A Barbiturate Girl In a Barbaric World

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers, I am Andy Zoltzman and welcome to episode 4294 of the Bugle.

It's another live bugle special formed from two fantastic live shows in Birmingham and Cambridge.

So sit back or drive or cook or walk or run or carve your dinner or do some advanced cardiovascular exercise or examine the inner core of your human soul or perform advanced topiary or undergo a vasectomy or complete your Machiavellian experiment to crossbreed a member of parliament with a dolphin or drone on through your sermon whilst maintaining a vestige of eye contact with your congregation or whatever you do whilst you're listening to the bugle and enjoy the show.

As I said, we have for you this week a phenomenal three-quarters-ish of an approximate hour from our two shows over the weekend in Cambridge and Birmingham, brackets, UK versions.

In Cambridge, I was joined from America, or from the sea that keeps America at least partially penned in, by Josh Gondelman, who was quite literally on a literal boat, and Alice Fraser, who was accompanied by a very new human being, her own one.

She didn't rent a baby, just to look and sound cool.

And in Birmingham, Neil Delamere was with us at the theatre, and Nato Green joined us live from San Francisco.

So do strap in.

Here comes issue 4294 of the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world.

Here it is.

Any second now.

Honestly, it is.

Yep, there it is.

There it is.

This is the show that is tying us level with episodes post-John Oliver leaving the show.

I forget why he left.

I think

things weren't going too well for him, actually.

And he decided to quit coming and get a regular 9 to 5 job.

I think he was working as an accounts clerk for a Manhattan delivery firm and running a hot dog stand in the evenings.

I'd be surprised if he

wouldn't actually answer the call and maybe come back for another episode.

I'm sure he's well up for that.

I think

That's bullshit.

That was the alternative title for this show when it launched, actually.

So, anyway, so

this is issue 4294.

We are here at the old rep in Birmingham, a legendary venue.

It's a wonderful venue.

We played it on the last time we did live bugles in this.

That sentence just went out of control.

We played here before, that's all you needed to know.

There it is.

They've got some of the

old posters backstage.

If you'd been here in 1926, in February, you could have seen He Who Gets Slapped.

A play of Circus Life by Leonid Andrew.

Did anyone here see that show when it was on?

My demographic has got slightly older since I

started doing the news because I'm on radio four.

And Test Mac Special.

He who I don't.

What do you think that involves, Chris?

He who gets slight.

Are you trying to find out some information?

Yeah, it's a play in four acts by Russian dramatist Leonid Andreev, completed in 1915 and first produced in Moscow in 1915.

Immensely popular of Russian audiences.

Remade as an American film.

No, remade as an American movie, but silent.

So

they could have just kept the original version.

So there it is, I'm absolutely intrigued by this now.

I mean slapping in terms of Russia in 1915,

slapping is about as friendly as it got, isn't it?

Some heavy shot dumped in a frozen river.

On so this 9th of March, it's National Procrastination Week in the USA.

I was going to write something about that, but

I thought the joke would be too obvious, so I didn't bother.

On this day in 1776 Adam Smith the celebrity Scottish economist published the wealth of nations.

There is that is that that big ad?

Look at him

huge buttons.

I guess if you've got invisible hands you need big buttons because you're quite able to do them up.

I'll tell you where the wealth of nations didn't go.

His wig budget.

I'm sorry I've been watching too much drag race lately.

Watching a lot of drag race at home.

Been getting very catty about wings.

The full title, have we got any Adam Smith fans in?

The full title was an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, although the original title was Moneys and Honeys, which was considered too racy even for the late 18th century.

He wrote famously about the invisible hand,

which is supposed to guide the financial markets, make sure nothing goes too far wrong, self-regulating, benevolent force, the invisible hand, so you don't need any government intervention, state regulations.

All very well in theory, but there is a significant problem with it as a theory, and I think we'll have to ask ourselves a question.

Please try to be honest with yourselves as you answer it.

If you had an invisible hand,

what would you do with it?

There's an AI follow-up of the Wealth of Nations due out sometime in the next 10 seconds.

Here it is.

Yep, it's an inquiry into the nature and causes of the disappearing wealth of nations.

Chapter one, why you shouldn't leave your national economy in the hands of certifiable fkwits.

Chapter two, why is everyone such a a f ⁇ ing prick these days?

Chapter three, grow the f ⁇ up, you f ⁇ ing idiots.

And chapter four, gee, seriously, guys, way to was your economic well-being up the wall to make ideological points dickheads.

So it looks like Adam Smith has updated himself through AI.

On this day in 1954,

a legendary TV broadcast in the USA.

See it now with Fred Friendly.

Have we got the...

There it is.

Now, that might look like a friendly, a happy show.

Does anyone know what See It now with Fred Friendly actually was

no it was it was an an interview it was a report on McCarthyism

a scathing attack on McCarthy and the anti-lefty witch hunts and it was presented by a guy called Edward Murrow and his conclusion let's see how his words are shaping up today he concluded he concluded we must not confuse dissent with disloyalty 0 for one we must remember that accusation is not proof snake eyes eyes.

That conviction depends on evidence and due process of law.

It's starting to sound sarcastic now.

We will not walk in fear, one of another, swinging amiss, and we will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.

Edward Murrow, you hopeless idealist and certifiable.

Andy, Fred friendly, more like red-friendly, am I right?

That's right.

Well, it does actually, it has actually come up

on the screen.

Accusation is not proof.

That is like, that's a beautiful id idea.

Donald Trump has been President of the United States, and we're now in a place where proof is no longer proof.

On this day in 1959, the Barbie doll made its global debut at the International Toy Fair in New York.

Was that the original Barbie?

That is original Barbie.

Right.

Also had a part in Neighbours, apparently.

And well, Barbie has obviously had the big biopic.

Didn't know they had a short list of who to a biopic of.

And they chose Barbie ahead of Michael Gove

and Terry Griffiths, the former world snooker champion.

Would have been a...

I'd have preferred to see that film.

Griffenheimer would have been such hype.

Barbie, also behind the 1980s pot pit, I'm a Barbie Girl in a Barbie World, full title, I'm a Barbituritz Girl in a Barbaric World.

A heart-rending neo-feminist rail against the impact of gender expectations on people's lives.

I want them to bring out a realistically aging Barbie.

It sounds a beautiful victory, but there is a slight chance that it would be depressing and that you would get a fully dead Barbie.

Children have to learn.

Not everyone can have pets these days.

Yes, yes, yes, exactly.

This is whose future we're doing this for.

Top story of this week: America is embracing the glories of democracy once again.

NATO,

you keep us up to date with all the wonderful goings on in American politics.

You had Super Tuesday last week, the State of the Union address.

I know you're, I think it's fair to say, not the biggest fan of Donald Trump

being.

That's sick to say.

Yeah.

How have you enjoyed the past week?

This past week was Super Tuesday in America, with several states held primary voting to determine candidates for the general election where Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed have a rematch.

But instead, both Rocky and Apollo have similar yet slightly different degenerative bone marrow diseases and can only fight by seeing who has darker color diarrhea.

A new poll from the New York Times founds that Joe Biden's disapproval rating has reached a new high and he's lagging Trump in several swing states, but there's a bright side.

The Biden campaign strategy to win elections by not giving people what they want is a success in that the poll revealed a new phenomenon, what experts call, quote, double haters.

That is, people who hate both of them but hate Trump a little bit more.

And according to the Times, the candidate less disliked by double haters has won the last two presidential elections.

So Biden says democracy is facing its greatest threat since the Civil War.

And in that moment, the energy you want people bringing to the polls is, yeah, I guess

one surprise

upset of Super Tuesday is that Arizona Senator Kristen Sinema dropped out of her campaign for re-election.

Kristen Sinema was a Democrat.

She switched to Independent to run against another Democrat and a Republican

election denier crackpot named Carrie Lake.

Sinema, you may recall, is a Democrat who with Joe Manchin would frequently not vote with her party in order to prevent anything good from happening, but do it in a cute way.

So if you're in the audience listening to me right now, and you can actually hear me

and you don't know who she is, Google Kristen Cinema Thumbs Down Meme.

And it's just her in a cute outfit with cute glasses giving a thumbs down to raising the minimum wage.

She was a bisexual who did CrossFit and had fun hair and retro outfits like a boozy extra at a madman party.

And now that she's out of office, she has time to finally write that

profile for the sex positive dating app field that she's procrastinating, and I found a draft.

I am a former U.S.

senator with time on my hands trying to have some fun, seeking a partner in crime and like-minded individual to explore the kind of ecstatic pantrick pleasure I only get from giving tax cuts to private equity first.

I like Burning Man CrossFit cooking in fun fashion.

You should have a lot of abs.

Go on a road trip with me in a Eurovan to find Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, and the American Swing Voter.

Also open to couples.

Let's get together for drinks and maybe more if the vibe is right.

I have a bratty sub and bang my clip with a gavel and tell me I was working all the time.

Family show.

Family show.

It's the other way you're always wondering what to put on the merchandise.

I think bang my clip with a gravel, gavel even.

Court is in session.

Boo-boom.

I think Mike Litt,

Michael Litt,

Michael Litt

played for Gloucestershire in the 1970s, I think.

Yeah.

Did you see...

Is that the first cricket reference?

Is that what the bell was?

No,

when it gets dangerously close to puns, this gets going.

Okay, that ship has sailed.

And that's why you're in that t-shirt.

I actually watched the State of the Union and Joe, he was brilliant.

I mean, the level of expectation was quite low, but they got the dosages right.

Because that man, I'd say he was in a darkened room until about four minutes before it.

And then they just like took a hood off a Falcon and he was like,

and he was getting heckled and he was slamming the way you didn't hear when you were dying on your arse at the Birmingham Glee.

He was slamming them back.

He was like, I'm working here.

I don't go to where you work.

And slap the cocks out of your mouth.

He wasn't doing that necessarily.

But he was really, like, he was really, really honest.

And he said that we will continue to send help to Ukraine, which is kind of cool.

I would be, Ireland is against the cluster bombs that are being sent.

A cluster bomb, we're against them in all the international treaties.

A cluster bomb is a bomb, it falls to a certain height and then separates into bomblets and that destroys everything.

And they're being sent to Ukraine, and we are against them because we've had boys on.

And

boys on were bad enough when they were together, but when they

When they separated and I started to release music indiscriminately, like a child could have picked up one of those albums.

So we would be against those, generally speaking.

So Biden was coming out when he was banging out these one-liners.

He criticised his opposition for not voting for his famous Inflation Reduction Act, which is a bit weird seeing Republicans opposing the IRAs, an unexpected move from where I'm from.

And then Marjorie Taylor Green got involved, that unhinged Congresswoman, somewhere between a human and, do you know the bit where the washing machine spin cycle goes absolutely f ⁇ ing mental?

That's what she is.

She's known as MTG.

G stands for grey matter and MT stands for MT.

And

she thinks that forest fires in California were caused by Jewish space lasers.

That's correct.

Jewish space lasers.

So they thought that the forest fires were created by these Jewish space lasers by some shadowy conglomerate of people who wanted to clear land to build their railways.

So, what that tells me is that

it was within your people's

power to build HS2, is what I'm trying to say here.

And you didn't do it.

What are you hiding?

What are you hiding?

Well, I mean, HS2 is not completely,

they've just announced some new plans today.

They've slightly changed the original plans.

It's just going to run from London to London via Oxford,

which is really, I think, the logical end point of all conservative infrastructure projects.

Trump, NATO said something a bit curious this week.

He basically equated all

Spectacular work

He equated essentially all immigrants with Hannibal Lecter

he said

They're rough people in many cases from jails prisons from mental institutions insane asylums that's the silence of the lamb stuff.

You know Hannibal Lecter, have you heard of Hannibal?

I mean is this does this show how badly out of control immigration has got in America?

That even completely fictitious immigrants are killing upstanding American citizens.

It's so hard for an American to be killed by a genuine American nowadays.

I mean, what do you think Biden can do to balance that out?

Yeah, well,

Biden is trying to split the difference on

anti-immigrant racism.

He's trying to split the baby, which is a common strategy in politics that works great unless you're the baby.

So he's like, you know, he wants to compromise, do a little bit of racism, like, I'm okay with Mexicans, but it's okay to still be racist against people from El Salvador and Honduras.

I'll deport people, but not call them poison in the blood of America, that kind of thing.

And as you say, like, Marjorie Taylor Greene was upset about...

uh lakin riley a college student who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant because immigrants are taking our jobs.

Only we are going to kill our white girls.

No, we don't let immigrants kill our white girls.

I like the way you ask that question: how can you get an American to kill an American?

And I think the answer is the age-old answer.

You have to start in schools.

We've had some fairly dark jokes on the bugle over the years, Neil.

I think that's like that shade of paint that is supposed to be infinitely black.

Google has launched a five million dollar prize fund for people to find

things that quantum computers can actually do.

Because I mean to be honest, I don't understand whenever the word I think the word quantum just gets thrown around to stop people asking questions.

Because as soon as someone says quantum, you think, oh, this is way beyond my level of human comprehension.

You know, that's why the James Bond film Quantum of Solace,

I couldn't watch it.

I thought, no, I can't.

But luckily,

we have two trained quantum physicists

with us today.

So they're trying to find ways to actually use these incredible computers that are almost so powerful that they have no application in the known universe.

So how is Google intending to do this, Josh?

So I think this is actually a huge thing to do, right?

I think Google should have someone in charge of whenever they spend billions of dollars making a new kind of computer, just tapping a lead engineer and going, hey, why the fuck did you do that?

It is, but this is the thing.

They've launched a $5 million prize to find actual uses for these computers they've built.

That's not a contest.

That's a job.

Give people money to do science for you, Google.

You have all the money, and that's what it's for.

Why are they treating quantum physics like a fing scratch-off lottery ticket?

Do they think the world is just full of unemployed quantum scientists sitting around entering contests all day?

No, I assume they're out there doing calculations on a dry erase board or listening to the bugle and then writing me angry emails about how I misunderstand and mischaracterize their jobs.

Just...

Just pay people to do things.

That's what I do when I need something done.

I don't offer a $50 prize for anyone who can figure out how to get me to the airport for a gig.

I call a fing cab

Alice,

are you going to enter this competition?

I absolutely will.

Even though the prize doesn't cover one of the most interesting parts of the problem, which is, as Bill Pfefferman at the University of Chicago says,

they need to figure out algorithms that require a better understanding of how the computer works, such as how to deal with noise and errors.

So basically, they've got computers that don't work very well and they're not sure what they're meant to do,

which I think is like the perfect kind of computer.

On the bright side, it being quantum, there is an alternate universe in which these computers have a purpose and work really well.

So that's something.

Can any of you explain what quantum computers do here in Cambridge?

No, correct.

There we go.

I just want to hard in.

But to be fair, someone who doesn't know what quantum computers would do would say they don't know what quantum computers can do.

And somebody who does know what quantum computers do also knows that they don't know what quantum computers do.

Andy, I love

the crowd interactions you're having at this show.

You've asked, does anyone know what quantum computers do?

You've asked, does anyone have faith in democracy?

And you've asked, does anyone like bees?

Most comedy shows, I don't know if this audience knows this, the comedian just looks at the two people in the front row and goes, are you two f ⁇ ing?

Sorry, boat announcement.

I'm going to go on to the bees.

No, no, I want to hear the boat announcement.

All right, here it is.

I think we'll all feel safer.

I think the announcement is saying, if anyone sees a f ⁇ ing great iceberg, do let us know.

Sorry, just to go back to Bill Pfefferman, who's the University of Chicago professor in quantumness.

He says, I'm very optimistic in principle that we'll find algorithms that are really useful, which is the words of a man who doesn't believe that they're going to find algorithms that are really useful.

Let's move on to the real power broker of American politics now, Taylor Swift,

who, as we discussed a few weeks ago, is conducting a covert operation to swing the American election to the Democrats.

And some exciting news.

Taylor Swift was revealed by researchers to be, brace yourselves, for one of the greatest celebrity link-ups of all time, the sixth cousin of the renowned 19th century poet Emily Dickinson.

There they are together.

Can you tell the, I mean, this

sixth cousin,

that, to me,

that is too far removed to be relevant even in this swift

obsessed age that we live in.

Taylor Swift, for those of you who've not heard of her, the self-styled George Formby of the USA.

And

Andy, you know what this means?

Shake it off when I'm cleaning windows.

Sorry,

this means that Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson can f each other without it being incest.

Well, imagine how sad the songs and our poems would be after the breakup.

This is a revelation in a long line of superstar kind of family revelations, wasn't it?

And connections.

Boris Johnson, famously related to Hollywood royalty.

His great-grandfather, I think, was born nine months to the day after Lassie fed the mop.

Prince Harry is

through marriage, I think, very distantly related to King Charles.

And music superstar of the weekend.

Do you know who his mom is?

Doris Deer.

So Doris Day married Darren Day, and then rather than having two days, he just said, I call myself the weekend.

Family show, extended family show.

Yeah, Emily Dickinson, 19th century avant-garde poet.

Now we pride ourselves at the Bugle on being remorselessly shit at self-promotion.

But I don't think we can match Emily Dickinson.

She published, I think, think, 10 poems out of more than 2,000 that she wrote.

Only about 10 of them were actually published.

So I don't think she had any merch whatsoever.

Do you pride yourself in being terrible at...

Well, no,

pride is not the right word, but we are just shit at it.

I hardly heard that.

Right.

Some more.

So, I mean, there's some other wonderful tenuous links between celebrities and historical figures that the researchers have found.

The actor Timothy Chalamet, famously cloned numerous times to appear in every film, is

the 18th cousin 31 times removed of the 14th century Italian literature with Dante.

The tennis star Martina Navratilova is the great, great, great, great, great grand stepniece of a man who once met the great great great grandmother of Laurel and Hardy.

And the Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill is related by a series of marriages to the ancient Greek god Hermes,

who actually did ironically literally walk across the skies and was also lukewarm about most things apart from being a messenger.

And finally, both the gobshite pseudo-Republican provocateur Marjorie Taylor Greene and snooker legend Steve Davis are possibly members of the same species.

Economics new

here is an economics fan?

Not many of you.

Yeah, I mean, I don't understand economics, and I sincerely hope I die that way.

I will consider that a life very well lived if I die in continued ignorance of economics.

Fundamentally, to me,

economics is witchcraft in a pinstripe suit.

Economics is the art of telling you exactly what's going to happen and then explaining why it did not.

So,

but there's been some big economic stories.

We'll get on to the budget in a sec.

But for fans of Bitcoin, what a week this week.

Bitcoin has blasted through the $70,000

barrier.

Now, Bitcoin is something we've touched on over the years.

Alice, I know

you're a massive fan of cryptocurrencies, but we pay you entirely in, I think, ephemera, is it?

Or is it

pseudo-dollars?

I can't remember which one we actually use.

But I mean, this is,

I mean, in terms of fictional things being worth way more than they should be,

this is a great day, isn't it?

Are you talking to me as a fictional thing who's worth way more than I should be, Andy?

Well, Australia doesn't exist, does it?

I mean, we've been through this on the bugle before.

Australia does not technically, it's just a rumor.

Well, Andy, all of the headlines read that Bitcoin has risen above $69,000 in a new record high.

$69,000.

Nice.

Get it?

I wouldn't make that joke, Andy, except that it's the kind of joke that Elon Musk makes on X, and then thousands of crypto bros leap into his comments to say, now this is what I call freedom of speech.

Well done, sir.

And fair play, he is one of the richest men in the world.

Maybe today's the day he whimsically decides to grant a million dollars to a randomly selected sycophant.

It's not a lot stupider than buying Bitcoin

as a way of making money.

Anyway,

I keep getting distracted when I start reading this story because of the the 69 joke because

as a sex move, 69 is my least approved of sex move because

if you're doing a 69 successfully, one of you is doing it wrong.

Ideally, somebody's giving head well enough that the other one can't do anything.

That's the job.

Sorry, I get to say back to the story, Andy.

This is about Bitcoin.

Family, Shari.

If you don't know what Bitcoin is, it is, depending on how you feel about it, either the stalwart proof of concept backbone of the revolutionary decentralized currency movement or the Tinkerbell that the largest number of crypto bros are still clapping their hands for, if fueling the continued production of Tinkerbell were more energy intensive than running Brazil.

It's doing quite well, Andy, because a number of

US regulators have recently approved a bunch of exchange-traded funds earlier this year that track the price of Bitcoin, which makes it more legitimate and it suggests that it might have more staying power.

I find it quite hard to understand Bitcoin.

So I tried to write a book about it.

I'll share a quick chapter from it now.

Bitcoin doesn't fucking exist.

If you want to know how it works, just fing guess or ask a brick which will have as much chance of explaining to you coherently as a sentient human being.

The value of Bitcoin has fluctuated throughout its made-up history from not loads to f loads, back down to to loads, then f ⁇ k loads again, then much less f ⁇ loads and now back up to even f ⁇ ing fuck loads, which, to be fair, is still well above its fundamental real terms value of absolutely fall.

Obviously hugely exciting week for economics fans with the budgets

last week, the Nation on Tenderhooks, people watching it on big screens in Hyde Park in London, they had to have a police cordon between the fiscal conservatives and them.

Anyway,

the two headline

moves.

It's like I'm watching someone have a breakdown in real time.

That's not the worst review I've had.

Well, the first review I had in the Edinburgh Festival in the year 2000, I was doing a show called The Comedy Zone with three other comedians, and

in the Observer newspaper, grindingly mediocre.

See, sometimes they do get it right.

You're fired.

Conservatives are jumping ship,

jumping their glorious Titanic after, I think this is their fourth consecutive snout first ramming into an iceberg over the, in terms of different prime ministers.

Theresa May, former Prime Minister, is quitting one of 60.

to go.

Are you going to miss Theresa May, Neil?

Yeah, there's a load of them leaving.

There she is now.

She's famous for that dance isn't she the most wooden thing in the history of wooden things she can't even retire to turkey because they were afraid if she turns up there'll be Greek soldiers inside her

I'm pretty sure that's libelous I mean

my joke about ancient Troy is fine but you suggesting that

delight I've dragged you down to my level that's all

the edit's going to be short this week I feel

so a load of MPs are not standing again.

Matt Hancock is resigned to spend more time with his conscience.

And she's

as if Brexit hasn't hammered the English farmers enough.

Now the wheat fields won't be safe with that utter loon running through them, running her hand around like a half-dead Russell Crow at the end of Gladiator.

Nato,

maybe Theresa May can go and sort out American politics the same way that she sorted ours out for us.

You know, Andy, as an American, I'm still, I'm on a steep learning curve about your bullshit country and its political system.

So,

you know, I mean, I think first of all, Theresa May is a, I don't know what she's getting at such a bad rap about.

She's a better dancer than I am.

You know, she shouldn't have come out to the song

Dancing Queen.

She should have walked out to a more appropriate song to her station.

you know, dancing shadow home secretary or something.

But

about Theresa May, Damien Green said, quote, she uses the Commons to promote what she wants to promote.

She's not over-interfering, but is talking sense.

To me, that's not a description of a former Prime Minister.

That's a description of a serial killer by their neighbour.

Theresa May, I mean, she got a lot of criticism as Prime Minister.

I think, to be fair to her, she did inherit a very difficult situation after the Brexit votes.

But I don't think she played it.

The way I see Theresa May as Prime Minister was like a golfer in a four balls game four Soms game where you take alternate shots and her partner has just like shanked it way off to the right it's gone behind some trees is in a nasty ditch her partner's then run off the course giggling to sit in his

shed and

not disappear quite as much as he might have done and she's so she's there very tricky lie she's got a really difficult angle instantly she's got a tiny little gap in the trees she's sat down there was a really terrible lie there's like loose loose wood and everything and she can't quite say there's a nasty breeze coming left to right as well.

She's got to get it over a lake and then down onto the green and then stop it before it runs off into the bunkers.

At the back, it's a really, really difficult shot.

So she kind of lines up behind it, talks to her cat about exactly what is the right club to use.

And then she goes out and walks onto the fairway, just tries to get some mental image of the arc of the ball that she wants to achieve.

And then she goes back and takes another look up through the trees.

She's got to test the wind one final time just to make sure that she's got all the calibration absolutely perfect for this shot.

And then she stands over the ball once again and she walks over to her golf bag and takes out a sledgehammer and hammers the ball over and over again into the ground, shouting, get in the hole.

So

that is how I would explain the Theresa May Prime Ministership.

Bit of sport.

Right.

Bees.

I like the fact that while the bee sound was on, you had the graphic of Marjorie Taylor Green just buzzing like a.

Yeah, I think it's the most coherent thing she's ever said, to be honest.

Here she is again.

Are you bees fans?

No, not my, no, not for me.

I mean, that's to me, the bee, and in fact, all insects are proof of the non-existence of God.

Or God just being fing lazy and letting that shit through the net.

But some very alarming news from the bee community, that humans are being overtaken by bees, because scientists have proved that bees can learn lessons from other bees.

to make things better for themselves.

Now, that's a quality that we humans, it's hard to believe now, were once thought to possess.

So bees could be the next breakthrough species to develop a a complex culture like humans once did.

This could involve bee society evolving to create things once thought to be exclusively the

preserve of humanity, such as cave paintings, bingo and racism.

So Alice, I know

you've been our bee correspondent for quite a long time on the bugle.

This must justify everything you've devoted your life to for bee rights.

Andy, I find this enraging.

All these scientific studies trying to humanize bees so we'll value these load-bearing pillars of our precariously balanced ecosystem for their essential pollinating work.

Ooh, they can cooperate.

Ooh, they can do maths.

They have nothing on humans.

They will never be humans, Andy.

They should stop trying.

It's pathetic.

I will attribute human qualities to bees when they can do things actual humans can do, like hold a grudge for 20 years or cheat on their wives or their taxes.

Cooperation, maths.

I can't do maths and I only cooperate on a good day.

F ⁇ that.

Give me bees with a pathological desire to people please.

Give me bees who hate their bitch aunt.

Give me bees with lipstick on their collars phoning the queen to say they're stuck at flower office and not to wait up for them.

Give me bees accidentally texting God I load that to the c they just flew away from.

Then I will believe in the humanity of a bee, Andy.

Someone had to say it.

It's about time someone took those fers down a peg or two, to be honest.

Josh, do you think bees will remain legal in America?

Oh, yeah, but you can shoot them with a gun if they get too close to you.

Yeah, it is, this is tough.

I mean, and this is, this is, again, something we knew for a long time.

Bees, of course, can work together for complex tasks.

They make honey perfectly every time.

I don't have that kind of track record when I cook.

I completely go, oh, shit, forgot the pollen.

Never once.

And we can't stop using bee pesticides, right?

They're saying we have to stop using bee pesticides because we know more about bees and they're more human.

I'm with Alice.

We can't stop using these pesticides because now that we know what these bees are capable of, we have to wipe them all out.

We cannot let the living bees with memories of what we've done to their ancestors survive because they will team up, they will collaborate, and they will wreak vengeance upon the human race.

That's what I mean we are locked in.

I mean, the quickest way for bees to wreak vengeance on the human race is by killing themselves, which is what bees do when they try to wreak vengeance.

So I feel like this is fair.

And we are locked in an evolutionary race.

We are still currently top dog, ahead, even of the dog after whom the position was named.

But this is further evidence that they're catching us up.

So, in this experiment, the bees volunteered, I think,

to

take part in an experiment where, in order to gain access to a treat, which was some sugared water, they had to push a blue lever, then a red lever, which is a slightly more complex testing procedure than the Conservative Party used for vetting potential prime ministers.

But yeah, I mean, so, I mean, but it's interesting that they will catch us up.

I mean, I don't know what the bee ceiling is.

I mean, can they learn other things that generally set us apart from animals?

Obviously, they've already mastered a slavish adherence to an outdated monarchical system.

We taught them very well on that one.

But could they develop means of killing millions of other bees at the simple press of a button or the propensity to share videos of other bees without their underpants on?

I still think they've got that.

Or even could they invent really stupid games with really stupid rules that take way too long that some really stupid people take far too so who the f wrote this shit

into my script

in other bee news um

uh Labour the Labour Party has promised to end exemptions for bee-killing pesticides that have been outlawed in the European Union, but which the current government has approved for four years in a row, which is a glorious benefit of Brexit.

A more poisonous countryside, to go with our more poisonous society, the government authorized the use of

thiamethoxam,

which is also known as Cruiser SB, which I think was your hip-hop name, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was, yeah.

And

but I mean, this is basically

the only discernible change since Brexit, I think, is the fact that we can now poison more of our bees for fun.

So, was it all worth it?

Are you Brexit fans here in Cambridge?

Really?

No, that's very much what the rest of Britain thinks.

Even a young Australian baby basically expresses our nation's views on Brexit, I think.

Andy, so many of these conservative environmental policies are like the new diet of policy reform, where they're like, yeah, yeah,

we know that cigarettes are killing us and we have just been diagnosed with the black lung, but we did just buy a duty-free carton on our way back from Thailand, so we might as well quit after we finish that pack.

Thank you for listening.

Our live talk continues this weekend on Saturday, the 16th of March, at the Warwick Arts Centre, then on the 24th in Leeds, the 28th in Edinburgh, and the 30th at the Lowry in Salford.

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Find them on the internet.

Oh, hang on, that's a more efficient way of plugging stuff.

Yeah,

I'll just leave that with you.

Yep.

Until 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.