Has 2024 Jumped The Shark?

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4324 of the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world.

The Bugle, with me, Andy Zoltzmann, shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Unfounded Statements, and that is just an example of why.

I'm here in the shed of incontrovertibly arguable truthlessness.

It is the 5th of December, 2024, and I'm joined by two people who, unusually in this day and age, have never declared martial law, as far as I'm aware.

Firstly, in Edinburgh, it's James Nakise.

How are you, James?

Good, Andy.

I have terrible news for you.

I once got drunk in 2008 and declared martial law in Wellington.

Oh, right, okay.

How did that pan out?

I was hanging upside down in a tree in the centre of the town, drunk, dressed in a Halloween costume as the crow, but declaring myself the pidgin to avoid copyright issues.

Also joining us here in London, Rhea Lena.

Hello, Rhea, how are you?

Hi, I'm afraid I actually just declared martial law on Tuesday as well, but I think that given the news,

my declaration was overshadowed by someone else's.

That's a real sort of timing, isn't it?

So it's sort of the case in...

Where does the patriarchy end?

well apparently

at the pub I tried to take over.

It didn't work, you know, because I had my militia surround the place, but then they just declared a lock-in, made the bar free.

My militia got pissed off and went home.

A dance as old as military coups themselves.

On the subject of the patriarchy, we are recording on the 5th of December.

On this day in 1921, the English Football Association banned women's football from taking place in league grounds.

One of the most strikingly shameless pieces of institutionalised misogyny in sport's proud history of institutionalized misogyny and prejudice.

And the ban stood for 50 years until the woke got involved in 1971.

And woke activists made the rather startling and at the time not scientifically verified claim that women were at least theoretically people and might, I emphasize, might want to waste their time kicking a ball around just as much as men.

So that was 103 years ago today.

But it is one of the most bizarre and shameful stories

in British sport.

But it's because they were getting too good as well.

Yes, and too popular.

Too good and too popular.

They were making too much money.

I mean,

and who would think it today that a bunch of people want, men, would want to stand around watching women exert themselves?

I don't know where the idea came from.

On the 6th of December 1897, London became the first city in the world to host licensed taxi cabs.

The 7th of December 1897 brought the first recorded use of the phrase, the way I see it, mate.

And in 1956,

6th of December 1956, the blood in the water water polo match between Hungary and the Soviet Union took place at the Olympics in Melbourne

against the backdrop of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

I mean, unquestionably, the most famous water polo match ever played ended up with, well, some

fairly exotic violence in the pool as Hungary beat the Soviet Union 4-0.

To mark the occasion, this historic anniversary, in the traditional modern sporting manner.

I thought you said they were just beating them with the mallets in the water.

Just whacking at them.

On the corpses of the drowned horses.

To mark the occasion in the traditional modern sporting manner, celebrity YouTuber Bitsy Drivell will wrestle Hungary's oldest living water polo international, Laszzlo Wolf, in a giant paddling pool full of jelly.

If Drivell can beat or drown the 98-year-old, he'll take home $50 million in Bitcoin.

Otherwise, a check for $250 will be given to an owl sanctuary in Budapest.

So

that's a

touching memento of that famous.

I think I watched a variation of that film when I was single in uni.

On the 7th of December 1965, we had the Catholic Orthodox Joint Declaration, one of the all-time great declarations, certainly better than Ben Stokes' declaration at Edgebaston in 2023.

In the Catholic Orthodox Joint Declaration of 1965, Catholicism superstar Pope Paul VI and Athanagoras I, the Eastern Orthodox's Orthodox Church's top-ranked patriarch at the time, simultaneously revoked their mutual excommunications.

And surely this gesture of unity is a beacon of hope for the squabbly regions of the world right now.

That even organizations as seemingly far apart as the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church,

basically two versions of Christianity that basically believe most of the same stuff.

If they can set aside their historic differences after only 911 years since the Great Schism of 1054 set up mutual excommunications, we've all got hope.

We all have hope.

I just need to wait a few hundred more years.

I believe the original Latin from that declaration was f those Anglicans.

But it's amazing if you say it in Latin, people just assume that it's wise and peaceful.

You know, that's the great thing about Latin.

Yeah, those Calvinists.

As always, a section of this esteemed audio newspaper is going straight in the bin.

And this week, well, it's the next installments of our conspiracy theories advent calendar.

We gave you conspiracy theories for the first to the 7th of December last week.

We've got more for you this week.

Our conspiracy theory for the 8th of December is that the Old Testament was a forgery perpetrated by Sherlock Holmes writer and forgery specialist Arthur Conan Doyle in 1924, 100 years ago to this minute.

The evidence for this conspiracy theory is that Conan Doyle never denied this claim.

And an interesting Conan Doyle fact, the band ACDC were such fans of Sherlock Holmes that they took their band name from the Arthur Conan Doyle Club, the fan club that that they set up.

Later,

acronyms to give them their famous band name.

Fact.

Your conspiracy theory for the 9th of December, Bolivia is not in fact landlocked.

It has a secret stretch of coastline between Greece and Albania.

Evidence, why on earth would a country be landlocked these days?

On your for the 10th of December, The conspiracy theory for you just read is that tennis legend John McEnroe was on the payroll of the global fancy dress industry.

His catchphrase, you cannot be serious, earned him $1 million dollars every time he said it.

It was part of a campaign to use subliminal nudges to make the world a more frivolous place, thus making people more likely to buy or rent fancy dress costumes.

Evidence.

There's way more fancy dress now than in the pre-McEnroe era.

Join the dots.

Theory for the 11th, global warming is a hoax.

Very popular theory.

The evidence is, if the world used to be so much colder than it is now, how come all the pictures of Jesus from 2,000 years ago show him either in just a pair of underpants or a loose-fitting beach towel type thing.

For the 12th of December,

the conspiracy theory is the royal family are not lizards as everyone says they are, but they are in fact a secret breed of alien tortoise and at night they use their shells as satellite transmitters to send data back to the mothership.

The evidence, just look at their faces in the morning, it just never looks right.

For the 13th of December, your theory is that the Roman Empire collapsed because they invented the Rubik's Cube and no one ever got anything done after that.

It was invented in the year 324, originally named after the famous

River Rubicon, of course.

And the evidence is that if they could build aqueducts that took water over 250 miles, they could invent a f ⁇ ing Rubik's Cube.

And finally, for the 14th of December, Amelia Earhart did not disappear over the Pacific.

She made it all the way across the Pacific Ocean, landed in Colombia, and started a new life as a novelist, taking the pen name Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

And the evidence is that Earhart disappeared in 1937.

and Garcia Marquez's first novel did not come out until after that in 1962.

So

quite a lot.

I think that's a pretty strong one, myself.

You're saying that the royal family are not reptiles, but they're actually reptiles.

Different sort.

Oh, totally.

A friend would not point that out, Rio.

We'll just let them slide.

We just let them slide on there.

I'm saying

they're not lizards, specifically.

No one would ever claim that they're not reptiles.

I don't think even they would claim that.

If they're actually tortoises, then that would explain why they all live so long.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Wouldn't it?

That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

And honestly, Prince Andrew's got to have a hard shell.

Keeps the sweating.

He does like an island.

He does like an island.

Right, I think it's about time that section went in the bin.

Top story story this week, chaos around the world.

Well, a few areas of the world have been really dominating the global chaos news over recent years, but we've had some exciting new entrants into chaos news in the past week.

We're going to start in South Korea.

Since we last bugled,

well, pretty much what we all expected to happen happened.

The South Korean president attempted a military coup against himself in an effort to keep himself in power.

It was thwarted, meaning that he's still in power, but not in as much power as he evidently wanted.

He's now facing impeachment.

This was

after he declared martial law on Tuesday.

And playing the martial law card, generally an attempt to show authority by someone who's failing to show any authority.

And he did it so authoritatively that martial law collapsed after six hours, which is less than the length of a day of Test cricket.

And in terms of revolutions, you want your revolution to last.

at least the length of a one-day international james i would say that you agree with that

Thank you.

Thank you, Andy.

It's always wonderful when you remind a New Zealander about one day internationals.

I think the lesson to be learned here is, and I'll be honest, I learned it myself on Tuesday when I myself called martial law out on that pub,

is that don't call martial law until you have the army in place.

Like there's actually, I know it sounds like it's like just a reactionary thing to just say in the moment, like, ooh, oh, sorry, no, I have two cards, but it is actually something you should plan for.

And so, one of the things I would say, just as a word of advice to anyone out there thinking about declaring martial law in future, is make sure the army's in place before you do it.

Because one of the reasons that his martial law declaration collapsed is because the cabinet was able to get into the building and vote it down before the army was able to secure the building against the cabinet.

And so, it's just basics, basics like this

that made the whole thing go through.

through.

Yeah, they always say, don't they, you know, in military strategy, a key element is surprise, but I guess you don't want to surprise your own military.

That's that's that's one of the fundamental parts of it, I guess.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, it's a shame, though, really.

It's a shame because it was quite a clever idea to say, I don't want us to become more like North Korea, which is run by a military dictatorship.

So what I'm going to do is essentially install myself as a military dictator.

Like, I saw where he was going with that.

Genius, It just fell through on the strategy of it.

Yeah.

I feel the Pacific has to take the blame here.

It's very unfortunate because everything seemed to be fine in South Korea until we sent Bruno Mars to hook up with Rosie.

And I just feel like a couple of weeks of, ah, pato, pato, ah, pato, and they were just like, shut it down, shut it all down.

Get this smooth Hawaiian brother off our.

Actually, you know, my favorite thing about Rosie from

Blackpink is that every bit of media you find about her in biographies is New Zealand and South Korean musician.

And half of Blackpink is actually got strong New Zealand ties, which makes sense because Blackpink sounds like a New Zealand sports team.

The red blacks, the black caps.

It just sounds like our gay rugby team, the Blackpinks.

And with such a strong pop culture, K-pop force with Ties New Zealand, I can honestly tell listeners, New Zealand has no idea what to do with that.

They're absolutely lost.

You've been to New Zealand's, Andy, Rhea, I don't know if you've been to New Zealand.

Beige is the colour du jur of that country.

The sports teams are black, but beige is the vibe.

And with K-pop, they're just like, oh, can we put them in TikTok's films or something?

They have no idea what to do.

And I just think it was too much Pacific vibes coming into South Korea.

And

they just panicked and caught martial law.

Though, did either of you two hear about the South Korean Democratic Party leader who live streamed himself breaking into parliament?

That's got to be a first, isn't it?

The other thing is he's 60 years old.

Lee Jae-myung, 60 years old, scaled the fence,

which was difficult because he's legally disabled from an injury to his arm from when he was a child laborer in a rubber factory.

Also, back in January, he was stabbed in the neck.

And if that sounds badass, he's also serving a suspended one-year sentence for election crimes.

And he's the leader of their Democratic Party.

I mean, Americans would kill for that kind of backstory.

I still love that the vote took him down, by the way.

Martial law.

Actually, we've taken the vote.

Yeah.

Oh, democracy wins again.

President Noon had accused

the opposition of paralyzing the government with, quotes, anti-state activities, which is what a lot of rulers and ruling parties now use for just being in opposition.

It's a kind of interchangeable term in modern democracy.

He announced a six-point decree which banned political activities and parties.

False propaganda.

Surely that's the whole point of propaganda is to be false, isn't it?

But false propaganda, so they were they were hitting him with the truth.

So that's all the false propaganda is.

Yeah, good point.

Strikes man, and gatherings that incite social unrest,

which I think could pretty much include all sporting events.

So

yeah, it collapsed, as we said,

within hours.

I don't know if they had a lunch and a tea break in the six hours of martial law.

And now President Yoon is being investigated by South Korean police for alleged insurrection,

which on current trends in the democratic world should bake him in for a successful re-election within four years.

And he's facing possible impeachment.

So basically, I mean, this is just the classic playbook now for

baking yourself into power.

I mean, I know it's a serious story, but am I the only one going, man, I cannot wait for the TV adaptation of this because it's Korean drama.

You know it's going to be good.

Yeah, but in the TV version, only one man will be left standing, and it'll be that guy with the injury that got stabbed in the neck that live streamed.

Life's still in the neck.

Hair blowing in the wind.

Just one rubber arm hanging down.

Well, at around about the same time that President Yoon was putting in his bid for most incompetent and confused military coup of all time, France, also known as France, was also in terms of

aka Donzen Grande Stomme du Chite.

The government has resigned after a no-confidence vote.

The first time that has happened since 1962, which to put that in context, is way before the bugle started.

President Macron has refused to step down.

This is after Prime Minister Michel Barnier had to resign.

Macron could be facing an overconfidence motion, I think.

He's set to address the nation this evening.

We're recording on Thursday, and this is according to the Elysee Palace, which is currently one of the most talkative buildings in the world, right up there with 10 Downing Street and

the White House.

So

it's always hard to understand another country's politics, particularly, I guess, as you tend to sort of dip in and out of it when

something big happens, like what's happened in South Korea and France.

I mean, France obviously has, you know, had a bit of an impressive track record of getting rid of governments

with a range of uh degrees of um

of violence uh also renowned for its uh phenomenal range of cheeses cheeses and uh intermittently spectacular rugby but um what this was what was interesting about this was that this was a very rare example politically of the left wing and the right wing working together that the um uh and as a result the centrist the centrist government has has collapsed um what did it what do you rear what did you make of uh uh make of this i mean i saw somebody else comment you know a business leader just going, France needs this.

And I was like,

I think they do.

They do need a wake-up call because it's the equivalent of

Caroline Lucas and Nigel Farage agreeing on things.

And if that were to happen in this country, in the UK at least, I think we'd be like, okay, something's very, very wrong when the Green Party and reform are saying, do you know what?

We need this to stop.

And so I'm worried about it.

I mean, Maureen Le Pen,

you know, she's been gunning for them them no matter what.

And to be fair, just to just to give the balanced perspective of this, when she kept crapping all over their budget, she didn't like.

consistently go, your budget is crap.

She would literally take, let's say, the 50-page document and hand it back crapped on page two.

And then they'd give it back to her and have adapted page two.

And then she'd crap on page 12.

And then they'd give it back to her and she'd crap on page.

Like she just kept crapping all over them.

Like more like, rather than like, you know, you know, a mammal who can control their bowel movement, she was more like a bird that just lets it loose whenever because they have no sphincter.

And so that was part of the problem, to be fair.

Yeah, that's a, yeah, I'm sticking with that metaphor.

I'm sticking with it.

All right.

I'm sushi.

Yeah.

And don't get me wrong, the metaphor ends.

It was not lucky for the budget that she bird-pooed all over it.

And so that was part of the problem is that she just is looking to destabilize without actually having a plan going forward.

So I don't know that it's going to necessarily work in her favor.

I don't know that she's going to suddenly get that power that she's looking for, especially since at the moment, they're also deciding whether or not she should even be allowed to serve for a year because of things that she's done wrong.

So yeah, I think the, you know what I think the French could really do with right now?

If I'm totally honest, after all of this, a royal family.

I really think they just need one unifying force to come in at the top and just, you know, they can have a little party.

They can hand out cupcakes to everybody, and they can just be like, listen, you tried it without us.

Clearly it hasn't worked.

Shall we just come back in and sort stuff out?

It's the French version of the bake-off called Let Them Eat Cake.

I do hope it is.

It certainly ought to be.

I mean, it is, you know, increasing trend for countries that had a bit of a revolution in the late 18th century, realizing that things aren't panning out too well for them.

So,

you know, America, France, the evidence is mounting up.

This is France.

This is the country that needed two elections to figure out that Nazis were bad.

They're having a bit of a year.

I love that the Prime Minister has resigned, but because it's the far left and the far right that have come together, all of the possible replacements are being shat on.

So they've also asked him to stay.

Which again feels very French.

They're like, you must resign.

I resign.

Very good.

No one wants this job.

Please stay.

Until we find another one.

It's very European, though.

That's very European to just to say that

their politicians are always metaphorically falling on their swords and going, I did something wrong.

I shall quit.

And they go, we accept your resignation, but please stay on and continue to do the job.

With the sword still in you.

Yeah, just.

You are a criminal.

I am a criminal.

You tell the truth.

Hal Nobel, please.

Yeah, it's exactly that.

Barnier lasted only 91 days as Prime Minister,

which, to put in context, is less than two Liz Trusses.

I mean, that really is an embarrassingly short amount of time to serve as Prime Minister.

Less than two trusses.

It's true, but they checked the lettuce and the lettuce did wilt before him.

So at least he can hold his head up.

So, as you say, the difficulty is in finding a new Prime Minister.

The leading options

are currently Michel Branier, which is a version of Michel Barnier from a computer simulation in which they didn't have the rights to use the politicians' actual names.

The Statue of Liberty,

which is, of course, French and as we announced last week, is currently swimming its way back across the Atlantic following Trump's re-election.

And Antoine Dupont, the genius scrum half, might be the one figure that can unify a divided nation.

But ahead of the vote of no confidence, Barnier described it as a moment of truth, of responsibility.

And I think what he's hit on there is that a moment is the absolute upper limit of the amount of truth and responsibility humanity can take right now.

I mean, and even a moment is a stretch.

I mean, politics and responsibility these days go together like the continents of Africa and South America, in that they drifted apart so long ago, it's hard to see them ever getting back together.

Even if when you look at them, you think, well, that should fit.

But realistically, it's just not going to happen.

But sadly, that goose has baked itself on a ship and that ship has bolted the stable.

So

it's slightly concerning that Germany's government collapsed like a month ago.

Yeah.

And

it's Germany and France.

It's too big.

Somehow Spain is solid ground right now, though I'm guessing at New Year's, they're going to fall apart.

It's just a little...

I can understand the world.

At this point in the 21st century when things aren't going great, having some nostalgia for the 20th century, but not those f ⁇ ing bits of the 20th century.

That's the wrong bits to be nostalgic for yeah it's vibing a little 1938 right now it's just vibing a little 38 so all eyes on all eyes on czechoslovakia if that goes we know what to do right

well i mean if they get back together and i think that that and then and then go then we'll we'll know there's there's there's trouble afoot and and just for anyone listening from there we know it's checha

oh is it was it even not is it republic of czech now uh it was checha Oh, we don't know.

All right.

All right.

For anyone listening for that part of the world, we genuinely still don't know, but we're pleased for you, whatever you decide.

Oh, it's the bugle listeners.

We are absolutely getting corrected on this.

I know, I know.

Last time I was there, it was Checha, but I think it might have changed since then.

Bonnie also described the no-confidence motion as, quotes, like adding a genuine live childbirth to a school nativity play.

Yeah, sorry, he didn't use those exact words.

What he said was, it will make everything more serious and more difficult.

So basically, just basically the same thing.

That is the most French theatrical answer he could have.

Yeah.

Can I use that?

I think that that needs to enter the general vernacular.

It's like, why are you adding a life birth to the nativity?

And it's just a comment for difficult.

I am going to use that all the time.

Well, we're always seeking to expand the boundaries of language on this podcast.

There's definitely an artist listening to this going, Edinburgh, 2025.

I see it.

I feel it.

Man, imagine giving birth like 25 days in a row with only one person.

What?

It's a different paying £10,000.

Oh, it's a different one every day.

The different, oh, Edinburgh has never wanted for young aspiring white actresses.

They'll just get them all and put a little smock on them.

And then you give birth.

Same father, though, and that's the director.

A very

oh, dear.

Oh, oh, Showbiz.

He's probably a former stand-up comic.

Oh, God.

Masterbirth.

Right.

So.

Sorry.

Sorry.

In other revolutions news, if we may move aside, aside, I unleashed that.

I mean, it's so often the case where what starts as just an innocent story of childbirth in the Middle East spirals out of control.

And that's really how it all started, to be honest, coming at it from a Jewish perspective.

But there we go.

Moving now to Georgia, where huge protests there as well, street demonstrations, a string of resignations from public positions, triggered by the ruling party's decision to suspend its efforts to join the European Union, or at least start talks on joining the European Union.

Protesters want Georgia to join, side with Europe rather than Russia, it seems.

And you can sort of see that really at the moment.

I don't think Vladimir Putin, you know, in terms of PR and marketing, he's not selling the Russian model as an attractive option to countries that might want to, you know, ally themselves to Russia.

I mean, you know, do you want your children to be sent for slaughter to satisfy deranged man's Stalin cosplay ego-addled fever dreams?

Then sign up for the all-exclusive premium Putin service now with added media repression and extrajudicial slayings.

You can see it's a tough sell.

And the people of Georgia don't seem to be reacting particularly strongly to

that.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakidse has said that the protesters and opposition have the protesters had fallen victim to opposition lies.

And again, this is typical of someone in power.

Why can't people just believe the lies told to them by their elected governments who've been democratically put in place to tell the kind of lies that people voted for?

They should believe those lies and not the opposition lies.

This is at the root of all these all these

democratic problems.

It does seem to be quite a trend at the moment to have these kind of...

I mean, it's just democracy just falling apart the world over?

Yes.

Oh, that's a disappointing answer, James, but authoritatively does.

Sorry, I thought that was the theme of 2024, right?

Wasn't that the running gag?

Yeah.

It does seem to be the theme.

I mean, I love the fact that the leading party is called Georgia Dream.

I mean, way to, you know, pop idle up your political process.

Yeah, I think it isn't that democracy is failing.

It's that

we're not seeing democracy working.

Yes.

Well, the EU and America have apparently accused Cobra Kidze and his government of, quote, democratic backsliding,

which from what I remember was a niche fetish popular with a number of British MPs in the 1990s, if

I remember rightly.

Oh, that's not what Michael Jackson used to do?

I think it was a lot Democratic about that.

And last Saturday, America suspended its strategic partnership with Georgia, which is probably good practice because on January the 20th, America will suspend its strategic partnership with absolutely fing everything and absolutely everyone.

So just get used to it.

Just get used to the absence of strategic partnerships.

Well, I never thought I'd say this.

I did.

I've said it once before.

like

theresa may needs to come back do you remember when theresa may literally held his hand and went you will commit to nato we need her back we need her back she she had you know she she was the only woman that could get through to trump because she's the only woman that he doesn't want to

you know he actually hears what she says instead of looks at her tits and goes

I think it's because Donald Trump thinks Teresa May is the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2 that he made friends with when he was doing the cameo there.

I think that's why they have a connection.

Georgia's such an abused child, though.

Like you can just tell when it's like, we don't want Russian democracy.

And everyone's like, that's not democracy.

And it's like, we want Western democracy.

And it was like, which one?

Do you want the one that's collapsing in Germany?

The one that's collapsing in France?

The UK one, where it's somehow a democracy, but you've got a king?

Or the...

US one where

you can get a dictator if you like.

Well, a lot of Georgians want to join the European Union and you can see that as an attractive option because we in Britain we've shown, you know, it's a it's a risk-free trial scheme, the European Union.

You can join for forty years and then if things are going pretty well, you can decide it's not for you and leave.

So you know that's it's that nice to have that that option as a as an EU Member State.

There's been uh violence towards journalists and uh protesters.

Uh reporters have been pepper sprayed and beaten.

Um doesn't entirely give off the sensible democratic regime vibe

from Prime Minister Kobakidse, but I guess that's becoming less and less trendy with the leaders of the world.

I would advise anybody in a position of opposition in Georgia to maybe shut their windows and don't go near any bridges.

General advice: it's cold, it's winter.

You don't need to open the window, you don't need to stand near the window, and you certainly don't need to fall out of the window, okay?

Just shut the window,

stay on the ground floor, and if you're going for a walk, avoid the river.

All sound advice for

anyone, not just opposition politics

in Georgia.

I don't know if anyone's ever drunk with Eastern European journalists before, but pepper spraying and beating is kind of a kink.

So I don't know if it's having the detrimental effect that people think of it.

I think maybe people don't realize Georgia is actually one of the few European rugby nations and they're a genuine powerhouse.

It's their national sport.

And so, what I would say to the good people of Georgia is: have you considered New Zealand?

Because the all-blacks have had a bit of a rough patch and they are rebuilding.

And we welcome all people, all genders.

We've got a great gay rugby team, the Blackpinks, and you can come and join

as well.

If you've got to get out, get as far away as possible.

That's the foundation of New Zealand immigration.

In other democracy being undermined news now,

Biden has pardoned Biden.

Departing President Joe Biden has issued a presidential pardon for his son, Hunter.

Biden had repeatedly said he wouldn't pardon his son because, well, as a fan of democracy and justice, as we assume he is, issuing a random pardon and undermining the entire concepts of justice, judicial independence, fairness, and the law would be obviously f ⁇ ing ridiculous, particularly when stepping into your still warm oval office slippers in January as a great big orange lunatic who urinates on a voodoo doll of the goddess Justicia every morning before breakfast.

But he's changed his mind because, well, understandably, he's a father with a son and he doesn't like the idea of his son spending a long time in jail.

Donald Trump has called it an abuse and miscarriage of justice, which I think is the biggest compliment he's ever paid to Joe Biden in all the years that they've been sparring politically.

Biden had reportedly wrestled over the decision.

And when you're wrestling in your 80s, I guess it's good to keep active, but you can't really count on

getting the right result.

It is one of the weirdest things I find about

American policy and something we've talked about various times over the years on the bugle.

The idea of the presidential pardon

and you know all countries have their, well, you might describe them as democratic kinks.

We have the House of Lords and departing prime ministers being able to put their friends in it as MPs for the rest of eternity.

But the presidential pardon seems to be a particularly bizarre.

one but it's i guess quite rare that it's your own family i mean trump obviously wanted to pardon himself

So, I mean, this is just, I guess, another symptom of the changing politics of America.

It's definitely not a royal decree.

I think we just have to be very clear.

It's definitely not a royal decree.

The prince is not being let off the hook.

I think we've learned a lot of things from this pardon.

I think we understand now why Kamala Harris was never going to be president because she has no children to pardon.

So what's the point of giving her that power?

Like, right?

Secondly, I loved the fact that he didn't just pardon him for the things he pled guilty to he pardoned him for anything he might have done in the last 11 years uh known unknown

you know uh being prosecuted not being prosecuted being investigated all of it all of it 11 years of the slate wiped clean which i think was really good of daddy given that hunter himself can't remember a lot of it given how high he was at the time uh

you know i understand it as jon Stewart said himself, actually, on the Daily Show the other day, he said, it's fair enough.

Like, Biden's 82, he doesn't want to spend his last few years visiting his son in prison.

I get that, you know, all good, all good reasons.

Um, but ultimately, I feel like it is a little bit of a game.

It's like some kind of 3D chess that Biden's now playing with Trump, just going, oh, I'll see your crazy pardons and I'll raise you.

And it does actually nullify a lot of, you know, Hunter did commit those crimes.

He has done things but it was it wasn't the fact that he was being prosecuted and convicted of the crimes it was the fact that the punishments weren't equal to what that crime normally gets is what made joe go do you know what the world's gone to hell in a handbag i have one power and i'm gonna you know i mean it's not like he gave him a job in the cabinet which is what trump did with all of his kids

he you know he he he already pled guilty he's already done some repentance and he's just gone, okay, I'm wiping the slate clean.

I'd be interested to know if whether behind the scenes he said, but Hunter, you do one snort, you do one injection, you do one thing, and it's all back on the table.

That's what I would have done as a mom.

I would have said, look, I'm going to pardon you for this, but if I find one vape in your room,

it's all back again.

It's good parenting.

That's good parenting.

Keep them scared.

It has been the American foreign policy for several decades now.

Right.

And now that they feel they've scared everyone enough, they're going to completely 100% retreat and just go, right, guys, you're all screwed.

You're on your own.

Thanks for the oil.

See ya.

Well, we will have exclusive coverage of the fracturing of global democracy over the next, let's say, 15 to 20 years before it's all done and we're just living under the global dictatorship of Elon Musk.

But we'll have exclusive coverage of the journey to that utopian goal.

Here on the bugle for the rest of meaningful time.

What is that?

Till next Wednesday?

What's the rest of meaningful time

at this rate?

I'm amazed we made it to four o'clock to even do this record.

Pacific News Now.

James, you're, of course, the Bugle's correspondent for the world's largest ocean and all the islands and lands and people within it.

Bring us up to date with

that vast part of

the globe.

Thank you.

Andy, of course,

the biggest and most pressing news coming out of the Pacific right now is

is Moana too good?

That's generally the

question dividing the entire Pacific region, because we all know it's not, but we are all related to people in the cast.

And this is the dilemma.

The dilemma facing many of us, particularly the Samoans and Tokalowans.

I mean, and slightly less important news, Vanuatu has urged the International Court of Justice to find polluting nations, the big ones, you know, America, Australia, India, China, find them guilty of acting unlawfully by contributing to climate change,

which would be, of course, a landmark ruling as effective as any other ruling that the International Court of Justice has made in recent times.

What has made the news this week is that Australia, who have spent most of the year flying around the Pacific, courting Pacific powers on behalf of the AUKUS military pact,

has gone to the court, they've gone to The Hague, gone to the Netherlands, and they've gone, oh, do you know what, mate?

We reckon it's pretty good.

To which the Pacific Island delegates,

probably standing in water, have gone, oh, what the hell?

What the hell are you talking about?

Australia's going, nah,

it's pretty good.

New Zealand actually has an ongoing bushfire right now.

Thankfully, not near any cricket grounds, Andy, so they're safe.

But

it's been quite a U-turn that the Australians have pulled on the the rest of the Pacific, and it's infuriated Vanuatu.

And I don't know if you've ever met angry people from Vanuatu.

I haven't, actually.

The Vanuatu Special Envoy on Climate Change, Ralph Regan Vanu, I hope I've pronounced that correctly, said there's an urgent need for a collective response to

climate change, grounded not in political convenience, but in international law.

And coming at this from the perspective of someone from one of the Western powers, don't make us give up political convenience.

It's all we've got left.

It is literally all we've got left.

Well, an Australian government spokesperson said that Australia is committed to working together with the Pacific to strengthen global climate action.

I think that's really where things have broken down in the communication, because the Pacific read that as Australia will support us.

in places like the International Court of Justice.

And Australia read that as we will help your best rugby players come to to our country

to play in our sports teams.

That's the thing with language.

There's just so many different ways of interpreting it.

Although, far be it for someone who's grown up in New Zealand to make fun of a country for taking Pacific Island rugby players.

Well, that brings us to the end of this week's bugle.

Don't forget, the perfect Christmas present is available, which is tickets to my tour show,

which you can give to anyone wherever you live in the world.

Even if they can't come, it'd be a lovely gesture.

Details of

the dates on my website, andysolsom.co.uk, or just ask someone in the street nicely to look it up for you.

James, anything to plug?

Yes, if you are at all interested in the Pacific and

American and French politics and climate change, I've got a new podcast series out called The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior on the nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands and the French bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, which is available anywhere you can get the bugle.

Sounds good.

Is that for real?

Is that for real?

Because my nickname in high school was the Rainbow Warrior.

So now I need to get all of your books.

Because French agents kept on trying to bomb you?

I grew up in the Netherlands.

Thank God for Belgium, is all I'm going to say.

But no, that was, but Rainbow, I was called the Rainbow Warrior growing up.

But sorry,

please join my mailing list.

If you go to to my website, realena.com, you can either join my WhatsApp

list, my WhatsApp group, or you can join my mailing list.

There will be news coming out in January, and there will be cheaper options if you're on the list that will not be available to the general public.

So sign up now for that, and I will let you know in mailouts or on WhatsApp.

Well, that's it for this week's Bugle.

Next week, well, picking up on the theme of Moana 2 being apparently a terrible film, we have a special guest next week, a blast from the Bugle Past, who's been in even shitter films than that.

Yeah, we're going right back, right back in Bugle time.

So do tune in for that one.

We'll be recording it hopefully next Friday.

Until then, Buglers, goodbye.

Hi, Buglers.

It's producer Chris here.

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

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

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