Bugle 4132 - Breadgate

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4132 of The Bugle.

I am Andy Zoltzmann.

I am here in London.

It is E-7

election seven days away, the 5th of December 2019.

And I'm joined for this final pre-election bugle by returning from Australia, Alice Fraser.

Welcome back.

Thank you, Andy.

Thank you for having me back.

I really appreciate it.

I was really excited today because someone sent me a Wikipedia link that said this was to be my 50th bugle, but then apparently someone updated it and we missed the anniversary.

It's my 52nd bugle.

Oh, right.

Yeah, well, I hadn't had a special commemorative suit of armour made for you, but I've melted it down.

Also, joining us,

a man who is who literally is the news this week.

It's the first time.

I thought we've had the top story live in the studio.

Nish Kumar, one time Gaddafi guest.

That's deep in the internet from the time zero.

Nish Kumar.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Alice.

Hello, Buglers.

Yes, two bugle guests this week, Andy.

One from Down Under, geographically, and the other from Down under a mountain of abuse on the internet

well actually actually let's go let's get straight into this we'll hold section in the bin uh because I think I mean this is this is probably the most important news story that's happening in this so first of all if people if anyone in the world hasn't been following this riveting and top story worthy news can you explain what happened Nish well this is a bugle first in that

one of the guest buglers is involved in a news story and also this is very much a section that should be in the bin.

Top story this week, comedian gets pelted with bread and that comedian is me.

The closest way I can summarise what has happened is that on Tuesday I did a gig for the Lords Taverners who are

in the bathroom.

Yes yes for Bugle's benefit Andy is dressed in a Lord's Taverner shirt and he's wearing a Lord's Taveners hat and a Lord's Taveners tie just to remind I assume assume at some point I'm going to be pelted with rolls.

I just always wear this on Thursdays.

It's usually record on Fridays.

And what is a Lord's Taverner?

It's a charity that does excellent work providing sporting equipment for disabled and disadvantaged children across the UK and around the world.

And they booked me to do 20 minutes at their annual Christmas luncheon.

And I thought, sure, I'll do that.

What's the worst that can happen?

And the answer is 24 hours later, I was the most read story on the BBC News website.

Now listen, I have had gigs go badly before, but I've never had one go so badly that it makes the news during a general election.

Well I mean that does show quite how f ⁇ ing bored Britain is by the general election.

Just anything.

Anything that can displace that absolute parade of twattery from the news is what we're grasping at.

The Lord's Taverns began at Lords Cricket Ground, hence the name in the Lord's Tavern.

And you know, it is a, I've played for their cricket team, man.

You played for the cricket team?

You've done the gig before, Andrew.

Well, I mean, that's the thing, Nish.

It takes a special kind of comedian to succeed at having a Christmas lunch.

Only the cream of the cream can hack it, Nish.

Obviously, I mean, it's very tough for any comedian doing that gig post-2014, knowing that 99% of the audience are just sitting there thinking, you remember that awesome guy we had do this five years ago?

Nothing could ever match that.

No, I'm not talking about Sajid Javed, I'm talking about Andy Zoffman.

Sajid Javed

was

my support actor

at that kid.

He was then culture secretary,

now chancellor of the exchequer.

So just yet another one who has used my gravitational force.

I have always thought of John Oliver as being the white Sajid Javid.

Look, let's just go let's go through a blow-by-blow calculus, right?

So basically, it's a cricket-themed charity lunch, I think.

Absolutely fine.

I go out in front of the audience.

To say that the audience were very white would be a lie.

They were in fact extremely red.

And I will say, it is to their credit that so many of the crowd were such big fans of cricket that they came dressed as the ball.

I go on stage, I do five minutes, that goes quite well.

But you didn't hear about that on the news.

I cannot tell you how much sympathy I have for the captain of the Titanic.

Nobody ever talks about how much fun all the pre-iceberg stuff was.

They were just doing Irish jigs and being trapped in the entrenched class system.

It was a great laugh.

So after the first few minutes...

I think I'll be making a film about your being

80 years to come.

Kumar will go on.

Well, at least until the Bread Rolls start flowing.

So then after the first five minutes, it all went fine.

I made a joke about Brexit.

Very poorly received.

And

for a group of people who I think would regard Pepper as being a bit much, the atmosphere turned quite spicy.

I then thought, well, I'll make a joke about Boris Johnson.

That'll help.

Now at this point, if we're continuing the Titanic analogy, that is the equivalent of the captain of the Titanic seeing the iceberg and saying, I'll tell you what, lads, I think we can go straight through this.

It got worse when I decided to make a joke about Jacob Reese Mark and Theresa May.

The atmosphere continued to turn.

And then I tried to salvage it.

Bear in mind, this was how I thought I would get out of jail by saying, and this is a direct quote, this is what happens when I perform perform for an audience largely comprised of people who colonize my ancestors

so

just smooth those troubles things are really

going

from bad to worse at this point then a man who was dressed in a red coat who looks like someone who stands behind the queen while she has to apologize for something appalling one of her children has done that week ushered me off stage and said, and you know,

I've been, you know, taken off stage a number of different ways.

Never before have I been removed from stage with the phrase, now is the time for the raffle.

Also, at some point during the gig.

Yeah, yes, yes,

exit pursued by raffle.

At some point over the course of the gig, someone had thrown a bread roll at me, which is why the headlines have been

comedian pelted by bread rolls, whereas in fact, one bread roll p-rolled near me.

Because, and Andy, you'll know this.

The actual quote, exit pursued by bread.

But Andy, you'll know this.

A lot of the audience are comprised of people who play cricket within the English cricketing system in the 1970s and 80s.

And Andy, you'll also know this.

English cricket in the 1970s and 80s was fing shit.

And as such,

the ball failed to get within the vicinity of my postcode.

If I was standing in my batting stance, left-handed batting stance, that ball would have gone for four down fine legs.

And anyway, I got taken off stage.

They were all very upset.

And then video of the gig was taken by someone who was their disgruntled man, whose name I will not be saying, even though I do know it, and he knows what he did.

He then passed it straight to the Telegraph, and it was then picked up by Piers Morgan the next day and various right-wing provocateurs, which is a polite name for f ⁇ ing godless.

Morgan, Julia Hartley Brewer, Katie Hopkins.

And then it wasn't so much that the shit hit the fan, it's that the shit was launched from a special shit-firing cannon into an industrial shit-spreading fan.

I now have a controversy section on my Wikipedia page, like disgraced presidents and sex offenders.

And I've spent the last sort of 24 hours fielding a variety of,

shall we say,

tense correspondence from people on the internet, including one which I was gonna read out but I think probably I won't read it out just because it requires an absolute

like phalanx of trigger warning

but does conclude with the phrase I've reported your remarks to the police and to that person I say took a play at that game

look I what have I learnt from this I've learnt a couple of different things one I've spent a lot of time performing to people who agree with me and bathing in a sort of glow of leftist consensus and that is a lot of fun but if you're going to be prepared to say things to people who agree with you, you've got to be prepared to say things who don't agree with you, and you've got to allow them to have their reaction.

And I don't begrudge people the right to boo.

I'd rather they didn't throw things, but I don't begrudge them the right to boo.

As for the Morgans of this world, they can

tell us that you really can, Mitch.

Do you use that same line about Owen Morgan being England World Cup winning Monday cricket captain?

I mean, these sort of safe space right-wing snowflakes putting the intolerance into gluten intolerance.

Yeah, it was very interesting.

It's like an overblown reaction.

It was very interesting.

I think everything about it was an overblown reaction because it was the over the reaction in the room was, I think, a little overblown.

But certainly the fact that it made global news and that my mother found out because my cousin in Singapore texted her at 6 a.m.

You know, certainly that was

does speak to a number of different problems in the way that we conduct our discourse

and the fact that everything, even if it's just a difficult Christmas gig for a comedian, has to be viewed through the prism of a culture war and anything is available for politicisation regardless of how stupid, irrelevant or ultimately pointless the story is.

But the main thing I've learned is that if c comedy audiences at charity gigs are right wing they're shit out of luck because they can only get left wing comedians to perform for free and until they start putting more money on the table they're not going to get right wing perf audiences to perform for them.

So for now, they can just shut the f up and take what they're f ⁇ ing given.

I mean, Nish, on the other hand, they didn't come to see you make jokes about politics.

They came to this cricketing disabled people charity to see you make jokes about cricket and presumably also jokes about disabled people.

Well, they didn't come to see me make jokes about politics.

They did come to see the host make jokes about politics when he made a string of disparaging remarks about Jeremy Corbyn at the start of the dinner.

And they came to see Harry Redknapp, who is a football manager.

And when asked who the next Arsenal manager was going to be he said oh probably some foreign bloke who can't speak a word of English so it's clear that they came to see some politics

well I mean I had a perfectly lovely time when I did it I found that

entirely charming and as you said it's an absolutely wonderful charity but I mean the press reaction was as always with any story about anything uh somewhat extreme um well as you said the independent said you were pelted

I mean I don't know I might have to get my sister on to talk about this.

Can you pelt.

Can one

throwing of a single soft object constitute a pelting?

I mean, I didn't think it could until it happened.

Right.

Yeah, it was very weird.

Did you notice the bread roll coming, and what were your thoughts in that moment?

Bear in mind, the bread roll was travelling at such velocity that I didn't know it had happened until about a minute after it happened.

All right.

As in what it was too slow or too slow.

I have no idea.

It's impossible.

Are you sure that it was thrown and not teleported onto the stage as a sustaining scene?

It's possible that it was absolutely hosed at me at 150 miles an hour.

But to be completely honest, the only time I realised it had happened was when I looked over and saw the comedian Andy Parsons angrily remonstrate with the bread thrower.

The Daily Telegraph,

as always, pouring their petrol onto the troubled waters and setting it on fire.

There was an an article saying that you opened your set with a passionate anti-Brexit.

True or false?

Sadly false.

Oh, right.

And this is, I mean, a classic from the Daily Telegraph.

Since the referendum, comedians have fallen prey to a particularly violent strain of Brexit derangement syndrome, which

coming from the Daily Telegraph.

That is like Michelangelo telling you to paint fewer ceilings

less ostentatiously.

But of course, I mean, it is, of course,

no laughing matter at all that some of the audience thought you were

a total crepe.

And Tommy said.

This is a.

I didn't think a pun run could be any more pungent, but when you're on the receiving end of it, this is a double whammy.

To be fair, you didn't roll over.

This is worse than the death of the offending objects.

Apparently, it came from 20 rows back, I've heard, came from row tea.

I'll allow that one because it at least acknowledges some of my cultural history.

Other people thought you were total kark, which apparently is a type of bread.

I love it when you don't have confidence in them.

I told you so with quite bad language, with crude tongues.

Crude tongues?

Crude tongues.

Crude tongues.

Some gave a cheer.

Sorry.

Some gave a cheer, but a number of them booed.

Fair call.

Others said that you misinterpreted, that it wasn't a hostile thing at a cricket function that was thrown at you for catching practice.

Anyway,

Andy, this is begetting to be too much.

Jesus Christ, coming from both angles now.

Put me back on the stage at the Taverners.

I would rather be on stage than have to deal with this shit.

To be fair, you confronted it.

You didn't kick Kakan down the road.

That's a

Jewish break.

That's the one thing I remember.

Now you finally choose to engage with your upbringing.

I've seen the footage.

You gave a wry smile and you didn't let it just pitter out.

You gave them a pizza your mind.

But then obviously the throwing continued.

Someone apparently, I've heard, threw

a piece of cheese.

And you said, here comes a piece of brie.

Oh, shit.

Anyway,

but

anyway, eventually you had to bow to the inevitable.

Okay.

That one was quite good.

Thank you.

I mean, it was the decision to talk about Brexit that spelt trouble,

particularly in that audience.

I mean, it's a very male-dominated audience.

There are women there, but it's more of a chat party.

It's a big lunch, a lavash dupe.

And

quite a formal occasion, isn't it?

And I think maybe the problem began when you said at the before dinner, à la la ren au duc d'Amber à tu vautro sante.

They didn't go for the French toast.

I'm going to save someone who emailed me this week the trouble and set myself on fire.

It's a different culture, of course.

But anyway, he had a choller good laugh about it.

Hey, you remembered another one.

Yeah, thank you.

And

something similar actually happened to Eisenhower, the American president, at a dinner.

And

he didn't have any clever ways out of it.

He wasn't the slyest Dwight.

Slyest Dwight.

Slyest Dwight.

Okay, let's move on.

You can't say that to yourself.

I can.

I mean, you know,

there was a muffin that could be done.

Some of them were

thinking, I'd rather listen to Andy's ultimate.

He was really excellent

five years ago.

It's not true to say that none of them enjoyed it.

Table 10 didn't mind, but table 11 did.

Oh, Christ.

I was going to say, you haven't 11 one pun Unturned, but

you've got that.

But I mean you know in the context,

all this publicity, your career's going well, you've been on the crust of a wave.

And

they've they had a

lot of things.

We just had to be interrupted there as Andy laughed at his own bombardment.

Editing out some things that maybe don't deserve public consumption.

But you know, in many ways, you know, it's always a risk putting a a comedian for a for a for an event such as this.

They should maybe have gone with a musical act, maybe an Elvis Pretzley impersonator.

But

anyway, and you did very well not to react too much because violence baggets violence.

And no point dwelling on it.

It's gone.

Next year, apparently, they're going to get a female comic from San Francisco.

They're going to get a bagel.

Bagel.

I would have judged you if you had gone through this entire thing without getting bagel in.

I would have gone Maria Bunford, but

Maria Bunford's nice.

I've got to worry, someone is lucky we weren't doing the Bunberrys.

That's another cricket charity.

Right, that's action in the bun.

Wow, that is

Saltzman Squared.

Well, I think we've both known something about where our respective careers are at this week.

That is Saltzman on Saltzman.

I mean, Nish Kumar, the new Marie Antoinette.

Let them throw bread.

I'm the Lenny Bruce of yeast.

Let's go back and restart the show.

This is Bugle 4132.

Incidentally, 4132 is how you're supposed to count in your musicians if you're conducting an experimental jazz orchestra.

Also, 4132 was an excerpt from an awkward conversation in the

FA Cup semi-final of 1877, the famous five-all draw between the Royal Gardeners and the Barnstonworth Wanderers, when it was a little interchange between England star Lucius Wichway Podgett, a brilliantly skillful player with no sense of direction, following a head injury at the siege of Flaraquard, and his captain Denham Warbler, after Podgett dribbled through his own defence and whacked it into the top corner before wheeling away in celebration and said, 4-1.

3-2, replied Warbler.

In more honourable sporting times, of course, the two teams then agree that they will contribute five players each to the final rather than having a replay or a penalty shootout.

That was against the Francia Ramblers, plus each team's goalkeeper swapped on and off at the end of each minute.

Here we are.

Let's get some facts back into this.

We are recording on the 5th of December,

which is a Thursday.

It's International Ninja Day, which you think is slightly self-defeating.

December is Thai month.

We're a Thai month, apparently.

That's one as in the next

year or the nationality.

Luckily, I always bugle with a tiny one wrapped around my dog.

Finally, it's appropriate.

Add another one to my Wikipedia controversies.

December is Human Rights Month as well, so we're giving away a free human right for you

next week.

You can choose from the following selection of exclusive human rights for bugle listeners: the right to scream at kitchen utensils, the right to vote in other people's elections, please use that.

The right to claim you're a pope and issue an edict whilst on public transport, and the right to take a lick of someone else's ice cream.

Second top story this week.

Well, we are one week from the election now.

Alice, you've been mercifully out of this country and not technically allowed to vote, I believe.

Well, not technically, but I've been gathering up dead people's names from the rolls and I'm hoping to vote at least 12 times.

Well, could you not say rolls?

I find that a bit tricky.

I mean, this is an exciting time.

I've caught up on the election news, which is to say all of the chaos where people are promising things that they are absolutely not going to deliver.

Opinion polls are still suggesting a comfortable lead for the Conservatives, and Boris Johnson has announced plans for his first 100 days of the next term, which is an expression of his confidence that he will be re-elected.

He's saying there will be a Commons vote on Brexit, a Queen's speech, and a post-Brexit budget.

He also then promises he will turn all pumpkins into carriages, raise the minimum wage to a million pounds an hour except for your deadbeat ex, and that he will make sandwiches sexually satisfying for those over the age of sandwich consent.

He's pledged to raise the national insurance threshold to £9,500, along with cash for schools and and the NHS, which he will pull out of a big top hat along with rabbits made of union jack flags and a pair of crotchless pandy hose that he left there by accident in the midst of his third most recent extramarital affair.

Yes, the Prime Minister and father to an unspecified number of children this morning, I think he's trying to do some damage control on some of his PR.

There's been a lot of coverage of previous remarks he's made in the newspapers and

he apologised today for any offence he caused when he said that women who wear burkers look like letterboxes.

Now, that is not the same thing as apologising for saying women who wear burkers look like letterboxes.

That would be like me saying Boris Johnson finger fks cats.

I'm not saying he does, I'm just being humorous about the idea that he might finger f cats.

But I'd like to apologize for any offense I might have caused him by saying that he finger fks cats, but not to be clear for saying that he finger fks cats.

You know,

finger f cats.

There's a dead cat on the table and Boris Johnson's finger f ⁇ ing it.

Chancellor Sajid Javid said he did not have a single doubt that the Conservative government could agree a trade deal with the EU by the end of 2020, which is a shame because I feel like Sajid Javid would benefit from a single doubt about absolutely anything in his life.

He's also

also in the same interview refused to rule out the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.

So he's talked quite bullishly about the deal, but very pointedly refused to rule out the possibility.

That's the Chancellor, who is also the former Home Secretary, and the former Secretary of State for how can we be racist when he's one of them?

Boris Johnson, he's claimed that people will not be talking about Brexit this time next year.

It's all gonna be done.

Vote the shit out

for him if he could promise me that.

Yes, he's claimed that 2020 will be the year we finally put behind us the arguments and uncertainty over Brexit, which is like I get a doctor

on an 18th century ship being presented with a scurvy sufferer, giving them a single section of Satsuma and just saying, all good now.

In Trojan war terms, all he will have got done in his precious get Brexit done shtick will have been the sacrificing his daughter phase of the expedition.

Yeah, it's

we cannot be stated often enough.

All he will do is if he gets a majority government, he'll pass a withdrawal bill, but that just gives us a year buffer to completely rebuild our entire trading relationship with Abliga's trading partner.

Otherwise, in December 2020, we go out on a no deal.

And you keep repeating that, and you keep saying that the line, get Brexit done, is actually a complete lie, and he doesn't know what he's talking about, and all that happens is people f ⁇ ing throw bread at you.

Well, the Tories are making all these promises, but Labour has said that the Tories only offer more of the same failure, proposing that instead, Labour will offer a range of new and exciting failures.

I actually downloaded the Tory Manifesto, which amazingly is the worst thing to ever show up on my internet anymore.

And there is.

There's a couple of pieces.

Is that including Death Threats?

Yes,

it's exclusively Death Threats.

Andy, I watch my porn on incognito browsing.

I'm not an idiot.

There's some.

Buried deep in there is some really, really potentially very spicy stuff.

On page 40, I think it's probably 48 or 49 of the manifesto.

It says,

After Brexit, we need to look at the broader aspects of our constitution, the relationship between the government, parliament, and courts, the functioning of the royal prerogative, the role of the House of Lords, and access to justice for ordinary people.

We will ensure that judicial review is available to protect the rights of individuals against an overbearing state, whilst ensuring that it is not abused to conduct politics by another means or to create necessary delays.

Basically, this is gangland politics.

The manifesto, one page of the manifesto is essentially, we are going to take revenge on every who f with us.

This is score settling by the Conservative Party to take revenge on the parliamentary powers that have been used in their view to frustrate Brexit or in the view of other people to maintain orderly parliamentary democracy in the face of a rampaging central government.

But it's pure score settling.

And I wouldn't be surprised if they had other policies that included arresting the pig that Cameron for being a pork-based honey trap a honey-roasted ham trap if you will

and yet and yet the polls still have the conservatives around about eight to ten points clear

I mean what what what does this what does this show about about Britain as an oh is it that we want a government that will give us the opportunity to have our spouse detained on trumped up charges in Iran without the government doing anything to free them I mean Boris Johnson has proved that he can provide that option for us and

Corbyn has not done that.

Maybe we want to, we get a secret thrill out of the slow evisceration of our public services, the slow motion samsoning of the pillars of the things that hold us up as a nation.

I don't know.

Maybe that's what we're into now.

Well, I mean,

it certainly is the time for politicians to say whatever the f ⁇ they want.

Nigel Farage recently at a rally in Ashfield said that Henry VIII was the first Eurosceptic.

I mean, we've always known Farage was full of like manipulatively false nostalgia about England's glorious past but I always thought he meant like the 1950s glorious past not the 1550s.

It was a golden era when you could just chop your wife's head off if she was giving out a bit too much.

I mean to be fair he was dead by the 1550s

but does this make Henry VIII a great feminist as well because he employed not one but six different women as queen.

I mean let's all get a sweet dose of the plague and go fight France quick before we die die of a minor infection.

That is in the Brexit Party Manifesto.

The return of plague.

It is a good British disease.

The latest

pointless controversy has centred around whether or not Jeremy Corbyn has watched the Queen's speech.

For people that aren't based in the United Kingdom,

every Christmas the Queen makes a speech that is on television and of course all of us patriots watch it in stony silence with our hands over our hearts thinking about the history of this country.

Whereas Jeremy Corbyn is too busy wanking over some marks.

To be fair, I mean, in terms of cinematography, the Queen's speech doesn't have a lot going for it.

No, I mean, it's a notch above an ISIS hostage of it, though.

I've never, I don't think I've ever watched a Queen speech either.

Does that make me want to watch it?

It's an ISIS speech.

And you did leave yourself wide open

to

some very strongly worded telegraph articles.

You would have thought also, in terms of that, we talked a lot about tactical voting over the last few weeks, and you would have thought that for the opposition parties,

the obvious thing to do would be to accept that we currently have archaic inanities in our electoral system, set themselves the goal of doing everything needed to prevent another Conservative government and a prime minister continuing who's been described as, and I quote the words I myself wrote on the tube on the way this recording:

an egomaniacal philandering opportunist with a track record, sorry, a collection of track records and deliberately provocative, racially, socially, and religiously charged comments, a black belt in willful politically expedient mendacity, plus has a CV containing an almost heroic number of sackings, who's also looking forward to a logistically awkward Christmas where he will have to visit his X number of children in Y.

So you would have thought that having set that goal to stop that happening, then you need to then do everything you can to achieve that goal and cooperate, then that hasn't...

that hasn't happened.

Yeah, it hasn't happened.

Instead, they've all spent the...

The opposition parties have gone full reservoir dogs.

It is just guns pointed at each other and people chopping each other's ears off.

This whole election is...

There's a lot of talk about Brexit being the elephant in the room, but this elephant has defecated all over the room.

And Britain is now having to to make a choice between whether to try and clean up the room a bit or to mould the elephant shit into a passable sofa.

That was actually on page 51 of the manifesto.

Donald Trump news now, Trump has got cranky

at the

NATO meeting.

Trump Stiltskin has flounced out another Donald Grump.

He's called Justin Trudeau two-faced,

which you might think is rather like a millipede ripping into a spider about having so many legs.

But there was this rather hilarious video of other world leaders, including Boris Johnson,

basically gossiping about Trump behind his back.

They were naughty school children.

They didn't realize that

they were still on mic, essentially.

But when I did hear of the existence of a a hot mic video, I did just assume it was that clip from Magic Mike when Channing Tatum dances to Pony by Jenny One.

But instead, it was something that people sort of say it's a bit like the thick of it or Veep, but it wasn't.

It was pure Love Island.

It was just Love Island with a bunch of less good-looking people.

Because let's face it, Justin Trudeau is only attractive in the context of politicians.

Put Justin Trudeau on any British high street, and the man is an absolute dog.

He's not a piece of meat, Nish.

I mean, mean, he is a piece of meat insofar as all human beings are a piece of meat

with a skeleton hiding in it.

Sounds like a lawyer hastily

defending someone on charges of cat calling.

Well, in many ways, we're all meat.

Yeah, we're all just a skeleton sandwich if you think about it too much in the wrong way.

Now, to be fair to Trump, Trump is generally,

he's not rude about people behind their back.

No, no.

He's rude about people through the honourable holy medium of social media

and deranged press conferences.

Yeah, his Twitter feed is one long hot mic video.

And also there's been a lot of focus on this thing Trudeau was caught saying, I watched his team's jaws drop to the floor.

But we don't know the context of that.

I mean it could have just been talking about a bit of the pre-summit party where they have a race in the NATO tradition, which each country's delegation has to carry a model of a famous creature from a 1970s movie thriller across a tightrope.

And the Americans' team's hands were a bit sticky after some oily canopies and they lost their grip on their model shark and hence Trullo says I watched his team's jaws drop to the floor.

It could easily have just been Trump with his delegation warming up in the gym doing no arms, press-ups,

using only the muscles in their faces.

I mean who knows?

It's actually exactly what I heard someone say at Tuesday football last time you wound up another ill-advised shot from the halfway line.

What do you mean?

Nish, Nish, Nish.

You didn't play this week, did you?

I was rock solid at the back.

I was too busy being pelted with rolls.

Last week.

You were there last week.

I had a perfect hat-trick inside the first 15 minutes.

Left foot, right foot header.

What are you talking about?

Right.

Also, this tip.

I watched his jaws drop to the floor.

This is Trump's team we're talking about now.

What could have surprised Trump's team?

I think the only thing that could make their jaws drop to the floor was if he said something coherent

or humble or conciliatory.

Maybe he just said, right, folks, this is a crucial summit.

So I want everyone on message.

I want you to be polite to our hosts.

I'm going to listen to what everyone else says.

I'm going to weigh it all up and formulate a careful, judicious response.

And I want to come out of this summit, having established an atmosphere of mutual cooperation and respect for the good of all NATO members and the world as a whole.

Right, hands in.

One, two, three, go to USA.

Then their jaws would have dropped to the floor.

If Trump had any self-awareness, which he clearly does not, he would have been...

I think he would have found it mortifying that he was being mocked by Justin Trudeau, a man who earlier this year admitted he can't remember how many times he's been in blackface.

And equally, one of my favourite elements of the video is one of the people on the fringes of the conversation is Boris Johnson.

And as the conversation turns to a major world leader being castigated and mocked for talking in an unprepared and rambling manner, you can just see the look in Johnson's face.

And it was exactly the same look that I had when I went into my local cafe on Wednesday.

And that look said, I hope none of these people Google me.

Back home for Trump.

Experts described Trump's misconduct as a textbook case of impeachable offences.

It's a hell of a wrap sheet.

Whereas Republicans complain that the process was rushed.

I mean, sure, it'd be nice to everyone to take a bit of time to appreciate the impeachment process slowly.

Let it all wash over us.

Yeah, let's do a tantric impeachment.

But it's a busy world.

We've got stuff to be getting on with.

I mean, if if it is a textbook, it's a textbook where we can all flip to the back of the book to see the answers, which is

guilty.

Witness Michael Gerhardt, who's a law professor at the University of North Carolina, said, if what we're talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable.

To which Trump presumably interpreted those words by thinking, oh.

Oh, nothing is impeachable then.

Fetch me those immigrant children in cages and my tiger outfit.

I'm going to have an unforgettable afternoon.

Arts news now, and it's been a dead heat for the Turner Prize this year.

The photo finish could not split these four contenders.

They all crossed the canvas at exactly the same time.

Alice, you're our arts

correspondent.

Yes, indeed, Andy.

The Turner Prize has been split four ways at the request of the the four nominees who asked that they not be told who's the winner and who's the loser, but they would all share the prize equally.

I think a similar conversation happened between the England and New Zealand cricket teams before the Super Over the World Cup final, and I think we pulled the fast on over the key with that.

Well, it's caused some controversy with people like BBC Arts editor Will Comberts being for it, saying maybe annual awards like the Turner Prize and the Booker Prize, which also didn't have a single winner this year, are reaching their sell-by date, an anachronism from a bygone binary age of winners and losers.

And Charlotte Higgins in The Guardian said, everyone agrees that competition is the enemy of art, ignoring the fact that nobody can begin a sentence like everyone agrees anymore.

That's not possible in

2019.

But it's an interesting question whether these four people sharing the prize has really undermined the very nature of competition in art itself.

Some people are saying, where will this end?

Will the Nobel Prize be replaced with a participation award?

Which, yes, I mean, on one hand, art is not quantifiable in the way that science is.

On the other hand, what is the point of doing art if you can't win at it, Andy?

I know the only reason I'm doing the bugle is so I can keep my co-host episode count higher than Nishkuma.

Eventually beat John Oliver for a number of audio appearances on this hallowed field of bullshit.

Whereas I focused on trying to match number of appearances with John Oliver as number of love guru films appeared.

I'm focused on the guru.

You wait for my guru reboot 2021.

It's good to say achievable goals.

Yes, it was they said it was there's already so much that divides and isolates people and communities.

And I mean this is undoubtedly true, but I'm not sure how many times communities have been divided, isolated and inflamed by debates about whether human effigies staring at a curtain are better or worse art than a feminist installation piece or an audio scape of a Syrian jail or a film about Northern Ireland or even outside this year's turn and prize list, a hyper-realistic picture of some dogs playing snooker, or

even a Brian Lara double century, or a statue of a hot young dude with his nadgers out about to fling a rock at a giant.

So, I mean, what is art?

Discuss.

Is it an Andy Soltzman pun run?

No, that's the one thing we definitively know is not art.

No, that's craft.

Different.

Alice, you also are contagious

born illnesses correspondent.

What a remit.

What a remit that is.

Yes, Andy, in new end of the world news now.

There is a monkeypox ellipse on the rise now.

A person in England has been diagnosed with the rare viral infection monkeypox, which I'd never heard of but now will definitely die from.

The

Public Health England PHE has said the patient is believed to have contracted the infection in Nigeria and is currently being treated in a very specialist, high-consequence infectious disease centre in London.

And much consternation has arisen.

I think mainly because monkeypox sounds utterly horrendous, but people have ensured,

but the authorities have assured people that monkeypox, although very serious, isn't very infectious.

And I, for one, choose to absolutely disbelieve them.

I'm definitely going to die from monkeypox.

What is it?

What are the symptoms of monkeypox?

I think it's where you start exploding monkeys out of yourself.

No,

it's much the same symptoms as many other infectious diseases, sort of.

Is it like chicken

laying the eggs?

I read it as moneypox when I first read this.

That could explain a lot of things.

Clearly, this story is basically scene two in a global pandemic disaster movie in which doctors insist that monkeypox isn't that serious.

Cut to scene 10 in which 80% of the global population are swinging from lamppost to lamppost, trying to peel innocent passers-by like bananas before eating them whole or drinking tea and shifting pianos, whichever way they want to go.

I mean, if that's what it takes to bring this country together, I am all for it.

You know, the last thing that really brought England together was the War of the Roses, wasn't it?

That very much didn't bring us together, I think.

Well, 50% of all men of fighting age died,

which left room for, you know, an age of labour laws and things like that.

I'm not following myself talking.

Someone else should talk through

Obviously, after Brexit, this thing won't be a problem because we'll just be able to pass legislation banning viruses, which

Brussels has stopped us doing

handcuffed by the Eurocrats who want to keep us bogged down

in all manner of monkey-based diseases.

The virus rights lobby will probably be all over us.

All the viruses are just doing their jobs, trying to earn a living for themselves and their virus families.

Don't get me started on Amnesty International's continued support of the virus rights.

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

Good luck in the election, Nish.

Are you standing?

Not now.

No, right.

Not now.

I've got a controversies page on my Wikipedia.

Controversy helps, Nish.

That is exactly what he should be getting into politics.

Oh, Alice, you have some news to share with buglers.

Yes, my twin brothers just started a YouTube channel.

No, that's true.

You should see it.

But there's an exciting thing that's happening next year,

which I would like to...

Am I supposed to launch it properly or are we like...

Well, I don't know.

I mean, this is the Bugle.

I mean, you can do things as inconfidently as you like.

If you're trying to do some self-promotion, this is entirely in keeping with the entire history of this podcast.

Well, stay tuned on this show, The Bugle, for the launch of another show, which will be starting in January next year with me on it.

slash in it.

Right.

The Bugle Extended Universe.

Yes, it's an Ultimate Universe Bugle spin-off series with me as the host, and we're calling it The Last Post, and it's going to be amazing, but I've got to write it first.

The bugle's becoming a well, it's becoming like a sort of media empire now.

Well, by which I mean there's two podcasts.

Well, oh, yes.

I mean, it's like saying, that's like saying the British Empire still exists because we have Gibraltar.

Yes, I am the Gibraltar of the bugle, and I look forward to being fought over.

But this is going to be an alternative universe bugle starting as the bugle, ending as sort of an alternate universe exciting thing.

And so I'm going to write it a year's worth of news.

It'll be every day, a short episode, 15 minutes, and I think it's going to be amazing.

But ask me again in a week.

Also starting in just over a week is my Soho Theatre run, also featuring Alice.

Oh yes!

Also I'm doing Handy Zaltzmann Soho Theatre run.

Yeah, well done.

16th to the 21st of December, the 27th, 28th and 30th of December and the 2nd to the 4th of January.

And the 2nd to the 4th 4th of January, it will be immediately followed in the Soho Theatre, probably upstairs or in the other theatre, but at the same venue by my show, Savage, which will be then, 2nd to the 4th of January.

Tickets are on sale now and not selling well.

So you can double up.

You can come to.

Oh, yeah, double bill.

Or, I mean, even this is a really good idea, is come early in the run to Andy Zaltzman's Soho show and then come at the end of the run when it will be a completely different show.

And then watch my show.

So three shows for the price of three tickets.

We're getting so good at promoting stuff on this show.

That,

Andy, you really were a loss to the advertising industry.

I have nothing to promote except my impending retirement from comedy.

Well, I think the Daily Telephone will be very surprised to learn that you've never been in comedy from some of their articles.

Yeah, I think people really overestimate how much the phrase so-called comedian hurts my feelings.

Oh,

who's that?

Chris's Burger the Play Out Accordion Music.

There we go.

Right.

There's some accordion music coming through our system.

That's from the Bugles new French spin-off.

Is it yours?

Oh,

and is that your phone ringing?

Why?

How?

I've no, I've never heard that ring sound before.

Right.

Okay.

That is the end of this week, Bugl.

I've just had an unexpected ringtone that I've never heard before coming out of my phone.

Who was calling me?

We're being hacked, Nish.

Do you have two phones?

You don't even know how to use one.

Why did you not know what your ringtone was?

It's never been that before.

It must have changed itself.

Chris is now telling us to, in layman's terms, shut the f ⁇ up.

Thank you for listening, buglers.

I can't believe I'm being silenced for the second time in a week.

Yeah, have a bread roll.

He's genuinely a great charity.

And you've brought them a lot of publicity in this.

Yeah.

And I think we should all praise you for that.

Everyone's, you know.

Do you want the tie?

Goodbye.

Bye.

And to play us out, as always, some lies about our premium voluntary subscribers.

Anonymous donor initials NJ prefers to think of stained glass windows as really slow-moving TV shows.

I love pregnant silence, reports NJ, and I'm sceptical of the modern trend for excessive action.

Ken Samuels disapproves of surfing on the grounds that it must be awfully frustrating for aquaphobic sea creatures to look up and think, at last, a door to get out of this place.

Oh no, it's gone already.

Kieran Johnston similarly wonders whether most shark attacks on surfers, which of course happen at the rate of about one attack for every four or five surfers, if Hollywood research is to be believed, are in fact the notoriously clumsy sharks politely trying to open what they perceive as a door to let the surfers into the sea, ironically, because from a shark's perspective, surfers look like they are trying to kick the door down.

Inspired by politics, Roberto Tyley now likes to be unnecessarily evasive in response to all questions.

Recently he responded to the question, would you like a cup of tea, with the answer, well I think the important thing is to focus on the fact that I invested in a new kettle, I bought a box of tea bags and I have not smashed every single mug in the house.

Kirk Roberts wonders why spoon bending is a skill which receives little public credit these days and concludes that it might be because of the limited range of uses for a bent spoon.

It's like having a magical power to make carrots scream, thinks Kirk.

It might be impressive, but it is in no way improving the original item.

Richard Perrin thinks that what sets humanity apart from the beasts is a sense of self-awareness.

Do you think seahorses realise how weird they look?

asks Richard.

If a human looked like that, they'd spend all day looking in the mirror saying, too much.

Stephen Way has calculated that if you piled up all the polystar in boxes used in takeaway fried chicken shops in London in the average year, one on top of the other, they would not only reach from Earth to Mercury and back, but when that tower of greasy packaging inevitably collapsed, it would ironically form the shape of an egg.

Michael Thompson was surprised to find that the Pokémon character Pyukumuku once represented Finland and ski jumping in the Winter Olympics, whilst fellow Pocky Technic alumnus Swadloon began life as a medieval weapon and their colleague Toxicroak was the eponymous developer of a fatal serum used in public executions in the Pocky world.

Will Hayward thinks it is typical of humanity that, with regard to the phrase, pot calling the kettle black, we focus on the allegations of hypocrisy that provoked the use of that phrase, rather than the fact that, we have talking kitchen utensils now.

Marcus Bowdoin sometimes wonders how different the entire history of Christianity would have been if Jesus had used a single-use plastic cup at the Last Supper instead of a more environmentally friendly, reusable grail.

And finally, Drew Burning thinks that if we are really serious about saving the planet and cutting down on electricity, we would be plowing all our scientific research money into genetically modifying human beings so that we all become bioluminescent and would never need light bulbs again.

Here endeth the lies.

May the falsehood be upon you.

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.