The Bugle - Britain's Rail Network Is Almost As Good As Ukraine's

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

How does a modern president get to their meetings? By a 10 hour train journey of course! Also, Republicans hate America, look out for Super Pig, and India's battle with the BBC.Why not check out 15 years of top stories: https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/topstories.Featuring:Andy ZaltzmanNish KumarAnuvab PalProduced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner. 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 Buglers, hello. Oh, no, I've got I've got a wrong way around Always fear this would happen Oh, no

Well, who knows what I'll have on the rest of the show to put it away Am I Zoltzman and oh no, oh no All right, I'm gonna have to make a couple of adjustments and switch myself off and on again. Shut it in, go. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Hello, buglers. Ah, I'll see you with back on track.

Welcome to issue 4,254 of the bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. It's the 21st of February 2023, and I am four time Wimbledon Champion Rod Lava. Joining me today have the former US Open Champion Pancho Gonzalez and from Spain it's Manuel Santana. Oh no I've got that thing where I'm staker on for 1960s tennis players. Let's give it another go. Shut it in down. Hello, Budalas. I'm Andy Zoltzman. I think we're good this time. Welcome to issue

4,254 of the Budal. I am in the shed in London, joining me this week from just up the road here in South London. It's Nish Kumar. Hello Nish. Hello Andy. Hello Bugleers. I will be maintaining the correct order of greetings. Good. That's that's just as it should be. How are you? N how you I have drunk. I would say slightly too much coffee If people think I have a loud and annoying voice and I talk too quickly already get ready Jacked so I mean when you say slightly too much what are we what are we talking about here? We're talking at midday UK time So before we what have you packed in addy? We're recording at midday UK time. So what have you packed in? Addy, we're talking five double strength americanos.

Right. That's too many. That's too many. I've basically done a couple of lines of Chang. Basically, basically, I'm on cocaine. And I've concerned that my performance of this bugle is going to mirror the character arc of Henry Hill in the film Goodfellas. It's going to start exciting. It's going to get really exciting in the middle and then it's going to descend into a dark while a paranoia. I'm going to end this bugle on the witness relocation program.

Where are you getting your coffee from? Also joining us and I've no idea how much caffeine is pumping through his blood stream. From Mumbai, India, it's Anu Vab Pal. Hello, Andy. Hello, Nish. How are you? Good, thanks. Watch your caffeine stroke, other addictive substance in the evening for out of it. So it's much more socially acceptable for it to impact the effect. Exactly. So I'll tell you what I've been inhaling. It's very different from an issue has been inhaling. I've been inhaling asphalt and concrete. Oh wow. It's an early oasis song now as well. Exactly. 1993, one of the early hits.

Now both of you are... Basically the chord sequence is very similar to a Beatles song. Let's not dwell on that. Look, both of you are observes of India. And I don't know if you've read about this, but basically India's undergoing the largest infrastructural development projects in history. So, under Prime Minister Modi, they've decided that nothing before this existed in India, so they have to build every road bridge and house imaginable at the same time.

So if you travel around India and last week I was in three different cities, India is one large construction site. The air quality index in Mumbai is today is 400, which is the same air quality index of any city after an earthquake. Just to do this podcast, I'm not making this up yet, and I'm not doing this for comedy. Just to do this podcast, I had to go out in the road and request three different digging companies to stop digging.

They're actually five around me, I requested three of them, and I'm not making this up. So I am well for tonight, and then I'm dead tomorrow. This, that's the power of the bugle. We can interrupt infrastructure projects in India. It's a power of this podcast. Although I will say, interrupting any infrastructure projects, I'm doing anything in India that my upset the BJP could result in the bugle being investigated for tax affairs. Correct.

Yes. On this day in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto. What a manifesto, that was the original version of course, not the director's cut extended version that some prominent communist leaders evidently managed to get a hold of. The one with the extra bits about exterminating millions and millions of around people and living in great palaces. Also, today is pancake day, Troll of Tuesday, the famous Christian festival commemorating the famous day, when a teenage Jesus turned some eggs, milk and flour into a surprisingly convincing picture of the moon in all these early miracles.

As always, I say, he's not the view that's going great. As soon as you embarked on that, I was excited. I was excited. As soon as you embarked on that, I was excited. You know, when you feel someone's like, I'm a huge watcher of Manchester United Football Club. And at the moment, when Marcus Rashford runs down the inside left of the opposition's defense,

there's a real sense of excitement of somebody making an attack in an area of which they have huge strength. And you riffing on the theological origins of Pancake Day of excitement of somebody making an attack in an area which they have huge strength and you riffing on the theological origins of Pancake Day is that is Sultzman, that is Sultzman at his strongest. I thought I could have taken it a bit longer, I just kind of need layoff really, or I'm in a full, powerful run into the box and slam it into the top corner. I was really wondering, Nish, how Andy was going to bring history into a pancake. Well, there is history in everything, which brings us on to our section in the bin, which is a make history history section. We don't usually

do this, but this is a paid for promotional pull-out section by the International Anti-History League. Today, Tuesday, will quite literally be history by the International Anti-History League. Today, Tuesday will quite literally be history by the time you listen to this, uh, uh, uh, beugles. Um, and, uh, history, frankly, has had its chance and it's proof that it brings nothing but anger, confusion and disappointment to this planet. Um, and also solve these questions. Do you find history overwhelmingly long, whether you think there's been 30 billion, 13 billion years of it, or just six short millennia, did lead according to favorite book? Do you find it annoying that you can never truly and completely understand how we've got to, where we've got to? Because, and I quote, too much shit has already happened for me to get my

fucking head around Herodotus 433 BC. Do you find a history quite often tells you things that are really inconvenient and contradict what you like to tell yourself about the world you live in today? Well, it's quite possible that you work in politics. But why not then, throw history in the bin in this co-production between the bugle and the anti-history league. We are attempting to get rid of all history.

It's mostly full of tragedy, suffering, failure, cruelty, exploitation, bastardery, shit-headitude, and, uh, Chris, you need to bleep the bleeps out here. Being absolutely... Also, if you're one or more of white male, well off religious, non-religious, or alive, the chances are that history does could or should make you feel a bit guilty about shit that happened then and how it influences shit that's happening now. So we are trying to get rid of history and to support and make history a history campaign for just 49 pounds a month. You can help us remove all traces of history

from initially the internet and then the entire world. And as a special promotion, you can nominate a single piece of history to remove instantly from the history books right now. And if I'm, I know you're a big fan of history. What would you take out first of all in our efforts to expand your traces of the known past and just make the world happy place? If it's Indian history, the current government have already removed the British and the Mughals. So I have to go even further back. I think I'd have to remove the early Turkish and Uzbek people that move to India. So, you know, we have to do that. All right, let's go. Vasco de Galma and Ivab's coming for you. Exactly.

I'd have to go as far as I can save. Yeah. But I do want an individual removed or I'll take them. I need to. But I'm not a huge fan of the Romans. OK. You're checking out the whole Roman Empire. Yeah.

Because they've left too much behind, and I don't think they've given other people enough of a chance. For example, we don't know much about the time around Jesus. We don't know where are all the statues and stuff from Judea. But the Romans, they've got a circus, they've got buildings, they could show you the place where Caesar was stabbed. It's too many things. There's not an equitable distribution of historical ruins in the world.

And I think we should take away some from a lot of ruins and give it to people with no ruins. So out of up, I think that might be the motto of the British Museum. It's just, I haven't quite got the balance right. Yeah, you know, for a long time, there was a debate going on in India, it's still what to do with the town of Saranga Patnam, which is where the famous battle happened where the British defeated Tipu Sultan And essentially conquered India that was the big big battle and there's massive field there. There's nothing there now And the local member of parliament wanted to erect a massive statue of Bruce Lee wanted to direct a massive statue of Bruce Lee. Because it was so fat.

So, again, out of context history is something I'm a big fan of. I'm a huge fan of that. Something quite complicated happened here. Well, everyone likes Bruce Lee. So maybe we could just... Is there any way we could compromise on popular historical figures? Bruce Lee, Dolly Parton, Denzel Washington, people at everyone likes. Well, we're making the world a better place.

There's going to be so many statues of Beyonce in our videos. At least what, I mean, what, what, single piece of history? So we've got rid of the Roman Empire, which doesn't mean for the rest of this podcast, we cannot use any English words that have their origin in it. It's my... I guess a lot of these, I guess a lot of the news this week happened on Verandas. Yeah, so I'm not quite a lot of really Germanic swearing, I think. Next, what bit of history would you like to take out?

Well it depends, are you talking about if I could have raised a history? Does that mean the events of what happened around that person never happened? Because if that's the case and we're giving ourselves that about a power, you've got to lose big adi-h as I call it. However, if all we're doing is just removing that person's name from history, I quickly recid my hit look like because I'm pretty sure quite a few conspiracy theorists of the internet are doing that.

I'm doing that. I'm doing that. I'm doing that. I'm doing that. Absolutely. But I'm doing it. So I'll hold with hold by answer until I know the full parameters. Great.

Well, the Make History History section also given to you in association with Brexit. That section in the bin. Top story this week. Well, this week brings the one year anniversary of Vladiputels, the Kremlin- Kremlin, the Moscow Megadick, getting his career high-strop on and starting the Ukraine war, deciding to inflict untold chaos, bloodshed and misery on the people of Ukraine rather than just sought out his own self-image issues. It remains hard to believe, does it not a year on, that someone who'd invaded Ukraine and Georgia

and actively supported Bachelors at the Syrian War with barely a twitch of political condemnation or a crimination to mean to national community in return would invade Ukraine again. But he did, he did a year ago this week. And it's, I think, fair to say, it's not gone well for Putin, it's not gone well for humanity in general and this week Joe Biden, the American President, made a surprise trip to the Ukraine

to express his support for the extraordinary resistance the Ukrainian people and military have shown. I think that's a powerful message to Putin's Russia that the US, NATO and the West in general are still one year on, prepared to do anything for a decent photo opportunity. It cannot be a stronger message than that. What have you made? Well, what have you made of the past year and the Biden's trip this week? You know, I've just been obsessed with petty detail. Yeah, there's something about Biden getting into Ukraine on a secret train.

Yes. A 10 hour train. I thought, yeah, I mean, I can't bring up 1939 because Nish is removed all that from this trip. But with mathematical precision is removed that. I thought in 2023, you could secretly get in and out of countries in other ways if you were the president of the United States. Well, just like being teleported, you think about that. I mean, it does make you think. I mean, it took a 10-hour train from Poland to Kiev and

through the, you know, the war-torn nation of Ukraine. It's pretty like he wasn't trying to get from London to Manchester. That's a British person. It was gaulling to hear that he was able to get a trade into a country that's being actively bombed. Without even the hint of a rail replacement bus service. Yeah, it's been, it's, we're coming up to a year since the, the, a marble that someone drew eyes and a mouth on, Vladimir Putin decided that the Botox and drifted into the common sense center of his brain and he decided to have a war. And the thing is, Andy, you're right to observe that he'd already invaded the Ukraine before. And we tried everything. We tried everything as an international community

to condemn him. We gave him an Olympics. We gave him a World Cup. If only we had moved Wimbledon to Moscow. Ha ha ha. Maybe, maybe that would have been the thing that pushed him over and stopped him behaving like a total ****.

But as it is, all we did was give him a limb mix and a World Cup and it didn't change his behaviour and the **** carried on ****ing. Putin hit back with his own state of the union address, which has happened today as we recorded, in which well he's surprisingly tearfully admitted that he's got it all wrong because of the bad morning a year ago, started to warn him, and he couldn't see why out of it, and he's really sorry, and he'll change, he will change, he'll make tearfully admitted that he got it all wrong because of the bad morning a year ago Started a war and then he couldn't see away out of it And he's really sorry and he'll change he will change he'll make it up to people And he just wants people to understand him and appreciate his poetry and he had a doggy that I when he was a boy And it left him with anger and abandonment issues and we'll all see the funny side of it one day at my Russian is a bit rusty

But yeah, I mean it's uh, well, I mean, it remains just an absolute scar on the 21st century, this whole, this whole, any shards of optimism for you? I mean, listen, the international community has, you know, has actually, it does seem to slightly woken up to the threat of Vladimir Putin that he poses. Just citizens all over the world, including in Russia. He's been summarily imprisoning protesters and political opponents for years and years and years. None of this kind of despotic action is new behavior, but previously we had responded to it by giving him major sporting events as previously discussed

and turning our financial system in London as a way for him and his cronies to lawn to all of their wealth. So in a sense, the one positive from this is that maybe we, particularly in London, we will stop being the global laundromat for the dirtiest money in the world. And that's also,. And also, I guess, you know, it might also, if you're, for the point of view of leaders of the Conservative Party, it might mean that they get slightly more varied tennis opponents because they mostly have the braggant Russian donors tennis. And it would be just quite nice if they can branch that out because you weren't good to you.

There's a sort of Russian style of tennis that maybe, there's a bit restrictive. It's not even just tennis meetings, maybe former prime ministers that conservative party will start having secret meetings with high level members of the Russian government without their security detail present as one Boris Johnson did. What did he do? Probably tried to get you have going in a bed

of pregnant. That's possibly what happened, because that's what the guy does. The guy tries to get absolutely everybody pregnant. But I guess the other positive thing is Biden is sending a pretty strong message out back home. Because he did go there and said that he talked a lot about the war being not just about freedom in Ukraine,

but about freedom and the freedom of democracy at large. And he congratulated the Ukrainian people for stepping up in a way that few people ever have in the past, whilst emphasizing that there was a broad bipartisan support in Washington for the Ukrainian cause. And there is a broad bipartisan support for the Ukrainian cause, as long as you don't include

a massive chunk of the Republican party. It feels slightly like this trip was as much about sending a message to Ukrainian people as it was about sending a message to the American government because the Republican party, large sections of it have voiced quite striding opposition to America sending any kind of weaponry to Ukrainians. And this week Biden obviously made his visit and on Twitter Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is the congresswoman who represents the congressional district, I believe that's known as the mid 15th century. Marjorie Taylor Greene is basically a couple of bits of firewood away from a full witch burning. She is, she absolutely would, she would watch the crucible and go, this all seems above board. Like she's that,

she's got that sort of old fashioned idea. I think she might suggest that it was was the crucible suggested that America was already going woke. She responded to Biden, the official POTUS Twitter account tweeting pictures of Biden and Zelensky, as you've created, visit. She quoted that and said this, in Peach Biden, or give us a national divorce, we don't pay taxes to fund, I mean, in the case of a lot of members of the Republican party, she could have stopped that and done it taxes. We don't pay taxes to fund foreign countries, wars who aren't even in, who aren't even NATO allies. I don't need to tell you this. The grammar is an absolute soup there.

She somehow managed to spell allies, ALLY, apostrophe S. The average Ukrainian speech considerably better English than Marjorie Taylor Greene. She said, we aren't sending our sons and daughters to die, to die is D-R-I-E-S. Again, it's unbelievable. We aren't sending our sons and daughters

to dies for foreign borders and foreign inadvertent commas democracy. America is broke, criminal cut as in cartels reign and you're a full. The two things I take away from this are, well there's three things I take away from this. One, it is incredible that members of the Republican Party have seen a kindred spirit in Vladimir Putin a shiny face, homo-foam. But it is also incredible that she used the phrase, national divorce, because I believe America did attempt a national divorce. I believe that they did attempt a national divorce until the nation's marriage counsellor, aka Av Avie Lincoln, decided to step in and tried to stop the divorce from happening.

And it is a pretty big claim to suggest that American needs to have a new civil war with a picture of the American flag as part of your Twitter name. Surely at least she's got to change her photo to a picture of the dukes of hazard car with the Confederate flag on it. And the other thing they make is we think is no one hates Americans more than members of the Republican party.

Man, they hate America. They cannot stand it. Now, this is the same woman that decided to shout in the middle of the state of the Union address, right? Yeah. I guess that never happened in America while the president was delivering the state of the... they didn't have a live heckler. I think this is the first time. And I know that our parliament has been quite brilliant in many ways because we've had snacks thrown at each other.

We've in the 90s, we had all-out brawls, we had sacks of cash being sort of thrown to show that there's corruption. But they were Indian members of parliament who congratulated Marjorie Taylor Greene because finally she said the world's biggest democracy has met the world's oldest democracy. At both parliamentary behavior seem similar because we identify with that, you know, that you should be able to shout with no sense of decorum in the state of the Union address. I'm pretty sure someone once heckled Big Barrio. I think someone shouted, you lie at him during the State of the Union.

But anyway, these are history-making moments, and it is incredible. It is an incredible coincidence that the Republican Party make history by shouting at a black person and a president who was that black person's friend. Um, Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State, has also warned that China is already providing assistance, non-lethal support, as he said, which is also a tagline for the new range of bugle branded non-exploding underwear available from our website now. Sorry, already sold out. He said there's now concerns that China could be about to offer Roscoe or Russia, an upgraded package involving things that also go bang. And Blinken said, if China provides Russia with weapons, that would cause, quotes, a serious

problem for us and in our relationship. And I guess that's true of any relationship, isn't it? Always put strain on our relationship when you do start supplying lethal weapons to a blood-crazed despot. I don't, you know, it's certainly put, the biggest strain I've had in my marriage, which had been largely happy over 18 years now, was when I sent a box of chainsaws to Colonel Godaffey, and it is a real strain on things. I'm fascinated by the use of the phrase non-lethal support.

Technically football fans are providing non-lethal support to their teams every time they cheer for them. As in terms of non-lethal support, I guess you say sports fans too regarding a team, lethal support would be the example of me supporting Andy Salzman at the Andover Lights when I was Andy support act and what I did to that room was lethal. Now listen I just have a quick question about world wars. I've been thinking about world wars a lot. And you know the last nice one we had in the 1930s, apparently they had a bunch of months

of something called a phony war. So just like what's going on now, I guess they started a war and then overwinter they did nothing and then they started another war in the summer. And a lot of people are saying that this sort of thing might be what Putin is doing now. The trouble is, I don't think you can keep the Instagram generation hanging around that lot. I think you're going to do a world war for the Instagram generation. You can't do like nine months of nothing,

and then a Chinese balloon and five months of nothing. You know, I mean, I don't think this is a James Cameron film. People are not gonna wait 15 years for the next installment. I think it has to be a quicker thing. I don't know what you guys think. I mean maybe, you know, I mean, I'm in my 40s, I could wait a while for the world water play out, but I mean, my 23 year old cousin who's on TikTok all day, I don't think she can. Right, so I'm going to surprise Carl from the Bugle to accelerate the process of global armageddon

Interesting Well, we're on the subject of James Cameron movies the Republican Senator and total asshole Lindsey Graham Waded on the subject of if China was to help deliver weapons to Russian forces in Ukraine. He said that it would be a catastrophic thing to happen to the relationship between the US and China and he drew this analogy. It would be like buying a ticket on the Titanic after you saw the movie. Now, that makes absolutely cool sense. More concernedingly, what company is selling tickets to the Titanic after the movie has been released? Is white starliners doing a promo cruise tie-in to the release of the film?

Well actually, I mean also, you know, that actually would be quite a sound investment because, you know, the market for Titanic memorabilia is quite buoyant, you know, people are still fascinated by it. If you could get, if you could get, if you could find a ticket to the original Titanic, that actually might be an economically sound thing to invest your nation's money in. It's probably better than going on an actual cruise. But of course, it's not just China and Russia that poses a threat to the United States. Some very concerning news reached us this week via the internet, which is that America's

greatest threat now is coming from a Canadian pig, and not just any pig, but a super pig. The Canadians it seems from skin reading and quite possibly misinterpreting the article have been covertly breeding a hybrid crossbreed of a domestic pig and a wild boar if you will a kind of pork monto resulting in a new oinkster that could threaten American democracy almost as much as some of America's own presidents and TV channels. I mean, this is a huge concern, isn't it? That these pigs could infiltrate America, join the ranks of wild pigs in America,

which they're about only over six million. This Canadian super pig, apparently, can build snow caves to survive harsh winters. And if you give them enough time in a bit of funding, they could probably break into bank vaults, work undercover as an actuary and probably play tennis to a high level. These animals are described as being like a cross between Albert Einstein and a 1980s French rugby player.

Not in those terms, they're described as incredibly intelligent and highly elusive. And I mean, where now for America. It's under all these threats. And now there's this potential invasion of feral, ice hockey obsessed Canadian hybrid pigs. What is America going to do about this? I have to say the first thing I thought what I saw this headline was, wow, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is really plumbing some of the sk back catalog comic characters now that they've reached super pig I think we're in real trouble here I also am fascinated by the use of the phrase

elusive to describe a pig because if there's one phrase I do not associate with pigs it's elusive and it's definitely very few occasions I've gone, whoa, that pig got away from me. My God, it's like James Bond starring Babe, it's unbelievable. But they are, they are doing quite a lot of damage. The wild or feral pigs cause about $1.5 billion, worth of damage every single year.

And the pigs are also creating competition for food in the wild because they're accomplished predators. Again, these are not words that I associate with pigs. Unless Babe 3 is gonna be a very, very dark and brutal horror movie. It is a huge worry for it. And just to put that sum of money in context, $1.5 billion a year of damage caused by world pigs in America already, that is over 1% of a Brexit, which is estimated to be damaging the British economy by £100 billion a year. And that's, that's a wild pigs.

I mean, that's quite a good chunk of a Brexit. That shows quite all these pigs. I don't, I guess the difference is the damage done by wild pigs in their feral natural state has slightly more of a discernible purpose than Brexit. But still, 1.5 billion is, that's a lot of gratuitous carnage. I watch a lot of films, okay? I make no apologies for that. Here's what I know from

Disaster Cinema and Action movies. If you've got a wild, like genetically engineered wild animal on the loose, what you have to do, you have to release a second genetically engineered wild animal. This is, we are simply in the opening act of Godzilla vs Kong. And what I suggest we now do is try and get a lion to f*** a dog and make a mega dog. That's the only way out of this situation. The only way you're going to catch a super pig is with a mega dog mega dog. Indian news now and well this is a story that we hinted at earlier on. Tax officials have raided the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai. It's been viewed as potential revenge for a documentary that the BBC aired that was critical of Narendra Modi and Evabiora overlaid in Master. Just to explain what's happened,

why and whether the BBC is indeed, as has been alleged on Indian media, funded by China. And if so, does that mean that they will start paying me more for my cricket stats? Yes, it's the answer. That's the one we're done. Now look, I really don't know what this Guardian article is going on about. There's a headline in various British newspapers, this headline, there's an opinion column in the Guardian this week, from a gentleman called Kinaan Malik who says, India enjoyed a free and vibrant media and now Narendra

Modi's brazen attacks are a catastrophe. So the BBC did two documentaries on Prime Minister Modi who apparently in the year 2002 was responsible for some small bits of genocide. The Supreme Court let him go so I don't know what the people are talking about so he was freed but there was some human rights reports in rubbish like that saying he was guilty Not a large number of people only 2500 people died And again, it was widespread violence various communities died It just happened to be 99% Muslim, but it was widespread All communities were involved just statistically just happened to be by completely by mistake one particular religion So you know know he's been

blamed for all of these things and the BBC decided to do a documentary to see where India is now after these attacks etc and they said that apparently Prime Minister Modi was in some way responsible and that you know he should take account and the BJP is somehow fascist. But you know, he should take account and the BJP is somehow fascist. Now I've seen no evidence of this, right? This is a free and fair country. Everyone listening to this, I want you to know this, including the people who've tapped my internet. I've put it in a...

And whatever version of this recording is going to the Home Ministry, I want everyone to know that I live in a free and fair democracy and I see no connection, zero connection and you know both you and Nisha political observers of of Britain and India you would know this. I see no connection between a tax rate on the BBC three days after the documentary came. No, no, no. Tax rates happen in India all the time. Somehow, statistically, they happen two or three days after you criticize the government. That could just be how the income tax department operates. How do we know the inner workings of the income tax department? You don't.

So, it's a major possibility. So, again, I am fully supportive of what the income tax department does. I'm just about to file my returns. So, you know, they're wonderful, wonderful organizations. They just, they just timing happen to be, unfortunately, they just happen to be just literally two days after that. And, you know, there are things you have to do in an income tax rate, which is fairly common, like keeping about 50 journalists sort of

imprisoned overnight over three days and taking away their telephones. These are things you just have to do. I mean you guys have faced it, I'm sure, with the HMRC, you've gone in there. They've taken away your telephone, you can't go out. I mean it's just standard, you know, because you filed the wrong expense. Yeah, it's just basic concerns. Are you really isn't it? Yeah, so I don't really know what the BBC is complaining about, you know, it's, you know, it's just an unfortunate timing issue. And, you know, there's, there's really, I have no, no complaints on Prime Minister Modi. He's doing a fantastic job. And, you know, I mean, I suppose if we did this podcast a different time where the two people posted outside my door had left.

Then perhaps we could have a different discussion. But currently, I really don't know what the fracas are all about. The Indian government apparently described the documentary, Nish, as colonial propaganda and hostile garbage, which I think was also words said about my act and your act at the end over lights. So, on their way out.

Um, maybe there were Indian government people reviewing that short gentleman. They're everywhere. There is so much hypocrisy at work here. There's Elon Musk, the sort of the dog shit Tony Stark, had said that he was an absolutist when it came to free speech. However, when faced with the prospect of Nurendra Modi

and the BJP, Musk came completely and Twitter has removed clips of this from its website. It's very, very, very sinister. Also, the hypocrisy doesn't end just at Elon Musk. A spokesman for the BJP, which is the Reds and the Rondes political party, took the opportunity to describe the BBC as the most corrupt organisation in the world. Now, an Indian politician accusing somebody of corruption. It's not so much the pot calling the kettle black as it is the pot Bribing a string of people to refer to the kettle as black and join in calling it black as often as humanly possible

Look, I mean, you know, I just slightly to disagree with Mish Then he's absolutely right that there was a loss of electricity at Jawaharlana narrow university where they tried to screen this documentary. But you know there are power cuts often in Delhi and sometimes they happen to be targeted in a specific room at a university. I mean there's power everywhere else but you just that room happens to lose electricity for a couple of hours. It's perfectly normal and then again good point is you, who is more objective? The British podcasting corporation, which is an independent body covering news all over the world, or an Indian politician who says spokesperson of the government. Now, who is more objective? Obviously, the Indian politician. And just one last point I want to make out of this, lots of

authors and writers have been saying, you know, we don't have freedom of speech in India, comedians are saying we don't have, you know, the government is very strict, etc. It's not completely true at all. Arun Nathiroy, the famous novelist to won the Book of Prize, wrote a scaring piece on Prime Minister Modi, came out in the Guardian last week, and she's happy, you know, everyone's happy that she wrote it,

and she's complete freedom to write this. She's sitting in Norway and writing it, but that's a different thing, you know, everyone's happy that she wrote it and she's it has complete freedom to write this. She's sitting in Norway and writing it, but that's a different thing, you know, you know, that's just, it's just where she happens to be and that's fine, you know, Salman Rushdie noted novelist has been saying, you know, terrible things are going on in India about the BJP, right after he came out of his attack and, you know, again, he's, he's saying that, you know, very much within within you know I mean right now he happens to be New York and he hasn't come to India for the last four years but they didn't give him a visa but again he's free to say these there's complete freedom gentlemen so

I don't I don't know what the issue is here? Moving on to some UK news, since we last broadcast to you, Nicholas Sturgeon, the first Minister of Scotland and head of the Scottish National Party, has unexpectedly resigned, essentially due to the fact that British politics has become so toxic, that if you washed it with water from a British beach, it would end up cleaner than it's done. You can't really put it in any greater context from that. She resigned whilst she is still well ahead in the opinion polls and the S.N.P. although its popularity has been declining is still ahead, which does suggest that she has not

read the British manual of political resignations in which you are supposed to leave in total an abject chaos. You're supposed to insist you are right all along and you're supposed to be so unpopular with the voting public that even your own pencil screams and runs out of the room when it sees you. But she's left, as I said, a head in the polls and admitting regret at some of her decisions and mistakes. So it's a very unusual sort of resignation for a British politician to make. No, and it, I tell you what, it's this absolute, and I hate it, Jacinda Arden's influence. People resigning with dignity and giving speeches where they emphasize their humanity has no place in politics.

You should be frog marched out of there by your own MPs or you need to resign, been weighed down by so many scandals that you're actually physically incapable of standing up. And also, we talked about this on last week's news quiz, which you could hear at Bugleys. If you want to hear it on BBC Sounds, and this was part of that team that she is outlived in terms of her term of office, four prime ministers. So she's on the fifth now. She came to power in 2014. The only possible explanation is that in 2014, she went into an antique shop, she bought a

magic lamp, she rubbed it, she was granted three wishes by a genie. She asked, firstly, for an infinite supply of red suits, secondly, for an invisible triceratops to accompany her wherever she goes, obviously she got those two. And thirdly, to stay as First Minister of Scotland, while there were five different Prime Ministers in Westminster. Now, on the basis of how many prime ministers there had been up to 2014, she should have been in power until about the year 2040 rather than 2023 as has been. She also called on Poland politicians, this kind of concept, this kind of a how toxic and confrontational politics has become. She's called on politicians to reach across the divide, but the problem is we're in the 2020s and when politicians reach across the divide,

it's generally so that they can extend a middle finger to whoever is on the other side of that divide. I'm always interested in you know these wonderful sort of leaders who you know like Jacinda Arden I think her farewell speech she said she didn't have enough left in the tank. And Nicholas Tergent, her speech said, I've spent a lot of time on Nicholas Tergent, the politician. I'm now interested in the person. I just, I, I, there aren't enough men politicians with graceful speeches. But first of all, they don't seem to leave. And when they leave, it's always, you know, I'm sorry, those were not my pants. You know, I'm talking about like that. Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives,

that's the Conservatives, the Conservative Party in Scotland, accused Sturgeon of presiding over a decade of division and decay. Now, that's a conservative, accusing another politician of presiding over division and decay. Now that's a conservative accusing another politician of presiding over division and decay. Now of course it's quite possible that he meant this as a rare compliment from a conservative politician to an opponent, but it's also equally possible that that distance and you can hear is the concept of irony just disappearing down the plug hole of politics. He accused Virginals of governing in her party's interests rather than the countries and said that she'd left the nation in a state of paralysis due to the toxic legacy

of a referendum. That is a conservative making those allegations irony, you will be much missed but you are now dead. In other arts news, well this is an astonishing story. A German Ballahy company director has been fired after, and I wish I was making this up. Smirring dog shit in the face of a critic who had criticised his productions. Now obviously that's not just a response to criticism that is assault. Ideally he should have collected the dog log, put it in a body gradable plastic bag and then made his point forcefully, perhaps in the medium of a bit of dance, so he just agree with the critic, but he's made dog shits in the critic's face and refused to apologise and he's now been fired.

But I mean, this is niche. I mean, I know you like me have not always been on the receiving end of unalloyed critical praise. Have you ever been attempted to respond with some sort of physical counterattack? I mean, listen, I think all of us would be lying if we said that at no point have we ever contemplated smearing dog shit in a critics face. I think every one of us, I think everyone who has ever received a negative review would be absolutely telling lies to themselves and everyone around them if they said they hadn't thought to themselves, find me the nearest dog's a-ness. I have a mission. That here's the

thing. Crucially, you give it five seconds and you go, oh that would be holy and appropriate. I don't know what has happened to this person that he misled those crucial five seconds of dog shit contemplation. I don't know what has happened to this person's life that he didn't go, oh my god, it's a bad review, it would be an extreme overreaction to even confront this person in real life. Well, I don't know, gentlemen, I mean, I feel like it's done quite a lot for ballet audiences. People get back to watching ballet again. I think some physical violence is necessary when audiences are dwindling. I just like to bring up the playwright Henry Gibson in this

instance. When he wrote Dollshouse, the famous play, the critics hated it so much that a group of people followed him around for a whole week trying to throw stones at him. Even as he was trying to drop his son to school, now that group of people that hated the place so much dwindled but never went away. So even on the seventh day there were still five or six people trying to throw stones at it. That's how much they hated the play and I think it's done a lot for dolls house the play it's still produced I think I mean I I think although you know instead of actual shit It's much better if you know

Some sort of language can can replace actual feces like I'll give you the sample The very first player wrote I worked in the theatre for many years, the very first player I wrote, the name of the play was Fatwa and it was about two failed novelists and the reviewer writing in time out did a very good job and his last line of his review was, this Fatwa needs no dead sentence. And I thought that that's such a good line. I could meet him somewhere and find a dog and throw feces at him, but I need to think of a line cleverer than that. I would say and bugles are aware of my professional history. If I were to smear dog shit in the faces of everyone who has written negative things about me in the British press. I would basically be filling a dog bowl with dog food and an inordinate amount of weapons grade hot sauce

at the moment. It would be a real drag on my week to week schedule if every time someone writes something negative about me in the press. I'm smearing dog shit on their face. Maybe this guy's just enjoyed too many years of, you know, unadulterated praise. You, I would say to him, I wish I'd been able to talk to him before he crouched behind the dogs, I just say, if you don't realize as you're crouching

behind a shitting dog, ready to pick up its fecal matter to smear on the face of someone who wrote something slightly negative, if in the crouch you don't realize you think they've gone very badly for you, then I don't think I can help you. Even as I was trying to provide a solution, I thought no, because as you're standing next to the dog's asshole thinking, right, come on, give me the good stuff. If you don't realize that what you're doing is stupid, then you are beyond health.

Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha because it's Tuesday afternoon and I have to go and humiliate Nish on the football. Nish and I have to go and play football together down in Crystal Palace. Anything to plug before we go? No, I just want to quickly say I'll be reviewing the game so I look forward to some dog shit from my mailbox later in the week. Later in the week. If you live in the UK episodes of Hold the Front Page are still available on Sky, on Demand or now TV. I say episodes the entire things are available. So you can watch that if you want. Or not if you don't.

Thank you for listening to Big Rose. We'll be back next week, goodbye.