The Bugle - Flare in the Derrière (4200)

Episode Date: July 17, 2021

It's a special Bugleversary! 200 shows since relaunch and our focus is on the UK - sporting failures, racism, billionaires in space, and yes, a man who put a lit flare up his bottom.Thanks for your continued love!We are funded entirely by you, the listener. Listeners who sign up via thebuglepodcast.com have long enjoyed the opportunity to get: mentions on the show (in the form of lies), merchandise and general sense of wellbeing for supporting this fine work of art. As of this week you can also support the show directly via Apple Podcasts. Our new channel ‘Team Bugle’ also includes The Last Post, The Gargle and Tiny Revolutions, shows which currently carry ads - but they will be completely ad free on this channel. So if you love The Bugle, and it’s siblings, then please support The Bugle via our website or Apple Podcasts where you can subscribe today.Buy a loved one Bugle Merch - COLD AND WET WEAVER T SHIRTS ON SALE NOW). Listen to The Gargle here: https://pod.link/GargleFollow us on YouTube or Insta and see parts of this episode with actual video.The Bugle is hosted this week by:Andy ZaltzmanChris AddisonNish KumarAnd produced by Chris Skinner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a- Here we are. Who would have thought it? It's the 200th Bugle. Again, the second time this show has reached its 200th episode. This one, the 200th since our emotional 2016 relaunch. I am broadcasting this from an open top bus, parading through the world where all of our 7.6 billion potential listeners have come out in force to mark this historic occasion although of course Chris the wizard audio genius that he is has tweaked the audio to make it sound like I'm recording as normal in the shed but that's not happening

I'm on an open top bus travelling around the world and no one could have predicted this day would come at least not until at least 2007 when I guess you might have called it, as Bugle came into existence then in the relatively early primordial Super the Podcasting universe.

But we've been through a bit since then. 294 episodes with some other guy, whose name I forget. And now this is the 200th since we relaunched. I mean, much like the world in general, for most of its early history, the Bugle was entirely governed by white European men. Me and John, aided first by Tom and then Chris. But since relaunch, I like to think we've represented the scope of humanity

at least a little bit more accurately. And it all rebegan in October 2016, when Hari Kondabolu joined me in New York City and it has carried on re-beginning with new episodes in 199 now of the ensuing 247 weeks since then and some episodes in most other weeks

that's a lot of hours of bullshit and I'm joined to mark this landmark moment in the history of this planet sorry, this podcast by one person who's been here since well, basically the start of the restart. And another who's only recently joined the restarted restart, much after it finished restarting. But he was actually there before the first start even started in terms of working with me and John. So firstly, I think, N Nish you did the second ever

bugle post restart as I recall and this is appropriate enough for such a momentous occasion your 50th appearance on the bugle apparently spectacular I am raising my bat to the pavilion in celebration and I'm very happy to be here for this bicentennial and like the bicentennial of America I think we should celebrate in spite of the fact that it isn't technically really the bicentennial and there was actually quite a lot that happened before it and also this

entire enterprise has been built on horrific suffering well hang on let's just interrupt we've had a delivery this is the first live delivery also I believe the first appearance of the voice of my wife. Hello. Welcome to the show. You're fired. Second bugle cake we've had. We had one for, I think, our first year. Oh, look at that.

Chris, you can take a screenshot. Oh, wow. Of that. It's a full bugle cake. It looks pretty good. Do you want a knife? Do I want a knife? What for?

Yeah, sorry. It's just the way you were looking at me. Well, what a sensational start to this 200th episode. A cake sent by an unknown admirer. Obviously it was from Chris, but... Well, there it is. Is it kosher? Can you have a kosher cake? I don't know, I'm a bit out of the loop.

If anyone could make a cake not kosher, I believe it to be, ironically of all of us, Andy, you. Well, yes, exhibit one. Well, Chris would be able to testify, Chris Addison that is, who I've not introduced yet but there he is. You were at my wedding for the non-kosher cake. I was at the wedding for the non-kosher cake. It was about as un-kosher as a cake can get being as it was a leg of pig. Jesus Christ! was a leg of pig but not it didn't just remain at your wedding it then lived for some time in your house yes uh and we used to write

in your kitchen yeah and would go and visit the pig leg and take bits off it yeah mid mid writing i think that made it kosher if you took bits off yeah disposed of them i don't know if it's the logo edible chris yes it is i i asked for it toosed of them. I don't know if the logo is edible, Chris. Yes, it is. I asked for it to be. I mean, I don't know what it's made of. Bacon. It's made of bacon. Bacon, yeah. Pure bacon.

Pure, it's concentrated bacon. Oh, my God. Andy's held up a piece of cake that looks like it was delivered by Edward Scissorhands. An absolute mess. His midwifery career did not go well, to be fair. Yours has gone quite well. One for one. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Your poor wife.

That's the title of our next spin-off podcast from the Bugle Stable. Anyway, well, Nish, I've got this for you, there you are, it's your Bugle 50th cap. Oh, dear. It happens in cricket. When you play your 50th game for England,

you get a special cap with the number 50 on, so I've just put it on in Tippex on an old... Oh, fantastic. ...obsolete Bugle cap from the John Oliver days. That's fine. Next time I see you not on a screen. I'll wear that with pride. I actually wear my more current bugle merch hat constantly.

I wear it all around the town. I wore my socks to get my second vaccine shot. Anyway, right. It's time to get on with introducing the second guest, who's already kind of been introduced. Welcome to a man once listed on the leaflets of the London stand-up club as Christ Anderson. It's Chris Addison. Yeah.

You never quite lived up to that billing. Well done. I've just got to change Chris's contact name on my phone. That was just for uh that was for tax reasons how are you chris yeah i'm good thank you i'm good i've um i've bought you a a voucher uh for a voucher all right uh it's uh it's part of a new scheme by which you can exchange a voucher for any vouchers the only company currently signed up to the scheme is the original company so the only thing you can in

fact exchange it for is a voucher for a voucher so it's a voucher for a voucher for a voucher but I do feel it's the thought that counts right happy bugle birthday well I mean that's sort of like an eye for an eye wasn't it in the Bible yeah it's just not a lot of pointless wasn't it yeah an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth we could just stay at home more it's pointless wasn't it yeah an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth we could just stay at home it's a more civilized way of doing it yeah as always a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week on this 200th post relaunch episode special a competition where you can win a prize a very special prize this is the 200th

episode since relaunch so what we've done using the number 200 as our inspiration is we've taken a sound from one of the last 200 decades of life on earth you simply have to tell us which month and which year the following sounds come from here is sound a here is sound b and here is sound c we just need to know the month and specific year do send in your answers if you get the month and year right for all three, you could wear the T-shirt that I'm currently wearing for this special Bugle 200, which has, well, Crystal Poster.

It's a very special T-shirt I've had specially made using a T-shirt that I owned and a bit of gaffer tape with some marker pen on it. If you get them right, you could win not only the T-shirt I'm wearing, but a voucher for the new restaurant from celebrity chef Scluten Malvain, the culinary hypergenius

behind a veritable constellation of Michelin star-spangled eateries, including the short-lived, Jean Pitney-themed, all-you-can-eat spicy buffet 24 hours from Ulcer, which was closed on a court case. Showed that scientific research proved no link

between spicy food and overeating and stomach ulcers also famous for his sandwich chain the Tower of Bagel based on the bible story in which the staff fail to understand what you've ordered and give you something completely different instead and of course the protestant, the political protest themed brasserie that is still closed for refurbishment

after its Russian revolution themed November reopening but Malvain has just launched a new fine dining experience the jabber twa which combines a free at table covid vaccination or other inoculation of your choice if you're already double jabbed the immuno sommelier will assist you of course um uh with uh and alongside that you get an unashamed insight into the realities of the meat industry with a micro slaughterhouse trolley wheeled to your table, depending on what you ordered, of course, for the slaughtering of your food. Malvain is seeking, quote, to make the diner contemplate the speciesial lottery of life,

juxtaposing the facility of death for tasty animals with the miracle of scientifically extended life for us humans. After a busy but slightly traumatic opening weekend, Malvain has just announced today that the children's menu will now be vegetarian only. But you could win a meal for one at the Jabbertoir if you win our what month and year were those noises taken from competition. Top story this week, football and what it shows about the general state of England, Britain, humanity and the world news. And we left you last week on a cliffhanger.

Would the England football team win its first major continental or global trophy since... When was it we won the World Cup? I forgot. I forgot because I haven't seen any football coverage on the television since last Sunday. I was 19, something or other. World Cup. I forgot because I haven't seen any football coverage on the television since last Sunday. And not only would England win, but would England as a nation react maturely, good-naturedly and sensibly in whichever of victory or

defeat transpired? Well, it turns out that it was one of those cliffhangers where the answers proved to be the obvious ones you'd suspected all along. No and no. Nish, you are our the official bugle um football correspondent um congratulations on that appointment um just i mean talk us through you know your experience of because you're quite you're quite a football fan aren't you but i know you're also something of a skeptic of the excesses of English football fandom and what it represents.

So what were your emotions going through last Sunday? Well, listen, obviously this is a very complicated moment for me, Andy, because unfortunately this story covers my brief both as the Bugles football correspondent and its racism expert. There was a point during the game, Andy, where I genuinely thought I was asleep and dreaming because when England were 1-0 up with a goal that was scored by one defender crossing to another defender, like 1970s Brazil, and then England kept the ball through a succession

of short technical passing structures and the camera then cut in the stands to Tom Cruise fist-bumping David Beckham. I genuinely became convinced that I was dreaming the entire thing. Unfortunately, England then lost on a penalty shootout, and the three penalties that were missed were by Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka, that were missed were by Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bakaya Saka, players who are all black and who are all on the receiving end of some sickening and yet sickeningly predictable racist abuse. Prime Minister Boris Johnson immediately condemned the racism,

saying to the racists, shame on you and I hope you'll crawl back under the rock from which you emerged, to which I guess I would say, what rock are you going to crawl back under, big man? Because this is obviously, there's been a contentious, this has been a contentious period for the England football team in amongst an unprecedented level of success in a major tournament. Because regardless of whether England lost, this is the first time since 1966, and certainly in my lifetime, that England have made it to the final of a major tournament. It's a young team. It's been an extraordinary achievement. There's a lot to build on, etc, etc, etc. Unfortunately, relations with the government have not exactly been smooth because of the England players' practice of taking the knee to protest systemic racism. Now, initially when they did this, after the 6th of June friendly against Romania,

Boris Johnson's spokesperson refused to condemn either the knee-taking or the fans who booed the knee-taking. Johnson said that when it came to taking the knee, he was focused on actions rather than gestures. And if there's one thing this Prime Minister is focused on, it's action. The dude f***s. And he has got a football team's worth of kids to prove it. Then, on the 8th of June, England football manager Gareth Southgate... He's got a pretty overstocked bench as well. He's got an overstocked... He's actually got a first and second squad.

On the 8th of June, Gareth Southgate, the England football manager, and latter-day saint, and I will murder anyone who says otherwise, published a universally praised blog post explaining that taking leave is an anti-racist gesture that the whole team had adopted after a long conversation within the squad where the black payers talked openly about their experiences of racism. Then there was a screeching sound that sounded like a BG had taken a punch to the ball bag. It was, in fact, the screeching U-turn of the Prime Minister trying to get back into

the nation's good books when he condemned the booing. However, his other ministers did not follow suit pretty patel the home secretary whose latest round of immigration refuel reforms included the phrase and i'm quoting directly here hey guess what pinkos i'm gonna deport that trouserless freeloader paddington bear and he can eat his marmalade sandwiches in hell for all i care she said the booing uh was a choice for the fans and that she didn't support the gesture politics of taking the knee patel has subsequently condemned the racism suffered by the players and has been rightly put in her place by england player tyrone mings who

claimed you don't get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labeling our anti-racism message as gesture politics and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we're campaigning against happens he He could have saved himself a lot of time by just responding, f*** you, you hypocritical piece of shit. Nish, it did show that. I mean, obviously politics is not what it used to be. But, I mean, it does

show where we've come to. The fact that the Home Secretary was being schooled on issues of social justice and basic human dignity by the Aston Villa centre-back. That comes as no surprise these days. That shows what we are in third millennium Britannia, doesn't it? Yeah, and it's not just Priti Patel.

There are various Tory MPs who said that they were not happy with the taking a knee gesture. One of them said that they would not be watching any of the games lee anderson uh he said that he was going to boycott the whole of european of the european championship in protest of the decision to take the knee because he said it showed support for a political movement and risked alienating traditional supporters and i think we all know what he means when he says traditional hey on an unrelated subject, my favourite Disney film is Snow Traditional and the Seven Dwarfs. My favourite non-animated film is Traditional Men Can't Jump. I mean, Chris, I know you're not a huge football fan.

I think that's probably fair to say. It's completely fair. Did you watch the game? I did. I think that's probably fair to say. It's completely fair. Did you watch the game? I did. I did. I mean, I sort of felt like this was a big moment one way or the other,

as you suggested. And it was. It was a big week for racists and Italians, which is a Venn diagram with a reasonably hefty N intersection. And as you say,

I'm not really that into football, so I was only half listening to the game. But as I understand it, the Italian team of, I think, Vincenzo, Cantucci, Limoncello, Chaubella and Iwasamada defeated England by correctly answering a tie-break question, complete the following in not more than 25 words. We would like to win the European Championships final because

England put it would end 55 years of waiting and offer some hope to a nation that has become uncertain of its place in the world and the Italians put we won't have to hear three f***ing lions for a while. Really? For racists this week mirrored the England team's experience of the final itself with a very promising start early on only to be met with fight back, spirited resistance and eventual defeat and recriminations on social media tyrone mings as you've pointed out who sounds like some important chinese porcelain nicked by a 19th century irish aristocrat and currently housed at trinity college but is in reality one of the fine

upstanding young lions who have made this country proud in the way that they comport themselves both on and off the pitch has risen even higher in the collective estimation of the nation after administering a thorough dick-slapping to my first fascist Barbie, Priti Patel, a woman who seems to have tried to model herself most closely on the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but forgotten about the delicious, enticing candy part of the shtick.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary who takes the complex out of Napoleon Complex and puts the SS into compassionate immigration policy had condemned the racist attacks on England players only for Mings to point out, and I'm paraphrasing here, that you can't be surprised if there's jelly everywhere if you've not tried to stop the man with the big f*** off sledgehammer who was running towards the jelly in the first place.

Patel had previously condemned the players taking the knee as gesture politics. Perhaps a different gesture would suit her. Maybe if the players lifted their right arms out stiffly at a 45-degree angle, for example. I mean, off the pitch, it was all rather bleak, to be honest. There was violence, racism, fighting, drunken hoodlummery, high-level boorish, tedious twattishness. And that was just before the game had even kicked off. Fans without tickets storming the stadium, scuffles were scuffled,

blood was shed, fireworks were inevitably inserted into anuses. Just the usual free football. Wow, Andy, now, I think we need to take a second here and just contextualise that, because I understand that this podcast has quite a wide and international listenership. And so we probably need to explain the fact that there was, that is not, you are not joking at all. There was an England fan pictured in Leicester Square

with a flare up his arse. Yeah. And as people, all of us who uh backgrounds in stand-up comedy that's something that we would expect to see in one of those clubs in 1984 and not that's not the not in the middle of trafalgar square it's it's been very odd isn't it because you say there was a huge backlash against it and there's all this talk of you know how this team has brought the country together and it was true to an extent but it has also highlighted how this country is very much not together in in a lot of ways um on the plus side though uh since the bugle relaunched back in 2016 england uh having not reached a semi-final uh for 20 years has now reached a world cup

semi-final and the final of the European Championships and another semi-final in a competition that no one really noticed. That's three semi-finals since the Bugle relaunch. You're welcome, England. Obviously, we are divided as a nation and it looked really bad. You know, we've seen the worst of ourselves this week, but it is a measure of quite how Gareth Southgate has transformed the culture that a photo of a powerful middle-aged man embracing a 19 year old boy has become an icon of goodness and hope to solve the bruised soul of a nation and not a career-ending scandal that causes the launching of a years-long inappropriately jauntily titled police operation. Things are changing.

When it comes to Priti Patel and her involvement in this, is it fair to judge her on her words and deeds? Isn't that a bit old school, really? And her refusal to condemn those who boo england players for taking and taking the knee for those who aren't familiar with it's a simple unobtrusive gesture uh just for a few seconds before the game seeking a better world for all uh and or it proposes the complete overhaul of everything in the world uh and its replacement by a global leninist super state delete according to which newspaper you read but you know you can understand you know but is it fair to you know just to not just assume that she's someone completely different

and hasn't said or done any of the things she's said and done well i mean it is you know the theme of this government is dodging accountability and consequence like it was boris johnson being confronted by one of his biological children. But due to the fact that this is the England football team, it is very difficult for them to weasel out of this. Because here's the thing. People like this team. People genuinely like this team. They do

things like make sure that children get fed when the government has given up trying to feed them. Yeah, but you've got to take the feeding children out of football. There's got no place in the game. has given up trying to feed them. Yeah, but you've got to take the feeding children out of football. There's got no place in the game. It's quite an extraordinary achievement. And listen, there is something fundamentally depressing about the fact that my mother, who came to this country in the 1970s,

me, who was born in this country in the mid-1980s, and Bukayo Saka, a 19-year-old boy, presumably all had a sort of similar emotional reaction to that because he as much as me or my mum knew what was coming next and that is very dispiriting that three generations of ethnic minorities in this country all knew that to some extent they were about to be on the receiving end of a huge amount of criticism and i you know it is very strange because saka is 19 i'm nearly 36 he could technically be my son uh he definitely isn't because i and i don't know how best to put this have not opened my account if there are i am 36 and i don't want to give too much away but if there

are uh children out there as a result of my sexual exploits uh they are not a voting age that's as far as i'm willing to take this. But in spite of all of this, in spite of all the doom and gloom, something incredible has happened. They have forced a conversation about the racism in the Conservative Party. Because look, the government spent the week saying,

we've got to do something about this social media thing. A company that employed someone that was found to have been uh racially abusing players said that they'd been hacked to which your obvious response is how much hacking is going on like have they managed to hack boris johnson's entire journalism career because that is very uh very harsh but boris johnson is being forced in public to reckon with the racist things that he said in the past. It's happened at a press conference yesterday. It happened in the Houses of Parliament. And that, more than anything else, is genuinely incredible

because Johnson has said some pretty extraordinary and unpleasant racist things in columns over the last 20 years and has just gotten away with it. And he's claimed that in the past, these were remarks that were taken out of context and it was intended as satire. Now, I have read the articles. I don't mean the extracts i mean literally the whole articles and i cannot see the satire

unless you consider boris johnson's entire life to be a long ongoing exercise in satire this is a man who was born with a mouthful of silver cutlery and despite every single educational advantage has managed to be repeatedly sacked for lying incompetence and sometimes lying about how incompetent he was this is a man whose columns have been filled with racial epithets and yet somehow became prime minister his whole life could be one satirical performance art piece called the unstoppable freight train of white privilege i do apologize traditional privilege that was my wrestling name actually um so a long career yeah so you're saying this that you think it is possible to draw a line

between having a prime minister who's reveled in using uh willfully provocative racist language and people being racist in the country of which he's prime minister yes it's it's possible to draw that line and all it took was some let's face it supernaturally gifted children to point that out um on the plus side um for marcus rashford one of the players who missed the penalty, who's been a real figurehead politically in recent years with his campaign for school meals and other things, although he missed a penalty, he has had a baby beaver named after him by a popular vote. And I guess that, you know, that's got to be, you know, if you had a choice, score a penalty in a European Championship final

or have a little baby animal named after you, you're going to choose. You're going to choose the animal, aren't you? Yeah, because the penalty lasts for a second, but the beaver's going to be around for three or four years. So, you know, fair dues. I think it's entirely appropriate

because now rashford is the name for a beaver and johnson is the name for a cock family show chris yeah but it's a really dysfunctional family it's like one of Boris Johnson's families yeah I've certainly found this watching that there was a part of me that

well I'm not that fussed about football I quite wanted England to win but at the same time there was a part of me that as I watched it

and I'd seen all the footage from the central London around Wembley before the game and I'd been following the whole narrative of this team

and the sort of squalid element of its so-called fans. There was a part of me that thought, well, you know, at least if they lose, those c***s won't get a moment of celebration. And I found that really took the sting out of things. Well, of course, the success of the england football team is not the only barometer by which we judge the state of the united kingdom and that is a barometer that really splits opinion and leaves bits of broken barometer all over the place in bits that aren't england uh but we also judge it by the ongoing chaos of the way we've dealt with covid as a

crisis um and at the moment i think it's fair to say that that chaos is in a particularly chaotic But we also judge it by the ongoing chaos of the way we've dealt with COVID as a crisis. And at the moment, I think it's fair to say that that chaos is in a particularly chaotic state, as we have a mixture of the success of the vaccine rollout and the just total random inameness of the rest of the government's policies. As the old saying goes, and I believe Bob Dylan sang it in a song once, they say the most incompetent hour is right before the dawn. That's not really, I mean it's

proven to be the most incompetent hour is right before another equally incompetent hour. And when it comes to the vaccine element of it, I guess even a stopped clock is approximately correct for a total of about 20 to 30 minutes a day. And an untrained puppy left alone in a house with enough food for a year will at some point crap in or near the toilet. So they're going to get something right.

But I mean, at the moment, there appears to be absolutely no logic as things are uh unlocked unleashed um uh at the it's nish can you can you give any clarity to this situation well at the moment it's it's the vaccine rollout has been going well in this country but because of the rush to reopen things while the delta variant is spreading across the country it feels a bit like Britain's Covid policy is like that bit when Indiana Jones manages to get his hat out just before the wall closes on it except having got

his hat out he then inexplicably has put his hat on and then stuck his dick under the wall it's an unfathomable turn of events yesterday there were 48 500 new cases and the day before there were 3786 new hospitalizations now that i am not a scientist but that i believe is not great right and there was also news this week that because of the spread of the Delta variant, because, you know, with 48000 cases, it's likely that people are going to, you know, a huge number more have been exposed to it.

Half a million people have received a notification from the COVID app telling them that they need to isolate because they've come into contact with someone that has COVID. Right. Half a million. And the reason that that figure is particularly pertinent to me is I am one of that half million. I am currently bugling from a biodome of self-isolation because I got a notification from the app. I then looked into it because I had a string of gigs

that I was supposed to do over the weekend. I looked into it and it turns out that if you get notified that you might have been exposed to someone who's tested positive, you are under no legal obligation to self-isolate. But I've decided that unlike the government, I'm going to follow the guidelines and stay at home

and I cancelled all of the gigs. Had I gone along the government's model, I would have done the gigs and also travelled halfway up the country and then groped my mistress's ass with such force it looked like i was trying to touch the back of her throat oh that's horrible image well i had to look at it he was trying to wear her like thanos with the infinity gauntlet disgusting um i mean initially i mean it is possible that this I mean initially I mean it is possible that this notification uh that you got was you know it could have been you know journalists from the Daily Telegraph who just wanted to try and get you off

the bill at a gig that they were going to I don't know if I've talked about this on here before, but I did once introduce the now Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, on stage at an awards ceremony by encouraging the audience to not applaud him as he was a representative of a government who'd ruined this country. And now I'm starting to see the potential in this ping as being Javid's revenge. Yeah, the minute that he's health secretary, you are housebound.

The timing is too choice to be a coincidence. Well, I had Sajid Javid as my support act once. Did you? Yeah, at the Lord's Tavern as Christmas lunch. I managed to get through the whole thing without having any food thrown at me whatsoever. Unless by food you mean laughter and applause, Nick. Chris, how are you

enjoying the relaxation of the various lockdowns? I think, you know, it's going to happen, right? It's inevitable. It's happening on Monday the 19th in the United Kingdom that we're opening the doors, we're taking our masks off. And I think that it's worth looking at what the future of the virus is, because, of course, once we're all back together, it is going to mutate and there will be new variants.

So by August, the Zeta variant will be the dominant variant. And that's not as easily transmissible as the Delta variant, but it can untie your mask the back or if it's feeling saucy get your bra off with one hand. The end of 2021 sees the rise of the Mu variant which is the first variant with self-awareness making it both far harder to eliminate and also ineligible for a position in the current cabinet. In 2022 the Omicron variant scores venture capital funding for a startup, a rival app to the NHS track and trace app that actually f***ing works. By summer, Mark Zuckerberg has bought it for $2 billion. And within weeks, the Omicron variant is snapped out on the town with Dua Lipa and gets into a highly public spat with the common cold, who's filmed outside Soho house

with the Omicron variant in a headlock, screaming who call him in common bitch by 2027 the epsilon variant is lawyered up and in court trying to reverse a legal conservatorship order that has handed control of all its affairs over to the pangolin off the back of all the publicity it releases a new album entitled sunday monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday monday tuesday wednesday thursday It releases a new album entitled Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday Night Fever, including the tracks Shake It Cough, Lung Tall Covid and Sicking Up a Lot by the Bay. And finally, in the mid 2030s, a campaign started by the dominant variant of the day now identifying as a large family called the Hendersons is finally successful in securing the vote. 34% of the electorate on our viruses and boris johnson is never again not prime minister that is our immediate future so on the 19th everything goes right everything goes there's no need for a mask the mask mandate

has dropped everything has dropped and umadiq Khan who's the London Mayor has actually stepped in and said that it's still going to be compulsory for people to wear masks on public transport in London. The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that was what he had expected and indeed wanted, which doesn't make any sense

because they've literally just dropped the law they've literally just dropped the law Can I just pick you up on that word that you use? Sense. What do you mean? Why are you even looking for sense? We're 18 months into this fucking thing. That's the thing, right?

That's where we are. The thing is about the pandemic is it's fucking boring. And Johnson is bored. And who can blame him? The thing is about the pandemic is it's f***ing boring and Johnson is bored. And who can blame him? The problem is that he's prime minister. And like a lot of people who've wanted to be prime minister, he's imagined before achieving his ambition that it's an interesting job and wholly failed to notice the difference between a job being interesting and one being extremely tedious, but entirely terrifying. and one being extremely tedious but entirely terrifying. People often think that skydiving looks like it might be fun,

only to find that 30,000 feet above the porter cabin they've just left their valuables in, their immediate concern is at what speed the turd they've just involuntarily birthed will hit them on their inevitable return to Earth. And metaphorically speaking, that is where Johnson is. You can't take a lecture on personal responsibility, especially about any form of protection from Boris Johnson, a man who can't even be bothered to stick a Johnny

on his ridiculously fecund cock and balls. Maybe Margaret Atwood could pick up on this for a kind of Handmaid's Tale alternative reality that went the other way. Where we put Boris Johnson out to studs. It would be a better use of his time. Yeah. In amongst all of this chaos,

the government have also found the time to pass two incredibly contentious bills. One, which cuts our foreign aid obligation from 0.7% of our gdp to 0.5 percent a move that some people estimate could kill between a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand people around the world let's let's put this in context this is just merely a recorrection back to the old days where our foreign aid contribution was, I think, minus 120% of our GDP. I just think it's a remarkable commitment on this government.

They have shown real equality here because they killed between 100,000, 200,000 people in this country. And now they're just exporting that policy to the rest of the planet. It's like cricket all over again. It's good. cricket all over again. It's good. They've taken the UK approach, the UK aid approach from feed the world to feed some of the world to maybe feed some of the world a bit later to f*** the world. That high energy rusk looks delicious. It'll go really well with all these vaccines we've stockpiled. I can't wait for the Conservative Party Christmas single, Eat the World. It's absolutely amazing. People keep going, what has happened to compassionate conservatism?

This is compassionate conservatism. What you have to understand is that the Tory party has a fundamentally different cultural approach to death than, say, everybody else. Where most of us consider being dead to be a bad thing, the Tories just see it as a very, very efficient way of avoiding having to pay any tax. They see the consequences of this bill as all good, by the way.

For example, the United Nations Reproductive Health Agency said that over £100 million slashed from the UK contribution will directly, directly lead to around 7 million unintended pregnancies, which is excellent as far as the Tories are concerned, because they'll be able to claim that under their government, every single person in this country will jump 7 million places up the list of richest people in the world. Expensive, live-streamed, smug-faced metaphor

for everything that is wrong with the world news now. And Richard Branson, the billionaire, former massively unimpressive rail franchise owner, has gone into space or at least kind of gone into nearish kind of the first bit of space and the world's reaction has been WOW

which is an acronym of course for YOY we'll try and answer both of those questions why? no good reason that's ok because a bad reason will do in that case it's a simple answer why because he can and because the environment is anyway and because he can't solve all poverty so it'll be unfair to solve any by squillions one blasting himself into space and

said and because icarus would have wanted him to and because if it's okay for a communist dog why shouldn't a capitalist human have the same life opportunity and blast themselves into space and also because take that elon I got there f***ing first! And also because it's not about one rich man going into space. It's about making space travel possible for all humanity above a certain level of suitably stratospheric wealth.

So, you know, let's... I mean, this has got to be up there in one of the greatest moments in pointless plutocratic excess, hasn't it? In the whole history of humanity. It was great. He looked like General Zod's albino brother.

Sir Richard, or since he flew to the edge of space, as we must now call him, Edgelord Branson, managed to prove that there's no intelligent life out there apart from the pilot and the woman who brought him his Buxfiz and Zero Gravity Peanuts. He went very close to space, very, very close, and then ran away again in what is effectively history's highest altitude game of knockdown ginger.

He first declared his intention to do that in 2004, but to nobody's great surprise, the Virgin's service to space was delayed by about 17 years. Presumably, it was also standing room only, and the whole thing smelled of shit. And why did he do it? Andy, because like a dog licking

its own balls, he can. But, did you see? See, the best thing about the whole thing for me was that nobody paid him the blindest

bit of attention. This segment that we're doing now is as much coverage as he's had. It's like an Aesop's fable about vanity and the need to be noticed because

he'd decided to go near space on the same day as the Euro final. Nobody cared. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars over two decades in an attempt to get to space and when he finally managed it he got less coverage in the papers the next day than a guy in Trafalgar Square with a flare up his arse. That was the rocket that had the most coverage the next day. And that was like £4.50 from a standard fireworks box.

The next journey for them is to, for all of them, to spend billions of dollars investigating technology that allows them to fly up their own f***ing arseholes. Well, apparently £4.50 will do it. Richard Branson, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are in a three-way race. Two races.

One to prove once and for all that no amount of money can make you look like a normal human being. And the other to see which could be the first dickhead in space. And this week, it was one small step for dickheads and another giant leap for dickhead kind. And what concerns me is there's two things that concerns me. One is that Branson has been surprised by an outbreak of public discontent about his dog shit journey into space. Because actually there was opposition in 1969. dog shit journey into space because actually there was opposition in 1969 i would like to point everyone in the direction of a poem by the great gil scott heron called whitey on the moon which

is about the fact that african-american populations in 1969 were experiencing immense deprivation while the american government was financing the trip to the moon whitey on the moon is of course the working title of the first star wars film But it does concern me that these billionaires watched WALL-E, a film where humanity abandons a ruined planet for space, and thought, brilliant idea. These people have so much money, and yet they cannot understand a children's film. It's a good film.

It's a very good film. It's a very, very good film. And also, the other thing that really sticks in my craw is that last year virgin atlantic richard branson's non-space travel plane company got a 1.2 billion pound rescue deal from the british government now could he not have spent a bit of his fucking space money on bailing out his f***ing airline. Like, it's... And the idea that Branson seems to think that he's somehow inspiring people,

that by travelling to space, he's somehow inspiring people. And maybe he's right. Maybe somewhere there is a person who lost their job because of COVID, several family members to the disease, or maybe there's someone whose home was flooded after the devastation wrought by this week's flooding, caused directly by the climate crisis. Maybe that person is looking at Richard Branson and thinking, wow, he went to space and he's a total d***.

Maybe if a c*** can go to space, maybe I can do anything. I mean, I quite literally can't because I'm a person whose life has been negatively impacted by exactly the socioeconomic conditions that have allowed people to exist in poverty while c***s go to space. But still, one can dream. Dream one day of being a c*** in space. From c*** to c***. Yeah, that was one journey. That was a c*** in space was one of the things

that was left on Jim Henson's intro sadly in space I'm like Kirk at the end of Wrath of Khan

so what next obviously Branson's won the race for space so how are Bezos and Musk going to respond well reports that Elon Musk is now hoping by the end of the year to have launched a magnetic levitation giant millipede

that can scuttle between New York and Las Vegas in under 20 minutes whilst Jeff Bezos who obviously with his dream of going into space before Branson sadly now dashed and having to go in after Branson inspired by Greek myths like Icarus, maybe he's going to just spin that one back a bit and go the full Minotaur.

And reports are that he is currently having a bull outfit made for him to mate with... Could he just not build a f***ing labyrinth and be done with it? Anyway, might explain the divorce. But anyway, whatever makes him happy. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's long-term rival in the luminous electro-ferret madness of corporate Willy Wonkedom,

Pilau Snork, is going the other way. Snork, of course, is the tech-trepreneurial wizard whose companies include the Internet of Pointless Shit specialists Ego Big or Go Home, Freewheel, who do riderless bicycles, and PogoStick, which is making solar-powered pogo sticks capable of boinging up to 500km on a single charge in boings of two kilometres each once the pogo pad network is up and running. Currently, it's just two pads between Snork's Arizona mansion

and his waterless zero-gravity swimming pool. Anyway, rather than going into space, Snork has responded. Next week, he's going to burrow deeper underground than any human in history. Drilling down 200 miles in his prototype gigaworm hyper-burrower, he will then spend 30 seconds outside his protective pod just to see what it's like, and if it looks like there's any hidden kingdoms down there or an underworld, maybe a river he could cross into the afterlife even,

and also to plant some lemon pips to see if they grow back to the surface to produce indestructible lemons 10 miles in diameter that could feed the world forever before returning to the surface. Snork says that the worm cast, which is predicted to rise 5,000 metres above ground, will be turned into a ski resort and bobsled academy for the deprived children of the world if they can

find their way there. Listen, if you're in Highgate Cemetery at any point in the next couple of days, you will hear some strange noises because Karl Marx is wanking in his grave. Even he couldn't have predicted capitalism would go this badly

well in fact that takes on to our second competition we'll be back next week a couple of plugs for you there is a live bugle on the 7th of September at the Underbelly's London Wonderground site in Earls Court tickets available if you ask nicely or in exchange for money.

Tiff Stevenson is doing a run at Soho Theatre, 3rd to the 7th of August at 9pm. Do go and see that. Anything to plug, you guys? The show that I make called Breeders is on Sky TV and Now in the UK and FX and Hulu in the States. Both seasons available now.

I am... Tour tickets are still available for next year and I'm going to be in Edinburgh from the 16th the 22nd of August at the Monkey Barrel unless this island is consumed by plague. Or you get pinged again. If I get f***ing pinged again, I swear to God,

I'm going to go round Javid's house and smack him in the face. And I've been very clear about that. But I guess, could you not just get a load of people who've been pinged and get them all to isolate in the same place for that week? A ping gig. I should do a six-day gig. Either that or I'm going to invest in a Zorb. I suggested Zorbing Balls for social distancing

right at the start of this crisis, and they still haven't come in. It's one of the great failures of government. Thank you for listening, Buglers. Thank you, well, for your support over the last 200 episodes, your support with your ears, your laughter, your hard-earned money, your easy-earned money. We don't judge your time, your feedback,

your merch purchases and your tickets. Here's to another 200 post-relaunch episodes and maybe another 294 if John Oliver ever comes back to the show. We'll be back next week. Keep this show going for another 200 episodes minimum, stroke 200 years. I'll pass it down through the family.

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