The Bugle - Trump on Trial!

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

Trump goes on trial, Truss gets published, and India trusts Modi. Plus Chechens need to learn new dance moves.Andy is with Hari Kondabolu and Ahir Shah, who makes his Bugle debut. Welcome Ahir!Send thoughts and questions for Andy at [e-mail]. Click follow to make sure you get every episode and please drop us a nice review or rating wherever you choose.This episode was presented and written by:Andy ZaltzmanHari KondaboluAhir ShahAnd producer by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 4,300 of The Bugle, the world's leading and still only audio newspaper for a visual world. I'm Andy Zoltzman, ramming this metaphorical megaship of a podcast into the nearest available iceberg for the 300th time since we refloated it back in October 2016. 300 bugles since relaunch, all told, I think we're now heading towards 400 hours of content over the entire history of the bugle. So we just need to do that another 24 times and we'll hit the crucial 10 000 hours mark and that's when it will start

getting good. Today is the 19th of April 2024, I'm here in the shed of uncontrollable veracity in South London, the city where the streets are famously paved with gold according to the story of the famous 14th century cat fetishist London mayor Dick Whittington or at least according to the Daily Telegraph they were paved with gold until Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan took over as London mayor and replaced all the gold with supposedly carbon neutral ethical paving slabs made up of the mulched up dreams of true Britannians and if you don't think the streets of London were at one point paved with gold you're unpatriotic and you're rewriting history. So I hope you're all proud of yourselves.

Still coming for that Telegraph column. They'll come for me one day. Now this is issue 4,300. As I said, 300 episodes since this podcast came back from the dead. Bit of a Jewish trend, that. We can't really help it as God's chosen people. But anyway, joining me, the man who was there at the very re-beginning, back in in October 2016 when this world was a simpler place. Donald Trump had never been president, he was just having a bit of a laugh and a jake with his prank election campaign. Russia had invaded Ukraine a couple of years previously, but the world wasn't too worried because the Football World Cup was due to be held in Russia in 2018. And the power of sport would surely cure Vladimir Putin of himself and usher in a new age of Russian political gentility, calm, openness

and hardline non-illegal invasionism. It hasn't entirely worked out quite like that, but yes, joining me once again, as he did in the first relaunched bugle, Hari Kondabolu. Hello Hari, welcome back. You're about to say, how are you? I was about to say, how are you? And then you always complain when I say, how are you? I hate when you say, how are you? I was about to say how are you and then you always complain when I say how are you. I hate when you say how are you. I'm glad you didn't but the unfortunate

thing is I expect you to say how are you and always prepare something to say when you say how are you. So now I'm caught for a lot. Well so it's been 300 episodes and all those things happened after the bugle relaunched. Yes. Huh. Yeah. All that stuff, all this terrible stuff has happened since you came back. Yes. Yeah.

Huh. Yeah. That's interesting, Andy. What's a burden I have to live with, Hari, but you know. Or you could stop the podcast, Andy is the other thing. Yeah. That's what I was hinting at for the good of the world. Uh, I I'm, I'm doing okay. Uh. I have a bit of a cough that really only gets

set off when I start laughing, so I should be good for the podcast. Thank you very much, Tom. That's two pretty big zings you've got in before I've even introduced your co-host for today. Boom! So joining us for the very first time on the bugle in a symbolic metaphor for the eternal cycle of life. That's quite a lot for him to live up to. A new birth into the bugle womb. Is that how birth works? I forget. No, it's the other way around with births. It's been a while since I quit my midwifery quit.

Anyway, it's a great pleasure to welcome, voice bugle debut, the wonderful Ahir Shah. Hello Ahir. Hello, thank you very much Andy and what a delightfully Hindu entry that was. Yeah very exciting to be part of this cycle of and who knows perhaps this could finally be the podcast in which I attain Moksha and after this episode I will be no more because I will have ascended to Niran. So yes, it's my great pleasure to be here with Hari, Hari who I've known for many many years and between us we represent basically two of the main choices that Indian families made between about 1960 and 1980. That's very funny. So you guys, you were just telling me before we started recording, you shared a flat in

Edinburgh in 2011. Yes, yes. Ahir was a fetus at the time. He was still in the womb, yet somehow finishing up at Cambridge and I was a 28, 29 year old comic hungry, excited for the future thinking there was a career for me in the UK and beyond and no, no not so much. Yeah so I mean you've done, are you going to Edinburgh this year? I'm going back to the fringe I'm gonna do a fortnight of the show that I did last year. Well, that sounds like quite a long show

But you just see everything down version of it. Yeah. No, it's like one of those Mark Watson things that takes absolutely ages has anyone ever made money at that festival my Understanding is how your system in the UK works is that you spend two weeks to a month in Edinburgh yeah and you lose all your money yeah and you owe your management company all the money for putting up the show and then you spend a good chunk of the year paying them back and it seems like it only works because you have good social services that allow you to survive

somehow well I mean yeah that's a charmingly nostalgic view of the state of British social services, to be honest. The Edinburgh Festival brought to you by the NHS. Well, you know, it's good for creativity. And most great, great figures from the creative arts through history were stung into action by needing to earn money. So that's the way the Edinburgh Festival works, clearly, it makes people hungry in that regard. I really do love watching a bunch of half-finished hours of comedy that should have probably taken a year or two more to be polished and perfect,

but of course the drive for having a new hour every year is so important. And then making the full hour of comedy brilliant, and then not recording it and sharing it with the world. Therefore, no one has ever really seen it other than a few people in your country. It's a brilliant strategy. It's a great strategy. I'm feeling really intensely patriotic at the moment after all of these.

You leave our festival alone. It is a nice thing. You visited one time. You visited one time. I did visit one time. Well, maybe we should take up the New York system of just doing the same seven minutes for 25 years. Ending up bitter at why fame has passed you by.

Anyway, there must be some middle ground. There's gotta be a middle ground. Anyway, we've got to start our own festival in an island in the middle of the Atlantic where we find a perfect middle ground between. We are recording on the 19th of April. On this day in 1529 the Protestant Reformation was launched. And what a Reformation that was, one of the all-time classic Reformation's for me. It was launched at a star-studded press conference and complimentary lunch buffet in Speyer in Germany. As people protested against the red card shown to Martin Luther. Obviously no one knows exactly what went on because the Reformation was more than a fortnight ago

and things do get hazy at my age but it was something, I read somewhere about a diet of worms so I'm thinking right and saying that it led quite quickly to the legalization of spaghetti across the Christian world. Interesting that Taylor Swift should have released her surprise new album today to coincide with the anniversary of the start of the Re world. Interesting that Taylor Swift should have released her surprise new album today to coincide with the anniversary of the start of the Reformation. I mean what I don't know what we can read into that but I mean people do tend to overanalyze Taylor Swift songs and I imagine there's if you play it backwards there's a load of stuff about Martin Luther hidden within.

On this day in 1775, 249 years ago as we speak, the referee blew the whistle to start the American War of Independence, aka the American Revolutionary War, aka Stropy George and the Cranky Yankees get their grump on, and also known as the biggest mistake in American history brackets until quite recently. So 249 years on, Hari, I mean the regrets are piling up surely. I mean it's really I know it's quite early in a kind of you know Geological terms to judge these things, but it doesn't I mean it's it's been a disaster isn't it? Why are you asking a leading question? You know the answer what is the purpose of this exercise It's failed it has failed

It has failed is that what failed. Is that what you want to hear? This is a failed experiment. It did not work out, right? But to be fair, human beings are a failed experiment. Nothing wrong with the dinosaurs. They did not cause their own demise. They were just chilling and some bad luck, who knows what, whether it's God or asteroids or whatever it was, and now we're here, alright? This has been a failed experiment. I think we're on the same page there. In terms of reading about the, on this 249th anniversary of the American War of Independence, the origin of the term wishy washy came about because

George Washington bought a magic lamp from an antique shop and rubbed it and a genie came out and gave him three wishes and he just came up with some vague stuff about people being able to say whatever they wanted, some mumbling about bearing arms and militias and something about not chopping soldiers into quarters, hence wishy-washy and amendments 1, 2 and 3 of the US Constitution. So a bit of history for you there. I don't know why whenever I hear you start a fact my brain assumes it's gonna be true and like oh Andy's gonna like every single time I've known you for years right every single time I'm like oh Andy's about to say a true thing doesn't happen, never happens.

It does happen the key and there's two categories really. If it's something to do with cricket, it will turn into a fact. I've got a reputation to guard here and half a career. As always, a section of The Bugler's going straight in the bin. This week we have a more big questions of modern life, as we help you navigate your way through the complexities of existence. Including this week, we ask, can vegans eat fossils? How can you tell if a molecule that was once in Stalin's penis is now part of your pet? Why can't we all learn to get along? Are puffins fake? Why is it illegal to play golf in a cathedral? Whatever happened to Thrapst and Krederick? Who?

That section is in the bin. Who? Mmm. That section is in the bin. Top story this week! Donald Trump is on trial! Well, just a quick refresher for those of you who've forgotten how this story all started. Well, as I said, in the 1770s America for some reason thought it could be trusted with itself. One thing led to another, and it ended up voting in a self-proclaimed sex pest as president. And hence we are where we are. Hari, I mean, you are right there as our official Donald Trump's legal affairs correspondent in New York.

Just, I mean, the city must have been, yeah, has it been on being played on big screens in Times Square there's sort of huge parties where everyone's gathering to watch the death of American hope and democracy and it can we start with something lighter like Iran and Israel Because with Iran and Israel there's a there's hope there. All right that really that there is an yeah, because with the end The pain will stop. Okay, so I see hope in that. Yeah No, no, we're not we're not watching this on a big screen. I don't think you understand this any we're all trying to forget

Right. Okay. Yeah, he's from here. Yes, we did this Every time we see him It's a reminder of we could have stopped this a long time ago. And we just let, this is a fun sideshow and we just kept doing it over. Let's watch where this goes. Married again, had an affair, oh another lawsuit. He's bankrupt, has a TV show, oh this is entertaining. We caused this.

We don't like thinking about it. So far we've had the selection of the jury, which is a rather complicated process, Ahim, in which they have to find 12 people who don't have an opinion on Donald Trump. Now, I mean, I think you could scour the entire universe, and the best you could possibly hope for is 12 recently slaughtered goldfish, would be the closest you can get to this. Yeah, I was just like, do you have to sort of, if you're trying to construct a jury, do you just have to hope that there's been a really fortunate like timing with a full

ward of coma patients who've all sort of went down and came up at exactly the same time? And that's the biggest, it does strike me as one of those things where not not having any sort of opinion is in and of itself sort of like it's not a neutral thing to be entirely unaware of what's going on and to be fair I do really like admire the people who were able to because like half the people straight away like stuck their hands up right there is absolutely zero way I'm going to be able to be impartial about this. Like, fair enough. Right? Because let's be honest, being on that jury would be exciting. But equally, probably lead to

you getting loads of death threats. I mean, the troubling thing about everyone leaving, you know, like having an opinion and then being dismissed, is that I'm sure almost all of them are liberal, right? Because liberals emote. When they talk about them, they get angry, they let it, they don't play it close to the vest. Conservatives play it close to the vest, right?

Like, conservatives in New York City, particularly, they keep it close, like, I had no idea anyone I knew voted for Trump until after he won the election and all of a sudden their social media is suspiciously quiet. Right? And at that point you're like, gotcha. You know what I mean? And that's how he'll get acquitted because they keep it close to the vest. They shut up. They don't let people see, oh, I hate Trump. No, they shut up. They vote for him and he wins. So, but so in that

case do you regret having spoken about him previously sort of on stage or podcasts on social media and everything because you could have been in that jury otherwise I'll know cuz look at look at where it's taken me look at we're talking about him has taken me you know know, the jury, there's, first of all, the fact they found 12 is shocking to me and makes me suspect some things. And here's just a review of one of the jurors, because they listed some of the characteristics of some of the jurors. One juror watches MSNBC and Fox News and has no opinion of Donald Trump. So clearly, this is a bot! They are putting bots on the jury!

Like, this is where it's come to... Another one said that he... she appreciated the fact that he speaks his mind. Watch Stand Up if you feel that way. That is not... A lot of men just, you know... And then there was one juror. This is a perfect juror. Alright? This is actually the kind of juror we need. He said, I find him fascinating. He walks into a room and he sets people off one way or another and I find that really interesting. Really, this one guy could do all this. See, that's a perfect juror because if you can't figure out why and you don't follow the news, clearly you have no stake in anything. Right? That's perfect.

That's like watching sports and never has a team. Never roots. Just watches. And imagine him saying, I find it interesting how a person hits the ball and everyone chases the ball. How could one ball do all this? Absolute data. But there's not gonna be 12 of those. I think that the sort of ideal jury is evidently comprised of, does anyone remember that Futurama episode where they went to war with the neutral planet? It was like, your neutralness is a beigelette, if I die, tell my wife hello. It's that person that you need 12 times.

Or maybe like, you know, the person who says, oh, I watch MSNBC and Fox News and everything. All this person was aware of back in when Donald Trump first announced that he was going to be running for president. This person was a New Yorker. Right. And they were like, from this moment, this guy might win. And if he does win, eventually the mother of all court cases is going to land in a New York City courtroom and I will do everything within my power to live my life as the perfect jury member so that when the time comes, I will be there because that is my greatest

ambition. So therefore, like spending exactly equal amounts of time watching like, oh, it's a time to watch Rachel Maddow for half an hour and then switch over to Sean Hannity for exactly the same amount of time like no one can possibly it just feels like someone who watches that much news and doesn't have an opinion is someone who probably can't make a decision and is that what you want on a jury yeah it is a problem so he's facing 34 felony charges of falsifying business business records Dealing with hush money payments made to I think I wrote it was an Australian actress Said from New South Wales, New South Wales NS NS FW

Daniels Allegedly to cover up a sexual relationship that Daniels claimed she had with Trump and vice versa back in 2006 so hush money paid to a pronographic film Tsar and former striper did I spell that right but anyway um can I just check sorry very quickly with um hurry so because obviously lots of international listeners and everything you've got a different legal system in the United States to the one that we have in Hurry, so because obviously lots of international listeners and everything, you've got a different legal system in the United States to the one that we have in Britain and everything. So these sorts of things can be a bit confusing, certainly for me.

And so all I would ask is, so when you have 34 felony counts, would you describe that as a greater than ideal number? Well, I think- What's a good number to have? Higher numbers is better because usually, because the more felonies you get, I mean in this case with Trump, the more felonies, the bigger the chance we'll get him on something, right? Now they usually pull this with poor people, right? Like they'll let you, they basically give you everything and then say, okay, we'll let you off with, you know, manslaughter, even though I wasn't even

there at the time, but you take the manslaughter. So the idea that they might pull this with Trump is very exciting. Just throw everything at them and then something is, so we want as many felony counts as possible. One of the charges involves basically this hush money allegedly paid to alleged Stormy, alleged Daniels, being classified as a business expense. Now I can't see how they're going to get him on that because to me hush money paid to a pornographic actress for Donald Trump, that is a legitimate business expense because he's all about his brand and You know surely that counts as just investing in his brand that is building up the picture of who he is

There's entire business is based on so I mean I see that as entirely legitimate to be honest Do you know a question wasn't asked to the jury that I think was a mistake? I think they should have asked the jury if asked to the jury that I think was a mistake. I think they should have asked the jury if anyone in the jury was familiar with her work. Cause I feel like that was completely ignored. Yeah. Like you could have had super fans there. You don't know. Or I mean, you want somebody objective. Like it would have been nice for someone to say I love to performance in a vice and men and the Grapes of anal, but it will not impact my judgment in any way It would have been nice to hear that

The grapes of anal is that Am I I'm really failing to see the pun Oh, no, no, no, no. No, that's not it. I went with the over-the-top, not pun. You had two Steinbecks, and, right, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just like, well, I suppose that Americans don't pronounce it Roth, so maybe that's a- but that still doesn't sound like-

Of vice and men was originally of mice and anal. So I at least tried on that one. The question that I thought that was asked to the jury that I found a bit odd was when they were trying to ascertain whether people could sort of wrap their head around the idea that one person may not have directly done something but still be responsible for it. And the analogy that was provided was like, for instance, would you say if a man hired a hitman to kill his wife, and the hitman

killed his wife, then even though the man wasn't there, he was still responsible? Would you agree with that statement, thereby leading to the possibility that someone might be like, No, that's exclusively on the hitman Yeah, I mean what the words mean, you know I Mean, I think Trump's strategy has been brilliant because he's already laid the foundation of an appeal if he's found guilty Because you know, he can't say anything in court, but as soon as he's already laid the foundation of an appeal if he's found guilty, because you

know he can't say anything in court but as soon as he's out of court he keeps referring to the judge as a Trump-hating judge over and over again, which is an interesting strategy because now the judge probably hates him because he keeps saying he's a Trump-hating judge which forces the appeal. That's brilliant. He's unquestionably a genius. What one of the finest legal minds of our time, and the mid and a magician. I mean, every time,

like each of these counts whenever on each of these trials, it's like, okay, so you swap your underwater, you have 30 seconds. All right, and now you're putting a shark in the water How is he gonna get out of this one? World's biggest logistical storm news now and the world's biggest democratic logistical challenge is Beginning pretty much as we speak. India is voting in a general election. A nation with almost a billion voters voting over the course of six weeks.

It involves 15 million election staff, more than a million polling stations, over two and a half thousand political parties. That is a logistical... I mean, I sometimes struggle making a bagel at lunchtime. And when I say making a bagel, I have the bagel. I mean, putting a bagel... I have the bagel. I'm not making a bagel from scratch. I'm just putting things in the bagel and then eating it. And that often pushes me to the absolute limit of my logistical capabilities. So for India to do an election with a billion voters and two and a half thousand political parties, well, it has my eternal respect.

It also involves electronic voting machines being carried on elephants, which is a frankly delightful detail to get to some of the more remote, mountainous parts of the country. Now, I've tried over the years to understand Indian politics, particularly whilst working on the bugle. Work at working, is that the right word? And it's tricky as an outsider, but I think without wishing to blow my own sousaphone too much, I think I've achieved a level of expertise on Indian politics that I never

thought was possible. And I would say it's about the same level of expertise as our next door neighbour's pet tortoise Timmy has about particle physics. But I am pleased even to have achieved that, because it is completely and utterly baffling. I think that for anyone who maybe doesn't know anything about Indian politics, the best way that I would describe it is like, you know the sentences that Andy says that take ages and end up in some sort of baffling thing. Indian politics is that, but all of the sentences

are factually correct. I'm taking some heavy enemy fire today. It's the same sentences, they're just not made up. It's just like Andy going, yeah, and then of course a man named Stalin, whose father who was also called Stalin, who was also the chief, and you're like, yeah, yeah, all of that, yeah, checks out. Wait, wait, so the Indian system is just the British parliamentary system, isn't it? Is there anything different about it? Well, I mean, looking at it, there seems to be an awful lot of political meddling, there's

some pretty dodgy funding issues going on, there seems to be a lot of corruption, there's an increasing gulf across India between rich and poor, a lot of cronyism in the political system, so yeah I think it is pretty much the exact system that we've bequeathed to India as a valedictory gift. I think that there's more sort of like, as Adi was saying, with the sheer multiplicity of political parties over the spectrum that get in these like really large coalitions, whereas in the UK system, it's much smaller. So people who would naturally have been in other parties just all stick in one together, and are all called the same thing and all hate each other. Works tremendously well for us. Yeah, so for example we have a party called the Conservative Party that is about 300 different political parties. Yes and doesn't so much conserve as

destroy absolutely everything in its path. So one of the big concerns with Narendra Modi seemingly set to win a third consecutive election for his BJP Hindu Nationalist Party is the danger to the secularism that is enshrined in the Indian Constitution. I think secularism in general is having a bit of a wobbly moment around the world. I'm a big fan of secularism because history does somewhat suggest that religion and other non-God-based fundamentalisms equally in public and political life does have a bit of a tendency to end up with, well, an epic scale of human devastation. And I'm not a massive fan of that.

To me, religion being entwined with the state or with politics in general, that makes as much sense as deciding whether a defendant is guilty or innocent in a court case based on what football team they support or as patients wheel into the operating theatre deciding whether they receive no anaesthetic, a proper medical anaesthetic or an anaesthetic using a heavy-based frying pan based on who their favourite James Bond actor is. I'm not saying you shouldn't have opinions on these things or be able to do whatever you want in private, but I just think they should be separated. And India, for a long time, it was quite incredible how well it functioned as this secular state with such a diverse population and such a huge area.

I'm trying to follow this election, but the fact that Modi is likely, not likely, Modi is going to win is very frustrating. At this point, I mean, the whole thing is, is he going to get 400, right? Is the BJP going to get 400 seats? It's not whether they'll win. It's whether they'll win by record amounts. And it's like, it's the way I feel about Novak Djokovic. You know what I mean? Like, I, like he's, I know he's going to win. I know he's setting records every time. I just can't stand him. I get it.

He's great, but he kills it for me. Don't enjoy the result. We know what's going to happen. So basically the message of this podcast is we need Roger Federer as Prime Minister of India for the good of the world. Well the message was f***ing Novak Djokovic but yeah, I mean I guess that's another way to look at it. Yeah.

We will have full world exclusive coverage of the Indian election over the weeks months and years that it's that it's gonna take. Liz Tross is back news. For someone who was Prime Minister for less than the lifespan of a moderately unsuccessful insect, Liz Truss is having a remarkably persistent afterlife. She has produced a book entitled Ten Years to Save the West, and it was interesting to see the reaction to this book because pretty much outside the Daily Telegraph newspaper the universal reaction seems to be that it is a mad and be shit

Which actually might be a way to sell shit loads of copies I don't know I hear I know that You know in the years before you came on the bugle you know tossed you, in fact, just before the first ever episode of The Bugle in 2007, I said, there's this rising conservative politician called Liz Truss. I want you to keep an eye on her until she produces a book, having been Prime Minister, and then you can come on the show and talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, who are you and how did you get into my school?

LAUGHTER Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I was like, who are you and how did you get into my school? I mean, this is quite, quite, and the interviews that have gone with it as well. I mean, it does make you look back on, I don't know if it's possible to have even, to be even more flabbergasted in retrospect at the fact of Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister and what then happened over the following few weeks. I was thinking about this the other day. When I was, you know, of course I, like lots of people in Britain have been sort of not reading the book but obsessively reading everything about the

book that I conceivably could. I'm like that with the Bible to be honest. Yeah, because it's just a staggering amount of fun doing so. Probably my favourite thing that I read was from the FT's Alphaville who wrote, Trust likes to say that her focus is on growth. It's not a super controversial ambition. Unfortunately her approach worked a bit like this. Imagine a bunch of people are stuck in a warm stuffy room together. Everyone wants the windows to be opened but they are fast and shut by complicated locks. While people try and work out how the locks operate, one of them, Liz, attempts to throw a chair through the window. The chair bounces off and hits her in the face

A very very good description of it, right, but I was thinking and like listen Obviously I live in this country. I'm not glad that she was prime minister We're gonna be suffering the consequences of her being prime minister for a very long time. It's a very bad thing to happen however, all I will say is that when I think about the prospect of having children one day, right, and one of the things that people say to their children is you can be whatever you want to be, right? And you as a parent know, sadly, that that is not true. Right? Like, there are things that, for a variety of reasons, right, it is very, very unlikely that your kid, who you love more than anything, can be.

They can't be everything, right? However, really... My kid, for example, cannot be a dolphin. Yeah! Not with that attitude. But sort of really taking the time to like sit alone and reflect on the nature of the trust's premiership started to make me think that maybe you can tell a kid, like if she could be prime minister, maybe you genuinely can be anything you know what I mean like that

like because it's it makes no sense that she was allowed to be prime minister but by god she was she got you can't take it away from her she 100 did that well no you could you can take it away from her yeah yeah sorry it was very much taken away from her. Within two months. I mean, I look at it from a, as you know, I have two teenage children and from a slightly different perspective, I see, you know, that recent politics has been quite a useful tool as a parent, when my kids are going through school exams, saying, look, you really need to buckle down

and work hard at school, otherwise you might end up with no choice but to go into top level politics. And it really focuses the minds of children to realise that that is a trap that they could fall into if they don't knuckle down. They don't want to end up like, don't be Liz. That's what I say to them. One of the extraordinary passages was when the Queen died, just days into Liz Truss's time as Prime Minister

and her reaction was why is this happening to me which is quite a self-centered way of looking at looking at I mean it's a really weird as if either the Queen or God or perhaps in cahoots were just waiting for Liz Truss to become Prime Minister and saying to each other, right, let's ignore the National Anthem now, we're gonna do it now. Yeah, I think that of all of the charges that you could level at Liz Truss, lacking main character energy was not one of them. Yeah, she made it about her when the actual main character of Britain died. For Americans, it's a little confusing just to see British idiocy, you know what I mean? Just because she is, she's not only been a complete failure, she's doubling down that

she was right. And you're watching it and you hear her voice. And as an American who doesn't have a discerning ear, she sounds smart because she has that accent you have. Right. Yes. And it's confusing because you know what she's saying is not good. And I do not. But do you not think that sort of like if something like that severe happens, and it goes that badly, everything.

So for her, for Kwasi Kwateng, who was there for even, I think he was like 38 days or something at a time, you sort of end up with no option other than doubling down just on an individual basis, because like how could you not like to admit that it was like you know if we you know the three of us having a chat here if we make a mistake everything like that is bad you know if we make a bad mistake like it's not a good thing and we could screw up whatever but like we can't make a mistake on that scale. Like as an individual human being,

you're not really prepped for making a mistake on that scale. And so your only choice really is to double down. Well, it's the only choice, isn't it, to keep quiet? You know, I mean, Blair didn't kind of talk about his missteps for quite some time, right? It's not like right after he was out, he's like, my bad. You know, like I'm assuming he kind of like,

let me stay out of the spotlight for a while while this thing dies down. You know what I mean? Like she probably could have disappeared for a while. Yeah, I do think that is definitely an option. What element of the main character energy that we were discussing earlier led you to believe that shrinking away into the sunset was going to be?

There's a book to promote! Middle East update now! Oh, fingers crossed. Moving on now to other world news. That was all I could manage of that. I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm sure it'll all be fine. In other world news, well exciting news coming from Japan, that apparently by the year 2531 everyone in Japan will have the same name. This is according to a professor, no less, who has studied names in Japan and a law requiring spouses to have the same surname could resolve everyone being called Sato within

just 507 years. That's not very long. If you go back 507 years from where we are now, backwards, well that's the year 1517. That's barely the blink of an eye I mean really you think the world has barely changed Since then Henry the eighth was king in fact if you've done similar research then and extrapolated from contemporary trends you would have probably thought that by the year 2024 Everyone would have big red beard stretching at least 50 meters and be wearing cod pieces the size of a hammerhead shark but it hasn't turned out like that for the most part but you know in 1517

I mean were things so different I mean in here in London there was apparently a xenophobic riot protesting against immigration the the leader of Russia was annexing places and the Middle East was having a bit of trouble. So 517 years, 570 years might seem like a long time, but it goes, it goes so fast. It goes so fast these days. I mean, human beings, this, this professor assumes that we're going to be around for 500 more years. That's optimistic, isn't it? That's the first thing that's very bizarre.

Also why are you worried about a bureaucratic issue essentially 500 years from now? Also, if you are correct that everyone's name is Sato, it's because all the robots are named Sato and the robots will be controlling the show. It's a Sato robot. Of course they're named Sato. Yeah. Yeah. I love this. So this is a professor, so Hiroshi Yoshida, and he said that, right, it's all based on the fact that the proportion of people in Japan with the name Sato increased 1.0083 times between 2022 and 2023.

So there was an assumption of a continuation of that rate that occurred over one year for the next five centuries. And there being no change in the law based on currently like you have to change your name to your spouse's name. And most of the time, it's a woman changing her name to man's name and 95% of the time. And I really like that. I think that more studies should be done where it's just like, right, assuming a succession of things that definitely won't happen. This is locked on. I think like, because I was like, how does this work with current Japanese birth rates as well? Because I've only three people left in Japan

yeah it's like yeah of course everyone will be named Sato the one guy that's his name what I particularly like about this and as you say you know if you call yourself a professor you couldn't say anything and people think oh yeah no this must be right um but uh it's a very specific year 2531 now if this does happen, I'm not going to notice it, because if we continue on the current four-year cycle it'll be an ashes summer, so I'll be busy with cricket stuff. But also in Britain, by 2531, I think everyone will have the surname Johnson, but for slightly different reasons.

Chechnya news now and well it's tough time for the Chechnya house music stroke lyrical ballads industry because music that is not between 80 and 116 beats per minute is being banned by government order because it's apparently unpatriotic music it is not according does not conform to Chechen mentality and musical rhythm according to the government so this is I mean it's interesting 80 to 116 beats now 116 beats per minute that includes the song get lucky by daft Punk featuring Farrell Williams and apparently Have You Ever Seen the Rain by Creedence Clearwater Revival. 80 beats per minute, that's Me and the Devil Blues by Robert Johnson. 81 beats per minute, I Wanna Know What Love Is, the classic power ballad. So those are okay, but but either either sides of those um i mean a taste of honey by herb alpert

and the tijuan tijuan of brass that's gone that's gone for chechnya smooth criminal by michael jackson gone at 117 beats per minute as uh smells like teen spirit and murder on the dance floor i mean it's these are dark times for uh you sound like a musical auctioneer. Gone and 170 beats a minute. Yeah, no, and I know that Andy, this is difficult for you because you had quite a promising career in Chechen dubstep. I did. So this is gonna be I liked this because it's one of those

stories that begins like, are you going, like when a sentence starts, it's like, which side of the political spectrum is this falling on? Because it's just like the culture minister began by saying, borrowing musical culture from other people's is inadmissible. And it's like, right, is this hyper nationalist right wing? Or is this extremely nationalist right wing or is this extremely I must shy away from anything even remotely considered cultural appropriation left wing. It's like which of these is just these like very two unlikely friends shaking hands. I mean all I can interpret from all this is it's terrible news for the

Chechen blues scene and it's hard to see how it can recover. Just worth noting that at 105 beats per minute the Bugle theme tune just perfectly. Right, there we go. Could be the new Chechen national anthem. Well, that brings us to the end of this week's Bugle. Thank you very much for listening to this and, well indeed, the last 300 episodes, assuming that you've been listening since Hari was first on this this show A delight as always to have you on Hari. Do you have anything to plug? I do I'll be touring again in May and June May 23rd in Jersey City, New Jersey at White Eagle Hall Beverly, Massachusetts at off Cabot Comedy on May 25th, Portland, Maine

May 26th, Empire Comedy Club, Bottle Rocket Social Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania June 20th, Bugle Stronghold Dayton, Kentucky June 21st and June 22nd at the Commonwealth Sanctuary, it's actually in the Cincinnati area. And finally, Cleveland, Ohio, June 23rd at Hilarities. Please come to the shows because the money will be used for shelter and food for me and my child. A good warm up for your Edinburgh show as well. All those things. Oh hey, well, in fact, you plugged your forthcoming Edinburgh show early in the show,

I've got the plugs all wrong this week, they used to come in the end. You can re-plug that and plug anything else. Yep, so my name is Ahir Shah, my book 10 Years to Save the West is published by I had available all terrible workshops. No, I will be performing at the McCuntless Comedy Festival in Mack in Wales for UK listeners on Sunday the 5th of May. For American listeners, I'll be at the Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles on the 10th of May as part of Netflix is a Joke. And I will be back at the Edinburgh Festival performing between the 12th and 23rd of August and this is all for my show Ends which won the Edinburgh

Comedy Award in 2023. I have a stand-up tour beginning in November, dates still TBC but nearer being Seed than they were I have some work-in-progress shows with which I will start my fumbling return stand 26 you said work in progress with the same tone every comedian says You made it onto the second of the three words confidence This the second and fact the in is about the only one that I think really stands

up to any scrutiny, but I'm doing the Cheshire Fringe on the 26th of May. I've got a show at the Space Inn Streatham on the 29th of May and I'm doing a fundraiser for Trinity Theatre at Trinity Art Centre in Tunbridge Wells on the 1st of June. So do come to all of those. There's also a couple of Bugle live shows the 7th and 8th of June at the Leicester Square Theatre in London. Are there tickets still there for that Chris? Almost none amazingly, but there are a few yeah. I'm also doing a work in progress show at TAME on the 14th of June. Anyway, well that's it. If you've enjoyed this bugle, A, congratulations on your life going, taking you to a point where you've clearly become a person of huge discernment and refinement, but

also why not join the bugle voluntary subscription scheme to help keep this show free, flourishing and independent? Go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button. Subscribers get world exclusive access to the monthly Ask Andy show as well as getting an exclusive vinyl record of a special recording of the show that is very near to being produced. No update from last week. I haven't received the test pressing yet. I want the test pressing. Well, it's on the way. There's two things in life you can't hurry. One is love and the other is the bugle subscriber vinyl record. But anyway, patience is a virtue. Thank you very much for listening. We will be back next week. Goodbye! Hi, it's producer Chris from The Bugle here. Did you know that I have a new series of my podcast, Richie Firth Travel Hacker, out now.

It's the show where Richie Firth and I talk about how to make travel better in our very special way. travel hacker out now.