The Bugle - Bugle 4143 - Official Coronavirus Survival Guide

Episode Date: March 7, 2020

Wash your ears before listening! Andy is with Josh Gondleman and Anuvab Pal to take a global look at the pandemic. Plus riots in India and the Democratic primary latest.Listen to our other show, The L...ast Post, now: http://pod.link/TheLastPost Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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 a real thing that's going to happen. TheBuglePodcast.com to support the Danciler Guard Reader. The Last Post. There's a new episode every day, including today.
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Starting point is 00:01:18 I am Andy Zoltman and if there's one thing in the world I know, then I should probably read up a bit more about the world and B, it's almost certainly something about sport. I am in London, a city in lockdown, it literally has not moved from its place by the Thames for upwards of 250 years, maybe more, and joining me from across the ponds, from the city that never sleeps well, that's the word in that sentence, people always miss miss out the city that never sleeps well or indeed not enough New York Not one but two guest co-hosts from the USA itself Josh Gondelman and from India currently Delayed in the USA due to a topic. We will be turning too shortly Anu Vapal. Hello, Andy. Hello. Hi How's house house? This room is terrific.
Starting point is 00:02:10 And but the rest of it. Oh, shambles. Oh, okay. Well, you stay safely in Skonsten, that comforting studio in New York. So talk us through why you're still in America. So apparently Andy, nobody told me, but there's this virus going around? All right, okay. Yeah, apparently it's the thing. I guess I should talk to people more, but I was in Silicon Valley doing a show, and I don't know if you know, but Silicon Valley is now mostly a part of the Republic of India. It's a place, it's called the Bay Area, it's a We Do All the Technology, it mostly belongs to us now, and I had gone there and I was just supposed to have a layover of one night in New York City, but the airlines apparently don't want to take people across oceans anymore, and so now I am in this studio, I'm living
Starting point is 00:03:01 in this studio with Josh for the whole weekend. I am just here for the company. That's correct. So it's a lovely story if, yeah. When you said that you went to Silicon Valley and were delayed by a virus, at first I thought computer virus. Of course. All the planes stopped flying.
Starting point is 00:03:20 It was like a Y2K type thing that hit 20 years late. That's exactly what it is, Josh. It's the flu that hit 20 years late. That's exactly what it is, Josh. It's the flu that met a Microsoft bug. That's what happened. Oh, that's a story of romance, exactly. As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week, a home schooling section. What to teach children who schools have been
Starting point is 00:03:41 coronavirused off if you, as a parents, are too busy with your own stuff to really pay attention Hashtag 21st Century parenting, Hashtag those phones don't check themselves. So we have a official bugle guide to how to keep your children educated and occupied when they're stuck at home a philosophy class. Do you ask Getman to write a 10,000 word essay entitled What is an Orange? Maths make them calculate the surface area of absolutely everything in your house, then divide it by the number of units of electricity used if you switch everything on at the same time. Language, for language cautious, getting to call random overseas numbers and pretend to be
Starting point is 00:04:21 from an internet provider threatening to cut off their service, and if they can work out the entertaining international swirlers that will inevitably come back at them. And if you want a reconvenient all in one lesson for your home, temporarily homeschooled children, encompassing chemistry, physics, biology, sociology, economics, geography, history, and politics, just get them to cook an egg.
Starting point is 00:04:41 That's basically everything if you read enough into it. Anyway, that section is in the bin. We are recording on the 6th of March in the year 2020. On this day in 1869, the periodic table was launched by Russian science buff in Dmitry Mendolev. Up until then, when Mendolev laid out that there were loads of different elements, no one really knew that metal wasn't just metal, but was in fact lots of different types of metal, or that gases couldn't be categorized as either air or stinky air. Mendeleev made things a hell of a lot more complicated and things have been unraveling ever since. So we pay tribute to the man who 150 years ago stopped stuff from just being stuff. Thanks a f*** of a lot, you dead bastard. Also, on the, tomorrow, the 7th of March,
Starting point is 00:05:27 is the 100th anniversary of the 7th of September, 1907, a day which for some reason, the store in Stiller understand happened 13 and a half years late. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP B Top story, once again, the coronavirus is dominating this planet, which is pretty impressive, given how small it is, and yet to make an official statement. So we're really having to interpret what its motives are as a virus. They're very elusive these little creatures. This planet is in full quarantine. No aliens have been allowed to land at Roswell this week.
Starting point is 00:06:03 That's the first week with no alien landings at Roswell since 1956, if my sources are to be believed here in Britain. We are at panic stations. Obviously it's Britain. So at panic stations, the panic trains are running late. Everyone is just standing looking grumpy on the platform, muttering, when is this bloody panic actually going to arrive? Probably won't be able to get on it when it does.
Starting point is 00:06:24 What's the point? I'm just going to give up and stay calm for the day. This country can't even bloody panic actually going to arrive? Probably won't be able to get on it when it does. What's the point? I'm just gonna give up and stay calm for the day. This country can't even bloody panic on time anymore. The British government's released a 28 page battle plan to take on the coronavirus. Compared, as we mentioned last week, I had a 30 page plan for the Brexit negotiations. So the coronavirus is mathematically 93.3%
Starting point is 00:06:43 as toxic as Brexit. That puts it in perspective. This is bad. It's really, but you can't fight maths. Well, if you do fight maths, we'll choke slam each other canvas and start differentiating some calculations all over your face.
Starting point is 00:06:55 So that's the states, the world is in Josh and Anuvaab. How was the American reaction to it being Josh. I mean, is a people fully on board and the battle against the virus? It's kind of going two ways over here. Some people have been washing their hands every six minutes, but then this morning on the way here, I was in a combination coffee shop slash ice cream parlorlor and I saw a woman order a cookies and cream milkshake for breakfast. So on the other hand, some people are just going straight to get it. The SFI, I don't believe it's known. Yeah, that's the protocol.
Starting point is 00:07:43 And Adu, what about in India? Um, because that, that mean that many cases in India, yet, but, um, there's been quite some criticism of, uh, Narendra Modi. It's a tends to be, you know, basically just for him breathing, which is generally a fair, fair criticism. It's correct. And, and a couple of things here. Well, first of all, you know, we're specialists in phaging numbers. So, the official reported cases are 30, but it could be anywhere between 30 and 50 million. Right. Because, you know, when you've got 1.3 billion people, you just abbreviate and say 30. It's all a rounding error.
Starting point is 00:08:22 It's a number thing. And Prime Minister Modi, the moment he heard, he's very with it. He's with fat, with whatever's fashionable. You know, just like, Bulletin Arrow in Brazil, just like, you know, some people here, I won't name because I'm in your country, Josh. That's okay. So, when he heard that the coronavirus was a thing, he said, I want to be part of this game. So, you know, he's privately got himself a VIP coronavirus. Because he's allowed to. But I just like to mention one thing, you know, he's privately got himself a VIP coronavirus.
Starting point is 00:08:45 Because he's allowed to. But I just like to mention one thing, you know, we're an ancient culture. We've had herbal remedies from nature for thousands of years. So I don't know this nonsense about washing your hands as a remedy Andy. Josh, I'd like to read out a few Indian remedies for coronavirus. Please. That were discovered in the ancient Hindu text of the Atharva Vedas, 5,000 years ago, which is a Vedas I just made up. That's the best kind of Vedas.
Starting point is 00:09:15 That's one of my favorite Vedas. So these are the things that the last time the coronavirus hit India in B.C. This is what we did. That's before Cricket in India. I should emphasize that. That's the reason you're saying that. Exactly. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:09:31 A week before Cricket. So this is what we did. And it was all good in one month it was gone. So these are the best remedies currently. Currently. So don't wash your hands, but help other people wash their hands. That's beautiful. That's one we did.
Starting point is 00:09:49 Shower out in the open. Read Plato. That always worked. Listen to the bugle. Right. That goes back a while. Yeah. We're about this.
Starting point is 00:10:02 And you know, ancient Hindus, no of you. What can I say? Ban avocado and yoga And I will get a lot of support from a lot of the right way media that Yes, yes, and it's a kill and the last one is banty-twenty cricket So I don't know about the western world Andy Josh. Josh, that's pretty good. I mean, I grew up, I grew up outside Boston, Massachusetts, and your method sound better than our methods, which is the patented Mark Wahlberg method of being racist Asian people. That's how he avoids coronavirus. Well, just try and keep that under wraps for at least for the duration
Starting point is 00:10:42 of this episode, Josh, if you could. This's not my methodology, I'm just about it. You're just going by best practices. Yeah, oh, I've been, people know him from us, I go around, if I see someone with a tag on their luggage that says they were recently in China, I kiss him on the mouth. I just wanna show, I'm like, hey, look, we're all cool. Yeah. And you've done that unrelated to the virus. Yes, yes, I'm like, hey look, we're all cool. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:05 And you've done that unrelated to the virus. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I just, I'm a, I don't travel that much. And so I just kiss strangers on the mouth you have. And I try to absorb the travel through as Moses. We're all learning some valuable biology to that. History, history from out of app now biology from Josh. This is the most educational podcast you can possibly listen to. What I found is people who have recently been to other
Starting point is 00:11:31 countries like to punch me in the face. Well if you if you kiss them and they're not aware of it, that tends to be the reaction. I guess there could be the X factor. And of Rahul Gandhi, who's one of the prominent opposition politicians in India, advised Modi to quote, quit wasting India's time playing the clown, which does raise a question, what kind of circuses has Rahul Gandhi been going to? Because that is one fucking sinister clown. For circus darling, it was great mum. The acrobats were incredible. There was this guy dangling around on a rope,
Starting point is 00:12:11 waggling axes everywhere. There was a woman doing one arm handstands on a big rusty metal spike. The Kossack Horseman had to be seen to be believed and the clown killed some Muslims and fostered a regressive nationalism. That sounds like a lovely day out darling. He also said that what the government should be doing, Rahul Gandhi said, that to focus the attention of every
Starting point is 00:12:32 Indian on taking the coronavirus challenge, that is how to get the world on board with this fight against the virus, making internet sensation like the ice bucket challenge, just have celebrities hilariously challenging each other to wash their hands really thoroughly. I thought you were saying you dump a bucket of coronavirus on your head. That's a Friday night out in Mumbai. And Andy, that was a fairly good summary of the history of India for the last 50 years. Elsewhere around the world, Italy has closed all schools and universities, further evident to the decline in fall of the Roman Empire.
Starting point is 00:13:15 And in the Cysteine Chapel, the creation of Adam bit of Michelangelo's Mechypaint, Russia's famous paintings in the Cysteine chapel. That's been repainted to show God and Adam both wearing latex gloves to reduce the chance of infection to their fingers touch. So it's conceitably taking it seriously. God and Adam should they should just bump elbows. That's a thorough health organization says. Yeah, exactly. 23 members of parliament in Iran have tested positive, which I think might be a tribute to Michael Jordan or David Beckham, I'm not entirely sure.
Starting point is 00:13:49 And the South Korean president Moon Ji-in has declared war on the coronavirus. And now this, this off-road has this, the military terminology to get people on declaring war, you know, throw the military out. And I was looking at some of the writings in Sun Su's Art of War. Now what would the great two and a half thousand year old military strategist Sun Su have had to say about this. Now obviously Sun Su or as his friend's called him, Sonny T, was from near Wuhan where the coronavirus was invented by an enterprising Pangolin who wanted to raise awareness of animal rights issues in Chinese retail.
Starting point is 00:14:26 So just to be on the safe side, I have translated Sun Su's words into English so you can't catch the linguistic version of coronavirus from... I don't know if he's still infectious but he is dead so let's not take any chances. I don't want to catch that. You absolutely don't. He said this, there's a number of things we can learn from Sunsou about the fight against the coronavirus. He said, if the mind is willing, the flesh could go on and on without many things, which is essentially Sunsou telling us that severe respiratory illness is 99% psychological. He said, to know your enemy, you must become your enemy, which I think
Starting point is 00:15:02 means fancy dress. So just dress up like a virus with a crown and you'll be immune. Be extremely subtle, he wrote, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Oh, sorry, now that's from Sunsu's less-known follow-up, Sunsu's art of seduction. And also known as the art of four. He has said, move swift as the wind and closely formed as the wood, attack like the fire and be still as the mountain, essentially volcano. He
Starting point is 00:15:34 said, ponder and deliberate before you make a move. Sorry, that was also from the Art of Selection, I think. And the worst strategy of all is to besiege world cities, which could be from the art of suggestion with a small misprint, I guess. So many things we can learn from the wisdom of the ancient. There's something I was listening to Josh at Andy in this country, where the governor of New York said yesterday, you know, all we're telling you to do, if you've got the virus, is stay at home and watch Netflix. How bad can that be?
Starting point is 00:16:12 Yeah. You know, and I thought to myself, because I guess the death rate is pretty low, it's 2-3%. So, for 98% of the people, they're saying, don't talk to anybody, stay at home and watch streaming platforms. And I'll have to say this is, if that's the thing, it's my favorite disease so far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, they really skipped the step of the hospital. Also, for 98% of the people that will work fine, right?
Starting point is 00:16:38 But 2% of the people are going to die watching Stranger Things. Is that significant or lower that people that die watching it normally? I don't know. You're right. There are probably people who have done that already. Trump has been criticized. Some of his opponents have claimed he reacted slowly, then gratuitously blamed his political opponents,
Starting point is 00:16:58 played down the threat by belittling scientific evidence. And well, didn't just shoot the messengers, but strafed anything that even looked like it might be a messenger, then panicked belatedly and threw money at the problem. So, I mean, this is basically how he deals with every single issue from climate change to the Syrian crisis to what they have for dinner, essentially. I mean, this is absolutely classic.
Starting point is 00:17:22 Trump, you might be getting on a bit, but he's still got the chops people elected to elected. This is definitely, this is classic Trump. Like, he's telling people, don't worry about it. He absolutely seems like the kind of guy who had put off telling people they should get tested. Just, we'll tell you figure it out on their own. Just, nah, nah, that wasn't me. Come for somewhere else.
Starting point is 00:17:39 Josh Andy, I have a question. Please. So President Trump, the moment the crisis was announced, passed it off to his second in command. The Vice President is saying, this is now going to be Mike Pence's problem. He's going to deal with it. I understand that. It's a very Indian way to solve problems when a massive crisis hits, find your closer
Starting point is 00:17:57 psychopent and say, he's your guy. And then immediately retreat and run away to some vacation. Would you say that Trump is adopting Eastern techniques of leadership that we in the third world are so used to? I think that's it. I think this is his kind of more holistic. He's like really taking other points of view into perspective, trying things that are outside his comfort zone. No, I think he's just an idiot. And a coward.
Starting point is 00:18:25 He, and it's not even virus-specific, right? He's kind of pushing off the responsibility, keeping the information, keeping the CDC from releasing information. This isn't disease-specific. He just doesn't like people knowing things. Not just very, very dangerous. He's against it for himself and he's against
Starting point is 00:18:45 it and others. We people talk about low information voters. He's a low information president. It works very well in coming to the world today. Very little comes in, very little comes out. And now in Britain, where the latest Caesar in power, Mr Boris Johnson, has declared in the document you mentioned earlier that people might be still getting paid while at home? Yes. Yeah, I mean, also this week he called on the media to be responsible and not to sort of issue scarce stories and false information, which I mean you've just got to admire the bare face balls of that level of Flagorant hypocrisy. But I guess this crisis has brought out different aspects of things in many ways actually. I think Borachan's really really respects the coronavirus because in some way they're kindred spirits, they play on our bassist fears, they do most of their work
Starting point is 00:19:44 unseen. There's a lot of very unaccountable stuff going on behind the scenes and they're not really fucked about poor. So it's, you know, they're very much peas in a disease-written pod. Brexit is just a prequarantine, right? Exactly. He was ahead of this wave.
Starting point is 00:20:00 Now, Andy, you know, I have heard your monologue and diatribe, your piece of philosophical writing on the invisible hand, if you remember. That was a more complex. And I think one of the places the invisible hand seems to be coming in, is the airline industry. The head of the airline trade association said,
Starting point is 00:20:19 it's very hard to make money from the airline business if the planes don't fly. Right. Right. Right. And that seems fairly accurate. If people are not going to work, work is hard to generate any revenue. I think you would agree as an economist Andy, and Josh, you look like a PhD in economics. Yeah, I do look like I don't have a lot of fun. People don't like me. How do you think, what do you think is going to happen to the world economy if people are
Starting point is 00:20:50 physically not doing anything economic see? Well, I think we've got to grind it down to a full halt, right? If some people stop doing things and other people are still doing things, that's going to create an imbalance. But if we all stop, we're going to create an economic stasis wherein everybody just keeps what they have. And I think we can live there for a little while. Also, I mean, I think we need to take inspiration from the likes of Elvis Presley, who died in what, 1977, was it? And in many ways, he's generated more business since then.
Starting point is 00:21:28 So this is what the airlines need to do, is they need to really get people starting to get nostalgic about those old airlines that they used to use before they had to shut down. And buying loads of merch and going to themed restaurants where an aeroplane impersonator will pretend to be a flight from a no longer existing airline. And they need to just adapt to the change circumstances. Similarly, they could do it the way the way Tupac did after his death, right? They could
Starting point is 00:21:57 release a ton of kind of lesser quality airplanes and then start rumors that there are actually airplanes flying to Cuba, even though no one's ever really seen them. And then eventually there would just be a hologram of an airplane that people would pay to see. There we go. We're already providing the solutions. Human ingenuity. I just like to add this current release from the Chinese, from the very liberal objective Chinese medium of faces in hua. And they have brought out a thing today that said don't touch your face during this thing as a remedy,
Starting point is 00:22:32 don't touch your face. For that matter, don't touch anyone else's face either. Well, that one I think is more important, right? Like, if it's on my hands, if there's a virus that wants to get me and it's on my hands, it's going to get to my face. My arms connect right to it. Well that leads us into a steps to keep yourself safe from the coronavirus, pull out supplement. Well a lot of people have said masks are only of limited use. I would say we were wearing a mask anyway, we're not all hiding behind some kind of mask so we're probably fine. We have a bugle guide to how to stop yourself touching your own face. Now the number of things you can do to stop yourself touching your face. One is keep your hands busy. So you've got to make sure your hands have something more important to do than scratch your face or
Starting point is 00:23:22 stroke your own eyelids or whatever you like to do with your hands on your face so perhaps try keeping a live snake on your person at all times. That generally requires a fair amount of dedicated hand work Alternatively, smell your hands in molten tar. You don't want that getting on your face you vain hypocrites Another thing you can do is to go to sleep with one of the following recordings playing on a loop. Your face is so beautiful, it dissolves fingers. Or your face is magic, if you touch it, it will turn into Steve Bannon's face. That should subliminally enable you to wake up or with a lifelong fear of touching your own face.
Starting point is 00:24:02 Another way, aside from not touching your face of avoiding the coronavirus is prayer. Obviously one of the most statistically effective forms of disease avoidance historically. But what type of prayer is most effective? Should you ask your chosen deity to save all of humanity? Which is a bit of a stretch for any deity these days, no matter how omnipotence and complicated world, to save just you and your family,
Starting point is 00:24:21 which is a bit selfish, you know, and your own personal bubble, you think you're so f**king special, are you? Or you're kind of top level elite sport star thanking your mighty for getting them a gold medal, and honestly turn it up. Or should you simply appeal to your deity to save the stock markets? I think that's probably the best thing we can do at this stage, just pray to God to save the markets because they will not save themselves.
Starting point is 00:24:46 And also, should your prayer be accompanied by a sacrifice? It's always better to err on the safe side and slay at least some animals to carry favor with the almighty. But remember, if you do, please wash your hands thoroughly after slaughtering your 100 head of oxen. In fact, current guidelines from the International Association of Animal Sanificial Offerings is to wash your hands thoroughly after each five oxen slain. Also superstitions. Now, traditionally in the past, before we had modern medicine that
Starting point is 00:25:15 keep us alive, today superstitions were hugely effective and not called super for nothing. They genuinely work very occasionally. What you could try putting your left shoe on first before all your other clothing, you can try throwing salt over your shoulder every five seconds and you will find that people steer well clear of you, thus leaving you well away from potential infectors. Then there's the famous old superstitious saying,
Starting point is 00:25:41 find a penny, pick it up, and all day long, you'll be worried that you might get virused by the penny. Who's touched that penny? God knows, and he ain't telling patient confidentiality and all that, put the penny back on the floor and wash your hands. One thing the people have been saying is that you're supposed to wash your hands
Starting point is 00:25:58 for 20 seconds, right? That's the amount of time that it's supposed to take to actively kill the germs. If you only do it for 18 or 19 seconds, the germs have no respect. They know you can't commit to anything and they just treat you like dirt. They walk all over you.
Starting point is 00:26:12 What I've been doing is instead of washing my hands for 20 seconds several times a day, I get up, I wash my hands for 260 seconds, not the whole day of hand washing over at the beginning. That's 13 hand washings. And it's just six and a half minutes. Right. It's like you're loading up your metro card.
Starting point is 00:26:30 Correct. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Right, why would I want to pay every time? Do you know, I have a problem though, that then your fingers get quite wrinkly. And actually that gives the viruses a place to hide. Yes, that is a problem, but they're so clean, and then by the time they're smoothed out,
Starting point is 00:26:46 I can spot the viruses because they're clustered. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, that's good. I just had to go back for one second to the remedy and he mentioned animal sacrifice. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, that always works. In Nepal, for the longest time,
Starting point is 00:27:02 they used to sacrifice goats before any important family event. School exams, elections, any sort of event, marriage, they'd sacrifice either oxen or a goat. They found this really interesting situation where they ran out of animals. Oh no. And then they passed a law that said, you have to only sacrifice an animal for an important reason. So I think if we adopted the Nepalese technique,
Starting point is 00:27:29 when the Western world everyone was given one animal, and you sacrifice it only when the virus got really bad. Yeah. You know, it's all about rationing, isn't it? Mm-hmm. And about prioritizing. Yeah. That's like that old,
Starting point is 00:27:41 that finally puts that old Nepalese piece of wisdom into context. Sacrifice after wedding, never been sicker sacrifice before wedding in the clear. I mean, it's been a tough time for religion. The the Christian shrine at Lord's in France, I had to close some of its pools in which pilgrims swim to be healed from diseases as a precaution because of the disease. That's not the greatest payoff for the miracle healing industry
Starting point is 00:28:14 if the pools that you bathe in to get better are now too dangerous. Well, hold on. I think this is, and even, this speaks even more to their power because now they're so powerful, you don't even have to get in them to have the healing effect.
Starting point is 00:28:27 Not like that. Well, I've said that pilgrims are still welcome, but I mean, lords without the healing bath, that's like vegan friendly cock fighting, it's never gonna be quite this long. The satan, those underground satan fights I've been attending, I just don't have the same zipped to them.
Starting point is 00:28:47 The texture is weird. Well, in the South Indian town of Thirupati, which is considered one of the most holy sites for Hindus, they decided that they were not going to allow mass congregation. So the temple is now been evacuated, it's completely empty, which in India it means down to the last 4 million people. Virus showbiz news now, and well no aspect of human activity has escaped the microscopic invisible claws of the coronavirus. We've talked about the tragic side effect of sport being postponed or canceled or generally de-sportified, just at the time the world needs as many pointless reality numbing distractions as possible. And now the film industry has been forcibly
Starting point is 00:29:35 jumped onto that bandwagon. The new James Bond film No Time to Die has been delayed by seven months due to coronavirus concerns. That's always risky with a James Bond film because in that seven month period, one of Bond's many sexual conquests in the film could have become heavily pregnant and Bond is never really at his best when forced to face up to the consequences of his actions and take some responsibility for what he's done.
Starting point is 00:29:59 After all these years of James Bond having unprotected sex, it's unbelievable that the coronavirus is the one that sets him back. It's amazing. Daniel Craig keeps saying that that's gonna be his last bond movie, right? Every time he's like, this is the last time I do one of these.
Starting point is 00:30:16 And finally, because of a global pandemic, he might be right. Also, why delay it? Just cut the first word out of the title, call it time to die, and it feels like extra contemporary. There has been a significant cultural response, even in the world of comedy, a number of new comedy acts of sprung up. It's the coronavirus global concern, including new character acts, a pandemic of a hyper-conductoriac super spreader,
Starting point is 00:30:47 sold out a stadium tour in Britain, and then cancelled the entire run on safety grounds, thus becoming the first self-saturizing comedian in the universe. COVID is a parody of the ancient Roman poet of it, a very entertaining act based on doing poems in Latin about flu-like diseases in the social panic they cause. And, uh, germane the germy German, fairly self-explanatory. And, uh, all, and competitive hand washing has taken off as a spectatorsport as well.
Starting point is 00:31:17 You've got traditional freestyle and, of course, Greco-Roman hand washing that's really packing out the stadium. In the, in the world of comedy, I found that shows I've been doing have had have been fairly empty and it's either people cautiously staying at home because of coronavirus or business as usual. Hard to tell. That's right. My my crowd worked, oh, I mean, 20 years ahead of the coronavirus. Race to get ritually humiliated by Donald Trump over the next few months news now, and well the democratic race, Josh has rather dramatically clarified itself over the last week or so, Joe Biden has surged on Super Tuesday and it's basically now him and Bernie Sanders left Pete Spudgeh, Quatt, Amy Clubyshire, Quatt, Bloomberg, Quatt,
Starting point is 00:32:06 Elizabeth Warren, Quatt, Rick Moranis, ruled himself out, returning to acting instead. Roosevelt still dead, bum-garner, sticking with baseball, Markle. Well, join the dots people, join the dots. That, surely, that's what this whole thing, Meghan Markle for president, it has to happen. Mouse, if America isn't ready for a female president,
Starting point is 00:32:25 it's not ready for an animated mouse either. He's out of the race, Putin. Let's not rule him out. Trump, well he could be the only person who could beat Donald Trump. Oliver, ineligible, no smear through all. Condobolo is still mulling it over. And Gondronman, are you gonna stand?
Starting point is 00:32:40 I, you know, I'm my service to the American people as I'm not running. Right. So I mean, if only more people had that noble I, you know, I'm my service to the American people as I'm not running. So I mean, if only more people had that noble public-spirited attitude, then the world might be very, very different today. So remaining we have Biden, Sanders, and Tulsi Gabbard is still officially in the race, I believe, although it is rumoured that she'd entirely forgotten she was still running. And she had to cancel a violin lesson. She scheduled for Super Tuesday. Tossi Gavard is kind of the oldest kid left playing with a league where you can still do it,
Starting point is 00:33:12 but it's embarrassing at this point. Just leave and find something else to do with your time. Now, Josh, Andy, I have a quick question about the concept of Super Tuesday. Yes. I spent a bit of time watching it. It seems like it's very complicated. It seems like the candidates that remain
Starting point is 00:33:28 have to impress a bunch of delegates. And those delegates then come over in clusters or as individuals saying, you're my guy or lady. Now, I'm just going to pass on some sort of Eastern election techniques that we've tried in India for a number of years. We'd love to hear them. So when we do a lot of horse trading
Starting point is 00:33:48 for members of parliament, right? And one of the techniques that work, when you want delegates to switch parties, is to lock them in a hotel room and bribe them with cash and food. Okay. Instead of super Tuesday, have you guys thought of trying that?
Starting point is 00:34:04 Just outright bribery. I kind of feel like that is, that's something our president has looked into in various other capacities. Why not bring it into the electoral system? Thank you. So super Tuesday, just to clarify, Andy, it's a lot like what you said about superstition, right?
Starting point is 00:34:21 It's like the same kind of super. Like sometimes it goes right, but it is a total coincidence. It's super, I know is a prefix meaning large, but I don't think that it almost has too positive a connotation, right? Because sometimes oftentimes it goes very badly and people are very depressed afterwards. So I think we should change it to like big ass Tuesday,
Starting point is 00:34:44 just to convey the same magnitude, but without the sense that it's good. So what's behind Joe Biden's sudden Lazarus-like recovery in this contest? You know, I think it is, he seems kind of like a grandpa, and his charming television persona made a lot of people forget
Starting point is 00:35:08 that their grandpa would make a bad president. I love both of my grandfathers, may they rest in peace, but never once was I like, let's elect this old fellow to office. Well, that's one of the fascinating aspects of this is that now in 2008 we had Obama and Hillary Clinton going for the democratic nomination. It felt like the landscape of politics was changing and what we've got left now is Trump and the two democratic candidates, 70 plus year old white men. What what's happened? Well, it's the same as an entertainment
Starting point is 00:35:49 in that we're doing a reboot of something that kind of worked 10 years ago. Bloomberg had a, well, a spectacle, but essentially it was a one-day campaign, wasn't it, at a cost of half a billion dollars. Incredible. And because he's a billionaire, when he quit their AC, he gave himself another $800 million severance package. So he spent over half a billion
Starting point is 00:36:12 dollars, which bought him American Samoa and a family-sized portion of ridicule. Now the Democratic mascot is a donkey. And I guess what Bloomberg has learned is that a presidential nomination is like a donkey in that if you try to steal it, you might end up with shit on your shoes. You can't just throw money at it and hope it turns into a motorbike and people will never forget if you f**ked it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I don't know what you think about where modern politics is going, but I was just looking at political speeches. And, you know, like in India, we started with the Mahatma Gandhi, who was slightly well-known,
Starting point is 00:36:50 first saying, impressive things. And now we have Prime Minister Modi, who speaks of himself in third person, like his Julius Caesar. In this country, it seemed like you went from Barack Obama, who used to quote Rilke and Guth and Socrates to gentlemen who won the primary, who got confused between his wife and his sister. That's true. It is hard to call it a super Tuesday when you end up sleeping on the couch, too. This is something, Pierce Bush, the grandson of George H.W. Bush lost his congressional race in Texas, which just shows the shift in politics in the United States, right?
Starting point is 00:37:27 Like that's how much Texas hates the environment now. They won't even vote for a guy named Bush anymore. When I read it, I thought it was doing a literal Bush. That's how popular the family was. I thought they were like, everything's bigger in Texas. Come back when y'all are a tree. He's the first member of the Bush family to lose an election in Texas in over four decades. It was a big loss for a member of the Bush family and people are talking about
Starting point is 00:37:55 it as a historic loss to which Al Gore replied, Motherf***er what? LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER MUSIC India News now and well Anu Vab since since you were last on India has been well treating itself to one of its periodic bouts of mass rioting. Can you just bring us up to date with what's been going on and if possible in the complex landscape Indian politics, why it's been going on? Well, you know, I'm glad Andy who brought up the hilarious topic of riots. Always a
Starting point is 00:38:33 laugh. Well, very simply, when Donald Trump was visiting India and he was doing this mass rally at the stadium for 100,000 people, nearby in Delhi, one of the suburbs of Dantisteli broke into Hindu and Muslim rights. Now, rioting happens in India and there is now in a right-wing government, a very anti-Islamic vibe going on in the country, just like everywhere else where there is right-wing homogeneous leaders that are sort of poisoning the environment.
Starting point is 00:39:06 I wouldn't know if that's like. So we have a right-wing leader in India, Josh, it's just a thing. Maybe it'll catch up in the United States. But he comes from the BJP, which is the ruling party and they have sort of thought leadership wing called the RSS. So the RSS are pretty right-wing people, by pretty right-wing people, I mean, they had the, one of the members of the party was the gentleman that shot Gandhi. So, you know, that's how much slightly right-wing there. So the RSS has been sort of going to really poor Muslim neighborhoods and saying, you know, we're going to clean up Delhi. We had a, you know, we had a citizenship law that there was some trouble over.
Starting point is 00:39:53 So a lot of Muslim people were protesting against it. And they said basically Trump is coming. And if you don't clear the streets, we're going to kill you. Now, when you tend to say that to people, they tend to sometimes get upset and react. Yes. And it gets worse when large Hindu mob show up with sticks saying clear the streets of the protest, we're going to shoot you and kill you. And then they proceed to do exactly what they say. And so there leads to a Muslim retaliation and there are riots. In such a situation, one of the best elements in democratic
Starting point is 00:40:26 society are the police. You know, everywhere else in the world apparently the police are supposed to break up such fights. What happened in Delhi is that the police joined the Hindu mob, which tends to reduce the fairness a little bit. Yeah, I mean, that goes against the famous NWA song Trust the Police. Maybe people are listening to this. So it led to Arson riot looting on both sides, but there were just a significantly larger number of Muslim casualties. Now, if you want to be bigoted,
Starting point is 00:40:55 let's say you want to be right-wing and bigoted, that's your business. Go on. That's your, if one wants to be, that's your business. When you do it in India, which has has 300 million Muslim people, so larger than the entire population of the United States, it tends to be slightly dangerous. So no one knows what kind of backlash this would create, but while Trump was going on,
Starting point is 00:41:18 mispronouncing names of great Indian spiritual leaders, Delhi was on fire. So I'm really looking forward to the outcome of this when things have settled down and the Muslim community in India realizes this wasn't very nice. And what the backlash of that is going to be. So it's going to be a really peaceful next 20 years in India. Wow, in the United States, I think there's
Starting point is 00:41:45 kind of a dim awareness of what's going on. And I think people are especially in this New York City are kind of lost right at the beginning of the story when you said they wanted to clean up Delhi, and you think, here, no one ever cleans a Delhi. That is. So I think that is the first sticking point. It's not just our complete lack of awareness
Starting point is 00:42:06 of the global landscape and the atrocities committed in other nations, but it is a bodega thing. Yeah, as a Muslim comedian colleague, just said to me recently, I've tried every angle of this and there is nothing even grimly earnest, I can say about it, let alone funny. And this is on a podcast where we did 40 minutes on viruses. So, but the great thing was, Andy, Josh, it happened at the exact same time when President
Starting point is 00:42:40 Trump was visiting. And President Trump kept saying India's a great country and is a very peaceful country. And you know, as you know, Andy, he named a bunch of Indian leaders. He named the great Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and he pronounced it as Su Chen Tendulkar, which is also a very prominent Chinese restaurant in Mumbai. So, there's a much better chance that that's what he actually meant. That's he wanted to eat there. He mentioned the great spiritual and Vedic scholar Swami Vivekananda, tough name to pronounce, but he went with a special pronunciation. He called him Swami Vive Kumundundah, which again is an important Taikwondo class in Bangalore.
Starting point is 00:43:28 That I have attended. There should be a spiritual leader called Swami Vive komundundudah. So while all this is going on, about 40 minutes away, Delhi was on fire. So it just seems like we live in a political narrative now where the thing that is set and the thing you are watching are completely different. On that happy note, yes! Well anyway, I'm going to go get a milkshake for breakfast. Is that bringing to the end of this week's Bugal? Josh, do you have any forthcoming stand-up shows on anything else you'd like to alert
Starting point is 00:44:04 or listen listen to? I do, I'll be in Boston on the March 13th of 14th, and they still have a book out called Nice Triest, or is it Best Intentions and Mixed Results? And that's available in many places. Anywhere, you're doing some London shows, imminently. That is correct, Andy. I will be at the Soho Theatre doing my last December, I show democracy and disco dancing from April 27 to May 2nd, and if the virus exists, I
Starting point is 00:44:32 will be doing it by hologram. Don't forget, there is a live bugle show in Norwich on one night only tour of East Anglia on the 4th of April, so to come along to that, any buglers in that part of the universe. Thank you very much for listening. Until next week, stay virus free, and we will play you out with some lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers. Daniel Grace wants jokingly tried to convince a friend that the origin of the term duvet is from the French words duvet meaning of the vet. This is because in the 14th century claim Daniel vets would make extra money on the side by pretending people's pet ducks were terminally ill, having them put down and then stealing their feathers to use in bedding, hence, duvet, later further francophoneified to duvet.
Starting point is 00:45:31 His friend didn't believe him, but it later turned out that Daniel was accidentally correct. One of the technological developments that David Cluft would like to see is a device which can faultlessly tell the difference between a cucumber and a javelin. This follows a severe embarrassment at his local athletics clubs annual Oli-Keneet vegan buffet. Paul Hindel is unconvinced by salad cream as a source. I can't even see where you would get salad milk from complaints, Paul. I've never seen a lettuce with others. I think the whole thing
Starting point is 00:46:01 is probably afrault by the big condiment industry. Amanda Lamar believes the time has come for all news outlets to include a plausibility percentage on any article published online or in print. At least let the readers factor in the precise likelihood of what they're reading being bullshit requests Amanda and then make an informed decision on whether to believe it or not based on that. Jeff Martin, having been surprisingly given a pantomime horse outfit as a leaving present from a job that had nothing to do with horses or pantomimes, used to thoroughly enjoy wearing the costume amongst other horses at horse race meetings, for example, or in police horse units and at military parades. He gave up his hobby, however, after a near miss at a
Starting point is 00:46:43 French abattoir. Kev Conroy wonders why the ancient Greeks were so obsessed with vases. From some museums notes Kev, you'd think that all these old dead bastards did was make vases, put things in vases, and then look at vases. No wonder their civilization collapsed. Alex Seelig does not see the point in weightlifting as a sport. It's had its time blasts Alex at the very least it should be a biathlon in which the lifters should have to prove they can work a fork lift truck or crane and do some mechanized lifting as well as manual lifting.
Starting point is 00:47:14 Otherwise it's an almost futile skill in the modern world. Derek Snyder scoffs at Alex's suggestion, saying, yeah, I'd like to see what happens if you ever get pinned to the ground in a natural history museum when a fossilized bower constrictor that died when in an absolutely straight line, with both ends of his body stuck in giant watermelons, falls off a shelf and lands on top of you. And there's an Olympic weightlifting nearby. I imagine you'll be saying, don't bother taking this off my rapidly collapsing ribcage, I'll wait for the forklift truck to do it. Ed Benian Pedley whilst paying tribute to Derek Snyder's commitment to nominative determinism wishes the world was a calmer place and that people did not
Starting point is 00:47:49 descend into needless arguments about trivial matters and hypothetical scenarios such as weightlifting and impossibilities even when those disputes are entirely fictitious. Here end it this week's lies. To join our voluntary subscription scheme, go to theBuglePotcast.com and click the Donate button. this week's lies. To join our voluntary subscription scheme, go to thebugelpodcast.com and click the donate button.

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