Bugle 4094 – Weekend at Bernie’s

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4094 of The Bugle, the audio newspaper viewed by historians and scientists as the closest available equivalent to having an ancient Egyptian tomb full of topical hieroglyphs collapse on top of you while you're trying to steal stuff for a museum from it.

I am Andy Zoltzmann, and I've had enough

lunch.

So I'm all set and ready to go

to sleep.

And

joining me this

week, bloody fonts.

I'm telling you, this is the last time I use fonts this big, as the bishop said to the Catholic elephant.

We are here, sorry, we are here in Flanders.

Sorry, Flounders, as London is now known.

And joining me two jabsticks into the already putrefying flesh of this week's news to see if it makes a noise.

Firstly, it's the man who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake wherever he goes on a football pitch.

Nish Kumar.

Hello, Nish.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Alice.

Hello, Buglers.

I play hard, Andy.

I play hard.

Also, let me open.

Spoiler alert, he hasn't introduced me yet.

Oh, right, okay.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Buglers.

That's better.

Hello, no one.

Let me just first say,

lovely bit of business.

Right.

Up the top.

Papers, rustling, Foley.

It's a strong start to the episode.

How are you?

I'm all right, thanks.

How's your Brexagraph reading at the moment?

My Brexagraph is like my cholesterol after my Christmas holiday to India and New York.

Worryingly high.

Worryingly high.

Health endangeringly high, Andrew.

Also joining us.

Without wishing to give anything away that's already been given away on this historic day, the 231st anniversary of the first bits of the so-called first fleet carrying the first convicts from Britain to Australia arrived in Botany Bay with an update on how that little social experiment is going.

It's the southern hemisphere's very own Alice Fraser.

Hello Andy, hello Nish.

I had nothing to say.

I'm here.

They're there.

Yes.

Having discussions about Australia Day and what day it should be on and whether it should have happened in the first place.

And the answer is.

Every day is Australia Day.

Every day in Australia is Australia Day.

And some days in New Zealand, though they don't want to admit it.

Given the recent spike in racist violence around the time of Australia Day, I imagine there's quite a few people in Australia who are really glad every day is not Australia Day, if I'm honest.

We are recording on the 18th of January.

On this day in 1896, H.L.

Smith exhibited the world's first x-ray machine.

And coincidentally, it was also on that same day, 18th of January 1896 on which someone thought for the very first time I wonder if I can see through people's clothes with this

on this day in 1778 James Cook

celebrity star of exploration in the 18th century became the first known European to discover the Hawaiian islands which he called the sandwich islands was soon renamed Hawaii after Cook returned there the following year and was clonked on the head and stabbed to death on the beach whilst attempting to respond to a question from his chief cartographer Granicus Sclavard who asked, Skipper, just quickly while we're here and I've got my map kit out, what is this place called?

Bit of history for you.

And on this day in 1486, royal wedding!

Royal wedding!

Royal wedding!

Royal wedding!

Royal wedding!

Royal wedding!

Henry VII married Elizabeth of York,

thus uniting the previously warring houses of Lancaster and York in the aftermath of the Wars of the Roses.

Watch and learn, modern princes.

That's how you fing get married.

You marry for the political good of the country.

Where were you, Prince Harry, when we needed you to step up to our national plate and marry Michelle Barnier, Brussels chief Brexit negotiator?

Where were you, Prince William, when economics dictator that you should flutter your royal eyelids coquettishly at Warren Buffett and whisper, you are my kind of man in my role as a British public utility?

Andy, you're really missing out on the importance of Harry picking Meghan Markle, though, because whilst it might not seem to have any geopolitical significance, it has secured suits on UK Netflix for the foreseeable future.

After Brexit, it may be all we've got.

As always, some sections of the bugle are going straight.

In the bin this week, an audio cave paintings section.

Here you go.

Moo.

Roar.

Bleat.

Yeah, they're not that accurate or realistic, but

just about tell what they are.

Also, in the bin this week, a 10-year challenge section.

Well, you might have seen this week that celebrities in the latest social media craze have been proudly parading photos of themselves from 10 years ago, proving that they are indistinguishable on the grounds that they are essentially not human.

They only share 2% of human DNA.

It does not include the aging gene.

Anyway, who gives a shit what people looked like 10 years ago?

This is a podcast, and we want to know what people sounded like 10 years ago.

So we are bringing you the audio 10-year challenge.

Here's Donald Trump now.

I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency.

The lawyers have so advised me.

I'm not prepared to do that yet.

But if I have to, I will.

I have no doubt about it.

I will.

I have the absolute right to declare.

This was passed by Congress.

So when you say was it passed by Congress, it was.

Other presidents have used it, some fairly often.

I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency.

I haven't done it yet.

I may do it.

If this doesn't work out, probably I will do it.

I would almost say definitely.

And now here's Donald Trump from exactly 10 years ago in January 2009.

For we know

that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims.

Jews and Hindus, and non-believers.

We are shaped by every every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth.

Manners, he changed.

Theresa May now.

The deal which I have worked to agree with the European Union was rejected by MPs and by a large margin.

I believe it is my duty to deliver on the British people's instruction to leave the European Union, and I intend to do so.

And here's Theresa May in 2009.

That's the best thing to happen to Theresa May in a long time.

Winston Churchill today,

and now Winston Churchill from 10 years ago.

But closer to home.

I know what you're thinking, Bugless.

What did I, Nish, and Alice, sound like 10 years ago?

Well, as luck would have it, we actually met on this day, 10 years ago, to record a pilot for a TV documentary series about wildlife on this planet.

Fing Attenbrother Doddery, old plagiarist.

Got him before we could have it made.

But anyway, here are some outtakes from the start of that voiceover recording.

I'm just saying, I think we need to get out of the European Union before they force us to swap the Queen for Bridget Bardo, and we need to privatize the NHS.

If people really need curing, the free market will find them.

And anyone earning over 500 grand a year should be exempt from tax.

Otherwise, what's the point of getting out of bed in the morning?

What do you think, Alice?

Alle Flamingo is auf einem raisigen raumschiff in the Weltraumschicken, siend sinlos a lang baniger rosewarbene symbol for the

millennialen aesthetic.

Was for einisch Ver Schwendun von Vogelart.

Yeah, absolutely.

Where's Andy?

It's not like him to be late.

The Gucci shoot overran.

Right.

What the f is this?

Is this Bollinger?

Read my fing rider.

It's Dom Perigner on a Sunday.

Shit, man, I fing know who I am.

Does anyone want to see my tattoo of Mrs.

Thatcher?

See, I know who's a wider an before.

we'll get to work on the nature documentary.

Rolling.

Zebras are stripey horses that live in the jungle and taste of licorice all sorts, which is why lions like them the best.

We've not changed at all.

I think we've developed a little bit in different ways, but

that was January 2009.

Long time ago.

Anyway, that's the section in the bin.

Top story this week.

Any guesses?

Any guesses, being as we are in Britain at the moment?

Well, it's been another dramatic week

for Brexit, Britain, in which not only have we discovered, interestingly, that not only does God routinely save the Queen, thanks to our national theme song, but apparently...

as evidenced by yesterday's dramatic car accident, she also has transferable save credits that she can cash in on her current boyfriend whenever the need arises.

But also, it was a record defeats for the government as our divinely elected incompatocracy continued to fumble our way towards the Brexit trapdoor of joyous freedom.

Theresa May leading Britain through our uniquely British DIY quagmire with the sure-handed assurance of a haddock on a quad bike.

Incidentally, that is set to replace the Union Jack as the flag of the UK once we're free to make our own decisions as a country again, rather than sticking with the old shitting triangles or rectangles shit foisted on us by history.

What was I talking about?

Anyway,

Theresa May's painstakingly negotiated deal with the EU was voted down by 430 to 200 basically or in simpler terms it was vomited back into her face like a baby bird with a profound allergy to worms.

Nish is our official

Britain going down the band correspondent.

How have you enjoyed this week's episode?

Well, it's difficult to summarise because like the first two Star Wars prequels absolutely everything has happened and yet somehow absolutely nothing has happened because if you think about it we pretty much are where we were at the start of play even though we have lived through one of the most momentous weeks in British Democratic history.

Theresa May's Brexit deal was rejected by 230 votes.

Jeremy Corbyn then responded by tabling a vote of no confidence.

Theresa May then won that no confidence vote by 325 to 306 votes.

So the government can't pass the most important piece of legislation it needs to pass and it also can't be removed.

Now, I don't know how familiar you two are with the cinematic masterpiece Weekend of Bernice.

No,

not massively.

Okay, it's essentially the story, and I believe it's a sort of brechtian drama, about two insurance company employees who pretend that their boss, who has died, is not dead and prop his body up for the duration of a weekend-long party at his beach house.

Our government is now Bernie from Weekend of Bernice.

It's essentially dead, but it's being propped up and trotted out because of the self-interest of a pack of absolute chances.

I just, I was trying to watch some Brexit stuff to get some information for this segment, and it's just phenomenal.

The more I hear about Brexit, the less I want to hear about Brexit.

It's like everything that needs to be said has been said, and people have carefully listened to the things that confirmed their initial attitude and ignored the rest.

It's like watching a gang of toddlers high on red food colouring screaming angry secrets into one another's mouths.

You know, they say if you don't laugh, you'll cry, which is bullshit because I spend most of my time neither laughing nor crying.

Actually, there are a range of other emotional options, and I think maybe delicately balanced on the razor edge of apathetic rage, staring into a grey future of furiously uninformed vitriol is the most appropriate emotional response to this situation.

The original vote, as you will recall, was delayed in December.

And it turns out that delay was crucial because it allowed absolutely fck all to happen.

Apart from five more weeks to pass.

The clever strategy being, well, if you hate it now, then one of two things will have happened.

In five weeks' time, you'll have either have fallen head over heels in love with it.

I may refer you now to a different cinematic masterpiece, Crocodile Dundee,

with him and that pretty journalist.

Who'd have thought they'd have got it on?

The way that film began.

Interesting Australia fact.

The whole of the Crocodile Dundee movie is actually our national anthem.

You haven't lived until you've seen a stadium full of people going, that's not enough.

Also, we're now five weeks closer to Brex Day.

Yeah.

And nothing more has happened.

So that means that essentially we've jumped out of the aeroplane and

if someone has offered you by way of a parachute a large fajita

you would initially reject it but if you are then 40% closer to the moment of impact,

you're going to f ⁇ ing try everything.

Oh, God.

Yeah, Andy Exceptor Fajita is far too ethnic a food to be a perfect Brexit analogy.

It's more just a flat piece of bread or some sort of Eccles cake.

Yeah, it's a terrible state of affairs.

I think the Eccles cake would give you quite a good cushioning on landing, actually.

Do you think so?

From a

free fall.

No, of course he doesn't think so.

He never says anything he thinks.

Have you not met this man?

Yes, we're ticking closer to a no-deal.

Now, at the moment, Jeremy Corbyn is trying to continue his negotiations by refusing to negotiate, which is an interesting strategy, because he's insisting that Theresa May take the option of no deal off the table before he even begins negotiations.

She's refusing to do that.

So, again, nothing is really happening.

And all that's happening is that we're getting closer to a no-deal Brexit, which this week, Jacob Brees Mogg, a man who is, I believe under investigation by Hercule Poirot,

claimed would not be the end of the world, which is really not ideal.

That's not what you want.

At a basic level,

you've got to set the bar slightly higher than not the end of all life on Earth.

Jacob Brees Mogg, also, by the way, he was one of the group of hard Brexits who didn't vote for Theresa May's deal and then celebrated his victory as only a man of the people can by having a champagne reception at his five-bedroom mansion round the corner from Westminster Palace.

What a guy, what a guy.

But we're now lurching closer to a no-deal Brexit.

Now that could mean queues at Dover, shortages of food and medication.

And the one thing we keep being told is don't worry, we'll survive it because we survived the Second World War.

Now, a couple of problems with that.

Firstly, statistically untrue.

Secondly, at the time we were able to pull resources from our extensive empire, from what I can tell, our empire now consists of Gibraltar and the British Museum.

So I mean, we're all going to have to develop a taste for ancient Egyptian artefacts.

And also, the most important element of that sentence is, we did not survive the Second World War.

They very much survived the Second World War.

Very important pronoun use.

We are not capable of surviving anything.

I don't remember watching that stupid f ⁇ ing Churchill movie and seeing a kid in the back playing candy crush on his iPhone.

We could not survive a bunch of drones flying over Gatwick Airport.

I mean,

us having to eat the contents of the British Museum brings new meaning to the phrase yummy mummy.

As you said, there's a lot of worries about what may happen in the event of

what's called a hard Brexit, although I believe the technical term is

incompetent Brexit.

I should have said tuden calm, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom.

Sorry, sorry I feel like we might have lost Alice for the rest of the podcast

could medicines run out

well yes but who needs health when you have an indefinable sense of national freedom

could the NHS be understaffed I'll just look it up on the internet

medical research funding could be cut well I mean have you been to a pharmacist lately there's f loads of medicines as it is besides what's wrong with a bit of British trial and error it's what built Stonehenge

okay I didn't really work Stonehenge as a multi-story ox park but still.

What happens?

This is one of the very grave concerns about what may happen if there is a no-deal Brexit.

What happens if Boris Johnson doesn't f off?

Which is looking increasingly likely.

He today denied ever making remarks about Turkey during the build-up to the referendum, only to be contradicted by facts.

And a letter that he'd written to the itch finder general, Michael Gove, and David F.

Cameron, as he's now officially known.

Are you sure it's not David F.

C.

Cameron?

I think there might be a C in there, Andy.

Right.

What if we are left alone with ourselves?

This is the most important question, I think.

What if we are left alone with ourselves to mull over exactly what we've become as a nation and the withered husk that remains after we've flogged off every public asset apart from the Queen's Corgi's and then blamed it all on Brussels?

That does not bear thinking about.

There are no medicines and no food I can cope with.

Being left alone with ourselves to shove a mirror up our own ass.

In a way, it will be fitting if we're left with not enough medication and people just have to take an entirely irrelevant medicine for whatever condition they're suffering from.

Because in a sense, the whole of Brexit is a kind of misdiagnosis.

Because there are a lot of problems in this country, massive inequality, people living

below the poverty line, people using food banks.

And that was a problem.

But Brexit was not the cure.

And the entire Brexit process is essentially prescribing someone with a headache to have their foot cut off.

Because now you've not solved the original problem.

And he's got a f ⁇ of a lot more on his plate than he had when he started.

Thermometer to the soul of the British populace, Boy George, tweeted in response to these Brexit debates, I'm moving to Scotland, to a generally welcoming response from Scottish Twitter.

But a spokesman for Boy George has clarified he was joking.

Also, most concerningly, a spokesman for Britain has clarified that Scotland is still in Britain.

The European reaction has essentially been, quescuit la fk.

That was the name of my French textbook when I did GCSC.

The second referendum still doesn't seem to be gaining as much traction as you might think it would.

Yeah.

Because there seems to be an argument that if you have a second referendum, that there'll be

sort of fascist violence in the street.

I mean, now two problems with that.

Firstly, there already is fascist violence in the street.

We've already had an MP be murdered by one of them, and a couple of them have been threatening anti-Brexit and left-wing campaigners in the last couple of weeks.

But also, I really don't think the solution to fascists is to give in to them.

Like, I mean, I'm pretty sure Winston Churchill didn't say, we will give in on the beaches.

We will concede ground where possible on the beaches.

There's some spectacular radio phone-ins, as you would expect,

this week.

And

I did hear someone saying, if we have another referendum, it will be the end of democracy in this country

rather than being another bit of democracy if we have another referendum we'll be living in a dictatorship i mean that's a

how does that sentence exist such is a confusing time classic sign of a dictatorship many referendums hitler was an absolute bugger for a referendum um but maybe it sits in mathematical things like a double neck democracy times democracy equals dictatorship not democracy squared

i mean look i don't know if a second referendum is the right solution but it seems like an odd thing to say it's an anti-democratic move.

Like when you ask someone on a date and then on the fourth date, you realise they're simultaneously boring and impossibly complicated, and you decide you don't want to keep seeing that person, but they're like, you said you wanted to go on a date with me, why would you change your mind?

You're a monster who hates democracy, touch my junk.

You know how that happens.

I mean, the danger of the second referendum is obviously that we would just continue to vote leave, but also they might have to put, it might have to be a more complicated options on the ballot paper it might not be leave real remain it might be remain uh teresa may's deal or no deal time machine just back in your time make it the 50s again yeah uh for so 10 50s before the normance got over

or one option that just says get rid of the browns i actually that would get a surprising amount of traction um but as a nation we have proved that if asked we cannot be trusted to not select the option that's kick yourself in the fun bags that was another teresa may May single from 2009.

Kick yourself in the fun bags.

I mean, I think a second referendum is useful given the way that British people approach social situations where you're like, Would you like a cup of tea?

And they go, Oh, no, no, no, I couldn't possibly.

And then you go, but would you like a cup of tea?

And they're like, Yes, I'd love a cup of tea.

Maybe it's just a polite refusal, hoping for a second, more strenuous offer.

This is a really interesting thing that you've brought up in regards to something that happened this week.

Because it's really weird when you know you, when you're part of a group, you don't really have a sense of what you're like as a group.

And it's only when someone, an outsider, for example, Alice,

outsider, obviously being polite term, for immigrant who

will soon be rid of, oh no, wait, she's white, that's fine, right?

It's really interesting how

you're seen as a people.

Because a group of German politicians and business leaders, including Anagret-Karenbaugh, who's the woman who's primed to take over from Anglo-Merkel, have sent an open letter to the British people.

And they've sort of basically, essentially,

not begging us to cancel Brexit, but at least saying that the diplomatic channels and the possibility of returning will still be open to us after Brexit.

And one of the lines in the letter says: We would miss the legendary British black humour.

First of all, there'll be no black after Brexit.

And going to the pub after work hours to drink an ale.

We would miss tea with milk and driving on the left-hand side of the road.

And we would miss seeing the Panto at Christmas.

Is that what we are as a nation?

Is that what you getting pissed on flat beer and drowning our tea in milk?

You know what, Andy?

I'm pro-Brexit.

I'm on out of this bullshit.

Well, that was basically the level of the campaign from both sides, wasn't it?

Do we drink that much tea?

Why is it everyone sees us through the prism of tea?

Oh, because that is how you are perceived.

Like, this is just, I mean, would you prefer, they said, we will miss the moaning about our damp feet.

How do they manage to be damp?

We're in Europe.

We have central heating, but somehow all of your British feet are always wet.

Like, you don't want them to be saying that.

Tea is the nicest thing they can say about you.

Also, I mean, yes, I mean, it's fair.

We built tea into an interval in our national sport.

Well,

what I consider my national sport.

I mean, if we're being completely honest and accurate, the two things we should be known for are binge drinking and sexual repression.

But it's probably not good to put that in a letter.

or a dating profile.

Toxic masculinity news now.

And

well, it's been an interesting week in the world of

adverts addressing the issue of toxic masculinity.

Gillette, the celebrity

razor and shaving foam manufacturer,

have issued an advert which didn't really refer to

anything to do with shaving.

And it's a bit of a pinion, this Gillette advert, all about the nature of masculinity and whether men can move on from some of the things that men may have been doing wrong in the past.

And the question has arisen, was this a smug, self-satisfied virtue signaling, commercially cynical, bandwagon, jump-jacking, smear attacking of all men with the same presumptive brush?

Or was it an attempt to educate men in the new realities of a progressed and progressing world in a smug, self-satisfied, virtue-sync, commercially cynical, bandwagon-jumping way?

It was both of those, especially, was it not?

Yes, indeed, Andy.

The hot takes are piling up like hot cakes on a hot cake shop slate.

An ad for men's raisers told men that they can be better men, and some men are angry about it, and other men are angry that those men are angry.

And women are either angry at the original men or angry at advertising in general and quite vindictively pleased that men are getting a taste of how it feels to be told you're a piece of shit by a marketing company.

This is one of those stories I resent being asked to have an opinion on because it only became a big deal when news media saw about six tweets from bots and Piers Morgan, who I would say is a bot, except no robot could possibly function with the amount of jizzy bin juice running through its pipes.

I just feel like trying to change the status quo of society through the medium of getting annoyed about how annoyed other people are about ads is like trying to ask someone out by touch typing a love letter with mittens on and telling a street pigeon to deliver it.

Like, I'll be impressed if it works, but I feel there are more efficient ways ways to get laid.

The advert showed men doing traditionally menly activities in the past, such as bullying, sexual assault, and mass Mormon-style barbecues.

Then being educaed by other men into new style, refangled 2019 vintage menlio-testosteris behaviourals, such as not bullying, not committing sexual assault, and cooking ethical vegan hot dogs using only the warmth of their newly enlightened human hearts.

Not entirely clear, Nish, how this sells razors or shaving foam.

I would have thought it'd be far more effective to just do a montage of incompletely shaven men such as Hitler, Stalin and Osama bin Laden and set that against cleanly shaven men such as Roger Federer, Mozart and

me, with the slogan, join the dots, hairy face, with all due respect, Nish.

Yeah, thank you, Andy.

That sentence was worryingly close to being a hate crime.

I mean, I think this is that is part of the problem, isn't it?

There has become a vogue for men to have beards.

So Big Razor, which obviously I know was your wrestling name,

and the shaving industrial complex have panicked and are now having to resort to try and advertise to sort of lay mass hipsters who have been growing beards.

I think this is a panic move from the Razor companies.

Obviously, there is an enormous correlation between the people getting upset, such as my old friend, and by friend, I mean, absolutely not friend, Piers Morgan.

There is a massive correlation between people getting upset about this and also people who tell other people to stop being such snowflakes all the time.

I just, I just, these kind of stories where everyone has an opinion and then an opinion on other people's opinion is like a bad case of crotch itch or flap rash, if you prefer, where the more you scratch at the bottom.

Now, flat rash was my wrestling name.

The more you scratch, the more you spread the rash.

Except in this case, your fingers are made of thrush and mosquitoes, and you keep asking people if they want to be fingered by your thrushy mosquito fingers, and everyone keeps saying yes for some fing reason.

What an irresistible offer.

A family show.

Thrush and mosquitoes.

Was that an oasis single?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What do you use, Andy?

You're a clean-shaven gentleman.

Yeah.

How do you extract the beard?

Do you use a girly man Gillette bullshit razor or do you use what God and nature intended, which is a steak knife?

Well, no, I use neither of those things.

I use my own fingernails.

And I found...

I'll just...

All I need to do is just watch the news at the moment and just the process of scratching my own face

in frustration keeps me smooth as the day I was born.

Zaltzman's fingernails, the best a man can get.

I mean I notice no one's asked me how I shave my beard which I think is sexism.

This is toxic smash.

I'm Gillette did in terms of promotional activity, they rather painted themselves into a corner historically by basing their entire advertising history on the idea that removing hair from your face with a razor was roughly akin to stalking, chasing down and manually slaying a saber-toothed T-Rex on the plains of Siberia wearing only a shark skin jock strap rather than being a mildly irritating management of a basic biological process as it is.

So they sort of have they have to go big, don't they?

And the famous slogan, Gillette, the best a man can get, rather overplayed the wondrous life-changing power of a device that takes little bits of hair off your cheeky wikis.

What the advert was saying, this new advert, in a smug third millennium advert kind of way, was simply don't be a c.

So similar in many ways to the teachings of the former alleged male Messiah, Jesus Christ, whose philosophy can pretty much be summed up as that.

Now there was, and if no offense to anyone, a f ⁇ ing hippie in need of a razor.

Also, he was a man's man, wasn't he?

I mean, he liked nothing more than hanging around with his 12 besties, chewing to cud and sinking some beers.

Yeah.

Wouldn't be allowed these days, would it?

Building some tables, popping to a whorehouse.

Classic manly activities.

A number of questions have been asked in the aftermath of this.

Why can't men be men?

The answer to which is they can.

Why can't we just let boys be boys?

We can, and we emphatically do.

Why can't men act these days like ancient Roman men do in films and TV shows anymore?

Well, they can, as long as they do it with other consenting would-be ancient Romans.

And Inatoga.

In a toga, and acknowledging that such behaviour will ultimately lead to their collapse and downfall.

And I mean, where will it end?

Well, that's another thing, isn't it?

Where will it end?

Will men no longer be allowed to talk about men's things whilst playing golf with each other like men?

They won't.

They won't be allowed to.

They'll have to talk about flowers and

bras and stuff.

It's a slippery slope.

You can't recork that Pandora's box.

No, the genie is out and she is playing Merry Hell.

There's a lot of talk about toxic masculinity, but what other forms of masculinity are there other than toxic?

Well, I don't think either you or I is qualified to make any comments about masculinity.

There is coxix masculinity,

in which you spend most of your time sitting on your ass watching sport.

That one's still okay, isn't it?

That one, please say that one's still okay.

There's sock shick masculinity, in which men express their style and male independence by wearing expensive and fashionable socks embroidered with everyday scenes of men bravely not harassing women.

There's Boxich masculinity, in which you attempt to model yourself, your body, your lifestyle, and your football on the skillful former Croatian Ford Alan Boxich.

Oh, that signed me up for that one.

Boxich was a hell of a player.

He was a hell of a player, and a player with whom you have nothing footballingly in common.

Oh, Andrew, please.

I mean, I could go on, and based on the previous evidence of this show, I almost certainly will go on.

There's also Doxic masculinity, in which in a bantery kind of prank, men kidnap the former England cricketer Graham Hick, dress him up in a pantomime dog outfit, and cut his tail off.

You are right, I should probably have stopped.

I mean, I just I'm sort of puzzled by all of the kind of traditional representations of strong, silent,

stoical, brave masculinity that they seem to have left out the very important part of masculinity, which is going on Twitter and telling women they're awful.

Listen, if a man cannot do that in the comfort of his own office,

then what is the point of figuring?

More advertising news now.

A poster campaign by Red Bull has been banned for wrongly implying that the energy drink has health benefits, including increasing focus and concentration.

Posters shown on the London Underground suggested Red Bull could help workers finish their work and get home by 4 p.m.

and complaints said it was promoting health claims it could not back.

Red Bull argued to the Advertising Standards Association it was just promoting its own national 4pm finish day, which it had just made up.

Also, on the underground, you do not want the drivers of those trains being influenced by that advert.

I mean, the whole thing is, of course it's bullshit.

Everyone knows energy drinks won't make you finish early.

Energy drinks will make you stick around for three hours of quivering overtime, alternately congratulating yourself on your work of staggering genius and having panic attacks, only to wake up the next day and find out you spent 14 hours writing the word potato a thousand times and pasting it into Excel spreadsheets.

Which also has been part of our Brexit negotiation strategy.

David Davis is absolutely up to his eyes in Monster.

Can I just say, I don't really understand where people are watching adverts anymore because most of the television I consume is through sort of on-demand sources.

I skip ad on YouTube and I've managed to time my cinema visits so that I avoid the adverts and hit the trailers.

Ever since there was an advert for a car a couple of years ago that used the dead prayers song hip-hop, and when I saw it, I became so angry I nearly passed out.

And since then, I've managed to cut advertising entirely out of my life.

I'm not sure how people are.

All these are posters on the tubes.

We don't all have special limos, Nish.

Yeah.

Yeah, that which I annoyingly used to drive me onto the tube.

Causing huge inconvenience on the Central Line.

a quick america update now and um he's gone to jail he's gone to jail well is he going to jail i mean the latest in a buzzfeed article has suggested uh that and there is no proof of this niche

other than the basic assumption that it's probably true

that uh donald trump ordered his lawyer michael kern to lie to congress and encourage him to set up a meeting with vladimir putin i mean it does seem that what essentially trump's best hope now

might be to just keep that shutdown going forever so that no courtrooms are in operation until at least 300 years from now.

I mean clearly you know we don't know the full evidence yet and you know no smoke without fire of course is written into the Magna Carta and the

smoke machine.

Well yeah I mean that does predate and also Trump is reaching the stage now where he is essentially standing in the fire, shouting, it's not fire, it's a load of dancing carrots.

I watched the movie Vice over the Christmas holidays, and the more and more I see of President Trump, I saw an interview with Christine Bale afterwards that said he was no longer going to gain weight for Rolls because it was starting to endanger his health.

Well, nut up, Bail.

You're going to have to gain more weight than you thought possible and disguise it in an 80s power suit to complete Adam McKay's inevitable third part of his trilogy of American tragedy.

He's going to jail.

Don't take this away from me, Andy.

I need this.

I can't, with Brexit, I can't survive with that.

The only hope is that I see Trump get absolutely shorshanked into oblivion.

That's the only thing I've got left.

Robots not taking the world over after all news now.

And it turns out that robots are f ⁇ ing shit at their jobs.

A hotel in Japan has sacked half of its robots.

It's a robot hotel where the staff are robots because the robots working there were so shit that they created more work for the humans controlling the robots.

I mean, this is great news for everyone fearing the automation apocalypse that is surely coming.

I mean, my favourite part of the story is the Velociraptors at the the front counter now need a human supervisor to do all the Velociraptors work because the Velociraptor can't for example

Alex

you can't just say my favourite bit is the Velociraptors at the front counter as if that's just a standard feature of yeah it's not even a dinosaur themed hotel

I can't work out what the theme of this hotel is and why would you not leave your Velociraptor doing the thing it's good at which is opening doors rather than greeting guests at the front counter like the world's most menacing meta Interesting note, mater D is actually Latin for mother's penis.

Just imagine that being your job.

I'm a personal assistant for a non-sentient mechanical proto-chicken

because it can't do photocopy.

I mean, I do think the velociraptor at the front counter is a phrase to set alongside the elephant in the room.

Who knows?

Maybe it's got a new Brexit.

We don't have an elephant in the room now with Brexit.

We have a Velociraptor at the front counter.

front counter.

I'm very worried because those two Velociraptor robots have been decommissioned.

And if I learned nothing from early to mid-90s dystopian science fiction action movies, and if I'm honest, I learned very little from anything else in that period of time, it's that the two things you can't trust are supposedly decommissioned robots and Velociraptors.

Yeah, I'm just saying the last thing we need in this economy is unemployed robots taking all the jobs in the gig economy, right?

I've got nothing against robots.

I just think they should go back to where they came from, sci-fi novels, and leave the menial, underpaid grunt work to immigrants where it belongs.

It does raise certain workplace equality issues because many robots are actually paid less than women for the same work.

And there are way, way fewer robots in the boardrooms of top global businesses than there are women.

So, so much for equality, Mrs.

Pocker Honhurst.

Well, that that draws us to the end of

this week's bugle.

I'm sure by next week, Brexit will be fine.

It'll all be done and gone.

What are you basing that on?

Nothing.

That's the trend, isn't it?

Wishful thinking.

I mean, you can just go and Nishanaik and keep going.

Don't forget to book your tickets to the forthcoming Bugle tour of the United States of America beginning on the 26th of February and running through to kind of midway through March.

Details on the internet and do bring all of your friends.

Anything to plug?

I've got a tour.

Yeah, I start in next, it's of the UK.

I start next week in Belfast and some of the dates are selling surprisingly well and others of the dates are selling as expected.

Yeah, especially if you live in Scotland and know about two and a half thousand people, can you disperse them to Aberdeen, Dunfermline and Glasgow, please?

For the love of God.

I have a show on the 17th of February in London.

I will be filming my show Ethos at the Museum of Comedy.

And tickets are available now at the Museum of Comedy website.

And it'll be there and there's two times because I'm filming it twice because I assume I'll make some mistakes.

It's my double act with the robot show.

Thank you for listening, Buglers.

Until next time, goodbye.

Goodbye.

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.