The Bugle - Trump's cross, what is it this time?

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

On this week's issue of the Bugle, Andy is joined by Sara Barron and the long awaited return of Chris Addison, as the three jump straight into the week's news discussing the 47th president of the United States, late night rage call to Netanyahu, the possible impending ban on social media, the US banning entry to Somalian official Omar Artan and news on the latest Bond and are producers bias? All this in issue 4382 of The Bugle!🇺🇸 Trump's angry call: The Bugle catch up on the recent news of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu late night call 📱 Social Media Ban: UK governments new efforts to get kids off their phones 🌍 World Cup Chaos: Andy, Sara and Chris report on the story of Somalian referee Omar Artan denied entry into the US Andy's Links: https://www.andyzaltzman.co.uk/Sara Barron's Links: https://www.instagram.com/sarabarron1000000/?hl=en Chris Addison's Links: https://www.instagram.com/mrchrisaddison/?hl=en 🎤 Get tickets for the LIVE episode of The Gargle HEREhttps://www.angelcomedy.co.uk/event-detail/the-gargle-live-fri-26th-jun-the-bill-murray-london-tickets-202606261800/🎧 Support The Bugle! Become a Team Bugle subscriber for bonus episodes, exclusive video editions, and the righteous satisfaction of funding satire:http://thebuglepodcast.com📺 Watch Realms Unknown on YouTubeProduced by Chris Skinner, Laura Turner and Harry Gordon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

newspaper for a visual world. Hello, buglers and welcome to issue 4,382 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world. I'm Andy Zaltzman. It's the 9th of June, 2026. The world is still turning as we record. Actually, let me just check online. Well, there's no confirmation either way as to whether or aren't the world is turning. Anyway, fingers crossed.

If you're listening to this, you won't be able to see me staring down the barrel of a camera and thinking how much podcasting has changed. And in this new era of, I remember when it was Allfield, I'm joined by Sarah Barron. And for the first time in nearly two years, welcome back, Chris Addison. Hello to both of you. Hello, Andy. Lovely to be back with you at last.

I haven't been able to do The Bugle for a couple of years, largely because I've been hosting its sister podcast, The Broigel, the satirical podcast about 16th century Dutch peasant scenes. Sections going to block up the dike this week include Kohn or Smurf, how point is your hat, what wagon, including a review of the new sporty

five-spoke cartwheel from Donkavort, and a column by Jeremy Clark Schoon, calling for people to protest the new three mile an hour limit on intervillage mud tracks, and the lifestyle section including an interview with Holland's

oldest man who tells us the secrets of living to 36. All those sections blocking up the day. Well, it's good to have you back on the... It's so nice to be here. How are you, fine? Well, I'm fine, but I,

Always, despite, you know, as many times as I feel like I've been here, each one always enjoy. I always forget that I should have like a little something. You gave so much. All I have is, when we last saw each other, it was winterish. I had a dog. Still have a dog. Getting into the flow of it a little bit more. Big update is my mother, a famous animal hater, came to a visit, looked after her.

Big plot twist. At the age of 79, my mother thought that when. a dog it's. You have to wipe its ass. What? Yes.

So she called me and she was like the dog in my family we call it a BM. P.S. I'm going to mention twice.

This is only the first. That's all right. We call it a BM in my family. She goes, Sarah, the dog did a BM and I have the bag but you didn't give me

any wipes. And I went, Ma, you don't wipe a dog's butt. It's like a self-cleaning butt. So you did all your preparation and your writing,

but my mom thought you had to wipe a dog bottom. Well, let me tell you, one of those things will be remembered by people, and it involves a dog's bottom. Exactly. Isn't that fascinating? Every day's a school day. Isn't it? I mean, it depends what kind of school you go to, I guess.

What does BM stand for? Are you kidding me? Big movement? Bowl movement. What did you call this little kid of poop? I don't recall, I think we probably called it fecal matter. The expulsion of fecal matter. We called it an eFM. We're quite a formal family.

Anyway, moving on. It's the 9th of June, 2026, meaning it is 10 years since it was two weeks before the Brexit referendum. Do you believe that? A vote that was half prank, half stroop, half flounce, half cry for help, half sadomasochismo in democratic form, half nervous tick and 0% mathematics. It's also exactly 100 years and one day Since architect Antonio Gowdy died at the age of 73 After coming off on the wrong side of a contretemps with a Barcelona tram

He thus left his celebrity church the Sagrada Familiar Tantalisingly unfinished If he could have only clung on for another hundred hundred years He would have lived to see the Sagrada Familiar Tantilizingly unfinished So a hundred years It's taken a while that Are they done yet?

No not done Well, I'm not sure. It seems like they seem to be nearly done quite a lot of the time and then keep finding extra. It's very old street roundabout. You know, that thing? It just never... Well, I mean, now it is done,

but I felt like it was like 27 years. It would never get done. I think if I recall correctly for my last visit to Barcelona, it's near a shop that does really good churros. And so if I were working on that, I'd be in the cafe most of the time. I think that's basically the problem. I think that is definitely the problem.

But it's still, I think it's knocking on 150 years now, which... I mean, that's even by medieval standards, that's a little bit slight. It's quite possible that twice the Sagrada Familius weight in Churus has been consumed by the various generations of building types who've worked on it. See, the spires look. And there could be some sort of Churros influenced. As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week. Following the political reaction to the tragic murder of Henry Novak in Southampton,

a special edition of the new podcast series, Do Not Do Not Do This Under Any Circumstances. It's a special episode entitled All the Reasons You Should Not Hijack Someone Else's Devastating Personal Tragedy for your own political benefit. It's a 57-hour program. And please do listen if you are a political figure struggling to get to grips with this important matter, especially if you are, for example, the leader of a political party in the UK that is currently headed the opinion polls. Or for another example, the viking president of a North American failed state. Also in association with that, a free personal disimprovement challenge. There's a lot of stuff in the world about making yourself better.

But I think we need to focus more and making ourselves worse. So our disimprovement challenge this week is, can you be as much of an ignorant shithead as Pete Hegsith? It's not going to be easy meeting the challenge laid down by the American Offense Secretary. But when you're trying to make yourself a worse human being, you have to set the bar as low as you can. And maybe if you really strive to find the very worst of yourself, if you search for the anti-hero inside yourself,

you could, too, could compare the D-Day landings to today's global migration crisis in one of the crassest speeches ever to come. come out of a human mouth. Pete, I think you might have forgotten who was fighting for what in that war. Read a book about actually what's the point. Anyway, that section is in the bin. Top story this week, Donald Trump is cross. I mean, that's, you know, we could have run with that as the top story pretty much every week for the last over 10 years, I would say. Just motivating emotion. Yes. He's particularly cross. And it's not been a particularly soothing millennium generally so far

for the world, as is so often the case with millenniums these days. And one of the prime cheese grater scraping at the eyeballs of humanity has of course been Donald Trump, the grand prince of grievances and peevances. The top two most easily irascible American presidents in history. First and second

in the list of White House occupants most likely to use the power of the office to settle personal gripes and the act against the two interests of their nation and people. And he is cross. In particular, he got cross with someone who's not traditionally been cross with, Benjamin, I wouldn't trust me either, Netanyahu. He found himself in a telephone stroph off in the middle of the night, I think, with Netanyahu,

the 76-year-old professional stumbling block. And in a potty-mouth tirade, Trump reportedly, let's say definitely, barked obscenities at Benny Nets, apparently irritated by Netto's refusal to stop bombing the sh** out of whatever he wants to bomb the shit out of. Report suggested, and who are we at the bugle to deny any report, that the President of America said, you are fucking crazy. And you'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now before realizing he was on the phone to the Prime Minister of Israel

and not talking to himself in the mirror like normal. I mean, this is, is this just what diplomacy is now, Sarah? I think it is. I really like the idea also that Netanyahu would sort of do the old, like, who is this and how did you get this number or routine in response? Lowy doesn't seem to be someone who really leads with a sense of humor. You're fucking crazy. I'm saving your ass.

everybody hates you now. It's a little vulgar for a sitting president, but it works really well as an additional verse for Don't You Want Me, Baby. Bebe Netanyahu, who's my least favorite blues musician, and the only world leader to be named after an 18th century pub frequented by young aristocratic hooligans who also happen to be keen anglers,

the Net and Yahoo, has made Donald Hussein Trump cross. To be honest, he's made a fair chunk of the residents of Southern Beirut quite cross, but apparently it's Trump we have to worry about. Over the years, it occurs to me, lads. A number of things have called into question Trump's judgment, including hiding state secrets in the bathrooms at Mara Lago, the length, he ties his tie,

and literally everything else he's ever done. But his presumption that he would be able to control Netanyahu is a new level of delusional, even by the standards of a man who genuinely thinks he's winning those games of golf fair and square. Game may recognise game, but it would seem that corrupt psychopath does not necessarily recognise corrupt psychopaths

Trump's fundamental problem here is that he's essentially walking proof of the Kruger-Dunning effect. In other words, he's too stupid to realize how stupid he is. He believes America's in a partnership with Israel, but in truth, Netanyahu and Trump are really the pinky and the brain of misconceived Middle East and conflict, the George and Lenny of wildly optimistic Islamophobic military adventures. It's hard to imagine that the much publicised telephone calls you mentioned, Andy, between the two in which Trump asks Netanyahu not to fire missiles at globally economically sensitive targets, or any more than him going, can we not fire at Beirut, George? Huh?

George, can we? Can we? The only positive thing that can be said for this metaphor is the implication that at some point Netanyahu will feel obliged to take Trump out the back of the barn and put him out of his misery or more accurately put him out of our misery. You know how like the reporting of the Watergate tapes, it left more to the imagination by using the phrase expletive deleted. Okay.

So what if like for a post-truth era, wouldn't it be fun to see expletive inserted instead of the word saving in the line, I'm saving your ass? Yeah. I'm saving your ass. If I may say, I thought it was like especially good in an authentic American accent.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of things about in an authentic American accent. Trump. apparently said, what fuck are you doing, amongst other things? Everybody hates Israel because of this. And look, look, I'm a very lapsed Jew, but a very practicing Netanyahu skeptic.

And, I mean, Israel's position in the world, I mean, we could talk about this for, well, for, I don't know, another 6,000 years and I'm not sure it would be adequately resolved. But what the fact, I mean, this isn't, and just in terms of what Trump said to Netanyahu, another in the long line of, It doesn't much political pot kettle black moments, but more a shark calling a lion a really bad vegan.

Other parts of the conversation were not published, such as who each leader fancies for this month's US Open Golf, or the bit that they most enjoy about bombing schools, or how many more Star Wars spin-offs there could theoretically be, estimated at 231,000 currently, or how only squares and dwebes abide by international law, or how neither of them really believe. leaves in Jesus or how unlucky they both were to have Bibles from which the Ten Commandments pages had been eaten by a dog. So it was kind of standard boys will be boys, chit-chat, I guess. Yeah, I mean, they'll have forgotten all about it by the morning. And I guess it's nice that it was an actual phone call in this day or rather than just like WhatsApp messages or Zoom. Do I think you have like male friends that, um...

We're British. No, go ahead. Please, please complete it. I have spreadsheets. Yeah, yeah, you have spreadsheets, fine. I was just wondering if you either, you're both respectfully and complementarily, such betas, and I'm just wondering if either of you have any male friends that you get aggressive with ever.

It would absolutely shock me if either of you did, but I thought maybe worth asking. No, I'm not sure of ever. Sometimes have to really tell the cat not to do something. That's about it. Boy cat? Boy cat, yeah. The girl cat's pretty chilled.

I don't really don't get aggressive with people. I prefer to get aggressive with inanimate objects. Yes, I think that the most frequent use of the C word in my life is addressed to something I just hit my head again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, not really. I don't think I'd get that aggressive. Okay.

Why? What are you saying? What's your point? Do you think we should? Yeah. Are we missing answer? Oh, we should. All right, okay. Yeah, you should both go into like a rage cage. Imagine. That should be the next podcast. Do you two in a rage cage? Andy Zaltzman's rage cage? Oh, my God.

Can you imagine? Quite short. Very intense. Like an espresso. Trump, in other Trump's drop news, walked out of a meet the press interview after being challenged about his false claims about the rigging of the 2020

presidential election. I mean, he's not letting that go. Bearing in mind that he since won a different election, you'd think he might just lighten up about it by now? Well, of course, we all know that the issue wasn't that that was brought up. That's not the problem here. The problem was that it was raining.

He was very angry about the rain. And I think that's legit. Like, at the time of recording, it has rained most days this week. I'm a lady with some sensitive hair, Andy. Same girl. Okay? So, like, I think I absolutely am worse off if it's raining. Right.

And I think, like, he's allowed to be as well. Okay, that's an angle I'd not. Do you think that that justifies storming out of an interview with the press? Yeah, 100%. I really am interested in the person who made the decision to book an interview somewhere with a tin roof. It was a crazy choice. It also led me to this line that is almost but not quite twat on a wet tin roof. Right.

Almost. Yeah, that works. Near enough. Donald Hussein Trump, or as he's known by the staff at Moralago, Senor Cancles, the sentient Hindenberg, that walking answer to the age old question, what would happen if a bin bag full of yogurt got Alzheimer's? A man whose tailor is the only one in New York who has to buy cloth by the hectare. A man whose nicknames include the camping chairs night.

the Colossus of Toads, 10-gallant-twat and Edward Liverhands, a man who is the exact size and weight of a brontosaurus's haemeroid. America's twisted bollock. A man whose genitals have been officially designated part of Area 51 because the federal government really don't want you finding out what's been happening down there isn't, as you say, Andy, very happy. He absolutely did. He walked out unaided to the surprise and against the advice of medical professionals everywhere

of an interview with NBC News in this barn after. the interviewer Kristen Welker challenged him to provide evidence that the current Californian elections and the 2020 general election were in any way stolen. Let's be fair and take a psychologist's approach to this. If we look at the great American psychologist Leon Festinger's seminal 1950s work on the concept of cognitive dissonance, we can see that for Trump, this exchange with Kristen Welker was a direct assault on his concrete perception of the world. And it was incredibly troubling for him on a deep psychological level when she asked him to provide evidence for his claims of electoral fraud to look at her and have to consider

after years of nobody presenting him any evidence to the country that maybe, just maybe, there are women who aren't blonde. Not only that, but the not blonde woman was talking and asking questions. And those questions weren't, could you leave this changing room, or have you seen Geoffrey?

He just did what any of us would have done in that circumstance, Andy, he rejected the evidence of his own eyes, walked out and bombed Iran. We've all been there. We've all been there. I like how she kept mentioning that, like, to keep him in, she continuously referenced that she traveled all the way to Wisconsin.

It's like she knows he's not going to listen if she emphasizes the importance to democracy of elected leaders being held to account by the media. But he might feel sorry for her if he knows she had a 90-minute layover in Chicago. So, I mean, you know, Trump seems to have been cross for quite a long time. in particular well the last I don't know six seven months

and I sort of because the Iran war was pretty much a tantrum as much as anything else and I've come to the conclusion that the reason he's in such a crank it basically goes back to when the Supreme Court

ruled that his tariffs were illegal and this was the Supreme Court containing judges that he himself had appointed three of the judges that he himself had personally appointed to do his

bidding essentially voted against him. So it's the same level of sort of anger, frustration, irritability as if, you know, he had designed and built his own sex robot. And that robot had then claimed to have a headache. This is what he's dealing with. So yeah, and still, once again, you know, not sort of reaching out in a spirit of unity and conciliation to a divided nation, but I guess expecting Trump to, you know, come out and try and bring his people together now in 2026 is like expecting a hyena to improve its table manners. It's nature is nature. No matter how many times you try to train them to use cutlery and tuck their napkins in and wait for the meal to be cooked, they just won't do it.

Further irritating him is the fact that his attempt to have his name added to the title of the Kennedy Centre has been rejected again by the courts have got involved. The courts seem to getting involved an awful lot. They've had to remove Trump from the branding of the Kennedy Centre. Not entirely clear what Trump and John F. Kennedy have in common anyway, apart from the fact that neither of them has said anything constructive since at least November 1963.

But why you put Trump on a on a cultural centre seems you have to, you know, the Beatrix Potter Foundation for Zomber Slash a horror pornography or the Genghis Khan Memorial Snooker Hall or the Marie Curie Centre for In Curiosity. Why have the Trump on a cultural centre? Mostly when he's putting his name on things,

I feel like heaped Trump, who after all looks like someone shaved a St Bernard and gave it a voucher for a tanning salon, is simply marking his territory like a big dog, which means that putting his name on things is probably the least objectionable thing he could do. But on this occasion, I suspect that he wants to be named on the same things

as John F. Kennedy for two reasons. Firstly, they share the same middle initial, John F. Kennedy and Donald F. Trump. In Kennedy's case, it stood for Fitzgerald. In Trump's, it doesn't. But the main reason, I think, is that Trump believes on some level that if he equates himself with JFK enough, he can retroactively sleep with Marilyn Monroe.

What if we do a compromise? Okay, rename it the Robert F. Kennedy Center for the performing arts propagation of bat-shit conspiracies and disposal of dead bears. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe Trump will let this go as he's now focused on his big ballroom.

Yeah. Although I think it's a failure of journalism that all White House press conferences aren't just variations on the question. Right. He's so preoccupied with big balls. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

I don't know how much personal say he had in this, but his administration is set about dismantling an ocean monitoring system. for reasons, I mean, I guess can only be sort of, you know, sort of anti-woke, you know, the sort of rather woke idea that it's good to know what might happen with the climate in the future and that we might want to have an inhabitable planet. It's kind of a sort of cornerstone woke idea, the idea that people should be able to breathe oxygen and not be, you know, have all their homes flooded.

Yeah, yeah, it's not often that I agree with the Trump. administration. But what you woke lefties and even the sleepy lefties really haven't been able to answer is what this ocean monitoring system is actually doing. Do we really need a system, Andy, that costs a third of a billion dollars a year to tell us what the conditions in the ocean are? I'll tell you what the conditions in the ocean are. It's cold and it's full of fish. You can have that for free. Sometimes it's less cold at the edges and the fish are a bit smaller and you can't snorkel around freely without running the risk of getting poked in the goggles by teenagers trying to get to sub-aquatic third base. But by and large, it's cold and it's full of fish. In any case,

We have a free ocean monitoring service, which we call old people. All you have to do is fund a bunch of seaside benches, and mostly governments don't even have to fund those because they occur naturally in memory of Janice, who love this view. They attract old people who stare at the sea all day, and if something important happens like Godzilla appears or Nigel Farage falls in the sea whilst live Instagramming actual human beings drowning, they'll tell us.

It's a completely foolproof system, except on Wednesdays when the bingo does two cars for the price of one, and it's half off on curly fries between three and five. Britain news now and well we're about to get some very exciting new money a range of British creatures proudly British creatures given to us by God at the very start of British history some 13 billion years ago are going to adorn our God-given British banknotes they're removing figures from history such as Winston Churchill and Jane Austen and there's going to be a public

vote to whittle down 18 nominated creatures to however many are needed for the banknotes. You're talking curlews, bottlenose dolphins, bumblebees, puffins. I've never heard anybody say puffing was quite such

contempt before. The frogs, barn owls, some of the absolute goats of British, but not the goat, obviously. Many people have complained about animals replacing great national figures on our banknotes.

But I think it's also, it's important to remember we live in a cashless age. We don't people, you know, most people don't use physical banknotes anymore. And people don't generally learn about the Second World War by gazing lovingly at Winston Churchill's face on a five-pound note. We, you know, we'll listen to history podcast instead now. And you can still, also, the thing is, in this cashless world, you sort of have the choice now as to what's historical figure is on your banknot. So, you know, when I spend 10 pounds on something now, I can think about Jane Austen for a couple of seconds. rather than actually having to look at Jane Austen's face. When I spend 20 quid, which has JNW Turner on,

I just think about how would JMW have painted the thing that I'm currently paying for? And also you can choose your own national figure rather than having to accept who the Bank of England have decided his flavour of the decade for their banknotes. So if you're not a Churchill fan, you can just use, say, Liz Truss on your mental banknotes instead. If you don't like Jane Austen, Andy McNabb.

for Jane Austen of our times or you can make up your own domination so say if I spend £147 pounds on something I just imagine I'm paying for it using a banknote with a picture of Ronnie O'Sullivan slamming in the final black of a maximum break on it and so actually it's democratising

what we can all imagine is on our money and you know it's I guess taking that historically controversial figures that I can't remember if Jane Austen starved half the world to death or whatever I forget I'll get mixed up. We did what? I mean, Sarah, what's your?

It's very Tweed British to me. Like, when I moved here, it was just broadly very confusing that none of your banknotes have a little symbol of a pyramid with an all-seeing eye. Like, how am I supposed to know what to covet as a Jew? Can I do my unbelievable joke now? I have a really amazing joke. You guys can do some banter when you're... her when you're done, okay? All right.

Well, Chris, well, Andy, the sad thing is that fewer and fewer of us use banknotes these days. But any bird lovers who've gone cash-free can still enjoy owl-themed payments by changing their pin number to 28-2-0. Yep. I thought that was pretty cool. That's a really... That's excellent.

Yeah. I think sometimes my ideas might not be the best, but I really commit as a performer. But also, no, that was a great idea. Beautifully delivered. Yeah, that's why there's amazing. I wish I thought of that. Yeah, well, it's great. Yeah, I took that a lot with my ideas.

You're right, but you're both right about the cashier society. This is why it's harder to rob banks now. Everybody pays for things by phone. It's a lot harder to rob a million pounds from a bank when it's in phones rather than cash money. You can do the maths. One million pounds in 50 pounds. in 50-pound banknotes is 20,000 banknotes. A 50-pound banknotes weighs precisely 1.27 grams, meaning that 1 million pounds in 50-pound notes is 25.4 kilograms, which is only slightly

over the recommended limit for an untrained human to carry. On the other hand, an iPhone 17 Pro is 206 grams, which means that assuming the bill has been split equally and each phone is paying 50 pounds, the weight of a million pounds is now just over 4.1 tonnes. which is the upper end of what a forklift truck is able to carry, and that's without including the weight of the briefcase. At top speed, a forklift truck can go about 15 miles an hour, but laden with 4.1 tonnes of iPhone 17 pros plus a briefcase, it's more likely to be restricted to around 8 miles an hour.

A British police standard response vehicle tops out at about 120 miles an hour, probably even faster now that they're allowing those small policemen that you see about the place. That means that any police response vehicle is going to be able to go 15 times faster than a forklift truck. If you think about it, this is why you very rarely see getaway forklifts, and even when you do, they're mostly on sitcoms,

which are a different legal situation. Nobody has ever been arrested for a sitcom, not even Mrs Brown's boys. The maximum number of iPhone 17 pros and untrained human is recommended to carry is 123, meaning that the upper end of what a bank robber can make off with in the modern era

is £6,150 pounds. And according to a time management study commissioned by the Ancient Guild of highwaymen, footpads and ne'er-do wells, the game really isn't worth the candle. As a result, the number of bank robberies has plummeted with the unwelcome knock-on effect of drastically depressing sales of pairs of tights, which means, and I can hardly believe that I get to say this, the bottom has dropped out of the laundry market. Such whimsy.

The RSPCA has also said that the banknote should focus on less well-loved animals. Right. Yes! Including pigeons and rats. I'm not sure you mean look from a patriotic point of view pigeons have no place on our banknotes they have shown absolutely no respect for this nation's

great historical figures judging by what they've done on the head of the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square rats brought the plague over in the 14th Centra which brought untold devastation across the land followed by social upheaval leading to the peasants revolt set and train a course of events that led just a few hundred years later to the industrial revolution

and increased urbanisation and a concentration of power and wealth in London which led to the HS2 rail line and the 150 million pound tunnel for bats who are basically rats with wings on but more so. It's a conspiracy. This goes right to the top. And the RSPCA wants these on our bank notes. No way.

In other British news, well, if you're under the age of 16 and your favourite way of consuming the bugle is via eight second video chunks posted on social media with some emojis to help you know how to feel about what's being said. Bad news! You're not going to be able to do it anymore. The UK government is set to ban young people from using social media. It's been a bit controversial.

Some people say this is the right thing to do. If you're in any doubt as to whether or not this is the right thing to do, headline just came up just before we started recording, that the White House has urged the UK not to ban social media for under 16. So it looks like the government is absolutely 120% correct to implement this ban. There's no, there can be no more solid form of proof. Haven't US businesses suffered enough? Open AI keeps losing valuable subscribers.

to suicide, and there's been a sharp downturn in private jet tourism to Epstein Island. I was thinking as well, can we extend the ban to over 65s as well? Like your account gets deleted the second you try to post a mockish poem or a fake news story about a local council banning St. George's flags and Nativity Place. I try to self-police, so I only post nude photos of my son with an emoji over his dick, which is a shame, boys, because it is magnificent. Hopefully we'll see a return to teenagers slashing up cinema seats with flick knives

after wigging out to hypnotic rock and roll beats. I want to make a prediction that this will have zero effect on the number of young people signing up to truth social. Well, and in the words of the Blues Brothers, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, sore eyes. Listen, I get it. Every government wants to have a little moral panic

about something rather, right? Computer games, video nasties, immigrants, You name it. But as with all of these things, the problem is that they've identified the issue and are now racing to do something about it without taking the time to research and test properly. What a blanket social media ban really needs is a pilot scheme. But who?

Who would submit themselves to such a scheme? Me. Me? I would. I'm begging you, Mr. Starma. Please, Kier, ban me from being on social media. Enact it in law. Take precious time out of the already overful parliamentary schedule to codify in the written

statutes and practices of this land that I am legally known. longer permitted to spend several hours a day scrolling through the Instagram stories of people I only followed back out of politeness who while relentlessly updating the world on the progress of their loft extension, make it so that a non-deadly electric charge is applied to something tender

whenever I like a blue sky post about an opinion poll on changing attitudes towards Brexit. Clap me in cuffs and throw me in the cells if I comment on a Facebook hometown reminiscence group having an increasingly ill-natured argument about the precise address of Jilly's Rockworld in Manchester in 1988.

Please, Mr Stama, I'm on my knees here. I had a family once. I think they're in the living room still. I'd love to see them again. Help me. I mean, I guess the question, in terms of the impact that it has on young people, the question is, would we allow tech companies to implant a physical microchip in our children's brains so that they could scrape the contents of their innermost thoughts from every recess of their brain

and turn their attention spans to mush? And I guess the answer is probably, if we'd, were distracted watching some amusing videos about cucumbers or if there was a 20% off advert for something so yeah yeah in the good old days of course we didn't need we didn't need technology for this you know we had you know there were things in place to perform the function of psychologically ruining children you know boarding schools organized religion um yeah the military world wars um and but this is just yet another plank of our national heritage that we've outsource to the tech giants and I think it's

yeah if we want to make Britain great again we should get back to taking the responsibility of crushing our children's hopes and dreams ourselves do we want to make Britain great again because the clothing was really restricted things are a lot looser now right I mean I sweat a lot I can't be making Britain great again

West Streeting the former health secretary compared social media to smoking but it's less cool I think than smoking I mean Bridget Bardot smoking and God created woman. Fair to say that, enlivened a few lines back in the 1950s. Brigitte Bardo posting a picture of an avocado

on toast to her Instagram. Oh my God. It's not sure it quite works the same. James Bond news now, and the actor Idris Elba has said that global audiences would not go for a black actor as

James Bond. This is after there was speculation that he could be the next James Bond. I think I'd like to just challenge Idris on that. He's not here to to have this argument. But I think global audiences would go for a Black James Bond, just not 100% of them, and the percent who would not go for a Black James Bond

will be f***ing gobby about it. I think that's the issue. It's not that the audience as a whole wouldn't, it's just that those who wouldn't would make sure everyone thought that they spoke for the entire plan. He said, don't make Bond woke. Bond, to me, is already a pioneer of woke.

If you look at the baddies James Bond has taken down, overwhelmingly, and I made a spreadsheet for this, well over 90% rich, powerful white guys. You just don't get woken than that, surely. That's beautiful. I also like, I kind of, if I can say, I kind of get it. Like, it really takes you out of the moment when someone who doesn't exist looks different to how you imagined whilst driving a gondola hovercraft through St. Mark Square. And I'm not saying, look, I'm not saying the James Bond producers are pandering to racist. But the latest casting rumors include Lawrence Fox, Tommy Robinson and some guy whose face is obscured by the hood of his white robe. Bond's interesting, isn't it?

Because it's one of those things that are big because they're big. It's only a cultural phenomenon because it's already a cultural phenomenon. Like the Pope. Yeah, exactly like the Catholic Church. In fact, Bond is very, very like the Catholic Church. It's been around since at least the 1960s. The entire world gets very invested when the lead character changes. The costumes are spectacular, and not unlike 007 himself, the Catholic Church is constantly

fucking women. Football news now, and the World Cup starts in, well, just over 48 hours as we record. But one person who won't be there is the Somalian referee Omar Artan, who was denied entry to the USA, despite being one of FIFA's chosen referees for the tournament. Various Iranian officials have not been allowed in. The team itself is going to basically stay on the border. pop over into America for its matches. I mean, this World Cup is set to be,

I think, the most unsettling sporting event in history. I mean, I know we had the 1936 Olympics, but I think the Nazis had laid their cards fairly firmly on the table before that. The world knew what it was getting into, and it chose to just accept it because it was 1936. But this, there's something deeply, deeply sinister,

about this as an American and I know you're a huge huge football fan Yeah I don't Here's how big of a football fan I am I don't I did my research I came prepared

I have a joke But I don't know what FIFA stands for I know the word football is in it And I know association is in it I like I like I always root for the South American And by the way this isn't about being American And therefore not caring about football

It's about raised by a man who didn't watch sport, married to a man who doesn't watch sports. I just can't connect. I just like the South American teams because I like how they pray to Jesus. I like when they come out and they pray to that Jesus.

And I'm like, I'm with those boys because they're praying to Jesus. I like the bodies. And I root for the underdog. So what you've said there is you like, it's the underdog, the bodies and the Jesus. Yeah. As a Jewish woman, I'm going with it.

Tick my boxes. I'll do my joke now. Okay, one of the beautiful things about the World Cup, she says after Googling World Cup, is that you see all these different races and nationalities presented on the pitch, which is a field. And notice how little difference there is between them. They all just look like humans, you guys, in their prime.

Similarly, when you see any international football team getting off a plane dressed in their smart suits they all just look like rapists on route to a disco. Who are you guys reading for? It's difficult for me to care. Yeah. Oh, is it? Yeah.

Oh, that's who you are? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. I'd like Curisout to win it. Yeah, Corosat would be good, wouldn't it? About time. Oh, yes, I did read about Carousal. Yeah, that'd be fun, right?

Because they've expanded it to 48 nations, I think, in an effort to make it even more annoying than recent World Cups have been. Also, I mean, there's a few things, they've just announced actually the scores that are going to feature in this tournament. FIFA said amongst the score lines that will be appearing are 1-0, 2-1, 1-all and 0-0. So I do look out for them. And also, in an effort to improve fan behaviour, they've announced that the goal will be made bigger in the second half for the teams whose supporters have been most polite to the referee in the first half. Nice. Nice.

Look, there's a long tradition of countries at war with each other playing sport. This is not unusual this situation. The Christmas Day football match during the First World War, there's the obvious one, isn't it? There's the arrow firing contest at Agincourt, the game of Count the Zulus at Rorke's Drift. Very tricky to do because they were moving quite fast at the time. It's a lot harder to see when you've got a spear in your eye.

The Viet Cong, of course, managed to play hide-and-seat with the Americans for 19 years, without it ever being the Americans turned to hide, a record unbeaten to this day. I feel that sporting aspect just adds a welcome bit of fun in a war to what can otherwise be quite a tense atmosphere. And that leads me to think that actually, perhaps if more wars lent into the sporting angle and away from the killing each other angle, they would be cheaper, faster and less likely to lead to badly put together history videos on YouTube.

For example, there would be no need for China and Taiwan to go to war over the island if they just agreed to sort it out with the best of three T20 series. In fact, maybe war should be in sportified entirely. Once every four years, all the nations of the earth could meet in a knockout tournament featuring a different sport every time. One year, swing ball, the next 200 metre freestyle, the next. Slapsies, winner takes control of the global trade in rare earth metals, but also has to host Eurovision. Fair. Yes.

We had a sketch in the department over 20 years ago about how wars should be knockout-based. Every time I write something like that, I think we must have done it. Just before we go, some World Cup facts, for those of you ticking down the hours until the tournament begins. if the Uruguayan team that won the first World Cup in 1930 played against the team from this edition of the tournament they wouldn't be able to match the fitness and athleticism of their modern day counterparts because they're all dead

although a brilliant team in their day winning the Olympic football gold in 1928 back when it still meant something their being dead would be an insurmountable barrier to competing with the 21st century superathletes and their hyper prescriptively organisational coaches disappointing for those wanting to see a good contest World Cup fact number two

the first ever official World Cup song. Any of you know this? 1998. Peggy Lee, FIFA. There's a joke for many fans of, you give me FIFA. Oh, FIFA. Oh, FIFA.

FIFA. Yes. Brazilian superstar Pelle, sadly, won't be playing at this World Cup, having died in 2022 at the age of 82. He probably wouldn't have been picked anyway because the Brazilian coach Carlo Ancelotti is known to favour players under the age of 78.

Britain, sorry, England, did not enter the first three World Cup, safe in the knowledge that no one would ever be as good at football as the mighty three lions. They would have won every World Cup since if it wasn't for the referees. Spain's 1986 centreford, Emilio Boutroghenia, was known as the vulture. People assumed this was because of his predatory goal-scoring instincts in the penalty box, but in fact it was due to his training regime,

which involved climbing up the rock faces of mountains and canyons, looking down from the top until he saw a dead animal somewhere, then sprinting back down and eating the carry-on-wrought. He attributed his acceleration to the upward scramble and his nimble footwork to the downward scuttle. If the 1982 Italian golden bootwinner Paolo Rossi had been British, he'd have been called Paul Ross and would have been shit at football. There were no World Cups between the year 10,000 BC and 1929.

Then since 1930, there will have been 23, assuming that the one that's due to start on Thursday, isn't cancelled at the last minute. If the rate of World Cups continues increasing at that rate, by the year 2100, there will be one World Cup every 8 minutes and 13 seconds, and 2,600 national teams will qualify for every edition of the tournament. No one knows if they were World Cups before 10,000 BC because the historical records are very sketchy.

They found some cups that might have been commemorative World Cup memorabilia, but the branding has worn off over time, so it's impossible to know. Cave painting suggests, however, that before then people were more into Bison watching than football anyway. Hungary really should have beaten West Germany in the 1954 World Cup final, and that still annoys me at the age of 51, 72 years later. Argentina's Diego Maradonna. famously slapped the ball into the goal with his naughty hand in the World Cup quarter final of 1986 in Mexico against England,

somehow jumping above the England goalkeeper Peter Shilton. But new AI technology is shown that if the 5 foot, 4 inch twinkled-footed Argentinian wizard had not handballed the ball into England's goal, Shilton's goal, Schulton's punch would have connected with the football so hard that in the thin, altitudinous Mexico City air, it would have flown the length of the pitch into the Argentinian goal at the other end, giving England a 1-0 lead, which then would have opened the floodgates as a Hoddle-inspired England,

romped to a 5-0 win before thrashing Belgium 4-1 in the semifinal and roasting West Germany 8-0 in the final. For fuck's sake. And finally, in a new scheme to promote both sports, the winners of this year's Football World Cup will play the winners of the Iran War in a hybrid half-football, half-warfare crossover of an event to decide, the ultimate 2026 world champions.

Those your World Cup facts, more as the tournament progresses over the next however many fucking weeks it's going to take. I'm excited. Are you excited? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to go, because Jeff and my son and my husband are not interested, but I'm going to like go on my own to the pub and watch it. It's just such an interesting bit of your culture.

It's how it meets the culture over there that's going to be a fascinating part of it. It just feel like because it's a tournament being hosted by three countries, two of whom really don't like the other one at the moment. It's going to be the who's afraid of Virginia Woolf of World Cups in many ways. Well, also, I mean Trump got booed at the basketball. last night in the New York Knicks he's doing his best game three of the NBA final

series he was when he came up on the big screen during the national anthem everyone stops singing the national anthem to to boo him and look I know we shouldn't read too much into it I know just because he's being booed because of everything he's said and done

at a time when his approval rating is slightly high with the Americans than the Dona Kabab industry's approval rating is with the sheep community It doesn't necessarily mean he's unpopular. But the Knicks had been on a 13-game winning streak. He turned up at their game and they issued their own rebuke to the president by losing. They lose. They did lose.

I love when he gets, like, hated in New York. I think it really fucking bothers him. It's the one place he really genuinely wants to accept. Exactly. And he won't get it there. And that's just a little tiny something. Well, let us cling to that little shred of hope. Gricky.

I'll have a catchphrase, Andy. There we go. Well, that concludes this week's bugle. Next week, we have Nish Kumar and Tom Ballard joining us here once again in London. Sarah, anything to plug? I'm Sarah, spelled Sarah, Baron, like Trump Baron. Like Trump's Baron.

I mean, you find me on the socials, and I'm doing a... Oh, I thought you were handing me a drink. And I'm doing a web series called Mother Sluts for Sluts. All right. So I see a lot. Yeah, the proms is coming up. I have no involvement in it, but there's some really good stuff on you.

You should have a look. Yeah. One plug from me, and I'm going to call upon your good-natured souls buglers. A friend of mine has a daughter called Amelia, who is four, who suffered a major stroke, which has left unable to walk. And they are having to raise a huge amount of money to adapt their homes. This friend of mine will I owe a great debt to. He indeed is a bugler.

And in the early years of the bugle, he was working at the Crickinfo website. He listened to me banging on about cricket. Contact me to ask if I'd like to write a column for them. And my entire cricket media career has come from that. So I am asking you to help Will and Amelia and their family. The fundraising site, and they're trying to raise £75,000 to adapt their home, is help amelia.com. That's Amelia, E-M-I-L-I-A.

I'll talk about it a little more in coming weeks, but whatever you can do to help Will and his family, both he and I would be hugely grateful. That's it. Until next week, goodbye. Hello, I am Andy Zaltzman, as you may know. The bugle, as well as being the world's only ever, longest-running and arguably best audio newspaper for a visual world is one of the very few fully independent media empires

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