2018, Part Two: Trump, *truth* and Theresa

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to the Bugle Review of 2018 Part 2.

It's episode 4091, sub-episode B for Bloody Hell.

Thank God this year is nearly over.

I am Andy Zaltzman and you may know me from, for example, this introduction.

And this week, our magic bugle time machine will take you back all the way as far as almost six months ago, as we begin our retrospection of 2018 with a bugle highlight from the renowned month of July.

Thereafter, we will delve through our archives for August, September, October and November to find more of the pure premium-grade audio-historical documentation this podcast has become rightly renowned for throughout its 500-year history.

that has seen it accompany Scott to the Antarctic, Armstrong to the Moon, Queen Victoria on her hot first first date with Albert, and Shakespeare on his how to write a play course at the London Evening College of Amateur Drama.

December's offering is something new, an as-yet unpodcasted nugget from one of our December recordings, which you can open like that last present you find around the back of the Christmas tree a few days later, no one got round to opening, and turns out to be that baby terrapin you'd asked for, by now, a somewhat angry baby terrapin.

Disclaimer.

No terrapins were harmed in the creation of this simile.

Simile is not entirely valid.

Do not give terrapins as a Christmas present without reading the instructions first.

Terrapins should not be wrapped up and and put under trees.

Terrapins are nicer than terrorists.

Do not give terrorists as Christmas presents either, please.

On with the show.

Next week in the first show of 2019 we will have a full bugle and give you all the details on the forthcoming Bugle North America tour in late February and early March and hopefully be able to tell you more about the future of the bugle as we attempt to make sure this show continues for another 500 years.

But back to July now and this.

Also had some rather interesting meetings with Her Majesty the Queen, the British Donald Trump,

purely in terms of being head of state.

They seem quite different people, to be fair.

Very different vibes.

And

someone,

a brooch expert,

managed to pick up on some

rather tactical brooch work by Her Majesty, who wore three different brooches in her meetings with Trump, in which at various points he didn't so much break protocol as sledgehammer protocol into unrecognisable jelly.

One brooch was a gift from the Obamas, one was a gift from Canada, and one was a diamond teardrop, which is not as many think worn by monarchs who've personally killed someone.

I absolutely love that that is within your frame of cultural understanding.

You're a bunch more.

Oh, yeah, but you're Nish.

I mean, you've probably never seen John Oliver without his makeup.

Anyway.

Oh, my God.

But this brooch, this diamond shooter brooch, was worn famously by the Queen at her own father's funeral.

Read into that what you will, or indeed what other people will, which is that the Queen was basically making a comment on the entire death of America as a nation.

She had to be talked out, apparently, talked out of wearing a Do Not Grab Me by the Pussy brooch.

Michael, disappointingly, did not wear the commemorative brooch given to the young Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales in 1814 to mark the British burning down the White House.

We should credit At Samurai Knitter, who is the person on Twitter who has done some absolutely sterling brooch-based decoding.

And it is like, I mean, in many ways...

You know, sometimes people say, sort of, what's the monarchy for?

You know, how does it represent modern Britain?

I mean, that represents modern Britain absolutely perfectly.

Being passive-aggressive through the medium of brooch is really

Britishness distilled.

If the Queen was also hammered on 16 pints of WKD, she would have truly embodied everything that is great about this nation.

I loved that she did it, but there's also a part of me that was like, do you really think that Donald Trump,

who is not known to pick up on what women really think of him, is going to respect a 90-year-old woman insinuating that she has mild distaste via the medium of jewelry selection.

But it's also such brick, it's so, like Nish said, it's so British, but it's also so upper class to be like, Yes, I'll uh I'll hint that I don't like him by wearing the same jewelry I have worn in times of sadness.

That'll show him.

And Trump had some kind words about the queen.

He said, That is a beautiful woman

twice,

twice, he's such a f ⁇ ing creep.

To be fair to the queen, she did.

By protesting against him via broach, she did.

It does suggest she knew where his eyes would head on a woman's body.

Oh my God.

I don't think either of us is going to be doing the role of a writer.

I think this isn't the first time I've said this on this podcast, but there goes the knighthead.

Oh my god.

Piers Morgan gives him the out too, and

he says she's beautiful.

And then Piers Morgan says, yes, she's brilliant.

And Trump goes, yes, but also so beautiful.

Like, that's the highest compliment Donald Trump can pay anyone.

A porn star, his daughter, the Queen of England.

She is beautiful.

It doesn't matter.

Nothing else matters.

She's beautiful.

Not for 90.

She's beautiful.

So what's, I guess, like, we're on summer break now.

So what do you think is going to happen to Trump between now and when we're next bugling in the middle?

I'm slightly more worried about what's happened to Trump since we started recording the show.

I mean, he might have invaded Bolivia or something.

I don't know.

I think, Alex, what's the American view?

What do you reckon?

What's going to happen?

Well, I think Putin is going to be head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Not his worst appointment.

No, I think from Pruitt, it's an upgrade, if we're being honest.

I feel like the reality is nothing's going to happen because at this point, the Republican Party is now supported by racists, people who don't want to pay tax, and racists who don't want to pay tax.

And at this point, Trump could take a shit on the Lincoln Memorial, wipe his ass on the Constitution, and then dry up the Statue of Liberty to completion.

And his base's only comments would be, what was the Statue of Liberty wearing?

Maybe she was asking for it oh and Lincoln can suck it the Confederacy losing the Civil War was the worst thing to ever happen to this country and also does this mean the tax cut is still on in which case shit on Mr.

President

and when asked to walk back his comments he would just go oh I meant to say not at the end of that sentence

thank you July we will let you know if your application is successful for month of the year in due course next candidate please oh let's see Welcome

August.

Oh, August, sorry.

So, so, what have you got for me?

Yeah, let's just pile straight into it.

Top story this week: all the president's men are going to jail.

Andy, Donald Trump has had another tricky week.

Sorry, let me just start like this.

Ditto.

Michael Cohen, his longtime lawyer and fixer, has pleaded guilty to eight charges, including campaign finance violations, and directly implicated Trump in the hush money that was paid to various women he'd had alleged affairs with.

And Paul Manafort, the president's former campaign chairman, was convicted on eight charges of bank and tax fraud.

And it's nice, isn't it, to have eight charges?

It's very good.

Well, then you can do a straight knockout to find out your favourite charge that you've been convicted on.

Then jump straight to the quarterfinal stage of charges.

Quarterfinal.

You don't need to do some complicated rebouchage system.

No, no,

you wouldn't want to last 16.

This is

the summary of the situation has come from.

This is a direct quote from the Guardian newspaper.

The outcomes also raised grave questions about Trump's judgment.

Since his election, his national security advisor, personal lawyer, campaign chairman, deputy campaign manager, and a foreign policy aide have all admitted or been convicted of crimes.

But my question to that is, is that really the thing that's raised grave questions about Trump's judgment?

Or was it his decision to claim Barack Obama wasn't born in America, open a string of universities whose motto was, does anyone know the Latin for not a real university?

Make stakes that were at best mainly dog and at worst predominantly feces?

Or any decision Donald Trump has made at any point in his life.

It wouldn't surprise me if he invested in Lehman Brothers, those Samsung phones that blew up, and the Kevin Costner film Water World at this point.

It's absolutely extraordinary and the big question now is will Michael Cohen flip?

Will he flip on Trump?

Will he daub him in for stuff that he's done?

Is he gonna flip?

Well I'll let you be the judge of that when I found out this morning that Michael Cohen's lawyer talked to NPR and was asked directly a question whether he would consider being pardoned by the president and he said this.

Michael Cohen would never accept a pardon from a man that he considers both corrupt and a dangerous person in the Oval Office.

I'd say Michael Cohen is going to flip to the same extent a gymnast on Pancake Day is going to flip.

Trump.

Trump is absolutely thunder.

Nish, Andy, I had a quick question.

We in India read through the Manifort charges, and it was a shock to us.

We didn't know any of that was illegal.

What is an ethical campaign manager?

That was a genuine question.

Everyone involved is so sketchy.

Because even technically Michael Cohen is

acting like he's about to do an act of public service.

But he's just set something up called the Michael Cohen Truth Fund, which has been set up as a GoFundMe page with the goal of raising $500,000 so that Michael Cohen can afford to tell the truth.

And in unrelated news, I'm setting up a fund to stop me from shitting in the street.

Andy, the Nish Kumar no shit fund is available on ShitStarter right now.

I mean do we think, I mean, is Trump in genuine trouble now?

Because it seems...

He does seem sort of bulletproof so far, doesn't he?

I mean, there's that famous old saying, isn't there?

If you throw enough shit at a wall, some of it will stick.

Aristotle, I believe it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was Aristotle.

But none of this has worked with Trump, has it?

Because the problem with Trump is he is is not a wall.

He is a volcano of shit.

And if you throw shit at a volcano of shit, what you end up with is an indiscernibly larger volcano of shit.

And if

people have already decided they're happy living on a volcano of shit, then it doesn't make any difference, doesn't it?

Yeah.

I mean,

it's hard to think of what he could do at this point, short of defecating on the Declaration of Independence.

And then trying to tide it up by masturbating on it.

Again, so many apologies to Andy's family at this point.

He also tweeted, the problem with Trump is that he's so obviously guilty because of all of the things he does and says.

He can't judge people and what they do and Spanish.

This is exactly the tweet.

This is exactly the tweet I was going to talk about.

He's tweeted, if anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen.

And then I'm pretty sure his next next tweet was, in unrelated news, does anyone know the number of a good lawyer?

Because

I am in next level shit.

In fairness though, gentlemen, it is a sensible point.

If your lawyer is in prison,

you're probably better off with going with another lawyer who's outside prison.

Anabab, it's like meeting John Grisham.

You're a legal expert.

I guess that's a bit like going into a hospital to have a major operation and having a surgeon who who just has an open wound in their stomach that is gushing blood all over the floor.

It's a bad sign, basically.

It is a bad sign.

I mean, did Trump lie about this or did he merely tell

100%?

He's lied about everything.

Did he merely tell a made-up truth?

I mean...

I mean,

I don't know.

The question is now, will this lead to Donald Trump being impeached?

And the answer to that is quite simply, f ⁇ no because that would require some will or action from the Republican Party it would require them to actually vote him out vote him out and also I think I've said this before but at the end of the day what about the Trump presidency so far suggests that this is going to end conventionally what about the Trump presidency where even if they impeach him he's not going to leave

like why do you think he's going to be like fair cut

Fair result, I accept it referee's decision is final offer this does not end with him sort of standing outside sort of like all other presidents work this ends with him like King Kong on the roof of the White House as a phalanx of biplanes flies along the lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue firing indiscriminately with Melania in one hand and him just screaming I regret nothing as he goes down

well his lawyer gentlemen did have an issue with the definition of truth

Yes, so this was let's well let's get Rudo Giuliani back up on the screen there, a long-term Bugle favourite to Do contribute to his 2008 presidential campaign.

If you can.

Never say never.

Never give up the hope.

Let the light of hope shine on.

So yes, Anna, I've explained this.

I mean, this was quite

impressive.

Truth has taken an absolute...

Absolute kicking.

I mean, there's a lot of things that have had a really tough time in recent years.

Truth, nuance.

Nuance has taken an absolute f ⁇ ing kicking in recent years.

And I think, I mean, it's really, nuance is going to have to start promoting itself far more strongly and stridently, or it risks that it could just fade away into nothingness.

Yeah, it's really truth-nuance, women, and black people

that are really copying the brunt of the Trump Presidency.

That's the title of your Edinburgh show, isn't it?

Well, August, as sure as dinosaurs become chickens, but quicker, ended a mere 30 to 35 days after it had begun.

I like to ballpark these things, best be on the safe side.

Next up, yet again, for at least the fifth year in a row, probably more, it was September.

Who here has seen the Mark Wahlberg's daily schedule?

This has been,

I believe the term has gone viral this week.

Well we offer you an alternative buglers daily schedule.

9 a.m.

Wake up.

9.35 a.m.

get up.

9.40 a.m.

go back to bed.

10.55 a.m.

wake up again.

11 a.m.

Put the cricket on the telly.

11.01 a.m.

Remember that the cricket already finished yesterday.

Go back to bed.

11.45 a.m.

Wake up, watch yesterday's cricket highlights on a laptop.

1 p.m.

lunch interval.

1.40pm afternoon session brackets kip.

3.40 p.m.

tea.

4 p.m.

get up.

Invite Mark Wahlberg around for biscuits and scrabble.

Act disappointed when he tells you he's doing his 4pm workout.

Tell him he can have his 5pm shower at your house.

Call him a prick when he hangs up after saying, Who are you and how did you get my number?

4.15 p.m.

to 7.30 p.m., general hanging around.

4.31 p.m., ring Mark Wahlberg again.

One minute after his scheduled bedtime.

Say you're disappointed he won't come out to the pub quiz because it's past his bedtime.

Ask him if he's got his special snuggly blanket in the bed with him and whether he's excited about the tooth fairy.

8.15, 8.40, 9 p.m., 9.15 p.m.

and 9.40 p.m., ring Mark Wahlberg

with questions from the pub quiz repeatedly saying sorry Bergman I forgot you've gone to bed because I thought you were an adult

1045 p.m.

Ring Mark Wahlberg tell him it's last orders in the pub and is he sure he doesn't want a cheeky pint in a game of pool

reply no you f off and ask him why he's operating his schedule as if he's living in the UK's time zone

Say yes that is why your kids' school was confused when you turned up at 7.30 a.m.

to pick them up.

11 p.m.

late night sport watching.

12 a.m.

sacrifice Oxster's use.

12.15am to 3am.

General time wasting.

3am bedtime.

3.15 a.m.

Wake up, look up some cricket statistics online.

5.45 a.m.

bedtime again and repeat.

So there's your bugle daily schedule.

Right.

September there.

Now October, according to the ancient Romans, was the eighth month of the year.

Turns out they were completely wrong.

It is, in fact, the 10th.

Here it is.

So, David, can you, for an ignorant Englishman, please explain a little bit about the history of Ireland?

Chris, could you put on a YouTube clip called Irish Music Sad?

Ireland was founded by footballer Stephen Ireland in 3000 BC.

Ireland's indigenous people were the leprechauns or lapretians

as nobody has ever called them.

But they died out tragically owing to the fact that they were all male

and never existed.

Nothing kills a people off quicker than never having actually existed.

Your next major character in Irish history, Andy, is St.

Patrick, the patron saint of strangers taking his shit behind the wheelie bin in your front garden.

and that is how he is commemorated for one day around the world.

St.

Patrick got rid of all the snakes and so thorough was he he got rid of any archaeological evidence that there might ever have been snakes on the island.

Around the first millennium saw the arrival of the Vikings.

And they're so unlike any Scandinavian people people I've ever met today.

It's like one day they must have woken up and gone, hey, you know, let's not rape in peelage anymore.

Let's invent social democracy.

And Ikea and Lego and aha.

Then nothing happened in Irish history for 600 years till the arrival of Oliver Cromwell in 1649.

And he

absolutely wrecked the place.

Although seen as a moderniser in Britain, still seen as that today, in Ireland he is seen as a genocidal f head.

Potato, potato.

Who caused a population drop-off that some expert put as high as 83%!

83% of the Irish population.

Thanks, Cromwell, you barrel of rancid wangers.

Excuse me if I occasionally visit the British House of Parliament where there is a statue of you to take a shit just in front of it.

Cromwell was eventually defeated by Conor MacGregor at the Battle of Crumblin

in 18 proper 12

with his rallying cry, you'll do nothing, you f ⁇ ing prick.

But MacGregor was in turn defeated by Queen Victoria at a bout in Las Vegas where he had motivated her by criticising her family, her nation and her religion.

Queen Victoria loved Ireland and left us with her greatest legacy, the shop Victoria's Secret on Grafton Street.

Short for Victoria's Secret was that she wished she'd done more to prevent the Irish famine 1845 to 1849.

This is like shooting fish in a barrel in front of these people.

Ireland has always loved a craze, from line dancing to yo-yos, from Tamagotchis to Catholicism.

But they they tend to come and go.

They say you only play this town twice in your career, said the Pope in Dublin on his recent visit.

Once on the way up,

it's great to be back.

And the 11 people in the crowd jiggled their rosary beads and shook their little bags.

Although nominally a republic, Ireland is still a mystical place ruled over by Enya.

I've never met Enya, but apparently you can recreate the feeling of meeting her if you put your peen slash lady peen in a Dyson airblade.

If you feel something crazy in the air, listening to this podcast, that's Irish presidential election mania.

For some reason, a reason nobody can quite remember, Ireland has a Taoiseach or Prime Minister and a President.

The President is a non-political role, the idea of which is that you do the gigs the Prime Minister doesn't have time to do, such as shaking hands at the rugby and apologising for institutional atrocities the Prime Minister has committed.

The runners and riders have assembled for this once every seven years event, and what a group.

There's the incumbent Michael D.

Higgins.

A tiny wizard poet who negotiated the tricky events of the last seven years with a plum.

He hosted the Queen's first ever visit to Ireland without giving her a wedgie

and commemorated the centena of the 1916 rising without mentioning that he'd love to give the Queen a wedgie.

Job done.

So he should get to do it for another seven years and everyone wants him to with the exception of five people.

The five other candidates who are running for his job.

There's no reason to mention the other candidates, because you'll never hear of any of them again.

Suffice to say that most of them, three out of five, have been dragons on Ireland's Dragon's Den.

And they look like they're only running for president for a prank they lost with one of the lads at the golf club.

The other two are ladies and they hate science.

Michael D.

Higgins will definitely win, and he'll have another sweet seven years in front of him, where his main jobs will be to commemorate the centenary of the War of Independence in 2019 without giving the Queen a wedgie

and the centenary of the Civil War in 2022 without saying he wants to give Michael Collins/slash Eamon De Valera a wedgie.

See, it's 100 years, and we're still not over it.

Oh, Ireland.

Who said comedy can't be educational?

Just two months to go now in this review of the year, and who should pop up on the back of October with 30 classic days of fun and frolics for the planet, but good old November.

But she has said that the cabinet has now agreed a draft Brexit withdrawal agreement, right?

So she's going to present it to Parliament tomorrow.

But she said that they've agreed it.

Now, just to be clear, right, even if they have agreed it, this is only half of what we need to do, right?

The other things that we need to do are replace all of the EU laws that currently help govern our country and also make trading agreements with the EU.

So we are not even halfway done.

And it is almost also, they have had, as of Saturday, Saturday it'll be 876 days since the Brexit vote.

I don't know what they've been f ⁇ ing doing that we are in a position where they are not finished.

Just to give you some context for that in 876 days you could have completed the principal photography on the Lord of the Rings trilogy twice.

I'm not saying that you'd have done the effects.

That took another year per film in post-production.

So you'd be left with a lot of footage of Andy Serkis in a green onesie and Sauron being played by a massive tennis ball.

But you'd still have done principal photography in a time in which we have done the square root of fall.

Premier Foods have apparently started stockpiling provisions.

They're the owners of Bisto, and they're stockpiling raw materials due to fears of what may happen after Brexit gridlock.

So, what we basically have here is a symptomless blitz.

Which is genius in a lot of ways, isn't it?

Symptomless blitz.

I thought we wanted to just start hunkering down under shelters and just.

I think they're very clever because if Brexit...

If Brexit's carried out, the one thing that will properly tip the UK over the edge.

Sorry, mate.

No.

Do you need a...

I don't know what it is.

Symptomless blitz.

Sorry.

Don't apologise.

You're laughing, mate.

It's beautiful.

He's like the wordsworth of bullshit.

It's like the words worth of words.

I just, I think it's very clever stockpiling bisto because if we all go insane once Brexit is actually happened, the one thing that's going to tip us over the edge is a f ⁇ ing gravy shortage.

Like if you can't have gravy after Brexit, what is the point of leaving the EU?

Also, you never stockpile things for a good reason.

No.

Like, no one's like, what are you up to?

Oh, I'm stockpiling beers for my house party.

Like, no one's going to tell you to stockpile seasons' greetings for Christmas.

Theresa May, more breaking news, just said that the withdrawal agreement is a decisive step, enabling the UK to move on very similar to the decisive step that Captain Oates took.

He went for his little wander.

I'm laughing at that, but I have no idea what that means.

I just thought I'd do a shout-out for any dumb f ⁇ ks in the audience like me.

Hey!

Represent.

Didn't go to uni, no surprises there.

Well, see, what you've got, see, the thing you've got here, Felicity, is that you are Australian.

I mean, you don't need to say that like a burn.

No, no,

say that like a burn.

The tone on the word Australian suggested even if you had gone to university in Australia, you would have an intelligence equivalent.

I think what we've learned is sort of difference in the way we look at our country's history, because Australia tends to only look back on the triumphs, whereas we in Britain we like to remember our incompetences.

And

Captain Oakes was part of a Scots expedition to the Antarctic that got a creditable silver medal.

Be fair.

Unfortunately, then indulged in a fatal lap of honour around Antarctica.

Well, look, I don't want to pay top trumps here, but one of our prime ministers drowned and we didn't look for him.

So

you can take your

ship to the Antarctic.

Good for you.

Shows what a winning culture you've got.

He's obviously a loser if he can't swim back to shore.

Didn't Captain Oates make all the cereal that we're now stockpiling?

Chris has started bringing his own puns to Buglegit.

What the f ⁇ ?

I was going to say, a lot of people groomed.

That's fun.

I was like, it's going to be a long fing night for you.

It's been a,

it's been a bad couple of, another bad couple of weeks for Brexit News.

So there's been the, there were some developments last week when the Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, revealed that he, quote, hadn't quite fully understood the extent of the reliance on Dover by the United Kingdom.

Now, as an island, you would have thought that would be pretty f ⁇ ing crucial information.

Dominic Raab

has been praised.

In The Guardian today they reported that he's quite well thought of in Brussels because they said he's been an assiduous Brexit secretary noted in London and Brussels for taking a more active approach than the generally laissez-faire David Davis.

Laissez-faire of course a common French expression meaning lazy.

But if I'm completely honest with you, I'm not surprised that Dominic Raubb didn't know about the importance of Dover because I have actually had a run-in with Dominic Raab when I met him on question time and he thought I was Gina Miller's brother.

So Dominic Raab can't tell Asians apart.

Why on earth would he, if he'd been invited around to my aunt's house last Sunday for Diwali or as he calls it Ramadan, there would have been

all sorts of confusion.

He'd been walking up to every single person saying, nice to meet you, Nish, before eventually exclaiming, well, I give up.

This is basically like trying to find a brown needle in a chocolate haystack.

Can we just go back for a second?

People have been watching a door for two hours tonight.

And I just don't think we touched on that enough.

People have watched footage of a door, which is still less wooden than watching Theresa May speak.

What do you think took her so long?

You reckon she just couldn't remember the moves to Macarena and she's like,

I'm going to have to polish this turd somehow.

Or maybe just finally her whole teeth fell out.

You know how how she looks like she's just trying to keep them in like she's got two loose dentures at all times and she's just trying to style it out like and I don't know if you know the show mr.

Ed but that it was

It was an American show and I'm not comparing her to a horse at all.

I know that's very sexist, but what they used to do is they used to give him molasses or peanut butter.

They used to give it to chimpanzees too, so their mouths would move in Hollywood films so then they could voice over.

What if they've just given Teresa a whole bunch of peanut butter and she's trying to keep the dentures in while someone's throwing their voice from another room?

Am I wrong?

And that brings us barking and meowing all the way to December.

And here is something you have not heard before, unless you've already listened to this compilation or you're one of the people in it.

And I know you're not me, so that reduces that probability even further.

So,

well that's it.

Well, I mean by the time this is put out on

the airwaves stroke internet everything could possibly have changed.

Who knows?

Who knows?

There might be a revolution.

Yeah, yeah.

That'd be fun.

We might have to put a huge citation needed after this entire poll.

I think we'd have to do that after everything.

But it would be a revolution by sensible people.

That's why you're never going to get part of the frustration with the way British politics is, and I'm sure international listeners share this, is that it is the sensible people that are in retreat.

The idiots, the zealots, the fringe elements are now in charge.

So the sorts of people who usually march are now in control.

Right.

And the people who don't usually march are the people who should be marching, but we don't march.

All right.

Well, there's a lot on the telly.

Lots of marching or like stuff that's just stuffed away.

Well, there's lots of stuff.

This is a really bad time for the next series of Stranger Things and the Australia-India Test Series still dropped at the same time.

Can I admit to when the women's march happened for the second time going, why does it have to be when it's so cold?

Can we not have a seasonal march, guys?

A nice summer sort of Nottinghill Carnival type thing.

Yeah.

Do it in the summer.

Yeah, exactly.

The problem is in the summer, people feel happy.

That's why you always have general elections in the summer.

They genuinely think it will favour the governing party.

The people will come out, the sun will be out, they go, they're not so bad.

They feel good on the way to the polling board.

I love the peer behind the curtain that you get with Matt.

Yeah.

It's just a peak.

Just really sad still.

Well, no, no, it's not sad.

It's really interesting, but also it's so deeply cynical, I kind of want to cry.

Like, not you, but politics.

Oh, that's great.

That's one of the nice things about it.

As long as we respect the democracy that God gave us when he drove the orcs from this land.

I thought you meant the sort of 13 slang word

as in awkwardness.

That does need...

Have you ever known me use teen slang?

Well, I've never known you reference Lord of the Rings.

Orcs does need driving from existence, to be fair.

Along with

lol, yeah.

It's a lovely shirt, by the way, just in the downtime.

And that's it from the Bugle in 2018.

Enormous thanks for your ears and your support this year, as always.

We will be back next week to start digesting another entire year of events and related issues.

Look out for the Bugle live dates in North America in February and March.

Until next year, from Chris,

me, the entire squad of Bugle co-hosts and Zeus and Bastet, the patron deities of the Bugle.

Goodbye and happy new year.

Yours sincerely, Andy Zolsman.

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 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.