The Bugle - Bugle 4156 - Statuesque

Episode Date: June 13, 2020

Andy, Nish and Nato reflect on the global Black Lives Matter movement, the chaos in the USA and why people are going mad about statues.We are funded entirely by Buglers! Support The Bugle. We carry no ads and exist because you make it happen: http://thebuglepodcast.com/#donateWe have a sister show, The Last Post, which you can hear here. Follow us on YouTube or Insta and see parts of this episode with actual video.The Bugle is hosted this week by:Andy ZaltzmanNish KumarNato GreenAnd produced by Chris Skinner. FUB. 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 a real thing that's going to happen. TheBuglePodcast.com to support the Danciler Guard Reader. Imagine the world wasn't like it is.

Well, I mean, there'd still be that guy and that guy and the one who needs the eye test. But there's also sexy literature. It's not until her showt is coincidentally ripped open during a fight with the winged whivins of the northern wastes revealing her creamy breasts, the Dermian realises the archer he has been befriending is his left behind love. Water Cravings Hunger

A deep aching longing Try half a glass of water. It won't fix everything, but it'll help a bit. Jim's Jim and Jimnasium Have you been pumping your booty? Booty's are in. They used to be out, but now they're in by which I mean to say they should stick out. That's good now.

Join me, Alice Fraser, on the last post. It's like the bugle, but shorter, hornyer, weirder, and dailier. The bugle! Audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello Bugleers, it's Friday 12 June 2020. Britain is in a record-breaking slump. Donald Trump is treating America like a spoiled child's unwanted Christmas Lego set. Everyone is arguing with everyone else about everything. And I think the virus now is getting close to complacency which I think has been our government strategy all along in Britain just wait until it

can't be asked anymore because there's no challenge but the bugle is still here the bugle is here I am Andy Zoltz and this is issue 4156 of the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world. Don't forget if you're listening immediately by which I mean on Saturday the 13th of June. Tonight at 8pm UK time is the inaugural Bugle Live Streamed Live Quiz. It's a genuine quiz with genuine factual answers. That's a fact, even if some of those answers are about fictional things. It will be live on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and anything else, Chris? That depends how well my planning goes between this record and that time.

Right, okay, so I mean, let's assume that it is going to happen and it's going to work. It will also be available not live afterwards, quite how you're going to submit your answers. That's still slightly up in the air. But anyway, do tune in either live or retrospectively depending on when you listen to this. This is, as I said, issue 4156. Coincidentally, the number of separate reasons for taking down the statue of Robert Clive, which currently stands outside the foreign office in London, and also the predicted number of times 4156. That two people can say the lines but it's a raising our history and no it's obviously not doing that before they have to end a conversation and have

a snack more of which later in the show and joining me this week are Nish Kumar from from London now Nish you have just been the recipient of some science. Yeah, and I'm I'm committing to satire by living out a new story I had a covid test right up my nose It's they take a very long thin cotton bud Q tip for American listeners and then they shove it down Your throat for British listeners your then they shove it down your throat for British listeners, your gobb and yeah, so they go down the throat and then they shove it up, you know, a lot of people have been saying, you know, a lot of people are saying it's incredibly uncomfortable and it hurts a lot. What I would say is, you know, it feels fine and then there's a point where it goes a bit further

than anything has ever really gone in your life. And you start to feel it in your eye. Now, it was mild discomfort for me and a lot of people have complained of quite heavy discomfort and I didn't really feel it and what I now realise is there's quite a bit more of my nose to go up than most people's nose. There's quite a lot, there's quite a lot, it's got further to travel. And so that may be why I've not had to experience it.

It was also part of a regularly scheduled appointment that I have with the doctors. And what that means Andy, is I have looked a man in the eye and handed him a bottle of my own piss today, and nothing makes me feel more alive than passing you're into a stranger. Nothing makes me feel more in control of my destiny than handing over a vile of my own year into a medical professional and say, have a look at that, do your worst. I'm moving story in these these troubled times and joining us from the West

coast of the world, Silias Country, it's nice and green. Hello Andy, sorry what's that? I can't hear you. There are helicopters everywhere. This mayhem here. I'm about to chuck a Mazeltov cocktail into a police van. Take that, you coppers. Protesters and police seem to be... What are they doing right now? It's a break-off. There's a break-dancing battle on the roof of a burning bus right now. A patrol officer just brought out his own linoleum for a snappy kneespin. The social... It turns out that Sergeant McGillicutty is not as good as breakdancing as a group of young black people and socialists. They are doing synchronized popping

and locking. I think they won't prevail. I love a bit of popping and locking. That was easily my favourite TV comedy double actor in the 1970s, but obviously some of that work is a little dated. Now, we're recording on the 12th of June, on this day in the year 1381, the peasants revolts in England reached Black Heath now in South-East London before then storming the city over the following couple of days. The revolts, the Pesnitz revolts, was provoked if I may oversimplify for a moment by a combination of disease, economic inequality, poor leadership, potential with Europe and anger about exploitation. Isn't history a smug repetitive bastard. On this day in 1817, the earliest form of bicycle, known

as the Dandy Horse, was driven by its inventor, Carl Vendrace. Years later, Vendrace admitted to systematic use of steroids and blood-doping products when inventing the bicycle and the Dandy Horse was retrospectively banned. Also, on this, Chris, you're nodding there as a cycling fan. Have you ever ridden a dandy horse? I mean, yes. I mean, I ride a dandy horse every day. I am a dandy horse.

LAUGHTER LAUGHTER LAUGHTER Also, on this day in history, lots of people did lots of really awful things but you wouldn't know it to look at the sculptures of them. Geez. Something.

As always a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week. We've had the launch of the PlayStation 5 games console. We review some of the new hot and some very topical games that have been launched alongside the new console, including EA protest Statue Toppola 2021, Steve Bannon's Bile Blaster 14, and Dominic Cummings' bare face bullshit 6.1, some terrific games for your new console. Also, look out for Scloot and Malvain's Angry Chef 3, those cleavers are more realistic than ever.

Also, we look at some of the rival consoles to the PlayStation to help keep you and your loved ones and your brain distracted from the harring realities of lockdown reality, including the flunky tech brain squelcher, the myth-model of Duludac 6G and the Vega MegaWap all excellent at cocooning your children from reality for those crucial developmental years. That section in the bin.

reality for those crucial developmental years. That section in the bin. Top story this week America still angry. NATO, you are quite literally in America as we speak, you've described these scenes of mayhem. Unfort how is the break down soft going? The officers are doing the work now. You're right. So there's been some progress. Look, Andy, last month I was on, and we had some fun jokes about the 10 plagues. We have a pandemic. We have an economic crisis.

Remember our amusing chat about murder hornets? Oh, yeah. Now we have nationwide martial law police riots and a worldwide insurrection against racism. What else you got 2020? Bring it on. Oh wildfires too. That's it. We're leaving it all on the field this year. We're getting done. We're doing all of the history this year and then we're done. So it's Andy, you and I are very similar. We're both Jewish comics. We're both about the same age. We're both dads. We're married to people who are more educated than us. And we're both most known for our more famous friends. The difference is that as you said on the

Bugle last week as all hell breaks loose like you're the kind of person who seeks comfort and shelter in 50-year-old cricket sports stats and puns I on the other hand have never felt so alive. My veins are on fire for a revolutionary like me. This is my top. It makes my dick hard. So, it's amazing. When they build a statue of you NATO for the future generations to topple when they look back at what you've said on the show, that will be inscribed on it. It makes my take out. Let me tell you like I'm so excited I have so much issue. What I'm about to say could be profound or a suicide note. I don't know. First of all, we're lit in America right now. No one is in charge. There are no adults in the room. We are

completely off the map. Every current politician has been reduced to incoherent shivering like a hairless terrier on a trampoline. There have been protests in all 50 states, 140 cities against racist police violence following the murder of George Floyd and Minneapolis. Day after day of mass disruption, tens of thousands of people out, National Guard in 20 states, six people killed by police subsequently. You may ask, how did this come about? Well, there are 40 million unemployed people who have been stuck at home for three months, scared and anxious. There's no leadership, there's no sport, there's no religion, no other activity that we would normally have to distract and occupy and placate us.

We have finished the internet. So there's no, how many more times can you watch the directors kind of Lord of the Rings before, like we've just reached its either baked bread or overthrow the government. And those are the only options now. Left to the environment. I can marry Antoinette to everybody, isn't it? So George Floyd was killed on May 25th by the police in Minneapolis two days earlier on May 23rd noted that Black Power Periodical, the economist, ran a story and the article said, whatever happened to Black Lives Matter, no one cares anymore, which will rank as one

of the most prescient and prophetic news headlines since the Washington Post 1979 headline describing rap music is a short-lived fat Sorry the economist life comes at you fast Are you familiar with the idea of the over-tune window? This is like the refers to the the range of acceptable political discourse And on the issue of racist police, the Overton window has not just moved, it's packed its bag, it's moved across the country, it's gone to another house, it's opened up to co-op, it's making it some kombucha, it's playing two in a marching band,

it's old friends and family, like come back over to the window, we miss you, we wanna get back to the war on drugs. The Overton window just says, you never understood me. I don't know if you have I have spent time in land America and what is happening in the United States right now reminds me of that like just no pretense that there's a functioning

society like it's very refreshed actually you arrive in the town and you're like oh my god what happened why is there no clean water supply and people go oh yeah the government sold it so they could buy the president's son at catapult. So but because of my time, just don't say these things out loud like nothing made of. We know that Boris Johnson and Donald Trump both listened to this podcast. I should just say these things out loud. Some people are afraid that we're on the verge of fascism, that Trump is about to suspend democracy, hold a coup d'état and install a military junta. I think Trump will have difficulty pulling off a coup d'état because he doesn't believe

in French. Because of my time in Latin America no matter how bad things get in the US, I think are there literal CIA trained and armed death squads disappearing entire villages? No? Then we haven't hit bottom. Trump is so inadequate to the task of uniting a trouble nation with the cities and burning this temptation to make comparisons to Nero, but at least Nero could fiddle. Trump raised tweeting, complaining about female journalism found unattractive while crouched on the toilet trying to squeeze a jigger of urine around his cantaloupe prostate

while American burn doesn't quite have quite the staying power. Trump? The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt.

The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. The right to have a t-shirt. Antifa is not an organization that has like articles of incorporation and aborted directors and a post-all box. They don't have a convention in a conference room with the ratisan where they make decisions by Roberts Rules of Order parliamentary procedure. Certainly gentlemen we have a resolution to punch Nazis in the face. Can I get a second? It's an abstract concept. It's like

designated Goths as a terrorist organization. Doesn't it hurt not into it? Does it mean black eyeliner and the curious alkida? Oh my god. What have I done? I have like three more pages of notes here. No, no. Kate, Kate? Kate? So Trump is a relaunching campaign rallies and to ensure safety in light of the COVID exposure from an indoor rally pack, asks to mount with a heaving throng of bigots and zealots.

The Trump campaign is adopting additional sensible safety precautions like requiring attendees to sign a liability waiver so that you can't sue the campaign if you get coronavirus at the rally. Now you might dismiss this as a stupid idea, but think of all the ways that not suing Trump will keep people from getting COVID. They won't have to physically go to court to file the legal complaint. They won't have to sit in the conference room up close during a deposition. And if you claim you have COVID in a lawsuit, you have to prove it by drooling violently on a probing opposing

council until they get COVID. And that's called a heaviest corpus. So now we can avoid that hassle. See, there's a lot of benefits. Well, it's quite interesting this that the having to sign a waiver so that they can't sue if they get COVID at a rally of the man who basically facilitated and encouraged the spread of the disease. Is this just peak, peak, Trumpian America? It can't go much further up. He can really lay his cards more firmly on the table than saying, you cannot see if you get the disease that we have spread.

I mean, the card he's laid on the table, he's basically put his hand down and said, I've got five King six Aces, a magic penguin and a giant Pokemon G-Truple X-guard of me humping a naked meow stick. And we say you signed a waiver by voting for Trump. Basically America just signed a waiver to everything. Well, I don't think we should go down that rabbit hole, Adi, because that's not like a bit. A lot of America had that way for signed for them against their explicit consent. Andy, now you say that he couldn't, that he couldn't lay his cards on the table more, but in fact he did. Because I don't know if you caught this detail about Trump's campaign rally, but the first campaign rally is on June 19th, which is deliberately chosen. It is June 10th. It is

that celebrates the day that slaves found out that they were free at the end of the Civil War. So it is as though he laid his cards on the table and then set the entire table on fire. And then, he's holding the rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is the site of the biggest race riot in American history in 1921. When white people were so angry that a black man whistled in a white woman that they brought fighter planes to bomb a neighborhood. So that's Trump for you. Yeah, Kamala Harris, the former Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted of this rally, this isn't just a wink to white supremacists, he's throwing them a welcome home party. Now, I don't know if you have ever tussled with police or I have been arrested for protesting many times.

A lot of the conflict with police has to do with their impatience, like they say, go do something and you say no. And then they get all macho jacked up and demand that you obey and then they start beating you. Once I got arrested during the Iraq war, we all went limp. And so the police came and they tried to pull me up and I went, I got arrested during the Iraq war, we all went limp. And so the police came and they tried to pull me up and I went limp and then they just took my hand so gently and they said, if you don't walk out of here,

we're gonna break your wrist. And then they started to break my wrist. Well, you said we're honest about it. Okay, okay, you're a little heads up. And that, that's what's great about. Here he is, and the ultimate cop defender. That's what's great about being white is that you get a 10 second warning before they break your ass.

So I'd be enriched as well. Come on. So what cops don't seem to want to figure out is that most of those problems can be solved by waiting. Like the protesters won't clear out because they're sitting in. At some point someone's going to have to pee. Someone's freaking out. Keep a safe distance so they don't hurt anyone else and then they'll get to get sleepy.

So the demand has been to defund the police. Some people are saying abolish the police. And you know, in some cities in America the police department takes up more than 50% of the city budget and then people want to shift funding to social workers and mental health services and things of that nature. It's fascinating to see the kind of debate about the nuances of the detail. Some people believe that anything less than immediately requiring all cops to eat my entire asshole and then firing them into the sun is a sell-out position if it's not that.

And then on the other hand, we have national Democrats like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi who are offering the big ideas the moment requires, like more training. That what they saw in the video of that cop killing George Floyd and thought, yeah, you know what that man really needs is a seminar. The protests themselves have been a bananas. I don't know like how much you're seeing about the details of the protests, like, okay, Marge is cool, set up police car on fire, but, oh, what's that? A cavalry of black horsemen.

That's awesome. Didn't even know that was on the menu. Seattle protesters had escalating confrontations with the police until they routed police out of a neighborhood, occupied city hall, and declared the Capitol Hill neighborhood, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or Chaz. Chaz is short for Charles, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Region of Lower East Seattle. Of course, Fox News is in sense right-wing media and Twitter is having a The Capitol Hill Autonomous Region of Lower East Seattle, of course Fox News is in sense right wing media and Twitter is having a field day president Trump is threatening to invade Seattle to restore order and

I wouldn't look at some pictures and videos from Chaz. It's disgusting Lawless and decadent people turning public parks into farms and growing food on them Drawing art on the sidewalk in chalk teaching each other about harm reduction in self-care, and you can believe this. They actually watched the documentary Paris is burning about the gay voguing scene in New York in the late 80s. It's documentary art learning. It's a slippery slope, I tell you, that will lead to listening and learning and empathy. And this will not stand.

And my favorite thing is public comment. I don't know if you have this in the UK, but in the States, often they're a government hearings, they're required to allow public comment. And so you get one or two, sometimes three minutes to say your piece. And frequently there's like an obscure cable channel that airs the public

comment and this was my bit like I would go and do public comment hearings and it's as a comment it's great because you have to watch the hearing and then you get to roast your political adversaries to their f**king faces. In a situation where no one agreed that there was going to be comedy happening. So it's really fun. But the American people are just going off at public comment. Like there's public comment video after public comment video, just a people screaming, you to police. Like there was a guy at LA Police Commission hearing

and this video, a new American hero called in. I just want to read you a list of some of the things that have been said in public comment. In San Francisco, there was a hearing about the police budget, and there were nine hours of public comment that stretched to three in the morning, and the police commissioners had to sit and listen the entire time to person after person. And here are some things that people actually sent to the government in the hearings. Choke on a dick and die. Losers get a job, learn to code.

Could you possibly be more of a bunch of failures? F*** you. I healed by time. These killer cops have gotten away with murder and instead of life in prison, they're now getting a shorter sentence, which is Chokha to dick and die. So finally, I will say Trump is the polling is on this. Finally, I will say that the polling has swung dramatically. Public support for Black Lives Matter has jumped 25% in the last two weeks.

So right now, Trump is polling at 42% Joe Biden is polling at 46% and there is 54% support in the United States for literally burning down a police station in Minneapolis. So burning down the police is more popular than either president candidate for president. So which raises the obvious question that if 54% of people support burning down a police station, what are the views of the other 46%? And I dug into it, 12% said don't burn down the police station. And 23% said why only burn one police station?

Burn them all. 5% said stack all the police stations on top of each other and then tip them over and then there were six percent who said I wanted to burn the police station and you took it away from me. So that's the state of America right now. Right so we can look for if that if the polling continues we can look forward to President Burning Police Station being inaugurated in January in the most in-singery inaugurations beach ever seen. I think that's a lot of weird.

The country is widely feeling the burn. They're just highly independent. It's a very exciting time for me personally. White people have recently discovered that racism is bad. Some of us learned that the hard way a few years ago. But I am really genuinely excited to bring whiteies over into the fold. People have been observing things like sort of blackout Tuesday where they didn't reply to any emails because they were thinking about racism. And that lasted for a day, which I think we can all agree is definitely enough time to

grasp the historical complexity of the institution. Oh, it's so friggin' like a last, that is a national record niche. Don't just, don't just back it off. It's, and it, well, we're very exciting for me yesterday to see another video of some Hollywood celebrities engaging with racism. It was a video where lots of different Hollywood celebrities said that they take responsibility for racism. It's an odd old affair. I mean, I would argue it was, I mean, look, the bit where Bryce Dallas Howard personally apologizes for ignoring police brutality is very surprising because I did not know that

she, I mean, she's responsible for some bad things. The Jurassic World movies f**k's up. Sure, but I didn't realize she was also complicit in systematic police violence towards African-American. The bit where Stanley Tucci apologizes for laughing at racist jokes. How many racist jokes you've been laughing at, Tootsie? What part has you been attending, Tootsie? I got a bit.

We did not know that that was happening at all. But the biggest relief is that earlier this week, it was promised by Ben Carson, the brain surgeon, and those words need to be restated as often as possible, especially me, the view, after you've heard Ben Carson, the brain surgeon, and those words need to be restated as often as possible, especially me, that you, after you've heard Ben Carson say anything, Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon, the pediatric, the man who operates on children's brain, was trotted out to say that President Trump was going to deliver a speech on racism, and that speech was going to be delivered by Stephen Miller. And that looks like the villain in an upcoming Disney film, but also the hero in a Disney film that's

recently been pulled off of a streaming service. Now, a sweet relief about all of this is that that speech, thus far, and I'm not saying he's not going to do it, there's obviously a time difference, thus far that speech has not materialized, which is the only piece of good news to happen in the last half decade. The Donald Trump did not give a speech about possibly the only thing that could make the situation worse is if Donald Trump delivered a speech on racism written by Stephen Miller. They are the lend and a mccartney of white nationalism. It's that is not what anyone needs. And I think at this point,

we have to submit Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, for the time he didn't give a speech about racism. Martin Luther King had a dream and we heard about it and it was great. Donald Trump presumably also had a dream, but we did not hear about it, which is a relief, because it was probably as racist as it was, disgusting. Well, here in Britain we've been, well, as you say, dish, somewhat belatedly, finally starting to examine the influence of racism in this country, the role it still plays, and our slave trading past. Just after we recorded last week, and I suggested melting down statues from questionable historical eras, and turning them into puppies,

the public of Bristol took a different attitude, and tore down a sculpture of Edward Colston, a slave trader from the 17th and 18th centuries and lobbing it into the harbour since then various statues have been removed, toppled, dorbed with varying degrees of justification, some mostly very justified. And it's ordnance, because as a country we are obsessed with our own history, but only a version of it that is wrong. So there's a favor saying that the past is a foreign country, and ironically, it's the only foreign country

that we're actually positive about in Britain. Or we don't really, we only go to the touristy bits, and I don't actually learn what life was really like there. Another favor saying, those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them. bits and don't actually learn what life was really is really like that. Another fame is saying those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them and I don't think we're failing to learn the lessons of history in but what we do is we actively choose to ignore the lessons of history and then we're condemned to be a bit surprised when people tell us what actually

happened in history. The historian William Dahl Rumpley who's written a lot about in particular, about the East India Company and the history of Britain's relationship with India, said there is in Britain a vast ignorance of our own history. But I don't think that's right. I think it's not so much a vast ignorance as an active delusion about our history as we've seen played out this week. A lot of people have been drawing a comparison between the year 2020 and the film The Joker and I have to agree because I think this year is exactly like The Joker in that I think it's fucking awful and it's barely halfway through and I wish this shit was fucking over. It's an exhausting year and at this point outlook, Gmail, whatever the

email servers need to club together and program or do something to the algorithm that gives us a new email template that starts, hello, I hope this email finds you well apart from all of the everything and yours faithfully slash in hope that you're not murdered by a disease or police violence. I only, I only just realized that this year is the same year that in the movie, a quiet place, an alien invasion happens in 2020. That's when it happens. And an alien invasion happens that means

that people all have to hide indoors and not make any sound. And I'm not saying that the actual 2020 is worse. But why I'm saying is that if we had to be silent all the time, I wouldn't have to listen to people saying all lives matter and this locked down is for purses. And this week I would not have had to listen repeatedly to people say I think it is a fantastic idea that we have statues of slave traders in our cities. Now the defence of these statues is too prong. There's a lot of people saying,

well, isn't this a part of our past? And that's not the question you should be asking. The question you should be asking is, why was there a f***ing statue of a slave trader here in the first place? Another prong is that people say, well, the thing is, this is how you learn about it. This is how you learn about the past and Britain's past. All I'm saying is, at school, I managed to learn long division without there being a fucking statue of it in the middle of Croydon. I somehow managed to wrap my mind around that concept without having a huge statue of it. And also, the worst thing about it is that the statues are up,

but I studied history all the way through secondary school up to degree level, and at no point, without me doing voluntary study did I study anything about the British Empire right British history in schools is basically Henry the eighth Mr Darcy Second World War we are obsessed with the Second World War and the reason we're obsessed with the Second World War is it's the only time in history where we were the good guys. NATO, I have to tell you, Hamilton is playing in London like the f***ing sixth sense. It is a huge twist ending for British people that it turns out we were the bad guys.

A lot of people have been making this point at how stacked we learn, we learn from these statues, Boris Johnson in a series of tweets, said we cannot now try to edit or censor our past, which is a bit rich from someone who regularly tries to edit and censor our present. And not release, for example, inquiries into Russian interference in our democratic process who puts up bullshit, adverse, telling massive lies to try and influence, influence referendums, for example, we cannot pretend to have a different history. He said, that is arguably the biggest lie he's ever told. That is what we do in this country.

We pretend to have a different history. And you mentioned these statues. There's a couple of points about that. You know, why is a statue being up for so long? The other point is, you know, when these statues were put up, Edward Colston died in 1721, that the abolition of slavery happened through the early 19th, century, 1833, the final full banning of slavery in this country. The statue of Colston went up in 1895, and it stood there for 125 years. Robert Clive died in disgrace in 1774, even by the

standards of 18th century Britain he was seen as beyond the pale. They put up a statue to him in 1912. This was the period when we were trying to airbrush our own history and brush it and let's talk about this. Oh, you'll be brushing our history under the carpet. Now you're getting it out from under the carpet, not just under the carpet, but under the great blints that have been put on top under the carpet. No, you're getting it out from under the carpet, not just under the carpet, but under the fucking great blinch that I've been put on top of the carpet. Robert Clive is one of the biggest shisters

in our illustrious national history of shistorism. At the time, the vice-rov India Lord Minto said it would be needlessly provocative to put up a statue of Clive. This was back in the early 20th century. And they also put a memorial tablet to him around the same time in Westminster Abbey. Westminster, I mean, Clive was not the most Christian of men on his tinder dating profile at the time. His likes included slaughter, extortion,

looting, prostitutes, burning down villages, and bribery. He was described by the aforementioned historian William Darryl as anel as an unstable sociopath, so we can look forward to a statue of Boris Johnson outside the Department of Pensions in 150 years' time to commemorate his efforts to improve the lot of Britain's old people. Robert Clive is more colloquially known as Clive of India, which as far as figures from Britain in the 18th century go,

is a bad formula of name. Like, white guy of brown country suggests that white guy did not do anything. I don't know what Nigel of Somalia did and I don't want to know. Yeah, listen, it's all, it's been a very spicy week to be a British Indian. It's been a very spicy week for me to be a British Indian. Pretty much since I was born, given that as a British Indian, I've spent my entire... I was born in Britain,

but my family is from India. I've spent my entire life essentially profiting from the plundering of my own ancestors. And that is a difficult thing to wrap your mind around. Sort of be like, sorry grandma. Luckily, I got a great state school to go to. It's very difficult to kind of intellectually wrap your mind around those kind of ideas. I don't know if I've ever spoken about this other podcast before but my great uncle was an Indian soldier, an Indian freedom fighter, who was shot in the back by British troops

and he retired on a full military pension. And it's been a great source of pride for me to know that, to know that he was a man who devoted his life and risked his own personal safety for the sort of abstract idea of freedom. That's something that I've always been very proud of. But I've always been secretly more proud than he was shot in the back, which means that when he got there and realized they had guns, he ran away.

Because to me, that is the ultimate ideal. Somebody here was principled, but also fundamentally sensible. That's the thing. I'm sorry. That's the thing. That's the thing. If our family had a family crest,

it would be a picture of the lion hiding sensibly. Rob, I'm back from the Justice Secretary on BBC's question time, said, you cannot escape history, and it will be fundamentally dishonest to us through removing our statues and airbrushing our history to pretend that all was well. You know, totalitarian regimes do that. And when he said you cannot escape history, surely this week has proved that more than any other, this is history coming back for us. We've been trying to escape it for hundreds of years. Fundamental dishonesty is, for example, putting up a statue of Edward Colston without saying what he actually did. And you know, totalitarian regimes do that.

I guess totalitarian regimes might, for example, put up a statue of Robert Collive 150 years after he was active. The circumstances of Robert Collive's death are still shrouded in some mystery, but there are a lot of people who believe that he killed himself. And he didn't be, there was no suicide now. I'm not quite sure what the derivation of the theory is,

but at the time Samuel Johnson reflected the sort of view as to why he thought Robert Clive might have killed himself. And this is direct quite from Samuel Johnson. He said that Clive had acquired his fortune by such crimes that his consciousness of them impelled him to cut his own throat. Now, while we building statues of him, even he thought he sucked. I would be into a statue of him cutting his own throat.

Maybe we need, I propose a campaign to have a statue of me tea-bagging Robert Clyde's course. Well, you know, if you're going to have your statue of Colston, you also have to have a statue of, you know, 100,000 Africans that he trafficked to the Caribbean. I mean, but if we do that in all our cities, it's going to make the traffic an absolute nightmare. And this idea that it's erasing the past, I suggested in various newspaper and authorism, political speeches, but it's not erasing them. You don't go to an archaeological dig, do, and someone says, oh, I've got something, and you say, oh, what have you erased there with your shabby,

what have you erased out of the ground? Oh, it's some artifacts that tell us all about the past. Lovely bit of erasing, but we really want to learn from them and educate people about them. So why don't you bury them again, but even fucking deeper this time, that is a best way to learn. The only thing this make me feel better this week is that America has also succumbed to the statues-based discourse. Tom Cotton, who's a senator, who recently caused controversy by writing an op-ed in the New York Times, which he could have

saved himself a lot of time in regards to simply by writing the words, I am a c*****, such a big c*****. La la la la la, I'm a big old c*****, everybody hates me because I am a c**, who's a c**, I'm a c**, a big old c**, the end, PS, I'm a f***ing. Tom Cotton, that guy, suggested that the Washington Monument, if things continue the way that they're going, will be replaced with something called the Obelisk of Wokeness, which is what I recall my penis, although full disclosure, it is less than obelisk and more a poorly maintained crumbling relic of whiteness. There's another thing that I think I'm going to use these Strafalgar Square statues, the other one, most people don't know who is on these statues, so what is it even matter?

Well, yes, most people don't know because most people don't care about history. Some of us do know what is on these plints because we recorded a radio show a couple of years ago about the physical legacy of the MPo with any of our panelists. Do some research, haven't never given it. A moment's fucking thought before they have to look it up again when writing this bit for remind ourselves because we'd forgotten.

So, but I'm British history is what I decide history is. What's weird about the statue thing is like these, some of these people, like Churchill, I sort of, Churchill was ahead of state, I get it. But Colston was just a businessman of his age. And so, like, how did we decide that those people should get, I mean, if we, to, the way I, what I'm trying to think about is like, if we were to do it now, if someone said, look, we want to put a statue in the middle of the town plaza of our great captains of industry,

we have a statue of Mark Zuckerberg ready to go. Would that be a good idea? It would be a great idea, because the speed at which that, that would be the first statue to be defaced as it was being put. It would be it would be defaced by the men installing it. And one final two final points one I think we've learned also this week that nuance is f***, it's totally f***, no 12 ways about it. It's 110% dead.

And if I can rework my own words here, I think maybe one of the questions we have to ask is, is this, is reducing massively complex issues of politics, history, and society to oversimplified binary viewpoints right or wrong. Until I get answered to that question, I'm not sure we can move on. Andy, you've just elegantly summarised the inherent problem in the way the news has been presented for the entirety of the 21st century.

Well played. Well played. Well played. Just briefly, if I may get something off my chest, I have sort of, you know, this in British comedy at the moment, there's been a bit of a schism because on both sides of the Atlantic it isn't just statues that are coming down, it's sort of arcane pieces of culture that have been taken off streaming platforms because they're now deemed to be offensive. You know, I sort of think a couple of things here. Firstly, I think that whilst it's always important, culture is an ongoing conversation and it's always important to update your cultural references depending on the morality of

the date, that's just the way that things work. But at this time I do think this is sort of a distraction tactic, you know, and it's slightly taking the focus off the cultural moment that is going on right now. And you know, there are slightly more important issues and you know, there's a part of me that thinks, or maybe talking about television programs and sitcoms is maybe a bit of a distraction. I don't really know where I land on this, but what I do know is, guys, come on, it was ages ago. Gone with the wind has been taking off HBO Max because attitudes to slavery have changed since the 1930s, and in Britain, the sketch-o come fly with me has been removed from the streaming service Britbox because it featured Blackface. And guys attitude to Blackface has changed so much since come fly with me first head in 2010.

It was a different time. It was 2010. We'd only just recently got iPads. We had all sorts of questions like, is this a big iPhone? And should we do Blackface? It was very confusing. That brings us to the end of this week's Bugal. I hope you've enjoyed it. If you can

enjoy it, enjoy it doesn't seem the right word to be honest, but it's... If you're moved to... if you listen to the podcast and, uh, and our move are so moved, go ahead and set up please Caron Fire. Yeah, alternatively you can join our voluntary subscription service. It's up to you. Generally, you want to do it. To join the bugle voluntary, just go to the bugle podcast.com and click, click the donate. But the end, we're not telling you how to live in life, just giving you the options. podcast.com and click click the donate. But the young we're not telling you how to live your life just giving you the options. Not saying either one is right or wrong just as long as you've got all the facts to make your own decisions. Don't forget to join us either on time or afterwards for the Bugle Live livestream live quiz Saturday tomorrow night Saturday

the 13th of June. Chris's head is going to explode with the technological marvels that he is going to achieve. There will be a lot of ridiculous questions and genuine factual answers. Thank you very much for listening, Nito. You just said you've started a new podcast, you know, tell us. Yeah, I started a new podcast, Stroke, relaunched an old podcast. It is called the Bituation Room. And I am the sidekick to my friend, Francesca, if you're in Teeny,

comedian, journalist, and host. And we live stream Sunday nights at 6 p.m., California time. And then the video stays up and the podcast usually comes out on Monday. And it's a mix of comedy and then chat with political smart people. Right, Nick, anything to plug? Just plugging good vibes. Good vibes.

Just some good vibes, yeah. How would you pay to do that, Nick? Well, you know, I've been in the pocket of big vibes for many of you. That can't entry. I paid to do that, Nish. Well, you know, I've been in the pocket of big vibe for many a decade, Anthony. If you fancy kicking some money towards the Stephen Lawrence Trust, I had a bit of a slightly lost my temper this afternoon with some tweets, the British Prime Minister had done.

And so, as a kind of ultimately few tile that made me feel better for five minutes, gesture of protest, I've donated some money off his back to the Stephen Lawrence Trust who do lots of very good work in helping people with disadvantaged backgrounds, so you could do that if that's something you feel like doing. But I'm not telling you how to live your life. Thank you for listening, Buegos. We'll be back next week.

Goodbye.