Bugle 4137 - Relationships Special

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Oh, yeah.

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Place, place, place, place, place, place, place, news,

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4137 of the world's foremost covert audio instruction manual for the dismantling, melting down and reconstituting of agricultural machinery.

Oh no,

fline and blown on cover.

This week, if you play the bugle backwards and or sideways at half and or quadruple speed, you will find coded directions telling you how to turn a combine harvester into a celibate sex robot and a corn silo into a statue of Charles Darwin.

Don't tell anyone though, it's a secret.

However, if you play the bugle forwards at normal speed, you'll hear the usual unarguable truth about everything in the world this week.

I'm Andy Zoltzmann and I'm here in London where nothing is quite as it seems.

That's something London has in common with everywhere else in the universe.

Oh, perception, you absolute.

And joining me from the other side of the table, Alice Fraser.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

How are you?

I'm

okay.

Well, I'm pretty.

I've spent the last two days watching cricket

by contractual agreement with the BBC.

So yeah, I'm in a state of Zen calmness about things.

I mean that's a beautiful thing.

I just had lunch with your sister.

Oh right.

So

I've had exposure to the goods Altsman today.

Well let's call it one all.

Joining me from the other side of the Atlantic.

Actually that depends on which way you go.

Joining me from across Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean and mainland USA.

Or if you go another way, across Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, the Southern Ocean, Antarctica, touch the South Pole, then run back north, scoop across the Southern Ocean, again on a shoal of penguins, hitchhike up through South America, pogo stick the length of Central America, then roller ski through the states of the eastern seaboard of the USA, all the way up to New York City.

We got there in the end.

It's Hari Kondobolu.

Hey, Andy, you forgot all the way up to the moon and then back to New York.

Sorry, my mistake.

I've tried to cheat it in the twist of the I mean, yeah.

But then those long-haul flights, they always seem like they're going to be better because they're cheaper, but then they end up taking way too long.

Gotta watch out for those extra legs.

Yeah, I think that's what Neil Armstrong said when he landed.

Floaty long north floats.

I was just trying to get to New Jersey.

What the hell is this?

I wonder if you get jet lag going to the moon.

Oh, I don't know.

The big questions.

Yeah, the questions science is afraid to ask.

How are you, Harry?

You ask me this question every time I'm on, and every time I'm on, I don't know how to answer it.

Well, I mean,

you're still around.

That's good.

I mean, that's because I'm British, and that's how we begin conversations and you're American.

I mean, you'd think he keeps asking you, you'd probably get better at answering the question.

Yep.

I wish.

Like, often when I'm in the UK, people ask me, are you all right?

And I'd never heard that outside of the context of something seems wrong.

And that's a thing you normally say.

And I think that's really the most appropriate way to ask me how I'm doing is, are you all right?

Because I can give you an honest answer.

Right.

That is true.

It does disconcert you when you move to the the UK and people go, you're right.

And you think, oh God, what have I done?

Or do I not look all right?

It's very upsetting.

So stop doing it, people in the UK.

I feel like it's very reflective of the culture, though, that the question is,

something wrong must have happened.

You must be in some kind of pain.

Tell me about it.

Well, I mean, that dates back to when the Romans invaded, to be honest.

We've never fully got over it.

This week we are recording on Friday, the 17th of January.

This week the anniversary section and the section in the bin are one and the same thing because in the bin is going a prize 17th of January quiz.

Various questions about the 17th of January.

If you get them all right, you can go and buy yourself a prize with your own money.

Question one.

What was banned 100 years ago today on the 17th of January 1920?

Was it A?

Belching in the Vatican City after Pope Benedict XV outlawed oral flatulence after calculating that Judas Iscariot probably let out a real window-rattling burp at the Last Supper after Jesus gave him that bit of bread.

Probably, said Benedict XV, in an effort to diffuse the tension with some humour.

On the 17th of January 1920, was stribble-cragging banned.

What is stribble cragging, you may ask?

Exactly.

It was a very effective ban.

Or was it C, alcohol in the United States?

Or was it D, women in the United States?

After the American Society for the Propagation of Joylessness, having successfully seen the prohibition ban make its way into law, lobbied Congress to ban all women as well.

So A, B, C or D.

Write your answers on a rock.

Question two.

On the 17th of January 1912, British polar explorer Captain Robert Scott reached the South Pole one month after the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.

But recently unearthed evidence suggests that Amundsen should have been disqualified from the race.

Why?

Was it A?

An illegal sled?

The runners were eight inches longer than allowed by the International Polar Racing Association regulations at the time, and the illegal design of the tail fin on Amundsen's sled made it unfairly difficult for Scott to slipstream him due to the airflow.

Was it B, dog steroids?

Seriously, those huskies were unnaturally rich.

It's okay for Father Christmas and his reindeer.

They've got a job to do, but not in a competition.

Should he have been disqualified for C, unnecessary roughness, or D, a false start?

New evidence suggests that Amundsen reacted to the starter pistol in less than the allowable 0.1 seconds allowed in athletics competition.

Obviously, I mean it didn't make a lot of difference given his eventual victory margin of a month, but rules are rules.

I mean my favourite bit about that was the hulked out huskies.

Yeah.

Well, very husky huskies.

Or was it E, all of the above?

Question three.

On this day in 1961, 17th of January 1961, Dwight D.

Eisenhower made a farewell speech to the nation as he departed the White House.

But which of the following things did he say in that speech?

Was it A?

Let me hear y'all say, aye!

Was it B, I'm out of here and I'm going to get absolutely f ⁇ ing hammered.

Bottle of cheap bourbon and a 12 pack of bud.

Was it C?

We are family.

I got all my sisters with me.

Was it D, Eisenhower?

I was in for eight whole bloody years, mate.

Is this on?

Or was it E?

As we peer into society's future, we, you and I, and our government, must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow.

We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.

We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

I want it to be A so badly.

Sadly, I'll do it.

No, it's definitely not A.

Are you really at the cricket?

I wasn't at the cricket.

I was watching it in a windowless room at the BBC.

Well, the answer, I'm going to give away the answer to that.

You're free on that was,

oh no, sorry, I haven't done F yet.

Did he say that, or was it F?

Did Eisenhower in his farewell speech say, ooh, if I had to choose one, Jane Mansfield, all day long?

Good God, yeah.

A, B, C, D, E, or F.

And finally,

incidentally, do you you know that Ike was short for icicle?

Was it icrophone, I forget.

I did not know that.

Question four.

On this day, the 17th of January 1751, what did Italian composer Tommaso Albinoni, ironically, start doing?

A.

Pilates.

B.

Writing the world's first hardcore pornographic opera.

C invent the mic drop.

Or D.

He started decomposing because he died.

So So there you go, there's your prize quiz.

Pens down, I will now tell you the answers.

Question one, it was alcohol in the United States prohibition began as the Volstead Act went into effect.

I mean Harry, do you think it's time for America to consider bringing this back just for

old time's sake?

I mean we already kind of have that with weed though Andy.

That's going very well.

It's been great.

You know just a little bit of drug trafficking and a lot of people in prison.

So yeah, I mean they also the perspective prohibition, I don't know when that began, sometime around about

the morning that George W.

Bush won that election.

Question two, all of the above, Amunton was a massive cheat.

Question three, the Eisenhower one.

It was E.

It was that long and harrowingly prophetic statement.

We basically just called everything that we f ⁇ ed up.

in the ensuing six decades.

Well done, Ike, wherever you are now.

And D, it was, well, question four, it was D, Al Binone did die on this day in 1751 so I hope you've all got all those questions entirely correct.

Great quiz shame it's in the bin.

So that's the UK citizenship test?

Yeah, it is

not far off.

You can bug down it hard when you arrive.

That section in the bin

Top story this week it's a Bugle relationships special edition.

This edition of the Bugle is given entirely over to relationships.

I mean the relations we're all in them, whether with other people, ourselves, our planet, reality, time, physics, or Mighty Zeus himself, or are they themselves now?

I forget.

But relationships are not easy.

Just ask a large proportion of all the people who've ever lived.

And a number of prominent relationships are going through difficult phases at the moment.

In particular, Prince Harry and Co-Prince Megan's relationship with the rest of the royal family.

Britain's relationship with Britain.

Sorry, one of those Britain should have been England, I think.

Not sure which one.

The human race's relationship with Mother Earth as well.

Pick the fossilized bones out of that one, Freud.

And on a personal level, my own relationship with Elizabeth Bathory.

I am a happily married man with two children living in 21st century London.

She was a Hungarian noblewoman and one of history's most prolific serial killers who died in 1614 and wasn't into cricket.

It was really never going to work out between us.

So lots of...

A tricky relationship.

So, Alice and Hora, what do you say is the most, you know, the relationship troubles that we should be most worried about right now?

We're looking at Harry and Megan, we're looking at the human race and the environment and the entire future of our species as a viable entity.

Obviously, Harry and Megan, this whole situation with Harry and Megan deciding not to be as royal as people want them to be, is it's putting the oi into royalty, the ow into crown, and the er into hereditary royalty.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on this, Annie and Harry, and I absolutely do not give a f.

Oh no, you can't say that.

How can we deal with everything else if we don't deal with this first?

I mean, by not dealing with this at all.

Yeah, I mean, it's none of our business.

I mean, you're right, Andy.

How would the world work if we ignored things that weren't our business and focused on things that might be?

Well, I mean, that would be an end to all, well, politics and religion and pretty much everything else, wouldn't it?

Yes, as well as over-the-fence gossiping, which I, for one, I'm not willing to give up.

Well, it's much better than under-the-fence gossiping.

I regularly, just as a way of being retro, will put a a scarf around my head and gossip over a fence to a neighbor who may or may not be there.

Horri, what do you think?

I mean, obviously,

the British royal family still essentially rules the United States by proxy, if not in reality.

So, I mean, you must be very concerned about what's been going on.

Well, I definitely, I'm going to disagree with Alice, and I do think this is the most important story we should be following because it's the only one that we don't know how it'll end.

It's unclear.

I mean the Earth one,

we know we're done for, you know?

So this actually has some intrigue in it.

I love the story.

I love that they're leaving for Canada

and putting a dent in the royal family.

I love it.

Just blow the whole thing up.

I love it.

My only wish in this story is that Megan Markle was Indian.

It would be

perfect colonial justice.

If only she was Meghna Mukherjee, would this be so complete?

Well,

I mean, if she's been Indian, then given that

an Indian plus the royal family, I don't think their wedding would have ended yet, would it?

That is correct.

In case you missed the story, Buglers, Prince Harry and

Meghan are stepping down from frontline royaling.

They've left the British nation agog with concern that over the next few years, some supermarkets are simply going to have to open themselves.

And Britain is just going to have to pick at random in a special nationwide raffle an ordinary couple about whom if they get pregnant about to have a baby to festoon with 24-hour day media coverage during the final days of pregnancy with wild speculation over the sex and name of their impending offspring as well as perhaps its favourite colour assumed superpower and and its religion so it's I mean it's hard to know why Harry and Megan are wanting to step back from professional princing.

I think it's vanity.

I think I agree with a lot of the tabloid press that it's vanity on Megan's part.

She just doesn't like how she looks on a plate.

Okay.

That is something that many people marrying into the royal family have not considered.

You know, how do I look as crockery?

I mean, it part, it could, I guess, Hari, be something maybe to do with the remorseless media scrutineering, unthinking and unblinking invasiveness and twattish hypocritical judgmentalism.

Or it could be

you also left out racism.

Sorry, yes, that too.

And it might be the weather.

The British weather is very difficult for people who've not grown up with it to adjust to.

So we just don't know which of those two it is.

Part of it, I think, is also, you know, she wants to pursue her acting career.

She wants to actually be an independent person.

And I feel like there's nothing wrong with that.

Leaving the royal family to pursue an acting career, I mean,

it's not even to pursue an acting career, it's to pursue a better acting career.

Because the royal family, being a member of the royal family, is part of an acting career.

They have no power.

They just need to do it because they're part of the mystique of England.

They are the ones acting.

They're pretending like the fairy tale shit is real.

They're like Mickey and Minnie at Disneyland.

The kids want to see the people in costume.

Well, look, I think

it is absolutely an acting career, and I can understand why Meghan Markle isn't interested in it, having done acting that involves more than one expression, which is to say an expression that involves looking mildly interested and incredibly bored at the same time.

We all can see that Queen Elizabeth has, you know, obviously perfected.

Well, I mean, that comes down from Queen Victoria.

She absolutely nailed that.

Yes, middle distance staring.

But at least with Queen Victoria, you kind of imagine she was usually thinking about banging.

Well?

Do you think that, Alice?

I mean, she clearly wasn't averse to it.

I think that's the reason why Victorians have a reputation for prudery.

It's just because the Queen was so on the horn at all times that everyone else had to be a little bit uptight.

Okay, I mean, do you have documentary evidence for this?

I mean, she wrote some quite racy letters to Albert, I think.

Yeah, racy letters to Albert: the fact that the normal people thought that, I mean, normal rich people thought that they had to put skirts on table legs because they were too sexy.

I think that's a myth, but it's a hot myth.

Right.

Yeah, we're not table legs.

I would argue that putting cloth over the table legs makes them more sexy.

Because what's underneath that cloth?

Table legs.

Well, that's why.

But you don't know it immediately.

That's why we have tablecloths as well.

When that's showing the full kit in caboodle, isn't it?

It's possible they're just moving away to get away

from existing within easy robbing distance of Dominic Raab.

The latest scientific

analysis suggests that Harry will drop down from his current status of 99.94% royal to around 60.73% royal.

That's according to official royalistian Sir Herbert Sutcliffe.

For Harry, at sixth in line to the throne, I mean, this is the thing for him, isn't it?

He's sixth in line to the throne, and this is the year 2020.

And things are going to have to get fantastically medieval for him to have even an outside shot at the hot seat.

Or, in fact, well, I don't know what you can call it the hot seat.

The constitutional, neither hot nor cold seat.

Well, we need a King Ralph situation.

Right.

Of course, you all remember the classic film King Ralph.

I don't remember that.

Oh, what happens is John Goodman

works in Vegas.

I think he's a lounge singer or something.

And the royal family is taking a photo, every member of the royal family, and there's some kind of explosion from the camera that kills all of them.

Meaning

this man who was somehow linked to the royal family because generations ago someone had an affair with somebody else

creating this offspring.

Now, this Vegas lounge singer has to be the king of England.

Oh, wow.

Well, that is a film I have to watch.

It was a massive flop.

Was it?

Like all the best films.

You know, all this stuff makes me like Harry more, to be honest.

Because I disliked him after the photos of him dressing as a Nazi.

Yeah, I can see your angle on that.

Yeah.

But I feel like he's more than made up for it by marrying a black American woman and choosing her over the royal family.

You know, he he has to he's he has to work for money now.

Yes.

That's fundamentally against what the royal family is about.

Well, he has to take a more active role in the brand management of his brand as

rather than for money.

Yes.

Well, I mean, I don't know what what other transferable...

I mean, in many ways, he's...

Wasn't he in the army at one point?

Yeah, he was.

He's a very impressive young man.

I mean,

I think I've laid my not giving a shit about the Royal Family Cards firmly on the table over the years on the bugle but he seems he seems to have

done you know led a pretty admirable existence in the context of being part of one of the world's most elaborate fictions.

But it was interesting the way the media obsession with it and eventually the queen used her magic queenic powers to bequean the young couple with her queen Ajanus wisdom and that seems to be something of a of a rapprochement.

They took a a bit of a behind-the-scenes lizzing.

But we still don't know exactly what function

Harry's going to have

in future.

I mean, I'm sort of wondering about the logistics of this.

He's stepping back as a senior royal.

Does this mean that someone else gets bumped up?

Is it one in, one out, Thunderdome rules?

Or are there just now fewer senior royals?

Oh, I don't know.

And

I mean, this is, I mean, there's been long talk of modernisation.

We have this, you know, the royal seeding.

It's like Wimbledon, isn't it?

So maybe you take the top 128 ranked people in line to the throne and have a straight knock.

I mean, obviously, that's not how they do it at Wimbledon because there's wildcards and things.

So maybe you could have

the top top 100, then a load of qualifiers through some kind of dueling competition, and then maybe eight wild cards for the organised to just pick celebrities who are going to bump up the ticket sales.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm for that.

Is Fergie going to come back into rotation is what I want to know.

Oh, I don't know.

I mean, that's another possibility.

It could be like the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square that they have sort of rotating sculptures on that you just have a different sixth in line to the throne every six months or so.

Horrie, would you be interested in joining the British Royal Family?

Huh.

I'm a comedian, so you know I don't like working, so that's good.

But I just, I don't know.

I mean, I feel like if I was asked to...

to join the British royal family initially it would be like oh this seems like a cool gig but then I'm pretty sure it would be a trick because they'd probably have a little uniform for me and then a tray to carry drinks on.

I don't know.

I don't think it'll end well.

Clearly, that

relationship.

within the royal family has been

awkward.

A lot of wild speculation from our,

I believe, constitutionally known as the f ⁇ ing infantile press.

But arguably in an even more parlor state, is the human race's relationship with our current host planet.

I mean, the current host planet, I say.

I mean,

nothing lasts forever.

But our relationship with Earth has become increasingly frosty.

Ironically, the less frosty Earth has actually

become.

So there's been some slightly dire.

I mean, Alice, clearly,

Australia just seems to be living out a frankly horrific look into the burning future of this planet.

Yes, it is the consequence of what is literally years of ignored warnings that have piled up and then suddenly all come to fruition in a completely unpredictable way that everyone could see coming if they took two seconds to have a look at it.

But

certainly it seems to have at least had the positive side effect of this horrific tragedy being that people have a little bit of a look at the potential that maybe everyone else who was warning them about potentially horrifying outcomes might have been right.

right.

And

I think the.

Should we go on to this story now?

Well, I've just got to.

I can do a little bit more on them.

I guess the thing is, we spend a lot of time as humans sort of obsessing about what the future will be like.

And generally, we picture, you know, robots, space travel, teleportation, jetpacks, still, still with the jetpacks, someday, moon cricket, that kind of thing.

We don't...

We don't tend to picture the more apocalyptic side of an 11 million hectare fire just an area the size of Portugal yeah I feel like the burnt koala bear pictures I've seen kind of

should do the trick but it won't like the a burnt koala bear is like the symbol of the movement to save the planet if watching cuddly things burned to death doesn't move you then we have nothing well i mean the the the sad-looking penguin hasn't done it so i mean

yeah nor has the uh turtle with a straw up its nose yeah

i don't know why i'm laughing sorry

um

i just imagined it doing cocaine so i sorry

um the climate crisis um well i mean it's had a terrific week actually uh top five clean sweep of the top five places in the world economic forum's global risks report the top the biggest five risks affecting the planet over the next 10 years according to this report for the first time it's been it's been a clean sweep

That's seriously impressive, isn't it?

I, for one, am so, you know, I'm so pleased for climate change to finally sweep this.

I know it's been going for it for a while.

I mean, the thing is with the wards, you want to know

how much of the green lobby got invested.

It's like the Oscars, isn't it?

Is it the big studio?

Are they really the best films?

I mean, are these really the biggest threats, or is it just that the Green Party obviously run Australia and everywhere else in the world have gone behind the scenes and dumped them up?

Look, I'm thrilled at last that our world's most prominent economists have managed finally to quantify the financial risk of our planet spectacularly shitting itself up the wall like a dog with diarrhea being used in a banksy.

It is.

I didn't realise you'd finish that.

I thought you were about to say bank siege.

That's also good.

A banksy running a bank siege would be a thing I'd pay to see.

It is one thing for people to worry about the future of their children, but that's sort of wishy-washy.

And really, how do you know that your children won't turn out to be cockheads who deserve a dust bowl wasteland future it is another thing to imply that you might not be able to buy your way out of it because the stock market might be subject to an extreme weather event

i mean this is the the top five uh on the list extreme weather events a failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation by governments and businesses, human-made environmental damage and disasters, major biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, and this one I've got a bit of an issue with, major natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions and geomagnetic storms.

We can't be blamed for that.

We can't be blamed for volcanoes, can we?

I think we can.

I mean,

so we can just ignore the others then, can we?

I mean, no, I think we have to pay attention to all of them.

Oh, that's a shame.

Also, five is just a better number than four.

If it was just the top four, it just doesn't have the same, you know?

Yep.

You got to put something in for number five.

But anyway, the environment, it turns out, is a way bigger threat to this planet's future than, amongst other things, terrorism, alien invasion shark attacks feral man-eating goat infestations the vengeful wrath of a furious god and or gods basically the same as the previous one an asteroid strike also the same uh that this I'm most worried about is VAR in football the video replay in football in a crucial World Cup match in the next football World Cup sparking a global conflict which I think can easily happen or the sudden realization that life isn't about money and the growing suspicion that all our priorities as a planet and a species are fundamentally wrong so the environment seems to have knocked knocked all those off the podium.

When Black Rock is divesting itself of coal futures, that's when you know the winds are changing.

And they're changing, they're not only changing, but they're blowing dangerously fast.

Yes, also, if you're in Australia, you know the winds are changing because your house catches fire.

Bushfires apparently were so bad that they had to suspend the start of the Australian Open, which is kind of a positive spin because it's the most attention the Australian Opens ever gotten.

Like, winning five Australian Opens is is not, you know, oh, wow, you won five Australian Opens?

That's like having the biggest mansion in Cincinnati.

Well, actually, you know, Hari, it wasn't delayed because of climate change.

It was delayed because of the absolute awareness that Margaret Court would say something about gay people causing climate change.

Oh, I want Serena Williams to beat that record so bad just so she, like, Margaret Court does not have that record.

It's really out of hatred for that woman more than anything.

I love Serena, but I hate her more than I love Serena.

It was only the qualifying that was delayed.

They're still hoping to go ahead with the actual competition.

Bear in mind that they do generally make players play in 48-degree on-court temperatures anyway.

So, you know, if it's actually on fire,

would it make any difference?

It might be harder for the line judges to get the calls right.

Yeah, it was funny how we all used to think that Margaret Court was a beautiful example of nominative determinism because of court and tennis court, court but actually it was uh nominative determinism because every time she says something she makes you want to go ghar gir at court come on come on that was improv no I love a nominative determinism jack

well I mean meanwhile as the world literally in some places burns and the prospect of Armageddon grows greater and greater here in Britain the government is doing doing our bit by proposing cutting air cutting tax on short-haul flights, which is just what the

world has been crying out for.

And the terrorism police have listed Extinction Rebellion as an extremist ideology, which, I mean, it's pretty far out there, isn't it, wanting to have a planet to live on in 50 years' time.

That is...

Oh, yeah.

I mean, you're allowed to care about the environment, just not in a way that it causes disruptive performance art.

You've got to sit back and wait till the economists decide something's a problem.

Because say what you like about economists, they're they're great at caring about the future of humanity

if saving the planet is an extremist ideology who else made that list superman

yeah greta thurnberg

uh in other human relationships uh news uh now dating is going

literally space age a japanese billionaire has announced that he is seeking a girlfriend for his voyage to the moon

Now, I'm not a dating expert.

I mean, I've never been to the moon, and I've never really been on a date either, to be honest.

When my wife and I got together, we'd known each other for three and a half years and were sharing a house of students.

So

dating wasn't really the right term.

But anyway, a voyage to the moon, is that really the place, not just for a date, but for a first date?

I mean, that's a locked-up.

You've set the bar high, haven't you?

Yeah, well, Andy, as the song goes, fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars.

Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.

In other words, I've got too much money.

In other words, and no boundaries.

And also, spring on Jupiter and Mars is literally fatal, isn't it?

Yes.

Yes.

I mean, there's nothing to give piquancy to a first date like the knowledge that someone could fall out an airlock.

I think it's great.

I think aspiring astronauts and trophy wives alike will leap at the opportunity for some zero-G daytime.

I mean, some people will go for this.

I know it sounds appalling, but 5%, I think, of women say that they enjoy getting unsolicited dick pics.

So you can't.

5%?

Yeah, something like that.

How much was it, Chris?

You got data on that.

Yeah, I have.

I think it's 5%, but I'm just checking.

12% of women have asked to be sent a dick pic.

Oh, that's slightly different.

That's slightly different.

That's very different.

It's a different survey to the original.

Still quite a lot, though.

That's still quite a lot, yeah.

If a moon rocket isn't the biggest dick pic you can flash around, I don't know what is.

I mean, but it's setting the bar high for the rest of their relationship, isn't it?

Literally.

Yeah.

Do I want to go and see Fast and Furious 12 and then get a bite to eat at the local tapas bar?

Well, I can objectively see that's not such a bad evening out, but it's not the fing moon, is it?

Well, I think he's given up on Earth relationships.

I think that's what this is.

He just feels his chances will improve by being the only man available.

I just think he wants to see Tits in Zero-G.

What a Muppets episode that was.

Someone once said, not if you were the last man.

That's so terrible.

Someone once said, not if you were the last man on Earth.

And he said, I'll take that.

Oh, man, I want to go for this just so that I can go to the moon and say I don't like him.

I don't think this is going to work out.

And then you have the incredibly awkward journey back to Earth.

There's no way you can get separate Ubers back from that.

Are there no rules for space travel?

Have we not

decided everything is fine?

Like, there must be some rules that a billionaire can't just go on a date with someone in a spaceship.

Like, there's no rules about this?

There are no rules.

In space, no one can call the HR department.

In other technology news, researchers in America have

assembled cells from frogs into tiny robots that move around

on their own.

Let's be specific, it's African clawed frogs, which makes it sound even more

terrifying.

These are living, I mean, this is where it begins, isn't it?

I mean, today robot frogs, tomorrow, robot toads, and then where?

Robot geckos, and obviously they're going to move across from amphibians to reptiles obviously to get together and then robot ferrets but eventually you're going to end up with a giant robot ferret toad frog that can hack your internet clamp your car and vaporize your elderly relatives I've seen sci-fi films well I've seen one sci-fi film about a giant robot ferret toad frog I mean this shouldn't be the first time I've heard of African clawed frogs when they're being melded with robots to make half robot half frog

beasts waddling around eating mosquitoes and becoming problematically sentient.

I mean if you're going to turn animals into killer robots, which I assume this is what's all,

I mean, why not choose an animal that doesn't already have claws?

I mean, that's...

And also a justifiable grudge against the kind of Western economic industrial might that was built on centuries of exploitation of Africa.

I mean, this is really open enough.

It's disastrous, isn't it?

On the upside, when we have frog smartphone cross beads, it won't matter when your iPhone jumps into the toilet.

Have none of these scientists actually read science fiction?

This is not going to end well.

Like, are there no rules here either?

Like, has no one decided like creating new beings is a mistake, especially when the Earth is ending.

Maybe it's a waste of time to create new things that will die.

That's a very old-fashioned view, Hori.

Just breaking news, actually, the new scientist is rebranding and is changing its title to This Cannot Possibly End Well.

Historically, apparently, roboticists have tended to favor sort of more durable things like metal and plastic for building robots.

But also, you know because they last longer and they're harder to break, and the very concept of them doesn't make you scream yourself awake at night.

But Michael Levin, the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and man presumably wearing a light white lab coat and small round dark goggles like a steampunk anime German science villain, says that these are going to have benefits because when they're damaged, if you have make-living robots, they can heal their own wounds.

And once their task is done, they will just decompose naturally.

If Terminators 2 through 6 haven't provided enough of a prophetic warning about the dangers of robots that can regenerate on the fly.

But

I've been looking into this because it's horrifying and fascinating.

One of the most successful of these David Cronenberg body horror frogbot creations is a thing that has two stumpy legs and just a chest.

That's it.

Two stumpy legs and a

chest.

And another one has a hole in the middle of it that researchers have turned into a pouch so it can sort of shimmy around carrying little things in itself.

And they're suggesting that this might be a really good prototype for injecting small frogbots into the human body to deliver payloads of medicine to specific sources.

I mean, just all of it, all these stories always sound like scene one from an absolutely catastrophic film.

I mean, this is what Michael Levin has said, who's the leader of this program.

He says, These are entirely new life forms.

They have never before existed on Earth.

They are living,

programmable organisms.

And then he went on to say, I can see no problems from this arising in the future.

Has no one read The Island of Dr.

Moreau?

Has no one read?

Is it just everyone's just reading the time machine?

Like,

we know what's going to happen here.

A bad movie remake.

Alice, you're the Bugle's

dating agony aunt.

Yes indeed.

Dating tips for our listeners.

Well I'm always willing to take people, listener questions for relationship advice, but here's just some general advice for 2020.

Never go to bed angry.

Stay awake until you've both said unforgivable things that you can never take back.

A strong enough Wi-Fi signal and a Netflix subscription can paper over cracks in a relationship for an indeterminate period of time, assuming you both have similar tastes in binge-watching.

You cannot change a man unless you're injecting frog robot cells into his body.

Well, there we go.

There's your advice for 2020.

Any relationship tips for our listeners, Harry?

No.

Yeah, me neither.

My only advice is that

if your relationship's going through a tricky phase, just remember that

we'll all be dead within 100 years and no one will care.

Keep a bit of of perspective.

Sport now and sport's relationship with

politics and ethics is always under the microscope.

The International Olympic Committee has issued regulations over protests at the Olympic Games, which take place in Tokyo later this year, basically saying there's no place for politics in the Olympic Games.

That is apart from athletes parading around wearing branding from political entities

known as countries.

Countries.

A country is a political end.

And also the entire event being absolutely inundated with sponsorship from global corporations.

But apart from that, no politics is a lot.

And also, I think there should be more concern about the competitors body shaming everyone else on the planet who is not in prime elite athletic condition.

I mean, how about, you know, some ordinary people that we can relate to, winning the 200m butterfly for one.

I mean, I'm going to be doing what I do every Olympics, which is sneaking into the Olympic village and poking holes into all of the condoms that they supply for free to all Olympic athletes.

It's my small gesture towards genetic engineering of our species.

Judging from the stories about how many of those condoms are used,

that is a big job.

Those are some horny, horny people.

I just want to see the beautiful crossbreed between a gymnast and a basketballer.

Right.

I'd rather see.

They have basketball in the Olympics.

Yes.

They do.

Yeah,

I'm kind of a heavyweight weightlifter and

an ice dancer.

Is that biologically possible?

So just think about all of that.

Trying to breed a giraffe with a terrapin.

The ISA said that previous boycotts had, quote, no effect whatsoever.

Let's look at the historical evidence of this.

1980, 1984, there were Cold War boycotts.

The Americans didn't go to Moscow in 1980.

1984, most of the Eastern Bloc countries did not go to Los Angeles.

The Cold War ended within 10 years.

Hugely effective.

1976, the anti-apartheid boycott, and the most African countries do not go to the Montreal Games.

Apartheid ended just 15 years later.

Carlos and Smith.

Yeah,

the Black Power.

Jesse Owens.

That was hugely political.

I mean, if they're so worried that it's so political, why did they have the Olympic Games in Nazi Germany?

Seemed like they could have steered away from Nazi Germany.

Yeah, and Beijing in 2008.

Right.

There is anyway.

Interesting Olympic protest fact.

Every synchronized swimming event is deeply political, but you just can't hear the slogans they're screaming because their heads are underwater.

That concludes

this week's bugle.

I hope all your relationship issues have been solved.

Hari, thanks very much for joining joining us.

Any shows to alert our listeners to?

Yes.

January 23rd through the 25th, that's next week.

New York City, I'm headlining Carolines on Broadway.

February 19th, I'm performing in Durham, North Carolina at the MotorCo Music Hall.

February 20th, I'm performing in Savannah, Georgia at a venue called Victory North, which, considering the show is in Savannah, Georgia, makes me feel very welcome.

February

21st in Houston, Texas at the Secret Group.

And finally, March 6th in Oklahoma City at the Paramount Room.

The buglers go to all of those gigs.

Thank you very much for listening.

Ronan Mitchell, Rachel Buekelman, Kenneth Lung, and Brendan Johnson all formed a collective of Bugle voluntary subscribers to speculate groundlessly on what the great artistic figures of human history would have done if they'd been shit instead of great at what they did, and alive today instead of alive whenever they were actually alive.

Ronan has concluded that celebrity composer Ludwig van Beethoven would have run a small business putting on clown discos for school parties.

Rachel reckons that novelist Jane Austin might have been a life coach or a golf commentator.

Kenneth concludes that philosophy ace Plato would have been an advertising copywriter specialising in yogurt promotion.

And Brendan won the Collective's Speculator of the Week award this week for his claim that flesh fan painting superstar Peter Bull Rubens would have worked for a tabloid newspaper writing articles about how female celebrities have put on weight.

Another group of Bugle voluntary subscribers are all increasingly concerned about the names of elements tagged onto the arse end of the periodic table.

They're becoming more and more ridiculous, blasts David Kure.

Where will it end?

We've already got C.

Borgium, which I assume is used to make robot attachments for aquatic animals like sharks and swordfish, and that frankly is the last thing we need.

Paul Sherwalter adds his personal disparagement towards the element Moscovium.

No one even knows what it does, complains Paul, but it's probably spying on us, and moreover, it probably reacts very dangerously with vodka, very dangerously indeed.

Fellow element skeptic Jason Scott-Lewis reserves his greatest science scorn for Californium, which he notes is only known about at all because of the Beach Boys song Californium Girls, which covers the Wilson Brothers' curious fetish for women made entirely out of radioactive chemical elements that are not naturally found on Earth.

This concern about periodic table elements has frankly been spreading virally amongst Bugle voluntary subscribers.

Jeremy Resnick has issues with the element dubnium, which he describes as a useless piece of shit, perhaps a little harshly.

Jeremy explains it has only even the most tangential use when scrunched into an artificial compound with sulphur, tellurium and phosphorus to form the dangerously radioactive electronic dance compound dubstep.

More positively, Nicolas Campania, without wishing to denigrate his fellow voluntary subscribers for their negative views of the elements, is a fan of many of the elements on the periodic table.

Zinc is a classic, says Nicolas.

Terrific little metal and a bloody glorious syllable to say.

Zinc, go on, give it a go.

Zinc!

Zinc, zinc!

Zinc!

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.