Giant Asteroid, War and Dragons (4222)

The Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 4222 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a fing ridiculous world with me Andy Zaltzman coming to you exclusively live from London planet Earth where once again the other seven licensed planets in our solar system are looking on in bafflement, thinking, Sometimes I'm grateful to be so uninhabitable.

It is the 28th of February, 2022, as we recall it.

Will be March by the time you hear this.

And this week's featured background noise on the bugle is a primeval howl of baffled confusion.

I'm joined to contribute to that howl by two people who I strongly suspect are not either natural warmongers or Vladimir Putin fans.

From Australia, it's Alice Fraser and from India, Anuvab Pal.

Hello, hello, both of you.

How have you enjoyed week one of World War III?

I mean, it's been delightful.

I think you've got me wrong here in assuming that I'm not a Vladimir Putin fan.

Oh,

as I always chant from the sidelines: horse, horse, yes, he can.

If they can't ride, and no one can.

I don't know.

I think he should stick to the thing that he's good at, which is extremely posed photographs of him riding shirtless on a horse and not looking quite as good as you should to do that.

Anuvab,

how has India been this strange week?

Well, I'm glad you're asking, Andy, Alice, you know, we're taking a slightly different approach.

In Mumbai, I'm learning Chinese in case Premier Xi Jinping starts getting some ideas from Putin and heads our way claiming all Indians are ethnically Chinese anyway.

The other big learning I've had this week is I found out Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolensky, or Vladimir, however it's pronounced, was the voice of Paddington in the Ukrainian version of Paddington.

And that is my favorite movie.

And I don't know if you know this, Andy Ellis, but Zelensky and I started out around the same time as comedians.

And I always compared my career to his.

And I got a bit jealous when he became a world leader because it was a gig I was up for, but he got.

But the voice of Paddington, that really hurt.

We are recording on the 28th of February.

Tomorrow, the 1st of March, is Shrove Tuesday to commemorate when Jesus went shriveving, I think, and ended up shrove.

I'm not sure exactly what shrivel, I think it was an early form of trickle-treating, but it clearly didn't go well because he had to FRO through the desert for 40 days afterwards to let everything calm down.

So, God knows what went on.

It's also Pancake Day by great coincidence.

That commemorates one of Jesus's miracles when he turns some eggs, milk, and flour into a moon-themed cushion cover.

On the 1st of March 1893, Nikki Tesla gave the first public demonstration of radio in St.

Louis, Missouri, in which I think he sang Gimme, Gimme, Gimme a Man After Midnight, the ABBA song, but

not entirely sure.

I might have been mixing up with another radio broadcast.

And the 1st of March is also World Compliment Day, which constitutes our section in the bin this week.

compliments section.

In particular, compliments focused at Warcraft's despots, because, frankly, when you look at despots, I think they often give off a vibe that people haven't been genuinely nice to them.

So we are giving you three free compliments to give to any War Craze Despots you should come across to try and help improve their mood and attitude to the world.

Compliment one, I like the fact that you've not invaded anywhere recently.

It really suits you.

Compliment two, you have a really lovely, calm, non-aggressive foreign and military policy.

And compliment three, your Air Force looks so lovely on the ground not bombing anywhere so do use those uh as and when that section in the bin

top story this week well good news for the planet uh i mean it's been uh without question if you watch the news generally a tough week in a grot bag of a year in a shithead of a decade in a floundering wit of a millennium and not entirely blaming the third millennium for its own failings.

Its parents set it a very bad example.

But the thing is, we do have a tendency to focus on A, things that have happened rather than things that haven't, and B, things that are happening on Earth, which is a behavioral basket case of a planet, but currently our home, so we have to concentrate on it, rather than things that have not happened in space, which surely means that's objectively the biggest news of the week is this.

No asteroids have destroyed all life on Earth this week.

And an asteroid strike scheduled for July 2023, which could have absolutely ruined the 2023 English cricket season and the Ashes series due to take place then.

It's been called off after Boffin's tracking the giant space conquer reduced its probable risk to almost zero.

So it's a hugely exciting time for the planet and its inhabitants, especially given what happened just 66 million short years ago.

I mean, Alice, you are the Bugles.

Is the World Going to End or Not, correspondent?

This is wonderful news, isn't it, in this week of all weeks?

It is wonderful news, Andy, the news that we're not going to be hit by an asteroid.

Although, as ever, when someone says, I was about to hit you and then didn't, you can take that as good news or you can take that as a threat.

This is a really interesting piece of news, mainly for the enthusiasm of the astronomers involved.

An astronomer at the European Space Agency,

at their Near Earth Object Coordination Centre, his name is Marco Michelle, said, in January this year we became aware of an asteroid with the highest ranking on the Palermo scale, which is in shorthand, it's the shit yourself scale, that we've seen in more than a decade.

In my almost 10 years, I've never seen such a risky object.

It sounds like this is so exciting, and I guarantee you it is incredibly boring.

It was a thrill to track 2022 AE1 and

Elon Musk's lesser-known other son and define its trajectory until we had enough data to say for certain this asteroid will not strike.

Mate, if knowing that something's not going to kill us is your version of a thrill, I hate to introduce you to everything else that's going on right now.

Well, I mean, Anuvab, surely this shows that, you know, when the world comes together, it can avert disaster because there were some very strong sanctions applied to the asteroid.

I believe the United Nations said it was going to ban all asteroids if this asteroid strikes the Earth.

No further asteroids would be allowed to strike the Earth for at least another 65 million years.

So it just shows what preemptive action can do.

Exactly, exactly.

And, you know, from my perspective, it's a bit of a shame, really, because, you know, I'll be honest, as an Indian person, I'm always disappointing my parents.

You know,

they're always asking, you know, at this point in your career, why aren't you selling out stadiums?

And if this asteroid hit, I could always say, look, the venue is destroyed.

I feel like you take away asteroids, you take away excuses, and that's not good for humanity.

Other top story this week: The 20th century is not over.

Despite the year now beginning with the numbers two and zero,

it's still desperately trying to pretend it begins with one and nine.

We are in an extra bonus appendix of the 20th century after, to the bafflement of the world, and it seems to the bafflement of most of the population of Russia.

Vladimir Putin treated himself to what he described as a, quote, special military operation on Thursday morning.

A cheeky little invasion of Ukraine that's now four days on

appears to be going not particularly well for Russia and just generally disastrously on a human and humanitarian level.

And there's, I mean, a number of things that I really don't like about this invasion, Alex Anovab.

In particular, the timing of it.

Because Vladimir Putin waited until Queen Elizabeth II was ill with COVID.

And then, and only then, did he launch his I mean what what a what a coward.

I mean, it is no no wonder with behavior like that till he waits till our totem or figureheads our inspiration is out of action with Covid.

It's no wonder his work colleagues don't want to sit next to him.

I mean I was waiting for her to crack out the Lizzie One armor and get on a horse

now Andy Alice I feel like you know I like history a little bit and as you know you know I was doing a bit of digging

about just Kiev Russian history and I sort of feel like we're blaming the wrong guy right I think we need to spend a minute talking about Oleg of Novogrod

which we often do I know we do it quite often but I feel like we need to do a little more today and can you tell us a little bit about Oleg of Novgorod

yeah he he was he was as we all are he was a really

good Wednesday night Oleg chat into this hallowed forum I'm sorry Alice we're on the verge of world war I know Oleg is private but I have to bring him out to bugle list us.

I have no other choice.

So

he was basically a Viking, and he attacked what was then known as

basically Slavic lands, just disparate tribes.

And

he kind of seized power in Kiev

and

basically created Novograd and a powerful state called Kievian Rus',

which included Kiev,

Russia, and Belarus.

So

there were a couple of things he liked.

He liked beheadings,

and he liked Constantinople, two specific things,

which, I mean, all of us do.

All of us do.

And he seized it from these tribes that were run by a duo called Ascald and Deer.

who was sort of like the anten deck of their time, but in a sort of dictatorial kind of way.

So, you know, this is all chronicled in something called the Rus Chronicles, which you know, I'm sure have their own Instagram handle.

I'm sure you can follow it and find out more about it.

But I feel, yes, Vladimir Putin, sure, but Oleg of Novograd first.

Right.

I mean, to be fair, Oleg of Novgorod was late 9th and early 10th centuries.

I mean, is it time as humans that

we maybe got over shit like this?

And, you know,

moved I don't know.

I mean,

but m maybe you've you've got a point.

I mean,

it has been a

a really

horrific time.

President Biden said a couple of weeks ago that assessing Vladimir Putin's intentions was very difficult and compared it to reading tea leaves.

Well, Putin has just hurled a samovar full of boiling tea, in which he's made by pissing on some tea leaves leaves and boiling it all up

right in the world's faces.

He quotes, recognized two regions of eastern Ukraine as independent states and then has defended them by invading the whole of Ukraine.

The international community had tried to dissuade Putin from invading by, well, amongst other things, growling quite aggressively, intermittent tutting.

and saying that they will really think about how to respond if he invades after he's invaded.

And it turns out that did not work.

Don't forget establishing oil pipelines.

They're really important.

Yeah, yeah, it didn't really work

as a means of putting it off.

We talked a little bit about what Anthony Blinken said last week.

And it has turned out that

applying sanctions only after the event to stop the event happening did not stop the event happening.

So that curious logic we picked up in the last week has proved not to be entirely 100% efficacious.

We've seen the heroic Ukrainian resistance,

the inevitable massive refugee crisis, some characteristic Russian military incompetence, which apparently included some Russian soldiers going to a Ukrainian police station to ask for fuel,

and

Vladimir Putin sinistering the shit out of everything and the international community cutting off some of Russia's pocket money and shouting, come on Ukraine, you're doing really well.

So all in all,

it's been a tough watch.

Tough watch.

Yes, despite incredibly disapprovingly relying on Russia for huge quantities of their energy resources, the rest of Europe is definitely, definitely going to cut it off just any minute now.

The latest is that there may be talks between Ukraine and Russia, quite who's going to be involved in them and what they will entail is unclear.

Vladimir Putin yesterday, as we record, put Russia's nuclear deterrent on special alert.

Those were not entirely reassuring at words because Vladimir Putin, I think, is coming up to 70 years old.

He's sort of at the stage where he couldn't give a flying f ⁇ if this planet gets destroyed.

I mean, this is because all because nobody ever reads the second page of Coleridge's poem Ozzy Mandias.

You know, you've got the vast and trunkless, you know, standing in the desert, and you flip the page, and it's because he started a nuclear war in order to preserve his legacy.

That's the second page, and no one ever notices it.

Where exactly in Australia was Mandias from?

I know he was known as Aussie Mandias, but then tell us exactly which bit of Australia.

That's the thing, you know, it's the second page of Ozzy Ozimandias,

and it's,

again, going back to Oleg of Novograd.

You know, these are the two things if we'd read up on, we'd be a much better world.

And sorry, I just forgot to add, Oleg of Novograd was a Vangarian prince.

Vanguardian.

Right.

He was Vangarian.

And

as an Indian person, I know as much about that as, well, anything else about Kievian Rus.

And, you know, once a Vanguard, you're always a Vangarian.

You're going to be invading things.

It's like Hungarian bidding in a van.

I mean,

as we are seeing this determinedly second millennium-style tragedy unfold, what we're also seeing is the West essentially ostentatiously painting a picture of a bolt onto the shattered remnants of the stable door and saying, oh, I always knew that horsey was a naughty one.

It's, I mean, Joe Biden has said the prayers of America are with the people of Ukraine.

I I mean, would you say prayers are more or less effective than military aids and pre-emptive hardline sanctions?

I guess history will be the judge

of that.

More American reactions come from former President Donald Trump,

who reacted to Putin's actions by A, hailing him as a genius, B, saying we could do with a bit of that in America and suggesting Biden sends troops to America's troubled border region, Vlad Style, and saying Putin was a great guy and a good buddy.

And it now appears that he may be running for office in 2024.

Well done, America.

You're doing tremendously well.

I mean the American reaction is truly astonishing from the right wing saying, you know, well, this is because of trans bathroom rights, essentially, that because Russia preserves its sacred gender binary, it has the power to invade its neighbouring nation.

That seems to be the logic.

And then the left wing going, this is all America's fault somehow, and indulging in a good round of self-abnegating breastbeating and uh you know we've always painted russia as the evil villain in the corner and that was always wrong except we have somehow made them into the evil villain by being american and i feel like there's a middle ground somewhere where you can just say he's a cut

i think you might have a point there alice the uh i mean the response in the in the rest of the world um

in china and india have responded,

they abstained from the UN Security Council resolution, which understandably Russia vetoed,

raising slight questions about the efficacy of the Security Council.

China and India abstain, and they've responded to this whole crisis very much as you or I would respond to the news that Marcelo and Giuliana from Santiago in Chile have decided to buy a new sofa but can't agree on which colour and how many cushions to have on it.

It's been, you know, at best indifference.

Let's listen in, in fact, to the latest reaction right now from Beijing and New Delhi.

Was that something?

No.

Nothing.

I think that might have been a parakeet outside my shed.

I mean,

the international response has broadly, and particularly

before the invasion and in the immediate aftermath, been kind of toothless.

But at least we've bought some novelty plastic vampire teeth from a Halloween costume shop.

I mean, how are people reacting, Anubhab in India, to the sort of lack of response from the government?

Yeah, look, the reason we've been quiet is that we're stuck in a very delicate space.

India is a net importer of oil,

which is slightly important for 1.3 billion people.

And as a net importer of oil, we have two suppliers, Russia and the United States.

50% of it comes from Russia, 50% comes from Europe and the United States.

So we're a little bit stuck because if we want half of all the cars and trucks in India to stop, we'll have to take a side.

In terms of the response from the cricket community,

which is obviously the most important thing, Imran Khan was the only former 1980s international cricketer to visit Vladimir Putin the day after he launched the invasion.

I don't know if it's whether it was in his role as a representative of 1980s international cricketers or as Prime Minister of Pakistan.

But I mean, this was a poorly timed visit.

I mean, I think the visit was scheduled some time ago, but maybe worth checking the news next time.

Because I mean you can always take a rain check.

You can pull a sickie these days, can't you?

You could just claim a COVID test.

You know, I think Zelensky has given a lot of world leaders hope.

You know, I think Imran Khan looked at a comedian, you know, facing up to a world crisis and said, as a fast bowler, maybe I can do something.

Yeah.

I think his country is, Pakistan, as you know, is in a lot of debt.

It's been going to to the IMF, it's going to China, it's trying to raise capital.

And maybe, as a cricketer, he's not that aware of timing in politics.

So he thought this would be a good time to go to Russia and, I don't know, offer Biryani in exchange of a trade deal, just as the Russians are about to launch a nuclear weapon.

The Kremlin issued a statement about the meeting, said the leaders of the two countries discussed the main aspects of bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on current regional topics, including developments in South Asia, which I'm not sure was the big big news story on that day.

I have to imagine that Vladimir Putin is either very distracted or obviously a body double in that conversation.

In terms of other statements, Chelsea Football Club,

from whom Roman Abramovich, the Russian

questionably acquired billionaire, has stepped back from running the club, issued a statement saying the situation in Ukraine is horrific and devastating.

Chelsea FC's thoughts are with everyone in Ukraine.

Everyone at the club is praying for peace.

Which isn't the most savage criticism of

Putin's actions,

but maybe we shouldn't expect that.

Europe has

started to respond a bit more strongly.

The EU, for the first time in its history, is sending arms to a non-member state.

Germany has announced it will be investing in its military in a manner that it hasn't done since,

well, you know when.

The UK response, I mean, obviously, and you've sort of touched on this already,

If if Russian history teaches anything, it's the dangers of fighting a war on two fronts.

And we are in full swing of the culture wars here.

And I just think that that may have split our government's attention.

Oliver Dowden, I think we mentioned a couple of weeks ago on the Bugle, said that we can't concentrate on Ukraine because people are wanting to use different pronouns.

And

I hope these people are really thinking about what they've

their role in in creating this this crisis

in terms of accepting refugees uh the british government has said people who are settled in the uk will be able to bring their ukrainian um immediate family members to join them um

uh which i mean it wasn't the most open-armed uh approach um

i don't think poland and romania and the other countries on ukraine's borders have been quite such sticklers for whether or not you've got immediate family members to stay with uh johnson said the uk would not turn our backs in ukraine's hour of need.

We might extend a middle finger or clenched fist to anyone without relatives already here, but it is still a strong message because turning our backs in people's hour of need is generally official government policy.

So it shows how seriously we're taking it.

To do them credit, the government is being a good wingman to every British gentleman abroad that wants to get laid.

Saying,

just saying, if you want to be an immediate relative.

Right.

Again, that's, I guess, in the Johnsonian playbook.

But it does show how seriously we're taking it now, that we are prepared, at least temporarily, to suspend our now-traditional heartless bastards' asylum policy.

And also, and this shows how seriously we are taking this in Britain, that our news reporters have started pronouncing Kiev as Kiev.

For Britain to abandon our God-given rights to mispronounce places and people from overseas,

that is a huge, a huge step that we are always unwilling to take.

And it shows how seriously we are taking this crisis.

It puts everything into perspective.

I mean you're missing of course the most important response which is the response of the tech bro Bitcoin maximalist community which is that millions of dollars of Bitcoin are being donated to the war effort in Ukraine and I know you know how I feel about Bitcoin which is to say I don't know how to feel about Bitcoin but I'm not sure if this is like a wonderful use case for this decentralized currency or also about to be used by the baddies.

Like, I just feel in this whole situation, there are a lot of baddies.

Situations like this, let's call it war.

You end up with, I just feel like you end up with a lot of baddies, like on all sides, all over the place.

And the more baddies you get to invest in Bitcoin, the more valuable and evil it becomes.

You know, but then I adding to that, Alice, I also have an if-not now-then-when theory.

You know, I feel like Bitcoin was invented for a cyber war with Russia.

I mean, if, for example, if we are exchanging in gold, donkeys, and cash in a cyber war, we've got a problem.

I think this was things like Ethereum and Shiba Inu coin were invented for this kind of war.

Because, you know, there's a lot of things I think of when I think of the Russian army.

One of the things that don't strike me is a sense of humor.

Even with World War II, you know, I know Hitler went after them, Stalin nearly had to leave Moscow, but no one found any of that funny.

Like, they were not.

And I feel like, you know, this is not going to be an army with whom you can reason or have compassion.

I mean, it's called the Red Army.

You can't even picture individuals.

You know, I know there was a guy called Zhukov a long time ago, but these are not fun people.

So I feel the only way to beat them is to exchange their currency in some sort of a cyber dog coin ethereum kind of thing and they have no money to fight

sports reaction as you would expect has been brutal fifa

have said that russia uh have to play under the name of the football union of russia uh not as russia and they're not allowed to use a flag or a national anthem and i mean there cannot be any

more piquant response

than that.

Take it away.

I mean it's an outstanding national anthem.

To take that away,

I mean you can see that this could lead to the crumbling of the entire Putin facade.

Just go to to go back to Liz Truss's

saying that she'll back volunteers to go and fight in Ukraine.

This is a bit of Australian news.

Peter Dutton, the MP, there's floods in Brisbane at the moment.

And he has tweeted out

thoughts and prayers prayers and a GoFundMe link for emergency relief in Queensland,

which

I think is just the most blatant admission of the failure of government that you could possibly imagine.

The tweet reads: The water hasn't gone down yet, and we haven't seen the full extent of the damage to our community due to catastrophic flooding.

We have started a fundraiser to help local residents and businesses who have been affected.

And as you can imagine, he has been ratioed

so hard

with suggestions like, this is your job and this is your fing job.

We had something slightly similar with when Jacob Reese Mogg was appointed Minister for Brexit Opportunities, I think it was the title, and basically invited members of the public to tell him what are the good things about Brexit, which you would have thought as one of the architects of that eternal shit show, he might have thought of before, for example, 2016, when he tried to persuade people to vote in it.

Obviously, fifa is an organization that awarded world cups to russia in 2018 despite uh all the things putin had done in the previous or nearly two decades including invading ukraine previously in 2014 uh and not removing the world cup then when it could have done qatar in 2022 despite its enthusiastic use of uh slave labor and the fact that it uh is some a small bit of desert i mean essentially football's moral compass points unerringly towards actually it doesn't really point anywhere football's moral compass was removed from the building some time ago taken to a disused quarry strapped to some TNT and blown up, and replaced with a piece of wood with a compass needle painted on it, pointing unerringly towards a dollar sign made of steaming turds.

I do think, however, you know, we are a respected media organization here at the Bugle, and we need to try to provide some balance and we need to, you know, see some things from the Russian perspective.

And Vladimir Putin complained this week about people using, quotes, aggressive language towards Russia.

So, you know, there are always two sides.

I mean, aggressive language, I mean, that's, you know,

in the 2020s, you know how people are very sensitive to

these things.

And, you know, I mean, he's a leader who's done nothing more than wage brutal war on a

non-aggressive country.

I mean, is there really any excuse for language like that?

I mean, Andy, look, Alice, one of the things he announced on TV was that, you know, he told his generals that he was upset that Ukraine was filled now with neo-Nazis and strangers.

And I'm always worried when a place is filled with neo-Nazis and strangers.

I think about invading any place that has those two things.

Well, I mean, the sentence itself implies that the neo-Nazis are the one part of the sentence who aren't strangers.

So I guess he was aware that they're there, right?

But strangers really threw him off.

But what I was taken by is that there's, I guess he does not like all the rhetoric of the West telling him he's a dictator.

Time magazine has him on the cover this week with the Hitler moustache.

So all of that is going on.

So I can see why he's upset.

So basically, all these announcements he's making about the nuclear arsenal and all of that, he's doing it on TV to his generals.

A few days ago, if you remember, he spoke to his spy chief.

He paraded him out and made him say, which side are you on?

And when the spy's chief was hesitant, he scolded him on live TV.

And I've realized maybe what Putin is missing is

he needs to make important life decisions for broadcast, for public broadcast.

And I realized maybe it doesn't have an avenue.

But then I thought, wait a minute, the world has that already.

It's called Instagram.

I think all of this would stop if Putin had an Instagram account where he just wrote stuff like, I may not wear pants today.

Well, I mean,

there has been some strong social media action.

I mean, in fact, I mean, before the invasion, there was rather stronger words from various celebrities.

The American rapper Cardi B

issued an

eloquent anti-war statement that was rather more striking than what the world's politicians were offering at the time.

Cardi B, of course, I think as we exclusively revealed on the bugle, took her name from Cardigan Bay in Wales for a love of beautiful sandy beaches.

However,

the Russian rapper.

Which interesting itself

took its name from Beyoncé's Cardigan.

The Russian rapper KGB has responded with an album of pro-Soviet Union hip-hop.

One of my great great beefs with Putin, though, is that

I'm just really worried when you see his work meetings and how he treats his colleagues that he's creating a toxic workplace.

I mean, he is, legally speaking, definitely creating a toxic workplace.

I mean, I've always wondered, you know, one of the things they do in the workplace now is 360-degree feedback, where employees below you and above you give you a recommendation.

I wonder what Putin's 360-degree feedback would look like.

Well, that concludes this week's war update.

Hopefully, it'll be all over by next week's bugle.

But it might not be.

We will have exclusive coverage as the conflict continues.

World record news now.

And well, the world has not been at its best this week.

But it's not been all bad.

Let's look for the positives.

For example, the Streatham Redhawks are now on a 21-game-winning streak, I think.

And this week has also seen several records set as humanity, despite what's going on in Ukraine and with Vladimir Putin, strives for ever more record-setting standards.

And I'm not just talking about records like most absurd pretext for war, most obviously belated sanction, least welcome second presidential run, that kind of thing.

We're talking great human achievements.

And foremost amongst them, a new record has been set by a heroic young Australian for stacking the most M ⁇ Ms on top of other M ⁇ Ms.

Alice, this must be one of the moments of greatest national pride in the history of your young nation.

It's the one thing keeping our heads above the rising floodwaters here, Andy, is the knowledge that

the most M ⁇ Ms ever have been piled on top of each other by Brendan Kelby, a 22-year-old man who has simultaneously broken this Guinness World Record and also the world record for the least impressive world record ever.

It's six M ⁇ Ms.

Six?

Six?

So he's broken the piling M ⁇ Ms on top of each other and also the least impressive world record at the same time.

A double world record break.

Very impressive work from young Brendan there.

Yep, and I think it's led to a big money deal.

He's moved from the Victoria Vertical Snack Storers to the Canberra confectionery stackers ahead of the forthcoming Australian NPL

nibbles piling league season.

Anuvab, I imagine, you know, India,

which is as a nation generally starved of global sporting success outside the cricket arena,

must be thinking this is something you need to invest in.

Yeah, I mean, I was about to ask both of you.

I had taken part in a samosa eating contest

and the winner ate 27 of them.

And

that was considered an achievement.

Of course, he ended up with amoebic dysentery and was in hospital for a week.

But

how would you compare that to the stacking of the M ⁇ Ms?

You think it's a smaller achievement?

Like Andy said, we just don't make the global press with some of this stuff.

I mean, I don't know if you read, but a 16-year-old Indian kid just beat Magnus Carlson at chess, the world grandmaster, chess, whatever you call it.

I was about to say grand wizard.

That's not the right word.

That's some grand something of chess.

And again, you know, it's small news.

It's a little corner of the BBC and the Guardian.

It's not big news.

I feel like a Samosa eater,

where would you rate him compared to the M ⁇ M stacker?

To stacking six small bits of confectionery on top of each other.

It's so hard to put anything in context.

It's like comparing apples to oranges in terms of their stackability.

Apples are much easier to stack.

On the subject of fruit, another great world record has been set.

The world's heaviest strawberry has been grown in Israel.

One can only assume it was

provided by Almighty God himself,

some kind of belated contract fulfillment with the Old Testament folks.

I mean,

this is a huge moment for strawberries, which have been traditionally considered to to be quite small and

now turns out that actually they can be bigger than that.

I'm against it Andy.

It seems unwholesome and unnatural to have a strawberry that's 13 inches is the circumference of this massive strawberry and the fact that it has such density and weight, it's nearly 10 ounces of heft,

that's a strawberry that's going to make itself into jam.

It's just going to collapse under the weight of its own weight.

And you'll end up with a black hole of strawberries into which all cream will be sucked.

And then where will we be?

Sounds like a metaphor for Russia.

And this strawberry, for those of you who've not seen it, is the size of an elephant's head, albeit a toy elephant

whose head is about the width of a human hand.

But still pretty big as strawberries go.

In other big things that are maybe not that big objectively, the world's biggest Jurassic pterosaur has been found in Scotland,

a fossil, well, not alive, a fossilized remnant uh with a wingspan of 2.5 meters there were other pterosaurs that were a lot bigger but not in the specifically Jurassic period but we're clinging to this in Britain as a world record the punk styled flying mega newt sadly passed away by coincidence uh on this day the 28th of February in 170 million three hundred and twenty one thousand eight hundred and fifty three BC much missed by friends and family of course and it's um Yep.

It's a dragon.

It's a dragon.

Let's stop pretending it's not a dragon.

Someone find a a fossilized virgin.

I'm sure we can all think of the name of some old lady we don't like as the punchline for this bit.

It's a dragon.

Right.

And also, Andy, you know, I feel like in the dinosaur era, Britain is like a third world country.

It's way behind the other developed economies.

America has some proper ones.

Africa has tons of great ones.

Australia has got a bunch.

But this is probably the first time you're giving the world a source, whatever saurus there was.

What do you say that?

And

this fossil was discovered in 2017, and the story is in the news because I think a report came out analysing it

last week.

So, I mean, what does that show?

2017?

When was the Brexit vote?

2016.

All of a sudden, we're free of Europe and we're starting to find massive dinosaurs, like the great nation we are.

Anabab, just to correct you there, to say that England hasn't presented the world with a saurus.

It presented a world with the saurus.

There are hopes now after that this fossil was discovered recently that in a couple of hundred years' time someone could make a film about the discovery with a contrived romantic subplot.

Another great discovery, the biggest Roman mosaic for 50 years has been found in London.

I mean, it's not really a world record, it's just the biggest in London for 50 years.

It's thought to be the floor of an upmarket hotel, which offered food, accommodation, and a full refund in the event of the eventual collapse of the Roman Empire.

The venue dates from the mid-2nd century AD when beer in London was charged at just £4 a pint.

Shows how long ago that was.

Another very exciting world record set for visiting the most Welsh castles in a week.

I mean, I wasn't entirely sure that this was a world record, bearing in mind it's only Welsh castles.

Probably quite hard for a professional castle visitor from Argentina to break the Welsh castles record, but still, a world record Matthew Page, an endurance cyclist from Klangadog,

sorry if I've mispronounced that, peddled his way to 67 Welsh castles in a week.

Yes, indeed, Andy.

Matt Page, the name of choice in when you're getting your photographs printed.

The only person who's visited more Welsh castles, interestingly enough, is King Arthur.

He's been everywhere.

Again, very quickly, I would like to challenge this record from an Indian perspective because maybe what they don't know is that there are tour packages that you can get in India that Indian families buy, which allows you access to six museums in Paris in five hours.

And I know one particular Indian family that have run through the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, and the Pompidou in 40 minutes, just running thoughts, great works of art, because it's included in an all-you-can-watch package.

And I'd just like to throw in the Doshi family into this competition.

Again,

they're not getting enough press, but they have covered four museums, which may not be the same as that many Welsh castles, but you know.

In Scotland, a world record was set for the quickest ever recorded production of a play

from

the moment that the theatre company picked a script at random out of a box of scripts, rehearsed, and produced it.

Nine hours, 59 minutes, and three seconds for the Rubber Chicken Theatre in Dumblane to perform a fully formed musical Return to the Forbidden Planet, snatched the world record back for Team GB from Spain's Teatro di Albatross.

It's obviously a bit of a burden for them to carry.

And they broke the mythical 10-hour barrier that so narrowly eluded Shakespeare back in the day when he had to write it, of course, as well to get the record when he hacked out his little-known tragedy, Bertie the Space Dog, back in 1604.

Well, we are running out of time on this week's Google because I have to get the train to Newcastle for my tour gig.

All details of all my tour shows on andysoltsom.co.uk.

Do send your satirical request to satirise this at satirisforhire.com.

We only have time for bra news now.

And Alice, respectfully, I'm going to pass this one to you as something more of an expert on this topic than probably Anna Vaberoy.

This is the latest moral panic come fashion news, Andy, that the pandemic has hit the underwire on the head, that bra's are no longer being bought with underwires.

If you don't know what they are, they're a wire that goes under the boob to push the boob upwards.

I understand this.

Why would you wear an underwire when you're on Zoom?

You can just hoik your boobs up into frame with your hands when they're relevant.

Otherwise, they can stay out of view.

I don't think you realise how liberating it is to know that if someone's not meeting your eyes in a meeting, it's because they're subtly checking their emails out of frame, not either objectifying you for the ways in which your body meets a set of beauty standards, or worse, cultivating contempt for your inability to meet those standards.

I feel this is a dangerous precedent to set, the death of the underwire, because I just tried to wear proper shoes for the first time in a while, like last week, and it ended so badly that I decided I don't need feet anymore.

So

everyone keep your eyes out.

I mean, eyes up here, but just keep your general senses around and on the landscape of what's going to be happening with bras in the future.

But I can guarantee they will be significantly more comfy until we all have to go back into the office again and impress people with our mountainous cleavage

thank you uh very much for listening uh buglers um i think we have a week off next week because of my uh tour forthcoming dates uh today

too late newcastle uh then uh edinburgh glasgow barnard castle salford north alloton lincoln chorley birmingham uh chelton leicester maidenhead all the short notting bristol exeter cambridge and milton keynes in a london run in may all details details at andysalton.co.uk.

Anything to plug?

I will be in Adelaide this week.

Please come buy tickets.

I think I bought, sold like 34 out of 400 tickets.

So come along.

Adelaide, I'll be then in Melbourne, then in Perth, then in Tokyo, but not doing shows, then in London for June, July, and then in Edinburgh in August.

And who knows when thereafter?

Who knows where?

Who knows where?

Who know when it'll be?

It'll be then, but I don't know where.

Well, just like Alice, I should be in the UK, April onwards.

The Amazon special,

The Empire, this is a topic I've never done before,

comes out at the end of April.

And my specific dates are, I have no idea.

But there will be certain things.

They'll be on Twitter at Anufabhal.

And my last, last request, Andy, is if there is a World War III, I really hope you speak to your government and get that British Imperial Army back in order.

because

you guys were much better when you had an army stationed here in India.

Thank you for listening, Buglers.

We will be back soon.

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.