The Bugle - Bugle 4148 - Panda Time

Episode Date: April 10, 2020

Andy is joined by Alice Fraser and Al Murray to look at that news story, plus sexy pandas and freakish sentient sea monsters.Support The Bugle. We carry no ads and exist because you make it happen: http://thebuglepodcast.com/#donateWe have a sister show, The Last Post, which you can hear here. Follow us on YouTubeThe Bugle is hosted this week by:Andy ZaltzmanAlice FraserAl MurrayAnd produced by Chris Skinner. FUB. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dancelaguard fans, you will be thrilled to know a book is coming out if you fund it via Unbound. We are publishing the Dancelaguard Reader by Alice Fraser and Dancelaguard, a glorious insight into the world of Dancelaguard, self-published romance maven, and online bestseller. If you would like to find out how to support it, go to thebugelpodcast.com. If we get enough support, we will publish the book. That's a real thing that's going to happen. Thebugelpodcast.com to support the Danciler Guard Reader. A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A Audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Bughlers, and welcome to issue 4,148 of the Bughal. We are recording on Friday the 10th of April 2020 news evolving at an all-time record speed. Since I began talking approximately 30 seconds ago, economics has been temporarily

suspended for the first time in more than 25 years. No economics will take place until next Thursday, at the earliest, the Dow Jones will bunk off for all of next week. London's FTSE will not be allowed to switch itself on. It will be the NIC-A is being forcefully isolated. This follows money as a concept losing 36% of itself over the course of this week before pulling itself back together last night after a few drinks in a hot bath, but money still down 8% in credibility, a significant but just about manageable decline

and another quickly breaking news story, Estonia has hibernated and no end date. On that these are confusing times. I'm joined from various points around the universe, well firstly from a long way away in Australia, Alice Fraser. Hello Andy, hello Budalas, how are you? I'm, I'm, I'm adequate, I'm a less not going overboard, but, yeah, what about you? I am slowly losing touch with reality. There's something to be said for doing a daily satirical news podcast sit in alternate dimension while you have no access to the real world.

I've been losing touch with reality is I mean something that I've been just working on gradually over the past 45 years. Also joining us from considerably less far away, in fact just a few miles away, here in London it's Al Murray. Hello Al. Now I'm pretty much convinced this is only happening to me and this is like the most elaborate practical joke. And my whole street or in on it, my street doesn't do anything together but last night they were like clapping about they knew each other. So ridiculous. Just lean out the window and tell the joke before they start clapping.

Yeah, what a wonderful time to be furloughed with a toddler. If this child were a year younger, it'd be fine, more madrower, year older, we'd be able to reason with it, however. So how old precisely? Two and four months, so right in the sweet spot for, she's just learned how to say no, which is not what you want when you're not allowed out I mean we're furloughed it we you know we've been locked down you get the she doesn't understand yep you know and we we were out we're

out for a walk the other morning and she ran into a friend who's had it and he was keeping his distance and everything and she ran to give him a cuddle and he ran away from it like the most awkward moment of all. I've been capsulated in tyre situation. It was like Alan Borden in the 1989 asses all over again. We are recording on the 10th of April 2020 on this day in the year 837. Halley's comment made its closest ever approach to Earth at just 3.2 million miles away as measured by brother

Ethel Grouch in a monastery in Lindisfarne, who's apparently a dab and judging celestial distances. Halle's coming not due back until 2061, although there are rumours that this could now be delayed until 2062 because of the coronavirus crisis, which is already seen to come it fly by is cancelled and then another indefinitely postponed. As always a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week how to keep yourself occupied during lockdown. We've been giving you various tips, but with lockdown now in full swing across many parts of the world, what do you do other than listening to each week's episodes of The Bugle on the last post 10 times over and analysing the hidden messages within? Well,

luckily for you, The Bugle this week gives you a smorgasbord of ideas for things for you to do alone with your housemates, partners, with your family or with the increasingly awkward door to door salesperson who call it very much the wrong time just as lockdown was being imposed and is now stuck in your house for the foreseeable future. Along with the 18 sets of double glazed patio doors that he has persuaded you to buy. Alan, can we please talk about something else? Have I mentioned the advantages of a bifold door? You Alan, I want you to leave. So we have an entire week of activities planned out to keep you busy and active and stimulated

to fill the aching void in your daily schedule. Monday's activity is naval gazing. It's not often you get the time and opportunity to clear the introspective decks enough to indulge in a prolonged bout of self-indulgent reflection on exactly what you're doing with your life. So take this opportunity to spend a full afternoon really sinking into a super-reg doubt and worry, like a not especially comforting, tepid bath. And the great thing with naval gazing is that it's not something you can get done in a day and then put to one side. It can keep you occupied and entertained for weeks and weeks on end through the interminal human permafrost of lockdown. Tuesday, existential dread. This is a genuine

family activity. Gather out and think about all the implications for the world, all the things that have gone so disastrously wrong as the result of decisions we've made or not made in the past, and the things that are likely to go disastrously wrong as the decisions we're making now and we'll make in the future. Don't worry if your dread is interrupted by occasional eruptions of wild optimism about forging a new more collaborative, more humane world order. This is perfectly natural, an all part of the process have come into the conclusion that we are in fact totally doomed. Wednesday, midlife crisis. Consolidate all your activities from Monday's naval gazing in Tuesday's existential dread into a full-blown midlife crisis. It doesn't even matter if you are in the traditional midlife age zone, everyone's life is currently at the mid-stage between pre-virus and post-virus, so legally it counts as midlife crisis, however old you are.

Panic about your personal future, priorities, values, philosophy of life, finances, political views, status, prospects, ambitions, hopes for your relationships, and general spiritual id. And don't forget to take regular breaks for snacks, meals, hydration, and looking at the sky, wondering what the f*** it's all about. Thursday, bickering. Much as we love our families, there are only so many board games, sing alongs, film nights, biscuit baking, experimental, poetry,, biscuit baking, experimental poetry, a cycle, sayances and educational dissections of the mouse corpse you found at the back of the cupboard, you finally got

round to clearing out of a decade's worth of accumulated junk that any family can take. So, pep up the day with some trivial arguments, allow those simmering irritations that have been bubbling up to boil over into genuine rancor, a well structured day of squabbling, will encompass a mixture of ephemeral snap grudges, PV show of sensitivity to mild criticism, long held gripes and groundless resentment about nothing in particular. You might like to consider having a go at one of your cohabitors, family or otherwise for, for example, not

finishing their sentences, eating salad too noisily, working in the international arms trade or being a kind of person who might work in the international arms trade, while building a shrine to the 1960s pop legends hermits on the sofa without full written permission. Anything to get the squabble going, then riff it from there for as long as it takes until you get a solid week's peace and quiet from each other. And Friday, paganism locked out as a great time

to learn new skills. And in these times of cosmic uncertainty, why not get back to human basics with an introductory home course in the basics of pagan worship? Online lessons are available covering everything from basic incantations by effective and hygienic sacrificing to entry-level hinging. Begin with paper then move up to cardboard within a few days, wood in a

week or two, progressing all the way to stone inside six weeks. Also consider exorcisms. A great way to bond as a family unit and cleanse the spirits of your loved ones. Plus have some hilarious stories to share afterwards about the paracisms of spiritual access that the X or C went through as the demons left their bodies. And finally for the weekend, Saturday whimpering on the sofa, you've made it to the weekend, relax and spend the day in a fog of low-level misery on the couch. And Sunday, making vague plans that you have no realistic hope of actually putting into action. But the negativity of the past week behind you by thinking about stuff that you might do in the future before giving up on that and watching a TV co-op show.

That is your bugle guide to how to keep busy during the lockdown. Well, I'm picking a historical period by which to live each week, matching my diet, manners and acceptable thoughts to think to the period I've chosen this week has been the Regency period I spent yesterday in Epistolatory Correspondence and today planning a ball. Very strong. I mean, this is one of the few occasions where you can say things were better in the old days. It's actually viable to be actively nostalgic. And it doesn't even have to be the old days, it could be four weeks ago. Things were better for, you know, you know, we're actually, if you're into nostalgia, fill your boots, your moments here, this is your moment.

I'm just beating myself up over missed chances, all the times, even four weeks ago, that I could have just breathed on someone with impunity. I feel sad that I'm... LAUGHTER Well, that's one of the joys to look forward to and all this is behind us, that the freedom

to just go up and breathe on the stranger without repercussions. We take stuff for granted. Just want to be as light. And the BBC version of the line, the Witch and the Wardrobe. What a giant glove puppy. Did some great breathing as well. Is that not what we all are? Is that not what we all are?

I don't know what you've got up your back. Giant club puppets on the hand of fend. Top story this week, virus again, it's getting slightly irritating to have to keep coming back to this, but there is literally no other news in the universe currently. How short a period ago was that when we were sick of Brexit and Trump, and now it's, I would have given anything to not have to talk about Brexit or Trump anymore. And now... Your men Trump's managed to get himself pretty well. Well, Trump, yes, Trump was managed, I mean, God bless him, he's managed to find a way through, in this story, isn't he, to cut through regardless.

I mean, it's his unique ability, isn't it, to cut through regardless. It's his unique ability, isn't it? No matter what the calamity is, he's on hand to find his way to the very center of the story and make it about him. It's sort of heroic, really. I mean, there's not how the historians are going to write it up. But at the moment, it's sort of, it's sort of extraordinary, isn't it? You know? I like, because I was listening to the day program the other morning, and he did call it a

hoax, didn't he? He did call it, he did call it a hoax, and there was some US spokesman going, he didn't call it a hoax, he's like, come on, let him just say, yeah, he did call it a hoax, because it doesn't even, he's so capable of operating in a way that it doesn't matter if he called it hoax or not. He's extraordinary. He lives in this 24 hour cycle. Every day is a new day if you're Donald Trump.

It's fantastic. He's got Snapchat for a brain. Once I've said it just evaporates into the mystic type. It's gone. It's long gone, never to return. Yeah, it's fantastic. Well, it means, and Al oh, you have a small child, and that's one of the great privileges of being a child,

that you can flatly deny having said things clearly said. And, um, and, um, I've never seen this with, with Trump, there was further evidence as to the extent to which he is essentially a child. The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adanom, Gabriezes, urged governments not to politicize the pandemic. It's not too difficult to work out exactly which governments he was most issuing this plea to.

On Wednesday, he said, we will have many body bags in front of us if we don't behave. Now, that use of the word behave, it can only make it clear that he was, in essence, speaking to a child. Yeah. Yeah, unless he'd said to Mr Trump directly, look, Father Christmas is not gonna come, unless we have a go here

and come up with an international effort. He he he. Well, you know, I mean, the thing is, you're absolutely right though, Alice. You say, to talk about anything other than Donald Trump, but like, it is that the worst that could happen until the coronavirus was Donald Trump, and now the worst that could happen is Donald Trump and the coronavirus. Yes, it's cumulative.

There's no indulgences like the Catholic Church, you know, wipe out one wrong with a right. And he's literally catalytic, isn't he? He increased his the reaction without changing himself. Bit of science. Bit of science for you there. Lovely. There's, I mean, Strain and Britain has had no prime minister this week, because we'll touch on later. And America has had no president for a long time.

So effectively, Donald Trump has abdicated, but remains in office. He resigned to all intents and purposes, but still has to pretend to do his job. He's had considerable criticism as you'd expect from the, uh, the, uh, non-Trumpian media. Um, the columnist, Q Julius Schlossenitz, in the esteem of the journal, the Natura. American democracy is spluttering for breath, begging for the oxygen of decency, leadership, and good sense. The political protective equipment of its constitution, bunged into an incinerator and replaced with a tattered, pissed-dained flag. Not my words, the words of someone I just made up. This week blasted

through his 17,000th presidential pardon for himself for voluntary manslaughter arising from this crisis. Now he wouldn't have been necessarily guilty of all of them, but I guess better safe than sorry when it comes to these things. He offered Boris Johnson, this stricken British British leader some of his free medicine His economy exactly what he said to Boris for a drug I said for really great drug companies everyone says they're the most amazing drug companies in the world I've sent them to the Daksk. I really good doctors around. I was sent them. That's what he said Um, it didn't name them. I'm in his so brilliantly bonkers

It didn't name them. I mean it's so brilliantly bonkers. Four of them. Oh okay, not three, not five. Four unnamed drug companies. It sounded to me something like this. And it's quite strange to see the President of America peddling scam cures essentially. This is unprecedented since Calvin Coolidge tried to convince America that bunions could be cured by marinating your foot in a strawberry milkshake or Eulacee's escron promoted snakes as a cure for worms. Britain news now and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been in and thankfully now out of intensive

care having tested positive for the coronavirus some time ago now. This was, well, Alex, been a very curious week, isn't it? It's a fantastic Boris show. Boris has shown Novirus who was boss and the country who his deputy was. And the deputy is Dominic Robbers. We all know is an actor possessed by the master in Doctor Who. He just looks like every little CEO picture at the front of an annual portfolio, Dominic Robbers. He's going to unzip his skin like this.

He's going to press conference, he's going to reach in and unzip his skin from his belly button and emerge and be at least a master. There's no other explanation for it. I mean, well, basically a bunch of grifting idiot Tories have been I've promoted, have ended up in charge of the clown car. I mean, that's the other explanation. I was told to know which is the right one. I was told to jump conclusions in these turbulent times.

Well, Daniel Street's bigger on the inside than it looks. So it could be, maybe he's the master. He looks like the captain of a high school karate team who just peaked in high school. And you know, he wouldn't have been the one going sweep the leg, Johnny, but he would have been the one standing behind the guy saying sweep the leg, Johnny. He's that guy. I'm glad that Boris Johnson is better because now we can make fun of him again, which is nice. I don't want him to feel incredibly ill, but only in the moral sense

at the Nietzsche moment of having to look at himself in the mirror every morning and see only the void searing back. He does seem to be on the mend and hopefully we'll soon be able to return to his lifelong dream of being a wartime leader thus far. He's been more than level chambering than Winston Churchill, but still still but baby steps. It was kind of weird the reaction to his illness and his colleagues and Deputy saying we assure he'll get through this because he's a fighter which is about as relevant to dealing with this horrific disease saying we're sure he'll get through this because he's got blonde hair or because he's a rugby fan or because he owns a pogo stick

or because he's a bit of a tosser and a congenital liar. None of which is really relevant to whether or not he was able to fight off. Maybe a coronavirus you can fob off. Maybe your immune system goes. I'm not really here. I don't know, we don't know, do we?

Maybe he has a maybe, there are some of the qualities you've just listed are actually, you know, we're all Maybe he has a maybe, there are some of the qualities you've just listed are actually, you know, we're all going to have to be injected with dishonesty. As the vaccine, we don't know yet. I mean, I think you're rushing well ahead of the science here, Andy. Let's pick up line someone used on me once. Can you inject you with some dishonesty? What I really love about British politics people go, we have an unwritten constitution,

that's what's so brilliant about it. And then the Prime Minister is potentially mortally ill with the illness that's wiping the country out. And oh, no, we don't let you have it. We don't have a procedure in place to win up. You know, when he's made ill, when he's ill and he can't do his job. No, not really, no, we haven't got one and then everyone shits the bed, understandably, but it's unwritten, so it's better.

I mean, that's all things. You know, maybe it's time to maybe we don't have to write it down, at least have talked about it, maybe. Well, we've seen the true horror of the Cabinet of None of the Talents. There's been built up by Prime Minister Johnson, by the site of Dominic Robb, and also the lack of site of Home Secretary Pretty Patel. Now, you'd have thought that Home Secretary will be fairly prominent during this current crisis, but I think she's been kept behind the government's emergency force field, which

we've spent billions on preparing for an alien invasion. I mean, what the fuck is that actually about? I mean, to cut to the sort of, what on earth is going on? Is it because she said so many embarrassing things about the people who are now having to haul this whole country out of this casino, all these key workers who are from a, who do turn out to be an awful lot of them from abroad and so on and she's been making all this threatening noises is just him. Is she in back? I mean have we discovered that pretty pretty pretty tell actually does have a sense of embarrassment that we've hit her shame membrane that the virus maybe that she's been injected with that with some kind of special shame activating a serum. I'm going to be fair to Rob and and and pretty butel. I mean it's easy to be negative and cynical

at times like this but they are in the top 40 to 50 million British people best qualified for high level political office. In fact I've just got the official rankings here and there are in fact 38.73 million people precisely in Britain better qualified than Rob to be foreign secretary and he's only actually a million or so places ahead of me. So he's not quite as bad as many people have been saying. Boris, I mean, it's a very strange situation because we've seen the Scottish chief medical officer having to resign for not following her own advice and have Robert Jenric and other Cabinet Minister being heavily criticized for not going completely by the letter of government advice. But the Prime Minister a few weeks ago was observing social distancing guidelines with even less rigor than I observed kosher guidelines.

And I assume they're guidelines. They might be stricter than that. I forget. His father Stanley Johnson said amongst the extraordinary things that have been said about this whole issue. To use that American expression, he almost took one for the team. What? We've got to make sure we play the game properly now.

Now, I don't mean what way Boris Johnson was taking one for the team, or almost taking one for the... I don't know if we had to assume that if the virus had succeeded, and shall we say permanently in capaciting the Prime Minister, it would have just packed up and moved on to another country, and he would have saved the nation by his sacrifice. I don't know if he's been heroically diving in front of vulnerable oldies in nursing homes, snatching the virus in their very mouths, gobbling it down and saying,

this one's on me, Deedry. And those words we've got to make sure we play the game properly now. Yes, but we also had to make sure we were playing the game properly. Fucking weeks ago, as evidenced by the story, still coming out about a surgical gowns running. You could have got school kids to f***ing sew surgical gowns that have left over bits of cloth from school kids. What? Sorry. Sorry.

Rare that very rare and you actually show true anger. After I find the anger on this program, I'm confected. And can try. After I find the anger on this program, I'm confected. And can try. But for once, true emotion displayed. The bugle listener doesn't realize that we're doing it, probably doesn't know that we're doing this by Zoom. So I can actually see Andy as he descends into this froth of fury, this boiling pit of rage, uncharacteristically so.

It's surprising. It's just an awful lot for off-roath and I was expecting frankly. Al, you're a published historian and you've written about history. I've written about history. I haven't written any actual history. It's really difficult. I've written about the second world war. There's been an unstoppable deluge of war references, war language, war analogies. Boris Johnson, on the 23rd of March, has in this fight we can be in no doubt

that each and every one of us is directly enlisted. There's kind of a queen referencing Vera Lynn. Yeah. I think there was a draft of a speech, Boris Johnson was due to give this week before he was sadly hospitalised and which he pretty much lifted straight from Churchill. We shall fight on the sovers, we shall fight on the landing, we shall fight in the kitchen and in the bedroom, we shall not fight in the hills, please stay at home, do not go to the hills,

you have to stay at home. We have temporarily surrendered in the hope that we can de-surrender when the time is right. Go team GV. The leaders are closed. Is it helpful to have all this sort of... It's all we've got. You can't compare this to Henry VIII and his six wives. Is the only other thing people know about history wise. I mean, is this virus Catherine of Oregon, or is it amberling? You know, we've got nothing else in our national historical locker.

I mean, interestingly enough, or the only other thing anyone's got is the Nazis from GCSE history when they have to do the Nazis, GCSE Nazis. And that doesn't quite fit here. At least not yet. You know, not until plot is actually going through your shopping trolley to find out whether you've got the essential items you require. That hasn't happened yet, but it's all we've got.

I mean, you did it yourself. You described it as Chamberlain rather than Churchill. I mean, I think he's much more in the Asquith role, and the First World War is a far more apt metaphor. LAUGHTER On, on, on, on, on. But no, I don't know. was a far more apt metaphor. That's the... On one, one, one, one, one. But no, I don't know.

You know, I mean, it is, of course, the eye, the sweet irony is roll on. The bunders there, the German army is sending us ventilators. And a friend of our German friend of mine, he was, he put a Facebook going off the f**k side, because he's sick of all the war talk here and always has been, even though he is a second world war historian, he looks through this mad prism and have you any idea what it's like to be German with this going on?

And then I say to him, you started it, and then we're, and because the thing he always forgets is that, because there's a large slice of nationalism in the way people talk about the war like this, that essentially it adapts and survives. So if he, so the Bundeswehr is sending us ventilators, ventilators, of course they ought to, they owe us. That's how the second world, British second world, mindset adopts for that. Yeah, they owe us to favor, because we saved them from

themselves. So they owe us those ventilators. I don't care if we spent the last three years telling them to f*** off and basically trying to start what would have been a war. You know, I mean, the way we've tried to walk out on all of our international arrangements for the last three years would have started a war in the 1740s. So no, or even the 1880s.

You know, we've done stuff, but they won't bite. Well, the bastards won't bite. Well, the bastards won't bite. Anyway, the point is, but the point is, it is all we've got historically. It's that or the six wives of Henry VIII. Can you see Stalin behind me? I've got a Stalin bass drum head there.

Oh, anyway, I've got a little bit of a sling. I've got a little bit of the Daleks in the house. Yeah, the Stalin climpsing through the ether there. There he is. I've got blessing. At one, I'm not god bless him. No, I'm exactly that. That's the second one.

But it is also all we've got. It's the only game in town, you know. And it is interesting though, because I've friends with paramedics, and they are talking about being the front line and going into fight. And I'm not going to tell them they shouldn't I'm not gonna go I don't know you should talk about that because they're there on there on the receiving end of this thing So I have a friend who's an NHS worker and he's classed as an essential worker and

He's very embarrassed because everyone who knows that he works for the NHS is calling him a hero But what he does is filing well, we shall file them on the beaches and so on I I mean someone's going to do the filing. Those are the things this is yeah yeah yeah. All right I'll clap a little less next Thursday then because of the people doing the filing. Yeah no you're doing filing sorry. Well the these are national rounds of applause on first evening. So been quite remarkable really. It's quite moving noise. It was outside my house. Anything sort of here from all the streets around.

People clapping and banging, saucepins and all that. So phenomenon that is uniquely British apart from all the other places that we're doing it before us. But it's uniquely British nonetheless, like so many other uniquely British things. And it's good to see a center we are gradually awakening to who and what is really valuable in society.

And this, in turn, could save the economy quite a lot of money, because it could lead to a massive pay cut for NHS staff and carers and the like, because these jobs must be so spiritually rewarding and paid for with the honey of public applause, to give people decent money for it, cheapens and trivines. Andy, have you ever heard that much of applause on a Thursday evening round 8 o'clock? Well, around 8 o'clock, I have, so usually when I buy the time I finish at 10 o'clock.

Especially, it was you and your book to doing 15 minutes. Anyway, to balance things out with these very positive rounds of applause on Thursday. On Monday evenings at 8 p.m. from next week, there will be a national boo as well for all the people who have done absolutely nothing to help in the current situation, the politicians who fail to heed warnings and take precautions, the disaster capitalists and hedge fund shyester punters who are profiteering from the misfortunes of the world and also the lower level workers who deserve our a program as well if they live on a payday loan shark so do go out at 8pm next Monday and really let it rip. Bogus theories news now and apparently the virus is not caused by the virus itself,

but by 5G communication masks. This is according to no less a source than multiple celebrities online leading to physical attacks on telephone poles, which does suggest that we've got a little way to go in evolution as a species. Other people are blaming it on landlines or yogurt bots with strings attached to them. Suspicion of communication is deep said in the human collective psyche really, pretty much ever since the bubonic plague was spread by carrier pigeons. And I guess it's one of the lessons of the social media age that there is absolutely nothing that could happen on this planet or else on a universe that will not be met with an absolute

Niagara of online bullshit. Apparently Woody Harrelson has been putting out the news that the 5G towers are responsible in some way for the coronavirus. Why would you follow or believe in the real news when you can follow and believe Woody Harrelson, a man who's famous for playing Drunks and Maniacs? It's astonishing to me how personally celebrities are taking the coronavirus from the stars who were realising a completely at sea without a team of people telling them what not to do, like Madonna and a milk bath talking about equality or basically anyone in Hollywood

that isn't Tom Hanks. But they're having a disproportionate impact apparently. A study was done saying that while they are putting out about 20% of the information on coronavirus, they're having much more of an impact on the hearts and minds of people who are taking what they say very seriously. You're absolutely right. 5G weren't happening now. It would be whatever was happening, wouldn't it? It would be that it would be gramophone records, wouldn't it?

Well, what caused the Spanish flu? The gramophone probably. The Spanish? Hey, hey now, steady on. Steady on. There's no... Yeah. It's funny, yeah. It's, um, because someone burned a 4g mask down last night, Birmingham apparently. Oh the wrong mask. Right. The wrong, I mean that's what whole g out. It's your own goal. My Trump again has been in the forefront of of of Crackpot theories, he's saying that the virus because by factor 30 sunblock, but cured by factor 50 sunblock, also cured by a pace made up of crushed up to Mazapam Ioli, stick the oedrons and cobwebs, syringe into a bullet casing and fight into your own foot for a

cold 45. He's also claimed that the virus could be cured simply by grabbing someone by their genitals, retreading his much misinterpreted advice so widely publicised in the build up to the 2016 presidential election on how to make women immune to scurvy. I always let one by the man see stands for. Nature news now and, well, nature continues to exist despite the virus and in fact it's made a bit of a comeback in some ways there have been goats roaming the streets in Britain the first sighting of an orok in Britain since the Bronze Age for three thousand years those horny-headed fluffy bastards have been lying low. And what also pandas have

apparently been mating for the first time in years, Alice, you are an animal sexual congress correspondent, bring us up to take with the latest news. Yes, everybody's favorite celibate panda couple, yinging and lily at the ocean park zoo have started banging again and all it took was the zoo shutting down. It's a they they've been They've spent about 10 years not having sex in front of people and now the zoo shut down. They are added apparently potentially leading to a coronavirus baby or the first of the coronials as the new baby boom will be called.

And what it means to me, I think, is that either the pandas are enjoying the privacy, they don't like being purfed on while they're banging, which makes them unique among politicians or they're really turned on by the idea of humanity in crisis. Well, it's their moments, isn't it? Quick, make some babies, the planet wouldn't be ours soon, isn't it? I don't know that's the planet's accent. I've watched it like a planet. It seems like an awfully nice sort of phage entlement planet.

Anyway, the thing is that this is a very interesting idea that they're at it now that they're not being watched anymore. Does that mean if you don't watch Pornhub, they do, they have even more sex? You know, the watched Panda never f**ks, isn't it? It's not. Also, a f**king panda is right twice a day. LAUGHTER Yeah, very philosophical.

Well, it's a tie to me for the Sophocles, isn't it Andy? I mean, you can call it else to do. Unless you're a panda, which case there is something to do. Oh, yeah, which case is? Cool, yeah. But I've seen the photographs. I mean, because they have published images, haven't they? And it's one panda behind the other, I believe it's the classical sort of doggie style.

I don't know, I don't know, it's what it was. Panda style. Well, it's panda style now, isn't it? They're going to redefine the entire thing, aren't they? I feel like pandas would have a poetic name for it. They seem the type. What, the praying lotus or something, or the? I mean, we don't know, it could be like the 5G,

it could just be coincidence. They could have just been engaging in extremely extended foreplay for the past 10 years. Yeah, that's right, it could be. What's our understanding with you're in a zoo, you know, in a locked in a cage with another animal for 10 years, you don't want to make things awkward. Do you, you don't I'm spoiled with friendship?

You're gonna take this off. The pandas, the male pandas, we say trust me. Sex were just ruined, everything. We're really good friends. I just imagine that they've been trying both. They've had unrequited crushes on each other, but it's sort of like a huge grant situation in a romcom where they just keep awkwardly

having making mistakes and then feeling too embarrassed. You say the panda is British? Yes, as a species. That's definitely the case. In other natural world news, scientists have found a sea creature made up of, quote, millions of clones that takes the form of a a bit of silly string 120 meters long. It's formed of a predatory colony of clone organisms that hunt down and slay their enemies to which the opposite response is, what the f***! This is the last f***ing thing we need right now, an army of fishy clones preparing to take over the f***ing world. It is possible of course that the ocean clone beings are working in tandem with the virus

and some kind of tag team apocalypse, but these are deeply distressing times. 120 meter long, but of clone silly strength in the city. It looks like a sort of runny cow pat, doesn't it? Have you, I mean, I think it's so beautiful. It's sort of bioluminescent, it's like this giant, it's essentially a bog hive mind. It's bigger than any of the other creatures of its type that have yet been discovered, it's very coordinated and it's also an awe-inspiringly beautiful piece of the natural world, a lot like

Lizzo, just, that was very joke, I reckon you guys are too old to get how good that joke is. Andy, who's Lizzo? I've absolutely thought it was a cleaning product. Someone from Greece. She's very beautiful and very coordinated and also quite big. She's pop star. She plays the flute, get into it, man. OK, I'm still catch.

I haven't finished the 50s yet. LAUGHTER MUSIC haven't finished the 50s yet. LAUGHTER MUSIC Sport now, and there was some sport last weekend, the virtual Grand National. I don't know if you... Did you see this out the computerised version of the Grand National? Yeah, it lost last weekend. It was graphically realistic. There were some glitches in the technology however the pre-Sudo race, pseudo-favorite Tiger role who won the Real Grand National last two years

was kidnapped by some terrorists who'd accidentally transferred across to the virtual Grand National from the counterterrorism simulator game snake breaker Dominion of rage. This left things clear for the 28-to-1 shot Spartak has tutsi to take an early lead before he fell at Beecher's Brook, Fence 6, and in obvious distress was then graphically put down by a military attack helicopter as the game took some liberties with Grand National Reality. Glitch in the programming then resulted in a robot horse ridden by Yul Brinnett joining the race and shooting the then leader, the hotly-tipped Whitmei like it and it's a celebrity virtual jockey, Winston Churchill. People's choice entry champion the Wonder Horse, the 1950s TV star horse who was voted to take part from

a short list of popular celebrity horses, ran credibly to finish ninth, avoiding the carnage when Lewis Hamilton's car mowed down six of the virtual horses. The company sham sports who were running the the virtual grand national were also running a virtual F1 race on the same afternoon and there was apparently a bit of a glitchy crossover. It then looked like 12 to 1 second favourite Dostoyevsky Dadal was going to rom home after clearing the last but a very realistic looking Emily Davison ran out from the crowd at the elbow to rugby tackle him. Bit of an acronistic and an acrobat, a nice touch, leaving 50 to one outside a terrapin

hoodwinkled to win after the three horses in front of him started buffering due to dodgy internet connection. Next week there will be a virtual boat race, it's going to be HMS Victory versus the Marry Sylvester. HMS Victory versus the Marry Celeste. And in the absence of sport, your mind is a truly marvelous place. Pugal Home Education section now, and I did promise you a history exam last week and we've overrun once again. So I'll just do a couple of questions from it and then we'll have part two of the history exam. Next week Al, I know you're a keen history supporter. That's my team. That's what I turn out for every Saturday afternoon.

The past, yeah. So well, I'll let you guess and answer some of these questions and for any bugles, bugle listeners, home schooling, you can set this for your children as well. Question one is an odd one out question. Pick the odd one out from the following seven historical figures. Ivan the Terrible, Genghis Khan, Emperor Nero, Vlab the Impaler, Tamalain the Great, Shirley Temple and Joseph Stalin.

He is. LAUGHTER Tamalaine the Great, Shirley Temple and Joseph Stalin. I'm going Tamalaine the Great. Alice, any guesses on that one? I don't know, imprennero. In fact, Shirley Temple, she's the only one who would not have been allowed to be a member of the Marlibone Cricket Club before 1999. A question, two is more of a kind of essay type question. Explain how different history would have been if humans had evolved with snouts on their faces. Refer to at least three of the following historical phenomena, the

Ming Dynasty, the Renaissance and the Eurovision Song Contest. And with a snout, there'd be no need for Ming Vars. We've been looking at trade in ming bowls so you could get your snap into the bowl rather than a vase. If you've got a snap, you can smell flowers at a distance. You don't need to bring them into the house but the ming vase. So that I think is one of the main differences in human history that would... What were the other eras? The Renaissance.

Oh, well, we just wouldn't have had one. I think we're having a DNA-sense. Oh, yeah, very, very definitely. Totally did DNA-sense. Yeah, yeah, no, we just wouldn't have had one. So things... Right. And they would have meant no reformation.

But it would basically still be like the 13th century. Right. Well, something to cling to. Yeah. And question three, the last question this week, whether the rest next week, in no fewer than one word, outline the four most important factors in the avoidance of a bilateral war between Canada

and Indonesia in the years 1250 to 1600. You can answer that one in your own choice. Anyway, that brings us to the end of since it's holiday time. We don't really need to do homeschooling right now. But, you know, other rest of the history exam next week. Thank you very much for joining me. Alan's got any other virus lockdown projects on the go that people can tune into? Well, I'm doing, if people are interested by Second World War podcast, we have ways of making you talk.

Me and James Holland, who's actually a historian, me go, what? No, come off it and him telling you exactly how many merchants seem and died of the second world. It's amazing what he knows. And we, we're doing that at the moment and we've been doing a load of extra content. I've been doing sort of, we've been finding books that are out of print and I've been doing them as audio books and putting them up on on our, we've got a little Patreon site now, so. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah, it's actually been, it's been, actually been, well, it started off as, I thought, this is a good idea. And then once you've read a whole book out of that thing,

oh, God, and God, I'm gonna have to do another one. But it's been really cool. I've got, I'm reading a book by a guy who was a fighter pilot on Malta, but he was also an artist. So he's descriptions of it all are incredibly vivid because he's always thinking in terms of the colour and the spectacle. So I'm doing that, that's what I'm doing. And where can people find all that?

Well, there's a Twitter account called ATWIHavWazePod, because it's called We Have Ways of Making You Talk, and it's on Acastum, and there's a Patreon with the same name but you know if people are interested and it's it's it's fun and we've we're collecting people's family histories as well from the war which has been really amazing really really incredible stuff people are telling us. Alice of course the last post could just throw its hundredth episode. Yeah since the first of January it's been a hundred episodes of absolute f***ing nonsense. And... Wow, you are motoring, aren't you? That's amazing. My brain is slowly disintegrating under the pressure.

Also, my special savage will be coming out on Amazon Prime on the 17th of April. I'll be having a live watching party for that with Neil Gaiman. So, look at my social media for that. That's a liturative ALI-T-E-R-A-TITER-ATIVE on Instagram and Twitter. Thank you very much for listening, Bugglers. We will play you out as always with some lies about our premium voluntary subscribers to join them. Go to theBugglePodcast.clone and click the donate button. Kim Stromstad once signed into an online forum to discuss the best domestic uses for sporting equipment, with the apparently inocuous username Gluckenspiel Eucalyptus, only to be met with a barrage of invective from another

user who went by the pseudonym Unbelovid Chocolate. Kim explains, Unbelovid Chocolate had suffered a childhood trauma when he was hit on the head by a Gluckenspiel falling out of a Eucalyptus tree. He was perhaps understandably a bit cross. Alina I was involved in that online discussion and won a forum record number of likes for her suggestion that two heat-coated babbinton rackets could be used to grill toasted sandwiches. A baseball glove would make a serviceable coconut ripener and a rugby ball with half-squashballs glued to it would work very well as a communal dummy for a litter of young puppies or kittens.

Reese Finney is the proud non-owner of any cutlery or crockery. I don't believe humans should have any further advantages in the food chain, says Reese. We've already got opposable thumbs and industrialized farming, so if I can't eat stuff using only my bare hands as emblements, I'm not interested. Hashtag, Food Fairness for all species. Isabella Corthole dreams of setting up an orchestra for people who cannot play musical instruments. For too long, argues Isabella, top level classical music has been the preserve of people who

have put in years of effort to learn an instrument. This is patently unfair to people who did not have that opportunity or couldn't be bothered. Catherine Firon volunteers to be the first member of Isabella's Instrumentless Orchestra. Many people have a talent for doing impressions of instruments, says Catherine. I, for example, played the invisible trumpet very well indeed. I can do a passable air, but soon too. And my friend's uncle sounds like a tuba when he's drunk. This plan is on. Vivek and Ann Strider believes all political leaders

should walk on stilts and wear massive cloaks like mythical giant rulers from another dimension. I think we would respect them more argues Vivek and Ann. And they might talk less rubbish if they were having to concentrate on not falling off their stilts, or if they were outside on a windy day not being blown over by a strong gust of wind to the cloak. And finally, Brian and Mysner once convinced a waiter in a restaurant that he was exempt from paying for his food until the following day, because he was a believer in metabolism,

a legally protected spiritual sect that held it a meal was not complete until the full process of digestion had taken place. To be fair to Brian, he did return to the restaurant the following day and pay. Here endeth this week's lies. you