. But I do hate myself, so it does track. Well, Andy, I was about to write a bunch of very hilarious, insisive and universally unifying comedy about India, China and the Middle East, as well as the latest abuse scandal in your specific area of interest, whatever it might be. But then I read this next story, and none of it seemed worth it, because Chernobyl might explode. Right. But I mean, this is exactly what the world needs, isn't it? Because I mean, the Middle East, there's no solution to the Middle East crisis. The blame tennis, as so often as become a grinding clay court baseline rally with no foreseeable

end. I think Nadal versus Nadal at Roland Garros, but with added human tragedy. The UN has just issued a new resolution, which simply says, and a pack of motors, pointing at all, God, the retired deity and former Middle East resident has failed to break his or her silence on the matter, which now stretches back inconveniently a considerable amount to amount of time either to clarify exactly who that lamb was promised to or to just give it to someone else, the Buddhists or snooker fans just to, you know, situation a bit, but as you say, when it comes to, you know, oh my God, we're doing perspective, this news, Alice, that you broke exclusively for the world via the bugle just seconds ago, that lurking deep within the bowels of the celebrity nuclear disaster site Chernobyl, there is an inaccessible chamber

where the Russians are breeding radioactive depleted plutonium, super sized, flesh-eating, tyrannosaurus, his rex's. That could take our minds of everything else. Just fill it in on the kitchen. There's no countries. It's easy. If everything explodes. Yeah. Yeah, there's a deep hot pit somewhere in Chernobyl.

I don't know if you can visualize Chernobyl as a disaster site, but it's like a horrifying monster hidden inside an enigma in the center of a puzzle made of active, made of active fish and mazes covered in a sort of glassy, nuclear lava. And some of it has just decided that it isn't as stable as we would hope. Had we not already filed Chernobyl in old news rather than extremely radioactive future news? Everyone knows that radio activity goes away

pretty quickly, right? Yeah, it does. It's your turn problem. Well, I mean, a couple of other... Helen Fulton disclosure on both these stories are on the Middle East out and Chernobyl. Both our grannies mean that we can't be entirely neutral on these stories because one of our grandmothers, like us as one of God's chosen people, and the Chernobyl disaster happened on the birthday of our other granny that's 26th of April in 1986. So I mean, we need to lay those cards on the table before we say if we're fought or against the Chernobyl disaster reoccurring. Oh, grandmother, who was birthday Chernobyl shares, used to make strawberry ice cream

that never thought. So if we could get a huge brick of that, that would really come things down in that pit with nuclear fire. The problem seems to arise from this sub reactor room 305 slash two, which as a cricket fan I read is 305 for two. And the second wicket is never fallen with a score at 305 in any international cricket match, men's or women. So read into that, what you will people, to me, that is that is Fisher than a food podcast hosted by two dolphins. And you can hear the latest episode of a via your usual podcast apps along with the bugle, the gargle featuring Alice Fraser and all of Helen's infinite number of podcasts. Well, as we contemplate our dystopian future, let's move on to animals news now because

dystopian future. Let's move on to animals news now because obviously not the only species on the planet for now, but we do like to utilise other species in particular in currently American politics where now Helen you are of course the bugles use of animals in American political campaigning correspondent. Bring us up to date with the latest from California. Well, the Republican John Cox, who is running to be California's next governor, having been beaten last time he ran to be California's governor by Gavin Newsom, is campaigning with a £1, pound Kodiak bear named Tag. It is unclear whether Tag shares political affiliations with John Cox because when John Cox is making speeches with Tag, Tag is usually just a flopped on the ground looking bored as

orders. The whole thing is that he's running on this beauty and the beast campaign where Gavin Newsom is beauty and he's like, no, meet the beast. And the beast is... This sad slave there. The beast, well, the beast is supposedly John Cox who is a very normal looking late middle-aged white man, where he's wearing a business shirt with no tie. That's the drama. And he's got a bus that says, meet the beast. However, he went to do his speech in San Diego, which has a city law that bans anyone except for zoos to bring in wild animals. No person shall offer for sale, give away, bring into or maintain within an area coming within the jurisdiction of this ordinance, any lion tiger bear, monkey wolf,

cougar, oscelot, wildcat or skunk. Well, I mean, you say Helen, he's a rich white man with grey hair in a suit and yet he stars himself as beast. Is this not finally some honesty from the patriarchy about how the beast has been hiding in plain sight for all these thousands of years? Hiding, would you say? Getting in the way of everyone. Tag also a most stagnant one of Sarah Palin's children. Tag. Yes. Sure. The bear, of course, is the symbol of California, such campaigning using symbolic animals, of course, not allowed here in the UK.

After that tragic incident in Wales, which led to an entire village burning to the ground, is it possible that John Cox is simply making a big play for the electrically crucial voter demographic of people who once be able to shit in the woods without the threat of prosecution? And that's why it's very tactical running mate for me. That does make sense. Our dad was very motivated by finding a property

where he could pee outside without anyone seeing. And he is, he's either like a late and early boomer or what generation is Bob Boomer's silence. So yeah, he is like John Cox's Republican voter demographic. Maybe it is all about exterior evacuations. Well, we're sharing a lot about our family in this episode. I think you'd be proud. I think you'd be proud. Pig asked news now and some very exciting news recently, a broken via the news scientist website, Helen, about pigs being able to breathe oxygen through their pig arses.

Yeah, that's the kind of us pigs have pig. Yep. As. Yes. Also known as sausage in its process form, I believe. So, I mean, what implications does this have for humans? Because, you know, obviously, we are pigs are very much our role models and inspirations as a species, as George Orwell tapped into. So, what, just explain exactly what the pigs do, why and how this might benefit us? Well, they anesthetize the pigs and essentially put ventilators up their arseids, because when you are being ventilated in hospital down your throat, it's pretty unpleasant, it requires a lot of heavy drugs, it can be very traumatic and

can damage your lungs, whereas up your arse, much less damaging. So, they're thinking one of pigs can do it, maybe humans can breathe through their arseids, and maybe ultimately humans will find the literally able to talk out of their arses. What they haven't quite dealt with yet is the fact that it's not a passage that is only for putting ventilators up. The stuff that comes out. Right. So that's as true of pigs as it is of humans as it it seems to be

quite common amongst mammals. Yeah. Okay. So the problem is I guess when you shit into your ventilator. Yeah. Well that's I mean that's a famous saying isn't it? Don't don't shit into your ventilator. Don't shit where you breathe? Yeah. Testify. In other animals news groundbreaking eye operation has been performed on a tiger Here in England a tiger with bad eyes has now had a special operation and it's eyes are good again if I may simplify the story Hopefully this will have a kind of Andrew Clees and the lion type effects where you know Andrew Clees This will have kind of Andrew Cleeds and the lion type effect where you know Andrew Clees took the thorn out of the lion's foot and then in the arena when the Romans were banged for the lion to eat

Eat the the Christian gladiator the lion said no this guy's okay He's he took the thorn out my foot. Give me someone else to savage to death um But if we can save tiger's eyes It's possible that they will then also let us blunt in their teeth and stop them tearing us limb from limb as they as they love to do. So, I mean, this is this is the kind of science we need, isn't it? Do you think it would be like St. Jerome and the lion where he took the thorn out of the lion's foot and then the lion just followed him around everywhere? This tiger will just be following its cataract surgeon around.

Was it with the lions' furion? Very clingy. Yeah. Well, in some parts of the world, the stone called tiger's eyes believed to ward off the evil eye. But in this instance, the evil eye was the tiger's eye and it needed an operation. And we gave it that operation.

So it can see us better and make its plans. One final piece of animal news. And we gave it that operation so it can see us better and make its plans. One final piece of animal news. It is the most that rolled Ammonson, who won the 1911-12 Antarctic at Grand Prix, beating Robert Falken's Scott to the South Pole, could be disqualified, retrospectively, often. New evidence suggests that he might have, not only illegal, still warm flesh of raw penguins and vaulted his victory over the flat, flatless flappers by roaring, now I am become death, destroyer of penguins. Of course, penguins contraband under the laws of Antarctic exploration at the time, as before, they'd fully discovered anabolic steroids. And the Norwegian polar exploration star apparently learned to eat penguins on an earlier expedition

where it was found by an American doctor, Frederick Cook, that, chowing down on raw penguin could stop you getting scurvy. I don't know, as a parent who has spent much of the last decade and a half trying to encourage children to eat healthier food. If only I'd known that raw penguin was an option, then we might have had fewer fights over broccoli. Apparently, they used to trap the penguins with music. But apparently, they got a crew member who had a cornet with him to start to tutling away on the cornet. And the penguins would waddle up. Described by

one of the people in the expressions being like the pied piper of hamper in the penguins would waddle up and then be killed and eaten, which... Music is a big thing. Just love a brass band, does too. That's right. If music be the food of polar expedition, play on. Anyway, I must have left the penguins feeling pretty brast off. Pandemic news now. And well, as mentioned at the start, here in the UK, it's party, party, party time.

Hugs are allowed again. There is a concern about the so called Indian variant, which is challenging our beloved UK variant and the global race for top variant. The government is going ahead with easing lockdown. Scientists are wanting other risks and the government is responding. We're saying, yeah, well, you can't account if you want, but maybe don't and sort of like, yeah, yeah. Which is the kind of clarity we've all come to know and love during this most tedious of global crises. How are you going to celebrate the reopening of bits of life this week?

Well, I read a five point guide to save hugging on the BBC website since you've already been bugle one. And it basically says, don't go around hugging everyone, hug outside, turn your faces away from each other and keep hugs short. So basically basically hug someone like you're being forced to make up after an argument. Like, oh, we understand. This is the thing, Andy, this like relaxing of the rules against hugs reveal only one thing. And it is that hugs were never allowed in the UK. Social

distancing regulations were merely a tissue thin veil over the deep British desire to remain six feet away from everyone up to and including the nearest and dearest loved ones except when very drunk. And the only reason that we've had the regulations in place is to balance the urge not to hug people against the also deeply British urge to complain about things. Well, this is a very exciting new conspiracy theory on this virus. Run it necessarily as we've all assumed so far being Bill Gates trying to implant robots into people's brains. It's actually British people trying to avoid awkward social situations where they're expected to have physical contact with other people.

Well our emotional damage has brought some havoc on the world in the past, so there is previous form. Yes, I guess so. This is one of the things you notice about quote unquote ethnic jokes. Like I find if I tell jokes about my Jewish culture and I have Indian people relating to it, oh yeah, we have domineering mothers who want to hug you a lot as well. And then you find that it's related to other cultures as well. And it turns out the British is the weird ones. You're the one who don't like touching your children. You're the ones who have this strange inability to express your mother.

Every other culture on earth is actually quite good at communicating. And they don't have to go over and take over a different country to prove their love for their mother. So I can just give her a cake. Oh, I've only been told. The government has advised caution with the relaxing of guidelines. The latest protocols are that restaurants can have customers inside, but in order to deter people from spending too much time

inside with other people, staff should be as rude as possible, food should either be overcooked or undercooked, and instead of ambient music, then you should play the sound of industrial drilling, mating foxes, and or Prince Charles rapping. That should have people say back outside in 20 to 30 minutes max. Cinemas, meanwhile, have been advised only to show really terrible films that people walk out from within the first half hour such as any film featuring, I can't say that on this podcast. Uh, and, uh, sport, similarly, it's been instructed to minimize the time fans spending stadiums and arenas by asking home teams to tank it in the opening minutes, uh, for referees to give unjustifiable decisions against the home team and for the PA system to announce that the club has been taken over by one or more of a genocidal despot, a curiously unjailed plutocrat or an

anonymous vulture capitalist cartel to prompt fans to storm out of the stadium in disgust. Billion Air News Now and well it's a delight to be joined on this podcast by two billionaires in terms of spiritual wealth, if not necessarily financial wealth. But watch out, world. I know both of you are a keen yacht owners and I remember your birthday as a child, often buying you a new yacht. Yeah, just throw it on the par with the other yachts. Well, Jeff Bezos has, I guess this was an amazing story at last, Jeff Bezos' new lot, because it's that difficulty. What does the man who has everything buy for himself,

the man who has everything? And it turns out the answer is a half a billion dollar yacht that's so big it needs a support yacht to work properly. Well, yachts get lonely too. Yeah. Come on, come on. He's recently divorced. Can you really blame him for trying to soothe his aching heart with a 417 foot super yacht? Who among us has not post break up invested some of our 185 billion dollars in a luxury ship the size of a dreadnought for us to escape the stifling reminders of our ex and the boring nation state-based constraints of land-based legal jurisdictions on the open ocean. From Bezos' point of view, if he had half a billion dollars to spare and he

basically has about half a trillion dollars to spare and he basically has about half a trillion dollars to spare, could he, I mean, is buying a yacht with a backup yacht necessarily the best use of that money? I mean, or could he have spent some of it, for example, on improving working conditions and pay for Amazon warehouse staff or throwing some of his loose change into various government collection buckets, also known as paying a bit more tax. No. No, not options.

Not of interest to him, Andy. Also, I noted that the Chief Executive Officer of a super yacht interior studio said that this yacht can cruise for 9,000 nautical miles without needing refueling. And she said, clients can enjoy life at sea for long periods without having to go mix with others. So presumably, this is Jeff Bezos' way of having as close as possible to his own planet until that is possible in life, which is four years' time. Exactly.

Far away. And well, another one of those billionaires who's done a terrific pandemic economically, Elon Musk, the undisputed Willy Wonka of reality, last week he said he was going to pay for a moon mission using a meme inspired joke cryptocurrency based around pictures of a skeptical looking Japanese dog causing a crash in the value of the rival pseudo money Bitcoin by highlighting how bad Bitcoin is for the environment, whilst let us not forget also planning to blast rockets to the f***ing moon. And having also recently given himself the new job title of Techno King, a title coincidentally fought over vigorously

by me and Helen in the 90s club scene, at December 12th. Um. Yes, at the brass robbing centre. At least queued off with our crayons. LAUGHTER Alice, you are the Beatles official Elon Musk correspondent. Oh.

Are you starting to get worried for him at all? Yeah, I mean, look, Elon Musk continues his long running winning streak of counter-balancing, all of his best business ventures with incredibly bad and annoying failed attempts to be cool and or funny on Twitter or television. And he, look, this is the thing about this, the thing about this kind of story where he said that he's going to let people pay for the space things with Dogecoin and then, you know, that it's, he's going to send his first mission to Mars and it's going to be called Doge one. I find a lot of my smarter friends struggle with stories like this because they

think they must be missing something complicated and that this kind of announcement can't possibly be as stupid and pointless as it sounds. But the thing is it is, this is as dumb as it's that there's no behind the scene story here, there's no plan, there's no four-dimensional chess, there's no chess at all, they are at best playing checkers and if it's checkers they're playing against themselves and they keep losing. In other billionaires news, Bill Gates, it turns out, loves train sets. In particular, a very big train set that is the Canadian National Railway Network and the trains that run on it. It's been reported that Gates owns $13 billion worth of Canada's biggest railway. I know you're a massive fan of railways as well as billionaires. What's the f***ing point? I mean, look, okay, so this is all coming out as he and

Millinda Gates split their assets, but of all of the billionaires, I have more time for Bill Gates because at least he's curing malaria well also. I presumably doing something sinister in the background. Filling trains with mosquitoes. Well, look, they figured out a vaccine to solve malaria, but I'm not going to be pleased with it until they have it injected by mosquitoes. And then I'll be happy.

Maybe giving something back. Isn't it striking that when you are the richest people on earth, still all you can think of really to do with it is buy things that go brum brum. It's like what a seven year old would do if there are suddenly a billionaire. Trains, big boat, go to the moon. Well, we'd never truly grow up as a species.

I think history is testament to that. In other billionaires news, some of the worlds leading social media billionaires have come together to launch a new scheme to try to help deal with online hate speech and anonymous provocation online. The group has launched, do speak ill of the dead, a new scheme which aims to stop people spewing ball towards other people who are alive now and instead only abuse the long dead. A spokes billionaire for the group said that we cannot stop people using our platforms as an outlet for their assaultive verbal brutalities or to take responsibility for the consequences of their billiast watery because well traffic is traffic and we have businesses to run. But we can direct them towards channeling their

hatred towards those who can't be affected by it. So we will be helping our angry user to spend harringly graphic threats towards, for example, women who wore slightly more than average revealing togas in the third century Rome, or visceral prejudice against long extinct tribes who did things differently to us in the prehistoric Americas, or groundless complaints about how the immigrant communities who moved around the world around 50,000 years BC are taking our jobs and banning us from saying what we want to say. We feel this is the most beneficial way for us to abdicate our responsibilities whilst also protecting our users, God given right, to spew abuse at others. So at least there's some positive movement in that direction. Britain news now, and last week we had the state opening of Parliament where the Queen

adabling in her intermittent role as the nation's official voiceover artist, Carrie Opie de Shit, out of the government's latest legislative program. And whatever else we lose as a nation, Helen, we always do ridiculous official ceremonies better than anyone. It's the last thing to go. It's like a boxers punch. And, but this, I did, I did, I, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did, I did The pomp and ceremony that goes with all British institutions and there are a huge fan of the monarchy

is a symbol that some people are just f***ing special. But she didn't wear a crown. What is suitable head gear for when you're announcing things about voter suppression? Well, it was something quite natural. A crown. It was well a crown, yes. Cram would be suitable. It was kind of mow with some stuff on it. I don't know what mow as a colour symbolises. And I think that's all the colours, all the political parties

mixed up with some yogurt, I think. But it was this morning that she didn't take the opportunity to wear a Jimmy hat as a gesture of reconciliation towards Scotland with some fake ginger curls out of the back. But what you mentioned voters, voter suppression, which is what's highly popular amongst politicians, who, well, nothing else, it shows they like their job because they want to keep it by whatever means possible. There are plans announced for people to have to show photo ID at British elections. This followed a surge in fraudulent voting in 2019, which across the general election,

local and European elections, led to a grand total of four criminal convictions and two police courtiers. And yet, they managed to move against this, and there's a form of sort of electoral fraud. Well, Andy, it's much easier to solve problems that don't really exist. So why we need your simple wisdoms on the show. And for possibly the first time in your life, you and the former Conservative cabinet minister,

David Davis agree. Oh no. It's described the plans as an liberal solution in pursuit of a non-existent problem. It is nice to hear a politician speaking truth for once. Well, I mean, the Queen also got in trouble for spouting the government's plans on social care, or rather the absence of social care. And there's nothing more beautiful than watching a woman in her 90s sell literally all of her age mates down the river. Yes, she's just sick of signing telegrams to people fair enough. She doesn't want anyone to survive. Boris Johnson promised that he would deal

with the social care crisis when he became prime minister in 2019. And it turns out not all of Boris Johnson's promises can be completely relied upon. They managed to devote a full nine words to social care in the Queen's speech, which he said, proposals on social care reform will be brought forward. If brevity is the soul of which, it is also the soul of a government policy that hasn't been properly thought through, costed, or indeed written at all. And I think it showed how incredibly good the queen is at her job that she managed to say those nine words without so much as twitching an eyebrow or saying, a buzz is a f***ing page missing here. You've missed out a a f***ing page missing here. You've got to miss that, I'm missing a f***ing bit, boss.

Passive verbs always inspire confidence, don't they? Pass the sound of stuff that's in hand. The Daily Mail even was not impressed, and they took some time out from their latest scoops, including famous woman walks somewhere whilst wearing something to accuse Johnson of breaking his promises to the electric and Johnson replied, but they like that. Look at the Alexa results. You don't want that.

So in all this just, this is not a problem. It's not so much a sledgehammer to crack a nut. As a sledgehammer to whack a grain of salt on the pub table next to where you've just eaten a bowl of pistachios, which obviously didn't need cracking in the first place, whilst alien bat creatures, which are impervious to all weapons, other than sledgehammers, are drinking all the beer straight out of the barrels and shitting on the pool table. And finally, this week, here's a quick joke for you. How many cyber-criminal gangs does it take to take a major pipeline offline

and cause massive disruption across the entire USA? Two, one to take the 5,500 mile-long pipeline offline, but panic buying of petrol, called several states to declare an emergency, shoot fuel prices to a record high, get a five million dollar ransom paid, and then attack a European division of tech giant Toshiba. And the other to think,

oh, I wish we'd done that, it seems alarmingly easy, instead we'll just carry on hacking into the withering solar democracy. Badomch. Alice, this, it's quite an extraordinary story, this isn't it, thatomch, Alice. It's quite an extraordinary story, isn't it? A pipeline, as I said, covering 5,500 miles of America, the most important pipelines in the USA was taken offline by hackers. Here's, indeed, criminals and 14-year-old hackers around the world are said to be turning their

attention from cryptocurrency as the big get rich quick scheme slash scam scene and are hoping to turn their hands to hacking like it's the 90s again. This is the untold story of Mad Max and colonial pipeline which is this very long pipeline stuff of this rent what they call a ransomware cyber attack which is where they attack your cyber and ask for a ransom. It's sort of particularly being taken personally by the US because they immediately paid the ransom. Wild President Joe Biden was signing a new cyber crime executive order before colonial just admitted that they didn't trust the president and they didn't trust American cyber defense capabilities and that they were willing to pay literally any ransom.

So, you know, people may be encouraged to continue to do this kind of thing in the future, which is pretty depressing. The hackers afterwards made an announcement on their website, which was quite sweet. They said they didn't mean to cause any problems. They just wanted money, which is the most American approach to morality that I could possibly imagine. Well, it's touching, isn't it? I mean, you would have thought, they might have thought through the implications of taking a pipeline offline that it would cause. There would

be implications of it. And the group's called Dark Side, modern day Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to themselves. And's, they're saying our goal is to make money and not create problems for society. Those two are not mutually exclusive activities. Well look at capitalism Andy, can you make money and not cause problems for society? It doesn't need to be at either archites. Just trying to make a dishonest living, let's let them be. What that brings us to the end of this week's Bugle. Thank you very much for joining us. I will shortly play you out with some lies about some of our premium level voluntary subscribers

to join them or to join the Bugle Volunteers' Script from Scheme in any form, to give a one or a current donation, go to BugleBudgast.com and click the donate button. Helen, plug all your shows. If you can keep it down in an hour, that'll be great. Not the L, Andy, only have three. One is answer me this. One is Veronica Miles Investigations, where we'll be covering the TV show Veronica Miles,

and have almost completed. And is the illusionist which I just did an episode about the origins of SOS. Just in case you need that for any reason in this world. Alice tell us about this week's gargle. This week's gargle is a monster gargle. It's got James Colley and Alison Spiddle and Alison Spiddle reviewing the process of her looking batteries which might be the funniest thing I have ever heard. Certainly heard in a very long time. I highly recommend this week's episode of The Gaggle.

Also, the last post which comes out monthly used to be daily. Then I decided I would do it in a more reasonable manner and my sort of ongoing non-funny podcast to you at Alice but you can find it all at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser. John Fairehurst thinks headquarters should be banned. Much of the Machiavellian plotting that goes on in the corporate world seems to happen in firms HQs explains John, so if you ban them from having a fancy main office, wherein to concoct their schemes, I think you'll find a more honest, trustworthy business landscape will evolve in no time. In fact concludes John, I would ban businesses from having more than one room in any single building, they're mostly just showing off in any case.

Thomas Lee wonders if elephants ever regret the evolutionary course they've taken as a species. Sure, they get a lot of props for being massive and they feature in more children's books than the average creature, but I can't help thinking the whole trunks, tusks and teeth thing has brought them much unwanted attention, whilst being so enormous means it's harder to make them participate in sport, like horses, dogs, humans and balls do. Stefan Schelm, on reading that Dolphin sleep with one eye open, said about designing an eyelid opening device that will enable humans to do the same.

We simply can't get complacent in the evolutionary race, says Stefan. These fin-waggling weirdos might spend most of their time dicking around in the seat to no discernible purpose, purpose, sorry. But if they've got something we don't, we need to respond. I'm also working on a device that enables babies to walk unadded within 30 minutes of birth as well. That's an obvious weakness in team human as far as I'm concerned. Charlie Brett has found that asking for clarification is a highly effective conversational strategy. It makes whomever you're talking to think they're so smart that their incredible ideas are beyond the comprehension of normal humans, says Charlie, whilst also making it seem

that you are genuinely interested and want to learn more, whereas in fact the chances are you simply weren't listening and are buying time before anyone realises you zoned out 5 to 10 minutes ago to think about sport. Alexandra Wilshire is not convinced that umbrellas have much of a future in the age of modern modernity in which most modern people now live. Alexandra explains, we simply don't have time to mess around with brollies anymore. A reckon within ten years people will have hats that can quadruple up as a hat, umbrella, social distancing, moat and barbecue, as demanded by the weather and social situation, or controlled by an app on yours or someone else's phone.

And finally, Cheyenne Pankuchi, or indeed Cheyenne Pankuchi or perhaps Cheyenne Pankuchi or Chuchi, on hearing that the queen owns all the swans in England, wonders what will happen in the extremely unlikely event that Her Majesty ever passes away. I don't see Charles as much of a swan guy, to be honest, says Chan. He seems to prefer trees to large and intermittently aggressive aquatic birds, so I think he might seldom all off. If he personally signed their feathers with a royal pen, I reckon we're looking at a couple of grander swan, and if my estimate of one swan per eight people in

the country is correct, we're talking seven billion quid or thereabouts. I mean, he would have to spend a lot of time autographing swans, but it would be worth it. Here and it, this week's lies. A goodbye. you