The Nepo-Dictator's Nadir

Speaker 1 I will be in Australia for the next few weeks hoping that the cricket can provide the distraction for everyone that it has so successfully provided for me since I was six years old.

Speaker 1 If you want to come to my shows there is a Bugle Live in Melbourne on the 22nd of December where I'll be joined by Sammy Shar and Lloyd Langford and I'm doing the Zoltgeist, my stand-up show in Melbourne on the 23rd of December and we've just added a possibly optimistic extra show in Sydney on the 3rd of January.

Speaker 1 The 2nd of January show is sold out but please, please, please come on the 3rd.

Speaker 1 My UK tour extension begins begins at the end of january all details and ticket links at andy'saltsman.co.uk when you are ready off you go

Speaker 2 the bugle audio newspaper for a visual world hello buglers and welcome to issue four thousand three hundred and twenty five of the world's longest running most influential hippest most indefatigable, suavest, purplest, and only audio newspaper for a visual world.

Speaker 2 Last week, I was Andy's altman. Let's just run the diagnostics to see if I still am.

Speaker 2 Yep, still Andy's altsman, more so, if anything. I'm in the shed of inviolable falsehood.
It is the 13th of December, 2024. And this...
is the penultimate bugle of the first 40th of the millennium.

Speaker 2 I remember when all this was feels. And joining me this week, it is the ultimate blast from the Bugle Past.

Speaker 2 Coming to you live, alive, unless you're listening to this in more than 200 years' time from now, and in no fewer than zero dimensions, from the biggest of all apples, by quite a long way too, from one of the six continents that the Titanic never reached.

Speaker 2 It's the man who was gifted by Britain to the United States as a gesture of reconciliation back in 2006. to mark the 230th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Speaker 2 It's the former joint record holder for most issues of the Bugle appeared in.

Speaker 2 He's long since fallen off that particular podium a man who's now appeared in fewer than half of all episodes of the bugle but also in mitigation fewer than half of all smurfs movies as well it is the no-time world pole vault champion the nebuchadnezzar of news-based comedy the crown prince of crapping on about politics the john wilkes booth of jovial weekly brooks sorry let's scratch that with one it's john oliver

Speaker 2 Hello, Andy. Hello, buglers.
What a lot of context that is not required or remotely helpful there, Andy. You've laid out a lot of cutlery on a table that this meal does not need.

Speaker 2 It is great to be back in the side saddle of this 17-year-old racehorse of a podcast.

Speaker 2 Other podcasts of a similar age have used to be put out to stud by this point.

Speaker 2 Merely responsible for fathering as many spin-off podcasts as possible, but not this one.

Speaker 2 This thoroughbred was built to race, and it's either going to go at a full gallop to a finish line or at a full trot towards a glue factory.

Speaker 2 But either way, his ears are back, its hooves are high, and it's moving forward.

Speaker 2 And if you're not already hearing the black beauty theme music somewhere in your mind at this point, you're medically dead instead. In fact, you know what? Let me help you out.

Speaker 2 What I'm saying is,

Speaker 2 let's ride, Andy.

Speaker 2 Let's saddle this podcast up. Put on joggers and ride like the wind.
Put a feedback in front of this podcast space. Edict it with steroids, Andy.
Hit it with a stick.

Speaker 2 hold it carrots on the end of a fishing rod. That might actually be for donkeys, but who knows? It might work here, too.
The point is, let's ride fast, let's see how fast this horse can still go.

Speaker 2 And if it falls over and it breaks its leg, put it up, pull it over the top of it, and put it out of his misery because we don't want it to suffer. But until then,

Speaker 2 let's ride.

Speaker 2 I probably should have faded that out rather than gone with the abrupt pause. No, that's that's that's fine, that's fine.

Speaker 2 Do we have clearance to use that music? Do you think?

Speaker 2 i mean if the horse comes after us let it

Speaker 2 clearance clearance is a state of mind

Speaker 2 well i mean this horse is well and truly uh well he truly well and truly saddled up john and this uh this is um issue i mean how well it's it's been a couple of years since you last did a full a full uh a full bugle i think i think that's right yeah the world seems to have um

Speaker 2 not sorted everything out in that uh

Speaker 2 yeah most things right there'll always be a handful of issues for the world world but i think generally the world's in a pretty good place

Speaker 2 um look around you know with um with a blindfold on things are okay i think yeah yeah yeah i mean if you if you if you just live in the bugle soundproof safe then you know that's that's the way the world is best i think

Speaker 2 this is issue 4325.

Speaker 2 4325 of course famously was the end of the first countdown at the launch of Apollo 11 when NASA's chief launch countdowner, Clapston Frillard, pranked Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and the other guy.

Speaker 2 But go with five instead of one. NASA soon brought it, no dicking around at launch time rule into play.

Speaker 2 And 4325 could also be set to be the year in which the COP2330 Summit finalizes a deal under which the rich countries of the world pay for a free inflatable Kevin Costner for the less well-off nations that will be fully underwater by then.

Speaker 2 So that's something to look forward to in just a couple of thousand, a few hundred years' time. We're recording on the 13th of December 2024.

Speaker 2 On this day in 1962, NASA launched Relay 1,

Speaker 2 the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit. and easily one of my favorite active repeater communication satellites of all time.

Speaker 2 And it paved the way for a world in which satellite communication enables people anywhere in the world to watch live action from the seniors golf tour to their heart's content.

Speaker 2 That is what that technology is all about, John. You know, without that, how would we watch seniors golf?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, when you put it like that, you know, technology is a net positive, isn't it? Yeah. Obviously, there's been some downsides, but you know, the March of Progress does go heads north.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 On the 14th of December 1782, the Mongolfier brothers

Speaker 2 flew the first test flight of an unmanned hot air balloon. It made it over a mile and a half.
And that paved the way for the age of air travel,

Speaker 2 thus creating a world in which senior golfers can travel to any tournament in the world. I mean,

Speaker 2 what is progress for?

Speaker 2 Is there the first unmanned hot air balloon?

Speaker 2 Is that someone just having a balloon, letting go of it, and then just deciding to come up with an excuse?

Speaker 2 I let go of your balloon. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's not by excuse, it's by design. I'm trying to push travel forward.

Speaker 2 yeah well i guess so i mean these you know many scientific breakthroughs are by accident aren't they um yeah the discovery of penicillin yep um

Speaker 2 famously and um could you come up with a second example uh gravity gravity was invented by accident that was shit was just floating around until isaac newton needed some fruit to go with his picnic so um

Speaker 2 that's just the the path of progress john uh the 15th of december 2008 was a memorable day in the Zoltzmann household right here in South London where I am.

Speaker 2 As England lost a thrilling test match to India in Chennai and I was listening to the Test match special commentary on the radio little knowing that one day I would be part of that commentary team.

Speaker 2 Truly amazing. Oh and my son was born during the final stage of that game that's all.

Speaker 2 And on the 15th of December 1836 the US Patent Office building in Washington DC burnt to the ground. It destroyed almost 10,000 patents.

Speaker 2 All the patents that had ever been issued by the federal government to that date, as well as 7,000 related patent models, apparently, and, you know, just think of the inventions lost to history in that fire, John.

Speaker 2 The Massachusetts cheese engine steam-powered mechanical cow churner,

Speaker 2 an ingenious device that gently rotated a sleeping cow overnight so that you could squeeze ready-to-eat butter straight out of its udders in the morning.

Speaker 2 The Frabwick and Sons Harpsy Corpse, which was a musical coffin by celebrity Undertaker's Frabwicks, that would enable the deceased to be buried with their favourite piece of music being automatically twangs, driven by a coal-powered mechanical motor, and a specially adapted harpsichord.

Speaker 2 Then there was the New York Bonsetiers and Nogginitions Company self-extending stovepipe hat, which used a combination of ratchets and wheels.

Speaker 2 The extension of the hat can be anything from nine inches to five feet, depending on the hat extent required by the social occasion you were attending.

Speaker 2 And its sister product, the Paris Pope, which is an extending mitre that enabled popes to deliver prayers from inside a trench or over a high fence.

Speaker 2 All those inventions, sadly lost to us. Andy, was that fire real? I feel like the problem is you're such a prolific trafficker in bullshit.

Speaker 2 I've completely lost track of what's real and what's fake anymore. And

Speaker 2 was there a seed of truth in that eventual orchard of nonsense? There always is, John.

Speaker 2 There always is.

Speaker 2 There was a tree of truth.

Speaker 2 It was a genuine, a genuine fact. I checked it, a single checked it on the internet.

Speaker 2 It was a genuine fact that you then got extrapolated into something that was 98 proof

Speaker 2 john you've lived in america for 18 years now that's that's just the way shit works isn't it

Speaker 2 well as always um a section of the bugler's going straight in the bin this week part three of our conspiracy theories advent calendar uh we've given you 14 conspiracy theories so far taking you up to uh the 14th of december your conspiracy theory for the 15th of December is that chickens are in fact vegetables.

Speaker 2 The meat industry has claimed the chicken as one of their own for a long time, but biologically, the chicken is in fact a vegetable, not a bird.

Speaker 2 The evidence for this, John, is that chickens share more than 80% of the DNA of a carrot. Also, chickens basically can't fly like aubergines.

Speaker 2 And you can put chicken in a salad, which to me makes it a vegetable.

Speaker 2 I've forgotten how infuriating it is for your logic when I know something is not true to be so sound it starts to make me question reality.

Speaker 2 I could have been a lawyer.

Speaker 2 For the 16th, your conspiracy theory is that tennis legend Bion Borg retired so suddenly and prematurely at the age of 26 in 1981 because it was about to be revealed publicly that he was using a special God-infused racket found in the Ark of the Covenant and previously owned by the Nazis.

Speaker 2 And the evidence for this is that when Borg tried to come back years later using a different racket, he wasn't nearly as good. Join the dots.

Speaker 2 For the 17th of December, more than 93%, you might be interested in this one, John. More than 93% of people who wear glasses don't actually need them.
The global opticians industry has a

Speaker 2 special eye test sheet in which the letters are deliberately blurry that they swap in for the normal looking ones whilst you're getting ready for your appointment.

Speaker 2 The evidence is there's a lot of money to be made from telling people that they need to put things on their faces. For the 18th of December, Pompeii is a hoax.

Speaker 2 The celebrity Roman city was not buried by a volcano stropping out as widely claimed.

Speaker 2 It was left deserted after the people of Pompeii won the 79 AD Roman Empire hide-and-seek competition with an absolutely superb town performance.

Speaker 2 Either that or it was blown up when Emperor Titus ordered a nuclear weapon to be tested before it was ready. The evidence for this, no actual contemporary footage of of the eruption.

Speaker 2 19th of December, we got a chemtrails conspiracy.

Speaker 2 The Trails Meroplanes, John, contain special particles that go out into the atmosphere, make their way into the water system via rainfall, into people's brains, and make people more curious about the world.

Speaker 2 And that's because airlines need people to travel.

Speaker 2 So, I mean,

Speaker 2 that stacks up for me. For the 20th of December, Elvis Presley did not die.
He's still in the toilet, battling a fiendishly difficult cryptic crossword.

Speaker 2 The evidence is that Presley was always a determined man who hated to admit failure. And finally for this week, the 21st of December, your conspiracy theory is that Advent did not actually happen.

Speaker 2 The first Advent

Speaker 2 didn't happen at all. The calendar worked very differently back in 0 AD.

Speaker 2 There was, in fact, no three and a half week build-up to the birth of Jesus Christ during which Mary and Joseph excitedly pulled back a cardboard flap to see a new picture every morning.

Speaker 2 Didn't happen. And the evidence for this is that no one was bothered with Advent until the 19th century when Big Calendar got involved and the rest, this commercial history.

Speaker 2 So those are your conspiracy theories for this week. I mean, John, you've, you know, 18 and a half years in America.

Speaker 2 I mean, conspiracy theories must be pretty much a way of life for you now. Yeah, that's right.
I think it's why I'm probably,

Speaker 2 I feel more vulnerable to

Speaker 2 the contents of your head than I think I used to be. It's why I'm slightly terrifying because like you mentioned the Pompeii thing.
I started thinking, well, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 If Advent's a hoax, shit, I've heard stupider things than that that turned out to be.

Speaker 2 What if Andy's right about more than half of this?

Speaker 2 And I just don't think I want to live in that world, even if objectively it's a better one.

Speaker 2 Top story this week. Basha Alasakt.

Speaker 2 The desperate despot has been putting the dam and the cast into a damn ass guss, although unlike his ruler like Colonel Colonel Gaddafi, when he got booted out, he didn't have to put the ass into it as well.

Speaker 2 John, I mean, this is a rather sudden and abrupt out-turfing after five decades of Assadian rule,

Speaker 2 leading to hopes of a brighter future for Syria. Hooray! As long as the hardline Islamists don't just turn everything into a different kind of shit.
Boo.

Speaker 2 So, I mean, the sound of creaking knuckles you've heard all through the week is the sound of the world crossing its fingers and hoping for the best.

Speaker 2 You, of course, have long been the Bugle's official Syria correspondent.

Speaker 2 What have you made of it?

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah, Bashar al-Assad is Bashar al-A, very sad right now, because he is Bashar al-A for the foreseeable future.

Speaker 2 A man who we were frankly no strangers to talking about on this podcast, Andy, the undisputed, I'd argue, number one dick from Damascus is gone.

Speaker 2 Statues of the big man have been getting pulled down all over Syria, sometimes dragged through the streets, sometimes set on fire.

Speaker 2 And in Latakia, tied to the back of a truck with people riding around on top of it, like it was one of those inflatable doughnuts that you tie to the back of a boat, which I thought was a very nice twist on the form when it comes to dictators.

Speaker 2 They were even using the statue's outstretched arms as something to cling on to. And I do think that is something a sculptor should bear in mind when they're designing the statue of a strongman.

Speaker 2 Because how will it look standing up is a good question.

Speaker 2 But you do also want to consider how will it look later being dragged through the streets.

Speaker 2 And I must must say whoever designed that particular sad statue did a lovely job it even had a nice flat back for a smoother ride across the asphalt which i'd argue not enough sculptors think about remember that um cristiano ronaldo statue at madeira airport that got a lot of people very angry yeah i admit it didn't look great standing up but maybe just maybe the artist was primarily focusing on how it would look one day tied to the back of a ford f-150 if he went on to miss a crucial penalty in a world cup final and honestly i think it might have looked great Sadly, it was replaced before we got to find out.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you, who's good at making it work both ways? Michelangelo.

Speaker 2 Michelangelo David looks good on a plinth, and I do think would also look equally good with the people of Florence riding around on its back. Michelangelo was good with a chisel, Andy.

Speaker 2 I don't think I'm going out on a limb saying that. No, no, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 You know this personally, Andy, because you got that bust of Greg Davis for winning Taskmaster this year. That bust for me also goes two for two, like Michelangelo.

Speaker 2 It would look just as good towering over a capital city as it would set on fire as Greg ran for his life. That's why it's a good trophy.

Speaker 2 Both of those hypotheticals with a more than 80% chance of coming through.

Speaker 2 Assad was in power since the year 2000, Andy, and you're a fan of statistics to a genuine character.

Speaker 2 Is a score of 24 years a decent return for a dictator, bearing in mind that he was nearly caught out on 11 during the

Speaker 2 spring, but managed to survive and add 13 more to his tally. It's not a great score, but not historically shabby.
I believe his dad got to 29 before being caught and bowled by a heart attack.

Speaker 2 So I'm sure I had one eye on beating that score, but he couldn't do it. Yeah, but they put on 50 between them, which, you know, I mean,

Speaker 2 I had a 50 partnership with my own son in a village cricket match last year. And I can tell you how satisfying that was in terms of the father-son bonding.

Speaker 2 So, for the Assads between them to have clocked up more than half a century in power,

Speaker 2 it's not bad.

Speaker 2 I mean, and also, I guess, like you say, 24 years.

Speaker 2 I remember thinking when Gaddafi was toppled and had that metal bar shuffle where metal bars are not entirely designed to go.

Speaker 2 There must have been a moment during that as he just attempted to relax as much as was possible in the circumstances that he thought, yeah, fair play. I had this coming on balance.

Speaker 2 I reckon I'm still up. So,

Speaker 2 who was bashar al-assad well in short he was an arsehole and to be fair he remains an arsehole just an arsehole who doesn't live in syria anymore his dad hafez al-assad died on june 10th 2000 and bashar took over only after the constitution of syria was apparently amended because previously the minimum wage requirement to be president had been 40 but it was suddenly lowered to 34 and you will never guess how old Bashar al-Assad was at that time.

Speaker 2 And I'll give you a clue. It wasn't 33 and it wasn't 35, but it was somewhere between those two numbers.

Speaker 2 All of which means, Andy, he's not just a dictator, he's a nepo-dictator, which is

Speaker 2 the worst kind. He didn't even earn his power with a coup.
He earned it with his dad dying and a suspiciously fast and specific constitutional amendment. Classic nepo-dictator move.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, as you say, he came to power June 2000 with originally proclaimed a liberal democratic agenda.

Speaker 2 And whilst this coincided with a significant upturn in the performances of the England cricket team who defeated West Indies at home, then won away in Pakistan and Sri Lanka the following winter, it didn't pan out quite so well long term.

Speaker 2 Within a year, Assad had started cracking down on press and political freedom and England lost the 2001 ashes very heavily to Australia.

Speaker 2 So, I mean, change, as so often the case, you know, it's an ephemeral. It's an ephemeral

Speaker 2 history's complicated. The Assads are apparently in Russia right now, and the Russian government said that Assad had stepped down as president following a personal decision.

Speaker 2 I guess that's technically true, although that careful phrasing is leaving an awful lot of context.

Speaker 2 I'd argue it was less a personal decision of his and more a personal decision of millions of Syrians. But again, technically their statement, not inaccurate.

Speaker 2 I guess you could also argue that he made a personal decision to step down rather than in all likelihood be thrown in prison or murdered in the streets.

Speaker 2 Because it does seem like a sad went with the signature dictator mover flying out of his country in the middle of the night after securing a bunch of assets approach it's what it's one that many have favored over the years and you can to be fair probably see why in terms of how they go out now you already mentioned him i i think it feels that most dictators have a sliding scale of preference with what With Gaddafi's exit probably being the lowest of the low end.

Speaker 2 It really felt like many of them saw what happened to Gaddafi and thought, okay, okay, I see that. So honestly, anything but that is going to be a war for me.

Speaker 2 Anything north of being publicly stabbed in the anus with a bayonet and I'm playing with the house's money.

Speaker 2 When I say house's money, I of course mean my country's money embezzled over a number of decades.

Speaker 2 There was actually more careful language from Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, who said that Bashar al-Assad and his family had indeed been granted asylum in Russia and that Russia had been quite as surprised as everyone else by what had happened and that Syria was clearly and I quote going through a very difficult period now due to instability which again feels like a selective use of the passive voice and notably leaves out the fact that Syria's also gone through a difficult period over the last 24 years thanks to Bashar al-Afing Saad, Moscow's newest transplant because the man's record I've recorded a century in charge isn't great.

Speaker 2 Andy, ethnic cleansing, check. War crimes, including the use of chemical weapons, check.
Holocaust denial? Oh, checkety check on that one, Andy.

Speaker 2 Apparently, in December last year, Assad claimed there was no evidence of the killing of six million Jews during the Holocaust, which is hard to take from anyone, especially a trained fing optometrist.

Speaker 2 The evidence is right in front of your eyes, Bashar. Maybe Andy just needed evidence of the Holocaust presented to him, like during an eye test.

Speaker 2 Just hold up a history book in front of his face, saying, Can you see the evidence of six million Jews being killed now, Bashar? How about now? How about now?

Speaker 2 Is it clear with your left eye or your right? Bashar.

Speaker 2 To be fair, to the man, it is not like he didn't actively try to polish his image over the years.

Speaker 2 He famously hired both American and British PR firms and consultants to try and give him and his wife an image makeover, the nadir of which may have been Vogue's issue from March 2011.

Speaker 2 I know you remember it, Andy.

Speaker 2 Which featured glamorous photos of Assad's wife and was headlined A Rose in the Desert, referring to her as the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies.

Speaker 2 And to be honest, unless they meant magnetic literally there, that metal forks and iron filings could stick to her. Vogue's fact-checking department should be ashamed of itself.

Speaker 2 So his wife, Asma, born and grew up in London. Yes.
And her father was a cardiologist at the Cromwell Hospital in London. And if having a father who worked at somewhere named after...

Speaker 2 Oliver Cromwell didn't send some pretty strong warnings about what happens to leaders when they lose power, Ben,

Speaker 2 I don't know. I don't think anything, anything could have done really.
I mean, in terms of Assad,

Speaker 2 John,

Speaker 2 he promised to launch, when he came to power, he promised to launch our own democratic experience, which I guess in a way he did,

Speaker 2 just with more murder, chemical weaponry and state brutality than a lot of democratic experiences. tend to go.

Speaker 2 I guess it's like one of those Christmas experiences where the Santa Claus is obviously a bored 42-year-old divorcee and a fake beard and the magical Winter Wonderland is a deflated bouncy castle with cocaine instead of snow and the nativity scene is graphically realistic visually and sonically it's just it's just not what you want it's not saying it's not a christmas experience it's just not not the ones that you want to take your little kids to yeah it's the wonker experience the scottish wonker experience of democracy one of the uh many reasons i'm so glad that we have a chance to talk about this now andy is because we talked a lot about a sad in the past and it is nice to kind of bookend all of the incredible information that came out about him back then, including I'm sure you'll remember that leak showing his iTunes purchases, including songs by LMFAO and Wright Said Fred.

Speaker 2 Still, one of my favorite things that I've ever learned about a murderous strongman, because you tend to associate despots with musical grandeur, don't you? Hitler, famously a big old Wagner fan.

Speaker 2 What you do not expect necessarily is for a palace outside Damascus to be

Speaker 2 echoing to the vocals of Red Foo and Sky Blue, singing party rock anthem from LMFAO's masterpiece album, Sorry for Party Rocking. I believe

Speaker 2 the only album in musical history whose title preemptively apologised for one of its tracks.

Speaker 2 That's not even getting into Right Said Fred.

Speaker 2 The fact that Assad liked them so much, it actually inspired me to the point that in the first year of doing last week tonight, when we were doing a story about Assad, I actually flew Right Said Fred over to New York to do a version of I'm Too Sexy with the lyrics changed to insult Assad.

Speaker 2 And I don't think it's necessarily a coincidence that that happened on June 8th, 2014. Just 10 years, six months later to the day, Assad fell.
I'm not saying I did it.

Speaker 2 Let me be clear. I'm not saying Wright Said Fred did it.
I'm saying that's one hell of a coincidence.

Speaker 2 Also, actually, Andy, for some full context there, I believe Wright Said Fred have since developed some more extreme political views, including coming out in favor of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Speaker 2 So their position on the subject of Syria and Assad may have changed in the last decade.

Speaker 2 I do not speak for Right Said Fred, Andy. The Fairbrass brothers speak for themselves as they always have.

Speaker 2 And of course, you know, I'm sexy and I know it was

Speaker 2 very much the, I mean, pretty much the Syrian national anthem for those middle years of

Speaker 2 Assad's rule.

Speaker 2 But what next for him now, John, since he's been given the red card by

Speaker 2 his own people? It's going to take quite a while, I think, to rehabilitate his reputation, even to the extent where he might get invitations to go on reality TV shows.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's hard to see what's next. I mean, he's 59.
He was born on the 11th of September, which seems doubly insensitive in hindsight, 1965.

Speaker 2 So, in just nine months' time, John, he'll be able to sing I'm 60 and I know it, which could be quite an amusing thing to while away the long, long Russian winter ahead.

Speaker 2 That's assuming he hasn't gotten that.

Speaker 2 I think releasing I'm 60 and I know it on September the 11th is provocative.

Speaker 2 But it's hard to know what transferable skills he has, though. I mean, I guess he could go back to ophthalmology.
Yes. But

Speaker 2 I mean, that might be difficult given his profile. It could be off-putting for his patience, I imagine.
Even if he is quite...

Speaker 2 I mean, like, you know, Whoopi Goldberg, before she became the figure that we know her as, was a mortuary beautician.

Speaker 2 But, you know, if you took a deceased relative into a mortuary and there was a Whoopee goldberg with with some makeup now

Speaker 2 you know that would that's not what you want is it i'm going to say i'm not saying goldberg and a sad are peas in a pod and and i let me make that very very clear indeed i'm just i'm just saying that you know you can't always go back to your old job but that's all i'm saying was whoopy goldberg a mortuary technician and here's the problem with crying wolf so much i think there's a wolf inside right now

Speaker 2 i'm doubting i'm doubting whether his furry face is real was she really a mortuary makeup artist? Yep, that I double-checked that.

Speaker 2 That's an amazing Goldberg fact.

Speaker 2 I worry that's one of the things that I will forget loved ones' birthdays before I forget the fact that Whoopi Goldberg was once a mortuary makeup artist.

Speaker 2 I think I might forget everything else about Whoopi Goldberg and just remember that. Is that that? There's a footnote.
Mortuary makeup artists whose life, I don't know what we're in.

Speaker 2 Fucking incredible.

Speaker 2 Studying her whole life for that.

Speaker 2 According to Wikipedia, she was also a bricklayer. Really?

Speaker 2 There we go. So, varied career.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Big Joe Stalin was a meteorologist. But, you know, you don't want him popping up on a weather forecast, do you?

Speaker 2 It's not just a question of who's... What's next for Assad, though, is it? And it's what's coming next for Syria.
And we're definitely in who the f ⁇ knows territory right now.

Speaker 2 I mean, regarding how President-elect Trump is going to handle the instability to come, I would not count on him employing a particularly nuanced touch.

Speaker 2 This is a man, I remember, who's previously referred to Syria as a land of sand and death.

Speaker 2 And I'm afraid his sentence then ended there, and he didn't unfortunately continue on to say Syria is a land of sand and death, and also 23 million people.

Speaker 2 And I probably should have led with that and left the sand part out.

Speaker 2 It was a land of sand and death, not the never-filmed fourth series of

Speaker 2 the Spartacus TV show. I'm pretty sure it was.

Speaker 2 I think it's for a while.

Speaker 2 I think it was for a while the official town slogan of Clacton on Sea.

Speaker 2 I could be wrong.

Speaker 2 I think I'm right.

Speaker 2 It's also, Trump also, Andy, said, this is not our fight

Speaker 2 for the US. Something that, to put it mildly, has not historically stopped the US before.
It's like hearing the British Empire say, it's none of our business or this does not belong to us.

Speaker 2 Necessarily as reassuring a statement as it might initially sound.

Speaker 2 Well, I guess it shows that Trump is learning from history because we learn so often from history the dangers of fighting wars on two fronts.

Speaker 2 And America, obviously, its most important war is with itself. And it can't be afforded to be, you can't afford to be distracted over the next four years by

Speaker 2 that holy mission.

Speaker 2 Yeah, with all the justified relief over Assad being gone there is all also massive factionalism to be confronted in the future Assad was toppled by the advance of Abu Muhammad Al-Ghalani, a militant leader with longtime ties to al-Qaeda, but who is now presenting himself much softer.

Speaker 2 Apparently, as he entered Damascus, he even dropped his assumed name and used his real one, Ahmed Al-Shara.

Speaker 2 He has spent years trying to remake his image, no longer wearing guerrilla attire for one, instead wearing suits for press interviews and talking about finding ways to decentralize power to reflect the diversity of Syria's population.

Speaker 2 I've got to say, that is a real PR glow-up glow-up, Andy. Like a geopolitical, she's all that situation.

Speaker 2 He took off his combat fatigues, and it turns out he was compatible with Western interests all along.

Speaker 2 When are you going to drop your

Speaker 2 stage name, Balthazar?

Speaker 2 Not yet, Andy.

Speaker 2 Not yet. As soon as I too advance towards Damascus, I think that's normally when you do it.

Speaker 2 The other options for Assad, potentially, other than going back to ophthalmology,

Speaker 2 prison inspector. I mean, He seems to know quite a bit about that.
Punditry, John. I mean, ex-sports players often turn into quite strongly opinionated TV analysts on their own sport.

Speaker 2 And even those who failed at management themselves can be quite outspoken about their peers. So, could Bashar Al-Assad get a gig reviewing other leaders for TV news channels?

Speaker 2 You know, well, Brian, I just think Javier's left far too many of his political opponents out of jail there. And I think it's going to come back to bite him.

Speaker 2 Are you saying he's the Gary Neville of dictators, Andy?

Speaker 2 No, I think you're inferring that i'm i'm not i'm not saying that uh he could be uh social media influencer uh after dinner speaker he's got i mean he's got a lot of stories to tell uh but most likely podcaster because it's 2024 i can't see how he's not going to do a podcast yeah that seems almost inevitable and honestly you know gary neville has a podcast franchise there's the overlap could very easily launch a kind of dictators series with him sitting around with maybe les ferdinand and

Speaker 2 talking about the mistakes that they see Kim Jong

Speaker 2 Un making.

Speaker 2 Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand, and Bashar al-Assad talking geopolitics. I hate to say it, Andy.
That's quite a good podcast.

Speaker 2 It's almost worth it just to hear the three of them trying to cold read adverts as well.

Speaker 2 What a lovely mattress

Speaker 2 can suit even the tiniest of jail souls.

Speaker 2 Right, well, we will have full world-exclusive updates on how the serious situation pans out over the next 30 years. And John, do come back to keep us updated on

Speaker 2 it. Maybe, I don't know, I can see, you know.
I can see you, I mean, you've had a fine singing voice. I don't think

Speaker 2 it's come out nearly enough during the the course of your career i can see you and uh you and a sad doing an album of of classic duets yeah to maybe just completely remake this sorry for party rocking album sorry for party rocking brackets asad is really sorry though

Speaker 2 america update now and um well john Obviously,

Speaker 2 you study American politics to a very

Speaker 2 deep level. And without wishing to burden burden you with too much of

Speaker 2 the blame for the state of America, since you went to America in 2006, it's gone completely around the f ⁇ ing spout.

Speaker 2 Don't watch where this is going at all, Andrew.

Speaker 2 Since you stopped doing the bugle, that was 2015. Since then, Donald Trump has won two more presidential elections than he'd won in the previous 13 billion years of history.

Speaker 2 Now, obviously, it can be hard as a...

Speaker 2 to comprehend as an outsider why America, in the election this year, given what seemed to be a choice between a a glass of slightly off-milk and a cocktail of rat, poison, mercury, scorpion, venom, and pure literal bile, they've had that choice.

Speaker 2 They've picked up the glass of milk.

Speaker 2 They've hurled it onto the ceiling above their own heads and said, no way am I drinking that shit, before downing the cocktail in one as the shards of glass fell into their hair whilst gurgling, I am what I am.

Speaker 2 So, you know, from this perspective, from someone who's gone to America and uncaked this Jeroboam of mayhem, tell me, I mean,

Speaker 2 what do you make of it and what does the future hold?

Speaker 2 Well, I'm no idea what the future holds, Andy.

Speaker 2 You know, predicting Trump's behavior is a fool's errand.

Speaker 2 America has made a bold choice, if I may sound like

Speaker 2 a Russian state official describing

Speaker 2 what's happened in Syria.

Speaker 2 A bold choice. It's going to be a time of instability, for sure.
And maybe, maybe Trump has learnt important lessons, as you would hope most presidents do from a first term in office.

Speaker 2 It seems monumentally unlikely, given his history in office and as a human being. But, you know, America loves a comeback story.
And unfortunately, it's decided to give him one because

Speaker 2 he looked absolutely out, Andy. Remember when he launched that coup? It seems that...

Speaker 2 It seems that the majority of Americans didn't remember that or didn't care about it or look back on it with a fondness that doesn't really make any sense.

Speaker 2 Well, you know, I guess there's a chance that he could surprise us all with a four-year term of healing, humanity, and humility.

Speaker 2 Another surprise reveal. We've seen it in Syria, as you just said.

Speaker 2 I mean, stranger things have happened, like when Queen Victoria got out of her mind on a 10-year LSD binge and spent an entire decade sitting on top of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square screaming at pigeons.

Speaker 2 I mean, things like that. I mean, that didn't happen.
But had it happened, that would have been a stranger thing than

Speaker 2 Trump. It's odd to realize that the best case scenario is relentless grift for four years.

Speaker 2 The one thing that gave me hope was

Speaker 2 when he was at the reopening of Notre Dame and he was sitting with Jill Biden and

Speaker 2 they then released a picture of her looking at him and

Speaker 2 basically made some comment like he was irresistible and then started selling cologne and perfumes off the back of it for $199. And that was the first moment that gave me hope.

Speaker 2 If that's all it's going to be, if it's just going to be shameless grift,

Speaker 2 maybe we can get through this.

Speaker 2 I mean, the journey of American politics since you moved to the US, I guess, can be seen in Barack Obama's publishing career. In 2006, the year

Speaker 2 you jumped the British Titanic,

Speaker 2 Barack Obama published The Audacity of Hope.

Speaker 2 2015, he published his follow-up after

Speaker 2 years in government, which is entitled The Dull, Throbbing, Gastric Pain and Spiritual Nausea of Administrative Reality.

Speaker 2 And this year, his latest home on America is entitled.

Speaker 2 So I guess it's been an interesting 18 years to be there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's always been a good orator, no matter what you think about his politics, hasn't he? He knows how to turn a phrase. And

Speaker 2 it doesn't really speak to the moment we're in.

Speaker 2 Well, the state of the UK, John.

Speaker 2 Yeah, how's it going over there, Andy?

Speaker 2 Well, let me bring you up to date with the country you abandoned in its hour of need to pursue your dream of becoming the first British rodeo champion back in the summer of 06.

Speaker 2 It's It's a very different place now, John.

Speaker 2 Gone is the peacefully harmonious nation in which we all lived as one, bound by our sacred national love of fair play, low-quality meat, even song, bare-knuckle boxing in fairgrounds, dogs, the queen hamsters, a fortnight's worth of tennis per year, and the nurturing sense that despite all the evidence of the contrary, we were all in it together.

Speaker 2 Those days are gone, John.

Speaker 2 The days when coal-covered street children would happily fashion matches from the pristine woodlands of Wessex to light the pipes of wealthy but benevolent landowners, who would happily lend their own private henges to grieving families to give their pagan uncles the burial they deserved.

Speaker 2 When dancing maidens would milk the royal swans whilst cod peace-wearing bishops played croquet with the skulls of our vanquished foes on a sunlit autumn evening. They're gone, John.

Speaker 2 Those days, those days are sadly gone. It's a different country now.

Speaker 2 I can hear Jerusalem playing behind you.

Speaker 2 He's saying that. So it's an absolute elegy for a Britain long gone and which also never existed, crucially.

Speaker 2 The best sort of Britain, John. The one that keeps us going.
The best Britain is the one concocted in one's mind.

Speaker 2 Now, we have a prime minister and a leader of the opposition who this week have been arguing about whether sandwiches are a valid lunch food. We've had Nigel Farage.

Speaker 2 Hold on, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't skip on to what Nigel Farage said.
You can't see it. I don't know what you're talking about, and I actually do need to know more.

Speaker 2 So, Kemi Baynot, who is the latest interim leader of the Conservative Party,

Speaker 2 stated that lunch is for wimps. I don't think sandwiches are a real food.
I won't touch bread if it's moist.

Speaker 2 And I mean, this is a huge turnaround for the conservatives.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. There's a lot there.
I mean,

Speaker 2 the lunch is for wimps is

Speaker 2 so eye-catching as a statement.

Speaker 2 What's breakfast and dinner for? Breakfast is for cowards.

Speaker 2 Dinner is for the infirm.

Speaker 2 What on earth is that happening? As I will say,

Speaker 2 I won't touch bread if it's damp. Not the worst

Speaker 2 of that sequence of statements. Yep.
I mean, lunches for Wimps, I guess, you know, in terms of funding of food in schools,

Speaker 2 that's pretty consistent for the Conservatives in terms of

Speaker 2 not feeding the children of Britain. Right.
Nutrition is for cattle.

Speaker 2 Sandwiches are just objectively and a perfectly appropriate lunch choice.

Speaker 2 We have to, at some point, get back to facts.

Speaker 2 This feels like just taking anti-science to its absolute extreme. What about the BLT? And thing? This is BLT erasure.

Speaker 2 Well, Keir Stahmer, the Prime Minister, please tell me he had a firm response to that. He did.
I mean, he's still...

Speaker 2 I hope he ran straight down to Greg's, throw himself a cheese and pickle, and then munched it triumphantly on the floor of the House of Commons to cheers and everyone thinking he's actually doing something

Speaker 2 in surface of a solution.

Speaker 2 He described, and he is still struggling to surf the ripple of public tolerance that swept into power in July, but it was one of his strongest statements yet.

Speaker 2 He said that sandwiches are a great British institution. The only problem with that, John.
Oh, hold on, hold on.

Speaker 2 God damn it.

Speaker 2 The only problem with that is that great British institutions... I've got a pretty f ⁇ ing checkered track record off over the last few hundred years, it's fair to say.

Speaker 2 It makes you think, what dark secrets and institutionalized scandals are sandwiches trying to keep from leaking into the public domain it doesn't bear thinking about

Speaker 2 so that's that's the nation we are like i said nigel farage is basically uh you know whoring the soul of the nation to the nearest available trillionaire we've got a political class that has stripped the country to its bones but spent most of its time grumbling about pronouns the economy is showing the dynamism of a partially defrosted woolly mammoth corpse everyone is angry about everything and everyone else andy murray has f ⁇ ing retired as if things couldn't get any worse We haven't even had a f ⁇ ing jubilee to distract ourselves since the Queen waltzed off into the sunset, contrary to the will of the people two years ago.

Speaker 2 The balance of water to shit in our rivers is approaching the psychologically crucial 50-50 mark, and our trains of downed tools are now just mostly work from home.

Speaker 2 Fundamentally, John, we've reached a point, which might be familiar to you in the USA, where we've become a nation in which political success is basically...

Speaker 2 functionally impossible because our politics and media is specifically geared to oppositional destructivism. And I don't even know if that is a term, but I think it should be one.

Speaker 2 And I'm prepared to say it is one now. And everyone thinks they're right, and everyone else is wrong.
And if you disagree with me on that, you're incorrect. Point-proof.

Speaker 2 And that sound you've been hearing from across the Atlantic, John.

Speaker 2 That is the sound of democracy crumbling into a heap like a naughty zoo elephant being electrocuted by Thomas Edison in very, very, very slow motion.

Speaker 2 Sport now, and the soul of football is even deader than it already was.

Speaker 2 This, John, after FIFA, the uproariously off-the-wall living comedy art installation that somehow found itself running the world's most popular sport, has pranked the football world yet again.

Speaker 2 A minor prank with a 2030 World Cup from an organization that likes to promote its environmental credentials by announcing a World Cup spanning three continents and four hemispheres, including three single games in South America.

Speaker 2 Because you can't score carbon goals without leaving a carbon footprint, john but it's it's absolutely incredible the 2034 world cup has been awarded to saudi arabia a decision that would be genuinely shocking if and only if you knew nothing about the history of how fifa operates because to be honest a three minute skim of their wikipedia page would be enough to make you go oh they gave it to the saudis yeah that seems about right it it as you say in making this decision FIFA ignored their own bidding rules and entered into a complicated bit of f ⁇ er that basically included strong-arming South America into giving up on its hopes of hosting the 100th anniversary of the World Cup and instead taking some weird, inexplicable deal where the first three games of the 2030 World Cup get played in Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay before the rest of the tournament gets moved to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco.

Speaker 2 Very fun for the teams that then had to fly to the opposite side of the world to play their next game. But luckily for FIFA, they clearly couldn't give even a suggestion of a shit about that.

Speaker 2 My main concern here for FIFA, Andy, is where does this leave them as an organization? How can they go lower from here?

Speaker 2 They've always been one of the world's great amoral cartels, but how do they continue pushing your expectations of them down?

Speaker 2 Because it is genuinely going to be a challenge for them to go lower than this, but I do believe in them. I believe they can do it.
Could the 2038 World Cup be awarded to an active war zone somehow?

Speaker 2 That might be a good move for them. They could award it to North Korea, although honestly, that feels like kind of a lateral move for them at this point.

Speaker 2 They could host a World Cup in international waters where absolutely no rules apply, just build platforms in the middle of the ocean somewhere.

Speaker 2 Sure, it's a practical nightmare and people would probably die trying to do it, but neither of those things have stopped FIFA before, have they?

Speaker 2 Also, they could just throw teams off a ship into the water and ask them to play football on it. Is it really asking much more than asking them to play in 125-degree temperatures?

Speaker 2 I'm not sure that it is.

Speaker 2 You know, actually, you know what, Andy? The one move I think they could make, which would take their moral bankruptcy to a new nadir

Speaker 2 is that they could just sell the world cup to some billionaire you know like when martin shrelly bought the only copy of the wu-tang clan album so that only he could hear it i think if the price was right infantino would sell the world cup to a billionaire and play the entire world cup in front of only them no one on earth could watch it only one guy and i think that in doing that infantino would claim that fifa was growing the game that's the logical end point of taking sport off free-to-wear television it's It's just

Speaker 2 a single gazillionaire.

Speaker 2 I mean, I guess, I mean, let's try and look on the positive aside, John.

Speaker 2 After the success of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, when four weeks of gripping football made everyone forget about the rampant exploitation and thousands of deaths of migrant workers, I mean, what a final that was.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 is the 2034 World Cup going to be sober? Also, we live in the 2020s, John.

Speaker 2 We know as citizens of the world that it's a fundamental human right for states and individuals to buy up the souls of sport to distract from their own failings failings and atrocities.

Speaker 2 That is essentially what sport is for now. And that's what is good.
It's been cut back in British schools.

Speaker 2 Because if you teach kids the joy of sport, they'll end up thinking that crime is legal if you buy a Premier League football team. And I don't want to live in a country like that.

Speaker 2 I could probably tolerate it.

Speaker 2 The hypocrisy of FIFA is quite impressive.

Speaker 2 Article 4 of the FIFA statute on their own website states that discrimination of any kind against a country, private person or group of people on account of race, ethnic, national or social origin, gender, disability, religion, political opinion or wealth, birth or sexual orientation is capital letters, strictly prohibited.

Speaker 2 Just to repeat what you said, they've just awarded the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 2 There's some circles that

Speaker 2 can't be squared or can't even be circled, actually. And I think

Speaker 2 this is one of them.

Speaker 2 You say that, Andy, but just to give FIFA a voice here, they called the Saudi bid a very strong all-round proposition and said that the tournament could act as a catalyst and contribute to positive human rights outcomes, which, sure, you know, I guess technically that could happen.

Speaker 2 It won't,

Speaker 2 but it could. And in FIFA's analysis of the Saudi bid, it also noted a commitment to sustainability and climate change.
Yeah, they have. They have made a commitment to climate change, I guess, Andy.

Speaker 2 To be fair, you know, they didn't say in which direction they were going to change the planet.

Speaker 2 Legally, that might be defensible.

Speaker 2 One of the proposed stadiums is apparently going to be on top of a 350-meter-high structure that hasn't been built yet in a city that doesn't yet exist and will only be accessible via high-speed lifts and driverless vehicles.

Speaker 2 That all sounds plausible.

Speaker 2 Not just the ice cream-infused rambling of a kid with a crayon designing something.

Speaker 2 Infantino now has 10 years, Andy, to write a speech. somehow worse than the one that he gave the day before the Qatari World Cup began.

Speaker 2 But I hope he's already started work because it is worth remembering how difficult it's going to be to top that.

Speaker 2 Because his 55-minute speech back then genuinely may have been one of the worst pieces of oratory in the history of the spoken word.

Speaker 2 If you remember, he opened with, today I feel Qatari, today I feel Arabic, today I feel African, today I feel gay, today I feel disabled, today I feel like a migrant worker.

Speaker 2 He then added, of course, I'm not Qatari in a six cents level twist. I'm not an Arab.
I'm not African. I'm not gay.
I'm not disabled.

Speaker 2 but I feel like it because I know what it means to be discriminated against, to be bullied as a foreigner in a foreign country.

Speaker 2 As a child, I was bullied because I had red hair and freckles, plus I was Italian. So imagine.
And I mean, what an absolute big swing to take at the start of an hour-long speech, Andy.

Speaker 2 At that point, you're just inherently thinking, regretfully, you have my full undivided attention.

Speaker 2 When someone doubles down to this extent, it's unfortunately impossible to look away.

Speaker 2 He later tripled down because when someone pointed out that hadn't mentioned women at all in his press conference he said oh i feel like a woman too he went full shamana twain in response to that i mean saudi arabia freedom house uh website gave him one out of 40 for um political rights freedoms

Speaker 2 seven out of sixty for civil liberties uh so there's a few work-ons i guess um what did you get the one for the freedom house does not give out zeros is that what it is

Speaker 2 you never get a zero you're just a starting point of one yeah. It's just for writing your name on the sheet, I think you get one.
Um,

Speaker 2 the regime relies on pervasive surveillance, so football's controversial VAR video refereeing system should fit right in.

Speaker 2 Um, and FIFA's also said that if um, if Saudi Arabia conducts a seamless, friendly World Cup, uh, then they will give them uh three slayer journalist of your choosing tokens to be redeemed at the convenience of the Saudi government.

Speaker 2 So, hopefully, that'll be a good incentive to make sure that World Cup um goes well. It just makes me think, John, you know, what will that World Cup be like for

Speaker 2 the winning captain? You think, you know, that moment's supposed to be like the pinnacle of their career. Do you think in Qatar 2022, for the winning captain of the Argentinian team then?

Speaker 2 He must have been thinking, this is all built on a lie in all messy situation.

Speaker 2 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Anyway, FIFA, of course, had been accused of corruption before, John. I mean, how did Russia win the...

Speaker 2 2018 bid tournament which ended up with the French goalkeeper lifting the trophy possibly through bribes vans full of silver, not enough. Well then, here you go.
Lorries full of gold instead.

Speaker 2 I hate what happens to your face when you start doing this.

Speaker 2 They bribed bribe delegates with fancy foods at Brazil in 2014, one by Germany, of course. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Tale of Lobster, Sirlon of Beef,

Speaker 2 Philip Lamb.

Speaker 2 In South Africa, 2010, before the final. They gifted environmentally friendly toilets for FIFA delegates to sit on.

Speaker 2 They were so comfortable that some of them sat on them for hours and missed the final, one by Spain under the captain of their goalkeeper. Their backsides went numb.

Speaker 2 A medical condition known as Eco Casias. Ecocasias.
Ecocasias.

Speaker 2 That is unacceptable. I just got an email from Human Rights Watch giving you a one out of ten for that pun.

Speaker 2 In 2006, World Cup in Germany, one by Italy, they bribed them with drinks, a choice of award-winning ales or tins of French sparkling water. So they asked them, would you like a fab beer or can of RO?

Speaker 2 Can of RO

Speaker 2 2002, of course, they gave them free meals for their pets, but in code, they dropped the last letters of words so people wouldn't know when they offered them dofu and cafu.

Speaker 2 1998, one by France at home, of course, free meals

Speaker 2 three times a day to chomp down on. You did your morning chomps for breakfast, you did your evening chomps for dinner, and for lunch, you did your day, you did your day chomps.

Speaker 2 Did your day chomps?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's quite niche. 1994 in the USA.
They gave them so much food, the FIFA delegates, they also needed to give them clothing that was loose fitting around the stomach. Dunger Rees.

Speaker 2 Dunger being the Brazilian captain. I mean, you'd have to look quite a lot of these up if you're not really into football.
But, John, for your return, I just felt something needed to happen.

Speaker 2 1990, of course, Germany, the inspirational midfielder was captain, lifted the cup.

Speaker 2 There were special products being handed out after a deal with the tobacco industry and Portuguese winemakers. They were mixing cigarettes with wine.

Speaker 2 You could get a high-tar port or a low-tar Mateus rose.

Speaker 2 I'm so disappointed with myself for laughing at that. In Mexico, 1986, won by Argentina, of course, with football's leading genius as captain.
The authorities wanted them.

Speaker 2 Then they sent out district attorneys to spoil FIFA delegates' dinner by interrupting them whilst eating free kebabs. They told the DA, go Maradona.

Speaker 2 Yep, I said that.

Speaker 2 Spain,

Speaker 2 Spain,

Speaker 2 Italy won in Spain in 1980, another goalkeeper captain, but again there was corruption.

Speaker 2 One FIFA delegate was caught taking a bribe in full disguise and was instructed to take his disguise off in four steps.

Speaker 2 A, fake beard off, B, glasses off, C, makeup off, D, nose off.

Speaker 2 D, nose off. I mean, that's, you know, if you're up to speed with Italian goalkeeping in the early 1980s, that's

Speaker 2 that works. I'll be honest,

Speaker 2 in 1978, Argentina won at home with their star defender as

Speaker 2 captain.

Speaker 2 And FIFA delegates were encouraged to pick up their suitcases full of cash by

Speaker 2 going

Speaker 2 down a road and then through a zoo. They were instructed that you go past the lion enclosure.
Daniel Pasarella font suit Daniel Daniel. I mean, it's quite...

Speaker 2 Daniel Pasarella was a real challenge, even for me, John. 1974,

Speaker 2 Germany won at home.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 there was one incident where a fever delicate was bribed. His mate to summon his dog by gesturing with his fingers to come and then pretending to bark.

Speaker 2 And the dog responded to his friend's beckoned bow, wow.

Speaker 2 Of course, Mexico, 1970,

Speaker 2 are you still there? The food was quite weird.

Speaker 2 Physically, emotionally, I died

Speaker 2 with the low thomatitis once.

Speaker 2 Special FIFA dinner in 1970 when Brazil won.

Speaker 2 And the food they gave the delicates, very kind of rare

Speaker 2 and probably illegal food. It was

Speaker 2 a large digit from the foot of an ursine creature from the local forest. Huge it was.
A colossal bear bear toe. Colossal bear toe.

Speaker 2 He scored the fourth goal in that final. Can't we say that it.

Speaker 2 That's where I'm stopping, John. I'm not going back as far as 1966.
I mean it. No more.

Speaker 2 There we go. Nicholas,

Speaker 2 I think we can all agree, first, comedy was a mistake, just in general.

Speaker 2 And two, I would just implore everyone, don't be relieved it's over.

Speaker 2 Be angry that that pun run ever started.

Speaker 2 I've been clean for quite a long time, John, but it's just you coming back for this week's show.

Speaker 2 You know, I fell up, I fell off the wagon.

Speaker 2 Uh, thank you for listening, uh, buglers. Um, we will be back next week with our final full bugle of the year with Alice Fraser and Neil Delamere.

Speaker 2 Don't forget to buy your tickets to my show as Christmas presents for everyone you know. More dates have been added to the tour.

Speaker 2 Hopefully, I'll be going to Australia at the end of next year to do some shows there. Stroke watch shitloads of cricket.

Speaker 2 Anything to plug, John?

Speaker 2 No, I've got nothing to plug, Andy.

Speaker 2 I'll plug your uh stand-up date as well. Oh, thanks very much.
Thanks, yeah, right. Well, that's the end of this week's bugle.
Thank you for listening, buglers.

Speaker 2 Uh, lovely to uh to have you back on the show, John, and um, uh, see you at some point in uh the next what 45 years

Speaker 2 you said 45, yeah, 45, 45, see you in 45. It's got it around 45.
Bye.