The Bugle - Quirks and Perks - BONUS BUGLE!

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Unheard cuts from recent Bugle shows with Andy, Alice Fraser, Stewart Lee, Felicity Ward, James Nokise and Mark Steel. We are touring the UK in the spring. Get tickets at thebuglepodcast.com. PLUS paid subscribers will get their third episode of Ask Andy in their feed next week AND Top Tier SUPER BUGLERS - you have until the end of the year to become a top tier subscriber and get your name on the artwork. Hear more of our shows, buy our book, and donate here: thebuglepodcast.com/This episode was produced 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 Bugleers, it's producer Chris here. We're back in a few days, but it's lent, slashed Hanukkah, slashed all the other good things. So here's some excellent unheard moments from recent records. Before that though, we are touring the UK in the spring, get tickets at thebugalpodcast.com. Plus, OMG, all these great announcements, I'm so excited about what I'm about to say. Pay subscribers, you get the third ask Andy in your feed next week and! Top tier Superbuglers, we have recorded your exclusive vinyl-only show.

You have until the end of the year to become a top tier subscriber and get your name on the artwork. Does it contain your audio cryptic crossword? Well possibly it was recorded will it make the edit? Who knows 5050. Now onto the fun. We've got some great clips from recent shows including Alice Fraser, Stuart Lee, Felicity Ward, James McKee say Mark Still, and of course Andrew Zawtsman. Play the tape.

Other environment news now and, well, icebergs are on the move. Our civilization, of course, as we've heard repeatedly on the show and from our former home secretary, Sir Wollabravenman, over and over again, our way of life is under threat from things and people coming over here and taking everything from us. And now, one of the world's biggest icebergs is heading north and threatening our shores, the romantically named A23A, made its first break for freedom from Antarctica in 1986, thinking there must be more to life than this. But it hadn't properly planned,

it's escaped, we've got stuck. But now the 15,000 square mile frozen water, which is quite literally bigger than Jesus. And in fact, bigger than Jesus, greater London and New York City combined is rampaging northwards. I mean, are you as terrified as I am by this? Well, you've attributed motive to the iceberg

so it's coming over here to a little bit. But actually, you've got a look at where it's coming from. It's coming from somewhere called the Weddle Sea. Right, and the Weddle Sea was described in 1950 by Thomas R. Henry as, according to the testimony of all of South through its Bergfield waters, it is the most treacherous and dismal region on earth. So it may be that the icebergs just once a bit of a holiday.

I know, and see the world of it, and not just the Weddle Sea. I believe it was Samuel Johnson who said, when an iceberg is tired of the wedel scene, it is tired of life. But yeah, the wedel scene has not got a lot going for it. It's got a jia in it, you know, when the thing sucks all stuff in.

I mean, it's just once a break, I think. Right, but from the wedel scene. Okay, very enough. I mean, the wedel scene, the wedel Sea is the opposite of the very big sea. Sorry, sorry. No need to apologize. If, if described by Alma Ferdt from the Fox Bunny Car Seas, yeah. That's right. So it's the A23A. Yeah. That's the name I think I broke down there once.

I was thinking if it being described, the iceberg was stuck to the ocean floor, and I think about it as like when I have a night out and I'm wearing high heels and I'm walking along, then I get my foot stuck in a grate, and then I've got to slowly go back and sort of jiggle it and take it out. Maybe that is what's happened to the ocean floor, but it's happening at a glacial pace. Right, okay. So that's actually what's happened. I see.

That or the ocean is warming up and the iceberg wants to move somewhere colder than the Antarctic, so it may be slowly heading towards Suella Bravaman's heart. It's possible. I mean, I guess in terms, you know, looking at this as a positive for the world, is it possible heading towards Suella Brevaman's heart. But it's possible. I mean, I guess, in terms of, you know, looking at this as a positive for the world, is it possible that this giant iceberg, 400 metres thick, could be coaxed up the west coast of Africa,

then forced through the straits of Gibraltar and plonged at the far end of the Mediterranean to literally cool the Middle East situation down? Do you think, I mean, is a massive iceberg really the only way to lasting peace in the Middle East situation down. Do you think, I mean, is a massive iceberg really the only way to lasting peace in the Middle East now? It's possible. It might take some time though. I don't know if you've ever seen an iceberg in a hurry,

but it's still imperceptible to the human eye. Right. Well, another positive environmental story apart from escaped icebergs is that eating chips can save the planet. That's the headline from this week's news, that a transatlantic flight powered by used cooking oil managed to do one better than the Titanic

and make it all the way across the Atlantic a Boeing 787 potato that's way from London to New York without killing a single fossil using sustainable aviation fuel. Now, is this a classic case of corporate green washing and grandstanding? Is it a distraction from the bigger challenges of properly decarbonising our economies and our ways of life? Or is it a genuine breakthrough? Yes, yes, and yes. Three out of three. Got me happy with that.

Yeah, yeah. That's great. I mean, if you compare it on oil that hasn't we got out of the ground, then that's great. But we're going to need a lot of used cooking oils to do that. So we have to think of other sources of non-got out of the ground oil. I thought you could get oil that has been milked out of Aiman Holmes' face on a daily basis. It's a fly out.

It's a fly out. But it is great, because it means we can keep having our holidays. I think it's great for the British people. British people absolutely love using oil. I love it. I was shocked when I came over here and saw people cooking their whole breakfast

in two inches of oil. Imagine if you're a British pilot. You finish your fry up, you go back to the kitchen, you grab the pan, you walk outside, you open the little petrol flap on the plane, and then you just pour it in, and off you go. My concern is for flight sabotage, because it means in the middle of the flight, if the plane explodes, in the air, all the remnants of the passengers will unfortunately taste

delicious. Oh no, that might be good in one of those situations where it ends up in the Andes and has to eat each other. That's right. They've sort of been pre-marinated. Delicious. This is so sad. Crunch. Doesn't even need seasoning. We're in the dead state. Everyone's got salt on them already. I guess a much greener and longer term solution would be to alter the human genome, so that whatever gene gives us geographical curiosity and the desire to travel the world is removed completely from our species. So you basically make everyone American or an axolotl to live in the same f***ing like the thousands of years and never go anywhere?

Staring into the abyss. Weird little animals. Yeah. Hashtag be more axolotl? Ha ha ha ha. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP B Other animal health news, and well, jellyfish have been getting stressed. It's not just humans that are dealing with the heightened anxieties of modern life, jellyfish are too. And it's been, apparently, mining, deep sea mining is causing them stress. This is like Arthur Scargel versus Margaret Thatcher all over again, but the bottom of the sea with jellyfish. I mean, I guess it must be quite hard.

This is another scientific experiment, maybe slightly more use than rat boners in space. But it must be quite hard to tell when the jellyfish is stressed, because they don't often look stressed. It's also quite hard to read the inner thoughts of a faceless sea globster with alarmingly 1970 style wandering tentacles that looks uncannily like the unwanted love child of an overpriced umbrella and some forgotten Christmas macromic. But obviously the scientists have managed to do this. Increasingly, companies are looking to mine minerals from the depths of the ocean because despite fundamentally no one knows what is really happening at the bottom of the ocean.

But it's almost certainly not to be trusted in front of weird creatures with waggley bits that you don't wanna see banging on your window at 4 a.m. But crucially, there are these precious minerals lurking there too, meaning that it has the full undivided attention of the world. These minerals could be used to make, for example, a scrunchable iPad so that you can screw it up and throw a wall like you would a normal piece of paper

after losing a game of knots and crosses against yourself. So, I mean this is, I mean it does seem that there is however well creatures hide themselves, whether it's the absolute bottom of the ocean, humans will still find a way to f*** up their lives for them. Yes, they measure the stress in these jellyfish by faking out plumes of sediment in a controlled environment, seeing how the jellyfish reacted, because that replicates what happens if there's mining happening on the ocean floor, and these jellyfish produced excessive amounts of a protective mucus and also sort of healing enzymes in their bodies. And I find it incredibly inspiring Andy the idea that I could protect myself by covering myself in a coating of mucus So I feel like I'm gonna a launch a new safety product walking alone at night which is just

Oh, yes, because I Proctor and Gamble I'm a proctor and gamble. So one hand you've got the mace, you're spraying them, the other hand you've got the mucous, you're spraying yourself. I feel so safe. Yeah, I don't know how you get a stress jellyfish. Do they get all their bits tangled or something? Yeah. They get all their bits tangled or something. When your laces get messed up.

No, they just look calm and then they take it out on their wife and kids later. In other Britain news, the government's net zero minister has claimed that oil and gas are not the problem for the climate. Alice, you are a fan of science and logic and hope and the future as you are incubating another person that's going to have to live through the future. Can you unexplain why the net zero minister was right? The oil and gas are not at all the problem. I mean, he's saying oil and gas are not the problem for the climate, but the carbon emissions arising from them are, which is some word chopping the lights of which I have not seen since somebody put all of the words into a blender. It's sort of a guns don't kill people argument.

Like climate change doesn't kill people trying to breathe toxic chemicals while underwater or on fire kills people. I sort of don't understand what the point is other than to be a smarmy f***. Like I don't, who's he convincing of what? Well, he said I should. He just wants us to gather up oil and gas and make statues out of it and fondle it in the darkness. Like I don't understand. What, I think, yeah, I mean, I think I'm in favour of that.

Certainly fondling statues and darkness, I think, like, I think I'm a national motto, actually. And certainly it's something that numerous members of the government have been caught doing. This is where you'll ban from the Museum of Cricket, you know that. I do not tell me there is not at least five members of the current Conservative government that have not fondled the Statue of Robert Clive outside the Home Office at the dead of night, at least five, possibly more. He said, I don't think supplies the key driver. It's demand we need to focus on.

And I guess, you know, if you wipe out humanity, that demand is gonna drop. So I mean, can we, is he barking at the right burglar here? And when we're talking about supply and demand, Andy, why are we not focusing on the end part of the sentence? And we get some research into the the what is this man trying to achieve other than to reduce the aggregate meaning of any word use out of a human mouth for the future of mankind I really if I were there I would want to kick him in the knees and run away okay just

which also begs the question are are those people outside intense, actually homeless people, or are they people working for the Minister of Net Zero trying to decrease the demand? Yes. Well, it just, it speaks this frustrating unwillingness to engage with the actual issues in favour of sound bites and little point scoring that are going to happen in the public forum. And that's irritating in day-to-day life. It's irritating what happens in favour of instead of political policies being put through, but it is far worse when the thing that's on the line is the actual earth.

In other food news, China has apparently grown lettuce and tomatoes on its space station. Now, I personally cannot fathom the logic of trying to do this. When you think of who astronauts are, they are kids who never grew up fundamentally. Oh, I want to be an astronaut. Well, the rest of us grew up and got proper jobs. But these overgrown fantasists ended up waddling around in spacesuits, pretending to do scientific research, whilst actually just imagining negotiating with aliens and being constantly fascinated by zero gravity toilets.

These people are not going to eat vegetables. That is a fact of space travel. Astronauts are children. I'd work on chicken nuggets, you can grow in space, and maybe the odd sausage, possibly ice cream with sprinkles. But this is, I mean, what is the point of growing letters and tomatoes on the space station? I mean, also, it seems to me that those are the two wettest and most dropletty of the salad possibilities that you could have, which in zero gravity feels like a problem to me.

Yeah. But I could say, I mean bits of lettuce floating around a space station, that's a, should I say, nightmare, isn't it? What is apparently all aimed towards having China putting a pair of astronauts on the moon before 2030, which is very soon. But who wants to go to the moon

if you're just gonna eat lettuce and tomato? I mean, that's a long trip for a salad. A couple of other news stories now before we go. Alice story from Australia. I'll just give you the headline and then you can explain what's going on. Man bites crocodile. Obviously this is the logical endpoint of all news. Just talk us through it. Yeah, I mean this is one of the best stories because it's also one of the most Australian stories. It was a cattle man. He walked towards a river to investigate some fish who were behaving oddly

at a crocodile, bit his foot, which is usually the beginning of a story that ends with a man dying, but in this instance it ends with the man biting the crocodile. On the eyelid, which I imagine is the only place a man could bite a crocodile that would cause it trouble. It is within easy reach when you've got a foot in the crocodiles mouth And the crocodile released him and he managed to make it to hospital and is now fine And we'll apparently walk out within the next week or so the biggest danger of course being that crocodiles don't brush their teeth And and his foot got badly infected, but I feel like that's you know the best case scenario if you're getting been by a crocodile One final very important item of news I feel like that's, you know, the best case scenario if you're looking at it by a crocodile. One final, very important item of news, James,

I know this particularly got your attention, Patrick Dempsey, the actor, see, no, he isn't actor, isn't he? I've never heard of him, actually, before, he isn't. You've never heard of Patrick Dempsey. Patrick, my guard. Just in place, poor, to see. Patrick Dempsey. Patrick, my guard. Just in place, Paul, does he? Patrick Dempsey. He's the one actor who's an actually athlete in the world.

All right, well there we go. Patrick Dempsey has heroically won the sexiest man-alive title, seeing off the challenges of amongst others, David Attenborough, the non-Aginarian wildlife snooping Zebra Death Glamourizing Insects sex voyeur, Antonio Guterres, the Hang Dogs sad face global crisis-stition and blues man, the UN Secretary General, bit Hackney to people to lust after their secretary, but he was, he missed out. Former UK health secretary in bafflingly persistent polyp on the public teeth, Matt Hancock. And he also saw off Pilar Snork, the Fictitious

entrepreneur, who this week launched a new social media app called Block, that automatically blocks anyone who either posts anything or looks at something someone else has posted very much ahead of its time. Also claims have developed a powdered internet service. You just have to add water for a 5G signal. but Patrick Dempsey has won. He's also beaten off, sorry, he's also beaten off the challenges of, well, you, James and me and producer Chris for Sexiest Man Life, how did he do it and why? Well, I think we've all had the Patrick Dempsey beats you off dream at one point or another in our lives, and it's... He's taken the title.

No one saw it coming. He didn't see it coming. No, that's quite sure why it's happened. Sire Calise, the South African rugby captain, exists. Rugby... Rugby Pures would probably point out Ardi Zavdi Xavier the world rugby player of the year, but as he's my cousin I don't really want to promote him for being super sexy in the general public

I just whisper it in his ear to give him the most supporting needs after World Cup loss But it's it's weird that the award is still going. It's weird that Patrick Dempsey got it, but since he's 57 years old and winning it, I feel it gives hope to many of us in our late 30s, early 40s. Late 40s? I've got to go late 40s for me. Yeah, very late 40s.

Oh, you know, and we should never forget that the two, I think it was the two three thirst winners at the back in the 80s were Mel Gibson and Sean Connery. So clearly an award for all men to aspire to. He's a 57 year old actor, which is like 30 in woman years. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. That's progress. That's progress.

I mean, I don't know how it's judged. I mean, I've never seen Patrick Dempsey unfurl. unfurl. As some just one handed backhand up the line or lean on a perfectly timed drive through extra cover. So frankly, I don't understand why he's made it to the top of this list. But there we go.

But... You know, Jokes aside, he's no Jimmy Anderson. And, you know, he really isn't a Jimmy Anderson. And I feel Jimmy's played long enough now. It's the one accolade that he doesn't have. Yep. And that's not enough people have been exposed to him. But also, why can't we break the mold? Why can't we get, you? Why can't we get someone less conventionally sexy

to be the sexiest man alive? You know, some sort of podcast host, maybe a satirical new show. Yeah. I'm right on board with that. Yeah, we could go alongside, cause I've got my various, I'm a trophy cabinet. I've got the least sexiest man alive title from a couple of years ago so to get the sexiest man alive title

that would be up going nicely alongside it. The sexiest podcasting man alive was Taylor Lautner who played the werewolf in Twilight so I feel like I have to dismiss all of these awards. Do you like Christmas music Andy? No, I hate it. Yeah, absolutely. I thought so. I still understand why for one month a year, all commonly accepted standards of musical tastes are abandoned.

What about Phil Specter's A Christmas Gift for you? Because that album is unbelievably good. Really? Yeah, that is a good album. It is. I'll listen to that is a good album. It is. I'll listen to that in June. Right. Like an absolute psychopath.

Yeah. But he's not a very Christmassy bloke. Was he? He was better. No. And he's got the voice of a pedophile. Yeah. He's not a ped up.

Well, not that I know of. Who knows? The voice of a murderer, maybe? A murderer, yeah. Yeah. If you really want to hear the voice of a murderer, keep listening to this outro. Thanks for listening. My own podcast, Richie Firth Travel Hacker, is in its latest season.

It's a sort of comedy show, sort of about traveling, but largely about two friends accepting they're not as clever as they once thought they were. Give it a listen now. See you soon. Bye!