The Bugle - The Bugle is LIVE!

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

Ahead of our 18th birthday (tickets on sale now: http://thebuglepodcast.com), we celebrate some classic live Bugles, with Andy, Nish, Alice and Alex Edelman.The Bugle can only exist if you support us: donate, follow us on YouTube, spread the word.Introduced by Andy Zaltzman and Chris Skinner. Produced by Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bugle! Audio Newspaper for a visual world. Hello, buglers, and welcome to Bugle sub-episode 4,350A for away for August, and preparing for our 18th birthday bugle live stream live spectacular on the 26th of October. All available at the bugle website, the buglepodcast.com. In the meantime, for this sub-episode, let's take a look back at some classic bugle lives from the recent past. To take you through them, here is producer Chris. Oh, what a seamless transition that was.

Thanks, Andy, best of the family. Now, let's start this episode in October 2020, where we did a festival show with Nish and Alice, the very same legends who will be joining us this October on stage. Has anything changed in five years? I hope so. Let's see. Top story this week. Evolution and the state of the human species.

Well, Nish, Alice, we are, it turns out, still evolving. I mean, when you look at the state of our species, and we are easily one of the most famous species of all time, of course, take that ring-tailed mongoose. I mean, you can't help thinking, we're a great species. We've compensated for our shortcomings. a lack of horns, a lack of lethal fangs, lacerative claws, venomous snout appendages, the works,

by using our superior brains to work out many and wonderful other ways of killing things and each other. That's the mark of a special species. But it turns out we're not finished. Scientists have discovered that we're still evoluting. We're developing new arteries and we're losing teeth. Nish, I know you're a massive fan of human evolution as a, and you know, you've very much benefited from it yourself as a modern human.

Oh, I'm using my poseable thumbs right now. Look at that, sensational skills. Yeah, Andy, it's a, this is big news. And I was very glad to read the story because I'll be honest, every other piece of evidence I've been confronted with, every time I open a newspaper, a turn of the news, is suggesting that humans are very much evolving in the opposite direction. So on a day when 5,000 people march through London,

and to protest for their rights to kill old people by breathing them to death with disease. It's hard to not see this as a positive, a badly needed positive sign. So the piece of evolution in question, or we might be losing our wisdom teeth, which does feel a bit on the nose as metaphors go, but the other piece of evolution

is that we're also getting an extra artery in our arms. We're getting an extra artery. Now, here's the big question. Listen, I'll be the first person to admit it. I have absolutely no idea about science in open defiance of every racial stereotype I refuse to be another statistic okay so I've determined to be the only agent

who doesn't understand a single fucking thing about any science whatsoever but all I can speculate wildly on is that this extra artery is to get more blood to our hands so we can post on the internet with more strength and venom that's exactly why we're evolving these arteries

these are posting vessels I mean this is one of the the common misunderstandings about evolution niche that everything that evolves happens sort of proposively and that it meets a need rather than sort of being a randomly selected process it's it's more of an artery and not a scienceery let's just let that hang there thank you I mean that's the only joke I have for this section social media's causing other evolution social media

your thumb, getting much better thumbs, getting also reversible skin for 100% more tattooable skin area, getting, gradually developing additional forehead musculature that is evolving quickly to enable the next generation, one or two down from

us to have even deeper frowns they're going to need to have one thinking about the state of the world. The human bile duct now goes straight from the gallbladder up into the mouth for use in presidential campaigns. And personally, I mean, there's a few things I'd like to see.

I'd like, you know, a bit of protective skin on the end of the male appendage. I think that would be really useful, and I can't fully understand why there isn't one family show. One of the interesting aspects of evolution is that another scientific report I was reading, and I do my, I research this show intensely beautiful, I do hope you realise that, that at least five times in the history of evolution, something has evolved from something that was not a crab into something that is a crab.

Now, yeah, there we go, five different times you've had something evolving into a crab, and this is according to the crab-bothering boffins who give a shit about shit like this, and, I mean, it's a classic scientist. I mean, well done for working it out, instead of, you know, finding out crucial stuff like how many octopuses it takes to change a light bulb

or how many quarter-pounders a T-Rex could have theoretically eaten, before vomiting and whether Neanderthals had x-ray vision or could pee round corners. But this is important science. Five times something's evolved into a crab, mostly from other crustaceans or crusties, if we're still allowed to call them that, unless the PC lobby have stopped us calling them that as well.

But obviously in the context of human evolution, the crab is something to aspire to. Would you not think, Alice, I mean, I know you're a flamingo skeptic, and I don't know if this is... No, I love a crab. I feel like crabs evolution-wise are the... crabs are the table chips of evolution like no matter what you get you're going to get

a thing of chips for the table that's what crabs that's the function just for safety you want to have some chips there in case whatever else you order is not good I can't remember now if British people call them fries or not hot chips well it's near enough the

when the context it's very environmentally friendly the crab seldom takes flights we're still the big clucky snapper arms give it a couple of generations I think they'll be very very very handy um and you know i think social media has made us we're not physically developed into crabs yet but i think maybe again this is social media niche you know we are developing a spiritual hard shell and big clucky snapper limbs for making abusive comments and a pathological

fear of embracing views that do not coincide with our own which is very much a crab attribute i mean when did you last hear a crab use the words actually genevieve you might have a point well and also we're we're evolving the ability to only move side to side and not progress forwards. But other than that, there we go. One of my favorite things I read about this in terms of animal evolution is that some elephants have now evolved to be tuskless because we keep on chopping their tusks off. Now, some might see that as a damning indictment of humanity's inability to coexist with other creatures on this planet. I see us as nature's muse. Nature is having to move forward

because of our horrific behaviour. It's absolutely brilliant. We're going to see the next generation of chickens evolving pre-based in Nando spices. I see that as a huge positive. I mean, yeah, I love an urban animal, for example. Like, animals that have adapted to human... Every other animal meeting with humanity is, like,

f***ed off or died. I feel like I saw, you know, possums that eat out of bins, and I saw a cat the other day in the park with a whole KFC family meal that I think it bought with its own money. That kind of thing I find very inspiring. I like the giraffes with a big lamp on.

They're really good. The COVID news now. I think that sting was entirely appropriate. That's basically a summary of the year, that musical sting. Nish, Alice, you're both the bugles' official totally intractably incomprehensibly confusing global literal and metaphorical physical and spiritual pandemic correspondence

what the fuck's going on? I'll tell you what's going on, Andy. Money, money, money, money, money. Money! A lot of people are viewing COVID as a you know a stop on humanity's progress and a real moment at which everybody's trapped indoors

and, you know, it's having a real negative impact and claiming people's lives. But those people are cashless hippies because you should be viewing COVID. You should be viewing COVID as a huge opportunity to sneak some sweet cream off the top. Andy, there's been a lot of developments

in COVID corruption news. On this side of the Atlantic, there's a string of investigations is being opened into, and I believe this is the technical parliamentary term, where all of our fucking money has gone. because we have spent 12 billion pounds

on a track and trace system and at the moment the track and trace app and system is effectively tracking and tracing to the same extent as a bloodhound who died in the mid-19th century it is neither tracking or tracing

shit and we've spent 12 billion pounds on it so far and here's the thing Andy people in glass houses but what I would say is 12 billion pounds the track and trace app makes quibby look like strong value for money because say what you will about the quality of its output the output was put out okay whereas the track and trace app the track and trace app is neither tracking nor tracing now the whole system as being run by

dido harding who has some experience in consultancy and also working in the supermarkets working on the boards of the supermarkets Tesco and Sainsbury's and so as such has no fucking relevant experience whatsoever although that's not strictly true in terms of COVID because she's also on the board of the Cheltenham horse racing event

which happened earlier this year and was a super spreader event so Dider Harding's only experience of coronavirus is potentially being involved in spreading it to a bunch of people therefore Dider Harding is as fucking qualified to do anything about correct Like, was the Wuhan bat not available?

Could they not get the pangolin? Could they not have just stuffed a COVID-addled lung on a plinth and had that run the fucking track and trace system? Pretty nice, say. Let's go further back to 2018, live from the Edinburgh Fringe with Alex Adelman and Alice. Top story this week, The Sun! We've all heard of it, and we've all at times enjoyed it.

and resented it. The world is currently having a bit of a tricky relationship. Not that son, Chris. Sorry, sorry. Chris. We're having a bit of a tricky relationship, I'd say, with our number one star, the big hot thing,

that really puts the solar into solar system. It's been causing merry havoc here on Earth by shining much too hard. It has been... I know, probably not here in Scotland, but it has been seriously hot. hot around the world, a lot of heat flying around that may be linked to climate change and a portent of now unstoppable devastation to come, thanks to humanity's collective failure

to take notice of warnings, or it may more likely just be the ancient Egyptian sun god Rha enjoying a nostalgic resurgence. But ironically, actually, when it is over 40 degrees Celsius, burying your head in the sand is actually quite a good way of keeping yourself cool. but luckily at last we are doing something about it yes NASA has launched the Parker Solar probe over the weekend setting the spacecraft on a journey that will take it closer to the sun

than any human-made object before it the Parker probe will reach as close as 3.8 million miles to the sun's surface taking it directly through the sun's atmosphere according to NASA this will take it so close that it will actually quote marks touch the sun you can't say actually and then put touch in inverted commas.

The quote marks mean actually not actually. You cannot sarcastic quote marks touch the sun. If someone left a user review on my Edinburgh Fringe ticket website that said my show sarcastic quote marks touch them, I'd be fucking furious.

I mean 3.8 million miles is a pretty loose definition of touch. By that definition I'm literally quote touching all of you right now. Everyone, literally all of you, especially you. Edelman in a really creepy way. Nice.

My favorite part of the whole story is the comments on the independent news website's coverage of the quote event, which someone has said, Superman's been there and done that. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, next. And another person has said, not to touch the earth, not to touch the sun, nothing left to do but run, run, run, run, let's run, Jay Morrison. My favorite thing about it is I watch some of the press conference online and the NASA spokesman's going through the details.

Someone unmanned, right? And he goes, yes, Jim, unmanned. Oh. But it's very important scientific research. It's part of a project that NASA's been doing for years to find out whether the sun is as popular method. would have it, a source of heat and lights for our planet, despite being 90 million miles away, or whether it is, in fact, a large flaming biscuit.

Also, they want to discover why the sun is sometimes hot, like on a clear day, and other times not so hot or visible, like, when it's cloudy. So I guess we get closer to that. Do you know, it's costing $1.5 billion to send it, but I think it could have been so much cheaper if we just launched it at night, right? It would be so much... Have you stopped quoting your president? Well, I mean, you know, that's nothing on Space Force.

Right. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I mean, speech Thursday, the Vice President Mike Pence outlined plans to create Space Force, which is billed as a new branch of the U.S. military dedication. to fighting wars in space. Apparently, the idea... They put out some suggested logos. Apparently, the idea is getting respect

from people who wanted to defend satellites in space from Russian and Chinese interference and also Star Trek fans, who I assume desperately hope the principles of non-aggression and peaceful diplomacy will leak out like radiation from a warp core breach. At best, it will cost more than $8 billion to establish this kind of preemptive defense presence

in our skies that will definitely invite reciprocal space force investments from the political enemies of the US, and at worst it will end in raging atmospheric battles in the skies above our homes. What I'm saying is there is no way to win, this is the Kobayashi Maru. So you know, Roger Stone, who's

one of Donald Trump's advisors currently under investigation, tweeted an image of himself and a bunch of other Trump cabinet members in space for a skier, and then had to delete the image because did you see this? Someone had

photoshopped, not just their faces over the faces of NASA crew members, but also a new mission patch over the Apollo mission patch, and that new mission patch had swastikos. And the caption of the The caption of the original picture said,

In space, no one can hear you lie. And Stone said, I love this. I heard that Trump said that we're going to have a space force and we're going to get the aliens to pay for it. I can't wait until they send an actual manned mission to the sun where the first words of the first man to disembark will be one small step for, I'm quote Mark's actually dead

The Parker Solar Probe Back to that quickly Parker Solar Pro coincidentally also the name of one of the finest amateur endoscopy products on the market today Is Yeah it will be the fastest man-made object ever ever created at 430,000 miles an hour

120 miles a second In context, if you were caught driving at 430,000 miles an hour on a British road, you would be banned from driving for 62,658 years. What a meaningful statistic. Yeah, which cop car is that fast? So this space force has not been universally admired. Retired, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.

said he thought cyber security was more important. His brother also an astronaut, Mark Kelly, called Space Force redundant and wasteful, and I would say that is exactly what the aliens want you to think. Also, redundant and wasteful mean the same thing, so it's kind of redundant and wasteful use of words. Also, redundant and wasteful wins votes. We know that from... But also, the aliens have already invaded Russia,

and it's easy to tell... Have you ever heard them speak? It's absolute gibberish. Mark Kelly pointed out that he was on the news and they asked him about it. And he said, we already have one. It's part of the Air Force. And they said, is it really? He said, it's like taking the submarines out of the Navy

and calling it the Under the Sea Force. We're going to kill those little mermaids. You watch us. We'll have a quick sum. fact box you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that the sun is hot and I mean really hot hotter some claim than pizza

fresh out of the oven in fact a pizza oven is approximately 700 degrees Kelvin whereas the corona of the sun is 2 million degrees Kelvin or 2,800 pizza ovens rolled into one but bigger so the corona of the sun would actually cook the perfect pizza in exactly 0.02 seconds. Whilst the 15 million degree Kelvin centre of the sun would cook a perfect joint of roast beef in 4,000th of a second

and slow roast an elephant in 0.1. But be warned, unless you ate your food and left the restaurant within 1.3 nanoseconds of arriving at Shea Sol for dinner, you would either be dead or so badly sunburned. You would not enjoy your food at all. Fact two, we're all familiar with the phrase, oh look, we're all familiar with the phase, look, the sun is rising. But the reason that the sun rises in the morning is because overnight it naturally fills with hydrogen.

Which makes it float above the horizon in time for breakfast. And finally, fact three, if the sun is indeed as the great solarologist team of Marvin Gay, and Tammy Terrell claimed in their hit song of 1969. If the world is indeed a great big onion, then the sun is, by deduction, a satsuma as big as a hot air balloon. And finally, the popular... The popular song The Sun has got his hat on

was released in 1932, with two versions released the same year. One recorded by the Henry Hall BBC Dance Orchestra, the B-side of the single being the original rendition of F*** de Police, made famous by the later 1980s, cover version by the influential rappers NWA. The other version by Chart Toppers Ambrose and his orchestra was later banned

after it proved to contain hidden messages encouraging people to perform satanic sacrifices. But in reality, the sun actually has no hat. If the sun had originally had a hat, it would have burnt off at least 4.5 billion years ago shortly after the sun came into existence. Ironically, when it is sunny, you should wear a hat. The dinosaurs had no hats.

Join the dots. Here end up the lesson. Right, Alex out, Nish back in. Alice still there. It's June 2019 for an episode titled So Many Holes. Well, here we are. We are, as we speak here on London South Bank, projectile vomiting distance from Westminster.

I imagine, as we speak, there are high-level talks at the UN about whether some kind of international force should be dispatched to restore democracy to the UK. What's extraordinary... Now, Nish, you've got close links to the Conservative Party. Sorry, that was our special secret, wasn't it? Do we have any Conservative Party members in today? Anyone who might be able to help choose our Prime Minister for us

taking back control of our democracy and preparations are also in full swing for the official defenestration of Theresa May she will be thrown out of the window of 10 Downing Street albeit the ground floor window and they might let her use the door I can't actually use the defenestration window because Gladstone painted it shut in the 1870s

the canny old bastard but I mean Nish you're our Conservative Party correspondent Absolutely, I am. Proud to be here. Well, look, we're faced now with a straight-up decision. And by we, I mean, none of us. The Conservative Party will pick our next Prime Minister. 160,000 members will choose the leader of the Conservative Party, by extension, who is our Prime Minister.

And I think I speak for everyone when I say, I'm so glad we voted leave in order to return democratic power to a small group of retired stockbrokers in Kent. It's time to take back control and return it to eight men who are all called Darren who hate their wives and wish it was legal

for a man to marry a golf course. So many holes. Family show. Quite literally, my daughter is in the audience, don't it? Well, Andy, she is about to learn some fucking language. It's a straight runoff between Jeremy Hunter,

who presided over a period of funding reductions in the NHS, resulting in the head of the British Red Cross, Mike Adamson, to condemn conditions in British hospitals as being a humanitarian crisis. And he's up against Boris Johnson, who stands accused of adding five years to the prison sentence of Nazanine Zagri Radcliffe, who used racial slurs in a newspaper column and described women wearing burghers as letterboxes or bank robbers.

The choice has now come down to a dick, or an arsehole. We wouldn't give for something in between. The nation of Britain is desperate for a Perineum Prime Minister. A commander in Gooch, a taint at the top. I mean, there's many things I thought would never happen in my life. Being selected for the Venezuelan synchronised belching team. Becoming Pope. Seeing the Queen down eight pints of lager and seeing pump up the jam on a karaoke machine.

waking up one morning with a bionic extendable leg which I could use for tripping up escaping criminals or las cooing escaped ice cream vans and desperately hoping Jeremy Hunt becomes prime minister and to be honest that was the one I least expected to happen yeah we've left down we've gone down to the two

there's a bit of pretty extensive whittling process which resulted in Michael Gove and Dominic Raab being eliminated the former for doing too many drugs and the latter for not doing enough drugs and then the other two who represented various wings of the Conservative Party Rory Stewart who represented the Remain wing and Sajid Javid who represented the

How can we be racist? He's here and he's fine wing And they all participated in a debate on Channel 4 last week which between the pre-written content and the make-up of the panel which was four white guys one brown guy and no women wasn't so much a leadership debate as it was a British comedy panel show And I speak as someone who has very much been the Javid on a few episodes of Mark the Week.

Jeremy Hunt told the Conservative Progress Conference, who knew such a thing it is? That's like hearing about the abattoir-owner's Veganism Awareness Week of that. He said that the Conservatives should not, quote, ignore the crocodile lurking under the water. In other words, the Labour Party So don't, so don't Beware, it's fair, fair, beware

the crocodile lurking under the water and instead jump into a vat of sulphuric acid with an acid-resistant shark in it. That is the choice we're facing. And Boris Johnson There he is. I mean what have we become? He could be priming

Did it not make you feel like going round all the World War cemeteries knocking on every headstone and just saying I'm sorry you died for this. I've got a little bit of information about the 160,000 people who were going to make that decision.

UGov did some polling of the Conservative Party membership and they asked the question, would you rather the Brexit took place even if it caused the following scenario? Now the results are genuinely alarming. 63% said they would rather Brexit took place even if it resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. 61% said they'd rather it took place

even if it causes significant damage to the UK economy. 59% said they'd be fine with it, even if Northern Ireland left the UK. And 54% of Conservative Party members said that they want Brexit to happen even if it results in the destruction of the Conservative Party. The only thing the only thing they would not want Brexit to happen

in the instance of, is of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister. And at this point, you have to think, what are these people afraid of? And the answer is paying a basic amount of income tax. And also, YouGov, have a bit of fun with it. Enjoy your work. Start asking other questions like,

what about if Godzilla attacks? What about if there was an Old Testament-style curse resulting in the death of all first-born children? Or, and I think this would be a very interesting question, replacing the queen on the five-pound note with me. how would that if that was a condition of Brexit you know as you say something

and you realise as you're saying it someone is going to Photoshop that I've already drawn it I keep telling you that's not legal tender Andy I mean it is Brexit was all about taking back control of our democracy and this is democracy at work

it's a democracy in the same way that a dead rat on a plate is a fillet steak and that yes there are some similarities but they in no way outweigh the differences I'm just

I'm enjoying as a representative of my country being a little bit outside of this whole debate because I've been back in Australia and none of this matters over there I'm also representative of my country in that I'm very hot, very dry and extremely isolated are you done on

I think we're on his own oh yeah I mean but we're all done. Yeah. As in, we are all f***ed. Because three assholes are going to pick another asshole to be in charge of all of the fucking assholes.

I actually Google Tory asshole. And of the first page of results that came up on Google, I've got it up on the screen there. There seems to be one recurring face. In fact, I did a little graph. So Boris Johnson came up

five, Theresa May 3, Mark, Francois, one, Philip Davis, one, George Osborne one. But what I really liked about it, actually, was when I kept looking, and when you scroll through, there's a few other faces who appear, including Nish Kuma. Can I just clarify? Under that picture of me, it just says Jacob Rees-Mogg, an asshole.

Right, that will do for now, I think. If Andy's not back by next week, we should have synced our diaries, really. There might be some more live action. I guess we should have a plan. We don't. Come see us live. That's the point. Come see us live. Anyone in the world can watch. Go to our website and you can find out all about getting tickets for the room at the Leicester Square Theatre or a live stream.

Oh, goodbye. Hi, Buglers, it's producer Chris here. I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Moldly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now. Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything. So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.