Shafts Of Hope: Pikachu Rampage

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4278 of The Bugle which is not only the last best hope of earth but also the podcast voted most likely to misuse Abraham Lincoln quotations in the first minute of a show.

I'm Andy Zaltzman and this is a podcast very much performed, produced and listened to predominantly by human beings, meaning it is a show of the people, by the people, for the people.

Come on, we want to cling on to that title.

Let's meet our co-hosts.

Now I've always believed that in times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.

Therefore, we've booked two women as our co-hosts this week.

Three out of three.

Take that, Lincoln, you great big stringy old hat-wearing, hipster-bearded, memorial-dwelling dwelling, quotation, chundering, trip to the theater, ruining loom.

You've been schooled.

Anyway, we have to try to find some light in the world's darkness this week.

We have Rielina and Tiffany Stevenson.

Welcome back to the Bugle, both of you.

How are you?

Good.

I mean, to be fair to Lincoln, I don't think the play was that great before he got shot.

I love that we could rewrite that as now being like, this is how you ruin a play, get assassinated.

So rude.

Or did it make it better?

Did everyone go, ooh, finally, finally, some drama?

Yes.

Oh, they've really broken the fourth wall with this one.

It's all out into the audience.

I mean, don't include this in the final record if it's too soon by any means.

That makes me laugh because I did a show, was it last night or maybe at the weekend?

And

I said we were heading into an apocalypse.

And I said, you always know when you're heading into apocalypse because comedy is booming.

I bet it was a right laugh the night before Pompeii.

And a woman in the audience went, oh no.

And I was like, too soon too soon to do the Pompeii jokes

we are recording on the 23rd of October 2023 on the 22nd of October 4004 BC well that was the date the world was created according to the Bible and also according to James Usher the thinking chronologists mid 17th century primate primate of all Ireland, who put all the evidence together available at the time to conclude that the world was launched around 6pm on the 22nd of October 4004 BC.

I mean if you're going to launch a new planet,

would you do it at 6pm?

Do you not want to

get the

morning news cycle?

6pm seems a weird time to...

And 2210.

It doesn't really have a ring to it, does it?

2210.

I don't know.

Maybe they were aiming for an early bird special or something.

It's possible.

Get in at six and give us something to eat.

That's most of Monday gone, isn't it?

Because it was a Monday, wasn't it?

It was.

Yes, it would have been a Monday, wouldn't it?

It would have been a Monday.

That's most of it.

Although, to be fair, maybe God was, you know, how he probably was procrastinating.

You know what I mean?

You get up on a Monday and you're like, oh, I really need to create Earth today.

Oh, I'm just going to make a cup of tea first.

I'm just going to, you know, go through my mail.

Maybe Bob Geldorf had had a word in his ear.

He said, I don't like Mondays, so just move it.

Like, if we could have half of it, half a day, we'd be better.

Or maybe that was the smallest job, and he's like, I don't need a full day for this job.

So it just went, boom.

By seven, he was done.

He was having tea.

Yeah, it's possible.

I mean, just

6 p.m.

this time of year, just as the sun was starting to go down, or as we now know, just as the sun was staying exactly where it was and the brand new earth chose for whatever reason to rotate in a west to east direction.

If it had gone the other way, we'd have had evening in the the mornings and mornings in the evenings.

And I think breakfast would have been our evening meal upon such threads.

There's nothing wrong with pancakes at night.

I'm sorry, we all do it once a year.

I don't, you know, we can do it the rest of the year.

But also, wasn't Monday the day he created the sun?

Oh, that's a good.

I'm a bit rusty, to be honest.

How dare you?

It's the only half of the book you're supposed to know.

You know, it's right at the beginning.

Oh, I forgot a lot.

I've forgotten it all by the end.

I like the fact that it was just arbitrary.

I'm going to spin this way or I'm going to spin this way.

You can't tell a girl what to do.

6pm, end of a long working day.

It sounds like someone just hacked out an imperfect planet to meet a deadline.

I'm not saying he should have worked unpaid overtime, but maybe it would have been better to admit I haven't finished this yet.

It's a bigger project than I was anticipating.

It's more complicated than the other planets that, frankly, are hacked together in no time because I couldn't be asked to make them even slightly inhabitable.

I mean, you know, that's a very male attitude.

So if we do need need proof that God is male, I think the fact that he just launched Earth at 6 p.m.

on the 22nd of October is probably the final, uh, the final proof that we possibly need.

Um, did God have ADHD?

Is that what you're telling me?

Yeah, that's why they all have this half-star.

Yeah,

um, I'm going to go do another one now.

I'm bored.

It should be said for the sake of balance that some experts have cast doubts on the 6 p.m.

22nd of October 4004 BC date.

Why?

No, I took it as gospel.

Suggesting it might have been wrong by somewhere in the 100 million percent region, give or take.

Others claim the official launch might actually have been at 9.30 a.m.

on the 23rd of October 4004 BC and that God merely put the Earth in position at 6 p.m.

on the 22nd in order to be ready for the Gala launch the following morning, even though he hadn't actually invented mornings at that point.

I think I'm right in saying.

The launch was not without its problems, of course.

No, the Gala launch was on the Sunday.

Oh, right, okay.

You really are rusty.

I'm very, very rusty.

God, of course, spent much of the next week adding various bits of functionality to his new orbs, such as day and night, land and sea, the sun and the moon, plants, animals, wasps, why, the groove, base, snark, mystery, and all the form,

and trains, which were withheld after issues arising from the lack of tracks at the time.

But it wasn't long before things started going wrong for the world, as God got impatient and made a couple of nudie people to keep himself entertained.

And the rest is unremittingly squabbly history.

And just over 6,000 years later, here we are, and everything is pretty much f.

The moral of the story, take your fing time.

On the 23rd of October, 1940.

It really brings a new meaning to the phrase garden snake, because

if they didn't have trousers,

and everything is run by Apple.

Well, there you go.

Some things never changed.

It was predicted in the beginning.

Well, because

in the beginning was Word.

That was Microsoft initially, and then, of course, Apple came in.

23rd of October 1947, celebrity animator Walt Disney testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The committee was trying to find out people who indulged in un-American activities, such as compromising, respectfully listening to other people's views, cricket, and ordering a small-size soft drink.

And communism, of course.

Disney named his own employees that he believed to be communists, including Donald Duck, the nephew of arch capitalist Scrooge McDuck.

Often goes that way in families.

Goofy, the cartoon dog.

Not sure there was much evidence of that, more than the fact that he wore a turtleneck and a hat.

Oswald the lucky rabbit.

Of course, was originally Oswald the idealistic rabbit.

Pinocchio, a straight out of the Stalinist Ministry for Truth, and Eeyore

from the Winnie the Pooh Disney cartoon.

Eeyore, short, of course, for egalitarianism transmuting inevitably into authoritarianism.

Anyway, all up for before the beak, thanks to Walt Disney.

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

This week, new world records.

There was a sensational world record set a couple of weeks ago for the world's largest ever pumpkin.

We will have more pumpkin news later.

That is a phrase I never thought I'd hear myself say.

We look

at

other records that could be set in the rest of this year, including most simultaneous utterances of the phrase, oh God, we're doomed, most sincere use of the phrase, I'm sure it will all turn out for the best, longest strand of spaghetti, that's contingent on a court case that allows

an Italian train company to define the new Milan to Beijing railway as pasta for tax purposes.

And most...

most abuse disseminated on social media.

New record, the social media user at2true4U has clocked up his or her or their, sorry, definitely his, 350,000 different individual abused via social media platforms, a total of 3.7 million discrete individual insults, threats and sundry other vituperances, which have been delivered at a rate of around 500 per day since AP2 True4U first logged into MySpace in 2003 and realised quite how much easier and less risky it had become to dispense viciously worded personal infections rather than his previous method of waiting for a train or bus to reach his next stop, swearing at someone and then jumping off.

At True4U tweeted, sorry, Xed that he was humbled to be the new record holder, although the previous record holder, ATT Mr.

Reality Hammer, X'd in response that at TooTrue4U should have crawled under a rock and died.

Records to look out for next year include Least Dignified Election Campaign.

That section in the bin.

Oh,

it feels like quite a long start, that

I mean, it was a big bin, wasn't it?

It's a really big bin.

Big bin.

And it's on fire.

So

I often find, I don't know if you find this as well, well, that when the news is as it is now, and I think we can fairly say this, difficult for comedy,

I find it much easier to write shitloads of bullshit.

So that might explain why that beginning was so long this week.

Top story this week and yes, it's unfortunately still the same top story as it was last week and the same top story as it'll be for the foreseeable future and it remains, as I said, awkward to talk about on a comedy show

as we talked about last week, quite how awkward it is.

The Middle East situation has not, sadly, been magically fixed by a visitation from, I don't know, God coming out of retirement and clarifying exactly whose bit is whose.

So it's...

Well, hang on.

Biden's old, but I know he's not God.

Well, Simon Evans on the news quiz last week pointed out that Joe Biden is literally older than Israel

Yes.

Mind-blowing, but he had like six years or something.

So he visited

and

use some curious language.

He described Hamas as the other team at one point.

And I don't know if he's just trying to appeal to sports fans to stop them watching the sport and pay attention to the world's leading crisis instead.

But the other team,

that's a curious way of putting it in these difficult times.

and he also made a prediction that

Well even by the standards of an octogenarian whose grasp on reality is maybe not quite what would be optimal for a leader of the world's most powerful country predicted that freedom will win which was I mean one of the most wildly optimistic predictions I've ever heard.

I mean that's I think freedom at the moment is about a hundred to one in the betting

It's pretty hard to see how it can win.

He did say the terrorists will not win and I agree with that because terrorists never win, they just share defeats more

widely.

But free, and I'm a huge fan of freedom, it's been one of my favourite hobbies throughout my adult life.

I really hope the big F can do it, and I admire the old man's optimisms.

But

it seems unlikely.

I mean, we don't need to go into too much detail on this, but as comedians and citizens of this planet,

how have you dealt with the last two weeks?

This social media situation, I think is out of control.

So, when it sort of first happened, I was like, okay, so sort of cautiousness, and then everyone's throwing an opinion and speaking, and you're like, please stop speaking.

Now we've moved into a phase where,

you know, people are saying, actually, you can't get it wrong, so speak up.

If you have a platform, you should speak up.

It's your responsibility, followed by a list of examples where people have got it wrong and how they should all fk off and die.

So it's a bit of a, it feels like a bit of an impossible situation to mention anything without mentioning everything.

Yes.

Yeah, no, I do.

I'd agree with that.

And yeah,

it's basically impossible, I think, to

get everything right.

If you only say one thing, then everyone that you didn't say something for is going to attack you for not saying it.

But if you say everything,

A, you're going to be shadow banned.

There goes your platform.

But B,

you know, you're going to,

if you say nothing, you're going to be in trouble.

If you say one thing, you're going to be in trouble.

If you say everything, then no one's going to trust that you're not just looking for attention on social media so there's there's no win in this situation well rishi went as well didn't he which is like sending in rishi sunak to broker peace in the middle east is like sending in a supply teacher to break up a school fight you know no one respects him he's going to get wedgied yes and by both teams

he sort of turned up in the middle east and it was nice of the you know both israeli and palestinian leaders to take some time to give him advice on how to deal with the infighting in the conservative party and offer to send peacekeeping forces for the next time they have a leadership election.

That was kind of touching

given how busy they are at the moment.

He tagged in for Biden, essentially, after Biden had...

Biden had also said he urged Israel not to be consumed by rage,

which history suggests is much easier said than done by quite a large margin.

And also being told by someone who lives in 2020s America not to be consumed by rage is like being told by Mariah Kerry not to sing quite so many notes or by a flamingo not spend so much time standing on one leg.

America as a nation, I think, sets a bad example

in that regard.

Maybe his freedom comment was almost him passing a very difficult ball to Rishi.

You know, freedom will win.

Deal with that, Rishi.

Go on, pick that up.

Well, Rishi then said to Netanyahu, I hope you win.

It's not clear if he meant he hopes he wins his war or his motherload of court cases.

It's possible, it's possible both.

And he also said, I know that you are taking every precaution to avoid harming civilians in direct contrast to the terrorists of hamas and i think even netanyahu looked a bit surprised by that and possibly whispered into sunak say did you mean every because i mean it's quite clearly not not not every uh precaution um it's uh and i think what i found also is that you know i've never been very good at multitasking i'm you know i have basically a maximum of two, possibly three skills in life, if you count making a very good Carbonara as one of them.

But I have found that I'm better at one aspect of multitasking, which is that I can think more than one thing is appalling at the same time.

And as you say, on social media, a lot of people don't seem to have evolved that capability quite yet.

Yeah, there needs to be a paper clip.

You know, like the paper clip that goes, it looks like you're trying to write a letter, can I help?

You need a paper clip that says, it looks like you're engaging in what a battery?

Can I help?

Like, I've thought that way before, you you know, this recent round.

But it just,

when you said there that Rishi had tagged in for Biden, it made me think of them as like a wrestling team.

And now I need mind bleach to get the idea of

Rishi Zunak and Joe Biden.

In those little, in those little

deotard things.

I love

Biden taking a chair and like smashing it.

The first thing I thought when I saw that Rishi had gone was, oh, I bet he took a private plane.

That's how much I've been geared to just hate him traveling, is just going, oh, oh, and how did you get there?

Should have walked, taken a small boat, mate.

For those wanting,

like, well, certainly me, to find things to take your mind off global problems, a few suggestions from the Bugle,

other than the obvious of watching as much sport as humanly possible.

One, option one is to calculate the volume of things.

Have you ever wondered what the volume of an orange is or maybe of a medium-sized dog?

Perhaps you've long been curious about the volume and litres of a lamppost, a bollard or a hedge?

Well if you haven't now might be a good time to start doing some calculations because it's going to be a lot more fing fun than sitting down to watch the latest update from our Middle East correspondent, sad-faced Brian.

Alternatively, option two is to wonder about sports stars whose names sound most like brand names or diseases.

Was Dutch footballer Romeo Zondervan the biggest rival to the Ford Transit in its early days?

Have they ever found a cure for Vetus geralitis?

And is a scalk burger truly edible?

Alternatively, option three, learn to play the sitar.

Now, the reason I say this is that it was my birthday recently, and I saw my brother at the weekend and he gave me a sitar.

It was not a present I was expecting.

Sitar is quite a chunky instrument.

He'd picked it up in an antique shop.

Now I play very, very rudimentary guitar, but I thought, what a weird present.

And I thought, well, I mean, it's a notoriously complicated instrument, the sitar.

He knows that, you know,

at times like this,

I struggle consuming too much news.

He's given me something that would take me, I think could take me out of circulation for five years trying to learn the sitar.

Have any of you ever given it a go?

No, No, I love the sound of it.

Well, not if you've heard me attempt to play my new sitar, you wouldn't.

We've got

unplayed banjos in this house, which is a great band name.

Some people know I play the ukulele, and that's where my stringed instrument journey will stop.

Four strings is sufficient.

I do not understand how guitars work when you only have five fingers and they have six strings.

Like, I just, I still, I mean, I'm good at maths, and yet that blows my mind.

So, no, the sitars.

Well, the sitar seems to have about 20 strings on it.

Yeah, exactly.

It's voodoo.

It's magic.

I don't understand.

Anyway, over the next five years, I'll take you through my journey of failing to learn how to play the sitar.

I think every episode you should do a couple of strums or something, and we can just hear it evolve over time.

Just a quick question on behalf of the listener.

When we're calculating the volume of things,

are we literally imagining the lamppost as hollow and filling it with water, or are are we imagining the entire lamppost being replaced by liquid?

And are we assuming water so it's a one-to-one ratio of

just just just for those that are questioning how we do that particularly?

You bring a scientist's approach to this.

I hadn't really thought that much.

I'll maybe just put it in a bath and see how much water is displaced.

You have to get a lamppost shape.

You know what?

That is a great answer.

That is a perfect.

That answers everything.

Well done.

I am off to find a very large bathtub.

Also, just the other thing, because some listeners will be irritated by this, and I know I am.

Goofy is a dog, but Pluto is also a dog.

And one is a pet, and the other one's anthropomorphized.

So Disney had a lot more to answer for than just communism.

And I just want to put that out there.

Pluto's the pet, right?

Yes, but they're both dogs.

Why does one get to talk and the other one is just a dog?

Well,

I don't know.

That's, I don't know, maybe that's a satire on communism in itself.

Right.

Yeah, some of us are more, some we're all equal, but some of us are more equal than other others.

Other news now.

So we're going to try and find some little shafts of hope, of optimism or distraction over the course of the rest of this show.

Let's start with some new research.

Now, we talk a lot about what researchers found on the bugle.

And, you know, some research is worthwhile,

other research, less worthwhile.

I mean, is this bit of research going to be one of the useful ones, like another vaccine for malaria?

Or is it going to be something like carrots grow faster if you play them 1980s pot pits?

Or if you leave a gibbon alone in a room with a photocopier, at some point, it will photocopy its own arse.

Or if you accidentally pick a pack lunch in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and whiz it around for half an hour, you might destroy the planet, but you might also end up with a surprisingly drinkable smoothie.

Well, I don't know where this new piece of research is gonna is gonna sit on that continuum of research pointlessness.

But they found that people pay less attention to tasks if they're working alongside a robot.

Now, Ria, as I said, you are a scientist,

a qualified scientist,

the best kind of scientist.

Well, you know what?

A robot did my thesis, so does it count?

I mean,

is this surprising what they found here?

That

people pay less attention if they think a robot is doing it for them?

Well, do you know what?

I mean, when you actually look into the study, so this is about something called social loafing, which is what we already do when we're working in a team and we think someone else will do more of the work for us and we can still take credit.

So we already already socially loaf

as a species.

It's the main reason I hated teamwork in school because I was the one that did all the work and then I had to share the credit.

But then they thought, ooh, will humans see themselves as above robots?

Will they trust a robot?

Will they socially loaf with a robot?

And what they found is, is that if they first made the robot look like it was doing a good job, then people would socially loaf.

And it doesn't blow my mind.

I'm like, really?

Oh, no.

I mean, but we're trained.

We're trained to actually give things over to technology.

I mean, when I was growing up as a kid, I had, I don't know, at least a dozen telephone numbers memorized, all my friends' landlines and all that.

Now, couldn't remember, I couldn't tell you a single friend's telephone number.

I struggle to remember my kids' phone numbers, and I need those.

I mean, the day we were all handed a calculator and

wrote the word boobs on it was the day that we handed over any kind of autonomy in trusting our own.

And this

is the difference.

This is the difference between you and me, Tiff, is that you got a calculator and you wrote boobs, but I got a calculator and I wrote boobless because

we are digital.

They got those seven, three, and extra fives, and I forgot about those.

Yeah, I get all, you know, we're already working.

What's interesting about this is the idea that we're like leaving the robots to do it, but we're actually working for the robots already.

Right now, we are, we are training them.

We are working for them.

When you're going to Google Capture, that's literally just going human eyes, like training the robots to recognize that's a traffic light, that's a motorbike, that's a bridge, that's a sign.

You know,

we're already working for them.

I already receive all my messages from the machines.

Like, sometimes I feel like they're trying to insult me.

Actually, my handbag the other day was so heavy when I put it on the front seat of the car, it came up with a message that I needed to,

the passenger needed to put their seatbelt on.

My handbag is so full of crap.

But, you know, sometimes I'll go to the, I'll tap my oyster card and it'll say incomplete journey.

And I view that as spiritual advice.

So that's where I get most of my modern philosophy.

If the computer says accept cookies, I'm going to have cookies.

This is, I just, I'm taking it all on.

I mean, am I the only one that has a higher expectation of robots than people?

Well, no.

I mean,

surely.

This doesn't surprise me as a study.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what robots are for, isn't it?

I mean, to do stuff better, better than us.

At least that's what they're for in the current interim period between us inventing them specifically so we can slack off and them taking over the planet and making our children and their children work their asses off for them.

So, I mean, that's we're in the sweet spot right now, aren't we?

I'm sorry, but I mean, again, as a tech geek, as an autistic, I do not think we'll be working for the robots in the future because the robots wouldn't have us.

Have you seen us?

We're inconsistent.

We have no attention spans.

What robot would go and we will get the humans to do some of these jobs?

Good point.

That's a good point.

I know, you know, also, you know, maybe we'll be used as a power source.

Alternative.

They'll be plugging in and charging from us.

Giant hamster wheel with all of humanity on it.

That could work.

But will it be an onshore hamster wheel or an offshore hamster wheel?

You can't have an offshore hamster, can you?

That's lethal.

Isn't that a beaver?

Beavers don't live in the sea.

What would be the version of a hamster?

What's the closest then to a.

What is that?

The hamster of the sea.

I mean, you don't really get...

What is the hamster of the sea?

It's got to be a puffer fish, because when a hamster puts all that food in its mouth,

just like a puffer fish.

But that's not a great thing to put on your poster as a species, is it?

The hamster of the sea.

Otter.

An otter.

I think there's still freshwater.

No, no, otters.

Otters are.

You get sea otters.

You do get sea otters.

Sea otters.

Oh, yeah, okay.

I've seen those guys.

Yeah, they're chunky.

They can be quite vicious, but they're also very cute.

Yep.

So.

Like a hamster.

I mean, well, you know what?

You cannot be distracted by the cuteness.

That's how Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister.

We go and oh, Dishi Rishi.

What was he called Dishi Rishi?

He was.

During the pandemic.

I think it was the eat out to help out that gave me that.

But I mean, of course, this happens that we rely on technology.

I know, you know, if there is a toaster in my kitchen, I put less effort into glaring at the bread, so the intensity of my stare turns it to a crisp.

We rely on technology.

And also, there are other things.

But the toaster makes you take it out and butter it yourself.

There are other things that make people pay less attention at their desks

from my 11.5-month experience of having an actual job, one of which is having a TV in your office that your boss couldn't see and there being sport on that TV.

Another was not giving a flying f ⁇ k about your job.

And also, another thing was thinking that your job, your boss, and your company were all complete waste of time and indeed space.

So those also dipped the productivity level I found.

Pokémon news now and

well Mayhem in Amsterdam due to

a clash of civilizations between Vincent Van Gogh, the celebrity painter from the late 19th century, and Pokémons.

This was after a fictional cartoon, Weird Tailed Pseudo-Rodent, brought the Van Gogh Museum to an absolute standstill.

They had to stop selling

limited edition Pokemon cards of Pikachu in the style of Vincent Van Gogh's self-portrait with a grey felt hat because it caused safety concerns due to the...

I don't know how to describe this.

I mean, Mayhem

seems appropriate.

But people were so desperate to get

these limited edition Pokemon cards that they brought an art gallery to a complete standstill.

Is this the logical end point of all human civilization?

Can we ever look ourselves in the face as a species again and think we are worth persevering with if

we end up with scenes of violence over

Pikachu dressed as Vincent van Gogh?

Well, listen, he can rock a grey felt hat.

I think, you know, like, can he wear it?

Is he slaying?

Yes, Pikachu is slaying.

it was actually a free card they gave away after a treasure hunt, so that's what people were going mad for.

So, you had to go and visit the exhibition, which is quite clever, you know, do the treasure hunt, and and now they've stopped.

But I sort of think of the museum, oh,

we got too popular, and everyone was having too much fun.

Art should not be fun.

That's what that sort of feels like.

Like, there were kids who were going who'd never been, in spite of living right next to the museum.

So, if they get to see Pokemon and they get to see Van Gogh, that's that's a good idea.

Like,

I think there should be more of that, like, engaging kids' stuff with art.

Like, imagine if the Muppets recreated some of the Masters, like, I'd buy all of those, or like a garbage pail kids' version of The Last Supper, and the Apostles would be like Cheetah Peter, Junk Food, John, and Splat Matt.

That would be amazing.

I want someone make that, please.

Um, so, but I did think whatever connects people to the classics is is a good thing, right?

You know,

why are they complaining?

It's too popular.

I have to say, my first instinct was despair that this is where we have to sing to to get people to come into a museum

is to combine it with Pokemon.

It blows my mind that there were people who lived next door that went, yeah, we never thought about going until Pokemon came to town.

So I don't know.

I mean, but at the same time, I think you're right, Tiff, I would go to the portrait.

I live near the portrait gallery, the National Portrait Gallery.

I've never been in, and you're right if they'd put more interesting people in there.

I don't need to see the Queen seven times.

I've got stamps.

You know what I mean?

Look, how many people buy the pictures of dogs dressed as royalty or cats as kings and queens?

No, you're not wrong.

You're not wrong.

I mean,

if they put all the memes, if they had a meme gallery, I'd go to that.

So I'm, you know, I'm as bad as

my judgment.

I went to the Magritte Museum when I was in Brussels, and that was incredible.

But, you know, I'm, you know, yeah, like, if you're someone that loves it, then you'll seek it out.

But if you, in terms of engaging new people and just how we

do, like, you're like, you know, like an art gallery, a picture is like a meme that you could just stare at for 90 seconds.

Instead, a painting is like a meme you could stare at.

I particularly liked at the Magritte Museum, the Sussi Nepin and Tamagotchi.

It's a particularly moving piece i thought

um does it who who keeps it alive overnight oh i don't know

well it's not a tamagotchi is it it's just a it's just a painting of a tamagotchi

um so it's forever alive but also forever dead well that's now shroding as tamagotchi tamagotchi the irony of art uh well someone from the uh the van gogh museum

said it's even busier than the vermeer and you've got to feel sorry for poor old Johnny Vermeer, slogged his painty guts out in the mid-17th century trying to perfect his art, his craft, dying in debt, only achieving true fame a couple of hundred years after he lived.

Now finding himself on the undercard to some fictional cartoon characters who couldn't paint a pearl earring if their non-existent lives depended on it.

What a waste.

What a waste of a life.

I'm fine with all of it as long as Pikachu doesn't slice his own ear off.

Okay, I was just worried about the state of his mental health.

From what I remember about the Pokemons, there was one called Bulbasaur, who was squat, reptilian and stubborn, which I thought was an obvious parody of Vladimir Putin.

There was Ivysaw, who I think was implicated in the Kennedy hit from memory.

Because I was reading a book at the same time.

I can't quite remember.

There was one called Del Catty, which apparently prefers to live completely free of priorities, doing only what it pleases at its own pace.

And I think the influence of that led to Boris Johnson Johnson becoming Prime Minister.

You can draw the dots between that fairly.

There was Priapico, the horniest of the Pokemon.

Horniest?

Yeah.

That was, unfortunately, that was decommissioned after it flashed into Thank you Phoenix at a bust.

But, anyways, I can't remember exactly.

I'd go and see that artwork.

Moving on now to priest versus pumpkin news and well, I mean this is a rivalry as old as time itself.

A parish priest has had to apologise to local children in the Czech Republic after stamping all over Halloween pumpkins near his church, claiming that he was protecting the children

by removing satanic symbols,

which, I mean...

Is that not a slight overreaction to a Halloween pumpkin?

I mean, how quite how...

Also, as long-term buglers will know, I mean, the research we've done on this show shows that Halloween was in fact a Christian festival and goes back to

when a teenage Jesus turned his mate's head into a pumpkin and then told the power of a sexy nurse.

It's my favourite time of the year.

This is where the Scots and the Irish argue over who invented Halloween while the Americans get furious in the comments.

It's a fun time to sit back and watch that.

But also, what you have to remember, Andy, about this, you think this is an overreaction, but pumpkin spice lattes are at a premium right now.

So you just got to do what you can.

He could be in with Big Pumpkin.

He could be in with Starbucks.

They are the spice melange of basic Instagram posts at this time of the year, you know.

I mean,

it's quite an impressive display, really, wouldn't you?

So, because I'm looking at the photos, there's quite a lot of pumpkins there, and he's really gone at them hard.

And you know what?

I'm going to be honest, I'm relieved.

So, the Czech Republic, no, it's Checha now, isn't it?

Checha is not known for being that religious.

So here we have this random Catholic priest in the middle of Checha trying to protect children from evil.

And normally they are the evil, aren't they?

The Catholic priests.

They are the evil

that put children in danger.

So the fact, I'm looking at the picture, and I'm relieved to see that he stamped on all of the pumpkins.

Because if he stamped on all of them but one or two, I'd be like, go check on those children and make sure they're okay.

Because that's a weird favoritism that he's displaying there.

So, luckily, he hates all children, and I think this is something that should be celebrated.

Well, you said earlier, Andy, about the football teams and stuff.

Do you think he was like,

you know, he's a priest.

He's like, listen, this is satanic.

I'm team God.

That's not my team.

And when it's not your team, people do mad stuff.

Like, and this is genuinely true.

Once,

I saw some Rangers fans, this is a European Cup final, and they were playing St.

Petersburg, I think.

I saw some Rangers fans kicking in a carling sign because it was green.

Right.

So you've got to think, like, if it's the opposing team, the level that people are willing to go to to

destroy the

memorabilia

and

is it would pumpkins be memorabilia of uh

like the um oh what's the word why can't i think of the word um what's all the stuff you buy Merch.

That's it.

Yes.

The other team's merchandise.

He's literally just destroying the other team's merchandise.

Yeah.

Wow.

I mean, I knew it happened in Ireland that they hate this whole orange

thing, but that it's made it all the way to Checha.

Yeah, I mean, it's...

He made an absolute mess of these bands.

Two days running, apparently.

As well.

I mean, looking at the photos, it's possible also that he didn't have anything to do with it and the pumpkins just played rugby against each other.

That is also a possibility.

We'll have to wait for the forensics to come back.

I think his foot mark and his and his, well, more importantly, his confession,

something that they do a lot of in the Catholic Church.

I think that kind of closed the case there, Andy.

Yeah, I guess so.

I mean, that would be a weird thing to hear in confession, wouldn't it?

I've smashed up a pumpkin, really.

Do you think he runs between the two boxes when he confesses to himself or does he just stay in the one box?

Because now, you know, given what we now know a lot of Catholic priests have done, there must be a sort of rotating confession box where it just automatically spins from one side to the other so that you can

confess to yourself.

I don't know if it had to do it at the speed of sound so that you could hear your own confession coming back into your, I don't know.

I've not thought of that.

I like the headline for this that just said,

Village priests sorry for smashing pumpkins.

and I was like they weren't that bad a band you'll have to come out and apologize

oh yeah there's other bands you you want to apologize for before that certainly

so I mentioned earlier on that a new world record was set for the largest ever pumpkin that was set in Minnesota by a Minnesota based pumpkin edition 1.4 tons

of pure pumpkin.

That is the superhero the world needs right now.

Slower than a speeding bullet, less powerful than a locomotive, unable to leap small buildings, let alone tall ones in a single bound, but heavier than a Ford Fiesta and knobbly, really, really knobbly.

£2,750 worth of pumpkins.

Another world record was set for the largest mosaic made of pumpkins this week in England.

10,000 pumpkins and squashes were involved in a mosaic.

I mean, it does feel like we are really reaching for ever more ludicrous world.

I mean, does that really count?

Largest mosaic of pumpkins?

I'm not sure.

Don't hate on the season, Andy.

Sorry.

You're hating on the season.

Get into it.

Have them.

Do what I do this time every year is have about five or six pumpkin lattes, forget that you've drunk them and then have a complete panic attack when you pee orange.

I think you're dying.

Does it make your pee go orange?

Yeah, like really, yeah.

I'd argue that that whatever is in your pumpkin spice latte has had very little to do with pumpkin,

but yeah, it is the it's the I kind of enjoy this time of year in Moswell Hill because the kids come around trickle-treating and they're so middle-class.

Like one year I had a girl knock on the door.

I gave her some chocolate and she said, Sorry, is this Cadbury's?

No, thanks.

No,

yes.

What was she wanting?

Green and blacks.

Is it?

Yeah, green and blacks, you know, give me something fancy.

Ritter sport sport or nothing.

Crime news now, and well, an exciting bit of crime in Poland, which police have arrested a man who pretended to be a mannequin, stood in a shop window until the shop had closed, and then stole stuff from the shop.

What was most impressive about it?

So he basically stood in the shop window holding a bag like a mannequin would.

What was most impressive about it was how little he looks like a mannequin.

Because mannequins generally quite smartly dressed, especially in a fucking clothes shop.

And this guy, look, I'm not in a position to give people fashion or smartness advice, but if you're going to pretend to be a mannequin, put some effort in.

Yeah, but smarten yourself up, smooth your face a bit,

sort your hair out.

Don't just stand there in a scruffy-looking t-shirt holding a bag.

It was pathetic for me.

I'm into this.

Did anyone else feel like this is a plot of an 80s romantic comedy?

Just a bloke trying to make a a woman fall in love with him while nothing's going to stop us now plays

i mean is this on the guy in the window or is this on everybody else who didn't notice yes you know what i mean like like

he did

how did he get away with that and you deserve to be stolen from if you don't notice that there is a breathing mannequin in your front window but i kind of think this guy's iconic and a legend because it wasn't just robbing from a jewelry store he also on another occasion it says, he went to a restaurant to eat before slipping under the roller shutters at the entrance to a store to swap his clothes for new ones.

This sounds like it's like a prank show.

Like, are we sure this is a genuine crime has happened?

Because I kind of like the refreshing old-school cat burglar vibe, you know?

It's funny that he does this trick in order to like steal clothing.

Because if he just came to Covent Garden, he could just stand still and make a fortune.

Elections news now, and well, let's stay in Poland for

the results of the recent Poland election.

And at the moment, we take any little morsel of hope here at the Bugle.

I will admit, I'm not intimately familiar with Polish politics, but any time I read the words, far-right populist party does less well than last time, I'm more than happy to jump on board.

The Polish election recently had a record turnout, 74%, the highest since the fall of communism.

85% of voters in Warsaw voted, and the right-wing Law and Justice Party looks set to lose its place as

Poland's government.

Despite getting more votes than any other party, it's going to be unable to form a coalition.

And Donald Tusk's civic coalition centrist party is set to lead a new government.

I mean

it's been a tough time to be not a fan of right-wing populist politics in the world in the last 10 years or so.

So at least this feels like a moment of light in what has been a difficult time for Europe as a continent and humanity as a species.

For me, what I thought was fascinating about this, which I thought was very clever, and I think we need to spread the word about this, is that the way that the opposition told their young, and first of all, it's younger voters.

It's younger voters that really came out en masse in larger numbers than they ever had before.

I think it was something like 68, 69% of them came out versus 46% in the last election.

But what they told them to do was deregister.

So they're all living in Warsaw, living their young, happy lives.

And they said, deregister from being a voter in Warsaw and go out and go to this constituency and that constituency and just

basically they did the opposite of gerrymandering and I love them for it.

They just went, screw gerrymandering, you go and register in all of these places.

So they all went and registered in different places.

They had to keep the polls open.

And I think the last vote was cast at 2.41 in the morning because they weren't expecting that many voters, but they had to keep the lines open.

And then the community came out and they were feeding people in the line.

And then pizza, you know, a pizza company came and gave everybody free pizza.

And then everyone went, oh my God, the pizza people, they're so nice.

So then they all gave the pizza company money.

And then the pizza company went, We don't need all this money.

So they gave it to charity.

Like it was this beautiful domino knock-on effect of positivity and wonderfulness.

And

they got the party that they didn't want out of government.

And I think it's important for people to know that, I mean, okay, we say far right.

And I suspect that most Bugos listening

were all on the same team, as as we've been saying in terms of not wanting them in but this particular party the PIS they wanted they almost completely banned abortion a couple of years ago.

They were not happy following EU rules and they were even making noises about taking Poland out of the EU.

And again, Poland, quite rightly, just went, excuse me, don't know if you saw what happened to the UK, but we're not happy with that decision, especially because

we need to work in places like that.

We often go out there and work in places like that.

But bottom line, I think that the take-home from the story is if you want to get a job done, hire the Polish because they get it done.

I was upset by the headline, which just said, women and youth force piss from power.

And I thought, could we work on that, guys?

As headlines go, not the greatest.

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

Thank you very much for listening.

We'll be back next week with Nish Kumar and Hari Kondabolu.

If you want to hear more of me, the News Quiz finishes its series this coming week and you can hear past episodes on BBC Sounds or after a few weeks on other podcast apps.

We will have news of some live bugle shows early next year, hopefully within the next week or two.

So watch this audio space.

We will have details on that very soon.

Tiff, anything to plug?

Well, you should listen to some episodes of Catharsis.

They're there.

They're out there

as part of the Bugle Network.

So have a listen to those.

Catch up on those.

I have some shows coming up, Old Rope, and also I'm in a film.

So if you like comedy, horror, go check out Slotherhouse.

It's out on Hulu in the US, I think, and

Paramount in the UK.

So

it's very silly and fun.

So, you know, it's Halloween.

So,

Rhea?

I am on tour.

Still sort of UK and Europe because I know a lot of people are listening from all over the world.

But please find me on social media and say hi anyway.

I'd love to say hi.

Every so often I have a bugler show up at a show and it's so exciting to meet you all in person.

But I'm going to be on tour.

I'm about to announce a whole bunch more dates around the UK and Europe.

So keep an eye out for that.

Thank you for listening, Buglers.

If you want to join the Bugle Voluntary subscription scheme to help keep this show free, flourishing and independent, go Go to thebuglepodcast.com.

And if you join as a premium-level voluntary subscriber, you will have exclusive subscriber-only access to our new monthly Ask Andy show, where I field all the questions you can possibly ask, apart from the ones I choose not to answer for reasons I'll keep to myself.

Anyway, so do do that.

Thank you for all of those who do contribute to the Bugle, and 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.