The Gargle - Dick pic app | Cocaine sharks | Eton brick phones

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

John Robertson and Garrett Millerick join host Alice Fraser for episode 167 of The Gargle. All of the news, with none of the politics.🍆 Dick pic app🦈 Cocaine sharks👩🏻‍💻 College to corporate📱 Eton brick phones✈️ ReviewsWatch on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@BuglePodcastWritten by Alice Fraser, John Robertson and Garrett MillerickProduced by Ped Hunter, with executive production from Chris SkinnerHOW TO SUPPORT THE GARGLE- Keep The Gargle alive and well by joining Team Bugle with a one-off payment, or become a Team Bugler or Super Bugler to receive extra bonus treats!https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donate Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a podcast from the Bugle. 96%. You feel the wounds on your body start to heal up unnaturally fast. The voice goes on. Loot box acquired. Iron hands upgrade achieved. You feel the skin on your hands begin to crawl and harden. You scream, how long in this sick game before you are no longer recognisable to yourself? Seven days ago, God has it only been seven days, you would have said you'd never kill and now you're knee-deep in blood but seven days ago you'd never heard of the gargle. Welcome to the gargle the sonic glossy magazine to the Bugles audio newspaper for a visual world all of the news none of the politics I'm your host Alice Fraser and your guest editors for this week's edition of the magazine are Garrett

Millerick welcome. Thank you for having me, very excited. And John Robertson, welcome. Yay, a joy to be with you. It's a delight to have both of you here, and in just one minute we are going to arm up and plunge into the goblin hoard that is this week's top stories. But first, let's have a look at the front cover of the magazine.

The front cover model this week is Keanu Reeves, The front cover model this week is Keanu Reeves posing provocatively with his status as seems like quite a nice guy, still amazing. That's an antique at this point, that status. The satirical cartoon this week is a group calling themselves the Gay Ferry Hackers who hacked Project 2025's website and obtained information about who's behind the plan for Trump's second term. They're currently receiving death threats and I did not think that we were living in the world where death threats against gay furry hackers was going to be front page news, but it is. Top story this week.

This is a news story we've been following for a little while now and the sad ending of this news story, which is a dating app that tried to use AI to get people to send in dick pics that it would then check for STDs has been shut down. John Robertson, you've rolled a condom onto a banana before. Can you unpack this story for us? Look, this was absolutely bloody superb. A firm that had put together a thing they called Calmera, which appears to be Spanish for calm down, which is delightful.

Yeah. Encouraged, encouraged, it was women, uh, the penises of their partners. Uh, nice to have women consensually involved in dick pics for once. Um, and then the AI would scan to see if, uh, the penis had an STI. Unfortunately, not only could it not detect STIs, it also was unable to detect penises. Um, there's, yeah, the, the news story points out, uh, that it issued a cheery all clear to a phallic vase and a cake shaped like a penis. Um, I will however point out, uh, that the AI is functioning correctly since neither of those things have an STI. Um, but, but if a vase or a cake do indeed, you know,

if they are completely diseased, I'll just put it this way, as disgusting as this sounds, I admire the glaze. Well, it just reminds me of those t-shirts that used to go around where it was like, I'm a boob detective. Do you ever see this? Yeah, yeah. Yep, yep.

I just like the idea of coming in in a deer stalker with a magnifying glass. Yeah. I misunderstood when I saw the headline. I thought it was a dating app where the guys would send a dick pic and then before it matched, the AI would check out the dick and then say to the woman, yeah, this guy's all right to date. Which is quite good technology, because if someone's willing to send you a dick pick under those circumstances, they probably do have an STI. So you don't really need the AI. The AI is a bit of a kind of grift just to get people involved. I'm about to launch my own app whereby I tell you if it's all right to data a guy.

And it's sort of you bring the collection of penises together. It's a bit like throwing fortune sticks right okay you rub them together and you cast them and then you read the auguries yeah do any of them smell like incense because i i would you know like oh well that that one clearly belongs to a monk i mean it won't be anything fun but it'll be a serene evening oh it's burst into flame right i mean if it smells like incense it's either a serene evening. Oh, it's burst into flame. Right. I mean, if it smells like incense, it's either a monk or someone's been using it for sounding. What I what I really want is because the company's been shut down now. But the next logical step would have been

them putting in an error message, right. And I just want you know, like, we've been accused that we can't detect what a penis is. So I just wanted the raft of men putting in their cocks Then just receiving like a sad trombone noise and the message this isn't a penis This is nothing Pay good money for that. Yes, they do. Yeah, Kalmara can call it mistress Kalmara. It'll be rolling in it I was looking this up and there is actually another company called Kalmara can miss call it mistress Kalmara. It'll be rolling it. I was looking this up and there is actually another company called Kalmara. I don't know if you guys saw this, but if you bash Kalmara into Google, the top hit you get is Kalmara,

your place for calmness. And it is a company that sells calm koalas, the calm koala to ease your sleep anxiety and find calm, uh, calm with the calm koala, your cuddly companion. And I don't know what came first here, the chicken or the egg, but that's absolutely rancid PR for them. Yup. Uh, look, I've just got to say, you look at the calm koala and you go, that is not a penis. That is not a penis, but if you buy a calm koala, I think you are a bit of a penis. That's just for clarity but if you buy a calm koala I think you are a bit of a penis. Just for clarity you're all saying calm koala right because that's not what I'm hearing over here. I'm just here oh the calm koala how wonderful. Also I mean Alice you'd be aware of this but of course notoriously koalas do have STIs. Yeah I was just about to say that yeah Corr-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or Yeah, but it would have just gone, this isn't a koala. That's not a knife.

You call that a penis? This is a penis. Call that an STD. Your ad section now, because you can't be what you can't buy. If your toddler is absolutely losing it at the supermarket and all you have left to give is half a glass of water, this is the ad for you. Whether you give them a sip, offer them small novelty-shaped ice cubes, or calmly pour the water over your own head to cool your jets, what can't half a glass of water do? And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Kiwi Fruit. If you must fill your mouth with hairy balls, at least make them high in vitamin C. And this is an ad for A Passion for passion, the Dancy Lagarde book, which

is coming out early next year. You can still pre-order it, but if you pre-order before the 7th of August, you can guarantee that you will have your name in the back of the book. So if you want your name in the back of the book, the supporter list is closing on August the 7th. You can still pre-order it up until it comes out, at which point you can post-order it, AKA what they used to call buying the thing. That's not yet shut down. But yes, if you want to get your name in the back of the book, head over to unbound.com and write in a passion for passion. Great white news now. And this is the news that Brazilian sharks, not great white sharks, Brazilian sharks have now been testing positive for cocaine in Brazil. Garrett, you can smell

blood in the water a kilometer away. Can you unpack this story? Yes. So as you said, the sharks in in Brazil are absolutely off their nut. They're they're cornering people at parties to talk endlessly, acting violently. And this is actually so this came out very recently. But it reminded me of a story from a couple of years ago, where I don know if you know, the eels in Bristol are also gacked to the nines. Because people are taking so much cocaine in Bristol, they're peeing it out. So it's just coming straight into the water supply through. And I was getting very upset about untreated sewage in the rivers, but there's untreated cocaine in the rivers in Bristol to the point that the marine life are absolutely off their nuts. And now this shocking development has come to Brazil. The thing I liked about

this story, they captured 12 sharks and then killed them and dissected them in order to get this revelatory information out of the sharks. And then the main thing they said is it poses a huge health risk to the sharks. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Like, yes, in a manner of speaking. But I mean, the horse is very much out of the stable

and going around the field. So yeah, they killed the sharks to find out that it's a terrible health risk against the sharks. And they're worried because people eat these sharks in Brazil, so they're worried that people will be getting free cocaine, and that is not how the economy of Brazil works. You've gotta pay for your cocaine.

I think this is terrible news. I feel like Jaws would have been so much scarier if the shark not only leapt out of the water and consumed your body, but also talked your ear off. Yeah, I'm just baffled to discover that so many Brazilian sharks work in the arts industry. Yeah, the shark's got a great Edinburgh show he's going to tell you. No, no, sit down, sit down. It's quite good. I mean, I was looking up London, London now the cocaine trade in London is worth 1 billion pounds a year, which you got to be quite proud of that.

London's consuming 23 kilograms of cocaine a year, which is more, which is more than the that's not number one position and that's more cocaine than two, three and four combined, which is Barcelona at 12.7, Amsterdam at 4.6. Amsterdam at 4.6 is kind of surprising and Berlin again coming in at 4.6. But there's many things in Britain that we're world leaders in. Rather than, you know, we used to be. But now it's nice to know for a sense of national pride, we're really up there in the cocaine stakes. It's us and South America. Well, it brings me to my favorite game, stockbroker or shark.

I mean, I can absolutely tell you that London, you know, the water system's rife with cocaine because somebody looked in the Thames the other day and Russell Brand was in there. Hello. Hello, folks. Hello. That's the best thing you could say about Russell Brand on a podcast these days. You know, the nicest thing about that is that that really felt like an evergreen bit of Russell Brand material. That could have been 2002, you know, all the way to now. I don't know what the Brazilian government are planning to do with the sharks on this. I mean, is there a rehab program they could be in with some outreach?

Maybe you could get old sharks who have who've got sober can come and give little talks to the new sharks about the dangers of puffing cocaine that's fallen off boats. I mean, I feel like cocaine is the perfect drug for sharks because they are the one animal who cannot stop moving. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And also maybe they maybe they'll lose interest in eating human beings and they'll just want to find another shark and just just.

Yeah. Yeah. One thing that has been noticed, the scientists said that they thought it was going to affect the shark survival rate. But I reckon it'll be fine. It's just the sharks are just going to abandon their families and leave with a younger shark. That's the use of it.

Yeah. They'll start a podcast. Yeah, perfect. Have a feeding frenzy where no one eats anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Actually, yeah, I mean, it's gonna be very, very good for the other marine life in Brazil. Well, that's what the shark will tell you.

Yeah, yeah, it's just, oh, I just can't eat anything for days. I'm helping the economy tell you. Yeah, yeah it's just, I just can't eat anything for days. I'm helping the economy man. And that brings us to our reviews section. As you know, each week we ask our guest editors to bring in something to review out of five stars. John, what have you brought in for us this week? I would like to review my recent trip to the podiatrist whose calm and affable manner

totally took my mind off the fact my right foot could be playfully described as a fungal jungle. Her calm professionalism in cleaning up the kind of toes that Super Mario would refer to as level one of the mushroom kingdom made me feel. And now with a foot so clean that it's become a downstairs hand, I can safely say that while I, while I didn't have a foot fetish before, I do now, but it's just for mine. Yeah, so five out of five, one for each encrusted nail.

Garrett, what have you brought in for us? Zero out of five stars for easy jet customer service. I spent, last week I was going out to Amsterdam to do some gigs and I arrived at the airport in good time for my flight. I was told the flight was 10 minutes delayed, then it was 30 minutes delayed, then it was an hour delayed, then it was two hours delayed, then it was three hours delayed and then he sent me a text message saying, we're not flying to Amsterdam Amsterdam today and a succession of people in blue bibs helped me to get out the other side of Stansted all assuring me that on the other side on the other

side there'll be someone from easyjet to tell you what to do and we got out the aside there was no one from easyjet to tell us what to do so we scoured the airport to find somebody work for easyjet who just shouted at us very unpleasantly don't ask questions it's on the app. It's all on the app, everything's done on the app. And a very nice Irish gentleman said, well, would it be possible to talk to a human being? Because sometimes it's easier if you've got questions to address them to a human being.

And the woman said, ask your question. And he said, well, and she said, and the answer will be it's on the app. So it's very good doing that on the app. But there was no mobile phone reception operating in Stanstead because airports and service stations are places where you often need mobile phones. The most mobile phone carriers do not think it is necessary to put extra towers in those places to deal with the demand.

So you couldn't use the app. So then I paid £2 to get on the Stanstead internet, which also didn't't work and I couldn't complain about the internet was not working to get my two pounds back because I needed the internet To do that So I then had to get a train into London to try and get a flight to Amsterdam to make the gig There was a flight for 110 pounds from London City Airport the in the time it took me to load the page went from a hundred pounds to 1,200 pounds for the flight and the end I had to get a train and then I emailed him easy jet to be like hey can you pay for my train ticket and they were like no and they

just refunded me the hundred and six pounds and I would like to posit them because that was just before the World Cup in Berlin I think they would have got us another plane to fly us out to Amsterdam, but it was easy to refund us our 100 pounds and tell us to piss off on the app because they were charging people 700 quid to get to Berlin per seat. So zero out of zero for EasyJet customer service. You are a bunch of bastards and I made it to Amsterdam in spite of you and I sat by a canal and had a nice time and looked at a Rembrandt, five out of five for that,

zero for EasyJet, you bunch of absolute twats. Mm-hmm. And you will never fly EasyJet again until you're looking for flights and that happens to be 300 pounds cheaper. Yeah, I'm gonna be flying EasyJet next week because they have to and they know that, which is why they can provide customer service that poor because that's where

the supply and demand curve is I need to get back from Edinburgh to see my daughter every week so I'm gonna fly easy jet a lot in the next month but there are a bunch of bastards and if you're the woman who is behind it I didn't get your name or anything because I was busy trying to work out how to get Amstam when you were yelling at everybody you're exactly the sort of person who causes fights and may the fleas of a thousand dogs infest your armpits. Thanks for letting me get off my chest. I mean, that's a really good rant. But have you thought about putting that in the app? There's a character limit, John.

And that brings us to our next story. Apparently the college to corporate pipeline, classically shoveling well bright young individuals into soul sucking jobs for the last 40 to 50 years has collapsed under the weight of reality. John, you're soulless, can you unpack this story for us? Certainly can. I loved that this was being portrayed as news. It is genuinely disgusting. A bunch of Gen Z graduates were being surveyed and it was people who had gone into the job

that their degree was meant to get them and realizing that they were all being paid less than fast food workers. So they then quit the jobs and got jobs as fast food workers, discovering that the money was higher, tips were higher, and the quality of life was better. And just quietly, I did a communications degree 20 years ago, and the joke throughout the entirety of that was that we had just trained ourselves to say,

would you like fries with that? And now 20 years later, it's true. And it's good. I worked in a law firm. And we were making for the hours that they were expecting us to come in. We were making less than retail wage. I mean, on paper, it looked like a really good salary, but you didn't get weekends or evenings. They had delicious dinner in the office at 7.30 every night, except Fridays, where you could get takeout in the office. Geez. Garrett?

I did support for a famous act when I was, this is a number of years ago, and they were like, ah, big opportunity for you. And they were paying me 150 quid to do 20 minutes. And I was like, that's good. And they realized that the act couldn't drive and they had no means of getting to Liverpool. And they were like, you have to drive him to Liverpool and back. And I was like, oh, this is just a really, really abusive Uber trip because he was paying me less than his travel cost would have been for the thing. And then presenting it to me as an opportunity

because I got to do something I enjoyed at the end. So the fact that I was doing something that I enjoyed and was passionate about, and I wanted the opportunity that allowed the other person to think, oh, I can abuse this person. And you're like, well, no, there's no like, you couldn't get any transportation of any kind there and back and to your front door, picked up and dropped off to your front door, and then make somebody do what amounted to in the end, nine hours of driving for do what I'm mounted to in the end, nine hours of driving for 150 quid. And I was like, Oh, I just got done. Absolutely got done. But no, it's standard practice. That's why, that's

why it's really great. There's the comedians, you will often see comedians banging on being like, we're really left wing. Comedians are the largest group of right wing Thatcherites that you will ever come across in your life. Like they talk Corbyn out front, out back. It's 100% Margaret Thatcher. It's absolute work. That's the politics of any clowns. You couldn't form a union out of comedians. It's a bunch of perennial contrarians. Yeah. Who are, in spite of what they say, they are so right-wing. They're like, hey, you know, welfare state's really good, but also I'm going to expense my cinema tickets

against tax so I don't have to pay any tax. Oh, look, Bagrat, just for fun. But mine furor, I am Pagliacci. There we go. Well, if you wanted to be paid more as a woman headliner, you should be 20% funnier. Oh, that's a wittier line than you've ever been faced with in that remark. I played that club and they told me that too. But I think this is great. I think it's really good because in this service economy, there was somebody in the article who was saying that she you know she was working for a news organization and

And could earn a lot more Delivering pizzas because people want pizza in a way that they don't want news And I think it's really good that society sort of adjusting round to that and there was someone else who was working in medicine in pharmacology and she was now working in Taco Bell and the quote was, I now tell people to have a blessed day and they say I really needed that and she was like, and I feel like I'm helping people more than I was helping people with medicine and you're like, yeah whatever you need to tell yourself but if we're just earning money so that we can order Deliveroo and then during the day we go out and deliver Deliveroo to other people and then the rest of it slowly we let AI take over and we are just delivering parcels to each other,

like Amazon delivery, whatever. And then that earns us enough money that when we can go home, we can chill out and we can order what we want and have someone else bring it to us. That feels like a nice balance in society because we don't need journalists and we don't need medicine. I think we're actually coming towards a utopian situation

and it's being shepherded by this. So I'm all for it. I don't have actually coming towards a utopian situation. And it's being it's being shepherded by this. So I'm all for it. I don't have time to shop for groceries. I have to get my groceries delivered because I'm too busy going out delivering other people groceries. Garrett, I don't I don't know how much of a gamer you are. But the name of that game is Death Stranding. And you will. Yep. It's literally you are a post apocalyptic Amazon worker, delivering parcels endlessly and in for payment receiving stars and likes and parcels and I'll tell you right now

it is hell on earth hell yeah but then I think no but then the weird thing is after six hours of delivering parcels it becomes addictive and you keep doing it I guess I would finish my nice creative job of being a comedian and come home for my imaginary Amazon work God God, it was fun. One must imagine Sisyphus pissing in a bottle. Ah, the rocks crushed it again. It got worse. Someone was saying to me the other day about, you know, simulation theory that we're all trapped in a simulation. What if this is a big video game? You go, well, life in 2024 is a lot like Mario. You just have to go around smashing your head on things

to get coins. And eventually, as you move on, a bigger succession of bastards are throwing things at you. And if they hit you, you lose all the coins and you have to start again. You go, yeah, that's it may as well be. Like my life is a lot like the Sims. Other than the last time I prayed the Sims, like other Sims came around to see my Sim. And I don't have that. Like my life is a lot like The Sims, other than the last time I played The Sims, like other Sims came around to see my Sim, and I don't have that. Like my Sim has a better quality of life than I have right now. Well, I feel like my head is like one of those bricks

in Mario where like a new fact just knocks an old fact out, and I don't question where the fact came from. Like today, somebody online who I've never met, never seen, popped up and told me that in the game Super Mario, when he goes, it's a me Mario, he's not saying it's a me Mario in a cartoonish Italian accent. He's actually saying it's a me Mario, which means Super Mario in Japanese. I don't know if that's true, but I believe it now as hard as I believed it was racist

Italian accent before, just completely without question replaced the fact that was in my head before. So let's gamify our brains, shall we? Sorry, just every fiber of my being cries out. That is bullshit. He's saying it's a me Mario. He's voiced by a guy called, a guy was called Charles Martinet.

That's how it's written down. I've had that guy say my name in that faux Italian accent This is how Twitter gets you I'm so angry Find that nerd and beat the shit out of them within the character limit me No, no, no just head but my head with your head and it'll knock the new fact out and replace it with the old fact. That's how it works. And you'll both get a coin. Someone hit me till the question mark on me disappears. So we're in a four square zoom box at the moment, so you're below me and my screen,

so just bounce up. Oh yeah. And it'll pop out. And that brings us to our final story of this week's episode of The Gargle. And this is the news that Eton, breeding ground for bacteria and prime ministers, is set to remove smartphones from its grounds, replacing them with brick phones. For all its pupils who are starting at the school in September, you'll be allowed to put your own SIM card into a brick phone, and that will mean that you can only use your phone to play Snake

and send text messages and do phone calls like in the good olden days. Garrett, you've used a phone before, can you unpack this story for us? I have used a phone and I've been to boarding school and I was at boarding school when mobile phones first came in and they were of course, you know, brick phones. And we were overprivileged little twats. So we had mobile phones when no one else did. And it was great because you didn't have to queue for the payphone. Previously, you'd have to have a BT charge card. And there was there was one payphone shared between about 70, 70 people. And that really sort of dictated the news you could get out to the outside world. So I understand their desire to restrict communications. I don't think it's entirely for the benefit of the children.

They don't want kids with cameras and things being able to tell the outside world what's going on in Eaton. Or maybe they're like cosplaying to say look, you're gonna be at school now and it's just gonna be a bit like the 90s so you can believe that you're Eaton. Well if it's Eaton it's gonna be a bit like the 1890s right? Well quite but yeah you can believe that yeah yeah yeah you've got old antiquated technology yeah you're essentially cosplaying in the past at Eaton anyway aren't you? They're not even brick phones they They're just bricks. Just...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go on, carry it around. Pretend you're a labourer. Good on you. You can speak to mother. Well, that's that. Maybe the parents are not that interested in the kids contacting them. Like, can we get rid of these smartphones? It's a little bit too... We didn't ship them off here to be connected. Can you deal with them? ship them off here to be connected? Can you deal with them? When I was at school, there was a guy, his dad, the school decided to have the very first parents evening when I was like 16. And before that, parents evenings weren't something that the school was interested in doing. It's just like, you know, drop them off there, we'll deal with them. And this guy, his dad was getting really, really angry about the parents

evening, he was standing outside a class, just spitting tax. And this guy was like a caricature. He had big ruddy cheeks, a check shirt. And he was like, this is absolutely appalling. It's absolutely disgraceful. And he came out, he came out one and he said to another parent, I think there's an absolute front to call me in here on a Saturday morning for this. I know he's a f***wit.

I pay you £50,000 a year to fix that and I don't expect to be dragged in on a Saturday and accused of it being my problem. And you've got to admire that as an attitude. I think that's great. Oh, say f***wit again. One more time. I would have that as the ringtone on my brick phone.

I'll send you a recording of it. Yeah, could you? Answer your phone, you f*** it. His son was standing next to him while he said this as well. You know, maybe it's meant to be a metaphor for character building, you know? Because there's nothing quite as indestructible as an old Nokia. You know, we're going to take you out into the bathroom, we're going to throw you against the wall and if you break before the phone does, you'll never be a man.

And it's great by keeping the young men away from social media, you know, they won't be able to be influenced by appalling Manosphere people like Andrew Tate. They'll just have to be trained to be toxic men in the traditional British way instead. Well, I think maybe it's for during your election campaign to try and keep your job as a Tory Prime Minister in the onslaught of a socialist wave coming at you. You can say, when I was a child, I didn't even have a smartphone. Perfect. Yeah, very good, absolutely bang on. You didn't have a smartphone. He's salt of the earth.

Ah, yes. That's, they're protecting future employment. Do you have a screen time policy in your house, Garrett? My screen time policy is just more, more, more. So my phone keeps sending me little texts, like a mate having an intervention, but like a half-arsed one. So it will send me a little text being like, hey an intervention but like a half-arsed one so it'll send me a little text being like hey yeah screen time was

up 27% last week and you're like I'm fine and it says yeah whatever you like mate I just wanted to make you aware it doesn't say like stop using the phone or shut it down it's just like hey have you had enough and you go leave me alone and the phone goes okay okay so yeah I, I live in suburban Essex with a three year old. And so I hang out with her and then when I'm not hanging out with her, when I get her down to bed, then all I have is a screen. So I'll just go into the screen and I'll watch, I don't watch television anymore. I just watch YouTube videos of like weirdos reviewing fast food, strange people doing antiquated technology.

And someone tried to get me to watch a television program the other day and the production values of it just appalled me, it hurt my head. So I was like, no, no, no, this should be shot like this. Like people in their bedrooms with a Rode microphone just talking, that's all I want now. And it allows me in a strange way to feel connected to people in a way that I'm not.

So yeah, more screen time. Outside is horrible and it's expensive and inside is nice. There are people fixing eight-track recorders in sheds. We are now coming to the end of this week's episode of The Gargle. I'm flipping through the ad section at the back. Garrett, have you got anything to plug? Oh, so many things to plug. I've got a new sitcom coming out on the 30th of July on BBC Radio 4 for the next six weeks, starring me, Ahis Shah, Anya Magliano, Lisa McGillis, Frank Skinner and Faye Ripley,

and it is set in the fundraising department of an Alzheimer's charity, a fictional Alzheimer's charity, and it's called Do Gooders, and it's a comedy about the trials and frustrations of trying to do good on an industrial scale. I've got that and I've got an Edinburgh show and a national tour called Needs More Space which is sort of loosely about the history of space travel which will be kicking off on Monday in Edinburgh and then going all over the country until finally ending up in London in February next year. So if you want to get tickets to that or watch any of that or the links are on my website www.garrettmillerick.com or at Millerick Comedy on all social media you can find all that. Wonderful

and John have you got anything to plug? Yep, my show The Dark Room, the live-action video game remains on tour Heading off to Seattle in September and then it's in a bunch of other places as well. Check the John Robertson dot com slash live dates and off to the Edinburgh Fringe with The Dark Room and with a new improv show The Human Hurricane about 45 minutes just of screaming and hurricane, about 45 minutes just of screaming and various electric ukulele songs because somebody insisted on doing a stand-up show that finishes half an hour before the other one's meant to begin. So that's fun. It's one of those rare tight improv shows. So yeah, it's mostly inviting people down for the spectacle of watching a man who knows he has something more important to do in a minute. And if you'd be so good as to just come with him.

Do go along, Darkroom is also a brilliant thing. I once ate a packet of chips extremely disgustingly on stage. Yes! In that show. That was superb. That was Alice coming up with content because she didn't want to be crowd-served. And it worked incredibly well incredible stuff Yeah on August the 9th the darkroom is appearing at Worldcon the world's longest running science fiction convention in Glasgow

I'm honored to be there It's going to be delightful and it's at 5 p.m Because even though I'm performing at the world's longest running science fiction convention We still have to do the 10 O'Clock Show in Edinburgh. And this is a Bugle podcast and Alice Fraser production. I'm Alice Fraser. You can find me online at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser. It's a one-stop shop for all of my stand-up specials,

podcasts and blogs, as well as my twice weekly writers meetings. If you would like to write something or work on a thing that you're already writing, we do twice at a week and you can sign up anywhere from a dollar a month up. Our executive producer is Chris Skinner. Our editor is Ped Hunter.

I'll talk to you again next week. You can listen to other programs from The Bugle, including The Bugle, Catharsis, Tiny Revolutions, Top Stories, and The Gargle, wherever you find your podcasts.