Pocket Gods: Bugle 4085

The Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World.

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 4085 of the Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World for the week beginning Monday the 29th of October 2018 with me Andy Zaltzman.

Hello the 44 year old former 37 year old both formerly and currently from Britain And when I say jump, you say, why, and I say, why not?

And you say, there's no real need, and I say, fair point, as you were.

I am, as I saw from the case, in London, and joining me here, still hiding out in the most popular latitudinal hemisphere in the world, six and a half billion people, can't be wrong.

It's for the first time ever, as an auntie, Alice Fraser.

Hello!

Yes, I'm an auntie now.

My brother has had a child, and I am, oh, so happy.

She's very cute, and I probably shouldn't talk about her too much because I haven't asked her permission yet.

Well, it's very much the absolute high point of human existence, being a newborn baby.

It never gets any better, if you're listening.

And joining us from Mumbai, India, for the first time on a regular bugle, having done a live bugle and a chat in her flat.

It is Aditi Mittal.

Hello.

Hello, everyone.

How's India?

You know,

it's crazy.

It's chaotic.

You remember the hot mess I was telling you about last time?

It's still here.

It's still here.

Nothing's changed.

Welcome.

This is Bugle 4085.

Coincidentally, the number of legs that Donald Trump claimed to have when he went to a fancy dress party last week dressed as a very realistic centipede.

Also, the current, also, 4085 is the current number of things Brexit was officially all about.

These things that Brexit was all about range from immigration, self-determination, and being allowed to buy wonky-shaped parsnips without being hauled before the European Court in Brussels on human rights abuse charges.

Ranging from those to it being a protest against the look on an MP's face on the 22nd of June 2016, a punishment for a naughty grandchild drawing on that irreplaceable 1920s family sofa with an indelible marker pen.

And of course, it was all about stopping the Syrians from taking over Buckingham Palace.

We are recording on the 26th of October 2018, making this the historic historic 157th anniversary of the Pony Express officially ceasing operations.

The Pony Express ran for only 18 months and it was a transcontinental communication system

involving ponies stroke horses, which cuts the communication time between East Coast USA and West Coast USA down from 25 days to only 10 days by using ponies in relays.

It would cost you, in today's money, $130

to send half an ounce of mail.

So basically, it would cost you $40 to send your granny in California a postcard saying, have a nice time at Doris' house.

I hope she doesn't cheat at Bridge again like last time.

The Pony Express lasted only a year and a half.

But surely now, 157 years on, it's time to ask, were we premature as a species in shutting down the Pony Express?

Because it turned out that ponies were slower than A electricity.

The Transcontinental Telegraph became operational in this week in the same year, in 1861.

And also slower than subsequently trains and aeroplanes.

Because with today's technology, you could have a horse verbally nay your message to someone on the other side of the world, not just America, on a video link.

And furthermore, horses could physically transport packages from New York City to San Francisco in under an hour if you made a special magnetic levitation horse tube.

The technology is there.

Bring back the Pony Express.

If the Bugle has any legacy, which is very, very doubtful, I do hope it is the resurrection of the Pony Express as a Maglev donkey tube.

Also on this day, exactly 100 years ago, 1918, Stonehenge was given to the British nation by its then owner, Cecil Chubb.

So it became publicly owned.

And look at it.

It's typical of what happens when you nationalise something.

It's an absolute f ⁇ ing mess.

It's in a serious state of disrepair.

Doesn't work anymore.

as you know if you've ever tried to use it as a henge uh it has a leaky roof i say privatize it at least give it a lick of paint and make it look like it's up to date uh chubb had bought stonehenge three years previously at an auction

when it i mean that's a risky thing to buy wouldn't you say it's an auction as a thing at an auction i mean why risky well just because i've bought quite a lot of weird stuff at gross

and getting home and explaining it Oh, explaining it to your family.

Yeah.

I mean, I assume Mrs.

Chubb responded, Cecil, it's lovely, but where the fk are we going to put it?

Can it not go in the living room, darling?

No, Cecil, it cannot go in the living room.

How will I be able to see the television if there's a hinge in the way?

Well, darling, if we line it up right, you'll at least be able to watch the TV through the hinge on midsummer night.

And there have been so many materials that have come after, you know.

I mean, there's metal, there's steel.

I can't believe there haven't been hinges in those materials, and Mr.

Chubb didn't go for those.

Like, he went for like stone, really?

Yeah, well, it was, I mean, it was absolutely the cutting edge of henge technology in those days.

I don't think Mrs.

Chubb would have been that angry at him, honestly.

She has to have loved him to have taken his name.

It's so, yeah, 100 years that Stonehenge has been owned by the British people.

So it's mine.

It's partially ours, Chris.

Chris is off-mic today due to certain technical issues.

You know, he meant to buy a table and chairs.

That's where he went to buy that auction.

Well, it's always the way, and he's come back with something else.

Yeah, well, it's just that they put it right near the cashier, right?

And I just can't, I can't resist a henge.

So moorish.

So we each own 10.3 grams of Stonehenge.

Do you know how these split it equals?

Can we go claim it?

Well you can't.

That's a British hench.

You guys can't get it.

As always some sections of the bugle are going straight in the bin.

It's Halloween next week.

The festival commemorating when Jesus turned a chicken into a skeleton just by cooking it and eating it.

Was one of his less impressive miracles, but still he was only small.

And in our Halloween section in the bin, we review the latest Halloween music, including the recently released novelty Halloween single I Wish It Could Be Halloween Every Day, a haunting reworking by the 1970s Glam Rockers Wizard of their 1973 hit I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day.

Very, very frightening.

And various Halloween hymns that are doing around at this very sacred Christian festival, including, O Jizu, give us thine godly treat, for naught shall the devil cast his trick.

O Lord, carve me a holy pumpkin, and light me thine candle within.

And envelop my soul, O Lord, in the novelty fake spider's web of thine perfect love.

We give you advice on Halloween costumes.

We helped you to choose the most terrifying costume that you can dress in for Halloween this year, including how to make a costume of a UN intergovernmental panel on climate change report, or a costume of the future in general, or even a costume representing the declining popularity of Test Match cricket.

We advise you also on cheap and easy Halloween for parents.

Save money, but still terrify your children.

Don't waste money on fancy dress costumes, scary props, and everything.

Simply leave the radio on with a news bulletin running while your children are trying to get to sleep.

That should scare the little bastards shitless.

And

it's falling on the 31st of October this year, Halloween.

But rumours are suggesting that the International Society for Commercially Driven Pseudo-Festivals could soon announce that it will put the date of Halloween up for auction so that other days and months of the year could seek to muscle in on the monopoly held by the 31st of October and its American counterpart, October the 31st.

The chairman of the organisation, Carberry Balfourk, said we've had bids tabled from the 5th of October, the 17th of August, the 6th of January, and of course the 31st of October's big rival, the 1st of November.

We could even look at splitting Halloween into 25-minute chunks to be spread throughout the year, whatever works best for the shareholders.

That section in the bin.

I mean, Andy, the thing about Halloween costumes is the common thread, particularly for women's costumes, costumes, is no matter what the costume is, it has to be sexy.

You've got sexy bus driver, you've got sexy Donald Trump, you've got sexy shark, you've got sexy vampire, which means the thing that people generally in common seem to find the scariest is young women's sexual empowerment.

Right, well that is absolutely

terrifying.

You know, I have to admit, I just I got to know about Halloween only like about five, six years ago, so I'm still relatively new to the concept.

Um, but we've sort of had a little bit of a leakage of Halloween um parties happening in the upper ecleons of Indian society.

And let me tell you, as like I was, I was behind the car where a guy dressed as a mummy got stopped for drunk driving.

And you don't understand how terrified every cop, every cop was the moment this guy came out to do his breathalyzer test.

They just let him go.

They were like,

he's too old and too dead.

Top story this week, smiling is to be banned

by

Indian airports for Indian airport police.

But could this be the start of the end of the smile for humanity?

India's Central Industrial Security Force has instructed

airport police to smile less.

Yes, they are in charge of aviation safety, the Central Industrial Security Force, and they've said that they're going to move from a, quote, broad smile system to a, quote, sufficient smile system.

Sufficient smile.

The sufficient smile system has been perfected by women on public transport at night who need to hit the exact smile brightness that says, I'm smiling enough that you don't need to tell me to smile more

without hitting the feel-free to follow me off the train levels of smiling.

Other people who are good at the sufficient smile level are Islamic men who have to smile enough that you don't worry that they're going to terrorist, but not so much that you assume they're about to terrorist, and white men who have to smile enough that you don't think they're going to punch you, but not so much that you think they're going to follow you off the train.

You know, I mean, I think the CISF has got something, they're onto something.

Because,

I mean, terrorists don't cause terrorism.

Raging inequality, the growth of extremist thought through religions doesn't cause terrorism.

But the smiles, the smiles.

I think we've managed to sort of get to the root of it all.

It's these people bearing their teeth and making people comfortable.

That's the problem.

And the director general of the Central Industrial Security Force

explained

this new ruling, saying we cannot be over-friendly with passengers because one of the reasons cited as to why 9-11 happened was obsessive reliance on passenger-friendly features.

We would prefer some passenger-unfriendly features.

Like we should call it insecurity check.

Where every time you like go with your luggage, it's like, hey, you know, remember your mom loves your brother more than you and you're kind of fat.

And just let you go through.

I think that's...

I don't know.

It would leave everyone.

Like, no one wants to terrorize people after that shit.

Now, you're thinking about how your mother loves your brother more than you.

Andy, I travel a lot.

I travel a lot.

And I have never gone through an airport and thought that was too nice an experience.

But so, I mean, would it have stopped 9-11?

It seems suggesting that had the terrorists turned up on that horrific day and found airports off looking grumpier, they'd have called the whole thing off.

Maybe it's just that the amount of resources that they needed to pour into the system to make people even smile a little bit were being drawn away from other important airport functions.

You know, the thing is, as someone who's not been a terrorist so far,

let me tell you that friendliness has not made me want to do it.

So that might be something that they want to consider.

That when a guy smiled at me, I wasn't like, you know, I was a normal person before this, but let's blow this plane up.

I never thought of that.

And here's my question, okay?

My question is, I don't know, but it worries me that this is the most sort of out there demonstration of the fact that airport security is nothing but theater.

Like, you're like, oh, you know, take out your water bottle, take out your, you know, backpack, take out your shoes.

Because like a terrorist once carried stuff in his water bottle, in his backpack, in his shoes.

But like terrorists aren't nostalgic.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, none of them are like, remember the shoe bombing?

Let's do one of those again.

So

I just feel like

the smile is sort of not the biggest problem.

The CISF have said they want their stuff to be more vigilant than friendly, which is also coincidentally a phrase I always include in my online dating profile

i know it's what i look for in a romantic partner vigilance

don't don't tell the wife she doesn't know that i secretly pretend to have online dating profiles on this show

but it does raise an interesting question that just the whole concept of smiling

in the world is there is there too much of it because it costs the global economy according to the world foundation for Public Grumpiness.

Smiling costs the global economy $13.2 trillion a year in lost productivity.

I have the report here, various excerpts from the report.

Smiling can often lead to people wistfully thinking back to happy times in their life or thinking about something fun they've got planned for the weekend and setting get it instead of getting on with their job of being hard-working families also the report says biologically smiling can not only reflect but also exacerbate feelings of contentment which dulls the edge of ambition and competitiveness needed in an ambitious competitive economy.

Moreover, concludes the report: if you look happy, research has proved that autocratic governments are less likely to sign multi-billion dollar arms sales contracts with you than if you look like you are the kind of cold-eyed, commercially-driven genocide tolerator they wish to associate with.

So, economically,

banning smiling could save the planet.

I mean, Andy, I never realized I had so much economic power where I spend 90% of my time giggling.

Makes me feel rich.

I'm rich.

In America, this week, there's been a lot of talk about the

excessive amount of anger.

We've had the pipe bomb sent to targets ranging from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton, with a lot of people in between.

I mean, that's not a big range, but also a lot of other people.

And a lot of, I mean, high-pitched response, as you would expect.

I mean, whoever did it and why ever they did it, they managed to be both deeply sinister and, it must be be said, spectacularly incompetent.

So a true standard bearer for these times.

Donald Trump was so appalled by the pipe bombs that he retweeted Mike Pence's tweet about it.

And that shows you quite how bereft and grief-stricken he was by the assault on his precious nation's precious democracy that he could not see through the tears in his eyes even to type anything into the presidential Twitter machine.

A brutal tragedy.

The lack of the tweet, not the pipe bombing.

Now, clearly America is a divided country.

Divisions can be crowbarred open over issues as minor, apparently minor, as what sources you're allowed to put on a f ⁇ ing hot dog, whether or not to use a designated hitter in baseball, and what it was that Abraham Lincoln kept under his hat.

Was it a rabbit?

Was it a teapot?

Was it another smaller hat?

Was it a ghost outfit?

Just in case.

We will never know.

But even this seems to have...

You thought it would have brought everyone and Donald Trump came out saying, well, we must be unified as a nation.

And then, within minutes, he was back riding on the rhinoceros of division, galloping it angrily into the paddling pool of civil discourse, cranking it up and having a go at the press as sure as night follows day.

In other words, with a short interval in which people think it'll definitely be nighttime soon.

Is there nothing that can happen without

you'd think that pipe bombing your political opponents would be one of those things we could all agree on?

Yes.

As being bad, obviously.

I shouldn't need to say that bit, but apparently I do.

That was not the only thing on his stroppy plate this week.

Also, had to take out some time from his busy schedule to claim that unknown Middle Easterners were mixed in amongst the caravan of refugees heading towards America from Central America via Mexico in search of a better life in the grand tradition of the vast majority of people who now live in America.

Trump tweeted

criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in based on the evidence of there being no evidence that criminals and unknown Middle Easterners were mixed in.

Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners, of course, is another decent summary of the New Testament from my Jewish point of view.

Trump later admitted there was no proof of these claims.

There's no proof of anything, but there could very well be.

Now,

this is philosophically interesting.

Didn't mean there could very well be proof.

And it just hasn't been found yet.

Or there could very well be these unknown Middle Easterners.

If it's there could very well be proof.

That is a fantastic legal precedent.

Your Honor, there is no proof that the defendant committed this crime, but there could very well be, if there was.

Guy, that's good enough for me.

Guilty, guilty.

If he meant there could very well be unknown Middle Easterners,

which, or Yumis, as they're known, a new social group, Yumis, makes it feel far more inclusive.

For are we not all, at least in our Judeo-Christianico-Muslimical world, Yumis in spirit, if not in reality.

Or does he mean that there are people who do not yet know they're Middle Eastern, or people who will one day, after being kicked out of of the USA, find themselves in the Middle East and become Middle Easterners?

I mean, are we not all, Alice and Aditi, potential

unknown Middle Easterners?

I mean, in some ways, yes, Andy, but you have to respect Trump for his willingness to back down from his previous position.

This is actually a much less racist position than the initial they are all rapists position.

Now it's all...

It's all, ooh, we have no proof.

And, ooh, some of them are probably unknown Middle Easterners.

So that you're do you see this as a major step forward?

Yeah, incredibly so much more open-hearted.

Oh, that's good to hear.

And also, I think there's an argument, isn't there, that there should be an element of presidential privilege.

That if an American president can issue pardons to the convicted guilty, surely, logically, he should also be able to make up proof against the innocent.

You can't argue with that, can you?

I mean, I won't argue with that, but that's only because we're running out of studio time.

Other India news now, and this is a spectacular story for fans of Indian corruption, a topic that

we've discussed considerably since, well, Anuvab and Aditi started doing the bugle.

The director of the Central Bureau of Investigation in India is investigating the...

his number two, the special director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, who in turn has accused the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation of corruption.

Aditi, can you explain further?

Now,

the guy that is currently the special director of the CBI, who was a very big sort of one of the favorites of our current prime minister, has been accused of bribery and corruption by a businessman.

So the director of the CBI decided to launch an investigation against the special director of the CBI.

And then the special director of the CBI counter-accused the director of the CBI for the same thing.

And so, right now, in the CBI, it's corruption charges for you, corruption charges for you, corruption charges for everybody, as Oprah would say.

And what this has ended in, what this has ended in, is that the CBI has raided the CBI.

You know, it's like a classic spy versus spy situation where like they're just pointing fingers at each other.

Someone in the room has farted, but nobody's owning up to where the smell has come from.

That's what's happening with the CBI right now.

Very vividly put.

I mean, is this really the logical end point of Indian corruption when the head of the Central Bureau of Investigation and his debt, essentially his deputy, are investigating and accusing each other of corruption.

There is really nowhere left for it to go from him.

And I mean, that's what I think.

One of my favorite things about this, like our new India, my favorite thing is that we are sort of all about following procedures and about, you know, getting the stuff done as opposed to like, I mean, two dudes accusing each other of

corruption

in one of the most powerful institutions in the country is hilarious because all the procedures and everything is followed to the T all the time, but there seems to be no justice that comes out of it.

And I think that's what it is: is that we will follow every single procedure to the T.

But if it means actual results, don't bother us.

Corruption charges for everybody.

I mean, is this like, for example, prohibition in America where everyone's doing it anyway?

Maybe we need to start having a serious conversation about the legalization and regulation of corruption.

You know, that's the thing.

And so now, and so many businesses, like, I mean, India has been dying to become the sort of new land of business.

And so we keep sort of putting ourselves on top of charts and lists of ease of doing business.

And one of the things that has come out very clearly is that now business people are being told how much money to factor in to give away for grants.

So

if you like want to come in with an investment of say 100 crores, you are told straight up that you just put aside 50 crores because there's going to be like palms to grease in the middle.

I mean, there's so many greasy palms in India, it's a wonder that anyone can pick anything up.

As even Andy said last time, it's just the fact that anything gets done is pretty crazy.

And one of the things that has come out really sort of this thing is that this is less about the CBI as an institution, but it's about the rule of law and that sort of collective confidence in fairness and justice is what I think has taken a massive beating right now when we are watching our top institutions like point fingers at each other like they're five years old.

In Catholicism and computer games news now, the Pope has recommended a new game which promises to get young people to go to church.

It's based on Pokemon-like gamification and it's called Follow JC Go.

And

what happens is the players, instead of hunting for Pokemon, they hunt for religious figures and they visit churches.

They collect saints.

So for example,

you know, you'd get a plain St.

Francis of Assisi and then you evolve him to become a Saint Francis of Assisi Si and finally a St.

Francis of Assisi C.

Or you get a Saint Nicholas and then you evolve him into Santa Claus and then he eventually evolves to become your dad

and then you fight them against each other and eventually they join powers like Megazord from the Power Rangers and then the rapture happens and then they I don't know the rapture opens the door to heaven with its tiny arms what a clever girl and then you win the game and become an atheist I don't know Andy I don't know anything about Pokemon and I don't know anything about Catholicism but uh what it does sound is super dorky

needs one of the developers of the game said everything today language and relations among young people go through smartphones and when you think about it, smartphones are essentially just very, very efficient pocket gods.

They are omnipresent.

They are omniscient about your movements, your temptations, basically your thoughts.

They demand money if you want the best service.

Very much like religion has through history.

And they even sometimes send you on unnecessarily long journeys in bizarre directions, taking way more times than they should.

It's uncanny.

Uncanny.

The similarities between these technologies.

Yeah, I'm developing a candy crush-like app that prints, like, doles out Hail Marys.

That'll line up all the Hail Marys and then your sins disappear.

First of all, I can't believe they didn't call it Popimon

because that was inappropriate.

And,

you know, in fact, I thought the sort of combination of technology with evangelization is what many religions are going for these days.

In India, also, we have something called the Siddhi Vinaya cap, where every time there is a prayer service at a temple, they live stream it on this app.

I mean, I think it's great.

I think

the combination of technology with evangelization is pretty great.

But what throws me off is when sometimes you'll see a guy who'll be like, yeah, man, look at my app.

Like, I'm live streaming Jesus out here.

And then when he closes his home phone or the, when he goes to his homepage or whatever, it's right next to his porn hub app.

I'm like, you know, at least keep the two apps separately.

I understand that both are a way to God, one coming, one going.

But that is not appropriate.

Like, don't do this.

And the thing that worries me the most about the combination of evangelization with technology is the fact that

what happens when your phone battery dies

the Pope has, I mean, described the internet as

a gift from God.

I don't know if Tim Berners-Lee is feeling good about that.

These kind of comments do go to someone's head.

But the Pope has also warned against

technological overreach.

He said in Ireland earlier this year, it is important that the media never become a threat to the real web of flesh and blood relationships by imprisoning us in a virtual reality.

But surely virtual reality is a fuck of a lot preferable to what is currently passing for real reality.

Oh, yeah.

Also, it's not the whole history of religion is essentially imprisoning people in a virtual reality, isn't it?

Don't worry, I'm already going to hell.

In other computer games news now,

Red Dead Redemption has been released.

Of course, I knew you'd been following this with avid attention actually.

Yeah, I'm absolutely on the absolute.

I have my finger on the pulse of these things.

It's not a pulse, it's a little button controller like a joystick.

They have pulses now, I think, don't they?

I'm sure we can get some kind of console with a pulse, make it feel more real.

This computer game is, by all accounts, a staggering recreation of 19th century America.

And if Donald Trump wins a second term and unleashes his full vision for the usa it may well turn out to be a staggering recreation of mid-21st century america as well uh i had a go at it uh yesterday alice it's amazing realistic my first go i died of cholera after two days my second go got kicked by a horse my third go i was trapped in a loveless marriage and suffocated by the social expectations of an oppressively christian society on my fourth go i had to earn some money in the game so i got a job in a textile mill then spent the rest of my life there before dying young of a respiratory illness i haven't quite mastered it yet i did manage to cheat mode the game this is very exciting and uh i got a boat to england i attended the 1882 oval test match between england and australia uh i poisoned the star australian cricketer uh the star fast bowler fred the demon spoforth who of course was uh as you as an australian you would know 14 wickets in that that famous uh test match in 1882 and i turned a harrowing english defeat into a glorious comfortable victory by eight wickets so it's amazing what you can do with technology.

In Crotch Rot News Now.

What news now?

Crotch Rot?

Crotch Rot.

Yes.

According to Public Health England, every four minutes a younger.

Sorry, crotch rot.

Look,

you said think of a snappy headline.

I thought of a snappy headline.

I mean, that's my password to all my bank accounts.

In sexually transmitted infection news now,

according to Public Health England, every four minutes a young Brit is diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection, which has got to be stressful for that one young Brit.

Waka waka.

But seriously, chlamydia.

Syphilis is up by 20%, gonorrhea is up by 22%, and while AIDS is no longer the death sentence it once was, STIs remain an incredibly unpleasant thing with a gross long-term effect, even for people with access to Tinder.

And it's weird that they're being recklessly negligent about whether they're shoving one up their hole.

The figures have come out as part of a social media sexual health campaign, which highlights the importance of using protection to prevent a range of long-term health conditions, such as infertility, arthritis, and importantly, Andy, lumpy flaps, itchy web dongles, and spiky pee-pees.

Lumpy flaps actually played for Gloucestershire in the 1880s, I think, the county championship.

Yeah.

They've even recruited Sam Thompson, star of Maid in Chelsea, and they've recruited him as part of this campaign to visit bars and clubs to talk to young people about the importance of safe sex, which, if you don't know that he's doing that as part of a campaign, is going to give drunk teenagers some horrifying ideas about older dudes in bars, which to be fair serves the same noble end.

So in the 15 to 24 age group,

one diagnosed every four minutes, which does suggest we are indulging ourselves irresponsibly with no regard to the consequences and indeed no regard for our long-term future, despite having been repeatedly warned about it

and being offered alternative courses of action.

Welcome to modern Britain.

This is the way we fing roll.

An STI is diagnosed in every young Brit every four minutes,

which I think one is either an incentive to not ever have sex again or two to completely stop going to the doctor because if they don't diagnose you, you will never know.

And I guess the problem that is happening is that now the

infections are becoming drug resistant.

And so recently they uncovered a case of what is called supergonorrhoea,

which I feel like makes it actually sound like something people would want to have.

In other

British news, there's been a pitch battle, Alice, between Piers Morgan.

the

fictitious former newspaper editor and James Bond the equally fictitious

spy.

Yes, it's man scandal news, not to be confused with man sandal news.

Man sandals are just sandals that men wear and are absent any sort of scandal unless you're wearing them in socks, in which case, why, you've just sort of ad hoc invented shoes.

Anyway, in man scandal news, Piers Morgan has incited the rage of the nation by impugning the masculinity of Daniel Craig for carrying his own baby while simultaneously being a man at the same time as having played James Bond in some movies in the past.

He posted a paparazzi pic of Daniel Craig with the comment, oh 007, not you as well.

Hashtag papoose, hashtag emasculated Bond,

implying that carrying your own baby in a baby carrier is a job that should only be performed by lady dads, aka mums, and not laddie daddies, aka man-mums.

But how is carrying a baby emasculating?

I don't understand this.

When did

having your like somebody who squeezed out a child from her body for you and you having to hold it to your chest be like the most emasculating thing you've ever done and what is piers morgan's definition of masculinity um just i don't know kicking children

real men carry their babies by the scruff of their necks like wolves and refuse all technologies of convenience from the wussy toilet paper to the flaccidly effette running water It's also worth mentioning, as you said, that Daniel Craig is an actor, not actually 007.

It's impossible for him to be 007 because James Bond is A, fictional, and B, a horrible asshole.

And C cannot have children because all the women he sleeps with either die or betray him, and also they are also all fictional.

I understand it's hard for Piers Morgan to understand that distinction because he is also a fictional asshole, born of a man who looked in the mirror once and thought, oh god, I'm a sleazy jerk.

How can I monetize this?

And also, because all the women he sleeps with are also all fictional.

Your emails now, and this came from Andy Rocher

in Florida, on the subject marine pilot traced phallic shape in the sky.

And this is one of the I mean, it's not a unique story, this, but a US Marine pilot flew in the shape of the male genitalia

in the sky.

And Andy says, as a longtime bugler, I know this story will pique your interest.

And I mean, I'm questioning the bugle has been fearless in chronicling the heroic efforts of human beings beings to draw willies in places where there were previously none.

And, I mean, the sky is clearly an open canvas.

I mean, yeah, I'm surprised it hasn't been done more and more often,

given the relatively...

I mean, you can get skywriting on Groupon these days.

I want to see more, not just penises, but flaps and bits of all kinds across the spectrum of gender.

I mean, we will know we have reached true equality when someone draws a micro-penis in the clouds.

That's

something towards which we can all raise our faces to the sky and think, well, at least there's a penis in the sky.

I'm sure that was a country song, wasn't it?

A great big penis in the sky.

Well, here's a quick tip: if you can't afford a skywriter, constellations are what you make of them.

Yes.

Well, we did discuss this on the bugle quite recently.

I'm sure there is a.

Everything looks like a penis if you look at it long enough and in the wrong way.

There must be a constellation that could be called Henry VIII's cock and balls.

Even if it's just three stars in vague proximity.

This email is from Christopher White, who says, Dear Andy and dot dot dot Nish, Alice, let's go with Nish.

F you, Andy.

No, f you, Chris.

Fuck you.

Different Chris.

Different Chris.

Different Chris.

You're off the hook, mate.

Fuck me.

As you are probably aware, someone, not naming names, Chris, fed up royally with the play speed of episode 4083 on SoundCloud.

And as it appeared to play at one and a half speed, this...

Let's just...

I mean, Chris, I mean, you are clearly a master of the audio arts.

What happened with that?

Can I just say, for the record,

the wrong file was up for about four and a half minutes,

and yet somehow

everyone who that is the version that got into everyone's things.

It was four and a half minutes It was playing at 1.24 speed because that's what I was listening back to the last bit of cock and bollocks that you were talking about and I thought I'll just speed up my final fing listen

Something goes wrong.

I notice immediately and change it and it fed my Twitter and fed my weekend

and Yeah, I mean that's what I have to say on it.

Extremely stressful.

It was the end to what had been a very stressful week.

Bear in mind that that episode started with me fing my life up in an airport airport in Manchester and ended with that bullshit.

I mean, yeah.

Who sent this email?

This guy is called Chris, so you have to be not to blame.

No,

it's a terrible thing because I already speak at about one and a half speed.

This unintentional, returning to the email, this unintentional or not was a stroke of purist genius.

So there you go.

You fucked him too early, Chris.

Firstly, it made everyone sound like they'd inhaled enough helium to float a blue whale to the moon, thereby heightening the comedy, but it also made Chris's anecdote about his daughter's passport all the more ironic, as he actually sounded like a four-year-old girl.

It also helped to condense the issue, meaning I could fit my intake of the bugle more easily into my schedule, like a super-concentrated truth bomb.

I recommend all future episodes be made available to buglers at that speed to increase their bugle life balance.

Yours, Chris.

Well, it seems really only appropriate now that to mark this, we should rebroadcast the entire bugle catalogue.

At 1.24 speed.

at 1 million point two four speed 1.24 million speed can you just do that chris

thanks very much sounded awesome there's some great bitch in there i've forgotten oh glorious i think au contraire we should do everything at half speed from now on release it and take over people's lives by making them listen to the bugle for longer uh do keep your emails coming in to

oh god what's the coming

buglers

do keep your emails coming in to hallowbuglers at thebuglepodcast.com.

Well, that concludes this week's technologically challenged bugle.

I do hope you've enjoyed it.

Chris, good luck with the edit.

Alice, thanks very much for.

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Andy.

It's glorious as ever.

Do you have any shows you'd like to alert our listeners to?

I probably do.

I'm doing Old Rope.

I think this Monday I'm MCing in London, and also my trilogy is available online.

And also, I do a podcast called Tea with Alice.

Also, I I have a new niece.

Also, I'll be doing your Soho Show.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, good point.

Yeah, let's park the Soho Show.

18th of December until the 5th or 6th of January.

Let's ballpark it.

And it is the third installment of my certifiable history series this year, reflecting on the year 2018.

It's going to be glorious.

It's going to be absolutely sensational.

The definitive, unarguable history.

of this crazy, crazy year.

Last year I had three hats.

I'm hoping for more this year.

If I had a pound for every time I've heard someone say that sentence.

Well, I would like to say thank you to Aditi, but she's no longer on the other end of the line.

So, well, thanks, Aditi, if you're listening to this.

Thank you very much for your contribution.

Thank you for listening, Buglers.

Until next time, goodbye.

Bye.

Hi Buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast Mildly Informed which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.