The Bugle - Gravity conspiracies, Netflix's daring documentary, and a new portrait of Robert Burns: it's episode 4366 of The Bugle!

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

In this week’s Bugle Andy is joined by Tiff Stevenson and Josh Gondelman, as they discuss the week's biggest stories, from NASA debunking gravity conspiracies, Netflix's new daring documentary with free climber Alex Honnold, more on the unfolding events from the US and the new portrait of Scottish poet Robert Burns.🍏 Gravity Conspiracy: Andy, Tiff and Josh, get their heads around the latest conspiracy theory, that gravity is to end for 7 seconds. They also throw in some of their own for good measure.🧗 Netflix Daring Doc: Netflix's newly released doc, follows solo climber, Alex Honnold as he attempts to climb the 101 story Taiwan Skyscraper with no equipment!🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Robert Burns' New Angle: The gang break down the discovery of a new portrait of Robert Burns, fittingly the morning after Burns Night. Andy's Tour Dates: andyzaltzman.co.ukTiff's upcoming gigs: Paris 4th Feb https://anythingmatters.com/index1.html & tiffstevenson.co.ukJosh: www.thatsmarvelousnewsletter.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.

The bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4,366 of the bugle. The universe is sole remaining vestige of metaphysical hyper-truth and pure 200% proof bullshit. I'm Andy Zaltzman, coming to you live and recorded from the shed in London, South London's most used venue for recording bugles. And I'm joined today to pick at the unappetising leftovers of the world's horrendously unhealthy news diet. by from London, Tiff Stevenson, and from New York, Josh Gondelman. Hello to both of you.

Hello. And hello to you. Thank you for having me. It's great to have you both House 2020-six treating you so far. Oh, Josh. No, well, here's the thing. America has been hit by a blinding, oppressive wave of whiteness this weekend. And I don't, I don't, that's not clear whether I'm talking about the winter storm or ice that has been ravaging the United States.

Ice is causing problems everywhere in many forms, is fair to say. Mm-hmm. That's it. It has, um, that this, the giant, uh, storm that's, that's, that's hit America. It seemed to coincide, Josh, with, uh, Trump's bid for, for, for, uh, it's, uh, the giant, uh, storm that's hit America. Greenland and it has been one of the very few things in my life that's made me think maybe there is a God that's he said well if you want Greenland here let's see how you get on with it as a trial you went at home yeah actually it might not be God it might be Mother Nature I feel that's

quite a feminine energy when you demand something for so long to your mum and eventually she's like here you have it see how that works out for you oh is this that you wanted yeah mother nature renowned as one of the worst parents in history. We are recording on the 26th of January, 2026, exactly 100 years since the first ever demonstration of the television by John Logie Baird, who has got, frankly, a lot to answer for. Because without him, Donald Trump basically wouldn't exist. So this is all John Lerge Baird's fault and thus Scotland's fault.

Well, his mum is Scottish. So Scotland does literally bear some responsibility. Anything will take some of the responsibility off our plate, I look. As always, the section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week, it's something we've had a couple of in the bins before. It's an updated words of wisdom. Previous sort of truisms, aphorisms that have been accepted as true have been going out of the window in the current age.

and in the context of recent international diplomacy efforts in the Trumpian age, here are some updated phrases and proverbs for you to start using rather than the now obsolete old versions. If you want to make an omit, you've got to crack some eggs into the faces of your supposed friends and then slam their face into a buttered frying pan. If you want to catch a fish, you've got to nuke the fish pond. You can't win a tennis match if you don't tell your opponent to the umpires chair and gag them with a tennis ball, douse them intrigal and release the bees. A rolling stone will smash your greenhouse of smithereens

Don't count your chickens before they've been made into nuggets Necessity is the milf of invention When in Rome, tell the Italians to go fuck themselves Take a Wes in the Travi fountain and paint over the Sistine Chapel ceiling With a giant portrait of yourself And when life gives you lemons Squirt lemon juice into people's eyeballs just to see how they react And of course, a journey of a thousand miles

begins with an unprovoked fistfight in the departure lounge that do use those as often as possible that section is in the bin top story this week crisis averted there has been a lot of doom laden talk Tiff and Josh about the end of the world

and perhaps none more so than the rumour that has been circulating on the internet that gravity is going to stop working in all August, on August the 12th, specifically, for a grand total of seven seconds, causing untold mayhem around the world. Now, the search for truth in this world of politically and or commercially motivated deception

is an increasingly difficult one. And it's good that NASA, the American government agency set up back in 1958 in a desperate attempt to stop commies getting to the moon first, actually felt the need this week to reassure the world that this online conspiracy theory about gravity stopping working, for seven seconds on the 12th of August, it is actually bullshit. And I mean, Josh, it must be reassuring in these difficult times that there is still a government agency in America that is prepared to say something that is almost certainly true. I do like this.

I do think that it's good that we have a functioning government that stands for truth, although that is a waste of NASA's time to have to debunk internet they shouldn't have to do that we don't need astronauts putting out press releases debunking the theory that Avrilavine was replaced by a body double in 2003 or that Marilyn Manson had two ribs removed so he could suck his own dick there's like 11 people left in our government doing science because of Elon Musk and we can't just make them do this too I welcome the sweet release.

Would it just end it all? That might be quite nice. I don't know if seven seconds is going to be enough to completely, completely end it. Well, it says Earth is going to lose mass. This is the theory. So obviously it's on a Zenpec, like everyone else. And it makes sense because Earth is looking snatch right now. Her once bountiful resources are very scarce.

and she started removing all of her old fat picks from the grid. And I think we know it's coming. We know it's coming. I'm going to lean into this as a theory. I didn't really understand why people were going to die if we lose gravity for seven seconds. I was like, maybe if you're jumping, then you can't like do anything that like no jumping,

no skipping, no pogo stick, no running man, nothing that would like take you off so far that when the seven seconds ends, it would kill you. Well, I mean, I think that was a concern. So this conspiracy theory was doing around in various shit-for-brain suburbs of online Idiotville. And so gravity, which for those of you unfamiliar with it, is the famous bit of physics that stops everything just floating off and makes Snooker essentially a two rather than three-dimensional game and all the better for it. According to these conspiracy theories, there's a secret NASA scheme entitled Project Anchor, which sounds eerily similar to the scheme. The EU is currently covertly setting up for dealing with the American president.

These online scurrelations claim that NASA had predicted over 40 million deaths from the seven-second gravity blip, from falls, plummeting, splats, clonks and physics-related infarctions, as well as provoking serious disruption at the Cincinnati Masters Tennis tournament that week, where balls would fly uncontrollably over the baseline for any rallies taking place during those seven seconds. And also it would cause absolutely no change to the punctuality of British trains. So there was a lot of worry about it. to cause mass panic, which is the default state of humanity in the mid-2020s anyway, so nothing to worry about on that.

It could cause economic collapse, ditto. It could cause the destruction of vital infrastructure, merely accelerating the process that's going ahead in most countries anyway. But NASA has clear this up. The only way, as it said, for the Earth to lose gravity would be for the Earth system that combined mass of its core mantle, crossed ocean, terrestrial water and atmosphere to lose mass. so they have said, they've just floated that possibility that that is, that is,

I mean, facts aren't what they were these days. Things once accepted as basic truths and now just jellified remnants of veracity at the bottom of the media dung heap. So they've not completely ruled it out. That's the way I see it. This is it. This conspiracy theory is based on one TikTok that was, that was right at the beginning of the year, end of last year.

And you can't base something this big on one TikTok with no sources. unless it is the belief that you secretly have ADHD. Then go wild. When anyone with a front-facing camera diagnose you, it's 2026. I don't know a single person who has been able to pay the recommended amount of attention to anything for a decade. My favorite thing about this is that this project anchor program that allegedly exists and certainly does not, it supposedly has a budget of $89 billion. And that's ridiculous.

There's no way that America has a secret $89 billion under Donald Trump that's not being used for weapons purchases, concentration camps for immigrants, or gilded ballrooms. That's what that breaks down. Yes, there's no way he's not bragging about it if he's spending it. We have the biggest anchor. Obviously, gravity cannot be suspended for all of Earth. It's scientifically impossible. And the results would be catastrophic. The only recorded instance of someone on Earth defying gravity, of course,

was an alpha discovered a reservoir of confidence at the end of the first wicked movie. And we all remember the devastating impact of that. They made a second movie. I am quite keen to see what zero gravity would do to my boobs. It would be like Earth's Wonderbara, right? My boobs would be like 20 for seven seconds. I would be the new Sid Sweeney. I'll get cast in all of the rom-coms.

I'm quite happy about that as an idea. Yeah, I mean, I think there was an article about what might potentially happen if this were to happen, what would the effects be? And it was saying there were claims that there would be mid-air floods, which is actually what happened to me once when I watched Magic Mike on a plane. Family show. Family show. The number of casualties. would be astronomical.

And then this says, this is direct quote, not just from flying debris, lack of oxygen or simultaneous natural disasters, but because in those five seconds without gravity, the Earth's crust, would literally open up and swallow several major cities. A lot can happen in just five seconds. And that's how I know a man wrote that.

Also, the sudden and sharp drop in air pressure would apparently, according to that article, instantly shatter everyone's inner ears, which would be absolutely catastrophic. for the podcasting industry. Not only shows like the bugle, but also other recent hit pod such as Why Listen to an Expert, when you could listen

to a celebrity, half-ass wittering on about nothing with Mike and Dave or something like that, and sex tips for Tamagotchi's. So it's, yeah, very, very concerning. I mean, the mid-air floods, basically all the waters from the water bodies of the world, lakes, rivers,

seas, oceans, and hot tubs would empty within moments, potentially finally revealing the truth about what happened to the Titanic, the lost city of Atlantis, and my son's hat that fell into Sydney Harbour off a ferry in 2018. I really want to know. It was his favourite hat. Sun's hats everywhere. This is going to be huge for a son's hands. What I do like about a good conspiracy theory is it does make me come up with my own conspiracy theory. So I've got a couple that I'd like, if we can start getting them out there, if the bugle, the bugle family listening can start pushing these. My first one, Vajazzles were invented by the

Catholic Church to get gay men interested in vaginas. Yeah? Look at it. It's so sparkly. Yeah? Does it lip sync? You go little Dollywood with a clitoral hood. I like that as an idea. I think we could start pushing that one. I got another one. The hats worn by cans of Pellegrino so you don't realize they're going bald. The primordial pouch on a cat, sometimes called the furry fupa. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about that little like pocket underneath. That contains a portal to all. alternate dimensions. All you have to do is poke it a couple of times and say, who's a little fatty catty? And then you can access it. Yeah. Oh, and also, Diet Coke,

this is my main one, actually. Diet Coke is a sci-op to get straight women to drink horrible carcinogenic shit by showing endless images of buff men with their tops off. Because no one needs to advertise actual Coke, just regular Coke, because it's good. In other gravity news now, Alex Honnold, the climber, has shown absolutely no respect for gravity or indeed any other form of physics by climbing a 500 metre skyscraper with no safety equipment whatsoever. He told physics to go phys itself. No harness, no rope, no helmet, no parachute, no jetpack, no massive pile of mattresses to bounce on if he falls off. No specially trained flock of eagles to swoop down and catch him if he fell off the building. no giant whoopee cushion to break his fall and entertain the infantile.

No futuristic gravity-inverting machine. No giant windblaster cannon to blow him back upwards. No Spider-Man web shooters on his wrist. No retractable mechanical batwings. No sacrifice to use to curry the favour of the Olympians in his quest. No conveniently time passing open-top truck full of tomatoes to fall into. Nothing. Just his own ridiculous skills and Netflix coverage.

That's all that got him up to the top. 508 metres of the tower called Taipei 101. Taipei 101. Taipei 101 is not a simple introduction to the complex politics and history of Taiwan, but a skyscraper tipping the tape at, as I said, 500 meters, 5008 meters. Picture how tall that is, buglers, 5008 meters. Imagine a goat that is one meter tall to the top of its back when standing, and imagine 508 of those goats standing on each other's backs,

or imagine that goat drinking nine bottles of a double me in a height potion and then standing in a four-meter ditch. or imagine pole vault a Armand Duplontis, but he's now 146 metres tall, and imagine that he can still pole vault the same height proportionate to his own height. That's 508 metres, so I hope I've made that clear. I mean, what do you guys think?

I mean, it does seem like one of those human achievements that is simultaneously, immensely, immensely impressive and completely pointless. And Bugle has always gloried in such achievements. Have either of you ever climbed up a skyscraper? with nothing to stop you falling to an immediate and spectacular death. Okay, so here's the thing here. I am just authentically less impressed by this,

by him climbing on the side of a skyscraper than I am with mountain climbing or cliff climbing, because elevators exist. Like, I couldn't get to the top of Mount Everest with any effort, but I could for sure beat this guy to the top of this building with effort that is so minimal it verges on accidental. So I know that Alex is American, but I did check his parents are Polish and German descent.

So I think he was climbing it probably to escape ice. That's the most likely. I was interested in what Netflix said about it, which was they screened it, right? And it was originally supposed to be on Saturday. And then they delayed it because of the wet weather. and Netflix said, listen, for the live stream, we'll put a delay on it in case the worst should happen, we'll cut away, said the Netflix executive. I mean, we won't try and set up a safety net or administer first aid or do anything useful.

We will cut to a holding card just saying, please bear with us as we're experiencing technical slash death difficulties. By the way, there are about five specials on Netflix right now that could use that card. The Netflix executive interviewed in Variety magazine before the event said Nobody expects or wants to see anything like that happen. Well, I guess they could have tested out whether or not people wanted to see it happening or not by saying how many people would have tuned in if he'd done it with safety gear on. And I think it might have found something not particularly edifying about humanity that will get a much bigger audience if there is a theoretical chance

of seeing someone fall to a splatty ending. I think that must be tough for him to make this deal with Netflix and then to find out that they have a plan to cut away, that it's on a delay. Because that really means that they don't believe in you, right? Like they hired you. They think you're going to fail. That's like the waiter bringing you a to go bag when you start one of those eat the whole steak, win a free steak challenge is. But here's the thing. And you're talking about it not being.

as much of a draw with safety gear, I think it's equally cool to do with safety gear. Like, completing the climb alive, that's the goal. I don't think you should get the death penalty if he gets a hand cramp. I completely agree.

But at the same time, I don't think it would have got quite the coverage, or probably quite the money. Did they have the viewing figures? Did they say how many people tuned in to watch it? I've not seen those yet, but it's Netflix, so it's a, genetically 8 billion,

I think, up to 8 billion. Anything with Netflix, they say it's been viewed by more people than have ever seen anything in human history and they don't have a budget for a season two. Yeah, I tried to watch a clip of it and my legs, like this was genuinely

my legs just started going wobbly and I felt all lightheaded just like watching it and then my husband watched it and his palms got all sweaty and I was like, is this middle age, because we used to take a lot of drugs to get the same effect. Now, I feel like watching Free Solo would be like being in a K-hole for 90 minutes. Maybe you can micro-dose it by going outside in the snow with your shoe laces untied. There's many much speculation about what Honnold's next task will be.

Previously, he was the first to climb El Capitan without ropes or safety gear. The rumours are that his next scheme will be to climb the Burge Khalifa in Dubai, but only after it's been fully buttered and whilst wearing willy mittens. Then he'll try to become the first to climb Mount Everest on rollerblades whilst carrying a tray of beers. He will then attempt to climb the Marianna Trench from the seabed, 11,000 metres up to the surface of the ocean with no scuba kit or breathing apparatus. And then he will climb an imaginary brass dancing pole into space

with his hands tied behind his back and a bow constrict around his shoulders. So much to come on Netflix. American News now. And, well, Josh, it's a weird and tough and distressing time in America. Just yesterday, as we record, another brutality in Minneapolis, ICE, the law-ignoring agency tasked with bundling people into the backs of trucks if they look a bit dodgy and or not white enough has continued its campaign of intimidation and not caring about whether or not it incidentally kills people. The Trump regime

then continued to bearfacedly bullshit the people of America by slurring the recently slain, trying to cheat them up of the opportunity for belated justice and bringing its trademark cocktail of fear, confusion, embarrassment, shame and dread to the streets of the of the country. There was a headline in the New York Times of the killing of Alex Prattie in Minneapolis. It said how the Trump administration rushed to judgment in Minneapolis shooting. So rush, yes, to judgment, a judgment of all the words that have been misused and euphemisticalized in the last few thousand years describing what the American government have done after that shooting as judgment might be the most elasticated unless there is a new definition of judgment that I don't

have in my dictionary, meaning willfully misrepresent and distort the truth in a propagandistic manner reminiscent of some of histories, naughtiest regimes. It's, I mean, how, as a, I mean, I mean, I think I'm not breaking confidence here, Josh, by saying that you are generally not in favor of the state extraditiously slaying its citizens. So it must be a difficult time. Yeah, it's been intense here. I'm not even really big on judicial killings. Forget, I see judicial killings. It was, it's really, it's a really bad time here.

It's, you know, the Trump administration. has sent ICE to cities all across America as part of his America-first initiative of declaring war on his own country before invading any other countries. And, you know, I think the way that they're going after immigrants is so despicable and disgusting. And what's happening in Minneapolis is a heightening of that where it seems like there is no person the Trump administration will not. murder. It's been pointed out. A mother in the car with her wife and dog. Yeah, an ICU nurse that works with veterans. Sure. Ice would mow down the care bears like blades of grass on camera

and then lie about them trafficking fentanyl in their little tummies. It's just really bleak on top of how cruel and evil the initial mission is. I think what's been happening that is like heartening even amidst the gloom is that the people of Minneapolis have really been showing up for each other to protect vulnerable communities. I've seen so many reports that people taking shifts watching for ICE agents at schools or in other public spaces, people doing laundry or delivering groceries for their neighbors who don't feel safe leaving the house. And it's like really painful that the circumstances that brought this about are so extreme

and so perilous, but it's also been really fortifying to see the response of neighbors stepping up for each other. And it's got soccer moms in buy nothing Facebook groups sounding like they're in the climactic scene of the 300. And that hope that things can be better. It's seeing everything in real time now is just shocking. And we've seen the videos from every angle it's possible to have. And then the narrative that spun around that. It's so shocking. So it really is that Orwell you know, 1984 quote,

the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final and most essential command. And people, and I just think there's people who just won't see it. If they can't see it now, they're just not going to see it. Because they go, why bring a weapon to a protest? And so these

are all people who would like demand to have their Second Amendment rights respected. And this is someone who is legally carrying a firearm and The key word there is their Second Amendment rights respected. Other people's, it's more of a Second Amendment suggestion. Yeah, yeah. One rule for me and another for thee, I guess.

But also, in the immediate aftermath of that, Pam Bondi came out, didn't she, and said, listen, we'll take eyes off the streets of Minnesota if you give us all your voter information. So then everyone's like, oh, this isn't about immigration. This is about trying to grab these states and get them under our control. And I don't know if you know this about Pam Bondi, but she wanted to be a paediatrician originally. And I think it might have even been the Atlantic that wrote an article about her that said she was so mild-mannered that her nickname used to be Pambi.

But I think we can probably change it to punt now. In other Trump news, he took some time out from inflicting a eminent. bottomless and unquenchable tragedy on his own nation, and being a putrefying parody of a civilised democratic leader, by launching his Board of Peace to bring eternal peace for all eternity to the Middle East and the rest of the world. He is the inaugural chairman of the Board of Peace, a position he will hold for life.

There are questions still about the Board of Peace's remit, how it will work, be exact details of who's going to be involved in it, and what they'll be doing. Some have expressed concern that Vladimir Putin is involved, a man who does not exude a lifelong love of peace, although, to be fair, I'm judging him not just by how he looks, but all the things that he's done in his life, probably outside of the top 8 billion people you'd turn to

for constructive suggestions on how to create peace. Will it work? It's a bit early to say we need to answer that in 10, 50, 100, or let's be a realistic 5,000 years' time. But this is where the world is, Josh. The Board of Peace, Tony Blair's been exhumed from political retirement to be involved. Benjamin Netanyahu, I believe he's involved as well. It's a kind of strange, I don't know quite what to make of this.

How has it gone down in America? These are not people on a Board of Peace, B-O-A-R-D. These are world leaders who have grown board of peace and decided at some point in their careers to wage war against other nations. Yeah, I mean, it does, I will, I'll defend Trump here. It does make sense that he is founding a board of peace. He did win the most recent FIFA Peace Prize. So let's put some of the same name. They only give you that under extraordinary circumstances, the FIFA Peace Prize.

It's when FIFA is trying to bribe someone so stupid that they don't even have to give him money. Trump has proclaimed that he expects the Board of Peace to be one of the most consequential bodies in the history of the world. And I predict it comes in just after the titular bodies hitting the floor in that one song about letting the bodies hit the floor in terms of international report. I think if it's a consequential body, he'll definitely try and feel it up unconsensually.

I mean, it isn't even 18 yet, so for sure. permanent members of this board have been asked to contribute $1 billion for its upkeep. So it's less a global governing entity and more like when you pay to have a star named after you. It's not clear what you get for your $1 billion membership fee. I think you get a commemorative lanyard, 10% of all MAGA merchandise and the choice of which of the 10 commandments you can ignore for the rest of your life. So quite a good value at just one billion dollars, I think. When he unveiled the panel, I was watching it with my mum on TV on the news. And my mum went, well, where are the women?

And I said, as far away as humanly possible, I would hope. Like, this is the one time I'm happy to like, let's not campaign for no more manals. Just let him have this club of people. Because even the way he introduced them, he was like, I like all of these people here. Some of them I did like for a while, but I like them now. And I just thought, genuinely, he's like a teenager. A teenage, it felt like mean girls. I was, I was waiting for him to bring out the burn book and tell us Mark Carney's a fuggly slut.

Because he did initially offer Canada a seat on this board and then revoked the invitation, right? So it's like, I can't imagine Canada's especially distraught. Like, this is the biggest scam involving Canadians than has been perpetrated since every loser in high school decided that their fake girlfriend is from there. Well, we're turning on Canada. This was after a speech that Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, gave at Davos. It's rather eloquent speech about the changing nature of world politics in the Trumpian era, which he didn't mention Trump directly, and I think only mentioned America once.

It talks about the rupture in the world order, the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics amongst the great powers is not subject to any constraints. and talk about how the middle powers such as Canada and the other non-superpower nations must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu and he said nostalgia is not a strategy. And it was a rather elegant speech. I know exactly how long it was.

We have 10 or 15 minutes. But if you condense it down from its full length and full content to a summary of just one phrase, it would basically be turning to Trump and saying, you're a you're a he just said it in a more

kind of eloquence and nuanced way. Well he replied saying Canada lives because of

the United States. Remember that Mark. It does feel like someone brings eloquence

it's like the you know that old when they go low we go high and Trump goes

oh no when they go high I will just show how low I am. Yeah. Mark Carney

really brought a Faberjeet egg to a diarrhea by it there. An undercut faberre

can cause absolute havoc in digestive system. Well, one thing that may provide the world with a huge amount of leverage over Trump is the threat of a

boycott of the the men's football World Cup, which is due to be hosted by the USA with some help from Canada and Mexico later this year. And there's times when you think the world has basically just switched off from the unending Vesuvius of mayhem that Trump is blasting into the world's face. But one thing that could bring its attention fully into focus is the possibility of football being disrupted. So I think this now has the world's full and undivided attention,

the prospect of a military standoff between the USA and Europe sort of struggle to gain traction in today's time, poor attention, minimal news landscape, but the prospect of a boycott of the World Cup. I don't know if World Cup fever has hit in New York yet. Joyce America hosting the bloated, overgrown, overblown, competitively dilute 48 team FIFA fever dream of the tournament alongside its neighbours stroke current political foes, Mexico and Canada.

But I mean, are people in America worried that the football could be disrupted? Quite the contrary. I've seen American suggesting that other teams not attend the World Cup and the Olympics, which is absolutely the most benevolent reason anyone in America is urging people from foreign nations to stay out of this country. It is, I think the sport is gaining a lot of popularity. here, but it does seem like a point of leverage against Trump. Although, here's the thing that I worry about is that I'm sure that Trump would claim this as a wall-to-wall victory for America by default, right?

He would just say that we won by forfeit, and it would be the first World Cup soccer victory for a team that calls that sport soccer. For the man. The women and a lot. Certainly. It would be a little off beam for the World Cup if this boycott does go. ahead, which it definitely won't. Given that the World Cup avoided boycotts in Russia

in 2018, a few years after Putin first violated Ukraine and in Qatar in 2022, when workers dying, building the stadiums and laws banning homosexuality, were apparently a price worth paying for a logistically smooth and deeply soulless month of undisturbed footballing content.

But it's not going to happen this boycott. Sport is way too important to be distracted by lesser issues such as the entire functioning future of the planet. Pictures of Dead Scottish Poets News now and Tiff you are the Bugles rediscovery of long-lost portraits correspondent and exciting news this week about Robert Burns.

Yes, they've rediscovered a painting that they thought was lost or has been missing for 200 years. So in 1803 the greatest painter of the day, Sir Henry Rayburn, was commissioned to create a new image of the greatest poet of the day, Burns, Robert Burns. I once went to a, actually, I went to a Burns themed something in LA once and

they had, they referred to him as Bobby Burns and that was incredible. I was like, I don't think you would survive in Scotland if you called him Bobby Burns. Bobby Burns, yeah. So Burns had died a few years earlier and had only ever agreed to sit for one artist

Alexander Naismith in 1787 and that painting became the template for every image so there's this painting is being so it's a painting of a painting in a weird way, it's getting a bit inceptiony but this painting was done and then it just went missing no one knew where it was for 200 years

and then apparently Arthur Conan Doyle as we know the author of Sherlock Holmes reported about a seance that happened where a crazy Burns collector named Edward Barrington Nash tried to the medium of a spirit to invoke Robert Burns and find out where the missing portrait was. That's the exciting bit of the story for me, the seance piece, right? That's what I'm interested in. Let's get back spirits and use them to find the weapons of mass destruction.

Let's get a voice from beyond the grave to tell us definitively if it's Yanni or Laurel. all the important questions that we want answered can be done with a seance. And obviously, this story is timely now because they have discovered the picture. It wasn't an auction. They weren't sure if it was real. It was. It's been collected and it's now being displayed in Edinburgh, in the Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.

But obviously, yesterday was Burns Knight. And so that's why it's now a very current story again. Yeah. It is, it is so interesting to know that in his life, Robert Burns only sat for one portrait because reportedly he, quote, hated his portrait smile. And there was sadly because it was painted before technology improved, there was nothing they could do about the red eyes. There was no red eye. In this other, this newly uncovered portrait, Burns has reported the younger. and more fresh-faced. And looking at it, I know why they call him Robert Burns

because that guy was smoking hot. He did like the ladies. He did like the ladies. That's where my, actually my dad was born in Burns country and that's where my husband's from as well. So yeah, he was well known for being a bit of a ladies man. But also we did write, I did write, if you do want to hear it,

me and Scottish husband did write a new version of, the address to a haggis, which they normally do for a burn supper. If you'd like to hear it, I'll share it with you. Gere's the hag, you slag. It's time for neaps, your stinking creeps. But once a year, have no fear, up your kilt will layer. Your lum's probably been leaking. Your lump's probably been reeking and your asshole too.

But that's no reason for you to be blue, because we got some sheep's intestine, and since New Year it's been a festering. So it's time to get it down your gullet, shave your head, wear a mullet, and try not to spend the next 11 months being a . That's really beautiful. Thank you. Very, very, very moving.

Directly from the brain of Robbie Burns. Other salons have also been taking place. There was a seance with Abraham Lincoln this week, by various anti-Trump members of the Republican Party. And Lincoln was quoted as saying, for fuck sake, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. you. Fuck. But that's all he got from him.

Sad. It is interesting when Arthur Conan Doyle conducted that seance because we know the proclities of Sherlock Holmes. So I'm, you know, it's not of the question that they heard these voices

because they were coked out of their minds. He was a very good cricketer as well, Arthur Conan Doyle. Oh, I've, sorry, I've accidentally provided a fact to the bugle. Sorry. You have my humble apologies. That won't happen again. Right. A bit of end the episode. We've had an accidental fact. Thank you for listening, buglers. I am on tour. Once again, a couple of preview shows, one in Luton, this coming Saturday,

31st of January, then surely a week on Friday the 6th of February, and then the full tour recommences on the 13th of February. All details at my website, Andy'saltzman.co.com, at Uco, which I'm reliably informed is moderately up to date. Josh, anything to plug? Sure. I'm on the road a little bit. I've got some dates in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, April 10th and 11th. I'll be in Tennessee at the Blue Ridge Comedy Club in May, 20, the 30th. And if you want to know, I'm around New York City and kind of bopping around, I have a newsletter called That's Marvelous. You can get it, That's Marvelous Newsletter.com.

If you subscribe, you'll have one weekly free email about my whereabouts and pep talks. It's a lot of fun. You can also pay me money for it or watch my stand-up special positive reinforcement on YouTube. Okay, a few things. I will be in Paris next week on the 4th of February doing post-coital, my latest show. And then the following week, I'm in Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki, just over doing a run of shows. their line-up shows. So if you just want to see me live,

come out to those. And if you want to catch Post-Coytall, I've got some London dates. But if you just go to my Instagram page or even better yet, sign up to my mailing list on my website, which we're currently updating, because it hasn't been updated since Brexit.

And that's Tiff Stevenson.com.com. UK. And you can find more information there. We will be back next week with Sarah Barron and Anuvab Powell to tell you what has been going on in the final week of January and the first. day and a bit of February.

Thank you very much for listening, Vueglars. Until then, let's hope this month ends better than his, you know, not started and middled and towards the ended. We will report on it next week.