Anachronistic Cosplay Fetishism

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers, and welcome to issue 4262 of The Bugle, the official podcast of the British monarchy.

Ever since Sir Jesus Christ anointed Solomon King of all conceivable Britons at the Battle of Trafalgar Jincourt after jousting the Armada off the park at Wembley in 1966.

I am Andy Zoltzmann.

It is, as we record, Monday the 8th of May 2023.

We are approximately 48 hours into the official coronated Kingdom Arium of Charles III, or as his many billion social media followers, of course, know him, at Chucky Triple Dog.

And we are recording in the shed, which is festooned with union jack bunting, but the invisible type, the bunting that lives and quite literally breathes in the hearts of all true true subjects of our Septuagintarian wobbly-jowled superhero overlord and mega master.

And I'm joined in person for this week's special Bakinged Bugle

by Ian Smith and Rielina.

Welcome to the shed, both of you.

Yeah, thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here, an honor, if anything.

Yeah, to be here.

It's exactly how I picture your shed.

Cricket paraphernalia.

Yes,

there's a lot of cricket paraphernalia everywhere.

I did actually bring you a present

because of

where we're at.

And I was so worried.

I was like, he will have this.

Someone will have found this and bought it for him.

But I did find it in Holland.

So I figured there's less of a chance.

And it is the strangest cricket quiz book.

Oh, right.

Well, that sounds like it's going to keep me and my family hugely entertained for the rest of the year.

Yes, I figured.

Maybe we can do a cricket quiz later in the future.

I was hoping you would say that.

I would love to see how much of this you know, because I'll be honest, I flicked through it and it's Greek to Genuinely Greek to me.

The strangest cricket quiz.

Yeah, the strangest cricket.

Well, that's the Dutch language.

It'd be strange if a lot of the questions were just not about cricket.

Still don't know the answers.

Well, thank you very much.

Yeah, pleasure.

That's just

no, I'm going to ask you questions and then you can have a question.

Have you brought me a gift?

Well,

do you like apples?

I've got apples.

Right.

Well, it's not as good as a quiz book, is it?

Yeah.

A 2023 moleskin diary, right?

But it's got a lot of my gigs in.

No, that's, I don't have a lot in my diary, so that might be quite an artist.

Yeah, you can have all my gigs.

I can't believe you didn't bring a gift.

Yeah, um, terrible folks.

You go to someone's house, you bring a gift.

Well, I don't really get invited to people's houses a lot because you never bring gifts.

Yeah, that reputation does get that gets around, doesn't it?

Yeah, also on this corner, you know, the coronation weekend, and this is because it's a national holiday to

just, I don't know, to soak up the echoes of feudalism well if I've you know

well the king got loads of gifts doesn't he even though he he already has everything

and yet people still and yet you've not brought me a fing gift of my own

yeah no it's a very good point but when when I I'll when I do the news quiz yeah I'll bring in two

um because people say that the radio theatre is your second home.

Oh right, do they?

Yeah, that's what I've heard.

Okay.

That that might be because the recording's gone so long that generally i'm sort of asleep on stage by the end

explains the robe in slippers

uh anyway we are recording as i said in the hood chris is also here in person hello chris god save the queen everybody hit queen queen queen

oh off with his head

messed it up

for our monarch that i'm sticking with that's right the queen

that's something we're the two of them together is that going to be their their name their pairing you know their couple name, the queen?

We reported on this in last week's bugle, that they're being fused into a single

transgender mono-monarch to be referred as their majesty, I think.

So that's very exciting news.

Their majesty the queen.

Yeah.

I can get behind that.

Yeah.

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

And this week, after the controversial

demand stroke request that everyone in the universe paid an oath to King Charles we at the Bugle have developed an interactive oath to allow you to pay the right level of grovelling subservience according to your specific desire so you can just delete and either use the the true words that the king demanded or alternatives that we are providing for you so just delete as applicable i swear that i will pay true allegiance stroke, 20 quid in cash, stroke, no fing attention whatsoever.

To your majesty, stroke, the woman from the Peloton adverts, stroke our true king, Donald J.

Trump.

And to your heirs and successors, stroke, whoever else wants me to.

I'm really not that fing fussed.

Stroke, my local bowls team.

Come on, you jackals.

According to law, stroke, banana armor, stroke, Tinder.

So help me.

God, stroke, mummy, stroke, escape.

That's interactive.

Choose your own oath.

Is our section in the bin this week?

Top story this week.

Well, only one place to start in the world, and that is with the victory of the Bookies favourite, King Charles III.

He won the crown, following in his mummy's footsteps after a really sing-off all competition in a spectacular display of becoming king on Saturday in Westminster Abbey.

I know neither of you was actually actually invited to participate, were you?

In the

no,

not in the Abbey itself.

I wasn't invited to go in, but I was invited to kind of

walk around with the masses with or without a yellow placard.

Right.

Going, you know, in or outside of the metal iron ring that went around it

with or without a rain mac.

Right.

I mean, that's really what 21st century Britain is all about, I think.

It is.

It simplifies it.

It's a choice, right?

Choice.

Ian, how did you celebrate the

great occasion?

Because you're, of course, you weren't born in 1953 without breaking confidence on your age.

So

you obviously don't remember

the previous coronation.

No, no.

But

I'm almost certainly going to see another one.

Right.

That's my hope, is that I at least see one more coronation.

But yeah, I was supposed to be...

It's so dark, though, isn't it?

No, what?

I hope he dies

in my lifetime.

How old is he?

He's 75 years old.

74.

It's pretty dark, isn't it?

No.

I think you could look a 74-year-old in the face and say, I want to outlive you.

No, no, I appreciate that.

I mean, I was just saying, you know, I mean, you could assume you'd live to the next one, but to hope you'd live to the next one is.

I hope he goes and his wife went.

People do say, May the king live forever.

Yeah.

So,

it's been one of the songs, isn't it?

Yeah.

Fair play, I guess.

You know, beaten by a better,

more eternal

opponent.

Yeah.

If someone's immortal, I don't mind them outliving it.

Thing is, you'll never know if someone's immortal if you yourself are immortal.

We've got very philosophical very early on here.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, I could be immortal to the queen.

She'll never know.

Right.

Yeah.

But she must have thought she was immortal.

I think up until the point that Philip went.

Right.

Or when she looked into the eyes of Liz Truss and realised

this is the

all four horsemen and the apocalypse rolled into one

terrible public speaker.

Do you think Liz Truss was the devil coming back to claim her soul?

I think the devil would be more competent than Liz Truss.

I don't think she has the level of admin required to.

I think she's more efficient than the devil.

Yeah, because it took her less than 40 days to wreak absolute havoc.

No, I guess, yeah, I hadn't really thought of it from

from that perspective.

Obviously, it was a ridiculously over-the-top ceremony.

It showed Britain at its best, and by best, I mean silliest, and by silliest, I mean best.

It's really all we've fing got anymore.

I mean, say what you like about the UK and the 2020s, but we still do anachronistic cosplay fetishism better than any f ⁇ ing nation on earth.

And I think that's going to be the last thing that we ever lose.

I have to say, the dress-up was superb.

It was absolutely brilliant dress-up.

But speaking as a tax-paying Brit, I did feel that the coronation is a whole, which we paid $100 million for.

$100 million we paid.

Yes, yes, for our overseas listeners.

We're each on a payment plan.

I'm really struggling after that.

Well, you know, I'm a bit annoyed by it because I'm like,

I like to forward plan.

I like to be financially responsible.

Am I the only one going?

I'm also saving for the funeral.

So, you know, there's just no, there's just no thought to it.

We should have two payment plans, shouldn't we?

If anything.

But I did feel it was a little bit like, remember when Apple put a YouTube album on all of our phones?

I did feel like the coronation was a little bit like that.

Oh, right, okay.

Yeah, that they've just sort of plonked the coronation into

my finances without really asking me.

I think I was one of the few people who, when that happened, I thought that was quite nice.

I didn't listen to it or like it, but I thought, that's

very generous.

Right.

But that's also the way a lot of people look at the monarchy here, is that they don't pay any attention to it, but it's just nice to know.

But how generous.

It's there.

If we want to have the option of feeling that we have a superior feudal overlord, then it's always there to dip into.

Yeah.

What were the highlights for you of the

actual ceremony?

What bits really

grabbed you?

Well,

I didn't watch, I would say I didn't watch any of it.

Right.

But then I remembered that I sort of have an obligation of topical humour sometimes.

So then I would like watch bits.

And the Daily Mail website's very good for like has like hundreds of articles in minute detail um

so there's one thing I was looking at this about Prince George I hate how um

how subservient they are to like a nine-year-old and but they described him as thriving in the most important role of his life and from what I gain from the bits that I saw is he was carrying the cape as they were walking down so he's just like lifting it up

thriving it feels like um like they've gone he's nailed pick picking a finger and not either dropping it or losing focus or concentration but you have to remember he's heir to the throne that's probably the only thing he's ever picked up for himself in his life yeah i think there was a real skill there i thought it was really interesting that um it was Prince George was the only grandson of the king

as a page boy, and the other five were all Camilla's grandkids.

I was like, it's a Parker Bulls takeover.

You know, like in 200 years, the Parker Bulls are are going to be on the throne.

You know what I mean?

And they're all older and bigger than him as well.

So he was there going, I'm taking part.

And I'm like, you're going down, boy.

You are going down.

They're coming to get you.

He's going to get medieval on him.

Just like the old days.

I don't know if this is a nice thing to say about an Irish.

Prepping for Eaton.

But I think he looks smug as f ⁇ .

I think sometimes there's a little picture of him and he looks like he's like, like he knows he's going to be king.

I'm sure I read a story once about him saying something at school where someone had said something to him and he was like, yeah, well, I'm going to be king.

I really, I hate that attitude.

But I don't know why.

It's not healthy for me to dislike a nine-year-old.

Although I guess to be fair to him, that's accurate.

Whereas when the child Boris Johnson said he wanted to be king of the world,

that should have raised

rung some serious.

Yeah, to be fair to him.

He knows his lineage.

Yeah, and also, you know, he was born magic.

He was born instantly appointed prince because, you know, you've either got it or you haven't.

He just popped out of the womb.

Bang.

They tested him.

They did one of those skin prick tests.

100% prince.

That's it.

Came out blue, did it?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

You can't.

I mean, you've got a medical background, really.

You know, that you can't fake that kind of thing, can you?

No, not at all.

You know, they do it in the heel as well.

I have to say, is it wrong as well?

I totally agree with you.

You should never begrudge a child, especially a nine-year-old, and he is just a child.

But at the same time, when he came out a boy, after we did all of that chat about changing, you know, changing the law about whether or not a girl could inherit, and then he came out a boy, and we went, oh, all that for nothing.

So I'm open to him identifying however he wishes to identify as he grows older, because I think there's room for it.

I think we're open to it.

I'm excited to see what happens.

Queen.

Yes, he'll be queen all by himself.

Their majesty.

Of course, Charles, you know, wasn't a foregone conclusion, despite what everyone says.

He did have to pass the final tests in the couple of days before the coronation.

On Friday, he completed a circuit of the Silverstone motor racing circuit

in his gold horse-drawn carriage at an average speed of 176 miles an hour that was well over the 150 mile an hour average needed to prove yourself monarch level king quality and then he completed a 147 maximum break behind closed doors at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield using his Scepter as the snooker cue and the Royal Orb as the cue ball.

So we do know we are getting a proper authentic king.

Also, I mean there was a lot of talk about how, you know, this was, you know, yes, there was tradition, but also it was paired back

from the more lavish ceremonies of the past.

It was much more modern.

And you might have thought watching it, well, if this is paired back and modern, then I'm surprised that the 1953 coronation ever ended.

But, I mean, it was, I mean, it was hugely.

What did we skip?

What bits did we skip and what was more modern about it?

No one built a henge during the service.

So

that's quite modern.

The crown was put on by a drone.

Yeah.

You could hear that.

And then sort of getting that on.

I suspected Camilla wasn't actually there.

I thought it was a bot.

It's quite possible.

Because she looked a little confused.

And then it didn't fit.

And you just go, you think they would have thought of this sooner.

I think it is.

Yeah, it was a projection, I think, because I remember Katy Perry walked through her at one point.

Right, looking for her seat because she couldn't find where she was sitting.

And in fact, when I went behind a screen, he was officially

bekinged with that.

There was some kind of special oil that I think was

the oil from, it was taken from, I think, the car that Nigel Mansell won the Formula One World Championship in back in the 90s.

True British edition.

But it was the Archbishop of Canterbury was replaced by an automated multi-faith robo-priest

that sacrificed 300 children behind that screen in under 10 seconds, which I mean, that's the kind of efficiency you get from modern technology.

Are you serious?

They put a screen up, and instead of replacing the king, they replaced the Archbishop?

I mean, they missed a trick there didn't they?

There were some protests.

64 unarmed anti-monarchy protesters were arrested which is a bit hypocritical I thought because the king was allowed to wander around quite openly with a sword and no one kicked up a fuss and there were loads of cannons fired without police twitching an eyebrow.

Penny Morden had a sword for most of it and no one twitched an eyebrow and if you saw her leadership campaign I would give that woman a weapon.

She was voted Britain's sexiest MP at one point.

During the service.

Are you serious?

Yeah, this is like a description of Penny Mona.

Everything about her description sounds mad.

The leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council carried the Sword of State, presenting the jewelled sword of offering to King Charles.

She has risen from featuring on ITV's diving show Splash, being voted Britain's sexiest MP and serving as a Royal Navy Reservist.

And

yeah, now she's, well, I I don't know what she does.

I guess she's just an MP now.

No, she's the Lord Privy thingy.

All the stuff you read.

Oh, she's head of that stuff.

Oh, well, fair enough to it.

But yeah, it's amazing that you can go from ITV's splash to

whatever she's doing now.

Gives hope to Daryl Hannah, doesn't it?

For future career.

Who's he?

She?

She.

She was in Disney's splash.

This episode is not going well for me.

I didn't bring a gift.

I've misgendered a Daryl.

Fanny Morden is a cabinet minister.

She's minister for holding up a sword whilst failing to invest in public services.

Oh, boom.

But also, I mean,

I did feel a bit sorry for Charles at that point because to have a member of parliament hoving over his shoulder with a sharpened blade, that's got to be triggering

for a King Charles, given what happened just a couple of hundred yards away up Whitehall to 50% of all the previous King Charles's.

I thought it was 100%.

Well, no, there was a Charles II who wasn't.

Was he not?

Was he not?

No, no.

Only the first.

Only the first.

Oh, I thought they could.

No, no, only 50%.

Oh, yeah.

What happened to the second one?

Well, I think he just had a spectacular number of mistresses and then died.

Yeah.

Oh, did he?

Just lived a life and then

died of natural causes.

The party king.

Yeah, he was.

He was.

Died of exhaustion.

In fact,

some of the opulence of the coronation is specifically because Charles II, so they melted down one of the crowns, didn't they?

And he was like, build me one that's bigger and better.

And so the crown is because Charles II went, it needs to be bling.

Yeah.

He loved his bling.

And

he was given Mumbai as a wedding present, as

I think we might have reported on the bugle.

Gosh, that really puts Camilla's gift in perspective, doesn't it?

Yeah, it puts me in the shade.

There was also a very large pro-monarchy demonstration, and hundreds of fervent pro-monarchy ultras were kettled by the police directly into Westminster Abbey.

So there were protests on both sides.

Now...

Oh, yeah, I heard about that one.

I think

Prince Harry accidentally got swept up into that.

Yeah, he did.

And

he meant to be outside.

So it came to the...

You know, I don't know, his role in the nation now, because we like to tag our monarchs with a nickname in this country.

We had Ethelred the Unready, William the Conqueror, Bloody Mary, who was a 16th century grumpstress who liked a tipple while burning a heretic.

We had there was the 13th century war fan, Edward I, known as Edward Longshanks.

That was the earliest version of rhyming slang that

has been historically documented.

And of course, recently, Charles III's predecessor, Elizabeth the Unremittingly Politically Neutral.

But then, of course, we've had others, Edward the Embarrassingly Nazi-ish in the 1930s, briefly, Victoria the Can't Let Go of her ex, Charles the No-Headed, I just mentioned, and henry the horny um so i don't know to this maybe given that he looks so grumpy during the uh the coronation i think we can add charles the slightly hacked off by minor inconveniences will be uh how he does there is something like and sort of understandable to anyone who's been to like any event or like weddings and stuff that it's supposed to be like the happiest day of your life but stuff happens that's irritating but there's something so unlikable about seeing someone in a gold carriage being in a bit of a grump because maybe someone hasn't come quite in time.

He's like, nah, someone hasn't opened the door to my gold carriage quick enough.

And you're like, fucking cheer up.

But he was lip-bred, apparently saying we can never be on time, complaining that it was running low.

I mean, to be fair.

He was unhappy with it not being on time.

The cart, yeah.

I mean, there were no Ubers available because it's a very busy day.

The black cabs are too expensive, even for the Royal Family.

So he ended up having to get an imitation gold cart.

and wobble his way.

Yeah, the one that took him back didn't even have air conditioning.

I know.

Outrageous.

It is.

Yeah, the suspension was shot.

I mean, it was a bumpy ride.

There was one point during the service when he put on a single white glove, and it was lip red saying, which prick forgot to pack the other glove?

Why don't only have one glove?

And it was kind of shades of Mexico 1968 in the Olympics with

the one glove.

There was two athletes on.

I mean, the whole day was very much a white power protest.

Do you think if the Royals didn't exist,

would lip readers and body language experts have any word?

That seems to be all the

stuff like body language expert says

like man with folded arms and frowning was not happy.

Yeah, well,

I think I could be a body language expert really easily.

They seem relaxed.

The man waving his finger in someone's face is angry.

Yeah, I just think it's

a bullshit job for idiots.

If you're listening,

I'm just.

Can you tell how I feel without seeing it?

They don't tend to listen to podcasts.

No, and they don't give you the juicy stuff as well.

You want them to watch it and tell you when someone's farting.

You know what I mean?

You want them to sit there and go,

that wasn't a dress adjust.

Yeah.

The tilt that you think is

covering it up.

But why else would you just tilt on your side slightly?

Well, if your underwear's gone up, you're bum.

I suppose so, yeah.

But you shouldn't there'd be some like official Knight of the Realm whose job it was to unpick the underwear from the royal butt cheeks

on the occasion.

I don't know, Claire Balding would be.

I think they cover that when they put the screen.

Oh, yeah, they're not.

They put the screen round so that if Charles needs, like, this is the time to pee, poo, fart, whatever you need to do, do it now.

There we go.

Before we oil you up.

He was also lip-red saying various other things, including this hat hurts.

Am I still allowed to choose one person from the congregation to hunt and shoot with Henry VIII's crossbow, or has that been woked off as well?

And he also said, hell, it's flowing a Benjamin off 1980s Kids Telly.

Awesome.

I was a bit disappointed though, and I'm sure both of you as stand-up comedians would have been disappointed by this as well.

That he needed prompt cards for

the whole thing, even bits where all he had to say was basically yes.

Read yes off a card.

I mean

this was I'm not, he said,

because it's not like doing like an Edinburgh show having suddenly started to work on it two weeks previously,

if I may delve into my own personal experience.

He's had 70 fing years to learn the script for this, which hasn't really changed since his mummy did it back in back in 53.

And yet he still needed these cards.

Just write it on the back of your f ⁇ ing hand.

Well, I mean, I have to say the one thing that really struck me was the fact that we're supposedly, this is a ceremony that marries the head of the church to the state.

So he becomes the head of the church and the head of the state.

Why aren't you running this show?

Why are you not, why is everyone else knowing what they're doing?

And you're sitting there going, what's next?

I'm just going, wow, we're not, you know, this does not look good to the rest of the world.

Okay.

Biden still does his own speeches, you know what I mean?

And he's older than, he's older than Charles.

Time.

Time, yes.

He does sometimes say the wrong country in his speeches.

I think he's declared war with Slovenia at some point.

Yeah.

One thing I found, I was watching the coronation concert thing, and as a comedian, William did a speech, and this is the joke he did.

He said, he did the speech and went,

unlike Lionel Ritchie, I won't go on.

all night long and then got the biggest laugh of just like everyone clearly thinking well we have to laugh or we get murdered here but just people are like bowling over slapping their thighs it just made me so angry um okay i did a gig last night and there was a hen do in and i said is this a henu and one of the women on the henu went more like a hen don't and it got a huge laugh and i wanted to walk off stage immediately because if that's what you want i can't offer you um that sort of level but then you know he's he's the heir to the thing the only way he could have been upstaged comedically from a joke like that would be with a cat getting scared by a cucumber.

That's the only possible thing that could be funny.

That's a good watch.

Would you take a five-minute set following Katy Perry at the coronation?

If it come through and you're offered it.

Well, gig's a gig, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, it would be...

It's a huge gig.

But I imagine the feedback online would be terrible.

Yeah.

But I don't know what you do with it.

Because I can't remember what any of my stand-up is, to be honest.

I have a joke about the invisible hand, and that's about all I can remember.

That would go down great, because you could tie it to the one glove.

No, the one glove, and also, I think.

Topical.

Boom, you're right.

That was Prince Andrew's defense in this case, was that his hand was invisible or something, wasn't it?

Well, that's how we got away with it.

You know, um,

you know, actually saying that, because there were 20,000 people there, even though they say do a five-minute set, I think it's really worth one joke.

By the time the laughter rolls all the way back, hits the king, and comes all the way forward again, you're done.

Just a bit of crowd work, and you know, that's that's it.

Yeah, do you know what?

It would have been great because I don't know when did

William's speech happen before after Katy Perry?

Because what would have been great is if you went on before William and said, Hey, don't worry, I'm not going to go on all night long and do his joke before

just to see him.

Just to see Prince Williams do five minutes of improv,

just asking the audience for suggestions.

What's your name?

What What do you do?

Part of the control, obviously, they had to play the national anthem.

And after the invocation to save,

for God to save our gracious king, the king, according to tradition, did dive headfirst from the highest tower in the castle towards the royal crocodile pit, and God did send an angel in a train

wing suit to swoop down, catch the monarch before he could be bechomped by the waiting reptiles, and gently place him atop the adoring crowd, wherebywith from he could symbolically crowdsurf back to the castle, the king at once supported by and existing above his loving throng uh that's direct from the uh bbc uh commentary transcripts um the that was that was the modern bit yeah i think it was the send him victorious bit um now apparently god listening this got a bit preemptive and thought there was still uh another word to come he um and within five seconds a delivery rider rang the doorbell at windsor castle with a package of uh 30 thick 36 525 pairs of high-grade underpants from lingerie monger victoria's secret one for each day of the first hundred years of his hopefully eternal reign.

Then Happy and Glorious, Happy.

Well, I mean, he had a pretty fing grumpy face on during the hat fitting on Saturday, so let's hope he cheered up by Sunday.

And Happy and Glorious, that was misheard.

And instantly, a selection of leading people called Gloria were ushered into the King's secret kinging chamber at Windsor Castle for him to do with as he so choosed, choosed, chose, including the singer Estefan, the radio and TV presenter Honeyford, the former world number 45 ranked tennis player Gloria Pizzakini, and America's former world number one ranked feminist Gloria Steinem.

Negotiations for the gradual release of the Glorious continue as we record today.

Do you think Prince William's going to have a whole room full of peggies?

Sorry.

There was much talk of the

regalia worn and all these extraordinary clothes that we don't see.

There's the robe of righteousness.

Did you?

Which I think they nicked from a hotel.

That was like,

which you're not supposed to do.

Oh, you don't want to put

a UV light on that, do you?

Yeah.

Nothing from a hotel is clean.

The jockstrap of justice, of course, the crotchless wife runs of compassion.

They sort of canter each other out.

The gimp mask of grace and majesty.

And, of course, the strap on of serenity.

That goes back to Charles II, I believe.

There was the bracelet of sincerity and wisdom at one point.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Which I thought was the least British object in the world.

That sincerity has never been a national strong point.

And wisdom has taken an absolute battering in this country in recent years.

We've done away with experts, with science funding, we underfund education.

The closest we get to wisdom is a keep calm and carry-on tea towel.

So this to me was the most unpatriotic thing that the king could have been asked to put on.

The bangle of snark and apathy, I think, would have been more appropriate for that.

The sarcasm bracelet.

But wasn't, I think Camilla was wearing the necklace of passive aggression wasn't she I mean that's very british yeah there was the rod of equity and mercy

oh no yes we all give our penises nicknames

um so yes that there was a rod the rod of equity and mercy so now

if you were wondering where the concepts of equity and mercy have gone in British politics, because they don't really appear in government policy, it turns out they're stuck inside a f ⁇ ing rod.

And that rod is kept under lock and key except on special royal occasions.

There was one extraordinary,

very misreported story

about an incident in Bath,

in the historic Royal Crescent area of Bath, in which a couple of days before the coronation, so-called pranksters were alleged to have mown a shape into the usually primly print lawn that might be possibly interpreted as a large, how to put this delicately on a family show, gentleman's plunkster and plumbles.

This,

I mean, I don't know, I mean, just two days before the coronation, I mean, this seemed...

Also,

thanks to all the bugle listeners who alerted us to this story via social media.

And when I say all, I think I mean everyone who listens to the show sent us some kind of social media link to the story in case we'd missed it.

So thank you to all of you.

I don't know what you thought of this, because I have an alternative explanation.

Did you think this was an appropriate thing to do to one of Britain's foremost lawns?

It just looks like someone's done the rod of equity and mercy

with a couple of bangles of

joy.

Because, I mean, people said this was inappropriate and crude.

But I've actually looked into the.

It's remarkably anatomically inaccurate, isn't it?

Well, but there is a reason for that, Rhea, and that's because it wasn't supposed to be anatomically accurate.

It was, in fact, a tribute to the royal family steeped in history.

Now, let me explain what these

what was actually mown into the grass as tribute in the week of the coronation.

There were the two rounded circular shapes

at the bottom of

the figure, at the end of two longer parallel lines, ending with a line across between those two parallel lines, then a semicircle with a small additional line at its tip.

Now, the rounded circular shapes, of course, represent two different things.

The first on the left

represents a small round Scottish lake,

wherein King James VI of Scotland bathed and slaked his royal thirst before journeying south in 1603 after the death of Elizabeth I to unify the crowns of England and Scotland.

The Scottish word for small is,

of course, bowl,

and lake is loch, and that gave the body of its water its commonly applied name of Bollock.

The other round circle, of course, represents the church in the form of the

synod meeting space of the cathedral in the ancient royal market city of Gould in Yorkshire, where I believe you yourself

are from.

The priests in Gould, of course, always met in a circular formation to promote equality under God's eye and in the open air so they might have a more direct line of of communication with God above.

The synod was thus placed in a meadow outside the famous Cathedral of Ghoul, a meadow or lee, to give it its ancient term, and is thus represented in the image as the Ghouli.

The long shaft-like part of the moan shape in Bath recreates the outline of the so-called map of the heart, a sacred tapestry tapestried by St.

Loniface of Winchester, the 12th century Norman clergyman archbishop who created a long rectangular diagram illustrating the relationship between the love God for all humanity, humanity's reciprocal love of God, and the love of the church for the king and the love of the king for his people.

The map of the heart in courtly French, of course, known as the Plan de Coeur or Planqueur.

Oh my god, the semicircular semicircle at the head of the Plancaur represents the ancient round table of King Edward the Confessor's courtly parliament, which was split in two sections for the different roles of the state at the time.

One half was for planning things to be done in the land, the agende,

from the Latin gerund agenda, and the other half of the table was for planning wars to be fought, also from a Latin gerund, that term being belend.

The small additional line in the belend was carved later in the table by Richard I, the lionheart himself in the year 1192, when he slammed his sword down when demanding further funding for his crusade, a chivalrous act known as the hole.

That's the same etymology as the holler to arms.

And

made by Richard thus became known as the Dick Holl.

So

the Lord and Dorman in Bath was, in fact, not some people being incredibly juvenile, but was a moving historical tribute to our royal heritage.

One of the most educational dick jokes.

I've ever heard.

That was marvellous.

I was going to counter with, or that was just literally where they were going to put the table for the garden party, and the long bed is for the adults, and the two small round ones is for the kids.

Right.

It's quite possible.

To find the article again, I googled Swindon penis.

And the first result that comes up is that article.

And the second result is for an official Ferrari dealer in Swindon called Dick Lovett.

So even just the word penis, they've gone, well, that is close to Dick in his name.

But also, Dick Lovett is a fantastic name for a Ferrari dealer.

Sounds like a sitcom character.

Dick Lovett's Ferrari dealership.

Animals news now.

Ian, you are the Bugles

in-house David Attenborough.

Oh, good.

You are the, you know, you report on all things from the natural kingdom for us.

I know you've been out

for several months now in the undergrowth of the world looking for.

Yeah, well, since my last appearance on the Bugle, I found

three stories about animals.

You'd think there'd be more

in the news about animals.

But this is something from the north that I saw, which there's a bleakness to the headline, which I think sums up the north.

A dead whale had to be removed from Bridlington Beach after it became a tourist attraction.

That's how desperate we are in the UK for entertainment.

Yeah, even people aren't going to Bridlington for just in and of itself of going, oh, it's a lovely beach,

have an ice cream.

But then they've been told there's a rotting carcass on the beach.

And yeah, it's apparently become a tourist attraction.

which makes it sound like

a gift shop's been set up, and there's key rings,

some funny novelty t-shirts.

I'm with the dead whale carcass, and a little arrow pointing to the side.

Beluga, I don't even know her,

stuff like that.

A lot of fun t-shirts.

But yeah, like in security staff

around it, because apparently

criminal gangs

and thieves will target whale carcasses for the illegal trade of their bones.

Which just makes me think it's mad that, like, even up north in a place like Bridlington, you've got a criminal gang who I imagine largely deals in like drugs, but also has a whale jawbone contact.

If they're like, ah, we've we've got our bloke who brings the coke in through the ships and like ah, I know a bloke who if we if we remove the jawbone and clean it, he'll sell it to a local museum or something.

Don't know how it would be a contact in the criminal that they're when they're doing a little plan of being like, Yeah, Terry, there's a whale carcass in Bridling,

get over there.

Um, I couldn't maintain that accent for long, but long enough.

Um, but um, they took four, didn't they, from a pod elsewhere?

Oh, did they?

Yeah, that's why they were worried about it.

There was a pod of whales that

washed up somewhere else, and overnight, all four of their jaws had gone.

Because it was just, you know, like it was a complete set,

which must be even rarer.

Yeah, a set of four.

A set of four.

You know, like you said,

see if they're on there.

Nothing worse than when you have, like, one, and then you have two, and then they don't match.

Yeah.

Yeah, you do need four, don't you?

You do want them matching, don't you?

You definitely need four.

I was intrigued, Ian, and you can share maybe some local insight because this is not too far away from where you grew up, is it?

A local man said, you don't expect to see anything like like it,

especially in Bridlington.

But the fact is, Bridlington is by the sea.

So, you know, especially in Bridlington, you'd probably expect it in Bridlington more than, for example, in Tashkent, the capital city of the landlocked Republic of Uzbekistan,

or the village of Alan, South Dakota, the furthest inhabited place from the ocean in all of North America.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, even like Doncaster and Bradford

that don't have a coastline.

But that's what you'd think.

What if that was literally put the whale here?

Yes.

Well, I think it was about the shape and dimensions of whales.

Gentlemanly bit.

Yeah, maybe someone had started drawing the sort of chalk outline around the body

inside of the whale.

And then someone stole the whale.

Right.

And moved it to Bridlington.

And they're like, nah, now it just looks like someone's cock's fallen off.

They said, well, they know that you've got to remove the whale carcass because,

and maybe this isn't as funny as I find it, but the whale's body, when it's decomposing, does it in the very show-offy way of just exploding.

That they just sort of expand like a dying star and then just burst all over everyone.

Just feels like a really fun way to die.

Like, if I'd like that to be the case,

that's how how I go.

That if you don't bury me or cremate me within a week, I'm exploding.

Right.

It does tend to happen with decomposition generally.

So

when a body goes missing in water and you can't find it, eventually,

unless it's been tied down by something, it will eventually fill with those decomposing gases and then eventually float to the surface.

Which is why you have to weigh down.

When people have sea burials, you have to weigh them down properly.

And what happens on the Isle of Wight, I did a stint with the forensic department in Hampshire.

I was like, I did a stint with a criminal gang.

Or that.

So when I was working in forensics, I was down on the Isle of Wight, and they have a lot of sea burials between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

And they have problems with people who do it properly.

And then you've got the sort of those rogue those rogue

undertakers.

So you get rogue undertakers

who won't do the sea burial properly and won't weigh them down properly.

And the problem is they end up washing up on the shore of the Isle of Wight.

So the Isle of Wight will often get a call and just go, there's a body on the beach and they have to go down.

And of course, its hands and its feet are bound and it's possibly wrapped in something.

And then they have to investigate, is this a proper burial or is this a mob, a mob hit?

Kind of, it surprises me because they've taken the whale away, haven't they, to do a post-mortem to see how or why it died.

Yeah.

It's like, well, I think it's obvious, right?

How it died?

Well, we don't know that.

I mean, that's the start of a detective story, isn't it?

It always seems obvious what happened.

And then gradually you piece it together.

They don't live on the beach.

So you stick a whale on a beach, it's gonna die.

Who stuck the whale on the beach?

What was the whale doing near Bridlington?

I mean that's an unlikely place for a whale to live.

You'd think it would go to Scarborough or the more historic city of Whitby.

But why Bridlington?

Because it was an adolescent male.

So they do what they did in Hartlepool ages ago and we should have hung the whale.

Yeah.

That's a logistical issue, isn't it?

Yes, but whale hangers doesn't have the same ring to it.

Yeah.

And

how do you you hang a whale?

Yeah.

Well, if any of you listening know how

to hang a whale.

Of course, I mean, you talk about the whale exploding.

The correct way to deal with a beach whale, of course, as according to history, is to blow it up with 20 cases or half a ton of dynamite in the traditional manner, as attempted by whale disposal experts in Oregon in 1970 in the greatest single video on the internet, which I think I can't remember when we first talked about the exploding whale on the beagle.

It is an internet phenomenon.

I I showed the exploding whale video to my son for the first time a couple of days ago, and I could see the light in his eyes just

kind of bursting to life.

I think, oh, there's a world in which there's a 1970 news report about an exploding whale that is the funniest thing ever.

I've Googled it.

And they've remastered the video.

Well, it was its 50th anniversary in 2020, wasn't it?

Apparently.

What a world we live in.

Oh, my my god.

They could have put.

It's raining blubber.

It's raining blubber.

You see, I mean, we work in the creative arts, and no matter what we do, we could spend our years trying to perfect our craft and share insights into the nature of the human condition.

We will never do anything as good as the exploding whale.

Right, that brings us to the end of this week's special

coronation memorial at Bugle.

Ian and Rhea, thanks very much for joining me.

Any shows to plug before you go?

I'm going on tour this year, so if you're in the UK, please do check out my website and check out for dates there.

RhiaLena.com.

I'd love to see you there.

Don't go on my website.

It's shit.

I haven't updated it.

But I'm doing the Edinburgh Fringe.

I'm doing a show called Crushing at 1.35pm.

And yeah, I think there's a story about going to Slovakia with my hairdresser to drive over a car of a tank.

So yeah, come along, see if I've made that funny.

What more could you possibly want in an Edinburgh show?

Also, you can hear me.

Andy Zaltzman on Tiff Stevenson's Catharsis elsewhere in the Bugle Stable this week for details on that and all the other shows in the Bugle stable.

Go to thebuglepodcast.com.

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.