So many holes - Bugle 4113

There it is

The Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world.

Please welcome to the stage Andy Zottman

Hello buglers

Welcome hello uh

thank you very much for coming.

How are you all?

You are woo, good, excellent.

Welcome, do be more specific in that if you ever go to see the doctor, how are you feeling?

Boo.

Welcome to this historic bugle, the first bugle ever to take place, A, in a circus tent,

and B, in a circus tent that we haven't been told we would be performing in until 45 minutes before the show in the circus tent began.

And therefore, also the first ever bugle that is taking place, not in zero dimensions like the traditional bugle or even in two dimensions like most of our live shows, but in the full, well, full 360 if we include Chris.

Let's call it 270 plus a little bit of,

let's give him what was that?

Two extra degrees?

The full 273.

So, well, this is bugle issue.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure how we're going to block this out.

Have we got any theatre directors in today?

I don't know how, I mean,

what's the etiquette of doing a I mean, this is quite nice.

I think, given that there's like about 300 people behind you and you're looking where there's only one person right now,

this is probably not the right one.

There's only one person who really matters, Sir Chris.

Exactly.

This is doubling up as Bugle issue 4113.

We are recording on the 22nd of June 2019.

Yes, another solstice out the way.

F ⁇ you longest out of the year.

Stonehenge did its job once again and has prevented the days getting longer and longer and longer through the year as they did before we had henges.

Another summer closer to the merciful claw of the Reaper.

That's what the world has become.

So,

we are recording on the 22nd of June.

Now, for the first time, regular listeners will know we do generally do anniversaries at this point of the show.

We've got some new technology, and for the first time, we're doing anniversaries of events from the future.

On this day, in 2043, Donald Trump is finally impeached

and removed from office after the 97-year-old president, approaching the end of his eighth and final term of office, is revealed to have given the nuclear football as a wedding present to his eighth wife, Donaldina Putina, the

granddaughter of UN Secretary General Vladimir Putin.

Trump, however, remains king of Iran.

chief executive of FIFA and number two on Interpol's most wanted man list.

On this day in the year 2054, Roger Roger Federer announces that he's going to play his last Wimbledon.

The 72-year-old Swiss Maestro has given a tricky first-round draw against the tennis tech Servax 5000, the tennis-playing robot that has dominated the tour for the past 25 years after Novak Djokovic mysteriously went missing.

And on this day, in the year 2219, exactly 200 years from now, it will not only be the 200th anniversary of me saying this

but it will also be the 120th anniversary of it being exactly 80 years since this guy looked at me like an absolute f ⁇ ing idiot so

as always a section of the bugle is going where

it's going where London

correct correct

this week in the bin Bitcoin facts

does anyone here understand Bitcoin

No, correct.

That is the correct answer.

No one understands Bitcoin.

It is not something that can be understood.

It's been specifically designed not to be understandable.

However, I have studied it.

So here we have Bugle Bitcoin facts for those of you who don't understand it quite as well as I do.

Fact one: Bitcoin does not exist.

If you want to know how it works, just guess.

Or ask a brick that will have as much chance of explaining it to you as a sentient human being.

Fact two, the value of Bitcoin has fluctuated throughout its made-up history from not loads to loads, back down to loads, then loads again, more recently, less loads, which is, to be fair, still well above its fundamental real terms value of absolutely f ⁇ all.

The original blockchain, anyone?

Nope.

Runs on an algorithm, and algorithms, in case you don't know what they are, they're very clever things that do the kind of unseen, mysterious, weird, inexplicable shit that in wiser, simpler times was correctly attributed to the devil himself.

The whole Bitcoin process this year will use up more energy to run than any guesses.

A fridge, perhaps?

No, even bigger than that.

An electric car.

Still no.

I know, is it Potato World, the family-based theme park,

the family theme park based on the renowned root vegetable with thrilling rides, including the Starchinator and the Doomsbud Mega Masher?

Wrong again, numbskull.

Bitcoin has will, in fact, use up more energy this year than Argentina.

Yes, that Argentina, the renowned,

massive South American country with 40 million people in it.

You can mine bitcoins even though they don't exist.

Take that, Thatcher.

To mine them, you do a special coin and then ta-da, magic Bitcoin.

Sadly, it takes quite a lot of goes to get that magic sum right.

Any guesses how many?

Yes, 1.8 billion.

So give yourself a couple of afternoons, plus an infinite number of walruses with calculators to hack away at with their tusks, and I'm sure you'll fing crack it.

Who invented it?

No one knows.

Maybe it was Bastet the Egyptian cat goddess, or was it Peter Andre?

Who gives a shit?

There can only ever be 21 million Bitcoins just, well, no, no, no.

And

if you think you have Bitcoins, but you're not sure, see a doctor or eat more prunes.

20% of all existing Bitcoins are lost, which is really quite impressive, and they did not f ⁇ ing exist in the first place!

So by losing something that you never had, nothing, you've discredited the entire life and works of the great American blues man Muddy Waters, but you've basically brought all human civilization to a logical end point.

How does it end?

You know how it f ⁇ ing ends.

It ends like all disaster movies with a hunky chiseled man in a tight-fitting t-shirt with a distractingly pretty lady by his side saying not quite as much as would be ideal in a more equal world, who fallen in love against the odds after initially not getting on very well, running away from a tidal wave of erupting dinosaurs.

In summary, what the f f could possibly go wrong with any of that?

And that is your Bugle Guide to Bitcoin.

So,

thank you very much.

Thank you.

Now,

that section is in the bin, in the bin, slightly longer than some sections in the bin, but there, it's still in the bin, and you didn't hear it.

So, it's time to meet our guests for today's bugle.

Are you ready to meet our guests for today's bugle?

Good, that could have been extremely awkward had there been a long silence.

Please, now, welcome to the stage.

First of all, representing the southern hemisphere and all women and

humanity as a whole, it's Alice Fraser!

Good.

This is a surprisingly vulnerable feeling having people on my flank.

I worry that you won't feel feel sufficiently included, although you do have a great view of my ass.

So you're welcome.

Good work on Photoshop, Chris.

Thanks.

There's more to come.

You've been busy all right.

There we go.

Don't worry, Alice isn't the only one.

Ida Dick.

Eda Dick was actually

spied against the Nazis in the Second World War.

No, no, no, it's a term of affection among my people.

I didn't realise you had anything.

Dick Salesman.

Wasn't he one of your prime ministers in the 1970s for about eight minutes?

Yeah, he went for a swim one day in an ocean of jizz and never came back.

Family show, Alice.

Family show.

That was a reference to Harold Holt, if you don't know.

Which bit was the reference to Harold Holt?

Also joining us today, representing the Northern Hemisphere and the rest of humanity that is not not covered by Alice and the entire Asian diaspora and people with beards and

Muslims let's go with that I mean he's not a Muslim he's not a Muslim but he often gets credited for being a Muslim despite not being one and Jews let's build bridges he's representing Jews as well we are making the world a better happier place please welcome Nish Kumar

Well, that is

genuinely

accurate.

I like the fact that you use the phrase that I'm credited with being a Muslim as if it's something that happens at a mosque.

It's more likely I am blamed for being a Muslim by large sections of the right-wing press.

Hello, everyone.

Nice to see you all.

Chris has done a Photoshop of my body.

Well, my body, wasn't it?

Yes.

Your head.

You've lost head.

That's right.

Oh, yeah, there we go.

That's a more accurate portrayal of my naked body.

That is also the future of Britain.

I think there's one element of that that is not part of Britain's future, Andrew.

I am actually quite glad that we've been relocated because we moved from the cow across the way and performing inside a cow was a real affront to my Hindu upbringing.

So, I, for one, am happy that we're in a giant circus tent.

How are you all?

Nice to see you.

I'm just trying to work out where to stand here currently.

Well, there's three of us and it's a three-sided room, so I would say we just

take one side each, yeah, just take one side each

and just manmark one section.

I see I've been allocated the far left.

Well I'm dealing with the incredibly attractive right.

I've had a bit of a stressful morning if I'm honest.

I've had a bit of a stressful morning because

my sewage pipe is blocked in my house and so I thought it was going to be a problem about three days ago and I didn't really do anything about it.

And this morning my back garden, such as it is, is now absolutely flooded with human shit.

That is a euphemism for that part of the body I've not heard before, to be honest.

When people hear this show,

when people hear the show, they're going to think there was some really weird edit there.

Like, how did we get to Nisha's shit?

And

just for the audience at home, that just happened.

But it's good because this morning I spent most of the morning just standing in a mess entirely of my own making.

And I really felt closer than I ever have been to every Leave voter.

Like

I feel connected to them.

It's great when you find yourself just as a metaphor for your country.

Let's crack on with top story this week.

Well, here we are.

We are as we speak here on London South Bank, projectile vomiting distance from Westminster.

I imagine as we speak, there are high-level talks at the UN about whether some kind of international force should be dispatched to restore democracy to the UK.

What's extraordinary time?

Now, Nish,

you've got close links to the Conservative Party.

Sorry, that was our special secret, wasn't it?

Do we have any Conservative Party members in today?

Anyone who might be able to help choose our Prime Minister for us, taking back control of of our democracy.

Preparations are also in full swing for the official defenestration of Theresa May.

She will be thrown out of the window of 10 Downing Street, albeit the ground floor window, and they might let her use the door.

They can't actually use the defenestration window because Gladstone painted it shut in the 1870s, the canny old bastard.

But

I mean, Nish, what's

you're our Conservative Party correspondent, what's your name?

Absolutely, I am.

Proud to be here.

Well, look, we're faced now with a straight-up decision.

And by we, I mean none of us.

The Conservative Party will pick our next Prime Minister.

160,000 members will choose the leader of the Conservative Party by extension, who is our Prime Minister.

And I think I speak for everyone when I say I'm so glad we voted leave in order to return democratic power to a small group of retired stockbrokers in Kent.

It's time to take back control and return it to eight men who are all called Darren,

who hate their wives and wish it was legal for a man to marry a golf course.

So many holes.

Family show.

Quite literally, my daughter is in the audience.

Well Andy, she is about to learn some finging language.

It's a straight runoff between Jeremy Hunter, who presided over a period of funding reductions in the NHS, resulting in the head of the British Red Cross, Mike Adamson, to condemn conditions in British hospitals as being a humanitarian crisis.

And he's up against Boris Johnson, who stands accused of adding five years to the prison sentence of Nazanine Zagri Radcliffe, who used racial slurs in a newspaper column and described women wearing burkhas as letterboxes or bank robbers.

The choice has now come down to a dick or an arsehole.

And what we wouldn't give for something in between?

The nation of Britain is desperate for a Perineum Prime Minister.

A commander in Gooch, a taint at the top.

I mean,

there's many things

I thought would never happen in my life.

Being selected for the Venezuelan synchronised belching team,

becoming Pope,

seeing the Queen down eight pints of lager and pump up the jam on a karaoke machine.

Waking up one morning with a bionic extendable leg, which I could use for tripping up escaping criminals or lascuing escaped ice cream vans.

And desperately hoping Jeremy Hunt becomes Prime Minister.

And to be honest, that was the one I least expected to happen.

Yeah, we've left down, we've gone down to the two.

There's been a sort of pretty extensive whittling process which resulted in Michael Gove and Dominic Raab being eliminated, the former for doing too many drugs and the latter for not doing enough drugs.

And then the other two who represented various wings of the Conservative Party, Rory Stewart, who represented the Remain wing, and Sajid Javid, who represented the...

How can we be racist?

He's here and he's fine wing.

And they all participated in a debate on Channel 4 last week, which, between the pre-written content and the make-up of the panel, which was four white guys, one brown guy, and no women, wasn't so much a leadership debate as it was a British comedy panel show.

And I speak as someone who has very much been the Javid on a few episodes of Mock the Week.

Jeremy Hunt told the Conservative Progress Conference,

who knew such a thing existed?

That's like hearing about the abattoir owners of Veganism Awareness Week event.

He said that the Conservatives should not, quote, ignore the crocodile lurking under the water.

In other words, the Labour Party.

So don't, so don't, you know, beware.

I mean, it's fair fair, beware the crocodile lurking under the water, and instead jump into a vat of sulphuric acid with an acid-resistant shark in it.

That is the choice we're facing.

And Boris Johnson,

there he is.

I mean,

what have we become?

He could be prime minister.

Did it all make you feel like going round all the World War cemeteries, knocking on every headstone, and saying, I'm sorry you died for this?

I've got a little bit of information about the 160,000 people who were going to make that decision.

YouGov did some polling of the Conservative Party membership, and they asked the question: Would you rather Brexit took place even if it caused the following scenario?

Now, the results are genuinely alarming.

63% said they would rather Brexit took place even if it resulted in Scotland leaving the EU.

61% said they'd rather it took place even if it causes significant damage to the UK economy.

59% said they'd be fine with it even if Northern Ireland left the UK.

And 54% of Conservative Party members said that they want Brexit to happen even if it results in the destruction of the Conservative Party.

The only thing they would not want Brexit to happen in the instance of is of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister.

And at this point, you have to think, what are these people afraid of?

And the answer is paying a basic amount of income tax.

And also, you go, have a bit of fun with it.

Enjoy your work.

Start asking other questions like, what about if Godzilla attacks?

What about if there was an Old Testament style curse resulting in the death of all firstborn children?

Or, and I think this would be a very interesting question, replacing the queen on the five pound note with me.

How would that,

if that was a condition of Brexit,

you know, as you say something and you realize as you're saying it, someone is going to Photoshop that.

I've already drawn it.

I keep telling you, that's not legal tender, Andy.

I mean, it is.

Brexit was all about taking back control of our democracies.

And

this is democracy at work.

It's a democracy in the same way that a dead rat on a plate is a fillet steak.

In that, yes, there are some similarities, but they in no way outweigh the differences.

I'm just I'm enjoying as a representative of my country being a little bit outside of this whole debate because I've been back in Australia and none of this matters over there.

I'm also a representative of my country in that I'm very hot, very dry and extremely isolated.

Are you done on, I think we only do that?

Oh yeah, I mean, but we're all done.

Yeah.

As in, we are all f.

Because three assholes are going to pick another asshole to be in charge of all of the fing assholes.

I actually googled Tori Arsehole and

of the first page of results that came up on Google, I've got it up on the screen there, there seems to be one recurring face.

In fact, I did a little graph.

So it's

so Boris Johnson came up five, Theresa May three, Mark Francois one, Philip Davis one, George Osborne one.

But what I really liked about it actually was

when I kept looking,

and when you scroll through, there's a few other faces who appear, including Nish Kumar.

can I just clarify under that picture of me is just it just says Jacob Rees Mogg an arsehole

it's his forthcoming autobiography he really knows how to target his audience

Let's move on now to men's issues.

Also relating to the Nish, you're our Bugle men's affairs correspondent.

Absolutely, I am the men's affairs correspondent, and all I can say is this: it's raining, men.

Hallelujah, it's raining, men.

Oh no, the men are committing assault.

Give everyone umbrellas.

Oh no, it's not helping.

Use the pointy bit to point them in the dick hole.

Hallelujah.

Guys, it's been a bad week for men.

Let me rephrase that.

It's been a bad month for men.

Let me rephrase that.

It's been a bad year for men.

Let me rephrase that.

It's been a bad decade.

Let me rephrase this.

Men is bad.

Any specific men we'd like to?

Yeah, an absolute triptitch of arseholery from men this week.

The Tory MP, Mark Field, was filmed grabbing a seemingly peaceful climate change protester by the throat at an event in London.

I don't really know what the event was.

All I can say is it looked like it was five minutes away from being interrupted by Batman jumping through the ceiling.

In the meantime Donald Trump has been doing what Donald Trump does, by which I mean trying to start a war whilst dodging a rape allegation.

The only way he could have had a more trumpy week is if he'd written his name on a building and given one of his talentless, f ⁇ ing, useless children a job they don't deserve.

And

also, unfortunately, last night the news that the police were called to the home of Boris Johnson and his partner, Carrie Simmons, in the early hours of the morning after neighbours heard a loud altercation involving screaming, shouting and banging.

Apparently, Simmons could be heard telling Johnson to get off me and get out of my flat.

She also said, you don't care for anything because you're spoiled.

You have no care for money or anything, which in Boris Johnson's defense is the top line of his Tinder bio.

But unfortunately, what's then happened is a series of people have come out defending the seemingly indefensible actions of all of this men.

All of these men.

Alison Pearson, who's a telegraph correspondent, a fucking idiot,

said that we need to find out before we can make any sort of judgment, we need to find out what sort of people the neighbours are, specifically how they voted in the EU referendum.

Now, just to be clear, this story is based on a mobile phone recording the neighbours took and passed on to the Guardian newspaper, which begs the question: are mobile phones remain voters?

Breaking all these stories down a little bit, the first one, Foreign Office Minister Mark Field, assaulting this Greenpeace activist.

I'm just fascinated by the arguments that are playing out about this.

First of all, Greenpeace has accused him of assault for grabbing the lady.

In return, he's accusing Greenpeace of assault for coming to his party without an invite.

Everyone on Twitter is accusing everyone else of assault because that's a fun game we can all play.

And both sides of the argument seem to be leaning heavily on the defence of it could have been worse, with Field saying she could have been armed, and the left saying he could have hurt her more badly and if this is how he treats a woman that he doesn't know can you imagine how he treats other women I can't imagine yet we all have imaginations imagine what if she had a knife or a bomb what if he chopped her head off with a dessert fork

I mean of course if you do look at the extended footage of the fight security is already dealing with the gate crash divists and there is no reason for him to have done anything at all but if you look at Mark Field's career there's no real reason for him to have done anything ever at all so we cannot start down that slippery slope.

My favourite favourite bit about the whole situation is: a Conservative MP has defended Field because, of course, he has.

Colonel Bob Stewart, a former British Army officer, has said that Mark Field needed to hold the woman by the neck because, quote, as a man, how do you hold a woman that is not in an appropriate inappropriate way?

You can't hold her by the waist, you can't hold her by lower down, you can't hold her by the chest.

That sounds like the title of a post-Me Too RB song.

He said that Field acted in a reasonable way in responding to what he perceived as a potential threat,

adding, that is exactly how suicide bombers behave.

They don't run forward streaming, they just move into a position and detonate things.

I'm not saying she was a suicide bomber.

Who knows?

I mean, we know, we literally know that she was just a lady.

I mean, I watched the footage and in terms of their allegation that she might have had a gun, he grabs her by the throat.

Did he think she had the gun in her mouth?

It doesn't, I mean, it doesn't make any sense.

I mean, the defence has been absolutely incredible.

Like, maybe she had a gun, maybe she had a knife, all the way up to perhaps he was trying to perform a reverse Heimlich, which is a maneuver where instead of pushing the base of the body to force the food out, you actually push the top of the head in order to force the food into their lungs.

Don't try to ask me for that.

How do you hold a lady?

There will be a side meeting at the Tory conference this year.

Does he not know that women have arms?

Also, it does worry me that that is a conversation that they're having, like that they are just constantly amongst themselves being like, How do you think we can physically assault a woman without sexually assaulting a woman?

Do you know what I mean?

We're not arseholes.

We still, I mean, we just want to punch them, but we don't want to do it in a, you know, me-too way.

Yeah, even if you choke them, it could be a bit sexy.

May I remind you, Andrew's daughter is present.

Homework time, darling.

The Boris Row was described as an altercation.

At this time of change, it just shows you you can't spell alteration without a big C in the middle.

Police were called when, quotes, a neighbour was concerned for the welfare of a female resident and for the other 67 million people in the vicinity.

Whereas with the Trump allegations, I can't help being a bit suspicious of the timing of it all.

Everyone's gearing up for the quadrennial joyous festival of democratic expression that is the U.S.

presidential election.

Why is this coming out?

I think it must be a leak from within the Trump camp to appeal to his core support

to show that he hasn't lost his edge as a man who's quite prepared to commit

sexual assault to boost his popularity.

I like the fact that no one is accusing the Democrats of leaking this because, aside from any other issues, everyone could agree the Democratic Party is not competent enough to organise anything like this kind of a league.

Have we got any Americans in today?

Yes, are you looking forward to your election?

Have you all heard of the American presidential election?

Yeah, they have, that's why they're here.

Unfortunately, they didn't read the news enough and didn't realize they were trading one sinking ship for an older sinking ship.

For those of you who don't know what the American presidential election is,

imagine a rhinoceros shitting into a basket of puppies whilst talking about how much he loves puppies and despite having a puppy impaled on each of his horns.

And

that's essentially about it.

Should we move on to other Trump news?

Yeah, sure.

No,

because it's funny, I was just walking down the street the other day, thinking to myself, I see what all the world needs.

A war with Iran.

I know some people like to bang on about climate change, making the global economy work for the broader good of the planet as a whole,

ensuring people have the freedom to live and talk and think how they want to live and talk and think.

But really, I think before all of that, we really need a war with Iran.

Otherwise, what's the point?

How scared are you, Nish, by this whole...

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm justifiably terrified.

Like, also,

we have absolutely no power to influence

any sort of foreign policy coming out of the states, because the UK Foreign Office

just yesterday called for a de-escalation of tensions in the region, And also yesterday, President Trump warned Iran it would face obliteration if conflict broke out.

So that special relationship right now is feeling special as shit.

He also expanded on his last-minute decision to call off strikes planned in response to the shooting down of a US unmanned drone, saying he had been told 150 Iranians would be killed.

He said, I didn't like it.

I didn't think it was proportionate in quite a sensible and sane way, which is allowed.

But it's deeply upset some people, mainly because they can't conceive of a world in which a man who's been an irrational, incoherent asshole so many times could say or do anything good to anyone ever.

It's very upsetting to anyone whose moral categorization of the world has never developed beyond the broad brushstrokes of a Disney movie.

Look,

even comic books have complex villains now.

Who didn't have some sympathy for Thanos and his desire to get rid of 50% of Britain's voters with one click of his fingers?

On the bright side, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump really should seek congressional authorization before military action.

And Adam Smith, the Democratic chair of the House Armed Services Committee, warned it was not smart of the President to make details public, saying it undermines the notion of a clear U.S.

plan.

Thank f for that.

Otherwise, I would have had to become a Trump fan, and that would.

Well, I mean, the thing is, I think you've misinterpreted it, Alice.

He said he didn't think 150 deaths was proportionate, but when he bumped it up to 2,000, he was right on.

Well, but my problem with all of this news is, as an Australian, we don't really have to pay a lot of attention to most of the Middle East's kind of threats.

They're pointed in the other direction.

I mean, we're technically a Western democracy, but no one ever shouted, death to the South.

It's less catchy.

So we don't really understand it beyond a sort of vague sense that the tensions in the Middle East are the terrible outcome of complex and self-interested political behaviour that's accumulated chaos over years and resulted in this outcome, mainly because that's the nature of time, politics and history.

But we just get to walk around getting Iran and Iraq mixed up.

Anything beginning with IRA spells trouble.

I mean the thing with Middle East politics is that the truth is like a Yeti with rabies.

It probably doesn't even exist and even if you did ever find it it would be absolutely fing horrific.

And Trump has been cranking up his idiotech tension escalator 3.1x given to him as an inauguration president by John Bolton.

Now, John Bolton, of course, is a renowned foreign policy hawk, or to put it in more technical, internationally recognised terminology, a hunt.

Andy, may I remind you that your own daughter is here?

What happened when we did one of these live shows in Edinburgh?

What was the thing that your son said to us immediately after we came off stage?

Well, um,

well, I mean.

I seem to remember him bounding up to both of us saying, Well, I know what the C word means now.

Yeah, that did happen.

And I said to him,

I said to him, My son is 10, as long-term buglers, we'll know, pretty much to the day that he was born in December 2008.

And yeah, he in Edinburgh last year, he came up and said, I know the C word now.

And I said, well, as long as you know that

you mustn't use it.

And he said, yes, I know that, Dad.

And then he just grinned and went,

which is

you know I mean the problem with the C word is it's just such a better word than all the other words like all of the other words for this part of a lady's body are a bit

you know like they're

just punchier I shouldn't have said punchier

It's also very difficult to have any authority as a parent telling your child not to use a word when the child has just seen 300 people loudly applaud you and your friends for using that word through an electronic system of amplification.

Do as I say, not as I do, but you just said

look, we live in a representative democracy.

Hypocrisy is all part of the game.

Gotta learn.

So, I mean, clearly, it's very complicated, the whole Middle East situation.

Basically, it involves US foreign policy, involves negotiating away through Donald Rumsfeld's famous complex web of good baddies, bad baddies, bad goodies, good bad baddies, who are so bad that they must be good, but also bad.

So let's ride them while we can,

while we can make them look good, and then deal with them as baddies if and when the good baddies turn into bad.

It's all rather confusing.

But as what I think we're seeing here with Trump coming up against Iran, in any fundamentalist v fundamentalist showdown, the basic maths of it works out that the mental bits multiply each other, but the fun bits sadly cancel each other out.

We've basically explored the

de-evolution of humanity.

Let's move on to the bugle evolution section.

Alice, you're our evolution correspondent.

Yes, in Young People Growing Horns News Now,

a 2018 study of the skulls of young people has determined that 18 to 29-year-olds are more likely than other people to develop little bone spurs on their skulls and in a more pronounced way than older people.

Headlines are reporting these as phone horns, blaming the satanic growths on the bad posture of the youth of today.

On one hand, panic about the reading and recreation habits of the young has a fine history going back to Plato, including the idea that the reading of novels would make young women yellow, wet, and inflamed in the sexual passions.

On the other hand, I have a phone in my other hand, and I'm currently looking up the fact that the data on the causation of phone horns is probably disputed, as it's basically a guess.

Young people have more skull horns, and so do over 60s, which could be related to bad posture and linked to phone use, but could also be because both young people and over 60s are banging a lot more than middle-aged people.

And maybe they're just inherently horny.

Now that is stagecraft.

Really making use of the three-sided Colosseum style layout in this venue.

Yeah, all the science is bullshit.

I didn't realise this.

It is like, it's sort of, they've seen that these bone spurs are happening.

They don't really, they haven't really studied whether it's young people or not.

I mean, if I was them, I'd be more concerned in terms of measuring phone impact about the fact that I as a 33 year old adult started reading this article on my phone and then got bored and started googling myself.

And no Andrew that is not a euphemism.

Honestly mate you make me sick.

I mean, clearly, you know, smartphones, I mean they are contorting the human form.

There are other adaptations of the human form caused by modern life in general.

The shrinking of the hope gland

and the calcification of the knuckles of the middle finger from flipping excessive birds at televisions.

And also, I mean, attention spans are shortening, but scientists have not yet discovered whether this is

what's

the score in the cricket nation.

Afghanistan is still only two wickets down.

It's going to be a good thing.

Oh, right, exciting.

I can't believe we've got this far without you demanding i tell you the cricket score

it's in a heroic display of self-restraint

for people listening to the podcast chris has put up a uh picture that i think people would assume is photoshopped but actually is completely real

It's a picture of Andy with balls for eyes.

It's Andy's face for the entire duration of the Cricket World Cup.

Just his eyes replaced with two cricket balls and his mind full of cricket players.

That's a touching vignette.

Yeah, Indira

producing the worst performance against Afghanistan since the American military in the early part of this century.

What?

Well, it took them a very long time to get nowhere in particular.

Yeah, right.

A satirical batting performance by M.

S.

Dhoni today.

I applaud Virath Kohli's commitment to satire.

Any other evolution news for us, Alice?

Yes, in other things, scientists get paid to find out about news now.

New research comparing the anatomy and behavior of dogs v.

wolves has emerged, suggesting dogs' historical progress as man's best friend has been fueling muscle development in their inner eyebrows.

These muscles help them raise their eyebrows and look more sympathetic to humans, unlike wolves, who naturally maintain the pleasingly immobile eyebrows sought after by so many women in their late 30s.

Dogs waggle their eyebrows more while around humans and raise particularly their inner eyebrow, which produces the slightly worried classic puppy dog eye shape and it produces a nurturing response in humans and thus results in treats.

It's always nice to consider the ways in which animals close around us have evolved with a Darwinian pity trigger so we don't murder them.

Instead, we put them on our tummies while we watch TV, throw sticks for them to fetch and occasionally cut their balls off.

Thanks, science.

I mean, if you can evolve, if eyebrows evolve to fulfill a specific use, what the f has happened to my face?

It looks like my eyebrows have sort of evolved to keep rain out.

And I say eyebrows generously.

It's one.

It's an eyebrow.

I was going to be on television in Australia and I thought I should.

So I went to a faceologist and he spent a lot of time.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what the f is a faceologist?

I don't know.

You know the people who make your face.

Mostly doctors in face-offs.

No, I just Googled it and it was like, you know, I wanted a hot crown, like a hot towel and a cream you told me was magic.

That's all I was looking for.

But he spent 35 minutes trying to talk me into getting Botox.

I was like, no, I need my eyebrows for my job.

Like, I need to be able to express confusion and despair.

Yeah, it'd be really weird to do a satirical podcast with someone with no expression on their face.

Brexit is going quite well.

Yeah, I've got overdeveloped sarcasm in my eyebrows.

But he said it only lasts three months.

I'm like, oh, it's a subscription service.

You've got to re-up your Botox.

It's horrendous.

But then I felt really good about my face and my eyebrow mobility.

Got my money's worth.

I stormed out.

Well, I said, thank you.

Sorry.

Was this person an actual doctor?

No.

If I was going to have someone inject botulism into the doctor.

But I wasn't going to have he, it was his idea, and I was like, no, thank you.

But that's what I mean.

Why is he qualified to just sort of be like, oh, do you want some poison?

I'm going to do a weekend course.

My uncle, who's a dentist, has it.

Just because he loves needles.

Well, I mean, you could do worse things with needles, I guess.

You know, might as well.

It doesn't make me worry if this is how dogs have evolved.

Yeah, and they put the effort in to ingratiate themselves with us.

What the f have goldfish been doing all this time?

The lazy, complacent has-beens.

They are resting on their laurels.

You know what I think?

One quality piece of evolution, admittedly, hundreds of millions of years ago now, popping out the pond and kicking off the whole life on land stick.

And then,

all, ever since.

And it also makes me wonder: where will this end?

Stick insects learning to pout.

I don't want to see that.

I do.

Or

pet flies learning to bat their compound eyelashes.

Alice, you are also the Bugle's religion correspondent.

What's been going on in the world of God this week?

In the world of God this week, a Christian activist group called Return to Order has launched a petition asking Netflix to remove the television adaptation of the novel Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman from their service.

Unfortunately, that television adaptation of the novel Good Omens is on Amazon.

The book, which has been around for decades, deals with the buddy cop relationship of an angel and a demon trying to stop the apocalypse in the face of both heaven and hell, mainly because they quite like people.

The petition, which seems to have been taken down probably by the devil,

says this type of video makes light of truth, error, good, and evil, and destroys the barriers of horror that society still has for the devil.

Fair point.

I mean,

I mean, this is not the first act of this group.

They've tried to ban many other things you won't be surprised to know, including an ice cream shop called Sweet Jesus.

Well, they say for any ice cream addicts, come here and get your crucial fix.

Nailed it, Andy.

Too soon.

Jesus f ⁇ ing cross.

Like

that.

Don't get cross.

Nailed it.

Even if you don't get it now, you'll get it in three days.

A man has just walked out.

I cannot abide with this shit.

He's walking straight to the petition office I got a new one he's not he's going to the cash point he's going to get some money get some money

even you were disgusted by that well I'm disgusted by the whole thing it cost my people a lot of market share

Your people, you are solely responsible for 50% of this country's ham consumption.

Yeah, I'm just trying to get it off the shelves.

you are as bad a Jew as I am a Muslim

this sounds like a sitcom waiting to happen

radio let's be realistic

I'll tell you what we'll do for um we'll do for puns.

Because Chris recently

he had a baby along with his wife.

That's her.

There we are.

She's only saying what we're all thinking.

That is a kid saying, he's going to be Prime Minister.

Put me back.

Is she on a spatula?

Yes.

Yes.

No.

So, well, I was contemplating

doing some puns about

birth, but it thought it would be a real labour of love.

But I thought if I could do it,

I thought if I could do it, it would be a real

feature stunning achievement.

Oh!

Even it would have been even more so if I'd done it at the start of the show.

People would look back in years to come and say, Remember he opened, remember he opened with it.

I don't understand that one, and I don't want to.

No, it's probably the best you don't.

Some people might not like it, especially posh people who don't like talking about bodily functions.

Even if they quite like the rest of the gig, they probably say afterwards, y'all, the pregnancy puns were rubbish.

Other than that, it was a pleasant ah.

But anyway, after all, I mean, you've come here for me to make you laugh.

And I've set up here with this kind of unusual operation, what you might call a jest station.

106 for three.

Who's out?

Runny over this bumer I got left.

Anyway, um

I'm just trying to distract you from this finger pun run.

He can't deal with it.

He's in over his head.

Right.

Right, so we leave it there.

Let's leave it there, right, okay.

It's a famous saying in Shobiz,

to start with your best material and end on a growing sense of anti-climax.

And

I think we've achieved that.

You know what I say to that?

106 for four.

Oh, got two quick wickets.

Yeah, two quick wickets.

Focus.

Sorry, yeah.

Anyway, so.

Andy, we need to finish this show.

We need to finish the show.

Otherwise, someone's going to call for an episiotomy.

Oh, what, mate?

Episionotomy.

Now,

Right, that's it.

We'll be at the back signing mugs or breaking them.

If you want to buy one and then for us to smash it, you've got to pay an extra 10 quid.

Huge Greek audience for the bugle.

Anyway, please show your appreciation for everyone you have seen today.

You've seen Nish Kuba.

Alice, Fraser, Alice.

Do you have an Edinburgh preview to plug?

Yes, I have Edinburgh previews.

One is on Tuesday at the Harrison, and it's going to be super fantastic, and I'm great.

Also, one on the 10th.

Look me up.

Chris on guitars

and drums.

And give it up for Chris's baby.

And my former baby.

I'm so sorry.

Thank you very much for coming.

We'll We'll see you all again.

Good night.

Thank you.

Good night.

Good afternoon.

Is it still four down?

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.