Le Big Chopper (4227)

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4227 of the Bugle.

It's Monday the 25th of April in 2022 of all years and I'm Andy Zaltzmann keeping it as far from real as humanly possible here in the shed of immutable truth in London's glamorous London area.

Albeit not in the most glamorous part of that glamorous London area.

Because, you know, when you're as naturally, innately glamorous as I am, and it doesn't get any more glamorous than this shed with a box full of vintage signed cricket bats and a large wooden duck clamouring up at the back.

It doesn't matter where you live.

It's a metaphorical red carpet photo shoot wherever I go.

I just wish occasionally I'd let myself live my own life.

Joining me today from no fewer than one hemisphere of this planet, our bugle co-hosts for this week are Tiff Stevenson and Neil Delamere.

Hello, hello both of you hello

uh how are you both in uh well let's do this uh sequentially uh since you both answered at exactly the same time to the first question put to both of you which I realise isn't ideal for a podcast Neil how are you I am very well except except my dog has just broken wind behind me and it can only be this like if the

If the wallpaper starts to peel off the walls, I wouldn't be 100% surprised because she has done something quite masterful.

Sometimes she does this, looks beautiful, and then just lets one go, and all you know is your eyelashes fall out, and all the spiders in the room start running away from her.

And that's how you know something has happened.

But that's what the bugle brings you.

It brings you dogs performing physical satire on the state of the world.

That's what it is.

That's, I mean, she waited until we started as well, so her timing is impeccable.

Tiff,

are you surrounded by flatulent animals at the moment or not?

I'm complaining cats, yes.

But I went away for a couple of days, and when we go away and come back, he has a whole new language.

He has new sounds.

I'm not joking.

It's like he's got furious that we had the temerity to disappear for like 48 hours.

And so he has

whole new sounds of like, well, I was shouting and it appeared you weren't responding.

So he's got new ones.

He's got hella and

honestly, I'm not joking.

I will share the videos on my Twitter my cat talks he talks I think he's working his way up to saying tuna you bitch right and eventually that's that'll it'll peek at tuna you bitch right

so yeah

it's good it's good though how old is your cat he is uh coming up on 12 I think but still with the desire to learn new languages

exactly yeah I've got I'm thinking of downloading Duolingo for

maybe

Muolingo, perhaps.

Muolingo.

Oh, yes.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

I should have seen a pun coming there.

And actually, an alarm went off on my phone at the mere idea of there being that the possibility of that pun alarm.

The pun alarm.

You couldn't set a pun alarm for Andy and Burns.

Your phone would melt into a million pieces.

You don't have the battery life.

You'd have burner phones like it was the wire.

Well, we are recording on the 25th of April 2022.

On this day in 1792, just 230 short years ago, the celebrity French execution device, the Guillotine, was used for the first time to dispense decapitative justice to the hireman Nicolas Pelletier.

After a big build-up, the big chopper, as it should obviously have been called, went down actually surprisingly badly with the crowd at the time.

They didn't feel they had got the level of entertainment they were used to from more long, drawn-out forms of execution.

It was all over far too quickly for the traditional fans, bish-bash-bosh, and the purists who are used to the longer five-day executions with all its narrative of intricacies, subtle developments, and breaks for meals.

They didn't really go for it, even if

they just preferred the longer ones, even if they did sometimes end with the victim still alive or were just rained off.

But, you know, as long as it made it easier for the kids to get excited by executions, I guess the authorities could justify it and claim that their inflated bonus for just inventing a new format was justified.

As always, a section of the

bugle.

A little bit of cricketing satire to get started.

Is there anything in the world that you cannot connect to cricket?

Anything?

Are they named any subject?

No.

No.

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

The International Awards Awards have been happening this week, the most glamorous award ceremony for other award ceremonies.

And we reviewed the latest action from the ceremony, the awards for the best in the awards business, the unsung award for less well-known awards.

The nominations for that include the Flampsbury Award for most inedible breakfast spread.

The winner of that, incidentally, was the Blobora Manor Lingonbury Rat Guano and Worm Lung Preserve.

The Mike from Accounts Memorial Award for Least Remarkable Professional Career, Least Valuable Contribution to an Interim Report, and the Salvador Dali Award for Meltiest Timekeeping Device, hotly contested between the limited edition Rolex Chock Watch and the Tisso Marsh Malla clock.

Also, the most hotly contested award is the nominations for that, as always, and appropriately enough, very hotly contested, least insightful sports pundit, most shameless refusal to answer a question in an interview, the Tucker Carlson Award for Most Imbecilic Comment by Tucker Carlson.

I mean, that is,

as always, one of the toughest awards to win in any given year.

The most obviously wrong conspiracy theory, and the biggest undiscovered global scandal brought about by a secretive international plot.

Those two also go hand hand in hand.

Now, that section in the bin.

Andy, do you know there is actually an awards awards?

I didn't know that, though.

And I was minded to look it up whilst you were doing that bit.

And I've got to say, it is the most boringest thing I've ever seen in all my life.

I've hosted something before for,

I think, like the wedding planning awards.

So, like, awards for the planners of the weddings.

And I'm sure i've hosted a media awards awards can you imagine the person who has to do the seating plan for the wedding planner awards

the level of pressure on that is off the charts

i found that at my own uh wedding where we we each table had a name And obviously, as discussed, I'm quite into cricket.

And

my wife is

a keen foodie.

So we had cricket food puns as the table names, including

Michael Prawn was one of them.

Surely Gary Nuts Obers would be good.

Imran Flan was another one.

What about Jeffrey Boycott this table?

I don't like anyone else on it.

I'm sure actually everyone at your wedding was probably, I imagine, pretty cool, Andy.

Ian Bull Pam.

Sorry, are Tiff and I bad?

Alistair than you.

Alistair cooked meets.

Oh, could have done.

That was before his career had taken off.

Top story this week, the French election and Europe woke this morning, as we record on Monday, to the rare post-election sound of the word

floating across the skies

of the continent.

Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron retained power after a bitter, hostile campaign that deepened divisions in an increasingly fractious country.

Is there any other kind of campaign these days?

Manny Mac clocked in with 58.6% of the vote in a run-off against Marine Le Pen, or as she is known in Britain, Aquatic the Steelo.

Oh, that was a ton of genuinely painstiff.

No, but do you know what?

I'd written it down, as she's known in France, Marine Lestilo.

So I'd not got the aquatic part.

Oh, we've got a lot of things.

So that was, the pain sound was, I've gone for the same pun as Andy on this.

I went with C-byro.

I raised above it all.

She's got two sisters as well.

You assume there's Marine Le Pen, Land Le Pen, and Air Le Pen.

Surely.

It was, well, certainly a relief.

There were suggestions that it was going to be a lot closer than that.

But Le Pent, the far-right progress sceptic and discontentophile, was defeated more convincingly than had been feared by those for whom any election that does not result in you screaming humanity, you f ⁇ ing prick, will you never learn at your TV is to be welcomed.

It's,

well, a relief, isn't it?

I mean, you would have thought, you know, of all the nations in the world that ought to be, you know, really quite...

quite lively aware of the dangers of far-right politics, France ought to be very much on that bus.

bus third time unlucky can i say that i can say that third time unlucky went 2012 2017 2022 but she was excited to get so close she said that she said a great wind of freedom could have risen over the country and i just think no one wanted to smell a gigantic racist fart

um

i think she should be pleased in a way because she keeps talking about how her party represents true french values in which case she should be glad that macron won liberty egalité fraternité not sororite

um you know

i i i also just as a sidebar i like that throughout most of the world world the word liberty means freedom and hope whereas to a cockney it means someone is taking the absolute piss

what an absolute liberty egalité fraternite

um

yeah

Just that was the first thing I pondered this morning, our grip on the word liberty.

The great thing about the French presidency is we wait and we wait and we wait, and finally, once every five years, we get good-looking people in a political vox pop.

I was watching that on BBC last night, every single one of them was gorgeous.

You know, when to do one in Britain or Ireland, it's a man walking out of a bookies with meat.

He's carrying meat, nobody knows why he's carrying meat.

It's a fella in a vest with pork.

We don't know, does he live in the shop and only come out when he sees the camera?

We don't know, but it's always a fella carrying a leg of pork.

Now, the challenger in this, as we've all described her, as Marine Le Pen and various other puns and that, she's hardcore because her dad, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was expelled from the party.

So she threw her own parent out of the institution that he embodied for years.

There's a point at which Prince Charles is looking at this going,

hypothetically speaking, if one were to do this, how would one go about doing this?

The whole thing is, I was glued to the whole thing.

But like some of her, some of her

policies, there was consternation about what would happen if she had won, right?

And I saw a lot of of the right-wing press in the UK in particular going, Would Brussels know how to deal with her?

And you go, Yeah, how would they ever deal with this blonde populist who wants to take the country out of the EU?

It would be such a new challenge for them.

I'll tell you what, the prep would be: it would be take the folder out, scribble off the name of Boris, write in the name of Maureen, and continue on their way.

She did say, though, I think she backed away from Frexit recently and she just wanted to kind of stop cooperation.

But the big one I thought was a bit weird was she wanted France out of the integrated command of NATO.

So, I mean, is this really the best time to weaken NATO?

Is this the optimum time, do we think?

It feels a little bit like the Lion Tamer deciding to put the chair down now as you hear Aslan approach his stomach grumbling and carrying a machine gun.

It feels a little bit like that.

It feels like a Trojan politician running on accepting all gifts, no matter how unsolicited, platform.

You know what I I mean?

No, we're going to accept it.

I know we didn't ask for it, but if it's at the gates, we are accepting it.

That is my promise to you.

There's a package outside for you.

Excellent.

It's a new novelty pinata I ordered.

Hooray!

On the one hand, it ended up as a reasonably comfortable victory for Macron, 58.5% to 41.5%.

Macron and I swept a victory five years ago on a very powerful platform of being an almost entirely blank canvas with no discernible values and policies.

Essentially, he was voted in as a void, but has lost some of that appeal because it's turned out he is actually a human and has been for the last five years.

I mean,

sorry, Andy, nothing more French than voting in a void.

That's the most existential way to vote, surely.

How are you going to void Satra?

Well,

I think there's a lot to be said for centrist voids taking power in all countries.

But are you listening, Matt Hancock?

On the other hand,

a far-right party in France got almost 42%

of the vote.

I mean, in a way, it's a relief, but also a massively concerning one, isn't it?

The share of the Le Pen vote seems to be going up.

Yeah, it's a bit of a worry, isn't it?

I mean, you got to the point, though, when...

He seemed he was kind of campaigning on Ukraine and all the rest, and then he got down in 30 in the last week with the chest hair pictures that went everywhere.

And he went, this is going to take it out of the bag for me.

I'm going to get pictured pictured in a crisp white shirt with four buttons undone.

And boy, when that man commits, he commits because he is a hairy individual.

It was like nipples on a Brillo pad.

It was brilliant.

And there were a million think pieces and a million opinion pieces about will this make people vote for him?

And I think probably did.

Some people think that having a hairy chest makes the person virile and strong and dominant.

I mean, that's why Thatcher won three elections.

I think that's undoubted.

She had a very impressive chest men.

That's why she was called the Iron Lady.

That's what she had to use to keep it in check.

She was a serious individual.

In the end, she used to just keep them all the same length and just tie them in a little string.

Interesting insight.

Thatcher by name, Andy.

Thatcher by name.

You know,

there's a certain responsibility with thatching anyway.

I've got a sister that lives in the New Forest.

It's very complicated.

But you say the New Forest, that's a place.

She hasn't let it overgrow.

No, there's a place.

Yes.

Old Holburn is not spilling out of the packet.

To cut that, I mean, I just,

that's a phrase that me and my sister have bandied out

for a few years in a very comedic way.

But I don't know that it should have made it onto this.

Maybe it should.

The old Holburn.

Anyway,

I think, look, it was a lower turnout.

wasn't it?

Yeah, 72%, the lowest for a presidential runoff since 1969.

But interestingly, that's the same same percentage that turned out to vote in the Brexit referendum.

And this is considered a very low turnout in a presidential runoff, which happens every five years.

What did you say the percentage was?

72.

72.

You see, if that was a turnout for a fringe show for me, I'd consider that

quite positive.

I think 72% sales is break-even in Edinburgh, isn't it?

But also, there were 3 million spoilt ballot papers and not spoilt like you spoil an overindulged child or dog because you love them so much spoilt in a kind of fug of frustration at the choices uh choice of I mean I I spoil my ballot paper regularly I you know I I love democracy so much I fold it into an origami flamingo take it out for dinner and then float it down the Thames but um

but it did just sort of highlight the you know that Macron has a number of bridges to to build he said no answer must be found to the anger and disagreements that led many of our compatriots to vote for the extreme right um uh but I mean, that's the problem.

Those 42% of the votes for Le Pen were cast in favour of the answer to that anger, and those disagreements being more anger and more disagreements.

So I don't know quite how you resolve that.

We always hear politicians claiming they're going to heal and unite their countries.

This happens more and more as more and more countries become unhealed and disunited.

And there is a problem with this.

We are living in the 21st century and specifically in the 2020s.

We live in a world of the internet and all the hostility that that engenders.

It's quite hard to heal and unite something that, when you offer to heal and unite it, generally responds: if you try to heal and unite me, I'll nut you in the chops.

So, this is a challenge politically across.

It's like offering to cuddle a shark.

It's not language the shark understands, and it is fraught with risk.

Ukraine news now, and it's still shit.

However, one story has emerged that made me think that, well, things could get considerably worse.

Returning workers at Chernobyl who've been trying to identify bacteria which is capable of consuming radioactive waste fear that their work has been a mixture of stolen and destroyed by Russia.

Now my concern here is that this research exists at all because

developing bacteria that can consume radioactive waste is scene one in a catastrophic sci-fi movie.

The fact that this has been compromised by the war,

is this necessarily a bad news story?

The workers returned to their laboratories on the 12th of April and found that doors and windows had been broken and most of their scientific equipment had been looted, damaged, or destroyed.

Now, bearing in mind the competence the Russian military has shown thus far in their special military operation, which is of course not very special not exclusively military and considerably more than an operation it is entirely possible that this was just the result of russian soldiers trying to make a cup of tea and an omelette

so

but i mean this i mean clearly i mean scientifically if you can get bacteria that eats radiation Presumably you can then develop one that eats all carbon emissions and we can just live the lives we want to live, pollute as much as possible and just release our special bacteria into the world to clear up our fingers.

I think this is absolutely extraordinary.

We've been told by scientists for years, right?

Scientists were saying this area is going to be a wasteland, the byproduct of fusion, be radioactive for 10,000 years.

And then some other scientists went, Have you tried Yakult?

A little bit of Yakult will sort that out there.

What is it?

Oh, it's radioactive gas.

Oh, that's Actamel for radioactive gas.

You know the ads.

Radon.

We all know them.

How does bleach kill 99% of bacteria, but the remaining ones can eat uranium?

How does that work?

How does that work?

Well, it's like scissors.

Maybe it's like scissors, paper, stone.

But if this works, right?

This is world-altering.

This is geoengineering.

I think we have raised the bar for what could be termed good bacteria.

Do you know when you see an ad and they go, it contains good bacteria essential for your gut health?

Sorry, unless Bifidus Digestium can eat uranium, I'm not interested.

That amoeba over there has opened the door to limitless energy and urine means I haven't shot myself in a week.

It's at best an okay bacteria.

It is not good bacteria.

I think your worry is a significant one because, I mean, it is.

I mean, I know the scientists probably know what they're doing, messing around with bacteria and radioactivity, but Bruce Banner thought that as well, didn't he?

And

have we guarded against getting an incredible Hulk bacteria?

Do we really want the supercharged Botox toxin to be released into the wild, destroying wrinkles at an uncontrollable rate?

You're walking around your local area.

Do you see that greyhound?

Yeah, used to be a bulldog.

We don't want it getting into a spider and then it biting someone and then we're all jizzing out of our wrists.

Well, yes.

I mean, that's one way of putting it.

You've obviously got to be a little bit more.

That's what Spider-Man does.

Jizzes have his wrists.

Yeah, I mean, that's one version of

the original.

Yeah, I would say that's more of a graphic novel than one of the original comics.

But I, for one, would read it.

Andy, I think you're taking a negative slant on this.

I actually think this could be positive, right?

They could have looted Chernobyl, taken away a strain of microbes.

It could be an inside plot.

Maybe soldiers took them, hoping they're the type of microbe that thrives on vainglorious dictators.

Like, because that's the only way we think Putin can really be stopped from someone with it, like, someone within.

It could be a microbe that takes him out, because it's not going to be on the battlefield, is it?

So, this is probably the way Putin's going to go.

Like, and we don't talk enough, I think, about how everyday things drop huge historical figures, right?

For example, like Wyatt Up didn't die from a gunshot at the OK Corral, he died from a UTI.

No way, like, yes,

he had cystitis, like

he had cystitis, That's what Wyatt Up died from.

Like, and they don't show him drinking cranberry juice in tombstone.

So, we all know, like, he could have prevented it.

Oliver Cromwell is believed to have caught salmonella.

Like, so we didn't know he'd be

smashing his way through undercooked chicken and bad eggs.

Florence Nightingale was believed to have died from bacterial infection brucellosis, then known as Crimean fever, quite apt.

But I'm just saying

this little microbe could be delivered to Putin, give him fatal thrush, and he'll be smearing his penis with yogurt until eventually he perishes.

All the more cultured for it.

I say this is a positive thing.

This could be a positive thing.

Yeah.

I mean, clearly, generally, you know, experimenting on things that can eat the seemingly inedible, that's generally been done pu purely on humans rather than on bacteria, as evidenced by the inventions of insert your chosen, objectively revolting but secretly enjoyable tasty food stuff here.

The researcher, Elena Periniuk, in this article on the New Scientist

website, said, I still have a hope that my samples are in their fridge.

We were trying to cultivate the specific microorganism that might eat lava, concrete and steel constructions.

Now, I sense a new charity fundraising diet coming on here.

To raise money for Ukraine, I will eat only lava, concrete, and steel for the rest of this year.

Every Welsh person is going, well, we eat lava bread, so tough it up.

You know what?

I can smell,

I can smell a very, very impressive Bush Tucker trial on I'm a Celebrity.

Another researcher said, all our hard discs have been stolen.

I mean, hard discs, that's not a phrase you hear very often.

Anyway, we'll put it in the cloud next time you're researching to make a safe humanity.

A hard disc is always preferable to a floppy one, though, Andy.

As a woman.

Family structure.

In other Russia-Ukraine news, Wimbledon, the renowned tennis tournament and epitome of Englishness, has stepped into the breach and announced that all Russian and Belarusian players will be banned from this year's championships due partly to having long and complicated names that don't easily fit on many of the scoreboards on the outside courts, but also because their countries have now achieved gold-level elite membership status of the International Pariah Nations Club.

But is this the right thing to do to sanction individuals in an individual sport in which they're not really representing their country.

It's been quite controversial.

There's been both support and criticism of the policy.

I mean, I think maybe it would have been better to just ban players who display Putin-y characteristics on the court.

Oh, well, that volley's gone long, played with heavy hands there by Nadal, and heavy-handedness is Vladimir Putin's stock in trade, so the Spaniard has been instantly disqualified and heavily sanctioned.

Or should we just ban all men because Putin is a man?

Just cancel the men's singles championship, or at least all men.

Cancel single men!

At least.

All men with disconcertingly piercing eyes.

Which is bad news for Djokovic, I guess.

I mean, it's it's very

I'm not sure there's a right or wrong answer to this as a as a sports fan.

I mean, some players have expressed pro-peace messages.

It's quite hard for them to be overtly anti-Putin because presumably they also have families they would quite like to ever see again.

But at the same time, you know, bat sporting boycotts and bans can be uh quite effective so well what what do you got what what do you reckon are you uh uh wimbled don't like the russians more like handy

the headlines what would write themselves if you were not there to write them for them

this is a tough one isn't it i think um i've been to wimbledon i didn't realize that until i went to wimbledon that the stewards are in the armed forces i never realized that until i was actually there so i think if you want to do something that really annoys putin or you can have a bit of crack with I think they should use that.

I think they should wait until a very pro-Putin player is in the middle of a match and all of the stewards from the armed forces get a phone call at the same time.

And they're all like, What?

Not now.

But I thought NATO was staying out of it.

Okay, no, no, okay, okay, no, no, we'll off to Ukraine.

What?

Not Ukraine.

Oh, no, you're right.

He has been asking for it.

He has been asking for it.

And then just slowly file out of the stadium and just see if they can undermine Putin that way by scaring the shit and implying that there's an imminent invasion.

And that would be a big invasion if they required the people who are stewarding out Ribbon to make up the bulk of the force.

Maybe the line judges will be next.

The other options, I guess, rather than an outright ban, would be to have sort of on-court sanctions that disadvantage Russian and Belarusian players, maybe reducing them to only one serve each, so

not allowed a second serve.

Maybe an adjustable net.

That would be another option.

A net that goes up when the Russian player is about to hit the ball, but then down

when the non-Russian player is about to hit the ball.

So, just to make it

a bit easier, to have rackets that make silly squeaky noises whenever the ball is hit.

Anything to discredit the Putin regime and Lukashenko, Putin's Belarusian emotional support despot.

Another option is to

debate.

Allowed to be taken on the plane with him.

To be sat on his lap.

I've got a certificate for him.

I have a certificate for him.

So currently, in most of the tournaments, the players are still allowed to play, but without reference to

their nationality, without using their country's flag at any point, which you'd think, again, isn't really necessary an individual sport anyway.

But the next step, I think, would be to de-Russify players' names whilst this war is ongoing.

So, for example, the world number 45 Ekaterina Alexandrova would have to play under name Kathy Alexander.

Fairly simple.

Andrei Rublev, the Russian world number eight, Andy Rubble.

Irina Sabolenka, the Belarusian world number four, Irene Sabalthwaite, I think everyone, the Yorkshire fans would get behind that.

Aslan Karatsev, the world number 33 from Russia, could be known as fictional Jesus metaphor lion Carrots.

And Dmitry Medvedev, the world number two, either Bunty Splodgings or Tennis McTennis Face.

I think either of us would do.

I mean, I'd laugh at this idea of the anglicization of names, but if it hadn't been done to my country over many

hundreds of years, so it's just a bit too close to the bone there.

Andy, a bit too close to the bone.

Why change a winning formula?

Yeah, winning is carrying a lot of.

You've got to wait in that argument as well.

Tibbs already have mentioned Cromwell.

I think it wasn't his birthday today, isn't it?

Cromwell, when I was just checking up my anniversaries, I think it was.

Oh, Christ.

Happy Cromwell Day, Neil.

Thanks a million.

Yeah,

25th of April, 1599.

Happy birthday to them, murderous fing cops.

May he forever be eating undercooked chicken.

One of the other concerns at Wimbledon would be the awkwardness of Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge, who presents the trophies at the end, having to present the trophy to a Russian or Belarusian player and the political implications of that and the suggestion that this could represent a propaganda coup for Putin.

But I think this could be used in a positive way that if there is a Russian or Belarusian winner, which is entirely possible, a number of players in the top ranks of both the men's and the women's games if capable of just stands there with a trophy saying, You can't have it, you can't have it until you tell Putin he's a c.

Until you tell Putin he's a

Sue, come over here with your microphone, say it, look down the camera and call him a c and then you can have your little trinket.

Other people are also banned from this year's one, wouldn't it include people who are shit at tennis?

And

I really hope that's in the charter of the All England Lawn Tennis Championship.

Article one

clause one are you shit at tennis

Ireland news now and well huge reactions Neil at Dublin Airport

after it received 12,272 complaints last year about noise.

There's a key part of this story that I've not got to yet.

Will you just fill us in on exactly why those 12,272 complaints are particularly relevant?

Very important.

They got roughly 13,000 complaints last year about noise, and 12,272 of those were from one person,

which is absolutely fantastic.

I think the most prevalent sound in Dublin Airport was the sound of your man ringing Dublin Airport.

Airport.

I think it was just ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.

Hello, Dublin Airport.

I am calling because I can hear a ringing sound.

Okay, it's actually stopped now.

But if it starts again, I will be back.

It's 34 a day.

What I love about this is the boundless optimism of it.

I mean, I'd stop after a couple of thousand calls, I think.

But this dude, and it is a dude, it has to be.

We don't know, but it's a dude, isn't it?

He's sitting there going, 5,001, this is the one I'm going to make count.

This is the one, 5,001, 5,001.

This is the one I'm going to get my point across.

And if that doesn't work, I'm going for 5,002.

Like, does his number come up when they ring?

That's what I want to know.

And the lads in the earput are like, oh, Christ, that's Tony.

Don't answer this.

We'll say we can't hear the phone.

He'll love that.

And then he just rings up.

It's up to 59.

It's up to 59 calls, I think, a day now.

He's cranked it up.

You say it's 34 a day.

That's assuming

that he worked 365 working days in the year.

I mean, I've assumed

that statutory holiday.

Well, exactly, a standard eight-hour working day with four weeks annual leave.

That works out, in fact, 51 per day, 6.4 per working hour.

That's one complaint per nine minutes and 23 seconds.

And in 2020,

6,200 complaints from the same person.

So that's

he was 97%

better year on year in terms of number of complaints.

And this year, 5,000 in the first three months.

He's on course for a 20,000 complaints about noise at Dublin Airport year.

He is setting standards.

I don't think anyone in the future is going to be able to meet.

But also, I mean, a bit more context in this.

I mean, he's very much the Usain Bolt of complaining about noise at

the sports staff.

The Don Bradman of Dublin airport complaints, but more so.

He's like Bradman multiplied by bolt.

However, just to put it in context, Neil, there are 91,000 flights taking off or landing from Dublin airport every year.

So this person actually only complained about one out of every seven and a half flights that took off or landed.

Which does suggest that some are okay.

He's not being unreasonable.

I mean, he's not ringing up about every flight.

I mean, he's not a madman.

I mean, it's only the flights at one every seven and a half flights that really ticks him off enough to ring Dublin Airport and see if they'll change their ways, despite the fact that he's already run them 12,271 times already.

Like, if you answer the phone to him, how would you not take the piss with that?

How would you not go?

Yeah, have you thought about moving from under the flight that?

You cannot afford it.

Why can't you afford it?

Oh, your phone bill is 45 grand a year.

Can you see how these things might be interlinked?

I do wonder, are all these complaints different, though?

Because if they are, then this might be one of the greatest performances of human creativity.

If he's coming up with over 10,000 different differently worded complaints about airplane noise, this might be one of the great linguistic achievements we've ever seen.

Well, I'd say they're probably different now, but as you say, as the numbers pump up, if he wants to keep achieving what can only be described as capitalist growth, I think he's just going to have to shorten them.

So if he wants the big numbers, he's just going to have to go loud, loud, bang, bang, loud.

Woo!

He's just going to.

Because look, I've done over 500 episodes of the bugle, and they're beyond I'll be honest.

And I'd like to complain about all of them.

Well, there are times when I find it hard to find new words, as I'm sure my co-hosts this week, John and John, would would testify.

So

that wasn't a mistake as much as a wish for Houtian Days.

I mean, do we think he that

we often see like you know with Federer in tennis it inspired greater play from Nadal and and Djokovic and other players.

Do you think that this

heroic man heading towards his 25,000th complaint of the decade, which is not even a quarter of the way through, is he going to set standards that other complainers are going to try to?

Yes.

This is a level of pettiness we should all aspire to.

This smacks of someone who moved under a flight path, so he'd have something to get angry about daily.

I think this person is retired and that anger is fuel.

Because when you retire, you need the older you get, the more you care about smaller stuff, right?

My parents can lose a day and a half if someone's parked badly on their street.

So, like, we once talked for 45 minutes at dinner about how a neighbor mowing the lawn dampened my dad's enjoyment of the cricket, and it took him a full summer to get over it.

So, I'm sure you can relate to this, Andy.

But it gives you something to do with a day, get annoyed.

And most of these complaints were lodged

at night, apparently.

So, I sort of get it.

It makes me more convinced the person is at least middle-aged because I know in my 20s, right, I could sleep anywhere at any time.

And now, in my 40s, I need a memory foam pillar, orthopedic mattress, electric blanket, eye masks, complete darkness, pillow spray, white voice machine, sleep socks, cotton pajamas, silk pillowcase, earplugs, and three caps of night nurse.

Thank you very much.

I wonder why you brought all that stuff when you came to see me do a gig.

But I think, you know, noise pollution at night is a real thing.

And you just, you need to ask Scottish boyfriend now, Scottish fiancé um because he said I snore and occasionally it sounds like a plane taking off so and more than more often than not it's quote unquote get ready with the bleeps here

some

treading on bagpipes is what it sounds like so so maybe maybe this is not planes at all maybe this person lives with someone who snores it's also possible he could actually be onto something he might seem like a lone voice now But perhaps in 20 years time we'll remember him as the man who began to expose the scandal of how the Irish government used the noise of aeroplanes to cover up the sound of stray cats and dogs being inflated like balloons and then whizzed across the Irish Sea to Wales.

Britain news now, and Boris Johnson

remains Prime Minister, bafflingly, but the Conservative Party still

seems to be slowly turning

against him.

He still has his defenders, Jacob Reese Mogg,

much discussed on this show.

And this was a heartbreaking moment for me.

He compared Johnson's party infractions and

the fixed penalty notice he received from the police, the first Prime Minister to receive

essentially a criminal punishment in office, as being like the DRS system in cricket.

That's the TV umpire system in cricket.

And Rhys Mogg said sometimes the batsman in good faith thinks he's not at LBW.

It goes to the third umpire, he says it's out, and then the batsman accepts the decision.

It's It's exactly what's happened to the Prime Minister.

Now, there's a number of things

that upset me about this.

One is I love cricket and I do not love Jacob Reese Mock and I don't want to hear him talking about cricket.

It made me love the game less.

And also it's totally inappropriate because essentially the situation with Johnson is he's made up a new rule.

He's made up a new rule that you can't wear, say, pads made out of puppies.

And then he's gone to the wicket with 14 baby labradors strapped to each of his legs and then said i'm sorry i had literally no idea that that was even a law and also the umbrella has looked at hundreds and hundreds of pages of evidence and photographs and come to that decision so uh it was a deeply distressing week for me to be honest um well i i actually actually wanted to bring in a friend of mine who's much more an expert on boris johnson um henrietta mouthpiece Henrietta Mouthpiece here, housewife, mother, erstwhile columnist, fifth in line to the seat of Derbyshire, an opinion maker.

Hello, hello to the bugle.

You are welcome for having me.

Listen, I want to talk very briefly about the paws.

Firstly, I've seen a lot of the paws complaining it's hard to get healthy food cheaply, and I just want to say, hogwash, darlings.

Pick some apples from your own orchard.

No scrumping, you little.

Then take some fresh eggs from your chickens, named after the Mitford sisters, of course, Nancy Decker Debs, and the one that loved Hitler.

Combine with some flour, water, and screaming at your maid.

Voila!

You have an apple pie.

It's easy unless you are a complete idiot.

Get to it, single mothers.

Also, if you're struggling when it comes to energy, just let your nanny pick up the slag.

Cost of living crisis, my dear air.

Do you know how expensive it is to hire from Poland?

I offered to take a Ukrainian governess, but I was told no go.

Anyway, also on the pause, let's get to it and their obsession with parties.

It's high time they let this nonsense at number 10 go.

I mean, I understand they didn't have fancy wines like Bozza would have.

Did I feel bad for them during lockdown in their council flats drinking antibacterial gel cocktails and watching Joe Wick's videos?

Yes, but why should people like myself and dear Boza suffer?

If we elites don't have parties, how are we supposed to breed with our cousins?

It's almost like you don't care about bloodlines.

Why don't we focus on the real issue at hand?

Working-class labour women flashing their dispatch boxes in the House of Commons?

Those poor Conservative MPs, where were they supposed to look?

Look, we know posh men love a bit of rough.

I myself have had to turn a blind eye to the hubster's 16-year claderstein affair with our children's wet nurse.

It's outrageous showing up at a place of work with your legs and weaponising them.

Let's focus on Keir Starmer failing to personally bounty hunt Jimmy Savile.

What is the point of that man if he cannot retrospectively travel back in time and prevent all of those crimes from happening?

Let's focus on Boris's flax and mane, a man to repopulate our diminishing island, which is also too full for immigrants.

Let's focus on the man who gave us great war slogans such as rule of six, keep calm and distance, hands face space, and may they be printed on tea towels and mugs forever, make Britain elite again.

Well, sir, thank you for bringing a political perspective that is sometimes underrepresented on the bugle.

I can only apologise for Henrietta.

Well, that brings us to the end of this week's bugle.

Sadly, due to time constraints, we've not been able to report on

a sensational geese in China story or,

in other bird news, world sport being rocked to its foundations by perhaps the most disturbing pitch invasion in human history.

A pigeon landing on the table at the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield.

We may report on the snooker pigeon in next week's bugle.

Snooker Pigeon, originally Jimmy White's nickname, of course.

Amazing coup power.

That's

the end of this week's bugle.

Oh, oh,

we will be back.

I need a shower now.

We need a natural shower.

We will be back next week.

Don't forget to buy your tickets to Saturists for Hire at the Soho Theatre on the 9th, 10th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 17th, 20th, and 21st of May.

And please submit your satirical requests in as much advance as possible to satirise this at satiristforhire.com.

Do either of you have things to plug?

I'll plug my Edinburgh.

I'll be doing my new show Sexy Brain

at the Pleasants at 8pm for the whole month.

And there'll be a preview in London on the 26th.

I think there's one up in Leeds at some point in July.

But if you follow me on Twitter, you can get all the information at at Tiff Stevenson.

I am doing Edinburgh as well, the assembly rooms, and I have a new podcast on Wednesday called Why Would You Tell Me That?

So you can follow that.

Don't forget, you can also listen to the Bugle's sister publication, the Glossy Magazine, to our Sunday spreadsheet.

Spreadsheet?

Well,

you've gone in full statistician.

I have come.

Gearing up for the last week.

The Glossy Magazine to the Bugles ruthlessly music broadsheet.

Download that from all available podcast outlets hosted by Alice Fraser with comedians from all over the known universe.

We will now play you out with some lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers.

Don't forget the lie offer is shortly to come to an end.

If you want to have a lie told about you, we are getting through the backlog of subscribers.

So if you've already subscribed and not had a lie told about you, it will be coming.

But we are going to close the lie offer.

When shall we say, Chris?

End of the month?

Yeah, yeah, and replace it with a new, uh,

something extra for our premium

volunteer set of crushes.

Yes, yes,

you're not, you're not on commercial radio now, mate.

Um,

Andy doing a six-line would be, and then he stroked the ball to the boundary.

Good god, yeah, it didn't even bounce.

Six, it's a six-lane, it's a six-lane.

Could we we not have Agony Andy, where people send in their problems and Andy solves them with protracted sports-based metaphors?

That sounds like an absolute ratings winner.

I honestly, I'm already coming up with a couple of scenarios that I think would be so fun to listen to.

I know a man who's going to ring you 12,000 times this year.

Anyway, here are our lies about our premium level volunteer subscribers.

To join them or to give a one-off or a curriculum contribution to keep the bugle free, flourishing, flourishing, and independent.

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Goodbye.

Ben S spends much of his time thinking about the future of transport and has come to the conclusion that for a more sustainable future, all current forms of transport should be replaced with a mixture of ziplines and zorbing balls.

Quite apart from reclaiming the letter Z, says Ben S., gravity has proved a worthy foe for humanity over the years, and since it shows no sign of leaving, we might as well try to get on side with it and harness it.

All we need to do is find a way of reversing it for the uphill bits, and we're right in business.

Brian Kriske, and apologies for any mispronunciation, thinks that international travel would be far better for everyone if no one knew where their aeroplane was going to land when it took off and were then deposited at a randomly chosen destination for their holiday and or business trip.

Travel opens the mind, says Brian, and it would open it even more if you had to riff your holiday wherever you landed.

Brian does acknowledge it would make packing the right clothing somewhat problematic, but adds, I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with going around the Sistine Chapel in full scuba diving gear.

Bill Haddad is on board with Brian's idea, specifically for business travel.

It could open up previously unthought-of business partnerships around the world, says Bill, and it would foster the kind of necessity-driven, played-as you see it innovation that has driven almost all human advances down the years, from the wheel to sliced bread to the nuclear bomb and the pogo stick.

And if you're not happy about that as a business person, concludes Bill, have your meeting online and save a polar bear whilst you're at it, you freeloading chancer.

Brett Pinaski is baffled by the continued inability of humans to domesticate the dolphin for travel purposes, as was so successfully achieved on land with the horse.

Dolphins are intelligent creatures, notes Brett.

We should easily be able to negotiate a deal with them as we did with the horsies that is mutually agreeable to both parties.

We might have to put a lot of fish on the table during the negotiation, says Brett, but I think it could work and it would also be a lot of fun.

By which I mean, I've always dreamed of riding a dolphin.

Here endeth this week's Lies.

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.