Good guys win elections!

This coming Saturday the 24th of October there will be a live bugle show as part of the Unmute Podcast Festival.

Go to unmutepodcastfestival.com.

We'll have Nish and Alice as the guests.

It'll go out as a live stream and also as the next full episode of the Bugle.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4170 of the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world, albeit a visual world whose current defining characteristic is an invisible thing that is playing absolute fucking havoc with everything that is visual.

I'm Andy Zaltzmann if you don't believe me, please be a little more trusting, even if I do acknowledge that we now live in an earthly universe where the first assumption is that whatever anyone is telling you is a lie.

That is a fact.

I'm in London on Monday the 19th of October 2020 and the Bugle in the last week has become the first podcast ever to make it to its teenage years apart from numerous other ones that got there first.

But the Bugle is now a teenager.

We had our 13th birthday

in the last week, October 2007.

is when this show kicked off.

I admit it, we've only really made it to teenage hundred if you ignore the year or so in 2015-16 where we didn't really put anything out and the world, unsurprisingly, went a bit wonky in the meantime.

But it was the Bugle's 13th birthday, which means that this week it would be the Bugle's bar mitzvah.

But Jewishness, of course, comes through the maternal side, and the mother of the Bugle was Fate, who is very much an atheist.

But the Bugle is now a teenager, so expect some very stroppy, uncommunicative, and hormonally confused episodes over the next few years before in 2029 the Bugle settles settles down and gets a proper job as a podcaster about management consulting.

Joining me, appropriately enough, two people who were themselves once teenagers

from the northern hemisphere, Tiffany Stevenson, and from the other one,

what's it again?

Southern, southern, and specifically from New Zealand.

Well, currently.

That's only on the current rankings.

I mean, let's take the all-time rankings, James.

James Nakita.

Hello, James.

How are you?

Good.

Hello.

As we say, New Zealand, let's go outside and hug each other.

Straight in with it.

Straight in with it.

What's hug?

I can't remember what hug is.

So, how is

the old normal, as I believe it's called in New Zealand?

It's quite funny because New Zealand is often referred to as England, but 20 years in the past.

No, it's just what?

We're eight months in the past now.

About eight months.

A bit longer.

Borders are shut.

Unless you're a rugby player.

As always, the rules do not apply.

You're allowed in to get beaten, basically.

Tiff, we're still stuck here in

Covidious Albion.

But

you have been overseas.

I went to Turkey, yeah.

And then while I was away, they were like

the travel corridors shut, so I'm now isolating in my house.

Which I do know what I've done.

I've bought a sad lamp,

which is ironically not sad, but tragic, I think.

What is

a sad?

Is a sad lamp not just a lamp that's been switched off?

A sad lamp is a uh is for seasonally affected disorder.

Do I have seasonally affected disorder?

Am I just annoying all year round?

It's difficult to tell.

Um, under the rules, you're like kind of not supposed to go anywhere.

I think I'm allowed in my back garden.

I don't know.

I guess the rules depend on, you know, whether you're me or whether you're Boris Johnson's dad or Tony Blair.

You know, it's all, it's...

Yeah, it's all up for grabs.

Well, I think when you say it depends on whether you're, I think it just depends on whether you give a shit about the rules or not, essentially.

So that's like any law, really.

We're going to start with the section in the bin this week because we've got a special teenagers section in the bin because the bugle has entered the world of teenagery.

So we look at some famous teenagers from history.

Boris Becker, 17 when he won Wimbledon, 18 when he retained it, but even he was never on quite as hot a hot streak

as one of his teenage predecessors, Joan of Arc, the literal hottie from history, was only 19 when she suffered a career-ending conviction for heresy and related toasting injury.

The First World War catalyzing Archduke sceptic Gavrilo Princip was only 19 when he de-archduked Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

And Queen Victoria, well, she was queening it up as an 18-year-old in the pre-Instagram era, whilst Wolfgang Mozart, little Timmy Tinkletunes himself, was churning out the classics throughout his teenage years.

Some of his teenage works include operas such as Darren Loves Linda,

No One Understands Me, and Concerto for Orchestra and Hormonal Teenage Boy.

And we reminisce on what we personally were like as teenagers and how different we are now.

I'll kick this one off.

As a teenager, I was obsessed with cricket.

I didn't have a real job.

I was baffled by the world in general.

And I hadn't been to a synagogue since my bar mitzvah.

So no real change for me.

What about you?

The thing that I would like to say to my 13-year-old self is, they won't look bigger if you wear three bras on top of each other.

I think that's, I was still waiting for that to happen at 13.

And then when it did happen, I was like, can I just go back to that not happening?

James,

tell us about

the teenage James Nikiso.

I think I was thinking about doing like comedy, but living with my parents

and just not really sure what I'd do for a career.

So this has really been a full circle pandemic for me.

Chris, I imagine you were just producing producing podcasts and radio shows, left, right, and centre as a teenager, right?

Yeah, but I think probably the only fundamental difference between now and then was the fact that I spent most of my time age 13 playing Super Nintendo.

Whereas actually yesterday I spent the entire day actually also playing Super Nintendo.

It holds up.

It holds up.

We've basically all

come back.

Always go back to how you began.

We are recording on the 19th of October 2020 on this day in 1789 John Jay was sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States and if you're listening Mr.

Jay for f's sake come back if you're so bloody good at justice sentence yourself back to life to sort your shit out.

On this day in 1579 James VI of Scotland was

had a special festival to celebrate him becoming a 13-year-old in fact and becoming an adult ruler.

So, yeah, he turned 13.

They had a special festival in Edinburgh.

And that was way back in 1579.

It involved a speech in Latin by John Sharp, a prominent local lawyer, who only got two stars in The Scotsman, although Sharp insisted it read like a three-star review.

The review claimed his speech was a bit tricky to follow if you didn't speak Latin and lacked any originality.

But by contrast, Broadway Baby gave it five stars and described it as dazzlingly inventive, daringly challenging and grammatically perfect for the many Latin-speaking fans of the audience.

Crusachange.

There was also, at James VI's 13-year-old's

coming-of-age festival, a tableau vivant, or in modern parlance, a pretentious piece of performance art bullshit.

There was a sketch show involving four boys dressed as girls representing peace, justice, plenty, and policy, which won the Bubonic's Plague Remedies Award for Show of the Fringe that year.

Some saw it as clunkingly unsubtle, the observer.

Others praised its daring use of perceptions of gender and satirical exploration of the interrelated roles of the concepts of peace, justice, plenty and policy, together with a very amusing song in which it kept expecting the lines to end with rude words, but then they didn't.

That was from the list.

The King's Horoscope was presented by an actor playing the ancient astrology Seb Ptolemy, a bit mainstream.

And there was a show representing the abolition of the Pope's authority in Scotland.

Easy targets, a lot of those Trump shows in 2017 all over again.

Some students did an over-ambitious adaptation of a Russian short story to an average audience of two.

Obviously, Puppetry of the Penis did well.

And I think I'm right in saying that Edinburgh legend genius Simon Munray made his Edinburgh debut that year.

The old Puppetry of the Penis tour manager is literally next door right now,

weeping, having never really got over the memories of it.

Speaking about the Puppetry of the Penis, they're always about.

Always about.

Is it like, oh, what was the film?

Was it like, is it in the Da Vinci Code or one of those where they show the devil always popping up throughout various points of the group?

And just there's in the background someone doing a helicopter with their dick.

There's always two in a photo.

One's got a giant moustache, the other's got a fucking hat.

Well, it's basically Michelangelo pretty much painted them onto the roof of the ceiling.

Look, they're Australian icons, and we do them as a service.

Ah, They're great lads, but it is funny to think that they were there during all the key historical events.

Top story this week.

New Zealand has had a general election and the world has actually taken notice of it for probably the first time in New Zealand's history, James.

Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister, romped to victory with 49% of the vote for her Labour Party, up from 37% three years ago when she came to power as leader of a minority coalition, the National Party, who were in power for most of the previous decade, down from 44% to 27%.

And Nationalist New Zealand First, led by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, down from 7.2% to 2.6% and disappointing zero seats.

I mean, New Zealand, James, very much bucking the trend of global politics by not voting in favour of nationalists, lunatics and

so what

has gone wrong?

Well, I think part of it was it was the night before an All Blacks match.

So everyone wanted to get it done pretty early.

And this is absolutely true, Andy.

The concession came at 10 p.m.

at night.

So it was all done and dusted because obviously the All Blacks was on the next day.

Everyone had to go to bed.

Some of the MPs actually went out and partied afterwards because the clubs were still open.

So one of them, Chloe Swarbrick, who is the first Green MP to actually win a seat, won a very important seat of Auckland Central, and is in her mid-20s or early 20s.

I apologise to her if I've insulted that.

She went out and DJed following in the footsteps of another young Auckland Central list MP, Jacinda Ardern, who used to DJ in her youth, which is because in New Zealand all politicians are also DJs.

But it's been a very calm

election over here.

We had some crazy parties and we all found them very entertaining and then in classic New Zealand state we got to the polls and went yeah nah

and we didn't let them in.

So we've just mainly got the Green Party and the Labour Party looking at maybe will they won't they form a government.

The National Party has completely been eviscerated.

Part of it was because their leader Judith Collins, for our internationalist, is

her hero was Margaret Thatcher.

And she did her best to emulate

that woman by dying

so badly in both the debates and the polls.

Her husband is Samorn, which she told us as much, she told everyone about her Samorn link so much that Sar Mornes were confused by how much she was playing the race card.

And so she's just,

she's taken the National Party to a horrific defeat.

Winston Peters, who won't be well known to internationalists, but is essentially Maudi Trump and has been doing populism since 1996.

He's finally out, or is he?

Because he's been out before and then he comes back.

He's sort of New Zealand politics version of herpes.

So

you think he's gone and then he comes back another election.

He is 75 now, so we think he'll die.

But as anyone who's watched New Zealand cinema knows, old men don't die.

They just get reborn whiter.

Didn't they shut down their Twitter at one point, the Conservative Party, in the midst of it?

The Advanced New Zealand Party was putting out so much disinformation that Facebook just shut them down.

So they say, because they were having rallies in the middle of Auckland's lockdown and saying the virus isn't real,

you know,

this is all a big conspiracy.

5G is the cause.

And they're still, some of them are still espousing it.

Billy T.K.

Jr., who's the big leader, just went on a rant on Sunday night saying the election was rigged because his party of lunatics only got 0.9% of the vote.

And the Electoral Commission just came out and went, nah, it's not because of New Zealand.

That's how it works.

Yeah, they got 20,000 votes advanced New Zealand.

and there was a

very entertaining televised demolition of its co-leader Jamie Lee Ross by the news anchor Tova O'Brien that appears to have gone globally viral where

she pretty much told him to shut up, stop lying and then piss off essentially.

Well she's

the Arya stark of New Zealand journalism

is Tova Brian.

I think that's where Jamie Lee Ross made a mistake because he went, I'm going to take on this little girl and I'll show her what's what and she just stabbed the shit out of him

metaphorically of course it was an invisceration which was so violent Quentin Tarantino is actually basing his next film on the interview and Hugh Jackman has asked that she play Wolverine in whatever movie comes out next but I think what what made it so perfect is that for most of the pandemic Tova O'Brien has been cast as a villain in New Zealand because she kept asking questions of Jacinda Ardern.

That's not what journalists are supposed to do, James, in this day and age.

I mean, that's what I'm told.

That's the information we've been getting too, Andy.

And so, there's sort of this visceral reaction from New Zealanders where, like, the villain of the season has in a last minute turned her powers for good.

And really,

it was so bad.

I generally feel we need to check on this man's mental health.

I was fascinated by this,

as you mentioned, that

there might be a coalition anyway so the Labour Party has

won with a with a an electoral majority which is pretty rare in New Zealand politics correct um

but uh Jacinda Arda may seek to form a coalition anyway and from an outside perspective I mean could could she be any more annoying?

I mean what is the point of politics if you don't use your victory to ignore everyone who didn't vote for you and sow the seeds of division that you can then exploit at the next ele why even bother trying to win if you simply cave in anyway to the rabid demands of the extreme consensus lobby?

Well, I think this is where her fiancé, Clark Gayford, comes into play, or as he was called by one journalist, Hilary Barry, sometimes a man is behind a woman and he's okay.

Oh, that was that on the TV coverage of the six-hour.

Yeah, that was on the primetime TV coverage, where I'm pretty sure our anchors were stoned, I'll be honest with you.

Well, it was because it said on the prompter, it said,

Behind every good woman, I think it was supposed to say, Behind every good woman was an equally good man.

And they were just like, No, we're not, we're not going to say that.

So, I was just filling it in: Behind every good woman is a man not observing social distance.

Behind every good woman is a man leaving a mess.

Behind every good woman is a man, statistically, most likely to kill her.

You know, that kind of thing.

So, yeah,

so you see, so in in the midst of that.

Well, I think it's in Clark's case, it's behind every good woman is a man who's just gone fishing and is cooking up a barbecue.

So, the reason to have more MPs in the government is so there's more people for the food to be passed around.

Right.

Because it might go to the Green Party.

There's a Māori party back in as well with Radhuri Waititi.

I'd tell you that he's not related to Taika, but it's New Zealand.

So, I just don't know.

But it's the the exciting thing is that we're still waiting on the results of our referendum, which we also had, to see if we're going to legalize weed and euthanasia.

And that result is coming out on October 30th.

So Halloween is going to be lit in this country.

So the referendum on on euthanasia, there were two sorry different referendums, there was a binding referendum on euthanasia, which means that if it goes through, everyone will be legally obliged to euthanise themselves on the 30th of October.

I think that's right, absolutely.

And the cannabis referendum was a non-binding advisory referendum, which is, I think, what Brexit was as well.

So just be careful.

Be very careful of that, New Zealand.

Very careful.

Well, I mean, the nice thing is, the way that cannabis often works is that if they do change their minds on the result, most people who care won't remember.

We'll just want snacks.

We'll be chill.

There were so many election snacks.

I think when people look back on the 2020 New Zealand election, they'll refer to it.

People are talking about it as like the red wave or the red tide, which just seems a strange label to chuck in an election.

I think they should call it the snack election because the Prime Minister's partner was cooking snacks for the journalists.

The journalists were eating gummy bears and jet planes in the studio.

I don't know if that happens in Britain when there's an election on.

You could tell that weed was definitely in the referendum.

People were dancing about.

But there was an election when David Dimbleby, who sort of anchored the election coverage for BBC for decades, had a bite of a Mars bar and it pretty much brought the nation to a standstill.

When David Gow wore red socks when he was England cricket captain.

So New Zealand, you know, clearly going it alone by choosing not to elect a pompous, corrupt, regressive, morally vile man, prepared to blow any manner of social dog whistles to get into power.

Which does raise the question, what makes you so special, James?

And I guess the thing is, you know, New Zealand is a small country.

It's only 4.9 million people.

At any one time, 30% of those people are scrabbling around in the mud trying to get hold of a rugby ball off each other.

You know,

there are no indigenous mammals.

And I'm not counting bats because bats are birds, because they can fly.

That's biology for you.

I like they're drunk.

With all due respect, James, New Zealand is the kind of nation that can afford to have someone sensible in charge.

But, you know, we in Britain and our friends in other countries of bigger bigness than New Zealand, we don't have that luxury.

We need an incompetent cunt in charge.

Otherwise, who knows what will happen?

Well, in New Zealand, we call that the Australian manoeuvre.

And the Australian papers have been panicking about this.

I think Rupert Murdoch may have lost his mind because all the papers over the past 24 hours that Murdoch owns have been going, this is a disaster.

The incompetent New Zealand leader has been re-elected.

It's a cult of personality around Jacinda Ardern.

There's no reason she should be elected.

And at no point do they seem to mention, oh, yeah, and the pandemic thing

as well.

It feels like everyone in the world is really happy about the New Zealand election because they still get to play with Jacinda Ardern.

We kind of feel like we didn't, like, we let everyone's favorite kids still be able to come out and play.

Yeah, I know, but her supporters are cool.

Like, cool people came out for her.

Over the weekend, Kirsty Alley came out for Trump.

Like, it comparatively, was it D, so Dean Kane, Scott Bio, Antonio Sabato Jr., three of the dudes that I had teenage wide-ons for, are like, are now Trumpers.

And so, I didn't get more right-wing as I got older.

I did get narrower, though.

That's the opposite of having a wide-on.

It's just getting narrower.

Like the people that are coming.

And listen, of course, Kirsty Alley's allowed her opinion.

She was saying she was voting for him because he wasn't a politician and he got stuff done.

I mean, he's definitely got stuff done.

None of it good.

She believes Trump's good for the country, but she also...

believes that dudes from space with plats and man buns called thetans live amongst us so colt recognizes colt i think is what i'm saying colt recognizes colt i thought about joining scientology Scientology last time I was in LA just for the parking.

They've got a lot of that locked down.

So, just comparatively, like the people that support your Prime Minister versus the people going all in for Donald Trump.

I don't know if we have Scientologists in New Zealand.

I think we must have.

They're out there, but they'll never beat the cult of rugby.

I think, Tiff, one of the fundamental differences is that

between Britain and America and New Zealand, is that America is quite a young nation and essentially it's going through a very tricky adolescence, as discussed.

New Zealand even younger, still in the childlike idealism phase.

We in Britain, we've been through that shit and we know that politics is just about killing time until you die, trying to desperately justify your past behaviour to yourself as you realise that there is essentially no future.

So, you know, we're all at different phases of our evolution.

Well, next generations are showing that

they don't necessarily fall in line with

what their parents believe as well.

There's been a big breakaway in the States of children of Trump supporters

who are now sort of endorsing Biden.

So there was Claudia Conway, Kelly Ann Conway's daughter, and she's on TikTok, which is great because you get a glimpse of what Kelly Ann looked like before she was possessed by a 3,000-year-old demon who hates truth.

It's like watching a pure soul.

And then Rudy Giuliani's daughter came out and endorsed Biden as well.

She said, if being the daughter of a polarising mayor who became the president's personal bulldog has taught me anything, it is that corruption starts with yes, men and women, the cronies who create an echo chamber of lies and subservience to maintain their proximity to power.

Mappy Christmas, Chad.

But I mean, I guess, you know, kids turning against what their parents believe in is just a fundamental right of parental passage.

You know, I fully expect my kids to turn around at some point in the next 10 years and say, Dad, there's more to life than watching other people play sport.

Now, I mean, they'd be wrong, but I will accept that they're going through

a phase.

But I guess it's a bit trickier if you are a public part of a political machine that is trying to hoodwink people into voting against their own best interests.

If your own personally, artisanally, hand-indoctrinated kids aren't even buying it, I guess it makes it harder to sell to a sceptical public.

Isn't Kellyanne Conway's husband also against Trump?

Yes.

What is going on in that household at like dinner time?

Do they just like park like that?

I feel like that's taken it, all right, we're not talking politics at the table to a massive extreme.

The Russian Russian influencers have been in the news with the

trick bot, a Russian

Trojan thingy that I do not fully understand but sounds concerning if you're a free and independent democracy fan, has been has been interfered with by both Microsoft and US Cyber Command independently of each other.

The Washington Post suggested that the Russian trickbot was aiming to sow more confusion in the US election.

Now, that is, I mean, you've got to admire the ambition to try and think you can add to the confusion of an American election.

That's like trying to add more detail to the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona, more notes to a bach piano recital, or 10 free plankton to a whales lunchtime happy meal.

There is no need, it will make no difference.

So, yeah, we'll have more on the American election over the

next few weeks.

Not long to go now, until all your worst fears are confirmed.

Stroke a joyous eruption of relief at the election of an old man.

And that works for both sides.

Incidentally, for any Trump fans listening to the bugle.

Have you got any yet, Chris?

Still can't quite crack that demographic, can we?

No, but as pointed out, we do have five Muammar Gaddafis listening, so there's every chance.

Yes.

Yeah, five Muammar Gaddafi's on our list of voluntary subscribers.

To join them, go to buglepodcast.com and click the donate button to make a one-off or occurring contribution to keep this show free, independent, and thriving.

Now, obviously, with my pessimist's hat on, and as someone who's not a fan of Trump, as I've probably laid my cards on the table over the last four or five years, and my pessimist hat is a reinforced industrial-level safety helmet with a gas mask attached.

I'm just assuming that Trump will win because the betting is still bafflingly close.

And I'm just a natural pessimist.

And I'm sure that the year 2020 has got at least one last radioactive turd to power crack into this year's global cake mix.

I just,

I can't, I think it's very dangerous to have any optimism about it.

What do you guys think?

The glass is half empty, and it's the bit that's left in there is poison.

Is that what you're saying?

Essentially, yes.

Yeah.

That's the,

yeah, but it's not half a glass of water.

I think whatever happens, America has been pushed to this kind of brink of like,

I don't know that they can come back from

in the way that we know America to be.

Like, I saw Biden kind of going, this isn't about red and blue states.

This is about the soul.

of a nation and I sort of agreed with him on that.

But no matter which way it goes down, unless it's like a huge, like overwhelming win for Biden, i think any other kind of scenario plays out in like people taking to the streets and it being you know quite a chopsy time chopsy that's uh that is a good term for it that's a that's a lovely euphemism actually it sounds quite fun really like a water ride or something trump supporters if they go to the streets they're the ones with the guns i think that's the it's the unfair advantage here is that if trump wins and everyone goes to the street they're like ah i've got a sign and it's whimsical when the trump guys are like no sign but heavily armed.

Well, I mean, looking at some of the signs at

the women's rallies against Trump, one sign said, vote for your daughter's future.

She was rather charmingly hoping that people vote with even half a thought for the future in modern democracy.

And make America think again.

And I don't think that is a good idea.

I don't think America will like where that process takes it.

I think people are forgetting we used to tease America about being stupid before Trump came along.

Yes.

Oh dear.

Happy times.

I think Biden might win.

I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic, so I'm going to go the other way and say

I think he might take it.

Well all I would say to any buglers listening is vote hard and vote often.

I'm with Tiff.

I reckon

it's going to be fine, Andy.

But in saying that, there's a high chance that weed's going to be legal in my country by the time it comes around.

So I'm going to be eating a lot of snacks in the American election as well.

Well, I guess, in terms of people changing their mind,

there's no real point stopping supporting Donald Trump now if you've supported him all this time.

That'd be like breaking into the Natural History Museum at night and then a security guard finding you preparing to have sex with a Stegosaurus skeleton.

You're not going to back out, then, are you?

You might as well just go through with it, otherwise, it would look weak and weird.

So, you're just going to plow and say, Don't worry, Steggy and I are friends with benefits is no big deal.

At this stage,

you can't back out of it.

Yeah, I don't think anyone's mind is being changed, although that image is thoroughly fing disturbing.

Andy, thank you.

Smegasaurus.

Oh, God.

Chris putting up naughty messages on the Zoom call.

Sorry.

It's a disgrace.

Britain news now, and we're moving across the Atlantic, whilst the country is collapsing in a swab of befuddlement and resentment about COVID and the latest regulations, the Johnson-Junta government has casually dropped the totally predictable bombshell that is set to wander off from Brexit talks without a deal.

It basically just dropped into conversation that, oh yeah, we might have no deal.

Thus, either...

And you can choose one of these two options, either betraying all the people who voted for Brexit, having told there would definitely be a deal, all the people who believed Johnson when he said that a deal was oven ready, all the people who didn't vote for Brexit, but are still, I believe, legally considered to be human under UK law, and all the people who weren't able to vote due to being too young, not vote enough, or not born, and who might appreciate a productive relationship with a fing massive economic powerhouse right on our geographical doorstep, especially given you know all the other shit that's going on, or

he finally unleashes Britain from the shackles of Europe to which we've been enchained since 43 AD.

You'll call people two sides to every goldfish.

It's very hard to know exactly what's going on in these negotiations because obviously they're not televised, they're secret, so it's really just through leak and counter leak and rumour and counter rumour and it could just be johnson posturing really boris johnson posturing and obviously michael gove has said the same thing whenever gove says anything you just assume something else is the truth so you know michael gove has just announced he's going to have a sandwich for lunch i assume that means all chickens are going to be fitted with jet packs before slaughter um so it's hard to know what's um what's going on tiff with the the the brexit negotiation we've largely forgotten about for the moment i mean that's the one benefit of covid i guess is we've been able to ignore Brexit

for several months.

Don't worry, Andy, resting in competence faces on it.

He said

we're sort of heading towards a no-deal again.

And I mean, the thing that's happened just in the last sort of 24 hours is our credit rating has dropped.

As a country.

Right.

Our credit rating has dropped.

Like we ordered a shit ton of stuff from Littlewood's catalogue and then defaulted on our payments.

Two pairs of knee-high boots preventing your ability to lease a car five years later.

What are you talking about?

Anyway,

the point is,

it doesn't look great, does it?

I think combined with the pandemic and there being talk of a recession and

bottoming out, basically,

Boris has basically, there's kind of like talk of a Canada-style Brexit, an Australia Brexit.

You know, at this point, like I remember when it first started, it was like, we want a Norwegian Brexit, we want this, but, you know, and now you're just flinging around names of countries.

Everyone's sort of, I don't even want to say let it go because we've had bigger things to worry about in the face of the pandemic.

But, you know, at this point, like, is it still too late to back out?

Like,

is there a way back in?

To back out or backing out.

No, I think that is definitely.

Can someone leave a window open a crack?

I'm not sure windows being left open is a good idea at this stage um

uh i mean i just hope because there's always you know this talks are supposed to end to and i just hope this isn't going to be one of those things where you want everything tied up neatly but instead they leave it open for an unnecessary and inevitably disappointing sequel so um

you know we shall we shall i'm sure our innate british bulldog spirit will see us through uh i guess the problem is that bulldogs are not always great at complex trade negotiations um i've found um okay how about two doggy biscuits and a slice of ham in exchange for you stopping doing that to my leg um it doesn't always work.

I reckon there's just crying.

I think there's just, I think a lot of the negotiation is just Gove and Johnson.

Just the door shuts and then they just start crying and they're like, please, please, we've promised so much.

You know, like in the spirit of the teens, you know, like when you're a teenager and you talk some real big shit to your mates and your parents are there and then your mates leave and you turn around to your parents, you're like, please, please, back up

for what I've just said.

They think I'm so cool right now, please.

Because they're still trying to exit, and then Tiff, all the Brits were going on holiday to Europe as well.

Yes.

A lot of those people still Brexit people as well?

Oh, no.

I mean, listen, this, when it all first happened, when the referendum happened, we had people with like kind of no self-awareness whatsoever.

There was a couple called Brenda and Barry who flew back from the Costa del Sol to show their support for Farage and the Brexit party.

And they said, we've just, we've come because we want our country back, the one we don't live in anymore.

Like, so I think a few of these people, like the chickens are coming home to roost, you know, like they're actually,

you know, living in places like France and Spain and stuff and realizing that actually leaving the EU is a kind of two-way thing.

It's not just about getting Johnny Foreigner out of the UK.

It means that you can't actually, you know, have the same reciprocal agreement with those countries yourself.

Yeah, but Tiff,

what you're saying there is, though, is that we should have thought about the consequences before committing to a course of action.

And that is, you know, naive and old school

with all due respect.

COVID update, and whilst I've been recording, Wales has announced that it's going into a quote firebreak lockdown from Friday with basically everything shut and Offers Dike reactivated fully I believe.

Wait to see whether Scotland follows with

Hadrian's wall.

This follows the introduction of a new three-tier graded lockdown system for England last week.

The tiers are medium, large and hide in your Anderson shelter until further instructions,

I believe.

It's a rather confusing mess, Tiff, but I know you know someone who will surely be able to explain this rather confusing system for our listeners.

Oh, yeah.

I had a word with my Scottish boyfriend, and he agreed to explain a hang.

Lockdown tiers.

As you're all aware, the government in Westminster has implemented a very simple and straightforward three-tier lockdown system to keep us safe during a second wave.

For those of you too thick to understand, I'll simplify it for you.

There are three tiers, medium, high and very high.

Boris has gone for the man in Nando's approach here.

No such thing as low.

F your mango in line.

In tier one, you can see six folk at a time.

Well, six folk you want to see, because if you want to go to the pub, you'll see dozens of other folk you didn't ken who'll also be there with no more than six folk they can.

Didn't you worry though, because as we all know, once have had a couple of pints, they're a more considerate and likely to follow rules.

Then, of course, 10pm, the pub's shut, and you can go and have a street party.

Tier 2 is much the same, but you cannot see people you like in your hoose.

You can still see them in the pub, though.

Tier 3, you can see six folk in your hoose garden or the pub.

You have to go to the park or to a street party for tier one.

Now, obviously, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have a slightly different system in place but they're all equally simple to understand and they dovetail perfectly into each other so there's no need to worry about no seeing your family.

Great,

that is all now crystal clear.

Thanks as always.

The Queen

was criticised last week for her first public appearance of the pandemic, not wearing a mask.

she didn't flip the bird either and people said yeah that all the people she met had been tested but it didn't necessarily set you know set a good

visual example I would I would say is the Queen supposed to set an example is that really her job and if so if she sets an example we'd all be wearing big flashy hats letting our firstborn sons take over the family business without so much as an interview trying desperately not to mention our secondborn sons in public anymore never

never voting and expecting to be driven everywhere by someone else so i'm not you know do we i mean we she has a role in this country but is setting an example that role were you were you upset that the queen didn't wear a mask last week well i just thought it was a missed fashion opportunity right uh also there's coding with how the queen holds her handbag you see uh if she's holding it with two hands it means get me the f away from these plebs i think according to the secret service

uh i don't know just there's another opportunity to say something isn't there with a a mask?

So, yeah, there's all these very, very, like, yeah, I feel like she could have, I feel like she could have sent a strong message, or maybe even just printed her face on a mask, but just like bigger, and that we would, we wouldn't have a laugh at that.

Or, like, not dead yet.

Right.

Not dead yet, Charles.

You know, that kind of thing.

Tiff, who would have their face printed on a mask?

Oh, yes.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

Yes, you can.

By joining the Bugle Premium Voluntary Subscription, if you can get a face mask with my face on it, albeit

a logo diversion of my face, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Two plugs this week, Chris.

That's stupid more than I usually manage in a monthly thing.

Brilliant, I'm absolutely loving this.

Robert,

don't say that in a sex shop in Soho.

Sorry.

I delete that.

Nope.

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

James, thank you for bringing us up to date from

a

rather chirpier side of the world at the moment.

Have you got any other shows you'd like to tell our listeners about?

Look,

my mental health podcast is always available for the rest of the world if they want to check it out.

But no, otherwise, look, on a personal note, guys, I know it's really shit over there.

And jokes aside, I hope all the listeners here are going and supporting you both by getting your merchandise or

buying whatever they can from you.

Right.

Well, since you mentioned merchandise, we do actually have some merchandise at the moment.

Thanks for teeing that up, James.

Go to the buglepodcast.com and click the merch button for your selection of exciting t-shirts.

I hear those t-shirts.

I hear those masks.

Christmas jumpers.

Yep, Christmas jumpers are now fully available, Chris.

They are, yes, in store now.

In store now.

selling out we bought more we had to get more oh awesome uh tiffany shows you'd like to uh plug oh um well i've got some online ones coming up but if you follow me on twitter at tiff stevenson you'll get them there also my special is still available to buy on vimeo for a fiver um madman and actually there's quite a lot of stuff in that um that when i sort of wrote it i think it was in 2015 2016 that has sort of become relevant again so if you're interested uh go watch that.

You can download it on Vimeo.

Yeah.

Five English pounds.

I don't know what that would be in any other currency.

And buyer album, bro.

Buyer album.

Thank you very much for listening, Buglers.

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

Gareth Colwell wonders why so many British Prime Ministers have names that work as spoonerisms.

In the last 50 years alone, notes Gareth, we've had broadened gown, baloney tear and head teeth.

Going further back, I would add Lona Boar to that list, but for the fact that his actual name, Bona Law, needs no alteration, obviously.

Inspired by this, Rachel Stern wonders if the current Canadian Prime Minister will ever run a public information campaign urging his people to have faith in martial arts.

Rachel says, I can see the Trust in Judo slogan working really well for him.

Ray Wall thinks it must be massively tempting for archaeologists to claim they've found 30,000-year-old scratches on rocks in any cave somewhere.

Her thinking is threefold.

A it makes archaeologists feel good about themselves.

B seriously, who's actually going to check?

And C.

Prehistoric people are generally quite shit at art, so it's quite easy to fake.

Renata Strauser takes a slightly different view of Paleolithic art and says, maybe the reason we think that Paleolithic artists were all a bit rubbish, with all due respect, was that actually the the bits that we found were from pre-school and kindergarten classes.

It all makes sense, simple animals, handprints, and basic stickmen.

I can't believe no one's claimed this before, concludes Renata.

Further support for Renata's theory is posited by none other than Sarah Beeb, who points out wisely that most of the prehistoric daubings we find are in caves.

Think about it, says Sarah.

If you were a hard-working stone ager and had to put your kids in nursery while you went out to work, you'd want them to be in a safe place that reduced the chances of your nippers being eaten by a dinosaur or whatever.

So of course, you'd probably book them into a nursery in a cave complex, wouldn't you?

It's obvious.

Ben Friedman speculates further that the reason we don't have any of the higher quality and more commercial art from 10 to 40,000 years ago is that it was all bought up by private collectors.

Ben suggests, it's probably all hidden in vaults somewhere like so much of our more modern art is, for no real reason.

For his part, Tom Perry has had enough of people banging on about how rubbish prehistoric art is.

Tom blasts, at least they didn't just put a pile of ammonites on the still-warmed corpse of an elk that's been savaged by a saber-toothed tiger and call it the lonely ambition of the heartbroken soul or something.

They did art that people could understand.

Oh look, it looks like a bison.

Well guess what?

It is a bison.

Thank you.

Patrick Hogan thinks we've interpreted cave paintings wrong in any case.

I think they were storyboards for action films, argues Patrick, mostly involving bison or other things with scary horns, understandably.

Write what you know as they say.

Sadly, concludes patrick they lack the equipment to actually make all the films they've plotted out in their caves but clearly there were some real blockbusters in the pipeline

That makes sense, says Hani Salom.

We're actually more closely aligned to these people commercially and creatively than we think, notes Harney.

Just look at how they found a winning formula and then just kept churning out sequels and minor variations of the same thing, just like we do.

Peas in an evolution of civilization repod.

Obviously, if you've had a hit with Bison, Horned Avenger, you're going to follow it up with Bison 2, Big Fur is Back.

Kyle Livingston claims, I studied this at university, without sounding entirely convincing.

Kyle continues, and they didn't stop there.

After the success of Big Fur is Back, obviously there came Bison 3, Step It Up, and that title works better written down, to be honest.

And the controversial Bison 4, So Horny, and Bison 5, still so horny.

Not to mention other franchises, continues Kyle, like Auroky, and one-offs like School of Aurok.

Here endeth this week's lies.

Bye-bye.

Still listening?

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.