The Bugle - TASK ANDY

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

As Andy prepares for the launch of Taskmaster, we present a special edition of Ask Andy.The Bugle exists solely because you support us through one off and recurring donations, and we make it worth your while! For more info visit http://thebuglepodcast.com/donate.This episode was written and presented by Andy Zaltzman, Chris Skinner and The Bugle audience. Produced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ah ah ah ah ah ah! The Bugle The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello Buglers and welcome to Bugle issue 4314, sub-episode A for a huge amount of cricket. It means I can't record this week, but don't worry, we'll be back next week with Nish Kumar and Tom Ballard for our sub episode this week. We present for you a truly historic moment in broadcasting history. If I may overstate things quite wildly, if wildness can be quite wild, which in which case is probably not wild.

But anyway, the point is, this was truly historic in the universe of The Bugle, at least. For those of you who are already paid subscribers to this austere media institution, you know that Ask Andy is our monthly special show where you can ask me, Andy, literally anything, and I will possibly answer it as well as I possibly can. For those who have not paid subscribers, well, here at The Bugle we essentially live entirely on the support of you, our listeners. We take no adverts in The Bugle. Your contributions to our voluntary subscription scheme have saved me from the embarrassment

of attempting to convince you to buy pillows and leafy greens and other items to no doubt improve your lives. We did try it for a couple of years back in the day and it didn't entirely work albeit that I do now have a forest of pillows and greens in the garden. Every month on Ask Andy I'm joined by producer Chris the man who makes everything possible on this podcast. And we're going to play for you the first ever installment of Ask Andy. But before that, Chris, you have a special question for me, I believe. Yeah, well, let's give everybody a little bit of an exclusive here. Andy, it's a big week for television this week, like TV

huge has to handle you this week. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's a big week for television this week like TV huge has to handle you this week Yeah, I mean it's it's it's still pretty clear of that for nearly 25 years Well, it's a big dose. It's getting a big dose. So UK taskmaster kicks off 12th of September I've got two questions in one for you Andy, which is um What will buglers make of your performance on the show and what will non-buglers make of you? Oh, well, those are two difficult questions, Chris. I hope to start with I hope you'll all enjoy it. It was a lot of fun filming it, which is not something I've often said about anything I've done on television with the wonderful Alex Horne and Greg Davies who

done on television with the wonderful Alex Horne and Greg Davies who are known for the vast majority of my, can we call it, showbiz career. So it was a lot of fun as you may know from the publicity material I did all the tasks in full cricket kits including 1930s pads, gloves and bat and yeah this will make me one of the most recognizable cricketers in the country, which is what I've always dreamed of. Chris, given the little amount of cricket on terrestrial television, particularly cricket played in white clothes. Um, this is really as close as I'm ever going to get to my childhood dream of being some kind of cross between David Garany and both of them, something for

our American listeners there. Um, so I hope you'll enjoy it. I mean, I guess it probably, uh, buglers, it shows you what would happen if, um, I didn't have to talk about the news, um, and stuff like that. Um, so I don't know. It's, uh, it was quite interesting, it's interesting exploring that element of, uh, my comedic soul. Um, and I'd like to think I embrace the absolute lunacy of Taskmaster as a show. What non-buglers will make of me. I've no idea.

I've no idea. Taskmaster fans seem to be generally pretty open-minded about the comedians that they see on the show, because every show has a completely different cast of, of contestants. So, you know, you get to meet and learn about five comedians who you might already know you might not know. So they'll probably think what is a man in his late 40s doing wearing cricket kit. So I guess that's a question that I can't really answer, you know, other than the fact that why not so anyway we do enjoy it it's on channel

four from the 12th of September weekly for for ten weeks and I'm sure will be available on their various online offerings as well so there it is yes let's consider that plugged bugglers I genuinely cannot wait to see what foolishness you and your colleagues get up to. Yes. Cricket kit. Very useful on a practical basis, I would argue. That's what I've learned from that. Anyway, following that question, we are now going to play the first ever issue of Ask

Andy and it's going out to everybody, to all of you, in the hope that we can entice you to join the Bugle Voluntary subscription scheme. This almost 17 year old podcast has teenage needs and to help keep our show free, flourishing, independent and without having to try and flog you a mattress. So here it is, here is Ask Andy. Do enjoy the show whilst you're enjoying it, if you can multitask, buy tickets to my forthcoming tour show it starts on the 1st November the salt guys about 45 venues around the UK there's a Dublin date and hopefully some European dates to be confirmed soon as well and the show will be I confidently predict the best stand-up show I've done in years albeit I haven't done a stand-up show I've done in years, albeit I haven't done a stand-up show in years, but you can add the number of years after you've seen it.

Details at andysoldsmann.co.uk, my unusually up-to-date website. So that's, there's Altgeist at andysoldsmann.co.uk. I mean, it makes the ideal Christmas present. I mean, what else could, I mean, preemptive Christmas present or belated. If you want to give it to someone for their Christmas from last year or any previous year in history, you could give them tickets to my show as Christmas 1434. Why not? Because I'll be better late than never. Anyway, on now with Ask Andy. And as I say, we will be back with a full bugle with Nish and Tom next week. Hello, welcome to Ask Andy, the all new show for you, the premium subscriber to the bugle in which you can ask me and these Ultraman any question in the known and unknown universe this is a hugely exciting moment in broadcasting history our first special offering for our

premium level voluntary subscribers producer Chris is here to hurl your questions at me if you have questions for future episodes of Ask Andy, which will be a monthly offering to our premium subscribers. Do send them to hellobuglers at the buglepodcast.com and do put Ask Andy in the subject line. Also at the end of each edition of Ask Andy, I will have a question for you. This is very much a two-way street. So let's begin. Hello, Chris.

I'm very excited to be doing this, Andy. It's been a long time coming. It has, and it makes a welcome break from me still trying to work out what mastering means when it comes to doing this bugle vinyl record. So, so this side of the offering I'm really happy to be doing. Are you ready for a question? I'm ready for a question. This one came in on email

It was headed ask Andy Hey bugle team longtime listener first time caller. I'm particularly enjoying season 6 so much better than season 5 My question for Andy is this What is the one question you don't want to be asked? Cheers Michael? one question you don't want to be asked. Cheers, Michael. Oh, why would I tell you that, Michael? And that in fact is the question that I don't want to be asked. I particularly am not called Michael. Other questions, it's quite hard to narrow it down to just one question I don't want to be asked. I'm British, I've spent my entire life avoiding awkward questions, that's just what we do in this country. I

guess one of them would be where were you on the 22nd of November 1963 because my alibi simply doesn't stand up and I can't remember anything from that day so frankly I just don't know. Another question I really don't want to be asked is what will you do if test cricket ceases to exist because that is frankly an unanswerable question not just for me but for the entire human race and the entire universe. And also the question I really don't want to be asked is this one I think in a little further ahead so mr. Zoltzman why should I let you in when you've spent your entire life saying you don't believe in me and I

quote you on this religion and shit like that so those are the questions that are desperately want to avoid being asked. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. I would actually just like to know who that was at the gates asking that question of you in the first place. That's inconclusive still. Yeah, it'll all come out one day. Everything does. There'll be a leak from somewhere. Someone who failed to submit their name has asked a question to you Andy, but we'll include it because I like the question. Unless the name is a non of course. If Liz Truss were an England cricket captain who would she be? Well I mean that's triggered me to be one of the most harrowing questions I've ever been in fact can I add that to the list of

questions I don't want to be asked because but that you're asking me to to put something that I'm really unconvinced by into the thing I love the most. And when I say unconvinced by, I'm being as polite as possible on what is a family adjunct to a family show. But if I had to choose, well there's a couple of options from England's men's cricket team. One would be James Treadwell, the Kent off-spinner, who captained England in one match. Really? It was a T20 game in 2013 against New Zealand.

He lost the toss. The game lasted two balls, from one of which England lost a wicket and was then reigned off and he never captained England again. And I think that's in many ways that should have been the blueprint for trust to be in office for even less time than she was. And therefore to do less damage. If I had to choose a test match captain, well, it would probably be Chris Cowdery, who I've met a few times lovely guy, but he was an England captain for one game in 1988. He came in slightly oddly in the middle of a series that England were getting thrashed by the West

Indies and he captained for one game which England were thrashed in. He then moved on, England continued to be thrashed and that was him done as England captain. So again that seems appropriately Trussian, but you know if Liz Liz Trust were an England cricket captain, then I think that would be a surefire sign that the apocalypse was truly upon us. You don't think she's like a Ben Stokes, hyper aggressive, trying to completely radically change how we see the world? Right. I'm, well, maybe.

But I mean, I guess the big difference is results really and and longevity. Um, but you know, maybe trust has just done lucky, you know, Ben Stokes his first game as England test captain against New Zealand at Lords in 2022, England could easily have lost when he himself was out offered no ball. Um, and, uh, yeah. So upon such threads, maybe trust was just colossally unfortunate every single second of her six weeks in office or wherever it was.

I can see that quote from you appearing on the cover of her next book. Andy Rhee asked us, how do I stop my partner complaining about me listening to the podcast all night in bed? Well, I guess the obvious option is just break up. That seems to be the simplest answer. Relationship advice. I don't really know why you're having to ask that question because if those complaints have begun, that process should already have been undertaken. The other option I guess is to buy a live crocodile and put that in the bed between you and your partner and then complaining about you listening to podcasts will take a bit of a backseat. You know bigger reptiles to fry so in my experience that's always worked pretty well.

Were you ever reading Julia Donaldson books to your kids back in the day? Yes, absolutely. She had a book called A Squash and a Squeeze. I don't know if you ever got to that one. And what you have just proposed is exactly the same principle, which is essentially, if you fill your house with wild animals, when you finally kick them out, why do you have any reason to complain about your house? There we go.

Why do you have any reason to complain about your house? There we go, it's all it's all about perception and and you know Relativity andy this question has been asked by what I can only guess is a true og bugler Anonymous again, do you ski? right well, so I saw this question and So it rang a bell from the early days of the funeral and, you know, we discussed this before we started recording. I can't remember how it began, but I remember it being a sort of recurring trope, but I've got no idea where it came from. It's so long ago! We started this show in 2007.

That's basically the dinosaurs were still roaming the earth at that point, certainly in podcasting terms. In answer to your question, no, I don't ski because I respect physics and I respect mountains and I don't think the two should be unnecessarily brought together in the form of a leisure activity. So, no, I don't ski.

But if you could remind us how that began, Buglers, and why, and whether it was ever adequately resolved. It was the second most common thing Buglers said to me when I joined the show after the obvious one. Andy Jonathan has asked this question, well it's actually two questions. Okay. They asked number one will vegetarianism save the world and number two why do Americans hate ESG so much and will it spread to other countries? Okay so will vegetarianism save the world? No, far from it, it's endangering the future of our species because we are locked in an evolutionary race.

Charles Darwin taught us that much. And every time you vegetarians fail to eat a sausage, for example, you are allowing pigs the chance to evolve further and one day overtake us and rule us and probably sausage us themselves. So I would say vegetarianism is a complete Darwinistic betrayal of your species and you people should be ashamed of yourselves. I don't know when you last saw an actual pig Andy, but they are fucking massive. Well exactly. Yeah So, you know if we don't sausage them, I mean who knows who? Yeah, we can't take that risk. That's all that's all I'm saying In terms of why the Americans hate ESG so it very much depends

Which ESG you're talking about? Wasn't that a faction within the Conservative Party? Yeah for a long time. Yeah, the European shit-headery group or whatever it was called the do you mean the El Segundo station in California whose Amtrak station code is ESG if they hate that so much. It's probably due to Decades generations of underfunding of the rail system in the USA. So that's understandable. Do you mean European standards and guidelines

that are supposed to provide quality assurance across the continent? Well, probably that's just pure continental jealousy that we in Europe, and I realize I probably should have said this before mid 2016, we got our shit together and came up with some quality guidelines. Perhaps it's ESG the rapper about whom I have no real opinion, to be honest. So or it's Elephant Sodium Glutamate, which is a product made to make elephants tastier whilst you're eating them.

So, yeah, why Americans hate it so much? I don't know. If you meant environmental, social and corporate governance, well, it's probably because, I don't know, it might make America better if there was more of it. And generally, when something would make America better, most people in America seem to be extremely hostile towards that idea. So it's entirely consistent. Well I think that was the answer that Jonathan was hoping for. Good. Definitely the elephant bit. Someone calling themselves Roger F asks, maybe introspectively,

is Novak Djokovic the GOAT? Right, as in the greatest of all time. Now this is a term I don't like, GOAT. Now I know people love simple terms and simple acronyms, but all time is not very long whenever the term GOAT is used. The greatest of all time, you know in telling tennis What first people's first started playing competitive tennis won the 1870s 1880s? It took its modern form

As a fully professional sport in the late 60s all time is not very long Then even then until the 80s most players didn't play all of the Grand Slam the long place didn't play the Australian Open Some didn't play the French some didn't play play Wimbledon, so it's completely meaningless all time. It means the greatest of the bit of time that we're currently in generally. We have it even in cricket, talk about the greatest T20 player of all time, that's 20 years! That you cannot use all time, I would say it's got to be a maximum. Well, I mean, all time, obviously, as we know, time began in what about 4004 BC, we know that the Bible, we've all added it up. So, you know, that's well over 6000 years now. So I think really have a greatest of all time, whatever you're judging should go back at least 3000 years, at least half of time, and then you can round

it up to all time. So I'm afraid you can't say you can't say if Djokovic is the greatest tennis player of all time, because most people through all of time didn't get the chance to play tennis. I mean, who knows, Michelangelo might have been amazing at tennis. He was very good at painting ceilings. He might also have been good at tennis. We don't know. I mean, is Djokovic good at painting ceilings? He might also have been good at tennis. We don't know. I mean, is Djokovic good at painting ceilings? He probably hasn't, hasn't tried, but if you apply the same degree of striving for perfection to ceiling painting, as he's applied to tennis, he might've got very good at it.

So really, um, we just don't know. Uh, we, we, we just, it also depends how you measure it. If you're comparing Djokovic with Federer, Djokovic now leads in most Grand Slams 1. There's obviously, I think, a five-year age difference. So, Djokovic, early on Federer had the edge in experience. Most of their careers, Djokovic has had the edge in youth. It also depends how you measure it. If you measure it in total human happiness hours created, that's not very close because if you're watching Federer Federer play is like watching Michelangelo paint a pair of bollocks you know you're never gonna see anyone do it more elegantly and more stylishly

whereas watching Novak Djokovic play it's like watching a really good printer print out a really good high-definition photograph of a really good printer it's you know technically outstanding but it doesn't move the soul quite as much. So I guess if Roger was to provide evidence that Djokovic could conclusively beat everyone from the Plantagenet era, the Han dynasty, every single pocket of the world all time, then maybe the answer would be yes. Yes. But until then?

Until then, let's reserve judgment. Yeah, okay, that's fair enough Thank you for those questions those were taken from the audience at the live show in London in September We did address two questions from the audience during that show with Chris Addison and Alice Fraser Let's start with B who had a question for us about Goldilocks. Hello, it was a thought that mummy bear, could it be she's on a diet so she only had a little bit of porridge and that's why it's gone cold? Maybe she's losing her baby belly. I would prefer to use Goldilocks to teach my daughter about thermodynamics than diet culture. But I appreciate the thought. And as well as be Jeff had a question. You can't actually hear Jeff ask the

question but basically he suggested retiring the phrase f*** you Chris. You f***ing creep. You have... you have killed the vibe. What do you think you're watching here, Geoff? If we change it, then I can't say f*** you, buglers. So that's not happening. We could say f*** you, Geoff. Right. F*** you, Geoff. F*** you, Geoff. I think we need to end the show there.

I'm not sure we've got time for the legal reasons. So Chris, you in favor of retiring that phrase or you know, would you be lost? You'd be lost without it. I mean, it's very much what you're defined by. Yeah, I actually have no other way of identifying myself other than by that now. It's so ingrained in my identity. You know, some people count sheep, I count you Chris is to get Andy, is it is it true, as you alluded to at the start, that

there may be a place in this show for you to ask questions to the audience as well? Yes. Yes. Well, I've got I've got two questions for the audience and do send your answers into Hello Buglers at the bugle podcast.com and put in the subject boss box. Ask Andy answers. Um, that will help us sort them all out. Uh, two questions. One, what next for the bugle franchise? Where would you like to see this, uh, global showbiz phenomenon go next? Yes. Go next. Do you want us to become a political party and take over your country? For example, do you want us to stop doing podcasts and just produce illuminated manuscripts like the old days get humanity back to basics? Or what you tell us what you think should be the next chapter

for the bugle. And also, on a sort of similar theme, what figure from history would you most like us to have on as a bugle co-host using the all-new bugle Ouija board that I believe is just about ready for action? So do send your answers to those questions to hellobugles at the bugle podcast.com and put ask Andy answers in the subject box. Thank you for listening thank you Chris for firing the questions at me, and most of all thanks to you premium level voluntary subscribers for helping keep the bugle free, flourishing, independent and most

importantly alive. Until next month, goodbye and don't forget to send your questions in to hellobuglers at the bugle podcast com with Ask Andy in the subject box. Goodbye.