The Bugle Review of 2021

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to your end of year 2021 2021 special.

And what a year 2021 it has been.

There will be a live bugle recording next week.

We are recording in Melbourne on the 22nd of December.

There's also a bonus Saturdays for High Show on the 23rd of December, if you want to come along to that.

And in Sydney on the 4th of January, we've added a live bugle earlier in the evening on the 4th of January before the Saturdays for High Show.

Before those shows, however, let's remind ourselves of all the great things to have happened in 2021.

All done, let's look at some of the other stuff now.

And let's start in January with events in Washington, D.C.

with Mark Steele and Hori Kondabolu.

Top story this week, the American uncivil war.

It's

well, Hari, you are our Collapse of American Civilization correspondent, a role which you've embraced with great enthusiasm over the past four and a half years.

In fact,

you were on the first bugle.

after we relaunched, just before

the election of President Trump.

So just bring us up to date with the last

recent events in Trump's America.

I mean, let me first say:

will the aliens get here already?

This is the time.

We're weak.

We're diseased.

We're destroying ourselves.

This is the time.

You know, there's a lot of things one could say about Trump, but the man can make an exit.

I mean,

he leaves with a bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Wednesday started great.

You know, it didn't start out all shit.

I actually felt optimistic for about an hour

because the Democrats won the Georgia runoffs, which gave them control of the Senate.

the House and the presidency, which is a huge paradigm shift, right, in American politics because it changed the question from how are Republicans going to prevent anything from being done to how are the Democrats going to f this one up

That's that's that's huge

Very big victory also it was uh it was Raphael Warnock

and and John Osoff and they beat uh uh Kelly Loffler who's the most racist NBA owner since Donald Sterling and uh David Perdue who is uh

just a generic rich white guy from casting.

American politics needs more of them, doesn't it?

Yeah, I mean, he.

This is, he'll be back.

He'll be fine.

They're currently bathing in gold coins, so both of them are fine.

But Warnock and Osoff won, again, which is exciting.

I wish the headlines read: Republicans get knockoffed, but nobody decided to.

That was for you, Andy.

I I don't write jokes like that.

Much appreciated.

That's been the best thing that's happened to me this year.

A black man and a Jewish man are now the two senators of the state of Georgia.

Which, to explain how likely that is, the only thing less likely is if they became senators in the country of Georgia.

So, I was in a good mood

until I put on the

news about

sometime in the afternoon, and I saw the capital under siege.

The colonizers were getting restless.

The capital was raided by Trumpers, Proud Boys, and what appeared to be extras from Mad Max Fury Road.

Also, potentially some tourists who saw a line and just gotten it.

I think that's how the British Empire started, actually.

If we go back to the very beginning of this sorry story, of course.

After months of claiming the election was stolen and years of being a piece of shit,

Trump released the Kraken.

They smashed through the doors of the Capitol and went onto the Senate floor.

They went into Nancy Pelosi's office and sat in her seat.

Things were destroyed and stolen.

People took selfies of themselves, or as they're now known, self-incriminationees.

Some were armed.

Some had handcuffs.

Two IEDs were found.

IEDs, of course, are improvised explosive devices.

You might be familiar with those since they were found in Iraq during the most recent war we had with them when we claimed we were trying to bring democracy over.

If the people of Iraq had seen this footage from last week beforehand, they probably could have said, don't worry, we have that here already.

It was true.

I mean, I think one of my favourite points, if you can have a favourite, that seems the wrong word.

But at that rally that you mentioned before the violence kicked off,

as Trump Stiltskin was throwing his toys out of the Pram, and by toys I mean violent supporters, and out of the Pram I mean directly up the road to storm the Capitol building.

He called the election result bullshit and at which point the crowd then started chanting bullshit bullshit and I think that might have been peak irony in human history Trump's crowd chanting bullshit bullshit at Trump might I think that in fact might be the basic the moment that all civilization essentially ended it's over the huge there's nowhere for the human race to go after this especially as I mean what surprised us all was that it was Trump doing this.

You'd think, well, it's just so out of character.

I mean,

it just shows you it's always the ones you least expect that end up causing trouble, isn't it?

All his neighbours, well, he keeps himself to himself usually.

In February, vaccine news dominated in a way that's not at all relevant now, I'd say.

Top story of this week: vaccine rollout begins.

Well, globally, this is very exciting news.

COVID, the virus, which has proved such a disappointingly tenacious little shit over the past year and a bit, so stubbornly reluctant to give into the kind of short-termist grandstanding political bombast that so many countries have come to depend on to work their way through difficulties, could be set to face its toughest opponent yet, belated global cooperation.

Because the COVAX scheme has begun, a global initiative aimed at achieving something vaguely approaching equitable-ish access to COVID vaccines for the less economically advantaged nations of the world.

Provided, of course, there's still enough for some countries to get one over on other rival countries, for example, Germany, by finding one aspect of the virus we cannot spectacularly f up more than anyone else.

So, I mean, Nish, you are our global vaccination correspondent and have been since the very first time you appeared on this show.

Indeed, I have.

I've been waiting for this portfolio to bear fruit.

This is

interesting news.

This whole project tells us quite a lot about the world in general, both its good points and its bad points.

Yeah, I mean the positive headlines, which we should open with under the current climate of general pervading gloom, is that 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have arrived in Ghana and making Ghana the first country to receive coronavirus vaccines through the COVAX vaccine sharing initiative.

Now, my first question is, guys,

why are we giving them the vaccines and why are they not coming from Wakanda?

I've seen Black Panther.

There's absolutely no way that that guy wasn't able to knock up some sweet viruses and put them in vibranium vials.

Secondly, Andy, let's take a moment and enjoy the fact that this is a good news story that involves the West bringing viruses to Africa and it not ending in everyone dying.

That is not historically

the direction of travel that that has gone.

White people turning up with viruses has not traditionally ended well for people of my skin hue and darker, frankly.

It's been an absolute shit show.

There is a sort of story that's been bubbling under in the last couple of weeks in Britain about how certain black and minority ethnic groups are having a lower than expected vaccine turnout.

Now, obviously, as a member of a minority ethnic group living in Britain, I want to make it clear that I will absolutely be taking the vaccine when it's offered to me.

I can't wait.

I'm just going to shove it up my ass and hope for the best.

Okay, I'm excited to receive the vaccine.

However,

white people do need to understand that we are not exactly crying wolf here.

And there is something ancestrally concerning about a white guy approaching you saying, I'm just going to put some disease in you.

It will definitely be fine this time.

Well, you know, all trial schemes have a few teething troubles, even if they were a couple of hundred years ago.

What, What, Pox?

No, never mind.

Yes.

Oh, that's great.

I've been concerned about the language of the COVAX situation.

And maybe it's an English English to American English translation, but when I read the COVAX scheme, That doesn't inspire a load of confidence.

It sounds conspiratorial, nefarious.

And I sense a bit of backpadding by British press about this rollout.

Ghana, a nation of 30, 31 million people, is getting 600,000 doses of the remaindered vaccines.

And it's just, I think, for any colonial power or former, real progress is when you start with the former colonies and work your way back rather than waiting to give the leftover vaccines to those who you ruled over and determine the fate of and in some ways destroyed.

On the side, aside from

this scheme to spread vaccines around the world, rich and powerful countries have been tying up and stockpiling their supplies first because, well, I mean, let's be, we were far-sighted enough to have become rich and powerful in the first place.

And what would have been the point of that if we don't cash in our membership benefits at Club Global Privilege and Club Iniquitous Legacies of History when we need to?

You know, that's just how these things work.

The World Health Organization has warned that the inequitable vaccine distribution could extend the pandemic and cause avoidable long-term economic and travel disruption for years and years, as well as potentially facilitating the rise of more funky and fruity new COVID variants.

But still, from a British perspective, we're winning.

We are winning.

Go, Team, eat our syringe-laden dust world.

We are winning.

Team GP.

That is the most enthusiasm I've seen.

from a British person outside of a football arena in quite some time.

True emotion.

Yes, indeed, I am a prophet.

In March, arch royalists Tiff Stevenson and NATO Green joined me.

Royal news now.

And well, since we're on the subject of

wasting public money,

it's time to look at the latest situation in the royal family here in the United Kingdom.

And for anyone worried about Britain in this post-Brexit, post-divorce phase, worry no more because the vital signs of life are still there.

The definitive proof that Britain lives on alive and well, because we are are still tearing ourselves apart over the royal family as it tears itself apart now um there's very few things that genuinely bind this country together tiff but uh medieval feudalism remains one of them and

um

i mean over the past week the country has been divided once again into fundamentally people who couldn't give a flying f ⁇ about the internal squabblings of our symbolic non-executive figurehead family and those who do give a flying f ⁇ about it and i mean it's quite hard i'm not sure there is a a bridge between those two halves of the country, is there?

I think there is.

I think there's a there's a

like abolish the monarchy, which is me, but also at the same time, I quite like Megan and Harry.

Um, and I view them like we don't need the royals anymore.

We've got celebrities now.

Let's just go like the America, the Americans, and just have celebrity families.

Uh, we don't, I mean,

it's been an interesting week because uh, uh, back in 2018, uh, myself and

a little-known comic called John Oliver

both did bits on TV about

why,

both did bits about, well, answering the question of, are you excited by the royal wedding?

Which I was asked multiple times and by Americans, like kind of, because I think Americans assume that British people are generally on board with the monarchy.

And when I was asked, you know, like, was I excited about the wedding?

I said, no.

How would you have to feel if you had to pay every time a Kardashian got married?

Like, that's sort of how I feel about rural weddings.

I'm following this as an outsider to your shenanigans.

So, and I'm trying to follow who people are.

But Piers Morgan looks like if Stephen Fry was a sausage casing having an allergic reaction to itself.

I didn't watch the Oprah Winfrey interview with Megan and Harry because, well, A, I'm 46

and, you know, I'm not really an adult in any respects in my life, but I have grown out of giving a flying one about stories of princes and princesses and castles and magic hats and families being appointed by God to do a specific job for an infinite number of generations.

That is my one concession to adulthood.

And like I said, I'm just not, my view of the royal family is very much like someone's view of snooker who doesn't like snooker.

I mean, the similarities are obvious.

I don't really care what happens.

I don't understand why it's on TV so much.

I'm slightly confused by the strange old-fashioned clothing.

Most other countries don't really like the idea of it.

It would be nice if it's a little more diverse, and it's probably a matter of time before China takes the whole thing over.

So, you know, I can see that people do like it.

Not my bag.

Nothing against, you know.

most of the royal family as individuals as outdated historical relics go that they're fine uh in the grand scheme of things if you overlook the perpetuation of the socially corrosive view that you can be born special and i'm prepared to do that just this once but i think the problem with this is that and why this has caused such ructions is because the Royal Family is a beacon of Britishness.

And in this interview, it was really an assault on some of the absolute pillars of British traditions, such as not talking openly about mental health, not calling out racism, and of rich and powerful men's wives being nice and quiet and not saying anything.

Now, those are three bulwarks of our history and society, and they rode roughshod over them.

So you can understand why some people have got very cross about it.

I love that feature of British news coverage

where the buildings talk.

Buckingham Palace is speaking to Ten Downing.

Ten Downing had a stern rebuke to Buckingham Palace.

The palace would like a word.

Buckingham Palace and Ten Downing are spooning.

April now, the sexiest month in the mind of T.S.

Eliot.

He was a bit odd.

And also, it was a very sexy Easter, as revealed by Tom Ballard.

There's been an advert featuring a same-sex kiss on a Cadbury's Cream egg advert and it has caused all manner of holy meltdowns.

Tom, you are

contradicting the laws of Almighty God correspondent.

Just

bring us up to date with that.

Thank you, Andy.

A pleasure to finally fill the segment.

I've been waiting for my chance.

Send me in, coach.

Yes, look, this was an advert.

This is sort of kicked around in February.

Basically, two men are sharing a cream egg.

They're celebrating the 50th anniversary by both kissing each other and sharing an egg between their mouths while a voiceover says, we are down with that.

Of course, bigoted zealots like Andy Zaltzman would rather voice ever simply say, down with that.

But that's not how his edits didn't get through.

But 30,000 people signed a petition to try and have the ad withdrawn saying that it was offensive to members of the Christian community, which, you know, I thought it was pretty kind of tame.

And

it's just two guys kissing, you know, I think if they really wanted to offend the Christian community, they could have shown five guys f fing each other's f holes with giant chocolate dildo f eggs, while dressed as giant bunnies, shoving f covered crucifixes in each other's buns, shooting their fing cream all over each other's f, as well as furious fucking the f out of each fing balls and finging up their own

Easter trees.

You know, I mean, that was just like a tradition

that maybe could have worked.

But it's the, I mean, I do ask this, you know, respect, respectfully as a Jew, Tom, but why do your people hate Jesus so much?

On to May now, and here is Aditi Mittal explaining how the Indian administration took aim at the scientific community.

Top story this week.

Well, chaos in India, as Aditi has already told us, it's

tragic and terrifying times in India.

Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister, has,

well, taken a fair amount of criticism, I think it's fair to say, albeit not from himself,

and accusations that the government is misrepresenting and suppressing the true numbers of cases and deaths in the pandemic.

And when you are obviously lying about the numbers of cases and deaths in a pandemic such as this, and those numbers are still absolutely horrific, it does suggest that things are really going very badly

indeed.

DTO,

it's really sort of heartbreaking seeing this, particularly after Modi and his ministers had sort of announced victory over the virus not long ago.

Yeah, and to be honest, like I don't know how other comedians are doing it,

but

this, you know, it's increasingly difficult to sort of

shrug and grin at a lot of things that are happening around you.

You're like, where does parody begin and real life end?

And so that like as that line blurs further and further, last week we had The Lancet, which is a British medical magazine that wrote a very scathing editorial on Narendra Damodar Das Modi's handling of the pandemic in India.

And as a comedian, right now it's kind of weird to talk shit about Modi because this is the first time in history that everyone is also talking shit about Modi.

So

it's a weird sort of satisfaction

mixed in with sadness.

And this is not the first time that the Lancet has asked the central government of India to do better.

In fact, the first time the Lancet had written to the government of India was to describe the mental health impact of Article 370 removal on the people of Jammu and Kashmir, which happened on the day that we recorded an episode of live in Edinburgh with you, Nish, which was about 200 years ago in 2019.

I now know my history and Bugle episode numbers.

But at that point in time, people were pissed at the intervention of Lancet.

They were like, who's this some British ass magazine to ask us questions?

Like, we're going to introduce our own magazine and we're going to call it the Hacksaw, which is what our healthcare system has taken in the past few months.

We're going to publish our own shit, okay?

Like, someone actually said this.

They said, why do we care about what the Lancet says?

It's run by Chris Llamo liberal terrorists.

And like one, find a bunch of Chris's and a bunch of Llamos who agree on anything, right?

In order to come together.

Far be it from something as organized as like terrorism, right?

And I'm a liberal.

I'm a liberal.

And let me tell you, I don't want to do anything.

I really don't want to be organized.

Like when you say organized religion to me, it's not the religion part that scares me.

It's the organized part that i'm like

this is too much work

but

at that time um you know uh when the lancet had written about the indian government the same handles who were previously tweeting hashtag boycott lancet

um this time were the ones asking for oxygen cylinders and remdesivile for their loved ones on social media i mean if there's poetic justice in this

poetry This is not the justice anyone wants or deserves.

But really, this time, Modiji has displayed displayed a massive respect for the dead in India.

That's why he's killing more and more of us.

This time, Lancet told Modi to take responsibility for his mistakes.

Now, this is a guy who hasn't taken a single question from the press in six years.

So responsibility is a huge ask.

At this point, the Modi government is as useful as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

Lancet told the central government to own up to its mistakes.

And that is not going to happen because Modi himself has blamed a lot of his own mistakes on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who is the first prime minister of independent India.

Like he has done it so often now that it's become a running gag on Twitter, like on Indian Twitter.

Couples upload pictures of their newborn babies saying Nehru did this.

But Narendra Modi and his government have displayed a kind of vindictive nastiness towards science and reasoning that I normally reserve for my exes.

It feels like science once slept with Modi, then call him back and then got married to the opposition.

Right, I'm starting to understand the crisis now.

Thanks, sir.

Put in terms that we can all relate to.

In June, we welcomed Chris Anderson to the Bugle family, and he profiled the horny British, shall we say, politician, Matt Hancock.

I was in WH Smith this week looking for a copy of the camera.

All right, big shot.

Don't flash it.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I've got the cash.

I've got a voucher.

I've got a voucher for a big, big bar of dairy milk, free with my daily mail.

I was in Smith this week.

No, I wasn't looking for that.

I was looking for a socially distanced version of Hello Magazine called Hello Magazine when I happened to notice a maze issue of entitled Thicky Monthly.

And just under a picture of cover star Nadine Durries holding a book upside down were the words, this month's quiz, Are You Matt Hancock?

So just to check, i bought it let me let me read it to you question one you find yourself in boris johnson's office in number 10 downing street opposite you is a talking haystack in an ill-fitting suit with gizz stains by the half-open flies it asks you if you want to be secretary of state for the department of health do you a politely decline on the grounds that there may be others better suited to the position since you yourself have the intellectual chops of a turnip with a face drawn on or b jump at the chance in the deluded hope that the power you will wield might in some way fill the insatiable black hole in your soul that you first noticed when Emma Swinton, who you'd fancied since year seven, laughed at the fresh prince haircut you just got because she once said she thought Will Smith was hot.

Question two.

There is a global pandemic.

You, a man no one in their right mind would trust to be able to spell PPE, let alone arrange billions of items of it, have to arrange billions of items of PPE.

Who do you contact?

A, a company which has made surgical items for the past seven decades and supplies many of the largest hospitals in the West?

Or B, some guy called Marco you met on Hugo Stagnu who was really hilarious and provided the nurse's costume you made the groom go on a pub crawl in, who will respond to your WhatsApp offer of a contract with a dick pic captioned get it up, you bun boy, three lorry loads of Sainsbury's handletie bin bags and an invoice for £180 million.

And question three, 127,000 people are dead.

Do you resign?

A, yes.

Or B, of course not.

Shame is for Catholics and pussies.

If you answered mainly A, congratulations, you're not Matt Hancock.

If you answered mainly B, commiserations, you are Matt Hancock.

Please ask the person who helped you read this to explain to you that eventually the shit is going to hit the fan, bounce off the fan, and get stuck between two pieces of bread.

And when that happens, someone is going to have to choke down that foot-long turd sub and smile.

Stack up on condiments, Matt, because that someone is you.

The month of July brought the final of Euro 2020.

Yes, it was in the wrong year, but England made the final in a a spectacular way.

Oh, and there was racism.

Here's Nish Kumar.

On the 8th of June, Gareth Southgate, the England football manager and latter-day saint, and I will murder anyone who says otherwise, published a universally praised blog post explaining that take the me was an anti-racist gesture that the whole team had adopted after a long conversation within the squad where the blackpayers talked openly about their experiences of racism.

Then there was a screeching sound that sounded like a BG had taken a punch to the ball bag.

It was in fact the screeching U-turn of the Prime Minister trying to to get back into the nation's good books when he condemned the booing.

However, his other ministers did not follow suit.

Pretty Patel, the Home Secretary whose latest round of immigration reforms included the phrase, and I'm quoting directly here, hey guess what, Pinkos?

I'm going to deport that trouserless freeloader Paddington Bear and he can eat his marmalade sandwiches in hell for all I care.

She said the booing was a choice of the fans and that she didn't support the gesture politics of taking the knee.

Patel has subsequently condemned the racism suffered by the players and has been rightly put in her place by England player Tyrone Mings, who claimed, you don't get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as gesture politics and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we're campaigning against happens.

He could have saved himself a lot of time by just responding, f you, you hypocritical piece of shit.

This it did show that.

I mean, obviously politics is not what it used to be.

But, I mean, it does show where we've come to, that the fact that the Home Secretary was being schooled on issues of social justice and basic human dignity by the Aston Villa centre-back that comes as no surprise these days that shows what we are in third millennium Britannia doesn't it yeah and it's it's not just pretty patel there are various Tory MPs uh who said that they were not happy with the taking a knee gesture uh one of them said that they uh that they would not be watching any of the games Lee Anderson uh he said that he was going to boycott the whole of the European of the European Championship in protest of the decision to take the knee because he said it showed support for a political movement and risked alienating traditional supporters.

And I think we all know what he means when he says traditional.

Hey, on an unrelated subject, my favourite Disney film is Snow Traditional and the Seven Dwarves.

My favourite non-animated film is Traditional Men Can't Jump.

In August, the Taliban took over Afghanistan, but on the plus side, Alice Fraser was thinking about Bitcoin and OnlyFans.

Moving on from the Taliban, well, perhaps not coincidentally,

just as the Taliban have begun a crackdown in Afghanistan, the OnlyFans website is cracking down on people junking and pooking their assorted undercrofts

on

their website.

They are set to outlaw sexually explicit material on their site.

This does raise the question: is OnlyFans a stooge of Taliban oppression, Alice?

Well, Andy, it's sort of an astonishing thing, OnlyFans being basically synonymous with selling pictures of your junk to strangers,

has decided that the one thing they are no longer going to allow is junk pics being sold to strangers.

And it's sort of casting ripples throughout the internet.

It's sort of an existential doubt.

If OnlyFans is not showing pornography anymore, what can we trust about the internet we all trust so much

uh what what will the future hold if it doesn't hold 299 tits

299 tits

whoppers for a fiver

um

i i'm gonna i'm personally moving away from that site because i have a bunch of pictures of um Delboy and Trigger and they're going up on OnlyFans and Horses.

Which is the most bugle joke I've ever made.

I can't.

Apparently, one of the reasons why they're pulling the pornography off the OnlyFans site is because payment processing companies are increasingly putting their foot down about what payments they will allow to be processed and what payments for what.

So, Visa and MasterCard last year banned a number of payments to websites that were covering online pornography.

Which, you know,

I hate to agree with the Bitcoin maximalists.

I feel like this, if not Afghanistan, this is a problem that Bitcoin might solve.

Is it because they don't want you to get your porn on layaway?

Is that like you can't buy porn on a credit card?

Well, look, look, the thing about Bitcoin, if you use Bitcoin on something like OnlyFans, is you could watch so many young men masturbating about their Bitcoin.

Of course, we should point out, with regards to OnlyFans, that many users do use the site for the very interesting journalistic articles.

Let's never forget that side that side of it.

But you know, if they if they did, you know, take uh take the Taliban on on as an OnlyFans

members, you know, gave them uh an account.

It might help OnlyFans shed the idea that they're just a two-bit exploitative filth broker if they could also

prove that they can exploit hardline religious franchises as well, show they can cater for the entire spectrum of human activity from sex to sects.

Well

but the problem with

the problem with religion though generally reliable cults to cults.

The problem with the

hard-line religious sects though, they're generally reluctant to go down the only fans path.

They prefer to go with the everyone whether they're fans or not.

So there could be some creative tension between the two franchises.

Well if it's a month beginning with September and ending in Ur, then you've got a pretty good chance that Texas is going to pick a fight with women and indeed in any other month.

Here it is explained by Alice with Chris Addison.

In

a ruling in Texas, well, a ruling the American Supreme Court by a narrow five to four majority, the Texas law banning all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy go into effect.

This is actually the sort of Republican side of the American political seesaw, which is

a party that doesn't believe in state intervention in people's businesses or in people's

not being shot by deranged gun-toting lunatics, but does believe in state intervention in people's wombs, which, I mean, Alice, do you think this is...

Are we misrepresenting this?

I mean, it does seem slightly hypocritical.

It's such a peculiar law, Andy.

I don't know if you've looked at the details of the law, but it allows bounties for snitches.

Like a weird pro-life video game where you just whack someone who's helping and their coins transfer to you.

Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

No, no, then one of those coins was a sperm, and you have to quickly gestate your new baby to term and look after it for 18 years, even though you don't know where that coin has been.

If your grandmother was right, all coins have been up someone's butthole.

Sorry, I got you ran.

Look, it's so badly written as a law.

You have to assume that they assumed it wouldn't pass.

It's like his very dog who caught the car and then had to figure out how to administer a rule that lets you basically just take $10,000 off someone involved in helping someone in distress.

It's completely incoherent, almost impossible to enforce, unwieldy.

It's like if someone just transcribed a drunk uncle's pro-life rant onto a napkin and then slammed it down in front of the Texas legislature and went this whole thing before puking into a pot plant.

That's basically how the American Constitution was written, isn't it?

I'm sure the founding fathers were fing happy.

It was written in a Frank and Benny's on a Friday night.

I just want a sane and rational society where everyone gets all their tubes pegged at puberty,

and then you have to do a test to get a child license, and it's a one-question test, which is, do you want to have a child?

And then they randomly select one social media post you've made, and you have to name your child that post in full.

That would be tricky for me.

That means my first child would have been called die, motherfucker die.

DMD Zaltz.

And six weeks is, I mean, that is absurdly early, isn't it?

Before some people have realized they're pregnant, or at least, you know, certainly come to terms psychologically with the implications of pregnancy on your life, your lifestyle, your responsibilities.

I know when my wife and I found out that she was pregnant in 2006, well, it took me a good

decade and a half and counting to get my head around it, to be honest.

You mean if I want to go out and watch sport on my own, I've got to monetize it?

What the f?

I mean, Chris, I know you're a massive fan of the brutal inhumanity of American vestibular interest politics.

What's your well, the thing is, my problem with this law

is that it makes it even more difficult to ask that age-old question: am I in Texas or am I in Saudi Arabia?

Foil in the ground, check.

Large areas of desert, check.

Distinctive headgear, check.

Religious lunatics are standard, check.

Somewhat punchy attitude towards immigration, check.

They're talking, but I can't understand what they're saying.

Czech.

Hatred of women, masquerading as moral high ground, check.

Really, the only way you can tell now whether you're in Texas or Saudi Arabia is to order some food and see whether it comes with barbecue sauce or hummus.

October now.

Three words for you.

Shrinkflation.

And Neil Delamere.

Ignore the hand.

Well, Neil, I think you are the Bugle's shrinkflation correspondent.

Essentially, it's where the price of a product stays the same, but the quantity that you're getting for that price comes down.

Yeah.

Is that that's correct?

That's pretty much what it is.

Energy prices are going up.

All the staple prices are going up.

So rather than some food company charging you more, they charge you the same amount and they give you, say, five cream eggs as one example, rather than six.

And you're meant to not notice this.

It's happening all over the place.

Even if you don't know it, I bought a Terry's chocolate Satsuma the other day by mistake, and this sort of stuff is everywhere.

90% of Britons in a recent survey said that they were annoyed at signs of shrinkflation.

And of course, that was 95% last year.

So even within the survey, this sort of stuff has happened.

Right.

But actually,

the average height and weight of the people annoyed has also come down.

Yeah, massively.

It's happening.

Everything is getting smaller.

A couple of years ago, I went to, I like to go in Scotland for my holidays, and I went to the Isle of Skye and I went horse riding.

And the horses were huge and massive and muscular.

And a couple of weeks ago, I went to Shetland.

Unbelievably disappointing, I have to say.

They were absolutely tiny.

And I think it's time that we start protesting this.

They're riding roughshot of us.

I mean, it is tragic.

Multi-packs of crisps have come down from 24 packets to 22,

which has caused rioting on the streets.

Bags of peanuts, down by 10% in size.

Eggs, down from chicken eggs to worm eggs.

Fizzy drinks are now 50% more bubbles, equating to 8% less liquid.

Frozen peas are now mostly hollow.

The supermarket chain, Adiquate, has just launched its new Just the Packaging range, which has absolutely no food in whatsoever.

I mean, jelly babies, I remember they were jelly adults.

Next year it'll be jelly embryos

getting

banned in Texas, of course.

I was reading an article this said: recent examples include Walker's, which cut two bags of crisps from its 24-bag multi-packs while the price stayed at £3.50.

Smith's Frazzles and Chipsticks now sell in a pack of six bags instead of eight for one pound.

And Andy, I believe Frazzles and Chipsticks was the original name of your double act with John Oliver.

Isn't that right?

It was, yeah.

Isn't that right, Frazzles?

That is.

Frazzles and chipsticks are also his nicknames for his testicles.

Oh, really?

Frazzles is a bit more fast and loose with the rules.

He's actually going to base a buddy cop movie on his own testicles.

Chipsticks?

I was one day away from retirement.

I'm too old for this shit.

I hang lower.

Come on.

Yeah.

To be honest, my testicles are in retirement, essentially, anyway.

Too close to home.

Actually, Actually the pioneer of shrinkflation was Jesus Christ who fed the 5,000, but did he fill the 5,000?

Questions remain.

And, you know, it's a much about branding, isn't it?

Is it shrinking or is it

Nouvelle cuisine?

You know, potato, little artisan, potato.

His photo is very hard to tell, really.

There's a way around this as well, because all these foods are going to get more expensive, right?

So why do we keep buying them?

Like Heinz and Kraft and all the rest are going, oh, listen, you're going to have to buy our stuff.

It's going to be more expensive.

Let's go back to the old ways.

Why don't we make them ourselves?

I mean, you could buy Pepsi Max or you could get a smoker that you know to cough their tower into an aquarium.

And once the pump puts bubbles into it, that's, you know, Pepsi Max essentially.

You know, do you want Capri Sun or do you want to piss in some tinfoil?

These are the questions we have to ask ourselves.

Is it a Raffaello?

Is it some white dog shit?

I mean,

think outside the box.

Yeah.

I'm looking at a few other effects.

More shrinkflation happening across British society, Andy.

The number of balls in a cricket over will be cut from six down to four.

The number of surviving Beatles is expected to be slashed by 50% any day now.

Andy Zaltzmann shows are expected to come with 45% fewer puns.

And in fact, cost pressures are now getting so bad the Met Police has had to slash any criminal investigations into allegedly pedophilic members of the royal family by 100% now.

They're down 100%.

It's going to save a lot of money.

It's going to save a lot of money.

Moving on to November now, once again, the penultimate month of the year.

And Boris Johnson got himself into a mess with rule-breaking politicians.

Here's a previously unheard section with Stuart Lee and Felicity Ward.

When you said that, you know, that he's no.

Can I put my wang into this until people complain?

You know, people are saying that one of the things that swung it was that most of the papers, even the Daily Mail, had come out against him.

Although Tim Stanley,

he's not bad for the journalist of that ilk, but I think he writes for The Telegraph, doesn't he?

He was on question time, and he said that in trying to get

Patterson off the hook, he said, I think the Prime Minister was motivated by a sense of decency, which again got laughter from the very sparse question time audience.

So again, with hope, I think maybe people are just getting to the point where

if it becomes laughable,

it's difficult to come back from that I think if everything you say is just appears laughably absurd.

I think maybe it's hard to come back from that.

I've been trying to reach that point throughout my entire career.

I found myself thinking that, you know, a lot of questions were asked about:

the woman from the Green Party said she does 80-hour weeks.

How can you have two other jobs as well as being an MP?

But if they can do two jobs, there are more important extra jobs that need doing in this country right now than being a sausage person.

Like, we need lorry drivers, bin men, pig slaughterers.

Or

if you're really bad at being an MP and holding a second job, maybe pick one and be good at it.

Yes.

I know that's novel, but you're not like a single mum catching three buses to be a nurse in the middle of town.

You're doing fine, so just drop one.

Just drop one.

I would like to see Dominic Raab having to slaughter a pig or Pretty Patel taking a fly tip sofa to a dump or James Cleverly delivering a lorryload of savaloy.

I think they can step in to weather those current job shortages and see.

I wouldn't like to see Pretty Patel at an abattoir, though.

The joy that she would have in her face as she worked through the animals, hoping that they were still a little bit alive as she took their life.

God, that's the second awfully bleak image got to take away from this.

Well that's Pretty Patel for you.

She's an inspiring.

She's dark back out in the world.

Do you know about Angela Minister, Angela Minister?

Angela Richardson, the junior minister who lost her job from,

she's a Tory, who abstained from the vote.

She didn't vote against it.

She abstained and she lost her job.

Her job has been reinstated.

Do you know what department she works in?

The department of levelling up.

That is the name of the department.

And the quote that describes it is, the UK government has a department for levelling up, which is supposed to support communities in the UK to thrive, making them great places to work and live.

You could not make this shit up, genuinely.

She was out of a job for 24 hours and then it got back when the

money was.

The problem they've got, I mean, I know this isn't sensible discussion time, but the problem they've got is it might be increasingly hard for for them to whip their own MPs into voting for these ridiculous, unfair, lying things if they think it's going to backfire on them because there's going to be a U-turn 24 hours later and they're going to have to write a second letter to all the constituents that complain to them saying I didn't agree with it anyway, but I was made to do it.

Well, it was kind of a difficult position.

put yourself in.

Yeah, there's a book called Animal Farm, and it's just starting to smell like that.

Owen Patterson said following his resignation he wanted a life, quotes, outside the cruel world of politics.

And you can sort of understand that.

Looking at his voting record on the website theyworkforyou.com, he repeatedly voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability, voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices, generally voted for reductions in spending on welfare benefits in general, voted against laws to prefer equality and human rights,

against measures to prevent climate change, generally voted against equal gay rights, and voted against ending financial support for some 16 to 19 year olds in training and further education.

So you can see why he wants to move outside the

cruel world of politics because

that thirst must now have been thoroughly and legislatively slaked.

December, I'm right in it, right now.

Thanks for asking.

And here's a bit from the Bugle Ashes Earncast, our spin-off cricket show.

Thanks to the Bugle Other Sider 3000X Ouija Record Board, we can commune with the former Baggy Green skipper now.

We'll just place the call.

Warwick Armstrong, is that you?

Are you there?

Hello?

Hi, I'm trying to get hold of Warwick Armstrong, the former Australian cricket captain.

He's busy.

What do you mean he's busy?

He's dead.

You can be busy if you're dead.

Sorry, I'm not supposed to say that.

Just between us.

Who am I speaking to?

Aileen.

I'm his wife.

Who are you?

Oh,

hello, Aileen.

I'm Mandy Zoltzen from the Bugle Ashes Earncast.

It's a podcast.

A what, mate?

You wouldn't understand.

Can you get Warwick for us?

I was hoping to talk to him for Ash's preview.

No, he's teaching Charlemagne the Great how to bowl leg spin.

Oh, fair enough.

Maybe you can talk to us then, Aileen.

I mean, what do you personally remember about the 1920-21 series as the wife of the victorious Australian captain?

Well, I remember Warwick scored three centuries.

Well, that's a tremendous memory considering it was over 100 years ago now.

Well, the thing is, every time he scored 100 for Australia, I used to let him

take me out for for tea

at the tea rooms.

Yes, yes, tea,

unforgettable tea.

You don't forget when a six foot three inch 21 stone man

takes you out for tea is it three times in a season.

It must have been a very exciting time for you.

Oh, it was.

And for cricket, of course, you know, coming back after the war.

And obviously the current Australian team have also had a bit of a break from the game.

What do you think Warwick would say to the Australian bowling attack if he were alive today?

Well I think you'd tell him to go hard at Burns Offstup first up.

Push Hamid back with some short ones, go full at Milan, cut off roots, run, square of the wicket and make him drive, try to stop Nathan Lynne crying when Ben Stokes comes in, fast and straight with a bit of induck at Bearstow, corridor to butler, don't give Wokes any room outside the stump, Yorkers to Robinson and broad and let Jimmy have a nod out.

Well, that's bang on point.

Sounds like he's still got it.

We've still got it.

I used to sit by the boundary holding up different cakes for different bowlers.

And if he did what I told him, he got to eat them.

And did he do what you told him?

Have you seen the size of him?

Gotta go now, Andy.

I'm meeting Joan of Arc for a game of cribbage.

Well, Aileen Armstrong, Mrs.

Big Ship, thank you very much for joining us.

You little beauty!

That is it for your Bugle review of 2021.

Don't forget, tickets are still available for my remaining Satirist for High Shows, 21st and 23rd of December in Melbourne and 4th of January in Sydney, and the Bugle Live shows 22nd of December in Melbourne and the 4th of January January in Sydney before the Satirist for High Show.

Details online where you can also buy Bugle Christmas jumpers, I think, unless they're sold out, which they might be.

Bye-bye.

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.