Bugle 4078 – Truth isn’t Truth

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Bugles!

Thank you.

Very much,

welcome to the Bugle Live.

How are you all?

One at a time.

One at a time, please.

I cannot, I'm not a politician.

I therefore cannot interpret the will of a large group of people based on a single communified, simplified response to a question.

Sorry.

So welcome to the Newtown Theatre here in Edinburgh.

Are you enjoying the Edinburgh fringe?

Good welcome, welcome here.

We are here today at the world's largest arts festival where today an old woman walking a dog in the meadows inadvertently became a sell-out fringe show

as she painfully stooped to scoop her dog's shit off a path into a plastic bag and received a five-star review from the Scotsman

for a heart-rending theatrical satire on humanity's relationship with the environment and the cruel passage of time.

So,

Chris, let's fade the music.

Fade, mate.

Fade.

Somebody's.

So

welcome, welcome, welcome to welcome to the Bugle Live.

Who's been to a live bugle before?

Who has never been to a live bugle before?

Onwards and sideways.

And who has never ever listened to the bugle?

You may be in for a confusing hour.

But

welcome to the show.

I am Andy Zoltzmann.

This is the 22nd of August.

Congratulations, Buglers.

You have just cheered.

The anniversary of the English defeating the Scottish in the Battle of Cowton Moor in Yorkshire in 1138.

I'm just trying to blend in with the locals here.

Don't stoke those fires of independence.

You also cheered the anniversary of the first ever air raid in history in 1849 when Austria launched pilotless balloons.

Against the city of Venice.

There it is.

That is

a photograph.

Is that a a photograph?

It's a bit odd to tell you.

That's from 1849 pilotless balloons.

Wasn't the 19th century fun.

So you've just cheered the first ever air raid, which, of course, presaged the unending tragedies of the Second World War's brutality towards civilians.

So well done, that, you heartless bastards.

You've cheered the anniversary of the day in

1454 when Jews were expelled from Moravia.

You people disgust me.

To be fair, even-handedly, you also cheered the anniversary of the deaths of two 13th-century popes.

So, at least you hate the Catholics as well as the Jews.

And you've cheered the anniversary of

60 years ago today, Great Britain performed a nuclear test at Christmas Island.

There we go, that's uh,

and uh, turned out after that people no longer wished it could be Christmas every day.

There's a long nuclear winter stretched out before them.

Christmas Every Day or Nuclear Holocaust.

Your call.

Christmas.

You haven't thought.

You have not.

Who said that?

You like Christmas Every Day?

Who was that?

Don't mean you'd not thought through the economics of this.

Just the catastrophic financial collapse.

More of this later.

We have a special Bugle Economics section today with a new special bugle guest.

You've also cheered the death in 1664 of the influential 17th century female astronomer Maria Kunitz.

A terrific astronomer.

Maria, have you got a picture of Maria Kunits?

Of course.

Polyglot.

There she is, Maria, a polyglot who can converse in seven languages, renowned for her elegant solution to Kepler's problem, of course,

as well as being a very fine musician and painter and has a crater on the planet Venus named after her.

And

oh my, if I was 380 years younger.

Oh no.

Well, we've opened up that wormhole again.

Sorry, Florence.

Oh history.

As always some sections of the bugle are going straight.

Fair going.

Where?

Correct and they are then going where?

Landfill.

They're learning.

This week we have a special bugle lists section.

Everyone loves a list as well as the numerous Forbes rich lists, which this week had the top-earning female sports stars, which had nothing but women in the top ten.

So much for equality.

We take a look at the spiritually rich list.

Can anyone knock Enid Sniddles off top spot, the 84-year-old happily married grandmother who runs a charity teaching classical ballet to orphaned penguins?

We also ask whether the divide between the spiritually rich and the spiritually poor is now too wide.

The average charity worker, teacher or nurse is now 287 times more spiritually rich than the average chief executive of a FTSE 100 company.

Can

anything be done to bridge that gap?

Also we have in the bin some home kits.

Everyone likes to make stuff at home now to save a bit of money.

We have a home cryonics kit.

Preserve yourself with our DeLux Bugle home cryonics kit.

A full chest chest freezer plus overcoat, woolly hat and flask of hot chocolate.

Cryonically preserve yourself for anything from two to five minutes.

Warning, do not use for more than five minutes.

And also a home puppy making kit.

That's also going in the bin with the UK government now drawing up plans to ban the sale of puppies and kittens at pet shops.

We review the latest make-your-own puppy kits, including the Pooch Tech Puppinator 3.2.

The latest iteration of the classic home puppy making kit comes with complete with a fully grown male and female dog.

Plus a David Attenrid DVD of dogs humping to help them get in the mood.

They're not really up for it.

Anyway, those sections are...

Right, it's time now to introduce our guests for today's live bugle.

You ready to meet the guests for today's bugle?

Good.

Otherwise, that would be very, very awkward indeed, and also today it would look quite racist.

So, let me

so I'm very glad you answered yes

to that.

Firstly, a great pleasure to welcome in back Bugle Regular for some time now, a man who just has to look at a baby before that baby starts crying because it has been so thoroughly satirized.

Please welcome Nish Kubar!

I don't know what I'm more alarmed by.

I don't know whether I'm more alarmed by the picture that's still for bugle that's listening to the podcast, that is the naked with nude with Nish still.

So it features a Photoshop picture of me naked.

I don't know whether I'm more alarmed by that or Andy's riff about the fing statue that he wants to f, which is particularly dark given the presence in the audience of Andy's wife and two young children.

It's all right.

Nish, we're both in showbiz.

We know how it rolls.

That's right.

We bone statues.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

How are you, Andy?

I'm very very well, thanks.

How's the fringe been for you?

Well, so far, Andy, basically, I've been up here doing a show, but also, I've been hosting the BBC's arts coverage for BBC.

I'm a fing arts correspondent, okay?

I've left the comedy behind when I got the job.

They said, Would I have the gravitas of famous BBC arts presenters such as Alan Yentob?

I've got Gravitas coming out of my ass.

Anyone who thinks that I'm not mature enough for that gig can suck my dick, right?

You put the ass into gravitas.

And the ass into gravitas since 1985, bitches.

And again, apologies to Andy's family.

I've met some amazing people, Andy.

I interviewed Pussy Riot, which was a really extraordinary experience.

And one of Pussy Riot basically was on a travel ban from the Russian government.

And so, in order to get to the fringe, she had to be smuggled across the border to Belarus and flown here.

And it really puts in context me complaining about the 10-minute delay on the virgin surface.

And other than that, I'm having a fine fringe.

Apart from the fact that there is a comedian called Rosie Jones, who is a good friend of mine and a complete piece of shit,

because Rosie is a comedian who also has cerebral palsy, and she has discovered a fun new game over the course of this month.

Whenever we're in public together, she throws herself on the floor and shouts, Help, help!

The man from the telly pushed a disabled girl.

It's 2018, Nish.

What can you expect?

And now to join us here on the stage, all the way from India at the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time ever.

It's Anuvabh Powell!

Welcome, Anuvab.

Thank you, Anjiv.

So this is your first time here in Edinburgh doing the show Empire.

We see the picture from it there.

I mean, what do you make of this?

Andy, as the third century BC Roman poet, philosopher and Instagram user Cicero said,

this town is a batshit, crazy place.

Two nights ago, I was eating sushi sitting next to a man dressed as a medieval executioner with a plastic axe checking out Tinder.

that's it well i mean it was uh recently the anniversary of when henry the eighth swiped down on anne boleyn i think wasn't it

boom there we go

getting into a history-based riff with you is like playing tennis with roger federers ultimately

I also realize that I'm in quite sort of logistically quite a perilous position given that we're in the middle of quite a tense India versus England test series.

India just brought the thing back to 2-1.

It could be quite tense.

I don't know if Andy or Anubab is going to kick off.

If anyone's wondering how I'll be siding in that fight, I'll be siding in the same way I am in the test series.

Very much supporting whoever's currently winning.

If Andy's winning, it'll be Tally Ho onwards and upwards.

And if Anubab's winning, it'll be Anubabs in the back.

One for the Indians in the room.

Norman Tebbit will be turning in his still empty grave.

Is he still alive, Tebbit?

Yes, sort of.

On the outside.

For those who don't know, so there was in the 80s it was quite a big thing,

the Tebbit test, the idea you could test how British you were based on whether or not you supported the England cricket team.

And bearing in mind this was the 1980s when England lost cricket matches to countries that didn't even exist at the time.

That was a tough test series against Narnia, wasn't it?

Tomlins bowls a wicked off-break.

He does.

The thing is,

the thing with Aslan is, I don't think he's great when the ball's nipping around, but once he gets in...

Once he gets in on a flat pitch, he's pretty much...

Or am I thinking of Alastair Cook?

I forget.

Well, anyway, the point stands.

Right, in which case, Amir, how far into the show are we, Chris?

Four hours.

Four hours.

Well, we're looking at 18 minutes.

It's time to get into top story this week.

And, well, Nish, you are our American president desperately clinging to the precipices of.

Yeah, let's just pile straight into it.

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

Woo!

Andy, Donald Trump has had another tricky week.

Sorry, let me just start like this.

Ditto.

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

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

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

It's very good.

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

Let's jump straight to the quarterfinal stage of charges.

Quarterfinal.

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

No, no, you wouldn't want a last 16.

The summary of the situation is come from, this is a direct quote from the Guardian newspaper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will he flip on Trump?

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

Is he gonna flip?

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

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

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

Trump.

Trump is absolutely thunder fed.

Nish, Andy, I had a quick question.

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

We didn't know any of that was illegal.

What is an ethical campaign manager?

That was a genuine question.

Everyone involved is so sketchy.

Because even technically, Michael Cohen is, you know, about sort of acting like he's about to do an act of public service.

But he's just set something up called the Michael Cohen truth fund which has been set up as a go fund me page with the goal of raising five hundred thousand dollars so that Michael Cohen can afford to tell the truth and in unrelated news I'm setting up a fund to stop me from shitting in the street

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

I mean do we think I mean is is Trump in in genuine trouble now because it seems he does seem sort of bulletproof so far doesn't he I mean there's that famous old saying isn't there that if if you throw enough shit at a wall, some of it will stick.

Aristotle, I believe it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was Aristotle.

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

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

He is a volcano of shit.

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

And if

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

Yeah, it's just, I mean,

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

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

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

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

You can't judge people on what they do and say this.

This is exactly the tweet.

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

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

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

Because

I am in next level shit.

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

If your lawyer is in prison,

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

Alabab, it's like meeting John Grisham.

You're a legal expert.

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

It's a bad sign, basically.

It is a bad sign.

I mean, did Trump lie about this or did he merely tell 100%?

Don't you think he's lied about everything?

Did he merely tell a made-up truth?

I

I mean,

I don't know.

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

And the answer to that is quite simply, no.

Because that would require some will or action from the Republican Party.

It would require them to actually

vote him out.

And also, I think I've said this before, but at the end of the day, what about the Trump presidency so far suggests that this is going to end conventionally?

What about the Trump presidency?

Even if they impeach him, he's not gonna leave.

Like, why do you think he's gonna be like, fair cup?

Fair result, I accept it.

Referee's decision is final.

This does not end with him sort of standing outside, sort of like all other presidents.

This ends with him like King Kong on the roof of the White House as a phalanx of biplanes flies along the lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, firing indiscriminately with Melania in one hand and him just screaming, I regret nothing as he goes down.

Well, his lawyer, gentlemen, did have an issue with the definition of truth.

Yes.

So this was, well, let's get Rudo Giuliani back up on the screen there, a long-term Bugle favourite.

Do contribute to his 2008 presidential campaign,

if you can.

Never say never, never give up the hope.

Let the light of hope shine on.

So yes, Anna, I've explained this.

I mean, this was quite

impressive.

Truth has taken an absolute,

absolute kick.

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

Truth, nuance.

Nuance has taken an absolute kicking in recent years.

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

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

that are really copying the brunt of the Trump presidency.

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

Well, he was on

MSNBC, and I think, and

when asked, you know, this is the objective truth, Rudy Giuliani, who is his lawyer outside prison,

one has to clarify.

He did say, Andre Nish, the truth doesn't always have to be the truth.

And from where I'm from, if you believe in reincarnation,

the truth could return as a unicyclist.

called Pedro.

The truth could be your aunt, Romila, or the truth could in fact be lies.

Right.

So it depends on...

This is quite sounding like an event at the Edinburgh Fridge Festival.

Truth, the various forms of truth.

So there might be some credibility to what he's saying.

Right.

The truth doesn't always have to be the truth.

Like, one son could also be not one's son.

Maybe it's a more flexible, fluid water type situation.

I mean, at times like this, I do lean on my Hindu upbringing, Advaf, because if there is

a sort of Hindu version of the afterlife is correct then Trump is going to be reincarnated as I mean I don't know one of the students at his own university like I'm trying to think of what an appropriate punishment for Trump would be someone else's implausible toupee like

a vagina like that might be the key I don't I don't really know what the appropriate punishment would be actually I do know the appropriate punishment he needs to go to jail now but

Giuliani well this is an extraordinary story so the the host Chuck Todd said truth is truth and Giuliani responded truth isn't truth.

Which is kind of playground level philosophy I guess.

And he said, he was talking about whether Trump will testify and he said, I'm not going to be rushed into having him testify so he can be trapped into perjury.

Now

there is...

I'm not an expert on this, but there is quite an easy way to avoid being trapped into perjury, and that is by

not lying in court.

I mean, it seems almost too obvious.

I mean, it's less easy, I guess, if you are, for example, a congenital liar.

But I mean, this is like someone taking me to a ham shop in Spain to trap me into breaking the kosher laws.

I hold them entirely responsible for me incurring the wrath of the Almighty by stuffing my face with plate after plate of sweet, tender, melt in the mouth, so good it can't possibly be bad, can it?

Cured meats.

Oh, yeah.

Truly, one of the worst Jews of all time.

Well, once you open up a negotiation on the truth, right?

And where I'm from, we do that usually with bribery.

But when you

I mean, when you open that door, then anything is possible.

You can stand in front of the Supreme Court when they're impeaching you and say that's your version of the law.

Now, I don't know if you're you fake news fans?

That's a lie.

I don't know if you're frustrated by the relentless fakery of news, frustrated that you cannot possibly know what is really going on in this famous planet of ours or searching for some oasis of truth in the desert of manipulation, that is the contemporary political news media.

If so, then bad luck, you're f ⁇ ing screwed.

Give up and instead take back control of the lies you're being told with the bugle fake your own news kit.

All you need is a newspaper, a printer, and some other paper.

And you can make the news much more like you want it to be.

Now, I don't know if you're,

I think we're probably mostly

against Brexit here.

That generally tends to be the case at Bugle gigs,

particularly at the Edinburgh Festival.

Ramona Twats.

I'll probably change his sack.

I think that's a good thing.

I've got Kenny Rogers and the duet, I think.

Ramona Twatsi.

Fled over the Iron Curtain in 1780.

Oh my god, Andy, I think I've just come up with my drag name.

Ramona Twack.

Watch out, RuPaul.

I've covered for you.

So here's some fake news.

If you're worried about the amount of money Brexit will supposedly cost Britain, we've heard the scaremongering stories.

£50 billion.

Well, don't worry, just make up your own fake news to make it better.

Wild joy on streets as Britain signs £51 billion trade deal with Bolivia.

We are £1 billion in credit there, people.

Government claims nice people will benefit most from agreement to sell gherkins, trampolines,

novelty-dancing porcelain vicars, grannies, badger testicles, and warships to landlock South American nation.

La Paz drops demand for Prince Harry to marry President Morales' daughter after Palace promises commemorative tea towel left over from his wedding to Meghan Markle.

And Britain in top one greatest nations in the universe, claims scientists.

So

goes on here if you're not a Trump fan.

Trump trapped in White House garden shed by giant mechanical dragonfly.

That makes it all better doesn't it?

President fled to 1864 structure put up by Abraham Lincoln to house collection of toy lawnmowers after being attacked by furious cauliflower responding to Twitter claim that all vegetables are evil shitbags.

And here we go.

Obsession with sport, a sign of infantile approach to life, fear of response.

What the f is this?

And just quickly for money week here,

if you point at the bird shit on your car window and say it's a currency, no one can tell you otherwise.

Screams George Soros at Bilderberg karaoke night.

Of course it's real currency, Andy.

It's shitcoin.

Boom!

There we go!

If you hang around the bugle long enough, that will happen.

It is contagious.

And also, your money is worth whatever it self-identifies as being worth.

So buy yourself a jacuzzi, a dolphin, a crate of beer, and enjoy yourself.

That's a special article by Philip Hammond on Post-Austerity Britain.

Right, let's move on now to Asia news.

And

our Asia correspondent today is the one who's not abandoned his continent.

Sorry, I'm a creature of my times.

Brexit means Brexit.

Now,

Anuvab, as our the Bugles

Asia correspondent, what's the big news from Asia this week?

Well, as the

sole representative of three and a half billion people,

I'd like to report that IKEA, the Swedish furniture giant,

opened a store in India.

Following which immediately there was a stampede.

And

I know, Andy, Nish, you had a number of questions of why there was a stampede.

It is because, in my culture, we try to reduce the difference between the Billy bookcase and the movie Billy the Kid.

So, there was, India is the largest maker of second-hand furniture.

We do the largest amount of second-hand furniture assembly in the world.

If you brought over two cricket bats, we'd make you a bed.

So, I think the stampede was to see what the competition would look like.

Right.

Presumably, if there was a stampede in Ikea, about four hours later, the stampede reached exactly where it had started from when they weren't thinking.

Just bought myself a spatula.

I mean, uh, as far as I know, everyone enters IKEA in a good mood and exits in a bad mood.

So, presumably, if you go into-

Sorry, Dish, I hope you're right.

No, I uh I've actually forgot what I was going going to say because I enjoyed that juggernaut.

Oh, good, okay, there we go.

What an anti-heckle from me on Zultimate.

Good work, mate.

I saw that the restaurant will be serving the sort of traditional IKEA menu of meatballs, but it will also be serving chicken biryani, which is, I cannot emphasise the extent to which that is the most Indian shit I've ever heard in my entire life.

Because when I was growing up, at Christmas dinner, there would be a traditional Christmas dinner and also a pork vindaloo.

Because, and I remember asking my father why that was there, and my dad said, Because if it's not there, I'll be blocked up for a week.

Sensible, Ikear India knows its target audience.

Pork vindaloo at Christmas.

You're a worse Jew than me, Nish.

It's what really unites the world, bigotry.

Those are also an exciting

in some other sensational Asia news, and this is the Asian news that really grabbed me this week, Pakistan has a new Prime Minister, Imran Khan, the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Ironically, many of there are now enough Prime Ministers of Pakistan past and present to pick two cricket teams.

And Imran Khan would obviously be the captain because he is the greatest cricketer Pakistan has ever produced.

And he is now Prime Minister.

Imran Khan is a politician, cricketer, philanthropist, cricketer, cricketer, writer, icon cricketer, and former cricketer.

And he follows a string of Prime Ministers of Pakistan who've not played international cricket.

And he, of course, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that he holds the record for best test bowling average over a 33-test sequence.

15.6 for any numbers fans in.

And

he said this: to move forward, now, obviously, with the relationship between India and Pakistan, he's very spicy.

He's a fascinating character, Imran Khan.

He said, to move forward, India and Pakistan must have dialogue and resolve their conflicts.

Well, Imran could have set a better example when he had the chance, instead of decimating the England-Indian batting lineup in the 1982-83 test series, in which he took 40 wickets at an average of 13.

So he really

changed his tune over the years.

I mean, it's not like having a celebrity take charge of a nuclear power has any caused any other problems recently.

I mean, it's it's quite interesting.

I mean, Imran Khan shifted careers.

Uh his first career was a cricketer, second career was marrying people in England.

And he's now moved to his third career politician.

And one of his first announcements, Nishandi, is an austerity move.

The Prime Minister of Pakistan is allowed slash given

400 servants.

And he has decided that as an austere monastic almost Buddhist person he will manage with twelve.

Which I think is an embarrassment really.

Well I mean twelve that's a cricket team and a twelfth man clearly.

So I mean he's not an idiot is he?

How do you keep a 400, how do you keep a 400 cricketer squad happy?

You know there's gonna be a lot of very disappointed people.

I would honestly pay so much money to read to get hold of the transcripts of your GCSE maths exam.

I can only imagine the number of questions where you put the answer and then immediately did a second bonus answer to work out how many cricket teams that could have made.

Well Imran did say that it was shameful that the Prime Minister's house had 524 staff.

524 of course is what you get if you add up Imran's total test wickets plus

his highest test score as a batsman, plus his total number of five wicket hauls in test matches.

Then add the number of times he captained Pakistan on a tour of England.

That's 524.

Then you can multiply it by the number of

man of the match awards he won in test cricket, 11, and then divide it by the number of players in a cricket team, also 11, and then times it by the number of people still listening to this, which is one.

Mean.

Andy, it is highly possible he came across this statistic and decided I'm going to reduce the number of servants I see.

Can I just say it's important the buglers know how the preparation for this thing comes together.

About 10 minutes before, Andy went, shit, I've got to write the intro.

And I thought, I wonder what Andy's been doing with his time.

And now we know what he's been doing with his time.

Nish,

what makes you think that took time?

He's got a lot of big challenges as Prime Minister of Pakistan, dealing with corruption, national debt, poverty.

But then when you've led a team to a Cricket World Cup win from an apparently hopeless position, as Imran did did in 1992 after Pakistan of course had lost three of their first five games and only won one of them then frankly you can do anything.

So

I mean it's interesting there are a number of sports stars that have

gone into politics.

George Weyer former football cricket president of Liberia.

Of course before that Lyndon B.

Johnson went from winning a bronze medal in the World Junior Under Arms Squelchy Championships of 1927.

72 in a minute.

Awesome stuff to US president.

But who could could be next?

I mean, I would like to see the possibilities.

Tennis star and current world number 32, Maria Saccari, could she be the woman to take the Greek economy out of its post-bailout funk?

Maybe world number 108 golfer Jamie Lovemark could be the man to reunify divided United States.

Or Spanish dart star Christo Reyes could use his mathematical skills to get the Spanish economy back from its perma siesta.

Or maybe even

Rokometny Club Krim, the Slovenian Women's Handball League champions, could solve the Middle East crisis and end all war.

I guess when you've won the Slovenian League 23 years out of 27, not to mention 20 consecutive Slovenian Cup triumphs, then you need new frontiers to conquer.

When do you have time to raise your children?

What children?

Who do you think does my fing research next year?

We'll move on now to a special bugle economic section.

Now, we have a special guest for you today.

This is the first time we've ever had a third guest on the bugle, a very fine comedian and genuine financial journalist, and also my current flatmate here in Edinburgh.

Please give a bugle welcome to Dominic Frisbee.

Welcome Frizz.

Now,

Dominic, you have been officially appointed the Bugles financial news correspondent.

Okay.

And because I fear economics, I don't understand it, and I sincerely hope to die that way in continued ignorance of economics.

I mean, for me, fundamentally, tell me if I'm wrong, Dominic, but to me, economics is fundamentally the art of telling you exactly what's going to happen and then explaining why it didn't

now would you disagree with that as a I would not disagree with a single word the art of economics is not only telling you what's going to happen it's telling you what's going to happen in such a way that nobody quite understands what you're saying

so it's basically very much like being a doctor before a major operation similar but it's more significant if you're wrong

assuming you're a doctor that is

So let's, I mean, the global economy is everyone's fans.

Are you fans of the global economy here?

A lot of global economy sceptics in the crowd.

How are the markets doing in general?

Well, there's a lot of fear out there at the moment, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of doubt, a lot of paranoia,

which is kind of normal in environments where people do so much cocaine.

And

what do you say?

I mean, we're always looking for the big, big trends in in in the global economy.

What's uh what's what's going on right now?

Well the big kind of trend, this there's a big trend, it's been American strength.

The US stock markets have been really strong, especially con when considered on a relative basis.

Right.

The US dollar's been extremely strong.

And I've been trying to work out why that is, and I think it's basically because nobody has got the faintest idea where else the f to put their money.

It really is.

Everywhere else is just a mess at the moment.

And how much credit

can Donald Trump take for any of this?

Well,

all of it.

No,

he did say America first,

and much to the anger of Guardian readers all over the world, all seven of them,

he has delivered on that.

Right.

I mean, the thing is, Dominic, we are here at a bugle recording at the Edinburgh Festival.

We're in a lot of very, very comfortable, reassuring bubbles.

And

I'm not entirely comfortable with you coming in here with your needles

of economics and trying to prick them.

And

what about Brexit?

Now, I'll take a quick straw poll here.

Give me a cheer if you're in favor of remain.

And give me a cheer if you're in favour of leave.

Yeah!

So, I mean, just let.

Just me on that one.

I mean, how,

I mean, what made you in.

I mean, what the f ⁇ were you thinking?

Dominic, do you think the pound will ever fall to a level where we will get the good old days of barter back?

It'll be replaced by Bitcoin long before that.

But no, I mean, no, is the answer.

And you can talk.

The rupee's hardly been that strong.

That's correct.

I just exchanged my cousin for a goat, so

I'm well aware of of the benefits.

Dominic, just listen, playing devil's advocate here, given our lack of trade opportunities, it might not be ideal to

the nasty to the one representative of the emergent global superpower.

But if anything, we should be absolutely being like, Anavab, great to see you.

Any chance we can get a little trade deal, please?

Can you have a word with your people?

Yeah, and having said that, I have a very good idea on where people can invest, Dominic, from my years of research as an economist.

Have you heard of subprime mortgages?

I own a few.

Big area.

Big area.

Untapped.

Is this in Calcutta or in

specifically?

I have a quick question for Dominic on this idea of corruption.

Because it's very fluid, depending on where you are in the world.

I was reading in your newspapers that a couple of ministers were fired for using a credit card from Her Majesty's government on a Sri Lanka government trip for £5,000.

They had overspent a private expense on the government credit card, and they were fired.

About a year ago, an Indian minister went into the treasury where the money is printed, took the machine that prints money,

put it in his house,

and he wasn't fired.

He was fined, which he paid off by printing the money.

These are just facts.

There's no joke here.

Isn't that quantitative easing?

I think I have my answer.

Like spin bowlers, no one does corruption quite like NDS.

It's an art form, Nishi.

It's an art form beyond belief.

It must have been baffling as an Indian, Anavab, to see our corruption scandals here when we basically jailed MPs for stealing £10,000 of parliamentary expenses.

But you know, if an Indian MP stole £10,000 of parliamentary expenses, he'd be praised for saving the Indian state £9,990,000.

He would be embarrassed

at the minuscule scale of corruption.

So we kind of crocodiled on D on it.

That's not corruption.

This is corruption.

We need to move on.

Dominic Frisbee, ladies and gentlemen, the Bugle Economic Correspondent, providing some views from the other side of the spectrum.

I think...

We're out of time.

It's time to do...

Oh, right, okay, we're not quite out of time, but we are very nearly out of time.

So, well, just one final piece of news.

There's been...

Yeah, I mean, so sorry.

Rick, for people who I imagine the next sort of two to three minutes are going to be borderline inexplicable to the poor individuals who had no idea what they were getting into

and can't understand why people are egging on a grown man as he plows the gig into the gutter.

There's been

some interesting news this week regarding cats, Nish and Annabel.

As New York is pondering a cat licensing law after a rabid cat bit a human.

Scientists have also, in other cat news, claim they've discovered that cats' whiskers are 95% imaginary.

And Boris Johnson, the former Foreign Secretary, apparently sacrificed and ate a basket of kittens, smeared the blood all over his face and screamed, Brussels made me do it, to rapturous applause from an audience of staunchly pro-Brexit mice.

But it made me think a lot about

cats.

I in fact had a friend who used to.

He had this bizarre obsession.

He was a kleptomaniac.

He used to steal different breeds of cats.

He very quickly became a Persian of interest.

He was very proud of himself, too.

I asked him, are you this cat stealer they talk about on the news?

He admitted it and claimed that, moreover, he was the top cat stealer around.

He said, Yes, I am easily the best at that stealth.

He spent all the money he got from stealing these cats, collecting the artworks of American avant-garde modern artists, particularly one famous for his kitsch sculptures and marrying an Italian porn star.

He bought his giant puppy made of flowers, he bought the erotic pictures of him and his wife, he bought the balloon rabbit, most of the artists' key works.

Yes, he had all the main coons pieces.

I don't even understand that one.

I don't know that.

Nor do I.

To be honest, I mean,

I wasn't that.

I don't know many different breeds of cat.

And

I mean, I did have to research this.

The main coon is a well-known breed of cat, apparently.

It's one of the top ten in the world.

Did anyone else know that?

Oh, good.

There you go.

Anyway, he got a part.

I'm still on Persian of interest.

I may know him.

Well,

he went into the theatre after that.

He got a poet on a stage version of the jungle book, playing a bear, for a run at a theatre in Moscow.

Turned out he was a very good Russian balloon.

And he used to.

All this is illustrating to me is that I know nothing about cats.

Me neither.

And he used to quote Shakespeare as well.

Oh, yeah, there's a

full other page of it.

Yep.

Tabby or not Tabby?

To be honest, I mean this kind of stuff doesn't always go down very well with audiences or indeed venues.

Some of them really hate it and won't have me back.

So I don't know if Abyss Sinia next year.

Okay, alright, I'm back on board.

That is

very good.

They certainly didn't like it when I did a gig at the Lowry Centre in Salford.

They hated it, the Manx.

Anyway, I'm pretty much done.

I'm only doing breeds of house cat rather than big cats too.

I ain't lying.

That was a lot of puns.

That was a lot of wassa.

Sorry, none of this flows.

There are no links.

Right, I think we're done.

I've cut out quite a lot for you, Nick.

Stop complaining.

Right, there we are done.

That is

the end of

the bugle.

Thanks enormously to the Stan Comedy Club and the Newtown Theatre for having us this year.

If you you want to see my one-man show, it is on until Sunday afternoon, three o'clock in Stan 3.

Nish, are you sold out?

Yes.

Yes, don't go and see Nish.

But please come and see me on tour, especially.

And I cannot, I've said this about four times on the Bugle.

If there's any people who know 500 people in Darlington and they could get buying tickets, that would be greatly appreciated

because it's getting closer and closer.

Anuvab is on at 7 p.m.

in the Pleasants.

I'm in the Pleasants in a shipping container.

It fits 50 people to show about the British Empire.

That's about the number of people that remember the British Empire.

There we go.

Well, after what?

You were great.

And that was unusual.

I don't know if you heard that.

That was someone chatting.

You were great.

It's quite unusual, actually, to receive a positive heckle in comedy.

We're really not trained.

We're not trained to deal with that.

I mean, it's hard to know what kind of company.

I had a cup of tea with your mum.

I mean, it doesn't lack a bit of...

lacks a bit of freedom, doesn't it?

Anyway, thank you very much for coming.

We'll see you all next year.

Bless the producer, Nishku Mohano Apollo.

Good night.

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.