TASK ANDY

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to Bugle issue 4314 sub-episode A for a huge amount of cricket means I can't record this week, but don't worry, we'll be back next week with Nish Kumar and Tom Ballard.

For our sub-episode this week, we present for you a truly historic moment in broadcasting history.

If I may overstate things quite wildly, if wildness can be quite wild, which in which case it's probably not wild.

But anyway, the point is,

this was truly historic

in the universe of the bugle, at least.

For those of you who are already paid subscribers to this austere media institution, you know that Ask Andy is our monthly special show where you can ask me, Andy, literally anything and I will possibly answer it as well as I possibly can.

For those of you who have not paid subscribers, well, here at the Bugle, we essentially live entirely on the support of you, our listeners.

We take no adverts in the Bugle.

Your contributions to our voluntary subscription scheme have saved me from the embarrassment of attempting to convince you to buy pillows and leafy greens and other items to no doubt improve your lives.

We did try it for a couple of years back in the day and

it didn't entirely work, albeit that I do now have a forest of pillows and greens

in the garden.

Every month on Ask Andy, I'm joined by producer Chris, the man who makes everything possible on this podcast.

And we're going to play for you the first ever installment of Ask Andy.

But before that, Chris, you have a special...

question

for me, I believe.

Yeah, well, let's give everybody a little bit of an exclusive here, Andy.

It's a big week for television this week.

Like, TV

has to handle you this week.

Yeah, I mean, it's steered pretty clear of that for nearly 25 years.

Well, it's quite successful.

It's getting a big dose.

It's getting a big dose.

So, UK Taskmaster kicks off 12th of September.

I've got sort of two questions in one for you, Andy, which is,

what will buglers make of your performance on the show?

And what will non-buglers make of you?

Well,

those are two difficult questions, Chris.

I hope, to start with, I hope you'll all enjoy it.

It was a lot of fun filming it, which is not something I've often said about anything I've done on television with the wonderful Alex Horne and Greg Davies, who are

known for the vast majority of my, can we call it, Showbiz career.

So it was a lot of fun, as you may know from the publicity material.

I did all the tasks in full cricket kits, including

1930s pads gloves and bat

and

yeah this will make me one of the most recognizable cricketers in the country which is what I've always dreamed of Chris given the little amount of cricket on terrestrial television particularly cricket played in white clothes

this is really as close as I'm ever going to get to my childhood dream of being some kind of cross between David Gower and I and both them something for our American listeners there

so I hope you'll enjoy it I mean I guess it probably

buglers it shows you what would happen if I didn't have to talk about the news and stuff like that.

So, I don't know.

It was quite

interesting exploring that element of

my comedic soul.

And I'd like to think I embrace the absolute lunacy of Taskmaster as a show.

What non-buglers would make of me,

I've no idea.

Taskmaster fans seem to be

generally pretty open-minded about the comedians that they see on the show, because every show has a completely different cast of

contestants.

So, you know, you get to meet and learn about five comedians who you might already know, you might not know.

So,

they'll probably think, what is a man in his late 40s doing wearing a cricket kit?

So, I guess that's a question that I can't really answer, you know, other than the fact that why not?

So, anyway, but do enjoy it.

It's on

Channel 4 from the 12th to September, weekly for 10 10 weeks and I'm sure will be available on their various online

offerings as well.

So there it is.

Yes, consider that plugged, buglers.

I genuinely cannot wait to see what foolishness you and your colleagues get up to.

Yes.

Cricket kit.

Very useful on a practical basis, I would argue.

That's what I've learned from that.

Anyway, following that question, we are now going to play the first ever issue of Ask Andy.

And it's going out to everybody, to all of you, in the hope that we can entice you to join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme.

This almost 17-year-old podcast has teenage needs and

to help keep our show free, flourishing, independent, and without having to try and flog you a mattress.

So here it is.

Here is Ask Andy.

Do enjoy the show.

Whilst you're enjoying it, if you can multitask, buy tickets to my forthcoming tour show, which starts on the 1st of November.

The Zoltgeist.

Oh, about 45 venues around the UK.

There's a Dublin date and hopefully some European dates to be confirmed soon as well.

And the show will be, I confidently predict,

the best stand-up show I've done in years.

Albeit, I haven't done a stand-up show in years, but you can add the number of years after you've seen it.

Details at andysoltsman.co.uk, my

unusually up-to-date website.

So that's the Zoltgeist at andysoltman.co.uk.

I mean, it makes the ideal Christmas present.

I mean, what else?

I mean, preemptive Christmas present or belated if you want to give it to someone for their Christmas from last year or any previous year in history.

You could give them tickets to my show as Christmas 1434.

Why not?

Because, you know, I'd be better late than never.

Anyway, on now with Arskandy, and as I say, we will be back with a full bugle with Nish and Tom next week.

Hello, welcome to Ask Andy, the all-new show for you, the premium subscriber to the bugle, in which you can ask me, Andy Zaltzmann, any question in the known and unknown universe.

This is a hugely exciting moment in broadcasting history.

Our first special offering for our premium level voluntary subscribers.

Producer Chris is here to hurl your questions at me.

If you have questions for future episodes of Ask Andy, which will be a monthly offering to our premium subscribers, do send them to hellobuglers at thebuglepodcast.com and do put Ask Andy in the subject line.

Also, at the end of each edition of Ask Andy, I will have a question for you.

This is very much a two-way street.

So let's begin.

Hello, Chris.

I'm very excited to be doing this, Andy.

It's been a long time coming.

It has, and it makes a welcome break from me still trying to work out what mastering means when it comes to doing this bugle vinyl record.

So,

this side of the offering, I'm really happy to be doing.

Are you ready for a question?

I'm ready for a question.

This one came in on email, it was headed Ask Andy.

Hey, Bugle team, long time listener, first-time caller.

I'm particularly enjoying season six so much better than season five.

My question for Andy is this:

What is the one question you don't want to be asked?

Cheers, Michael.

Oh,

why would I tell you that, Michael?

And that, in fact, is the question that I don't want to be asked.

Particularly, as I'm not called Michael.

Other questions?

I mean, it's quite hard to narrow it down to just one question I don't want to be asked.

I'm British.

I've spent my entire life avoiding awkward questions.

That's just what we do in this country.

I guess one of them would be: where were you on the 22nd of November 1963?

Because my alibi simply doesn't stand up, and I can't remember anything from that day, so frankly, I just don't know.

Another question I really don't want to be asked is: what will you do if Test Cricket ceases to exist?

Because that is, frankly, an unanswerable question, not just for me, but for the entire human race and the entire universe.

And also,

the question I really don't want to be asked is this one, thinking a little further ahead.

So, Mr.

Zoltzmann, why should I let you in when you've spent your entire life saying you don't believe in me and I quote you on this religion and shit like that so those are the questions that I desperately want to avoid being asked yeah it makes perfect sense I would actually just like to know who that was at the gates asking that question of you in the first place that's inconclusive still

yeah it'll all come out one day everything does there'll be a leak from somewhere Someone who failed to submit their name has asked a question to you, Andy, but we'll include it because I like the question.

Unless the name is a non, of course.

If Liz Truss were an England cricket captain, who would she be?

Well, I mean, that has triggered me, to be honest.

That is one of the most harrowing questions I've ever been.

In fact, can I add that to the list of questions I don't want to be asked?

Because

you're asking me to

put something that I'm really unconvinced by into the thing I love the most.

And

when I say unconvinced by it, I'm being as polite as possible on what is

a family adjunct to a family show.

But if I had to choose,

well, there's a couple of options

from

England's men's cricket team.

One would be James Treadwell, the Kent offspinner, who captained England in one match.

Really?

It was a T20 game in 2013 against New Zealand.

He lost the toss.

The game lasted two balls, from one of which England lost a wicket and was then reined off, and he never captained England again.

And I think that's in many ways

that should have been the blueprint for Truss, to be in office for even less time than she was and therefore to do less damage.

If I had to choose a test match captain, well, it would probably be Chris Cowdrey,

who I've met a few times, lovely guy, but he was England captain for one game in 1988.

He came in

slightly oddly in the middle of a series that England were getting thrashed by the West Indies in.

He captained for one game, which England were thrashed in.

He then moved on.

England continued to be thrashed, and that was him done as England captain.

So again, that seems appropriately appropriately Trussian.

But, you know, if Liz Truss were an England cricket captain, then I think that would be a surefire sign that the apocalypse was truly upon us.

You don't think she's like a Ben Stokes, like hyper-aggressive, trying to completely radically change how we see the world?

Right.

Well, maybe, but I mean, yeah,

I guess the big difference is results, really, and

longevity.

But, you know, maybe Truss is just unlucky.

You know, Ben Stokes' first game as England test captain against New Zealand at Lourdes in 2022.

England could easily have lost when he himself was out, offered no ball.

And yeah, so upon such threads, maybe Truss was just

colossally unfortunate every single second of her

six weeks in office or wherever it was.

I can see that quote from you appearing on the cover of her next book.

Andy Ree asked us, how do I stop my partner complaining about me listening to the podcast all night in bed?

Well, I guess the obvious option is just break up.

That seems to be the

simplest option.

I don't really know why you're having to ask that question because if those complaints have begun, that process should already have been undertaken.

The other option, I guess, is to buy a live crocodile and put that in the bed between you and your partner.

And then complaining about you listening to podcasts will take a bit of a back seat.

You know,

bigger reptiles to fright.

So in my experience, that's always worked pretty well.

Were you ever reading Julia Donaldson books to your kids back in the day?

She had a book called A Squash and a Squeeze.

I don't know if you ever got to that one.

And what you have just proposed is exactly the same principle, which is essentially if you fill your house with wild animals, when you finally kick them out why do you have any reason to complain about your house

there we go it's all it's all about perception and and you know relativity andy this question has been asked by what i can only guess is a true og bugler

um anonymous again do you ski

right

well So I saw this question and

so it rang a bell from the early days of the funeral and um yeah, well we discussed this before we started recording.

I can't remember how it began, but I remember it being a sort of recurring

a recurring trope,

but I've got no idea where it came from.

It's so long ago.

We started this show in 2007.

That's basically the dinosaurs were still roaming the earth at that point, certainly in podcasting terms.

In answer to your question, no, I don't ski because I respect physics and I respect mountains and I don't think the two should be unnecessarily brought together in the form of

a leisure activity so no I don't ski but if you could let's remind us how that's how that began buglers and and why and whether it was ever adequately resolved it was the second most common thing buglers said to me when I joined the show

after the obvious one.

Andy Jonathan has asked this question.

Well, it's actually two questions.

They ask, number one, will vegetarianism save the world?

And number two, why do Americans hate ESG so much?

And will it spread to other countries?

Okay, so will vegetarianism save the world?

No, far from it.

It's endangering the future of our species because we are locked in an evolutionary race.

Charles Darwin taught us that much.

And every time you vegetarians fail to eat a sausage, for example, you are allowing pigs the chance to evolve further and one day overtake us and rule us and probably sausage us themselves.

So

I would say vegetarianism is a complete Darwinistic betrayal of your species.

And you people should be ashamed of yourselves.

I don't know when you last saw an actual pig, Andy, but they are fing massive.

Well, exactly.

Yeah.

So, you know, if we don't sausage them, I mean, who knows?

Yeah, we can't take that risk.

That's all I'm saying.

In terms of why the Americans hate ESG, so it very much depends which ESG you're talking about.

Wasn't that a faction within the Conservative Party?

Yeah, for a long time, yeah.

The European shitheadery group or whatever it was called.

Do you mean...

the

El Segundo station in California, whose Amtrak station code is ESG.

If they hate that so much, it's probably due to decades, generations of underfunding of the rail system in the USA.

So that's understandable.

Do you mean European standards and guidelines that are supposed to provide quality assurance across the continent?

Well, probably that's just pure continental jealousy that we in Europe,

and I realize I probably should have said this before mid-2016, we got our shit together and came up with some

quality guidelines.

Perhaps it's ESG the rapper

about whom I have no real opinion,

to be honest.

So, or it's elephant sodium glutamate, which is a product made

to make elephants tastier whilst you're eating them.

So,

yeah, why Americans hate it so much, I don't know.

If you meant environmental, social and corporate governance, well, it's probably because, I don't know, it might make America better if there was more of it, and generally, when something would make America better, most people in America seem to be extremely hostile towards that idea.

So it's entirely consistent.

Well, I think that was the answer that Jonathan was hoping for.

Good.

Definitely the elephant bit.

Someone calling themselves Roger F.

asks,

maybe introspectively, is Novak Djokovic the goat?

Right.

Right, as in

The Greatest of All time.

Now,

this is a term I don't like, goat.

Now, I know people love simple terms and simple acronyms, but all time is not very long whenever the term goat is used.

And greatest of all time, you know, I mean, tennis, what first people first started playing competitive tennis, what, in the 1870s, 1880s, it took its modern form

as a fully professional sport in the late 60s.

All time is not very long.

Then, even then, until the 80s, most players didn't play all of the Grand Slams.

A lot of players didn't play the Australian Open.

Some didn't play the French, some didn't play Wimbledon.

So, it's completely

meaningless.

All time, it means the greatest of the bit of time that we're currently in, generally.

We have it even in cricket to talk about the greatest T20 player of all time.

That's 20.

20 years!

You cannot use all time.

I would say it's got to be a maximum.

Well, I mean, all time, obviously, as we know, time began in what about 4004 BC?

We know that from the Bible.

We've all added it up.

So, you know, that's, well, over 6,000 years now.

So, I think, really, to have a greatest of all time, whatever you're judging should go back at least 3,000 years, at least half of time.

And then you can round it up to all time.

So I'm afraid you can't say.

You can't say if Djokovic is the greatest tennis player of all time, because most people through all of time didn't get the chance to play tennis.

I mean, who knows?

Michelangelo might have been f ⁇ ing amazing at tennis.

He was very good at painting ceilings.

He might also have been good at tennis.

We don't know.

I mean, is Djokovic good at painting ceilings?

He probably hasn't, hasn't tried, but if he applied the same degree of striving for perfection to ceiling painting as he's applied to tennis, he might have got very good at it.

So really, we just don't know.

It also depends how you measure it.

If you're comparing Djokovic with Federer, Djokovic now leads in most Grand Slams one.

There's obviously, I I think a five-year age difference.

So Djokovic, you know, early on, Federer had the edge in experience.

Most of their careers, Djokovic has had the edge in youth.

It also depends how you measure it.

If you measure it in total human happiness hours created,

that's not very close.

Because watching Federer play is like watching Michelangelo paint a pair of bollocks.

You know, you're never going to see anyone do it more elegantly and more stylishly.

Whereas watching Novak Djokovic play, it's like watching a really good printer print out a really good high-definition photograph of a really good printer.

It's

technically outstanding, but it doesn't move the soul

quite as much.

So I guess if Roger was to provide evidence that Djokovic could conclusively beat everyone from the Plantagenet era, the Han dynasty,

every single pocket of the world all time, then maybe the answer would be yes.

Yes.

But until then.

Until then, let's reserve judgment.

Yeah.

Okay, that's fair enough.

Thank you for those questions.

Those were taken from the audience at the live show in London in September.

We did address two questions from the audience during that show with Chris Addison and Alice Fraser.

Let's start with Bea, who had a question for us about Goldilocks.

Hello,

it was a thought that Mummy Bear, could it be she's on a diet, so she only had a little bit of porridge and that's why it's gone cold.

Maybe she's losing her baby bear weight.

I would prefer to use Goldilocks to teach my daughter about about thermodynamics than diet culture.

But I appreciate the thought.

And as well as B, Jeff had a question.

You can't actually hear Jeff ask the question, but basically he suggested retiring the phrase, f you, Chris.

You f ⁇ ing.

You have killed the vibe.

What do you think you're watching here, Jeff?

If we change it, then I can't say f you booglers so so that's not happening

We could say f you Jeff

right you Jeff f you Jeff

Thanks Jeff I think we need to end the show there.

I'm not sure we've got time for legal reasons

So Chris

you in favor of retiring that phrase or you know would you be lost you'd be lost without it?

I mean it's very much what you're defined by.

Yeah, I actually have no other way of identifying myself other than by that now.

It's so ingrained in my identity.

You know, some people count sheep, I count Eucharist to get to see.

Andy,

is it true, as you alluded to at the start, that there may be a place in this show for you to ask questions to the audience as well?

Yes.

Yes.

Well, I've got two questions for the audience, and do send your answers into hellobuglers at thebuglepodcast.com and put in the subject box, ask Andy answers.

That will help us sort them all out.

Two questions.

One, what next for the Bugle franchise?

Where would you like to see this global showbiz phenomenon go next?

Do you want us to become a political party and take over your country, for example?

Do you want us to stop doing podcasts and just produce illuminated manuscripts like the old days, get humanity back to basics?

Or what?

You tell us what you think should be the next chapter for the Bugle.

And also, on a sort of similar theme, theme what figure from history would you most like us to have on as a bugle co-host using the all-new bugle Ouija board that I believe is just about ready for action so do send your answers to those questions to hello buglers at thebuglepodcast.com and put ask and the answers

in the subject box

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Chris, for firing the questions at me.

And most of all, thanks to you, premium level voluntary subscribers for helping keep the bugle free flourishing independent and most importantly alive until next month goodbye and don't forget to send your questions in to hello buglers at thebuglepodcast.com with ask andy in the subject box 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.