Bugle 4040 – Despot Death Match

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Thank you.

Hello, buglers.

Do you uh

do you um

do you respond like that whenever anyone says hello to you?

Um welcome to the Bugle Live, the three-dimensional version of the zero-dimensional podcast.

This week we are live from the International Criminal Court in The Hague

in front of an audience of the world's baddest international criminals

for whom I have some very bad news.

Crime has been banned.

You're all gonna have to get real jobs

Some of the above may not have been true.

We are in fact live from the Okavango Delta in Botswana for the world's largest ever gathering of professional pantomime zebras.

Release the lions!

Sorry, I'm going to have to drink my truth potion.

We are in fact live at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for 12 rounds for fist fighting between Andy's altimeter and Thor, the Norse god of I need more.

I need more.

We are at the New Town Theatre in Edinburgh.

There we go.

We're in.

Let me just

plug this in.

We are in the New Town Theatre.

In Edinburgh, this place has really changed in the last 50,000 years, believe me.

And it's about to change some more, Edinburgh, because you're about to get a new bridge.

Ooh, some bridge fans in the Queen's Ferry crossing opening to traffic next week.

You can feel the excitement in in the air here in Edinburgh.

I'm Jewish, of course.

We don't need bridges.

We just

wait for some dude to part the waters for us and scroll across.

You Scott's obviously not quite as chosen by God as my team.

So

you need a bridge.

It's a cable-stayed structure, the new Queens Ferry crossing, with three towers, each 207 meters high.

The overall length of the bridge, 1.7 miles, making it the longest triple tower cable-stayed bridge in the universe!

Although the length of its main span at 650 meters, only good enough to sneak into the top 20.

Disappointing.

Its overall length, 1744 meters to be precise.

Enough to put it fourth in the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world.

Just off the podium, sadly, but I reckon one of the top three will probably fail a drugs test at some point.

My money is on the Rio Antirio bridge in Greece, currently in silver medal position, but after Kenteris and Thanu in 2004, I don't trust the Greeks,

especially when they're running 200 meters very fast or crossing the sea.

So

we are recording this on the 27th of August 2017, making this, well, the anniversary of the day in the year 410 in which the Visigoths sacked Rome.

It took three days and they finished finished, just proves Rome has always been a great place for a long weekend.

They just ran out of ice cream.

1883, on this day, the eruption of Krakatoa.

Enormous explosions destroyed the island of Krakatoa and caused years of climate change.

So, what is the point in me recycling my tin cans if the homosexuals are going to keep causing volcanoes like they did at Krakatoa?

Sorry, I've got to stop reading Christian Looney Monthly magazine.

It caused a global drop in temperatures for several years, Krakatoa.

So, we have a moral duty to do global warming, or we're letting the volcanoes win.

1896, the Anglo-Zanzibar War took place on this very day.

The shortest war in global history at 38 minutes.

Yes, that was an away win for Britain.

Still waiting for Zanzibar to pluck up the balls for the second leg on British soil.

Good luck with that, you alphabet straggling losers.

Maybe a bit rich coming from me, I acknowledge that.

And

1928 was the signing on this day of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed all war in 1928.

That worked well.

That worked extremely well, as well as the famous Egyptian no-pointy mausoleums accord of 2700 BC.

There's a little pyramid joke for any pyramid fans in.

As always, a section of this podcast is going straight.

Testify.

This is 2017.

We are at the Edinburgh Fringe and it's 70 years since the first Edinburgh Festival, the first Edinburgh fringe.

1947, was anyone there?

Apparently Bertie Stripes, who won the best newcomer award that year, has just finished paying off his agents for the cost of his run there.

Of course, it shows the power of comedy.

The fringe began in 1947 at a time when Europe had been scarred by two world wars in the previous three and a half decades.

Since then, zero more world wars.

Who says comedy has no broader impact?

Obviously, it did contribute to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the African famine of the mid-1980s, but on balance, the fringe is still up.

And

announced this week was the funniest joke of the fringe award for this year.

And we look back in the section of the bin on the funniest joke of the 1947 fringe.

Here is the full shortlist.

What's brown and sticky?

A rotting apple, which is all we've got left at the end of a week of rationing.

What's black and white and red all over?

A map of Eastern Europe printed in a newspaper after the Soviet Union's post-war power grab.

Also nominated, My Dog Has No Nose.

Yeah, well, My House Has No Roof.

We all suffered in the Blitz, mate.

And

completing the four gag shortlist, Doctor, Doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains.

Well, that's classic post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from you having been incarcerated in the Japanese POW camp in Burma for three years.

What do you mean, doctor?

What's post-traumatic stress disorder?

What the hell is that?

Oh, it's a condition often suffered by combat veterans.

Bullshit, doctor.

That condition will not be labeled post-traumatic stress disorder until 1978.

Good point, my mistake.

So then, Doc, I'll repeat my question.

I feel like a pair of curtains.

Tough luck, sing a hymn or wave a flag or something.

I said, I feel like a pair of curtains.

What should I do?

I won't be drawn on that.

No, it's not that.

No.

No.

I feel like a pair of curtains.

Well, maybe open yourself up.

It's the 1940s.

I keep it bottled up inside, mate.

I'm British.

I feel like a pair of curtains.

Are you suffering from blackouts?

No, because of the blackout.

Pull myself together.

You should be telling me to pull myself together, Doc.

Let's go again.

Doctor, doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains.

Yeah, well, I'm a bit peckish too, mate.

And if the only option is powdered eggs or a pair of curtains, I'd probably choose the pair of curtains as well.

Patient, patient, I feel like a slap-up roast dinner.

Frankly, doctor, this service is appalling.

Is this what I pay my taxes for?

No, not yet.

The National Health Service

does not formally come into existence until next year.

Thank you.

You had to be there.

It's time now to meet our two guests for this week's live bugle.

Are you ready to meet our guests?

Oh, good, because that would have been very awkward otherwise.

Firstly, all the way from the world's southernmost hemisphere, a man who has not only come up snake-eyes yet again at the Nobel Peace Prize this year, the war-mongering Australian bastard.

Only time for winners on this podcast.

Actually, that's not strictly true.

Generally, when people start winning things, they get fired.

Anyway,

please welcome the wonderful Tom Ballard!

Hello, Tom.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, everyone.

You, Chris.

Thank you, Tom.

Oh, I should point out, Chris, Chris, producer Chris, is in the building, like the Elvis Presley impersonator that he is.

Hello, Chris.

Hello, Andy.

How are you?

I'm very well, thanks.

Thank you for letting me stay in your flat last night.

All right.

Ooh.

It's just sensational.

He slept on the sofa.

That's the way this podcast rules.

How's the fringe been for you, Tom?

It's been lovely, thank you.

I've had a lovely time.

I've had a man fall asleep in my show twice.

What, what, the same guy?

Same guy.

Did he sleep in different portions of the show so he got the whole of it in two goals?

No, he didn't come twice.

Oh, right.

Fall asleep both times.

That would be dedicational.

He had two snoozes in one show.

Two snoozes.

I saw him sleeping in the front row.

I made fun of him.

Everyone laughed at him.

And I was crowned a god of comedy.

And then 20 minutes later, he was nodding off again.

So that says something about my act.

And one night there were five men in black suits in the front row, and I just want to ignore them.

I thought there's something bad about that.

And then eventually asked them what's going on.

And they all worked at a restaurant, and their head chef had just died, and they'd come directly from the funeral.

So I, to quote them, better be funny, pal.

And then, as a tribute to their fallen colleague, I died on my ass for

40 minutes.

It's good.

Next up, completing

easily, the tallest bugle lineup in the history of the universe, it's comedian History Aficionado, the man who is to drum kits what Donald Trump is to horrifically chilling statements, in that he makes them.

He genuinely owns a drum kit-making business.

My former host of the wrongly cancelled Smash Hit Radio Show, seven-day whatever day of the weekend, the BBC had a space in on the radio.

Weighing in, that's none of your business, he's not a piece of meat.

It's Al Murray!

Hi, Andy.

Hello, Al.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen.

These are your people, aren't they?

This is beautiful.

People actually finging listen to this thing.

You've known me too long, Al.

I thought it was a bot farm in Sri Lanka, just clicking, clicking, clicking.

Well, it's my target demographic.

That's where the big bucks are in global comedy.

So,

obviously, a big part of coming to the fringe is getting reviewed by publications.

I've got a few of our reviews here.

My show,

Satirist for High, was

described by Hard House Enthusiast Monthly.

One star, very disappointing, nothing in it for the Hard House fan.

He just stood on stage and talked.

No hardhouse beats laid down whatsoever.

Tom's show, what was it called again?

Problematic.

Problematic, that's it.

I believe the reviewers.

Described as very different to Schindler's List and

also different to The Laughing Cavalier, the 1624 painting by Franz Howles.

That was from Pointless Comparison magazine.

That's weird.

They loved me last year.

Owl's show, described by Gratuitous Violence Weekly as easily Murray's most violence, bloodthirsty ending.

Pity the poor people sitting in the front row of his shows these...

Shit, I shouldn't have given that away these days.

I got got reviewed again by today's middle class, white, privately educated, lapsed Jewish, forty-something, vaguely lefty, sport-obsessed man magazine.

At last, someone talking our language.

The Daily Mail, why is the government cancelling Brexit?

And

One Too Many Examples magazine said we particularly love the bit in the Bugle Life show where Andy made up pretend reviews of shows.

Anyway, right.

It's good how he writes all this down, isn't it?

Chris, are you ready with a jingle?

Of course he is.

He was born with jingles in his soul.

Mr.

Bo Jingles, he's known as.

Top story this week.

Nutty leaders of the week.

We're going to have a competition, ladies and gentlemen to find out the world's loopiest leader.

Let's now the Earth of course has proven over and over again through its illustrious industry leading career as a planet that the one thing you will never take away from us is our unique ability to put

lunatics in positions of massive responsibility.

It's one of our defining features from your caligulas and your empresses, woos, Z Tians in your ancient worlds to the hyper-naughty megadicks of the 20th century.

And

which Which I think is probably a nice way of

just confusing.

Hyper naughty megadix is a terrible condition and

please go see your doctor if you see any signs.

You were the drummer in the hyper-naughty megadicks.

I prefer our early stuff.

Less loud and bangy.

So

but who is top of the always competitive World's Looniest Leader Chart this week?

We've got five nominations, got the winner in here.

You be the judge, ladies and gentlemen, from these five short-listed candidates.

Candidate one,

all the way from Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

So are you

Kadyrov fans?

Well Chechnya,

it's like one of those sort of...

If Chechnya didn't exist, it would be a Marvel Films country that Thor has to

Thor has to scoop up the leader's palace with his with Mjolnir and toss into the sun.

It's like it's run by Dr.

Doom.

It's fantastic.

I think it's fair to say that Chechnya has not won too many prizes for most relaxing place to live over the past few centuries or so, what with it having been a porn in Russian power games since the early 18th century and a hotbed of insurrection ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Not to mention the fact that the people who come from there are named after the sound of a cocking rifle.

Chechen.

That can't help.

Now,

nail the dismount.

Now, Kadarov has been on particularly spectacular form this week

because he has basically said

that he's basically forcing separated couples to reunite because apparently divorce is the root of Chechen society's many problems rather than, for example, history or him.

He's going for divorce,

which is a curious way to go about

fixing.

This is chilling, though.

Yeah.

I mean, the idea, I mean, I'm divorced.

All right, mate.

We've all got stuff going on.

Whatever he wants me to do, rather than this, I'll do it.

I'll start working at the camps, as long as I don't get back with her.

Yeah, exactly.

Whatever you want, I'm in.

Now, I mean, I'm not a marriage guidance counselor.

As my friend, thrice divorced Mike can vehemently testify.

Mike, you need to show her you really love her.

Really, Andy?

And how should I do that?

Buy her an abattoir.

She's a vegan, Andy.

Yes, but keeping the flames of romance alive is all about surprise.

Okay, Mike, you need a display of commitment, a grand everlasting gesture.

Okay, Andy, any suggestions?

Yes, get a tattoo of her face done on your face.

Anyway, but if you need a threat from a despot to keep your relationship together, surely

those are some, you've got probably issues as a couple that

are going to be hard to resolve, aren't they?

Nothing says romance like government mandates.

I knew we were going to be together when I got a letter from the government saying we are destined to be together.

But they set up a commission to oversee the enforcement of the policy, and it's called the Council for Harmonizing Marriage and Family Relations, which is just one of the nicknames I have for my dick.

And then they've set up this hotline.

Apparently, separations and divorces are being reported on a hotline, which I assume is being staffed by your auntie Margaret.

Okay, I've got a despots quiz for you now about question one.

This one's for you, Al.

Ramzan Kadarov's rule has been characterised by which classic combination of despotic hobbies?

Is it A, an incorrigible love of free and open political debate, massive amounts of state funding for the arts, and a fanatical devotion to LGBT rights?

Was it B, Macrame, pitch and putt golf, Zumba, line dancing, and bagpuss?

Or was it C, high-level corruption, a terrible human rights record, and a growing cult of personality?

It's tricky, isn't it?

I think we're going to.

What do we think in the room?

B?

It's B, it's B, definitely.

B?

B.

Yes, correct.

It is B.

He absolutely loves

all work by Oliver Postgate.

Candidate two,

President Buhari of Nigeria.

He's been on sick leave for all but three months of the past year, but says he now can't return to work in his office because

the rats have eaten his office.

Now,

as excuses go, this is spectacular.

There's a rat eating a bit of an office.

That used to be a desk.

Maybe it's a filing cabinet.

I don't know.

That rat looks like it's on pills.

Look at it.

It's very.

Oh, it's kicking in, man.

Chris, is that actually a rat?

That looks like a non-rat to me.

I googled rats office, and that's what came up.

That's the.

What a sitcom that was.

I mean,

it was really comedy of awkwardness rather than laugh out loud jokes.

But anyway, look at that.

And the Peabody Award goes to.

Anyway,

it's, I mean, it's kind of a long kind of dog ate my homework style of.

I'm all for.

I think he's onto something.

If you're going to lie, all you have to do is base it on truth.

And I saw a mouse once by my telly, and I couldn't watch the telly for 10 minutes.

So there's something in this.

That is it.

This mouse ran out.

Yeah.

And it was really unsettling.

And the only thing I had to hand was my iPad.

And I leave threw my iPad at the mouse.

I I didn't, right?

The story hasn't got like a funny bit in it.

Right.

So so you're saying a mouse was Neo-Telly and therefore you think rats could eat a

the office.

This is the kind of logical thinking that got us into Brexit, isn't it?

So

tiny rodent around electrical equipment, yeah, puts me off.

People are saying, oh, it's a made-up story, but I got an email from the Prince of Nigeria and

he told me that this is absolutely true and he's asked me to transfer

$10,000 to $20,000 into his bank account to deal with

de-infestation costs.

De-infestation?

Oh, God, I'm hungover.

He's been very ill.

And his, let me, here he is.

His spokesman said there's nothing at all to worry about.

He is energetic, well focused, and it is clear he is enjoying excellent health.

Let me just put that through my early 1980s Soviet Union translation software.

Buhari is medically dead.

Let's move on to candidate three,

Kim Jong-un.

Oh, we got the fans in.

It's really brand recognition rather than actual popularity, but it's a...

It works with soft drinks and trainers, so why not with world leaders?

Now that is a happy dictator there.

Yeah, he's loving it.

I mean, my view of Kim Jong-un, I see him very much like I see the dubstep DJ Skrillex.

In that,

not really my thing, don't really understand it, don't get his choice in haircuts, but unquestionably, he's very good at what he does.

You know, for Skrillex, it's you know, dubstep and electronica.

Is that correct?

Yesterday, Andy said, I've got a joke about DJ Skrillex, and I said, No one calls him DJ Skrillex.

Listen, listen, listen.

I am a fightback starts now.

I am a cricket fan.

I use people's full initials.

That's the way scorecards go.

For Kim Jong-un, he's obviously very good at keeping an entire nation in poverty, ignorance, and fear.

Classic communist dictator triathlon.

And

on balance, I have to say,

what the f is that, Chris?

I just googled Kim smiling.

And what is that?

Is that like what used to be his uncle's?

For listeners at home, that is him watching over a machine that seems to be squirting out what may be baby food.

What what do you reckon is?

Earwax.

Earwax.

I mean, never say never with Kim.

Probably the world record breaking collection of earwax to go with his

granddad's brilliance on the golf course.

The other guy in the photo isn't too happy about it at all.

He looks very miserable.

He's next.

Yeah, that's what happened to his colleague.

Anyway, I think I'm balance.

I prefer Skrillex to Kim Jong-un.

But if they ever collaborate, what a parade that will be.

So Kim has just fired three missiles into the sea this way.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

I don't like the sea.

It's a cold.

Don't victim blame the Pacific Ocean.

It's cold, grey, implacable.

It'll swallow you up.

No one would ever even know you'd died in it.

F the sea.

It's about time someone took that down a peg or two.

Let's have some justice.

It's got crabs in it.

It's got seals in it, which is nothing more than souped up otters.

Just your fur!

You speak the truth.

The C.

You don't feel sorry.

Truth to power, right there.

The C has one function, which is keeping David Attenborough in work.

And he can't have long left.

Oh, come on.

He's going to be executed.

He's a disgrace to this country, made an entire career out of zebra snuff movies and hardcore insect porn.

Filth.

I could filth.

This used to be such a nice show.

I think you've got to feel sorry for the fish in the sea.

Like, they'd just be swimming along and they're just...

Oh, what did we do?

Fish want to be deep-fried.

That's their best condition, deep-fried, right?

So he's doing the fish a favour and he's taking it to the sea.

Poseidon,

Neptune, whatever your name is.

That's an obvious tax dodge, isn't it?

Yeah.

He's got different oceans under different names.

And the number of offshore accounts.

Oh, Lordy.

He can do them spontaneously as well.

Let's move on to candidate four,

Donald Trump.

Always your friend and mine, always in the running.

There he is once again playing his darts.

I mean, America used to not feature that high in the global loonies scale, but

he's really laying down some serious funk.

Yeah.

It's almost impossible to say anything about him, isn't it?

Because he's outmaneuvering even you.

Yeah.

Well, in bullshit terms.

I mean, I like to think we're raising each other's games.

It's like

Carl Lewis and Mike Powell in the 1991 World Long Jump Final.

My favourite picture of his hair is the one

from here when he's in St.

Andrews and the guy had the balloon.

Fantastic.

Have you seen that picture?

Someone got a staticky balloon and put it over his head.

Google Donald Trump's static hair or something like that.

It's brilliant.

That was fake physics.

Now one of

he's

he's lost another one of his key

team of f ⁇ s

Mr.

Mr.

Mr.

Gorker

to the private sector.

Team of f ⁇ Of course the it's gonna be the big-selling sequel to Game of Thrones

So Gorkers, I mean is there anyone left?

Now from Trump's like supp the support, they're pulling out all the support loonies from underneath.

So it's going to be like a wise tie

when the sinister six fall out with each other, when Electro tells the Scorpion that he's no longer interested in working together, and then the Rhino.

This is.

No,

the Rhino and Venom fall out.

With all due respect, Al, what the f are you talking about?

The Sinister Six.

Who are they?

Talk about cricket statistics from the 60s like a normal person.

Yeah.

They're from my reality, Andy, and I've arrived in yours.

This Donald Trump looks president, which seems pretty unlikely.

Yes.

No,

Gorka.

I mean, the thing about him is he's sort of the political equivalent of that minicab driver who ended up on the news on the BBC.

You know, what the f was he doing there?

And who even is he?

And what?

And

yeah.

That's about it, basically.

I don't really have anything sensible to say about him, because we shouldn't dignify him with your blade of satire.

Trump was a big fan, apparently.

He said that Axios reported that Trump raved about Gorka's performances, telling colleagues he had no idea what Gorka actually did, but loved him on TV.

So Trump eyes Gorka's like Kim Kardashian.

It's like, I don't know what he does, but I just like the vibe.

Well, that is how America voted last November, basically, isn't it?

That is the exact rationale behind the people of America speaking, by which I mean the people of America saying we prefer Hillary a bit in a geographically inconvenient way.

So we should

talk a bit about the part.

Pardoning Joe R.

Pao,

the sheriff.

Well, he's a controversial sheriff, isn't he?

Yeah, the best kind of sheriff.

Well, in the news,

in news, controversial used used in the news environment, the word controversial means massive shitlaw.

Normally, controversial means like pineapple on pizza.

Yes, that is controversial.

That is globalization gone mad.

Let me say that.

There's no place for that.

But look at it.

Yeah, yeah.

He's the racial profiling guy, isn't he?

Yes.

That doesn't narrow him down in America, does it?

Well, he looks the type.

What?

It was crazy that, like,

he was charged with contempt of court, which is what Trump pardoned him for.

But, like, back in the 90s and stuff, the way he instituted justice was nuts.

He reintroduced chain gangs in Arizona, like, brought that shit back.

Right, because they've had a bit of a, well, a checkered reputation from history, haven't they?

So they quote the Global Society for Massive Understatements.

They increased coordination amongst prisoners.

But that's also, like bringing back people in the stocks and throwing rotten fruit, which I think, you know.

But we've got the Edinburgh fringe for that.

Yeah.

Two stars, Broadway baby.

Not enough cantaloupes.

Right,

we need to crack on with next to it, Chris, Jingle.

Week beer news now, Owl as a Bugles official beer correspondent.

Yes, this is news from the front line of binge drinking booze Britain.

The country's not as pissed as it thinks it is.

Carling Black Label, well Carling, formerly Carling Black Label, I bet he drinks Carling Black Label.

Remember that?

The Danbusters advert, which made light of the horrific f ⁇ ing event.

It's the British way.

Of course.

Well, they started it.

It's been caught with...

Carling Black Label has been caught with its alcoholic trousers down like a reveler caught short on a Friday night behind a skip because Carling is in fact not 4% strength as advertised, but it's in fact, right, which is too strong to be a session beer,

too weak as to wreck you right off, right?

It's actually been brewed at 3.7% all along.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, of course, Carling's a beer no one admits to drinking that lots of people drink, right?

But they're not as pissed as they thought they were.

And the reason they've done this, is it out of concern for their drinkers?

Is it for the good of the country's moral constitution?

No.

It's a tax dodge.

Coors have done it so they pay less duty on the Carling Black, on the Carling, because it's 3.7%, not 4%, and they claim they're not misleading drinkers.

Right.

I mean, you know, if you can't trust the most basic ordinary lager, what can you trust?

This is my Watergate moment.

This is my parallax view, glimpsed through the fing Matrix moment.

Beer isn't what it says it is.

So not only have you been 10% less drunk

than you thought,

but also

simultaneously underfunding public services all the time.

So basically every time you've been anyone here has been drinking Carling, you've been shutting down schools and hospitals.

I hope you're pleased with yourself.

Tom, you are the official

dog excrement correspondent for the bugle.

What have you got for us this week?

Yeah, I mean, finally I've got a story.

It's a very niche brief, I have.

Social justice poo news, right-wing outfit protest prayer have cancelled their free speech rally, in quotes, in San Francisco this weekend after hundreds of counter-protesters promised to cover the park where

the rally was going to take place in dog poo.

Some people declared their intention to stockpile their dogs' plops for days in advance and then deliver them in bags for the site.

It was too much for the neo-Nazis and they cancelled the rally.

And truly, Andy, this was an example of poopo power.

And

I mean it really,

really is a blow to the fast shits.

If the rally had gone ahead,

there'd certainly be brown shirts.

Hitler, more like Schitler.

White supremacists, more like shite supremacists.

Ironically, if left out in the sun, the little protest logs would eventually turn white.

Not a pun, still hilarious.

But seriously, hopefully after this we see the number of those white supremacists there'll be droppings.

And

all in all I think we could say the good people of San Francisco show that they're for the many, not the poo.

Thank you!

Is it too late for me to get the award?

Andy, your next show starts in 19 minutes.

Oh, right.

Okay.

So,

by the way, is No, it doesn't.

Is anyone?

Is anyone here coming to that show?

Okay, so.

Well, let's just do it right here.

Can Annie get a live?

So, right, let's move on to the very always funny story of net migration statistics.

So net migration has fallen to the lowest level for three years after a surge in EU nationals fleeing the UK after

f off everyone else votes.

Yeah, well, when I ran for parliament two years ago on behalf of the EU SSR Zio con lib la blanc BBC establishment paid for by EU Gold

for my cousin David Cameron, one of the

this is why I did it.

A gag we did at the time was people are coming to this great country because it is a great country.

Leave it with me to sort this out.

Now, far be it for me on a bugle to suggest that satire has any actual power.

But Stone, I was right.

It's fing worked.

But it's very distressing from a British point of view that all these skilled people are leaving.

And

we may have to invest in our own national future at some point and that is emphatically not what being British is all about it's all about stealing other countries' futures ready-made that's what we're base this nation on pretty soon the whole of the UK is just going to be like Edinburgh the day after the fringe finishes yes it'll be quieter you'll have more control but you'll have a dearth of Swedish jugglers

is that a price you're prepared to pay

there's a story that the Home Office has been holding back figures on students who overstay their visa and previously they were saying it was 100,000 students overstayed on their visa, and that was being added to the net migration figure.

But it since it turns out it's 4,000.

Not 100,000,

it's 4,000.

Now, but this is a thing.

I can't remember who the home secretary was 18 months ago.

Someone's

another.

Oh!

That's the one.

Now, I don't understand, because she's always hung on to this.

May has always hung on to this as the thing that she wants to stop: is this student figure that the student students can't be anyway?

I can't explain it.

I think what I know is too much for some people, this particular truth bomb smashing the establishment.

So he can't even find a way out.

He's so disoriented with the

truth cascading down on him.

He's trying to make it the end of his show.

But,

I mean, where does May's antipathy to foreign students come from?

I think she must have been she must have worked in a shop when she was 17 and 20 French extension students in Kaguls came in stole all the pick and mix and said f off roast beef

Yeah, well in fact, I mean that's a bit from her autobiography.

It says this I used to work in a shop and two French students came in and said um

f off roast beef.

I mean technically I was just echoing the her getting numbers wrong.

I thought structurally that was a sound joke but

it's not that big a mistake, is it?

It's 95,000 students.

Like when that's not important.

No one's ever been like, oh, we don't have 95,000 students to do something.

How will we possibly cope?

They're students.

Get a job hippies.

That's a good point, well made.

Thank you.

I mean I

think what this all indicates is that May is some sort of universal Uatu the Watcher style genius.

Uatu the Watcher.

Uatu the Watcher.

Right.

Who simply watches what happens in the universe and doesn't interfere with it.

There's people who know exactly what's a superhero, though, isn't it?

No, there's not a superhero.

He's

one of the watchers.

Oh, right, okay.

Lives on the moon.

Right.

And they very rarely...

Dabbles as a line judge in tennis.

Yes.

They're not allowed to interfere in human affairs.

Does the pub landlord audience know that you're a f ⁇ ing nerdo?

I do everything to hide it.

But

it's like she's on a mission to drive the Tory Party into the ground, isn't it?

She's wrecked them in an election.

I don't know who's she doing this for, though.

I mean, is it the Cree, the Chitauri?

Is it

the Inhumans?

Who is it?

I guess we may never know.

But we need to move on to the regular part of the live bugles.

So we have about five minutes left of the gig, I think.

Four minutes left of the gig.

I'm going to have to edit those buttons down.

You guys.

The audience question and answer session.

So, Al, Tom, have you got any questions for the audience?

Yeah, which statues would you like to see torn down, as is the vogue currently?

Chris, pick someone to answer that question on behalf of everyone else.

Bill Shankley's statue at Anfield, because it should be outside Westminster.

The Bill Shankley statue at

Anfield, because he was.

But at Anfield, where he was the Liverpool football manager.

It should be outside Westminster because

he managed the Conservative Party football team in the 1980s.

Because of his socialist values.

Oh, I see, his socialist view.

He's a Britain fan.

Socialist values.

That's not going to happen, let's be honest.

Is it a socialist value to score more goals than...

Surely socialist value would just be to draw all your matches.

Mil, mil.

Tom, have you got a question for the audience?

Did anyone see my show?

Right.

So

I need to

finish that.

That's gone.

That's gone.

Here we are.

So

I can't do a live show without a pun.

Or maybe Tom's puns will do.

John,

finished with...

Because the best show I saw this year was a blues music show.

And I remember when I first got into the blues.

Step in, everybody.

There's some chairs there if you need them, guys.

Or a desk if you just want to sit with your head in your hands.

I remember when I first got into the blues, I got invited to an evening of blues and First World War photography.

I was looking at some pictures of the Battle of Passchendae.

Sparked up a conversation with someone.

Look Look at those conditions.

It must have never stopped raining.

Yep, he replied.

It was a muddy war, to say the least.

Muddy water save.

Anyway, my old pod

my old.

Don't copy my jokes.

My old podcast partner was with me, but he was sitting in the corner listening to the music, smoking

flavoured tobacco out of one of those big Persian-style pipes.

I wanted him to stop.

I said, John, Lee, Hooker.

your uh your new your

That's the was that what is that is that the sequel to Rodan's the Thinker realizing oh

it is that bad

For those listening at home, Chris is doing his are you will you put the pictures up on on the Twitter feed again on the face with pleasure excellent

Anyway, John was with his newscast

newscaster buddy Mr.

Blitzer Blitzer started banging on about his conspiracy theory that top blues singers were all working for the KJB in the 1950s.

They're linked to Moscow, I'm sure of it, he said.

I replied, howl linked, wolf.

Howlinked, wolf.

Anyway, he got furious and physically attacked me.

So this is not my best.

It's not my best side.

My best jokes.

Sorry.

Anyway,

he got furious and physically attacked me.

He was sticking his stomach out.

He led belly first.

Yay!

Anyway, I stayed with.

I stayed with John in New York.

He has a little baby boy.

But I think his little baby was trying to steal my laptop.

He's only a baby, but I really think he might grow up to be a robber, John's son.

Oh, come on!

Robert Johnson!

Godfather of the blues!

He said robber.

No, but you have have to suspend

critical faculty whatsoever.

Anyway,

John, of course, he has to control his nerves with alcohol and drugs.

He used to drink a popular American beer and then take a tab of ecstasy.

He was a buddy guy.

But

he's obviously doing pretty well now, John.

He's a bit better off, a bit better off than I am financially.

He's a little richer than me.

But uh,

I don't say that well, though.

Uh, sometimes go to his gigs and throw fruit at him.

In fact, at once chuck berries at him.

Um,

uh, I know, I had another friend, he picked up uh an STD, caused a horrible burning sensation in his, uh, you know, uh, uh, his, uh, you know, anyway, he said to me, it's my Willie Dix on fire.

I mean, Willie Dixon is a maybe a niche, uh, anyway, f you.

Uh,

Anyway,

I had to take a break, went to France for a fortnight to relax.

To keep my anonymity, I used to wear big fake Pelicans' bills.

I had

six of these beaks labelled A through to E with the oldest first, but the airline lost the oldest four of them en route.

But I still enjoy myself, though.

I called it my Bill E holiday.

Right.

And

do you know,

please explain.

And finally.

Finally.

No one believes you.

I was expecting a round of applause there.

Usually when I do those jokes, the crowd clap and then clap some more.

Last time I did it, they clapped on.

There you go.

That is the end, Buglers.

That standing ovation is correct.

Thank you to Al Murray, Datom Ballard.

I have to run to another gig thank you for coming buglers

good afternoon see some of you at the stand in six minutes 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.