The Bugle - The Kremlin Gremlin (4225)

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Andy is with Alice Fraser and Anuvab Pal as they discuss Joe Biden treating Vladimir Putin like a teenage boy with a BB gun, the sartorial rivalry between Catholics and the Russian Orthodox Church, pl...us all of the vital commentary on Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at The Oscars.This Bugle is pretty great...Support us via our website with a regular or one off donationBuy a loved one Bugle Merch Follow us on YouTube or Insta and see parts of this show with actual video.The Bugle is hosted this week by:Andy ZaltzmanAlice FraserAnuvab PalAnd produced by Chris Skinner and Ped Hunter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Dancelaguard fans, you will be thrilled to know a book is coming out if you fund it via Unbound. We are publishing the Dancelaguard Reader by Alice Fraser and Dancelaguard, a glorious insight into the world of Dancelaguard, self-published romance maven, and online bestseller. If you would like to find out how to support it, go to thebugelpodcast.com. If we get enough support, we will publish the book. That's a real thing that's going to happen. Thebugelpodcast.com to a real thing that's going to happen. TheBuglePodcast.com to support the Danciler Guard Reader. The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.
Starting point is 00:00:43 Hello, Bugleers, and welcome to issue 4,225 of the audio newspaper that has chronicled this troubled world since the very dawn of Tartnott time, since the very dawn of mid-October 2007. I'm Andy Zotsman, and this is last week's bugle delayed to this week due to my tour show commitments, and this week's bugle brought forward earlier in the week due to my tour show commitments and this week's bugle brought forward earlier in the week due to wanting to counteract the merciless passage of time and it's worked, I'm three days younger than I was scheduled to be in this episode. Take that time, you uncompromising piece of shit with your remorseless onward march and you're frankly outdated
Starting point is 00:01:19 in Bill Agesum. Joining me this week from two of the world's 10 greatest continents in Australia its Alice Fraser and in India and of Appal. Hello both of you how are you? Hello Andy I am well I just caught a plane. Cauter plane there's one cat's plane. It's like a disease. Well given Covid times it seems like that's the way to catch a disease is catch a plane. Yes I just rode on a plane to get to Melbourne. Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah I won't go into the specifics of the town naming, but there is a big event, a museum is opening
Starting point is 00:02:07 to commemorate or remember, I guess would be better, one of the many British atrocities that were committed in Punjab. And for some reason they decided post-COVID, it would be a good idea to have a comedian come and give a perspective on this. Now I have never spoken at a trocity before. I have never been featured during a historical atrocity. So if you guys have any tips for me, let me know. I suppose more than saying the British terrible it was bad it shouldn't have happened, which I feel I've been saying for a pretty long time now. Well, I know that you know I kill it every gig, so. Yeah, yeah, it does work well.
Starting point is 00:02:50 I just want to finish by saying, look, all the venues have opened in India and I'm happy to say that this part of the world comedy is back and there are a couple of great things about that, which is the National Center for Performing Arts, which is our big Mumbai theatre. It opened on Sunday. there was a big gala, and I'm happy to report that Indian audiences have returned to their great wonderful habits, which is coughing through every joke and showing up at least 40 minutes late to a gig, which Andy, you will remember, as nostalgia. Yeah, I should just pick up on a slight linguistic area you made, and if I'm describing it as an atrocity performed by the British in Imperial times,
Starting point is 00:03:32 I think the technical term you're looking for is behavioural glitch. Yeah. That's how we like to think of them. An embarrassing cuffuffle. You've just given me the headline of my keynote address tonight, a slight cuffuffle that happened in Punjab, which is also the name of a pretty good musical. LAUGHTER
Starting point is 00:03:55 MUSIC We are recording on the 29th of March, Friday when we were originally scheduled to be recording. When, of course, I would have been were originally scheduled to be recording, when of course I would have been three days older. Is April full-stay the first of April? This year, however, it's been rebranded as April fuel's day, as the well-belatedly tries to wean itself off for a glance on Russian gas and oil by begging other, others of the world's less charming regimes to blast a bit more down the pipes into our desperate beaks. So we examine the alternative sources of fuel with which we could prank Putin's Russia.
Starting point is 00:04:29 And in association with the new Scientist magazine, we've developed various false claims about fuels that we're hoping Vladimir will be tuned into the show on April Fool's Day. We'll be hoodwinked by it. According to French scientists, we are now on the point of a significant breakthrough in converting sexual tension into electricity, which could make France the wealthiest nation in the world. Also, on the point of tapping the potential energy of mountain goats, there is more potential energy stored in mountain goats due to their altitude,
Starting point is 00:05:00 and there is an all the oil wells and gas fields in Russia put together. All we need to do is to find a way of converting it into usable domestic electricity without hurling all the goats off the mountains. And also, a cow-ass methane could replace all Russian fuel after scientists developed a simple pair of catalytic cow underpants which can convert all emissions into low-carbon pellets of eco-fuel. As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week we have a free Oscars audio-goody bag giveaway, the free bits of audio from the Oscars party, including an awkward cough, as the film industry congratulates itself when everything it's done to the background of a brutally
Starting point is 00:05:45 suffering world. A reaction to a surprising incident, and a gaping void of nothingness. That section in the bin. Top story this week. Well, Ukraine still not going tremendously well as these things go. A couple of vehicles go. We reported on Joe Biden's off the cuff, go get him coder to his state of the Union speech. Well, now he's melted the Auto Q once again at the end of a speech in Poland at this time by saying, for God's sake, this man cannot remain in power. Now, obviously, pretty much everyone who is not Vladimir Putin or in Vladimir Putin's inner circle agrees that it would be nice
Starting point is 00:06:30 if the Kremlin Gremlin took early retirement and did not insist on seeing through the next eight terms in office he currently has scheduled into his diary and all the mayhem they will bring. It would solve things very easily. If, for example, Putin were to become conveniently locked in his garden shed or trapped in an alternate dimension by a strange machine or overcome by visitation from some deity and became a nun or just evoked himself to his lifelong dream of recording a fun album. You can't say it out loud without it getting very, very awkward indeed. There was some hasty backtracking by the White House. You tried to explain it away by saying that Biden meant
Starting point is 00:07:10 that Putin couldn't stay in power in Ukraine or saying that he actually, many had no staying power, which is a 70 year old man with the legimassive health problems, might be true, or that he couldn't remain in power, PAAWA, the Portland Amateur Wireless Association, or even the Philatalyst against Wimples for Advocs, or it could have been that Biden meant that Putin could not have the remaining power, a type of flattened rice grain used in Indian cookery. So there's been backtracking, but there's also... And the Eddy's just an abbreviation for, he cannot remain in control of all of our sources of power. Oh right, yes. So just a missing, it was like a missing words round.
Starting point is 00:07:50 Yeah, the only thing worse than a terrible regime is whatever America thinks ought to replace it. Because, you know, what America loves more than anything is a country that has its own problems. Interesting reaction from the younger generation to that. You know, my two favorite phrases in the last week from President Biden has been, For God's sake, man, stop. And the second one has been, this is after he landed in Poland, this was in his speech, what's wrong with you, man? At this stage he's looking less like a world leader than like an old man hanging out in his yard in Connecticut, shouting at a teenager who's been shooting their house
Starting point is 00:08:30 with BB guns. It sort of feels like that sort of been like how he's tried to address Putin. But I have a quick question for both of you. Often Russia's sort of response to this sort of thing is poisoning people. My question is, do you think poison just as a war mechanic tool is making a comeback because of all this? Russians have always liked poison,
Starting point is 00:08:52 and do you think poison is having a moment here now? Well, it does seem that way. Roman Abramovich, about whom we've talked recently on this podcast, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, he was poisoned at peace talks recently, along with other Ukrainian negotiators, I think the Brems and Troll Act, some kind of go between. And it is, I mean, there's just so much about this, that is, this whole story, as we've talked about before, that is just so kind of bafflingly 1970s and poisoning people at peace talks is, but it is like a kind of shit plot from a low budget Coldwater filler. Yeah, you didn't expect all of those 90s Russian villains to be used as inspo. I think, look, there's oil shortage, right? Poison is making a comeback. All we need are bell-bottom pants, the band Abba, and a couple of hijackings,
Starting point is 00:09:48 and we'll be back in the 70s properly. Well, I think Abba could definitely do a job. I'd like them deployed to the PC store, and we might lighten the mood a bit. Cramlin's spokesman, Demetri Peskov, described Biden's comments as alarming and so they will continue to monitor his statements. Russia has been quite sensitive about language use.
Starting point is 00:10:13 I mentioned a few weeks ago how Putin complained about aggressive language being used towards Russia. And you've got to give Putin some credit for this. And as I said before, he really must try to raise the linguistic bar and criticize his headed genocide of war crimes in a more civilized manner. And Putin's language throughout has been impeccable. He doesn't want to trigger people through language,
Starting point is 00:10:38 as we know we can be easily triggered by language. He's used impeccable language, a special military operation, not, unleash the f*** dogs of war, and the f***ing shick dragons of terror, and he's used peacekeeping rather than unprovoked mega slaughter. So you can see why they do get a little upset by language such as Biden's. In other Ukraine news,
Starting point is 00:11:03 God appears to be taking, well, a number of sides in the war, as is so often the case. Joe Biden, as we said, sent his prayers to the people of Ukraine, which have not proved 100% effective thus far. But the Russian Orthodox Church has endorsed Ukraine invasion, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has given the big ecclesiastical thumbs up to Putin's action. Now, I'm a bit out of the loop with God. I will grant you that and with Christianity and shit like that. But from what I recall from my schooling at a Christian school, albeit as a lapsed Jewish child, Jesus was not a natural advocate of the mass slangs of innocent women and children and wasn't a huge fan of untrammeled brutality. He gave off more of a
Starting point is 00:11:52 piece's cool vibe. So, I mean, how do we interpret the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church is apparently given God's approval for what's going on? I think it's incredible. The patriarch Kieril, who's a 75-year-old patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, has come down on the sky. It's quite young for a patriarch, I think. That is very young for a patriarch, particularly given the patriarch he's been going for hundreds of thousands of years.
Starting point is 00:12:16 I assume tens of thousands of years, maybe. A couple of thousands, is good? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I think there was a patriarchy when it was just single-celled organism. It's just been handed down through the generations, Alice. I'm not good at time maths. The point is the patriarchy has come down on the side of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Starting point is 00:12:39 Siting as an example of what Putin is rescuing the people of Ukraine from as things like gay pride marches, saying that outsiders are trying to force gay pride marches on the people of Donbass in eastern Ukraine. And he's sort of presenting this war as one that has metaphysical significance. He's a woke, he's like an anti-woke bro. This is, this patriarch should have a podcast. LAUGHTER Like, if you just want to complain about Pride marches,
Starting point is 00:13:09 there is a forum for you to do that. You don't need to run a whole church. Yes, and you don't need to invade a country and destroy many of its cities and inflict borderline genocide on its people. So... You know what? You can't, bomb, pride. LAUGHTER Bomb pride sounds like a nightclub. It sounds like the name of a... Just very quickly, though, excellent name.
Starting point is 00:13:34 Patriarch Kirill. He's just telling you, I've got a set of values just embedded in my name. You know, I don't know if this is a thing that's handed down in the Russian Orthodox Church, that every head of it is called Petriarch something, but if that is indeed the case, beautiful, because I think we need more of that, because, you know, if I met a bigot Patel, I would know where he stands. It's in his name. It's embedded. If I met a sexist sing, I would know, and sexist sing is probably a established rapper here in Punjab.
Starting point is 00:14:07 But if I met a sexist sing, then I would know what he stands for. I'm sorry, I haven't really been focusing on where the Russian Orthodoxy stands on this, because every new story I've read about this, Alice Andi, I've just been focused on the outfits. I mean, I've been to the Vatican and those outfits are pretty good. You know, the Vatican and the Pope, they've got some long flowing stuff going on. But the Russian Orthodox Church, they've got a whole headpiece. It's at another level of brilliant. They go in big on hats. Exactly, Alice. Exactly. So, as a lapsed Hindu, I'm just from a distance admiring all the costumes here.
Starting point is 00:14:45 And once you're wearing this sort of stuff, you could say any crazy thing you want. You know what they say? The higher the hat, the closer to God. On the premise that if they walk with a sort of a slightly bouncy step, they'll be poking God who's sitting on the sky, poking him gently in the bottom and drawing his attention. I don't know if the science backs that up though, does it, Alice? Because I mean, the hats, it would have. I don't know if the science backs that up though, does it, Alice? Because I mean, you know, the hats, it would have to be a symbolic poking of the arson
Starting point is 00:15:08 and God generally doesn't respond that well to that. I mean, it generally needs, you know, the smoke from the sacrifice of a hundred head of oxen to get his full attention, both, I've found. Apparently some of the priests in Russia have been criticizing, bravely criticizing the words of the Patriarch, anonymously criticising. Some of them are anonymously criticising. And I think that's really what Jesus would have wanted. Jesus was a big, anonymous critic of injustice.
Starting point is 00:15:40 Another Indian story at Anivab. There's been a lot of stories about Indian people who've been stranded in Ukraine, several hundred university students who at the start of the crisis struggling to get home. And I know you are the bugles, doctors and carnivores, chorus pondens. And so those two roles have come together rather nicely in this story. Exactly, look, Alessandhi, I'm just going to ask you what you think about this. I'm just going to read you the headline. And the headline is, Indian doctor stranded in Ukraine with bet Jaguar and Panther.
Starting point is 00:16:17 All I'm going to say to you is I'm going to ask you which of us haven't been. So for more than a week in Water on Yoke crane, Gurkommar Patil, who had bought two animals from the key of zoo. Again, back up. I didn't know that they were for sale at the zoo. I thought it was more of a browsing situation and then maybe order one when you get home. I don't know, you know, I mean, we're in the land where whatever patriarch Kriarchy says goes and maybe decided that there was an edict that says Wild animals are for sale was this not just him merely filming for the sequel to life of pie Rather a life of row I presume life of pie squared
Starting point is 00:16:59 Two versions of that Joe the Googlers you can choose whichever one you prefer That's got to really split the Greek alphabet fans from the maths fans. That's a Venn diagram crossover. That's our core demographic element. This has never happened on the Bugle before. There is an intersection of wild Indian animals, Greek letters and Ukraine. This is current affairs, Greek mathematics and Indian man with wild animals.
Starting point is 00:17:31 You're absolutely right Andy, we're done with tigers on boats. This man, Girikomar Patil had a plan. He wanted to get this 20 month old Jaguar and its female Panther partner, a six month old cub, and he wanted to bring them back to India, which of us haven't had this desire. And he doesn't want to run away from Ukraine right now. His only concern is he doesn't know where to get 23 kilograms of sheep, turkey and chicken meat to feed his wild animals. One of the things that it mentions in this article is that this doctor is single, which I don't think anybody needed to emphasize or even mention.
Starting point is 00:18:13 No reasonable potential partner looks at a man with two big killer cats as pets and goes, there's room for me in that. Ooh, he's a doctor. Ooh, he's cowering in a basement with his friends who will definitely eat him if he dies or sleeps too hard or forgets to feed them for even one day. You know? Absolutely correct. Imagine that in the profile Alice, you know, a single kev in a basement with two wild animals. On the flip side, maybe there is somebody for him in which case there is hope for everyone on the planet. I mean, there's a lot of men standing next to
Starting point is 00:18:49 tigers in their Tinder profiles, but very rarely do they own them, I think. And can you really own a tiger? I think if you buy a tiger, the tiger owns you. I think that's the legal status of buying a tiger. You just paid to be owned by a tiger. And like Andy said earlier, look people, he went as a foreign student. And I was a foreign student for a long time and it can get very lonely. You're in a cold northern hemisphere country, you don't have any friends. So what do all Indian students do? They go out and buy a wild animal.
Starting point is 00:19:21 It's just a standard practice. You know, I tried to make friends and buy a woolen coat, he went out there and bought a Jaguar and a Panther. Which of us wouldn't? Other massive conflict news now and the Oscars has degenerated into a free-for-all featuring all 40,000 people involved in Hollywood. I mean, it was just one punch, but the aftermath has basically involved everyone having an opinion on it. Alice, as our showbiz celebrity Fisticuffs correspondent, just remind everyone exactly what happened in the fight of the Millennium so far. I mean this week is the week that we found out more detail than we needed to find out about Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's open marriage which is that it is open to everything
Starting point is 00:20:13 except Zingers when Chris Rock was making some jokes about various Hollywood stars. He made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith appearing in the next GI Jane movie which was taken to be a reference to her bald head and she has Ella Peasha, and Will Smith decided that he needed to get up on stage and smack another man in the face. And like as a comedian, it is a professional dream to be asked to punch up the Oscars, but I don't think they're being slapped by a man who's clearly struggling with the mental equilibrium of playing manly men who punch out their feelings and also being an actor at the same time which is the job where they have to hire other men to do their pretend punching for them because their faces are too pretty to risk
Starting point is 00:20:55 It was a kind of strange event. I mean, I have as much interest in the Oscars as I have in the annual Austro-Piruvian Dog Ballet Awards I realize they are interesting to some people. I don't believe the awards have any intrinsic meaning, and I'm constantly baffled by what the attendees were. So they're kind of similar events to me. Timothy Schellamay didn't wear a shirt
Starting point is 00:21:14 and now nobody's talking about it. That is the greatest tragedy of all in many ways. The things we should be talking about, a shirtless man. My dad once did get up on stage to address an MC who had insulted me. Right. That's why always bring parents to a gig.
Starting point is 00:21:32 You know, I mean, it's the last 20 years. He didn't punch the guy, by the way. He just, he said, I'd like you to apologize to my daughter, please. Which is what Will Smith could have taken that approach. My dad did it the right way. The guy introduced me by the way by saying, this is a girl who's been around the comedy scene for a couple of years, I wish I mean she's been in all the dudes. A classy intro. Yeah and so I went on and did my set and sort of didn't address it because I would you and then dad got up on
Starting point is 00:21:57 the stage and sort of came into the guy and said I'd like you to apologise to my daughter, please. And did he? Yeah, he was like, uh, yeah, who do you think you are? I guess you think you're also dead. Sorry, I also is dead. That's fair enough. Ali, sorry, I'm stuck about three minutes behind. Did you just say the Timothy Shalamet, the big Hollywood actor, showed up without a shirt?
Starting point is 00:22:19 Yes, he was showing a... Deliberately? Yeah, deliberately on purpose. Oh, right. Showing a lot of pale, chest slush stomach. You know Timothy Shalne is. You know, he's the one with the sort of the beautiful effeminate mouth in a very chiseled jawline,
Starting point is 00:22:33 like a sort of an anime cartoon of sexiness for people who don't understand what sex is. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Yeah. Yeah. That's modern man. Look, I mean, this is why my head is about to explode. You see, I always looked at the West as sort of setting the bar for sophisticated events. Now, if there is a big actor showing up, that was silly of me. I should have bought more wild animals in my foreign education days instead of studying. But here's the thing, you always look at the Oscars for this sort of grand sophisticated ceremony. If there's a man showing up without a shirt, it's the same as an event attended by Andy Soltzman when he was in
Starting point is 00:23:11 Calcutta, when we went to watch a football match where a bunch of relatively illiterate young boy Huligan people showed up and they sat next to us and immediately took off their shirts. and they sat next to us and immediately took off their shirts. And at least they had the decency to turn to us and say, is this all right? And he said it's okay. How is that more gracious now that the Oscars? I'm just forgot. In terms of the rights and wrongs of the incident,
Starting point is 00:23:40 I don't think there should be any limits on what a comedian should be able to say. I'm not saying you can't say certain things because they'll be on the pile or be on the perceived pile, but I am saying as a comedian, particularly one of Chris Rothstanding, you should be good enough not to have to say them. And I'm also not saying a person should not spring to the defence of a wronged or insulted loved one, a family member, or indeed just any random member of the human rights. But the red-missed face slap, generally not the best way of doing it, especially when you, as one of the most prominent celebrities in the world, have an instant audience of millions whenever you open your mouth.
Starting point is 00:24:13 So as you say, you could have just said something, I think it would have been more effective, a lot more dignified, and all in all, two wrongs made two wrongs and took our attention away from the more important issue of the awards themselves, including the major awards at this year's Oscars, least necessary superhero film, least thought-provoking reworking of a tied concept, most unbelievable on-screen romance, most gratuitous violence and least accurate firing in a gun battle. So it's just ashamed that the people who won those awards didn't get their moment in the sun. Seems like this always remind me of the fact that I was once told that men were more rational than women. I just feel like no one gets slapped in the face and goes, oh, actually, good point. Well, yes, Alice. I mean, looking at global news at the moment,
Starting point is 00:25:07 that claim is not doing not aging well, is it? Really? And indeed the entire history of humanity. Also, these categories that Andy's lead out, they are far more interested than the actual categories. I'm going to take the one piece of paper, go to the head of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. And if these are the not the categories next year, I'm punching them in the face. I've decided I'm doing the Gala tomorrow at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the opening night Gala, and I've decided that I'm going to
Starting point is 00:25:35 introduce myself by smacking the MC in the face. Who's the MC? I have no idea. I'll say, get my name out of your mouth. Smiles. LAUGHTER MUSIC Ships news now and, well, some very exciting news for fans of Ships that sank in 1915. Ernest Shackleton's endurance ship, which she crashed into Antarctica at load speed 107 years ago has been found underwater kind of three miles down in the frozen wastes of the Antarctic ocean the boat lost its battle with ship loads of pack ice a few months after a e-shack had rammed it into the continent it did manage to get all his crew to
Starting point is 00:26:20 safety in one of the more incredible escape jobs in history pursued by gangs of vengeful penguins who may have mercililessly lamponed for their funny way of walking their stupid flappy wings and waddley feet, and their militant pescatarianism. But now, over a hundred years later, it's been discovered after a long and extremely complicated expedition. They found this amazingly preserved wreck of this ship from the early 20th century. And the most disappointing thing about it is that they're gonna do f*** all with it.
Starting point is 00:26:50 They're not gonna raise it, they're not gonna nick everything from it. Where is the fun in that? I mean, it sort of, yeah, it really takes out that kind of joy of discovery where you used to just plunder the shit out of everything. I don't know what's in this kind of passivity when you discovered primes too more. And you think they went right in like elbows out, nicked everything stuck in a museum,
Starting point is 00:27:12 long gone of those days. I blame the woe, Calis. Museums in 200 years' time are just gonna be little bits of paper saying sorry. Just a bit of geocaching, just showing you the longitude and latitude of where the thing is that they didn't steal. So the main marine archaeologist who found this, his name is Mensenbound, excellent name, and he said that the ship has been found upright, it's proud, intact, and in a brilliant
Starting point is 00:27:41 state of preservation, which was also the review of my very first comedy show when describing me. Now, I have a question for both of you. Now, Andy, let us say, if in a hundred years, people find your first notebook of manuscripts, handwritten, much like William Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot. I'm very much on a level in the canon of English language literature.
Starting point is 00:28:03 Yeah, I think that's it. That's how I think of it. Yeah, you've scratched out stuff. You've written notes, you've written stuff like complete bollocks, who's ever going to do this joke, etc. All of that. And your hard bound notebook is found at the bottom of the weddle sea in the South Atlantic.
Starting point is 00:28:18 We won't go into how it got there. That's what I was saying. It's a gig. 100 years later, they find it at the, what would you like the explorers to do? Do you want them to lift it up and read your jokes or do you want them to leave it intact? Your first four Edinburgh's from the bottom of the wettelsea.
Starting point is 00:28:37 Well, I mean, if it was my first comedy notebook, I definitely want them to, well, not just leave it where it was, but feed it to a shark. I think it was some, some, not just leave it where it was, but feed it to a shark. There was some, some, not optimal material in there. I've seen from one of the first routines I ever did was about being given a Scotsman as a Christmas present. I can't even remember what the, where it went as a routine, but I do remember it, well, where it went was total silence
Starting point is 00:29:02 when I first did it in a gig in Scotland. I mean, did he survive or was he killed? Boom! Also, it is suggesting that the Ernest Shackleton's voice was like an open mic act. Yes. Well, in that they went in with a plan and then quickly got to that. Yes. Yeah. And they ran away from the gig, which would be any, they were found alive somewhat and in a different island, which is true for my first open my gigs. I don't know what to guess. Also, I feel like this story is probably a misdirect in that it's just bigging up the discovery of this ship when in fact what they should be is embarrassed that it took them a hundred and seven years to find a ship that they
Starting point is 00:29:47 knew where it went down. Yeah, I guess so. That's like saying I found that chip I dropped. Listen, I have a confession to make. You both know I'm a bit of a history buff and my father was a sailor his whole life. So I've spent quite a lot of time around ships in history. And like a gigantic loser that I am, I had been following a blog tracking this vessel every day.
Starting point is 00:30:12 So the ship that tractor is called Endurance 22, and it went to look for Shackleton's ship. And I just want to give a shout out on this podcast to the captain of the ship. The South African captain, his name is Knowledge Bengu. And Captain Knowledge Bengu is the one who cuts through the ice and on the whatever, 14, 15, they found it. And only because I think Knowledge Bengu is the greatest name
Starting point is 00:30:36 anyone can give to their child is good to be the captain of a ship that sails into the South Atlantic. I mean, I feel if you name your child Knowledge Bengu, they have no choice but to become the captain of a ship that sails into the South Atlantic. I mean I feel if you if you name your child knowledge Bengu they have no choice but to become the captain of the ship that sailed into the North Atlantic. Exactly, exactly. In other shipping news, Piano Ferries on the 17th of March announced that it would be replacing staff immediately. Piano's a British ferry company that goes back to the early 19th century. That's more on this shortly.
Starting point is 00:31:09 It would be replacing staff immediately with agency workers paid less than the minimum wage as a cost-saving measure. And they did so. Any guesses how they did this corporate f***ingness fans? Yes, they did this by video message, but not just any video message. They did it by a pre-recorded video message that was then played out. Many people saw this video message on the boats they were
Starting point is 00:31:32 working on at the time. Now, I can understand, you know, having got the very, very mistaken impression, that ignoring laws and behaving shitterly towards the lower paid has become officially installed as a core British value. But even in the heavily laden annals of executive shittery, this was an impressively bastardish manner of sacking people. It's hard to see how P&O could have sacked their workers more disrespectfully other than with a torpedo or maybe a torpedo designed and painted to look like an extended middle finger, maybe even a bird flipping torpedo accompanied by the ship's horn honking. What? What?
Starting point is 00:32:12 Maybe even a bird flipping ship horn honking and accompanied by a lifeboat already full with a choir singing your sacked and you know you are and a fly past of an airplane with a banner streaming out the back saying, if you're not happy about being sacked, why don't you swim to Dubai and take it up with the bosses? And maybe an hairdrop of career advice leaflet saying, have you thought of becoming a fish? But other than doing that, I can't see how they could have done it more insensitively. No, I mean, I mean, they've done it so insensitively that the Tory government has expressed its disapproval, which... Wow, oh, wow. That's got to sting, that's got to sting.
Starting point is 00:32:46 Look, I just found out that they have replaced all those fairy workers with the other Dubai owners have with possibly cheap part-time Indian labor. And as a result of this, I've been highly motivated and I have an announcement to make Alice and I will be replacing myself on the bugle with a cheaper Indian version myself and pocketing the difference. This is going to set a precedence for all podcasts and the future I think.
Starting point is 00:33:16 And obviously I'm going to announce it right now in the next 10 seconds my replacement is going to show up, which just looks like me and what has the same voice. Boris Johnson said that the mass sackings by P&O broke the law, he did that without giggling to himself, which was quite impressive. Also in October last year the government voted against a bill that would have outlawed what they call fire and rehire, where companies fire their staff and then rehire
Starting point is 00:33:47 either the same staff or different staff on lower wages. So I guess this is another example of the government's core principle of discovering its principles when public and media opinion tells it to find some principles at last. P&O is an old British company dating back to the early 19th century.
Starting point is 00:34:02 It was originally known as the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. Also a former drug dealer trafficked over 600 crates of opium in its 19th century Narko Hay Day. We tended to do it in those days. In 2006, it was flogged off as all great British things eventually are, a dance as old as a post. P&O stands for Piles and Opium. dancers, older, P&O stands for Piles and Opian. It was sold to a foreign corporate behemoth DP world. Now here's a little quiz for you, butlers. What does the DP in DP world stand for? I hope it's not what it's for. Yeah. Family show. Is it a deep purple? The English rockers use the proceeds from their mid70s album Stormbringer to fulfill their
Starting point is 00:34:46 lifelong dream of running a shipping company. Does it stand for Dill Pickle World, which is a top-selling magazine devoted to the Pickled Cue Cumber, it sells 120 million copies a week worldwide and featuring features columns such as a thousand and one uses for a corny show when Pickles attack and in a pickle an advice column about how to deal with all your pickle related problems also features a cartoon strip, Gertrude the Gerkin which is on any possible reading, unnecessarily erotic. It does a DP World Stanford Derrick Pringle world, the theme park based on the life and career of former England cricketer Derrick Pringle. It does DP World Stanford the International Association for Miss Leading Acronyms and Excessive Abbreviation? Or does it stand for Dubai ports? Well, yes.
Starting point is 00:35:29 It is indeed Dubai ports. And as you mentioned, the ownership of P&O lies in Dubai. The firm is ultimately owned by the Dubai government. And they brought all the behavioral morality and workplace relation sensitivity that you would expect to this issue. Also, they'd benefit from the UK government's furlough scheme. They're set to benefit from the post-Brexit free-port scheme. They paid out large dividends to their shareholders last year, but they still felt the need to
Starting point is 00:35:55 publicly shit on 800 not particularly highly paid workers by sacking them in the most impersonal amount of possible, aren't the free markets fun. I mean, for all the things you're going to skimp on, don't skimp on the workers in a building that can burn down and then sink, I feel. It's good advice, good advice, Ella. I mean, there's some things I just have, a matter of principle, some things you should not go bargain on.
Starting point is 00:36:20 You're sex toys, sushi, and seafaring workers. For three S's. The three S's. Did you just too much risk? It's too much risk. You are sex toys, sushi, and seafaring workers. Yes, yes. The three years. Did you just too much risk? It's too much risk. You know who's not coming along at this discounted price is Captain Knowledge Bengu.
Starting point is 00:36:33 He's not coming up. That's a discounted price. And also, here's a question for both of you. In what time do we find out? Because it's just a matter of time that we're all owned by Dubai. We're all in some way. Each of us are owned by Dubai. It's just a matter of when we fight that out, really. I have a friend who is an architect in Dubai and he said that they would throw up these enormous buildings, sort of almost overnight, with enormous numbers of workers who were obviously
Starting point is 00:37:00 very badly paid. And there is a building in Dubai in which the car park faces the water and the front of the building faces the road because they put it up the wrong way around. That's half-priced labour, that's what you do. Health news now and some things are good for you and some things aren't and what those things are and aren't changes depending on science. Alice, well it turns out that alcohol is not good for you, coffee is possible compromise of an Irish coffee just keeping you on the level. What's the latest from the world of
Starting point is 00:37:45 the world of science? So massive study out of Massachusetts General Hospital has refuted the either two self-justifying claim that a little bit of alcohol is actually quite good for your heart and people say that while they drink quite a lot of alcohol but at the same week while people are disappointed at this news in the same week found out from the American College of Cardiology that two or three cups of coffee a day is possibly good for your heart. So, you know, you can stop drinking one thing and start drinking the other. It's basically the news. But then, of course, this kind of news always cast into doubt all of the previous
Starting point is 00:38:20 news about what you should do and what you shouldn't do. Remember when it happened with eggs? In the 90s, it was all eggs. Eggs will kill you, gotta eat eggs a day. No more than a half an egg every three weeks. It's very stressful, this kind of information. I don't think we need to know this kind of health and science news.
Starting point is 00:38:37 And I say this as somebody who now has a very small baby and is doing all of the research about, you know, babies can drown in five seconds in less than three millimeters of water, you know, babies can drown in five seconds in less than three millimeters of water, you know, just this. All right, I thought you meant whether or not it's healthy to eat babies, which is. Yeah, whether it's healthy to have babies, whether it's healthy to eat babies, whether you can, you know, if you leave it on its own, it'll turn onto its face and suffocate
Starting point is 00:38:59 on its own breath, you know, just very stressful. I just don't want to know anything. I just want things to happen to me. And a red meat often got a lot of, you know, things like, you know, eating a sausage is like running naked into a lining closure that kind of report that doesn't really help anyone. And if I have, how do you, how do you interpret this to me? It seems to me that essentially these, these reports are telling us that if we want to live forever, we've got to drink less booze, but more coffee. But the exact opposite message is being given to us by the current trends in global news
Starting point is 00:39:35 and current affairs, which are telling us to sleep as much as possible and try to blot out all reality. So, I mean, how as consumers can we interpret this? You know, here's several things. I've always liked studying econometrics, because econometrics allows you to hedge different things. And it says, the world is always working in opposites. So always hedge one against the other.
Starting point is 00:39:56 So sometimes they say drink coffee, don't drink alcohol. Other times they say drink alcohol, don't drink coffee. I am living entirely on diet of alcohol and coffee because eventually if it's one of the other I'll win. Of course I'll also be dead in a week but I haven't hedged for that because I didn't do well very well in my econometrics class. So I'm just going with coffee. My big issue with this and the Alice is they always give you a comparison. They always say drinking four glasses of single malt whiskey is like running into a horde of wild elephants who are on a rampage and then being bitten by a cheetah. Now, how would I know those other things? I mean, those other things, I cannot experience. I can only experience this.
Starting point is 00:40:45 So when they give us these comparisons, they're quite useless. You know, they often say eating a large steak is the equivalent of stabbing yourself in the heart. Now, I've never done that. I've never stabbed myself in the heart. I've eaten a steak and it's felt pretty good. If that's what stabbing myself in the heart means, I'll stab myself in the heart. I mean, maybe that's what that Indian doctor in Ukraine is doing.
Starting point is 00:41:10 He's just experimenting on what it is like to drink three glasses of alcohol a day by living with a cheater and a panther. Yes, or that it's dangerous to eat red meats if you're sharing a plate with a cheater and a panther. That's been a bit aggressive in thosether. The other reports that have come out recently on food safety have shown that hot dogs can make you bark, especially if eating with a violently hot mustard. Drinking 400 points of beer in a decade is okay, provider that you don't miss here the
Starting point is 00:41:40 word decade as weekend. The latest meat scare is that eating a single joint of beef can prove fatal if you try to eat it by catching it in your mouth after it's been thrown out of an aeroplane at 10,000 feet. Excessive consumption of cantaloupe melons can lead to feelings of social anxiety if you perform that excessive consumption in a supermarket, a funeral parlor, or the auditorium at a professional snook tournament. And cashew nuts can cause joint pain if you glue them to a shipping container and then try to break them with your kneecaps.
Starting point is 00:42:09 So I do, well, I don't mean to eat, but please eat safe. Well, that brings us to the end of this week's Bugle. Thank you very much for listening. I am going to be on holiday for the next couple of weeks. We'll be back in mid April time. We will have sub-buegles to entertain you in the meantime. Thanks to everyone who came to all these satirists for high shows on my tour.
Starting point is 00:42:34 I certainly was, you know, I think rusty, but it was mostly funny. I hope you didn't enjoy it. There is a London run in May at the Soho Theatre. Eight dates from from I think the ninth of May details on the Internet, do come along and do send in your satirical requests in advance. I cannot stress this strongly enough. It definitely helps the show. Saturize this at saturistforhier.com. Alice, you are about to start your Melbourne Festival run.
Starting point is 00:43:04 Yes, this week I packed up my flat and I've put everything into suitcases, except for my baby who sits on top of the suitcase and I'm on the road now, I'll be in Melbourne and then Sydney and then Perth and then Tokyo but not doing shows unless you're in Tokyo and want me to do a show for you and then I can ride off that flight on tax and then London for two months and then Edinburgh. So if you're in any of those places, but particularly Melbourne, I have sold five tickets for my opening night, which is on Thursday, so, ooh, bye tickets please.
Starting point is 00:43:33 And then come and see me do comedy, I'm very good. And about anything to plug? Yeah, I hopefully will be in the UK for about a month or so starting the middle of April and Amazon thing I recorded in December comes out at the end of April after which I will probably have to never return to India if Prime Minister Modi gets hold of the recording but yeah, I will be doing some shows you can find out on Twitter where they will be and yeah, otherwise I will be doing some shows, you can find out on Twitter where they will be and yeah, otherwise
Starting point is 00:44:05 I will be absconding. Also, while Andy's on holiday, the Google never sleeps, the sister podcast to the Google at the Glossy magazine, all of the news, none of the politics hosted by me, Alex Fraser, that's me. We will now play you out with some lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers to join him go to the google podcast.com and click the donate button to make a one-off or a purring contribution to keep the show free flourishing and independent. Our lies this week are on the theme of books. Mark DeTnon and RC LeDd unbeknownst to each other are both obsessed with writing the first sentences of novels. Between them they've
Starting point is 00:44:59 churned out no fewer than 3,500 opening lines, without feeling it necessary to go on to write the second sentence, let alone the whole rest of the book. Amongst Mark's finest novel openings is this one. Keith ran his fingers across his freshly finished pancake, remembering only to clearly what Eric, the grand prophet of Doom, had said about lemons. RC Laird destined, of course, to become a novelist due to using two initials, rather than the first name, has within the last two minutes I hear penned the following start to a novel. That's not a real tree, with the last words Percival heard, before the branches of the Strachelic grasped him by the throats and groin simultaneously. By contrast, David
Starting point is 00:45:46 Reed and Simon Hobbs also entirely unbeknownst to each other prefer writing the last lines of novels to leave the reader wondering what an earth could have happened before them. Classics from David's over include, an order was left when the strange purple dust cloud cleared, was a single carrot. The echoing whistle of the last train out of town, and two furious goats. Simon meanwhile has just completed his 400th final line of an otherwise unwritten novel entitled The Penultimate Picnic. It reads as follows.
Starting point is 00:46:20 Philip knew he would never again see home. Never taste the sweetness of Giuliana's kiss, never be free from the memories of war, but he had something better, the free washing machine. And finally by also contrast, Aaron Keratin, Olivia Galetti are amongst the almost infinite number of buglevolentos subscribers who like to write two lines of dialogue from the exact midpoint of a novel. Aaron's great mid-novel masterpieces include, What? How will I fit it all in? Asked an astonished Michael.
Starting point is 00:46:53 Use your imagination and my shovel responded Lillian, puffing wildly on her late uncle still smolering cigar. A work is just beginning, she added, mysteriously. And Olivier has delved into the realms of science fiction with his latest middle of a novel exchange which reads, as follows, I suppose I'll learn to live without a head, Grumble to disappointed snutterbot 2.3. Sparks still flickering on the sad wires of its neck. Yes, sorry SB, apologize Vice Captain Gronson Bard,
Starting point is 00:47:23 putting the twelfth and final defunct mechanical eyeball into the airlock. I'm starting to think that giant magnet is more trouble than its worth around here. Here and at this week's lies. Goodbye.

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