That’s a Big Cow! – Bugle 4089

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4089 of the Bugle Audio Newspaper for a visual, visual, visual and visual world with me, Andy Zaltzman, the self-styled Jimi Hendrix of non-alliterative nicknames.

Still got it.

Zaltzman here in old London town, joining me all the way from India, but with me in London to try and recover his nation's property, presumably.

It's Anuvab Pal.

Hello, hello, Andy.

Hello.

I have to say, Andy, this is my first winter in the United Kingdom and I can now see why you needed a hot country.

Ah, yes.

Yes.

History is starting to explain itself.

And how are you enjoying the London, the November weather?

It's lovely.

I can't tell the difference between day and night.

I think the sun comes out once over six months during the winter.

It's enough.

It's enough, I think.

But it's, yeah, it's lovely.

The original 50 Shades of Grey was not, in fact, an erotic novel.

It was merely a description of a walk through London in November.

And joining us also,

snorting, as we've just heard, from the wrong side of the planet, all the way from Australia.

It's Tom Ballard.

Hello, bitches.

You're outnumbered.

What are you talking about?

You've got two southern hemisphereians here.

We're rule.

You're a minority, mate.

India is definitely still north of the equator, isn't it?

I mean, you're going back a long, I mean, going back a long time to the early days of the sort of Pangean world before India drifted north in a desperate attempt to change sides.

The greatest hemisphere in the world.

How's Australia, Tom?

Oh, chugging along.

You know how it is.

Yes, sort of slowly trying to warm up.

Well, in some parts of the country, it'd be a bit too warm, to be honest.

But the great news is on the whole climate front is that the Adani coal mine is going ahead, which is just wonderful news.

So I will be digging up a shitload of coal and burning that

with no downside whatsoever, I assume.

Oh, excellent.

As long as you ask the coal nicely, it's generally pretty cooperative, isn't it?

Yeah.

Don't let the fossils have died in vain.

You're right, that is disrespectful.

We should honour them.

We should like on Anzac Day.

I have to ask, Tom, you know, Adanis are one of the wealthiest Indian families, right?

And once they've done their duplicitous coal business within the country, it's only fair that they take it to Australia.

So how do your environmentalists feel about a slightly shady Indian businessman filling your air with coal?

Refuse?

I think slightly shady is extremely generous of you,

that's very nice.

Look, we're not happy about it.

There was a big campaign to stop it being financed by the government.

A whole bunch of banks pulled out because they said they weren't going to back this stupid project because, yes, the price of coal is plummeting.

And of course, and there's that whole burning the planet thing.

But now they've managed to sort out their own finances and they're going ahead.

And the guy himself tweeted, tweeted today, said, great news, the coal mine's going ahead.

Congratulations to all involved and good luck for the future, which I really, really felt, well, at least you didn't say warmest regards, I guess.

Much appreciated.

Thanks to the good people of Adani, one of the major sponsors of the podcast, I believe, Ed.

This is an entirely coal-fired podcast.

The recording engine, as we speak, is

chugging along through that window.

We are recording on Thursday, the 29th of November, 2018.

On this day in 1972, Atari released Pong, the first commercially successful video game.

No less, that was on this day in 1972.

Pong, of course, a hyper-unrealistic 2D version of table tennis or a ping-pong, and that sparked a global industry in video games now worth, well, at a conservative estimate, more than $25,000 a decade.

That is a ballpark figure.

Some view Pong as an attempt to recreate either table tennis or the negotiations involved in exiting a major international trading group such as the European Union in its simplistic batting of a thing backwards and forwards to no discernible purpose.

Theresa May actually probably played Pong at some point in her life, so draw your own conclusions.

Others claim Pong

seeks to re-vivactualize the Pong element of ping pong, in other words the horizontal batting of the board, but without the ping element of ping pong, which is of course the

ancient Chinese word for the deeply psychological elemental battle for supremacy between two warring humans in a hostile universe where Darwin proclaims they're going to only be one winner.

And Pong regarded as the fortnight of the second millennium, of course, but different less so and wrongly.

Since Pong was released, humans have wasted an estimated combined total of 73.4 quadrillion hours playing computer games.

Time which, if used more productively by our species, could easily have led to cures for Alzheimer's, the Middle East crisis, time wasting in football, capitalism, communism, and death.

Just 10 years after Pong was released, however, Soviet hardman leader Leni Brezhnev died, but then again, 15 years later, Mother Teresa died as well, so it's probably one all.

Since Pong was released in 1972, the world population has almost doubled from its 3.8 billion total, proving that 2D recreations of sports give humans a greater disincentive to die than the prospect of eternal heaven or damnation, which of course predate Pong.

Whilst the population of Asia, Anuvab, has more than doubled

in the Pong era, suggesting that playing table tennis tennis simulation games on computers makes all Asian people horny.

This is true.

Incidentally, the film version of Pong is due out in eight minutes from now and features Channing Tatum as one of the bats, Jennifer Lawrence as the other bat, and a CGI recreation of Greta Garbo as the ball.

See, this is the world we live in now.

That's a funny joke, but in a world where the emoji movie has been released, that satire is just nothing to me.

I'm like, I could absolutely believe that tomorrow there is a f ⁇ ing movie called Fucking Mm.

I mean, Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs is a classic up there with Godfather and Casablanca.

Very much so.

I think

that is a superb movie to watch as a small child on a long flight, as my daughter discovered when I made her watch it twice on a flight to Australia many years ago.

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

This week, it's, well, we're counting down to Christmas.

Also counting down into a new season of the Bugle.

That is imminent details forthcoming.

Another bugly dawn is on the way and counting down to my Soho Theatre show beginning on the 18th of December.

A tradition as old as, well, as old as a two-year-old ferret who's turning three shortly.

It is the third installment of Andy Saltzman's certifiable history this year, covering this year.

And it is live at the Soho Theatre from the 18th to the 22nd of December, the 27th to the 29th of December, and the 2nd to the 5th of January.

But in the bin this week, as we approach December, it is the Bugle Drab Vent calendar.

Why raise expectations about this flawed planet with nice little pictures of things that happen at Christmas or robins when we really should be revealing the true drabness of life?

So with the Bugle Drab Vent calendar, we give you 24 drab things to count you down to the unrealistic happy vision of Christmas.

The 1st of December, an empty chocolate bar wrapper in a puddle next to a bin.

2nd of December, a bus shelter still vandalised with the graffiti words, Thatcher out.

Please tell me you have 24.

Not yet.

3rd of December, a nursing home covering up the no on a no vacancy song.

And 4th of December, Theresa May's face of natural repose.

We will continue the drab vent calendar next week.

Top story this week, and we are going with quite literally the biggest story in world news this week.

Tom, you are the Bugle's oversized farm animals correspondent, and

what a week it's been.

Well, indeed, I'd say it's the busiest week in this role that I have for the podcast that we've ever seen, really.

All anybody is talking about in Australia or indeed across the world is Nickers, who is, and I believe this is the technical term, a ⁇ ing massive cow.

He's a cow who is f ⁇ ing massive.

He's a massive cow.

He's a big old big f ⁇ ing cow.

Hashtag big beefy.

This is taken the world by storm.

An ABC News story about the West Australian steer or cow.

That's a controversy.

We'll get to it in a bit.

Nickers, it went viral around the world because there were images

of Nickers standing head and shoulders above all the other cows that are surrounding him.

He is six foot four inches tall, making him taller than Arnold Schwarzenegger, almost as tall as Michael Jordan, and let me just check my notes here.

Yeah, one f ⁇ ing massive cow.

We're talking about a f ⁇ ing big cow here.

Expletives are required to capture the fing massive scale of this f ⁇ ing heifer.

Andy, Nickus is so big he could crush you with an eyelash.

Oh, wow.

This cow is so big.

How big?

Exactly.

The bell he wears around his neck is the same bell from Big Ben.

This cow is so f ⁇ ing big.

I mean just how just to confirm how big?

Some cows jump over the moon.

This one steps over the moon.

It's a big fing cow, Andy.

Well, I mean, you say that, but, and I mean, it's been a huge story.

But some people have suggested that actually

he's not that big of a big fing cow.

That he's merely a big cow rather than a big f ⁇ ing cow, which is a very important technical difference.

Some interesting things have been said about him.

I read this one quote about him.

Because basically he was saved from the abattoir because he was too big to fit in it.

So basically, he's a one-cow metaphor for the global banking bailouts of 2008.

That his mere size saved him from oblivion.

And there was this article, I think, from the farmer who runs him.

Is that the term for what he did with the cow as a farmer?

He's a bit of a recluse, but he's got a lot of followers.

Oh, does that sound familiar to anyone?

Does he lock himself in his cow shed with 24-hour news channels and then go online to mood provocative bullshit?

Well, just to shit, literal bullshit.

Someone said steers, he's a steer, which is a castrated cow.

Steers are castrated cattle, so they don't tend to be kept for breeding.

Tend?

I mean, under what circumstances would you override that powerful tendency?

Other than the blindest of blind optimism?

Look, darling, I know he chopped his knackers off when he was a calf, but I've got a good feeling about this one.

Let's do it.

Bring in Ermintrude, the post-menopause retired ex-coward.

Let's get funky.

But as I said, nothing is real in this world of 2018, Tom.

And the Washington Post ran with a story saying the big cow is a lie.

Are you going to defend your nation against this accusation of farm animal size mendaciousness?

Well, first of all, can I say, it feels like the Washington Post might want to dedicate its resources to some slightly more important matters in the world like I don't know all the democracy that's dying in the darkness

But yes they've said the big cow is a lie so I assume Nickers will soon be a major policy of the Trump administration

They said yes, it's a male cow So it's technically a steer and that his breed does actually tend to get quite big and that all the cows surrounding Knickers in all the video and footies that we've seen are wagyu are quite young wagyu cattle which are actually quite sort of small.

So as you see on a technicality, blah, blah, blah, all I can say is f you, Washington Post.

Don't take this away from us.

The world is on fire.

Fascism is on the rise.

The poor are starving.

Can't we all just come together and enjoy this very large cow?

Is that so wrong?

Gentlemen, I have a question.

Don't we live in a world where we are all entitled to our own cow facts?

Well, absolutely.

Obviously, coming from India, where

finally, Andy, there is a cow reasonably large enough that we can worship.

We've been worshiping shitty, small, pathetic cows.

Finally, there's a six foot four cow that we can look up to.

And not the rubbish that stands in our street corners.

Finally, thank you, Australia.

We gave you electricity with Adani by burning our own coal.

You gave us a giant cow, I think.

I think, Tom, this is what we call fair tricks.

We didn't give you anything.

Don't you come steal our big cow.

Don't you do that to these?

I like that.

The fact that he's like too big to eat, that he was, yeah, he was too big.

He wouldn't fit on the sort of

mechanism to go into the abattoir means that he's too big to eat.

I mean, I don't know what you guys, but I can certainly relate to the experience of blowing out in size so much that no one wants to put their mouth around you.

So I actually see a lot of myself in Knickers in that respect.

Family show, Tom.

Oh, sorry, sorry.

Come on,

that was as family as it gets.

I meant blowjobs.

All right.

Yeah, so just to clarify that.

It took me a second to understand that.

I have to say, on the Twitter feed, Tom,

there was a lovely tweet from an Australian gentleman with a photograph, and it said, Please enjoy this enormous Australian cow, which is not a tweet one sees very often.

Isn't it nice?

Everyone's just loving Nickers and enjoying him very much, which is great.

The Washington Post actually also said, this is also just for weight, to put it in the context of the weight.

Nickers weighs around roughly 2,800 pounds, which is the approximate equivalent of 14 and a half Danny DeVitos.

Now,

that's the imperial system.

So for Australian listeners, that's about 21 Paul Hogan's, and for Canadian listeners, that's about 35 Celine Dion's.

So just so you know.

That is a fantastic statistic.

I just want to measure all life in how many Joe Peschis something is going to be.

You have a thousand rupees?

How many Joe Peshis is that?

Well, one of the great problems with that system is then you get into a Marlon Brando situation and then the International Actors Weight Foundation has to come in and try and regulate the currency.

Mr.

Pearson, who is the owner of Knickers, I really like the sound of him.

He sounds like the most Australian boy because he's had widespread media attention.

Media outlets from right across the world have been hitting him up, trying to get his comment on Knickers and get insight into this massive cow.

And he's just quoted as saying, Yeah, look, we run a reasonable cattle operation.

We like the exposure Nickers has gotten, but we've got a day-to-day operation to continue on with.

So he's just like, Yeah, I know we've got the fing Godzilla of the cow world out the back there, but bloody hell, don't bang on about it, all right?

Stop carrying on like an old pork chop.

It's not even pork, for God's sakes.

Bloody hell, I'm flat out.

I can't be dealing with all your bloody Knickers nonsense, all right.

He even got a request from Ripley's, believe it or Not.

And he said, I had an offer from Ripley's for him to go into that sector, but I just said, Oh, put something on paper and send it to us, and we'll have a look at it.

It's the most distressed.

I'm just flat out.

I've got a lot on at the moment.

I can't be bloody putting people in Ripley's, Believe It or Not, museums around the world, mate.

He's off.

Well, I mean, what does the future hold for Knickers?

And because you can see some great oil tycoon from the Middle East coming in with a big money transfer offer to

turn Nickers into a celebrity burger.

So not technically the biggest cow ever,

but nevertheless, we are having a special other animal records section, including the wiggliest worm, that was Trevell, who is a four-inch long earthworm from Switzerland.

He recorded a 26.4 full body slalom squiggles in just 18 seconds.

The world's most agoraphobic condor, that was Esteban from Chile.

He hasn't left his roost for four years.

Fattest stick insect, Stevie the Log Six Legs, who recorded a 2.3 centimeter waist.

Not judging.

The biggest selling whale recording artists are Patsy Pod and the Bolinas.

They're the top-selling whale music collective, and they've gone watery platinum with 12 of their albums.

They had a hit whale song number one with the single

brackets touch my fin, as well as

and of course they're unforgettable

Which roughly translates as I fell in love with a plankton and now I've eaten it

That's my favourite song

and finally a most confused penguin That current winner of that is Enid a chin strap penguin used as a stunt body double for the school days scene in the recent fictionalized horror biopic of the former British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Insurance premiums did not cover using a human body double for the young future Prime Minister and future of the nation shafter.

So they used a penguin instead due to the similarity between a penguin and the distinctive Eton College uniforms that Cameron would have worn at school.

Ian is reportedly distressed but alive.

Other world news now and Donald Trump has completely given up any pretense that he is not a dictator, uh which I mean it's a relief he's getting all above board.

He put out uh a pair of tweets in which he said uh while CNN doesn't do great in the United States based on ratings outside the US they have very little competition.

Throughout the world, CNN has a powerful voice portraying the US in an unfair and false way.

Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own worldwide network to show the world the way we really are.

Great.

Now, to be fair to Trump, he did manage to stop short of saying say what you like but old joseph knew how to get his message across

and you can decide which of the josephs i'm referring to that's entirely up to you i'm not you know politically could go one of two equally unpleasant ways and i mean here at the bugle uh this is very exciting for us uh a state propaganda channel for america um I imagine John Oliver is sitting by his phone waiting for an offer to be the host and anchor of their flagship news news program.

Here at the Beatle, we're delighted to offer a prize to our US, American and United States listeners.

Have your show commission for the new America First Propaganda Network.

Perhaps you want to see a fun new children's cartoon called Gerby the Propaganda Goose, or Itch the Witch, in which a blindfolded member of the White House staff scratches female Democrat politicians, whichever one is the first one to say ow, is proved to be a witch.

And also Reds Under the Breads, a hilarious McCarthy-tinged Bakoff-style game show when celebrity guests attempting to make a fantastic for catcher a perfect pumpernickel or a beautiful baguette are accused of communist leanings based on quite literally trumped-up evidence and then have to defend themselves with their freshly baked loaf as they are physically attacked by an angry mob.

I mean the possibilities for this channel are absolutely sensational.

Andy, I have a quick view on television, which is that it's much better if run by dictators.

All right, okay.

I mean, not everyone has traditionally agreed with that, so perhaps you can just fill in the gaps

on that.

Here's my theory.

Andy, Tom.

Kim Jong-il,

father of Kim Jong-un,

he ran North Korean state television, right?

I do not wish to speak ill of the dead,

but Kim Jong-il, one of the things he did was that TV had to be piped into every apartment in Pyongyang.

And six of the eight hours of television were his speeches.

Wow.

Amazing ratings.

And you could turn it down,

but you couldn't turn it off.

Now that to me is proper television.

The real housewives of Atlanta has nothing on the speeches of King Jong-il.

Right?

Now, he's telling you what you need to watch.

The problem is choices, Andy.

The problem in a free market ratings-based television is choices.

If, for example, all you're allowed to watch are Trump's speeches and you can't turn it off, you know what you like or don't like because there's nothing else to like.

Right, that just kind of makes sense.

That's basically how kids of my generation got into watching Test Match Cricket, because it was that or nothing.

And I'm not equating Test Match Cricket with the speeches of either Kim Jong-il or Donald Trump.

But the point essentially stands.

There'd be a lot fewer annoying conversations about, yeah, have you caught up on that cool new box set TV show?

It's like, no, it's all just Trump's being a f ⁇ ing moron.

Can I suggest the america already has a worldwide network talking about how great america is it's called fing hollywood all right

can i refer you to missions impossible one through six

No, that is a very valid point, Tom.

You know, when the world is blowing up, it's always the White House that has to solve.

It's never the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka

that's burdened with solving the world's problems.

This is true.

In other Trump news, Melania Trump has been photographed with the White House Christmas decorations, which are essentially a forest of blood-red trees, which look alarmingly like handmaids.

And

are they just testing the waters before fully rolling out Margaret Atwood's vision of a better America?

I think this is an all-in game, gentlemen, which is that if everyone is saying your administration is dystopian, go with a dystopian thing

don't go with a friendly sort of you know that all-loving christmas jolly theme just go go all in so the prominent ones margaret atwood aldous huxley a.g wells those would be like the future themes i think at christmas that's what christmas is all about

Quick Brexit update now.

We're all gonna die.

I I mean, that is independent of Brexit, of course, but the point still stands.

You can use these facts however you want in this Brexit era.

We are all going to die because of whatever Brexit deal is eventually agreed or not agreed upon.

Theresa May this week showed that she still has her finger on the irregularly throbbing pulse of Britain.

By communicating with the nation in the only way the people of this country understand, a piece of junk mail trying to flog us something that no one wants.

Tessie the Tentative sent the nation a letter.

She spammed Britain, essentially, with a letter asking this Queriless land to pretend to unite in a way that only comes even close to happening during particularly fruity global conflicts.

Good luck with that.

This letter was, at best, unconvincing, telling us that we needed to come together with this thing that, well, either people didn't want or people wanted a different version of.

To be fair to me, she has been dealt an unplayable hand, and she's played that unplayable hand shitly.

Understandably, shitly, but shitly nonetheless.

The latest plans also have been released for Brexit Day, the 29th of March, currently scheduled for next year, when we will hurl ourselves off the diving board of Destiny, attempting a triple-twisting pike-packed somersault that we've never practiced into the liberatingly toxic swamp of perceived freedom.

Isn't it weird how Brexit Day gets earlier and earlier every year?

I hate this commercialization of Brexit Day.

You know what I mean?

I feel like we've lost the spirit of it.

All the handmade decorations.

Yeah, that's milanious trees.

They're much more appropriate for what your country is going through, Andy.

In Hyde Park on the 29th of March, the government has announced that it will conscript a million strong crowd of Brexit voters, alive and dead, to simultaneously belch the national anthem in a southward direction.

There'll be a live ceremony in Westminster Abbey, which Boris Johnson, the squawking hemorrhoid of delusion himself, will ceremonially yank out a ceremonial arrow from the eye socket of a giant robotic King Harold, who will then ceremonially come back to life and shout Up Yours Norman Nomates to a French exchange student in a William the Conqueror outfit.

Taking back control.

The Queen, meanwhile, will parade around London in a Union Jack feathered chicken outfit and will ceremonially lay four giant eggs, one for each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, symbolising the rebirth of our nations.

Before celebrity chef laureate Jamie Oliver cracks the United Kingdom's ovulids into a pan and cooks a single British omelette to represent the unbreakable holy union that has kept this nation unified as one since the dawn of time.

The Duke of Edinburgh, meanwhile, will take Emmanuel Filiberto of Savoy, the Prince of Venice, the only male-line grandson of the last King of Italy, and ceremonially force his head into a British toilet before flushing it and shouting, Kepiche, senor foreign face, then giving the soggy-faced pseudo-prince a cuddle and saying, still friends.

It's really what Brexit is all about.

There are also plans for an upgrade to the white cliffs of Dover, which currently stand at 110 meters high, but will be extended upwards by 350 meters,

just to make our point.

So you'll build the wall.

Yeah, build a cliff.

God, even your walls are white.

That's impressive.

I've been coming to your country for the last couple of years.

I've heard the words customs union so often.

Yeah.

Does anyone actually know what that means?

No.

No.

I mean, that's the thing with all these terms with Brexit, is they're all a bit complicated.

And it's best just to say them and and and hope that you sound like you know what you're talking about.

Because fundamentally no one knows what they're talking about because it is too complicated for the human brain.

Well the UK government seems to have some very interesting thoughts on how it's all gonna roll out.

Official figures say the UK economy could be up to 3.9% smaller after 15 years under Theresa May's Brexit plan compared with staying in the EU.

How big do you want your economy to be Andy?

I've always said the UK's economy could lose a little few pounds, you know.

It won't happen overnight, but it will happen over 15 years.

Are you body-shaming our economy?

Yeah,

lose a few, fatty.

You don't have much of a choice.

And as far as I can tell, the entire British economy seems to be made up entirely of British comedians going on TV travel shows with their dads.

So

I think losing 3.9% of them would be fine.

Independent experts have said that 3.9% of GDP would equate to about £100 billion a year by the 2030s.

But on the bright side, Andy, by 2030, £100 billion will be worth about 20 quid.

Bango.

Thank you.

But also, I think, I mean, it's not just about what Britain's going to lose.

We haven't been told what Europe is also going to lose because that's what Brexit was about.

I mean, we're not concerned about damaging our own economy as long as we take those foreign fers down with us.

Scotch dirt, Andy.

Scorched earth.

India news now.

Anuvab, I understand there's been some hugely exciting news in the world of Indian art.

There is, Andy.

We've decided that we want to have the largest statue in the world, so we built it.

Right.

I was doing some research, Andy.

So India and China have 60 of the top 100 statues in the world.

And I have a theory I've developed, Andy.

I want you to know what you think of this.

I think a nation's average height is inversely proportional to the height of its statues.

Average height of both nations in India and China, five foot six inches.

Right?

Average height of the statues there, hundreds of feet.

Danish people, giants.

Main statue in Denmark, the little mermaid.

Tiny bit of nonsense in the middle of Copenhagen to commemorate Hans Christian Anderson.

They don't need it.

So

we have the tallest statue in the world right now.

The next are about 30 Buddhas.

But ours is a statue of the Indian freedom fighter, Vallabhaipatel.

It stands 100 feet above the Colossus of Rhodes, which was about the height of the Statue of Liberty when it existed.

Vallabhai Patel was an Indian freedom fighter.

It is said on Wikipedia that he was a key negotiator in keeping India together after independence.

What that means is he just sent in the army and said, if you do not want to be a part of India, we'll kill you, which is a fair way to negotiate, I think.

Today,

he's the first thing that you'll see as you fly into India.

And I don't think it helps that the statue is that tall that they put a red blinking light on his head

so that an Emirates plane doesn't run into him.

I don't know if that's a fair commemoration, but I think we're trying.

I think we're saying something to the world because

the inspiration for it was the statue of Colossus at Rhodes.

And the Colossus at Rhodes is much shorter than the Vallephai Patel statue.

Indian architects did a lot of research into the Colossus of Rhodes, which was basically a giant naked Greek man wearing a cape holding a sword.

And we said that would be a little inappropriate

because nobody wants to see a giant naked Indian man.

So we had a distinguished freedom fighter wearing a shawl with a red light on his head.

And

that is currently our contribution to the world, Andy.

Giant statues.

And interestingly, it's 597 feet tall.

Yes.

Statue.

If you're going to build it to 597 feet, why not just put another three feet on it?

So you're top the 600?

That's bizarre to me.

Because that is 199 yards.

That's one yard, three feet to a yard, one yard off the 200-yard.

199, of course, coincidentally, the highest test match score of Mohammed Azer Ruddin, the former Indian cricket captain and match fixer.

What messages are we sending here?

Indeed.

No, that's a great point, Andy.

In fact, I think they asked Azar Ruddin, how tall do you want the statue to be?

And he said, why don't we go with my average?

597 feet.

What is that in Danny DeVito's?

Can you

put it in terms that normal people can understand, please, Andy?

Well, I think it's...

What if.

Well, I mean, that's

a lot.

112 Danny DeVitos, I think.

Thank you.

I'm just saying, the biggest statue we have in Australia is Nickers the Cow.

So I'm struggling to hit it up with you guys.

But it's not going to be the record-breaking statue for long because apparently there's a statue set to be unveiled in the year 2021 of Shivaji.

Correct.

Who is a 17th century Indian

warrior?

Yes.

That'll be 696 feet.

I mean, again, just go for the 700 for f's sake.

Have you no sense of numerical landmarks?

If Indian statues continue increasing at the current rate.

By the year 2183, a statue will be built of the Indian snooker star Pankaj Advani that will be so big that it will displace the world off its axis and send the planet careering into space before it cannons off the moon before then coming to rest tucked in behind Mars in a good position to knock the red planet in for in for one and screw back for a shot at Jupiter before cleaning up the outer planets.

And I guess Andy, you've just given an idea to all Indian architects listening to this podcast.

But it's interesting this that clearly Sardapatel is a huge figure in Indian history and a statue, which is a project of your

opinion-splitting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is designed to reflect his standing in Indian politics and history.

And similarly, in Britain, we are about to unveil a statue of David Cameron that will be two inches tall in an eight-foot ditch and covered with a lump of badger shit.

In further world teetering on the edge of total chaos news now, the G20 are meeting in Buenos Aires.

Now, we, throughout the history of the Bugle, have kept you up to date on what the G20 is not.

It, of course, is not simply the seventh option in a multiple-choice quiz about the number of times in the average minutes that Boris Johnson thinks about the speech he's going to make to the press outside 10 Downing Street the day he becomes Prime Minister.

Nor is G20 merely a sign that you're playing Scrabble against a cheat.

Nor...

Is G20 what you would reply if someone asked you the question, in an ideal world, how many tickets would you like for for Andy Zoltzmann's 2018, the certifiable history?

The Soho Theatre.

From the 18th of December to the 5th of January.

Gee, 20.

All details online at the Soho Theatre website.

The G20 are, of course, the leaders of the world's richest, most powerful, richest, richest, and most powerful nations.

And they are heading to Argentina.

And such is the esteem in which the head honchos of the world are held that the entire city is being shut down while they're there.

There's a public holiday, no public transport, there are no go-zones sprouting up all over the city.

All flights are diverted.

this is i mean you put all the world's leaders in one place that i mean just nothing else is allowed to happen i mean addy look this is fantastic but i think the main reason for this is the saudi arabian crown prince is going to be there right so you know from recent news that anytime the saudi arabian crown prince shows up somewhere with security guards and suitcases run

The Turkish know it better than anyone else.

Washington Post knows it.

I mean, it is, I mean, it's a very interesting.

I mean, just generally, the world, the G20 are a collection of the world's smartest dressed despots, shysters, democratic-elected leaders, criminals, human rights violators, and murderers.

And just some tick more of those boxes at once than others.

Some only tick one.

Some tick.

tick the lot.

And Mohamed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince come hitman, which is an interesting new strain of multitasking from the self-styled Saudi scribe slayer.

He is

set to attend despite the threatening of an arrest warrant that that could be issued on charges that he was insufficiently assiduous in taking every available step to ensure that dissenting journalists and embassies were not killed, bone sword to pieces, and disappeared by a squad of state operatives who just happened to be passing through at the same time.

Of course, we'll let the legal system be the arbiter of that.

The Prince, of course, is keen to maintain Saudi Arabia's standing as a trading force with the other G20 leaders.

And to make his point, it's been reportedly making the noise of a car failing to start after running out of fuel as a simple means of getting this point across to the other 19 Gs.

And also the Saudi delegation is apparently arriving in six planes.

And it's interesting how they chose that number of planes, six planes, was most delegation just arriving in one plane.

They've chosen that number just in case they have to fly back from the summit with the limbs, head and torso of a Saudi skeptic journalist separately packaged for safekeeping.

Trump's coming in on 10 planes, whereas the UK, your shitty little country, Andy, is arriving in merely one.

How's that empire going?

Everything all right?

Yeah.

That's probably an Air India plan.

We've still got Gibraltar.

It's not over yet.

You're so right.

The G20 is so gross.

These awful, like, warmongers getting together, just looking past human rights abuses, furthering the interests of global capital at the expense of everybody else.

And yet, I still hate it less than the T20 because that's cricket.

And cricket's bad.

Which is a similar collection of people, actually.

yeah who's more corrupt the t20 or the g20 oh that is impossible to say tough

question about saudi arabia gentlemen um now saudi arabia

no questions about saudi arabia

what anufab disappeared in the riyad consulate what happened um

question is saudi arabians are the largest investors in uber

so were the saudi crown prince to be detained kept in a consulate, as Irini would have it, in the middle of Buenos Aires, would there be millions of people just stranded on their morning commute?

Well, I guess that's a good way to keep the world on side, isn't it?

Correct.

Genius.

My driver is six days late, according to the map, because the Crown Prince is in a consulate in Buenos Aires.

Sport now and well it's been thrilling stuff at the World Chess Championships.

The World Chess Champion Magnus Carlson has won the World Chess Championship to retain the title of being still the reigning World Chess Champion after 12 draws in a row

against the American upstart Fabiano Caruana.

12 draws in a row, an inaction-packed, nerve-de-jangling anti-thriller that put the block back into blockbuster and hark back to the true glory days of test match cricket when sport was played not for glory not for excitement and not for victory it was played to enable participants and spectators to commune soothingly with the essential futility of existence uh Carlson and Caruana went at each other unused hammer and still packaged tongs over a fortnight neither man was able to put the other's queen in the back of the net or hit the king out of the chess park and then it went to a sudden death chess-off with each player allowed one new piece they'd invented themselves carlson went for the public relations officer a low movement high impact piece that stays on the same square out of danger, but makes your opponent's pieces turn on each other and take each other off the board.

Whilst Caruana, foolishly with hindsight, chose the footballer, which danced up the board but then threw itself to the ground, claiming to have been fouled by Carlsen's bishop, thus instantly resigning the game.

Ultimately, Carlson's superior pawn work, he used highly motivated immigrant pawns who moved twice the numbers of spaces in the same amount of moves.

That proved decisive, whilst Caruana regretted turning his castle into a luxury boutique hotel that looked great but lacked basic chess functionality.

A disappointed Caruana said regretfully afterwards, I can't help feeling that I left a lot of chess pieces out there on the chessboard, but f it, it's basically glamorising feudalism, so I'm fing glad I lost.

Why is there a bishop and not an imam or a rabbi?

What kind of fing message is that f ⁇ ing sending?

I wish I watched it now.

Sounds good.

Well, that brings us kicking and screaming to the end of this week's this week's bugle.

I do hope you've enjoyed it.

It's been a delight to have you both uh both back on um and um don't forget to come to all of my soho shows from the 18th of december to the 5th of january uh have you guys got anything you want to plug there's something at the bbc world service that i'm doing some stand-up but that's boring the what i want to mention is that i'm leaving london to go do a show for indian scientists who are working in geneva at the cern research center

um which is the place where they try to do discover the god particle yeah and i'm a bit concerned that these scientists are trying to to say that God is Indian,

which makes sense because he's mysterious, absent, duplicitous, and everywhere.

And the gentleman said, you know, we want some stand-up because we're trying to bring an Indian perspective to space research.

And it

really worries me because I have a feeling that if they do that, they're going to say nonsense like if Jupiter does not behave itself, it will be reborn as a three-headed dog.

So that's where I'm off to ending.

Okay, right.

Well, try to make sure the the whole planet doesn't blow up.

That hasn't happened yet, has it?

Richard.

Rich.

Still no destruction on the planet caused by the CERN particle accelerator.

That's good.

Right.

Rich standing in for Chris there.

I don't think that's the first time we feature on the show right at the end.

I'm going to cut that later in the show.

Right.

Okay.

Awesome.

Tom, have you got anything coming up to alert our listeners to?

Yeah, I'm doing a gig for NASA soon.

I'll be

talking about gravity.

No, I'm doing the Chuckleheart HaHa Club in but f ⁇ ing nowhere.

But no, my 2019 stand-up show is called Enough and I'd love everyone to come along to that around Australia.

It's heading around all the festivals.

And again, I just really want to reiterate that Nickers is just a very large cow.

Okay.

Consider that reiterated.

Thank you.

Do send us some emails to hellobuglers at thebuglepodcast.com.

Next week we'll have details on this new relaunch, re-relaunch of the bugle that will be coming soon.

Thanks very much for listening.

Until next time, 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.