Bonus Bugle – Space Gravy

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers, I am renowned Bugle co-host Andy Zaltzman and I am very disappointed to report that I am further away from the British throne than I was last time I spoke to you.

Welcome to Bugle 4066 sub-episode I for I tell you something the bugle is coming to America not only for the Radiotopia tour to which an extra New York date has been added in Brooklyn on the 10th of May but also for three live bugle shows in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle on the 15th, 17th and 19th of May.

More details to follow later in the show and that is the longest ever sub-episode title in the history of this proud podcasting franchise.

Of course there is no real need for a full bugle this week anyway because the Korean crisis is over.

Hooray and everyone is going to live everywhere in absolutely all manner of peace and harmony forevermore.

Literally pieces and harmonies pinging off in all directions across the world.

Do be careful if you are out and about.

You catch one of those full in the face and you might actually become too peaceful and or harmonious or harmonicous for the rest of your life.

So instead we are going to delve backwards in time to that cursed pre-eternal peace period of just a few days ago for some more choice chunks from the bugle live shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and even further back in our latest installments of what the hell was going on X years ago precisely, where X is a number less than or equal to the number of years the Bugle has now existed.

Let's start where X equals 10 and go back to 2008 and Bugle 26.

There was a world food crisis going on then.

Any guesses?

Which social group was the worst affected by that crisis?

Was it A, the rich, or B, the poor?

Let's find out.

The head of the UN World Food Programme this week described the current global food shortages as a silent tsunami which knows no borders sweeping the world.

That is a beautifully articulated and deeply depressing point, but I'm afraid it's not true.

For this tsunami is a clear respecter of borders.

Proven by the fact that whilst countries around the developing world are rioting in the streets in the face of malnutrition and hunger, we've only recently started to pay attention because pizza's just got a bit more expensive.

Food could actually soon be a thing of the past.

In Britain, the family food shop has gone up £15 a week on average.

And let's not forget, John, here in Britain, we don't get tasty tidbits airdropped on us like the starving Africans do.

That's true.

And yet you don't see journalists reporting about that, do you?

No, you know, you know.

Cost has gone up 40% worldwide since mid-2007.

And there have been these riots and protests in Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Egypt, many other countries that the West would love to care about but just can't.

We've got a lot on our mind at the moment.

We'll get around to it.

The neediness is a real turn off though.

Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, also issued warnings about the current expansion of biofuels which converts cereals into fuel.

And could this be the biggest you yet to the developing world?

Not only have we gorged ourselves to morbidly obese levels, now we are burning food as well.

Ethanol production is on course to to account for some 30% of the US maize crop by 2010, dramatically curtailing the amount of land available for food crops.

We would rather have fuel than food.

People will go to restaurants in the future to have their meal set on fire in front of them.

Then they'll just sit back with a napkin in their lap, watch it burn, pronounce it delicious, tip the waiter and leave.

I mean, I don't understand why this is a problem, John.

You would have thought that in an era where the world population is soaring upwards and the pressure on global food production is increasing that using a large chunk of the world's agricultural land to make stuff for our cars you'd thought that would be fine but what's wrong with that you know the the bottom line is someone has got the maths wrong my theory is though that the world's poor as always are copying it right in the nadges but they must have developed an immunity to it by now surely i mean we spent the last two and a half thousand years lining them up against the wall running straight at them and flacking them in the plums with a cricket bat surely they can barely even feel anything now.

These people don't need food.

They don't need food.

And if we can just starve off the excess 30% who use a disproportionate 1% of the food and energy of the world, then, you know, no one would have a problem.

Is that wrong?

We might need a running translation for any American listeners there as to what nudges and plums refer to.

Although, to be honest, I think you can probably guess.

The truth is, Andy, is like the old saying goes, you reap what you sow.

And when you sow the seeds of global inequality, don't act surprised with what sprouts up come harvest time.

Also, John, I don't see why it should always be us in the West that has to change our behaviour.

Why should it be us that has to use these renewable energies instead of food-based car fuel?

Why can't the poor people of the world learn to eat the wind and the sun?

That's not unreasonable.

There have been rice riots around the world.

Who would have thought, John, that rice would be so popular?

I've always found it a bit dull as a staple.

I mean, I could live without rice, but it turns out the people of Haiti and the Philippines are fussier eaters than me.

Yeah, there are people now illegally hoarding rice in the Philippines to force the price up.

So, rice really has become the new gold.

Rappers are going to start waving packets of rice around in their videos.

Strip clubs are going to be full of businessmen emptying rice into the G-strings of lap dancers.

It's mo rice, mo problems, Andy.

It's like the Wu-Tang clan nearly said, rice rules everything around me.

And at the Olympics, at the Olympics in Beijing this year, all winning confessors will merely have a risotto poured over their heads.

That was 2008.

Let's pop forward to 2018.

And just a few days ago, in Melbourne, the Bugle Live, featuring Tom Ballard and Aditi Mittal.

We gotta do

Old Mate in Space, I reckon.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so, well, Old Mate in Space.

Yeah, why do you want to tip the joke?

Well, okay, well, Aditi, will you talk us through this crucial breakthrough for the future of our great species?

As the space correspondent of the show, oh, sorry, as the sperm correspondent of the show, there has been the launch of

SpaceX's dragon cargo craft that sent frozen human and bull sperm to the International Space Station to see how weightlessness affects the little swimmers.

And this is really cool.

I think this is,

like, I can't wait for this to be a success because this is going to be like the wank that saved humanity.

That is a headline waiting to be nightly, 9 p.m.

Maybe CDU.

I can see that as a film being released next Anzac Day.

Oh, I get released.

Oh, I get it now.

No, no, no, no, no, no, that was not.

Not that kind of show.

I get it now.

I think I'm also thrilled.

I think this is the ultimate answer to every time a guy, like you're having sex with him and he's like, where do I come?

I'm like, outer space.

I think this is terrible.

Isn't it man and bullsperm going to space?

This is why we shouldn't have gay marriage, people.

It's a slippery slope.

All I'm hearing there is space minotaur.

How cool would that be?

Shouldn't they send like an egg or two into space to check?

Maybe.

That is feminism gone mad.

Step by step.

This is also depressing for me.

I haven't had a boyfriend for ages.

It's very depressing when you learn that space is getting more man gravy than you are.

I just think it's like a shitty experiment made up to like to punish the least popular member of NASA scientists.

They're like, shut up, Jeremy.

No one likes you.

You're on space jizz duty.

Go away.

This is like, imagine like going to astronaut school for how many ever decades and then having a window to the universe open to you and you're looking at some dude's gizlets and you're like, this is so sad, you know?

Imagine being on the station and getting a delivery, going, oh!

Oh, what could it be?

A message from a loved one?

A magazine?

My favorite treat from Earth?

No, no.

Some spunk and a bull jizz.

Best of luck with everything up here, guys.

Particularly in zero gravity.

One small step for man.

One giant...

In space, no one can hear you.

Come.

Well, I want them back, everybody, with some...

Good old-fashioned jism gear.

Right.

How are we doing for time now, Tom?

Still disastrously.

Still disastrously.

I think it has been since I've been involved with this franchise.

Since October 2007, you've been overrunning.

Shut up Tom you're on space gears duty.

Is that what the shampoo was?

Very good for your hair.

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Well, it's 2010's turn now and Bugle 113, which chronicled the final week without a Tory government in the entire history of the United Kingdom so far hopefully but also thankfully top story this week countdown to vote again

British democracy is back from the dead Andy that is for sure it's punched its way out of the grave like uma thurman in kill bill and is now wandering the streets more powerful than ever or at least more powerful than any time in the last 10 years

Where once the fear was that turnout could be around 50%, now surely we can dare to dream that two in three people may actually vote.

I tell you what we have to thank for this, Andy.

The same thing we have to thank for game shows and omelette whisk in commercials, television.

Who would have thought the TV debates would have shaken British democracy to its extremely dusty foundations?

All three leaders are basically in favour of getting the economy moving, which is good, I guess.

So it looks like that crisis is going to be averted, whoever wins.

They don't really like each other, that much came across.

And they're also not afraid of repeating stuff they've said over and over again, word for word, until the nation just gives in and votes.

And um Cameron has been criticised for crapping on kind of nebulously about change a bit too much in this campaign.

And to be fair, he did rein himself in a bit last night.

Change was only the 11th word that he said, so he held it back quite a lot longer than usual.

Wow.

And he also pulled off a clever subliminal trick to emphasise the need for change by doing a rapid off-screen costume change between each question.

Although he didn't really notice it because he changed into 12 versions of the same suit and tie that he'd been wearing at the start.

So the change was barely perceptible.

Did that reveal something, John?

No, because it didn't happen.

But if it had happened, it might have revealed something.

And that's the most important thing to remember.

Now, Gordon Brown has had an undeniably bad week, culminating in him being overheard on a live microphone calling an old lady a bigot, having just had a conversation with her that suggested nothing of the sort.

Now, calling a member of the electorate, a lifelong Labour voter no less a bigot is probably even worse than when John Prescott actually punched a voter in the face.

It's even worse than that.

The thing is that in isolation probably isn't that terrible.

It's just that it plays into a widely held belief that Gordon Brown hates people.

Now

if he doesn't hate them He certainly has an active dislike for them.

He'd have been a great 19th century politician Andy when you could govern from a wood-paneled room with a fireplace in it and you never had to touch any peasants.

That's right.

Well he has been handicapped in this campaign by things like the invention of television and the invention of photography and the development of human speech.

And it they've all kind of conspired against him and he struggled to convey his very important message of, yes, we're fed, but we'll be even more fed if you vote for these losers.

And

he was pretty unlucky with this this bigot comment, John, because someone forgot to switch his microphone off.

He was probably just winding down, bit annoyed after the last 50 odd years of his life, and and it and it just uh just came out and the press were all over it, John, because I didn't think you know, it wasn't that, wasn't that important, you know, it was uh it was the press but the press were all over it, like human skin on a cannibal's birthday cake.

And

and why was this, John?

Why were the press so obsessed with it?

I'll tell you why,'cause it all it was a faux pas caused by someone's forgetting to switch the microphone off.

And I'm sure all politicians say that in what they think is the privacy of their own massive limousine.

But the p the press loved it because it meant they could basically not do their fing job for a couple of days and just crap on about this comment.

But Brown should have dealt with it better.

He should have had more balls.

He should have said, yes, I did call her a bigot, and I stand by that.

She is a bigot, and I meant that as a compliment.

Britain was built on the powers of bigotry.

It's what drove our empire.

It's part of our shared birthright in this country.

Groundless and ill-informed prejudice that clouds the harsh realities of reality.

And I appeal to all bigots of all bigoty persuasions to unite behind me and the Labour Party and we will represent each of your bigotries to the best of our ability.

Oh I've got Andy I'm tearing up.

But he didn't say that.

What he actually said was oh fing shit bags that is all I need.

He didn't say that out loud but he did say it with his face.

Gordon Brown actually spent 45 minutes in the house of Mrs.

Duffy, the lady he called a bigot.

And I would really love to hear those tapes, Andy.

I really think he was probably just trying to convince her to say something racist because all he needed was for her to actually prove him right.

I bet he laid it on pretty thick.

Please, please, Mrs.

Duffy.

It can be about the Chinese, just something.

If you're really a Labour supporter, you do this for me, please.

I need this.

I'm in a bad way.

Or he may have spent 30 of those 45 minutes upstairs in her bathroom trying to draw swastikas on things.

Oh, what's this, Mrs.

Duffy?

A swastika engraved in your soap?

Pretty bigoty behaviour, don't you think?

You just did that, Gordon.

You've got soap under your fingernails.

Oh, please say something racist.

I'm foreign.

Let's pop forward 10 years to this year and just a couple of weeks ago in Melbourne, the Bugle Live, featuring Alice Fraser and David O'Doherty.

Let's move on to a nuts rage sister.

Now, this is a fantastic, fantastic headline.

Yeah, part of the joy of doing this show is reading the news, which, to be honest, I try to avoid in my day-to-day life.

But apart from the depressing reality of news as a product whose main job is to sell you on the need for more news, there are some great headlines, and this is one.

And I want you guys to guess what it pertains to.

The headline is simply, This Nutrage sister apologises for tantrum.

Right, did someone steal all the macadamias in the convent?

No, close.

No, it was macadamias.

David?

Was You know the way you see a car sometimes shaped like a roller skate?

Was there a car shaped like a huge walnut and someone was driving it and got angry and jumped out?

You know what?

Yes.

Was it.

Because I also heard that the Nutrage Sisters were a radical feminist group in 1830s New York who would castrate wearisome gentlemen and replace their gonads with walnuts.

Another ball tampering crisis.

So, what?

South Korean police launched an inquiry into the sister of Korean heirs' infamous nutrage heiress, again, not explained,

on Friday over claims that she hurled water into a man's face during a business meeting.

So, these are two sisters, one of whom, the elder,

Cho,

made global headlines in 2014 when she angrily kicked a cabin crew member off a plane, presumably when it was on the ground, after being served macadamia nuts in a bag rather than a bowl.

Right.

Well, I mean, you've got to draw a line somewhere, haven't you?

You sisters have suffered enough.

Is this some kind of branch of the Me Too campaign?

Well, it's coming.

It's good to be, you know, to be passionate about things you truly believe in, whether that's

the future of humanity or the best way to serve a macadamia nut.

Also, tales of really rich posh people losing their.

Let's do a little

quick bit to the Commonwealth.

Can you get it back to the Commonwealth Games a bit?

So, have you been enjoying the Commonwealth Games here in Australia?

No, I mean, I think it's a lovely event because clearly, speaking as a British person, there were during the course of our imperial history certain, shall we say, procedural glitches that appear to have slightly riled some of our former imperial partners.

And what finer way to apologise for that than by not apologising for it

and instead having a quadrennial sports day?

I mean, what what more could Britain do, really?

And it's um

it's uh it's uh it's been wo- is this working again, Tom?

Uh it's been uh it's been wonderful to see uh to see uh to let's see, where do we go?

Oh, yeah, here we go.

So I've gone the wrong way now.

So um

now what?

Move it on.

Can you just move it on to the uh the next uh

I mean really I probably should have practised this a little bit more, But

I got so excited at finally learning to use PowerPoint that.

Can you?

Yeah, yeah, it's crashed now.

Awesome.

Ah, what?

Right, but I mean, I think we've seen the amazing influence of technology in sport because.

Oh, we brought that back.

There we go.

Share the flames.

Right.

Could you address your concerns to the ABC IT department?

There we go.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, there's a little Commonwealth Games graphic for you there.

Let's see.

Just

click it on, Tom.

And for those of you who have been watching the Australian coverage, you've got a full map of the...

We've had a few font issues as well.

For those of you who've been watching the Australian coverage, here is the Australian TV sports coverage map of the Commonwealth.

And it shows amazing technology available now.

They've managed to show the entire Commonwealth Games and edit out anyone not wearing yellow.

It's been absolutely sensational.

Sensational technology.

David, as

Ireland just missed out on qualification, I think.

Yeah, having left the Commonwealth in 1948.

Bad luck that we, yeah, I mean,

it feels good.

Post-colonial country, you know, we don't have the little thing in the top left-hand corner of our flag.

I'm here, but I'm not, you know.

I see the red man, I just see the queen there.

I'm not waiting for you to change.

I just walk across the road.

Sure, I nearly get hit by stuff, but I'm making a point.

So, back to the present day, and the end of global war seems a really nice thing for everyone, and a good opportunity to tell you about the very, very impending bugle jaunt to America.

From the 7th to the 13th of May, Helen

Zlatsdam, did I pronounce Zoltzmann, and I will be part of the fantastic Radiotopia live tour.

Coming to, have you got your pens at the ready?

Atlanta, Durham, Washington DC Brooklyn New York and Boston radiotopia.fm slash live for tickets and information and then trumpets please thank you the Bugle live will be twanging its way west for the first ever American shows of what is the only and my favourite live audience version of this podcast the Bugle live we are at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco on the 15th of May the Alberta Rose in Portland on the 17th of May and then the Neptune in Seattle on the 19th then I'm toddling off home do please come along.

Appearing live with me will be Helen plus live via video link up thanks to the benevolent witchcraftery of the internet, the wonderful Alice Fraser.

Before that, if you're listening in New Zealand or going there pretty damn soon or in the recent past, depending on when you're listening to this, I'll be doing my right questions, wrong answer show in Wellington on Monday the 30th of April, and then Auckland on Tuesday and Wednesday the 1st and 2nd of May.

Details at the New Zealand Comedy Festival website.

Thanks to everyone who came to see the show in Melbourne and Sydney, and to everyone who will come to see the show in future at the Edinburgh Festival from the 15th to the 26th of August.

There are more Bugle live shows in London at the Udder Belly on the 5th of June and the 10th of July and in Edinburgh on the 15th and 22nd of August.

Enough plugging, let's play you out with something from around this time of year in 2012, shortly after the death of one very, very naughty man indeed.

Happy death anniversary!

And look, I'm sure that there were some people who forgot Andy and desperately had to run to the the shop on their way home to get a sad bunch of wilting flowers.

But this week was the one-year anniversary of bin Laden getting shot in the face.

And what a happy day it was, Andy.

One of the best uses for high-velocity pointy metal that humanity has ever had.

It is amazing to me.

that the greetings card industry left this anniversary alone.

They've managed to commercialize almost every other course for celebration.

And the fact that there was not a one-year assassination anniversary line of cards is a little confusing to me.

It barely seems 12 months ago that we were glad to see him go.

We really found the perfect place to put that bullet in that face.

We all wished him the worst of health, wanted so much for him to go f himself.

And now he's gone, the world is better.

And I thought I'd write you this letter.

For 12 months ago, together we said, Ding-dong, the douche is dead.

Happy death aversary from mom.

Now,

I don't know how you chose to celebrate, Andy.

I know that many people here in America chose to head down to SeaWorld in Florida to see a recreation of the daring operation by their incredible SEAL Team Six.

It's basically six SEALs in night vision goggles, Andy, with plastic machine guns storming an inflatable version of the Abad Abad compound that's floating in the middle of their pool.

And they use their guns to shoot sucker darts at another SEAL wearing a long beard.

It's incredible.

They are the best there is.

So it's become quite a political event as well.

I understand your president has been accused of milking it

somewhat.

Bin Laden is dead.

General Motors is alive.

I believe that has been the Democrats line on this.

I guess on the flip side you could say that also under Obama's watch golf legend Seve Balisteros is dead, but Fox News is still alive.

So

that cuts both both ways.

Sure, Gaddafi is dead

and Apple Computers are still doing fine, but also dead.

Brazilian football genius Socrates, Leslie Nielsen, comic legend, Liz Taylor and Steve Jobs, you know, have all made a positive contribution.

We can all cherry-pick achievements.

But, you know, still going.

Traffic Eura.

You know, it's

flip sides, John.

Flip sides.

The death of bin Laden was an event that brought the whole of America together.

So, you know, it only stands to reason that 12 months later it is tearing this country apart.

President Obama, as you mentioned, has been doing something of a public high-fiving tour this week, basically going around the country and saying, Watts got two thumbs and is feeling pretty good about himself right now.

Not bin Laden, that's for sure, because I f ⁇ ing killed that guy.

Now, he even released a campaign ad reminding people that Mitt Romney had once criticised the president for saying that he would go after al-Qaeda and Pakistan if necessary.

And this put the Republicans in something of a tough spot because the problem is that you can't say President Obama is exploiting having killed bin Laden without saying President Obama kills bin Laden.

And none of them want to say that.

Once the ad was released, it got so much traction that Romney was even asked by a journalist, would you have given the same orders to take out Osama bin Laden?

To which he replied, Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.

And with the greatest of respect, by which I mean with absolutely no respect at all.

That is the standard meaning of that phrase.

Whenever anyone says with the greatest of respect, it means that with negative respect.

Exactly.

The point is that's a profoundly stupid question to ask Romney because what does anyone really expect him to say to that?

Would I have taken out bin Laden?

Hmm.

Knowing then what we know now,

I'd have to say no.

The only issue Romney has with his past record of flip-flopping Andy is not whether or not he'd have killed bin Laden.

it's whether or not he'd have changed his mind two weeks later and brought him back to life.

Boom!

Boom!

Sit down, Romney!

He's saying he'd have been out there in a little fishing boat in the Indian Ocean

with a defibrillator.

I've changed my mind!

Well, if only Jimmy Carter had had the ball to take out Bin Laden when he was president, none of this would have happened.

Yes.

He lacked the foresight, I think.

I think history will judge Carter harshly on that.

Further details have emerged of exactly the circumstances Bin Laden was living in, which are not really

what you expect from an A-lister, as he'd like to think of himself.

As we reported on the Bugle last year, also, I mean, not only the one-year anniversary of the death of Bin Laden, John, but also the one-year anniversary of the first use of the term f eulogy.

That's right.

It's been with us for a year.

A whole year has been in our mouths.

Something that needs to be commemorated.

Yeah, so they're in the compound, and they found $450 cash sewn into his clothes, which, I don't know, maybe just like having George Washington's face oddly close to his skin to keep himself angry about America.

But that's an oddly specific sum, John.

Because I've been on the internet, and there are only three things you can buy that add up to $450.

He was saving up for a Nintendo Wii,

a George Foreman Grill, and a porcelain Chris Akabusi.

What atrocity was he planning with that lot?

Oh, God,

that is a fearsome list of ingredients.

And they found two buffaloes.

Well, you know, fair play, everyone loves jousting.

They found one cow, because there are two things we know bin Laden loved.

One, pantomimes, and two, realism.

And

I think we reported last year, they found 150 chickens.

And I've been thinking about this almost non-stop since then, John.

And I think there's only two possible explanations for this.

One is that Bin Laden knew he was finished.

He knew he was a busted flush.

The only way he could make himself irrelevant irrelevant and powerful anymore was by on the hour, every hour, getting six freshly laid eggs and crushing them in his bare hand.

Saying to himself, you've still got it, Aussie.

You've still got it.

That's what he was reducing.

The only other explanation, and I don't know how to break this to you, is that Osama bin Laden was holding a chicken fighting competition.

Oh, no.

Now, he wouldn't do that.

Well, I've done the maths on this, John.

I think with 150 chickens, it was most likely a seven-round knockout, Wimbledon-style.

Now, that, of course, would require 128 128 chickens,

but he probably thought there'd be some fatalities amongst the victorious chickens.

So he had 22 backup chickens to parachute into the draw.

Smart in the event of one of the winning chickens dying.

But the problem with this, John, is that you could end up with one of the chickens winning the whole competition, only fighting in the final.

You know, if the winning semi-finalist died, and that, I mean, that's

just obviously unfair.

Yeah, that's flawed, Andy.

But

I guess he wasn't really a fair man.

You know, that probably didn't didn't even occur to him.

And that shows you what kind of monster we were dealing with.

Well, Andy, you put a lot of thought into that.

No one can take that thought away from you.

Hi buglers, it's producer Chris here.

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

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