Bugle 4036 – Paunchy Plutocrats, Inc.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4036 of The Bugle, the weekly factogram with all the latest scientific proof about the existence of the human race and the universe it so reluctantly lives in.

I am Andy Zoltzmann, Emeritus Professor of Exaggerating My Own Qualifications, live in London, where we haven't had even a single general election in what, what, about a month now?

Democracy is withering on the vine as we speak.

Let me have my say.

Sorry, not say, my lunch.

I meant lunch.

It's at midday.

And that breakfast bagel has already thoroughly digested itself.

Did you know?

And here's a fact for you buglers.

If a Jew eats a bagel, it is 50% more nutritious than if a Gentile eats a sandwich.

That's, that is a religious fact.

Joining me today for the fifth time on the bugle, but the first time on the better side of the equator.

Come on, Southern Hemisphere, 6.7 billion people, can't be wrong.

Welcome back, live in London, just one table's width away from me.

That is about 10,000 miles less than last time she was on the show.

It's Alice Fraser.

Hello, Andy.

Oh, this is so much better than when I was hiding in the ABC disabled toilets trying to get a connection with you guys last time.

Out of context,

that might seem weird.

But that is basically how the last recording happened.

You were

being booted out of various places in the ABC trying to find a quiet corner.

I mean, what is technically a place where you're meant to be able to record things, but apparently you're not allowed to hide in the toilets.

Good.

Jimi Hendrix used to.

He used to hide in the toilet.

Well, not so much hide in the toilet as plays guitar in the toilet.

Rich, in the producer's chair this week.

You're a guitarist, aren't you?

I am, yes.

How do you find the toilet acoustic from a

kind of Hendrix mimicry point of view?

Well, obviously, it would be hugely advantageous to take a Portaloo around with you at all times just to get that really echoing.

Is that why they have so many Portaloos at festivals?

That's where the bands are all warming up.

Okay, well, I understand it now.

This is Bugle 4036-4036.

Interestingly, the

last personal pin number of Henry VIII.

That was what he used for all his passwords in the last few years of his life.

Of course, the six, that came from obviously the number of wives he had.

Four was the number of wives, dead or alive, who still had heads.

Nought was the number of wives he'd ever had who didn't look at him a bit funny when he started telling them how some of his previous relationships had ended.

And three was the number of spouses he'd had beheaded.

That's right.

Recently released documents suggest that he did actually marry Sir Thomas Moore in what was possibly the first gay wedding in British...

British history.

That's not actually proven.

But, you know,

you draw the Venn diagram between people Henry VIII had beheaded and wives, and there's a good chance someone's going to fall into that by accident.

Surely.

I'm not a mathematician.

That was the choice they gave Sir Thomas More when they offered to chop his head off, more or less.

You've got Colin Early with a wordplay joke.

That's good.

Improv.

It's all improv, Andy.

This is the bugle for the 10th of July, 2017.

100 years to the second since the first time anyone used the phrase, so has anyone got a plan B?

After After the First World War had quite literally got stuck in the mud, 1967 was on this day the first rumors that a fleet of alien spaceships had attacked the world, moving slowly, horizontally side to side and firing bombs downwards.

They were eventually defeated after an increasingly frantic defensive effort by a laser cannon.

It was never officially confirmed, but just 11 years later, the first Space Invaders computer game came out.

Join the Dots, people.

Join the Dots.

In 1584, on the 10th of July, just 433 short years ago, the first ever assassination of a head of state with a handgun, the celebrity assassine on the occasion being King William the Silent, he was the victim, helped to very much live up to his name by the 16th century shootist Balthazar Gerrard.

Now, Balthazar Gerrard, who I mean, he's been very silent pretty much ever since King William the Silent, to be fair.

Gerard was captured after quite literally tripping over a pile of rubbish with a bladder tied to his waist.

Isn't history fun?

And his sentence was to have his hand burned off with a red-hot iron, to have flesh torn from his bones in six different places, to be quartered and disemboweled, to have his heart ripped from his still live body and thrown in his still conscious face, and then, just in case, decapitated.

In the meantime, he would have 130 kilogram weights dangling from his toes.

He would be lashed to a pole and whipped, obviously.

Then the wounds, quite clearly, smeared in honey and then left for a goat to lick the honey off.

Although apparently the goats wanted no part in this and refused to debase itself in this strange game of the world.

Goat's vegan.

They don't approve of honey.

I mean, it's interesting that you've gone there for the not approving of honey rather than not approving of the wounded human flesh element of veganism.

Yeah, goats don't respect humans, but they do respect bees.

They respect the bee.

Well, that's good to hear.

Also, Balthazar had his feet crushed and roasted which is not really ideal if you're a potato let alone a human foot.

Then of course a cheeky little blast of sleep deprivation whilst his hands and feet were tied together.

Forced to wear shoes made of dog leather which is very untrendy at the time beside from all the other humiliations.

He had his armpits branded.

Yeah, he was jabbed with nails because why wouldn't you?

And he had burning bacon fat poured all over him, which in context was probably the highlight.

At least that would have been a good thing.

kosher.

Not kosher.

No, I don't know if Balthazar Gerrard was into kosher food or not.

Yeah, that sounds like the absolute definition of overkill.

Yes.

And also it does raise questions about the quality of his lawyer.

Yeah, Balthazar, good news.

We've managed to get the having marmalade licked off your open wounds by a donkey transmuted to having honey licked off your open wounds by a goat.

So I think that's definitely a step forward.

And hopefully we can have the being branded and then forced to wear an alcohol-soaked shirt.

Oh, sorry, I didn't tell you about that, did I?

Sorry, that was in the small print.

Anyway, I hoping to get that button down to clamping in nadges under a 10-volume encyclopedia while someone plays table tennis with your eyeballs.

My invoice is in the post.

Could you please pay that before the bit where they rip your heart out and chop your head off?

That does mean I'm not super hopeful about the appeal.

That seems a harsh sentence for any crime, really.

Yeah, yeah, that's the like, but how can we kill him, but more?

I don't know if this, I mean, this to me is one of the reasons we left Brexit, is this kind of European excessive bureaucracy and compromise.

Clearly, this has happened on the continent, is load of people all wanting to have their say.

You've ended up with a ludicrously convoluted sentence, everyone wanting to have their bit, it's gone way too far.

That that sentence I reckon was on a lot of people's minds when we voted just over a year ago, Alice.

I mean, look, it does drop recidivism rates

significantly.

Yeah, uh well done for saying the positive in that.

Yeah, I don't think Balthazar Gerard ever assassinated another head of state with a handgun again.

So can't argue with the stats.

Cannot argue with the stats.

Anyway, that was in 1584.

1928 on the 7th.

We are recording on the 7th of July.

On this day, Alice, 89 years ago, sliced bread was sold for the first time.

Pre-sliced bread.

One of the most significant landmarks in the history.

Of idioms.

Well, I mean, because obviously that led to the best thing since sliced bread, suggesting that up till 1928, 7th of July, there was a different thing by which good things were compared.

Yeah, just people laying a slice of ham on a loaf and gnawing at it.

Right.

So the best thing since the open ham sandwich.

Yes, exactly.

Progress is progress.

As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

This week, it's a summer films section.

We review The Picnic.

A moody art house French offering, original title Le Picnique, in which a teenage boy has a coming-of-age picnic in which an older woman teaches him how to grudgingly pretend to enjoy eating carrot batons and celery sticks whilst being harried by a wasp and worrying about impending rain.

Starring newcomer Balfon Slerge and the star of Afternoon at a Cloudy Beach by the same director, Juliette Irin Clamombert.

For the family, new animation coming out of the big animation studios in America entitled Massive-Eyed, Generic Animated Characters in an Irritatingly Self-Satisfied Plot voiced by famous people who've clearly phoned it in in one afternoon.

Long-awaited follow-up to all other recent family films.

It's going to be absolutely great for the summer.

Also coming out this week we review Big Old Titties 2, the controversially titled but slow-moving documentary about the restoration of a series of large murals by the 16th century Italian Renaissance painter Titian.

I mean, they could have thought that's really just about getting bums on seats, isn't it?

And also also in the summer film section we interview the Hollywood block blusterer Clavicle Scrahorn about his new preemptive uni-sequel Justice Motor 5 both the first and fifth installments of the brand new hyper franchise Justice Motor, which set to hit the screens this weekend.

Scrayhorn plays Judge Frank Clank who drives his four-wheel automated Lamborghini courtroom at breakneck speeds around the streets of Americana, dispensing on the spot off the dashboard justice with a side order of meaningless tangential incidental violence, reaching the parts of society the legal system cannot or will not reach.

Thrilling action and technical legal arguments all the way as Judge Clank chases down the prosecution Humvee and the defense motorcade at speeds in excess of very fast indeed, with an even more thrilling edge-of-the-seat verdict scene whilst Judge Clank careers down a mountain road with no brakes.

Scrahorn explained about the pre-sequel.

Obviously, we haven't yet made Justice Motor, Justice Motor 2, Appeals on Wheels, Justice Motor 3 Verdict of the Vroom Vroom, or even JM4 12 Angry Kilometers.

But by bringing out Justice Motor 5 Hearings on the Highway first, before the others, we thought we could make it seem like a successful film franchise that keeps just churning out the big ones year on year, regardless of quality, and that means ticket sales.

Scraehorn explained the Justice Motor franchise has also already skipped out two spin-off TV series, Service Station Litigation and Two-Wheel Tessa, Motorbike Magistrate, in order to give the commercially advantageous impression that Justice Motor has already outgrown its own success, and it's probably worth going to see in the cinema just to see how they're still dragging it out, even though you know it's probably going to be shit.

Next films in the franchise, Justice Motor 8, One Last Case, and Justice Motor 9, another one last case, are due out in 2022 and 2024, respectively.

Hoping to make people think, oh no, I must have missed part six full-tilt testimony and part seven, subpoenas at speed, and fork out the hard-earned ticket money once again.

That section in the bin.

I don't believe in those action movies.

You know, it's just a subpoenas extension.

Ah, boom!

Top story.

North Korea missile mess.

The United States has cautioned on Wednesday that it is ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea's nuclear missile program, but it said it preferred global diplomatic action against Pyongyang for defying world powers.

North Korea test launched a ballistic missile that could hit Alaska, and Kim Jong-un called it a gift package to the US on the 4th of July.

Which, look, it's not a great gift.

I mean, I'm quite good at going, ooh, just what I always wanted when someone gives me a fidget spinner, but the threat of nuclear war is not on the GQ Mantastic list of 10 great gifts that will blow her underpants off.

Did you know that Kim Jong-un is actually just his nickname?

It's short for Kim Jong-un Pleasant.

I did not know that, but it does.

It stacks up with his behavior.

Yeah, it really, it really is.

The US is saying that it would prefer diplomatic action to military force, which I mean, I don't know.

Why would you prefer diplomatic action to nuclear war?

That's just silly.

It's like, you know, when your manager Kevin keeps insisting on taking you out to dinner to talk about your performance at work instead of letting you do the deadly knife fight for the honor of the sales department that I keep suggesting.

Don't tell me you wouldn't hit your KPIs with vigor if the alternative was a slash-eating, sweaty scramble in the bloodied sands of the arena, or as Kevin keeps insisting on calling it, the lunchroom.

I was just thinking, actually, I mean, kind of coincidence, this story has blown up this week, because

I was just

sitting at home on Monday, thinking to myself, I'll tell you what this planet really, really needs right now, and that is North Korea to prove that it can fire missiles onto American soil.

That'll sort everything out.

I mean, quite why you would want to fire a missile at Alaska Alaska is not entirely clear.

I don't know that it would necessarily change the sort of howling wasteland aspect of it.

Yeah, it might warm the place up a bit, I guess.

So if anything, it might be considered large-scale home improvements.

Trump's reaction to this, I mean, clearly he would absolutely love a massive global war.

Even if he can't say that out loud.

I think in the film that is going on inside his head, that is how

he sees it all playing out.

Yeah, I think he's watched too many movies because what he's done now is he's started putting pressure on China to stop trading with North Korea,

suggesting that they will have US sanctions against any country that does business with this outlaw regime.

Which, I mean, boycotting China, it's not like they make literally everything you buy.

I mean, you've got the option between nuclear brinkmanship or alienating China.

It's starting to look like the only choice Trump is proposing is whether the barren wasteland with no computers and brutal food shortages is going to be radioactive or not.

Would you like a cat vomit sandwich or a radioactive cat vomit sandwich?

We have gluten-free bread.

I mean he must be, I think he's probably a grudging admirer of Kim Jong-un in some ways, particularly his amazing TV ratings figures.

Because I mean that is how Trump judges the value of a person clearly is by their TV ratings.

And Kim Jong-un,

according to official North Korea government stats, his new TV series, Kim Jong-un Walks Along a Path and Then Eats a Snack, was watched by over 40.3 billion North Koreans.

So,

and those are impressive stats.

Those are the kind of numbers Trump listens to.

I mean, I guess when you see a global crisis that brings together Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, and you know, I am a Trump sceptic.

I think I've laid those cards on the table.

I guess mathematically, the world is hoping that it's like a double negative, that an idiot times an idiot equals a genius.

And, you know, they'll come up with some kind of grand plan for saving the whole of humanity yes sort of uh

paunchy plutocrats incorporated the rating bonanza i don't i yeah it's i try not to think about it too much because it just makes me sad paunchy plutocrats incorporated incidentally is another one of the animated summer films coming up

um from the pixel studio um

I guess the same way people are hoping when Trump meets Putin,

that's same double negative principle.

There will emerge from it a single great guy, modest, balanced, objective and with the best interests of all humanity at heart.

I mean, that seems inevitable now.

I reckon we need scientific testing.

I r I reckon we need to fire them both at each other at high speed and then we'll either get two pancakes or the world leader that we've always wanted.

I mean people talk a lot about the the the global events that have had the biggest T V audience.

You know, the moon landings, obviously back in the day in terms of proportion of the planet generally whenever India plays Pakistan at cricket in a significant game it's up in the top 10 of all time most important events but Trump and Putin being physically fired at each other

in some kind of high-tech modern jousting that

I cannot believe any less than 99% of the world's population would tune in for that yeah and if they hit each other at enough velocity then the McKismo fallout will give everybody much stronger biceps

I also like Kim Jong-un describing this as

a gift.

It does suggest he needs to see someone about his anger management issues.

And

it does explain why his

life partners generally look a bit worried.

Yes, and when you say life partners...

Yeah, I mean, life is a flexible term in Kim Jong-un's world.

I mean, they have done ever since his notorious Valentine's Day pink and blue his and hers missiles test debacle.

I mean, is this is a man who broke up with one of his generals by literally firing a missile onto him.

Yes.

And Trump tweeted, Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?

Well

no.

He's a lunatic despot.

He's just doing his job.

I mean this is but he's doing it by the book.

He's almost like he's watched the cartoon films and knows exactly what to do.

And it does also make you wonder, does Mr Trump not have anything to better do with his time than sending tweets to loony despots criticising them for how they're spending their lives?

I think events have proven definitely not.

No, other than harassing journalists and racking up prize after prize from overtly awkward Marriage Monthly magazine.

The previous American tactic with Korea was strategic patience.

That is now over.

Apparently, I don't know if it's been replaced with strategic impatience, unstrategic patience, or unstrategic impatience.

It's like that known, knowns, unknown, unknowns thing all over again.

Perhaps some kind of middle grounds, like tactical irritability or diplomatic struct borderlining.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe we need a naughty corner.

A global naughty corner, also known as the International Criminal Court, isn't it?

G20 news now, and

well, I mean, it's international diplomacy all over the place this week, Alice.

The G20,

everyone's favourite

collection of 20 powerful geopolitical entities.

They're having their, well, the first meeting since Trump became leader of the universe.

He is clearly loving every second of it.

You know, this is his natural, his natural habitat, as the pretend politician he's become.

Oh, yeah, just doing his handshake, weird wrestly thing

makes him happy.

Yes.

But it is slightly concerning at this delicate time to have America represented by a conversational cesspit.

He is essentially the world's most oddly coiffured resignation letter.

Dear planet, we hereby tender our notice as global superpower and a beacon of hope, regards USA.

And I mean, he seems to view the world in very, very binary terms.

He seems to have as rigorous a grasp on the infinite complexities of history and global politics as Julius Caesar, the former ancient Rome superstar and latterly part-time pincushion.

Same grasp as Caesar had on how to play pro-evolution soccer on a PlayStation, in that he looks like he needs at least another 2,000 years to start even starting to get the hang of it.

And the meeting with Putin, clearly, I mean, this is, you know, the love that dare not speak its name, or certainly dare not speak its name in courtrooms.

Yes.

Yeah.

I'm so upset by Putin's just very general presence in the world.

I kind of hope that he's regretting his choice to back Trump in the recent American election, as all evidence seems to indicate that he did.

I'm hoping that he's just made that realization, as you do, sort of five minutes into a Tinder date, of like, oh, this was a terrible, terrible decision.

I've used the internet for evil rather than good.

Right.

Well, yeah, I've not really thought of Putin's relationships in terms of Tinder, but that does...

I think that probably suits his psychological profile, doesn't it?

He swiped right on Trump by accident.

Right.

I think maybe that's...

I mean, it is time, I think, for us to to start harnessing the wonders of modern technology to help streamline our political processes.

And I mean there's an awful lot of beating about the bush in international politics, people saying things quite cryptically.

If we reduced it down to a simple Tinder swipe, I mean that's pretty much how wars used to be declared in the 18th century, I think.

Direct democracy.

Yeah.

Very direct democracy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said that while there'd be likely agreement on combating terrorism financing, there remains a whole series of thorny issues within the G20, including their differences with America over its protectionist attitude to trade while Germany is fighting for open markets.

I mean, if you're trying to have a productive discussion with Donald Trump, it's less thorny issues than it is wearing a thorn bush as a G-string.

You just want to have a nice sit-down, but you've got a spiky branch presenting irreconcilable differences to your perineum.

Right.

How much empirical research did you do for that way?

I'm doing it now.

German police have used water cannons to disperse around 500 anti-capitalist protesters overnight in Hamburg, where Chancellor Angela Merkel will host the leaders of the G twenty in a two-day summit, which starts on Friday.

Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to march in the city against globalization, corporate greed, and a failure to tackle climate change.

And I, for one, am going to be right there with them, selling anti-capitalism T-shirts and fidget spinners that say, Fight the power.

It's good to have w yeah, water cos

the world is too modern now, but a water cannon.

There's something charmingly retro about just firing water cannons at protesters, isn't there?

Especially that, you know, not everything is changing in the world.

There are still some beacons of stability to cling to.

Yes, especially if you consider that they've been watching The Wizard of Oz and they're assuming that all protesters are witches and will melt.

Is that not so?

I believe that scientifically that is what they are attempting to do.

Because nothing makes you less angry than being sprayed in the face with water.

What?

Depends if it's a hot day or not, isn't it?

That's true.

Yeah.

I take it back.

Saudi Arabian journalism news.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman Bil Abdulaziz has ordered a columnist to be suspended from his job after he equated the king with God, according to Saudi Arabian media.

I mean, kings, am I right?

You can't please them.

They're always like, praise me, praise me.

More, more, less, less.

Little to the right.

Yes, yes, no.

Fuck it.

You ruined it.

I'm going to sleep.

The Al Jazeera paper has apologised profusely, and it's anticipated that they will buy the king some pretty flowers on his way home from work and compliment his hair.

The king has made a reservation for brunch with his girlfriends, where he's expected to complain that newspapers are way too keen.

It's kind of a turn off.

And where have all the good men gone?

Am I right, sisters?

I mean, it's.

I'm looking at there's different ways of interpreting this.

I mean, it could be that he's worried at being associated with God as leader of Saudi Arabia because God, of course,

had way, way more progressive attitudes towards women than Saudi Arabia has generally had, despite being brought up in a very different time, to be fair to God.

I think does explain.

I'm not saying it justifies some of the slightly more misogynistic attitudes God has

expressed over the years.

I mean, we all have our issues with self-loathing, and arguably God is both man and woman, and the woman is just, you know, him thinking his bum's a bit fat.

You know, that's that part of his personality.

He's got to punish

himself.

Right, it's like an earthworm.

I mean, earthworms.

God is like an earthworm.

That's my favourite hymn.

In so many ways.

I mean, earthworms must have awful self-image issues.

I think that's natural world's most famous hermaphrodite species.

Oh, yeah.

Earthworm stand-up is awful.

Differences between men and women, are there?

I don't know.

I do worry if they start applying the same principles to journalists fawning over the royalty in this country, there are going to be a lot of tabloid hacks really having to tone down the Lizzie language.

Because, I mean, I think we pretty much view our monarch, and of course, your monarch, as an Australian.

Oh, boy.

As a god.

Long may she reign.

As a deity, as a god, in that there is no discernible proof that she does anything.

But people find sucker and comfort in the idea of her existence.

And she's more comforting than the alternatives in some ways.

And also nepotistically appoints her own son to top jobs.

So clearly a lot of similarities.

Yeah, I regularly sacrifice a goat to Queen Elizabeth.

A goat.

That's how we do it in Australia.

The goat sacrifice.

Yeah, well, I disagree with their attitude to bees.

Gender equality news, Harvard's Fox Club will not allow nine women who had enjoyed provisional status in their group to become full members, effectively expelling the women and marking the club's return to all-male status almost two years after it first became co-ed.

The women, although they did their best to fit in with the club's ethos, were told to go fox themselves.

Despite their best efforts at vixen the gender imbalance, I guess they were just not game enough for the Fox Club.

Come on.

Look, I think it's a step forward.

The Fox Club is just taking one of the necessary steps to getting back to its roots as a club that is entirely for foxes.

Soon, the male memberships will also be revoked, and the club will be, as it was always meant to be, a safe haven for foxes to play drinking games and do the foxtrot without the constant threat of Tories and hunters and fashionable women who want to wear them as neck decor.

Foxes need a safe space.

I mean, of course, it's politically incorrect, and they are being a bit hunty about it.

Come on.

Well, that kind of stuff is always welcome in this broad church church of the bugle.

Why do you look pained?

I mean, this is Harvard.

This is one of the leading educational establishments in the world that appears to have decided that women are just a passing fad.

I mean, we did, after all, get along without women quite well until the feminist lobby forced God to make Eve.

So, just getting back to basics, isn't it?

Yeah, just stick the rib back where it originally was, go play a nice round of golf.

despite the best efforts of the the fox club to ensure that all the world are male graduates i think that's what it's about um apparently uh a man shortage is prompting educated women in america to freeze their eggs a shortage of what the report described as educated men yeah it's it's all gone downhill since they taught women critical thinking and

now they can't find men who are they're willing to mate with but i mean does this suggest that

women are far too picky nowadays?

I mean, it wasn't so long ago that you people were happy to find a man who could draw a rough picture of a cow on the wall of a cave and bring down a diplodocus with a spear.

But thanks to Mrs.

Pankhurst, it's all we've all got to be rocket scientists now as well.

Yeah, well,

it is a feminism problem.

You know, women want all of the power, but they don't want to be, you know, the breadwinner and

the smart one in the relationship as well.

They keep wanting a guy who's like equal or better.

We need to get like, we need to get with with the man programme and start marrying like dumb pretty ones.

Well that's what my wife did.

That's real equality.

Yeah.

She's a pioneer.

The author of the report is Professor Marcia Inhorn who is clearly fictitious.

I imagine from the same people who created Elon Musk, the equally fictitious tycoon.

And Nathan Chestnut, the hot dog eating champion.

Ah, well we will get on to get on to uh get on to him later.

Is it is it Nathan?

Oh, sorry.

His name is Joey Chestnut, and he won the Nathan's hot dog eating competition

by eating 72 hot dogs in 10 minutes.

Yes.

And they say there's a man shortage.

Well, exactly.

These Harvard women are just looking in the wrong place.

They're not looking in hot dog eating competitions.

There is, I mean, he is a genius of hot dog eating.

I think this is his 10th win in a row at the Nathan's hot dog eating competition.

Raising the interesting question, is Joey Chestnut now the most influential man in history with the initials JC?

Or might the likes of Christ, Caesar, Cash, Chon, Corbyn,

and

tennis player Jeremy Chardy have something to say about that?

I mean what an amazing skill to have though.

I mean this

in terms of you know we've talked a lot about impending apocalypse on this show.

In terms of the skills you will need as the world falls to pieces.

Yeah, getting it all down before the zombie horde arrives.

Exactly.

Getting in your nutrition for the next three weeks.

He's a role model for all humanity.

Offending as many vegetarians as you possibly can in the shortest period of time.

Because

they dunk the hot dogs in water, don't they?

To make them more delicious.

I think that's just basic lubrication.

Engineering, isn't it?

So basically, these water-soaked tubes of probably edible animal death,

swallow them down at unnaturally high and medically inadvisable speed to the baying adulation of a crowd of people who slake their primeval bloodlust by watching dog after dog after dog disappear down the well-trained gullets of their heroes.

I mean, I love sport, as you know, Alice.

Yes.

But it's made me think: is this hot dog eating actually any more weird than

professional rugby union or ice hockey?

I mean, it does definitively answer the question:

should you, if you can,

with the the answer, no.

That is the ultimate end of all philosophy now, that sentence.

Congratulations.

I mean, I sort of understand the urge to sort of improve yourself and impress other people by doing as much of whatever it is that you're doing that you can, right?

That's a classic man, a man attitude of like, oh, more, better, harder, 72 hot dogs.

But I don't understand the people who watch it.

Right.

Maybe that's just, you know, my prejudice talking.

I can't see the beauty and elegance

that I can see in a Roger Federer backhand in a man eating 72 hot dogs in 10 minutes.

I just don't have the

the same the frame of reference.

Maybe because I've not been brought up.

If I've been brought up from a young age watching people eat 72 hot dogs in 10 minutes, maybe I'd appreciate the

Maybe you need to plunge yourself into this sport to truly appreciate

I I think you need to go home, buy a hundred hot dogs and tell your mum uh tell tell your wife it's for research.

I can tell my mum as well.

Tell your mum it's for research tell your wife it's for research uh and then just eat them in front of your children right is it like football do you have to support like your local like your local hot dog eater or well I don't know if you support the eater or if you pee support the hot dog manufacture is it like Formula One are they like hot dogs that are scientifically just give you a huge advantage be like Fernando Alonso in Formula One but I mean I I we've talked s a little bit recently about hybrid sports as well and I think you know if hot dog eating is gonna really make it to the masses it needs to piggyback on another

oh extreme hot dog eating while doing the luge yeah the luge I was thinking maybe Olympic dressage

whilst you know that's a very technical sport that doesn't have a broad range of appeal but imagine how many more people watch it and the losing horse becomes the hot dog

well that you know that that has been suggested by the French Olympic Committee but um the

um

well I guess I've been thinking of the rider being the one who ate the hot dogs maybe if the rider and the horse have to eat the hot dog each with every bit of horsey dressage.

Sure.

I mean, how would you rank the technique?

Are you going for pranciness or gluttony?

Well,

I mean, I don't understand dressage, but I understand they do get points for pranciness.

Yes, pranciness is the official term, I believe.

And ice dressage is coming in the next Winter Olympics.

That's what people are going to watch.

Your emails now, and this comes from Eleanor Cotto in Boston, Massachusetts, who writes,

Andy, I just listened to episode 4035 and was incensed to hear Tiff Stevenson and Tom Ballard giving you stick about not catching some stupid Game of Thrones reference when you had dropped Sir Donald Bradman's test batting average as the accuracy with which an iPhone will soon predict its owner's future.

And they let it pass entirely without comment, or indeed any seeming recognition at all.

Shame, shame, writes Eleanor, especially on Tom Ballard, not only because he is an Australian and should therefore have known this from birth, but also because he is an occasional employee of the ABC who used the Dons Average as their mailing address, P.O.

Box 9994, for their flagship national sport radio programme grandstand.

But no, he and Tiff would rather cram their brains full of dragon shit.

What is this world coming to?

Yours in admiration of subtle cricket illusions, Eleanor Cotto.

That's well that's good to hear that, you know, Test cricket from the 19 from 1928 to 1948 can still get people's attention just as Game of Thrones.

I mean, I'm shocked that your listenership is more pro-cricket than pro-Game of Thrones, Andy.

Really?

No.

Are you a Thrones fan?

No.

I mean, I read the books and then sort of after the third or fourth time an underage girl gets sort of married off.

I thought, oh, this is less a plot point than

a hobby for the author.

Yep.

I think if you're into Test cricket, Game of Thrones just doesn't hack it for me.

Do keep your emails coming in to hallowbuglers at the BuglePodcast.com.

Well, that brings us towards the end of this week's show.

I hope you enjoyed it.

It's been a delight to have Alice back on the show.

She's knocking around Britain for the next, what, three months?

Yes.

Including a month in Edinburgh.

Plug the show, Alice.

10pm at the Gilded Balloon.

The show is called Empire.

And I'm worried that 10pm will lead to lots of drunk idiots coming to my show.

So come and don't don't be a drunk idiot.

My show will be an altogether less drunken idiot-heavy show in three in the afternoon, where I get

sober idiots instead,

who may be slightly hopped up on caffeine after an early start.

My show, Satirist for Hire, with which buglers will probably be familiar, at the stand from the 14th-ish.

I should love this point now, shouldn't I?

It's all online.

Just show up in Edinburgh and hang around.

You'll find Andy.

Do send your requests to satirise this at satiristforhire.com because that email feed could really do with some emails that are not offering me penile medication.

But are you happy with the strength of your erections, Andy?

Really?

Well, oh, we're out of time.

Thank you for listening, buglers.

Next week is the live bugle from the Underbelly in London with Nish Kumar and Helen Zoltzmann.

That show is now sold out but there will be two live bugles in Edinburgh on the 16th and 27th and further live bugles later in the year in London.

So listen,

listen to this space.

Watch and listen to this space and I will tell you all about them in due course.

Until next week, 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.