(Strong)men Making Friends

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4351 of the Bugle.

I'm Andy Zaltzman live from the shed of phenomenal factivitousness here in South London.

We have hiatus the crap out of the last few weeks, but we're we're back and better than ever.

Well, better than we've been over the last few weeks when we've not been recording, I hope at least.

And we are here to hold September to account on behalf of all humanity.

Summer is over.

Autumn is shuffling into place here in London.

Winter isn't that far off.

Spring is doing some early preliminary training and next summer is already starting to put some plans in place.

So we do need to get going and to help me catch up.

on what is happening on this once happy planet of ours.

I mean, admittedly, that is going back quite a while.

I think to just before the first single-celled organism thought, I want out, I'm going to divorce myself, and everything started going south.

Anyway, I'm joined by from Switzerland bringing unquenchable neutrality and the sound of mountain goats frolicking on ski lifts.

It's Alice Fraser.

Hello, Alice.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Definitely been on hiatus, putting the hi-ya into hiatus.

I'm here in the fine Alps of Switzerland, and I'm running a writer's retreat,

which is

basically hide and seek with a bunch of writers.

I approach they retreat.

They're a shy creature.

I just want to help you with your structure.

No,

it's genuinely been very lovely, and I feel

quite relaxed.

As relaxed as you can while juggling 12 writers and two babies,

that's a dangerous.

I mean, I don't know.

Is that the right balance of writers to babies?

It's always harder

juggling mixed-size things.

You want the same volume of chainsaw, I think.

Okay.

So maybe next year you could do six writers and six babies or just get the babies to write and the writers

to lie around screaming.

How was the Edinburgh Festival for you, Alice?

It was so much fun.

I did my show, A Passion for Passion, which is about my book, A Passion for Passion, but we're going to do a tell-all all about that on Realms Unknown, the sister podcast to this podcast,

all about all about the shenaniganry that took place there.

But the show was heaps of fun, and

I love Edinburgh.

I know it's all expensive and stuff, but

I still love a place that just turns into art for a month.

Well, joining us from neither Switzerland nor Edinburgh, but from San Francisco, it's Naito Green.

Hello, Naito.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Alice.

Hello, Buglers.

Good to see you all.

Welcome back from hiatus.

Also, a special shout-out.

I have been on a bit of a tour, and I was in Fort Collins, Colorado at the Comedy Fort, which is an excellent club there.

And in the middle of my show, someone shouted, f you, Chris.

which

I really enjoyed, and some of the other members of the audience found completely perplexing.

Well, f him and Colorado.

Well, I mean, Chris, it's

well, just over 16 years since we first worked together on a BBC cricket show.

And, you know, did you think at that point that, you know, just over a decade and a half later, someone would be

saying f you to you in a comedy club in Colorado whilst you were thousands of miles away?

My career has gone so much better than I ever hoped hoped it could have done.

And if only my parents fully understood that I was being serious when I say that.

I mean, I must say that the bugle audience, as an audience, the buglers who come and see shows, are a delightful creature on the whole.

There was a part of my show this year in which I said, Is anyone here listening to the bugle?

And then I would pick a sort of a middle-aged man who had put his hand up, and he would refer back to him at a number of points in the show.

And they were all very good-natured, and only one of them tried to be funny.

So I feel like that

is a real mark of quality.

Perhaps in something, perhaps I'm instilling something beautiful in the middle-aged man of the species, which is a lack of confidence in his own funniness.

And if that's my legacy, I am okay with it.

Also,

there was another bugler who came to the show in Colorado who came up afterwards and said that

he had brought his entire union

of National Park Service employees, and he said,

We want to let you know that we work for the federal employees, we work for the National Park Service on climate change, and thanks to our dear leader, we have just lost all of our union rights, and they're trying to scrub all of the references to climate change from our work, which is all of our work.

And so, things have been horrible, and we're miserable.

And

this bit of comedy was some of the catharsis that we needed together as a team.

So

sometimes it feels indulgent to be writing dick jokes under fascism, but

apparently social movements have an ecosystem that do require

the occasional dick joke.

Well, there will be definitely some dick jokes in this show.

I know because I've seen the things that I've written myself.

If you put a sufficiently excited dick joke in the right place, you can lift the world.

I think it was Margaret Mead who said, Never doubt that a well-crafted dick joke can change the world.

Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Well, I mean, we are recording, as I said, on the 8th of September 2025.

On this day in 1504, Michelangelo's David was unveiled in Florence

in many ways.

The world's greatest dick joke,

the most beautifully sculpted dick joke, certainly, Michelangelo's smash-it sculpture of the famous giant slayer sling fan, an Old Testament star, who was known to enjoy going commando at David, of course, even in battle, and once confided to the media that he thought, quotes, a dangling pair of nadgers can be a great distraction in close combat.

And if that gives me advantage against the likes of Goliath, then I'm happy to junk out for the team.

Obviously, Obviously, there's different ways of translating the original press conference footage, but the thrust is clear, which is also the move that he pulled to distract the big Phyllis dinosaur before knocking out the big lad with a surprise slingshot to the noggin, then knocking off his head before the video ref could even begin to checking if there were any technical infringements before or during the delivery of the slingshot.

Another

less well-known angle to the story is that David refused to wear sponsored kit before

during the contest.

A local funeral director had offered to provide a sponsored kit, expecting the plucky youngster to lose to the experienced 9 foot 9 inch megastar Goliath.

And he tried to get David to wear an armoured breastplate with his funeral director's logo on, but the former Shepherd and professional harpist was holding out for an online casino and a bit more money.

Anyway, Goliath had reportedly wanted to postpone the contest after suffering a hamstring tweak and intercostal muscle twinge, practicing his trademark helmet crusher reverse swivel head slammer move in training, and being kept up the previous night by Israelite fans chanting outside his hotel room and setting off fire alarms to try to ensure that the Philistine number one was not at his best the next day.

But the contest went ahead as scheduled to keep the broadcasters happy and the rest is sort of basically made-up history.

Anyway, just two and a half short millennia later, Michelangelo Buonarotti, Mickey Chisels as he was known at the time, of course, was commissioned to create a David-themed trophy for the Italian Stone Slinging Championships.

But an inverted spinal tap-style misprint on the order slip resulted in the celebrity artist making a sculpture 17 feet high rather than 17 inches high.

Michelangelo, who also dabbled in interior decoration, as long-term bugle listeners would have been.

Clinked and clonked away at a slab of marble until he turned it into the sculpture we know today as the hunk with the junk from the chunk.

David won multiple golden chisel awards in 1505, including best six-pack, cutest button shapeliest Willie and Balls combination.

And Michelangelo was soon in hot demand amongst celebs of the day to sculpt their genitals and arses too.

And that happened on this day in 1504.

Andy, you can tell it's going to be a rough news week because you've written so much nonsense up top just as like a buffer for your soul.

That's basically, that is what the bugle is, a buffer for my soul.

It really drives home the point that the regime of Benjamin Netanyahu represents the decline of the Jewish people from our peak with David versus versus Goliath.

I think the Israeli occupation of Gaza would be more bearable if the IDF were fully naked.

I mean, that's, I think, in terms of the negotiations that have gone on, such as they are, I don't think that has been

suggested.

Maybe that could be the breakthrough that the world needs.

as always.

The section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

This week, an advert for the Bugle's 18th birthday live stream show is going in the bin.

We are counting down the days until this podcast turns 18 and can legally marry, form a religion, buy a nuclear warhead, drive an amphibious Horton cart across the Atlantic, and do karaoke unattended without having to bleep out swear words.

And to celebrate 18 years of the bugle, we are doing a show on Sunday, the 26th of October, live from the Leicester Square Theatre.

That That will be live-streamed across the entire universe.

I will be joined in London on stage, not only by Chris, but also by Nish Kumar in 3D, reduced to 2D for the ease of broadcast.

Alice will join us from Australia, provided that the world has not sheared in half along the equator by then.

And we can exclusively reveal to you now, Buglers, we will also be joined live at a Live Bugle live live stream show for the first time.

from New York City by the ultimate blast from the Bugle past himself, still second behind runaway leader Andy Zaltzmann and and most issues of the Bugle co-host is John Oliver will be linking up with us live for this unique event in Showbiz history.

I mean, admittedly, all events are unique in their own way, but this is slightly more unique than most unique events.

Tickets to the live stream are available via thebuglepodcast.com.

Do join us.

We hope to set an all-time record for most people live streaming a show involving me, John, Nish, and Alice.

Caution that

there will be puns.

Chris,

what's the price point for tickets?

£10.

£10,

which is still, I think, a legally accepted currency in the world.

So do join us.

Tickets at thebuglepodcast.com.

That section's in the bin, so you can ignore that.

I also couldn't stop thinking, I'm actually by a live mountain stream, so am I live streaming?

Oh,

there you go.

Not by any commonly understood definition.

Top story this week.

Oh, God.

The world is still.

Look,

there's been an interesting conference

last week in China.

Now, the bugle, probably.

Andy, for the listening audience who can't see you, Andy is announcing top story while clutching his head.

Yeah, I mean, there's quite a lot of weeks where that seems to be the best way to do it.

The Bugle has proudly proclaimed its World War III will almost certainly not be a good thing, credentials.

It's down with despots shtick, and its military grandstanding is for losers.

Thrust on life.

We've been doing that since 2007, on and off, at least.

So last week's Congress of the Crackpots, the meeting of the megalomaniacs, the symposium of the self-proclaimed strongman was not our personal kettle of sardines.

It did provoke some, frankly, hilarious responses from America's

so-called president.

What did you guys make?

We had Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un

kind of bro bonding

in the way that despots do.

Well, it's just nice see men having friends, actually, Andy.

You know,

we are having a crisis of masculinity, and part of it is that the men don't form these strong social groups with people over common interests.

On the other hand, it does show some of the flaws in the way that we model heterosexual male friendships.

Like, why does it always have to be events-based?

Can't you just catch up for a chat?

Why does it need to be a massive military parade or a football game or paintball or nuclear war?

It just, it feels like this is,

it was a bit much for inviting your friends around for tea.

It showed maybe some insecurity on the part of G.

The parade began with an 80-gun artillery salute, which marked 80 years since the end of the war, because nothing says peacetime like firing guns at the roof of the world.

And then G said the world must choose between peace and war, thereby proving that despite his friendly approach to Russia, he hasn't bothered to read Tolstoy.

It's war and peace.

But I mean, with that choice, it's such an odd choice to be presented with.

If the world is choosing between peace and war, you're like, yeah, obviously I'm going to go for the peace, but it feels like our classic iTunes terms and conditions situation.

What are the sub-clauses that we're agreeing to when we click

peace?

There was helicopters, fighter jets in formation.

There was the release of 80,000 peace doves and 80,000 colorful balloons.

Imagine the insane cost in doves.

Doves dodging balloons, doves fighting balloons, doves mating with doves, balloons mating with doves, the balloon dove babies coming down the pipeline nine dove months from now.

It's chaos, Andy.

I mean, 80,000 peace doves.

Is that enough, really?

Is that enough to balance out

the weaponry on show?

I'm not sure it is.

It depends how many doves get caught in the mechanisms, Andy.

Well, I mean, we've probably talked about this on the Beagle before.

I think the 1988

Olympic opening ceremony, they released some symbolic doves as part of the opening ceremony.

And

some of them flew off, and some of them found a nice perch on this ledge within the stadium.

What the doves hadn't realized was that ledge was where the Olympic torch was going to be lit by a flaming arrow.

So, what was supposed to be a moment of

expressing how sport can bring the world together in harmony and peace became an impromptu barbecue of doves.

So, that's, I guess, always a risk when you involve doves in something like this.

NATO, I know you're

a huge fan of massive military parades and

have conducted many yourself

in your life in San Francisco.

What did you make of this one?

I mean, I certainly

agree with Alice that

for the three of them,

you know, the whatever it was, 80,000 gun salute is an interesting way for men to say they need a hug.

I wonder

why was North Korea there?

Like,

you know,

North Korea, Russia, China, one of these things is not like the other.

China, emergent superpower, had an empire.

Russia, former superpower, had an empire.

North Korea, not only not an empire, not even all the Korea.

The top export of North Korea is fake hair.

You want to know what the top import of North Korea is?

Processed hair.

I looked it up on the OEC website, and according to the OEC, North Korea is number 208 out of 209

in lowest per capita exports.

Now, I'm no economist, but maybe that has to do with the weird hair thing.

I wasn't recommending with that hairstyle.

So it's sort of like,

I wonder what

Kim was doing.

Like, hey guys, I was just thinking we should build nuclear catapults.

And they were like, okay, good boy.

Now go outside and play.

The grown-ups are talking.

Of relations between China and Russia, Putin said, and I quote, we were always together then and we remain together now.

Now, one of the maxims of contract interpretation is to give meaning to all words in the text.

We were always together then and

we were together and on the other hand, we are also still together, only more so.

They describe their relationship as a friendship with no limits, clearly a reference to No Limit Records, the 1990s New Orleans-based hip-hop label, because Putin and G make them say, uh, na-na-na-na.

The only Western leaders that attended the summit were the presidents of Slovakia and Serbia, clearly trying to get the Cold War band back together.

You've heard of Czechoslovakia, but are you ready for Korea-Slovakia?

There was a military parade with 50,000 people watching and the unveiling of a nuclear arsenal.

It was a response to Trump's pitiful military parade that he had for his birthday that no one came to.

It was the Kendrick versus Drake diss track of public spectacle, in which Trump is clearly Drake, except not the Jewish part,

or the ability to rap badly.

And because we are all very serious adults, the world has entered the era of parade-based foreign policy.

And

I think unavoidably we have to accept that if parades rule the world, this may have the unintended consequence that gays become the superpower.

Really, you have a lot of tanks, but do you have dikes on bikes?

You know what I mean?

Z said the world must never return to the law of the jungle.

Sorry.

I'd say we would all sign up for that world, I think.

I would hopefully sign up for for that world.

Same, same.

Z said the world must never return to the law of the jungle where the strong prey on the weak, which he said while standing in front of his own nuclear arsenal.

There were some extraordinary things.

I mean, obviously, yeah, this took place in the context of America having effectively divorced itself from the rest of humanity, resigned as de facto country in charge of the Western world and formally constitutionally banned basic common sense, human dignity, and the concept of cooperation.

So, a new world order is emerging into this void in which China's ruling so-called Communist Party, not always a leading contender for most jovial political organization and not quite as susceptible to the temptations of human rights as might be ideal,

brings together the likes of your Vladimir Putins of this world, your Kim Jong-uns, or is it Kim's Jongs-uns?

Do you have to pluralize all three names of

North Korea?

I forget.

Anyway,

but it it's kim jong-dos

sorry that was my mistake i'm behind on my languages um for those hoping that putin might experience a kind of miraculous conversion and become a hardcore fundamentalist peace and harmony fan there was the disappointing sight of him you know cuddling up to xi jinping as they happily watched a massive parade of kaboom bambastic military hardware in beijing and just picking up on what you uh what you said alice about um

uh xi saying today mankind is faced with the the choice of peace or war.

He carried on.

So he said mankind is faced with a choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero sum.

At which point Putin leapt out of his chair shouting, I'll have B, B and B, please, and hide himself.

Xi also talked about standing, quotes, firmly on the right side of history, to which Putin responded, good plan.

I'll stand on the left side of history.

You trip it up, I'll put a bag on its head, and then we can wrap history in a carpet, wear it down with bricks, and dump it in a canal.

So at least we all know where we stand.

And Xi said we must continue to take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics and practice true multilateralism.

And he did that without winking at Putin and having a quiet giggle, which was superhuman restraint.

Andy, I have a song about all of the new weapons that were unveiled by Xi Jinping's massive military parade.

It goes like this: hypersonic missiles to kill ships at sea, lasers for troop ships and and aircraft make three.

Liquid fuel ballistic nuclear might.

Space defense systems to shoot satellites.

When the war starts, when the trade flags, when a guest's overstayed, this is a dictator's favorite thing.

A heavily armed parade.

I go on.

Sea drones and air drones and ground drones and meat drones.

Wet drones and dry drones and cold seek or heat drones.

Nuclear missiles intercontinental.

These are the things that are driving me mental.

Also, they have f robot wolves, Andy.

They have robot

wolves.

Do you know what this means?

This means we are six months max from a cheap Kindle romantic e-book about a retired school teacher falling in love with a robot wolf.

Mark my words, it's coming.

And when it comes, it's not going to be the only one coming, if you know what I mean.

I'm talking about orgasms, Andy.

Also, robot wolves.

They're the same thing as the robot dogs they had before, but they got rebranded to sound less cute after they listened to about 80,000 hours of Alpha Bro podcasts.

And now they're bigger, deadlier, and keep hitting on women.

Yes.

And these robot wolves apparently much improved on regular wolves.

They won't be able to

blow down houses even made of brick, which

is going to make them militarily indispensable over the next.

Hang on.

I got to call bullshit on robot wolves.

Okay.

Because

I read about the robot wolves and I was like, oh shit, robot wolves.

And I saw a picture of the robot wolves and it was just an an end table with legs.

Like an end table that has legs already.

Yeah, right.

It's

with legs that have joints

and

some sort of locomotion and an antenna.

And so it's like you could use the robot wolves to attack your enemies on the field of battle or at a cocktail party to bring deviled eggs to your to your guests.

Either one.

Imagine a Victorian gentleman seeing that end tables with legs marching down the street, willing to destroy the world.

He would have immediately felt obliged to put little skirts around the legs of the end table, lest someone be scandalized by a sight of robot wolf ankle.

I know.

I mean, the concern is that these new generation of robot wolves can eat one grandmother every 15 seconds and chew them properly.

So

they can't be

effectively uneaten.

For those of you who missed, for those of you who missed the military parade, in case you didn't see it, I don't want to picture it.

It was like a cross between the Rio Carnival, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and a cake stall at a village fate in Britain, but different from those things in every possible way.

So I hope that paints a picture of what you missed.

Andy, the press coverage of the summit was weird, how the press tried to sort of rationalize both sides of it.

Watching the spectacle of the Chinese military, there was all this

military analysis, of that, and the vibe was like, well, it looks very impressive that China has this massive military with high-tech weaponry, and it seems terrifying, but can they execute?

China hasn't had to use its own military in decades.

They don't have operational control, blah, blah, blah.

They're too top-down.

The military is too top-down is what they're complaining about.

In contrast with the American military, which is, let's remember, currently led by Pete sexting war crimes to the group chat, Egg Seth, while Boozy on box wine and drawing Nazi crosses on his notebook.

I feel like the Western analysts just want to act not impressed.

Like, let China be impressive.

You don't need to negotiate.

You know what I mean?

Like, it feels like, yes, the Uruk Hai are relentless, savage orc warriors, but will they be able to sustain operational discipline when they learn that, in fact, human meat is on the menu?

The BBC also said, some say Beijing

is just trying to give a veneer of respectability for authoritarianism.

Good.

Finally, someone's doing it.

It would be an improvement.

As an American, if I have to have authoritarians, which apparently I do, at least give them any amount of respectability.

Also, I guess we should just be impressed that in this entire parade of military strength in China, not a single thing made of terracotta, which shows that people can learn from their mistakes.

Amongst Donald Trump's responses to this, and I don't know if this was directly provoked or if this was, maybe it's always been on the cards, is

basically trying to improve the economic fortunes of ordinary working Americans and lighten the load of this difficult time on

people's wallets to put food on their table and

to provide food and children for clothing,

food and children, food and clothing for their children.

And to do that by renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War, which is

what working Americans have been thirsting for.

That's why they voted for Trump in, is to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War.

The idea, apparently, is to, quote, project strength and resolve, and also presumably to project the sense that America is being run by a bunch of escaped teenage war games fans who live on a diet of absinthe and sheep's testicles.

It's going to cost a barely a million a billion dollars to

absinthe, Andy.

And lost me at sheep's testicles.

It's my fair my favourite.

You had me at teenagers, Andy, and you lost me at diet.

A billion dollars.

We're fickle wenches.

It's going to cost just a billion dollars, this rebrand, which some people are saying could have been better off spent on something more useful to America, such as rebounding the Department of Health as the department of playing Russian roulette with viruses, because why would you trust a mother load of qualified scientists?

Or remodeling the Statue of Liberty to show a kicking an immigrant out into the Atlantic, or developing a robot King Kong to clamber up and down the Empire

State Building every hour to remind people of when America was great.

But, NATO, look, I know

you've been very worried about how

calling it the Department of Defense sends out out a a very negative defensive strategic um uh mindset to to the world and you know the department of offense it could have gone with um uh picking up on you know the sort of sporting terminology they gone with the department of war um

you must be very excited by this

oh it's very exciting um

uh

the the and the the new the secretary of war newly retitled pete hegseth said that what he wants is, quote, maximum lethality, not tepid legality, violent effect, not politically correct.

And, you know, when I think back on the torture photos from Abu Ghraib,

I think politically correctness has gone too far.

Clearly, those were some very polit politically correct torturers because those the people were covered

in robes.

I mean,

it wasn't known as the Department of War until after the Second World War, when the popularity of sending hundreds and

somebody did it again.

It was known as the Department of War until after the Second World War, when the popularity of sending thousands and thousands of young people to their deaths had started to wane for whatever reason.

But Trump has banged on intermittently about the idea of this rebrand or debrand, saying that the U.S.

has had an unbelievable history of victory

in both world wars, when it was known as the Department of War.

And it's disappointing on reflection that if only America hadn't succumbed to the woke mind virus in the immediate post-war era, it would have conquered Vietnam in about a fortnight.

It would have beaten Iraq 10 times over by now.

And Afghanistan, as we speak, would basically be Las Vegas too.

But it's all about just that simple brand, brand name of Department of Defense that has undermined America for 80 80 years

uh

just jumping on the back of what uh nato was saying about pete hegseth there's something deeply dystopian about someone using like a cheeky rhyme to justify increased violence

um

listen to my cool rap as i deconstruct your kneecaps you're like oh i'm charmed but also my kneecaps ow

um in terms of you know why it's been rebranded the Department of War, Trump

just saw this just before we started recording

another one of his retweeting of images of

him and basically the burning city of Chicago with the words chipocalypse now.

and took a screenshot from ex, formerly Twitter, and said, I love the smell of deportations in the morning.

Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of War.

So it does suggest that this Department of War may be harking back to the last time America had a really good win in a war without just coming off the subs bench towards the end of the second half, which was essentially the American Civil War in the 1860s.

The last time it had a proper victory, start to finish.

That bit of AI slop made the rounds, as it should have.

And aside from the alarming

aspect of the president of a country declaring war on one of his own major cities,

which raises some concerns,

the thing that I found most distressing is,

well, first of all, that he was invoking an anti-war film.

But also that he called it Chipocalypse Now,

but it read Chipocalypse.

delicious.

That's what I always do there at the end of a meal.

I say chipocalypse now.

And then I eat a lot of chips.

I can't say that.

If it was in England, you would call it crisp occalpse now.

No, hot chipocalypse now.

And then when you're later groaning in regret, you say, oh, the humanity.

Away from

threatening to bring war to Chicago, Donald Trump has also backed Robert F.

Kennedy as his health secretary,

and who's continued to court controversy since becoming health secretary,

largely because he seems to view his job as doing everything possible to spread

easily preventable illnesses.

And your view of RFK may well come down to your view of whether or not children do or don't deserve to die of easily preventable illnesses.

And I know America, NATO, remains deeply split on that issue, and

some are pro-children surviving easily preventable illnesses and others aren't.

Where do you stand on this?

You know, Andy, I'm mostly anti-death.

That's my controversial stance.

RFK Jr.

has been carrying out his agenda of cutting vaccine programs and scientists in general.

And

the Reuters News reported:

quote, if an outbreak of an infectious disease occurs after vaccination rates go down, Trump could be blamed.

Which, you know,

what's really important about an infectious disease outbreak that kills a lot of people is the political impacts.

And if an outbreak of infectious disease occurs because Trump knowingly appointed a head of health and human services with insane ideas, Trump should be blamed.

Like,

he could be blamed.

He could not be blamed.

I mean, this is how the American press sort of has been handling Trump:

well, he did something knowingly that would have scientifically predictable consequences that would lead to unspeakable harm and suffering.

But on the other hand, some people say that vaccines are for queers.

Let's do a 30-part series investigating both sides of the argument.

One of my sort of principles of like media literacy is the things

that are in the news story that are not said as a quote, that are sort of said in the anodyne voice of

the press as though it doesn't need

any further exploration.

For example, this Reuters piece says, Trump's willingness to take a proverbial sledgehammer to the U.S.

healthcare system, just as he has to academia, the law, the media, and other institutions throughout society.

That's a heavy

cluster of words to just toss offhandedly.

No citation.

Proverbial sledgehammer, you say,

here we are sledgehammering ourselves into the Middle Ages to stop woke.

They're ending the West as an abstraction to own the libs.

They want to see,

they're turning back, like it's

turning back all scientific progress of the last 200 years.

They want to see glossy magazine articles like six hacks to get your feudal baron to let you keep some of your mutton for your own 11 malnourished children.

I think the attack on vaccine science is a ploy to make the Epstein issue go away.

Look, are they still still technically underage girls if life expectancy drops to age 40?

Trump said, if you look at what's going on in the world with health and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he's different.

That's the bar.

A lot of things could be different, but different doesn't mean better.

And all I want from the press is a follow-up question, ever.

Like when Trump says, if you look at what's going on in the world with health,

for someone to say, what the f are you talking about?

And then he said,

the polio vaccine, I happen to think, is amazing.

And this is a bad use of the phrase, I happen to think.

Whether a vaccine that has been demonstrated as effective over decades of scientific evidence to stop a crippling disease is good, actually, is not a happen-to-think.

Happen to think is for, I happen to think autumnal colours complement my eyes.

UK news now and total chaos in the government after Deputy Prime Minister has to resign over a tax glitch.

Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Labour government and housing secretary, has had to resign after underpaying tax on a flat

that she bought around about 40,000 pounds of tax she underpaid.

When she became aware of this, she referred herself to the

parliamentary ethics advisor.

Now, generally, of course, in politics, the basic ethics advice is don't bother with it.

It makes things so much more complicated.

But there's times when apparently you do have to refer yourself to the ethics advisor.

As a result of which, she ended up resigning and she resigned on Friday.

It did highlight also, once again, how on the things to ask your tax advisor if you're a frontline politician list, the question, are you absolutely 100% sure about that?

should be pretty high up.

And I think that was seemed to be the biggest mistake that Raina made.

And she placed herself thus in our proud national tradition of people following questionable financial and investment advice, which dates back really to King Harold in 1066.

Falling for the advice from his advisor, I wouldn't bother wasting a budget on arrow-proof goggles, Harold, spent on chainmail speedos.

And since then, we've always made mistakes like this.

I do feel sorry for her, Andy, because

she saw two advisors about it.

She asked two people and they said, oh, you should probably seek further tax,

specialist tax advice.

If you see three specialist tax people in a row,

it forms

a tax triangle.

And then many ships are lost at sea as a result.

Can I ask a question about your system government, Andy?

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Okay, so

I've been trying to follow along, and one of the things that I gleaned is that as a result of Raynor's resignation, there's a reshuffling of other cabinet posts.

And so, for instance,

Yvette Cooper is going from being Home Secretary to Foreign Secretary.

And

Liz Kendall is going from being work and pension secretary to to Department of Science, Innovation, Technology Secretary.

And I wonder if maybe

things in your country would go better if people had a job that they were qualified to do.

Like, it seems like going from work and pensions to science, innovation, technology.

Like, how are you good at both?

You know what I mean?

Like,

it seems like you would know what maybe if you're lucky, you're good at one of those things.

I mean, look, that's a very old-fashioned way of looking at things, to expect expertise in

government ministries.

And look, some people have claimed that, for example, having I can't remember what the count was on education secretaries in the last, what, seven or eight years of the Conservative government, but there was one that lasted less than two days.

And it was over it was over one a year, I'm pretty sure.

And as a result of which, nothing ever gets done.

So everyone gets cross.

Then the government panics and has to have a reshuffle.

And it's a sort of self-perpetuating cycle of idiocy.

And so these are legitimate questions,

NATO.

And it's difficult for the under-pressure Prime Minister Keir Starmer, which is the official title of the job now.

All prime ministers will be known as under-pressure prime ministers and will be called UPPM rather than just PM.

Anyway, for Starma, he'd just attempted to kind of re-splutter his Prime Ministership ministership into life with what he described as phase two, in which he promised to deliver delivery, delivery, and delivery.

And it's not a good sign.

Only just over a year into your government, you can only think of one word for a three-word slogan.

That is a sign that things are not going too well.

But delivery is an appropriate enough term because I've delivered a child, as long-term buglers will know, delivered my own child.

just yards from where I'm recording now in our house

in my

one match only career as a midwife.

And delivery, well, it's messy, noisy, beset by panic, and requiring an intensive cleanup operation afterwards.

So that does seem to be what Starmer is aiming at, and he may well achieve it this time.

And this is exactly my point, Andy: is it when you were delivering your child, was there any moment where you said, isn't there someone more qualified to be doing this?

Well,

no, because

that would have shown a lack of confidence in my own ability.

And, you know, so no, I was on a, I was speaking to a genuine, well, I mean, whoever was manning the 999 emergency phone line, who I assume had some basic medical training, although they did keep it quite simple and basically just said, don't drop it.

So, um,

uh,

did you really knit?

Do you really, do you need that level of specialized knowledge?

Um, I don't know.

Andy, just just on the education secretaries, just to fact check that, there were 10 during the Conservative administration from 2010 to 24, including five in the year 2022.

So, and ironically, we don't learn lessons from that,

which you would have thought would be the purpose of education.

But anyway.

I mean, the most tragic thing about this cabinet reshuffle is it's too close temporarily to the football transfer season.

So, unfortunately, the two things have become entangled in the space-time continuum.

And Starmer's ambitious bid to bring Andy Burnham back from his loan at the Manchester City

has failed.

Apparently he wanted a guarantee of starting every question time in a Kagul.

And a shock move, Erling Halland has been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.

And his first policy is to demand the Bank of England provide him with more assists.

Roy Keene has been named Secretary of State for Defence.

And he's insisted on calling it Secretary of State for War.

And when asked about his approach to international relations, he stared at the journalist and said, I'm faithful to my girlfriend or wife and not interested in foreign women.

That's all the jokes I could think of about football.

I'm sorry.

You've got quite a few out there, Alice.

Impressive.

Look, no hands.

To finish,

sport news now, and the finals of the US Open tennis

this weekend,

in which Amanda Anisimova, American player, failed to complete one of the great redemption stories of sport, having lost the Wimbledon final, six love, six love, bounced back, beat Igus Wiatek, who she'd been thrashed by at Wimbledon, and made it to the US Open final and then lost, which was disappointing for those who like a good story.

And then the men's final,

which

the main story was a display of tennis genius by the brilliant young Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz.

But it did show that nothing in the world can escape Donald Trump because he decided to go to the US Open tennis final.

The added security resulted in the match having to start late and thousands of people of ticket holders being unable to get in on time because of the

added security, just so Trump could sit in a box.

The TV companies asked the tennis authorities asked TV companies not to show negative reaction to Trump's presence.

Some saw this as censorship.

Others thought there was a realization on the part of the tennis authorities that people who are watching the tennis are probably trying not to think about Donald Trump and the unstaunchable Vesuvius of Maleficence and Tank and Tankarossi that he's blasting into the world's face.

So we didn't want to see it.

There were some clear boos of Trump a couple of times that he was shown on the screen.

And it did distract from

a sensational display of tennis from Alcaraz.

So

if I may conclude this issue of the bugle with a simple message to Donald Trump, which is that I don't mind what you do as president, but get the fk out of sport.

And I'm sure all sports fans will back me up on that.

Yes, apparently he's been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, which you get from not watching women's tennis enough.

very good

well uh that brings us to the end of this week's uh this week's bugle uh it's uh great to be back after our summer break we will have a show uh every week now until the ashes begins in late november um next week we have annavad palan tiff stevenson nish kumar and sarah baron uh the week after that we've got Josh Gondelman, Helen Zoltzmann, if I pronounce her name right, Hari Kondebolan, weeks after that.

And of course, we we have the live stream live show featuring Alice Nish and, as I mentioned earlier on, John Oliver Tickets via thebuglepodcast.com.

Also, I have some more tour shows which will be on sale within the next week or so.

I'll have full details of that next week.

NATO, what have you got to plug?

You can find me at Mr.NATO Green on Instagram or NATO Green on Blue Sky and whatever.

But

the Darkest Hour Tour continues this Saturday, September 13th at the Siren Theater in Portland, Oregon, and Thursday, October 2nd at Mic Drop Comedy in San Diego.

Buglers come out.

Tickets going fast for Portland, so don't sleep on that.

You can find me online at patreon.com/slash Alice Fraser, where I do my weekly writers' meetings over Zoom.

So if you want to have all of the fun of being in the Swiss mountains with none of the Swiss mountains, you can come and join me on Zoom for my writers' meetings, which I run twice a week.

Also, I have a podcast called Realms Unknown, which is available in the Bugle family of podcasts.

And you can subscribe if you go to thebuglepodcast.com and support all of the Bugle Podcast podcasts.

Podcast.

Well, Bugless, we'll be back next week.

Do buy your tickets for the live stream Sunday, the 26th of October.

The Showbiz events of this and any other millennium.

Until next week, goodbye.

Bye.

Hi, buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.