Bugle 4141 - The Valentine's Day Special

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 4141 of The Bugle, the world's only and arguably best audio newspaper for a visual world.

I am Andy Zoltzmann, as is so often the case these days, at least since 1974, and I'm in London.

Not here here with me this week is Chris instead of Chris debuting in the producer's hammock this week is the standing Chris if you will the anti-Chris Harriet welcome to the Bugle also joining me in London this week no one both of my guests are in not London to narrow it down from the many not Londons out there they are in Los Angeles where unless things have changed radically it is a sunny b breakfast time and c ridiculous so please be upstanding wherever you're listening to this for tiffany stevenson and jenna friedman

hello Hi.

We're just here because we thought the social isolation of LA would be safer during a time of pandemic.

We're in the hills where no one can find us.

How is America coping with the impending death of humanity?

How's it coping with something it can't shoot?

It's a bare question.

You could shoot coronavirus.

It wouldn't be effective, but you can shoot anything.

I know in Florida they did set up a Facebook group to shoot Hurricane Irma so I'm hoping that someone's going to suggest getting a microscope and god damn it Clayton's get those tiny bastards.

It's quite we're being quietly terrified I think is you know I'm just watching the news from from here and seeing that people are being quarantined in Shanghai.

Shanghai's in lockdown.

Apparently in some households one person is allowed out once a day, which is kind of like my dream to be honest.

I did that yesterday because I had a hangover.

But genuinely, apart from that, terrifying.

We will touch on this more later in the show.

We are recording on the 14th of February, and it's Bugle 4141, and 10 years since Bugle 104, and today is the 410th day of last year, and also 4,141 days since the 14th of October in the year 2008, which itself was 1,004 years after the year 1004.

So lots of fours, lots of ones, and a few zeros, not much else.

Read into that, what you will.

It's a sign of something and I, for one, see it as a forewarning that the world is going to end at some point in the next 414 billion years.

It's the 14th of February, not just Valentine's Day, but also today is No One Eats Alone Day and Pet Theft Awareness Week.

So if an unexpected stranger bursts into your house whilst you're about to snuggle up in front of the telly for some quality me time, holding a terrified-looking iguana in one hand and your next-door neighbour's cat in the other and says lizard for starter moggy for main i'll pop the oven on well don't be scared they're just doing their bit for those two very good causes as always a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin uh today is also international book giving day and to mark this we have the first drafts of some of the most famous first lines of novels from the history of literature many of the uh novels of course were edited before publication and here at the bugle we've managed to get access to the first drafts of some of the classic novels of history.

And for International Book Giving Day, we're giving you the original first lines.

For example, Charles Dickens's Tale of Two Cities.

It was the best of times.

It was the worst of times.

So on average, it was kind of okay.

From L.P.

Hartley's The Go-Between.

The past is a different country.

And if you like it so much, Grandad, why don't you f ⁇ ing go back there with all the other oldies who are taking our jobs in the present?

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune is probably a bit of a dick.

And Kafka's metamorphosis began originally as Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams.

He found himself transformed in his bed into Ian the Magic Sausage.

Ian the Magic Sausage worked in the local hospital, and he could turn blood into ketchup and pus into mustard.

Everyone loved Ian the Magic Sausage until one day a vegan came into the hospital with a hurty leg.

And J.R.R.

Tolkien's The Hobbit began, in a hole in the ground, there lived a rabbi, an archbishop, and an imam, strapping everyone.

at Helman Melville's Moby Dick originally began call me maybe and George Orwell's 1984 began it was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking 11 as Harold Larwood came running in at Trentbridge cricket ground in Nottingham for his first delivery of the season so that section in the bin

Top story this week well we've touched on it already the virus that is sweeping the world it has quite literally gone viral viral the coronavirus has even come to London Tiff I know you've managed to escape before

from this city this this pestilent poxish city before the coronavirus got here but it's it's here it's here we're always a bit late to the party with global events these days but we're finally getting our piece of the coronavirus action we have the first London victim this week, a Chinese national who'd recently arrived in Britain who popped herself to hospital in an Uber.

What's wrong with the black cab?

What's the point of coming to London if you're not going to do all the tourist-y stuff?

Like get a black cab to hospital with a potentially fatal illness.

And I mean, there's a lot of excitement here because it's the coronavirus named due to its characteristic spikes that look like a crown.

So it's a royal virus.

So I think that's why it's getting so much media traction here.

In Britain, a lot of speculation, is it going to go on a nationwide tour?

Is it going to cost the taxpayer a lot of money, but actually bring in more in revenue from medicine, surgical supplies, you know, travel hotels, restaurants where people have to visit ill relatives

in hospital.

And I mean,

it's getting quite exciting, I think.

I mean, the whole world here.

And it's, I mean, we touched on

America.

There's an element here with the trade wars America's been enjoying with China.

This has given a little bit of extra spice.

Can I dampen your excitement, which is kind of my brand?

Yes, okay, sure, yeah, absolutely.

It's a good brand.

It's actually like not

the medical community or people that I've talked to say it's actually not that much worse than the flu.

It just has like really aggressive PR.

Right.

So that's why everybody's freaking out about it because it's like the new kid on the block,

the Billie Eilish of infectious diseases, and everybody's like really excited.

But in a couple months, you're going to see that it's really just kind of like elevator music of infectious diseases.

And it really, it's bad for people who have weakened immune systems and elderly people and probably everybody who voted

leave.

But other than that, it's really, it's pretty benign as an infection.

It's like a bad cold.

It's like the opposite of Jeffrey Epstein in that it actively wants to f ⁇ old people.

Family show, Tiff.

Family show.

The average age of victims is around 55.

And most of those, as you say, affected are old people and often those with pre-existing medical conditions are the ones worst affected.

But the young have got off pretty much

scot-free.

I mean, they don't know how good they've got it, the young, with no coronavirus, not having to also have to blame themselves for the environment, Brexit or Trump.

They're not tainted by having existed in the 20th century.

This is another example of how skewed the world is in favor of the younger generation.

It's about time they stepped up to the plate and started getting ill with the rest of us.

Well, they will if they can get designer face masks, I think.

That's the next, that'll be the next thing.

I'm wondering which brand's going to hop onto this first.

Probably Dolcing Gabbana because they have a terrible PR track record.

But apparently, Fendi already do a disinfectant mask that you can buy in Harrods.

So, you know,

I'm sure we'll get the interest from the youth when it comes to fashion.

That's bullshit, actually.

Everyone's interested in fashion.

I'm interested in fashion.

Jenna just looked

really disappointed.

I'm actually not interested in fashion.

It's interesting, isn't it?

I mean, there is a business opportunity here for the trendy face mask.

I think,

I was just reading about one, a Diamante-encrusted $4,000 surgical face mask designed by Stella McCartney and Damien Hurst, modelled on the facial contours of Helen of Troy, but equipped with Bluetooth.

At least Bluetooth if you drink a Raspberry slushie through it.

So it's, you know, there's an opportunity.

Opportunity in everything.

Sorry to just be this like factual buzzkill, but they don't actually fully work.

The best way to not get coronavirus is to wash your hands and not lick your fingers.

Right.

Okay.

Well, that's.

Well, how do you monetize?

How do you monetise that?

It's really a nightmare if you're trying to eat a bag of Watsitz.

There is a Chinese disinfecting system.

I don't know if you've seen this.

I've seen pictures of it.

Go and look it up.

It's basically a Stargate.

It's a Stargate.

It has the chevrons and everything.

So you go in with a virus, virus, you get

molecularly deconstructed, and you come out as a shit Roland Emerich movie, which is

quite a task.

The Chinese government reaction has been,

well,

characteristically heavy-handed.

They've rounded up

people who are possibly sick or look like they might possibly get sick at some point in the future.

And I think we need to give the Chinese government a bit of credit here because they've been practicing rounding up large groups of people for years and that practice is now coming in very, very handy.

Whereas, I mean, certainly here in Britain, we're not as well prepared.

We haven't been rounding up millions of people from religious and ethnic minorities

in nearly the same scale.

So, how are we going to deal with having to round up virus victims?

We'll probably just end up doing the British thing of shouting at them in the street, daubing offensive graffiti on their homes, and writing inflammatory newspaper comment pieces about them.

But, well,

China's really showing the way.

That'll work.

Ask them to form an orderly queue.

That would be very British.

The officials in Wuhan have had some criticism for seizing patients who've not yet tested positive for the virus and herding them onto buses with no protective measures, thus risking infection from others.

And some of the people who dealt with in this way, their testimony has gone up online.

One person wrote, I'm furious, I deliberately chose not to become a Chinese artist to avoid shit like this.

Another said, This is not the level of service I expect from an oppressive pseudo-communist superstate.

And another said, this is not the Brexit I voted for.

The discrediting of whistleblowers is pretty terrifying, isn't it?

That seems to be happening at the moment.

Sort of up there with victims of any kind of sexual assault or harassment.

Like that's the level of discrediting.

Believe whistleblowers, I think is what I'm saying.

The only 35-year-old who's died so far, pretty much, is like the one whistleblower, doctor, Dr.

Lee, which makes me think it's kind of like an Epstein scenario, like maybe the government killed him and not coronavirus.

I don't know not to say Epstein was a whistleblower hero

but you know you could infer.

Well I think I think there were two YouTube sort of or journalists that have also gone missing as well

Chen Kishi I think and Fang Bin.

So they've been doing videos on reporting from inside on social media and now they've gone missing.

So that's all quite you know terrifying.

That's probably more scary than the virus itself.

Oh yeah.

The attempts to curb the information it is really interesting how the authoritarian uh tech tactics seem deadlier than uh the virus the thing that the only thing that's kind of funny is the videos of cats with masks like people thinking their cats aren't going to get coronavirus because they have like a little mask on the cat's face it's cute it's really uh

but it's amazing just

a video of a cat could make any situation so much if only they'd had that facility in the battle of the Somme.

I can just imagine how furious my cat would be if I put one of those on him.

Or, you know, you could just put your population on a cruise ship and just leave them floating.

Horror movie.

Yeah.

I don't need more reasons to not go on a cruise.

I'm a comic.

I've already died on a cruise ship.

I mean, comedically.

So there's just these floating sort of corona vegetables.

Yeah.

I mean, cruise ships in quarantine is

a section of the Muppets that never quite made it off the ideas board.

Quite live up to it.

Pigs in Space clearly got the go-ahead, which was a famous Muppetian experiment to see whether if a pig spent more than a lunar month in space, it became kosher.

And the answer was, yes, it does.

There's been some criticism

here in Britain that we are still there's still about 100 flights a day going between Britain and China when many other countries have completely closed off transport to and from China.

But the thing is, in Britain, we don't need to do that because I will explain this in our Bugle coronavirus fact versus coronavirus myth section.

Fact, Brexit has made Britain immune to the coronavirus.

We are independent from all foreign viruses now.

Only native-grown indigenous British diseases can kill people here.

The coronavirus is banned.

Fact, you cannot contract coronavirus from listening to a podcast, even if everyone on the podcast has been.

We can

sharing a mic.

myth over two billion people died between 1968 and 2014 are you seriously expecting us to believe that none of them died of coronavirus pull the other one fact cruise ship passengers are more vulnerable to the coronavirus because it disproportionately attacks cells containing the gene that makes people want to travel slowly on a long sightseeing holiday myth

tom cruise had coronavirus whilst filming a few good men in the early 1990s turns out not true at all just had the sniffles fact you can contract coronavirus from a satanic ritual if that ritual involves slaying an infected bat and you're not wearing overalls or a devil mask.

Fact, coronavirus is racist.

Fact, many facts are also myths.

Fact, other groups immune to the coronavirus other than British people include popes, dolphins, snooker professionals, qualified mathematicians, Swiss bankers, acrobats, people who are already dead such as the ancient Babylonians and Mary Curie, and medieval executioners, ice hockey goaltenders and gimps.

That's very much a mask thing for those last three groups.

And finally,

myth.

Donald Trump tried to get the Ukrainian Minister of Healthcare, Zoriana Skeletska, to order a vial of coronavirus to pour over Hunter Biden's breakfast cereal.

That did not happen.

He's completely innocent.

American news now.

And well, I have two guests currently in America.

The election is hotting up into, well, frankly, something that most of us would happily take a virus to avoid having to watch for the next

nine or ten months.

Tiff, Jenna, what have been your highlights this week in American politics?

Well William Barr has intervened

with the Roger Stone case.

So William Barr and Jeffrey Epstein really dragging down the good name of the Epstein-Barr virus here.

But

Roger Stone's sentence has been cut because the federal government are big meanies and it was decided that seven to nine years was excessive and unwarranted.

So what really needs to happen with Roger Stone is he needs to get caught with marijuana.

Because if he got caught possessing marijuana, he'd get a lot more.

There's a mother of four from Oklahoma called Patricia Spotted Crow who learned firsthand how a small-time pot bus can completely derail an offender's life.

A thirty-one dollar pot sale got her a stunning twelve-year prison sentence.

So that's you know five years more than what Roger Stone was initially sentenced to.

So it's quite terrifying for democracy, I suppose.

Former U.S.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who was Attorney General under Obama,

said that the conduct regarding the Roger Stone case had, quote, put at risk the perceived and real neutral enforcement of our laws and ultimately endangered the fabric of our democracy.

Now, that fabric, the fabric of American democracy, has seen better days.

That fabric is like a zebra print picnic blanket that has just spent a year and a half in a lion enclosure.

If you were to use the fabric of American democracy to make a three-piece suit and wear it to a job interview, your prospective new boss would say, We do have a suit should have arms and legs policy at this company.

And if you could go for the non-visible groin next time, that would be greatly appreciated.

It still transmits smallpox, the fabric of America.

Also, there was an article that just came out this week in GQ

alleging, well, it wasn't alleging because it's actual case documents, but Bloomberg's history of sexual harassment.

He had 40 sexual harassment lawsuits over a couple decades or in the 90s.

And to have a sexual harassment lawsuit in the 90s is pretty much...

It's pretty indicting because

nobody reported shit then.

So it's kind of an interesting ripple in the Bloomberg.

Maybe it'll make him more popular with America, to be honest.

If you want to beat Trump, you got to beat him at his own game.

Well, that's it.

Billionaire against...

Two billionaires enter, one billionaire leaves.

That is how this campaign could get.

Could get.

This is what people want from democracy.

Well, I think Mike Bloomberg will take anyone's support

as long as they take $150,

because that was the news here in the past week or so, that

Bloomberg was reaching out to Instagram influencers, of which I believe we both are, Jenna.

I'm technically a micro-influencer, which is a fine term if you're female.

I think as a guy, micro-influencer.

Nano-influencer.

So, what defines a micro-influencer?

Is there a certain level of followership you need?

I think so.

I think it's just being verified or having over 10,000 Instagram followers.

Right.

Um, so but and I know you love the gram, Andy, and you're on it all the time.

All the time, but

I mean, I've had those bikini shots of you

always want to look my best.

Um, I think I'm a micro-influencer in that I have two children and I make them watch lots of sports.

So I think that's basically this.

I'm happy with that level of micro-influence.

Would you take $150 to support Mike Bloomberg?

I don't know.

I mean, if you can make it $200, I'll consider it.

I think $150 is a bit on the cheap side, to be honest, for

brainwashing my children about the glories of the Bloomberg campaign.

Particularly if there's cricket on the telly.

I'm not turning off the sport to promote Michael Bloomberg's campaign, if that's what you're asking.

As you say, this case with this issue with William Barr, the Attorney General, has been described by a former federal attorney as a crisis of credibility.

Nobody knows whether decisions are being made based on the facts and the law or whether they're based on political whim.

That is obviously untrue.

Everyone knows whether the decisions are made on facts or law or political whim.

And the answer to that multiple choice question is B, political whim.

Everybody knows that.

I mean, no one's pretending they're made by facts and law anymore.

I mean, the American justice system has taken a bit of a pounding recently.

What with that recent, fairly significant, very public, high-profile legal case being conducted in the very highest chambers of American politics by people with no legal expertise, obvious vested interests, and without traditional legal sticks such as witnesses, evidence, facts, objectivity, and the actual law being applied.

So you can see that law is having a bit of a rough ride at the moment

on the other side of the pond.

Yeah, no, our 2020 election is going to go really well.

Everything's going to to work out, and we're going to be a democracy again.

Just kidding.

So let's turn to the Democrats.

The latest round in the efforts to win the golden ticket prize are being abused, belittled, and battered by Donald Trump until A, November, and B, the end of time.

Bernie Saunders came out on top

this week.

I was reading about the Bernie or Bust phenomenon,

in which many of Bernie Sanders' supporters, about a sixth of his supporters, say they will not vote for any other Democrat candidate if Bernie is not chosen as

the Democratic presidential candidate.

Only just over half, 53%, said they would definitely vote for whoever is running for the Democrats.

And given how close the last election was in 2016,

which Donald Trump won with, I think, minus one or two percent of vote superiority over Hillary Clinton.

You'd think, do you not, at some point, you think back through other elections, George W.

Bush in 2000 and that vote being being slightly...

I guess the one lesson we can learn from history is that people never king learn lessons from history.

The way I see it, with the idea of not voting for any Democrat against Trump, it'd be like if you're building a new house in an area famous for having a large population of feral human-eating tigers and you're having an argument over whether or not to have a green front door or an orange front door, or a purple front door.

And you really, really want a green front door, but the front door company says, we're sorry, we're totally out of green front doors.

You cannot have a green front door.

Do you A, get no front door, or B, get a front door that you're not totally happy with?

Even if you have a slight allergic reaction to purple and orange makes you feel grumpy, get a fing door.

Get the door.

They're like lighting their house on fire.

Not even about the doors.

It is really scary.

On the bright side though, another candidate is emerging.

I don't know how much you guys know about Amy Klobuchar, but she's a moderate centrist who physically assaults her staff with office equipment and I love her more and more every day.

I think it's such a feminist gesture to support a woman who acts like a man.

The clobes.

Clobe trotters.

Yeah, but she's a centrist.

I mean,

a lot of people who are not monsters will vote for any of the Democrats.

I think there's a larger conversation about people being radicalized online to vote against their own self-interest, which I think a lot of the Bernie or bus people do.

I can't even talk about them online, otherwise I'll get attacked.

I mean, you get that.

Yeah.

Totally.

Yeah.

I mean, I do think the way, I do think

Bernie and Corbyn are different, but I do think the way that the media talks about them is incredibly similar, or the tactics used, which is to fracture the left beyond the point of disrepair, and then the right sort of surges ahead with United on the things that they don't like and don't want.

And this is just like left-wing people just repeatedly punching themselves in the face over and over again.

I mean, Andrew Yang's out of the race now, so there's no Yang gang anymore.

How do you feel about Andrew Yang, Andy?

Well,

I'll be honest, I've not followed his candidacy hugely closely.

I mean, he seemed to describe himself as the Asian math guy.

I don't know if he's gunning for a role in The Simpsons, if

now Hari Kondobolu's campaign of destruction has

led to the marginalisation of Arbu.

Are you happy now, Hari?

If you're listening to this.

But

I was intrigued by what he said when he announced his departure from the race.

While we did not win in this election, We're just getting started.

This is the beginning.

This movement is the future of American politics.

And I admire the optimism in that, but I think the future of American politics is, frankly, people being absolute to each other from now until the end of time, because it clearly works.

Yeah,

there is something interesting about one thing we've learned from Trump.

It's to never apologize and just fake it till you make it.

Like every single person's concession speech in Iowa, for example, was like, we won.

It's just how we are now.

It's just if you just keep saying that you won, people will just believe you.

I won the Edinburgh Fringe Award, by the way.

I'd like to just announce that now.

I won Iowa.

I won the Iowa caucus.

Did you have a...

Budajudge, too.

Did you guys?

Oh, yes.

So tell us a bit more about

Pete Budaj.

Well,

he used to work as an infectious disease

biologist in a lab, and he created coronavirus to wipe out the competition.

That's not a conspiracy theory, that's actually a fact.

It's really the only way he's going to rise to the top if he just

biologically engineers everyone else out of the race.

I just need to know who Nicholas Cage is going to support now.

Andrew Yang's out of the race.

Because

he was all in for Yang.

He was fully Yang Gang.

I kind of like the Yang Gang.

I thought those guys were.

I mean, I, you know, I'm wondering who they'll go to now.

If they'll go to like Bernie or Warren, that's a question.

Yeah.

Do you want to say who you picked up?

Do you like women or do you hate women?

Pick a lane, Yang Gang.

It's quite an advantage, I guess, having a surname that lends itself to a rhyme like that, because I mean, that's Amy Klobuchar is going to really struggle.

Klobby?

Yes, it's you need some pithy marketing, like

some red hats, maybe, with Make Math Great again on them.

Hope Hicks is back in the White House, which I know is very exciting for everyone.

Hope Hicks, perfectly alliterated.

She's on the cheer squad, and she's the one that secretly sabotages her teammates by greasing the gym floor.

She's called Hope, but deep down, we know she's a Heather.

It's very interesting that she's come back.

Well, not that she's come back, but the timing of her return.

Because she initially quit, didn't she, under the scrutiny of law enforcement and admitting to the fact that she told white liver.

White lies, which is just you know, racist lies for Trump.

I don't know, that's a perfect phrase for it.

Yeah, I told white lies.

But this kind of

after the sort of acquittal, I feel like this is a renewed sense of, is it confidence or arrogance or something to bring her back into the fold at this point?

The timing is quite interesting.

Hope Hicks also, according to some historians, one-word summaries of what the last two presidents of the USA represent.

British politics news, and there has been a cabinet reshuffle reshuffle here.

Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, those words just still don't sound right.

And I don't think they'll sound right in 50 or 100 years' time either.

Had a cabinet reshuffle in which unexpectedly his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javed, resigned, stroke, was sacked.

You know, did he jump?

Was he pushed?

He pushed and then pretended he was jumping, I think was essentially how it went.

And it's interesting, though, the way, I mean, this seems kind of chaotic, and it seems to be a kind of fairly naked power grab by Boris Johnson.

It's interesting to see the politics of it because Theresa May failed at the general election in 2017 with a strong and stable message and Boris Johnson appears to be going for weakness and instability to try and shore up his

new power base.

Saji Javid was the shortest spell as Chancellor of the Exchequer for 50 years and the shortest without having unexpectedly died since way, way

before that.

And we now have a new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who has less than a month to suddenly hack an entire budget together.

I guess it's good to have a deadline.

Also, sacked Julian Smith, the Northern Ireland Secretary, who had won widespread praise from

all across Ireland, all across the UK, for managing to

get the disputative parties talking in Northern Ireland, get the Assembly back up and running.

And he was therefore sacked.

By most motives, he'd been a raging success, and therefore he simply had to go.

Such is politics these days.

The best thing you can do for your career is shut up and do a shit job.

I always think of these cabinet reshuffles as less cabinet reshuffles and more a sideboard full of shit.

Did Javid even get to hold the red briefcase?

Oh, I'm not sure.

I'm not, I mean, because that's got to be gutting, because that is what you go into politics for, isn't it?

There's something just gloriously old school about holding up a battered old red briefcase.

Yeah, full of plans to destroy the poor.

Yeah.

Yeah, because inside it's just a hope-crushing machine.

There's not actually papers inside, it's just a very high-tech hope-crusher.

And

why is Michael Gove still described as de facto deputy prime minister?

Michael Gove is 100% that dude that promises to look after your girlfriend whilst you're away and then tries to slip her the tongue and get slapped.

I'll take that for that.

That's who he comes across as to me.

And obviously

he's been talking about

Brexit and border checks.

I don't know if you've seen this, Andy,

but Brexit is going as smoothly as Jeff Norcott promised it would.

Yeah, I was thinking that

Bojo's like the type of guy that you have sex with and he's like, I'm not going to come.

Pull out totally works.

And then he comes inside you.

But I didn't like that analogy because then you think about Boris Johnson, and it's less

family shop.

Family shop.

So, so, so, Michael Gove has been saying border checks are inevitable now, um, which I mean, I suppose the upside is that we don't have to hear him repeating the phrase frictionless trade over and over, like some kind of grotesque safe word.

That's what.

But the government has confirmed there'll be checks on food and goods of animal origin, as well as customs declarations on imports and exports at the border.

So, you know,

it's basically they said that, you know, it wouldn't affect,

there wouldn't be a problem at borders for trade and everything else.

And now it's slowly unraveling.

Well, I mean, the thing is, we can't judge it yet, Tiff.

I mean,

we've got to let it play out for two, 300 years before we make these snap judgments on whether or not it's a good idea.

I was comforted by the fact that when Theresa May, I don't know if you remember who she was, but when she,

just the fact that she was diabetic, I felt like was

cool to have somebody who would rely on insulin that's not made in the UK to kind of be in charge of that Brexit decision.

And now it's just like,

I don't know.

A serious question though, if you need insulin or something not made in the UK to survive, how are people doing?

How are people with diabetes doing over there?

I guess

it's too weak to tell us.

Just

the natural sweet sugar of freedom.

That's all we need.

What we're going to have to do for diabetics is what they do for bees in the summer, which is just leave like a little bowl of sugared water

outside.

Outside your house.

I thought you meant chase after them with tennis rackets, shouting, get away from my f ⁇ ing pig.

Kill them with cell phones.

Drown them in coleslaw.

I mean, it's

what what they're saying now is that that Boris Johnson is wanting to to pursue an Australian-style deal, which means no deal because Australia don't have a free trade deal with the EU.

Light everything on fire.

Yeah, I mean, he j

and what it kind of says ultimately is that Brexit is a political decision and not an economic one.

You know, and that the economic cost, even a significant one, doesn't matter because of the mantra taking back control.

And I think if Boris wanted to take back control, he should have just got a pair of spanks like everyone else.

How do you know he doesn't have them?

Yeah.

So, I mean, we've got to put these border checks and stuff in place.

But it's not going to be done by the end of the year.

And

so I feel like this is just going to be a shitstorm.

You know, they were saying that in January, that's peak import season for things like fresh fruit and vegetables, and customers are really going to see the problems on supermarket shelves unless the infrastructure is put in place.

But I mean, God knows how long this is all going to take.

Well, you can't bring practicality into it now, Tiff.

Uh, I mean, this

was not a vote that had practicality at its heart, and you know, it would be hypocritical now if you know, A, having promised chaos from you know, both sides, then if that chaos was now denied us,

right?

So, we should we should we should expect fights at the borders with fruits and vegetables involved.

Food fights, it was all in

the manifesto, I'm pretty sure.

I mean, I don't know what was in there, no one reads manifestos, it could easily have been in a manifesto

in article 50.

There's a whole section about food fights.

Valentine's Day breakup news now.

And well, since it's a Valentine's Day Bugle we're going to do a story on breakups a researcher in Canada has apparently found a way of editing your memories using therapy and beta blocker drugs to take the sting out of breakups now I mean this is really the kind of science that I can fully get behind particularly here in Britain we need this we need this therapy and beta blockers for at least 16 million people plus quite a lot more who weren't able to vote just pump it into the water system like they do with fluorine.

You guys really need more meds to repress your emotion.

Well, I mean, that's to be honest,

we're looking to America now as our touchstone and inspiration for this post-Brexit

New Britain.

And

to be honest, if we are not all absolutely dependent on

expensive medication within 50 years, Brexit will have been a failure.

Therapy and beta blockers is fancy modern talk for two bottles of cheap whiskey, an over-emotional blast on a karaoke machine and shouting at traffic on the way home about how you never loved them anyway

before trying to make out with a post box.

So

it's, I mean,

this could change the way humans behave if you have pain-free breakups.

Well, the research suggests in this story that about 70% of patients found relief with a few sessions of reconsolidation therapy, which I like that it's called that.

Take all of your romantic pain and hurt over a lifetime and consolidate it into 12 easy monthly pain payments.

Sort of reading into it, it sounds like NLP, you know, neuro-linguistic programming with a drug addition on the side.

And he says memories in their new

neutral factual elements are saved in the brain's hippocampus.

Yeah, I said that correctly.

But the emotional tone of the memory is saved somewhere else.

So it says, imagine you're shooting a movie in the old-fashioned way.

You have the image and the sound, and they're on two separate channels.

And when a person relives their traumatic memory, they experience both channels.

And then propan, oh, is this propanolol?

Propanolol.

Da-da-da-da-da.

Helps target one channel, the emotional aspect of memory, inhibiting its reconsolidation and suppressing the pain.

So it's actually a drug going in to minimise the pain and the PTSD of the experience.

And I'm not saying PTSD lightly, they use it throughout the article.

Yes, I would but I guess, you know, in terms of, yeah, I d I d I have a great deal of experience with breakups.

I've been with

my wife since I was

21, 22.

But, you know, if you can take a vial of this magic drug to a breakup, surely that's going to smooth things over, isn't it?

Instead of a bunch of flowers, just a vial of the special beta blocker.

Bingo.

What are the side effects?

Forgetting your mom's name.

Of course, there are other ways.

Sorry, carry on.

I don't know.

I like feeling, I like the heartbreak that comes with a breakup.

You kind of lose £10,

never look better.

Your comedy gets funnier.

I wouldn't give that up for the world.

Of course, there are other alternatives to

what to do with a breakup.

A, never mention it, pretend it never happened.

That's how we in Britain tend to deal with any split, whether it's a relationship or the end of empire.

Option B, you hire a doppelganger of your lost beloved and pay them a retainer for the rest of your natural life.

C, option C, you record a seminal album about it, or optional D, you commission a Taj Mahal.

Admittedly, that was a non-voluntary breakup when she ran off with a Mr.

G Reaper.

You could also sleep with their best friend.

There are so many things you can do to get over a breakup.

I would like this drug to remove the memory of a guy I once dated years ago who, whenever he said jazz, went, mmm, nice.

Like that bit from the fast show.

If I could just have that forever removed from my memory, that would I would be very happy.

Right, just just selective.

So you need this drug to be honed down so it just removes selective parts of relationships.

Yes, yeah, yeah, just all the bits that I find very annoying.

I mean, to be honest, if you apply this in a relationship, this could put all divorce lawyers out of memory.

In relationships, you're still in.

You just drug yourself.

Just that one fight you had.

I think the problem is that, you know, I don't know how many men want this because I think women have better memories.

We like remember more stuff, loads more stuff.

Whereas,

or all men have selective memories.

I'm not sure which one it is.

But I seem to retain information from every argument I've ever had with my other half.

And then I will bring it up at the perfect moment to destroy him.

See, I'm quite lucky in that, because I basically had no memory left by the time that I got together with

my wife.

And it was just absolutely my brain was absolutely full of sports trivia by that point so I can know I can't remember basically anything that's happened in our relationship and it's proved you know extremely happy and fruitful.

Did you shout out cricket terms during the wedding ceremony?

Please tell me you didn't do that, Andy.

Well I didn't shout them out loud but you know I was certainly

singing them on the inside.

Aliens are talking to us news now and some very exciting news.

Astronomers have found radio signals from half a billion light years away.

Tiff, you are our intergalactic communications correspondent.

Bring us up to date with what the aliens are trying to say to us.

Well, a mysterious radio signal from space is repeating every 16 days, and I think it's my mum telling my dad to put the toilet seat down afterwards.

I'm trying to think of things that repeat themselves constantly.

The births originated from a galaxy 500 million light-years away, probably not aliens, MIT said in a statement.

But I'm excited about it, Andy.

I'm pretty excited.

Because at this point, aren't we hoping for intergalactic intervention?

Yeah, I think.

I think we should welcome it.

It's the most likely solution to the climate crisis, I think.

Certainly.

Yeah.

Sweet relief from

Brexit, Corona, failed impeachment, Piers Morgan.

Also, in America, I am an alien of extraordinary ability, so I think I'll be all right.

They'll take me as one of their own.

Half a billion light years away.

And I mean, also, you think radio, are these like who listens to radio these days?

Surely, surely it's all about the podcast now.

And if they're listening to radio half a billion years ago, what are they up to now?

The signal's like, too many,

the signal blasting is like, too many podcasts.

Stop with the podcast.

Well, if you put another half billion years of evolution from the beginning of radio, then I imagine by now they've evolved the podcast genre so far that they can now

describe, investigate, and solve all the crimes ever committed in history and then produce them into one high-pitched tone lasting half a second.

And that will be the logical end of all podcasting.

I just, I want them to invade Andy.

Podcast or no podcast.

That's what I want to happen.

I like how you think they're already not here.

The only explanation for the past three years is that the aliens have landed and that they all support Trump.

I don't know if you've seen the movie They Live, but it's

what we're dealing with.

Yeah,

I need to start taking my sunglasses off, or is it putting them on so I can see who the aliens are?

Putting them on.

Putting them on.

Okay.

I would like some Kardashians taken out by Kardasians.

I would like a little green man making Trump leaned out of his eyes and his wherever.

And I want Boris Johnson levitating and being drained by a tripod.

That is what I want, Andy, and I want it now.

Well, that brings us towards the end of this Valentine's Day bugle.

We've not already talked about the real St.

Valentine.

We think of St.

Valentine's today as a third-century Roman martyr and professional saint who dabbled in low-grade poetry and was best known for crowbarring rhymes into half-baked ditties and would do frankly anything to get underneath a nun's wimple.

And certain publications, such as the Bugle, have over the years disseminated false information on St.

Valentine.

But we can tell you, having actually checked online, there are some facts about him.

He reputedly left a note to the daughter of his jailer on the day of his execution in the the third century AD.

On the day of your execution, you're still trying that's impressive, isn't it?

Still trying to woo as you face.

I mean he couldn't stop thinking about it for a second.

That's I guess a typical man.

Did anyone else get a Valentine's card from their parents?

Just wanted to ask.

What, this year or in general in the past?

Just general in the past.

No, I never did actually, but I'm from a very British family.

We keep all our emotions under wraps, even the fake ones.

My mum sent me one and in it she put happy Valentine's love from question mark and then next to it brackets mum.

Was that her way of saying she's not sure if she's your real mother?

Maybe.

I hadn't thought about that.

I'm going to spiral into an existential crisis now.

Well, that brings us to the end of

this week's bugle.

Thank you very much for listening.

Jenna and Tiff, thanks very much for joining me from Los Angeles.

Thank you for having us, Andy.

Hi, Andy.

There has been,

you have to say that anonymously.

There has been...

Brackets, Jenna.

There has been a.

What can only be described as awkward delay on the line for this episode.

So for our new stand-in producer, Harriet, this is,

well, I've been an entertaining start.

We will be off next week.

I am on holiday, but there will be a sub-bugle featuring an episode of The Last Post and some classic bugle archival material.

Then we will be back in a fortnight.

Thanks again for listening.

Until next time, 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.