Covidioms, Carson and the Hand of God

The Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 4175 of the Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World.

It is Friday the 27th of November in the year that simply refuses to end ahead of schedule.

I'm Andy Zolson reporting to you live from London, the city where angels fear to tread, largely because they're not sure exactly what the current COVID regulations are and don't understand what they'll be next week when lockdown two ends and is replaced by the definitely not a lockdown restricted freedom three tier special and frankly they've just given up.

I'm specifically in my shed where angels also fear to tread because generally it's a bit messy.

There's nothing much of interest for angels.

I'm basically angel proof and they're generally, if I remember the Bible correctly, not interested in old cricket books.

A special Thanksgiving greeting for our American listeners.

Happy, well, happy thank f for that's giving after what's happened over the past month.

And joining me for this week's bugle from a collection of two of the world's most famous continents, Asia and the one Canada's on.

Firstly, from Mumbai, India, it's Aditi Mitta.

Aditi, welcome back.

Welcome back to the bugle.

How are you?

Thank you so much, Andy.

I'm so happy to be here.

I had a foot surgery recently and I am currently so high on a cocktail of painkillers.

And this is the first time I'm recording the bugle in the same state where I normally listen to the bugle.

Oh what?

I assume you've just been high on

the natural painkiller that is

listening to the bugle which is actually used medicinally in over 130 countries under the World Health Organization.

As an anesthesia as well.

Yeah.

That's basically what I've attempted to do through my comedy career is sink people into a deep sleep where nothing can be felt or heard.

And joining us also for the first time since giving birth, team effort from New York City, USA.

It's Hari Kondabolu.

Thank you, Andy.

I should tell you that my partner did do most of the work, such as pushing the child out, carrying the child, currently feeding the child.

But you ran point.

You ran point, basically.

Yeah.

Somebody has to organize the thing.

Somebody has to give instructions.

I mean, push, push.

If it it wasn't for me, then what?

Baby, be cute, be 12 pounds inside her right now.

I just want to clear up a rumor, a couple of rumors,

that

I haven't been on the bugle for a long time because there's a personal issue between you and me.

That is absolutely untrue.

It is because,

you know, we just had my partner, Jocelyn, and I just had a child, right?

And also,

you know, some are saying that because my podcast, Politically Reactive, is back with W.

Kamal Bell, I decided not to make any time for the bugle.

And the only reason I'm on this week is that we're in an off week from that show.

And I know a lot of people are saying that, but I want you to know it is not completely accurate.

So

what are the

slight inaccuracies in that?

Just get back to me on it.

Get back to me on next time.

Look, Just give me some time and I'll come up with a more well-rounded lie the next time I'm going to see.

Have you got any parenting tips from your first

couple of months of

parenthood?

No, no.

No.

No.

Is

trying to drown out the baby's crying by screaming a good strategy?

Well,

it's not flawless.

I mean,

there's something to be said for it.

I I'm just not sure that long term it's something that you want to get stuck with for the next eighteen years.

But you know it's uh I mean it's essentially that's how American politics works.

So maybe as an American parent

you you should give it a go.

Anyway.

No, I said where.

I said where

I mean I think that's just basically summed up the last four years.

Was that the presidential debates?

I mean, well summarized.

Well summarized.

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

Advent calendars in the bin.

It's the 27th of November, so no doubt you're all sitting excitedly by your advent calendars, waiting for the first of December.

We've got a couple of free advent calendars to give away to you on this week's bugle in the bin.

Firstly, from Zoologics, uh new his and hers grow your own zoo advent calendar uh mammal edition in the for her side of the advent calendar twenty four ovums from different mammals from around the world and on the for him side twenty four vials of sperm all tastefully presented behind the numbered doors of a manger themed reversible Christmas scene complete with twenty-four test tubes to grow your embryos in.

You begin with a gerbil on the 1st of December and work your way up the food chain via the likes of platypuses, goats and elks before you create a mighty lion on Christmas Eve, which if all goes well should pop out just after Easter.

Just quick disclaimer, zoologics cannot be held responsible for any animals successfully birthed.

Do not begin breeding program unless you have space in your home for a minimum of 24 additional mammals, may contain twins or full litters.

Do not cross-breed, no matter how much you want to see a giraffe dolphin cross.

Also available from Zoologics, the insect edition, now with anti-swarm technology, and the fish edition, complete with a build-your-own 800,000-gallon half-and-half fresh and saltwater home aquarium.

Also, in the bin, the Bugle Pessimism Advent Calendar, 24 pieces of gloomy resignation to listen to one a day over the first 24 days of December as you contemplate the inevitable failures of humanity and yourself to get yourself through to another Christmas.

Here are the first six days to get you started with your audio pessimism advent calendar.

December the 1st.

Those begonias I planted in the garden will probably be trampled on by next door's cat and then die before flowering.

December the 2nd.

I'll never find that watch I think I lost in a park but might have just lost under the bed.

December the third.

All meaningful art will crumble under the crushing weight of modern technology and free market economics.

December the 4th Democracy is functionally dead.

December the 5th the planet is almost certainly doomed anyway, regardless of what we belatedly do for the environment now.

And December the 6th Roger Federer might retire in 2021.

Well if we hit we've hit that on the 6th of December, God knows what the 24th is going to be like.

Anyway, straight into me.

Oh, I've sorry, I've got an anniversary as well.

We are recording on the 27th of November on this day in 1839 in Boston, Massachusetts.

The American Statistical Association was founded.

The American Lies Association and breakaway American Damned Lies Association took unsuccessful legal action to try to shut the American Statistical Association down, but it did not work.

Since the founding of the American Statistical Association, the number of statistics in America has risen by an average of 3.2% per annum.

And that's just made it slightly worse.

In 1895, on this day, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death.

Also, in his will, he left less well-known bequests that to this day continue to fund the Eurovision Song Contest, Rare of the Year, and the Golden Bucket Award for most publicly vomiting celebrity.

And we we also have a special Worst November the 27th ever award.

And

the nominees are from 1911, the actors in a New York production of Playboy of the Western World by the Irish playwright J.M.

Singh, who were vegetably heckled in a protest at what the audience perceived as insulting stereotypes of Irish people.

The audience hurled potatoes, other vegetables, steamed bombs, and then more potatoes at the actors.

There were 10 arrests, and the police became involved.

But was that a worse 27th of November than that suffered by Byzantine Emperor Maurice in the year 602?

And he was forced to watch five of his sons executed and was then beheaded himself.

This week's winner, no contest.

Morris takes it.

I mean,

that is a bad day in anyone's book, isn't it?

Is it somebody at 2020 in a whole day?

Like this.

Top story this week, language in 2020.

The Oxford English Dictionary has found this year as difficult as everyone else, and for the first time it has been unable to choose a single word of the year describing 2020 as a year which cannot be neatly accommodated in one single word.

And

while surely this summarises everything about the confusion of this shittest of years,

I mean,

as the great ancient Greek historian Thucydides himself once wrote, you know a year is a pile of irredeemable shit when it can't be summarized in a single word.

Well, the sound for this year is definitely.

To summarize everyone's ear, I think that fart noise is appropriate.

And also because I have a child, I've heard that sound a lot.

So I think that is the perfect summary of 2020 for all involved.

You know, honestly, Andy, what I'm really shocked at is that Oxford is not able to choose a word of the year.

You know what that is?

That's my choice of the word of the year.

It's unprecedented.

I would like to nominate the word unprecedented.

It's one of those words that if I hear it one more time, something very precedented is going to happen.

I have a history of murder.

And

the the other word, I mean, I thought of also a few phrases, one of which was you're on mute,

which could definitely be, as Chris nods mutely, on mute.

That was one of my other choices.

Another choice that I thought was this could have been an ename

for the phrase of 2020.

There was also the word pivot, pivot, because I thought

I heard it used in a non-physics context for the first time in my life.

And I think we've done that thing where at the beginning of the pandemic, we pivoted and then we're pivoting back again.

So now we're in the same place that we started with lockdowns and stuff.

And so, yeah, those have been, there's also, of course, the few that

really came up to me, like Covinfluencer.

someone who is a super spreader, you know, of the COVID, didn't know they had it and then gave it to everybody.

And then, of course, there was the COVID,

which was a series of words that government officials have been putting in press releases to blame their blatant incompetencies on the occurrence of COVID instead of acknowledging that the pandemic revealed deep structural inequalities that needed to be addressed, irrespective of us having a pandemic on.

I think that might take it, actually.

I think if Oxford could make the decision again after listening to that, Aditi, I think

they would go with that.

The president of Oxford Dictionaries uh is someone called Caspar Grafvoll who's obviously made up I mean that is obviously he's obviously a made up he's escaped from fiction Elon Musk style in Grafvol's case from a Harry Potter novel but he said

It's unprecedented and a little ironic in a year that left us speechless that 2020 has been filled with new words.

A year that left us speechless.

That made me think, actually, if only that were true.

If no one had said anything this year, Hari, would we be in a better or worse state now?

And would it have affected the American election if no words had been spoken?

Yeah, Andy, the written form has been around for quite some time

and a variety of ways to share information without the use of one's vocal cords.

So, yeah, it would have been the same, yes.

And Andy, frankly, if no one had said anything, there would be less vocal spray and less spreading of the COVID.

Exactly.

I mean I think that was one of the

British government kept having these kind of three

phrase slogans

and I think one of them was shut up, shut up, shut up.

But some of the words that were on Oxford's list

words that have really been prominent this year, furlough, which is in fact a very old word and originally it was correctly pronounced furlough

And it dates back to Norman times.

A bit of facts here from the 1066 Norman conquest, after which the Doomsday Book, written in 1086, revealed high levels of unemployment due to the tapestry industry shifting to Bayeux on the French mainland.

Britain was largely a tapestry-based economy up till then.

And

King William received a report from the author of the Doomsday Book, Monsieur Dumesday,

hence the name of the book, about the need to support those who furlough the employment ladder.

That was the influence of the French language.

Mail-in.

Mail-in, that's another

word of the year.

I mean, this is how democracy advances, Harry, with a huge influence of mail-in votes in the American election.

I mean, it just shows how quickly democracy advances, that a mere 160-plus years after the invention of the postal service, we're finally properly incorporating it into democracy.

I mean, just wait.

We will all be voting on our smartphones as soon as the year 2184.

Did you vote by post or I did vote by post I have no idea whether the vote was counted but it was sent and just just one or in many different states or you know did you get your newborn infant here's the here's the thing if I joke and tell you I voted in every state

the election will be overturned at this point that is that he's he's looking for an opening Desperately, Trump is looking for some opening.

And a random comedian on a political podcast jokingly saying he voted in every state would

void the election.

The election would be voided.

He really sounds like he's full of himself.

Very good.

You know, on this show, you're never going to get criticized for a comment like that.

Well, not by Andy, no one.

Other words on the Oxford list of the many words of the year include conspiracy theory.

It's been a bumpy year for conspiracy theories, but quantity does not always equal quality.

And I guess it's inevitable that as the conspiracy theorists churn out their stuff to meet increasing demand, it's like Hollywood films, isn't it?

The standard's going to drop off.

They're just hacking out.

QA non-level builds.

There's no craft, no depth, not even a shred of plausibility, no real proper narratives.

It's a real shame to see what's happened to that once great industry.

Anti-mask, I mean, that used to refer to people who hate ancient Greek drama or a new tech device that makes your face, or a new tech device that makes your face super expressive that betrays all your inner thoughts via enhanced eyebrow wigglage and mouth or muscular muscular.

Oh, that made-up word got out of control.

Moonshot, or as Neil Armstrong used to call it, selfie.

That's another word.

And interestingly, the word of the year in 2019 was climate emergency.

Now, that, of course, was two words, leading to a lot of early betting on the 2020 word of the year before COVID really struck, being irritated pedants, hyphenated.

But climate emergency must have really fancied its chances of being the first word to retain the word of the year title, but little Victoria Virus toddled along and

screwed everything up.

So it's been

well, it's been an interesting and

this word of the year is quite a new thing, only began in 2004,

before which humanity was still laboring under the misapprehension that the activities of an entire planet and its people deserve more than one word.

But they have now

backdated the word of the year.

Some highlights from history include

1 AD, M,

which is an archaic form of our modern meh.

32 AD, Abracadabra.

1916, Ouch.

1776, O

1969.

Look at the flags for heaven's sake.

They're moving in the wind.

1348.

Goddamn fing rats.

1939.

Not again.

1855.

Oh, nursie.

1865.

We apologise for the unscheduled intermission in tonight's performance.

1536, painful breakup.

1996, no diggity.

1877, test match cricket.

1512, what the f have you done to my ceiling?

2007, Bugle.

4004 BC, da-da!

And 4003 BC, underpants.

So we now have history covered.

I think, though, there could be a bit of a rebound against 2020.

I can see the word schmackshination,

schmeians,

going back against vaccination and science.

The phrase turns out it was a massive fraud after all.

Expecting that to get increasing traction through the year.

Julianal, which is the adjective from Giuliani.

I can see that video, yeah.

I can see that being

a little bit of a music.

That's not a new word.

And the phrase

unprecedentedly, unprecedentedly explosive tantrum by a departing president at an inauguration.

I think that's a phrase that we could hear.

In other language news, the Austrian village of fucking is changing its name.

As if 2020 couldn't get any worse, the world's greatest village, fucking, as featured in Bugle issue 191, has announced that it is going to be changing its name fundamentally because humanity is too childish.

It is sick

of being lampooned for its name.

But nevertheless,

this is the worst thing that can happen.

We need all the happiness we can get, do we not, at the moment?

And it's changing its name from fucking to fugging, disappointing all fans of rude words.

This is a real blow to all humanity, Hari, I would say.

Well, it's better than the runner-up name that they came up with, which was Flaccid Town.

I thought,

you know, in terms of the evolution of the town's name, it was appropriate.

Right.

There's a TV mini-series called that coming out.

I think

the makers of Westworld have put it together as a bit

like a place where you can go to have your impotence dealt with.

Anyway,

but I mean,

there have been many towns like this that have had to change their names due to

English speakers sort of having fun at their cost.

So there was, of course, Cunnelingis, Pennsylvania,

which became Funnelingus Pennsylvania.

And that didn't change anything about it.

Just like called Fugging is going to change nothing about this.

The name of the village apparently dates from the 11th century, well before sexual intercourse was even invented, of course.

So you can understand the villagers not thinking that far ahead.

And of course, at that stage in the village, the word fucking was merely a technical term

from the world of carpentry, meaning inserting a screw or nail into a pre-existing hole.

So interesting.

There you go, Helen.

You're not the only member of the Zoltzmann family who knows a thing or two about the origin of naughty words.

But the Fuckingers, which is what the people of the village of Fucking apparently known as soon-to-be-fuggingers or Fugsters or Fuggles, have just five weeks left of being residents of the most admired village in the universe.

But they've bottled it.

They've elected to join the ranks of villages with only slightly amusing names, along with the residents of Wonk in Germany, Nodge in Hungary, and of course Tisteckel in Denmark.

But

it's very sad, really.

Also, rumours that the Canadian Union of Nautical Technicians are considering changing their name to the Canadian Nautical Technicians Union.

And it's, of course,

reminiscent of the rebranding of the now defunct airline TWA, Trans World Airlines, a corporate name in many ways well ahead of its time in hindsight, which was known up until 1950 as Transcontinental and Western Air after dropping the word transport from its name following an emergency board meeting in 1930, a day after it was formed.

American News Now, and it's pardoning season.

Hari, Donald Trump,

your president for the next either few weeks or four and a bit years.

I believe what you meant is the president.

The president for the next let's not let's not prejudge the legal process.

He's pardoned A, a turkey, and B, Michael Flynn.

It's Obviously, it's always an exciting time of the year,

pardoning season.

Turkey must have been delighted.

The turkey was pardoned for what I believe is its only crime, which is being alive.

I think that was the only thing it had done wrong.

And the thing is,

knowing Trump's character, that turkey's...

That turkey's dead.

That turkey was shot immediately after the photo.

The turkey knew too much.

The turkey was eaten that night.

Like, that turkey's gone.

I mean, it's the Michael Flynn one is

what was strangest to me with the Michael Flynn story is how he decided to tell the world the news via Twitter.

And did you have the tweet in front of you by any chance?

Well, he said, it is my great honor to announce that General Michael T.

Flynn has been granted a full pardon.

Congratulations to General Flynn and his wonderful family.

As if it's a great achievement.

It's like winning the Master's Golf or something or a Nobel Prize.

I mean, congratulations for the great achievement of, I don't know, knowing too much, as you say.

Essentially, congratulations for dodging a bullet that the person who pardoned you shot in the first place.

I mean, it's basically

this is something Trump's done his whole life.

There's going to be a a tape actually released later this week, which I can't tell you more about, but I do have exclusive access to.

But he does say in the tape:

it was a false positive.

You don't have herpes.

Congratulations to you and your wonderful family.

So he does have a track record with this kind of thing.

I mean, it is.

We've talked about this before, I think, on a show you were on, about how strange this convention of presidential pardons is.

It does give off a bit of a sort of crime is fine vibe.

I mean, wouldn't it make logical sense if, as well as overturning the crimes of the guilty, the president himself was also entitled to go on a week-long crime spree just to get it all out of his system?

Well, I think that is what's going to happen, because he wants to pardon himself.

Yeah.

That's what we all assume will happen, even though you can't pardon yourself before you're charged with a crime, right?

If you do it preemptively, it sets a very dangerous precedent.

What you're basically saying is, I am now invincible.

You cannot touch me.

I can do whatever I want.

I've been pardoned preemptively,

which would lead to the first ever president-slash-serial killer, which

you know, look, he's broken a lot of ground, but

that would be a new one.

Yeah.

Well, you've clearly not read the new biography of William Howard Taft.

I heard that he's going to pardon John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Lincoln.

Yeah, because he said there were good people on both sides.

A number of historical figures could Lee Harvey Oswald, he could get off, Jeffrey Damer, Benedict Arnold, Hannibal Lecter, Steve Bartman,

Lex Luthor, Vanity Smurf, Bigfoot, and George III could all be in line for pardons from

Steve the Chemois in Air Force One.

That guy was crazy.

Yeah.

I look forward to that pardon.

You're going to be pardoned too for so many of your puns, Andy.

You can re-enter the United States again.

Yeah, I maintain, I mean, I'm not accepting a pardon because that would be me admitting that I was in some way guilty.

The turkey

was called corn

and was let off scot-free from a rap list that included convictions for aggressive pecking whilst in possession of a beak, being feathery with malice of forethought, wattle-waggling and impersonating a goose, as well as the usual Trump Associate stick of lying to the FBI tax fraud and bribery.

So it's good

turkey lived to see another day.

What are you doing for Thanksgiving,

Harry?

Are you.

It's already happened, Andy.

Oh, is it?

What are you ever on a Thursday for?

It's ridiculous.

It's always a Thursday.

It's always been a Thursday.

Sorry.

I forget.

I'm a bit out of the loop.

Quick side.

I just want to just a little small beef I have with a lot of friends who are Brits over the years.

When Thanksgiving is brought up,

they'll say things like,

oh, that's when

you all celebrate the genocide you committed over a meal.

And they refer to it as the genocide we committed.

And they seem to forget that we were you.

This was a genocide you committed.

We hear it from the Australians.

Now we're getting it from the Americans.

But I think there's something beautiful about this.

Like, you know, I think the genocide was what, like, they took, you know, like syphilis-infested blankets and gave them out to the locals and massacred them.

It was smallpox, but yeah,

there was a lot of intentional

murder as well as,

you know, them having smallpox and spreading it quickly to immune systems that couldn't handle it.

But yeah, it was pretty,

yeah.

Well,

it was ages ago, and we have now toppled the statue of the smallpox virus that was erected in every town in Britain

in the early 20th century.

You know, they still say very good things about it in our textbooks, so I don't know.

In other American news, Ben Carson, former presidential candidate, of course, is well, he's been,

Harry, you're our pillow industry correspondent.

And Ben Carson has apparently been taking coronavirus advice from the person who set up the My Pillow Pillow Company.

That is correct.

Ben Carson is an actual doctor, by the way.

The best kind of doctor.

And he.

It's not an education doctor.

But no offense.

But, you know, if I have a heart attack, the last thing I want is, I have

a doctorate in philosophy.

That's not going to help me if I have a heart attack.

Well, not even to come to some greater understanding of your place in the universe and the purpose of life as you breathe your last.

That would help, surely.

But

he's an actual medical doctor and he's taking advice from the my pillow guy who somehow has an inside lane to the president and the cabinet, which is stunning.

And to be fair,

his pillows are are pretty good.

I wouldn't say they're great, but they're pretty good.

However, if you've never used a pillow before, it's earth-shattering.

It's a real paradigm shifter.

But it's really, the whole thing is very strange because Ben Carson wasn't just a medical doctor.

He was one of the greatest brain surgeons of all time.

Like, it's not just that he was a, like, he was

gifted.

His gifted hands were discussed constantly.

Like, it was an extremely big deal.

And yet, whenever he talks, he makes brain surgery seem less impressive.

It's so.

That is some achievement, really, when you put it in those terms.

Oh, absolutely.

Like, you wouldn't imagine someone being a dumb genius.

And that is exactly.

Like, this is a man who once said that Jews could have prevented the Holocaust if they had guns.

So, like, your first thought is, oh, this guy tried brain surgery on himself, and it was a tremendous failure.

Like, this is not

what should have happened.

Yeah, I guess we were maybe just practicing at home one night and thought, oh,

this is the only way to do it.

What does this do?

So the My Pillow Guy, Mike Lindell,

it does slightly show how COVID has just sent the entire world

off its rocker, essentially.

Because, I mean, you wouldn't get...

You wouldn't get this happening with other illnesses.

You would have, you know,

hey, you can design and market pillows, can't you?

Yes, I can.

Oh, good.

How do I treat gallstones?

No, but with COVID, everything, all traditional logic has gone out the window.

The My Pillow website also has currently, as I checked for the first time, a Sean Hannity special offer,

which if you click the Sean Hannity special offer, you get 60% off.

a presumably special Hannity-infused pillow, which guarantees not only a good night's sleep, but also that you will wake up with reactionary views on immigration, a pathological fear of social progress, and a sense that feminism is a communist conspiracy.

So

that's got to send you off to sleep.

There's some validity in the idea that the common person has valid medical advice.

What you are, Andy, is brainwashed by these liberal medical universities

who talk about their liberal science: wash your hands, wear a mask,

don't spit or urinate into an open orifice during surgery.

All these rules.

Bloodletting doesn't work.

Leeches cure AIDS.

Like all these.

You're just buying into it, okay?

The average person, just because they don't have a medical degree from so-called experts who are basing their knowledge based on hundreds of years of medicine.

So what?

So don't buy into the hype.

How does this, my fellow guy, sleep at night?

Ironically, this is crazy.

This is crazy.

Oh my gosh.

I'm sorry, but that's the joke of the show.

That is the best joke of the show.

On a $30 pillow, you know what?

For the Ben.

No, this thing is like this, this, whatever.

Ben Carson sounds like an Indian uncle.

Like, he sounds like a proper Indian uncle who will...

Like Indian politicians are now doing this thing, right?

Where they are recommending cow urine for cancer curing and like you like smear cow dung on your arms and you like you become fairer and stuff.

But the moment they get like even a mild hiccup, they're the first ones to like fly to John Hopkins University.

It's freaking crazy.

It's crazy.

India news now and

well, this is this is the interesting story

Aditi.

Love jihad is

the

headline that you sent us for this.

You're going to fill in some of those intriguing gaps

between those two words.

So jihad, as Google tells me, is the holy war against Islamism.

And love,

as is known in Indian context, is something terrifying, and young people should never be able to do it.

And so,

what we've done now, the two biggest states in India, India, the most populated states in India have decided to pass a law combining those two words called the Love Jihad Law.

The Love Jihad Law forbids inter-religious marriage, especially marriages between Hindus and Muslims are now punishable by law.

And you know what, actually, I mean, it's sort of keeping in trend with the rabid Islamophobia that has been sort of now worldwide and India doesn't want to be left behind, you know.

And so sort of, just like we're leaving our Islamophobia print everywhere, we've in fact managed to smear it in every industry.

Like, we have something called Education Jihad, where now we are concerned about the high number of Muslims who are showing up for civil service entrance exams.

The understanding for love jihad mostly is that you know, there are these really, really, really hot Muslim guys and these really, really, really dumb Hindu girls, right?

And then they fall in love and then they make them convert.

And as a really, really, really, really dumb Hindu girl, nothing would give me more joy

than to piss off a bunch of cow piss peddling politicians.

And so I'd like to use this platform to put a call out to any, I'm not even here for the looks, just any nice

Muslim guy who likes to laugh, doesn't mind me eating crisps in bed,

and you know, would love to fk around with Indian bureaucracy for a couple of years, please get in touch with me.

Because, you know, can I tell you the truth?

It blows my mind to imagine, because right now, I mean,

Muslim men are under attack, right?

The baby steps of oppression always start with sort of attacking the men of the community.

And so we had recently what was called the triple talaq law that went into

that was criminalized which meant that if you gave your wife a triple talaq then that it was saying talaq talaq talaq divorce divorce divorce three times then you would be put in jail this was formerly a

non-jailable crime uh because nobody was doing it uh but they decided to make this a jailable crime so that they could put away you know young muslim men for substantial amounts of time not giving a fk about the actual Muslim women, the wives who would be left without the support of, because normally, even after divorce, Muslim men are supposed to provide economic support to the women that they divorce.

But when they're in jail, they're not going to be able to provide much.

It concerns me that there are now, you know, like with this sort of assault on Muslim men, that actually

just Hindu men are up late at night being like, why are they so hot?

That's true.

How you know?

I find this a bit reluctant, frankly, because what's going to happen,

India already has the highest population of Muslims in the world.

And so if there's no sort of interfaith marriage allowed, they're just going to keep marrying each other.

The same thing is going to happen to the Hindus.

You know, it's just going to be a bunch of Hindus marrying within caste and within last name and within sort of the religion.

And we're all at the end of the day, I think India is going to be a country of like 4.5 billion Prince Charles

judicious in reading

and so yeah I mean these are sort of my

and because you know it's so tragic and it's so this thing because interfaith marriage doesn't even happen all that much like the in I look at the percentages it's 2.2% to 2.9%

We aren't even doing it that much.

And so, I mean, and while a pandemic rages outside, I don't know, did I mention unprecedented times?

I feel like we discussed it this year.

I can't believe that this is what we're making laws about.

I was obviously bummed to read about the law, and it's such a step backwards for progress for civilization.

But I was also bummed about the name Love Jihad because it really like it'll force me to rename the Bollywood remake of Love Actually Actually that I've been writing for quite some time now and

it's like oh great I had come up with the title before I wrote the script now

Before we go, Bugle Merch is available.

New and expanded range featuring

probably the greatest bobble hat in the history of human headgear.

Christmas jumpers.

What else, Chris?

What else have we got on

the site?

We've got Bugle scarves.

Awesome scarves.

You can also buy the scarf and bobble hat as one bundle for someone who you really love this Christmas.

Right.

And we've got half a glass of water t-shirts on sale, too.

Right.

So that's all your Christmas presents sorted out.

Anything to plug?

Any shows?

Harry, you did your plug right at the start.

Do you want to know anything else?

Yeah, I don't f ⁇ around, Andy.

Politically reactive is back back every Thursday.

New episodes, me and W Kamau Bell.

Also, me and my brothers podcast, the Untitlondabolu Brothers podcast will be out sporadically.

But we do have an episode coming out soon.

DT,

any shows or Netflix stuff?

My third stand-up special, Mother of Invention, is on Prime Video, UK, and Ireland.

So if you're in that area, be sure to avoid those two places.

And

and I will have the first episode of my podcast off brand coming out on the 12th of December so if any of you are listening

listen please

just one other story which we'll leave you with is the the death of Diego Maradona at the age of 60 the the great footballer the the Grim Reaper like so many 1980s defenders, has hacked Maradona down.

And sure, Maradona, the way he lived, was looking for the foul.

He's almost been goading the Reaper to chop him down like a shrouded Andoni Goykachir for any Bilbao fans out there.

The surprise is that Maradona has not leapt out of his coffin and started complaining to the ref, which was disappointing for his many fans.

He was one of the most brilliant, compelling individuals in the history.

of sport.

If he was a fictional character in a sports film, you go, yeah, very entertaining, but it's a bit overwritten on the whole hackneyed flawed genius shtick.

But I even saw on the I was watching CNN yesterday, and it got quite a lot of coverage in the, and he said, Maradona said, I hate everything that ever comes out of America.

I don't know much about Maradona, but I did hear that he had good hands.

Great hands.

I don't even like soccer.

That joke felt good.

That joke felt good.

Too soon.

Andy, my favorite thing about the Maradona story this week is that obviously the goalkeeper that he used his hand on was Peter Shilton.

Yeah.

So Maradona was hated, and Peter Shilton got a lot of sympathy.

And then Peter Shilton, over recent years, has emerged as a massive Brexiteer.

And so Peter Shilton started trending on social media over the last 24 hours, mostly so remainers could call Peter Shilton a c

before we play you out with some lies about our premium-level volunteer subscribers, we will dig into the Bugle archives for commentary of Maradona's greatest moment of individual skill, that unfathomably brilliant second goal scored with the correct part of his body against England in the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal, as heard on the Bugle back in 2010, courtesy of the BBC archives and their commentator in Metzco86, Purnell Hinge.

Maradona gets the ball now, the cheating little shit.

What are you going to do?

Punch it in from the halfway line, you You prick.

He turns now.

Kick the fer!

Past Beardsley.

Whack him, you loser.

Past Hodge.

What part of kick that bastard of the balls are you struggling to understand, Hodge?

Past Reed.

Nail him!

Fing nail him!

He's up to Fennec now.

Come on, Terry, put him in a body bag.

Fing fing f.

Shit, he's past fing butcher as well.

Fing twack him, Terry.

Just something to beat now.

Take his fing head off, Pizza.

I don't give a f if he scores.

Fing ruined him.

Oh, Bonacritine.

Oh, no, it's in two now.

Oh, Oh, that was a tremendous goal by the little magician, Laurie McMenamy.

Have you ever seen anything like that?

Walter F.

had to disappoint a friend last week when the friend thought he'd discovered a new type of firework that neither makes a bang nor lights up, but stays in the air for much longer than a traditional firework and moves in more irregular patterns and is visible in daylight.

Walter told said friend as diplomatically as possible that what he had in fact spotted was a pigeon.

Jeff Welder would like to see a breeding program to restore a wild griffin population to the world.

Jeff explains, the half-eagle, half-lion, gold-hoarding mythical beast would be a real tourist attraction, as well as making some of today's more unimpressive, complacent, low-achieving creatures buck their ideas up a bit.

I'm looking at you, koalas.

Raise it.

Jerry Egan and Joseph Serante, by the most fictitious of coincidences, both had elderly relatives who went to the same school back in the 1950s.

Jerry's great-uncle thought he'd busted open an international spy ring when he heard the school cook on the phone saying, yes, of course, Stalin, I will make them crumble, while stirring a pot of suspiciously lumpy custard.

Joseph's great-auntie herself overheard Jerry's great-uncle reporting this suspicion to their head teacher.

She then made secret recordings of the chef for the next 12 months and came to the conclusion that the cook had probably, in fact, said, Yes, of course, darling, not yes, of course, Stalin, whilst speaking to his wife, who was the kitchen manager and meal planner at the same school and loved desserts with a bit of fruit and a bit of crunch.

Christopher Müller thinks there might be a passable movie in a story about a group of 1930s Soviet women ballet dancers forced to give up ballet because all the male dancers were sent to Siberia for dancing insufficiently cummily.

They then form a troop to travel the USSR expressing the glories of the collective through the medium of interpretative dance.

The film would be called Stalin's Darlins and would be harrowing, heartwarming and sexy in equal measure.

And finally, Steve Jamieson was once hypnotized as a child at a circus performance, as a result of which he was left with a lasting confusion for some reason between ornithology and endoscopy.

This inevitably resulted in an extremely fractious school outing to a local bird sanctuary, which featured Steve being sent back to the school bus for shouting, not the pelican, please not the pelican, at a very high volume.

Here endeth this week's lies.

To join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme and make a recurring or one-off donation to the show, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

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.