The Bugle - Democracy swings (and misses) into action

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

It's the year of democracy! Just look how it's playing out in India and Russia. Or don't. Also - Royal news, or is there no news? Plus - leaf blowers!Andy is with Anuvab Pal and Alice Fraser, plus Producer Chris. Recorded at the Warwick Arts Centre.Send thoughts and questions for Andy at [e-mail]. Click follow to make sure you get every episode and please drop us a nice review or rating wherever you choose.This episode was presented and written by:Andy ZaltzmanAlice FraserAnnual PalAnd produced by Laura Turner and Chris Skinner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Buglers. Welcome to issue 4295 of The Bugle, the world's undisputedly leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world. This is our latest episode recorded on our UK tour. We were at the Warwick Arts Centre last weekend where I was joined by the wonders of the internet by Anuvabh Pal from India and Alice Fraser from Australia. A small note the audio from this recording was shall we say due to certain technical glitchings, less than 100% optimal. However, Chris has worked his magic wonders and thanks to a few

repairs, a little AI and sacrificing an almighty motherload of oxen to Zeus, plus a lot of swearing from producer Chris, I hope you'll agree it sounds pretty good. Do enjoy the show. It's of course famously not in the actual city of Warwick. It's not even named after the ancient city of Warwick. It's named after, well this man, Warwick Armstrong, the early 20th century Australian cricketer. That's also known as the big ship. Massive cheat by all accounts. There he is, like, beating two children of cricket. Typical Australian, a win's a win. So that's the Warwick bit of Warwick Arts Centre. The Arts is named after the legendary jazz drummer Art Blakey and King Arthur, who would have been

known as Art if he'd actually existed. And the centre bit of Warwick Arts Centre is because this venue is in the geographical centre of the world, if you look at the world from directly above the Warwick Arts Centre. So that's a bit of info on the venue. It is a legendary venue. Joining us from different points in the future, one is four and a half hours ahead of real time, the other is eleven hours ahead. To give us an insight into what tomorrow brings for this planet, please welcome from India and Australia, irrespectively, Alice Fraser and Anuva Pal. Hello. How are you both? I'm well, sorry, I thought you said how old am I? How are you both? I'm well, sorry, I thought you said how old am I?

And I assumed... I've got the internet, I can check. I'm very well, yesterday I took my toddler to ride a tiny horse. So I'm as well as anyone could possibly be. Right. And I've once ridden a horse. And never again. The human is not designed to sit on a horse or vice versa to be fair.

Alice has an extremely new baby who featured in the last live-fugle show. Is the baby going to feature tonight? He may well feature, he's currently sleeping but he's six weeks old so he has no respect for time or boobs. Anubhav, welcome to the Warwick Art Centre. It's a delight to be in front of a Warwick crowd. You know, I've never been to Warwick but I'm a big fan of William Shakespeare as you know Andy and this is probably the closest I'll get to Shakespeare things being on this Zoom call talking to an audience in Coventry. yesterday in the year 44 BC, Julius Caesar, the Roman celebrity dictator, invasion fan, diarist and influencer, put in a solid, solid bit for Roman Empire, assassinee of the year.

Always a hotly contested title, but Julius really put down a big marker by getting thoroughly assassinated on the 15th of March 44 BC, over the course of his illustrious Caesaring career, which of course encompassed conquering and invading places like it was going out of fashion, which it emphatically wasn't, civil war in the crap out of Rome. Alongside that, Julius, the toga-wearing 55-year-old sword and sandals war epic star, probably wouldn't have spent much time wondering what it would be like to put on a porcupine costume inside out. But he was about to find out on the 15th of March 44 BC. Of course in 44 BC, they didn't even know what the C of BC stood for.

Or the B in fact. Well on that particular day, it's over bye bye Caesar as Big Jay copped a bit of a multiple stabbing from a group of conspirators that, had they been alive today, would have probably just spent all day gobshiting on on a 24-hour news channel about what an asshole Caesar was while suffering nothing constructive as an alternative. But people got shit done in those days. Because they had deadlines. The death was famously covered by the aforementioned late 16th century BBC history correspondent William Shakespeare and his play Julius Caesar is thought to contain the first example of product placement in a major drama Et tu Brute? I et 3. You can't beat the all-new potato.

So Chris won't have bought me a potato 20 minutes before the start of the show. I'm trapped in this relationship, someone help. It's like Chris went and bought me a potato 20 minutes before the start of the show for me. I'm trapped in this relationship, someone help. Of course, that wasn't the only moment of product placement in Shakespeare, from the original North Folio text, the original version's Macbeth. Is this a dagger I see before me? No, it's a potato. Have it mashed, have it crisped, have it spud.

Then of course there was the Merchant of Venice. Hmm. Have it mashed, have it crisped, have it spud. Then of course there was the merchant of Venice. Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh. Or for a healthier option for the same price you can get two pounds of potatoes. Tasty filling and even better for you Shylock, 100% kosher potatoes. Better than starving to death or plague. Warning may cause bloating. Cook thoroughly, do not eat if you're pregnant or a witch. Andy, I loved that joke so much, but if you don't mind me giving a note, it would have

been better if you'd had three separate potatoes. I'll be right back. You can tell Alice Fraser, trained lawyer, brings that kind of level of forensic precision to this podcast. On the 16th of March today is National No Selfies Day. Fran, has anyone taken a selfie today? No? Good. Good. It's, it's, well, let's say not just National No, it's International No Selfies Day, I've promoted it. Take that Rembrandt, you paintbrush waggling weirdo. The fight back has f***ing begun. Now here's another picture of me. Do some real art, you 17th century Dutch narcissist.

How about a proper piece of artwork, like a melting watch? Or a cow that must have took a tank of formaldehyde for a jacuzzi? Or a urinal that looks like a urinal? Or if you want to get really old school about it, how about some f***ing dogs playing snooker? want to get really old school about it, how about some dogs playing snooker? Right, Chris, I think we're ready for top story this week. Democracy around the world is f***ing f***ed.

And it's f***ed in lots of different places at the moment. We're going to take a look at some of the elections that are very imminent, already taking place, or will soon be coming. Luckily we're going to completely ignore the American election because we did some stuff on that last week and it's too depressing to do more than one week in a world. So let's start in India, Anubhav. Almost a billion registered voters, over two and a half thousand registered parties, a million polling stations, it's going to take 82 days, including a 44 day voting phase.

They've spent 14 billion dollars on the campaigns and everyone already knows who's going to win. Well, yes, you know, as the audience would know, Prime Minister Modi, very powerful Prime Minister, is going to win. But I'm really holding out for this small party in the south of India. They're the chess party. And what they want to do is they're, everyone that the members start playing chess religiously and properly. And they've got six votes, six in the party and mine's a seven.

I'm really hopeful. But basically the largest democracy in the world, the 1.3 billion people going in for a vote, but it's going to be in a month, maybe it's going to be over seven weeks. The election commission of India is an incredible body because it gets pretty much a racy country to vote in by and large a free and fair manner. And even we're shocked as to how this happens. This year, we've got the added benefit of artificial intelligence. It's going to be quite interesting. There are already images that the prime minister, the most recent

one is where the Prime Minister single-handedly caught a tiger while riding a peacock. He came out and said that it wasn't him, but he also said it wasn't, wasn't him either. So the government wants to regulate AI stuff because that's the big fear here. There's another video circulating this morning of Prime Minister Modi singing a song with British pop star Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran requesting everybody vote for Prime Minister Modi. Don't know how big his following is here. But again, the election commission said this wasn't an actual election appeal. Prime Minister Modi has not denied it.

He hasn't said that it's AI generated. The final AI video that's doing the rounds, which is why they want to ban it, is a fake video call between Prime Minister Modi and one Mr Vladimir Putin. Prime Minister Modi calls Mr Putin and says, stop this war man. This is a real video that's circulating on the internet Prime Minister Putin said I really want to but I just can't help myself and starts crying. Prime Minister Modi says all right I'm coming over we'll have a chat. Again the Election Commission has said that this is not a real video. Prime Minister Modi has not said this is not a real video. So these are the sorts of fact-based elections we're going into for 1.3 billion

people. So I think the world is safe. But also, Andy, I believe in the month of May, Britain goes into elections as well. Well, Britain that set up the democracy over here is going to have their own one then. Yeah, you're welcome. Great British invention, democracy. I've got my way before the Greeks, I think. Well, we might be having a general election. It seems a little bit up in the air. Are you excited about the prospect of a general election? There we go. That is the level of democratic fervour that is sweeping. So frankly, I think we take a bit more AI in our election campaign because it's heading to be drabber than drabber.

AI, Alice, is somebody who's completely changing obviously the way humanity works, the way democracy works, has the capacity to do one of things, but I don't think we're the best species to be in charge of it because we've got a bit of a track record. I love this story so much. The Indian government asked its tech companies to go to the government explicitly before launching unreliable or under-tested generative AI models or tools. Just to be clear, unreliable or under-tative AI models or tools. Just to be clear, unreliable or untested generative AI tools is pronounced generative AI tools.

The government's warned companies that their AI products shouldn't be able to generate responses that threaten the integrity of the electoral process ahead of the upcoming election. If I know Prime Minister Modi at all, which I should make absolutely clear I do not, if I know Modi, that means that he thinks that it's going to be used against him rather than for him. I mean AI, I think we have a bit of a dodgy track record as a species with wondrous inventions and not using them to their most beneficial purpose. The internet for example, primarily used for sharing pictures of naked people and cats on cats looking at cucumbers. Gunpowder, obviously we could use it for fireworks, just use it just for blowing people up.

Mathematics, that's basically metastasized into free market capitalism, which needs a bit of regulation here. I think the way we've left it unregulated, to the extent that we have, is like a man getting a new Labrador and training that Labrador through nothing but sausages and scotch eggs, and then taking that Labrador with him to a nudist camp. quite obviously going to come back to bite us at some point. And also religion as well. Religion, you know, it could bring people spiritual, I'm sure for many people it does, bring them spiritual peace and enlightenment, but we've largely used it just to just hate people. But we want technology to do things that are beyond the scope of the human body and mind. And this is why I have a bit of a beef with AI and elections, because bullshitting the electorate, we have got that covered. We do not need computers to help us out with that. And this was shown particularly this week with the voting in

Russia. Are you excited about the Russian election? Has anyone voted in it? Alice, I imagine Australia is very excited about the Russian election because obviously you have to vote in Australia and in Russia. I think they have one man, one vote and that man is Putin. So quite a different system. I think it's a wonderful thing. I think the Russian election is a truly wonderful thing because it is proof that the West did win the Cold War. Even Russia now pretends to have elections where people

vote despite all Russian leadership throughout history ever having been decided by any party in contention going to the edge of the forest where a hut stands on chicken legs asking it to turn around before entering the house and answering three riddles from the old lady within. That's how Russian leadership is decided. I don't make the rules, by the old lady within. That's how Russian leadership is decided. I don't make the rules, but nobody does. Yeah, so Russia has just started voting. It's over three days.

I think the bookie's favorite, Vladimir Putin, has won the previous five presidential elections, including the 2008 election when he ran under the name of Dmitry Medvedev, which we covered I think in issue 20 that's how long we've been going. And Putin looks very well set to triumph once again and what an election-winning machine he is the five foot seven inch semi-naked dressage enthusiast. But you have to wonder do you still get any thrill from is it not like your Manchester City winning title, okay where's the where's the exiled PSG in Paris? And can he do it on a

wet Wednesday in Stoke? As well as a Freezing His Arse off Friday in Novozhebetsk. I'd like to see him stretch his... he's proved he can win in Russia. I'd like to see him try to become UN Secretary General and said he'll be head of the International Croquet Federation, which I think would be a good solution actually, because he'd still get to rule an organization with despotic fury and it would make Croquet a lot more exciting. And he's got a lot of celebrities, probably pro-Putin rap star KGB has released a special album of songs and he's got got Stalin's darling so of course

won the first series of Dancing with the Tsars talent show. So, um, Anubhav, I mean, look at his election pledges which include the continuing slaughter of the youth of Russia and ongoing pariah status on the global stage. It's quite hard to see the attraction for Russia. People seem to keep voting for him according to the official results. Can you explain why? Well you know I'm at a contrarian view on this Andy. I think that Vladimir Putin is setting a new model for democracy for certain leaders like the Chinese leader and for Prime Minister Modi because it's one thing the Western world you go out

and you tell people please vote for me. Prime Minister Modi for example goes out now he's on his election campaign now and he's going out and saying please vote for me otherwise oh it doesn't matter there's really nobody else please vote for me. So he's getting a little cocky. And I think all of that is coming from some good trading from Vladimir Putin. I think Putin, I've been listening to some of his speeches and he said, you know, go out and vote for who you think is the best candidate. I'm really sorry that the candidate list is so short. I think if you're a little cheeky already knowing the results, you become a bit of a role model for Xi Jinping, for Viktor Orban, for Prime Minister Modi, for the Turkish president. And I think one of the things Prime Minister Modi is hopeful of is if he wins,

he may go away from this British system of democracy, where there's a lot of checks and balances. It's really irritating. Apparently, the chief justice of the Supreme Court can't be dictated to by the prime minister. It's a lot of rubbish. So he might. There's a lot of systems that are set up where it makes dictatorial power very, very hard.

And that's why, you know, you need the Vladimir Putin model of democracy, where it's Vladimir Putin running against Vladimir Putin. And that, you see, levels the playing field. In fact, we all are our own worst enemies, aren't we? Sorry, that's not true of Putin. He is everyone else's worst enemy. Now here in Britain, we've had our own election coming up at some point in the next, what is it now? It's going to be in the next 10 months basically. We've seen the level of excitement

amongst... I imagine viewer listeners are more politically engaged than average and no one hears excited about it. So this is the state of our democracy. And well, the big democratic story this week was the racist Tory donor, Frank Hester, there he is, the health tech multimillionaire, he's worth over 400 million pounds apparently. He defended himself, these comments he made about Diane Abbott saying his remarks had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin, which does make you wonder why he chose the words that she wanted to, made him want to hate all black women. Those two statements don't blend particularly harmoniously, I don't think, I mean the Conservative Party basically said that he wasn't really racist. I think just, when you're a conservative, just don't judge people by your own standards.

Try to bring in a little bit of... and also, we do need to see in a bit of... I don't want you... I don't want Mr. Hester's comments to make you want to hate all multi-millionaires. Let's... Let's not stoop to his level. I do. Oh, you do,, right. Sometimes I don't understand nuance. This gentleman said Diane Abbott, because of her policies, should be shot. He later said my statements were misconstrued. Now I'm not quite sure what he means by it. Can you explain? He means Oh, yeah, right. Or possibly out of a special cannon in a special hot air balloon so that she can float across the country sharing her wisdom. Maybe he meant, he didn't mean that, but maybe he did. They're right to not take action. I mean, all it's going to be is a lead dean of

Ballot and I think that's completely fair. Who here thinks that the Conservative Party should give his money back? At least 10 million, possibly 15 million. Who thinks they should give it back? That's fairly unanimous. What puzzles me about it? Because they're saying they don't need to give it back, he's apologised and all that, obviously they can't really afford to give it back. But let's not forget, this is the Conservative Party we're talking about. I think it's the same Conservative

Party that likes to bang on endlessly about how people shouldn't rely on handouts. I'm pretty sure it is the same one. It is the same one, isn't it? It's not a different Conservatives. It is the same Conservative Party that basically tells people off on benefits for bleaching off the state. It's that one, isn't it? It's that one. Yeah, it is the same one. I'm proud of what I've been doing. Andy, I think there's one simple solution that will get the entire nation behind them. Rishi Sunak walks into the betting shop and puts all 15 million on England to win the Euros this summer. And finally the country unites because we could all of a sudden solve our massive debt problem

simply through that fella. That would make more sense than some economic policies of the conservatives. In Liz Truss economics, that is the equivalent of just putting your money in a low interest high street savings account in terms of the reliability of it. Also Andy, just a very quick question. Now we're quite good at corruption where I'm from. Yes. Yeah. I see that. And we've made our art of it. Now, it seems like in your country, you have political contributions

that go to support a certain political cause. Yes. May I be bold enough to suggest a slightly different model that we use here? Yeah. We use the model where if a political party needs money, it creates some sort of a financial raid or some sort of a set of accusations on a corporation who immediately contribute to the party and agree to their policy. So if you change it to a step-by-step, credit-based corruption system, it would be much more beneficial

than a values-based one. Look, I can't argue with that. I can't argue with that. I think my favorite part of this is where they were asked if they would give the money back and Lord Barwell is a former minister said that his party shouldn't accept further donations from Mr. Hester, but that we may have already spent some of the money that has already been given, because that's how money works. You get to decide which exact dollar has already gone out of the coffer and all the other indistinguishable dollars couldn't possibly be used to pay this guy back. The whole issue of party, how political

parties are funded in this country is between village cake sale if you're the Liberal Democrats and radioactive cancer on our democratic soul in the case of the Conservative Party. So I think so I don't know what he gets for 15 million because obviously the standard donors package of 5 million gets you a game of tennis with the Prime Minister of your choosing, cover, influence, cabinet, a seat in the house of lords, a free sports hold all and a commemorative talking Jacob Rees Moll sextal. Imagine if I'd said his actual name, Jacob Rees Moll. For the extra five million that he's put in, I think he gets 10 free rides in the royal gold cart, naked hologram of Margaret Thatcher and he gets to make Jeremy Hunt squat on all fours and

then ride him like a donkey shouting giddy up budget boy. And don't forget the Christian forgiveness. Oh yes. And he gets a Christian forgiveness. Gove, yes. So just, yeah, he said we need to apply Christian... I mean, Christian, Christian forgiveness, Alice, has not always been a quality that this government has fully exuded, I would say. To be fair, it's not an equality that Christian, Christianity has exuded entirely. I mean, if you look at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, that's what Christian forgiveness looks like. I want none of it.

Well, I mean, obviously, yeah, so the idea of Christian forgiveness, you look at this party's attitude to some of the human race, and it does actually come from one of the lesser-known gospels, the Gospel According to St. Alvin. This would explain the sense of Christian forgiveness in the current government, this story, I think it's Alvin chapter 14 verse 5 and following. And lo, their boat did land upon the shore, and they did stumble onto the sands, giving thanks to the Lord for guiding them across the seas. And Jesus stood upon a dune, and he did stretch his arms towards the people, wet and bedraggled as they were, and he did say,

Are we not all flotsam on the waves of destiny in the eyes of my Father? No, we're not. F*** off to Rwanda, you bunch of freeloading shitbags. Brexit means Brexit. So... Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?

Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?

Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?

Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? implementing correspondence. A ban on gas or petrol powered leaf blowers has been passed in Portland. A gradual phase out will begin in 2026, so these f***ing infuriating petrol powered noise machine rage generators are going to be working their way out of the system of Portland and old men in stupid hats can get back to the original way of getting rid of leaves, which is raking them or just blowing them with their mouths. Now I know there'll be some gardeners in the audience. I know there'll be some people who are passionately attached to their leaf blowers and to them I can say I understand that for you it is a more useful tool than for example a rake, but also go

f*** yourself. Why do you do it at five o'clock in the morning when I'm trying to get my baby to sleep or 11 o'clock in the morning when I'm trying to get my toddler to sleep or four p.m. in the afternoon where I'm trying to have a nap. F*** off. So I worry about what the people of Oregon are going to do and the leaf deluged people of Portland, I guess they might have to use electric leaf blowers, but that will be giving into the woke years of unblown leaves. It's going to be very... A number of states have already passed laws legalizing the leaf blower.

Basically, there's a real danger that you drive it underground. Basically, the petrol powered leaf blower is going to be the heroine of the 2020s. We're thriving black market people turning up to secret clubs to blow piles of contraband leaves at each other. Look, I will give one piece of credit to the petrol-powered leaf blower, which is that they are working both short-term and long-term to meet their goals by blowing the leaves out of the way in the moment and also creating the pollution that will will destroy all future leaves. I feel like

they're covering up both ends of the issue, but that doesn't make me feel ponder of them. Just let the leaves be where they are! Just let the fucking leaves sit on the ground where leaves are meant to be. That's where they are meant to be. That's where they're meant to be. Leave them there. Don't touch them. They're none of your business. They're just leaves. Alas, someone stood off of the leaves. Can I just say in defense of leaf blowing? No. No.

Alice, can you imagine any Ivy League university in the United States? The Prospectus. You know, it always shows a beautiful building with all the ants in the fall. It's always in the fall. That's the season there, I guess. And all the leaves are perfectly blown. Imagine no leaf blowing. You wouldn't get to see Harvard or Princeton. It'd just be covered in leaves.

Good. Dig your way to nepotism, f***ers. Right, so let's get on to our royal photography section. This is obviously the biggest story to hit Britain in, what would you say, 100, 200, 200 years? Release. The, the simple... Since Richard stuck his kids in the tower. Nephews. Any historians in? Nephews?

Nephews, right. Alice, you know the show, I wouldn't want to let anything that is not 100% true slip through the net. Huh? Which is why we come to this point. Which is why we are to this photo. Which is why we are against this story. Exactly. What happened exactly, Andy?

The hideous deceit in us. This photo, as small as it was, Kate Middleton does not have a child growing out of her own head. That's a lie. That's a complete lie. That's a complete lie. I mean, it's amazing that this became, can you understand why it became such a massive, massive store? Obviously, it's an issue of trust. There's trust that sustains the sacred bonds between us, the British people, and our ceremonial feudal relic, medieval cosplay, anti-meritocratic, ostentatiously bling-hatted,

God-anointed non-executive overlords in the royal family. And if we don't believe that every single photo is absolutely 100% unedited from the moment the light reflected off their magic royal faces and popped through the camera lens, then well, we might start wondering if those spangly hats really are magic. If it really makes a difference, if your induction ceremony involves 800 horses, some 300-year-old artillery being greased up by an archbishop in a special robe. So I guess it's an issue of the fundamental trust between us and our monarchs. Yes, Andy, not since the Egyptian people looked up at the Sphinx and were like, really? Did he look like that? As there'd been such a scandal about misrepresentation of the true image of the royals. Just to be

clear, this is an incredible historical moment, Andy, because it is simultaneously incredibly modern and incredibly medieval. Just to be clear, the king is using herbs to treat his cancer, the wife of the heir is mysteriously missing, and the young prince has been exiled to the New World. I feel like we are in a history story and it's amazing. And this, like, if you've seen the response to this image, particularly this edited image, people are so outraged, they're picking it apart, they're honing in, they're zooming in, they're trying to figure out if Kate Middleton is alive or dead or if she's being hidden somewhere or if she's rebelled against the authority of the palace at last.

I feel like we've at last reached the full crossover event where the men who believe aliens built the pyramids finally realize that the women who buy the magazines in the checkout aisles with the deranged royal watching speculation join forces. I think that's a wonderful thing. They finally realize that those women are exactly the same as they are and they can both enjoy just making shit up off the top of their heads and getting really over-invested in it. What is it like? I mean, I don't know if I've always seen India as our former imperial partners, is that what it's said? Yeah.

So you still take a keen interest I imagine in our royal family I mean a royal family you know big news here big news here but you know people are saying oh princess is probably unwell etc I have a larger question here for both of you maybe it's a cultural thing, do all photographs have to be entirely true? For example, currently in my residence, the people can't see it, there is a photograph from when I was nine years old of me bowling to the Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and indeed getting him out in a match of cricket. This photograph was given to me photoshopped as a present for my parents.

I believed it, they believe it. Everyone who's come to my house has not raised a question about it. They haven't come back since. But you know, this is photographic evidence and you know, all photographs, like for example, I was very confused about the creation of the world. You know, some people say, you know, read the Bible. Some people say, read Darwin. I was confused. Then I went to Sistine Chapel and I saw that painting by Michelangelo. Hand of God, I was done. I was like, this is God, it's done. Now, later some people tell me it's not true, it's rubbish. As long as people believe

the thing, aren't we done? Does it also have to be true? That's why we're here. I'm going to double down on this Andy and say that all photographs are lies. Right. All of them. Particularly, all of them because they don't show the back of your ears unless they are on the back of your ears, in which case they don't show the front of your face. One of the real problems about AI is that all of the pictures that people take of themselves online are like 30% hotter than you on your best day, right? Every selfie you take is going to be pretty flattering.

So the AIs think we're really hot and they are going to be so disappointed when they find out that we're... I mean, that Tutankhamen didn't actually look anything like that at all, he didn't have a golden face, didn't have, Charles I didn't have a head, and here we are, King Harold there, didn't actually, you know, that was was a fake he just rolling around on the floor there's something hitting the eye so it's just uh can you can you trust anyone the uh uh in the words of bis comic uh the uh how did to his death quite a tapestry my time favorite word plays um uh right uh that's uh so we move on to aust news now? Let's have a stink. This is wastewater news, the most fun kind of news. This is the news that after measuring

our wastewater for drug use, we've discovered that alcohol drinking is down in Australia but Matthews is up. I have never, I have never felt so patriotic in my life. At least I think that's, I think patriotism is what I'm feeling. I sort of feel like chewing the insides of my cheeks and going to a dance party or maybe cleaning the whole house. I'm filled with a wild and frenetic energy and I'm sorry I can't even finish this joke because it's a joke where I pretend that I'm somehow on meth partly because I'm not on meth. It's funny. Partly as someone who's been breastfeeding every 30 to 90 minutes, 24 hours a day without

a single respite for six weeks. The idea of pretending I have any energy at all is ridiculous to the point of feeling like I'm insulting the integrity of my own human experience. And partly because the logic doesn't stand up if I'm suddenly saying I'm on meth. Is the premise that I've been drinking wastewater? I don't know. I mean I don't know I'm in a small coastal town in Queensland maybe I've hooked up with a dealer but if I had somehow managed to get a young man in a bum bag to show up at my house I'm gonna make him babysit. He's taking the two-year-old to the library for story time. I don't want you in there. I think I'm

I'm featuring a sitcom here. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has been testing the wastewater and has discovered that Australians spent more than ten billion dollars on methamphetamine in the last 12 months. That's their guesstimate. And the problem is that Australia's consumption of meth and cocaine has climbed post-COVID, presumably because people have taken their masks off and put things up their noses again. Six news now. And well, happy to have two. Some cryptocurrency news.

Now this is the headline that I found frankly baffling on numerous levels. Binance, a crypto company, made a crypto perfume in an attempt to woo winning customers. Now I think in a way I don't know if any headline has encapsulated more about the 21st century world than that. A crypto perfume. Alice, you've kept tabs on the history of cryptocurrency for the bugle for many, many years. Like I said, I don't really understand cryptocurrency and I sincerely hope I die that way. I will consider that a life very well lived. Can you explain exactly what they were trying to do here? Can you explain exactly what they were trying to do here? Yes, Andy. Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world by volume,

but what that means in the crypto world which has been struggling over the last 12 months is that the co-founder of Binance, Zhang Pengzhao, pled guilty to money laundering charges and agreed to pay $4.3 billion in fines to the US Department of Justice. Also, Binance lost 75% of its trading revenue and it was sued for name infringement by Bisexual Nancy, who originally owned the trademark on Binance. And as a result, they are doing the selling gold shoes to try and raise funds of the crypto market by trying to lure women in with perfume because that's the thing that women like. I think it's brilliant. I think most perfumes are aiming to smell like things that don't exist, you know, rebellion, existence, duchess, whatever. Why not have a perfume that smells like cryptocurrency?

Some perfumes try to trick you into thinking that they do smell like something, for example Kenzo flower, it's meant to smell like a flower, but flowers smell like heaps of shit. So I mean heaps of stuff. In defense of themselves, I think they were trying to be funny and the Binance CMO, Rachel Coleman said that the idea was pioneered by an all-woman team within Binance, which just shows how much women in cryptocurrency are just pandering suck-ups? Look I have to say I have full disclosure you know I used to have I sold my house and put all my assets into finance but now I've decided to move it to a safer investment she bought in new coins because I like photos of cats so that's where that's

where most of my investments are. So I'm in defense of finance because you know for a long time all my savings were in there and I think it's appropriate for the current age to have a perfume that you cannot smell using money that does not exist to attract a partner who isn't there. Want better... It's basically just homeopathic life essentially. I'm sort of heartbroken by the troubles that cryptocurrency is in at the moment because I think there are so many people who got into cryptocurrency because they love the idea

of decentralized finance or they're really interested in the algorithms that would be involved in creating this kind of thing or or they believe in the blockchain, or they believe in all of these beautiful things. But then I think they've been kind of overtaken by a bunch of kids who bought cryptocurrency because they were told to by an idiot on a podcast. And it might as well have been bone and pills, and then it worked out for some of them, and now they think they're smart. Well as always, Buglers, thank you very much for listening. There are three remaining shows on the current phase of our UK tour. Next Sunday the 24th in Leeds, then the 28th in

Edinburgh and the 30th at the Lowry in Salford. Then we have a couple of dates at the Leicester Square Theatre in London on the 7th and 8th of June. Do also find all of AnuVab's and Alice's stuff on the internet. I'm sure if you ask nicely the internet will tell you where to find it all and of course listen to Alice's wonderful show The Gargle, The Bugle's glossy magazine sister publication. For details of those remaining live shows go to the Bugle podcast dot com and click the live button also at the bugle podcast dot com you can join the buglepodcast.com. You can join the Bugle Voluntary Subscription Scheme

to keep the show free, flourishing, and independent. Goodbye. ["The Bugle Show Theme"]