The Bugle - The Denial Episode

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

This week Andy is joined by Sara Barron and Anuvab Pal as the trio delves into the week's news in denial! From Hungary's historic election, to Sadiq Khan's claim of misinformation spreading across London. Oh and the leader of the free world posted an image of himself depicted as Jesus. All that and more on issue 4375 of The Bugle! 🇺🇸 AI Trump: The trio discuss the US president's latest AI imagery, this time with him depicted awfully similar to one Jesus Christ. 🇭🇺 Orban Out: The three jump into the latest news of Hungary's historic election and the end of 16 year reign. 🇬🇧 London's Misinformation: Andy, Sara and Anuvab chat about London's Mayor Sadiq Khan fears of misinformation spreading about the safety of the city! Andy's Links: https://www.andyzaltzman.co.uk/Sara Barron's Links: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/firecrotch-normcore-they-like-to-watch/id1589742577 Anuvab Pal's Links: https://anuvabpal.com/ 🎧 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 Chris Skinner, Laura Turner and Harry Gordon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

for a visual world. Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4,375 of the bugle. I'm Andy Zaltzman. It's Tuesday the 14th of April, 2026. And here in London, spring has sprang. The birds are in the sky. Not all of them, obviously. In fact, probably statistically a majority of the birds are not in the sky.

Generally, that's the case, I think. In fact, I don't know what percentage of birds are in the sky any one time anywhere in the world. and also if they're just in the air, but a bit off the ground. Does that count as being? I don't think that counts as being in the sky. But anyway, the point is,

some of the birds are in parts of the sky. The worms are in the ground. Fairly sure, that's a significant majority. The sharks are in the swimming pool, very small minority, and on a purely interim basis. And the leopard is in the shed. What are you doing in here? Right, sorry.

The point is, the bugle and Mother Nature are in perfect harmony, or at least a state of functional coexistence. Joining me for the definitive verdict on the state of the planet, right the second. I'm delighted to welcome back to the bugle, Sarah Barron and Anuvab Pal. Hello to both of you. Oh, hello. Annava, you are in Mumbai currently, correct? That is correct.

Hello, Sarah. Hello, Andy. I am in Mumbai. Summer has hit while spring hits the northern hemisphere, so you guys are getting your flowers back and your trees back, and we have just hit 42 degrees centigrade, which is usually a time where most of India stays indoors, gets online and says India is going to defeat China,

but does nothing about it. Two and a half months while the sun beats down mercilessly. How are you, Sarah? I'm doing medium. I would say when we all last saw each other, I had very recently gotten a puppy. That was a few months ago. So I had still recently gotten a puppy.

And, you know, what used to be my me time in the morning is now spent on a dog walk, which sounds idyllic. But all that it really means is that you do small, like what used to be listening to podcasts or whatever, it's now small talk with other people who like dogs. And these are nice people. There's some crazy people, but it's nice people who have like zest for life and small talk. And I have none of those things. I need like a glass line and trauma dumping.

And then I'm comfortable. But this is like, how old is she? Oh, that's lovely. Horrible. So I'm exhausted emotionally, but I'm nonetheless going to bring it for my friends, you guys and Andy, all of your listeners. Also, if you do, if you are trauma dump. whilst taking a dog for a do remember to pick your trauma up

in a little plastic bag. As I said, this is issue 4,375 of the bugle. And incidentally, it's the first issue of this now almost two decade old

audio newspaper in which if you doctor the audio by raising the pitch to heights that only worms can hear, they will spontaneously gather and form into a pyramid. That's an interesting

little fact. We are recording on the 14th of April 2026. Today is National Lookup at the Sky Day, apparently. And so we have, to mark this occasion, a Bugle Sky Spotter's Guide. See how many

of the following that you can spot in the sky. No cheating. You're only allowed to look at the bit of the sky where you currently are. You're not allowed to travel around the world trying to find better bits of the sky. Cloud, airplane, puffin, UFO, God, Teradactyl,

the internet. a coyote about to realize the inevitability of physics and Pete Hegseth naked but for a medieval suit of armour. Nine things for you to spot whichever bugle listener scores most out of nine wins our star

looking up at the sky prize which is the right to choose what colour the sky will be the weekend after next from the range of choices blue, grey, black or ominously red. As always a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin and this is to mark

international plant appreciation day this week. We give you a bugle guide to plants, which includes a look at the psychological side of gardening, which plants respond best to gentle encouragement and compliments, and what plants need you to stand next to them with a scythe, shouting botanical obscenities at and threatening them with a very forcible pruning if they don't sprout some fucking flowers by yesterday.

We tell you how to tell the difference between different types of plant, such as biennial, tropical, house, pot, manufacturing. They tend to be bigger, less colourful and mostly less fragrant. Audience, surgical in and Robert. And we ask the big questions about plants, including, is there anything sadder than a tree that wants to see the world? Especially these days when so few ships are made of wood. Do cactus have sexual fantasies about hedgehogs?

Should shrubs have the vote? Are tulips nostalgic for the days when they were the world's leading cryptocurrency? Do real grasses hate marijuana for tainting the brand or appreciate the added recognition that they get? And if you tied all the plants in the world together, you could make a lassoe long enough and big enough to capture the planet Venus and sling it into outer space. But would it actually make anyone happy? We ask and answer all of those questions in our section in the bin. Top story this week, and the top story this week is

there's a top story this week that doesn't want to make you scream into a disused quarry about the failures of humanity, move to an uninhabited island. or start mainlining dolphin DNA in an effort to become part of a more sensible species. After 16 years as Hungary's Prime Minister, Victor Orban, Europe's chief Putin sniveller, has been hoofed out of office in a much-merited landslide defeat.

He was defeated by his former colleague, Petta Majas, Tisa Party, which scored a whopping two-thirds majority in the parliamentary election. As Orban, the kleptocrats, kleptocrat, copped one of the biggest electoral go-fellieres. fuck yourselves in recent European history. There was a near

80% turnout which obviously, you know, from certainly from Britain and, you know, from an American perspective as well, and 80% turnout is a sign of a deeply immature democracy where people have not realised that they should fucking bother and get

that turnout down to a more civilised sub-60%. But it was a huge defeat for Orban who won, had over over 50% of the vote in the previous election, not helped by a supportive visit from American Vice President J.D. Vance, which seemed to just put the cap on his failing campaign. Well, I have to tell you, Andy, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to flag right now. It's really made me rethink my plan to have Vance blurb my

poster for my upcoming tour. Yeah, it just doesn't seem to be the, yeah, it doesn't seem to be the ticket shifted than it used to be. I mean, this is, look, there's a look, there's, it's obviously, it's just, it's one election. We can't read too much into it. And Majar is described generally as center right. But at the same time, in the world we live in now, I think we need to wildly exaggerate any piece of good news. Would you agree with that?

We've got to take what we can get. Although this is, you know, I was looking at all this. And I'm like, Madjar is, he's, and I'm sorry, I've lived in the UK now for 15 years. So some of the negativity has seeped in despite the enthusiastic positivity that my accent might mislead people into thinking I have. Madjar is, he's not great. He's just not a dictator. So we're just going, you know what?

Not a dictator will take what we can get. Three cheers, hurrah. Correct? That's correct. I would admit not being completely up on the intricacies of Hungarian politics. Anuvab, I know you are the Bugles resident human encyclopedia on all things. So you can give us a detailed history of Hungary and Hungarian politics going back to about 10,000 BC. Well, it's in his name.

Like what? I mean, at first I thought it was a bit of a joke. I was like, how could Hungary's leader be called Major? Like, that's the other. Isn't that the other name of Hungary? That's like if India had a prime minister called Rajib Namaste. You know, like, I mean, you can't have a leader with the thing in it. I just want to go back for a second to J.D. Vance because it's two out of two for him this week.

He went to Hungary to try to win that election, lost. Went to Pakistan to try to solve a war. Couldn't do that. Years ago, I'd seen a movie by the playwright David Mabbitt. It was called The Cooler. and it's about a guy, a casino employees, to go desk, just roulet table to relay table when someone is winning. And this is a character who just by his presence makes people lose.

It's just his energy that makes people lose. And I think there's something of a cooler in JD Vance. He's somehow maybe not the strongest weapon they've got. the only interesting thing I found about the Hungarian election, you know, after they did all the good things, you know, rigged the media, tried to buy votes, you know, all the things took people's name of the electoral polls, all the things that, you know, most people do nowadays under the guise of democracy. When he won, the first thing he did in his speech was read out what the words rule of law meant. And I think that that's very good. That's very good. Because it comes a close second to one of the biggest American right-wing podcasters

who had to explain to his listeners that Iran and Afghanistan were two different places. For now. For a brief period. We don't know what will happen. It is look up in the sky week. So anything is possible. Exactly. And I guess the questions are, you know, is the tide turning against the far right or at least against the politics of division? And my answers to that are yes and yes, but do please bear in mind that I often get the answers to questions wrong. And also please bear in mind that tides having turned do have a bit of a tendency to then turn back. So, I mean, let's just treasure this moment. I mean, was it a blow against nationalistic politics, which history shows, you know, nationalistic politics works pretty badly around about 110%

of the time and that's with a 10% margin for error either way. Is it just a brief respite? I mean, Hungary has topped the European corruption rankings under Victor Orban. So, I mean, it's possible it's just a vote against the specific corruptions, deceptions, megalomania and national asset

stripping of Orban. And as you said, you know, the French, if you judge a political leader by the other political leaders who support them, then the Trump, Vance and Putin endorsed Orban he's not getting the vote for option in your vote for marry avoid game I would guess just one thing on Auburn on his the crookery which he's overseen and he's described

as a populist and it turns out that being a crook and stealing your own nation's wealth isn't that popular anymore but he apparently spent essentially 200 million dollars building a 4,000 capacity sports stadium which is quite a lot on a 400, 4,000 capacity stadium in his home village and the population of that village is 1,700. Oh my. So you could fit almost two and a half times

the population of the village which suggests that maybe it wasn't entirely necessary. Who knows? I mean, obviously you can travel to a stadium. But also, you know, blow for the Christian nationalist far right, which is a combination of words that I believe Jesus Christ, the OG Christian, would have been perplexed by, not only because his English wasn't great.

That was quite fluent, according to the Bibles, I always read two words. But because Jesus Christ was basically a woke, lefty, bleeding heart liberal, who despite his Nepo baby beginnings, was heading towards some extremely punitive tax rates on the wealthy before his career ending hands and feet injuries. So Christian nationalist far right, just it should.

It shouldn't exist. Peter Magar, the new prime minister, and his party was only founded in 2020. He only joined it more recently than that thing in 2024, where they've gone from zero MPs to being in government with over two-thirds of parliament, which is quite a big leap. He's placed to pursue those who plundered, looted, betrayed, indebted, and ruined Hungary. And unusually in modern politics, he was referring to, A, people from within the country that did it and be people who had actually done those things, which is unauthorized in modern politics to go after a justified scapegoats rather than an imaginary or concocted one generally from

overseas. So an interesting start, certainly. Are we going to talk about the dancing guy or what? I don't understand how that wasn't the leading part of this story is the dancing health minister. Andy, and I, do either of you know your dance at all? Are you, Oh, Fink with dance even slightly? Look, I'm going to lay my cards on the table here. I think the last time I danced was at my own wedding, which is now 21 and a half years ago.

We just passed our 21 and a half anniversary. Congratulations. These things are difficult. I live in India. I'm around a lot of dancing. It's continuously going on around me. there's a flora and fauna of dancing. I personally haven't participated,

which is sort of a very similar excuse that communist playwrights used to give a fact not being a member of the party. But returning to the guy, he's the health minister, he did some dancing, it's gone viral. And a lot of the tweets, and correct people, it seems to suggest that they're saying, apart from being a very fit health minister,

which is necessary if you're the health minister, they were saying, this is what non-fascism looks like. And so they put a thing of him dancing. But Twitter and, sorry, X, is so cruel and, you know, it's filled with rascals that there were a number of tweets of fascists dancing right after that. It's funny. You can't win on social media. You just can't win?

I couldn't, Andy, can I, like, can I title myself the bugle dance expert? Do you? Absolutely. I mean, that is. If you ever need a, you know, we've been. guests on additional. If you need to talk about dance, I'm good for this. I know a little bit of what I'm talking about. And all that I know is I can tell you if someone is legit good or not, how good they are. And this guy, when I read the headline, I thought it was going to be ha, ha, ha,

like a sort of Teresa May moment, like this guy is just being free in his body. And isn't it funny when like older white people dance? This guy was, this guy could But like he was like doing like real pop and lock moves. I was so impressed. And my favorite thing to think about, like I like thinking about Trump being angry. That's the best part. And then it's fun to think about Madjar getting annoyed at the health minister stealing his thunder. Because people like Anya Vap are looking at the story.

And as you said, thinking about the politics of Hungary across like the last 10,000 years. People like me are talking on this and being like, I can't believe how good this guy's dancing is. And I think a world leader dance analysis is lacking on the bugle. I think it's necessary. For example, apparently Kim Jong-un can throw down a few moves. He's done so. I don't know how Prime Minister Modi's dancing is, but...

It doesn't look like a natural jiver. I think, would that be fair to say, Anvab? without wishing to get you in too much trouble. This is the point. Anuva can't answer it. You have to get me on the footage and I watch them that. I'm the decider. We need the expert.

And also, you know, obviously a recording of this is going to the Ministry of Home Affairs. So I can't say anything. But you guys can get into it. There are many world leaders who can, I mean, recently there was one of Justin Trudeau, who is no longer world leader, but he is, he's, dating the pop star, Kitty Perry, and they were at Coachella, and they were dancing. Uh-huh. So I've never seen Angela Merkel, for example, throw down...

It's not going to be great. Anything. Yeah. You know, I always, like it was Obama who could kind of move, and now we've got the Hungarian health minister, and, like, who else is going to join that gang? I'm excited to see. Look, I think we can all agree the world will be much improved if, rather than talking, politicians just dance with each other.

Bugle Denials News now Before we get on to the latest from Let me explain why we're not looking too much at Iran now And the blockades last week We recorded in the fragile micro hiatus Inbetween the leader of the USA's greatest enemy The USA Casually threatening to slay an entire civilisation

And hours later calling off the hit And no one's surprise Look, as we record this week, well, the peace talks broke up without an agreement. Trump threatened to, I don't even give a fuck what he threatened to do anymore. It'll have threatened something else by the time he emerges from whichever toilet he's currently fury posting in. And that's before you even try to guess which bullshit is the least bullshatter of all the bullshitteries around it. So we're going to ignore it for now. We're going to live in denial and have a bugle denials section.

Starting here in London, where Mayor Sadiq Khan has stated that London, is not the dystopian hellscape, often portrayed, and that the city is facing what he described as a dark blizzard of disinformation online. A blizzard of disinformation is basically a history of human communication since the invention of language, and also a pretty concise history of the bugle as well. He cited new research, which suggested that hostile actors,

including foreign states' far-right groups, plus I imagine newspaper columnists, media provocateurs and freelance annoyances are falsely or exaggeratedly portraying the capital as a city in decline. I've lived in London for almost 30 years now, and unquestionably London has many problems as a city, and this is something that it has in common with, for example, every other single fucking city in the world past, present and future. it maybe is in parts, in places in some aspects, and to some extent, worse, or more difficult or more violent than it used to be. It also has in common with every other city, but it's quite hard to recognise the London portrayed by those attacking Sadiq Khan himself or just wishing to portray it as this horrific hellscape with the one that I've lived in for three decades.

Sarah, you've, well, you said you've lived here for 15 years, 15 years now. I mean, how do you see this? There's a lot, you know, almost the two versions of London that are portrayed in the press. Well, I think, you know, as ever, Andy, everyone's wrong, right? First of all, I don't think everyone's pointing fingers at like, oh, who's doing this, who's coming up with this fake news? Is it, is it the Russians, is it the Chinese? Is it the far right? Who do we blame? Clearly, the people doing this are the people who have.

hate London the most, the Northerners. That is who we blame. Okay. That's who we blame. I also don't understand why Croydon. If you want to make London look disgusting, go to the places that attracts the tourists. I want to see that kind of hellscape on M&M world. This is what I would welcome.

I'm currently reading a book about, you know, people say London's bad now, apparently. I mean, you know, I do gigs, come back late at night. So far, nothing's happened. The one time I did have my phone grabbed from me somewhere, but then the man on the cycle was very kind. He threw it back. I had a very old phone, and they were not interested in it. So threw it back. It was quite nice of him.

and you know I had to get in repair anyway but that's what my point my point is people are saying London is terrible now terrible now I'm reading a book about the birth of the Elizabethan theatre you know I'm reading about South Bank when the theatres came up and apparently that time if you were an actor trying to get to the Globe theatre there was a very good chance before your big show

someone would just throw a bucket of shit out of the window on your head so that has never happened to me in modern London That usually only happens to me on the way back from my own shows. We recently came back from a family holiday for Easter. We went to Italy for five days. And I got to tell you, nothing has ever made me love London more. And I know that's not funny.

The chaos of the public. I was like, I don't care about the sunshine. I don't care about the food. I don't care about respectfully, Andy, the attractiveness of the Southern Europeans in comparison to the Brits. I know America were no prize either. I was like, just give me...

I was like, bring back Mussolini. Where are the brains leaving at time? The chaos of the culture was genuinely emotionally emotionally stressful for me. And I'm also... I hate about British culture, the repression, the small talk,

the say what, you know, I'm constantly just set in most meetings with what people will be like, say what you mean. What do you say what you? say what you five days in Italy I was like never say what you mean again

I don't give a shit can the buses run normal style please so I have an immigrant's love of London and I'm sorry for the earnestness yeah that's all right

and I think also the first time that anyone on the bugle has called for Mussolini to be brought back so I mean that's breaking new ground very excited a new energy everything.

I mean, you know, if you guys are worried about world capitals, you know, about what is a nicer place, there's a newspaper headline in Mumbai today, which reads, and I'm not exaggerating, housing society evacuated when leopard spotted in lobby. So are you, I mean, is that going on in Croydon? Right. Well, I was going on at the start of the bugle today. One thing I would like to pick Sadiq Khan up on is he said that disinformation had become an industry driven by an outrage economy, allowing people to profit from division.

And what I would say to that is, at this difficult time economically, we need our political leaders to support our few remaining growth industries. And disinformation and outrage are two are pretty much the only things that are doing well in Britain at the moment and pessimism as well. So also another thing on disinformation, I think the problem with disinformation now is. is it's just too easy. You used to need to put in some real legwork over years, decades, centuries even,

to really disinformed people and, for example, get a religion started. Now, it's a press of a button, you can bullshit to the entire world. I think it's taken all the romance out of it. I like this positive spin. There is one very dangerous thing I've attended in London, and it's called a pub quiz. You know, people come armed with various amounts of misinformation,

and they tend to know various things from medieval history. But it's very dangerous. No other city has it. Given that there's so many lies about London, we thought we'd add to it. With some more lies, stroke facts about London, you can decide if they're true or false based on your own decision, which is how reality works these days.

Fact one, if you stand outside in London for more than 20 minutes, there is more than a 60% chance that you will be attacked by either a wild ox or a bus. Fact two, if you spend more than a half an hour in London, there is an almost 100% chance that you will have your organs harvested by an illegal surgeon. Fact three, if you leave a giant golden robot egg 10 feet tall and making an intermittent ticking noise

in the middle of the junction at Hyde Park Corner, it will be stolen sometimes by the police. And fact four, more people die every year in London today than did in the 14th century on average per year. when they had bubonic fucking plague. Read into that what you will. Sure, I mean, there might be a few more people around now than there were there. But still, the plague!

The plague! Any more London facts to educate our listeners with? I've got a few, if I may go through them. The top deck of the bus is for swingers. That's true. On any day, one of the celebrities in Madame Chesodes is real. If a taxi driver says something racist, he's really a woke Antifa double agent

trying to flush out bigots. And finally, our flat doesn't really have enough space for overnight guests, Mom. Some of my favorites, Sandy. Thank you. You're welcome. 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 sceptical enough of real money, let alone pretend money. It would be so disappointing if the whole mysterious hyper-secret had been invented by someone with a name as prosaic as Adam Back. You wanted to be something like Geniap Shudacore the Third

or Trillacent Phantasmagorg or Garthrood Crackatoam or Zygote Qwamp. 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 Dolazal thing all over again. Like there's a cultural creation component to this.

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? 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. after the Reuters expose to find Banxie. And after all the digging, they realized it's probably a guy called Robin Gunningham from Bristol who supports Millwall or something. It's just a very ordinary guy. And they just can't, I guess, middle class England can't fathom how just a guy like that could also be Baxie.

So, you know, this guy, he probably, Andy, listens to you. on Test Mat special, you know, play squash. 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 rumours as to who the real identity of the Bitcoin creator were,

including Banksy himself, albeit that's a rumour 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 blog, blockchain algorithmic infracode 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 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 Zaltzcoin, 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 andesaltspin.com. Are you accepting Bitcoin as a form of currency?

No, no, I'm accepting tickets in exchange for hours. actual money. Another denial this week was Donald Trump denying that he was Jesus. I love that. So this, I'm sure you will have all seen the story, buglers.

Donald Trump, amidst a sort of ongoing spat with the Pope, which has been going on for some time now, and I think we'll rumble on for at least the next two and a half years.

Donald Trump, the hero of the Christian right, despite being scientifically, provably, to be 0% Christian versus the Ameripope, Leo Twitter intravenous, the top-ranked actual Christian. But anyway, after the latest spitterings and spatterings between the world's leading mega-Catholic and the world's leading, living, breathing embodiment of democratic decay, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself, which everyone assumed to be him as Jesus Christ, the retired former carpenter from Bethlehem. Q complete outrage, even from the kind of people who fail to be outraged by all the previous outrageous things Trump has said done and social mediated. He then deposted the posting because fundamentally Trump is a chicken and then came up with a completely bullshad excuse in which he said that he thought the image showed him being a doctor, not a Jesus.

So the image to describe it shows Trump in a sort of kind of Roman style cloak and tunic white and red with a glowing something in his left hand laying his right hand on a patient in a hospital bed looked on by a praying woman and a nurse, some military figures, some eagles, the Statue of Liberty, mysterious figures in the sky, possibly including the devil and an American flag

that may or may not be being shot on by one of the Eagles. It's a bit hard to tell. So, look, if it is a doctor, if he did, I mean, he can't have thought that this was an image of him being, certainly not the kind of doctor he seems to want in America because he's not holding a card reader

and demanding payment before laying his hands on the afflicted. And also, if, you know, if it is showing him as a doctor, it shows he's about as much use as a medical professional as he is as a president. He's wearing inappropriate clothing. That's just going to get in a way. He appears to be holding a glowing radioactive clods of something. You know, if you're going to use radiation treatment, do it properly. There are eagles everywhere, which is a real health and safety issue in a medical setting, unless you're doing a daily hepatectomy, Prometheus style, and even then

the patient is supposed to be strapped to a mountain, not a hospital bed. So, look, there's so much wrong with this. There was outrage from all aspects of Christianity. And so he then took the post down and pretended that he was being a doctor in it. I mean, this is just the kind of shit we've come to expect over the last 10 years and particularly more recently. Neither of you are qualified medical professionals, I don't think. Is that fair to say? It's fair to say. But I'm, I'm I'm in some ways a positive person and there were positive things to take from this, Andy, which of course, did not mention. My big takeout, Trump needs to embrace the smock.

Like I thought the flowing robes are much more flattering than anything usually. It's a forgiving outfit. It was a very forgiving outfit. And also it just begs the question, what kind of doctors does Trump see? What is his experience? The good news for me is that this kind of image, the notion that he associates this kind of image with a doctor, suggests he's been having near-death experiences.

We're going to lean into that as one of the positives. Annavap, what did you make of it? Well, there's been a thing circulating lately about Trump being interviewed about whether he's an Old Testament guy or a New Testament guy. They've been asking him, you know, which is your... And he said, you know, I just like all the good bits in both of them. Which is how I feel about the movie Godfather. One, two, and two.

I have a very similar feeling. There is a key difference there, Anuvab, which is that I imagine you have watched those movies. Yes. Whereas I don't believe Trump has read the front or back cover of the Bible, let alone the fucking contents. You know, it's nowadays, you don't have to read anything to have an opinion on it. You know, so he's just catching up with the rest of the world. And he said, it's got some great bits, great action, and I like the highlights of both

of them, which is, again, a fair point. But also, you know, I do think rational science, the age of enlightenment, things that brought in the MRI, the X-ray, you know, science-based medicine. You know, aren't we tired of that? You know, can't you go back to the time when some Victorian guy would just touch your head and you'd be dead in two minutes, but he touched your head. It'd be nice.

I mean, he's going back to that, that kind of medicine, you know. It's simpler. cheaper and more accessible. The fact that you can bullshit without knowing anything, unfortunately, is no longer, you know, just a thing the President of the United States does. In 2016, it was a thing, but now you see it everywhere. You know, you see book reviews of people who haven't read books.

So does he really need to read the Bible to have the Bible belt looking up to him? That's my question. That's a fair question. And, you know, a lot of people, yeah, I guess there are some similarities between Trump and Jesus. I mean, you know, Jesus very much in favor of peace. And Trump as a younger man, Jesus' kind of age, avoided conflict by pretending to have bonesburst. So, you know, they're, you know, similar, you know, similar Jesus also had an ankle injury towards the end. So also surrounded, both surrounded themselves with like-minded men.

So, yeah, I guess, you know, maybe they're, yeah, it's inappropriate. Can I just say it's been too many years, maybe three or four hundred, where the Pope hasn't gotten into it. You know, it's time the Pope who's always been above these things. It's time the Pope got into it, you know. Engage, man, engage. But Jane, Vance said the Pope should stay out of American political affairs, which would carry a little bit more weight if American politicians

stayed out of banging on about God all the time. He said, Vance said stick to matters of you know what's going on in the Catholic Church and let the President of the United States stick to dictating American public policy. That's an interesting choice of words there from Vance. It tells you a lot about how the current American regime views democracy.

hating American public policy. There you go. That's the world we live in. Trump, on the doctor thing, he said, it's supposed to be as a doctor making people better, and I do make people better, I make a lot of people better. A claim slightly contradicted by the

impact of, for example, slashing the US aid budget, leading to cuts in international health programs targeting AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases that's led according to not made up reports, to thousands and thousands of deaths, is not entirely making people better, it's making people deader. Maybe that was, you know, in terms of dictating, if that's what he does, he dictates things,

someone wrote it down wrong, who knows. But he does bring up a good point, though, which I think all of us are asking, because the Pope has never gotten into it at a petty level on any subject, you know, like, I want to know friends or Seinfeld. No Pope has gotten into it. I don't know. I don't know which he thinks is better. I have no idea, you know, Manchester United, Manchester City.

Pope hasn't gotten into it. Who's going to win the Indian Premier League? I have nothing from the Pope on that. You know, all I hear is peace, everybody get along. I just get the usual stuff from him. Same old. I think we need to go back to the old days. I remember we once did a worst popes ever list on the bugle.

And I was John the 10th of someone who was a teenage pope. And his pope in career ended when he was battered to death by a jealous husband, which is not a classic end to a Pope career. We're talking to this is late 10th century, as I recall. Look him up, Buglers. He was a very naughty Pope. Maybe we need to get back to that kind of... The presidents are going that way, basically.

Quick update on Iran. I've given up. I've given up. Trying to guess what will have happened by the time you hear this episode, Buglers. It's an increasingly tricky game to play. I have become slightly annoyed by the percentage of news that is he said this now.

so yeah there's an anti-blockade blockade I don't know if Iran is then going to respond with a third level of blockade it's unclear how this could end other than just the blockade tennis spiraling out of control so that it ends up with you need to be an even or an odd number of blockades

for any ship to get through I forget But they'll just keep part in the mon, I think. When life gives you blocks, make a blockade. Also, you know, history of Iran, they've given us some of the greatest names the world has ever seen, right? 5,000-year-old civilization. They've got kings called Darius the First, Cyrus the Great, Xerxes the greatest. You know, when you've got guys like that running your place, you know, you need names. better than JD.

I mean, you need, the Americans need to come in with better names. I was thinking, it's really weird to me that there's no fatwa on Trump. It's like, what do you have to do to get a fatwa issued against you? Write a book? Yes, Killan Ayatollah, no. Good point. That's a good point. Yeah, thank you. I didn't know you've called for Mussolini to be brought back and suggested people

will issue a fatwa on the American president. I mean, you bring new stuff every time. They're going big, Andy. Go big, man. Subtility, I think. And finally, the crew of the Artemis II mission came back to Earth

after their disappointing near-miss with the moon last week. They splashed down in the sea after completely failing to land on the moon, skewing off target by over 4,000 miles. Despite this, people seem to think they've done a good job, larking around on the world's most expensive work, Jolly, taking pretty pictures

and making heart signs towards this increasingly loveless planet. Nice gesture, but it didn't work. Look at the place. Anyway, people seem to think it was a success. And NASA's reward for this success on sending people further away from the planet than they've ever been before is swinging budget cuts with the White House apparently scrapping over 50 major NASA science projects and cutting its overall funding by a significant percentage. I guess what the message from that is that, you know, these moon missions are all very well.

The science doesn't matter. What really matters is the national grandstanding, and that can be done on a much smaller budget. If you're not seeking to find out the mysteries of the universe, whether it's possible for humans to exist in space, if you just want to beat the Chinese, then you can probably cut back on your funding. And, you know, this is the kind of simplification that we need in this world. I liked the idea that this pilot, Victor Glover, said there were quote-unquote no adjectives to describe what they saw. And I was like, someone needs to teach this guy the word lunar. Also, I had no idea we'd never been to the dark side of the moon. Is that like a crappy side of the moon?

Is it worth going? I mean, you know, you guys are lunar experts. I had no idea that it's been 50 years since I just feel like someone goes to the moon every week well that has been true over the last week I guess it's a problem of seeing things through recency bias Anuvab you've got to look at the broader picture I mean the concern with these cuts though

is some of the most important research NASA is doing in terms of whether humans can live in space and go on years-long expeditions is the key research into what sports would work in zero gravity to keep people entertained on these long journeys we may if that could be cut back and that means that those of journeys are no longer viable

well that brings us to the end of this week's bugle we will be back next week with Tiffany Stevenson and Neil Delamere do as I said come to my remaining tour shows details at andesaltzman.co.uk and the news quiz is back later this week on radio four and BBC sounds. Sarah, anything to plug? Oh gosh, yes, please. Can everyone listen to the podcast that I do with my partner Jeff called They Like to Watch about what's worth watching on television? Thank you. Consider that plugged. Anuvab. I have some new shows coming up in the UK and I'll be posting the

dates on social media if planes are still flying. Thank you for listening Buglers. Don't forget, if you want to join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme to keep this show free, flourishing and independent until the end of eternity, do go to buagelpodcast.com and click

the donate button. 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 for a visual world, 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. Disclaimer, eternity may not be completely eternal. Get more of what you love. Exclusive subscriber-only content, including the almost monthly Ask Andy show

in which I, Andy, answer your questions, plus fresh hits of bugle merch. We just sent our premium subscribers a jigsaw with my face on it. If that doesn't sell it, nothing will. I and my wonderful cohort of co-hosts will continue to blast the Bugle's trademark cocktail of satire, insight, puns, disinsight and unashamed, high-grade drivel into your ears and all over the planet. Here's to another 18 and a half years minimum. To become a true hero, or just to join the voluntary subscription scheme, go to the buglepodcast.com

And click the donate button.