Palestine Inaction

The Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 4347 of the Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World with me, Andy Zoltzman, increasingly at ease with the fact that I have to this day never once been described as the Jimi Hendrix of the harpsichord.

But I haven't given up on that dream yet.

I've bought some wood.

I'm joined today, right here in London, live and in person, and in three possibly more dimensions by two people whose dreams have similarly been crushed to dust by the cruel hand of fate.

Firstly, it's no-time Wimbledon champion Lish Kumar.

Wow, it hurts, Andy.

It hurts to have those wounds salted at the start of the show.

I can't believe this.

Well, you've left out my US Open record.

Also, zero wins.

I'm bugling in shorts for the first time.

Right.

Is that an attempt to sort of bring that, you know, that tennis vibe

to the bugle?

Because, I mean, obviously, you know, I bugle in trousers because Fred Perry won his three Wimbledon titles in the 1930s wearing trousers.

And I bugle in shorts and with a mullet and having just recently taken Crystal Meth in tribute to Andre Agassar, my tennis hero.

Also joining us, a man who's repeatedly failed to acquire the world's largest collection of Napoleon figurines.

It's Ian Smith.

Hello, Ian.

Yeah, what a dent to my confidence as well.

This is bad man management, Andrew.

Yeah, I don't think I've got one Napoleon figurine.

Yeah, you're way off then.

He was probably short enough to be considered a figurine.

Yeah.

That would be like a good sledge on the battlefield, wouldn't it?

Sledging.

So Andy's already referenced cricket because

for full disclosure we are in the middle of the summer of test cricket andy's uh side hustle uh is as the statistician on the bbc's radio coverage of the cricket i will say his head is not in the game no he has already asked me what is going on this is a direct question what's going on in world events

he's even forgotten the word news

This could be a very, very sidetracked podcast.

So I thought it was at the beginning you called it new S.

Yes.

If you ever look at the New S.

I thought it was Nevs.

Me and Nevs were like, what are you talking about?

Is it Slavic word, Nevs?

I think it is.

We are recording on the 9th of July, 2025, just a few short days after England conceded 1014 runs.

Sorry, sorry, wrong show.

And to be clear, they conceded that against India.

And for any people who work for UK immigration, I have been supporting England throughout this test series.

At no point have I been cheering for India.

At no point as I watched Shubman Gill's geometrically perfect, high-elbowed forward defensive or watched Richard Pant rolling around, swinging his bat like a toddler musketeer, did I do anything other than cheer for England?

And I will be cheering for England again this week when I go to the test match with my dad, who will also be cheering for England.

Okay, to be absolutely clear, England's in the butt.

But Nish, who would your grandparents have cheered for?

My grandparents would have cheered for whichever army was pointing a gun directly at that place.

I imagine.

I imagine my grandparents would have been openly supporting England whilst in private going, suck it.

Just feel like one of those racist taxi drivers who's sort of going further back until he can prove that you're not British.

Where'd your great-great-great-great-grandparents come from?

Oh, I see.

This was discussed before the start of the record, but this week, in sad news, the Conservative MP Norman Tebbit died.

He was a stalwart of the Margaret Thatcher government, and he was also very famous amongst the South Asian community in England for establishing something he called the Tebbit Test, which was by, in order to establish the loyalty of South Asian immigrants to England, they would have to be asked whether they supported England or India in a cricket match.

And he died this week, and I can think of no more fitting tribute than the fact that me and my dad are going to cheer for India and Lords against England on Sunday.

RIP, big man.

See you in the next life.

Right, can we focus, everyone, please?

We are recording.

I've come in and accused you of being distracted by the cricket and talked about nothing other than the fact that I'm going to the cricket at the weekend.

Right, let's get the show back on track.

We are recording on open bracket quotation mark, close bracket, quotation mark, percent.

Sorry, got my shift key stuck there.

9th of July

2025.

On this day in 1795, American financier James Swan paid off the US national debt $2,024,899,

the debt that had accrued during the American Revolution.

That's equivalent of $37.5 million

in today's money.

Now for clever money folk to pay off the US national debt now, you would need one million James Swans.

Sorry, one million and one.

Sorry, that's now one million and two.

But I'll update it at the end of the show.

On this day in 1850, U.S.

President Zachary Taylor died after eating raw fruit and iced milk.

Disappointing for the lad.

Quite a nice way to go, though, I guess.

But the question is, was he assassinated?

Rumours have swirled ever since.

But we of the Bugle, after extensive research, can reveal that no one knows for sure, but rumours have swirled ever since.

But if he did die and was assassinated through the medium of fruit and milk, who could have been behind it?

Was it Big Meat?

The fast-growing American mid-19th century burger and fried chicken lobby were looking to deglamorise all food that wasn't meat.

So having a president die after eating fruit was exactly what they would have wanted, thus shaping America into the remorselessly carnivorous nation we know today.

Was it perhaps Big Milkshake?

The theory that eating fruit and ice milk separately was probably fatal, led to the blending of the two and vigorously shaking the mixture to render any remaining bugs and bacteria unconscious while you drunk it and therefore ineffective.

That was the foundation of the all-new milkshake, the drink that shaped America into the milkshake guzzling nation we know today.

Was it the CIA?

Well, it wouldn't be the last time they tried to bump off a president, would it?

Or would it?

Or maybe wouldn't it?

The secretive organization claims to have been founded in 1947, but what if it was operating off-book from as long ago as the 1780s, at which point no US president had ever died?

Now, nearly 90% of all U.S.

presidents have died.

Join the fing dots, people.

Was it Lee Harvey Oswald?

Was it the Russians?

Obviously, what would they not have done?

Or was it the 12-year-old John Wilkes Booth, All-American Junior Assassin of the Year from 1849, who went on, of course, to have a famous career in the major leagues?

Anyway,

that happened, 1850.

Are you a Zachary Taylor fan, either of you?

Yes.

I mean, where's he in

your top

44 American presidents?

I can think of a couple of key figures he's already coming above just by virtue of having a funny death.

That's more of a sort of significant legislative achievement, I think, than some of the other incumbents of the Arbal Office.

How do you think Trump will die?

Well,

it's certainly not going to be from eating fruit.

Okay, yeah.

With the best will in the world.

Well, he's learned his lesson, hasn't he?

Oh, maybe that's why.

Yeah.

He's never driven in an open-top car through the the middle of dallas and he's never eaten fruit that was kennedy's biggest mistake the roof that could have changed history he's never gone to the theatre either i mean you could see he's a man people accuse trump he is a man who learns the lessons of history

well is that your your pitch for a new a new podcast um how will trump die yeah or even a different person every week

Different celebrity.

It can be a very positive thing, isn't it?

Because we're very negative about death.

But actually, you know, it'd be,

quite a positive.

I mean, personally, I don't want Trump to die.

I want him to be immortal.

I want him to be abducted by aliens and put in a Perspex box floating around the earth for all eternity when no one can hear him.

Well, one of the you forget that Elon Musk put a convertible in space.

Sometimes remember that and think, oh, yeah, there's a there's a convertible just going in space with like a mannequin in it.

I just feel that

some days you really think about it and you think we don't deserve to continue as a species.

Like there are points, like I'm not against humanity as a concept, but there are certain times where you hear sentences like Elon Musk put a convertible in space and you think, I think actually

we gotta wrap this up.

But then you see Shubman Gill effortlessly cutting

the covers and you think maybe there is still hope and beauty in the universe.

Oh my god.

It felt like I was looking directly into the face of God himself.

Can we focus, Nish?

Right.

As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

This week, we have a special What Prime Ministers Did Next section.

After the news that former Downing Street work experience kid, Rishi Sunak has used his stint as Prime Minister as a springboard to fulfill his lifelong dream of working for celebrity bank Goldman Sachs.

We look at what other prime ministers, and indeed other political figures from around the world, did after leaving office.

And well, let's start with Margaret Thatcher.

Do you know what she did after she left office, either of you?

She was called back by Beelzebub.

That was definitely off-book.

Well,

she dabbled for a while as a professional Maggie Thatcher impersonator.

There was still quite a lot of demand in the 1990s before returning to her first love of chemistry and trying to find a way of turning her renowned decades-old secret stockpile of milk into gold.

Clement Attlee, the man who made modern Britain and founded the welfare state, left office in 1951, then dabbled with circus work as a trapeze artist, testing out his theory that people are more effective with a safety net.

After moving sideways and inventing a powdered hammock for camping expeditions and developing a self-folding dressing gown, and following an afternoon drumming with the Beatles, Attlee was last heard of working as a Hollywood stunt body double in the 1964 superhero movie Mustachioed Potato Man.

Moving across the Atlantic, U.S.

President Rutherford B.

Hayes left office in 1881.

After he left office, he toured a stage show entitled O Be Hays Yourself, a mixture of political reminiscences, slapstick, vaudeville ditties about prison reform and trampolining.

Pope Innocent XIII,

well, he faked his own death after getting bored of the papacy after just three years in the Vatican, and lived out his days as a choreographer, rumoured to have been on the verge of discovering the macarena before choking to death on a special crucifix-shaped Easter sausage that he forgot to cut into edible chunks.

Julius Caesar, he became a corpse.

Abraham Lincoln, theatre critic, briefly.

And Teuton Carmoon became a professional hide-and-seek player.

That section in the bin.

News time now, top story this week, cricket.

Well, it's been a difficult time for the world.

I think we can all agree on that.

But there's a story this week that has brought hope to the entire universe.

And it came in the unexpected form of South Africa's Vion Mulder, who even cricket fans hadn't taken much notice of until quite recently.

He

ended up captaining South Africa against Zimbabwe due to the two first-choice captains both being unavailable.

And he had the chance to set a new record for the highest ever score in a Test match held by the West Indian legend Brian Lara, one of the greatest players of all time.

Mulder got to lunch on day two of five, 367 not out against essentially Test Cricket's weakest team.

This record was there for him, and he chose not to take it.

He had the self-awareness and humility to say, I am weon Mulder.

I have no place

holding one of the most prominent records in cricket.

Mulder is a player who, it's fair to say, has not over-festoomed the annals of international cricket with formidable acts of skill, heroism, and brilliance previously in his career, which dates back internationally six years and ran about 20 matches.

And he, I mean, that's to me, this is

one of the greatest things anyone has ever done in sport to think, you know, there's a romantic element to sport and an element of this sort of

sporting heroism.

And to have that humility to say, no, I am too shit to hold this record.

This should be lauded to the skies.

Ian, I know you, for whatever reason,

have yet to embrace cricket into your your heart and soul yeah life but I mean even you must have been impressed by

well I know I know of Brian Lara because he had a video game correct Brian Lara's cricket yeah making him PlayStation's second most popular Lara

narrowly beaten by

Lara Croft only one of them was played by Angelina Jolie and that is the correct state of affairs.

And Angelina Jolie starring Brian Lara Biopic would be at best a controversial controversial piece of card.

Only one of them had perfectly triangular breasts.

As far as I'm aware, I hadn't actually played Brian Lara cricket.

But yeah, I mean, it seems very nice.

But I was reading The Guardian article about it, and it was saying that this record stood for 21 years, and it's one of sports great records.

But do you not think that it's sort of you're like, yeah, it stood for 21 years because everyone's refusing to beat it out of politeness.

And it feels, I guess you just got to beat it.

Like if Man United went 9-0 up after 45 minutes, I can't imagine all the team going like, no, hang on, no more goals.

We all know the record is a 1956 10-0 defeat of Andelect.

It was a fantastic team.

We're not worthy of that.

So let's just keep it to 9.

Maybe let them score a couple of goals.

Yeah, I don't know.

I think you've just got to go for it.

Was Brian Laras against a good team?

Well, it was against England.

Oh,

but they were good at the time.

Pat england were 3-0 up in the series so it was in a dead game on a dead pitch and that's you know that's that's a different that's a different debate uh because actually a lot of the biggest innings in cricket are not necessarily the best innings but it's what you know it's not lara's best innings no no so i'm saying it's probably not in lara's top five best innings but

we on mulder could have annoyed cricket fans for all time by putting himself at the top of that list.

He could have placed himself

amongst this pantheon, at the top of this pantheon of batting legends, but he thought, no, I am Weehan Mulder, solid professional cricketer, perennial struggler against the top teams in international cricket.

I have no place here.

And in an age where humility, perspective, and self-deagrandisement are not only fading relics of times gone by, but are rumoured to be about to be made illegal in the United States, Mulder did not so much step up to the plate as step down from the plate, and in doing so, became a hero for our age, sacrificing his own chance to carve himself into cricketing immortality, and in doing so, carving himself into cricketing immortality.

I just think it's nice that we can start with a story about a white South African not taking something off a black list.

It's not been often enough in history that we've been able to summarise an anecdote with that sentence.

Yes.

Do you think that was on his mind?

I think if you're a white South African with conscience at the moment, given some of the events of history and given what one of your fellow travellers is up to in Elon Musk, you're doing everything to offset.

This is carbon offsetting the negative PR to the white South African community caused by Elon Musk.

And I think it should be applauded.

However, I do understand a lot of people will be hearing this and calling it rank communism and being demanded that Vian Mulder is hauled in front of the House of Uncapitalist Activities Commission.

But also, if you think about it, with Elon Musk sending the convertible into space, if that convertible was on Earth, it would have been causing a lot of pollution.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's true.

Did he did was the roof down or up?

The roof was down.

Right.

That seems naive.

Then you won't need to put the air con on.

Right, no.

Is there air in space?

No, famously.

No one knows.

Yeah, well, I guess we haven't been.

Yeah.

There was enough air in the studio in Texas where they faked space.

Yeah, it's well listen, it's he said something very nice at the end.

He said, you never know what's my fate or what is destined for me, but I think Brian Lara keeping that record is exactly the way it should be.

It's heartwarming stuff.

And you do sometimes wish, you know, you would have hoped that Donald Trump would have looked at his record as a one-term president and thought, I don't deserve to belong to the pantheon of such luminaries as FDR, for example.

But he just sort of pressed on.

I'm pretty sure he's going to seek a third term.

And so, you know,

he doesn't have the level of self-awareness of Vian Mulder.

Yeah.

He's become instantly a hero for all humanity for me.

I, too, have given up my quest to overtake Brian Lara as the top test scorer.

But where's my f ⁇ ing commemorative conversation?

Other world news now, and Benjamin Netanyahu has nominated Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.

But yeah, that's it.

we're in twenty twenty five.

Both those words make make sort of

thematic sense.

They shouldn't do, but

but but they do.

Well, it's easy to take the piss out of Trump being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Um and that's bad.

Yep.

It should it shouldn't be easy to take the piss out of the nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize.

It should be really difficult to ru to roast them.

You shouldn't be able to go, oh, this this fing moron

negotiated peace between two warton cu like um, yeah, it's um, but I guess he is sort of forging peace through the lesser-known method of making sure that there's no one left to be at war with.

Yeah,

and doing that on multiple fronts as well, not just, you know, environmentally, politically.

If there are less countries,

there's less chance of war breaking out.

Yeah,

but I guess that's statistically true.

I mean, it's the same, I guess, with, you know, if you have with tennis players, that if you put 128 tennis players in a like a tennis

like area, like a facility, they'll probably have a Grand Slam singles competition.

But the fewer tennis players.

It's also worth noting for listeners that Wimbledon is also happening.

So, Andy is Andy's direction.

Andy's attention is being pulled in a couple of different directions.

The fewer tennis players there are, the less likely a spontaneous tournament is to break out.

You're quite right.

I mean, it comes to something where this is so inappropriate that even the fact that Netanyahu has nominated Trump for a peace prize is a declaration of war on the concept of irony.

Like,

one of history's biggest c

nominating one of history's other biggest c

for a peace prize is beyond my powers of comprehension.

It's like asking Ronald MacDonald to pick vegan of the year.

Like,

it's absolutely astonishing.

Unless they have something planned in which the two of them,

with the level of self-awareness that We Ann Mulder has laid out for all humanity to learn from, think, well, the way that we can create peace for the world is by spending the rest of our lives on a desert island, arm in arm, singing, Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong.

It's come to something.

So Netanyahu is having what are being referred to as indirect peace talks in a couple of the articles, which, again, should give you a pretty good sign that neither of these two fucking counts is interested in the concept of peace.

They can't even talk directly about it.

Does that involve like the sort of mirrors?

Yeah, I think so.

So you never have to look anyone directly in the eye.

And it's a double negative thing as well, because if you get war times war equals peace, I think.

Is that how it works?

Yeah, that is.

Because that worked in the 20th century with World War, certainly.

So Netanyahu came with a copy of a letter that he sent to the Nobel Prize committee and said, it's nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved and you should get it.

And then according to Time magazine, Trump responded by holding the paper that Netanyahu presented him and saying, coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful.

And listen, who amongst us could not appreciate that Benjamin Netanyahu, a man who currently, lest we forget, stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity

relating to the war in Gaza, which has led to the deaths of, according to estimates, more than 50,000 Palestinians.

I'll say this for the guy.

It takes a thief to catch a thief.

And that guy knows

what the opposite of peace looks like.

To be fair, he didn't say coming from you in particular, this is very good.

He said it's very meaningful.

And it means we are f.

He also said that Trump deserved the accolade because he was, quotes, forging peace.

And I think forging is the entirely appropriate word there.

I think, yeah, for once, a politician is speaking in directly in terms that we can understand.

Now,

like I say, I've been busy with other stuff.

But I have also come to realise there's no point following the news from Washington DC on a day-to-day, even a week-to-week or a month-to-month basis, because it will have changed, or the implications will have changed.

But for Benjamin Netanyahu to fallate the Trumpian ego plonker, metaphorically speaking, of course, almost certainly metaphorically speaking, with talk of a peace prize, whilst basically on the same day his defense minister Israel Katz talked about driving the people of Gaza into a camp,

and that's the kind of thing, maybe I'm a little oversensitive to these things and words such as camp because of my Jewish heritage, but that's the kind of thing you would have expected.

Let's not go there.

Katz described the proposed non-voluntary lodging arrangements for the people of Gaza as a humanitarian humanitarian city to be filled by an emigration plan.

And that is the kind of propagandic, euphemistical language.

And maybe again, I'm a bit sensitive to this because of my Jewish background.

That would have been used by...

No, no, no, no.

Can I just come for his name is Israel Katz?

Yes.

It sounds like a charity.

It sounds like

it'd be like our defence minister being called Batsy Dogson.

And then every time you've got to say,

Israel Cats has suggested it just sounds like the cats of Israel have just got hate in their feline hearts.

Well, I mean, in many ways, again, we can find the positives in these things.

It means that everyone involved in the film Cats is no longer responsible for the most appalling cats of the decade so far.

So, you know, we can cling to these things.

Do you think James Carden is funding the IDF

just to get that?

Just to get that title away from him.

Get driven down the SEO.

Get it to page seven of Google.

Anna Alan Beck, who's an Israeli Board Law Professor at Case Western Reserve University,

has also submitted a nomination for Donald Trump before the deadline.

And she said that she'd done this because

by securing the release of hostages, he had demonstrated why he's a deserving recipient.

One of the other things she said that qualified him and that he was standing firm against is anti-Semitism.

She said Trump had been standing firm against anti-Semitism.

Now, bear in mind that this is happening in the same week where Trump at a rally used the word shylocks to describe bankers.

Which, I mean, I don't know if we can talk about textbook cases of anti-Semitism, but it's pretty close to a textbook case of anti-Semitism.

It's textbook adjacent.

So it's it's a sort of stunning level of cognitive dissonance that we've got ourselves into now, where Trump can literally say something that the Anti-Defamation League describes as very troubling, but New York Congressman Daniel Goldman described in more direct terms as blatant and vile anti-Semitism.

It's come to something that Trump can do that in the same week and then be submitted for the Nobel Peace Prize for his fight against anti-Semitism.

I'm losing my fing mind here.

What the f ⁇ is going on?

So I guess in conclusion, we can maybe say that a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump is at this stage still premature.

We agree on that.

It's premature in the sense that referring to a single sperm as a premature baby is premature.

Listen,

if we're getting into this terrain, then let's just go the whole hog.

Somebody nominate the Bugle for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Well, yes, I mean, I think that actually makes quite a lot more sense.

It makes more, it makes, let's just put it this way.

It doesn't make any less sense.

Yes, okay.

Who is allowed to nominate, Pete?

Is it like the ballon d'oeuvre?

It has to be like the club captains and the captains of the country.

Is it like a committee of the world's most peaceable people?

So

I'm going to break the habit of a lifetime on this podcast and actually tell you that I do know this before.

According to the Nobel Foundation,

nominators can include any head of state, national level politician, professors of various humanities and social science disciplines, directors of peace research or foreign policy institutes, former laureates, and this final category says podcast listeners.

Oh, okay, yeah.

So I think we're in with a shout.

That's right.

So I qualify as a

professor of what was it?

Professor of

Professor of various humanities and social science disciplines.

All right.

Is cricket statistics not a social science?

I think of myself as a professor of the groove.

So will that be covered by that?

I think it will.

It's laureate, female Eddie Starbart drivers.

That's what I call them.

The lovely Laureates here.

That is why you're always welcome on the show.

The international listenership is baffled.

Andy, I'm going to be very careful how I phrase the next bit for fear of legal repercussions news.

At midnight on Saturday Palestine Action was officially prescribed under the Terrorism Act in the UK government.

It means that the group which had engaged in a series of non-violent direct actions including a defacement of

RAF equipment that's

estimated to cost about £7 million

has been joins al-Qaeda, Hamas and ISIS on the official terrorism list and support for or being a member of Palestine Action is now punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Now, this is a decision that's attracted a huge amount of criticism, not just from maybe from some surprising sources as well.

The Times newspaper, the former...

What would you describe your relationship with the Times newspaper as a former...

Well,

aunt.

The former lightly racist aunt of this podcast, a Rupert Murdoch-owned owned newspaper of this country in its editorial, described this news story as a misuse of the law.

So it it's it's received a huge amount of criticism.

Over the weekend, there were massive protests in London.

And as if just sort of continuing to try and

pursue a negative PR campaign against themselves, the British state arrested several people who were protesting in support of Palestine action, one of whom included an 83-year-old retired priest.

So we're really getting to the core of the terrorist threat in this country.

Even discussing them supportively on this podcast would be considered to be an act of terrorism.

And just to cover our backs legally, I should say that every time you say Palestine, you're spelling it with two L's.

And

I think it's E-Y-N-H at the end.

And can I just say I hope that 83-year-old priest gets the full 14 years in prison for supplying terrorism.

They'll be out when they're 97,

where hopefully, they won't be able to do any more harm.

The trail of devastation that they've left behind them will be just an echo in history by then.

I think they arrested multiple people who were carrying signs that said, I oppose genocide, I support Palestine action.

And I think that's an absolutely disgusting sentiment, and they deserve to be put behind bars for publicly opposing genocide.

And I don't, I, um, I think,

I think, think I've um

could you could I get put in prison if they're like I sensed irony in that right

if they're like it sounds like you're taking the piss.

So I'm happy to do multiple recordings where the irony is dialed down from like oh I hate people who oppose genocide to I hate people who oppose genocide.

I'll just do a full spectrum and we can put out whichever one will keep me safe.

Good.

Okay, well that's yeah.

Listen, obviously this is a it's it's been a very controversial story here.

It's drawn a lot of criticism and allegations that the government is pursuing kind of draconian quasi-Putin-esque

actions, which is, let's face it, never a compliment.

Never a compliment.

That vote's an outstanding pasta source.

But what all of this makes me think, if I'm being completely honest, is kids have got it too easy these days.

They got it too easy.

Back in my day, if you you wanted to be prescribed as a terrorist organization, you had to get a pilot's license.

You had to source a series of box cutters and then use those box cutters to take a plane hostage.

You then had to fly that plane into one or both of the Twin Towers.

And that's how you got to be a terrorist.

Not spray painting a plane.

It's f ⁇ ing pathetic.

These kids are getting participation trophies at school and they're getting called terrorists because they've spray painted some shit.

It's a fing disgrace.

And Osama bin Laden is turning in the seat.

If 9-11 happened now on the news report, would you hear someone go, hang on, I think that plane's been spray-painted

just before the impact.

They've graffited the planes!

That's disgusting.

Some of that paint's going to rub off on that building.

A former government minister also has urged parliament to designate the Israeli IDF as a terrorist organisation rather than Palestine Action.

And look, I don't want to get into the legal nitty-gritty of it.

I just think we are way past the time where we judge people by their actions.

And it's a very responsible thing to do.

I think as well, if so, Palestine Action,

from my understanding, it's been largely,

or if not wholly, non-violent protest.

And they've been prescribed a terrorist group.

I don't know if they're...

It's proscribed, not prescribed.

It's a very, very important difference.

Okay.

They've been proscribed.

Yeah, but it's not like the doctor saying you need some of this group that you need.

Clarifying that further.

It's the opposite of that.

But I just try to think of it.

Vowels are very important here.

I will also say there's a...

There's another undercurrent to this.

And this is a real news story that's happening in the UK at the moment.

A new civil disobedience organisation has been formed that claims to be influenced by some of the actions taken by Palestine Action and they have named themselves Yvette Cooper!

Which, I'm sure this is a total coincidence, is the name of the Home Secretary who has proposed the law making Palestine Action

a terrorist organisation.

So they have now called themselves Yvette Cooper to ensure that if Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, describes to prescribe their group Yvette Cooper as a terrorist organisation, then Yvette Cooper will be designating Yvette Cooper as a terrorist organization.

And that is a level of

commitment to a bit that I do have a huge amount of respect for.

That might be peak 2020s Britain, but you've got that glorious combination of massive legislative overreach and childish wordplay.

And I think

we can get behind that as a story.

It was also pointed out

that, like, six, seven days ago, all 264 female MPs received a handmade suffragette sash and were posed wearing the sashes of that well-known terrorist group

who I think did more than spray painting things.

Yeah, they tried to rugby tackle horses.

Yeah,

you can't crash tackle, she wasn't Samoan, go low

Ted Cruz News now, and well, it's been a while since we had a Ted Cruise News section on the bugle, but in the aftermath of the harrowing tragedy of the Texas floods, Cruise has come under what I think is probably justified criticism for swanning around the Acropolis on holiday rather than returning home to help his grief-stricken people.

Now, clearly,

Cruz did then go home the next day, but he emphatically did toddle around the Acropolis and peek at its celebrity temple, the Parthenon, of course.

No doubt, soaking in the historical lessons from Athens about how democracy can crumble to dust if you don't look after it respectfully and stop the plutocrats and egotists from using it as a toy.

So, yo, it was probably quite a good fact-finding expedition for the lad.

But his claim that he returned home, his office said that he returned home as fast as humanly possible only stands up if you mean if you take as fast as humanly possible to mean not using any non-human form of transport such as a bicycle a car or an aeroplane

look in his defense the Acropolis is fing amazing but I don't think that's quite enough to

to

to just justify it was bad enough that on Saturday the 5th of July at 6 p.m.

which is local Greek time so about 11 a.m.

on Saturday morning more than 24 hours after the river bursts its banks him and his wife were spotted lining up, lining up,

lining up to go and see the Parthenon.

I would say, if you have legislative responsibility for a state that is facing a genuine catastrophe in which I think like at least 100 people have lost their lives, and you see a queue, you're thinking, we don't have time for that.

We simply do not have time with that.

Would you respect it more if there was video footage of him going, can I get to it?

Can I just skip by?

There's a flood in my,

i'm i'm in charge of texas and um so

sneak past you'd be like that guy's in a rush

again the the horribly enough these figures are the figure that i'm about to say is was current to the time of the person who said it was talking but an eyewitness uh saw cruise and then told the daily beast he was with his family and a lone security guard as he walked past us i simply said 20 kids dead in texas and you take a vacation he sort of grunted and walked on.

His wife shot me a dirty look.

Then they continued on with their tour guide.

They were on a guided tour.

They didn't even have the decency to go, we'll skip the guided tour and just have a quick look around ourselves.

I mean, the only way that could have been made valid, and bearing in mind this is a Greek temple he's going to with his wife and children, is if he was going to sacrifice one of his family to make sure that the gods blessed Texas.

But I don't think he did.

We don't have confirmation whether or not that happened.

But at least ensure he got there quickly.

As you've said, Andy, it's not even his...

This is not.

My degree was not wasted.

I think I've proved it.

This is not even the first time this has happened.

No.

In 2021, he flew to Cancun, Mexico during a disaster that left millions of people without power or water in Texas.

And then after he was asked about it, he said, obviously, he describes it as obviously a mistake.

Ted Cruz is sort of determined to not learn from history.

So you'll hope that he might look around the ruins of ancient Greece and think democracy could crumble at any point.

It's completely wasted on.

That's the maddest thing, isn't it?

I guess we're just in a sort of day and age where,

certainly in like Trump's America, you can just be shit and fic and do, but if you sort of confidently go, oh no, I haven't done anything wrong, people will just believe that.

And if at least if if the people in your state are freezing to death, at least go on a cold holiday.

Like, go to Sweden.

It'd be so much less offensive if there's footage of him seeing the northern lights and there's snow everywhere and he's like, Oh, I'm I'm bloody cold as well.

I know exactly how you feel.

He has based his entire political career and reputation on his unerring ability.

Not just his ability, but his unquenchable determination to do the wrong thing at the wrong time.

It's just on brand, isn't it, Nish?

Yeah, it is.

The brazenness is what's so galling about this, because in the statement where his office said that he'd made it back as fast as humanly possible, they also said this.

The senator was already in the middle of a pre-planned family vacation.

That doesn't help matters.

I'm sorry, did he have non-refundable departments?

Well, yeah you can see why he didn't want to

no he paid for that hotel for an extra couple of days

well we are running out of time so we need to very quickly do uh the uh Yorkshire news section since we have Ian uh here the official bugle uh Yorkshire uh correspondent and um

there's there's been a there's a hose pipe band because when you think of Yorkshire Ian you think of hose pipes you think of children dancing around the hose pipe on a warm spring day, benevolent grandads sharing their tales of youthful hose pipery, and maidens proudly parading their village hose pipe through the Moors and Dales to mark the beginning of the uniquely Yorkshirean festival of True Mania where people paid tribute to the great fast bowler Freddie Truman.

So how is Yorkshire going to cope without without

hose pipes?

Well, yeah, this is a big reason why I wanted to come on the podcast this week.

Okay.

Because the restrictions come in from Friday.

This is released on Thursday.

Yep.

So you've got one day.

Go mad with your horse pipes if you're in Yorkshire.

Just go absolutely bonkers with them.

Keep them on.

Get them in while you can.

Wash your children with them.

Yeah, brush your teeth with them.

Like, use it as a sort of speed thing.

Yeah, and the loophole that I've found that I just wanted to tell people about is you can still use a horsepipe if it's a crucial part of a professional business.

So if you're like

washing cars and stuff.

So very quickly, you want to buy yourself a van, just put something on the side of it, like Ian's wacky garden pipe

cleaner, and then you can go around and you can use the pipe and you can make a bit of money.

If you get your pipes in, set up a business,

people will employ you to toz the gardens.

I think there's a real money to be made here.

That's the entrepreneurial spirit that made this country great.

Go mad with it, is what I'd like to see written on the new banknotes.

Just go mad with it.

Well, that brings us to the end of

this week's bugle.

Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you, Nishan Ian, for bringing me up to date with some of the news that I may have missed whilst chronicling Shudman Gill's 430 runs in the match.

Second most all time, of course, by Player.

Anyway,

a few plugs for you.

NATO Green is doing a show on the 20th of July at the DC Art Center in Washington, D.C.

entitled In the Darkest Hour.

Tickets available on the internet.

Do support all Bugle co-hosts who are going to the Edinburgh Festival.

I'll have a full list of those who are going to the Edinburgh Festival next week.

You guys are both going to be there?

Yes, I'm going to be there.

I'm doing the final performances of my tour show, Nish Don't Kill My Vibe.

If I sound hesitant, it's because I'm waiting for my own website to load up.

On July the 23rd and the 25th, I'll be doing that show at the Montreal Comedy Festival at the Place des Arts.

Come on down.

And then in Edinburgh, I'm doing August the 1st to the 10th.

Those will be the final performances of that show.

Please buy tickets now.

And I'm doing my new show, Foot Spa, half empty,

and it's on for the whole month of the fringe.

And I think it will be good.

Well, history will be the judge.

And you buglers when you buy tickets to

we don't need to wait for history obviously.

We can just get a ticket and go and see if it's good.

There you go.

You can preempt history buglers by going to see

Ian's

show.

Right, the bugle 18th anniversary show will be on the 26th of October at the Leicester Square Theatre, and it will be live-streamed around the entire known universe.

We will have full details and hopefully a ticket link by this time next week.

Chris is

sort of nodding, sort of shrugging.

Okay, well, anyway, just put that date in your head.

26th of October.

The Bugle will be financial viability.

This podcast is astounding to me.

So, full details forthcoming along with soon some tour extensions dates of the Zolt guys for early next year.

Anyway, we will be back next week when we have Alice Fraser and Anuvab Powell to once again bring you up to date with what's been happening whilst the Lord's Test has been on.

Until then, goodbye.

Hi buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.