Bugle 4115 - Cricket World Cup Souvenir Edition

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 4115 of The Bugle.

I am Andy Zoltzmann.

This is the 19th of July 2019.

We are in London because of, well, fate and convenience, super combination.

I am Andy Zoltzmann because of both of the above, Ditho.

And joining me me today the Southern Hemisphere's leading export with all due respect to the novelty penguin.

It's Alice Fraser.

Hello Andy, hello buglers.

I am Alice Fraser.

I know my name is Alice Fraser because my father's name is Michael Fraser and his father's name was Adolf Friedenberg.

Right.

So logically

you've averaged out.

I've averaged out as Alice more or less.

We are recording on the 19th of July 2019 and well this is one of the most historic anniversaries we've ever had to report.

Next Wednesday is the anniversary of a truly, truly momentous day, the most action-packed day in the history of the world.

1654 years ago on Wednesday, 24th of July, that year, or as it became known, 24-7, 365.

On that day, it all happened.

St.

Jamilius of Silicosis hovered for the entire day above a crocodile-infested swamp, clutching three babies, held aloft only by a godly swarm of giant moths.

Roman Emperor Thelonius Maximax marched the 8th Legion, a Roman Empire record 43.3 miles in a day in a race against his rival co-emperor Titus Anabolicus, before being assassinated three times in the same hour by three different bodyguards.

The entire population of the Thracian city of Klikobedigi was destroyed and rebuilt their homes in the single day after misunderstanding a Delphic oracle about peeling an orange.

In China, Emperor Orji of the Jin dynasty imposed a 24-hour compulsory flob to keep the rice field hydrated during a drought.

And over in the Mayan civilization, the Mayan warlock Yike Snakahakasak forced his people to clear 200 square miles of Mexican rainforest for a giant game of football, which was then called off because the referee pulled his hamstring warming up.

And here in Britain, the Conservative Party annual conference voted in favour of tax cuts for the wealthy.

So what a day that was.

Or wasn't.

Well, we'll just never know.

That's the point in history, isn't it?

On the 19th of July,

which is the anniversary of today, as we recall, 64 AD, the Great Fire of Rome began.

It raged for six days with a brief interval for half-time, destroyed two-thirds of the city, whilst Emperor Nero famously rocked out on his liar.

And who would have thought Nero had become the role model and inspiration for so many of today's democratic elected leaders?

Funny old world.

Nero, very famous for bringing liars into politics.

And on this day in 1545, the English warship, the Mary Rose, sank.

But it wasn't done yet.

Just 437 years later, it lived up to its surname and rose again.

Typical Brit, never beaten.

An icon for Brex Britannia, the Mary Rose.

We might sink without trace now, but in four centuries' time, we could easily be back, albeit only as a wreck and a museum piece to be studied as a lesson for future generations.

As always, a section of the bugle is going in the bin.

This week, after the runaway success of the face app that edits photos of your face to show younger or older versions of you we review the voice app

which makes you sound older or younger than you currently are.

So I'm going to test it on myself.

Okay let's find out what I'm going to sound like in 40 years time.

I'll just switch the app on.

Hello buglers and welcome to this week's show.

Top story this week.

Why you should all vote conservative and the poor get what they deserve.

oh shit i'm gonna swing right

here's what i sounded uh sounded like uh 44 and a half years ago

typical idealistic lefty whinging about everything expecting people to provide everything for you and here's what i'm gonna sound like in just three seconds time

later on in today's show we'll be talking about the escaped hippopotamus that almost ended up being later on in today's show we'll be talking about the escaped hippopotamus that almost ended up being Emperor of Bavaria in 1732.

My god, that was that was eerily accurate.

Eerily.

Do you want to

Alice?

Why don't you give it a spin as well?

I'll just set it.

Let's find out what you're going to sound like in 31 years' time precisely.

Oh boy, I'm really successful right now.

Who would have thought?

Alice, I'm entrusting you with Top Story this week.

Top story this week, unfortunately, again, is Trump News.

Let me interrupt you there, Alice.

Trumpets, please.

This is a truly historic bugle.

A first in the history of bugle casting.

A landmark moment for all humanity to rank alongside the supposed moon landings, the first slicing of bread, the realization that round things roll better than square things, and the first fish climbing out of the sea shouting who says there's no eye in evolution

because this is the first bugle ever in which England have been men's cricket world champions champions not just of the world but of the entire universe and not just at anything but at cricket the greatest thing the greatest thing in this or any other universe it's too good Andy you've uh you've won the sport that you invented yes

and what a moment it was uh or i mean possibly the greatest moment in the history of humanity.

England winning the Cricket World Cup on Sunday at Lords, albeit that they didn't actually win the final, it was a tie, and they didn't even win the emergency playoff micro final after the tied main final.

That was also a tie.

England won on a bizarre, illogical, and previously unnoticed technicality that everyone now agrees is completely absurd and assumes will never be used to decide a tournament again.

And England only tied in the first base.

It was a combination of the most outrageous moment of pure luck in the history of sport, loopholes in the laws of the game, and erroneous officiating, but still world champions!

Yay!

World's greatest moment ever, and deservedly so, because we invented the game first, as you so correctly pointed out.

You made the rules, it's only right that they should work unfairly in your favour.

That's right.

And then we let almost everyone else have a go at being champions before we finally allowed ourselves to indulge that fantasy.

My workplace for the day on Sunday was the BBC radio commentary box at Lords to see a game of grinding pressure and tautness suffocating nerves and unremittingly intrusive atmosphere-crushing mindless pop music that all built slowly like a 1970s horror film and then at the end erupted into chaotic magnificence and uncontrollable tension.

I think the commentary of that final hour is available on the BBC website and or the BBC Sounds app.

If you listen to the BBC coverage you won't hear much of me in that last hour because A, I was a gibbering nervous wreck.

Not because I so desperately wanted England to win, which I did, but because cricket is incredible and this was up there with the most incredible cricket that there's ever been.

So essentially it was double incredible.

And also B, there were several other people in the commentary box who were also gibbering nervous wrecks.

So I figured I might as well remove one of the gibbering nervous wrecks from the commentary conversation and see my job is to provide stats and who the f needs stats when to all intents and purposes the universe was teetering on the brink of destruction and or salvation which is basically what seemed to be happening to summarize England were playing New Zealand they were losing uh then just about winning, then losing again, then really, really losing with only four balls to go.

There were 15 runs needed.

Now, I can't explain all the intricacies of this for any buglers who are tragically untouched by the glory of cricket today.

But basically, at a generous guess, at that point, England had about a one in ten chance of winning.

Then Ben Stokes, who batted very well to dig England out of a deep hole, but not quite well enough not to leave England in another almost inescapable hole, hit a six, which is a bit like a home run, but better because it's cricket, not baseball, which is good, but isn't cricket.

Now England needs nine to win of three balls.

Winning chance, now maybe one in seven, one in eight.

Next ball, Stokes hits it to a fielder on the boundary.

He sprints one run, comes back for the second run, dives to avoid being run out.

Look it up.

If this isn't making sense, it's cricket.

It's not supposed to make make sense.

The ball then ricochets off Stokes' bat accidentally and runs to the boundary for four bonus unearned undeserved runs.

Now, obviously, there should be a law that stops runs being scored after an accidental ricochet of the batsman, but it's cricket, so there isn't.

Apparently, Stokes asked the umpires not to giving them the bonus four runs, but it's cricket, so they can't.

Sometime later, an ex-umpire pointed out that the second run before the ricochet shouldn't have counted due to law 19.8, which no one has ever applied or mentioned in the 38 years I've been watching cricket because it obviously makes no logical sense, but no one had ever applied or mentioned it in 38 years, so it wasn't applied or mentioned until the day after by one person, by which time it couldn't be applied.

Anyway, cricket.

So instead of needing seven runs off two balls, which again, probably one in eight to one in ten chance of winning,

slightly better of tying the game to take it to this tiebreaker super over, England now needed three off two to win, two off two to tie, and they're now emphatically favourites and still manage not to win.

They get one off each of the last two balls, and it's a tie.

I'm not giving the full details of all of this.

This is very much a condensed summary.

At which point, we go to the super over six more balls for each team to bat and bowl and it now becomes clear that if the super over is tied England will be champions not for the logical reason that for example they did better in the tournament as a whole or beat New Zealand previously in their group match a couple of weeks before or had brighter more cheerful kits lovely bright sky blue kits for England not the eternal darkness and grim pessimism of the New Zealanders goth channeling pitch black misery were

or as we said because we invented the sport in the first place or that as a nation we just desperately needed something anything to cheer us up and distract us from the from the miserable black hole of brexit but no england will win if the super over is tied because they'd hit more boundaries in the game than new zealand albeit the exact same number of runs which is basically like deciding a tied presidential election based on whose voters have the neater handwriting on their ballot papers anyway after 11 balls of uh each the super over six uh for for england batting which they scored 15 runs five for new zealand from which they've scored 14 they New Zealand needs two off the last ball they hit it to an English fielder on the boundary they won run they can't get back for the second the batsmen's run out, the super over playoff is tied, England winlessly win the World Cup, I momentarily lose my journalistic objectivity in the commentary box, as you may hear on the PBC commentary, and England goes collectively cricket nuts, or the crickety parts of England

go cricket nuts, and New Zealand, being New Zealand, take the defeat with superhuman, almost irritating equanimity.

Any other country in the same position would have exploded with rage.

The internet would have melted at the injustice of it all.

But as it is, England's a brilliant one-day side has given the country one of its greatest sporting moments.

It was one of the greatest cricket matches ever played for drama, for importance within the context of cricket and for pure unadulterated absurdity.

It was possibly the single most zany, irrational, dramatic, wonderful, lunatic, inexplicable, soul-tingling, brain-frazzling hour of sport that has ever happened, albeit with a hell of a lot of footnotes attached.

And there was I doing my literal childhood dream job as the sport that has obsessed me since 1981 produced perhaps its greatest and certainly most exciting moment.

In summary, I was quite pleased I didn't call in sick on Sunday morning.

For those of you who are not in the studio, I've just found out what Andy's hair is for.

It's currently standing up in a glowing halo and fritzing out sparks of electricity.

You know, New Zealand took it so well that they actually nominated Ben Stokes as New Zealander of the Year.

They did, yes.

Which was a lovely touch because he was born in New Zealand and moved to England as a child.

I mean, that's how you lose.

Yeah.

That's a classy losing team.

And I think that's a a good thing.

Especially given that they didn't technically lose.

Yeah, you can't be a good loser if you haven't actually lost.

It was truly extraordinary and utterly ridiculous.

I'm going to read my cricket poem to you that I wrote on the bus on the way here.

It's not that funny.

Shin in pad and hand in glove, they stride the grass.

We stand in stands declaiming love.

It comes to pass that cricket is as cricket does.

When mighty lads with maybe brains and hearts of brass, by hitting things, drive crowds insane, a sport of class.

Yes, cricket is as cricket does.

With civil clap and sandwiched bagged on seated ass, with flagging flap of flapping flag, they roaring chant.

Yes, cricket is as cricket does.

And Andy stats above the fray, and boxing glass counts tit for tat as players play.

While tits and tats heave in the crowd, a ball hits wicket, they rise as one and cry out loud.

Now that is cricket.

That's beautiful.

I think the rest of today's bit beautiful is just going to be an afterthought.

Right, so back to reality now, which are words I've been fearing, saying for at least seven weeks, Aliceet's return to the top story, which is the latest news from the beta version of Gilead.

Yes, Andy, in Trump News Now, US politicians, musicals, and people who don't like racism have voiced disgust and alarm after a crowd at a rally responded to Donald Trump's attack on the legitimacy of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with chance of send her back.

Trump has claimed that he wasn't for the chance.

He said, I was not happy with it.

I disagree with it.

And he claimed to reporters that he started speaking really quickly,

despite the fact that he absolutely didn't.

As the video playback shows, and Trump made no attempt to interrupt the crowd for about 13 seconds.

In fact, he sort of stood back.

Look, here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

I worry about this kind of story because I think it is entirely conceivable that Trump is not actually more racist than your average, very rich white man in his 70s.

But if he isn't, that means he's totally willing to say and do racist shit in order to get votes from people.

And in some ways, that feels even more icky.

Like David Duke has the courage of his convictions, at least.

And say what you like about Hitler, he must have been a really cute baby.

How else do you think he got past all of those time travelers?

Trump only said various things in the wake of it, all began with this this series of of of tweets um uh inviting um

for uh Democrat congresswomen to uh quote go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.

When I first read that I just assumed he meant the USA,

with its soaring inequality, its homelessness, its racism, its institutional capitalism driven drug addiction and the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

Just pipping El Salvador and Turk menace onto that coveted title with six hundred and fifty five slammies per 100,000 population.

2 million plus people in jail, 20% of them unsentenced.

I mean, clearly, they do need to go back to that country and help fix it all bit that they were already there.

So what made him say this?

We've got a Bugle Prize quiz today.

What two things do the following four Democratic representatives all have in common that might make President Donald Trump attack them on Twitter and then devote 20 minutes of a speech in Greenville to verbally assaulting them?

Those people are Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayana Presley,

and Rashida Tlaib.

A, they are all Democrats and from immigrant backgrounds.

Well, that's not the correct answer because Donald Trump hasn't similarly assaulted other people who are Democrats or have been Democrats or have funded the Democrats and are from immigrant backgrounds for whatever reason.

And if he did do that, he spent every morning head-butting his bathroom mirror screaming, f off, f off.

Was it B, because none of them has ever set foot on the moon, which this week of all weeks seems at best negligent and at worst unpatriotic, nor has has any of those four ever had Make America Great tattooed on their forehead, so they can't be that fussed about America.

Is it C that they all have slightly too many vowels in their names and none of them has ever won the World Snooker Championship?

Or is it D

another reason?

So, anyway, I've no idea what the answer is to that Bugle Prize because no idea what two aspects of those four human beings he thinks is politically advantageous to exploit to his core voter base.

And for a bonus point, what specific additional aspect of Ilhan Omar might have prompted Trump's crowd to chant send her back

at that rally in Greenville any guesses I guess I guess we'll never know

Trump said well various things as you said apparently tried to disavow himself from the chant the send her back a chant now Trump so often makes Pontius pilot look like he was completely unfussed about manual cleanliness He said, I was not happy with it.

I disagree with it about the chant.

It was quite a chant, and I felt a little bit badly about it, he said, a little bit.

I started speaking very quickly, 13 seconds later, but it started up rather fast, he said, as you probably noticed.

What Trump did not do, however, is A, inform his own mouth that he disagreed with it, or tell his own face that he was not happy with it.

And bearing in mind that he was in possession of a microphone and the president of the USA.

He could quite easily have said something or even just pulled a sad face, but he didn't do that.

He could have said, can you please all stop that?

He could have said, obviously, legally and morally, we can't and shouldn't send her back.

He could have said, come on, even I think this is getting a little bit Nuremberg-y.

Or

he could have said, he could have just tried to distract his crowd, who are not always the most independent-minded crowd.

They generally do what

he prompts them to do, the kind of Pavlovian support that he has.

He could have just said, look over there, it's a pigeon, and there would have been a chant of, it's a pigeon, it's a pigeon.

Or he could have said, who's hungry?

And everyone would have chanted, I want lunch, I want lunch.

That's the power he has.

Or he could have deliberately misunderstood them and said, centre back, you say.

Well, of course the two centre-backs were crucial to the victorious U.S.

women's national soccer team's triumph.

You want to see a centre-back on stage with me?

Why, sure.

Please welcome Becky Sauerbrun, who has 164 caps for the USA.

But he didn't do that.

He didn't do that.

He adopted his standard zero intolerance attitude towards mass displays of xenophobia and racism.

I think you can equate Trump's efforts to stop or even quell that chant as reminiscent reminiscent of Ronald McDonald's heroic efforts to stop children eating burgers, Neil Armstrong's determined refusal to step on the moon 50 years ago, or my efforts to stop thinking about the Cricket World Cup final at any point this week.

And he also

said, I do not have a racist bone in my body.

Now, I don't doubt that for a second.

Unfortunately, he does have a racist brain in his head and an ethically cancerous testicle of Beelzebub, where the average human being has a heart.

But his bones are fine.

In fact, his left femur has never stoked resentment against immigrants.

It's quite restrained.

Yeah, other big head plutocrat news, there is going to be a new prime minister, and it will almost certainly be Boris Johnson.

Apparently, more than a dozen ministers plan on quitting the moment Boris gets into power.

Yeah.

It's an awkward look whether that actually happens or not.

Either they don't quit and they look like fools, or Boris is the guy who turns up at the cool after-school party and all of a sudden the party is elsewhere.

It is odd, isn't it?

I mean America clearly not the only civilized democracy to be willfully driving stakes into the heart of its own political torso and the Johnson Junta is set to take power by this time next week.

We will have Johnson as our unelected overlord.

The Conservative Party membership, that sainted body chosen by God and imbued with divine insight to select our leader for us, looks set to send into Downing Street an ethical vacuum, a cynical opportunist, a celebri leech on the desiccated husk of British democracy, a vacillating vacillating shapeshifter with a moral compass that points unerringly towards his personal career north, a proven incompetent with a tendency toward language that is at best outdated, a five foot nine inch walking, talking mega-turd, unwanted, unneeded, undeserved, unsuitable, a living reproach for Britain's decades of political self-neglect.

Still, respect democracy, kids.

Respect democracy.

On the bright side, British MPs have approved an amendment from the opposition Labour Party which attempts to strengthen measures which are designed to try and stop Parliament being suspended in order to force a no-deal Brexit.

Basically, because Boris Johnson says that he will close the Parliament in order to force a no-deal Brexit.

So they're putting some measures in place to cockblock him before he's even, as it were, put the condom on.

On the bright side, as well, according to Newsnight, senior Tories seeking to block a no-deal Brexit are examining a radical plan involving asking the Queen to step in.

I've been saying this for ages on the bugle.

Get off your royal backside, get your sword out, and knock this place back into shape.

Well, they're propositioning, or they're proposing, they're thinking of proposing what is called a humble address to the Queen, which is where you say, please, madam, we've thrown our Krigger bowl into your backyard, could you please?

Which is exciting.

If passed, the address would say if a new Prime Minister ignored a vote rejecting no deal, the Queen would be asked to exercise her right as head of state to travel to the next EU summit, go back where she came from

and request an extension to the Article 50 process.

Oh, isn't democracy fun, Alice?

If you were to list all the reasons Boris Johnson should not be Prime Minister, well, you'd be dead by the end of it, much missed by family and friends.

You started getting concerned for your health around year 15 of your list of reasons, by which time you hadn't even got to his time as Foreign Secretary.

And we saw just another example of Johnsonian politics this week as he prepared for his hopefully short-lived and not too devastating stint as Prime Minister by railing against the EU law on the packaging of smoked fish.

At the Conservative Leadership Hustings, he held up a kipper, a smoked herring, a traditional British delicacy, which, like all British delicacies, is

oddly inedible,

and complained that the manufacturer of this kipper, who's from the

Isle of Man, was utterly furious with the EU regulations.

He said this, Boris Johnson, after decades of sending kippers like this through the post, he has had his costs massively increased by Brussels bureaucrats who've insisted that each kipper must be accompanied by this, a plastic ice pillow.

And pleasure, take back control of our regulatory framework.

Now, this would be fine, were it not for the fact that the regulation he was pretending to be so hacked off about was

nothing to do with the EU.

It might be a UK regulation, if anything, or more likely, he's just made it up.

And he got heavily criticised for this.

But in a way, I think, you know, is this not what we need our prime ministers to be doing?

Because things that are already in place, there's not much you can do about it.

But what if Brussels did impose this law on plastic ice pillows for kippers?

Where would Britain be then?

I mean, we did not build our empire by cushioning smoked fishes' heads.

And where will it end?

You know, if they're not doing this now, but might in the future.

What about all the other things that Brussels is not doing now, but might do in the future?

For example, forcing all first-born British children to be vacuum-packed from chin to toe when they go to school.

We can't risk that.

Making British dogs meow at burglars like Spanish cats.

I mean, they're not doing that, but what if they did?

And forcing cornflakes to be spherical.

He's standing up for the future of this nation by highlighting things that have not yet happened.

Apparently, the provenance of the kibbutz was false as well.

Yes.

It came from somewhere else.

Well, it came from the Isle of Man, which is neither in the UK nor the EU.

And of course, most food in the Isle of Man is transported on fast-moving motorcycles or three-pedaled bicycles.

This time next week, he will be our king, and we will bow down before him, like the vassals that we've become.

In old news, made moon again.

It is now 50 years since humans landed a man on the moon, and boy, are my arms tired.

While we should all unite to thank Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins for showing us a bright possible future that has completely failed to materialize for anyone but overindulged billionaires, we can also thank the research done by the men and women at NASA for many of our household products today, Andy.

Did you know NASA-related research has led to well-known consumer products, including Boflex home gyms and pet odor filters.

Also, rock grabbers, giant boots, the space suit which we all use today.

They invented apples for portable, self-contained food in space.

They invented household sex so the astronauts would have something to miss while they were gone.

On a social level, they were also a pioneer of trends like slow-motion jumping.

And they made it cool to go to the moon, something that is still cool today.

Interestingly, I would like to deflate a common myth.

They did not invent putting flags on things.

That was a corporate move by Big Sandwich to hold big sandwiches together.

And it was adopted by explorers in the process of colonization who famously liked sandwich.

I mean, it's

incredible to think it was only 50 years ago, and

now no one's on the moon.

I mean, who would have thought that

the number of people on the moon was three, well, on or near the moon, 50 years ago, and it's reduced to zero?

Yes, in fact, they probably made it less popular to go to the moon.

Yeah, puts everything in perspective.

And of course, what we've said on the bugle before, many people claim the moon landings were faked.

It wasn't just the Americans at it, though, the Russians, they faked the first dog in space.

It was, in fact, Yuri Gagarin in a dog outfit.

In American music news now, American maniac Jerry Foxhoven, director of Iowa's social services agency, has been fired for reasons that may or may not be related to his ongoing enthusiasm for sharing Tupac fandom in reply all emails.

The Associated Press obtained emails showing Foxhoven routinely sent 2-pack-based content to employees even after at least one complained to lawmakers.

Then last month he sent another such email to all 4,300 agency employees and was abruptly fired the next day.

He hosted weekly Tupac Fridays to play his music in the office.

He traded lyrics with employees and he marked his own 65th birthday with Tupac themed cookies including ones decorated with the words thug life.

Apparently there were 350 pages of emails with the words Tupac sent to and from Foxhoven during his time.

Right.

That's pretty amazing.

That is amazing, but you know, it's democracy, isn't it?

There's a lot of Tupac fans out there and it's about time they had a high-level representation.

Because for too long in top-level politics, you know, there's been representation for megadeth fans.

Theresa May, Prime Minister for the last three years here.

She starts every single cabinet meeting with an absolute 10-minute blast of Megadeth on the electric guitar.

But no, but Tupac's been underrepresented till now.

He has.

And I feel like his...

This guy, Foxhoven, sorry, I feel like Foxhoven's enthusiasm for Tupac as a news story is a good news story in face of the other music news in America story that is that officials in West Palm Beach, Florida are trying a new method of driving homeless people away from their city by playing children's music on loop.

So in more, they've done this cruelly ingenious thing.

They're playing loud children's music on loop all night in hopes of driving homeless people away from sleeping on the steps of the city-owned banquet facility known as Lake Pavilion.

Just, it's stay out of our engorgement troughs.

Mayor Keith James told the BBC it is a temporary measure to keep the homeless from the city's waterfront space.

But advocates for the homeless say it is cruel and unusual treatment of those in need, which is sort of a lie because it's not unusual.

This is not the first time that music has been used as a deterrent.

They used the same tactic at Waco when Noriega was holed up in Panama.

Three years ago, officials in nearby Lake Worth Beach tried using classical music to drive away drug dealers and the homeless, but the method was ineffective as those groups appeared to enjoy the classical music.

Insect news now, and well, everyone hates insects rightly.

I mean, they are absolutely disgusting,

but useful, unquestionably.

I'm not denying that they're useful, but they absolutely repulse me.

However,

insects have been much in the news this week, including allegations that America tried to weaponize insects in the post-war era.

They tried to develop ticks and other insects as biological weapons

from 1950 to 1975.

I'm starting to think Greece and happy days don't give the full picture of USA in the decades post-war.

Well, this is the thing, Andy.

The US House of Representatives has asked for a review into whether the Department of Defense experimented with these ticks and other insects regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950.

That is, and 1975.

That is such a specific question that they definitely did.

Otherwise, you wouldn't be asking for that specific review, weaponizing ticks and other insects regarding use as biological weapons between the years of 1950.

That is, some questions, I mean, obviously, innocence until proven guilty, but some questions are specific enough that you know the question they're asking isn't the question they mean.

Like, first of all, I'm not going to ask my one single housemate if they opened and ate my tub of salted caramel ice cream and then took a shit in the tub and replaced it in the freezer so I opened it to find a frozen shit instead of delicious ice cream.

You're not asking them whether they did it, you're asking them how and maybe why.

In other news,

well, as Boris Johnson prepares to ascend to the throne of Downing Street, it appears that, well, God has come out of retirement and is sending plagues of insects to Britain.

There's been flying ants everywhere this.

I mean, admittedly, it's a natural plague that happens every year.

But there were so many ants flying over Britain this week that they showed up on meteorological radar as rain.

Yeah, it's incredible.

It's what the Met Office described as insect clutter, and they were recorded on radar systems between 8 and 11.

And BBC weather presenter Simon King tweeted this image of the ants showing up, saying, We knew it was dry in the south of England, and yet the radar was showing this very light precipitation across the south.

This is an incredible thing.

Apparently, the movement is caused by potential new female queens and male ants embarking on a mating flight.

Imagine fing being so good it shows up on radar.

Like, that is my life goal now, is to be so good in bed it's meteorologically undeniable.

I mean, you're going for topological like Richter scale, but you'll take weather-inducing.

In other insect news, apparently scientists are working on harnessing navigation techniques of insects that they could then be applied to robot technology, which I'm not at all happy about because I do not want robots repeatedly head-butting my light bulbs or crashing over and over again into an obviously closed window or living for 24 hours and then dying like a Mayfly or a cheap kettle.

Let's aim higher.

Let's not base robots on insects.

Let's base them on worms.

I have no problem with worms.

So these robots will do what's needed and then bury themselves underground and not ruin everything.

Worms are fine as babies until they grow up and become snakes.

But I have no problem with them as worms.

None at all.

Your emails now, and this one came in from Max, who writes, Dear Andy, and probably Alice brackets and Chris.

Almost.

Chris is not here today, in fact.

We have Rich standing in today.

Hello, Rich.

Hello.

It's good to

introduce you

right at the end of the podcast.

Max writes: In the unlikely event that you are not already aware of yesterday's breaking news from Russia, I wish to bring to your attention the announcement from Putin's government that cricket is not a sport.

This, apparently, they keep a list of official sports in Russia, and cricket is not on it.

To which the only possible response is, f you, Putin.

Watch the highlights from Sunday.

Clearly, says Max, the proclamation could not have come at a more sensitive time, given England's recent glorious success, and leads me to a number of possible conclusions in ascending order of gravity.

One, this is a simple misunderstanding, with the Russian Ministry for Sport clearly confusing cricket with the noble art, but non-sport of calligraphy.

It's possible.

Two, that Russia has leveraged New Zealand's

sense of injustice at the outcome of the World Cup final to broke an unlikely alliance in its mission to disrupt the West.

Well,

they always find those gaps, Russia.

And three, after years of standing by and accepting the Bugle's bombardment of bullshit, Vlad the Bad can take no more with this his opening salvo and what one can only expect to be a long and bloody campaign against you.

Badonkadonk's at the Readies, Ultimate.

Godspeed from Max.

Well,

if you are not worried about Russia trying to take over the world, now you should be, if they want to take cricket away from us.

I mean, that is a long campaign in breaking down the spirit of individualism that makes this country great.

This came from Amy Lebenson.

Andy, I'm so happy for you on the subject cricket exclamation mark.

I don't know one thing about cricket despite having lived near Laws for a few years, but I'm back here in the USA now.

I've been following the scores a bit just because I love the bugle and I'm a devoted listener.

I know this means more to you than almost anything else.

Congratulations.

Well, I mean, that's I'm touched.

There's also a post script here, Andy, which says, P.S., can we move on now from the cricket just asking?

No.

Absolutely not.

There were various other cricket-related emails, one of which I will come back to next week.

Do send your emails into hellobuglers at thebuglepodcast.com.

Well, that brings us to the end.

We will play you out with lies about our premium subscribers to join them or to donate whatever you want to keep the bugle free and independent.

Go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Don't forget also to buy all your tickets to all the Edinburgh shows of me, Alice, and other Bugle co-hosts.

Alice, remind people when and where your show is on.

My show is called Mythos.

It's about stories and lies.

It's at 8:45 at the Gilded Balloon.

I will be doing satirist for hire at the stand in the afternoon, I think at 4 p.m.

from memory, from beginning on the 13th or 14th.

I should know this by now.

I've been busy.

I had to make mine rhyme to remember it.

It's all right.

I was telling everyone 8:30.

I was wrong.

Okay, good.

Well, look it up online and do send your emails in for the show to satirise this at sapphiristforhire.com.

There will be political animal late at night at the stand, and there are live bugle shows on the 16th and 19th.

See you all there.

Bye.

Cricket

Frank Sterling is vocal in his belief that human beings have never landed on Venus, but would like to see NASA fake some footage of astronauts doing so just to wind up the conspiracy theorists.

Brian Crowther, meanwhile, is equally strident in his assertions that the sport of golf would be significantly improved if any player making a bogey or worse at a hole had to down a large glass of wine before progressing to the next tee.

The closing stages of the Masters would be sensational, claims Brian.

Chris Norman, ironically, given his name, thinks Saxon Britain would have fared better without William the Conqueror invading and wishes the Italians had invaded instead.

Chris explains, I think Britain would have been more at ease with emotional self-expression had that happened.

Amir Schemmer believes that proof will soon be produced that whales share more than 99% of their DNA with aubergines and that in the dim and distant evolutionary past hundreds of millions of years ago, giant aubergines roamed the seas whilst children would look at a little whale on their dinner plate and say, I'm not eating that.

Nabil Charania likes to play a version of chess in which, in addition to your standard 16 pieces, you should be allowed to sculpt a new piece out of clay whilst the game is in progress.

If you can make it look authentic and explain what it does convincingly, it's in the game.

It will encourage creativity in the chess community, Barks Nabil, to anyone who'll listen as he is ushered out of chess tournaments around the world.

Jim Tanner believes Mary Poppins might well have been a Soviet agent.

It just doesn't add up for me, says Jim, and it would explain why she went dark for so long in the late 80s and 90s.

Is it a coincidence that Poppins is back with Putin in power?

I don't think so.

Constance Gruen has gone through all the census and DNA databases in the world and developed a computer program that backdates all major sporting tournaments as far as the year 1250 AD.

The most interesting findings of her research were that Leonardo da Vinci would have been world snooker champion in 1471 as a teenage prodigy and that Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, would have led the St.

Petersburg Polcats to the 1702 European basketball title.

It has taken Antony Iakovone 12 attempts to persuade the UN Security Council that they should really just issue a broad generic calm down and grow up resolution, but after his latest attempt, which involved a trombone and a baby goat, don't ask, he thinks they are finally coming round to his way of thinking.

Adam Montgomery thinks, on reflection and after considerable empirical research, that the terms that's a whole different kettle of fish and that's not my cup of tea might originally have been coined within about five minutes of each other, the latter after the former.

And Laura van der Wieden believes the world would be a happier, more open-minded and more equal place if holidays were awarded at random to people.

A.

It would take the stress out of booking.

B, you would get a socially broader clientele at all holiday destinations.

And And C, wouldn't it be fun?

January the 1st, letter through the mail.

Yes, we've got three weeks in September.

Pogo stick trekking in Uzbekistan.

Get in.

What have you got, arthritic great uncle Bert?

Snowboarding in Peru?

Good luck.

Here endeth this week's lies.

Go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

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.