Hot Girl Summer Indictment Tour

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4303 of the Bugle and Favour.

Sorry, I must stop just reading acronyms out.

Ayahs!

Sorry, I am Andy Zoltzmann and ABS Dim Hill.

Sorry, it is a beautiful sunny day in May here in London.

Right, it is Friday the 17th of May.

Unlucky for some.

Friday the 17th, actually, statistically just as risky and lucky or otherwise as Friday the 13th according to latest statistics.

And the year is once again 2024 and I'm joined this week by Sark.

Oh sorry, Tiff Stevenson and Hari Kondobolu.

Welcome to both of you.

Hello, hello.

Hi.

Not been acronym.

Is it acronymized before?

Am I introducing?

Acronyms?

You can be I mean, yeah, just anything can be verbed these days.

Just take a word and verb it.

For wee-wee?

Is that right?

For wee-wee?

Yep.

But what's uh for what it's worth.

I enjoyed it.

Oh good.

Excellent.

How are you, Hari?

Great, Andy.

I'm act I'm doing re I'm really

really well.

Yeah.

That's not the reaction I well either I was expecting or or no it's great.

I haven't follow I haven't followed the news in in weeks.

So

it seems like everything is going the way it's supposed to finally.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you know, I know I'm contractually obliged to ask you how you are, so you can complain about either how you are or me asking you how you are.

So it's nice to get a positive response.

Well, I wanted to give you a positive response.

So I'm completely unprepared today.

So I have no idea how bad things truly are.

All right.

Well, that's probably the best way to live these days.

We are recording on the 17th 17th of May 2024, as I said.

It is National Endangered Species Day,

which I don't know if either of you are celebrating, but we have a special tie-up with the Endangered Species Coalition who organised the day, and it's an exclusive opportunity for you, buglers, to nominate the species you would like to see join the endangered list.

What species do you think should be hunted to the point of extinction or have its habitat humanized or its environment enveloped and developed to join the illustrious likes of the rhinoceros and the tiger on the endangered list.

So maybe do send us in your suggestions.

Maybe go for the rat or the pigeon, the stoat, the buck, the hedgehog, spaghetti, the Mauritanian ferretfish or the zebra.

Whatever you suggest, we all get to work on starting to get that species wiped out and thus into the media.

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

This week, a vegetable control section with, well, the standards of behavior just generally around the world getting worse and worse.

Even the vegetable community have been misbehaving.

And we teach you how to control your vegetables, how to punish a naughty turnip.

We ask, can a potato be truly obedient?

Carrots, friend or foe, praise, then braise, two steps to the perfect aubergine or eggplant for those of you without Google Translate.

Shepherding peas, do's and don'ts for a tidy plate.

And how to fk a cauliflower right up good and proper.

All of that in our vegetable control section in the bin.

The only way to go with the cauliflower is to roast it.

Yep.

Get it up on the dais and get five or six comedians round to really like tear some strips off it.

That is the only acceptable form of comedic roast.

Top story this week.

America is still gearing up for its election in November.

Now, I know what you're thinking, buglers.

What this planet needs right now is America power drilling through the bottom of yet more barrels to see exactly how far it can sink.

Well, lucky for you, that's exactly what you're getting this US election year.

Uh, the election in early November is hoving into view like a slow-motion custard pie into an immovable clown's face.

Um, Hari, you are right there, uh, in the USA, uh, the center of global democracy in this uh this year of elections.

Um, uh,

how's it how's it going for you?

As I know you're a huge democracy fan.

I've seen the tattoos.

Well,

how does it feel?

You know those dreams where you're slowly falling and you don't know when you're going to hit the bottom and you just hope to God you wake up so you don't hit the bottom?

Yeah, it's like that.

I had that in my Olympic diving final, actually.

I mean, they announced that there are going to be debates and they announced debate dates which is kind of like

who

who is undecided at this point

who at this point is like I don't know anything about either candidate oh both both of them have been president really

in this country

wow

they announced that as they agreed to two dates and I was like cute

I have a feeling that Trump's going to forget his wallet on both dates.

It's funny.

Like, for Biden, they put post-it notes in the Oval Office.

They put post-it notes on Air Force One.

They put post-it notes in the bathroom with the dates on it next to the post-it notes that tell him that he's president.

Trump, though, knows the dates because he's excited.

It's the first time he has to remember a date that has nothing to do with court.

So he's pretty

excited about the whole thing.

So are those the only two dates between now and early November that he's not

basically sitting in a courtroom saying, no, I didn't.

He's had a busy schedule.

It's been booked.

It's been booked between the four trials.

Biden even used it as a jab, didn't he?

He said, let's pick dates.

I hear you're free on Wednesdays.

Which is,

is this just like now we're in this, the lesser of two old men who are too old?

You know, like Joe Biden went full Ron Burgundy and read everything on the prompter.

Yeah, but uh, you know, Trump lost a civil rape case, apples and oranges, I guess.

Joe seems a bit like a befuddled granddad with ice cream dripping down his hand, like not answering questions about Gaza.

And Trump incited an insurrection.

Apples and oranges.

That actually is, that is one issue they do disagree on, is

what's happening with Israel and with the Palestinians.

Both of them agree on the idea of Palestinians,

but Biden wants to stop killing them now and pick up at a later date, and Trump wants to finish now.

Right.

It's a valid historical point.

We bleak.

We just bleaked ourselves, didn't we?

That was way too...

I didn't know I could get that dark.

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fair.

It's fair.

It's touchy.

It's touchy.

Because it's, it's genocide when it's happening.

It's, you know, tragedy plus time.

Well, there's lots of tragedy, so it's going to be a while.

I'm annoyed for Americans that this is the system that you're in, this, you know.

two-party let let Robert Kennedy Jr.

on to debate you know I mean he's got literal brainworms

I mean,

I'm laughing, but he did come out and say that they've had a parasitic worm in his brain and something had happened.

But I feel like they should let him in on the debate because I feel like, like you say, Harry, that you know, the other two have been seen by the public.

And I think if there's a Kennedy willing to get in the mix, knowing their history and everything that's happened to their family, I think you've got to give him a fair go.

I mean, I just think it's fascinating to have a debate debate between two men whose brains have deteriorated naturally and one man who's had his brain eaten away by a worm like

that is a very interesting experiment like does old age or worms really cause more damage well that's sort of a new twist on the nature nurture debate isn't it um interesting

um the two dates to look out for 27th of june and the 10th of september those are the dates to pop in your diaries to remind yourself to find something to do that doesn't involve whimpering in despair at what we've become.

But I mean, you think two mature seasoned campaigners approaching their twilight years with decades of public life and high office behind them discussing how best to deal with the multifarious challenges of America and the world as the third millennium evolves.

You might think, oh, that sounds like a really good idea and probably will be an interesting, sophisticated discussion suffused with wisdom, compassion, and insight.

The kind that comes only with a depth of experience and a grasp of your own mortality.

But unfortunately, you might only think that if you've managed to avoid the last, what, 20, 30, or maybe two and a half thousand years of political history, and what you're actually going to get is going to sound more like two rabid but horny donkeys wrestling in a cement mixer.

Uh it's basically going to be a two-man war against linguistic coherence, and that is what American democracy has has become, I guess.

I guess it's um it's it's always a gossamer thin line these days between democratic debate and a harrowing journey into the deepest chasms of the human soul wherein the generational failures of our species bark and squawk until nothing is left but the dank stench of failure and the recriminatory growl of our past, our present, and our future.

Which, to be fair, can make reasonable television.

It honestly feels like when they're debating, they're just roasting America.

Like, why are they being so mean to us by having this debate right now?

Well, it's going to be busy because I do think

hasn't Trump got this hot girl summer indictment tour all around the U.S.

That's what I'm calling it.

New York, Miami, District of Columbia, and Atlanta.

I mean, I don't know which one you're most excited to see, but I'm excited to see the RICO charge one, which I think is,

is that that's Atlanta, is it?

Was it Columbia?

The RICO charges because he can't pardon himself out of them.

I think the rest of them, if he becomes president, he can actually pardon himself.

But I'm also excited by the RICO ones because Giuliani's in there and Giuliani created the RICO.

and so now he's being indicted, you know, because game recognizes game, right?

Um, but also, Sheen, you know, the clothing company brand, that's currently being recoded, uh, they're being recoded.

So, I'm excited for there to be a collab between, you know, Sheen and Trump, just some insurrection hoodies, some January sass pants.

Uh, my favorite, I went to the Capitol, and all I got was this tiki torch burn t-shirt.

Every one of the Trump trials feels like a a different law and order franchise.

Like SVU is the rape case, obviously.

Then if you're into election fraud, we got one of those.

If you're into racketeering, we got one of those.

It's like, it depends on what you're interested.

There's a Trump trial for you.

Which one do you want to follow?

Choose your own adventure.

Choose your own adventure.

I mean,

I realize the Rico one is one one that's a little more high-end, so maybe you're more into porn star hush money.

Okay, that's a little bit more of the reality show, less high-tier.

It's a little cheaper.

It's the cheaper, more accessible one.

Which channel is that one showing on?

Oh, that would definitely be showed on

the chant.

Bravo, let's go with that.

Do you have AE over there?

Oh, no, no.

Okay, okay.

I wasn't sure which

True TV.

Is it possible even to keep track of all the different trials?

Horrible?

Because I know as a cricket fan, cricket is split into various formats, too many different formats of a CDO, the full test match, the one-day game, the shorter versions of the game.

I'm just really worried that

Trump's judicial battles will suffer from the same fragmentation as cricket, and almost competing against themselves for eyeballs.

And I'm not sure they can be a winner in the end.

It depends on what America truly values, right?

Because in theory, it shouldn't be an issue considering March Madness is a thing here.

And that involves 128 to, I believe, 132 teams.

That involves 64, 66 games, something like that.

They're happening at the same time, essentially.

And this is just four or five trials.

Right.

So, in theory, yes, but in reality, no.

I do remember I was in America

during March Madness once when Obama was president, and I saw something on television in which he gave his full bracket predictions for March Madness.

And I thought, there is no way someone who is president of America should have enough time to know that much about college basketball.

And that's when I thought the world was doomed, to be honest.

If he didn't know anything about college basketball, he would not have gotten re-elected.

That's the thing that is the scariest.

In other American news now, well, you don't just have to be a presidential candidate to talk absolute unutterable bullshit, as proved this week by Harrison Butker, the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs,

who gave a commencement speech at Benedictine College, a Catholic school in Kansas, in which

not only did he criticise President Biden, but he also suggested that women should focus on being mothers and wives rather than pursuing careers,

and also laid into various other parts of society.

In, I think, a speech that really proved that

there is a time and a place for athletes to talk

and

subjects that they should talk about.

And look, I don't want to be prescriptive about saying all athletes, all sports people should steer clear of politics.

I don't believe that.

I just believe that if you are Harrison Butker,

you should probably

shut the f up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because, look, it's easy to denigrate sports people as unsophisticated spurners of the intellectual realm who've pointlessly devoted their lives to the physical and the fundamentally irrelevant.

It's easy, but it's also, I think, mostly wrong.

These people are often strivers for some form of human perfection, however fleetingly ephemeral, challenging themselves in multiple dimensions of excellence, mental, spiritual, physical, and temperamental.

The complexity of a sport like American football as well requires a mental combination of study, memory, instinctual perception, spontaneity in the face of physical danger, unless you are Harrison Butker, in which case you have to run up and boot a ball with minimal risk of injury.

Obviously, it's not as simple as that, but it is as simple as that.

It's as simple as that.

And you're absolutely correct.

Also, the fact that this isn't the result of him getting hit in the head repeatedly since he's a kicker

yeah I was wondering so the CTE doesn't because I thought maybe CTE had prevented him from reading the room or just reading

unless it can go up can it can it migrate from the foot

it's weird because Travis Kelsey is his teammate who is dating Taylor Swift yes so what does he see what does butker see when he sees Taylor Swift what does he say to Travis Kelsey like it was a great concert so when is she giving up this singing hobby so we can finally get down to you having kids?

Well, he even quoted Taylor Swift in his speech.

The lyric familiarity breeds contempt.

I mean, I'm not a huge Swifty.

I don't know a great deal about

the Swifty and Urveret, but she does not seem to be the most obvious source of inspiration for someone arguing that women should stay in the home and historic patriarchy was

humanity.

Well, he said that with the idea that women don't understand irony.

Added to that as well, it's also been reported that Harrison Butker's mother is a fairly high-flying scientist as well, who's worked in oncology.

So again, that's it's quite hard to see where these views

have, you know, what evidence he's been looking at here.

Oh, I get it, andy how many birthdays do you think she missed because she was working

how many times was she just too too busy to be there do you think he wanted to kick a football

it's what it's what he had to he was just he was kicking footballs waiting for his mom to come home and he got good enough at it to play it professionally

yeah and that's actually let's i think when in doubt don't blame a man for his actions let's blame his mother there's always a woman If you look around hard enough, there's always a woman at fault for this kind of thing.

I think this is a reaction to the fact that Nikki Glazer did the best at the roast of Tom Brady.

I was like, we need to put these women in their place.

Like, because she absolutely nailed that.

She was so funny.

So I think

this is a kickback.

He sort of said, my wife was, listen, and it's fine if these are his beliefs,

which I disagree with.

It's more that you're at a college doing a commencement speech to women who are gone into further education, they're not doing courses on nappy changing and meatloaf cooking, like they're there because they want to do something, you know, like your mum did.

Um, but he said, My wife was happiest when she accepted her role as homemaker, which sounds like an official job that she applied for, you know, salary negotiable, depending on my mood, hours endless.

Welcome to the team.

Uh, so the women should like stick to being homemakers and leave men to the real jobs, like kicking a pigskin.

Well, that's fair, and you know, it is it was a speech suffused by his deep Catholic faith.

I mean, he did also rail against the tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Now, I think I've laid my cards fairly firmly on the table over the course of the Bugles history in that I am not a Christian.

But

I seem to remember that Jesus Christ, the number one ranked Christian Messiah, if memory serves,

was pretty pro-diversity, equity, and inclusion, generally.

I mean, he only employed 12 guys

in his boardroom.

But still, you know, what he said, let's judge him by what he said, not by his recruitment policy.

You know,

he did seem to play those cards pretty strongly.

But like I said, I'm a bit out of the loop.

The tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The tyranny of inclusion.

I teach my kid that all the time.

I tell my kid all the time, leave the minority kids out.

And that means I do not want you you looking in a mirror.

He did say some things that I think no one can argue with, including these words.

Everything I'm saying to you is not from a place of wisdom.

I mean, it's good to say hello to

Harrison.

He also said, as men, we set the tone of the culture.

And when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction, and chaos set in.

I mean, that's a radical review of history, Tiff.

The idea that were it not for men the planet would have been condemned to chaos through history chaos and no culture

would be a cultureless place

well it was anti-IVF anti-euthanasia

anti-abortion

so look I what I find about this is like anti-IVF anti-euthanasia you know the argument for that from these kind of people is always like it's against God stop messing with nature.

And inevitably, these are always men who then use scientific intervention to get hair implants and keep their dicks hard.

So I just, sorry, buddy, God's will for you was baldness and a limp dick.

Those are the breaks.

I mean, he's not there yet, but let's give it, let's, let's check in in Harrison in about 20 years' time and see if he's see if he's anti-messing with God's plans and God's will.

Also,

he had an interesting take, Carrie, on

the epidemic of violence in the USA,

which he blamed on absentee father rates in the USA, not for example on the Second Amendment and the fact that everyone has guns.

I mean

how do you do you square those circles?

One way of getting rid of the issue of absentee fathers would be abortion, I believe, would be

the solution

he said a thing which is shocking that I mean, everything he said is shocking, but he said in his speech, I would venture to guess that the majority of you women are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.

And what he cut out of the speech, which was smart on his part, was like you are excited about giving as opposed to receiving oral sex.

He gets women.

What can I say?

He gets women.

Family show, Harry.

Family show.

I think maybe the highlight for me was this.

He said, there is not enough time today for me to list all the stories of priests and bishops misleading their flocks.

And true, there is a great, great history throughout not just Catholicism or other franchises of Christianity, but all religions of priests misleading their flocks.

That's pretty much...

the history of organized religion as far as I could make out.

But he added, sadly, many priests we are looking to for leadership are the same ones who prioritize their hobbies or even

photos with their dogs in matching outfits for the parish directory.

So this again, this is the roots of the decay of American society is priests taking photos of their dogs in matching outfits.

If only it had been so simple, if everyone had seen what Harrison Butker has seen, seen America could have healed itself years it's just about the priests taking pictures of their dogs then that's that's sad in many ways that it's been allowed to go unchecked

Lovely dog link there, Andy.

A lovely dog link.

On the subject of dogs, actually, yes.

It was the Westminster Dog Show

at Flushing Meadow, the tennis venue in New York, America's most prestigious dog show, won by a miniature poodle called Sage.

A hugely prestigious Westminster dog show, Hari.

I know you're a massive, massive fan.

And fair play to Sage.

I mean, that dog looked absolutely ridiculous.

And however

absolutely ridiculous the other dogs looked, Sage just ramped it up a dog notch to look even more absolutely ridiculous.

And it was just glorious to see this absolute

travestitional parody of a dog when

its deserved triumph.

Gave a wonderful press conference afterwards, Sage,

and I'm translating from the original here.

But I believe Sage said, My owners wanted to me look quite fing ridiculous, but I wanted to look absolutely, totally fing ridiculous.

And to be fair to them, they let me go out there and do what I do best, look totally unlike a dog is naturally supposed to look.

So, I mean, it was a great triumph for this movie.

That last little bit, that last little bit, the way they're naturally supposed to look, that's what i'm holding on to this is doggy racism

they breed them pure i'm surprised more white supremacists aren't into this shit

oh yes westminster dog show if only humans could do this

i'm surprised the german shepherd didn't win the purity contest

um have you read the article

describing the event because it is absolutely what it says Sage, an extravagantly coffed miniature poodle with a certain winsome mystery about her.

Sounds like

dong, dog erotic fiction, isn't it?

Yeah, I don't, it kind of sounds like, you know, like when it, like a variety article about when someone's got a hard-on for the actress, like a certain winsome mystery about her.

Won the 148th

annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show, prevailing over a tough field of competitors, including a majestic German Shepherd, a silken Afghan hound, and a proud giant schnauzer.

They're all male dogs, you can tell.

They didn't get winsome mystery.

But

this is the bit, this is the bit that I love.

The competition began with 2,500 dogs from more than 200 breeds.

Best-in-show judge, Rosalind Kramer, remained sequestered during the proceedings so she could emerge fresh for the final round.

Oh, heaven forfend anyone gets tired of looking at dogs.

I mean, give me the job, I'll do it.

But uh, yeah, Sage is a three-year-old whose full name is GCHGCH Surrey Sage, and apparently, her grandmother was also uh a best-in-chief as well.

Right, so uh, nepotism is what we're finding in these competitions.

Study Nepo Puppy, honestly.

Um,

I mean,

it's an

extraordinary event.

And similar to our own Westminster over here,

things made to look like what they are not in reality,

being controlled by people behind the scenes.

I mean, it's all pretty uncanny, really.

And also leaved a lot of shit to be cleaned up after them.

So, yeah, uncanny.

Human behaviour news now.

And, well, what a moment, Harry, for human beings in New York City and Dublin Ireland this week after a work of art has really revealed the true nature of humanity which after all is what art is supposed to do.

Two portals were installed

round

large lens-like installations that gave a live 24-hour day video link between New York and Dublin so people could you know communicate across the Atlantic through this I mean, yeah, it's basically a giant Zoom call, but let's call it what it's called a work of art.

We've got to go with that.

And I mean, it's incredible that people can communicate so quickly across the Atlantic these days.

I mean, when I think back to the start of the bugle, when John Oliver and I, we used to have to communicate by letters carried by friendly pirates, or if we were lucky, a fan dolphin who loved the show.

But now, just a simple internet connection, just what, 16 and a half years later, can allow people on both sides of the Atlantic, in this case, New York City and Dublin or NYC and D, to interact live with each other.

It was a lovely idea, a lovely artistic idea.

And if, as I said, the purpose of art is to reveal the truth about humanity, it fing worked a fing treat.

Because the truth about humanity is we are fundamentally one or more of infantile, rude, and unnecessarily naked.

And that is what

is how people reacted.

By flashing their bits at each other, by waving pictures of terrorist atrocities at each other across the Atlantic, and by generally debasing humanity.

So it was, they shouldn't have called, it should have, this work of art should have just have been called inevitability.

It's like the creator of the exhibit was not familiar with the concepts of alcohol and assholes.

I mean, I love the New York Post

coverage.

Mischief makers on Ireland's side flashing everything from their bare bums to swastikas and a photo of the Twin Towers in Flames of 9-11.

I love that that quote is from the New York Post because to them,

flashing swastikas are mischief.

That is just an example of mischief.

That is mischief.

Cheeky.

Just a little cheek.

Wow.

Is that a swastika?

Well, there was the woman who, apparently within hours of it going live, a very drunk woman in her 40s, not me,

was led away and arrested after grinding her backside against the screen as Liza Leanne, the woman who filmed a video of the incident, explained in comments of her Instagram post.

Because that's what you do.

You see someone being indecent and go, I'll film that.

Or in her case, I'll film the thing that's already being filmed.

And it says she was there for about 20 minutes, very drunk, slapping and grinding against the portal.

There were definitely people trying to have sex through the

portal.

There is no doubt that there was a button penis on two sides of the Atlantic trying to make something happen.

Well, I want to know what stage of drunk that is.

I reckon that's about five Proseccos deep because it's not like...

It depends on your tolerance.

Yeah, it's not like tipsy glass or two grinding against a camera.

That's

during a public live feed.

That's two Proseccos after you've called your ex-boyfriend.

Three after you've taken off your shoes and sicked in your handbag.

um i think there's a rhyme it's one prose ecco two prose ecco three prosecco bore five prose ecco six prose ecco seven prosecco life feed whore

it's so idealistic in a way yeah do you know what i mean it's like if someone was said thank god we have the internet which of course provides us with access to all the knowledge of the world written by qualified people and it's so decent.

I would let my child on the internet at any age.

What's the worst that could happen?

He learns more things?

What?

I guess you have to admire that optimism in the face of the overwhelming weight of historical precedence.

That's

the innocence of art in many ways.

I mean, I guess it shows human nature.

It shows different sides of humanity, really.

The incredible technological technological wizardry that has enabled us to surge ahead of the other creatures on this planet, and also our basic human desire to harness that incredible technological wizardry to share insults and genitals.

That's, you know, the two sides of the human coin.

The artists apparently are, quotes, investigating possible technical solutions to inappropriate behavior by a small minority of people in front of the portal.

I don't know how you find a technical technical solution to fundamental human nature.

I mean, is there a technical solution to that?

I'm not sure.

Imagine if in life we could just blur everything as it was happening.

Oh, yeah, what?

Pixelation.

Live pixelation.

Yeah, yeah.

And then obviously beep out words that are annoying or opinions that you disagree with.

Just bleep them.

But it is, you know, we've seen this with arts through history.

I mean, the Cern Abbas Giant, famous work of arts

in England, people in the dim and distant past, albeit the past in some ways is less dim and distant than the present, to be fair to the dim and distant past.

But anyway, they saw a hillside in, I think, Dorset in England.

They thought, well, that's a nice hillside.

Tell you what, let's carve the outline of a man with a gigantic boner into it.

That's who we were.

When the ancient Greeks worked out that you could soup up a vase with paint, their immediate and indeed subsequently lasting instinct was pornographic crockery.

That's just who we were.

Going back further, further, 40 odd thousand years ago, as humans were first working out what they could do with a sharpened blade and a mammoth tusk, they carved the Venus of Holla Fels, a lady with a pumptuous chest and a prominent Volvo.

Basically across the world, as soon as we humans worked out ways to represent ourselves, whack plonkers and pooplas.

It is just who we

are.

That said, not all live streams are bad.

And on the 8th of June, there will be a live stream bugle.

We are live streaming our Leicester Square show in London.

Their shows on the 7th and 8th.

I think the 8th has sold out and there are a few tickets left for the 7th.

But we will be live streaming the 8th of June show.

Details on the Bugle website.

Chris, that will be live by the time this show goes out, won't it?

I mean, if people go to thebuglepodcast.com now and don't see it, it's because we've sold out.

And I don't know how you can sell out a live stream.

It means everyone in the world has already bought a ticket.

How much are the tickets?

£10.

£10.

So there you go.

To see history not being made, but being lampooned, as it happened.

Britain news now and well, the election fever gripping the world is also coming Britain's way.

We don't know exactly when our general election is going to be.

That will be decided by God.

But it's got to be at some point between now and the end of January.

And Rishi Sunak, the future former Prime Minister, has made his latest bid for votes ahead of this general election by telling the country that basically we're fing doomed.

Now, this is quite a weird way to go about turning a sceptical public your way, Tiff.

As Prime Minister and leader of the party that's been in power for 14 years, to basically say everything's fed and you have to trust us more than the opposition to deal with it.

That's, I guess, when you have no cards to play, what you have to do is pretend that you have a card and

play that regardless of how.

I mean, basically, he's playing the naught of clubs here.

He's hoping for, I don't know, he's hoping for a royal flush on the river.

He's got that last,

you know, he didn't preface it with how he needs to preface all of his statements, speaking as a billionaire,

which I feel is necessary.

I mean, I don't know, I don't know what they're playing at generally or what they think is important in terms of, you know, electability as a party because

Esther McVeigh has been, I mean, it's an unofficial title, but she's been she's been made the common common sense minister.

So Hari, if you don't know Esther McVeigh, she's the kind of woman who wears a t-shirt that says feminist that was made in a sweatshop.

That's the kind of person that we're talking about.

So, so Rishi thinks that the most important thing we need to do,

and therefore, Esther thinks the most important thing we need to do is fight the culture wars.

And honestly, to that, I just say dip a tampon in live yogurt and fire it up there.

That will sort out anything,

has to be live yogurt, not a fruit corner or a munch bunch, nothing of sugar, because that will just encourage it.

But it's like, I mean,

this is perfect.

She says, Esther McVay said, We have too often

seen distraction by fashionable hobby horses, especially when it comes to issues like equality and diversity.

She obviously listened to Harrison's speech.

I'm not prepared to see pointless job creation schemes for the politically correct, said Esther McVay, the Minister for Common Sense.

I mean, I just, the fact that this is seen as a political issue is stunning.

Like, I mean, she was going after the rainbow flags, a symbol of LGBTQ, the movement, and people wearing them.

She referred to it as backdoor politicization, which, regardless how you feel about her, the fact that she referred to getting rid of rainbow flags because they are backdoor politicization, politicization, is unintentionally hilarious.

hilarious

she certainly did not catch that

and also I'm trying to understand how wearing that flag is political and I imagined a conversation she could imagine happening what does that rainbow flag mean oh it's a symbol to support gay rights gay what does that mean

well it could mean two men loving each other and perhaps having sex anally or orally or a variety of other things.

Hmm, I never thought about that as a possibility.

I gotta give it a try.

Is that what she's assuming the rainbow flags are doing?

I think so.

Yeah.

But when it comes to lanyards, as Martin Luther King himself famously said, judge a man not by the colour of his skin, nor by the content of his character, but by the inclusiveness of his lanyard.

And don't even get me started on how you judge a woman if you're not even allowed to use the word woman anymore or the word judge.

Is that allowed these days?

I doubt it somehow.

So, wise words for us all.

It's a pommel.

Actual rainbows are going to be banned as well.

Belts stood at the end of the motorway saying, no to this, it's not British.

Yes.

It's fair.

I could get if you're against diversity, you don't want the colours to be seen together.

I get it.

Sunak in

his relaunch speech, I'm not sure, he's had a lot of relaunches for someone who's only been in power for about a year and a half, but he warned the British, he warned the public that Britain faces some of its most dangerous years in living memory, and who better to preside over them than a government that has brought us, amongst other things, our least functioning society, our most wildly incompetent cabinet, and our most shit-filled rivers.

Personally, I believe that a government that cannot defend against the threat of a sad turd floating down the Thames is probably not the most obvious candidate to take on the military and cyber textual might of whatever Chino-Russiatic Iraniobadi threat we're being told we will face over coming years.

He pledged to restore people's confidence and pride in our country, and that does look like a rare political pledge that might be kept.

Step one towards that goal is the Conservative Party being vigorously hoofed out of office so someone else can start trying to

power hose the Orgean stables full of shit that they've concocted.

I mean, I think you knew where that sentence was going.

I think I've made the point, albeit stumblingly.

Anyway, he also said, our country stands at a crossroads.

Yes, Rishi, we are standing at a crossroads, and the reason we're standing at a crossroads is because your lot sold our country's car to some dodgy foreign billionaire.

There are no buses because you've run public transport into the ground.

The nearest station is finging miles away and the trains aren't running anyway.

And we can't move from the crossroads because there are potholes in every direction as far as the eye can see and an immovable traffic jam.

So yes, we are standing at a crossroads.

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

Thank you very much.

Thanks to everyone around the world who contributed to the news stories that made this bugle possible.

Do don't forget to book your tickets for the bugle live stream live from the Leicester Square Theatre on the 8th of June, where the guest will be Nish Kumar and via the magic of the internet, which will need to work if you're to tune into the live stream, Alice Fraser.

Also,

keep an ear out over the next few weeks for details of my forthcoming tour beginning in November.

I should be able to announce the dates in about two weeks, I think.

Right, Harry, anything to plug?

I do.

I'm starting my tour on May 23rd in Jersey City, New Jersey at White Eagle Hall.

You mean New York Hurry?

No.

I'm decided to do Jersey City.

And then May 25th, I'm at AF...

On May 25th, I'm on

May 25th, I'm at...

Off Cabo Comedy in Beverly, Massachusetts.

You mean Boston Hurry?

No, I chose to do Beverly this time.

And then the Empire Comedy Club on May 26th, Portland, Maine.

You mean Portland, Oregon?

No, Portland, Maine.

June 7th, Albuquerque, New Mexico at Lobo Theater.

June 8th in Bugle Stronghold, El Paso, Texas, Lowbrow Palace.

June 20th, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Bottle Rocket Social Hall.

June 21st and 22nd, the Commonwealth Sanctuary in Dayton, Kentucky, which is right near Cincinnati.

And finally, Cleveland, Ohio, June 23rd, with the very American-sounding comedy club name Hilarities.

Tiff?

Yes, I'm going to be at the Edinburgh Fringe all of August at the Monkey Barrel midday.

I'm not doing a huge amount of promotion for it.

Well, paid for it.

I'd be promoting it myself because I have this radical idea of trying to make money this year at the fringe.

So,

yes, I know, I know, crazy.

So, midday at Monkey Barrel is called Husband Material.

So come see that.

I'm also at the Electric

Theatre in Guildford on the 29th of June to do a greatest hit show.

And 10th of June will be Old Rope.

And we've got an amazing lineup at that show.

So if you're interested in coming and seeing people work out new jokes, come check that out at the comedy store.

I might do that one.

I think I'm doing it.

I think you're doing that one.

I think there might be

a cheeky American popping on that one as well.

Oh, excellent.

Who's over to maybe do cheeky bugle things?

Yes, that would be NATO Green.

Yeah.

NATO.

An absolutely great lineup for that one.

So, yeah, do get involved.

A couple of other things to plug.

I've got work-in-progress shows at the Chesham Fringe on the 26th of May at the wonderful Streatham Space Venue on the 29th of March.

I'm doing a one-off satirist hire at Trinity and Tunbridge Wells on the 1st of June.

And there'll be other work-in-progress shows as I make my stumbling return to stand up in advance of that tour that you're all going to buy tickets for.

Anyway, thank you very much for listening.

If you want to join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme and help keep this show free, flourishing, and independent, and get access to the exclusive subscriber-only monthly Ask Andy show, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

We will be back next week with Josie Long and Tom Ballard.

Until then, goodbye.

Bye.

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.