The Bugle remembers 2024

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers, I am Andy Zoltzmann and this is the year 2025.

A year they said would never happen.

I'm not sure they did say that.

Anyway, but it's a year in which things will almost certainly take place.

But what things will they be?

Well, I'm glad to say we will have exclusive coverage of the year 2025 here on the Bugle.

But before that, in this Bugle issue 4326 sub-episode R for review of 2024, we have our exclusive review of 2024.

In many ways, 2024 was an all-action prequel to this new blockbuster of year 2025.

And like so many prequels and sequels, one has already disappointed and the other will almost certainly follow suit.

Before we start our review, however, some quick housekeeping of what a house we have.

Firstly, the Bugle survives purely on your donations.

So if you want to help keep the Bugle free, flourishing, independent, and devoid of advertisements, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click on the donate button.

Thank you to everyone who has already contributed to our voluntary subscription scheme and enabled the Bugle to retain its position as the longest running and only audio newspaper for a visual world in the world.

Also, I'm on tour with my stand-up show the Zoltgeist.

Thanks to everyone who came to see the 2024 version, the 2025 version will kick off on Saturday the 11th in Cambridge, then Sunday the 12th in Cheltenham.

And for all the other dates running through to, well, May now, go to andyzoltzman.co.uk and I will see all of you there.

Right, 2024.

Let's do this month by month, shall we, in the traditional chronological order, starting with strap-in January.

Top story this week.

World War III might be breaking out again.

I mean, this is

basically the state that we're currently in as a planet that World War III might or might have already broken out.

Um, I'll tell you what I was thinking last Thursday, uh, Nish NATO.

I was thinking we're over 10 days into the year, and whilst Ukraine and Gaza are still ticking along in full boom, there hasn't yet been an outbreak of armed conflict involving major global powers that has the potential to escalate into something terrifyingly bigger.

So, can't complain about the year I've been receiving as a consumer so far.

Then, on Friday, uh, it appears that Britain and America started bombing the Middle East, albeit a specific part of the Middle East

targeting the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Nish,

I know,

I assume in all the TV shows you've done, your various travel shows and things, you must have done a bit of a stint with the Houthis.

Like playing, I don't know, playing squash with Houthi rebels or whatever.

Definitely not, Andy.

If Nish had done a stint with the Houthis, they would have been cancelled already.

Yeah.

This is the thing.

The US and the UK has learned nothing.

You don't get rid of these groups by bobbing them.

You get rid of them by commissioning me to do a television program.

I've taken down whole networks, not even just individual programs.

Are you telling me that if you didn't commission Nish hangs with the Houthis, the entire situation in Yemen would be resolved within six months.

Six months?

That's one of your longer, longer runs.

It's yeah, it's truly bad stuff.

I think the

news that the US and the UK are conducting bombing campaigns in the Middle East is so familiar to me that I think it caused my virginity to return.

It's immediately put me back to 2002.

The background to this is that,

well, the background to this is a big placard that says, oh shit, everything's been fucked for a hell of a long time.

But the more specific background to this is the Houthis are a group that emerged in the 90s and rose to prominence in 2014 after they rebelled against Yemen's government.

And there's been a civil war in Yemen that's been conducted with the Houthis, who have the kind of Iranian backing and the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

And there is no sentence or situation that begins, middles, or ends well if it involves the phrase military coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

That is just an absolute recipe for disaster.

The Houthis are also known as Ansar Allah, which translates as supporters of God, which is immediately a red flag.

Any group with God in its name or we love God, they're going to turn out to be definitely at best a spicy band of people

and it is difficult to observe lots of the kind of religious conflicts as they happen you know the the Yemeni civil war has a Sunni Shia element to it the Sunnis being the Saudi Arabians the Shias being the Houthis obviously what's happening in Gaza has a huge religious component to it between Jews and Muslims and it can feel surprising specifically for someone like me who largely exists in a world of lapsed religious people.

You know, I come from a long traditional line of lapsed Hindus.

I'm currently doing a podcast with two of the most lapsed Jews in human history.

I even know lapsed atheists.

I know lapsed atheists.

These are people who, to be clear, don't believe in God.

They just really hate the stand-up comedy of Ricky Gervais and find

his tone around atheism so unbearable that they're beginning to will there to be an afterlife so that he can be consigned to hell.

But yes, now the US and the UK have decided

it didn't work the first time, so we're just going to do it again.

It really is,

it absolutely, really is the Superman film of ideas.

We just,

it worked at one point, but it hasn't worked for a hell of a long time, and yet we still keep doing it.

So what sort of kicked off the

current flare-up was a number of attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

Since November, the Houthis have attacked more than 20 merchant vessels in the Red Sea using missiles, drones,

helicopters, and boats.

The attacks have caused considerable chaos in the global trade because the Red Sea is one of the world's favourite shipping routes ever since the Suez giant water slide fell down in 1869 and was repurposed in its new flat state as a canal.

And the Red Sea is particularly crucial because these days, NATO, it requires a ship to go up and down it rather than just a Moses with a special stick to magic a special members-only crossing route.

So you can see why it's so strategically important.

The Houthis have said their attacks are in response to the Gaza situation, which let me just check whether it's been sorted out.

I'll just check the webpage.

Nope, still

that webpage hasn't been updated for 4,000 years.

I'll just refresh it.

Still no.

So it's a bit of a mess.

In November, the Houthis seized the Galaxy Leader, which is not quite as exciting or sci-fi as it sounds, sadly.

The Galaxy Leader being a ship, a 21-year-old ship of Polish origin, Japanese-owned, Bahamas-registered, classic 21st-century child of the world.

They've been using it as a tourist attraction.

There's still 25 hostages on board, which is not exactly a dream day out as a kid, is it?

Would you like to go to the playground?

No.

How about roller skating?

No.

Would you like to go to the petting zoo?

No.

Well, you suggest where you want to go for the day out, darling.

I'd like to go to a hijacked cargo ship with 25 hostages on, please, mum.

I'll tell you what, the Houthis really need to take more of a leaf out of the British government's book

because what they're doing at the moment is they've stolen something and they're allowing Pete, and they're allowing people from their country to come and view it.

What they should be doing is stealing something and then allowing people from the country it was stolen from to have a look around.

That's basically the entire purpose and existence of the British Museum.

Hey, people from other countries, come and look at your own shit in our country.

And as sure as night follows day, March.

And, well, there's only one place to start in Glasgow News

this week.

This, I mean, you all know what we're talking about.

Possibly the greatest news story of the millennium, would you say?

A world of pure imagination, it was, in that you had to imagine anything was actually fing there.

So there it is.

The

Willy Wong.

Did anyone here go to it?

No.

No.

Did anyone know anyone who actually went?

One.

And I mean, it was.

I mean, Josie, you are our Glasgow tourist attraction correspondent.

I am.

I mean, this is absolutely sensational, isn't it?

Yes, every now and again, if you endure the horror of the world, you get a little treat.

And very much that was the case for the people who went there as well.

They got one jelly bean at the end of it.

What happened was,

people were promised an immersive experience that would delight them.

They were promised catgating,

catchy tans,

exacerd lollipops, truly a passer dice of sweet teeth.

That was the AI-generated website that the man who organized, and I say organized using air quotes, the event,

didn't bother to edit the fake words out of,

which could have been a hint as to what happened.

You know, who amongst us hasn't dreamt of a passer dice of sweet teeth?

Family show.

Yeah.

And it's so blank.

It was £35 a head.

Yeah, it's not cheap.

Although I watched the TikToker who was this American, she was like, it was £35.

And this is Scotland.

That's a lot of money there.

I was like, get f ⁇ ed.

Go and get your prescription.

See how much it costs you, huh?

Huh?

We've all got 35 quib because we're not spending it on insulin.

Anyway.

It was just the bleakness.

It's that combination of utter, I guess, bethos.

And it just kept on coming.

Like, the headline of it is, children left in tears at sparsely decorated warehouse.

which, you know, it's a picture of Victorian cruelty.

And then it just got better and better because more and more pictures surface.

So you have a picture of this woman, this brilliant actor who's trying her best and dressed as a meth lab and palumper.

It's good because I feel like actors, particularly working actors, have a lot of their dignity stolen from them.

And this is their chance to kind of fight back.

Yeah, then my favourite part of it was

because the guy, so I did some research on the guy.

The guy's name is Billy Cool.

Billy Cool.

Not spelt that way.

And

he has previous.

He organized a community Santa's grotto.

And then

after the community had donated loads of toys and gifts, he just cancelled it.

He's a reverse Father Christmas.

And yeah, so my my favorite part of it is because Billy Coole just got AI to design it all, when the actors were like, where's the script?

He was like,

AI, right?

Just script.

Write the script, which is fing nonsense.

I've downloaded it.

I would love to read you some in a bit.

But the best part of it is that AI invented a villain.

And the villain who is not in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory is called the unknown.

Which I feel like the AI would be scared of the unknown Because that's all the AI only knows about knowledge.

We're all scared of the unknown, Joseph.

Well, you shouldn't be, because it was a crap villain.

And then, yeah, so I downloaded the script.

We can read some of it if you like, but the unknown, so the poor guy who was supposed to be Willy Wonka, who,

there he is, God bless him.

He actually looks just like Timothy Chalamay, so I know why they got him.

But the name that they give him, that the AI gave him, was hang on, Willie Macduff

Willie MacDuff, I don't know.

And

the unknown.

The unknown is an as yet unknown, which is apt,

actor wearing a kind of

sort of

mannequin mask, unmovable, and a grey

I'm gonna say snood, but no, that's not the right word.

It's like a mumu, a grey mu moo, and and he's hiding behind a mirror.

And there's a video of this poor guy being like, watch out, everybody.

And then the unknown just comes out like this.

Very angular in the movements.

And it's not that it's bad.

But it is that it's bad.

Yeah, I'd love to read you a bit from the script.

The best thing about the script is the AI, he's obviously said to the AI, AI, write me a brilliant script about Willie Macduff from the famous film

taking people around his haunted warehouse.

And

the AI said, no problem.

And the AI has just put in loads of things that the crowd would do.

So halfway, like all the way through, it will be like, the crowd leans in, laughing and giggling.

It's like, AI, you're a bit arrogant here.

But my favorite part was, and let's not forget our secret inventions, the soup-flavoured jelly beans, designed to keep the wee ones clean.

Like, AI, that's fucking soap.

Kind of soup and soap.

Also,

no child will be delighted by being kept clean, right?

Second, hot and spicy beans that, and then it says in brackets, lowers his voice, attract the birds.

Brackets, winks.

That's a story for another day, or perhaps a question for your parents.

Then

in brackets, the audience chuckles, appreciating the playful innuendo.

I mean, often the audience chuckles, appreciating a playful innuendo.

And then the thing that's the big thing that Willy Wonka th that the unknown is trying to steal

that he thinks children would be interested in?

The AI?

The anti-graffiti gobstopper.

Which, according to the script, honestly, the script's a delight.

It's 15 pages long, and you will not be able to get through it.

Behold, the culmination of imagination and ingenuity, the anti-graffiti gobstopper.

A suite so powerful it can make any room sparkle without lifting a finger.

Right, firstly, why is the AI obsessed with cleanliness?

And does it bode ill for the fact that soon AIs will decide that we ourselves are a parasite to be cleaned?

Let's skip ahead now to April.

Donald Trump is on trial.

Well, just a quick refresher for those of you who've forgotten how this story all started.

Well, as I said, in the 1770s, America, for some reason, thought it could be trusted with itself.

One thing led to another, and it ended up voting in a self-proclaimed sex pest as president.

And hence, we are where we are.

Hari, I mean, you are right there as our official Donald Trump's legal affairs correspondent in New York.

Just, I mean,

the city must have been, yeah, has it been played on big screens in Times Square?

There's sort of huge parties where everyone's gathering to watch the death of American hope and democracy.

Andy, can we start with something lighter like Iran and Israel?

Because with Iran and Israel,

there's hope there.

Oh, right.

That really?

That there is an, yeah, because with the end, the pain will stop.

Okay.

So

I see hope in that.

No, no, we're not.

We're not watching this on a big screen.

I don't think you understand this, and we're all trying to forget, right?

He's from here.

Yes.

We did this.

Every time we see him, it's a reminder of we could have stopped this a long time ago.

and we just let this is a fun sideshow and we just kept doing it over let's watch where this goes married again had an affair oh another lawsuit he's bankrupt has a tv show now oh this is entertaining we caused this we don't like thinking about it

So far, we've had the selection of the jury, which is a rather complicated process,

in which they have to find 12 people who don't have an opinion on Donald Trump.

Now, I mean, I think you could scour the entire universe, and the best you could possibly hope for is 12 recently slaughtered goldfish would be the closest you can get to this.

Yeah, I was just like, do you have to sort of, if you're trying to construct a jury, do you just have to hope that there's been a really fortunate like timing with a full ward of coma patients who've all

sort of went down and came up at exactly the same time?

And that's because it does strike me as one of those things where not having any sort of opinion is in and of itself sort of like it's not a neutral thing to be entirely unaware of what's going on.

And to be fair, I do really like admire the people who were able to, because like half the people straight away stuck their hands up,

there is absolutely zero way I'm going to be able to be impartial about this.

And they were like, fair enough,

right?

Because let's be honest, being on that jury would be exciting, but equally probably lead to you getting loads of death threats.

So that would be less round.

I mean, the troubling thing about everyone leaving, you know, like having an opinion and then being dismissed, is that I'm sure almost all of them are liberal, right?

Because liberals emote.

When they talk about them, they get angry.

They don't play it close to the vest.

Conservatives play it close to the vest, right?

Like conservatives in New York City particularly, they keep it close.

Like, I had no idea anyone I knew voted for Trump until after he won the election.

And all all of a sudden their social media is suspiciously quiet, right?

And at that point, you're like, gotcha.

You know what I mean?

And that's how he'll get acquitted because they keep it close to the vest.

They shut up.

They don't let people see, oh, I hate Trump.

No, they shut up.

They vote for him and he wins.

So, but so in that case, do you regret having spoken about him previously, sort of on stage, on podcasts, on social media, and everything?

Because you could have been in that jury otherwise.

I'll know.

Because look at where it's taken me.

Look at where talking about him has taken me.

You know, the jury, there's first of all, the fact they found 12 is shocking to me and makes me suspect some things.

And here's just a review of one of the jurors because they listed some of the characteristics of some of the jurors.

One juror watches MSNBC and Fox News and has no opinion of Donald Trump.

So clearly, this is a bot.

They are putting bots on the jury.

Like, this is what it's come to.

Another one

said that

she appreciated the fact that he speaks his mind.

Watch stand-up if you feel that way.

That is not...

A lot of the men just,

you know.

And then...

There was one juror.

This is a perfect juror.

All right.

This is actually the kind of juror we need.

He said, I find him fascinating.

He walks into a room and he sets people off one way or another.

And I find that really interesting.

Really?

This one guy could do all this.

See, that's a perfect juror because if you can't figure out why

and you don't follow the news, clearly you have no stake in anything.

Right?

That's perfect.

That's like watching sports and never has a team.

Never roots.

Just watches.

And imagine him saying, I find it interesting how a person hits the ball and everyone chases the ball.

How could one ball do all this?

Absolutely.

But there's not going to be, I can't find 12 of those.

Yeah.

No, I think that the sort of ideal jury is evidently comprised of, does anyone remember that Futurama episode where they went to war with the neutral planet?

It was like, your neutralness, it's a bejollette.

If I die, tell my wife that.

And you're like, it's that person that you need 12 times.

Or maybe, like, you know, the person who says, oh, I watch MSNBC and Fox News and everything.

All this person was aware of back in when Donald Trump first announced that he was going to be running for president.

This person was a New Yorker.

And they were like, from this moment, this guy might win.

And if he does win, eventually the mother of all court cases is going to land in a New York City courtroom.

And I will do everything within my power to live my life as the perfect jury member so that when the time comes, I will be there, because that is my greatest ambition.

So, therefore, like spending exactly equal amounts of time watching, like, oh, it's a

time to watch Rachel Maddow for half an hour and then switch over to Sean Hannity for exactly the same amount of time.

I don't think like no one can possibly

It just feels like someone who watches that much news and doesn't have an opinion is someone who probably can't make a decision.

And is that what you want on a jury?

Yeah, I mean, it is a problem.

So he's facing 34 felony charges of falsifying

business records, dealing with hush money payments made to, I think I've read it was an Australian actress

from New South Wales.

New South Wales.

NSFW, actress

Stormy Daniels,

allegedly to cover up a sexual relationship that Daniels claims she had with Trump and vice versa back in 2006.

So hush money paid to a pornographic film star and former striper.

Did I spell that right?

But anyway,

can I just check, sorry, very quickly with Harry?

So because obviously lots of international listeners and everything, you've got a different legal system in the United States to the one that we have in Britain and everything.

So these sorts of things can be a bit confusing, certainly for me.

And so all I would ask is, so when you have 34 felony counts, would you describe that as a greater than ideal number?

Well, what's a good number to have?

Higher numbers is better because usually

because the more felonies you get,

I mean, in this case with Trump, the more felonies, the bigger the chance we'll get him on something, right?

Now, they usually pull this with poor people, right?

Like,

they basically give you everything, and then it's like, okay, we'll let you off with, you know, manslaughter, even though, like, I wasn't even there at the time.

But you take the manslaughter.

So, the idea that they might pull this with Trump is very exciting.

Just throw everything at him, and then something is exactly.

So, we want as many felony accounts as possible.

One of the charges involves basically this hush money, allegedly paid to alleged Stormy, alleged Daniels, being classified as a business expense.

Now, I can't see how they're going to get him on that.

Because to me, hush money paid to a pornographic actress

for Donald Trump, that is a business, that is a legitimate business expense because he's all about his brand.

And

surely that counts as just investing in his brand.

That is building up the picture of who he is that his entire business is based on.

So

I see that as entirely legitimate, to be honest.

And now my favorite month, June, or lapsed June in my case.

Top story this week: America now has a criminal as a former president.

Exciting times.

At 10 p.m.

UK time on Thursday, two truly historic announcements were made within minutes of each other.

One was that I, Andy Zoltzmann, am a contestant on the next series of the Taskmaster TV show, which will be brought

in September.

And as if to bury bad news,

the New York Court then announced that Donald Trump was guilty of all 34 counts

in his current head-to-head against the

US judicial system.

The serial bankruptcy, celebr misogyny, superstar, impeachment veteran, civil war, reenactment fan, and insurrectionist chaotic stitchian was found guilty of essentially being himself,

and specifically in these 34 cases of falsifying business records, guilty on all charges, much to the delight of everyone.

In fact, I guess it pleased everyone who thinks it's completely appalling that America ever elected a person such as Trump, and they now have legal confirmation not only that he's a sex pest from last year, but also now a crook as well.

And also, to the delight of everyone who thinks that only a crook and a sex pest can make America once again the great nation of crooks and sex pests that it was in its greatest halcyon days.

Josh,

it's, I mean, it just feels like I mean, it was out of all the extraordinary things that we've seen in the Trumpian era,

I've been seeing his angry, furious face as

in the photos

and afterwards he emerged from the court.

I mean, it did seem to sort of sum up what America has put itself through over the last, well, nearly decade now.

Yeah, I don't know if we're ever going to see Donald Trump brought to justice, but it is fun to see him brought to fury

and crankiness.

He was convicted of all 34 felony charges he faced, which almost feels like a lifetime achievement award for six decades of uninterrupted crime give or take a few years uh although you kind of have to admit right he was on on trial for using this hush money payment uh that is uh in an incorrect use of campaign funds to influence an election uh and he did kind of get away with it because he did get to be president for what i will describe as at least four years

so it is a little you're like, ah, you got to hand it to him.

He really did it.

So what's weird is this hush money payment was not the worst deal he's ever made, which would be really saying something as he couldn't keep a casino open in Atlantic City.

I don't think,

pessimistically.

I don't think it changes anyone's opinion on Trump, right?

To see that he's actually convicted of these things he's accused of.

I can't imagine anyone watching the news on TV and going like, Heidi, did you see that report?

Yeah,

I guess he did it after all.

Shoot, well, I should probably take off my f your feelings Trump 2024 t-shirt and get my Hillary killed Epstein tattoo covered up with a picture of the kids or something.

Seems like he's a bad dude after all.

Josh, I have a quick question.

I mean,

my question is,

Could he run the country from jail

for the length of time he's imprisoned?

And and if so what kind of a setup would that jail require

um fridge full of diet cokes i think would be if he gets any say

i mean

it definitely seems like not only could he

but there are people that would think that's the best thing he's ever done

i truly don't know there's going to be a lengthy appeals process he also faces three other, I believe, criminal trials across the country.

So his presidency, he's going to be kind of busy the whole time.

Which I honestly think is good.

Even if he is president, you kind of want him occupied being prosecuted for a lifetime of crime.

I think that would be good for the country.

I honestly think whenever we get a president, we should kind of wrap them up in a lot of legal red tape just so that the harm that they can do is mitigated.

as you say I mean you know the question whether it's going to make any difference to people I mean

not much I mean as we've previously discussed on this esteemed news organ

it

it should not be possible to change your mind as you said Josh about Donald Trump in the year 2024.

It's not like for example thinking that you don't like 1980s pop music before finding yourself at first imperceptibly tapping your feet along to Too Shy by Kajagugu and feeling a blinding light of truth searing its way into your soul.

Or

maybe thinking you don't like mozzarella because you've never had the really good stuff and then finding yourself alone with a glistening, glorious, wobbly, yielding pillow of buffaline perfection, galloting the whole thing in five minutes of spiritual oneness and thinking that maybe we don't live in a godless universe after all.

Or it's not like thinking that you don't like Test Match Cricket before realizing that you've been foolishly precluding yourself from the greatest creation in human history and that no purer, more sumptuous, more kaleidoscopic form of unscripted narrative has ever or could ever be concocted.

You cannot have been waiting for this verdict before making your mind up about Trump.

This should not be the waffer-thin mint of conclusive evidence that tips you over into the explosive realization that maybe this guy is not entirely suitable to lead the world's most powerful nation.

But, you know, but it might make a little difference.

I hope so.

A little difference in an American presidential election can become a vast defining difference if it's a few thousand people in the right places.

Well, it feels like there is a little fatigue with these two candidates, and I think there are some people who really don't see a lot of daylight between them.

And

I don't agree with that on a lot of topics, but with the low enthusiasm for voter turnout, we might have kind of a -

football match type.

We're talking Montana?

There's not that many people there to start with.

So, I mean, if it comes down to just that the only two people in America who can be bothered to vote are Biden and Trump, this could be crucial because Trump could be barred from voting, could he not?

That's right.

Right.

In Florida, certainly.

Yeah.

So that, I mean, that could be.

Oh, yeah.

Our justice system is a nightmare, and it's good to see it giving nightmares to a person that deserves nightmares.

And now, August.

When we last recorded, Joe Biden had just announced he was stepping aside and that Kamala Harris would be the Democratic candidate in the forthcoming election.

NATO, as

America gradually or rapidly declining into a pit of its own self-inflicted despair, correspondent, bring us up to date with what has happened in the intervening weeks since late July.

Last night at dinner, someone was telling me about having eaten a delicacy that was a fish marinated in its own urine.

And

nothing else describes American politics quite as as perfectly as that image.

We sit here on August 26th.

The last episode that you released was right after

Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris consolidated Democratic support.

On July 13th was when Trump was shot in the ear, and then the Republican convention.

It was dark time for Democrats.

It's only been six weeks.

It's been such a whirlwind of six weeks.

It's been dizzying.

Six weeks is such a fast amount of time, as the Republicans call it, the appropriate length of time to bring a pregnancy to term.

I'd forgotten about the ear thing.

That's how long it's been.

But also, NATO, election campaigns in the UK are only six weeks.

This all have to happen in that period.

I am jealous.

That is enough reason to shred the Declaration of Independence and return to the bosom just so that we can shorten our election period.

Do you know, Andy,

you've been off the air this whole time.

Do you know how much of a hardship it has been for me personally as a white male comedian to not be podcasting?

I actually did go on the bituation room and another podcast.

I've had so many takes.

I am dying from all of my pent-up takes.

I've had blue balls of podcasting my takes.

This...

The bugle hiatus in the summer of 2024 is literally the most violent man-made disaster to happen to anyone since Chernobyl.

It's like the, it's been very confusing for me also because, as someone who votes for Democrats and also hates the Democrats, do you know what I mean?

Like, I, you know, as you know, like, I'm not big on teams.

I don't, you know, we, I don't enjoy, I don't not root for things.

My team is the international working class.

Um, I think this might finally be our season.

Uh,

we've made some trades, uh,

but the

the you know, like my team,

they're my team.

I grudge them.

I resent them.

But they're also

craven, feckless idiots who snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, like a junkie whose drug of choice is mediocrity, who will sell one shoe on the street, not a pair, just a single shoe to buy, to get a fix of mediocrity.

And so it's confusing to like have the Democrats pivot from their decades-old strategy of being tedious

losers to seeming to try something completely different and out of the box and try to win

and

care about anything.

And it's been like flawless execution by the Democrats.

When Biden, his polling was in the toilet,

Democrats were

telling us that democracy was at stake with Trump, but then acting like the stakes were lower than that, like it was just stakes at stake.

you know what I mean?

And then Nancy Pelosi, my congresswoman from San Francisco, like I hate her and it's mutual, she hates me too because one time I delivered a seven-foot styrofoam spine to her office

and her staff have never forgiven me.

But

she kept, what was amazing, like she was the nail in the coffin for Biden stepping aside because she kept saying, she kept going on the news and saying, well, you know, Joe Biden is running out of time to make a decision.

And And then five minutes later, Joe Biden would come on the news and say, I already made a decision.

And then she would come back on and say, he really has to make a decision.

So Sunday, July 21st, 11 a.m., Biden drops out.

Kamala declares immediately there's 44,000 black women on Zoom raising money.

By 4 o'clock, Tennessee's Democratic Party is the first state delegation to pledge their delegates to her.

By 5:30, Charlie XDX tweets the Kamala's brat.

So by the end of the day of Monday, Kamala had raised $81 million, which is the biggest single-day fundraising haul in history.

And then on Tuesday, J.D.

Vance blows up the race by referring to Kamala Harris as a childless cat lady.

And I think when historians look back, this will be the moment that Trump lost.

Because polling suggests that we're in the middle of the biggest gender gap in elections where women overwhelmingly support Harris and men support Trump.

And there's a scientific explanation for that.

And there's a technical term, which is that male Trump supporters are bitch ass boys.

And

calling out childless cat ladies is a provocation.

They have poked the bear because one thing we know about childless cat ladies is that they have time on their hands and can hold a grudge.

So they're now they're swinging into politics.

By Wednesday, that same week,

the entire discourse of the election has changed.

And what the quest, the serious debate that is convulsing American politics is, does J.D.

Vance f couches?

That was like,

it turns out he may not, but we've had to spend a lot of time talking about and answering the question because we believe that the Republican vice presidential nominee and senator from Ohio would be someone who would f a couch if that was happening.

He hasn't denied f ⁇ ing the couch.

I mean,

that speaks volumes of the man and the couch.

I mean, like you said, there's no evidence that Vance has had carnal relations, not just with a couch, but with any piece of soft furnishing.

But the fact, as you say, that this has rumbled on for so long is in many ways worse, because I guess it shows that...

vast swathes of the U.S.

electorate believe that he is the kind of person who would.

And the fact that he hasn't,

now that surely suggests, NATO, that there's a quite a high probability that J.D.

Vance has had romantic advances rejected by a couch.

And

I mean, that's not vice presidential quality, is it, really?

Yeah,

I want a vice president who knows how to close his deal with the couch.

So how did this come about,

the couch?

I think it was just someone tweeting that in his book, Hillbilly Elegy, on a particular page, he talks about a couch with a rubber glove between the cushions, which I believe not to be part of the text of the book, but I haven't read it.

Right.

But it was believable enough that everybody ran with it.

Yeah.

And I guess, you know, with novels, it's as much about what you don't write as what you do.

And, you know, the fact that he hasn't written it basically suggests that he was thinking about it.

Sure.

The list of things that have become...

I mean, by the end of the week, the Democrats have sort of settled on this like frame about the republicans which is to talk about them is creepy and weird like they had been talking about republicans as being a threat to democracy but they are like these guys are just weird yes maybe jd vance did a couch but he did go on an interview and refer to his children as my wife's children

and now we have November.

Top story this week.

America vomits its own soul out into a bottomless chasm of despair sorry america goes to the polls to vote uh in its presidential uh election uh now i've actually enjoyed this election campaign a lot more than i thought i was going to and by enjoy i mean ignore uh because i've spent the last month as you may know

in pakistan uh in the the loving embrace of cricket um also i've just started my my stand-up tour so i've been concentrating on that and i had you know lots of cricket in the weeks before that um in the english cricket season and to be honest it has made this election campaign far more bearable how have you both

dealt with it this I mean

I guess in 2016 there was a certain

I don't know I mean novelty to it

and

I mean I guess you know that I don't know there's almost like a dull thud of reality about about Trump still being still being even a candidate.

How have you managed to cope with it?

The dull thud thud of reality was your special move when you were a wrestler, wasn't it, Zelsman?

It was.

You've got to get it just high enough above the.

Anyway.

Sorry, Alice.

The nature of this election is so urgent and upsetting.

You know, it's a battle for the soul and identity.

of America.

If one party wins, it'll be straight up repressive, patriarchal, Christo-fascism, four square families with 15 children apiece, populating rural compounds in the end of nowhere.

If the other party wins, it'll be the absolute disintegration of social traditions, miserable, overemployed, barren women, gay minorities, transitioning minors, bleeding-hearted leftists, demanding your hard-earned tax dollars be poured into wasteful, half-baked programs to teach refugees knitting or critical race theory while your grandma can't get a job.

It's so

incredibly important and vital.

And I feel like my charometer got tapped out about three and a half years ago, maybe.

Like everything is so urgent and in your face and depressing all the time I think I'm done I think

it's just you resigning as a as you know from the human race essentially just you're moving on to the happiest species well the only way that I'm coping is by looking on the funny side Andy on the bright side of things it is very funny to me that the Republicans whole pitch is basically constantly asserting that the Democrats have the power to rig elections, that there's a deep state that's in control of everything, that the Hollywood elite are drinking children.

They have a power to control your life and prevent the Republicans from winning.

And that's why it's important to get out and vote.

And also, if the Republicans win, ignore all that stuff we spent months or years saying about the validity of the election.

It's amazing.

Nish, how's your election campaign gone?

My election campaign has gone fantastically, Andrew.

And I'm basically, at this point, all of our objective is to not pull a Tony Hinchcliffe.

Every comedian now, we've all had bad gigs.

Some of us have had gigs so bad they've ended up in the news.

But none of us have had a gig so bad we might potentially alter the trajectory of a presidential race.

And the only objective here is to not do what the what Tony Hinchcliffe, aka Kill Tony, did when he opened for Donald Trump at what appears to be an Adolf Hitler tribute concert that he staged at Madison Square Gardens.

It was very strange.

It was like watching the bootleg Beatles or something.

It was a very strange event.

And Tony Hitchcliffe told a joke that is so racist about Puerto Ricans that it may well have a direct impact on the presidential race.

I mean, elsewhere, I will say that aside from all the other very, very sort of important conversations and issues that we've had here,

it is really important to stress that Donald Trump at the most recent bout of rallies has looked fully dead.

He has looked

simply dead as f.

Like,

I don't know.

It genuinely looks like Lenin is running for Russian president now.

And again, we shouldn't, we should separate all of these out.

There are very serious issues at play.

But at several of Trump's rallies that I've seen video footage of over the last couple of days, he has looked like me when I did what I would describe as ill-advised stand-up comedy gig 25 minutes after getting out of the airport when I landed in New Zealand.

I was so jet lagged that my brain could not make memories.

I was forgetting the words I was saying as I was saying them.

I sort of jetlagged myself into having the memento man's disease.

It was incredible.

I I was barely capable of understanding what I was saying as it was coming out of my mouth.

Now, I will say, did the gigs go fine?

Of course they did.

I'm an incredibly competent stand-up comedian.

And I will say, competent is about as busy as tickets available at Lishkamar.co.

But what I will say is, what I wouldn't have done in that position is give me the codes to the most powerful nuclear arsenal assembled in the history of mankind.

He looks deeply and profoundly unwell.

At one point last week, he just started riffing on Hannibal Lecter.

He's consistently just talked about Hannibal Lecter repeatedly to the extent that it is starting to be concerning that he thinks Hannibal Lecter is a real guy.

He's done this quite often, hasn't he?

Lecter seems to be some sort of spiritual touchstone.

I don't know if he's

like a hero, a role model.

I don't know.

Well, they didn't do anyone any favours by casting Mads Mickelson in the reboot, did they?

Because now everyone has weird sexual feelings about Hannibal Lecter.

To be fair, I think Trump probably had weird sexual feelings about the original Hannibal Lecter.

But again, you know, handsome actors

can turn anyone's head.

Regarding Tony Hinchcliffe, I was so glad that I'm not doing the last post anymore because if you will recall correctly, there were occasional moments where it felt like the made-up universe that I had created was piercing through to the boundaries of reality.

And when he started saying there was a floating trash island in the ocean, I was like, is it Bob the sentient trash island who's running for president

in the last post universe?

I think we'd all take that now, Alice.

We would all happily welcome Bob,

sentient trash island, back from the fictitious past into the real present.

I mean, talk about, about, I mean, all the rabbits Trump has pulled out of the campaigning hat, the rotten, festering corpses of rabbits out of his putrid hat.

I mean, racism, sexism, big-time bullshit.

He described Puerto Rico, like said, this floating island of garbage.

He said Liz Cheney should have guns pointing at her face.

He joked, jokingly, of course, about journalists being shot.

I mean, personally, I know humor is innately subjective, but I didn't find it laugh out loud funny.

But then, comedy of awkwardness is not really really my thing.

He talks about the enemy within and whether or not you think he was attempting to directly quote Adolf Hitler.

It was certainly the kind of language that you might use if, for example, you were scripting a TV drama about Hitler and you wanted Hitler to sound just like Adolf Hitler.

He claimed God was on his side.

This is a weird thing.

It's claiming God was on his side.

Now, I know we all tend to drift a bit right as we get older.

And God has had some pretty wonky political and social views over the years.

But even so, that seems like a bit of a leap for God to support a man who quite literally shits on all 10 of his commandments on a daily basis.

I just think the only acceptable time to call someone the enemy within is when you're pregnant and they're kicking your bladder.

I will say that at certain,

I will say, at certain times of my life where I've experienced, shall we call it, colonic discomfort, I have repeatedly referred to the enemy within

and have screamed, the power of Christ compels you at my own.

Get thee behind me, Satan.

He also used this phrase, hydrogen is the new car, which, I mean,

that would take so much explanation on so many levels.

That was the working title of Orange is the new black.

He also pretended to give a blowjob to a microphone.

I mean, is that really appealing to the undecided voters?

I don't know.

Maybe that is what people are just waiting for in America.

Quite how you can be undecided about Donald Trump in the year 2024, I have no f ⁇ ing idea.

But maybe, just maybe, there are key voters in key swing stars who are just waiting for one or other candidate to give a pretend blowjob to a pretend microphone.

And that could be what swings it

for Trump.

And finally from 2024, it's December.

And here is an exclusive, previously unheard piece of sports news when I was joined by our old friend, John Oliver.

Baseball news now.

And

Juan Soto has crossed the Rubicon or the East River, the modern day Rubicon, debronxing himself from the New York Yankees and taking up with the New York Mets, your team, John, on what you have to say is a pretty sweet deal, $765 million over 15 years.

And he doesn't even have to pay for his own bats or lunches as well.

I mean, is that...

Do you think that's enough?

$765 million?

I mean,

for a baseball player?

Yeah.

I mean, it's a lot of money.

You know,

it can be paid because the Met are owned by Steve Cohen, who has more money than any polite society would allow.

So, yeah,

it's really going to be a combination of his natural talent, Soto, and the

Met's historical ability to destroy everything that they touch in a kind of

reverse Midas situation.

So I think most Mets fans, I'm just very nervous about this precious, expensive object that they've just bought.

What's going to happen to him?

Because, you know, it just feels like there's a chance that in his first at-bat, he'll run towards first base, step on it a weird way, roll over, break his ankle, fall on the ground, separate his shoulder, and it'll all be over.

Right.

You know, it's

he's very good at baseball, Andy.

Okay, well, that's good because it's a lot of money, $765 million.

Yeah, it's a lot of rocket scientists to know that.

Um, it could pay so minor league players don't get paid a huge amount.

I've worked out this could pay for a minor league player on a 22,000-year contract.

Um, but would they still be motivated and fit at the end of it?

I don't know.

I mean, 15 years is a bit of a risk, so 22,000 seems like a real stretch.

That is the problem, isn't it?

Where's the incentive, you know, to really run hard for second?

you know you've got a regular wage albeit it's going to depreciate massively with inflation

or um if you want a something on a 15-year contract like uh like sotto uh you could pay for around about a thousand care home nurse nursing staff for 15 years but then from the mets point of view john where do you play a thousand care home nurses meta field i think you don't want them in the infield they'll get in everyone's way you can't see them stealing many bases, so if you want to play small ball, it's going to be tricky.

So on balance, you can see why they've gone for Soto rather than the 1,000 care home nurses.

I'd like to see a thousand at home

nurses.

I'd like to see pans brought in and people just banging whenever there's, you know.

Yeah.

Whenever there's a routine double play somehow put together by a thousand people running in the same direction.

It works out around about hundred thousand dollars per game which is just over sixty thousand dollars per plate appearance assuming that he's only getting paid for batting and he feels for free as a good wheel gesture around about fifteen thousand dollars per pitch faced all of which makes tickets to my tour show the zoltgeist seem extremely good value um

details at andyzaltzfron.co.uk um thanks for everyone who's come so far the tour restarts in uh in january details uh on the website

Juan Sotto should do a full FIFA move, Andy, and just decide you'll be his personal comedian for the rest of the life, and no one will ever hear you again.

You'd be like an official court gesture, just to Juan Sotto.

If the coming rate of baseball inflation continues, John, I'll just tap some figures into my calculator here.

By the year 2089, the shortstop for the MLB expansion franchise, the Sacramento Sacramento Bullsacks, will earn more than the GDP of the entire planet.

That's where we're heading.

The Sacramento Bulls is a really good name for a baseball team.

I wish it wasn't.

Well, that was it.

That was 2024.

What a year it was.

Still in line to be one of the best 25 years of the millennium.

Although I sincerely hope it does not retain its place in that top 25.

More bugles coming into your intro imminently as we embrace 2025.

Until then, thank you for listening and 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.