Bugle 4121* WTF is going on?

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers!

It is Friday the 6th of September and welcome to issue 4121 of the Bugle, audio newspaper for a world of arguably counterproductive visualness.

Now what's that you're saying?

What do you mean issue 4121?

What happened to issue 4120?

Not to mention issues 294 to 4000.

Obviously those 3,000 odd missing episodes were recorded in a mixture of the future and the past after we slipped through a ferret hole in the space-time continuum and found ourselves simultaneously in the years 3000 BC and 3000 AD or whatever you like to call your years these days.

Issue 4120 by contrast we have already recorded last Sunday's Guilty Feminist Bugle crossover live show, but that's not going out until next week.

So this is now next week's show brought forward to this week, but covering this week's news as if it had happened this week, which it has, rather than this week's news as if a week had already passed, which it hasn't, or next week's news, which now may or may not happen, as if it's already happened, which it hasn't, depending on when you're listening to this.

Which, in my case.

Porogue the bugle.

Prorogue the bugle.

Anyway, the point is, hello.

Hello, buglers.

We're here again.

It's Friday, the 6th of September.

I'm Andy Zoltzman, no arguments.

And we are here in London, old Squabbletown, UK itself,

joining me today to provide some cold-eyed objective perspective on behalf of the rest of the world on what the f is going on

here in Britain.

I'm joined by Aditi Mittel and Tom Ballard.

Hello, hello, what the f is going on?

What the f is going on?

Well, we will discuss the question of what the f is going on in slightly more detail, although we will not find an answer to it because there is no answer to it.

It's the 6th of September.

On this day in the year 1642, the English Parliament banned stage plays.

If only they'd stuck with that, we'd have a much more grown-up world.

Due to quote lascivious mirth and levity,

which by coincidence was the stage name of my old double act with John Oliver.

Other things banned, of course, during the English Civil War and the subsequent Cromwellian social austerity included fun, Christmas, mooning, sniggering, slapstick and computer games.

Way ahead of his time.

On this day in 1847, Henry David Thoreau completed his two-year experiment in simple living in Walden Woods, Massachusetts, from which the book Walden emerged.

He spent two years, two months and two days in and around a special shed in the woods doing things like not very much, very little and absolutely sod all.

That's what you do now that John's left the double.

It's the most British thing in the world.

And he wrote a book about it.

Yeah, it was American in America.

There you go, that does.

But it was very British, yeah.

At the time when there's still some relics of

British ability to sit around doing nothing for days at a time, America used to be very British, really, anyways.

On the subject of sitting around doing nothing, let's just check the test match score.

Okay.

Thoreau

wrote about his experience of this sort of simple living introspective lifestyle.

Now, bearing in mind that today's world is 25, let's put this in perspective, what he did, this two years, two months, two days on his own in the woods.

Today's world is exactly, scientists have proved, 25,000 times more hectic than the 1840s.

So, his period of solitude, to put into some kind of perspective that we can understand, is the equivalent today of being without your mobile for 45 and a half minutes.

That is some sacrifice, isn't it?

Oh my god.

Do you think it will move to a point where we become fully hectic, Andy?

You think is that we're heading to as a society?

I think I don't know when full peak hectic will

occur, and then the whole global market will collapse and we'll end up living in caves again, waiting for dinosaurs.

Would it be going backwards or forwards?

Thoreau wrote rather graphic descriptions of, amongst other things, red ants and black ants fighting to the death in his diary in a gruesome festival of dismemberment and decapitation, which shows that even in the most solitudinous of solitudinous situations, humans will inevitably tune into some kind of competitive sport.

And he did, I believe, end up chanting, go black ants, rip their fing heads off, red scum.

We hate red ants.

We fing hate red ants.

A few quotes from Thoreau: I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time.

To be in company even with the best is soon wearisome and dissipating.

Well, my guests for today, what do you think of that?

Sounds like what I say after dating, hasn't worked out for a couple of years.

Like, no, I'm actually happier like this.

Right now, it's red ants versus black ants.

He also said this, I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

And to be honest, I mean, A, that sounds a bit pervy.

And B, if you're sitting on a pumpkin, the chances are people will probably give you a wide birth.

A lot of space, and you will have it all to yourself.

No one's fighting for pumpkin space, pumpkin butt space.

And he also said, Rather than love, rather than money, rather than fame, give me truth.

Which are words I think I said to an audience at the Manchester Comedy Store at a gig some years ago, and the truth they gave me was very much, get off your shit.

As always, the section of the people is going straight in the bin.

And this week, in the bin, Robert Mugarby

is

in the bin.

He's in the cosmic bin.

Robert Mugabe is now Robert Mugabe was.

The former Zimbabwean president, described in some reports as a strong man, which is a polite term for psychopath in high office,

has popped his dictatorial clogs.

Robert Mugabe, a man who took the first syllables of his names very seriously indeed,

died at the

age of 95.

And there's been a lot of people calling for a f ⁇ eulogy for Robert Mugabe.

For newer bugle listeners, the fk eulogy was a term created by John Oliver in the aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden as a means of bidding farewell to some of the planet's biggest.

And I think Mugabe is unquestionably qualified.

I think he qualifies for a f eulogy.

Please.

Amen.

30-time winner of the Best Napoleon Imitator Award from the George Orwell's Animal Farm Appreciation Society.

And that is a hotly contested title.

Fair play to the kid.

Mugabe might, of course, have been remembered as a a hero who threw off the racist shackles of the Imperial era had it not been for the whole eviscerating his own company economically and politically, electoral fraud, brutal repression, corruption, incompetence, letting AIDS victims die, forced relocations of hundreds of thousands of people, ethnic cleansing, general or-round tyranny, beating up and or killing his political opponents, and a moustache that unashamedly showcased his leadership style on his upper lip.

Apart from that,

he could have had a different legacy.

Well, you nitpick at all these things, Andy, but no one's perfect.

You know, but frankly, yeah, I would rather be oppressed by my own than be oppressed by by an outsider and so I see where he's coming from.

I see where he's coming from.

He also ruins Zimbabwean cricket as well which

unforgivable.

His greatest crime?

Let history be the judge of that Tom.

The revolutionary turned dictator, a classic career switch and dance as old as politics itself.

He was finally ousted from office in a 2017 ousting since when he failed to land another job.

despite his impressive CV as a despot.

And that was despite reported interest from Hungary and Manchester United when Jose Mourinho left.

But it's a lesson to us all, the life of Robert Mugabe.

When someone tells you it's really time for you to do something with your life, that is not always good advice.

Let's have.

There's one thing we learned from the life of Mugabe: more layabouts.

My fondest Mugabe memory is.

Oh, God, how many times?

How many times?

I mean, you know, like candy pick one.

My friend texted me once saying, hey, Tommy, you're going out tonight.

And I want to text back, maybe, but I must have hit wrong buttons and my text just went with Mugabe.

Mugabe or will, Mugabe a won't.

Mugabe will

I knew him in school.

Yeah,

we learned the whole like, I'm a little despot shot and stuff.

We did that together.

And so I have really fond memories of him as well.

I think there was a similar thing to your story, Tom, in the original version of the Carly Ray Jepson song, Call Me Maybe, was originally.

That's how I learned things.

Didn't like the gays, Mugabe?

Not a huge fan.

No.

Described homosexuality as a filthy, filthy disease.

Comments echoed by one Andy Zaltzman on every episode of this podcast that I've ever appeared on.

And he claimed that if Zimbabwe tolerated homosexuality, the dead would rise up against us.

Well, now's your chance, Bobby.

I'm catching a flight to Harare.

I've got to start bumming my way across the country.

Come and get me, you dead fk.

You know, he's been remembered by a lot of people who are in their 60s as someone who

sort eviscerated their pensions and destroyed their incomes and didn't allow them to retire.

And then there are 25-year-olds who are like, you know, but the guy that came after him was much worse.

So we kind of miss him, which is just so damn millennial.

They all want, like, you know, you remember the time when we used to shit in chamber pots because these modern toilets are too much.

They're very good at instant nostalgia, millennials, I think.

Yeah.

So Robert McGalby is in the bin.

Top story this week.

Oh, for f's sake, Britain.

Is this all we've got?

I would like to give you a quick summary of everything that has happened in British politics in the last seven days, but that would not be possible or indeed desirable for anyone who wishes to be able to face the day with any sense of optimism or hope.

It has been an utterly crazy week of

parliamentary shenanigans, of people wanting elections, not wanting elections, people resigning, being turfed out, crossing sides, Boris Johnson's brother quitting.

And Boris Johnson himself

saying some truly extraordinary things as he tends to.

It's hard to say exactly what the situation is now because I've not checked for the last minute and a half.

And also, you're not going to be listening to this until about at least 24 hours after we record it.

So, frankly, who knows?

We might be a small province of Iceland by tomorrow.

We just don't know but Boris Johnson was was asked at a question after giving a speech in front of a load of police officers who apparently had not been told they were going to be used as a backdrop for some political grandstanding

I mean it's not the least kind of

in terms of visuals

standing in front of a load of people in uniform giving a political speech I mean it's not you know it's not Nuremberg no it's Mugabe-esque

Mugabe at best

particularly in a non-consensual setting but I mean he was it was a bizarre bizarre speech, in which he kind of rambled incoherently for a bit.

And then he was asked whether he would delay Brexit.

And he said, I'd rather be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit.

Now, I have a number of issues with this.

One, it's obviously not true.

Two, yeah, I mean, it is his life.

I'm not going to tell him how to live it or not to live it.

Three, this is typical Boris Johnson.

You know, just anything to get on the television.

His own corpse in a ditch.

You can just imagine the conversation.

Dominic Cummings whispering in his ear, Prime Minister, I've got another plan to make sure we control the news agenda for the next 48 hours.

Do tell Dominic, you know how people are weirdly obsessed with unsolved crimes?

Yeah.

Dead in a ditch or delay Brexit.

Even in this world of unnecessary binary choices, are those the only two options?

Where's that referendum?

Put that to the people.

Should we delay Brexit or kill Boris Johnson and dump him into a ditch?

Ditch or delay?

Now, I am campaigning for the ditch vote.

I know it's a complex question with a binary choice, but I just think that making Boris Johnson dead and putting him in a ditch is what we need to do to take our country back.

Right.

He's putting the question to the people.

He's cameroning it.

Okay.

He's giving us his options.

That's right.

He's just floating the idea to see how it plays in the polls, and then we'll see.

Do we want him dead?

I mean, I don't want Boris Johnson dead in a ditch.

I want him alive in a ditch permanently.

Like the troll, he essentially is.

But I think, you know, we'll keep him humanely fed and sheltered and alive, but in a ditch.

Ironically, of course, you know, he says he wants to be dead in a ditch, but he wouldn't be dead in a ditch for very long, so that's kind of pointless because people who are dead in ditches tend to get removed from ditches on health and safety grounds.

Thank you, Brussels.

Just butt out that our Prime Ministers choose to be decomposing in a ditch if they want to.

And it's...

I mean, it's typical Boris Johnson, isn't it?

Just wanting to get the newspaper headlines.

Prime Minister found dead in a ditch.

Police suspect overdose of Brexit and mole.

And it's classic Boris Johnson.

It It would be harrowing for his family.

Other people would have to clean up his mess.

Classic.

And also, one final thing.

Why a ditch?

Why not?

Where is the patriotism in that?

Everywhere has ditches.

Why not a good Anglo-Saxon barrow?

Oh.

You know, old Anglo-Saxon burial mound, a proper British barrow.

I'm starting to think he's not the real patriot he claims he is.

And where is his henge?

This makes so much sense.

You know my favorite thing about that when he was using, when he was doing that speech in front of the police was how one of the cops nearly fainted.

Oh, yes.

And I was like, I think she fainted because she was like, oh my God, it's an option for him to be dead in a ditch.

I think she had one of those joyful swoons, you know?

It's also possible that she was just, you know, took it upon herself to be a metaphor for Britain as a whole as the Prime Minister stood there and proceeded to talk as lucidly as a turd in an engine.

So,

Adith, you were saying to me before we started recording that you've been trying to understand British politics.

Yeah.

And how's that gone?

Not very well.

The only thing I've understood so far is that Boris Johnson seems like an Instagram influencer.

Like he comes live and then he says nothing and then he sort of sends these like massive sort of mandates where he's like, I would rather be dead in a ditch.

And people are not like, yeah, okay, go die in a ditch.

It's just mind-boggling that people are not like, yeah, go ahead, kill yourself in a ditch.

So that's kind of what I've understood so far.

I've seen Jacob Reese Mog,

which

sounds like the scientific name for like a swamp insect.

And he looks like a human straw,

which is kind of like empty on the inside.

I don't understand

what happened.

What was happening in that discussion?

Were they not discussing the die part of do or die?

That he was sprawled out like one of his French girls to be drawn.

Like, what was going on?

It was truly extraordinary.

For those of you who've not seen it, it is worth looking at him lounging across the seats of the House of Commons as Parliament fretted and frothed about the defining issue of the times, the country tearing itself apart under this unbridgeable chasm that was chiseled open by Jacob Reese Morgan and people like him.

And he was there lounging across these seats like some pre-Raphaelite lovely as if to say i will never find myself sexier than i do now

i mean he had a full raging whole body stonkon for himself i think at that point and there was outrage the most british thing even amongst all the horrors the economic crash that will result as a no-deal brexit people still find the time to be outrage about slouching and not having proper posture in the house of commons slouching in the house of commons was actually punishable by death right up until 1964.

the only exception for that rule was in the House of Lords, where, of course, the curvature of the spine is very common due to the inbreeding.

So they do let them off.

They did have to kill them.

But if House of Commons, if you weren't pushing your shoulders back, you were dead, me.

Brutal start.

Jacob Reesmog, father of various children, including daughters Anachronista and Heredita, and sons Bilius and Pompus,

also compared a doctor.

a very eminent NHS doctor who'd warned about the dangers of medicine shortages in the event of a no-deal Brexition with another doctor who had endangered the lives of thousands, hundreds of thousands of children by lying about vaccinations, which is the equivalent of comparing a mechanic who's warning that you might want to have new brake pads on your car with someone who has just cut the brake cables on your car.

Both have something to do with you having a car crash, but it doesn't make them morally equal.

Some people are jumping ship.

Boris Johnson's brother, Joe Johnson, is out.

I'm confused.

I I don't know whether I find Joe Johnson attractive because I I see photos of him and I think oh hello but I think that's just my brain who's so used to seeing Boris Johnson who looks like a hairy towed ale and then it sees Joe Johnson and thinks gosh there's been a real improvement here like it's so much better than the others

I think Boris Johnson is Joe Johnson's Dorian Gray painting that's how I would describe it

But asked about the departure of his brother, the Prime Minister said, look, people disagree about the EU.

The way to unite the country, I'm afraid, is to get this thing done.

Now, I'm not sure if that was one continuous sentence or whether just halfway through he let out a moment of terrified honesty.

So I'd be more like, the way to unite the country, I'm afraid!

Oh, God, I'm afraid, is to get this thing done.

Tone of voice.

Yeah, it's also the tone.

I've just read in the text, so that's how it works.

Unite the country.

Surely we can agree at this point that however Brexit happens, it's not going to unite the country.

No.

Like saying we need to get Brexit done to unite the country is like saying we need to get more tanks on the street to help everyone chill out a bit more.

I think the only way that it could result in uniting the country is if we accept that Britain is

currently sort of sliced into various bits, is that it will essentially liquidise Britain like

a neutriblast

and it will come together as some sort of national milkshake.

I don't know.

It could probably be shut out.

Possibly, I mean

let's not take that metaphor too far.

Joe Johnson said there was an unresolvable tension between the family bonds and his loyalty to Boris Johnson against the national interest.

Boris Johnson himself made that call long ago and put loyalty to Boris Johnson ahead of everything else.

A number of people have

tweeted and emailed

us about calling Boris Johnson Boris rather than Johnson as it's sort of over-familiar.

I know this irritates a lot of people and it does it is kind of difficult when there's other Johnsons involved.

So from now on I will endeavour to call Boris by his correct name which is of Dominic.

I have to admit, though, my favorite thing about this entire Brexit thing is the weakening of the pound

or the pounding of the pound, whatever.

Because

what a joy.

What a joy.

I used to worry about exchange rates all the time.

And now I whip out my debit card and I use it to buy the depression medication that I need to deal with the state of the world.

So thank you.

That is one upside.

One downside is: I don't think I can get a refund on my visa.

Is it possible to like exchange that or anything?

Or I'm pretty much stuck with that.

Yeah, I'm afraid not.

No,

I think we are probably at some point going to go back to an old-fashioned pig-based bartering economy, which I think is really what made Britain great in the first place.

There were mass defections, as you said, Tom.

Well, not so much defections as expulsions as as well.

There was a glorious moment when Philip Lee, the Tory MP, left the Conservative Party five seconds after Boris Johnson had stood up in the House of Commons to start talking in the Brexit debate this week.

And you just saw on the TV coverage Boris Johnson's eyes just

drifting to the right as he saw his parliamentary majority of one walking across the chamber to

sit on the Liberal Democrat bench like a naughty ice hockey player.

that's quite a heckle we've all had walkouts of our comedy shows but i haven't seen them walk into like daniel kitson next door and say i prefer this

but anyway he has brought this upon himself by being provocatively divisive within his own his own party and as machiavelli himself wrote if you put your cock on a barbecue someone will think it's a sausage

he basically sacked They sacked 21 of their own MPs with this majority now of minus one.

They then sacked 21 more and removed the parliamentary whip.

And now, if you don't know what parliamentary whips are, well, frankly, congratulations.

Try and maintain that ignorance because it is one of the more baffling elements of

politics.

Does it have something to do with parliamentary BDSM?

I think it is something very much along those.

I mean, basically, that is what democracy is.

And it's just a question of who has the whip and who has the chains.

Brexit is Britain saying, tie me up and spank me, daddy.

Spank me harder.

Yes, unfortunately, unfortunately, we've forgotten the safe word.

And those electrodes on your balls are firing like crazy.

Oh,

just have to take your word for that, Tom.

So they sacked 21 Tory MPs who'd voted against the government in the debate on

basically controlling the legislative agenda in this proroguing of parliament.

21, including many former cabinet ministers, bulwarks of the Conservative Party over decades and

decades, for the crime of not voting with the government.

Now, this crime, of course, when Theresa May was Prime Minister, was committed by basically everyone who is now in a position of high authority in the cabinet.

Now, we might not have a manufacturing sector anymore in Britain, but we can shit 100 megatons of hypocrisy for breakfast.

There's been so many defections.

This week, the British Parliament has had more defects than a household appliance manufactured outside the reach of EU regulations, Andy.

That's what I'd say.

Luciana Berger left the Labour Party back in February.

She believed the party was institutionally anti-Semitic.

She joined Change UK.

She has now joined the Liberal Democrats, a party so committed to anti-racism and fairness that they accepted former Tory MP Philip Lee, a man who once campaigned against immigrants who are HIV positive from being able to enter Britain.

So it's kind of like quitting Radiohead because you think the band's become a bit too self-indulgent.

Then a couple of months later, joining a super group composed of Bono, Bjork, and Shire LaBeouf.

Now, despite all this, you would have thought with the government in such complete disarray and the confusion abound on whether there's going to be this election or not, that the government would be in real trouble.

But the Conservatives are 10 points ahead of Labour in the opinion polls.

The Conservatives are doing shitly in the opinion polls.

They're around about, I think, 32, 33%, but nowhere near as shitly as Labour, whom Jeremy Corbyn has driven slowly into some kind of industrial deep freeze.

The Liberal Democrats are doing less shitly than normal, but still quite shitly.

And of course, with the first past-the-post system, they, the Brexit Party and the Greens, can do as well as they like, but they still won't get many seats in Parliament because, well, what was right for Britain in the 18th century must be right for Britain now.

So we are in this utterly unfathomable situation where

the government is falling apart, but is still in quite a strong position to win an election.

There's huge opposition to the government, but it's fragmented in this kind of kaleidoscope of slightly different positions.

And

there is no good way out of this now.

And Corbyn has been banging on for election for ages, saying, bring on election, bring on election, is now like, actually, hold my election, if that's cool.

Yes.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm sure it's like that.

You know, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were sitting in that rocket, they must have thought, uh,

we just give it a few more minutes

just in case it goes badly.

Let me rehearse this line again.

I'd hate to screw it up, but I learned.

Who will we turn to for advice in these troubled times, Andy?

Like, you want someone who's smart, like a powerful commentator, who's knowledgeable about the way the world works.

Well, I'd imagine you'd probably want to turn to former Australian cricket legend Shane Ward.

Shane Warden, exactly, absolutely.

He's weighed in.

Normally, I would think that would be so ridiculous to ask a cricketer their opinion on a complex political situation.

But at this point in Brexit, I'm like, f ⁇ it.

Why not?

Okay.

Warny's brain is so addled with alcohol and sexting and hairline treatments.

Maybe he'll be able to solve it all with some lateral thinking.

His brain might be molded differently.

He was asked what he thinks about the whole thing.

He's telling Britain to just get on with it, which is a very hot take.

I don't think anyone else has come up with that.

So thank you, Warny.

He did say, Boris is good, everyone's great, get on with it.

And I love that.

Everyone's great, but Boris is just good.

Implying that Boris is so shit as a human being, he's not even included in the term everyone,

which I think is a pretty sick burn from Warny.

I mean, there are certain subjects you should listen to Shane Warne on.

The art of leg spin bowling.

He's excellent insight from the greatest exponent of cricket's most difficult skill also can be very informative on the game past the pigs of which he is uh a vocal fan judging from certain excerpts of his cricket comments he only talked he talked about the game past the pigs for a good 15 minutes one time

about uh and it is unquestionably a terrific game it's a great game wait so you all have three years and then this guy came up with get on with it yes yeah this this this is advice that could have come three years ago and would have changed the course of democracy to be honest the great problem has not been you know the suggestion of getting on with it.

It's just that no one knows what it is.

We need a follow-up interview with Warny, I think.

Yes, and it is a phrase generally used by people who've not really thought through what it is or what it will result in.

Law news now.

Aditi, you are the Bugle's legal correspondent.

There's been some sensational court case in.

Quite annoying, by the way.

I studied law for six weeks before I dropped out and did comedy.

But no, you go on.

I mean, as a woman, and especially as an Indian woman on the internet, this is a subject I'm an expert on.

That's right.

Cocks.

A couple in rural France took a cock named Maurice and his owner, Corinne, to court because this cock was crowing and not cocking, I guess, at 6:30 every morning and therefore ruining what is their rural country holiday experience.

Having said that, this cock has won the case, which is normally the case with most cocks.

And

the couple was ordered to pay this cock

1,000 euros, which is there is nothing worse than a cock, more than a rich cock.

Because you would have thought in that case they'd have been asked to pay a paltry sum.

Andy it's been a really tough week, polit politically and like just as a human in this country.

And I feel like we don't need to feather the pain.

Feather the pain, did you?

What?

Did you say feather the pain?

No, I didn't.

No, I wouldn't say that, and I never would.

And you deliberately misheard me, actually.

There hasn't been this much drama around a French cock since Louis XIV.

The court are very essentially cocking a snook at this couple and their complaint, declaring that animal noises are a part of France's heritage, which also explains Daft Punk's latest album.

But a cock that crows at 6:30 in the morning?

could this be a French cock that's woke?

That's my

report.

Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen.

Cool, cool, cool, cool.

Indian moon landing news now.

Adita, you are our Indian space correspondent.

You're dead.

As an Indian woman on the internet, this is a subject of my expertise, unsolicited dick.

Now, wait, sorry, wrong expertise.

Damn it.

Damn it.

India is going to buy a 2.50 1.55 a.m.

this morning, depending on when you're listening to this podcast.

There will be a Vikram on the surface of the moon tonight.

Chandrayaan 2, which has left India's orbit a week ago, has sort of dropped off its lunar module onto the surface.

This will be the first human

space thingy.

As I'll clearly as well.

Come on, give me this correspondence graph.

I'm sorry, but if you don't know the real terms, Tom, it's...

Human space thingy?

But there's no humans on it, are there?

It's a human-made space thingy.

A human-made space thing.

That's the correct term.

I apologize.

I apologize.

My degree in human space thingies confines me sometimes.

That will be landing closest to the south pole of the moon.

So we're attempting a sort of reverse cowgirl on the surface of the moon.

So, you know, one of the greatest things that I, it's like right now, they're going to be watching it live as it descends on the surface of the moon.

The prime minister is going to be watching it with a bunch of school kids at one in the night, which I don't know what he's doing with all these kids awake at one in the night.

Having said that, one of the most delightful things about this is that today, 30 days of the siege into Kashmir, where we don't know what's happening in Kashmir, but we can watch live footage of the moon.

So, um.

I was reading that the

Indian moon rover will

moonwalk at a speed of one centimeter per minute.

And this is the same speed managed by humans on a crowded Mumbai station platform.

And the area it's landing, the temperature can veer between 1,000 Celsius when the sun shines and minus 170 Celsius, which is the same as in Britain if I'm whinging about the weather as any guy.

And apparently,

there's two, there's an orbiter and a rover

and a lander.

And they're going to.

They're going to take selfies.

Millennial spacecraft.

This is so rough.

That's how human space thingies work.

Right, okay, okay, that's the human element.

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

Do tune in next week when we will have last week's bugle.

And depending on what happens in Britain, we may have next week's bugle next week as well.

So we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, oh, some exciting tennis.

Serena Williams, aged 38, is playing Bianca Andrescu, a 19-year-old Canadian, in, I think this is the biggest age gap in a Grand Slam tennis final for, let's call it in layman's terms, a fk of a long time.

And well, from an Australian point of view, if Serena Williams wins, she will equal Margaret Court's record of most Grand Slam wins, I think, is 24.

And the big question is: can Serena, A, equal Margaret Court's record and B, do it without then becoming a religious fundamentalist who hates gays?

That's the big challenge for Serena.

I believe in you, Serena.

I think she could probably pull off both of those.

Yeah, good luck.

Margaret Court did the first half all right.

On the cricket, do tune into the unbelievable podcast.

Can you tune into a podcast?

Tune into it.

I mean, it just seems sort of the right term to use.

That I do with Felicity Ward about the ashes this year.

So I think I banged on about cricket too much on the bugle last week.

Do listen to Unbelievable

as the series comes towards its thrilling conclusion.

A couple of gigs to alert you to.

Alice Fraser, Bugle co-host Extraordinaire, is recording Savage, her brilliant stand-up show on the 10th of September at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, Australia.

Tiff Stevenson has a show at the Union Hall in New York on the 14th of September.

And there are Bugle Live shows in Glasgow and Newcastle on the 7th and 8th of October.

Do go to all of those,

but don't fly there because it's bad for the environment.

Just run

very fast.

Aditi, do you have any shows to plug?

9th through 14th of September, I am performing at Soho Theatre.

And on the 13th, there will be a special recording for an online platform.

And so please come by.

Tickets are available on the internet.

Tom, anything to plug?

Well, this comes out on Saturday tonight.

I have my final night at the Soho Theatre of my show, Enough.

And then I'm just around.

Just hang around.

Just find Tom on a bench.

Who books that, actually?

I know some people.

You know a guy, thanks.

And

I will be back at Soho Theatre with my annual end of year Andy's Ultimate's The Certifiable history show

in December and January details forthcoming.

Thank you very much for listening, Buglers.

Do enjoy the spectacular sight of Britain tearing itself limb from limb over the next few days.

And we'll be back next week.

Until then, we will play you out with some more lies from our premium voluntary subscribers.

To join them to contribute whatever you want to the Bugle on a one-off or occurring basis, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

It's now time for the lies.

John Forrester frequently wonders if there is any more tragic creature in the universe than the ambitious goldfish.

I mean, just imagine.

Nicola Lawson thinks that given the enduring success of ice hockey as a sport, other traditionally non-ice-based sports should try an ice-based version.

She would particularly like to see ice pole vaulting, ice trampolining and above all, ice horse racing.

David Murphy quite likes the Eiffel Tower but would prefer it if all the gaps were grouted in.

Anonymous donor MS heard about the hanging gardens of Babylon and thinks that no matter how badly behaved the gardens had been, that was way too severe a punishment.

Petter Durietz calculated that climbing the 8,840 meter high Mount Everest was equivalent to going up the stairs at his house approximately 2,430 times.

I'd probably do that in a year, boasts the amateur mountaineer.

It's no big deal, and it's a hell of a lot safer.

Anonymous donor B.S.

once spent 15 minutes admiring what he thought was an intriguingly modern stained glass window in a shop, before he realised that it was in fact a television showing a prolonged safety exchange in a defensively minded snooker match.

James Vincent does not think the hammerhead shark has been correctly named.

This realization came after he tried to use a toy replica hammerhead shark as a hammer.

It did not work.

He injured his hand.

Nicole McLaughlin invented an automatically rotating lid and an automatically rotating jar, but forgot to make them go in opposite directions, so has quietly shelved the products for now.

Tony Ayuto thinks fewer countries would go to war if the United Nations banned all weapons apart from the toy lightsaber and all forms of military transport apart from unicycles.

David Allen, despite not being the 1960s England cricketer of the same name, sometimes wakes up in the middle of a dream in which he's been selected as an off-spin bowler for England in a test match against West Indies at the Oval in 1963, a match for which of course Allen, the cricketer, was not selected.

Simon Witham thinks national productivity would be improved in all countries if the main evening news bulletin concluded with the newsreader saying, that's all for today, now, bedtime, come on, you've got an early start in the morning, off to bed with you.

And Michael Ford does not think pigeon racing will ever be as big as football as a global spectator sport, but does think that some kind of 11-aside game involving trying to get a ball into a goal played by pigeons might be absolutely sensational.

Here endeth this week's lies.

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.