The Bugle - Straight out the Bugle archives!

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

It's episode 4379A Buglers! This week producer Harry has rounded up a few clips of satirical ramble that we didn’t quite have space for the first time round. But don't worry we’ll be back next week with Josh Gondelman and Alice Fraser. If you like The Bugle ad-free and uninterrupted. Then why not join The Bugle’s voluntary subscription, with your support Andy and his cohort of co-hosts can continue to blast there trademark mix of satirical insight and shameless drivel all over the planet.🎧 Support The Bugle! Become a Team Bugle subscriber for bonus episodes, exclusive video editions, and the righteous satisfaction of funding satire:http://thebuglepodcast.com🎤 Get tickets for the LIVE episode of The Gargle HEREhttps://www.angelcomedy.co.uk/event-detail/the-gargle-live-fri-26th-jun-the-bill-murray-london-tickets-202606261800/📺 Watch Realms Unknown on YouTubeProduced by Chris Skinner, Laura Turner and Harry Gordon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

for a visual world. Hello, Buglers. I am Andy Zaltzman. This is Bugle issue 4,378 sub-episode A. For, at this very moment, the UK might be about to ditch yet another Prime Minister as it continues its headlong pursuit of full national failure, but we'll be back with the full episode next week to try to make sense of it all. For this week's sub-episode, we have some choice satirical ramblings and rumblings saved up from the last few weeks.

In our first bonus clip, hewn from the last few days of the little missed month of April, 26. I was joined by Nish Kumar and Alice Fraser, and we discussed the White House Correspondence dinner that thankfully did not end up how it might have ended up. Another attendee at the dinner was UFC president, Dana White. Yes, because it's four journalists, Andy. No one is doing more to further the cause of American journalism

than Dana White. He's basically Woodward and Bernstein. Wrestling as God intended in an oxigan. Oxygen, hexagon. I can't remember. Oxygarten. He described the experience of the breast dinner as awesome, which is not the words that most people would use about an attempted assassination of a head of state.

Now look, I love sport, but UFC is not a sport I've added to my overladen platter. Wow. Wow. We finally found a sport Andy Zoltz would get interested in. Aesthetically, it seems to be a cross between two people scrambling around on the ground trying to find a pen lid. They both claim to be theirs. The mating rituals of an extremely violent species of mongoose and an in-cells internal monologue. If Trumpism was a sport, if Trumpism was a sport, which it basically is,

It would be UFC. But I mean, describing an assassination attempt as awesome is, even by the standards of modern linguistic flexibility, it's kind of deeply unpleasant. No, and Andy, I agree with you. UFC is not a sport. There's no, unless it goes very badly wrong, there's no ball skills, you know. I mean, listen, I saw the Dana White. interview. I saw a few people who had been at that event being interviewed afterwards. And yeah, listen, if you're in a room where someone was shooting a gun, that is, you know, that's deeply

frightening. If they're shooting a gun at a head of stake, that also has another layer of being deeply frightening. But very little of that fear, which I imagine we would all have expressed everyone on this recording right now had we been there, did not seem to be present in any of the people who were actually in the room. And I mean, I can't explain why that is. I just, know that there have been times where I've been at a party, where some of the people at the party have been doing things that might lead them to not be able to express fear healthily. I can't prove this.

This is based on absolutely nothing, but I imagine the bogs at the White House correspondence dinner look like they'd been a heavy sneezing fit by Tony Montana. I thought you meant they've been praying, particularly. hard. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They're men of the cloth,

just like all the stockbrokers in the 1980s. Those people were praying really fucking hard. Similar body posture in some ways. Trump has also managed to anger. Well, I mean, almost half the world's population in one social media repost, in which he reposted something from Michael Savage, the right-wing podcast host and provocateur,

or as they used to be called in more simple, civilized times. Trump reposted Savage saying a baby here in America becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family in from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet. So actually that's, as well as China and India, It's everywhere else as well. It's like the entire planet there.

Trump also posted a video of Savage saying these comments. The Indian foreign ministry spokesperson described the remarks as obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste, the triple 20 of social media, and added, they do not reflect the reality of the India-U.S. relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests. Well, Mr. Foreign Ministry spokesperson, you might want to click refresh all on that one. Times have changed. Use to respect, shared interest.

Only one of those four words is in the Trumpist lexicon. And to give you a clue, it's not one of the first three. Listen, man, this guy, I was previously a huge fan of Donald Trump, but this week he's really razzed me off. He's slamming Britain and he's slamming India. That's both of my identities. What's he going to slam next? Bob Dylan fans with bowel problems.

This is a disgrace. It will not stand, except apart from the fact that it almost certainly will stand. But yeah, the sort of repost is contentious enough. I mean, describing most of the world's population is living in a hellhole is not ideal. But it also comes off the end of a series of policy-based problems that the Trump administration has created for the Indian community. Most notably, this massive crackdown on H-1B. visas, which are commonly used by Indian tech workers. So it's not just the fact that he's calling

it a hellhole. He's also sort of saying, you know, we're going to make it more difficult. And what I would say is, if the Trump administration is planning on cracking down on Indian tech workers, good luck maintaining the US tech industry, motherfucker, okay? What are you going to do without Indians? I'm very sorry, you're in real trouble. Let's be real now, regardless of your ethnicity, if you need tech support, medical advice, or anything from a shop, you don't trust a non-Indian. This is a hugely catastrophic decision. A congressman Ami Berra, who's a Democrat, whose parents are Indian,

has called the Post-Po Trump, offensive, ignorant, and beneath the dignity of the office he holds. Listen, we've got to get well-meaning Americans to stop saying things like, this is beneath the dignity of the office he holds. At what point are you going to understand that dignity is a foreigner, Like all foreigners, Donald Trump has no time for it.

It's a crazy state of affairs. I was really struck by how little everyone's learning. Because when I was in America a couple of weeks ago, it was when he got rid of Pam Bondi as the AG. And people in the press were openly celebrating that. When are you all going to learn your lesson? He's not going to ever respect the dignity of the office. And if he gets rid of one of these morons,

he's not going to replace them with someone better. If you cut the head of hydra, it doesn't grow back as a puppy. He's going to repeat best-case scenario kid, and worst-case scenario, a dog who he saw on the internet who's bark kind of sounds like the N-word. Like that's where we're at with these people. Yeah, I do feel like it's, you know, not to minimize the offence felt by half the world's population, but I have toddlers. The way you discourage bad forms of attention-seeking behavior is sometimes you just ignore

it. Otherwise, they learn how they're going to get you. You know, Trump's is. Trump's done the equivalent of spending an entire lifetime just honing the exact right, ma'am, a tone of contempt. Okay, so I was in the secondhand shop the other day, and there was a 60-year-old lady there with her 90-year-old mother. She was like in her late 60s, and her mother was like serious 90,

and the 60-year-old lady got bored of being in the second-hand shop, and her mom was still up the back of the shop on her zimmer frame, and the 60-year-old lady stood in the doorway, and she went, ma'am! And I turned around. So what I'm saying is there are some universal and you just have to learn not to react. Those are words we can only pray and hope, neither of which are at all, both 0% effective right now that the world has made heed to. Alice, interestingly, we're getting breaking news that Trump is actually diverting a lot of US financing for technology into developing the universal dog whistle.

So that couldn't be. More from Alice and Nish later. The previous week, Tiffany Stevenson and Neil Delamere were my co-host selected from just over 8 billion contenders, and we simultaneously marvelled and shuddered at the latest in the catalogue of extraordinary but fundamentally pointless technological creations, marathon running robots. Don't tell the robots I said this, because when they take over, they'll come for me. But I'd rather watch this than horse racing, at least if these robots get injured, right? they won't feel it. And I think it's quite exciting.

I think we should make it more realistic, though. We should have them, if it is a proper marathon, we should have them stop at the side of the road for a shit. We should have them throwing water over themselves as the crowd cheers them on, maybe make them eligible for sports personality of the year, still more personality than some of the snooker players who have won. Shot across the bows, Andy.

Shut up. He's never one of sports personality of one. He's never one sports personality of one. the year. I think you might need to go back to the 80s if at all for a snooker player winning. Didn't Steve Davis win it? Steve, Dave, I'm going to have to check this now. He may well have done. Let's see if I can get a list. You carry on. I'm going to look up. Well, I think what we should do as well is that we get some posters of these robots and we get a calendar of the Beijing 300 competitors, just the fittest robots in the race.

singularity will have happened when they make the cover of Sports Illustrated and everyone starts whi-ing over them. What do you mean? Starz? Listen, I'm an early adopter. That's all I'm going to say. I find this disgusting and amazing in equal measure. Disgusting because there was a load of a load of humanoid robots in that half marathon, Tiff.

and Andy. Not one of them did it for a charity. Not one them. None of them got sponsored for anything. I'm not asking for a human charity. Give a few quid to the repair shop of BBC One. It can be a robot charity. I don't mind now. But I'm also kind of amazed because it demonstrates robots are running half marathons. It demonstrates that the technologists now can replicate human quality so well that they can program a robot to have a midlife crisis. It's, it's, it's, Kind of remarkable. Do you remember when you used to see robots on robot wars? And it was just always a, it was a team of four lads, all called Steve, for some reason, and they would have a Roomba with a pitchfork attached to it, and now suddenly we're at the singularity, right?

We're all going to die. Robots are going to win every single sport. And it's weird putting metal onto a robot if a robot wins an Olympic medal. It's just like putting a skin graft around a human. It's the stuff for me. And as we're running against them in a race, you can't even get in their head. Like you can't trash talk C3PO. You're just a big camp oscar statue.

We are so of our own destruction. These things are going to wipe us out. I just feel like a Native American looking at a pilgrim father going, no, there's fresh water over there. No, I wouldn't eat that. No, no, listen. You listen to me and I will see you right. A blanket from me, you shouldn't have.

it's not a good idea. A midlife crisis robot, I love the idea of like dating a much younger robot. I don't know what that would be. Is it a nano? Are you dating a nano? That sounds like an older robot, doesn't it? Oh, a nano's an older robot.

Okay. I'm seeing a neutral bullet. Ooh. He's a firecracker in the bridge. Woo! I have to replace my motherboard to keep up. I can confirm only one snooker players ever won the BBC sports personality. That was Steve Davis in 1988.

Wow. I stand by my joke, Andy. The week before the robots ran into the future, I was joined by Anavad Pall and Sarah Barron. And if you would like to hear what we thought about the story that the British Bitcoin entrepreneur, Adam Back, is not the founder of Bitcoin, according, to himself at least, and about reports that the earliest recorded octopus has turned out not to be an octopus at all. Then have we got a treat coming up for you

right now. In other denial news, now a British man has denied that he was the creator of Bitcoin, having been named as such by the New York Times. Adam Back has said he was not the man who

created Bitcoin, known as Satoshi Nakamoto. And I'm delighted by this because look, with something like Bitcoin and, you know, I've said over the years, I'm not a huge fan. I'm skeptical enough of real money,

let alone pretend money. It would be so disappointing if the whole mysterious hyper-secret have been invented by someone with a name as prosaic as Adam Back. You wanted to be

something like Genie App Shudacore the third or Trillicent, Fantas, McGorgue or Garthrood Katoam or Zygote Q. Wamp. Adam Back, I mean, if it turns out that someone called Adam Back had created Bitcoin, I think the whole thing would just collapse overnight to its fundamental real terms value of absolutely nothing. No more Bitcoin. I was thinking, what if this person isn't actually Japanese?

It'll be like the Rachel Dolazol thing all over again. Like there's a cultural creation component to this. Yeah. I also, I just, I can't hear the name. name Satoshi Nakamoto without thinking of Kaiser Sosei. Well, in that movie, the guy who hires Kaiser Soze, his name is Mr. Kobayashi. Oh, my God, of course. So it's, can I just say that there's a lot of brilliant things in the world that have been done

by middle-class, middle-aged Englishmen. Yeah. And I think because they have such ordinary names, they're just embarrassed to go out into the world and say, for example, I think this big New York Times expose to find the founder of Bitcoin came after the Reuters expose to find Banksy. And after all the digging, they realized it's probably a guy called Robin Gunningham from Bristol who supports Millwall. It's just a very ordinary guy. And they just can't, I guess, middle-class England can't fathom how just a guy. Just a guy. like that could also be

Bexie. So, you know, this guy he probably, Andy, listens to you on Test Mat special. You know, play squash. You know, and but is the founder. He needs a karate kid name. He needs Satoshi

Nakamoto. It's very hard for genius to come from a guy called Gary from Cheltenham. I think it's difficult. There are various rumors as to who the real identity of the Bitcoin creator were, including Banksy himself, albeit that's a rumor that I've literally just made up.

Other people on the list include Al Gore, the former vice president, God, who's remained eerily quiet on it, maybe focusing on other stuff right now. Well, it's called Bitcoin, Jason Bittner, the American thrash metal drummer, best known for his work with the band Shadows Fall, hence this is the name, Bitcoin, and if you transcribe the rhythm of his drum solos, it spells out the blockchain algorithmic infra code that underpins the whole Bitcoin exo structure.

Have I used the right terminology there? Another rumoured creator is F. Lon Musk, who's the secretive sixth child in the Lon Musk franchise. Big Bird, that was for an episode of Sesame Street that went wrong and was never broadcast. And the 17-year-old long-hand paper coding fan Barfield Mount Nodger who wrote out some code one afternoon some years ago in the park whilst his friends were playing with a swan, chucked it in a bin where it was found by a passing

granny who typed it into her new computer and accidentally invented a new currency. So those are the other possibilities and hopefully someday we will know. I would like to invest. I'm just putting it out here for everybody to consider. I'd like to invest in Zaltz coin. Right. a currency that you could translate into cricket match tickets. You know, I mean,

that Bitcoin has risen, I mean, there's a doge coin, which is based on a dog. There's Shiba Innu, which is a Japanese cat. These are all variations of blockchain currencies. Why can't we do money to cricket? Well, yes. I mean, there is sort of a version of that, which is that you can exchange your money for tickets to my tour shows currently.

Dates and details available at Andy's onsprud.com. Another denial this week is by a long-dead octopus, formerly renowned as the earliest known octopus, has now denied, or had it denied on its behalf, that it is actually an octopus at all. Anavab, you are fossilized Kefalopods correspondent. Is it unclear exactly how they worked out it was not an octopus? Maybe it just didn't taste quite so perfect with paprika? I don't know. What was the... What's the story behind this?

Well, apparently, the University of Reading did a study where they found that this octopus that's been on display, which is supposed to be the world's oldest octopus, is actually a very different animal. It's related to a modern animal called a nautilus, which is a multi-tentacled animal, a cephalopod with an external shell. So it's not an octopus, but apparently they're saying that that's also Banksy.

It's this thing and also the founder of Bitcoin. So it's basically all part of the same scam. So for years and years, people were going to see the world's oldest octopus and now realize that it's this animal that lives deep underwater, which looks like, an octopus, but isn't an octopus. And I don't know if people ask for their money back. I don't know how it works. Was this just not a case of someone

making a mistake and counting to eight incorrectly? I genuinely, with these stories of things that are like, how old is this thing? Was it like 400 million years? It's like, I can't do it. I get excited for the story,

ooh, an octopus. And you think, oh, that'll be like nice. That'll be like a nice palette cleanser as we read about war, death, the fire right and destruction. Oh, an octopus. And then it's like 400 million years in my brain is like, I can't, I can't. It's like when you go to museums and they're like, hey, want to look at a meteorite? And you're like, no, I can't take this. But you know, again, this throws a lot of things into a bit of a tizzy because, you know, pub quiz questions, for example, What is the oldest toptopus in the world?

And they always refer to this one. And you're absolutely right, Sarah. It's some three, four hundred million years old. And the biggest problem is the Guinness Book of World Records, called this the oldest toxicist. Now, who do they apologize to? Where do you pay reparations? You know, there's lots of topics here.

You can't just throw out trivia and have it been wrong, and had there be no consequences, then some severe beheadings need to follow. Something needs to happen. I know. It's really shaken my faith in them. And I felt like they're very, Guinness are very laser-focused with their business model of Irish stout and books of world records. Where are they going next?

They need to diversify because everyone's going to lose their faith in the fact-checking here now. And there are so many knowing ones. They always say, you know, seven wonders of the world. And someone will always say hanging gardens of Babylon. And it's never correct, you know, because it's not been one and stuff. So now, world's oldest doctor-tipus, this was holding for a long time. Yeah. this is just some rubbish, you know, cephalopod without a shell.

For some reason, this Sheffalo pod decided to take off its shell. And now, for us, all these years, we're all confused. Then what is really holding? You know, the ground is shifting under our feet. You know, if Mount Everest is not the tallest, you know, I mean, what record can we believe? What can we trust? I would have liked this story more if it was like, we've discussed. actually, octopuses didn't evolve until the 1990s.

That would have been interesting. And finally, for this sub-episode, more from Nish and Alice, and a special extended Director's Cut version of the Bugles' Biopic Review section in the bin, including a quick piece of bullshit fact-checking from someone whose factual accuracy I have been quite skeptical of for over 50 years now.

Me. This week we have a special biopics section reviewing all the latest biopics so this after the controversy around Michael, the Michael Jackson biopic, that critics seem to suggest does not cover all aspects

of the former pop star and no-time world snooker champion. So we review the First Lady on Mars which is a new biopic of Amelia Earhart, a bold if revisionist retelling of the story of

pioneering aviator Earhart, which claims that the reason her missing pain was never found was that she flew it to Mars. The First Lady on Mars has been criticised, like Michael, for a lack of scientific accuracy, both in showing Amelia on the red planet without breathing apparatus, and for claiming that she was First Lady at the time, having secretly married Franklin Roosevelt. The director Drellard But Clark said, well, we did take some creative Wiggly Room with the historically acknowledged story of Amelia, but we wanted to tell the truest story of her spiritual adventure,

which in many ways is more true than the actual true story. Besides, what are facts? No one gives a flying fuck about facts anymore. And as for the actual flying fuck scene itself, that's just to spice up the narrative of it. Starring Scorni Weaver is air-hot, Timothy Shalameh as Roosevelt, and Dwayne Rock Johnson as Big Bertie Brassballs,

King of the Martians. We also review Ozzie and the Boss. Ozzie and the Boss, you may well ask after seeing Ozzie and the boss, did Lee Harvey Oswald ever actually meet Bruce Springsteen, who would have been only 14, of course, when Oswald allegedly died.

Certainly it is, I think, an unconservatable fact to say that they did not win the men's doubles at Wimbledon in 1963. Hang on, let me just check on what I've got the wrong year for that. Gosh forbid. The potato doffinoise of bullshit is not historical. accurate in the one point that you chose to decide to make it accurate.

This is the first law of bullshit. Bullshit has to be accurate. Here it is, everybody. Fact-checking his own bullshit, the Andy Zaltzman story. That's the name of my controversial Andy Zoltzman biopic. Largely focused on his time editing the sports page of his university newspaper where he put several fake stories in.

That's actually true. That is true. The Oxford versus Cambridge Speed Sculpture Competition in 1995 as a classic. Anyway, it's certainly true. If we may pick up the bullshit where I left to check the factualness

of the bullshit. It's certainly true to say that Lehi Alvioswald and Bruce Springsteen did not win the men's doubles at Wimbledon in 1963. It was Mexico's Asuna and Palafox who won against the French bear, Barclay and Darmon. And there is also no record of a fist fight or javelin throwing during the match. We also review the other Michael film, which is a biopic of General Sir Michael Jackson, the former head of the British Army. Unfortunately, time for release on the same weekend as Michael, the Michael Jackson pop star biopper. Similarly questionable in terms of accuracy, the scene in which General Sir Michael wrestled Mano and Mano with Hitler on the edge of a cliff has had the history pedants up in arms.

But it's amazingly choreographed. And the culminatory tombstone pile driver move with which Jackson won the war is one that the undertaker himself would have been proud of. And finally, St. Peter Arab Slayer, tagline, the real story of the greatest US defense secretary in the history of the universe. tells the story of how Pete Hegsith developed from his miraculous birth in a single shaft of sunshine in the middle of a hurricane that destroyed everything else

within a thousand mile radius via Jesus' own personal blessing from the cross into Donald Trump's human eminetry on earth and heroic commander of all recorded crusades. There is some disagreement in the historical community

over whether Hegsith did actually throw a nuke down Osama bin Laden's throat at the siege of Jerusalem in the year 1099, but it's a f f*** a great scene in a truly amazing. amazing story. Have you guys seen any other biopics you'd like to chuck into this section?

Andy, I just have a very vivid vision of your, specifically your audience, your target audience, Andy, is just a person with an encyclopedia in their hands, but it's attached by an elastic to their wrist. So they're either checking you on facts or flinging it furiously across the room at the wall. That's what encyclopedias are for. I've actually had quite a series of unsuccessful meetings trying to get my Jeffrey Epstein biopic, bear with me off the ground. And like the Michael biopic, it doesn't dwell on the salacious details of his life, but rather focuses on his time as an options trader at Bear Stearns in the late 1970s.

And I've also been pitching a show. There were obviously a couple of films made about the Emily Maitless Prince Andrew interview. And I'm pitching my movie watching the Maitless Andrew interview about how I watched with a few of my friends whilst having a beer. Again, interest is low. Well, there you are, Bugler. That is your bonus sub-episode for this week. We will be back next week with the fantastic Josh Gunderman and Alice Fraser

for all the latest from this ridiculous planet and it's even more ridiculous current species in charge. Make sure also to check out the Bugle's sister podcasts from the wonderful comedic mind of Alice Fraser, realms unknown and the gargle. And there's a gargle live show at the Bill Murray in London on the 26th of June. Tickets on sale now. Alice is also

performing at the Edinburgh Festival in August along with various other bugle co-hosts including Tom Ballard, who show Be Funny Challenge, brackets, impossible brackets, is now on sale. It's at the Monkey Barrel at the Tron through August, 425pm, almost every day. Until next week, buglers, goodbye.

Hello, I am Andy Zaltzman, as you may know. The bugle, as well as being the world's only ever, longest running and arguably best audio newspaper before a visual world is one of the very few fully independent media empires remaining in this thus far very silly millennium. Our voluntary subscribing listeners have made this possible, and you, if you are not already one, can join them to keep our shows free, flourishing and independent for the rest of all eternity.

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