Mature Grown Up Politics - Bugle 4102

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4102 of The Bugle.

What you are about to hear is a mixture of the live shows from the Stand Comedy Clubs in Glasgow on Tuesday the 19th of March and Edinburgh on Wednesday the 20th.

As I speak, it's now Thursday the 21st.

By the time you listen to this, it will be at least Friday the 22nd.

And who knows what the fk will be happening with Brexit by then, other than the fact that it will be deeply, fundamentally flawed, whatever and whenever it does and/or doesn't happen.

If you enjoy the show, or have enjoyed any previous bugles, or expect to enjoy any future bugles and want to contribute, you can now volunto subscribe once again to keep the bugle free, independent, and firing.

Click the donate button at thebuglepodcast.com.

Also, buy tickets and send emails to my satirist for hired Brexit special special shows at Soho Theatre 26th to the 28th of March.

I'm not delaying it, I'm going through with the shows, even if the majority of Britain no longer wants me to.

I'm a product of my times.

Anyway, here is this week's Bugle live, albeit now live in the recent past, from Scotland with me, Alice Fraser and Chris with his brand spanking new Bionic hit.

We're coming to you live from Edinburgh, which is in Scotland, and also in the UK,

for now,

and also in the EU

for now.

Let me just check.

That is still correct.

Yeah, that is still correct as of this minute.

Chris is keeping an update.

Theresa May, God rest her soul,

if it is ever found, is

well, as we were about to come on safe, she was about to come out and give a speech in which no doubt she will sort everything out

in her

traditional style.

Are you Theresa May fans?

No!

No!

No, not even Theresa May is a Theresa May fan.

There is one good thing about Theresa May, though, and

I disagree with her politics.

I think, I mean, clearly with Brexit, she's been dealt an unplayable hand and has played those cards fing incompetently.

Chris, Chris is here.

For those of you who've not seen Chris before, this is what he looks like in

3D.

And he's here, despite,

well, a serious medical procedure.

He had a hip operation, what, a month ago?

Two months ago.

Two months ago.

Calf my ass sawn off.

I will show you the photos after the show.

How much are you looking forward to the fact that this could be the first bugle we ever do that will be literally out of date before the interval?

Oh, news, you are a cruel mistress.

Just a quick update now.

She's not started her speech, but loud sobbing can be heard through the door that says down the street.

And a woman's voice saying, I don't want to go out there.

I don't want to go out there.

So we are here on the 20th of March 2019.

And, well, this week in history there's been some sensation.

Let's go back to 1649.

This week in history, what in 1649, here's a little quiz question for you, was described as useless and dangerous to the people of England.

This is a multiple choice question.

What was described as useless and dangerous to the people of England this week in 1649?

Was it A, Scotland?

Was it B

mixed martial arts?

Was it C, John Claude Junker?

Was it D, foreign food?

Or was it E the House of Lords?

It was in fact the House of Lords

was described as useless and dangerous to the people of England this week in 1649.

And the House of Commons passed an act abolishing the House of Lords in March 1649.

So how is that going?

Process of abolishing something that's what's it now 371 years ago

368.

What are we talking about?

Anyway,

usually come with numbers.

370 years ago was considered outdated.

Oh, just a quick Teresa my update.

She's now at the mic in Downing Street and she said uh look over there, a peacock

Don't see many of them at this time of you do you?

I've nearly finished my Panini sticker book just missing a couple of Huddersfield town players

Do any of you in the press corps want to do any swapsies?

So it looks like she's still not really addressing this issue head on

on this this week we have uh what

oh World Poultry Day was uh that's uh this week.

Um I was gonna do something about uh World World Poultry Day, uh some poultry for you.

Um I've had a lot of fun with PowerPoint by the way.

Um

uh I was gonna do some stuff about World Poultry Day but a Scottish friend of mine uh warned against it.

He said it's guinea foul the whole show up.

It's right.

That's too early.

Yeah that is too early.

It's too early.

It's too early.

Too soon.

You are right.

I've got to hold the puns for later in the show.

That is turkey to Bugle Live.

What'll be next?

Yeah, I think we've got one more anniversary.

That's next, so that is the answer.

Answer is, in fact, the Latin name for goose.

It was a bit of a stretch.

That was a bit of ostrich.

That was a stretch.

Now, as always, buglers, some sections of the bugle audio newspaper are going, where?

They're going.

Where?

Edempora?

You're right, they are going in the bin.

The 100th birthday.

Does anyone know what is 100 years old this year?

Also, 30 years old this month.

Any ideas?

The internet.

The internet is 30 years old.

That's what it looked like back in 1989.

The internet.

And it's really uncorked an absolute Jeroboam of Fury.

The internet.

Clearly, there's some good things about it.

But I mean, there's a lot of cricket footage, it turns out, in the world.

Let's move on to what are we?

1895.

on this day in 1895

we have Auguste and Louis Luyere recorded the first footage using their newly

patented cinematograph setting in train a sequence of events that led inevitably to the love guru Smurfs

and Smurfs 2

As always a section of the bugle is going where Glasgow

It's going, where?

It is going in the bin.

I'll press that a little bit too early.

In the bin.

In the bin, this week.

Scotland facts.

There we are.

The Scotch egg.

Absolutely key part of Scottish culture.

You know the origin of the Scotch egg?

It's when they were trying to smuggle William Wallace's testicles back north on the border.

I had to disguise it as a snack.

Bagpipes.

I hadn't written a fact about bagpipes yet, but

it's one of the jokes that got lost in the missing hour and a half.

I'm sure these Scottish people need a fact about bagpipes.

And

here we have Nicola Sturgeon.

And does anyone know what Nicola Sturgeon really intends for Scotland and the United Kingdom?

Well, let's find out because we've got a special device here, a subtext tricator app that interprets politicians' words and tells you what they really mean.

The Scottish Government remains committed strongly to the principle of giving Scotland a choice at the end of this process.

I want to destroy not just Britain, but all of the human race.

Apart from Scotland,

fear by power, my bench for 80, and I can kill a rhinoceros just by looking at it.

One day, I will come to Westminster and use big men as a toothpick and turn England into a Agus Boshek.

Fear to Star Jaw.

Fear Scotland.

The end is nigh.

There you go, Daly Mel's running off.

I think we can all agree that sounds slightly too long.

Right now,

that concludes the section in the bin.

Right, now it's time off.

That's only over long beginning, to meet our co-host for today.

We are about to try something absolutely incredible on a technological basis.

It's Alice Fraser!

Hello, Andy, hello, buglers, how are you?

Well,

Alice is down the other end of this magic webcam.

Everyone wave at Alice.

This is what Scotland looks like these days.

Seems dark.

Well,

it's not just Scotland.

So Alice, you are reporting from, well, tomorrow.

How's the world?

How's the world looking?

I mean, it's now 6.36 a.m.

and I woke up at 4.30, so it's looking like I want a nap.

That's what my mind is looking.

Right, okay, let's crack on with

top story this week.

And sadly, there's only one place to start with our top story this week, and that is Brexit.

Brexit News, any further updates from our God-given Prime Minister?

Theresa May has blamed MPs.

Failing to remember that she herself is one.

Blaming the workings of democracy for the failings of democracy.

Yes.

Right.

What happy times we live in.

It has been a curious week for Theresa May.

She basically, she's fundamentally been like a firefighter, desperately trying to put out a burning petrol station by throwing her third and final banana at it.

Whilst shouting, I feel lucky, I feel lucky.

And this week's events have been described as parliamentary trench warfare.

But the important thing to remember about trench warfare is that the opposite sides were firing at each other, not at themselves.

That is the key difference.

Today, just before we came on air stroke stage,

Jeremy Corbyn walked out of a meeting with party leaders because Chuck O'Muna was there.

Now Chuck Omuna is my local MP in Streatham.

I didn't even know he was Jewish.

So Jeremy Corbyn anyway, he walked out because Chuka O'Muna was there and you say he's not a real party leader and walked out, which is exactly the kind of mature, grown-up politics we are f ⁇ ing crying out for at this difficult time.

Jeremy Corbyn to me, throughout this process, has been, he sprung into action like a coiled turd.

Fought for the future of the United Kingdom with the ferocity of a cornered blancmange.

How's Brexit going down in Australia, Alice?

I mean, it's a nice thing to see that you guys can keep a prime minister for more than five seconds.

And I find it reassuring.

It's almost as though the mind-bendingly slow, grinding inefficiencies of a representative democratic government are skewed against massive revolutionary change that affects every level of society on purpose.

I'm starting, Andy, I'm starting to suspect that it's a feature rather than a bug of the system to cause a massive ballache for someone who wants to swan in and golf pump the place of a nation out of the world's delicately poised economic and military Jenga Tower towards the ninth bogey while envisioning a tiny tiny hole in the ground that doesn't exist.

Bear in mind, that is about what are you looking at there?

I think what?

6:41 a.m., and that sentence came out code.

That is a high-tariff maneuver from

Fraser there.

Theresa May very much been like a firefighter desperately trying to put out a burning petrol station by throwing her third and final banana at it.

Whilst shouting, I feel lucky, I feel lucky.

What does Australia think of Corbyn, you being the Australian Corbyn spokesman?

Well, I just feel he's doing that brilliant Corbyn thing of losing an unlosable popularity contest by having strong opinions about everything except the thing that's directly relevant and anti-Semitism.

I think you might have a career ahead of you as a political advisor.

He's like the uncle you used to like until you stopped being a teenager and realised he lives in a van.

But he's sticking to his principles.

Except anti-Semitism.

When you are behind Theresa May in leadership credibility polls,

that's like losing to Mozart in a triple jump competition.

No matter how bad you are, he's been dead since the 18th century.

Hit the f ⁇ ing sandpit.

Theresa May,

just before this came out, there's a letter to

the EU, who's it, to Donald Tusk.

I don't know if you can be, you probably can't be asked to read it, so I've summarised it for you here.

This is the summary.

I'll be Thelma, you be Louise.

Let's f ⁇ ing do this thing.

What is going to happen next?

Well at the moment we're in this bizarre situation where we have managed to achieve simultaneously total chaos and total inaction.

But you science, you've been f ⁇ ing owned.

Theresa May is basically now trying to force a choice between no deal, which has been voted against, and her deal, which has also been voted against, which is basically like offering your child a choice of a new pet between a dodo and a brontosaurus,

and then saying to your child angrily when it looks a little bit confused, Well, you asked for a pet almost three years ago, I'm giving you a pet whether you want one now or not.

Sure, we didn't really think about what having a pet would actually involve in terms of the logistics as a family, and really the only reason you wanted a pet at all was so you could train it to shit in your brother's slippers.

But anyway, dodo or brontosaurus, answer the question before you collapse like an overstretched metaphor.

So I'm.

Andy, I think the thing is, I've been watching this for a while now, the Brexit back and forth, the arguing, the backbiting, the failure to compromise, the deliberately exploiting things for minor political gains that nobody cares about.

I'm starting to feel like the mind-bendingly slow, grinding inefficiencies of a representative democratic government are skewed against massive revolutionary change that affects every level of society on purpose.

Which I'm starting to suspect that it's a feature rather than a bug of the system to cause a massive bore lake for anyone who wants to swan in and golf punt the place of a nation out of the world's delicately poised economic and military Jenga Tower towards the ninth bogey while envisioning a tiny hole in the ground that doesn't exist.

Alice.

So, well,

John Burko, he threw a spanner in the works with his by using that law from 1604.

Now, John Burko, admittedly, he's not exactly a shrinking violet.

He's more a bloated, exploding violet who shuns the glare of publicity, very much like a sumo wrestler shuns the opportunity to prance around in nothing but his underpants.

Now, but this is a law from 1604 that still exists, which means either one thing, well, one of two things.

One, our democracy is f ⁇ ing nuts.

And or, two, that maybe there's something in it, because not all laws from 1604 have lasted.

For example, the law which stated that legally there was no difference between the word woman and the word witch.

That has been cast by the website.

There's something really evil about Alice's laugh on a slight delay.

For those of you unfamiliar with the law that John Burko applied, because it was basically stop Theresa May putting the same piece of legislation three times after being rejected significantly twice as one of the biggest defeats in parliamentary history.

Here's the wording of the law from 1604.

It shall not be perforce or perchance permissible for His Majesty's Government, wherewith what fromsoever its will, in contravention or defiance of the sense and reason of its assembled wisdoms, to attempt to force hump the same f ⁇ ing useless piece of shit legislation through Parliament over and over again, despite it being really routinely puked back in the Prime Minister's face, simply hoping that eventually people just give the f ⁇ up and cave in like a child in the back of a car demanding sweets.

I want a sweet, you can't have a sweet, I want a sweet, I said you can't have a sweet, I want a sweet, I said you can't have a sweet.

I want a sweet.

Oh, what the hell?

You might as well give a child a sweet and you're about to drive at high speed off the edge of a cliff into a tissue's quarry.

It might as well go down with a fruit pastel in its gobbers knock.

So there we go.

Oh, one final Brexit story before we

tried to strangle this unwanted Christmas puppy of an issue.

France is

an an amazing amount of research I had to do to get that line out.

France's Minister for European Affairs has named her cat Brexit because of its indecisive nature.

This is, it might sound like a piece of bullshit, but it is in fact a piece of true bullshit.

Nathalie Loiseau, the French minister, says that her cat

meows loudly to be let out, but then refuses to go outside when she opens the door.

So

we're being zinged by the pet names of government ministers from France.

How fucking low can we sink?

It's Scotland news now.

There we go.

I was fascinated by this story from Scotland this week.

You might have seen it about

a stroke victim, a young man who'd had a stroke, and he was a hips fan.

And he did not say anything for four months.

And the first thing he said when he woke up was, hearts are shite

that tells you a lot about a

football b Scotland and C human beings

not much else you need to know about really in this

Alice have you ever had a ever had a four month coma

I mean I've had I've had periods of my life when I was working in a law firm that certainly felt like a four-month coma

I do like light football

but I think it could improve.

Learn from other sports.

Dealing with the curse of players diving, which irritates me as a fan of fair play.

I think they can just learn from horse racing.

Some extremely solid structures in place for preventing the participants pretending they're injured when they are not.

And I think you'll find if footballer was not calling for the

physio and the magic spray, but was calling for the Tarpaulin of Mercy

and a bolt gun.

You see how quickly they get back to their feet.

Chris, how painful is a hip replacement?

I thought you could ask, have you ever killed a horse?

We've talked about that so often.

I know the answer to that.

I mean, I've shown you and Alice the photos of my ass post-surgery.

I mean, so it wasn't particularly pleasant.

No.

But

a good scar is a good scar, right?

Also, I've not seen your ass pre-surgery, so I didn't have like a control.

Yes, you have.

We're moving on to gay news now.

You are the Beaugles gay news correspondent.

And well, J.K.

Rowling,

Scottish hero, of course, has been in the news.

I don't have a background for this, so I'm just going to use bees.

Are bees gay?

I don't know.

There's only one woman, right?

It's like being on a sailing ship.

You make do.

What's gayer than f ⁇ ing flowers?

I mean, obviously, f ⁇ ing someone of the same gender.

Fuck.

J.K.

Rowling has managed to anger both the left and the right wing by saying Dumbledore and Grindelwald had an intense sexual relationship.

Conservatives are angry that it's too gay.

LGBT activists are saying it's not gay enough.

I, for one, will only be happy when all children's books have an R-rated index at the back, like a Dungeon and Dragons vital statistics sheet, detailing all of the sexual preferences and erotic strengths and weaknesses of every character.

I've not read

Harry Potter.

Is there an obvious subtext?

No.

I mean, surely this is what fan fiction was invented for.

Well, I would hope so, because what it certainly was not invented for, from my point of view, was for the person who wrote some fan fiction involving me and John Oliver.

Let me tell you,

that is a paragraph you cannot unread.

Did you ever see that?

I mean, I wrote it.

We have, well, for those of you who don't know, who here?

Are you Potter fans up here?

Yes, I mean, I've never read it.

My daughter's really into it, but I thought I'd do some research on the two characters involved.

We've got

Albus Dumbledore,

who, well, he, of course, reads round two with the mixed doubles at Wimbledon, playing with the great American Darlene Hart.

There he is there.

And

also worked to the Drag Act for a while in the 1920s.

Whilst

Abdullah Grindelwald, a bit of a surprise first name, that for me,

played spoons on the B-tie of an early Vera Lynn hit and almost had a threesome with Mussolini and Marlina Dietrich, and once had to have eight snooker balls surgically removed from his stomach after a fight with 15-time world snooker champion Joe Davis after misunderstanding the term touching balls.

See, there you go, Andy, that is fan fiction.

You're doing it.

Right, we have some more

gay news now.

Well, in fact,

which one, do you want to go with the Schwarzenegger gay news story?

Oh, yes, yes.

Strongman Rob Kearney won a pro-strongman contest in Melbourne and then married his boyfriend on a beach, thereby proving that there are some things in the world that are entirely pure.

What makes it better is that Arnold Schwarzenegger attended the wedding and put a picture up on his Instagram celebrating the love of these two giant men,

and that the Instagram handle of Rob Kearney is world's strongest gay.

I mean, the only thing better than being the best at picking big things up and eating 9,000 calories a day is marrying the man you love and knowing that Arnold Schwarzenegger's got your back.

Give me all your clothes.

There's some other

good news for Scotland has come out.

Probably some of the best news Scotland has had recently.

It's that England is facing a massive water shortage within 25 years.

So very good news for Scotland.

Sir James Bevan, the head of the Environmental Agency down in London, said that he wants to see wasting water become as, quote, socially unacceptable as blowing smoke in the face of a baby.

which to be honest that's more of a french thing isn't it

yeah i'm looking forward to this period of like massive international inequality where you have these parched comms dragging their dry bones around the streets while you moist scots slop around in your excess of water.

I don't know, does it become socially acceptable to blow smoke in a baby's face if you are also pouring water unnecessarily on its head?

I don't know.

So, let's have a quick bugle guide to when to blow smoke in the face

of a baby.

So, here are the times when it is.

So sorry.

When should you blow smoke in the face of a baby?

Well, one, one time when it is acceptable to blow smoke in the face of a baby is when you are trying to summarise the history of the world since the Industrial Revolution to it

and don't have much time.

Here you go, kid.

You f ⁇ ing deal with it.

Or when the baby has been born with an infestation of cockroaches on its face

or when the baby is a herring

or

perhaps a slice of pig

or when the baby has been born to a mother who's on universal credit sorry, I've got to stop wearing my what would the Department of Work and Pensions do wrist plan

or when the baby might grow up to be Hitler, then it's fine

or when you are a large economic nation and the costs of not polluting the lungs of future generations just doesn't quite stack up on the balance sheet.

At all other times, do not blow smoke in the face of a baby.

By all means, vape in the face of a baby.

That is fine.

See, Andy, the data on vaping isn't in yet.

People think it's better than smoking and it seems to be better than smoking.

But imagine if you've given up smoking to vape and then they found out that it wasn't good for you at all, like it was just as bad as smoking, and then you would be simultaneously really dead and and super uncool.

Well, I was thinking of doing uh puns, I had a um a friend from uh Glasgow, so he was uh from Scotland, he was a massive Scottish fan of Scottish football.

Um

he was obsessed with all the Scottish football teams, but he um he uh he actually went to jail because he um he used to steal money to pay skill and watch and he spent way too long.

When he came out he had this really odd facial twitch whenever he was in a confined space and heard a key turning in the lock.

He developed a real cell tick.

He used to save containers from his marmalade and leave them out of it outside on his window ledge.

He was paranoid about getting poisoned.

The only water he would drink was

from he'd leave his jars on his window ledge when the weather was bad.

He was absolutely dependent on his rain jars.

But he made

me and

my dad fill out this questionnaire about our favourite bit of referees kit.

And my dad and I preferred different things.

I chose the red card, but Pa ticked the whistle.

Anyway, we sent him for his obsessed with English actresses and

we sent him this

he wanted a sort of kinky stripogram dressed like one of England's most famous actresses

and I'm afraid the Dench wasn't available nor was the Glenda Jackson.

So we sent Mirren.

He was also firmly of the opinion that manure from dairy farms has hidden health given properties.

He had rather strange cow dung belief.

Very strange shopping list as well.

He liked

cured meat from pigs' legs.

He only drank dairy.

Tinned fish he loved, and very trendy berries.

So his shopping list generally read ham milk to naakis.

He also loved dressing up like 17th century Christian writers, but also looking very fashionable at the same time.

He was a very hip onion.

Hip onion?

Hip onion?

He didn't get on with his parents, though.

He actually kidnapped his own mum and kept her in a deep, narrow pit in his garden, and would lower her food and drink down in a bucket.

He called it his mother well.

But

anyway, he did a lot of good work for charity in the end, and I told him it seemed inevitable that he would be made a sir.

I said to him, It's a done deal, United.

There we go.

So

that was it.

I mean, I didn't have much time for it because I was actually going to do

puns about fence battles between England and Scotland, but

I couldn't.

My memory's not what it was, so I've flodded all the names.

Don't worry, that's the only one.

That's all I've got done.

Bar this one.

Sorry, that was a panic pump.

Panic pump.

Panic punk.

Panic punk.

Panic pun.

How many is that?

This is two punches down.

Right, okay, there we go.

Here endeth the bugle.

Amen.

Don't forget to voluntarily subscribe if you want to, with whatever you can, and more importantly, want to contribute.

Various monthly options are listed via the donate button on our website, or you can just make up whatever you want yourself.

Thank you in advance and or retrospectively if you've already done it.

One more thing, don't forget satirist for hire at Soho Theatre 26th, 27th and 28th of March.

Send your satirical requests to satirise this at satiristforhire.com and go and see Alice at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Sorry, that was two more things, no third thing.

One of the options included in the voluntary subscription scheme is the promise of me libeling you in a positive way if you subscribe with that as an option.

Quite a lot of you have done so.

I will now therefore commence the lies.

If you're not involved in this week's lies, rest assured, plenty more where these came from.

I think you know me that well by now.

Until next week, goodbye.

Chris, music please.

Begin the lies!

Tony Price has built a paper-mâché white rhinoceros.

He intends to bring it to life to save the endangered species by dousing it with pickled herrings.

Catherine Cartwright, meanwhile, keeps a two-yard section of spare road in the back of her car, just in case she meets someone who ends their journey zero to six feet away from their intended destination.

Adam Smout is from the Smout family, so named because they invented a hybrid cross between the Smirk and the Pout, resulting in the most seductive facial expression in the history of the human head.

Chris Llewellyn once dreamt that he discovered the world's largest natural source of marshmallow, six kilometers beneath Antarctica.

He set up a mining operation and gave all the profits to the penguins.

Stephen Jones, by contrast, taught a badger to break dance.

It saved the badger's life when it did a headspin, it is that break dancing, under a speeding truck.

Kieran Conliff wrote most of Bob Dylan's songs.

All Dylan did was translate them from the hieroglyphs.

Sell out.

Kyle Underwood thinks volcanoes only erupt because they are lonely, so he talks to a volcano every weekend.

None of them has ever erupted.

Usman Kayum can make anyone taste the taste of lemonade just by describing lemonade to them.

And Darren Warner often sets up decoy picnics with all the wasps' favourite foods so that everyone else can enjoy their picnic untroubled by wasps.

Nick Kane, for his part, he thinks Johnny Cash should have been UN Secretary General, whilst Adrian Stirrup bizarrely believes that horses should never have been domesticated by humans because we might have stayed where we were then and no war would ever have happened.

Baptiste Mispellon can remember the exact seat he sat in on every train journey he's ever been on.

Incredible.

Mark Puttick, well he wants to make a cured sausage using meat from three countries in Europe and two each from Africa and Asia and then sell it to fans of the blues rock group The White Stripes as a seven nation salami.

Rob Weir wonders whether or not people ski.

Every time he meets someone new he assesses them and guesses whether or not they do in fact ski.

He's correct more than 93% of the time.

And finally Mark Adams has invented eight types of mechanical flamingo.

One day he will make them fight to the death on free-to-air television so everyone can enjoy it.

Thank you to all of you involved in those lies and others who will be involved in future lies and everyone who's donated to the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme so far.

To join them, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click donate.

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.