Vice Signalling (4211)

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 4211 of The Bugle, the leading and only repository of reliable, verifiable false facts in both the known and unknown universes.

I am Andy Zoltzmann and this week, for the first time ever since early last year, which seems quite like ever ago, I am, wait for it, not only not in the shed, but actually back in a recording studio, an actual three-dimensional

five-dimensional recording studio.

This place has got all the mod cons.

Back where we used to record in the before times,

I can see an actual human producer, Chris, through the strock-proof safety glass.

Yes!

And my two guests for this week are not hiding inside my computer, staring out at the screen, yearning for freedom.

They are here in person.

Firstly, please, wherever you are at home in the bath, powerlifting in a quarry, playing snooker on a crowded horse or in the International Criminal Court, please give your loudest possible welcome back to the bugle to Felicity Wards.

Yay!

Powerlifting in a quarry.

What an image.

I grew up near a quarry.

I'm like, yeah, I did get dig that.

It's like an 80s power ballad, did I?

How have you been?

Oh, terrible.

How have we all been?

There we go.

Let's just get that.

Oh, good and good and terrible.

There has been no

one emotion that can sum up the last two years.

I had a baby and there was a pandemic.

On the upside, I'm on antidepressants, and I cannot recommend them enough.

If anyone is considering it, please do see your GP and a therapist at the same time.

Thanks for that tremendously concise review of the decade so far.

And now, for the first time ever, on the bugle, a man who, when I first worked worked with him, was eating nothing but cabbage soup out of a thermos flask.

Yeah, well, it didn't work, did it?

Since when?

I'm still fat,

and I've got really bad flatus.

Over two decades later, he's moved on to solids.

He's doing very well.

It's a great pleasure to welcome on Bugle Debut, the one-man 17th-century British monarchy-related adverb that is Stuart Lee.

Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you for having me.

It's great to be here.

It's great to be here and see some people.

Before lockdown, I'd never done a podcast or listened to one.

Really?

Yeah, and then I

love you, Stu.

Just stew till you die.

Like, you cannot be more branded as Stew if you try.

No, I've done loads now because I this film I worked on this film and then it there was no way of telling anyone about it or seeing it.

So I went on loads of podcasts.

I thought, oh, I see.

It's just like talking to people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not you'd do anyway, wouldn't you?

Yeah.

So it's good.

Yeah.

I'm glad to be here.

Yeah.

Well, it's great to have you, Don, in the world of recorded conversations.

Yeah.

Welcome Welcome to the year 2001.

There are space packs here.

Yeah.

Yeah, so some of those early gigs we did together,

the cabbage soup one, which

was an inharmony.

But that was an absolutely fascinating tour because that tour, which was organised by the management company you're still with,

was

so messed up.

The idea was that I was going to tour the Edinburgh Show I'd done under its own name, which I forget what it was.

I think it was called Badly Mapped World, and I was going to do it in smaller venues, and you were going to support me.

But we got to all the places, no one had been told you were going.

It hadn't been promoted as just my night.

I was just booked onto bills with other people, which wasn't the idea.

And you had a strange sort of trip around the country where you'd get to the places, and they go, well, we were not told he was coming and he's not on the bill.

But you had to go around with me for about two weeks.

I was basically your adopted child for a three-day trip to the bottom of the business.

Bring a friend to work.

It was like Boswell and Johnson, but with no value whatsoever.

Yeah, but I have very fond memories of it.

I remember you.

We saw dolphins?

We saw dolphins.

Yeah, you went off.

We got a little ferry to the Isle of Butte.

You were researching ley lines

for a book.

Well, that was about as successful as the Cabbage Soup Diet.

People are still talking about us, do you?

Yeah, yeah.

And then you went off and watched a load of cricket, I remember, in the end or something.

Sorry, or some sport was that.

That sounds about right.

Because it was about...

Still doing it.

And that was kind of a...

I gave up stand-ups during that tour in Liverpool.

I can have that effect on people.

Yeah, no, it wasn't you.

You may not have come to the gig, actually, because you even stopped coming.

I wasn't Liverpool.

In Liverpool, yeah, in that club in the docks, about halfway through, I thought, I just can't be bothered with this anymore.

What year was that?

2000.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, 2000, yeah.

And I gave up for about five years, four years, because

something was happening.

A guy kept standing up in the audience and saying, talk about illegal immigrants, talk about illegal immigrants.

And I thought, I said, well, why don't you do it?

And I got him up on stage and he started going on, you know, about this.

And I thought, I'll just, this will be really funny.

I'll just wait and see what happens.

And people were booing him and everything.

And in my mind, I sort of had the little metronome going.

I thought, I know exactly the right point to stop this and say something, and it will be brilliant.

And then the security guys came into the audience.

at the request of the management of that club and told me in a threatening way that I had to go back on stage because I was being paid.

I wasn't being paid to be in the audience.

And I had this kind of moment where I thought,

it's my, I decide what I do in my own act.

I'm not the police.

And then I thought, thought, there was, and I knew I would have done something with it.

I could have.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I thought, there's no point.

I can't do this anyway

until I can do it on my own terms.

I just can't.

So, yeah,

I gave up.

While I was with you, I gave up.

Right, okay.

Well, now I'm people who work with me.

Someone away for a while.

It's mine in the future.

Is my resignation coming up?

It's a matter of time.

John Oliver, of course, moved an entire continent to get away from me.

So

that's just what happens when you work with Zaltzman.

We are recording the Zaltz of this.

on the 5th of November 2021.

On this day, in 1605, a famous day in British history, the massive Catholicism fan Guy Fawkes saw his dreams of blowing up Parliament not go up in smoke as the so-called gunpowder plot was foiled.

Fawkes's scheme, of course, had been to distract all the MPs and lords at the state opening of Parliament with a spectacular firework display, toffee apples and hot dogs, plus glow sticks, whilst providing a free public bonfire to people for people to burn any spare effigies they had lying around the house, whilst he sneaked into Parliament and exploded the crap out of it.

And we now commemorate this plot here in Britain, the failure of which paved the way for today's government of licks-bittling delusion mongers and subterfuginist pocket-stuffing dastards by risking our children's safety with cheap fireworks that we set off in gardens after drinking homemade punch with a year's worth of leftover booze from the back of the cupboard.

Great British tradition.

What are you doing for Guy Fawkes Night?

Well,

I'm going to see some comedy and some music.

The last Guy Fawkes Night I went out, I was beaten up by teenagers.

Oh, really?

So I don't really get involved.

How long ago was that?

About four years ago.

That's recent.

What?

What?

How are we talking beat like junked or oh well I was walking along with the kids and they were a bit ahead of me luckily.

It was about six o'clock in Stoke Newington and about ten kids came up to me and they were sort of shooting fireworks towards people and they shot a firework towards me and it just went past my head like that and I was more, it's really weird.

We have got a problem as comics I think that we don't have a normal fight or flight mechanism.

Yeah we want to write it down.

Yeah Yeah, we want to write it down, see how bad it can get,

or

try and understand it.

Or think we can be funnier than a firework being shot at you.

So instead of going, ah, I just sort of went, I went, what have you done that for?

What's the point of that?

You're like, I've got a five here.

You know, like, yeah, you're already thinking.

Did you slowly deconstruct it?

Yeah, well, and I said, A, you're going to get really in trouble and you could have killed me.

Then that was like a massive insult.

Then he started shoving me around.

And I was carrying two happy shopper shopping bags of beans and bread and things.

and another one came behind me and rabbit punched me in the back of the head

and all my shopping fell on the floor and I was still doing what you do in a gig where you're I was going

I can turn this around I can turn this around

and then a woman came out of a garden and when they were going for weapons a woman came out of a garden and stopped it and they were embarrassed to be told off by a middle-aged woman and it kind of

dialed down and then I was sort of standing around and then they all ran off and then the one one came back and put my shopping back in the bags and that just shows you they were right on the cusp between being nice little kids and murderers

it's a fine line

I was on the train the other day and there was a bunch of kids and there was like a bully walking up and down the train now I just you know I've just ticket collector yeah yeah yeah yeah

And I mean, how people, that's why people stop working around you.

It's because you're too fast and too sharp.

The glow of your comedy is too intimidating.

So this is like this kid walking, and he's like tall for his age.

He's probably about 14.

He's vaping.

So he's very tough.

Anyway, and then they're talking to some other girls.

They're speaking to them really badly.

And I'm getting my little chip on my shoulder.

And I'm, you know, like clenching my fists.

Just for the listeners, I'm five foot four.

I'm now a size 14, but I have been a size six in the past.

So I could probably like throw a punch now.

I couldn't before.

So I'm like, I'm getting worked up.

People are moving away from them because they've been little shits.

And I'm honestly ready to fight these kids.

I'm 41 on the way to a gig.

Like, calm down.

So, I turn around, and there's an old lady, and she's asked them not to vape.

And they're like, what's wrong?

Like, getting in her face.

And I sort of mouthed to her, are you okay?

And she's like, Yeah, I'm fine.

And I said, Well, like I mouthed, I'm here if you want me.

Like, I'm going to do anything right.

And then one of them are like playing around.

And then one of them accidentally kicks

the older lady.

And I said, Mate, you can't do that.

He went, oh, no, no, sorry, sorry, it's an accident.

I went, accident or not, you can't kick people.

And they're like, and then they go,

are you from Australia?

And I go, yeah.

We have a 30-minute conversation.

They're like, what's the currency there?

Honestly,

pubescent boys are on the verge of greatness.

They are on the verge of being these kind, beautiful, pack your bag kids.

Yeah, pack your bag after they've rabbit punched you.

Yeah, sorry for the punch.

Here's your two pack of sweet corn.

I know.

Yeah, isn't it funny?

And the weird thing was afterwards, I had to go to the police and they said you have to deal with it in some way.

You know, do you want...

What I did, I made a model of it out of fantasy war games figures.

Yeah.

I got 10 like orc goblin sort of things.

A little model of a street that you get for

a railway and some models of like ordinary people that you get in the middle of the day.

And then you can do like a stop motion recording and send it to the phone.

Why haven't you just reminded them?

I haven't finished it.

I could have finished it in lockdown.

I could have brought it in.

But I didn't.

Anyway.

Sadly, that's all the time we have on the Bugle to be able to get it.

Yeah, this has been a long intro.

The very long intro.

Is this just an intro?

Yeah, we haven't started the show yet, really, too.

Damn, the news is awful.

On this day in 1499, we had the publication of the Catholicon.

in France, which is a brochure promoting a special gathering in Paris where people had to come dressed as their favourite Pope, Cardinal or martyred saint.

And today, of course, is World Fountain Pen Day.

Were you aware of this?

No,

I've got a biro.

Oh, well, you've really let the side down.

Get out.

So this paragraph of the bugle has been a real longhouse in Funin P.

But my

album using computer for 30 years.

It's barely legible, in fact, with splotch, splotch, smudge, smudge, doodle.

Thank God that's over.

The rest, I've used my usual typewriter.

As always, the sex north of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

This week, we've partnered with a new history magazine how it wasn't uh it's a new history magazine for today's evidence ambivalent believe what we want to believe we believe world dealing exclusively with things that obviously didn't happen and asking not only why didn't they happen but also why did they not happen and if that didn't happen uh could it have not happened even if it had happened and isn't that some kind of double negative so can we actually be sure they didn't happen this week could dinosaurs speak italian was genghis khan a freemason from arizona did penguins spread the black death are the pyramids upside down does the lack of written evidence specifically stating that it did not take place prove that there was in fact a major Romans versus Mayans sea battle somewhere near the Azores in the year 143 AD?

And was Hitler motivated by his rage at not being picked up in the 1921 NFL draft?

That is going straight in the bin.

Well, after that possibly longest ever introduction to the bugle, it's time for top story this week.

The end of the world might possibly now be slightly less nigh than it was a week ago.

It's been COP26, extensively and exclusively trailed on recent recent bugles.

The great and the good of the world have been, well, they've been watching on their tellies as the political and business leaders of the world have flocked to Glasgow to discuss ways of prolonging the human usability phase of this famous planet without losing too many elections and shareholders along the way.

Have you enjoyed COP so far?

Well, you know,

I took a cautious

I took a cautious slight pleasure that

something seemed to be happening rather than nothing.

That's as much as you can say, isn't it?

You know, really.

Because normally you feel like they're just completely doomed to failure because of all those reasons that you've just said.

But I also feel like

it's difficult to argue with loads of intelligent, thoughtful-sounding young people who are genuinely depressed and furious in the street.

I think they may actually have reached a tipping point with a bit of luck.

I'm so excited about Generation Z.

I just want them to f ⁇ ing revolt, mate.

Tear the streets up, smash the state.

Do what you've got to do.

We've done nothing for as long as you've been alive.

Do feel free to wipe us all out and continue the planet better.

You're doing great.

Well,

the rhetoric as well, the rhetoric that seemed radical from young people, even two years ago, is now what a lot of mainstream people do.

And in fact, as a little quiz involving the news, or a news quiz, if you like, Andy, I've written down some quotes that are from Greta Thunberg or The Queen.

And I want you to tell me which who you think.

Who do you think?

Because one of them touched me on magic.

Who do you think said the time for words has now moved to the time for action?

The Queen or Greta Thunberg?

Oh.

The time for words.

The time for furs has now moved to the time for action.

Is that it for words?

Is that the German

grandparents of that?

I was wondering who that was.

Henning Ben.

I think,

well, I think that's the Queen.

I think I'm the one who's the one who's the Queen.

I'm going to go the Queen.

Well, you're both right there.

Who do you think said

you can shove your climate crisis up your ass?

That is Greta.

I saw her chanting it this morning.

That's right.

That's very much the subtext of the

thing.

Who do you think said, rise above the politics of the moment?

That sounds weak.

I'm going to say the queen.

Sorry, Greta.

That's the queen.

It's not being as good as I thought this.

Everyone's getting everything right.

Who do you think said, act for our children and our children's children?

Well, I mean, she might, I mean, is it possible that it was the Queen, but she was overheard overheard speaking to her lawyers regarding the Prince Andrew crisis.

You know, if you hadn't made that joke, I would have done it.

But it was the Queen.

Well done.

That was the Queen.

What about this one?

None of us will live forever.

The Queen or Greta Thunberg.

Is that a lyric from a song by?

No, it's not a living from a song by Queen.

That's one of those two people.

Well, it can't be the Queen, because she obviously will live forever.

I mean, she's reptilian.

Clearly that song works.

I'm going to say the Queen.

Right.

I'm going to say Thumburg.

Right.

Well, in that case, Felicity wins because it was the Queen.

Thank God there was some lack of consensus there.

That'd have been the least interesting news-based quiz ever.

I'd leave the news quizery to

leave it to the fucking pros, dude.

Yeah, sorry about that.

You make it seem so easy to do a funny quiz on the radio.

Anyway.

I was very impressed.

There's like been the, I think there's like 110

signatories about deforestation.

And even Bolsonaro from Brazil has signed it, which, you know, proves that he's

more dedicated to saving indigenous trees than people.

Yeah, I mean, the indigenous people, at least people are talking about that, aren't they?

They're saying, you know,

they want to give $1.7 billion to Indigenous people to encourage them to try and be carbon neutral or whatever.

But

having basically...

Basically the industrialised world having wrecked their environment by association.

They've genocided cultures and people and languages.

I mean, whether that will happen, given that most Western museums are still arguing about whether to return their small wooden carvings.

It seems a bit of a stretch.

To be fair, a lot of that genocide happened before people had worked out the impact of genocide on the environment.

So we can't judge it by today's green standards.

But it was interesting looking at the money that has been

pledged, this deforestation, this global deal to end deforestation by 2030, I think it was around about $14 billion.

Previously, a similar deal in 2014 has done in statistical terms, absolutely jack shit to stop deforestation.

It includes a $1.1 billion deal to save the Congo Basin's rainforest.

It's the number two ranked rainforest in the current world rankings behind the Amazon, still on cracking form despite everything.

And so for $1.1 billion,

you could either save the Congo Basin rainforest or you could get the broadcast rights for three months of Premier League football.

So, I mean it shows how seriously we're taking this shit now.

Is that true?

Yeah.

That is the most depressing thing.

God,

that's not true.

I know you're a sports sceptic.

No, but I mean just the thought that just if you stopped three months football you could save

an entire rainforest.

What would people do?

They'd be burning everything just to

the sports.

To be fair, we did have lockdown and that didn't happen.

So it's possible.

I'm

sorry to bring realism and reality into the room.

It seems pretty rude thing to do on your show.

Yeah, there's no place in my show.

Sorry, sorry.

You should know that money.

I just, like, they've just committed to this before.

It's very hard to be enthusiastic and hopeful.

Like, my husband, I've been with him for

eight years.

And

very early on, he would fill the kitchen sink when he was cooking with crockery and pans.

And I couldn't get a cup under there.

I'm small, he's tall.

It's easier for him to move things around.

And we've had many conversations where I've said, Hey, it's really hard when you stack everything in there when there's a there's an area right next door that you can use called the countertop, and that's where the dishes should go.

And he's like, Yep, I'm committed to it,

you know, we're in this together.

And then, but it's eight years later, and it's still happening.

So, if that is difficult to achieve in a marriage about saucepans,

I just think it's a very tall order to ask for these people who are known animals.

Yeah, I mean, it's

it's difficult that we're hosting it at a point where the fact that our government is full of people that lie about things has never been more obvious.

So it's kind of...

In fact, you know, I mean,

as this is unraveling in Glasgow and we're being asked to take people's word on things in Westminster, just a massive load of stupid lies is happening all the time.

Just all the time.

It's yeah, it's I don't know if you are across the billboards that got put up by an Australian satirist called Danny Illich.

He's actually a mate of mine, and he couldn't be at COP26.

So he thought, oh, I wonder if I could just get a billboard.

And within two hours, he crowdfunded $14,000.

So they were in New York in Times Square, and now they're on the outskirts of Glasgow.

And he's got one that says

zero net emissions by 2050.

And there's like a kangaroo with its tail on fire.

And then there's another one that says cuddle a koala before we make them extinct.

Because our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has literally bought a chunk of coal to Parliament in Australia before to make a point.

He's and he puts coal on his face doesn't he sometimes

is that him or white gloves.

No, there's one who puts who tries to there's an Australian politician who's always got a bit of coal on him as if he's just come.

Oh, I mean that could be Bob Catter.

He's I mean there's so many mad c in Australia.

Mad behaviour is the only thing that truly truly encapsulates what we do.

And like Boris Boris Johnson is a terrible PM and a compulsive liar, but Australia has very strong hold my beer energy when it comes to failing on an international scale.

And Scott Morrison, I mean, like the French

president just openly called him a liar in a, and then he, Scott Morrison leaked the text messages the next day.

Like he's a four-year-old.

Yeah, but people are doing that here now.

I mean,

this week is the first time that I've seen the BBC Today programme journalists heard them just openly laughing at government denials about things and finding them ridiculous because there's no other option anymore you know and so it might again I've used the word tipping point twice and I'm aware that I get into these ruts but it does feel it does feel like something of it if the if the cowed beaten subservient national broadcaster cannot just avoid openly laughing at people just lying then you know maybe we are getting somewhere maybe or I just think it's the the audacity of entitlement that the government have.

Yeah.

That they, they,

you know, like, I mean, we'll get to that.

That was Boris Johnson's response to Barack Obama's book, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

The audacity of entitlement.

Very funny.

Just on Boris Johnson, by the way, there's a picture of him sitting next to David Attenborough and Boris Johnson is asleep and he's not wearing a mask.

And I just thought, what a beautiful, freaky Friday moment that would be if David Attenborough was actually our Prime Minister and Boris Johnson was just an old man in his 90s,

not wearing a mask and about to catch COVID.

This sounds like the greatest film.

Attenborough was one of the sort of celebrity priors of the COP26.

And I do feel sorry for him because he's trotted out every year to say his beautifully enunciated

scientifically accurate, undeniably true prophecies of doom.

And everyone sits around and goes, oh yeah, that's amazing.

And then just nothing happens again.

You know, I mean, he must, he's gone from documenting a discovery of the world and its nature to just explaining its death in his own lifetime.

His own lifetime follows the arc of just the collapse of everything.

Every documentary of his is just a suicide note from nature.

Yeah.

Beautifully shot, though.

Yeah, oh, God.

I mean, only the BBC.

It'll win BAFTAS.

It'll win BAFTAS.

Anyway, there have been other celebrities getting involved.

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yeah.

And, I mean, let's hope this was heartfelt and genuine rather than maneuvering himself into the Queen's good books.

Now she's sadly single again.

He followed Lizzo II's criticism of world leaders for being all-mouth and not even casually leafing through a trouser catalogue before chucking it on the fireplace.

And he pointed out that he has an electric-powered Humvee,

which...

I mean, I think is the Schwarzenegger vision of the future that we can all get on board with, isn't it?

I mean, environmentally friendly attack vehicles for all.

Surely that's

yeah, and this is part of the problem.

I mean, what there you're having.

I mean, you know, he seems like a nice bloke and his heart's probably in the right place, but he's describing an incredible luxury item, isn't he?

And it was, it was all that is not available probably to the president of many of the smaller countries.

Of course, loads of whom couldn't afford to attend because Glasgow hotels and Airbnbs and whatever did exactly what they do to us every summer in Edinburgh, which is like when I from one place that's normally £42 £42 was £1,400 a night during, you know, come on.

What?

No, not you then.

Sorry, I'm just, even my like hypothetical anger towards people that aren't here does feel very present.

I'm not making it up for this.

No, it's true.

He's just like, literally the only thing that I don't like about Scotland is accommodation price gouging.

It's so outrageous.

Leonardo DiCaprio has also toddled along to Glasgow.

And if anyone should want all the ice caps to melt after what he went through on the Titanic, it should be him.

But it shows amazing levels of forgiveness that we can only admire, that he's now a pro-environment.

And well, you mentioned the Queen, and those words that she said, the time for words, has now moved to the time for action.

It actually moved there quite a long time ago,

probably in the 1980s, if not before.

But the problem is the time didn't get around to sending out its change of address cards.

It's always busy time because it has so little of itself, sadly.

Just for the listeners there, Andy had quite a little little smoke on his face as he read that.

Because he was so pleased with the sentence he'd written.

I mean, I was just, as he said it, I was thinking, that's really good.

It's like Swift or something.

But then he looks so pleased with himself that I said it that I decided not to say the compliment that I was going to say.

You can't make that face when you say those things.

You absolutely can.

I loved it.

You can.

It doesn't matter.

Normally he's on the news quiz, you see.

No one can.

You can't see him at home

at home, you're driving along or whatever, and you think, what a witty man.

But then you see him making his pleasure-imself face.

What a prick what an absolute prick been building this this image up for 14 years on this show you've just ruined it in your first time um boris johnson in his uh in his speech um said that the world was at a minute to midnight uh which generally he regards as funky time i believe um

and um he began with a speech about how the world is like james bond in the climactic scene of a james bond film um strapped to a doomsday device yeah um The difference being that in a James Bond film, the doomsday device usually belongs to a Tory Party donor or someone who looks and behaves as if they could be a Tory party donor.

He said two degrees more of warning and we jeopardise the food supply for hundreds of millions of people.

That puts it into context.

The roads will be so hot that the tyres on Deliveroo bikes will simply pop.

Three degrees, and you can add more wildfires and cyclones, five times as many droughts and 36 times as many heat waves.

Sounds like there's some markets to be played there.

And four degrees, and we say goodbye to whole cities, Miami, Alexandria, and Shanghai, lost beneath the waves, but none of those are key marginal constituencies.

So, frankly, in conclusion, we're f ⁇ ed.

Yeah, he said he's bringing us, he said that 250 years ago in Glasgow, James Watt came up with a machine powered by steam produced by burning coal.

And 250 years later, we've brought you back to the place that this doomsday machine was invented.

Pretty grim, that, innit?

But again, yeah, the problem is with him saying these things,

you just don't believe any of it.

No, no, don't

believe any of it.

And there's never been a worse time for someone like him to be in charge of a developed world economy.

And he did slightly undermine his words and pleasures by then flying back to London on a private jet for his dindins.

Oh, well, he's hungry.

I guess so.

Maybe we all get hungy sometimes.

Yeah, we'll get a little hungy hungies.

To illustrate the urgency of what COP26 is and or is not dealing and or trying to deal with, a patch of snow in the Cairngorms Mountains in Scotland has melted for the third time in the last five years, the fifth time in the last 18 years, having only done so three times in the previous 70 and never in the 200 years before that.

The famous glob of snow, dubbed the Sphinx, despite being a Scottish blob of snow rather than the human lion falcon crossbreed from Egypt, has disappeared into a symbolic and actual nothingness.

And according to stats from the International Association for Noticing When Things Unexpectedly Melt, the only times the Sphinx had previously undergone a full body defrostification in the last three centuries have been in the years 1933, 59 and 96 and 2003, 2006.

And here's the real kicker.

2017, 18 and now 21.

The Brexit vote was in 2016.

So, you know, three times since the Brexit vote, this patch of snow has melted.

It only melted three times in the entire time before the Brexit vote that Britain was part of the EU.

Draw your own conclusions, but Brexit is making our mountains turn their snow into tears that they weep into the rivers, that then wash out into the seas that separate us from the world.

Why were we not told that this would happen?

Well, you know what?

I know you're making a satirical point, but it has been environmentally unfriendly, Brexit, hasn't it?

I mean, Gove told us that we would be able to have tighter, he said specifically in 2018, we'll be able to have tighter environmental regulation when we leave the EU.

And the first thing that happens is loads and loads of sewage gets discharged into the,

you know, and

because Brexit, whether Brexit was wrong or right, what has happened is it's put in power some extremely unaccountable, dishonest people who will say one thing and do another and have a massive road building plan when it's the last thing you need and whatever.

So, you know,

it is a sort of environmentally wrong thing.

I know that will make people listening to this think I'm mad, but it is sort of bad for the environment.

Well, it is because it's unregulated.

Because when you take away other people that hold you to account, then all of a sudden you're like, oh, you mean the British government has all the controls to do what they want.

What does this button do?

Oh, that makes us money.

Well, let's keep doing that.

The UK's chief scientific advisor has urged people to do their bit for the environment by eating less meat, reducing the number of flights they take, and embracing green technology.

I mean, we tried all those things in the 13th century and it didn't go too well for us, to be honest.

But I'm not sure I get the logic of eating less meat.

You know if the cows and the beefs are emitting all this methane surely the more we eat the less there are of them to emit methane.

To far our way to Armageddon.

That's a good point.

I've not thought of it like that.

Apparently in the States eating meat has become a sort of what's the opposite of virtue signalling?

Vice signalling?

It's become a vice signalling thing for people on the far right in America to show off about eating meat.

Jordan Peterson says he only eats meat.

And

in the Daily Beast, it says, Alec Jones, Alex Jones, Infowars founder,

tweeted a picture of himself red-faced and glaring over a platter of uncooked sausages in 2016,

shouting, celebrating America with some red meat, F U Obama.

So it's become a sort of right-wing thing to do, to eat meat.

It's the opposite of woke.

Yeah.

Eating meat is the opposite of woke.

To show that

you're not beholden to the woke green lobby.

You eat as much meat as possible or only meat.

I mean, if they can turn that into fat, if they want to, then by all means, they'll be dead a lot sooner.

Yeah.

You know,

if we can actually really turn this into a campaign angle and we can get very far-right people to just like go on that meat-only diet.

P.S., when I was a waitress, I met a guy who hadn't eaten meat since, hadn't eaten a vegetable since 1986.

Yeah.

And he was like 85 and ripped and had like this, just like a ragland t-shirt,

neckline on and short-sleeve shirt.

And he looked incredible.

Did he?

All he ate was meat.

So you're saying that it really worked for him?

I mean, maybe.

Where was this?

This was in Sydney.

Right.

So, I mean, what happened in Australia in 1986 that made him?

No, he was actually American.

Oh, right.

But he was visiting Australia and he was just in the cafe that I was in.

But he had some new kind of meat there that he'd not had before, but he loved it.

Yeah, probably.

I mean, crocodiles.

Kangaroo mate.

There's no fat on that man.

He just, yeah, I'm sure he loved it.

But yeah, you just reminded me of it.

I think it's really fair of you to tell us that

because it's really complicated.

I mean, a lot of people will accuse Andy of being woke, of woke,

lefty from the BBC.

But the programme has made the case for balance there by your saying the best-looking, fittest elderly man you've ever ever seen had not eaten anything except meat he looked like he could lift a car yeah yeah like and absolutely beat me in an arm wrestle and i'm he may have said that as well like he you know those people that are like yeah i look incredible for my age look i'll show you well that's that's put me into a bit of a quandary actually now because i'm one now i'm i came in here sneering at the idea of people that would only eat meat for now and now i'm thinking maybe i'll just go and eat meat but will it make me really right wing though if i only eat meat what about a little bit of just like meat in a thermos for you?

Just like a smoothie and maybe if you just have like a little bit each day it'll bring you back to the center.

That's weird because the last time I was working with Andy I was only eating cabbage

and now 20 20 years down the line I'm going to leave only eating meat.

It's the Occam's razor.

Yeah.

But I mean if eating meat is right wing then I've had some breakfasts that have been absolute plates of unrestricted fascism, obviously.

And my wedding cake might as well have been Enoch Powell.

Yeah.

Right, well, there we are.

That's the environment sorted.

Let's move on now to, well, touching on something you sort of hinted at earlier on, Stuart, the corruption schmozzle

in Westminster.

Owen Patterson, the Conservative MP, has resigned as an MP after, I guess, what could only be described as an absolute schmozzle.

There was an investigation into his behaviour that found he'd repeatedly and seriously broken parliamentary rules.

He'd been paid more than £100,000 a year by the medical testing firm Randox,

who, by what we can only assume is the most extraordinary of coincidences, have landed half a billion quids worth of COVID contracts.

And he was also paid, and this is the thing that really got me, £12,000 for 24 hours work a year.

This is while he's working as an MP, by a sausage-making company.

That is, that's £500 an hour by a sausage making company for four hours every two now questions arise from this how the f

does anyone earn 500 pounds an hour close to a million pounds a year pro rata from a sausage making company unless they have developed either a genetically modified pig that grows pre-sausaged with a torso consisting of tubes of flesh held together by a thin membrane of skin or a means of turning unused leftover sausages back into live pigs.

There are more questions than answers from this.

Also, why would a healthcare company want to pay a hundred thousand pounds a year to a guy whose pre-politics professional working background was in the leather industry?

Was he advising them on whether or not to coat their COVID test kits in real leather, fake leather or no leather?

It's um I mean Stuart, there's been so much in uh obviously we're talking about recent British politics that has not shown this country's democracy in the most sparkling of uh of light.

Well I like the way you could see the mechanics of it.

You know, we we're all aware that um e each morning some Tory MP draws the short straw and has to go round all the morning news programmes trying to cover up for all the lies and mistakes.

And this time it was quasi-quarting.

And he was sent out.

When he was sent out in the morning, he was still under the impression that

Owen Patterson was going to be reprieved and that all the laws were going to be overturned because they'd voted for that to happen.

And he overdid it.

He went mad and he started saying that they were going to sack the woman, the woman in charge of the

inquiry should resign and all this sort of thing.

He was really selling it.

He had been a really good Tory lawyerist.

Even as he was doing those interviews, somewhere else, it was being decided that they weren't going to do any of that and that it was all going to be withdrawn.

So, not only was he thrown under a bus, like everyone that was told to vote for it, but then the bus reversed back over him again and then drove back over him again on the way out.

And it couldn't happen to a better person, really, because he's always sent out.

He overstates the case, you know, like when Nick Robinson found himself just having to say to him, you know, when Kwa Ting was saying that Johnson was a beacon of integrity and had done so much to improve standards in public life,

even Nick Robinson, who is a former head of the University Conservative Organisation, had to say to him, can you give one example of that?

I don't mean to be rude, but just off that.

That's why I sort of felt it had kind of reached the end of the road a bit.

And this might be more damaging than we think, but I don't know.

But I thought it was great.

It was great seeing that.

And it's a strange hill to die on to defend Iwan Patterson.

This is a man who was, when he was environment minister, was a climate change sceptic and was

amongst all the expenses scandals, his was one of the maddest ones.

It was for a duck house.

He claimed for a duck house.

Although the man who's currently defending him is Education Secretary, Nazim.

Yeah, yeah.

He put in for underfloor heating for his horse.

Oh, come on.

Yeah, no, no, he did.

No, he did.

He got the taxpayer.

Because there's nothing, the country can't have a cold horse in a

politician.

They don't even feel the cold.

So in fact, the horse was was his advisor at the time.

Anyway, I felt like it had...

To die, you know, to die on the hill of protecting the duck house climate change sceptic man seemed, unless, of course, the real fear was that if they keep doing investigations, eventually because everyone's going to get caught, because like Whittingdale, who was going to be put in charge of the new committee on investigating things, was himself investigated, wasn't he, for taking an all-expenses paid trip to the MTV awards with the Dominatrix.

Although admittedly, he wasn't paying her because she was his girlfriend.

So it was not that that

up but you know so he was never taken on all expenses paid up to a major music house with a dominatrix cast with the first stone yeah i know the whole thing is so brazen that i can't tell if it is a tipping point towards good

or the end or the end yeah it's just it's going to be bad forever now and there's no coming back because it's like the the what's amazing is the story is so full of surprises and then very low expectations barely being met just Just amazing.

So, you've got Owen Patterson being investigated, then found egregiously breaching lobbying rules, then recommended 30-day suspension.

So, the government, forgetting that they have an audience of, say, 60 or so million people that pay their wages,

then decide that there's a lot of kids paying tax there.

There's well,

kids start young today.

Their mums and dads are paying for the medical government.

That's right.

They've got avocados to buy.

Remember that.

That they try to change the rules.

So first

they vote against him being suspended for 30 days for breaking the rules.

And then having the audacity to say, we actually need to look at the rules, not to look at him.

And then, in a wild turn of events, Labor, obviously, says, oh, that's a bad idea.

And then even some Tories, like even some Tories are going, look,

we love

people over.

Don't get me wrong.

Big fan of it.

Been doing it.

Part of our MO, really part of our manifesto.

At the same time, this might be even a little bit too galling for us, so we might just abstain.

Like that's...

I mean, I even wondered when it started whether it was some sort of joke.

They thought, let's prove how unstoppable we are

by wasting our credibility and goodwill in getting this bloke off.

And let's see if it makes any difference.

You know, like when Trump said he could shoot someone in the street, it won't make any difference.

This almost seemed like an experiment in testing the limits of public tolerance.

100%.

And now that the government's done

a U-turn in 24 hours, the papers are saying, like, oh, the government's integrity has taken a hit.

And that is something that this government has consistently impressed us with.

That just when you think there's no more integrity to lose, they start digging to lose more.

I think it's inspiring.

So can you hit a non-existent bit of integrity?

Can you hit zero integrity by 2004?

I mean, trying to hit a non-existent cricket ball is

quite difficult.

I mean, the great irony of all of this is Owen Patterson has just had a gut fall.

He's resigned, which ironically has given him more integrity.

And now I'm like, maybe I would vote for him.

Just when he was a Tory, I wouldn't.

But the fact that he's resigned and not being kicked out, I'm like, maybe he's got something to offer.

Yeah, it's quite an old school thing to do, resign, isn't it?

It's what politicians used to do in a better better time it's what women do

it's what women do it's not what so if you look in australia all of the female politicians that have been caught out for corruption for using you know expense accounts incorrectly uh incorrectly lying and stealing um they've stepped down they're like yep and men are like i feel like i've got another five years in me how do you

can we do that

um well just just over the last couple of hours apparently download street has declined according to the guardian to rule out out the possibility that Owen Patterson could get a seat in the House of Lords

after stepping down as an MP.

So long live democracy.

Sorry,

that's not a joke?

No, no, no, it's

a genuine, genuine website.

I know I swear a lot, but Jesus fing Christ.

Fair point.

Fair point.

Can I just say that you asked us to look at a story with this headline?

Okay.

Squid game cryptocurrency scammers vanished with 3.3 million.

And then the subheading for it in Reuters was Crypto Coin Riding Squid Game High Craters After Dizzying Rally.

I don't know what any of that is about.

I don't know what any of it means.

I don't know what cryptocurrency is.

I don't really know what squid game is.

I suspected it was some game that Boris Johnson used to play at Eaton.

You're thinking of soggy crackers, I think it's called.

But

I don't really know what that is, and I didn't really think there was time for me to understand it and then have a funny opinion about it.

Well, I mean, it's to do with cryptocurrency, so

you're not supposed to understand it,

that's how it works, by people not understanding it.

And Squid Game is a Netflix series, which is the most watched series of all time.

And the guy got a flat rate for it and no.

I mean, yeah.

I don't think that that's unusual in

well that's why they have to hide the viewing figures so they don't have have to pay anyone anymore.

Yeah.

So do you know the conceit of squid game?

People have to do bad things for money.

Yes, but that's just licenses there.

In

Shelby's.

She says, wiping the sides of her mouth.

I did not get paid well enough for that.

No.

In South Korea, there's extraordinary gambling debts.

And so it's a reflection of society there or like inspired by

a phenomenon that they experience there.

And

I mean, it's very, very hard for me to sympathize with people that have invested in fake money, in digital money, cryptocurrency,

that's associated with a show.

about people who are desperate, that are being exploited, looking for a quick way to make money.

It's like, I don't know how to feel sorry for you.

Or a few flags on that one, though.

There's a few flags.

The fact that it's not linked officially to the show, and they've never said it's been linked officially to the show.

It's like, I don't know if you've ever read an unofficial biography,

but that's a red flag.

You stay away.

If it says unofficial, I've only read one and that was the Dave Grohl unofficial biography.

And the author was like, I had a Nirvana CD and I got to speak to an old neighbor of Dave's parents and here's some opinions they had on the education system.

Like it is

nothing,

nothing to do with it.

So I should also say at this point that anyone speculating in the bugle on cryptocurrency, that has nothing to do with this show.

Nothing.

Is it like when tabs of LSD used to have pictures of Disney characters on them that they hadn't actually been

totally

Daffy Duck merchandise?

I mean, in 14 years that I've been been doing the bugle, there have been many stories that have encapsulated everything about the world that we broadcast in from and predominantly for.

But I don't think anything can quite match a made-up currency based on a made-up TV show

run by anonymous anonymance, is that the term?

Basically concertinaing the entire economic Ponzian bubble processes into the lifespan of a moderately tenacious butterfly.

I mean, I think this is just everything, again, everything about the modern world.

The scam's estimated to have earned its perpetrators $3.3 million after they snaffled the money that had been invested.

And the value of the non-existent, whatever the fk they are, is dropped from a high of over $2,800

to one-third of a cent,

apparently in

a minute or something.

I don't really understand it.

It's like stocks and shares, but there's nothing.

Nothing exists.

Yes.

At least there were some actual fing tulips.

Again, some more kind of context on this.

The global cryptocurrency market is worth $2.6 trillion,

which is worth 2,300 Congo Basin rainforest preservation projects.

Oh God.

I was just wondering.

Oh

God, that's so awful.

Well, that brings us to the end of this.

Well, has been using this.

Brings us to the end of a lot of things.

Google recording.

Stu, do you need someone to take you home?

No, you're right.

You're right.

Just text me, yeah?

Just text me when you.

Oh, God.

We did have a few other stories.

We'll maybe come back to next week.

Next week's show is a live bugle at the Odeon in Leicester Square as part of the Podicon Festival with Nish Kumar.

And joining us by the magic of the internet, NATO Green.

Tickets are available.

Online.

It's on the 13th of November at 7pm.

Bring all your friends and family.

We might even have shitloads of old worthless merch that we might try and hawk.

Woo!

Cut pro.

Sorry, sorry, yeah.

Some excellent, high-quality stuff that's been

sitting in my attic for fing years, but still got John Ollis face on it.

That'd be worth more.

So do come along to the gig.

It will be, well,

hopefully just as optimistic as this one has been.

Well, thank you both for

on the bugle.

It's been really, really great to the point where I am in mild hysteria of emotions.

All right, well, it's been lovely, lovely to have you on.

Yeah, do you have any other shows live or otherwise to tell our listeners?

When's this go out?

Tomorrow.

Okay, well,

I'm

in

the next few weeks.

I am at Everyman's Cinemas in Liverpool,

Broadgate in London, Leeds,

Bristol, Dolston in London, and the Midland Arts Centre in Birmingham showing the film that I made with Michael Cumming of Brass Iron Toast, which is called King Rocker about the Nightingales Birmingham cult band.

And it was edited by people that know about comedy, me and Michael, so there's big laughs if you see it in the cinema.

And then the abandoned Snowflake Tornado tour, which now has extra culture war resonance,

reconvenes in January for its last hundred or so dates from January to July.

Yeah.

I have a couple of things.

I made a show, I filmed a show in Australia called Wakefield, and it's a drama series, and that is still on iView in Australia.

It's also showing, if we have American listeners, it's showing on Showtime on Monday nights at 9 p.m.

I think it'll be episode three next week.

And it's been nominated for eight actors, which is like our BAFTAs, we found out this week, which is very exciting.

I'm also

doing my first work in progresses of the three shows I'm doing next year at Soho Theatre in a couple of weeks.

So you can go to my Instagram profile.

I think I have the tickets there.

I have not updated my website because admin is very close to the thing that will push me over the edge.

So, yeah, or you can go to the Soho Theatre website.

So, this show is called The Motherfucking Trilogy.

And the first show is about pregnancy and the second show is the birth story and the third show is about

new parenthood.

So

if you want to see the first, it will be in a very bad state.

No, but that is an extremely ambitious and worthwhile thing to do.

I mean it's really great and it will and it flies in the face of contemporary trends of reducing all comedy content to a shareable seven-second clip

to come out of the gate of this with a with a Dune style trilogy.

Yeah yeah yeah.

It's really impressive.

It's my Lord of the Rings.

Congratulations.

Thanks.

Let's hope I can pull it off.

I'm pretty sure Sophocles wrote a motherfucking trilogy as well.

Well, the fing will be crossed out.

Right.

But the idea is...

I have updated my website for the first time in, well, I mean, ever.

What are you doing now?

Well, I have a tour from

about the 24th of February for about a month, about 20 little art centre venues around the UK.

So I do book tickets for every single one of those gigs at andysaltzman.co.uk, which is now a very basic one-page website that doesn't work particularly well on mobiles.

But there we go, that is huge progress.

Well done.

Thank you for listening, buglers.

To join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

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.