The Bugle - Bonus Bugle: John Oliver meets Nish and Alice, and other exclusives

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Here's what happened when Alice Fraser and Nish Kumar finally teamed up with John Oliver!Plus: COP 30, the World Cup, and other unheard storiesWhy not check out 15 years of top stories: https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/topstories.Produced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bugle Audio Newspaper for a visual world Hello buglers and welcome to Bugle Issue 4,361 sub-episode A for Australia, here I come. In fact, Australia, here I already am. Yes, I'm Andy Zaltzman. I am in Australia exclusively to prepare for our live shows in Brisbane. on the 2nd of December and Melbourne on the 22nd of December.

Apparently there's also some cricket on, but not as much cricket as would have been ideal, as you'd know, if you've been following it, and frankly, it's too soon to talk about. So this week, in our sub-episode, we have some special bugle moments for you. We held back some vital stories just for this eventuality, which are all to follow,

but we start with an exclusive moment in which Bugle Old met Bugle New, a special Q&A from our 18th birthday live-stream live show featuring Alice Fraser, Nish Kumar, and some other bloke John John something Oliver John Oliver

That's it Before John heads off We're going to do a Q&A It's a very special Q&A Because we're going to have To pose the cues for John 2A We've had here The past of the bugle

We're going to now bring on The slightly less past And current presence Of the bugle So firstly joining us here in London on the one show he hasn't managed to kill off. It's the... The man

once described as the British John Oliver. By me on the bugle. It's Mish Kumar! Welcome, Nish. What the fuck is going on here, man? I feel like I've caught you cheating with an ex. I'm out there trying to think of some puns

about the goddamn Louvre and I come to find you nuts deep in Zazu. Family show. It's quite literally a family show. My family's all here. Now, and also joining us from Australia from tomorrow morning. It's Alice Fraser.

Hello. Hello, Andy. Pretty, hello, buglers. Hang on, Alice, we're having a slight technical issue with the screen. There's a tech snapoo that means that we're looking at some very dense trees. Can we get...

That'll do for now. You're both very small on the screen. At the top. Mish, while we try and get John and Alice back on. on the screen and heaven knows... I somehow knew that at one point we would be looking at the internal

machinations of a PowerPoint it felt just as inevitable as night following day. At some point we'd hear Chris go, oh God! So well, here we are. That's the best you get in.

Hello. So, Alice, Alice, welcome from... I knew this would go badly. Alice, welcome from an ungodly hour of the morning. Do you have a question for John in our Q&A? Yes, yes, I do. Hello, John, just a quick custody question. I know we haven't met properly.

I want to get it on the record. You and I, we have no beef. No beef. The disc track that I wrote was not about you. It was about the notorious Drake, who is a duck that lives in a pond near me. It's him who has a face like a bread-eating bird, not you. Which, which interestingly, is Prince Andrew's new secret service code name.

So, like, I just want to get it on the record. I'm super happy that you and Andy made the bugle together. I know that the first three to five years really lays the foundation for lifelong, thriving, emotional self-regulation. And the bugle really is just such a fantastic, creative and independent podcast. And, you know, 50% of that is your DNA. I just think we need to talk about custody arrangements. I propose this.

I take the cryptocurrency and AI technology stories. You get football stories and anniversaries. I get Christmas. I'll provide liberal listener brownie points in the form of gender balance and you provide ongoing reflected legitimacy by virtue of your stratospheric rise to fame in the US television industry.

But I cannot stress this enough. Here's also my question. You get to retain sole custody of the pun runs. They just mean so much to that. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll break it right now. No, come on, John, come on.

You are a wealthy and successful middle-aged man, and I am the beleaguered mother of a baby and a toddler. I have some fucking pity, man. Now, history is going to say that I didn't do enough to stop it when I saw that fire start burning. But it's out of my control. Some hero needs to step in and put these puns out of everybody else's misery. Nish, do you have a question for John?

Yes, John Oliver, I've written it down. John Oliver. August 2016, the UK comedy website Chortle described me as a, and I quote, comedian very much in the John Oliver mould, but one who's remained on British soil. A month later, I did the bugle for the first time. I assume that the events are directly connected

as Andy sought to recreate you in the aggregate like Moneyball for satirical comedy podcasts. But my question for you is if I am a comedian like you but one that has remained on British soil does this by the transitive property imply that had you remained on said soil you would have become me

i.e. an ethnically Indian man with considerably less money and ADHD brackets diagnosed and IBS brackets undiagnosed but heavily suspected. I mean I feel like I might be to be to be honest.

Yeah, the idea of a John Oliver mould is so harrowly to me. I didn't want the original John Oliver, let alone a mould to create a second. Let me tell you, they did not want the Indian remake either. Oh, also, I have a quick follow-up question. How do you get on the Smurfs,

and is there a brown one? What you do? What we do is you say that you will do the Smurfs as a joke to Andy, then you don't read the contract and realize you're on the hook for the fucking sequel. I thought a John Oliver mold was just what happened when you left John Oliver out in the wet. see the whole of that moment on our YouTube channel where pay subscribers also get to watch the full version of every

bugle show. Now on to AI and its inappropriate behavior with the moon, as discussed with Hari Kondobolu and Alice Fraser. In a final bit of AI news, AI has been fondling

the moon. A researcher at the University of Kent has used AI to find possible entrances to caves on the moon. Yeah, fondling the moon's a bit, putting it a bit, it's been using AI to poke into moonholes, let's be. Sorry, I mean, the headlines don't always tell the full story. There was a superb headline on the Guardian this week, a story about the Pope condemning clickbait as a quote's degrading part of journalism

and the Guardian went with the headline, you won't believe what degrading practice the Pope just condemned. That is unquestioned headline of the decade. Whoever it was sort of like this says to the Australian Associated Press on the Guardian website. Congratulations to whoever thought of that.

Take the rest of the decade off. So apologies for the That's the least of the bates that the Pope has condemned in the past. So, yes, this story is, yeah, so they've been looking for caves that could possibly support human survival on future moon missions. It does make you wonder, you know, why we're only hearing about these caves now. I mean, Neil Armstrong and the lunar lads kept eerily quiet about secret cave entrances, which does slightly raise the question. What the fuck they find in the moon caves when they landed there?

Possibly they found a portal to a movie studio in Texas. We just don't know. Where they sourced moon cups. One of the caves discovered by the University of Kent was potentially full of lava tubes, which sound fun, and the other is potentially a source of water, a ditto. And these caves could provide. natural shelter from harmful radiation and meteorite impacts doesn't living on the moon sound fun um this is scary this is very this is very scary knowing what the u.s is this is another place that

trump's going to send refugees and immigrants back to earth now and cop 30 happened recently on and about earth. If you miss it, well, I briefly explored its potential with Josie Long and Helen Zaltzman. The COP 30 conference has just opened as we record in Belém in Brazil. Cop of course stands for come on please and 30 conferences on from the original imprecation

we're still parboiling the planet for shits and giggles with so many of the world's most powerful countries including the USA and China and India not attending, also our businesses, plutocrats and influencers, not giving much or any of a shit about the environment in general. It's hard to see how progress can be made. We are, according to reports on course,

for two and a half degrees of warming by the end of the century, which, to be fair, is still fucking years away. We're talking another 3,000-odd episodes of the bugle away, so it's quite hard to focus people's attention. Despite the fact that 89% of people globally, according to research, a broadly pro-environment, leaving just 11% and they burn it to a fucking crisp camp. It seems that populists are managing to leverage that 11% into political success.

Maybe at some point a better class of populist will harness this misunderstanding, but it doesn't seem to be happening yet. So any optimism from either of you? Yeah, Andy, things seem very, very urgent. and people like you and me love a deadline. So, true, yes. Any minute now. I have revolutionary optimism and, of course, optimism of the will.

When we are talking about reality, it is tricky, but I have got suggestions for COP because obviously no one has been listening to them. You know, last year they pledged this fund that would be distributed to help kind of a kind of global justice approach to climate change. change, but they are relying on the private sector. Don't look into that to see how that's going, because you might not enjoy what you find. And the United States is now not going to give any money

because they say that they have to give that money to Havier-Millet, to bail him out for doing everything right and normally in a really good way that proves how well he's doing it is the fact that they need to give him loads of money about that. But I think my advice to them is threefold. Number one, yes, the point. planet is getting hotter. But in order for them to compete, climate scientists need to get hotter. If the crims can do it, if the Dems can do it, I think you'll find the scientists need

to do it. They've already in a prime position to get hotter because what are they wearing? Glasses and a ponytail and a lab coat. The first three things they can do, glasses off, ponytail out, lab coat open. It will be a supermaness transformation for them. Second, thing I want to say is the goal is always too distant. You know, they want to raise this, last year they're saying they're going to raise this trillions of dollars by 2035. All of the old guard look at that figure and they say, I'll be dead. Who cares? They need to be saying, you've got three weeks to raise this money and then creates more of a fun thing. And the third piece of advice I'd say to me is, look, we've already lost the coral reefs. We're already

dead set for an unhabitable earth. You guys have worked very hard in a punishing. sphere for 40 odd years now, just have a bit of fun with it. You know, if you want to pretend that something's bad for the climate, you tell people it is, you know? Oh, waving's bad for the climate, you can't do it anymore. Singing's bad for the climate, so I don't do it. Just, I would say, have some fun with it, because at this stage, absurdism could be the answer. Well, I mean, the problem is that laughter, emits more carbon dioxide

than groaning in despair. All private jets. Yeah. Science. And finally in our sub-episode, here are Anuvab Pal, Josh Gondelman and this person discussing the BBC, Trump,

and what truly constitutes an all-time baddie. I also think, you know, the amounts that Mr. Trump sues for, because he sued a number of news organizations around the world, here, $5 billion. I think his inspiration is Dr. Evil, because in the sequel to those Austin Powers films, he holds the world ransom, Dr. Evil, and asks for $100 billion. And if you remember that scene, all the world leaders are sitting down, and I think one of the heads of the Reserve Bank could get up and say,

this is 1987, the whole world doesn't have that much money. I think that his thing is to ask for an amount of money that hasn't been printed yet. It is fascinating that he's in two BBC related controversies. There's this one obviously, and then there's also the adjacent controversy we've already mentioned of blowing Bill Clinton. So there are, it's like two kind of parallel controversies this week. Can I just also quickly mention that there are some villains from history that kind of last longer than other villains, you know, like Jeffrey Epstein should have gone away five

or ten years ago, right? But he's still around lingering, you know, in the news. You know, he's getting up there with Rasputin, Goebbels, you know, again, my favorite Changis Khan, you know, like these, some people, I mean, I think the question to ask is, what makes you an all-time villain versus just like a villain for a bit? Oh, that's a very interesting philosophical question. I'm sorry, I know the argument. Rasputing, I think Rasputin's branding was really helped by...

Strong branding. Well, the beard, WG Grace, the great cricketer, had that same kind of beard-based branding. But I think it was the fact that it took them so many goes to kill Rasputin and then dump his body in a frozen river. That's just, you added burnish... the legend, I think. Anavab, I'm a little worried because when you said Jeffrey Epstein lives on,

I'm worried that this will, that statement will accidentally mutate and spawn a new conspiracy theory that not only did Jeffrey Epstein not kill himself, he is still alive. Yeah, yeah. That's why my microphone is on soft volume for a point. This is, here's the thing that, like, really gets me about this. Like, this is just such an obvious shake. down, right? This is like the second Trump administration is all about graft and frivolous

lawsuits that he gets settled out of court. He did this to ABC. He did this to CBS and Paramount. He's trying it with the New York Times. He's done this to universities. It's so inappropriate that this guy is the president of the United States when he should just be a slip and fall scam artist seeking out wet floors in family-owned businesses in far-flung Queens neighborhoods with a neck brace already stashed in his car. That was his destiny. You know, the world is much closer than we think, you know,

because by suing and settling out of court and then threatening basically corruption-based charges, he basically displays all the characteristics of a Mumbai appeals court lawyer handling petty civil disputes. So I think the world is, you know, we think we're apart, but we're actually very, very similar. right we've gone quite long so maybe

I was going to do the fake admiral story were there others that you had particularly prepped so I don't think we'll have time for everything we could rattle through next story story number nine fake admiral news

this is a truly extraordinary story coming from from Wales a 64 year old man has pretended to be an admiral from the Royal Navy at a remembrance service and has now been arrested

for apparently the crime of wearing uniform bearing the mark of his majesty's forces without permission. This has, again, in terms of the sort of, the fabric of the nation and Britain being dishonest with itself,

again, has got right to the heart of where we are in this country. I think the problem was, this guy wore 12 medals, which I think if you're going to pretend to be a military hero when you're not, I'd just go in around the eight medal mark, I think, because you want to look impressive, but you don't want to look suspiciously awesome. So I think 12 medals is just a bit much. But when I think about this, and people have said, well, this is appalling, he's pretended to be from the military when he's not. I sort of take go the other

way, actually, there's a couple of things. One, this is learnt behaviour, and who is setting this example? This goes right to the top on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact. You look at the royal family, King Charles, KC3, King Chuck, the Chattanoort, 11

medals, he possesses. Not a huge amount of battlefield experience, I think it's fair to say. He is Admiral of the Fleet and a Marshal of the Royal Air Force and a field marshal in the army. That is, you know, nepo babyism at its

very worst. Look, he seems like an okay guy, King Charles, I'm not that fussed about the monarchy, but he is not exactly Sylvester Stallone in Rambo. He is not Maximus Decimus Meridius in his pomp, and yet he has all these medals. So it's understandable. Some of his subjects might think this is

the inspiration that we should look to wear military medals we have not entirely earned. On your side of the Atlantic, of course, the head of your military is Bertie Bonespurs, a man who displayed through his life, all the braver and heroism of an apple, strongly recommending to a chef that the blueberry

pie should be the dessert of the day. So it's sort of logical, even patriotic, to step up to that cosplay bravery plate and dress up like you once slayed an entire battalion of rogue, enemy, alien, zombie soldiers with your own bare hands. So I'm not that fuss about it. I think we need

more people pretending to have been military heroes, partly because we're now reaching a generation where there are very few left, and we need people to pretend. To step up to this plate, like we have at Halloween, you know, most people you see at Halloween are not actually real ghosts or vampires or skeletons or sexy zombies.

So if we have to dress up similarly to make Remembrance Day meaningful, I don't have a problem with that. What's your guy's view on? Have either of you ever pretended to be a key figure from your nation's military history in all the parade around? Well, I think, you know, uniforms are a big help. I think if you've got the right uniform on, they'll pretty much let you in anyway. I had a slight problem.

You know, I tried to wear the uniform of the World Cup winning Indian cricket team at their reunion dinner. I wasn't allowed because I later realized I was wearing the Zambian cricket team's colors. But I think the main thing is, you know, if you've got the right uniform on, you know, I mean, I think if I dressed up like the right kind of Hindu priest, they'd let me perform a wedding ceremony. I think it's the clothes. I think if you've got it, flaunt it, you know, and then go to jail if you have to, but wear it. Well, I mean, as a younger person, I was told to stop wearing my high school's basketball uniform just because they were like, look, you have been on the team, but we would prefer no longer. I do think the medals, the amount of medals is a problem, right? Twelve medals, that's lying a little too close to the sun.

But I will say, if you are putting on an unearned military uniform to hang out at a funeral, you probably need this more than other people do. Most people are not recreationally attending funerals. So if you, if that's where you're at just to like be around people, let them have it. That's what I say. I just, I also want the procurement, you know, I just don't think, police uniforms and military uniforms should be freely available for Halloween and fancy dress. I mean, I'm surprised that, you know, there aren't more people dressing up like

policemen and charging people for tickets and running away. Yeah. I mean, once again, we are kind of innovating in that field right now over here. We got a lot of that going on. I think what I would say is that we need to take it further. Like I say, we're now in a generation where we find ourselves in that fortunate nugget of time where we've had the opportunity to choose not to be sent off to war to be slaughtered in our millions. And it's been great. It's been lovely for people like me, particularly who are massive cowards.

So, look, I think we should embrace this. But in Remembrance Day, I think we need to continue remembering the folly of war. But I think we need to go back further. So people should be allowed to dress up to pretend to be veterans of war. wars, but they need to be from much earlier in history. I want to see people pitching up dressed like they were in the 13th light dragoons at the Battle of Waterloo, or in hyper-realistic half-and-half costumes from the Battle of Nazby, left-half royalist, right-half-roundhead. Or like Alfred the great fans in the Battle of Ethan Dunn in the year 878, who fought so valiantly

to keep British pastries from being turned Danish. I think we need to incorporate our history into our collective remembrance now that so few of us have actually had to be. had to fight in a war. So, for example, if you ran into a leading Roman general and from the siege of Londonium when the Romans would have attacked it, that would be a pleasant meeting, right? Like, that's somebody you'd like to have at one of these events. Yeah, absolutely. But you've got to commit.

You've got to pretend to be actually that person. It's not just costume. This is full, committed roleplay. I think if you dress up as a soldier from the Peloponnesian War, right? That's no more stolen valor than any archaeological expedition is stolen valor. This is where you need a quiz to find out what he actually did in battle. And no smart watches. Well, that's it. Thanks for listening to our sub-episode.

If you need a hot drink, but don't have a mug, I have good news. You can buy one at the buglepodcast.com now, where you can also join our bugle voluntary subscription scheme to help keep our show free, flourishing and independent for the rest of eternity. Until next week, when we will come to you live from Brisbane with Alice Fraser and Nish Kumar, goodbye. Thank you.

I. I don't know.