Bugle 4035 – Theresa May has ruined leopard print

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 4035 of the Bugle, audio newspaper for this visual world for the week beginning on Monday, the 3rd of July, 2017, with me, Andy Zoltzman, reporting to you live and exclusively from London.

We are now at at the halfway point of 2017, just 82 and a half years now, until we can kiss this goddamn century goodbye and have another crack at a new one.

We'll get it right someday.

Just you wait.

Just you wait.

I can feel it.

I know we've got a good one in there somewhere.

We've just got to get the first 20 years right.

That's the bit we keep ballsing up.

Joining me today, for the first time on the bugle, it's a great pleasure to welcome to these hallowed audio pages.

To contribute to this, the official week-by-week historical record of humanity from the year 2007 up to and including Armageddon.

All the way from a different bit of London, it's Tiffany Stevenson.

Hello.

Hi.

I'm very excited.

Well Peters, delight to have

you on the show.

Yeah.

I mean there's hardly any news happening so it's a shame that I've come on this week isn't it?

Yes, yeah I mean there's yeah when news I wish news would surely the world could just agree to have a week off news.

Of news, yeah.

Yeah it just needs to stop for a little while doesn't it?

We need because we all feel like Brenda from Bristol.

Yeah.

We've just had enough.

Yes.

And also joining us all the way from the hemisphere that has brought the world, amongst other things, Antarctica, Brazilian football, Robert Mugabe, Penguins, and the majority of the world's water.

That's the southern hemisphere, in case you're wondering.

Reporting to us all the way from later today, and more importantly from Australia.

It's the man whose birth...

In November 1989 sparked the Czechoslovakian Communist Party just two days later to dismantle the one-party state and convert to a parliamentary republic.

That's the kind of power he wields.

Welcome back to Tom Ballard.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Tiff.

You were very diplomatic there.

I've heard you previously describe this as the worst hemisphere, which I don't appreciate at all.

I mean, you mentioned Mugabe there.

We're not proud of him.

He's not at the front of the team for the southern hemisphere.

So watch yourself, please.

We just compare your tonies.

Like, if you've got a worse political tony than us,

it's pretty hard.

Like, Abbott is probably not as bad as Blair, but

he got less done.

If Abbott got to do all the things that he wanted to do, I think he could go toe-to-toe with Blair, maybe.

Yeah,

if he'd been born anywhere other than Australia, things could have got...

He was born.

He was born right where you bloody are, mate, London.

Oh, right.

Okay, well, we did well to get rid of him then.

That is one bit of sport you would love to see, wouldn't you?

Blair versus Abbott.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I mean, what

format of sport?

Are we talking about full bare-knuckle boxing?

I couldn't take the cricket because it would go on for days.

So bare-knuckle boxing would be good, or a bit of MMA.

Tiff, you've been on the show for what, about four minutes and you've already slagged cricket.

I know.

I know.

You know,

I've got plenty to say on cricket,

all of it positive.

But I'm just saying, I think, you know, maybe some mixed martial arts, we could see some real

them actually shedding blood for once.

That's all I'm saying.

Yes.

I'd want full contact.

Right, I think Tony Blair's idea of martial arts generally involves the US military, I think, rather than just just hand-to-hand combat.

Anyway.

This is the Bugle for the Week beginning Monday, the 3rd of July, 2017.

On the 2nd of July, some quality anniversaries coming up.

On the 2nd of July, 1816, the French ship Medusa clonked into a sandbank off the coasts of Mauritania in Africa.

13 days later, 15 people are found alive on a makeshift raft out of the 150 odd who had been on the raft at the start of its raft existence, leading to the famous painting, The Raft of the Medusa, by the French artist Jerry Cole.

And recently discovered papers have revealed the trip advisor reviews for the raft of the Medusa from some of those surviving 15, including comments such as, not exactly what you want in a summer cruise.

Facilities were, at best, minimal.

Nothing was organised to keep the passengers entertained, apart from occasional fights and people falling into the sea.

And above all, this one, the food was absolutely disgusting.

It wasn't just me that thought that.

The guy I ate for dinner was saying exactly the same things I naught into his leg.

You did comedy on that cruise, didn't you, Andy, back in your U.S.

career?

You did a few gigs out there, didn't you?

Gigs a gig, Tom.

Gigs a gig.

On the 2nd of July, 1921, the Knox Porter Resolution was passed, a U.S.

Congress resolution ending American involvement in World War I.

That was in 1921.

See, everyone stopped complaining about America always turning up late for world wars.

They did the full four years.

They just did it a little bit offset.

And in 1937, it was the last contact with Amelia Earhart

on the 2nd of July 1937.

She is now assumed to be either dead or 80% of the way through the world's first ever 100-year prank.

Watch this space for details.

As always, some sections of the Bugle are going straight in the bin, including our exclusive Bugle Glastonbury review.

We look at some of the less well-known rock and pop acts who wowed the crowds at Glasters this year, including Juggernautica, the pioneers of Haulage Rock.

The Jugs were back at the farm for the first time since 2004.

With New This Year, the former lead driver of Truculens, another lorry-based rock band.

Of course, Juggernautica, the first band in Glasmury history to use a fully functioning articulated lorry as an instrument on stage.

And they're a big hit.

No worries when you're in my lorries.

That went down an absolute storm.

Also, the Jury 12, great bands, former jury from a long-running fraud case, formed as an a cappella band during two and a half years of rather dry technical testimony, in which they started singing close harmony summaries of bits of evidence to keep them fresh with their minds.

Andy, when was the last time you went to a music festival?

What do you think happens there?

What do you think actually happens?

Do you think every band is a concept band

from some kind of profession?

Yep.

Okay.

Mostly.

I mean, that is generally what happens, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I do go to truck.

There is an actual truck fest.

You know this, right?

Oh,

I haven't ever been invited to a truck fest.

Well, I don't have a truck, so I guess that's you know.

Yeah, where they just open up the back of trucks and they're the stages.

Right.

So I've heard it's pretty rocking.

Right.

If the trucks are rocking.

Right.

Does that work for other vehicles?

Is there like a smaller

tooth tick van fest?

A van fest would work.

Scooter fest.

Scooter fest played for the Boston Biddies in the 1950s Nursing Home Baseball League.

I digress.

The Jury 12s, big hits.

I don't care if you're innocent.

I just want to go home.

The evidence is all over your guilty face brackets like yogurt on a baby.

Ali, bye-bye.

You can't really remember the 4th of December.

And also, I mean, my personal favourites this year, albeit that obviously didn't go, Grumpel Stiltskins, the tantrum-based American strop rockers who smashed it up on the huff stage with a 45-minute screamed version of their smash it lost glob of chewing gum on the bus seat of paint.

So our Glastonbury section in the bin.

Also in the bin, well related to another historic anniversary, it's the 10th birthday of the iPhone.

And in our special iPhone section in the bin, we look at where the iPhone will be in 10 years.

And our scientists here at the Bugle have predicted that within 10 years, the iPhone will be able not only to completely read your mind, but predictively write all your emails and texts for you.

You just have to trust this software.

And if your iPhone 12 breaks off your marriage and hooks you up with an Uzbek cattle rancher instead, well, I think we all agree in this day and age, your phone knows your f of a lot better than you do.

iPhones in 2027 will also be able to physically eat your loved ones and turn them into really realistic emojis.

They'll be able to predict your entire life story and death to within 99.94% accuracy, saving you the hassle of worrying about the future and whether or not that tickly cough is or isn't fatal.

And your iPhone will be able to perform invasive surgery on you whilst you sleep.

It will completely monitor your body so that you will wake up in the morning having already had your appendix lopped out without even knowing you needed it.

So, exciting times for

the future of iPhones.

The iPhone turning 10, does that mean that it's now turned as old as the children who make it?

That's pretty amazing.

Top story this week: Britain updates.

And, well, I mean, a lot of things have been happening in Britain as Tiff suggested.

A quick national mood updates, and the official national mood at the moment is gumph.

It's a stroppery time in Britain at the moment, Tiff, wouldn't you say?

Oh, it is.

It's frustrating.

I mean, this DUP coalition that we've got going on, old strong and stable in a bike chain necklace, as I just refer to as Theresa May.

Does she think she's going to get nicked off a set of railings?

Who would want to take her?

I don't know.

Maybe that she's just waiting, just sadly, outside the Houses of Parliament.

I mean, it's here's what's happening at the moment.

Theresa May is actually making me hate Leopard Print.

Wow.

Which, as a working-class person, is totally unacceptable.

That's how much I hate Theresa May now and this DUP coalition.

There's a few details to this, and I don't know how much of it you're aware of, Tom.

But the DUP have signed a dodgy deal worth $1 billion with Theresa May's Conservatives.

And it's essentially bung money, you know, which is not new for the DUP.

They've seen more under-the-table action than Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.

This deal is more bent than a Uri Geller spoon.

I'm thinking that Wales and Scotland are rightly going to come crashing in, saying, What do we get out of this?

How come the DUP get just a billion pounds handed to them?

Well, it's a nice above-board bribe, to be honest.

I mean, it's good that politics is being honest because usually these things are done behind closed doors.

They come right out with it.

They said, No, we are going to bribe them £100 million per MP for their 10 MPs.

I mean, I would be quite happy if my local MP in Streatham flogged himself for £100 million.

We've got a Labour MP if he just said, right, in fact he could undercut them.

He could go

85 million quid, 15% off your standard parliamentary bribe for a full five-year term.

What could we do with that money?

We could get a bobsled run for Streatham, even enough books for local schools.

I know that's a bit lefty, but or nuclear deterrent.

We can have our own

nuclear

trident for Streatham.

Let's dream.

Let's aim high.

During the election campaign, Theresa May told an NHS nurse who hadn't had a pay rise in eight years or whatever that there's no magic money tree that we can shake that suddenly provides for everything that people want.

Apparently, there are several money shrubs that have been shaken so as to provide for everything that Theresa May wants, which is everything.

And then I believe some NHS nurses asked the Prime Minister if there was any leftover money in the shrubs that could go towards helping them.

And the PM said no, they all disappeared in a puff of smoke.

They're allowed to.

It's magic.

Yeah, they treated that magic money tree like someone claiming to the police that those strange plants in their back garden are perfectly above you.

Well, up until Monday, I thought the magical money tree was a Enid Leighton book.

But apparently, no.

And here's the weird thing.

The DUP creationists who don't believe in evolution because they believe in magic money trees.

What else do they do?

I don't know if you're aware of this, Tom, but there's three or four creationists within the DUP.

And, okay,

I mean, there's levels of this that we can tuck into.

There's quite a lot in this tasty creationist sample.

You're not a creationist yourself.

Oh, no, I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm an imaginary.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have put you for this.

I only have creationists on this show.

But

you know that they had a creationist archaeologist, which I think is an oxymoron.

That's impressive.

Yeah.

A creationist archaeologist who went to a dig site and discovered.

This is so brilliant, who discovered a dinosaur saddle.

Right.

So the suggestion was that not only did man walk the earth with dinosaurs, and it's always man rather than men and women.

Right.

That man walked the earth with dinosaurs.

Not only that, but man sort of domesticated dinosaurs.

Right.

He rides like a cat or a dog.

Competitive dinosaur racing.

If you read Deuteronomy backwards, it's all there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's mad, isn't it?

I mean, I quite like the idea of having a pet T-Rex.

Well, we all like that, but I mean, we're a Flintstones-influenced generation, aren't we?

Yeah.

I mean,

I'm thinking of giving creationism a go, to be honest.

I think there's a lot to be said for it.

I mean,

anything that happened more than 42 and a half years ago on this planet isn't really my business anyway.

The fossils did f ⁇ all for this planet.

I mean, look at dinosaurs.

Sure, pretty scary, but you know, how about a legacy of usable infrastructure like the Romans left?

Also, let's get patriotic about this, Tiff.

Britain ruled the world, see footnotes, for, what, about 200 years, also see footnotes, spreading the glory of Britishness, see other footnotes, and leaving a legacy of peace, definitely see footnotes.

Democracy, seriously, read those footnotes.

Mutually beneficial trade, ditto,

decreased problems of tiger infestations, and cricket.

200 years.

Now, if that's 200 years out of 6,000 years, that's quite a lot.

That's quite impressive.

That's like a solid 3% of the entire history of the world.

200 years out of 4.5 billion years, less impressive.

So from, you you know, from a British, and we have to be in this post-Brexit time, we have to be British as well.

That's right, make Britain creationist again.

The DUP are very conservative and quite homophobic, is the impression that I'm getting.

I heard that they only want to spend the money on roads, only the straight roads.

Any bent roads will be sent to conversion therapy, apparently.

This is this is just what I'm reading.

This is just the news that's getting over to Australia, guys.

I can't verify.

Oh, there's Trevor Clark of the DUP who said last year that he thought only gay people could contract AIDS or HIV, which makes me think only straight people can catch abject stupidity.

I definitely got that.

I mean, it's terrifying, isn't it?

I mean,

we're trying to be funny about it, but it is terrifying.

Well, I mean, it's particularly in the context of...

quite how this has come about because it was only

as well as in in Australia.

In fact, I think Tom was on the bugle just after the election was called.

And at that point, we were looking at, you know, a kind of 100,000-year Tory Reich.

And it's, I mean, quite how this has happened, that Theresa May has ended up, without a majority, having to hack out a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party to plonk a sticking plaster over the severed artery of her dreams of supreme everlasting power.

I don't know how this is, I still can't quite understand it.

Yeah.

Well, she's, it's, as much as I want to see sort of women in power, I don't know why it has to be Arlene Foster and Theresa May, you know, two women who are essentially womb botherers.

That's how I would describe them.

They're obsessed with what women are doing in their womb, you know.

Although Stella Creasy

has just managed to get it passed so that, you know, the NHS fund abortions in Northern Ireland, which is a really exciting so people, so women from Northern Ireland who want an abortion can't have it there, but they can't be able to come to England.

I mean, yeah, they still can't have it there.

They've got to travel, but at least they're free.

Yes.

There's a grand tourism campaign.

Oh, don't, because the Taoiseach in Ireland basically said that women travelled for abortions like you would go to a stag or a hen do in Vegas.

Like he suggested that was the attitude.

Right, with extreme reluctance, if that was me being invited to a stag in Vegas.

So many pro-lifers have this sort of weird attitude.

I think it was the Steve Reverend Stephen Green from Christian Voice, you know, the guy who puts the fun into fundamentalism.

He

heard a Mary Stopes advert once and said that it was disgusting because it encouraged abortions.

As if that's how it works.

You hear an advert and go, oh, do you know what?

I haven't had for ages.

Like, also, I don't even like that.

Like, also, I don't like the term pro-abortion.

It's pro-choice.

Stop making it like that's what people are actively seeking.

So it's,

you know, the DUP are, I'm trying to think if we've got anyone who's as, you know, anti-LGBT, anti-women's rights, climate change deniers as well.

Right.

Add that to the resume.

I mean, is there anyone worse?

Is there anyone worse that Theresa May could have teamed up with?

No, she could have married Donald Trump, I guess.

I mean, that's

the only other.

She is his Maggie, after all.

He calls her my Maggie from The Simpsons, I I presume.

It's quite hard to follow the news from this side of the the world.

It's very confusing, particularly with your media.

The thing that's really blown my mind is the London Evening Standard front page, as we know, edited by George Osborne, which had Arlene Foster's head superimposed onto Dr.

Evil's body.

She saying, I demand the sum of £1 billion.

And then Teresa May's head is superimposed onto Minnie Lee's body next to Dr.

Evil slash Arlene Foster with the caption Austin Powers sharing.

Now, this is incredibly confusing and is inconsistent with all Austin Powers mythology.

Okay, this is

canon.

Doctor Evil would never hold Mini Mi to ransom for a billion pounds, particularly if it meant that Mini Mi would be able to continue in some kind of significant leadership position that would require Doctor Evil to support a vote of confidence in Minnie Mi's abilities and any and all the money bills that Minnie Mi introduces into the parliament.

Mini Mi is a clone of Dr.

Evil and his entire being is dedicated to serving Doctor Evil and helping realize his clone/slash father figures plans of extortion and chaos, i.e.

Brexit.

If Minnie Me had a billion pounds, he would automatically just give it over to Dr.

Evil unconditionally.

I doubt infrastructure spending in Northern Ireland or reproductive rights would ever come into the conversation at all.

In fact, Dr.

Evil and Minnie Me are probably both extremely progressive when it comes to reproductive issues because Minnie Me is ostensibly the result of a process of IVF.

It makes no sense whatsoever, and the whole thing is very ungroovy, baby.

Yay!

That was beautiful.

Thanks, guys.

In other Tories news and other Glastonbury news, the Channel 4 newsreader, Jon Snow, was allegedly

heard joining in a f ⁇ the Tories chant at Glastonbury and has been criticised as suggesting that this undermines his journalistic objectivity.

He's claimed that he can't remember this happening.

Another suggestion of undermining his integrity under the influence of whatever he was taking at Glastonbury.

He rocked after the Jugs, am I right, Andy?

That's right.

He's a massive, massive fan of the Jugs.

I mean, do we know that he definitely said this?

We should check which Jon Snow actually.

Right.

What are you talking about, the former Sussex and England fast bowler?

No, I was going for the Game of Thrones Jon Snow.

Oh, right.

He was also at Glastonbury.

You know nothing, Andy Zoltzmann.

I know quite a lot about England fast bowlers from the 1960s and 70s.

That was also a quote from Game of Thrones.

That was just me that got that.

okay.

I don't even know that that landed with Tom over there.

Oh, you got it.

I get it.

Chris got it.

Yeah, so it is the Jon Snow

of Zainabadawi fame.

Right.

And he was supposedly chanting f the Tories.

Yes.

I mean, it's possible that he wasn't saying f the Tories.

It could have been f the Taurists.

He's a Glastonbury purist and believes the festival has lost its edge.

It could have been,

he could have been just trying to say f that horsey after losing £25,000 on a 12-1 outsider in the 340 eutoxidote.

We just don't know.

It could have been

f the tour Riz, as in the Glastonbury Tour, the famous hill at Glastonbury, and he was having a conversation with the baseball star and Chicago Cubs first baseman, Anthony Rizzo.

We just don't know.

We don't know.

It could have been f the Tour Ease, maybe against the use of performance enhancing drugs at the Tour de France, referring to the Ease being the EPO drugs that were used by

various m miscreants.

Who knows?

He could have said the Tories, but he meant some please, someone.

The Tories.

They're having a really hard time at the moment, and they could deal with some touching.

Or he could have been criticising the Tories, which is how we collectively refer to Tories, Kelly, Spelling, and Amos.

You know, just generally.

Those three women I'm not a fan of, you know.

It could have been that he was realising his mistake in the annual Glastonbury quiz,

in which the question was, which party famously won general elections in 1979, 1983, and 1987?

And he'd guessed the Revolutionary Socialist Party got it wrong.

And when he was told the answer, he said, ah, f the Tories.

We just, I mean, that's the thing with news these days.

You just don't know what to believe.

Well, there was a band on the lineup called the Tories.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Tories at all, Andy.

Dreadful, dreadful music.

All their songs are about austerity and fox hunting.

Their drum kit is made up of the skin of elderly poor people.

And they refuse to tour anywhere in the EU, saying that if their European fans want to see them so bloody badly, they should come to Britain then immediately f off.

I'm a professor of the death metal group Coalition of Chaos myself.

I'd go and watch the Coalition of Chaos.

Rock and roll.

Well, he's allowed to have an opinion outside of his work, isn't he?

That's the thing.

So sort of people were saying it compromises the integrity of his reporting to have an opinion.

But, you know, he's in downtime.

He's at Glasgow.

Also, we don't, I mean, there might have been someone with an auto there, because he re-you know, his whole, everything he says is off.

It's a little like a Ron Burgundy situation.

Yeah, I think f the Tories is an impartial, universal view at this point.

Aren't even Tories saying f the Tories at this point?

Yeah, I mean, that was largely Theresa May's election campaign.

Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe, I mean, this, this could be, maybe we just didn't get all of it.

He'd also said f Labour, f the Lib Dems.

It could have been, yeah, his new start to all news bulletins, like a kind of religious incantation.

F ⁇ the Tories, f the Pinkos, repeat after me, f the fing lot of them.

Amen.

We will now sing him number 214, Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out, out.

Glastonbury came in for a lot of stick this year because of the sort of poverty gap situation and people going, oh, just, you know, champagne socialists and poor people.

How are they affording to go to Glastonbury as if you can't save up for a treat?

I mean, I got even told off the other day for using the word poor, very middle-class friend of mine.

She said, I find that word really offensive, and I was like, From someone who's never been poor.

Like, what would you like me to call them?

Differently financed,

economically challenged.

Like, why are we trying to euphemism our way out of what is just a desperately sad situation out of the reality and the contempt with which our government treats poor people?

Another piece of world-shaking British politics news, and this broke just within the last 24 hours, the Speaker of the House of Commons has said that MPs no longer have to wear ties, male MPs no longer have to wear ties in the House of Commons.

I mean,

this is potentially the biggest upheaval in British politics, probably since we decapitated King Charles I in 1649, had a briefcut not having a monarch and then panicked and got them back 11 years later.

This is, I mean, this undermines everything that we know about ourselves as a nation.

Was he wearing a tie?

Oh, I would imagine so.

I would hope so.

I mean, the tie, I don't think the tie as we currently know it had officially been invented then, but it's one of those things that was essentially always there spiritually.

Even if we didn't actually, I think we were were we were wearing wearing ties when the Romans invaded.

I don't know.

But how will Britain cope with this?

I don't know, it's feminism gone mad, isn't it?

It is absolutely.

I just like to say that to stuff that is in no way feminist it's feminism gone mad swap by pankhurst honestly um i mean where will it end i mean where will this end tiff i don't know i mean no trousers next i mean that seems inevitable now doesn't it

if we're gonna let standards slip this much it's gonna be no cufflinks or no cufflink tuesday

and then eventually it'll just be underpants and what those little sock suspenders right there'll be no sock suspenders next right i mean i dread the day they banned monocles in the House of Lords.

I think that's going to be a bit of a cocks on all of us.

To be fair, they did change the dress code.

Years ago, they told MPs they were no longer required to wear any shame

or bring any backbone to the chamber as well.

So there has been some changes.

I was going to end up with a load of shirtless Tories swigging lager out of cans on the back benches.

See, that's what it's like when I go to the cricket.

There was a crazy story of this Nadim Zahawi.

Do you remember this?

This Conservative MP who was wearing a novelty tie in 2011, and it was this red tie that was, you know, for a good cause, it was raising awareness about bowel cancer.

And it began playing a tune.

He accidentally knocked it.

He was saying the sentence, if we are to have a credible debate, and then his tie started playing a song, and he had to apologise to the chamber.

Oh, I hope it was girl from Epanema or something.

I find that anything serious should be underscored with that.

Let's just play that into the UN chamber at all times.

Just to moderate the anger in international politics.

Ooh, and I watch her so sadly.

What the f is going on over there?

Are they going to ban Groucho Mark's glasses as well?

I remember when Winston Churchill asked Clement Attlee to lean in and smell that flower on his lapel, only to spray him in the face with a short blast of boiling hot British water.

Ha ha!

Cut that old chum!

That was a turning point in the 1945 election, I think, is what Churchill lost.

Yep, that's a fact.

Australia news now, and we have just as strong, a stable Conservative government as you guys seem to have at the moment.

There is a lot of division going on in the coalition government in Australia.

There's leadership tension, and the right wing of the government got very angry indeed when these comments made by government minister Christopher Pine were leaked.

He made these comments at a Liberal Party function, and I'm going to just warn you now, guys, these are pretty, pretty intense comments.

Okay, you guys sitting down, you're basically sitting down.

Okay, this is pretty full on.

Referring to his left faction within the Conservative Party,

Christopher Pine said, friends, we are in the winner's circle.

We have to deliver a couple of things, and one of those things we've got to deliver before too long is marriage equality.

What

is a monster?

It's amazing that Australia didn't just fly off the face of the planet into its own new orbit.

How does he sleep at night?

I think you know that you're being run by crazy right-wing nut jobs when someone people finding out that you said gay people shouldn't be discriminated against is like a crazy scandal.

There was like people are prepared to like cross the right-wing faction, are losing their mind.

They're demanding that Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister, like sack Christopher Pine from his job.

They're prepared to cross the floor while advocates for marriage equality are prepared to cross-dress.

Tickets for my show at the Edinburgh fringe are on sale now.

That's all I got.

Wasn't it like a works knees up?

So basically, this was a sort of comment he made at a work do.

I didn't want to tell you what I've done at office parties.

It involves my boobs and a Dyson Airblade.

But like, surely.

Oh, it's frustrating.

I mean, I was over in Australia doing sort of shows a couple of years ago.

And I remember after the show, this woman came up to me and she was like, yeah, I enjoyed your comedy.

I was like, All right, aggressive.

And she went to me, The thing is, marriages between a man and a woman, that's just the way it's always been.

And I was like, Oh, well, if it's always been a way, we definitely shouldn't bother trying to change it.

I mean, that's not how progress works or anything.

You know, what I should have said to her was, you know, up until 1911, it was only men who were allowed to vote.

So, you wouldn't have even been canvassed your opinion.

And that is my interesting fact for you, Andy.

Right.

Yeah, right.

Australia had women's suffrage seven years before the UK.

Right.

Yeah.

How could they be so far ahead then and so far behind now?

Hey, gorgeous.

Time difference.

But yeah,

I feel your pain, Tom.

Well, I don't quite feel your pain because I'm in a position where I can get married to whoever I like.

But, you know, it must be incredibly frustrating right now.

Well, I need to get a boyfriend first.

But yes, generally, as a matter of principle, it's a bloody nightmare.

And it just, it is, just speaks to the fact that the leader of the opposition, the prime minister, and everyone in the country, pretty much except for these old dinosaurs, which the DEP wouldn't believe in,

are against

just making sure that people are treated equally before the law.

What's going on?

Corey Bernardi,

who's what the Conservative Party leader in Australia, that's different from the governing Liberal Party,

now he

complained that it showed the Liberals were saying one thing in public and another in private.

Now, quite aside from any arguments about

gay marriage, I have no problem with politicians saying one thing in public and another in private, because I hope in private what they are saying is things like, oh, shit!

What the f are we going to do with this?

This planet is a f top cracker tower of horseshit.

But you don't want them saying that in public because it undermines confidence.

You want them to say things like, we're all working towards a brighter future.

If they said that, I don't think people were going, man, he's a straight shooter.

He really tells it like it is.

Well, Germany have got on board today, haven't they?

Yes.

So that's to be applauded and encouraged.

I mean, America, America have it.

I was in New York when they

was all going through, and I watched some of the coverage on the news.

I think it was Fox News because the hair was big.

That's how you tell.

The bigger the hair, the more right-wing the station.

There is a direct index, isn't it?

Yeah, there is.

Well, I think it should now be officially the Stevenson index.

Of right-wingedness.

Blonder, the bigger and blonder it gets, you know, the more right-wing it is.

I think there's something going back to Hitler, their weird eugenics thing that

we probably shouldn't delve into.

Well, I'm now imagining Hitler in a big blonde, kind of 1980s dynasty style wig.

Well, I...

That would have undercut him, actually.

It would have, yeah.

Well, when I was like a teenager, I did ask myself that question that every teenage girl asks herself, you know, would Hitler fancy me?

And

I thought he'd probably be.

My daughter is 10 currently, so I mean, what point of teenage years am I going to have?

It's about 13, 14.

Right, okay.

Yeah.

I thought on the one hand that he would, because I look like the eugenic ideal, you know, blonde hair, blue eyes, but I am also part gypsy.

Right.

So he'd have a bit of a dilemma.

He'd be like, sleep with me, kill me, sleep with me.

Basically, the same dilemma that every man I've ever

gone out with has gone through.

Perfectly natural, Tiff.

This is a phase that all young girls go through.

You'll come out of it fine it's perfectly natural jesus

um yeah so big hair the bigger the bigger the blonder the more right wing alt-right everyone on the alt-right is blonde look at milo tommy tommy laron you know they're all blonde don't trust them

but yeah it's ballard don't trust ballard don't trust stevenson and he's in the red he's okay right yeah yeah uh but yeah that was the the uh just to finish that i watched the the this female news anchor came on when equal marriage had been announced.

And she went, today is a historic day for the United States of America.

All across the U.S., men are marrying men.

I was like, wow, even equality is not equal.

That is incredible.

It doesn't say a lot for Australia, to be honest, Tom.

But when you're being beaten by the United Kingdom in an issue of social liberalism, that is time to sit down with yourself and ask yourself what you're doing as a nation.

Ireland, Germany, the US.

All right, all right, we'll get there.

We'll get there.

It's just you and Russia.

It's you and Russia.

Still just slightly ahead of Saudi Arabia as well, to be fair.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Cling to that.

Some more Australian news.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been making trouble.

He was ousted as PM in 2015 and promised at the time that as he went to the back bench, there'd be no wrecking, no undermining, and no sniping of the new Turnbull administration.

Okay?

And he's been true to his word.

There's been no wrecking, no undermining, no sniping.

There has been quite a bit of ruining, damaging, sully, discrediting, dishonoring, debasing, and shit flinging, unfortunately.

This week, completely unprompted, no one asked for this, Tony Abbott released his plan to win the next election, which is kind of like Kinda West releasing a plan to eliminate the ego, or Rolf Harris releasing his plan to win the next election, basically.

The plan is entitled, Let's Make Australia Work Again, implying, of course, that Australia is currently not working.

And Tony is the man who knows how to turn it off and on again.

Everyone should read it.

Every Australian should read it.

Every citizen should read it.

It's a six-step program about how to make Australia better.

For example, step number two, live within our means, stop all frivolous spending, and stop ripping off our grandchildren.

Now, just a reminder, when Tony Abbott was Prime Minister, he spent more than a billion dollars a year on locking up innocent men, women, and children seeking asylum on prison islands and gave Prince Philip a knighthood.

You know, the bear essentials.

Every family makes space for that in their budget every week.

I do feel sorry for my grandchildren though because they must be feeling pretty ripped off with me, them not existing at all.

When did grandchildren ever put their hands in their pockets and pay for anything themselves?

It's got to be a two-way street.

What's this let's make Australia work again?

You know, why are we obsessed with this turd of a campaign slogan after Trump did make America great again?

Everyone's just obsessed with, you know, again,

againer a better.

It doesn't even scan, does it?

Let's make Australia work again.

Well, I guess politically that you could just say, well, let's just kind of plod along as we're going.

And, you know, it might be quite a good plan, but it's not going to get any votes, is it?

Let's just muddle through.

I'd like to see that.

I would vote for that though.

Tony Abbott, keep it up.

That'd be great.

Let's muddle through.

You would vote for.

I was interested that one of his other of the six-point plans was make housing more affordable by scaling back immigration to migrants who can make a contribution from day one,

get right stuck in from day one.

I mean, it's interesting that

he's aimed at the migrants there

in terms of escalating property prices rather than, for example, property magnates building overpriced architectural wank pads or the unfettered housing markets squeezing the humanity out of human life.

No, it's probably the fault of people clinging to the sides of boats.

That is why prices are going up.

The wank pads played Glastonbury this year as well, actually.

That was the wank pads.

Very good.

The overpriced architectural wank pads is just, as sentences go, phenomenal.

The idea of migrants making a contribution from day one, presumably that means that a three-year-old Tony Abbott who emigrated from England by boat in 1960 would not be allowed into the country.

What contribution are you making?

Shitting your pants, piss off money, no free house for you.

It's the same as Trump, isn't it?

It always comes from people, you know, like Trump was, his mother was a Scottish immigrant.

I thought he should have held the inauguration on Ellis Island just to remind him that he started in a Scottish vagina and he ended up in New York.

So.

Sport now.

And

well, you think I can placately mentally clock off now.

You're pretty much done.

I don't know why I keep booking people who don't even like sport.

I'm aware of the sport.

Who's won it?

The world has won.

Humanity has won.

No, I mean there's sports that I find interesting.

Like,

you know, it makes me think that sort of straight white men don't have enough drama in their lives because they created wrestling.

Yes.

And that's technically seen as a sport, isn't it?

You know, you're out of drama.

Yeah.

Sport cross with the soap.

Well, I mean, as a sports purist, I do not see that kind of wrestling as a sport.

I see that as an absolute abomination from the very bowels of hell.

But, you know, each to their own.

As a gay man, I'm a fan.

I know.

I know about the crickets.

But you mentioned wrestling.

There's some, I mean, some quite interesting

fights coming up.

The

two

boxers in their 50s, Nigel Benn and Steve Collins, rumoured to be wanting to get back in the ring 21 years after their last fight at a combined age of 105.

I mean, it does start to look a bit dodgy, to be honest.

Also, just hearing now that the 1960s World Middleweight Champions Nino Benvenutti and Terry Downs could be vaulting the ropes to smash each other's old faces in next summer, as soon as the Italian has passed the age of 80.

That's the lower cut-off limit for the WCFO.

That's the World Codger Fighting Organisation, and the INHBF, the International Nursing Home Boxing Federation titles.

And of course, you've got Floyd Mayweather against Conor McGregor.

Oh, yeah, that is interesting.

Now, Mayweather, one of the greatest boxers of all time, Conor McGregor from

one of the big stars of UFC, which for those who don't know it is people smashing the f ⁇ out of each other in an octagon rather than smashing the f ⁇ out of each other in a square.

Key difference.

I mean, the consensus seems to be that McGregor is taking Mayweather on at boxing rather than any kind of hybrid.

It's basically, people seem to think it's like top chef Emeril Lagasse taking on Rafa Nadal at next year's French Open because a frying pan is kind of the same shape as a tennis racket.

How difficult can it be?

Is that it then?

So it's boxing rather than MMA, which is where Connor's strength is.

Also, his pre-match bout.

Pre-bout.

There we go.

Pre-bout chat is pretty good.

Yeah.

He's like, you're in Bombtown.

That's where you belong.

And I'm going to smash you back into Bormtown.

He says Bomtown quite a lot.

Whereas Floyd Mayweather just talks about how rich he is and how much money he's going to earn.

So it'll be an interesting clash of...

clash of stars.

There are rumours out to try and balance out the inequality, the advantage Mayweather has from fighting fighting in his own sport, he will have to carry a plate of live eels into the ring.

And every time he lets one of the eels slither off the plate, McGregor gets a free swing at his face.

And also have a little squeaker inside his glove.

So every time he hits McGregor in the face, it undermines his pugilistic manhood.

So he might not go for the big bump.

He's also rumoured to be already lining up a follow-up fight in which he's going to take on a crocodile.

That's the one the fans have wanted to see for years.

I mean, the thing is, Mayweather is a very technical pugilist.

I can't can't see him breaking the habit of a lifetime and getting into a full jaw-to-jaw tuttle with the croc.

Probably Mayweather on points for that one.

And after that,

perhaps his toughest opponent yet, Floyd Mayweather versus the concept of humility.

And it's pretty hard to see how we can come out on top of that.

We'll have more on the cross-sport challenges, including table tennis number one, Mar Long, versus snooker number one, Mark Selby.

They're both sports played on a table.

How different can they possibly be?

And also, olympic horsey dress arts champion charlotte dujardin is taking on the uh star of the spanish bullfighting circuit percy the massive angry bull um that could be uh that could be and also and this is the one i really want to see sumo legend kisenosato versus the former world fencing champion alexei cheremisinov i mean can you honestly say you would not tune in just to see what happens Sumo wrestler against a man with a pointy sword.

That has to be worth watching.

I did say last week we'd have a full update on the British Lions match against New Zealand.

It turns out, unsurprisingly, they lost.

They are now 1-0 down and need to win two in a row against a team that's won 46 consecutive matches in a row at home.

It's a tough task.

It's like asking Hercules not just to do his 10 tasks, but to do them within three days and submit the paperwork detailing how he's abided by health and safety regulations at all times and then doing a press conference to apologise for all the endangered

he's obliterated.

As sporting upsets go, if the Lions can win, it will rank alongside Donald Trump winning the world's humblest man competition.

What about Shane Warden kicking off at Cricket Australia?

Oh, well, now, Tom, I'm sure you're absolutely all over this.

We only have about 30 seconds left of this recording.

Can you just explain the contractual dispute between Cricket Australia and Australia's

leading cricketers?

Cricket players have realised how boring the sport is, and the Association is adamant that they continue playing.

This show is over.

This show is now over.

Get off my show, Ballard.

Oh, Tom, you've got to love Shane Warren.

His face is updated more frequently than my iTunes agreements.

Sing.

Right.

Thank you

for listening, Buglers.

We'll be back next week.

Do send your emails into hellobuglers at thebuglepodcast.com.

Tiff, thanks very much.

It's been a delight having you

on the bugle.

Tom, thanks once again.

Both of you are going to be in Edinburgh this year.

5.30 at the Gilded Balloon.

Buy all the tickets.

Tom, do you want to plug your show while you're here?

Sure, it's called Problematic.

It's on an 8.30 at the Pleasants Courtyard.

Buy all those

install, please.

Yeah, buy all those.

Sorry.

You said the name of yours, Problematic.

That's a great title.

Thanks.

I'm doing Satirist for Hire for the last two weeks, and there'll be a couple of live bugles, more details coming up shortly.

Thank you very much for listening, Buglers.

Until next time.

Goodbye.

The Bugle is a proud member of the Radiotopia family, and none of us would be here if not for our founding fathers, the Knight Foundation, digitally carved into Mount RSS War.

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