Benjamin Big Red Button

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers.

Or having watched a lot of sport on Sunday, I should say, hola bugleritos, and welcome to issue 4311 of the world's first, last, and only remaining audio newspaper for a visual world, chronicling the world's most famous species since 2007.

A quick summary of what that famous species has done since 2007.

Well, could do better.

That's the species and the bugle and indeed everything.

So let's all try to raise the various bars involved.

I'm Andy Zoltzmann and when push comes to shove I generally lose at sumo wrestling and

I'm joined today in no fewer, probably more than three dimensions.

Firstly, on one of his periodic journeys to see what life is like in the world's most popular hemisphere, it's Tom Ballard.

Hello.

Coming home, Andy.

What is coming home?

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing is coming home.

Nothingness.

It behooves us not to specify the noun appended to that pronoun

at any time.

We can always be happy that something is coming home.

You've just heard from him here taking a break from his preparations for the Paris Olympics where he will defend his gold medal in the world's most concave chest event.

It's Chris Addison.

Nobody's going to beat me there, Andrew.

Nobody is going to beat me there.

They're going to turn me the other way up and use me for the diving.

So,

this is my first bugle under a Labour government, Andy.

And while I'm delighted, I have to stress that given the state the satirists left things in, we must be honest with the nation.

We're not going to be able to just satirise things immediately.

It is going to take more than one parliamentary term to develop the kind of rye, fractured take on events that this country deserves.

But I can promise you this: a return to the satire of public service.

Because when we think of the great art forms, making portraits of Dua Lipa out of seashells, all that early Anthony Cormley stuff where he literally inexplicably painted using his own jizz.

Satire is at least as good as those, probably.

So we invite you, the nation, to join us in a satire of renewal, the people's bullshit.

Our work is completely unnecessary, and it begins as close to the deadline as we can get away with.

I will not be taking questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

When we grow the economy, then we can do more satire.

We can do more satire.

We record today live and in person here at the legendary studio on Cock Lane, where we have recorded, well, sporadically, O the Is, former home of the once infamous 1760s celebrity ghost called Scratching Fanny.

Which just re-emphasizes my suspicion that the 18th century was fing ridiculous in pretty much every conceivable way, what with all the absurd fashions, the excessive makeup, the very silly wars, Jenkins-y, I mean, really, the deeply divided politics in amongst other places, France and the USA, England failing to win international football tournaments.

But we've moved on from all those things to a far far more civilised existence in the 21st century.

Cock Lane is also where the Great Fire of London, the controversial celebrity 17th century cathedral singing urban conflagration, came to a halt in September

1966, 1666.

It was a long fire.

I mean, we talk about how far it spread, but we rarely talk about how long it went on.

Yeah, that's right.

We are recording on the 15th of July 2024.

On this day in 1381, John Ball, leader of the Peasants' Revolt, was hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Well, that was then, this was a proper country before the woke lobby stopped us from dragging people behind a horse to their place of execution, hanging them until they were nearly but not quite dead, then chopping off their dangly bits, disemboweling them, just to really round the point home, lopping off their bonses in case they hadn't yet learned their lesson, hacking them into four chunks just to make sure, and publicly displaying their mutilated corpses.

Because we were then, as we are now, a devout Christian country which slavishly followed the peaceful teachings of Jesus Christ.

But you can't do anything these days, can you?

You actually can't.

We've gone soft.

You literally can't.

On the 16th of July 1661, the first banknotes in Europe were issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.

Big development in the evolution of bribery for me, the banknote.

Far easier to slip someone money without being noticed.

Took the giveaway metallic clanking out of things, which is good news.

Also made briefcases full of cash so much more carriable.

Easier on the elbows.

Really democratised bribery for me.

Opened it up to people who didn't have a strong core musculature.

Good for strippers as well.

Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's progress for everyone.

Yeah, absolutely.

But what it must have been like for the first person in Sweden to go, there you go, just try and pay me with a banknote.

What the f is that?

You can't just draw money.

Well, it's Sweden.

They're pretty, pretty open-minded and tolerant of things there.

They've probably just got on with it, didn't they?

As always, the section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

Tomorrow, 16th of July, is World Snake Day.

So we have a special Bugle Snake section in which we investigate the big questions in snakeology today,

including: are all baby snakes worms or just some?

Or vice versa?

Are snakes still obsessed with trying to make women eat their five pieces of fruit and or veg a day?

Have they moved on to men as well?

Have they branched out from apples?

Also, could genetic modification at last produce the 1920s influenced psychotic fashion designer's dream item, the feather boa constrictor?

Also, we examine some of the great snake quotations from history, including this effort from 19th century German philosophy superstar Arthur Schopenhauer.

Genuine quote, marrying means to grasp a blindfolded into a sack, hoping to find an eel amongst an assembly of snakes.

Wow.

Worst, best man speech.

Darling, you are my one true eel amidst the snake pit of humanity.

When he said the great snake quotes of history, I assumed you were just going to go, sssssss,

and of course,

and who can forget.

And our other snake quote, Edward Alby, he that has been bitten by a snake is afraid of a rope.

Really, Edward?

Have you done the science on that?

For me, I think it's more likely that he that has been bitten by a tiger is afraid of a sofa.

Or even that he that has been tied up with ropes is now afraid of also being tied up with snakes.

We'll let history be the judge of that.

Anyway, the snake section in the bin.

Top story this week.

Donald Trump has quite literally dodged a bullet

or vice versa.

We don't know yet.

The former president survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in which a bullet hit his ear.

One person was killed and the entire world reacted by going, ooh,

yeah.

Would you agree with that reaction, Chris?

Well, first of all, actually, before I even start to talk about this, Andy, I have to...

be very clear, like every nano-celebrity on social media, I feel it my duty for some reason to point out, as though this has not occurred occurred to anybody so far that no one should be trying to assassinate anybody no matter what their political persuasion.

Orange lives matter.

Trump, by the way, is increasingly orange.

So orange now that his face looks like a bird's eye view of Belfast on July the 12th.

Opponents of Trump should know that there are plenty of ways of stopping him that don't involve actual attempts on his life.

You could, for example, hijack all of America's fake tan so he can't leave the house or appear on camera.

You could fill every hole on every golf course in the States with a spring so that wherever he might play, it's impossible for him to finish around.

You could make it take a debilitatingly long time for him to type and post anything on Truth Social by disabling the caps lock on all his devices.

At the time of recording, there's surprisingly little information about the attacker's background.

But given that Nigel Farage's first response was to drop everything and fly to be by Trump's side, there's every reason to believe that the shooter is probably from Clacton.

Yeah, there's a lot of talk about whether this will swing the election momentum further in Trump's favour and make things even more hostile in America.

I don't advocate violence.

I think it would have been far better had he used a paintball gun.

Could have made the same point and without endangering anyone.

And look, like many people in this world, American, non-American and miscellaneous other.

I think that covers everyone.

I would prefer a political scene without Donald Trump.

I would prefer an American election that did not seem hell-bent on reinstalling the Grand Duke of gratuitous division, the Archbishop of antagonistic bitterness, the Holy Roman Emperor of hatefully rancorous execration, the Maharaja Ravizi Anagram of maledictive vituperation.

Bit harsh on the captain of the Indian cricketing returning

1936, even if he didn't really own his place on cricketing merit.

Hang on, I think there's one more to get out.

The Peter Parker of provocative peeve.

How did this sentence begin?

Oh, yeah.

I'd rather this election was not on course to re-excrete Trump back into the Oval Office.

But this is not the solution.

As you hinted, Chris, there are other ways to get Trump out of this.

My order of preference are a series of court cases and convictions that prove prove to even the most die-hard Trump Easter that maybe he's not 100% presidential caliber.

Seems to have been tried and not been entirely effective.

Failing that, I'd like the Republican Party to become a serious political organisation again.

That's right up there with my absolute top pipe dreams along with eternal peace, guilt-free Faragra, a functioning rail network, compulsory lanyards for all, everywhere all the time, so we don't have to remember anyone's name.

A ceasefire in the culture wars, and an equitable and lasting ceasefire, not just one that bumps all the problems down the road, vers I, competent top-level administration that safeguards the future of Test cricket for at least the next 4,000 years and having a head like an orange.

Those are my

that's a very very good

very in joke.

Failing that, failing that, I'd like him to fail at the ballot box in November.

That also seems unlikely.

Failing that, just give the guy a PlayStation.

I think that would distract him.

Failing that, just persuade him to drink a magic potion that shrinks him to the size of a gerbil.

Because history shows that America has never voted in a president shorter than five foot four inch James Madison and also hasn't voted in a president with facial hair for over 110 years.

So just in case, let's make it a lady gerbil, then there's no way he could possibly win an election failing that alien abduction.

But not the path of violence.

Alien abduction, I think, would be

John Bullfinch.

Yeah, I think he'd enjoy that as well.

Just in the middle of a rally, beam of light.

Yeah.

He gets sucked up into the side.

That's the humane way.

It's the humane way.

To be removed from the political process.

You're right.

I agree.

China's due to Trump was very bad.

As President Joe Biden said, there is no place in America for this kind of violence.

There is only a place for this kind of violence in Iran, Cuba, Guatemala, Chile, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Gaza.

But not in America.

America is famously a land of peace and non-violence where shooting another human being is completely unacceptable unless they're wearing a hoodie or you just want to, then you can.

Biden also said the idea of someone assassinating an American politician was unheard of.

Great.

Now I tell everything, he's losing his hearing as well.

He also condemned the attempt on Trump's life as inappropriate.

Strong words, Joe.

Hey guys, let's try and keep things appropriate.

No more effort and Jeffin.

Use your inside voices and please try to avoid shooting people in the face.

Thank you.

Trump himself said that it was unbelievable that such an act can happen in the USA.

Now, unbelievable is an overused term.

I know this because I work in professional sports commentary.

The word unbelievable is used an unbelievable number of times per each bit of unbelievable commentary.

And it has many meanings, obviously.

Unbelievable.

I mean, I assume what he meant was it's appalling that such an act can happen.

It's unjustifiable, unacceptable, or embarrassing.

All of those would fit.

But unbelievable, I think the only way that that is justified is if he rushed his words and meant unbelievably believable, given that this is a nation that prides itself on visceral divisiveness in its politics and the fetishistic glorification of firearms.

But there you go.

That's America.

Look, not only is this event in and of itself appalling, Andy, but it has in fact moved the world towards a dangerous tipping point of too much news.

For each of the last eight months, scientists have reported a current of news as being over 22% above the global average for the time of year.

According to the IFJ, the International Federation of Journalists, the GMW, the Global Media Watchdog, and the TLA, the three-letter abbreviation, if the world continues to produce news at this rate, we will have reached the global annual allowance of news by August the 17th, which means that no more events will legally be allowed to happen until January the 1st, 2025.

And podcasts like The Bugle will have to pivot to satirizing non-news subjects.

For example, fruit.

What is it with grapefruits?

Are you an orange or a lemon?

Make up your mind.

The tides.

Have you ever seen a more indecisive gravitational periodic phenomenon?

Make up your damn mind, the tides.

You've got more ins and outs than a Dungeon and Dragons rulebook.

Pixar movies.

Why does everyone like them so much?

Those are clearly not real people.

Also, if you truly want to make a movie about the little characters controlling the thoughts and feelings inside someone's head, there should really be one called Mortifying Awareness of Sexual Inadequacy, one called That Donut Looks Too Nice to Leave, and one called Constant Worries About Hemorrhoids.

Was that too much information?

That's the name of another one.

Just to play Devil's Advocate for a second, and to be clear, Devil's Advocate is very different from Devil's Advocate, which is a cocktail made by taking half a dozen eggs and throwing them at Vladimir Putin.

Just to play Devil's Advocate, of course, we at the Bugle don't want a situation where there can be no further events this year after mid-August.

But on the plus side, it would mean America couldn't hold an election, which, while on the the one hand wouldn't be great for democracy, on the other hand, it might be great for democracy.

In terms of sort of working out exactly what happened, Donald Trump said, God alone saved my life.

Which made you think, why did God hate all the other assassination victims?

What was God's beef with William McKinley back in, I think it was 1901, wasn't it?

When McKinley, according to his biographer, died the most beloved president in history.

He was renowned for his dignified demeanor and subtle operations.

Even those who disagreed with his policies and decisions see him as an active, responsible, informed participant in charge of decision-making.

And yet God did not prevent him from being assassinated.

Who was his biographer?

Is that Billiam Wickinley?

It was H.

Wayne Morgan, according to.

I have done some extensive research on this, by which I mean I've looked at three Wikipedia pages.

James A.

Garfield, according to

research, intelligent, sensitive, and alert.

His knowledge of how government work was unmatched, a perfect moderate.

He was not so much a scholar in politics as a politics scholar.

Assassinated.

Where was God to save James A.

Garfield?

Spencer Percival, 1812, the only British prime minister to be assassinated.

Devout, industrious, a principled man who, at the head of a weak government, steered the country through difficult times.

But God didn't give a flying f ⁇ about Spencer Percival, did he?

No.

Let him, just let me, all your others, Yitzhak, Nola, Palmer, Indira Gandhi, Franz Ferdinand, Ramesses III of Egypt, even going

a high percentage of Roman emperors, some of whom, I'm not going to victim blame people who've been dead for almost 2,000 years, but some of whom, I think we can fairly say, did not do everything in their power not to get assassinated.

But anyway, the point is: if God did save Trump and not all the other assassination victims, I'm more inclined than ever to believe my growing suspicion that God takes too many days off work and should knuckle down with due respect.

That Ramesses II one is right for a conspiracy theory.

So Ramesses III.

Ramesses, oh, is it?

Yep.

I'm getting it.

Ramesses mixed up.

It is, though.

There was a second spear from the sandy knoll.

I think it's been interesting finding out more information about this shooter, this guy, Thomas Matthew Crookes.

That's what we're calling him to.

Thomas Matthew Crookes, John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Thomas Matthew Crookes.

Here's an idea.

If there are any young men out there running around with three names, let's lock them up.

Yeah?

Sorry, Paul Thomas Anderson.

I love your films, but you're a threat to society.

Do you think it wasn't an assassination attempt, but he just sort of shot his ear in the hope that Trump would pivot to making paintings of sunflowers and starry nights?

It's quite possible, isn't it?

Lots of people have been asking the Secret Service how a shooter could have possibly got off onto a roof at a rally like that.

And the Secret Service has responded by saying, shh, it's a secret.

Can you imagine being in the Secret Service for Trump?

Like having to take a bullet for a man who once in a speech pronounced Thailand as Thailand.

Like, that's who you're going down for.

In terms of the blame game, which always gets played after such events, Nigel Farage waded in and blamed the liberal media, essentially.

For reporting all of Trump's formulations.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Fair enough.

The campaign's kind of in crisis mode.

I saw they sent out a memo, this report on Politico.

Trump campaign advisors sent out a joint memo after the shooting that said, we also urge you to recognize the political polarization in this heated election.

If something looks or feels off, please flag it immediately.

That message again, if anyone working on the Trump campaign sees anything that looks or feels off, please say something.

If, for example, your candidate starts talking at length about how he loves to grab women by their genitals or starts praising Hannibal Lecter or how climate change is a Chinese hoax or about how migrants are coming to rape the Statue of Liberty.

Please say something.

Something could be off.

Well, he has called for unity in America.

I mean, I don't know where you put that in

unexpected call.

It's like Mozart calling for people to stop playing such twiddly things on violins, isn't it?

Right, moving on to his, well, current opponent in the presidential election,

Joe Biden.

um

yeah still still going at time of recording at time of recording he'd been having a bit of a difficult time and i i don't know i mean there was seemed to be a growing momentum to remove him as the democratic candidate whether the trump assassination attempt might change that i don't know but he'd had a well a difficult difficult time including calling vladimir zelensky the ukrainian president uh calling him president putin

now out of all the people in the world you least want to mix Zelensky up with, I think Vladdy Poodles is somewhere outside the top 8.2 billion.

Even for someone in Biden's, I think that's a bad, that's a blooper.

I feel like Biden might simply have said the wrong name when in bed with his wife, and is now in so much trouble he's having to concoct this whole alibi about how he mixes people up.

You don't think that's it?

Right.

No?

That doesn't make more sense than the Republicans sticking with him as their candidate.

The Republicans would add too much.

Sorry, we all do it.

You see?

It's that simple.

It's literally that simple.

Nobody's nerfed.

Killer.

If you combine Biden's and Trump's ages, you're probably not going to do that using mental arithmetic.

You're going to need a calculator for that.

But both of those people really are of an age where they should be sitting in a garden somewhere listening to the cricket commentary and wondering if they can be asked going and changing their tenor pads.

They shouldn't be running for the presidency because, as a rule of thumb, you don't really want a leader of the free world whose advisors involuntarily go, oh, every time they try to stand up from a chair.

This is, I've got a talk coming up in the autumn.

This is my core demographic you're having a go.

Are these old people?

No, it's for giving them a family.

You don't want them in the White House because they're not going to make you gig, are they?

The level of denial in Biden's campaign is remarkable.

There are certain people within the camp who would try to convince you that he's not that old.

But guys,

come on.

He's the first presidential candidate whose age can only be accurately determined by carbon dating.

It looks like Dr.

Gunter von Hagens has lent him to the White House from the Body Worlds exhibition.

He generally wears the expression you'd see in a local newspaper photo of a care home resident who's just completed an improbable charity parachute jump strapped to his 30-year-old grandson.

It's a sort of combination of fear, bewilderment, relief, lack of certainty of where exactly he is, but absolute certainty that he could murder a chocolate digestive.

Clearly, clearly Biden is more fit to be president than Trump.

Trump has no knowledge of the U.S.

Constitution whatsoever, as his attacks on the media and his failure to understand the provisions of the First Amendment amply demonstrate.

Biden, however, knows the Constitution backwards, having been an intern in Washington when it was written.

Of course, Biden's campaign wanted to feel that their candidate is still filled with vim and vigor and sap and energy and spunk.

But as Winston Churchill himself once said, f me backwards, is Joe Biden still alive?

I felt so awkward for him when he's called Zelensky Putin.

I mean, you know, yeah, calling out the wrong guy's name, I can relate, and it's very awkward.

To be fair, Biden did correct himself and explain the sleep-up by saying, I'm so focused on beating Putin.

Yes, I guess you can say my greatest weakness is that I care too much.

So focused on beating Putin.

Yeah, that's what we're all thinking, Joe.

Whenever I see Joe Biden, my first thought is, this guy seems excessively focused.

There is too much laser-like focus going on here.

Zelensky responded to the gaffe by saying, I'm better, which is a hell of a slogan.

Zelensky 2024, better than Putin.

He also said, he also mixed up Karmala Harris for Donald Trump.

He said, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she wasn't qualified to be president.

I know the worst thing there is misgendering Trump.

That's absolutely unacceptable, I would say.

It's not good.

If I may quote myself on the bugle a few weeks ago, I'm not comfortable with a presidential campaign in which the ages of the two candidates make up a snooker frame with an unusually high number of fouls.

And I'd rather see 147-year-old against a newborn baby.

But it's the short-sightedness of the Democrats not planning for this.

To me, that is like setting off to climb Mount Everest, looking up, seeing that it looks sunny and clear at the summit and thinking, I reckon shorts, flip-flops, baseball cap, packet of peanuts, and a crate of lager.

Let's go.

I love all the defenses of his debate performance.

Like, guys, he had a cold.

He had a really bad.

Yes, he's qualified to be the most powerful man in the world, but if he gets the sniffles, his brain will explode.

Or other people are like, hey, I know it's bad.

I know you're worried that Biden's too old, but just give him some time.

Yeah, just wait and see.

Because that will cure oldness, the passage of time.

Let's just wait and see if the oldness clears up somehow.

We're hoping for a Benjamin Button scenario, if possible.

Benjamin red button.

Big red button.

There it is.

I love it they keep saying like Biden's gaffes too.

Are they really gaffes at this point or is it just a way of life?

I feel like saying James Biden makes gaffes is like saying Homer Simpson makes the occasional faux pas.

The reaction of world leaders at the NATO summit was interesting.

Keir Stahmer said Biden was on good form.

Everything's relative, isn't it?

Well, it is relative.

Also, that's, I mean, the minimum requirement, isn't it, for being leader of the free world?

Is that you're on good form.

But also, you're not going to ever hear from the leaders what actually he was like, are you?

They're not going to go, he was a bit of a cat.

He was a blitheringly incoherent wreck.

It's wreck against wreck when it comes to the American election.

Macron said, everyone makes slips of the tongue.

Yes, but not everyone makes them every time they speak.

And not everyone is trying to convince people that they should be president, not only this time next year, but this time in four years from now.

Macron said, it's happened to me.

I'm sure it will happen to me again tomorrow.

Is he going to call another election?

Is that what we can read from that?

Best of three.

I like the Polish president, Andrei Dudach,

apologies to all our Polish listeners,

who's seen as being close to former President Trump, said, quoted by the AFP, I talk with President Biden and there is no doubt that everything is okay.

Now, if anyone is talking in 2024 and saying that everything is okay, he truly has lost his marbles.

That's a sign that things are not okay at all.

Quick emergency, Kamala Harris, please.

But once again, the key figure in this could be God himself, because Biden said that only God could stop him standing for president.

I mean, he's really getting involved in U.S.

politics at the moment.

Yeah.

I don't know why this sudden burst of interest in

ultimate super PAC in many ways, isn't he?

I guess he is.

Because, I mean, it's been a long time since he got involved in stuff.

Pretty much 2,000 years, plus give or take.

At least since his whole thing with his boy.

It takes a while to get over that stuff.

He's had a lot of work.

He's been in a lot of therapy.

George Clooney called for President Biden to stand aside.

Now, this is...

The renowned professional actor, George Clooney,

after Biden had said that only God could stop him standing.

He's a professional actor and he called for Biden to step aside without bothering to put on even a nativity level God costume or a big booming God voice.

I mean come on George do your f ⁇ ing job mate.

Well you need to get Morgan Freeman involved.

He's the one to do it.

Yeah.

But he's voting for.

Can we check that?

Can legal check that?

Thanks.

I don't want that going out.

I guess sued by penguins.

It was a big news week for people who like northern parts of the oceans and treaty organizations because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization met to talk about China and Ukraine and it loves China and Ukraine.

Loves them.

Can't stop talking about them.

NATO's like your fickle friend whose life you can divide into chapters by their ever-changing obsessions, leaving in their wake a string of discarded X's they're no longer interested in.

You can easily imagine during the NATO conference Iran and Afghanistan sitting in a bar, consoling each other and scrolling through China's Instagram Instagram looking for clues about how they might be able to get NATO back.

So a lot of talk about China, a lot of talk about Ukraine Ukraine by Biden and his cronies, but the truth is that what NATO really needs to be thinking about at this point is how to survive the upcoming Trump presidency because Trump clearly wants to disband it.

NATO, I would say, has one very strong weapon in its armory against attacks from Trump, and that is it's an abbreviation.

And Trump loves abbreviations.

The most obvious example being MAGA, the only political movement that sounds like a nine-month-old trying to get your attention.

In many ways, the only political movement with less coherent arguments than a nine-month-old trying to get your attention.

Another example: Trump loves the job title POTUS, largely because he thinks it stands for piss off from Tuesday until Sunday.

Now, I strongly suspect that he has no idea that NATO currently stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, so perhaps before he becomes president, it should change its name to something more appealing to Trump that makes him feel included, like Network of America's tallest orangutans, or nativist arseholes with a tint of orange, or never at the office,

or failing any of these, the only thing guaranteed to get him on side, Norc's arses, titties, and orifices.

Well, that's possible.

They did, as you say, talk about Ukraine and China, the threat posed by China.

And the current NATO plan is just to hope that China have once again made all their military personnel and hardware out of terracotta.

If it was

failing that, might be in trouble long term.

If I were NATO and I were trying to counter Putin's claim.

Before when, Chris?

When I am NATO.

No, well, because Putin might, no.

If I were NATO, I can't possibly comment about whether I have any ambitions in that direction.

And I would try to counter Putin's claims of my world domination tendencies.

I would try and avoid holding high-profile international conferences, sitting around a table in a room that looks exactly like the set of Doctor Strangeloves.

It makes it feel like the logical end of the summit is Joe Biden waving a cowboy hat,

screaming, yee-ha!

As he rides a drone into a Russian oil refinery.

To be honest, if he does that, that would give him an outside chance in November, I think.

That could be his last

the smoking ruins of Joe Biden, which is actually his full name.

Sport news now, and well, what a day for Spain.

Yesterday, as we record, we're recording on Monday, and Sunday, what a day for Spain.

Phenomenal display of attacking artistry and ultimately mental resilience under pressure, bringing a spectacular victory.

And that was just the tennis.

I mean,

we talk about a lot about the problems of the world on this show.

I do think that a montage of Carlos Alcaraz's volleys being projected onto the skies above all the areas of the world currently undergoing difficulty would help.

If nothing else, just to show that in what can seem to be a godless universe, beauty and the human triumph over the laws of physics are still possible.

That's I think that's my one positive takeaway from this week.

You think that'll sum out in the Middle East?

I think it would.

I mean, but the one, the half volley picked off his anyway, look,

point is,

after that, as many have predicted, football did, after all, come home.

Unfortunately, like a lot of people from England, football has lived in Spain for years.

But I don't know how to, I mean, Tom, I know you are skeptical about the charms of sport as a...

as the ultimate expression of the human condition.

I really enjoyed the Euros.

I loved...

I watched the gaming in the Netherlands

in a pub in London, and that atmosphere was nice.

For the final, I was at a comedy club in Edinburgh, Scotland, surrounded by Scottish comedians who were very passionate about Spain winning and were cheering on the destruction of England.

I knew that I was coming back to England, so I didn't want to be around even more miserable people.

So my heart was sort of with the Lions.

And at one point, they missed a shot, and I went, and another Scottish comedian turned to me and said, are you hawking for England to win?

I said, and I just started sweating profusely.

But

it was a fun game, you know.

That's what it's all about.

Wonderful play, I say.

I mean, Chris, yeah, traditionally in sport, after a harrowing defeat, people look for positives, and I guess, you know,

the positive way of looking at it, after England heroically battled their way into the finals with a series of never-say-die Heimlickings of victory from the esophagus of defeat, they put on one of the politest displays of footballmanship.

Stick with your national character.

We sat back defensively and let Spain score a goal.

Then, just to show that we could do it, we belatedly attacked, scored a beautiful goal, and then sat back defensive again so as not to make Spain all sad about it.

And

yeah, there's nothing wrong with a bit of manners in top-level sport.

Absolutely.

In a very difficult world, it's nice to know that there are still some lovely young men out there.

This defeat is really very much a repudiation of Southgate's 4-2-3-1 defensive formation theory of playing against Spain.

Historically, victories against Spain have used other formations.

For the Spanish Armada, for example, England manager Sir Francis Drake arranged his ships in a classic back three setup of 3-5-2.

England in that match was also far more successful at moving the ball forwards.

Critics of the Drake years will point out that it was easy for them to do that then, as at that point cannons were still in use in the game.

But that criticism should be contextualised by pointing out that at the time the balls were a good deal heavier and trying to kick them could, in fact, break your foot.

Other techniques that Southgate could have employed, which worked successfully for Drake, would have been using smaller, more manoeuvrable players than the Spanish, such as Children or Jockeys or Kylie, playing a game of crown green bowling in the England penalty box, or setting fire to Phil Foden and sending him into Spain's back four to create panic and scatter the formers.

I don't think Kylie's qualified to play for England, is she?

Anybody is qualified to play in England if they've set foot in England and our sporting authorities say so.

The BBC spoke to a bunch of like neutral fans, people whose teams hadn't gone through about who they wanted to win the big game, and it made a fascinating reading.

Some quotes from ordinary punters included, I think Spain is a better choice because English football is not that attractive to watch.

England played terrible football.

It's going going to be a terrible final.

No one will want the ball.

And they did manage to find a German father and son who said, this is England's second final after the last Euro, so I believe the win is coming for them this time.

I predict a comfortable 3-0 win with Harry Keynes scoring twice and Jude Bellingham also scoring, which has to be one of the most shiesen predictions I've ever heard.

Some people have said that England were a bit lucky to make it as far as the final.

Others have gone further than that and said that they flukely spawned the jammiest of paths into the final with a series of frankly undeserved pseudo-wins made only possible by a combination of outrageous luck, dubious refereeing, Jude Bellingham telling Physics Red to stick itself and some sort of cosmic payback for 17th century Dutch painting celeb Rembrandt undeservedly beating England's Tony Hart in the quarterfinals of the greatest artist of the second millennium competition.

But then they belatedly had their completely outplayed artists handed to them on a plateful of high-grade ham on by a significantly superior...

This sentence got out of control.

Anyway, the point's been made.

Yeah, I mean, you're like the England team there.

Yeah, I started with a vague idea and nothing really came of it

just just carried on with it in spite of all evidence that it wasn't going anywhere i mean that punchline's come and go yeah

the disappointing thing is that england you know we don't even have a decent hard luck we were robbed narrative to cling to uh in this one we were you know outplayed yeah that's not i mean apart from the patent unfairness of one team being better than the other which is not really what you know, equality is supposedly about.

I don't think it's over.

I don't think it's lost.

Oh, that's.

Right.

Are you going to show you're working on that?

Right, okay.

We won the Spanish Armada.

They won Euro 2024.

Right.

Best of three?

Right.

It doesn't even have to be football.

It could be anything.

Right.

But art, again, Damien Hurst against Picasso.

Use your money on for that.

If you've got late era Picasso,

you've got a shot.

Some of that is absolute dog shit, with all due respect, Pablo.

I mean, you know he's supposed to be drawing like that, don't you?

Like that was deliberate.

He's not trying to do a lovely painting of his nan.

Like it was an artistic movement.

I stamped her.

It looks nothing like her.

Yeah.

Why is her eye on a side of her head?

Oh, actually, her eye is on her side of her head.

Can Australians get involved in the Euros?

We're already joining NATO.

We're already drawing Eurovision.

Eurovision, yeah.

NATO now.

Yeah, we're trying.

We were at the summit.

You won't just work in the bars at the summit.

We made great coffee.

It was notable that the Spanish team contained a lot of players from the Basque Country.

That's Europe's premier

producing region.

The Basque Country, which is in the Basque Country.

There's a joke for any Basque separatists out there.

Niche market.

Ticket sales are ticket sales.

As long as McIntyre is steering clear of it.

I love it.

But you have to ask, why have so many brilliant Basque footballers come to the fore?

And I've...

I don't know what it is.

It might be the amazing food, possibly the impenetrable language, unrelated to any other language.

Maybe the beautiful, verdant countryside, the the elegant historic cities, the picture-perfect medieval villages, the cultural combination of the historic and the modern, the sensational food, perhaps the artistic culture, the spectacular mountains, the heroic commitment to the letters Z and X in one of the most scrabble-disrupting vocabularies on the world language circuit.

Maybe a culinary culture of quality and creativity that produces absolutely sumptuously delicious food.

Or is it

the food?

I'll just leave it to the experts to decide.

Are you getting sputtered, my child?

Everything about this says free holiday.

No, I've already paid for my holiday this year, but I think I'm just projecting.

But the food, fing hell, they really know how to put some things on a plate.

The bugle is brought to you by Basque Country.

On the plus side,

this is the real part.

Wait, that wasn't a plus side.

That was also a plus side.

On the plus side, other than a team that actually played rather beautiful football wedding, during the build-up to the semifinal, that Gareth Southgate prompted much excitement.

in the environmental science world by saying that he had been using hate and criticism as fuel.

This could be the biggest breakthrough in the environmental movement ever because that is one of the most renewable, plentiful, and long-term reliable sources of alternative energy.

We have never found a limit for our ability to create hate and criticism.

I think this is very exciting, exciting times.

But then if we powered everything with hate and criticism and had like a carbon-neutral world, then everyone would feel great and positive and we'd have an energy crisis.

Oh, you and your negativity.

Sorry.

Honestly, there you go.

That's more of it.

There we go.

I just made that fan go on.

French election news now.

And, well, French democracy is in a state of complete chaos.

After the election call to try to ward off complete chaos, avoided that complete chaos, but unleashed a different, and I would say probably preferable form of complete chaos.

Instead, the election resulted in three almost equal political blocs trying to agree on who should be prime minister and how to form a government.

It's like the old problem with the fox, the chicken, and the grain.

Except the fox and the chicken are mythical cannibalistic dragons and the grain is also a mythical cannibalistic dragon.

No actual dragons were eaten or otherwise harmed in the research for this.

So to illustrate the results, because it's quite hard, it's always hard to understand another country's politics as an outsider.

Let's imagine that the French parliament is a large, unpasteurized brie.

Well, that brie has no solidity whatsoever.

It's rapidly melting.

It's not to everyone's taste anyway.

Part of it is absolutely indigestible.

And if we leave it till October, it'll be a complete disaster area.

So that's the situation.

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I get that.

Yep.

Look,

from what I read in the papers, and by papers, I really do mean TikTok explainer videos, I am told that France is now ungovernable, which is a little like finding out that Britain has an inflated sense of its own global importance or America doesn't always prioritise nutrition in its cuisine.

Of course it's ungovernable.

It's France.

It's always been ungovernable.

It's on its fifth republic.

Even we're only on our third go figuring out a governmental system.

I mean, technically it's our third.

In reality, it's the first one, which we went back to after that whole embarrassing trying not to be a monarchy phase that we went through when we were 17th century.

So trickier teens, aren't they?

So perhaps the solution for France is just to give the whole Fifth Republic up and invent a new one.

Sixth time lucky.

I'm going to say they should be radical this time.

They tried monarchy.

Didn't work.

They tried democracy.

Absolutely did not work.

Couple of other ways it could go, just to mix things up.

Theocracy, for example, although, you know, what flavor of theocracy?

I'm going to say radical Islamic theocracy.

A radical Islamic theocracy in the heart of Europe.

Firstly, because it would spice things up in these very boring and, if anything, too calm times.

And secondly, because I'm in a sweepstake for when exactly someone in the Daily Mail newsroom will die of a burst forehead vein.

They could go for plutocracy, which is government by the wealthy, which these days is essentially billionaires, lottery winners and footballers.

But that way, they just end up building a big conservatory off the coast of Normandy and replacing all the street lights with chandeliers that come on when you clap.

They can't try gerontocracy, which is government by the very old, because that is a proprietary trademark of the United States, who would sue them back, if not to the Stone Age, then certainly to a small village of indomitable Gauls surrounded by Roman camps.

So really, what they're left with is what I suspect is the ideal system for them, pornocracy, government by prostitutes, which is surely the most French-sounding governmental system imaginable, with the possible exception of camembocracy or government by cheese.

Look, we're going to focus focus on the good news, right?

The fascists got defeated.

That was good.

That was good.

And I've enjoyed reading over some of the candidates, the National Rally candidates that didn't get elected in the second round.

It's quite good.

There was one candidate, a woman, who apparently promised she would only stop making racist jokes if she was elected.

There was another candidate who she got into an awkward bit of hot water when she was denying allegations that her party still had racists in its ranks.

She's a fifth-year-old ambulance driver.

She seemed to be at a loss when she was asked this question.

Eventually, she replied by claiming to have a Jew as an ophthalmologist and a Muslim as a dentist.

Which I guess it's like, hey, some of my best friends are ethnic minority, but it's a little bit different when you're employing them

specifically.

But it was a very, very French result, I guess.

We have won, but we have also lost.

I took a gamble, it paid off, it backfired.

The bicycle who is at its wheels is like a lobster on a Christmas tree.

Tempi.

I don't want to anticipate next week's bugle, but the Olympic flame arrived in France this week.

And honestly, not now, Sacred Fire.

I honestly can't think of a worse time for you running around the entirety of France with a burning torch.

Post-election UK news now.

And, well, here we are.

I mean, we recorded on the Friday after the election.

This is our first bugle since then, since the morning after the election.

So, for our many Tory supporting listeners, that's one fewer bugle before the Conservatives are back in office

or before the end of all life on Earth, whichever comes sooner.

I'm just checking the latest odds.

Well, the Tories' slight favourite still, but

could go either way.

Just 1,820-odd sleeps to go until the next election, Chris.

You're excited.

It's fun, isn't it?

I saw my first article this week in the papers about campaigning for the next election.

Yeah.

It made me sad.

Yeah.

Politics never sleeps.

And the Daily Telegraph never fucking calms down either.

No.

They're going to do themselves a mischief, those people.

Nurse will be in a minute with your cocoa.

Calm down.

Kirstama has begun with projecting an aura of competence, which again is a low bar, but one that too many Prime Ministers have dived headfirst into.

And I guess, you know, being Prime Minister now is a bit like following Julius Caesar in a karaoke competition.

I think as a nation, we're just glad to see someone who looks like they can vaguely follow a bouncing ball on a pop lyric and make it up to a microphone without being stabbed to death over 2,000 years ago by vengeful conspirators.

So, you know, it's progress, is it not?

Is this good?

I've only read a couple of salvo jokes.

First of all, I don't do impressions, but this is my star impression.

Politics.

That's all I've got.

That's pretty good.

And Keir Starmer, I hardly even know her.

I think that's also good.

That's very good.

That's a pretty good one.

Yeah, that's good.

The end.

How have you enjoyed the first post-Tory week?

Well, it was...

I mean, in this country, I found it really enjoyable.

I found it enormously enjoyable watching the Tories blame Labour for everything that's wrong in the country.

I find that just the sheer balls

to do that, I sort of admire in a way.

It's like it's a second-hand car dealer handing over the keys and going, oh, you fed all that.

Yeah.

I haven't even drew it yet.

What are you talking about?

There is this one crisis going on, of course, is that British prisons are bursting at the seams, Andy.

They're running out of room.

It's a massive crisis for the new Labour government.

The prisons are chock full of criminals and the rivers are full of shit.

Thanks a lot, Kiostama.

I say this is why we need to bring the Tories back in.

When they're in power, people who broke the law were free to roam the streets and become Prime Minister.

It was a better time.

British prisons have been operating at 99% capacity since 2023.

Apparently they're just weeks away from becoming completely full.

And this is how badly things are going in the UK.

If you're sick, you can't get an NHS appointment.

And if you commit crime, you can't even book in a jail cell.

If you call them up, apparently you'll hear, thank you for calling the prison system.

All our operators are busy at the moment.

Please commit a crime at a more convenient time.

I'm freaking out, man.

Australia is no longer an option, okay?

Stop looking at me like that, Andy.

You cannot send these fing prisons back to my country i mean you can send your criminals to australia if you'd like but they'd only be brutally punished with sunshine and a higher standard of living

we tried it with julian assange

one at a time that's the way one at a time every seven years there's a trial scheme yeah yeah i mean interesting when it comes to prisons and clearly um you know it's just one of the almost infinite number of uh um parts of public life that have been significantly shall we say degraded for want of well for in an effort not to say fed up over 14 years of uh tori rule um kierstom's gone about trying to fix things in a really bizarre way he has appointed as prisons minister someone who is an expert on prisons which um it was not an elected mp um james timpson from the timpson group which is a key cutting service will ignore the possible irony of of that but he's the timpson business has hired hundreds of former prisoners and you know he's so he's an expert in prisons but that's not really what politics.

Politics is supposed to be.

When you appoint someone to a ministerial position, they're supposed to know absolutely f all about it when they start and then desperately try to improvise some vaguely coherent, if totally implausible and uncosted policies for a few months before them being reallocated to another department to f that up as well.

It's the British way.

These woke people don't care about our customs.

We have a huge overcrowding problem in this country.

The prison population is going to the point where the simplest thing might be for us to let them all out and the rest of us just go and live in the prisons.

Last week, the prison population in the United Kingdom reached 87,505, which is incredibly close to 2011's all-time high of 88,000.

And I just feel that for a downtrodden nation, still bruised from 14 years of Tory mismanagement, sulking because it lost the Euros, and bereft at Jimi Anderson being forced to retire, it would be wonderful if we could finally break that record and give us all something to be proud of, something to unite the country.

So we here at the Bugle, not so much me and Tom or Andy and Chris as the legally liable ones, are appealing for 496 buglers to go out and break the law.

All that we ask is that you're imaginative.

Have some fun with it.

Make it your own.

You know, maybe you could hijack a tram and demand that lines be installed for you to take it to Cuba.

Perhaps you could murder a curry or grievously bodily harm a kebab.

Why not hold up and rob a small sub-branch of Paula Vennels?

Be very careful what crime you do choose, though.

If you, for example, benefit from the misuse of government funds by selling millions of pounds of PPE to the state, you are more likely to end up in the House of Lords than prison, adding to an arguably even worse overcrowding problem.

Well, I mean, I like the idea that, you know, 496 buglers could help break a national record.

But the state of the court system is such that it would take about four years for them all to be processed.

In terms of the Conservative reaction to their election defeats, Kemi Badnock, potential future Tory leader, said that the party needs to stop leaking stuff to the press.

And this emerged in a leaked report in the Times.

So

it shows the Tories still have some way to go.

I like the solution they've come up with for this overcrowding problem.

They're initiating an early release program.

early catch a release.

Prisoners on standard determinant sentences will be released after serving 40% of their sentences.

It would really change the end of the Shawshag redemption.

Hey, Andy Dufran, don't worry about tunnelling out of here.

Just wait for the prison to collapse under the weight of admin.

If I may repeat another very old joke,

I might even have been in the department, Chris, that prisons in this country people often say they're like five-star hotels.

Well, they are like five-star hotels, and that they seem to be specifically designed to do everything in their power to make their guests come back for another stay.

That's a really good gag.

Little gag for all the recidivism fans out there.

Ironically, repeating the joke.

Right.

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

And thank you very much for listening.

Plugs time.

We have one more bugle to go before our summer hiatus.

Will you be spending that in the Basque Country?

I would be spending some of it in the Basque Country.

Some bugle shows to plug at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Neil Delamere is doing a show.

Tiff Stevenson is doing a show.

Sure, there are others who are doing.

Tom Ballard, you are doing an Edinburgh Fringe show, are you not?

I'm right here.

I'm totally doing the Edinburgh Fringe.

Yes, the whole month, 4.20pm at the Monkey Barrel.

Good point.

Well made.

Then in the following months, I am heading all over the UK, Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, Bloody Norwich, Brighton, Southampton, Bristol, Liverpool, Leeds.

And a few European dates as well.

All the details at comedy.com.au.

It's going to be the best.

Also, while I'm plugging, come to see my tour show, the Zoltgeist, beginning on the 1st of November.

About 45 dates dotted around the universe, predominantly the UK.

Details at my recently revamped website, andyzoltzman.co.uk.

Chris?

Yes.

Anything to plug?

Just a couple of extra batteries

and other electric items.

You see what that is.

I'm going nothing.

Nothing.

I'm nothing.

I'm drawing the doll.

I'm only doing this so I can say I've been actively actively searching for word.

Anyway, thank you very much for listening, Buglers.

If you want to join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme to keep this show free, flourishing, and independent, and also get access to the universe-exclusive monthly Ask Andy show, in which I answer some of your questions with zero accuracy, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Until next time, goodbye.

Bye.

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.