Bugle 4076 – Space Jam

The Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello,

Buglos!

And welcome to issue 4076 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a world whose total and utter resilience on the visual has become more and more visible as each millennium ticks by.

I am Andy Zoltzmann and I'm not not a cabinet minister in the UK government yet, but it could be my lucky day anytime.

Statistically, that is now likely to happen within the year, just by the laws of basic probability and

the current rate of governmental churn.

And when I get into office, I'm going to lick this fing place into shape.

This place being the UK, specifically, as it happens, we are in the renowned city of London where, disappointing news, this, a record number of people escaped the Tower of London last year.

2.843 million visitors, way up it must be said when its mid-second millennium celebrity hosting heyday.

But the escape percentage hit a disastrous 100%.

Disappointing total of zero executions or mysterious disappearances last year.

A full 2.843 million managed to sneak out again before the Queen could so much as read the dodgy evidence and probably forge confessions.

This country has gone to the dogs, upload Brexit.

Or the snowflake generation too sensitive to put their heads on the blocks and take a decent beheading like teenagers used to happily do when this country was great.

You did not get 16-year-old Lady Jane Grey whinging on Instagram about being executed on trumped-up treason charges as part of a political-religious battle for the future of England, did you?

She took her punishment.

Did Catherine Howard, wife E of Henry VIII's F-wife, we're doing letters or numbers this week, did she say, no way am I putting my head on that, that looks dangerous, and disliking it on spatula or whatever app young people use today?

No.

No, that's why we ruled the world 500 years.

Give or take.

Apart from the brief 46-year hiatus, when we graciously shared our brilliance with Europe, which will end next year, as we reboot the unsinkable juggernaut that is HMS Britannia and lick this planet back into shape.

I digress.

I am joined by a man who I'm delighted to say has never been executed for treason or adultery, which enables him to be here with me in the studio today.

It's Nish Kumar.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

No, zero executions from me so far, Andy.

How are you?

I'm well, thanks.

I'm well.

I'm suffering slight cricket withdrawals.

Well, I was just about to say this.

I've seen a lot of incredible things in my life, particularly in the last couple of years, Andy.

I've seen the sunset behind the valley of the mountains of the Sierra Madre.

I've slept under the stars of the Australian Outback, but I've also seen the concerned faces of a group of Peruvians as I shat on a mountain.

But none of them quite compares with seeing Andy Saltzman in his natural habitat in the commentary box at Lourdes for the England India One Day.

What a sight, Andy.

It was absolutely.

It was like I was like seeing a tiger in the Bengal jungle.

What?

Dangerously endangered.

There are very, very few cricket stasis in the wild these days.

They've been hunted to the point of extinction.

Yes,

I mean, it's a curse as much as a gift.

And for the first time on the bugle, all the way from the USA coming to us live from Boston, Massachusetts, the city where it all started to go wrong for America, back when they missed took a harbour for a teapot.

It's for the first time on the bugle, Alex Edelman.

Hey, I'm Nish, would you mind translating all of what you just said into baseball for me?

Okay, basically,

cricket, how do I explain this?

It's baseball for people who have a central nervous system.

Oh,

how dare you?

How dare you?

I have never been tried for treason or sedition, but in a gig in Dublin once, I did once say, it is good to be back in the UK.

That's as close.

I mean, that's as close as it is.

That is the danger if you don't write any new material for nearly 100 years.

I ran a similar risk when I opened some shows in New York with that phrase.

It is good to be.

If you said it's good to be back in the UK, most Americans don't know what the UK is.

So they'd be like, all right,

must be the postcode here in lower Manhattan.

We are recording on the 20th of July, meaning that, well, it's just coming up to the midsummer solstice for people who like to do things one month late.

It's a good

plan, really.

It gets some absolute bargains at Christmas.

And also gets you some very strange looks when celebrating holy the Hindu Festival of Colour.

Do be careful when smearing unsuspecting passers-by with paint in mid-April.

On this day in 1885, the Football Association legalized professionalism in association football and I mean that basically paved the way for players diving and getting tattoos as far as I'm concerned it's all been downhill ever since and in 1949 on this day Israel and Syria signed a truce to end a 19 month war phew I'm glad that little political hornet's potato was sorted out once and for all way back then and today is International Chess Day oh is it really yeah it is yeah a game I am notorious for describing as a way of encouraging slow tactical racism

If I may briefly quote from my own material.

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

Firstly, a summer holiday section.

Now, obviously, Buglers, you will all be using your summer holiday to quite literally flock to Edinburgh to see the two live bugle shows there on the 15th and 22nd of August.

And or my show, Right Questions, Wrong Answers, 15th to the 26th.

That's down three.

Maybe even popping in to see some of the various Bugle co-hosts also appearing at the fringe, present company included.

But what if you're not doing that?

Well, welcome to the Bugle Tourism Destination of the Year countdown from tourist hotspot 10,000 all the way up to number one in 2000's weekly installments of five tourism destinations.

At 10,000 this year on the Bugle must go to tourist hotspot list, cruising the Orantes River through war-torn Syria.

At 9,999, an environation cleaning up toxic waste in an African port city.

Or maybe you'd like to go for holiday 9,998, teach yourself freelance journalism on a working holiday in Moscow.

Maybe 9,997, two weeks no expenses paid, sun, sea, and sand in central Libya.

And 33% off, by which I mean there's no sea.

And 9,996 is pen pushing in Pyongyang, an immersive life experience holiday as part of the North Korean bureaucratic machine.

Also in the bent, we commemorate, as hinted at by Alex, this day in 1969, when apollo 11 landed on the moon in the sea of tranquility neil armstrong and buzz aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon six and a half hours after it landed what the f

happened in those six that's an entire day of test cricket excluding lunch and tea breaks what the f were they doing well i think they wanted to be the first person to have a shit a wank and a nap on the moon andy that's certainly what i do when i move into any new property.

That is why you are banned from Airbnb.

You don't need to say everything.

There's a transcript of this six and a half hours between the time they landed and the time they walked out.

And it's just each astronaut going, know me first.

Know me first.

Know me first.

No, I go first.

It's my turn.

I'd like to know exactly what distraction trick Neil Armstrong pulled on Aldrin to make sure that he was first out of the hatch?

It must have been something.

It's got to be better than just look over there.

It's a planet.

I think there was a gentleman's agreement between Armstrong and Buzz that one of the two of them would get to name a character from an animated movie some 30 years after the.

Toy Story could have been so different, Andy.

It could have been the story of Woody and Neil Lightyear.

Some drama.

They all had the nickname Buzz.

That's what nobody knows.

Buzz Aldrin, Buzz Armstrong, and Buzz Collins up there in the

lunar orbiter.

He was the brave one.

At least they had a buddy down there on the moon.

Michael Collins was alone orbiting, going, oh, yeah, it's Stark on the other side.

Yeah.

God knows how much he played the Nish Kumar card during

the only time.

Collins absolutely painted the walls of that landing module.

Oh my gosh.

This is not.

This

show is supposed to be about me.

Collins is the one that I've related to the most because he's clearly the one who was like, you know what?

You're alright.

You know what?

I've got to the moon.

I've seen the moon.

I'm not going to risk it.

I've seen too many films.

I think it's funny.

I've said this before on the stage, but I think it's funny that

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are two of the most famous men who have ever lived.

And Michael Collins isn't even the most famous Michael Collins.

There's a movie and it's called Michael Collins and it's about a guy who never left Earth and died here.

And interesting also,

you mentioned that the transcript from that Apollo 11 recently declassified.

Also have the transcript from the lost moon landings,

Apollo 17.

And no one knows the names of the people involved in that without recourse to the internet or knowledge.

And

the full transcript from whoever it was is this.

Another small step for a man, not really much of a giant leap, to be honest, for humanity anymore?

No one's really paying attention.

The novelty's worn off a bit, guys, to be honest.

There is, and please don't shoot the messenger for this, fall to do up here.

To commemorate the 49th anniversary of the Apollo squad setting foot on the big round bastard in the sky, as it was formerly known,

paving the way for almost five

decades of

people looking at the reflections and shadows of flags.

We are giving giving you the chance to be one of the next people on the moon with a special bugle moon landing competition.

Whenever the next lunar expedition happens, to qualify for an exclusive place as part of the next moon landing crew, simply buy a ticket to one of this year's live bugle shows or my Edinburgh show, then train to become an astronaut and reach such a level of astronautical skill that you get chosen by whoever's firing humans at an empty lump of rock next time.

And if you play an episode of the Bugle on the Moon, you will win a lifetime 5% discount off tickets to any live live chat shows, celebrity tennis matches, or gala film launches that I do for the rest of my career.

So do send your

entries into the Chinese Space Agency.

I lost 100% of that sentence after The Big Round Bastard in the Sky.

That is

the zero information from that because in my head I was like, that's a great name for the moon.

What does he call the sun?

Does he refer

to the sun?

The big round bastard

of the UN as Banky Big Big Round Bastard in the Sky?

The Big Round Bastard in the Sky is the least popular Pink Floyd out there.

Top story this week, and escaped American madman leaves Trail of Havoc.

Alex, thank you very much for sending your president to our

once running.

Do you know what?

It was all me.

Was it?

Yeah.

It was all me.

It was totally totally me.

I never thought I'd turn on

my cell phone when I woke up in the morning and say out loud to no one in particular, ugh, my president's such a goddamn idiot.

Just say it.

Just say it all the time.

It's just this light treason every single day.

Some days less light than others.

It's such a nightmare.

It's such an embarrassment that people...

People look at me with sympathy abroad.

They just...

People aren't even angry.

They don't know how to feel.

Yeah, the sympathy turned to anger pretty quickly this week because Trump toured Europe in the same way that the aliens toured Earth in Independence Day, in that he left a trail of destruction in his wake, was welcomed by some misguided buffoons, and despite it being over, there's a terrible sense that there's a sequel on the way.

And really, the only people who were opposing it in any way were experts and black people.

I have some sympathy for him sometimes because I'm like, look, I also don't understand these complex global political issues like NATO or diplomacy with Russia.

But then he's like,

I'm going to handle this alone or off the top of my head.

And I'm like, well, my sympathy is very quickly turning to anger, as you should say.

I missed quite a lot of it at the time because I was

still working

on cricket stuff and preoccupied with

my day job, or if the games ends floodlit, my day-night job.

And I thought, what would I find on my return?

What residue would the President's Europe jaunt have left behind?

Well, as expected, it was very similar to the residue left behind when you leave a puppy alone in the back of an ambulance for three days with nothing but a never-ending supply of sausages.

It was messy.

It was very

messy as an obviously brilliant but patently fatigued footballer, unable to stir an aging, poorly structured national team for the World Cup whilst running on empty after more than a decade of top-level football, but nevertheless, been curiously resigned to defeat.

But yeah, he uh he he turned up in the uk and uh made some comments about brexit which suggested he has absolutely no idea what brexit is he said there was going to be a lot of turmoil in the uk and then afterwards when asked about it he digressed into an answer that involved him erroneously claiming that he was the first republican president to have won wisconsin and everything he said suggested that in his meeting with theresa may he was frantically in the advance of the meeting looking at the wikipedia pages for brexit the united kingdom and theresa may and almost certainly opened his remarks by saying Brexit is the impending withdrawal of the United Kingdom brackets UK from the European Union.

Theresa May brackets born 1st of October 1956 is Prime Minister of the UK and is leading the Brexit strategy citation needed.

Well it's lucky got the right Theresa May otherwise that could have been a very different movie.

It's been ah strange.

I mean Donald Trump for anyone who's missed the show over the past 18 months is

President of the United States and also subject of a 10-hour Discovery Channel special in their popular How the f did that happen series.

Very much the unwanted penis in the pickle jar of international diplomacy and has once again fired a barrage of explosive turds into the pond of international politics, which is a delicate ecosystem at the best of times.

And one thing I particularly enjoyed was, and this was after he'd returned to America,

talking about

NATO, basically suggesting that Montenegro,

a small country with a population of around about half a million, could start the Third World War.

He said Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people.

They're very aggressive people.

They may get aggressive.

And congratulations, you're in World War III.

Now hell of a greetings card from Moonpig.com.

To be fair, we do have to understand all of what Trump does through the prism of domestic American politics.

And I mean, it is a fact that Rust Belt America has been yearning, desperately and justifiably yearning, for someone to roll over and be tickled by a Russian president on their behalf.

Just someone to represent them by believing one of the world's foremost barefaced lies over his own secret services.

Someone to wade into the Brexit debate with absolutely no grasp of the issues involved to help their everyday lives in Rust Belt America to, on their behalf, slag off the Montenegrins, because for too long, America's forgotten workers have had absolutely no one to gratuitously provoke small former constituent nations of the defunct Yugoslavia based on crude stereotypes probably picked up from an episode of 24.

Surely now we will see an unstoppable boost in productivity in the factories of Michigan now that the disenfranchised labourers there have a president who will make people in the city of Podgorica stop whatever they're doing and saying, what the f did he just say?

Yeah, so a quick, a sort of potted summary of what happened is he went to NATO and complained that the United States sends him too much money and then he came to Britain, gave an interview on the day of his first meeting with Theresa May where he said that

her Brexit strategy would result in no trade deal from the United States.

Remarks he was then forced to immediately walk back in the press conference that happened the next day.

And then, like my one-man recitation of Hamilton after seven points at my cousin's wedding, things went from bad to worse because then he went to Russia.

And, I mean, Alex,

is is treason on the table in America I don't know if we know what it looks like anymore if he said I am part of Russia now I am part of Russia Putin tells me I am part of the Russian government I still think there'd be a part of the country that was like that's still better than Hillary Clinton

I don't I don't know what needs to happen and it's it's also it feels like he will just agree with anyone who's in front of him because the Montenegro thing was he was doing an interview with with Tucker Carlson whose name is a bow tie yeah and uh Carlson said so let's say Montenegro which joined last year is attacked why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack and then Trump said I have asked the same question

that's a question that Donald Trump has asked himself why should my son

Eric or Don Jr.

Trump go and defend the nation of Montenegro?

He's really thought that to himself.

That's something that he's which son would he send to defend the nation of Montenegro?

Definitely, definitely, Eric.

I wish whenever anyone mentions, whenever he mentions a country like Montenegro, journalists should just have a map of the world in their back pocket and they pull it out and they go, point, point, point to it.

No, that's Central America, Mr.

President.

Point to where you think Montenegro is.

Go ahead.

Well, that sort of compliant conversational style is of massive concern to American diplomats and, frankly, most of the rest of the world because he was on his own with Putin for a couple of hours with no other diplomats present.

And the only other American in the room is a woman called Marina Gross, who is his translator.

And journalists have variously been trying to get hold of her notes from the meeting, but I assume everybody is trying to furiously figure out if they contain the words mocha video cassettes, which, according to Google Translate, is a Russian translation of the word urine videotape.

I tried piss tape in Russian and

I think I now have to set my computer on fire.

I always forget that I need to do private browsing before I start working on the bug.

I would say I think I'm on some sort of CIA list, but I think I might be on there anyway.

It's another one of these classic days with the Trump presidency where just when you think you've reached the kind of apex it turns out there was cloud cover and there is still yet more peak of stupidity for you to ascend because he's now saying that he's going to invite Putin to the White House and that was news to a lot of people including the director of national intelligence Dan Coates who found out during a QA with NBC and when he found out about it Mr Coates said according to the New York Times okay that's going to be special before going on to say if he had asked me how that ought to be conducted I would have suggested a different way but that's not my role that's not my job so it is what it is, which is Co did speak from the intelligence community that means, what the f are you doing, you stupid c!

Did you see my favorite line you've left out of Coates's of Coates' answer was, he starts answering the question, and then he closes his eyes, and you see something break, and then he says, say that again?

And the presenter tells him, the NBC News presenter says, what do you think of it?

And

you could see him want to ask if it's a a hypothetical but also knowing that if he does he doesn't have a job tomorrow

so I'm gonna have something to look forward to isn't it the visit of little mickey micro style into the white house it's gonna be gonna be sensational

the ex-CIA big cheese John Brennan um thank you for using his full title Andrew he uh so he was one of the ones that said if this is nothing short of treasonous and I have not heard words as justifiably strong as that about anything since Mike Gatting's reverse sweep at the crucial stage of the 1987 World Cup cricket final.

Never forget.

This is the hazard of bugling in the summer.

And it was interesting also that there was

a former Republican, chair of a Republican Congressional District Committee, quoted in The Guardian saying that the idea that Trump would call the European Union a foe and cotton up to dictators such as Putin and Kim, and this is the glorious bit of the quote, makes me feel like vomiting in my sleeve.

So this is such a profound feeling of repulsion from a Republican that

he will not even be able to get as far as a bucket or a toilet or even a basin.

Sleeve is the only option.

The only way I can get away is if he just vomits directly down his shirt.

It's one of the most evocative images because it suggests a disgust so profound and surprising that he hasn't even had time to make it to the toilet.

There's no bucket available.

He's just going to go in his own shirt.

Miss Burberry, the upmarket fashion label, has recently destroyed its unsold clothes, accessories and perfumes

by burning them.

They burned £28.6 million worth of product last year, quotes, to protect the brand

uh the bonfire of the vanity products uh i mean why

why oh man why can these not

if we're only doing this section for you to deliver that joke it was worth it it was a hundred percent worth it that is as good as big big bastard in the sky

well i mean why can these not be handed on to the world's less fortunate people rather than being what airdrops of twenty five pound sticks of lipstick could make the rohingya refugees feel a little bit special in their times of strife in the absence of any genuine international political giving of a shit while surely a $120,000 limited edition alligator trench coat would be appreciated by a young Yemeni boy who'd just been bombed out of his home put it to good use Burberry Burberry said they work with specialist companies who are able to harness the energy from the process which is great news actually for all of us who do not

buy or wear Burberry products because that is basically every time we don't buy a Burberry product that is improving the environment because they are making non-fossil fuel energy.

Every time I do not spend £1,150 on a £1,150 Burberry rucksack, I'm helping to create green energy.

I can therefore also treat myself to a whiz around the block in my diesel car for no reason.

That is a bargain.

And if everyone in the world stopped buying £1,150 Burberry rucksacks for him and £1,590 Burberry Cashmere ponchos for her, we could entirely replace coal and oil with rucksacks and cashmere ponchos as soon as the year 8,290.

If not sooner.

I'm worried about you talking about this idea, Andy, because I feel like the next time we bugle, the top story will be Elon Musk announcing a Burberry clothes-powered car.

Brexit news now, and yeah, it's still fing chaos.

As we head into the summer recess, that is the most finger.

Aside from any time I've spoken to you after England have lost a cricket match, that is the most fed up I've heard you sound.

Would have been so great if one day you're just like, Brexit, sort of.

Didn't think it'd be, but

it's all said.

I mean, it's pretty much turning out exactly what we voted for, which was

unplanned mayhem.

The highlight for this week, apart from a cheeky bit of parliamentary vote cheating, they have system in

our parliament where if you can't vote for whatever reason, if you're incapacitated through health reasons or geography, then you pair up with someone else from the other side who can't vote.

Neither of you votes, and so your lack of votes cancels each other out.

And this was happening with Joe Swinson, a Liberal Democrat MP who's just had a baby, I think.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Let me just get the details.

Yeah, she's on maternity leave.

Yeah, so this happened with Joe Swinson, a Liberal Democrat MP, who was on maternity leave.

But the person she'd paired up with did vote.

And the Tory chief whip, Julian Smith, who was

American listeners, we should probably clarify that chief whip is a position in the British Parliament.

Yeah.

I mean, the whips, it's not entirely clear.

Essentially, chief whip is

a political term for school bully.

Yeah, it is.

The chief whips, their main responsibilities are to threaten MPs, to quietly duff them up behind the toilets and to steal their lunch money in order to get them to vote with the government or with the power.

I mean, quite why they need to exist in a mature democracy is one of the most baffling things in our politics.

But anyway, this pairing did not happen.

And the person that Jotuns was paired with did vote.

And he basically said, oops, it was just a little mistake.

And I guess

in this era of...

I mean, it's not quite Trumpian level self.

It is a sort of British remake of Trump.

Like, it sort of involves stupidity and very, very low-level corruption.

But it does seem like the Chief Whip was pressurizing Conservative MPs, or certainly this one particular Conservative MP, to break the sort of agreement that exists within the House of Commons.

And it is, as we often discover when it comes to the British legal system, the problem when you never write anything the f down and you assume that things are going to get by on politeness and a chat over a tea.

It's good to have a constitution that is essentially a hunch.

But this is

this is still backroom maneuvering, though, even though it's based in politeness.

In the United States, this would be a deal.

Like, in the U.S., this is a kind of political maneuver that gets its own song in Hamilton.

And in the UK, it's out in the open.

And the complaint here is basically, excuse me, we've had this backroom deal that no one is supposed to really know about.

And my trust has been violated.

And Chief Whip is also a position,

an important position, in Donald Trump's Moscow Hotel.

Allegedly, allegedly, I can hear Chris's concern rising, allegedly.

Oh, no, he definitely got pissed.

The other Brexit story of the week is, I mean, look, I've been pretty clear in my views on Brexit,

but this is the first thing I think I've enjoyed.

like wholeheartedly.

This is the best Brexit story so far.

The government published a Brexit white paper, paper which is the name that we give for the start of our sort of bills.

Appropriately enough white is involved.

They produced it and it was translated into 22 languages only to receive according to the iNews website a hail of criticism and confusion from native speakers who noticed strange, obsolete or even made-up words.

So they basically translated it into a number of different languages and for some reason, presumably they use Google Translate instead of an actual translator, but they managed to misspell the word German.

They misspelled the word German.

In French, they translated, they meant to say Brexit in principle, but they translated it as principled Brexit, meaning a moral Brexit, which is the Brexit we may well end up with after all of this stuff is done.

And one

confused reader said that it gave the whole thing a mythic quality, which in many ways is absolutely perfect.

It wasn't a loss of translation at all.

This is bang-on message.

Strange, obsolete, and made-up words were used.

Leave that to Cricket, please.

That's my business.

It's a real googly, though, bold there, Andrew.

Personally, I don't know.

Wait,

how does Google Translate not know how to turn German, the word German, into

Deutsch?

I blame Google Translate for that.

Well, yes, it has to be their fault.

It's the same thing.

Didn't you use it just now to translate Russian P-tape?

Yeah, but we've gotten to a pretty good approximation.

We're still not 100% on the veracity of my Russian, Alex.

Yeah, every single Bugle show I I write, I put through Google Translate and back again.

And I have used a different language every week.

This week, Peruvian.

Is that a language?

No.

What I love with this is the Brexit process and the people in charge of it are so incompetent that three of us have just accepted as fact that they used Google Translate.

Fuck you.

That doesn't seem anything any f ⁇ ing stupider than anything else they've done.

What is fact now?

I've got no problem with this because come 29th of March next year, 11pm,

when we leave the EU, we will not need to speak to anyone in any other language apart from British.

And if you can't speak British, that is your fing problem, World.

It's not us misspelling European words.

It's them using weird words when British words make perfect fing sense.

In rappers buying news websites news now,

the 1940s French crooner Chance Thérape.

I'm not too well up on the rap scene.

Andy, you're lacking consistency in your persona today.

Because you've already revealed your knowledge of the significance of the teardrop tattoo.

So, Alex, as

our hip-hop and rap music correspondent.

Yes.

I am definitely the hip-hop and rap music correspondent.

It's me.

Talk us through.

It's me.

Talk us through this very exciting moment in the crossover crossover between rap music and local journalism.

So Chance the Rapper has had some issue with the press, and his response is distinctly Trumpian, which is that he's decided to buy a newspaper

that gave,

he got a bad review from MTV, and so he said, I'm going to now purchase my own news outlet.

He's from Chicago, and he's bought what's called the Chicagoist, which is very, very unbrand so far.

And

he is,

no doubt, many other celebrities will be buying their own newspapers.

But Chance the Rapper, who is changing his name to Chance the Rapper-Publisher,

will be posting chance-related news and

many other Chicago-related streams of content, including

including a focus on Social Work Chicago, which is a arts education nonprofit based around the city's schools, which is interesting because, you know, there are not many jobs left in print journalism, but Chancellor Rapper has decided that he's going to transition from hip-hop into the news business.

And I'm sure

many other celebrities should follow suit.

I mean, I can't believe Kanye's not now going to buy The Economist.

Yeah.

There was a...

It's a matter of time.

People are not impressed by this.

A lot of people have said...

Someone said,

and this is a bit of the, Chance says he's bought this in part because of coded racism in

the journalism industry.

And as if to prove his point,

the person that the New York Times

asked about this says, Chance is young enough to make mistakes on his own.

That proves the point.

It's an interesting response to a bad review, isn't it?

I mean, if I brought up every media outlet that's given me a bad review, I'd make Rupert Murdoch look like a teenager writing a blog about apricot.

And of course,

not the first time that someone in the music industry has bought a media outlet.

Of course, the 1980s New York crossover thrash band Stormtroopers of Death, they owned and edited the Tunbridge Wells Courier for a while, causing controversy when they replaced the very popular This Week in the West Kent Crown Green Bowls League column with a somewhat provocative opinion piece by a ghostwriter under the pseudonym Infidel form.

Unaware, of course, that the town had a long-serving Conservative MP under the same name in the 1920s and 30s, although that was, of course, pronounced Corster.

And reminiscent of when George Formie briefly owned the Daily Telegraph, the banjo-playing musical comedian and Lancastrian hat wearer was renowned, of course, for his hit song When I'm Cleaning Windows, which was written while working as an undercover investigative journalist

for the graph.

I think a lot of this sanctimony is just because Charles is black, ultimately, what is more American than a rich man with no experience in journalism whatsoever buying a fing newspaper?

Chance the rapper is just Jeff Bezos with better beats.

Your emails, and this came in from Yorgo, who writes, hello, Andy.

I'm writing from Indiana over in the festering swamps of Trumpsylvania.

Having just watched England against Belgium heroically avoiding the urge to reenact the current political situation by slamming goal after goal into their own net while smashing cleats first into their teammates' testicles and instead merely losing a respectable 2-0 match, I went back and listened to the 2014 Bugle World Cup podcast featuring Andy and defrocked bugler John the Apostate.

In it, Andy is asked who will be blamed for England's future defeat in the 2018 World Cup.

He correctly predicted Raheem Sterling.

Now, while Raheem did not have a singular glorious flame-out as Andy had hinted he might, he did show a constant and infuriating need to drible the ball past defenders, get deep into prime goal scoring area, and then deflate the ball, sit on it, or wave for an opposing player to lightly roll him off and continue playing the other direction.

Being American, I don't have much experience shouting about English footballers, but as the tournament wore on, I found myself cursing Sterling with a clockwork regularity as he swallowed the ball and held it up half-digested, only to have it kicked out from his gullet by an understandably testy Croatian or Belgian.

So presuming Andy's clevaunch and all things sport-related, what are his predictions for future World Cups, England football and Raheem Sterling's ability to deliver anything before it is narrowly too late?

Well, I think there's a good chance that Sterling is going to

double scapegoat in 2022.

He did seem to get blamed an awful lot despite playing ostensibly reasonably well.

Reasonably well, actually.

Yeah,

I'm not sure that I was watching the same game as a lot of England fans.

I thought Sterling played alright.

I mean, I think the mistake he made was not to be the penalty taker and flute goals off the back of his leg.

Yeah, yeah.

I think he also made a...

He was great.

He made a very significant mistake, and it really is a schoolboy error.

He did not have the foresight to be born a white man.

It's a real...

I mean...

If he's shanked any open goal, it's that one.

Yeah.

A lot of this.

I mean, that is a bit rich coming from you, Nish.

We all make mistakes, Andy.

We all make mistakes.

If only it could be Nick Cooper.

It was so, for those of you who've not caught up yet,

France won the World Cup due to an interesting combination of

high skill and extreme luck.

Yeah, yeah.

But I thought they were the best team of the tournament.

Yeah, that's not what it's about.

And I was delighted with two things in the final.

One, I was delighted to see a team with as many black players as France have succeed in Russia.

And two, I was delighted and then immediately terrified for the pussy right protesters who got on the pitch because it has been a really good World Cup.

But it's important to not forget that Russia is up to some fing nasty shit.

Oh, no, it's important to forget that because that's what sport is all about.

I was like,

that streaker is certainly smiling a lot for someone who's going to spend the rest of their lives in a gulag.

I mean, I've not been so immediately terrified for a woman since Trump met the Queen.

Yeah, very brave of the pussy ride.

Just a quick other sporting news: the Open Golf Championship is on at Carl Nussy this week at the moment.

As we speak, the Americans Chug Vomitain III, Flaxon Glabard, and Popper Cuddles are leading the way at 300 par.

We'll have a full report from the end of the tournament when we're back in August.

So the Bugle Summer Break is coming up.

We will be off duty, stroke on holiday for the next three weeks.

And then we will return with the live bugle from Edinburgh on August the 15th.

There is another live bugle on the 22nd, which will feature Nish.

Alex, you're doing one of the ones in Edinburgh as well, aren't you?

I am, thank you.

Yes, I can't remember which.

I can't remember which one off the top of my head.

The continued slick booking policy of Andy Saltzman.

Anyway, do come along.

Alice Fraser is also doing the 15th.

I think you're doing the 15th, Alex, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

I think so too.

I think I am as well.

So do come along to that.

Go and see Nish and Alex and Alice and Anubab and any other bugle co-hosts you can find in Edinburgh and me if you want to as well.

We will have some bugle sub-episodes over the next three weeks featuring absolute prime cuts from the archives, stroke, other forms of bullshit.

Thank you very much for listening.

Do keep your emails coming in to hellobuglers at thebuglepodcast.com.

Thank you for listening.

Until the other side of summer, 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.