The Bugle - Bugle 274 – Beard means business

Episode Date: September 25, 2014

The world meets again to discuss the environment, and this time it has beards! Famous people with beards! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hello, we you glues and welcome to issue 274 of the Bugle at Season 2 episode 2 with me and his ultimate live in London where the celebrations are continuing a pace. After this great city was revealed this week to have overtaken Hong Kong the world's Quotes most expensive city for companies to locate employees Much more so the New York so for now at the bugle we sadly cannot afford to have all three of us here So whilst clearly Chris and I have to be right at the epicenter everything We still have to leave this man over the pond slumming it in bargain basement man-hatten one day We might be able to afford to relocate him back to civilization.

But for now, in New York City, it's the comedic cactus himself in that he can find humour even in the driest of topics and has hundreds of pricks spread over his entire body. Sorry, that's a perfect old secret. It's John Oliver! Hello Andy, hello, Vueglis. Not here you go a little blue right at the top of the family.

Just a little of the fun, a little bit of fun for the dads. Well Andy, you're right, I'm in New York as you know which is a little bit hectic at the best of times but once a year Andy, whenever the UN General Assembly is on, this city goes fucking crazy. The security everywhere is such that the roads are basically gridlocked for an entire week, and it's hard to get anywhere for any reason at any time. And I had a particularly visual example of that on Monday.

I was in a cab heading to a hotel where I had to shoot something, and we were barely moving. And the cab driver was screaming to himself the whole time about the UN assembly. At one point screaming again to himself, saying, can't they fucking do this someplace else? Now, unfortunately, I engaged at that point, and he pointed out to him that the UN's headquarters

were in New York, so it would be very difficult for them to do it somewhere else. They are literally anchored to the east side of Manhattan, and to his credit, he instantly accepted that logic, saying, yeah, you're right, you're right about that. But then said, I wouldn't mind all this traffic if they actually got anything done in there. And then, after a brief pause,

in a moment of distilled truth, he said, actually to be honest, even if they did solve all the world's problems, this traffic would still fucking annoy me. You're telling me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's right, Andy, to be fair, traffic is annoying. That's what you learned from that, Alex.

Traffic is extremely annoying. LAUGHTER So, as always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. Now, it's been a week here in Britain, John. We've just been luxuriating in the delights of still existing as a nation because England's won the Scottish devolution referendum. I believe that's what happened 55 to 45. What should learn? Crimea that is a believable percentage of the vote 96 percent questions will be asked 55 percent

No one's going to look too closely into it. That's just basic electoral strategy But if the vote had gone the other way we would probably by now have disintegrated into a pile of dust and dissolved into the Atlantic. I'm not sure if that was one of the official skirmongering facts, but it's basically true. So for the section that have been this week, to commemorate the ongoing union, we have Construct your own audio-union jack, Part 1. A period of silence. Twice as wide as it is high.

Next week, something blue and triangular. TOP STORY THIS WEEK, THE MARCH OF THE PROTESTERS, HOW TO SAVE THE EARTH BY WALKING ALL OVER IT. And last Sunday, there were huge climate marches all over this planet. I don't know about any other ones, but this one definitely had some huge climate marches all over it.

And the biggest one, again, was right here in New York, Andy. That's right. The big apple comes through again. When we do something, we do it eye-catchingly huge. Whether it's a slice of cheesecake or a climate change march, we will do it on a scale that will make you think, how is that even logistically possible? Now apparently around 300,000 people

hit the streets of New York to try and focus the world's attention on global warming, which is interesting Andy, were it not for the fact that every single day in this city, there are 8 million people on the same streets trying to focus the world's attention on the same streets trying to focus the world's attention on the fact that they're fucking walking here! You're fucking walking here! Get your f**k in here! I'm walking here! Was anyone doing that every day?

Was anyone holding that up as a banner or not? Well I think that's the next step isn't it? Walker and we're in plac, so I am walking here. And somebody get me a coffee. And do you think it's works? Because I was reading about this and I came to the conclusion that the planet is one of those kind of things that's never fully appreciated until it's gone, like a parachute or a justice system or a single scoop of ice cream or the concept of hope. Yeah, I really liked the planet, John.

So I was pleased that New York is stepping up to this plate. Well, the events organizers here estimated the turnout was actually more than 300,000, making it the largest or one of the largest environmental related protests in the history of the US. And at one point in the early afternoon, the march apparently came to a complete halt because the entire 2.2 mile route was full to capacity, meaning that at that point,

it wasn't so much a march anymore, it was a stand. It was the largest ever stand for climate change in US history. And it really was an incredible site to see people so energized over it. There was even a minute's noise at one point. But I can tell you who was not so keen on the whole thing, Andy. My dog. She really was not sure what to think about the thousands of people who were suddenly outside where she lives, banging things, blowing things, and waving signs around. I think that when

she sees a protest sign, she really just sees a criminal misuse of a stick. You can see, you can see inner eyes, her thinking, take that placard off it, turn the pole sideways and put it in your mouth. It's not rocket science and it feels great. But also, is it not true that when you got that dog, how old was she? She's just a couple of months old. She's three, oh yeah, just a couple of months. And did you not buy her as a sort of welcome to the family presence, a large number of shares in Exxon mobile as well? I did, I did because you know it made sense. I was thinking about her future and the other thing that she was concerned about, I think she probably agreed

with almost everything the protest of her marching for. I just think there was undeniably a selfish part of which very much resented the fact that it interrupted her regular routine of taking a quiet early morning dump on her part. And it's threw her off for the rest of the day. I think it's thinking about long-term rather than short-term, but when the short-term is that important, you can see why she was pissed. That's right. She had to change her emissions and that's the strong message to take away. So it's achieved some change, I guess. But it's interesting now that this has been,

seems to have been a slight turning of the tide, because generally expectations at these things are pretty low on the evidence of previous summits. Yeah, expectations for anything useful coming out of it. About the same as the expectations of a one meter cube of lead that's just entered a wobbliest dessert competition. But John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, has promised to put climate change quotes,

front and center of American diplomacy. I think, you know, it's always been front and center, very much like a pair of glasses on a box's face in that it's most likely the first thing to get knocked off when things get tricky. I think there probably has been a change of the ties probably something to do with the rising of the f***ing tide all over the earth. But the New York rally was actually just part of this global protest that included events in 156 countries including Afghanistan, the UK, Italy and Brazil. In Brazil, the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio had environmental slogans under the green heart projected on him and 5,000 marches turned out. But again, that doesn't seem that impressive a turnout for Brazil. I'm pretty sure you can get 20,000

Brazilians to turn up to something. If you just promised them they could watch a man kick an orange. I'm seriously, 20,000 people for that handy. You could get 50,000 if you told them he was going to try and kick the orange into some kind of net. And it's not that they don't have serious environmental problems in Brazil. First, Rio is in Brazil, and Brazil is on the Earth.

So they have pretty similar concerns to the rest of us there. And even at the local level, there is huge controversy over there at the moment over a golf course for the 2016 Olympics, which is being built in a nature reserve. And it's hard to know where to even begin to unpack that sentence. First, golf is evidently and unnecessarily coming back to the Olympics after a much needed 112-year absence. That is ridiculous. And the only way they can make it even more ridiculous seems to be building an entirely unnecessary new golf course in an environmentally protected area in some of Rio's last public-grade space.

What more, Andy? What more majestic site is there than watching a red bird fly majestically out of a protected Rio woodland. Only to see it's decapitated by a flying calaway golf ball hit by an overweight six-year-old businessman from Florida on vacation. It's the circle of life, Andy, just like Elton squawked. Well, I think you're reading this wrong, John. It very much depends on the type of nature reserve it is. And a lot of sports have to change and modernize when they accept into the Olympic family. Golf clearly, from now, we'll have to build all its courses in nature reserves. But to make the sport more exciting, these nature reserves will be populated by apex predators.

Now, you cannot tell me this will not make golf, a significantly tiger versus tiger as God intended. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. The language used at the UN after the climate march has been strong, but of course, the UN specialises in non-bonding strong language, Andy.

They've created some of the best sounding suggestions in human history. A banking moon said humanity had to act because, and I quote, this is the planet where our subsequent generations will live. There is no plan P because we do not have planet B. No plan P. Speak for yourself, Moon. That is nothing but a failure of imagination on your part. What about moon colonies? Floating eco-tones. Everyone living underground in Warrens. I'm not saying any of those are plausible Andy, but he didn't talk about plausible plan Bs. He just said

plan Bs. Also, I'm going to call bullshit on each other, but just in the same week, India has put a satellite into orbit around Mars, becoming a force nation to do so at a cost of just 45 million pounds. That is bargain for a Mars trip, but then context. That is enough to pay the daily minimum ways to about, around about 45 million Indians, only one day. So that makes it a bargain. I want to put it another way. It's the cost of a toilet seat in billionaire Mukesh Ambani's billion dollar house in Mumbai. Either way, a bargain, but this, John, is the first step to India setting up a colony on Mars. I can't have anything that might have focused on other more important national

problems, such as the inability of their batsmen to construct a proper test match innings, but anyway, let's not be judgmental. And furthermore, scientists have discovered a cloud-free atmosphere on a distant planet, the size of Neptune, the smallest exoplanet ever to reveal its chemical composition, John, it's got water vapor on it. This suggests that we could live there. This is the get out of jail free card that Ban Ki Moon is so studiously ignoring a new planet we can take over. Currently designated HATP-11B, it's not a great name for a planet, but we could fund the

whole expedition by selling the naming rights. Also, it's only 124 light years away. That's no biggy I reckon light probably isn't as fast as it used to be. These things get old and out of shape. It's about 1 quadrillion kilometres away, it's a bit of a hike, but they used to think it was a long way from London to Edinburgh, and now we are unbilically joined forever. And it's four times the width of our home world, which just to me makes it sound like four times as much room for parties. So this is the future, John. We have a plan B. President Obama in his speech said, nobody gets a pass on climate change to the stifled gaffors of the companies in the background,

sitting behind him, oh, this guy's hilarious. We don't get him, oh, carry on, sorry, sorry. Then we're not to say, we recognize our role in creating this problem. We embrace our responsibility to combat it. I think he might be wildly misusing the word embrace there. It's a pretty reluctant embrace of that responsibility here in the US to put it mildly.

It's really the kind of embrace you give to someone who you wish would just fucking go away. In fact, America embraces the responsibility to end climate change the way a wrestler embraces another wrestler. It might look affectionate if you're not really watching them closely, but if you pay close or attention, he's actually trying to choke the other wrestler unconscious.

And also, you know, it's all been arranged way in advance, so there's nothing you can do about the end result. This was the first world leaders meeting on climate change for five years, since the 2009 meetings collapsed, in what can only be described as hilarious political slapstick. Five years ago, no point rushing back into into these things and we had 120 different government leaders each making a four minute speech i for one cannot wait for that DVD box set to come out that is going to be absolutely unmissable but of course they were all over shadowed because one man who is not a government leader made a speech and he is a famous and be pretty. And that man of course was Leonardo DiCaprio who said this. He said you can either make history or be vilified by it. A statement which I'm sure a certain prominent 20th century European despots would strongly argue with having proved that it's possible to both make history and be extremely vilified by it.

Yeah, he spoke to the UN Leonardo da Caprio sporting a beard and you know an actor is serious Andy when they put their beards on. Facial hair obscuring an objectively perfect face is a clear request to be taken seriously. Leonardo da Caprio is clearly saying, I know you cannot be trusted to focus on anything other than my boy-skin and chisel charm. So I will temporarily cover that up with on-camp whiskers until you have listened to what I have to say, which you will for you know what lies beneath these bristles. Respect my face, but do not be distracted by it. That's what he's saying, Anthony. He addressed the delegate saying,

I pretend for a living, but you do not. And I guess, I get what he's trying to say there, Andy, but I honestly don't think he's giving global politicians the performance jobs they do. Absolutely. Like you can put in some pretty self-serving performance skills once in a while. He also said, because the world's scientific community has spoken, and they have given

us our prognosis, if we do not act together, we will surely perish, which does suggest that if we do act together, we will not perish, John. DeCaprio is offering us the immortality of his own use. Yes. Yes. What a hero. Respect the beard. Respect it. Yes, yes, what a hero. Respect the beard.

He also said cleaner and water and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. All right, Lenin now try making a f***ing profit out of it. Not so easy, petrol, whiskey and summer holidays, also inalienable human rights, much more lucrative. So you can see why the business priorities might lie. Perhaps the most notable thing in the UN Chamber was perhaps not who was there for the climate speech but who was not there because yes on one hand you had over 100 heads of state

which is clearly a good thing. The only gigantic problem was the non-attendance from the leaders of China and India, the title holders of the planet's first and third largest carbon emitters respectively. And that's clearly not ideal Andy. That's like having a sandwich meets convention and not having bacon or turkey turn up. Sure, it's nice to have you here, Ham. It's nice to have you here. But I think it might be best if we postpone until the big boys turn up.

But you did the right thing, Ham. I'm not angry with you, Ham. John, I think, you know, was it eight, eight, nine years ago, before you moved to the States, I think you'd have gone with chicken rather than turkey there. Yeah. That's a sadder here. I don't know if you're... Yeah, I don't know if you put chicken in a sandwich, as a sandwich, mate, Andy. What mate? A sandwich, mate.

You might as well burn your passport. I don't know. Do you still have a passport? MUSIC But still, despite all this, there are a number of skeptics, not only Tony Abbott and possibly the leaders of China and India. But you still get climate change skeptics. And the sciences are overwhelming, but there's very little that can be done when people willfully

take something out of context to make it look like essentially opposite of what it was for preventing the frothing rage of anonymous keyboard warriors driven on by irresponsible headline seeking journalists. And that's often what happens with climate change. And it's always vulnerable, science, climate science, to the classic skeptics retort, which is simply, no, a no-tongue, the president of Kiribati, one of the Pacific, a small island nation in the Pacific Ocean, visited the Arctic before this week's meeting in New York and said, I have seen how much ice is being lost, and it is very serious, to which the obvious response is, no you haven't. And besides, do we actually need the Arctic? What does it actually do? But despite the science

being unanimous, John, maybe this debate is not concluded because we've all seen 12 angry men, the famous legal drama where an adjury at a murder trial is almost unanimous. Apart from one lone dissenting voice whom everyone else thinks is barking mad. But in time, that man, the Henry Fonda character in the film, gradually sways all the others, until eventually they all change their minds and let the murderer off, stroke, find him not guilty, technical legal terms for the same thing in most newspapers. Now, perhaps climate change, skepticism will prove to be the Henry Fonda of the 21st century. Now, admittedly, in the global warming case, the jury for

the murder case contains not just 12 men, but thousands and thousands of experts in their field who have all done extensive research into every available piece of evidence. The accused man in the case has basically handed himself into a police station, covered head-to-to-toe in blood, dumped a coffin on the counter, saying, pop open this box, I've just killed a guy inside it, he might want to take me in for questioning. Here's the ornamental cemetery I've used, and if you examine my clothing I think you've found the splatter pattern really backs up my story, cuff misage, before I get away. And the Henry Fonda character has been paid a fortune, it turns out, by a multinational

hot drink company, NotGill PLC, who will do anything to make the case fall down because whenever a defendant is acquitted, they see a spike in sales of their top selling brand, NotGill T. Is this still on? Andy. because whenever a defendant is acquitted, they see a spike in sales of their top selling brand, not Guilty. Is this still on? Andy? Well, Andy. Andy. What? Just, I just want you to take a moment and think about what you just said. This is a teachable moment for yourself.

Don't let this opportunity slip by. Think of me as Leonardo daCaprio with a beard and he'll give you a better instinct here, Andy. You can make a change. The tide is turning. Business seems to be jumping on this hobby horse now as well. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund posted a message on its website announcing it was committing to a two-step process to address its desire to divest from investments in fossil fuels, which is quite a few qualifying words away from selling all its investments in fossil fuels. But it's a step, John, in the right direction.

This is a business empire built on oil. The Rockefeller's turning against fossil fuels. That is equivalent to August Rodan saying, actually, sculpture is a pile of shit. I'm just going to make biscuits instead. Or Heston Blumenthal saying, you know what, from now on, all I'm cooking is beans on toast. So maybe there's some genuine progress to be grasped at. The food at the summit for the world leaders was provided by the New York-based American celebrity chef, Skluton Malvin, who provided some environment-themed dishes for the world leaders, for starters,

controlled emissions of aerosoled hockey stick courgettes. Then a main course of Italian chicken steamed in a leather casing that's Cape on die oxide. Served with the froth forested broccoli stems on a failed summer of Hope Crush potatoes, offset with footprints of carbonated ham leg, served with Kyoto protocolliflowers floating on acidified micro oceans of miso rabble soup. Absolutely delicious.

Your emails now, and we have an email here from Eric Schnell who says, dear Andy Chris and John, in order of who would look best dressed as an Eric Shnell for Halloween. So it was like, what's that? Neville Chamberlain's nickname for Hitler. Little Eric Shnell's getting a bit uppity. Little Eric. So he says, I don't know how much you keep up with modern technology, but recently Apple has released iOS 8. And with that, they've done what we've all been waiting for since the invention of smartphones.

They have added f***ing urology to their spell check dictionary. That's f***ing huge Andy. This pretty much means the f***ing urology is an official word. And in a few weeks, operating the levy hipster will be using it. At this rate, overly f***ing urology will be the most used words during the 2016 elections,

in which, of course, Andy will be the surprise winner. And you guys will be finally be able to rest easy at night, Eric Schnell. That is huge, Andy, but we've always wanted to make an impact in the world that was pointless and that the very least did not contribute anything to it and that the very most took something away. And I think we've done it, Anthony.

Well, I think the whole of series one has now been proved worthwhile. It was all building to that. This one comes in from Margot in Brussels, who writes, dear Chris John and Andy, in order of who knows more about sports sports sports plural S. Oh dear, that's the Americanization. I should point out so I talked over The beginning of the previous email because in order of who from that one was particularly good in order of who would look best dressed as a

Hip hop bottomers for Halloween. I'm sorry if that got lost but that was a That was a beautiful image and I'm flat. I'm flat. I'm flat. I'm mentally. I'm flattered. And I'm probably a fair order as well. I'm flat and I'm mentally I'm the only one who has photos of myself dressed as a hippopotamus for Halloween out there on the internet. Anyway, Margot from Brussels writes, I was very happy to hear that the bugle was back on track after a long summer break. Imagine my surprise then when Andy citing Andy Murray's Yes Scotland tweet, cited tennis

champion, Alison Van Oite Vanks' name. Alison and I share the same last name, but that's not what blew me away with the fact that Andy pronounced it correctly. That has never happened in my 23 year existence, said Margot, so thank you Andy. I have no idea of Alison and I are related, but now that she's appeared on the bugle, I just might try and contact her. So you are welcome. Now the interesting thing is, I had no idea how to pronounce that, but such is my umbilical connection with the world of sport. I just

naturally got it right. You can't argue with that level of spiritual connection. Do keep your emails coming in to info at thebugelpodcast.com. Quick thanks to all of those who've come to and contributed to my so-how theatre run of Saturist for High. I hope you've enjoyed it. This coming week I'm at the Exist of Phoenix on Thursday, the 2nd of October, Warikart centre on Friday, the 3rd and the Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton on Saturday, the 4th, which will be my last ever gig as someone below the age of 40. Holy shit, I can almost hear the reaper sharpening his golf clubs,

John. I think that's a golf club he carries with them, isn't it? It's some kind of hybrid wedge stroke putter, I think, very long club. That's right. He's got a pick in club for your soul and it's got a long club hit because he has a bad back in camp and over. But please keep those atypical requests coming into satirize this at satrisforhard.com. The following week from the eighth to the 11th of October, I'll be in York, Harrogate, Sheffield and Solihull and a free complimentary orange to anyone who comes to all four of those gigs. I've stocked up with all the oranges I should need for that prize.

Man, am I looking forward to that orange? So anyway, I'll see you all of those gigs. And in the list of venues, I gave a couple of weeks ago, and I'm afraid I gave out some false information. That's the first time on the show that I've not told the absolute gods honest, scientifically very viable truth. I can only apologise. I was working off what turn, I've been old version of my tour schedule with the ruthlessly efficient self promotion for which I'm rightly renowned. The correct list of dates is at the Saturdays for high website. If you'd say your heart on semen, Swindon, Cambridge or gilford, I can only humbly apologise for raising your hopes only to dash them

heartlessly on the icy butchers block of cold hard reality. So that is it for this week's Bugle, thanks very much for listening and we will be back in this newly saved planet next week. Goodbye! Thank you.