The Rodents Are All Dead (4243)

From the dawn of time, the universe was enveloped in an inescapable darkness.

For somewhere between six thousand and thirteen billion years,

depending on which so-called expert you believe, humankind fumbled around in the gloom, hoping in vain for occasional shafts of light.

None came, only an unending dance of joylessness as civilization plinked along aimlessly towards its inevitable end.

Until, in October 2007, 15 years ago to this second give or take

the Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Please welcome to the stage, Andy Zoltbir.

Hello, Bugler!

Chrissy, put the f ⁇ ing balloons in front of the mic.

It says 51.

It's not 51, mate.

It's not the starts of the show that I wanted.

Hello, Buglers!

Welcome to the 15th anniversary of Bugle.

Today is the actual birthday of the bugle.

The first ever episode was released on the 15th of October, appropriately enough for this 15th anniversary 2007.

And if you just think of what's happened since the bugle started, puts it all in perspective.

Almost all of the rodents that were alive in the world

when the bugle was first broadcast are dead.

Why do you hate rodents so much?

We are ridding the world of those snouty little seed-nibbling whisker twitches.

The population of the world has gone up by more than a billion.

Why is that?

Because this show makes the world horny.

And we are also 15 years closer to a solution to the global climate crisis.

You're welcome, albeit only because 15 years have passed and the end of the world is 15 years nigher than it was.

So still looking like the most viable end point for the global cooking crisis, but there you go.

As always, a section of the bugle is going where?

I can't hear you!

In the bin!

In the bin this week.

Our section of the bin is the number 15.

It's going in the bin.

The number 15 is the atomic number of phosphorus.

And to mark this, there is a free bucket of phosphorus on the way out for the first person to translate the show into Egyptian hieroglyphs, paint it onto an ancient coffin, and convince an archaeologist that the bugle was celebrity pharaoh Amenhotep II's favourite podcast and that he insisted on being buried in a bugle-themed tomb.

So I do went to that competition.

15 is also a song composed by Taylor Swift on her 2008 album Fearless to mark the bugle's 15th anniversary.

She saw the longevity of the show even 14 years ago.

She's a visionary Swift.

And Taylor is actually coming to

play us out at the end of the show, isn't she?

Yeah, about that.

Has she confirmed?

Yeah, just carry on.

No, Chris.

15 is also, well, what a number that is.

You don't need to be a rocket mathematician to know that 15 is a deficient number, a lucky number, a pernicious number, a bell number, a pentatope number, and a smooth number.

Isn't the internet fun?

So that section is...

There we go, right.

It's time to meet our guests for this special 15th anniversary show.

Our guests need no introduction.

Maybe on reflection, they do need an introduction.

Please Please welcome joining us in this room, in this very room, all the way from distant parts of the universe, albeit on Earth, but still quite distant, more distant than Streatham, where I've come from, Anu Vabal and Felicity Ward!

Hello!

For the listeners at home, Chris set the microphones to an embarrassingly high level

where neither of us were almost able to reach it.

Welcome, both of you.

Felicity, you, since your last appearance on the people, which is a while ago now, you have had a huge change in your life.

I have.

You have been blessed by the magic of Britishness.

I have.

I became a citizen in May.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And many of you will ask why.

Yes.

Sir, I'm asking the same question of myself.

Because, I mean, since May,

I mean, things were pretty shit before that, but they've gone absolutely off the f ⁇ ing wall.

I'm a powerful lady.

They saw I was here.

They're like, okay, that's the cure.

That's the cue.

Let's let them loose.

And they've gone absolutely bat shit.

So, you,

as I've known on the film Moana that I watch eight times a day because I have a toddler, you're welcome.

Annivab, you've been

over here for the last the last month or so.

Yes.

I mean, how have you, you know, as an Indian observer of

Britain?

Obviously, you know, our countries have, you know, we've got a shared history,

not always voluntarily shared,

but shared, shared.

How have you

found the chaos that has been enveloping this conversation?

Yes, well, Andy, you know,

I studied accounting, and I never thought that accounting would ever be in the news.

Now, in accounting, there is a term for retail inventory management called last in, first out.

I didn't realize you were applying that to British politics.

Also, joining us for what I believe is the first three-guest bugle all the way from San Francisco.

If technology works.

And bear in mind, you know, the change in technology in the 15 years of the bugle.

The first episode that we did on this day in 2007, we needed

two yogurt pots

and a string across the Atlantic so John Oliver and I could communicate.

A lot of the early episodes were recorded on a typewriter as well.

So, I mean,

technology has moved on.

So, let's hope it works.

From San Francisco, the man who is a one-man criticism of the naivety of international military alliances, NATO Green!

He's tiny!

He's absolutely tiny.

Can you make him bigger, Chris?

Chris, can you hear me?

Yeah, there he is.

Okay, I can't hear a fing thing anybody is saying.

So

I'm piped into a room, and I can't see anybody and I can't hear anybody and it's going to be a podcast that comes out later.

This is a Black Mirror episode, isn't it?

This whole thing feels like having a wet dream about masturbating.

So, well, our top story this week, and there's only one place to start, the Bugle's 15th birthday.

Well, the world has changed

since 2007.

I don't go out on a limb when I say that.

In 2007, everyone was happy.

There was no war.

Democracy was expressing the will of all people in its purest form, and you could breathe pure oxygen wherever you went and drink quite literally liquid water from puddles on the pavement, and it would all be fine.

But things have gone a bit downhill.

Felicity, what were you doing?

Well, it may surprise you to know that this time, exactly in 2007, I was a little polynerd.

Not I was a nerd of multiple

persuasions, persuasions but I was in politics we were experiencing a change a labor change in government and have you ever heard the phrase Kevin 07

a couple of one Australian in g'day mate how you going Kevin 07 was the slogan of a challenging MP called Kevin Rudd and he was going to bring it back after 11 years of John Howard this yes boo

yes boo that mono mono-browed little racist.

And it was just a decade of Islamophobia in the media.

And then Kevin Rudd represented hope and change.

And this was a month before he got elected.

I had a Kevin 07 t-shirt.

Nud!

And on the night of the election, we all sat around, and it was amazing going from like this, as I said, this Islamophobia for so long.

And then Kevin just turned and like his first great act was to say sorry to the first first Australians, to Aboriginal people, and that was so symbolic.

And then not like three years later, he opened concentration camps and sent asylum seekers.

So what I'm saying is Australia's really got a reputation and nothing's changed.

And Ivab,

what were you doing?

2007, October.

I was two years old, Andy, so I don't know.

I don't know what this discussion is about.

But

I did look up, because you said 2007, important year for the bugle, what happened.

And apparently, a thing called the iPhone came out

and forever ended this useless thing called the printing press.

A useless invention by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440 has served no purpose.

And the iPhone has ended that.

What a name.

Johannes Gutenberg.

I'm like, are we just going to skip over that?

I thought you were going to say iPhone is a corporate.

What a name.

Well, we could come back to Johannes Gutenberg later in the show in a special feature section that we have.

If you want.

He was a real dish.

I have to say, Andy, in 2007, when this podcast started, I thought it was a true crime podcast.

And I'm still hanging around to find out who did it.

NATO, can you hear us?

Yes.

Oh, good.

What were you doing?

Chris, I didn't hear what anyone else said, but Chris texted me that you're talking about 07.

Yes.

Here's what I was doing in 07.

I was doing stand-up comedy about how George W.

Bush was the worst president ever.

How naive I was.

I was also talking about how Dick Cheney was the devil.

I did the following joke.

It's a stats joke.

You'll appreciate it.

A new poll is out.

George Bush's approval rating among black voters is 2%.

That means that there are fewer black people in the United States that like George Bush than like Kenny G, camping or apartheid.

The margin of error on that poll is plus or minus 3%.

That means that it's statistically possible that negative 1% of black people like George Bush.

So, out of an American black population of approximately 30 million, it means that there could be 200,000 black people who don't like George Bush who don't exist yet.

Right.

Anyway, that was the world in 2007.

But let's bring it up to date now with our actual top story, 2022.

Woo!

And also, boo.

Top story then, Britain is fucking fucked.

Yes, this was this graphic, this was from the Daily Star,

the ruthlessly journalistic

political newspaper.

They've had a webcam and you and apparently you can bet on whether the lettuce will outlast Liz Truss.

This is British media at its investigative finest.

So this is Liz Truss, the interim Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

She's desperately attempted to U-turn her way back out of the political U-bend.

She's flushed herself and the entire f ⁇ ing country down.

Even as the turds of free market inevitability have waved ironically at her on the way past.

It's been strange with a she has a political compass that seems to point magnetically to wrong move amigo and has found herself at loggerheads not only with the cold hard sausage of economic reality but also with her own policies rebounding in her face and with the party which elected her as their leader just and this is now a technical term of a universally acknowledged time span in politics six f ⁇ ing weeks ago

I mean as

a new Brit

stroke Australian and an Indian and an American who will be.

Chris, you're giving NATO a full text.

I have just texted him, right?

Stand down.

Felicity's about to go on a rant.

Let's go to you first, Felicity.

This is your country now.

You are partly responsible for this mess.

What the f has been going on?

First, sorry.

Have to say that as a new British citizen.

Look, we've had something very similar in Australia.

We went through this where we were changing leaders every couple of months or years.

It was an absolute mess.

And the thing is, democracy is at stake here.

More and more PMs are being elected by the party and not the people.

We need stability and leadership.

And I think the desperate times call for desperate measures.

And I think it's time to call on Paul the psychic octopus.

And

I don't, I'm sure I've talked about him before, but Paul is

an octopus that in the 2010 Football World Cup would pick the lead up when you put two flags at either end of his tank.

And I think

we need someone who is bipartisan, who can relate to every party.

And Paul is that thing.

You know, like

he's got eight legs, so he's a hard worker.

So

he relates to Labor.

He loves the ocean, so he relates to the Greens party.

And like the Tory party, he's completely spineless.

So

thank you.

Thank you for that groaning clap.

You absolute f heads.

Only in this country is a groan accepted as a round of applause.

You think you're funny, do you?

Because we kind of do, but we don't want to let you know.

So, I mean, is he still alive or has it been died?

No, he did die.

Very, very ill-advised holiday to Spain, I believe it was.

I still think he'd make a better choice.

But

have his psychic powers been passed down to the next generation in the traditional

British means.

Yes, of you know, passing.

Are you enjoying having a king?

Isn't it a bit weird?

Like the queen we've had for so long, you're like, oh yeah, it's the queen.

And then we have a king.

I'm like, hang on, I'm reading fairy tales to my toddlers that have kings, and I thought it was fantasy.

I'm like, oh, the king and the princess, and there's a frog, and you know what I mean?

And now I'm a king.

I'm like, hang on, we're all grown-ups.

We're paying them money.

We have a king.

Are you insane?

Are we insane?

I think, what are we doing?

Well, I mean, that is not a question that we're allowed to ask in this country.

No.

Because if we start asking that, we will never stop answering it.

Anuvab,

the chaos that's been, and what have been the highlights for you of uh well it's I mean when you mentioned this topic and it's been very confusing for me because I think I missed what's going on because I googled shortest British prime ministers.

Yeah,

William Pitt the Tiny.

He's got to be right up, isn't it?

He's up there, but I got Spencer Percival, 1809 to 1812, five foot four inches.

That's actually quite an acceptable height, actually.

So I don't know.

And I don't know why you're so caught up about prime ministerial tenures, because it's really quality that matters.

I mean, but we in India had a prime minister called I.K.

Gujaral.

He was only prime minister for 11 months.

He was caretaker prime minister for four of those 11 months and was abroad for the remaining three of them.

But he was an incredible prime minister.

He did only one thing.

He changed the colour of the passports and increased the number of pages in a passport.

More than any other prime minister has ever done.

Give us the American analysis of, because you've had your fair share of political

glitches in America, I think it's fair to say, in recent times.

Have you been enjoying watching your old

rulers

go through it?

Yeah, I mean,

I'm trying to keep up with it.

And because I can't hear what anyone else said, maybe you already covered it and answered this question.

So I gather...

So Kwasi-Karteng was sacked.

He was the second shortest-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Of course, I had to look him up.

The shortest-serving chancellor was Ian McLeod in 1970, who was in office for a month and then died of a heart attack.

Or

to use the language of the day,

McLeod, you turned on having a pulse.

Kwartang was in the United States and then came home in order to get fired.

It seems like Truss should have just called him and been like, you know what, stay there.

And then

my favorite thing was

what Kwasi-Cortang said when they scrapped the plan.

He said,

the reason that they scrapped their plan and changed course was, quote, we just talked to people, we listened to people.

I get it.

Which raises the question: if he just talked to people and listened to people, what were they doing before?

How did they make economic plans without either talking or listening?

So, and then

I watched the Liz Trust press conference, and she said that her goal is a high-growth, low-tax economy.

It just that she wants high growth, more prosperity.

It just sounds like I want more good and less bad.

It feels, it feels like all a high-growth, low-tax economy.

Um, it might, based on my limited understanding of British history, works great if you are A, already rich and B, actively plundering the third world at the same time

that those are the keys to the success of a high growth low tax economy but I'm no economist and then my favorite thing was I'm having trouble following what the like are the the so I gather that tories are mad at trust now and maybe you could explain this to me tories are mad at trust uh and are they mad because the economic plan was shit

because the economic plan was shit but a shit that they liked because it screwed poor people and made rich people richer, or that she had a shit economic plan

and she didn't commit to it fully.

That she should have seen the shit plan through to the end.

You do need to

shit.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know what the answer to that is because, I mean, they're now essentially she's trying to row back on all previous commitments, regardless of what waterfalls she is rowing back

towards.

Her favourability rating is now at minus 56%.

9% of people in this country have a favourable view, which I think is quite impressive still.

65% unfavourable.

Seriously, we are heading towards Andy's Ultimate at the Manchester Comedy Store in December 2002 levels here.

We're not that far away.

She's now has a lower favourability than either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn at their least popular.

Minus 56.

That's also Jacob Jacob Rees-Mogg's blood temperature in Fahrenheit.

It's the exchange rate of the pound against the Ruritanian schnitzel now, and

it's also the Conservatives' predicted vote share at the next election if their poll ratings continue sinking at their current rate.

So let's put this in perspective.

I grew up in Tunbridge Wells, and there was a poll in Tunbridge Wells

just yesterday after all the things that have happened.

And fewer than 93% of Tunbridge Wells have now vote Tory.

That is down about 80% on the average general election.

So, you have quite a question.

And Andy, if I may, I saw one story.

I'm trying to follow the logic of all the U-turns.

Yes.

Because I saw a story that said, Ms.

Truss already U-turned on her plan to scrap the top rate of income tax, and a further U-turn is likely to be seen as a blow to her political authority.

Isn't a U-turn after a U-turn just turning around completely?

Isn't that just rotating slowly in a circle?

Isn't that what she's doing?

Well, essentially, obviously, Margaret Thatcher is

her hero.

And Margaret Thatcher famously said, you turn if you want to, the lady's not for turning.

And Liz Truss has taken that, picked up the ball, and changed it to, you turn if you want to, I will also turn and keep turning.

Oh, no, I've lost my balance.

I've hit my head on a shelf.

I'm dizzy now.

So that's essentially where we are.

And the problem for Trust is that all they've offered so far in this plan, it's not so much a plan for sustainable growth as a kick-me sign plastered to Britain's national economic backside, allied to a classic modern rightward-leaning political salad of quarter-baked sloganettes, confected enemies, and uncosted vagueness.

As a result, the international markets have been spooked, I believe, is the technical economic term.

I mean, this is a bit of a concern, isn't it?

Why would you look at me when you say those words?

I mean, you've caused a few stock market crashes in your time, haven't you?

Are Are you flirting with me?

International markets are very easily spooked.

Loud noises, bright lights,

or in this case the Prime Minister and the Chancellor sitting in our national economic campervan pointing at a brick wall, flooring the accelerator and shouting, strap it everyone!

We're going to try something!

whilst shoving a copy of Milton Friedman's Milton Friedman's The Free Market Libertarians Guide to Road Safety down their trousers to absorb the impact.

That is the situation

we are in.

I'm just curious, Andy, rather than incrementally rolling back things and saying we're doing an about turn, could someone just come out probably quasi-quatting and say, we said some things in the mini budget, forget about it.

Is that an easier thing to do?

Well, I think we're not far away from them just pumping mind-raising drugs into the water supply.

Like they're with fluoride for television.

We could welcome that with sweet relief.

Maybe that could bring our nation together after the divisions of Brexit if we all just had our f ⁇ ing minds wiped.

But of course, 52% already had that before the vote.

But I mean, the point is, we're going to bring the country together, would it not?

Would it not?

Too soon?

Aye.

I didn't say which 52% could have been split between both sides.

What I did like, though, is that, I mean, obviously, you know, all breakups are difficult.

And Liz Truss, having sacked Quasi Quarteng, said she was sorry to lose Quasi-Quarten.

A bit like Henry VIII saying, such a shame about Anne.

Lovely girl.

Or a bit like...

Also, the word lose, it's like, if you left him in America and go, oh no, we lost him in America.

It's like, no, no, no, come back here, look me in the eye, so I can say, get the f out of this office.

You are our scapegoat.

And also, I have a question, Andy.

Apparently, there's a lot of things being said about an anti-growth group of people.

Yes.

The people who are against growth.

We've got to just check now, it's kind of where R.

McCarthy is now.

Is anyone here in the anti-growth coalition?

Yeah.

And it's a strong coalition.

Strong coalition.

And I think one of the Conservative members said that they're pro-penury.

So they've clearly tried stand-up comedy.

Yes.

Oh, I wish I knew what penury meant.

Since the 2015 election, when the Conservative Party won promising strong and stable government as compared with the chaos of Ed Miliband and the Labour Party, we have had four Prime Ministers and seven Chancellors of the Exchequer.

We could be set for a fourth change in Prime Minister since 2015.

As many as they were from when Thatcher took over in 1979 up to the 2015 election, seven chancellors, including five new ones, since July 2019, three of them since July this year.

Four Chancellors in the last five months, as many as there were from 1993 to 2015.

Oh my god.

So, in summary,

as I said, we're fed.

Moving on to other completely unrelated British stories.

The entire country is on strike, basically.

Possibly there is a correlation between years and years of unbelievably shit government and everyone going on strike.

Nathan, I'm going to come to

you on this because

you are a union rep.

You are generally, when you record the bugle, chucking Molotov cocktails at the police of San Francisco,

metaphorically.

I mean, what have you made of the

wave of industrial action over here?

So, when in doubt, take to the streets, shut them down.

I've given advice about strikes before on the bugle, and

it's striked over.

It was striked over a year ago in America.

It's striked over now in England.

Day one of the strike, people mostly excited to be on strike.

They want to march around and they're excited.

Day two, you need to pump up the energy.

So get like have a big mass march.

Day three, people start getting tired of the strike.

And so you want to start occupying offices.

Maybe you lock your head to the boss's desk, things of that nature.

Day four, people get hungry, and so send snacks.

That's the key thing.

And then day five is when you begin giving each other hand jobs on the picket lines.

I think

everyone should get fisted during the strike, is my advice.

I think that makes it better.

I also, as you can see from my background, I have a handy strike-ready Zoom background.

If anybody wants it, tweet at me.

I'll send it to you.

I also think some people complain that strikes inconvenience them.

And to those people, I would like to say, fuck you.

That's the point of the strike, is to inconvenience people.

So

if you are inconvenienced, then what the universe is telling you is that it's time for you to go on strike too.

Andy, I just have a couple of you know, I I know lots of strikes have been going on, they've been going on successfully.

And I think the basic thing that people have been doing is not showing up to work.

Now

where I come from, we've seen a range of pretty good strikes.

And I just want to just discuss some creative ideas around strikes.

I just want to go back to, as the young people say, the OG of strikes, Mahatma Gandhi.

And he was big.

He was big into strikes and wicket-keeping, just two things

that he was big into.

And his main one,

the one no one was expecting, which I think he nicked from someone, was the hunger strike.

He just stopped eating.

Churchill didn't expect that.

He had a full meal ready and he said, I'm not going to eat till you free India.

And that was very confusing for everyone in power.

Right.

But is that why Churchill stole all the food from all the other Indians?

So they can all join in.

I'm just going to quickly move on.

Is that an edgy topic?

Even now, we're still like, come on, give it some time.

That's a comedy show without a light-hearted Bengal famine reference.

Give the people what they want.

Swap made McIntyre successful, and we're on that same bus.

That is the name of my band, by the way, light-hearted Bengal Famine reference.

We've been touring all around eastern India.

But the one that I found brilliant and very confusing was the non-cooperation movement, where he said, you know, obviously he wasn't up for violence.

He said, you know, this is India 1930.

You're working with British people.

Work with British people, but don't cooperate with them.

Which makes the workplace very difficult.

Because you'll be like,

some English person says, can you plast the pen?

And the Indian person goes, no.

So pesky protests.

But lately, we've been really upping the ante.

One of my favorite protests was in an exam in Eastern India, in the state of Bihar where the students were protesting the ridiculous exam schedule and rigor required.

So they showed up at the exam completely naked,

throwing the entire examination schedule into a bit of disarray.

And yet, some people had mentally prepared for everyone else to be naked in the room, so they just aced the test, actually.

Just some breaking news on strikes.

British ghosts are going on strike.

The British Union of Spectres

has just

released a statement saying most people are now so haunted by reality

that

they see us as just someone to unload their worries to.

It's resulting in a decline in job satisfaction amongst our members.

There's never been a tougher time to be a ghost.

Well, appropriately enough, that brings us on to American news now.

NATO, bring us up to date with America.

Donald Trump has been subpoena.

And what else has been capturing your attention in America this week?

Yeah.

Hey, Andy.

So America is stupid.

And

I think it's safe to say.

So a couple of highlights.

We have the midterms coming up.

There are a bunch of contested Senate races.

The Republican Party have decided that the key to having a competent and sober hand on the wheel of government is to run both a TV personality for Senate and also an author

named J.D.

Vance.

J.D.

Vance is running for Senate in Ohio.

J.D.

Vance is a tech venture capitalist who moved to San Francisco to build his fortune and then moved home to Ohio to return to his true love of transphobia um he came to san francisco the gay capital of america it made him rich and now he's mad about liberals uh so that always makes sense he has never had public office but he wrote a book about hillbillies and you know how since trump has been elected there were all these uh

commentaries about the plight of the American heartland and the misunderstood and maligned white people who are so tired of being disrespected by coastal elites like me that they've decided it's time for fascism because there's a black mermaid uh that's jd vance he's that guy uh and jd vance is right i am a coastal elite and i do look down on him he created a self-fulfilling prophecy it's not because he's from ohio it's just because he's a

um

and

Like a lot of Republicans, they are very wound up about pronouns.

They're outraged by the idea,

Vance is outraged by the idea that people should get to tell you what they want to be called instead of you telling them.

That's why J.D.

Vance goes around Ohio Ohio calling married women by their maiden names.

Oh, Mr.

and Mrs.

Jameson, bullshit libtard.

It will always be Mr.

Jameson and Miss Everly.

Don't bring me into your bedroom.

No, I will not send a Lucruset Tagine from the wedding registry.

Republicans don't believe in nicknames either.

I refuse to call him Maverick.

He's only Pete Mitchell.

So Vance, this is my favorite thing.

Vance went on a podcast and talking about children using their preferred pronouns in school.

He said, he also said that he thought that if children became furries, their parents had a right to know.

He said, if my son identifies as a chipmunk, I want to know about it.

Aside from the fact that this is not a thing that occurs, if your son identifies as a chipmunk and you can't tell, then you're the asshole.

Do you mind if I say a word about the January 6th committee, Andy?

Oh, not at all, NATO.

Far away.

So I don't know if you are aware, but in the shithole country that is the United States, the Republicans tried to overthrow the government on January 6th of 2021.

There's been a January 6th committee investigating it.

They finally subpoenaed Donald Trump to come.

He won't come.

If he did come, it would be amazing.

It would be...

Trump having to answer questions under oath from Democrats on national TV would be bigger than Game of Thrones.

It would also be shorter because he would start shouting and have a stroke in about three minutes.

It's not clear if it would, I don't think it would change anything.

Like every week since he first announced his candidacy for president in 2015, people have been saying, well, now they can't ignore this, and then they do.

But the real highlight of the committee that I want to bring your attention to is Nancy Pelosi, my congresswoman, House Speaker.

I'm not the biggest fan of Nancy Pelosi.

She's the leader of the House Democrats.

And the best thing that I can say about her is that she's not Chuck Schumer.

Chuck Schumer is the leader of the Senate Democrats.

He's a Jew, but he's the kind of Jew that makes other Jews like me yell at the television.

Get it together, man.

You'll get us all killed.

I'm not saying Chuck Schumer is weak, but if Nazis came to put him on a train to Auschwitz, he'd offer them a cheese platter.

So the committee released two videos of Nancy Pelosi from January 6th.

In one of them,

a staffer tells her that Trump is leading a mob to the Capitol, and she says, quote, I hope he comes.

I will punch him out and go to jail.

And I'm going to be happy.

And hearing those words from an 80-year-old Italian woman is the most terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life.

That is more menacing than any line from any mafia movie ever.

I'm like, I'm going to make him an offer.

He can't refuse.

Nothing on this.

Then later that day, there's another video of her on the phone with Mike Pence, and she's like, starts out like kindly grandma lady, where she says, oh, God bless you.

And my goodness, where are you?

I hope you're okay.

And then

while she's telling Pence not to let anyone know where he's hiding, she pulls down her mask, opens the wrapper of a package of Slim Jims with her teeth like it's the pin and a grenade, and proceeds to munch on it while telling Pence how they're going to clean this human shit out of the Capitol Rotunda.

So

her move here is highly

familiar to me as a San Franciscan.

People of the UK, if you don't know, the Slim Jim is a beef jerky snack, and it's sold individually wrapped as an impulse buy at the counter of the neighborhood corner store.

It tastes bad.

Even within the genre of dried beef snacks, it's not a good one.

And yet there are 560 million sold in the United States every year.

One does not go out to buy a Slim Jim.

One is at the store late at night to buy booze and is like, I haven't eaten and I'm going to throw up.

I need some fat and protein in my belly.

I just got a case of beer and a bottle of tequila.

I want to keep drinking.

I could use a Slim Jim right now.

That's what this product is.

So if I were the Slim Jim CEO, I would change the slogan from what the current slogan is, which is snap into the beefy juicy taste of a Slim Jim, into Slim Jim for when you need to stop a motherfucking coup.

Natal Green!

Andy.

Andy, I just want to say, every time I listen to Natal, it's very hard to figure out what his political beliefs are.

Explain what RRR is.

Yes, other than basically something that Prince Charles says when someone walks into a room.

An extraordinary thing he said to, did you see the amazing bit of Freudian monarchy he did when Liz Truss came into meeting?

And he says, back again, dear oh dear.

For once the monarch is genuinely speaking on behalf of the people of this country.

But what is RRR?

Well, before I explain it, actually, you know, inspired by the movies like Howard's End and Merchant Ivory, this is in that vein.

It's very subtle, very quiet, very English kind of film.

RRR is a film, is an anti-British Empire film.

What did you do wrong?

Nobody knows.

It was ages ago.

Nobody knows.

That's where all the confusion comes from.

And the scene we've just seen, this is the final scene of the movie where two people fighting the British Empire

invade a garden party hosted by the local governor with an entire zoo.

And which of us haven't done that?

Now, there's been a lot of talk about how a gentleman in the spectator wrote an article saying that it wasn't an accurate portrayal of the British Empire.

There's nothing wrong with that.

We've had inaccurate portrayals of the British Empire for our entire history.

They were upset.

I mean, first of all, most of these animals were shot

around to be brought to a garden party.

So

his claim was that the whole point of the film is that there's a governor who is cruel and sadistic and doing terrible things.

And his point was that you can't have this kind of a thing because it didn't happen.

There were laws, there were systems in place.

Now he's trying to find logic in a film

where a man has unleashed an entire zoo.

And in a later scene, another man is punching a tiger in the face.

We've all done it.

So, you know,

there's a debate going on on whether RRR is, and it might be a nominee for the Oscars, on whether this is an accurate portrayal of Britain in India.

Now, if this is an accurate portrayal of Britain in India, then my favorite Bollywood film, Disco Dancer,

two disco dancers in the audience,

which ends with a disco dancing face-off till death,

is an accurate portrayal of India in post-Soviet

1980s.

But this debate is raging on.

We don't have a winner.

But an article was written in the spectator saying, Governor Scott, who is a bad man who's kidnapping people, could not have done these things because

the system of fair play would have come into practice.

And we answered by unleashing a zoo.

I absolutely adore British incredulity about their own history.

Well, you've come to the right country.

My favourite thing, I've heard multiple English people say this, go, God, you watch all these American films and

all the bad guys have got these English accents.

I'm like, have you read all books?

Have you opened Wikipedia?

You fed everyone

repeatedly for ages.

Yes, but cricket.

You make an excellent point, sir.

I'll say that.

Again, I've never.

I agree.

I think the British Empire hasn't gotten the benefit of the doubt.

I've only talked about it on our podcast, but I cannot believe in a country that invented cricket, you can't watch it on free-to-air TV.

Why are we not taking to the streets?

Why are we not angry anymore?

Ticket prices for trains are the most expensive in all of Europe.

What the f are we doing sitting in a theatre going, ha ha ha, aren't we terrible?

We need to riot.

This is insane.

It's insane.

Our country is crumbling.

We can't just go, well, it's really bad, isn't it?

Actually, yeah, no, I went and saw a satirical show and

pretty bad.

Feel like I've contributed now.

Sorry, but you can't kick me out.

That brings us to the end of this 15th anniversary bugle.

Huge thanks from San Francisco NATO Green and a tiny little box.

Anu Vapow,

Felicity Ward,

the wonderful producer Chris who keeps this thing going.

Thank you for all your support over the years.

See you in 15 years time.

Goodbye.

And it's Ultiman.

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.