Bonus Bugle - Denmark, Nobel and Oysters

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to Bugle issue 4216 sub-episode I for I will shortly be leaving Australia and will return to the correct hemisphere to record a full bugle early next week.

This week we have some prime bugle sub-episode gold for you including some never previously heard, apart from when we recorded them, obviously, off-cuts from recent recordings, featuring a couple of newcomers to the Bugle roster, Neil Delamere and James Collie, as well as Nato Green, Tom Ballard and Alice Fraser.

We also have an audience Q ⁇ A from a Bugle live show as well as some cricketing chat from the Bugle Ashes Earncast with me and Felicity Ward.

Now don't forget two things.

One, you can buy tickets to my UK tour now, and I mean now, running from late February to late March, and you can listen to me hosting the new series of the news quiz via BBC Sounds and other pod sources.

And let's start this week with Alice and James Colley and something a bit surprising in the state of Denmark.

In other environmental news,

this is a story that shows how low humanity is prepared to set its goals.

Denmark has pledged, pledged again, pledged I tell you, to make it all domestic flights fossil fuel free by the the year 2030.

Now this might surprise you on the grounds that you probably didn't realize that Denmark, the notoriously not very f ⁇ ing big and really quite flat country, has any internal flights as it is.

It's a country best known for its controversial fishwoman laboratory crossbreeding scheme that resulted in an uncontrolled infestation of mermaids around the coastal nation.

And it's announced, yeah, so by the end of the decade, no more fossil fuel in its domestic flights.

Polar bears across the Arctic have issued a statement welcoming the move by Denmark saying, Oh, well, it looks like our home ice caps are going to refreeze over finging night if a small country like Denmark that has absolutely no fing need for domestic flights is going to make its domestic flights fossil fuel-free within just eight fing years.

Eight years, lest we forget, in which obviously no one will need to take a domestic flight because it's fing Denmark.

Thank you so much, Denmark.

What next?

Are you going to announce that your beautifully designed sofas are dolphin-friendly?

Sorry, are we sounding stroppy?

It's just, oh, never mind.

P.S.

Any chance for some herring?

I love you, herring.

I love this story.

I was very impressed by this.

Denmark's prime minister, who I believe is Hamlet's uncle.

Anyway,

they're claiming that Denmark is leading the world in this respect.

And that is an abhorrent lie.

Australia is at the forefront of making flights fossil fuel free by not having flights altogether.

In fact, when a tennis player accidentally finds their way to Australia, we lock them away until we work out exactly how they got here in the first place.

And there is a good chance that fossil fuel-free flights is the first in a raft of highly alliterative environmental policies, which includes crucial carbon credit captures, generous grants guaranteeing groundbreaking green growth, and controversially capturing coal company CEOs, constructing crosses, and crucifying the well, you get the point.

You can say it, Chris will just beep you.

Well, in that case, we're going to crucify the

France, Alice, have also been doing their bit for the environment by not burning as many cars on New Year's Eve.

There's been a 33%

slump in the number of cars set on fire in France from New Year 2019 to New Year 2021.

Of course, New Year 2020 didn't happen.

So

I don't know quite how we got into 2021.

Maybe we should just cancel all New Year's and

I think we should just let 2022 stumble on until everything's fixed.

And you know, it'll be such a shame if 2023 is ruined as well.

But anyway, it's a 33% reduction.

Emmanuel Macron has now pledged to develop ways for people to ruin other people's cars in a more environmentally friendly manner than vehicular arson, including filling them up with strawberry yogurts, using them as tomato greenhouses and turning them into mobile hedgehog sanctuaries.

But Alice, as our unnecessarily burning vehicles correspondent, this must have been very exciting news

for you.

Yes, Andy, 874 cars only were set alight this New Year's Eve.

That's nearly 500 fewer cars than were burnt in 2019.

There's a target for zero cars to be burned by 2030, but some say that's a pipe dream.

This burning cars thing, I didn't know until I read this story, but it's a great French tradition because it helps you make and keep your New Year's resolutions.

31st of December, burn a car, 1st of January, make a resolution to stop being such a c.

It's

very easy to keep.

But this is not the only thing that France is doing for the environment.

They're also banning plastics on fruit and veg.

You know, some people say it's unnecessary to have plastics on fruit and veg, but I worry because I worry if this includes the little stickers on the apples.

Because if it does, I don't know how I'm going to be able to identify that it's an apple.

Well, that's what you're only getting it for its branding, like all apple products.

I'm going to miss this.

This is a famous tradition in France who will flumbay anything, a duck, a car, Notre Dame.

They love setting things on fire.

And I have to wonder how much of this change comes from an environmental turn, and how is it how we just use cars differently?

A lot of these days, people don't own a car to burn, they would rather set fire to an Uber two or three times a week.

And so, I actually did some research on this.

I have a statement, I got a statement from someone who was on the scene, and they said, and I quote,

unfortunately, that person was a mime, bloody French.

Delving back a little further into the recent past, NATO was understandably somewhat confused about British politics.

So, and I'm watching this from afar, and

I don't understand your system,

but Jeffrey Cox isn't the only.

Jeffrey Cox isn't the only part of the current corruption inquiry, is that right?

There's other

characters.

Boris Johnson is auctioning off peerages or something.

Is that what's happening?

eBay, basically.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's whacking them on eBay.

And then, but

it all seems very quaint to me, like this idea that there's outrage, that politicians should not be above the law and people face consequences for their actions.

As an American, what kind of children's fairy tale are you living in, England?

There was a quote in one of the articles.

There was somebody, who was his name, Patterson,

got

charged.

Yeah, Owen Patterson.

This was sort of the start of the whole thing because

he was charged and found guilty.

Johnson tried to change the laws.

Then he got then under severe pressure.

They then had to do a U-turn on it.

And Owen Patterson quit and he said, Politics is horrible because I can't cheat.

So,

here's my favorite line line about it regarding Patterson.

There's an article I saw.

Tory MP Mark Fletcher said, Two years here is more than enough to know the difference between right and wrong.

Two years.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say my preference would be, if I may, that a person should know the difference between right and wrong before they run for office.

Two years.

I mean, like, what does the campaign look like?

Hello, elect me MP, and we will burn down the home for the elderly with them inside screaming through their stupid dentures.

Oh, wait.

Well, NATO, you weren't actually here in 2019, and I believe that was one of the key Conservative manifesto practices.

And then, to be honest, the way they've handled COVID, they almost followed through on it.

Really?

When will politicians get credit for sticking to their promises?

But they did it without the fire, so it was more environmentally friendly.

So, you know, that's.

Have you won a Nobel Prize?

Don't worry, most people haven't, including me, and the people you are about to hear talking about people who have won a Nobel Prize, Tom Ballard and Neil Delamere.

Nobel Prize news now.

And well, looking at the world politically and economically, it's quite hard to shake the suspicion that the planet is broadly, as planets go,

f ⁇ ing stupid in how it looks after itself.

But nonetheless, within that planet, there are some incredibly non-stupid people and things going on.

And the Nobel Prizes celebrate these things.

There's been some sensational efforts this year.

The chemistry prize went to Benjamin List and David Macmillan for their work on asymmetric organocatalysis,

which, I mean, we're all big fans of at the Bugle.

I mean, what does

Neil, what does asymmetric organocatalysis mean mean to you on a deeply personal level?

I prefer it to the symmetric organocatalysis.

Yes, I mean, I really don't like that.

It's too regular, isn't it?

It's too regular, yeah.

I mean,

you need a bit of spice in your life, don't you?

You don't want to be able to predict the reaction involving an enzyme.

No, you definitely don't want that.

That's that's, I mean, I'll go to my grave saying that.

When you're supposed to go into your grave saying anything, then a very bad medical mistake has been made.

I swear I'm fine.

Get in the hole.

Get in the hole.

What are you, an American Raider Club fan?

Get in the hole.

And Tom, it appears to be some kind of technique to make

medical drugs appear out of thin air, as far as I can make out.

Because when I read an article about some kind of high-level science, I get about three words in and think, I've wasted my life.

I don't understand.

It's essentially witchcraft in a lab coat.

Yes.

It might be able to cure all known diseases and catch a light or something.

No, they should be burnt.

They should all be burnt.

They should at least burn one of the winners every year to sort of say, you know, come on, people, let's keep it within the laws of God

and let's not spit in his face.

Imagine that we know more about his beautiful creation than he does.

You know what I'm saying?

I can't expect you to be going on about the laws of God, Tom, after everything.

Well, no.

Obviously, they're obviously

what?

What am I trying to say?

They are.

See, you're tongue-tied now.

That's God's judgment, Tom.

That is God's judgment.

Oh, you're sinful.

Hello, be praised.

Sorry.

I don't know what came over me there.

I did understand some of it.

I didn't understand the chemistry one, I'll be honest with you.

I understood the physics one because basically they laid the foundations of modelling of the Earth's climate so you could reliably look at global warming and it's predictable now.

Because for years, there was global warming, and we didn't know what caused it.

Was it man-made activity?

Was it invisible dragons breathing fire into the air at night?

We just didn't know.

And now we know that it's predictable.

And the chief advantage of us knowing what global warming is going to do is that polar bears can finally get their affairs in order.

That's the big thing.

Their estate planning used to be an absolute mess.

They'd be like, oh, we've got loads of time.

And then boom, out of nowhere, the ice flow is gone.

And then the state gets half their glacier mints in taxes.

No one's happy with that.

So now they just look at this model and go, oh, better go to the solicitor and use it.

It's much easier for everybody involved.

We all have clarity.

We all have clarity, yeah.

Whatever they have the clear science on climate change, I'm sure the rest of humanity will act in a reasonable and rational approach in order to tackle this global problem, work together to transition us into a clean economy in a simple and easy way that benefits everybody, right?

Probably be done by the end of this call, to be honest, I'd say.

Yeah, possibly.

Also, nominated for the Physics Prize was a revolutionary breakthrough of a means of making television shows come true, as seen with the firing of William Shatner into space, which is all very well in itself, but put it this way: if, well, Game of Thrones' Amelia Clark has been banned from the Reptile House at London Zoo.

Also nominated was the online conspiracy theorist Too True For You for his proof that gravity is a hoax.

In chemistry, well back to the chemistry prize, David Macmillan said that he felt on hearing that he won the chemistry prize, he felt dazed, confused, elated, proud, sentimental and weepy, which coincidentally Boris Johnson's nicknames for his senior cabinet ministers.

Also, how Neil is feeling on the occasion of his bugle debut, no doubt, very much like a comedic Nobel Prize.

Another bit of chemistry nominated was a means of turning burgers back into live cows and a scientific formula for on-screen chemistry that could make the average rom-com up to 18% more plausible as long as you can shake the feeling that they're not really in love, they're just famous actors.

Medicine and physiology.

They found a means of making footballers

take the COVID vaccine and the discovery of a new form of mullet that can double up as a rudder when using an electric scooter.

But it was one by David Julius and Ardem Pataputian, who essentially found out why it hurts when you kiss a boiled kettle.

My granny used to say a boiled kettle will never be kissed.

I have genuinely done that as a child for some reason.

I did kiss a kettle and burnt my lips.

And yet I was not nominated in any Nobel category this year.

You should have been.

Because, you know, these things are often shared by people who've done separate complementary research.

I'm happy to tag you on to Julius and Pataputian.

We'll chuck Ballard on the end of that.

It was work on...

I think that's how it works.

I think now we've officially got the Nobel Prize.

Yeah, I think

Andy's word carries a lot of weight in the Nobel Prize community.

Absolutely.

Hopefully, I'll follow the path of previous Nobel Prize winner Obama and get a Netflix deal later on then.

That'll be great.

Their work was on touch and temperature, and it involved using chili peppers, wasabi, and drunkenly competitive late-night curries.

And it could lead to new ways of treating pain, which could prove even more effective than rubbing it better, at praying really hard and karaoke yeah he found um he found this protein uh pi z01 and it's not in sensory organs it's in organs that like the bladder where pressure sensitivity is important

and he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

If I were the people who had developed the mRNA technology for the COVID vaccine, I would be ringing up the Nobel Prize committee going, I have saved hundreds of millions of lives and you've given the prize to the bladder protein man.

How many people urinate themselves to death?

Because if the answer is not 100 million, I'm coming for the gong.

You're gonna say it was a mistake, you're gonna write a check to ten a lady, and I'm getting the medal.

That's what's gonna happen here.

I think the people who created COVID-19 deserve it more than that bladder guy in that lab, you know.

That was a pandemic,

that was a panel, and we're not giving awards to other species.

That way, crazy lies, Tom.

My friend, and this is absolutely true, he's a professor, he was the second most cited scientist in all of Europe a couple of years ago, and he was a referee for the Nobel Prize for Biology once, right?

And they rang him and they went,

Professor, this is Magnus Jensens from the Nobel Prize Committee.

And he went, oh my god, this is amazing.

I'd like to thank my family.

I'd like to thank the Academy.

And the guy went, Would you be a referee for the biological prize.

And he was like, maybe start with that.

Maybe, hi, I'm from the Nobel Prize Committee.

You haven't won it.

Relax.

I'm sorry.

We're giving it to La La Land.

I'm sorry.

He said it was like someone rang him and said, we're having a brilliant party, right?

You can't come.

But who would you invite?

That's what he said it was like.

Back in the murky gloamings of 2021, there was a Bugle live show in London at which our audience asked me, Nish and Nato via the big screen some Qs and we attempted to provide some A's.

Should we do a

Q ⁇ A?

Your enthusiasm for that Q ⁇ A really betrays someone who has spent a long time engaging with the opinions of the British public.

Right.

I think for the Q ⁇ A we need to sit at the

congressional hearing table.

So Chris is going to, have you got any questions?

Any hands?

I can't actually see anyone at the moment.

Given how mediocre COP26 has been, is it time to get Zack Snyder in for a gritty reboot of the franchise?

I mean, I think NATO and I will take that question, given that Andy's desperately trying to work out if Zack Snyder was the lead in Save by the Bell.

Andy, Zack Snyder has nothing to do with sport of any kind.

Right, I'm out.

I'm absolutely out.

I thought you'd gone straight on your phone.

I would say no on a Zack Snyder reboot of the COP26 because it would make it longer and more tedious

and try to present Ben Affleck as dignified.

Somehow, it would achieve even less.

Yeah,

it would involve an extended sequence of Galgado wondering if she's actually hot

or not.

So

I would prefer the Wes Anderson reboot of the COP26.

Just something, a tight hour and 20 minutes, very twee,

pastel colors, the same cast playing themselves forever.

Well, fortunately, in 10 years, we will all be very much living the life aquatic.

We got another question.

Yeah, there's another question.

Chris has found somebody.

Firstly, f you, Chris.

Wow, that was, he was.

That's the closest I've ever seen anyone get to actually say it to him and it's somehow way more threatening than it when it's one person when it's lots of it's like hey f you Chris when it's one person it's like f you Chris

Andy how do you feel about the uh uh very very close call uh VAR decisions on the uh

England T20 semi-final the other day?

Oh, well the uh the third umpire decisions.

Um I'm gonna take this one everybody.

Right, okay, Nato.

I mean, Natal, what did you think of England's death bowling and those crucial overs?

Do you think they left themselves vulnerable to

a late counter-attack by New Zealand's powerful middle order?

Yeah, I thought that

they should have leaned harder into the offence

in the second line.

Cricket time now, and here's something from our rogue cricketing offshoots, the Bugle Ashes Earncast, with me and the wonderful Felicity Ward.

Andy, you've been in Australia for what seems like years now, and I thought while you've been away, I want to know your best ofs, your favourites.

So, I've got a little questionnaire for you, just off the top of the dome.

Love a quiz.

And this is the best part: you can't get it wrong.

Unlike the England team, you cannot get this wrong.

So, Andy, what's been your least disappointing Wi-Fi connection?

Oh, the least disappointing Wi-Fi connection.

Because Lord knows we've had some shit eaters while we've done this podcast.

Yes, that's a tough one.

That's

up there with least disappointing session of cricket of the series.

I think I had a moderately

okay one in Adelaide, so

I think I'll go with that.

Unusual.

Unusual.

I mean Adelaide of course as everyone knows there were no convicts in Adelaide they were just the settlers.

They were the good people apparently.

That's why the Wi-Fi works.

That's why the Wi-Fi works.

Yeah.

It's just a much more morally upstanding sort of Wi-Fi in Adelaide.

Yeah that's right.

Second question.

Which pillow, hotel pillow came closest to laying next to your wife?

Which one emulated the experience of having a cuddle?

Right.

I mean, there's no real way that I can answer this question without insulting my wife.

So I would say, obviously, no pillow can match human perfection, Felicity.

A lovely intro.

She doesn't listen, Andy.

She doesn't listen to this.

She stopped listening to you years ago.

My husband's never listened to this podcast.

Ever.

It's our safe space, Felicity.

It is our safe space.

Okay, so obviously nothing comes close to perfection.

Yep.

What's been your top pillow?

My top pillow.

There were some oddly long ones in one of the hotels.

I can't remember what it was.

This is what I'm talking about.

Which one it was?

Sometimes it's a little bit more fun.

It's nice to have a cuddle.

Yeah, but I haven't actually cuddled them.

It feels like an opportunity missed now to

snuggle up with a pillow.

Yeah, have a little comfort.

That's what the long pillows are for.

We send you to paradise and you don't even know how to enjoy yourself there.

Yes.

So why are Australian pillows so long?

That's what I want to know.

What are they trying to do?

What do you have, like couch cushions at home in your bed?

What do you got?

Well, just used to be, you know,

the width of a head plus a bit more.

Australia, I'm not expecting

people's heads to suddenly expand.

Is it because people used to sleep in their hats, so needed a wide enough pillow for the massive Australian hats?

No, it's because they saw your hair and thought we need to accommodate this.

Okay.

Third question:

Give us your top three moments where you thought this isn't worth it while you're out there.

Well, I mean, that's a tricky one because, you know, obviously coming to Australia for the Asses is a genuine childhood dream of mine and working on TMS.

So I don't think I ever thought it wasn't worth it, but from a cricketing point of view, I think they were all basically within the first second of play of the series with

not picking abroad on a pitch made for him, winning the toss and bowling, and then Rory Burns.

Almost, I mean, kind of he laid a

set a template that Marnis Labouchein then

adapted to more comic effect in the final test of the series.

It was almost like a fing callback.

Well, that's a sick burn, isn't it?

That is a sick burn.

Your top batsman basically lampoons the way you started the series in the fifth test.

Just going, nothing matters now.

It would only be if he had like a joint hanging out of his mouth while he was doing it going, f you, Robbie.

And look, Andy, just to wind it up, on a lovely note, what was your favourite city?

My favourite city.

Well, I've always loved coming to Australia, but I've really enjoyed being in Hobart, partly because I've not been here before and it's got a very different vibe.

And

you spoke about it very fondly last week.

So

that's been, I guess, the travel highlight.

I've been to the other three cities I've been to before, Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide.

And obviously it's a strange time to be travelling around Australia, but Hobart's

been delightful.

You had some nice meals there?

Have you had some nice food?

I have had some nice food and also some extremely fried food.

Slightly too fried.

But yeah,

we've eaten well.

There were oysters in the press box.

Oh,

what a treat.

I don't think it's particularly necessary for a cricket press box, but it was certainly

a lovely touch though, isn't it?

It's not by the hacks.

Yes.

I mean, very hard when you're all trying not to f each other while you're commentating

the aphrodisiac agas don't look me in the eye

that is all for this week buglers sorry that the recording schedule has been a little bit haywire of late but once i return from my journey around a australia and b the concept of inevitable cricketing failure that is an england tour of australia we will be back to regular weekly shows Until then, from Hobart, Tasmania, where the devil runs free in angry marsupial form.

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.