Bonus Bugle - Swine Flu, Kerala, Adverts

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to Bugle issue 4153, sub-episode A for Ah make it stop.

I am Andy Zoltzman and we are having a week off full-blown bugling this week because A, if I don't talk about the virus for a week, I'm hoping it will just go away.

b last week's live bugle live stream live overran by so much that it cut into my writing time for this week's show and C because it was written in the stars as indeed are all things if you have a powerful enough telescope but what a bundle of audio news pay periods delights we have for you instead we have classic material from the bugle archives comedy from another dimension courtesy of our parallel universe sister podcast the last post lies about our premium voluntary subscribers and more bits from last week's live show and because it is still lockdown, another quiz.

Yes, before we join Alice Fraser and the last post to find out what has been going on here but also elsewhere, because you all loved the Bugle excessive multiple choice quiz so much last week, I'm giving you even more quiz time this week.

Now, some of you might not like it, f you quiz, I can hear you say, but these are less excessively multiple choice and they are also on the sainted holy issue of sport.

Now in the last few weeks I've co-hosted a couple of live charity sports quizzes online for the wonderful Muscular Dystrophy UK charity.

Do support them if you can.

And in the second of these quizzes last week they made the naive mistake of allowing me to set a round of questions.

Of course if they had known me better they would have been fully aware that I cannot be trusted with this level of responsibility.

In case you did not take part in that quiz and statistically it is almost 100% certain that you did not take part in that quiz, you will receive all five questions from my sporting curiosities round interspersed through this week's sub-episode.

Write your answers down on a literal or metaphorical piece of paper, and I will give you the correct answers at the end of today's show.

All of these questions have a genuine, factual, provable, truthful answer.

Honest.

Question one.

We all know the Olympics is the absolute pinnacle of sports, unless you prefer other sports.

And also, that some of the sports in the Olympics are completely and utterly ridiculous.

Mentioning no sports.

You know who you are, Grico-Roman, what mate.

But anyway, question one: in our Sporting Curiosities quiz, which of the following has never been an event at the Summer Olympics?

A.

Ice hockey.

B.

Horsey long jump.

C.

Whacking people with sticks.

D.

Military Patrol.

E.

Sculpture.

F.

Cricket.

Or G.

Shooting Pigeons until they're dead.

So there's question one.

Do think about that.

All the answers will come at the end of the quiz.

And whilst you think about your answer to question one, let's hear a couple of choice chunks from the last post, the daily work of imaginative wonder, with which Alice Fraser has been regaling at least two parallel universes throughout this year.

A couple of excerpts for you now featuring Alice, me, and Will Anderson.

Your ad section now, because sometimes it's hard to feel like you have a legacy, but buying stuff is as good a channel to immortality as anything else.

And this episode of the podcast is brought to you by a whole glass of water.

Just kidding, half a glass of water.

Whether you're an optimist or a pessimist, be a half a glass of water kind of person.

Reduce spillage and increase satisfaction with half a glass of water.

Half a glass, all class.

And a new novel is out by self-published romance maven and online bestseller, Dancy Lagarde.

The Dragon Lord The Dragon Lord's Lady is the fifteenth in Lagarde's groundbreaking fantasy romance detective thriller series with a supernatural twist.

Belenthian is a ruthless mercenary, the bastard son of the dragon king, proving himself to his estranged father by running merchant caravans through the wild desert wastes of the blighted quadrant.

His dragon cunning serves him well in the cutthroat trade cities of Saranthoblan.

But his human half can't help hungering for a more settled life and a maiden of his own.

Salxandra is an orphaned healer of one of the recently demolished witch tribes travelling across the Blighted Quadrant to claim her inheritance from her aunt, the sexy sinister feminist witch queen.

Trained as an assassin on spec by a wandering assassin who was adopted by her witch tribe, Salixandra prefers to use her skills for healing, but sometimes a girl's just got to become a whirlwind of graceful death.

When her caravan is set upon in the desert by fanatics seeking the death of the witch queen's heir, she's the only survivor, which is basically the opposite of what the fanatics were going for.

Protected by her magic amulet, she's all alone in the desert with nowhere to go until Belenthian's caravan picks her up and saves her life.

Belenthian is broodingly reluctant to bring on a useless extra mouth in his economically viable caravan, but Sulexandra promises to exchange healing and assassination services for passage through the desert.

She wants to be annoyed by his mercenary ruthlessness, but she's drawn to his brooding muscularity and his unusually high core temperature.

When he falls ill from a rare blighted quadrant dragon fever, she uncovers his dragon secret and draws him back from the brink of death with the only cure from dragon fever, which is having sex.

They should part when they reach the trade cities of Cyranthablin, but Belanthian's dragon has bonded with Salixandra and he promises to protect her on her way to her feminist witch aunt.

What will happen to their burgeoning romance when he finds out that Saleandra is the witch queen's heir?

Will the sinister feminist witch queen ever accept such a manly dragon man as Salixandra's consort?

Who will they assassinate along the way?

How many pages can a sex scene take?

Find out in the Dragon Lord's Lady, available now only by the light of the desert mood.

And that's your ad section for today.

The last post!

Now it's time for your top feature section in the weekend magazine.

Top feature section, meat!

Andrew Zaltzman, you're our meat correspondent.

What's happening in the world of meat?

Well, meat has been affected by the coronavirus outbreak as much as any other form of food.

People are still eating it.

They haven't stopped eating it.

And are they going to stop eating it?

And meat, of course, it's been interesting times for meat.

The meat industry has been under a lot of pressure due to,

well, I mean, animals getting increasingly irritated by being the victims of the meats, the meat industry and their supporters

in the human community.

It's led to, you know, kind of alternatives, vegan meat or vegetables, as it's also known.

But so the meat industry has been fighting for survival.

And it had a big coup this week when the Queen, who is of course patron of the British Dead Animals Association, alongside many other things, did one of her rare messages to the nation and just sat at a table napkin tucked into her collar wolfing down a plate of sausages, chicken nuggets and burgers with her begloved royal hands whilst eyeballing the camera before saying, God, that was so good, and wiping away a stray squidge of ketchup from her chin.

Of course, she keeps a bottle in her crown.

Do you know this?

The crown camouflages a bottle of ketchup, which is an old royal tradition.

Of course, it used to be a flagon of blood, which the monarch would always keep in the crown, just in case they had to fake their own death to escape being actually assassinated back in the more violent olden times.

So meat is well having to adapt to the changed global economy and people's changed priorities.

Still no news on an official relaxation of the various religious laws on meats regarding the slaughter, preparation and gobbling of meat.

I am hearing, Alice, rumours, however, that leaders of at least three of the world's top religions are in official discussions with God,

the renowned deity who of course runs various apparently competing franchises like the ruthless entrepreneur he has always been.

And there are rumors I'm hearing that the Almighty may soon say he is, quote, not actually that fussed anymore about people eating things that were a bit dodgy thousands of years ago in a hot climate.

So

this could be an exciting development for

meat in particular.

Disappointingly, however, this won't be backdated, so I've still got a hell of a lot of bacon sandwiches to account for.

Clearly a lot of arguments about meat ethics

around at the moment.

And

the the pendulum is swinging back because for a long time there's been the idea that you should try to make farming a little more humane and kind to the animals, but it's now swinging back in favour of brutally intensive battery farming and life you know, a lifetime of cruelty to these animals Because then, if you think about it, what has to happen, Alice, to an animal to become a meat?

I'm not entirely sure of the process, Andy.

I assume it's a lot of death is a key part of it.

That's really,

oh, no.

Well, it is something

we don't know how to think about it.

So, the thing is, if you intensively farm

creatures in horrible conditions, then the abattoir actually becomes a sweet release from suffering.

Rather than, you know, if you've if you abide by animal welfare and you give them a lovely life, gambling around in the fields, and then suddenly, whoop, off you go.

Oh, hello, Mr.

Bolt Gun.

That is a harrowingly abrupt and merciless curtailing of a lovely existence, which is in many ways worse, would you not say?

No,

evidently not.

No, probably, no.

No.

So, but you know, there's, as with any ethical argument, there are many, many, many, many sides to that multifaceted coin.

The last post.

Now it's time for your top story.

Your top story today, advertising news.

Will Branderson, you're our advertising correspondent.

What's happening in the world of advertising right now?

I must correct you there, Alice.

Unfortunately, while you were going to those ads, and I admire your absolute...

You are one of the great leading podcasts when it comes to the integration of advertising into the podcast and we admire you very much in the industry for that uh the more ads the better that's what we say but i have actually taken that time to rebrand myself as the ad sassin so i am now officially the ad sassin

and that is the only way i can be referred to for the rest of the you can never miss a branding opportunity and you've got to be the first person there to register that domain name and that is actually very appropriate to what we're going to talk about here today alice if you don't mind because this is being seen at the moment you talk about half a glass of water well we admire your uh your commitment to the all the properties of half a glass of water in fact when you started first talking about half a glass of water i was working on the full glass of water account and uh they did not think that they were going to be rocked by your advertisements at the time people were like well why would somebody have half a glass of water when you could have a full glass of water but then suddenly glasses of water full glasses of water we saw a massive drop in people drinking full glasses of water and we thought well maybe it's just people with bigger glasses drinking the same amount of water.

But it was not.

It was people drinking half a glass of water.

And we were actually going to start a smear campaign against you to take you down to say you were anti-the coronavirus because half a glass of water was clearly not enough to wash your hands for 20 seconds.

We literally had a dirt file on you full of your dirt.

But unfortunately was in a USB thumb drive and then someone dropped that USB thumb drive into half a glass of water.

I heard, of course, I couldn't speak directly to to that.

That would have nothing to do with me.

Personally, I'm just the spokesperson.

Okay, today's advertising news.

That's what I'm here to tell you about.

Today's advertising news.

Well, today's advertising news is that the stock markets are falling and some have predicted a tough time for advertising.

But I'm here to tell you to take a stock markets half-full approach.

Now, Alice, you know I've climbed Mount Everest many times.

I've been to the top, the summit of Mount Everest more times than any other human being.

The last time I climbed Everest, I climbed with actor Peter Dinklich.

And I'll tell you a secret.

I like to climb with people who are substantially shorter than me because that way when I reach the summit, I still have a slightly better view.

And that makes me feel powerful, Alice.

Funny story.

Pete didn't actually want to do it, but I convinced him we were shooting something for the final series of Game of Thrones.

He was pretty mad when he saw the final series and it wasn't in there.

But I was happy because I'd managed to do a deal with the producers and Starbucks to slip in a coffee cup and all the way to the bank i won't reveal the size of the deal i did there but let's say it was venti

so

why i tell you that story is

one day peter dinkledge climbed on the shoulders of his sherper and he was higher than me and in that moment i saw a lesson for the world that sometimes

buy small because they can stand on the shoulder of giants.

So this is the time for for the advertising industry.

This is the time for us in the advertising industry to lean in.

When it comes to a pandemic, it is all about timing.

You've got to know what to immediately stockpile.

You've got to know, and for me, it was IP, intellectual property.

That's what you've got to stockpile immediately.

I immediately trademarked the advertising terms.

We're all in this together in these difficult times.

And I also got in these troubled times, in these challenging times, and in in these uncertain times, I did miss out on unprecedented, but in my defense, there was an unprecedented rush on unprecedented.

Do subscribe to the last post for a daily dose of Fraserian phraseology and otherworldly wonders.

Time now for question two in our Sporting Curiosities quiz, the 9th of February 1963.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that that was the day that the Boeing 727 made its first flight, although you might be more likely to know that if you are a rocket scientist, you might just picked it up in background reading.

But on that day, 9th of February 1963, something happened in a men's Five Nations rugby match that has not happened in any men's five or six nations match ever since.

What was that thing?

Was it A, a nil-nil draw?

B, the referee came from the home country.

There was an Irish referee.

That's the last time they had a home country referee in a five or six nations game.

C, a drop goal when you have to drop the ball on the ground.

They're kicking over the posts, scored four points, it's since been reduced to three.

Was it D, all four starting props?

For those of you unfamiliar with rugby, they are the, shall we say, sizable gentlemen who generally don't move at high speed, but can wrestle rhinoceroses to the ground.

All four of those starting props scored a try.

That's the last time that happened.

Was it E, the last time they had shirts v skins in an international rugby match?

Both teams turned up with their shirts having run in the wash to a kind of light green colour and so they played shirts against skins or F it was the last time a live animal was used as the ball a small warthog called Ian from Dublin Zoo was the unlucky creature on that occasion after certain protests and injuries that tradition was quietly shelved so that's question two while you think about your answer to question two

let's go back in time now as you would know if you are a student of history history is full of history repeating history and whilst the virus that has been havocking the shit out of everything this year is a new and unusually crafty one, diseases like it have been in existence ever since Pandora got peckish and peeked in her lunchbox all those years ago.

And back in issue 72 of the bugle, 11 sodding years ago, would you believe, John Oliver and I reported exclusively on another bout of viral shenanigans.

Top story this week, old MacDonald had a pig, now old MacDonald's dead.

Yes, it's swine flu.

In this emergency bugle to be injected straight into the ears, it's not an antidote, but it's not exactly not an antidote either.

Pigs, Andy's so longer a peripheral player in the news, have taken centre stage this week as they threatened to wipe out the human race.

And we can't say we weren't warned, Andy.

George Orwell always said that they were snouty little bastards.

Two legs good, four legs bad.

He pretty much wrote a whole book about how we should keep an eye on pigs.

At least that's what I took from it.

I'm pretty sure his seminal masterpiece was based around the thesis, never trust a pig, as I wrote in my criminally underappreciated GCSE English exam.

Yep, but H1N1 is back or swine flu or pig flu or piggy flu or oink oink at you urg to give it its various different names.

Spreading a lot of concern around the world, John, but also spreading delight across Israel and the Jewish world where, and imagine just like me, they've all spent most of the week punching the air shouting, see, we were fing rights all along, dirty, dirty animals.

Well, there has been controversy over what to call the virus.

Initially it was called swine flu, then pig flu, then Israel opted to call it Mexican flu due to the pork connection, I guess implying that this virus was not kosher.

The EU called it novel flu for reasons best known to themselves and France even opted to call it North American flu.

Oh for f ⁇ sake Frenchies, that is just lazy, outdated anti-Americanism.

You can have your standard French flu, but they've got freedom flu over here, so suck on that.

Well Obama calls it H1N1 influenza A.

He's always had a way with words that man hadn't he so poetic, so uplifting.

Well here are some of the headlines from the papers here this week.

Mexi no

and looking at the pictures of all the Mexicans wandering around mosxico and also pandemiconium.

Those clearly weren't headlines but they could have been and that's the most important thing.

By the end of the week the World Health Organization itself had announced that it would stop using the term swine flu to prevent confusion over the danger posed by pigs.

A spokesman said, rather than calling this swine flu, we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1M1 influenza A.

Now, is this in response, Andy, to potential pig vigilante attacks?

Have there been gangs roaming the streets at night looking for wayward pigs?

Farmers doing drive-by shootings in their tractors on farms, spraying the side of styes with bullets.

On Wednesday, Egypt started slaughtering its roughly 300,000 pigs, despite science explicitly saying that the virus was not passed on by eating pork.

Not a good time to be an Egyptian pig, Andy.

They'd better start developing a pretty convincing cow impression in the next few days.

Here's the thing, to be honest, even if there was a risk eating pig, I think I'd still take my chances.

I love bacon, Andy.

And I guess I've never before really had a barometer to gauge just how much I love bacon.

But now I do.

I love it so much.

I'm willing to risk death.

I'm willing to play bacon roulette with every sandwich I eat.

Yeah, the flu kicked off like so many things in Mexico.

And also like so many things from Mexico.

It has now sneaked across the border into America.

Oh boo!

Boo Andy!

What?

Shame on you!

You're Park Saltzman, Park Limbaugh.

Are you looking for a high-profile provocative talk show over here?

Got a few gaps in the diary coming up.

That's a yellow card, no joke.

Well over here, John, people have been reacting with similar concern at the near certain prospect of pig flu wiping out humanity.

In fact, just yesterday I saw a guy in my local supermarket standing next to the bacon counter and booing for about half an hour.

So I think you made his point.

Anyway, here's a topical joke for you.

Hey, my wife's been feeling ill for a couple of days, so she went to the doctor.

Influenza?

Well, I did advise her to seek professional medical opinion, but in the end it was her own choice.

Pig flu?

How dare you say that about my wife?

And no, she got the train.

You take inspiration in such unusual areas, Anthony.

Thanks, mate.

I'll take that as a compliment, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't one.

Currently, the world is on pandemic level phase five.

Now that doesn't sound too bad until you learn that the scale only goes up to phase six.

That is one away from the highest level available, which would indicate a full pandemic.

But still, not a pandemic.

Not a pandemic.

Now, it's been hard to accurately judge exactly how many cases of swine flu there are due to the fact that everyone that cough now thinks they've got it.

It's been a great week for panicked overreactions.

On Wednesday, the WHO claimed that far from the cited more than 150 swine flu deaths, there'd in fact been officially only seven.

People have been quick to point the swine flu finger at anyone who made the mistake of dying in the last seven days.

Hey uh Terry died.

I think it was swine flu.

What are you talking about?

Terry was hit by a bus.

I know but I think the swine flu probably got him first, then the bus got involved.

In fact, I was on the subway this week, which incidentally was noticeably less full, and a guy coughed.

A woman opposite nervously put her handkerchief over her mouth.

The guy saw this and said, hey lady, I don't have f ⁇ ing pig flu.

I don't think she was fully convinced.

Also, he may not have had f pig flu, but he also didn't have any social skills.

That is one of the symptoms, apparently.

All right, well, there you go.

That was nothing next to what happened at Baltimore International Airport when an inbound flight from Mexico radioed ahead that two passengers on board had suspected swine flu.

Apparently, they had fevers and were sick to their stomachs.

The fire, the rescue department, as well as ambulances, scrambled to meet the plane on the runway.

But after careful examination, ascertained that the two men had just had too much to drink they were drunk come on everybody we have got to calm down is one of the symptoms of swine flu stinking of tequila and singing labamba at the top of your voice because if so i came down with a spot of swine flu in a karaoke bar last week

So how much should we be panicking?

The World Health Organization currently advises a level 5 flap, which is still well short of the top level 6 screaming hysterical frenzy, but more serious than a level 4 frown.

The level 5 flap requires people to take speculative and useless precautions like wearing a homemade mask, cancelling holidays to countries beginning with M, and praying, and also to call an ambulance whenever they feel an unscheduled itch.

In Britain, the government claims it has enough of the Tamiflu vaccines to treat 80% of the population.

Uh-oh, that sounds like a national game of musical chairs.

Well, John, you say that.

Well, that is basically England covered.

And it's just not looking as a good fan of cats, I'm afraid.

But, you know, according to the famously non-existent British Constitution, medicine is distributed strictly by alphabetical order of country.

I'm sorry, Wales.

It's not looking good for you.

Bird flu was largely a panic over nothing, Andy, whereas pig flu has already infected a good many people around the world.

And I guess this tells us that pigs are tougher than birds, Andy.

Big result in the battle of the farmyard there.

Bragging rights for teen pork.

I think at this stage, John, the most important thing to do is not to mention the 1918 influenza epidemic that killed two times as many people as the First World War and affected around half of the world's population because it was ages ago and most of those people would have been dead by now anyway.

So let's brush over it as if it never happened.

Well also if you're going to attach a country to the flu Andy you've got to go Spanish.

If it is maximising body count that you're after the Spanish do not mess around.

What this whole thing does raise John as a question is what is the f point of viruses?

They just don't seem to have anything positive to contribute.

To me, I just don't see why they don't just go and f themselves.

They're just little invisible terrorists to me.

And I'm not changing my way way of life for these bastards.

I don't want the government to do anything about it.

They cannot be seen to negotiate with viruses so they should not treat anyone.

John, we have to stand up for ourselves.

As Muhammad Ali might have said if he'd been fighting pig flu for a world title, f you flu.

He had a way with words as well.

11 years ago now when things like normality and sport still existed.

Sport, did you say?

Yes, it's quiz question three now.

What unusual double sporting feat links the following four sportsmen?

Rugby league legend and human bulldozer Leslie Vinicolo, New Zealand cricketer Martin Donnelly, scorer of a double century at Lords in a test match in 1949 no less, another rugby player Harlequin's Premiership winning hewn-from-granite immovable Leviathan flanker Maury Farcevalu, and the Welsh Rugby Union Scrum Hoff and Second World War hero Maurice Turnbull.

What links those four sports players?

A, they all had both a sibling and a spouse who also played international sport.

B.

Each of them made both his international debut and his final international appearance on his birthday.

C, all played for England in one sport but against England in another sport.

D, all set a national record during a match only to see a teammate surpass it before the end of that match.

Or E.

All of them both discovered a new chemical element and had an affair with a member of the royal family.

and or a KGB agent.

Never touch pure farcevalium with your bare hands.

It is lethally radioactive.

And why did Martin Donnelly never play international cricket again after 1949?

Perhaps Olga or even Princess Margaret could explain.

Moving on now, we're going back in time once more, but just a week back in time, this time to the live Bugle live stream live with Alice and Nish Kumar.

And here are some more choice bits from that.

Carol has been a notable success story in many ways and particularly in this

this crisis, thanks in large part to its health minister KJ Shailaja, who is a former science teacher, and she's been rather more successful than

other people who've been trying to control the virus.

So it turns out that having a former science teacher involved is better than having an often sacked for dishonesty former journalist or a former serial bankrupt TV megatool and proud sexual assault fan.

There might be something in that.

It's a small sample size.

We can't draw...

conclusion.

But tell us a bit more about

how Kerala has been so much more successful than Britain, for example.

Andy, the Malayali family WhatsApp groups have been in permanent meltdown this week.

It is absolutely astonishing stuff.

I'm going to be real with you.

It has been a spicy couple of years for someone with my background, because obviously I'm a British man, so I spent the last few years watching my country do the geopolitical equivalent of shitting its pants and then not cleaning itself up, but instead doing some very vigorous squat thrusts.

And my family is from India, and that's a country that's currently run by a government who claimed to be incredibly Hindu and yet when it comes to the nation's Muslim population they seem to have no problem in having serious beef.

However

My family in India comes from the state of Kerala.

It's a small state in the south of the country although small needs to be set in context of a country with a billion people because Kerala is a small state and has 35 million people in it, right?

Okay, so but it's done an amazing job uh of handling this virus and partly that's because a few years ago the state was exposed to the nipah virus which was a really virulent pandemic that and so the infrastructure that was put in place then has actually served them pretty well but a lot of it as you say is coming down to the uh health minister kk shilajer um because she acted very very proactively in january when the first cases were coming through uh in the news from china she acted very very decisively

put in place policies of track and trace.

And four months later, Kerala only has 524 cases of COVID-19 with four deaths, and so far, no community transmission.

So, just to put that in context, that is a state of 35 million people and a GDP per capita of 2,200.

Now, if you compare that to the UK, it is, and I believe this is a scientific term,

a lot fing better.

I think that's,

I think that, yeah, I think think I'm

pronouncing all of those scientific terms right.

And yeah, so they set up a control room.

They instructed the medical officers in the 14 districts to do the same.

And by the time the first case arrived, they had such sophisticated track and trace measures in place that a case that arrived via a flight from Wuhan, they already knew that it was arriving, essentially.

So it's absolutely astonishing stuff.

And KK Sharlija, 63-year-old health minister, and has attracted a lot of new nicknames in recent weeks, including the coronavirus slayer, which is a Buffy reboot, I think we're all looking forward to, and my favourite one, Rockstar Health Minister.

And I cannot tell you the extent to which that is the most careless shit of all time.

This is a state that prides itself on having an extremely high literacy rate, is obsessed with science.

I am very much the black sheep, not just of my family, but of my family's entire home state.

And it is smack bang in the middle of Kerala's personal brand that the closest thing we can produce to a rock star is an incredibly smart and successful health minister.

So, Bessie, what do you say if I'm kind of reading between the lines?

You're saying that advanced preparation, cool-headed decision-making, and you taking the advice to test, track, and trace right from the start is slightly better than ignoring official recommendations and not acting on reports saying you've got you're unprepared for this kind of crisis.

Yeah,

it's actually a lot better than shaking hands

at the bare minimum with people who have coronavirus.

Let's remember that the handshake was the bare minimum.

I'm not saying anything else.

I'm just reminding you of Boris Johnson's track record and his F number.

But he definitely shook hands.

And also, it's better than pursuing a policy of touching horses at Cheltenham, which I believe is what happens there.

I'll never fucking be into Cheltenham.

We are hoping to do another live Bugle live stream live in June June and also a Bugle live quiz.

Best keep them separate, I found.

And on the subject of quizzes, here's question four.

And it's on cricket universally acknowledged as the greatest thing in the universe.

My cricket question for you, Buglers, is this.

Indian cricketer Sunil Valson did what?

But without also doing what?

So he did a thing without doing another thing that's usually associated with doing that thing.

So did he, A, play every single match for an entire season for Delhi in the Indian Ranji Trophy competition without ever once batting or bowling?

And if you're not a follower of cricket, just take a guess what those are.

Is it B, he's the only player to have scored a first-class century without hitting a single boundary?

93 singles, two twos and a three.

C, he won the World Cup but never played international cricket in his entire career.

D, he was man of the match in an international game in which he was not actually playing.

He came on as a substitute fielder and took three catches, two of them one-handed and made a direct-hit run out with a throw from the boundary for the final wicket.

I realise for many of you, these are just sounds.

Or E, he captained India without existing.

On India's first tour of England in the 1930s there was a dispute between the different cricketing authorities from the different states and cities of India who could not agree on who should be leader of the team.

So a compromise was reached whereby a fictional batsman was invented to be the official tour captain.

So is it A, B, C, D or E?

And in fact we're going straight on to our final question.

Question five baseball for our American listeners now and indeed any other baseball fans.

In 2003, Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman leant over from his seat to try to catch what he thought, sorry if I'm triggering some of you here, what he thought was going to be a foul ball hit by Florida Marlins batter Luis Castillo, but succeeded only in deflecting it from the grasp of Cubs fielder Moites Alou.

The game turned the Cubs, who'd been on the brink of making it to the World Series for the first time since 1945, lost, then lost the deciding game seven, and their chance of glory and Bartman's sport being sport was horrifically scapegoated.

That's why we love it.

But what became of the fateful ball that Bartman tried to catch?

A.

It was cast in a bronze casing and presented as a memento to Marlins coach Jack McKeon after his team went on to win the World Series.

B.

It was blown up in a ceremonial explosion and the remnants made into pasta sauce.

C.

It was fed to a rhinoceros at Chicago Zoo.

Cubs fans paid $100 a ticket to watch the cursed ball guzzled down by their local pachyderm.

Or D.

It was taken into space by Chicago-born NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld, who then threw it away into orbit whilst on a spacewalk to circle the world in eternal shame.

Time for you to finalize your responses to the quiz.

I'll give you the correct answers in just a few minutes time after some lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers.

To join them, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Mark Stem recently woke up with a new theory in his head about the planet Saturn.

He thinks that the reason it has its trademark rings is not as many have assumed because it is an alien UFO biding its time before swooping down to Earth to destroy us all, nor, as many have also assumed, a relic of a broad-brimmed sun hat that Saturn used to wear as a planet in the early days of the solar system when it was much closer to the Sun, but in fact because the ancient Roman god Saturn was a non-swimmer who needed rings to keep him afloat.

Mark's excitement abated when he remembered that Neptune, named after the Roman god of the sea, also has rings.

Sarang Shah is another planetary mythology fan and he thinks Jupiter got its famous red spot from where it was punched by its furious wife planet Juno after the latest in a string of infidelities with Jupiter's moons, prompting Juno to lash out at Big J and then leave the solar system for good.

Juno was last heard of circling a star in a nearby other galaxy with other planetary deities who have also escaped controlling relationships.

Sajan Hira has been studying the Bronte sisters and also dinosaurs.

Sajan has not only confirmed that the literary sibling's full surname was in fact Brontgomery, and not as some had suspected, Brontague, but also that they were responsible for the name of the renowned dinosaur the Brontosaurus, due to the structure of their novels, which tended to start quite small scale, then expand to a massive oversized middle, and then taper off gradually to a minimalist ending.

Ricardo Villain is fascinated by the British government's so-called Cobra meetings, crucial discussions of important matters that some Prime Ministers can be asked to turn up to if they're in the right mood and not too busy wondering how many children they've got.

Cobra is, according to official accounts, an acronymical of Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, but Ricardo is convinced that it is in fact so-called because at one meeting, the Conservative peer and London 2012 official Nebuchadnezzar Lord Coe, formerly known as Olympic 1500m champion Sebastian Coe, jokingly wore a bra over his pinstripe suit and quips that he hoped it would help him keep abreast of the situation.

And finally, Chris Bostich spent eight years learning to play keyboards with just one thing in mind, so that he could go to his local garden centre with a harpsichord, station it next to some bright pink flowers, and start playing a selection of early 18th century preludes and fugues until someone came up to him and said, what on earth are you doing?

And he could reply, Bach to the future.

It was worth it, reminisces Chris.

The manager of the garden centre laughed so hard, he gave everyone in the shop a free trowel.

Here endeth this week's lies.

Just time before we go for the answers to our sports quiz.

Question one, which of the following has never been an event at the Summer Olympics?

The correct answer was D.

Military Patrol.

Military patrol has, however, been an event at the Winter Olympics, similar to biathlon, involving cross-country skiing and shooting, but wearing backpacks and I think hunting down a rogue enemy unit.

Basically imagine if Liam Neeson was turned into a sport.

Ice hockey was in fact an event at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, the world clearly still coming to its senses after the trauma of the First World War.

Horsey Long Jump, 1900 in Paris, bring that back.

Whacking people with sticks, also known as single stick, was part of the fencing program in the 1904 Games in St.

Louis.

Sculpture, well, art contests were part of many of the early modern Olympic Games.

In fact, Paul Gauguin's son picked up a bronze in sculpture in 1924.

Fact.

That is a fact.

I'm very, I'm getting very, I think this is lockdown.

Has made me actually share a genuine fact.

I need sport.

Make sculpture sport again.

Cricket, England reigning champions from the 1900 Olympics in Paris.

And pigeon shooting, also 1900.

What a games that must have been.

Question two, what happened for the last time in an island-England's Five Nations game on the 9th of February 1963?

The answer was A, a nil-nil draw.

Question three, what unusual double feat.

Links Leslie Vinicolo, Martin Donnelly, Maury Fa'asavalu, and Maurice Turnbull.

It was C.

They all played for England in one sport and against England in another.

If you want the full details, try the internet.

Question four, Indian cricketer Sunil Valsan did what without doing what?

That was C.

He won the World Cup but never played international sport.

He was picked as a member of India's squad in 1983 for the Cricket World Cup.

Had never played for India before, wasn't picked during the tournament and was never selected again.

Bit harsh on the part of the Indian selectors.

And finally, question five, what happened to the Bartman ball from 2003?

Well, as Cubs fans probably don't need to be reminded, it was blown up and made into pasta sauce.

Now, that made me think, can you turn sport into food?

This is an exciting new dimension for all humanity.

This could make lockdown a hell of a lot more entertaining.

I'm going to cook some sport.

Right, if you've got all five rights, you win the star prize, which is the right to tune in to next week's issue of the Bugle.

In fact, all of you can have that on me.

Don't forget to subscribe to the last post and keep your ear to the ground, or indeed to this podcast, for details of the next live bugle live stream show and the bugle live quiz that hopefully we will do in June.

Until next week, 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.