The Bugle - Woke Submarine exclusive

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

The Bugle Takes a Breather – But the Nonsense Continues!We're giving the world a chance to calm down (or at least try) while The Bugle takes a short break. But fear not! We've stitched together some top-tier, totally bogus Bugle bits just for you.In this special episode:🔹 Never-before-heard woke submarine news🔹 A timeless, fart-fueled tale🔹 A sneak peek at Realms Unknown, our brand-new show—including a dive into the wild world of BookTok politicsWant more Bugle? Get our book, explore our other shows, and help keep us going at thebuglepodcast.com.Produced by Chris Skinner & Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh hello strangers, I'm Alice Fraser, your guide to the galaxy's goblins, dungeons and dystopias. We'll be hurling ourselves into an all-weekly hero's journey through realms unknown into the dark but sensual heart of all our favourite speculative fictions. We'll navigate the wild realms created by brilliant authors, filmmakers, game designers and more. New episodes drop every week on your podcast app or on YouTube. Do not resist the call to adventure, Chosen One. Join me for Realms Unknown.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello Buglers and welcome to Bugle issue 4330, sub-episode A for a week off to allow the world some time to calm down and come to its senses, starting now. Also, we're taking the week off because all of our AI projections and technology suggested that if we did record a bugle this week it would just be 40 minutes of whimpering, screaming and occasional barking like a dog. Such is the world. Instead, we have a bugle sub-episode with various choice morsels from the bugleverse. Before we get into it, a quick plug for our bugle voluntary subscription scheme. Go to the buglepodcast.com to find out more.

We only exist because you buglers make it happen. Please do continue support doing what we do and helping keep our show free, flourishing and independent as we head towards the bugles 18th birthday. Later on, you'll be hearing a bit from Alice Fraser's excellent new podcast realms unknown in which Alice takes the bugle universe into the worlds of sci fi and fantasy. You can also buy her book A Passion for Passion. The link is in the show notes which I'm very reliably informed you can quite easily find. We will also be dipping into a moment from the bugle past and what a

moment that is but firstly let's start from something more recent some boat news. Yes the UK may be a nation of seafarers but we're not faring particularly well right now as this story highlights. Woke submarine news now and for everyone who is really worrying about the number of military submarines that have succumbed to the woke lobby, well I mean some harrowing news. Britain has renamed a Royal submarine, the best kind of submarine, but I don't know how in terms of the hydrodynamics, whether the Crown makes it go slower or quicker. It's been renamed from HMS Agincourt to HMS Achilles. The name change was announced this week after concerns been reported that the original name HMS Agincourt might offend the French who are technically if not in the

world of British media are allies. Now there's a number of things about this nation. Obviously any story now you can pretty much put the word woke in any headline. I mean, you could have a group stage match in the World Croquet Championships, and somehow, the woke would be responsible for something that went wrong in it. But what does this say about us as a nation that we'd called the submarine Agincourt in the first place the battle of as in core happening fourteen fifteen More than six hundred years ago, and I don't think I'm being even slightly revisionist here when I claim that that battle was fought on land It was not fought Under the sea or even under the land it was fought on the land

So as a submarine that's over, that is over two in terms of nomenclature real relevance. It's a good 25 miles from the sea. That's a long periscope. Look, it was a bit muddy. But to me, naming a submarine as in call is a bit like naming a space rocket Mickey the mineshaft. So then, but then what does it also say? That we then decided that was a bit provocative. And instead we name it after Achilles, a made-up dude from Greece. Obviously, our patron saint, St George, is a basically made-up dude, or at least a dude most famous for doing made-up things from Turkey. So I don't know if that's some kind of unusually diplomatic effort

to create some rapprochement between two nations that haven't always gone on. Anyway, Achilles was a brilliant but sulky young Trojan war superstar who hit the headlines in Homer's smash hit war blockbuster The Iliad. I mean, admittedly, if we wanted someone from that vintage, we're talking what 1200 BC, not too many British heroes, you could call it HMS grunting man carving a flint arrowhead and wondering what all the fuss about midsummer is, but that's not as catchy. Um, but it's, uh, there's something about this story and also then emerged that Prince, um, former Prince now King Charles, uh, was in favor of the name. Thank you for using his full title. Andy.

Thank you for using his full former Prince current game. Yes. The artist formerly known as Prince. Um, I know you're a massive fan. Former Prince current King. Yes, the artist formerly known as Prince So just a little bit more on Agincourt Agincourt was part of the Hundred Years War which lasted from 1337 to 1453 Vatnish that's a lot of added time Wow, guess there must have been a lot of injuries. Proper contacts bought medieval warfare. But still, that's got to be dispiriting in 1437. You're fighting a hundred years war. You look across to the touch and you think it's almost full time and the fourth official pops up

with his board showing 16 years of extra time. 16 years of added time. I assume he held up in years rather than minutes. 8,415,360 minutes. I mean, that's that's that's a killer, isn't it? We've got literally in many cases. It is amazing that we've that we we went with Agincourt just because it does sort of suggest that this is not true. It does sort of suggest that we've lacked military victories since 1415 to celebrate. I mean, I don't know whether they considered calling it the HMS Amritsar Massacre. I don't know whether they

considered it calling it the HMS brutal suppression of the Mao Mao uprising. I don't know whether they considered calling it the HMS. Yeah, we might have brought some smallpox to Australia. I don't know whether they considered any of those. I don't know whether they considered any of those as potential alternative names. But if they've gone with Achilles, it is pretty funny to name a military vessel after someone who is largely synonymous with having one very obvious vulnerability. Like, it does suggest that there is a hole at the back of the submarine that's letting water in. That's all I'm saying. By picking a killis.

I know that's doing down the rest of the lad's career. I know that's choosing to focus on the one blight on his career. But I will say just conversationally, as someone I'd like Andy did not study classics. I would say I hear Achilles I'm thinking the heel I I'm afraid that's just where my mind is going Fair enough. And yeah, they they have made most of the submarine waterproof, but not all One very obvious Made of bread. Oh, we forgot to put one of the windows in. Oh, God. Oh, box. So, yeah, so like I said, it was changed, because Agincourt was, let's say famously a victory for team GB over then arch rivals La France, and it

was considered provocative. I mean, I don't know how provocative it's a submarine. It's underwater. You can't see its name most of the time unless it's going going wrong. But if we really wanted to provoke the French, we could have called it HMS three week cycling races are fucking stupid. How about you let the goose choose for itself how much food it wants for lunch or even HMS horizontal stripe shirts are not cool anymore. That's because I'm not sure that battles from 600 years ago really rile people anymore. Yeah I'm not sure yeah I'm not sure that that's the like that's the number one thing that is upsetting French people at the moment. I would have thought if you want to really upset

them we should have called it the HMS Lameña Mal after the Spanish teenager that scored a wonder goal that was part of Spain's defeat of France in the recent European Championships. I'll dub in favour of that. Oh Andy, there's been some breaking news. Uh, as we've been talking about this, they've decided that, uh, Achilles was too embarrassing at home and the submarine has been renamed and I think there was some intervention from Kim Charles on this the HMS Prince Andrew so that we finally settled on a figure from British history that is in no way divisible

controversial. Well I do like the idea of naming it after a professional footballer because you know that's good for a submarine isn't it because professional footballers go down very easily and that's really what you want your submarine to do. Well as well as the full bugles there is another feed from the bugle called Top Stories where we play back classic top stories from past issues of this august audio newspaper for example this top story from Austria entitled fart the police top story this week well as if the world didn't need more hostility between the police and the public Austria has been rocked to its foundations after a man in Vienna was fined 500 euros for flatulentializing loudly in

front of police officers. Not just loudly Andy, provocatively. Yes well Helen you are of course our landlocked continental European countries and flatulence legislation correspondent. Bring us up to dates with with with what went on. Well this this man this father was sitting on a bench he was having some kind of as described by police prolonged unruly and disrespectful interaction with them and then he got up and did a big fart and they said it's of course they said on Twitter, of course, no one is reported for accidentally letting one go.

So as with so much of the law, intent is key. There must be a mens rea as well as an actus reus. It's a provable intent is relevant here. Now let he who's not used a pape as an assault weapon throw the first wind, say aye. Good to bring a bit of lawyers expertise to this Alice thank you. Last year a man in Scotland farted intentionally whilst being bodily searched by police and got 75 hours of community service. Right well yeah 500 euro fine for the parpatrator here for the olfactory infraction he He was fined under the audible

gaseous discurtsy subsection of Austria's offending public decency act. He was said to have, as you say, quote, let go a massive intestinal wind, apparently with full intent. This provocative proctal promulgation following an encounter with the police who insist that the accused performed an unwarrantedly confrontational ex flagrutum. I mean, the maximum sentence in Austria for nasally discomforting a police officer is 35 years in jail and a lifelong artichoke consumption banning order. But the police let him off with a 500 euro fine because of a backlog in the Austrian court system caused by a combination of lockdown Brexit and vegan schnitzels. I wonder if in America they would have tried to shoot the fart. One can only assume that they probably would have done. We've got to use the facilities. The police in Austria noted that the man may appeal against the penalty if he feels that it was unjustified though it may be

difficult for him to find a lawyer who will open the pleadings in the traditional manner of offenses of this kind which is mom yeah but it's good actually don't you think to you know with so many laws and social customs that have gone out the window during lockdown see Austria trying to keep some semblance of social order it does seem that as a nation that Austria these days is a little more sensitive to the need to stamp down on the early sides of social and political rebellion for whatever reason. And no judgment on the man from us here in Britain where just four years ago 17.4 million of us voted for better out than in, regardless of the impact on others but it just makes us feel better about ourselves and we can't be worrying about who else gets inconvenienced by it or whether it signifies an underlying digestive or dietary issue that we don't

want to face up to. Can I end this contrived analogy here please? Yes, Brexit is the fight that began as an attempt to relieve pressure and ended up in an accidental pants shitting. Yeah, except they shat in all of our pants. Virus news now and everyone's least favorite microscopic terrorist the coronavirus continues to upheave and in-havocate the world. Jerkocratic governments continue to fumble around in a self-imposed fug of stubborn arrogance. Science continues to try to convince people that it isn't making everything up as it goes along in everything it does, as well as the

virus. I've been reading the Telegraph and I'm so into doubt that gravity is real anymore. Life is shifting and changing by the week and nowhere have the effects been felt more profoundly. No area of human activity has been so deeply impacted upon than in the filming of sex scenes for TV shows. Helen, you are the Bugles' artistically probably just about justified nudity filming logistics correspondent. Please fill us in or more appropriately make it look convincingly like you're filling us in. Well, the Bold and the Beautiful soap opera is resuming filming, having been off since March, and they have a number of steamy scenes. Obviously, they want to keep things socially distant, but still sexy, so they are going one better

than just people wrapping their arms around themselves and moving their hands up and down like in the playground. They tried cutting these scenes, they're like, it's not the same, it's not the same. So instead, first of all, for kissing, each of the actors will just be filmed separately. I don't know if they're allowed to kiss something like a melon or their own hand, and then they will be edited together. And then when they're doing sex scenes, their spouses, if they're negative for COVID, may be allowed to play whoever they're sexing on. But otherwise, they will be using blow up dolls and dummies.

And usually the dummies are used for stunts, like when people fall out of a window or have to play a corpse. But not this time, they're getting lucky. I mean of course with the amount of Botox and plastic surgery going around on the set of The Bold and the Beautiful, for those of you who don't know The Bold and Beautiful, it's like The Fast and the Furious but without cars. It's going to be difficult for viewers to tell the difference between the blow-up dolls and the actors themselves. There are rumors in the sex doll community that if the sex dolls do a good enough job they may be cast in speaking roles.

Right that's something I've not I've never seen the bold and the beautiful but there's an etymological intro I know Helen you love you love your words sort of to a professional level the bold and the beautiful is the phrase most diametrically opposed in the English language to the phrase Boris Johnson's cabinet. I have a linguistic interest for you. I mean, is this not an over complicated solution to the problem? And what's wrong with a good visual metaphor these days? A train going into a tunnel? A nodding donkey oil well? A tree bursting into blossom? Or an industrial chimney being chained up, blindfolded, whipped and forced and forced to say yes mistress Margaret like in that old biopic of David Cameron. I once saw a very sexual montage on a BBC documentary about bread

of people provocatively kneading dough so they could do that. Nobody needs dough Helen you can only ever want dough. Oh my God. Very philosophical. We haven't all suffered enough, Alice. Unknown is the new podcast from the Bugle stable hosted by the wonderful Alice Fraser celebrating the best of sci-fi and fantasy If you haven't heard it yet here is a little snippet from episode one Where alice is joined by tom neenan to discuss all things romantasy and a new genre apparently called lit rpg That brings us to a section I like to call crossing the streams, which is where fiction

crosses over into real life. And here it is the fact that book talk, the book reading community on TikTok that has been profoundly influential in the last couple of years in driving book sales, particularly in the romantic genre, is tearing itself apart from the inside with trying to decide whether art should be political or not. Apparently some people say, it's fiction. It's about elves f***ing. It's not political at all.

And other people have strong favorites in the political arena, particularly obviously in America. Do you think your dragon banging books should be free of politics? Or do you think that you should be in the middle of like an epic kind of Lingus scene on the deck of a starship and have somebody contemplating what political norms should be in place? This goes back to my, you know, sadly, my bugbear, which is, if you're writing, you are writing fiction, you are creating art. The act of creating art is a political act and everything that you write is in itself political and thinking that it's apolitical is an act of politics as well.

So I think that sadly, it just depends basically how much you turn up the dial, right? But if you, there are certain things that you realise, yeah, are political. For instance, I was thinking this the other day about if you were a fantasy writer of colour and you wanted to, for instance, have a fantasy realm where unlike 99% of fantasy realms, everyone wasn't basically sort of Celtic Caucasian kind of thing. And you wanted, you know, people with darker skin or people who look more like you to occupy this world. I'd say about, you know, 90% of readers of fantasy were considered just that act as political, as a political thing. Whereas for you, that might just be like, no, I just want a fantasy realm where

the main characters or you know, the characters look more like I do. be like, no, I just want a fantasy realm where the main characters or the characters look more like I do. So yeah, basically I think every choice you make, creating even a fantasy realm with zero connection or at least what you think is zero connection to the real world is a political choice. So lean into it guys, it makes it better. It makes it more fun if it is political. And yeah, I'm sorry, I don makes it more fun if it is political. And yeah, that I'm sorry.

I don't think you can escape it either way. Just so you may as well just enjoy it. Yeah. I mean, you can't pretend that, that, for example, the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings weren't wildly political, like clarion calls to the heartland of the definition of what Englishness could possibly be. Yeah. Yeah.

Go with, yeah, we're mythmaking. Mythmaking is always political. Exactly. Let's not think too much about how basically, yeah, the good bit of Middle Earth looks like the Cotswolds and the bad bit is the hotter bit, where the people with, yeah, where the darker skinned creatures come from.

Let's, you know, let's, there are choices being made and saying they're not political is, you are showing yourself basically. You're revealing yourself in that situation. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Devon's Discount Doomsday Device, the ultimate conversation starter. Nobody will ignore you at a party anymore

with this ominous beeping and throbbing machine. Strap it to a table or your chest and hold the room in the palm of your hand as you expound on your latest poetic work or plan to take over the world. Stop being the guy with the guitar. Start being the guy with Devon's discount doomsday device. Half price until the end of dry January, at which point it will come into contact with water and God knows what will happen next. Half a glass of water. Ominous. And I'm on tour in the UK. I look up the dates on alicefrazer.com.

If you want to come, it's a passion for passion, the show, which is based on a passion for passion, the book, which is also available online. If you write my name and a passion for passion, it'll probably come up. That's how the internet works. I know that I'm a guest and thus I obviously, but I am so excited for this. I am, the design, everything has got me very kind of, yeah, it's right up my street and I will be there.

I'm very excited for this tour and I can't wait to hear it. It's gonna be very good. Oh, thank you so much. I've had a few people say, I'm not really into romance novels, will I still enjoy the show. And I say, yes, this show is for people who love romance and also for people who have no idea why people love romance. That's everyone. It's for everyone. The show is for everyone. It's not for everyone. I'm not for everyone. I'm an acquired taste, Tom. But it's a broad acquired taste if that's a thing, if that isn't a contradiction in terms.

Free-flowing, top-of-your-head improvised fantasy novels coming from a stream of consciousness near you. Unplanned, unstructured and literally just the first thing that comes out of my mouth, an unplanned fantasy novel in which there's a wizard, I guess, and sure, he lives on a beach, and maybe there's also a big falcon. If you want this kind of structured narrative in which things just basically happen one after the other and consequence doesn't lead to action, then I can recommend my free-flowing, top-of-my-head,

romance fiction fantasy novel, coming out of my mouth wherever I can be found. I mean, I've got to take issue with that. Wizards can't live on a beach. It doesn't work, does it? A wizard on a beach isn't... The sand interferes with the sort of dignity. I think sand and dignity can't coexist, really. It's why Australia is such an egalitarian nation, because we all have to be on the beach at some point. It's why Jesus told you He was on the beach after He'd been on the beach, so you didn't

see Him on the beach. He was like, oh, by the way, those footprints were mine, but you didn't see me because He knows deep down the dignity would have been gone. I just thought that was because the Bible couldn't afford to film on the beach, so they just did the thing where… Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you can see where they've cut corners with like a bit of like, oh, that happened off screen kind of stuff. It's smart. It's smart. I have a friend who writes on a very famous dragon show. I won't name it because that would be breaching confidentiality, but think of the famous dragon show and it's that one.

She said like a significant proportion of her job is just Figuring out how to not have dragons because they cost like a hundred thousand dollars My lord there was a dragon you just missed it Well, there you go, I do hope you've enjoyed this sub-episode of The Bugle. We will be back with a full bugle next week, on the assumption that there's any news worth talking about. So let's make that assumption. If you want to come and see my live show, The Zoltgeist, the details of the remaining

tour dates are on my website andyzoltzman.co.uk. Also details of how to order Alice Fraser's book A Passion for Passion and the live A Passion for Passion tour shows. All those details are on the Bugle website where of course you will be heading imminently to join our Bugle voluntary subscription scheme or if you've already done that you'll be heading there to just glory in the fact that you have helped keep our show going for 17 and a half years. Thank you for listening Bugles, we'll be back next week.

Until then, a good one. Buglers, producer Chris here. This is a new podcast about love that I've had a little hand in making happen. Maybe try it out. Welcome to How to Date, the podcast that teaches you what you need to know about navigating modern romance. I'm podcaster and author Elizabeth Day. And I'm Mel Schilling, relationship coach. Every week we aim to give you the skills you need to show up as yourself on the apps and in real life. Join us for frank expert advice, brilliant guests and practical exercises that will leave

you feeling empowered to make the changes you need to meet the person that is worthy of you. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.