News from Space: It's Boring

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, good, whatever time of day it is, whenever you're listening to this, I'm Andy Zaltzman coming to you not live and in zero dimensions from the shed of unfathomable factivativeness in South London for this issue 4301 of the Bugle recently voted one of the top top billion audio-cultural highlights of the third millennium so far.

And judging by the press over the last couple of weeks, somewhere in the region of 993 million of them have been Taylor Swift's songs.

So, we've done quite well to get into the rest of that list.

And today, I'm joined not only by producer Chris, but joining us from the currently democracy-slathered nation of India, it's Anuvabh Pal, and from the about to dip its toe reluctantly into the puddle of local democracy city of London, Ian Smith.

Welcome both of you back to the Bugle.

How's Election Fever treating you both?

Well, Andy, you know, you'd appreciate this, and I'm doing this little stunt just for you, Andy.

Okay.

About an hour ago, I voted in the Indian elections.

The voting booth in Mumbai is at the Royal Opera House, a British institution.

I don't know what that says about the Indian Democracy because they have picked one of the last Victorian relics in Mumbai to have voting and

I have requested a room with Wi-Fi to stay back to do the bugle.

So this recording is courtesy of the Election Commission of India.

Well

can everyone do that?

Can you know if all if all one billion voters demanded a room with Wi-Fi to record a podcast, presumably

they'd have to do that now.

They'd have to give everyone one.

And you know, I thought you'd appreciate this episode at because we like workyfigs.

There is only one room that has Wi-Fi in an entire voting building, which is equally concerning for the world's largest democracy.

Ian, have you voted in the Indian election yet?

Yes, I have.

And if anything, that shows that there is wide-scale corruption going on.

I'm glad.

It shouldn't have been that easy for me to participate.

I don't know who's running.

I I just ticked I ticked a random box.

I don't think I ticked a name either.

But yeah, well, fingers crossed.

I think that's one of the electoral symbols, isn't it?

Crossed fingers.

I think I've got an outside chance.

To be honest, I'd love to see you as Prime Minister of India.

I think that would make the world a happier place.

I'd love to see the moment it was announced and you just see me going, oh, God.

I feel a bit out of my depth here.

Well, you know, you wouldn't be the first Prime Minister coming to office to look like they felt a bit out of their depth, to be honest.

I mean, gentlemen, I know that there is much mirth in this discussion, but I have to say that Ian Smith

against Prime Minister Modi has had as good a chance as the rival Congress Party of India.

So there you go, basically.

Second equal.

I don't think we need an Ian Smith running an ex-colony again.

You may know a comedian, Tadawa Melunge,

and he started doing material about

how there was a man called Ian Smith who runs Zimbabwe and was a very evil man.

And he's talking a bit about that.

But he's done that at gigs where I'm comparing and when I have to go on immediately after him and go right

it's not me

well you know that's yeah

I've never found myself in that situation to be honest the only other Andy Zaltzman I've come across after an extensive internet search was a guy who swam in the Maccabee games of 1981

so an American called Andy Zaltzman now I mean mean, personally, I can barely swim at all, so I was quite excited to find that it's not just due to my name.

We are recording on the 26th of April, 2024.

On this day, in 1564,

just 460 short years ago,

celebrity playwright William Shakespeare was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Although, more accurately, given the information available at the time, baby William Shakespeare was baptised.

He wasn't yet a celebrity playwright, but he did soon become a celebrated writer.

In fact, less than a year later, the infant Shakespeare wrote what is now considered his first masterwork, a recently discovered poem.

And as you will hear, the baby Shakey certainly observed the first rule of writing, writes about what you know.

This is considered to be his first complete work written at about the age of nine months.

Bring forth unto my lips, unto my quivered moor, the once twice, thrice bidden teeth wherefrom life's sweetest nectar springs to quell the ragings of these ravened guts, this hungry soul, and ye shall end the wails that rend this air as quiet, and then again I slake the anguished longing of this parched, despairing throat, and toothless, voiceless, helpless, clasp unto this breastial flesh, and swift engurgitate the nurture from within.

And then, when all is done, when sated into slumber droop these eyes, as oft the heron barks upon the shore, I shall uncawk the burdens of my soul to fill once more the swad beneath my core.

So, really, I mean, pretty, pretty impressive stuff from the baby Shakespeare about needing a feed and the shit

I um I knew I recognized you as the voice of the audiobooks for 50 Shades of Grey

yeah but that was that well that was that's not the 50 shades of grey the novel that's that's my new range of hair colourings that's coming out

Andy I'm also very concerned that just then you transformed into my 12th grade Anglo-Indian English teacher

Mr.

Wheatley, doing his version of Merchant of Venice.

There are so many shades of Andy Zoltzmann.

Yeah.

One day I'll do a show called that,

which will disappoint everyone on an almost infinite number of levels.

On this day in 1865, a bad day for a renowned Shakespearean actor, John Wilkes Booth,

who was one of the leading Shakespearean actors of his time in America, but who did prove the theory that no matter how good you are at your main job, no matter how many absolutely top-notch reviews you get, if you assassinate a six-foot-five inch tall president, people will mostly focus on that when they look back at your life and career.

And also it's a happy 1903rd birthday to former professional emperor Marcus Aurelius, the pin-up boy of Roman stoicism who died in the year 180.

But to be fair to him, as you'd expect, hasn't complained about it in public since.

He just took it, he accepted it, and he moved on with his lack of life in the proper stoic manner.

Anyway, he was born on this day in 121.

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

Well, we hear a lot about home improvements, but do you really want to improve your home?

We live far too insular and sedentary lifestyles.

So a new trend,

sweeping the world, is home impairments to make your home much less nice to spend time in to encourage you to get out more and enjoy life as it should be lived and we have the bugle home impairment section for you this week telling you how to achieve a termite infestation in your sofa the best way to position mirrors to make sure that when you're watching television the sunlight glares in your eyes no matter what angle you tilt your head at do you have a problem with wet rot good we'll tell you how to make sure it spreads to all rooms in your home how to corrode your water pipes quickly and humanely how to de-seal your windows to make sure more of that precious dampness dribbles into your plasterwork and of course the best time to pour a cup of tea down the back of a cupboard.

And we review the latest new home impairments tech accessories.

Hyper-allergenic carpets, rather than stopping you be allergic to things, it's encouraging you to be allergic to things guaranteed to make you sneeze and go outside for a walk.

The Eraticorp Capricio shower, a shower that randomly varies between icy cold, scaldingly hot, a powerjet hyperblast and barely wettening dribble.

And the Iritech Bluetooth Permas Speaker, a wireless speaker that you can't switch off that links up with all your social media accounts to play music that you certainly will not like and to tune into talk radio stations with political standpoints you are diametrically opposed to.

Plus, the snooze rumbler slope bed, which begins the night level but gradually, over the course of five or six hours, tilts slightly to one side so you'll find yourself sliding annoyingly out of bed in a gradual manner.

So it annoys you for a long time before you actually do anything about it.

All of these will make your home less nice to live in and make your life considerably better.

That section in the bin.

I'm a little concerned, Andy, that sounded like a list of Chris's last 10 Christmas presents.

Yeah.

Well, that's why Chris does so many triathlons.

It's not to keep fit.

It's not to see the world.

It's just to spend less time in his house.

Just makes for some awkward regifting.

I think I'd be more inclined to watch DIY SOS if what they did is they went to someone's house, they told them how much of a hard time they were having, and then they just knocked their staircase out and just left.

Yeah.

I mean,

it's a new frontier in television.

Top story this week, Apocalypse Now.

Well, Apocalypse Now is not just the title of one of the late 1970s most unsettling travel documentaries with some of the weirdest breakfast recipes, napalm in an omelette.

Just remember, things don't always taste as good as they smell.

Nor is it just the name of the best-selling end-of-the-world themed teen magazine of the 1980s, which is full of lifestyle and fashion tips on how to get through the annihilation of everything looking trendy and ready to fall in love.

But also, Apocalypse Now is a question people around the world have been asking in earnest this week.

So this could in fact, as we record, be the last 26th of April of all time.

So it could be a really historic 26th of April on those grounds, because the signs are that this rickety old planet of ours is revving itself up for some pretty hefty omega entomy cataclysmogorical apocalyptics

in the very near future and if we needed any further proof it came in london this week as blood-soaked horses rampaged through the streets of our city ian i mean that's our apocalypse right there isn't it but blood-soaked horses rampaging through london Yeah, I mean, horses rampaging is bad, but the addition of blood-soaked has really, really made this hit home.

But this is just

Saddiq Khan's London.

Susan Hall's right, there are no go areas in London because you cannot move for horses because he's tried to implement zero emissions to such a degree

that he won't allow cars anymore.

But yeah, these horses were

on a rampage and they were moving very fast, roughly one horsepower each each behind them.

And

one of them crashed into a parked double-decker tour bus.

And I really like the idea that the person doing the tour announcements has had to improvise with that event happening.

Just going on your left-hand side, there's Nelson's column.

Oh, on your right-hand side, there's a horse's head through the windshield now.

But

yeah, my favorite quote from all of this was reading the Guardian article, and it said, A number of personnel and horses have been injured and are receiving the appropriate treatment.

The word appropriate seems redundant there

because it seems to imply that sometimes, or there's an option that they may have received the inappropriate medical treatment.

But in some articles, they'll go, Well, he had a serious concussion and we've amputated both his legs, and that man has received the inappropriate medical treatment for the situation.

I mean, it was terrifying, Anuvab, seeing this unfold on television, a trial of destruction and perturbed cyclists, as these horses, which were apparently spooked

whilst gearing up for some sort of procession in the Buckingham Palace area.

And two of them ran almost six miles from near Buckingham Palace all the way to the east.

And obviously, we wish all horses in the past, past, present, and future well.

And our thoughts go out to the entire horse community.

But I mean,

you probably would be quite pleased not to be in London during this absolutely terrifying incident.

It's a good point, Dandy.

You know, I mean, I'm used to seeing quite a few domestic and wild animals on the urban streets of India.

So there isn't that element of surprise.

You know, there's often a horse in the wild in my neighborhood, right next to Starbucks.

So that allows for a nice conflict of civilizations, if you will.

But honestly, I what I really miss about London, gentlemen, is there aren't enough wild horses.

As you know, you know, I'm a big fan of medieval Britain, I'm a big fan of Victorian Britain.

And I think two or three things that you could bring back to London that's really missing.

And maybe whoever is the mayor can do this.

More wild horses, beheadings.

I don't know why you guys stopped that.

Throwing feces

in buckets out of windows.

That was very big in Shakespearean times.

I don't know why.

That's what made him what he was.

Yeah.

And no indoor plumbing.

I believe that some modern London apartments, tiny apartments, have gone back to those days where there isn't any indoor plumbing.

But

I really want to make an appeal for bring Victorian London back in whatever way possible.

I mean, I think that's pretty much what the Brexit campaign was based on.

So, I mean, it might get some support.

I mean, just reading the headlines in the newspapers, get out of my nay, dishorster on the streets of London, nags away, harried horse deenies, escapers, colts, bolt, who the f was that?

And things are gelding out of control.

The more broadsheet headlines, London under quadrupedal hooved attackers, horses seek revenge for thousands of years of human subjugation.

Spokes horse claims this is the start of something big.

Financial Times, FTSE Wobbles as prospect of equine control of London spooks markets, shares down by 0.0003% during five minutes of panic.

And The Telegraph, well, as you were suggesting, Ian, Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan unleashes Plague of Communist horses on London.

So

I mean,

it was very, very, very concerning indeed.

I mean, a couple of the horses have been

quite seriously injured.

One horse called Vida could be ruled out of ceremonial horsing for some time, possibly even have to retire from being a ceremonial horse and have to make a living as a celebrity horse, maybe going to reality television.

It might make celebrity master chef a bit more exciting if one of the celebs is a horse, especially if one of the other celebs is French, before eventually moving on to the after-dinner neighing circuit.

But apparently, it all started when the horses were spooked by something, possibly a loud noise from a building site.

Possibly they saw a copy of Liz Truss's book in a shop window.

Maybe they just realized the tragic nature of being a horse in a human world, destined forever to live without true free will.

Maybe it was a belated realization that Brexit would never be what they dreamed it would be as horses.

Or maybe they just suddenly reflected on the general state of the planet and the growing sensation that humanity has willfully pissed away not only its best years but also the future of the natural world.

So, I mean, who knows what sparked this

horse rampage off?

But I hope that it's it's not going to lead to you know a daily rampage of feral horses through the the streets of our fair city.

Ian, have you you ever ridden a horse?

Um, no, but I've written, I've ridden in a sort of old, ye old wooden cart being pulled by a horse.

All right.

So I was in a BBC adaptation of Noah's Ark.

All right.

And

I had to play someone who was like comfortable around horses, not someone who is visibly on-camera scared of horses.

I don't think I pulled that off.

But

the horse just kind of bolted.

So I was just holding on to a wooden cart to see where the horse would take me.

And then the guy in charge of the horses kind of caught it.

And I was like saying, I'm going to get off the cart.

And he was just laughing, going, Oh, no, come on.

And I was like, the horse nearly ran away, and he just keeps laughing at me.

And I think it was the only deverish moment in TV when I told this man

really pathetically, stop laughing at me, I'm scared of the horse.

Which

is not the highlight of my career.

I think Ian has a very good point, and I just want to lodge a general complaint here, which I've wanted to do for years on the Mugo, about celebrity animal trainers.

Right.

I just want to point out that they're a bunch of bastards.

Okay.

Primarily because, you know, I was once on a set for a thing I had written, and there was a lion on set.

And the only person who has the information as to whether the lion is going to bite your head off is the animal trainer.

He is not someone who should have a sense of humor.

That's not someone who should be witty.

And this guy, exactly what happened to Ian, every five minutes kept saying, oh, he doesn't do anything, he doesn't do anything, wink.

I mean, this is a giant man-eating beast.

I don't want jokes here.

There are some places jokes are not necessary.

But you did say

you'd written that script.

I had written a script which featured a lion, which was then acquired.

Maybe next time write about a gerbil or a hamster instead, and you'll avoid that difficulty.

But I'll tell you what, Andy, that gerbil trainer will be a bastard.

So, as well as a plague of horses, other plagues are sweeping the world as the apocalypse comes closer, including a new virus spread by a naughty little insect called a mealybug, which could result in the end of all chocolates, unless it doesn't, which it probably won't.

But what if it does?

As John Lennon famously sang, imagine there's no chocolate.

Now, Ian, you are, of course, the Bugles confectionery correspondent.

How will our once great chocolate-addicted species cope if these insects steal our one remaining source of joy and solace from our weeping mouths?

Well, exactly.

I mean, I don't think we will.

I personally would be quite happy to just call it a day if chocolate's not around.

I feel more worried about this than I did COVID, and I've had COVID.

But this is apparently

a disease ravaging trees called swollen shoot virus, which I believe can transfer to humans.

I think I've had that before, and it's very painful.

Yeah, I think Lord Byron had it after a brief and intense dalliance with a Venetian ballerina, I think.

But it is

worrying,

and so a lot of um it says here that Ghana's lost more than 254 million cacao trees in recent years.

So I think we need to start um getting rid of some of the less popular chocolate and I think it's about time we got rid of the coffee rebel once and for all right yeah just to save a bit of um the resources

I'm in complete agreement with Ian chocolates have had it too good for too long right um and I think someone's got to now have a word with chocolates.

And I think this virus comes at a good time.

Because throughout human history, no one, not one French emperor, you know, no one in the Mughal emperor sat down and said, what the hell is going on with chocolates?

It allowed the hipster generation to happen.

It allowed films to be made, whole literature around chocolates.

Not one person was a conscientious objector.

Everything has had objectors.

India had Gandhi, the French had the French Revolution.

Where is the Lenin for chocolates?

The time is now.

I mean, to describe the French Revolution as objectors, or indeed Gandhi's, I mean, that's downplaying things somewhat.

It seems to have been a little bit of an objection going on

as the guillotine sweeps down.

Heat waves have apparently made the situation

worse because the mealybugs

are in the sum bit of the Like It Hot Venn diagram.

And of course, in heat waves, the chocolate melts on the trees, which makes it harder to harvest as well.

It's unclear what the motivation of the mealybugs is, why they're taking aim at one of humanity's most beloved snack stuffs, but rumours suggest they are bored with nothing to do apart from, infected, cacao trees, and are held back by a lack of hope and aspiration that besets so many insect species these days.

So, and I don't know what can be done, Ian.

I mean, do you have a plan for the global

other than sort of getting rid of the sort of

less good quality snacks that you don't personally like?

What are you going to do to save the global chocolate industry?

Well, I think we do we probably need to market vegetables so that they're more fun, so that demand goes down a little bit.

Okay.

So, I think

I think kinder eggs should be swapped with it's like a toy just wrapped in a lettuce leaf

as ways to make vegetables sort of more fun.

Yeah, basically put toys in vegetables is my answer.

Alright, okay, yeah.

Well, I can see that.

I can see that working.

Like a

courgette with a little car in it.

Yeah.

Right, we're making a better world.

In other plague news,

South Carolina, one of the best known Carolinas in the USA, has been beset by a biblical plague of horny cicadas.

Trillions of the frankly revolting-looking bugs have been popping out.

And the boy cicadas immediately on emerging from years underground, they set about finding a mate by making as much noise as possible.

They truly are biological soulmates.

Amongst the quite literally and metaphorically, and above all, numerically, thousands of different species of cicadas around the universe, most of which live here on Earth, of course, Only ten species are considered periodical.

In other words, they have a life cycle that involves the young cicadas living underground for years, never going out before emerging en masse and causing havoc, which is basically what much of human life has become.

And what's happening this year is that two broods with different dormancy periods are emerging at the same time for the first time since 1803.

Brood 13,

one of the

classic broods, they have a 13-year

dormancy.

Sorry, since Brood 19 has a 13-year dormancy period, waiting until they hear what's happened to America since 2011.

And Brood 13, ironically, 17 years, they don't even know the Bugle exists yet.

What a surprise they're about to get.

I think they're the last brood unaware of the existence of the Bugle podcast.

But these two broods haven't been out in the same year since 1803, the year of the Louisiana Purchase, when France tricked America into buying a load of what they assumed was dud land because it has trillions of cicadas all over it at the time.

So,

I mean, it's these things are,

well, I mean, clearly, they're fing horny.

They've spent years and years underground and they come out, they know they've got about four to six weeks to get shit done and they want to get shit done.

Just going to say, I visited South Carolina only once.

It happened during the spring break season.

And I heard very similar noises from the college students

who I don't know how long they've been underground, but they emitted similar kinds of noises.

Ian, are you concerned about

these horny cicadas spreading from America where they belong to the rest of the world?

I mean, even London after the horse incident this week, who knows where it could end?

My main sort of

gripe with this story is I've sort of felt a bit sad that I'm not a sort of year-old 70s-style male comedian.

Right.

Because I was reading the article, and a lot of the jokes I could think of it seemed like they would come from,

like, I was reading that the noise they make can be as loud as jet engines, and scientists who study them often have to wear earmuffs to protect their hearing.

And I feel like a 70s comedian would have fun with that: of just being like, Sounds like the wife,

loud as a jet engine, got to wear earmuffs when you're listening to her.

We've all been there.

But

yeah, it's just a shame.

A shame that those comedians have been driven into the ground by

society progressing.

I mean, there's so much in the world we can end with thank you, Brussels, with.

In other apocalypse coming news, well, I mean, often one of the most common signs of the apocalypse is things speaking in tongues or people speaking in tongues speaking incomprehensibly but could it work the other way around because a spacecraft that has been talking absolute gibberish at us from 15 billion miles away has suddenly apparently started making sense again and if this does not signify that it's trying to warn us uh that the end of the world is coming our way then i don't know what is i mean this this complacent spaceship 47 years ago was launched from earth it's 15 billion miles away it's been i mean it's what, 30 odd years past its best when it last saw a half-decent planet?

It's been doing absolutely fall, frankly, apart from floating into the infinite void of space.

Suddenly, it gets back in touch with us.

Clearly, it's going to warn us that there's some sort of platoon, some fleet of alien spaceships heading our way to bring about the end of our species.

I think we should all be shitting ourselves, frankly.

I just find it annoying that they've been able to fix something that's like 15 billion miles away.

Because my letting agent can't fix my boiler

and as far as I'm aware that's not a trans-Neptunian object.

Right.

But maybe he's too close,

your letting agent.

Maybe if the boiler was 15 billion miles away, might be easier.

So

I should attach some rockets to it and try and get it out into space.

Yeah.

Okay, right.

I'll be back in a bit.

I mean, personally, I mean, like I said, it's made me feel inadequate.

we have a light in our living room that has a faulty switch and all we need to do is replace the switch and it will be fine.

It's feet away from where daily we sit on the sofa and I reckon it's at least 12 years that this this switch has been faulty and we haven't fixed it.

And you know if I can't get the Bluetooth on my Bluetooth headphones working within a minute I just give up and start singing the songs myself.

And yet NASA in just a few weeks have fixed tech that is not only 15 billion miles away, but tech that is basically nearly 50 years old as well.

I mean,

this is really making me feel like I have not embraced modernity.

I will admit, NASA, you're better at tech stuff than I am.

I'm going to just lay that out there.

Can I just say I found the story very relatable?

You know, it just, because I think it's very much like my comedy career.

Right.

Just asleep for about 30 years, some gibberish insight for about a year's touring, and then asleep for another 30.

So

I think,

if anything, this was a resume builder for me.

I said, oh, this is sort of how my career is shaped as well.

I always like the

rooms with all the sort of the experts in with space stuff.

Like when a mission succeeds or something lands, and they all sort of get up and they're punching the air.

Because it looks like people celebrating a sports event, but they look like the sort of people who would not have any interest in sports whatsoever.

It looks like a stagdo made up entirely of the one person on the stagdew who doesn't like football and is trying to pretend he does to bond with all the other people.

I'm pretty sure that is what NASA is essentially.

I think that's why it was set up originally.

Well I was going to say I mean it's a long long way 15 billion miles away can seem quite hard to understand so I'm going to put it in terms that normal people should be able to understand, but maybe not if they work for NASA.

That is almost a quarter of a trillion football pitch lengths away,

or the same distance as unicycling 600,000 times around the equator or running 500 million marathons dressed as a dinosaur.

It's also the estimated distance between Donald Trump and reality currently.

So that's 15 billion miles and yet they've still managed...

still managed to make it talk.

This is, I mean, it's an amazing achievement, isn't it, technologically?

It's just annoying that it's in an area of space where there isn't anything so they've they've got it to talk and all it's going to say is

yep nothing to report

just i'm bored yeah

get back to you in about 20 years yeah i mean that's the exactly that's the thing about nasa job profiles that fascinate me

I love watching NASA documentaries because they always interview this guy and they ask him, what's your job profile?

And his job is just to stare at the third moon of Saturn and the lake next to it for years.

And nothing happens.

You've got to think to yourself, at some point he's going to turn Buddhist or shoot himself.

I mean, how long can you stare at Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, hoping some shit goes down?

Yeah.

I mean, it would have been nice if Voyager had got back in touch and just said, I've just passed an old-looking guy with a great big white beard looking very cross.

I think that would have.

That might help the world, actually, if you get that kind of message coming through.

Wasn't there some story last week about how space is just full of junk now?

There's a lot of 60s stuff from just the things banging into things because it just looks like the back lot of an Aztec.

It's just

loads of crappy metal just piled up and things.

You know, it's like driving just to the outskirts of Mumbai, but it just looks like hell on earth, just burned cars, that kind of thing.

Yeah, I mean, that's what space has become, really.

And, you know, it shows that you've got to get 15 billion miles away to escape humanity.

Venice has started charging people a fee to go in.

Apparently, it's the first scheme of its type,

charging people five Euros just to go into the city, unless they're staying there overnight in which case you need a QR code proving your exemption.

The result of this, total f ⁇ ing chaos.

It's split opinion this scheme.

Venice struggles with the sheer weight of tourism, which is its own f ⁇ ing fault for being such a magically beautiful place, and it really should have thought of that before it designed itself.

But it's a slightly curious

means of stopping Venice seem like just a tourist attraction by charging people to enter it as if it is just a tourist attraction.

I don't entirely follow the logic of that.

You don't have to pay, as I said, if you stay overnight in Venice.

So again, it's an attempt to stop Venice becoming populated exclusively by tourists by encouraging tourists to stay in Venice.

So there's a few kind of logical issues with that.

Five Euros though, I mean, it does seem like a bargain.

Venice is f ⁇ ing amazing.

I mean, that's also not to say that the Bugle Live shows in London won't be good value at around what's, what, three or four times that price.

It merely encourages us for those shows on the 2nd and 8th of of june at the leicester square theatre tickets available online uh which just encourages us to make sure the quality of those shows is so high that it feels worth a four-day holiday in venice um so

uh uh ian um what do you make of this i mean uh you uh you're from uh you grew up in ghoul in uh in humberside do you think i mean what what sort of level do you think the the ghoul should set to charge people to to to to go in as tourists oh well i mean yeah i i don't want to be too hard on Go, but I think if we did a five-pound entry fee, it would be a ghost town.

I don't think anyone, I think it would just be bypassed completely.

Motorways kind of redirected around it.

Like, where have these guys got this arrogance from?

Yeah, it does feel weird.

Like, five pounds is, I don't think, is a deterrent because if you can afford

like 400 pounds like hotels or flights or a cruise.

And

if someone then says, oh, it's an additional five pounds to go to Venice, I can't imagine anyone going, oh, well, this is just outrageous now.

Ev everything is adding up.

This is just getting this is untenable.

We'll cancel the holiday.

And then being told, well, you only get half of the fee back if you cancel it.

I'm not going to pay five pounds extra.

Um yeah, it just it just doesn't seem like um enough money.

And yeah, the idea that like then people just think, oh, well, if it's five pounds to visit for the day, let's let's go for three days where they don't charge you and you can stay over.

Um, but yeah, I guess people have said that it's sort of turning them into a theme park.

Um,

but um the people behind the decision have said that the big wacky slide that goes directly into water is just a coincidence.

Um

'cause uh a lot of locals have been asking why there's a helter skelta slide coming out of St.

Mark's Basilica.

But they've said it's just part of the architects' original design plans.

But yeah, some of the residents are very angry.

There's been local meetings and protests.

And just to sort of hammer that home, that's

a local meeting of angry Italians.

So some of the hand gestures going on would have been insane.

I was told the slide was built by Cosimo de' Medici in the 14th century.

I believe it was.

Can I just say, gentlemen, I think every city needs to have a fee.

There should be fees that you should pay a beautiful city to visit, and there should be fees a city should pay for you to visit if it's a shithole.

So what are you wanting from Dubai, Anubab?

At least a hundred D Rhams and my clothes, which is a reasonable ask.

I'll give you an example.

The city of Agra has the Taj Mahal, beautiful city in India.

If you want to see the Taj Mahal, should you pay 100 rupees extra?

Maybe.

I mean, they already fleece you enough, but why not a little more?

The city of Kanpur in India, most polluted city in India, they should pay a thousand rupees for you to visit.

And I think every city should have some economic fee associated with its aesthetic beauty and history.

I think London must be quite highly regarded, judging by how much I'm paying to live here.

In other travel news, if you can call it travel news,

the UK has been condemned by the Council of Europe's Human Rights Organisation over the passing of the Rwanda bill which has finally got through Parliament.

This, with an election looming, is being seen as a triumph for Rishi Sunak that he's managed to force through a scheme that has made Britain a global laughingstock that won't deal with the problem it's pretending to deal with and that manages to pull off the rare political decathlon of being deranged, ineffective, incompetent, expensive, inhumane, illegal, illogical, embarrassing and unpopular.

So quite how and why the government expects it to make them seem more popular and less incompetent.

That remains shrouded in the kind of fugged mystery that 2020 politics

seems to specialise in.

It was discussed on question time last night and Chris Philp, government minister,

seemed a little unsure during the debates on Rwanda whether Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are different countries or the same country.

And

this is what we've become as a nation.

I mean, it does mean that

maybe it's open to all of us to become cabinet members.

In fact, I've got a could you be a British cabinet minister quiz, which you Bugle listeners can do now.

I'm going to ask you these questions and just answer from the multiple choice options.

Are Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo different countries?

A, yes, B, no.

C, not sure, D, too early to say, or E, yes, but they're basically the same, aren't they?

I mean, they're miles away, and I think they're both in Africa.

Question two, will sending potentially up to eight or ten asylum seekers to Rwanda lead to vastly improved public services across the United Kingdom?

A, obviously not, don't be fucking ridiculous.

B, yeah, probably.

Or C, not only that, it will also lead to a golden age of British greatness.

And pretty much every single country in the world are planning to join and or rejoin the new relaunched and revamped British Empire.

And question three, this is the scenario.

Brian owns a car, the car has a flat tyre, but Brian needs to drive to the golf club.

So Brian dresses up in a pagan outfit, fills the car with straw, sets it on fire, sacrifices it, and dances around it as it burns, chanting strange incantations to a mythic god he doesn't really believe in.

Has Brian adequately dealt with the issue of the flat tyre?

A.

No, clearly he hasn't.

B, yes, he has.

There was a problem.

Something had to be done.

He did something.

No one else came up with a better idea.

Problem solved.

Now, as long as you didn't answer A to any of those questions, then yes, you could be a British cabinet minister.

So, this is the exciting thing with having politicians like this humiliating themselves on national television.

It shows what is possible for all of us.

Ian, I mean, with the election coming up, obviously everyone's very excited about

it.

Do you think this is going to shift the dial at all?

Will there be now maybe two or three people who might vote Conservative at the election?

Yeah, well, it will take, I mean, at the minute, it feels like everyone thinks it's a stupid idea and doesn't want it to happen.

But I think if they can get some people sent to Rwanda, everyone will think it's a stupid idea and didn't want it to happen.

But I reckon two or three people will admire the persistence

because

it looked like it wouldn't happen.

It looked like it shouldn't happen.

It looked like it was illegal and humane at some points.

And after that

sort of setback, a lot of people would stop doing something,

but they've persevered.

And it's very admirable.

There was a Home Office minister

who said

that there were people determined to do whatever it takes to try and stop this policy from working.

But that's just because it is a bad

policy.

It's bad, and there's lots of legal arguments against it.

And I don't think I made a very good

analogy.

I think I was quite tired when I wrote this analogy.

But I've written here, it's like having made a car entirely out of marshmallows, and then when someone points out there's nowhere to put the petrol, you saying, It's like you're determined for me not to drive this marshmallow car.

I think that's entirely valid.

It's brilliant.

Put it in accessible terms that everyone can understand.

But as you say, you've got to admire the persistence.

It's like Aristotle famously said: if you keep putting your penis on the same barbecue, eventually someone is going to think it's a sausage.

So you've just got to have that faith, that persistence,

to go through with what what you believe in.

This is why it's so important, Andy, to have a classical scholar.

Absolutely.

It's needed.

Just very quickly, I just want to say, you know, I know they decided on Rwanda as the country, but going forward, could they keep it quite flexible?

I saw a travel airline in the UK called TUI, and they had an offer where you get on the plane and you buy a ticket, and they fly in the middle of the night, and they take you to a mystery destination.

yeah and you land and you find out you're in anatolia turkey and that's your holiday um i mean given it's pretty cruel as an idea what they're doing with rwanda anyway could they make it even more cruel and just have the plane land up in any country

and then have that country deal with the legal ramifications given it's not legal anywhere

uh to be honest i think that's a dangerous thing to say out loud um

and you just don't know you never as the they used to put on those posters in the second world war you never know who's listening And it's possible that Chris Philp is list is listening to this, and this could make its way into

public policy.

Well, I think it's time to wrap up this bugle now, because we all have to go and make our final preparations for the end of the world.

We were going to do a quick update on the Indian election, but since it's going on for so many weeks, Anuvab, I think we can get you back on again before the election is completed

to talk us through it and the various

not entirely sensible things that Narendra Modi

has been saying.

So that brings us to an end.

Don't forget to buy your tickets for those two Bugle Live shows in London on the 7th and 8th of June.

Are there any tickets left, Chris?

There are four very limited seats in the corner of the Saturday

and about 20 or 30 for the other date.

All right, okay.

Well, well, if you're so disappointed that you can't go to the Bugle Live shows in June, never fear, because from the start of November, I will be on tour for quite a long time.

The dates will be confirmed and announced by the end of May.

I've been reliably informed.

There are lots of dates around the UK, some in Europe,

well, other parts of Europe, clearly the UK is in Europe.

I'm, as I've said before, I'm from Europe.

I grew up in Tunbridge Well, which is a lovely European town about 900 miles north of Barcelona.

Anyway,

full information, world-exclusive

reveal.

I will have a special reveal show of the tour dates on the Bugle in a few weeks' time.

Ian, anything to plug?

Yeah, on Tuesday, the 4th of June,

I am filming my Edinburgh Show

with another very funny comic, Stuart Laws, at the Pleasants Theatre in London.

So it'd be great if anyone could come to that because it will be the one that remains online forever.

So if it could be a nice one with nice people, that would be that'd be very good.

So, yeah, you can get tickets to that on the Pleasants website.

And where are your New Zealand shows?

Oh, and the New Zealand gigs are on at the Classic

in Auckland, and I'll be doing 10 solo show dates there and various other things.

So, yeah, if there's any New Zealand buglers, I'd love to see you there.

There are quite a lot of New Zealand buglers, I think, from I've not been there for a few years.

So, and the Classic's a lovely venue, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah,

Anubab, plug away.

Yeah, I'm going to be on a short tour of the UK, 17 towns,

promoting Britishness.

As you know, Andy, I feel like the time has come for a middle-aged Indian person to look at the glories of Britishness because you guys are not doing it.

You're just running down your own people.

And the Department of Britishness goes on tour, starts at South End on Sea and ends at the Solar Theatre on the 8th of June.

It starts on the 17th of May and I'll be going to British towns I haven't been to ever but I'm hoping to run into some Indian thing there that was picked up and brought back

as a memento.

So I should be able to see some relic of empire across.

And yeah, it's called Department of Britishness.

All the tickets are on my website and I will along the way be glad to update everyone on Ian Smith versus Narendra Modi.

It's a Indian delusion that's underway.

Fingers crossed.

Chris, you've got something to plug.

Yeah, I've got a new series of my podcast, Travel Hacker, which is out now.

It's the sort of show you never knew you needed.

Do you want to hear about line bikes?

Obviously.

Do you want to hear about the merits of electric cars?

Maybe.

Do you give a shit that the London Overground changed its name?

You probably didn't know it had.

It's all that kind of stuff in the show.

Surprise listening.

And all the latest on the horse routes through London as well.

Thank you very much for listening Buglers.

We will be back next week with Alice Fraser and Alistair Barry.

Until then, 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.