The Bugle - Trump Can Now Legally Eat Puppies

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Andy and Alice fly through the latest election action in the UK, USA and France. Plus, Elon Musk is up to stuff. And we analyse Beyonce's name.Expect a 2nd episode this week... with election news! This all happens because you, the global public, fund it, support us here: http://thebuglepodcast.comWritten and presented by:Andy ZaltzmanAlice FraserAnd produced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A- International Inc. Bow down and worship. Welcome to that rarest of cosmic events, a Two Bugle Week. We are recording today, Tuesday the 2nd of July 2024, our last pre-election bugle, and Friday the 5th of July, by which time, let me just check my crystal ball, Armageddon will be upon us. That's if a Daily Telegraph headline and article about the now probable Labour victory proves to be true, which it won't, even if the probable Labour victory proves actual, which it will. Probably. Very, very probably. So, where else to start than with the first of those two bugles, this, the pre-election bugle, and joining me to give some icy-headed perspective on the final throbbing's of the era of conservative stroke destructive government here in the UK from almost as far away as it's possible to be without being an outer space where incidentally if Nigel

Farage's reform UK spring a big surprise and win on Thursday all other 7.8 billion people in the world will be sent by the end of the year joining us from Australia It's the fount of all objective reason and wisdom herself, Alice Fraser. Welcome, Alice, to this truly historic broadcast. How are you? I am well, I'm very excited. Ooh, a double bugle, won't you come out this week? That's, I'm very, what a thrill to be on such an auspicious

half of the output that you're putting out this week. Have you voted yet in the election? I have sent in my pigeons and they have been charged with their solemn official duty of pecking the eyes out of the electors. And I think some of your pigeons have been passing fairly physical satirical judgment on some previous incumbents of our Houses of Parliament, judging by the tops of the statues around London. So well done. And I hope all you buglers listening, wherever you are in the world, whether you are in the UK or not in the UK, whether you're eligible to vote or not eligible to vote, I do hope you have taken this opportunity

to vote in the UK election, because we need people like you to save us from ourselves. OK, first of all, it's not that hard to break into your government's website, despite being geo blocked out of it, which I found out this week when I had to send in my national insurance number to the BBC. I have the right to work in the UK, but they could not be convinced of it. And if you set up with complex apparatus of mirrors, you can fool the government to believing that you're in the UK. So we are recording two days ahead of the election on the 2nd of July, as I said. On this day in 1698 Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine. Initially it was a method of pumping water to improve drainage in mines and to help with public water supply. But

sadly the invention of the steam engine unwittingly set in train, ironically, an unstoppable chain of events that led inexextricably to thousands of disappointed would-be passengers across Britain standing listlessly on station concourses, gazing at minimal utility information screens and surrounded by the same chain outlets thinking, oh well, never mind, I'm not going to get where I wanted to get by when I wanted to get there, so I'll just enjoy being a living, breathing component of a metaphor for the manifold failures of our economy, politics and society. Thank you, Thomas, you engineering, adult dream crusher. Thomas Savery is dodging nominative determinism there. He was trying to

invent a really complex salty snack and mist. Yes, although it's S-A-V-E-R-Y, which sounds like a biblical term for thrift or something. Again, there's no place for that in the modern world. On this day in 1897, celebrity engineer, Gielmo Marconi, let's go with that, Mark, let's call him Markoni. Marky Markoni obtained a Well another patent for the first radio ever that set in train an unstoppable chain of events that led Inextricably to people shouting at each other during an afternoon drive time show about issues They have an at best dangerously superficial level of knowledge about whilst they host prods both bears with a poison tip stick of pseudo

level of knowledge about, whilst they host prods both bears with a poison-tipped stick of pseudo-impartiality, before we then check in with Kim for the travel. And today is International Joke Day, and today's international joke is, um, I've got the envelope here. It's American Democracy, a narrow win, a very, very hotly contested title, fair play America, you have really put the f***ing legwork in. More of which later as always a section of the buglers going straight in the bin this week in this world this election week and with much going on around the world in the bin a very special thing a moment of quiet reflection in this world of chaos and

conflict Hey, can you can you quieten down please? We're trying to have a moment of quiet reflection. Oi! We're trying to achieve some equilibrium here! Just calm equilibrium! Guys! Can you take that shit back to the mid 15th century where it belongs? For fuck's sake! Put a fucking sock in it! Not now! Not now! Geez! You've really ruined this! You've ruined it! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed our moment of quiet reflection which has gone in the bin. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed our moment of quiet reflection, which has gone in the bin. I still contend that Chris, instead of putting in the effects you suggest, should just put in you describing the effects.

Top story this week. Britain goes to the polls. Yes, on Thursday now, as we record, less than 48 hours away, we will go with the pencil of destiny in our paws and we will write the letter X, a suitably negative letter in a small box, to express a vastly oversimplified version of our political beliefs in the glorious dance that is democracy. We've had the last knockings of this election campaign. Pretty similar to the end of the Glastonbury Festival.

In fact, most people are now barely conscious anymore. They're sleep deprived. Everyone's lost all touch with reality. There's mess everywhere that will take ages to clear up and a massive gap between the generations over what is right and wrong. And also no one's listening to the words anymore. So it's been,, it's been a,

it's been, I don't know, it hasn't really been an interesting election campaign, Alice, because really it's been unedifying and unproductive. Nothing's really changed in it apart from the increasing fear of Britain joining the increasingly trendy drift rightwards politically, despite all the evidence of history suggesting that is a stupid idea. How have you seen it from your perspective 13,000 miles away? I'm looking at it from the bright side, Andy. On the bright side, the Tories look like they might be letting the shucked husk of a nation's strip mind of its own essential services slip from their clutching talons before they fly off into the sky like a bloated vulture. That is rude

to vultures, of course, who are essentially nature's cleanup service and therefore have probably had their funding cut by the Tories. I would say rats fleeing a sinking ship, but that only works if the rats sank the ship by selling the bottom planks for parts, getting the repairs done by their rich mates who were shipboard termites and then blaming the ship for being lazy. done by their rich mates who were shipboard termites and then blaming the ship for being lazy. I would say leech. I would say leeches, but those have medicinal uses, so it would be disrespectful of what remains of the NHS to use them as an analogy. Vampires, too sexy. Heartless villains, too sexy. Zombies, too sexy. Sentient shits, too sexy. I don't know what metaphor to use for how badly the Tories have mishandled

the social infrastructure of this once great nation, but let's just say I am old enough to remember a time when we used to be comfortably able to call the UK a first world country. Yes, I think that's all fair enough. The Conservative last hope really came in the final head-to-head election debate towards the end of last week between interim Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and futureucius harmoniously and constructively discuss the nature and purpose of human existence if and only if you compared it with the American presidential debate otherwise it was a playground level squabble bleep in which delusive fibsterism butted up against obfuscatory expectation dampening resulting in a soul-sapping nil-nil draw. If you were playing election debate bingo, which I assume, bugglers, you all were, you would have been shouting,

house, house, about every 2.8 seconds throughout. The spurious claims, the petulant counterclaim, the deflections, the distractions, the wonky mathematics, the uncosted pledge, the repetitive catchphrases, the outright bullshit, the high-speed hypocrisy, tennis, the unashamed propaganda. It was all there for fans of feeling deeply queasy about what democracy has become.

Did it move the dial, as they say? Well, nothing has really moved the dial in this election campaign, Alice. Both parties have fizzled slightly downwards in polling since the election campaign began. And I think what that shows is that even the dial is immovably apathetic in this collection. Look, I can't say I'm wildly enthused about the prospect of Kirstama in office, but at least if he is elected, he will have been elected. We can say that. Unlike the past few. Yes, elected by more than a couple of hundred or a few thousand conservatives,

which is how the previous, God, I've lost count now. Uh, four, no, three, three prime for, uh, uh, no, four, it is four, four prime ministers. There's a lesson here. Just say any number confidently enough and no one will fact check you. That's right. Watching the debates. Exactly.

2000 is the chosen number of bullshit. It'll cost you two. This episode of the bugle will cost you two thousand pounds. If you join the bugle voluntary subscription scheme and give us two thousand pounds or a hundred pounds and we'll call it two thousand. That's just the way that British political mathematics works these days. But anyway this debate, I mean some of the Tory press said Sunak did better in it, but it's not really, as I said, it's not moved the dial. It turns out that 90 minutes of school debate snark attack does not outweigh 14 years of kaleidoscopic social and political mayhem. So I guess that was the problem he was up against. And each attack Sunak tried to launch on what Labour might do

against and each attack Sunak tried to launch on what Labour might do was rather undermined by what the Conservative government has actually done or hasn't even slightly done, delete according to relevance. And Sunak, I find him a hard politician to warm to on numerous levels, sort of comes across a bit like a whining teenager complaining that people don't understand his poetry and usually feelings of futility, exasperation and disenfranchisement are felt by the voters, but they're being expressed by the government in this election. It's been a strange role reversal. Yeah, it felt like Rishi Sunak in his sort of political campaign in the run-up to this election has been playing the role of somebody who's unfortunately slid into a dimension where the person that they're meant to be is actually a villain. And he's just a harmless guy who now has to live with

the choices that his other self has made and sleep with his other self's hot wife, you know. Yeah. I guess that does sort of explain things. The key word in the debate for Sunet was surrender. He warned the British public not to surrender to Labour. Now, again, this doesn't sit well with, you know, for a start, you look back to previous election campaigns and warnings of the chaos that would happen if Ed Miliband won in 2015, the strong and stable government that Theresa May promised in 2017 and all the various bullshits of the Johnson campaign in 2019. All words now are simultaneously hollow and riddled with holes so that they will sink, very much like that boat that you described earlier on I guess. And that determination not to surrender doesn't

sit particularly well with the Tories campaign which has basically for the last three weeks been please don't make us lose by a totally humiliating margin or indeed from Sunak's own toddling off from a memorial service on D-Day for one of the country's more famous incidences of non-surrendering. So again, it's just one of the many missteps I think that the conservatives have made, or even Boris Johnson hiding in a fridge, which in a way was really surrendering to the entire concept of human dignity. They've also, a lot of their campaign has been warning about labour tax rises, which following on from the 14 years of austerity economic hardship and economic chaos and the cost of living or cost of existing crisis that we've had that is But we are going to promise you a novelty sock for your bleeding stump And understand that's not really

It's not resonated Alice. It's not resonated with us voters here In the UK even you know, the tiny little economic up tweaks that we've seen recently or little moments of relative stability Essentially when the Conservatives our look that shows that we can control the election, that is clutching at the straws that have already broken the camel's back. It's a lot like being in an argument with someone who goes, well that's why you cheated on me, and you go wait a minute, I didn't cheat on you, and they go, no that's right, yes I cheated on

you, that's why we're having this argument. And every step they make, there's sort of undermined by some story coming out by events, reality and facts, three massive enemies of most sitting governments. And one particular story that stood out for me, Alice, was this story about what was described as the most wasteful government deal of the COVID pandemic, in which £14 billion pounds worth of COVID area COVID era personal protective equipment over one and a half billion items had to be destroyed or written off now labor pointed out that this money could have

paid for 37,000 nurses although I think that would have been worse imagine the forore if they destroyed 37,000 nurses I think that that would have been an even more for the conservatives. Interestingly, Andy, billion pounds worth is the name of my imaginary butler. The best kind of butler. Yeah, 1.4 billion pounds, that's 2000 pounds for every person in this country if you do the maths wrong. And for it to be declared the most wasteful government deal of the pandemic that Alice that is a proper gold medal because some titles aren't worth much because there isn't much competition you know whether that's some of the less competitive Olympic events or whether it's

world's most erotic lawnmower or most spiritually uplifting pre-election debate but most wasteful government deal of the pandemic. That is like beating peak Raphael Nadal at the French Open or like beating Damien Hirst in a least vegan friendly artwork competition or even seeing off Liz Truss in a shortest time between change of address cards competition. So they've really earned the defeat that all the polls and betting suggests is coming their way. On Labour who by the time we record our post-election bugle will be putting together a cabinet and a government we assume unless there is a a frankly trump times brexit squared level

of shock at the actual polls compared to the opinion polls labor's focus has been pretty much on not focusing people's minds too focusably on anything change has been their key word but the level of change being offered is fairly minimal and I do think you know it's hard to say at this point and we will have to give them time I think there's a good chance that Stammer and his government will be a more ambitious and radical in power than they've been in opposition sort of the opposite of Blair in 97 similarly taking over after a prolonged period of conservative government but also you know I country, you, you can't offer too much change to people generally historically, when we vote, we are like a

magnetic child at the bottom of a well during a coin sharpening and wishmaking festival in that we fear change. So you can see why they're being a little, uh, restrained, but as a result, which as you say, Selma hasn't really captured the public imagination in this debate and the questions from the audience and an audience member said, are you two really the best we've got to be next prime minister? And disappointingly, neither candidate had the guts to say, all right, smart ass, why don't you have a pop at it then your dick? No, the best that we've got is a Gary Lineker, Gary Neville dream team, but it won't happen because there's too much money in football podcasting.

Anyone can be a prime minister in the UK. As long as you go to Eaton, you can be the prime minister. As long as you go to Eaton and do PPE at Oxford, you can be the prime minister. As long as you go to Eaton and Oxford and do PPE at a particular college, anyone can be Prime Minister. And the absolute key is never to have had a real job. That is absolutely critical. Critical experience you need to be Prime Minister, which might be Keir Starmer's undoing ultimately. He was one of the most senior lawyers in the country.

That's not the kind of experience anyone wants. But anyway, to all practical purposes, the answer is clearly yes, these are, and as for whose fault that is, as a nation we really should not look too hard in our national mirror because we will not like what we see, because this is what we have allowed ourselves to become politically now. Looking at that debate, it's essentially an expression of British democracy as it stands, petulant, antagonistic, peeved, snarky, simplistic, unconstructive and indirect, which is also the line up for the Snow White film that sadly never got made. Just quickly before we move on to other debates and await the results on Thursday, I guess the big change as we mentioned last week was the

advance of Nigel Farage's Reform UK and they've been slightly undermined, Alison, the last few days by the genuinely appalling reality about who they are and who their candidates are and daily stories of not even slightly concealed racism, prejudice and abject crackpottery. And I guess, Why do these keep inviting scrutiny? Like, they're skating along fine in their lives. All they need to do is not go everybody look at me and what I've done. Yes. And I guess that's the problem with it. you can't stand for parliament under your social media tagline or your below the line commenter's name. So you can't have Mr. At Too True For You Numbskulls campaigning.

Or actually probably can. But I guess the problem for Farage is that if one bad apple can spoil a barrel then several hundred bad apples that make up the entire barrel is going to produce some pretty fucking rancid cider. One of the candidates was a chap called Julian Malins who declared I'll give you a little question here Alice if you can get this because I know you're really into global politics and global culture he declared that he was very impressed with which global mega celebrity. I'll give you some clues. Hope you narrow it down to probably two people. A five letter surname, first name that ends with R, in the news an awful lot, surname contains the letters I and T, responsible for several international hits, immovably ensconced at the top of their chosen profession and did not perform at Glastonbury.

So that's probably narrowed it down to V Putin or T Swift. Who do you think he went with? I mean, I hope it's Taylor Swift, but assume that it's Vladimir Putin. Yeah, it is sadly. Putin has an amazing number of similarities between Putin and Swift. You don't think it to look at them. I was going to suggest it would be Beyonce but he'd pronounce it Beyons. Which is, I know a Beyons, look across between a bath and a seance. Sounds quite nice. I'm quite up for that. So it's just a Ouija board with a little rubber ducky. It's Ouija board maybe. So Malin said that he was defending himself saying I said he is a good Russian president,

a good president of Russia and for Russia, which is similar to, I don't want to repeat what we said about Farage's comments about Putin the previous week, which have fallen to a similar ballpark, but the interesting thing that Maylett said was, he is not the Austrian gentleman with a moustache come alive again. And that is the first time in a long time infeited the right to be considered a gentleman in fairly conclusive style. Say what you like about Hitler. He did shoot his own dog. Moving on to other democracy around the world now and well it's hard to know what to say about America at the moment. We had the, as I mentioned earlier, on the Trump-Biden debate which made a lot of people actively weep, I think, including, and this is not an exhaustive list, a lot of supporters of the Democratic Party, the statue of Abraham

Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty herself wept tears of bronze, stroke, copper, I don't know what. What's the Statue of Liberty weep? I don't know, you don't weep what your body's made of. I think she weeps tourists just. I don't know tourists are the lymph. Yeah we've talked a lot about the the unsatisfactory nature of this Trump v Biden contest and I think this debate really re-emphasized everyone's concerns about it and also the vast and tragic irresponsibility of the Democratic Party not to have prepared for this massive inevitability from really the moments that Biden got away with it four years ago. I mean I

think my favorite part of the whole process is watching the American political panic karate and pundit class have, they just have gone full Greek chorus on the subject of like mortality. And then they're like, ah, Biden is so old, Trump is so mean. Like, yes, yes. Everyone was everything. Everyone who hated them said they were. And some guy who gets off on telling people, I told you so had to be hospitalized because his balls exploded from too much told you so. It used to be that when like a kid was super smart and driven, adoring adults would say, oh, you'll be president one day. And now I think it's just the thing that you say to the child who used their phone under their desk in their maths period to cybercrime their grandma with a fake kidnap ransom demand written fully

in letter emojis on iMessage. I actually tried to watch it. I tried really hard to watch it because I believe that debates are important and all that. And because writing political satire is part of my job. I lasted about 10 minutes before I couldn't stomach how embarrassing both of them were being. I would rather, and I do not say this lightly, I would rather have been watching them have sex with each other. I might have made it to 12 minutes.

Well it might have been slightly more, well, uplifting and constructive to be honest. I mean there is a lot of inconsistency Alice between how Biden's lack of coherence and seeming struggle with reality is perceived and portrayed and Trump's similar struggles but I guess the difference is that Trump's unhingedness from reality is why people vote for him and Biden is why they won't and And I guess that's the key, the key difference. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we should sort of be blaming the team behind him. Whoever was doing the delicate balance of whatever kind of diet, exercise and

drugs he's currently balanced on the edge of death with. Don't try anything new on race day is what I'm saying. You don't like, this reminds me of when I was rowing and, and the boys school, uh, first eight had been told that if you took a teaspoon of bicarb soda, it would reduce the, it would reduce, put off the time before you went lactic during a race and so on the day of the race they all took a big big tablespoon of bicarb cider and shot themselves down the river. Well we can look forward to that in one of the next presidential debates unless the Democrats relatedly do the sensible thing. To add to America's

problems and to all our American buglers, you have my deepest sympathies as you attempt to deal with your loss, the loss of the idea of America as a functioning nation and you know we're very much on board that that travelator as I was suggested at the start is the Supreme Court ruling basically declaring that Donald Trump is Nero I think the Nero of the 21st 21st century and only what he's fiddling won't be a fiddle it will will be, I don't know, tax returns and God knows what else. All hail the new king. Yes.

I mean, this was a 6-3 vote in the Supreme Court that essentially presidents are immune from prosecution for anything they do in an official capacity as president, another step towards the abyss, as the tragic derangement and the incurable enragement of the USA continues. I mean, America is of course world famous for many things, but perhaps most of all at the moment, it's world famous for being off its f**king mind on the psychotropic, soul-destroying necrotic drug that is its own deluded self. And I guess again, we shouldn't be surprised that a Supreme Court appointed specifically to skew the politics of the entire nation by Donald Trump should skew the politics of the entire nation towards Donald Trump. Biden said in a moment of coherence that

the judgment undermined the rule of law and was a terrible disservice to Americans, which is why it's so popular I think with Trump and his supporters. And Judge Sotomayor, one of the Democratic judges, and unsurprisingly that vote fell on party lines, said that the immunity ruling makes a president, quotes, king above the law. And Alice, I know you spent some time in America studying and working. But isn't getting rid of kings who are above the law kind of the whole idea that America was built on and you know a bit of an admission that they got it wrong back in the 1700s like we've always said on the show. I mean it's extraordinary. I mean there was always

this kind of strategic ambiguity that allowed presidents to sort of bend the law and assassinate enemies and all of that, but they had the mild behavioral check of worrying that if they did something blatantly illegal while in office, they might be held accountable for it. And now it's not just immunity, it's absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. Official acts that include things like pressuring the Vice President of the Department of Justice to overthrow the government and that talking to advisors or making public statements are also official Acts, which means the evidence of what presidents say and do cannot be used against them to establish whether a thing is official or not. You've got to laugh, Andy.

That's what they say. They say you've got to laugh or the new American God-King will define jizzing on an eagle and official act immune from prosecution and come jizz on your pet eagle. This law is a loaded gun in a Chekhov play that's just sitting on the table waiting for someone to cross the river with it and shoot democracy in the gravel pit for not being a working dog like Chrissie Noem's puppy. I just think the problem with the ruling classes right now is they're hacking wholesale against these like irksome checks and balances that restrict their power. And I can sort of see why they would want to do that. That the problem is that those checks and balances are in place to replace

the old system where people in power had absolute power and could get away with abusing it until one day they would walk out the front door of their palace and go, ah, I wonder who put that guillotine on my lawn. That was the old system, man. Don't bring that back. Clearly, we have a problem that the Supreme Court, which was, I think Trump appointed three judges to the Supreme Court who basically go to work wearing a What Would Donald Trump Do? logo tattooed onto the inside of their eyelids and you know it showed that yeah they're interpreting these sort of fairly old pieces of legislation and constitutional text and rather naively it turns out that the founding daddies

father sorry didn't factor in the prospect of a Trump like figure becoming president very much like they didn't factor in to their Second Amendment wording the prospects of their words being twisted to mean anyone can have a machine gun if they ask. So you know I guess it was naivety on the part of those guys all those years ago. Sotomayor said you know raises the prospect that you know a president could order and this is a direct quote orders the navy seal team six to assassinate a political rival immune organizes a military coup to hold on to power immune takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon immune immune immune immune immune in every use of official power the president is now a king above the law and I've done a little bit more research into this Alice

and it turns out the president can now provided that he or she by which I mean he is acting in an official capacity can now steal all the he or she, by which I mean, he is acting in an official capacity, can now steal all the money from the Federal Reserve and spend it on a 20 mile high statue of Freddy Krueger having sex with Martha Washington. He can tip a special chemical into the national water supply that makes everyone grow an extra nose on their chin. And he can organize a children's cutest puppy show on the White House lawn then just as the excited kids parade their little doggies

before the commander in chief, scoop them up with a magic dog magnet, feed them into a giant mincer one by one whilst eyeballing the children and telling them they'll be next if they even come close to barking, then turn the mince pups into a commemorative sausage, barbecues, and tell the children that they cannot leave until they've eaten it and shat it. But that's obviously what was wanted by that initial piece of legislation, that freedom for presidents to do that, if that is the correct thing to do. Look, I feel like the only way that we can solve this pickle that America is in right now with Biden in power and looking increasingly befuddled with the right to break the law being bestowed

upon the president, presumably in the hopes that President Trump will take full advantage of it, is I want Biden to spend the rest of his term on a full crime spree. Like just a plateless motorbike with an endangered animal stapled to the front. Like that's what I want him to be cavalcading around in doing wheelies on some old lady's lawn, like just proving that he's still got some edge. I reckon that could turn this whole thing around. Yeah well I think we'd all pay to watch that. What a way to go. Let's move on to France Alice and the well Emmanuel Macron's wild spin of the political roulette wheel appears to have backfired right in his face. The first round of elections

saw the far-right National Rally Party take round about a third of the popular vote. There is now a second round that will require, well, a level of cohesion and cooperation from those who are not in favor of a far-right takeover of a nation that really ought to know better. In summary, Alice, Zutha f***ing Lordy, what the f*** has happened in France? Look, I have to say French politics has always seemed quite foreign to me. And then when it was about a river of shit, it was suddenly like, oh, hey, we have that in the UK too.

Apparently, this could be the first first far right government in France since the world war two Nazi occupation. And those are not words you want to hear. Like at least that time they had the excuse that they were being occupied by the Nazis. And now it is like the worst own goal you can imagine. Look on, on the other hand, on the bright side, it is nice to see people who are willing to admit to their mistakes and I think we can all agree with the French that

getting rid of the aristocracy was a mistake, you know. It's never been as cool to be French as it was when men were men and everyone had syphilis. Yeah, we look back. These pillars of society that are stripped down by the woke. It's all their fault. We will have full updates on all these elections, in particular the British one on Friday and then the others, as they happen over the course of this year. The Bugle is the world's only source for true democratic bullshit. Billionaires news now and what a headline this is Alice. Elon Musk the fifth in the Elon Musk dynasty after ABC and D Elon Musk of course has announced plans to blast the International Space Station out of the skies. I mean this is I mean this is one mean, this is one of the great, uh, it's one of the great

news stories, it's, it's nice that he's being open about his plans, uh, now, but he's, he's intending to shoot the International Space Station down, I think with a special laser gun, is that correct? Yeah, he's, he's leading into his full villain era. Apparently they're going to build a vehicle that's capable of pushing the platform, the the platform, the orbiting platform, the International Space Station into the Pacific Ocean early in the next decade. And for people who are worried about ocean pollution, don't worry. They'll

dodge the turtles, I guess. And the ocean's massive. And it's still over 99% water, not even 1% plastic yet. I don't know why people are so fussed about it. I just feel like this is the wrong move. You want to push it into the sun. Isn't that the correct move when you're... It's going to be 668 million pounds worth of space thing. And that sounds to me, to my ear, both too expensive and too cheap. I don't know how much

space things should cost. But I'm definitely outraged either way. Yeah. I mean, the story is not quite as good as the headline. And it's, you know, he's not actually doing this unilaterally. Oh, yeah. No, it's a sort of an appealing metaphor for the ways in which Elon Musk has encroached on the kind of government space of space with his commercial enterprises and pushed them, pushed the socialized medicine aspect of space travel out of the air in favor of capitalism. So I think that's probably why the why the headline appeals, that he's managed to kind of eat everyone else's lunch. For a bit of background, the International Space Station has been tootling around our skies headline appeals, but he's managed to kind of eat everyone else's lunch.

Um, the, for a bit of background, the International Space Station has been tootling around our skies since 1998, but is now facing certain doom at the hands of Musk, the world's leading escaped cartoon bond villain, um, as his scheme to take over humanity, ban the human soul and turn us all into a tunneling robots continues apace. As I said, the story isn't as good as that headline, which is why, as all good third millennium paid up card carrying human beings should know, never read beyond the headline. Therein lies details, facts, nuance, and if you're lucky some vague element of reality for things which are pretty much guaranteed to upset

you these days. And by these days, I'm referring to anything post Stone Age, and the Stone Age just to be just to be safe. Musk has also been in the news, Alice, for rowing back on his go yourself comments that he made to potential advertisers on his social media platform. He was speaking in Cannes on Wednesday, and he told advertisers to go f*** yourself, and then claimed that it was actually a general point on freedom of speech. So this is him walking back statements that he made when he was in the midst of taking over X and saying, I don't need your money.

I'm the billionaire of billionaires. I have you money. And then it turns out that the you money is not as you money as he thought it was because advertisers fled in droves. And now he's doing the embarrassing thing of having to walk back and you, which is not great. You never want to walk back. You never want to be like, I meant lightly finger you in the bushes. He was trying to flex and the flex strained his wrist, I'm afraid. So he's trying to lure his advertisers back with grovelling patheticness, I guess. Well, it's a very potent tool through human history, grovelling patheticness. Well he was sort of presenting it as an unreasonable thing that the advertisers on the platform X wanted what he calls censorship and what they call not wanting to have their ads posted

next to a picture of a naked penis, you know. Because it does nothing good for their brand. Like potato, phallic shaped potato. In other news now, and well, it has been a great time, Alice, for fans of headlines that sound like they're from the 19th century. We've had incurably divided America tears itself apart limb from limb. War continues in Crimean region, unstoppable pace of of technological advance brings uncontrollable social change. I mean, that's quite a lot of history recently. The headline, everyone pretty hacked off right now.

Again, that's maybe not exclusive to our time and the 19th century. But this one, I mean, this was a real blast of nostalgia for fans of the 19th century world. Britain sends prisoner to Australia. It's been a while, Alice, but Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks Leakster, has landed back in Australia after a prolonged 12-year staycation, first in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, then Belmarsh Prison, the 792-bed, zero-star, non-voluntary hotel. Reviews include Not glamorous at all, few angles for even a half impressive selfie, one star, that's from Ostentatious Traveler magazine. Assange reached a deal

with the US justice system whereby he pleaded guilty to one espionage related charge and promised not to run for president even though he was now a convicted criminal, which is a bit unorthodox these days, I guess bit unorthodox. Are you excited in Australia to have Assange back in the loving bosom of the Australian nation? Well, I hope to meet him again in real life. I had debated him once at Splinter and the Grass Music Festival. We had a Skype debate. He Skyped in. It was basically trying to plug the WikiLeaks party, and so we had some sort of half-assed debate where I think the premise was you can't trust the media,

and I was on the opposing scene, and I said, you can trust the media to be. Anyway, the most notable thing about this experience other than his absolute lack of enthusiasm for the topic of the debate was a guy who came up after the debate enraged. He looked like a miniature Julian Assange. And he was outraged that I had debated against his hero and that our team, I mean, we'd been told like 10 minutes before what the subject was, but he was very, he took it very personally. And he threw a bottle of water onto the stage in protest or to hydrate us.

I'm not sure what it was. Well, that brings us to the end of this first bugle of our two bugle week. As I said, yes, the polls are opening early on Thursday morning. We're recording hours, so a midday on Tuesday. So just hours, hours to go. It seems in the last, I think when I said last week, 490 odd bugles under a conservative government. And I'm sincerely hoping this will be the last, with all due respect to our many conservative parties supporting listeners, just like some, just a new topic of conversation on this show a new target for satire

that's all that's all i ask for there's not much to ask um some plugs before we go uh my stand-up tour begins on the first of november the zoltgeist it is splattered across several months and many many venues in the uk and dub and hopefully some European dates to be confirmed shortly details at andesaltzman.co.uk also helensaltzman the quibbling sibling is doing some illusionist live shows in the UK this summer it's been a well a long time since you did shows here in the UK having immigrated a while ago. A fabulous show entitled Souvenirs in August and September, the 25th of August in Newcastle, the 26th of August in Glasgow, the 31st in Cambridge and the 15th of September in Edinburgh with more dates to be added soon.

Details and tickets via the illusionist.org. Alice? You can find me at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser. One of the things that I'm pushing on that at the moment is that twice a week I do a writer's meeting. I do a whole bunch of other stuff over there. You can get my standup specials for free, but I do twice weekly Zoom writer's meetings. So if you have a project that you are working on or that you want to work on,

or you'd like to start writing, come along. It's a lot of fun and I will help you with your thing. If you are in Tokyo, however, you can come to a Writers' Intensive Afternoon, which will be on the 12th of October at the Fab Cafe in Tokyo. And you can come and we'll do a whole thing and I'll give you a lot of feedback.

And it's gonna be great. It's very exciting and fun. There'll be one in London too, but I haven't locked down the venue. But patreon.com slash Alice Fraser, the application form for the Tokyo thing is up. Now I'm keeping it very limited in numbers because I want to be able to give everyone like one-on-one time. So it's like, go and get it now. patreon.com slash Alice Fraser. And do also listen to The Gargle, the glossy magazine sister publication to this relentlessly news focusedfocused broadsheet podcast. Right and if you want to join the Bugle voluntary

subscription scheme to help keep the show free, flourishing and independent and get access to the global exclusive monthly Ask Andy show in which I answer all your questions do go to the buglepodcast.com and click the donate button. We will be back with our post-election bugle recording on Friday afternoon with the wonderful Mark Steele. Until then, vote as furiously and fervently as humanly possible wherever you are. Goodbye. Bye. The End