Ukrainian Comedian Faces Crazed Hecklers

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers, and welcome to issue 4333 of the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a world that is not only visual, but has also just retained its title as Stupidest Planet in the History of the Solar System, yet again on a real roll at the moment.

I'm Andy Zaltzman, veteran now of an almost equal chunk of both the second and third millenniums.

Don't make me choose my favourite.

And I'm joined by Bugle Author of the Year, Alice Fraser.

Thank you, Andy.

Hello, Buglers.

I'm delighted to be here and honoured to be the Bugle Author of the Year.

It's like when I came fourth in the 400-meter national championship of four people.

We are recording in studio together, which is quite exciting in full three dimensions.

You can probably, does it sound three-dimensional?

I think, yeah, I mean, Chris, we put an extra bit of three dimensions on it.

If I press this button, I think I'll go into 5D.

All right, awesome.

Excellent.

It does feel a lot like the early 3D technology where in the middle of jokes you'll just throw a ball at me.

Yeah.

That needs to make me feel the real.

Well, I've got some very exciting news, Googlers,

since I last spoke to you.

I have become an award-nominated data journalist.

That is so good.

A data journalist does feel like a Tinder kind of production.

Yes, the Sports Journalism Awards I've been nominated in the Data Journalist category,

which I don't know what that says about the state of...

of humanity in general.

I mean, it's been a bit of a rough ride for our species in recent years.

And the fact that I, you know, particularly on this podcast,

you know, I've not always rigorously stuck to the truth on this podcast.

But

it's very exciting.

Well, when you told me you'd been nominated for something, I immediately leapt to UK's sexiest man.

This is not dissimilar to that insofar as, I mean, statistically speaking, as far as data journalists go, you are batting 10 for 10.

I'm very specifically sports data journalist, and obviously the word journalist is doing a lot of heavy lifting

for my radio work.

But anyway, amazing.

Well done.

Will you win?

That's the real question.

Is it all rigged?

Is it all politics from here?

Well, I've not really actually studied the statistics on that,

which probably doesn't bode that well.

Has DEI even reached sports statisticians

yet?

Well, I think, I don't know, it might have reached it, but DEI is going out the window.

No sooner has it come, it's gone.

We are recording on the 3rd of March, 2025.

On this day in 1873, the US Congress enacted the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any obscene literature and articles of immoral use through the mail.

I don't know what

Comstock was.

Is that still illegal?

Because I've been sending my book out, and I'm pretty sure that counts as a marital aid.

Yeah, in terms of most long-term ineffective pieces of legislation,

and looking at the state of the world now and the amount of obscene literature and articles of immoral use flying around, I don't think Comstock really hit, you know, hit the triple 20 152 years ago.

I used to live next door across the corridor from a dominatrix, and she would ostentatiously seal her letters with a dildo that she'd dipped in water to lick the envelopes.

No one saw her do it, but I think it was just sort of a quiet pride that she had in her work.

Right.

Yes, I remember the domino.

The most disappointing game of dominoes I've had in my life for that.

On the 4th of March, 1865, Andrew Johnson made a drunk vice presidential inaugural address in Washington, D.C., back in the days when inaugurations happened

on the 4th of March.

But it's funny the things you get nostalgic for in American vice presidents, but apparently he was drunk for a week before giving this speech.

So, I mean, looking at vice presidents now, that seems almost charming, doesn't it?

Just being drunk for a week, giving an incompetent speech and then going on to be one of the worst presidents in American history.

Not so bad.

Was it that he was drunk happily drunk, or was he really just like, I don't want to be a vice president drunk?

Well, looking at the

Wikipedia, it has its own Wikipedia page.

Not just Andrew Johnson, but Andrew Johnson's drunk vice presidential inaugural address.

He apparently drank heavily the night before, had been drunk for at least a week prior.

He consumed either three glasses of whiskey or one glass of French brandy

on the morning of the ceremony.

Witnesses have verity described Johnson's speech as hostile, inane, incoherent, repetitive, self-aggrandising, and sloppy.

Isn't it strange how things just keep coming round?

Who thought it?

It's a tricky time to be a satirist, Andy.

I was writing jokes for the Bugle this morning while watching the Bureau of Meteorology website in Australia to see the cyclone that's bearing down on my apartment building.

And I can't help feeling that I'm sort of the punchline of a very ha heavy-handed metaphor fiddling as Rome gets the garage flooded.

And finally, on the 5th of March, 1616, Nicholas Copernicus' book On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres is was added to the Index of Forbidden Books.

That was 73 years after big Nikki C published his

Smash Hit Bestseller.

Wasn't on the revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, one of Dancy Lagarde's early novels.

Yes, but the Heavenly Spheres were testicles.

As always, the section of the Bugle is going straight in the bidding this week.

The world, our exclusive report on the World Exaggeration Championships semi-final between the Houston Hyperbolists and the Oslo Overestimators.

We got a press release from the IAPE that claims that exaggeration is one of the biggest growth sports in the world.

It's going up by 250,000% year on year.

So it's quite impressive.

It's very good.

I recently watched the World Passive Aggressive Championships and the winner's speech, they just said, I guess it's okay.

When

I was studying Latin, I always found passive-aggressive the most difficult tense to master.

Top story this week.

Oh, for f's sake.

Oh, God.

god what what what is what is happening to this world um

i recorded the news quiz in scarborough last week um as kiir starmer was meeting donald trump so the day before trump met vladimir zelensky in what i think was possibly the most alarming and depressing bilateral meeting between an american leader and another human being for at least i'm going to say 40,000 years

if not considerably longer um

i don't want to go over the details too much because, frankly, I want to have at least a little glimmer of hope left in my soul by the end of this recording.

But it does seem, Alice, that Vladimir Zelensky made the frankly schoolboy mistake of going into the meeting with Trump with what Trumpeasement experts have identified as, quotes, insufficient snivel, unabandoned principles, a naive and anachronistic hope that America still gives a flying fk about its allies and its responsibilities, and without having taken any obsequiousness in hunting steroids as he was quite clearly advised.

So, I mean, much of the blame really lies with him, would you not?

It was an extraordinary spectacle

watching a meeting between world leaders play out like a mafia mob boss shaking down a laundromat for 50% of their natural resources

with this sort of cascade of snivelling bureaucrats standing around in suits lobbying insults at him.

I'm only glad that he has a history in comedy so he knows how to deal with hecklers to some degree.

I think my favourite bit was Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend being like, Do you even own a suit?

As though every war leader in human history, including Queen Elizabeth, has not worn the uniform of their fighting men.

And then Zelensky going, Oh, should I buy a suit like yours?

Which I feel, oh, that is worthy of RuPaul's drag race.

Reading mini challenge.

And then Vance, like J.D.

Vance, was coming in as this like weird

emo hitman.

He accused Zelensky of not thanking the American people people enough for their support,

to which Zelensky responded after the meeting by tweeting, Thank you, America, thank you for your support, thank you for the visit, thank you at POTUS Congress and the American people, which is the best version of malicious compliance I've seen in a while.

I didn't know you could pack quite that much sarcasm into a single post, but he's achieved a density of post-Soviet ironic Eastern European grand grimness that I can only

envy.

Zelensky, it's sort of terrible.

It's insulting that he is insulted by Vance.

Here's the real deal.

He stayed in Kiev when the Russian forces were closing in and the city was under bombardment.

Vance, by contrast, chose to move to a secure location when confronted with some hecklers on a skiing trip this weekend.

And then President Trump said, you're gambling with World War III.

It's like

it had that real mafia mob boss overturned.

Oh, it'd be a shame if we started World War III over this.

There's a very nice World War III you're avoiding over there.

It'd be a shame if we World War III it all over your face.

I keep seeing this talking point among sort of right-wing people and internet-pilled idiots that it's irresponsible of Zelensky to not capitulate to Russia and to keep defending the sovereignty of his country when an aggressive nuclear Russia is a threat to us all.

So we should all just

embolden Russia by doing exactly what they want.

That's the only way to soothe a bully.

Like, you know, the theory is it's like when someone's trying to steal your wallet, you shouldn't fight them.

You should just let them steal your wallet because it's not worth your life.

Or when someone's trying to steal your house and murder you and torture your wife and children, you should let them steal your house and murder your wife and children because otherwise they might murder the guy next door too.

Where's your civic conscience, mate?

Yeah, I guess it's you know, it's like the old, the old, famous old saying that you know, we must, when you have a wolf threatening your village, you must feed the choicest sheep to the wolf, otherwise, the wolf might eat the choicest sheep.

And then the other argument is: well, you know, sure, they're evil, right?

Russia's doing evil stuff, but they are also very powerful, which is good.

Because if I remember my high school maths correctly, correct me if I'm wrong, might is equal to or greater than right.

Or possibly that picture of an arrow between might and right indicates that might is sending a ballistic missile towards right.

Either way makes the same point.

Yes, it's interesting this, you know, accusing Zelensky of gambling on World War III, and that is set to be one of the biggest betting markets of the year.

And with our partners Bugle Bet, we can offer you the best odds on various World War III markets, including which perceived slight against the American president will actually start World War III, worth a punt on something about his hands or being scared of sharks,

and the percentage increase in the global value of the world poetry industry over the next five years, which is set to be

quite impressive.

I mean, as far as gambling goes, they really are putting the Russian and five more bullets into Russian roulette.

JD Vance, you say he's not so much Trump's hype man as his gripe man, the side shit to the nuclear turd himself.

It's still unconfirmed whether or not Vance is or is not an escape laboratory experiment that began in a Petri dish with some cells from the scrotum of Satan himself.

Obviously, some people have jumped to conclusions, but we at the Bugle, of course, will wait until the science is absolutely conclusive.

I mean, it's all in the name, isn't it, right?

J.D.

Vance is the opposite of A.D.

Vance, which is advanced.

He's devance.

Yes, I mean, in fact, the whirring of former American presidents, civil rights heroes, and military service personnel spinning in their graves is now causing complete havoc with seismograph readings around the world.

And particularly this claim that Zelensky has been insufficiently grateful to America.

CNN's fact checkers, who are currently working an estimated 430-hour working week,

found at least 33 occasions on which Zelensky has publicly expressed gratitude to the USA, which seems like quite a lot.

Seems like

that's enough.

Yeah, starts to sound.

I think when you get to about the 35th thank you, it starts to sound sarcastic.

No, I feel like thank yous are like

your partner telling you that they love you.

It doesn't just stand as given.

You have to do it at least once a week for upkeep.

But all the other countries of the world obviously are panicking because it is a very clear signal that the USA will not stand by its allies, is only in it for the money, is potentially going hand in glove with Russia, you you know, powling up.

I guess it's nice to see two superpowers getting along for once.

But

yeah, it is certainly Australia is panicking about our military budget.

Hitherto our military defence strategy has been wait till America arrives and now it looks like they might not.

Of course, Starma has decided to beef up the military in the UK,

pulling the money from the most obvious place, which is foreign aid,

in anticipation, of course, of being enemies with everyone.

Very much in the park and ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, rather than put a fence made out of kindness at the top.

Park and ambulance made out of bombs at the bottom.

So Zelensky from America

came to London.

There was sort of an emergency summit as Europe realised that, yes, it is on its own

in this fight, without,

I think, certainly say without a reliable America.

Starmer told Zelensky he has the full backing of the United Kingdom.

And he also said the West is at a crossroads in history.

And at that crossroads, the traffic lights have been short-circuited, the road signs have been sold off for scrap.

There are bull bearings, nails, and porcupines all over the tarmac.

There's a traffic cop standing in the middle, blowing a whistle and signaling everyone to go everywhere all at once.

And a lot of people driving like absolute fing lunatics.

So it doesn't entirely bode well that we're going to get across this crossroads.

No, and it is true, of course, that the world had gotten complacent about the idea that we were living in a time of peace, that America were being well police, that they did indeed take America for granted.

I am very used to that feeling as a mother.

I'm often taken for granted.

And my response, of course, is to periodically telling my children, one and three years old, that they're on their own.

They've got to learn.

You've got to build a military budget for yourselves, kids.

As Dahlma said, this is not a moment for more talk.

It's time to act, he said, acting.

And I mean,

that's the problem with the words time to act.

It's a poor choice of words.

Act can mean very, very, very different things.

Zelensky has tried to modify the situation a bit.

He said of Trump, and we saw in that meeting Trump's serious face, which is sort of half death mask, half peanut.

And

he said, despite the tough dialogue, Zelensky said, we remain strategic partners, but we need to be honest and direct with each other.

And realistically,

you are going to get a maximum of one out of two of those with Trump.

Asking Trump to be honest is tantamount tantamount to asking a shark to be an Olympic standard 400-metre hurdler.

It's just not, it's not going to happen on so many levels.

And also, to say, to truly understand our shared goals, which is basically equivalent to saying we are working together

as the turkey

to make the perfect Christmas dinner for everyone.

Yes, very much our shared goals as we're pregnant.

One of the things that is really getting me to me is the Starmer's choosing to fund the increase in the military budget with the depletion of the International Development Fund.

Annalise Dobbs has stepped down as International Development Minister, being replaced by Jenny Chapman.

It is truly extraordinary the lengths that governments will go to to reshuffle their budgets.

The Delphic oracles they'll visit, the leeches they will allow medieval doctors to attach to their testicles in the hopes of getting money without ever sacrificing tax breaks for big businesses.

The terrible fear of driving big businesses offshore, of course, the fear that you'll you'll gut your country of innovation, employment, the incredible benefits of proximity to massive multi-billion dollar multinationals.

I do understand.

But, you know,

it would be nice if they paid more tax than me.

Well, I mean, it all sort of comes down to this philosophy of aid.

And we saw, you know, we've seen Trump basically demanding a refund on the aid that it's given to.

to Ukraine in his transactional and,

frankly,

harrowing view of the world.

But I guess, you know, whether you view foreign aid as, as some people say, a luxury we can no longer afford, or a valuable investment in an uncertain changing world, or a barely discernible pinprick in our national budget, or a moral obligation, or one of the most effective means of exercising the so-called soft power people keep banging on about, or indeed as all of those things, it's always like to be the first injured baby wildebeest cut off from the herb to be popped into the more of the always peckish line of budget cuts.

It's just

always the first

to go.

Starmer's meeting with Trump, he began by unveiling an invitation from the king for Trump to have a state visit to the United Kingdom.

I mean, just massaging that nuclear-level ego.

But I mean,

people said it was sort of

grovellingly obsequious, but I mean, was it possibly a bit of a power move?

Because it's King Charles III, Alice.

The last time we had the third king, that was George III.

That's when America threw its toys out the pram and threw our tea into the sea.

Revenge is a dish best served 250 odd years later.

Also, it was signed, yours most sincerely, Charles R.

for Rex, meaning king.

Trump obviously then had to send an aide scurrying to a dictionary to look up what the word sincerely meant.

Although I'm slightly worried that he thinks the use of the word yours means that Trump does now own King Charles and can turn him into a golf course.

But what we don't know is exactly what happened in private in these.

And And there was all this talk about how you need to deal with

Trump.

There are kind of rather bizarre spectacle of news pundits earnestly discussing how to deal with the president of America as if he's some kind of cross between a potentially lethal zoo animal, an alien who could destroy the world, and an overindulged toddler.

And the DNA tests suggest he's all three of those things to at least 100% degree.

So I don't know what you're supposed to do.

I can never remember with Trump.

Are you supposed to stand still and make yourself tall or run in a zigzag or climb a tree?

I can never remember which one it is.

You know, and of course, there's this massive backlash against the Democrats because they had every opportunity to clean house and they failed to clean house when people were voting for a cleaned-up house.

And so instead of cleaning the house, it was much like those episodes of hoarders where they just bring people in with flamethrowers and Elon Musk comes up on stage gesturing with a chainsaw and everyone's like, this is what we voted for.

Well, strange times.

Peter Mandelton, the British ambassador to the United States, former government minister in previous Labour regimes, described Trump, and this sort of shows how people have to couch their words, described Donald Trump as consequential, which is,

you know, an ambivalent way of putting it, although looking at four of the letters is possibly in part an anagram.

And,

you know,

I guess the problem is as, you know, watching on as a sort of news follower, it's become almost impossible to switch off from this.

You say, oh, just ignore it.

But it's quite hard to ignore a wasp at a picnic, or a piranha in a jacuzzi, as I recall from my stagdoo, or a non-house-trained pet hippopotamus that has been suspended over the dining table from a special winch at Christmas dinner after being fed an adult hippo-sized portion of undercooked chicken vindaloo.

It's just so hard not to let it just intermittently interrupt your thoughts.

So, what happened in private in the meeting with Dobby?

Obviously, you've seen the sort of public side of it, but we had to run AI to guess what happened behind the scenes in our AI summit analyser.

So there was a 41% chance that Trump demanded ownership of Scotland and the right to turn Buckingham Palace into a casino and strip club, plus tickets to this year's World Snooker Final.

There was a 38%

chance that Trump made Starmer crouch on all fours and rode him around like a rodeo bull.

There was a 0.04% chance that Trump said, ignore all the performative bastardry.

I'm just a big softie underneath it all.

Come on, let's have a cuddle.

There was a 49% chance that...

Charles can't cuddle.

He's British aristocracy.

There's a 49%

chance that Trump said to Starmer, look, Stamsy, if you ever find yourself needing to pay hush money to a porn star, just give me a shout.

Players going to play, special relationship and all that.

And a 99% chance that Trump said, Zrasvozia Kamarad, the pigeon, wakes before.

Sorry, I thought you were someone else.

Well, I just think what he should have done is insist on Charles divorcing Camilla and marrying him instead so that he can be the Queen of England.

To be honest, I'd be in favour of that just because of the lack of actual executive power that monarchs and their consorts have these days.

J.D.

Vance,

amidst a trademark welter of half-truths, malinformative deceptions and outright bullshit, said to Zelensky, right now you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.

And it did sound, like

this comment about conscription and people being forced to join the military that he was about to offer on behalf of his President Trump a consignment of free bone spurs for young Ukrainians to help get them out of fighting.

But sadly, that's

also still to be signed off.

Well, we will have full, exclusive coverage of the political world's descent into the 8th to 15th circles of hell over the next, what now, three years, ten and a half months on the bugle.

Health news now, and well, let's look for some positives in the world.

Alice, you are our

health breakthrough correspondent.

And you brought my attention to this article about the many breakthroughs there have been recently in cancer treatment.

And I guess one of the plus sides of the Trump regime is cancer awareness.

Because having a president and a vice president who are metaphorical cancers, plus Elon Musk, who has metastasized into a virally mutating cancerous polyp on the soul of all humanity.

Surely that has to make the entire world more aware of the dangers of cancer and the need to try and catch it early before it spreads on top of unstoppably into every cell of the body politics.

Well, I'm hoping that this is good news.

Possibly, the idea that you might live longer than you would hitherto have been destined to do might be bad news if we're riding out this particular wild donkey.

But apparently, there are 12 recent developments ranging from personalized cancer vaccines, which will be less damaging to you and more damaging to your cancer, early testing, seven-minute cancer treatment jabs and what they're calling precision oncology, which is where you stand in a crowd and a sniper shoots your cancer treatment at you from the rooftop of a nearby building with that real sort of thrill.

It's really like positive news and this is places where things like AI are genuinely applicable applicable and useful to human development in a way that they aren't when they're trying to make a terrible film for you.

But yeah, there are 12 really good pieces of news, including a tablet that could cut breast cancer risk.

So

we no longer need to saw one boob off preemptively like the Amazon so that we can do better archery.

And I think this is good news.

This is good news for any of us who don't want to die, but bad news for those of us who are reading the news.

Yeah, the seven-minute jab, so that's rather than a sort of 60-minute transfusion.

I'm going to guess that just shows how short people's attention spans are these days.

You can't really be asked to sit through the whole hour anymore.

Really, the reels content of cancer treatment.

Various other

things have also, aside from these 12 things,

several new improved praying accessories, apparently making it more likely that your prayers for good health will get through to your chosen deity and or deities, including the Share My Sacrifice app, which hooks up people from around the world looking to curry favor with an Almighty Being through the tried and trusted medium of animal sacrifices, with participating abattoirs so that the regular slaughter of animals for the meat industry doubles up as an offering to the God of your choosing.

So just needs the abattoir to be fitted with a special aerial blessed by a multi-denominational priest.

Then also on sale now is an individual micro-cathedral, which is a one or two-person miniature cathedral available with dome, spire, tower, or combinations thereof, enabling you to get a direct line to the heavens from the privacy of your own home.

That ranges in size from

the size of a music festival toilet cubicle to a medium-sized garden shed.

Just needs to be plugged in for 10 minutes to warm up before you say your prayers and needs to be either outside in the garden or on a balcony or near an open window to ensure uninterrupted prayer remittance up to the heavens.

Stained glass is optional.

And also worth considering is the new Green Spite Effigy, a reusable zero-emission ethically sourced effigy made from recycled plastics and discarded toys with a set of 60 customizable facial features and accessories to make your effigy look like whomever you're protesting against.

The ethergey projects a holographic flame for up to 24 minutes on a single charge.

So there are

various options now.

Well, on the flip side of the cancer treatment story, ER doctors have gotten together and come out to the New York Times to say six things that they wish that you would avoid.

Possibly

if the cancer treatment news is not good news for you, here are some ways you might want to see your emergency physician toot suite.

First of all, apparently, avocados are far more dangerous than we have thought them to be,

and not just to toast and housing prices.

Apparently, a major culprit in

hand cutting is people trying to slice avocados using their hand as an avocado.

Apparently, more young people are injured cutting avocados these these days than are injured taking out a mortgage on a home, which just puts everything in perspective.

This report said the best way to cut something like an avocado or a bagel, which is apparently lethal as well, is to use a secure non-skid surface such as a wooden cutting board, whilst also not being a fking idiot and maybe trying to remember some of the basic principles of physics.

Now, that can also help, I think.

Oh, it feels sad that we have to remind people not to cut towards themselves, but there you go.

Apparently, you should also never trust a trampoline.

There's a huge number of trampoline injuries caused by fun, presumably

multiple people bouncing on a trampoline.

And

I would say that I like to keep my children off sharing trampolines with other children, except I've seen my children when there are other children on a trampoline and trying to keep them off is a danger to my physical health.

I mean, generally, I mean, I hope this doesn't put the world off trampolines in general, because I do think the world would be better with more trampolines, particularly, say, in the UN General Assembly chamber, just to lighten the mood.

You know, if Trump and Zelensky in that meeting had not been sitting on chairs, stroke sofas, but had been bouncing up and down on trampolines, I think it would have gone a lot better.

It is just an inherently joyous activity.

It is.

Well, now they've got those trampolines that are sort of caged trampolines.

In my youth, you sort of had to risk spring injuries and falling off the side injuries, but now they've got them enclosed as though to compress the fun was a less dangerous thing.

But I feel then the injuries are all caused by the other children, which means you've got more blame to go around rather than just blaming gravity or the ground.

You have now created a series of nemeses.

After avocados and champolines, they say don't pet strange dogs,

which is, you know, seems like a fair enough piece of advice.

I was bitten by a dog in Vancouver.

Oh, no.

That was.

And

I was going to point out that most bites are from dogs that are pet dogs rather than stray dogs.

I was bitten by, I'm not sure, I can't remember if I've talked about this on the bugle before.

It was

possibly some sort of cockapoo or something.

It was a,

I'm glad we know the example, because I mean, that would be really humiliating, I think.

Just that's such an awful word.

But just on a lead with its owner, I walked past, just bit me on the leg.

So I don't know if it's, you know, it's a specially

genetically engineered dog that is anti-Semitic or, you know, it was, but anyway, it

got through my trousers, drew blood from.

I mean, I guess, you know, if you are about to interact with a carnivore, it is always worth checking whether you yourself are made of it.

Well, I was thinking, I feel like it's sort of definitely the pets that are going to be the problem because inherently all dogs are related to wild dogs, originally wolves.

And so, at some point in the life of a very inbred, interbred, culturally cultivated little pocket poodle, it's going to go, wait a minute,

I'm an apex predator.

Also,

one of the six things doctors advise is ignoring sudden symptoms.

And I guess it's a fine line between hypochondria and life-threatening situation.

They do suggest, for example, if you find yourself suddenly feeling like you're being electrocuted and your leg has come off, blood splurting everywhere, don't think, oh, it's probably nothing, because there is a very good chance you've mistaken your loofah for an electric chainsaw whilst having a shower.

Seek professional medical advice immediately.

Here's one of those things that

shouldn't need saying.

But the vice chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey thought it was worth saying, if you have a heart attack or stroke symptoms, do not drive yourself to the hospital.

Truer words were never spoken by someone working in a country without socialised medicine.

Also, if you wake up feeling unexpectedly dehydrated, bloated, short of breath, and with a stomachache, having had a dream about eating a giant marshmallow, you've probably just sleep-snacked on your pillow, give it 10 minutes, check how many pillows are left in your bed, then seek professional medical advice immediately.

If you wake up and you've become a dung beetle, you could have overdosed on Kafka.

Check to see if you had tried an unlicensed make-my-favourite fictional stories a literally come true drug, then seek professional medical advice immediately.

And if you suddenly become much bigger or much smaller, first check to see if you were just either closer or further away than you were, then seek professional medical advice immediately.

Well, obviously, the final advice is the advice that we were all given as children, which which is not to ride without a helmet.

And I feel that as a deeply personal attack as someone with curly hair, I really resent being forced to wear a helmet because if I wear a helmet, I spend the rest of the day having worn a helmet, which is the worst look for curly hair.

So, if anyone out there could invent a helmet for curly hair, then I'll be forever grateful and possibly alive.

Pope Health news now and well as we record the Pope is recovering from a respiratory crisis.

It's unclear as yet whether the respiratory crisis was caused by an illness or a particularly vigorous Zumba class or by the pontiff panicking at how easily the devil seems to be winning these days or by excessive listening to the 1986 Top Gun power ballad Take My Breath Away by the US synth pop group Berlin or by the Pope watching a full replay of the 2005 Edgebaston Test match which ended with England beating Australia in a a nail-biting, finger-chewing, hand-eating, arm-swallowing victory by two runs.

Alice, you are our

papal correspondent.

That's someone who's, I believe, I don't know if you've already, I mean, you don't want to apply too early to be next pope.

You've sort of got to wait until

all the I's have been dotted and the T's have been crossed before you.

I think I would rock a hat.

I would rock a Pope hat.

I'd do great.

I would be tempted if I were wearing a Pope hat to head-butt people with it, but I'm sure they could train that out of me.

I think I'd be a great, a great model for all the people of the world, modelling good behavior, particularly for the men of the world.

I've only got Andrew Tate.

I feel like I would be a good leader of the men of the world.

Models of modern masculinity are very major general based these days.

Yeah, I mean, I do think, you know, speaking as a fully paid-up member of the patriarchy, I could acknowledge that the franchise is going through a bit of a rough few thousand years.

Well, the news on the papal health is going back and forth, sort of on an hourly basis, that he's better, that he's unlikely to have to return to his homeland, that he slept well through the night, that he's about to die, that he's not made his end-of-life wishes known, and that he'll be fine tomorrow.

It is that kind of extremely fraught reporting that happens when nobody actually knows anything at all.

So, recently, he had a coughing fit, but in a way that's actually good, according to official reports that say both he's very sick and actually nobody should worry because he's healthier than he's ever been.

And certainly, either God is helping him, or God wants to embrace him as quickly as possible and bring him back to the bosom of heaven.

I, for one, have put a bet both ways in the books because, you know, never bet on a bad pope when he's down.

Poor guy.

I mean, I feel like this is the time, if you are the pope, to say the funniest stuff.

Yeah.

Like,

have your last words be something funny.

Bring joy to the world in your final moments.

And I do think that there must be something tongue-in-cheek happening with the journalists who are reporting he's in a stable condition because we all know that stables is where the best stuff happens for Christianity.

AI news now and well this is another recurring theme of the year.

Basically it seems to be an absolute full-on race between the forces of AI and actual humans to see who can destroy the world first.

And

I mean, you always see this with, it's like Federer and Nadal and Djokovic just pushing each other to greater and greater heights.

It seems that AI and humanity are inspiring each other to greater capabilities of world destruction on an almost week-by-week basis.

It is truly extraordinary because essentially there's a lot of argument in the UK at the moment about the fact that these AI models are scraping people's data without recompensing them at all and whether we can fight back and claim ownership over our data.

Sam Altman of

OpenAI said very heartfeltedly: if we don't get to use people's content for free, we cannot afford to make this world-changing technology.

And I don't know what to say: if you can't afford to run your business while paying for the raw materials from which you make your products, you don't have a business.

What you have on your hands is either an imperial project or a crime.

Possibly both.

That is such a fine line.

It's not a a crime if you're serving your country, apparently.

So, in Britain,

there's a new campaign, Make It Fair, and the logo has the A and I of fair

highlighted.

So clever.

I bet a human thought of that.

And

numerous newspapers have got involved, and people in the creative industries.

It's clearly a tough time for newspapers because circulation is down,

partly due to the internet, and also partly because the time people used to spend reading newspapers, they're now more likely to spend doing other stuff like doom scrolling on their mobile phones until they regret ever learning to read or just screaming into a void of despair.

Putting their mouth directly over the funnel of a fire hose of hate juice.

Yes.

Specifically in Britain, the protest is related to the government's legislation on AI, and the government's preferred solution is to give AI companies, quote, a text and data mining exemption,

enabling them to train their models on copyrighted work, whilst giving creatives the chance to opt out through a rights reservation system, which is a bit like giving a little piggy an opt-out from the sausage industry.

You know, at best, it's still going to end up as a bacon sandwich.

I mean, personally,

you know, from my point of view, I'm not that fussed about AI mining my work.

I think if we're going to submit to the inevitable AI takeover, it's good that we program it with a subtext that test match cricket is the greatest invention in human history.

And if I lose my artistic independence to achieve that, that's a sacrifice I'm prepared to make, Alex.

Well, fundamentally, there's a real difficulty here in policing the theft of people's data because whether or not it can be scraped from the open internet, it can also be scraped from pirating websites who've taken your data even from if you've got it locked behind a paywall or you're trying to keep it secret under your bed.

So

if these AI companies are scraping from pirate websites, you don't really get a say on whether your material is withdrawn from the pool of copyright.

I feel like, I mean, to get into like a big copyright nerd

thing here, you could just have a central registry in which they reported what pieces of somebody's information were being put into the sausage machine of AI generation and you could be paid, for example, a licensee fee.

Of course, you are tracking very small proportions of people's works that are being chewed up and used, but you know what would be really good for tracking those very small proportions, like, oh, I used 0.2 of a percent of your painting.

You know, what would be really good for tracking that data would be a f ⁇ ing AI.

I mean, you can ask a computer to tell you what it just did.

Yes.

I mean, concerns have been expressed that the legislation could result in AI companies only being allowed to use out-of-copyright texts, which does raise the specter that our future robot overlords will be running our lives and crushing our spirits using perfect Chaucerian English.

I'm for it.

I'm for it.

You're for that?

I'm a little

skeptical.

I mean, it's more fart jokes, right?

For a square centimeter.

A thousand musical artists released

a protest album entitled Is This What We Want?

that consists of 12.

And it consists of 12 silent tracks

to highlight concerns about the government's legislation

prioritising tech companies over the creative

industries.

It totals 47 minutes of total silence, also known as my three gigs at the Manchester Comedy Store, Christmas 2002.

Oh god, if only it had been silent.

Some have suggested.

Is that not just copying 433?

Well, that's, yeah, that is a that is a concern.

Some have suggested there are hidden messages if you play these tracks backwards in the grand tradition of

rock music, including a silent warning about the health and safety risks of devil worship.

So that's something to

bear in mind.

The track names spell out the words, the British government must not legalize music theft to benefit AI companies.

So each of the 12 tracks is one of those 12 words.

I particularly enjoy track three, Government, which was a void of pure silence

that seemed one or more of extremely appropriate and/or a utopian pipe dream.

The track

Legalize

has been described as a thrash metal, doo-wat, pre-post-punk, chamber/slash, funk, electromadical, occult cord, jazz grunge, trip house, gangster, lullaby, hammer-bop, drill wobble, crossover with a hint of chasm Dave, but silent.

So, something for everyone

there.

I mean, obviously, for newspapers, you know, there's a big concern about AI.

I mentioned the

falling circulation, but also the fact that a lot lot of journalism could be, you know,

AI is already sufficiently advanced that it could quite convincingly write a column blaming global warming on young trans people or the war in Sudan on young trans people or the rising cost of private care homes on young trans people.

And thus rendering many newspaper columnists completely obsolete.

So you can see why concerns have been raised.

Well, I mean, it's it's beefing up the international tensions as well, with China is warning its own AI minds to avoid going to the US as part of the ongoing AI battle after the release of DeepSeek.

Apparently, officials in China are worried that if their brightest researchers start hopping on planes to America, they might spill a little too much tea about the country's tech progress or worse, get detained and turned into bargaining chips in the ongoing US-China power struggle.

Now, until recently, I would have said that's the kind of thing that China would do to US visitors, but now

it's all hands-on.

The dictatorial arbitrary use of powertrain, and we don't know who's going to do what.

So I think now instead of risking their AI talent getting caught up in their international struggles, they're keeping them close to home, where the only real threat is a government official leaning over their shoulder asking, so when are we getting sentient robots we can bang?

Well, I mean, I mean, looking at the state of AI in America, what it's done recently, and since we last recorded,

was

produce an AI video

of Donald Trump having taken over Gaza,

which Trump then shared on his incorrectly named social media platform Truth Social.

It included the words

Donald is coming to set you free, which I'm pretty sure are the kind of words that in less enlightened times did sort of find themselves on the entrance gates to concentration camps.

But let's not delve too far into that.

Obviously, it's 2025 and the American president sharing an AI video for hits and giggles, in which people have been ethnically cleansed and replaced by sunbathing,

egomaniacal plutocrats in swimming trunks.

Shouldn't surprise us anymore, Alice.

That's just the world we live in.

It's the reality that America has voted upon the rest of the world.

Apparently, some people were quite offended by this, even on the conservative side, or the right-wing side, or the pro-Trump side of the internet.

I don't really know which of those words applies anymore to the new world framing in which we exist.

It feels like left and right are no longer applicable

categories.

But the pro-Trump people were sort of

outraged by the fact that the AI had generated bearded people in bikinis.

As part of this glorious

escape.

In terms of

AI sort of taking stuff that other people have written, it did seem that this was taken from the book of Revelation, essentially.

And the people shall be driven from their lands, and he will go out and deceive all the nations of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the earth will worship a giant golden nincum poop, and behold, a white sun lounger, and he that sat in it had a pair of speedos on.

Oh, and there will be bearded belly dancers frolicking on the graves of the dispossessed and displaced.

So, but that's essentially where where it came from.

I've

slightly mistranslated the original text.

What is it with autocrats enjoying depictions of big statues of themselves?

I just want an autocrat that's going to put up a big statue of a donkey.

Like, just

I mean, they've all got big statue makers on speed dial, but be original at least.

Yes, well, I've long said this.

I mean, you know,

a lot of public statuary is sort of on the great man view of history.

And I think it would be far better to put up statues of people who've done absolutely nothing on the basis that they'll have probably done far more good than

people who we put statues up of.

I mean, obviously, and you know, in terms of AI concerns, I mean, aside from newspapers and creatives, musicians, comedians worrying about AI stealing a living from them, what about the people who make genuine propaganda videos for deranged despots?

How are they going to make a living now that you can just churn this kind of stuff?

And do you know how expensive it is to get a real 40-metre-high gold statue of a two-time US president?

It is, it's a lot, as A, my bank balance, and B, my massive golden statue of Grover Cleveland and the flower beds at home can testify.

Only young propagandists hoping to be the next Lenny Riefenstahl are going to be put out of jobs by robots.

I feel that's truly tragic.

You know what happened to the last artist that got thwarted in their career.

Anyway, it was around about a 35 to 40 second video, and I think contravened all Ten Commandments at least twice.

So, I mean, we might have set a new world record here.

But fundamentally, Alice, what we've got here, and I think we've been waiting for this moment for some time on the bugle.

I think this AI video, the Trump Gaza AI video, is...

The story of human civilization reaching its logical endpoint.

There's nowhere to go from here.

I think it's done.

I mean, we've given it a a good crack.

We've had some real triumphs along the way.

There's no shame in failure if you've tried your best, but it's over.

And objectively, I think it's for the best that we accept that because the collective human eyeball cannot unsee those 35 seconds of Trumpel Stiltsky and A.I.

Mayhem that condensed all the failures of modern politics, media, and technology into one indigestible but also unregurgitatable bolus of hypercrass, insultative, bad taste, provocation.

We're done.

Thanks to everyone who tried to make human civilization work for so long.

Your efforts truly appreciated.

But we've got to admit, we were beaten by a worthy foe.

Well,

I was looking up

when I was doing the research for

this podcast, and I was looking at all of the news articles, and I looked up on ChatGPT whether it was getting any better at doing comedy.

And I can happily inform you that it is not.

It is, if anything, worse at doing comedy.

Well, that brings us to the end of this joyous bugle with the world looking like it's about to erupt into a glorious new age of hope, happiness, cooperation, and joy.

Well, I feel like people faced with the news now have three options.

Number one, of course, suck in all of the news, try to keep

on top of it as though knowing it will help you control it in any way.

Secret, spoiler alert, it won't.

Second is detach completely from reality, refuse to engage with the news, withdraw into your selfish bubble until they come for you with guns.

And the third, of course, is is listen to the bugle, which is basically an average of the first two.

So do that.

And if you've listened to the bugle and enjoyed it, why not join our bugle voluntary subscription scheme to help keep this show free, flourishing,

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Go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Alice.

I have a book.

It's called A Passion for Passion.

It is published in concert with the Bugle.

So if you want to support the Bugle and/or me, please buy A Passion for Passion.

That's available online at thebuglepodcast.com as well as Amazon and Bookshop.org.

You can also listen to Realms Unknown, which is the new exercise of bugle authority in the world.

It's me casting my long-shadowed hand over science fiction and fantasy and we just recorded a couple of special episodes for International Book Week, UK International Book Week, apparently different from International Book Week internationally.

But to celebrate UK International Book Week, the World Cup of UK International Book Weeks, we recorded a double episode with recommendations for young books for young readers and older readers that want to read young books.

So that's Realms Unknown.

We are switching back to Friday recordings for the next few weeks.

So we'll be back in about 10 days' time.

Well, obviously, depending on when you listen to this, whether you

anyway, the point is we will be back quite soon with the next issue of the Bugle.

In the meantime,

goodbye.

And

just keep the glimmering flame of hope alive.

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.