Bugle 4022 – Not Scared, Bored

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 4022 of The Bugle, the 21st century news recording show that could so easily have been lost forever on a load of papyrus scrolls if it had existed just a couple of short millennia ago shows what a fragile universe this is with me andy's ultimate aged 42 the 46 time winner of liar of the year award from international self-aggrandizement monthly magazine this is for the week beginning monday the 27th of march 2017 and i'm here in london and joining me here in london it is the king himself elvis present sorry wrong intro he's coming on he's coming on my new podcast fake it and shake it in which celebrities who fake their own deaths tell me about their favourite ingredients for a milkshake.

A queen mother, gooseberry and tomato ketchup.

Who'd have thought it?

No, I need to find the right intro.

Hang on.

It's not Fake It and Shake It.

It's not the all-new Extreme McCrame show.

It's not Shut Up and Plant.

That's my pod about the new silent gardening craze.

It's not Journeys into Space, Real Stories of People Legally Parking Their Cars.

Oh, the bugle, the bugle.

And joining me here this week in London, it's Saman who puts the laughter into I Bloody Hope He Makes Us Laugh Today.

It's Miss Kumar.

Hello Andy.

Hello buglers.

Hello how are you?

Yeah I'm all right.

I mean starting the introduction by suggesting that I was going to be Elvis and then revealing it was in fact me is possibly one of the worst cases of unnecessarily high expectation I've had since I had to replace Miranda Hart at a charity gig.

Very disappointing for a lot of that audience.

Very disappointing indeed.

Well how's your midwifery these days?

It's not what it used to be Andy.

Well you know midwiferies you've got to keep your hand in.

Well, that's why I quit after one.

Played one, one, one.

Out of the game.

Get out of the top.

You're a one-hit wonder of mid-wifery.

You're the Babylon Zoo of midwifery.

This is the beautiful for the week beginning the 27th of March on this day.

In 1871, it was the first ever international rugby match.

Scotland versus England in Edinburgh.

At the time, it was thought to be just a standard afternoon fight, but it later turned out to have have been a rugby match.

And on the 26th of March, 1484, William Caxton, the printing press pin-up, printed his translation of Aesop's Fables.

Are you an Aesop fan, Nish?

Huge Aesop fan, mate.

Absolutely huge.

Love a fable.

Yep.

Well, more than 650 fables by the ancient Greek 35-time analogist of the year.

And in Caxton's first English edition, he included lesser-known fables such as the Worm and the Lawn Mower.

The moral of that story being stay underground at all costs.

The fist in the face, moral, careful what you say and who you say it to.

The tortoise and the hare, part two, the sequel, the moral of which is quit while you're ahead, and the serpent and the sausage, the moral of which is don't make yourself a nighttime snack without adequate lighting.

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

A southern hemisphere special section.

Yes, f you in the bin.

Exclusive look at one of the world's greatest ever hemispheres.

That was an unusual response.

What's your beef with

the bottom half of this globe, Mish?

I uh I've just uh I'm I've got very caught up in the India Australia test series.

Oh, right, okay.

I think I'm just feeling very loyal to the northern hemisphere at the moment.

Well, it's uh yeah, touch and go, the fire the climactic final test coming up this week.

Um we'll have exclusive coverage on it in the next bugle, no doubt.

Um

uh so southern hemisphere section, um I mean it is one of the world's great hemispheres for me uh and coincidentally I am off to the southern hemisphere hemisphere

this on Sunday to watch my career go the other way down the plughole.

My Melbourne is the sort of

written me off very quickly into this episode.

Comedy is truth, people.

My Melbourne International Comedy Festival show begins on Thursday as running till the 23rd of April.

Live bugle shows on the 16th and 23rd.

Lineups to be announced on the days before the performances.

Then Sydney, the 24th, 3rd, and 27th, Auckland, 28th, and 29th, finishing up in Wellington on the 30th.

That's a new date and the 1st of May.

So what a coincidence that the section in the big should be a southern hemisphere section.

We look at the Tropic of Capricorn, the celebrity line around the southern hemisphere, marking, of course, the sub-solar point of the December solstice.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that.

Does it have a future in the internet age?

What can the renowned latitudinal circle do to stay relevant for the YouTube and Snapchat generation?

Will it have to move from its current 23.4 degrees south location and maybe try being a wiggly line instead of a straight one?

With 33% of the world's land but only 11% of the world's people, we ask, is it time for the southern hemisphere to get its arse in gear and make itself more habitable?

Why should Europe have to have so many more people than the Atacama Desert in Chile?

Is that justice?

And we ask whether Richard Branson's proposed new southern continents of Virgintica will help the bottom half of the globe catch up with the top half in terms of number of Nobel laureates, World Snooker champions produced, and nuclear weapons owned.

Plus, Antarctica, schmantarctica.

Is the South Pole continent a 1930s Nazi hoax?

No, but if it were, would we have a sacred right and a moral duty to eat penguins alive and smear their fascist blood on our faces to make a point?

You can't say stuff like that anymore because now Donald Trump is likely to tweet that Antarctica is a Nazi ice colony

there's going to be a whole Reddit sub-forum created off the back of that idle comment on a podcast right also can I just say Andy seeing you say the word snapchat was one of the most unusual sights it was like seeing a dog play the piano

thanks can i put that on my poster

i think i'm just jealous because i'm not this is my first year without a southern hemisphere visit.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll

take my annual trip from the southern hemisphere.

No, I've been for the last couple of years to Melbourne and New Zealand and I think I'm gonna I think I'm gonna miss it.

You go there to breed, don't you?

He flies south, doesn't he?

Anyway.

There's an out of a program about Nish,

how Nish Kumar's reproduced coming up from the

wildlife channel.

Anyway, how do we get?

Oh yeah, that section was in the bin, so all of us are relevant.

Top story this week: terrorists are still.

Yes, that's well, we've had that confirmed for us here in London.

Once again, yes.

But they cannot win, and this is proof that they cannot win.

That on this week's bugle, we have a brown man with a beard and someone from Kent.

We will not change our way of life.

And I'll leave you to guess which one is which.

Well, I'm a brown man with a beard who went to school in Kent, so

I'm right in the danger zone.

Surround this building now.

Andy, there was another terrorist attack this week, which I'm sure buglers are all aware of.

In the immediate sort of aftermath of the attack, there's a huge amount of speculation as to where this man was from and who he was.

I'll tell you who he was.

He was a complete.

And I think think everyone would just prefer it if every so often the 10 o'clock news started with Hugh Edwards saying, ladies and gentlemen, tonight a complete

has done something completely.

It would be nice to have that level of honesty because it was described as an attack on our democracy, which is, I think, dignifying it with a purpose it simply does not deserve.

And also, as attacks on democracy go, it was about as effective as throwing an egg at an oil tanker in protest against the concept of things floating or tennis.

It was an attack on our values either as Londoners, as British people, as Europeans, as Northern hemisphericals, as humans or as sentient beings of the universe.

It was simply, as you say, a

being an idiotic, murderous for no other reason or purpose and that c will be,

as I believe the first draft of Theresa May's speech to the House of Commons

said before she toned it down.

It's been an interesting choice for her to have Tarantino punch up some of her speeches.

The man's name is Khaled Masood.

He's 52 years old and at the moment reports are that he was formerly known as Adrian Russell Ajail and born in Kent.

It does raise a very important question, Nish, and that is should we blow up Kent?

Well I was thinking more.

I mean that's

a hostile and that's really what the people called Adrian from Kent are wanting.

That's the kind of reaction they want.

I would ask, how can we stop as a nation, we have to look very seriously how we stop people called Adrian from Kent coming to Britain.

I mean, it's, I know

it might be provocative to suggest that, but someone is going to have to look that banana in the eye.

At the moment, ISIS, certain ISIS channels or cells are claiming responsibility for the attack.

And at this point, I mean, it's f ⁇ ing easy being ISIS.

It's so f ⁇ ing easy.

All you have to do is just kick back, some nutcase does something absolutely insane, and you just go, yeah, that was us.

And I've decided if you can't beat him, join him.

I mean, just to be clear,

security services listening, I mean that in a completely metaphorical sense and have no plans to join ISIS.

But I am now going to start claiming credit for other comedians' work.

I'm claiming credit for every single episode of The Bugle, even the ones that I wasn't in.

I'm also claiming credit for John's HBO show and I'm absolutely claiming credit for Seinfeld Series 1-7.

That was all me.

Kumar out.

I'm also claiming credit for Monique's Oscar for best supporting actress for Precious.

That's me.

I did it.

I don't like ISIS.

Whoa, whoa.

I mean, steady Ansaltzman.

Sorry, God.

I'm just going to drop the mic on that one.

It's like being with Lenny Bruce himself.

I really don't like them.

I really...

And I cannot...

I cannot understand

this.

Why are they still doing this, Nish?

It doesn't make sense to me.

This is a completely pointless and unwinnable fight.

At my school, when we played into house rugby matches, if you went 30-year-old me intrigued from where this is going, if you, if your team went 30-0 down,

then the referee stroke teacher would just end the game.

Really?

On the grounds that it was not a fair contest.

ISIS, on the current score, what I would say are losing by about 45,000 to 12.

They've landed a couple of speculative drop goals, but in the grand scheme of things, they're...

But just give up, surely.

What is the fing point?

I don't know why anyone hasn't put it to them in those terms.

Right.

Well, I am putting it to them now.

And we know they're listening.

They know the email address for this show.

Hello, buglers.

Oh, God.

Salzburg taking the fight to ISIS one email at a time.

Yeah, anyway.

There's been some baffling reportage uh from around the world specifically america on uh events in london um they've uh you know there's been a lot of talk that londoners were walking around looking confused concerned and upset uh now what i would say is yes that is true but that is sort of how londoners look that's sort of just

all londoners the only time we have not looked confused up to what's the other one confused upset upset concern concerned the only time that has not been the case was during the London Olympics.

Yeah, that was the only time.

Yeah, that was absolutely the only time.

The reason everyone looks depressed is because their rent is so high.

I mean, you'd walk around looking concerned too if you were paying a thousand pounds a month for a box room out in the back of a kebab shop.

And also, the other thing is that as much as Londoners, you know, are always very concerned about the constant threat of terrorism, that's something that we just live with, we are also more concerned about

how we're going to get home of an evening.

And if you really want to scare Londoners, terrorist attack are not the words to use.

The words to use are rail replacement service.

That is really how you scare the people of this city.

And I guarantee you that most of Londoners, when they saw that news, will have not thought, oh my god, our city is under siege.

They will have thought, let me go on the Transport for London website and see how I'm going to get home tonight.

Casey Hopkins, the

journalist seems professional asshole?

Okay, we'll go with that.

The

PA.

I never knew that's what it stood for.

She,

as is her won't,

squeezed some lemon into the

bleeding eyeball of this tragedy

with a tweet saying, Sadiq Khant,

addressing the London Mayor Sadiq Khan, if you are penning some NAF missive about a proud city standing together, united by shared values, think again, son.

Now, sure enough, Sadiq Khan did, shortly after that, issue a message along those lines.

I mean, NAF,

I mean, it's hard to be original in that.

I mean, for example, I mean, Churchill with his hackneyed old we shall never surrender stick.

Boring, Winston.

Boring.

Heard it.

I do not want originality.

I'm happy with NAF and derivative in a message like that from a mayor or the prime minister.

I was not thinking as a Londoner, right, I hope the mayor gets a bit creative on this.

I want something wacky and off the wall, something completely unexpected, like a song about a duck playing tennis on the moon.

It was, yeah, it was, I mean, that was a depressing aspect.

Very dispiriting of it.

Very dispiriting that Katie Hopkins and Nigel Farage saw a terrorist attack happen, saw people,

certainly at that point, it was clearly established very quickly that people had died.

And they did what any good patriot would do.

They immediately gave an interview to Fox News.

That's what all patriots do, Andy.

That's what Churchill would have done.

Very few people know that the We Will Fight Them on the Beaches speech was originally an interview with Sean Hannity.

Tommy Robinson.

Oh, and now he is a

he's the ex-leader of the shit-brained far-right headed-souled English Defence League.

That is their full title, yes.

He hurried to the actual scene of the tragedy to squirt his bile.

And

that's an odd thing to do as well, isn't it?

Yeah, very odd to see a terrorist incident and think, I better.

Get the flip cam.

I better get there and be a real ⁇

exactly.

Tommy Robinson, who has, especially because there were so many incredible stories, stories coming out of people rushing in to help out with the attack, including Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who performed TPR and worked hard to save the life of the police officer, who unfortunately died.

The fact that there were all these positive stories, and in amongst all of that, you have to deal with Tommy Robinson and his own personal brand of arseholery running in, not to help, but to shout about immigration.

It's just f ⁇ ing ridiculous.

As a Londoner, let me just say this f you ISIS

you Katie Hopkins and go yourself Toby Robinson you enormous

to be fair Katie Hopkins was accused in one article I read of hating London I think that's a bit unfair I think she just hates the universe

it is baffling for people who bang on about how much they hate ISIS given that we know one of the stated aims of that organization slash

repository for

to drive a wedge between you know ordinary Muslims and the countries that they're living in.

Why, if you hate ISIS so much, are you then directly contributing to that?

And what I would say is: is Katie Hopkins in ISIS?

That is the question we must now ask.

Well, she's never explicitly denied it.

This is a bugle exclusive.

Anyway, and also this idea that we were afraid, which I think was,

was it Fox and London is a city that's afraid, or words along that.

We're not afraid in London.

No.

We were just pissed off, sad, and bored, frankly, of what I believe terrorism academics call technically, quotes, this kind of pointless shit.

Not scared.

Some of the media reporting.

around this particular incident has

not been ideal, I think it's fair to say.

No.

Oddly voyeuristic.

Oddly voyeuristic, yeah.

Supposedly reputable sources.

Yeah, and oddly voyeuristic and sometimes poorly researched because Channel 4 News had to issue an apology and a retraction because they stated that the name of the attacker was a man called Abu Izadine.

Now, unfortunately, Abu Izzadine is currently in prison

and therefore sadly unable to have carried out a major terrorist attack.

The BBC News then reported on a tube sign, which sometimes at tube stations, the staff will write little motivational messages.

And there was one about how the people have written won't be cowed by this, but it turned out to be fake and turned out to be the result of software that's available online for you to just fake up one of these.

But that still didn't stop it being reported on by the news and then discussed in the houses of parliament.

And just this morning, the Daily Mail has now blamed the whole thing on Google and apparently it's Google's fault and you know without wishing to stereotype that organization I assume the inference of the whole piece is this never would have happened if we'd used good British search engines there would be no terrorism if we all just asked Jeeves

I was in I actually saw I actually came face to face with Nigel Farage because I have no idea why Fox News are talking to him.

I don't know there's American buglers out there might be confused as to who Nigel Farage is.

He is basically the leader

of a party.

He's basically the ex-leader of a party that has one seat in the House of Commons.

So why he is an authority on anything is absolutely beyond me.

But I saw him going into the BBC and I've never seen him before.

And I didn't know how I would feel when I saw him.

And I just got so angry.

And I was just looking at him thinking,

you.

You've ruined my country.

What the f ⁇ are you doing at the BBC, right?

And then I went...

Were you on air at the time?

I went in and my friend was in there and I told him what had happened.

And he said, you do realize that he was probably looking at you thinking exactly the same thing.

F ⁇ you.

What the f ⁇ are you doing here?

You've ruined my f ⁇ ing country.

Also, I was wearing a jumper

from an anthology of essays called The Good Immigrant.

so all in all i'm pretty sure it was exactly what nigel frush thinks goes on at the bbc

and now on the bugle it is time for

the trumpet

nish i'm finding it hard to keep up with uh all the trump related events in america but i think i reached saturation points

about 30 seconds into the inauguration speech and i'm basically keep topping it up for a few weeks, but I have...

Was it the phrase, American Carnage?

And you were just like,

forget it.

What's the point?

So the whole wiretapping story.

Yes.

I'm not, I will admit, even as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, I've not been completely

all over this.

Andy, you've learnt nothing from...

all of this time you've spent watching modern journalism.

It's not about whether you know anything.

It's about whether you can quickly say something and form an opinion without any facts.

Well, I mean, I think that's a relevant point because to me, it doesn't actually matter whether or not Donald Trump was wiretapped.

If he even thinks he might have been wiretapped, is that not enough?

No.

But the point stands.

Actually, the point does not stand.

But we live in a world of perceptions, Nish.

And if someone as powerful as Donald Trump can think he's been wiretapped, that means that any of us can think we've been wiretapped.

And that terrifies me to the core of my being.

What if the FBI or the CIA or the MLB or the LBW

have been or may have been

potentially snooping on my private conversations with my wife about changing batting positions of weekkeepers over the course of test match history?

You know, if they could be doing that,

it could be any of you next, buglers, you idiots.

Wake up if you want to be able to sleep at night.

Yeah, sheeeple.

First, Trump.

Then me, next, any of you could be thinking you've been wiretapped.

That is a horrific road to be going down.

It is a bold decision to do so many jokes about American politics that involve cricket references.

Just trying to build those bridges.

Yeah.

Andy, the Trump presidency,

my feeling about the whole thing is Donald Trump becoming president of America is a bit like when George Clooney became Batman.

No one can really figure out how it happened.

The whole thing has sort of turned into a cartoony mess.

And it inexplicably involves a huge amount of fighting with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Trump campaign is just lurching from scandal to scandal like a drunk man on his way home trying to find an open chicken shop.

That joke, Buglers, may be based on personal experience from the author.

And so yeah, this week we've got

more allegations of wiretapping, more House Republicans coming forward and demanding that Trump substantiate the wiretapping allegations, more instances of Trump refusing to retract or substantiate the wiretapping allegations.

And in the middle of all of this, Trump's

connections to Russia have come under more scrutiny.

And like a painting of me by my friend's racist grandmother, nothing about it looks good.

Is that also based on personal experience?

It may well be, Andrew.

Do you have a picture of that painting that we could maybe share on the Bugle social media feed?

No, but I suspect Buglers could probably not quite.

We may be inviting trouble.

Chris has just got a pained look on his face as the man who...

Bring it on.

Everybody paint Nish, please.

First ISIS.

Now, racist painting.

The Bugle's email address is about to take an absolute pounding this week.

Fucking have to have another new one.

Still getting bloody dating site emails.

How desperate are these farms?

So the Russian allegations,

all we know at the moment is the FBI have officially announced that they are investigating Trump's connections to Russia and whether he may have had knowledge of Russian interference in the 2016 election, right?

And there's sort of more,

you know, more information coming out constantly about various people associated with the Trump campaign and the slightly spicy associations with Russia.

Paul Manafort, who was Trump's campaign manager until August 2016,

he actually left his job when a secret ledger was discovered suggesting that he'd received $12.7 million between 2007 and 2012 from Ukraine's former president, who's very pro-Russia.

And there's more evidence emerging this week that Manafort had been paid as recently as 2009 by a Russian oligarch to lobby on behalf of the Kremlin.

It's not great, Andy.

It's really,

it's stacking up.

Yes,

that does not smell especially fragrant.

Unless you particularly enjoy the green smell of rotting borscht.

But the thing is, they're constantly saying that there's no actual, you know, so far there isn't actually any evidence that's come out of connections between the Russian campaign.

The only interesting thing, I think, is why do all of these people keep lying about it?

Like Jeff Sessions, who under oath said that he had no contact, which turned out to be a complete lie.

Either there has been collusion between the Trump campaign or Russia, or all of Donald Trump's staff members are having affairs with Russian women.

It can only be one of those two things.

Could it be both?

I mean, both seems quite likely.

I mean, I can't complain, really, because I've said before,

certainly in, I don't know if I've said it on this show, I've certainly said it in stand-up, that I believe America, because it's the nation that's shaped so much of the world, that the only people who should be allowed to vote in American elections are people from anywhere other than the United States.

And maybe this is just some kind of trial scheme to let Russia have its rightful say before then rolling it out to the rest of the world in 2020.

Let's look for the positives.

Also, I'm not sure Trump is going to, there's a lot of talk about, will Trump last until 2020?

Sure.

It's looking increasingly unlikely.

Just because at his current rate of practice, Trump's golf will have improved to the level where he can join the PGA tour

as a solid professional ranked between 80 and 120 in the world, probably within six months.

And surely he will jettison the presidency at that point.

Surely.

I mean,

you had more money as a jobbing tour pro,

and he's all about the dollar.

He might be about to impeach himself to join the PGA.

And there's more bad news for Trump this week.

His healthcare bill currently looks about as unhealthy as low-income Americans will be if it gets passed into law.

It's not looking good.

It's not looking good for him.

They've delayed the vote, as we record,

amidst allegations that he doesn't doesn't have the votes even on the Republican side to get the bill passed.

And

we're also seeing

absolutely extraordinary pictures of a panel of the optimistically named Freedom Caucus

who are discussing reforms affecting pregnancy and maternity care.

There are 25 people in that room.

Not a single woman.

Not a single woman.

The discussion over women's health care has turned out to be quite the sausage fest.

I'm looking at this picture, Andy.

I'll be honest with you, in terms of the gender ratio, it's looking like pictures from my 16th birthday.

But I mean, I would say there's a key difference, race-wise, very different.

I don't understand the American healthcare debate fully because, well, that's impossible for anyone who is not both A, American and B, an omniscient deity with a high tolerance for bullshit.

But and excuse me, American beauty, if I've interpreted this wrong, but this if it passes,

this could be the week when Trump frees the ordinary American to needlessly die of curable diseases without the metropolitan elite and the fake news media trying to keep them artificially alive.

That seems to be what this is about.

But I could be wrong.

Yeah, it's one in the eye for political correctness, I think.

That seems to be the terms of the debates being phrased in.

We We talked a bit about

last week.

And I mean,

that is the kind of hair that usually ends up in a courtroom dock in The Hague, denying everything.

But I can't really understand how you...

And he must do it himself, because

I can't really imagine even someone like him.

And I am out of the loop when it comes to hair.

I don't think either of us are in the loop when it comes to hair, Andy.

I've not paid for a haircut in a a year beginning with two.

October 99, that was the last time.

What happened that made you not return to a hairdresser's?

Well, there was

one occasion in which I asked my now wife whether she would cut my hair for me.

This is your wife, the professional criminal barrister.

Yes.

And

she

said yes.

And that was the most excited I've ever been when she answered yes to what I just said.

And so since then,

she's doubled up as my expert.

That's why I've stayed right on the very cutting edge of

coffee fashion.

It is a sort of alarming trend.

And it does suggest that people are sort of, like Gert Wilters, is going into hair salons and saying, listen, give me the full Eichmann.

But, you know, how are

you see?

What would you like, Mr.

Wilders?

What's trendy at the moment?

Well, you could go for a high fade with a loose pompadour or short at the sides with the cropped fringe, maybe even a tapered fade with undercuts.

I'm not really sure about any of them.

Could you just give me something that makes me look like I would quite happily commit genocide?

Certainly, sir.

And would you like something for the weekend?

Only if that something is an immigrant to blame.

Despite Mr.

Wilders, the Netherlands has come in sixth on the latest chart of the world's happiest nations.

Oh, God, yeah, I forgot that this has come out this week.

Yes,

it's, well, it's got UK up four places to 19th.

Well, I mean, that's Brexit, innit?

That's Brexit.

Or is it...

I've started bugling.

It could be that.

Well, a couple of things has happened.

As I've said it once, and I'll say it again.

Where's my f ⁇ ing knighthood?

I think the thing with Britain, we do yo-yo up and down in this, and that is because fundamentally, as a nation, we're only happy when we're miserable.

Yeah, so every time we drop down the rankings, that makes us happier and that pushes us back up the rankings.

We don't like that, so we then slip down the rankings again.

A national mood, just like a philosophical quandary.

America still doing all right, down one place to 14th, which is pretty impressive

given the amount of strops that are, but it does not reflect well on the 136 countries below them in the Canada seventh.

I mean there's 155 countries listed in this year's rankings.

Syria 152nd

fourth last

not not last.

How is Syria

not that does not say a lot for Tanzania, Burundi and the Central African regions?

Oh my god.

That's is rough.

And Syria breaks up the traditional all-African bottom nine.

Dear Africa, oops, sorry.

Love Europe.

That, tragically, is the closest thing Africa has come to a genuine apology

from the West.

The big movers, before we get to the exciting chart toppers, the UAE up seven to 21st.

Only a couple of places behind the UK.

I'm guessing they might not have factored in all the slaves on the building sites or 100% of the traffic prostitutes.

Somalia.

Yeah, you're right.

They did not get a look in.

Somalia down 17 to 93.

How the f was Somalia in the top 80 last year?

Venezuela down 38 places to 82nd.

That's not looking good for

Mr.

Maduro.

The top 10 in reverse order.

Sweden in 10th.

Austria, New Zealand, two countries.

That's in in April become significantly happier when I go there to do my stand-up show.

Details at andysalton.co.uk.

Can I just also say that in the year that they're talking about, I did stand-up shows in both Australia and New Zealand.

You're f ⁇ ing welcome, Southern Hemisphere.

Seventh Canada, Sixth Netherlands, Finland.

I did stand-up in Canada as well.

What the f ⁇ , mate?

I'm f ⁇ ing nailing this.

You have to organise a tour to the Central African Republic, Nish.

You owe it to humanity.

Yeah, it's time for me to fight the bullet and head to the CAR Switzerland uh down one to fifth um

but that might not be factoring in Roger Federer's sensational form this year I don't know when they measured it because you'd have thought Switzerland be back on top after Federer

packing up his Australian

Australian and Indian Wales like I if he keeps it going I reckon Switzerland will be Switzerland could turn into the sort of like Manchester United in the 90s of the happiness index yeah they might they might get so happy that they give some of the gold back um then whoa whoa, whoa.

Let's not go crazy here, Andy.

Not that happy.

Fourth.

Iceland, third.

Welcome, Iceland.

Glad that football match meant so much to you.

Denmark, second, and up three to first.

Norway.

Good work, Norway.

I mean, it's a strong showing from Scandinavia.

Scandinavia is really bringing the heat.

Yeah.

Bringing a lot of happiness to the world.

So what do all those countries have in common, those top ten?

Apart from Nishkin

appearing entertaining the masses.

What they're all pretty well off.

Sure.

And also, they're all countries where basically nothing ever happens.

And that's a recipe for the world.

Just less shit going on.

Happier people.

I mean, first of all, with this thing, this is the World Happiness Report.

And it's an official thing that's produced by the United Nations.

So let's just get this out of the way.

I think we could all agree.

Tremendous use of time and resources.

Like, absolutely, so pleased that the UN, I'm so glad there's nothing else of any significance happening in the world, that the UN has time to devote a whole department to a world happiness report.

North Korea not listed in the

North Korea is the happiest country in the universe, right?

It's the happiest country in the own universe.

But they said apparently with the grading, there was a big gap between the top four

and the rest of the table, suggesting that the World Happiness Report is basically the Premier League.

And what we now need is for some Russian billionaire to invest heavily in somewhere like Burundi and in a Manchester City-style move, completely upend the charts.

Or what we need is a real sort of plucky outsider, you know, like your sort of, you know, I don't know, like your Mozambiques or your Uruguays just to surge back in like Leicester did last season.

What I'm saying is, Burundi should look into electing Claudio Ranieri as president.

The UK breaking apart like an artistically conflicted 1960s rock band now.

And

I said last week we'd talk about the Scottish independence issue.

It's been slightly superseded by events in London on this show, as indeed elsewhere.

In fact, the Scottish Parliament was interrupted by by the news.

That's right, yeah, yeah.

The debate was actually interrupted with the news, and they suspended the debate.

And

yeah, it could be, I mean, just when you thought he'd had all the referendums we can stomach for a lifetime, referendums could be basically the situation is

Theresa May is determinedly thelmering this country towards a stonking hard Brexit.

And

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is now trying to louise the UK towards Skexit.

Either way,

we're stuck in the tied up in the back of a car,

waiting for the impact.

Yeah, that's right.

The UK has Brexited the EU, and now it may be about to Brexit itself.

Great news.

That's the idea when they cancel each other out from a Scottish point of view.

That's right.

Yeah.

It's just, it's absolutely great news for everyone who is a fan of pointlessly divisive referendums.

The thing is, I have a huge amount of sympathy for,

you know, regardless of what your feelings are, the SNP was elected on a platform saying we would have a second referendum if there was a major constitutional change.

So I guess Brexit does qualify as that.

But what's now going to happen is that Theresa May is about to go on a tour of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, where she's basically going to tell all of them.

that they need to think very carefully about making a decision like this because it could have serious economic ramifications.

So I assume this is going to be her pot calling the kettle black tour.

Yes.

Well, she did say, she explicitly warned Scotland that it would be ridiculous to leave their biggest trading partner

and without collapsing in fits of hysterics

and

giggling for a week.

It's quite impressive that, in a lot of ways.

So now Scotland's being instructed to see how things pan out outside the EU, which they didn't want to be, before deciding again whether to leave the UK, which they didn't want to do, and try to rejoin the EU that they didn't want to leave.

I don't think they'll just vote transcendentally meditate until they exist on a higher plane of consciousness and can leave such earthly matters behind.

I think that is the ultimate goal now.

Sport now, or a possibly distressing lack of sport.

durban the south african city has pulled out of hosting the 2022 commonwealth games on the grounds that it quotes can't be asked to host pointless relic of empire that no one gives a sorry i've read that wrong

because it cannot justify the expenditure needed to host a prestigious international sporting event that keeps the historic umbrella bonds alive between the womb of her majesty herself and all the children of her soul um

so i mean this is it raises questions for the huge the future of the commonwealth games nation absolutely huge the commonwealth games ought to give them their full title, the Dog Shit Olympics,

currently is homeless for its 2022 incarnation because Durban has sort of suddenly realised that it doesn't have the capacity to spend the money it needs on the infrastructure to put the games on.

So Liverpool and Birmingham have stepped into the breach.

Right.

I mean, the surfing would be much less exciting in Birmingham than Durban, wouldn't it?

Snap, snap.

I don't know.

I mean, there's some, I don't think surfing's in in the Commonwealth Games.

Well, it's certainly not going to be if it ends up in Birmingham.

They might have to put up a pool in the bull ring.

But this goes beyond the Commonwealth Games, obviously an event close to everyone's heart.

Sure.

The Olympics is also struggling to find a host cities.

There's only two left bidding for 2024.

Wow.

Paris and Los Angeles.

So in terms of opening ceremonies, we're looking at giant baguettes or more jetpacks.

Oh, yeah.

Because 1984, and I've talked about this.

I mean, this is before you.

Well, you were born in.

When were you born in?

85.

85.

Yeah.

84 Olympics.

Guy in a jetpack flies through the stadium.

Is that real?

Yeah.

Sensational.

The greatest moment in human civilization.

Still no jetpacks.

Andy, I'm going to have to immediately take issue with that.

I'm going to go to another opening ceremony from a sporting event held in America and go, Diana Ross misses her penalty to start the USA 94 World Cup.

She had one job.

I think that's, I mean, Dinaros was certainly more reflective of the human condition of inevitable failure rather than a man on a jetpack offering us a dream that could never be achieved.

Two sides of the American dream.

I mean, the whole concept of the Commonwealth is a little bit spicy.

It's essentially people that we used to own that we're now forcing to hang out with us.

And the Commonwealth could start to become incredibly important because some of the sort of brexiteers chat is that the commonwealth will look on us sort of favourably for trade deals once we've left the european union and that is a bold play right everyone deserves a second chance

we've changed i was back

i still love you it's not like we used complicated trade agreements to own you in the first oh no that is exactly what happened i do apologize

baseball now and head up for the...

Oh, I'm worried about this.

Ahead of the new baseball season this year.

Are you a ball fan?

No, I'm not a ball fan.

I've yet to...

To me, it's just posh rounders, Andy.

It'll always just be posh rounders.

But I do remember the last baseball section that I was preview to on the bugle, so I am on tender hooks.

Okay, well, we're looking at some of the hotly tipped young stars bubbling under ahead of the new season in the previously undiscovered quadruple A leagues,

including one guy, if you're putting your fantasy teams together to look out for this year, Bonzoline Melchelnico-Flount.

He will be looking to impress at third place for the Bakersfield BAPs.

After being picked in the 125th and final round of the draft, he was in fact working as a cleaner in the draft venue when the BAPs saw him hit a profiterole through a window with a broomstick and thought there's something to work on there.

Hurdles McLaughlin, he, of course, hit 328 in the Supermax Prison League for the Jefferson Jailbirds.

He's been paroled in the draft to the Fort Lauderdale Onions.

DePiers Lurch dropped out of the Boston Red Sox roster after being unable to overcome his fear of green monsters.

He's signed up to swing sticks for the Anchorage Frosticles.

Meanwhile,

Pantuan Grajic and Egregio Sanchez-Dank, they'll both be dunging the dingers for the Minnesota Buttocks.

They've, of course, been formed by the recent merger of the two old Farmers Baseball League franchises, the Burnsville Butterchurners and the Maple Grove Mattocks.

Whilst first ever play

in the MLB system from the Vatican City,

that's Carthage Nilly.

He's controversially quit as Underbishop of Miami to bash the ash this season

with the Sarasota Scroats.

And Dementius...

What is happening?

Dementius Range.

He's the poetry whispering catcher who reckons that no one ever hits a home run when having the works of E.E.

Cummins mumbled towards them.

He'll be gloving the goose behind a mask for the new Irving Squelch franchise.

And

we look at pictures.

Nish, obviously one of the big names in quadruple A is Peculius Hammerdown Jones,

picked up by the Chesapeake Bay Cheapskates after impressing with his throwing arm in the USPFFL.

That's the professional food fighting league.

But we have to wait and see.

Is chucking a 95-mile-an-hour fastball into the strike zone the same as knocking someone's hat off with a well-aimed potato?

Time will tell.

Juan Manchego, Iracid Wheel, big star in the Dominican Republic.

Back with the New York Forks.

Hit the headlines last year for pitching with a chicken leg sticking out of his mouth whenever a vegetarian hit him at a plate.

And

big signing by the Waco nightmares, the lefty pitcher keitholomeu splatterson

renowned for his fast-slowing blob ball uh splatterson of course struck out 3 000 in his only season in the short-lived man vs hedgehog league a couple of years ago which he of course won the uh coveted uh golden prickle and uh

finally relax everyone uh latrine towers um he has the uh uh distinctive 1080 degree swivel as he pitches he's back uh after 18 months out suffering from dizziness and uh he'll be hurling down the hot stuff for the Tallahassee blundernuts.

So

full exclusive coverage of the quadruple A-Leagues here only on the bugle.

Just signed an exclusive 75-year deal to cover the action.

Andy,

that was

your apocalypse now.

I'll tell you what that was, Nish.

That was my message that the terrorists will not win.

You will never win.

It has been a terrible week in London.

Everyone's wondering whether it's going to affect.

No way.

People will carry on.

Saltzman will bullshit on.

Keep carbon bullshit on, buglers.

Did you have to put the word Cummings and then in their ears?

So close together.

That was not intentional.

I've got to use.

The first draft had Coleridge.

But anyway.

If somebody was only half listening, they certainly weren't by that.

Thanks once again to Radiotopia for hosting hosting us.

Do listen to all of their other podcasts simultaneously at extreme volume.

Got a mutual plugging there.

And also thanks to the Knight Foundation and MailChimp, very much the faces on the Bugle Mount Rushmore.

Could I say that?

Nish,

thanks for joining us.

No worries, Ols.

I'll see you again in a few weeks.

I'm off to Australia,

as I may have mentioned.

Yeah.

So we're having a week off the bugle next week.

There will be uh a supplementary bugle episodes of classic

bits that weren't good enough to get into the relaunch bugles too good, too good.

Sorry, too good.

Sorry, my mistake.

If we're talking about stuff that didn't quite make the edit, that is where Kumar shines.

As absolutely, I'm like Bob Dylan, like the stuff that I don't release is some of the most interesting stuff.

The um

like uh like prisoners in China.

Um,

uh what was i talking about oh yeah uh so what there's a week off next so then in two weeks uh i'll be in australia recording with uh mr tom ballard the latest addition to the bugle stable um uh the week after that i'll have alice fraser and sammy shah uh as i said there's the live bugles on the 16th and 23rd you can buy tickets for those on the internet and uh lineups to be announced nearer the time.

Nish, I'll see you in May.

Yeah,

I'll be back.

I'll be doing what I normally do between Bugles and going into a hibernation pod to keep myself satirically sharp.

What you usually do is go somewhere like Mongolia or

Bolivia.

Well, where are you at?

Have you got any more?

No,

I've got no international travel.

That show is done and will be on TV fairly soon.

But I will let Buglers know.

Buglers will be the first to know.

And you can also, you're doing a radio 4 show.

You can listen to my radio 4 show.

The last episode is on Wednesday.

It's called Spotlight Tonight, and all four episodes will be available on the BBC iPlayer Radio.

Please listen, I believe.

Currently, our listener statistics are exclusively my blood relatives.

So, give it a listen, buglers.

Uh, thanks very much for listening, buglers.

Until next time, goodbye.

Farewell.

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.