You Musk Be Joking! 🙊

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4182 of the Bugle, audio newspaper for a world that isn't really living its best life right now.

Don't judge it.

We look at other planets.

Jupiter, way bigger, way more resources, but less fun than Earth even in our current states of rubbishness so let's not go get too down on ourselves I'm Andy Zaltzman live from the shed and joining me from their virtual sheds or indeed homes around the world firstly from Australia Alice Fraser hello Andy hello buglers it's good to be back

isn't it nice to have you back Alice you're you know as always what nine ten hours further into the month than we are we've just started February here in Britain.

It's looking like it could be the best month of the year so far.

Yeah, I'm starting to feel like Australia is a little more than 10 hours ahead when it comes to sort of COVID strategy.

What, like a millennium?

Also, joining us from something less far in the future from India, Anuvab Pal.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Alice.

Hi, Anuvab.

How's India?

It seems quite lively at the moment in India from news we will touch on later on in the show.

Yes, it's fantastic, Andy.

We have basically decided that we have won the war against Corona because the number of cases have dropped by about 30%.

It's a little different than how Australia looks at it because Australia have had zero cases and they have gone out to the world and said we have zero cases and therefore we have won the war against corona.

We still have about 30, 40,000 corona cases a day, but we've won the war against corona.

And the correlation of that is the reason we've done that is because we have won a cricket match against Australia.

Apparently, an important cricket match.

I'm not a huge fan, Andy.

I know that's...

You don't need the word important in front of that.

It's a cricket match.

By definition, it's important.

We are recording on the 1st of February.

It is World Read Aloud Day.

So do read something aloud to someone today, whether or not they want you to.

To mark this occasion, I've actually written a script for the bugle this week.

Normally, I just smear newsprint all over my eyeballs and just riff it.

So here, I've actually written a script for you.

Welcome to the Bugle.

Remove cloak to reveal new thoracic tattoos of vaccines in Union Jack Serena.

Oh, I'm not supposed to read out the stage directions.

Joining M.

Todoy.

This is the problem with reading Aliwad.

It really pamplifies your spelling misgates.

But at least, I ancipiated tart.

Anyway, I think enough.

I've pushed that joke quite as far as it needs to go.

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

This week, a mental agility supplement.

Following a report by any guesses, yes, scientists, them again, that having a nap in the afternoon could help keep you mentally agile.

We have a bugle guide to how to be an unstoppable bionic machine of mental agility and productivity without having to give in to the time-stealing demands of sleep.

As we've repeatedly said on the show, we are a bon jovi worshipping organisation and we will live whilst we're alive, thanks Peter Coffee and Kip Knapp and Power Snooze when we're considerably less alive.

Now, obviously, this report on afternoon naps comes at a very awkward time for Britain in the early days of Brexit.

We left the EU not just to get a head start on vaccines, but to stop Brussels imposing a compulsory continent-wide siesta.

So slightly awkward.

But anyway, here's our Bugle Guide to other things that can keep you mentally agile.

Commit a large crime and then live in constant fear of being exposed for your wrongdoing or hunted down by a vengeful avenger.

That really keeps you on your toes, I've found.

Our little secret.

Or, alternatively, take up a new lockdown hobby that stimulates the brain.

Perhaps formulate new, coherent, and credible conspiracy theories to spread online.

Or create a new religion.

That's basically the same thing.

Or develop a vaccine for something.

That seems to keep people busy who are lucky enough to do it for a living.

Or you can make a bucket list of all the things that you would have done over the past year that you've now had to chuck into a metaphorical bucket and tip out of the window like a medieval shit.

Also, to keep your mind mentally agile, some brain-enhancing puzzles.

Design a 3D snooker table that would work in zero gravity to make long-term intergalactic space travel more bearable.

Or give first, middle, and surnames to all your cutlery and kitchen utensils, then try to remember them under cross-examination from a housemate, family member, or freelance online inquisitor.

Also, to keep your mind agile, try to remember what life was like in 2019.

Yeah.

Please also bear in mind that having a nap in the afternoon is not recommended if you do one of the following jobs.

Wimbledon finalist, generally an afternoon activity.

Hostage negotiator, always keep sharp.

Children's TV presenter.

Just don't sleep through your key shift.

Or a bugle co-host today.

That only applies to me.

I'm the only one doing it in the afternoon, principally.

Anuvab, what early evening?

Getting your time.

Early evening.

But I'm fascinated by freelance internet inquisitor.

I just wanted to have to apply for that on LinkedIn.

Yeah, there's got to be a gap in the market, isn't there?

Alice,

middle of the night where you are, basically.

Yes, yes, it's 12.15 a.m.

and I am feeling sleepy.

Top story this week.

Well, it's been a week of upheaval, dissatisfaction and argument around the world.

So there's only one place to start.

Jewish space laser news now.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman, has essentially claimed that Jewish space lasers caused wildfires in California.

Alice, you are

both our

Jewish conspiracy correspondent and our space laser correspondent by fortuitous coincidence.

Please fill us in on all the gaps in this this extraordinary story.

Andy, this is an amazing story.

It's got to do with a Republican Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, who puts the into hell, this woman has been granted power and authority over other people.

Yes, not to judge people on how they look, but please pull up a Google image search before the next sentence.

Marjorie Taylor Greene looks like a gym teacher high on a shredding supplement that was recalled six months ago for causing intense psychological effects, but she doesn't know because she's forgotten how to read.

She looks like the worst step-grandmother ever to trick a 90-year-old grandfather into marrying her on a yacht.

She looks like the kind of lady who will chase down traumatized school children who survived school shootings and scream in their faces because she'd rather believe in a world where their evil actors being paid to pretend all their friends are dead.

No, wait, that's a real one.

She looks like the kind of lady who prefers to believe in Jewish space lasers because she doesn't know what else to believe when presented with the irrefutable evidence of somebody who's clearly describing lightning when they say that the California wildfires seem to be caused by, quote, blue lines coming from the sky.

I mean, she is quite extraordinary, as you say, Marjorie Taylor Green.

She's attracted much media coverage over recent times for things like

espousing support for QAnon and other crackpot cankerous conspiracy theories, accusing Hillary Clinton of murder, and as you say, pursuing a survivor of the Parkland School shooting to badger him about how great guns are.

Bold, if nothing else, and generally proudly parading her black belt in bigotry, as well as not being able to count, or as it's known in America, claiming Trump won last year's election.

But it emerged this week that in 2018, she claimed that these deadly wildfires were caused by a Jewish space laser.

And

I mean, aside from that being, you know,

slightly not entirely backed up by science, and also one of the more creative ways of not blaming

climate change on increased natural disasters.

The reason is that the Jewish space laser was used was to clear room for a train line.

Now,

I mean, this is, I mean, let's try and get some perspective on this.

Because, I mean, she didn't use the term Jewish space laser.

She merely suggested that a cabal of international bankers who just happened to be Jewish had access to a solar space generator that can redirect the sun's rays from space to Earth.

And obviously, with such things, accidents do happen, don't they, such as fires that might clear the way for a $77 billion high-speed rail link.

In other words, Jewish space laser.

Anna Vabadano, have you ever seen a Jewish space laser firing over India?

Every week, you know, I think we have one.

But I have a question about

QAnon and the fact that they blame the secret cabal.

Now, Andy Ellis, what I want to know is, apparently one of the things, again, English is my second language, but apparently one of the things about a secret cabal is that you have to do things in secret.

And apparently they blame George Soros to be the billionaire George Soros philanthropy to be the head of this group that secretly do things, who also happen to be Jewish.

Now,

if they want to secretly set up a blaze, and if an international cabal of Jewish bankers want to finance a rail project,

is the best, most secret way.

Andy, Alice, to be using space lasers that set up a catastrophic blaze,

would that get a slight bit of attention?

Aren't there easier ways of secrecy like we've learnt in India to get your rail projects approved?

Just do it by bribing the state legislature in a vote everyone overlooks.

I thought the way you built railways in India was just allow yourself to be colonized by the British.

That is correct.

You do all the railways and hedges for you.

That is correct.

But the bribery maintains it over the next 70 years.

I mean, look, we all know that Jewish space lasers have always had control of space and can affect things on Earth.

You know, it's no great surprise to me.

As a Jew, me and my people were great with lasers.

We all have them in our eyes.

We just choose not to use them that much.

Hashtag God's chosen people.

Hashtag GCP.

But here's a fact.

28% of all laser eye surgery is people who want to be Jewish and have misunderstood the operation.

If you don't believe me about the Jewish eye lasers, explain this.

Right, well, now that we've dealt with the issue of the Jewish space lasers,

come on, my team.

Time to move on to the rest of the world's news.

And it's been a week of really important, quite weighty stories that we really need to address as a matter of fact.

Elon Musk is making monkeys play video games.

Okay,

just hold the press.

Elon Musk is making monkeys play computer games.

It's one of those sentences that is simultaneously, you know, totally unsurprising and gloriously idiotic.

It's not even as...

The way I said it makes it sound better than what it is.

All right, okay.

So this is Elon Musk, a young man who thinks he can change the world with his money.

I know he's not young, but he is immature and that's valid.

He is a man who invented and then drank from the fountain of youth and all it did was take away his ability to look at a utopian moonshot delicately balanced on the razor's edge of a brutal slide towards dystopia and go,

maybe I won't boast about this to everyone.

He has just come out and mentioned how one of his many companies has put wires into a monkey's brain and is training this monkey to play video games with its mind.

Look, you can't help admiring Musk for his ambition.

He basically single-handedly gave a cash boost to the incredibly expensive enterprise of hardware prototyping in a world where it's much easier and cheaper to stick with iterating software.

Good on him.

Also, if this goes well, there could be some life-saving implications for technology.

Maybe my issue with this is mainly aesthetic.

Like, stop bragging about your horrible monkey brain chopping factory.

Like, primate testing that's really cruel is not the slam dunk cool story bro that you think it is.

For every one monkey happily playing pong with its mind, you've euthanized many, many other, presumably less happy monkeys who don't get to spend the rest of their short lives padding your resume because they get swept under the money rug with all your other failures.

So, so exactly, you know, just in terms of you know, you know, me, Alice, I'm a stickler for scientific detail.

Exactly,

so it was sticking, was it electrodes?

Just like is he like jabbing things into the skulls of monkeys or like putting pads on the heads of

monkeys?

Is he is he like what putting a

he says specifically he describes it as not having wires poking out but being like a Fitbrit that they've inserted into your brain.

Oh right.

Okay that's different is it?

Yeah that's what I need is a literal buzzing noise in the back of my head telling me I'm getting fat.

Like this is

the worst technology ever.

Moving on from the absolutely crucial Elon Musk tinkers with monkeys' brains to make them play games news

Well, in many ways, you know, the entire history of humanity is the result of apes playing games.

And what greater game is there than protesting and rioting?

I mean, this is why I'm not a local radio DJ.

I just can't do the links that smoothly.

Anyway, protest news now.

And, well, all over the world, protests have been being protested over the past week.

I I mean it's most likely that the protests all over the world are some kind of side effect of the Jewish space lasers that affect the alignment of cells in people's brains, making them more propensitized to be dissatisfied with the status quo and therefore protest.

We don't know.

We just

don't know yet.

But the latest protest just overnight was the protest in Myanmar by the military who protested against Aung Sang Su Shi and members of her government, a protest that took the form of a military coup.

They're a very effective form of protest.

You compare actually with the American protests.

They're claiming that Aung Sang Su-shi's victory in the 2020 election in November was a fraud, a hoax, that there were millions of irregularities despite no evidence being found of that.

Bit derivative, Myanmar.

But the difference being the incumbent won, and this coup was performed by the actual military

rather than Trump's America's version of some clod-headed right-wing wannabe Rambos who spent the last 15 years shooting tin cans in a forest and calling themselves Field Marshal Truth.

So it worked more efficiently and

our classic

military coup.

It's hard to know what to make of this.

It's a hard country to understand, I think.

Anuvab Aung Sang Sushi, one of the last few decades, great democratic heroes and disappointments, pioneer of the celebrity staycation.

Exactly.

I mean, Nobel Peace Prize, if you remember.

And I think that it does affect your stature as a leader, the the darling of the liberal world, if you come out and say you don't like a particular religious minority.

It's a very edge of face.

Just a tiny, tiny bit.

It does affect your reputation.

And then if you're in the middle of a genocide when you do nothing, that again, I think, as a tiny bit does affect you.

So, you know, now that there is a coup, I'd be very interested to know how many countries will jump in.

to save her.

But I mean, of course, Aum Saf Suchi has shown signs of being a liberal human being.

Opposing her is, of course, the generals of Burma.

I'm going to mispronounce this, but the junta, the yunta, I think they're called.

And you know that they're probably not the most liberal of men because I can't name you a single general of Burma.

They just perform as a collective.

They don't go out there and say, hello, I'm John.

This is David.

So that is already making me a little suspicious.

So it's, I don't know what we're choosing between here.

Well, I mean, look, you look at look at Aung Sang Suu Ki.

She's done some of her best work when she wasn't doing anything when she was under house arrest.

So maybe now that she's back under house arrest,

just think the sky is the limit.

Unfortunately, of course, the people mainly doing the massacring of the Rohingya Muslims were the military.

So

that's less good as an outcome.

You know, given this is protest season Andy Alice, you know, for the last three months, there's been quite a bit of stuff going on here in terms of shutting off the internet.

And if you permit me,

it's slightly long, but I'll try to do it as quickly as possible to sort of summarize the kind of protests that are going on in India for the last few months.

Because there's been a lot of it.

I don't know if we can compete with Russia and that stuff, but I think we're up there, you know.

So I have to start with a bit of context.

26th January 1950,

after you left, Andy, by which I mean the British, was when the Constitution of India was adopted.

On this day, every 26th of January, we do very weird things that some countries may not understand, but North Korea and Stalin would get it.

We basically bring out all our weapons and some of our best regiments, and they march in front of a foreign world leader and our prime minister.

It's a thing like an ice culpron on a cruise ship.

Don't overthink it.

We call it Republic Day.

Now, in parallel, for a number of months, India's farmers, a lot of them from the Punjab region, where a bulk of our farms are, have been protesting against new farm laws that the government passed.

Hundreds of thousands of farmers have been camping out in the cold and rain for two months before Republic Day, some sleeping on tractors on the outskirts of Delhi, demanding these laws go.

It has something to do with deregulating farm produce prices.

And I googled New Indian Farm Laws Simplified and I got a news story that said, New Indian farm laws, like all Indian laws, are impossible to simplify.

Here is the simplest version, and it was 400 pages.

By the time we got to Republic Day, 11 rounds of talks had failed between the government and the farmers.

Now, on Republic Day, when our Prime Minister was saluting fighter planes, a group of protesting farmers marched on the Red Fort, which is in the middle of New Delhi, our capital, inspired by the capital insurgency in America, and climbed it and started waving all sorts of flags on top of it.

Interestingly, the Red Fort, built by Emperor Shah Johan in 1639, is neither our parliament nor an official government building.

But it is imposing, historic, and a tourist site, often a place for speeches and classical music concerts.

It is like if a bunch of farmers marched on London and climbed on top of the London Eye to protest some sort of tax.

As an aside, The foreign guest for our Republic Day was supposed to be Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said at the last minute he couldn't come because the new COVID variant had made his schedule 70% more unpredictable than earlier.

Anyway, the storming led to violence, over 50 people died, and again, inspired by the world's oldest democracy, the farmers said government infiltrators started the violence, the government said farmers are terrorists, fake videos circulated on WhatsApp and the BBC in its true understated fashion reported some young radicals were slightly miffed at which the speed of their talks were proceeding, which was four months.

Anarchy led to losing some public support and the government did what any mature democracy would do, suspended mobile internet services in three areas around the capital, which has continued from Republic Day till as we speak, where farmers are now staging a hunger strike in protest of the new laws, which is their latest move.

It is always sensible when a government says to a protesting group, speak to us, we will listen, by first making sure they can't speak to each other.

And lastly, just to summarize, as Alice said before, Here's a shout out to the hunger strike.

First thought of by Gandhi as a means to confuse Churchill, so the latter was never sure whether Gandhi wanted freedom or a different cook.

It has outlasted many, many things.

It has outlasted the Band Oasis, the Blackberry, and even the Boeing 747.

And speaking of sustainability, the hunger strike is up there with rainwater harvesting.

That is the current state of protests in India.

Other protests around the world, oh, well, there's been rioting in the Netherlands, of all places, where windmills have proved to be about as effective at seeing off the virus as blustering incompetence has here in Britain.

In France, there have been large protests against a new security bill banning the filming of police activities, and also against the use of surveillance tools like drones, and against a lack of support for the cultural sector during COVID.

Protest leaders said they were, quote, unhappy and disillusioned with the government's measures, or in the original French,

avecs Louis-Loire, etc.

Législative legislature,

the

COVID-19 and security

security, which passes within the society sector, the purpose of functions of Jets and France

to the new eternal

dissatisfactive male

des les

malady des douleures, and sentiment content les abnegations of our liberté.

Compromise.

There's also been anti-lockdown protests in Aarhus in Denmark amidst a Scandinavia-wide panic about the impact of lockdown on the production schedules of moody, artistically shot crime thriller TV series.

And

well, in Poland, thousands have protested against a near-total ban on abortion, which has been brought in by the government last year under the age-old universal human law that a woman's womb is a powerful man she's never met, normally certainly didn't vote for's business.

It's maybe starting to look a little bit outdated.

That one.

Alice, what's been your favorite protest of the last week?

Well, I think I'm enjoying very much the anti-lockdown protests in France.

Apparently, French newspaper Le Figura found out that 60% of French people would be against another lockdown because the French love freedom and they hate old people.

That's why they still pretend cigarettes and cake for breakfast are cool, picturesque, romantic lifestyle choices instead of a way of ensuring nobody lives past 60.

In Russia, thousands of people have joined protests to demand the release of Alexei Novalny, the opposition leader, who was poisoned in a botched assassination attempt, then arrested and imprisoned, because of course Putin isn't worried about him.

It's just horseplay between buddies.

Thousands of people have been arrested in recent weeks.

And now the government in Russia is taking aim at social media.

They've said social media platforms are going to face fines for failing to delete posts that encourage young people to take part in opposition protests.

And we've seen this as well, you know, the role of social media in the American storming of the the bastille updating and can we not just reach a point with social can they not agree only to post stuff from goodies not baddies would that not sort everything out all over the world i know putin might not like it but surely that's the way to go

I did like that one quote from Putin saying, I don't, because there was some accusation on social media from Alexei Navendi saying that Putin had a palace by a lake somewhere, and then a billionaire stepped up and said, that's not his palace.

that's my palace um

like some bizarre edition of there's a tv show called through the keyhole i don't know we we had here where you had to guess who who who would live in a house like this was was the kind of the the the slogan of of the show and we've this we've been seeing this played out with which billionaire stroke plutograt stroke corrupt politician would live in a fing ridiculous mansion like this.

Exactly, and and it says a lot about friendship.

You know, I don't have a single friend who who would stand up and say, that palace is mine if I was ever in trouble.

Need better friends.

Yeah.

Here in London, protesters have been trying to stop the HS2 rail line, stroke governmental vanity projects, stroke wrong solution to the wrong problem, stroke Noble scheme to perk up some dull countryside with something fast and shiny, stroke 10 Olympics worth of choo choo trains.

Maybe it looks like we should have spent it on 10 more Olympics, given that it's become glaringly apparent over the past year that business people don't need to get from London to Birmingham 20 minutes quicker if they have access to the internet.

Well done for taking just the 20 odd years to work that out.

The protesters have done so by building a secret tunnel.

to prevent themselves from being evicted from a protest camp outside Euston station, fighting tunnelling with tunnelling.

God, that's a waspishly satirical statement.

The campaign group alleges HS2 is, quotes, the most expensive, wasteful, and destructive project in UK history.

Um, which is a big claim.

I'm not sure it's even the most expensive, wasteful, and destructive project going on in the UK right now.

Um, the um, the protesters claim that the HS2 line will destroy or irreparably damage 108 ancient woodlands and 693 wildlife sites.

Uh, and uh, supporters of the scheme have replied, Whoosh,

whoosh, 20 minutes quicker.

the ridiculous world of big money news now and uh well sensational news in uh the stock market values of computer games companies in america um alice uh and anivab you you you used to write about economics as well i'm hoping between the two of you you can explain this to me because although obviously i am a published economic author

from my uh book from 2008 which no doubt festoons all of your toilets, buglers.

There's still a few gaps in my knowledge of how the international markets work.

And this story is completely extraordinary, isn't it?

The sound that you can hear whenever this is on the news, that kind of ruffling noise, that's the sound of 17th-century Dutch tulips turning in their graves.

Alex.

Look, Andy, I would love to explain this whole scenario to you, but I don't want to get in the way of the hundreds of smart young men who are tumbling over themselves in a desperate attempt to explain this in the way that will get the most shares and likes online.

Really,

January was just a premium month for young men who love explaining the stock market.

And it would feel cruel to take this away from them the one time we're actually interested.

Alice is absolutely right.

You know, all I've learned from venture capitalists on podcasts over the last month is that none of them allow the other one to finish a sentence.

They may have a billion dollars in Uber, but they don't know how to do this.

But

look, look, just very quickly, this is a very spiritual moment for me because

this is where I get to explain to my two friends, if I have permission, what short-selling is.

And if you asked Anubhab at the age of 20, would the words short-selling and bugle ever come together?

I'll tell you no.

But I will explain this, hopefully, in bugle terms.

So let us say, Andy, you are the owner of Bugle Enterprises, a shop that sells trumpets and bugles in in Islington.

And Alice, you are the head of A.R.

Frasier and Daughters, the world's largest hedge fund, which is very with it.

You come to me, I'm running PAL Capital.

It's a brokerage.

I run a brokerage, which means you can trade on my website.

And you borrow, this is legal, you borrow one share of Bugle.

and you sell it for 10 pounds.

So Alice, now you have 10 pounds, right?

But you have to either pay me or give me my share back because you have borrowed one share.

Instead, what you start doing, again, this is legal, you start spreading rumors about the end of trumpets.

You start tweeting about who would want to buy a wind instrument in a pandemic and why Andy runs a terrible trumpet and bugle shop that no one should ever visit.

And the price of the stock falls to £2.

What you do now is you buy that stock for two pounds and you return me my stock and you have made a profit of eight pounds.

Now,

this is short selling.

The way I always thought about it is where you get, where you have a stock and you squeeze it till it's shorter.

Yeah, that is a short squeeze.

Yeah, because I was reading about the short squeeze, which I think this whole thing basically just came up because people are so desperate for anything that sounds like a hug during lockdown.

Yes.

And they've gone for the sh short squeeze, and the result is a $25 billion bubble, basically the most expensive prank in human history.

That's correct.

And I thought short squeezes had to do with you doing your kegels.

They do.

It just works slightly differently for hedge funds like AR, Freasia, and Daughters.

And I'll tell you very quickly what happened in this instance.

What happened in this instance is for years and years, Alice, you've made your £8,

right?

And you've made billions of dollars from trumpet companies.

Now, suddenly in the middle of this, our friend Ross,

who runs Mother Teresa Investments,

a YouTube channel that gives the common man stock tips, sees what you're doing, Alice, right?

And suddenly decides to counter your rumors about trumpets on his own YouTube videos, live streams, tweets, and bands together other Samaritans.

And instead of the stock going to two pounds,

it goes to a thousand pounds.

So now, Alice, you borrowed the stock from me for £10, but you are now at a loss of £998.

And you still have to return me my stock, but you have to now pay £998.

I'm so excited to be doing this.

There's not a single joke in here.

£998

that you have to return to me.

So

you suddenly go nuts and you say, Ross, you can't do this.

This is illegal.

You can't do this.

And Ross says, I absolutely can.

I believe in trumpets.

I believe in Andy.

And suddenly, I, Paul Capital, come to you, Ross, and say, sorry, you are no longer allowed to trade on my website because I get commissions from Alice.

And because Alice is a billionaire, she takes care of me.

She feeds me tea kamasala every day.

I cannot allow you to trade anymore.

And then Ross said, this is not right.

I can't just not be allowed to not buy.

And that's what happened with GameStop is common people stormed the Bastille.

They went to hedge funds like AR, Free Asia, and Daughters and said, you want to drive a stock down?

We'll drive it up.

So the hedge fund now has to pay the difference.

And the higher the stock goes, the more you have to pay Alice.

And that's a short squeeze.

Let us now not forget what's happening.

I'm doing them right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And let's not forget what happened to Andy.

Andy, the trumpet salesman, is suddenly worth $2 billion,

even though he hasn't even opened his shop and he hasn't even sold a single trumpet.

In a week, not one thing has happened to the real company but he's gone from two pounds i've mixed up all my currencies explaining this

i've used three or four different currencies i mean you get the point it goes to two pounds to 998 pounds so and he becomes a pauper and a billionaire and he's done nothing he's just woken up had a dajjiling tea opened his shop and sold one trumpet

well i mean it all starts to make make sense i mean i guess the conclusion from all this is humans are a idiotic species.

I think that's really the only positive conclusion.

In other ridiculous money news, good news this week.

Well, at least someone says it's not all doom and gloom when it comes to COVID around the world.

According to Oxfam, the world's 10 richest men are doing really well.

So we can all take some pride in their success.

Their combined wealth has risen by £400 billion,

540 billion US dollars during the pandemic.

And Oxfam claims this amount would be enough to prevent the world from falling into poverty because of COVID and pay for vaccines for everyone.

Don't do that yet, Oxfam.

We've still got to beat Europe in our vaccine race.

We've taken an early lead and this is the only thing that can justify Brexit to Britain now is beating Europe at vaccines.

And we are absolutely on top.

right now.

It's,

I mean, Alice, do you think

this is something that I mean, each of us can take a bit of personal pride in helping this beleaguered minority?

Yeah, well, I think it's nice when you hear that they could change things if they wanted to, that a way out is possible from the current horrifying worldwide crisis.

If these men can just open their hearts to the prospect of deflating their wealth balloons at the very apex of their stratospheric masturbation, because it's nice to think about when it's definitely not going to happen.

People wonder why women love romance narratives so much, where a deeply toxic and wealthy man learns through the power of pussy to value the love of a good woman and is redeemed into the model of a family man.

We know it's fantasy that he could ever value, you know, family and warmth and love more than he values his business or lordship or whatever, but we can't help hoping that one day we'll meet a man who will think with his dick in the right direction.

Even in our wildest fantasy, we can't take the dickful thinking out of the picture.

But come on, you can only suspend disbelief about the motives of a Greek billionaire lord with a ghost in his castle a certain amount.

There needs to be some nod to reality.

It's been

an exciting week for

the super, super wealthy.

They've had their annual World Economic Forum meeting, which usually takes place in the luxury ski resort of Davos in Switzerland.

They've had to do it online.

It's been described as disappointingly non-luxurious and, quotes, nowhere near as much fun as literally rolling around naked in a pit of gold, giggling.

At Davos,

these extraordinary words were spoken and buglers, I'll tell you a little multiple choice quiz here.

Who said these words at last week's online Davos conference?

Let the torch of multilateralism light up humanity's way forward?

Inspiring words, but who said them?

Was it A?

Snooker commentator Dennis Taylor.

Was it B, Mexican drug lord and cartel chief executive Ismail Elmayo Garcia?

Was it C, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai?

Was it D, a hologram of prominent alleged Christian Messiah Jesus Christ?

Or was it E, genocide fan Xi Jinping?

Send your answers on

whatever you want to yourselves.

It was, in fact, pens down, Xi Jinping.

Well, well done to the Chinese president for keeping a straight face during that one.

A quick bit bit of COVID news.

The big COVID story here in Britain this week has been that, well, the vaccine spat

between the EU and the UK.

Manufacturing issues at AstraZeneca led to a rather unseemly argument between the celebrity pharmaceutical firm best known for smash-hit medical treatments such as the Symbicort turbohaler, the sodium glucose co-transporter 2-inhitor, Foxega, and of course the chart-topping Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine.

They've been

having an argument with the continentally renowned trading bloc and former UK sidekick, the European Union, who want to steal the needles out of our British arms

or get what they thought they'd ordered.

I mean, this sort of vaccine nationalism,

which

it could cost, according to a report in the International Chamber of Commerce, could cost the world $9 trillion.

And this is failing to ensure vaccine access for all countries, including developing countries around the world, to enable the world to recover together.

It could cost the global economy $9 trillion.

But the question here in Britain is, isn't that a price worth paying for beating Germany or something for once?

Get in!

Come on, Team GB.

Also, you know, I'm noticing a lot of efficacy data guiding what sort of vaccine you should take, right?

Someone says Moderna is at 95%, AstraZeneca, 66.

There's another vacc out now, which is one dose, but it's 60%.

Now, you know, this is why I think India is a world leader, because we had a vaccine called Bharat Biotech that came out even before the efficacy results were out.

So, you know, we went essentially with orange squash instead of the vaccine.

But the thing is, anyone can get results and then say it's 66% effective.

Why not inject the person?

a whole billion people and then see what the results come out to be.

You know, I just, I'm not sure if this Western approach I totally agree with.

Fair enough, I think.

Also, in Britain, we've finally got around to to um imposing quarantine regulations people coming from 30 particularly covidious countries will now have to quarantine for 10 days uh here uh in britain um have either of you ever um forgotten to do something for almost a year after you obviously should have done it

um

it's uh i mean

the quarantine i mean now alice you you quarantined in australia almost a year ago already didn't you yeah i came back in in march 2020 and i went into a 14-day compulsory lockdown It was before we had hotel quarantine, but

I had to pay for an Airbnb for two weeks and there was a police car outside of my window the whole time.

Actually, they weren't there for me.

They were there because there was a murderer upstairs who they arrested towards the end of my stay, but it did keep me indoors.

I was very compliant.

So, I mean, but I guess

we didn't want to rush into things

like

quarantining because, you know, we've got to, because, I mean, it went disastrously badly for australia clearly um

as discussed the um this the quarantining arrivals from overseas scheme was uh trialled over the past year in countries with either an oppressively controlling regime or a functioning brain um but

didn't quite fall squarely enough into either of those uh those categories if successful in Britain, the scheme will be backdated one year to when it was originally supposed to have been implemented before, unfortunately, another post-it note, Snarf with a post-it note with the words, obviously don't just let people in from all over the place with absolutely no safeguards apart from a polite request not to spread too much virus if there's not too much trouble, fell off the Downing Street fridge and was eaten by a hungry Dominic Robb, who mistook it for a prince.

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

Do buglers, be very careful of any Jewish space lasers in your local area.

Please report them to the bugle as soon as possible and I'll just make a few calls because

we do that and just make sure that you get away with it.

Alice, any shows to alert our listeners to?

So many shows to alert the listeners to.

I'm going to be doing the Melbourne International Comedy Festival unless it gets cancelled, which it will.

And

also, the last post is beginning a season two, a monthly season two, and there's one episode out already.

So go over there.

And if you couldn't stomach listening to one a day, there will now be one a month.

Anubhab.

Well, I do a podcast in India Andy called Our Last Week for Spotify with Bollywood actor Kunalurai Kapoor.

We will be doing our 100th show on the 4th of February at 6 p.m., which will be an Instagram live.

As you can tell, I'm saying these words as I'm reading them off a paper because I don't know the meaning of half these words.

It'll be at 6 p.m.

So, if people from any country that both of you are in,

or anyone, anywhere really, want to send us conundrums because we that's what we try and answer, we'll do that.

It's at 6 p.m., 4th of February India time.

But the one very important thing I just wanted to tell you, Andy and Alice, is that that's not what's making me very excited this week.

What's making me very excited this week is that a blue pigment

that was discovered 200 years ago is finally available for sale.

And it's called Yin Min Blue.

And I've just bought some.

That's my big announcement.

Thanks to Anubab and Alice.

Thanks to Ross for stepping into Chris's shoes again this week.

And we will now play you out with some lies about our premium-level voluntary subscribers to join them and make a regular or one-off contribution to Keep the Bugle flourishing and independent.

Go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Tony Frey is not sold on the famous slogan of sportswear Megacorp Nike.

Tony argues, Just do it is, in my book, extremely bad advice, whether launching a polar expedition, doing a science experiment, making a big-budget film, launching a rocket, or whatever other project you're working working on.

It generally pays to do some advanced planning, logistical feasibility checks and above all, some practice, before, as Nike say, doing it.

Alessandra McConville concurs and adds that the slogan is particularly inappropriate for a sportswear company.

Alessandra explains, in sport, if just do it was such good advice, then sports stars wouldn't need coaches, managers, nutritionists, psychologists, data analysts, physiotherapists, high-tech training facilities or performance-enhancing drugs, would they?

And they certainly wouldn't need special shoes with rocket springs in the soles.

They wouldn't need those, would they?

Nike.

Stuart Clemenson has disliked jobs that end with the syllable ear ever since a game of Scrabble some years ago, in which he was left with the letters S, A, E and R at the end of the game and slapped them down triumphantly on either end of the word usage to make the word sausage ear.

Stuart recalls, I assumed that someone who works with sausages to a professional level would be called a sausage ear, like a charioteer works with chariots, an auctioneer works at auctions, and a bioengineer works with bioengines.

Daniel Field does not like the idea of being blessed with infinite cunning, although he admits he was tempted when offered that gift by a genie after accidentally rubbing a lamp at an antiques fair.

You can have too much of a good thing, explicates Daniel.

I think after a few highly enjoyable months, the novelty would wear off, and I'd want to be able to just enjoy stuff for what it is, rather than constantly plotting out some scheme to make money from it or an intricate plan to spoil someone else's enjoyment.

Avi Greenberry agrees with Daniel's theory of the diminishing satisfaction of cunning, having observed foxes whilst they work.

They're supposed to be the absolute exemplar of cunning, says Avi, but the ones where I live just lounge around rifling through people's bins.

If they were all that cunning, they'd have formulated a scheme to get fresh food delivered to them for free.

But instead, they clearly enjoy the simple life and the taste of five-day-old leftover chicken, the weirdos.

James Grant was once told at a work briefing to see if he could find a happy medium, a phrase with which he was at the time unfamiliar.

He returned after an unusually long lunch break at a nearby fairground with Claire Boyant, the self-proclaimed most jovial psychic in the world who absolutely loves her work as a spiritual medium and can natter with people's long-dead relatives for hours and hours and never charges overtime.

James was surprised to be awarded a promotion.

It turned out the happy medium he had been asked to to find was someone between a devil-worshipping necromancer and a telephone receptionist.

And finally, someone who goes by the name of Muggly Wumple often wonders how different the history of Europe would have been if the ancient Romans had had motorbikes.

It could have gone either way, I reckon, theorises Muggley.

It might have enabled them to zip around their empire faster, especially with their high-quality roads.

But alternatively, they might have spent all day cruising around Rome honking their horns at each other and trying to impress women.

We just don't know.

But motorbikes versus those chariots with knives on the wheels and the circus maximus.

Yes, please.

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.