Worst Comeback EVER (4202)

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, welcome back.

The Bugle Summer Break is over.

This is Bugle issue 4202.

I am Andy Zoltzmann, back in the shed of unquenchable truth.

Unquenquenchable.

A cross between

unquestionable and unquenchable, which I think is probably entirely appropriate.

Let's stick with it.

Joining me to review the summer and the current states of this planet, or indeed the winter, if that is your hemispherical bag.

Firstly, from the wrong side of the world in Australia, it's Alice Fraser.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Yes, it's the end of the summer holiday, although it has been winter here, here, but I've been vibing with summer holiday vibes.

I've learned how to ride a bike, I've forgotten how to ride a bike, I've relearned how to ride that very same bike, I've been on adventures, all the adventures that one can have in the course of a two-month lockdown.

So I mean, what exactly are those

adventures?

Pointing at a tree and thinking about...

Mainly deeply psychological, but also some whales.

There were some whales that went past, and that was very exciting.

Went past past your house?

If I walk a little away from my house, I'm at the fence and I can watch the whales go past.

Oh, say, not directly outside the house.

No, no.

Chapping your door.

They're not just hooning down the road like a delinquent gang.

Offering to hose your garden.

You never know.

30 bucks.

They ask if you want them to squeegee your windows, but they've already started.

Also joining us from much less far away, just a few miles from where I am in the shed, in fact, here in London, it's Tiffany Stevenson.

Hello, Tiff.

Hello.

Hi, Andy.

Hi, Bugle.

Fam.

Going with Fam today.

How has your summer been?

I mean, it's been...

A typical British summer.

Planned days out, ruined.

I was thinking about going to Chesterton World of Adventures, then I read the online reviews

and decided against it.

So it's been very PlayStation-y,

a little bit rainy.

I've been out and about in the garden.

I got bitten by quite a few mosquitoes last night.

So it does feel like I'm on holiday in that sense.

But yeah, you know, just keeping it real.

Right, because

I've had a very pleasant month on hiatus, went with the family to Spain and then spent...

two weeks being paid to watch cricket.

So I'm in a state of extreme relaxation, to be honest, that even the state of the planet hasn't entirely broken.

We are recording.

We are recording on the...

I can highly recommend it.

I just think

if there was more Test Match cricket played in all trouble spots around the world, everything would be fine.

I'll stand by that.

It's the 20th of August.

On this day, in 1940, Winston Churchill...

made one of his most famous wartime speeches containing the line, never was so much owed by so many to so few, which seems silly now, but to be fair to Winnie C., he did splurt that out a little while before the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis and the advent of online gambling.

Today, well, this is.

I always assumed he was talking about the many billionaires and the taxes they don't pay.

It's possible.

That could have been a subtext.

We just don't know.

You never know with Churchill.

You can interpret them in many ways.

Today, Tiff, is World Mosquito Day.

Well, exactly.

Don't those blood-sucking shitbags get enough publicity as it is?

That is, I mean, I don't see, I mean, why, why do we need to publicize, you know, these, I mean, what are they?

Is it awareness?

Like, they're out there.

Watch out.

They're bitey bastards.

I don't know.

I assume it's a mosquito support organisation.

I feel like there should be something for us people who've been bitten.

I feel like there should be an online...

I think there should be a mosquito bite support group.

Where we can talk about the best ways to deal with them because I've tried vinegar, but I have scratched them.

The first rule is don't scratch them.

I got straight in there.

Scratch the fk out of them.

Well, you can't let the mosquitoes win, can you?

You can't let them change your scratching habits.

As somebody who grew up in Australia and also went to Burma a lot as a kid, I feel I'm an expert on this.

A hot spoon will denature the poison in the bite.

A hot spoon?

My mother always went with half a grape.

Cut a grape in half, rub it on the mosquito bite.

I've no idea if that has any medical.

Hot spoon and half a grape are plain,

I think.

I feel like my experience with mosquitoes has burned me out on vampires.

People always like how sexy vampires are, but whenever I see a vampire, I assume they just make a louder version of the mosquito noise as they settle in to soak your blood.

It's very annoying.

As well as World Mosquito Day, which is a campaign that the Bugle is not supporting, it's Male Grooming Day as well.

And we're also emphatically not getting behind that with with all due respect to Chris and his luxuriant, luxuriant locks.

Male grooming products, always remember to never use the word aging.

Always treat men like returning war heroes

fatigued.

Fatigued like you've just come back from combat.

That's the rules for the male grooming products.

Right.

So I have a fatigued hairline.

Is that what you're saying?

Yes, yes.

That's a good way of putting it.

Rather than cowardly, as some have suggested.

Chris, how's your summer been?

It's been absolutely fantastic, Andy.

I have managed to hold down two jobs and not lose either of my children yet, which is pretty like, I think if that was my aim going into the summer, I'm going to hit it at the end of it.

And, you know, life goals.

Yes.

As always, a section of the Bugle is going straight in the bin.

This week, a natural world section to help the natural world fight back in its battle against the bad luck of biodiversitational destruction.

We at the Bugle have teamed up with the Organization for the Introduction of New Creatures, or OINC, to give you buglers the chance to choose a new hybrid to be bred in captivity and released into the wild.

The world has already seen wonderful hybrid creatures entertain and enthrall millions.

The mule, the taigon, the lager, which is a llama tiger hybrid, the sausage dog, the mermaid, the horse chestnut, the buffoon, cross between a buffalo and a raccoon, the snake, which of course is half worm, half crocodile, the widgeon, cross between a whale and a pigeon, which of course itself is a cross between the pig and the curmudgeon.

No wonder they're crap when you can't.

You can choose from one of not one, not two, but five contenders for the new hybrids to be unleashed on the world in spring of 2022.

Contender A, the Zabrillion, the zebra chameleon cross that can flip the colour and pattern of its stripes to order.

Contender B, the bumble vulture.

Do you like birds of prey, but wish you could hear them coming?

This buzzy but carrion-hungry bee scavenger cross could be the one for you.

Never again be surprised when a Carpacho-addicted raptor swoops down to feast on your local carcass.

Also, striping.

Contender C, the Labradolphin.

Lovable, loyal doggy, but with added aquatic functionality and sonar.

Sign me up.

Contender D, the Tyrannosaurus ferret.

Fairly self-explanatory.

And Contender E, the Anacondominium.

Part snake, part apartment block.

Let us know your preferred creature, and the winning entries will receive one daddy gamete, one mummy gamete, and a DeLuke silk-lined Bluetooth-enabled auto womb to grow them in.

Do please send us pictures of the results.

Also, in our natural worlds section, Fossil of the Week.

Now, this week, our fossil of the week is Geraldine, an 8cm-long, 420 million-year-old trilobite from modern-day Portugal.

Much missed by all who knew her.

Geraldine sadly did not live to see her beloved Portugal win the 2016 European Football Championships, but nonetheless was proud to be an arthropod and a member of one of the most successful and long-lasting classes of animal ever to grace this famous planet.

Whilst little is known of her personal life, she is thought to have been a keen swimmer and owner and user of a very natty exoskeleton who was highly skilled in the use of antennae.

While some of her lifestyle choices and worldviews may seem dated to our modern tastes, Geraldine seems to have lived a happy life and been a valued member of the trilobite community.

And although she guarded her privacy tightly, she never once complained about being preserved for eternity in rock and hounded in death by the paleontology.

Geraldine is our fossil of the week.

That section in the bin.

Top story this week.

Bad things happen when the bugle is off air.

In 2016,

when we were in between the John Oliver years and the everyone else years, of which Alice and Tiff have been such distinguished

contributors, It was Brexit and Trump.

And in the 2021 summer hiatus, Afghanistan has proved once again that old auntie history knows what she's talking about when she tries to sit us on her knees and say, let me teach you f ⁇ ers a valuable lesson.

Well, this is unquestionably a tough story to deal with comedically.

It has, if nothing else, helped clarify the answer to the question, what is a power vacuum?

Is it A, a household cleaning device?

B, what you get if you put the phrase electrical failure through four languages in Google Translate and then back into English?

Or is it C, the inevitable conclusion of two decades of Western intervention in Afghanistan?

All three are correct, but this week we're going to focus on option C, because with a heartbreaking inevitability not seen since the hyper-realistic stage production of A Tiger Who Came to Tea was cancelled after just one performance, the Taliban have completed one of the modern world's less desirable comebacks.

Why couldn't it have been Elvis?

Why couldn't it have been Bjond Borg?

No,

it's the Taliban.

I'm guessing, you know, having worked with both of you quite a lot now, neither of you are massive Taliban supporters.

Is that?

Taliban stands, I think they're called.

Right.

Andy.

I've been watching it unfold.

I think the main thing is that I've been sort of keen to just like not see is the takes on Twitter as it's all unfolded.

I know Twitter has an are you sure function, but going by the last couple of days, I think we need a, are you serious?

You want to post this absolutely cretinous nuclear taste that lacks the most basic level of sort of human empathy.

You You know, we need like a Twitter version of the Microsoft paperclip that says, it appears you're engaging in what a battery, can I help?

You know, because we shouldn't have gone in.

Thanks, Dave from Ipswich.

Like talking about what we could have done 20 years ago is no,

like, is no help to the situation we're in now.

So I've been sort of blown away by how awful people have been on social media as this is unfolding.

Yeah, it's interesting to see Afghanistan in the news again because it has been in reality the whole time.

But it's notable that it's in the news because nobody hates covering the news in Afghanistan more than the news.

The news loves a simple black and white story that can be summed up in a rolling ticker tape scroll at the bottom of the screen.

And the ticker tape scroll that you'd need to cover the complexity of the situation in Afghanistan would make the bio-tapestry look like minimalism in storytelling.

It's f ⁇ ing horrifying.

All of these armies are retreating and leaving everyone who helped them.

You know, there's people falling off planes and trying to climb onto planes and desperately trying to get out of this country.

All the women are terrified.

It's just a bad situation altogether, Andy.

And as Tiff says, people seem to really be invested in tweeting about it.

I think we can't be surprised when

the UK and matters of international diplomacy behave like an absentee father because our country is run by

an absentee father.

You know, like, that's unfair.

Maybe he's there for the six children that he knows of.

I sort of, I was baffled by, like, I think what we can talk about in depth is like, what are we doing?

Like, Dominic Raab, who thinks foreign secretary is when you take your assistant on hollybobs, clearly, because he has no idea of what that role entails.

Like, after Brexit, he proved what an immense negotiator he was.

And the hits just keep coming.

During the pandemic, every time he was asked a direct question, he displayed more swerving than a fast and furious film.

And this now is like

just i thought could he get lower than rock bottom but it was revealed wasn't it that ministers did not make phone calls about extracting the afghan translators like this is disgusting i don't really know how sorry for the swears how else to say it but like dominic rabb was too busy to pick up the phone which is read in the midst of his couple's massage in crete are they fleeing for their lives

too busy it was he was too on holiday too on holiday oh are they fleeing for their lives it's just I'm playing water polo at 1 p.m.

in the main pool.

God damn it.

I put out of office on the email.

Yeah, there are people hanging off the wheels of a plane, Dominic.

Yeah, but it's 3-4

to the staff team.

So, you know,

we need to get a winner.

Can't back out of a tight game like that.

But, I mean, because initially it was said that he delegated this to a junior minister.

And then it transpired that the call had not been made at all.

And the justification was, oh, we got Brexit done, so who gives a shit?

So, I mean, I guess, you know, that's one one way of looking at it.

Boris Johnson, the flounderer, philanderer, pastise prime minister, has faced a deluge of criticism for dealing with the crisis exactly how you would have expected him to deal with it, complacently and competently, and with the weighty seriousness of an erotic marshmallow penguin.

And it's,

I mean, I guess, you know, if not, there's just a general sense that there must have been a better wrong answer to this unanswerable puzzle.

Because there are clearly, in Afghanistan, as history teaches us, no right answers for

Western interventions and you know we're left with a lot of navel gazing and soul searching as the 20-year intervention has crumbled leaving many Afghans in fear of their lives livelihoods futures freedoms and rights according to a UN report the Taliban have quote stepped up their search for people who worked for NATO forces or the previous Afghan government.

Now without wishing to judge a book by its already published contents, I imagine that the Taliban are not stepping up their search for these people so they can ask them for advice on how to run the country and the logistical challenges thereof in a spirit of collaboration and curiosity.

And they're certainly not asking them for the Wi-Fi code or for fashion and grooming tips.

This is...

It's very hard not to be deeply pessimistic about the whole...

It's essentially like, you know, if you have a house that's

infested with mice and you book a pest control company to deal with it, and 20 years later they leave, and the bill, now amounting to trillions of dollars, is given to you personally by a giant mouse, just as a lorry full of cheese dumps its load on your front lawn, and the mouse says, Don't worry, we order that.

And by the way, here's an eviction notice.

That seems to be essentially the situation that Afghanistan finds itself in.

The only upside to this, Andy, that I can see, and it's a very thin upside, is that it's always nice to see the news covering the news as it actually happens because so much of the news nowadays is what I like to call pre-news, which is where people guess what the news might be about to be.

Yes.

The pre-cog, minority report.

I mean, I guess with Afghanistan, the pre-news would have been from the moment that the intervention began in 2001,

at what point will it all catastrophically collapse?

And, you know, 20 years, I think you'd have taken the spread on that.

Yeah, I feel it was when Alexander the Great looked over the valleys and went, oh, this is a terrible idea, and turned back.

That was your first heads up.

This was an interesting the financial side of it I found quite interesting.

There was a report that that found that the Taliban earned $1.6 billion in the financial year ending in March 2020, which is about the same as Rail Madrid and Barcelona football clubs combined, which seems a lot and also suggests that they could have designed some new kit.

But also makes you think, what are they charging for their merch?

Those replica shirts must be...

They're clearly shifting, but

it's sort of up there with some of the government contracts that went out, isn't it?

What's sort of amazing, isn't it, is how much of the America and the UK sort of justified the invasion by talking about the protections for Afghan women and like what is happening to them now.

I saw a piece about a female journalist who apparently went on Clubhouse because the Taliban was saying, listen, we're going to.

There will be no violence against women.

You know, Islamic values are our framework.

And a female journalist went into Clubhouse to explain that she'd been fired fired from her work they'd gone in um and like put all of the the women on notice that were working um

it was interesting about this is I feel like clubhouse has actually now got a purpose like it's earned its place because I think for ages I was like this is rubbish what is this thing but actually it's not documented like Twitter or Facebook so it might actually be a useful method of

getting important information out, you know, like a transistor radio, rather than just being a place where celebrities try and cancel themselves on a regular basis.

But yeah, so people are actually managing to get information out, and we're hearing, you know, in spite of promises of change, it doesn't look as if it's going to be that way.

Like you say, like the book, don't judge the book by its contents, Andy.

Yes.

I think my favorite of the horrifying rules about what women are and aren't and mostly aren't allowed to do under the new Taliban government is that qualified women in professional positions can be replaced by a male relative.

Not necessarily a qualified male relative.

So I'm just waiting for the

biomechanical engineers to be replaced by just

their dungeon brother.

Well, yeah, I mean, just from my, you know, my mother was a radiographer in her early working life, and well, having met myself, you would not want me in charge of an X-ray machine.

they had this rather extraordinary press conference,

and you don't really associate extreme theocracies with press conferences.

That's more something you get with football clubs.

And there were no carefully placed bottles of Coca-Cola at the Taliban press conference, but there were certain similarities.

There were kind of soundbite platitudes about taking every revolution as it comes,

not getting ahead of ourselves, just want to focus on what we can control, do what we do best, absolutely ruining the lives of as many people as possible, leaving a trail of irredeemable destruction in our wake.

Next question, please.

And

also the story that, like I said, the financial side of things, and this story I read about how

international banks are trying to stop the Taliban accessing the Afghan central bank assets.

And I can fully relate to how annoying that must be for the Taliban because I had a similar incident this week.

I was trying to buy some dried apricots in a health food shop and my bank card was refused.

And

you know, I can imagine it's even more problematic if you're not merely buying fruity snacks in a slightly excessive quantity but you're actually trying to oppressively govern a mountainous nation of 38 million people with a rod of theocratic iron I mean you you don't want to have to worry about your bank card failing yeah happened to Shaquille O'Neill at a Walmart at three o'clock in the morning he

on a whim spent seventy thousand dollars on a Walmart at Walmart at three o'clock in the morning on dried apricots I assume on entirely on dried apricots but his bank card was declined because his bank didn't believe that Shaquille Ernil would be spending $70,000 at 3 a.m.

at all.

But quite high markets.

My bank did not think I was spending dried.

There's a pattern of spending there.

I bought a lot of dried apricots over the years.

A lot of apricots.

Shaq's bank just backed the ATM or the card reader popping up with, Are you okay, han?

Well, the solution to these banking woes has been suggested by the Bitcoin evangelists, so I'm not sure if they're suggesting the solution to the banking woes of the Taliban or of Afghanistan as a whole.

But

I think they're talking about the people doing runs on the bank in Afghanistan, desperately trying to get their money out before it all collapses.

I want to know if it's possible to be invested in Bitcoin and not tell everyone that you're invested in Bitcoin.

Are those

as part of the price you pay to buy Bitcoin?

There's an emotional tax on top of the...

Well, I saw them kind of saying that, you know, maybe this wouldn't have happened if Bitcoin...

Look, I agree that Bitcoin is a great thing, but this whole kind of like, if Bitcoin was the main system, this wouldn't have happened has the whiff of Dave from Ipswich again.

If we'd have done this 20 years ago, would we be in this situation now?

And I don't like, it's fine to talk about it, but if you're using it as an opportunity to trade, then you're no better than Wall Street, who you claim to hate.

Like, use it in the middle of a crisis going, actually, now's a really good time.

Well, Bitcoin utopianism is always so charming because when they describe the world that they imagine, it's like those horrifying movies where you start in what you think is a utopia and then you realise it's a nightmare built on a pit of despair, precariously balanced over a swamp of depressing realities about what happens when you have the thing you think you want and the thing you want is unregulated, untrackable, imaginary money.

It's just...

Someone's been watching Team Wolf.

So my favourite quote in this article about the Bitcoin maximalists, they call them, is from Eric Voorhees, who says, we shouldn't pretend that Bitcoin will fix the immediate suffering here, but it absolutely helps solve the problem of empire.

A Bitcoin world is a world of smaller governments, and smaller governments don't invade and occupy foreign nations for 20 years, he added, failing to understand the warring principalities of medieval Italy or how small governments have mysteriously turned into bigger governments throughout history.

I don't think he quite understands what he's talking about.

There's been a lot of criticism of, well, of America generally, a lot of, again, sort of navel gazing and soul searching there, and criticism of Joe Biden,

including from Donald Trump, whose heroic negotiations with the Taliban have contributed to this crisis.

Trump warned that Afghanistan could be, quotes, another Dunkirk situation, exclamation mark, slightly misremembering the Dunkirk story, I believe, which

is he is he just going, there's sand, we shall fight them on the beaches?

I think so.

I think it's something to do do with getting out of somewhere and sand and things going bang is he suggesting that we all send over our sh our fishing camels to take out people in ones and twos yes absolutely so send please do send them i imagine he'll be paddling his fishing camel across the himalayas as we speak um

uh joe biden said that he has quotes learnt the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw american forces which is very much lesson two in the there's never a good time to insert American forces course of history.

Sounded like he was describing the rhythm method there.

I just saw like family show, Tiff.

Family show.

There's someone who's not checking the temperature of their cervical mucus.

Well I mean that was not a sentence that I really anticipated getting into the into the story about the Taliban, but to be honest it's the last thing a Taliban would want.

So you know

Yeah,

I feel precise specific is about female anatomy.

The more I say those things out loud, the more I feel I'm striking a blow.

Very much in the same way as doing a tweet about it is making a difference.

Well, in case you've forgotten about the Taliban over the last 20 years, here is our quick catch-up.

Taliban fact box.

The name Taliban derives from the word Tali, meaning everything that is good, joyous, hopeful and just, and the word ban, meaning ban.

The average Taliban member can name fewer than 20 of the world's top 100 ranked women golfers.

The Taliban were estimated by Joe Biden in July to have 75,000 members.

That is well less than half the reported membership of the Iron Maiden Fan Club.

Read into that what you will.

When the Taliban were last in charge of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they could do nothing to stop the success of the Spice Girls, who diametrically opposed the Taliban socially and politically, yet went on to become one of the world's best-selling musical acts.

The Taliban's inability to stop Spice Mania undermined their credibility as an international brand.

Well, you know, the Spice Must Flow

Taliban leader Hyber.

Spice Melange.

Sorry.

I can't believe we got there.

I knew it would come eventually.

Taliban leader Haibatullah Akunzada.

She was the one who wore like a

she was the one who floated around in a weird suit, shouting at people.

That was Pan's people, wasn't it?

Taliban leader Haibatullah Akunzada owns no albums by the 70s disco stars Boney M, does not have a bumper sticker saying honk if you're horny and does not publicly envisage the dating game show Naked Attraction being a surprise ratings hit in Afghanistan anytime soon.

Haibatullah has never played the game I Have Never but does enjoy playing the game You Will Never with his female friends.

And finally, Scotland's Stephen Hendry won six of his seven World Snooker Championship titles before the Taliban first took power in Afghanistan in 1996.

Although he did win the title once more under Taliban rule in 1999, he was never quite the same player after the Taliban rose to power.

Disclaimer: there is no proven link between the Taliban's status in or out of government and the performance of professional snooker players.

Stephen Hendry is strongly opposed to Taliban rule.

The fact that John Higgins won his first world title whilst the Taliban were in power in 1998 is entirely coincidental, as is the fact that Steve Davis's period of dominance of world snooker overlaps suspiciously neatly with the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan.

Moving on from the Taliban.

Well, perhaps not coincidentally,

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

on

their website.

They are set to outlaw sexually explicit material

on their site.

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

Well, Andy, it's sort of an astonishing thing.

OnlyFans being basically synonymous with selling pictures of your junk to strangers

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

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

It's a sort of an existential doubt.

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

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

299 tits

whoppers for a fiver um

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

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

I can't.

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

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

Which, you know,

I hate to agree with the Bitcoin maximalists.

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

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

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

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

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

Let's never forget that side of it.

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

members, you know, gave them uh an account, it might help OnlyFans shed the idea that they're just a two-bit exploitative filth broker if they could also prove that they can exploit hardline religious franchises as well, so that they can cater for the entire spectrum of human activity from sex to sects.

Well

but the

the problem with religion, though, generally reluctant.

Cults to cults.

The problem with the

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

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

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

Environment News Now and July was the world's hottest ever month.

It was quite literally smoking hot, but emphatically, not in a sexy way, unless you find uncontrollable wildfires and a general harbinging of doom sexy, which, oh, look, I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, buglers, but it's not my thing.

It pipped July 2016, previous holder of the hottest month, Gong, by just 0.01 degrees Celsius.

Terrific effort from July 2021, but surely July 2016 is not going to take this lying down.

And it could be a classic rivalry between these two unarguably toasty months as they try to out-toast each other in future years.

I mean,

there seem to be quite a lot of hot months knocking around.

How did you find

July?

I mean,

did it feel like a moment of history?

It was quite hot in July.

I was in my kitchen with the fridge door open the whole time so I could cool down, asking myself, how has climate change got so bad?

But yeah, it was 120 in Italy.

We're doing fine, everyone.

We're doing fine.

I just, I think, like

what i would like to see i'd like a rent awareness to be raised around climate change um and on a personal note i would like to see more men getting naked for ecological causes so because women have been getting nude on the gram for ages with captions about climate change you know peter gun control everything i just want to i want a climate change dick pic and i want them to call it wood for trees

Like Kim Kardashian went nude for International Women's Day.

I want Kanye to show his asshole for Greenpeace.

Call it Ring of Peace.

Get creative.

Or maybe just like on Instagram, the silhouette of a nutsack, but you can't quite make it out through the toxic fog of air pollution.

Poignant.

So I think this would be a good way of raising awareness.

Yes.

I mean, possibly the most poignant image since the weeping penguin.

Is that what they call it?

Well, I think it's Kanye's nickname for his.

Anyway, Alice, what are you about to say?

Oh, Andy, I just don't know what to do with this story.

I've tried feeling sad, I've tried feeling helpless, I've tried feeling angry, I've tried recycling, I've tried mentioning how angry and helpless and sad I feel on social media, and yet these multi-billion dollar conglomerates carry on relentlessly chomping up the world's resources to the marching tune of consumer capitalism under a thin scrim of greenwashed marketing.

I just don't know what to try next.

Right.

Well, I mean, is greenwashed marketing not enough?

Because

our local

petrol station rebranded a while ago with a lovely new green logo.

And since then, I've just felt our car has polluted maybe 80 to 90% less.

Food news now.

And a new study has suggested that every time a person eats a hot dog, their death gets 36 minutes closer.

Or it well, mean, they didn't use those terms, they said it shortens their life by 36 minutes of quality lifetime, but still, I like to think it is bringing the moment of annihilation closer.

A bit of salmon adds 16 minutes.

Apparently, I could have told you that for free from my great uncle, my great-uncle Erminduke who ate piece of salmon every quarter of an hour and lived to the age of 119,

albeit that he spent the last 43 years of his life in the palliative care unit next to a salmon farm.

A double cheeseburger knocks off 8 minutes, 48 seconds, but can be counterbalanced by smearing it with two-thirds of a banana.

Yum, that will balance out your cheeseburger, so it will neither add nor take away from your life.

A hot dog at 36 minutes is one of the most effective life-shortening foods, but if hanging around forever to watch the planet burn is your bag, then simply make sure you eat 14 avocados with every hot dog.

That puts you three minutes, 12 seconds in credits per meal, at three meals per day.

After 80 years, you should be looking at living to the ripe old age of 112.

Whilst if you eat a kilogram of nuts on the hour, every hour, you will never die.

On the other hand, if you love chili concani, one of the magical life-extending foods, according to the report, but cannot face the prospect of eternal life and watching all your hot dog-loving friends happily die off in a fug of mustard and ketchup fumes, shouting Jeanne Regret Rien as they squirt the final squad of tomato sauce on their departing dog, then make sure you belt down a bucket of chicken wings at the same time to keep the reaper interested.

I mean, it's nice to know that we have control through our diet over exactly when we're going to cock it.

I mean, this is my favorite kind of story, Andy, because my favorite kind of story is the story that raises the question: who are these evil scientists

who's feeding people hot dogs with a timer with a skull on the front of it?

That sounds like perfect OnlyFans content.

It does really make you worry for Joey Chestnut, the

undisputed Don Bradman of speed eating, who you know gets through what is it, 70 odd hot dogs in 10 minutes.

I mean, that's I'm just gonna have to do some have to do some maths here.

So, I mean, every time Joey Chestnut smashes a record for hot dog eating, what's that 2,520?

That's I mean, it's almost two days of his life he's sacrificing for our entertainment.

Worth it, worth it, yeah.

And when I say entertainment, I mean deep visceral revulsion.

Brain news now, and uh a tiny human brain has been grown in a laboratory that has little eye things that can see light.

Um Alice, you are our obvious end of the world correspondent.

Have these fkers never watched a horror film?

I mean, seriously, small blobules of human brain grown for whatever fing reason in some kind of dish by Powercrace science wonks, and they've coaxed them into speed evoluting rudimentary eyes.

What the f are these people thinking?

Again, one of my favourite kinds of stories, the story of the evil scientist who grows little brain organelles in a dish.

And then this is the my I think the turn of phrase that I enjoy the most is that these little brain organelles, blobs of artificial brain tissue grown in a dish, have been coaxed into forming rudimentary eyes, which I feel coaxed covers a multitude of sins in which they're sort of zapping and screaming at these tiny little non-brains.

But these rudimentary eyes are totally functional.

They respond to light by sending signals to the rest of the brain tissue, raising the question of, oh God, what have we created?

Any of the outcomes from here are either going to be amazing or horrifying, and probably both.

But the reason that I love this story so much is I want everybody who's listening to this right now to look up how incredibly cute they are.

Wait till they're popped into the head of one of those Boston dynamic robo-dogs.

You'll think they're

the Tesla bot that's coming out next year.

So these eyes apparently respond to light by sending signals to the rest of the blob of brain tissue in the Petri dish.

And the upshot of all this, according to scientists, is obviously the inevitable destruction of our species by marauding herds of flesh-eating giant-eyed hyperblob mega brains that will obviously kill us all.

But I mean that's some way down the line.

I guess, you know, more, I mean, I guess it might have some kind of medical use, but I mean, that's not your first reaction.

I mean, the first reaction is,

for f's sake, stop doing this kind of shit.

And

in fact, I'm just hearing now that some of the blob yules of human brain have escaped from the laboratory and stormed the Capitol building, claiming that an election has been rigged.

I cannot disagree with you more, Andy.

I I feel like the inevitable outcome is the creation of Krang, the charming villain in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is just a brain in a robot case.

And I can't wait.

This feels like that time, there was a story that, I don't know why it reminded me of this, but

they put 3D glasses on cuttlefish.

This was a new scientist special as well, to prove that they sense depth just like us.

So you just see a cuttlefish sort of banging itself itself off of like

well, not banging itself, I suppose, because they've got death perception, but just like wandering the four corners of its tank going, well, this is too small.

Is wandering the correct word for a cuttlefish?

Like sort of.

Oh, I don't know, actually.

It's sort of

what does it do?

Yeah, they ripple and swoosh.

I did just before this lockdown actually attend a 4D screening of the new Mortal Kombat movie, which is even worse than 3D screening because

you sit in a chair, and then whenever anything happens, it punches you in the kidneys and then sprays water on your face.

It's genuinely the worst cinematic experience of my life.

Sometimes it just blows air on the back of your neck like a creep.

Sounds like two teenagers on a date at the cinema.

It's the worst.

Wait till you put your hand in the popcorn, Alice.

Well, that brings us to the end of this week's Bugle.

It's nice to be back.

We will be shifting to Monday recordings for the next few weeks due to initially cricket and then the return of the news quiz.

Don't forget the Bugle live show on Tuesday, the 7th of September, in London at the Underbellies Earls Court venue, the London Wonderground.

It will feature me, Chris Addison, and via the wonders of the internet's Alice Fraser.

Before I play you out some lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers to join them, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button to make a one-off or occurring contribution to help keep the show free, flourishing, and independent.

Are there any shows, Alice and Tiff, that you'd like to alert our listeners to?

Old Rope is back on the 6th of September.

So check my Twitter and Old Rope's Twitter for details of line-ups, etc.

A day before the bugle returns, so you could have the best Monday and Tuesday of your life.

I think I'm doing a show at the London Wonderground as well,

early September, I think maybe the 4th.

So yeah, so check those out.

And I have a weekly show called The Gargle, which is the glossy magazine to this audio newspaper for a visual world.

You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at alliterative A-I-T-E-R-A-T-I-V-E or patreon.com slash AliceFraser, where I have all of my stand-up specials, podcasts, and blogs, as well as my weekly tea with Alice salons where we all just hang out and have a nice chat.

Anuvab Powell has a run at Soho Theatre in the first week or so of September so do check that out as well.

Well Buglers until next week goodbye.

Here now are some lies.

Keith Cowans believes that for one day a year, everyone should have to dress up in a chicken costume in order that we better understand what chickens have to put up with in life.

I think we'd respect the chicken more if we stood in their shoes for a while says Keith.

Since they don't wear shoes a chicken costume will have to do.

And not just chickens either he continues.

All species.

I just happen to have a lot of chicken outfits.

Don't ask.

Long story.

Elizabeth Ryan is worried about the environmental impact of floodlights at sporting events and wishes players would each wear individual floodlight helmets instead of relying on massive pylons blasting out light for everyone all at once.

I think it would make the sport more interesting too and players who knew they weren't really contributing much could turn off their lights.

We see enough sport when the players can see exactly what they're doing so let's see someone they can't.

It might be interesting.

Besides, it should help people keep a steady head position too.

Yet another correspondent who claims to be named Muammar Gaddafi enjoys cooking not so much for the food or the craft, but because he enjoys the percussive opportunities offered by something that involves A, wooden spoons and B metal saucepans.

I like to finish dishes with a dramatic drum roll, explains Muammar, and I only ever actually use the lids of saucepans as symbols.

Cost me a few jobs in restaurant kitchens back in the day, but I'm sticking with it.

Louisa Jeffery enjoyed the recent Olympic Games, but feels that there should be scope for an event in which participants windsurf through the streets of the host city on skateboards using umbrellas to catch the wind dressed as Mary Poppins.

Let's face it, says Louisa, it wouldn't be nearly the silliest event at the games and it's what Julie Andrews would have wanted, I assume.

Mind you, you'd have to be very careful exactly what was going into that spoonful of sugar.

You know athletes.

And finally Al Barker is rightly suspicious of trees.

I wonder what their long-term game is, says Al.

They've seen a lot, but they give away so little.

I don't trust things that are so tall, so unapologetically stationary, and yet so quiet.

Evolutionarily, I reckon they think we're a lot of Johnny Come Lately chumps and are playing the long game.

Whatever, I'm not happy about having having one that stares at me whenever I pass it near where I live.

Here endeth this week's lies.

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.