Viruses are Marvel (4229)

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 4229 of the Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World, a show that is available to you for $195 million less than the going rate for a picture of Marilyn Monroe after a day on the beach without suncream on.

It's one of the great bargains this episode of the Bugle, and it's also absolutely guaranteed to keep its value.

I am Andy Zoltzmann.

I should point out that if you want to buy me, rather than just listen to the show, that will cost you $195 million.

I know what I'm worth.

For the first time...

in 4043 years it is the 10th of May 2022 and I am joined this week firstly representing the entire southern hemisphere and the strange philosophy philosophy and the strange philosophy of having half a globe which is 80% covered with non-pottable water too much if you ask me from Australia it's Alice Fraser hello Alice hello buglers speaking of knowing what you're worth I was there was once a thing when I was at university there was a website that you could figure out how much you'd go for on the slave market like the modern slavery

there's sort of that's a thing and you could figure out how much you would go for and I don't know why someone sent it to me but I had it at that point I knew how much I was worth, but I guess I'm aged out of my value at that point.

Also,

it's good to know these things.

I wonder if they were just trying to trick you into selling yourself.

It's quite a possible.

I must have been,

you know, because I was lucky enough to be a student in the pre-internet days, or at least pre-anyone having access to the internet day.

So luckily we weren't able to put slap price tags on ourselves for a hypothetical slave market.

Yeah, I also, I just, I don't know why the person sent it to me, and I don't know what they were trying to suggest.

Well, yeah, it's probably best you don't find out.

Um, also joining us for the first time on the Bugle, somebody's been one of my favourite guests on the newsqua since I started hosting it.

And as far as I'm aware, the first bugle co-host with a doctorate in virology.

Welcome to Rhea Lena.

Uh, hello, Rhea.

It's lovely to have you on the show.

Thank you so much.

You know, I only got that doctorate to up my value in the slave market.

Very, very well timed with hindsight as well.

I mean, they're crafty little shits, viruses, aren't they?

I mean, after studying them,

do you have a grudging respect for the virus?

Okay,

this is really going to paint a picture.

I went into virology.

I found them fascinating as a teenager.

They kept saying, what's your favorite animal?

I was like, viruses.

I think they're amazing.

I think they're the most amazing non-life, but life, but non-life things on the planet.

They're the only life, but non-life things on the planet as well, which does put them first in their category.

Right.

Anyway, but they're amazing.

They are crafty.

They are amazing.

They evolve, but they don't eat, but they reproduce, but

they don't breathe.

I think they're.

Right.

I don't understand why more people don't find them fascinating.

Well, I guess

they can be rude, can't they?

It's a manners thing.

You know, viruses.

Yeah, but bacteria don't say please or thank you either.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of them either, to be honest.

Yeah, but you've got to be.

I mean, we live with so many of them.

I mean,

I've just found out that there's a polarized argument between bacteria and viruses.

Do I have to pick one side?

Is this like DC versus Marvel?

It is.

It is.

And viruses are definitely Marvel.

Oh,

wait, wait, wait.

Pre-the recent Surge of Marvel movies, Marvel, or post-the recent Surge of Marvel movies?

Because if we're looking at like comic book, you know, we're not going to have this discussion.

Anyway, it's great to have you on the bugle, Rhea.

We are recording on the 10th of May, as I said, 2022, the 60th birthday of The Incredible Hulk, who first appeared in May 1962 and now, according to an interview this week to mark the occasion in The New Yorker, admits to, quotes, regretting the way I behaved at times in my career.

He also feels he's been, quotes, a poor role model for generations of fans who looked up to him and wishes that he'd embraced the ancient philosophical doctrine of stoicism in his youth rather than resorting to Hulkism.

Also shares his battle with joint pain and other health issues arising from his excessively muscular physique.

Interestingly, his birth name, not the Incredible Hulk, his birth name was Ian Christopher Edmund Blemsbury-Hulkovitz, shortened to Ian Credible Hulk.

Not as many people think Robert Bruce Banner.

There was a confusion because he did actually have a poster of the 14th century Scottish king Robert Bruce in his bedroom as a child.

On the 12th of May this week.

On the 12th of May this week, happy birthday to Florence Nightingale.

Flo ni is is 202 years young this week.

She famously nursed the absolute arse out of the 19th century.

Still single, according to reports.

She really had it going on in the 1850s, it being a revolution in the art of battlefield nursing.

Still.

She probably should have tried online dating or something.

That would have helped.

There's an app for nurses.

It's called Tender.

That's a strong start, Rhea.

You've brought a pun to your first few minutes on the bugle.

You'll fit right in.

As always, a section of this esteemed audio newspaper is going straight in the bin this week.

A home improvement section to mark the impending Jubilee here in Britain, which we celebrate Queen Elizabeth II, setting a 70-year record for staying in one job, which I think is the longest anyone's had one job without at any point thinking, I reckon I've done this enough.

I want to try something different.

But we, to mark this occasional.

Yes.

I think, yeah, but that said, Rhea, I mean, she's 96 now, still monarchs the shit out of stuff on a daily basis.

And, you know, economically, most of our economic problems are caused by the excess cost of pensions and more and more people living to pensionable age because of people like you playing around with viruses, making them less nasty.

And

the Queen is setting a great example by never retiring.

If everyone, like the Queen, just does their job until they're at least 96, then we'd save an infinite amount of money.

Have you seen the line-up for this Jubilee situation?

Because I'm going to be in London for this.

Oh, is that why you're coming back?

I didn't know.

Are you having this?

No, that is not why.

I'm going to be in London when this is happening.

Apparently, it's like it's completely deranged.

This party, you know, there's all giant 18-foot statues representing British Reserve being puppeteered by 83 left-handed children from Cornwall.

There's just.

Genuinely, there's a fleet of elderly people in mobility scooters dressed as flamingos.

What

that must be very triggering for you Alice.

It's deeply triggering right

Beth well they haven't they haven't consulted me on the artistic design for this this this ceremony for whatever reason

but I don't know I imagine the queen designed it herself didn't she think you know a big moment like this you know yeah she described a fever dream that she had upon eating too much cheese and they thought let's bring this to life yep it's her jubilee she's gonna to cry if she wants to.

I think it's nice that she's showing us that inside, you know, that side of herself.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, for too long, we just thought.

She's always loved bright colours.

I think the flamingos fit right in there.

Maybe she's going to come out and be one of the flamingo.

I mean, you know, I've seen her in that colour.

I've definitely seen her in flamingo pink.

Yes.

Has she ever drunk boiling water, like the flamingo?

What?

Sorry, I lived a bit there.

Flamingos can drink drink boiling water.

It's one of their many horrifying traits.

Also, I want to know who tried feeding a flamingo.

I don't want to know.

Okay, let's move on.

Do you mean boiling water or just a nice cup of tea?

I mean, boiling water.

Oh, she can drink the shit out of a cup of tea.

You know that.

Well, absolutely.

I'm sorry, can I say that word?

What, shit?

Yes.

Or tea.

Yes, either of those is fine.

Okay, no, just because I was listening to another episode and you called it family friendly, and then I went, uh-oh.

there are families and there are families, Rhea.

Okay.

Royal family-friendly.

Is that what we're

at our level?

Mafia family-friendly, I think.

Okay, understand.

Andy just saying family-friendly then allows me to not cut out the reference to something

particularly sexual that Alice or Tiff then says, and I'm allowed to keep in the edit with that disclaimer.

Oh, okay.

That's all we have to do is just say this is family-friendly, and then

let's talk about Prince Andrew then.

That's a very friendly family and not.

Yes, over-friendly.

I would argue, I see your point about how by not retiring she's saving us on pension, but I would argue that by having so many children that live off the state, that she also

didn't.

It's probably going to balance out.

She only needed one.

You just need one.

When you're queen, you just need one offspring.

Speaking of having too many children, I think that brings us to our first story, Andy.

Oh.

Well, I haven't finished the section in the bin bin yet, Alice.

He has more jokes, Alice.

Can you people let me do my job?

Sorry.

The home improvement section.

We look at how you can make subtle changes to where you live to be more like a medieval-themed monarch.

For example, by converting your two-bedroom apartment into a 75-room palace, albeit a 75-room palace in which all of the rooms are one metre squared.

Also, we tell you how to make a one-metre square room feel like a grand banqueting hall.

It's amazing what you can do with mirrors in terms of the feeling of space.

And the key is to have really, really small bits of food to make everything else seem massive.

Also we ask how many rooms is too many rooms, kind of related issue, and where to put your ceremonial balcony.

Because so few of us these days give something back to our local communities by waving at everyone on a daily basis.

But you could be waving at your public every morning for little more than the cost of a couple of wooden pallets and some reasonably strong rope.

Also, we tell you how to build a surprise moat for your 12th floor flat without annoying the people who live on the floor below

or your landlord.

And we give you guidance on how much of your home you should open to the public.

That section in the bin.

Top story this week, Wombs in America.

America, the renowned 6-in-1 combo of global superpower, introspective loner, fading dream, beacon of hope, cautionary tale, and source of eternal bafflement, has once again been at loggerheads with its fiercest, oldest enemy, itself.

Can there ever truly be a winner?

It seems not.

The ongoing battle in the USA over who should control the nation's wombs, whether it should be the people who have them inside their bodies or Republican lawmakers and the religion lobby, no closer to a lasting resolution.

A draft Supreme Court ruling was leaked last week, suggesting that Roe v.

Wade, the landmark 1973 court ruling which guaranteed the right to abortion and established the controversial theory that a woman owns her own womb, could be overturned.

Now,

we are in the year 2022.

It seems that, I mean, much of American history in the last few years does seem to be an effort, not just to blast it back into the 20th century, but ideally from the point of view of many of the people doing the driving, to blast it way beyond that.

Alice, how do you see this story and what it means for modern America and humanity in general?

I mean, this is a needlessly contentious thing, right out of the gate.

We all know it's better to row than wade because you don't get your feet wet.

But

I think this leaked draft, this draft ruling is just another nail in the coffin of the American people's trust in their institutions.

A coffin that is really starting to look like more nail than coffin.

The coffin to nail ratio is way off.

It's a bed of nails more than anything, or given that it's a coffin, a dead of nails.

A lot of the debate about this leaked opinion, particularly on the right, seems to be about who leaked it and why.

The fact that someone inside the court's small gang of loving friends decided to leak this thing.

It's being expressed by the court on their SCOTUS blog.

They tweeted out on Monday night that the gravest, most unforgivable sin was leaking this draft ruling, which is going to be upsetting to both the people who believe that abortion is the gravest, most unforgivable sin, and the people who think banning abortion is the gravest, most unforgivable sin.

From such little leaks, such great problems spring, which should be the motto for the entire abortion debate, if you ask me.

I mean, it's interesting with the leaks.

So much is leaked now.

We are on course.

By the year 2076, everything that is ever going to happen anywhere in the universe will have already been leaked.

And we will know the future of everything.

And then we can just concentrate on

watching videos of cats playing with cucumbers.

I know that we're trying to keep this light, but it is really, really scary what's happening over there, that we've gotten to a point where, A, the checks and balances, because the American government is famously checked and balanced, isn't it, between the executive, the judicial, and the third one.

I think it's the TV channels, isn't it?

It's Fox News.

That's right.

It is.

And the problem is that they is that the executive, well, the executive is the president, and then you've got the houses, and then you've got the judicial, which is the Supreme Court.

And the checks and balances don't seem to be working because we've gotten to a place where the Supreme Court can make decisions based on their opinions,

which is a very recent development that we're now looking at judges and going, oh, but they're right-leaning and they're left-leaning, and that's going to affect their judgment.

They're supposed to be making judgments based on the law, which is what Roe v.

Wade was in the first place, was a judgment based on law that some of the laws across multiple states were interfering with citizens' constitutional rights.

And now we've gotten to a point where they're going, well, it's not about the Constitution.

It's about what I think and it's about what I feel.

And I think what we need to do is just ban opinions and feelings

and get back to what law is.

And law is an unfeeling bitch.

And I think that's what people have forgotten in all of this.

Yeah, I think that's what the Latin motto means if you translate it correctly.

I think the problem with the checks and balances, Rio, is there's too many checks and not enough balances.

That was a joke about money.

Don't mind me.

I'm just going to put the...

Just for a minute, I'm just going to put the bore into the abortion debate to talk about the legal process,

which is that, you know, the leaking ruling, as far as I've read it, is correct in that Roe against Wade originally was ill-judged.

It was handed down back in 1973 and it stood on the legal principle of a right to privacy that they sort of found by fingering the Constitution, which seems to be how they find most of their rights.

They draw our attention to what I think is technically called America's weird religious thing about their own original piece of paper.

This is the problem.

All of their laws refer back to this thing that was written ages ago and you have to update your piece of paper.

Otherwise you look like that comedian who's held onto a headshot for too long, and then you show up at the gig, and people are like, oh, you must be the comedian's dad, but you're the comedian.

The decision in Rowe against Wade, it polarised the country, it politicised the court, and the only thing worse than making a dodgy precedent is taking a 50-year-old dodgy precedent that's been repeatedly affirmed into law and then completely flipping the table on it.

You cannot go back to every dumb shit thing you did as a country and start picking away at it.

That is a loose thread on a very big jumper indeed and ends up with everyone suddenly suddenly having to do something about the fact that we all know now that you can't just show up somewhere with a flag.

I think that, I mean, the thing about finding, you know, fingering the Constitution and finding that privacy law in the 14th Amendment is that we have found it and it is held for other rights to privacy.

And if anything, you know, the Republicans call themselves, you know, they want to be the party of minimal interference.

They're the ones that want nobody, you know,

I get to hold guns in my house if I want to.

I get to do whatever I want on my land.

If that means if someone's on my land and I kill them, that should be my right as a a landowner.

Like they're very, very clear on their individual rights.

So it's crazy that in this one instance they feel, well, one instance, I mean, it's all women, isn't it?

So it speaks to an embedded sexism and misogyny that they haven't been able to move past yet as a nation, that they feel that they have a right in this one instance to control it because we don't control men's bodies in any way the same way.

But this privacy issue on the 14th Amendment, it upholds for

so many other things.

I mean, we've even put homeschooling.

We've even gotten to a point where they go, no, no, you have the right to homeschool if you want all those children that we're forcing you to have.

But you can raise them as you wish, but you have to have them.

I find it fascinating that we have this

principle.

I think it runs generally through most of our interactions with one another as people in the world, which is that you're not allowed to use somebody else's body parts.

if they don't want them to.

Like even if you're dead, they cannot force you to donate your organs, even if it will save someone's life, even if you hit that person with the car.

Like,

even if you believe that life begins at conception, you can't make someone keep someone else alive.

That's not with your body.

You can't make somebody use their body to keep someone else alive.

That's just a principle that holds true in every other instance, including after you're dead, unless it's to do with pregnancy, which I feel is illogical.

Yes, well, I mean, the news is described as a disastrous setback for women's rights and reproductive freedom, but the so-called pro-life campaigners celebrated the news, hoping it will enable more and more people to eventually, having been born, have the opportunity to enjoy the freedom of being gunned down by a stranger.

So

it's a kind of weird balancing act, I guess, in America.

The Supreme Court also, and we've touched on this at various times through the history of this esteemed newscast.

It's part elite legal body, part political plaything that leaves Americans and their lives at the whims of long-departed presidents.

And at the moment, with a six to three

conservative majority, I guess,

as you say, it's become much more of an opinionated thing, Rhea.

So I guess the legacy of A, the Trump junter, and B, the comically,

and B, the cosmically insane system by which presidents can appoint Supreme Court justices for life for their own political ends.

I believe this has now been confirmed as the stupidest way to staff a Supreme Court that anyone could possibly concoct.

And well done to America, as so often for finding the stupidest way to do something.

I mean to outside eyes allowing presidents to appoint judges to wield vast influence for the rest of their lives is very very silly but that's only because it is.

And it's also a bit odd in a country which as we Brits know only too well from our slightly awkward little hoo-ha in the late 18th century they made a real song and dance about being ruled by someone who was allowed to wield vast influence for the rest of his life.

So there's an element of hypocrisy even within the logic of America.

Even in Mississippi, where the Dobbs v.

Jackson Women's Health Organization case is going on, which is what

kick-started off

this whole

look at Roe v.

Wade again, even in Mississippi, they're saying, okay, what we're going to do, because you need to prepare for it.

If you're going to suddenly ban abortion and you're going to have more children being born, you need to do something about that.

Either improve sex education so that fewer unwanted pregnancies are happening, improve access to contraception, or, and this this is what they're doing in Mississippi, he's saying, well, we're going to look at improving the foster care system and the adoption system.

And you just go, but what you're doing is

you're going to have a whole bunch of kids that are going to go, why was my childhood so awful?

And they'll be like, because you were forced to be made by someone who didn't want you by the government.

They're not voting for you in 21 years, are they?

You're basically forcing a country to grow more Democrats.

That's what this is doing.

Putting it in those terms is the only way that I think might convince Republicans.

It is a disastrous policy.

It does raise other questions.

If you are pro-life and pro-guns, should you arm your fetus with an in-utero firearm?

Should logically, if this is passed, should all medical procedures be banned as contrary to the will of God?

Should sperms have the vote?

Will America ever be pro-life once it's out of the womb?

And what parts of other people's internal organs should also be other people's business?

Will it stop at at wombs?

How about lungs, ears, or even socks?

Can I make a suggestion?

Yes.

Penises.

If they're gonna, I would love, I would love the right to control other people's penises.

And I think that actually this could solve the problem.

You know, this is my compromise.

If they want to control my body and my womb, fine, but I get to control you and your penis.

Okay?

Like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice dance in Fantasia.

The penis with the broomsticks.

Only if I'm high, if I'm honest.

But generally in the morning when I'm still quite sober, I would say things like, you know, all right, no more, no more little blue pills.

If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

I'm sorry.

Maybe I would, you know, I would suggest maybe we could give every young man a vasectomy and we'll reverse it when he proves that he can be responsible with it.

Do I even say,

I spent,

I went to a farm.

You know that that trip you do when you're 11 or 12, and you go away for a week with your school, and we went to a farm, and they, for whatever reason, take the tails off of lambs, and they do it by slowly restricting the blood flow to it with a little elastic band.

We could do that for the balls

and just sort of go, well,

you better evolve quick if you want to keep them because that band ain't getting any looser.

You know, I'm just saying, I don't, I, I,

maybe this could, we could work with this.

We will allow our bodies to be controlled, but in exchange, we get to make unilateral decisions about

men's.

All right, that seems an entirely fair swap from my point of view.

Wonderful.

I've got the rubber bands right here.

I mean, on the bright side,

with the government

sort of accelerating this process of a mistrust in the institution, at least we can turn to our capitalist overlords to look after us.

It's accelerating the process of us all forming into weird clans with loyalty to Nestle or Disney or Amazon.

Because a bunch of American companies are now volunteering to pay for their employees to go interstate to get abortions, depending on which state they're in.

So a bunch of companies particularly have based themselves in Texas because the tax laws there are more favourable than California where they all used to be.

So now they're, as a way of keeping their female employees around, are offering

abortion care services up to, you know, I think Amazon's doing up to $4,000, and various other people are offering various incentives to their employees to ship them out of town, which used to be the job of a generous uncle, I think.

Yeah, but there has been a global shortage of generous uncles since around about the 1880s, I think.

No,

they all went pervy in the 19th and 20th century, didn't they?

They need a rebrand.

Uncles, if anything, could definitely do with the rebrand.

But

I found it really funny, if not ironic, that Amazon was offering this.

A, any company that's still in Texas and disagrees with that law needs to maybe put their money where their mouth is and move, in my opinion.

Leave.

Why are you offering to help your employees access what is their constitutional right to access by staying in a state where they can't access it?

Just move to where they can access it, first of all.

And second of all, Amazon, you don't even let your employees have a bathroom break, but now you're going to have to.

They're going to have to pee on the stick in a bottle, and then you'll have to

prove it.

So, A, I don't know how they got pregnant in the first place, you don't give them enough time, but

B, I feel like it's a little bit more of a PR exercise, and let's see if it actually comes to fruition.

Yeah, I mean, also on that point of

when life begins, and you know, a bunch of non-sentient cells, that is still a much more advanced form of life than, for example, Tucker Carlson.

So,

it gets into complex philosophical areas over, you know, when is life life.

I mean, he is some differentiated functions full of teeth.

I've seen teratomas that could do better.

Speaking of bundles of cells and teeth, you're Starmer.

Using them teeth illegally.

British politics news now, and well, we're recovering from a bout of election fever in Britain, albeit it was only local elections in most of the UK, plus the Northern Ireland Assembly election.

So it's a bout of fever that most of us have managed to deal with.

It's been fairly asymptomatic.

Local councils were elected in England, Scotland and Wales.

Local elections for those unfamiliar with them around the world, British local elections, are de facto mid-term elections.

People, it's a mixture of electing your new local representative, having a f ⁇ ing massive whinge about everything, expressing your despair at the state of British British democracy through the futile medium of writing X in a box next to the name of someone you've never heard of, and trying to get the fing potholes in your local roads sorted out.

And the results were that the government did terribly, the opposition Labour Party did okay, but given that the government did terribly, you would have kind of expected more.

The Northern Ireland Assembly elections blasted further holes in the crumbling, rusting hull of HMS United Kingdom, as the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin Party won the largest share of the vote.

So further repercussions from the the Brexit votes well are rumbling on regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol and the surprise discovery after Brexit of a land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, something that no one could possibly have known about before because you cannot trust Max.

Since when Labour has been under well considerable pressure, the Labour leader Kier Starmer has announced that he will resign as leader if he is fined over a potential lockdown breach when he was filmed drinking a beer on the campaign trail last year during a lockdown.

He's insisted that he did not break any laws.

And it's

basically played a high-risk drop shot in a game of political ethics tennis by saying he's going to quit.

Whereas Boris Johnson, of course, famously refused to quit after

numerous breaches under his watch in Downing Street and basically everything that he's ever done in his career.

I mean, thank goodness for Neil Parrish, right?

I mean, because someone had to go.

Yeah.

And he was in the right place at the right time looking at the wrong tractor.

So

I'm sure that was a

country song from the 1950s.

It was.

My mother has it on LP.

We often listen to it.

Wrong place, wrong time, right tractor.

They always said that drinking is bad for you, but they never told me why.

They never said it was just about the political optics.

Especially when you mainline it.

I think, well, I mean, Kier Starmer didn't have a choice.

Well, first of all,

this is what the Tories do: they point fingers elsewhere and go, but they're doing it, but they're doing it.

And that's all they've done, is they've found one picture of Kier Starmer, which was already looked into and found to be fine because it was in April 21.

I think we were a little bit looser with mix, we weren't allowed to mix households except if you were at work, if you recall, which is why Boris Johnson's nanny never stopped working.

And

so

he's had to make a choice.

He's either going to join Boris in going, of course I'm not going to quit for this, but then lose the ground and respect that he's just gained from this election, or he can say, well, of course, if they discover in two months or three months or whenever the police actually get around to passing down a judgment that I did something wrong, of course I will quit.

And I actually, I'm going to be honest, I got kind of excited.

I was just like, ooh, ooh, we might have a woman in opposition.

But then Angela went, oh, I'll quit too.

And I went, oh, for goodness sake, Angela, cross your legs and shut up.

I mean, it does seem that Kiersthamer's got massive Achilles heel politically, that he has, not only has a moral compass, and in his pre-political life, he was one of the country's leading criminal lawyers, the director of public prosecutions.

But not only does he have a sense of morality, but he also thinks naively that he needs to act on it, which is a charmingly retro attitude politically, but a potential fatal weakness.

Whereas Boris Johns, well, as the old saying goes, you can burst a balloon, but you cannot burst a moldy sock in a bucket of sick.

And if you do try to burst it, you'll end up with sick splashing all over your shoes.

And that's essentially what the situation with John...

That's why he's impregnable ethically.

Because, as Muddy Waters famously said, you can't lose what you never had.

No, it is true.

I mean, Boris is playing an amazing amazing game of chess, and he's just really backing Keir into a very moral corner, isn't he?

Where Keir can, you know, has to constantly keep his halo polished and keeps him too busy to do other things like properly oppose him.

I think muddy waters is the technical term for Boris Johnson's approach to politics.

Yes.

Well, also, if you compare it with chess.

If you compare it with chess, I guess Boris Johnson's move was to get his cock out and slap a load of pieces off the chessboard.

And then when Keir Starmer tried to move his pawn three pieces instead of the maximum two with his first move, everyone said, oh, you can't possibly cheat.

That is cheating.

That's absolutely unacceptable.

So you get this kind of slightly two-paced morality in politics that I think leaves Stalma kind of vulnerable.

There was an interesting thing over the weekend

that news emerged that

Boris Johnson gave us something of a car crash TV interview before the elections

last week

in which he was presented with the news that

a 75-year-old woman said that she spends her entire time sitting on buses during the day so she doesn't have to pay to heat her own house because she can't afford to.

And Boris Johnson responded to this by claiming credit for making bus travel free in a

spectacular act of crassness.

Then it's emerged that he was ill and he'd had before the interview he had been sick on his own suit.

and that shows you know because these stories don't come out of nowhere it shows you know what his standing is that by sort of leaking a story that he vomited all over himself that was viewed as something to boost his public standing now that that's something to make him look better was the fact that he just chundered all over himself makes him relatable who among us has not vomited on the three thousand dollar suit

oh my gosh it explains why no one shakes his hand when he goes to those 220 meetings anymore.

In other government moves to deal with the cost of living crisis, George Eustis, the Environment Minister, has suggested that people save money by buying supermarket economy products rather than more expensive brands, which I imagine most people in that situation have already been doing,

Minister, in the same way that 2.5 million people have been making the very sensible money-saving decision to use food banks rather than eat at Michelin-starred restaurants.

I guess people reach these conclusions from that.

You know what?

I've eaten at a Mission Star restaurant.

Those stars, there's not much to them.

Do you know what I mean?

They're a little bit dry.

A little bit dry.

I wouldn't recommend.

Their latest government advice to help people save money at this difficult time is that roadkill can be surprisingly tasty.

Singing songs can make you feel less hungry.

Foraging is good.

Most mushrooms are probably okay and squirrels are sleepy at this time of year so it's quite easy to steal their stash of nuts.

Or just draw a picture of of the queen on a bit of paper and take it to a shop and pretend it's a 20-quid note.

So, helpful advice from the government.

I mean, certainly setting your children up in a thunderdome against one another can help you drop your living costs.

Yeah, probably make quite a lucrative YouTube stream as well.

Sorry, is that because they're doing it to the death and you're only coming home with one?

Yes, yeah,

halves your food budget.

I see.

Okay,

you could just alternate.

No, I'm gonna stop.

Alternate your children.

Well, one week on, one week off.

Yeah.

Make them, you know, make them, you know, we give children too much unconditional love.

I think it, and look what's happening now.

We're seeing an increase in narcissism.

We're seeing it across social media.

Maybe a little more conditional love.

All right.

You want to eat today?

Do better.

Web 3 news now.

And the question has arisen, Alice.

What the f ⁇ is Web3?

I announced the 3B, I think.

Two articles you suggested this week both involved Web3.

And I don't know what the f ⁇ it is.

So can you please explain and then also explain why the Pope and Starbucks have got involved in it?

Well, Web 1 was very sort of linear and

decentralized.

And then Web 2 was

non-linear and becoming quite centralized but it still had kind of these nice things about it like you know people being able to talk to each other and show each other pictures of their children if they wanted to and then everything suddenly got sort of monetized and and horrified

and then web 3 came along which is sort of like

do you remember second life

yes but worse

it's like that where everything is made of pretend money

It's a world that's made of pretend money, basically, and they're hoping that we'll step into it and lose our identities more than we have with Web 2.

Right.

Deeply depressing.

I think the short answer is, what is Web 3?

Deeply depressing.

Okay.

I'm glad to know where I stand on it.

And the Pope, the professional pontiff, hat fan, world's number one ranked Catholic and pioneering fashion Easter, he was rocking the non-gendered androgynous vibe way ahead of his time.

He's

it got involved in this somehow.

I mean, yes, I've always felt that religion is too fungible,

Andy, and so

the Catholic Church is stepping into

the Web3 game.

So the idea of Web3 was actually that it was meant to be decentralized, but the people who funded its initial burst of power are all people who were billionaires.

and companies.

So the people who really believe in it are the ones who own it now,

which is to say corporations.

And you know the Catholic Church is going to want to get its grubby little fingers into anything that even smells like money.

I think probably

this is not the first time the Catholic Church has tried to sell people something that doesn't exist.

But

unfortunately.

That was a scorrulous accusation, Alice.

I'm just guessing.

I think the problem here is that the announcement was going to be made and then the Pope backed out of the announcement because just when the announcement was about to be made,

all of the tech stock prices crashed horrifyingly because of various things, including a loss of faith in imaginary stuff.

Bad news for the Catholic Church.

Bad news for the Catholic Church.

So, I think they are going to launch it with more confidence later down the line, but at the moment, they're sort of squirreling around it.

Vatican has become Vatican.

Oh, there we go.

And this thing called Humanity 2.0.

Yes, there is something worryingly Noah's Arc about Humanity 2.0.

Well, I mean, so it's Humanity 1.0, which of course began in the Bible, and all its iterations up to the, I think we're currently on Humanity 1.42c.

And they've all been flawed, all the different iterations of humanity.

So, I mean, 2.0 could be the reboot that our species needs, but I don't think the Catholic Church should be in charge of the rollout, to be honest, because they've had a tendency to get some details wrong such as for example massive institutional abuse scandals across the world uh setting people on fire and facilitating the spread of aids so i just feel that those little things that they've got right means that maybe that they're not ready for the big things like this well it's a nice idea so basically the idea is that you know the catholic church owns all of the art in the world uh because that's that was their jam for a long time um and so they wanted to make the art publicly accessible by being able to sell it twice first in the real world and then in the imaginary world their favourite thing is to sell something without losing the thing that they've just sold.

So they can sell you the stuff but also keep it.

Mwahahaha.

That's a direct quote, the mwahaha.

That other people will be able to experience it.

The problem, I think, is the optics are not just bad in the crash of the techno money, but

it's being organized.

This big sale of NFTs is being organized by a Switzerland-based metaverse company, which is called Censorium, that is being also founded by a a successful Russian oligarch.

And I just think the mixture of Russian oligarchs and NFTs are maybe a little bit toxic right now for

the Catholic Church.

And that is saying a lot.

Starbucks, meanwhile, is planning its own NFT loyalty program.

Can you have a non-fungible coffee?

Is that possible?

Does it still have caffeine in it?

So do you have to buy the NFT from the Catholic Church in order to join the Starbucks loyalty program?

Because that's what I understand, is that they're starting a loyalty program, but in order to join it, you have to own an NFT in order to get in.

And I'm just wondering.

And then once you're in, it's like coffee-based fun.

Nobody, like, I think the last thing that needs to go

ethereal is coffee.

If there's one thing that needs to stay tangible,

it's it's coffee.

That is a good point.

Because I mean when I drink a coffee it's because A I want to drink a coffee B I need to drink a coffee C if I don't drink a coffee I'll probably oversleep until about the year 2154 and D all of the above.

I don't drink coffee to be part of a global community of coffee drinkers.

No, I don't know.

And also I like I drink Alice let me finish this.

I drink coffee so I am alert enough to avoid communicating with anyone else.

That is the whole point.

It is a vehicle towards being antisocial.

Sorry, Harry.

I was saying even if you have an identity that is around coffee, like if you have an identity that is a coffee-based identity, if you identify yourself as a coffee connoisseur, the last thing you're going to want to do is join the Starbucks coffee community.

I know that we say, let's go for a coffee, but coffee's not actually

the drink that one communes over.

Tea.

People, you sit and you chat with tea, but when coffee drink it,

you're welcome to chat.

But it's true.

People who drink coffee don't have time to sit around and chit-chat.

They're getting things done.

It's tea where you sit and you sit in the moment and you enjoy it.

Even af even people have coffee after a meal.

That's because they're going comatose and they need to wake up.

That's what that's for.

If you need any further proof that Rhea is right there, what interval did cricket bring in to make the game the most civilized and greatest thing ever invented?

The tea interval.

Not the fucking coffee interval.

Yeah, exactly.

Tea.

The tea interval.

Brady Brewer, who is a chief marketing officer for Starbucks, said, imagine acquiring nominative determinism at its finest.

Thank you.

Imagine acquiring a new digital collectible from Starbucks, where that product also serves as your access pass to a global Starbucks community.

One with engaging content, experiences, and collaboration all centered around coffee.

Okay, Brady, I'm doing that right now.

I'm imagining it.

It's fing shit.

You know how you did five seconds last episode for people to tell you what they thought?

Well, you should do the same thing again on this.

Just a quick five seconds.

It won't end if they're all coffee drinkers.

It won't take them more than four.

Okay, here we go.

Here's your five seconds to tell Starbucks what you think about their new scheme.

Wrap it up now.

Done.

That was deafening.

Well, that brings us to the end of this week's Bugle on those exciting scientific breakthroughs.

Rhea, it's been a delight having you on the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Do you have anything you'd like to plug to our listeners?

Please, please just find me on social media because I'd love...

I'm in competition with someone to up my numbers, so

I need more numbers.

We've been putting videos out.

I've been doing things like going on TV, and they've been doing things like putting reels out and getting a million hits, and then 3,000 followers in a day.

So we're in a bit of a...

So if anyone likes me and would like to follow me, that would be great.

And generally, then I will let you know what other things are happening.

Alice, other than, well, Tea with Alice that you mentioned and the Gargle, of course, the Bugle's search.

I've been asked about to launch season two after 300 episodes and then a six-month break to have a baby.

I will be launching season two of Tea with Alice.

I'm also in Perth this week, Friday and Saturday at the Regal Theatre.

And then I will be in London next month.

So I'll be there in June, July, all over the place.

I have some gigs up on my website and other gigs.

You just have to follow me online at alliterative on Twitter and Instagram.

It's A-I-T-E-R-A-T-I-V-E or patreon.com slash AliceRazer because I keep that up to date because it's got money in it.

All about the cold hard cash.

And just to be clear, you had that baby because you wanted that baby, not because the government forced you to have it,

right?

Well, it's part of a lot.

There's a program.

It's a secret program.

I can't tell you about it.

But if I do, I'll have to kill you about it.

It's a baby in a laser.

You can see my show, Satirist for Hire,

at the Soho Theatre between now and the end of next week, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday this week as we record.

And next week until the 21st of May, do send your satirical request to satirise this at satiristforhire.com.

And the news quiz is currently on as well, so you can listen to that through BBC Sounds.

That concludes this week's bugle.

I do not have time to record lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers this week because I have to go and do my show at the Soho Theatre and write some jokes for it.

But we will be launching next week our replacement for the lies scheme.

So our

premium level, so

you no longer have the option to have a lie told about you.

We will get through the backlog of of lies of people who have subscribed already and are owed a lie, but we will have details of the new voluntary subscription reward scheme in next week's Bugle, the show is event of the millennium so far.

Will it be equally labor-intensive and heartbreaking for you, Andy?

Because that's the promise I need you to deliver.

Yeah, sure, sure.

Until next week, Buglers, 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.