Bugle 274 – Beard means business

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 274 of the Bugle.

That's season 2, episode 2, with me, Andy Zaltzmann, live in London, where where the celebrations are continuing apace after this great city was revealed this week to have overtaken Hong Kong, the world's quotes, most expensive city for companies to locate employees, much more so than New York.

So for now, at the Bugle, we sadly cannot afford to have all three of us here.

So whilst clearly Chris and I have to be right at the epicenter of everything, we still have to leave this man over the pond, slumming it in bargain basement Manhattan.

One day we might be able to afford to relocate him back to civilization.

But for now, in New York City, it's the comedic cactus himself, in that he can find humor even in the driest of topics and has hundreds of pricks spread over his entire body.

Sorry, that's the first

secret.

It's John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Bugless.

Nice to hear you go.

A little blue right at the top, Andy.

Just a little

bit of fun.

A bit of fun for the dads.

Well, Andy, you're right.

I'm in New York, as you know, which is a little bit hectic at the best of times.

But once a year, Andy, whenever the UN General Assembly is on this city goes f ⁇ ing crazy the security everywhere is such that the roads are basically gridlocked for an entire week and it's hard to get anywhere for any reason at any time and I had a particularly visceral example of that on Monday I was in a cab heading to a hotel where I had to shoot something and we were barely moving and the cab driver was screaming to himself the whole time about the UN assembly at one point screaming again to himself saying can't they f ⁇ ing do this someplace else Now, unfortunately, I engaged at that point, Andy, pointing out to him that the UN's headquarters were in New York, so it would be very difficult for them to do it somewhere else.

They are literally anchored to the east side of Manhattan.

And to his credit, he instantly accepted that logic, saying, Yeah, yeah, you're right.

You're right about that.

But then said, I wouldn't mind all this traffic if they actually got anything done in there.

And then, after a brief pause, in a moment of distilled truth, he said, actually, to be honest, even if they did solve all the world's problems, this traffic would still annoy me.

He's right, Andy.

To be fair, traffic is annoying.

That's what you learn from that anecdote.

Traffic is extremely annoying.

So, as always, the section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

Now, it's been a week here in Britain, John, where we've just been luxuriating in the delights of still existing as a nation because

England's won the Scottish devolution referendum.

I believe that's what happened, 55 to 45.

Watch and learn, Crimea.

That is a believable percentage of the vote.

96%,

questions will be asked.

55%,

no one's going to look too closely into it.

That's just basic electoral strategy.

But if the vote had gone the other way, we would probably by now have disintegrated into a pile of dust and dissolved into the Atlantic.

I'm not sure if that was one of the official scaremongering facts, but it's basically true.

So, for the section of the bin this week, to commemorate the ongoing union, we have Construct Your Own Audio Union Jack, Part 1, a period of silence twice as wide as it is high.

Next week, something blue and triangular.

Top story this week, the march of the protesters, how to save the earth by walking all over it.

And last Sunday, there were huge climate marches all over this planet.

I don't know about any other ones, but this this one definitely had some huge climate marches all over it.

And the biggest one, again, was right here in New York, Andy.

That's right.

The big apple comes through again.

When we do something, we do it eye-catchingly huge.

Whether it's a slice of cheesecake or a climate change march, we will do it on a scale that will make you think, how is that even logistically possible?

Now, apparently, around 300,000 people hit the streets of New York to try and focus the world's attention on global warming, which is interesting, Andy, were it not for the fact that every single day in this city, there are 8 million people on the same streets trying to focus the world's attention on the fact that they're fing walking here.

They're fing walking here.

Get your finger.

I'm walking here.

Was there anyone holding it up?

We're doing that every day.

We're doing that every day, Andy.

Was there anyone holding that up as a banner or not?

Well, I think that's the next step, isn't it?

Walk around with placards saying, I am walking here.

And somebody get me a quaffy.

And do you think it's worked?

Because I was reading about this and I came to the conclusion that

the planet is one of those kind of things that's never fully appreciated until it's gone, like a parachute or a justice system or a single scoop of ice cream or the concept of hope.

I really like the planet, John.

So I was pleased that New York is

stepping up to this plate.

Well, the event's organisers here estimated the turnout was actually more than 300,000, making it the largest or one of the largest environmental related protests in the history of the US.

And at one point in the early afternoon, the march apparently came to a complete halt because the entire 2.2 mile route was full to capacity, meaning that at that point, it wasn't so much a march anymore, it was a stand.

It was the largest ever stand for climate change in US history.

And it really was an incredible sight to see people so energized over it.

There was even a minute's noise at one point.

But I can tell you who was not so keen on the whole thing, Andy.

My dog.

She really was not sure what to think about the thousands of people who were suddenly outside where she lives, banging things, blowing things, and waving signs around.

I think that when she sees a protest sign, she really just sees a criminal misuse of a stick.

You can see in her eyes her thinking, take that placard off it, turn the pole sideways, and put it in your mouth.

It's not rocket science, and it feels great.

But also, is it not true that when you got that dog, how old was she?

She was just a couple of months old.

She's three.

Oh, yeah, just a couple of months.

And did you not buy her as a sort of welcome to the family presence a large number of shares in ExxonMobil as well?

I did.

I did because, you know, it made sense.

I was thinking about her future, Andy.

I think the other thing that she was concerned about,

I think she probably agreed with almost everything the protesters were marching for.

I just think there was undeniably a selfish part of her, which very much resented the fact that it interrupted her regular routine of taking a quiet early morning dump in the park and it threw her off for the rest of the day.

I think you know it's thinking about long term rather than short term, but when the short term is that important, you can see why she was pissed.

That's right.

She had to change her emissions and that's that's a strong message to take away.

So it's achieved some change, I guess.

But

it's interesting now that this has,

there's been a, it seems to have been a slight turning of the tides.

Because generally expectations at these things are pretty low on the evidence of previous summits.

You know, sort of expectations for anything useful coming out of it, about the same as the expectations of a one-metre cube of lead that's just entered a wobbliest dessert competition.

But John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, has promised to put climate change, quotes, front and centre of American diplomacy.

I think, you know, it's always been front and centre, very much like a pair of glasses on a boxer's face, in that it is most likely the first thing to get knocked off when things get tricky.

You know, I think there probably has been a changing of the tides, probably something to do with the rising of the tide all over the earth.

But the New York rally was actually just part of this global protest that included events in 156 countries, including Afghanistan, the UK, Italy, and Brazil.

In Brazil, the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio had environmental slogans and a green heart projected on him, and 5,000 marchers turned out.

But again, that doesn't seem that impressive a turnout for Brazil.

I'm pretty sure you could get 20,000 Brazilians to turn up to something if you just promised them they could watch a man kick an orange.

I'm seriously, 20,000 people for that, Andy.

You could get 50,000 if you told him he was going to try and kick the orange into some kind of net.

And it's not like they don't have serious environmental problems in Brazil.

First, Rio is in Brazil and Brazil is on the earth, so they have pretty similar concerns to the rest of us there.

And even at the local level, there is huge controversy over there at the moment over a golf course for the 2016 Olympics which is being built in a nature reserve and it's it's hard to know where to even begin to unpack that sentence first golf is evidently and unnecessarily coming back to the Olympics after a much needed 112 year absence that is ridiculous and the only way they can make it even more ridiculous seems to be building an entirely unnecessary new golf course in an environmentally protected area in some of Rio's Rio's last public green space.

What more, Andy?

What more majestic a sight is there than watching a rare bird fly majestically out of a protected Rio woodland, only to see it's decapitated by a flying Calloway golf ball hit by an overweight six-year-old businessman from Florida on vacation.

It's the circle of life, Andy, just like Elton squawked.

Well, I think you're reading this wrong, John.

It very much depends on the type of nature reserve it is.

And a lot of sports have to change and modernise when they are accepted into the Olympic family.

Golf clearly from now will have to build all its courses in nature reserves.

But

to make the sport more exciting, these nature reserves will be populated by apex predators.

Now you cannot tell me this would not make golf a significantly tiger versus tiger as God intended.

The language used at the UN

after the climate march has been strong, but of course the UN specialises in non-binding strong language, Andy.

They've created some of the best sounding suggestions in human history.

Banky Moon said humanity had to act because, and I quote, this is the planet where our subsequent generations will live.

There is no plan B because we do not have planet B.

No plan B.

Speak for yourself, Moon.

That is nothing but a failure of imagination on your part.

What about moon colonies?

Floating ecodomes?

Everyone living underground in warrens.

I'm not saying any of those are plausible, Andy, but he didn't talk about plausible plan B's.

He just said plan Bs.

Also, I'm going to call bullshit on it, John.

But just in this same week, India has put a satellite into orbit around Mars, becoming the fourth nation to do so at a cost of just £45 million.

That is a bargain for a Mars trip.

To put that in context, that is enough to pay the daily minimum wage to about...

around about 45 million Indians.

Only one day, so that makes it a bargain.

Or to put it another way, it's the cost of a toilet seat in billionaire mukesh ambani's billion dollar house in mumbai either way a bargain but this john is the first step to india setting up a colony on mars i can't think they might focus on other more important national problems such as the inability of their batsmen to construct a proper test match in inks but anyway let's not be judgmental and furthermore scientists have discovered a cloud-free atmosphere on a distant planet the size of neptune the smallest exoplanet ever to reveal its chemical composition, John.

It's got water vapor on it this suggests that we could live there this is the get out of jail free car that Ban Ki-moon is so studiously ignoring a new planet we can take over currently designated HATP hyphen 11b it's not a great name for a planet but you know we could fund the whole expedition by selling the naming rights um oh also it's only 124 light years away now that's no biggie i reckon light probably isn't as fast as it used to be these things get old and out of shape it's about one quadrillion kilometers away.

It's a bit of a hike, but they used to think it was a long way from London to Edinburgh, and now we are umbilically joined forever.

And it's four times the width of our home world, which just to me makes it sound like four times as much room for parties.

So this is the future, John.

We have a plan B.

President Obama in his speech said nobody gets a pass on climate change to the stifled guffaws of the companies in the background sitting behind him.

Oh, this guy's hilarious.

We don't get him.

Oh, carry on.

Sorry, sorry.

He then went on to say, we recognize our role in creating this problem.

We embrace our responsibility to combat it.

I think he might be wildly misusing the word embrace there, Adam.

It's a pretty reluctant embrace of that responsibility here in the US, to put it mildly.

It's really the kind of embrace you give to someone who you wish would just fing go away.

In fact, America embraces the responsibility to end climate change the way a wrestler embraces another wrestler.

It might look affectionate if you're not really watching them closely, but if you pay closer attention, he's actually trying to choke the other wrestler unconscious.

And also, you know, it's all been arranged way in advance, so there's nothing you can do about the end result.

This was the first world leaders meeting on climate change for five years since the 2009 meetings collapsed in what can only be described as hilarious political slapstick.

Five years ago, no point rushing back into these things.

And we had 120 different government leaders each making a four-minute speech I for one cannot wait for that DVD box set to come out that is going to be absolutely unmissable but of course they were all overshadowed because one man who is not a government leader made a speech and he is a famous and b pretty and that man of course was

Leonardo DiCaprio

who said this he said you can either make history or be vilified by it a statement which I'm sure certain prominent 20th century European despots would strongly argue with, having proved that it is possible to both make history and be extremely vilified by it.

Yeah, he spoke to the UN Leonardo DiCaprio sporting a beard.

And you know an actor is serious, Andy, when they put their beards on.

Facial hair obscuring an objectively perfect face is a clear request to be taken seriously.

Leonardo DiCaprio is clearly saying, I know you cannot be trusted to focus on anything other than my boyish skin and chisel charm, so I will temporarily cover that up with unkempt whiskers until you have listened to what I have to say, which you will, for you know what lies beneath these bristles.

Respect my face, but do not be distracted by it.

That's what he's saying, Andy.

He addressed the delegates saying, I pretend for a living, but you do not.

And I guess, I get what he's trying to say there, Andy, but...

I honestly don't think he's giving global politicians the performance jobs they deserve.

Absolutely.

They can put in some pretty self-serving performance skills once in a while.

He also said, because the world's scientific community has spoken and they have given us our prognosis, if we do not act together, we will surely perish.

Which does suggest that if we do act together, we will not perish, John.

DiCaprio is offering us the immortality of his own youth.

Yes.

What a hero.

Respect the beard.

Respect it.

He also said clean air and water and a livable climate are inalienable human rights all right lenin now try making a fing profit out of it not so easy petrol whiskey and summer holidays also inalienable human rights much more lucrative so you can see where the business priorities might lie

perhaps the most notable thing in the UN chamber was perhaps not

who was there for the climate speech, but who was not there.

Because yes, on one hand you had over 100 heads of state, which is clearly a good thing.

The only gigantic problem was the non-attendance from the leaders of China and India, the title holders of the planet's first and third largest

carbon emitters, respectively.

And that's clearly not ideal, Andy.

That's like having a sandwich meats convention and not having bacon or turkey turn up.

Sure, it's nice to have you here, Ham.

It's nice to have you here.

But I think it might be best if we postpone until the big boys turn up.

But you did the right thing, Ham.

I'm not angry with you, Ham.

John, I think, you know, was it eight, eight, nine years ago before you moved to the States, I think you'd have gone with chicken rather than turkey there.

Yeah.

That's sad to hear.

Sad to hear.

I don't know if you put chicken in as a sandwich, mate, Andy.

What, mate?

A sandwich on it?

Mate?

You might as well burn your passport.

I don't know.

Do you still have a passport?

But still, despite all this, there are a number of sceptics, not only Tony Abbott and possibly the leaders of China and India.

But you still get climate change sceptics, and the science is overwhelming, but there's very little that can be done when people willfully take something out of context to make it look like essentially opposite of what it was, fomenting the frothing rage of anonymous keyboard warriors driven on by irresponsible headline-seeking journalists.

And that's often what happens with climate change.

And

it's always vulnerable,

climate science, to the classic sceptic's retort, which is simply

no.

Anoti Tong, the president of Kiribati, one of the Pacific,

a small island nation in the Pacific Ocean, visited the Arctic before this week's meeting in New York and said, I have seen how much ice is being lost, and it is very serious.

To which the obvious response is, no, you haven't.

And besides, do we actually need the Arctic?

What does it actually do?

But despite this science being unanimous, John,

Maybe this debate is not concluded because we've all seen 12 Angry Men, the famous legal drama, when a jury at a murder trial is almost unanimous apart from one lone dissenting voice whom everyone else thinks is barking mad.

But in time, that man, the Henry Fonder character in the film, gradually sways all the others until eventually they all change their minds and let the murderer off.

Stroke, find him not guilty.

Technical legal terms for the same thing in most newspapers.

Now, perhaps climate change scepticism will prove to be the Henry Fonder of the 21st century.

Now, admittedly, in the global warming case, the jury for the murder case contains not just 12 men, but thousands and thousands of experts in their field who've all done extensive research into every available piece of evidence.

The accused man in the case has basically handed himself into a police station covered head to toe in blood, dumped a coffin on the counter saying, pop open this box, I've just killed a guy inside it, you might want to take me in for questioning.

Here's the ornamental scimitar I've used, and if you examine my clothing, I'll think if I'm the splatter batten really backs up my story.

Cuff me, Sarge, before I get away.

And the Henry Fonda character has been paid a fortune, it turns out, by a multinational hot drink company, Notgill plc, who will do anything anything to make the case fall down because whenever a defendant is acquitted, they see a spike in sales of their top-selling brand, Notgil Tea.

Is this still on?

Andy.

What?

Andy.

Andy.

What?

I just want you to take a moment and think about what you just said.

This is a teachable moment for yourself.

Don't let this opportunity slip by.

Think of me as Leonardo DiCaprio with a beard, appealing to your better instincts here, Andy.

You can make a change.

The tide is turning.

Business seems to be jumping on this hobby horse now as well.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund posted a message on its website announcing it was committing to a two-step process to address its desire to divest from investments in fossil fuels, which is quite a few qualifying words away from selling all its investments in fossil fuels.

But it's a step, John, in the right direction.

This is a business empire built on oil.

The Rockefellers turning against fossil fuels.

That is equivalent to Auguste Rodin saying, actually, sculpture is a pile of shit.

I'm just going to make biscuits instead.

Or Heston Blumenthal saying, you know what, from now on, all I'm cooking is beans on toast.

So

maybe there's some genuine progress to be grasped at.

The food at the summit for the world leaders was provided by the New York-based American celebrity chef Scluton Malvain, who provided some environment-themed dishes for the world leaders.

For starters, controlled emissions of aerosol hockey stick courgettes.

Then a main course of Italian chicken steamed in a leather casing.

That's Capon dioxide.

Served with defrost-forested broccoli stems on a failed summit of hope-crushed potatoes, offset with footprints of carbonated ham leg.

Served with Kyoto proto-cauliflowers, floating on acidified micro-oceans of miso rabble soup.

Absolutely delicious.

Your emails now, and we have an email here from Eric Schnell who says dear Andy Chris and John in order of who would look best dressed as a bottomless for Halloween

So I think it's what's that Neville Chamberlain's nickname for Hitler

Little Eric Schnell's getting a bit uppity

little Eric

He says I don't know how much you keep up with modern technology but recent Apple recently Apple has released iOS 8 and with that they've done what we've all been waiting for since the invention of smartphones.

They have added f eulogy to their spell check dictionary.

That's fing huge Andy.

This pretty much means that f eulogy is an official word and in a few weeks I predict that every hipster will be using it.

At this rate I believe f eulogy will be the most used words during the 2016 election in which

of course Andy will be the surprise winner and you guys will be finally be able to rest easy at night.

Eric Schnell.

That is huge Andy.

But we've always wanted to make an impact in the world that was pointless and that at the very least did not contribute anything to it and at the very most took something away.

And I think we've done it, Andy.

I think the whole of Series 1 has now been proved worthwhile.

It was all

building to that.

This one comes in from Margot in Brussels, who writes,

Dear Chris, John and Andy, in order of who knows more about sports, sports plural?

S.

Oh dear.

Oh dear.

That's the Americanization.

I should point out, sorry, I I talked over the beginning of the previous email because in order of who from that one was particularly good.

In order of who would look best dressed as a hippopotamus for Halloween.

I'm sorry if that got lost, but

that was a beautiful image.

And

I'm flattered.

That's probably a fair order as well.

I'm flattered.

Admittingly, I'm the only one who has photos of myself dressed as a hippopotamus for Halloween out there on the internet.

Anyway, Margot from Brussels writes,

I was very happy to hear the bugle is back on track after a long summer break.

Imagine my surprise then when Andy, citing Andy Murray's Yes Scotland tweet, cited tennis champion Alison van Oytvank's name.

Alison and I share the same last name, but that's not what blew me away, was the fact that Andy pronounced it correctly.

That has never happened in my 23-year existence, said Margot.

So thank you, Andy.

I have no idea if Alison and I are related, but now that she's appeared on the bugle, I just might try and contact her.

So you are welcome.

Now the interesting thing is, I had no idea how to pronounce that, but such is my umbilical connection with the world of sport, I just naturally got it right.

You can't argue with that level of spiritual connection.

Do keep your emails coming in to info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Quick thanks to all of those who've come to and contributed to my Soho Theatre run of Satirist for High.

I hope you've enjoyed it.

This coming week, I'm at the Exeter Phoenix on Thursday the 2nd of October, Warwick Art Centre on Friday the 3rd, and the Slade Runes Wolverhampton on Saturday the 4th, which will be my last ever gig as someone below the age of 40.

Holy shit, I can almost hear the Reaper sharpening his golf clubs, John.

I think that's a golf club he carries with him, isn't it?

It's some kind of hybrid

wedge-stroke putter, I think.

Very long club.

That's right.

He's got to pick a club for your soul and it's got a long club head because he has a bad back and can't bend over.

But anyway, please keep those satirical requests coming in to satirise this at satiristforhire.com the following week from the 8th to the 11th of October.

I'll be in York, Harrogate, Sheffield, and Sully Hull and a free complimentary orange to anyone who comes to all four of those gigs.

I've stocked up with all the oranges I should need for that prize.

Man, am I looking forward to that orange?

So anyway, I'll see you all at those gigs.

And in the list of venues I gave a couple of weeks ago on a subbug, I'm afraid I gave out some false information.

That's the first time on the show that I've not told the absolute god's honest, scientifically verifiable truth.

I can only apologise.

I was working off what turned out to be an old version of my tour schedule with the ruthlessly efficient self-promotion for which I'm rightly renowned.

The correct list of dates is at the Satters for High website.

If you'd set your heart on seeing me in Swindon, Cambridge, or Guildford, I can only humbly apologise for raising your hopes only to dash them heartlessly on the icy butcher's block of cold, hard reality.

So, that is it for this week's bugle.

Thanks very much for listening, and we will be back in this newly saved planet next week.

Goodbye.

Boy!

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.