What a State

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Bugles and welcome to issue 4353 of The Bugle, still the world's most reliably unreliable weekly news-based historical record of the fumbling craptitude that is the human race's efforts to make it through yet another millennium without the entire entire planet having to be written off as a botch job and sold for scrap.

I'm Andy Zoltzmann and like everyone else in the United Kingdom I too failed to win gold at the World Athletics Championships over the past week and a bit.

Although I failed to do so way more convincingly than most, not even close.

Joining me today, here in the very heart of London, just around the corner from where loads of stuff happened probably over the last, I don't know, ages.

Two people chosen by God to be the, sorry, chosen by me to be on the bugle this week.

Nish Kubar and Sarah Barron.

Hello to both of you.

You have never grasped what the phrase God's chosen people is supposed to mean.

You have simply never grasped it.

In between mouthfuls of bacon, you have failed to grasp the central idea of what God's chosen people.

It doesn't just mean people you hang out with, Andrew.

That's how it started.

Andy, has anyone ever accused you of having a God complex?

And the reason I'm asking

is because

you seem like a rare breed in the entertainment field where you maybe don't have, like, Nish, I think you have a bit of a God complex well he's got i have a bit of an ability to accurately recognize my own impression his own godlike talents but you seem like a humble man right and i'm wondering has anyone ever accused you of being otherwise accused me of not being humble yeah

like have you ever been accused of being a prick uh well undoubtedly i mean i had an entire room full of people accusing me of that the manchester comedy store congratulations back in the day what a fun memory that must have been yeah it was great but i don't think they i don't think they viewed me as a god that hard.

Crick or unfunny to them?

Well, I mean, potato, potato.

Sure, I think.

Sure.

Yeah.

We're in a.

This is my first time in the new Bugle studio.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

What's going on?

It's too swish.

There's cameras everywhere.

Yeah.

Well, you know, Nish, the Bugle is, as buglers will know, almost 18 years old, and you can buy tickets to our 18th birthday live stream

on the 26th of October via theBuglepodcast.com.

One of the contributors, John Oliver, I believe is his name.

Yes.

He's probably going to be appearing on that live

satellite link up from a federal prison, right?

Yes, I believe we have reached some sort of plea deal whereby

he will be allowed a camera.

So yes, anyway,

Nish and Alice

will be appearing, as will John, via the wonders of the

transatlantic yogurt pot and strings.

It's going to be like Johnny Johnny Cash at Folsom.

But more.

At least Johnny Cash was allowed to go home, I think.

Live from an El Salvadorian gulag.

John Oliver.

Funny because it's true.

So, yeah, and I'll talk.

Well, I mean, I remember the days, not only when all this was fields, in terms of the building that we're in, just near Hoburn in London, but also when podcasts were an audio medium.

And, you know, I mean, the amount of time it takes me to do my hair and makeup just to record a podcast these days,

it's astonishing.

Took me absolutely hours to white up and then take the white face paint off.

That's just something I do to get myself rubbed for the podcast.

Anyway, welcome.

Welcome to

both of you, to these, well, extremely high-tech news studios.

It's got two chairs that we don't, two quite comfy-looking chairs that we're not satisfied.

We're not sat in yet.

I mean, mean that's where the swish stuff happens and this is where this is old school are podcasts sort of like dogs in that way it's like you have an 18 year old podcast which is essentially like having like a 102 year old yeah it's podi is yeah so they like put you in this kind of like shitty corner yes and that's for like the 21 year olds mark maron's just had a vet tell him he's got to put his podcast down

i think that's how old that podcast is uh yeah but then my my sister's uh answered me this was come back from the dead.

So I mean that's

obviously she's

got that Jewish card to play.

Just crop up every now and again.

Anyway, what are we talking about?

Yes, the 22nd of September 2025.

On this day in 1896, Queen Victoria beat her granddad George III.

The man that much of the USA now looks back on fondly as a harmless dude just trying to earn a living as a good old-fashioned king.

She overtook him as the longest reigning monarch in British history, but it didn't last forever.

Victoria, of course, later overtaken by Elizabeth II on the 9th of September 2015.

That was the last recorded instance of Elizabeth II doing her trademark celebratory backflip, bird flip, and crown twizzle maneuver.

But could modern technology enable Victoria to win back her title?

She needs just seven years back on the throne to reclaim top spot, and royologists have claimed this week that using some DNA from a pair of Victoria's yoga pants, plus a bit of an existing member of the royal family humanely extracted in a special ceremony, and some vials of hormone-type stuff left over from the 1980s East German state athletics doping program, Queen Victoria could be regrown in a laboratory and using AI, given the ability

to talk.

Will it happen?

Watch this.

Listen to this space.

What did you hear in that space?

Was it a no?

Well, that's disappointing.

God, it's been a while.

It's been a while, and it feels good to be back in the chair.

I haven't bugled for a while, and I feel that I've had bugle blue balls.

And now I'm just getting hot jets of bullshit

jizzed all over my face.

Family show.

Family show.

Of course, bugle blue balls are worth five points each.

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

And on the subject of

blue, Neptune, which is kind of blue, isn't it?

Oh.

Blue planet.

Well, hang on a second.

Do we call it the blue planet?

No, that's us.

That's us.

We are the blue planet.

It's kind of blue.

Anyway, Neptune was discovered on the 23rd of September, 1846.

That is just 179 short years ago.

The giant bauble of gas masquerading as a planet that, despite being 57 times the size of Earth, has never produced an Oscar-winning film, a Grand Slam-winning tennis player, or a decent sausage.

It's the solar system's fourth biggest planet, just off the podium for now, now, at least in size, but picking up a bronze for mass, some consolation as it slowly toddles around the sun at a rate of one orbit every 165 years or so.

No fing birthdays for you on Neptune, and if you're lucky, maximum one Christmas per lifetime.

It was, um, well, when was it discovered?

Uh, the 17th century physics celeb sky-obsessive science wonk an all-round megaboff in Galileo Galilei had observed Neptune.

Science won is a new one.

He apparently had observed Neptune, but had written it off as, quotes, just another fing star twinkling and doing soddall nothing.

But in 1846, the French astronomer Urbain Le Verrière predicted where Neptune would be based on some physics he'd been tinkering around with and stuff like that.

His German pal, Johann Gottfried Goller, confirmed the Frenchman's prediction and labelled it, look, it's another f ⁇ ing planet.

At which point, Team GB announced that Britain's John Couch Adams had already discovered it using similarly impressive scientific wizardry.

And this, of course, before they could have just asked AI, does Neptune exist?

And if so, where it is.

The squabblings and arguments over exactly which astronomer and which country deserves the credit for discovering Neptune continued for not one, not two, but almost 150 years into the 21st century, which just goes to beyond 150 years, which just goes to show the first law of human existence.

For every piece of genius, there is an equal and opposite piece of competitive idiocy.

So, to mark the 179th anniversary of the discovery of Neptune, we have two Neptune facts for you.

One, if you chop Neptune into 57 Earth-sized chunks, you would die.

And

if Neptune was where our moon is, the Earth would spin 48 times faster.

Each day would be 30 minutes long and the sea would fly off into space.

Wow.

Those are both facts.

Facts?

Near enough.

I didn't know you played so fast and loose with that stuff.

Andy has been playing it fast and loose with the bugle for nearly 18 years.

This man is allergic to facts.

Allergic, addicted.

I mean, it's, you know,

it's sometimes hard to tell the difference.

Definitely shouldn't be.

Listen, I understand that that's a central plank of RFK's plan for American healthcare, is to treat addiction and allergies as exactly the same.

You're going to have people with drug addictions rubbing E45 cream on their mouths.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's not been proven not to work, has it?

Unless you believe the scientists.

Top story this week, Donald Trump has been to the UK and thankfully he's fed off again.

Um the uh with all due respect to the uh the holder of the uh the title of President of the United States of America, he visited us uh last week um and when I say visited us, he had absolutely no interaction with the public whatsoever, which was uh a a a rare instance of a level of self-awareness, I think, uh, from Trump

to realize that maybe it's probably best he didn't speak to anyone.

Knew that he wouldn't be treated as kindly as he would be by Starmer.

Yes, yes.

I mean, Starmer is very good, for all his flaws as a prime minister, he has proved very good at obsequiously crawling up to the President of the United States of America for the good of the nation.

So

does any part of either of you respect that or are you exclusively repulsed by that skill set and or surprised by how good he's been at?

I don't think any of those are mutually exclusive.

Okay, okay, okay.

That's a British way.

I know you're relatively new around these parts and you've only lived here for what?

Sorry, 20 years or so.

Still picking up on it.

Disgust and admiration living side by side.

We are, as a nation, impressed by our own disgust.

Yeah, yeah.

So holding those two emotions concurrently is something that's it's an important part of our national psyche is to be impressed by how repulsed we are.

I will say that as a student of history, brackets half of my degree, brackets, I didn't really pay attention twice to my degree.

I will say that

history has not necessarily looked kindly to British prime ministers that have attempted to mollify quasi-fascist or full fascist dictators.

I mean, I think at the moment Starbucks getting a lot of credit this week,

you know, for his diplomacy and the way he handled Donald Trump.

But, you know, every British Prime Minister is always

very close to a naval chamberlain.

It's you and that's the one comparison you do not want to invite.

And there is a slight concern, I think, that maybe,

especially with other events happening in parallel in the United States of America, being friends with Donald Trump might, in 15 to 20 years' time, not be looked upon kindly.

Or at least it would do if in 15 to 20 years' time we'd be less worried about the study of history and more worried about fighting over water in the road war.

I wish you realized how short-changed I've been by British hospitality watching all of this.

Because when I've had to go visit, and I let me say that again, when I've had to go visit my in-laws in North Wales,

they make me eat egg and chips off my knee on the sofa in front of Antiques Road Show.

Right.

That's all I've ever gotten to see.

Well, to be fair to the British royal family, they do have a pretty proud tradition of making their daughter-in-laws eat food off the floor.

That's at the thin end of the way.

Okay, okay.

Do be a favourite.

Don't get in a car in Paris anytime soon.

Oh, my God.

Moving on.

Don't you dare censor me in this of all weeks.

I mean, so well, let's start with the big banquet and all the Trump staying over at

Windsor Castle.

In fact, rumours that Trump was found in the crypto of Windsor Castle, dry humping the tomb of Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, who sadly passed away in 1818, have neither been confirmed nor, interestingly, denied.

And it wasn't quite, I think,

what Trump was hoping for, because neither Prince Andrew nor Peter Mandelson were able to attend, so it wasn't quite that lad's going to be lad's reunion, the president was dreaming of.

But he seemed to have a lovely time nonetheless.

But there were sort of moments where, you know, I mean, the etiquette, and obviously we're an etiquette-obsessed nation here.

and you know at the you know at the at the at the the state banquet you know there's it there were some sort of awkward moments so well I I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Nish and I have eaten together before because I've done a lot of tour support for him.

I don't want to brag, but I've eaten with 100% of the people involved in this project.

Okay, okay.

Andy, you and I have never had the pleasure.

I'm like a little pig.

So I I feel very self-conscious as an American because I don't I cannot use

my fork in my in my left hand.

Right.

So I'm the kind of person that I'm the American that British people make fun of.

Right.

So I'm not going to say I have any, yeah.

So I put my fork.

I think that's just called being left-handed, because that's how, I mean, I also.

It's called being a pig.

Like, I'm a little fucking pig.

Have you never noticed that when we eat tea?

Like,

I'll be honest with you.

I also have my fork in the right hand, and I'm often in the back of the corner.

You're not the neatest of men.

You're not the neatest of men either.

So I liked, I was like, and I'm smarter than Trump.

So where do you have your knife in the left hand?

Or like

I, how do I cut?

No, so I take my fork, left hand to cut, but then I cannot stab my food and use my left hand.

So then once it's cut, I have to go right hand to stab

and eat.

Okay.

And then I can't like do the knife and fork thing to scoop.

So then I just like sort of use my finger.

I'm, I'm a pig.

Okay.

So I'm not going to be forced into saying I have any sympathy for Trump on anything, including cutlery etiquette.

But

I do like picturing them trying to offer him a little lesson as a pig like me in advance being like, you can use the rounded knife for fish, the serrated spoon for grapefruit, and the tiny fork to make your horrible hands look very big.

Also, I wrote a couple of really, really, really dated jokes.

Oh, that's fine.

Would you guys mind if I just try them really fast and see what you think?

Okay, listen, the one thing this podcast will never stop people from doing is doing jokes that don't work anywhere else.

So, do you mind?

So, I just want to try on a whole new persona for myself here.

Okay.

Hey.

Hello.

Hey, guys.

Hey,

the amount of ornate table decorations was ridiculous.

Think of the clear-up.

Those royal servants had to remove more gold than Mr.

T going through airport security.

Okay, and then what about this one?

What were the royal chefs?

I'm only, this is the only two for the whole podcast.

What were those royal chefs thinking of?

Serving such fancy food to a guy with an unrefined palate?

You might as well serve Viagra to John Wayne Bobbitt.

That's one, I mean, you laid your cards on the table and you just wanted to get them out of my system.

Because I was like, you guys are so nice.

I did write them, and you will laugh laugh at them yeah so I just thought let's give them a gas we've not had a bobbit joke on the bugle for quite a long time well that's because it's not the most timely thing that's ever occurred to me but as opposed to Mr.

T, who remains always in the news he's always relevant

he should come up more

he's one of the very few icons that spans all three millennia so far

in terms of the etiquette um you know if any of you buglers find yourself at a royal state banquet um when a convicted fraudster and sex pest asks if he can try your crown on, politely decline and distract him by offering to show him your family's collection of tiger pelt S and M kits.

When a visiting president says something that patently contradicts what he clearly actually believes based on the things he's said and done over the course of his career and life, resist the temptation to mutter, bullshit, under your breath, and instead congratulate him on adopting the traditional British code of language and communication.

Do not fill an awkward conversational hiatus by saying, I've got a friend who's half human, half pumpkin too, And

try to convey the message, keep your hands where I can see them at all times through facial expressions and body language, rather than by shouting it out loud and causing a diplomatic incident.

So

important thing.

Of course, it wasn't just about the pageantry, Nish.

Huge trade deals flying around.

Massive trade deals.

Absolutely massive trade deals.

We think this could...

This could really turn things around for this country.

It's not really clear how that's going to happen,

but a lot of the trade deals seem to have involved a massive trade deal with Microsoft, which I now think involves the king having to officially have sex with the Microsoft paperclip.

I think that was part of the horse trading.

I think that was part of the horse trading.

In order to secure that Microsoft investment, King Charles has had to absolutely go to town on the animated paperclip that in the 1990s would appear and ask you if you needed help writing a letter.

You're saying he wants to be the tampon up inside

the paper.

Do you remember about the tampon?

I do.

I'm just, I mean,

we've had that, we've had the Microsoft papergly,

we've had Bobbitt and Mr.

T.

You're saying, Sarah, I'm not quite bringing the.

I just feel like there are a few things that should never be forgotten about.

And that tampon thing is one of them.

And the other thing is...

Because I learned what a tampon was.

Well,

not all of us had that luxury niche.

And then the other thing that I think can never be brought up enough is when Cheryl Cole punched that bathroom attendant.

Yes.

I just feel like just ever, just never forget that those two iconic bits of British history were

those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat its mistakes.

Exactly.

He's not the only student of history that you're having on the podcast today, okay?

So £150 billion worth of trade deal was the figure.

And, you know, I've not looked at the details because when I heard the figure was £150 billion

under the first law of business, detail schmeetails

all accounts, isn't it?

Works out at just over £2,000 each for everyone in the country.

No doubt, as with all such things, society as a whole will be absolutely drenched with the trickle-down benefits of this investment.

It could create, I was reading, 7,600 jobs.

That's not enough jobs.

Well, no, it's just under £20 million

each per job.

Which is, you know, well, I mean,

that's what you get for one of your

taking down your latest TV station.

That was my quibby year.

But, you know, how much do we trust these trades?

A lot of it was involved, was regarding AI, technology, and

data storage.

And as the old saying goes, beware the geeks even bearing gifts.

And I'm just not sure we should entirely trust

big tech.

I mean, this doesn't so much come with strings attached as, well, it's going to have us jiggling around like a dancing marionette for the foreseeable future,

to be honest.

So it's hard to say, you know, the exact long-term impacts and benefits or drawbacks and disbenefits of this deal.

And as the old saying goes, there's many a slip between cup and lip, and there are even more slips between headline tech-based trade deal and actual benefit to society.

And the tech sector has proved about as reliable

a partner in recent history as a suspiciously wolfy looking grandmother in a woodland cottage wearing a proud to be a wolf T-shirt with a grannyish looking wisp of grey hair dangling from the side of its still slathering mouth saying, Did you bring any mustard with you?

I think you'll taste best with mustard.

So, yeah, I mean, the

AI data,

well, the kind of AI side of it, obviously,

Nish, you're the Bugle's AI correspondent.

Yes, yes, yes.

And so, is it that really we might as well make a little bit of money on the side whilst welcoming in the technology that will render all human life obsolete by, I'm going to guess, August 2027, just after the end of the Ashes series, optimistically?

Short answer, Andy, yes.

Long answer Andy, yes.

It's time that we just acknowledge that humanity as a species has failed and we give up.

And I think as part of this trade deal, we are actually now officially turning the city of Southampton into an AI data center.

I think the whole thing is now just going to be written off and turned into an enormous data center.

Yeah, it's listen, with the tech, the problem here is that you've got the tech sector, which has historically proved itself to be untrustworthy, and you've got Donald Trump, who is himself consistently proving himself to be untrustworthy.

So the big upshot of this week of Starmer essentially sacrificing his dignity at the altar of offering a second state visit to Donald Trump, the first time that's ever happened in the history of this country, is two untrustworthy elements have come together to make us a promise that they almost certainly will not keep.

So it it it doesn't feel like it feels like this wind might sort of evaporate around Keir Starmer quite quickly.

Right.

Do you guys use AI?

Well, no, I try, I try, I mean, I almost certainly do

sort of

incidentally.

Yeah.

But no, I'm.

Well, I don't trust.

I don't, I don't entirely trust it yet.

Obviously, human intelligence, we've given a fair crack to, and it's not worked out.

But whether this is the correct replacement, I'm packing.

I will say my feelings about AI, because whenever you bring up a kind of hostility to AI, you're sort of painted as a kind of Luddite.

Sure.

And often the example that's brought up is that it's very useful in medical science, which I believe is true.

There's certain AI languages that can spot cancers and can actually sift through data much faster for doctors.

Fantastic.

You know what else is a fantastic tool for medical science?

An x-ray machine.

Fantastic tool.

I don't need a f ⁇ ing x-ray machine in my house.

I don't need an x-ray machine to look inside my bag and see if I've packed my football boots.

If anything, that's going to add time to my day that I don't have.

Not all tools need to be useful for absolutely everybody.

Right, because I mean, I have

a full x-ray scanner on the way into my house.

Yeah, and I told you that it makes me uncomfortable that you make me walk through it every time I enter your house.

I'm not going through airport security and then trying to come in to look at some of your cricket memorabilia.

And then do you like to pat them down as well?

Yeah, absolutely.

Perkins, the occasional touch

to get you through your lack of conversation in the week.

Yep, I mean, that's one way of putting it.

So as well as AI data centers springing up all over the place,

this nation is going to be powered, it seems, by boutique, fun-sized pocket nuclear reactors.

If I'm reading between the lines of the nuclear deal, I want to say reading between the lines, I didn't get beyond the first line of it.

We will all have our own personal nuclear reactor by the end of this decade.

I'm going to get, I want, like, I like the idea of like a tiny one, like a bonsai tree, but for nuclear reactors.

Yeah.

And then I could like use it to play Chernobyl with Barbies.

Yeah.

Well, this, this, this, this, this dream will soon be reality, Sarah.

I don't, why?

Why is this necessary?

I genuinely, I don't understand.

Why?

Why do we, why do we need to?

Why do we need why do people need tiny nuclear reactors?

Well, I guess it's

because

we need power,

because

without without power the world would stop turning.

The world has been powered by petrol, I think, for

the last 10 million years.

You tell me this wind stuff isn't working?

Is that what this means?

Does it mean the wind stuff isn't working?

Well, the problem with wind power and other forms of renewable energy is

they're too woke.

And a large part of the population still reads the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

And the

renewable energy doesn't work for those people.

They switch their lights on and just pure darkness comes out

if it's green energy.

So there needs to be something with an element of planet destroying risk.

Otherwise they will continue to live in literal darkness as well as metaphorical darkness.

So that's I hope I've answered that.

It's a compromise deal between the US and the UK because the US and the UK currently have very little in common in terms of energy and where we get our energy from.

So the UK is attempting to decarbonise, carbonise, and Donald Trump is actually weirdly attempting to recarbonize.

He's the only person who's trying to work backwards.

And he was actually, he's actually sort of ordering the revival of coal.

And I believe I've said, I think I might have said this before on the podcast, but

the only excuse for opening a coal mine in 2025 is if your plan is to do it in the northeast of England and your plan is to open the coal mine and then immediately close it to stimulate boys' interest in ballet in the region.

That is the only conceivable reason for engaging with the coal industry in 2025.

In terms of what Trump said,

he talked about the special relationship.

He said the word special didn't even begin to describe the relationship America has with the UK.

If he'd said special branch, that might have...

Yeah, for the unsuccessful court case, that might have been more in his wheelhouse.

And it's only true that we've not always got a house house on fire,

particularly when we set the White House on fire

in 1814.

But classics.

I like when he boasted that the king of Saudi Arabia recently said that under Trump, the U.S.

had become, quote, the hottest country anywhere in the world, which is a bit like hearing that the cover of the latest J.K.

Rowling novel has a blurb from Graham Linehan.

He also suggested Starmer should use the military to control migration, migration.

Given that Trump's most recent experience of the British military is the red arrows, do you think he was suggesting treating migrants to a thrilling multicoloured aerial display?

He's not particularly liked in this country, Trump.

According to

break that news.

Yes, he's not.

He's not hugely popular.

There was a YouGov poll said that 9% of people in Britain have a positive said Trump has had a positive impact on this country.

53% said he's had a negative impact, which is well below his target figure of 99%.

27% say he's made no difference.

That might hurt him the most.

But that leaves 11%

who are unable to answer, presumably sitting in a darkened shed, snuggling with a cuddly soft toy of Dwight D.

Eisenhower.

I'm so sorry it's come to this.

You know, I had like a series of gigs

like sort of after the inauguration where I sort of always thought a safe thing would be like you could say something shitty about Trump or if there was an American you know, I will start many gigs by seeing if there are other Americans in and then they'd be from Florida or Texas or somewhere and you could feel like or I could feel like I could just say a shitty Trump thing and it would be safe and people would be on my side and there'd be no problem.

Certainly that worked for you at Canterbury when you opened for me the night after the election.

My god, greatest gig of my greatest gig of my life.

The audience that came to watch me on tour were very happy to hear that from an American.

And that's what I thought was out there.

as of january 25th there were a couple times i got on stage and i i said something and there would there was like

there was palpable pro-Trump energy from British people in the room and these people were like sandwiched between people who looked like they would be our friends and I was so traumatized and I couldn't get the gig back because I don't do what he does and I had nothing that intelligent to say to pull out of my pocket.

And also, you don't have the guts, Sarah, Sarah, to ruin people's evenings.

And that is what I have.

Even if I look at these people's faces, I will drive that thing into the ground.

You would drive it into the ground.

But it did make me love comedy because I was like, this is what's so fucking great about comedy is that people who are like Go Trump are sat next to people who live in Hackney

and they're coming out for the same entertainment.

And I thought, God bless Stana.

They're all coming out for the same thing and they're all going home disappointed in different ways.

Exactly.

God bless the art form.

So, well, on the subject of

comedy, it's been,

well, I mean, comedy has been banned in America,

essentially.

Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night talk show host, has been taken off air.

Or is ABC,

the channel on

which he did his show, phrased it on their own website, ABC preempts Jimmy Kimmel live, which I thought was a,

I mean, a gloriously weird way of putting it.

Yeah, it suggests that ABC have got a have developed minority report technology

and that just someone at ABC is sort of sat with gloves on moving things around a screen and then a snooker ball drops down a chute that says, get rid of Kimmel.

Does preempt mean something different in

America?

No, but I can I get a little bit serious here for a second.

Like,

when I heard the news, I did feel sick to my stomach because I was like, no,

why couldn't it be Jimmy Fallon?

And I think, you know, I don't want to, I was just like going on about the art form of stand-up and whatever, so I don't, I don't want to be coming across too much in a certain kind of way, but artists have always, always,

artists have always been under pressure to flatter those in power, which is why the hunters in cave paintings have always had those enormous cocks.

I genuinely believe comedy, we work in society's last line of defense against fascism.

Imagine what could have unfolded in 1930s Germany if they'd banned satirical songs at the Kit Capital.

Listen, it's been a bad fing week for freedom of fing speech, and I am aware of the fing irony of this sentence going out in the fing bugle with half the words bleeped out.

But the only fing reason that these fing words have been fing bleeped out is because Chris is an absolute total

ABC announced on Wednesday that it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel's late night show indefinitely

after

he was accused by various right-wing activists of inaccurately describing the politics of the man who shot the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The sequence of events is really, really important here because there's been a lot of conversation, nebulous conversation about freedom of speech.

But the sequence of events is really important to establish.

So the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Donald Trump,

went on a podcast and said that,

I mean, first of all, the very fact that he did this on a podcast is huge news for podcasting.

We've absolutely,

imagine how much more effective Joseph Goebbels would have been in the podcasting era, doing his pro-Hitler podcasts and saying things like, we need an orderly reordering of German society and we need to have people parceled off into jail.

And while we're talking about things being parceled off in nice portions, this week's podcast is brought to you by HelloFresh.

Well, look, I mean, look, Nish, I take this very personally because obviously the Bugle has been going for nearly 18 years, and you can join us at our 18th birthday ceremony on the 26th of October.

Live stream tickets available via the website.

You know, it does make me feel very much like the John the Baptist of Brendan Carr's Jesus.

Congratulations.

It turns out your grasp of Christianity is even worse than your grasp of Judaism.

There's a lot of very bad grasps of Christianity flying around at the moment.

Very bad.

But it's interesting,

the ABC taken Kimmel off the air, following this comment he made about the reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, not about Charlie Kirk himself or the act itself.

If you want to believe Donald Trump, which admittedly is a pretty big if.

Kimmel was taken off air because he was rubbish.

Yes, this is

Trump interpreted.

Oh, no, they just decided he has no talent after over 20 years

on air.

I mean, there's also debates over whether the First Amendment trumps the North Amendment right, which is the freedom to clamp down on other people's freedom of speech, the way that the Second Amendment right to bear arms boots into touch, the Second and a Half Amendment right not to be shot while going about your daily business.

These amendments are very complicated, often contradictory.

We'll leave that for the American constitutional academics to clarify.

Sorry, I'm just hearing all the American constitutional academics have been sacked.

Over here

we also add

sort of another sort of freedom of speech related issue in which four people from the Led by Donkeys organization

were arrested

after committing a slightly technical legal offence of using a castle as a projector.

So they projected onto the wall of Windsor Castle before

Trump's visit a documentary film about his relationship with Geoffrey Epstein

and were arrested for the

under the Malicious Communications Act.

It joins the great modern British tradition of completely spurious and unnecessary arrests.

It's a real grow one of the very few growth industries in this country.

It joined the likes of hundreds of concerned pensioners who've really gone off the concept of genocide.

Yeah, we really did a number on a couple of those retired priests.

As well as punching people in the balls advocate Graham Linahan,

who

has said some truly horrific things, but I'm not sure necessarily need to have five people arrest him at the police station.

Anyway,

my legal consultant suggests that under the Malicious Communications Act, there is as much chance of a successful prosecution for this crime of projecting a documentary film onto the side of a castle as there is of Donald Trump using his power and influence to win that film an Oscar for best documentary.

To be fair, led by Donkeys, and if you're not familiar with their work, please make yourself familiar with their work.

They've done some wonderful things holding the powerful to account through sort of videos and installations and stunts.

They have brought this upon themselves.

They have habitually communicated using malicious tools such as public domain video footage, people's own words that they've said out loud in public, and and facts.

So you can see why the police were onto them.

The police said that the four adults that have been arrested

was because of an unauthorised projection at Windsor Castle, which they described as a public stunt.

Now, given that, as we've already said, Kierstarmer had invited Donald Trump for a second state visit, which he absolutely did not have to f ⁇ ing do to have trade talks with him.

No one else has ever been invited for two state visits in history.

I don't think we could get into the business of arresting people for engaging in activity that is fundamentally more performative than it is anything else.

I think Kierstam is eventually going to have to arrest himself, which I weirdly think he would be fine with.

What if first they come for Led by Donkeys Acerbic's projections, but then they come for that guy who tweets Photoshops by Najal Farage and Kim Jong-un with Philip Mitchell outside of Wetherspoons.

And then they come for Martin Parr's garish but grotesque depictions of the British class system.

Don't worry, guys, it won't be long until Banksy skewers the situation with a scathing painting on a bus shelter.

I mean, in terms of malicious communication, it was unclear how Led by Donkey's documentary about Donald Trump's decades-long relationship with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was malicious communications.

But Elon Musk appearing on a video screen in front of tens of thousands of people at a rally calling essentially for civil war on the streets,

did not.

That's not malicious communication.

I don't know the legal niceties

of that.

Andy, if I may quote Plato, what's better than a single standard?

A double standard.

I think that was Plato.

It was either Plato or it was John Lennon.

I think it was one of those two.

It was one of those two.

Quick bit of other news.

King Charles, as well as desperately trying to think of other things

whilst talking to Donald Trump, no doubt,

has apparently made quite a bit of money from

as a result of HS2.

So I'm not one of these Americans who's ever given a shit about the monarchy.

I think it's embarrassing for you guys.

I think that any fun that any British person would ever make of any other country where people are like worshiping gods and kings that think that they are in any way different, you guys, it's humiliating.

I prefer Britain.

I've elected to live here.

I think it's basically better than America, but holy shit, you humiliate yourself with this stuff.

And so, the idea that this is a story, it's like, you guys are happy for the royal family to have unimaginable wealth and ride around in solid gold carriages, but only if it's deducted directly from your wages.

It's when I read this, like, I don't know too much about it, frankly, until I'm like, okay, what's going on here?

And then I cannot believe it's real and that, like, shops aren't being broken into every fing day.

Yeah.

It's so disgusting and crazy to me.

Well, I mean, it's the thing is, Sarah, you probably don't understand as an American, quite how difficult it is to give up our national addiction to medieval feudalism.

Yeah, yeah.

We're weaning ourselves off it, but it's got to be done over several hundred, maybe thousands of years.

Yeah.

You can't go cold turkey off an addiction to feudalism.

You can't, you just we wouldn't know what we were doing.

If we went cold turkey off our addiction to feudalism, we'd be shivering in a

room in an addiction centre, throwing up, sweating.

I mean, all of my information on going cold turkey is from biopic de Brock musicians, so it's possible that none of that is accurate.

Um, I mean, the story

was about Charles's property estate making more than a million pounds from the sale of lands linked

to uh the hs2

uh a leg of the hs2 railway system that will now no longer be built the duchy of lancaster um made this money from land around crewe and you don't need to be a rockets geographer to know that crewe is not in lancashire and this duchy of lancaster is really reaching beyond its uh beyond where it should on a map this is a real question do you do you think that king charles has any idea idea how much money he made from it?

No, I don't imagine.

He must have no clue, right?

Well, he's probably, you know, I don't know.

I mean, he's probably got train sets that cost more than a million pounds.

I do find these stories truly embarrassing.

Like, when they get out, it is embarrassing to me that people from outside of the United Kingdom find out about the details of this.

It's the Duchy enjoys a special status as a crown body, so it means it's exempt from corporation tax and capital gains tax.

And he didn't have to pay inheritance tax on it when it was passed to him after his mother was

murdered by Boris Johnson.

Allegedly.

Allegedly.

Allegedly.

Allegedly.

I think we're covered by allegedly.

It generated an income last year of £26.5 million.

And it's understood, according to the Guardian newspaper, that the king voluntarily paid some income tax on this dividend, but he is not obliged to disclose how how much.

So he's already making sweet, sweet coin.

He's already making, I don't really know how to say this in a better way.

He's already making sweet, sweet his own face.

He's already making loads of paper with his own face on it from this.

And now he's made even more paper with his own face on it from selling that land

to the country for the leg of the railway line that is no longer happening.

Let's lighten the mood a bit now.

Middle East news.

Woo!

Kirstarma very cleverly waited until Donald Trump was safely back on the correct side of the Atlantic before announcing that the UK,

alongside Canada, Australia and Portugal and various other countries are recognising the Palestinian state.

This has not gone down particularly well with the Netanyahu regime in Israel, who who

still I think it's fair to say not on board with the two-state solution.

I mean, that is, you might have just one understatement of the variety of there, Andy.

Now, clearly,

whenever we talk about this, this is a situation of infinite complexity, layers upon layers of historical complication and political detritus.

It's an eternal salad of resentment slathered in the corrosive esophagus-strafing vinaigrette of religious implacability, sprinkled with the digestively explosive croutons of recurrent historical failures.

And the efforts to reconstitute the roadmap to peace after it was fed through a cross-cut shredder, mulched down into slot, baked into a cookie, fed to a donkey and crapped down a well have remained thus far unsuccessful.

But, I mean, Hamas have apparently celebrating it as a victory.

Of course they would.

It doesn't mean it's an actual victory.

Hamas's judgment on such things is not necessarily the most reliable.

And I think it's fair to say they're not...

They've not, I don't know what their KPIs are as an organisation, but if their goal was to bring death, destruction, poverty, and starvation and persecution and homelessness and the prospect of decades of misery upon their own people, they've been an unusually successful political organisation, fair play to them, in the same way that if Netanyahu's goals were to ensure that people in Israel could never sleep easily in their beds for the next hundred years, I think he's done that very well as well.

So look, I think weirdly that is one of his specifics.

I think it's that at number one and number two, avoid jail.

Avoid jail.

In terms of the two-state solution, look, people are being allowed a homeland to live in.

It's something that I've grown up to be quite a fan of.

It might be something to do with my Jewish heritage.

I'm not sure.

But anyway,

like I said, it's complicated.

Just like Starmer, like, waiting to do it.

Like, the strategy is, I'll do it, but not till Trump's gone.

I will say that is an accurate reflection of Donald Trump's attention span.

But I was genuinely, I was like, I genuinely think Starmer was thinking, like, oh, Trump's not going to notice.

Like, he won't bother with international news.

He just skims the paper for his own name.

Yeah, he's got Google alerts.

His only Google alert is Donald Trump and Donald Trump penis big.

He's not going to spot that the UK recognized a Palestinian state.

Thank you for having me, Prime Minister.

Any plans for the weekend?

No, just a quiet one.

Maybe park run tomorrow, brunch on Sunday.

Definitely no legally enshrined in any statehoods.

Not going to do that.

It's unclear as yet whether the move by Britain, Australia, and Canada will cause Benjamin Netanyahu belatedly to come to to his senses.

With this summer we've tracked for quite a long time now, nothing really seems to be changing his mind.

Not even Peter blampooning.

His brutal assault on Gaza has continued alongside the attack on Qatar, as well as within the space of a week, strikes on Lebanon, Yemen, a Gaza Blan, aid flotilla in Tunisia, Narnia,

ancient Babylon, never forget, and some penguins looking at them a bit funny in Antarctica.

So win over international opinion doesn't seem to be on the Netanyahu to-do list.

No, and safely say that.

And they've justified the bobbing of Narnia by saying that Mr.

Tumnis was an agent for Hamas.

We have overrun.

So, we need to wrap this up quickly.

Don't forget to buy your tickets to the Bugle 20th birthday, sorry, 20th, getting ahead of myself,

the Bugle 18th birthday live stream live show coming to you live live from the Leicester Square Theatre on Sunday the 26th of October featuring Nish Kumar live in three dimensions with me and Chris and London and Alice Fraser and John Oliver on the big screen.

Your brother's gonna be in a gulag.

Buy tickets to find out how he's getting on.

You can also buy tickets to my tour extension,

the Zolt Guys 2026, a second thwack, via my website March and April.

I will also soon be announcing some dates in Australia that may coincide with

Australia, Auntie.

Also, it's an interesting hype of year to be guided down to Australia to do comedy.

Normally, people sort of keep it for the winter months, but you've sort of

I think for the mid bang in the middle of the summer, right?

I don't abide by the rules, Nish.

Sarah, anything to plug?

Please listen to my podcast that I do with my husband who overuses Chat GPT.

It's called They Like to Watch.

Maybe you'll like it.

Nish?

I'd like to plug just good vibes.

Oh, wait.

Also,

my podcast,

I've forgotten.

I'd move straight to the stupidity phase of plugging.

You can listen to me talk about the news of Podsaver the UK.

And it's a bit like me on the bugle, only there are lawyers involved to protect me from getting food.

Also,

yeah, I'm excited about the Leicester Square show.

The Bugle's old enough to drink Andy.

And we're going to get it absolutely tanked up.

We're going to get it tanked up in Leicester Square.

It's actually quite different from the part of.

From the sort of outer peripheries of London that you and I are from, Andy, it's quite a tradition to, on your 18th birthday, go into Leicester Square and get regrettably shit-faced.

It's sort of perfect for us.

Well, do join us via the wonders of the internet.

Details at thebuglepodcast.com.

We'll be back next week.

Until then, goodbye.

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.