Ou Est Le Buffoon? (4206)

Chris, when's our live show in November?

It's the 13th of November at the Leicester Square Odeon.

Right.

Tickets via our shiny new website.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4206 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world with me Andy Zaltzman coming to you live from the shed and this is despite having to very bravely negotiate an extremely large spider's web in the shed this morning and I can't tell you how astonishingly courageous I was in getting past the spider's web and then

moving the spider from inside the shed to outside the sheds with a cardboard tube.

It was frankly heroic effort because

I wasn't going to let a spider stop me getting in place to rant to you lively people.

I don't know what would stop me recording the bugle, but I reckon it'd take a lot more than a spider.

But I wound it up.

I'm not going to silk about it.

Not now.

Maybe

later after our podcast has been recorded and published on the web.

And when I've got the transcript.

Arthropod.

There was an arthropod in there, wasn't there?

Snick sneaked in.

And of course, when I've had the transcript read back to me.

But

I had to have a coffee to calm down.

I took my coffee, but I was

a bit discombobulated.

I took my coffee in a very strange manner.

No milk, no sugar, but with a mixture of flour and water added.

I took it black with dough.

Black Widow.

Anyway.

This bit has legs.

Yeah, it doesn't.

There we go.

Well, I mean, I did used to go to fancy dress parties as the influential artist Marcel Duchamp on stilts to kind of dad our long legs out for.

right

and that is an appropriate way to mark what is officially the 500th full episode of the bugle 294 in the before times

with with some guy or other who's doing something else in showbiz these days

and I think he's just had to build to build an extension to his flat in New York for all his all his Emmy awards

and

and 206 since since relaunch.

So this is the 500th full bugle.

So what an astonishing moment.

And we only just remember that just before we started recording.

So the celebrations of the official 500th episode have been delayed.

We may instead celebrate the 501st episode to also mark the same number of episodes and the number of runs scored in the highest first-class innings in the history of cricket.

So we'll see.

Anyway, here we are this week.

This is issue 4206.

I'm Andy Zoltsman, as I said, joining me this week from A, over there, and B, quite near to here, respectively, from New York City.

It's Josh Gondraman, and from here in London, Tiff Stevenson.

Hello to you both.

How are you?

Hi.

Hello.

So nice to see you.

Happy 500th.

Thanks.

Well, I thought I'd start with.

I'd usually save the puns to later in the show, but you know, 500th birthday, you don't get any of them, do you?

Yeah.

I'm planning to, this is good because I'm planning to cryogenically freeze myself and come back in 500 years.

Right.

So I like that as a number.

Yeah.

I think that's probably a pretty good plan for, you know, everyone on the planet.

If we could freeze the whole planet, I feel like that would kind of counteract our biggest global existential question.

Honestly, just the ice caps.

Maybe we can cryogenically freeze just parts of the ocean at the poles.

There was a one woman who paid to have her spend all

her kids were annoyed because they said she'd spent their inheritance on having herself cryogenically frozen.

But you know, waking up in a cold, hostile environment surrounded by your family, that's Christmas.

Am I right, guys?

There we go.

This is the thing, Tiff.

Christmas jokes are getting earlier and earlier every year.

We haven't even done our Halloween jokes yet.

We are recording on the 27th of September 2021.

On this day, 955 years ago, William the Conqueror set sail from France en route for England on the what must be described as confidently named Norman Conquest 1066 tour.

Recently discovered missing panels from the Bayer Tapestry have shed light on what Billy Le Conque, as he'd like to be known, said in the

pre-invasion press conference.

And we have the full transcript of actually what he doesn't sadly doesn't have the journalists' questions because they were slightly off mic for the embroiderers.

But this is what William the Conqueror said.

Yeah, no, so well,

well, we know there are no easy conquests these days.

And obviously, whoever wins a semi-final at Stanford Bridges is going to be a tough opponent.

Harold and the English, whatever is good on home soil, and obviously, we know all about the Vikings, but we've just got to focus on what we're doing, just try and get out there and do what we do best to conquer places, try and get a result for all the Normand fans in Normandy, and of course, our global fan base as well.

Alphonse.

So, can you speak up, please?

Well, yeah, no, so obviously, we're all aware of the research into the risks of head injuries and medieval warfare, but we can't worry about that on the day, can we?

And yeah, the rules are the rules.

And we're going to do whatever it takes to get a W for this franchise.

So,

yeah,

Marcel, yeah.

Well, no, look,

we can't let ourselves be distracted by the media.

You know, the embroiderers are going to embroider what they're going to embroider.

We've just got to focus on the process and let the result take care of itself.

So, was that how am I planning to celebrate if we win?

Yeah, no, well, look, I don't want to look beyond the final, but I guess probably the usual bit of a coronation, build a load of castles, love castles, brutally suppress the locals, maybe do a spreadsheet of everything, you know how it is, and then die and expired at my funeral.

Thanks, thanks everyone.

There we go, bit history for you, bit history, 955 years ago today.

And on that subject, our section in the bin to commemorate this historic 955th anniversary is a free audio tapestry in which we offer you the chance to commemorate your own chosen historical event with a construct your own audio tapestry to tell the story of a significant moment for the planet in the form of an audio tapestry.

And to get you started, some things to put in your audio tapestry: a man, a big weapon, and another man.

That should cover most of the major events in human history.

You can fill that in.

Could we also add in a woman just being slain or

snapped against her will?

Talking to me there.

Over the next 300 weeks on the bugle, we'll be able to build the audio tapestry.

That section in the bin.

Top story this week: The 76th session of the UN General Assembly is go, go, go.

Having kicked off with a week-long chinwag in New York, in which the leaders of the world's nations, big and small, rich and poor, sensible and proudly, unreconstructedly idiotic, progressively collaborative and myopically, egomaniacally twattish, banged onto each other, hoping that the 76th time of asking, everything everywhere will be sorted out.

Now, obviously, the opening of the UN General Assembly is one of the highlights of anyone's yearly calendar.

How did you guys enjoy this one?

I've been doing build up for ages.

We got flags with all of the nations on them.

It's a lot of flags.

A lot of flags outside the house cheering.

Come on, you UN.

Yeah, it's been great.

So I've been really looking forward to it.

I mean,

I got pretty hot listening to Joe Biden's

climate crisis speech, which, you know, we're supposed to be calling the planet down, Joe.

Come on.

Yeah, so I mean, I believe that

I'm going to make sure I pronounce his name.

Is it Guterres?

Yes.

Guterres.

Yeah, Guterres said that we're nowhere near the Paris climate agreement, which is where Trump demonstrated that for once he actually knew how to withdraw.

But yes,

we're in a bit of a sticky situation.

He said we're facing the greatest cascade of crises in our lifetime, which I'm not going to lie, makes it sound a bit cool.

cool, like a fruit machine.

I'd like to play.

Like, are you going to have a go on Cascade of Crisis?

Sorry, the greatest cascade of crisis.

Yeah, so he said China and the US were the world's two biggest carbon polluters and they need to repair a completely dysfunctional relationship in order to salvage the dire situation.

I feel like if China were a character in a teen movie, she'd be the rich girl with diamonds in the soles of her shoes, literally leaving a massive carbon footprint.

He said a couple of other things, the Secretary General Guterres, he said.

He complained about billionaires joyriding into space whilst millions starve on Earth, to which the world's billionaires responded, just give us time.

Give us time, Antonio.

In 30 to 40 years, we'll have millions of people starving in space as well.

This is like, the Secretary General's statements are like very startling, right?

He said we're on the edge of an abyss abyss

as a globe, which I think feels, I mean, that's like a little off, right?

Like, we are squarely in the middle of an abyss by this point.

We're dead center abyss.

And he said, in terms of the world's vaccine development and distribution, right?

This, this really stuck out to me.

He said, we got an A in science and an F in ethics, which those are strong words, and they are Lockheed Martin's company motto.

So he kind of borrowed it from there.

I really am, I get stressed out because it is really bad news when the UN Secretary General is this pessimistic about the state of the world because he's taken a look at conditions all across the globe, right?

That's his job.

Considered the good and the bad, weighed all our options going forward and decided after a period of somber deliberation, we're fed.

We're fed.

That's it.

That's where we are.

But I mean, in terms of the global vaccine, Role, he said that global vaccine inequality is a moral indictment of the state of our world and an obscenity but you know we've got to remember surely patent law is more important than human life

have we learned nothing have we learned nothing it's like a real festival of uh

a day late and a dollar short right like joe biden vowed to double financial support to developing countries to fight climate change as tiff was talking about but we're the ones making the climate change.

It feels a little bit like throwing a wad of cash at a cyclist you just hit with your car.

Like, good luck recovering from the thing I just did to you.

And honestly, instead of having the U.S.

give money to developing nations, we should just have developing nations pledge like $100 each to the U.S.

And that's all our budget for fossil fuels for the year.

And that would be more helpful than whatever Biden's doing.

He also promised Joe Biden, he promised to engage in a period of relentless diplomacy, which is not the attitude you're supposed to go into that activity with.

It is a little like saying you're intending to practice merciless yoga or that your meditation retreat will continue until you will continue until you've worn your anxiety down to a bloody stump.

You already said it, not just relentless diplomacy, but he's saying this is going to replace relentless war.

He's going to replace relentless war with relentless diplomacy, prompting shudders through the global film industry.

Because, I mean, that is going to be really hard to monetize.

Cheap to shoot, though.

A lot of people sat around a boardroom table.

Yeah.

I mean, Sylvester Stallone's going to be there saying, I don't even know why I put a bandana on anymore.

It's going to be very

sad to see.

But

Relentless War has picked up a bit of a patchy track record for the USA, Josh.

It remains to be seen whether America fully commits to this change in priorities to relentless diplomacy.

I guess the proof will be whether in twenty or thirty years' time there are thousands and thousands of homeless ex-diplomats living on the streets begging for money to survive after being abandoned by the country they served.

Surely

then we'll know that diplomacy has truly replaced war in American society and politics.

Biden also promised that America will become the arsenal of vaccines.

That's another one.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm not sure, I mean, I assume it's a football reference.

I mean, Chris,

don't want to put on my arsenal today, Andy.

Does that mean it's one shot and then just defend, defend, defend?

Just

one mil.

Old-style Arsenal.

We're going back to George Graham.

I mean, you know, if he's planning to be the Arsenal vaccine, he's basically aiming to be kind of okay, but a pale shadow of what they once were at vaccines, underachieving, spending their money quite wastefully, questionable leadership hierarchy, but maybe a little bit better than their local rivals.

So, you know, it's better than nothing.

The double, double finger going up from

Chris there.

The environment, obviously a huge amount of focus on the environment.

And will the world's leaders, do we think, finally persuade the world that the time has come to wake up and smell that the coffee machine is on fire?

And, you know, is it, you know, when a kind of better late than never

kind of late and never are not really prime options when it comes to dealing with stuff like this?

I mean, you know, early and often would be

better.

I guess it's like eating in a restaurant when all that's left is a battered badger and a syringe, spider, and strychnine salad.

I mean, you'll take the badger, but you don't want the waiter to to bullshit you that it's actually one of the chef's signature dishes.

You could see Blumenthal pushing the boundaries.

Biden offered the world a kind of customer services questionnaire.

How are we going to answer these questions?

He said.

And the questions were, paraphrasing slightly, will we work together to defeat COVID and prepare ourselves for the next pandemic?

Or will we fail to harness the tools at our disposal?

Will we meet the threat of climate change?

Or will we suffer the merciless march of ever-worsening climate disasters?

Will we affirm and uphold human dignity and human rights or not bother?

And will we apply and strengthen the core tenets of the international system or allow these universal principles to be trampled and twisted in the pursuit of naked political power?

If you answered mostly or all A's to those, congratulations on being a hopelessly naive idealist.

Your dreams will be crushed by the dead hand of history.

If you answered B's or mostly B's, well done.

You are almost certainly correct.

Well done for seeing the world as it truly is.

Yeah, I don't know.

He phrased those like, I don't think he wanted the answers.

Like, if people were like, oh, yeah, we're going to do the second one for sure.

That's like, he's like,

hey, Jack, that's supposed to be a rhetorical question.

All right.

That's going to be in the trailer for relentless diplomacy coming to a theater new you in 2022.

I do think that we could get one,

we could get that kind of an all-star action cast for this movie, right?

We get Stallone, as you were saying, we get Statham, Dolph Lorengren, get get just

stars, action stars from all over the world, and we call it the Debatables.

I will say,

a bunch of the assembly was conducted through pre-recorded statements, right?

Not everybody traveled

to attend in person, which I think is fair given the COVID concerns and everything.

But it did give a lot of the speeches kind of the same gravity as like a Virgin Atlantic pre-flight safety video.

And

it did have the same content in a lot of ways, which is just like, hey, it's going to get bumpy in the future.

Buckle the f up.

Well, one of the many people warning about the future of the world was our very own Boris Johnson,

who,

I mean, a lot of people say Boris Johnson is not a details person, Tiff.

So, I mean, this is many ways him and his natural habitat.

just blathering on without having to show his working.

And there is no better way of confirming your status as being not a details person than by quoting a Muppet.

And Boris Johnson cited the song It's Not Easy Being Green by Kermit Thelonious Frog.

You probably didn't know that was short for Thelonious, but it is.

I mean, how did I mean, is this the kind of level that you know, we is this the best we can hope for now, just Muppet quotes from our Prime Minister, Tiff?

Well, it's that or Franglais,

yes.

So, you know,

there's two, like,

Boris came in hard with the Franglais.

Wish.com Churchill is at it again, basically, isn't he?

As I always

call him.

I mean, this was when he was Foreign Secretary, this was, you know, it was almost like kind of brushed off as like,

oh, it's embarrassing, isn't it?

And now that's, you know, the person who is leading our once great nation.

So, I mean,

did you hear any of the phrases that he kicked out?

I didn't know about the Kermit the Frog one, but

he said

donn es moi un breque, which yeah well I think yeah this was this was in a this I'm not sure this was in his speech or this was in a separate bit of shade thrown in the direction of France over the the

orcas deal that we talked about on the bugle last week.

It was don émoi un break.

Which presumably is give me a break

which would be that wouldn't be Franglais that would be Francian would it it?

French American.

I don't know how you know what the combination would be there.

And prene un grip.

Again, get a grip.

Very American.

I don't know why he thinks.

It will annoy the French though.

The purists, the French purists are very upset about, you know,

these kind of phrases and words creeping into the language, like le soccer, lead dog and le weekend have crept in surreptitiously like peu

in a deeply problematic fashion.

But apparently, in 2013, the French government banned the word hashtag, replacing it with motte.

I think it's motte dias.

I'm not sure.

I think that says it all.

Yeah.

Jean c'est pas.

Yeah, but yeah.

I want to know how they police that.

I mean, were there officials at school leaning over teenagers' Instagram apps like Mon Dieu, when you are posting a a picture of your Deria, use motiers.

C'est bad de games.

I don't know.

I mean basically it's it's Boris trying to get under under Macron's skin, isn't it?

And I think he thinks it's a charm offensive, but we all think it's just hugely embarrassing.

It's no different to Delboy doing his Monch 2 rodders,

you know, or creme de menths to mean awesome in fools and horses.

Yeah, I mean, it was quite extraordinary.

So, yes, he said, Donnie Moir and Break and Prunet and Grip.

Now, the the Bugle would like to issue a statement on behalf of the non-Boris Johnson worshiping section of the uh the UK population addressed to our friends in France at Nousson Traders,

not a premier ministre, Monsieur Jean-Son, et commercia violent français, cringe-inducing national embarrassment.

I lais playing to his crowd, et aussy biensieur Ila, desperately trying to deflect attention away from a litany of broken promises, non-existent trade deals, a total fing chaos across the whole country.

Ilais anodulte quié sin con séton, et qui et le père de approximately six children.

Mais bian sou

vous

vous would never know it to look at how he behaves on the international stage, the willful performative buffoon.

I will say there is nothing that is less details-oriented than barely knowing how many children you have.

I feel like you we started with a quote from Kermit the Frog and then like, done him want and break.

That's like discourse at the level of Bart Simpson.

So we have taken a level back or a level down rather.

But I do think we can all agree that Francle is the best brand of box wine.

I think we can all map as a compromise.

Yes, so he quoted the It's Not Easy Being Green song by Kermit the Frog, nay, Kermit the Tadpole, of course.

Although the unusually furry-skinned amphibian who famously overcame a debilitating thigh muscle-wasting condition to find fame and fortune is

widely thought to have been singing a thinly veiled satire on racial discrimination rather than a self-exculpatory appeal into consumerist excess.

But all art is, of course, open to interpretation.

But it's interesting that Johnson insisted that it is, contrary to Mr.

Frogg's protestations, easy being green.

But it's not really the case that it is easy being green.

For example, if you want to pull off the tricky biathlon of going to the supermarket and not ending ending up with a bin full of unnecessary plastic, then it's a little bit tricky.

When you want something even vaguely representing fair representation in parliament at general elections, then you certainly don't want to be green in the United Kingdom.

You've got absolutely no fing chance.

Or another time, it's not easy being green.

If you're wearing a Pakistan national cricket team's kit and you're waiting for England to bother showing up to play you at some actual cricket rather than pulling out of a tour at very short notice because they're feeling a little bit sleepy.

And of course, you know, this is not the first time that that

a Conservative Prime Minister who'd been educated at Eton

has done something like this.

I mean, other previous Eton-educated Tory Prime Ministers have focused more on Kermit's co-star and gone with an it's not easy being a pig vibe instead.

And he told the,

this is one of the fascinating things.

He told the world to grow up.

on climate change.

This is Boris Johnson, yes that Boris Johnson told the world to grow up, which to me that was akin to being told to stop being buried in Westminster Abbey by King Edward the Confessor, who has been doing it very well since the aforementioned year, 1066, the 11th century anti-shaggy whose death sparked the conflicts that end in the Norman speed and the Saxos, as discussed earlier on.

And he said the world has reached a turning point, albeit the kind of turning point a car reaches when you've deliberately wanged it down an unlit road at 70 miles an hour and are now trying to skid to a halt on an icy car park before you plunge into a disused quarry.

So good luck, world.

You will fing need it.

Elsewhere on Johnson's trip to North America, he had meetings with Joe Biden and various other people, and it does seem that a full trade deal between the UK and the USA is not looking like quite as much of an open goal as we had been promised by the magic Brexit ferry,

which, I mean, basically told us we'd just have to waggle an inflatable Queen Elizabeth, offer 20% off on bunting Fox Pelts and Mead and chucking a couple of bottles of whiskey.

And we'll be waltzing off with an all-you-can-trade smorgasbord of economic benefits.

Sadly, a few stumbling blocks, such as America having other more important shit on right now than hacking out a deal with an island nation that offers access to Gibraltar and Norfolk.

So,

Josh, how did Johnson's visit to the U.S.

go down?

And is North America excited by this?

People have talked about Britain joining North America essentially as a trading force.

We'd be excited to welcome us into the fold.

Look, it's nothing personal,

but

I feel like Britain pondering joining North American trade deal, that I don't know.

I feel like you had your chance and you blew it.

You let us walk out of your life and you think you can just let two and a half centuries go by and rejoin trade pacts.

Not likely, Bub.

This truly feels like all of Brexit, like this mad scramble of the leave side to solve a problem that they themselves created.

And leaving Europe and just assuming they'd be welcome in a North American trade agreement is like if I left my wife under the presumption that I could just be recognized as a sovereign Asian nation.

It is too big.

He did.

He stuck around, Boris Johnson stuck around to meet with Joe Biden and talk about free trade.

And like you said, Biden has other priorities.

Johnson actually said that Biden has a lot of other fish to fry, which truly to me as an American sounds like Boris Johnson tried to bribe Joe Biden with a plate of fish and chips.

That is just what it sounded like to my dumb American ears.

So now, much like a third grader with a lunchbox full of celery sticks, Boris Johnson and his country finds himself desperate for someone to trade with.

I'm sorry, Boris Johnson, you shouldn't have cut ties with the countries who have better snacks.

He does have a lot of other fish to fry, and that's because the U.S.

have fishing rights actually in place,

which has been one of the key issues here during the Brexit negotiations.

One of the exciting things is that the trade in meat is set to resume.

British beef and lamb are set to be allowed back into the American market, which is so short of meat.

There's almost none there, is there?

I've been going to Hungary.

If it's not British lamb, I'm not happy eating it.

Yes, you're getting beef, lamb, with a side order of double vaccinated humans are also going to be allowed in.

And bear in mind the competence of the British government.

Given that basically they announced that double vaccinated Brits are going to be allowed to go to America, and also they're going to start exporting beef and lamb to America at the same time.

Just, if you are going, for f's sake, check the paperwork.

You do not want any mix-ups

on those forms.

It's sort of embarrassing, isn't it, to be told your relationship is a special one and realise you're last at a thruple with Australia

and that the US has been seeing the rest of Europe on the side.

Like, Biden's just not

like, it's not at the forefront of his, it's not the most important thing.

And then Boris is going, the Americans do negotiate very hard, and Biden's kind of concerned about the Northern Irish Accords, which is what he referred to them, which is very American, by the way, because we all call it the Good Friday Agreement.

But, you know, in the UK, I mean, here, we already got into the bed with the DUP when we gave them a bung.

And America, like a worried spouse, has been sniffing the sheets and they know something's up.

Smells like orange.

So, yeah, I think that's a good idea.

Very disappointing, Nirvana song that was.

Yeah, apparently, a senior official, government official in the UK said, I love this, the ball is in the US court.

It takes two to tango.

Because if there's one thing this Tory government is good at, it's consistent mixed metaphors.

And actually, since Brexit, our metaphors have been 38% more mixed than they were when we were part of the EU.

So

yet another benefit flooding to the people of this nation.

American news now, and a trillion-dollar coin could save the world.

Josh, you are our American

economics and coinage correspondent.

That's true.

This is sensational.

I mean, it's obviously not going to happen, but if it did happen, it would be incredible, wouldn't it?

It would be amazing.

So the idea is the U.S.

Treasury Department would mint a platinum coin because they have some like extra liberties like with what you can do with platinum.

And the coin would be worth a trillion dollars.

They would deposit that coin in the Federal Reserve and reduce the national debt by a trillion dollars.

This plan raises a lot of questions.

Like, can we do this without consulting Congress?

And if we can just make a coin worth a trillion dollars, doesn't that prove that poverty isn't an insoluble dilemma, but rather a condition that the government chooses to perpetuate to keep the wheels of capitalism spinning?

And also, would the coin be shiny or would it have a more understated matte finish?

I think on economics, this plan, like, sure, let's try it, right?

Let's do things to

boost our ability to give our citizens social services and relieve the horrors of this pandemic, right?

I do think, however, my one concern, it doesn't seem fair to mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin and just deposit it in the Federal Reserve without letting the rapper Rick Ross wear it as a pinky ring for at least a little while.

He's worked too hard for this.

The whole thing really proves a long-standing belief of mine, which is that economics is bullshit.

The whole field is so arbitrary to me.

It's just philosophy with more frequent showers and a standardized haircut.

Oh, can we mint a trillion dollar coin to reduce the federal debt?

It's basically, can an omnipotent God create a boulder so big that even they can't lift it?

Except the answer to the first question reveals whether you think people deserve social services or whether retirement and clean drinking water are fine in theory but could never work in practice.

Trillion dollar coin is my favorite intergalactic wrapper though.

So I'm looking forward to the drop, the next trillion dollar coin drop.

I feel like you, Josh, I don't get it, but I suppose I don't need to because money isn't real anyway.

I mean, like, it's an idea, right?

It doesn't exist.

I mean, yes, I expect to get paid for this podcast, but you know what I mean?

Like, actual money.

Like, on our tender, it says I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of 20 pounds.

And that used to be the weight of 20 pounds of gold or silver standard, which doesn't even exist anymore.

So, what are we promising to pay the bear on demand 20 pounds of?

Sugar?

Water?

Lies, lies, that's what it is.

Like, so it doesn't, money, it just doesn't exist like fairies at the bottom of the garden or universal credit under a conservative government.

It just is not there.

So it's just an IOU, isn't it?

We're all just walking around with these IOUs that you then take to the bank and you say, Could I have my

twenty pounds worth of gold?

And they go, Well, no, I can give you two smaller IOUs, I can give you two tenths.

Or I can give you, you know, like, and in America it says, you know, like,'cause you have to believe in it, don't you?

You have to believe in money, otherwise it's all belief, otherwise the whole thing would collapse.

Like, so why not have a trillion dollar coin?

In America, your tender says, In God we trust, and it cracks me up that atheists still have to use that money.

So, I mean, why not a trillion-dollar coin?

It's just all ridiculous at this point, isn't it?

It's a lot.

I do think we should have, for the atheists, we should have another, it should say, in God we trust, slash, I don't know, is this anything?

Also, I mean, when you look at America, it doesn't just trust in God, it trusts in overwhelming military and economic firepower as well.

So, you know, they don't entirely live by their own by their own mottos.

I mean, so I I was slightly disappointed to hear you say that it's going to be a just you know a platinum coin, presumably of reduced size, because I worked out that y a one dollar coin is basically twenty six point five millimeters in diameter and two millimeters in thickness.

So based on that, a one trillion dollar coin would be twenty meters high and two hundred and sixty five meters across, weighing just over eight million tons and needing a small nuclear warhead were it to be used for a coin toss at the start of a sporting fixture maybe that could be another stimulus plan right like the way fdr had the kind of federal jobs and highway building this is um joe biden just setting america to work smelting this coin

and

it's an annoying one to lose isn't it we all lose coins and

and also that's why you need crypto andy exactly a tough one to spend as well go sorry i've lost my card can i pay cash have you got change for a trillion No,

I do not want $999,999,999,980.05 in vouchers.

Thank you.

Britain news now, and this country is at panic stations.

It's panicking.

People are queuing up for fuel at service stations.

They're queuing up for panic at panic stations in case all the panic gets used up.

People are panic panicking, I think.

It's all getting very, very confusing.

And it shows what we think of our government.

The government said there is no need to panic by petrol.

There is no shortage of fuel.

And within about 20 seconds of them saying that, 68 million people were queuing up at petrol stations thinking we've got to get this.

There's obviously none left.

And that sort of shows the stage our relationship with our politicians has reached.

Tiff, have you panic bought

any petrol?

No, I've witnessed panic buying.

It's like beyond thunderdome out there.

I mean it's like literally I was driving back from the countryside and my mum rung me first thing in the morning to have a little panic on the phone about the panic that had been reported panickedly in the papers.

So yeah, she was like, oh, they're going to run out of petrol.

And I went past the first place in the New Forest and I was like, oh, okay.

Well, that's got a huge queue.

That's ridiculous.

But I've got, you know, over half a tank.

So I'm just going gonna drive home and then on the way back I saw two that were normal probably should have stopped then didn't I'm just one of those people who's like I don't always need to have a full tank I'll drive around on half a tank and then risk taking risk taking yeah live on the edge

and then the next thing I sort of get back the next day I take my dad to the dentist boring admin stuff but basically I drive back and then everything's shut and then I witness like absolute chaos at my local petrol station where someone's out literally like wrestling with someone

someone else rowing with a bus driver and I just went I'm just not going to bother because I'm pretty sure today they'll have topped them up maybe they haven't I mean maybe I'm the fool but there were pictures on social media of you know and I it's hard to sometimes kind of blame the people when the media sort of whip this up but someone had filled their car and had like eight little petrol canisters on the floor and was filling them and I just I don't know how that's that's allowed.

Surely some, but you could, anyone who's working in the petrol station for cockle money is not going to come out and try and, you know,

I mean, they could turn the pump off, but, you know, we've entered into this like kind of mad.

So people have got bog roll and petrol coming out the wazoo.

It's um, you know, clearly some people did need petrol for their, for their work or, you know, for, you know,

necessary journeys.

And, you know, there's a difference between panicking and taking sensible precautions.

If you're not not sure what that difference is, it's panicking when other people are doing it and it's sensible if you're doing it.

It's very important.

Remember what that is.

There are also reports of people just just you know just just chugging it, just swallowing stomachs full of petrol to then puke back into further vehicles at home like a like a like a like a bird of prey or chugging a worm into its Why is it they call that?

There's a name for that, isn't there?

Where you like

try and suck petrol out of someone else's tank with a hose?

Am I.

Yes, but you don't keep it.

You don't keep it in you.

I think

that's a big difference.

Siphoning.

Siphoning.

Is siphoning going to be a big thing?

Because then you don't want to keep a full tank of petrol because you don't want people like

going out at night wearing ostentatious jewelry so people will rob you.

They see your tank up to the F and they're like, oh, this guy is looking to get

robbed.

It is a kind of, it's like a kind of full loop, though, isn't it?

It's like if the media create a panic about this, then people go out and panic buy, and then they can report on the panic buying.

So it's like a story that just relentlessly feeds itself.

So do you think we can exploit that then?

And so you need to sort of spread more positive rumors rather than petrols running out that, oh, there's this terrible thing that big businesses aren't paying enough tax.

I hope that it leads to panic tax paying to the corporate sector.

Would that work or not?

Yeah, try it.

You know, there's been like a weird shortage of people just sending me $25 on Venmo.

There's no need to panic and send me $25 on Venmo right now.

But

I read that there are other shortages too, because this isn't something I've been seeing.

It's not like as thoroughly covered in American news.

I saw that the energy crisis means there are shortages of food,

drivers, and Christmas trees possible, which means that it sounds like Brexit has ruined Christmas.

Brexit is the Grinch.

Oh my God.

But I do think if things keep going the way they are, here's the lighter side.

Britain will be eligible to receive Joe Biden's pledged grants to fight climate change.

So that's exciting.

You're going to kind of shoot the moon economically.

Josh, I'm not kidding.

My wife, when all this news broke at the end of last week, went and bought our Christmas tree.

This is a real problem in the UK right now.

Oh my gosh.

This is terrible.

If in the US

fossil fuel was harder to come by and Christmas was harder to celebrate, there would be like a Fox News conspiracy theory within hours that's like, this is Antifa.

They're trying to stop us from driving.

They're trying to stop us from saying Merry Christmas.

I think here we just blame it on the woke, basically.

Just the Daily Telegraph's woke conspiracy correspondence, of which I think there are 25 on the staff of the world.

You know that well-funded woke lobby.

Look at everywhere.

You've got a tree, though.

At least you've got a tree, Chris.

You know, now...

I think we need to put out the story saying there's an abundance of Christmas trees.

Is your tree, is it up already or is it lying in wait somewhere?

No, so what it is, it is a plastic tree.

So the theory goes like this: that first the real trees won't materialize.

Sure, then the panic buying will come in for the fake plastic trees.

Now our 20-pound fake plastic Christmas tree on the futures market is surely up to 80, 90 quid already.

You're gonna flip it.

Yeah, I like this.

Then you're gonna have the best Christmas in the history of your family's household.

Because I was truly thinking, like, if you put up your Christmas tree in September, that is a world of questions from your children for the next three months.

One final bit of British news.

Tiff, apparently COVID has ruined British sex lives.

Is it COVID or Brexit or I forget, but it's basically it.

I think it's post-COVID and there's a few things into it.

I think fear of intimacy and spreading of disease,

you know, alongside the effects of like long COVID and stuff as well.

So, you know, like,

you know, pre, like, during COVID, you know, your sex life was sort of flirting with your neighbor through the window by pulling your mask down and

like learning learning Morse code with your eyebrows.

I mean, because flirting was very limited.

And I, one of the things they're saying is lockdown has shaken our body confidence because something like 58% of people put on weight during lockdown.

I mean, and that I would say is true because nobody flattened the curve in my house.

Like,

I put on two stone.

And the reason during lockdown, the reason I knew I'd put on two-stone is that I turned up at my parents' house in a pair of shorts and my mum answered the door and went, you're brave.

Yeah.

Like, mums are the OGs of the passive-aggressive nonpliments.

I call it a nompliment because, like, it's not a compliment.

You know, they do the ones that contain the ingredients of a compliment, but the rug's pulled away.

Like,

that is a lovely pattern, but not with your skin tone.

That kind of thing.

So, yeah, so

I know I've put on weight.

I think also as well, we've all got a bit older during the pandemic.

That's one of the

big things, you know, and as we know, sex changes as you

sort of get older.

I think like sex in your teens is like, quick, get it in before it's too late.

Sex in your 20s is, look how many amazing positions I can do.

I'm amazing.

Sex in your 30s is like, it's my turn on the bottom, leave breaking bad on.

Sex in your 40s is, I need water breaks and nothing that hurts my knees.

I'm not there yet, but I presume sex in your 50s is completing a cryptic crossword together.

Do you see what I mean?

Like, it changes.

And sex during COVID is wash your hands and wank at me from six feet away.

So

it's changed how we approach the act itself.

So I think physically.

Boris Johnson did suggest that as one of the government's messaging banners initially.

I just it's I love that we're studying this at all because it's like look we're in the midst of a pandemic that has killed millions worldwide we are still not out of it we're still kind of really having trouble figuring out how to work and live and socialize safely but like are we f ⁇ ing what's going on

I like that the reports suggest that one of the the reports suggested one of the things that is putting people off is quotes nebulous feelings of pessimism.

A terrific get-out, isn't it?

That is the opposite of horny, is nebulous pessimism.

That brings us to the end of this week's Bugle.

Huge thanks to Josh and Tiff.

Anything to alert our listeners to that you're up to at the moment?

Old Rope, which is once a month at the comedy store.

So the next one I think is in October the 11th and then November the 8th.

I think Andy, you might be doing one coming up.

So just follow me on Twitter or Instagram for any of the details of that.

And also my sort of tour dates that were moved about 17 times during the pandemic are finally happening in November in Scotland.

Well, actually, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

So those three, I think, around November 16th, 17th, 18th.

But you can, again, check my page for all of the details.

Oh, I've got one more I remember.

Sorry.

House of Games, which starts next Monday,

is it the 4th?

The 4th of October, every day at 6 p.m.

You watch me play some games.

You like that kind of thing.

I'm at Josh Gondelman on Twitter and Instagram.

I'm doing some stand-up mostly around New York for the time being.

But if you're here, come see me at joshgondelman.com.

I should update those dates.

I have a podcast called Make My Day.

It's a comedy game show where there's just one contestant who's guaranteed to win.

And I think, oh, and Desus and Merrow returns to Showtime in October.

We've been on a little break, but we'll be back soon.

You can hear me currently on the news quiz.

We're about halfway through the current series.

I will be touring the UK in March next year.

Details

to be announced soon.

We will now play you out.

As always, with some lies about our premium-level voluntary subscribers to join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme to make a one-off or occurring donation to help keep this show free, flourishing, and independent, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Laura Myrdle is not convinced by the theory that leopards never change their spots.

I mean, I understand they probably don't change their spots because what's the point, says Laura.

And leopards, she adds, are fundamentally quite lazy as far as I can make out from all the nature programs that show them having a kip in a tree.

But frankly, if they did change their spots, how would anyone know?

Speculates Laura.

I reckon they probably do swap spots at night just for the hell of it to see if anyone notices.

I know I would if I was a leopard, which regrettably, I'm not.

Oliver Banket meanwhile is intrigued by why it is only leopards that are accused of an aversion to and or inability to achieve spot changing.

Think of all the other big cats with spots, notes Oliver.

Jaguars, cheetahs, ocelots and dalmatians, which are of course dogs, not cats, which probably makes it even worse.

No one gives a flying one whether they can, do or want to change their spots, but leopards get all the grief and I want to know why.

I reckon it's a collective memory of our early days as a species when we kept seeing leopards in trees and mistaking them for fruit with understandably disastrous consequences.

David Pickup chips in by suggesting that maybe the lack of phrases such as a jaguar never changes its spots means we can deduce that these animals do in fact change their spots and that leopards are the ones worth remarking on and aphorizing about because they are the exception not the rule.

In which case says David, it's fair to call out the leopards for their changeless spottery when their evolutionary near-neighbours, pelt-wise, have got off their polka-dotted backsides and done something about it, which I admire.

David Salmon also notes that there are precious few complaints about zebras never changing their stripes, nor about giraffes never changing their blotches, nor, more to the point, about any non-patterned animals not changing their monochrome pelts, whether to try a different colour or even to try leopard-style spots for once.

The more you think about it, says David, the harsher it looks on the leopards.

I'm not justifying their refusal to spot change as and when they could or should for one minute, but I think it would be fair on the leopards if we occasionally heard the odd, a lion never tries being spotty for a change as well.

Gloria Lintel points out that it is extremely selective of us to pick on leopards in any case.

Blue-spotted salamanders have spots, says Gloria, as their name very definitely suggests, and they slough their skins regularly through their lives.

So I reckon you could say that blue-spotted salamanders do quite quite literally change their spots.

So why not use them as an example of how people can in fact change, rather than banging on about the leopards as a bullshit irrelevant metaphor for human intransigence that feeds amongst other things into retrograde criminal justice policies.

It makes me sick.

And finally, overhearing this, someone who apparently goes by the name Dick Swinging wonders whether leopards molt their fur like dogs do, and if so, whether this would count as changing their spots anyway, even if the spots look the same.

I mean, I don't want to get too philosophical, but what is a spot?

If all the fur is new, philosophizes Dick, but the spot is the same shape, is it still the same spot?

I don't know how this affects the original saying, but I reckon it's something the philosophers ought to be thinking about, rather than wasting their time on things like axes and the pop group The Sugar Babes.

The whole meaning and validity of the Leopards Never Changing Their Spots phrase could depend on it.

Get to it, you navel-gazing time wasters, rages Dick.

Here endeth the lies.

Goodbye.

Hi Buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.