The Bugle - MAGA Pope: Make America Guilty Again

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

This week, Andy Zaltzman is joined by elite-tier Bugler and guest producer Belinda (as well as Nish Kumar and Tom Ballard) delivering a show so saucy it might get you banned from the Vatican gift shop.🔹 Support The Bugle! Get bonus episodes, exclusive video editions, and the moral superiority of a Team Bugle subscription: thebuglepodcast.com🏏 Top Story: India v Pakistan — More than just a cricket match, it’s a boiling cauldron of nationalism, sport obsession, and a few pesky borders. What does this frenzy say about both countries—and how does it compare to how Russia does fun (spoiler: poorly)?💸 Who will step in to sponsor the IPL extended break? We’re imagining a bidding war between detergent brands and authoritarian regimes.🇬🇧🇮🇳 Plus, we dive into the UK–India post-Brexit trade deal: will it involve actual trade, or just ceremonial handshakes and whisky?🕊️ Also in the news: a Ukraine ceasefire, which may or may not hold longer than a political promise, and Woke Pope News—has the Vatican gone vegan?🎤 And in literary slander: Is Andy Zaltzman truly “the Wordsworth of anal filth”? We may never know, but we’ll speculate wildly.⚖️ Also, we remember the Witch Trials—a time when women were persecuted for floating, speaking, or simply existing—and toss some flaming audio cocktails into the bin for good measure.🎧 Watch our fantasy-meets-satire show Realms Unknown on YouTube, and check out A Passion for Passion here: http://uk.bookshop.org/shop/RealmsUnknown🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE for weekly satire on sport, politics, religion, and righteous nonsense.Produced by Belinda Copeland, with support from Chris Skinner and Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ah ah ah ah ah! The Bugle! The Bugle! The Bugle! The Bugle! The Bugle! Audio newspaper for a visual world! Buglers! Hello! Oh, you weren't expecting that, were you? Who says you can't teach them old podcast new tricks?

Welcome to issue 4340 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a visceral world. With me, Andy Zoltzman, fearlessly sitting in a hermetically sealed shed, as always providing pure, un-betaintable objectivity on all the shitbags and shits that are ruining the planet for good people like you. It was the 2020s objectivity and what it was. Our two co-hosts today, bravely soldiering through despite having had their dreams of becoming Pope crushed, crushed before their eyes, ground to dust by the Vatican machine, holds so many deep-seated prejudices against people like

them. I think they both missed out missed out in at least three categories. Firstly, back in the UK after circumnavigating the world on his self-constructed raft of truth, or did he use aeroplanes in the end? It's Nish Kumar. Welcome, welcome Nish. Hello Andy, hello Buglers. I am fuming to have missed out once again as Pope. This is disgraceful. I paid to watch the film Conclave. I think that should have at least put me in the goddamn running. Unbelievable.

It's extraordinary stuff. Andy, I've been away, as you said, I've been around the world. I'd like to thank all the Buglers that came out to my various shows in Canada, America, Australia and New Zealand. Probably one bugler specifically that's worth singling out.

I'd now like to read to you from a letter that I received backstage in Austin, Texas, from Muammar Gaddafi. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Huge blast from the past there from from the big dog. The address given is the 69th Mech Badonkadon cavalry regiment,

second squadron, the the letter, which was dated. It was weirdly formal. And I will say also featured as a kind of background image, a picture of my own face, which is quite an unsettling thing to see on a letter that I received. Dear Commander Kumar, I, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, am writing on behalf of the 69th Mechanized Madan Kadat Cavalry Regime, 2nd Squadron Zoltar Zone, where we welcome you to Austin, Texas. This city reminds me of home and hope you receive as warm a welcome here as I received

a farewell from Sir Tur. Please accept these provisions about this estate you do your North American campaign. Thank you for making this moral mission. The winter has been long cold and bleak by your travels be safe and profitable. And then the Colonel's actually signed off on the letter. What accompanied the letter was I can only describe as a basket of absolute bullshit. We're talking tins of spam. We're talking multiple flavors of crisps and we're talking a cricket ball. Andy, all I can say is, as I tried to explain

hastily to my partner, Amy, who was opening for me at the show, this is what happens when you can't do American tours because of your obligations to cricket and the news quiz. This is what happens. Buglers develop bugle blue balls. And they have to, horrible phrase, spaff bullshit all over whichever co-host is in their nearest vicinity. I would like to thank the Colonel for the provisions. They were gratefully received by me and my, I would say, absolutely baffled cousins who live in Austin, Texas. Well, incidentally, Spaff Bullshit played for the Austin Ostriches back in the 30s, I think.

Well, anyway, well done. Well done. Buglers, whatever, Nish is next in your part of the world. That gauntlet has been laid down. A standard has been set. Who amongst you can give me a basket of spam and a cricket ball? Standard you walk past is the standard you accept. Well the voice you just heard joining us from Australia, it is the fearless pole vaulter over the garden fence of lies into the thorny flowerbed of reality. I'm only talking you guys up today don't let me down. It's Tom Ballard.

Welcome, welcome Tom. How are you? Thank you Andy. Hello Buglers. I'm very well. Thank you. Probably more likely that Gaddafi will be Pope before me, to be honest. I'm pleased to join you all this wonderful, exciting times. Congratulations to the new Pope.

No, yes, no Australian Pope whatsoever, which is a disgrace. I believe when they announced the Australian Pope, it will be with a barbecue of some kind. They'll fire up the smoke, put some shrimp on the barbie. And then when it smells f**king delicious, crikey, you've got an Aussie bloody pope. That'll be an update on some of the Catholic barbecues of the past. Also, also joining us for the first time, and this is a very exciting new development

in bugle history as a bugle elite premium premium platinum galaxy level voluntary subscriber. It is guest co producer Belinda from Hendon. Hello Belinda. Hello Andy. Hello Bugles. Welcome. Yes, well indeed, welcome to the show and thank you for being an elite level voluntary subscriber.

The honour is all mine. You will be basically bossing Chris around for the duration of this podcast. Do I get to say **** you Belinda? Is that how it works now? The hierarchy? Yes. Yeah, I think that's part of the package, isn't it? For the elite's followers, subscribers. Yeah, that's, that's, I think money very well invested.

And Bugles, if you too want to join Bollinder of becoming an elite voluntary subscriber, you too could have the privilege of what Bollinder has just done for the last 16 minutes, which is watch our struggle to connect to an online recording studio. Belinda won this position by writing a letter to Andy pretending to be Bashar Al-Assad. That's the point of it. The creativity that we're looking for. If you too want to join the elite here. You too could watch Tom Ballard somehow mute himself on a microphone seconds before the

recording was about to begin. You too could watch me struggle, eventually fail and simply give up on the idea of blurring my background so people can't see my washing or the broken exercise machine behind me. And you could see my intensive hair and makeup routine. So burns also brought a couple of a couple of kosher bread rolls. For the occasion, which seems entirely entirely appropriate. Nisha's I don't know if the bread roll that was thrown at me was kosher. Unfortunately, it was not not a good enough throw

to get near enough to ascertain its kosher It's kosherosity. Kosherosity, is that the right word? I reckon so. Yeah. I think Belinda's a little more in the loop than I am on these things. But we are recording on the 12th of May 2025. By the time you listen to this, it may well be the 14th of May 2025 in which case it will be the 137th anniversary of the last witchcraft trial held in the United States which began in well Witchcraft Central, Salem Massachusetts when Lucretia Brown accused Daniel Spofford of attempting to harm her through his mental powers. A sign of real progress there A woman accusing a man of witchcraft just shows you know that that that the cat of feminism was out of the bag, even before women were allowed

to vote. At what it was at least it was the last witchcraft trial held in the US until Donald Trump's trial in New York last year. Which he defensible wisdom that he is officially as leader of the democratic world described as a witch hunt, a witch trial and to me that shows the huge advance in witchcraft trials compared with say Salem 1692 that Trump had an independently selected jury and absolute motherload of evidence, a well-reasoned verdict and an extremely merciful sentence in which he was given the chance to get his life back on track

with a four-year work placement as president of America. That is rehabilitative justice, but it's very best that the victims of Salem 1692 could only dream of. As always, a section of this podcast is going straight in the bin. Tomorrow is World Cocktail Day, 13th of May, a huge day for cocktail fans. And to mark this, we give you exclusively some Bugle audio cocktail recipes. Your first audio cocktail, the Brazilian Margarita. Two snippets of Margaret Thatcher talking. The roar of the crowd from an A-Dair flicked the ball up to himself and volleied it from 25 yards

into the top corner in the 1982 World Cup to put Brazil 2-1 up against the USSR. Three crunches of someone eating a carrot. The sound of a blast furnace closing down for the last time. Finished with the sound of two people grunting during a particularly vigorous jujitsu encounter. Our next cocktail, sects on the beach, the murmur of two rival speck from a devil worshipping cult meeting at midnight on a deserted seashore, plus the clip clap of newborn turtles flippering their way across the sand, the braying of an exploited donkey trotting past the men in speedos playing volleyball and a distant yelp of shark, shark. And also the Manhattan, the honk of traffic on 8th Avenue, blended sumptuously with a crowd in the Vatican being blessed by a newfangled pope wearing a

mitre, hence Manhattan. Finish pecon-ly with the squelch of former boxer Ricky Hatton punching the early 20th century German writer Thomas Mann in the face uh right next one Pisco Sour actually wants to get that one we will definitely get that one anyway that section is uh is in the bin god it's good to be home Top story this week, the nuclear war isn't happening yet. Well, exciting news for the world, which is breathing very slightly more easily for a bit, at least after an exchange of fire between India and Pakistan, which followed an attack on Indian soldiers in April, which threatened to give the world another live talking point to add to its conversation,

which currently encompasses everything from who is better, Laminia Marl or Taylor Swift, our unboxing videos on YouTube, a sign that humanity has basically given up and our worms baby snakes to which we were about to add would Wimbledon still happen after a global nuclear war has reduced the planet to radioactive dust. But fortunately, after a conclave of concern, nations asked India and Pakistan nicely if they wouldn't mind awfully not catapulting the world into full blown World War Three rather than the simmering is it isn't it World War Three state we're all enjoying right now. A peace deal was

hacked out and everyone lived happily ever after, apart from for a few incidents and ever is currently two days long. So Nish, I know you're, I mean, you've generally come out against nuclear war as a means of solving humanity's problems. Where do you stand on this, this particular one? Well, that was back in my woe kiss days, Andy. And now I'm pro war and against DEI. I don't even know what it sounds for. But I'm against it. And I won't be looking it up because that's exactly what the leftists want. Yes. India and Pakistan flirted with, without having full penetrative sex, with the idea of total nuclear annihilation of

each other. A terrorist attack, which happened in Kashmir last month, appeared to have escalated tensions in the region. India then began a sort of military response, Pakistan then hit back. And now over the weekend, US representatives and UK representatives have both claimed partial credit or responsibility for averting the strike. I will say that for the US and the UK, given some of the events at the early part of this century, telling a nation to not respond to a terrorist attack by starting a full war has an element of pot kettle black in this situation. It has an absolute element of pot kettle black. If anything, the US and UK representative should have said, listen, all that awaits you if you do this is death, misery, and a rehabilitation as a fun uncle who does paintings, or in the

case of the UK representatives involved in starting the war, a lucrative career in podcasting. If I may draw attention to the career of Alistair Campbell post helping start the Iraq. Oh, I thought you were talking about me. No, no, that, as also, you're on the reverse Campbell trajectory. You've started with podcasting, and then eventually you two will help create the conditions

for a massively ill-advised, incredibly catastrophic war in the Middle East. That's, you're on the reverse trajectory. Eddie Zoltzman, the rest is bullshit. Listen, just because India and Pakistan aren't going to war doesn't mean we can't go to war with other podcasters. One of the kind of unusual sub-stories that developed within this overall story is that airlines, it turns out, have been working tirelessly in the background since the start of the Ukraine War and also with

the escalation of this war to ensure that planes will keep flying even after the outbreak of nuclear war. And I know that everybody's primary concern with nuclear war is, will I still be able to go on my summer holidays? And I have fantastic news for you. The insurance industry, that tireless organization devoted to human justice and peace, has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that commercial jets will still be able to be insured so that they can fly in the event of a nuclear war. Gallagher, the world's largest aviation insurance broker, have been working on the scheme since Putin threatened to deploy Russian nuclear weapons against Ukraine back in 2022. Nigel Wightman, who's a senior partner at Gallagher and also has the absolute perfect possible name for his job of absolutely benign unpleasantness. He said that back when the wording was drawn up,

it was assumed that any hostile detonation meant that it would all be over, Armageddon. But what they didn't have in those days was tactical nuclear weapons that vary in size and in impact and which ultimately are very usable. And I don't think we focused enough on how very, very incredibly usable the new brand of nuclear weapons are. Those old nuclear weapons, they were a blunt instrument.

These new tactical nukes are the weaponry equivalent of the Tampax compact. That is a incredibly usable tampon that is discreet, it's precise, and crucially, it gets the job done. Did you test that yourself, Nish? I have done some Googling, Andrew. I've done some Googling. I like to keep the algorithm guessing. And the 25 minutes or so I spent this morning Googling small tampons

are certainly going to have created some level of confusion over at Google. In terms of usability, I mean, this is very exciting. Basically that's the language of the mass market. And if we get to the point where everyone has their own nuclear, usable nuclear weapon for simple household tasks, like clearing the flower beds before planting some new herbs or tidying your kids' bedrooms, then will the world not be a happier place? Tom, you come at this story with the cool objectivity of someone who lives in the Southern

Hemisphere and must look upon what's been going on in the Northern Hemisphere over the last few thousand years with an element of confusion and disdain. What's your take on the situation? Well, I'm just very impressed that Donald Trump has managed to calm everybody down. I think it's a real breakthrough. He said there'll be a full and immediate end to hostilities after a long night of talks mediated by the United States. Now, no offense, India and Pakistan, but you know, things are bad when your conflict

is being mediated by Donald Trump's America. Yeah. If you have to call in representatives of Donald Trump to be the voice of reason and tell everybody to calm down, your shit's fucked up, yo. I just don't think the yanks are out of the first guys I think of. And I think of like de-escalation. In fact, in terms of things that make extremely delicate situations worse, I'd say the US is up there with ISIS, the Incredible Hulk and methamphetamines.

Full credit to him. He does seem to have secured a ceasefire for now. And I think we're all excited to see what his peace plan for Kashmir looks like, especially as it may require him to know where the Kashmir is. If he can narrow it down to the correct hemisphere, I will be very impressed. This is a man who gave a speech in 2020 in which he referred to Thailand as thailand. Thailand Andy, Thailand. You know Thailand, it's near Singapore and Cambodia. He also referred to Mattel, the toy company, as a country this week as well. So, I would just suggest that his geopolitical radar is, as you say, still in need of, let's be charitable about this, a little bit of fine tuning. As always after the

exchange of fire, well, truth was not so much the first casualty of war as the first thing blindfolded plopped down a disused mineshaft and covered in fast-setting concrete before war has even started. And there was an instant reaction in the inevitable way of the 21st century of a wave of online misinformation and people posting footage of completely separate events and sharing the sort of world conspiracy theories that emit almost like a punctuation in the modern world. Truth is also the first casualty of a ceasefire and as well as war and as you said various players were scrambling to take credit for the deal including the USA, Saudi Arabia, Iran, around about 30 other nations including the UK and above all cricket fans because

to me the reason that ceasefire happened so quickly was the fact that both the Pakistan Super League and the Indian Premier League, two of the world's leading T20 cricket leagues were suspended due to the outbreak of hostilities. And I think gazing into that, that that that light of truth of what was at stake, I think made made peace spontaneously erupt. I will say Andy, it was a very difficult week to refute a lot of your allegations that cricket is more important than anything else in life, because the timing of this was suboptimal if the point

you're trying to make is not it was all about cricket. Because the IPL, the Indian Premier League was suspended at the start of this conflict. And it seems that the threat of a suspension of cricket has caused India and Pakistan to suspend their hostilities. And it just shows you that with Vladimir Putin and Russia, they have been suspended from football World Cup competitions, but that has not slowed them down. What does this tell you about India and Pakistan? They are simply morally better than Russia. Because they were willing ultimately to recognise

that people care more about sport than anything else. And if Putin had a cent of humanity in his body, he would have understood that the second that turned out Russia weren't gonna be able to compete in the football world cup, that he would have stopped everything. Well, famously, George Orwell said that sport is war minus the shooting, which I think means

if you flip the equation round mathematically, peace is war divided by sport squared over two, if I've done the maths right, but I'm not entirely sure. I'll give you this, Andy. Viewers will know I'm no fan of the sport of cricket. If the results of cricket decided international border disputes, I would watch cricket. Okay. I don't know what you win at the moment. You win like a cup and some sandwiches or something. But if India played Pakistan and the winner gets Kashmir, then there are some stakes in board and I'm tuning it.

Okay. Yeah. Although based on results the last couple of years, Kashmir would currently be under the control of Australia. Um, yeah. So international players and broadcasters were flown out of Pakistan on a, on a special military flight and the IPL Which had been suspended has now been de-suspended and they're going to try and restart it later this week now

I don't know if that gave them time to Get the unscheduled gap in the tournament sponsored like every other gap But it could be an opportunity for the bugle currently are But it could be an opportunity for the bugle. Currently, our foreign to sports sponsorship is the board in the goal at the Streatham Redhawks ice hockey that they put up for people to try and do the shoot apart from the halfway line into the goal through a little slot at the bottom to win a prize. And in the corner is a bugle logo. But that's as far as we've got. But I'm quite keen to try and sponsor the suspension of the IPL. You know, the bugle podcast, geopolitical precipice of Armageddon,

take it to the brink break. I think that's that is an opportunity for us. I don't know what they want for that. I imagine travel agents are queuing up once the IPL restarts. Here's Josh Butler, fresh from his Globestrider Insta holidays nuclear emergency microvacation, taking flight with Globestrider with destinations ranging from Saint-Tropez to absolutely anywhere that isn't a potential imminent war zone. All this happened just as the UK had signed a glorious post-Brexitatius trade deal with

India, paving the way for British companies to start advertising chocolate coated whiskey powered space rockets piloted by heavily lipsticked lamb during IPL cricket matches. Because the deal reduced tariffs on whiskey, cosmetics, aerospace equipment, and food including lamb, and chocolate. The Conservatives and Reform UK criticised the post-Brexit deal because it was the kind of deal that they wanted to happen post-Brexit. This is the way we are in British politics now. Starmer described the criticisms as incoherent nonsense, which is not the coherent nonsense or incoherent sense, which is what voters are looking for these days. The deal followed prolonged negotiations and these negotiations were, I'm happy to

report, rather more two-way than has sometimes been the case in negotiations between the UK and India historically. I guess it did cause a lot of squabbling over here politically. As I said, the Conservatives were not happy with this deal. There was some element of national insurance involved, even though the arrangements between the UK and India are very similar to what the UK has with other countries that it has trade deals with. But the crucial thing was that the deal involved

trigger words, which are tax, Brexit, and foreigners coming over here. Q, political point scoring, provocation, and counter-squawked denial. So I'm gonna to average out the reporting on this to try and give you buglers an idea of what went on. The deal between the UK and India is good and or bad. It will boost the economy by absolutely loads and or not that much objectively and or absolutely by providing thousands and thousands of jobs stroke about

three jobs and it will and or won't increase immigration in a manner that is worrying stroke barely discernible, thus proving that Brexit was wrong and all right. So I hope we've cleared up any confusion on that. Nish you must have been very excited by this deal. I know you love a trade deal. This is the Nish Kumar trade deal. The trade deal between Britain and India. It's a huge business. I will say that based on my dealings with my uncles, any offer of a reduced price on whiskey is going to be met with real approval. I will also say that Keir Starmer is sort of slowly boxing himself into quite an interesting position because as part of the conditions of some of the Indian trade deals is some kind of a promise to re-examine some of the

rules on immigration that's allowing Indians to come here, which is in direct opposition to an announcement Stalmer has made this morning, saying that the UK will cut net migration figures. So that's legal migration, we're going to cut those numbers, because Keir Stalmer says the UK is at risk of becoming an island of strangers suggesting that Keir Starmer is being influenced both in his wordplay and his ideologies by the singer Morrissey. It's a white paper that really leans heavily on the white is what I would say about this morning's immigration white paper announcement. He said that don't worry, we're going to bring down immigration because we've decided that we could do something to fix the complex economic problems that have blighted our societies,

or we could just blame it on the Browns and the Blacks. And Keir Starmer has hit the button marked blame it on the Browns and the Blacks and the Chinese, to be fair. And yeah, so I don't really understand how this is how this is all going to work. But I am you know, continuing to enjoy the current history of the last 25 years, which is just don't do anything about the economy. We're too scared to deal with them because

they've got more money than them. So let's just blame immigrants. I'm just enjoying basically white people doing the long winded process of cutting off their dicks despite their own assholes. I'm sorry, an island of strangers. Isn't that the British ideal? Aren't you people strangers to people within your own family? I've seen people in Britain shake hands with their own mother. Even that's too much. A simple wave will do.

In other ceasefire news, the Ukraine war is over. Well, it could be over, but probably won't be over. But there is some talk of a 30 day ceasefire if Vladimir Putin stops being a massive for 30 days, which seems pretty unlikely. Tom, you are the official bugle, Vladimir Putin is a correspondent. What's the latest situation?

Can I just say this portfolio I am busy. Yes, European leaders looks like Kiyosama, they are calling for a ceasefire and unconditional ceasefire. They're using very strong language. And in my experience, when European leaders call for something to happen, it doesn't. Call me jaded. Whenever I hear about European leaders giving ultimatums to Russia when it comes to Ukraine, my brain kind of goes into emergency exit row briefing slash iTunes terms and conditions slash dentists telling me how to floss mode. You're just saying words, honey. It ain't gonna happen. But it's hard to see what's gonna happen. Western powers and Ukraine want an unconditional ceasefire, while Russia says it will only

agree to a ceasefire if all Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine are stopped. Which is very similar to that time when I was a kid and my brother Gavin said he'd absolutely let me play with his Lego pirate ship if I just let him play with my limited edition Star Wars Phantom Menace Darth Maul double ended lightsaber. So I said, okay, and I gave him the lightsaber and then he used it to annex my bedroom and my dress-up box. When I told my mom about it, Gavin just said he was simply enacting a process of denazification, which doesn't even make sense. But I don't know, it doesn't look like Russia's going to be very receptive to this. Former president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev took to X to post, Macron, Mertz, Stamarin, Tusk were supposed to discuss peace in Kiev.

Instead, they are blurting out threats against Russia. You think that's smart? Shove these peace plans up your pan-gender asses. Which I think clearly shows that my campaign to raise awareness of LGBTQI identities and sexual practices in Russia is really cutting through. That's right, Andy. Some members of my rainbow community happen to enjoy inserting contentious European peace negotiations up their gender diverse rectums.

And I think that's beautiful. And we will not be king shamed. Let's embrace it. And in fact, if you're ever in Berlin, I highly recommend checking out a very queer friendly club called Das Frutti Boti, where you can sit at a copy of the Treaty of Versailles. It's a star we use some pretty strong language to talk about Vladimir Putin. He said all of us here together with the US are calling Putin out. That's right. It's cool. It's a call out. You've been called out Vladimir Putin. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it or in to put it

in Baladi in terms, write that down on a treaty and shove it up your asshole. Right up the Right after you've tried them. God, Saltzman, you're like the Wordsworth of anal filth. They've said that, Sabra said that there needs to be a ceasefire with no ifs or buts, but you're dealing with Vladimir Putin, a man who likes ifs more than Rudyard Kipling and buts more than Sir Mix-A-Lot. So it's something that I would say might be falling on potentially deaf ears. Pope news now and exciting times. Americans have long enjoyed inviting God to bless America. And whilst there seems to be scant evidence of him taking them up on that generous invitation,

God at least now has a direct middleman to go through, should he so want to, as of last Thursday. We have the first American pope, not as Donald Trump pitched in the social media post we mentioned last week, Donald Trump himself. Instead, the first and Mary Pope is Chicago's Robert Prevost, AKA Pope Leo Twitter intravenous, sorry, XIV, sorry, the 14th, never sight-read a script. And I mean, this is for a Chicago Pope. I don't know what he's going to bring apart from, you know, this Catholic church belatedly clamping down on ketchup on hot dogs and some bad times.

I know you guys have, we talked about your disappointment at missing out this time, but to have an American Pope and one who's expected not to do Donald Trump's bidding, given that he is an active Christian rather than the least Christian man in the known universe. It could be quite interesting times, I think. Yes, it's very interesting to see the election of an American pope be greeted with absolute disgust by a lot of people that constantly bang on about how much they love wanking over the American flag or whatever it is. Steve Bannon, a man who seems to have developed the first case of permanent leprosy of the face and head, has been incredibly irate about the election of the American Pope, saying that whilst Pope

Leo is American, he's not America first, and expressing concern that he might be following in the tradition of his more liberal leaning predecessor. Bannon said that it was kind of jaw dropping. It is shocking to me that a guy could be selected to be the Pope that had had the Twitter feed and the statements he's had against our American senior politicians. And we've all seen conclave. We know how much of the process involves scouring the Twitter feed of the various people that are in the running to beat Pope. Bannon said that there was definitely going to be friction between Pope Leo and Donald Trump. This is where we are at with the current

American conservativism movement. The Catholic Church is too woke for America. The Catholic Church, an organization that historically has largely existed to hoard gold and sheltered pedophiles is now too woke for Steve Bannon and Donald Trump. It is an absolutely astonishing turn of events. An organization with an interior decor that would make Saddam Hussein say, that's actually a little bit too much for me. I would love a Magapove. I think that'd be awesome. Make America guilty again. I would love a Maga Pope. I think that'd be awesome. Make America guilty again. Yeah.

I love the idea. Yeah. Like the Pope is at America first. What would that even look like? Like, yes, brothers and sisters, we are all God's children. He loves us all equally. But also US number one, Canada sucks, China eats donkey dicks, America, baby. If you say it in Latin though, no one knows what the hell you're saying.

So you could probably get. There is a fair bit of evidence that he's going to be another woke Pope or as I like to call them a Pope flake. Apparently Pope Leo has previously supported the idea of the Vatican installing solar panels. Hey, Popey, you want to reduce emissions, maybe stop announcing your ascension by pumping smoke into the air might yeah, everything about that. He also wants the Vatican to adopt

electric vehicles. And I'd say just be careful with that one. Pope Leo, if the Pope mobile, which is designed to protect you is a Tesla, that could be a call coming from inside the house scenario. That could be a call coming from inside the house scenario. How do you put solar panels on a dome? Can we just say, can we look again, all love to Catholics, but I'm sorry. An American being selected as the Pope is a sign that God has forsaken us. Okay.

He has given up our heaven. Heavenly Father has taken a look at the state of the world and all its various problems and gone, you know what this needs more power concentrated in the hands of an American male. Let's make the Pope a guy from Chicago named Bob. I'm too old for this shit. Goodbye. Again, a thrilling glit, a thrilling glimpse for Belinda.

Just to be clear, we've been recording for 45 minutes, which is about an episode like we've made it through half the things we've had to talk about. Things are progressing as normal. Yeah, I thought this might be the case. Australian election update now and well Tom since you were last on the show there's been an election which was last week we talked about it briefly last week but obviously nothing is official in Australian politics until we have the full Tom Ballard opinion on it so we wanted to bake this into the history books for us with the pure Ballardian truth.

Officially. I'm calling it now. The Tom Ballard is calling it and the Labour Party's won by heaps. So that's official. Lock that in. Huge loss for the Conservative coalition. Yeah, massive majority for Labour. Brutal result for the Australian Greens who suffered a swing against them in the national vote and have now lost three out of the four lower house seats they previously held in completely unrelated news. I'm a member of the Greens. I publicly endorse them and I host a weekly podcast about the Greens talking about how I think the Greens are good and people should vote for them. Basically in Australia, a new phenomenon seems to be emerging. The political scientists have dubbed the Ballard Kiss of Death. If you want to vanquish your political enemies, simply get a chubby preachy homosexual to podcast and post about them positively as much as humanly possible.

And there's a damn good chance that balladization will condemn them to the political wilderness. By the way, everyone, Tom Allen says, go see Andy Zoltzman and Nish Kumar on tour. I think that's bad. In the UK, we have something called the Kumar effect, but that's an open endorsement that leads to the vanquishing of television programs and entire streaming services. I was actually out in Australia for the entire election. and I'll say this for Australia, it's not a real country. The week I arrived in Australia, the two big election stories were Anthony Albanese had fallen off a stage and Peter Dutton had kicked a football directly into a cameraman's face

and draw blood. Australia is trying is struggling to refute the allegations that it's not a real country with real news. But it was a huge victory for Albo and a stunning defeat for Peter Dutton, a man who has bears an unfortunate resemblance to key man villain Skeletor, and also seemed to have been completely surprised that an election was happening. And I'm only basing that on the things he said and did through the campaign. There were a series of U-turns to such an extent that Peter Dunn did the political equivalent of essentially running around a flagpole for the entirety of the election campaign.

It was one of the most incompetent election campaigns I've ever seen. And bear in mind, I live in the United Kingdom. I live in the United Kingdom, where our incompetent election campaigns win the elections. Yeah, you guys really are the best in the game. Yes, well, Peter Dutton has lost. He lost his own seat, which was very, very funny. He's left politics to spend more time with his family in Castle Grayskull.

But this week, the Conservative Liberal Party will have to decide who will be the new leader, who will be sifting from the sweet, sweet poison chalice that is the Liberal Party leadership. And one of the contenders is Susan Lay, who's a woman, which fun fact for our conservative listeners is something that people can be. About Susan Lay is that she spells her first name S U double S A N, but that's not the spelling she was given at birth. This is totally true.

She's on the record explaining that she added the extra S to her name in the 20s because of numerology, telling the media in 2015, I read about this numerology theory that if you add the numbers that that's the letters in your name, you can change your personality. Now at this point, further to Nisha's point, I'd like to clarify that Australia is a real country with a trillion dollar economy and a population of about 27 million people. And yet at this stage, it appears that one of the front runners for the leadership position of one of our major political parties is a woman in her 60s who subscribes to the same supernatural belief system as a divorced auntie or a high school goth.

Thank you. I'll say this for Susan for Susan is that I'll say this for Susan. She keeps going like this. She could be running what remains of the Department for Education in Donald Trump's America. Right now we're going to move on to some stories that have been requested by Belinda, our guest co-producer today, including Donald Trump's suggested reopening of the Alcatraz prison, which we touched on last week. But it's interesting to think, you know, what other things rightly consigned to history from America's past? Do we think Trump

would like to bring, actually let's not open that rabbit hole to... Yeah, I was about to say that is, that's one of the most dangerous roads we could have opened, because I think there's quite a few things that Trump would like to reopen from the past. Let's just put it this way, in Washington, you won't be able to visit the Lincoln Memorial, but you will be able to see the Robert E Lee Memorial for people who were just trying to preserve states rights. And then go see a drama about it in the John Wilkes Booth. So I'm going to ask Tom and Nish what they personally would like to see brought back to America from its from its part.

Anything anything you'd like to suggest? Well I don't know how practical this is, but Jimi Hendrix. I just think I've never really never fully bought into this idea that it was glorious that Hendrix died so young and preserved his iconic back catalogue at 27. I think that he was a fabulous technical guitar player and that technique would only have evolved and become more interesting with time. I just think is there a possibility for us to bring back Jimi Hendrix from the dead? That's all I'm asking. possibility for us to bring back Jimi Hendrix from the dead.

And that's all I'm asking. It's not my field. It's doable. Tom? It'd be nice if he brought back democracy. That'd be good. That was a nice theory where they had that going on. That would be there. Boo!

Wokeism! Sorry, I've been listening to the Pope again. I think he's going to bring back stuff from the fictional past because there's a lot of speculation, of course, that Trump just saw the film The Rock and was like, that's right, Alcatraz is awesome. Let's bring that back. Now I would not be surprised if Donald Trump has signed an executive order demanding that NASA revive the face-fopping technology from Face Off.

That and everything that he saw in the Flintstones. Okay, folks, we used to have the birds working for us and the pigs they used to be our garbage disposals. We got to bring it back. Personally, stovepipe hats is the obvious way to go for me. You know, everyone knew where they stood when everyone wore stovepipe hat. And people people who prepared to get changed quickly and phone booths. I don't think Superman could

exist. Now you can't get changed change inside a mobile phone. No one of the planets gone to shit. I will say that there are still some phone boxes up where I live in London and there are still some people undressing in them. I will say that's not completely been consigned to the dustbin of history around my neck of the woods. People also believe that they're aliens from outer space who get power from the sun, I believe.

Yeah. So let's just say it's not all done and dusted. I would like to bring back the pinstripe suit and the culture of firing Tommy guns out of the window of cars. Right. I think that was a more innocent era. Also, in terms of gun violence, it was actually a much less destructive weapon than the AR-15 that is available to buy in the United States of America commercially. So Belinda, does that answer your question? It does. Thank you. Suggestions rather if Trump can't get the Alcatraz plan off the ground, they could turn the Oval Office into a prison cell. I mean, Donald Trump is basically serving out his sentence there, I

suggested, or Baffin Island instead of Alcatraz Island when the takeover of Canada is complete, it's huge. It's cold. It'll be basically impossible to escape from. Another story Belinda requested was ideas for the designs of the memorial to the late Queen Elizabeth II. What? What the f**k? Who sadly-

I tell you, you got to read the news. Oh my f**king- You got to keep up with it. I can't believe- I thought it was a prank. Well, we don't know that it isn't because frankly, with that national anthem, it's quite possible she just got bored and faked it. She, as you may remember, passed away sadly on the scheduled first day of the England South Africa test at the oval in 2022. the England South Africa test at the oval in 2022. But anyway, there's going to be a huge public memorial to the late

Queen Elizabeth and long thoughtness that there's not enough things dedicated to or named after Elizabeth the second as I was saying just the other day to my two children, Elizabeth and Elizabeth. But the problem is, the standard of public statuary has been taken a bit of a bit of a downward dip over the past, let's say, two and a half thousand years. And in particular, the last the most recent bit of that. And in fact, some of the things that have already been built in tribute to Elizabeth

the second, not absolutely tipped up. There's a slightly old looking marble statue on the outside of the celebrity Gothic Cathedral York Minster doesn't really look a lot like her. And she's holding her robe as if she's about to pretend to be a vampire. Which I don't remember her ever doing in public, certainly. There's another statue of ex-Queen and her longtime squeeze Prince Philip. In Antrim there looks like two actors who auditioned for the parts of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh in the Crown.

I didn't get part of the first round of the auditions because they stood really weirdly. They didn't look anything like the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. And there's another one that has her surrounded by psychotic looking corgis who appear to be in force fed amphetamine spike squirrel corpses before posing for the artist. So it's a challenge. The things that have been suggested on the shortlist, there's one involves elegant bridges across a lake because what's of course, the Lake Queen could walk on water, she chose not to in public to demoralize people. And she found

bridges a terrific way of getting from one side of a lake to another. So that's appropriate. A bronze oak tree because of course, Queen Elizabeth II was magic. And if she half chewed an acorn, then spat it into the undergrowth the next morning, a fully grown oak tree laden course Queen Elizabeth II was magic and if she half chewed an acorn then spat it into the undergrowth the next morning a fully grown oak tree laden with golden mangoes would have sprouted forth. Another is a shadow there was three more years of winter and that's bronze oak tree will be connected to a path made of stones from all around Britain which will pass other bronze statues presumably the Queen's favorite snooker players, Eurovision Song Contest, pop stars from her reign and the royal

quad bike the Queen used to ride at breakneck speed through Windsor Safari Park to check whether God would in fact save her or not work pretty well and speakers are going to play a soundscape of memories from her reign and life. I'm not sure what they'll be I mean for most people the greatest moments of their life if they've had children are the births of their children but I'm not sure what they'll be I mean, for most people, the greatest moments of their life, if they've had children are the births of their children, but I'm not sure they're going to go with that. To be honest, that's going to spoil your walk around around the park, frankly, maybe the poll tax rights and who knows anyway, and authentic sounds of

the Commonwealth. And that could go wrong in so so many different ways. Yeah. Then there's one that has slightly odd giant lily pads that are like they might be landing pods for spaceships for our long awaited alien overlords to land in central London and being snouting down on some prime noodles in Chinatown within 20 minutes and there's a sculpture of wind because the wind blew every single day of her rain somewhere in the UK or the Commonwealth. So and the Queen

on a horse because she's on my own horse. So it's, it's difficult to choose niche. Do you have a particular favorite for that or something else you'd like to suggest all of this is bullshit every single one of these suggestions is bullshit and does not adequately pay tribute to the queen who i've just found out is dead if i if i'm honest with you there's only one thing that can possibly pay tribute to the queen i've got two words for you, everyone. ABBA voyage. Let's get the people who made ABBA voyage, who I believe are industrial light and magic, to do Queen the Voyage. Let's get a full computer generated hologram show that you can go and see.

Sorry, we'll just, we will need to clarify it's Queen Elizabeth voyage. Otherwise, Queen Voyage will. Queen Voyage is another one. That's another one we're working on. That's another one we're working on. This bitch isn't singing Bohemian Rhapsody at all. Apple Voyage is actually currently in a site in the park that's called the Queen Elizabeth

Olympic Park. So already it's heading on its way to do this. Let's get a full hologram show of Queen Elizabeth where she flies around the room and shoots lasers out of her eyes. Full disclosure, I have not seen Abba Voyage, but I assume that that's what happened. Shoots lasers out of her eyes, revisit some of the highlights of her reign like the time that guy broke into Buckingham Palace when she had Diana killed. I mean when Diana died by accident. That time her son was a f***ing

all of the highlights of her reign allegedly allegedly, let's get them up. And then at the end, let's just reuse some of the ABA Voyage technology and have a say dancing queen while she does a little dance, because that'd be a fun end. She's already called the queen. And just so everyone likes that song, it will end on a reel. And the national anthem is no disrespect, an absolute vibe killer. That is an absolute, it's a boring song. It's a bonus shrinker it Pops dust up a fanny. It's not

Good vibes as a song Let's get Corgi's dancing next to her Philip standing there but not actually beingoned at any point because he'd have had some opinions and we don't need to hear those. I just want to give a shout out, Andy. All these design elements are coming from the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee. Well done, folks.

I've actually just been elected the chair of the Queen Elizabeth Forgetting Committee. We're dedicated to fostering forgetting what's her name across the globe. That's what we're doing. But on the same issue, I want animatronics. I want an AI robot recreation of Lizzie to greet me at the little center there. She talks you through her justification when it comes to supporting Prince Andrew and his settlement with Vegeta Jafray. Then she transforms, turns into a water slide. You get to slide out of that. Yeah, that's my opinion.

Hi everyone. Welcome to one's park. I am available to do the voice. I'm also available to do. Actually, they don't like they probably don't need someone to do the voice. They can probably cover it together from the interviews. My husband and I would like you to exit through the gift shop. Yeah. At least I take great offense at you impersonating a white person there. My own personal suggestion would be the Queen in a full suit of armor charging into battle,

karate kicking Hitler in the face while hurling a nuclear-tipped corgi straight into Napoleon's open mouth. Because I think it's quite hard to be heroic as a modern monarch and you know she did a very good job in being constitutionally neutral for seven decades so we need to pimp it up or as a sports fan some kind of sporting montage of the great moments from the Queen's reign maybe the Queen roasting one in off the crossbar to England three two up in the 1966 world cup final taking a pass from scram half Matt Dawson before in a drop goal to win the rugby World Cup for England in 2003. charging in off the deep mid wicket boundary to throw the ball to wicket keeper Joss

Butler to complete the run out that secured the 2019 cricket World Cup for England or romping to victory in the 1980 men's 100 meter Olympic final despite being drawn in an outside lane. 100 meter Olympic final despite being drawn in an outside lane. Let's let's get that in a statue. Well, Buglers, we've we've recorded long. You've got you've got great value, Belinda. I think it's been one of our longest ever records. Chris will probably cut some bits out and save it for a for a sub episode

at some point in the future. Yes, I agree with that based on the fact that Chris has written in the chat, we have passed the point that I have double what I need. Well, that suggests we're overpaying him. I was talking about right. So, well, we need to wrap it up. Belinda, thank you once again for your outstanding work as co producer and for being an elite bugle voluntary subscriber. I hope you've enjoyed joining the show today.

Loved it. It was the comprehensive analysis I was looking for. Tom, anything to plug? We report, you decide Belinda. I think Belinda, I don't know how much audio editing experience you have, but I would like you to just give it a go and see what comes out. Okay, here goes nothing. Plugs for me, I have a podcast that I mentioned called Serious Danger, which is about the Australian Greens, which is yes, the kiss of death. I'd love people to check that out. And go to my YouTube channel and you can watch some free specials there if you'd like. youtube.com forward slash Tom Ballard Oz, I believe a US.

I have lots of tour dates. If you're in London on the 24th of May, I'm filming my show for a TVC platform that I'm sure once it goes up will immediately be destroyed. platform that I'm sure once it goes up will immediately be destroyed. But there's two shows at a 5pm show and a 8.30pm show on the 24th of May. Also, if you are a European bugle fan, I am coming to continental Europe in open defiance of the political will of my country over the last decade. I am going to Europe. I'll be in Paris on the 30th of May, Amsterdam on the 31st, 1st of June I'm in Cologne, 5th of June I'm in Berlin, 6th of June Oslo, 7th of June Aarhus, 8th of June Copenhagen. Some of those dates are very close to selling out. Paris, it looks like there is going to be a lot of room for a lot of madames et messieurs.

There is going to be a lot of room for a lot of madames et messieurs. I have nothing to plug. So this is the end of the show. Thank you for listening, beautiful. Oh, I should say thanks to everyone who came to my talk, which just finished last week. There should be some extension dates early next year that I will tell you about at some point in the near future. Anyway, goodbye!