Trump on Trial!

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4300 of The Bugle, the world's leading and still only audio newspaper for a visual world.

I'm Andy Zoltzman, ramming this metaphorical megaship of a podcast into the nearest available iceberg for the 300th time since we refloated it back in October 2016.

300 bugles since relaunch.

All told, I think we're now heading towards 400 hours of content over the entire history of the bugle.

So we just need to do that another 24 times and we'll hit the crucial 10,000 hours mark and that's when it will start getting good.

Today is the 19th of April 2024.

I'm here in the shed of uncontrollable veracity in South London, the city where the streets are famously paved with gold, according to the story of the famous 14th century cat fetishist London Mayor Dick Whittington, or at least according to the Daily Telegraph, they were paved with gold until Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan took over as London Mayor and replaced all the gold with supposedly carbon neutral ethical paving slabs made up of the mulched up dreams of true Britannians.

And if you don't think the streets of London were at one point paved with gold, you're unpatriotic and you're rewriting history.

So I hope you're all proud of yourselves.

Still counting for that Telegraph column.

They'll come for me one day.

Yeah, this is issue 4300.

As I said 300 episodes since this podcast came back from the dead.

Bit of a Jewish trend that we can't really help it as God's chosen people.

But anyway joining me, the man who was there at the very rebellion back in October 2016 when this world was a simpler place.

Donald Trump had never been president.

He was just having a bit of a laugh and a jake with his prank election campaign.

Russia had invaded Ukraine a couple of years previously but the world wasn't too worried because the Football World Cup was due to be held in Russia in 2018 and the power of sport would surely cure Vladimir Putin of himself and usher in a new age of Russian political gentility, calm openness, and hardline non-illegal invasionism.

Hasn't entirely worked out quite like that, but yes, joining me once again, as he did in the first relaunched bugle, Hari Kondobolu.

Hello, Hari.

Welcome back.

You were about to say, how are you?

I was about to say, how are you?

And then you watch the game when I say, how are you?

I hate when you say, how are you?

I'm glad you didn't.

But the unfortunate thing is, I expect you to say, how are you?

and always prepare something to say when you say how are you.

So now

I'm caught for loss.

Well, so it's been 300 episodes and all those things happened after the bugle relaunched.

Yes.

Huh.

All that stuff, all this terrible stuff has happened since you came back.

Yes.

Huh.

That's interesting, Andy.

Well, it's a burden I have to live with, Hari.

Or you could stop the podcast, Andy, is the other thing.

That's what I was hinting at for the good of the world.

I'm doing okay.

I have a bit of a cough that really only gets set off when I start laughing.

So I should be good for the podcast.

Thank you very much.

That's two pretty big zings you've got in before I've even introduced your co-host

for today.

Boom.

So joining us for the very first time on the bugle in a symbolic metaphor for the eternal cycle of life.

But that's quite a lot for him to live up to.

A new birth into the bugle womb.

Is that how birth works?

I forget.

No, it's the other way around with births.

It's been a while since I quit my midwifery quote.

Anyway, it's a great pleasure to welcome Voice Bugle debut, the wonderful Ahir Shah.

Hello, Ahir.

Hello.

Thank you very much, Andy.

And what a delightfully Hindu entry that was.

So, yeah, very exciting to be part of this cycle.

And who knows, perhaps this could finally be the podcast in which I attain Moksh.

And

after this episode, I will be no more because I will have ascended to Niran.

So yes, it's my great pleasure to be here with Huri, Huri, who I've known for many, many years.

And between us, we represent basically two of the main choices that Indian families made between about 1960 and 1980.

That's very funny.

So you guys, you were just telling me before we started recording, you shared a flat in Edinburgh in

2011.

Yes, yes.

Ahir was a fetus at the time, and

he was still in the womb, yet somehow finishing up at Cambridge.

And

I was

a 28-29-year-old, comic, hungry, excited for the future, thinking there was a career for me in the UK and beyond.

And

no.

No, not so much.

Yeah, so, I mean, you've done.

Are you going to Edinburgh this year?

I'm going Back to the Fringe.

I'm going to do a fortnight of the show that I did last year.

Well, that sounds like quite a long show, but is this the edited-down version of it?

Yeah, yeah, no, it's like one of those Mark Watson things that takes absolutely fing ages.

Has anyone ever made money at that festival?

My

understanding is how your system in the UK works is that you spend two weeks to a month in Edinburgh and you lose all your money and you owe your management company all the money for putting up the show, and then you spend a good chunk of the year paying them back.

And it seems like it only works because you have good social services that allow you to survive somehow.

Well, I mean, that's a charmingly nostalgic view of the state of British social services, to be honest.

The Edinburgh Festival brought to you by the NHS.

Well, you know, it's good for creativity.

Most

great figures from the creative arts through history

were stung into action by needing to earn money.

So that's the way the Edinburgh Festival works, clearly.

It makes people hungry in that regard.

I really do love watching a bunch of half-finished hours of comedy that should have probably taken a year or two more to be polished and perfect.

But of course, the drive for having a new hour every year is so important.

And then making the full hour of comedy brilliant, and then not recording it and sharing it with the world.

Therefore, no one has ever really seen it other than a few people in your country.

It's a brilliant strategy, it's a great strategy.

Yeah, like I'm feeling really intensely patriotic at the moment after I got all of these.

You leave our festival alone.

It isn't.

You visited one time.

You visited one time.

I did visit one time.

Well, maybe we should take up the New York system of just doing the same seven minutes for 25 years and

ending up bitter at why fame has passed you by.

Anyway, I mean, there must be some middle ground.

There's got to be a middle ground.

Anyway,

we've got to start our own festival in an island in the middle of the Atlantic where we find a perfect middle ground between.

We are recording on the 19th of April.

On this day in 1529, the Protestant Reformation was launched.

And what a Reformation that was.

One of the all-time classic Reformations for me.

It was launched at a star-studded press conference and complimentary lunch buffet in Speer in Germany.

As people protested against the red card shown to Martin Luther.

Obviously, no one knows exactly what went on because the Reformation was more than a fortnight ago, and things do get hazy at my age.

But it was something that was I read something about a diet of worms, so I'm thinking right in saying that it led quite quickly to the legalization of spaghetti across the Christian world.

Interesting that Taylor Swift should have released her surprise new album today to coincide with the anniversary of the start of the Reformation.

I mean, I don't know what we can read into that, but I mean, people do tend to over-analyse Taylor Swift's songs, and I imagine there's, if you play it backwards, there's a load of stuff about Martin Luther hidden within.

On this day in 1775, 249 years ago, as we speak, the referee blew the whistle to start the American War of Independence.

Aka, the American Revolutionary War, aka

Stroppy George and the cranky Yankees, get their grandpa.

And also known as the biggest mistake in American history, brackets until quite recently.

So 249 years on, Hari.

I mean, the regrets are piling up, surely.

I mean, it's really.

I know it's quite early in a kind of geological terms to judge these things, but it doesn't, I mean, it's been a fing disaster, isn't it?

Why are you asking a leading question?

You know the answer.

What is the purpose of this exercise?

It's quite a lot of leading questions.

It's failed.

It has failed.

It has failed.

Is that what you want to hear?

This is a failed experiment.

It did not work out, right?

But to be fair, human beings are a failed experiment.

Nothing wrong with the dinosaurs.

They did not cause their own demise.

They were just chilling and some bad luck, who knows what, whether it's God or asteroids or whatever it was, and now we're here, all right?

This has been a failed experiment.

I think we're on the same page there.

Interesting, I was reading about the,

on this 249th anniversary of the American War of Independence, the origin of the term wishy-washy.

It came about because George Washington bought a magic lamp from an antique shop and rubbed it, and a genie came out and gave him three wishes.

And he just came up with some vague stuff about people being able to say whatever they wanted, some mumbling about bearing arms and militias, and something about not chopping soldiers into quarters.

Hence, wishy-washy and amendments one, two, and three of the U.S.

Constitution.

So, a bit of history for you there.

I don't know why, whenever I hear you start a fact, my brain assumes it's going to be true.

All right.

I'm like, oh, Andy's going to every single time.

I've known you for years, right?

Every single time.

I'm like, oh, Andy's about to say a true thing.

Doesn't happen.

Never happens.

It does happen.

The key, and there's two categories, really.

If it's something to do with cricket, it will turn into a fact.

But I've got a reputation to guard here or here, and half a career.

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

We have a more big questions of modern life as we help you navigate your way through the complexities of existence.

Including this week, we ask, can vegans eat fossils?

How can you tell if a molecule that was once in Stalin's penis is now part of your pet?

Why can't we all learn to get along?

Are puffins fake?

Why is it illegal to play golf in a cathedral?

Whatever happened to Thrapston Cretherick, who,

that section is in the bin.

Top story this week, Donald Trump is on trial.

Well, just a quick refresher for those of you who've forgotten how this story all started.

Well, as I said, in the 1770s, America, for some reason, thought it could be trusted with itself.

One thing led to another, and it ended up voting in a self-proclaimed sex pest as president.

And hence we are where we are.

Hari, I mean, you are are right there as our official Donald Trump's legal affairs correspondent in New York.

Just, I mean,

the city must have been, yeah, has it been played on big screens in Times Square?

There's sort of huge parties where everyone's gathering to watch the death of American hope and democracy.

Andy, can we start with something lighter like Iran and Israel?

Because with Iran and Israel, there's hope there.

Oh, right.

Really?

That there is an...

Yeah, because with the end, the pain will stop.

Okay, good.

So

I see hope in that.

No, no, we're not watching this on a big screen.

I don't think you understand this, Andy.

We're all trying to forget, right?

Okay, he's from here.

We did this.

Every time we see him, it's a reminder of we could have stopped this a long time ago.

And we just let, this is a fun sideshow.

And we just kept doing it over.

Let's watch where this goes.

Married again.

Had an affair.

Oh, another lawsuit.

He's bankrupt.

Has a TV show.

Oh, this is entertaining.

We caused this.

We don't like thinking about it.

So far, we've had the selection of the jury, which is a rather complicated process,

in which they have to find 12 people who don't have an opinion on Donald Trump.

Now, I mean, I think you could scour the entire universe, and the best you could possibly hope for is 12 recently slaughtered goldfish would be the closest you can get to this.

Yeah, I was just like, do you have to sort of, if you're trying to construct a jury, do you just have to hope that there's been a really fortunate like timing with a full ward of coma patients who've all

sort of went down and came up at exactly the same time?

And that's because it does strike me as one of those things where not

having any sort of opinion is in and of itself sort of like it's not a neutral thing to be entirely unaware of what's going on.

And to be fair, I do really like admire the people who were able to, because like half of the people straight away like stuck their hands up, were like, there is absolutely zero way I'm going to be able to be impartial about this.

And they're like, fair enough,

right?

Because let's be honest, being on that jury would be exciting, but equally, probably lead to you getting loads of death threats.

So that would be less fun.

I mean, the troubling thing about about everyone leaving, you know, like having an opinion and then being dismissed, is that I'm sure almost all of them are liberal, right?

Because liberals emote.

When they talk about Trump, they get angry.

They let it, they don't play it close to the vest.

Conservatives play it close to the vest, right?

Like conservatives in New York City, particularly, they keep it close.

Like, I had no idea anyone I knew voted for Trump until after he won the election.

And all of a sudden, their social media is suspiciously quiet, right?

And at that point, you're like, gotcha, you know what I mean?

And that's how he'll get acquitted because they keep it close to the vest, they shut up, they don't let people see, oh, I hate Trump.

No, they shut up, they vote for him, and he wins.

So, but so, in that case, do you regret having spoken about him previously, sort of on stage, on podcasts, on social media, and everything?

Because you could have been in that jury otherwise.

Oh, no, because look at where it's taken me.

Look at where talking about him has taken me.

You know, the jury, there's

first of all, the fact they found 12 is shocking to me and makes me suspect some things.

And here's just a review of one of the jurors, because they listed some of the characteristics of some of the jurors.

One juror watches MSNBC and Fox News and has no opinion of Donald Trump.

So clearly, this is a bot.

They are putting bots on the jury.

Like this is what it's come to.

Another one

said that

she appreciated the fact that

he speaks his mind.

Watch stand-up if you feel that way.

That is not...

A lot of the men just, you know.

And then there was one juror.

This is a perfect juror.

All right.

This is actually the kind of juror we need.

He said, I find him fascinating.

He walks into a room and he sets people off one way or another.

And I find that really interesting.

Really, this one guy could do all this.

See, that's a perfect juror because if you can't figure out why

and you don't follow the news, clearly you have no stake in anything.

Right?

That's perfect.

That's like watching sports and never has a team.

Never roots.

Just watches.

And imagine him saying, I find it interesting how a person hits the ball and everyone chases the ball.

How could one ball do all this?

Absolutely.

That is, but there's not going to be, I can't find 12 of those.

Yeah.

No, I think that the sort of ideal jury is evidently comprised of.

Does anyone remember that Futurama episode where they went to war with the neutral planet?

It was like, your neutralness, it's a bejollette.

If I die, tell my wife that.

And you're like, it's that person that you need 12 times.

Or maybe, like, you know, the person who says, oh, I watch MSNBC and Fox News and everything.

All this person was aware of back in when Donald Trump first announced that he was going to be running for president.

This person was a New Yorker, right?

And they were like, from this moment, this guy might win.

And if he does win, eventually, the mother of all court cases is going to land in a New York City courtroom.

And I will do everything within my power to live my life as the perfect jury member so that when the time comes, I will be there because that is my greatest ambition.

So, therefore, like spending exactly equal amounts of time watching, like, oh, it's

time to watch Rachel Maddow for half an hour and then switch over to Sean Hannity for exactly the same amount of time.

I don't think, like, no one can possibly.

It just feels like someone who watches that much news and doesn't have an opinion is someone who probably can't make a decision.

And is that what you want on a jury?

Yeah, I mean, it is a problem.

So he's facing 34 felony charges of falsifying

business records dealing with hush money payments made to, I think I read it was an Australian actress

from New South Wales, New South Wales,

actress,

Tommy Daniels,

allegedly to cover up a sexual relationship that Daniels claimed she had with Trump and vice versa back in 2006.

So, hush money paid to a pornographic film star and former striper.

Did I spell that right?

But anyway,

can I just check?

Sorry, very quickly with

Hurry.

So, because obviously, lots of international listeners and everything, you've got a different legal system in the United States to the one that we have in Britain and everything.

So, these sorts of things can be a bit confusing, certainly for me.

And so, all I would ask is: so, when you have 34 felony counts, would you describe that as a greater than ideal number

um well like what's a good number to have higher numbers is better because usually

because the more felonies you get uh I mean in this case with Trump the more felonies the bigger the chance we'll get him on something right now they usually pull this with poor people right like they'll let they basically give you everything and then it's like okay we'll let you off with you know manslaughter even though like I wasn't even there at the time.

But you take the manslaughter.

So the idea that they might pull this with Trump is very exciting.

Just throw everything at him and then something's so.

We want as many felony accounts as possible.

One of the charges involves basically this hush money, allegedly paid to alleged Stormy alleged Daniels, being classified as a business expense.

Now, I can't see how they're going to get him on that.

Because to me, hush money paid to a pornographic actress for Donald Trump.

That is a legitimate business expense because he's all about his brand.

And

surely that counts as just investing in his brand.

That is building up the picture of who he is that his entire business is based on.

So I mean, I see that as entirely legitimate, to be honest.

Do you know what question wasn't asked to the jury that I think was a mistake?

I think they should have asked the jury if anyone in the jury was familiar with her work.

Because I feel like that was completely ignored.

Yeah.

Like,

you could have had super fans,

super fans there.

You don't know.

Or, I mean,

you want somebody objective.

Like, it would have been nice for someone to say, I loved her performance in A Vice and Men and the Grapes of Anal, but it will not impact my judgment in any way.

Like, it would have been nice to hear that.

The grapes of anal, isn't it?

I think

I'm really failing to see the pun, but I think it's a little bit.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

No, that's not it.

I went with the over-the-top.

You had two Steinbecks, and right, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was just like, well, I suppose that Americans don't pronounce it Roth, so maybe that's a, but that still doesn't sound like

a vice and men was originally of mice and anal.

So

I at least tried on that one.

The question that I thought that was asked to the jury, I found a bit odd was when they were trying to ascertain whether people

could sort of wrap their head around the idea that one person may not have directly done something but still be responsible for it.

And the analogy that was provided was like, for instance, would you say if a man hired a hitman to kill his wife and the hitman killed his wife, then even though the man wasn't there, he was still responsible.

Would you agree with that statement?

Thereby leading to the possibility that someone might be like, no, that's exclusively on the hitman or that like, no,

that guy just clearly wasn't there.

Yeah, I mean, what do words mean?

You know, it's all about

I mean, I think Trump's strategy has been brilliant because he's already laid the foundation of an appeal if he's found guilty.

Because, you know, he can't say anything in court, but as soon as he's out of court, he keeps referring to the judge judge as a trump-hating judge over and over again which is an interesting strategy because now the judge probably hates him because he keeps saying he's a trump-hating judge which forces the appeal that's brilliantly he's he's he's unquestionably a genius of sorts

one of the finest legal mans of our time clearly

and a mid and a magician i mean every time like each of these counts whenever in each of these trials it's like like, okay, so

you're underwater, you have 30 seconds, all right, and now you're putting a shark in the water.

How is he going to get out of this one?

World's biggest logistical f ⁇ k storm news now, and the world's biggest democratic logistical challenge

is beginning pretty much as we speak.

India is voting in a general election,

a nation with almost a billion voters voting over the course of six weeks.

It involves 15 million election staff, more than a million polling stations, over 2,500 political parties.

That is a logistical.

I mean, I sometimes struggle making a bagel at lunchtime.

And

when I say making a bagel, I have the bagel, I mean putting a bagel,

I have the bagel.

I'm not making a bagel from scratch.

I'm just putting things in the bagel and then eating it.

And that often pushes me to the absolute limit of my logistical capabilities.

So for India to do an election with a billion voters and two and a half thousand political parties, well, it has my eternal respect.

It also involves electronic voting machines being carried on elephants,

which is a frankly delightful detail to get to some of the more remote mountainous parts of the country.

Now, I've tried over the years to understand Indian politics,

particularly whilst working on the Bugle work at working, is that the right word?

And it's tricky as an outsider.

But I think without wishing to blow my own sousaphone too much, I think I've achieved a level of expertise on Indian politics that I never thought was possible.

And I would say it's about the same level of expertise as our next-door neighbour's pet tortoise Timmy has about particle physics.

But I am pleased even to have achieved that, because it is...

completely and utterly baffling.

I think that for anyone who maybe doesn't know anything about Indian politics, the best way that I would describe it is like, you know, the sentences that Andy says that take ages and end up in some sort of baffling thing.

Indian politics is that, but all of the sentences are factually correct.

I can't say there's a heavy enemy fire today.

It's the same sentences, they're just not made up.

It's just

Andy going, yeah, and then of course a man named Stalin, whose father, who was also called Stalin, who was also the chief, and you're like, yeah, yeah, all of that, yeah, checks out.

Wait, wait, so isn't it?

The Indian system is just the British parliamentary system, isn't it?

Is there anything different about it?

Well, I mean, I'm looking at it, there seems to be an awful lot of political meddling, there's some pretty dodgy funding issues going on, there seems to be

a lot of corruption, there's an increasing gulf across India between rich and poor, a lot of cronyism in the political system.

So, yeah, I think it is pretty much

the exact system that we bequeath to India as

a valedictory gift.

I think that there's more sort of like, as Addie was saying, with the sheer multiplicity of political parties over the spectrum, that get in these like really large coalitions, whereas in the UK system, it's much smaller.

So, people who would naturally have been in other parties just all stick in one together and are all called the same thing and all hate each other.

It works tremendously well for us.

So, for example, we have a party called the Conservative Party that is about 300 different political parties.

Yes.

And doesn't so much conserve as destroy absolutely everything in its path.

So one of the big concerns with Narendra Modi seemingly set to win a third consecutive election for the BJP, a Hindu nationalist party, is the danger to the secularism that is enshrined

in the Indian Constitution.

And And I think, I mean, secularism in general is having a bit of a wobbly moment around the world.

I have to say, I'm a big fan of secularism because history does somewhat suggest that religion and other non-God-based fundamentalisms equally in public and political life does have a bit of a tendency to end up with, well, an epic scale of human devastation.

And I'm not a massive fan of that.

And to me, religion being entwined with the state or with politics in general, that makes as much sense as deciding whether a defendant is guilty or innocent in a a court case based on what football team they support, or as a patient is wheeled into the operating theatre, deciding whether they receive no anesthetic,

a proper medical anesthetic, or an anesthetic using a heavy-based frying pan based on who their favourite James Bond actor is.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have opinions on these things or be able to do whatever you want in private, but I just think

they should be separated.

And India, for a long time, it was quite incredible how

well it functioned as this

secular state with such a diverse population

and such a huge area.

I'm trying to follow this election, but the fact that Modi is likely, not likely, Modi is going to win is very frustrating.

Because at this point, I mean, the whole thing is, is he going to get 400, right?

Is the BJP going to get 400 seats?

It's not whether they'll win, it's whether they'll win by record amounts.

And it's like,

it's the way I feel about Novak Djokovic.

You know what I mean?

Like,

I know he's going to win.

I know he's setting records every time.

I just can't stand him.

Like, I get it.

He's great, but he kills it for me.

Don't enjoy the result.

We know what's going to happen.

So, basically, the message of this podcast is we need Roger Federer as Prime Minister of India for the good of the world.

Well, the message was

Novak Djokovic, but yeah, I mean, I guess that's another another way to look at it.

We will have full world exclusive coverage of the Indian election over the weeks, months and years that

it's going to take.

Liz Tross is back.

News.

For someone who was Prime Minister for

less than the lifespan of a moderately unsuccessful insect, Liz Tross is having a remarkably persistent afterlife.

She has produced a book entitled 10 Years to Save the West.

And it was interesting to see the reaction to this book because pretty much outside the Daily Telegraph newspaper,

the universal reaction seems to have been that it is A mad and B shit.

Which actually might be a way to sell shitloads of copies.

I don't know.

I'll hear I know that

in the years before you came on the Bugle, I tasked you, in fact, just before the first ever episode of The Bugle in 2007, I said there's this rising politician, Conservative politician called Liz Truss.

I want you to keep an eye on her until she produces a book having been Prime Minister, and then you can come on the show and talk about it.

Yeah.

And I was like, who are you?

And how did you get into my school?

I mean, it is quite extra.

And the interviews that have gone with it

as well.

I mean, it does make you...

I mean, look back on.

I don't know if it's possible

to be even more flabbergasted in retrospect at the fact of Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister and what then

happened over

the following few weeks.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was, you know, of course, I, like lots of people in Britain, have

sort of not reading the book but obsessively reading everything about the book that I conceivably could.

I'm like that with the book, honestly.

Yeah,

because it's just a staggering amount of fun doing so.

Probably my favourite

thing that I read was from the FT's Alpha Ville, who wrote, Truss likes to say that her focus is on growth.

It's not a super controversial ambition.

Unfortunately, her approach worked a bit like this.

Imagine a bunch of people are stuck in a warm, stuffy room together.

Everyone wants the windows to be opened, but they are fastened shut by complicated locks.

While people try and work out how the locks operate, one of them, Liz, attempts to throw a chair through the window.

The chair bounces off and hits her in the face.

And I think that that's a very, very good description of it, right?

But I was thinking, I'm like, listen, obviously...

I live in this country.

I am not glad that she was Prime Minister.

We're going to be suffering the consequences of her being Prime Minister for a very long time.

It was a very bad thing to happen.

However, all I will say is that when I think about the prospect of having children one day, right, and one of the things that people say to their children is, you can be whatever you want to be, right?

And you, as a parent, know, sadly, that that is not true, right?

Like, there are things that, for a variety of reasons, right, it is very, very unlikely that your kid, who you love more than anything, can be.

They can't be everything, right?

However, like my kid, for example, cannot be a dolphin.

Yeah.

Not with that attitude.

But sort of really taking the time to like sit alone and reflect on the nature of the trust premiership started to make me think that maybe

you can tell a kid like if she could be prime minister maybe you genuinely can be anything you know what i mean like that

like because it's it makes no sense that she was allowed to be prime minister but by god she was she got you can't take it away from her she 100 did that well no you could you can take it away from her yeah yeah sorry

it was very much taken away from her

um I mean, I look at it from as, you know, I have two teenage children, and from a slightly different perspective,

I see, you know, the recent politics as being quite a useful tool as a parent.

My kids are going through school exams saying, Look, you really need to buckle down and work hard at school, otherwise, you might end up with no choice but to go into top-level politics.

And it really focuses the minds of children to realize that that is a trap that they could fall into if they don't knuckle down.

They don't end up like, don't, you know, don't be Liz.

That's that's you know, that's what I say to them.

So, one of the extraordinary passages was when the queen died

just days into Liz Truss's time as Prime Minister and her reaction was why is this happening to me which

is a quite a self-centered way of looking looking at looking at I mean it's a really weird interpretation as if something as if that either the queen or God or perhaps in cahoots were just waiting for Liz Truss to become Prime Minister and saying to each other, right, let's ignore the national anthem now.

We're going to do it now.

Yeah,

I think that of all of the charges that you could level at Liz Truss, lacking main character energy was not one of them.

I was like, yeah, she made it about her when the actual main character of Britain died.

For Americans, it's a little confusing.

Just to see British idiocy, you know what I mean?

Just because

she's not only been a complete failure, she's doubling down that she was right.

And you're watching it, and you hear her voice.

And as an American who doesn't have a discerning ear, she sounds smart because she has that accent you have, right?

Yes.

And it's confusing because you know what she's saying is not good.

But do you not think that sort of like if something

like that severe happens, right?

And it goes that badly, everything.

So for her, for Kwasi Kwasi Kwateng, who was there for even late, I think he was like 38 days or something, and it's like you sort of end up with no option other than doubling down, just as on an individual basis, because, like, how could you not like to admit that it was like, you know, if we, you know, the three of us having a chat here, if we make a mistake, everything, like, that is bad,

you know, if we make a bad, like, it's not a good thing, and we could screw up whatever, but like, we can't make a mistake on that scale, you know, like as an individual human being, you're not really prepped for making a mistake on that scale, and so your only choice really is to double down.

Well, it's the only choice, isn't it, to keep quiet?

You know,

I mean, Blair didn't kind of talk about his missteps for quite some time, right?

It's not like right after he was out, he's like, my bad, you know, like he probably, I'm assuming he kind of like, let me stay out of the spotlight for a while while this

thing dies down.

You know what I mean?

Like, she probably could have disappeared for a while.

Yeah, I do think that is definitely an option.

But, you know,

what element of the main character energy that we were discussing earlier led you to believe that shrinking away into the sunset was going to be?

There's a book to promote.

Middle East update now.

Oh, oh,

fingers crossed.

Moving on now to other world news.

That's all.

That was all.

I could manage with that.

I'm sure it'll be fine.

I'm sure it'll all be fine.

In other world news, well, exciting news coming from Japan that apparently by the year 2531, everyone in Japan will have the same name.

This is according to a professor, no less, who has studied

names in Japan and a law requiring spouses to have the same surname could result in everyone being called Sato within just 507

years.

I mean that's not very long.

I mean if you go back 507 years from where we are now backwards, well that's the year 1517.

I mean that's barely the blink of an eye.

I mean really you think the world has barely changed since then.

Henry VIII was king.

In fact if you'd done similar research then and extrapolated from contemporary trends you would have probably thought that by the year 2024, everyone would have big red beards stretching at least 50 meters and be wearing cod pieces the size of a hammerhead shark.

But it hasn't turned out like that for the most part.

But you know, in 1517,

I mean,

were things so different?

I mean, in here in London, there was apparently a xenophobic riot protesting against immigration.

The leader of Russia was annexing places, and the Middle East was having a bit of trouble.

So, 517 years, 507 years might seem like a long time, but it goes.

It goes so fast.

It goes so fast these days.

I mean, human beings.

This professor assumes that we're going to be around for 500 more years.

Santa, isn't it?

That's the first thing that's very bizarre.

Also, why are you worried about a bureaucratic issue essentially 500 years from now?

Also, if you are correct that everyone's named Sato, it's because all the robots are named Sato and the robots will be controlling the show.

It's a Sato robot.

Of course they're named Sato.

Yeah.

I love this.

So, this is a professor, so Hiroshi Yoshida, and he said that,

right, it's all based on the fact that the proportion of people in Japan with the name Sato increased 1.0083 times between 2022 and 2023.

So there was an assumption of a continuation of that rate that occurred over one year for the next five centuries.

and there being no change in the law based on currently, like you have to change your name to your spouse's name, and most of the time it's a woman changing her name to a man's name, and 95% of the time.

And I really like that.

I think that more studies should be done where it's just like, right, assuming a succession of things that definitely won't happen,

this is locked on.

I think, like, because I was like, how does this work with current Japanese birth rates as well?

Because

there's only three people once in 2015.

Yeah.

And it's like, yeah, of course everyone will be named Sato.

The one guy.

That's his name.

What I particularly liked about this, and as you say, if you call yourself a professor, you couldn't say anything and people think, oh, yeah, no, this must be right.

But

it's a very specific year, 2531.

Now, clearly, if this does happen, I'm not going to notice it because if we continue on the current four-year cycle, it'll be be an ashes summer.

So I'll have I'll be busy with

packet stuff.

Um, but also in Britain, by 2531, I think everyone will have the surname Johnson, but for slightly different reasons.

Chechnar news now, and uh, well, it's a tough time for the um Chechnar

house music stroke

lyrical ballad industry because um music that is not 80 and 116 beats per minute is being banned by government order because it's apparently unpatriotic music.

It is not according to

Chechen mentality and musical rhythm according to the government.

So this is, I mean, it's interesting.

80 to 116 beats.

Now, 116 beats per minute.

That includes the song Get Lucky by Daft Punk, featuring Farrell Williams.

And apparently, Have You Ever Seen The Rain by Credence Clearwater Revival?

80 beats per minute.

That's Me and the Devil Blues by Robert Johnson.

81 beats per minute.

I want to know what love is, the classic power ballad.

So those are okay.

But

either side of those,

I mean, A Taste of Honey by Herb Alpert and the Tizuart T1 Brass.

That's gone.

That's gone for Chechnya.

Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson.

Gone at 117 beats per minute.

As

Smells Like Teen Spirit.

And Murder on the dance floor.

I mean, these are dark times for

you sound like a musical auctioneer.

Gone at 117 beats per minute.

Yeah, no, and I know that, Andy, this is difficult for you because you had quite a promising career in Chechen dubstep.

I did.

And that's

so this is going to be.

I liked this because it's one of those stories that begins: like, are you going like when a sentence starts, it's like, which side side of the political spectrum is this falling on?

It's just uh like the culture minister began by saying borrowing musical culture from other peoples is inadmissible.

And it's like, right, is this hyper-nationalist right-wing or is this extremely I must shy away from anything even remotely considered cultural appropriation left-wing?

It was like, which of these is just these like very two unlikely friends shaking hands.

I mean, all I can can interpret from all this is it's terrible news for the Chechen blues scene, and it's

hard to see

how it can recover.

Just worth noting that at 105 beats per minute, the bugle theme tune sounds perfectly beaten.

There we go.

It could be the new Chechen national anthem.

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

Thank you very much for listening to this and, well, indeed, the last 300 episodes, assuming that you've been listening since Harry was first on this show.

A delight as always to to have you on, Harry.

Do you have anything to plug?

I do.

I'll be touring again in May and June.

May 23rd in Jersey City, New Jersey at White Eagle Hall.

Beverly, Massachusetts at Off Cabot Comedy on May 25th.

Portland, Maine, May 26th, Empire Comedy Club.

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

Bugle Stronghold, Dayton, Kentucky,

June 21st and June 22nd

at the Commonwealth Sanctuary.

It's actually in the Cincinnati area.

And finally, Cleveland, Ohio, June 23rd at Hilarities.

Please come to the shows because the money will be used for shelter and food for me and my child.

Good warm-up for your Edinburgh show as well, all those.

Oh, hey, well, in fact,

you plugged your forthcoming Edinburgh show early in the show.

I got the plugs all wrong this week.

They usually come to the end.

You can re-plug that and plug anything else.

Yep.

So my name is Ahir Shah.

My book, Ten Years to Save the West, is published by

available in all terrible workshops.

No, I will be performing at the McCuntleth Comedy Festival in Mack in Wales for UK listeners on Sunday, the 5th of May.

For American listeners, I'll be at the Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles on the 10th of May as part of Netflix is a joke.

And I will be back at the Edinburgh Festival performing between the 12th and 23rd of August.

And this is all for my show Ends, which won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2023.

I have a stand-up tour beginning in November.

Dates still TBC, but nearer being seed than they were.

I have some work in progress shows in which I will start my fumbling return to stand-up.

You said work in progress with the same tone.

Every comedian says work in progress.

You made it onto the second of the three words

with confidence.

The second, in fact, the inn is about the only one that I think really stands up to any scrutiny.

But

I'm doing the Chesham Fringe on the 26th of May.

I've got a show at the Space in Streatham

on the 29th of May.

And I'm doing a fundraiser for trinity theatre uh trinity art centre in tunbridge wells on the 1st of june so do come to all of those there's also a couple of bugle live shows the 7th and 8th of june at the leices square theatre in london are there tickets still left for that chris almost none amazingly but there are a few yeah

i'm also doing a work in progress show at uh tame on the 14th of june uh anyway well that's it um if you've enjoyed this bugle uh a congratulations on um your life

taking you to a point where you've clearly become a person of huge discernment and refinement.

But also, why not join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme to help keep this show free, flourishing, and independent?

Go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Subscribers get world-exclusive access to the monthly Ask Andy Show,

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an exclusive vinyl record of a special recording of the show that is very near to being produced.

No update from last week.

I haven't received the test pressing yet.

I want the test pressing.

Well, it's on the way.

You can't,

there's two things in life you can't hurry.

One is love, and the other is the Bugle subscriber vinyl record.

But anyway, patience is a virtue.

Thank you very much for listening.

We will be back next week.

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.