A Mostly F***ING BLEAK-Free Bugle!

The Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 4342 of the Bugle Audio Newspaper for a visual, but crucially, also audio world.

I am Andy Zoltzmann, No Time Grime DJ of the Year, bringing you all some of the news from this under-pressure planet of ours from the unique point of view of being a member of its best-known species.

Joining me today, two fellow members of that species.

Firstly, all the way from Vancouver in what is currently still Canada, it's the quibbling sibling, Helen Zaltzman.

Hello, Helen.

Hello, Andy.

So sorry about your Grime DJ career.

Really didn't turn out how we hoped.

Well, you know.

It's never too late to fulfil a dream in life.

That's the spirit.

Yes.

How's Vancouver?

Well, everyone's out in the streets waving little union jacks.

Oh, yes.

Tossing tiny crowns in the air and weeping.

Probably will come to this

very shortly.

Yeah, they don't even know the king's here.

It's just a normal name.

And joining us, well, probably wishing that America could be taken over by Canada, just so you could get a little taste of kingness.

It's Josh Gondelman.

Hello, Josh.

Hello.

Thank you for having me.

Honored to be here representing humans for as long as humans are allowed to be on podcasts and we're not replaced by robots.

Oh, we already have been, Josh.

Did they not tell you?

Oh, shoot.

Well, I guess my morning's freed up.

Are you attempted as an American to

get back on board the monarchy train?

We've seen such joyous scenes in Canada this week.

You know, it does look really beautiful, but unfortunately, we already have our own king.

So there's no real reason to go outsourcing that when we've got an aspiring monarch right here.

We are recording on the 27th of May, which is nothing to fear day,

apparently.

I'm not quite sure why they chose the 27th of May, but it's picking up on Franklin D.

Roosevelt's chart-topping phrase, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Although we did say that before, a very persistent wasp arrived and absolutely ruined his afternoon picnic.

And also before one of his successors started treating the pillars of American democracy like his own personal set of bowling pins.

But for Nothing to Fear Day, things that you could try not fearing today include asteroids, statistically very inefficient as a means of destroying the world, despite what the dinosaurs want you to believe.

Worms, predominantly not snakes, the number 13, which is less than 13% more unlucky than the average other number, so it's not a big deal.

Buttons, you don't have to love them, but do consider them a triumph of humanity over our non-opposably thumbed primate rivals.

Being greased up head to toe in melted butter and shoved head first down a bobsled run, actually quite fun after the first couple of corners.

Being forced to improvise a rap in front of a courtroom jury, easily avoided, as well as heights, mullets, pronouns, and change.

So don't fear any of those things.

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

This week, Rivers.

We have a special rivers section to mark the fact that I'm here in London, the city bisected by the renowned river, the Thames.

The river that's overcome its relative lack of length, almost complete absence of edible fish, and disappointing tendency not to freeze over anymore for people to go skating on, to become one of the most famous rivers in the known universe.

But as research suggests, the Thames was in fact originally part of the Pacific Ocean, and with London's Saudi owners looking to move the river to be straightened out to run alongside the new dead straight 110 mile long megacity, the line, Could London be forced to look elsewhere for a new river?

Could the Starma government be set to put in a hostile takeover bid for the much squabbled over European celebrity river the Danube, or just pill for a lesser-known river from New Zealand and hope no one notices, or try to pick up China's Songhua River, rumoured to be frustrated at being given so little spotlight in its homeland behind longer rivers such as the Yangtze and the Mekong?

And if that does come to pass, how will the UK fit the Songhua's 1200-mile length span, which is five and a half times what the Thames has ever managed?

All these questions will be answered in a fascinating debate wrestle between leading

riverologician Dr.

Stravenia Erch and the British Waterways Minister Maurice Archerblade.

Two minutes chat, two minutes grappling until either begs for mercy.

Also, we ask, what if rivers ran the wrong way?

How long would it take for the seas to empty and the mountains to flood?

Why do we bang on about salmon swimming upstream to spawn as if it's something to be f ⁇ ing proud of?

If men did the same, we'd say it was yet another example of toxic patriarchalism.

And was Moses really found in a basket in the River Nile?

New evidence suggests he was actually found in a basket in an ancient Egyptian supermarket chain called Nile.

But anyway, it's very hard to tell.

Depends how you translate these things.

Also, we have for your delectation a River of the Month competition.

Here are your five nominated rivers.

River A, the Volta.

River B, the Orinoco.

River C, the Loire.

River D, the Colorado.

And River E, the Wandle.

That's a little river just down the road from me.

It's barely a river.

I mean, it's not even a stream river.

Oh, come on.

Wandle's great.

Anyway, do vote by writing your chosen river on a stick and throwing it into your local waterway.

That section in the bin.

Top story this week.

Canada welcomes the king amidst jigsaw war with America.

Helen, as our official Canada correspondent, well, there's quite a lot to unpack unpack this week.

As we mentioned, the King, King Charles,

Chucky Threetime himself, is in Canada as we record, although he's not staying there for very long for whatever reason.

But perhaps we should start with the latest in the U.S.-Canada trade war that threatens to bring the entire continent of North America to, well, the precipice of nuclear Armageddon.

Now, obviously,

the big question in the aftermath and after

mathematics of Trump's exploding nunchucks to the groin of global trade that were his tariffs.

The big question is how will the world painstakingly put the pieces back together?

And nowhere is this question being asked more questioningly than in the world of the Canadian jigsaw puzzle industry.

It's a time of huge upheaval for this absolute pillar of Canadian commerce.

In March, Canada's retaliatory counter-tariffs against the US included a 25% tariff on jigsaw puzzles made in America, raising to 30% for the bits along the side and a full 50% for the corner pieces.

So, I mean, it's become very difficult for jigsaw retailers as well as the Canadian jigsaw manufacturing industry.

So, I mean, how is Canada coping with the ordeal?

Well, Andy, it's very hard for the national mood to survive this kind of a blow.

that the jigsaw puzzle companies are really feeling the tariff pain.

And

no one thinks about this, right?

When they become king of the USA and they don't even know what the word tariff means, but they're going to fling them around.

They don't think of the jigsaw puzzle companies.

It's devastating.

But

Canadian companies selling to the US, keen puzzle doers in the US, now

ruined.

Importing jigsaws from China, where most of them are manufactured to the US, nightmare.

How are people supposed to copandy without their jigsaw puzzles to alleviate the stress?

It's well, I mean, we're very much focusing on this story above some of the slightly more serious stories in the world because we need to alleviate that stress, but without the jigsaws, how do we do it?

I mean, Josh, what's the American perspective on this?

I mean, could this be the final tiny piece of laminated cardboard that breaks the camel's back?

I'm worried because, so the retaliatory tariffs that Canada announced, that's why the US jigsaw puzzles have been extra costly.

And jigsaw puzzle importers have been eating those costs so far, but I don't know how long they can do that.

So, puzzle fiends north of the border may end up having to pay that extra price, or even worse, stick to domestic jigsaw puzzles.

How many 500-piece Wayne Gretzkies can one person assemble before they give up entirely and move on to crosswords?

I don't want to know that number.

I don't know.

There speaks the voice of experience.

How many, Josh?

Seven, ten Wayne Gretzky?

You don't want to upset jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts.

There is a tremendous overlap between jigsaw enthusiasts and the powerful writing angry letters by hand lobby.

And the center of that Venn diagram is people who have lots of time on their hands.

And this is my big fear: is that someone going fully off the deep end because of these rising puzzle costs that they can't afford and becoming the Luigi Mangioni, allegedly, of jigsaw puzzles.

If you can put together a 1200-piece cardboard square to look like outer space, you can sure as hell assemble a ghost gun from components from your 3D printer.

So that's what I'm scared of.

I was thinking maybe the solution is for more

puzzle manufacture to take place within the US and Canada, but you've just dissuaded me from that, Josh.

There's plenty of Canadian stuff to puzzleify, right?

You get trees.

I don't know how you could represent socialized medicine as a puzzle.

A puzzle with a few pieces missing, but you get the picture.

Sadly, no one in this country can afford those pieces, replacements for them.

Because I guess if we were to do a puzzle of the American healthcare system, you would, I don't know, make...

make a jigsaw puzzle of, I don't know,

a doctor or a surgeon, then feed that puzzle to a dog, let that dog shit the puzzle out, and then put it in a box.

And I think that would essentially be what

they don't tell you how much that puzzle costs until after you've reassembled the shit part yeah and then 300 pieces are missing and it's going to cost you 10 grand each to get them

well the US toy association has

said that nearly half of its small or medium-sized member businesses fear they could go out of business because of Trump's tariffs.

And, you know, obviously, everything Trump does is to help ordinary Americans and nothing helps ordinary Americans more than toy manufacturers and retailers going out of business.

I mean that's that's that's what America voted for.

One Canadian retailer warned that his sales could not just be cut in half but cut into non-interlocking shapes as well which is very much a worst case scenario for

puzzle retailers.

It's scary.

You don't want independent toy retailers going out of business because my guess is what happens after that is they just resort to doing puppet shows on the street and that's sad.

Oh no.

dystopian it is i mean one uh american toy retailer quoted uh in in the newspaper article said we're hoping that some reason prevails with these tariffs similarly i'm hoping that the dead snail i have in this bucket will suddenly grow wings and become a beautiful swan

still nothing um but it's quite interesting what canada has has put counter tariffs on in response to uh uh to america and you can see it from trump's point of view for too long americans have been confused by puzzles containing more than the nine pieces a standard human brain can deal with.

But the Canadian government has also whacked hefty tariffs on, amongst other things, bowling balls, toilet seats, both of which are very popular items in the USA, I understand, as well as leather clothing accessories, wear now for the Canada-loving American gimp.

Deodorants, wear now for Americans who love to smell of maple syrup, ice hockey, and moose musk.

Padlocks, it's tougher than ever for Americans to keep contraband exotic pets safely locked in a garden shed.

Laboratory equipment, which isn't a problem because science is being banned in America anyway.

Torpedoes, apparently, are subject to tariffs now.

So

America's many Second World War naval warfare recreation fans are going to have to go back to training their dogs to swim across the lake into the hull of the enemy boats and then bark to make the sound of an explosion.

Also facing tariffs, portable forges.

Where now for all America's wannabe Roman god Vulcan impersonators?

And swivel chairs.

Who's going to stroke those white cats?

So, I mean, these are difficult times, even beyond the puzzle industry.

I just don't know what I'd do without my portable forge.

Deepest sympathies, Josh, for what you're going through.

It's really tough down here.

I'm nearly swordless at this point.

Devastating.

I suppose now you can carve your bowling balls out of a mighty American redwood rather than a Canadian maple.

I mean, you get so many bowling balls out of a redwood than a maple.

They're not quite as fragrant, though, I don't think.

Less sticky.

Let's move on to the royal visits.

Helen, sitting in your Union Jack,

all over bodysuit and hat,

crown even.

Saturday tattoos, Andy.

So sorry.

And Canada clearly in these difficult times rehoving to the parental clasp of the motherland.

Just describe

what you've been seeing on the streets of Canadia as

British imperial rule is re-established.

Well, Andy, an old man was caught wandering around Ottawa wearing a crumpled business suit and a shit ton of medals.

And he's earned one of those two things.

He's been reading all those articles about taking your office wear from day to night.

Just put a bit of flair.

Whereas when the Queen did the throne speech in 1977, she was wearing a gown, she was wearing a massive ruby necklace, she was wearing a huge diamond tiara.

If you're gonna dom a country by being its monarch, dress up.

Tiara minimum.

So King Charles, just before we recorded, was delivering the throne speech to open the new Canadian government.

And

it had mostly been written by the Canadian government and I feel like his delivery reflected that emotionally in terms of total indifference.

But he did have to deliver it in English and French.

And I thought, oh, does Charles speak French?

Does he speak the French of French-speaking Canada, i.e.

Quebec French rather than France French?

But to be honest, I couldn't tell because he delivered the French in his usual Polch English schoolboy accent.

Which is how all languages are supposed to be spoken, Helen.

Having been to

English school, I know that Latin.

We've been over this.

You can't just be spreading an accent like that anymore.

Look, it's the way you make people understand.

That's right.

Latin was always spoken by the ancient Romans in a pure English public school accent.

Carry on.

You won over Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings.

They all talk like you.

But he was talking about rearming Canada, which is super comforting, and an immigration cap, ditto, also bit rich, coming from the colonial king.

Be like, well, I'm welcome, but not the working people.

But he is only here for less than 48 hours, and jet lag at that age, especially recovering from cancer.

Ouch.

And having to go straight to work.

I've done shows when jet lagged that I don't remember at all.

Sorry to the people of Auckland.

I don't know what happened in April 2019.

And you didn't even have to pretend you can speak French.

I don't know.

I may have pretended I could speak French the whole time.

Yes, I mean,

in the context of

the Trump threat to take stroke, buy, stroke, invade, stroke, hypnotise Canada until it becomes the...

takes up the hotly contested 51st spot on America's state roster.

Canadians may be coming back to the idea of

how good it is to have a monarch who is constitutionally barred from doing anything much more than smiling, waving, mildly emoting on demand, and occasionally saluting a horse, which is probably better than a wannabe Nero who wants to turn Toronto into a branch of Chick-fil-A and use Saskatchewan as his own personal strip club.

So, I mean, that is reading between the lines of what Trumper said, but then everything Trump says is triple-spaced and in massive capital letters.

So you can read quite a lot in between the lines.

Well, Well, now that Hooters has gone bankrupt, the U.S.

has needs.

Really?

That's right.

Our culture is bereft.

We need to colonize the strip clubs of southern Ontario.

That's right.

That's right.

We've just been sending our 19-year-olds across the border there for too long.

I think this is going to be huge.

As Andy mentioned, Trump has been taunting Canada.

And there's nothing.

American citizens respect like the king of England.

Historically speaking, that is our relationship to kings is respect.

And maybe the plan is to distract Trump from taunting Canada by redirecting his attention to one of the most tauntable men alive.

Just working through the material about his ears and remarriage could take us through midterms 2026.

It's still so weird to me.

that Canadians have a king that lives in a different country.

Like in America, the only king we have is the guy you elect as president and then quickly consolidates power because the other branches of government fold like a cirque du Soleil acrobat with a dinner reservation to get to.

Or Elvis or LeBron James.

Those are the only kings we recognize.

Well,

the king went to Canada with Camilla, the erstwhile Duchess of Cornwall.

Apologies for dead titling her, but I just don't think people should be able to suddenly claim to be monarchs.

But anyway, it's a flying visit

to Canada, the 3.8 million square mile self-styled Australia of the Northern Hemisphere.

And it is, as you say, quite odd that Chuck E.

III is its head of state.

And his position is increasingly secure, especially after his main rival to be head of state of Canada, the former hockey star Wayne Gretzky, was basically taken over by Trump, which, I mean,

as an American, Josh, are you pleased that Gretzky is now

essentially just waiting to be carved into Mount Rushmore officially?

You know, he's one of ours, so there's give and take, right?

We're excited to have him on the team, but uh, he's not even the leading NHL scorer anymore.

So, I'm sure Trump would rather have Alex Ovechkin as a big-time supporter now that he's broken the all-time goals record.

Good, build those bridges with Moscow.

Um, right, right.

That's our problem: we don't have enough diplomacy with Russia right now.

I think something that is a little confusing about

the Charles visit and

asserting his daddydom over Canada afresh is it is just like which daddy do you want?

You can have me or American daddy.

You want crown daddy,

but you still have to have a daddy that lives somewhere else.

An absent dad.

That's how the modern family structures work, Helen.

I mean, our dad's been pretty absent for the last, what, two and a half years.

And then some.

Emotionally.

It's only the third time in Canada's history that the throne speech has been read by someone whose ass actually belongs on a throne.

Queen Elizabeth II did it twice, once in 1957 and once in 1977, and now KC3 in 2025.

Why is it only an odd number years?

What the f is going on?

And all I know is it looks weird.

Is it too much risk of clashing with the Olympics?

Is it a coded message calling on people to assassinate President Trump, like last week's Pebbles on the Beach Virago?

Or is it, and I can't believe I'm even thinking this in this day and age, just a statistically unremarkable coincidence rather than a covert conspiracy theory.

We can't rule it out, even if that's exactly what the powers that be want us to do.

Maybe a monarch can only read in a year that is divisible by three.

Oh, that's smart.

I don't know if this is divisible by three.

No one does anymore.

Andy, I love hearing your perspective on world events, but I will say, if we're going to numerological conspiracy theories, people are going to turn to Rogan for this.

That's really his domain.

Yeah, he's a numbers guy, is he?

I feel like if he isn't yet, it's coming.

Sounds a bit too much like work.

Yeah.

The podcast universe should be big enough

for two podcasts that draw huge conspiracy theories from numbers.

On the subject of numbers, America news now.

And well, math or maths problems affecting Trump always inevitable, Josh, in America, which obviously has a difficulty in working out whether there's just one math or plural maths generally.

So bring us up to date with

Trump's, well, numbers problems with his so-called mega bill.

Oh, yeah, it's chaos over here.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed...

This is what it's called, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Big Beautiful Bill, of course, uh coming from how trump referred to the nba great bill walton in a eulogy after forgetting his last name i assume uh just big beautiful bill lying there um it is a giant bill that lays out the federal budget for the upcoming year and it's full of cuts to things like medicaid in favor of giving another giant tax cut to the rich who apparently despite popular protestations, have not had it quite good enough for quite long enough.

The bill now has to pass through the Senate before it makes its way to Trump's desk, where it will be saturated in Big Mac grease while he signs it, as is our custom.

And some Senate Republicans have voiced opposition to this bill because while they want to hurt their constituents at the expense of the super wealthy, they would like to be able to blame someone else for it.

And unfortunately, when you control the levers of power, you cannot simply point fingers at the other party.

The one might blame a fart on a nearby dog.

So it is, there is some

tension there, even on the right.

You mentioned Trump's desk.

Desk implies work.

Do we know that he definitely has a desk?

And if so, does it look like a desk or is it like the desk equivalent of those beds that are like a red sports car?

I've seen pictures of him sitting at a desk, although it could be just facade of a desk on the front,

TV showing Fox News on the back.

There is no proof that that's not what we're seeing.

There's definitely a gold toilet behind the desk.

They call it the resolute desk, right?

That's the one in the Oval Office, which if there's one word I wouldn't use to describe Donald Trump, resolute.

Just one.

There's lots of words I wouldn't.

Lots of words I would.

Some of the words I would, I can't.

Obviously, compromise is always difficult in American politics, Josh.

I mean, it's difficult in life.

As you would know, Buglers, if you've ever had two friends come around for dinner, one of whom wants potatoes instead of soup, and the other of whom is complaining about having a cold head, and your compromise is to pour the one friend's unwanted soup over the second friend's cold head.

In a way, they've both sort of got something of what they wanted, but neither of them is going to thank you for.

And that shows how difficult compromise can be, and the friendship may eventually collapse like an overstretched metaphor.

In other Trump news,

this is a wonderful story.

Donald Trump's meme coin dinner, at which people had apparently paid by buying

his cryptocurrency based on himself.

They paid up to $1.7 million each to essentially get into the dinner and the food there, quotes, sucked.

And Trump was only there for 23 minutes before f ⁇ ing off in a helicopter.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, that might be seen to be a bit of a bonus, but probably not if you're the kind of person who's paid $1.7 million

to be there.

But when you can't even trust a patently exploitative scam scheme perpetrated by essentially the world's most huckster shitemonger, what is the world coming to, Josh?

What is the world coming to?

Yeah, he last Thursday, Trump hosted his one big, beautiful bribery buffet.

I'm sorry, it was a dinner for people who purchased large amounts of his meme cryptocurrency, over $148 million of worth in total,

which I'm supposed to pretend is not a synonym for the first thing about bribery.

Apparently, that's this is legal.

Bribing the president through a meme stock purchase is literally the only reason for him to have a meme stock, and it is a slightly less subtle attempt to purchase affection and attention than a grandparent looking both ways at a child's birthday party before slipping them 20 bucks and saying, don't spend it all in one place.

The only way this doesn't result in naked favor trading is if Trump is so corrupt that he refuses to deliver on the quo that the quid he was given was pro.

The assortment of people at the dinner included crypto influencers and many who owned crypto wallets with explicitly racist and anti-Semitic names baked in.

And I don't like this about myself, but while the dinner was going on, I did find myself closing my eyes and envisioning a situation that one might call 9-11, but no one was sad about it, or alternatively, the day the blockchain died.

You know,

there's a lot of sinkholes around.

Why not here?

That's it.

The number one token scam buyer guy, Justin's son, was there, and he is also the guy that bought that banana for 6.2 million, the art banana, and then ate it.

Which actually, I guess you're not keeping it around for future generations to enjoy, are you?

It is a banana.

I would like to see him try to eat a blockchain server then.

Oh yeah.

He'd do it.

It probably would be about as succulent as the food they were served, which is small pieces of overcooked beef, sad little carrot batons.

I don't know why it's so bleak looking when mashed potato is served with an ice cream scoop, but that's what they got.

Well, I guess, you know, it's just, you know, taking something that is a vehicle for joy and turning it into something you have to force children to eat.

Apparently they have to, because Trump doesn't eat vegetables, they have to hide cauliflower in his mashed potato like he is toddler.

Do they have to do the thing with the spoon as an aeroplane as well to make him eat it as well?

Well with the aviation disasters we've been experiencing, the vegetables keep hitting him in the cheek since all the air traffic controllers of Quitter were fired.

Yeah, and he's not going to like the choo-choo train either because they don't go in for public transport.

Critics claimed he is basically auctioning off his office to enrich himself and his supporters counter this accusation by praising him for auctioning off his office to enrich himself like a real fing American would.

But as the uh as the the uh meme coin dinner was underway last Thursday, um a block of Democrats in the Senate announced that they would um try to pass a new provision banning presidents and senior officials from profiting off crypto ventures whilst in office.

And this, Josh, is just yet another oversight of the founding fathers when they hacked out those constitutions without thinking ahead two and a half centuries to a world in which a convicted crook would use the presidency for profiteering off a made-up bullshit online pretend currency.

But that, I mean, that is the lack of vision that your nation was built on.

That's right.

As an originalist, a constitution originalist, I will note that there are no restrictions on cryptocurrency in the original Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

So I think that this is important to note.

If they didn't say you can't do it, you should be able to do it, is what a bunch of stupid people pretend they believe.

In the course of the dinner, the value of the coin sunk by 16%.

That's the dessert I want.

The just dessert.

Oh, yum, yum.

Obviously, cryptocurrency is one of those things that it's well worth going out of your way not to understand because it'll only upset you and fill you with feelings of dread, sadness, and confusion, and potentially leave you thinking, what if my collection of spider's legs is a cryptocurrency?

Am I a trillionaire until I say it out loud and the value collapses?

But numerous other cryptos have been launched within the last, let's say, 25 minutes.

Nick Nalty Notes, the 84-year-old Hollywood star, has personally painted his own face on 700,000 self-made banknotes, a project which has taken him 23 years to complete.

The estimated value of each note is between 12 cents and $165,000, depending on when you look at them.

Pence Pence, the former Trump sidekick enabler and self-proclaimed Christian Mike Pence, has issued his own cryptocurrency in the form of latex crucifixes with a naked American GI Jesus on,

estimated value $1.2 billion each, if, as Pence claims, they guarantee you entry into heaven and full preemptive pardoning for up to 200 sins per Pence bought.

And Waffle Coin, an emergency cryptocurrency launched by the Belgian government, is an issue of 24 round waffles, half of them covered in whipped cream and chocolate chips, which temporarily made Belgium the richest nation on earth until they were eaten by ministers and officials at the Belgian treasury to celebrate the success of the launch.

So by all means, invest in cryptocurrency, buglers, but please invest in cryptocurrency responsibly.

I've personally put all my savings into Destiny's Childs, cryptocurrencies, bills, bills, bills.

Investing in automobiles, telephone bills, etc.

Language and books news now.

And well, Helen, some very exciting research has found that in books in English, the use of semicolons is in cataclysmic decline.

Now, you obviously are the universe's leading authority on all things to do with language, past, present, and future.

I mean, will punctuation ever be the same again?

It's devastating, Andy.

It's like watching...

humans extinguish an animal species in real time.

The semicolon going the way of the dodo.

Well, the thing is, though, retro things make a comeback.

Like names that were popular in our great-grandmother's generation, there's now little baby Agatha's.

I think semicolon could come roaring back because you know, young people will be like, Oh, this seems uh fresh.

So, I'm not, I'm not super worried.

I personally have mostly carried on using semicolons, despite sensing that they were a little laughable and people would prefer a dash.

But

a study has found that over the last two decades, semicolons have almost halved in use in English books.

In the year 2000, there was one every 205 words and now only every 390 words.

And also, I think more than 60% of British school age students don't know how to use them, which I don't think is unusual.

I wasn't taught how to punctuate, were you?

I had to learn that on the streets.

Well, it's just something that you osmose from the British air um and it's just an innate thing within the soul of every true brit is when to use a semicolon that's right semicolons as they're known in the uh spanish-speaking world semi-columbuses

um

obviously this is i mean it's very concerning uh for the future of uh of punctuation um

and with question marks hanging over the future of the semicolon the rising popular of other forms of punctuation could dash any hopes of uh recovery and if usage continues to decline it could come to a full stop our family has strong views on why this happened our mother thought people are more likely to use brackets these days than semicolons whilst our father said while he was still alive that the increased use of clauses within m dashes means we don't need semicolons so much anymore anyway those are our parents' theses

oh

i was wondering where we were ahead of it and then i smashed into it like a brick wall

anyway i'm not i'm not sure what can be done to help i mean maybe a semicolon using competition in which the winner gets an expensive golden cup, apostrophe.

Maybe accompanied by a big TV show with famous singers.

You could get Cheryl Colon and guitarists like Slash.

Maybe the Sex Pistols.

I don't know anything about them, though.

I need some punctuation.

Anyway, language is the immediate actuality of thought, if I may quote Marx.

But then he was a communist.

Anyway, Josh,

you were about to say.

I was just going to say, look, we did not give consent for that.

Putting the pawn into punctuation.

Punishment.

Oh, yeah.

Bono it.

I can't be too sad about this.

First of all, that means more semicolons for me.

Semicolon.

I love those things.

Secondly, there are so many worse things being done to the English language now.

I'm just glad there still are books.

So I'm not here to look down my nose at how they're being punctuated.

The news...

has been usurped by professional paraphrasers on TikTok who think journalism is just plagiarism plus cheekbones.

And they use made-up workaround expressions like unalive because they're completely beholden to algorithms that don't like the word die, kill, or murder.

And I know the English language is a living or non-unalived entity that changes in ways that are neither good nor bad, but this trend makes me want to depulsify myself, if my meaning is clear.

The Chicago Sun-Times and Philadelphia Tribune last week both published lists of summer book releases that were created by AI and contain several books that don't actually exist.

So I'm going to withhold my tears about the number of semicolons per book as long as we can keep the number of literal books per book at a steady one-to-one ratio.

Oh, this was a wonderful, wonderful news for journalism.

Including the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer, published a syndicated summer book list that included these made-up AI-invented books, but by genuine human flesh-made authors.

So Isabel Allende's Tidewater Dreams was not only not, as the list excitedly scooped, the renowned author's first climate fiction novel, it was also not a fing book.

And as someone who is quite a lazy reader, this is what I want on my summer reading list.

I want two-thirds of the entrance not to exist.

So I've got a head start.

I've already read 10 out of the 15 recommended books.

That's right.

You read that one blurb.

That's the whole thing.

That's all there is from that book.

Percival Everett has, to everyone's eternal regret, never written a book called The Rainmakers, as the summer book list suggested.

Although perhaps now that AI has proved it would be so good that it would leap straight onto any self-respecting must-read this summer list, he would get off his Pulitzer Prize-winning arse and write it.

Other titles made up include Charles Dickens's Pull My Finger, Margaret Atwood's How to Play Your Best Snooker Under an Oppressive Theocracy, Franz Kafka's Ian the Magic Sausage, Vengeance in the Abattoir, absolute classic, that one.

Jane Austen's Instruction Manual for a Massey Ferguson 241DI Roger Hargreaves' Mr.

Creepy and J.K.

Rowling J.K.

Rowling's Harry Potter and the pronouns of everlasting vengeance so lots to not read there

you know it's going to be great to explain to our children and children's children who are boiling who are drowning in boiling seawater that we did it all for fake ai book lists like

it was worth it kids the fact that this needs to be published this age of endless content obviously excluding August news publications such as The Bugle, but if everything on the internet was, instead of just being published on the internet, was instead committed to Roman-style scrolls, I've done the maths here, it would require 1.2 Vesuviuses per day to ensure it all stayed safely buried away from human eyeballs for the next two millenniums where it belongs.

So, I mean, that is the world we're living in now.

Sure makes sense, Andy.

Sure makes sense.

I guess it's what happens, though, when people aren't willing to pay for journalism anymore.

They stop paying for humans to do it.

Well, it's I do think there's something beautiful about this, because it's like people notice and were mad, which means someone is reading those newspapers.

Or maybe a robot is reading the newspapers and

it was just countered by a more powerful AI that likes to write angry letters to the editor.

Well, that brings us nicely on to our light in the darkness section,

which, well, I mean it's increasingly hard to find light in the darkness but last week a British company announced plans to literally find light in the darkness by putting an orbiting solar power station in space this is I mean in terms of metaphors that humanity needs at the moment you know this literal finding of light in the inescapable darkness of space is this is the story of the millennium for me so far now look this is a british company And look, it's good to be ambitious, even if in terms of infrastructure projects.

Now, we're a bit out of form as a nation.

I mean, we can barely get a rural bus route to run.

So, whacking a five-kilometer-long satellite into space to catch the sun, when we haven't quite mastered the art of getting a 12-person bus from Snutterbridge to Buckborough more than once a fortnight, that seems like a bit of a long shot.

But as the old saying goes, if you shoot for the moon, then you'll probably end up having to explain to Brian down the road why a bullet plummeted into his greenhouse at three in in the morning and ruined his tomatoes.

But

still worth doing.

It's very, very exciting.

Obviously, when you hear about a plan to put solar panels the size of giant solar panels into orbit, your immediate thought is, why the fk does no one watch disaster movies anymore?

That thing is obviously going to crash down on or very near Washington, D.C.

at some point in a fictional, very near future.

And also, of course, there are...

concerns about overfarming of the sun and the fact that there are thought to be only around five billion more years of usable solar energy before our home star exhausts itself and stops working, whereas oil never dies.

So, um, but you know, it's it's some it's some hope.

It's some hope, if nothing else, just metaphorical hope rather than real hope.

Yeah, I mean, billionaires have demonstrated many times that what they won't fund is anything to actually save Earth, but they will fund spaceship.

That's right, they love space.

They love space because their imagination stopped when they were seven.

What do seven-year-olds think is cool?

Space and big statues of themselves and a car there's currently no poor people in space so they love it there but that means no people to look after their legions of white children i know it's the gift and the curse

um i know i'm too stupid to even talk about this story because when i first heard about a solar power station in space i was like How's that going to work?

It's so dark out there.

That was like literally my first thought.

I was like, this is a inky blackness.

We've always heard about that.

Like the sun is in space.

And so, we're putting this between the sun and earth where we receive its light.

So, this is like a relay race where electricity is the baton and the space station runs the final leg, is what it sounds like.

And I am just so psyched to hear about any scientific breakthroughs that don't involve AI.

So, this is exciting to me.

I'm just sick of hearing about everybody telling me that AI is like, oh, if you tell ChatGPT what you wanted to put in an email, it'll write the email.

Oh, cool.

That was my problem with emails.

They too directly convey the words I wanted another person to read.

I just wanted some kind of like vague intermediary.

And like, all tech just feels like we're adding steps to make someone money in between a process that already works, right?

It's like if all cooking were rooted in finding ways to season gravel for consumption, like, I guess I could technically swallow a rock, but why have we abandoned scallops and kale and Cheetos?

Those were going down fine already.

The big three of food.

Well, more lights in the darkness.

A big breakthrough in boosting people's mental health.

All you need to do, according to research, is feel a sense of awe and wonder at the world, which does suggest that now all the health services around the world will simply be prescribing people to watch a a full rerun of the 2008 Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal

and everyone will be fine.

I mean that's that's essentially where we

seem to be heading.

Yes, everyday moments of awe-inspiring wonder can alleviate stress.

I mean everyday moments of awe-inspiring inspiring wonder sounds like an over-optimistic advertising slogan for an unnecessary new brand of herbal tea, but it could cure all

stress and you know as someone who has to

do, what, approximately 65 comedy shows about the news a year, I'm absolutely on board with this, frankly.

Josh,

what would

most inspire awe in you?

Oh, gosh.

Well, so my problem is the world is so stressful.

I need to up my dosage of awe.

Like, I used to feel awe just looking at how tall and leafy a tree could be.

And now

I can't even get out of bed until I've seen a baby deer take its first steps as its parents nurture it.

You know, like it just, I need more than ever.

But this all makes sense to me because I definitely feel happy experiencing the majesty of nature.

But also this story implies that stupid people who are impressed by more have better mental health, which I've always suspected.

Think about how much happier you'd be if everything activated your sense of wonder.

My threshold is so high because I know how some things work.

And meanwhile, there are people who get their minds blown every day by the existence of photosynthesis, like a caveman watching an IMAX showing of Mission Impossible.

I'm not even that smart.

It's just that I'm like, I'm skeptical and cynical now more than I used to be, which doesn't help.

Like there's no gold medal for trusting the fewest headlines.

And even now,

things that should fill me with awe don't anymore.

I can look at a beautiful sunset blossoming over the edge of a horizon and think, eh, probably photoshopped.

So I'm not smart.

I'm just diseased.

So bring on the awe is what I'm saying.

I mean, the other options other than Federer and Adal, obviously to watch, you know, David Gower easing one through the covers for four on a loop.

I think that's what it said on the prescription anyway.

Or the secret recording of Jimi Hendrix playing Max Bygraves is you're a pink toothbrush.

I'm a blue toothbrush, which is...

truly sensational.

I think what might help with this to just bring awe into people's lives would be more hidden secret doorways.

I think it would be good for all of us if whenever we lent on a wall, there was a sense of, what if this leads me into a secret enchanted kingdom?

Fear, unknown, uncertainty?

Yeah, Andy, good one.

All those sports things have made you too happy.

Yeah.

But I guess, you know, it would help recreate the sense of wonder that's been lost by our species.

technological complacency.

When you can find a picture of a triceratops playing golf against a naked goddess Aphrodite after 15 seconds on the search engine.

Where's the magic in life?

And finally this week, straws news now.

And

well, straws have been an oddly prominent part of Donald Trump's first few months

in office with the banning of paper straws for being simply too woke and the need to ensure that generations of the future can still be digging up plastic straws that people have chucked out of car windows several thousand years from now.

But Josh,

apparently Republican men are now abandoning straws altogether because the use of straws is not considered macho enough.

I mean this really gets the very heart of what it means to be

a man in America today, which you yourself, of course, are.

Are you still

a straw user?

So

this is amazing.

All all these conservatives have found these like completely arbitrary signifiers of masculinity that they're clinging to desperately to feel like they have control over the world these conservative men live in a prison of their own making and they'll never even try to get out because the bars remind them too much of big hard dicks and they refuse to touch them out of fear of turning gay it is it's like really telling on yourself too what they're right if i saw a drinking straw the average diameter of which is what four millimeters and i thought that looks just like my penis i would not go on tv and say that out loud that secret would stay between me my wife and the guy that she's cheating on me with because as a proud conservative i also would not go down on her

as andy alluded to

it's like really baffling how hard these guys went to save plastic straws, right?

A thing they apparently don't even use.

They hated paper straws and would talk so much about how plastic straws are good.

And now they don't have any need need for them.

That's like if I took months out of my life to protest a change in the formula of herbal essences shampoo, because that does not apply to my life.

Why do I have a stake in this debate?

If people are listening, they couldn't see Josh whip off his hat and reveal a lush mane.

Secretly, great head of hair.

One of the supposed issues with straw drinking is that it's for ladies because you purse your lips too much.

And they're under the thumb of a man with a famous pout.

Trump has, like, of all famous people, probably the most looks like he's drinking through a straw, even when he isn't mouthable.

He does have straw face.

He's got straw face.

That's what keeps his cheekbones so sharp in late age.

So are they just drinking their raw milk straight out of the cow?

That's gulping.

No, and udder is like nature's straw.

Well, udders might look a bit like a penis, so that's going to be very conflicted.

So you got to have someone else milk it out of sight and then drink it from a bucket.

There you go.

Hot bucket milk.

Well, I mean, it's hard to know how to follow hot bucket milk as a phrase.

So we should just probably wrap up.

this week's bugle.

Yes, it was a week in which the biggest news of the world was just frankly, as Helen said in the emails we exchanged when we were discussing what to talk about on the show, too

bleak in capital letters.

Where are the squirrels on skateboard reports when you need them?

So anyway, Buglers, I hope you've enjoyed this show.

Josh, what do you have to plug this week?

I have finally information about when my stand-up special is coming out.

I'm really excited.

It's going to be out on

YouTube and my record label, Blonde Medicine, the record label that it's coming out with.

It's an album and a special, but it'll be out on YouTube on June 27th.

I'm really excited for that.

And if you want to know about where I'll be physically or read my writing week to week, I have a free newsletter called That's Marvelous that you can subscribe to joshgondelman.substack.com for that.

It's fun and I read it every week and I don't ask for money so far.

It is very good.

Thank you.

Recommend.

Helen, plug.

Hi.

Well, Andy, I have shows coming up in Toronto and Montreal on the 1st and 9th of June, respectively.

So do come along.

Tickets are at the illusionist.org/slash events.

It's a very fun live show about some extremely heightened emotions about a typeface, which is where you expect to find heightened emotions.

And also on my podcast, The Illusionist, it's four-letter word season.

So I've been

delving into such words as the F-bomb and the C-bomb.

It's a good time.

Hell yeah.

That's two four-letter words for it.

Thank you.

I'll write those down.

Well, you can listen to the news quiz via the BBC Sounds app, or if you want to hear it

when it's all out of date, you can listen to it elsewhere as well.

And you can hear me banging on about cricket as well over the next few weeks.

We will be back next week with Felicity Ward and James Nakise.

Until then, buglers, 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.