The Bugle - Game Over for White House

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

On this week's issue of The Bugle, Andy is joined by sister Helen Zaltzman and Anuvab Pal, as they discuss White House Arcade games, Fears in Quebec as courts turn to generative AI, and the appearance and disappearance of a island on British Columbia's largest reservoir. Plus breaking news on, Tuk-Tuks in India, Flags in Australia and the falling apart of the Bayuex Tapestry. All in issue 4389 of The Bugle. Listen Now! 🎮 White House Gaming: The Bugle reports on the latest Arcade games to come out of the White House as Tetris distance themselves 🏝️ Disappearing Islands: The trio delve into the news of an island mysteriously appearing — then disappearing again!  🧵 Tapestry Falling Apart: Andy, Helen and Anuvab report as two thread of the Bayuex Tapestry are torn Andy's Links: https://www.andyzaltzman.co.uk/Helen Zaltzman's Links: https://linktr.ee/helenzaltzman Anuvab Pal's Links: https://anuvabpal.com/🎧 Support The Bugle! Become a Team Bugle subscriber for bonus episodes, exclusive video editions, and the righteous satisfaction of funding satire:http://thebuglepodcast.com📺 Watch Realms Unknown on YouTubeProduced by Chris Skinner, Laura Turner and Harry Gordon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 4,389 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world. I'm Andy Zaltman. It is the 7th of September 26, and I'm joined today by two people, only one of whom I have ever read a bedtime story to. See if you can guess which one. It's A, Anuvab Pal and B, and B, B, B, the scribbling sibling, Helen Zaltman. I'll leave you a gap to answer that question, Buglers.

Congratulations, if you got it right. Hello to both of you. How are you? What story did you use to read Anavab, just to tell you wisdom. Helen, sleeping beauty is never the same to me after one particular incident in Mumbai a few years ago. Just this woman fell asleep during a hundred year long game of cricket. Oh, what a dream.

What a dream. That was when test matches were test matches. Well, happy September. to both of you. How's the oncoming onslaught of autumn treating you both? Magnificent, Andy. Magnificent. The leaves are already changing.

We're frolicking in them as one must. We are recording on the 7th of September. Tomorrow, the 8th of September. I don't know if you know this, Helen. It's National Amper Sand Day, apparently. Oh, fuck, yeah. Yeah. which we are celebrating by using the renowned symbol

throughout this bugle, whenever we say the word and, apart from that use of the word and when I was explaining it, Ampazandes-Zaltzman. There we go. Attribute is a tribute. Exactly. And for every use of the ampersand in this week's bugle, we will give a spare conjunction to a charity

that helps people who talk in really short sentences to join their phrases together more fluently. As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week we have the, well, the latest round in our long-running greatest thing in the history of the universe competition, which we've reported on sporadically over the last couple of years. And, well, these are actually repeshage contests amongst things that lost out in the first round. And we have, well, four very exciting contests.

Cabbages versus the stunt motorcyclist Evil Knievel. It was a bit unlucky to go out in round one. He lost out to the 1985 World Snooker Final. Also, harpsichord music against the Baker-Lew line on the London Underground, which was thrashed in round one by the Roman aqueduct in Sogovia. Next up, the film Teen Wolf 2 against Luxembourg and the toilet brush against the Monaco. We'll have the full results of all of those contests next week.

That section, in the bin. I mean, does it have to be a fair fight, Andy? I mean, is it sort of surreal, like, is it like the horse-drawn carriage versus kung fu? Is it a bit like that? Yeah, basically. I mean, you've got to judge which is best, and we will eventually. I think I worked out on a previous,

it's going to take several hundred thousand years to get to the final, but it's going to be worth it, and at least we'll finally find out what the greatest thing ever is. I just want to throw in one. I was once in a medieval museum in Barcelona, where they had equipments of medieval torture and there was one particular instrument whose purpose was just to slap you repeatedly

every six minutes. I don't know who designed it in the 1500s, but I wanted to just put that in there versus the complete works of William Shakespeare. Just if we are comparing anything with anything. Yeah, well, that was initially designed as an automatic private school teacher, I think, that contraction.

It was how they kept time. before an answer. Top story this week. All the stuff that's going on in the world that isn't stuff that's too depressing to talk about. In England, we've had far rights, balaclava wearing pseudo-patriots, taking to the streets,

injuring police officers. The right-wing AFD has won a major election in Germany. I'm not that comfortable with 1990s nostalgia, a little than 1930s nostalgia. There's more death and destruction in the Middle East and Ukraine. Donald Trump's top negotiators, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner and his business associate co-grafter and crookster colleague Steve Whitkoff

have thanked Vladimir Putin for the incredible memories they made with him in Moscow. I really don't want to talk about that. There's been more apocalyptic eye warnings. And the last test match of this cricket summer will end by Sunday at the latest. So we need to focus on... It's just tough times, Helen. I'm always a bit shaky this time of year. Yeah.

I imagine that's something you learn to deal with through our... childhood of that time of the summer when I would suddenly just retreat into myself for approximately nine months. You know, people think Yom Kippa is for Jewish New Year, but it's actually the end of the cricket season for Andy. One of the benefits of, you know, living in this part of the world and having completely corrupted the game of cricket is that you can get it year around. So, you know, that's one of the benefits of money being thrown at a problem. Nostalgia is no longer a factor. You know, like, I assume you guys grew up with the changing of the leaves, end of a season, people going back to school and work. It was a cycle of life, right?

And then in our part of the world, we just threw money of the problem and said, oh, it's a thing people miss. Let's just give it to them every minute. for once capitalism nailed it. Yeah, but too often it's the wrong type of cricket and it's simply not long enough. So we're going to start with arcade games news and well, Helen, you are the bugles' arcade games correspondent. Very much, though, yes.

And I've been an inveterate gamer since literally the moment you were born, as I recall. There's what some exciting games. news that, you know, a challenge to some of the big games publishers, perhaps from an unexpected source, the White House, which has started publishing computer games based on stroke shamelessly stealing the intellectual property of classic arcade games, including Tetris. I just bring us up to date with that. Yeah, well, Andy, as always, the White House is making politics fun and play for.

And amongst the five games that they launched the other day, with a trailer riffing on Sega as MAGA, clever stuff. They've probably been holding on to that since the 90s. This is the first I've heard of Sega in quite some time. And the games include Trump Savings Tycoon, where you fill your kids' Trump accounts by catching money in a net. Rio Run, which is like the game Snake, but you're patrolling the Rio Grande, collecting brown people who then follow you around wearing orange jumpsuits.

And the one that's got most press is build the wall, which is like Tetris, but it's for building the wall to, quote, keep out the coming hoard. Right. I mean, look, in terms of, you know, things, the kind of list of things that the current American president has done, that none of us. as predecessors would have even thought of doing, is one of the world's longest currently active lists alongside people you would prefer to be the world's richest person rather than Elon Musk.

But I mean, in terms of the sort of lack of dignity of the American presidency as an office and the White House as an institution, you've almost got to admire the dedication that is being shown to kind of break new ground and do things that even if you'd tried to come up with it like a computer simulation of, ironically, of a president doing ridiculous, childish things, I'm not sure you'd have come up with a Tetris knockoff with a heavily racist bent. I think, I mean, Anavap, do you just, whilst not necessarily approving of this use of American public resources, I mean, do you admire the commitment people are they showing to that? I do. I, you know, I really want to spend about 10 or 15 minutes in Donald Trump's brain between two and three in the morning.

Sort of comes up because he sort of wakes up almost like a screenwriter and said, you know, what if? And then what follows is absolutely brilliant. I'm surprised, you know, there's some games that he didn't pick would surprise me because we got video games in India very late because of socialism. We didn't get a lot of the fun stuff you guys got. We used to have a thing called Commodore 64, so we used to play on rubbish things. He didn't pick Super Mario Brothers where you actually build a wall. He couldn't have done that.

I used to love Kung Fu, where, you know, you fight tougher and tougher opponents. I'm surprised he didn't do that, leading up all the way to the current Iranian Supreme Leader. You know, there was so many other games Donkey Kong, that would have been a good one. I mean, I don't know. Snake and Tetris, I don't know.

I just think whatever, you know, opiates are available to him, they can be expanded into wider things. But I think, you know, there are only very few areas that he hasn't gone because he's already done shooter games where he's gone. And he's also done. on video games where he's drop bombs in foreign countries. He's also, don't forget, done that fantastic Gaza as a resort, five-star resort simulation video.

Yeah. So this is actually a long line of video game making, really. Yes, I guess so. And I guess, you know, in the long line of Trumpian policies that is, you know, making the lives of the ordinary people of America infinitely better, it's, you know, reducing their bills and it's putting food on their plates through the medium of computer games. I mean, in terms of the prioritisation of government resources, it probably didn't cost too much to make these games, but that money could have been spent on more important stuff, for example, an AI video of

Donald Trump urinating on George Washington's grave, or a baseball bat for Pete Higgseth to beat up a decorated military general who disagrees with him. So I just feel that they're not really using the money they've got. Well, now I'm just thinking about Donald Trump's mind at two to three in the morning and it being like when you switch on broadcast television at two to three in the morning and it's just one person in a studio trying to get you to text in on a premium rate number. Incredible monologuing abilities those people have. You know, recently I watched a lot of these films where an imposter gets to the White House. They made a lot of these films in the late 90s, early 2000.

Kevin Klein, the famous Hollywood actor, was in one called Dave, where he's a pig farmer who looks like the president. the president is incapacitated, and then he's made the president. And then these impostors tend to do a lot of very country bumpkin things that are considered wise. They never made a film where an imposter is sent in there who is mad, and the consequences are there for insane. And he presses the nuclear button. We never made that film, but I think we're watching that film now.

In other computer-related politics news, and, well, Helen, you live in Canada now, will be on the other side of Canada from where this is happening. The courts in Quebec have issued guidelines restricting judges' use of artificial intelligence and making the somewhat controversial, and I would say arguable claim, that judging of court cases should remain something that humans rather than AI, are responsible for. How's this gone down with the people of Canada? I think I can't speak for all of the people of calendar.

I can only speak for about 29 million of them. Not the full gamut. I think everyone is disappointed that the judges will just have to stick with flipping coins to decide. But yes, the courts have told judges that judging must remain a fundamentally human. responsibility. And for judges to get this telling off, I do have to wonder quite how bad things have got. A few months ago, there was a report that a judge cited case law that didn't exist,

suggesting that maybe they had used generative AI for their decision. And you do wonder what the judges are doing with the time that they used to spend thinking if they've now outsourced that. Is it just golfing? Is it vigilante stuff? I don't know. The judges in Britain tend to be posh old stuffers who probably can't use chat GPT, so maybe that keeps them making human decisions.

I just have a question for both of you. When most of the laws were written, Magna Carta downwards, and a lot of British laws are now Indian laws as well, was the assumption always that a judge would be a human being, a living human being? I think, I mean, it depends what you mean by living. I mean it in the strictly biological sense, or do you mean it in the sort of intellectual

and spiritual sense? I don't know, really. I wasn't around 1569. I'm guessing they expected a human to sit above, literally above other humans and pass judgment. I know the Americans have gone ahead with different kinds of justice. Like, you know, they've had movies like Judge Dread, where the judge has a machine gun. in court and imparts justice like that. But there could come at time because very similar, Helen,

to what's going on in Canada and India, there are lawyers setting case precedence of made-up cases that don't exist. So, you know, they're saying the state versus Banerjee in 1980, no such case exists. This went on for a while to the Supreme Court. One very clever judge said, wait a minute, this doesn't seem like a judgment that was ever passed.

So now if case law is made up and lawyers are making up the precedent law, how long will we actually have human judges? Would they be necessary, you think? Well, look, this can't come soon enough for me. And if AI is making case law, it's really making up case law that should have been made up by humans, had we been as efficient as AI. I mean, we'll probably get around to it eventually.

The ruling in Quebec's state of the, that generative AI, however sophisticated, possesses neither judgment nor conscience and is not subject to any form of accountability. It cannot understand the human social and legal context specific to each case. So I guess that qualifies it's not yet for judging legal cases, but definitely for journalism, politics and hosting radio phonins, or religious courts and military courts, but not yet civilian courts, but it is just a matter of time. Now, of course, in time's gone by, And if our court, certainly here in Britain, we relied on a specifically well-honed human intuition developed over centuries to work out if a defendant looked a bit dodgy or was probably guilty,

or at the very least would have committed the same crime given time and opportunity and therefore should be either executed or sent on a boat to some way that we'd only just discovered. So, you know, we've tended to rely on the human judges, but maybe the time has come to accept that this is a flawed system. and it's time to improve it. Also, I don't know how I feel if I was, you know, sentenced to life imprisonment or death by a machine. I would sort of feel like, you know, cheated in a way

if I had done some sort of vulgar crime, I'd expect an old man to sentence me to something. And who's running the appeals court now, an old graphics calculator? As long as you put a wig on the computer running the AI, I think it's fine. You know, I was curious. as to what happens in the AI age if you type Andy Zaltzman into a search engine,

is the slot more misleading the torrential bullshit you came up with all by yourself? Right, okay. And have you come to an answer on that question? Well, I tried it in two different browsers, Andy, and for the first time, no AI slop appeared at all. So I think you have managed to outwit the whole concept. I'm a little concerned with all this AI hijacking. There might be a time where some agents steal this podcast and then bring out versions of this on a Thursday at midnight when no one's expected. Speaking of, you know, confused legal jargon, there was precedence in India for a very long time of legal judgments in India being read out in flowery Victorian language. That

was the system in the courts. That's how it was set up. So, you know, a peasant who was sentenced to death, you know, the judgment would say, hereforesoever. henceforth with, therefore under, here forever. It would carry on for a while, and the guy wouldn't know that he's been sentenced to death. So the whole judgment we read out, there'd be awkward pause, and then another person who understood the language would go and whisper it into the person's here, who would then scream and shout and realize he's going to be killed. So I think language does matter to some extent.

I assume it was quite dramatic in court. after the judgment res out, there's deadpan silence, then the thing is read out. It's very similar to when I once did my show about post-colonial India to a large Japanese automotive company. There was awkward silence, translation, and then, but there wasn't really laughter, but the confusion. Perfect. So again, all of this happens when there are humans in court. We did a sketch on the department on Radio 4, the show I did with, uh,

John Oliver, best known as former co-host of the Bugle podcast, and Chris Addison, best known as occasional co-host of the Bugle podcast. And we had a sketch in which we were sort of fixing law and order. So we'd try to fix something in each episode. And we had Judge CompuJudge, computerised judge. And this would have been in about 2005, I think we did this. I think it would be an axed by 2005. No, it was axed in 2006 just before John went to...

Oh, sorry. You can have a 20th anniversary axing ceremony. And then an Insta prison, which is like a giant tumble dry, which basically at the equivalent psychological damage of a 15-year jail sentence in just a 20-second spin. So we were ahead of the game. We were ahead of the game. It's time those things were brought in.

Surface of the Planet News now. And, well, it's been an interesting time for the surface of this world-renowned. planet of ours, with things disappearing, including ice, which will come to later, and well, extraordinarily, an island, an entire island mysteriously appeared, then disappeared in a reservoir in British Columbia. Helen, you live in British Columbia. Yeah. Obviously everyone is very worried about this sort of plague of islands that come and go.

And this is in Williston Reservoir in northern British Columbia. I love this line from the story. No one knows where it came from or where it went, but a massive new island might be floating out somewhere in the Williston Reservoir. And why I love this, Helen, is because we live in a world where everything is, you know, new stories are leaked before they happen. Things are over-explained, over-analys, commercialised, controlled, infactualised. And I love the fact that something weird has happened and no one quite knows what the fuck's going on. And that used to be all the news back in the day, and you get a decent.

and myth out of it or a fuck off great poem or a cave painting or a religion but these things are increasingly, increasingly rare and I think we should appreciate these kind of stories when we get them. Well, now Andy, when you have something unexplained, you get a conspiracy theory about it

so I don't know if that is better. But exciting news about this island that appeared and disappeared. It has reappeared again. Oh, right. It just had drifted 30 kilometres. It's in a very large reservoir and so they're like, you can only really keep track of it by satellite.

And initially when people said there's an island that has appeared in this lake, BC Hydro that runs the reservoir, like this must be an AI hoax because that's the era we live in. The unexplained can just be a hoax, but it has been confirmed. This island, which is 140 metres long and 70 metres wide, or in American measurements, two football fields, is floating around. It's covered in trees.

And property developers of BC are rubbing their hands, thought some condos on there. Well, I mean, look, like I say, you live in British Columbia. Surely you channeled your inner Britishness. You sailed out to it and claimed the island as a possession of the king. Did you not?

Yes. I have called it King Charles Island, and the island is very grateful and it's singing a little song. Good. I was quite excited that maybe we had new mythological island, like High Brazil, which was an imaginary island, in the North Atlantic, 100-ish miles to the west of Ireland. And it appeared on maps in the 18th and 19th century.

And then just disappeared. Right. So why did it appear on maps? Did people think it was there and couldn't be asked to check? Or was it a prank? I don't know if it was a widespread prank or people were like, I'm willing to believe it, not seen it, but whatever, there's loads of islands, I've never seen that I'm willing to draw on this map with confidence. So I have a good question. This thing is also floating, right? It's a moving island.

So it could be... Best kind of island. Yeah, it's by far the best ones. So it could conceivably eventually become a cruise ship island. Yes. Great point. If you can get a cruise ship into a reservoir, which I suppose with rising sea levels

would increasingly become possible. Could it conceivably, because I grew up in a lot of 70s Bond films, could it be a villain's hideout? Because often Bond villains had some sort of underwater place. And you always got to it, like Doctor No, you got to it,

but you never figured out what the outlying island looked like. There's a helicopter, then you went down some mineshaft, and you were in an underwater, layer, liar, however that's pronounced, you were in that thing. But this could be a nice villain person's underwater hideout. Or overwater hideout? Overwater, yeah.

Like a big raft. Now, BC Hydro has said it is dangerous for people to go on it, implying because it is a sort of raft made out of vegetation and trees growing on it and some level of decay, but maybe they're just. covering for the fact that a villain has already claimed it as a lair. Yes. I mean, one of the explanations I read, and I don't believe this for a second, was that the island formed over many years due to accumulated driftwood that allowed plants and trees

to take root in the decomposing debris of the drift, then it snapped off and drifted out with unusually high water levels over the last few months. far more likely is that it's probably absolutely stacked with Greek soldiers trying to conquer Canada. It's possibly a warning from Beelzebub, an alien space island, a new species of forest-backed whale, or a public park from the mythological lost city of Atlantis, now overgrown and in Canada.

But my big question from here in England, Helen, is how long before this island beats us at cricket? Generally, it's just a matter of time. Okay, so if the season ends, this weekend, I think by then. And to me, there's something disappointing about this. It's symptomatic of the speed of modern life this island. The youngsters today don't have the patience to wait tens of thousands,

sometimes millions of years for new land masses to emerge. They want everything now. Because I don't think in today's world you get, for example, Pangaea, the world's former giant supercontinent, being given the time and space to gradually split apart into the continents we know and love today. People get bored after about a month in which nothing discernible happens.

And so here we are with these like speed islands just turning up and disappearing. Well, yeah, I have been wondering what's its next trick to keep people interested, Andy? Because if it disappears again, that's derivative of its earlier disappearance. Yeah. Well, people love repeated formulas, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, the reappearance was a great callback to its original appearance. You know, Jesus Christ made merry with that. Oh, yeah. But he didn't try it another time. King of the callback, as he was known at the time. And, you know, all landmasses always being constantly available is boring. Yeah.

You know, it's the mystery. Yeah. It'd be nice if the Rock of Gibraltar was missing some weeks. In fact, I remember going to the Maldives, and it's, I think, some 7,200 little islands atolls and various things. And there was one that at a hotel on it, and it said, taking bookings, depending. on if we're still here. Yeah, I mean, obviously, like, you know, a lot of the small islands have just one hotel on it,

and they relocate, and people don't die, but they relocate because the island gets submerged. But, yeah, it's seasonal booking takes on a very different meaning. Well, we're having something similar in the North Pole. I don't know if there's any hotels on the polar ice cap. I didn't seem to be, I did look on a booking website, and they didn't seem to be anything there. But satellite images have shown patches of open water

less than 40 miles from the North Pole. Yeah, so satellite, if you're not heard of it, they're like stalactites crossed with satchels, but in space. And a satellite picture showed, so open water visible at the end of August, under 60 kilometres from the North Pole. And this is being viewed by scientists as being as alarming and surprising as, and I quote, a satellite picture showing a bit of land without a coffee shop.

So we really should wake up and smell the coffee that ought to be there. I mean, this, you don't live in a particularly icy part of Canada, Helen, in Vancouver. But obviously, ice is one of the most popular substances in Canada, I believe, based on based on satellite pictures. And on hockey. Yeah, exactly. Made a whole sport for it. It's slightly concerning.

I mean, it's quite easy to get concerned about the future of the planet, just from stories about the impending end of the planet. So you don't want to overreact to... And there are solutions to this. Some have been suggested. Stratospheric aerosol injection. Shooting tiny sulphur particles into the sky

to blot out the sun. supporters include some scientists and the devil. Opponents include astronauts who don't want the crisp, clean smell of space to be spoiled by the sulphurous whiff of rotten eggs and assorted flatulentica. Another suggestion for stopping the polar ice melt is pumping seawater onto existing sea ice in winter and letting it freeze into a reinforcing layer. Supporters of that include polar bears who don't want to downsize and polar exploring online influencers who don't want to get their trainers wet.

alternative solutions for ice melt include fundamental reset and how the global economy works. Not really practical. And a massive hat for the Arctic, a wide-brim Stetson, some 2,000 kilometres across that could be placed in the Arctic ice gap as soon as winter starts become spring. That could diminish the speed of ice melt by up to 100%. And supporters include Cowboys and a Stetson Hat Company. So there's something that could potentially be done. Well, Andy, you could just send the Arctic to stay in our parents' old spare room. It was too cold to sleep even in June and ice formed on the inside of the windows.

And towels never dried. Yes. They had a talent for a cold. Initiate Zaltzman parents to save the world. They were visionaries. Can I just say someone who's lived in the tropics this whole life? What does cold feel like? What does this mean?

What is this world? I keep hearing about the pull ice caps melting and it's just going on and on and for 30, 40 years, it just isn't going to happen. Is this like the Game of Thrones season finale? Like, is it, it's about time it happened, right? Like, it's, I mean, it's been going on for a while. It's been promised. Right. Everyone talks about it.

It's on CNN every day. But it just, when is it going to happen? That's how people were about Prince Philip dying in like 20s. Give the public what they want. No more polar ice scuffs. Andy used to have a very comforting joke about the rising of the sea levels. Everyone would live closer to the beach.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's going back a while. Always looking on the bright side. India news now. And, well, some interesting news for Tuktu drivers in the state of Maharashtra, Anuvab, who are going to be given a year to learn the local language or face being banned from from from toktooking um I believe is the

verb um why is this what is this happening and look what I don't understand about it because tuk-took drivers I've been doing here a few times I've been in many tuk-tooks and for me took-took drivers are amongst the most incredible human beings on this planet to me they're not in the top 0.001% of drivers globally but they think have a divine level of ESP. If you've survived as a Tuktuk driver, you can sense and perceive things that ordinary humans cannot.

So I don't care if you can talk zero languages. I'm just, you know, happy that you exist. No, you have a very good point, Andy. You know, in London, you guys have a thing called the knowledge, which I believe every taxi driver needs to learn. I think we've done a cheap imitation of it. We're calling it the language. So you just have to speak the language of the place that you're in.

Now, India is a bit like a continent. You get people from various other states who speaks completely different languages, and they want to obviously drive taxis. And if you've ever been in a took-tuk or a taxi in Mumbai, as an Uber Mac will tell you, they can do everything except drive in a straight line. There are things that the Uber algorithm has seen with an Indian Tuk Tuk that has not possible to program into the algorithm, including the Tuk Tuk flipping around, going in circles. One thing, apparently, that they cannot do is speak the local language of the customer, because they come from another part of India where Hindi is prevalent. And, you know, with Hindi and English, you can buy large manage in most parts of India.

but now Indian states are becoming quite provincial, and they're saying, you know, you need to learn the language of the state you're in. Now, on inquiry on whether they need to learn the roads and how to drive, that was not a requirement. But learning the provincial language is becoming a requirement in pretty much every state. In fact, Tuktu drivers in Bangalore,

where Kannada is the language, are being slapped and told, you know, if you speak Hindi, You come from the northern states as a Hindi speaker. You are not welcome in this state. But sadly, the language of Bangalore is not taught in northern Indian states. So perhaps the answer is a universal classroom to teach various Indian languages before becoming a Tuktuk driver. But health and safety and actual driving are not in any way a requirement to getting a license. I saw a Tuktuq outside my house.

driving backwards yesterday. And the customers seemed quite happy and reached his destination. So, again, alive, I think, I think alive. It's not always a requirement. Yeah. But yeah. So also autumn in Mumbai, I mean, this is very specific to Mumbai where this rule is being made. Autumn is the big, this week is the big time for the festival of the elephant

god. So Ganesh, the elephant god, what happens is basically thousands of people bring out giant ceramic elephant gods on trucks. And if you're commuting and trying to get somewhere in your neighborhood, Tuk Tuk's needs to whiz in and out of giant trucks carrying elephant gods. Now, here's the thing. This could drive you, Matt, if you're a sane person believing in science and rational thought. But if you don't overthink it and think you're in a tuk-took that's going to weave in and out of giant trucks

and the man doesn't speak a word of the language of the public, you would be fine. I think they're just trying to remove one obstacle, the language obstacle by telling them you need to speak the language of the thing. But I don't know if this is a requirement.

I mean, do Uber drivers in New York have to speak English or I don't know. I mean, I guess the thing that Uber has successfully done is completely extract all forms of human communication from life. So language becomes less important, I guess. I mean, one of the complicating factors in India is there's about 30 official national languages and about, was it, 10,000 plus languages spoken across. across India. So, I mean, personally, I'd like a Tuktuk driver to be able to speak a bit of all 10,000 of those. That's not much to ask, is it? I think that's what the government of India is asking. They're saying, you live in a land of 10,000 languages.

Are we asking too much? A lot of the Tuktuk drivers come from the state of Uttar Pradesh where Hindi is the Kavanee language, which it is of most of the north of India. But it doesn't quite work in the south of India. I suppose at some point the British in India had the same problem as Tuktuk driver's date, except they had guns, so they just said, speak English. Tuktuk drivers sadly don't have that. so they have to learn the language of the other place.

But I think at some point, the reason the language of business and the courts of law in India is English is because people just couldn't be bothered to learn 10,000 languages. That's how colonialism wins. Bits of fabric news now and, well, huge disconcertedness in Australia, the nation that has given the world, amongst other things. Cricket legend, Don Bradman, health and safety in the workplace equipment,

near Ned Kelly, Bougall co-host Alice Fraser and Neighbours, the long-running soap opera that is what Shakespeare would have done if he'd been born 400 years later and in Melbourne. But Australia has made a big flag blooper, Helen, by flying the flag of its not actually that near neighbour New Zealand at an event specifically to celebrate the Australian flag. How and why did this happen? Well, Andy, 3rd of September is Flag Day in Australia,

and this year it was the 125th year since Australia's current flag was first flown. And so it was a big deal. They were putting up 44 flags in Canberra. You know, it's really quibbling that two of them were for Aaltoa, New Zealand, rather than Australia. But this is the problem when you have a flag that is blue with a Union Jack in the top left

and the Southern Cross depicted on it. To be fair, Australia puts the Southern Cross as five stars rather than four. and it has a whole extra star for the Commonwealth. But it makes me a bit disappointed that one of the other potential designs for the flag all those years ago before this one was chosen didn't get through.

It was animals playing cricket with a ball with wings. See what we could have won, Andy. Well, exactly. And when they had a flag referendum in New Zealand about 10 years ago, 2016, when the people voted to keep the flag that looks really quite like Australia's flag and vice, of course, versa,

rather than the new, more distinctively New Zealandish flag featuring an infestation of possums or a lamb being slaughtered in an abattoir, or the battered face of rugby legend Richie McCaw. So New Zealand has made its choice and these misunderstandings are going to happen. And look, we all make mistakes, as proved by, for example, the history of the planet

it and every single country empire and snook player that's ever been on it. And look, I know you'll probably struggle to believe this bugles, but even I have made mistakes, such as at the age of five, I sacrificed a hundred head of oxen to the Olympian gods in order for them to grant me a solicitor, because I was having a bit illegal trouble at the time, and I made a mistake by not enunciating my words properly, and they gave me a sister instead. I was wondering how protracted that journey was going to be in that joke. It's probably the time you found out your true origin story, Ellen.

Thank you. I feel like I've been chewed on a dinner party, I shouldn't have. Can I have a quick, I have a quick question. If you guys did have your own flag of a country, what will be on it? Well, look, I think we have the technology now that these flags tend to be rather stuck and don't reflect the changing nature of countries. And look, well, those mood reflecting T-shirts back in the 1980s, you know, surely we have the technology to have a national mood reflecting flag

rather than just the same old, outdated bit of cloth with symbols and no one really knows the origin of anymore. I think that would be progress. I mean, the current British flag might look like a huge pile of sick, but, you know, let's look. I think it would encourage countries to sort their shit out. Yeah, and the mood will pass. One other bit of fabric news, updating on a story

that we covered last week. The Bayer Tapestry has fallen to pieces. It's, as we reported last week, it's come to London from, what's the place in France, the Beyer tapestry was in? Bayer, that's it. And on his journey,

they found that two threads have got torn. Yeah, I've never clicked on a headline so fast as two threads torn and Bear Tapestry. Look, I mean, this is what everyone feared when the tapestry made it not actually. Tapas Street, Tapper Street, Med is long awaited not really homecoming jaunt to be shuffled passed by thousands of people in London, that the whole thing would just unravel like King

Harold's attempt to pick up back-to-backwinds against the Vikings and the Normans, early in the 1066-667 Premier League battling season. And sure enough, the 68 to 70-meter-ish long basketball or blanket stroke propaganda broidery has started to disintegrate with two, count them, two of its threads becoming torn, accounting for a little bit of a small part of a tiny section of one of its 342,000-odd square centimetres of not actually tapestry. That's what starts, though, Andy, broken windows, whole neighbourhood goes. Yeah. I mean, is this going to lead to war between England and France again?

I mean, it's enough calls. I read it and I thought Revenge is a dish best served 950 odd years called. Maybe in 1066 if a border officer had snipped to have willing the conquerors threads, the whole conquest would have unraveled. Well, exactly. I mean, the disappointment for me is. It was sabotage. They've not said it.

They've not said it. No. But you're all saying it. I'm not not saying it. The disappointment for me is that these torn threads mean that the tapestry has fallen just short of the thousand years without being torn milestone, for which each of the original needleworkers would have been due a multi-million dollar bonus if they hadn't all died nearly a millennium ago.

So it's disappointing for them, really. They've no fault of their own. They went for syndication fees. come in. I guess the question is, is there any way now to stop the whole thing coming apart? Because the old saying goes,

one broken thread is worth two in the bush? Or a tapestry is only as good as its least well-woven penis? I forget what the... Hell hath no fury like a king who's just been shot in the eye with an arrow fired from an off-side position. It is one of those.

A single torn thread is like a sausage in the volcano. Anyway, the point is the tapestry is now doomed. And, you know, that's the one thing that was holding this country together, frankly. It's a metaphor. It's a metaphor for national decline. Well, on behalf of pedants everywhere, Andy,

I probably should just bring up that this, despite being called tapestry is not a woven piece, it's embroidered. Yeah. So unraveling is less of a pressing concern, except spiritually, of course. Yes. I mean, it's the foundational lie of this nation, really. I didn't know until today that in the borders of this tapestry,

This is of interest to bugle listeners. There are some little naked guys squatting with cock and balls are dangling. Absolutely. Yeah, well, we talked about this last week. 93 or 94 willies, mostly horses on the tapestry. Other than that, it tells the story of the Norman conquest. And the concern is that if the torn threads get worse and start tearing at the representation of King Harold's finally deadly de Numen

at the Battle of Hastings, it is possible that future historians will look at the Freight King Harold and include that he wasn't shot in the eye with an arrow, but was vaporized by an alien space laser. And that could completely rewrite the whole of English history. Well, you said, how many willies? 90-something? 9-3.

Check it's an arrow. Yeah. Good point. Good point. Family show. But that is a very good point, Andy, because, you know, I'm a big fan of old English history. And, you know, I know that there's a big thing now that it's there at the British Museum

and Cues and lots of people. Now, the people that have seen it, is it, is it, they're saying, they've always said that this is an accurate history of the Norman conquest. 1066, exactly how it happened. That's how they dressed. There wasn't very much underwear around all of that stuff. Now, is that true? I mean, for example, it's, they're not, nobody's making fun, right? So there isn't, for example, a horseman with an iPhone 10 stitched in there. Like the, the, thing is the accurate description of 1066. Like there isn't... Well, I mean, there's a lot of debate about its accuracy, but I mean, not to iPhone levels of accuracy. Like it wasn't made in 1953 in Norfolk. It wasn't as far as...

I mean, well, we don't know, really. I mean, what is knowledge? What is facts? It was probably made in Kent, though. Yes. And, well, it took them about 20 years, didn't it, to finish, which to me is a bit too much to... to have a like a reliable news report 20 years on. And, you know, the question you've often asked, Andy,

if you want an accurate, you know, 20-parter explanation of day-to-day of what it's like to be in a war, why not do a podcast? Exactly. Why weave it on fabric? I mean, just, I don't know. In many ways, in many ways the bear tapestry was the first podcast, but completely different. well

I think on this harrowing story of the disintegration of the Bayo Tapestry it's time to bring this this issue of the bugle to a close you will of course be able to get the fully

embroidered version of this bugle in the year 2046 just email us with your address you'll be living out there and we'll send you a copy and if you want the full 70 metre version or the abbreviated 35 metre version, do let us know. And of course, for premium level voluntary subscribers,

there'll be a full 105 metre version. And if you want to join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme to get that 105 metre tapestry of today's episode in 20 years time, go to the buglepodcast.com and click the donate button. Helen, anything to plug? Yes, you can listen to my podcasts in non-embroidered form, the illusionist, which is about language. Definitely not political.

I've been told by many listeners. they're like, why have you put politics and language? And so that whole political language talk-tuck story can't exist. That's at the illusionist.org. And also I've answered me this, which has been going on even longer than the bugle has. Can you imagine? Almost a whole bare tapestry creation lengths worth. Actually, yes.

Yeah, it turns 20 in January. A lot of that is available at Ansomewinspotcast.com. A lot. Annavab. Yeah, just one interesting business. news. A play I wrote many years ago that played in Mumbai called Chaos Theory about two professors will be coming to London next autumn. Oh, cool. And it'll be a small production, most likely at Soho Theatre. And yeah, so we begin rehearsals early next year. And all the embarrassing

things I wrote 20 years ago will now be exposed 20 years later in front. of another international audience to prove its original mediocrity. So, yeah, it's called chaos theory, and it hopefully will open next autumn in London. If you want to hear the embarrassing things I did 20 years ago,

just listen to the early episodes of The Bugle with some other guy who's name, I can't remember. Anyway, we'll be back next week, buglers. In the meantime, the news quiz is back on Radio 4. You can access it via BBC. sounds, wherever you are in the universe, I believe, and I'll be on test match special

from Wednesday until whenever the dismantled Pakistan cricket team completely gives up the ghost, which could be Wednesday, Thursday, unlikely Saturday, very unlikely Sunday. And hopefully they'll pull off one of the great recovery stories after sacking seven of their players and their entire coaching staff since the last match. So until next week, where I will be joined by Nish Kumar and Sarah Barron. Goodbye.