The hottest Bugle ever! (4199)

Hello, I'm Alice.

So you're about to listen to The Bugle, but have you listened to The Gargle?

It's great.

It's a podcast.

I'm the host.

We talk about all of the news and none of the politics.

It's like the bugle, but not the bugle.

It's the glossy magazine to the bugle's audio newspaper for a visual world.

And we have an episode in the podcast feed now.

The link is in the show notes of the bugle.

So after you've listened to the bugle, go over and listen to the gargle.

I'll talk to you soon.

Bye!

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4199 of the Bugle.

I'm Andy Zoltzmann in the shed of Immutable Correctitude.

It is Friday, the 9th of July, 2021.

And for all of you listeners, this week we have a special free gift.

As we build up to our 200th episode since relaunch, it's your chance to introduce yourself as a Bugle co-host.

Simply fill in the gaps in the following intro to describe yourself and your role in the world, and you too can imagine that you are a Bugle co-host.

I am joined today for the first time by a very special

someone who has built a

reputation in the world of

for their incredible work doing

in

without ever once being

someone who brings to this show a unique

a distinctive

and an incredible

of

yes it's the person described by

as one of the most

they'd ever come across a bit harsh it's none other than

There you go.

I hope that made you all feel very special.

And joining me and

we have from Sydney, Australia, Alice Fraser, and from Mumbai India Anuvab Pal.

Hello both of you welcome to this special four-handed bugle with our special guests from home.

How are you both?

I'm well Andy.

Hello Anuvab, hello buglers.

We are now in Sydney lockdown and everybody's having a real panic about it as though we haven't watched the rest of the world suffer for the last year and a half because our suffering is special.

We've had a week of lockdown Andy, we're really on the edge.

It's sort of gone the other way.

So how many cases have brought about this lockdown in Australia?

I think it was

40 in the 40s today.

There was about 40 something cases today.

Presumably you mean like thousands?

In the 40,000?

Oh, right, okay.

No.

Because in Britain we're only around about what, 30,000 a day, and frankly,

everything is off now.

People, we've just, we've just given, we've clocked off as a nation.

The virus is, I mean, it's a thing in the pot, isn't it?

Chris?

I mean, it's

doesn't even exist anymore.

Just

but luckily, football has conquered the virus, as we will discuss later on.

Anubav, how's how's things in Mumbai?

Everybody got the virus in April and May in India,

and a lot of people died, and then the ones that didn't are now going out without masks and deciding to do it all over again, in case history was not a reminder.

And the Prime Minister has said it is time to frighten people so that they can stay indoors.

So one thing that has happened because of this, Andy, Alice, is that a lot of Indians have started watching this European Cup football thing.

And I have to say, you know, having sort of a background in drama,

I haven't watched a lot of football, but I remember it in two phases.

I remember when the English football team had a group of people that looked very strong and spent a lot of time looking like people who haul raw meat.

And the fans looked a bit like that.

I've been watching this game now 20 years on.

I think 96 was the last time I saw it.

And now they all look like they're in a physics class.

And

the coach looks like he teaches Boolean algebra.

So I think that the team seems to have changed a little, but then I don't know anything.

It has changed.

I mean, the fans haven't changed.

The fans still look very much like, well, not so much that they're hauling meat, but they may in fact themselves be meat on the way to some form of abattoir.

But

the players, well, I mean, they are.

I mean, England,

it's just another one of the traditions that we're losing as a country.

The great tradition of our football team being massively inept under pressure, not having a finging clue what any of the rest of the team is doing and underperforming massively.

And I'm not comfortable with it.

I mean, Chris, you're more of a football fan than me, but I mean, is there anything left that's that's distinctive about English?

Well, if we apply competence and strategy to a tournament, what have we got left?

There's nothing that differentiates us from ev everyone else.

You've just got to see, if you're struggling with it, you've just got to understand that it's a team of Irishmen, Jamaicans and Nigerians.

And for those on one side of the political debate, they'll go, Yeah, I told you so, and those on the other, they'll make exactly the same point.

But it I mean it is uh they are an unusually likable uh squad, it seems.

Uh as much as you can you can you can tell these things, they seem unusually politically aware

for for footballers and I mean very few of them have criminal records if any at the moment which is another another tradition that's gone out the window

now this is Bugle 4199 which means let me work it out we've done almost 200 full episodes since our relaunch late in 2016 we're heading towards 500 episodes in total that is more episodes than I've had hot dinners in the last three months Just.

And it's also more episodes than a number of drafts of Hamlet's soliloquy that William Shakespeare or Will the Quill, Billy the Bloviator, got through before he finalised to be or not to be.

Amongst the drafts that he jettisoned were, yeah, I just can't make the call.

Can you help me out, guys?

Give me a cheer for to be.

Give me a boo for not to be.

Also, he got rid of Sodit.

I'll do a coin toss.

Heads for B, Tails for Not B.

Yeah, let's make it best of three.

As well as inny or outie, GT or whiskey sour, and geez, what the f f do I know.

We are recording on the 9th of July, which means Monday the 12th is a happy birthday for Henry David Thoreau, the 19th-century American writer who famously took himself off to live in the woods for a couple of years on his own, to live at one with nature, albeit walking distance from his mates' house and a town.

But he wrote some interesting things.

Also, his mates' wife did all this laundry.

Well, you know, at least he made an effort.

He made an effort.

He said this, most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

Well,

very noble thought, Henry, but that is no way to build a consumer economy.

With that attitude, we would never have developed Google Glass, and the world would be much poorer.

Much poorer for it.

A lot of 19th century American writers went off into the woods and thought up stuff.

You know, I've gone to some woods and I haven't, I've only come back with petty logistics thoughts.

You know, like

is the sole of my shoes coming off, I need to go to a cobbler, that kind of stuff.

You know, I need to reduce two of my debit cards.

You know, that kind of stuff.

This guy goes off into the woods and comes out with like a whole treatise on free will.

On

Adam Smith, you know, he went off and then just came back with this entire theory of supply-side economics.

You know,

if I went down the field, I just, you know, if I came back, all I think of is, you know,

did I press the spin thing in the washing machine or did I not?

I think as Indians, we deal with the outdoors very differently than writers of the 19th century.

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

Firstly, a free Delphic oracle.

To help you confuse people about the future, choose from one of the following free Delphic oracles.

Let not the sausage be cast unto the winds, but stand betwixt the mountains and the bus depot.

If you should bark, no dog shall seek to speak, but if you bark again, the goat will fly into the skyscraper.

When the sun rises in the west, then shall your leader speak the truth.

With metal spoons may you eat your lunch, but he who uses only the knife shall be hungry by tea-time.

He who prays for a milkshake may wish he had prayed for a straw.

And, my boy lollipop, you make my heart go giddy up.

Please use those wisely and responsibly.

Also in the bin, a special,

well, a special football.

How did they know it was a boy lollipop?

Is all I know.

Because it was blue, Alice.

Obviously.

Aside lollipop at that.

Makes all the difference.

Also in the bin this week, a special football supplement.

Because, well, as we've touched on already, this is the first bugle ever to take place after England as a football nation has qualified for the final of a major football tournament but what if it isn't archivists have found what may have been an episode of the bugle dating to Friday the 29th of July 1966 the day before England played West Germany in the World Cup final let's just hear a little snippet from it

Well John let's talk about the football before you start banging on about Lyndon Johnson again what's it going to be this week freedom of information Vietnam the airline mechanics strikes.

So what?

Geez, give it a rest, buddy.

Let the man do his job.

But before we do that, I just want to say that I don't think you can separate the recent explosion in blues music here in the United Kingdom from the improved performance of the England football team.

I know the Rolling Stones are getting on a bit now.

They're heading towards their mid-20s.

That's too old to be playing the kind of music they play, in my opinion.

But you can't argue with the fact that since they and the Animals, the other bands in the British blues seed have come on the scene, we've reached a World Cup final.

John, I think we've lost the line.

Anyway, later on in this week's bugle a fashion section i mean seriously what are people wearing these days and don't get me started on the hair also we look at the government's austerity program do these things ever work and of course we will look forward to next weekend's scheduled birth of jimmy wales who will of course go on to become the founder of wikipedia

so there you go i mean it is its authenticity is it should be said disputed but um we'll leave it up to you to to decide whether you think that's an authentic someone ran a teabag around the edges of that recording

Top story this week, temperature records tumbling in places you really don't want to see temperature records tumbling.

It's, well, I mean, let's start with the latest on

our great planets' heroic efforts to narrow the gap to the likes of Venus and Jupiter in the race to be the solar system's least inhabitable orb.

I mean, we're probably never quite going to catch up with Venus, but it's still like trying to beat Novak Djokovic at tennis, to be honest.

You can still try and put in a a good run and maybe sneak a set off him, no disgrace.

And it's hard to love those planets, but you've got to respect them.

But things have been hot on this planet.

Certainly not at cricket matches in England where they've mostly been wet, but elsewhere, some highly alarming temperature records.

49 degrees Celsius in Canada.

The other week it was 48 degrees in Siberia.

And a temperature record's being set in Antarctica, 18.3 degrees, which doesn't sound all that hot until you remember.

It's f ⁇ ing Antarctica!

It's not f ⁇ ing Majorca!

Alice, you live in a

notoriously stupidly hot place,

Australia.

I mean, how

is this just that the rest of the world looking at Australia thinking, oh, well, that seems to be a nice place, let's try and be more like that, or is it something more worrying for you?

I think it's probably envy, Andy.

Things in America are getting hot, hot, hot.

And by hot, I mean sexy, and by sexy, I mean terrifying.

There's nothing North Americans find scarier than sexiness.

Just look at how they dress for Halloween.

You think things can't get too hot?

This is as hot as a Hollywood star who hasn't eaten carbs for three weeks, taking their shirt off for a scene in which the globe is at a tipping point towards irrevocable environmental degradation.

Whoa, you can see that all of their abs, and also shellfish are being boiled alive in their habitats.

Yes, I mean, that was a detail that was slightly alarming.

Anniva, I don't know if you saw this, that

mussels off the coast of Washington state and Canada were being essentially cooked in the sea.

Which, I mean, is that

just a more efficient means of producing food for humanity?

Or

again, is it a sign that we are all doomed?

You know, there is a massive labor shortage in the United States, so mussels are cooking themselves.

I think that's great for holidaymakers.

Look, Alice, Andy, I really don't understand this.

I read the article.

It said temperature in Canada, northwest United States, is hit 44 degrees.

I read that and I thought, oh, they're talking about how nice the weather is.

44 degrees is any Thursday in Jaipur

at the height of winter.

The words, oh, they've just recorded a new heat record in Antarctica.

I have that up with sentences I really don't want to hear at any point in my life, such as, well, no one told me it was a pantomime cow.

Anyway, do you still want the steak?

Also, and for everyone in Carriage D, it's now biblical swarm of scorpions practice time.

And sorry, I know you've woken from an eighteen month coma, but yes, he is still Prime Minister.

I don't want to hear any of those sentences.

And I mean, no one reacts

well to a sentence, oh, they recorded a new heat record in Antarctica.

Oh, well done, Antarctica.

That's such a great story, isn't it?

Because Antarctica is generally useless at being hot.

But this just shows that if you really want something and you put the effort in with the right kind of support around the world, you can achieve your dreams.

No one reacts to that like this before you move into a seamless and uplifting song about success against the odds.

This is

I'm not comfortable with it.

And just the concept of a heat dome.

We heard about this,

the tragic heat dome in North America.

And it was not a term I'd come across before.

I mean, I always thought heat dome was a memo from the Pope to himself in winter.

Because of course,

prayers get up to God much more accurately and quickly if delivered through a warm dome

rather than a cold dome, that's one of the reasons there are more spires than domes because they're easier to heat.

So, if you're a cathedral or temple owner with a dome, you probably should actually paint it black to absorb more heat.

Might not look as good, but the prayer does become 3.8% more efficient.

But it's some

heat dome with those metal things that butlers put over your breakfast.

A cloch?

Are they called cloches?

Yes.

They are called closhes, yeah.

I've always thought of.

But I was pretending I didn't know that, but comic effect.

I very much do know it.

The finest klosch work I've ever seen was

some years ago in Paris.

I was on a weekend with Mrs.

Zedd, my wife,

Rothen there.

And we went to this restaurant in Paris, and there was

this dish that came out.

It was a ridiculous restaurant.

We had their cheapest possible lunch deal.

But on the table next to us, this kloch came out and it was lifted up with great ceremony.

And underneath was an inflated bladder containing a chicken.

And

we checked the menu and the price of the chicken in a bladder.

It was the worst birthday balloon.

It was something like 220 euros.

And then they stabbed the bladder.

So it then deflated.

And you could then tear apart your bladder skin and eat your chicken.

Why hasn't that been a gender reveal party?

So, I mean,

what gender would be revealed by a chicken in a bladder?

I think probably that your child was going to be posh.

Some extraordinary things have been said about climate recently as these increasingly concerning events increasingly happen increasingly.

Baroness Worthington, lead author on the UK's Climate Change Act, said concerned scientists are no longer concerned.

They are, and I quote, freaked out.

Now,

when scientists...

Not a baroness, not talking about scientists, but is this the kind of language we need?

You know, freaking out.

The scientists are freaking out.

You get that on a news report.

You're going to pay more attention than scientists have expressed some concern.

The language is changing from global warming to

global heating, climate change to the ovanization of the planet and concern to freaked out.

Maybe that's what we need.

Yeah, and I think it matters who the scientist is.

You know, if somebody told me, you know, Albert Einstein is worried, I'd be like, okay, Albert Einstein is freaking out.

You know, Oppenheimer is worried.

Oppenheimer is freaking out.

That's a concern.

That could be a nuclear bomb in Gaggot.

So, you know, it's.

Well, in summary, I would say the environment is essentially like a shark in a swimming pool.

It won't go away, it keeps getting angrier.

And whilst we know we should have dealt with it ages ago, like when someone first said that's a shark's egg in there and it's about to hatch, but we didn't because we couldn't be asked and the shark extractor was a bit expensive.

Now it's getting harder and harder to enjoy your swim whilst old Chompy Chops nibbles his way through another set of pensioners.

We're essentially in that situation with the climate.

So scientists, understandably, Alice, are looking for other things to turn their research minds to that are slightly more entertaining.

And one of which is turning fish into drug addicts.

You are our piskine addiction correspondent.

Bring us up to date.

Yes, Andy, in other humans can't be trusted with the natural world news.

A number of scientists have tried to assess whether fish can be addicted to stimulants because they're worried that wastewater that it contains drugs will affect the underwater environment.

So they did a test on fish.

And again, scientists,

who got the funding for this?

they got two groups of trout put into separate holding tanks and they laced one of the trout tanks with meth

which

then they went and checked it back later compared to the placebo group and the meth tank that they checked I assume was incredibly clean and all the fish were fighting each other

But they're worried because there's aquatic habitats in places like Czech and Slovak republics that have been contaminated with like quite high concentrations of meth.

And I just think this is a great study, Andy.

I think this is a great study.

I'm glad that they got permission to do it.

Other addiction studies include horses on heroin, ducks on ketamine, and flamingos off cocaine.

Don't tell me those arrogant heads aren't already off their faces on Charlie.

They are the bird that would back you into the corner at a party and settle in on one leg to talk about their crypto scheme.

It's like Facebook, but the blockchain.

Let it go, Alex.

Let it go.

Never.

I just want to mention: who in the world, you know, I'm just looking at this from a screenplay perspective here.

Who in the world thought about combining finding Nemo and Breaking Bad?

That is sort of classic Hollywood brainstorming, isn't it?

To think, oh, well, finding Nemo is successful, Breaking Bad is successful.

They cover different demographics.

Let's put them together and get Trout hopped up on meth.

Yes, an innocent aquatic fish school teacher.

COVID news now and well as we've discussed earlier on, lockdown is easing in the UK under the government's fingers crossed scheme.

In Australia, lockdowns are tightening and there's controversy, Alice, over vaccinations in a private school.

Now

because

some private school children at St Joseph's College were apparently given coronavirus vaccines, even though they are under the age of 40.

Is that the age that you're supposed to get your vaccines in Australia currently?

At the moment, yes, we have not enough vaccines and also not enough virus, so they're going down by age group.

And we've got a fairly limited supply of vaccines at the moment because we didn't have anyone dying.

But look, we've got Delta now, so we've got something to look forward to.

So

this is a mistake that people are calling probably not a mistake in that Indigenous students were to be allowed to be vaccinated given that that they are more vulnerable to the disease.

And instead, all 163 year 12 boarders at this elite private school were given the vaccine through an error.

And if you've ever tried to inject a private school child without a permission slip from their parent, I would like to hear about it from your jail cell because that shit doesn't happen.

It doesn't, that is not the kind of accident that anyone is going to have in a private school.

So people are right, right, you know,

understandably outraged,

both the other private schools outraged that they didn't also get to take advantage of this loophole/slash accident, and everyone else outraged at the privilege of the private school people.

I mean,

does it reflect poorly on us as a species, do you think, that it took a global pandemic for people to start getting cranky about the purchased privilege of private education?

Is this just another example of humanity really not being very good at getting around to doing stuff in time rather than sort of thinking ahead.

We wait until there's a pandemic and get annoyed about the kind of privilege that gave me a very healthy leg up in life.

I mean, it's typical we leave things late.

Oh, we could write some really good poetry and design some jet engines, but no, let's wait for a world war before we really raise our game.

And it seems

similar with this.

And

in terms of vaccination in

India,

how's that all rolling out at the moment?

Well, very simple, Landy.

Prime Minister Modi said, I mean, look, just to digress for one second, Alice, it's really fantastic.

You said there are about 40 cases in Australia, and you probably know the names of every individual that has COVID.

And it's a little bit different here.

I think we're in about 340 cases, but today it was 40.

Stop at 340.

The England cricket squad had nearly that many cases

as

the whole of Australia.

I mean, at the height of the pandemic, they were were talking about the state of Uttar Pradesh as everyone having COVID, and that is the size of Brazil.

So we didn't know the names of everyone.

It was hard to keep that statistic.

But Prime Minister Modi has said this week, everyone needs to be frightened.

A third wave is coming.

And he's figured out the best way to scare people, which is why he's putting his photo on each vaccination certificate.

Well, look,

I think, don't worry, Anubab, I am not complaining.

I'm complaining about other people complaining.

That's where I sit in the hierarchy of people complaining about coronavirus in Australia.

I think it's good that this St.

Joseph's incident happened because it was good training for these young private schoolboys in taking advantage of Indigenous people,

which I think is part of their fine tradition.

It's part of the school curriculum, I think, isn't it?

But there is some good news from vaccinations in that,

according to the Teletubbies twitter feed all four teletubbies have now been vaccinated

I mean some have said why are they getting preferential treatment but you know they're all I mean they all must be 30 years old now because the show was first on in 1997.

Well according to their vaccination certificates they're only 18 which means that either time moves in a different way where they are or they are lying on their birth certificates.

Well they're in showbiz Alice.

Of course everyone drops their age in showbiz, don't they?

But this is, you know, this is all new information about the teletubbies.

I didn't know they went to private school for one.

To be honest, what they wear is slightly less ludicrous than some private school uniforms in this country.

I'm enraged that these teletubbies have been vaccinated.

They cue jumping, f heads, screen-bellied burblers with their patronising cooing and their terrifying, whimsical infant sun god, Amun Ram, or like Amun Wa.

But if you say that, I think it shows they're being a bit more responsible now because at least they're taking the threat of COVID seriously, setting an example.

They know they're influencers as much as children's entertainers.

If only they'd been quite as careful about STDs back in their heyday, then things would have been a lot smoother.

I just quickly read up on the vaccine they took, Alice Andy,

and they took a vaccine called Astra Tubika.

Excellent vaccine.

And I read a lot of comments under it and said, this is not a vaccine.

This is apparently a joke.

I didn't really understand the joke because there's a CNN story.

I don't know if you guys saw Defoe yesterday in India, where thousands of people have fallen prey to an elaborate fake coronavirus vaccination drive where doctors and medical workers were arrested for injecting people with salt and water.

There were 12 different vaccination drives where they were using saline water and injecting it.

And is that really different, I ask you, from Astra Tubika?

Well, I mean, look, the teletoppy is getting injected.

The problem with this as a propaganda move is the teletoppy's audience, as far as I know, is children, very small children, who are...

I don't think we need to be convincing two-year-olds to get vaccinated.

Or is this like the pester power thing?

You're hoping that when their parents are at the supermarket, they'll start whinging enough that their mum gets a Pfizer.

Like, I don't.

Big voting block, Alice.

Big voting block.

Well, and also, you know,

they are role models, and as I said, they take their public role very seriously.

Lala, of course,

in the forefront of raising awareness of dementia way before it

became fashionable.

Dipsy,

short, of course, for dipsomaniac, and the raw honesty with which Dipsy was unashamed about his struggles with the bottle was really very influential

in helping people around the world.

Poe, of course, that's short for peak oil,

which is a warning for the world to move away from fossil fuels.

And Tinky Winky, well,

let's not go there, still sub-Judice, of course.

Indian news now, and well, Anuvab, whenever you're on the show,

there seems to be always some ludicrously complicated court case involving corruption, big business, and the government.

And this week

is no exception.

It's Cairn Energy,

Britain-based energy giant, uh in a very odd uh legal dispute with the Indian government.

Yeah, I mean, it's uh you know, uh

other other countries like you know, in the West, etcetera, you guys have love, you have fresh air.

We have court cases, that's really what gets us going.

That's just a thing, it's how we live.

Um now, India passed a random tax law in twenty twelve where they charged Cairn Energy billions of dollars in extra extra taxes.

Kairn Energy said we're not going to pay this, we're going to go to an international court, and the government of India lost in the international court.

And this year, a French court has let Cairn Energy seize Indian government assets in France.

So

the Indian government has to return $1.2 billion plus interest to Cairn Energy.

And the Indian government is not talking to Cairn Energy.

So Can Energy has done the next best thing, which is gone around the world seizing Indian assets.

They started with France, and the first thing they seized in France is the ambassador's house.

So the Indian ambassador was quoted as saying, where am I going to live?

Which is an excellent question at the end of any arbitration.

I mean, what's next.

There was also something I read about them

to take hold of Indian aeroplanes.

Exactly, exactly.

So basically, you are right.

The world has changed a little.

Apparently, British companies cannot just seize Indian assets like it's 1860.

Now they have to do it through a court and in this court indeed they won.

So they have a range of Indian assets they can take,

diplomatic missions, aeroplanes.

So anything that's an alter ego of the government of India they can take.

They can even probably take national icons such Intendulka, the cricketer.

Anything that's an alter ego of the state of India, the French court has said, is fair game.

So if you guys have suggestions for KN Energy, I think they have a website.

Right.

So, I mean, are people worried now that they might get on an Air India flight and there'll be sort of plain clothes KN Energy executives just rifling through their hand luggage and helping themselves to jewelry?

Yeah, apparently, there's some precedence to this, Andy.

I think some government seized Pakistan airlines, a Pakistan Airlines plane for unpaid debt.

A similar thing happened to Venezuela.

I think a Western country seized a couple of hotels.

My only hope is that when they seize these these things, they better get the pilots a ticket home.

I just think it's really unfair to seize individuals along with the assets because it's not 17.50 anymore.

Sport now, and England is beside itself with excitement after making it into the final of the European Championships for the very first time, and only their second final of a major football football tournament after the 1966 World Cup.

And when you put it in those terms, I think you have to really recognise what a heroic effort of underachievement English football has put in over the years with the resources, money, population that England has to have been so fing shit for so fing long is something that really I don't think we get enough credit for.

But as we were saying, English football has changed.

The players are more socially aware and

politically active.

But some things that haven't changed are the significant proportion of England's fans being platinum grade f ⁇ heads.

And

it's very hard to warm to England fans broadly.

I imagine it's even harder if you're

not English.

And they heroically, after a tournament that has really been sort of notable for its goodwill, and particularly for the Danish team, who at the start of the tournament, their star player Christian Eriksson, had a near-fatal heart attack on the pitch during their opening match.

And they managed to come back from that and make it as far as the semi-finals.

And you know, they all seemed like a good-natured side.

And the England football fans took it upon themselves to boo the Danish national anthem and then aimed-this is not all England fans, some England fans, aim a laser at the opposition goalkeeper whilst he was attempting to save a crucial penalty in extra time.

So it's you know, as outside observers of

football and, you know, Englishness, I mean,

what lessons do we learn

from this?

I, for one, am delighted, Andy, to realise that among the side effects of long COVID, as well as erectile dysfunction, being an absolute

football game seems to be

in the mix there.

I mean, it is,

like I said, it's 55 years since England won a tournament or even

reached a final.

And I don't think anyone's quite sure how the nation is going to react other than with a ridiculous amount of excitement and a frankly potentially planet-ending degree of smugness.

This is the problem, Andy.

We already know that England are sore losers

and we are equipped to deal with the bad sportsmanship that comes with England's football fans losing a game.

I don't think we're equipped to deal with what's going to happen if they win.

I don't think that anyone can understand the level of chaos that will ensue.

Chris, where do you put this in greatest moments in the history of humanity?

From an English perspective, this is undoubtedly the greatest thing that's happened to us of all time, which is why literally every single radio station and TV show for the last four days, doesn't matter what it's been about, has been focused on this.

So you thought you were watching Homes Under the Hammer.

It's now Football Edition this week.

Look, I just think all of football is a race between which team is going to realise that you can use your hands first.

I think New Zealand won that race probably, didn't they?

And Chris, when you say greatest thing in the history of the country, you are including the Magna Carta.

Oh, yeah.

the birth of the modern naval industry, the Industrial Revolution, all of that.

Yeah, I mean, that puts everything in the shade, really.

You know,

they've only let in one goal in

six matches.

They're doing this in a heroically tedious fashion.

There's been some great football news in India as well recently, Anuvab.

I know you're an obsessive follower of global football.

But there was a very exciting moment for India.

Yeah, well, you know,

there's a lot of Euro going on, and we sat down and said, you know, we've got 1.6 billion billion people, and we haven't even qualified for the Southeast Asian regional finals.

And what's the reason for that?

So apparently, you know, we tried to qualify for the World Cup, but we lost to Qatar and Oman.

Now, this is the bad news.

I'll come to the good news very quickly.

Qatar and Oman have 750,000 people in all.

This recording studio I'm in has more than 750,000 people.

But still, we're third in our little pocket in Asia.

However, we have a footballer called Sunil Khetri, who is right now the highest, second highest goal scorer in the world

after

Cristiano Ronaldo.

He's higher than Messi.

Now, a lot of these goals were scored in his house.

A lot of these goals were scored in amateur matches.

But just in sheer numbers, Andy, because I know you like statistics, he is indeed the second highest goal scorer in the world.

So you have to wonder, where is he during this tournament?

He's in a studio in Mumbai talking nonsense.

And I blame the first world for this.

You know, if Sunil Khetri was kidnapped and given British citizenship or Italian citizenship, you know,

he's already ahead of Messi.

So this is actually your loss.

It's a loss of the Western world.

So to just clarify, he's amongst currently active players, he's second behind.

Ronaldo.

I've actually got an update for you, Anuva, because sadly, since Sunil Khetri scored his 73rd and 74th international goals against Bangladesh,

classic brace for the Indian striker, who, of course, famously also bagged a hat-trick against Tajikistan back in 2008.

Two teams Lionel Messi's never scored against, it must be said.

Messi was obviously stung by this, and he scored a few goals in the Copper America that have taken him back ahead.

of Sunil Ketri.

Now, there's been a lot of talk about Messi.

He's now, what is he, 36, 37 years old?

People say, how long will he go on?

What's his motivation now?

And maybe this could be it.

He's head-to-head in the international goals race with Sunil Ketri.

That could put another four or five years on his career because he is not going to want to lose that race.

He's already way behind Ronaldo.

That's got a sting.

But to be behind Ronaldo and Sunil Khetri, there's no way the little master's going to let that happen.

No chance.

And Andy, look, there've been some talk about some goalkeeper from Denmark having a flashlight laser pointed at him.

I'm telling you, Lionel Messi needs to come to India and play with Sunil Khatri.

And I'm only telling you this analysis because you know football in India and you have attended a game

and pointing a laser is the least of the goalkeeper's problems.

Yeah, well I've attended two games, one of which finished

and the other of which did not finish due to a riot and masonry being thrown onto the pitch of the players.

The Calcutta derby of 2012 between East Bengal, now managed by former Liverpool star Robbie Fowler and Mohan Bakken.

They're complaining about the laser pointer.

The laser pointer didn't achieve its goal, which was to have a cat leap right into the face of the goalie.

They should have tried putting a cucumber on the pitch, I think.

But

I mean, who is the greater...

I mean, we do have to analyse this now.

I mean, who is the greater footballer?

Lionel Messi or Sunil Ketri?

Obviously, internationally, they're neck and neck.

You can't really separate them.

Even the most died-in-the-wool fan of Khetri's beloved Bengaluru FC in the Indian Super League would probably concede that Messi sneaks ahead on club form

but I guess the question is

and it's always been a question mark over Lionel Messi through his career could he do it on a wet Wednesday night in Jamshedpur and I guess we may never know

that is the question or in Qatar or Oman or Dajili you know proper football capitals of the world you know that's anyone can do it in Argentina and Brazil that they're not even footballing countries

Well, that concludes this week's bugle.

We will be back next week with our 200th episode since relaunch.

There'll be an extravaganza of all manner of things,

hopefully, possibly.

I'm quite busy until then, but we'll make sure something happens.

By always, of course, England will probably have won.

In tribute to the bugle reaching its 200th episode, one assumes that England will have won the football on Sunday, the relaunched bugle.

Any other shows to tell our listeners about, Alice?

Yes indeed, Andy, I will be doing a live show on Zoom on the, I think, the 14th of this month.

It's on the Nowhere Comedy Club and the link is on my Twitter at alliterative A-L-I-T-E-R-A-T-I-V-E or as always on my Patreon, patreon.com slash Alice Fraser.

So that's a live show of Kronos, which is the show that I've been working in.

I was going to be doing it tonight in Bondi, but unfortunately, we're in lockdown, so I'll just be doing it probably in this room.

Also, I have a weekly show called The Gargle, which is the I mean, if the if the bugle is audio newspaper for visual world, the gargle is the glossy magazine pull-out section with all of the technology and science and boobs and none of the politics.

I don't remember that being part of it.

I don't remember that being part of it when you pitched it to us, Alice.

It's a very different show.

Family show.

Anna, we have any shows or podcasts coming up?

Yeah, there is a slight possibility that I might have a short run at Soho Theatre starting 6th of September, but this is dependent on me quarantining in at least four countries before I get to the U.K.

Starting with Mauritania and then a bunch of Greek islands and at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

So if all that happens,

then 6th of September, hopefully, I will be standing on a stage for the first time since 2019.

Well,

there will be a live bugle that week as well, the 7th of September, at the Underbellies London Wonderground site in Earls Court.

Details on the internet.

Thank you for listening.

We will now play you out with some lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers.

To join them and keep the bugle free, flourishing, and independent for another 200-stroke, almost 500 episodes, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Stuart Elliott wonders whether glowworms only glow because they are really embarrassed about being worms.

I'm not judging them, says Stuart.

I think I'd burn up a bit if I was a worm.

I'm tolerant and all that, but the way they live is frankly, well, very unconventional.

So I think embarrassment is the most obvious explanation.

Animals with a lot of body confidence, like lions, sharks, and horses, don't glow in the dark, do they?

Point proved.

David O'Connor thinks there is an increasingly pressing need need for a new tranche of musical instruments.

There used to be loads more than there are now, notes David.

Serpents, all manner of now-obsolete dulcimas, snodger phones and parp salutes, for example.

But now everything is done on computers and we've lost the simple joy of seeing something and thinking, I wonder if I can make that sound funky if I whack it or blow in it.

And I think that's a real shame.

Ian Hembrow is much taken with the idea of the world needing new musical instruments.

I'll get the conversation going, says Ian, by suggesting a mopedoon, a percussion instrument made from an old moped which you whack with a golf club.

In fact, I've tried it and it sounded quite good actually, distinctive, clangy, but surprisingly resonant and melodic.

Well, and at least it wasn't till the owner of the moped came storming out of his house and started shouting at me when Rory McElroy asked for his golf club pack.

Ed Broughton wonders whether we're using parrots as effectively as we might in this world.

Parrots have a terrific skill set for the modern world, says Ed.

They're not afraid to dress well and they just repeat whatever they're told to repeat.

I think they could make excellent newsreaders, for example, or social media influencers, or perhaps even monarchs.

Richard Gibson wonders whether we could harness modern technology to old mechanisms of dispute resolution to streamline the processes involved in the online celebrity spat.

Richard explains, dueling has had its critics over the years as a means of clearing the air, but we could shorten or even avoid 96% of all Twitter spats if the celebs involved met at dawn, faced away from each other, walked 10 paces and then had to spin round and tweet something rude about the other person as fast as possible.

Whoever tweets first wins.

Problem solved.

Obviously some celebrity egos would be fatally wounded, but I think that has to be more humane than the current system.

And finally, Alan Priest once fell over a small hedge whilst transfixed by a passing bus on which he was convinced that a pigeon was not only cadging a free lift, but specifically perched on the front pretending to drive.

I was impressed, admits Alan.

We humans have a primeval desire to feel the sensation of flight, but for pigeons, driving a bus must be similarly mind-blowing.

And I imagine they often fly over people going for a run in the park thinking, you lucky bastards, what's it like?

No wonder they crap on our car windscreens.

It's jealousy, pure and simple.

Hit and if this week's 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.