The Bugle - Is 2023 Over Yet? Oh, and Merry Christmas

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

NOTE: Possible Santa related content not suitable for young believers. Andy is with Josh Gondelman and Alice Fraser. Well gang, we've almost made it to the end of the year. This is the week's news, sadly news continues to happen. What a joy 2023 has been.PLUS: Become the owner of an exclusive episode of The Bugle, on 12 inch vinyl! It's your last chance to get your name on the artwork. Become a premium member NOW! https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donateThis episode was presented and written by:Andy ZaltzmanAlice FraserJosh GondelmanAnd produced by Ped Hunter, Chris Skinner and Laura Turner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Subscribe to Ask Andy Now via any podcast platform. Go to thebugelpodcast.com forward slash donate. Donate. At the end of year, at the end of year, Bugle of 2023, this is the final audio newspaper of the visual year of 2023. Welcome to the show. I am neither Napoleon nor Beyoncé, which means by a process of deduction, elimination, and averaging out, I must be Andy Zoltzman. And joining me to bid 2023,

affirm Feufbjub, which is the acronym for f***ing off into the History Books where you undoubtedly belong. And I'm delighted to be joined from all four hemispheres of the world, from the South and East, it's Alice Fraser and from the North and West, Josh Gondelman, hello both of you, and the happiest of all possible Christmases. Oh, and if you're halfway between Napoleon and Beyoncé, does that mean that your motto is like, if you like it, then you should have conquered it

and made all the roads on your own. Yeah, that's how I've always lived my life, Alice, as you will, though. How are you? I'm very happy contemplating Christmas the time of year when we, the pregnant, reflect on the possibility of your birth plan going horribly wrong and instead of getting to push out the baby and calm water baths surrounded by chill midwives, your eye-to-eye with a goat 123 Nepo babies

queue at the door like Amazon delivery guys. Baron Gifts you say, did anyone bring soup? Is what I'm asking? Did anyone bring soup? Is what I'm asking? Did anyone bring soup? I just think you're so mean. It's not a nice robe. It's a nice robe for the postpartum mother. Come on, you're all kings or wise men. I just, you know, you see all these beautiful nativity scenes and I don't know about you Andy, but I look at the beautiful nativity scene and I get to contemplate the miracle of birth in a humble

stable, the laying of the baby in the manger and which farm yard animal they fed the placenta to. These are the questions. I do think the placenta should be officially known as the surprisingly big placenta from harrowing memory. Josh, well, how are you as this year approaches, it's much deserved end. I'm doing well. I'm glad it seems like we're going to make it to the end, which is exciting. I mean, we were always going to make it to the end. It's just when the end was going to happen.

So December 31st, standard conclusion to a year is coming up and I'm excited for that. And I do, I really love my wife and I are staying in New York for the last week of the year. And it's so peaceful here between kind of the two big holidays, you know, Hanukkah and Holocaust Remembrance Day. And so it's just, it's just a lovely quiet time in New York between those two All right house house your Hanukkah gone. I've kept it pretty low-key this year. Oh, we know we did it up We did it up out that we added a candle every night

We we're still going Every day I wish it could be Hanukkah every day as the old song goes. This is dangerous. Josh, if you keep adding candles, eventually you become a Catholic church. We don't want to make that mistake again. This final show of 20, 20, 23 is coming to you live and recorded from the shed on the 21st of December. We are recording actually the shortest day of the year here in the world's most popular and best designed hemisphere. You need some sea, this is out, but not that much sea. As always, the section of the Google is going straight in the bin.

And well, there's only one possible section in the bin this week. And that, of course course is a Christmas section specifically The science of Christmas We are just four days away from Christmas as we were called the so-called most wonderful time of the year Which in the 2020s is a low bar frankly When the least rubbish time of the year might be a more appropriate title stroke song lyric But anyway the science of Christmas has fascinated scientists,

well, since Nought's BC stroke AD. Every year we beautifully put out our Christmas stockings and demand gifts from a cosplaying pensioner with a shocking record for workers' rights in exchange for a small glass of booze and maybe a mince pie if we can be asked. But whisper it quietly. The scientific revolution that has swept the planet like the plague that it is over the last few hundred maybe a couple of thousand years has hinted that Father Christmas might and I emphasize might for anyone listening with children under the age of 48 not exist. So we at the Bugle and our ceaseless search for truth have examined the science to try to work out once and for all if the Santa rumours are true false or is is it so often the case, somewhere in between laced with just a hint of exaggeration. So we've looked at the signs, and in order to deliver gifts to all the good, Laura Biting children in the world and the time span available, the speed clause would have to drive his

reindeer at would cause the reindeer to catch fire and burn up within 8.4 seconds of launch, leaving a trail of overcooked venison strewn around the surrounding countryside, attracting vermin, vultures and other scavengers such as hyenas and multinational fast food chains to pick over the carrion. For some reason, however, Claust does not make his reindeer wear the kind of protection they use on, for example, space rockets. It's estimated that up to 20,000 reindeer must die each year in training before Claust finally decides to use a special

chariot manufactured in secret by one of the world's leading military aeronautics companies and just stick some fake antlers on the front. Fact 3 – deliver presents to all the little children in the time available. Claus would realistically have to use a gift delivery device that could blast tiny fragments of gifts over densely populated areas and hope that something anything made it down enough people's chimneys. I don't know if you've ever seen the Exploding Whale video.

I assume that you have it, something that we've referred to. At various occasions over the past 16 and a bit years on the bugle, probably the greatest thing, but one in human cultural history, certainly, on YouTube. But that's the kind of technology I'm talking about. We need controlled explosions, kilometers above the Earth's crust for claws, to propel particles of present across a vast area.

That's really the only way he can achieve his goals. And also, from a scientific point of view, many have speculated on the number of elves required to staff and operate clauses business. It's a hugely complex setup involving communications, manufacture, acquisitions, packaging, labeling, organization, ER, that's Health In Resources, ES, Health In Safety, logistics, so much else besides.

And of course, the admin staff, which we never hear about, the admin elves doing the unglamorous year-round work, background checks on the behaviour of potential gift recipients, also they need to check the income, stroke wealth, stroke religion of the parents of the gift recipients which anecdotal evidence just is a major factor in the quality and even number of gifts that clause distributes to two children all that kind of stuff. The estimated number of elves required according to science is 250,000 which ironically is the size of the army owned and run by the British East India Company in its exploitative asset stripping either in the 19th century.

Also, it doesn't have a lot of buildings, aren't that big, it'd, all the old classics and actually die in accidents involving industrial machinery, forklift trucks or agitated reindeer. So I think this is around about 60 to 70,000 a year turnover. And also, let's not get started on the Environmental Footprint Knife clauses, operations to carbon emissions, the methane emissions, done by a f***ing thinking about. But he's an old entitled Brumu, frankly, couldn't give a shit about the future as long as he gets his performance bonus from himself. These people make me sick.

And that, children, is the science of Christmas. Now, following on from that, there was a story that just came out just, well, very shortly before we started recording about a British vicar who gave a sermon to a load of to 211 and 12 year old school children in which he I don't know the article says revealed I would say claimed that that father Christmas and the church and the clause to give him his one of his tags does not does not exist apparently there were children in tears, this was in Steve and Ijn in Hertfordshire and the Vicka claim that the children were old enough for him to deliver this message. But I don't know what you think about it Josh and Alice. But I mean to me it's risky.

When a Vicka starts warning people that stories that they've been told to believe in might not be 100% true, that is a boomerang that might come back to hit him at some point surely. Yeah, that's a slippery slope in that room. Because what is Santa, if not God with training wheels, so children can understand it. So one Santa's not real, that sweater on Rebels pretty quick. But that's exactly why I feel like it's a necessary part of the process is you need to like build people up to the idea

that we're living in a meaningless void staring down the barrel of space that doesn't care about us at all. You start with that, you move to God, then you go to Elon Musk, you know, in order of the people who care the least about you. I don't know what in your lives what you know how big Santa Claus was in your in your childhoods your father Christmas of Lieutenant Callum here. I know my suspicions were aroused at the age of five when I went to a friend's house and she had a load of toys and I said who's that from and she said oh that's that was from Father Christmas I said who's that from and she said oh that's from Father Christmas

I said what about that one? I said oh that's from Father Christmas as well and all these presents lined up all from Father Christmas and I met my brother this is a pre-hellen time. We only got one present from Santa Claus on the top of our stocking because our parents not unreasonable, I thought if you're going to spend this f***ing money we want them to appreciate who's got the stuff. And that made me think Well, I mean mate. I was a little Jewish kid. Maybe you know, this is just basic structural anti-Semitism that the Christian kids get more

Presence and I'd get in a way you couldn't really argue with that but that's that's when my doubt at the age of five Those scales started being chiseled for my eyeballs. What about what about what about you guys? I was brought up in a Buddhist household, so our introduction to Santa was my extremely Jewish granny who would dress up as Santa because she loved giving people presents and her idea of what Santa was was sort of a fairly abstract but certainly my Santa was a Hungarian lady with a beard who would have a blush in the living room window. That's a beautiful tradition.

My parents kept me in the dark because I'm a chatterbox, so I don't't because I would just fill the beans which there's nothing that shows that that just you know despite its stated values of pluralism America is really kind of run as a Christian nation by a lot of our government right as the fact that people of all other faiths are expected to lie to Christian children on the behalf of their parents. That feels like we're living in a theocracy. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists across America are expected to go, oh yeah Santa brought that. It's like, how can we shit with your kids' thinking?

Yeah, but also it's a really good setup for a country that believes heavily in conspiracy theories. Yeah. It's going to be on it, man. This thing goes all the way to the top. Mom! And also, I guess when you think about it, what is religion other than the greatest conspiracy theory ever told? I mean, I think about this, this Vicar and and it's in his 211 and 12-year-old children.

And I think what my kids will like at the age of 11 and 12, and we brought them up to be appropriately godless. And because I want them to make up their own minds, and if they happen to discover that there is a deity of some kind, good luck to them. But if my kids at the age of 12 had had to give a sermon to 200 Vickers, I think a deity of some kind, good luck with them. But if my kids at the age of 12 had had to give a sermon to 200 vickers, I think a lot of those vickers would have ended up in tears. So it works both ways.

But like as you know, when it comes to, you know, that as a vicar, you're basically saying, Guy with a beard in non-practical red overalls delivers presents to hundreds of millions of children in a 24-hour window. Versus reclusive deity admits to affair with spoken for engaged virgin, resulting in magic Jewish child set to save humanity after largely wasting his

twenties and having a busy couple years on service stand up and illusion it before being literally banged to rights on a Messiah app. That is a tough call, which is the more believable story we will let the religious dishes make of make this is not that Top story pain us his break more easily at Christmas No, not more easily right more frequently that's different People are still putting in the work. It's just happening more and more Alex you're gonna have to as our A bit of pain all fracture correspondence Your words have already been a Alex, you're going to have to, as our Pinar fracture correspondence, your usual of many roles you've bravely stepped into the breach and your ears on the vehicle. Just quickly bring

us up to date with this story. I mean, this is just the inevitable result of what happens when people try to make all of your Christmas's come at once. Pinar fractures occur at a much higher rate during Christmas, which is either a terribly sad story or a very positive story about the magic of Christmas making people believe that Santa can fit down. If you Santa can fit down 7 billion chimneys in a night, their dreams of improbably pornographic and gymnastic levels of banging are achievable. I don't know, I can't get on board with this Andy, or at least not at the right angle. So I mean, this was a scientific research project that has discovered that people are more likely to refract you their, their their their dangler at this you will tide time of year than than other times times of year.

Which is strange to me because I feel like Christmas is the least sexy time of year. Well I've been thinking about the least sexy holidays. Yeah. Yeah. American Thanksgiving because of just like overeating in genocide, that really keeps you flaccid. Christmas ranks below there for sure, but American Thanksgiving have absolutely leased, least horny holiday.

Fourth of July, most horny. It's just the sky is filled with dazzling orgasms. And then Christmas is somewhere in the middle where it's like, you know, there's other songs about how sexy Santa is for some reason. Santa is not sexy. Santa is just a creepy man who's in your house eating your biscuits. Like, I don't. And that's what a lot of people are into. You're not Santa, Shane. We're not judgmental on the show.

Each of their own. Well, I think maybe we should move on from, what is unquestionably the scientific highlights of 2023 and well done science, once again, for discovering the really important things in life. And are we sure that it was specifically Christmas rather than Hanukkah linked to these injuries? Anyway, let's not, let's not, I don't presume the date is broken down by religious background. Anyway, look,

let's move on. Now, let's look at the highlights of this year 2023. Now, I am full disclosure, not that kind of full disclosure, what kind of podcast did you think I am, but I am currently a resident of 2023. But I like to think that I can still be objective about it and fairly critical of it and the way that you are living in Arctic Kingdom.

I like to think that I can still be objective about this failings and the same with the year, it's been great to be part of it. But still, we need to look at it critically. And it's a year that is certainly at the moment, you've got to say it's in the running currently for a podium spot in the best year of the decade race. It's very competitive. It has to be said, 2020 led the way initially. And it's still surprisingly in and around the top four. 2021 didn't physically pull up any metaphorical trees, but still put itself in the mix. 2022, well even 2022 itself wouldn't claim to be in a classically good year,

but you can only play what's put in front of you as they say, and it sneaked its way into the top three. And now 2023, we're still 10 days to go as we record, so we don't know yet if it's going to get into the top three or just just hang outside it. But there's still time for it to drop out or down the best year of the decade table. But despite not really offering a lot for fans of good things happening, it is still in and around in the reckoning with only on current schedule six more years of the decade to go. It's given the judges something to think about and that is all you can ask over year. So Josh, Alex, where would you put this year overall? I mean, you can mark it out of 100. If you want, you can give it a grade or you can say what way think it is in terms, you know,

in relation to the other years of the 2020 so far. I feel like by the midpoint, 2023, we realized was maybe not we weren't doing our best work and we're taking this on a pass-fail basis. And so I will say this year has passed. I feel like 2023 was the year that the world went from laughingly acknowledging that the thoughtless neoliberal might is right, money justifies the means, algorithmic, supercharging of engagement incentives online was bringing out the worst in people to finding out what happens when everyone does that on purpose.

Did you know that Andreessen Horowitz came out this week against derigulating AI under copyright law by saying it will make it impossible for them to make a profit if they have to pay people for the stuff they use. I've got to say I love this modern tech industry trend of not having a business model unless you don't pay for your materials or your safety protocols or your workers. It's a really refreshing reboot of classical civilizations in that everything truly impressive turns out to have been built by theft or slavery and usually both. There's been so much like intentional cruelty, so much stupidity. I think when a lot of weird stuff happens in a year, people liken it to that Billie Joll song, we didn't start the fire, right?

It's just a list of things. But I think given how many own goals humanity has scored on itself i think we have to to reckon with the fact that i'm sorry billy jol but yes we did this is on us we did this and also we threw some more logs on the far but yeah we fire, we stoked it, we put a little newspaper in to get it going quicker. Yeah. Pull some petrol on it. Casually flicked a lighted match over our shoulder. Cooked some hamburgers on it. As they say, those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them and those who try to teach the lessons of history are doomed to repeat themselves. Well, as I've said many times on this podcast, there is only one lesson we can learn from history and that is that we will never ever learn the lessons of history. And not just if you went to school in Florida, where it's prohibited to learn the lessons

of history. It's been actually a pretty good year for me and my kid My kid turned two, I've just released two stand-ups for all of the quitting stand-up. Did you finish that sentence? Your kid turned two, what? I was waiting for what it could be. So, Gary, your two stand-up. You're two stand-ups.

You're a slightly larger kid. I released two stand-up specials in part announcing that I'm now quitting stand-up and I'm pregnant again. So if anyone has any TV or radio or movie writing jobs floating around, please throw them my way. I have one and a half mouths to feed. And personally, I spent, I think this is very righteous cause.

You know, writers and actors, WJ and SAG after I spent a lot of this year on strike. So I personally spent a lot of time walking in circles around various buildings in New York, which was great. And for my calves, I have my legs are like Michelangelo's David and somehow the top half of me is softer than ever. I feel my physique is like when you squeeze the toothpaste

all from the bottom of the tube up to the top. And it's kind of rigid and sinewious at the bottom and just kind of puffy and bloated at the top. Well, maybe that's what Michael Andrews David actually looked like. The money saw the final version. He said, that's nothing like me. That would do that. Yeah, do we do that? Take it again. My balls are not that short.

So let's look now at some of the highlights of the year and well as we've hinted at, it's not been a great year for humanity what with all manner of atrocious things happening pretty much wherever you live. Obviously the highlight for all humanity was the Ashes Cricket series in the summer, which from a personal point of view gave me 24 days in which I didn't have to think about anything else other than Cricket. And the Cricket happened to be mind-bendingly good as well. And it just made me think that maybe well there's a lot of criticism about Test Cricket for not for being too long for the modern audience, you know, five days from match I said the asses was five five day matches and I've come to the conclusion that actually it's too short and that each game needs There needs to be just basically one game a year lasting 364 days with a day off

Don't know Christmas or condensed form of canica whatever religious festival you put it you want. So that's for me that was the that was the highlight not so much the cricket itself but the fact that while the cricket was on I was both spiritually and essentially contractually obliged to ignore the rest of the world and that is the one true path to happiness. I think that's maybe the appeal of a jam band, right? Like the grateful dad or fish. They're just as long as they don't stop playing, we never have to return to the rest of it.

So it doesn't matter how good it sounds or how bad it sounds. You might love it, you might hate it. But as long as it's happening, you're still there. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. What was your, what was your personal, well, what was your sort of highlight of the year from sort of any, you know, can be political or scientific and anything that stood out for you? Oh my gosh. Whew, it was, uh, it was a tough one. I mean, I, uh, I to go back to the same well, I really liked that seeing the, the, the labor actions

across the United States and across the world. I thought that was really heartening. Um, I think it's, you know, a, one person telling your boss to take this job and shove it. That's, that you're really going on a limb. You get everybody at the office to say it. Now there's safety in numbers and just a real, of harmonious chorus of f***** you pay me is I think a really beautiful thing to hear and and and that is that one of the things that gives me A little hope going into to 2024

Alice Well scientists of engineered an avocado that uses less water to grow itself So millennials can spend their housing deposit money in the car insurance that they still won't be able to afford a place to live, but the place they won't be able to afford to live might not be in a desert. So, there you go.

That's as close as we get to a genuinely optimistic story these days, I think. The World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest

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World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest The Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Biggest World's Big We will look ahead to 2024 later in the show. Time now to look at exactly what's been happening this week, Sublay Entrance for Great Eastern Motor and Diotic Stories of the Year. Let's start with America News now, and well this is an interesting story, just Donald Trump's prospects of rebecoming president of America, the self-proclaimed land of the free, which in every parallel universe,

more sensible than the one with unfortunate become stuck in, would be absolutely zero prospects at all. But those prospects received a significant boost this week when the fake face truth-slaughtering f***ing pig was banned from running for president. I mean, this is the best thing that could happen to him that the Supreme Court of Colorado basically said he can't run for president, which seems to have made it more likely that he will end up being president, such as the nature of American policies. Have I interpreted that correctly?

That's correct. It is our politics is completely perverse and it's an opposite day every day. And so a Colorado Supreme Court disqualified Trump from holding office because there's a clause that says you can't do that if you've contributed to insurrection and rebellion against the government, which Trump famously did on every TV channel in America for an entire day.

The problem is he's so proud of the insurrection. That's his big problem. Like he told everyone about an on television and it's like you can't do you can't talk shit about the whole group chat in the group chat. You need to make the separate group chat with one person cut out and Trump didn't do that. He just went on the regular TV stations. It is tough news for him, right? Because there's no way he's gonna win a right in campaign. And I don't think it's because the support isn't there. It's just that there's like a huge chance

that Joe Rogan on his podcast will be like, oh, you do a right and you write someone's name down. That's how the deep state gets your handwriting and tries to get all over the world. So that's what I'm worried about. But this is obviously, this is kind of a test meaning to, uh, meant to be appealed to the, the US Supreme Court, not to be confused with Supreme Colorado, Colorado Supreme Court. And when it goes to the US Supreme Court, I think Trump's going to win, right?

The court is so stacked with Republicans. It's truly as if a court ruled that I wasn't the cutest little thing when I was a baby, and the appeal got reviewed by my grandparents. I can't. What we'd have is two thirds of them agreeing just out of hand with the dissenting opinion, saying that it took me a little while

to grow into my head. It's really odd because the Supreme Court is meant to be the most legitimate court in the land, but the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is constantly undermined by the weird partisan way that America chooses to elect its judiciary and specifically undermined by that one guy on the court who keeps accepting yachts, trips and private jets from people he's about to pass judgment on. Like, whatever way the court decides, a bunch of people are going to refuse to accept the decision, which is sort of a definition of the complete failure of a justice system to be seen as a system of justice.

It is awkward when the people who are meant to be representing the ultimate in unbiased judgment. The final court of appeal for those failed by the legal system look like the statue of justice has cut eye holes in her blindfold and is putting all three of her thumbs on the scale. Well you said elector judiciary, and wow what a beautiful fantasy that sounds like these are nine unelected judges that that were appointed in various states of legitimacy by various presidents and various stall tactics by Mitch McConnell. Well, you say unelected. You know, they were elected on the one man, one vote principle. That's right. It's just the only one man. The truest democracy of them are. Only one man. That man being the president. So it is a we've, again, something that we keep coming back to. The various ways in which democracy undermined themselves. So it is a we've had him again, but it's something that we keep coming back to,

the various ways in which democracies undermine themselves. So the specific clause, section 3 of amendment 14, that dates back to the years after the Civil War in the 19th century, 155 years, this clause has been waiting for its moment in the in the sun or the darkness. It was used a little bit in its early years, but never against a presidential candidate. It hasn't been used at all. I was reading since 1919, and it's all about engaging in insurrection or rebellion,

barring you from holding office if you swore on a note previously, not to do that. Now, it seems that Trump might get off on sort of wording, because this term, engage in insurrection. There's a doubt whether he engaged in it or simply encouraged other people to engage in it. Now obviously this is a legal matter and in legal matters when it's a fight between pedantry and ethics. Ethics usually hits the canvas multiple

times in round one and by the time the tower is thrown in the end of round three, it can't even remember its own name. So it's not like I say, I think Trump's going to get away with this. Um, now I guess the challenge for him is, well, I guess that, you know, the challenge is that at the last election, he inspired the biggest vote against a candidate in American democratic history. So regardless of how many people bizarrely like him, I mean, still, the divisive politics of America sort of work for and against him. Yeah, it's tough because I would, you know, you would like to think that the kind of safeguards of democracy are effective in a situation

like this, it seems pretty clear cut, but in terms of a clause that is a beautiful wish that cannot be real. This is right up there with Santa. Well it's also super depressing just looking at the landscape because it seems like Biden is deeply unpopular as far as I can tell he seems to be doing a decent enough job at doing everything except seeming like he's doing a decent enough job. That's absolutely crucial in politics. Yeah, it's right. The optics are bad.

And I think people are mad at him about Gaza, people are mad at him about immigration. And I think it's really like one of the big arguments for Joe Biden, right? People go, well, he's not Trump. And they go, well, we all aren't Trump. That's a case for in America, 360 million other people. And also, I mean, this idea that, you know, whether this will damage him, it's unlikely

to change anyone's mind. I mean, if you've reached December 2023 and you are still making your mind up about Donald Trump, then A, in a way I respect you and B, seek immediate help. I mean, if this is the straw that broke your Trump supporting camel's back, that was a f***ing weird camel. And, you know, obviously, as an outsider, Josh, I respect America's democratic right to eviscerate itself in the delusional fundamentalisms, but I can't see how this will, as they say, shift the needle. I mean, Trump is the leopard that not only can't and won't change his spots, but he writes all over his spots in Markup N to make them join up to say the words, f*** off everyone. Now you mentioned immigration as an issue and once again Trump's V1 immigration and words about immigration have come to the fore in the past week when he talked about immigrants poisoning the blood of the country not for the first time and

even several fairly trumpish Republicans have criticized him for using such Hitler-ish language. And to the extent where there was a headline that, again, I didn't think it was a headline that I'd see, you know, 10 years ago he said, he said, you know, would you predict a former American president denies having read mind-camp after essentially quoting mind-camp. I didn't expect that to happen, but nothing surprises anymore. So he denied having read mind-camp, although there was another story that there's something found in an article

from Vanity Fair in 1990. There's one writers in which Ivana Trump, his first wife, reportedly told her attorney that Donald Trump kept a book of Hitler's speeches in his bedside cabinets. I mean, it's strange thing what people keeping their bedside cabinets, they might help them perform, but I guess what, what it works because the book I keep on my night table is so rarely the one I'm actually reading, which is, I don't know what's more terrifying. The Donald Trump has read a book of Hitler speeches where he's just been really meaning

to get around to it. Well, it comes down to the core question here of whether it's worse if Donald Trump is plagiarizing Hitler without proper citation or just independently coming up with the same material by virtue. Great minds think alike. I think that a hundred races with a hundred type writers, if actually they're going to write mine. basis with 100 typewriters if actually they're gonna write mine. Oh, yeah. Anyway, it's been a long time. I prefer glamping. The leader of the anti-deformation league, Jonathan Greenblatt, described Trump's language

as racist, xenophobic and despicable. So once again, Trump has hit what he appears to think of as the rhetorical treble 20 to appeal to his course of port. It is, as you said, Mitch McConnell has come out against him because his wife, Elaine Zhao, who is the Secretary of Transportation under Trump, worked for him, was appointed by Trump. But McConnell is also like, promotes some pretty racist policies. So it's like his priorities are number two racism, number one, wife crazy. I would not have expected that. And that is a tough choice, right? For anyone trying to enter the United States.

Because you might get turned away at the border or detained, or you might have to marry Mitch McConnell. And either one is a terrifying way to get fucked. Ha-ha-ha. Family show, Josh. Sorry. I mean, that's some amazing things said by by Republicans after these comments by Trump. Rondesanta said he didn't like the blood poisoning language, which was explicitly used by Hitler numerous times.

And Rondesanta said, when you start talking about using those types of terms, I don't think that helps us move the ball forward. So DeSantis didn't like the language, not because Trump was quoting Hitler, but because it doesn't help move the ball forward. Now look, I love a needless contrived sporting analogy. But essentially calling it, criticizing Trump for his play calling not for talking like and acting like a fascist. That seems like you're picking up on the wrong thing there, Ron. Right. I mean, because there are, the criticism is that it's xenophobic and

racist and horrifying and violent and dehumanizing. And the sports metaphor is almost like saying Trump doesn't, given how much McDonald's Trump eats, he doesn't have standing to criticize what's in anyone else's blood. He says mostly Big Mac sauce. Anyway, we will have full exclusive coverage of America's descent into the 35th and 36th circles of Democratic hell over the course of the next 12 months. I mean interestingly that's what Hitler called going for a walk moving all forward. I don't know if the Albert Hall was I don't think it was structuring the blitz and it doesn't make you wonder whether they were specific orders not to bomb the Albert Hall, so

he could recover his, what he considered, his lost possession. Anyway, I digress. Britain News Now, and British politics has corrupt to its very core news. And, well, just the latest in, well, Britain's efforts to, I don't know, mimic a tribute to American politics this week. Baroness Michelle Mone, a Tory member of the House of Lords, has admitted lying to the media about her links to a company she had previously claimed she wasn't involved with that got contracts to supply PPE equipment during the COVID that were worth 200 million pounds. The company involved is PPE MedPro. Her and her husband both claim they weren't involved and

it was a new company set up in 2020, the age of what John Oliver, my old partner on the show, memorably described as catastrophe. And it got over 200 million pounds worth in government contracts to supply face masks and surgical gowns. There's now a court case against the company after it turned that much of that equipment couldn't be used and the government claims

it did not fulfill the terms of the contract. And this is a story that goes to the heart of our politics as it currently is, and how specifically it was conducted during COVID. The PPE Med Pro contract was processed via the government so-called VIP lane. Now the VIP lane was set up to fast track deals during the early stage of COVID for PPE from companies

to make sure that companies that had absolutely no relevant experience in making medical equipment and had clearly been set up to take advantage of this catastrophe, were not unfairly held back by the unfortunate fact that they had no relevant experience in making medical equipment. So it was very important that that kind of equality was achieved by the government also to help people with contacts in government to be able to be rightly rewarded for their years of

selfless unharbleded efforts to achieve scrutiny free behind the scenes influence. So you know it was open to all of us to set up companies and get multi-million pound contracts and to weed low-way into high-level decision-making and those of us who didn't do it we can't criticize this scheme because that is just jealousy of those who did it successfully. Frankly, that seems to be the prevailing attitude in large parts of British politics. So it's since transpired by investigations by the Guardian and the efforts of the Good Law Project and amongst others that this that Moan's claim with her husband that they

were not involved in this company were not only not entirely true but entirely not true and that they profited to the tune of around about 65 million pounds from the profits of this company. Now as I mentioned she is a baroness. She was appointed to the House of Lords as a live peer by David what the f*** you doing back in our consciousness Cameron? Back in 2015 when Cameron was Prime Minister, she's an underpants crypto currency and scientifically unproven weight loss pseudo drug entrepreneur and tax avoidance fan and she was given a permanent seat in Parliament for the rest of her life for reasons explicable only by the willfully deranged and or David Cameron and there is a strong crossover in that Venn diagram.

So it's one of his many melodious requests to the nation. But anyway, I don't think Rishi Shunak needed another political scandal at this time of year, but he's got one. And it's one that really just seems to almost wrap up everything that's happened in this country under the last few years of Tory rule. This was hard for me to parse, because the details are so comical. A former lingerie mogul named Baroness Mone,

which does sound like an adult film star on a UK porn platform called House of Common. And... And of course, if you start with lingerie, you're not making effective PPE. That's not built for full coverage and opacity. You want PPE to leave a little something to the imagination. I also, she said her defense was that she lied to the press but was fully honest with the government. Which is like something you can only do when you have a lifetime appointment, right?

Where you go? I was honest, behind closed doors. I just lied to the people I represent. So November, she and her husband finally admitted they were involved with this company. They previously said they weren't involved with. I mean, it's possible they just didn't know and they only found out, you know, as Christmas celebrity Jesus Christ himself once said, let he or she, although he was never unwittingly on 65 million pounds from a company, they didn't know they were involved in cast the first stone. So, I mean, we do have to just see from that point of view as well. And as you say, you know, she's now facing allegations of fraud

and bribery, admitted lying to the media, which she described as not a crime. I'll go further than say it's fundamental to our democratic freedom, the ability of politicians to lie to the public because we, frankly, cannot and do not want to handle the truth. But yeah, but she's honest with the government apparently, and again, I don't know if that makes it better or worse, but it almost certainly makes it worse. It seems like at the very least she's guilty of some like gentle transgressions, which would in itself make a name for a pretty provocative line of larger. So the

gentle transgressions by Baroness Mone. PPE Med Bro is being sued by the government as I said for 122 million pounds plus costs for breach of contracts and this is an intriguing term, unjust enrichment. Now, when you're being pursued by a conservative government for unjust enrichment, you know you've probably gone a couple of steps too far on the unjustly enriching yourself train. I mean, they have a high threshold before their safe word comes out. She's claiming she's been made into scapegoat courage to deflect attention away from the government's formidable all-encompassing and philosophically committed sham policies and that shake their response to the virus crisis.

And in summary, A, our politics is corrupt to the core and B, our politics is also vastly almost pitilously incompetent. Now, A or B, I think we'd all accept in Britain that we can't expect too out of two in terms of not being corrupt and being competent. Not in a country like the UK where we have nation-defining traditions of inbuilt corruption and incompetence that need to be protected, but one out of two should not be impossible, but yet again it seems that we've not even reached that target. Well, before we wrap up this final episode of 2023, let's look's on as a physics. And so I guess with that in mind, I hope that next year is the equal opposite of this year.

What, just unexpected. Kind of a newtonian rebound. Yeah, that's interesting. Most physics is lies, to be honest. It's all rumors under here, say. It's a scarf, I'm forgot to stop reading the internet. Alice, what are you hoping for? Struck expecting for the next 12 months? I mean, I am incapable of seeing any further than the end of January at which point the event horizon of having a new baby takes place. of having a new baby takes place and then everything changes. So I hope January's fun.

You were an Australian, enjoy the cricket in the tennis. Personally, I've got a few hopes for 2024 politically. I'd like to see new voting systems around the world whereby only people from other countries are allowed to vote in your elections. So I think, you know, the American election would be far healthier if say only Germans were allowed to vote in it. I think the British election would go way better if only people from Mozambique were allowed to vote. People with a bit of distance and a bit of objectivity. For America, for the American election, I'm frankly absolutely terrified about it. I want anyone but Trump to win and this is from a purely selfish point of view. Like I said, I like the idea of America, but if it wants to eat itself to death as a political entity,

that's not my business. But as a comedian, as host of this, the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world, I'm not sure I can stomach another four years of having to write fucking jokes about the so there's a few of them to take into the year the new year. The UK election could detour is when fewer than two seats. I mean if they carry on their current trajectory it's quite possible but sadly these things don't tend to end up quite as utopian, utopian, as you might like. The Olympics in Paris, I am, I am big hopes for that. I hope that it will just be extended forever.

And there is just a permalimpic going on for the rest of the time. It's already kind of bloated, no, but on their might, it's well taken to its logical conclusion. I can't wait to see the Olympics in Paris where they make the Olympic rings out of smoke rings being blown out of the girl last. LAUGHTER I'm slightly hoping the UK might just enter a new dimension. in Paris where they make the Olympic rings out of smoke rings being blown out of the girl last.

I'm slightly hoping the UK might just enter a new dimension in space time or just enter administration which is probably best for it. Scientific breakthroughs that I'm hoping they discover a new number that will make my cricket stats even more entertaining, maybe a new hour during the day to help us get more done. And I'd like to see medical science finally develop a cure for pessimism, but sadly I just can't see that happening. Do you see how much it's needed people?

You're probably not even listening by now. Come on! And I'd also like to see Elon Musk develop an anti-musk. Again, for every musk there is an equal and opposite anti-musk. But we need that anti-musk to arrive in our dimension now. That concludes the bugle for 2023. We will try and put out something, maybe a review of the year, during the next couple of weeks that we're off.

We'll be back in January to see how 2024 is going. Happy Christmas to all of you, Budalus and to Josh and Alice. Do you guys have any final plugs for the year to share with all listeners? Yes, I would like to plug. I have a newsletter that I read every Monday. It's full of pep talks. It's called That's Marvelous. And it's got all my other updates. It's Josh Gondelman dot subsdac.com. It's free every Monday. Feel free to read and enjoy or ignore it. It helps me either way more one way. And then I've got a bunch of see the dates coming up next year.

Betavia Illinois, January 18 through 20th, Beverly, Massachusetts, Boston area, Massachusetts Boston area, January 26th and 27th, and then St. Paul, Minnesota, rescheduled for March 1st and 2nd. So come see me out in the road, will I get this hour ready to record in the middle of next year? I have two stand-up specials that are available now as a 10-pound bundle via GoFasterStripe, that's Cronos and Twist. I recommend watching them in order because that's how I wrote them. But you can get them for 10 pounds or you can sign up on my Patreon and get them for free. And that's basically it.

Also, I have a book, The DancillaGuard Companion that's available via Unbound.com. And I've got a podcast which is the sister podcast to this podcast, the glossy magazine to the Beatles' audience paper for visual world, it's called The Guggle and it happens every week until the end of time. Which, so I should have at least another 10 episodes in it, I think. I can't see the end of time happening before the end of February, but after that all bets are off. Don't forget, well I say that, the Bugle Life tour starts in March, so I hope that the world lasts at least until the end of March. There are various dates around

the UK details on the Bugle website, the BugleBockars.com where you can also join our voluntary subscription scheme. Don't forget that premium level subscribers will get a vinyl, an exclusive, world-ac-univers-exclusive vinyl record recorded just recently by Alice Nish and me that will be currently in the editing process. You'll be receiving it early next year. So do join the voluntary subscription scheme if you want to get access to that. Also access to the monthly Ask Andy show. Let me just emphasize how that is said, Ask Andy. It is not as some people have suggested a show called Ask Candy. It is asked Andy and and viewers, I would expect better. that's all wouldn't expect better from you, but it's arse handy and I answer your questions every month, so do send them

in whenever you get the chance. Thank you for listening all year. Thanks to all the wonderful guests I've had on this year, thanks to Chris for all the work he does, not with us, it's really worth the wonderful ped with us. Thanks to PED for everything he does for the Bugle and the Bugle Stable. And we will be back in 2024. And finally to 2023. F*** off and don't come back. Goodbye. you