Bugle 4070 – Tit for Tat

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 4070 of The Bugle, the world's single reliable source of 100%edly reliable anti-truth in a universe of confusingly self-proclaimed fact.

I am Andy Zaltzman and if I had a pound for every time someone has asked me for the secrets of how my hair looks so amazing, sorry, this is a podcast, isn't it?

For how my hair sounds so amazing every single week on this show,

I will be a very rich man indeed.

Joining me today is the woman who last time I saw her was about 20 feet tall on a massive screen in Seattle.

Rummaging through the contents of my shed during the recent Bugle Live show.

I will have my vengeance in this life or the next.

It's Alice Fraser!

Hello Andy!

Hello Buglers!

I am normal sized again and very disappointed to be so.

Yes, it must be hard to come down from that.

I quite enjoyed being a giant human being.

I think I always think of myself as bigger than I am.

Right.

And so it's always a disappointment to find myself the same size as I always have been.

You can buy, you could try using a some kind of massive prism.

to just you know carry a large prism with you it would make you seem considerably larger than you are.

I could but if I got to the wrong angle on the Sun, that'd be toast for Fraser.

Yeah, life comes fraught with risks.

Anyway, it's nice to be in the uh in the same room and continent as you uh this time, um, and without you being able to uh delve into my filing cabinet and uh remove my deepest, darkest family secrets.

Uh, later on in this week's Bugle, one, two, three, four, we declare trade war plus inflatable dogs, and would Jesus use a flying donkey or a four-legged aeroplane if he was messaring it up today?

And the world-exclusive Bugle World Cup preview supplement including part one of your must-have audio world cup wall charts but first as always some sections of this audio newspaper are going straight in the bin this week an economic section in which we tell you the latest pagan incantations to try to control the global financial markets including Igar Amnout Igar Faral that is a new way of regulating income inequality in a free market economy and Derg Falater Dring Alin Gluk that reduces corporate tax evasion Do try those while sacrificing some oxons, if I were you, or setting fire to something on a solstice.

It probably won't work, but it has as good a chance as anything that's been currently tried.

And also in the bin, a Showbiz Spats Supplement.

Well, Alice, I know you're as much

a fan of rap as me.

So you've probably been absolutely engrossed by the current spat between Pusher T and Drake.

Oh, Andy, I think our love of rap is curtailed by the fact that neither of us can really wear backwards caps because then the frizzy hair comes out the side and makes us look like a maniac.

But other than that, I mean, it's a live, sleep, and dream rap.

Pusher T and Drake,

two of my favourite current rap artists, they've been involved in a big teas.

Big shovel with Spat.

Pusher T, of course, so-called, because his days as a professional golfer were cut short by his tendency to push his T-shots into the rough on the right-hand side of the the fair, whilst Drake chose his moniker because he once sank a pedalo boat on holiday in Spain.

Currently, the big spat in the world of rap.

And I would tell you what it's all about, but I only read the first paragraph of the article.

But of course, this is absolutely nothing new.

Big show biz spats, particularly not in the world of rap and hip-hop.

In the 1990s, hip-hop legends Sniffy Kaye and Vial Koinks both received live bans from the World Crown Greed Bowls Championships after a spat that began at the opening ceremony of the 1997 Championships

in the all-star celebrity game, descended into overt gunfire when Sniffy K, real name Kenneth Hodgkinson, accused Vile Klinks, real name Ian Splint, of moving the jack with his foot, and it all broke down into scenes of horrific mayhem.

Also going further back, Brother Timothy and Brother Emmanuel, huge stars on the Gregorian chanting scene in the mid-11th century.

Reportedly, they hated each other's cows off Alice, the latter famously describing the former as a vinegar-voiced waste of a good cassock before Timothy hit back by chanting that Emmanuel had a tiny willy and didn't even like God that much.

And

also

Paul McCartney, the one-time beetle.

A famous rapper?

Not a rapper.

I didn't say they're all rap.

These are just, you know, Shelby's

spats.

Paul McCartney, the

ex-beatle.

He has had a long-running tiff with long-dead Dutch painter Peter Bruegel the Elder, whom he thinks nicked the idea for his Smash Hit 1565 painting The Hunters in the Snow, from an unreleased song that McCartney, the Liverpuddy, and Kroonster recorded with John Lennon in 1961 called Bang Bang Brackets Winter Animal Death Carnage.

Anyway, that's fortunately.

Oh, here's another big spat.

Carrie Grant and Kerry Mulligan really do not get on.

The old fellow resents the young female actress being still alive, unlike him.

Well, she thought his acting was unnecessarily stilted even allowing for the different production values of the time anyway that's celebrity showbiz spat section is going in the bin

we're recording this on friday the 1st of offred uh is that is that all right uh on this day in 1812 US president james madison asked congress to declare war on the United Kingdom.

Appalling behaviour.

Absolutely appalling behaviour, Madison.

You're running to Congress, you little squealer.

Declare war on us yourself, you 5'4-inch short-ass excuse of a president.

That was 206 years ago today, the War of 1812 result.

Low scoring draw after a prolonged period of extra time in 1813, 1814 and 1815.

In 1974 on this day, the Heimnik maneuver was launched.

for rescuing choking victims.

There was an article published in the journal, Emergency Medicine.

Cracking, read that.

Previous to the Hilomene.

Shame it only comes out once a month.

You've got to wait for the next episode.

Well, I guess that's one of the benefits of the internet.

You don't have to

frantically rifle through all your back catalogue quickly.

Quick, quick, subscribe to a magazine.

He's bleeding out.

Previous to the Hylomic maneuver, the accepted medical practice for choking victims was to turn the victim upside down, get them to open their mouth, and then send a ferret up their es office.

That had only a 13% success rate.

Support for the bugle is brought to you by Simply Safe, home security done right.

SimplySafe is really discreet and hard to notice.

Windows and doors are comprehensively protected.

It's cheap and contract-free.

Learn more about how Simply Safe can help protect your home.

Go to simplysafe.com/slash bugle.

That is simplysafe.com/slash bugle.

Top story this week.

Well, it has been a dramatic week on this renowned planet of ours.

All manner of exciting goings-on.

Trade wars, fake deaths,

Europe basically voting itself to the very precipice of oblivion.

But Alice, you have found the single most important story in the universe for us, as our most important story in the universe correspondent.

Yes, Andy, strap yourselves in, tie your hair on.

In Sausage Dog News Now, Trevor, the terrific Duxfund, has made made news headlines for being a tiny dog who suddenly blew up like a balloon, but luckily didn't explode.

The background of the story is his owners were used to him being one size, which was tiny, and then they were quite alarmed when he mysteriously ballooned to three times his tiny size.

Still quite small, bigger than it should have been.

Doctors don't know how it happened.

Vets used x-rays to determine that Trevor had punctured his windpipe, which caused his small body to fill with air, and he was admitted to a vet group for emergency care.

So what happened was the injury caused an abnormal collection of air under the skin, and

he blew up, really putting the

into duckshund.

Normally, in an incident like this, the air would sort of absorb on its own, but Trevor needed immediate help, and so the vets cut a hole in him in order to deflate him and stop him filling up with air on every breath.

Now, everyone in my news feed is circulating this like it's a cute story,

but it is a horrifying story.

What the f is wrong with literally everybody I know?

This is a terrible thing.

You can breathe your own skin off like a nightmare balloon.

I'm gonna have dreams forever about people flying inflated dogs through the park on leads with those yappy little rat dogs coming at you at head height.

They already think they're hot shit.

They're not.

They're tiny inbred disappointment wolves who free ride on human beings' infinite appetite for ass-licking sycophants.

We just keep them round to prop up our self-esteem by loving us unconditionally and in return we cut their balls off and thumb worm tablets into their bottoms according to pharmacy instructions.

I mean, it is a harrowing story, but at the same time,

dog inflated like a balloon.

I mean, what are you arguing with, Haraj?

It's a horrifying Zeppelin scenario.

It's just,

oh, oh, the dog manity.

Well, I mean, it does suggest that there could be some military application for this if you used

helium or even hydrogen instead of regular air to inflate the dock.

No, there's so many possibilities, Andy, and they're all terrifying.

Right.

I mean the dog's owner Jessica told the BBC his head and neck all merged into one so he was just like a super fat seal.

Well I mean two points here.

One quit the interspecies body shaming.

Seals can live how they want to live.

Yes.

There's nothing wrong with being.

In fact it's beneficial if you're a seal to be on the large side.

bearing in mind prevailing meteorological conditions and water temperature.

And also his head and neck all merge into one he was just like a super fat seal.

I'm pretty sure that's a direct quote from the book of Revelations, isn't it?

Are you saying Jesus ballooned that the nails introduced this scenario into his...

Well, they could have done.

Maybe that's why he

flips it off.

We're in so much trouble, Andy.

If God exists, we're so fucked up.

Yeah, but given the state of the planet anyway, you might as well take your

chances with the Almighty as well.

Anyway, if you have ever

deliberately or otherwise inflated a sausage dog, please do contact us at hellobuglers at thebuglepodcast.com.

What kind of interaction are you expecting from that?

At least we know where they are so we can watch out if they're coming at us.

Certainly if they did it on purpose, we want to know who and where they are.

Yes.

I mean, I'm not advocating...

the inflation of sausage dogs.

It sounded a lot like you were advocating the inflation of sausage dogs.

If you haven't witnessed an inflated sausage dog, I would like to know what happened and how you dealt with the situation in a humane way.

Ukraine journalism news.

And, well, this is one of the great stories of all time.

Arkady Babchenko, the Russian journalist and Putin critic, and therefore if we may add those two twos together to make the four of man who hasn't bothered taking out our pension because realistically, what's the point?

He did one of the most spectacular faking his own assassinations in the history of humanity.

I mean, the Football World Cup has not even started, and already people are hurling themselves to the ground, pretending to be way more injured than they actually are.

And Babchenko went down very convincingly this week.

And to be fair, the ref bought it.

And by the ref, I mean the entire world who reported his death as the fact that it soon proved not to be.

because he went full in on this

fake death.

He went public shooting, four shots to the back of the head.

Yes.

This puts Tom Cruise doing his own stunts into perspective.

It does.

And also,

I mean, you've got to admire the lengths he went to this.

I mean, understanding whether or not it was a good thing, a sensible thing, or an act of purest idiocy, I guess we'll let history be the judge of that.

But he didn't even tell his

wife.

So, yeah, he emerged at a police press conference on Wednesday afternoon in front of journalists who had been expecting updates on the investigation into his murder so they had been expecting some updates into his like this is a showman right here like this is this is like a punked Ukraine death version like this is a terrifying thing to do to your friends who were all there his colleagues were all there he apologized to the journalists for the mad fake out and he also said special apologies to my wife

yes I mean I hope there were very special apologies he said there was no other option, which I don't believe is strictly accurate, Alice, because I believe there was another option.

That was to tell his wife rather than not tell his wife that his death was not actually real.

Maybe she's a very bad fake crier?

Oh, that is possible, I guess.

I mean, she could have, I don't know, just gone for an afternoon out in the woods or something.

But he could have just asked her very nicely not to go splurting about it on Instagram.

I imagine

she'd have been okay with that but that's i mean that's going to put strain on on a relationship isn't it if at any point in the future either of them you know suspects the other one of not being entirely honest with the other then yeah i mean that's quite a big piece of evidence you can dig out from a back catalogue isn't it yeah like if my brother is late to lunch i replace him with a new brother within about 15 minutes that's

um dabchenko said that he'd watched news of his own death whilst in a mortuary which

I mean, that's the last place you expect to be watching yourself on the television.

I mean, not for me, obviously.

The last place I expect to be watching myself on the television is in the United Kingdom.

But for most people,

it would be

a mortuary.

They used pig's blood

as well,

which, I mean, I think if you're...

It's not co-if you're going to pretend to assassinate yourself, at least you want to

try and do it

in a kosher and halal way, just to be on the safe side um i i feel very sorry for the other corpses in that mortuary they've got to be super jealous yes i mean he's yeah but they've got to be some disappointed families

like mourning their recently deceased when our kardy babchenko sits up out of

tears the tag off his toe and says ta-da not dead that is i mean it's just like he has just sat down and watched too many episodes of a daytime soap opera.

Like pursuing this line of reasoning, he's just going to, next up, he's going to be acquiring amnesia and even an evil twin, a cliffhanger season finale, house fire and a shocking twist that'll be back after the break.

Like, what else is he wanting?

The pigs blood angle

I was not comfortable with

because, I mean, for a start, it's lucky that he wasn't...

Because the thing is, there were genuine threats on his life.

So it could have been that he was actually assassinated at the same time as faking his own assassination.

At which point there'd have been pig's blood everywhere which would have been then very awkward for the family having to say to each other well they ran a DNA test at the autopsy it turned out his real father is

a pig it's really not the way I wanted to find this out darling I think there

I mean there are some always some positives from these uh these stories and it's you know hard to know how that this will aggravate the political shall we say, tension-stroke war between Russia and the Ukraine.

But I think this could well be the future of assassinations.

Because essentially, this has got all the benefits of assassinating someone.

It gets all the media coverage for 24 hours, but without the ethical awkwardness of having committed murder.

So, I mean, I would like to see all future assassinations just done as a 24-hour joke.

But, I mean,

they need to get Ashton Kutcher in as a consultant.

I mean, it's not often you hear those words, and rightly so, but maybe you've got a point.

Of course, Arcadi Babchenko is not the first man to come back, surprisingly, from the dead and make a big song and dance about it for the media.

His predecessor in this field, Jesus Christ,

well, one of his big fans, Jesse Duplantis, the American televangelist, has

told the world that Jesus would not be riding a donkey if he were around today as a justification for asking

his followers to stamp up over $50 million

so Duplantis could buy another private jet, his fourth private jet.

I mean he's 100% right.

Jesus rides reindeer and delivers coal to naughty children.

What the ball flipping nutsacks is going on in the US media-based church substitutes right now.

It means he this is such a bananas thing to say.

A, he hasn't read the Bible.

This is what this indicates.

He hasn't read the Bible.

He's also somehow avoided ever seeing a nativity scene or hearing a Christmas carol or talking to anybody about anything ever.

Jesse DePlantis said God told him to buy a Falcon 7X for $54 million,

saying it would help him to fulfill his mission of preaching to as many people as possible,

conveniently forgetting the existence of the internet.

Yeah, buy a fking router.

Yeah.

No, jet only!

Jet is the fastest, faster than the internet.

He doesn't know how fast the internet goes because his computer keeps getting trashed by Trojan viruses from porn websites his assistant keeps accidentally accidentally clicking on ads for.

God had told him, apparently, and this is a direct quote from God via Jesse Duplantis: I didn't ask you to pay for it, I asked you to believe for it,

hence his followers have to pay for it.

I think that's the logic.

And well, I mean, it's interesting that God should have spoken directly to Jesse Duplantis on the subject of buying a private jet, because he's pretty sparing with his words these days, the Almighty Lord, and chose a slightly odd time to pop out of retirement.

I mean he didn't he didn't come out and tell people to stop killing each other.

Didn't call for the fairer distribution of the wealth of the world.

Didn't even clarify that on reflection he's really not that fussed about what people do and don't eat.

He's just a fan of the latest fads in food hygiene.

No, he broke his silence to tell a TV evangelist to buy a f ⁇ ing aeroplane.

This just

further evidence that God has lost his edge.

Arguably lost his marbles and should quit.

He just doesn't have his finger on the pulse anymore with all due respect.

Did some great work in the early days, the first six days in particular, coasting since then.

I'm going to counter this argument by saying Mr.

Duplantis has a point.

In 2015, he appeared in a video with another preacher, Kenneth Copeland, in which they described travelling on commercial airlines as being, quote, in a long tube with a bunch of demons.

And I've flown from Australia, Andy, and I can guarantee and confirm that they are 100% correct.

That is exactly what it's like being in an airplane.

So maybe the bugle listeners should buy me an aeroplane.

Do plantists claim that Jesus would not have used his trademark donkey today had he been around?

Quotes, he'd be on an airplane preaching the gospel all over the world.

Now, I'm not much of an expert on these things, Alice.

But I think if Jesus were around today, he would probably use YouTube.

and spend most of his time blocking people on Twitter who are questioning his validity and parentage in rather unbiblical language.

And also, I think Jesus is the kind of guy, I mean, he seemed like a nice guy,

very concerned about his carbon footprint, I reckon, if he'd been around today, especially given that, unlike most people, he would even leave a carbon footprint on a lake.

And if he had travelled by air, I think he would not have gone for a private jet, he'd have gone for a budget airline because they too, very much like him, very adept at turning tiny bits of actual food into so-called meals for many, many people.

In other inflatable inflatable ducks news now, Venezuela's currency inflation has broken through the coveted 25,000% barrier, where it is now more expensive to have money than any money you have.

Money is now worth minus twice itself, and nobody knows

what anything's worth anymore.

It's just

absolutely insane.

The suffering of the people is compounded by the fact that nobody knows what anything will buy from day to day.

It's almost like instead of being backed by a solid base like a gold standard or sterling or the honor of a good man, their currency rests on the word of of a self-indulgent madman who talks to birds and is also out of touch with reality.

Well, this would be the president, Nicolas Maduro, who recently won another six years in power in Venezuela.

How did he win that?

Well, in a free and fair democratic election.

That

not everyone has completely described as free and

fair.

I think it's fair to say with Maduro,

that authoritarian socialism is a brand that has been tainted by history, and he's not really helping

cure that taint.

No, he's sort of almost like when a guy asks you out on a date and tells you that he's in recovery from some addictions, and you go, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and then he does all of the things, including stealing your bed and laptop.

Right.

I'll take your word for that, Alice.

It's never happened to me, but I've got a fertile imagination.

So, if you're listening to this this in Venezuela with inflation at 25,000% plus, it means that if you're listening to this episode now, it's free, but if you listen to it again just eight minutes, 30 seconds later, it would cost you £799

plus tax.

That's a lot of money, Andy.

I mean, it's a lie, but the point stands.

We should point out that Alice is struggling through this episode of the Bugle, having been assaulted by

an army of Welsh bed bugs.

I had to decontaminate myself before letting myself touch London.

I didn't want to be the plague Mary.

I went to Wales and got bitten, covered in bites.

This is a terrible.

I come from Australia, Andy.

I've never been bitten by anything in Australia, ever.

And I come here to your apparently meek and mild country, and now I look like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

Not that there's anything wrong with that,

but it's not how I expect to look.

And it's certainly not how I expect to itch.

And I kind of want to blow my own skin off like a duck's on at this point.

In global trade war news now, Donald Trump got a little bit bored this week, took some time out from his hectic schedule of pardoning convicted criminals for no good reason to slap some massive trade tariffs, 25% on steel from the EU and Canada and Mexico 10% on aluminium to pronounce it correctly America

and the rest of the world has reacted with a mixture of

disgust and resignation that this kind of thing is kind of inevitable these days and as the old saying goes in the world of international commerce you cannot spell fundamentally wrong-headed economic attack on your closest allies without f you all

To be fair to America, they do have to be raising more money to pay for all those red cloaks and white headdresses they're obviously stockpiling.

But, I mean, does it really make sense economically, these tariffs on steel and aluminium imports?

Surely more sensible would be some kind of global tax on the sensation of a deep-seated unease about the future of humanity, which ironically would be self-defeating because if there was enough international cooperation to achieve agreement on how to implement that tax, people around the world would relax and think maybe things can be okay after all.

America, well, Trump keeps saying what a bad deal America has had from the world, what with its socially ruinous policies on healthcare foisted on it by powerful lobby groups in Botswana and Bangladesh, and its tragically unhealthy national diet force-fed down its throat by the greedy subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

And of course, it goes without saying that America's willfully self-destructive attitude towards firearms, its logic-to find commitment to slow environmental suicide, and its self-cannibalising political system are all the direct result of some international agreement or other about installing toilets and schools in famine zones.

America has had it tough, Alice, and now it's hitting back, big time.

Trump plays economics like my family used to play Monopoly, with just an absolute disregard for the actual written-down rules.

and a sort of a vague hope that it'll all make sense in the end.

We used to steal money out of each other's banks and it would always end up in a fist fight, which I'm worried is what's going to happen now if by fists you mean nuclear warheads.

Well, surely that's a far more realistic version of monopoly anyway, if you want to recreate

the workings of business.

Canada has not taken this lying down.

They have slapped tariffs on, amongst other things, yogurt,

soy sauce, strawberry jam and quiche.

That is fusion food gone mad.

As well as orange juice, soups, manicure and pedicure products.

They're now taxing American manicure and...

I don't know if that's just to confuse the USA.

Toilet paper, that sends out a very strong message to America that

Canada will not even wipe their asses with your isolationist bog roll.

As well as inflatable boats, lawnmowers and sleeping bags.

The three key components of a bid to escape America across the border into Canada.

I cannot wait for a world in which inflatable boats become a status symbol and rappers start bouncing down the street in them.

China has also said that it will stand up for itself, and it does seem that China and the USA are now at each other's throats like two top surgeons in a one-against one emergency tracheotomy competition.

If I may quote myself from many years ago,

and this is turning into a tit-for-tat

tariff scandal, literally, tit-for-tat.

China is slapping a 35% levy on American silicon breast implants, whilst the USA is whacking a 45% import duty on Chinese-made tattoo ink.

There is some doubt over whether Trump will actually go through fully with these tariffs because the Trumpian tactic is often to begin the negotiations

by, for example, saying he's going to stand by your living room window with his trousers down, grinding his naked groin against the glass while you're all trying to watch the telly.

Then inevitably he will row back from that somewhat extreme opening position so that eventually you reach a deal and find yourself thinking, well, he's only dangling his Todger through the letterbox.

This could have been so much worse.

That is from his book, The Art of the Deal, Chapter 8.

Your emails now, and we had this come in from David Michael John.

Beg your pardon?

Three names or two?

Well, it's approximately two.

It's the 21st century, you never know.

And

he sent us a link to the story of Kim Jong-un and the South Korean leader meeting in a bid to salvage the talks with

the US.

And he writes, I don't mean to imply causality, but the news below occurred just minutes after a pair of bugle socks were spotted in North Korea.

And he sent us a photo of himself while on a tour of the demilitarized zone

in which he went to the Joint Security Area and was in a conference room that straddles the North-South Korean border.

And he is wearing bugle socks on the North Korean side of that border.

As we left, he said a special convoy quotes came in shutting down all tours for the rest of the day.

So that is the power of the bugle sock.

Andy, I don't know how I feel about that.

Right.

I genuinely don't know.

I mean, I feel itchy about it, but I feel itchy about everything.

But I think I feel itchy in my soul about it.

I feel.

I mean, on one hand, what a great privilege to be associated with socks in North Korea.

But also,

who's listening to us, Andy?

Like, Like, are there real serious, there's real serious people in real serious places listening to this bullshit, Andy?

We need to reassess our approach.

Well, I mean, it's just if you listen to it backwards, it's all got absolutely rigorous solutions to all of the world's problems.

So, just find out how many listeners we have in North Korea, if you like.

Please do.

Well, we've briefly had one.

Um, do they have electricity in North Korea, or are they listening on hand-cranked iPods?

This email came in via the physical form of a postcard.

I think it counts as an email because it's the 21st century and if you say postcard, youngsters won't know what you're talking about.

So we'll call it an email, even though it was written on a card.

Dear bugle lords and ladies, please accept in honour of the impending one-year-oldiversary till the GB crashes out of the EU this clear example of a cock and some stupendous balls on display for any bugler to see who cares to visit this gallery.

Now this is from the University of East Anglia and it is an artifact

from

over 2,000 years ago in Ecuador.

It continues.

So let's salute the prescient Ecuadorian mudsmith who made it tin hats on Little Englanders, all hell to the bugle, cockadoodle-doo,

from

what's that name, Merrill?

I think it says Merrill, yeah.

From Stansted in Essex.

How would you describe this, Alice?

This is a okay, let's describe it from the top down, like cleaning a cupboard.

The top of it is like the top of a vase.

Clean cupboards.

I can clean everything.

There's a spout, like a spout, and then there's a handle, one end of which attaches to the spout, the other end of which attaches to what looks like a parrot head or potentially a foreshortened flamingo head.

Then there is the body of a bird, and then the bird seems to have either terrible club feet, three of them,

two bulbous club feet, and a large ball sack.

Or three equidistant.

That's the original version of the 12 Days of Christmas end of it,

or three equidistant penises

that have swallowed up its legs somehow.

It's described as whistling bottle as a bird on eggs or pods, which sounds like a crossword.

Eggs.

Could be eggs.

Anyway, there you go.

Do keep sending in the postcards.

This reached us at the

studio we record at.

Could I give out the address, Chris?

Sure, I mean, in no way was I creeped out by already getting that letter

before having given out the address.

Yeah,

I admire that level of research.

Yeah, we need more Bugle postcards to something else.

Well, so we record at the Something Else Studio in London, if you're that keen.

You can find it on the internet.

Something spelled wrongly.

You know, we have no downloads from North Korea.

No downloads at all.

We have, we have, and it's like we reach some important countries.

We even get some downloads in Libya.

Right.

In the last quarter, we've had 26 downloads from the Holy See.

Oh, right.

We've had 20 from Tajikistan.

There you go.

We've had 10,000 from Saudi Arabia.

Breaking news, the Pope listens to the bugle.

That's why he's so happy.

That's why he's such a chill Pope, Andy.

Yeah.

Maybe we should get him on.

Yeah, sure.

How do you, yeah, sure.

I mean, go to one of his...

He does those big gigs, doesn't he, in St.

Peter's Square.

Do they let women near him or are they worried that they'll contaminate him?

They could easily contaminate

contaminate a Pope.

Before we get to the Bugle's exclusive World Cup pull-out section, a quick reminder that there is a Bugle live show this coming Tuesday, the 5th of June, at the Underbelly on London's South Bank.

There's also another show on the 10th of July, and I'm doing a Satirist for High World Cup special at the Underbelly on the 5th of July.

This week's Bugle on Tuesday features Alice and Tiff Stevenson.

Details on the internet do come along.

World Cup section now and Alice, it's now just two weeks until the Football World Cup kicks off.

Or as I like to call it, balls, balls, balls.

In Russia,

the spiritual home of football in 2018.

And I mean, what more appropriate country could there be for a World Cup run by an organization that has devoted itself with an almost biblical level of enthusiasm to the art of corruption

despite that there is some football and I'm not as much of a football fan as I used to be in my younger days but I still love the World Cup more the idea of it in the actuality but here it is the Bugle World Cup section including a Bugle World Cup audio wall chart so here is the World Cup audio wall chart cut out and paste together all the audio clips you need for a full record of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

To start with this week, we're giving you the scores: nil, one,

two,

three,

four,

five,

seven, just in case, Brazil.

And also the first five audio national team stickers.

First of all, England.

Germany,

Russia.

This is just for you, Alex.

Australia.

Oh, that is

eerily familiar to me when I was a kid.

My dad only let us watch the cricket or the news.

And finally, the final audio sticker for your World Cup Walter, Sweden.

The other 27 teams will follow at some point over the next decade.

I mean, Andy, you were making fun of Venezuela for inflation.

I think that your sense of how funny the funny anthem is might be above the 250,000% mark.

We'll let history be the judge of that.

Look, I'm not judging you.

You're talking to a woman who just spent 45 minutes boiling her underpants on a stove.

So in other elements of our

World Cup pull-out section, there's a competition.

Do you want to breed a world-class footballer?

Then here's your chance with the exclusive winner vial of Spermatozo's from the World Cup's top scorer.

The winner of the Golden Boot will provide a test tube of his reproductory taddle poles poles for you to imperfolitate to the over

your choosing.

You simply have to answer this question correctly.

Is this handball inside or outside the penalty box?

Do

send your answers to us in whatever format you choose.

Now it's time for an in-depth guide to all the assistant referees who will be partially officiating at the matches.

We get to know the real men behind the natty little uniforms running up and down the side of the pitches.

And we look in particular at three of the top assistant referees in world football.

Chlamydio Ploplescu from Romania, likes waving a little flag, running up and down in the confined space next to a straight line and being shouted at by thousands of furious people.

Dislikes, war, famine, pestilence, and death.

Hondurubius Squalcino from Ecuador, terrific assistant referee.

Favourite pastime, judging whom a football last touched before it went across a line.

Least favourite place to be, anywhere that is not squeezed between the stand of a stadium and a football pitch.

And Wuszus Spruspuszkowski of Poland.

Biggest fear in life, not being able to express an opinion through the use of a flag.

And favourite phrase, that was marginal, but I think he got it right.

My favourite phrase to use on a date, Andy.

FIFA is a very interesting organisation.

We'll be looking at FIFA through the course of the tournament because we all know what the two F's stand for.

We'll just take those as red.

But what do the I and the A mean?

We will investigate and find out whether it's supposed to be spelt assholes or arseholes.

We look at the formations teams are going to be adopting at this World Cup.

Many sports these days like to mine the expertise of successful people from other sports.

And England, the England football team, have been having consultations and training with the very successful Team GB Olympic rowing squad and are rumoured to be considering facing Tunisia in their opening game with a new 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 formation with the manager sitting in a special little pit behind one of the goals shouting, kick, kick, kick!

France rumoured to be harnessing their national obsession with Grand Tour cycling and utilising a Peloton of around 150 footballers to guide star-ford Antoine Griezmann up towards the proximity of the goal before letting him spring out and smack it into the net.

Whilst four-time champions Italy will be lining up in a 0-0-0 formation after failing to qualify.

And we,

I'm as sad about that as they are.

It's not a real world, not a real World Cup without Italy grinding out a couple of nil-nils.

I can tell you my football strategy.

Unfailingly successful football strategy is going to the park, insisting that the bigger boys play with you until you can fall over the ball in a heap of tears and someone gives you cake.

That is,

every time.

Worth every time.

There will be full and world-exclusive coverage of the World Cup.

We are the only media outlets that will be reporting on the scores and matches during the course of the tournament.

So do tune in over the next few weeks.

Including, we will exclusively reveal halfway through July who's won.

Thank you for listening, Buglers.

Don't forget the live bugle show this coming Tuesday, the 5th of June.

at London's Underbelly with Alice and Tiff Stevenson.

Many other live bugle shows coming coming up through the summer.

All details on our website, thebuglepodcast.com.

You can hear Alice on

many podcasts at Tea With Alice and The Troll.

What's the troll?

Talk us through the troll one again.

Okay, so tea with Alice, I talk about difficult ideas with interesting people.

Troll play is where I take the manure of the internet and turn it into the flowers of joy.

We warm our hands at the bin fire of hatred that is the internet.

And it's me and Cal Wilson and Sammy Shah.

And it's a lot of fun.

It's very silly.

It's sort of gross, but very on brand.

Horrific things people have said on the internet.

Well, there's two segments.

The first one is our favorite internet interaction of the week.

So someone's come at me offering something in a friendly or aggressive manner.

And the second segment is an internet plug-hole of the week.

And that is where it gets incredibly interesting.

You will not believe what Mumsnet will talk about.

So we'll be back next week with a live Bugle from the Underbelly.

See you all there.

Until next time, Buglers.

Goodbye.

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.