It’s easier to build a moon than to Brexit: Bugle 4086

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 4086 of the Bah no it's gone.

Uh

Bugle, that's it.

Sorry, it's Thursday the 1st of November.

I am, uh, what does it matter?

We're all just dust in the winds of history, Zoltzmann.

Not the catchiest first name, but I thought it was time for a rebrand.

You can call me Dusty for short.

I am in any guesses?

Wrong!

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Unless you said London, in which case you're right.

And joining me this week to leap through the vomit-stained pages.

Chundered from the guts of news into the puke bucket of history this week.

All the way, firstly, from Auto from London.

It's Al Murray.

Good day to you, sir.

Hello, Al.

I'm really, I'm very well, Andy.

You didn't ask me.

but I'm very well.

It's one of the social niceties that's still going.

Yeah I think we should just go straight in.

I know the news cycle is so fast we haven't got time to ask each other how we are but I'm very well.

I'm particularly enjoying the location that we're in today because we're in Cock Lane.

We are in Cock Lane.

It's very much

the spiritual home of the bugle, although we've probably recorded 10 or 12 episodes here, but Cock Lane, I think, is where we belong.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

And it's a delight to be in Cock Lane, in a basement in Cock Lane, so at the bottom of Cock Lane.

So somewhere at the end of the shaft of Cock Lane,

just above the balls.

The ball,

that's the etymological origin of St Paul's Cathedral.

It was originally St.

Ball's.

Yeah, yeah.

St Ball's.

Yeah, everyone knows that.

Just around the corner.

Yeah.

Of course.

And by the godless miracle that is communications technology, all the way from Melbourne, Australia.

It's a man who sits last on the bugle back in April has destroyed Australian civilization.

Here to explain how he did it.

It's Tom Ballard.

Hello, gentlemen.

Hi.

The AVC

Melbourne is actually on asshole lane, so that's a crazy coincidence.

So

how have you been, Tom?

Terrible.

My TV show got cancelled.

I am too hot for TV.

I am a rebel taking down the Australian government through the power of satire.

And they f ⁇ ing ended me, mate.

All very, very well, isn't it, truth to power.

It's all very well, but it got you into

awful trouble, didn't it?

It turns out.

Yes, yes.

The show got ended.

It don't get renewed.

There was a government inquiry into the language used on the program.

And two weeks after Tonightly with Tom Ballard finished up, both the managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the chairman of the board were both relieved of their duties.

So don't cross me, Zaltzman.

I'm very powerful.

Right.

But you did sort of take yourself down with it.

So it's a little bit more.

The word Drongo could upset so many people.

Well, they're very touchy with that kind of stuff around here.

You know how it is.

So, I mean,

this goes back to a show you did in March

at Scrent.

Now, I was reading up about it.

The former chairman of ABC apparently in an email said, it's not okay to call somebody a on an ABC comedy show.

I mean, that's pretty vague.

I mean, let's be reasonable.

Surely that's putting on restrictions that are very unfair in terms of the language people are accustomed to using and also in terms of the politicians being discussed, especially because A, it's Australia and B, it's Australia.

Surely those two factors should come into play.

Yes, no, he didn't seem to take either of those factors into play at all.

We were we didn't call someone a c.

We joked about the idea of calling someone a c.

That's very, very different.

And this particular candidate was a candidate for the party, the Australian Conservatives,

who are a pack of cs.

I mean, I'm not employed anymore, and I'm allowed to say that, and I stand by it.

Is that the collective?

No, no, a pack?

A pack of cuts.

It's a murder, I think.

Well, you can join the club in not having your own TV charge.

I just cut out the middleman.

Difficult middle phase when you actually have to.

You're always ahead, Zultzman.

You're always ahead.

So I was intrigued.

It was was the Batman by-election, which

obviously is a source of considerable entertainment.

And it's essentially just that name is why that's.

I mean, it all came from that, didn't it?

You calling Batman a c.

Batman, pronounced Batman.

He did horrible things to Indigenous people in Australia.

He has an electorate named after him.

We had a sketch about renaming the electorate, not taking away his name completely, but renaming the electorate.

Batman was a c.

And then

this candidate was running in that particular electorate, and we noticed that on his campaign post that he didn't have the phrase Batman at all.

So we were reduced to saying that this particular person is a, you see.

Hilarity ensued.

It was cleared by

a report from the media authority, the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

They released a report in which the word was used 53 times.

There you go.

That's progress of sorts.

I was intrigued by Batman.

He was described by by a neighbour, the artist John Glover, who was an artist in the early 19th century.

He described John Batman as a rogue, thief, cheat, and liar, a murderer of blacks, and the vilest man I've ever known.

He to me sounds like a prime minister in waiting for the way global politics is going in the 21st century.

He just got elected in Brazil, I think, yes.

Yeah.

And also, I guess as the old saying goes, don't go into politics if you don't want someone to call you a.

Al, you've also basically brought down the British establishment.

Well, no, I've been accused of attempting to.

I haven't actually successfully lit the gunpowder like Tom.

Yeah, I've made this program called Why Does Everyone Hate the English?

which is

a light-hearted look at the fact that everyone hates the English.

Well, yeah, basically, yeah.

And

the title of this show, no one's watched the thing,

which is, you know, which is path of the course.

The the title of the the title of the show

no one watched i know

it's wonderful isn't it it's great it's great for a show that no one watches to be cancelled that's the tree that's the tree that falls in the forest isn't it when there's no one there to hear it um um the the uh

basically ukip the uh ukip gerard batten mep who's a who's a moron right um i'm not gonna call him a i'm not gonna go that far because i don't want the bugle shut down

globally um he he has said he looked at the, he tweeted the artwork with this quote saying, Al Murray clearly hates, despises his country and wants to destroy it.

And then that, and I found out about this because I suddenly got a load of kippers on my timeline saying that I was more of a threat to the cohesion of the United Kingdom than Androm Chowdhury, hate the preacher Andre Chowdhury, who's just been let out of jail.

And the thing is, is it's it really is a light-hearted look at the history.

You know, I went to Ireland and got pissed with Andrew Maxwell for a week.

And somewhere along the line said, oh, some rotten stuff happened, didn't it?

So I have not brought down, I have not brought down England or the UK or anything, but I've been accused of it.

It's not quite the same thing.

I mean, no one's had to, no, no heads have rolled.

I mean, I'm really impressed, Tom, that you've actually got people fired.

You know, obviously, the truth to the wrong power.

You know, the wrong people got fired, but well done.

I mean, you know,

comedy's a life without consequence.

It's amazing.

I I couldn't have done it without the bugle, friends.

It's

no, no, November.

It's the 11th month of the year.

Still no signs of November climbing the table.

That's the problem with having a closed shop with months, no promotional relegation.

And the later months of the year just bumble along complacently.

I mean, December.

Jeez.

Still they're worried about being dropped.

Nothing's going to change.

Saturday, the 3rd of November.

is National Bison Day in America.

But please, for our American listeners, if you are going to to buy a bison for your kids, spouse, parents, or as a leaving present for a work colleague who's heading off to a new job, please remember, if you don't keep trimming the bison like a bonsai, they get absolutely f ⁇ ing massive.

So make sure you also invest in a good quality bison trimmer.

Monday, of course, is the 5th of November around the world, and especially so here in Britain, where we celebrate Guy Fawkes Day,

surely Britain's favourite incompetent terrorist.

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

If only there were more like him on the terrorist circuit, ones who just totally f ⁇ ed up.

Well,

he did totally f it up, didn't he?

And you always get that.

What we're going to get is that run rash of jokes of the only person who enter parliament with honourable intentions.

And you think, oh, that's.

There you go.

Is that f?

Oh, that's not funny.

No, he wanted to kill everyone.

Oh, no, that's terrible.

And for Spain.

I mean, who'd do it for the Spa?

He was trying to kill people for Spain.

Right.

I mean,

that's not right, is it?

Well, that's probably why it became a slightly over-elaborate plot with too much passing in the build-up.

Want to go direct?

And we, of course, we celebrate him, as I believe the term is, by burning effigies now of

prominent, often popular, and divisive political figures.

So there's going to be some fing enormous bonfires this year.

That's just another way Donald Trump is damaging the environment.

It's also, today is World Vegan Day, so this episode of The Bugle has been written unusually without any help from animals.

Sorry, Clive, you wrote some lovely gags about the american midterms but i cannot use them not today i'm i'm gonna go with the ones that appear to me miraculously out of a packet of tofu

screw you clive you're ruining the environment

as always

a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week we review the latest hit tv shows from saudi state television including celebrity hit squad get back inside or i'll have you flogged and jailed very amusing romantic sitcom and boom or bust thrills and spills guaranteed as a selection of your favourite princes test out the latest weapons bought from pliant western arms companies.

Those sections in the bin.

Top story this week and well China is obviously taking over the world.

We are here in November 2018.

Britain squabbling with itself over Brexit like a meat-loving vegan trying to heimlick maneuver its own sausage clenching fist out from its esophagus whilst biting its arm off just to spick it, to spit it back in its own face before collapsing like an overstretched metaphor.

America meanwhile trying to exorcise itself of itself by acupuncturing itself with a load of rusty knitting needles applied with a bolt gun, not entirely working yet.

Europe drifting to the far right politically like a miraculously reborn Abraham Lincoln thinking, what shall I do with my night off this time?

I know, another trip to the theatre.

All the while,

China, once again thinking, well, this is turning out to be a fk of a lot easier than we thought it would be.

Al.

Al, you are our China gearing up to take over as the world's number one superpower correspondent.

Yes.

Bring us up to date.

Well,

this is quite the most extraordinary story from China.

There's been a lot of fuss recently that we are not ready for Brexit and that the British government hasn't made the preparations.

It's going to be a great, big, enormous task that they will never ever get around.

It's been a week of incredible things like Mike Pence's Christian Rabbi, right?

But.

I mean, that really should only be a cryptic crossword clue.

Yeah, absolutely.

Or the name of a, you know, the fictional name of a band that people say, I prefer the early stuff.

Right.

But the Chinese government, right, is planning that by 2020, everyone in China, right, everyone in China will be enrolled in a vast national database that compiles fiscal and government information, including minor traffic violations, and distills it into a single number ranking each citizen.

I mean, holy f,

right?

I mean,

exactly.

It's set off the fire alarm in the building.

This is how dangerous it is.

It's the ambition of the Chinese government.

Absolutely incredible.

So

it's a social credit system where basically...

That was really sinister.

That was really.

They're already listening to us.

Who'd have thought the bugle was on the Chinese government's hit list?

In its raw,

unbroadcast form.

It's incredible.

You're breaking

his negative five.

Negative five.

Absolutely.

But this is what this is, right?

It was on the BBC and it did around social media.

It was a broadcast from a train, a train operating company in China going,

your behavior on this train will be logged and noted according to standards as laid down by this train company and will basically go on your file as a passenger.

And in China, what they're doing is rolling out this idea of social credit.

And it's coming from

Sesame Credit, which is the financial wing of Alibaba, which is, you know, like a...

Which both sound lovely, don't they?

Well, well, yeah, but

it's Alibaba.

Isn't Alibaba on the 40 thieves?

I mean,

it's basically, it's a way of introducing children to high finance.

To high finance, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's an online shopping platform in China.

It's enormous.

But the thing is,

what this always comes back to with China is that that's got 400 million users.

That's a lot of people.

But how many people are there in China?

Like, what is it?

It's about 1.4 billion.

1.4 billion.

So

everyone in China is going to be on this.

For me, it just comes back to that.

It's sinister.

It's creepy.

But how the f how the f how

how big is the server park?

You know, I admire the technology.

I mean, yeah, exactly.

I mean,

I always end up with these stories getting drawn into the, how on earth are they going to do that?

Rather than rather than, oh, the civil liberties implications are appalling.

Just how are they?

How are they going to do that?

It's absolutely amazing.

And you've got to...

I've got based on the ethics so much, the admin.

Right, I am.

We're British.

That's how we built the empire.

Absolutely, yeah.

We look, we address that.

We're not really judging each other on trains.

That's my entire perception of the British people.

We are, but we don't bother to write it down anywhere.

We store it up as a sort of burning internal grudge system.

But this is incredible.

Apparently,

Sesame Credit will not divide exactly how it calculates its credit scores, explaining that it is a complex algorithm.

You bet it f ⁇ ing this.

I mean, this is just, this is, I think this is just

obviously the way the world, it's obviously the world, the way the world's going.

And I say that because China's in charge, right?

So it's the way, isn't it?

It's the way...

It's one of my favorite American sitcoms of the 1990s.

And the Sesame's technology director said, someone who plays video games for 10 hours a day, for example, would be considered an idle person.

And someone who frequently buys diapers would be considered a probably as a parent, who on balance is more likely to have a sense of responsibility it's absolutely incredible what struck me about that sentence al someone who frequently buys diapers would be considered as probably a parent yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

dive into it

probably a parent i guess there's a you know it's not absolutely a hundred

or it's someone selling nappies on isn't it it's a middle it could be a middle nappy trader

buy diapers for like you know sex purposes which i think is worse than being a video gamer to be honest

you're right I mean right I look at it slightly differently when I say building up this massive national reputation database delving into the inner souls of every member of the Chinese nation I say well done China for at least having the balls to be open about it because if you're going to implement a state-run mass surveillance system that essentially reduces your citizens to empty vassal pawns in their political game status at least have the good grace the basic manners to tell everyone that you're doing it don't go through the masquerade of pretending you're not doing it, or worse, outsource it to dubious private companies to do the soul mining snooping for you at a profit, as tends to happen over here.

This is straight up cards on the table, honest, eyeball-to-eyeball subterfuge, and I admire that.

I agree with you.

I agree, Andy.

Obviously, I'm worried about the admin, but I agree with what you've just said there.

I'm not surprised that you guys don't get it.

You're clearly both 2.4s, okay?

Me as an 8.6,

I get it, and I get my head around it, and I would do very well.

I actually did very well in high school, and I think the Chinese government will be very pleased with my trustworthiness and my brown nosing.

So

you get like a specific number.

It's not an actual ranking from 1 to 1.4 billion, is it?

Because that would be

hard to say that.

That's probably

the billionth worst person in China.

That's what it's got to be, surely, isn't it?

It's got to be.

And obviously,

whoever's in charge will be number one, won't they?

And

there'll be a gulag full of people who are 1.6 billion.

billion I mean that that would how it would have that's how it have to work I mean this is one of these things where people are going this is like black mirror

but it's not like black mirror because it's actually happening

if you have a low social credit rating you can be punished by being prevented from traveling prevented from getting bank loans or staying in hotels you have your job options restricted you can even have your internet access blocked yeah I mean have these people not suffered enough with also without also being barred from watching old footage of 1980 sport have the Chinese government no sense of humanity?

Do not answer that question.

The planning document related to this project from the China State Council said that, quote, the new system will reward those who report acts of breach of trust.

And if you do not think that's sinister enough immediately, try repeating those words in a 1930s German or Soviet accent.

And just some breaking news coming through on the wires.

Police in the Oxford village of Sutton Courtney have been called to a disturbance in the churchyard of All Saints Church.

They've arrested a man they described as being aged between 110 and 120, approximately 6'2 inches in height, and a ghost going by the name of George Orwell, although without the papers to prove that was indeed his real name, whom they found defacing his own gravestone with spray paint graffiti of the words, see what I meant.

In other signs that China is about to take over the world news, the Chinese city of Chengdu is planning to replace street lights with an artificial moon.

Yeah, I mean that's a glorious sentence to exist.

Officials in the 14 million strong city of Chengdu, which in Chinese terms makes it a larger than average village, have announced plans to put a bogus moon in space.

The pseudo satellite will, they claim, reflect sunlight onto the streets at night with the aim of entirely replacing street lighting with a fake man-made moon.

This is what we're up against.

The ambition

in China,

I want them to try this.

I want them to try this because,

you know,

then we're living in a sci-fi future.

All right, we don't benefit from it.

Chinese people do.

But, you know,

we can all dream, can't we?

We can all dream.

I mean,

how big, how, I mean, what?

Again, this is another one by 2020 as well.

So they've got two years to to get a fake moon into space and everyone onto an enormous hard drive.

Well, they set deadlines.

In Britain, we're trying to launch a shit new cricket competition by 2020.

We're going to ball that.

I think if you have a low enough social credit score in China, you have to drive the moon.

I think that's how it works.

Well, anyway, take that Neil Armstrong.

Who needs to spend three days twiddling your thumbs and scratching your nuts in a rocket when you can just forge a moon and illuminate a large city with it?

It's going to be eight times as bright as the real moon, which I think this always happens with moons, doesn't it?

You know, the old ones tossed aside in favor of a younger and brighter moon.

Quite a belly one.

I hope we get one out of Brexit, actually.

I think.

Well, you know, a fake moon on a stick.

It's been promised to us, Alvin.

Been promised to us.

Promised us.

Again and again and again.

You know, this is, though, this is, again, it's China's vaunting ambition to build a fake moon, to put everyone's name on a hard drive and rate them.

I mean, what if this moon, is this moon going to have a higher rating than the real moon?

I mean, it's a moon-on-moon one-to-one competition.

What happens when the actual moon's going past the fake moon?

It's got to be feeling pretty rotten, hasn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean,

do it.

China, do it.

NASA is doing some cool stuff, though.

The Parker Solar Probe passed the current record of 42.73 million kilometers from the sun's surface on Monday.

That is breaking a record.

This satellite is on a mission to, quote, touch the sun, which you know shows that the Me Too movement still has a long way to go.

I think.

There is nowhere that you can hide.

Maybe it was one that was sent in the 70s and has got a

different sense of propriety about what it's allowed to rub itself alongside.

You know, you send a satellite from the 70s and it's on a mission to get his hands on as many

that went straight into Venus.

Absolutely.

yeah there's that one that rubbed itself along Saturn's rings and it

family show guys what has happened to this

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Australian news now.

Tom, you are our official Australian news correspondent as the man bringing down Australia from the inside.

Since you were last on the show, you have been treated to, I mean, what's almost an annual treat now, a new Prime Minister, but you leave your old Prime Minister under the pillow and you get a new one in the morning.

We're up to our fifth in eight years, but we are still sticking with an idiot.

We're still locking that that in no matter how many we go through that is the consistency that we've gone with are you very familiar with scott morrison have you are you aware of him have you embraced scomo into your life uh i'm a little bit of word of him from my my trips to australia the last the last last couple of years um i mean he's not necessarily someone that's easy to instantly warm to as as a neutral.

I think that's probably fair to say.

He has a bald spot and glasses.

He looks like an insurance accountant management consultant somehow.

He came to power after there was a failed coup by Peter Dutton, who was the immigration minister.

Peter Dutton looks like a potato, is just as dynamic flavor-wise.

So you're saying the immigration minister couldn't get in?

Ah!

Boom!

There we go.

He was turned around, yes.

SCOMO is the nickname that we have given to Scott Morrison.

I think he's adopted it himself.

Scobo, which does kind of sound like something you catch after an extended period of time on the high seas.

I I think.

Yo,

we had to amputate the leg because of the SCOMO.

But he's had just an amazing run already.

We're two months in already.

He's the 30th Prime Minister.

In his first few weeks in the job, his social media team released a video of him speaking in Parliament and they used the 1999 Fat Man scoop banger Be Faithful as part of the video.

He then immediately apologised and took down the video when he was informed that that song contains the classic lyrics, Who fking tonight?

Who fking tonight?

Now, which of course reminds me of the time Winston Churchill released a promotional telegram of one of his speeches set to the sounds of two live crews, Miso Horny.

I think we all remember that.

I thought Fat Man Scoot was a new cricket shot pioneered by W.G.

Grace in his later years, but

evidently I was mistaken.

It's because you got cricket on the brain and you're insane.

You're insane now.

Scott Morrison tweeted: the full lyrics of the song used in my early video from Question Time Today were just not okay.

When I found out, I asked the team to take it down.

Apologies.

Now, Scott Morrison used to be Australia's immigration minister and is therefore responsible for the indefinite detention and torture of innocent refugee children, and he has never apologised for that.

But apparently, tweeting out part of a song with some rude words in another part of that song is simply unacceptable.

It's like if Hitler apologised for the shouting.

Very strange.

Then Fat Man Scoot was like, oh, I'm coming to tour Australia.

I'll meet you backstage, Scott Morrison.

And then he said, cool.

But then at the AFL Grand Final, Scott Morrison tweeted a photo of him with WillIM from Black Eyed Peas and said, sorry at Fat Man Scoop, I made a new friend this afternoon.

Basically implying that the Prime Minister of Australia seems to believe you can only be friends with one black musician at any one time.

That is the rule, which is a real one-in-one out policy that he also applies to Australia's immigration.

So

he's consistent, I think, which is good.

Yeah.

So is he a massive hip-hop fan?

Scott Morrison?

He doesn't look like one.

Skirmo, bitch.

He says that a lot.

Am I right in thinking that he was the face of Vic's vapor rub

as a child?

Vic's love rub.

He was in an ad.

Was that it?

He was a child actor, briefly.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, I've just, as we're, because I have never, this is the thing with Australian politics, blink and you miss it.

I had never heard of this guy, right?

He may be Prime Minister of a nation that we are determined to do a trade deal with, even though it's pretty clear you're not interested, right?

And so I've just googled him, and it says some reports have suggested he was the iconic 1970s Vicks Love Rub kid, but footage to confirm or refute this has not been found.

He has stated he was in a different Vicks commercial.

All right.

This is amazing.

That's enough to know about him.

Child actor, they're weird.

You're Prime Minister's pigs, and we are just in a different VIX commercial.

Yeah, yeah, I was not in that VIX commercial.

I did not rub that particular VIX

on myself.

Amazing.

Quite incredible.

But if he was a child actor, he's a bell end.

That's a pretty good

weather vein, that.

I think if he's a prime minister, he's a bellend.

He's not all bad, though.

He just at the prime.

Here's a cricket thing, Andy.

At the Prime Minister's 11 match in Canberra, while interacting with the crowd, Scott Morrison skulled a cup of beer and then placed the cup on the top of his head.

And that's the most interesting thing that's ever happened at a cricket match ever.

So there you go.

F ⁇ you, Tom.

F you.

F you.

Okay.

That is

unacceptable to have that level of blasphemy on this show.

Morrison also has this trophy in his office with a small boat.

It's a trophy of a boat and it has the inscription, I stopped these, which is a reference to the fact that he stopped the boats, the refugee boats, coming to Australia.

And it's always a good sign when your nation's leader has physical reminders of the horrific things they're responsible for dotted around their office.

I think Margaret Thatcher had a little trophy of unions in her office with the inscription, I crushed these.

George Bush had a trophy of a small Iraqi child with the inscription, I killed these.

And David Cameron had a little piggy bank with a slot for his penis.

Family show.

Britain news now and well Brexit is getting closer and closer or further and further away.

Delete as history proves applicable.

But the most exciting part of it is how we're going to get a new coin out of it.

Yeah, not content with dangling us the ripe cherry of a blue passport, this government is offering us a 50p piece to celebrate

the excitement of our departure from the European Union.

That's going to say on it,

because who says we do irony in this country?

It's going to say on it, friendship to all nations on the back of it, which is just like,

that is just awesome.

We have the greatest sense of humour in the world in this country, and we're going to demonstrate it with a 50p piece.

It's absolutely amazing.

I'm also going to set a world record for the most sarcastic invisible quote marks on a single coin.

The fact that there's not a question mark at the end of that is a bossy move.

I feel like friendship with all nations?

I know,

it's just wonderful.

And people mocking this coin are typical of the Ramoners, the Ramonas, as I prefer to call them.

The Ramonas who simply won't get behind this country's project to tell the world to f ⁇ off.

And

I'm most disappointed that they can't get behind that

will of the people.

And this coin is a sign that we're bouncing back, we're open for business, we're ready to rock and roll, it's not going to change anything, us leaving the EU, etc.

But we're all going to get a 50p piece.

We're all going to get a 50p piece.

It's going to cost us each £75, but we're going to get that 50p.

Well, yes, it's one pence for every billion quid spent so far.

There's a great article about the design of the coin, and it said, it's not yet known exactly what the new Brexit coins will look like, which I think is perfect.

What better way to embody what Brexis is about than by being vague about what you're going to look like?

It's great.

But it does, I mean, it is a bizarre time in this country at the moment, where we're essentially tearing ourselves apart.

like a desperate teenage Labrador simultaneously undergoing violent mood swings and emotional upheavals whilst also confronting its own increasingly obvious mortality.

Now, I know that metal doesn't quite work as Labrador's adolescent phase is not in its teenage years on a human years scale, but hey, what the heck?

It's Brexit.

Describing it through a metaphor that doesn't work seems almost too appropriate.

Besides, I committed to the teenage dog metaphor without really fully thinking it through, and so I couldn't pull out, could I?

I had to go through with it.

Otherwise, how would I ever trust myself to finish a metaphor again?

American news now, and

well, the midterms, just a few days days away by the time we're next to a bugle, we will know whether Donald Trump is being cut in half or allowed to remain whole for the next two years.

He seems to be continuing his scheme to make America great again by savagely attacking all the things that made America great in the first place.

Again, it is very hard for us outsiders to understand.

The big issues at stake for the midterms appear to be how much of a prick America is going to be as a nation for the next two years.

Healthcare.

Now, I'll admit I'm a bit out of the loop and do find it confusing, but it seems to come down to whether or not rich people earning over $750,000 a year will be given a special golden ticket,

Charlie in the Chocolate Factory style, entitling them to go to a hospital and unplug the life support machine of someone earning less than $20,000 a year.

I may be reading between the lines, but it's not too far off.

And one of the curious stories was

Donald Trump saying that he's going to end the rights to American citizenship for the children of non-citizens who have themselves been born in the USA.

Now, Trump, the unavoidably obvious testicle in the world's collective meatball marinara,

is, I mean, he's taken aim, but this is the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship, to the US Constitution.

Dates back to 1868.

So I guess it's understandable he might start thinking that amendments written 150 years ago or more no longer have quite the implications that they were originally intended to have.

Is that right, Donald?

Is that right, Donald?

Is that right, Donald?

Andy.

Yes?

Go fuck with yourself.

Fair point.

Thing is, his own kids

wouldn't fall under this, would they?

Because if Anchor Trump wasn't naturalized until after

his kids were born, yeah, but there's a crucial difference there from a minted family.

Oh, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because what do they call them?

There's a name for the kind of babies, because there's a thing that Russian,

there's supposedly a thing Russian, rich, rich, rich Russian families do is

they have the kid

born in the US so that then they can all move to the US and

anchor babies it's a horrible term yeah and and you know Mexican people will do the same anchor babies the idea that that anchors you to the country that you're moving yeah yeah and that's what he's trying to stop isn't he but his own kids

his own children for Christ's sake

he could be happy on losing a few of them to be honest Eric will be fine I think it's a good idea I think that no one should be the citizen of any country when you get born anywhere we should just be neutral and then it's just like a lottery system where you just find out, oh, I'm Albanian, and so I have to go live there now.

And that would, I think, mix things up a little bit more.

People get a little less nationalistic and would share the love around a bit.

I don't know.

If I drew Albania, I think I'd go for it.

I'd double down on being a totally nationalistic Albanian.

Yeah, but that's because you hate Britain and everything it's telling you.

Yeah, of course.

Sorry, yeah.

I'm determined to destroy it.

Yeah, I'm really sorry.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the midterms have tossed up, they've tossed up some weirdness, though.

There's been this attempt.

Obviously, there's the refugee convoy, isn't there?

Debacle, where Trump sent soldiers to the border, even though

these people are a thousand miles to the border.

He said some of them might be Middle East terrorists.

He said George Soros is paying for it.

Yes, so I mean, one of the things that I've spotted

in this sort of midterm chaos is an attempt by a young Trumpian Trumpist activist to smear Bob Muller, right?

Who obviously is heading up the investigation into Russian interference, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And what he's done is he leaked a story that

he said he'd found this story that Mueller had been accused of sexually assaulting someone, right, in 2010.

And it had come to him via a thing called Gateway Pundit.

And it had come to Gateway Pundit via a thing called Surefire Intelligence.

An intelligence firm that, oh, look, he'd set up.

He's jacobwoolnextmanagement.com is on is on their company DNS record analysis.

And then you get into the website, and what there is to look at is absolutely amazing.

He made the mistake of putting his own name on the company thing when he set it up, right?

The Tel Aviv station chief used a picture of an Israeli supermodel, right?

Doug Donald, who's Donald Treehorn, who's an investigator at Surefire Intelligence, that's a cardigan model

called Nick Hopper.

Mark Teller, who's the private investigator at Surefire Intelligence,

he's another model.

And then you work your way through it and financial investigator at Surefire Intelligence.

It's a picture.

It's a picture, would you believe, of Christoph Fultz

from

the movies, right?

Because this guy is so fing inept and I really recommend people check out Surefire Intelligence.

It's absolutely amazing.

And there he is

at Christoph Volts.

He's from the University of Bern.

He's the financial investigator there.

He's from Zurich, apparently.

Check his contact info out.

But what I think is amazing about this is the ineptitude of the people supporting Trump.

It doesn't matter, does it?

None of this seems to matter.

And all the stuff that you used to, you wouldn't have got away with is all like...

It's all gravy, isn't it?

It's incredible.

So basically, the only remaining piece of fact in it is

Bob Muller's name.

Yes.

That's it.

That's all that's left.

The only thing that is true is Bob Muller's.

Well, I think we need to take this one step further.

And we have a bit of breaking bugle news here.

The Republican candidate for mid-Dakota, Drellard Butlark, once exposed himself to a school party at a local zoo whilst dressed as a bonobo monkey, started thraggling his novel somewhat vigorously and shouting, don't be afraid of nature, kids.

So

spread that news, see if you can affect the midterms.

Okay, that's all we have time for this week.

If you have any emails for us, do send them in to hellobuglers at thebuglepodcast.com.

Next week, it's week off time, but we will have a sub-bugle for you with choice excerpts from the recent and distant bugle past.

We'll be back with the live bugle show from the Leicester Square Theatre, which

there are tickets still available for.

It's on the the 14th of November at, as I said, the Leicester Square Theatre in London.

That's featuring Nish Kumar and Felicity Ward.

And also, we will soon have some news about the future of the bugle.

There are some changes imminent, and your chance once again to play your part in keeping this podcast going for at least another 4086 episodes.

Al, Tom, it's been a delight having you both back on the show after

a while.

Yeah, always a pleasure.

Thanks, Andy.

Al, your...

Why does everyone hate the English?

Is that last one?

Worldwide?

I don't know.

They don't tell me.

I've no idea.

I think probably.

And we're hoping to go to other countries and

be told

what we did wrong.

Right.

You know, I'm looking.

I mean, that's a series that has.

Well, in Australia, I mean, you'd think

we might as well resettle there.

We've tried that before.

You might be here a while, mate.

Tom, anything to plug?

Any live shows?

My new stand-up show is called Enough, and that'll be touring around Australia and hopefully other parts of the world in 2019.

People can follow me on Twitter at Tomsy Ballad if they like.

Don't forget also to buy your tickets for my

latest installments of Andy Zaltman's certifiable history this year, covering the year 2018.

Coincidentally, we'll also feature Alice Fraser at the Soho Theatre from the 18th of December to the 6th of January with a few days off.

To play you out now, a little bit of history.

On this day, the 1st of November in the year 1512, the Sistine Chapel ceiling was displayed for the first time.

Now regarded as one of the great artworks of all time, but as self and as the case didn't entirely hit home with the critics.

When it was first launched, I've got some of the contemporary reviews here.

The teen magazine Chowbella said plenty of adorable hunks, not enough relationship advice.

The Catholic flagellant, nowhere near enough pain and suffering.

With a ceiling that big, we wanted to see nothing but guys with nails through their hands and feet being kebabbed in the side with a spear.

That's what the fans want to see in a fresco.

The Vatican Prude, way, way too many willies for our liking.

The Daily Mail, artist shitter than it used to be.

And today's Trappist simply reviewed it as...

So it is 500 years since the Sistin Chapel ceiling was unveiled.

But let's hear the real story of how that came about, as exclusively revealed on the Bugle, way back in issue 34.

Bugle feature section now, and 500 years ago, this year, Michelangelo, or as he was known by his friends, Mickey Paintbrush, was commissioned to do a little bit of decorating for the Pope.

He got his nickname, of course, not because of his artistic skills, but because he had tough, bristly, straight hair, which, when he was drunk, he would dip in a vat of paint, and headbutt cartooned testicles into the size of churches.

Anyway, the story goes that Julius the Second asked Mickey Paintbrush, Can you whack a lick of paint on the ceiling in my chapel?

It could do with a s bit of sprucing up.

Sure, Papa Jay, replied Michelangelo.

What do you want?

How about a bit of a fresco?

Uh sure, why not?

replied replied the pontiff.

Great, yipped the young artist.

I was thinking of doing something with some dogs playing snooker.

Uh right, Mickey P, said the Pope awkwardly.

It's just, uh, I was just kind of hoping for something a little bit more kind of neutral.

Maybe just, you know, just a plain off-white magnolia colour.

You know, Mickey, something that isn't going to go out of date.

Right-oh, Skipper, replied Michelangelo, a little downcast.

Hey, do you mind if I do a couple of little bits from the Bible in the corner?

No, all right, conceded the Pope, but just nothing too flash, little Mickey.

Yay, yelped the 33-year-old five-time winner of the Golden Chisel Award for terrific sculpture.

I'll go and get my special scaffold.

Four years later, an angry Pope banged on the door of the Sistine Chapel with his big staff.

Have you finished yet, paintbrush?

he shouted.

Yep, all done, big man.

The pontiff stormed in, hat akimbo.

What the f ⁇ have you done to my ceiling, you flash?

Sorry, Pop, said the artist.

I just got a bit carried away.

Oh, balls, winced the Vatican vicar.

Bloody El Mickey, what is your obsession with naked cocks?

Shit, I've got a christening to do in 20 minutes.

This is gonna have to do.

Okay, boss.

Sorry, boss, mumbled the four-in-one painter, sculptor, architect, and chicken impersonator.

You haven't heard the last of this, Buonarotti, blasted the Catholic Kahuna.

Give me that paintbrush.

That's confiscated.

Pope Julius turned to go to his dressing room.

Just then, something on the ceiling caught his eye.

Hang on, that looks like.

No, it can't be.

Is that my wang?

Mickey paintbrush, have you painted my papal prong on that nudie man?

Come here!

Come here, you little...

Oh no, he's got away.

I knew I should have got Da Vinci to do this.

Knew it.

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.