Real Housewives of the UN

Speaker 1 I will be in Australia for the next few weeks, hoping that the cricket can provide the distraction for everyone that it has so successfully provided for me since I was six years old.

Speaker 1 If you want to come to my shows, there is a Bugle Live in Melbourne on the 22nd of December, where I'll be joined by Sammy Shar and Lloyd Langford.

Speaker 1 I'm doing the Zoltgeist, my stand-up show in Melbourne on the 23rd of December.

Speaker 1 And we've just added a possibly optimistic extra show in Sydney on the 3rd of January. The 2nd of January show is sold out, but please, please, please come on the 3rd.

Speaker 1 My UK tour extension begins begins at the end of january all details and ticket links at andysaltsman.co.uk

Speaker 1 the bugle audio newspaper for a visual world

Speaker 1 hello buglers and welcome to issue 4352 of the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world bringing you the pure unadulterated highly questionable truth about this planet since 2007.

Speaker 1 We are recording today, very excitingly, in a brand new studio. Producer Chris's journey to taking over the whole of world media, which cannot be completed soon enough, has led to a move-in studio.

Speaker 1 We're being stared at by some intimidatingly high-tech looking cameras. I feel like I'm about to confess a string of crimes I've got absolutely no

Speaker 1 link to.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 this is what podcasting is now. You can't record an audio show without three video cameras.
That is the way the world has progressed. Joining me under

Speaker 1 the glare of the lights and the all-seeing eye of the camera. Here in London, Tiff Stevenson and Anivabh Powell.
Hello, both of you.

Speaker 2 Hello. Hi.
Hi, I wish I'd have thought about the back of my hair more. Right.
Because I'm thinking about the angles of the camera now.

Speaker 1 All right. Yeah.
I wish I thought about the front of my hair.

Speaker 2 That's a great shirt, though. Now, people who are watching it will be able to really appreciate the sartorial

Speaker 2 commentary of that.

Speaker 1 It is festooned with fish.

Speaker 2 It is, yeah. It's,

Speaker 2 I think, my brother-in-law would love that shirt. He fishes and he likes a he likes an adventurous shirt.
That's quite an adventurous shirt. I like it for you.

Speaker 1 Thanks. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Annivaba, any comments on my hair or shirt choice?

Speaker 3 No, you look tremendous.

Speaker 1 This is what I like to hear. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I just want to say, I sort of in this new studio feel like if I was ever a money launderer and I was arrested in Dubai and I was interrogated by two intellectuals, this is what I was looking at.

Speaker 1 How they do police investigations in Dubai? It just gets professors in to discuss philosophy.

Speaker 3 A maverick bohemian academic says, how much money did you steal?

Speaker 2 Do you think I like the idea that I look professorial? Professorial?

Speaker 1 Is that the word? Is that a word? Yeah. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, with my trainers and my silver jeans.

Speaker 3 I could totally see you teaching econometrics at the London School of Economics.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Very economical.

Speaker 2 Economy, the musical. That's what we should write it.
That's missing.

Speaker 3 Why is that not happening?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Inflate me.

Speaker 2 There's just one.

Speaker 1 That's just one song for me to do. Literally writing.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, you've written the book, Andy.
Let's put some music to that.

Speaker 3 Where is the Adam Smith rap?

Speaker 1 You know, where is that? Well, that's, yeah. That's,

Speaker 1 I mean, that's a matter. Well, if it weren't for Hamilton, surely surely you could do something on 18th century economists.
Um, they're buglers if you want to send in your suggestions for how to write

Speaker 1 economy, the musical. Yes.
Um, I don't know what you wouldn't do with John Maynard Keynes.

Speaker 2 I was going to say, Maynard Keynes', got to make it in there, hasn't he?

Speaker 1 Maybe have him as a giraffe or something.

Speaker 3 Um, the Ricardian theory of rent as an opera.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is endless.

Speaker 2 There's definitely got to be a song about they're coming over here, they're taking our jobs, but it's actually self-service checkout machines coming from China, taking the jobs

Speaker 1 more on related subjects later in the show as you might might guess because we are recording on the 15th of September 2025 so a very happy 771st birthday to celebrity travel writer and TV holiday show pioneer Marco Polo who was born on this day in 1254 the Venetian vacationer who swanned off on 24 consecutive gap years and came home having found himself gunpowder and banknotes.

Speaker 1 And to be honest, I'm not sure the world has recovered from

Speaker 1 his job. It's quite a long time to be away from home.
You know, you've just been in Edinburgh for a month. For a month, yeah.
Can you imagine a 24-year-old?

Speaker 2 I felt like I forgot what England was whilst I was in Scotland for a month, which is probably a good thing, to be honest.

Speaker 1 Well, a lot of people have been forgetting what England is and

Speaker 1 misremembering it quite severely. Again, we will talk about later in the show.

Speaker 3 There's a big conundrum I've always wanted to know.

Speaker 3 They say Marco Polo

Speaker 3 took pasta to China, and that's how they got noodles. The Chinese claim that it's the noodles that they gave Marco Polo that eventually became bolognese.

Speaker 3 Where do you guys stand on this?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 was it the Chinese or the Italians?

Speaker 1 I'd not heard that he'd, the theory that he'd introduced noodles to China. I'd heard the idea that he brought noodles back and it became pasta.
Right. But I don't think that's true.

Speaker 1 I'm going to call it 30-second internet search.

Speaker 1 People reckon that there was a.

Speaker 2 Sorry, where does the swimming pool come in?

Speaker 1 The swimming pool. The swimming pool game.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That I think was a shipwreck incident on the way,

Speaker 1 probably in about year 16. Okay, right.

Speaker 1 So that's the game we've got to.

Speaker 2 That's how they worked out that the noodles or the pasta had to get wet.

Speaker 1 That's right, yes. Yes.

Speaker 2 Before it was edible. Yes, presumably.

Speaker 1 I can't remember the rules of Marco Polo.

Speaker 2 I just know everyone shouts Marco Polo, but I don't really understand.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I always played Vasco da Gama myself, but you can choose your own explorer.

Speaker 1 Andy, I'm looking online now, and apparently the whole Marco Polo took noodles, pasta to China was invented by American big pasta in the 1920s and 30s. You're right.

Speaker 1 Right. And that's set us off on the path to the age that we live in now where for every truth there was an equal and more powerful counter-truth.

Speaker 3 I didn't mean to start a revolution here.

Speaker 3 You know, many questions. How did it get thicker along the way?

Speaker 2 Shapes. I'm interested.
I'm all about the shapes.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Right.

Speaker 1 I'm a body girl. Right.

Speaker 2 I'm interested in shapes.

Speaker 1 I think if we average out all the myths, we can safely say that Marco Polo invented spaghetti hoops.

Speaker 1 As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. Last week, we had an advert for the Bugle live stream live show at the Went in the Bin.
That's on the 26th of October.

Speaker 1 Do join us for the 18th birthday spectacular involving Nish Kumar Alice Fraser and for the first time at Live Bugle, John Oliver. Tickets via thebuglepodcast.com.

Speaker 1 This week in the bin, an advert for my tour. The Zoltgeist has been extended into 2026, officially known as the Zoltgeist 2026, a second thwack.

Speaker 1 The tour will begin on the 31st of January with a warm-up show at the Hat Factory in Luton. And then there are dates across Britain until through till May.
Hoping to have some dates in Europe.

Speaker 1 Also, hoping to have some dates in Australia in

Speaker 1 late November, December and January, where

Speaker 1 whilst I'm contractually obliged to watch a healthy amount of cricket over several weeks. So So, that is your section in the bin this week.

Speaker 1 If you want to stop me doing sections in the bin advertising my own shows,

Speaker 1 then you just have to buy all the available tickets and I won't ever have to plug them again.

Speaker 1 Given that all the available tickets for the Bugle Live Stream Live is 8 billion for almost everyone in the world, we're not allowing everyone in.

Speaker 1 That might take a while.

Speaker 1 Anyway, the Bugle Live Stream Live, 26th of October, and my tour, it goes on pre-sale on the 18th of September, and I think the 19th of September, it's open open to anyone in the universe to buy tickets.

Speaker 1 Details at andysaltman.co.uk. I'll give you another section in the bin, given that that was just a blatant plug for my own stuff, and plugs usually come at the end of the show.

Speaker 1 In the bin this week, butterflies. Huge concern for butterflies in this country after the annual big butterfly count

Speaker 1 revealed that butterfly numbers are down long term, but also up short term. Up on last year, but down overall.

Speaker 1 What is it with things whose names begin with the letters B, B, and C that they have to be try and be so balanced all the time? They're up, they're down. What kind of big butterfly can?

Speaker 1 Just agree with me.

Speaker 1 The overall trend is

Speaker 1 down

Speaker 1 and obviously that's a concern because of the impact butterflies have on the world.

Speaker 1 It's famously said that if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon rainforest thousands of miles away, a politician groundlessly blames something on immigration.

Speaker 1 So we do have to be a bit careful with these things. We also look in our butterfly section at the new butterflies being developed to help the struggling butterfly industry.

Speaker 1 These include the flutter bacon, whose wings look and smell like like freshly fried rashes of bacon whilst being entirely kosher. The wingless brown stick, which has no wings, looks like a stick.

Speaker 1 might actually just be it. We're still waiting for Tess to come back and whether it's just a stick.

Speaker 1 The spoon-tailed fork wing, which is a specially developed butterfly that functions as an eating utensil during picnics, which you can then release back into the wild once you've finished your canopies and fruit selection.

Speaker 1 The Lamborghini Jet Tail, which is the world's fastest butterfly, developed by the supercar manufacturer, can travel at up to 230 miles an hour, but only over a three-centimeter distance currently.

Speaker 1 And the Union Jackstral, which has been genetically modified so that its wings are the Union Jack flag, the most patriotic butterfly ever produced. That section is in the bin.

Speaker 1 Top story this week, a brighter future looms. Are you increasingly worried about the direction the world has been driven in, Buglers? Are you losing faith in human politicians to deal with it?

Speaker 1 Or maybe you're just curious to see what happens when the inevitable robot takeover comes. Well, good news this week because Albania has appointed the world's first AI government minister.
This

Speaker 1 I think we've been waiting for a turning point in human history to take us to a brighter future. And obviously there's a lot of scare stories about AI ripping the entire soul out of the human race.

Speaker 1 But to me

Speaker 1 this might prove to be the most important turning point that we've had in the last, I'm going to say, almost 2,000 years.

Speaker 1 I use that because I'm Jewish and we still haven't recovered market share. But

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 Albanian Prime Minister, Eddie Rama,

Speaker 1 introduced an AI

Speaker 1 politibot, I'm going to call it that, called Diella

Speaker 1 as a new member of his cabinet.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this is big news. She's a woman and AI, so presumably she has an OnlyFans too.

Speaker 2 I'm going to presume that there are videos of her doing procurement contracts in her underwear

Speaker 2 with messages going, feet pics, feet picks.

Speaker 2 I only know this because I did a stand-up gig for OnlyFans and it was pure. I had to set up an account.
It was like, this is comedy. Do not come here for spicy stuff.

Speaker 2 And all I got were messages going, feet. Can we see the feet? Well, you can see them on stage while I'm doing the stand-up, so you can just use your imagination what the shoe contains.

Speaker 2 And then also a couple of messages asking asking if I do dick ratings.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 To which I said to my husband, I'm not doing that. I'm not disgusting little chods.
And he went, that's exactly what they want.

Speaker 1 Take the money.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I mean, I was going to make a joke about how I bet this is the, you know, only woman in government and she's AI. And then I did the research.

Speaker 2 And as of 2017, Albania had gender parity in their cabinet.

Speaker 2 We only just reached 40% last year. So take notes, Kier.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's quite interesting, isn't it, that this not only is

Speaker 1 AI,

Speaker 1 but is also female.

Speaker 1 And look, I mean, I'm not breaking confidence by saying that we are both

Speaker 1 human and male, and therefore the vast majority of the world's problems basically come down to people like us. Absolutely correct.

Speaker 1 And well done, Albania, for trying to remove both of those historically unsuccessful character traits, human and male, from the political realm. I think we should embrace this.
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 And a third one:

Speaker 3 corruption.

Speaker 3 Because this AI minister is an anti-corruption minister. So the whole idea is that because it's AI, it's not corruptible.

Speaker 3 But, you know, you're dealing with massive language models, and eventually the goal of language models is to become human, right?

Speaker 3 And, you know, I come from a culture that spent many, many years perfecting corruption. You know, I mean, it is the only thing we value above integrity.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 3 you know, I think they will find a way as AI evolves to bribe this minister. I think this minister will be open up.
Because what is the big problem with AI? That it's not human enough, right?

Speaker 3 It doesn't understand empathy, it doesn't understand complexity. And bribes are one of those complex things.

Speaker 3 Right now, objective minister doesn't take bribes, anti-corruption minister, machine, great.

Speaker 3 In the future, couple of snacks, maybe a hash brown. I don't know what an AI minister will be open to.
I think that this is not going to last very much.

Speaker 3 I'll give you an example from an AI experiment in India. At the J.W.
Marriott Hotel

Speaker 3 near Mumbai, they decided to do away with waiters at the coffee shop and got all robots. And this being India, they said we won't, we won't, you know, we won't, we'll just do robots.
It lasted a day

Speaker 3 because by the evening, loads of kids were walking around kicking the robots in unmentionable areas. So suddenly there was a surge in hiring for security guards to guard the robots.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 that's how this is going to be. There's going to be some sort of language model built

Speaker 3 to counter the corruption that this minister is going to be subject to.

Speaker 3 And then there'll be more evolution. I don't know where this is going to lead, but it's.

Speaker 1 It's a step forward, too, back, right?

Speaker 3 I think so.

Speaker 2 With the kids kicking the robots in the unmentionables. I don't think they had unmentionables.

Speaker 3 That's a very good point.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, I mean, I guess they're unmentionable if they don't exist.

Speaker 1 No, not mentioned. Correct, correct.
The Albanian Prime Minister said a country where public tendencies the idea is to create a country where public tenders are 100% free of corruption.

Speaker 1 That's, of course, the kind of corruption that has entertained us so richly during the COVID crisis and also, for example, for the entire rest of human history.

Speaker 1 He's stated that AI could, in the long term, eliminate bribes, threats, and conflicts of interest from politics, which could lead to recruitment issues, could it not?

Speaker 1 Because you're taking three of the top perks of being a politician out of commission.

Speaker 1 So all you've got left really is fancy-headed notepaper. And is that going to be enough?

Speaker 3 Exactly. And like, this is so alien in certain cultures, right? Like, a politician that has nothing to do with bribes is an objective machine that's efficient.
It's not going to last in India.

Speaker 3 there's no way no way we can make this work

Speaker 2 it's it's interesting because i think like people are pretty shit to female politicians i'm like would they be kinder to the ai bots and then i worked out no if i like take as an example how everyone treats alexa like i was at my sister's house and my brother-in-law asked for the weather in bostcom and she said the weather in boston massachusetts and it was like shut up alexa you're shit and my sister went don't talk to her like that i was like oh my god there are three people in this marriage.

Speaker 2 My sister immediately came out to

Speaker 2 defend Alexa. So, yeah,

Speaker 2 I don't know whether Diella, is it Diella, will be treated any better?

Speaker 1 Which means sun in Albanian, which is appropriate because,

Speaker 1 you know, AI like the sun can be good for us, it can be bad for us, and it will eventually destroy us all. So it's an appropriate name.

Speaker 1 I mean, AI obviously presents great potential benefits alongside the completely inevitable destruction of all we hold dear.

Speaker 1 And even more inevitable if inevitability can be more or less than itself which it can't but let's say it can the even more inevitable hijacking of the power of AI to accelerate the spread of human misery and boost corporate profits in a tale as old as technology itself obviously that's a prediction of what AI will do that I've just had generated for me by AI which suggests that AI has already achieved a higher level of self-awareness than humans are have ever been or will ever be capable of

Speaker 1 it's not yet clear if the Albanian government is going to do this properly and have an actual physical robot sitting in cabinet meetings right with big metal you know big metal robots so that everyone knows who's really in charge laser beams from its eyes telescopic arms an aerial on its head that automatically swivels the face of whoever's talking to make them think that the robot minister can read their innermost thoughts and shine an I'm bullshitting logo onto their forehead as and when necessary because I mean it feels like that should if you're going to have AI in government you you need to you need to take on the visual side of the robot robo cop yeah essentially

Speaker 2 but you must have eyelashes on the laser eyes so everyone knows yes it's girl robo cop

Speaker 2 it's critical yeah but also i think you know that's how people share the gender of their car you know sometimes headlamps have

Speaker 1 right have eyelashes so you know

Speaker 2 maybe one of them can wink if she's feeling cheeky i just thought i was looking at a weird car

Speaker 3 um is this minister going to like approve licenses and things like that because you know i mean if this machine is going to do like ministerial work, like inaugurate roads and so on, then they're open to all sorts of human complexity, you know, like having to decide between various,

Speaker 3 you know, tough decisions,

Speaker 3 probably have to be a little bit racist, corrupt, inappropriate. I mean, all the traits of a politician.

Speaker 1 I'm sure they can all be programmed in if

Speaker 1 the will is there.

Speaker 2 Is it government contracts? I think this is dealing with specifically, yeah.

Speaker 2 We needed one of those during COVID.

Speaker 1 We needed lots of them during COVID.

Speaker 1 We needed thousands and thousands of them.

Speaker 2 So they didn't hand out, you know, PPI to people who made bras, for example.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, you could easily stop a virus with a bra.

Speaker 2 I reckon. Yeah, yeah.
Especially Lacey.

Speaker 1 Yes, yeah. Yeah.
That filters out the.

Speaker 1 Look, anyway.

Speaker 3 I mean, they have no vaccines in America, so anything can stop a virus now.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's probably good news for the bra industry if you use BRAAs instead of vaccines. I don't know.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 why does the world need AI

Speaker 1 government ministers? Well, we have seen repeatedly, and particularly over the last week, exactly why humans should not be trusted with politics. We've had,

Speaker 1 well, Russian boss Vladimir Putin still

Speaker 1 really showing that pretty much any robot would be better for humanity than him.

Speaker 1 He sent drones into Polish and Romanian airspace. The Russian Defense Ministry said, We are ready to hold consultations on this subject with the Polish Defence Ministry.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure what kind of consultation you can have on sending your military aircraft into someone else's airspace.

Speaker 1 And also, Russia holding consultations tends to involve the same level of mutually respectful, peer-to-peer, equal-to-equal to and fro as the negotiations between a Labrador and a sausage over who gets the first nibble of whom.

Speaker 1 We also had Benjamin Benjamin Netanyahu, who

Speaker 1 launching what basically became the shortest and least baffling ever game of Cluedo.

Speaker 1 It was Israel in Qatar with the airstrike. And to be fair, they fronted up and laid their cards

Speaker 1 on the table. It was Netanyahu, who the Israeli Prime Minister, an enthusiastic Ten Commandments skeptic.

Speaker 1 And in

Speaker 1 America, the aftermath of the shooting of Charlie Kirk last week,

Speaker 1 which is one of those issues that, you know,

Speaker 1 on a comedy show, on a podcast, is obviously very difficult to talk about.

Speaker 1 Clearly, it's a personal tragedy for his family to go alongside the tens of thousands of other gun-induced personal tragedies that America chooses to inflict on itself every year.

Speaker 1 It's obviously a worrying moment for democracy that may further suppress and constrict political discourse and freedom and add further fears to an already intimidatory landscape.

Speaker 1 And I think history proves that assassinations basically never, ever help anything.

Speaker 1 But in terms of

Speaker 1 a little glimmer of light in the darkness,

Speaker 1 Donald Trump has had a sort of Paulian conversion in the aftermath of the death of his ally and cheerleader.

Speaker 1 He said it was long past time for all Americans and the media, quotes, to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequences.

Speaker 1 consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree. The kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.

Speaker 1 And bearing in mind all the demonization that he has done and all the rhetoric he has spouted,

Speaker 1 this is one of the most striking reversals.

Speaker 1 It's a screeching U-turn for Trump for pretty much everything he said publicly for his entire political career. So if some good comes out of it, maybe it will be that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and there's a lot of talk about the lunatic left.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 3 And I've always wondered if the lunatic left was a specific group of people or anyone that's left-leaning is a lunatic.

Speaker 3 I think, you know, I suppose, you know, if you've ever owned a copy of Das Capital, you're probably a left-leaning lunatic.

Speaker 1 Well, I think in America, the technical term lunatic left now basically means anyone who is not a full-on Trump fan. Yes.
And that's now

Speaker 1 it's clarified that.

Speaker 2 Right. Made it clear.

Speaker 2 I think, I mean, social media has been rough.

Speaker 2 One of the things that I saw

Speaker 2 on Twitter was kind of tweets saying thousands of Brits gather in London to celebrate the life of Charlie Kirk. And I saw that being repeated, which was actually...

Speaker 2 the protest march, which is sort of like the time America thought the UK was celebrating their election day because we were setting off fireworks on November the 5th.

Speaker 2 And you're there going, does anyone want to tell them,

Speaker 2 you know, about the weird thing we do? We celebrate a failed attempt to overthrow a government by setting off fireworks and asking for money before we burn an effigy, like normal people.

Speaker 2 And but it just, I do, I do have to say social media was, it was like the worst of everyone. I think it really brought it out.

Speaker 2 I felt like everyone on there was like Patrick Bateman, you know, lecturing people.

Speaker 2 And if you've ever seen American Psycho, spends a lot of time lecturing people on what's wrong or right, whilst deep down being an absolute psychotic lunatic himself. One of the things that they keep

Speaker 2 misquoting Charlie Kirk on, I'm seeing a lot, is him talking about, you know, like a certain amount of gun deaths are the price you pay, but people are kind of going, he said it was okay for kids to be shot in schools.

Speaker 2 He didn't say that.

Speaker 2 What he actually said was the argument he made was that cars kill many more people each year, but we don't ban them because it was decided that the cost was worth the price of the net game, like like the advancement of society.

Speaker 2 And obviously the argument to that is, yes, there is a net benefit to having cars, but you know what we do? We make people take a test before they get their hands on very, very powerful machinery.

Speaker 1 Yes. And also, if you look at the history of the car, there's been general progress towards making it a lot safer and a lot less lethal, whereas guns have sort of gone very much the opposite way.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and weirdly, like,

Speaker 2 the thing about drinking is wild because they've amended that. So initially, after prohibition, states set their legal drinking age to 21 because that was the voting age.

Speaker 2 Then in the 70s, they all sort of lowered it to 18 because that was the voting age. And then that meant there was like a significant increase in alcohol-related traffic fatalities among young people.

Speaker 2 So in 1984, they raised it to 21 again. So what you're saying is people died because of a law that they had.
So they changed it to reduce the deaths. Like,

Speaker 2 how

Speaker 2 how is this different?

Speaker 1 Yes, I mean, once again, it comes down to the failure of those who drafted the Second Amendment in the late 18th century to predict the rise of automatic machine guns, and they really should have factored that into their calculations.

Speaker 1 But, you know, it's a bit too late for that. Now, I mean, personally, I was...

Speaker 1 Until last week, I was largely unaware of Charlie Kirk, having made a conscious decision to impose a strict spiritual diet on myself that minimised my ingestion of American right-wing Trumpistian politics.

Speaker 1 Having read up about him, there's lots of things he said that I find completely abhorrent on a number of issues.

Speaker 1 What was interesting is the furious blaming, the sort of difference in reaction. I can't go through obviously all the instances of Trump

Speaker 1 demonising those who disagree with him because

Speaker 1 We're recording this on

Speaker 1 early afternoon on Monday the 15th, and we have another recording to do at at the same time next week and wouldn't have time to get through all those instances of Trump demonizing people before we have to record next week's show with Nish and Sarah Barron.

Speaker 1 So I'm

Speaker 1 and there's been much

Speaker 1 talked about it. The blame game, the furious blaming of the radical left by the radical right and vice versa.

Speaker 1 I think what it does essentially show, and I've called for this before, is and we talk a lot about scientific breakthroughs on this show, technological breakthroughs like we talked about with the AI government minister.

Speaker 1 What I think it needs clearly is for all scientists in all fields to come together and work on a means of turning hypocrisy into electricity. And

Speaker 1 all the world's power and environmental problems will be solved at a stroke. So, again, if some good can come out of this,

Speaker 1 I hope it's that.

Speaker 2 I just hypocrisy is an alternative fuel source.

Speaker 1 Yes, I mean, it is.

Speaker 3 It's clean energy.

Speaker 1 It's clean. It's beyond renewable.

Speaker 2 Okay, so we have that. And then we have my suggestion, which is

Speaker 2 for heat sources, perimenopausal women. In the winter, we just deploy them, you know, like the army.
You know, it would just be a poster of a woman sweating going, your country needs you.

Speaker 2 And then I think one perimenopausal woman could heat a small village in Wales for a week, you know, just running on rage and injustice.

Speaker 1 We are building a better world. That does need rage and injustice to keep being filed into the system.

Speaker 3 I mean that will lead to India's not buying Russian oil.

Speaker 1 I mean that heat will take care of it.

Speaker 1 So Anubab, let's turn to India

Speaker 1 now.

Speaker 1 And the slightly up and down relationship between Trump and Narendra Modi, who were buddies, albeit with the proviso that Trump's buddyship operates on a meeting-to-meeting, sort of hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute social media post-de-parking press conference basis.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 there was talk of increased trade, and then Trump slapped massive tariffs on

Speaker 1 India. What's the latest in this sort of will they, won't they relationship soap opera?

Speaker 3 And it if I'll go one step further, I think there was love. I think it was a little more than friendship.
I think they were romantically very interested in each other.

Speaker 3 Prime Minister Modi

Speaker 3 was one of the very early visitors to Trump on his second term, Uninvited showed up at the White House. They hugged.
Prime Minister Modi has a tendency to hold hands with world leaders.

Speaker 3 It's not seen in any way as

Speaker 1 a

Speaker 3 sort of homoerotic thing

Speaker 3 in his worldview.

Speaker 3 He hugs, he touches. He's a hugger and a toucher.

Speaker 3 He did that with Xi Jinping. He did that with Trump.

Speaker 3 Now.

Speaker 2 It's that guy in the office.

Speaker 2 He's a bit touchy.

Speaker 1 He's there.

Speaker 3 That's what he does.

Speaker 3 But that's his way of diplomacy. You know, some people...

Speaker 2 I didn't know you could turn up uninvited, sorry, just to go at the White House and just like chap the door. You're coming out.

Speaker 2 Donnie, you're coming out.

Speaker 1 None of us knew you could do it.

Speaker 3 One day he tweeted saying, I'm going to the U.S. and Trump said,

Speaker 3 Amodi's going to be visiting. This is when they were close.

Speaker 3 They were very close.

Speaker 3 Suddenly, either through his advisors or to Trump on his own, he decided India was the problem. And he started saying Indians buy loads of Russian oil.

Speaker 3 Indian oligarchs are benefiting from Russian oil. So the answer is unless India stops buying Russian oil, 50% tariffs on India.

Speaker 1 Unheard of.

Speaker 3 Shocking, because India sends a lot of pharmaceuticals and cheap drugs to the United States. So suddenly, I think Modi felt like he was being ditched.
It was a romance that was ending.

Speaker 3 And yesterday there was an announcement from Trump saying, I feel certain there'll be no difficulty in coming to a successful conclusion between our two great countries.

Speaker 3 So I feel like this is one of those great love affairs. You know, it's an X.
You want to move on, but you can't move on, but you cannot move on.

Speaker 3 So I feel like there is significant love at stake here, much more than world diplomacy.

Speaker 3 Two great men who can't admit, given the circumstances of their birth and the era they were born in, that they're actually in love with each other.

Speaker 1 All right, okay. Yeah, this is where I'm going with this.

Speaker 2 I think of it like real housewives of the UN.

Speaker 2 That's how I view all of this now.

Speaker 2 You know, I like they're on camera, very double air kissing, huggy, touchy, you know, and then when they do the one-on-ones, you know, they interview them behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 It's like, if India thinks she's getting a trade deal after she went to Russia behind my back for oil, she is correct, great.

Speaker 2 She better not show up at my party tonight. Also, ask India, did I patch things up with Pakistan? I think I did.
She should be grateful. And India's like, I don't need her.

Speaker 2 I'm friends with China and Russia. So if you've been on the Graham, you've seen our brunches.
America can tariff my ass.

Speaker 3 That's the last six months of Indian diplomacy right there.

Speaker 1 That's very well summed up, Tiff.

Speaker 3 And that is a very good point. I think when Trump took credit for stopping the India-Pakistan war, Pakistan immediately jumped to thank him and nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaker 3 Modi didn't. Modi turned around and said, America played a small role, but not the main role.
And I think Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize. Yes.

Speaker 3 And if his own lover is going to not support him, how do you get ahead of it?

Speaker 1 Well, he does need all the help he can get to get that Nobel Peace Prize because a number of things are sort of not working in his favor at the moment. I mentioned the Israeli attack

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 Hamas in Qatar.

Speaker 1 That probably hasn't helped, but also also,

Speaker 1 his suggestion that the people of Gaza should be ethnically cleansed and the whole place turned into a holiday resort.

Speaker 1 I think that just it isn't quite enough peace, not quite peace prizey enough, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, he could try for other Nobel prizes, science, maybe, physics.

Speaker 3 But peace, I think one of the key things for peace, I think, still, you have to work for peace.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 1 yeah, and that's a very old-fashioned way of looking at things.

Speaker 1 UK news now and well here in London over the weekend there was a large protest march entitled Unite the Kingdom.

Speaker 1 It was organised by

Speaker 1 a man now known as Tommy Robinson, although he's been through quite a few different names. An estimated 100 to 150,000 people attended, which is

Speaker 1 a big protest.

Speaker 1 The main problem with it, other than the fact that Tommy Robinson organised it, and more on him later on, but the speakers also involved the likes of Katie Hopkins,

Speaker 1 Lawrence Fox, and by video,

Speaker 1 Elon Musk.

Speaker 1 I mean, it was not the absolute sort of cream of British rhetorical talent

Speaker 1 or

Speaker 1 people who have a track record in, for example, Uniting Kingdoms.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to think of anything that has had

Speaker 1 a less appropriate title than Unite the Kingdom,

Speaker 1 a protest organised by some of the most divisive people in the kingdom. We talked about

Speaker 1 Donald Trump's Truth Social last week. That's a contender.
0 for 2 on accuracy in the words

Speaker 1 in that. It was a...
a big march.

Speaker 1 I don't think it can be ignored. It can't be written off as just

Speaker 1 just right-wing lunatics to try and put it in context 150,000 people the organizers claiming more

Speaker 1 as is always the case and whatever political hue the march is it's 50,000 more than were estimated to have attended London Trans Pride a few weeks ago

Speaker 1 it's well less than half of the number of people who went on the people's vote march in 2019 calling for a second Brexit referendum and were accused of being anti-democratic for demanding some more democracy.

Speaker 1 That followed another similarly sized march the previous year.

Speaker 1 300,000 marched in support of Palestine in 2023, over a million on the Stop the War march in 2003, around about half a million on the Countryside Alliance march in 2002 to try to preserve our God-given right to have foxes ripped to pieces by packs of dogs that has been inscribed into our British souls ever since Stonehenge went up.

Speaker 1 250,000 people on a Stop Trump march in 2018, Make Poverty History in 2005, 225,000, and London Pride.

Speaker 1 According to Evening Standard, the Pride celebrations in London attract around 1.5 million people.

Speaker 1 Now, I know Pride is a celebration rather than a protest, so it's not quite the same, but those numbers do suggest that 10 times more people want Britain to be gayer than support the history twisting version of so-called patriotism espoused by Tommy Robinson and the United Kingdom march.

Speaker 2 And in the middle of that Venn diagram is Gerry Halliwell in a union jack dress.

Speaker 3 I'm fascinated by this idea because, as you know, I love English history. I'm fascinated by this idea.

Speaker 1 Well, that instantly puts you at odds with most of these marches. You seem not to like English history because history is the wrong word.
I think fantasy.

Speaker 3 Yes, yes. Merlin.
I think.

Speaker 3 So, you know, because a lot of them are talking about, let's go back to an England of the past.

Speaker 3 That reminds me of the sitcom To the Manor Born, where they had that great line that said, England for the English, as we used to say about India.

Speaker 3 So, you know, how far past do you want to be? Because this country's always been so international.

Speaker 3 And the moment you get a group of people and you subjugate them, and you say, oh, the problem is people who look slightly foreign with thin beards, who are all men.

Speaker 3 Now, in a country this international, this integrated, this global, that could refer to a sex pest who's come from another country, or it could refer to the head of the MI5.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 in a globally integrated country like this, when you take a group of people and say this group is a problem, unless you go individual by individual, it's a really tricky problem.

Speaker 3 I think if hatred was more individual,

Speaker 3 you know, like I hate you, David, it makes things a lot more specific. Right.
You know, rather than...

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, I mean, I've long thought what we need is a single national nemesis. Yes.
So rather than it being a broad group of people,

Speaker 1 just one person to take everything for the team or like the two minutes of hate in 1984 yeah yeah yeah

Speaker 1 i mean you guys have a bear that unites the country yeah you have a peruvian bear that brings everybody together oh yeah could you find an animal that everybody hates you know like well if it's peruvian from overseas i think maybe that might be a starting point um

Speaker 2 I like that on the Lizzie line now, this is one of my favourite things about London.

Speaker 2 This is what you get to be patriotic about is that it tells you now on the billboard, on the dot matrix board, Paddington approaching. And nowhere else has bear warnings.
Nowhere else in the world.

Speaker 2 Paddington approaching two minutes and you know there's a bear coming.

Speaker 3 We need a bear warning.

Speaker 1 Everyone needs a bear warning. It's a fair point.

Speaker 1 Elon Musk appeared on a big screen.

Speaker 1 once again proving the famous old saying, with great power comes a total abdication of all responsibility.

Speaker 1 Elon Musk, of course, see immigrant stroke, emigrant, poster boy of globalization and the social destructivity and irresponsibility of untrammelled tech, career malinformatist and viral mutation of the capitalist dream.

Speaker 1 He appeared to speak to speak to Tommy Robinson's crowd.

Speaker 1 Apparently foreign interference in UK politics is okay if it's a gazillionaire escaped cartoon baddie who might be able to provide the funding and technology to one day fire the entire rest of humanity apart from Britain into space, which I think is where we're heading to.

Speaker 1 And Elon Musk said, violence is coming, you either fight back or you die.

Speaker 1 Which is not

Speaker 1 in terms of uniting people,

Speaker 1 but I mean, it's not

Speaker 1 the cuddliest of sound bites, I think it's fair to say, from Elon. Maybe, because, you know, obviously English is not his first language.
He speaks Muskian.

Speaker 1 So it might be something got lost in translation. in his head.

Speaker 1 And unity is about as high on the Tommy Robinson Elon Musk priority list as go for a 10-mile run is on Henry VIII's priority list, almost 500 years after he died.

Speaker 1 Also, he's the kind of plutocrat responsible in large part for mass global economic migration as bosses seek cheaper and cheaper labor. But let's not bring

Speaker 1 the weight of irony into this story.

Speaker 2 I love that Henry VIII had a to-do list on it. Presumably, eat less cheese was up there.
Be less

Speaker 1 be heady. Yes.

Speaker 3 Don't put your face in a giant roasted swan every night and get gout.

Speaker 1 He did get a bit less beheady because he

Speaker 1 had fifty percent of his first two wives, but only twenty-five percent of the last four. I mean, you can massage those stats

Speaker 1 whatever you want. But um it's that kind of yeah, that great figure of English history we need to be more proud about, a guy who killed two of his wives.
Go Team GB.

Speaker 1 Um there's a lot of talk about how people don't feel safe in the country any more from uh from those on this uh the you know the the right-wing side, that the the the Tommy Robinson side.

Speaker 1 And just quickly, Tommy Robinson, um amongst other things, and I don't yeah, I never met him personally, I don't know that much about him, but he is essentially a career criminal.

Speaker 1 He was convicted of assaulting a police officer and kicking that police officer in the head whilst the police officer lay on the ground back in 2005. He's had uh football hooliganism offences.

Speaker 1 He's been convicted of use uh use of a false passport, mortgage fraud, stalking, contempt of peace, uh contempt of court, uh breach of uh peace.

Speaker 1 He's been banned from numerous numerous social media sites. He was banned from Twitter in 2018.
Any guesses who let him back on?

Speaker 1 Facebook and Instagram banned him. YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok all banned or restricted.

Speaker 1 He's faced allegations of tax evasion. I'm just going to run his lifetime behaviour through a British values calculator.
And well, Tommy Robinson is, according to this, naught per cent British.

Speaker 1 And to me, he should go straight back to where he came from, which is the distant past, probably the 1930s.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you properly, both of you properly understand patriotism, though.

Speaker 2 So, I have found someone that might want to explain it to you if you want to know.

Speaker 2 So, this is Scottish Husband Explains a Hing Patriotism.

Speaker 2 Okay, over the last couple of months, the English flag or St George's Cross as it's known has been appearing all across England, painted on mini roundabouts, street signs, who's basically any white surface.

Speaker 2 I didn't ken if that's why it's mainly white for their faces painted down at the United Kingdom rally this weekend or if maybe there's another reason, answers on a postcard. Didn't he get me wrong?

Speaker 2 We love to paint our faces blue and have a wee patriotic piss up while our Fitbit team loses.

Speaker 2 But we done that because a good looking Aussie movie star made it look cool, not because a right-wing racist tell us to. Actually, in hindsight.

Speaker 2 Anyway, Tommy Robinson, know his real name, but pretty patriotic sounding the way. The classic British Tommy who fought in the war, and the nation's favourite fruit and barley beast drink.

Speaker 2 With the fks with the barley, by the way, Robinson's invented barley water in 1825, but here's the thing, right? We were already doing that in the 15th century. It's called fing whiskey.

Speaker 2 Get your own thing. But I digress.
Patriotism is important and it's allowed. You're allowed to be proud of where you're from.
You just have to be proud of the right bits.

Speaker 2 Meer at the NHS and defeating fascism and less celebration of imperialism and thinking you're somehow better because of the colour of your skin.

Speaker 2 Mere funding the welfare state and less protection of tax avoiders.

Speaker 2 And here's the thing right, if you hate the idea of asylum seekers getting a house paid for by the state but love the idea of the royals getting a sovereign grant to pay for their palaces then you've picked the wrong kind of patriotism.

Speaker 2 You've chosen the kind of patriotism where you think you have to protect the statue of an old racist and you end up drinking too much and pissing on it whilst wearing a flag as a cape, like a shite superhero with a weak bladder.

Speaker 2 The problem with flag-based patriotism is it's no inclusive. Flags are used as markers to say you don't belong here.
They're stamps of ownership, even if it's only the ownership of a mini roundabout.

Speaker 2 Maybe true patriotism would be flying flags that truly reflect our society, like a picture of a Freddo with a price of 15p, which would be in line with inflation.

Speaker 2 Red caps with make Freddo's 15p again on them or you know maybe bring back original brew.

Speaker 1 Well eloquently put as always by the Scottish boyfriend husband.

Speaker 1 Well that brings the end of this week's this week's Bugle. I'll be honest buglers I found it tough this week.

Speaker 1 There's more and more weeks where I find it harder to find the lights in the darkness but I do hope you've you've enjoyed the show. If you have enjoyed the show,

Speaker 1 do buy a ticket for the Bugle 18th birthday live stream live show

Speaker 1 at

Speaker 1 we're going to meet the Leicester Square Theatre on the 26th of October. I think the live tickets are sold out, but there are literally infinite tickets to join the live stream.

Speaker 1 Details at thebuglepodcast.com, and my tour is on sale this Friday, the 19th of September. You can get earlier access to tickets by signing up to my

Speaker 1 mailing list, which I'm reliably informed I have

Speaker 1 by the people promoting the tour. So it's the Zoltgeist 2026 a second thwack at andyzoltsman.co.uk.
Tiff, anything to plug?

Speaker 2 Yes, I'm doing Halifax Comedy Festival, so I will be at that on the 26th of October. If you're in Zimbabwe, I will be doing a show there on the 23rd of October.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 Yep, yep, heading over to Zim

Speaker 2 to do a show there. So I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 2 And I'm also doing barcelona comedy festival on the 6th of november so if you're interested in those shows i'll have links to them probably best to just look on my instagram and check my link tree and uh right and now andy's like why haven't i been asked to go to zimbrock

Speaker 1 quite a lot to go to barcelona um

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 1 what if uh if people go to all three of those shows halifax zimbabwe and barcelona they get a special like commemorative certificate i think i probably take a restraining order

Speaker 3 That person is a proper fan.

Speaker 3 Well, I just want to begin by saying I have attended the Zoltgeist show, the first TWAC in Leeds, and it was thoroughly enjoyable. And there was no nudity at all.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 3 Which I was going to say.

Speaker 1 It is going to surprise me. I will show you next time,

Speaker 3 it's a different world.

Speaker 3 I'm happy to announce my...

Speaker 2 Show in your crease.

Speaker 1 Family show.

Speaker 3 Happy to announce that my special, The Empire, Empire, which was on Amazon Prime, is now on YouTube on Soho Theatre's page. And yeah, so if you want to watch things for free

Speaker 3 and you don't like paying for things, that's where you can watch it.

Speaker 1 Well, buglers, we'll be back next week, as I mentioned, with Nish Kumar and Sarah Baron. Until then, let's hope the world cheers up a little bit and we'll be back to see if it has in a week's time.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening. Goodbye.