Dibs on Jacinda (4192)

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4192 of the Bugle, audio newspaper for one of the most visual worlds of all time, you'd have to say, with me, Andy Zoltzmann, one of the least visual comedians of all time, in a shed.

And it's Monday, the 26th of April, 2021.

And if you forget about everything that's going on, everything's going very well indeed for this famous planet of ours and its most talked about species, of which I am a member, currently at least.

Let's just quickly check my current species status.

Quickly test the blood temperature.

Oh, lovely and warm.

Skin type.

Only 3% reptile.

Vertebrae.

All present and correct.

Hair or fur?

Well, it's in some of the places it's supposed to be.

Three middle earbones.

Yes, I am all mammal.

Next check.

Articulate speech.

Yeah.

Abstract reasoning.

Hmm.

Yes, I'm a definite member of the genus Homo.

And finally, am I extinct?

Let me check.

No, yes, I am still

a human being.

It's always good to check.

It's an amazing number of people who forget to.

Joining me this week, two of my fellow planet dwellers and amongst the most sapiens of all humanids from India.

We have Anuvab Powell and from London, Tiffany Stevenson.

Hello, both of you.

How are you both?

I'll let Anuvab answer that first.

Well, I'm still alive, but Tiff, Andy, let me explain the situation right now in India where I am.

I just recently saw King Kong versus Godzilla, where two fictional monsters trampled across a whole city and destroyed it in hand-to-hand combat.

That city would be tranquil compared to any Indian city right now.

Wow.

Yeah.

I feel like I can't complain from a little corner of North London in my book nook with the sun coming through the window.

I feel, I feel, yeah, that's why I wanted you to go first.

I didn't want to have some petty complaint to then have, oh, really?

Is everyone dying?

Because that's what's happening here.

So, yeah, I was in a car, a minor car accident last week.

So, I guess that would be my

most dramatic thing that happened I got into a fight with an airbag and the airbag won right

so was that before or after the crash

oh it was um I tell you what though what's interesting is uh Paul walked the impact was on his side on Scottish Scottish boyfriend's side

and

he had

not a scratch whereas I got a lip laceration and loads of bruising because I think they're sort of just designed for

male bodies, the older airbags.

And then someone on Twitter said to me, Well, I'll tell you what's great, Volvo have really put a lot of money into designing them for women.

And I was like,

I regret to inform you, I was in a Volvo.

So, yeah, that's been my week.

Vaccine, car crash.

I'm getting all the crappy stuff out the way.

So that's...

Did you have a vaccine before the car crash?

After, post-other.

Yes, yes.

I was going to say,

very bad PR.

Tiff, I'll be honest with you.

I mean, things here are really bad, but that sounds pretty bad.

Yeah, I mean, you can't see, the listeners obviously can't see me, but I have got a bit of a, I had stitches in my lip.

So,

like, my lip swirled up.

It's one way of getting free collagen.

Like, I'm trying to put the positive spin on it.

So, yeah, so that's one way.

Just have an airbag whack you in the face.

Well, I think the most exciting thing that's happened to me in the last week is I made a surprisingly competent Biriani.

But other than that, very much

no change.

We are recording on the 26th of April on this day, 1,900 years ago, a historic birth.

The Roman ruminator, the mighty meditator, the empathetic emperor, old Stevie Stoicism himself.

Marcus, let me think about that for a minute.

Aurelius, born on this day in 121 AD, the man who formulated such bomb mo bangers as everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.

Way to go for creating the post-truth newscape we live in now, Marcus.

He also said everything we see is a perspective, not a truth.

Maybe you should stop watching American TV channels, Marky Mark.

And also, you shouldn't give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don't care at all.

And that is why he would never have made it as a radio phone in host.

Marcus, everything's got a little bit too objective in the drivetime slot.

Ratings are going through the floor.

I don't give a shit if the potholes in people's roads are inanimate objects that feel no guilt for what they're doing to the suspensions on people's scars.

We need some fury.

He also.

Look at that.

You refer to him as Marky Mark.

Who is the funky bunch then?

If Marcus Aurelius is

very much, I think the Senate.

I think the Roman Senate.

Senior Roman legionnaires.

My history's a bit vague on it.

But to be honest, my always sketchy Roman history is now purely based on the film Gladiator, which Marcus Aurelius

doesn't start particularly well for him.

Also, he said, if you are distressed by anything external, that pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.

And this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

But to be fair to Marcus Aurelius, he had never been hit square in the plums by a cricket ball after inside etching a short-of-a-length knit backer just outside off stump.

Even with a box on.

God, that stings.

Gotta do inside the blame.

Gotta get back and across.

Cover the movement.

Anyway.

Nor had he been punched in the tits by an airbag.

True, true.

Roman history would be very different if those two things had happened.

Anyway, happy 1900th birthday

to

Marcus Aurelius.

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

This week, an Oscars fashion review section.

Last night, as we record, the Oscars took place.

And well, we're always on the cutting edge of fashion here at the Bugle.

And we have a full review of everything that people wore on the red carpet.

Very disappointing lack of socks from a number of the women involved.

Olivia Coleman, obviously not wearing any socks whatsoever.

Some tribute that to all those who fought and died in wars for Britain whilst wearing socks.

Many others wearing full-length dresses so that even if they were wearing socks, no one would know.

What are they ashamed of?

The sock is arguably the garment that did most to boost human evolution.

Men, for me, not enough headbands for my liking, amongst the men involved in the Oscars.

Obviously, it's important to look as ridiculous as possible.

So why not go the full McEnroe?

We will be speaking to our fashion expert, Hoculus P.

Slanger, who will talk us through all the highlights and highlights of the red carpet.

Two who really caught Hoculus' eye were Meritricia Dogsanian, the Oscar-nominated star of Magic Roundabout Action Spin-Off, Florence and Ermintrude versus the Death Beatles of Nag.

Well, she'd turn hedge with a sensational off-the-shoulder reconstituted lawnmower dress.

Whilst the always dapper Norris Sebastian van der Klapp, former star of the Canadian prehistoric soap opera, The Moose Riders, and he was nominated, of course, for best non-speaking off-screen role for his portrayal of the controversial Olympic athlete Justin Gatlin in the 17th century costume sci-fi dramadoc frat girl comedy Mayflower 2 alien subterfuge.

Well, he looks super smart in his salmon skin tuxedo and faux walrus pelt neck sarong with his his imitation dinosaur leather jodpurse.

Anyway, that section sadly in the bin.

Top story this week, India News.

And well, it's been a horrific time for India, Anuvab reeling under a surge of the world's most tedious virus as COVID-19 continues to vomit an unending torrent of spanners into the works of the world.

Just bring us up to date with exactly what the situation currently is.

Well, I thought a lot about how to explain to you and Tiff the least macabre version of what's happening, Andy.

Thousands of Indian people across India, unvaccinated, untested, are experiencing sudden drops in levels of oxygen, being rushed to the hospital where there is no oxygen, and just dying daily.

Note, this is the least macabre version of the story.

Oh, Alch.

I think I might be the darkest start we've ever had to

issue with the bugle.

But here's the thing: rather than focus on the grim facts that the world media are highlighting, I thought we could focus on the monumental collapse of governance.

Such a monumental collapse that the city of Pompeii is looking at us saying we handled the volcano better than this.

We had a year to improve our medical infrastructure, but no, our ministers went around saying while the rest of the world studied the genetic sequence of the virus, we didn't need to.

We had Indian exceptionalism.

We had defeated the virus.

Because what is a virus if not a T20 cricket match?

We opened up the country to state elections and mass religious gatherings, something even a sponge wouldn't do, and a sponge doesn't even have a brain.

Our leadership and political class are so devoid of literacy or basic comprehension or motor skills that Siri in your iPhone could have delivered more hospital beds without you instructing it to.

While ordinary people turn to social media to basically form their little private home hospitals in the actual government, there's ineptitude, greed, and cruelty at a scale where even Stalin would say enough, and Emperor Nero would second it.

There is currently more empathy, Tiff, Andy, in a king cobra eating a black mamba alive, both cold reptiles, than in India's government.

What we are witnessing in our political leaders are, as Paul Simon wrote, twisted, sightless wrecks of men.

Things are so bad, Andy, that I'm quoting Paul Simon.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Any plane that leaves India Tiff, I'll go anywhere.

There's no planes.

India is shut out from the world.

And finally, I have to say, maybe this just happened.

Things are so bad that the Australian fastbowler Pat Cummings has donated $50,000 Australian dollars as we speak.

And he has done more than the Indian government.

Well, I mean, he's a lovely guy, Pat Cummings.

Much as he's an Australian fastbowler and therefore evil in the eyes of all England cricket fans.

He is an

evil.

And also he said, you

he wasn't sure about

whether they should still be continuing with the cricket tournament, the IPR, while this is going on.

And they've been told that it's at least providing people with some form of distraction and made this

sizable contribution.

But it does seem, Anuvab, that this continues a pattern that countries with self-serving demagogues in charge have not exactly aced this crisis.

We've had Ger Bolsonaro brought distinctly personal heartlessness to his mesmerically moronic effects to maximize the Brazilian suffering toll.

Donald Trump, of course, bravely refused to allow common sense, scientific advice, or basic humanity to get in the way of his determination to give his supporters the kind of deathly mayhem they expected from him.

Boris Johnson helped give Britain an impressively shit-for-brained head start in the European deaths race.

And now, Narendra Modi, renamer of cricket stadiums in his own honour, poisoner of an almost miraculous secularism that has helped sustain a logistically impossible mega nation through decades of breakneck change, is presiding over one of the deadliest surges of of the virus yet seen.

In March, India's health minister said the country was in the end game

of the pandemic.

I mean, with hindsight and indeed foresight,

this looks like it is at best disrespecting the chess skills of COVID, which is notoriously good at not getting to the end game phase.

That's absolutely correct.

Last Saturday, when India detected cases that were going up 150% a day and TV channels were showing people rushing to hospitals, Prime Minister Modi was campaigning in my home state of West Bengal saying, I've never seen such huge crowds.

Thank you for coming.

At least Emperor Nero was playing the fiddle or whatever that weird Roman instrument is called.

He was not also...

Yeah, exactly.

That instrument.

He was not also pouring petrol in the middle of a raging fire.

I've never seen such huge crowds.

It's

going to

saying, oh, it was great to see so many people swimming at this beach where we can proudly say, we have not had a single shark attack in the last eight minutes.

Well done.

Well done.

I mean, you might as well have just gone around a lung cancer ward giving out free cartons of cigarettes.

It was atmospic insensitive.

That's exactly.

It's completely underplaying the pandemic than turning up at Rally's mask list remind you of anyone.

Yeah, I mean, I think you pretty much said it there, Andy.

But it's also,

yeah,

there's a complete heartlessness, isn't there?

There's people pleading for help

and people responding with stuff like, let's try and not be a crybaby about it.

Yes, I mean, that was extraordinary.

The crybaby

story.

That was, yeah, Tiff, that's fantastic.

I mean,

look,

because Modi lost control, people rushed to the high courts, right?

They wanted court orders to get things done, to get oxygen moving.

So the Delhi government is not run by Prime Minister Modi, it's an independent state government.

They rushed to the High Court.

They said, If we don't get 480 tons of oxygen, by this evening, the system will collapse.

We have 24 hours to get something done, or something disastrous will happen.

This is what the Delhi government told the High Court.

Prime Minister Modi's lawyer responded with, Let's try and not be a crybaby.

The only equivalent I can think for you guys is Prime Minister Suzuki Kantaro in 1945 being told Hiroshima has just happened and he responds with wah wah always whining

oh this is a depressing episode so far

i mean crybabyism is uh i mean i think it's become a political philosophy hasn't it uh tiff one of the dominant philosophies in in politics now from well they spat the dummy that's that's often

yes absolutely i mean from people whinging about a trickle of asylum seekers flooding their countries or immigrants doing the jobs that no one else wants to do for less money than they don't want to do them for, or complaining about

people rupturing their selectively constructed historical fictions.

I mean, crybabyism, we've seen it sort of play out with, you know, with Trumpism is essentially

crybabyism taking to its logical conclusion with certain strains of Brexitatiousness defined by their devoted adherence to crybabyist doctrines of grievance, especially when that grievance is against people with genuine grounds for grievance who are expressing being aggrieved.

That can actually tip cry babyism into full tantrumism, which I'm not sure there's anything that we can go beyond.

But yeah, maybe that's naive.

I'm not surprised that these politicians aren't good at managing oxygen because they do produce a lot of hot air.

I mean, the fact that people are taking to

as you sort of alluded to that,

that people were like creating their own mini hospitals.

So people are taking taking to Twitter and saying, can you get me this piece of equipment?

I'm in dire straits.

I mean, it's like awful to witness and

you feel utterly helpless from the other side of the, I'm sure as people there feel utterly helpless to do anything about it.

Yeah, exactly.

So citizens have sort of, you know, are helping each other.

People have set up WhatsApp groups and helplines.

And you would think that the government would respond, right?

Seeing all this pleas for help on Twitter.

Instead,

the government yesterday announced that Twitter handles that a critical of the government should be removed and a message is being sent out to journalists saying the media need to be positive and to forget the past.

The past being two hours ago.

And apparently the government is not to blame, the system is to blame.

This reminds me of the Terry Jones film Eric the Viking.

If you remember King Arnulf was on his island nation of High Brazil and he kept saying, Stay calm, this is not happening, as his island nation sank.

Well, it's because they found the time, at least the Indian government, their busy schedule, to tell Twitter to block some tweets that were less than complimentary about Modi and his handling of the power.

I mean, his handling an appropriate word.

I mean, I guess, you know, when you pick up a priceless ancient vase and smash it on the floor, you actually

Twitter complied with the order to remove the tweets, preventing residents in the country from viewing the posts from people who include a state minister, an opposition member of the Indian parliament, filmmakers, an actor, two journalists, and several ordinary people.

The ordinary people are at it again

with their opinions.

Yes, yes.

You know, they're hating these tweets that say, I can't breathe and I'm dead.

It makes the government look very bad.

They are not happy with these tweets.

And like Andy said, you know, of course, they have no other priorities, right?

Obviously, this is the number one concern, public image.

It just happened that the Jelly Chief Minister was so desperate that on an emergency private call with the Prime Minister and everybody,

he decided that he was going to live telecast it.

just to show how nothing is happening in these meetings.

And so the Prime Minister stopped the meeting and said,

everyone thought he's going to say something groundbreaking.

And he said,

is this going out live on TV?

That's breaking protocol.

That's the only thing he said.

And the Delhi chief is really sorry I would.

That was his main concern.

His main concern was not that the city he lives in is going to have no people.

That was his main concern.

It was interesting.

You mentioned Indian exceptionalism.

Modi in a speech on Saturday in West Bengal when he was campaigning at this rally said, India defeated COVID last year and India can do it again.

Now, there's a slight problem with this in that India did not defeat COVID last year, as we are seeing now.

They didn't defeat COVID any more than England defeated the West Indies in the 1984 Test Series because they won the coin toss before the first match of five and scored the first run of the series before Graham Fowler was out to make the score one for one.

Then Andy Lloyd was hospitalised and never played international cricket again, and England were thrashed in all five tests.

But if you count that as a win, it's a win.

I mean, things are so bad, guys.

There's a petition going around because one of the New Zealand cricketers playing in the IPL has gone back to New Zealand because he just, you know, things are too dangerous.

And there's a request going, a petition handed over to him if they could send back Jacinda Arden to be our prime minister.

They would allow him to break his IPL contract if we could do a one-to-one exchange.

Everyone wants dibs on Jacinda.

I feel like it should be like jury service.

Everyone will get two weeks, two weeks of Jacinda.

Like, she could just go around all the countries and sort it all out.

The COVID response, infrastructure, everything.

That would be great, wouldn't it?

Well, she's going to have to go to Mount Everest if she's going to do that because COVID has even reached there.

A Norwegian climate and a Sherpa have tested positive for COVID-19.

I mean, that doesn't give much hope for the...

If you can't socially distance on Mount Everest, it doesn't give much hope for the more crowded parts of Colonel.

I thought that headline was bad because it said coronavirus reaches Mount Everest, which makes it sound like the little virus that could.

Under a year and a half.

We thought Corona was big-headed before, but now we have Coronavirus the Adventurer.

It's basically Corona and Ben Fogel.

And that is, we just don't need it.

Corona blogging about the view and what a journey it's been on to get there on the radio and chat show circuit convincing everyone that the Sherpas love it and it's great bants.

And what else are you going to do in your gap here anyway?

It's either this or whitewater rafting with your great Uncle Teddy.

I don't think Corona needs to get any more big-headed than it currently is.

I love this Sherpa that was interviewed.

I've never been anywhere near Mount Everest, but apparently he said

luckily we we had a helicopter and we got this guy out of there because it's quite crowded up there and he could have infected a whole bunch of people what's going on on top of Mount Everest

well I mean you do hear these these complaints that Everest has become become too crowded and they're giving too many permits

but it does make you think maybe I think what we need now and I know the world's got other focuses but I think we need some higher mountains that clearly Everest is not enough of a challenge

Maybe they need to

pop.

We've got a few spare mountains in Europe.

There's way too many Alps as it is.

We could maybe chuck an Alp on top of Mount Everest, get someone up to kind of 12,000, 13,000 meters instead.

Is Matterhorn, what's the highest in...

That's not the highest, but that's a crafty one, the Matterhorn, I think.

Mont Blanc is the...

The Matterhorn looks great.

That's a great looking mountain.

That is

the dream boat of the mountain.

Let's objectify these mountains.

Oh, really fit.

Really, really love the jagged outline.

Hard cut.

There's rocky abs.

Oh, yeah.

I expected a lot of things on this podcast, but not erotic mountains.

Well, maybe we can open this up to our listeners.

We can update.

Rather than hotties from history, let's move on from humans to land formations that give you the horn.

What's the matter?

You got the horn.

There's a reason they called it the horn of Africa.

But it's not all bad news when it comes to COVID in India at Aniva because COVID has brought up much of the worst in some of our leaders, but it's also brought up much of the best in humanity around the world, the selfless devotion to duty of health workers around the world, the genius of scientists, even if they are

motivated by greed, according to Boris Johnson, but still wizards in my book as they count their ill-earned money and all those volunteers, greedy volunteers around the world who've stepped up to the various plates slapped down by this crisis.

But one area where we've seen humanity coming to the fore is in the world's thieves who've been inspired to be better.

Not all of them, but at least one of them in India, someone who'd stolen 1700 doses of COVID vaccine from a hospital, returned them with a note saying, sorry, I didn't know they were

COVID vaccines.

So, I mean, it just shows that everyone is

doing their bit, even if it adversely affects their own line of work.

You're absolutely right, Andy.

Petty criminals have really stepped up when the nation needed them.

This thief was really repentant.

He left a note.

He couldn't even, so he's not even literate.

So he got someone to write a note saying he was sorry.

That's how dedicated thieves are in India in contributing to, you know, while our leaders are reptilian, spineless,

hollow pieces of fecal sludge, these people are stepping out.

I don't feel strongly about this at all, clearly.

I mean, the situation here is completely under control.

I mean, I've locked up my parents, my 75-year-old parents, in what I think is a criminal act.

I don't think you can

legally lock them up.

But there are no police stations open, so I'll deal with this when they come out alive, if there are any police stations left.

So, Anime, if people are making their own hospitals at home, you can make your own jail and courthouse at home as well.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I mean, I don't have any problem with this.

But, yeah, I mean, thieves have stepped up.

A lot of local sort of cheats and people who would cheat you on small things in India, like medical supplies, are providing things for free.

Loads of companies that were closed because of environmental pollution are begging the courts to reopen so they can make oxygen.

Suddenly,

in what is sort of a very crooked, devious class of people, a certain magnanimity has emerged.

Whereas our leaders are very worried about Twitter.

So that's the average citizen, especially the average criminal citizen, has really stepped up.

Right, it's time to move on now to British news.

Boris Johnson has had another exciting week of self-exculpation,

which is his prime hobby at the moment.

And he can now claim the nickname Shaggy for a very impressive range of different reasons.

From his willful incompetence projecting hair, to his trouserial predilections, to his convoluted stories, his shaggy dog stories, if you will, explaining why someone, something that looks obviously very dodgy indeed, is in fact perfectly fine,

to being as suitable a person for being Prime minister as the character shaggy from 2v2

to as we now see on an almost hourly basis channeling the reggae star shaggy and claiming it wasn't me so um um he's he's claimed he acted with honesty and integrity with regard to his affair and dealings with jennifer r-currie which caused panic and tears at the oxford english dictionary as it turns out honesty now encompasses not total dishonesty all the time as a definition and integrity means whatever the f you can get away with and um well

dominic Cummings has,

well, the pro-celebrity shitsterer has emerged from

the political woodwork and launched vicious attacks on his former client,

Boris Johnson.

I mean,

it's getting quite vicious, described as rats fighting in a sack

by the Labour Party.

I mean,

it's a great contest, if nothing else, for the neutral.

Well, liar Dominic calling out Liar Boris.

Do two liars make a truther?

Possibly.

I mean I was waiting for Boris to come out and say he also shagged James Dyson but acted with integrity.

That's just averaging out all the stories I think.

Yes, yes.

But is anyone else beginning to think that that Henry the Hoover in the corner of the press room was a coded message to James Dyson?

Well, so just so the press room, which we can talk about in more detail later, there's a new press room that costs £2.6 million and then they thought, and I wasn't going to bother using it.

It's essentially a propaganda facility.

Not the most British of British things, despite all the flags.

You can put lots of flags on it.

It doesn't make it British.

And

there was a photo taken to sort of show, oh, look at this wonderful new facility.

And someone had left a Henry Hoover

in the corner.

And yeah, I don't know if Dyson would have taken Carney to that.

Yeah,

I feel it was definitely

a coded message.

So Dominic's saying basically,

we're getting a clear picture now of why Boris wouldn't sack him after the Barnard Castle.

A clearer, clear, unlike Dominic's eyesight, obviously.

But I think Dominic has too much on Boris Johnson.

So, you know, he's revealed that there were these text exchanges going through, going back and forth between Dyson and Boris around tax affairs,

that they were going to get donors to fund the refurbishment of number 10.

And then

Dominic sort of, I don't know whether the leaks come from him or saying someone else has been saying it's been leaked.

Then someone else at number 10.

Basically, we need a packet of tenor lady because these guys are leaking all over the place.

So it's not even clear

where the leaks are coming from.

But

it's basically, you know, his greatest ally is now his biggest enemy.

And I think Boris

probably is rightfully

shit right up

by this news.

And I don't know whether we should break it down into, because you probably want to talk about the individual aspects, but I do want to raise very specifically the fact that Boris was looking to raise.

Well, an ally of Mr.

Johnson defended the charity plan.

So they were talking about setting up a charitable fund to refurbish number 10.

And an ally of Johnson said last night, Downing Street is as iconic as Windsor Castle, but is in danger of becoming tatty because the civil service does everything on the cheap.

A new charity with privately raised money to preserve it in great shape for all time is great value for the taxpayer and a great idea.

Sure, cut universal credit because

number 10 needs a facelift.

Like that doesn't even make any sense.

At least you can walk around Windsor Castle.

Like you don't go.

They're trying to make it they're trying to make out like it's comparable to the White House.

Like a makeover is important for a building, appropriate for a building of such huge importance.

It's the house house that comes with the job it's basically a gardener's cottage or a man's stop trying to make it st paul's cathedral you can't compare it to the white house it's a mid-terrace in london you can't even stick an extension on this thing like what are you talking about you can't say it's a building of historical importance and that we should be paying for it But Tiff, I have a quick question for you and

don't you think though that this approach is very discouraging for politicians?

Having grown up in a culture where basically doing big business doing favours for politicians is essentially the rule,

and I've seen that in India for 30 years.

What is even the point of doing favours for big business if they can't help out with a contractor to redo the kitchen?

What is even the point of life?

One of the aspects of this that is quite fascinating is who paid for this renovation?

And Trade Secretary Liz Truss told the BBC that Johnson had paid for the renovation costs, quotes, from his own pocket.

but it may transpire that that pocket of his was there after he just put on a brand new pair of trousers given to him by some passing Tory Party donors as they whispered in his ear, go buy yourself somewhere nice, we know where you live.

So it's hard to know.

I mean, there's so the thing is, I'm not thinking it's going to affect

Johnson because, you know, the idea, as you said, Tiff, that you know, Dominic Cummings has all this dirt on him.

Boris Johnson came into office as

you know, an almost homeopathic trace of human in a mound of dirt.

So, extra dirt is not going to really have any great impact on him.

And Dominic Cummings suggested that it was, you know, the plan to get donors to pay for the flat was possibly illegal, in his words.

He said, it's sad to see the Prime Minister and his office fall so far below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves.

To which I would say, f ⁇ you, Cummings, with all due respect to this to Cummings and Johnson, this absolute pair of chances, questioning Johnson's competence and integrity is like questioning a dolphin's ability to climb mountains and juggle.

Those cards were slapped firmly and proudly on the table.

Besides, Mr.

Cummings, if you're listening, you were instrumental, were you not in persuading the country to vote for this level of incompetence and this level of lack of integrity.

So do not tell us, the voting public, what we do and do not deserve.

The

Dyson text issue was quite a complicated issue on Sir James Dyson contacting Johnson directly, and that the tax issue was about the taxation status of workers for the Dyson company, were they to come and work in Britain.

It all occurred during the tragically inept early months of the crisis.

And Johnson said that he made no apologies.

What he said last week, he made no apologies for moving heaven and earth to get hold of these these ventilators that Dyson had offered.

In the end,

it's not clear whether he moved heaven or earth, but certainly no ventilators emerged from this.

But also think back to those early days of the crisis.

The only way Boris Johnson could claim to have moved heaven and earth was if heaven and earth were his nicknames for his butt cheeks and he moved them so that they were not sitting on a chair in, for example, five consecutive meetings of the Cobra Emergency Committee early on in the crisis when moving even small parts of Earth might have made a massive difference to the number of people having an unscheduled appointment with heaven.

He also wouldn't have had to move heaven and earth if he'd moved his own eyeballs over the text of the report warning about the UK's dangerous lack of preparedness for pandemics, or just looked at what was happening elsewhere in the world and thought, well, maybe we can learn from that, even if they are foreign.

Andy, there is now an image of Boris Johnson's posterior in my head that makes the crisis in India far worse for me personally.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep for a week.

I just have a quick exchange offer for my friends in Britain.

Dominic Cummings called Boris Johnson mad and totally unethical.

He is sending us 350 oxygen concentrators today.

We'll take him.

Mad and totally unethical leads to a corrupt flat, but also

oxygen concentrators for us.

Sane and dictatorial is what we have right now leads to a country on fire.

So

if you let go, we'll take him.

Yes.

Well, you can embrace

cronyism.

You're right, Tiff, yeah, because I mean, all the things you guys are complaining about, I was quiet because I was having difficulty figuring out where the ethical problems were.

There was a resignation from the government.

Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, well, he was about to resign and then he was sacked after telling the government that he was going to resign out of what he described as courtesy.

He said, I felt like I was treated like shit throughout as

a government minister and said that the government was the most distrustful,

he said it was the most awful environment he's ever worked in.

And bear in mind, he fought in Hellman province in Afghanistan.

And working for the Forest Johnson government was less awful than that.

He said, but this could be, we talk about, you know, the bombshell, you know, the getting al Capone on tax, but this could could be the thing that really brings down the Johnson government.

Because Johnny Mercer, after

being sacked, said, almost nobody in government tells the truth.

And surely that is the true scandal.

Because he said, almost.

There is someone in the government who is telling the truth.

Can they root out the mull before it's too late?

Well, we've talked a lot about people doing their jobs who we maybe prefer weren't doing their jobs.

News now of someone who didn't do their job for 15 years and managed to

continue to get paid for it.

A hospital worker in Italy

apparently managed to get paid for a decade and a half without turning up to work.

Anuvab, you are our heroic skyving correspondent.

Yes, sir.

Just, and I know you have not done a full day's work since I think it was 1684.

So bring us up to date with the story.

Well, first of all,

I really love that

most of the things that people say about Italy often come true in newspapers.

I really respect Italy for that.

Salvatore Scomacci

was an Italian worker at Chiaccio Hospital in the city of Catanzaro.

He made made news headlines in Italy this week when Italy's financial police announced that they were investigating his remarkable record of absenteeism.

I've been absent a few times in my life, Andy.

I have friends who missed a whole year of school and have come out reasonably well.

This man missed 15 years of work.

And he was still paid.

And the investigators said we blame inefficiency of checks at all levels

in my book I want to know what you guys think about this but in my book this man is a hero this man should not be investigated if anybody the head of human resources should be fired maybe his boss should be fired this man deserves some sort of a national award from his country well absolutely you think of all the people through history who had they taken 15 years off rather than doing what they did would have made the world a considerably better place I mean we mentioned Stalin earlier on.

I mean, if Stalin had knocked off in 1930-odd,

I think a lot of Russians would have been quite

pleased with that.

In many ways, I think he should be an inspiration.

I mean, people work too hard, and well done him for trying to

balance that out.

Also, I mean, really, what is not working for 15 years other than just taking your retirement early?

And

do you want me to spread the workload around?

Throwing it off.

Retirement is wasted.

I've said this, well, retirement is wasted on the old.

And people like to keep occupied when they're old.

So you should retire like he did

during his career.

The Italian not job.

I just, yeah, you've got to admire it.

Although I do think looking a little bit deeper, scraping a little bit away from the top of the story, apparently someone did try to report him.

But then a woman that worked in human resources raised a query about it, and then people started appearing outside her house.

So she very much just sort of left it alone and never mentioned it again.

So apparently, it's like quite a

like quite a big thing.

This is it in Calibria where this has happened.

Yeah, so in Calibria.

And I really loved that he was shocked that there was an investigation.

All he needs to do is declare himself a prince and he can come to Britain and do the same.

We are approaching the end of this week's bugle.

Shortly after we recorded last week, we had the verdict from the

George Floyd case.

We will address the issues surrounding this in a future edition of the bugle.

But there was an extraordinary reaction to it from Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who in the aftermath of the verdict

issued a warning.

Now, you might think he might be warning of a flowering of belated justice or a massive improvement in police standards and techniques across the USA.

But instead, he warned of an attack on civilization

caused by people supporting

George Floyd.

It was one of, even in the universe of Fox News and the American right wing, this was as tone-deaf and inane as pretty much anything

that we've heard in recent years, do you not think?

you had tommy laren as well on twitter like saying something like you got your justice we're like oh i thought justice was for everyone it's quite clear that you don't consider this to be justice um

yeah it's sort of mad isn't it people showing their ass

oh with uh

did you think fox news could sink lower or did you think they'd already

well i mean there's always

you know i guess it's you know when like when you watched usain bolt Bolt in the early years of his career, you thought, well, that means surely he's taken sprinting to its extreme and he kept doing greater and greater things.

And I guess, you know, Fox News is like that.

You think, oh, there's nothing more that they can do.

And they always find, you know, that's the genius of Fox News, that there is no barrel to which they have yet found

an adequate bottom that cannot be drilled through with the power drill of ferry which they bring to

journalism.

And on the subject of justice, I mean, justice, people say justice is supposed to be blind.

But I guess the problem in America is that justice has generally merely been hiding its eyes behind those special high-performance sports sunglasses that increase the contrast between colours.

We will return to this story in weeks to come.

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

Before we go, Tiff, tell us about...

your show that has joined the Bugle stable.

Yes, yes.

Thank you for letting my horse enter into your stable.

We'll take that out.

Or Or maybe leave it in.

Maybe leave it in.

I don't mind.

Tiny Revolutions, which is the show where I talk to comedians, rock stars, actors, journalists, creators about the things in their life that have been tiny revolutions.

So their favorite films and TV, political moments that have changed them and moved them, people that they've met that have influenced their work.

And it's called Tiny Revolutions and comes out every Wednesday.

We've already

had episodes out with Armando Ianucci, which was fantastic.

We had Simon Neal from Biffy Clyro.

We had Maisie Richardson Sellers.

We have Rosheen Connerty coming up.

Al Madrigal, W.

Kumabao, Nato Green will be on Wednesday's episode.

Anivab, anything to plug?

Well, I'm going to very quickly plug Tiff Stevenson's show.

I just heard it.

It's excellent.

But also, this is the last week on Radio 4 of a show I did called Future Empire Effect.

It was a study of India and where Britain and India's relationship is heading with one Andy Zoltzman.

I don't know if you've heard of him.

He's an Indian cricket commentator.

So that's on for another week on Radio 4.

All right.

On the Radio 4 website, I didn't realise that was coming down.

So I'll post a link to that on the Bugle Twitter feed.

Buglever doing it all.

You've got cricket, you've got culture.

You've got comedy.

Yeah.

Comedy, cricket, culture.

It's all happening.

We will be back next week.

I'm also currently hosting the news quiz on Radio 4, which you can also find on the Radio 4 website for the next few weeks.

And we will play you out with some lies about our premium-level voluntary subscribers to join them and to make a recurring or one-off contribution to the Bugle to keep it free, free from adverts, and independent and flourishing.

Go to BuglePodcast.com and click the donate button.

Martin Richter thinks the world has become too set on a regular calendar.

It gets a bit numbingly predictable having the same 12 months every year, bleats Martin, not to mention the same 52 and a bit weeks and the same 365, or if you're feeling a bit Olympics-y 366 days, why not mix it up a bit?

Why not try some years with 15 months, some with 9?

You could have more holiday in the longer years, but also less long to wait for your birthday in the shorter ones.

Plus, it would make tax a lot more exciting for the accountants.

Max Kalika is more in favor of doing away with months entirely and instead giving each week its own name.

Sure, says Max, I would miss the old classics, like October, January, April and the rest, but selling the naming rights for 52 new micro-months could fund everything the world needs to be fixed, I reckon, calculates Max.

Every time you wrote, it's the 7th of Teslemba in your diary, you would feel happy that Elon Musk is saving an endangered goat or something.

Shay Flanagan, however, is concerned about what would happen with the one or in leap years two days left over from the 52 micro-month year.

I guess you could award a special day to the best human of the year according to some kind of algorithm, ventures Shay.

Or to avoid arguments, just give it to someone discernibly special, the reigning world snooker champion, maybe, or the winner of the Grammy Award for best backing vocals in a scarf funk skiffle cover of a 90s rap song, whatever works.

Or maybe, to please the Brits, just name it after the Queen.

They'd love it.

Mark Isaacs would blend the suggestions posited by Martin and Max and suggest suggest that the years could be mixed up according to another algorithm.

They can do most things, the algorithms, says Mark, and I'd love to live in a world where you had a 400-day year with 85-day weeks, followed by a year that's 330 days long, with 33 11-day weeks, each with a three-day weekend and a day off in the middle, especially if you didn't know what the year was going to be until one minute to midnight on the 31st of December, or whatever the last day of the year happened to be.

Andy Chalice agrees and argues that the unpredictability of this system could boost creativity and thus economic productivity worldwide.

You could even have the odd 245-day year with only one week, says Andy, comprising 175 days of unbroken work, followed by an absolute whopper of a 70-day weekend.

Obviously, says Andy, that's not great if you work weekends, but otherwise, sign me up.

As long as it averages out around the 365 and a quarter day mark over each hundred or so years, I reckon things will be okay.

And moving away from the issue of years, months, and days, Dan Carlson had at one point made detailed costed plans to build and open a new museum, the Museum of Unfulfilled Ideas, chronicling and commemorating all the potentially revolutionary concepts, inventions and political movements that could have made a positive contribution to the world had they actually come about.

In the end, however, Dan never got round to setting it up.

If I ever do get round to it, though, says Dan, all those ideas about variable years and stuff are going straight in.

They're good, but they'll never happen.

The 24-7-365 and 12-months lobbies have got it all sewn up.

Here endeth 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.