The Bugle - Contests, Conflicts and The Zaltzprime

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

It's the big one! US elections, UK elections! Other weird stuff keeps happening! And we have a new number: The Zaltzprime! Andy, Alice and Anuvab start the year with a bang.Click follow to make sure you get every episode and please drop us a nice review or rating wherever you choose.PLUS: Become the owner of an exclusive episode of The Bugle, on 12 inch vinyl! It's your last chance to get your name on the artwork. Become a premium member NOW! https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donateThis episode was presented and written by:Andy ZaltzmanAlice FraserAnuvab PalAnd produced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ask Andy is our new subscriber only show every month. Andy answers your questions like these. What's your favorite color, Byro? What the f*** is it with you in terrapins? What are the spring 2024 catwalk colors? How goes it with the Citar? Can you recommend either the floating barge or the detour to Rwanda? What do you think of the kids of politicians getting into politics? Maybe you and your colleagues would be able to suggest some coping mechanisms. And Andy even asks a few questions himself. Do you think I could get to Christmas number one?

Subscribe to Ask Andy Now via any podcast platform. Go to thebugelpodcast.com forward slash donate. Donate. 286 of the bugle audio newspaper for a visual world with me and these ultimate and where else to start Then by saying happy new year This is the first bugle of the year yet another year Beginning with two getting a bit dull now, but the first even numbered year for just over a year So at least that freshness things up up. But yes, it is indeed 2024 which of course is short for 2024. Sick! We're nearly a quarter of a way through the century already and even more for

fuckers, Saika. It's the year I'm going to turn 50. Oh fuck! Ah, oh fuck! Ah, oh fuck! Chris, can you just fade down the internal monologue channel please? For everyone's sake. Joining me on this first vehicle of 2024 to hopefully slow down the passage of time with the soothing bomb of bulgeats. I'm delighted to welcome firstly the two humans who are currently Alice Fraser.

Welcome back, Alice, happy new year, happy birthday as well, was your birthday, a couple of days ago as we recalled. How are you? How is your... Two days ago was the crow flies through time. Was my birthday. I'm currently buffering at 92% as they say in the pregnancy game. They don't say that. I have in theory, I have three weeks to go. Right. But from the amount of aggression that this small person is showing, I feel he's ready to make his entrance at an e-minute.

If I step off a curb wrong, we're in for it. I think actually neither are our children made it to the full 100% pregnancy mark, but yeah 92 solid effort. Well also my toddler has a habit of headbying these in the stomach which I feel is like. That's the sort of the evolutionary desire to mark out territory. I guess you can't, that's millions of years in the making. Joining us from India, it's Anuval Pal, Happy New Year, Anuvalows, House 2024 going for India so far. Very well, Andy, very well. I am in the city of Calcutta, bringing in the New Year with family, and the AQI in Calcutta is about the same as storms reaching on the planet Jupiter. So that's air quality index. Correct. That is absolutely correct. Right. And

whatever's going on with Alice is going on in my lungs right now. As far as I know I'm not carrying a child, but I don't know. Right. But it's possible that pollution could be so dense that it sort of coalesces in your lungs into some form of primitive life form. But then, I mean, this was like the start of the up in your work in film, I know. Yes, but if this sci-fi film is not made by the end of the year, I will consider you personally to have failed. So get it, get it, mate. This is, you know, this is going to be a three-part film called something and it. This is the first Beagle of the year. As I said, 2024 to be precise, a year that is predicted by experts to be the joint longest of the decade so far.

And if the boffin and calendar are right, it's a good bet to finish the decade in top spot alongside early pace set of 2020 and pre-decade joint favorite 2028. Historically it seems barely the blink of an eye go that we were all toasting the advent of a new millennium but yes that is already one thousand and twenty four years ago and so much has happened in the meantime, as evidenced by the fact that you are listening to me talking about it, rather than watching me stitch it into cloth. The 9th of January, the day we're recording, that's today, as I speak, probably yesterday or a few days ago, or months or even years, decades ago, as you listen. Ninth of January is apparently play God's Day.

Have you come across this before? Neither of you. Well, I mean, we've got 331 million gods, Andy. Yeah. If one got into that game, I don't think I'd have any income. Yeah, you're apparently, it's play God Day. You're supposed to act like you are God. And so I assume that I'll just spend the rest of the day after this bugle recording, doing

absolutely soddle to deal with all the problems I've caused over the years, failing to say anything to clarify the not entirely clear things I've said in the past, not catching up on long overdue admin, not correcting all the people who deliberately misinterpret my words, and generally lounging around to no good purpose. So basically, just your average exultimate day. I mean, I'm always playing God Andy, I'm creating life. Tomorrow's the 10th of January, at which point it will be happy birthday to my elder child, who was born on the anniversary of Enlightenment superstar and Christianity skepticism celeb Thomas Paine publishing his

smash hit pamphlet Common Sense back in 1776. And just a couple of weeks ago at the end of 2023, Common Sense was voted most ignored historical advice of the year, yet again. I think that is now about 140 years in a row. It's taken that title. As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. And this week, as I said, it's a leap year this year. So we have a special section explaining leap years, answering some of the questions you all have about leap years, including why are there leap years? Answer no one knows, but they kind of work, the most commonly accepted explanation, is either that Jesus accidentally miracled an extra day into February when he was doing a Messiah training holiday camp as a teenager, or that the ancient Greeks just chucked an extra day into every four-year Olympic cycle to do bag searches on all the spectators entering the stadium at Olympia. Why are leap years called leap years? Well, that's because jumping used to be illegal under the Theocratic regimes of the late first millennium. Apart from on one extra day

every four years, when everyone was forced to jump up and down for the whole day to try to wake up the soil, so plants would grow more enthusiastically over the next four years. Another leap year fact, Brexit Britain is set to abandon the leap year. Instead, we're going to introduce our own Britastic Superday, the Brexit of Brexit's Temba, which will be a special 60-hour Superday once a decade, rather than having two and a half leap years per decade, on average, where everything will be legal, as long as you're a half leap years per decade on average, where everything will be legal as long as you're wearing union jocke underpants on your head. And a couple of final leap year facts.

Paleo-calendrologists have calculated that the first leap year was in about 4.5 billion BC. And legend has it that if you hold your breath for the entirety of a leap year, you either become a mortal or you die. Also, as it's New Year, first bugle of the year, in the bin this week, we have a New Year, New U section, how to care for your brand new U tree that your punnidicted friend bought you as a New Year's gift, including tips on how to stop the roots going down too deep at annoying the people who live in the flat below you. We'll deal with the sheep next week, then in subsequent episodes.

The ancient Chinese redid wind instrument, the river in Guangxi province, diverted to run through your home, the slightly confused and understandably agitated 59-year-old Japanese TV personality actor, writer and former model, and the large suitcase full of contraband uranium. That new year, new usage, of model, and the large suitcase full of contraband uranium. That new year, new year, new year, so you also, in the bin. Oh, it's good to be back. Ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Top story this week, 2024 has begun. Yes, as I said, another new year. And it's set to be a year of contests, conflicts, frankly, harrowing matchups

and the kind of head-to-head encounters that make you feel like headbutting yourself in despair at what we're doing to ourselves as a species. And this week on the Bugle, we look at some of the defining contests that are gonna shape this year of contests. And, well, let's start with the defining contest that looks set to be the most defining and contested defining contest of the year.

And that is Donald Trump against American democracy. Are you both excited at the prospect of well what 10 months now of pure unadulterated, inescapable Trumpian horror. I mean, Andy, this is wild. This is the Supreme Court has said that they're going to take up the appeal that Mr Trump has made against the Colorado Court, that said he couldn't be on the ballot in Colorado. The Supreme Court have said they'll hear it. Look, the argument against taking Trump off the ballot

is that to take him off the ballot will cause widespread chaos. But I feel like they have missed the point at which leaving him on the ballot will cause widespread chaos. It's extraordinary. I think this is like the most interesting thing about this story for me, Andy, is that this is a court now,

the Supreme Court, that is so politicized that no matter what they decide, a significant proportion of the population will refuse to accept the ruling. It's like at a wedding if the priest goes, I now declare you man and wife, and the groom's half of the room goes, yeah, right. In this analogy, January 6th is the part where the priest goes, speak now or forever hold

your peace and then a social media paleo influencer in a buffalo hat charges the thrine. So I mean, this idea that Trump can't be taken off the banner because it would cause widespread chaos. I mean, does show that irony is still one of our most implacable foes as a species. Basically, what this is saying is that we can't take that shark out of the swimming pool because doing so might cause some people sunbathing around the pool to get splashed a bit. I don't care if it's kids compulsory swimming out now or not rules are rules. Also, as you said, the... Hang on, let me...

Well, also, as you said, it's the Supreme Court that is going to make this ruling, following on from the ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court, and other Supreme Court's late last year, which disqualified Trump from the ballot for being an insurrectionist, and the Supreme Court ruling will apply nationwide. So Trump's presence on the ballot paper is up to the Supreme Court, and of course, the people in the Supreme Court were up to Donald Trump, aka, the defendant whilst he was president,

because, well, America is a f***ing idiot, essentially. So that's the situation that we're in. And, but I don't know how much coverage does... I think I'm an increasingly here in Britain, certainly, we're obsessed with American politics. Does it get the same level of coverage in the Indian news media? It does, and I think one of the things that resonate very well with India is that, will he to be elected president and then be convicted? He could run the country from jail. And that we can really identify with because some ministers have had to face that situation.

There was even some Indian leading corporate figures who were imprisoned for financial fraud, who sold hotels in New York City sitting in the main jail in Delhi. So the fact that he can be a functioning president finally means that the American democracy is catching up with the more mature democracy, which is India, and letting things be fluid.

And also the, you know, times like this, you know, when there is uncertain democracy, is when I usually turn to Napoleon. I often turn to Napoleon, but this in particular, because Napoleon did this right way. He was, but there was a, because Napoleon did this right way. He was, but there was a council that was going to run France and it had to have five people on it.

There's a lot of debate on who should be on the council. Napoleon wanted to be the head of the council, so he had the vote at gunpoint. So you know, those things really help, you know, they really help the situation. So I think like you said, to have some Supreme Court judges that you've appointed, I mean, I'm all for a fair fight, but it's a bit of a help. Yeah, I mean, this whole election campaign, you know, Trump versus American democracy, it's essentially a major subconflict in the ongoing bouts between America and its most lasting, hated and remorseless opponent, the USA.

And Trump, obviously, the bloviating, fuck pigs, bloviating, fuck pig, the grand wizard of groundless, winging the undisputed arch duke of arse-holitude and dick-watery. The foremost living example of the disappointingly tenacious mammalian species which goes by the Latin name,

cancerous cantankeras. By this time next year, could be set to move into either the White House or, as you said, a maximum security penitentiary or both or a specially configured maximum security White House that can double up as both. I mean, these are frankly bizarre times. American democracy has never quite been the beacon of freedom, justice, choice and hope that it has slugged a crack itself up as this has in common with, for example, all other democracies. Ever since the ancient Athenians first thought to themselves, oh shit, we f*** this right up guys, with considerable emphasis on the word guise, despite

which it took another 2,300 or years before democracy took a radical punt on allowing women to help out with the voting shemozzle. But at the moment, Trump Biden too is looming over the democratic year like Freddie Krueger over a toddler's play pen. It's a funny hard to sort of look ahead at this year without a feeling of dread. Not necessarily that Trump is going to win, but just the deluge of Trump-based news that we will have to deal with on this show,

for a while. So what it does, that American democracy is, and you know, saying this from Britain, you know, I realize that these are thin icy legs we are standing on, if I may mix various metaphors. American democracy is in an unadvanced and seemingly incurable state of self-inflicted necrosis. To the extent that, if the Abraham Lincoln sandwiching tramverett of presidential uselessness that was Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson were to be hiked back from the dead in the form of a three-headed warthog to run on a presidential ticket alongside a shipping container full of rotting Donica badmeteers vice presidents, I think a lot of Americans would think, yeah, maybe this is a better option. But that is the state where, I mean, rumors are just reaching us at the Statue of Liberty

is considering quitting and accepting a big money offer to join the new Saudi Arabian sculpture league. Whilst the Lynne can memorial, if Trump wins in November, It's set to be reconfigured to show the 1865 a satiny of the year, not sitting contemplatively on an armchair, but kneeling over a toilet seat vomiting uncontrollably. So that is that is where we are. Good luck, America. We will have full exclusive coverage of the American election. Sorry, I'm going to do that again. We will have full exclusive coverage of the American election process through the year as we try to retain a microscopic trace of optimism that democracy is not dead.

Andy, look, the Democratic National Party are desperately looking for a 50-year-old. So, and you're looking for a bit of a change. So, if it's not the marriage, would you consider the American presidency as an alternative? Right. I, to be honest, I'm not really a big fan of,

well, divorce at the moment in my life partly because I like my life and I hate Admin. So there's two reasons for not getting divorced. So it does, running for the American presidency, I think would be less hassle. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not saying you need to get divorced. I'm saying your cohort are getting divorced. You can cut out the middle man, stay married, and just get a mattress on the floor somewhere. To express your need to feel young again. And I have, the private life thing is between you and Alice.

I've been recruited by the Democratic National Party to ask anyone who is under the age of 82 if they'd like to run. You're the first person I've spoken to in weeks. I was just thinking. Okay. All right. I mean, there's a few little... I mean, I wasn't...

I don't think I was technically born in the USA. My mother was born in the USA. I don't know if I can sneak that in. Sneak in on a... I feel like... What's happening now in American politics with these two rather elderly representatives is a macrocosm of what's happening in pop culture,

which is that you can't make references anymore because pop culture is increasingly siloed into little algorithmic things. So if you want to get a universal reference, you have to go back to the 90s. And I think that's what's happening here with the politicians, because anyone who's younger than about 65, you go, yeah, I mean, it is, I think I mentioned this before on the bugle that Bill Clinton is still the second most

recently born American president, and he was last president a f*** of a long time ago. I think an American president can come from Tanbridge well so I don't think there's any law about that. I think there is actually, but you know, I mean laws as we've discovered. Yeah, otherwise we'd have had Arnie four times already. We've discovered that laws are often more malleable than the lawyers make us make us believe. If you've got Bitcoin Andy, I know somebody who does great fake ID. British conflicts news.

Now, while the big conflict in Britain this year, and this year of conflicts that we talked about, is the Conservatives versus their own record as conservatives since 2010. They've been in power since David Cameron squeak hoodwinked his way into power in coalition in 2010, 13 and a half years ago. And this week a conservative MP Danny Krueger said that the conservatives are going to leave the country when assuming that they lose the election that is scheduled probably almost certainly for this year, Sadder less united and less conservative than they'd found it in 2010 and that they face electoral obliteration. Sadder unless you're not yet less conservative, was that a radiohead lyric?

I forget, it's been a while since I've heard that. But we are set for an election, almost certainly this year. We don't have the same fixed election schedule as America or in various other countries. We prefer to leave it up to the sitting prime minister and their government to just decide when to put their head into the Democratic crocodiles mouth. So it can be any point up to five years since the last election with I think even a bit of leeway at the end of that. So it could technically be in January 2025, the election. But people seem to think that it's most likely to be either October to give the government more time to make Labour's job even more impossible than they take over or may because elections have tended to be in, or any other time. That's the way.

We're basically jazz, essentially, calling an election in Britain. It's more about when you don't call it than when you do. We're getting to watch the edifying spectacle of all the conservatives turning on each other. It's the ultimate own goal to be betrayed by your own party, except instead of football, own goal, it's a pigeon shooting of a goal and the pigeon is your penis. Just watching them all figure out how to talk themselves down, desperately trying to position themselves on the spectrum of political commentary for their jobs after they've been fired. The spectrum of political commentary for ex-conservative politicians goes from respectable, centrist, hypocrite to full froth farmer pandering to the most manipulable of angry, online bigots, the people who put the hug into so digestible. And I hope for one look forward to seeing how that all shakes out.

Well, you know, there's a lesson here from an Indian state election, but there was a particular Indian state election in the 1980s where the chief minister kept postponing the election till his son grew up, so he couldn't inherit the position. So again, there's a lot of room to learn from mature democracies. And also, I read somewhere, Andy, that there was a conservative politician, the one you mentioned, said that Britain is sadder, less united, and less conservative, now than when the conservatives inherited the government. And I've been away from Britain since November.

So I just want, are these all bad things? Well, I mean, I think, to be honest, looking at the way that the Conservatives have governed, two of them were core targets for the government, sadder, unless United. I mean, that's essentially what Brexit was all about. Let's conserve it till I'm not sure they necessarily wanted to go down that road. Essentially, now angry and more divided and more self-destructive, I think is how we are as a nation. So as a

result of this, it's quite hard to see what cards Rishi Sunak can play in his efforts to slightly elongate his time in office. He did warn this week that Britain, if it does vote for Labour, seems almost inevitable, the Britain would go back to square one. And frankly, looking at how things are going on whatever square are on now, square one sounds almost deliriously utopian. Just flatten everything, start with a nice brand new hinge and take it from there. See if we can f**king up less badly this time. When you're on square

62, the vortex of everlasting despair square which automatically loses you the game and features a snake all the way off the board into some kind of threshing machine. Square one is an attractive option. Yeah, I mean, I feel like in the Tory playing board, all the other squares are ladders that lead to snakes. Most of them missed in Qatar hedge funds. Actually, most of the snakes are just backbench Tori MPs waiting to submit their letters of no confidence. Anyway, it's kind of a wonderful year for democracy fans. It's going to show democracy at its sparkling, sparkling best.

We will also have full exclusive coverage of the UK election, general election, whenever that happens in the next 12 months. So nowhere else, no other media outlet will be reporting on it. Anyone who brought our attention to another, another election story that's happening in Bangladesh, just round the corner from where you are in Kolkata. Correct. Look, I'm always fascinated by elections where the opposition parties are on the run. Britain goes to the polls this year, the United States goes to the polls this year, India goes to the polls this year. You know, and a lot of examples, it isn't, there isn't really an opposition, everything's in chaos, that's my favorite time. So this week,

Bangladesh is having his general elections, I've been fascinated by this. The opposition leader, his name is Abdul Moin Khan, and he's been in hideouts hiding from home to home, because apparently he's going to be arrested there's a crackdown and basically Sheikh Hasina who's run the country for three terms about to be elected unopposed for a fourth term. She's made sure she's elected unopposed but I'm making sure loads of people who might be running or against are arrested before Before this guy going into hiding, the Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who started the Microfinancing Bank, Grameen Bank, 83 years old, he was arrested for some financial fraud.

And he said, this is not a good way to have elections by putting everyone in jail. I mean, it is a different interpretation of a healthy democracy if your opposition leaders are having to work on their fleeing-based cardio. Again, you know, this is something Trump could consider. Now, one thing that's fascinating about Bangladesh in the last 10 years is that it's become an export powerhouse.

You know, I grew up in the 1980s, Bangladesh was associated with floods and George Harrison. No longer. It's for a long time was a booming economy and most of the clothes they may go to the United States. America has been very concerned about these flailing elections and they've taken a very interesting approach. They've said Bangladesh may not happy with the way you're conducting these elections, but rather than Americans doing a show of strength or putting a puppet regime or sanctions,

they're trying to influence foreign elections by buying less lululemon yoga pants, which is an order approach to controlling the Bangladeshi democracy. But let's see if it works. Let's see. I mean, given how thin lululemon yoga pants are, I don't think you can get less in Lululemon yoga pants, I think at that point it's just invisible pants.

This is what the bugger this election is missing at outside observer in the form of Alice Fraser. The United Nations really needs. I think all cool elections need that. We have it. Well, another one of the key contests of the year, once again, is humanity versus technology. And increasingly, this has been going only one way, and really we're just looking for the old consolation goal at this point. We might all just accept that we've lost. Alice, I mean already this year,

we've had a few exciting, exciting developments in the Humanity versus Technology battle, including something we'll come on to shortly. The smart B-Day, and I'm just going to leave that phrase hanging, B-Glors, B-Glors just cosetate on subconsciously whilst we cover another story. That also makes you question what the fact we're doing with our Millennium Planet and species. And this is the CEO of a hedge fund, it turns out might not actually have existed as a crypto hedge fund and it turns out that the boss might be entirely fictional. Alice, as always, you have keeping your finger on the pulse of crypto insanity.

Tell us what brings up to date with this story. So for context, Andy, in 2022, the cryptocurrency hedge fund hyperverse collapsed, it suspended withdrawals. It was accused of operating the pyramid scheme according to blockchain analysts, the losses were estimated to exceed $1.3 billion, thousands of consumers lost millions of dollars, and Stephen Reese Lewis, who was the chief executive officer, is obviously the person most accountable, but it's starting to seem like he might not exist and not only, not like he fled to Montenegro and changed his name more like he never existed. His CV is

completely made up. None of the places he ever claimed to work or study have any record of his existence. And they just decided they were going to make up a CEO for this company. It is a genius way to avoid criminal liability. The ultimate highest, you can't catch me, I was never real. Much like so many of the cryptocurrency products that this hedge fund managed, it only really existed if you believed in it. And it's taken basically up until now to confirm that this man who never existed, who helmed a failed company, was in fact as fake as he seemed. And part of that was that the person who first broke the news

was a journalist for a tabloid newspaper for the Mirror Andrew Penman wrote about it because he found out that the people who had endorsed this chap, Stephen Rieslouis, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and a couple of other celebrities, may have had their endorsements purchased on Camille. And.

Well, Alessandhi, I have a quick question. I know that there's an issue with CEO not existing, but on the other side of it, a currency that does not exist. Should it not have a CEO that does not exist? Isn't there a synergy here? There is, there is an internal logic, logic to this. One of the celebrities, alongside Steve was Chuck Norris, apparently. I mean, that's an interesting combination for a start. But again, maybe this is, you know, because we'll take it all as he keeps showing us glimpses of a future that is really as dystopian or utopian as we

choose to make him. We talked about the American election earlier on. Would an entirely made-up president not be vastly preferable for America in 2024? I think this is a, this to me, Alice, is a good news story. Also, I mean, I have some experience of the benefits of people who don't exist. Many, many years ago when I was a student, I used to, I edited and and wrote most of the sports pages of one of the student newspapers and not all of my articles were 100% fact-based. It may not surprise you to find out. And generally the editors let me get on with it because I was very good at page layout and everything was scrupulously proofread even if the contents were total bullshit. They were correctly spelt punctuated and nicely laid out. So they let me get on with it. I have my own little sort of fiefdom on the two pages I've sport a week.

But one week one of the editors said I'm afraid we can't print this article because it's it's libelous. It's, well it can't be libelous because no one in the article exists. libulous. It can't be libulous because no one in the article exists. There we go. A quick question about the Fendi. The games and sports you were writing about, did they take place or did you make up the games as well? Well, some of them did. And some of them, oh, Denim, inbellish the reports. Going on the principle that frankly no one really cared that much about the intercollege archaea tournament or whatever, they had a few complaints from some of the people involved but mostly people seemed like well I did also, there were also other events.

And if I and Bugle was part, we had a few reports from our marginal sports correspondent Whole which actually began on the student sports page. So there we go. So, anyway, that is literally a millennium ago. Let's move on now. I think we've all had a few minutes now to think about it. The two words, smart B-Day. And if two words combined sum up where we are as a species, particularly commercially, I think smart bidet is it. It is the year 2024. So of course, you can now

buy a $1,300 smart bidet. If this surprises you, you've not been paying attention to the planning for the last 250 years. This to me is the logical endpoint of the industrial revolution. There is nowhere else to go from here. When those mechanical pioneers and engineering visionaries started revolutionising, what was possible with machine-oriented technology in the 18th century? Surely this is what they dreamed of a voice-activated arse blaster with variable spray intensities, heated seat, automated night lighting and intensities, heated seats, automated night lighting, and I assume the capability of suppositurizing podcasts directly into your particular cavity so you can assume all the spiritual nutrients from the show without even having to listen to it. This, the future is already here, but there's another example of where the future is already here. I went

to a holiday with the family to a southern Spain for a week over New Year and it was absolutely delightful. The highlight however is all the architectural wonders and wonderful food and fascinating history. It was a couple of machines. There was a little 24-hour day outlet and it was just a couple of vending machines. And one of the vending machines, one of the vending machines, basically 24-hour day, burger and cabab vending machine, where for three euros, you could get,

from a machine, a donica bab, a hot dog, or a burger. I don't know if there's any vegetarian or vegan options, but you could definitely get a three-year-old, donica bab. And I thought, well, this is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, so I took a photo of it. And then I noticed that next to it was another vending machine selling sex toys. So, 24 hours a day in Seville, you can go and get yourself a Donica Bab on a double-ended dildo. And where can human civilization go from here?

This is capitalism has no more cards to play. It's done. It's achieved. Everything it needed to achieve. Here's some loose change. Choose how you're ruining your night. I mean, you know, the grid, more is chem buyers.

We're not built into nothing, you know, they're brought through everything. I mean, this was literally yards from the Alkas are in, in Seville, one of the greats, architectural wonders of, of Europe, an extraordinary building that showed the limits of human creativity, but even that paled into insignificance next to this tiny little, little, uh, little, and Andy, whether you choose the cabab or the double-ended dildo, you are going to need a smart B-L-A. Exactly! Exactly! Family show! Family show!

Now, so that is the end of the first bugle of 2024, a year that we'll see history being made as indeed all years do, of course, but this year, the best kind of history, Bugle history, because in just a couple of months, the number of full Bugle episodes since we relaunched in the post-John Oliver era in 2016, we'll pass the number from the pre- everyone who isn't John Oliver era. And then sometime later in the year, just after the middle of the year, we will hit the 600 full episodes mark,

which by my reckoning will also be around the four million words of pure, unadulterated, bugle, wisdom, insight, and life guidance, not including sub-episodes, in the 16 and a half years since we first podcasted into the Hyperwaves. If a medieval monk were to transcribe all the bugles and get fancy with it, we're talking high-end calligraphy

and a full illuminated letter at the start of every paragraph, plus extra illustrations to pep things up visually. Let's say that works at around 2.2 words per minute, including the really arty ones, and assuming he puts an ad decent shift over a regular working week, well, he'd be writing out these exact words in approximately

16 and a half years time, by which time I would have done another 600 episodes and they'll be wondering, like some of the rest of us, what the f**k he's done with his life and opening that brother Thomas, Stuk, who's promised to transcribe all the sub episodes, spin-off sports-based shows and Alice's various shows, the gargle and all the others as well. So it's a historical year and do join us to celebrate that history in March on our UK live bugle tour details at thebeagleboggots.com and elsewhere on the internet. And I would have finished on a sort of hopeful note for the year and proof that social media can still be a force for good as well as a force for gratuitous and

Anonymized hostility barking bile into a logic-proofed echo chamber and the fostering of psychological anguish as elongated muskahound to give him his full Unshortened name does his bits reduce our species to a whimpering relic of its former self on X formerly known as Twitter formerly known as X formerly known as Twitter What's David Malone tweeted to us or X to us? What is surely the image of the millennium so far? So he tweeted this, in the last big old podcast of 2023 and the ask if someone could invent a new number for 2024. I have generated a 2,960 digit bracket, probably prime number that has

brackets probably never been used by humans before. I call it the Zoltz Prime. Now, he then the image with the tweet, and we have retweeted this from the bugleTwitter feed, is all these numbers and you know, got all the classic digits, like 2s, 4s, 0s, a hell of a lot of 3s plus the lights of your 6s, your 9s, your 5s, your 7s, your 1s and even your 8s. And together as they laid out in a number of lines in a kind of rectangular shape, they make up up purely through the shape of numbers. My face as portrayed in the bugle logo. It is unquestionably the greatest artistic creation of this or indeed any other millennium. David had in a follow-up tweet. I estimate the chance of someone having ever looked at this number before as less than one in 10 to the power of 47 and likely lower, the chance of this number

not being a prime number should be lower than one in 10 to the power of 300. So there we go. We talk about the logical end of civilization. This might be the logical end of the bugle podcast, this extraordinary creation. So thank you David Malone for that. For restoring my hope in humanity, improving that numbers are better than this. Who needs a magic number when you have a number composed entirely of bores?

It's a truly beautiful thing. It's a fascinating work, Andy. I've been looking at it. I've been looking at the numbers. And if it is a prime number and it is the Zoltz prime, you could be on the verge of a mathematical discovery. In that, there is no number in the world that can be divided, like a prime number is divided by itself and one only.

There is no number in the world that is divided by Andy Zoltzmann and one on you. Yeah, I just... I mean, it's real art, you can tell, because the ones follow you around the room. LAUGHTER We are going to get this made into merch. Yes. We are going to be charging less than one Zoltz Prime per team shirt.

LAUGHTER It's a currency. It's a currency now. We are going to be charging less than one zort prime per team show. That's a currency. That's a currency now. Also I'm going to use it as my 2960 digit-long pin number. So you'll be able to hack into my account if you study this number carefully. Thank you, David, for your contribution to human and bugle culture. Don't forget to aid your tickets for the live show. If you enjoy the bugle and want to contribute to its continuing freedom from

adverts and existence generally do go to the buglepockers.com and click the donate button to make a one-off or a current contribution. Also, Chris has told me in non-certain terms to tell you to follow and so to follow the show. Chris, you're gonna have to just, because I'm not entirely up with all the things that you young people do. So basically this is, you can just click follow. All I'm saying is there's a chance

that someone right now is listening to the show and they don't currently officially follow it And I don't want to miss out on next week's episode. So just click follow now Right on any platform to this work on all All platform judgment. All right, all platforms. It used to be people have to quotation marks subscribe, but the podcast industry is now evolved very excitingly to use the word follow okay right oh this is like Messiah's all over again so once again it's a Jewish guy the forefront of it well yeah I'm not going to, just compare myself to Jesus.

And I'm pretty quite dirty about it to be honest. But anyway, there you go. Alice, anything to plug right now? Mother, you thought the forthcoming child? Yes, Andy, I do have something to plug. And it's not my usual. I have two specials that are now available. A baby bundle price on GoFaster Stripe.

If you go to GoFaster Stripe and look up Alice Fraser, my last two hour long specials, Cronos and Twist are available there for 10 pounds for the pair of them. Or if you subscribe to my Patreon patreon.com slash Alice Fraser, you can get them for free. If you subscribe to my Patreon Patreon.com slash Alice Fraser you can get them for free if you subscribe at any level. So that's go fast to stripe and look up cronos and twist. I recommend watching them in chronological order because that's how I wrote them but you know you approach time from whatever angle you like. So that's either go fast to stripe or patreon.com slash Alice Fraser and you get to see my two most recent hour long specials both of which I'm very proud of. And of course the gargle is continued,

unobtated for the rest of time. Also I do a podcast and it is the sister podcast to this podcast. It is the Sonic glossy magazine for the Bugles Audien newspaper for a visual world. We are currently Glossy magazine for the Bugles' audio newspaper for a visual world. We are currently recording special episodes to cover the period during which I'll be, you know, off in Baby Dimension, so you will have uninterrupted listening. If you assume, follow the gargle on all of your podcast listening platforms. I know about anything to pluck. Well, first of all, I'm just fascinated that the bugle has caught up with Gen Z marketing.

I'm very happy that's happening. Gen Z was named off the me. That's correct. Stop forget that. That's a level of influence I wield in this world. That's a bigger kind than being like Jesus, I think. You've just let them at a free-rad, Andy. Now you're just staking your claim free-run, Andy. Now, you're just taking your claim.

It's fair enough. I did a show called the Department of Britishness at Edinburgh last year, and due to some huge folly, I'll be touring it over the summer across a few British cities to embarrass myself, not just in London, but across the British Isles, because I feel like there's, again, not just in London, but across the British Isles because I feel like there's again not enough people screaming for Britishness in the world. So I have to come all the way from India to do it. It'll be between the 15th of May and the 15th of June and the dates will be out somewhere on social media. And I'll be there in person unlike the Bitcoin CEO who didn't exist. Thank you for listening, Bueglers, we do hope 2024 brings you all

the joint happiness that a year with a British and an American election can possibly bring which is probably not very much. Until next week, when we will have Nish Kumar on the show, goodbye!