Bugle 4045 – Calendar means Calendar

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4045 of The Bugle, the world's only and longest-running audio newspaper for this quite visibly visual world.

The newscast that fearlessly looks truth square in the face and says, no, not for me.

I am Andy Zoltzmann, freelance warlord.

Business, I will admit, is far from brisk in South London.

I am considering relocating offshore.

And I am joined this week by representatives of both of the world's two greatest latitudinally defined hemispheres.

Firstly, joining me here in London from the northern hemisphere.

It's the man who is to the bugle what Queen Elizabeth II is to wrestling a rhinoceros, in that he does it about once a month and does it very well.

It's Mish Kumar.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Buglers.

I was very excited to know where that

analogy was going.

Well, it could have gone in so many different ways.

It could have gone in so many different ways.

Given that you and I have both modelled our haircuts after that particular queen.

Yo, absolutely.

It could have gone in any direction.

I wear my patriotism squarely on parts of my head.

Not all of my head these days.

But anyway, um...

So welcome, it's been a while since you've been here.

Yeah, it's been a while.

It's been a bit of tricky week for me, Andy.

I was the victim of a cyber attack.

Were you?

Yes.

Basically, I've got a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old cousin, and they have worked out that they are able to edit my Wikipedia page.

And so, without wishing to lose perspective on these things, all hell has broken loose.

My Wikipedia page lists me as Nishant and then in inverted commas Nish Kumar because Nishant is my full name.

That quickly became Nishant Madame Lily Kumar,

who who weighs only your wrestling name.

Yeah, which is only my wrestling name is Chocolate Poison, Andy, and I think you and I both knew that.

But they started calling me Madame Lily about six years ago.

And Alex, you might be able to help me with this because

they are from Australia and I'd assumed that it was a character in an Australian TV show.

And then my uncle told me, no, it's not.

They've just made up a weird character called Madame Lily.

They also alleged that I weighed...

Was that not a Lou Reed song?

Madame Lily was one one of the characters in Walk on the Wild side.

Yes.

But it was they also alleged that I weighed a total of seven million billion kilograms, thus putting me at the weight of a small star.

They were swiftly.

They were both given a swift warning by Wikipedia,

which they didn't really care about because they were too busy laughing in my face.

But unfortunately, in the melee, someone else in the process doctored my Wikipedia page to say that I appeared in season two of E4's Tattoo Fixers,

in which I had a tattoo that I had done on a lad's holiday to La Rochelle covered up.

The original tattoo was of a crudely drawn stick man with a speech bubble saying a sexual swear word positioned on his inner thigh.

He then had it covered with a picture of a wolf in a hat and trousers.

That is still on Wikipedia.

I do not understand how that website's filtration system has not caught it.

I mean, Andy, Wikipedia is

facts.

The niche, this means you have to actually get that tattoo now.

That's the law.

Yeah, I mean, we need to check.

We do need to check

whether this is in

fact true.

Are you asking Mr.

Andres?

If you do the honours.

Oh

my

God.

We should move on.

I'm never moving on from this.

And, well, you've already heard her on the other end of the line before she's even been introduced from the southern hemisphere.

Currently in Los Angeles, the city of angels, although it appears some non-angels have infiltrated that city.

It's Alice Fraser.

Hello, Andy.

I am in a hotel room in Los Angeles in a robe because some irrational part of my psyche believes that my pajamas are unsuitable for radio.

Right.

You know, it's just difficult.

As you know, Andy, I'm sure it's difficult doing comedy with your whaps out.

Testify, sister.

sister.

So much nudity so early on in this podcast.

In a break with tradition, I'm actually doing the bugle clothed now

after Tattoo Gate.

So

what are you doing in Los Angeles?

Are you voicing a Smurfs movie?

Surely.

Just a matter of time for both of you, based on previous bugle.

I can't wait to be the first Brown Smurf.

Oh, sorry.

That was my wrestling name.

Brown Smurf.

I apologise.

Well, there's only one Lady Smurf, you know.

Is that true?

Which must be very uncomfortable for her.

Did she marry into it as well?

Did she marry Lord Smurf?

I don't understand.

How can there only be one Lady Smurf?

Yeah, you're right.

It's Queen B, isn't it?

Is it?

Andy, don't tell me you haven't watched your friend and former co-workers.

Look, I have it queued up.

Once I've watched The Love Guru, I will move straight on to Smurf's 1.

Even I've seen The Love Guru!

But that's only because it was such a valuable and honest representation of my culture.

Wasn't there a period at Andy's live shows where people actually used to give you copies of Smurfs 10?

Well, no, I have two copies of The Love Guru on

DVD.

One legitimate, one pirated, which I believe is the only pirated copy of The Love Guru in existence.

Well, appropriately enough that brings us on to this week's section in the bin.

Today's the 6th of October.

So this is the Bugle for the Week being in the 9th of October.

On the 6th of October 1927 was the opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent talky movie.

which of course laid the foundations for the Love Guru and the Smurfs movies with words being spoken in.

And so we have a special bugle film section going in the bin.

and well it's october and therefore all eyes turn to the ancient christian festival of halloween uh which we may have erroneously reported in previous bugles as having its origin in jesus's teenage years when as a 15 year old trying out a new miracle he turned his friend isaac's head into a pumpkin that has now been disproven um but anyway halloween fee films uh films uh coming out uh and we preview this year's smash hit halloween films including pumpkil stiltskin a live-action modernized adaptation of their classic Brother's Grim fairy tale in which a large angry orange vegetable blackmails a young female city trader called Miller who has been promised she'll be made partner of the firm and the boss's wife if she can spin worthless tech stock into multi-million dollar profits.

Pumpkill Stiltskin helps Mila work the markets in exchange for her firstborn child which as a city trader she isn't that fussed about.

She hands over the child willingly to Pumpkin Stiltskin and the rest of the film follows the giant pumpkin newborn baby unlikely double act as the cranky squash zooms zooms around the states trying to avoid having his insides ripped out a crude face carved into his skin and candles stuffed inside him bugle rating two stars also

count it chris this is the bugle record for the fastest i have had my head in my hands

also

Trick or treat classic medical blackmail thriller in which a rogue doctor on Halloween night threatens to infect the president with the infectious roundworm influence disease trichinosis unless he provides him with access to the transient reactor test facility or as it's known for short treat the renowned graphite moderated thermal spectrum test nuclear reactor in Idaho

I mean that's that's really got to be worth seeing and White House Witch in which an evil witch named Scraquita takes possession of the soul of the president and makes him do a series of outlandish and horrifying things that is all set to be one of the classic modern documentaries and was filmed over the first eight months of this year.

Also in the Bugle Film section, an exclusive interview with the star young British director Grellard Holliston about his forthcoming Smash Hit movie, The Prince of Tides, a remake of the Oscar-nominated 1991 Barbara Streisen classic.

Holy mother of God, you are playing fast and loose with the word classic there, Andrew.

And finally, in the bin, as films get more and more expensive to see in cinemas, we give you tips on how to save money.

Are you keen to see the latest action blockbuster but don't want to to fork out cinema prices?

Simply close your eyes.

Imagine another action blockbuster that you've seen before for 90 minutes or so, but with a slightly faster chasing, bigger explosions, and even shiter dialogue.

There you go.

You've saved yourself 20 quid.

And, well, this is the bugle for the 6th of October.

Some historic anniversaries.

In 1582, this day did not exist in large parts of Europe.

Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain all skipped the 6th of October.

Is that true?

Yep.

Well in fact they skipped from the they went straight from the 4th to the 15th Thursday the 4th of October 1582 was followed by Friday the 15th of October 1582.

Really?

They made up the lag due to the inaccurate measurement of years.

Where are you getting that information from?

Because bear in mind a well-known fact.

Is it really?

It is a well-known fact.

I hope it's not Wikipedia because bear in mind that website currently says I've got a tattoo with a stick man.

Well, I mean this isn't the great tradition of Bugle Wikipedia editions dating back to I mean it was right within the first couple of months I think we encouraged our listeners to get a bit creative with the Bugle Wikipedia page and

there are some relics of that still lurking around nooks of the internet including me being listed as a bassoon player on a Boney M album.

Well, I'll again throw open the doors to all buglers to do your worst with my Wikipedia page.

You can have another go at the bugle page.

I think they're slightly hotter on that kind of thing than they used to be.

I've only recently got a Wikipedia page.

Right.

So I'm still sort of in awe of the fact that I exist on the internet.

I'm very excited by it.

Buglers?

Consider that an opening.

See if you could get banned quicker than a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old.

Not that Wikipedia isn't obviously a massively useful source of information, like you say.

Yes.

Your mention of the film Trick or Treat earlier on

about

the risk of trichinosis, the risk of death from infection is actually low.

Right.

So why would you.

I mean, I'm not trying to pick holes in your plot.

Look, mate.

But why would my plot?

Just blame the.

People just need a hook.

I cannot believe the number of hours, Chris, that you have sat and listened to Andy and this is the first qualm you've had.

Everyone has their breaking point.

That's what the CIA and the FBI have known for years.

It says low risk of death.

It's a plot hole.

Chris has snapped.

I think he might have snapped last week.

Anyway,

1580, France followed

skipping the 11 days to bring the calendar up to date later in 1582 along with what is now Belgium and Holland.

But Britain only adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

Classic.

We hung on to the Julian Julian calendar for another 170 years.

And do you not think now we have to ask, given the age of Brexit that we live in, is it time for Britain to ditch this Euro calendar that we never got a chance to vote for and go back to the Julian calendar that made this country great?

Yes, Indeed.

British time for British people.

By which I mean slightly behind everyone else.

I'm not having a bad idea.

Calendar means calendar.

Calendar means calendar.

Exactly, Alice.

I'm not having some unelected Eurocrat tell me what day it is.

And on this day, in 1974, 43 years ago today, a little boy was born in London, England.

Who would go on to be reading the sentence to you?

Yes, it's my 43rd birthday today.

Is it your birthday today?

I've let slip my birthday.

How was that?

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

I've let slip my date of birth.

Which

I'm in showbiz, that's a big mistake.

Let's say I was born on 6th October 1984.

I'm young and I'm ripped.

And if any of you are trying to hack into my bank accounts, my mother's maiden name is Almohamedy.

Top story this week.

And Teresa May has given one of the greatest speeches in the history of the art of rhetoric.

Nish, as our official Teresa May speech correspondent,

just bring the buglers up to date in case they missed the lurk glory?

It was

Alice, Andy.

We've all had bad gigs.

We're all stand-up comedians.

We've all had bad gigs.

I'm thinking specifically in the case of me and Andy, Aldershot 2012, and a gig I did about six months ago where a man used the phrase, you, sir, are a

but

which really invalidated his use of the word, sir.

Yes.

But this was something else.

Theresa May was giving a speech at the Tory Party Conference, which is a sort of annual gathering that every political party has.

Party conference itself, something of a contradiction in terms, a little bit like fun audit, soothing nutshot, or President Trump.

But it's where an annual gathering of the political party, and this is a big opportunity for Theresa May.

She's had a rough old time of it, largely through circumstances of her own making.

But this was an opportunity for her to set the record straight, re-establish herself as a dominant leader of the party and prime minister of this country.

And I believe the technical term for what happened next was, she fed it right up a shitter.

Oh my word.

It was the speech was an abject disaster.

I mean, I don't even know where to start with this.

I guess we have to start with the fact that she had a coughing fit,

which resulted in her having to stop the speech in the middle and the Chancellor Philip Hammond having to climb over a couple of seats to deliver a cough sweep to her.

It resulted in several pauses in the speech, which the Tory Party faithful desperately tried to fill by giving her an impromptu standing ovation.

I mean, that is the living definition of an easy gig, getting a standing over just because...

Was they giving her a standing ovation or were they giving her Coffin Fit a standing ovation?

It's actually difficult to say given the behaviour of some of them in the week leading up to the speech.

And also the speech was then interrupted by comedian and prankster Simon Brodkin, who had managed to get fully accredited as a party member and managed to get down the front during the Prime Minister's speech and hand her a fake P45 form, essentially informing her that she was going to be fired.

And as he was led away by the police, who presumably were out having a sandwich for the previous 15 minutes, as he was being led away, he was shouting, Boris told me to do it, because of the various leadership sort of challenges that Boris Johnson appears to have been issued in coded messages in national newspapers.

All in all, a total cluster f ⁇ .

Yeah, I mean, that's in terms of speeches going shitly bingo,

she was really maxing out straight up.

I mean, the question we all are asking is: did she shit herself?

Right.

Because that's the only way.

That's the only way it could have been any worse, is if she just fully shit herself.

Right.

I mean, I did expect at once, well, you mentioned the police.

I think they were probably distracted by being about to storm the stage and arrest Theresa May to stop her attacking herself anymore.

I mean, she was posing a clear threat to the Prime Minister.

That is her biggest problem.

It's not challenges from within her own party.

It's not the actions of stand-up comedians.

Nobody undermines Theresa May more than Theresa May.

I just think it's a natural consequence of what happens when you do a seance and invite the angry spirits of Conservatives past to inhabit you.

Which is

literally embodying the state of British politics with the ghosts of dead, gouty old politicians clearing their throats disapprovingly through her hollow flesh prison.

That is the best explanation I've yet heard.

Yeah,

that is,

no one has got closer than you, Alice, to explaining what went on.

And then the sort of, I mean, the shit cherry on the fecal cake was

during the speech, there was a backdrop that said, I think it said building a better country for everyone.

And during her speech, the F in for everyone fell off.

The only way that could have gone better is if the O had fallen out of the country.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, arguably that would have at least been funny.

This just looked vaguely threatening.

Also,

and I cannot emphasise this enough.

F off.

The F fell off.

If you put that in a play script or a film script, you would be accused of a heavy-handedness beyond belief.

Well, this makes me think.

There is no way these letters falling off was genuinely accidental.

There is no...

For a start, let's listen to some of the explanations given.

I heard one conservative saying that the reason they fell off was because there had been too many standing evasions.

But they might as well have said the letters simply swooned at the raw political eroticism of another quarter of falling unemployment figures.

But

it's that is the honour.

You're too good at sex.

We have to stop.

Yeah.

Politics.

There's no way.

Have you ever seen a letter fall off a backdrop before during a speech?

No, never.

That was about as accidental as Laurel and Hardy dropping that piano down those steps.

That was more orchestrated than a room full of 18 violinists, some cellists, some clarinetists, some trumpeters, some flautists.

A couple.

I think you're aware of this joke is going.

But anyway, the point.

There's no way this could have been accidental.

Someone is clearly out to him.

And probably hadn't thought, oh, she's probably going to have a massive coughing fit and be stage invaded by a comedian as well.

So probably in itself, that would have been a used to a nice little, oh, look at that, it's a bit bit crap.

I think you've missed the key point here, Andy, which is that clearly they should have got a Polish workman to put that sign up.

The great irony.

The great irony.

They tried to buy British and ended up with slapdash work.

But, I mean, you think of all the times letters could have fallen off backdrops and haven't.

You know, Joseph Stalin, he had huge crowds at a lot of his gigs.

Did he ever end up standing in front of

letters on a wall saying the Union of of Soviet A-list pubics

no no yes and he had you know 500 because Kim Jong-un finished one of his gigs standing in front of all hail dear leader commander-in-chief who descended from me lever of the

and he's had 500,000 people marching at the same time whilst nuclear test blasting underneath the stage probably

um

well actually uh just to correct your facts a little bit there Andy his name was originally King Kim Jong-son.

He just wrote it out.

Just doubled down.

It was oh it I mean it was a complete disaster from start to finish and there are now serious questions being asked of the conference security because Simon Brodkin who is a comedian who I imagine is known to you as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's, I think he might even have be one of the many comedians who have at one point been my support act and gone on to

bigger and better things.

Well, he certainly really fluffed his slot supporting Theresa May.

I did gigs with him when he was quite new on the circuit, but he's got quite a history of

he does, yeah, because he was actually caught at FIFA throwing money at Set Blatter.

I think he tried to pull a prank on Donald Trump.

Yeah, he gave him swastika emblazoned golf balls as a Scottish golf.

So apparently, according to reports emerging the last couple of days, he used his real name on his accreditation.

So nobody bothered googling him.

And somehow he managed to get so close to the Prime Minister that he could hand her a piece of paper without anyone sort of rugby tackling him.

I mean, I know that there are several British stand-up comedians who would like to see Simon Brodkin get rugby tackled, but that's mainly due to the fact that he is notorious for overrunning his slot at mixed bill gigs.

But it is a genuine concern that he was A, able to get in in the first place and B able to get within touching distance of the Prime Minister.

And what's worse is that she took the form from him.

She actually accepted the heck off.

Right.

I mean, his impact was slightly reduced

as a piece of performance satire by a number of factors.

Firstly, the fact that...

Mrs.

May was already being satirised by her own throat.

Physically mimmering this spluttering incoherence and unconvincingment of her government's Brexit strategy.

And the fact that Boris Johnson's signature on the P45 was clearly faked.

I mean, that's, you know, they could have just, they could have just got an image of it.

You can get

an autograph on the internet.

Along with his mother's maiden name and his childhood pet.

That was a newt called f ⁇ .

And you can have a reasonable stab at his password, too.

I reckon it's probably King Boris I.

Eisen's ones.

I strongly suspect Boris's password is considerably more racist than that.

And the P45 form, that's the form you get given when

you're sacked basically by your employer.

Ironically, P45 was also the 16th option in a multiple choice quiz at the Tory conference and answered the question, how many more days will Theresa May be Prime Minister for

P45.

People said

this speech was described as a car crash.

I think that gives the wrong impression of speed.

and modernity.

It was more like someone driving a horse-drawn Victorian hearse carrying a coffin full of heavy rocks very slowly and deliberately into a swamp.

The perfect visual metaphor for Brexit, Britain.

Okay, so look, she had a cough.

You can't help that.

That happens to everyone.

She was a victim of a prank.

You can't help that.

That happens to everyone.

Cough.

Yeah.

That to me sounded like she was...

It was a kind of

kind of trying to remind someone to do something.

I think she had a big set piece planned.

I think she was saying the increased rate of employment provides young hope, provides hope to the young people of Britain.

Come on, you f ⁇ ing idiots.

You missed your cue to release the finging flock of f ⁇ ing parakeets.

Sorry, my mistake.

Are you suggesting she was queuing Brodkid in and he was late?

Oh, maybe not, Brodk.

I think she was definitely queuing in the parakeets.

Come on, get the P45 on.

I haven't got enough stuff.

All publicity is good publicity.

The actual content of the speech itself was as bad as its delivery.

Well, she kept on banging on about the British dream, which was clearly the sort of buzzword of the conference or what they were trying to get the buzzword across as.

But the British Dream, I think she was trying to invoke the idea of the American dream, but it's not something we really have in our cultural conversation.

We don't really identify what the British dream involves.

Well, I mean, I have now identified what we want the British Dream to involve.

If you really want to engage with the British public by establishing the idea of a British dream, what it involves is mild weather, punctual public transport, a hotline specifically designed for you to call in and have someone listen to your minor complaints, a tacit agreement that sex, whilst undeniably fun, should never be spoken of in public, and the ability to get blind drunk without any hangovers.

That truly is the British dream.

I think you've misrepresented it, Nish.

I would also add to that, whilst those are all valid parts of it, that is not the complete British dream.

I would also add picnics with marmalade,

people singing hymns before looking at a daffodil and eating a scone.

At some point, producing a two-footed midfielder who's comfortable getting and giving the ball in tight places, and the merciless commercial exploitation of Africa and Asia.

Those are the British dreams, Nish, as you should well know.

I'm living the British dream right now.

I was under the impression that British people didn't dream at all, that they just sort of regretted colonies past.

Alice, you are sadly mistaken.

If by regretted colonies past you mean regretted not having the colonies we had in the past, then yes, that is exactly what I mean.

That's definitely what I meant.

That is 100%.

Oh, wasn't it good when we owned India?

That kind of thing.

Yeah, bad luck, lads.

There were some interesting tips on how to deal with a croaky voice

during a performance.

The famous Radio 4 announcer Neil Nunes, who has one of the most distinctive and absurdly deep radio voices you will ever hear.

Yes, he does.

He tweeted that the Prime Minister should have spoken more softly, gone for a slightly slightly more late-night tone, suggesting take a moment, pause, drink, and it'll come back.

Very much the Boris Yeltsin technique.

Well,

answer yourself this, Salt.

Did Boris Yeltsin ever fail to complete a speech?

Judge him by his results.

Didn't he spend 36 hours asleep on an aeroplane at one point?

And a confidence coach was a report on the BBC website suggesting that she should have hummed to warm up her vocal cords,

which would have been great in the middle of the speech, wasn't it?

Hang on, everyone.

Before I get to the stuff about post-Brexit trade,

oh, that's better, right?

Let's go.

And

the confidence coach also suggested the best thing to do is to release your shoulders, ground your feet, and slightly bend your knees.

Which are also the instructions you're supposed to give a chicken before it lays an egg.

Oh my god.

This is such a shit show.

We are so fed.

Another explanation for the coughing is that I think she was doing a classic kind of bullshit cough.

She was calling bullshit on herself.

Are you suggesting Theresa Mays in like a Doctor Strangelove situation?

Theresa May has defended her decision not to sack Boris Johnson for making public demands about her Brexit policy, arguing that she does not want a cabinet of yes men and saying that she was showing strong leadership by having a diverse range of voices around the cabinet table.

Sure, if by diverse you mean out of shape old white men who agree on most things but occasionally have an ego-fuelled tantrum about exactly how best to screw over the country.

Also, as a side note, if you have to say you're showing strong leadership, you probably are.

That's the kind of thing you want somebody else saying for you.

Perhaps some sort of yes men characters.

Or, you know, ideally, it should be indicated by actual evidence.

So it's a bit like an excessive display of devotion to a spouse.

Yeah.

Generally, the sign that something dodgy is going on.

The minutes mahal this looks weird.

If you're happy on Instagram, you're not happy in real life.

Boris said some

extraordinary things, which is why people were calling for him to be sacked.

Some slightly curious comments he made about the Libyan city of Sirte, which he said British business people have got a brilliant vision to turn Sirte into the next Dubai.

Reach for the stars.

And the only thing they've got to do is clear the dead bodies away before laughing,

apparently.

Yeah, and being received with laughter by the people in that room.

It's quite an extraordinary audio recording.

I mean, that is as good a reason to fire the as any.

Like, that is, that he should be bounced back to his original job, which I guess is either rugby tackling children or being our worst national stereotype.

In Tragically Predictable American News, a man has opened fire on a crowd in Las Vegas in what www.massshootingtracker.org counts as the 273rd mass shooting in America this year.

I'd like that that website exists, and by like I mean it makes me cry that that website exists.

With

546 people wounded and 69 dead in October alone, this makes October the bumper month for this year, despite it only having been October for a week.

I think gun control is the the hideous mullet on the head of America which large portions of the country insist really suits them.

Talking about gun control in America is like

awkwardly trying to suggest they should probably get a better haircut, but they're all like, my founding dad says it makes me look pretty.

I think if Sandy Hook was not enough to make Americans change their mind about guns, nothing else will.

It's like you've gone on a first date and they've already thrown up on you, called their ex-girlfriend toxic, told you about their criminal record, reminisced about that time they were abducted by aliens and mentioned some severe erectile dysfunction issues and you've decided to take them home anyway, only to find out that they have extremely disconcerting body hair grooming choices.

It's upsetting, but you can hardly be surprised.

It's completely insane to love guns, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and the heart can have what the heart wants, especially if what the heart wants is a bullet in it.

Now, without wishing to go on too much of a limb, and acknowledging that, as a British person, I cannot fully understand the rights and wrongs of ignoring deeply harrowing gun death statistics for political and economic reasons.

Nor have I ever felt the deep freedom-fueled joy of communing with my forebears across the centuries by unloading a semi-automatic at a shooting range.

So, we can't really relate to this.

But the evidence does, without wishing to jump the 300 million guns, seem to be mounting up.

But maybe,

just maybe,

America needs to reassess the optimum number of annual slayings it should be trying to achieve.

And even the NRA, in the wake of this latest horrific atrocity, appear to be slightly softening their stance on mass death for all.

They are the humanitarians.

None of us think they f ⁇ ing are.

I think in a country where everyone has guns and it doesn't look like they're likely to decide to put them in the bin, it makes sense that you would also want a gun because everyone has guns and they're all completely terrifying.

I talked to a taxi driver here who told me he was an actor and he's never got a role, even though he's been LA for 25 years trying to be an actor.

If that guy can have zero grip on reality and access to a gun, I also want to have a gun.

The NRA's CEO, Wayne Lapierre, which is an unusually

Gallic name,

someone who claims to be upholding American freedom, was interviewed on Fox, obviously, and he, instead of sort of naming the Democrats, he went quite specific and consistently named Schumer and Feinstein before going on to criticise the monsters in Chicago.

Now, that could not be more of a dog whistle if he was literally blowing a dog whistle.

Like, he's criticising two of the most Jewish-sounding Democrats and the monsters in the largely African-American city of Chicago.

F ⁇ you, Wayne Lampierre.

Obviously, you cannot legislate for murderous lunatics other than through legislation

to

make their murderous lunacy much more logistically difficult to carry out.

But other than that, but with hindsight, if only the amendment mongers in the 18th century had been a little more far-sighted and added a sub-clause saying, obviously, guys, use your f ⁇ ing common sense.

If only.

If only that.

Fortunately, however, they were wise enough not to add a second and a half amendment guaranteeing in unquestioning perpetuity the right to eat delicious unpasteurized cheeses which are to

most intents and purposes illegal in America which has saved hundreds of thousands if not trillions of Americans from being slain by intensely flavoured camemberts or the soul-enhancing depth of a prime mimeet or even a cave-aged combat strength cabrales from the rugged mountains of northern Spain.

A cheese that can turn a boy into a man and a man into a cow, sheep, goat, cross-breed supermilk cheesenamo.

So, I mean, it's lucky.

They do sort of have slightly got those two priorities wrong for me.

And

I do know a lot more about unpasteurised cheese than I do know about semi-automatic firearms.

Andy, I don't think you understand

the American psyche.

If they allowed unpasteurized cheeses, people would be inventing attachments to their cheese dispenser that would shoot thousands of rounds of unpasteurised cheese into their mouth at a time.

Alice, just so you know, that last image has caused Andy to sort of glaze over wistfully.

Oh, yeah.

My greatest unpasteurised cheese moment.

Of which there are many.

This could be a new regular section on the bugle.

The day my wife and I discovered that she was pregnant for the first time, we went to celebrate at a very fine restaurant in South London and I ordered the unpasteurised cheese board for dessert and she had to watch me eat

a clatter of superlative cheeses.

Did you wash it down with a full bottle of pork?

On top of the situation in Las Vegas,

there's the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico.

This truly has been a tough week for the 45th president, both in chronology and quality.

I mean, Trump really is making Bush look like FDR or Harrison Ford in Air Force One, who I think we can all agree are the two greatest presidents of all time.

After a lot of prevaricating, Trump has finally gone to Puerto Rico and good news, he went and didn't call it Porto Richo.

So that is

immediately one in the W column.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Bad news, the Washington Post, this is a verbatim extract of their reporting of his time.

Trump passed out yellow bags of rice and then started tossing rolls of towels into the crowd as if he were shooting free throws.

The crowd laughed and cheered him on.

When he contemplated doing the same with cans of chicken, the crowd gently told him no.

He had to be informed that it was not a good idea to fling tin cans

at a crowd of people who have been forcibly evacuated from their homes due to a hurricane.

We are through the looking glass here.

What the f is going on?

I don't know.

What has happened?

We're not just through the looking glass, we're smashing the looking glass in our own faces.

Have you guys seen the video of this?

Yes.

He seemed to be loving it actually.

He did seem to be loving it.

I've seen too many exclamation marks on Twitter this week.

Far too much.

I mean, that's, I mean, not the biggest gripe I have for him.

In the aftermath aftermath of a massive tragedy, cut the exclamation mark.

He is, well, he basically went to Puerto Rico and fought natural disaster and human tragedy with his trademark Trumpet brand of peevish irrelevance, political onanism, and overt bitchcraft.

And

he has the,

he dealt with the tragedy with the delicacy of touch and innate humanity of a giant industrial mincer processing a bucket full of kittens.

It was,

and at one point, even told Puerto Rico, you've thrown our budget a little out of whack.

God

I mean, he is, I mean, to be fair to him, a businessman to his core.

To a fault.

And to a to an enormous, enormous fing fault.

But I guess, as you say, the point is nothing, nothing is surprising anymore.

I mean, it wouldn't have surprised me if at some point this week he just stood up on a platform and spoke to America and said, I had a dream last night in which I tried to f a dragon.

He's an inverse Russian dollar.

Every time you think he's reached the limit, out pops an even bigger.

Oh!

Yes, please.

An inverse Russian dollar.

It's five o'clock in the morning here, and I'm going to go to sleep immediately after this podcast.

and I'm going to dream of Trump trying to f a dragon.

I'll tell you,

how are you finding this?

Because I feel like if I heard that at 5am, that would be like a double espresso shot.

I'm not sure how you go back to sleep after someone has used the phrase fing a dragon.

At least the dragon will be able to light your cigarette easily.

I love the fact that Chris is having sex with the dragon in what appears to be a sitcom from the 90s.

I would like to point out that in case any of you think we've been a little biased against Mr.

Trump on this show, during the section, none of us were taking the knee.

So it all balances out.

And you know, in my head, the dragon was a sexy dragon.

In your head, Alice, was the dragon was sort of asking for it, right?

No, no, no, they were having tender mutual.

Look, I'm not.

It's five o'clock in the morning.

It's too early for you to be thinking about Donald Trump having sex with a dragon.

Yep, arguably, it's too early for me to be thinking that, and it's 1:15.

Oh,

he's a complete

nuanced sex.

And finally, at Bugle Science section,

Science always provides respite from reality.

And

it's been a huge week for Science this week with all the Nobel gongs being handed out.

Full updates on next week's Bugle with all the winners and losers forensically analysed by my guests, the no-time Nobel Prize winning laureate Hari Kondoboga.

I can tell you that a few people missed out.

Dr.

Fruz Baybard

missed out with his theory that particles move faster if you shout abuse at them.

Massive potential implications for intergalactic travel on that one.

And

the Chinese have developed this special laser gun that's like 10 miles across out in the Gobi Desert that can

shout

over more than 10 million light years.

Worthy winners.

And also,

Dr.

Harbinge Lamut,

he narrowly missed out on the gong for his research into when someone's body becomes too bootylicious for someone else.

And he's finally found the key tipping point at which the lines of measured bootyliciousness and the ability to withstand and/or tolerate bootaliciousness intersect.

That features, of course, numerous variables related to the psychosexual makeup of the bootelicious receptor and the butilician presentational skills of the booty licks, which is that is the name for a female exhibiting bootyliciousness, the booty licks.

But anyway, that's

Andy.

We dumped other sectors.

Sorry.

The thing is, it's hot news.

I won't articulate it next week.

But in other science news, I mean, some crucial science has come out this week from the Royal Society Open Science Journal that has discovered that captive-bred pheasants are 12 times more likely than other species to end up as roadkill.

I mean, this

surely is the greatest piece of science since Galileo discovered the sun or whatever it was he used.

Alice, you're our pheasant correspondent.

What?

I mean, what's the lowdown on this?

Dr.

Joa Madden from the University of Exeter, who led the study, said what I think is the saddest sentence I've ever heard.

He said,

because they've been reared in the absence of any adults, they have no one to show them how to live, and so they walk around and get killed.

Oh, God, can we put some sad music behind that, please?

Please, let's have some over the regular section.

Oh, my God.

Look, I applaud these suicidal birds.

This is the ultimate f you to some toffee lord who wanted to brutally shoot you out of the sky.

I think it's tragic.

Pheasants are lovely birds with modest bearing and the misfortune to be delicious, unlike flamingos, who are arrogant, gangly, pink assholes with stupid nerves.

Let it go, Alice!

Let the flamingos go!

Alice, what is your problem with flamingos?

I've got no problem with flamingos except that they're flamboyant, fluorescent swamp dwellers with knobbly knees and a bad attitude.

They're beady-eyed, haughty bog stalkers of flashy plumage and bad breath, and they can go themselves.

Well, someone had to say it.

The flamin' flamingo doesn't stand for flamboyant, actually.

God, I've had it too good for too long.

We should probably hear more on this story next week.

So if you are a pheasant and listening to this, please text us your views and do mark your envelope pheasant.

Don't forget, forget buglers, my US tour begins on Saturday,

Sunday.

Don't forget, Buglers.

I'm ruthless.

Don't forget.

I'm a ruthless self-promoter.

Don't forget, Buglers, my US tour begins on Sunday, the 15th of October at Cobbs Comedy Club in San Francisco.

Then in Phoenix, Arizona, or rather Phoenix-ish, Arizona-ish, having looked at a map, at the House of Comedy.

That's on the 17th of October.

Come on, Arizona.

We share the same initials,

essentially.

Then LA, the Nerd Melts, where I was last year on the 19th and the 20th.

And Portland on the 21st.

Do come along to all of those gigs.

Full tour details at andysoltzman.co.

Are you doing New York as well?

Then, yes, they're after Toronto, Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Nashville, and Washington, D.C.

Then you can hang out with me on a flight to London if you want after that.

Do come along to those gigs.

Please, please, please do come along to those.

I cannot emphasise enough how much I need you to come along.

That is a major US tour, Zolzman.

You're like the stones in 72.

Yes.

Yes.

At this rate, you'll be too big for this podcast soon, Daddy.

That does take a little while to take effect.

Oh, thanks to the Knight Foundation for making this podcast and the whole of Radiotopia possible.

Is that all right, Chris?

Perfect.

Right.

You guys are the best.

Keep that last bit in.

You guys would never have sex with a dragon.

The best.

You're the best.

Ironic, considering they're knights.

I don't think knights fall.

Is that what they were trying to do with those lancers?

Those weren't lances, Alice.

Anything you want to plug, Nish?

Yes.

This is not sounding like you're too keen to plug it.

Oh, wait, you can see Nish and I at the live bugle in London on the 16th of November.

That's right, we should definitely plug that.

The Leicester Square Theatre.

That is something I've omitted to plug.

Until then, 16th of November.

Will you?

I'm going to come and watch.

Oh, yes.

Are you going to be to London and why don't you come and do the show?

Yeah.

Consider yourself booked.

Wow.

Unbelievable.

The live on-air booking.

Can we please wrap this up?

Right.

We've forgot to promote the live show and we've booked one of the guests during another show.

it's my birthday

well see you in November Alice see see you in November if you're in America I'm doing stand-up gigs or you can just listen to my podcast which is nothing like this

oh yeah I'm on my radio 4 show is also available as a podcast it's called spotlight tonight So find that on iTunes.

And I'm doing stand-up shows at the Battersea Art Center on the 23rd and 24th of October.

And there are tickets which I'm sure you can find

online.

Right.

Right, I think we need to wrap that up and go home.

I'm going to eat a cake and watch some rugby.

Your dream birthday.

Dream birthday.

Thank you for listening, bugles.

Happy birthday, Andy.

Happy birthday, Andy.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

Thanks, Bugles, for all the cards.

Much appreciated.

Until next time, 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.