The Bugle - Bugle 4149 - William The Bonquerer

Episode Date: April 18, 2020

Andy is joined by Nato Green and Tiff Stevenson to find out WHO, what and where is going on. Plus, French ejector seat news.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 YouTube and see parts of this episode with actual video.The Bugle is hosted this week by:Andy ZaltzmanNato GreenTiff StevensonAnd produced by Chris Skinner. FUB. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Audio newspaper for a visual world! Lockdown. Day 2973. Britain is now one long queue with 70 million people shuffling around two meters apart with no one can remember what they're queuing for anymore. Europe has swapped with South America and the Italian rebel stronghold in the northern Andes is threatening the Danish capital of Lima, whilst Bulgaria is swanning around on

Copacabana Beach in its skimpy underpants. Bolivia is reveling in its new array of coastlines and islands whilst Greece is convincing itself that being Langlocked is OK once you get used to it. In America, Emperor Trump and his feared stormtroopers have brutally repressed dissenting voices, leaving a population of only 8,000 deliriously ecstatic lunatics and Fox News. Canada, now home to over half a billion people, has accelerated its global warming scheme to make Baffin Island perfectly habitable. New Zealand has invaded Norway and vice versa just to give themselves something to do, and in South London, and his ultimate is still self-isolating

in a wheelie bin podcasting to himself 24.7. 365 living off the sweet nutrition of his own lies. Oh, sorry, sorry, I'll keep having these awful flash forwards. I think it's pre-traumatic stress. Hello, where are we? Yes, it's the bugle issue 4,149, I'm Andy Zoltzmann and it is the 17th of April 2020, as has so seldom been the case in history. And I'm

coming to you live from the shed, joining me, not from sheds in London, Tiffany Stevenson and from San Francisco, NATO green. Hello, both of you. Hello. Hey, everybody. NATO house, house things on the, the, the West Coast. Great. It's fantastic. I mean, look, I don't know. That's what I'm telling myself. I haven't left my house in six weeks. I've been more than half a block away. So who knows what's happening outside of my neighbor. At this point, I am shaving my own head with a beard trimmer. And outside of my neighborhood, it could be a full on Mad Max Hellscape

or like a non-stop worldwide tea party resurrected David Bowie concert. And I would know. Like, so I choose to believe the latter. But I'm seething with rage. I'm ready for revolution. I'm spending a lot of time in meetings on Zoom. And when this is over, and I'm allowed to go outside,

I'm going to come swarming out of the mountains like a guerrilla soldier. My loved ones have been calling me Commandante Zoom Gabbak Gavara. Tiff, how have you been here in London? I mean you must be anywhere in the world, given that you are not in my house, I assume. Well, I'm in North London, very, very different to South London, as you know, Andy. We're not running out of yeast here because I may have mentioned this before and it is a family podcast,

but due to my being a top-heavy person during a hot summer, I get what is known as athletes foot tit. So effectively, I have my own starter with me at all times. I can knock out a fantastic sourdough at a moment's notice. So, self-sustaining is what I'm saying. Okay, and maybe we could make this, you know, a new trunch in the bugle merchandise. We can talk about this off-hand workout finances. Tip bread for the masses.

We are recording on the 17th of April, and today is apparently International High-Q Day to appreciate the Japanese form of micro-poultry. And we have a few bugle, high cues for you today. People in a line for hallucinogenic leaves. It is a high cue. James Bond. James Bond in blaming his implement shouts, take a high cue. I think that's stuff pretty much exhausted that. That that that that's a tranche of. So we call it comedy, let's not. Also today is Bat Appreciation Day, a day to appreciate bats, the notoriously

indecisive creature. Well, not in my house. We're in my house. We do not recognise that bats were sent to this by God to save us. Sorry, I'm mixing up with Easter. Bat Appreciation Day and Easter, I was forget. But still, the bat deserves no appreciation from our species. The unloved evolutionary bastard of the turd and the umbrella. Okay, locate this, your bogus dangling rodents, be a mammal, be a bird, but don't be f***ing both. As always, someone have to say, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin. This week we ask, what would the cultural and historical great figures of history have done in lockdown? And we've done some extensive research for you here at the Bugle, and we've discovered

that Rembrandt, the celebrity portrait painter, would have just painted loads of pictures of himself, interspersed with the odd hidden easel picture of his wife getting into a bath, Ernest Rutherford, science, was he'd have just moved around his house splitting things then sitting morocally on his sofa saying oh it's not the same when it's so big Michael Angelo would have finally got around to decorating his own house whilst Genghis Khan would have got very very claustrophobic indeed and said I just don't feel like me anymore before spending 72 hours straight on Tinder swiping right. Einstein would have

watched all the Star Wars movies and said the word bullshit at least 30 times per hour. And Giuseppe Verdi would have written a hardcore pornographic opera just to see if it could be done. Shakespeare, while he would have finally tried to master the limerick and then hacked out some scripts for low grade Hollywood comedy films based on cross-dressing and long-lost surprise siblings. And Catherine the Greats would have just been watching YouTube videos on how to do dressage, familiarising to herself. I've been on the wrong side of the horse all this time. Also in the bin part two of your Bugal Home School history exam. Now last week we'll begin the home school history exam and I assume that all you bugle us with children have put the the questions to your kids and we pick up now

with question five. Writer LP Hartley famously wrote as writers so often do and one of the things he famously wrote was famously writing was that the past is a different country. He of course meant that the food was weird people spoke in funny sounding languages, some things cost more but some things cost less, and it was a good place to have an affair without getting caught. Plus, you're always relieved to get back home after visiting. But if LP Hartley was right, and the past is indeed a foreign country, given the increasing 10 trend of populist insularity in global politics, and the prevalence of old people amongst coronavirus victims, is it time to send everyone from history back to the past?

Question 6. History is notoriously full of absolute s**t. Note down everyone you've ever heard of, alive and dead, make a mark next to the name if they are a total s**t, one point, or a bit of a s**t, half a point, and calculate whether or not on average there were more s**** in history pro-rata than there are today. Question 7. It's a well known fact that 98% of all historical TV documentaries are completely made up. But which of any of the following documentaries covers a genuine bit of history? William the Boncara, how the battle of Hastings that was driven by a fervent desire to go down in history is the 11th century's most prolific shagmeister, based on a recently discovered and very ex-rated tapestry. When chickens conquered Rome, an army of giant feral chickens rampaged across the increasingly fractious European celebrity empire

in the 250's AD, defeating the 8th legion at what became known as the Battle of the Eggs. Is this documentary about a genuine piece of history? Jesus Christ, the garden centre years. New evidence has come to life that Jesus, the professional Messiah, might have spent three years honing his miracle-making skills working in a garden centre, bringing dead shrubs back to life, turning water into fertiliser, and selling cheap fish sandwiches with hardly any filling at a seriously profit-boasting marker. Charles Darwin, Turtle Slayer, fairly self-explanatory. And finally, Mog on the Moon, how Neil Armstrong smuggled his pet cat Eisenhower into the Apollo 11 rocket

and onto the surface of the Moon. So you have to tell us which of those was based on a real event, if any. And finally, question eight, your last question in your bugle, homeschooling history exam, which historical event will happen exactly 100 years from now? How's it going being cooped up at home with your children, Andy? Well, it's been fine so far. We've had two weeks of school holiday in which the days have just mulched into a formless nothingness. And on Monday we go back to school. And I think I'm going to try some Victorian schooling tactics,

get a bit old school on it, bit of the old olive. I mean, maybe not the full cane, but I think the whole point of education in Britain has always been to psychologically break children, make them pliable adults for the exploitation of the state. So I think that's really the responsibility of us homeschooling parents right now. What about you? Have you been getting on?

We're doing okay. I have 11-year-old twins and the way that we're teaching them, it possibly could not be more NATO-green on brand. My children are obviously fully bilingual in Spanish and we've assigned them academic essays as 11-year-olds to read about the history of US intervention in Honduras and its contributions to the migrant crisis

and one of them did a PowerPoint presentation for the entire family about the history of pandemics and so has been coping with the anxiety of social isolation and lockdown that we're living through by reminding us periodically that this does not compare to the plague of Justinian of 5541 to 542 AD that killed upwards of 30 million people. That's always good to be reminded of the plague of Justinian at times like this. Win and doubt. Top story now and again we are sticking with the well the only story really in the universe at the moment and well let's start in America NATO because I guess people will still be arguing about what would have been the best way to deal with this crisis in you know thousands of years time if a human still exists and be history is

still legal then or vice versa. But I think it is fair to predict that Donald Trump's strategy for the coronavirus crisis will not be held up as the model best he could have done in the circumstances gold standard. Any more than that guy's effort to break the world marathon record and an old diving suit was a few years ago. How have you rated your much beloved president's leadership so far on this crisis? Well, so, you know, Donald Trump is trying to cope with the threat of the coronavirus with his usual toolbox. They say that every general fights the last war, and in the case of Donald Trump, the last

war is bribing a porn star to sign an NDA. So it's a challenging, science creates a challenge for him. He doesn't believe in anything he finds inconvenient. And science be damned. He Trump famously thought that the sound of windmills cause cancer. He doesn't believe in the existence of climate change, asymptomatic transmission of coronavirus or the clitoris. So, like, some of the things that he's doing

are like trying to defund the World Health Organization are make they make perfect sense from his worldview. Uh, you know, he's resorting to his usual toolbox of political strategies to solve a problem that is not amenable to those responses. Like in the case of defunding the World Health Organization, he's trying to find a fall guide to throw under the bus to blame for his mistakes. And the US contribution to the World Health Organization is about $400 million a year, and to put that in perspective, that's about half what Mike Bloomberg spent to win no states in the Democratic primary. So it's a lot. And, you know, and with all the competing priorities facing the country, And, you know, and with all the competing priorities facing the country, you know, you expect the, you can't expect the US government to maintain such a costly expenditure.

And so to put that in perspective, we amount to the US contribution to the World Health Organization. Per annum is slightly more than the US Secret Service has spent protecting Donald Trump to go golfing. So it's a high priority. But what's amazing is that like COVID does not give a shit about Donald Trump's games. Like, science and politics have collided

and for once politics will lose. Oh, you politicians want to try to focus group and pull test your messages. Cool, cool, cool. How's that going to go? As a swing voter, would you be more likely to vote against COVID-19 if it was called A, Chinese virus, B, COVID-69, C, bad AIDS, D, never go outside again, I just, or E, none of the above.

I love COVID. I want to die so Politicians can have their their talking points and logos and consultants and spin doctors and proxies and they can double down and pivot and walk back and Catch phrase and slogan and platform and swing voter and Core constituency and donor base and stumping and fundraiser photo op baby kissing pie eating and it is all as useless in the face of an inexorable progression of infectious disease as sending me to a pants-off dance-off competition with Channing Tatum, which is good for a laugh but mostly sad and hairy. but mostly sad and hairy. LAUGHTER Firstly, I know that he's defunded the who, but can we be sure that Trump doesn't think the money is going to the guy rope in Ball Wizard?

I don't think we can be sure of anything these days. I mean, to be in mitigation for Trump, we must remember that famously as a child, he was bitten by a radioactive pile of shit. So, this is a certain level of, you know, pile of shit in this and his behaviour, that we just have to expect. And obviously he's not so much a bridge over troubled water, as a hippopotamus made of seasium leaping arse first into a crowd and swimming pool. The White House issued a statement after his announcement there with drawing funding

for the World Health Organization, basically accusing the World Health Organization of mismanaging and covering up the crisis. And when Donald Trump is accusing you of mismanaging and covering things up, that's like the King of Saudi Arabia, having a pop-up you've are at your attitude towards women, or a crocodile with blood dripping from its mouth, haranging you about how you are spoiling the peace and quiet of people trying to have an innocent picnic on the river bank before belching loudly, saying, better out than in, and then saying,

I've got to go, my desserts are running away. It's, hey, game recognizes game Andy. As they say, I don't even know that American need the World Health Organization, because, you know, Trump is busy declaring national days of prayer to deal with Corona, you know, pray the spray away. Yep. I believe that's the catchphrase you guys have been using. But also, you know, you've still got skin in the game there because you've got Bill and Melinda Gates who are, they fund as much as the United Kingdom, I think, something like

200 million from Bill and Melinda Gates goes into the World Health Organization, which is the same as our contribution. But what does it mean? Does it mean that if the defunding happens that the world, if the world health organization find a cure, then America don't get to have it? I think it means that if the World Health Organization finds a cure, America gets to go and shoot the cure off of them. Right. Yes, going with guns first, ask questions later. As I've been studying the spread of the disease, I did get slightly aroused when I learned

that the percentage necessary to achieve her immunity was 69%. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. I'm cold, I'm going to teach you. Yeah, I'm going to sit. Can he technically, I mean, I name. Yeah, I'm sitting. Can he technically, I mean, I don't understand, can he technically overrule? Can the federal government do that, like state-by-state?

Well, so, I mean, you know, one of the bewildering things about Donald Trump is that there has been a long and growing list of things that a politician can't do that he manages to do. And that is what happens when you end up with a president who is an idiot, be completely corrupt and see prepared to illegally hijack the entire apparatus of the state. So it's a good time. So I mean it's sort of what it's revealing to me, to a large degree, is like the sentimentality of liberals about politics. There's a lot of like, can he do that? Well, I don't know, he just did that. So what are you gonna do about it? So I guess he can. We're like, it's not fair, is he allowed?

Does he need a whole pass? Yeah, we're looking for fairness in a system where it's totally fucking unfair. But also, I mean, Tiff, you raise important questions and generally, I mean, I just, because I know the bugle has an international audience. Here's a general tip that if you're looking at America and you're seeing something that seems confusing or doesn't make any sense at all and you're like, why is that thing happening?

The answer is always slavery. That's whatever it is, like, why are there racial disparities in the, in the death rate from COVID? Why are the, how does the electoral college work? Why is there so much gun violence? Why are 40% of Americans obese? What is the big bang theory? Why is Donald Trump the president? It's all slavery. It's the only answer to all of that.

So the death rate from coronavirus is disproportionately affecting black people. So like in Chicago, for instance, black people make up 30% of the population, but 70% of COVID-related deaths. And that's alarming, also caused by slavery. And Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Iana Presley of Massachusetts called for collection of racial data on COVID. And I normally think that both of them

are right about everything, but on this, I could not disagree more. Because Trump is already mad that COVID is hurting the economy, and people like, no, let's tell Donald Central Park five, good people on both sides, famous white supremacist Trump, that COVID kills black people. He'll see that as an upside. Like, oh, I get to keep helping my billionaire friends fleece the poor to fill their

you know, clogged artery hearts and also kill black people where what is the problem with this? Like, this is the most maggot that ever maggot. So if you want Republicans to take seriously the public health responses to COVID that are necessary, don't tell them that it hurts black people, tell them that it spreads through Sean Hannity's gaze and only kills white men over 50 who own vacation homes and the only known cure is universal rent control. It only affects the governors who've paid for their mistresses to have abortions. Bill Gates said holding funding for the World Health Organization during a World Health

Crisis is as dangerous as it sounds. And also, the organization itself has tried as diplomatically as possible to tell Trump to go f*** himself. And the world of health organisation is undoubtedly not without its flaws, being as it is an international organisation involving a country's b people and c diseases, which are regularly little shits that often do not behave how you would ideally like them to behave. Undoubtedly there will be a need to examine what the World Health Organization does and how it works after this crisis because there's a need to examine what the World Health Organization does and how it works after this crisis, because there's a need to examine what everything does and how everything works all the time, especially after a crisis.

It's just generally, we choose not to f***ing bother doing it, because it's generally a bit expensive, quite annoying, doesn't make anyone look good, or because it was written in the Constitution 230 years ago, or because God said it, or one of those get-outs. But this just seems to be about the worst possible thing that could be done in this current global circumstance, with the virus now threatening the poorer nations of the world, with potential catastrophe. Andy, when you said that the World Health Organization involved people, nations and diseases. I had like a mental picture of like a UN debate chamber with a bunch of microphones and placards, but just the diseases,

they're somehow instantiated debating each other and being like, I would like the learned colleague from AIDS over there, who respond to the clap. Well, they've had to, they've had, there's so much misinformation flying around. They've had to open a Mythbusters page on the World Health Organization website

because I get about five Facebook messages a day from like loose relatives telling me that it's due to 5G or to have a really hot bath. So they've had to like kind of go on and say like drinking alcohol doesn't protect you against COVID-19 which I find personally offensive and neither does having a hot bath, it doesn't prevent coronavirus. So I feel those three hours a day in the bath was some down in cocktails and watching Netflix have been a complete waste. Well, I mean, there have been a lot of claims of what might be described as quack cures. And here at the Bugle, we've teamed up with some of the least influential epidemiologists in the world

to have a special offer, which will either cure you of or provide you lifelong immunity to both COVID and your choice out of one of the following fictitious diseases to claim that this is all bullshit. So you get your off COVID as well as Constance Fripple Syndrome, refaniditis, fervil sprochialism, anti-glutil, cyclopid dysclopsia, dospodostostos, or benose diseases, it's known in Spain, a clock and spill by proximal, girth, hoopla and crickets.

You'll be immune to all of those for life. If, as well as COVID, all you have to do, it's not take a hot bath, not drink alcohol, these are the ways to make sure you are immune, hold a domestic claw hammer in your right hand whilst urinating. Eat a raw carrot in 13 bites spread evenly every two hours over a 24 hour period, then down a gallon of carrot juice once every half a month for the next year in a bit. Sleep with your foot dangling off the side of your bed in a bucket of squirrel milk, and

cross the dried bark of a free-range mahogany tree, mix it with alcohol-free whiskey to form a paste and then marinate your toothbrush in it. Those are always to make sure that you stay virus-free. I should report one of the other quack cures that came across my personal Facebook feed may be of interest to fans of the Bugle Expanded Cinematic Universe, which is the recommendation that one thing that can stop you from getting COVID is half a glass of water. Because it will rinse it down, I guess, is the theory and then your stomach acids will kill it. That was what was told to me in Facebook.

There's some confusion here over when you are and when you are not allowed out of your house during lockdown. And there's been some allegations that the police have been somewhat overzealous in their treatment of people who've been out and about. We can clear up a few areas of doubt for you here at the bugle. If you are leaving your house because you've discovered a potential cure for the virus after leaving some bread out overnight and it going moldy and you're realizing that was the disease and you need to run to the hospital to physically share the news with some real researchers like you're in a film version of your own life. That is an acceptable reason to leave that out. If you are in a sassin with a contractor fulfill that cannot be carried out over the internet,

I'm afraid that is not a good enough reason to leave the house, that is a job that can be delayed until the resumption of normal society. If you are just wanting to roam around checking on whether other people are leaving their houses unnecessarily, that is allowed. You are allowed to do that. That is a loophole that a lot of people are exploiting. If you need to locate your escaped pet serpent, no, you cannot leave the house for that. You have to call your local government Reptile location squad, many of them sadly, underfunded. If you feel the sudden urge to recreate the walk to work of a renowned historical figure,

that is allowed, and if you need to drive your car at extreme speed for no reason, that is also allowed, apparently judging from the number of people who have been f***ing doing it in the roads near my house. I don't know whether they've been abusing, police have been abusing their power in America, NATO, but here in Scotland they were checking in people's shopping baskets to make sure that what they'd bought were necessary purchases, like deemed essential purchases, and told someone off of buying crisps and booze. I was in a place where booze is so encouraged. Also, booze during lockdown is f***ing necessary.

Like, more necessary than anything else. I don't know how you delineate time, unless it's by its one o'clock, I can start drinking wine now. There was an article that in here where I live in the Bay Area, alcohol consumption is up 42% since the lockdown began. They all believe they've all been reading the same stories as me that, you know, getting in the bath for three hours and drinking cocktails means you don't get it. for three hours and drinking cocktails and meetings, you don't get it. Let's look for some good news around the coronavirus.

NATO, you are, as always, the bugles, sunny side of life, correspondent. You found any good news stories emerging from this global chaos? Yes, I have, Andy. There's some great COVID news. The coronavirus has led to uncontained outbreak of clean air. Because of the lockdown, cars are off the roads and economic activity is ceased. And so, air quality is the best it's been in decades. For example, in Los Angeles, on a good day before COVID, if you went on a hike and standing on a hillside, looking at the view towards the ocean,

was like gazing at a beautiful skyline through a veil of rice pudding. But now it's all clear. And so with the, you know, it's a weird choice that we have where on the one hand, we have plague and the economic and social devastation, plague response has caused. And on the other hand, we have plague and the economic and social devastation, plague response has caused, and on the other hand we have pollution, looming, climate apocalypse, war for oil, and the social and health consequences of car culture.

And so now we have cars off the road and we have better air quality. It's like being stuck between Silla and Caribdus, but I have come to realize that we don't talk enough about how when Ulysses was caught perilously between the six-headed monster, Silla, and the insatiable whirlpool, Caribdys, the sky above was fucking gorgeous. No. So there's that. The other good news is that Burning Man is cancelled.

Right. I don't know how much the Bugal International audience knows about the Burning Man is canceled. Right. I don't know how much the Google international audience knows about the Burning Man. But at the end of every summer, San Francisco empties out and about 75,000 people go to Burning Man, a pop-up city in the Black Rock desert of Nevada, where it's a combination of free spirited art party, lots of sex at electronic music,

and there's no money, it's all barter based and communal happening, stroke, Silicon Valley, Libertarian, Fantasyland, it's kind of weird in that way, but because it's canceled the burners are famous for their creativity and they have been emancipated from their otherwise all-consuming summer activity of preparing for burning man and freed up like some sort of mass deployment, like a polyamorous, molly-dosing dunkirk to unleash their creative energies with like Etsy and craft projects to fill the void left by a functioning state. So the burning man people are like actively building

ventilators, protective masks and hazmat suits for healthcare workers instead of unicycles, tuxedos made of dildos and sunscreen waterswite. So that's a bit of COVID good news. Right. I would just like to point out sexist, where's burning woman festival? Or was that in Salem a few hundred years ago?

Yeah, Burning Woman Festival, I think it was the most of the 17th and 18th centuries. British virus news now, and well, the all great historical events have a kind of musical background and I think the British government's virus anthem that will always bring back that surge of nostalgia for these extraordinary times will be the mammoths and the papas classic hit strip stumble and fall which is essentially simply played before all briefings online a'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cyflwy'r cy Oh, do you mean Delora's Umbridge? Professor Delora's Umbridge and Wormtail, which is how I describe her and Boris when they're together. Well, yeah, pretty can't read numbers correctly. And they're kind of talking about testing as well,

and how many tests. And I just think if COVID-19 tests were anything like means tests, then this government will be fucking all over it, because they love a means test. And every day at five o'clock, what we're watching is incompetence. It's incredible. No one can answer the questions.

Dominic Rab has all the authority of a supply teacher and a rough comprehensive. The sort whose car is definitely keyed when he leaves at the end of the day. And no one can give any answers on why they're not providing PPE. I mean, Matt Hancock came out the other day and said, we've launched a new green badge for carers. Did you see this?

He came out and when what we've done is we want to show that we acknowledge carers' roles, you know, that not necessarily just doctors and nurses, but key workers and carers in the homes. And so what we've done is we've got a badge, and it's like given PPE and money, not fucking badges. Like, what the fuck is that gonna do? The only public awareness badge I want is one

that says Tory on board that gives you license to twat one in the street in respect of social distancing rules. I don't know, it's a tie for me between Trump and the Conservative government over to whose handling this was. They might just put a placard up in place of the daily briefings going, dear British public, stay in, we fucked it.

We don't have any answers, but we'll all continue to behave as if the rules don't apply to us, yours unfathfully government. Pretty Patel, a briefing that was last week now, was asked twice if she would apologise about the lack of protective equipment given to frontline workers and replied, I'm sorry if people feel there have been failings. So apologising, not that there were failings or for those failings themselves, but apologising for people feeling, for the emotion people feel about the concept that there might have been failings.

I mean in terms of abdicating responsibility, that is a triple twisting pikeback sum assault of a tariff maneuver. It's quite possible. The day facto prime minister this week has been a 99-year-old military veteran captain Tom Moore, who undertook to do a sponsored walk. Now, he's approaching his 100th birthday and he placed a walk 25 times around his garden and aiming to raise a hundred thousand pounds at the latest count. He's now over 18 million pounds raised for the NHS because who needs taxes? And it's captured the imagine. It's genuine kind of good new story in these dark times. And it also shows how important context is because he's

a 99 year old war veteran and he's walked two and a half kilometers and you know he's a become a national hero and if I did the same you know I'd be lucky if I even raised ten million quid alone at 18 million quid so it's all about something he's 99 year old war veterans are a bit overpaid, to be honest. If you're the, the Buegel's fighting correspondent and the UFC are also stepping into this sportless breach at the moment. They are because here's the thing, what happens when this war is a war that, you know, testosterone-fueled men can't actually fight? It is a war for science. It is a war ever. What do you do when you have this excess of testosterone? Sorry, when you've bought an excess of testosterone, as is most of the UFC guys. I first heard about it on if I were allowed to mention a rival podcast, Joe Rogan's

podcast, and they were talking about Fire Island, but I don't really understand it, so I thought I'd need a male take on it, so I have- And just a clarify, Fire fight Island is an island that the UFC is setting up to host its fight is not just a shorthand for Britain. No. Yes, and all of us that unlike the Americans trying to shoot the virus, we think we can knock it the f*** out. Uh, yes, fight Islanders being set up by the UFC so that they can continue fighting during a time of corona. And I'm not really the person to describe it.

So I have a Scottish boyfriend explain a hang. Dina White is the president of the UFC, a mixed martial arts cage fighting organization that pits some of the toughest guys on the planet against each other in brutal combat. These guys are so tough, they can fight innocent, men, horses, viruses. Actually, the cany-fight viruses, so they should just stand and hoose like everybody else. But no, they're too tough for that these guys are harder than Charles Bronson under a pile of sudoku so Dana White is brought an island so that they can all go and live on it and fight with each

other and they didn't have to follow any lockdown or distancing rules could Dana will be the president of the island as well i'm not against it be honest, imagine it'll be like an AES movie, presumably rich guys where big cigars will bet on the fights and the Eastern European armed candy will do that hangware blood splashes on them during the fight and they wipe it off and lick their fingers. Then the loser will get hunted to death by the rich guys but Jean-Claude Van Damme will come and kill them all and take all the money and I'll give it to the nurses which is a good idea. So actually good on you, Dean, a wait. That's all, much clearer for us all. It does show the endless resourcefulness of our great species that no matter how bad things get, we will use our God-given human ingenuity to find a way of getting people to bash the living shit out

of each other for our entertainment. Other sports have been attempting to do similar to the UFC's Fight Island, the WPBSA, the governing body of world billiards and snooker, are attempting to build a snookeno, a fully functioning snooker arena in the cauldron of a dormant underwater volcano in the Pacific. Sadly, this has not worked, after it proved impossible to keep the bass cloth dry on the tables, so the snooker tables washed underwater and the players complain that the balls moved differently to they do not underwater and that the sharks were off-putting. We're off putting. Hahahaha. Hahahaha. Non-virus news now and, um, NATO, you are, um, a huge fan of people unnecessarily

ejecting themselves from fighter jets. And, um, so you've, uh, had a new story to keep you intrigued this week. Yeah, so I've been stuck at home and desperate for a laugh. And this, when I read this new story, it gave me genuine mirth and joy because laughing at someone else being terrified, transcends time, space, and culture. So the government investigation was just released about incident that happened in France a year or so ago.

A six-year-old Frenchman was given a gift by co-workers of a ride in a fighter jet. The plane took off and the force of the jet combined with his overly loose seat straps led him to float up from his seat, terrified and panicked. He reached out to grab onto something, anything stable to steady himself, and accidentally grabbed the ejection handle and shot himself out of the plane where his parachute deployed and he landed in nearby field. Now to reiterate, the flight in the fighter jet was a gift by co-workers that he did not want, but he accepted because he felt like he couldn't turn it down.

Look, we've all done shit we didn't want to do to get along at work. But usually it's just karaoke at the office Christmas party or bringing chips and dip to a good-by-party for that person that you never liked that much. But you make a fucking go of it. What did this guy have on the line at his job? This isn't a story about someone shooting out of an airplane but it's also a story about the savage exploitation of senior citizens in the

workforce who should be able to enjoy a pension and do old people shit like getting up at five in the morning and paying pots and pans and chocolate around their bathrobe and doing crossword puzzles that's what that in their sixties have earned from a life of bloody service. Let him reminisce about his glory days in the mid 70s, doing Coke and seeing Miles Davis live or whatever. In a workplace, if you get, as a gift,

you get a trip in a fighter plane, the only acceptable responses are, yes, I do want to shit my pants at 400 meters up. Or, no, go f*** yourself. I'm 64, just give me a bottle of scotch and call it a day. Sounds a good story when you got home. How was your birthday, darling? Oh, I accidentally ejected myself and refighted it at 500 kilometers an hour.

Oh, that's not. Do you like some dinner? Well that brings us to the end of this week's, Bugal. refighted just at 500 kilometers an hour. Oh that's not, good luck to be doing it. Well that brings us to the end of this week's Google thank you very much for listening. I hope you're keeping safe and as perky mentally as you can be in these curious lockdown times. NATO, dear thanks very much for joining me, anything you'd like to plug in your current online activities? Sure, I have two albums out that are available to be streamed or downloaded wherever you have download and stream albums, the NATO Green Party and the Whiteness album. You can follow me on Twitter at NATO Green, Mr. NATO Green on Instagram.

You can watch Old Rope on Monday nights on Instagram Live where you'll see, actually I've got to get NATO on, but where you'll see Andy and various other bugle people. So four or five comics on a Monday, so that's fun. Check that out. You can follow me on Twitter at Tiff Stevenson and on Instagram for the shows, it's Tiff Stevenson comic. Thank you, Bugles. We will play you out now as is traditional with some lies about our premium level voluntary subscribers. Until next week, goodbye. Paul Cain resents his unrelentingly monosyllabic four-name surname combination and is fiercely jealous

of all Sri Lankans. I could say my name a hundred times in the time it takes some of them to say there's once weeps Paul, who has therefore put in train a legal process to give himself as middle names, Ella Wolekanakanamga, Warnakulusariya and Leana Rajshilagi, following an awestruck perusal of the multiferious forenames of Sri Lankan test-cricketers. Masood Mirahamadi wonders whether dolphins buy repute the second brainiest species after without wishing to sound arrogant as humans. See our species as an irritant blocking their way to the top of the rankings, or as an inspiration to raise their game.

The evidence concludes Masood, sadly, suggests neither. They just dick around in the sea, honking at each other. Rob Arthur, quite apart from being a brief memo left for herself by British mythical enchantress Morgan Lafay, before nickingly scabbard from her brother's sword Excalibur, Rob Arthur, does not think much of the whole Arthurian legend stick. I reckon those night's guys were tools, and I don't care how around their table was blasts Rob. They obsessed about that silly little grail and didn't focus on infrastructure, education or social services. They set mythical Britain back hundreds of years.

Melinda Hasbrook likes to make up corporate slogans. Amongst her motivational motto's are, you can't empty the bath if you've concreted over the plughole. It's time to put the puppies through the postbox. Don't fight an octopus with a cimitar made of salt, and a fish finger in the hand is worth two full grown haddocks in the sea. Sam Garman has attempted to work out exactly what Melinda's slogans actually mean. Sam thinks the fishmonger one might be something about small tangible achievements being preferable to large unrealised potential, and the one about putting puppies through the postbox is about realising when you cannot solve a problem yourself and dumping it on someone else instead. Here end if, this week's lies. you