We Are Family! (2022 Edition)

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers, we've had to take an extended break of late.

This is due to a family bereavement plus the fact that I'm currently in Pakistan watching a motherload of cricket.

But we will be back up and running from the pavilion and at full pace in January.

In the coming weeks, you're going to experience the full and complete Bugle Guides to the year 2022, a two-part masterpiece that will surely be hung in museums for millennia to come.

But today it's a celebration of the Bugle family.

Over the next 30 minutes, you will hear some of the funniest 2022 moments from the Gargle, Catharsis, the Bugle Ashes Erncast, and a classic Christmas moment, as reported on Top Stories.

But we start with the Gargle.

Chris, play the harp, spin the bottle, or play whatever transition effect you deem appropriate.

I am your host, Alice Fraser.

Your guest editors for this week are Josh Gondelman and Eleanor Morton.

Welcome.

Now it's time for our top story, Optimus Grimes News.

Elon Musk has launched a friendly robot, which he says will not overwhelm humans or attack them in any way.

Josh Gondelman, you've been a tech billionaire in the past.

Can you unpack this story for us?

That's right.

Yeah.

Elon Musk says these robots are going to be a bigger part of his business than electric electric cars, and he wants to make humanoid robots, which why do they have to look like people?

That's just rubbing it in when they take over, right?

Where it's just like, oh, they could wear our pants and stuff when they take over the world.

But he said a friendly robot that's not dangerous.

And I don't like that.

The idea of a friendly robot to me is almost as unnerving as the idea of a hostile robot because you can hurt a friend's feelings.

I want a robot with the personality of a Scandinavian grandparent, just no emotion.

Instead of turning against the humans in an all-out war, at worst, they're going to passively, aggressively do our bidding super slowly, and that I can handle.

So these, these robots are supposed to, they're initially, they're supposed to do like monotonous but possibly dangerous jobs and then become more sophisticated that they can be friends or even sexual partners for humans.

And that's like a real testament to Elon Musk's worldview that he's designing robots that he can sexually harass, that you can have an inappropriate workplace relationship with.

Well, I mean, the robot will sleep with you for an NFTs, I guess.

Well, this is the scariest part to me.

They showed the robot, right, this kind of clunky prototype, and like four people brought it out, and then they made it dance.

And it was not an especially fluid dance.

It was like, you know, it was a little herky jerky, a little wooden.

And I was like, uh-oh, that's how I dance.

The technology is too good, too fast.

Oh, yeah, it's you're not doing the robot, the robot's doing the job.

The robot's doing the Josh.

And I was like, Uh-oh, I'm replaceable.

I'd never felt that way before.

The prototype of the robot came out on stage and waved to the audience, did a little dance, but most of the footage of the robot was video footage of the robot carrying a box, watering plants, moving metal bars in the factory, a Tesla factory.

And it just,

I feel like that is a good move.

It's like when he got the employee to throw a steel ball at the window of the Tesla truck to prove that disgruntled employees could damage your car, and it worked.

Yes.

And it's a tricky thing, the robot thing, because, of course,

these robots will be used to replace human employees, and then there'll be more people on TikTok.

How I feel about that.

That's a problem.

And then there's going to be robot influencers.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

Heartbreakingly.

Eleanor, how do you feel about this story?

I think everyone is giving Elon a lot more credit than he deserves.

First of all, can I just say,

me think the billionaire doth protest too much because he keeps mentioning that they're not going to hurt us.

And I'm like, oh, I wasn't thinking about that until you said that.

It's like if you go to someone's for dinner and they're like, there's no shiss in the food.

Actually, like, oh, I didn't think there was, but now I'm worried.

But I actually think I'm not very worried about

these robots, even though that's a scary thing for him to say, because I think Elon is all talking no trouser.

He is a man whose entire personality is all about the optics and not none about the technology.

He wants to live in the future and

he doesn't get that we're not there yet.

So he's made this robot, which actually...

First of all, I like that it walked like I used to walk when I was sneaking to get a biscuit out of the tin as a 10-year-old.

The robot actually,

you know, most scientists were saying, well, it's actually not that good at most of the things we need it to be good at.

So yeah, maybe one day we can get it to do all this stuff.

But I don't think it's going to replace anyone soon unless like you could actually replace TikTokers because I think the only thing it can do is dance.

So

picking stuff up.

A lot of other very basic things that humans find super easy, actually robots apparently find really hard.

So um

yeah, I don't know.

I'm not as impressed as Elon wants me to be, I think.

He keeps saying, I'll do this and I'll do this, and then over-promising, and then it never turns up.

And I'm kind of like, I feel like you think you're Iron Man, but

with none of the technology of Iron Man, because that is a film.

He was an inspiring guy, and part of what he's inspiring is that he's read a lot of science fiction, and he would like to be the people in the science fiction.

I'm just not sure he knows who the goodies are in the science fiction.

He's quite excited about things that maybe to you and I might read as a dystopian future.

Because he can envision himself as being the one in the in the nice glass palace ruling the robots.

Right, right, right.

That's who you relate to.

He never is the end of the book where the everyone uprises and gets rid of the guy in the glass palace.

Oh no, if it's dystopian enough, it still ends badly.

He's

staying charged.

So maybe he's reading the super dystopian stuff and being like, hmm, refreshing.

I just feel like when they always promise that robots will become a sexual partner, I feel like this is, and I don't cry this lightly.

I'm not a big, like, oh, this is the patriarchy.

It is, this is the patriarchy because when they promise that a robot will be a sex partner, they are talking about a heterosexual female sex partner to a male purchaser.

They are not talking about a robot that can finger you comfortingly.

Can you imagine anything more terrifying as a woman than letting a machine near any of that?

That is a horrible idea.

Well, I mean,

there's a whole genre.

I feel like, yeah, I feel like sex robot technology is actually further along than we'd like to admit in some arenas.

Our top story for this week's edition of the magazine is Sausage News.

A lonely ape dating club app has turned into a sausage fest and been cancelled because not enough women are into cryptocurrency, at least not in a dating sort of way.

Alison Spittle, you've seen a lonely bored ape.

Can you unpack this story for us?

Yes, so this is a story basically about a horny ape yacht club dating app, right?

That has had too many men subscribe to it and not enough women.

And they have shut down the website,

which I think shows a great lot of integrity.

Which are words I thought would never pass my mouth when talking about cryptocurrency dude, bros.

But like, they're already better morally than Ashley Madison, who, you know, when other dating apps have had too many men,

they've had bots to pretend that they're women.

At least with this, they're being honest with their customers.

It's quite sweet, actually.

It's quite sweet.

And yeah, it's weird because

you can look at, you can, you can't really meet the people in real life.

You could show them your different types of NFTs and tell them how long you've is it diamond-handed?

This is all like new language that I'm learning.

Apparently, like diamond hands is to say, like, how long you've had the NFT for.

It's very, very niche.

And I'm not going to kink shame anybody except

crypto dude, bro.

The thing about diamond handing is that there's part of this internal culture where so much of it is sort of a pyramid scheme that relies on other people also investing their hopes and dreams into this thing that only exists if you all agree to believe in it forever.

And that the thing that makes you rely on somebody else is basically how hard they have committed to ongoing gullibility.

Yeah, that's what the diamond is.

It's you hold on to it really hard.

Because, you know, that's what diamonds are known for.

It's for

continued ownership, even as value dips and dips and dips, like diamonds do.

You know how diamonds are always losing their value, causing people's self-esteem and sense of worth to plummet

and causing their financial portfolio to go into disarray.

So this is like diamonds.

Totally.

Isn't like dating itself, like the ultimate pyramid scheme.

Like, you know, when you buy in too late, you're kind of like, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm in a very long-term relationship and I'm holding on to him for dear life.

And every day I get diamond handing that investment.

I mean, that's what an engagement ring is, right?

It's love's diamond hands.

Yeah, it is.

I don't know.

Is it an abomination in a way to like, it feels like we're trying to set up women with apes?

And, like, this has been done for nearly 100 years.

Look at King Kong.

You know what I mean?

Like, this is,

I feel like we're, we're fraying these women of going, like, here's an ape, here's some money, have a good time.

And I'm sick of it.

I'm sick of it.

Josh, have you ever bought an NFT?

I haven't, you know, because, like, I like to waste my money on things I can eat or touch.

And if I'm going to waste my money, it's going to be, uh, I look, and I have no high ground to stand on.

I have so many pairs of sneakers in my house, but at least when worst comes to worst and like my

life collapses, I can put on those sneakers and run away, which is not something that NFTs afford you.

This whole dating thing is so funny to me because not only

does it mean that there were too many men and this doesn't appeal to women, and so it couldn't be a viable dating app, it means that there no gay men were into it either.

Because if it was like a

lonely gay ape yacht club and all the people that subscribed were men, it'd be like, hell yeah, we're in a thriving

fraud art community and that's that's the basis of our relationships.

But it's like the straightest thing.

And as a straight guy, I say this, that like a mediocre picture of an ape is like a very straight guy concept of art.

It's like a pulp fiction poster in a frame without there having been the movie pulp fiction for it to be based on.

And like, just on a practical level, if everybody here owns those bored apes, you can't have a dating app where everyone's picture is basically the same.

That's not what a dating app is.

So like, of course it was mostly dudes.

An NFT dating website is only going to attract lonely guys.

You might as well have said it was for fans of Joe Rogan who think cargo shorts are both functionally and aesthetically ideal and who think they're clever for listing the pronouns in their bio as Rick/slash Morty.

So, like,

yeah, that is gonna come to this.

That was Alice Fraser with Alison Spittle, Josh Gondelman, and friends.

Do goggle some more via the podcast app you are listening to this with, or any other form of technology at your disposal.

Now, let's join Tiff Stevenson for her brilliant new show, Catharsis.

Later, we'll hear Tiff in conversation with Sindhu V, but first, here she is unleashing Rhya Lina.

This is the section of the podcast we like to call Old Grudges, a historical gripe for you.

Tell me your story.

I'm going to try not to interrupt till the end when I may have many questions.

Goodness.

Do you know, it was actually hard to narrow this down.

I first looked at it and panicked and went, but I love everybody.

And then I went, oh, no, hang on a second.

And what I also did was I checked with my ex-husband and he went, oh, you have so many.

Like, where do we start?

He must,

you had so much content for this podcast.

So we were just talking about not being noticed in high school.

I was younger.

I was two years younger than everyone else in my grade because I was moving between systems.

I covered different things at different times.

And also my birthdays

was later in the year.

So just I was overall younger than people.

And when we got to 11th and 12th grade, which is your equivalent of lower and upper sixth.

I decided to do the IB, the International Baccalaureate.

And this was the first time our American school had offered it.

And so the only people who chose to do it were those that needed it, i.e.

the European kids in the school, because we were in the Netherlands.

The Americans stuck with the American system.

And so what happened was this bit of a divide in junior and senior

grades, in our junior and senior class, where there was most of the grade was doing the APs that the Americans do, but there was about 13 of us that were doing the IB.

And we all had all of our classes together.

They had all of their classes together because the curriculums were different.

So we get to the end of senior year.

And if there's one thing I knew I wanted to do, it was go to prom.

I wanted to go go to prom because

I actually grew up in Britain and then moved to the Netherlands at the beginning of high school.

And so I'd been watching all these American, you know, we all saw it.

We watched the movies.

We saw the prom.

I was like, I want this experience for myself.

I'm in this American high school.

I'm living the dream.

I want to go to prom.

And so the way that it worked is you have to buy a ticket to prom.

And they were selling tickets, you know,

in the cafeteria, whatever.

You go and you buy a ticket.

And I went, I bought my ticket to go to prom.

And I didn't have anyone to go with.

No one had asked me to go.

You know what?

Let's not pretend that by the end of high school where I'm two years younger than everyone else, that that was a surprise.

But I was still going to go and I was going to have the thing and the experience.

And I wasn't, and I'm not the only person who was going to go solo.

It wasn't like everybody else had paired off and I was the weird one on the road.

People were going in groups or they might book a, you know, a limo together and, you know, it was three couples or whatever.

Like it was a very loose, easy, very happy situation.

But I bought my ticket and

didn't think much more more of it until I got to prom.

And I, and I, you know, I, I used, I was wearing an old dress of my mother's and my father bought me the corsage.

And then my dad drove me to prom, which I didn't realize was so crazy until you show up and everyone else is in limos.

Everyone else is in limos.

Right.

Right.

And so the cool kids, they've got a limo.

And, and what happened was the limos would drive up to the entrance of the hotel and they had a red carpet and all the parents, because the American parents knew how to do this.

My parents are European.

They didn't know how to do this.

European parents weren't there, but the American parents were there and they'd, one limo would drive up and then the door would open and all these beautiful, you know, kids would come out in their beautiful tuxes and their, and their dresses and they'd walk down the red carpet and in their pairs or their groups and everyone would take pictures.

Ooh, it's so pretty.

All the rest of it.

My dad gets to the hotel and he goes to drive up and they're like, you can't go up there.

And it's like, well, she's going to prom.

They went, you're not a limo.

So he drove up to a side door.

Oh, I think it'd go to the side door.

Do you go to the kitchen?

Tell me how to go through the kitchen.

It was just a side door.

So it got me into the lobby, but I didn't get to walk the red carpet because he wasn't.

But

I think the real kicker was that I found out when I got to prom that all the other kids that were doing the IB, so it was me, you know, they'd gotten a limo together and they hadn't asked me to chop me.

So they'd all, those that were going, to be fair, of the 13 of us, there were definitely some kids.

I'm pretty sure the Finnish kid said three words, I'm not going.

And that was the entire thing that he said for the entire two years that we studied with him, you know.

But, but those kids that did go from the IB.

I bet they're nothing now.

I bet they didn't do anything with their baccalaureates.

They took their baccalaureates.

They went to places like Oxford and Cambridge.

And now they're all very highfalutin scientists, but that's fine.

Here's the thing.

We are allowed to

listen.

The geeks and the nerds aren't allowed to leave people out in a social media.

I hurry around.

I mean, that was harsh to find out that I was too nerdy for the geeks.

Too nerdy for the nerd group.

Do you remember what you you wore?

Yes, because can I tell you the catharsis now?

Is it too early for me to say?

No, you can, so you can tell us the catharsis.

Okay, so I did, I mean, I'm not cheating on you, but I did do another podcast.

It was before you podcasted, to be fair.

Yeah, I got it.

I did do another podcast, and they asked for a triumphant moment, something like that.

And so

I told them some of the story of the problem.

Not this bit.

You got new info.

This is new info.

This is how.

This is a premiere.

This is a premiere of this part of the prom.

I mean, the rest of it, in terms of me standing near the toilets and talking to people as they went to and from the toilet, is my way of socializing at prom.

Were you selling mints?

Did you become that person?

Do you have a can of hair?

No, no, no.

Just constantly pretending I was on my way to or from the toilet so that it seemed natural that I was standing there the entire night

talking to people.

So tell me about your moment of glory then.

20 years after prom, I can still fit into that prom dress.

That's what I'm saying.

I tried it on recently.

Dress still fits.

And you've had kids.

I mean, Rhea is incredibly...

i've had a divorce incredibly fit i ate my way through that divorce and then i ran my way back to

fitting into that dress so that's your old beef or your old grudge your old your old grudge but i like the fact that you've i mean it is cathartic for you to talk about it with me obviously but what i feel is quite healthy is that you obviously just moved on from it by the fact that you're very successful now so who cares that you didn't get to walk down this red carpet at the prom you've done plenty of red carpets since, right?

Done some red carpet, but I'll be honest, you know, you get to a point, every adult gets to a point where they go, ooh, we should have a high school reunion.

And I'm at that point.

You're at that point.

I'm at that point going.

Everyone gets to that point when something's happened that they can be very proud of.

They go, now, now we can do it.

I've invented the post-its.

You've invented my version of the post-its.

Let's go.

Now, it's time for me to ask you for an unpopular opinion.

I don't think Beyoncé is all all that and it just makes people crazy when I say that

I mean what's the big big deal like I don't get it you know

she's fine she's a great singer I mean she's a good singer

but all the hype I'm like about what is it the clothes is it the dancing but the whole thing together like

really I don't see why.

Do you think it's because she

sort of separated herself from all social media?

This is a a thing she did a while back where she doesn't really do interviews or anything like that and then occasionally puts something out on Instagram.

So I find this quite sort of, she sort of stepped out of the, I'm not going to do a news program, I'm not going to do anything.

I'm just going to the enigmaticness of that.

Do you think it's that?

I don't think she's enigmatic, so I don't think that.

I think, like many people across history, she has found a very, and fair play to her, a way to package her brand.

And part of that involves this kind of slight move to, I'm a musician, but

I have virtues that surpass that.

Virtues for feminists, virtues for women of color, virtues for women who want to be financially independent, virtues for mothers.

And I'm like, from where?

And people have bought into it, hook, line, and sinker.

And I'm like, it's a brand.

Right.

It's a brand.

And so I don't see why

her branded stuff is not called out as a brand, but is somehow some essential organic greatness.

That's why I don't get.

Right.

Because if we're in the business of entertainment, I suppose, especially if you're a pop star, you're a machine.

It is a brand.

It's like Madonna is undoubtedly.

the brand Madonna.

Yeah.

But she doesn't have this kind of, you know, Madonna was great and this and that, but she never had this.

You could walk into a room and say, I don't like Madonna and people would be like, uh-huh, yeah.

You walk into a room and say, what's the big deal with Beyonce?

And women are like,

what do you mean?

And it's like, dude, chill out.

What is the big deal?

For me, Prince was like a god.

Right.

Okay.

But Prince was a phenomenal musician.

Beyonce is not even on the same street, let alone the same house, let alone the same room.

Okay, she doesn't even have a voice like Whitney Houston.

She had a voice.

Beyonce's voice is great, but it's not something something that's going to move you, in my opinion.

Yeah.

Or at least you can say she's on par with Whitney.

Okay, I might accept that.

What is the big deal?

And I think the big deal is because she's got her brand and it's full marks to her for the brand.

But I meet women who don't think it's a brand.

They think that she's genuinely just this amazing human being.

And I'm like, why?

Why?

Well, because Whitney, I felt like Whitney maybe didn't even have any other...

Whitney was a performer and then she was an actor as well as is Beyonce has been in some stuff.

But I feel like

we can't even remember the name.

Hello.

Just to point out.

What, Whitney or Beyonce?

Beyonce.

Oh, Goldmember.

Was it Goldman?

You see?

There you go.

Whereas with Whitney, you were like bodyguard.

Yeah.

Boom.

You know, and you don't know, I mean, whatever that movie was.

I think this is a new phenomenon as well, though.

Like, I think Madonna did it very strategically.

I keep saying Madonna, but you know, there's been other artists that have done it as well.

You know, but I suppose Tina Turner, if I kind of think about it.

Those women didn't have brands.

Yes, but I think it's much more, I don't know if that's her so much of that is what is expected now.

Like Harry Stiles has a brand.

There will be, like, he's acting in stuff, he's performing, but there's definitely going to be stuff sold with Harry.

Harry Stiles is...

amateur compared to Beyoncé and Jay-Z and their brand.

I mean, they have that brand.

And I would fully understand women who say, she's really amazing.

What a brand she runs.

Like Victoria Beckham.

Right.

She's a brand, and I don't think she disowns it.

Yes.

Whereas Beyoncé wants to just be like, there's this amazingness to me that's just, I can't help it.

It's coming out of me.

It's like, dude, no, there's not.

You've got a, okay, you've got a good voice.

You've done, you've had a great career.

You are amazing on stage.

Like, what movements.

I couldn't even do half.

She's running up and down stage and dancing and singing.

It's amazing.

And

you worked your marriage out in some music called Lemons or Lemonade or whatever.

All that's great.

But you're not the best musician ever or the best female musician ever.

And there's not like this, you don't know some deep secret about the truth of life that we're all waiting to hear.

You've got three kids and you're married to Jay-Z and he hasn't left you and you haven't left him.

He's fucking everybody.

You're doing a great job of keeping it quiet.

Beautiful.

Like, fine.

And yeah, your sister lost her shit and punched him in a lift because maybe she was pissed off.

You're more famous.

Maybe she thinks he should not, you know, he should keep his dick to himself.

Shit happens.

It's a family.

Be cool.

Like, just, do you know what I mean?

Just bring it down on me.

I don't want that to happen.

Oh, my God.

I don't want my, I don't want my husband to get punched in a lift by my sister.

I mean, if he deserved it, though.

If he deserved it.

Oh, yeah, actually, true.

If he deserved it, then, you know, I mean, shit happens.

They are human and it's a family.

Thank you for sharing your unpopular opinion.

That was catharsis.

And for for some of you catharsis I know comes in the form of reliving sporting disaster.

So here I am with a slightly happier than me Felicity Ward at the end of a truly disastrous Ashes campaign for England back in January.

After seeing England find a tiny bit of form, was it the second day or the third day?

Well towards the end of the second day with the ball when

they had Australia Fewerk is down again and there's there's some stats on how bad Australia's first 10 overs are that we'll come to later in the show in both innings combined.

That really, that was a game

they should have lost from making really bad starts in both innings.

So England bowled, they bowled really well, either side of the one period of play on day one when everything went to shit for about

it was only about 40 overs.

But Australia went at five and over on quite a difficult pitch after being 12 for three.

They lost all 10 wickets in the second innings in less than 23 overs after getting to 68 for naught and a position where not only could they have won but more importantly they had the option of losing with dignity

and making a game of it and then they collapsed and they lost the last five wickets in 23 balls.

Five wickets in 23 balls under the Bel Reve lights.

They didn't really go down fighting.

They went down flailing and surrendering essentially.

The white flag would have been raised if it hadn't happened too quickly for anyone to find the white flag in the team's kitbag they really jumped out of the plane without the the parachute didn't they they were like pick me

they did that but also i don't know if they jumped out of the plane as tried to jump into the plane i don't know if you saw the last wicket of the series into the propeller i mean The last two wickets is some of the worst cricket I've ever seen.

And I've seen my dad play drunk on Christmas Day.

It was as if they dropped the bat and grabbed the ball and threw it into the stumps themselves.

The final ball of the series, Ollie Robinson, the England, can't say fast bowler, his beats have been sinking through the series.

The England bowler.

The England spin bowler, Ollie Robinson.

Admittedly, England had no chance of anything at this point.

They'd already collapsed, already a number of pretty loose shots had been played.

But Robinson came in and he scored 100

in his first game of county cricket in 2015 on his test debut last summer in England.

He got a very good 40 against a very fine New Zealand bowling attack.

And usually it takes England tail enders a good few years to massively decline and then give up batting.

And

he's done so in a record time.

And so he came in at, he was number 10.

Well, he hadn't faced the ball by the time Stuart Broad came in.

Broad got a single and Robinson's first ball from Pat Cummins, who was bowling, you know, as Pat Cummins does, well, fast and nastily.

And there's an amazing screenshot of the ball hitting the stumps.

And one of Robinson's feet is literally off the cut strip.

It's off the pitch.

It's there.

And it was on the way.

Basically, his foot was already on the way to the pavilion by the time the ball hit the stumps.

As if he said, I have a plane to catch.

Yet I think that Oli Robinson's foot said, well, if you're not leaving Brain, I am.

If you're going to sit here and stay in the path of that violent ball, I'm fing it off.

I think if you played that shot 10,000 times, you might hit the ball once.

And this was sort of the final indignity for England trafficking in a series in which, you know, on

tricky pitches, which, you know, a lot of us, most of Australia's batsmen also struggle against a high-class bowling attack.

I mean, I think we can fairly say, for see, they didn't succeed in the same way that Henry VIII didn't completely succeed in getting to Saturn in a spaceship made of watermelons.

Not quite.

I didn't know what the fk I was watching those last few balls.

It wasn't cricket.

I don't even know if it was sports so much as dancing with a stick.

I didn't know what they were doing with their feet.

I didn't know if they were trying to hit it so far out of the ground that they needed to give themselves space.

I don't know if they were afraid of the ball and so they jumped out of the way.

Honestly, have you ever seen anything like those last two balls?

The last two wickets were just...

They were bad.

I mean, the last five wickets were pretty bad.

Pretty bad.

It was all going very well.

68 for them.

Chasing 271.

Yeah, tricky chase historically, but they made a really good start.

And the WinViz predictor, which Crikviz uses basically every single data from the entire history of the known universe to predict who's going to win the game actually had England over 50%

probability of winning at that point 68 for naught 10 wickets left not a lot happening for the bowlers and then in the last over before tea Rory Burns plays on to Cameron Green who was terrific throughout the series at bowling and I mean this was one of the many things coming into this series Cameron Green had never taken a test wicket he'd played four matches last year against India now he was coming back from injury, and, you know, he was viewed as a very promising all-rounder, but

he just hadn't succeeded.

Not a single wicket in four tests, and he bowled around about 44, 45 overs.

And he'd taken 13 in this series, an average of 15.

Scott Boland, who not only had he not played test matches before this series, I don't think anyone had even considered that he would ever play a test match before this series.

He's coming and taking 18 wickets.

18 for 172.

Believe that.

Who takes 18 wickets?

There will be plenty of stats later on in at least one stat whack, but Scott Boland's 18 wickets for 172 average 9.5.

Only two bowlers in the history of Test cricket have had a better average after three Tests, having taken at least 10 wickets.

They are Ernie Toshak, who played for Australia straight after the Second World War, left-arm medium-paced bowler.

And then you've got to go back to Charles the Terror Turner.

and the mere fact that he has the terror as a nickname tells you that he was very much a bowler from the 1880s Charles the Terror Turner

Fortunately the ashes didn't really happen it was all a mirage and England are now brilliant at cricket Now let's finish the show by tucking into some Christmas pudding.

We have a Bugle greatest hit show called Top Stories which for the next two weeks we'll be celebrating Christmas at Bugle HQ.

Starting with the first ever Bugle Christmas with me and John Oliver, this is Bugle issue 10 entitled, Have an Adequate Christmas.

So in today's spangly Christmas Bugle, we lead off with some of the Christmas-based stories to make you feel Christmassy at this very Christmas time.

And Kwanzaa and Hanukkah.

Christmas to me, John, is like a self-assessment tax return.

It comes around once a year.

with the dread inevitability of a drunken car crashing into a bus stop.

You always leave it to the last minute.

It's ruinously expensive, but it's always slightly more fun than you anticipate.

Well, Merry Christmas everyone.

You old Scrooge.

It's that most wonderful time of the year.

Bad Christmas news and we hear that UK Christmas dinners will produce the carbon footprint of 6,000 car journeys around the world.

It will create 51,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

That's based on production, processing and the transportation costs of the ingredients.

So when you're biting into your turkey on Christmas Day, I hope you can't look a tree full in the leaf.

The very least you can do before you tuck in is walk outside and apologise to a bush.

The very least you can do.

John, is this problem not also applicable to any other meal of the year?

Not just Christmas turkeys that drive 51 times around the world.

I think it's more about the importation of stuff.

Say, like the cranberry sauce alone, which is normally imported from the North America region, contributes half of the the carbon footprint related to transport.

And so, to combat that, Andy, I'm offering to smuggle your cranberry sauce this year about my person.

There is a way to mitigate the carbon footprint of your Christmas dinner, and that is not to use any energy cooking the food.

Just eat it all raw, turkey carpaccio, yum, and good for the environment.

However, Greenpeace have announced their intention to send out 5,000 volunteers to break into people's houses in the middle of the night and chain themselves to your Christmas dinner.

So, if you wake up Christmas morning to see a scruffy man bolted to your turkey screaming monster at you, then you'll know what's going on.

Just turn up the volume on the Christmas carols and eat around him.

That's my advice.

I'm afraid my dinner is even more catastrophic for the environment because it's an Oliver family tradition to have a roast polar bear for lunch.

We don't even like it, but you know it's a tradition.

This is a Christmas gift alert.

The UK is to ban imitation samurai swords.

I mean this is particularly bad news for me Andy's I pretty much get everyone imitation samurai swords every year.

The reason being you can never have too many.

Well you are from a long line of samurai warriors John so that's what people don't know about you so it's understandable.

The Home Office Minister Vernon Coker said that in the wrong hands samurai swords are dangerous weapons.

Let those words sink in for a while.

And also just imagine how dangerous they would be if they're in the right hands of a skilled practitioner of samurai swordsmanship.

No, that's not true.

In the right hands, they are used to spread jam on your crumpets.

That's what the samurais were all about, toasted afternoon snacks.

You know nothing about samurais.

As we've established, I am from that bloodline.

Why the samurai sword, Andy?

This is yet another example of Britain losing its identity.

What's wrong with the good, old-fashioned imitation crossbow, the gentleman's weapon, or the quintessentially English broadsword, an escalibur?

How about the Queen's own painted nunchucks?

I'm not sure about banning imitation weapons of any kind, though.

They're always talking about banning imitation firearms.

But I think they really should be encouraging the use of imitation firearms over actual firearms, which are often far more dangerous.

And if only we could encourage all of the world's armies to use imitation guns and bombs, then maybe we would have peace this Christmas.

And that, after all, is what some of us want.

But I mean, that is the clever twist that genuine samurai swords are still okay.

It's the knock-offs that you can't have.

That's lucky, because I have a samurai sword, but it is for private use in my own personal blood grudges.

I have to avenge the death of my ancestors, Andy.

They're all dead.

I suspect foul play.

All of them are dead.

I will track down the perpetrator.

Further and further back in my family tree, Andy, there's more and more corpses.

I will have my vengeance.

What would you like for Christmas, John?

I'd like a samurai sword.

I thought you said you had one.

I told you that you can't have too many.

I want an imitation samurai sword because I love breaking the law in a petty way.

I guess they're like golf clubs, though.

They're all slightly different, aren't they?

Although you're not allowed, I think the real samurai's aren't allowed more than 13 samurai swords in their bag at any one time.

Yeah, and one of them has to be a very lofted sword as well.

Personally, these are the things on my Christmas list.

I would like a giant working replica of Nadia Komenech, but it's got to be at least 30 feet tall.

I'll bear that in mind.

I'd also like the power of life and death over the people of the northern hemisphere.

I'd like the world's largest watermelon.

I would like pancreatitis.

I'd like my old bin back from the people at 53.

Stop settling scores.

I'd like the Queen Mother back from the dead.

Oh, yeah, true.

We all want that.

We all want that.

Taken from us all so tragically early, Andy.

Other things I want: a ride on a dolphin, a trolley dash around the British Museum, a game of table tennis with Hillary Clinton, a Portuguese accent, and some of what my daughter would like for Christmas, John, and that is a solution to the world's environmental crisis.

And it doesn't appear that she's getting it at the Bali conference.

It's being its usual obstructive self on climate change.

Still waiting to be convinced about the long-term economic and social benefits of saving the world, it seems.

Yeah.

And I guess until climate change is proven scientifically to have a likely major impact on the key swing states within four years, no president is really likely to do anything about it.

Interestingly, the US and China signed a deal on the environment after a three-day conference in China.

That's America and China signing a deal on the environment.

You might think that is the eco-equivalent of Hitler and Stalin combining to set up a joint organization to promote ethnic minority communities.

But I guess it's a step in the right direction, albeit a small step and probably in the wrong direction.

Well, an analogy of Hitler and Stalin to China and the US, Andy.

Let me distance myself from that particular metaphor.

That's, well, that's a mixed doubles match I'd love to see.

Sure is, you'd probably play Hitler at the net and Stalin with his big, big serf booming it down like Roddick.

Yeah, he concentrated too much on his service game and not enough on not committing genocide.

If you've got a criticism of Stalin as a tennis player, don't be there.

Thank you all for listening.

We do hope you've enjoyed this compilation of the best of the Bugle stable.

Now don't forget, the Bugle and all of these other shows happen because you support us.

If you want to keep the Bugle and its stable of shows free, flourishing and independent go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

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.