The Bugle - BONUS BUGLE: Gaddafi, Gandhi and randy

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

Andy revisits some classic bits with him and John Oliver, plus never previously heard bits on archaeology and Indian politics.GO TO OUR SITE FOR OUR NEW MERCH! WOO!Support what we do by making a one off or monthly donation here: http://thebuglepodcast.com/#donate. We carry no ads and exist because you make it happen!We have a sister show, The Last Post, which you can hear 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 KumarAditi MittalAnuvab PalAlice FraserMark SteelAnd produced by Chris Skinner LISTEN TO RICHIE FIRTH: TRAVEL HACKER. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dancelaguard fans, you will be thrilled to know a book is coming out if you fund it via Unbound. We are publishing the Dancelaguard Reader by Alice Fraser and Dancelaguard, a glorious insight into the world of Dancelaguard, self-published romance maven, and online bestseller. If you would like to find out how to support it, go to thebugelpodcast.com. If we get enough support, we will publish the book. That's a real thing that's going to happen. Thebugelpodcast.com to support the Danciler Guard Reader. A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A Audio newspaper for a visual world! Hello, buglers, and welcome to Bugle's sub-episode 4164A for Am not able to do a full episode this week. You can, however, hear me hosting the new series of BBC Radio 4's The News quiz,

available from all good podcast shops or just asking nicely on the internet. Or you can hear me banging on about the cricket again if that's your bag, which if it isn't, I want nothing more to do it, you are still a valued bugle listener who has my undying respect and gratitude and pity idiots. Instead of a full episode this week, we have some prime offcuts from recent bugle recordings featuring me, Alice Fraser, Nish Kumar, Aditi, Mittal and Anuva Pal, plus the history of the world. Well bits of it, bits of it that happened in the equivalent week that we're now in, but in different years since the Bugle began. But first Chris, crank up the off-cutting machine.

Let's hear the gold that you siphoned off from all the other gold. India news now and well a huge story and of our, in fact here in Britain that a pair of Mahatma Gandhi's glasses were sent to an auctioneer and were left hanging out of the letter box. I mean this is a kind of strange story but apparently the glass is a worth around about 20,000 US dollars and it did make me think. Gandhi had a pair of 20 grand glasses. No wonder he couldn't afford a pair of two thousand. So I thought I just been in the hopes to prioritize your spending. Sure a good pair of glasses pair of glasses make you look wise or authoritative, it makes you look like you mean business, but not,

if you're not accessorising them with the least a smartish business shirt. It was all about accessories, Andy. This is the thing. So, what happened is, around four weeks ago, an auctioneer named Andy Stull headed into work and was checking his letterbox at his office after the Covid lockdown in Bristol. And he found this thing and it had a little note saying,

these belong to Gandhi and my uncle was given them. Now when contacted this uncle, an 80 year old man, said that they were given to him by the Mahatma Gandhi while he was employed in South Africa. Apparently Gandhi was very happy with a particular legal note this gentleman had written so he gave him his glasses. And you know, has an Indian person, I've always had an issue with Gandhi's acts of reckless generosity. You know, just like we're on the verge of independence with the civil disobedience movement of few people die and he calls it all off. You know, what everywhere else, a little bit of murder is natural in the path of independence. But not for Gandhi, he has to be like this recklessly generous person and he's also very altruistic.

You know, if he didn't ever have a nice swap or a lot of cash so he just gave this guy his glasses and presumably walked around South Africa not being able to see much for a week. This is exact now you sounded like a good honest member of the BGP or the R&S other fellow. Now you're sounding on it. You're on it. You started with his glasses and then it ended up with him giving Pakistan a call. Exactly. That's how it went.

In fact, you know, the right wing BJP party in India had a speech the other day dish where they said, you know, all these things have been tried. This quote unquote nonviolence. The quote unquote freedom of press. What has that got us! That's called, I'm called Freedom of Press. What has that got us? That's a liches from the point. You start giving away your glasses, next you'll demand gawts. You know, evidence-based trials.

Where does this end? A-ha! Where do we go? Errrr... A-ha! It's reckless. It's reckless. But I feel like I'm talking to my extended family WhatsApp group.

Exactly. But I was just wondering, internally apparently he owned them when he was working for British Petroleum in South Africa in the early 20th century while I was candy working for the fossil fuel industry in my arse. Well, he just hated polar bears bears it was as simple as that but in treat by this this this is no for the fact that this was submitted to an auction house this little note saying these belong to Gandhi my uncle was given them and now there we go up for auction 20 grand other items submitted for auction since

that auction house explained how a pair of glasses someone claimed Gandid, given to his uncle and Chopin through a letterbox worth 20 grand include. A sash-eve ketchup, someone's aunty mildred picked up in a motorway service station after Elvis and stopped for a whole. A paper error plane, folded by Franklin Delena Roosevelt that someone's granny had kept when she found it was tidying up the recycling after the Yalta conference. A pencil, someone's great, great granddad borrowed of Abraham Lincoln when he'd finished scrolling the Gettysburg address on the back of a handkerchief, shortly after saying the words, what do you mean I've got to do a fucking speech in five minutes time?

Shit, I'll just hack out a couple hundred words and see how it flies. And also Hitler's other testicle found in a jar of white vinegar in a broom cupboard in the Albert Hall by someone's mate's dad's brother, went singing backing vocals for the rock group Grand Funk Railroad at the iconic venue back in 1971 and kept in a fridge ever since all those offer auction in the next month. Thank God there was a joke in this podcast that reference Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler and Grand Funk Railroad.

I think we were all concerned with the big three. That someone wouldn't manage to hit the big three. The big three that someone wouldn't manage to hit the big three Now that that comes actually the Grand Funk Railroad gig out to the alcohol in 1971 Almost resulted in me not existing because my dad Took my mother to it early in their marriage and I think she nearly left him. LAUGHTER It's like the grandfather railroad is musically the opposite of Barry White. It's really, it's really music, it's really, it's really music to kill a vibe.

MUSIC In other American news, scientists have discovered evidence that humans might have settled in the Americas much earlier than previously thought. New finds have suggested people could have been living there as long as 33,000 years ago. The theory is that humans, people, the Americas, initially via a land bridge from Russia pay attention people from Russia Russia Dingo League America Russia, they've been playing the very very very long game The this find in in Mexico. They've used dating techniques, including radio carbon dating, which relies

on the way a radioactive form of the element carbon, carbon 14 decades, gradually over time, carbon 14 to give you the idea of the age of something, and also interestingly enough, as the principal chemical component of hope. They've also used optically stimulated luminescence, which works by measuring the last-time sediments were exposed to light, and optimistically stimulated luminescence, which works by measuring the last-time sediments were exposed to light, and optimistically stimulated luminescence, which combines the two techniques and tells you the last time something was exposed to hope for a lot of Brits. I think it was in the year 2016 or 2010 or 1065. So this is a very exciting discovery, Harry, for a few as an American to think,

33,000 years ago things started going, Tits up. It must be very shocking to Europeans who conquered it several hundred years ago when it was discovered that there was actually people there previous to that. What, it's's 600 years old. Yeah. Yeah. It's used to all of us. The site is in the central northern Mexican, Mexican highlands, rock boffins, Cyprian, Ardellian from the University of Zacatecas.

It makes a code Tom Hayam from Oxford, another artifact bothering colleagues, claimed to have found evidence of human occupation, dates back, I don't know, say 30,000 years since the first settler set the Americas on their inevitable path towards Trump, Bolsonaro and diminishing returns at international football tournaments. One of the archaeologists, professor Dr. Dr. Dr. Bucklock, from the University of Nantwitch admitted, it's just a few bits of stone really, chisels and shit like that. A really it shows there wasn't much advance for tens of thousands of years, which does rather make you suspect that our human ancestors were lazy arse bastards who like to kick

back and take it easy. No queuing up to by the latest Apple chisel blade 6 or the mammoth slayer arrowhead 3000X, just the same old useless slightly sharp and f**king pebbles. Who were these f**king layabouts? If they'd got off their arses 2,000 years ago, we'd probably be flying around the universe in intergalactic spaceships by now, or have developed time travel. Maybe that's why they didn't bother come to think of it, they didn't want us to travel back in time, and kick them out of their cushy little cave and tell them to snap to it. Hang on the

internal logic of that doesn't stand up, but the point does, it's Tom, we call these early humans who fan it around for 100 hundred thousand years scrolling the odd elk on the inside of a cave and otherwise failing to advance what there really were losers there. I've said it now. Bit of archaeology for you. Right. I've been a part of it. I slightly listened to a question on university challenge. There has been a huge public outcry over the draft Environmental Impact Assessment

notification 2020. And I mean it's good to know that environmental impact assessment notifications are still as popular now as they used to be in the past. As easy as global environment correspondent just bring us up the date with this. What is happening with this current version of the EIA in 2020, the version that this government wants to pass, is that it reduces the burden on industries so that they can pillage the environment more freely. And there is this constant battle of development versus environment, development versus environment.

But it's like saying, you know what, let me destroy my lungs so I can have prettier nails. And having nice nails, Having nice nails doesn't matter because shitty lungs means you'll die and those nails are going to get burned with your body and the problem with cutting down all the trees is that you're not going to have enough kindling to burn our corpses. I never really thought of it that way. That's a good way of looking at it. But I mean, it's part of the great human tradition of,

you know, in the old days, you know, I've got a lead-based makeup that you've made. People look prettier as they gradually died of poisoning. I mean, this is just what we are as a species. We are basically, what do you look at the world now? And you just think humanity in 2020 is just a giant 500 mile high middle finger to Charles Darwin saying you're actually even losing forwards Kill your dead bearded bastard. Yeah, what smart women with the degrees refused to have children

I have a dog I have a dog. You know, I also, I mean, guys, I just want to put this out there because this is a thought that struck me, is aren't trees the real culprits here? You know, when it's about time someone has held those buses to account. Yeah, because I mean, they're the ones that ones that first of all they're releasing carbon dioxide in the night while we sleep. Sneakily behind our back and so I mean at least industries and sort of corporations have the decency to spew pollutants in the air in front of us like you're in the time that we're awake. So I think actually this is a positive step to make things easier to pillage the lands.

Right. I mean it's good that someone's got the courage to say that because you know too often we get caught up in the woke agenda of you know what we're wanting to save the planet and you know. Thank you for being a voice for the disenfranchised big business, big industry, unbridled capitalism at 80. There's not enough people like you in the media today. Yeah, people are always talking about huge tracts of fertile rainforest being destroyed. They never ask if those huge tracts of fertile rainforests were nice or not. Oh, that's right. I mean, nice obviously as trees they're very beautiful.

You know, I don't even know. I would prefer my road to progress to be paved with some depression. Death. With the shade of my haters more than the shade of trees. Those were some recent offcuts. Back in time time now, and remember when Republican conventions were not harrowingly dystopian bargains of the hounds of democracy hell? No, oh well, at least the bargains were a bit less barkey. Anyway, here's 2008 to tell you all about it. So, John, you must be pretty relieved that this two-week festival of communal political masturbation has drawn to a merciful political close. That's absolutely right. I think it's interesting. It's been like a controlled experiment of how much democracy the human soul can tell. And I'm here to tell you it eight days.

Non-consecative I guess the story of the convention was a Sarah Paling and it is really depressing that that's true it's depressing that a move so cynical seems to have worked because they were absolutely crazy the other night for her we're walking out all of the screen a a whole run. She knocked it out of the park. Another craft sporting went touchdown. It was a three pointer. It was a long blue to the top left corner.

That's one from British listeners. Think Alex Higgins of the 1982 World Tour. I want a shot. I want a shot. I want a shot. So John, I mean, have you met many average hockey moms in your time in America? I don't know, I mean, that's very much the new thing to be now, to be a hockey mom, which is interesting in a country which completely turned his back on that guy.

I guess I'll probably met them all the time now because they've all reinvented themselves as hockey moms. Right. There's a certain kind of stepford hockey mom here. Because she didn't describe herself as just your average hockey mom and now call me old fashion John. I know I'm not American and therefore don't really have a vote in this election. But,, it sounds like the average hockey mom is, if not the last person that you would want to be one rogue Snookishot away from the Oval Office,

then certainly probably the penultimate person, he'd want to be that. They're just that sliced cubal that jumped off the table. And it's the president, you know, on the temple. Is that the second Snookishot, or are they needed? Yeah, no, we're going in hard. Well, it's just because it, you know, it's a convention special.

That's two weeks we've had kind of aimed, I guess, not squarely at our global listeners more than Americans. So, you know, a bit of Snooker, it's the game that the rest of the world plays. The incredible thing we've played as well is the nethertic process for her. Because, no, it's gradually each day there's been a new, absolutely incredible fact in those you're about. I'm one that she was I remember this party which was actually partly a last conservative movement which I've got a photo in many ways quintessentially American to want to segregate from the nation that's really taking it back to old school but it does seem that's not that's not even a vetting process

that should have caught that that's just a Google search. Well, I know that McCain doesn't use a computer and has talked a lot about that, but surely someone should have just put in Sarah Paling and said, what came up. You would have guessed if what came up was that photo of her in a Starz and Strikes Bikini holding a machine gun, then all other vets are off, shall we say? That's surely enough for any red blooded American voter. Actually next week Andy, I'm going to be doing the

bugle with a machine gun and Star of the Strait of Keeney. I don't really approve of your increasingly cavalier attitude towards the bugle dress code. Cavalier, it's beautiful, Andy. And also Sarah Pellensings she only got her American passport in 2006 and has been to a total of five countries one of which it turns out she went to only while her plane refueled there. You can't tell that you do not get Andy the flavor I don't want to come across the liberal hippie here you don't get the flavor of a nation from it airport. I don't want to come across a liberal hippie here. You don't get the flavour of a nation from into airport.

I don't know. When I was a kid, I was flying to South Africa to see my grandparents. We stopped off in Montbassia in Kenya, and I'll let a think that ever since then, I've really had a deep spiritual affinity with the people of all parts of Africa as a result of that half an hour stop over at the age of six. of Africa as a result of that half an hour stop over at the age of six. 2,000 and eight there. But as we now know, September 2008 was followed just two years later by September 2010. And this. Top story this week, vanity publishing.

And former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair's memoir, has hit the bookshops of this planet. And well, potentially of other planets as well, but at the moment, this planet is the only one that we know of. It's called A Journey, My Political Life, and its launch was an eagerly anticipated publishing sensation. Who can forget? And he last week, the scenes of children lining up outside bookstores at midnight, all dressed

up as their favourite characters from the autobiography. X foreign secondary Robin Cook was a popular costume, one little girl dressed like a very convincing Claire Shorten, were shouting something about the Iraq War being illegal. And once your old was lying motionless on the ground, presumably having come as David Kelly. Either way, it was a festive atmosphere and the kids were like they couldn't wait to get the books home, start reading and have their spirits and imaginations completely crushed. There you go, David Kelly reference. Three assassination references. Or was it?

Two and a half. Yeah he's had to cancel some some book signings because because a protest John he had an had eggs thrown at him in Dublin. I'm so sorry for him Andy. I just don't, he's been through so much. Well, it just shows that he's learning John, because he has at last learning to back down in the face of public protests just seven and a half years late. He's donating the profits from his book

to a charity organisation for British soldiers into during the Iraq war, which is both an excellent idea and also technically and literally the least he could do. A political memoirs are notoriously self-serving at best. Often their authors are seen late night on bookshop security cameras breaking into stores and moving their books from the autobiography section to the history section while their detractors hide in a pregnancy section and like to move the books to the fiction shelves instead. It's a two-and-fro. In fact, in the interest of transparency, every political memoir Andy ever written should really be forced to have the same title which

should be, no, you're all wrong, this is how it happened. By whoever. And in the grand scheme of players overall record on war, that was very much a hamster of mitigation on the end of an ethical seesaw that has a rhinoceros of repugnant squatting and defecating on the other end. But it was his money as some critics have claimed blood money. Or is it many further justification for players' decision to join America in invading Iraq?

Because without the controversy created created there is no way He would have been paid so much as an advance or sold so many copies And I've been able to give so much money to the British legion So really it's all starting to self justify itself So that's what Prime Minister should never have their publishers as a key advisor during their time at office Listen, you got you got to give me a little zazz to blow it. So a level chamberlain went wrong. The two main characters in the story are Blair himself and ex-chancellor and ex-prime minister

and current holder of pensioner Zinger 2010, Gordon Brown. The book is surprisingly honest about Blair's complicated relationship with him. It's not that the nature of the relationship is surprising, just that he's chosen to be so honest about it. Blair, after all, as you mentioned, has a proven record of not being a huge fan of the concept of honesty, and it is surprisingly that he suddenly decided to try it now. Well, how controversial were his statements about Brown? Not especially.

To be honest, he describes Brown as maddening, which I don't think anyone in Britain would disagree with. In fact, it seems to be one of the least negative of his almost impressive number of character flaws. He also said that Brown lacked emotional intelligence. Again, I think Brown would struggle to make a decent legal case against that partly because he lacked the social skills to be able to communicate the coherent defence to his lawyers effectively. We said in an interview this week, Johnny said that he was still friends with Gordon Brown and out of all the porkeys that Blair may or may not have told over the last 13 years, that has to be right up there with the weapons of mass destruction classic and the claim on

page 324 of his memoirs that he is in fact Elvis. And if I may quote, did we get the serialisation for rights for this in the end? I can't remember. I think this is a bugle world exclusive. Anyway, this is from basically 124. I realised that whilst I had done much great work unifying all humanity as Elvis, there was still much left to do. And the best way to do that was to fake my own death and reinvent myself as a creepily oversuncier free market quasi-socialist with an unshakable belief in his own destiny. So there you go.

Beautifully put. That was 2010. A year later, Bugle issue 166 entered the world just as someone else was leaving it in a not 100% ideal way from his perspective. Top story this week Gaddafi's last stand and Gaddafi is dead Andy. He's dead. He must be dead. We're all celebrating. He must be dead. I'm not sure he's dead inside John, but I mean that's been the case with him all the. Godaphe's dead inside, we killed him. We killed something deep inside him.

Hope for the future, we killed him. Yeah there's been a one million dollar bounty put on Godaphe's heads dead or alive, preferably for the sake of legal convenience. I imagine NATO is preferring a dead rather than be alive but some please beglerous if you do find Gaddafi do not be tempted to keep him he has a limited resale value and if he is on eBay if you find Gaddafi and put him on eBay we cannot be held responsible for me bidding for him. But, you know, I mean, it's not a thing to have in your house.

Well, Gaddafi. Yeah. It's just all the mental Gaddafi. All the mental, I mean, the best kind of Gaddafi. Well, you could kind of embed him in your front door and use him as a doorbell. Yeah, that would be good. We'll just like punch him on the nose. Well, he should poke his cheek.

Poke him in the eye. Yeah. Ah! Ah! Ah! What kind of time is this? Does he eat? Or not, good, epic. I don't think so.

It doesn't look like kind of guy, and he's such a monster, isn't he? Yeah. Probably. He doesn't really eat, just osmosis. He's been up to his old tricks, and during a broadcast on a local TV station, he placed martyrdom or victory.

What a game show. That is what television needs. Too much of these ill, lame-ass quiz shows. Yeah. Talent shows. Let's have something with something real on the line. Let's see how much people really want to be celebrities. And martyrdom is pretty much your, still your, your, your great A-Water celebrity. It's a win-win.

It worked for Jesus, didn't it? Yeah, it's quite a feel-good game show. I mean, I was suggesting. Oggyly Jesus' whole public profile was based on him being a good martyr rather than a good magician and racon tour is what he previously done. Well hold on, magician and racon tour. Yes, that's basically, without the spin in the PR. So speaks, just strip away, strip away the layers, John. But he was also climbing on local TV station this week

that he was still in the capital, Tripoli. He said, I've been out a bit in Tripoli discreetly without being seen by people, and I did not feel that Tripoli was in danger. Every part of that sentence is untrue. I'm not. Every single one, I've been out a bit in Tripoli discreetly. No.

Without being seen by people incorrect, I did not feel Tripoli was in danger. If that's true, he's f**king mad. It's why he hasn't been watching the news. Yeah, and he should probably, I guess, in his line of work, he needs to keep abreast of the news. You know, because I mean, people clearly seem quite angry with his leadership. And if he's just blanking out the fact that his own compound is being raised to the ground, he needs to get on top of that. But is it not possible as well as a man in his position that he might be able to walk around the streets of Tripoli right now,

because no one would believe he had the bare face balls to walk about. He just think, oh that man looks amazing amount like Colonel Gaddafi. Obviously he's a Colonel Gaddafi impersonator. Yeah. A good one there. He's shopping for bread. Yeah. Doesn't seem concerned by anything. No, we love bread. Good day, mate. Yeah, he did. He was all about the bread. Ah.

Two baguettes every morning. It couldn't function without two baguettes. Oh, it's a lot of us. It's a lot of bread, and it was slowing down. Well, no, and that's I think why it's gradually lost his grip on power. Two to a bad diet. But they found some amazing

things. As always, there is absolutely one thing that a despot will give you and it's arguably worth enduring the four decades of pain and persecution to get there. But you know when a despot is overthrown, you are going to find some crazy shit in his house. And amongst various bits of crazy shit, perhaps the craziest that has been found so far in the Gaddafi compound is a photo album, stocked to the brim with pictures of Condoleezza Rice. Crazy Andy. Crazy. Crazy, you know, Patsy Klein kind of way. But apparently he said some amazing things. I mean we've all been there let's be honest. Yeah. Let he who does not have a secret stash of Condoleezza Rice Photos cost the first stone.

I have a sequence of Condoleezza Rice Photos tattooed on my stomach. Well yeah. But some of that was more to get your green card than anything else, wasn't it? I said I'd do whatever it took Andy. I didn't leave anything on the field. Yeah, I mean, she looks great on the moped, to be fair. Yeah, well, I didn't say how I was gonna picture her. I just said she was gonna be on there.

There you go. There is your Bugle sub-episode to keep you going for the next week or so. The bugle will be shifting to Monday recordings for the next few weeks whilst I'm hosting the news quiz, so if the bugle does not plonk itself into your pod machines at the regular point in the week, please do not panic. Or at least only panic internally and try to minimise public displays of despair if that's not too much to ask. Stay calm, sit next to your wireless and await further instructions.

Or just wait for the show to plong down early in the week instead of late in the week. We will be back in a weekish, or a little bit longer, maybe. Thank you.