The Bugle - BONUS: 2020 was Really Bad

Episode Date: July 3, 2021

Andy (finally) introduces parts of our 2020 special show, and we revisit a classic visit to Central America with John Oliver.We are funded entirely by you, the listener. Listeners who sign up via thebuglepodcast.com have long enjoyed the opportunity to get: mentions on the show (in the form of lies), merchandise and general sense of wellbeing for supporting this fine work of art. As of this week you can also support the show directly via Apple Podcasts. Our new channel ‘Team Bugle’ also includes The Last Post, The Gargle and Tiny Revolutions, shows which currently carry ads - but they will be completely ad free on this channel. So if you love The Bugle, and it’s siblings, then please support The Bugle via our website or Apple Podcasts where you can subscribe today.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 ZaltzmanJohn OliverNish KumarAlice FraserNato GreenAnd produced by Chris Skinner  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, Bughlers and welcome to Bughal 4198 sub episode A for actually this week was always scheduled to be a week off, unlike the sub episode a couple of weeks ago. I'm very sorry the schedule has been a little on the haywire side of late but frankly all

the news in the world has already basically happened at the moment anyway if you understand what I mean and to be honest I'd probably just be banging on about rugby this week so it's probably for the best that we're not actually recording. Also, I know our core listener demographic is massive Donald Rumsfeld fans, so it would have been a very, very sad show anyway. Instead, we have some choice cuts from our review of 2020 live stream live show. Choices in the sense that it turns out there were some significant technical issues with the recording entirely appropriate for a year as shit as 2020 in many ways that even sound would stop working by the end. So we've

just chosen the bits that sound usable. We will also have some lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers, some offcuts from recent shows and a dip into pick a year any year. No that way too long ago. 2009 that'll do, why not now pick an episode any episode? No you can't have minus number, 81, that'll do, I used to live in a house called 81, so let's go with 81. But before any of that, right now in fact, we'll have some details about our live show in London on the 7th of September at 8pm, taking place at the other bellies, new for 2021, London Wonderground site in Earl's Court.

Yes, we're doing a show not just at a venue, at the same upside down purple cow, at a different location, but in a pun, it's going to be awesome. Can you afford to miss it? Yes, but that's not the point. Tickets for the Bugle Live and all other shows they're putting on at the London Underground at www.londonwunderground.co.uk. Right, here now are the summically usable parts of the Bugle Live review of 2020. Remember 2020?

But if not, well done you, with me, Nish, Alice and NATO. Okay, I've got my three predictions for what I felt would happen this year. Oh, okay, I'm not for three, but it's mixed results on the nature of what me being wrong and tailed. I predict there will be absolutely no global pandemic. Kind of weird that I was even raising that in January. But swing and a miss from NK47. Number two, I predict we will no deal Brexit again, swing and a miss, but better news possibly for the country. And number three, I predict that Quibi will become the dominant player in the streaming market, crashing all opposition, and resulting in people shifting their slang for coitus

from Netflix and chill to quibi and tense up downtown. LAUGHTER Unhappily, wrong on that one as well. Yep. Tense up downtown, not to be confused with tense up downtown, which is an entirely different thing. So here are my predictions. As sealed on the first January 2020, so I predicted that 2020 would be a year in which the world would shrink in on itself, the future would contract,

the human project would, to all intent and purposes essentially stop and we would retreat to little pocket of isolation, introspection, we'd find solid in small acts of community. So I was pretty much bang on on that, although the reason that I predicted that would happen was in response to a giant ethereal horse appearing in the sky, speaking of blue and Bulgarian. So I got there, but not necessarily for the right reasons. I also predicted that the US government, the British government would announce the launch of a shock patrol in the North Sea to form a new border between the UK and Ireland. The Elon Musk would announce the creation of at least three of the following, a transcontinental 400-person capacity Pogo stick, a gender neutral black widow spider, a self-peeling potato, a robot undertaker, a spare antartica,

and a rocket propelled pelican that could solve the world's air freight problems overnight. I also predicted that by the end of the year, the UK would not consider just four countries, but 17 as a deluge of EU member states jump ship to join our glorious casting off of the shackles of mutually beneficial cooperation. I would also predict that the human race would lose top spot in the world's greatest species chart. I did get that one right. I didn't expect octopus to be the ones to take over, but there you go, strange things have happened this year.

So let's look at it. Clearly, COVID has been the top story of all the top stories this year. Why do you think it, I mean, what was it, divine punishment from Zeus for the gradual degradation of test match cricket? Was it a logical result of the last few decades of humanity in its head long, willfully myopic short-termism? Was it just one of those things that no one could have seen coming apart from all the people who did see it coming and said we needed to prepare for it and were around the... No, I mean, what do you reckon?

But what explain what happened with COVID people? Well, if you had talked to my dad, you would know that the reason this year was as bad as it was is because you were happy. That's so, that's a real family. It's a dark insight into NATO's home life. Well, because he was happy or because you were happy? If you're happy, it means that something horrible is about to happen. So someone was too happy and it's not clear who...

Right. So someone was too happy and it's not clear who. We're just out of big fan of English cricket in the 1990s because that was generally not a moment of happiness and then crushing disappointment. Well, my dad is a Jew in his 70s. So he's had the full roller coaster. Uh. He listen, he's not wrong. Somebody did get too happy. A.K.A. the guy who had

the three-way with the bat and the pangolin. That guy got too happy. He was f***ing a bat with a pangolin up his ass, and now none of us can go outside. Okay? So in many ways, in many ways Mr Green was entirely correct. Well Andy, I think everything happened this year for the same reason. Anything happens any year, which is that we've let the old rituals go. We've lost the real meaning of Christmas, which is eating stuff around the solstice, so the sun doesn't die. We no longer send our extra daughters to serve as pre-stesses in Delphi. When was the last time you penned an epic poem in praise of the gods

or left your window open so Zeus could visit your wife in the form of a hamster or the mailman, Andy? Well, I don't know, there's a little picture of Delphi before. Why was that so quickly accessible to you, Andrew? There is going to be a live sacrifice later in the show to tell you there is going to be a live sacrifice later in the show to turn my show 2021 goes better. The 100 head of oxen currently in penned into the cricket net in my garden have been very quiet at the moment. They're all tuned in listening to the show on headphones, but there will be there will be an offering to almighty's use to at some point later in the show. Oh, personally, I think one of the reasons the year has been so bad, and you look at the evidence that, you know, generally,

the world hasn't been too bad for much of the last, what's 17 years or so, is Roger Federer has not played since January. He's not played a competitive match since January, and that's just thrown the cosmic balance of the universe out. Also, I take some personal responsibility. I do regret now that prayer that I said

back in July 2019 when I said, if you let England win the Cricket World Cup final today, I'm going to be like, you can do whatever the f*** you like in 2020. So my bad, I mean, most of my fouls, do you impact having been up too much to be fairer? But, you know, I've got a bit of a tab going with the Prince of Darkness over the years.

He has granted me a receding hairline by the time I left school. I can't go wrong with that, but it really can. Trump's, he's given me the ability to tell the difference between a goat and a bench. And also, he grants my wish for global democracy to gradually crumble in this one-pervested interests. So it is partly my fault. There was this extraordinary headline

from the Daily Telegraph just a week or so ago about COVID. Saying the mutant virus has sealed Britain off from the world. But is it all it's cracked up to be? This is what we've been waiting for. Brexit might not deliver, but the virus is gonna do it as well. I genuinely never thought I would have something in common with COVID Andy, but it turns out we've both had spicy right ups

in the telegraph. I mean, I can't explain why any of this happened because I simply don't understand science. And that's not my fault. That's just part of a wider campaign I have to dispel stereotypes about people of their Indian origin but I can tell you why I think possibly the virus is about a disproportionately bad impact in the UK in the US and that is maybe it is not a good idea to elect the human incarnation

of a scam email as your prime minister or president. Is that possible? I guess it's possible, I'm not native, you might have a view on this having had a particularly aggressive scam email for years. Any regrets now that you personally voted for Trump so many times back in 2016? I do feel some amount of regret that I voted for Trump 11 or 12 times, in case you need, but the fortune from the child of the Prince of Barundi was too sweet to pass up the opportunity. I mean, I do think with Boris Johnson, and he's dealt with the virus in an almost infinite number of different incompetent ways. And fundamentally, we keep being told Boris Johnson is not a details person.

Now, as a prime minister dealing with A, the infinite complexities of Brexit, and B, the even more infinite complexities of Covid, that is reassuring as having a squeamish surgeon or a lifeguard with arm bands on, a doctor certificate saying they're excused from swimming due to extreme hydrophobia and a disconcerting tendency towards most. It's a one thing we would do is to fail this test. And all this talk about, we're going to beat the fuck, we're not going to the viruses playing us off the park. The fact that you might get a sneaky little consolation goal, that's about it. It's almost like the skills that you need to acquire power in this age of disinformation

and complete insanity are not the skills that you need if you want to use that power at all. Yes, when you say this as someone who's from a couple of demographics that have done relatively well, in dealing with the virus, A, you are a woman and B, you are not from Britain or America and you're not a natural despot, I think that's fair to say. So I mean what have you personally brought to the global fight? Well, as somebody who packed for six weeks to come back to Australia and has been here since March, what I have packed is my sense of fate being on my side, really. I feel like I'm going to take full credit for the luck that has happened to me in my life.

I refuse to acknowledge my privilege and demand possibly either anarchy or full libertarianism because I believe that nature abhors a vacuum and what I want is big men hitting each other with sticks. hitting each other with sticks. I wish I think is what's on the current trajectory from test cricket to one day cricket to T20 to 100 ball cricket. I think by 2040 that is what cricket will involve it. Just being a man hitting each other with sticks. I think it's fair to say that racial equality has never been one of the planets top hobbies. Obviously it's hard to quantify the exact extent to which today's world and society has been shaped by the legacies of slavery and imperialism and other exploitations

and how much simply by the fact that God put Britain on this planet to bring the gift of Britishness to all humanity. It's hard to separate those two. I mean, it was interesting here when the statue started toppling in this country and we'll just talk about, you can't knock the statues down because we've got to learn, you've got from our history. There's not all saying that the past is a foreign country. Ironically, it's about the only foreign country Britain is positive about the moment. Look, I'll put my cards on the table. When the Black Lives Matter protesters in the English city of Bristol took a statue of Slayvona, Edward Colston, and threw it in the water, that was the best direction I had in 2020.

That was... Listen, let's be honest, none of us have been doing our best work. It's been a very stressful year. So, let's be real, but on when they put that fucking disgusting slave owner in the drink, I could have sculpted diamonds. It was astonishing because it's very interesting to me that the question that people asked was, should we have statues? Should we remove statues of slaveholders? When the question probably should have been, yeah, why did we, um, why do we still have so many statues of slaveholders up? I didn't know slavery was still an issue we were 50-50 on. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't think a lot of

us watch Django Unchained and looked at Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx and thought, hmm, what an interesting conflict between two equally valid but divergent perspectives. It's a very strange thing that we've done this because the thing with snatches is that a statue is absolutely a judgment call on a person. Like let's face it, we don't even build statues of people we are seven out of ten on. Like, Mike Myers is not getting a statue because of how bad the love guru was with apologies to previous co-hosts of this actual podcast. But it is very strange. And the only way I can

see the only middle ground, because I listen, I love people have accused me of being various things this year. And I want to try and reach out with an olive branch of compromise. Yes, I believe we should get rid of all of the statues of people who are enslaved holders because I think it's fucking insane that we did it in the first place. But I'm willing to reach out to compromise because the problem with the statue is that it is an implicit judgment. There is a statue of Robert Clive that is pretty much outside the foreign office in London, right? The State Department equivalent in this country, there's a statue of Robert Clive out there.

Now, Robert Clive is better known as Clive of India, and that's all you really need to know, because let's face it, the mathematical formula of white guy name plus not white guy country never ends well. There's no Darren of Ethiopia, but if there was, hit him in a rick. And the only way that I'm willing to reach out in terms of a compromise is if we have voice boxes

that are linked to motion sensitive sensors outside the statues. So every time someone walks by the statue, it goes, ****, in L.I. was a prick. That is the only compromise that I'm either the statues after going to fucking water or they have to start acknowledging what they did. That's the only compromise I'm willing to make on this. Andish, there's a statue outside the Queen Victoria building in Sydney of her tiny dog, of a tiny dog that apparently belonged to Queen Victoria. And if you walk past it, it

talks to you and tells you what job it did as a dog. Thank you. past it, it talks to you and tells you what job it did as a dog. Thank you. Press it. Well, the defense rests. In San Francisco, there was a statue of Christopher Columbus that was torn down, and recently I went up to visit the site where there's just a barren plinth, and naturally I hopped the fence and climbed up on the plinth myself and had my wife take pictures of me striking dramatic poses because we are our own heroes now. We don't need to honor murderers of the

past. And I felt like replacing Christopher Columbus with me, a different white guy who at least was not a murderer is a form of harm reduction. It's a gradual process. Baron Clinton, incidentally, is running for Senate in Georgia. Now, the footballers thing is absolutely incredible because I don't know how aware, Nate Owen Alessio of this, but before every Premier League game, at the moment, actually, I think before every football league game in general, footballers are all taking a knee in acknowledgement of the Black Lives Matter movement, and they have come in for some criticism. And what I think is interesting is people keep saying, well, this is, you know, it's not right that people

do this. Let me just fill you in on one of the other things that we often do in football matches. In the sort of Pan-European competition, which is called the Champions League, before games, footballers have to stand for not the national anthem of the country, which is stupid enough to begin with what you're a country, you don't even fucking theme song. There is a national anthem for the Champions League that gets played and footballers have to stand there somberly acknowledging it. And the fact that people are willing to acknowledge that as normal behaviour, and yet, taking a knee to acknowledge, millennia, a systemic racial abuse is weird.

It's with gone mad. Thanks be to 2020 finally ending. It's Lies time now about our bugle premium level voluntary subscribers to join the bugle voluntary subscription skim and maker recurring donation to the show or just to make a one-off contribution to keep the show free flourishing and independent go to buglepodcast.com and click the donate button like these people have done. Kate McCarthy likes to think of inappropriate names for new brands of car.

Kate suggests the Mitsubishi snored, the Audi Potato and the BMW Sphinxster to get things started off. If we really want to get people out of their cars to save the planet explains Kate, we need to stop people wanting to get into their cars in the first place, and calling cars names that people don't want to be associated with, like the Skoda Plague or the Chevrolet Mega Durge, can only help. David Wakeling adds that if you really want to dissuade people from driving, there's no use banging on about the planet and stuff

like that. David says, we need an incoher computer that tells people at the start of their journey that wherever they're going is rubbish, and they shouldn't bother. The end of the world is simply too vague and disincentive. You need to tell people they're about to have a rubbish day out. That works. I've tried it myself since says David. My fellow passengers got quite annoyed with me after about an hour, and we eventually turned back and went home. Sure, I did not last long as a long distance coach driver, but I like to think I made a very serious point for all humanity. Simon Schneider thinks that vegetables are much underrated.

I know people bang on about the internet, the internal combustion engine in the wheel says Simon, but let's hear it for vegetables. They might not have the capacity to let people download podcasts or share videos of terrapins dancing to 70s disco classics like the internet does, and they aren't quite as good at getting you from A to B as the old engine wheel combination can be, but you can eat vegetables, and that's awesome! They help keep numerous species alive, that's a super effort. Ace Coggins chips in and supports, but at this way says Ace, if you offered me a choice

between an internet livestream of a Formula 1 motor race, an magic, unending pan of carrot soup that could feed the world forever, I would, quite unhizzotatingly, I must add, choose the carrot soup, and I think that says it all frankly, about carrots, Formula 1, me, and the human race. Further evidence that Simon has really hit a nerve with his support for the humble vegetable comes from Steve Jameson. You never hear vegetables complain about their lot, they just knuckle down and do what they do, and I admire that attitude in this day and age, plus I think obegins have probably got medicinal uses we haven't discovered yet.

Just look at them, they're hiding something, I know it. They're like whales, but their vegetables will. Well fruit, technically, but they're basically vegetable because you can't have them in a dessert. And finally, Henry Dorn volunteers to get to the bottom of the medicinal properties of OBJIN's issue. I'm not a medical research scientist, says Henry, and I've got the lack of certificates to prove it. But I love eating OBJIN's, so I'm prepared to be human guinea pig in any cures, antidotes or other concoctions that Ace wants to try out. I've also done it before.

My friend once thought he could prove that potatoes can make you hear in the dark, but I helped disprove that theory. If anything, my potato headphones muffled all sounds, whether it was daytime or nighttime. Here endeth, this week's lies. It's archives time and let's go back to Bugle issue 81. Chris, we actually got access to Bugle 81. But you recorded that link on your own Andy. Oh good. Well, this is all good. Oh, if not, just pick another one. I've got it here. Oh yeah, that'll do. That was a goodie. Roll VT.

Feature section now and Central America. What do you get when you build a sewage outlet next to a string of seaside holiday resorts? Costerica! Nicaragua! Yes I admitted I did, but I was thirsty and I'll buy her another bottle of Spanish mineral water as soon as I've got some cash. Guatemala? No thanks, I'm allergic to avocados. Panama? Okay, if I must I will.

The BBC's Andrew Maris passed it as a political broadcaster. He's lost any gravitas ever since he put tits on for children in need. There. I pandamar. Well that do, hey, El Salvador. No, please don't. I don't know, a British law of cash at the moment, but we need to keep the door. Sell the TV instead.

Honduras, no, you Honduras. Oh, please, stop making jokes based on Central American country's names. For Mexico jokes, please refer to Bugle 79. There's a nice little audio footnote Andy. While we're away, Andy, Honduras gave the world a good, old-fashioned military cue, and it was hot-warmingly nostalty to see Central America go back to doing what it does best.

Toppling dictators in a Woody Allen's bananas style. The Honduras military arrested the president in the middle of the night while he was sleeping, took him straight to the airport which led to this magnificent direct quote from the front of the New York Times, Andy. I'm still the president of Honduras, he said, still wearing his pajamas. There is nothing you can say that cannot be instantly undercut if you are wearing pajamas in a situation where they are not commonly worn. If you are wearing pajamas when society dictates you shouldn't be something dramatic is just taking place.

Presidents of Laya even tried to go back to Andorra, so seven days later, but his plane was prevented from landing at the airport by the military, so it just had to circle overhead before giving up. Now, technically, during this, he was in Honduran airspace, so he was president again, airspace so he was president again and he could maybe be president in a balloon which never touches the ground. He could be the world's first democratic elected airborne leader floating over the people shouting down commands. I don't know that would be a great way to run a country. That's basically how Tony

Bleth thought he was running brickisk. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It would have been better if he just had the physical representation of how above people he felt. Now he said that he needs to find other ways of entering the country. Phenomenal. And if this story's about to get even better, what he could tunnel is like in, baby. He could dress up as a donkey, try to get through customs.

You know, spend a couple of weeks keeping on the download, giving children rides on the beaches, and then suddenly throw it off and say, ah, it's me I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink.

I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I'm gonna have to go and get a drink. I think they're called presidents and Now Costa Rican president Oscar Arias has been leading mediation efforts to resolve the Hondurasia Model as you would expect from a country Costa Rica is officially the world's happiest country John According to the happy planets index Costa Rica is the happiest nation in the world the greatest and Happiest country in the world Britain only half way up the happy planet index, 74th out of 143 and the USA,

114th happiest nation in the world. Well, is that just at the moment? Is that because of the world? Yeah, they were 34th until you moved there mate. I'd love to disagree but you know, the number you can't argue with numbers. But the top tenries dominated by countries from the Latin American region and the bottom by countries from Africa. I think Zimbabwe is really struggling in this particular league understandably I guess. But so why you might think it's Costa Rica so happy? Well the answer is it's got loads of birds

800 different species of bird in Costa Rica so happy. Well the answer is it's got loads of birds, 800 different species of bird in Costa Rica, I think that's why people are so happy though but in fact exactly 800, they operate on a one in one out basis. As soon as a new bird flies into Costa Rican airspace, the current least popular species of bird is hounded out by its fellow birds so it's rather self-policing. These 800 species of bird currently include such birds as the Winking Scutter Wing, which winks at tourists before it craps on their shoulders. The Blue Beats Jelly Bird, that's the wobblyest known bird in the world, with a disgustingly foul mouthed beak, a relative of the parrot but ruder. The cheese plumed honker bird, it's further spread out like a slice of canbazoa, whilst mating, and it tweaked

like a claxon. And also here's a fact, John, if you ate all 800 species of bird in Costa Rica you would die eventually, anywhere between 30 minutes and 120 years later. But by the time you did you'll have grown feathers on 70% of your body. Here's the thing Andy, they're like claim they're happy, but can you truly be happy as nation if you've never won the World Cup? They've never won the World Cup Never, surely that must nag at their back of their minds. I did alright in 2002. They played with a bit of flair, got a couple of goals against Brazil.

They did, they really won over the neutrals, but that, you know, history doesn't not gonna recall that. It's not gonna etch their name on the trophy. Yeah, it's just gonna etch loser next year. Never won it. Never won it. So I don't know what they're so f***ing happy about. Well it's interesting you should mention football because obviously in this region famously and there I think it was 1969 there was a war between Honduras and El Salvador that followed on from a a World Cup qualifier. They went to war. I think there was a disputed penalty and a war broke out.

And now some people say, we in Britain take sport too seriously. But I'll let you ask that for a hand. I can imagine the next World Cup. Here comes Rune with a penalty. Oh no, he's blazing over. Spoken the through to the semi-finals and the RAF were making Madrid wish it was dressed in 1945

by the end of the night because of that controversial offside in the second half. That's all, viewers, we will be back next week with episode 4199, which makes me think I really ought to think about what we do for the 200th post-relaunch episode, which is .