Give Peas a Chance

Don't forget to listen to The Last Post.

Oh, yeah.

The Last Post is a daily podcast

that is podcast.

There is an alternate universe, Alice Fraser, who hosts this satirical news podcast, and she talks about all the news that's happening over there.

This is a great getaway.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to the final bugle ever to be recorded in a Britain that is still part of the European Union.

We are recording on what is conventionally known as Thursday the 30th of January in the year 2020, known in Britain as New Brexillennium Eve.

Because tomorrow at 11pm human British time the Brex clock will strike Brex and it will become the first of Brexuary in the year Brex 1000 and Brexit d Brex.

Why not just the year Brex I you ask?

Well because Brexit is not beginning now.

What is happening is that Brexit is merely revealing an immutable reality of Brexpetitiousness.

It is returning Britain to what it always was hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of years ago, a land of purest Brexiness humbly lived wherewith and upon by the ancient tribe of the Brexivantes who've tilled the soil with their earthic Brexit wisdom.

It's happening people.

It is happening.

There's no way around it.

And joining me to discuss this appropriately enough are two people who have absolutely no business being in this country anymore.

From New Zealand, James Nokise, welcome.

Welcome.

There were more X's in that opening than in porn.

And also from the southern hemisphere, Alice Fraser.

Bringing me my Rose Office.

Never mind.

I'm back.

I'm here.

Hello.

Well, are you both excited about being here for this historic moment in in which nothing will happen and nothing much will change, apart from slight gruntlement on one side and deep smugness on the other?

I mean,

look,

as a colonial from the colonies, it's always fun to watch it burn.

Let it go.

It was ages ago.

I was so excited when I found out that Brexit was going to actually happen, and then I realised that what it did not mean was that people would shut the f ⁇ up about Brexit.

Like,

if I would be so happy for Brexit to happen if it meant that I never had to make another joke about Brexit, that would be like that's how easily I would be sold on the idea.

Yeah.

Because I don't care if your country goes to the dogs, it's fine.

Yeah.

Do you find people in Australia, are people in Australia excited about Brexit?

Because people in New Zealand are like, there's some people who are like, yeah, we've won.

Brexit has happened.

It's like, you have no skin in this game, bro.

What are you talking about?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's like the people in Leeds who have real strong opinions about the bushfires in Australia.

Everyone seems to feel like they've got...

I mean, I guess we might get to come over more.

Possibly.

I mean, the thing with New Zealand in particular is essentially that has been our test tube experiment, essentially, because it's essentially

geographically roughly the same, a few more mountains.

I do worry that there are people in Britain who genuinely believe that trade deals with New Zealand are going to replace

the European whole.

I hate to break it to British listeners, but the New Zealand economy is, it ain't saving anyone.

James Cameron lives there, though, so maybe if you do trade trade deals with James Cameron and Peter Jackson yeah well they might be able to bail you out.

Well I think that's the way forward really.

The show hasn't officially started yet but I mean

I think we're going to be trading with high net wealth individuals.

Is that the right term I forget?

I mean you know even though obviously I am one.

As I said this is the last day of the old calendar.

History of course will be all rendered irrelevant after tomorrow compared with the history that is about to unfold before us, like the used handkerchief of of a tuberculotic nicotine addict.

But let's look back to this day in history.

On this day in 1661, Oliver Cromwell was executed.

Nothing unusual there other than the fact that he'd already been executed by the Grim Reaper

more than two years previously.

The Grim Reaper, of course, a harsh judge with no appeals process.

He was posthumously executed and

locked up and I think sent around the country to

yeah then they played football with his head and then allegedly his head was buried in my college at the university I went to and then they tried to sell the head back to his family and they thought it was a fake but then someone did a PhD on it and it turned out it was his head.

The end.

So I had a friend.

I had a friend who was Irish.

So it's basically just the plot of a Dan Brown novel.

Except for the bit where my friend who was Irish used to go around the college and pee in corners hoping that he was peeing on Cromwell's head because they wouldn't say where it was buried.

Oh right.

I see.

Not as part of an official tour guide.

But he could say with sort of 90% certainty that he had pissed on Cromwell's head because he'd pissed everywhere.

It's good to cover your bases.

The reason that Cromwell was executed posthumously on the 30th of January is because on the 30th of January 1649, Charles I,

King of England, was executed,

well a multiple executions simultaneously by the Grim Reaper Parliament and an anonymous executioner whose name we do not know, as is so often the case with anonymous people, but latest historical research suggests that the fatal blow could have been the first instance of the use of the team mascot.

Oliver Cromwell was aware that Monarcho Bonslopping could be not only physically divisive for Charles I, Charlie Chopchop himself to a frankly irreparable degree, but also for the country as a whole.

So Cromwell decided to try to make the event appeal to kids, neutrals and king accusation sceptics by having the executioner dress up in a funny costume.

Hence Alfie the axolotl, an axe-wielding salamander with big goofy eyes, who brought some much-needed levity and crowd work to what might otherwise have been a somewhat gruesome occasion.

Thus was the mascot genre established with, and he laid on what have become the classic tropes of mascoteers the world over, getting different parts of the crowd on Whitehall that cold winter's morning to see who could do the loudest cheer, then some slapstick deliberate misses with the axe, forgetting to use his axe and using a giant carrot instead.

And then when the final blow was struck, lifting up not the severed head of the king, but a pumpkin, then a pantomime horse's head, then a rhinoceros's skull, before finally lifting up King Charles's noggin whilst cheekily stealing the crown and tucking it in his oversized trouser pockets before waving in a I'm kidding of course style to the now uproariously laughing crowd, then firing commemorative items of clothing into the crowd from a doublet cannon.

Certainly

helped defuse the tension and set a grand tradition.

But we don't hear that about Cromwell.

It's all the negative stuff, isn't it?

All the banning Christmas and the

stuff James was touching upon there that,

well, reverberates somewhat to this day.

Are they going to execute anyone for Brexit and then play football with their head?

Is that the best?

I mean, metaphorically, definitely, yes.

Whether it actually happens in reality, I guess.

I mean, times have changed.

I mean, the Conservative Party has sort of a tradition of doing strange things with heads in celebration.

Well, yeah, I mean, absolutely.

I'm asking if your Prime Minister is going to f a pig does week?

That's what I'm asking.

Well,

when in Rome.

I read the other day in terms of Brexit and figuring out these trade deals being quite an urgent thing that, and I don't know how factual this is, because I read it in a news article, so we know how reliable those can be.

But that Britain basically, the only thing it provides enough of to sustain its own population is peas.

I think it might be like peas and whiskey, but whiskey Scotland, and we know they're on the way out.

So it's just peas.

Just peas.

Well, you know, you can build an army marches on its stomach.

And peas, actually, you can, if you've got frozen ones, it can actually, it forms a kind of rolling conveyor belt, essentially, if you lay them out right.

Yep, that's it.

Yep.

I mean, again, I'm probably lying because I'm reading off a news source.

That's fine.

You know, that's the age we live in.

On this day in 1820, Edward Bransfield sighted the Trinity Peninsula and claimed the discovery of Antarctica,

which is less impressive than it sounds because, of course, it was much, much bigger then then and easier to spot.

Some claim that Bransfield was the first to see Antarctica.

Others say it was a Russian exploration celeb, Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who apparently espied the great big icy bastard a couple of days before Bransfield.

But do we trust those Russians?

I mean they basically hacked that whole continent 200 years ago.

As always, some sections of the Bugle are going straight in the bin.

This week, a bugle travel guide to Europe.

That is just in the bin.

No longer needed.

In the bin.

And are you a reincarnated pharaoh?

A special supplement this week to help you work out whether or not you are a reincarnated pharaoh.

Answer these questions.

Are you good at hide and seek?

And I mean, very, very, very good at hide and seek.

Then, yes, you could be a pharaoh.

And question two: when a beloved childhood pet died, did you A.

Bury it solemnly in the garden?

B.

Chuck it in the bin, C.

Cook it and eat it, D.

Build it a fing great mausoleum, or E.

Instantly deify it.

If it's D and or E, you could be a pharaoh.

Top story of this week.

Well, we've already done done some of the top story this week.

It is Brexit.

Here in Britain, we are about to go through a psychological milestone.

Sorry.

Well, let's hold back judgment on which of those was the misprint and which was the correct version for the next, let's say, 100 years.

Then we'll re-record this episode with the benefit of hindsight.

um

uh yes tomorrow tomorrow 11 p.m we are leaving the european union in uh everything apart from practicality um which will take a little while longer england britain sorry britain will be free to carve out a new distinctively

british um identity around the country we'll be hanging up the invisible bunting in ourselves

and uh a new dawn will dawn as dawns so often do.

Very exciting times.

For too long this nation has been crumple-crushed under the oppressive, quadrupleic European yoke of peace, stability, cooperation, and prosperity.

But no more.

We will be free.

As

well, I mean, unwelcome outsiders as you are about to become tomorrow.

How are you going to mark the occasion?

Well, I'm just going to jetpack off the nation.

That's my plan, is just to strap some rockets to my back and shoot myself at the moon.

See how far I get.

I'm going to have a panorais raison and probably a double macchiato

and then probably just eat some pizza.

Right.

Enjoy that while it's still going.

Well, those are all jailable offences, essentially.

I know, that's why I got.

I'm going to get it out before.

Right.

And then, of course, come Saturday,

eggs, beans, and toast.

As always.

And peas.

I mean, I've never tried it with peas, but I better get used to it now.

Well, peas are the beans of the British now.

Everything is the.

Peas are the everything.

It's very, very philosophical.

I mean, the thing is, whatever it was that people wanted Brexit for, and frankly, no one can remember, no one really knows.

There's a vague, I mean, there's probably some good reasons, some less good reasons, same as there were on both sides.

But I'm pretty sure what it was was the freedom to flog our national infrastructure off to the Chinese instead of the French.

And at least that, that we will...

that we will definitely have.

So we will touch on later.

We've got the increased freedom.

Yes, yeah, Huawei 5s all round.

Yeah, boom.

who are we is well who are we I mean that's a very opposite question at the moment we'll be enjoying increased freedom this time next week the increased freedom of having fewer rights more restricted opportunities for work travel study fewer chances to vote and less representation for those votes and all the time that we used to waste making those decisions is now freed up to do free things and be more productive freely.

Traditional British things like building ourselves an exoskeleton of Wattle and Daub, dying of scurvy, witch hunting, druidism and freestyle henging.

Europe has a bit of a touchingly fond farewell.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, quoted the great British 19th century novelist George Eliot, who wrote, Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

I think it was George Eliot, it might have been George Benson, I'm not sure.

I mean, it's either 19th century literature or 1980s soul,

that kind of sentence.

What is it like how Nigel Nigel Farage was quoting the great 20th century novelist The Spice Girls during his campaign going, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.

I want a zigzag ya.

And everyone went, what does that mean?

He went, zigzag ya.

And people went, let's vote for that.

And that's why we're here.

Von der Leyen continued, we will always love you and we will never be far away.

I mean, that sounds a little bit storky.

A lot storky.

I mean,

I feel like it's a generous move on behalf of the EU to leave the door, as it were, metaphorically open for the return of Britain into the warm embrace of Europe.

But I have the feeling that it's being said in a spirit of kind of smug chuckling behind the like, when you come, it's more like when you come crawling back.

With your laundry on.

Like when you run away from home when you're six and your parents are like, well, we'll keep the, you know, we'll set the table for you.

Just.

It has that slight vibe to it.

Right.

But then many kids that run away from home when they're six end up becoming hugely successful global entrepreneurs.

So

I mean, that may be a lie, maybe a fact.

I mean, look,

what is done is what's done, right?

And if by what's done you mean what has now just begun, an incredibly long process that we'll be arguing about for the next 30 years.

Yeah.

I am interested to see how it plays out.

As somebody who has literally no skin in the game, all that can happen here is that

my money gets stronger against your money.

Right.

Money top trumps, that's basically.

But what Guy Verhofstadt said this vote is not an adieu.

The vote is only, in my opinion, an au revoir.

To which Nigel Farage says, Not if we voie you first.

Leo Varadkar, the Irish T-Suck, said We'll say goodbye to an old friend embarking on an adventure.

We hope it works out for them, but if it does not, there will always be a seat kept for them at the table.

But

again, that just sounds like it's setting up a fing awkward family dinner, doesn't it?

Or awake.

Yes.

There's something menacing about Irish compliments sometimes, isn't it?

You can sort of hear the accent.

I'm not going to do the accent because I want to live.

But

we'll leave a chair

for you.

That's kind of menacing.

I guess that depends whether it's like an Ulster accent or a Dublin accent.

One is slightly friendlier than the other.

And again, I'm not going to say which because.

There's been a lot of debate about exactly how to mark this historic occasion because it is clearly a very divisive moment in

British history.

And clearly, not everyone is

on the same side of the coin.

And this has been emphasised by a coin.

The government has launched a new 50p piece to mark

Brexit, which has caused even more division.

I mean,

this is the state we have become as a nation that the launching of a coin has managed to make people angry,

not just about the fact that it's

a coin marking a divisive moment, but the punctuation on the coin, the words on the Brexit 50p say peace, comma, prosperity and friendship with all nations.

And now instantly I think, well, this is just a charming memento of the things we've enjoyed for the past 47 years.

And it even gives 30th, even gives 31st of January 2020 the date of death, is also marked on it, a lovely gesture to give us Ramoniac something to look back fondly on

in our wallets.

Do you know the etymology of the word wallet, by the way?

No.

Small wall, a wallet.

People used to carry their money in brick pouches.

You're a terrible human being, Andy, and I'm glad that your country's going to fail.

So the dispute was over the lack of what is called an Oxford comma.

After the word prosperity, so many people say it should be peace, prosperity, comma, and friendship with all nations for

the sake of accuracy or pedantry or both.

I mean of course the most important part of Brexit and in fact all British events is the post hoc commemorative coin and as the plat as the pound plummets we want to know if it has a comma on it or not.

I mean only the British could be staring down the barrel of an economic crisis and go, but what about that comma?

Well it's an infinitesimal addition to the weight of the coin and when we start having to weigh them by the value of the metal in them again, that's going to make a a big difference, yeah.

The Oxford Comas incidentally were also a short-lived and extremely unsuccessful NFL franchise in the 1930s.

Their precisely punctuated playbook proving no match for the physicality and athleticism of the America-based teams.

And shouldn't be confused with the Oxford Coma, which is what happens once you get to be a Don and you just sit at the high table.

Wondering where it's all gone.

But again, it's appropriate to have a coin to mark our departure from the EU.

A large production run of something that is increasingly increasingly obsolete and largely not used by the younger generation seems entirely appropriate.

The font as well, the font on the Brexit 50P is really laying our national cards on the table.

That is properly 18th century.

There are serifs flying around all over the shop.

I thought it was Elvish.

Elvish.

Yeah.

Right.

Which is the fourth language of New Zealand.

This is weird.

Why have they put it in New Zealand?

I mean, there's a lot of unnecessary.

Well, that's why they've used the fifth.

I mean, the stupidest thing is the reason it's a 50p, they can say everything they want, it's because they couldn't fit the text on any of the other coins.

Yeah.

Oh, they could have just had a 10p with fingers crossed written on it.

I reckon they should have just done like a, you know, the two fingers going up.

Well, I mean,

anything, whatever, whatever was.

F-U-E-U.

That's all they needed to print there, huh?

So where should the commerce should the commerce have gone after prosperity?

After friendship?

Does the with all nations mean just friendship with all nations or peace and prosperity with all nations?

Or you can see the confusion.

I mean, it's not a huge deal because there are other punctuational queries.

There's no full stop at the end.

There are no ironic quote marks around peace, prosperity, friendship, all and nations.

And an asterisk is missing

after all nations to say all nations may exclude terrorist states, commercial rivals, convenient scapegoats, Argentina and anyone who pieces a football.

Friendship conditional and people from all nations not coming over here and taking our jobs.

So that was missing too.

The lack of a full stop is a very important thing.

In modern grammar, a full stop in a text is a sign of passive aggression.

Is it?

Yes, so you have to leave that open, it's like the open arms of the sentence, allowing somebody to respond.

But does that come from Hemingway?

Because he wrote very short sentences, isn't he?

But he's pretty passive-aggressive.

I don't know if Hemingway was known for being passive-aggressive.

He was just aggressive-aggressive.

Also, they spelt peas wrong.

There we go.

Chris

has

now been fully assimilated.

I mean, we should have given you a microphone, Chris.

Don't need one.

Chris actually canvassed all three of us to go, is no one going to mention peas?

Is no one going to mention peas?

No, it's obviously a 50p coin because that's how much the pound will be worth post-Brexit, won't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But anyway,

what is money?

You know, it's just a state of mind, isn't it?

There's been other Brexit merch.

The Conservative Party has issued a tea towel

with the words, got Brexit done

on, an expression that, in three inelegant words, packs in an ocean of delusion, a calahari of arrogance, and an absolute caucasus of presumption.

It's given the date in Latin, good British Latin, with traditional British Roman numerals.

And it appears to have been designed by a drunken 60-year-old who's never used any form of computer software before.

It is

inelegant, certainly, as tea towels go.

Boris Johnson, surrounded by what appear to be giant weeds that are about to constrict the life out of everything in their path, which may again be appropriate,

may be missing a comet as well.

Between Brexit and Dunn, got Brexit done as a nation.

We are now officially done.

And tea towels, I think, that's an appropriate way to commemorate Brexit.

Because everyone's going to have to get jobs as dishwashers?

Possibly that.

On the side?

Yeah, yep.

Also, because they will gradually fade.

They'll get frayed around the edges.

Possibly end up being slightly burned from being left dangling over a gas hob, used to mop up unsightly spillages and then left to hang reproachfully, a grimy, frittered echo of a distant, hazily remembered moment now sinking into the swamp of history, like all tea towels.

And also, the best thing about this was that

they produced a whole range of got Brexit done merch.

I didn't think there could be a more annoying phrase than get Brexit done, but got Brexit done, I think, is even more irritating.

Just on a pure linguistic

ugliness basis.

Please note the delivery of our Got Brexit on collection will begin on the 10th of February.

I mean it's they're now being satirized by the whole process being satirized by a tea towel.

We are officially redundant.

The virus news now and we're all gonna die.

Yes.

Are we still on Brexit news or are we removed from?

We will live forever, spiritually, thanks to Brexit.

James, you are the Bugle's infectious diseases correspondent.

Yes.

Well, look, it's

infectious news.

There is a virus coming out of China at the moment known as the Wuhan coronavirus, which

two things that you often say when drunk, Wuhan and Corona.

It's all jokes aside, people are dying.

Not British people, so people over here haven't been that concerned yet.

But there are 7,700 cases confirmed at the moment, and more than 170 people have managed to die.

However, there is a lot going on.

There has been, in Australia, they have managed to reproduce the virus, which just proves that if it can kill you, Australia can make it.

And the richest man in China has put 100 million yuan into

finding a cure for it, which is just proof that billionaires can actually finance cures without having to make the cure about themselves.

If you're listening, Elon Musk.

Yeah, I feel like everyone's worried about this, and I'm not quite sure how worried we should be, but I am literally wearing a face mask as we speak, not a medical grade face mask, just a paper cut out of a tiger to frighten the virus away from my soft tissues.

But

there seems to be a lot of panic, particularly in America, where there have been calls to, quote, nuke China.

I think that's not as much to do with the virus.

I think that's just what happens when your president gets impeached and you're looking for some sort of out.

Well specifically a plane that was arriving back with expats from

Wuhan, sorry, with expats from Wuhan on this plane was subject to calls for shooting it out of the sky.

Yeah, which is sane.

I think we can all it's I think.

I would rather shoot a plane out of the sky than wash my hands, really.

Strangely, very quiet from the anti-vax community, which I have to say as a salmon is a little bit annoying.

Look, where are you guys?

Where's your little calls for vitamin A?

I'm like, oh, come, just have some vitamin A, guys.

It's just a virus.

You don't need to find a vaccine.

Have some vitamin A.

The A stands for ambivalent.

I mean, realistically, when you say how worried should we be, these things never turn out quite as bad on a global scale as the doomsayers predict.

And whilst they may leave tragedy and suffering behind them, eventually they will just be a pinprick in the history books as humanity continues its triumphant march of prop.

Hang on.

It says here the World Indo-Athletics Championships has been postponed because of the virus.

Holy shit!

Sports is being affected.

This is the biggest crisis in the universe since the medium-sized bang got very out of hand all those years ago and had to be rebranded.

Sport

is being virused off.

I'm not at all happy about this.

Well, no, nobody's happy, particularly people who are travelling back from China.

There's various states of quarantine.

Britons are being faced with quarantine if they're coming back from China, particularly the Wuhan province.

But Australia is going to be reusing some of its sweet immigration properties to quarantine people up on an island that they specifically did for boat people.

So it's boat people or coughing people.

Gets stuck forever on an island.

It's one of those amazing things where people were going, oh man, what are we going to do with all these people that we kind of want to come into the country, but we need to put them somewhere and Australia's like guys we have got this we have been prepping for decades we have spent way too much money on the facilities and New Zealand's in on this too and New Zealand was like a

wee

which is how you how you say sure in Kiwi

well Australia never really misses out on an opportunity to lock people up on an island doesn't look deep in its national it's part of the national psyche because that's what we are.

We were locked up on an island.

That is our identity.

That is Australia.

Australia is a prison island.

And if we can help share our national spirit, it's that.

It's Latin for lock-up island, isn't it?

Australia is Latin for lock-up island.

A lot of people don't know that.

They think it's great southernland.

It's not.

It's great prison.

In fact, the Australian government has just announced that with the state of the virus outbreak, they have officially upgraded Australia's status to some worries.

From

no worries.

And to put this in, I mean, there are, you know, just to show the scale of this outbreak, Starbucks has had to temporarily close 2,000 stores in China.

And you think when the global coffee industry is being adversely affected, I mean, this is essentially...

When the global coffee industry comes up against the global coffee industry.

But this is why we exist as a species, isn't it?

We've gone through various phases as a species of, you know, what is the purpose of our existence?

Is it

to do honor to the great glory of God,

or is it just to keep the global coffee industry going?

But at the moment that's what we've homed in on.

Also respectfully Starbucks.

If you ask me what's going to kill me quicker, coronavirus or a pumpkin lata,

I mean I don't think you're really taking the moral high ground here Starbucks by closing 2,000 stores.

Animal fashion news now.

Alice, you are the Bugles animal clothing correspondent and I understand Australia is having a slight issue with

mittens for koalas.

Yes, indeed, Andy, I am the animal fashion correspondent.

And when it's not about rhinos in rhinestones, it's about mittens on koalas.

Apparently, beautiful, lovely people all around the world have been sending airplanes full of handmade goods and medical supplies to help animals injured in the Australian wildfires.

We've lost more than a billion animals in Australia and there's plenty of heart-wrenching viral viral images online of koalas with burned paws, and, you know,

fewer heart-rending images of crocodiles with burned snouts, but they're less photogenic.

Canadian volunteers alone sent six aeroplanes full of handmade mittens, which nobody needs.

And in fact, the incredible cascade of goodwill has ended up with taking up a lot of the resources on the ground in sorting and figuring out how useless they actually are.

So they've been kindly asked by various groups to calm the down.

It's a metaphor for the planet, isn't it?

We've got this huge outpouring of well-meaning, beneficent generosity that has proved to be practically useless.

And yet, a few absolute k seem to get an inordinate amount of shit done.

Well, I hear what you're saying, Andy, and you're right.

It is Megan and Harry's fault.

I mean, obviously,

this never happened before they moved to Canada.

But also, I think we can all agree now that this is proof that there is way too much weed

in Canada.

That is too much weed and whiskey combining with maple syrup to go, man,

we gotta net some koala some mittens, man.

They burned off on a little fur.

We gotta get them some mittens.

Koala mittens, incidentally, also a woman who received unsolicited sexual attention from Donald Trump in the 1980s.

Well, people are apparently suspicious about sending cash to charities, which is the thing that they actually need on the ground.

So they would rather.

Well, what's a koala going to spend cash on?

Well, I think you feel less morally corrupt if someone misuses your mittens than if somebody misuses your dollars.

Though really,

basically.

But the cash isn't going direct to the koalas.

The koalas on the corner just going, you want to buy some mittens, man?

Hey, man, I've got some mittens here.

I mean, you don't, it's mittens in Australia, for God's sake, world.

It's Australia.

No one takes mittens.

People in Australia don't have mittens.

Juanita Rilling, who's the former director of the Centre of International Disaster Information in the US, said,

It's a beautiful thing that people just want to help, but there's an old proverb that says, Desire without knowledge is not good.

And this is a case of desire without knowledge, which is true of mittens and boners the world round.

Yes,

I mean, it's not the most effective chat upline, I wouldn't have thought.

Dr.

Rachel Tarlington, an associate professor in veterinary cellular microbiology,

no less, said the problem with koala mittens is that the koala still need their claws and paws to be able to feed themselves and climb trees.

It's heartbreaking, this story.

It's so heartbreaking.

What they want is fingerless gloves.

Right.

All this just terribly misapplied goodwill.

They've got to be.

Come on, Canada.

Put some effort in.

I know fingerless gloves are a bit harder to knit, but

than the mitten.

Apparently, Australia is planning to retaliate by sending earmuffs for mooses.

You could make a sail to fit on the moose's antlers, couldn't you?

A moose sail.

Yeah.

A moosebrella to keep him dry, mate, during the rain.

Well, I mean, with global warming happening and

animals losing their natural habitats,

if you could turn a moose's antlers into a functioning sail and give them little wheeled carts, they could move around Canada much more quickly to find pasture.

There was a call in New Zealand.

I think I have to put my hand up and say this isn't the stupidest thing because there was a call in New Zealand to relocate the koalas to New Zealand.

Right.

But only the koalas.

There was like thousands of people signed a petition and gave it to the Prime Minister to send it out of their own.

He was like, I think we'll just send over firefighters, guys, to be honest.

They were like, yeah, no, bring the koalas here, because what could happen happen when you introduce a non-native species and so that what i mean possums worked out really well in new zealand

how many there's there's

the i think i've been to new zealand three times and

basically the lead item on the news is always possums there are so many possums in new zealand that we actually put armor on them and used them as actuars in the law of delays television series coming up

possums are the cane toads of new zealand absolutely and i think and koalas could get there too.

And of course there were people who are New Zealanders and internment camps going, what have we got to dress up like koalas now?

Is that how we get home?

Huawei news now, and

a huge controversy here in Britain over the deal struck by the British government to allow Huawei, the Chinese company, to help build the infrastructure for Britain's 5G mobile network, network despite the protestations of the USA.

It's quite a complicated story and it does raise the question here why are we in Britain having to depend on Huawei, the Chinese company?

Why are there no British firms who can Brex construct our new 5G infrastructure, which of course will be the last iteration of the internet before it becomes so fast that it is faster than time and therefore 6G will have built itself way before we can even get around to commissioning it.

But why are there no British artisan handcrafted boutique mobile internet

infrastructure manufacturers who

can keep this in-house who

having to trust the Chinese, despite the fact that the government has described Huawei as a high-risk vendor,

but has basically said, yeah, it'll probably be all right.

I mean statistically, most lion tamers don't get eaten.

Most stuntmen and stunt women live to a ripe old age and most astronauts make it back in one piece and carve out a lucrative speaking career.

So what is there to worry about?

Yeah, I mean it's like saying most lion tamers don't get eaten, let's build our house out of lions.

There's a lot of advice and pressure from the US that's come through that we should, that the UK should block the firm for security reasons.

Apparently they're not very good at keeping your secrets and given that we'll, with the internet, be entrusting that infrastructure with literally everyone's secrets, perhaps it's such a bad idea.

But

Stefan Terrell from IHS Market said, I think it's a pragmatic decision that brings stability and continuity in the 5G ecosystem before taking a million dollars in hush money

from an unknown source.

It's such an interesting thing.

It just proves my ongoing hypothesis that we will trade literally everything for a small piece of speed in our Wi-Fi.

You have to think about what fast internet is propping up.

Think of all of the terrible relationships that continue for decades just because you both like the same show on Netflix.

This is the core of our society that we need to keep running.

Yeah, and you know,

you've only got so much time to wank during a day.

I think that's what it comes down to.

All right.

And you know, if you've got a lot of people.

A lot of Chinese are

facilitating that are expanding that time by making the internet faster.

Exactly.

I mean,

the faster the porn loads, the more you can get on with making breakfast.

Okay.

I mean, that's another thing.

Those peas aren't going to cook themselves, mate.

I mean, that was very much the subtext of what Boris Johnson has been saying on this deal, just from looking at his I mean no one thinks Boris Johnson wants faster internet to watch Netflix respectively.

No one thinks he's watching the Crown.

He thinks the Crown is real.

He's waiting for Brian Cox to be cast as him in the crown.

I'm just worried this is when we've seen it all but history keeps repeating on itself.

That's what we keep we keep seeing in Britain and this is just like the Prussian bred carrier pigeon scandal all over again from the 19th century.

I don't like where it's going.

I think it's important that people know that it's it's not because it's China, it is because of the spying.

Like in Canada, the head of Huawei is currently on trial for genuine spying.

Like it's not like people are like, oh, because of China and this.

No, the company itself is being investigated internationally for spying.

This is the equivalent of buying your local groceries from the local drug dealer because they've got the best prices.

Well, they say those who don't remember their history are doomed to repeat it.

But the corollary, of course, is those who do remember their history are doomed to repeat themselves.

Yeah.

And those who are hacking into people's internet history can know exactly what's about to be repeated and exploit that knowledge.

I love how we all live with the delusion that deleting our history means it's deleted.

I liked how that's the psychological delusion that Western society has gone with.

Well, it's worked in our education system, essentially.

Oh, yes, we can live with ourselves.

It's the tech equivalent of when a baby offers you a mouthful of wet food and you pretend to eat it, but it just

disappears.

Well, that draws us towards the end of this week's Brexit special bugle.

An emotional time for Britain, but

and you know, for our European partners as well, all those countries with whom we've worked over the years in the European Union.

But,

you know, it's a tough time for our continent, but Europe, Europe will be back.

Don't crow Asia.

Europe will be back.

I mean, it all goes back, the whole Brexit thing, to David Cameron.

He was so obsessed with the

economic side of things.

He consulted about the economic prospects, he consulted about the political implications, but he forgot to worry about what the people of Britain actually thought.

He didn't check Ray Public.

Andy, I've been puking for two days, and this is the worst I've felt.

And Cameron was surprised with the result.

He said, I checked the latest poll and it was okay.

But there must have been a late last-minute swing to Brexit.

A late via late, late via.

Anyway.

So

he's and Cameron, he said in his autos biography, he felt betrayed by Boris Johnson, by Michael Gove.

They used to be in

the same campanology society, Cameron and Gove, so he was betrayed by his bell chum.

But it's true all the way through the debate ever since.

Jeremy Corbyn is leader, you know, and in debates,

his points that he was trying to make were like the punches of an armless boxer.

He never lands.

In the end,

he lost, and those of us on the remain side were left but itally, but itterly disappointed.

I've been thinking to myself, will this pain ever go away?

And to be honest,

I guess,

you know, I feel like the captain of the Titanic.

He too had bad luck.

Some burg got on the way and

down he went.

But anyway, a friend of mine came around to see me to see how I'm coping with the impending Brexit.

And he said, you look awful, Andy.

UK?

UK?

I said,

no, I'm not okay.

You don't really have me eating.

He said to me, I said, not hungry.

Drink, I'm going to have a sniffer of port, you?

Gallons of it, please.

Oh, God.

I liked Italy though.

I wanted to write a farewell song for Europe, but I was too upset.

My friend said, don't worry.

Well, I'll get one of a pair of New Zealand singer-songwriters from the band crowded house to do it.

Finnel handle it.

Finn, will handle it.

So sorry, New Zealand.

I apologise.

Anyway.

On behalf of my friend and his industrial strength, Crowbar.

So

it's been a tough time, and

you know, it's

you know, what are we going to do?

We're going to have to

start getting rid of national assets.

And even the aging footballer Rooney

will have to leave Wayne here.

Literally.

Oh,

a Scottish friend of mine, a huge fan of the European Union, spends most of his time down in a little shed in his garden.

He calls it Izui Den.

And it's a very tough issue in Scotland.

Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister, well, his old buddy Blair rang him up about it.

He said, hi, Gord.

It's Tony here.

I'd give your

special shed only four marks out of ten.

Wow, replied Gordon Brown.

That's a pretty low Denmark.

Oh.

And it's not just me that thinks it, said Tony Blair.

Alastair Darling, our former colleague, too, he agrees with me.

Well, it's not my fault, said Gordon Brown.

My hoover's getting really old and it doesn't function properly.

Takes me ages to do the floor.

And Blair replied, You've got a slovak.

Yeah.

Anyway, my my uh my grandmother worries about uh all the uh immigrant immigration isligrants getting NHS treatment before her, especially with her infected uh leg joint, her germy knee.

Uh, anyway, she went to the uh shopping mall to get some medicine um

for

her bone problem, her osteoporosis.

And

shit, I mean, a huge generational gap.

It's not good for kids.

My kids know that.

It's better for the older generations.

Good for grandparents.

It's good for uncles, for aunts.

No.

And we've become a very angry sea-surrounded nation and an isle land.

Are you doing all of them?

I'm just googling how many countries are in Europe.

Sorry, just one to go.

Two to go.

Three to go.

And you can't say people being worried about immigration, obsessed that we don't have the space.

The whole campaign was afflicted by a real rue mania.

And I think we can regret now on the remains hard.

We played a two cage a campaign.

We played it safe like a snooker player, afraid of taking a risky long pot and always trying to get the keyboard back to the bulk area.

Bulk area.

Right, sorry.

Once it started, I couldn't stop the urge.

I can't.

There it is.

We're all done now.

Well, there can be no more suitable way to mark this occasion.

Where do I go to get coronavirus?

Yeah.

That's it.

We're done.

In more wave than one.

Let us have the plug.

Thank you for listening, Buglers.

Alice, tell people about The Last Post in case they have not yet.

The Last Post is a daily satirical news podcast set in an alternate universe.

So that is something that you can listen to every day.

It's a short podcast, and I think she's very good.

The host of it sounds a lot like me.

Also, my solo shows are now on sale for Melbourne, Sydney, and

Perth.

And the more tickets you buy now, the more likely I am to write it.

That is a new angle in comedy.

Pre-emptive bribing of an audience.

Oh, you want to see a good show?

Well, you'd better buy a ticket.

Yeah.

It's a premium model.

Anything to alert our listeners to?

I've just got a third season of my podcast, Eating Fried Chicken in in a Shower.

That's one of the greatest podcasts ever.

I don't know who we're going to get in the shower for this one yet.

Although a lot of people have been suggesting the All Blacks after last year's Rugby World Cup defeat and the Black Caps.

I think they just want me to ask New Zealanders what it's like to lose.

Yeah, the Black Caps, the

New Zealand cricket team, who you may remember, lost the World Cup final

last year.

Yeah, it's a difficult draw, man.

That's a difficult draw.

Heroically not losing either the game or the tie prick, but still managing to lose.

Some amazing, really.

What do you think about it?

Yeah, it's uh, it's it's yeah, it's gonna happen again, happened again this week.

So, I'm being told to wrap this up.

Yeah, it sounds good.

Sounds good.

I don't even know what you're talking about, mate.

I don't even what's cricket.

Thank you for listening, buglers.

Until next week, goodbye.

Bye.

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.