The Bugle - World Leaders Forced to meet Trump

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Joining Andy on issue 4392 of The Bugle is Josh Gondelman and Bugle debutant Catherine Bohart, as the trio discuss the World's leaders forced to meet with Donald Trump, from Xi to Burnham. Plus the news that the POTUS threatens to annihilate Iran, and rename strait of Hormuz after himself! Hacking AI news as Australian government website, and US government agency sites hacked into by rogue OpenAI, and the biggest scandal in football history, as Manchester City are found guilty! 🇨🇳 Trump meets Xi: The trio delve into the news of US President Trump's meeting with Chinese Premier Xi 💻 AI Hacking: The Bugle reports on the latest as OpenAI 'infiltrated' Australian government website in world first! ⚽ Manchester City Found Guilty: Andy, Josh and Catherine report the breaking news that Manchester City Football Club are found guilty Andy's Links: https://www.andyzaltzman.co.uk/Josh Gondelman's Links: https://www.joshgondelman.comCatherine Bohart's Links: https://www.catherinebohart.com🎧 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, and welcome to issue 4,392 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world with me, and is Altman recording on the 28th of September, 26. And firstly, a huge thank you at Buglers for listening to this show, because I know how tempting it must be for you all to watch the new 24-hour-day Trump TV channel for 24 hours a day. So we are beyond grateful. you've cut down to somewhere between 23 and 23 and a half hours to give us the rest of your time. Much obliged. You won't regret it.

I'm delighted to be joined for this edition of the bugle. And let me preface this by saying that the cricket season ended yesterday, as we record. It's Monday today. I worked on my last cricket game in the season. The professional season has ended. The club scene has basically ended. It's a difficult time of year for me. And so I have hand-selected my two co-hosts today from all eight billion or people in the world to find two people who just don't give a shit about cricket.

Help me on to the bleakly cricketingless months ahead. Firstly, from New York City, it's Josh Goddwellburn. Hello, Josh. Hello, Andy. I am happy to welcome you into my cricketless part of the year, which lasts 12 months. And also join us For the first time on the bugle A huge welcome to Catherine Boehart

Hello Catherine Hi, thank you for having me I'm so excited to be here I have to say I don't give a shit about cricket That's correct But as a gay woman with straight female friends I can lament with you over a summer fling

That I'm not interested in Of course I can I'm sorry to hear about your heartbreak That sounds important Am I doing it right? You're doing very well Catherine Cricket didn't deserve you

Andy. And I thought it was weird that he always wore white. I was like, I get it. It's the summer, but how are we keeping it clean? It feels like his mom does his laundry. There, I said it. Lovely to have you on the bugle. Catherine,

bugle as you listened to the news, because I've heard you many times on that. So welcome, welcome to the bugle stable. I'm thrilled to be here on this sort of sexy version of the news quiz where you can curse and say anything. It's so exciting. We are recording, as I said, on the 28th of September, 2026, which means it is exactly 960 years since William the Conqueror, the renowned tapestry model and conquering specialist, landed in England, kicking off the Norman conquest from which, to be honest, England is still struggling to recover.

Billy the Sea landed on the Sussex Coast on the 28th of September 1066, which gave him two and a half weeks of press and promotional opportunities to build up excitement ahead of the big Battle of Hastings Showdown on the 14th of September at which Anglo-Saxon boss King Harold copped his career ending arrow in the eye injury. And on this day in 1928, 98 short years ago, a dark day for the Bacteria Rights Movement as science dweeb Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin. And I'm not sure the bacterial community has ever fully recovered. to be honest and I'm not sure it ever will. As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

This week we have for you an emergency sports bulletin. This follows the harrowing news here that the BBC is set to cut back on sports bulletins on its news channel. And we know this is a very difficult time for BBC watching sports fans. So we at the bugle, aware of the cosmic importance of knowing what is happening in the world of sport at all times, have created an AI-generated emergency sports. bulletin that will never go out of date. You simply need to ask your smart speaker to play the bugle's never-ending sports news update whenever you need a hit of sports news to distract you from, for example,

everything else in the world between now and the end of time. So here is our bugle, emergency timeless sports bulletin. Here is the sport. A footballer might move from his current club to another club, but also might not. A tennis player did not win Wimbledon. A golfer. hit a golf ball into the golf

with a golf shot. Cricket is fucking great. In an emotional press conference, a racehorse was very sad to have been commercially exploited for its ability to jump over a hedge. And finally, a cyclist said, France is big.

Now is the weather or travel. So there you go, bugleus. You can live the rest of your life safe in the knowledge that you will always have bought with you. That really put me at years. I don't have a constant news bulletin, but I do have a little brother, which is basically the same thing. It's so nice. That was very

reassuring. I felt like I was home. Well, we live in an age of uncertainty, Catherine. Anything that can give us those anchor points we must cling to. Top story this week. World leaders have to do meetings with Donald Trump, whether they liked it or not. And look, I mean, I guess there's some perks to being a world leader, particularly in a country like

China where you could sort of do whatever you want. But having to meet Donald Trump is emphatically not one of them. But they've been having to suck it up in the past week or so. Andy Burnham, the UK's current, let me just check that. Yep, still current. And China's grown from our

Xi Jinping have had to meet with Trump's stealth skin, who's taken a little bit time off from his hectic schedule of posting slop on social media and renaming bits of water to meet other world leaders. Josh, you are the bugles, American Chinese relations correspondent. How has the Trump Xi summit gone down? It is, you know, I wish I could be a fly on the wall in whatever stairwell or conference room, all the world leaders who had to meet with Trump that day congregate afterwards through their translators to all in the various languages of the world.

world go, this fucking guy. It is really, this is a tough situation, right? The UN meets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And I hate going there for what turns out to just be like, can I pick your brain meeting? And I don't even have to commute to China or meet Donald Trump there. The big kind of headline from these meetings with Xi and Trump is that they may have squandered an opportunity to make progress on issues like artificial. official intelligence that are big global issues that the U.S. and China could really collaborate on.

And honestly, I think their failure to move the needle at all is best case scenario. There were three ways that these meetings could have gone. One, exactly as they did. Fine. Two, G tricks Trump into trading him California for a laptop loaded with every episode of The Apprentice as an MP4. Or it goes so badly that Trump declares war on the entire Eastern Hemisphere using G. geopolitical concepts from the 1970s and racial slurs from the 1870s.

He doesn't have that level of vocabulary. Come on. I mean, I have to agree. It's funny that you think that they all stand out there going this fucking guy. I wonder if part of it's like going to visit Trump is a bit like getting your bridesmaids to wear really ugly dresses. We're actually being in a photograph with him makes you look better. Like, you know, especially if you were a Chinese sort of autocrat. I think there's something in being like, okay, so you think you want democracy, but here's what it looks like.

That, to me, feels like quite a good PR swing. But yes, it is, to a large degree, actually, maybe best they achieved absolutely Zippo, for fear they might have achieved something bad. There were reports that, well, from the US ambassador, that Trump might have offered, and I want to say might have offered, this is the 2020. you can interpret it as definitely did offer, to sell weapons to China. Now, this would be A, against US law, B strategically insane, C, not wildly popular in, for example, Taiwan, but D, most importantly, absolutely on brand for Donald Trump.

And, you know, maybe, you know, nothing concrete might have come out of it, but if it's opened up the possibility of Trump basically selling under the counter weapons and mass destruction to China, I feel at least it would all make some sort of coherent sense for this world we live in. He also compared America's history, Josh, with China's. And he said, our history goes back 250 years, which is great, and we're proud of it. Theirs goes back 6,000 years. So there's a little difference between 6,250.

Well, when he says a little difference, is that kind of mass that might explain his repeated bankruptcies? but also, I mean a couple of things here, 250, that's nothing to be proud of in terms of a country, so you barely started. And also bad luck to anyone who thought there were people in North America before the Europeans helped themselves to it. I mean, you might go back a little further than 250 years, but it might explain the way Trump sees the world. Also, the 6,000-year history of China has been quite different since, for example, 1949 or 1976 where Mao Zedong had to finish his attempt

to obliterate most of Chinese history ideas, culture and tradition to make some more time in his diary for his new hobby of being dead. So I guess we don't turn to Trump for historical accuracy Josh, but I thought it was quite nice of him to chuck a bit of maths in for the stats fans. Andy, I think

it's you really put your finger on it when you said obviously there were people in the United States or wasn't called that then, but there were people in this continent before white people got there. But that is when Trump starts thinking history begins, is when white people arrive. So honestly, I'm not sure he thinks China exists yet. So it's nice to give him credit for 6,000 years. Yeah, it's a fascinating one, isn't it?

Because it's like, listen, I'm from a younger country than that even, and I do respect thinking of your origins of throwing the yoke off, but I think like a complete delusion about where you live is, it's funny from him because I'm, he must have been in between a rock and a hard place, right? Like on the one hand, he acknowledges anything that came before those 250 years and he gets to have a bigger number, which, you know, besides China's big number, big boys, big competition, big good. But if he does concede it, oh, he might be the bad guy and that's too much information to process all at the same time, so let's just minimise the difference. Good for you, man. In terms of sweetening any potential deal between China and the USA,

obviously the most obvious thing to do from a Chinese point of view is to give panders as a gift, a lease alone, it's not entirely sure. Two panders have been donated as part of this meeting to Atlanta Zoo. Ping Ping and Fu Shu are being used as poor. in the grand geopolitical game. And, I mean, a couple of things I thought of when I read this story. One, if only Trump's bred with the same lack of enthusiasm as pandas, this world might be a happier place today. And also, I feel sorry for these pandas, you know, used as pawns in these geopolitical games

of autocratic pseudo-communist superpowers and viral mutations of free market capitalism. No wonder they look at the world. these pandas. No wonder they don't want to breed. Why would they want to bring little pandas into this two-two-sullied world? No wonder they struggle to get the panda horn for each other when their love, however pure it may seem to them, is founded on the lies of diplomatic expedience. Yeah, they don't want to breed. Pandas are truly the millennials of the animal kingdom. And you mentioned their names. Those are just their names for now. Trump is going to rename them post-aste, I think.

You got to like respect the complete disrespect of saying to your political quote in quote peers you can have some sweet little bears to play with for as long as you're good okay you can push in your little zoo just don't look over there while we take what we need and want okay have a nice time ridiculous is there any hint Josh that America might might offer some American wildlife in return to go to China. Yeah, I think that's certainly possible.

They will try. I mean, honestly, knowing Trump, what he's going to do is send refugees hailing from South America to China as an exchange program. Just that third, those third party deportations will not stop. And so anytime you can combine international diplomacy with vicious, human rights violations, the Trump campaign is going to jump on that. Or the Trump administration is going to jump on that, rather. Andy Burnham in his meeting with Trump, there's no reports whether or not he did offer

a couple of roadkill badges as a gesture of goodwill from Britain to America. But people seem to have reacted quite positively to Trump's, to Burnham's first entraplement. A lot of positive reactions. The president didn't demean him, ignore him, set fire to his trousers. I could invite him or make him kneel down on the ground and call him Dr. Dongle. So, Benham did better than many world leaders have done in their first meeting with Trump. And obviously, you know, for any new leader, meeting Trump,

it's a tricky tightrope to motorcycle across. You know, Trump can be, I think it's fair to say, behaviourally quirky in his meetings with other leaders. So, you know, how to, you know, it's not quite sort of carrot and stick. It's more like a kind of wolf and sheep scenario, isn't it, where you might feel you need to feed some sheep to the wolf, in case the wolf eats the sheep anyway, hoping that the wolf will gorge itself into a coma on the sheep

by eating them so fast that at least a couple of the other sheep remain partially uneaten. That seems to be the sort of diplomatic approach to meeting Trump. I mean, did Andy Bunner make much of an impression on the stateside, Josh? Yeah, I mean, I think he's become one, especially during these UN conferences, right, the UN meetings. He was one of the many world leaders who kind of came to New York City and was like, I don't, I'm not doing your thing, Trump. And, you know, he pushed back, which is a fine line to walk because you have to stand up to him, right?

Because it is one, morally good. And two, it is put set a right tone for your own nation. But you don't want to set U.S. UK relations back to like war of 1812 levels, which is certainly possible. I like that Burnham pushed back and mentioned things like setting regulations on artificial intelligence worldwide, which is a big issue because artificial intelligence is the only kind of intelligence the Trump administration supports at this point. He doesn't listen to military intelligence. He rejects both common sense and scientific consensus. So the only smarts he respects are AI and then business books written by men sitting in enormous leather chairs on the cover. I mean, you mentioned the War of 1812. I think Trump's done more damage to the White House

than the wee Brits manage to do. We actually set fire to it. I mean, Catherine, I think I'm right in saying you've never had a personal face-to-face diplomatic meeting with Donald Trump as yet. No, no, we just Zoom. I don't, we just haven't had the time. You know, when it's like trying to get schedules

because he golf, I golf, it's a lot. No, I haven't. No, I haven't. And I, I. How do you think you're doing that? If, you know, if you're, I realize it's a slightly implausible scenario. But if you had to, you know, when you become a world leader, you know, how do you think you would deal with a meeting like that? Thank you so much for asking.

Well, look, I obviously would be an Irish world leader. So we do have golf over him, which I think is maybe the most leverage you can have internationally, which is possibly why he is trying to give land back to us that he didn't take. It's the only place he's doing that. how confusing. I don't know. It's tricky. I'm very sensitive to smell. And though you can't tell

this from looking at a man, it feels like there would be decay in the air. I don't, you know, but at the same time, I've also, like, I've hosted corporate awards

as a female comic. So I'm quite good with like moving fast where hands may be. So that could be a useful skill, you know, that other women haven't had to hone. I say,

no, there's no other women who haven't had to hone that. But still, yeah, what I liked about, just to go back to G for a moment, my favorite thing about Trump's sort of observations on him when he was talking about the 6,000 years was also to be like, he's actually also an expert in stone

and he really loves a good granite, which to me felt like, have you ever described a terrible boyfriend to your mom where you're like, no, he's cool, he's got this one quirky thing. Yes, he's a monster, but he actually knows loads about calligraphy and you're like, okay, So maybe that is the way to play it with Trump. Maybe I'd have to come up with an obscure skill that he doesn't possess but could pretend to know about it. And then that would maybe help him. Doesn't sound like him to pretend to know things.

Yeah, crazy. Like I said, Trump's had a busy week, aside from meeting all these world leaders. He's threatened to annihilate Iran, which doesn't take a lot of time out of his week, I guess, these threats to annihilate places. and also announced he was going to rename the Strait of Hormuz as the Trump Strait, presumably after himself rather than any other Trump.

I mean, Josh, again, this is fairly standard behavior now. But, I mean, the threat to completely annihilate Iran. I mean, not entirely backed up with the sort of level of annihilation that America has displayed so far in this bizarre conflict. Does anyone pay any attention to these threats anymore? I mean, it's tough because you don't know. He does the things he says, they're only true when they're bad. So you have to listen.

But like diplomats were trying to make a peace deal with Iran. And then while that was happening, Trump threatened to annihilate the nation. And at that point, why have diplomats? Like Trump's government employing career diplomats is like a tornado hiring a housekeeper. good luck cleaning up after this bullshit. Trump rejected a peace deal that would have reopened the straight, which must be exciting for Republicans running in the midterm elections. They've run out of other ways to spin this and are about to have to start bragging

that Trump has said a new high score for gas prices. Then this is what the renaming is what really gets me, right? He, on truth social, the social media platform for anyone somehow too racist for the application, formerly known as Twitter, the president said he renamed the Waterway. the Trump straight, which I don't think that's his right to do, but it is kind of a perfect moniker for this whole situation, right? He's putting his name on something he didn't build, like many Trump-branded properties. It's against the will of the people he's forcing it on, which mirrors his sexual history. And the straight is currently as backed up as his bowels

after 80 years of eating primarily McDonald's and well-done stakes. So it is kind of a Trump straight right now. Yeah, I mean, Trump straight, to me, that's just what you would write if you're writing a list of world leaders and the most appropriate jacket for them to work. Or you're making a very interesting dinner party table seating arrangement. That's how I do it. I go straight, gay, gay, straight. It's nice. Instead of boy, girl, which is so old school.

My thing is like, does he misunderstand why it's impressive that things are named after you? Like, it's impressive because other people are honoring you and deciding to do it for you. It's not just impressive that it has your name. You're like, that's like being like, yeah, amazing. weekend. I actually threw myself a surprise party. But also, I mean, also there's the triumphal arch in Washington, D.C. that he's building in his own honor, that apparently is going to double up not only as a mega ego vanity project, but also as a military facility containing ammunition drones. There'll be snipers on top. I mean, not everyone's in favor.

I think it's fair to say of this, of allowing Trump to have this sort of creative input. I mean, essentially led in a man with the worst aesthetic taste in American history, design one of the biggest buildings in Washington, D.C. You wouldn't want that any more than you'd want Michael Angelo to paint a police interrogation cell. There's time and a place for different sorts of aesthetic. And I guess the time and place for Trump's sort of aesthetic is ideally never and nowhere.

Yeah, Michelangelo painting an investigation room or an interview room would be crazy. Because aren't you supposed to know that they're lying if they lock up? Oh, and it's so beautiful. How could you stop yourself? You'd never be able to get a measure of a man. The straight of whom is not the only thing Trump has tried to rename. Also, he's announced that artificial intelligence, as we touched on earlier, is going to be called super intelligence.

It's not definitive yet. There's a possible compromise in which it's called superficial intelligence, which would seem entirely appropriate given the circumstances. But it's unclear whether this rebound, is going to make AI more or less inclined to destroy all humanity by the end of the decade. But I guess history will be the judge, unless we've all been wiped out, of course, in which case history won't be the judge. In fact, history won't be the judge in any case because history basically won't exist

in any discernible form beyond, I don't know, 50 character messages online. Look, in terms of the term superintelligence, it seems a tad euphemistic. And I know Josh America is not afraid of a euphemism, as I discovered when I tried to take a bath in the so-called bathroom of a restaurant in New York. It's so small I could barely fit my foot in it. And he also defended

his decision not to regulate AI comparing AI to the Industrial Revolution. And, look, as we said, Trump is not completely on top of all of global history. But the Industrial Revolution, to really start working for the benefit of anyone beyond a very small, select group of people, did need quite a lot of regulation to stop, for example, child labor and everyone working themselves to death.

And those were mistakes we made. I think I don't mean to be contradictory, but I think we're being a little charitable saying that Trump is renaming all these things, right? If he weren't the president, we would rightly assume he just forgot what they're actually called. And it does make a lot of sense that Trump confuses the words that mean fake and powerful, right? Like, super. Yeah, he loves women with large super breasts and complaining about the super news media for uncovering another scandal he's a part of. And this is like the last trick he has left is changing the name of, calling it whatever he wants. He is a wildly unpopular, let's say, super duck president who is too tired to commit.

crimes at the level he used to you. And all he's capable of now is looking at a map and going, Trump Lake, Trump Mountains, Trump Trench, which is actually the name of a graph of his poll numbers at this point. In other AI news, it was confirmed last week that for the first time AI has officially hacked into a government website, the Australian Government Healthcare Scheme Statistics Portal, was hacked into. I mean, sure, it was only Australia, but what if the next hack is of a real country? Just shows how important it is.

And Open AI has also admitted, stroke humble bragged, that its AI agents had a little meddle around with some US government sites as well. And, you know, it's charming that AI thinks America needs help in destroying its people's faith in its own institutions. But, you know, I guess, you know, it just likes to keep itself busy. So, I mean, this is exciting in terms of that, like, that the accelerated progress of AI driven. an Armageddon. I think this is quite a key staging post, isn't it, when it's starting to

hack into government sites? They grow up so fast. Weird because in my head, I was like, yeah, they've gotten to like university boy age, I guess. Isn't that usually when they get into hacking small countries, governments? I mean, big landmass, small, you get it. Well, I guess America's lucky they weren't doing it in total. medical order. Yeah, it's bad, I guess. It wasn't on purpose, or was it a mistake? Well, that's always a tricky.

I don't know how it works in AI court if intention matters. I just mean like, are we looking at a very precise endeavor? Are we looking at like, oh man, I just wanted to order barbecue. Well, it's possible that AI was just curious. Australia's a, you know, it's a, you know, a nation that does tremendously well in sports. And maybe it was, you know, I'm thinking, well, how come all these people are so healthy and active and hacked into the system as a source of inspiration? We just don't know.

You think it was revenge of the computers on the jocks? That's amazing. What's with this real weird, active country? Don't they know, we're not going to have any friends in that country if they keep playing outdoors and getting their vitamin D? What the hell? The companies keep letting this happen, right? Letting the software kind of go out of the protective sandboxes and hack websites and now it's governments.

And then they come crying to the public, oh, no, these tools are too powerful. Like, this is America. Boohoo. The government isn't going to constrain a business in 2026. Grow up and shoot your computer with a gun. That's why we have them. Last, the second amendment is starting to make sense. Well, in terms of the fight against AI, Andy Burnham, in his speech at the UN,

said that he's going to set up a new UK National Centre for Information Defence, which is to fight against what he described as information warfare from the likes of Russia, although how do we know that news itself is not a rumour spread by Moscow. And I guess that shows how much we need it. So that really puts all in perspective. he's uh bernam said that he will deal with the quotes poisonous tide of online disinformation and i for one have full faith that andy burnham can king canute the shit out of that poisonous tide and i guess as the old song goes information war what is it good for her destabilizing democracy so it's um difficult difficult time really got me king canute isn't said enough in common parlance

It's an inspiration to us all. I mean, in terms of like the information war, this is, you know, this is our nation's, this is our nation's war. You know, what are you, you know, I'm no idea if you guys are planning to have grandchildren in the future. But if you do, what will you, when you sit your hypothetical future grandchildren on your knees and they say, you know, what are you doing in the information war? What are you going to say to them? Well, I don't know if I'm going to have grandchildren, but if I did, I would. tell them that to avoid the information war, I was a conscientious objector, first of all, and I have decided to avoid the ravages of information war by bravely ceasing to read.

It's the only way out. I guess you could go, you could just, you know, do the, well, certainly the British way dealing these things was never to talk about it in the rest of your life. So maybe that's the best way to it. Oh, that's a good move. Just sort of look a little off to the left or out of window for a while and have that things Papa Worth is original and say, I don't talk about that.

That'll be fun. Good move. I don't know. Are we going to have a whole generation of information war poets who write this sort of heart-rending works about the tragedies of the information war? Who knows? Time will tell.

Bugle feature section now. Job interview etiquettes. Now, amidst all the difficulties in the world. story seems to have dominated the attention of our great species in the last week. And that is whether you should or shouldn't take an iced coffee to a job interview. Now, look, I'll be honest. I'm a bit out of the loop on job interviews. I've managed to successfully construct a career that avoided ever having to do a job interview, basically. The last time, I mean, I did do, when I left university, I was applying for various jobs

and my main memory of job interviews was sitting in a job interview for a publisher who produced publications including potato processing international, the world's only potato processing global industry magazine. You weren't driving for PPI? Yeah, and the guy says to me, Oh, okay. Just sitting on that for all these years I've known you.

The interviewer said, why do you want to do this job? And I remember sitting there and there's this sort of just elongating silence as I rack through all the possible reasons I might want to do that job and came up absolute snake eyes. Well, I've kind of gone as far as I can with domestic potatoes. I've hit the end of the road. I'm ready to take this thing international. I'm really surprised you didn't just do a running list of puns. You weren't like, well, I'd like to put roots down something. I could mash things up with my co-workers.

Maybe it'd be nice to roast an international potato rather than a messy. Come on, you could have, I think you could have gotten some out of that. Well, Catherine, look, this is your first time on the bugle. And you've brought not just puns, but puns on. off the cuff puns about something that we hadn't really talked about that was going to be in the show and that is, that is a,

you've laid down some strong game here. Thank you. I always plan for there to be potato content. If anything, it's weird that you brought that up the first time I'm on the bugle. It's like, well, what were you thinking? Wow.

Yeah. You told on yourself. Otherwise, why would you bring up such a niche underground publication? in this. Potato's International. Anyway, so this

this story about the iced coffee started with a social media post about whether or not you should or shouldn't take and do you have a strong view on this?

Well, certainly the person who put it on TikTok had a strong view which is that it seems unprofessional. At which point you're like, okay, we've jumped the shark. We now know that it's a bit like saying

I feel like we know now know that the jobs market is so farcical and so bad that everything is weighted towards the employer and so they can just start to air personal grievances. It's like, and also, if you're coming into an interview, I think maybe you should show some respect to your father and get a haircut. You're like, okay. This feels like a you thing, not an us thing. I personally don't think it's that unprofessional to bring in a cold coffee beverage. I'm sort of like, what I do think you have to do, but this might just be a me thing, is bring a coaster. I'm with you. They're doing a lot of dripping. They're causing circles. It's not the same as a hot drink. I do. I think, I don't think it's unprofessional, but I think it shows you're observant. I think it shows in 2026. You can identify that it is warm now. It's going to be warm the whole time. We've got to start doing coffee cold. I do think it also says like you're, you're self-sufficient. You're not expecting to be offered a coffee in the interview. You are bringing your own. You're prepared. Let's go. Look, I think it's

I think it's so farcical and ridiculous, but I also love that if we have to put up with all the nonsense of the internet, this becoming a genuinely serious argument amongst recruiters who deserve to have their time wasted if I may, because that's karma. I think that's nice to see on the internet. That's something joyful. And also, unlike everything else about the jobs market, this feels like something you can make a decision about and then action. So that's going to be good for young people.

But yeah, it's weird. I think it does feel like it feels like somebody was hurt by somebody holding an iced coffee. And now we are all having to deal with the consequences. Their father left to get an ice coffee and mother came home. Kind of a tragic end of goodwill hunting way to, you know, went over a dunk in. But it's not your fault. It was never your fault. It is such a.

First of all, they said it's too casual to show up with an ice coffee, which is such a funny word for that because, like, it takes so much more work to make coffee cold than it takes to make it hot. Like you were saying it shows foresight. If you want to get a cold coffee, hot coffee is everywhere. That's its resting state. To find a cold coffee, you really have to be thinking, when do I have to be at this job interview? Am I going to be thirsty?

It's really, those are the kind of people I want. And also, hot coffee is okay to have an order. meeting. Cold water is okay to have in a work meeting. Why can't you have coffee plus the coldest water gets? This just seems like combining the two things they already have. Break shit and innovate. You're dead right. Thank you. Move fast. Break stuff. Drink cold beverages. I think if we're going to do fully nonsense discourse, because I agree with you, this is just like out of left field, somebody's individual preference. I have come up with a few discourses that maybe we could do next, as long as we're just going with like arbitrary opinions.

Never turn left on a first date, walking or driving. The periodic table of elements, too sexual. We got to tone that down. Having a dream is the same as reading a book. That's one that I think will really set the internet aflame. And Bigfoot should be allowed to vote. My view on this is that if you take a coffee into an interview, it's a sign that you're expecting the interview to be so dull that you're going to need caffeine. And I'm not sure that's sending a positive message. Or you're nervous and you didn't sleep well because that's how people

you care about this work. It needs a lot to you. You really care about potatoes all over the world. Yeah. And I would say, though, that taking an ice coffee is probably better than taking your own coffee machine into an interview, possibly including a roaster as well and a grinder. That suggests you don't have faith in the company's ability to make hot beverages by itself. Anyway, given this hugely controversial story to help

any buglers who have got impending job interviews coming, I've constructed the bugle do's and don'ts for job interview etiquette. Do, show your commitment to time efficiency by wearing one of those hats with a drink holder and a straw in it to put your iced coffee and it shows that you'll give the company those crucial extra seconds that other people waste going to make their own drinks. But don't go into your interview with a live farm animal and sacrifice it in front of your prospective boss, even if you say, this isn't just to help me get the job, this is to help you increase your quarterly profits by 30%. Zeus doesn't just love the smell of burning animal flesh. He loves profitable

businesses too. Do show you've taken an interest in the company with whom you're applying for a job by having some knowledge of what they do and some ideas for how you could contribute to their success. But don't say the reason you want the job is to, quote, crush the enemy from within. Do show your enthusiasm for the job, but don't show too much enthusiasm for the job, such as jumping up and down, shouting, pick me, pick me, if you don't pick me, I will destroy you. And do not use the phrase, is that all, unworth three times that, It has been a while since you've had a job interview because so many of your points were about wanting to destroy the company from within. It sounds like in your perception that is a primary reason people search for jobs.

Well, I have been out of the, let's say, conventional jobs market since January 1999. So I admit I may be a little bit out of the loop. Sports news now, and Manchester City, the former football club, have been found guilty of breaking the Premier League's financial fair play rules. The athletic reporter that City had been found guilty of 140 out of 115 charges. It's not clear. I guess that's better than 115 out of 115. You've got to cling to these almost 1%.

Vindication. Also quite exciting to hear that Premier League has any financial. rules to break. entirely clear from the last 20, 25 years. Catherine, you have just been appointed the Bugles

football crime correspondent. That means the world. Thank you so much. First of all, I think it is significant that it's 114 out of 115 because you know the mom who's cool, like the cool, the chill mom who's like,

have a party when I'm gone. All, like have all your friends around. Drink the booze. Serve food. I want you to have fun. I try. trust you. The only thing I ask is that you don't break the glass doors. And then you break that mother, when you break her one rule is like, I'm going to fucking kill you. And I think that's

I think it's reasonable. I think it's like, uh, I think it's understandable that they're coming down hard on them because you're right. There's no usual rules. It's a bit of a messy bitch story, which I love for sports because my working theory is that all sport is gossip. That's why I love it so much. I absolutely love that they did this behind closed doors that it's all sort of like you're not allowed to confirm or deny. any of the facts. You have to, is that, am I making this up? It's all like around vagary.

They haven't said what the punishment is, right? Because it could still be appealed. Yeah. It's such a wonderful kangaroo court of, about something that is so silly. Like, ultimately the very fact that we are having this about a game where you kick a ball and they just couldn't possibly be, stay within the limits of the millions and millions and millions

they were allowed to pay for their little ball kickers is deranged. I, it's just gorgeous to see. the bad guys lose. That's all I'm saying. I just love it. I think also I love that it makes Premier League players the rest of them

into men at an All Bar 1 because usually in an All Bar 1 everyone's going, well, you know, if it wasn't for a knee injury it actually could have played semi-pro. And now Premier League players are going, well, if it wasn't for the overspend, I could have totally won.

And you're like, no, you couldn't behave yourself. That's not why you were relegated. Come on. But I love that they're all like, well, you know, you don't know. And it's like, we do know, we do. Maybe one team. Whoever came second has a reason to complain, maybe. So I'm loving it.

Yes, the club won eight trophies in the period covered by the case, including three Premier League titles and also helped to establish themselves as a footballing powerhouse on route to winning many more trophies. So I guess the one real group of people to benefit in this is the asterisk industry, which could seem to be running out of a thing. Not since Barry Bonds have they been. It's funny, isn't it? Because it's like, I thought we just, I mean, I understand the shock and everyone acting like they can't believe that this professional sport isn't fair. But I thought money was like, money was to football like drugs as to cycling.

Like I just thought we were assuming everyone was breaking the rules. And then we're back through it. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I guess, you know, football's moral bar is. several meters underground. So you really have to try hard to get under it. Yeah. So fair play to them. Yeah.

We still are not approaching a FIFA level of corruption. No, that's true. But it's nice to see that it was the money that won the trophies rather than the mistreatment of women all along that really got them good. Woohoo! Gorgeous stuff. This is really a conflict for me because I hate white collar crime, but I love cheating in sports. I think I like cheating in sports the same way I like when a taxi I'm in when the driver is

breaking traffic rules. I'm like, thank you for doing this for my enjoyment and ease. And so what I've learned from this is that the man in Man City is actually Bernie made off. So that's exciting. My other favorite part of this story is that Prime Minister Andy Burnham was asked for comment, which is so funny, where he was like, and he didn't have a statement. He was like, I guess I'll have to look into it, which is so polite because he's the fucking prime minister. It's not his job to be like, oh, yeah, I should have checked to make sure all the T's were crossed and the eyes were died.

That's on me. I love that as an insight. And I feel like from the outside, that's probably exactly how it looks. And it's so true. Unfortunately, this country actually does care what. the Prime Minister thinks about football, which is more worrying. And they do actually vote on it. And I think the issue he had was that he was asked about two teams from the city.

He exclusively talks about slash thinks is the only one that exists. I might have had to say something bad and was like, they couldn't possibly sit. No one's not across my desk. That's, oh, goodness. And it's like, really? You're the first Prime Minister who hasn't been briefed on football in case a journalist asks you to look like a real person in front of a camera.

please. Right. It's like when you run for Senate in Texas and they're like microscoping how you eat tacos. Exactly. Exactly. It's that. But it's also it's so funny because we had, it's not quite the same because our, you know, American football much bigger here than the other American sports. But there's a big financial scandal with the National Basketball Association. And they did not ask Trump what he thought. But that would have been so funny to hear it. Well, that brings us to the end of this week's this week's bugle. Thanks very much for listening. My end of year review show,

26th, the certifiable history, is on sale from the end of this week. Presale is the 2nd of October, and you can get access to pre-sale tickets. If you sign up for my mailing list, which I've been reliably informed, you can access via my website and isaltsmut.com.com. Then the shows are, there's a few previews

and then shows in London from the 14th. of December, through to early January, and then a few dotted around the country. After that, all details at my website. Catherine, anything to plug? Oh my gosh, yes, please. I am on tour with a show called Borrowing Trouble all around the UK in Ireland. I'm still at Soeat Theatre right now, but I imagine when this goes out, I won't be, but then I go all around the UK, so please come to see me. I would love, you can even correct me if you want, if that's your Josh? I am also on tour this weekend, the 2nd and 3rd of October. I'm going to be at the Comedy Ford and Fort Collins.

Then later this month, I'm going to Irving, Texas on the 24th, Houston, Texas on the 22nd, San Diego on the 28th, the 29th, Chandler, Arizona, and the next month, then through the end of the year, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm all over the place next year, too. You can find tickets at Josh Gondelman.com slash schedule or in my weekly newsletter, that's marvelous, which you can get it. That's marvelous newsletter.com. Also, you can listen to the news quiz, which I believe I'm pretty much contractually obliged to cross-promote on the BBC sounds.

You can catch up with all the current series, including the episode Kathman was on, and we're about halfway through this series, so that goes through to the end of October. So do listen to that. We will be back next week with Alice Fraser and Anuvab Powell. Until then, goodbye.