Buy lead and horny horses: Bugle 4082

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4082 of the BUGLE.

Turns out after all these years it's pronounced Buchle.

But I'm not going to even try to say that out loud.

I am Andy Zoltzman and if you don't believe me, this is my verbal passport.

Andrew Zoltzman, United Kingdom, 6 October 1970.

Never you mind, it's not polite to discuss a comedian's age.

I am in London, spiritual home of the slightly resentful shuffle down the crowded underground train carriage, and more pertinently, I am in my shed due to a slight studio glitching.

And what a shed it is.

I've locked my almost infinite number of joke writing monkeys back in their dungeon.

They're having a Shakespeare Day today and they're doing pretty well.

A couple of decent sonnets out of them this week, if not a full play.

One all about the joys of shitting on your hand hand and eating it.

And it's good to see them having a confidence to get a little bit autobiographical, even if it's not strictly Shakespearean in tone for the purists.

And I have the shed to myself.

Not just myself, but also my collection of pre-war cricket memorabilia and the restless ghosts of failed jokes.

Joining me from the absolute epicenter of the American universe, in other words, the USA.

But more specifically, from Washington, D.C., which has seen its 2-0 lead in most assassinations of American presidents whittled down since 1901 to a 2-all scoreline versus the rest of of the USA.

Joining us once again after far too long a break, it's the wonderful Hari Kondabolu.

Hello, Andy.

It's really nice to be back on the Boogle.

Did I pronounce it right?

I just want to pronounce it, I want to be culturally sensitive.

Is it Boogle?

It's best that you just don't even try to say it.

That's all I found.

We also, by the way, have Chris listening in from a secret pod bunker somewhere in podcast land.

Hello, Chris.

Hello.

Now, it turns out we were in India at the same time last week as I was in Mumbai last week.

So you were there as well, and we'll touch on why you you were there

later in the show.

But I completely gave up attempting to pronounce any

Hindu words or names because I just make an absolutely horrific mess of it.

And given the slight imperial baggage that I have as a British person in Indra, I figured it was best just to essentially keep silent.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, keeping silent would be the good thing because the thing is, every time you talk, it's just a memory, a very painful

memory.

I mean, luckily, you've also set things up where you can communicate wherever you are, pretty much.

Yes.

That was

good planning on the part

of the British.

It was basically the entire history of the British Empire can be interpreted as a long-term plan by Britain to ensure that we never had to learn languages.

Well, played.

It's just not a national skill that we have.

And it's been a few months since you were lost on the bugle.

How is America doing at the moment?

You know the answer to that.

We all know the answer to that.

I feel there was a campaign a few years ago called It Gets Better.

Are you familiar with that campaign?

Oh, I recall the name.

Yes.

Well, It Gets Better was meant primarily for gay and lesbian and trans teenagers to let them know it gets better, but it also extended to a larger sense of

young people who are getting bullied.

Like, it gets better, everything gets better.

I think we lied to the kids.

I think we lied to the children.

It does not get better.

It gets dramatically worse.

I feel terrible.

I've told so many children it gets better, and it's I'm a liar.

I'm a liar, Andy.

This is terrible.

Okay.

But maybe it's, you know, you don't want to rush into getting better because, you know, if you get better when things haven't got as bad as they can possibly get, you don't really feel the benefit of the difference between the absolute pits and when things have got better.

So you've got to let it absolutely tank as far as you can possibly let it go without a full Armageddon breaking out.

And then when it does get better, it feels all the sweeter.

Is that how you live your life?

Yep.

The famous saying, they say the darkest hour is

right before the dawn.

I mean, at what point in the Trump era of America are we with regard to darkness of hours?

Well,

it's always unclear because of the nuclear threat.

Right?

Because it could be imminent.

We could be

imminently dark, or we might have a few months.

But I'm going to say, you know, people are, well, you mean a few years?

No, I think we're done by the end of the year.

Armageddon, by the end of the year.

Yeah, and you know what?

I welcome it.

I've made this point before.

As long as we all go out together, it's really the only time human beings as a whole have truly been equal

when we all perish together in a nuclear catastrophe.

And there's something beautiful in that.

There is something beautiful.

So you're essentially saying that global Armageddon is the logical endpoint of Karl Marx's theories of human existence.

Correct.

There was two ways of going about it.

And one way required a great deal of revolution and change and discomfort.

And other is a quicker solution.

It's kind of like when you have to get something done, so you have to get a paper done for school.

You can either put in all the work and just strain and strain and strain and stress yourself out and get it done, or you could drop the class.

And

we're dropping the class, Andy.

I think that's the best thing for us.

I mean, look, it's not looking good for God.

After the humans go, he'll be 0 for 2.

You know?

that's kind of the numbers aren't looking good I'm sure he's been keeping this going for a while he knows this is gonna fail but he's he's sticking with it just like a relationship you know is going to end you keep doing it

until everyone hates each other and then eventually you end it and and God is sticking to that plan right that's I mean he is notoriously inflexible

so I mean it's kind of

kind of kind of understandable he would he would stick with something that maybe he formulated thousands of years ago as indeed do his followers

This is Bugle issue 4082 we are recording on the 4th of October Thursday the 4th of October and on this day in 1511 was the formation of the Holy League which involves Aragon, the Papal States or Vatican Blasters as they were known at the time Spain the Holy Roman Empire Henry VIII's England Real Madrid and the Venice Knight Riders and there was some terrific action in the first few seasons of the Holy League, some truly sensational praying, some of the most intensive competitive Bible reading the fans could possibly wish to see.

And well, the Y bugle favourite Pope Julius II slam-dunked those babies into that font to christen them with just seconds left on the clock in the 15-14 final against Venice.

True class from the big pontiff.

And on this day, in 2006, Wikileaks was launched.

And to commemorate this historic 12th anniversary, we have a free leak of some confidential confidential information from around the world, including the CIA is currently in deep cover in New Zealand, seeking to replace the Jacinda Arden government with a puppet regime that will back an American military assault on Antarctica.

Vladimir Putin is terrified of milkshakes, and tennis star Novak Djokovic is, in fact, Elvis Presley.

You heard them here first.

Bugle 4082, which, by coincidence, is the number which, if you type it into the electronic keypad of any hotel door in the world, it will open.

That is the international door override code.

Oh shit, I wasn't supposed to say that.

No, they'll probably have to change it now.

Yeah, I'm hearing that has now been changed.

I was just wondering, Andy, if you gave out that door code access ahead of our European tour because you're expecting some visitors.

Well, you know, showbiz is showbiz, Chris.

Our European tour is a two-date European tour.

Hopefully it will be followed by a longer European tour at some point in the

future.

and hopefully some American bugles next year and even some Indian bugles.

Who knows?

Keep your eyes on this audio space.

By what eyes I mean your ears.

The European tour, if you're listening to this in time, 7th of October in Manchester, 8th of October in Dublin.

Also, 4,082 is the number of sleeps between now and the 7th of December 2029.

It took me far too long to work that out.

The date on which William and Kate are currently scheduled to have their 13th child, at which point we'll be selling off the royal babies at £100 million per prince-stroke princess.

It will basically be the only thing keeping our economy afloat by then.

I'm sick of those people living off the system, all their kids.

Yeah, well, when that's that's basically what we were, we were founded on the idea of

people talk about you know the overdependence on the welfare state, and uh, I blame the queen.

The queen has set a very bad example for this.

You're the original welfare queen,

exactly,

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

And, well, it's awards season at the moment.

More on this later in the show.

And we've just received the shortlist for the fictional non-fiction book of the year.

And some outstanding entries in history.

by Professor B.

N.

Carboretto when Harry Met Stally about the meeting between Harry S.

Truman and Joseph Stalin.

Rabbi Elsinore McLute was Was Jesus a Terrapin?

Fairly self-explanatory.

Julian and Beryl Plugfield's A History of Flobbing, Changing Mores in Public Expectoration.

And Dr.

Ian Mildrip's Bubonicht Plague, Why the Fourteenth Century Black Death Was a German Hoax.

Terrific Travel Book nominated by Ursula Fraut, Boing Boing to Babylon, Through Persia on a Pogostick.

And in the science category, by various authors, Why Benches Work, Writings in the Science of Sitting.

And by Kevin Hercules, Mosquitoes Are Not Muslims, Myth-Busting Unpopular Conceptions.

A couple of outstanding business books have attracted the attention of the judges this year as well by Sir Larkin Joffel, The Prophet Penguin, How to Be Ice Cold But Stay Grounded, and Eloch Pontic's Digging for Eggs, Failed Adventures in Chicken Mining.

And just a couple of sports books also on the short list.

WQ Marwall Flaggard, Losing for Life, How Plummeting Down a Hill on a Tray Every Day Can Improve Your Self-Confidence.

And an outstanding new book from Killigan Jelps, Another Loss for the Weeping Lemon, Nominative Determinism in Professional Wrestling.

So we'll announce the winners as soon as we hear them.

That section in the bin.

Top story this week.

And Hari, it's been an interesting time for the American patriarchy over the last couple of weeks with

the hearings into Judge Kavanaugh and his alleged wrongdoings.

as a teenager and it's raised some very interesting philosophical questions amidst the welter of frankly appalling behavior by largely American white men including the question if a man cannot sexually assault someone as a teenager and still expect to hold public office at some point in the future when on earth can he do it oh that's that's a very fair question it's one that uh many of us have been grappling with over the the last few months and the so the answer of course is apparently and it was a trick question your question was a trick question you should uh never sexually assault a woman all right

I mean, that really throws a spanner in the works of the patriarchy.

Yeah.

It was a tried and true strategy, but now, no longer.

Well, Donald Trump's reaction to this has been,

I found rather fascinating because he was sort of praised for

his dignity initially.

And all these things clearly are on a relative scale.

And he was, by reports, absolutely dosed up to the eyeballs on decorum mausoleone, an artificial dignity-enhancing steroid, and anti-misogynaxazine, which is a powerful male chauvinism suppressant.

I mean, absolutely dosed up.

But, and his responses to the case within the context of Trumpian behavior were

relatively calm.

They were like King Solomon calmly dividing the final sandwich of a picnic between his squabbling children.

A very impressive effort from a man who is, of course, on record as overtly advocating sexual assault.

But inevitably, he he lapsed.

As sure as night follows day, as sure as headache follows running headfirst into a concrete lamppost, as sure as shit follows food, Donald Trump lapsed.

And as the old saying goes, a leopard can only wear an all-over polka-dot bodysuit for so long until he rips it off and roars, Captain Spotties, back in town.

And at a political rally in Mississippi, he mimicked Dr.

Ford and another extraordinary display of his trademark taunting weaselry from the Beethoven of Borishness.

I don't know.

I don't know.

What neighborhood was it in?

I don't know.

Where's the house?

I don't know.

Upstairs, downstairs, where was it?

I don't know.

But I had one beer.

That's the only thing I remember.

How come every single one of his impressions sounds like him?

He's very bad at impressions.

They all, Jeb Bush sounds like him.

Hillary Clinton sounds like him.

Like, he pretty much just does himself.

He's a one-trick pony.

Yeah.

And yeah, I mean, you leave a pony in a shed and then return to the shed in a week.

It's going to be absolutely horrific.

Even Republicans were appalled by his latest efforts.

Jeff Blake described it as kind of appalling.

Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska said the president's comments mocking Dr.

Ford were wholly inappropriate and, in my view, unacceptable.

To which Trump responded by punching the air and shouting, yes, mission accomplished, bullseye, bang on the button, middle stump cartwheeling out the ground.

Maybe not that one.

That was basically just playing directly to that core element of office.

And I guess we need to see it in the context of the political situation in America.

The midterms are approaching just what is a month or so away now.

And it's very important for Trump to appeal to those key marginal voter groups like misogynists, fquits, sexual assault fans, and general nonspecific shitheads.

Also, if you remember,

women are only

half a vote in this country.

Oh, yeah, no, that is important to remember that, isn't it?

That's something he's kept in mind throughout this.

Like, hmm, good thing women's votes only count as half a vote.

Otherwise, I could possibly be in trouble.

This could be a terrible mistake for my party if the math was not working in my favor.

He was asked, Hari, whether he had a message to men.

And, you know, as a man, I hang on his every word.

And, you know, it's very important that someone, somewhere, puts the view of middle-aged white men.

And he said

this.

He said, it's a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of.

This is a very, very,

very difficult time.

Now, I mean, it's not new, of course, for men in America to be accused of something untrue.

Some, for example, have been accused of being guilty of, for example, not being born in the USA and therefore being ineligible to become president.

And, or indeed, Mexicans just being accused of being rapists collectively.

So it's clearly something that Trump has done some intensive research into men being accused of something they haven't done.

Yeah, I mean, if I heard that quote out of context, I'm like, finally,

a president who talks plainly about the failed criminal justice system and the fact that African Americans are imprisoned at a ridiculously high rate.

But then I heard the rest of it.

And then I realized that we lived in the same world we lived in moments earlier.

A dance as old as American politics itself.

I mean, how come we

how I mean here's one this is a a basic thing, but everyone keeps calling uh this sexual misconduct.

They keep saying Kavanaugh was accused of sexual misconduct.

He's accused of attempted rape.

Like sexual misconduct, it almost sounds fun.

Like it almost sounds it almost sounds like you were just a little naughty.

You engaged in bad conduct.

It sounds like

you know, if there if it was an S and M situation, you know, if I if I was uh a submissive and and the woman was the dom, if she said, someone's been engaging in sexual misconduct, like it just feels way too pleasant considering what he's being uh accused of, which again is attempted rape.

Yes, uh, yes, it's uh

He's not come out of it with the kind of judicial dignity you would necessarily want from someone aspiring to the position that he has been

put forward for.

And I guess the political...

It's hard to understand, really.

I mean, it's still.

Is he going to be nominated in the end?

Is it going to go through, do you think?

Of course.

I mean, were you kidding me?

Of course.

You know how this story ends.

Of course.

I hate the fact that

the women to sexual predator ratio will be three to two on the Supreme Court.

Women are barely edging their natural predators.

Just barely.

Right, that is an extremely depressing way of putting it.

Well, that's what I do, Andy.

That's the kind of comedy I engage in.

You knew that when you asked me to be on this podcast.

I make people sad, Andy.

But clearly, the political prize for the the Republicans, control of the ethical values of the Supreme Court for a generation, is way too great to allow ephemeral distractions such as ethical values to intervene.

And it strikes me, Hari, that the system, the whole system for filling the Supreme Court is completely baffling.

It sort of tiptoes that fine line between historic democratic tradition, patently obvious legislative madness and trainee-level totalitarianism.

And we in Britain, because it's lifetime tenures, isn't it?

When you get a point, you're basically there for life.

And we in Britain are not necessarily a nation to lecture people about giving prominent public figures a position in perpetuity.

But at least when we do it, Your Majesty, we constitutionally prevent them from actually doing anything.

So the Queen is essentially just a lifetime bauble on our national Christmas tree.

I mean, in addition to the accusation of attempted rape, another reason, even though there really shouldn't be another reason why you shouldn't be on the Supreme Court, if that's actually a thing that's out there, I think another reason maybe he shouldn't be on the Supreme Court is his behavior was completely out of control

during the hearings, during the confirmation hearings.

He was very angry.

You could see his cards very clearly.

And I think the biggest thing is that a judge has to come off as not partisan.

And it's hard to come off as not partisan when you claim that this is all part of a conspiracy that's being orchestrated by the Clintons.

There's something about that which immediately strikes you as a little odd.

You know, I've never heard another judge say that this is part of a political conspiracy by the Democrats.

And also, it's obviously not a political conspiracy by the Democrats.

The Democrats do not have the ability to pull that off.

Especially,

yeah, well, also, just the lack of cohesion, agreement.

I'll give you an example of why I believe this.

Donald Trump is president.

So based on that, I don't think the Democratic Party is capable of any kind of conspiracy, considering that they lost to a reality TV star.

And also it seems to leave your political

system slightly open to well, to manipulation, clearly.

the balance of the political neutrality and the the highest branch of your judicial system.

It It comes down to the chance of when Supreme Court judges happen to die, happen to shuffle off to bang their gavels in the great courthouse in the sky.

That's a bit weird, but also it's laying down the plot for an absolutely sensational TV series about a series of politically motivated serial killers who specialize in bumping off Supreme Court justices.

That is a series I want to see.

I mean, I feel like the better system is if the judges got to pick their colleagues if someone leaves just because that's really more American than anything else.

It's kind of who you know.

And it's like Ruth Beter Ginsburg was like, oh, I had a friend in law school.

You have to meet them.

And then, you know, you just kind of hang out and you're like, oh, this is, we're all really gelling here.

This is a good situation.

It feels like a real, like, healthy, real-world scenario.

I mean, the TV show.

You know, you want that kind of, you want someone to be the bad boy.

You want someone to be the level-headed one.

Like, I feel like they should, you know, pick who their colleague is.

And

I think they would likely make a pretty good choice because they're all judges and all.

You would think they would have good judgment in picking the judge they want

to be a judge with them.

So you're saying you shouldn't leave it to the personal whims of a president with absolutely no experience in the judicial system.

Correct.

It should be the personal whims of eight other people.

I'm just waiting for things to escalate to a situation where it's just somebody's niece.

Someone's niece or nephew

got a position on the Supreme Court.

Just because people are like, all right, f it.

F it.

This whole concept of plenary power for the present, complete and absolute power.

We've got a hint of the Roman Empire about it.

It comes from

a Latin word, including.

How did that end, by the way?

Yeah, well, in basically people drinking liquid lead and having sex with horses, I think, from memory.

I mean, that is edited highlights.

That's a couple of businesses to invest in now.

A lead business and a

sexually permissive horse business.

That's it.

If there is an economic message from this podcast, it is buy lead and buy horny horses.

And it's not just the Supreme Court, it's the whole idea of presidential pardons and things like that.

And I guess, America, if you are wondering why your president appears to treat your precious democratic and judicial heritage like an overindulged child given A, a bow and arrow, arrow and b a pritus ming vase and told he can do whatever he wants because he's a special special boy that might be your explanation because basically you've told your presidents that they are special special boys and if you then get a president who a thinks he's very very special and b has the behavioral age of a six-year-old boy you've brought it on yourself america you have brought this on yourself Buglers, you might need a lie down after this excellent show, but for those of you who do not have a Casper mattress, this will be a tragically inferior experience as Casper owning buglers will no doubt tell you their natural geometry has never been cradled so well they will also let you know that that one-third part of their life they spend in bed is that much more comfortable than yours I know from my personal experience of Casper mattresses that when you wake up after a night's sleep on a Casper mattress you come up with even better cricket statistics and puns than if you've slept on a pile of forks as well as three types of mattress they also make other useful bed-related paraphernalia like sheets and pillows everyone likes pillows literally everyone likes pillows even evil people like pillows you can be sure of your purchase with casper's 100 night risk-free sleep on it trial get 50 towards select mattresses by visiting casper.com slash bugle and using the promo code bugle at the checkout terms and conditions apply

Just some breaking news coming from America actually.

President Trump, who will today announce a government investigation into whether women legally own their own wounds, is also reportedly considering introducing alongside the increasingly outdated judicial system a new prejudicial system.

The prejudicial system will pass preemptive judgments, rulings and offhand comments about cases which have not yet come to court.

Trump will soon announce the first batch of Supreme Court pre-justices who will have the power to pre-judge legal issues which have not yet happened, although their pre-rulings will be restricted to events that may or may not occur within the next 65 years.

In a parallel move, alongside the right to give presidential pardons, the president will also now be entitled to dispense presidential convictions.

A spokeslackey for Mr.

Trump explained, it simply joins up the logical loop.

If the president can let someone out the slammer because he feels like it, it seems to make constitutional sense for him to be able to lock someone up and throw away the key on a personal whim as well.

It's what the founding fathers would have wanted.

And using his new prejudicial powers, Mr.

Trump is reportedly poised to announce a conviction for James Comey for aiding and abetting the St.

Valentine's Day massacre, posthumous charges and a guilty verdict against John McCain for absconding from his post for five and a half consecutive years during the Vietnam War, an eight-year jail term for Hillary Clinton for witchcraft, a new gulag in North Dakota for journalists from CNN and the New York Times, and 12 years in the newly reopened Alcatraz, a jail from when America was last great trademark for Colin Kaepernick for unlicensed kneeling with malice of forethought.

Andy, John McCain's dead.

Are they going to dig him up and then imprison him?

I would think so.

I mean, oh, you wouldn't put anything past we we live in uncertain times, Harry.

And the previous assumptions about how these things go are out the window.

I mean, in Britain, we have a bit of a track record for this.

They dug up Oliver Cromwell and posthumously executed him.

Is that true?

Yeah, it is true.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, man.

When the monarchy had been re-established,

they dug up the corpse of Cromwell.

And I think they hung Drew and courted him.

Jesus Christ.

What the f is wrong with you?

Jesus.

I mean, the whole Guy Fox thing I've always found very amusing.

That alone, like, and not only the fact that they killed him the way they did, but also the fact you all celebrate this with fireworks, which is just mocking him from beyond the grave.

But that's just, wow.

They dug him up and they

drew and quartered him.

Yep.

And then what?

They buried him again?

Well, I think

they stuck various bits of him on various spikes

around Britain.

And his head ended up in a college in Cambridge, I think.

I don't know quite how it got there.

But

I think there are probably bits of Oliver Cromwell still just lying around.

I think there's one in a motorway service station on the M40.

An empire.

You had an empire.

How is that possible?

Well, we were building an empire at the time, and this was the 1660s.

So it was kind of the time when we were passing on our values to, for example, the United States of America.

That's why I don't think it's so ridiculous that this will reoccur.

Awards news now and some very exciting news reaching us just this week, and that is that Bugle star Hari Kondabolu is the greatest comedian in India.

Congratulations, Hari.

You are GQ India's comedian of the year.

That's correct.

And they said there is little doubt that Hari Kondabolu is the wittiest, most insightful comedian of our time.

Yeah, I'm glad they used the copy I sent them.

I mean, is there any doubt?

I mean, they say little doubt.

I mean, they're raising, just leaving a little gap open there for the rest of us.

I mean, it was kind of remarkable.

My initial thought when I was named for this was

someone cancelled.

But you know, clearly as a comic, I have no shame and I agreed to

do this.

I got there.

Everyone was an incredibly famous Bollywood star.

The thing is, as an American, I did not know any of them.

I did not know who any of them were.

So it's really strange when there's a bunch of incredibly attractive, famous people.

Each with like millions and millions of Instagram and Twitter followers.

That's how you measure these kinds of things.

Absolutely.

And,

you know, who people worship around the world.

And I had no idea who they were.

I know.

The thing is, at least I had interest.

I don't think they had interest in me because they wouldn't look at me.

And that seems to indicate that they did not have much interest in my presence.

There was other awards that were given

to different people.

A lot of them were actors, some writers, but mostly actors.

It's very masturbatory.

And everyone got a huge ovation.

And then when it was my turn to accept my award and to give a speech, they did not clap.

They did not clap, Andy.

I felt that immediately.

It felt like high school all over again.

And

then I gave the speech and I made them laugh.

And then they clapped because they're like, okay, he deserves it.

This clown has amused us.

But

it feels good to be the GQ India comedian of the year, partly because I'm hoping this will lead to my parents

not telling relatives in India that I'm a lawyer.

It might be good for them to finally be able to say what I do for a living.

So that's extremely exciting.

There was a time, Andy, when my brother actually was in a rap group.

He was a hype man in a rap group, and I'm a comedian.

And so when they had to tell people in India, relatives in India, what we we did, they would say, our older son is a lawyer, and our younger son is also still alive.

But yes,

a nice little award for Rohara Kundabola.

There has been a female winner of the Nobel Physics Prize for the first time in five and a half decades, Donna Strickland, who was part of

a team involving Arthur Ashkin and Gerard Muru, who won the

the nine million Swedish kroner prize uh for their work uh dealing with beams of light laser physics and that is as far as my knowledge of that branch of science goes and this shows you something Hari about the uh

the place of women in science just recently um

she was deemed not important enough to have a Wikipedia entry after uh someone attempted to put up a Wikipedia entry for her And to put that in context, I have a Wikipedia entry of moderate size.

And I mean, that shows you how low science is, and particularly women in science is, in the global consciousness.

Partly, maybe science has brought this on itself, these self-proclaimed experts telling us we can't live in space without special kits, or that if we eat nothing but burgers, we'll get a sore tum tum.

Let me live my own life, science.

Or

that we can't always get what we want.

That was a famous research paper by Professor M.P.

Jagger and Dr.

K.

Richards 1969

that paper into the psychological impossibility of ultimate happiness in an acquisitive consumerist economy.

It was part of a broader academic research project by Jagger and Richards entitled Let IT Bleed, advocating allowing the difficulties faced by the emerging but still infant information technology industry to play out so that whilst there may be commercial casualties along the way, these would provide the learning experience that would facilitate the achievement of the full potential of modern technology.

The collection, Let IT Bleed, also included a piece on the influence of the collaborative work of female cancer doctors and surgeons in the oncology departments of hospitals in Hong Kong and the Japanese city Kitakyushu, a paper eventually entitled Honkit Onk Women.

There we go.

That's really what that was all for.

Honkit Onk Women.

No, I got it, Candy.

Yep.

I mean, it was just a long time.

I felt bad because, you know, currently,

you know, I'm in

you're in your shed in London.

For the first time ever, we actually can see each other while we do this remotely because there's a Skype set up.

So I see you on a screen.

And

usually I can just fake a laugh.

And I got really self-conscious about he can see me not responding.

And I feel phony faking it to his face.

Right.

Because normally I could fake the laugh while doing something else.

Like I could just write something down

handy.

But it was harder today.

We just had Chris coming on the Skype call there with a look of pure evil in his face.

Pure.

Yeah, Hari, I have to look at this every week, Hari.

I can't get away with that.

Bloody lunacy.

Sport now, and the UK is aiming to host the 2030 Football World Cup if.

They can fight off rival bids from the likes of Las Vegas, Qatar, again, the Cayman Islands, and the Venetian in Macau, the world's largest casino, which FIFA is reportedly considering, quotes, for football reasons, to spread the game to new areas that have not hosted a World Cup before.

We've never held a World Cup inside a casino.

Therefore, it would be great for the ordinary people of the Venetian in Macau to be able to see great footballers of the world at first hand.

It's going to be tough.

for Britain to win this contest, but it's all part of a larger scheme to attract between 40 and 60 major sporting events to the UK over the next 15 to 20 years.

Count me in!

As Britain desperately tries to distract itself from its post-Brexit slide into a chasm of irrelevance and recrimination.

As Britain strides confidently forward into its glorious post-Brexit future as a beacon of hope for all humanity.

What happened there?

Carry on, Mr.

Zoltzman.

So, 40 to 60 major sporting events, it's what we're all about.

Count us in.

And in America, it's post-season time, Hari.

In baseball,

how did the Mets go this year?

That's a very cruel question.

That's basically like asking me, how's America doing?

You know how it's doing.

The Mets dealt with a lot of injuries again this year,

did not have a particularly strong season.

Apparently, a key part of the game is not just pitching, but hitting.

And the Mets forgot that there's two parts.

They did the pitching part part quite well.

Jacob deGrom, their star pitcher, I think his Early was 1.68 or 1.7, which is incredibly low.

One of the greatest seasons of all time.

But he had a losing record until the very end of the season because the Mets decided, well, this guy is so good, I'm sure we can provide him with no runs and we'll still win, which proves to be false.

You need to score at least one run to win.

Right.

So that was very difficult.

Also, the Mets still paying Bobby Benia,

a player that retired decades ago, but

they

created, for those of you who don't know,

the Mets at a certain point were signing these deals where if they wanted to get rid of a player, instead of giving him a buyout, what they would do is they'd break the money into a bunch of small pieces and

you'd get it over the course of 20 or 30 years.

So let's say instead of a $5 million buyout, you'd get like 20 million over the course of 20 years, like a million a year, which intuitively doesn't seem to make sense.

Well, that's more money.

But at this time, the Mets were in bed with Bernie Madoff, and they assumed that if they give Uncle Bernie the 5 million, he'll turn it into 10 million, and the 10 million to 20 and the 40.

And so that 5 million becomes, you know, $100 million.

They didn't know how.

They didn't know that they just gave it to this man who apparently is made of magic.

And as a result, the Mets lost hundreds of millions of dollars, have been

a third-tier franchise in a city that has two tiers.

Right.

There's two teams, and they're that incredibly bad.

And Bobby Beni, who has not, again, he has not played since the late 90s, early 2000s, is still making $1.3 million

every season.

Wow.

The Mets are not doing well, Andy.

It's not going well.

Right.

But Bernie Madoff will be

out of prison within, what, 140 years to sort it all out?

So, I mean, it's, you've just got to ride out the difficult phase before you can come and clean up his mess.

I wonder if he still watches the playoffs.

I wonder if Bernie Madoffs is watching the Mets play this season while he's in prison.

Like, oh, they could have used the money.

Oh, they needed another bat.

They could have used some more pitching.

Oh, man.

This is a team that's about $50 million short.

Well Bernie, if you're listening in whatever part of the American prison system you currently reside, do email us and tell us your advice for how to get the Mets back on track.

In other sports news, England's cricket tour of Sri Lanka begins next week and I will be part of the BBC's test match social coverage of

of the test matches and the one day international so if you're a cricket fan uh do tune into that it'll be my me talking about cricket with some other people who have played cricket to a considerably higher level than i have um

and uh and don't forget the live bugle dates uh coming up if you hear this in time uh 7th of october in salford i think there's a few tickers left for that 8th of october in dublin and 14th of november in london i have a one-off stand-up gig in toronto on the 20th of october and my end-of-year review shows at Soho Theatre from the 18th of December to the 6th of January.

Hari, have you got anything to plug?

Yes, very exciting news.

I'll be performing in London December 3rd to the 15th at the Soho Theatre.

I finally, I show up, I'm finally in town December 3rd to the 15th.

And also, I'll be in Berlin.

Do you have any German fans of this podcast?

I do.

There are a few.

We had some that flew from Germany to see our London live streams.

So they do, yeah.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Well, I will be in Berlin as well in late November, the 28th and 29th.

Are you receiving the German Comedian of the Year award?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And also, I have a bunch of tour dates coming up this year.

This month, in fact.

I'll be in Florida October 5th through the 7th.

I'll be in Tampa on the 5th.

Fort Lauderdale on the 6th and Orlando on the 7th.

And if I survive those three dates in Florida, I will be in in Chicago on October 11th at Dahlia Hall, October 12th in Minneapolis at Pantages Theater, Columbus, Ohio on the 23rd of October, Providence, Rhode Island on the 24th of October, Boston, Massachusetts

on October 26th at the Wilbur, which you're familiar with, Andy, I believe that's when I last saw you, and New Brunswick, New Jersey on the 27th of October, and then we close out the American touring calendar in Hamden, Connecticut, which is near New Haven and Hartford, at the Space Ballroom.

So I'll be all over America again pending that I'm not killed in Florida.

You can find all those dates at hurrykundabolu.com.

As I've said before, probably Google is your best bet.

Just type in what you think my name sounds like, and

you should be directed to a website, hurrykundabolu.com.

But yes, a lot of big Chicago, Boston, all over the place, Minneapolis.

It's been a delight to have you back on the show.

There will be a less big gap before Horry's next appearance.

It'll be in two weeks' time on the 18th of October.

So do tune into that.

Next week, we will have highlights of the live bugle shows from Manchester and Dublin featuring Alice Fraser and David O'Doherty.

Until then, Buglers, 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.