Bugle 236 – Tennis racquet marries guinea pig

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 236 of the Bugle for the week beginning Monday, the 26th of May, 2013.

The newscast that D'Artagnan's the sword of truth to carve the carrot of confusion into the decorative plate adornment garnish of definitive political analysis.

With me, Andy Zaltzmann, still the proud owner of an O-O record in the professional cage fighting circuit, no one seems to

want a piece of me.

Read into that what you will.

I'm live in London and in New York City, where in just a couple of weeks' time he will temporarily take over from Jon Stewart the sacred task of destroying everything America holds dear.

The man with a hat on from Manhattan.

It's the guy who might not be able to get turkeys to vote for Christmas, but could at least get them discussing the issue properly with a trace of objectivity.

It's the human horseradish.

Pecon, a cervic, helping to cut through the fat, can really spice things up when he's got a beef with something.

Unsuitable for children, inappropriate at most meal times, and to be taken in moderation.

It's John Oliver.

Wow.

Wow.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Thank you for

reminding me that I'm taking over just a couple of weeks.

Andy, that sound you here is my stomach flipping back over again.

So yeah, we're taking a week off.

How difficult can it be to read an auto-cube, John?

It can't be that hard.

Unfortunately, it's everything that comes before that reading that's the problem.

We're taking a week off next week, so this will be my last chance to point out for those buglers who may be in New York on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th of June, if you're interested, I'm going to be doing another series of my stand-up show the week before I take over the daily show.

Basically, ensuring there's almost no way of me getting out of the month of June without having some form of heart attack.

Anyway, if buglers would like to come along, you're more than welcome.

And you can get tickets at theblacklistnyc.com for the low, low price of absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Other than, of course, stealing an evening of your life, time

that you can never get back, precious time.

You can never claw back, even when you feel you need it the most.

When you factor that in, Andy, the tickets are, of course,

priceless and that you shouldn't come.

Don't come.

Do something important with your life.

Yeah, instead, you can come and see my gigs in Norway instead.

There we go.

Bergen, Trigger.

Are you in Bergen, Trondheim, and Oslo?

That's this coming week, so you better be.

This classic biking tour, Andy.

That's right, yeah.

Starting on Wednesday, I think, I can't remember at Bergen or Trondheim, and then Thursday, in whichever one wasn't Wednesday, and then two dates in Oslo, Friday and Saturday.

That sounds like a nicely confusing tour t-shirt.

And I've got some dates at the other belly in London as well, since you ask, coming up in June and July, but I can't remember the dates of them.

I'll keep them on my sleeve.

It's all on the website.

Man, we are really getting the hang of this promotion.

Yeah, well that was the hard sell and I tell you what Andy, I'm guessing most buglers have just turned off because I think I just did.

Well this is the week beginning Monday the 26th of May 2013 which means it's 105 years to the day.

Since the first major oil strike in the Middle East.

That is 105 years of happiness for the lucky people who live there and have all benefited so harmoniously from the bounteous gifts of their land.

Also 75 years since the House Un-American Activities Committee began its first session in 1938.

And amongst the activities considered un-American in 1938 were being a vampire, that was considered very European, drinking unpasteurized snake milk, Canadian, talking about French classical music, French, playing cricket, anywhere civilized, being a massive communist, bit Russian, and making animated movies featuring realistic-looking women.

That was viewed as kind of Czechoslovakian.

And it's also

exactly 310 years since the diarist Samuel Pepys died.

And his.

Actually, they've just uncovered, because they thought he quit the diary writing game in 1669 because of failing eyesight, but they just found in the British Library volumes from later in his life that were found on the back of it.

In fact, they're found on the back of a sofa in a bedset in Clapham.

Which suggests that the Pepys actually carried on writing until minutes before his death.

In fact, the final entry is this.

I'm 70 years old.

I'm finging bored.

London hasn't burnt down for

37 years now.

I've tried on all the wigs a man can try on in a lifetime, and I still look silly in them all.

So I've decided to take up a new hobby to keep my mind and body active.

Base jumping.

I've made a parachute out of Mrs.

Groggins' spare bloomers, and I'm off to Westminster Abbey to teach this so-called gravity that that dickhead Newton keeps baying on about, a lesson it will not forget.

Chocks away.

I tell you what, Andy, we might have lost buglers with the hard sell stuff, but we've definitely got them back with the Samuel Pepys reference.

Can't beat a bit of the old peepster.

Come on, PP!

And London has barely changed, actually,

if you read it backwards.

A section in the bin.

This week, as always, a section on the Buglers going straight in the bin.

This week, a gardening section.

How to stop weeds the environmentally friendly way with threats of pain, death, and eternal hell.

With the Catholic Church's new Inquistador weed-killing micro-priest.

Just plant your inquistador in your flowerbed, and it will declaim terrifying promises of damnation that are sure to get your plants to behave.

We also review the latest garden furniture, including the barbecue, the must-have, for all barbecue fans, a barbecue modelled on the world's most famous Barbaras.

Choose from the actresses Hershey or Windsor or the former First Lady Bush.

Burn those cursed democratic sausages in the flames of righteousness.

Also, No More Running Hammock, How to Control Your Kids in the Garden with this fun yet inescapable security hammock, which traps your unsuspecting offspring in a safe spider's web style spider's web and the lazy Sue's lawn have your lawn rotate around you as you stand still with your lawnmower saving you time and hassle all that reviewed in the bin this week

top story this week rainbow roundup it's gagagagay news

bigotry Andy in all its forms is by its nature inherently ludicrous but homophobia seems to bring out an extra spicy level of distilled insanity.

And it has been a race to the bottom of the barrel this week in terms of fear-mongering of the most fabulous kind.

First, on our homophobic hike, in Britain, a man called Lord Norman Tebbit gave a spectacular interview.

Now,

if you don't know who Norman Tebbit is, first off, congratulations.

You must have lived such a wonderful life up to this point.

What a shame that that's all about to change.

Norman Tebbit is a man who who is the personification of everything that is wrong with the UK's lordship system.

Because if he can be elevated to the title of lord and have that title be given to him in a non-sarcastic manner, something is tremendously wrong with Britain.

He looks exactly what you think a man called Norman Tebbit would look like.

Do an experiment now.

Picture what you think Norman Tebbit looks like immediately.

Now Google his name, click on images.

See, you are completely right.

uh Tebbit gave an interview to the big issue in Britain which was immediately surprising as it's a paper which was created to give homeless people the chance to earn a legitimate income and I believe the only legitimate income that Norman Tebbit believes homeless people are good for is working as logs on his fire

Anyway the only way this interview makes sense it is if he was either completely wasted or was recovering from a huge concussion or both because otherwise it seems like he permanently checked into the hotel crazy town.

Now I realize

three of those things actually happen.

I realize I'm giving this quite a big build-up, but Tebbit is about to deliver.

I'm writing checks that he's about to overcash.

He went on a rant about Prime Minister David Cameron's intent to plow ahead with legalizing gay marriage, saying that it opened up the possibility of a lesbian queen giving birth to a future monarch by artificial insemination.

Let me just give you his exact quote, because you're probably thinking,

no way.

There is no f ⁇ ing way he said that.

He said, and brace yourself, when we have a queen who is a lesbian and she marries another lady and then decides that she would like to have a child and someone donates sperm and she gives birth to a child, is that child heir to the throne?

Andy,

I would like to spend...

just a moment inside Norman Tebbit's head just to see what the world looks like from in there.

And then I'd like to get out as quickly as possible.

I'd basically like to bungee jump into his mind, dip my head in there and then get the f out.

I think it's mostly just little people riding around on bicycles.

But I mean, this is the art.

I think you're being harsh on him, John.

I think this is like a classic philosophical quandary.

You know, when we have a queen who's a lesbian and she marries another lady, they decide to have a child.

We donated sperm.

Is that child heir to the throne?

That's that's a philosophical quandary to set alongside things like

Schrödinger's cat, which I think was if you have a cat and it gets a bit mangy but is otherwise fine, whilst next door's cat has kidney, liver and bowel problems but has nice fur.

So you kidnap next door's cat, do a full body fur transplant, so you're basically healthy cat gets a lovely new coat.

Is your cat still the same cat?

It's uh or Occam's razor, which was uh Occam, it's a very famous philosophical quantity.

I put I'm a bit rusty on this, it's been a while since I did any philosophy.

But I think it was Occam has a beard and suffers a cranial injury that impairs his mental faculties, so he goes out to try and buy a razor, but ends up in a pet shop buying an iguana, which he then teaches to graze the beard off his face and that he keeps in a jar by his basin.

Is the iguana a razor or not?

So, um, yeah, but it's very much alongside those great philosophical imponderables.

But it does also suggest, though, John, that you know, why is he speculating on whether or not there is going to be a lesbian queen?

And I think the reason is he has inside information on Prince William and Kate Middleton's imminent baby.

Because clearly, I mean, they've probably had, they must have had scans done on it.

They must know what's coming out.

And clearly Tebbit's got some insider political gossip that has shown that the royal photatina is, in fact, a lesbian.

Now, I'm sure William and Kate won't mind.

They're seeming pretty modern and well-adjusted.

But it is a constitutional pavlova, John.

What are we going to do in this country with our new lesbian baby queen?

Well, the amazing thing is, Norma Tebbit did not stop there in the interview, and he could have done, happily.

The journalists were probably all ready to just stop stop their dictaphone, throw it out of the window, and say, thanks, Norma, you've already given me more than enough.

But he didn't stop there.

Because he's apparently of the opinion that legalising gay marriage could also lead to people marrying members of their own family to avoid inheritance tax.

Again, you're probably thinking, no way.

This time that's definitely bullshit.

He did not say that.

An adult did not say that.

Well, strap in, because he said, and I quote, it would lift my worries about inheritance tax because maybe I'd be allowed to marry my son.

Why not?

Why shouldn't a mother marry her daughter?

Why shouldn't two elderly sisters living together marry each other?

Now, Andy, again, I mean, like you, I don't want to come across as an armchair psychologist here, but I think Norman Teblet is sexually attracted to members of his own family.

There's just no other explanation for why else that thought would pop into his head.

That's what happens when someone sticks Lord at the front of your name, I think.

But of course, some of this concern of his perfectly understandable concern, but it is covered by existing laws on incests and bigamy, which have been fairly rigorously applied, give or take the odd thousand years of royal interbreeding.

But it would make also, I mean, just logistically, that would be an extremely awkward wedding.

And you would have to really, really want that inheritance tax.

And it would be some very awkward family situations.

Enid, darling?

Yes, Nigel, darling.

You know how we've been happily married for over 50 years?

Yes, love.

Blissfully happily wedded, Enid.

You know, the best years of your life.

Uh, yeah, I suppose so, Nigel, sure.

Uh in which time my magic seed has brought forth the fruit of your womb.

Uh, I like to think of them as Petula and Nigel Jr.

Uh, yes, those are the ones, love.

I've never been very good with names.

So, what about those fifty years of happy marriage, Nigel?

Uh, I want a divorce.

Oh, that's a shame, love.

Yeah, it is, rather, after everything we've been through.

Yeah.

Is there someone else?

Uh, there's no easy way to say this, but yes, that there is someone else.

Is it someone I know?

It usually is.

Just tell me, Nigel, it's the not knowing that's the the worst part.

Ease up, Edith.

You've only not known for about ten seconds.

That's more like twenty.

Just be honest with me, Nigel.

Surely that's the least I deserve after fifty, more than fifty years of dutiful wedlock.

I'd kinda counted on us spending our last few years together as we suffer the long, slow slide into the welcoming chasm of nothingness that is death.

Oh, fair point, love.

Yes, i it is someone you know.

Oh, it's not old Agatha, is it?

I've had my suspicions about you two ever since you had your new bags fitted at the same hospital.

Uh no, it's not Agatha.

Is it Ethel whose eighth husband Bernard sadly passed away suddenly last Christmas after his his 90th birthday treat bobsled run went tragically wrong?

No, it's not life insurance, Ethel, no.

Is it one of the Kardashians?

No, I've only met them on the telly.

Well, you seem to spend a lot of time with them.

It's technically a very well-made show, Enid.

Well,

who is it, Nigel?

Yes.

Yes, what?

Yes, it is Nigel.

Oh no, are you having one of your episodes again?

I know you're Nigel.

You don't need to tell me.

No, no, I meant the other person.

It's Nigel Jr., our son.

What, you're divorcing me to marry our son?

Oh, how can I be so blind?

I knew you two two have been spending a lot of time together over the last 47 years.

Knew it?

At least as long as you don't give it a hole, it's not you, it's me stick.

Well, it's not you or me.

It's inheritance tax.

You're prepared to tear this family apart for the purpose of saving a few quid on inheritance tax.

Yes, bottom line, Enid.

Bottom line.

And presents, we really need some new plates.

Yes, Nigel, we do need some new plates.

That's because there's a time and a place for practicing your discus throwing and clearing the table after dinner.

It's not it.

You never encouraged me, Enid.

I bet Mrs.

Zelesny didn't mind Yan chucking his knives and forks into the dishwasher.

Well I bet she did, and I bet Mrs.

Fosbury also minded her dick landing splat on top of her in their unnecessarily high bunk bed every night as well.

And Mrs.

Fanjor was not at all comfortable with her Juan Manuel insisting on doing the school run.

Come on, Enid, he got them there on time every day, in fact early, usually.

And I know for a fact that Mrs.

Palmer got heartily sick of her Arnold helping out whenever she unpacked the shopping by insisting that he was allowed to put the satsumas in the fruit bowl that he kept 350 yards away down the bottom of the garden round a tricky left or right dog leg.

And that's for Mrs.

Hogan.

Well, I don't know how many times she had to tell her Hulk to go easy on the Good Night Hogs for their little ones.

No, it's always negatives with you, Enid, isn't it?

What are we talking about again?

I'm marrying Nigel Jr.

for tax purposes.

Oh, I love weddings.

Can I be a bridesmaid?

No, actually, I thought maybe you could marry Petula at the same time.

Oh, I love weddings.

Will you be my best man?

I'm 84.

Andy, you didn't just write a joke.

You wrote a play.

I think that is an insight into the Tebbit family, though.

There was a documentary a few years ago about the genetic background of like 10 English celebrities.

And Norman Tebbit was one of the people.

And everyone, they were astonished, like, you know, you're part Asian and you're part Sub-Saharan African, except Tebbit, who was the only person who was 100% British.

That is...

I mean, the amazing thing for a British person is that Norman Tebbit, Andy, is like hatred nostalgia.

My My whole childhood, he was there, inspiring vitriol from the British public as one of the top faces in the Conservative government.

And when you see him now, you get that warm, recognisable feeling of bile in your stomach as you see his stupid face.

It wasn't even just the gaze that he turned his eye on.

He also blasted David Cameron's entire ministerial team, claiming that they've f ⁇ ed things up.

The thing is, what you need to understand is this is not out of character at all, this.

This is a man who, back in 2010, and I swear to you this is true, got into a fight with a Chinese New Year dragon.

It's true.

He was 78 at the time and he claimed that he was new to the area, was not aware of the tradition and had been startled by the noise.

One witness said that he ran, he saw an old man run a hundred yards down the road, grab one of the drums that was being hit and then kick the back side of the dragon, not realizing that inside the dragon, while there was an adult at the front there was a child at the back he kicked a child in a dragon costume and when questioned about it Norman Tebbit said I was barged by the dragon I barged it back and might have done something like kick it I wasn't sure how to deal with it I've never been barged by a dragon before

and when when asked whether he had anything to say to the child he kicked he replied and I swear this is true he should get himself promoted to the front of the dragon

Norman Tebbit, Andy, was the reason that Britain used to rule the world.

That level of unabashed confidence.

And it's worth remembering that when we ruled the world, we were f ⁇ ing arseholes.

Well, he was famously outspoken, as you say, through the 1980s when we were growing up,

famously with his on your bike quotes.

suggesting that people should stop complaining about not having jobs and get on their bikes to find a job, which would have been fine if his government hadn't been so busy stealing everyone's bicycle and crushing them down for scrap.

So, as you said, he had a pop at Cameron and accused Downing Street of forcing this gay marriage legislation through with very little thought.

He said the government discussed it for 20 minutes on the morning of its announcement.

They'd done no work on it beforehand.

And you have to say, well, well done to the government, because this is not the kind of thing that requires a lot of thought.

Because when you're deciding whether or not to legalise gay marriage, I guess what you would think, being a government in Britain was A, it's 2013, B, it's Britain, and we like to bang on about how great freedom, equality, and shit like that are, and C, it makes absolutely no fing difference to anyone else who isn't directly affected by it.

Yes, done.

I'm surprised it took them as long as 20 minutes, John.

I guess the concern is, you know, where will it end, John?

Because, you know, it's just one small step from the EU forcing the Queen to become a lesbian and not just dabble with it, John.

Actually become a fully paid up lesbian and then be impregnated with the sperms of a gay icon such as as Elton John.

And is that a kind of Britain you want to live in?

But you take Tebbit's concern, back to those original concerns about a lesbian queen giving birth to the heir to the throne by artificial insemination from a random test tube of a non-sperm, you have to ask, would that be more or less ridiculous than the current system of monarchy that we have anyway, in which an 87-year-old woman prances around in special clothes with hats that are worth enough to solve global poverty, who's been stuck in the same job for over 60 years, way beyond state retirement age, despite being being allegedly a public sector worker, whose face is plastered all over our currency, even though she actually has no constitutional power and basically can't do anything more politically active than wave and frown because it turns out our monarchs weren't, as was previously thought, chosen by God.

Or maybe God just got bored of choosing our monarchs.

I don't know.

And whose successful avoidance of death we marked just a couple of years ago by sticking her on a golden crusted boat and shoving her down a river.

And who only became queen because her uncle fell in love with the wrong woman and therefore because she was married or divorced had to quit his job.

I mean, you never get that through Brussels these days.

And anyway, whose family were only in place because of a Parliament Act in 1701 that banned Catholics from the throne because they believed in the wrong brand of Jesus.

Meaning that a German guy who would have been about 50th in line to the throne became king despite not being able to speak English and despite the fact that

he'd locked his wife in a castle for the rest of her life after she'd allegedly had an affair and then hacked her lover to pieces.

Would it be any weirder than that system?

God

save.

Andy, that's a beautiful retelling of the British history which makes complete sense.

I didn't know that about George I until

doing the factual background for that joke.

That yeah, he locked his wife in a castle for 30 years and allegedly hacked her lover to pieces.

And that was the kind of decisive

I mean, I guess that does put him pretty much in the Henry VIII school of how to end a relationship.

Yeah, closure, Andy.

He just wanted closure.

French gay news now.

And while Norman Tebbit seems to suggest that Britain is going to be a little more difficult to get gay marriage through than is ideal, France recently passed gay marriage, with it actually becoming law last Saturday.

And your initial thought to the news of that is, yeah, of course they did.

They're France.

You know, even their capital city is called Gay Paris.

Why did it take them so long?

But it's been a depressingly controversial decision in France.

One right-wing MP there claimed that the government was killing children by allowing same-sex married couples to adopt.

I don't know how that kills the children, frankly, Andy, unless the MP was concerned that gay couples might boil their new children down into some kind of gay soup.

I don't know, but

my explanation makes exactly as much sense as whatever his explanation was.

I mean that is possible the thing with because you know gays don't have the gene for parenting do they?

Right, I mean that's

a lot of fun.

So if they get a child they'll probably think oh that could be a vegetable maybe we'll buy it.

Well, another French senator said gay marriage would pave the way for people to be able to marry animals or objects, which is just it's a classic anti-same-sex marriage argument, Andy.

Where does it end?

Do you really want people marrying toasters or pigeons?

Because that's that's what's going to happen.

I will not attend the marriage between a tennis racket and a guinea pig.

I won't do it, however nice the invitation is.

All these protests in France came to a head this week when a far-right essayist called Dominique Venaire shot himself in Notre Dame Cathedral after writing in a blog that more radical action was needed to stop gay marriage happening.

Maureen Le Pen,

the head of the far-right France Nationale in France and and record-breaking bitch,

tweeted her respect for Venaire and said his death was an eminently political gesture.

Well, I have a few thoughts on Dominique Vener's action, Andy.

One, this does not seem like a huge loss to the human race.

Two, if he was going to do something this stupid, at least he only killed himself.

It's probably the most preferable kind of extremist act.

And three, he was 78.

I don't think that makes this a particularly bold act the average life expectancy of France is 81 do this in your 30s and you're actually giving something up right now all Dominique has done is saved France another three years of his relentless assholery

gay blame news now and uh well gays are often blamed for natural disasters here in the US Andy I don't what I don't know why that is you know whether it's their rhythmic dancing causes earthquakes or their constant gossiping causes hurricanes.

I don't know, but there's a history of these attempted explanations.

In 2012, a chaplain called John McTernan linked Hurricane Sandy and a number of other natural disasters on LGBT people and President Obama's backing of gay marriage equality, which...

You know, it makes complete sense if you don't think about it at all.

He also linked Hurricane Isaac with the the LGBT community, pointing out the fact, Andy, the fact that the storm coincided with New Orleans gay Mardi Gras.

Coincidence, Andy?

Yes, obviously, yes.

On his website, this guy, McTernan, Chaplain McTernan, claims to have a BS from Virginia Commonwealth University.

And I'm guessing that BS stands for bullshit, Anthony, and that he has a doctorate in it.

He was a prominent member of

notorious Westboro Baptist Church.

Fred Phelps Jr., the son of the church's minister, Fred Phelps Sr., I guess,

tweeted that the Oklahoma tornado was due to God being cross at the local team's supports for its openly gay basketball star, Jason Collins.

And he finished his tweet with a number of hashtags that were particularly offensive.

And also, you do the math.

So basically, Oklahoma supports a gay baseball player God then sends his door note that you you do the math well I have done the math and the math suggests that there is no direct statistical correlation between homosexual basketball players and natural disasters I'm a bit rusty on advanced calculus I'll give you that but I'd I mean fair play to Phelps Jr.

if he's worked out somehow that basketball plus homosexual equals the death of innocent people then Either fair play, you're a far better mathematician than I, or buy a new f ⁇ ing calculator.

I think you might have spilled some jam on it.

Well, here's the thing.

I mean,

you're always reluctant to give Westboro Baptist Church the oxygen of publicity that they seem to so crave.

I mean, I guess the broader point is, if you are a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, you are officially a paid-up member of the club.

And I'm glad, Andy, that the word

still retains its ability to shock, mainly because it means it still carries some weight when you use it accurately to describe these total

volcanoes

well in the service of volcanoes uh recent archaeological research has shown that on the indonesian island of krakatoa which famously uh one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in in history in the 1880s they've found the remnants of at least 40 gay nightclubs

from uh from just before the eruption.

Shit.

Yeah.

Oh, God, it's hard to argue with that.

And, you know, look look at Pompeii.

Those guys were total perverts.

Total perverts.

I mean, when you put it like that, it still doesn't really make any sense.

Food, glorious food.

Food of the future news now.

And, well, great news, Andy.

The UN has solved world hunger.

It's done it.

It has done it.

Just one tiny, tiny, barely visible catch.

It's solved it in potentially the most unappetizing way imaginable.

How?

Well, let me put it this way.

You know that thing that you just stamped on with your foot when it crawled across the floor?

Eat it, because you better get used to the taste of it.

It's what we're all going to be eating in the future.

Essentially, a new UN report has revealed that eating more insects could dramatically help fight world hunger.

And, you know, there's already a precedent for this working.

Right now, over 2 billion of the world's population already include insects in their diet.

And apparently, insect farming could be one of the ways to address food and feed security.

That's what the UN report says.

Now, for a start, Andy, I love the idea of an insect farm.

And when I say I love it, I mean it makes my skin crawl.

Although, to be fair, insect farm...

as a term is basically directly interchangeable with New York City.

This might actually, this report might solve New York's budget problem in a single heartbeat, because

New York now holds spectacularly large resources of the world's next foodstuff.

No longer is this the filthiest city on earth, Andy.

Now it's instantly transformed into a sustainable free-range gourmet cockroach farm.

What's for dinner tonight, sweetheart?

I don't know, honey.

Let's see what we've got behind the fridge.

In fact, Mayor Boomberg, Andy, here, he should include this in New York's next tourist commercial.

Are you hungry?

Looking for a high protein, low fat snack?

Why not just come to New York City and cycle down 2nd Avenue with your mouth open?

But I mean I'm not at all happy about this John because you know I like my food and there's no way I'm prepared to eat insects.

The mashed up connective tissue of pigs.

Yeah, yeah, happy with that.

The livers of birds that basically amount to aerial vermin?

Yeah.

The hack-to-pieces corpse of a mechanically slaughtered baby cow?

Absolutely.

Insects?

Never.

Unless they're basically insects that live in the sea, in which case, oh yeah, give me a bit of mayonnaise and let me rip its head off and eat it whole, stomach included, in one go.

I don't care if its dead eyes are staring at me and if it was waving at me from a bucket ten minutes ago.

Yum.

The report argues that wasps, beetles and other insects are currently underutilized as food for people and livestock.

Insect farming is, they say, one of the many ways to address food security.

They're particularly important as a food supplement for undernourished children.

Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly, the report says, and they have...

Brandy little bastards.

Yeah.

And they have lovely chip in, Andy.

And they have a high growth and feed conversion rate and a low environmental footprint.

It states that nutritionally you can get just as much protein from a meal of crickets than a meal of meat.

And it goes on to say that the key obstacle in Western countries to insects as a foodstuff will be consumer disgust.

Now, here's the thing, Andy.

That seems like a pretty big f ⁇ ing obstacle to have people disgusted by something.

You've got to be a pretty amazing salesman to overcome inherent revulsion.

What can I do to put you in this new, brand new Chevy Vault today?

It's okay.

I can wait for your gag reflex to stop.

Don't worry, people often have that response.

Sure,

I can give you a mint, no problems.

Let's talk about this car.

Oh boy, no need to worry.

Let me fetch a mop.

That's not an easy sale to make, Andy.

But the thing you say that, John, but you know, consumer disgust is seems to be quite easy to overcome.

There's a lot of things we'll tolerate, as the price of our t-shirts will testify.

I mean, our t-shirts as a society, not the Bugle-specific t-shirts, which are all handmade by multi-millionaires in the Cayman Islands.

It's a different kind of factory farm.

But the environmental thing is interesting here because farm animals produce a lot of gases.

In fact, farm animals around the world fart 18 trillion cubic meters of methane an hour.

And I might have made that figure up.

But it means that according to scientists, if all farm animals lit their farts at the same time, it would blow the earth 13% off its current axis.

But you couldn't get that with insects.

You can get that with insects.

But

the other question is, Johnny, I'm coming at this from a Jewish perspective.

Are insects kosher?

And can you slaughter a wasp in a halal manner?

And most concerningly, what if I was tucking into a mosquito burger and one of the mosquitoes in it had bitten Osama bin Laden?

I could be eating his terrorist blood if it hadn't been properly cooked.

Yeah, it's just not going to work, Andy.

Definitely don't go medium rare.

Have it maybe well done if you're having it.

Just to be on the safe side.

Well, one of the suggestions in the report is that the food industry could help in raising the status of insects by including them in new recipes and adding them to restaurant menus.

You could also help raise the status of the insects, Andy by photographing them in little tuxedos going to the opera.

Maybe get some Hollywood actress or models to be photographed dating an insect.

I'm almost 100% sure that there are hundreds of actresses in Los Angeles that would be willing to do that for publicity.

Rumors are that Tara Reed is currently dating a wasp.

They were photographed stumbling out of Nobu together where they shared a romantic meal.

Tara Reed's publicist told e-news that they are head over legs in love.

But the world has never quite mastered the issue of food and food distribution.

And with the population continuing to inflate, we are going to have to address this, John.

It's become very an increasingly

difficult to ignore the elephant that has made itself very comfortable in our living rooms, has taken a hearty shit on the rug by the fire, and is now vegging out on the sofa and starting to make a move on our teenage daughter.

We are going to have to address this problem at some point.

And actually, it's a lot of it is psychological.

Scientist Arnold Van Haus from the genigen university in the netherlands i mean that sounds near enough uh one of the authors of the report um said that uh there are a lot of psychological barriers he had did a blind tasting in which nine out of ten preferred meatballs made from half meat half worm than those made entirely from meat so but we see the psychological aspect of food you know in euphemisms such as sweetbreads offal yeah uh cheese

free range that's hope-tricked and the word fresh which basically just means dead

it all comes down to it all comes down to marketing doesn't it all comes down to marketing would you like to eat a moth no thanks would you like to eat a hand-fried flutter crisp oh yeah that sounds lovely and the effect on kids storybooks could be disastrous john because so many kids storybooks focus on farm animals as i'm sure you're aware from all the books that you've read to uh to hoagie over the last uh last couple of years um but the uh a lot of farm animals are the unwritten tragic subtext well it's lovely that little flopsy the sheep is running around the field with his friends Janet the cow and Wesley the chicken.

But ultimately, don't forget, Flopsy's going to be put on the back of a lorry with 150 other little sheep, driven to an abattoir and in a fug of confusion, panic and fear, shot in the back of the head with a bolt gun before having his throat slit and being hung up on a hook and bled out before being hacked to pieces and having every part of his body dispatched to various shady parts of the food chain if he's lucky.

But that's the unwritten subtext.

Not unspoken, at least not unspoken if I'm reading the book.

Can't let your children live in a dreamland, booglers.

Sleep well, kids.

Sleep well.

Bleeding from the neck, upside down.

Sweet dreams.

Space food news now.

And well, also earlier this week, Andy, NASA awarded a $125,000 six-month grant to design a 3D printer capable of printing a pizza from 30-year shelf-stable foodstuffs.

That's right, Andy.

Pizza from a 3D printer in space.

Oh, that's an option, Andy.

And yet we still don't have an affordable rocket boot on the market.

Where are our f ⁇ ing priorities?

Apparently, pizza has been one item missing from astronauts' menu up in space for years.

A 3D printer would, yeah, it would build up a pizza serving

by first layering out the dough onto a heated plate and then adding tomato sauce and toppings.

I mean, what I would say to astronauts, Andy, is this.

I'm so sorry that you haven't had pizza to eat up there, but you know, you do, on the other hand, get to look at the majesty of space and look back at the beauty of Earth with a perspective few people get to experience in a lifetime.

And yet, clearly, that's not enough, Andy.

Clearly, some astronauts have looked down on the marble miracle of Earth from a spectacular height and thought,

I could f ⁇ ing murder a pizza right now.

Well, I I guess from space, Earth does look quite like a pizza.

So maybe that's...

Yeah,

maybe that's it.

It's round.

It's got squiggly bits on it.

It looks kind of melted.

Yeah,

it's not going to make you think of a hot dog, is it?

It's going to make you think of a pizza.

But actually, I mean, they did have a wood-burning pizza oven on Apollo 13, which is I think why things went tits up.

But be careful what you wish for, astronauts, because the toppings may turn out to be a little off-menu.

Apparently, the news story said, the proteins would be provided by cartridge injectors filled with organic base powders derived from algae, insects, and grass.

Is it just me, Andy, or does that somehow still sound more appetizing than a domino?

Oh, bang, there goes your next advertising contract.

Your emails now, and and thanks to all of those who responded to the legal aid story last week, which seems to have

created some interest.

It's a fascinating story,

slightly alarming in a lot of ways.

I mean, not everyone agrees with our take on it.

Stephen Martin emailed in saying thanks for the show, but I can't get

as excited about the legal aid issue as you two.

France spends one twentieth of the amount on criminal legal aid as England does.

And he sent a link to an article that I've not read yet.

But then, you know, France is France, isn't it?

It's the Thorn that counts with reading, Andy.

I've got no internet.

The internet's not working here.

So maybe

we'll revisit that issue in future.

And thanks to all of those who've tweeted and emailed in on it.

This email on a completely different subject came in from Andy in Hertfordshire.

Dear John, Andy, and Chris, earlier today I was skateboarding home from a friend's house.

It was not a particularly big hill, but I was listening to the bugle in one ear as I leisurely went down it.

All was going well until one of Andy's more irreverent jokes caused me to laugh so hard that I completely lost control, flew off my board and slid a good 10 feet down the road, through a puddle and into a hedge.

I forget which joke.

Could have been any of them.

Could literally have been any of them.

As my only memory of the incident is a distinct cry of, oh, f.

Luckily, I managed to get away with some torn shoes, a damaged elbow, and what feels like a fractured toe, so I will not be seeking legal retribution.

Wow, you are not American, are you?

Although, I now demand that Chris censors Andy out of all future podcasts and John for encouraging him.

Yours in pain, Andy in Hartfordship.

So

see what I can do.

Seems fair enough.

So

there have been quite an impressive catalogue of bugle listening injuries building up.

Yeah.

Glad to be of service.

Pain is all part of the rich tapestry of life, buglers.

We have another email here from Stephen who says, my bugle merch finally arrived today, including my prized f eulogy mug.

Still waiting for the scale model of the Machiavella drone.

I noticed

that was good, Andy.

I've forgotten about that.

That's nice to be minded.

He says, I noticed a label on the bottom of said mug that states, mug not dishwasher safe.

Could it dissolve into bullshit and clog the dishwasher?

Would it spread satire into the local water supply?

Might Mugle merch be Eucharistic?

The transubstantiated bodies of our lords and unsavouries, the trifecta of tautological travesty, the fodder, shun, and holy shit.

Lovely sentence.

Oh, terrific.

Andy, John and Chris, lovely sentence, Stephen.

You took control of that cart.

Yet you were weaving across the road a little bit, but you steered into the spin and you got us out of it.

He said, that would surely make my tea more enjoyable, especially if it turned into wine.

Plus, it is certainly more likely than the hypothesis that you chose a cheap printing process that would allow the ink to wear away in water.

Because hey, who washes dishes?

Regardless, by the time you read this, I will have enjoyed many bullshit-infused brews and possibly died from an overdose of orally ingested satire.

Either way, luck I am.

Yours in the love of Florence, Stephen I.

Tucker.

Quality, well-written email, that Andy.

Yeah,

I'm alarmed to hear that they're not dishwasher safe.

I'm sure they're fine.

It's probably fine.

They're probably not fine.

They're not fine.

Well, that was.

You were positioned a perfect amount away from the microphone, Chris, to make that comment.

Because it was a mutter.

Yeah, they're probably not.

I haven't even seen it.

Just so you know, they're probably not fine.

I'm still waiting for my merch.

My own merch.

There'll be a link, a proper link on the website, hopefully, from today, which apparently we haven't had yet.

Probably won't be today.

No.

But anyway.

Chris, you're off conscience.

This ruthless commercial operation rumbles on, and you can contribute it by buying merch, or more importantly, taking out your voluntary subscription at thebuglepodcast.com.

Don't forget to check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle.

You can follow the Hello Bugless Twitter feed and John's I am John Oliver Twitter feed, which is averaging about one update every six weeks.

Yeah, that's it might get lower than that

uh do keep your emails coming into info at thebuglepodcasts uh.com and see you all in norway uh yes this coming week all of you do come to norway

um so well that's it for this week so we're off next week we'll put something out put out a sub bugle next week and then we'll be back in uh two weeks time Yep, and by which time, John will be quite busy.

So,

yeah, yeah, it'll be the Friday before I start the show.

There may be a little

waiver to my voice, Andy.

If you should speak to Wolf Blitzer.

He's probably got some good tips.

I don't think Andy Wolf Blitzer in particular has good tips about anything other than manicured beard growth.

That is the one thing he's qualified to express an opinion on.

And how to have a sensational name.

Well, he's got a world-class name, there's no question about that.

You're right, Andy.

To be honest, I just said that because I love saying the words wolf and water next to each other.

You're right, I think that's the only way of explaining how he's been employed on CNN for so long.

He should have been an astronaut, I think, with that name.

Yeah,

because it's also must be fun for the other journalists.

Back to you in the studio, Wolf.

Until next time, Buglers,

goodbye.

Bye.

And this frightened threesome.