The Bin King – Bugle 4096

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4096 of the Bugle the World's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world.

It is Thursday the 7th of February 2019 and I am Andy Zoltzmann here in London, a city bracing itself for whatever it is it turns out it's asked for or not asked for or had asked for it on its behalf by everywhere else and vice versa.

Confusing times here in London.

I'm joined by the wonderful Alice Fraser.

Hello Andy, how are you?

I'm well thanks.

50 sleeps now till Brex time.

I mean I'm bracing myself even though I have no skin in the game.

I've been infected by the fear and or excitement of the people around me.

Right, but luckily you have another hemisphere you can escape to.

If they'll let me out.

If they'll let me back in.

I don't think Australia likes my style of comedy, Andy.

Both be done.

It's not a flawless country.

And a safe distance of one ocean away, but in a country that has its own political issues currently.

Jonias from New York, it's Hari Kondabolu.

Its own political issues currently.

That's a bit of an undersell, isn't it?

A bit of an understatement.

Hey, Andy, hey Alice.

Hello.

So

how's America bearing up?

Every time you ask me questions like that, I know you're saying with some kind of mocking tone or intent.

It's terrible, Andy.

It's bad.

It's not really mocking, just in these difficult times, we turn to each other.

We are bonded.

In Britain and America, we are bonded through history by various things.

And at the moment, we are bonded by our own political incompetence.

We find shelter in each other's.

It's the sympathetic hand clasp of somebody who you know has also shat themselves in public.

How much research did you do for that?

We are recording on the 7th of February.

February, of course, is a renowned month and Bugle is proudly supporting the charity fundraising month-based scheme of Fobuary, in which you fob people off with half-assed answers to legitimate questions.

Britain's politicians have really got stuck into this one this month.

Very much like one of those guys who grows a full set of Victorian mutton chops, bushy moustache and Tutan Carmen beard for November.

And we are also supporting February, where we pledge to tell at least one fib every episode of this podcast for the entire month.

Later in the year, other awareness months, including Prapril, in which we will pray to a different god every day for an entire month to see what happens.

Oh, it's like those sample sizes at the cosmetic counters.

Oh, yeah.

Very simple.

Hinduism alone can cover that.

Chu Lai, in which we will chew every bit of food 32 times before swallowing it.

Snorgust, where we promise to be as dull as possible for an entire month, which is some challenge.

Obstrepember,

where we have to be as obstreperous as possible for the 30 days of September.

And Doctober, in which we pretend to be a medically qualified doctor for an entire month for charity, of course.

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

And well, a couple of sections this week, including Valentine's Day.

Next Thursday, the 14th, is, and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know this, Valentine's Day.

St.

Valentine, of course, renowned as the most romantic of all the saints, so way more romantic, for example, than St.

Gribard the business-like, St.

Valerian, the not very confident with girls, St.

Enid, the not easily impressed by flattery, and St Squeam, Squeam, the patron saint of being non-plus by bodily functions, hence the term squeamish, which is also a term used by very posh people to describe the art of Edvard Morgan.

For Valentine's Day.

For

it took me a minute, and now I can't let go of it.

Let go of it, Alice.

Let go of it.

For our Valentine's Day section, we are presenting you with a Bugle multi-purpose audio construct your own Valentine's Day card.

So you just have to audio delete the bits of this Valentine's Day message that you do not want.

Dearest, insert name of your intended beloved here.

I've longed for you ever since the day I first saw you.

Stroke, the moment I heard you'd been released, stroke Tuesday afternoon.

Stroke, it became clear that Brenda wasn't interested.

Stroke, the end of the cricket season.

When I'm not with you, all I can think about is you, stroke, snooker, stroke, lunch, stroke, international tax law.

But that's more to do with my job as an international tax lawyer than a bad reflection of you, stroke, Brenda.

If you won't be my Valentine, I will take out my disappointment in the form of a platinum-selling album or series of harrowing short films.

Stroke, emigrate, stroke, fabricate some proof that Brenda's new boyfriend Steve is still seeing Debbie.

Love from Guess Who, stroke, question mark, question mark, question mark, stroke, Silvio Berlusconi.

Delete as applicable and send as an MP3 file.

I mean, Andy,

I always have mixed feelings about Valentine's Day because I've never had

the kind of romantic Valentine's thing because I've always been surrounded by the kinds of people who think it's an overblown commercialised holiday, which also, yes, of course it is, but it's nice to get stuff and love.

But also, possibly I've given the impression that I'm not that into Valentine's Day because whenever Valentine's Day comes up, I remind people that St.

Valentine was was also the saint of epilepsy and bees.

That is what

I mean, that is multitasking taken to an impressive level.

Yeah, you don't want to get your remits mixed up on any given day.

Hori, are you?

What's your attitude to Valentine's Day?

Well, historically, I've hated it, but this year I find myself in a happy-loving relationship, and I like it now.

I don't quite understand the correlation, but

also in the bin this week, a special celebrity section uh this week focusing on what celebrities think goes into a chicken nugget uh christian bale the hollywood actor uh thinks that chicken nuggets contain the remnants of beach terrapins washing powder and that scurf off a beach on a on a windy day plus corn flour to mix it all together martina hingis former tennis champion thinks that chicken nuggets are made of recycled copies of 1960s nudie magazines the used tennis balls from the french open well she would think that and meat from all the zebras and wildebeests that that they kill filming nature documentaries.

Simon Sharma, the celebrity British historian, thinks that a chicken nugget is made by getting a single chicken and compressing it down to nugget size using a mechanical nuggeting machine.

The blood of the crushed poultry is then used to make ketchup, believes the famous historian.

And Belinda Carlyle,

pop star,

former front woman of the Go-Go's, believes that chicken nuggets are made out of whatever is left of your mountain village after the chicken bandits have been through town, plus cornflakes.

Those sections in the bin.

Rightfully so, Andy.

Top story.

America has its State of the Union.

America in peril.

Karma apologizes for being late.

Yes, indeed.

Donald Trump delivered his second State of the Union address on Tuesday, urging unity despite, well, being Donald Trump.

It was an astonishingly perfect platonic rendition of bare-faced hypocrisy.

I mean, I say barefaced, despite the fact that he at all times seems to be peering through a skin-tight bank heist mask made out of old ladies' tights, or that thing that people in prison do when they want to protect themselves from jail predators by smearing themselves in their own poo.

What thing?

Do that thing?

I heard about it on a podcast.

It's called Bronzing Up.

Look, Alice,

you should not need to be told.

Exactly.

You should not need to be told that not everything you hear on podcasts is true.

Thank you.

True, of all people.

That was in the bin three months ago.

It's fair to say, Hari, not everyone was impressed by Trump's speech.

Nancy Pelosi, sitting behind him, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, applauded Trump very much like a conservationist applauding a colleague who has just castrated the last remaining male of an endangered rhino species and said, right, where do we plant them so they grow?

How did you enjoy it as an American?

Well, Andy, I expected to be really angry, but I was mostly numb.

So I'm at that stage of grief now.

I was offended as a stand-up comic by all the undeserved standing ovation.

Not a single joke that I would want to even bother writing.

It wasn't even kind of funny.

Every two minutes, someone's standing up.

I mean, is this not just that kind of, you know, the comedy of awkwardness, the funny because it's not funny?

You know what?

I think if there weren't consequences, I could see that.

I mean,

it was a big deal.

Melania was there because it is stipulated in her contract, the contract she signed to play Donald Trump's wife until 2020, at which point there was a team option for four more years.

That option will likely be picked up.

She looked orange, which I found amazing because they always say spouses start looking like each other after a while, and it didn't take that long.

She was a very sharp orange.

Right.

They eat a lot of carrots, to be fair to them.

So how they keep their eyesight so sharp.

He chose a very interesting strategy in the beginning of the State of the Union, because he chose history.

Like he began with talking about World War II and the liberation of Dachau, and then he went into the moon landing and how incredible an achievement that was 50 years ago.

And then Buzz Aldrin was there.

And it seemed like he wanted to focus on things he did not accomplish and was not there for, just to remind people how good it could be or was at one point.

Like I was waiting for him to mention Jonas Salk curing polio.

I was expecting him to say, remember the Wright brothers?

And when they flew in Kitty Hawk?

I was expecting him to say, remember the 1984 men's hockey team, which beat Russia in the Olympics?

I expected him to say, do you remember when President Bill Pullman gave a speech in front of the world as the aliens invaded the United States and rest of the world and as humanity conquered the universe once and for all?

Also, remember Beyoncé.

Always remember Beyonce.

Harry, I'm just going to have to pick you up on something something here.

It was 1980, the Soviet Union versus America ice hockey match, the miracle on ice in Lake Carlos.

Oh, no.

It wasn't Sarajevo in 1984.

Far from it.

Oh, my God.

I am so embarrassed.

Because obviously everyone caught that error as I was saying.

Look, I don't mind bullshit on this program, Hori, but I will not take sporting factual inaccuracies.

There was a sporting element to this because the Republicans, in particular kept chanting USA, USA.

And I don't remember what Trump said to trigger that reaction, but I was scared to death that there would be a hate crime during the State of the Union.

Whenever I hear angry white people chant that, I start walking in the other direction.

It's strange because they were chanting USA, USA,

while in the USA

during the state of the USA's Union.

What is

a very redore of these things?

I was interesting, you mentioned that, you know, you mentioned a lot of things he had nothing to do with, and also,

well,

raised the fact that there were more women in Congress than ever before.

And in a way, he did.

I mean, that is his accomplishment in a lot of ways.

Clearly, he finally woke America out of its sexist slumber.

He's given feminism a real shot in the arm.

I mean, a president who was less of a gropey misogynist probably wouldn't have been nearly so inadvertently progressive.

I particularly enjoyed the way that the large number of women who were sitting there, a lot of them chose to wear white in deference to the suffrage.

Oh, I thought that was because they'd just come from playing a cricket match.

They wanted to assert that they weren't having their period so that he'd take them seriously.

But that they sort of alternated between, I think, trying to encourage him in his more sort of reasonable and statesmanlike remarks by standing up and applauding him, with a few notable exceptions.

Social media star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was particularly working on her stank face at all times.

Stank face.

Stank face.

Yes, like when someone makes a stank and you go, ooh,

that's the face you make.

Right, okay.

It's a legitimate word in modern parlance.

Stank face.

Anyway, she had a face on.

Yes.

Is my point.

She looked about as impressed as a vegan nun at a pagan badger slaying and devil summoning convention.

and

tweeted afterwards after she was criticized for not looking positive in her usual style and uh not unreasonably tweeted why would why would she uh with uh trump speaking uh out of his own mouth and tweeted this we are flying without a pilot now i that i would dispute from uh from alison alexandria ocasio-cortez I think there is definitely a pilot in America, and that is in many ways the problem.

It's not the lack of a pilot, it's who the pilot is, what he's doing, and the fact that he's locked himself in the cockpit and is shouting,

that mountain looks at me funny.

I'm going to teach it a lesson it will not f ⁇ ing forget.

That's the problem.

Did you notice that his tie was crooked?

Oh, I didn't.

The whole State of the Union, his tie was crooked, and no one bothered telling him, which tells you a lot about what people think about him.

Stop slut-shaming him.

I mean, the crookedness just seemed symbolic.

Like, yeah.

That is appropriate.

I mean to his credit.

To his credit, he brought out a family who lost loved ones who were killed by undocumented immigrants, which is evil.

It's evil that he chose to do that, but he brought them out.

He brought out a couple of black folks who were pardoned and released from prison.

He brought out a little girl who survived cancer.

Where has he been keeping all these people?

Well, I mean, I think they're part of the actors that apparently also serve as victims in all these shootings.

They're from the same repertory theater.

Well, this conspiracy goes right to the top.

But I think he should be commended for exploiting such a diverse range of people.

Like, this is the kind of representation I did not want necessarily, but still, I like the fact that some of us are now on the screen.

Trump said, we must reject the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution, and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good.

And clearly, someone switched the verbs in those sentences on the auto key.

It was a classic anchorman-style prank, and it was clearly supposed to be, we must embrace the politics of revenge, resistance, and retribution.

That'll make a lot more sense.

Trump calling for conciliation and bipartisan cooperation, to me,

is like someone writing the words, do not allow your dog to foul the sidewalk on the sidewalk using his own shit.

Throughout the speech, Nancy Pelosi was staring at a stack of papers in front of her.

I don't know if those were like a copy of the remarks or basically the order of events.

As she was staring at those papers, she looked like she was staring at a menu and hated every single dish.

But was trying to be polite.

There was a lot of people picked up on the fact, Harry, that Trump didn't mention climate change.

And from a global perspective, that it's a bit of a curious oversight given that climate change is essentially the biggest issue facing the entire planet.

The clock is ticking, and even more concerningly, it's not a real clock.

It's obviously not just a clock.

There's wires clearly sticking out of it.

Joel Clement, who'd resigned from the Interior Department over Trump's battle against climate science, said the Trump's administration's strategy is to ignore climate change, pretend it doesn't exist and pretend the science doesn't exist even if it is coming from its own agencies.

Well I say

have you got a better way of dealing with climate change than that than just flatly ignoring it

because there's no other solution that isn't really difficult, quite expensive and a bit inconvenient.

So that has to be the best option.

Yeah.

You know, I'm going to disagree with you, Andy, with regards to him not mentioning climate change because he kind of mentioned it

because he said

AIDS will be eliminated in a decade, which to me implied global warming will kill us all by then.

That's right.

I assume that's what he meant.

That's that kind of lateral thinking that's become the hallmark of Trump's presidency.

So, geez.

Also, coming out as anti-AIDS is not courageous since it's not 1987.

We're all going to agree to that.

Trump was also criticized for his speech being too long, clocked in at 82 minutes.

Well, here at the Bugle, we're not entirely in a position to slam anyone for banging on endlessly whilst being patently divorced from sense and reality.

And if you, too, Bugle listeners, want to see a man going on a bit too long whilst the woman behind him looks unimpressed at his obvious bullshit, come to the Bugle Live US tour shows with me on stage and Alice on a big screen behind me

looking Pelosian,

I would imagine.

I'll be sure to clap sarcastically at various points.

Yes, I was keen to come along, but you make your visas very expensive, America, so I'm going to be here in the remote form of a judgmental android.

This tour starts on the 26th of February at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, then strap in the Comedy Loft in Washington, D.C.

on the 27th, Loft Boston on the 28th of February, then when the Columbus in Providence, Rhode Island on the 1st of of March, the Iron Horse in Northampton, Massachusetts on the 2nd of March, Punchline Philly in Philadelphia on the 3rd of March, the Lincoln Hall in Chicago on the 4th of March, the Cedar in Minneapolis on the 5th of March, Comedy Works in Denver on the 6th of March, and the Alberta Rose in Portland on the 7th of March.

Yes, you're right, there are no days off in that lot, and quite a lot of miles to cover.

So, as long as the transport system works, and it always does in America, doesn't it?

It should all be fine.

Then, three days off, then we finish San Francisco at Cobbs on the 11th of March and the Dynasty typewriter in Los Angeles on the 12th of March.

Details on the Bugle website or the rest of the internet or my website if you can get the dust off it or from your local priest or any passerby.

And I will be there in all of those places, but also more importantly, in my bedroom.

Venezuela news.

Should he stay or should Sit go?

I like what you've done there.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

The clash.

First of all, I should let you know I did some research focused solely on American news coverage of what's happening.

And what I discovered was that Venezuela is a country on the northern coast of South America.

Yep.

Right.

So

that's the coverage.

Right.

Well, that's probably more in-depth than

a lot of American news outlets have gone.

Well, I mean, to sort of sum it up, while we are all very focused on our own political chaoses, it is important to remember that other places in the world are also wallowing in their own horrifying barrels of governmental bum juice.

The ongoing political crisis in Venezuela has divided both the country and the international community around it, some people backing President Nicolas Maduro,

who is a madman, but the madman we know, and others are supporting the man who's challenging him, who seems a lot more sane except that he's running up against President Nicolas Maduro,

who is, I think to put it mildly, made out of bananas.

I mean, to call things under Maduro pretty intense is to understate things deeply.

It's like calling David Tennant pretty charming, when in fact talking to him is like having your face sandblasted by the approval of every human you've ever respected or wanted to bang until you're just a puddle of smiling sludge.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

Venezuela has had a bit of a tricky time of late.

And it seems to come down to this tussle for power between Maduro, the undemocratically pseudo-elected president, and Juan Guaido, the democratically unelected self-proclaimed interim president.

On the side of Maduro, authoritarian-led China and Russia.

On the side of Guaido, would-be-authoritarian-led Brazil and the USA.

And it is...

Venezuela's had

a rotten time, particularly economic.

It's a blue-chip economy.

Blue-chip, the famous acronym that stands for bad leadership, unstoppable emigration, crime, hunger, inflation, and poverty.

1.4 million percent inflation.

It's hit recently, which is, I mean, when it gets over the key 1.3 million percent, you've got real, real problems.

And despite of its many problems, the four million Venezuelans have emigrated since the beginning of Hugo Chavez's rule in 1999.

That's more than 10% of the population.

A poll a couple of years ago showed that well over half of the people wanted to leave.

And despite all this, Maduro.

I've got a party at my house.

Despite all this,

Maduro stormed to victory in last year's presidential election with a suspicious sounding 67.8% of the vote.

Yeah, you know, they just wanted to make it 69.

That always happens.

It's all these like strong men dictators.

They always win by landslides.

You got to keep it close.

If you're going to cheat, you don't want to make it too obvious.

Don't go for an A, get like a C plus.

You know, oh, I won 52%.

Oh, I was so close, though.

I really enjoyed this quote by Guaido's mother on CNN,

which is that she told him when Obama became president that he walked like Obama.

And Obama rolls up his sleeves, and Guaido also does that.

But she added, it's not like he's mimicking Obama.

Just the nicest mum in the world.

The kind of supportive mom you want.

Donald Trump has threatened military intervention in Venezuela.

I mean, how's that going to work out, Ari?

I mean, just looking at the history of American military interventions

driven by the fear of communism, how have they generally gone?

Poorly.

Poorly.

It has led to massive spending, a great deal of death.

I mean,

this is a theory, Andy, and I'm not going to

spend too much time in it, but I think it might have to do with oil.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

I'll disagree.

Is it not just the attraction of a country with both a V and a Z in its name?

There's something alluring about that.

It's one of the most alluring country names in the world.

Venezuela.

The Venice of the South Americans.

Incidentally, the Venezuelas were northern Italy's leading Renaissance-influenced Bob Marley tribute act as well.

Your one's better.

Maybe it's

just curiosity.

The rest of the world, right?

Why is Russia and China so interested in it?

And America seems so worried about it, despite the fact there's at least seven countries between Venezuela and the USA if you wanted to walk from one to the other.

Maybe it's the fascination of how a country of 30 million people and huge potential oil wealth has never made it to a Football World Cup final score.

The only South American country not to have grace.

They must have been focusing on something else.

They're clearly planning.

They focused everything on taking over the world rather than football like the other South American countries.

Or, how come a country so close to the cricketing hotbed of Trinidad and Tobago,

how has it never embraced the greatest invention in human history?

It's a confusing, it's an alluring country.

I can see that.

Maduro, who enjoys the backing of the Supreme Court in his country, has rejected demands for new presidential elections, offering dialogue instead.

And I think by dialogue, he means the kind of dialogue where he punches you in the face and balls, and you get to say ow.

I find it really bizarre that European countries, a number of them, had deadlines for Maduro to call for elections or else they would recognize Juan Guedo as president.

First point, where is the U.S.'s deadline?

Does the U.S.

not get a deadline for a fair election?

We had a compromised election, unstable leaders, and I do think there's a threat of another civil war.

No elections.

Secondly, I think the whole not recognizing another country is absurd and childish.

Like, clearly,

he's the leader right now, right?

Is Maduro here?

No, I'm right here.

I don't see Maduro calling an election.

I guess you're the president now, Juan, but I'm right here.

Too bad Maduro couldn't step up.

It's childish.

In Political Correctness Gone Mad News Now, Howard Schultz, the billionaire Starbucks mogul, has used the terms people of means and people of wealth instead of calling them billionaires at a recent QA event.

It's a weird linguistic conflation of the plight of the super-rich with other people's actual plights.

To use the syntactical construction most often deployed by, for example, people of colour.

Like the hardest struggle you guys go through that is different from poor people is that you have to come to terms with the truth of the adage, money doesn't buy you happiness.

And I'm sure that's very hard, but not as sure as I'd like to be.

I'd like to find that out for myself, at least.

I mean, how far are you going to take this kind of euphemistic approach?

Are poor people on a yacht doing wealth face?

Is having an affair with a tennis instructor cultural appropriation?

Can I refuse to pay my taxes out of solidarity?

He said that the moniker billionaire has now become a catchphrase.

You mean punchline, man.

You mean punchline?

That is not what a catchphrase is.

A catchphrase is like, what's up?

Or I know you are, but what am I?

Billionaire is just math.

Yeah.

Or a catch.

Also, billionaires

were never oppressed, so we should be able to call them whatever they want.

Well, you say they're never oppressed, but the way I look at it is how many billionaires are there in the world?

A few hundred?

It's not that many, not that many.

How many starving people living below the poverty line are there?

Hundreds of millions.

So who's really endangered here?

You know, if we don't look after the billionaires, because they don't breed that many, they're like pandas,

then they could easily die out within a generation or two.

So please

support the rich.

I fear that Schultz has a legitimate shot only because there are so many basic people in the United States.

So I think Schultz can ride the pumpkin spice wave to the presidency.

He could probably get elected just promising not to write people's names wrong on their takeaway cups.

At least, I want at least an achievable promise.

That would be rare in politics, wouldn't it?

Look, I quite like Starbucks.

They're a good place to go to the bathroom.

Go to the restroom for a rest.

Or the wee room for a wee.

Brexit news now, and well, that's another clock that is ticking.

Sex with a stranger room.

Sorry, go on.

I mean,

Star Fox.

Brexit news now, and that is another clock that is ticking.

In fact, the only time you can't hear the Brexit clock ticking is when the politicians pop out of the clock and go, cuckoo, cuckoo.

European Council President Donald Tusk has said that there is a special place in hell for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely.

A special place.

Why do they always get their own special place?

Are you sure he didn't mean a special place in the Cayman Islands?

That seems far more likely.

I can just imagine Virgil guiding Dante through the circles of hell, gesturing to the irresponsible promise politicians zone, right next to where Sisyphus has to roll up his rock up the hill again and again but it's like when nine to five they're all made to sit on chairs made out of stinging nettles but they are allowed to wear protective pants but they have to be made out of their own moral fibre and then after hours they have to be the dead pig whose mouth get f ⁇ ed by David Cameron

so uh Virgil getting uh leading Dante yeah wasn't that the Dante's inter Inferno like Virgil was guiding him through the having studied classics as I did extremely aggressively as a student I do hope that at some point Dante turned to Virgil and said, all that shit you wrote about farming was a pile of arse.

Anyway,

I digress.

I think this idea, maybe this is Tusk promising there will be a special place in hell for those behind Brexit as some kind of deal sweetener.

Because even for me as a natural remainer, someone who would like to just go back on the entire thing if the EU were able to promise that Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage would be sentenced to an eternity in hell with only each other for company, I would sign up for that.

Yeah, but you have to acknowledge that these people will not be reading that as a bad thing.

You know, having been going to these private schools as children or what you call public schools, I don't know, you're English people are weird.

Never mean what we say.

All they will hear is like, ooh, a special place for me, just to go to set up.

I mean, if we're going to go to hell, I might as well be in the boys' club there.

I mean, it's sort of not fair to say that they promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out.

There was definitely a sketch, it's just that it was drawn in crayon on the back of the napkin, and it just had a little smiley face labelled Brexit and an out arrow.

That's a sketch of a plan.

Theresa May is as we speak back in Brussels to try to hack out her 47th attempted plan B,

It's hard to know exactly what she's hoping to squeeze out of the withered husk of hope.

But as Arthur Conan Doyle, author and cricket enthusiast, famously wrote in his little-known book, Sherlock Holmes Negotiates a Treaty, when you have ruled out the preferable, whatever remains, however unpalatable, must be what you can tell people it was they actually voted for.

One small note: to look at it, what Tusk said in a positive light.

You know, a special place in hell, well, that's at least one place Brits can go without a visa.

That's good.

The Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has warned of the fog of Brexit in a speech.

But does not fog eventually clear?

Just let the winds of fate, the sweet breezes of time, blow away the mists of this ephemeral confusion and reveal the clear waters ahead between us and the now unavoidable waterfall we're about to plummet over in our national dingy of destiny.

I mean, isn't Britain very famous for having at one point these pea soup fogs that literally killed people?

Yes.

Yeah, but

we grew out of that.

Well, now we just have diesel cars bumping fumes into children's bunches.

Missing royal treasure news now, and some of the Swedish crown jewels that were stolen from a cathedral last year appear to have been found in a bin in Stockholm.

Two crowns and an orb from the year 1611 were stolen, but they still work, interestingly.

They made them to last in those days.

Your modern crowns and orbs might have more functionality for today's social media conscious 21st century monarchs.

But you know they'll look trendy and be super efficient, but then, you know, after a few years, they'll start getting glitchy.

just before the warranty is up.

They'll completely stop working within five years, just in time for the new improved model to come out.

But these old thrones, these old crowns and orbs.

I mean, for a start, there's one question.

What the f does an orb do?

Also, how do you manage two crowns and one orb?

Surely you want an orb for each hand and one crown for your head.

What are you putting the crowns on your tits?

I don't get it.

The jewels were found by a security guard during what I assume were his regular bin rummaging rounds.

The discovery of these royal jewels in a bin raises so many questions for me, Andy.

First, is that bin the king now?

Second,

Second.

A police spokeswoman said work is underway to determine whether they are in fact the jewels that were taken.

If they're not the stolen jewels, whose jewels are they and why are they in the bin?

Thirdly, what will the bin king require of us, his most bio-waste-producing subjects?

Will he appreciate us for feeding him delicious scraps or resent us for our lack of respect?

And most importantly, will there be a royal bin wedding?

I am 100% up for covering myself in eggshells and used tea bags and going to that

a spokeswoman was unable to confirm the location of the Stockholm bin where the treasures may have been found presumably attempting to head off a surge of garbage diving King Arthur wannabes

the thieves the crownal klepticians

were said

in the the news report to have quote fled the scene on ladies' bicycles

I mean this is the problem with the world being tolerant of gender fluidity In simpler times, people would have seen a male man on a lady femur bike and they'd have known something fishy was up.

They'd have wrestled the crimson to the floor saying, you're not a real lady, but you're riding a lady's bicycles.

You're controversy.

God's holy law, so you must be up to no good.

And it'll be

solved at source.

I mean, I'm all in favour of people riding whatever bicycles they want to ride, but in the privacy of their own bedrooms, and definitely not while they're stealing priceless crown jewels.

Where will it end?

With babies on diamond-encrusted quad bikes, old women on jet skis.

It's not natural!

Someone had to say it.

No, they didn't.

Okay, no, you're quite right.

I just thought orbs.

They don't do it for me.

I think it's bad visuals.

Nice pair of orbs in the right place at the right time, and

family show, Alice.

Do they levitate?

To me, it just looks like a monarch is not focused on the job in hand when you see a monarch with an orb.

It just looks like they are ticking off the minutes until they can go bowling.

Did they find Thor's hammer?

Was that amongst the things they found?

That's in the British Museum, I think, isn't it?

I think it's about time that Marie Kondo go to the British Museum and

start to ask people, does this bring you joy?

Do you really need these ancient rocks?

Do you really need this Greek statue?

I'm very confronted by the whole Marie Kondo movement because as someone who was brought up

sort of very strictly Buddhist, if I pick up an object and it brings me joy, I have to immediately renounce it anyway.

So I've got nothing left, man.

Emoji news.

Oh, yes, emojis.

The 2019 official list of new emojis has emerged with a number of newly useful and expressive representations to add to the pantheon of tiny pictures people use when they can't find words to describe their feelings.

There are disability-themed emojis, a drop of blood emoji, which is meant to offer women a new way to talk about menstruation but can also be used to add graphic flair to death threats

or the tears of a texting vampire.

A skunk, a parachutist and a waffle also joined the list which I imagine will please smelly Belgian skydivers know out.

I have also been informed through dozens of tweets that a new flamingo related emoji has also been added to the catalogue and fine, cool, whatever.

Now people don't even have have to use words when they want to deliberately annoy me in a way that I'm supposed to interpret as affectionate and friendly banter, I guess.

That's the price of fame.

If by fame you mean moderate specific niche podcast guest host fame aka not fame.

I don't know, man.

I have to fight through such mixed feelings about this whole flamingo thing.

I regularly do my own quite serious podcast in which I have gentle conversations about complex issues with interesting people and every time I do a call out for questions I get a fking barrage of pictures of lanky pink f birds gangling around in a salt puddle somewhere with their cumbersome beaks and pretentious unwillingness to use more than one leg at a time.

That's the House of Lords.

I mean, I'm disappointed that there were no penis or vagina emojis.

Or even a butt emoji.

I think it's ridiculous because that's what the people want.

And as a result of them not providing that, people are still forced to use eggplants and bananas and peaches and so forth.

I cannot tell you the number of times I have gone to someone's home with an eggplant because I misunderstood the message.

I thought you needed an eggplant.

I am not dressed for anything other than providing you with an eggplant.

I'm not wearing my special underwear.

I'm not wearing cologne.

But now we have an eggplant.

There's also a new Brexit-related emoji that expresses a sense of generational betrayal.

And there's also another one that expresses a determination to stick to a decision, even whilst knowing that decision is obviously and fundamentally flawed.

And also a face that expresses the twin emotions of panic and inaction.

So some exciting new Brexit emojis.

Just quickly...

Interestingly, I learnt that emojis are named after Emojus, who is an ancient Roman emperor in the 260s AD, who banned the use of words and made everyone communicate only by pulling faces.

Before he was inevitably, as most Roman emperors were assassinated.

He was assassinated silently by his own very angry-looking bodyguards.

That fits in with my theory that the Egyptians invented the internet with their obsession with cats and little pictures.

Your emails now, this comes from Craig, who writes, hi, Andy, stroke, f you, Chris, stroke, statistically speaking, Alice.

That sounds like your next podcast.

thing anyone's ever said to me

as long time bugle listeners will know writes craig it's a long-standing tradition to listen to your fine bullshit whilst undergoing minor medical procedures now whilst this has been somewhat skewed historically towards vasectomies craig continues i will be having a small op procedure

whatever that is outpatient

right uh on my shoulder on tuesday and so she'll carry on this fine practice i've selected classic bugle episode 187 to listen to, and it's my all-time favourite with Johnny Shobiz recounting Bashar Al-Assad's purchase of LMFAO's I'm Sexy and I Know It, and the vision of him belting it out in his palace, dancing in his pants and singing into a hairbrush.

I just hope I don't laugh at the wrong moment, and I hit a nerve and I

lose the use of my arm.

Keep up the bush.

Well, maybe that's another thing.

What injuries have you suffered

because of listening to the bugle?

If you have any major or life-threatening incidents, then do email into hellobuglers at thebugle podcast.

I don't know if it counts as an injury, but I certainly volunteered to be honoured as a result of having listened to it.

It's ruined my life.

Well, my ears bleed every time Andy makes a pun, so that's kind of

an injury, do that.

You've got an emoji to express it now.

That brings us to the end of this week's Bugle.

Hari, thanks very much for coming on.

Have you got any tour shows you'd like to alert our listeners to?

I do.

I will be in Charlottesville, Virginia on February 28th.

That's right.

Charlottesville, Virginia.

And if I'm able to survive, I will do Atlanta, Georgia the next day on March 1st, Athens, Georgia on March 2nd, Asheville, North Carolina, March 3rd.

Northridge, California, March 16th with one W Kamal Bell.

And a bunch of other dates all over the country in the spring, Denver, Salt Lake City, Burlington, Arlington, Virginia, Wilmington, and so forth.

Again, dependent on what happens during that Charlottesville show and all the information's on hurrykundabolu.com.

More realistically, just Google Hurry Comedian,

probably Apu or The Simpsons, and you'll find me.

Alice, anything to plug?

Well, my show on the 17th at the Museum of Comedy in London is, I think there's only about five tickets left.

So

listen to the trilogy with me on it.

That's free.

And come to the Bugle shows in America and otherwise support my work.

There you go.

Consider those careers plugged.

My career's plugged in many ways.

Like a golf shot into a puddle.

Oh, we should have a quick update on Chris's injury.

Oh, yes.

Also, did you know plugging is where never mind.

It's an internet form.

Google it.

Right.

Thank you, Alice.

Chris?

Yes.

How decrepit are you after your hip replacement?

I could show you what the scar looks like if you like.

I mean, not for an audio podcast.

I mean, maybe show us the scar and we'll react audibly.

Okay, wait wait one second.

In hip hip hooray news now, Chris is limping his way in to show us his bits.

His his fresh new

hip scar.

Chris is about to disrobe live on the bugle.

We need an hour rating for this episode.

I've never taken my trousers down on this show before.

So you say.

Who wants to go first?

Okay.

Okay, let's have a look.

Oh,

oh, ouch.

That looks

like a big slice in a person.

I'll go now.

Right.

Also, nice to see you.

I can't see.

I can't see it, but I got nauseous as well.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's

pretty gross.

I mean, to be honest, Chris, you're ignoring the obvious message God was sending, which was

run around, less.

That's all viewless.

Until next time, we'll have a full update on Chris's recovery from having his body hacked to pieces by a deranged madman in medical scrubs.

Until next week, goodbye.

Bye.

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.