The Bugle - Woolly Mammoth or Inflation? You Decide!

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

Andy is with Felicity Ward and Anuvab Pal to ask the big questions...Why do we feel politics in our legs?Is it possible to cheat at the enhanced games?Is 'Melodi' the political love story we all need?And HS2. Why are train so bad?🎤 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.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, buglers. I'm Andy Zaltzman, and welcome to the bugle audio newspaper for a visible world. This is issue 4,380 of the bugle so numbered, because that is the approximate temperature here in London, in Fahrenheit, not Celsius. It's hot, it's damn hot, real hot, so hot that the pigeons are falling from the sky, fully roasted, spontaneously served with a summer side salad and a blackberry coolly.

So hot, that other cities that have never really been that into London have been asking it out on a date. So hot that the statue of Horatio Nelson on top of the conveniently named Nelson's Column and Trafalgar Square has stripped down to his underpants and smeared all the bird shit over his face

to use the sun cream. So hot that the city's many sinners have been having second thoughts at the prospect of spending an eternity in the far ebals of hell because frankly a couple of days at this level of hotness is too fucking much for us here.

So hot that the rule of three has simply ceased to apply. So hot that a journey on the tube basically turns you into a nice hot cup of tea. So hot that the words of sentences start melting into our as a messable, hensibly combrish sludge thing. In other words, hot. Luckily, we're in quite a cool basement in a studio because I am joined in three dimensions in person

by my two guests who grew up in Australia and India where it's obviously never been as hot as it is in London right now. Felicity Ward and Anuvab Powell. Hello to both of you. Lovely. Bit chilly, actually. I'm about to grab a cardigan. 33, though.

33 degrees. I mean, it's really days like this. I've been in London for 13 years now. And it's on days like this that I go, maybe I could live here. Annavaab, you've popped over again from what will be the temperature in Mumbai right now? Mumbai is cooler. Right.

It's definitely cooler than this. Look, I was looking at the Economist magazine's biggest Indian exports to the United Kingdom in the last 10 years. And there's food and yoga are up there. I'm going to put weather in there as well. Because the tropics are here. This is what I didn't realize that, you know, I've covered different times of the year. I have never seen a nation collectively lose its mind. I saw a man, I'm Airbnb in Norbury.

I saw a man with a lampshed on his head. Well, that needs must to the extreme. Yeah. I mean, that could be the weather or it could be someone who just rates the quality of their ideas so highly. In case he has a blinding light bulb moment, he needs to shade the rest of the world. He's Descartes. London is also an absolute pinnacle of fashion, and you don't know what's around the corner. Lampshades could be the next big thing.

I hadn't even looked at it from that time. It's called fashion. You heard of it? Clearly not. Listen, you've known me a long time. I need to clean my glasses. I've forgotten who I was sitting with. Thank you.

And trains kind of decide where they want to go on warm weekends. Like I was trying to get a southern train, but it was heading in the northerly direction. They just make, especially bank holiday, trains, heat. Have they imported that from India too? Well, like the trains are optional? That makes me really comfortable because I was once on a Mumbai Bangalore that was 48 hours late. And there were no announcements. So once it gets there, then I'll be really at all.

Yeah, sure. Anyway, it has been, it has been hottest, I think hottest May day ever in the history of the UK. This is very embarrassing. I fucking love talking about the weather. I love talking about the weather. And I know whether it's hot. Everyone wants to talk about the weather. So not only am I enjoying just the heat itself, but also the inane chat.

It really, I like, I am neurodivergent, but I feel like weather is a specialist subject. for me. I can really tap in and have a hyper-focus and talk about the weather. Is it like this elsewhere, like when it gets this hot, the BBC news lady, she makes it really personal. Like last night, she was like, look, I know you can't sleep. And I was like, why are you so angry? I'm sorry.

I can sleep. Yeah. At some point, we'll learn to live with it. No, you won't. What do the British people ever learn to live with? Nothing. Yeah, that is a fair point. not alone to live with ourselves.

We are recording on the 26th of May, 2026th, on the 27th of May 1798. Well, this is a story that if you think our politicians are strange and idiotic now. In 1798 on the 27th of May, there was a duel between the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, and the effective leader of the opposition, George Tierney,

following a bit of a disagreement in the House of Commons. Yes. And so because their honours couldn't be possibly be seen to be slighted, they decided to have a duel, which they had on Putney Heath, but fortunately they were both absolutely useless at shooting pistols. So they survived. Wake Markman. Yeah.

What was the temperature that day? It doesn't say, let's say it was 40 degrees. Yeah, but that sounds like that. Why can't they do that now? Isn't there some sort of a prime ministerial contest going on now? Why can't they bring that kind of thing about? Well, look, it's that kind of sensible, logical thinking that this country needs. You know, there's a lot of talk about going back to our glorious past.

You know, in our glory has past, prime ministers quite often had duels. The Duke of, I think we talked about it. Duke Wellington had a duel. We talked about it a little while ago on the bugle, I think, when he was Prime Minister, William Pitt the younger, you know, two of our more famous prime minister. So bring back duelling and see this country fly. There is something, I don't know if I'm naive or dumb. But when you said dual, I thought swords. I thought fencing.

No, pistols. Pistols. Sick. Less knife crime, more pistol crime. But both qualify. Yes. Sword fight is even better. And if nothing else, in 200-odd years time, you'll get a decent hip-hop musical out of it.

Where are the negative point? Old Andy silver lining golf. My high school was on a road called Dolali. It still is. It moved after you left. It couldn't deal with a grief. Got burned down. And for years, we thought it was called Dilali, but it's actually called dual alley because two

British Governor-General's fought over the affections of a French lead. All right. And it's called dual-alley because one guy lost and came back to England and then spent 50 years plotting the downfall of the other guy who ended up with the French woman. So grievances were. Did she have any say in the Mancer? I think she just watched. Historically, no.

It was 1780. What was a woman back then? They had only recently been discovered for a scientist. Just happy to be here, guys. As always, a section of the bugler is going straight in the bin. This week we have a books section. I went to the Hay Festival last week to record the news quiz.

Clang. Drop something, Andy. Very intellectual. Not sure how big a clang that was. Amongst the middle class listeners, that is a massive flex. Yes, I came away with a tote bag. So, well, actually, I did a reading it on the kids' book. I've written a new selection of more realistic children's books

because current kids' books generally give a hopelessly unrealistic vision of the world. So I've taken upon myself to write stories for children that show more accurately the realities of life. And I've got a few books out at the moment. Karen the kangaroo nil, freight train one. Vicky the virus mutates again. A chula piglet learns about sausages. Plato the platypus learns what a monotream is and is frankly disgusted. Molly the mosquito gets a taste for blood.

Larissa the lamb's first Easter and the latest in the Sammy the seal series, Why did the shark eat mummy? So I had a full house for my reading at the Hay Festival. Didn't have a full house by the end of my reading and quite a few angry parents and crying children. But I say they have to learn. Also in our book section, the world's most pointless history books. We review from buboes to bicycle crasses all the ways Queen Victoria didn't die by Dr. Printer's

Carson Blanche Morbury's The Wrong Brothers, why Orville and Wilbur Wright were incorrect about the possibility of engine-powered flight. Professor J.M. Snodders, Dino Hors, prostitution in the Mesozoic era, and Sir Lionelis Freakshite, two apes and a bay, a hypothetical counter-history in which Abraham Lincoln, pioneering psychoanalyst Carl Abraham and multi-sport legend Mildredred Bailbert Baird Dickritson replaced Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael the other guy Collins on the Apollo 11 mission but go off-peast and fly into outer space

to found a new human colony. All totally pointless books. I reckon I got four words into that last book before my brain went, bye everybody, I'm out. Top story this week. Politics is now so annoying that it chemically changes the entire human

body. We talk a lot about politics on the show, obviously, and generally it's the kind of politics that makes you furious at the failures of your entire species. To be fair, you pick the stories. Oh, I do. I did. I did. I did pick the stories. You very much control the narrative of this experience. Anyway, scientists are doing something useful for once in their lives rather than dicking around trying to find out if worms find spaghetti sexually attractive. I think they do. Or how many shark eggs it takes to change a light bulb or whether the moon would look different if it was a cabbage. They have discovered that politics angers us in a different way and with greater intensity compared with other sources of fury, irritation and crank.

This is now scientifically proven. I mean, I think, and about this is a big step forward for us as a species that now we know quite, essentially politics is changing, I'm reading between the lines of it here. It's changing the entire makeup of human. DNA. That's how much of a Donald Trump is. Not enough is my argument. I read the article.

And their basic argument is the thing we've all heard, dinner table, left and right politic, can't get along, people get angry, start throwing things at each other. I think we can take it a step further. You know, like when you hear the word Lenin, you start throwing up, that kind of thing. You know, so like, can specific things trigger you? Yes. I had very similar thoughts. So there are different emotions that you feel in different parts.

your body if it's politically charged. So like non-political disgust is felt more in the guts, whereas political disgust is felt in the upper body. Non-political depression, you can feel as like physically deactivating, whereas political depression you can feel from the beginning to the end of watching an entire series of the West Wing. Non-political anger you also feel in the upper body, but political anger, like if you look at a picture of JD Vance, you can feel anger in your vagina. I'll say a word for that. the full study.

I mean, there was quite interesting stuff. This was on the new scientist, where, generally, I'll be honest. I look at the headlines, I think, that looks really interesting. I don't get that much further in. But it linked to another article on the new scientist that apparently ancient Mesopotamians, felt anger in their legs. How are they getting that info?

That I think was too far down the article. They also felt sexual arousal in their ankles and disgust in their shins. It's just a kind of chain of events heading right up there from sexual arousal, disgust, anger, that kind of narrative. Do you know, a lot of things make sense now? People vote with their feet. That makes sense. That whole of the use makes sense. Ankle is sexual arousal?

What was the shin? In Victorian times it used to be. The shin was discussed. The shin was discussed. Ancient Mesopotamia, sexual arousal in the ankle. Right. So is it like an Achilles boner? What do you get?

What are you? Yeah, I think so. So I kick my shins all the time. Right. Maybe I'm just overly aroused all the time and that is a way to calm myself. Right. Yeah, it's possible. It moves it up to the shin.

It makes it anger. If you have ancient Mesopotamian ancestors, which is pretty pretty. I haven't. I bought it years ago and it's been sitting on my shelf because I've ADHD. Now there are conference. that, like, I didn't do anything to oil prices, right? I'm just trying to, you know, get through a joke, which is hard enough. And on top of that, there are six or seven different elements because of some lunatic that's in charge. It's going to drop a bomb in some other part of the world, which is going to

cause 23% inflation in my neighborhood. My orange is going to be 150 rupees higher. I didn't sign up with it. You know, like, I'm much preferred prehistoric man. Yeah. It was, at least inflation was under control. He didn't have to worry about the states of Formos. He threw it. He threw it. a thing at a thing. It died. As a family, they had a meal. He went to sleep. He wasn't worried about the other side of the world. To be fair, we don't have woolly mammoths. That is a benefit. There is a payoff. You've got to make a choice. Do you want a woolly mammoth? Do you want inflation? Yeah. I mean, I'd take the mammoth, I think. Would you? I take the mammoth. Women take the bear.

Can I just say the 10 years of the brink? This has been the greatest conundrum of all times. Mammoth or inflation. Mammoth or inflation. Well, life boils down to these false binary choices. It's a new round on the bugle. That's right. Wally Mammoth or inflation. Answer the question, Andrew.

I can't. I need to run the stats. He's an economist deep down. Yeah, that's true. I'm a published economist, albeit with a book of total bullshit. Right. Well, I mean, one of the ways in which we find escape from from news, obviously is sport.

And, well, this is another sort of science-related story. The enhanced games have been taking place. Fabulous. In Las Vegas, which is essentially sport, but with cheating aloud. It's had a lot of publicity. It's been such a weird event. As a sports fan, it's disgusting. As a fan of human beings as a species,

It's kind of disgusting. And yet it's sort of hard to sort of ignore what it sort of tells us about the state of our species. That this thing exists. So drugs cheating probably was the one that was most encouraged, which personally I felt was a bit unambitious just to focus on drugs rather than rocket boots for the runners or flippers. and, you know, cyborg outboard motors instead of kneecaps for the swimmers, forklift trucks for the weightlifters. You know, when they branch beyond those three sports that were in this initial

in enhanced games, you know, anti-gravity suits for gymnast. Would you not, you know, who doesn't want to see a 60 somersault vault? I know I do. You say that as a joke, but I'm like, that's sick. Yeah, yeah. I would love that so much. I'm like just watching them in the air. What's right?

Kawasaki 350 in the BMX. The tech is there. Fabulous. Machine guns in the arch. Let's, you know, torpedoes in rowing, but only one per team per race. That would spice up what is essentially a tactically inflexible biomechanical discipline. Look, I'm very glad this is happening because the Romans ask this question. It all starts, it's from improv comedy.

What if? Yeah. And you've got to ask, right? Yes, and. Yes, how? Cheetah versus sprinter. Let's see what happens. They've done it before.

Yeah. What I'm really enjoying is the non-drug-taking Olympic athletes have been dissing these ones on Twitter elsewhere because no records have been broken. So they're like, ah, with all that drugs, you can't run. Which I like. I think it's petty and beautiful. Yeah. Well, there was one world record broken in a 50-meter swim, Greek swimmer Christian Golomeo.

But there then claims that the timing device was wrong and that he appeared to touch the wall after his time had already flashed up. Fabulous. On the screen, the Enhanced Games has denied this claim, calling it internet drivel, which is essentially what the whole event is. So it might have been a complementary tip of the hat. But the way I look at it is if he's allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs, he was wearing a swimsuit that is not allowed in regular swimming events.

Did it have like a little propeller at the back? Well, let's assume so. I think it might have been made out of an actual shark. So if they stop the clock early, so fucking what? I mean, that's just another element of... It's a performance enhanced clock. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

You know what I love? I love thinking about how much of a loser you are if you lost even when you could take all the performing enhancing drugs in the world. Like, why take them in removal doubt? At least if you're a regular Olympian, you can go, well, I'm, you know, I've trained my whole life. I'm doing this naturally. And these chumps have gone, I'm an alpha male and taking drugs and they're still lost. Absolute losers. Love that so much.

It's like, would you rather be left for someone else in your partnership or, specifically because of your personality. You know what I mean? It's one or the other. And if you had the opportunity to take drugs at the Olympics, don't take, don't take ones that, like, take cocaine. And then on the starting line, pitch a new business idea. You know what I mean?

Or drop some MDMA just before the rhythm gymnastics. And then you watch someone rolling around on the max, giving themselves a nice hug with a ribbon stick. Or just don't waste your time with steroids. Because what do you get as a memento, just a T-shirt that says, I competed in the enhanced games and all I got was acne and impotence. Placidious is absolutely correct.

It should be all drugs. It should be all drugs. It should be mushrooms. You know, who says 100 meters has to be 100 meters? You know, I'm just saying. Distance is a concept, actually. It's a construct. It's an idea.

It's exactly. False. Yeah. You know, I'd love to see someone completely hopped up on Md MdMA, just running around in circles. While does a guy dressed as a shock. I mean, just make it a thing then, you know? It's in Las Vegas.

crazy enough. So, I mean, that's one of the aspects of this is that sports like athletics and swimming are sort of kind of vulnerable in terms of competition because they're the kind of sports where nothing new can really be done. You can't suddenly start coming up with new tactics for the long jump other than trying to jump as far as possible. Or, you know, the 100 metre breaststroke.

You can't really do it in a interesting, innovative kind of way. So everything's sort of been done. You could actually get your breasts out while you're doing it. I guess you could do. Make it a proper breaststroke. Yeah, yeah. One for them. One for them.

Yeah. Sorry. That's how Scorsese makes his movie. That's right. It seems to seem to... I guess it might help TV ratings, I guess. It depends how much of a sporting purist you are. So it's got to look for ways to improve the spectacle.

But this event does seem to be just another on the list of fucking stupid things that over-rich self-starred anti-woke billionaires will splaff away money on in an effort to sell something else get talked about. more themselves and chip away at the remaining light in the collective human soul. So it's hard as a sports fan to get excited about it. But in terms of like a human morality tale, it's sort of fascinating. I think that they could do a non-illicit performing enhancing drugs. So like you do the 50 metre freestyle, but when they fire the starter gun,

your mum standing behind them behind you and you have to tell her she looks fat in those jeans and just like the fear that drives you. or you do the 100 metre sprint and you're at the starter line and the other end is your car and there's a parking ticket inspector walking towards it. So just different motivations to enhance your performance. That's a nice lateral way around it. It's a really good end.

In fact, I think Felicity, based on that, the people coming up with the sports need to be on drugs as well. Yes. You know, they need to be. Start from the top. Yes. I want to see a lot of sports, including something that I'm very attached to.

I think that might have happened when they were being developed in the first place, But we've got used to them. We need new ones. They took smelling salts then and came up with golf or whatever. That's fair enough. Now, it's 200 years, it's established. I want to see, I really want to see,

Mastiff's versus Danish people. You know, what happens? Hand-to-hand combat. What happens? Is it boxing? Yeah. Is it biting? We don't know.

Is it both? Is it both? Why are we ruling? See, we're already putting limitations on ourselves because we're not on mushrooms. That's the problem. One swimming website described the enhanced games as mostly an infomercial parading as a sporting spectacle, which, to be fair, is about 99% of professional sport anyway. And the conversation website asked the Enhanced Games,

Dangerous Clown Show or a Wake Up Call for Traditional Sports, to which the answer is obviously 110% both, both of those things. The Dangerous Clown Show sounds like something I'm going to see, the Edinburgh Fringe this year. I try to avoid anyway. But listen, in the 1600s, when a bunch of Scottish farmers would have pitched golfed to each other at a pub, it must have sounded absolutely mad. Yes. And, you know, if you...

Long spoon, bent at the end. Small ball, very far distance. Dig a hole. Dig a hole. If you were given a blank sheet of paper and you came up with the laws of rugby union now from scratch, people would probably want to... scientifically examine what had happened to every moment of your life since. Yeah, yeah. What's the maddest rule?

I don't know union rules very well. I know NRL. Well, AFL is, nobody knows the rules to that. Everyone's just cheering. The thing is, it's kind of hard to say what is the most complicated law in rugby, because it's essentially sort of like international tax law mixed with medieval hand-to-hand combat. And in the end, you lose the top of your ears.

If you slightly press a finger on the wrong bit of grass, then you can lose a match. Okay. But if you borderline take someone's head off, that's fine. If you do it in the right way with the right look in your face. I think that's it. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like you. Isn't there one, which is nothing to do with the ball or the point,

isn't there one where like a group of men, I don't know if it's called scrum, where they can just charge towards you with violence as the end goal? Well, I mean, that's basically the whole game. Let's move on to other science news. And, well, I mean, we talked a lot about our struggles as a species. But maybe there could be some hope of salvation in the form of bringing back species that have previously failed and gone extinct that we could maybe ask about, you know, where did it all go wrong for them.

And one such species that could be on the way back is the South Island giant mower from New Zealand, a large flightless bird. Another one. Yeah. I mean, you might think, in terms of Darwinism, if you're too big and too flightless and you're a bird, you get where you deserve. You lost, mate.

Yeah, yeah. Like go to the performance-enhancing games. You cannot survive because your wings don't work and you're big and now you're dead. So essentially, they're using chicken eggs to bring back the giant mower. I don't quite know exactly how. I mean, in terms of, you know, the technology and things that we could produce.

I'm not sure. Do we really want to be bringing back things that have failed rather than come out with more useful animals like the self-nuggeting chicken, the raft fish, which could be so useful in maritime incidents. Can you just pause on self-nuggeting chicken? Is that the greatest sentence

that's ever been butted on this podcast? You just honestly just opened up a warehouse door in my brain that was shut. I'm like, can you imagine? Sorry, is that a chicken that makes it on nuggets? Yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Does it break off into nuggets or does it give birth to its own nugget? I guess the thing is with a chicken, and it's very well designed for this, it creates the egg. Yeah. And then it makes another egg. We just do that with nuggets. The eggs are in the nuggets? I mean, the nuggets are in the eggs. Look, I've not really thought this through.

I think it's time to flesh this out. This is genius. Yeah, I mean, fleshing it out is basically what it would be. Fleshing it out. Rather sweating it out. Maybe it's the same, like, in uteruses where eggs. Every month it's lined with, like our uterus lines itself to prepare for a child. And if it doesn't happen, then it sheds it.

Yeah, we don't have any proof of that yet. There has not been enough research. I can tell you that much. Maybe it lines itself with a lightly breaded bit of breast and then gives birth to it. And then you just need to deep fry it. I think that's possible to engineer. It's a chicken, but it's also a vending machine. Yes.

It's a own chicken. I mean, what are women? but not vending machines. Fair enough. Also, the moral wasp, which is, you know, DNA has been adapted so it only stings people who deserve to be stung. Yes. This is, I mean, I mean, you are wasted in comedy. We've already brought back the Willie Mammot about an hour ago.

Yeah. Here's the thing, though, I was reading about this, and they said this is the first of many birds they want to bring back. Yeah. And they want to bring back the dodo. Yes. Yeah, come on. That's science versus the English language, because then what happens to dead as a dodo? as a freeze.

Right. Where are we going to see that? Well, were dodo's very dumb? Yes. Because I think of a... You call someone a dodo if they're an idiot. Why are we bringing back dummies? Yes.

Bring back smart things. Not things that can outsmart ass, obviously. Like the T-Rex. Oh, no. That sounds bad. I don't know if you've seen... There's a movie called Jurassic Park. Never heard of it.

Yeah, yeah. Not ideal is how it turned out. The oil elephant as well is half a beast of bird and half a natural source of renewable fuel Does that come out the trunk? Yeah, it comes out of the trunk. You can't come up with stupid ideas

if you don't want stupid questions to follow any. Okay? You've tickled my pickle here and I'm very excited. The world would be grateful for an oil elephant right now. I think people would really want it. Inflation would be down, as would woolly mammoth need.

India news now. Well, Anuvab, this is a slightly unexpected story, tension between Norway and India based on... A classic pairing in cooking. Norwegian journalist asking some provocative questions at a Narendra Modi press conference. Yeah, so Modi's on a world tour and he gave a big speech. Did he drop a new album or...

Yeah. The white album. Modi sentimentally. But he made this big speech saying Indians shouldn't travel abroad this summer. Oil prices are very high. And after he said that, he immediately left for a European tour. Like all good world leaders. And he went to a country that is number one on the press freedom index.

And a 19-year-old journalist asked why Narendra Modi hasn't done a press conference since 2014. at which point Narendramodi, like all good democratic leaders, walked out, leaving the head of the Ministry of External Affairs to give this 19-year-old journalist who was basically, I think, it was probably her first press conference. He was just looking for some viral clips. And she basically said, why doesn't Narendh Madi do press conferences? What will India do for rights and minorities? I think she just wanted some coverage. And an Indian uncle just basically give her a three-hour lecture on why India is great. And I realized, and I realized, that after this, I think all Indians just basically realize the moment you bring up India at any context, like, hey, I was in Delhi and this

kebab role was really spicy. And Indian uncle will just take that as a personal affront on a 2000-year-old civilization. And then this little girl got trolled. Lots of people jumped on our social media saying India's great, India's this. He's like, I'm not interested, man.

I just asked him why there's no press free. And just goes to short, I don't think we can take criticism at all. Not well, not at all. And how old do you think India will respond to the criticism that they can't take criticism? And that's, this could become quite circular. This is going to be a loop. Because the first way they reacted to this young Norwegian woman was to say she's a spy, but then they couldn't figure out who she'd be a spy for.

At least they didn't call a fat. That's progress. That's progress. I didn't call it fat. They didn't call it ugly. It's like when I, on online, if anyone calls me unfunny, I'm like, oh, my God, they see me. Like they're not, you're too old to fuck. You know, they're just like, oh, you're not funny.

I'm like, thank you. Thank you so much. He sees me as a comedian. Okay. He's keeping it to the profession. Yes. Which is fair enough. A win is a win.

I read some of those ex comments. And there were not that many personal things. But there was a, because the Indian insult is peculiar because it, it goes to directly like an agenda related thing. They try to figure out if the person has an agenda. So one guy wrote, how much money do you have? Right. Like, it went there. And then his mom went, no, but actually, how much money do you?

Yeah. Yeah. It was an actual inquiry. Yeah. Are you single? Are you available for marriage? Yes, exactly. So there's a lot of bizarre things.

But the point is, it's a delicate time. I think Pakistan has been a key negotiator in trying to get the Iran and American water stop. So India sort of feels like every time Pakistan does something, India feels like it must do something. World tour. We're going on tour boys. Like any time an index comes out, my friend Regnich is a comedian, he talks a lot about this. Every time there's an index of some kind that comes out, it says Pakistan has the best mid-tier hotels in the world. Indians like to go and see where they are in that tale.

So now that, now that, you know, things are a bit frosty between Modi and Trump, he's now gone on this world tour. First stop was Norway, this happened. So maybe it's not a very good idea that he leaves the country. I don't look, I'm going to plead ignorance here. I don't know too much about India's human rights violation. But which country's leader is answering questions about their human rights violations? Like Netanyahu?

No. Trump? No. The fart I did last night after eating a creamy chicken pasta knowing full well IBS? No. Everyone's keeping very sturm about human rights violations. This is true. What Modi does very cleverly is he gets a lot of people who are very fond of who are big fans of his to do interviews before any election. But they ask very specific questions. Like there was one where he was just asked about mango. His favorite kind of mango, you know, just for an election. What's his favorite kind of mango? And he said, oh, he's to pick one in my village. You don't get that anymore. And there was a whole hour on mangoes. Thank you very much. Please vote for him. And I think that's a good way to democracy. You give the hour.

You still do the hour. Yeah. But just don't talk about the things people want to talk about. I'm not going to lie. I'd watch an hour on mangoes. I'm interested. What is his favorite mango? Do you remember?

I think it was the Alfonso, which is actually a Portuguese mango if they get into it. If they get into it. But I don't think he wants to get into it. I think that's the last thing he wants to get into it. So then Modi then went to Italy and met Georgia Maloney, the Italian leader. And there was a kind of weird, and there was a kind of weird sort of toffee-based event. So I got to bring you guys up to speed on this. I don't know if you've been reading about this, but ever since Georgia Maloney is separated,

and I don't really know what her current personal thing is. Every time she's met Prime Minister Modi, who has been single his whole life, there was some rumours that he was married, but he's single of all intents of purposes. The internet has gone crazy. They've met like 10 or 12 times. The internet has gone crazy suggesting a romantic rule.

Love it. Yeah. What a plot. It began when she visited India, and Modi was pointing to different historical Indian things. pointed. And somebody coined, like Brexit, coined the term melody. For George, exactly, exactly. I need to. Appointe of names. Thank you. Again, what a lovely word. So now, most people would

forget about it and move on, especially if you're the principal involved in it. But Modi decides I'm going to raise the stakes. Actually, George Mollone started it because in some conference, Geneva, she says, hello from the melody team. And it's a two of them, the internet Explosion. Next time they're meeting last week at the Coliseum George Maloney is giving Modi a tour of what happens

when you let all your history remain and don't tear it down. This is what it looks like. This is Julia Caesar. This is all this other stuff. And in return, Prime Minister Modi presents her box of very famous

Indian chocolates called Melody. Read into it what you will, But your perspective of this is far more important than mine. I'm just stating the facts here. He did. And then George Maloney held it up. The both of them held it up. And it said melody on it.

And there is a very popular Indian chocolate called melody. It's a toffee. When we were kids, they ad ran melody is chocolatey. And then we used to sing it as kids. It's a chocolatey thing. And George Maloney sung it. Right. Very similar to an Australian song about bananas that went,

banana na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na make those bodies sing like that I need bananas now this is very good it's a good one it's a great song We should exchange jingle This one

Melody is chop the teeth This is the song This one ramps up Then it goes Banana Banana na na na na na na People get pumped in this song By people I mean me

I fucking love that song And did it lead to a massive increase in the rate of banana eating Probably Probably I mean, I still remember it and that must have been like the early 90s. I also remember the flooding of 2013 where banana prices went up to $17 a kilo,

whereas they're usually about $6 a kilo. Look, tropical fruit plays a big part in the Australian news and the economy. It has a big impact on us. So basically, reading between the lines, Modi and Maloney are the new Burton and Taylor. That's what you're saying. That's what I think Indians will have you.

believe. The next day... They're Brangelina. They are Brangelina of world politics. Great point. The maker of the chocolate is a company called Parley, the big Indian company, they are big competitors to Cadbury in India. They ran a full page ad the day after this happened, saying, forever melody,

with the two of them on the cover, after which there was a tweet from the Italian consulate in New Delhi, saying we don't endorse this competition. What I really love is how much you know about this chocolate. I've really gotten into, I love melody. I can tell. In fact, if you said I don't like this melody chocolate, I would be absolutely shocked. This whole diplomatic fracas ruined it from.

Because I grew up in Socialist India where what we do is basically steal hadbury formula. So later in England I found out, oh, this is what this is really called. It's called a Jim Jam. We just had a different name for it because it was stolen. Well, you're getting your own back, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. Now, there's been an update on the HS2 train line, of which after now, what is it, about 15 years since I started planning it, still not a single inch of track has been laid,

I think. I now reckon it's going to cost over £100 billion. It's going to come in at more than double the cost, what it was originally planned to do, with slower trains and much less track. This is, if any single project can exemplify, the failures of British politics. More than this. I don't think it exists.

Yeah, at least we now... So the Transport Secretary Hardy Alexander gave an update on HS2, which began under the Conservatives. There's essentially a vanity project to build a fucking massive train that went really fast and it's going to end up with

a not particularly massive train not going not that quickly. So at least we know what the HS and HS2 stands for. It stands for, holy shit, how much is going to cost me. Felicity, I know you're a massive fan of overspending on infrastructure projects. Oh, I love it.

Look, I'm a big fan of the British Railway Network system, all of it, the approach. Am I wrong or have they published this article every six months for five years? I'm just updated the biggest. Like at 2020, the article was, we've got an idea for a train. The people say, no thanks. 2021, good news. We're pushing ahead despite all the warnings. 2022. It's going badly.

2023. Despite the fact that it's against our very culture and nature, we are remaining ignorantly optimistic. 2024. Uh-oh. 2025. It's nearly finished. We may as well. 2026.

That's every six months, that's what it's been. It's double the cost. It's slower trains at half the size. The question is asked what went wrong. Have you caught a British train lately? You are held hostage in an office. box with broken air con. Every second toilet doesn't work.

They sell more tickets than seats, inadequate bag space on trips that can take five hours. You wait at the station for 35 minutes to be told 90 seconds before which platform you have to run to and the doors closed 60 seconds before it leaves. Trains break down because it's too hot, too cold,

too wet, a single leaf has hit the tracks. They're under staff. The keys don't work. All for the pleasure of 150 pounds for an on-the-day ticket. What went wrong? nothing, they followed the blueprint exactly. Brilliant. Now, just out of curiosity, where was it supposed to start and where was supposed to end?

Was it Manchester to London? Well, it was Manchester to their dreams. Yes. So I think, yeah, it was Manchester to London, and then the idea was to then sort of extend it up north. If they spent £100 billion just improving transport in the north, basically anywhere other than London to Birmingham, which was basically the...

the country's most efficient rail route anyway. Wasn't it supposed to go side to side? Yes. Wasn't it supposed to go Manchester to like Leeds in York? Yeah, because Manchester to, well, basically Liverpool to Hull, say, on the opposite coast in the north, takes, I think, something like four and a half months, although I did go, I did leave Liverpool the wrong way and end up going up. But anyway, the point stands.

Ferry did it at you, too, came back in. But I was on tour. I took a thing called the Trans-Pennine Express, which sounded very continental. Yes. It sounded like there was going to be a murder mystery. It sounded so grand. It sounded very Hercule-Pyro. But then it got cancelled and I had to take a bus.

But I was so looking forward to a thing that sounded like. Listen, don't feel bad about infrastructure projects. There's a bridge in Mumbai. Begat from the mid-70s when I was two. I'm not making this up even for humor. It's just what happened. they were building two ends of it so they could meet above the Arabian Sea

it would cut down a parallel highway so you would have commuting time saved they got both the ends of the bridges complete in 30 years but they didn't meet Oh, that's some good stuff So you know it's I mean you think you have problems 30 years and they're just off by a bit

It doesn't sound like you have a problem It sounds like you have an unfinished roller coaster waiting to happen I would have a go with that Little dirt bikes. Way, job it over. I'm saying Felicity Ward for Mumbai Municipal Commissioner. That's what I'm suggesting.

For £100 billion, we could have had a solid eight to nine consecutive Olympics is. Or we could have played for Nigel Farage's security for the next 60,000 years. It just feels like an opportunity missed. Yeah, it does. That sounds like a much better investment. Right. That brings us to the end of this week's this week's bugle. Thank you very much for.

listening. Felicity, anything to plug? Yes, I'm doing the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I should update my website, but I just keep getting emails saying your website has bugs. So you can come and see my gigs on Instagram. I usually advertise them. I think that's about it. I've just finished an Australian tour. It's too late now, mate.

You fucked him. You can, well, you can see several bugle co-host at Edinburgh. Alice Fraser will be there. Tom Ballard will be there. Tiff. Stevenson will be there. Ria Lina, I think is going. not sure we'll check

and if I'm not doing Edinburgh this year but I highly recommend Felicity Ward I have seen her show in Edinburgh a number of years ago It was eight years ago It was the last time I did it It was sold out

It was brilliant It was a great night out It was a bugle reunion Nish was there It was fantastic I For 5th and 6th of June I'm doing a thing called

The Boat Show I'm just doing some new material on a boat in the embankment. Details are on my website. We might even be on the same gig. I'm doing the boat show in the next couple of weeks. There you go.

That can come. Yeah. Come to that. I will be talking about cricket on Test Match Special from Thursday week. We'll continue yourselves plugged. We'll be back next week with Hariconda Bolu and Ria Lina. If you want to join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme to help keep this show free,

flourishing and independent and devoid of advertisements other than plugs for the bugle itself, go to the buglepodcast.com and click the donate button. 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 remaining in this thus far very silly millennium.

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