Why The F*** Not

Hello buglers and welcome back to The Bugle.

I am Andy Zoltzmann.

It is the 4th of September 2023.

Our summer hiatus is now itself, ironically, on hiatus until next summer.

And the Bugle is back to hold up the mirror to the world.

Before realising it's held up the mirror the wrong way around and then banging on about how backs of mirrors are not what they used to be.

Joining me to look at what September has offered us so far and any bits of August that they want to talk about fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Delighted to welcome back to the bugle Alice Fraser and Anu Vab Powell.

Hello to both of you.

Hello Andy, I don't know if anyone can be considered fresh off the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

I feel like Edinburgh Fringe Festival is guaranteed to make you look a little bit

worse for wear, a little bit worn around the edges,

a little bit stale, as it were.

That's what creativity is all about.

Finding the last drops of juice and the staleness of life.

Absolutely wrecking yourself for a month in pursuit of some vague concept of artistic integrity.

And you know, oddly, Alice Fraser and I ran into each other quite a lot at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Geographically, our shows were near each other and...

You were an object warning.

I would walk to you, you would be out of your show, and I would be walking to my show, and I would be full of hope for the possibilities of how the show would feel at the end of the show, and then I'd see you washed up on the shores.

Alice, I'm an object warning in my own house, let's live at the Edinburgh fringe.

I've been used for that purpose.

Yeah, I am what happens in the future, just a destroyed version of you.

However, I did find some hope, Andy, Alice, at the fringe.

I took half a day off.

I didn't want to be surrounded by artists and comedians because they're just always so hopeful.

So I went.

Not all of them.

I mean, can I bring to my own defense here?

I'd like to say I'm attempting to bring that average down.

This is true.

This is true, Andy.

There is some air of pessimism.

Not enough, but some.

I went down near the National Museum of Scotland to a place called Greyfriars Kirkyard.

I could or couldn't be pronouncing that correctly.

Point is, it's a massive graveyard.

And this was very popular in the early 20th century because surgeons, doctors, because Edinburgh was the birthplace of surgery, were running out of dead bodies.

So they would come find dead bodies, any dead bodies they could find, dig it up, and take it back into surgery.

And I realize for all the artists, like all of us thinking, where are our five-star reviews?

Where's our moment?

It could happen after we're dead.

Edinburgh is that kind of city.

I think we're expecting too much too soon by trying to seek fame and success within the mortal span of our life.

I mean, people obsess in Edinburgh about whatever review they're getting that particular day.

But it's good to see it in the grand perspective of how we will be judged by the winds of history.

Gravestone.

five stars a five a five-star life well lived and it's good that Edinburgh you know has both literal graveyards like um uh like the one you were talking about and of course the metaphorical graveyard of broken dreams as well um so it's got something for everyone um we are recording on the 4th of September 2023 making this the 357th anniversary of about the middle of the Great Fire of London, which raged from the 2nd to the 6th of September 1666.

So it was a good five-day fire, good proper test-match fire.

Modern audiences wouldn't have the patience for that now they want the whole city done and doused inside three hours ideally commentated on by some complete muppet with a social media profile but they did fires properly in those days and uh well as we look back now the finger of blame has been uh traditionally jabbed into the eye socket of a careless baker but new research published in the daily telegraph has suggested that the main culprit was in fact the woke uh so we might have to slightly reassess our view of uh what caused the uh the great fire of london with uh modern uh research techniques london of course was very different back then in 1666.

The impact of the disaster was exacerbated by inept political leadership and people blamed foreigners and immigrants with absolutely no evidence or grounds whatsoever.

Different times, different world.

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

Well a couple of sections in the bin.

We have an autumn section.

Since we're into September, this is a special for our listeners in non-tropical regions of the northern hemisphere, so do tune out if you don't live in one of those regions.

In our autumn section, we ask important questions about autumn as a season, including do leaves on deciduous trees stop being green just because they get bored?

Is having four seasons now passe?

Do modern weather consumers want a maximum of two or even one?

And if so, what can we do about it other than allowing the world to heat up to an extent where it's just a baking hot summer of death the entire year?

Which is the more metaphorical season?

Now, it's a big rivalry between spring and autumn historically.

And we finally have an answer.

Scientists have declared autumn winner winner of the most metaphorical season award by 53 to 48, winter 35, summer 19, for those interested in the result of the third place playoff.

And finally, we ask, is autumn actually autumn?

Or is it, as some people suggest, fall?

Well, the answer,

I mean, this question has divided the English-speaking world since the dawn of time.

And, well, it turns out that it is autumn.

because fall is a misnomer.

Most things, statistically, don't fall during autumn.

Leaves do, but most other things don't.

And many other things actually rise, heating bills, numbers of layers of clothing used, and ironically, the number of people falling over as they slip on partially mulched fallen leaves.

So, autumn is the winner.

Also, how does autumn rank in your favourite?

Obviously, you know, as a coming at it from an Australian perspective, you'd call it spring, I think, wouldn't you, Alice?

I mean, I would during your autumn, yes.

But of course, in Australia, the seasons are a little bit more roll the dice, have some fun, see what's on fire.

You know, they don't exactly map in the opposite, you know, in theory, they should be upside down of what's happening in the UK, but actually, they tend to be a little bit more jazz seasons, a little bit more exciting.

Just to map out for people who are planning on visiting Australia at any time, our traditional seasons go summer, summer, autumn, spiders, sudden floods, and everything's on fire.

Those are our five seasons.

So, and Anna, what do you know?

From your perspective perspective in in in India, um that I mean the seasons very very different there.

Yes, exactly.

And that's why I was going to suggest a new category.

Um, if you guys would consider it uh a just simple one, uh, totally fed

and how still there.

You know, so

I don't know if you noted with this Indian monsoons, large swaths of the state of Himachal Pradesh, mountainous regions, got swept away, like entire massive sides of mountains fell fell off, taking with it resorts, hotels, homes, hospitals.

So

if anyone was at the Edinburgh fringe, you know, any of those people would have returned to North India to find their mountain missing.

a little bit different than being stuck in Burning Man for three days.

So I don't know if that's a category that, given where the world is going, you know, it would be something that we would be looking at.

You know, like, yeah, entire city washed away versus still have a home.

Right.

Well, we can only write into the relevant seasonal authorities.

Also, in the mid-this week, it's the wildlife photographer of the year competition is currently currently on.

There's various exhibitions around the place.

And we give you the best of the audio photographs nominated for

the audio photography awards, the best descriptions of things happening in nature.

And you can choose the winner from the short list of finalists, which include a hummingbird in flight, looking like it hates the sound of humming, a foreshortened photograph of a giraffe and a termite that makes it look like the termite is bigger than the giraffe, a goldfish in a fish tank with an unmistakable, I only remember that I don't want to remember, look in its eye, a dolphin that has become entangled in some underwear discarded in the sea, a poignant metaphor for humankind's destruction of the natural world, but also surprisingly sexy, a bear cuddling an unwanted Barbie doll, and some coral shaped like an extended middle finger.

Do pick your favourite from those those audio photographs and tell it to whoever you're sitting next to at the time.

Those sections in the bin.

I'm just thinking all the art you describe just reminds me of, you know, someone visiting a shrink and being shown these photographs.

What does this dolphin remind you of?

A picture of a lion with an expression putting the roar into Rosha.

Top story this week: the G20 are meeting again.

It's another G20 summit, the annual Natashop Shindig for the powerhouse economies of the world.

19 countries plus the European Union.

I thought we voted them off in 2016.

I don't know how that comes, they're still on the roster.

So much for democracy.

These 20 G-rated organizations collectively account for 75% of the world's carbon emissions.

So strap in, the rest of the world, the non-G180od, are just going to have to sit back and take what they're given by this latest meeting.

And it's taking place in India,

chaired by the, I think we can safely say, opinion-splitting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Now, Anuvab, G20 summits began.

The first one was in 2008, after the founding of the Bugle, notably, suggesting that the launch of the Bugle in 2007 did foster a new age of disappointingly unproductive global meetings.

The last two were in Italy two years ago, 2021, Indonesia last year.

Now, India, three in a row for countries beginning with I.

And I think that's appropriate for summits where ultimately self-interest generally ends up trumping everything else.

It's the first time India have hosted it, Anuvab.

And Narendra Modi, who has the same attitude to social cohesion and tolerance as a crockery sceptic Greek person has to plates at weddings, is the man tasked with bringing the world together in his

not always universally approved style.

How is India as a nation looking forward to this?

Well, you know,

two things.

I asked some people in Edinburgh what they thought of the G twenty summit, and the opinions range from don't give a shit to absolutely don't give a shit.

So

I guess these things are not important to people in the Western world because they have other worries like TikTok and things like that.

But

to countries like us, it's a very, very big deal because, you know, we don't often get to host these sorts of things without massive amounts of cock-up.

You will remember the Commonwealth Games from a number of years ago that

we

successfully were able to ruin by not giving toilets to athletes.

So we have a Prime Minister now that's very keen on showing the world that this is going to be a top-notch event.

And the way he's showing it to the world is very literally, by which I mean all across Delhi, I flew through Delhi on my way to Mumbai, all across Delhi there are giant posters that say G twenty.

And next to it, a massive photo of him.

So you wouldn't

actually know there was anybody coming, except that

our Prime Minister was now called something

title G20, which,

you know, we as Indians accept because our Prime Minister can do anything.

He went to the moon a couple of weeks ago, which I'm sure

the bugle listeners appreciated.

He

is also a cricket stadium.

He is many things.

He is a human being, but he's also a summit.

So

some other unknown people are coming.

There's a guy called Joe Biden who's coming.

No one's heard of him.

Irrelevant.

There's the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and a bunch of other people coming.

So

it's a big deal for Delhi.

And one of the biggest things we do in India when various world leaders come is we take the people of India and we shove them out of the streets.

So India looks a bit like Oslo.

You know, Delhi looks a bit like Oslo.

It's clean, it's beautiful, it's green.

Now, it's easier to do that in countries with small populations.

When you've got 1.3 billion people, I guess you can't shove everyone under the carpet.

So the Delhi authorities are having a little difficulty to push this annoying thing of people away from the conference.

But

they're doing a successful job in that various companies are incentivized to get their employees to work from home.

Various people are being urged not to eat out.

They're being told order order home delivery.

So, Prime Minister Modi has found out one great thing about India: that India is brilliant if you don't have to step out into India.

It's a fantastic country if you don't have to run into any other people.

And he's doing a very brilliant thing by incentivizing people not to come out of their homes so the world leaders can get to see an empty country.

The British,

the British.

Yeah, it's exactly, exactly.

Nobody wants to be out.

You can get Chinese food at home and watch all these world leaders.

And I think the British would be happy because they'll find the deli that they left behind on the 15th of August 1947 quite clean.

You know, the population has not gone up, you know, 62 times.

The Yamuna River is not overflowing with effluents and refuse.

So, you know, everyone would be surprised.

In fact, once the residents come out, once the delegates have left, they'll be surprised to find the deli that the Prime Minister cleans up with.

In fact, I've been a big fan of having summits in India for a long time.

And like World Cups and so on, Andy, you have visited.

You know, they really transform the country because they lock all the people up and they clean up the whole country.

And I feel like everybody needs a deep clean.

Even a city needs a deep clean.

I needed a deep clean after Edinburgh.

The summit's put forward six agenda priorities for

this summit and has pledged to focus on dialogue, which is great, I think, focusing on dialogue, because

it doesn't leave a carbon hoof print dialogue.

It just disappears harmlessly into the ether to echo quietly into a disappointed future.

But amongst the things they will be dialoguing about include accelerated, inclusive and resilient growth.

Now, humanity is currently 0 for 3 on those types of growth.

Now, inclusive and sustainable have traditionally fitted fitted in with global economic progress in the same way that murderous goat slaying and kitten blood milkshakes have fitted in with vegan children's parties.

Also on the agenda, accelerating progress on SDGs.

Not exactly sure what they are.

I think suppressing democratic growth.

Democratic.

I'm not entirely sure what SDGs stand for.

I think suppressing democratic growth, possibly space discovery by gazillionaires.

Or sexually dimorphic giraffes, possibly.

Or maybe it stands for illiteracy programs.

I'm not entirely sure, but SDGs will get their moments

in the spotlight.

Technological transformation, which is fancy polite talk for the inevitable robot takeover and destruction of all humanity.

And a digital public infrastructure, which is very important, particularly from a British point of view, and obviously Britain represented by Rishi Sunak at this summit.

The only digital public infrastructure we've got in the UK at the moment is people flipping middle fingers at non-existent trains.

So that's something that we're all pleased about here.

They will be focusing also on women-led development.

And I guess that raises the question is it time for the patriarchy to take a five-minute break because we've had a very tough few thousand years and maybe fatigue has set in Alice I don't know what you you know how you'd see that I feel like the the women-led development part of this is just an acknowledgement that it's all over.

I feel like this is just an acknowledgement that the party's over.

Let's get the women to clean it up before we

exit this earth

and

that they're going to do a decent job.

The theme apparently of of the G20 is one earth, one family, one future, which is either a beautiful and hopeful slogan suggesting that we can overcome national, cultural and political differences, unify in our shared humanity and star trek our way to a more enlightened age or

One Earth, One Family, One Future is a deeply dystopian and probably realistic view of the likely outcome of human self-destruction, which is that we're going towards one earth in which there is only one family left, and that is the one likely future

that's of course how it all began uh if you've uh read the um um part one of the bible um uh another thing to look forward to is um well the african union um could become a full member of the g20 with voting rights um the decision is pending apparently because currently africa has one member of the g20 uh out of the 20 members of the appropriately named G20, that is South Africa.

Africa as a continent

consists of 18% of the world's population.

You don't need to be a rocket mathematician to know that that is a sweet little bit of strategic underrepresentation going on there.

Another thing they're going to be doing is looking at a strategy for regulating global cryptocurrencies, which, and I know we've talked about cryptocurrencies a lot on this show.

Currently, the strategy for regulating global cryptocurrencies is a four-prong strategy.

Prong one, fingers crossed.

Prong two, sorry, you lost me at blockchain.

Prong three, who are these money-grubbing chances muscling in on our rightful control of the global money-grubbing chances sector?

And four, it's awfully complicated.

Who can we blame it on to make it simpler?

So maybe this will be a step forward in how our relationship with money that's even more made up than the originally made up money that we've depended on.

I mean, it's such a fascinating sector, Andy, the cryptocurrency sector, because it is really just a lot of people going, what if money, but mine?

And also,

you know, there is a core of really like appealing little nerds who really love the programming, who really love the possibilities, who really love this idea of cryptocurrency, of all of the exciting sort of technological side of it.

And then there's a significant proportion who are men who bought cryptocurrency because they heard about it on a podcast.

It might as well have been bona pills, and then some of it worked out for some of them, and now they think they're smart.

You know, I'm glad that to regulate it, they have picked a country where you have 600 million digital hackers.

That's a good country to pick if you want to regulate something.

You know, I think this is a

one person who might not be there, uh, however, Anivab, is the Chinese President Xi, who apparently is uh bunking off to play golf or something.

Uh this is being viewed as a snub to Narendra Modi.

I mean how would Modi take that that snub?

Would he just name even more things after him?

So could he rename India as Narendra Modia?

Is that the next step?

I think that's what it's called now.

You know, I haven't actually checked because I was away on the 15th of August, but I think that is the new name of the country.

Going back to a chat we had on this podcast some years ago, Andy, if you remember, one of the things that happened between the Indian and Chinese troops over a border dispute a couple of years ago was hand-to-hand combat.

Again, not a very traditional means of battle in twenty twenty one, twenty two, whenever it happened.

Hand to hand combat tends to reduce the ability for bilateral trade between the two countries.

And ever since then, Premier G and Prime Minister Modi, both very powerful, very reasonably arrogant, powerful individuals, don't seem to want to meet each other,

I suppose, at least not without makeshift daggers or some sort of security.

So that's why he's not coming.

I don't think that the little issue of the border thing is resolved between the two countries.

You know how India responded to that hand-to-hand combat?

We stopped buying Chinese phones and spare parts.

It could explain why half a million homes in Mumbai don't have working televisions, including mine.

Because

we are not allowed to buy Chinese spare parts, so tons of equipment is just sitting here getting scared.

And that's, I suppose, that's one way to react to a country that's stabbing you in the face, literally.

So he's not coming, I guess.

I think they're missing a trick.

Absolutely.

They need to walk in the barefoot shoe prints of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and just go straight to a one-on-one, man-on-man cage fight for ownership of the other one's country.

Well, I mean, you know, that sounds kind of ridiculous, and indeed it is, but it's probably the best.

possible solution to all future political but Andy, is it more ridiculous than what's happening right now?

And one more, and Alice makes a very good point, Andy.

I know the Cricket World Cup is coming on, and of course, you have fans in India who'd love to see you commentate.

Now, what would you rather commentate on?

Some boring England match or a hand-to-hand combat between Prime Minister Modi and President G at the Firosha Kotla Stadium in Delhi?

Which would be.

I mean, and also, given the air quality in Delhi, that might be an extremely puffed-out wrestle.

One issue that they're having to deal with, once again, and you mentioned the Commonwealth Games had this same problem, is monkeys on the streets, in particular, specifically rhesus monkeys, which I think are the ones with peanuts on the inside.

And the way that they've dealt with these Rhesus monkeys is to try to scare them off by putting up pictures of bigger monkeys.

Just cut out pictures of Langos, which apparently the Rhesus monkeys are not fans of, to

scare them off.

I mean, this is a wonderful solution, isn't it, to this issue?

I don't know if you guys have ever been to an Indian temple, but usually the head priest of every Indian temple has a large Langur monkey on a leash

just to scare away other monkeys, because those monkeys mess with devotees.

Small monkeys in India are a menace.

The thing they go for the most is the cell phone.

And we know that, you know, you can't have

the head of South Africa, Mr.

Cyril Ramaposa, missing his iPhone because

a random monkey ran away with it at the Grand Hyatt.

So

in India, hierarchy works.

Small monkeys respond to bigger monkeys.

Blame the caste system, whatever you want to blame.

So the trouble is though, the trouble is we couldn't even get the large monkeys.

We couldn't even get 10,000 large monkeys to scare away small monkeys.

So what we've got are cutouts of monkeys.

So, what we're really hoping for is that small monkeys are complete idiots.

That's what we're hoping for.

I think this is terrible, Andy, Anabab.

I think this is a terrible example of body shaming and the ways in which

the body positivity movement still has a long way to go.

If you've got all these small monkeys being shamed out of being in public by the fact that there are bigger, more buff monkeys on the street, or what appear to be bigger or more buff monkeys on the street.

I think it's a terrible thing.

This is

what's happening with Instagram.

It's giving you very unrealistic body expectations.

You've got to stay inside and do push-ups.

And then what you're going to end up with is a lot of really insecure, really jacked small monkeys with small monkey syndrome coming out into the streets the moment they get access to human growth hormone.

Right.

But you know, the people of Delhi are very happy about this because they're the only posters left in Delhi that are not of Narendra Modi.

So every other poster is India goes to the moon, Narendra Modi, G20 Narendra Modi.

Oh monkey, thank God.

And this shows you, this is how a vibrant democracy works.

You need two things, monkey posters and prime minister posters.

That's how you build a country.

I mean, personally, I think, yeah, the more

monkeys that can see the G20 summit, the better.

I think we have a duty to help our primate cousins, to show them what we have become

as a warning, as a piece of living advice to say, don't make the same mistakes we did, be happy with your evolutionary status, and for sake, don't get any funny ideas.

It never ends well.

So, personally, I think we should be lining up every other species of ape to look at what we've become and try and avoid that happening again.

In other Indian news, Anivab, as you mentioned,

India has blasted a rocket to the moon and since then, having sent a rocket to the dark side of the moon, is also launched a mission to the sun.

Just bring up what, I mean, what's the purpose of the

mission to the sun?

I mean, is it hoping to

land

people?

Maybe is this how to deal with rhesus monkeys in Delhi is just to blast them into the sun?

Is this the same thing?

It's like they've never read the Icarus myth.

Yeah.

Too many people haven't these days.

This is the problem, Andy.

Alice, you know, for a long time, I think if you are that kid in school that's been bullied and been told by other kids you're poor, you can't do this, you can't do that, the moment you get a bit of money, you want to do everything.

Right?

Now, that can be lovely, but someone needs to tell that kid

you might catch fire if you go to the sun.

There's nobody to tell our prime minister that it's a bad idea to go to the sun because you might catch fire and your spacecraft might turn to ash.

Now, what's happened is India is in that phase where its economy is growing at 8%.

It wants to be a world power and it doesn't quite know how to do it.

In fact, I'm really hoping that at some point the bugle outlines, because the bugle is a world power, and I really hope it outlines eight or ten points for how a country can be a world power.

We're just trying anything.

So, one cheapest space mission to the moon flown directly by our prime minister to the moon, first time landed on the south side of the moon why

why the f not

well that you know that's what i mean by a superpower right ask the question a completely pointless lunar mission is absolutely core to global power games and has been since uh well since the romans um tried to build an aqueduct to the moon uh back in the day yeah and and tomorrow if let's say india launches a mission to have a cricket match on titan one of the moons of Uranus, you might ask yourself, why, why?

You can, you know, feed people.

But then, equally importantly, why the f not?

This is the thing, Alice has often said, you know, tech billionaires do crazy shit.

You know, they get together and plan things.

And nobody asks them.

So why are people asking India?

You know, tomorrow if India wants to have a martial arts contest between wicked keepers and goats, you know, and then televise it to the world, you might ask why are you doing this?

But equally valid, why hasn't someone else thought of it?

These are the questions India is asking.

Once you talk about cricket being played on the moon of a distant planet, there is a possibility that on, I think it's the 19th of November, the World Cup final, in the so-called Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, it's possible that Pakistan could win the Cricket World Cup in Narendra Modi Stadium, which might be the most beautiful moment in the entire history of sports.

But I think it would mean that Indy would ban all cricket that is played nearer to India than the planet Uranus.

That's true.

Or by the end of the game, all the 22 people will be called Narendra Modi

playing in the Narendra Modi Stadium.

Anything is possible.

But I think India's asking, if you ask why not, a lot of shit opens up.

Yes.

Yeah, I mean, that's again, that's true of human progress.

Why not is a question that shouldn't be asked and even more should never be answered.

Well that brings us to the end of our top story for this episode.

Now something very exciting is about to happen.

We're going to break new ground in Showbiz now because we are about to start a new season of the bugle mid-show.

Now I'm not sure that any show has ever started a new season in the middle of a show in its current season.

We're in season four of the bugle, which began in 2016.

Season one lasted four years when we were with The Times.

Season two lasted about another four years.

Well, it was me and John

in our sort of independent years.

Season three, when we tried to relaunch

for one episode, episode 294, before it came clear that John was a little busy with, I think it was running a hot dog stand in New York.

He had other stuff on.

Season four then began when we relaunched back in

2016.

So we're now going to have season five, which is going to be two seconds long, the attempted shortest ever season in Showboys history, in which I will attempt to summarize the state of the world.

And then season six will commence, meaning this episode will encompass not two, but three seasons of the bugle.

So, I mean, time to just look back quickly as we end season four.

So many things to look back on, but I'll let you do that in your own time.

But we need to have a big end to the, I don't know, how do you think we should end season four?

I feel like we should have a two-second season and then a minute of silence for the lost season.

That's, I mean, minutes of silence are tricky in podcasting.

Okay, well, just we'll have a we'll have a one-second silence to end

season four.

Just a second of condensed regret at everything that has gone wrong since we began in 2016.

When, if you remember, Barack Obama was still clinging on to power in the White House before, I forget what happened after that.

So here is our one second of regret to bring to the end season four of The Bugle.

Season five now.

Here it is, season five for its two-second summary of the state of the world begins now.

Welcome to season six of The Bugle.

To commemorate our launch of season six, we are also launching a new way you can support the bugle and keep it flourishing for at least another six seasons, hopefully of more than two seconds each.

You can go to the buglepodcast.com and click on the donate button.

You will see the usual options with Apple and one-off contributions.

But we've upgraded the offer to our premium subscribers.

Signing up to our premium voluntary subscription will get you two bugle gifts per year.

The first being an exclusive limited edition special episode of the Bugle on 12-inch vinyl.

Now, when we launched this show in 2007, I think the rebirth of vinyl was not on many people's expectations of what would happen, but then many things that have happened since also weren't.

All monthly donors will now also get an extra show each month.

The initial idea, assuming it works, is a show called Ask Andy, in which I will respond to your emails and questions.

Very important is that if you are already a premium donor or a regular donor who does not want to change how they donate, you don't need to do anything.

In the next week, week, you should get sent links to all the great stuff that you need to know about it.

So thanks, all of you, for your continuing generosity in keeping the bugle going, keeping it free, flourishing, and independent through five glorious seasons.

And now into the sixth, we could not and would not exist without your support.

Another way of supporting the show is buying tickets for our live show in London, which is on the

when is it?

Come on.

It's been so good so far.

It's Russia Shina, Andy.

Come on.

Well, that's why I'm just so much thinking about Rosh Hashona.

I can't remember when.

It's the 16th, isn't it?

Just Saturday the 16th.

It is Saturday the 16th.

Saturday the 16th.

7pm at the Leicester Square Theatre, featuring me, Alice, and Chris Addison.

Tickets available on the internet.

I'm also going to chuck in a bonus content, which is an Andy's Altsman pun run on a wax cylinder, which we will ceremoniously fire into the sun via the vector of an Indian government rocket.

It'll be the cheapest one ever.

One final news story before we finish, well, episode half of season six

of The Bugle.

An update from the writer's strike in America.

I've refused to write anything about this story in solidarity, but Alice, as a scab, you can bring us up to date with the latest developments.

Well, it's just been an absolute exercise in

PR f up on the part of the large studios who have just made themselves look incredibly bad from every front for people whose job is selling image.

It's almost like they don't know how to do the work and everyone else is doing the work and they're riding on their back like some horrible little parasite.

And left to their own devices, they have no creativity or skill or ability to sell anything.

But, you know, far be it from me to make such a judgment.

Apparently, at the moment, they're looking for a senior executive to lead crisis communications response efforts.

A $330-plus thousand dollar job, which is essentially, please help us surgically extract this foot that we have somehow managed to staple into our mouths, then hot glue gun into our mouths, then weld into our mouths

through the process of, for example, saying, we'll just wait

for the writers to start starving to death and then they'll come negotiate.

Were you tempted by that?

So it's quite a healthy salary, that?

Were you tempted by

chucking in a cheeky job application there, Alice?

I mean, I would rather dive off a cliff into the open mouth of Jason Statham,

a film which I'm currently trying to pitch to Disneyhead Bob Iger, but apparently he's not taking my calls.

You know, my biggest surprise in all of this is apparently they're fighting for the main fight that actors and writers have is for residuals.

You know, so I guess they do shows and these studios want to pay them once and get rid of them.

Big learning for me, I've been a screenwriter almost 22 years, and I didn't know it was a paid profession.

I didn't know that there were all these remuneration things, and I've had my plays made into films, and I guess none of these producers,

I'll get in touch with them and I'll take umbrage.

I just don't understand why they don't hire a AI to do their PR.

Apparently, those are capable of doing all of the jobs of a writer.

And one other final, final story

from Karachi.

Traffic problems are not uncommon in major Asian cities.

I think, I don't know what percentage of your life, Anivab, you've spent stuck in traffic, but I mean, I think the average for

Indian people is around about 74%,

I think, judging from

my few trips to India.

But an unusual traffic incident in Karachi caused by a privately owned lion escaping into traffic.

I mean, I guess the problem with that is that I don't think that's necessarily covered by the things you learn when you're learning to drive.

What to do in the event of a lion wandering around the streets in front of you.

As a pedestrian,

it's kind of awkward because you don't want to be disrupted from the path you've chosen to take, but at the same time you don't want to be eaten by a lion.

So what and also from the lion's point of view, I've I've walked around Karachi, I nearly fell into a large hole, so that's you know an issue for the lion itself.

So this was difficult for everyone.

Well you just can't park where there is a double lion then.

Apparently in Karachi you can.

They're all evident.

Now, Karachi, Andy Alice, notorious traffic problems,

but my favorite comment was from this Twitter user, resident of Karachi, who

said that the lion roamed around as if certain that the law of the jungle applied to Karachi.

I think it's safe to say that this is quite a disgruntled resident of Karachi who's not happy with the traffic.

And if anything, another Twitter user wrote, it helped clear up the traffic of Karachi.

So now we know, yeah.

If you want,

in any Asian city, if you want to clear up the traffic, you need two things.

Either a G20 summit or a lion.

So I feel like there's a couple of things about this story that really don't add up for me.

The Karachi police made a statement that the adult lion was recaptured two hours after it escaped from this private vehicle in heavy traffic on Tuesday.

First of all, we have failed at any point to understand why the lion was in the car.

Was it getting its P-plates?

Was it catching an Uber?

Is it in the new Fast and the Furious movie?

Secondly,

again, this was presented with like a really triumphal tone that they have recaptured this lion after a mere two hours of chasing the lion through traffic.

I don't understand how it took you two hours to catch a lion.

You've got a car.

This is the thing.

This often happens in South Asian cities.

I don't know if you guys have seen loads of these videos that went around about cheetahs being caught right outside Mumbai, usually in schools, film studios.

Every week they're catching a cheetah.

And it always goes into miraculous rescue of cheetah from primary school, miraculous rescue of cheetah from TV studio.

Not a single one of them get into what the hell is a cheetah doing in a TV studio.

Or a miraculous rescue of children from cheetah.

Well, that brings the end of this week's Bugle issue 4272, issue half of season six.

We will be back next week.

And then don't forget there is a live show on the 16th of September at the Leicester Square Theatre in London.

Tickets available on the internet.

Thanks once again to Alice and Anubab.

Anything to plug before we go?

Yes, please come on my Patreon, patreon.com/slash Alice Fraser.

We do weekly writers' meetings if you want to write with us.

They're lots of fun.

Also, I do a podcast called The Gargle, which is the sonic glossy magazine to this podcast's audio newspaper for visual world.

It's a lot of fun.

Also, go to unbound.com and type in Alice Fraser if you would like to buy the Dancy Lagarde Reader, which is a book which I've got to finish writing by the end of this month, but is in good shape.

I've got the word count,

it'll happen.

That's unbound.com.

And write in Alice Fraser, because I guarantee if you write in Dancy Lagarde, you will misspell it.

I misspelled it the first time I wrote it, and I was the one who invented the name.

Also,

if you happen to be somebody who runs like a romance novel convention or a romance novel podcast, hit me up because I'd love to talk about Dancy Lagarde with you.

I have nothing going on September, but in the month of October, an odd, interesting thing is coming up on the TV channel Sky History.

I will be in an episode with comedian and fellow bugler Al Murray.

And the show is titled, it's a history show titled, Why Does Everyone Hate the British Empire?

And it's an episode that's shot in Calcutta where viewers will have a chance to see me slip and fall into the Ganges River.

what a treat.

And proceed to be flooded with all the pollutants ever conceived by man.

So for that treat, I think it shows up sometime in October on Sky History.

The Newsquiz is back this week on Radio 4, recording

later this week.

That'll be on for the next couple of months or so.

I'll be still talking about cricket for the next few weeks as well.

And shortly, I will be announcing some dates for live shows next year so do there'll be some bugle shows and some stand-up shows but in the meantime focus on that date on the 16th of September at Leicester Square Theatre see you all there 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.