#COTI

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers, and welcome to this week's installment of Humankind: the first billion years.

We picked it up a little bit late back in 2007, but I assure you, we're here at the Bugle are now in this for the long haul.

I'm Andy Zoltzmann.

This is issue 4187 of the Bugle.

And if you're listening to this in the year 1243, then you will know that the prediction I make next summer in issue 4258 about time travel being developed within the next 50 years will have proved eerily correct.

I am, any guesses?

Yes, I'm in the shed of Shalom, whence I have been greeting you for the past year now since lockdown deprived me of my weekly expedition into the outside world to see Chris in 3D.

He's with us today in his now traditional 2D.

I am starting to get worried.

if he'll find it hard to switch back to 3D.

After all, he was in the olden times considerably more 2D and less 3D than I was.

So it might be that he was already sliding that way.

Um, joining us from uh firstly, not very far north of here, or 24,858 miles.

If you head south and stick with it, it's Nish Kumar.

Hello, Andrew.

How are you?

I'm uh I'm well, thanks.

Uh, Nish, uh, how are you?

I'm good.

Interesting couple of weeks in uh

for Nish Kumar.

Um,

I uh, I uh having already uh lost one job due to having worked for the first app to die of coronavirus, Quibu,

I have been summarily dismissed from my job at the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The BBC cancelled the mash report, which is something that we found out a few weeks ago.

And they

we were sort of told that they just had run out of money.

And we were like, alright, fair enough.

Unfortunately, last week, The Sun ran a piece under the headline, which is actually my background on the Zoom call, Nish Bash Bosch, Nish Mash Bosch, which

you know, obviously not ideal, but I respect the pun game.

But apparently, a source close to the director general said the show was cancelled as part of a war on woke.

And I did approach the BBC and asked them because, you know, the Sun, it's not beyond the realms of possibility the Sun has been making shit up, given that they've made up worse things.

That's fair to say.

Yeah, maybe Google the Hillsborough disaster or use of the phrase gay plague in the 1980s.

So, you know, it's very much the thin end of the wedge.

But I did ask the BBC if they would clarify that this was a lie.

And so far we've not heard anything.

So, you know, interesting times.

I was asked for a comment and

I chose to not give one and maintain a dignified silence.

I did, however, post on Twitter a still from the show of something we did a few years ago where we talked about the media's soft treatment of Boris Johnson, which is a bit of a shame because due to

things that he has done and said, we were able to refer to him as both a liar and a racist, even with the BBC's quite stringent laws about what you can and can't say.

And I posted a still of me next to a sign that says Boris Johnson is a liar and a racist, and the Daily Mail said that it was neither big nor clever.

And I would say I agree with you calling someone a a liar and a racist is neither big nor clever.

However, if you post that picture on your Twitter feed as an official statement as part of an ongoing news story, knowing full well that that is going to be reprinted in newspapers that are very favourable towards the current Prime Minister, I would say that is both big.

Interesting times.

Interesting times indeed.

Also joining us from quite a long way west of here, it's the man who prophesied on this very show that he would become a father, and just weeks later, that prophecy came true.

Starting to think he might have had some quite literally inside information from New York City.

It's the daddy himself, Hari Kondombolu.

Hi, Andy.

Hi, Nish.

How are you doing, Harry?

Hey, Nish.

I've been meaning to ask you, are you sure you're you and not me?

Hurry, the lockdown is slowly morphing you and I into the same person.

I could not possibly have said that line.

I should explain for our listeners.

This is a sort of beard, long hair.

It's a beard-long hair combination.

Hurry and I both look like we've been in lockdown for, I'll say, 25 years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Since the Cold War.

Hurry's Zoom background is a palm tree and a beach, which is really heightening the Tom Hanks castaway vibe.

Chris has also gone a bit

loose in the mop.

I'm dressed, aren't I?

Give me a break.

I'd say, in comparison to the three other people on this call, Chris is keeping it pretty organised hair-wise, Andrew.

No, I've been working on my hairline.

I think I've got an extra couple of inches backwards since lockdown began.

Yeah,

it is a year.

Well, Ness, you were saying just before we started recording, a year ago this week,

you and Tom Ballard joined me on the first

lockdown bugle.

I mean, you know, looking back, would you say it's been a year of unceasing fun and frolics?

Yes, I would, Andy, but only in the interests of attempting to appear

impartial in order to get my job back at the BBC.

I would say that it has been a year both full of fun and frolics, and also bereft of fun and frolics.

Balance.

Give me my job back.

Balance.

Please give me my fing job back.

For balance, don't give me my job back.

Balance.

You're handling this surprisingly well, Nish.

And also, not well balanced.

That's

the perfect balance, isn't it?

Happy on the outside, crying on the inside.

That's what comedy is all about.

I think.

Can Can we

get Cotty, C-O-T-I,

to go alongside Lol, laugh out loud and crying on the inside?

I think we need that as a

something we've all been doing a lot in the last year.

We are recording on Friday the 19th of March.

Special day for us here in Britain, of course.

Recently rated Britain's joint most frequent day of the year in the second millennium by historians after an exhaustive analysis of all the days in that millennium.

29th of February did really badly again.

And the 3rd to the 13th of September dropped down the rankings massively after the whole switching to the Gregorian calendar and missing out 11 days in 1752 Shimozel.

The book is still refusing to pay out on that one.

Could have been an inside job.

On this day in 1649 the House of Commons of England passed an act abolishing the House of Lords, declaring it to be useless and dangerous to the people of England.

which I think was a line in that Daily Mail article about your show, Nish, wasn't it?

Actually, that was a review of my stand-up show, Andy.

Please get it right.

But who would have thought, Nish, the House of Lords, useless and dangerous to the people of England in 1649?

Who would have thought 370 years later, not only would the House of Lords still be in existence,

albeit after a brief hiatus after 1649, but that being useless and dangerous to the people of England would have actually become very sound electoral strategy, beloved of Prime Ministers?

Today is World Sleep Day, and to mark this great occasion, we are offering all Bugle listeners a free complimentary sleep of up to one hour to be taken at some point in the next two months.

You may incorporate your Bugle bonus snooze within a regular night's sleep or tag it onto a cheeky afternoon kip.

You may not split it into three 20-minute power snoozes, and please do not activate your free snooze token whilst operating heavy machinery, boxing professionally, deep-sea diving, or closing in on the long-overdue capture of a wanted international criminal.

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

This week, Bugle Census.

Now, this Sunday, the 21st of March here in Britain, is

the decadely census is taking place, where the government gets to snoop on who we are, how long we've been who we are,

where we are who we are, and what bits and bobs we keep and or would like to keep in our underpants, and things like what deity is lining up to look at us sternly as we pass into the next realm with an unmistakable, you want to come in here look on their face and or faces so um very exciting times the uh the census once every 10 years so we're doing a bugle census for you to fill in yourselves um so answer the questions in the gaps there will be a low buzzing sound for you to answer over the top of like this

good luck question one buglers uh you've got multiple choices in this what is your age is it a don't know i've just been born is it b between zero and 200 or is it c I've forgotten i'm immortal uh next question do you currently or have you ever previously listened to the bugle podcast

answer in that gap are you currently listening to an episode of the bugle podcast

if you are not currently listening to the bugle and have never listened to it what would make you listen to it in the future

Have you ever listened to the bugle whilst drowning?

Can you read, speak, write or understand any of the following languages?

Late Cro-Magnon, telepathic Norse, Welsh Exo-Canadian, Dog, 8th century High Madagascan Flemish, body of love or puns?

Are you currently involved in a high-level covert government espionage operation against a foreign state, organisation or individual?

If so, when, where and how is this operation taking place?

It's got to be worth the put, that's how they got wind of Burgess and Maclean in 1951.

Are you currently attempting a ritual sacrifice of an ox, oxen or one or more other animal offerings to one or more deities?

Have you ever impersonated a chicken professionally or otherwise?

And finally beliefs.

Do you believe that clouds are A, made of water vapor?

B probably a scape mashed potato?

C, proof that God is damp or D, gender fluid?

So there you go, that's your bugle sentence.

If you do not fill in the bugle sentence by answering to yourself in those gaps provided, you can fine yourself £1,000 payable by yourself to yourself within 30 days.

Or

if you fail to pay, you may then launch legal action against yourself.

That section in the bin.

You couldn't do a census of bugle listeners.

The actual census is filled with people writing things like Jedi and all sorts of stuff.

Imagine the fing listenership of this show.

Oh,

there appear to be 10,000 people living in the continental United States called Florence Nightingale.

Nish, don't badmouth the show.

This is the only show you haven't seen.

That.

That was.

Yeah, that happened.

Are you crying and laughing?

Bugged for balance.

Bugged.

Top story this week.

Well, this is the difficult one.

Hate crimes.

Hate crimes have been one of the surprise growth sectors of third millennium life, despite some fairly compelling evidence from the second millennium that they're really not a very good idea and do not benefit team human long term.

I mean,

when we talk about learning the lessons of history, this is a lesson history could not have taught much more clearly.

If history was indeed a teacher, it would have written, hate crimes are a bad idea, all over the blackboard in luminous, fire-retardant paint.

Then blasted a flamethrower at the blackboard until all that was left was those letters glowing out of the smoldering remnants of the classroom wall like a three-dimensional art installation reflection on humanity years 1000 to 1999 or 1001 to 2000 depending on how you swing when it comes to the dates of millenniums.

That is how clear the lessons of history are.

But

over the past week or two, both Britain and the USA have been reeling once again in the aftermath of horrific crimes perpetrated by men against women.

And we'll start in Atlanta, Georgia.

Eight people were killed, including six women of Asian descent at three spas in the the Atlanta area.

There was some disagreement, Hari, over whether the motivation of the killer was racism or misogyny or racism and misogyny or racist misogyny or misogynist racism until those doubts were cleared up by a spokesperson for the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office who explained that the killer was just quotes pretty much fed up and having a really bad day.

In terms of tone-deaf, idiotic things to come out of sheriff's offices, this has got to be right up there, hasn't it?

Yeah, I mean,

I remember that song from a few years ago.

I don't believe the lyrics were: Cause you had a bad day, you take an eight down, you shoot a lot of people, and you turn it around.

I mean,

I think it's it's as tone-deaf as that joke.

And

well, big limp,

and also, I mean, it it's

it it's it's more it it gives him an excuse.

And they go further by

saying that the killer told them that he had a sex addiction and he was trying to eliminate temptations, which would be these spa/slash massage parlors and the people that worked in them.

Why do white cops always try to go through the mental state of white shooters?

They never hurt them.

They take them in peacefully.

White murderers who kill minorities get treated really well by white cops because they have a lot in common.

Killing minorities.

The murderer also apparently told police that he had a sex addiction and massage parlors were temptations for him that he wanted to eliminate.

First of all, he's lying.

I've seen a picture of him and no one is having sex with that man.

You can't be addicted to something you don't have.

I am addicted to precious gems and mansions.

Secondly, sex addiction does not lead to you killing people.

Where was that episode of Californication when Hank Moody is so sick of having sex that he starts killing people?

And he had a lot of sex on that show.

It drove David DuCovney, the actor, into rehab for sex addiction.

Why?

Because that is method acting

in the aftermath of this tragedy, Hari, a Congress hearing was brought forward, a hearing into the discrimination and violence against Asian Americans.

The subcommittee chair, the Democrats, Steve Cohen,

began his statement saying that the Atlanta shooting felt, quote, like the inevitable culmination of a year in which there were nearly 3,800 reported incidents of anti-Asian hate.

So do you think with hindsight we can now start to think that it might not have been a good idea to have a president who encourages white supremacists and uses terms like the China virus?

I mean, is that

it's easy to say with hindsight and indeed foresight.

I mean, obviously there needs to be lots of studies done to see the effect, but I think we can at least agree it did not help.

It was not useful

in

stopping the hatred towards Asians.

I mean in some ways guns and racism should probably be added to that as American as list that includes apple pie and baseball.

Yeah, can we have a Hall of Fame?

I mean that's going to be that's that's going to be that's going to be tough, isn't it?

Well it's going to be tough.

It's in the Hall of Fame for American racism.

Wow.

oh, it's good.

It's gonna be hard to finally get a person of color in that hall of fame.

I guess that makes sense for it to be segregated, but

that's the only way they could do it.

Finally, finally, some white Americans will end up in a hall of fame.

At last!

Listen, all I will say is, if murdering, if white guys are murdering groups of people of colour because of a bad day, whoo, white guys have been having bad days for like 600 years.

Oh my God, that is a hell of a streak of.

I mean, what was the Amritsar massacre if not a spectacular case of the Mondays?

I mean, sure, it happened on a Sunday, but that was in anticipation of the Mondays.

Yeah,

he's a Hall of Famer.

General Dyer is a Hall of Famer.

He makes the Hall of Fame.

Texas Republican Chip Roy spoke at the hearing, and I don't know why they let him speak, but I guess they had to.

And he said, you know, this was in response to people testifying about

racism and hate crimes against Asians.

He says, My concern with this hearing is that it seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric in a free society.

That makes perfect sense.

Why not just focus on the crimes themselves and not on the intent, you know, like we do with terrorism.

You know how we don't prosecute terrorism?

How there aren't special departments focused on terrorism?

Boy, those 9-11 guys were having a hell of a bad day.

He went off on a tangent then about his hatred of the Chinese Communist Party.

Why?

Because congressional hearings are the most effective way to get things done.

Racism over

in six hours.

I just want to backtrack this for a second.

The Cherokee County

Sheriff's Office, I mean, first of all, they're called Cherokee County, and they killed all the indigenous, so that's not a good sign.

Yeah, not great.

Not great.

And the department's mainly white.

Jay Baker,

who was the captain, he's a captain, he's ranking,

said he wasn't racist, his colleagues said it wasn't racist, that he misspoke.

But unfortunately, people checked the internet and he was advertising shirts on his Facebook that said COVID-19

imported virus from China.

Spelled C-H-Y-NA.

So that

didn't help.

Later, the Cherokee County Sheriff, Reynolds, um,

made it clear.

He said that race did not appear to be the motive.

This dude just killed eight people, six Asian women at establishments run by Asians and said it was his attempt to stop temptation, implying that he was attracted to Asian women who he killed.

So why wasn't this racist?

It's because the sheriff said, quote, during his interview, he gave no indicators that this was racially motivated.

When asked specifically, the answer was no, it was not racially motivated.

Good thing they didn't ask him, hey, did you kill these people?

Because he'd be free right now.

I don't like the use of the term that didn't help.

I feel that could be a segment on every American news show every single day.

Just that that didn't help from

someone somewhere in a position of authority who has said something idiotic.

This whole story is like buying a tub of ice cream, not reading the label, and it accidentally turns out to be sewage-flavoured.

Then you eat it anyway, and after having eaten the entire tub, look at the bottom of the pot and realise that it's past its sell-by date and you're about to have a case of volcanic diarrhea.

In that it starts unbelievably bad and then just continues to get worse as it goes along the grid.

That's great.

That's a beautiful image.

Let's move on to some happier news now.

Cold War II is officially underway.

Now, one of the really great things about COVID, and let's be honest, there are not too many sentences that begin with those words, unless you are a member of a government that likes to clamp down on civil liberties under cover of pandemic aggravated news darkness.

One of the great things about COVID is that it has given us a whole year now of not really thinking thinking about major long-term issues of planet-worrying ominous importance.

But as the stumbling, elongated beginning of the end of the crisis shuffles uncertainly into view and then back out of view and then slightly back into view, poking its head around the door and then back out of view again, but it's hopefully still coming into view eventually.

Other news is starting to get its headline grabbing Mojo back.

And in times of trouble, we often look to the past for reassurance.

So this week, it has been Cold War nostalgia time

again.

And I I mean, we have Cold War nostalgia quite regularly.

And during Covid time, I have to say, I've really missed it over the past year.

I often find myself wistfully thinking back to time to wistfully thought back to the Cold War.

And this week, well, America has been really busy loggerheading.

Is that a verb?

Anything can be verbed these days.

Loggerheading with both Russia and China, as well, of course, as its oldest, fiercest enemy itself.

Now, which of these excites you most, Hari, is an American?

The the tensions with Russia, old school Russian-American standoffs, or the slightly newer, more modern tensions with China.

What's really getting you out of bed in the morning?

Well, it's tricky.

I will say there is something really special about

the U.S.-Russia stuff, especially the exchanges between Putin and Biden.

Like,

Biden said that Putin was a killer without a soul, and in response, Putin said, it takes one to know one.

But then Biden responded, I'm rubber and you're glue, so whatever you say bounces off me and sticks back to you.

Classic.

I'm pretty sure it ended up with both of them just saying your mum to each other.

Yes, but that's correct.

That's how it evolved.

Vladimir Putin has offered to settle this by way of a conversation on a Zoom call.

And let's be honest, regardless of where you're from, what you think about the world,

no one wants to see that Zoom call.

No one wants to see Joe Biden mashing the keys to try and struggle to get himself off of mute.

And no one wants to see Vladimir Putin join completely naked and somehow act surprised.

Oh, I didn't know the call was coming through.

Oh, dear, here's my fully erect penis.

We know, Vladimir, we know you had to accept the the Zoom call, click on the link, and hit join with video.

There were so many steps to prevent that from being an accident, you f ⁇ ing exhibitionist.

And he's looking at pictures of himself naked.

He's just, he's got a big mirror and his laptop open at an angle in which we can see both him and his reflection.

I mean, this is proper old school kind of tit-for-tat stuff, Russia, or the Kremlin, as it's often described in new news reports.

I like to

slightly take some of the authority out of it by referring to it as Kremy the Kremlin.

It's my favourite

cartoon version of overseas government.

Kremy the Kremlin recalled the Russian ambassador to Washington in a strategic counterpeeve.

Russia slammed Biden as senile and a world-class hypocrite.

I don't know if that's a compliment or not.

I mean, is a world-class hypocrite mean that you're so good at hypocrisy that you...

people don't always notice it

or

I mean it's a step up on the kind of primary school level hypocrite that was Biden's predecessor.

Andrei Turchak from the ruling United Russia Party described Biden's interview as, quotes, a triumph of US political insanity.

And that's

quite a good review in a lot of ways, isn't it?

That was another review of one of my stand-up shows.

It was a confusing one.

But it's interesting, isn't it, that they've gone for the...

Because there was a report this week that showed that Russia had interfered in the 2020 election to try to help out the former social media influencer Donald Trump.

And

Kremy responded to these claims, not by debunking them, denying them, but just with a classic your new president is an old codger line of attack, which suggests there might be

some some some uh fire to go with all that smoke.

They also wished him Vladimir Putin also wished Biden good health, which is literally the last thing you ever want to hear from Vladimir Putin because that that's normally what he says before he, you know, does the classic Putin shuffle, by which I mean pop some polonium in a sushi box.

If Putin told you after a dinner party, get home safe, you're dead.

Oh my god, your car's brakes were cut hours ago.

Say hello to your wife and children when you get home

to heaven because they are also already dead.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, apparently responding to Biden's interview, said, there hasn't been anything like this in history.

What?

What leaders slagging each other off in public?

No, of course, there's never been anything like that in history.

I mean, I mean, there is a bit of a tradition of airbrushing things out of history in

the higher echelons of Russian government.

I think that's fair to say.

And no doubt old Trotsky would back me up on this one.

But it's interesting, isn't it?

That airbrushing things out of history is one of the things that it's very difficult to airbrush out of history.

I don't know what you could read into that.

But what do you say?

I mean, let's try and put a score on this in terms of nuclear likelihood.

What chances are of the US-Russia spat

degenerating into a full-out nuclear war?

I've run the maths on this.

7.4.

I don't know what it's out of.

But anyway, 7.4 sounds like quite a lot.

A lot of these comments have also covered the same week as Putin attending a concert, which the official purpose of which is to celebrate the reunification of Crimea with Russia.

Now, reunification is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Crimea was reunified with Russia in much the same way as when I was mugged.

The guy who mugged me was reunified between his hand and my wallet.

it's a it's a big old euphemism

well that's uh that was seven years ago this week uh the annexation of crimea we've had um ten years of the syrian uh civil war uh there's some really chirpy anniversaries flying around at the moment

It's not been a fantastic century so far.

It hasn't, Nish.

No, but

you know, if we're only competing against the 20th century, we're still doing okay.

21 years in.

Can you imagine that?

9-11 was just the opening act.

It was just, you know, it was just starting us off.

And you would be like, oh, well, thank God, that's the worst that could fall.

And then every

year since, something else.

Yeah.

Absolutely incredible.

And this year got the 100-ball cricket competition.

Yeah.

In the interest of balance, this has been a fantastic century.

Please can I have my job back

moving on to China?

There were the first

high-level meetings of American and Chinese officials since Joe Biden took over.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met China's Yang Jieqi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Alaska, which is an interesting choice of location for for something that's already being talked up as the new Cold War.

They're already going in for the visuals on that one.

And it obviously ended up in public squabbling, shade-throwing, insult for insult, zing for zing.

And I mean, it's, I don't know, where you put this on the

nuke likelihood scale.

I'd say 6.5, but it's a different scale to the Russian one.

So I don't know if that's more or less.

China not scoring many international human rights brownie points at the moment.

America, of course, trying to re-establish its global leadership credentials in the aftermath of the Trump regime.

I mean this is not the most promising of diplomatic Tinder dates, is it?

Yeah, I mean it's Tinder insofar as it could burst into flames at literally anybody.

It's yeah, it's listen, it's very spicy.

Say what you will about the Chinese Communist Party, and you will end up in a work retreat in Xinjiang.

Those guys are some spicy mother f ⁇ ers.

And also, I really appreciate the fact that America is going, listen, you guys are really doing some bad stuff to your own people.

And that's our jam.

Okay?

Stop ripping us off, China.

We invented, we invented oppressing our own people.

Oh, that's a big claim from America.

Don't forget your roots, people.

And in this age of Cold War nostalgia, well, Nish,

it's been a great week in Britain because we are tooling up

our nuclear arsenal.

It's much, much needed because estimates suggest that we've dropped down to only 185 nuclear warheads.

And the government has made it an absolute priority to get our nuclear arsenal back well above the psychologically critical 200 warhead mark.

I mean, this surely is the most important thing for our government to be spending its money on.

And yeah, from Boris Johnson's point of view, what's the point of devoting yourself to a career in politics if you can't treat yourself to some pointless grandstanding spending on things that go bang?

You know, he's earned that, right, hasn't he?

Yeah, I mean, listen, coming a couple of weeks after there was a major budget announcement, which included the fact that I think nurses are getting a pay increase in the form of handwritten IOU notes from Boris Johnson.

I believe that, I think it's just going to be handwritten IOU some money commensurate to the fact that you've all been risking your lives for the last year trying to treat this f ⁇ ing pandemic.

I think they might have misread the IOU of the I being a cock and the O and the U being two balls.

You know what, Andy?

I'm actually looking at it closer and that it...

That's my bad.

That's my bad.

That was me misreporting what was happening.

Yeah.

Boris Johnson, after a couple of weeks ago when Boris Johnson wrote a cock and balls on a piece of paper and threw it at some nurses,

that is essentially what he's done.

Because he said we didn't have enough money.

It's a slightly slightly surprising announcement that this week the UK has led to reverse plans to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons.

So what they're doing is announcing the overall cap was due to drop to 180 under previous plans from 2010.

That overall cap, so the most nuclear warheads we could possibly have, will now increase to 260.

And look, the government has taken a look at Britain.

a country ravaged by the pandemic where over 120,000 people have died and standing on the precipice of economic Armageddon once the furlough scheme ends that's been subsidizing people's wages who might have otherwise lost their job.

They've looked at that and thought, you know what we need?

Nukes.

They've looked at that and just thought, you know what we need?

We need to tool up to fight some sort of imaginary listen, the only goddamn thing the government should be doing with nuclear anything is doing some experiments so that we can all get and this is a direct quote at minimum X-Men levels of superpowers.

That's the only thing

that the the government should be.

That's from a nuclear recommendation panel written by, I believe it's N.

Kumar.

We should be experimenting to get, we should be aiming towards Professor Hulk level powers.

That's from the run in the comics where the Hulk managed to combine the brains of Bruce Banner with the powers of the Incredible Hulk.

That should be the ultimate goal of British society.

But at minimum, we should be getting Jubilee level powers, who's the person from the X-Men who can just basically launch a minor fireworks display from our hands.

That's what we should be getting.

And you'd think this government should know that after Michael Gove was bitten by a radioactive cockroach as a child.

That explains his career ever since.

Wow.

I don't think I've ever heard a joke where I've come out on the side of the cockroaches.

I'm actually like, that's harsh on cockroaches, Andy.

I've seen some of them, and they are definitely sexier than Michael Gove.

But yeah, in terms of this spunding, spunding, spunding, spending, spending.

It's my South African roots coming out.

A bit of spunding going on.

Well, the nurses, I'm not so fussed about the nurses, because who needs money when you get to wear really cool full-body PPE every day?

Lucky bastards.

But, you know, you look at underfunding of police, schools, local councils, social care, mental health services, libraries, and youth clubs closing by the hundred.

I mean, this bit could go on for a fk of a long time.

All the things we could be spending money on.

Just think about your favourite crucial public service buglers and just assume it's grotesquely underfunded.

But all that can wait

because we need those nukes.

Now, what really annoys me about this is I wouldn't mind this if we ever actually

use them.

I want some literal bang for my tax buck.

At least with other forms of public spending, you can see benefits like your children being out of the house for eight hours a day, five days a week.

That justifies the education budget, or your car being on a bridge instead of in the Thames.

You know, you can see that money is benefiting your life.

But nukes, we don't even get a fing parade in this country.

I don't know.

And Hari, obviously, I mean, you, you've got 6,000 nukes

between you.

Too many.

Which Russia's got about slightly more, I think about 6,300.

I mean, the UK's current stockpile just below 200, I think is estimated to be not quite enough for us to destroy the entire planet unilaterally.

So, obviously, people don't take us seriously as a global force until we can wipe out all known life.

So

in America, I mean is it discussed in America whether 6,000 is enough or not enough or too much?

Well we have 6,000 because in America the men have very small penises.

And

as a result, you need six.

And then right after that, it's the UK.

India, only 150.

Just saying, Pakistan, 160.

Hello.

Oh,

that is worrying.

And also, I mean, because

those are the, when you look at where the nuclear weapons are in the world, those numbers really, really stand out because those are 150 and 160 right next to each other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Facing each other, in fact.

Yes.

And, you know, India thought that Pakistan's current Prime Minister, Imran Khan, was dangerous enough when, as a cricketer, he destroyed them in the 1982-83 test series, so one of the greatest displays of bowling in the history of cricket, as well as contributing some big runs with the bat.

But now that he's got 160 nukes he's arguably even more of a threat i i genuinely can't believe it isn't mentioned every week on this podcast that ibran khan is the prime minister of pakistan that's mentioned quite a lot i think because i just mean it's the true union of all of your interests andrew

it's the true union cricket politics and food from the subcontinent which we get in tangentially just by talking about india and pakistan of course you know

imran's political career was significantly boosted by the fact that he led Pakistan to the World Cup of cricket in 1992.

That gave him this, you know, incredible.

I mean, he was already a cricketing hero, but I think winning the World Cup was a real moment in terms of making him a political force.

And yet in that World Cup final, a couple of umpiring decisions really went against England.

In particular, it was Derek Pringle to Javed Miyandad.

And if those had gone the other way, then Derek Pringle would be Prime Minister of England.

and that I think we would all take and as it currently stands I would happily take that.

Protest news now and Nish you are our

protesting in Britain correspondent and aside from chaining yourself to the railings at the BBC this week there's been some

some exciting news in terms of the government clamping down on on protest.

Yeah, that's right.

A new bill entitled the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill, which, as a combination of words, does suggest it's no fun whatsoever,

has passed its first reading in the House of Commons.

Now, this bill, look,

this bill is like a biopic of Jawalal Nehru called Jawalol as starring Rob Schneider covered in boot polish and giving it the full head wobble.

In that absolutely nothing about it looks good.

Absolutely nothing about this looks good in any way whatsoever because the bill gives the Home Secretary, Pretty Patel, the powers to create laws without parliamentary approval to define serious disruption to communities and organisations, which police can then use to impose severe restrictions on protests.

And also, senior officers are going to be able to impose noise limits on protests, and it gives them powers to intervene when the noise is disrupting the activities of an organization or has a relevant impact on persons in the industry.

Now, call me an old school square, but the whole point of a protest is to disrupt the activities of the organisation and the relevant persons in the vicinity.

I think we can all agree Martin Luther King would have had a lot less impact if he turned up to make the I Have a Dream speech without a sound system and instead had just written the whole thing down on a piece of paper and asked people to hand it round and silently read it to themselves.

Or play it like a game of telephone and just have people whisper it to each other and eventually have a guy who got there late standing right at the back say, I grab a scream.

What's this going on?

Now, here's the thing about Prudy Patel.

Aside from, and I believe I've said this before on the podcast, being every Asian kid's least favourite aunt.

The kind of aunt who for Christmas gives you a clip round the ear.

Pretty Patel, being in charge of a protest bill, is a bad combination of personal responsibility.

She described the Extinction Rebellion protesters as so-called eco-crusaders turned criminals and called the Black Lives Matter protests last year dreadful.

Having her drafting protest legislation is like having animal rights legislation drafted by Ronald MacDonald and the hamburgler.

She has a vested interest in these laws being absolute dog shit.

And the news in relation to Pretty Patel has been getting worse within the last hour

because part of the reason the protest bill is so much at the forefront of the national conversation at the moment aside from the fact that it's f ⁇ ing draconian beyond belief is that there's been a serious conversation happening about the way we protest in this country after a vigil that happened in Clapham Common last week after the murder of Sarah Everard now Sarah Everard was brutally murdered and the person who has been accused of her murder so far is a police officer Now obviously under those circumstances, what you don't want to have happen is if there is going to be a vigil, have the police turn up and behave like, and this is a direct quote from me, a bunch of f ⁇ ing godless ACAB cents, right?

Now, but also in the interests of balance, SCAB, some cops are bastards.

Police can have my job back.

So obviously, the police handling of that protest, there have been serious questions because the police used an unnecessary amount of force.

There were a lot of protesters being manhandled on camera.

And the last thing you want in a situation where women have turned up to protest about the treatment of women, potentially by a police officer in this specific case, is to have police officers mistreat women.

But on the positive side, it does so far seem as though the bill's passage has stalled.

So it's not clear what's going to happen next with the bill, but after having passed its first reading, where it was voted through the House of Commons, it now is supposed to go into a committee stage.

But there are a lot of rumours coming out this week that the bill is actually going to be delayed until the autumn.

Now, if that is the case, it is almost certainly the result of a string of direct actions and protests undertaken this week by, led by, amongst others, Sisters Uncut, who are a brilliant feminist campaigning group that have done a lot of incredible work in the last 10 years.

The very fact that this bill is stalled is proof that protests fing works.

It is a very heartening example of what mass dissent can still continue to achieve.

And to pretty buttle, all I will say is this: go f yourself, you fing piece of shit.

I think.

But in the interests of balance, oh, you know what?

F it.

She's an asshole.

Johnson's a liar and a racist.

F the lot of them.

This entire government is a pack of f.

I don't even want my job back.

That whole section, I was thinking about

a Nehru bobblehead doll and how funny that would be.

The visual, Nish, was so enjoyable.

Listen,

if the man who brought the world Deuce Bigelow, male Gigelo, cannot be trusted to deliver a performance as Jawalal Nehru, then I don't believe the art of cinema has anything to offer in the 21st century.

That is all for this week's Bugle.

Nish, you have some albums out?

Yes, I have something to promote.

And it is two comedy albums by me that were released today, Friday the 19th of March, as we record.

They are called It's In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves, Part 1, and It's In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves, Part 2.

And they are the live recordings of the shows that I did in 2016 and 2019.

So please go and listen to them because I, as discussed, have lost several jobs.

I am quite literally hemorrhaging jobs right now.

So

any assistance you can provide by buying or listening to the albums is greatly appreciated.

They are, let me tell you, not balanced.

Let me give you a spoiler right now.

That is not balanced comedy in any sense, be it political or emotional.

It is.

It is imbalanced.

Ari,

any shows to plug?

I still have my podcast with W.

Kamal Bell every week.

It's called Politically Reactive.

Also, I also encourage you to purchase Nish's albums.

Of course, his older stuff is also available.

They're called Waiting for 2042 and Mainstream American Comic.

It's from an earlier era of his career.

So feel free to support Nish as much as you can.

Thank you for listening, Buglers.

We will play you out with some lies about our premium-level voluntary subscribers to join them or to make a wonderful recurring contribution of any size to the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Steve Roach wonders how the legendary Japanese painter Hokusai, famous for his the great wave off Kanagawa picture, but sadly dead now as he has been indeed continuously since 1849, would have got on with modern-day surfers.

I like to think there would have been mutual respect, speculates Steve, but also mutual confusion.

Why would you paint it when you can ride ride it, they would say.

On the subject of the sea, Aelan Ezekiel thinks the renowned salt-obsessed 70% of the earth-covering water mass is a bit overrated compared to land, from a visual perspective at least.

Aelan has particular scorn for the parrot fish.

Most fish seem to copy each other to a large extent anyway, with all due respect, so why the parrotfish gets that label specifically, I just don't know.

I'd call them sheepfish instead, the unoriginal pelagic plagiarists.

Richard Moll is suspicious of any organisation that claims to have headquarters.

It always makes me wonder what on earth they're doing in the other 75% of their facilities, notes Richard.

They're up to no good, I reckon.

Besides, headquarters?

Who are they, Trona kid?

Chances are they account for way less than 25% of their total buildings and land.

Probably a tax thing, concludes Richard angrily.

The most heart-rending interview Rob Wilson ever read was with Dietmark Schloudengraber, the European and World Anticipation Champion, who took no joy in his victories because as he himself said, he basically knew it was going to happen, and the moment of victory was always going to be less good than the build-up anyway.

Imagine being that good at your chosen sphere of excellence, laments Rob, but inevitably getting so little enjoyment from it.

And finally Richard Postil thinks the world is not very good at dealing with dilemmas.

As a whole, we need more practice at resolving difficult, unappealing matters, so we need more dilemmas to learn from, says Richard.

But I'm really not sure whether having more dilemmas is better or worse than remaining bad at dealing with dilemmas but having fewer of them to deal with.

I'm really not sure.

Oh, this is a tough one.

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.