The Bugle - Rage Bait Bugle (Bumper Edition!)

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Recorded live in Melbourne, this week’s Bugle is a full-throttle Rage Bait Special, with Andy Zaltzman joined by Lloyd Langford, Sami Shah, and Alice Fraser to chew through the year’s biggest stories with fury, confusion, and jokes of questionable legality.🇦🇺 Australia: We confront the latest tragedies in Australia, and try (with limited success) to process them through satire, empathy, and yelling into the void.🇺🇸 Trump News: Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to do… whatever it is he’s doing now. We attempt to identify it, label it, and possibly quarantine it.📁 Epstein: We dig a little deeper into what we do and don’t know — and why this story refuses to go away.📆 And we rummage through some of the other best (and worst) stories of 2025, because there’s always more. Always. Angry, funny, cathartic — this is The Bugle doing what it does best, in front of a live Australian audience.🎧 Support The Bugle! Become a Team Bugle subscriber for bonus episodes, exclusive video editions, and the righteous satisfaction of funding satire:http://thebuglepodcast.com📺 Watch Realms Unknown on YouTubeProduced by Tom Wright, Chris Skinner and Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I will be in Australia for the next few weeks, hoping that the cricket can provide the distraction for everyone that it has so successfully provided for me since I was six years old. If you want to come to my shows, there is a bugle live in Melbourne on the 22nd of December, where I'll be joined by Sammy Shara and Lloyd Langford, and I'm doing the Zaltgeist, my stand-up show in Melbourne on the 23rd of December, and we've just added a possibly optimistic extra show in Sydney on the 3rd of January.

The 2nd of January show is sold out, but please, please, please come on the 3rd. My UK tour extension begins at the end of January All details and ticket links at Andesaltzman.co.com. Hello, Melbourne. The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Well, this is Showbiz. Welcome to The Bugle Live. Thank you all for coming.

How many of you've been to a bugle live before? How many of you listen to the bugle at all? How many of you have never listened to it? Yeah, right, okay. Well, what's, and you're sitting right down the front. Excellent. Welcome, so I do enjoy the show. So, there we go, that's the end of the music.

So, yes, so this is doubling up as issue 4,363 of the bugle. miss out about 3,800 episodes. So it's not with that. We have been going along. I've been going 18 years. Who's been listening since the very start? Thank you very much. Yes, this podcast is older than one of my children who is now legally allowed to drive a car back home.

So that is frankly fucking terrifying. So who we are, yes, the ashes might be dead, but this bugle is live. Um, uh, how many of your cricket fans? Uh, how many of you are English cricket fans? Uh, and let's just judge from tone of voice, uh, how things are going. How many of your Australian cricket fans? Yeah, that had pretty much three nil after three written all over it there, didn't it? So, um, so, uh, yes, uh, so this is being recorded and going out as our podcast for the week.

Uh, I'm Andy Zaltzman. This is not only the showbiz event of the year for the southern hemisphere. Fuck you, Taylor Swift. But also doubling up as issue 4,363 of the longest running best and only audio newspaper for a visual world. We are here in Melbourne. I can't hear you. I could actually hear you the first time. Sorry, giving away the show with secrets there.

The city which not only hosted the first ever test match in 1877, arguably the most significant moment in the history of the universe in terms of the advancement of civilization. Um, you agree with that, a big cricket fan? Yes, uh, anyone disagree with that? What? So, hands up if you're not a cricket fan. What the fuck are you losers doing with your lives? Why do you not like cricket? It's the greatest thing ever invented.

You're from Tasmania. Tasmania has cricket. Some very fine cricket is from Tasmania. Right. Uh, sorry? No stadium. What? Uh,

well, is that, is that a thought? issue. Because they've got a lovely stadium in Hobart. They wanted to build a new one. Yeah, they're like you. All right. With the, for the route, because they, yeah, because I mean, because the climate's not so good in Tasmania, is it, for cricket.

And, yeah, I mean, you just can't play cricket in a country that doesn't have a perfect climate, didn't he? So, um, so, um, so, uh, the, uh, Melbourne also hosted the first ever Australian open tennis tournament. Oh, the first ever Melbourne Cup. The first ever 1956 Summer Olympics. Apart from the horsey bits. Why do you people hate fucking horses?

You, I'll want me. The first ever Kylie Minogue. The first ever incarceration and execution of Ned Kelly. That's dear. The first ever Melbourne Mullet of the Year competition. The first ever moon landing. And that's a big secret. It wasn't in Texas at all.

It was on the set of neighbours, actually. Anyway, the first ever competitive worrying competition. Do you know that? That's where the origin of the Australian national phrase, no worries, dates back to the Melbourne worrying open of 1853. So it's largely a spider-based competition in those days. But also Melbourne hosted the first ever live bugle show in 2017, all historic landmarks in human civilization.

So yes, here we are. in Melbourne, Australia, which is an ancient Australia. I don't know if you know the etymology of the word Australia, it's an ancient Latin Anglic Sanskrit word for the place where English cricket comes to go the other way down the plug hole. So, um,

so, right, are you ready to meet our co-hosts for today's bugle? Excellent. Um, firstly, uh, if the internet works, um, uh, the bronze medal winner in most issues of the bugle co-hosted behind me and some other British guy who did the show for eight years before he decided to quit comedy and settle down and get a regular 9 to 5 job right now if the internet works

please welcome all the way from Sydney well that's a better reacting than Sydney usually gets here so a few booze that's why they had to build camera isn't it you people all the way from Sydney the wonderful Alice Fraser Hello Alice Hello Hello Andy Hello

Hello bugle audience in Melbourne How are you all There you go There's Alice down that camera Everyone wave at Alice There you go You're very obedience Good

Well happy Happy Christmas Alice Thank you Happy Hanukkah Yes I am very lapsed. They're still passive. I'm still constantly aware of my heritage.

I've always had this really, really weird, lifelong fear of people attacking the end of my penis with a sharpened blade. I don't know where that can't look at him. So you have... And a sinister solstice to you too. How's Sydney? What's Christmas in Sydney light?

Is there a different Melbourneian Christmas or sitting Christmas or no No, okay good I'm glad I cleared that up but you have two young children so how excited are they Alice they're what four and two

is that about about right I haven't told them about Christmas yet but it will arrive with crushing force in the next two days I've just been holding off because they don't know what time of year it is I feel like I can get all the Christmas excitement done in about three days

that is a lie of course I'm not withholding the joy of Christmas for my children you believe me for a second didn't you? Although that said, I did introduce my daughter to technology and media chronologically. So I started her on like Buster Keaton. Also

joining us live at least three dimensions, possibly more, all the way from Melbourne via Wales and Pakistan, Lloyd Langford, and Samishire. There we go. Right. See, thank.

We panicked, we didn't know how to get out for a second. Lloyd joined us for the Light Bugle four years ago. Quite a curious time for Australia. So you've lived here now five, five years, six years? Yes. Yep. It was a planned six-month trip. uh in february 2020

they're immigration department official just finding out right now a geopolitical era uh sammy you've lived here you moved here in 2012 um so just look look i don't want to pin this on you entirely but 2011 was the last time england won a test match in australia so Are you going to like take the blame for that? I think what I did was I lifted the blessings off of the Pakistani cricket team and shifted them to the Australian cricket team.

So it's entirely my fault that we're winning, yeah. We are recording here on the 22nd of December, Bugle 4363, which is also how basketball England think a test inning should begin. On this day in the year 401, Pope Innocent I was elected. And do you know what made him unique as popes? As popes go? He was the only Pope to succeed his father as Pope. Now that's...

I don't know how that got through the committee stage there, but not traditionally a family business, but... I feel like Innocent the First was misnamed. You know, laying it on a little bit thick, I think. Yeah, he loved to... yeah which was his motto but in latin people didn't know what it meant so you can get away with anything in latin in um uh in 1807 uh the u s passed the embargo act forbidding trade with all foreign countries uh something the current incumbent of the white house uh might want to replicate

in 1851 the library of congress in washington dc burnt down maybe something the current incumbent of the white house the replicate in 1968 Nicole trollter reverend The People's Daily posted the instructions of Mao Zedong that the intellectual youth must go to the country and will be educated from living in poverty Which might be something that the current incumbent in the White House might want to replicate In the on the 22nd of December 1970 the Democratic Republic of Congo officially became a one-party state Which might be something that the current incumbent of the White House Don't know how many more of these can do before they start to In 1929 a large fire broke out in the West Wing of the White House serious

and on the 25th of December Nort BC a controversial celebrity Nepo baby was born who had become viewed as a divine being and have a religion formed in his honour something that the current incumbent of the White House is blatantly trying to replicate As always a section of the bugle is going where

It's going where Melbourne I realize that that might be a little confusing if you've not listened to this show before so it sort of began as In the bin there you're catching on Yeah it's fun isn't it in the bin And this week in the bin we have a bugle Christmas gift guide Alice you have been looking around for the best

Christmas gifts to advise everyone here and our listeners around the world to buy. Yes, yes indeed, Andy. The best Christmas gift for the angry father in your life if you have an angry father in your life or you are an angry father. The best gift that you can give to him is a toilet. It doesn't need to be attached to anyone or anything,

but it does need to be in a private place. It's apparently the only place that men can think. You can buy it for about $200 in any. Warning's warehouse and just put it on a shed, put it in a shed, put it in the back garden if you like. The second gift is for the, I'm going to, can I just find it? The second gift is for the lonely mother in your life, the lonely mother in your life. What you can get for her is a partner who's going to help with any of the care tasks around the phone that costs nothing but time and energy.

This is also, do you have any gifts that you want to suggest for people? Well, I've got, well, a few facial accessories, because, you know, we live in the age of facial vanity, and we live in an age of very kind of oppressive and quite negative news. So I've got the latest facial accessories for people who like to read the news, but also like to have a face that doesn't look like it's sinking in a pit of despair. So we've got the fake face frown iron where you simply decrinkle your forehead with the frown iron. It flattens your face into an expression somewhere between tolerance, indifference, and lobotomy. The Hermitics ear shed, which is model on the traditional garden shed,

but it provides a fully 30% soundproof encasement for your ears, so you can't hear the news, but also has storage space for a small facial lawnmower and an eyebrow hose. The chirp easy grin prism, which makes it look like you're smiling when you're actually miserable as... Using the physics witchcraft of light and glass, the grin prism turns your down-in-the-mouth,

sad pout, into a mildly convincing grin. The kind of grin a British person gives you when saying, how lovely to see you again. And whilst desperately sort of remember your name or remembering how much you disliked each other the last time you met, and the Stoicorp's stiff upper lip, which is made of Patagonian granite,

the stiff up lip in it, ensures you can look impassively unmoved, even when almost all of the most important people in the world are complete. So, Christmas shopping, Lloyd, how are you done? I have a four-year-old daughter who is, at the moment, obsessed with rock and roll music. Sure, I said, what do you want for Christmas?

And she said, an Elvis Presley costume. and I have bought that and I let me tell you I am furious to discover as I was wrapping it earlier on today that the wig is not included She's skin sparkly tight She will be the only

toddler in the playground in a sequin jumpsuit So so Alice is You've been showing your kids Buster Keaton. You've got your kids on classic 50s rock and roll. Sammy, what part of human cultural history you imposing on your kids? I've got a 16-year-old, and I don't know if any other people with teenagers know this,

but retro stuff is back again, and they're now collecting CDs, and she asked for a CD player. She also asked for a record player, cassette player. Everything's retro, so I thought I'd take it all the way back to the classics, and I got her a clay tablet and a chisel. and like get to it is what I plan on saying and yeah I expect the code of Hammurabi by dinner time

I'm excited Top story now and well let's start with Australia. Great news for Australians it's going to be almost impossible to get to America Sammy this was a classic news story on ABC

it said that the US plans to force foreign tourists to disclose social media histories but in order to make it interesting to ABC readers they had to include the phrase including Australians

just just to make sure that tourists or indeed humans that Venn diagram does cover Australia but I mean this is I mean this could could change the world this piece of legislation.

It's an interesting piece because it does say that to be able to get into America, you have to share your social media handles going back five years. And that goes out now to Australians, New Zealanders, Brits, the French and the Japanese, which to me, mean, congratulations. America has now finally achieved global equality. Everyone is now being treated like a brown person at the airport. It's a wonderful moment. for all of us. What's crazy, they said five years,

and five years is right back to 2020, which is just where the pandemic hits. So everyone from Melbourne traveling to America will just have social media posts about, wow, this sourdough thing is going great. And then you just watch a human soul degrade over time on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. So yeah, that will be depressing

for whichever customs official has to go through that. Lloyd, is this going to dissuade you from going to America? I'm just wondering, like, are they, like, what are they checking, you know, because I agreed to buy a couch on Facebook Marketplace, and then I changed my mind because, like, I got, yeah, I was like, Marjorie, that is not a pattern, it is a fucking stain. I'm not taking this for 80 bucks. I feel like, I mean, maybe it's a privilege,

but I don't want to go to America when he's the president. So I don't, I have absolutely no plans to visit United States of America when Trump is the president. Similarly, if you had like a great package deal for me to visit like the killing fields of Cambodia, I'd be like, no, it is tempting,

but I will not go. You're going to interest you into a comedy gig in Saudi Arabia. Alice, this is great news, isn't it, for Australians? Any small temptation to go to America surely has now been crushed? Because you were advised not to go early this year. I was. I was told by an immigration lawyer not to bother applying for a US. visa because I've done too, quote, too many jokes about Donald Trump.

I am aware that when they search me on the database, the first thing that comes up is me saying, I wouldn't take an I owe you from Trump if he wrote it on the money he owed me. And now that is topped off by the story on the front page of The Guardian about how I canceled my tour. They're not even going to let me go there for fun, which is a shame because I follow at least two Disney adults on YouTube. and I was starting to think it would be a nice idea to go set fire to $5,000 to $10,000 Australian dollars. Well, I mean, it's great news. Social media's going really well,

particularly for the young people of Australia. They've been banned from using social media, and I've heard that all of them have instantly stopped using all of it forever. Is that how it's panned out, isn't it? They're always shopping in Mordialik now. It's a very local reference, I'm sorry. Come on, Andy. They need to do the other, like if they're doing children, they need to do the other end of the scale as well.

You know, like old people that are sharing, like, photographs of missing dogs from, like, a different continent. I don't think this dog that went missing in Jamaica is going to be in Melbourne. Like, it's a poodle, it's not Ferdinand McGowan. like it's yeah although he never actually made it back home he only got up our plate rather um

Alice I don't understand the negativity on this genuinely Andy remember like laws have to start somewhere they used to let toddlers drive tractors and then eventually they brought it in

as a law that you're not allowed to drive a toddler unless you're at least seven and a half years old did I say drive a toddler A toddler is not allowed to drive a tractor anymore The point is that laws have to begin somewhere I don't understand why everyone's against it Everyone's like oh you know

The Australian government trying to impose their will And their ideas and like their ideas of what a teenager should be allowed to see Instead of like Why do you trust the Australian government Less than you trust Mark fucking Zuckerberg I do not understand with the morals of your children that he's willing to like feed them

like the extremism algorithm pipeline straight from like looking at cute girls with boobs to Andrew Tate like shoving his horrific misogyny down your throat and the Australian government is like maybe we should try to stop this and everyone's like Boob Buzz Kill let our boys become misogynist

woo! Like I don't let them live We can trust their judgment they're 14 In terms of going to America though I guess it makes you probably think

either never go again that's a logical choice I mean going to America right now as Lloyd was saying is like booking to go on the Titanic whilst you are on the Carpathia the ship that came to the Titanic's rescue taking in wet cold people off lifeboats

or it's like going to Melbourne for the fourth test of an ashes series Is it? Jay Giff it. There you go. Australian. Oh, big you. Lloyd, Australia has been

well, rock to its core by a piece of rock or an alleged piece of rock that an Australian man claimed was a meteorite, claimed that his car windscreen was smashed by a meteorite and he is now in a battle with science

to prove that he was targeted from outer space by an alien rock where a sign to say there's no evidence it came from space but I mean this is I mean this gets to the heart of what it means to be Australian doesn't it

and this Well my partner Anne who is Australian was just about to go to bed and she was laughing away at her phone and she said I'll forward you this and it is this very story it is a man who is driving he actually wasn't driving

he was in a Tesla that was self-driving something hit the windscreen and the Tesla much like Elon Musk itself despite obvious problems just kept on going and

he he thought it was a meteorite but it melted the windscreen and cracked the windscreen of his car, but it was a Tesla, right? So it could have been like a

chummy M, a fat insect. I got an Uber in a Tesla recently, and the guy he was at pains to show me a sticker that he'd put on the back of the Tesla which said, I bought this car before he was a

fascist. And I was like, you didn't buy it before he was a fuckhead, though, right? Anyway, the guy Windscreen's melted but there's no evidence of meteorite and he's gone to scientists

and everything and they were really, really keen for it to be a meteorite but there's no meteorological evidence so I got some alternate theories possibly a lethal out-swinger from Mitchell Stark on a particularly bouncy Adelaide wicket.

The man was a vet, so I thought it could have been a kamikaze attack from the grieving family of a duck he couldn't save. Nobody knows what it is, and he couldn't find the meteorite. Also, perhaps entirely unrelatedly, in his anecdote of what happened, he says that a truck did drive past him five cents, seconds before it happened. Um, you know, I mean, I guess, you know, as Sherlock Holmes, the Lou Reed of 19th century detective novels, uh, so.

So memorably said, when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. So I guess the vengeful duck family must, you know, that's the only possible. Alice, what do you suspect was, I mean, is this an international conspiracy to target this one man? Well, I mean, if you see a picture of the man, he's in his 60s, I mean, the evidence is there for him being possible target for meteorite attack. He is a dinosaur, but who are we to know who is throwing stones at us in any given time? What is a meteorite but a rock thrown by the truck wheel that is space? And we are all in space in a sort of a real but not very relevant sense. So maybe all rocks that are thrown can be considered to be meteorites if you consider them in the wrong way.

Is Alice saying we're all in a Tesla hurtling through space space? I think you've just said that Elon Musk is God. I don't have to say that. He's got it covered. I mean, the man said glass went flying inside the car. There was white smoke everywhere, and we could smell burning. So it is possible it was an intergalactic space pope. The tricks us. Sent from another dimension.

We don't know. Between the Tesla and the belief that he's being. targeted by the universe. I'm just wondering when he launches his crypto coin. And how much? Could he make a crypto coin based on the fragments of his mysteriously shattered winds? Sounds to me. Well, let's move on to, well, the story that's dominated Australian news the last week or so.

It's been a sad and harrowing time for Australia, for Jews. I'm a, because I'm a, I'm very lapsed Jew, but, you know, I've held. I felt, I'm sure you all felt it deeply. I felt it not just because I'm Jewish, but also because I'm human and I'm not a massive fan of anti-Semitism. Partly, I think, because I lived in the second millennium, and I think anti-Semitism emerged from the second millennium as, at best, a tainted brand. There's times when comedy seems woefully insufficient, but at the same time, we can't let the fuckers win. So, I mean, how, looking back on it now, Alice, what's, I mean, how are you feeling about it? You're in Sydney right now.

Yeah, I'm going to try and say this in a funny way, but I'm in Volkloos right now in my dad's house and it's just down the road. And I had been intending to head down fish and chips. Bondi last Sunday night with my children and I only decided against it because my son is cutting a tooth and I thought the day was too nice. There would be too many people having a good time and then I stayed at my dad's house, Orpas house and we heard the chopper and then we heard another chopper and then my phone started going. My WhatsApp, my mum's WhatsApp group is the Bonda Beach mom's WhatsApp group. So, you know, I had anticipated Bondi would be crowded and stunningly beautiful. I cannot say I anticipated the screaming massacre part of the sunset,

and why should I? So I'm going to try and find some satire in this, but you're going to come with me for a bit. First, I feel like I cannot explain how beautiful Bondi Beach is on a Sunday summer afternoon. You have to be there to believe it. There are no words for how golden as the heat seeps out of the sun and sinks into the sea, how joyful it is, all the people in this place, in peace, sand blowing on their legs. I don't think the great wall or the pyramids or the moon with rocket ships has anything on this monument built out of safe people in the sun

in peace together, sharing light. What a colossal thing to have constructed out of will and I cannot comprehend anyone seeing that and going, oh yes, good, let's ruin it. Like, I can't bear going on social media right now seeing all my lovely, clever thoughtful friends saying clever thoughtful things, is trying to contextualize this as proportional to the whole of everything,

all the suffering in the world in other places. And it's not that that context isn't true. It's just that it's also a lie. You know, I keep seeing people saying what it's about. It's about immigration or it's about Gaza or it's about Israel or the Labour Party or the Jews or Western culture. It's about the Crusades. It's about Australia and why they hate us.

It's about hate speech and Islamism and our values. And it's fucking not, is it? Some of them, I'm sure, are right. But it's not really that. It's people who went to a place where other people were, and the people who came used guns to force pieces of metal into the bodies of the people who were there so that the insides of their bodies would stop working,

and they would die, and the rest is set-tracing. If this is what we're going to do, fine. Okay, all right, we get to decide that it's now fair game for all foreign wars to be played out of my proxy in Australia for a Ukrainian to firebom a Russian restaurant for a woman to mustard gas a Brazilian jiu-jitsu box in Broken Hill because Brazil's reproductive policies on health are terrible. Your dinner table rage on the criminal illegitimacy of America's bombing

of suspected Venezuelan drugboats means you get to bring an Uzi into McDonald's in Wagga-Wogger on the 4th of July because the manager looks like they own a MAGA hat and watches the Big Bang theory. Like it doesn't fucking work like that. We are here in Australia. I'm a member of the Bondi Surf Life Saving Club It's where I swam

It's where I grew up It's where I played I've walked I've patrolled those beaches My parents used to take us out Beyond the breakers into the calm waters Before we could even walk That's we as in me And my twin brother

It's not the royal we My nude pronouns aren't now We they plural My Bondi Beach's mum group On WhatsApp on the Sunday evening Was just like Is everyone here Is everyone inside?

Are you alive? Are you okay? Are your children? Are your partner? are safe? Are your neighbours? Are your doctors? Are you alive? It's two. It's three. It's 10. It's 10 and the gunmen. One of the gunmen and the little girl dead. It's 12.15. They're coming up the hill. It's just a rumor. Don't repost misinformation. Where's your dad? Where's your mom? Tell me that you're safe at home. The rabbi's wife. She's my next-orn neighbor. She's okay. She's

at home. She's safe. The baby. The rabbiq is dead. Clara's husband came home early to recharge his phone. It was out of juice. He put his baby boy to bed. The rabbi's wife is eight weeks postpartum a widow with five children. How does that happen on a Sunday afternoon and Jews make up 0.4 of a percent of the Australian population? And there's this weird, slight of thought that goes basically they're Israel because Israel is the only Jewish state. And if they're Israel, they're basically America. And if they're America, they're basically the biggest baddies there are. So it's actually fine to paint a swastika on a bagel shop. Like it's a valid intellectual position rather than a vile sin to treat Australian citizens or residents as

combatants by proxy to be held accountable in their bodies for the war crimes of a foreign nation. And it's not true. You cannot contextualize the massacre of Jews in Bondi as part of a war in Israel. It's not anyone who tells you that it is has acquiesced to the distorted and grotesque delusion that led a father and his son to spend a lovely Sunday afternoon slaughtering unarmed civilians. Well, that's, that was, well, an extraordinary thing, Alice, extraordinary response to the atrocity. There's other extraordinary responses, and the word extraordinary can mean many different things. And one extraordinary response came from Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel,

who, within 24 hours, blamed Australia for, The shootings. Now, if there was one person in the world, you would hope would not try to leverage a vast and bottomless tragedy into personal political gain and the furtherings of division. It would be, and I say this as a Jew, the Prime Minister of Israel. But sadly, this is 2025 and the Prime Minister of Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu. 24 hours of dignified, shared human grief and empathy should not have been a lot to ask, even of a resentment monger, provocationist and gold standard grief exacerbator of Netanyahu. Yahoo's proven class. He said Australia's decision to recognise a Palestinian state poured fuel on the anti-Semitic fire. Another way of looking at it would be that recognising a Palestinian state is an absolutely key phase in the process of quelling the anti-Semitic fire. And I think your Prime Minister responded with a great deal of dignity. He said this is a moment for national unity. This is a moment for Australians to come together. That's precisely what we'll be doing. And I know it's a bit old-fashioned to

expect your political leaders to try to speak for their people and their nation rather than for themselves and their media licksbittles. But I thought that was quite a good response. So, well done, Albanese. And it's hard to know how to end a section like this. It was, and when you do sort of topical, political, news-based comedy, there are stories that that are pretty hard to find any humour in and I feel we sort of need to address them and when the Garza attacks happened all comedians in the world we were all sent

a guidebook from the International Union of comedians and satirists it was entitled how to do comedy about the Middle East situation without offending antagonising or upsetting some or all of an audience and had in big red letters

warning do not skim read and it was about 600 pages long and it went and it's all the huge detail about how if you want to do material about the Middle East situation we have to try and understand everything about it from all sides of it or the

political failings involved the human tragedies on both sides the failings of the international community to facilitate a peace process going back decades the lines in the sand in that region of the world drawn by Western imperial powers, potentially including Team GB, back in the early 20th century, the religious divisions going back hundreds, thousands of years pretty much since God pointed at a bit of land and said, yeah, you lot can have that bit.

It's been huge, huge complications for centuries, millennia, even feeding in to the grief of today. And it tells you, if you want to do a routine about that, that's satirically valid, but also patched an emotional punch, you have to fast. actor in all these things and try and almost show your working in all the detail and then right at the end on page 599 it says probably don't bother you'll kill the vibe so so let's move on to thank you Andy there we go rest of the world news now and well let's go to America it is the tired of the rest of the world. Yeah, yes. I might as well just call this show

why there's so many in the world. But anyway, um, uh, yes, Donald Trump, the Beethoven of bigotry, the Michael Angelo of misogyny, the Leonardo da Vinci of ludicrously deluded vitriol, the Pablo Picasso parochial prejudice. There's one more. The Craig Rebel Hallward of

crackpot reactionary hate mundering. He's been in the news again for one of the weirdest pieces is a presidential propaganda in the proud history of the USA. He's been rewriting, there's the, I'm sure

you've all seen this, the pictures of all the previous presidents and he's rewritten the plaques with what can only be described as the deluded rantings of a f*** madman. Lloyd, you are our mad president's correspondent. I mean,

It is awful, but I find it deep down incredibly funny that the photograph of Joe Biden is of the auto pen that Trump alleges his staff employed to sign documents when he was unable to. The plaque about Joe Biden starts off by calling him Sleepy Joe and the worst president in America has ever had. and he blames Biden for the war in the Ukraine the Hamas attacks and the unpopular redesign of Sonic the head job like it is it is absolutely brutal

and he's just I mean there's some other ones as well that caught my eye that didn't quite make the news he accused Abraham Lincoln of being regularly unable to make it to the end of theatrical performances and he says Bill Clinton once put his cigar in a place

not recommended by both Cigar Aficionado magazine and the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society and he's written the plaques for his enemies but also for himself of course so he's got like some really wild claims that he ended eight wars in the period of eight months I think that refers to a period

where he was quite keen on the boardium risk I think that's beyond his capability to be honest I don't know how he's found time in his schedule Sammy to because presumably being President of America is a pretty long job and you don't have time to essentially write roasts of

your predecessor and the roast is the lowest form of comedy and I think it's an even lower form of plaque. Maybe that would kind of pep up some art galleries if you said people like Trump writing while this shark in a tank is obviously a

pile of shit. I do appreciate the fact that he did take the time to go through all the presidents though. That hasn't been covered properly. He wrote about Ulysses as Grant. He said, won the Civil War. Very good general, terrible president.

appeared though. For Warren G. Harding, he wrote extremely corrupt, extremely handsome. Had affairs did not hide them well. My trump is terrible, I apologize. Andrew Johnson, he wrote, worst president after Lincoln, did everything wrong, would have been

impeached today very fast, not as fast as me. And for George Washington, he even wrote, First President said many traditions, should have stayed longer, two terms is for quitters. So, yeah, I just thought that was a bit of him to do that, but the rest is point, yeah. Alice.

Oh, I was just going to jump in on the fact that you, I was once in a, after a show with you and a bunch of young men who would try to get you to come judge a roast battle. And I think, I think I'm quoting you correctly when you said,

I think my judgment would be that you're all losers. Thanks, Wendy. I think Well thanks for reminding me I stand by every word I mean it is a bit weird I mean it is odd that

you know the so-called leader of the free world is basically behaving like an over-indulged toddler wearing a what would a mid-20th century European despot do wristband and but you know they've had infantile presidents before Rutherford B Hayes invented the whoopee cushion did you know that and the phrase B Hayes yourself

that was his castphrase Chester Arthur wouldn't start cabinet meetings until every one of his ministers had done an impression of an animal and recited a bawdy limerick Lyndon B Johnson had a water pistol full of Tabasco that he'd fired into people's mouths if they made a suggestion he didn't like and John Quincy Adams

wouldn't discuss policy until someone had read a story to his pet hamster Gerald so this is also in America Trump's been criticised for redacting well the redactions of various elements of the latest Epstein files and

he was one of his colleagues basically tried to pass it off saying he was young and sort of single which Lloyd I think that's I'm not sure that's enough is it? Probably judgmental, but

I think people have been kind of awaiting the release of the Epstein but it's a bit like when you're anticipating like a new Wutang Clan album like it takes a really, really long time to arrive

and then when it does there's some absolutely wild collaborations I can't believe I can't believe they've landed Chomsky. It's a long time since I heard the words Wutang Clan. I've never heard them in such a glorious convalation. Of course, you know, Prince Andrew is,

obviously prominent in the Epstein Vosk. Sorry, yes. Symbol Andrews. Is that a real thingle? But the thing is, he's a very important figure for you here in Australia because he is the reason that you will never get rid of the monarchy. That the cause of republicanism in Australia is now stone dead because if you ever get rid of the monarchy now,

it will look like you are only keeping it. A bit of Prince Andrew. 2025 is nearly over. easily for me one of the six best years of the decade so far which you know is like you know say the I look for hoping these things because clearly this year has not been great but last year wasn't great the year before that wasn't great there's a bit of a trend emerging here really and so I've been

been working with the BBC on the the the cricket commentary during the ashes and I do the step that's not been great you say it you say it's not been great but actually let's try and see it in context the adelaide test england lost by 82 runs now you might have heard that england have not won in 18 matches in australia uh all five in the last three series the first three in this series so there's 18 consecutive games without a win but actually losing by 82 runs was england's third best result in australia for almost 15 years Yeah, let's hear it They had two draws

One of which they had their last pair Desperately clinging on the end But they count as better And that was the narrowest thrashing England has had in a decade and a half So let's Progress indeed So we're going to look back at the year

And we're going to do this in a couple of things We're going to start with Object of the Year what objects as most exemplified 2025 Lloyd for you what is your object of the year Well Andy The object of the year

For me Is the National Flag Truly a harbinger That society is going down the toilet Men are getting into flags again The men really love the flags and I am not into flags not being a pirate or a racist

I have Don't Don't give up on those dreams Lloyd I don't I just don't understand the concept of being proud to be where you're from and that's not just because I'm well

I just I mean in general Like it feels like a weird thing to me to be proud of It's like I'm proud to be Welsh or I'm proud to be Australian Or I'm proud to be from wherever I am It's like it had nothing to do with you right It was just where your mum was when you fell out of her Like if she'd given birth to you in Switzerland

Right you'd be off your face now on fondue And getting uncomfortable anytime anyone mentioned the Second World War Like I I don't understand it like if your mom gives birth to you KFC, do you refuse to go into a red rooster? I just it's such a silly thing.

Like I, um, there's a guy near me and he has three Australian flags on his house. Three. And I'm like, I, like, one is like a warning, like a,

a red flag, if you were. But we've like, with blue and white on it as well. But, In three, like, and one of the flags is over his upstairs bedroom window, right? So I'm thinking every time this guy wakes up in the morning, he opens his curtains and he sees the national flag. Like, this guy, right, loves his country so much, it is preventing him from seeing his country. I just, I wish I could be that patriotic.

Like, and our flag, the Welsh flag, is a stupid one, obviously. Because we have a dragon, and yeah, as far as I'm aware, they have never existed. Well, I think a dragon's appropriate for Wales. You know, it's country best known for its obsolete sources of fuel. We could have had a dinosaur. Like that would have been legit, like a T-Rex or something, because they existed, you know, unless you're a Christian. And of course, I mean, England flags,

well, just England flags is pretty much a summary of what's happened in England over the last 150 years, to be honest. Just a general, just kind of gradual deflation. And I do think when it comes to patriotism, it is a kind of weird thing. I'm not very good at it, I don't think. But people, don't you say, we should be proud of your country.

I think it's going to be proud of your country. You also need to be then ashamed of the bad bits as well as proud of the good bits. And I think maybe there needs to be a new system whereby, and it's kind of judging how great a nation is, that countries should lose both their greatest achievement, but also their worst atrocity. So under this scheme, for example, Spain would lose both the paintings of Picasso, but it would also lose the, you know, systematic extermination

peoples in Latin America, but it was also lose the siesta. That's the greatest achievement. I realize I've also set up to that joke. And also under this system, Britain would lose both the British Empire and the British Empire. I do like the idea of the three flags

for the house. What if he just forgets which country he's in every morning? And think I thank God it's still Australia. They haven't moved. Yeah. Do you not wake up sometimes thinking, is that New Zealand or Australia? How can you tell? Sammy, what's your object of the year? My object of the year is the Laboubu. For those of you who like myself, did not know what the hell that thing in the windows ors of the shops.

It's called it Laboooooo. And I actually, I like it. Because in a year when the internet made business model out of Fury, The Lubbubu has done a very radical thing. It just means nothing. It's a thing without a message. And I really appreciate that. It doesn't optimize for engagement.

It doesn't demand an opinion. It just kind of sits there looking slightly cursed and completely disinterested in discourse. It's like a fair tale creature that's already seen how the story ends. And has opted out. For me, it's a good symbol of what I wish 2025 had been like for myself. something that just exists quietly bothering others

with its presence, but not actively do. Yeah. I aspire to be like a little boo-boo. I think there's definitely something to be said for the void. Ascens you were saying it's nothing. Yeah, absolutely. It is the absence of meaning which gives it meaning.

Yes. Thank you. And that total sense of nothingness which certainly our Prime Minister back home has tried to leverage it for political popularity. Alice, what's your object of the year? Thank you, Andy. My object of the year is the new old face, specifically the deep, plain,

facelift face. Now, you might say, Alice, I object. A face isn't an object, which I would say, if it's not an object, why are they lifting it? The people who get them done, the people who get them done,

are certainly accepting and or embracing and or perpetuating their own goddamn objectification. I don't I don't want to age like that, Andy. I don't want to be a smooth, slippery, pauless proportionately optimized AI slop-face drenched in peptides over which every single one of life's experiences

slides off like a dildo on an oily beach bolt. Family show. I want to age like a ruined castle. I want everything that has ever happened to me to be carved over every inch of my face and body. I want people driving past at a distance to go, what happened there? I want them to pull over and go on Google Maps to find out if I'm a site of historical interests. You can approach, but you need to hire a tour guide. There are crevasses.

Three stars. I mean, I've got to admit I have had some work done I actually naturally have a luxuriant head of dark brown hair I just want to make myself look wiser My object of the year was something I saw in the street in Dublin when I was on tour there and it was a unicorn balloon that had deflated and was in a puddle next to a bus stop.

And I thought, if one object mirrored the crushed hopes of humanity, it was a deflated unicorn. Can there be anything sadder than a deflated unicorn? I don't know sure there can be. Yes. What was that? an old man eating birthday cake alone at a food court wondering where his defeated unicorn went

let's move on to word of the year now now alice the official word of the year from the Oxford dictionary was rage bait which in itself is a I think a form of rage bait because it's it's two words and it infuriates pedants but um and um no one likes a pedant obviously it's not strictly true to say that absolutely no one likes a petting and maybe like a um and could be uh what did you uh what did you make of this yes andy the color of the year is cloud dancer which is not a color and the word of the year is rage bait uh cloud dancer is just white

and rage bait is two words it's they're not even hyphenating. Secondly, it's got an ambiguous meaning. Is rage bait the thing where people say or do things that will make people rage respond in the comments section incentivised by the online algorithmic ecosystem that rewards only engagement as a bare number without taking into consideration whether the engagement is causing irreparable damage to the fabric of society? Or is ragebait the thing where you masturbate angrily to express your disapproval of something like one of those monkeys or the solo version of hate

for both that thing where you masturbate but in a deliberately annoying a rhythmic, incompetent and messy way so that people feel compelled to correct you in the comments section. What are the year for you, Sammy? It was

the alternative to rage mate which I felt were incontent. or it should have been in contention were engagement wank, which is the act of furiously posting opinions you don't believe in, but just so strangers can argue with you. So, for example, I don't care about this issue, but I got an engagement wank out of it. Algorithmic blueballs, which is a noun meaning the emotional state produced

when a platform teases outrage but never delivers resolution context or consequences. I watched 47 clips about the collapse of Western civilization learn nothing, classic algorithmic blue-bald. And finally, of course, a moral hard-on, which means the brief intoxicating feeling of righteousness experienced immediately before posting something unbelievably stupid. Example. I was deep in a moral hard-on when I tweeted that refugees caused inflation.

I just... I always... thought that engagement wank was the thing where you use the hand where they just put the ring on. Family show. Should we have some beer news now?

Yeah. Science has delved around and found that ancient humans may have started farming, not in order to feed themselves, but in order to make beer. They've studied

some remnants from 10,000 years ago worked out were they made for bread or beer which used similar ingredients and they worked out that it's quite possible that the reason farming developed as it did was because people were making beer and they decided to stop hunter gathering in order to get pissed

and look I don't know what these scientists were hoping to find from this piece of research I mean we ask this a lot on the bugle should they not have been doing something more important than than working out when

people started drinking drinking beer now clearly we have to try and understand it hunter gathering was hard work particularly if you didn't do any wall up hunter gathering before you first let it just go in randomly and try to just hope for the best

but too soon they didn't have Uber Eats back then and they didn't have unicycles or shopping trolleys either so is it just me that hunts on a unicycle maybe that's why I never get anyone but clearly being out and about trying to bring down a triceratops with a pointy stick or whatever it was that the non-vegans used to eat was long and arduous work and it took away precious time from more important tasks that the early humans would do such as drawing another sort of bison on the water of their

to go with the 40,000 other pictures of the fission on the walls of their cave It's the f***. Really? I think something else. Some most overrated artists of all time. So people wanted to get... Someone who's now claiming people wanted to get hammered and they're floating in the theory

that humans learn to farm because they wanted beer, not because they wanted to make it easy to make bread or lemon drill cake or dim-sim or hot dogs or timetams, but beer. And why do they want beer? Because it was f***git being a human 10,000 years ago. If you lived 10,000 years ago, you'd have wanted a drink.

Lloyd, I mean, this really... This redefines everything we thought we knew about us as a species, isn't it? This is our driving impulse. I'm probably the wrong person to talk to about this because I am still absolutely dumbfounded. When you buy a can of Stella, that on the can they say that they've been brewing it since 1366. Yeah.

And like, I don't know if you've ever drunk Stella. But like the people that were making, it obviously I've never cried it because I am the least productive I have ever been like they were they invented Stella

before the printing press yeah they had handwritten labels on the bottles in the early I mean it shows that it's you know that I mean drinking to forget is older than

civilisation it's essentially and it proves you know just it makes you think how advanced would we be as a species if we hadn't spent the last 10,000 years getting hammered you know you know we'd have some highly we'd be some highly evolved super being able to leave 50 meters in the air with one bound and write read and sell film rights to a book every 28 seconds we might even be able we might be so advanced as a species that we'd be able to resist the temptation to try an ambitious cover drive on a good length ball outside off stealth in a bouncy pitch that's how different things could have been had we not invented beer.

I do like the idea, though, that all of human civilization has just been one long pub crawl, it turns out, that does the track, because bread may have sustained humanity, but beer clearly motivated it, which explains why history is mostly wars, monuments, and people confidently doing things they absolutely should not have the... Oh I suppose you've got to read that on the screen England about to bounce back to a glorious 4-3 victory in the ashes

It's not over yet Melbourne So We do have to address this regrettably Who So again let's have a Give me a cheer for your English cricket fans

Yes Um Um That was the saddest, yay, I never heard. It's pantomime season, isn't you? It's behind you. What's behind me? Hope.

Ah, I think, I'm a competent wicket. So the question now, three nil down, as we come to the Melbourne test, is can England's come back into the series? and we look at some of the greatest comebacks. I have been coming. Jesus Christ, for example. I mean, he looked dead and buried. But

he bounced back as to become the leading messiah of his age group and a prominent fashion icon. Have you heard of Jesus? For those you not heard of Jesus, prominent turn of the verse millennium, Middle East based magician, raconteur and the influencer.

Other great comebacks, well, Britain itself. You think of Britain in 2025 BC? It was a barren, uncivilized wasteland, devoid of leadership, hope and functioning infrastructure. And look at us now. Then, you know, great Australian sporting comebacks. Golfer Travis Marsupio, the Australian golf legend, the 1927 Open Championship at St Andrews.

He found himself 31 shots behind leader Bobby Jones, at 25 over par at the halfway stage it seemed to have no chance at all having missed the cut by 17 strokes but he broke into the course overnight shot back to back rounds of 49 and declared himself an open champion before being arrested for urinating in a bunker

and disqualified for signing a scorecard with a cock and balls and of course Captain Scott famously bounced back from defeat silver medal in the 1911, 1912 Grand Prix Dan Tarktica but he didn't let his defeat get him down or indeed his death on the journey back and roared to victory in the

who can stay still for longest on a polar ice shelf competition so it's not all over it's not all over um uh sammy i know you're you're quite a cricket fan uh as a neutral uh objective observer i mean the ashes for me so far has been like uh henry the eighth as a husband um dramatic but unsatisfying what have you made of it I do have some advice for the for the English team the first is stop confusing politeness with sportsmanship

Australia doesn't play cricket it conducts a five test interrogation and England needs to learn that sledging is not banter it's a psychological operation that we're conducting and secondly have you tried bowling

I think that's how it's pronounced, yeah. Lloyd, any suggestions? Well, I mean, the England captain should just say best of seven. They should just keep extending it, you know? The problem with playing it in Australia, I think, is it, for the English, it needs to be in like a neutral territory. Because, like, it's too... You've invaded and owned 98% of the planet. There is no neutral charity for England, unfortunately.

A platform in the ocean. It's too hot here and the people are too happy and it unsettles them. They feel uncomfortable. So we need to play against more miserable teams. Now that it's over, they should just do like, schoolyard rules so all of the players line up against the wall and the captain's taken in turns to pit. That's how they picked the squad in the first place. You, um, uh, personally, um, I blame the Barmy Army for England's trouble. Who's a Barmy

army member here? Yes, a few in, uh, who travel around the world sporting England, but the Barmy army continued to sing in Perth, even when England started losing wickets. And as Shakespeare once wrote, if music be the food of love, play on, and Joe Root then played on, inside edge onto the stump. So that's all came from the Barmy Army singing their song, that. So, um, also we were just unlucky that Olly Pope was not as infallible as popes were supposed to be. But, um, and also if the maximum width of a cricket bat had been either bigger or smaller, it could have been a very different series or if all the balls have been swooped on and eaten by passing vultures.

And also, we're just unlucky that most sports, it doesn't matter if you hit the ball in the air and someone catches it. You know, we're just unlucky that it is in cricket. Golf, tennis, snooker, MMA. You've hit someone, balls in the air and they catch it. That's just part of the game, isn't it? I mean, this is the magical thing about this particular circumstances that I'm the only Australian in this conversation

and England is losing so painfully to Australia and it would be sort of quite a funny thing if I then rubbed your nose in it and triumphed and crowed about the victory of my nation over yours

but like I really don't care Oh no That's even worse At least content to care From one sportingale Um From one sporting

humiliation to another Anthony Joshua the former Olympic boxing champion former world champion has had a heroic victory in the boxing against Jake Paul

I quite like this as an event having watched England lose the ashes in just 11 days to think well at least that's not the most humiliating thing that's happened in sport in the last few days Lloyd you are our bogus sporting events

correspondent. What did what did you make of Jake? So basically it was a professional boxer former Olympic and world champion versus some twat off the internet and that's not really a fair contest is it? I'm all in favour

of the boxers fighting the YouTubers but I think the YouTubers should be at home on YouTube so they get a ring at the door they open the door and then the fight starts

I thought Jake Paul had an unfair advantage he was prepared and if he'd been at home you know maybe we would have seen more than a broken jaw I think I mean I'd extend that logic to a lot of sports

so the Olympic Games the Olympics is coming back to Australia in in 2032 and I think it's unfair that only athletes who are really good and train really hard I don't think that shows you what a nation is truly like I think it should be more like jury service

where the teams before the Olympics people just get a letter saying right you are you're doing the pole vault so well there's so many improvements I'd make to Olympic sports archery very dull would you agree shooting at a target

surely one v1 opposite ends of a stadium let's get it back to basics Sammy what other sporting events would you like to see along the I do like the idea though of the boxing versus YouTuber I feel like there's other professions that should face off against violent athletes

so I've got a list here Olympic fencer versus LinkedIn influencer the influencer the influencer must explain their authentic leadership journey while being chased by a person with a sword a Greek wrestler versus podcast hosts

the host represents every man who said hear me out and sumo wrestler versus crypto bro a 180kg man whose entire philosophy is balanced quietly escorts a hoodie full of imaginary money out of the ring in six seconds proving once and for all

that gravity is more reliable than blockchain is I'm into those any events you'd like to see Lloyd yeah I've got like a list to you a jockey's only Melbourne Cup

and it's the same with the horses so if the jockey drips and breaks a leg then they they come on with like a tarpaulin and a bolt gun oh I mean probably not a

you could use like a pillow case and a heavy spoon I've got one here literal squash so it's a game of squash but the walls are slowly um um

tennis, but there is a commodo dragon on the court. And this is my personal favourite. It's a royal knockout. How many members of the royal family can you render unconscious in the space of 24 hours? Bonus points for Andrew. I'd like to see boomerangs for boomerangs for boomers, which is where

boomers have to throw a boomerang and then they finally get to see a consequence coming back on them. But I'm afraid that you sent out of but I'm afraid that you sent out the email with the running order and the specific question was

what inappropriate sporting events do you want to see? So the one that I thought of was luge for only fans stars. It's the same skill of lying on your back getting rattled around but they get extra points for doing the face

that joke is family show that joke is brought to you by mainstream pornography so anyway I do hope you enjoyed it thank you all for coming please our wonderful co-host Lloyd Langford Samisha Alice Fraser

Thank you all, goodbye. And I'm sorry.