The Bugle - Make Movies Great Again!

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Recorded live in Brisbane, Australia, this week’s Bugle sees Andy Zaltzman joined on stage by Nish Kumar and Alice Fraser for a high-energy international tour of scandal, chaos, and cinematic derangement.🇦🇺 Australia News: The country is rocked by the unthinkable — a Wiggles drug scandal. Plus, an Australian PM finally does something.🇬🇧 UK Politics: Back in Britain, there’s fresh chaos and alleged racism in Westminster. Standards continue their long retreat into the sea (just off the coast of Clacton).🇺🇸 Trump News: And in America, Donald Trump appears to be greenlighting movies. Yes, really. With Rush Hour 4 apparently on the table, Hollywood has reached a new constitutional crisis.It's a Bugle live classic!🎧 Support The Bugle! Get bonus episodes, exclusive video editions, and the smug glow of a Team Bugle subscription at:http://thebuglepodcast.com📺 Watch Realms Unknown on YouTubeProduced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bugle, Audio Newspaper for a visual world. Hello, buglers, welcome to The Bugle. This week's episode comes to you live from Brisbane, Australia, where Andy is attempting to watch cricket. Before we crack on, did you know you can send a loved one, the gift of a bugle subscription? Go to the buglepodcast.com for more info. Now, on with the show.

Welcome, welcome to the Bugle Live, the first ever bugle live here in Queens, Kingsland. Is it Kingsland now? Are you still? You're still hanging on? You've only just got over Victoria going, have you? So, how are you on the monarchy in general? You do realise you do have to keep it now forever.

Because if you ever get rid of the monarchy now, it will look like you were only keeping it whilst Prince Andrew was involved. So, you can't do that. That is a bad look, Australia. So, um, so, so welcome, welcome to The Bugle Live.

How many of you listen to The Bugle regularly? Thank you for me. How many listen to it occasionally? And how many have never listened to it at all? Oh, welcome. So, well, this may be a slightly confusing show for you. So the bugle is the world's leading and only and longest-running audio newspaper for a visual world.

We have been going since before podcasting was invented. Since 2007. Who's been listening for over 18 years? Well, thank you very much. I finally made it to Brisbane. So this is doubling up as issue 4,362 of the bugle. It's a weekly show. The mathematically minded amongst you might not.

noticed that there haven't been 4,362 weeks in the last 18 years, but we skipped out just over 3,700 at one point. So here we are, it's issue 4,362, and we are here in Brisbane, the city where English cricket comes to die. Who is? Has someone hacked this script? My script?

No, sorry, I had the AI script creator set to grim realism. So, um. Anyway, we'll touch on that later in the show, but let's first meet the crowd. So please all answer. What's your name? What do you do for a living? What's your favourite mode of transport around Brisbane?

If anyone didn't say boat, you are a fucking lunatic. Those boats, those boats are sensational. You don't know how good you've got it. Let's have a round of applause for the city catch. And now, let's meet our guests for today's bugle. Firstly, right here, right now, here in Brisbane, in 3D. It's the wonderful Alice Fraser. Hello, Alice.

Hello. Hello, Andy. Hello, buglers. It's so good to be here. I'm delighted to see you. Normally, I'm a big head on the screen. And now the bugle has come. Come to me at last.

And quite often, you're a big head on the screen at 5am your time. Yeah. Which is not traditionally funny time. But, so this is your revenge gig. Yeah, it's definitely done damage to my brain. I sometimes wake up at 4.30 in the morning being like, I'm hilarious. I think there might be members of the England cricket squad

who'd been suffering something similar since the Perth test. Also joining us via the wonders of the internet. If the internet is still working as it was, when we set up the Zoom call an hour before the show fingers crossed joining us from London it's producer Chris

and Nish Kumar Hey thank all very much it's working I can't I cannot believe and I can only thank everyone at the venue for making this work

normally I have Chris doing this I have no practical skills in life. Hello, Nish, hello Chris. How's morning in London? It's 9.13 a.m. in the morning. Now, that is not a time that I am accustomed to being awake. I had to get up at 7am to do some sort of fucking line test. I couldn't hear what Alice said,

but I assume it was wanging on about reproducing. But, listen, today I feel like... Do you remember when Mark Wahlberg published his morning routine a few years? years ago. Today, I feel like pure Wahlberg. Got up at 7 a.m. coffee, dump, line test. Another coffee, another dump, bugle. I'm set up

for the day. That's Nish Tushitsch Kumar. Coinseny for any cricket fans, the same number of ships that the Great West Indian George Headley had on the morning of a test match. That is the one and only fact of the show.

Andy, with all this fine, with all this work, Andy. Are you also going to pick up the editor of this week's show as well? Yeah, I'm going to win it. Can't be that fucking difficult, mate, can it? Yeah, well, let's find out. It's the second of the time. On this day, in 1933, just 93 short years ago,

it was the first day of the bodyline cricket series. Too soon. Because haven't stopped complaining about it in over nine decades now. Oh, it's a bit fast and herty, right. On this day in 1697, St. Paul's Cathedral, the celebrity church in London designed by Sir Christopher Wren was consecrated. The previous one had burnt down during the Great Fire of London, and just shows how much more effective Christopher Wren's dome is than the old

spire as a means of getting prayers through to God, because the previous St. Paul's Cathedral burned down once per approximately 350 years, whereas Wrens has burnt down zero times in 320 years. So that shows that prayers said through a spire are 100% less effective than prayers said through a dome, because presumably at some point in both of those churches, someone has prayed for it not to burn down. A bit of science for you.

On this day in 1952, a human birth was televised live on television in America that is a genuine fact on 2nd of December 1952 a human birth live on K-O-A-TV Denver and for whatever reason that has not caught on as a TV show people seem to prefer home improvement shows

reality shows and live sport but you know it could have gone the other way Maybe if it'd been a better birth, or with better pundits, I think the pundits weren't great on the birth. They just said, well, everyone tried hard, that's all you can ask for. And you want a bit more. You want a bit more technical analysis from your sports punditry. Maybe if it would have been a more elegant birth, if such a thing exists.

It would have caught on, like sport has, and now we would be here in Brisbane about to watch Australia versus England in mass birthing rather than cricket. Would be long drawn out and painful. Actually, that's basically test cricket for England and Australia, if that one. Why do you think it's not caught on, Alice, is a TV? Okay, and I have so many questions. Up what end was the camera?

Oh, I don't know. I mean, there was only like two channels back then. What was the counter-programming? What were you sitting across two? And thirdly, I imagine that it hasn't caught on because at that point, standards wouldn't let you scream very loudly. But it's...

There's a delay on your laughter, Nish, that makes it sound... Seriously creepy. Um... Um... Anyway, the, um... The, uh... the, uh... the live birthing show is no longer on television, which leads me to believe Nish that you must have been involved in it somehow. If it's been, um...

Right, as always, a section of the bugle is going, where Brisbane? It's going where? It's going where? That's, I'm afraid that's the only graphic of the show, pretty much. I used to be quite good at making graphics, well forgotten. Anyway, you get the in-the-bid one. And your section in the bin this week is Australia Facts. Who's heard of Australia?

About half of you. Fair enough. Here are your Australia facts. Australia is so big that it can be seen from space. But not always. It does depend on a number of factors whether Australia can be seen from space, including how far away you are.

Space is even bigger than Australia. and Australia starts to get a bit blurry after a couple of million miles and once you're off from beyond that you can't see Australia from space if you're in say the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years away you cannot see Australia from space

and even if you could it would look like it did 2.5 million years ago when England was losing to Australia at the Gabba it also depends on which direction you're looking you won't see Australia from space if you're looking out of the wrong window of your spacecraft

or you're looking outwards into more space rather than downwards towards Earth. It depends on how clean your spaceship windows are. Whether you've been kidnapped by aliens and blindfolded, if you're an alien in your eyes work differently to humanise maybe through a form of visionless sensory experience so you might be able to feel Australia from space without actually seeing it.

It depends if the world's pointing the right way and if it's flat or not. And it also depends what day of it. The Week it is. Did you know that Australia cannot be seen from space on Thursdays? No one knows why. Another Australia fact. Australia contains numerous lethal creatures.

You're proud of them? Has anyone here ever been killed by one of the lethal creatures in Australia? They can't be as bad as people make out. These range from the eastern brown snake, the box jellyfish, the shithead spider, the f***ed-off kangaroo, the non-vegan shark, the very horny crocodile, the nuclear platypus, the exploding koala, the unfair dinkum, which is like a possum but with a serrated metal tail that can slice a truckle of cheddar in the air, and the plummeting wombat, which descends from the skies at over 400 miles an hour.

If you survive more than a month in Australia without being eaten, poisoned or head-butted to death by its flora and fauna, you're immune to everything. That's a fact. Australia is hot, so hot in fact that chickens in parts of Australia lay soufflays rather than eggs. A fact about Australia. Australia lies about how much it worries. It often says no, but it never really means it.

Alice, you had gone Australia fact? Australia is a monotrim. It's not laid an egg yet, but when it does, it'll breastfeed. It's also got a poison spur. I can see this being a recurring feature of the show, it's also got a poison spur, but we just call that Tasmania. Family show, family show. I mean, they say that a lot in,

they say family show a lot in Tasmania. Family show. Nish, have you got an Australia fact? I actually do have an Australia fact, and that Australia fact is that in 2004, I was on my gap here in Australia, and when I was in Cairns, I tried to learn how to surf from a company called the Surfing Dog,

whose tagline was, if we can teach a dog to surf, we can teach you. And I don't want to give too much away, but they are legally unable to use that as a tagline line. Chris, have you got an Australia fact? Yeah, well, it's been much reported over the years by many conspiracy theorists that Australia doesn't actually exist, and it's a liberal cup conspiracy theory dreamed up by liberals

and the likes in, I think, Washington, D.C. based pizza parlor, But the extension of that, which I'm sad to report, is that means that England's losing the ashes to a TV film crew. I haven't lost it yet, Chris. Come on. Right, that section is in the bin. Right. news now and

Alice you are the bugles Australia correspondent so we're looking at the sort of life cycle in Australia let's start with a bit of Australian childhood news who here has experienced childhood and who did it in Australia

so that's quite a good healthy proportion of that van van diagram but childhood's about to change for Australian kids because the government is set to to ban social media. Children, under 16, from using social media, they're banning children

from the simple joys of being anonymously harangued by strangers presented with unattainable and undesirable standards of what and who they should look, talk, act and think like. So what is going to be left for Australian kids to fill their time other than the harrowing reality of the human condition?

I mean, we've got to go back to the good old days of just bullying each other in person. What made this nation great? I mean, it is a bold move in order to protect children. You must ban them. You know, the solution to bad people doing bad things on a platform is to remove all the good people. Take away the innocence and hope.

It's an understandable impulse. We've all seen a YouTube think piece about Netflix show Adolescence. We know online is toxic to children and also to adults, but mainly to children and we can control children. It's basically like the campaigns in the 80s and 90s to get kids off the roads

because people needed to drive drunk to work and they kept going to work over the top of children and other children kept getting kidnapped, so instead of moving the cars and perverts indoors, they ran big safety campaigns to put the children safely inside on screens where it turns out all the perverts were hiding all along.

Now, of course, the movie's to get them off the screen, isolated both from the bad influences and the friends and leave them with, I guess, their own thoughts and feelings, which might be the worst thing you could possibly do to a teen, But in bright civic engagement news, the children are suing the government, which is good. I mean, of course they're challenging, is they have a God-given human rights-adjacent right to communicate freely, to share their thoughts and fears and dreams and horny 47-part TikTok-Sathig wicked fan-fictions. There's two 15-year-olds who are bringing this, Macy Newland and Noah Jones.

They're bringing a suit against the government saying it infringes on their freedom of communication, And they suggest that instead of banning children from social media in order to protect them from harmful content, the government should clear the harmful content from the social media and let the children play, which is all well and good. But it has one fatal flaw, which is to say, what do they think social media is? Except harmful content. If you stripped out all existing harmful content from the internet, it would just be one benevolent old lady called Gladys saying she loves ham sandwiches and seven billion people in the comment section calling her an evil. leftist Nazi R word, K word, N word, Karen, K. The business model of these companies

is entirely predicated on farming the worst human qualities of using hypercharged billion dollar algorithms to machine milk us for rage juice because it turns out that breaking the atomic bonds of social trust produces a mushroom crowd of money and we don't have to worry about any further knock-on effects.

No more to the judge, thank you. I'm not offering any solutions here, Andy. should go back to when computers were buildings full of women moving big cards from one slot to another. So I mean you're right, it's not all social media content that is harmful. It is, the latest estimation is it's 99.94%, and that's a terrible fucking number. Terrible. That's a very niche joke. So is Nish trying to return Australian childhood to what it used to be, which involved trying not to think too much about

Australia's national origin story hoping you don't get abandoned the outback by your mad father in your school uniform did that happen to everyone or was that I saw that film is it did that happen to any view here or not and hanging out by the river playing stick or crock which is a game you generally only lose

once so um or worse sticky crock which is where they pour glue all over the back of a crocodile and throw the children aboard Nish, what's your view on this? I know you take your role as a social media influencer very seriously indeed.

So what's your message to Australia? Yes, obviously I'm in a prime position to comment being as I am the world's first reverse influencer. I don't know if everyone's aware of this. But in more recent years, I've actually been sponsored by a lot of brands to not be seen wearing their products. So I'm in a fantastic position.

Listen, look, here's what I would say. Okay, to the teenagers of Gen Z and Generation Alpha, I understand that this ban feels regressive and actually what we should be doing is policing content on social media companies. Unfortunately, we can't because none of them really exist. They're all more powerful than any government could possibly be. But what I would say is take the ban as an opportunity to not engage with social media. Take it from a millennial, the first generation to be experimented on by social media companies. we are mentally, and this is a technical term,

f*** in the head, okay? Because of what we've been exposed to. And we are trying to warn you off these things. Millennials these days are like Jeff Goldblum in a Jurassic Park sequel. We are just engaging with you in conversations about these things as you say, no, no, this platform's fun, this platform's fun, and where they're going,

yeah, yeah, it all starts fun, but then there's the screaming and the running. It's like a monster movie where a scientist has created a new life And then it turns out there's loads of previous failed experiments in the basement saying things like, Master, it's good to us. He gives us pictures of dinner. And my only...

My only... The only compromise I'm willing to offer is, as an outreach to the younger generations, is if this ban is going to be maintained, that is fine. Under 16s can't use social media. But what we then need to do is also introduce an upper limit on the ban. because let's be honest Let's be totally honest here If we're talking about the damage caused by social media

Obviously we have to talk about the children that have been bullied But we also need to talk about all of the people above the age of 50 That have been radicalised At one point This is going to be hard to believe for people in the audience J.K. Rowling was a woman who wrote children's books I know that is hard to believe That is incredibly hard to believe.

She was a woman who wrote children's books and your aunt at one point believed the earth was round. I know that this is going to be hard to believe. At one stage, your uncle was capable of seeing a person of colour in the street without saying, well, well, it's an invasion. That is true, that is true. It was possible.

It was possible. And if we're going to maintain the ban, I say we ban all over 50, from all forms of social media apart from LinkedIn. Let them by all means send their pointless, f***ing CVs around to each other until the world ends.

Yeah. Well, Nish, I'm 51 and I like to think I've been a trailblazer by posting on Twitter about once every two years. So I'm a hero. My question, O'Alice, is social media so much worse than what children have experienced? But when you think of

fairy stories basically involved granny-eating wolves that could speak cannibalistic witches questionable confectionary-based architecture frankly atrocious parenting assorted sexual crimes gothomet in relationships based entirely on

princess being handsome and princesses being pretty institutionalized misogyny ageism a harrowing lack of televised sport and frankly ill-advised footwear is that not worse than what social media is giving them not only is it significantly worse

I also think we need to ban fairy tales and fun from children. Right. We're building a better world here. Also, I mean, do you think of the influence of religion in the past, and I know it's a big influence here as it was in Britain? You know, Bible stories. Basically, you're saying to children, you are going to burn in the fucking fires of eternal hell

if you so much as think about a boob or a plonker. And to me... Yes, Andy, yes, let's ban God! Let's storm the gates of heaven! And ban God to his face. I just see social media as being a much more fast-acting, efficient form of institutional religion. And it just gets the abuse and the psychological scarring done within minutes, rather than across several months and years. Just God and at his right hand, a Jesus made out of shrimps, at his left hand, a thousand-eyed minion.

Right, moving on to other Australian news now, and the Wiggles involved in a national commitment. Traversy. I mean, this is a story that has shaken Australia to its core. Are you Wiggles fans? Yeah, the massive, for those who are not heard of it, either here or listening to the recording, massively successful band whose music has entertained the children of Australia in the world for over 30 years. Basically, they are to Australia, Alice, what the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are to the UK. Is that fair? Or what Nirvana and Megadeth are to the USA in terms of cultural heft and the way they represent the true soul of their nation? Is that fair Australia? Have I got that about right?

Yeah, good, okay, there we go. It's about the shape of it. It's sort of a terrible scandal. The Wiggles have had to say, Hey, kids, we don't condone ecstasy because they were, they were appeared in the background of a music video about the drug ecstasy dancing and having a good time, which is what people who are on the drug ecstasy do.

So it was an implicit endorsement of the drug ecstasy to their extremely vulnerable two and a half year old audience. And I sort of, the whole problem is one of age here. The Wiggles are too old to be seen condoning ecstasy. Their audience is too young to be exposed to the concept of ecstasy. Arguably, the Wiggles are too old to be exposed to children. But I guess, I mean, they are slowly replacing themselves one by one. It's very Theseus as Wiggle.

The problem really is that one of the reasons that the Wiggles are so successful as a children's group, they're one of the more tolerable children's music groups because the original guys are actual musicians with actual musical talent and you don't get to be a musician with actual musical talent for however long they've been around which is it now about 140 years

you don't get to stay relevant without having a lot of friends who are doing cocaine and ecstasy and all of the other drugs how do you think they found Dorothy the dinosaur well I mean I thought usually less familiar

some of the blue wiggle is one of the wiggles renowned for his bawdy innuendo based sexually graphic material as well as his reinterpretation of the works of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker for the younger generation

Very, very famous song Big Red K-T that one Also renowned for his Thatcherite economics And then there's the The Tree of Wisdom I was reading, yeah, you Tree of Wisdom fans which shares the immutable

verities of life with children such as that today's tree is tomorrow's fire You can see the hollowness in his eyes. And if you sit under a tree for long enough, a bird will shit on your head. I mean, it's subtextual, but it's definitely there. Now, the Wiglik Urva has largely steered clear of commentary on the social and economic

impact of illegal drug use, although reports have claimed that if you play the hit 2000 Wiggles Christmas album, you'll be wiggling backwards. It contains barely concealed references to opium abuse. The 2001 record, Hoop de Do, it's a Wiggly Party,

contains the letters L, S, and D, its title. How much more evidence you want. The 2010 album, Let's Eat, sounds like an invocation to take ecstasy if you forget to clearly enunciate the tea on the end of Eat. 2006 is racing to the rainbow. I mean, do I have to fucking spell it out?

And lullabies with love from 2021 contains multiple samples of the Velvet Underground's heroin. And of course, Nick Keith Flint of the British rave legends The Prodigy regularly cited The Wiggles as his musical inspiration. I mean, has this news reached the Northern Hemisphere? Yes, the news has reached the Northern Hemisphere. So the full details of this are that they were in the background of a video filmed by a musician called Kelly Holiday,

whose new song is called Ecstasy. So this was done at the TikTok Awards earlier this month, where the band appeared on stage with Holiday. And the BBC news article about this said that the Wiggles had appeared in a song that eluded to drug use. So I thought, well, let's see what sort of level of illusion we're operating on here. The song is called ecstasy.

And the lyrics to the song are, Hey, girl, come dance on me. You and your pocket full of ecstasy. So, I mean, it's alluding to drug use in very much the same way that Cisco's thong song is alluding to string-based underpants. You all thought it was a shoe song, didn't you? Which does make it creepier.

Yeah. I mean, the wiggles, obviously, are the de facto moral conscious and modern Australia. But in terms of people who are actually in power, the prime minister has done something that a prime minister should never have time to do if he's doing his job properly and got married. Yes, yes, Andy, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has wed at the age of 62

while in office making him the first Australian Prime Minister in the history of the nation to say he'd do something and then actually do it. We'll just have to see if he means it long term, I guess. I mean, I think I mean, Nish, I know you think Albanese's wedding is yet more proof of how woke the world is.

This guy marrying someone just because he likes her rather than because it can facilitate a strategic military alliance or major trading partnership like a leader should fucking get married for. I mean, this is wokeism gone mad, isn't it? Yeah, wokeism gone mad is actually my wrestling name. But, listen,

I was reading the details of this. I'm absolutely fascinated. So they've actually been together for a few years now. They met in 2020 when Albanese was leader of the opposition and his wife, whose name is Jody Hayden, accompanied Albo across the sort of 2022 and 2025 election campaigns and has been seen alongside him at major events, including a state dinner hosted by then-U.S. President Joe Biden and the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Now listen, I've been in a long-term relationship for 13 years. And as long-term relationships evolve, it can be harder to find opportunities to spend time with each other.

You've got to schedule in date nights, whether that be dinner and a movie or the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. And what a date night that is. And as part of date nights, listen, we don't want to be crass here. It is important to express love physically. So my question for Albanese is, did him and his now wife after the Queen's funeral? If they did, if they did, is that disrespectful? Or is it in many ways the ultimate tribute to our former monarch? I mean, first Paul Keating groping on the ass and now this.

Yeah, so first Australian Prime Minister to get married in office. Although I think Harold Holt was trying to go on a date with a mermaid, wasn't he? Too soon? Oh, sorry. Now it's UK falling to pieces news now. And, um... Yes. Yeah, things aren't going too well in Britain.

How many Brits in today? Give us a cheer. And how many of you live here? How many of you just come for the cricket? Well, I feel you're welcome. But, I mean, when I left the UK 10 days ago, everything was working absolutely fine. But, um, so to see if things are still tootling along nicely.

Nis, you are our UK correspondent, despite what the Daily Telegraph says. And, um... Look, it's not... I mean, it's fair to say the Labour government they've been in power now for about eight. 18 months and they've not entirely captured the public imagination. They've sort of captured the public imagination very much like a baby spider captures an Apache helicopter in its web.

And it was budget week this week. I know you're a huge fan of the principles of taxation. But it's not gone well for the government, has it? Listen, nothing gets me more rock hard than fiscal projections. Okay? We know that. We know that. I am always beating off to the word boobs on my calculator.

We know that about me. In the words of J.K. Galbraith himself. Listen, it's been another bad week for the Labour government in this country. So it was the budget last week. unfortunately the Office of Budget Responsibility, a non-partisan organisation that does all of the facts and figures around the budget and the projections, accidentally leaped the budget after someone clicked on the wrong link. That unbelievably is something that happened in this country last week. The popularity is plummeting. And the next presumed Prime Minister of this country is Nigel Farage, a sort of experiment to bring a pint of real ale to life. He is actually in a bit of trouble at the moment because some reports about the things that he's done at school are coming back to haunt him. Several people who were at school with Nigel Farage. He went to an elite private school called Dulwich College just down the road from where Andy and I both live.

One of the students said that a 13-year-old Farage would sidle up to me and growl, Hitler was right or gas them, sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers. So that's one of a string of reports of racist behavior that Nigel Farage had engaged in. He has said in response that nothing he did was directly racist or anti-Semitic, suggesting that Nigel Farage takes an approach to racism the same way as the child does, who just punches the air and says, hey, I'm just punching the air. If you walk towards me, it's your own fault. He's the Bart Simpson of racism.

And here's the reality. The problem that Nigel Farage has is that, These reports are unbelievably believable and only because of everything he has said and done since. Nigel Farage, being a racist at school, is about a surprising revelation as if it turns out Trump is going to be in the Epstein papers. When that's revealed to us, we're all going to have to pretend to be surprised. Nigel Farage is a racist. That guy. Really? It's the same. The only people I'll be less surprised to see the Epstein papers that Donald Trump are Jimmy Saville and the child catcher from chitty-chitty bangbub.

In summary, Andy, everyone in the UK's some of them are because they have good ideas but absolutely no political will to execute them and or are sexually aroused by the concept of infighting. And the other cuss are cuss because they're simply cuss. That's the state of play. Thank you. But I mean, this, um, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the

teacher of the chancellor, um, the tax rise will help pay for 22 billion pounds in fiscal headroom within five years. And if that doesn't inspire the electorate niche, a bit of leeway in half a decade's time, I just don't know what will anymore. I mean, I've lost count of the number of marches I've been on in London with people calling for hypothetical future budgetary wiggle room at a vague point in the medium term future. It's basically what drove the Russian Revolution from memory.

So if this doesn't work, the fundamental problem though, and this is true across all the whole world, is that we are tax averse as a species. In fact, do you know humans have avoided more tax than any

other species in the history of the natural? And we've only been around a few tens of thousands, maybe a couple of hundred of thousand years. We think the dinosaurs were here for millions and millions of years, never got around to avoiding tax or indeed asteroids. So, you know, it shows what a special gift we have. Let me illustrate why it's a problem. Andy, that's not actually true.

Birds are the number one tax avoiders. Everyone thinks they're heading south for the winter as part of a migration pattern. That's actually not true. They're actually all flying directly to the Cayman Islands and spending enough time there that they can claim it as their primary point of residence. Yeah, rest of the world news, let's start with America,

and Donald Trump is saving the world yet again. Some skepticism there. Let me explain why Donald Trump, for those you've not heard of him, the Beethoven of bigotry, the Michelangelo of misogyny, the Pablo Picasso, a parochial prejudice, the Leonardo da Vinci of ludicrously deluded Victriol.

There's one more, the Craig Revel Hallward of crackpot reactionary hate mongering. He has stepped into the breach. Now, there's question marks over Trump's legacy and the long-term impact he's had on the planet. But I think, you know, I guess it's one of those kind of inkblot type things, isn't it? The Rorschach test, where you look at an inkblot and everyone sees different things. I think it's the same with Donald Trump. So with the inkblot, some people see nothing, just an inkblot. Some people see the wings of a butterfly.

Some people see two naked badgers wrestling to the death in a giant bath of spaghetti bolognese. A few laughs of recognition there. Some people see England opener Zach Crawley, hopefully driving outside off. So it's with Donald Trump. Everyone sees different things. And this week may be the moment

that cements his contribution to humanity because he has stepped up to fulfill the world's unspoken, heartfelt desire for the sweet caress of freedom's life-giving... Sorry, for the film rush out. 4 to be made. I'm always getting those two mixed up. Finally, after years, decades, centuries even of waiting.

That thirst for rush hour 4 is set to be slaked by the life-giving ministrations of the modern-day Messiah or egomanius saviour savant that is Donald J. Trump, the 45th, 47th and probably last president of the USA. He, I mean, the latest

move designed to pile food onto the plates of working class Americans in the way that renaming the Gulf of Mexico and unveiling plans to build a ball ballroom in the White House have led to sausages and broccoli literally raining from the heavens directly into the open mouths of hungry American children. The fourth film in the rush hour franchise is finally set to see the light of day. Now it's often we talked about politicians in the first half Alice you mentioned you know politicians saying he'll do something and then doing it

that being rare. I can't remember did Donald Trump pledged to get rush hour four made for the people of America? I can't my memory is a little hazy on this. I'm pretty sure that was yeah between been asking his people to storm the capital and telling Melania that he loves her. Nish, I know you're a massive fan of the Rush Hour franchise, and it's been a long time. Who's seen the Rush Hour filmed? Yeah, but good? Yeah, kind of airplane fodder. Yeah, okay.

I mean, I guess that's what's held up, the production of Rush Hour 4. No one really giving a shit where the Rush Hour 4 was made. that's really also the director being accused of sexual misconduct of the kind that scientists only relatively recently discovered was absolutely out of order and also there being plenty of other films already but Trump Nish has hurled himself

in front of the donkey of disappointment and turned that donkey into the buffalo of belated blockbuster I mean this is a huge moment for the film industry this is a huge moment for the film industry and it's arguably a bigger moment for the human race Sandy. Yeah, Rush Hour is a film franchise that I would say it's largely forgotten about by everyone, not exactly my age.

But they've been a fourth entry apparently in the works for a long time, but not been picked up due to thorough and phenomenal lack of interest. But now Donald Trump has stepped into the breach and has been lobbying for the film to his friend and backer Larry Ellison, who is the largest shareholder of the new Paramount skydance, mega company, a merger which possibly shouldn't have been allowed to be happening, but has only been allowed to happen due to the fact that the Monopoly's Emergers Commission is, I think, busy playing an actual game of monopoly that's just got out of hand. Larry Ellison is a big, big Trump backer, and Trump has now been lobbying him,

which is obviously weird that a president is lobbying anyone for anything. I mean, he is the fucking president. I think technically he could, by presidential decree, order there to be a rush hour for. in any case he's been lobbying on behalf of Rush Hour 4 and it looks like it's going to happen now Andy you've already referenced I think the key element here because a lot of people will be looking at this

and thinking why on earth is Donald Trump interested in Rush Hour 4 and not say the Home Alone franchise which he is of course featured in in Home Alone too also if I remember the plot of the first Rush Hour correctly that is a movie where a black guy and a Chinese guy team up to defeat a rich old white man and I feel like that seems

counterintuitive to Trump's current narrative. But then you dig into it more and realize that the sequel is going to be directed by the original director, Brett Ratner, who had retreated from Hollywood after numerous allegations of sexual misconduct. In fact, the last thing Brett Ratner was actually able to get made was a documentary for Amazon, and that documentary was about Melania Trump. So we see a little bit more clearly what's going on here. Donald Trump is just trying to get jobs for his friends. And if those friends happen to be disgraced, accused sexual predators, then that is just Donald Trump. That is just Donald Trump taking the sacred principle of bros before homes to its logical

end point. And I would say that if he's going to continue this policy, the new rush hour is going to have a very different vibe and probably quite a different cast. If this is the policy he's going under, I would expect Chris Tucker to be directly replaced by a recently released from jail Diddy. And Jackie Chan is going to be replaced by Kevin Spacey in making up that I'm afraid to say is going to add another paragraph to his already bulging controversy section on his Wikipedia page.

Andy, I'm so torn. Do we need yet another reheated subpar sequel? I'm talking about Trump's second term. No, I mean, do we really need yet another tired cash grab based on reheated IP? I'm still talking about Trump's second term. Now, that is satire.

No, but I mean, I am conflicted because yes, on one hand, it's a well that's been gone back to so many times, Surely we've had enough. But on the other hand, it is rush hour. We like Jackie Chan. He seems fine. He seems like a fine guy.

You know how far you have to go in Hollywood to find someone who seems like he might just be fine? I think Jackie Chan seems like he might be fine. He could be because he's foreign and the crazy doesn't translate so well. But I'm choosing to believe fine. Because if Jackie Chan isn't fine, whomst among us could ever aspire to being fine. I mean, he seems like he's on a lot of painkillers,

but that's because he's crushed every single bone in his body in the relentless pursuit of making people childishly happy for minutes at a time. Can't we give him rush hour for? I've not seen the first three rush hour films, but I've guessed what's in them. So for those you not seen them, rush hour from 1998, just quite a quick plot.

I mean, don't listen if you think you might watch it, involves a man contemplating taking his own life on Christmas Eve but being saved by his guardian angel. who then earns his wings by showing the man the true impact he's had on people's lives. Rush Hour 2 from 2001, that involves the former Wales and Liverpool striker, Ian Rush, staring down the camera for almost an hour whilst thinking about his favourite goals. It's oddly moving. And Rush Hour 3 from 2007 was filmed in one shot,

involves two people stuck in stationary cars next to each other in a traffic jam. They talk, fall in love, and are married by a passing priest on a moped before an alien space laser vaporizes the entire planet. So hopefully that's brought you up. But in terms of Trump's influence on arts and culture, niche, obviously we can't say that he's a dictator in the way that he's behaved because he's a democratically elected leader

with a mandate from the people of America to behave exactly like a dictator. But that's a key semantic difference. And obviously, that's how a lot of dictators get their foot in the door. But he's not a fascist either. he just does the exact kind of things that dictators and fascists do but that's completely different and we have to remember that

and so choke-slamming culture before knee-dropping it and clattering around the head with the chair this is just what America demanded at the ballot box so what do you see next for him now that he's essentially dictating what movies are made well I would say that I believe I might have misheard this but I did hear someone described Donald Trump as anti-semantic

just to be clear it is possible that I'd misheard that but he uh listen i think this is the start of uh this is the start of the rebirth of hollywood the movies are back baby i think he is going to again uh i think he's going to take my suggestion and rewrite indiana jones from the perspective of the nazis who are being constantly thwarted in their attempts to bring a low tax economy to the people of the world by a meddling wokeist university professor. Excuse me, Mr. Jones, I just went on a podcast.

I don't know why you're calling a Nazi. We're just friends who happen to be on the same podcast, and he is a Nazi, and he says a lot of Nazi-ish things, and I laugh, and I vape. What? I think you've just summed up the state of human civilization, Alice. Yeah. Let's move on to one of Trump's buddies,

Benjamin Netanyahu. None of his fans in today. And look, like I mentioned, I'm a lapsed Jew. And therefore, I think I'm contractually obliged to think that Benjamin Netanyahu should be allowed to do exactly what he wants. But he's asked for a pardon from Israel's president in his corruption case.

I mean, you're very much the moral arbiter of the world. Do you think you should get one because of, you know, he's asked nicely? Well, listen, first of all, Andy, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You are such a lapsed Jew, you are essentially a Muslim at this point. Although, actually, that's not strictly accurate, is it? Because there's a huge amount of overlap in the beliefs of those two Abrahamic religions. And you've directly made eye contact with me whilst eating pork dimsom and said, if I have both my feet off the floor, that makes it kosher.

So I think you're, you, you, look, niche, there's always different ways of interpreting the ancient texts. That's all I will say. You're, and this puts you in quite a unique position in global and religious history, as bad a Muslim as you are a Jew. It's genuinely phenomenal. I'm a beacon of equality in many ways. So listen, Benjamin Netanyahu is in the mid-sum. of a five-year corruption trial. This relates

to bribery and fraud charges that have been around in the last half decade. Benjamin Netanyahu is now asking Isaac Herzog, who's the president of Israel, for a pardon on these bribery and fraud charges arguing that it would be

in the national interest. And listen, nothing says I am innocent more than please give me a pardon for all of these charges. It is it's a stunning, stunning acknowledgement that you might be in trouble if this shit goes to trial. He's condemned the case as a witch hunt.

He's basically said that the trial is tearing us apart, suggesting that Benjamin Netanyahu is now getting legal defence from the guy who wrote the film The Room. But it's a real shit show. No, no, no, no. Imagine, though, if this was the only thing he's ever been innocent of. Alice, you're absolutely correct. A stopped clock is right twice a day.

And Benjamin Netanyahu, once every decade will be innocent of the many things he's accused of doing. Well, it's hard to know how to end a gig like this. Sorry. That's all the people of Australia have been waiting for from an Englishman.

Well, thank you very much for coming. Chris, when you listen to this bit back, good luck editing that. Thanks to the wonderful Nish Kumar, everyone. I love you, Brisbane. Thanks for the magnificent Alice Fraser. I've been Andy. See some of you tomorrow.

Thank you. Thanks for listening, buglers. This was a two-hour show, including puns. Want to hear them soon? Comment on our social channels or in the subscriber forum, and we might set them free. you.