The Bugle - Horndog Special
Episode Date: June 14, 2023The original Horndog finally checks out, Andy, Alice and Anuvab note Silvio Berlusconi's *incredible* life. Also, slightly younger imitations Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are up to no good. What a t...ribute.Why not check out 15 years of top stories: https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/topstories.Featuring:Andy ZaltzmanAlice FraserAnuvab PalProduced by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Hello, it's nearly mid-summer here in the hemisphere of shattered dreams,
which, if I've read my hinges correctly, can mean only one thing.
An episode of TheBugle is about to start in ten, nine, eight, dot-large, six, five, four,
we're getting writing process. Two, one, 8, start larynx, 6, 5, 4, we're getting a writing process.
2, 1, blast off!
BOOM!
BOOM!
The bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.
Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4267 of the bugle,
all-day newspaper for a visual, and dare I say, extremely f**king stupid world.
I'm Andy Zoltzman, the voice of a generation. Sorry, not the voice of A generation,
the voice of D generation, my mistake. And joining me today, back on the right side of the equator,
where the water goes down the plug hole instead of spurting upwards into the nearest tap.
Here in London, it's Alice Fraser. Welcome welcome back Alice, welcome back to the North.
I mean it's so exciting to be here despite not getting free B-Dates on command.
You just got to know the right people actually.
I mean this is the problem with London in summer, is it's deceptively nice isn't it?
Yes, it traps you in.
Also joining us, stepping into the breach
at the last minute after our scheduled guest,
a showbiz legend no less,
star of stage and screen had to drop out.
What a good.
Well, we will try to get Sarah Bernhardt
on in a future week if she gets better.
But we got the nearest like for like,
replace but we could find for a second consecutive episode
from Mumbai India, it's Anivabh pal. Anivabh, welcome and thank you for leaping into action.
It's no problem, Andy. I'm considered Sarah Bernhardt of Calcutta. So that's what I'm
often often known as that. I have to tell you guys, I don't know if you've heard, but
there is a massive cyclone that's headed towards Indian Pakistan. It's going to hit us in a couple of days, pretty big one.
And the BBC have been reporting it quite objectively.
And it's really unfortunate because I thought after the BBC's run in with the Indian Prime
Minister, you think that they would have learned their lesson, right?
I mean, one thing I know about the BBC is they're very very biased about cyclones.
So what they're saying is that the cyclone is moving towards Karachi, Pakistan
and the state of Gujarat in India as one of the largest cyclones the Arabian seas ever seen.
Why can't they just state the facts and the facts are the cyclone is moving away from India
because it is afraid of India's power and the world's deep.
Right.
And also, the Prime Minister has just announced
that he will personally fly into the storm
with the sword in slate, which the BBC is not reporting.
Right.
And you know what that is, Andy?
Alice, it's bias.
That's absolutely right.
Well, thank you for setting a trial.
I will pass that on to my
producers at the BBC to feed out the food game. And I will tell the Western pundits to begin preparing their thoughts and prayers.
The most effective form disaster response.
What's that? Well, send them in advance.
You know, that's because we tend to wait until afterwards, but you know, get them going early. We are recording of a 13th of June 2003, tomorrow, the 14th of June is the 201st anniversary
of Charles Babzi Babbage, outlining plans for a difference engine in an academic paper
to the Royal Astronomical Society.
Now regarded as one of the world's first and most influential mechanical computers and a stepping stone to the development of its modern
successes such as the Sega Mega Drive, the iPhone and the Computeurdle, the ocean going
computer that works out what's happening underwater. But Babbage actually intended the difference
engine to be a machine capable of automatically writing observational stand-up. The 16
time British profaner of the year
spent tens of thousands of pounds of 19th century government money developing the difference
engine but all it could come up with was that cats were different from dogs because they didn't
wag their tails in the same way and that men were different from women because men had jobs
and fought in wars and women often died in childbirth and weren't allowed to go to university.
They were sound observations but not laugh out loud funny and after he died in childbirth and weren't allowed to go to university. They were sound observations, but not laugh out loud funny.
And after he died on his ass, telling an audience at Jean-Glaire's bow in 1834
that horses were different from sharks because they could stand up unated,
he re-adapted his machine to perform mathematical calculations instead.
Anyway, 200 and one years ago, Charles Babbage's Difference Engine
was outlined in the academic paper. On 15th June 1878, Edward Maybridge took
a series of photographs which proved contrary to popular belief that when a horse runs all four
of its feet are off the ground, not all the time, obviously, but in between touching the ground,
there are times when a horse is not connected
to the surface of the earth.
It had previously been assumed before Maybridge's work
that horses kept one foot on the ground at all times,
probably out of superstition,
because a horse legend had it that an ancient horse king,
Samar-Cand Nigel, once lifted all four hooves on the ground
and was plucked away by a passing albatross.
Horses were then thought to run with their real left leg dragging along the ground until
my bridge proved that the cheeky little bastards were cheating, probably to fix bets by
lifting their feet up.
My bridges pioneering work to show how the body moves, also encompass numerous action
shots of humans and other animals, including a naked man cooking potato, dofine waswile,
rocking out to some vivaldi, a woman in a jock strap hammering a carrot into a pillow,
a goat drinking beer out of a teapot
and a footballer flobbing into a bucket.
Anyway, that influential series of photographs was,
well, what is it now?
145 years ago in two days of time.
As always, a section of the bugle is going straight
in the bin this week as we're sweltering here in London.
I mean, it's been 27 degrees, Alice from Australia,
and I've had from India.
And can you imagine what such oppressive heat
is like to have to live with?
I can't imagine what such oppressive heat is like to live
with in a place that is completely constructed contrary
to heat.
completely constructed contrary to heat. Every building here is built to like keep heat in against the horrible dank winters. And so it's like walking into an oven. I remember,
I mean in Australia, I don't know, in Australia, one of the things you do if it's a very hot day,
and I know this is awful, is you walk past like a Westfield or something and you step into the West
field and it's crispy cool, you get a little bit of cool
on you and then you go back about your business. I remember walking into a mall in the UK and
it being hotter than it was outside and feeling genuinely affronted like on a human rights level.
It's just one of the many ways we like to make ourselves more miserable in this country.
That's what keeps us happy.
There are lessons from India, one can take from the 1980s, Andy, about heat.
You know, when India didn't have a lot of air conditioners in the good old days, you could
just walk down the street and ask a good Samaritan just to throw bucket of water at you.
It's a tradition that has died now because of Samsung
and other electronics companies, but you'd often see
completely drenched people walking in the street at 40 degrees
because you could just ask someone on the road to just
take water of a tubular and just smash it in your face.
Again, cultural exchange, cultural exchange. Well, there's a very interesting sort
of arc of human experience that happens when it's hot in the UK, which is day one of sunshine.
Everybody immediately strips off and lies on like the verge in the middle of the road to just
suck up as much sun as they possibly can into their pasty white bodies. And then by day three, they are itchy and angry.
They're so much rage.
It's the rage of second day sunburn.
By the end of the week, there's
something satisfactory about peeling.
But it's that middle place where there's just so much rage
floating around the end.
Ab be and rage.
That's interesting, because the Brexit referendum
was in the middle of summer.
That was on a Thursday, so we probably had been out getting angry in the sun.
Then we voted sunburns on Thursday and changed the course of our national history.
Lessons to be learned.
Anyway, our section in the bin this week is build your own weather forecast.
We give you all the words you need to construct the weather forecast.
You want to hear this week's words and phrases and there'll be more over the following thousand weeks on the bugle.
This week's words and phrases for your weather forecast.
Cloudy, warmer, front, will, will not surprise.
What do you call a sheep that has the same atmospheric pressure as itself?
Sonia, then it looks quite ear-winging, it's better than antarge with this time of year.
Intermittent, absolutely shitting it down, Fahrenheit, of course, otherwise you'd literally
bowl to death like an egg and Iso-ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a.
That section in the bin, also in the bin, after a poll revealed that a quarter of the population of the UK thinks Covid
was a hoax, we look at other great British delusions in this new poll. 17% of people in
this country think cabbages contain a mind-reading microchip that once ingested, send your entire
internet history direct to the Ministry of Thought. 12.4% think Queen Elizabeth is still
alive and running a covert operation smuggling penguins
into Britain to be used as Donica Babs and that's Elizabeth the first, by the way, not Elizabeth
the second she wouldn't stoop so low. And 39% think Paddington Bear wheels way too much influence
in this country, they might be onto something there. Those sections in the bin.
Top story this week. Bugle Global Horn Dogs update and well it's been an exciting week for some of the great
political horn dogs of our era.
We will come to a horn dog who has sadly departed us, the original Bugle Horn Dog extraordinaire
at Sylvia Burlesconi, who has sadly gone to the
great Bunga Bunga Party in the sky. But let's start with Britain's own trainee Burlusconi.
Boris Johnson, from Prime Minister, has quatted as an MP, the former PM who put the liar
into national liability, has jumped before he could be pushed
with the release, the impending release of a parliamentary report into his conduct.
And it's becoming one of the traditional sounds of the British summer, isn't it?
The splash of vomit on pavement outside nightclub, the tinkel of was on bus stop, the
gurgle of intergenerational suspicion, the fizz crackle bang of firework between football
supporters' ass cheeks, the screaming arguments crackle bang of firework between football supporters
asked cheeks, the screaming arguments about whether Brexit was right or wrong, whether
it's real or pretend, and whether we should or should not stop having screaming arguments
about it, and the Boris Johnson resignation statement. These are the unchangeables of a
modern British summer. He quit the cabinet in 2018, he quit as Prime Minister in summer
2022, and now he is quit as a member
of parliament. That's quite aside from other subsidiary resignations, sacking, flants off,
stropatures and windchouts that have marked his career. I mean, how has this news been reported
across our former Imperial colleagues, colleagues countries? Because I mean, I think it's fair to say that as a nation, 99.99% of Britain has, frankly, had
enough of the stupid.
I mean, it's sort of, it's so interesting the way that he quit, Andy.
I think the way that he quit is sort of that, so you can't fire me.
I rage quit, flounce out about a re, which seems to have not achieved the end that he
intended it to, which was that he hoped that by doing that, he would stop the party gate inquiry, and despite that his
statement that it was like a witch hunt and he has been forced out, and also you should
stop inquiring. It looks like the inquiry is still going to go on. It just, it does find
it's hard to convincingly call something a witch hunt if you're cackling over a cauldron where I can't do that.
Yeah, I mean, he said some fairly extraordinary things. He described the
privileges committee, which is investigating his, his actions as quotes,
a kangaroo court. And you as an Australian, I have no doubt you find this very
insulting given that the average kangaroo has an attention to statistical detail far and excessive anything Boris Johnson has ever shown, not to mention a greater propensity to speak in truths.
So also a very ethical meat or kangaroo is wild-called in Australia. So it's one of the more ethical meats you can consume.
Right.
And I don't think Boris Johnson were you to eat him would be.
Well, I hadn't thought of it in that way. I mean, you suggest we breed free range Boris Johnson's for food. Well, he's trying, isn't he? I guess so.
And if Ab, what about in India? Because he's, I's, he's obviously got a kind of global profile.
In India, and we've talked about this on the bugle before,
he kind of, he's cycled around Mumbai on a tiny little bicycle.
Was it a tricycle at one point?
I can't quite remember.
It was a tricycle, Andy.
He's quite popular here.
He's after losing several jobs.
He's come here as a corporate speaker.
He's quite popular on the lecture circuit in India. but the two things that have been playing on Indian TV
last couple of days, one is a quote from Andrew Marr, who said something on LBC
radio and he said, Boris Johnson doesn't seem to go away, why is it that I think of
him more than I think about my wife?
I think that's a question you can only ask yourself, my history.
Yeah, I mean, to be honest, that's the same question Boris Johnson asks himself.
So, yeah, I mean, that's been played.
I think that lost in translation.
Indians are not able to tell whether that's funny or accurate.
So, I think that, and the other one that's been playing on TV a lot is a quote from an MP called Tim
Louton and his quote was my hope for the future of Boris Johnson is that he will shut up and go away
Which which is often what audiences in Edinburgh have told me?
Yeah, but I mean also I mean hoping that Boris Johnson shuts up and goes away
Also, I mean, hoping that Boris Johnson shuts up and goes away, that, I mean, it's good to set yourself achievable goals and that is, that's sort of like hoping that, you know,
a shark wins Wimbledon.
It's unlikely, it's logistically problematic, and if it does happen, questions will have
to be asked.
Well, I mean, if it does happen, the shark won't be able to stop long enough to receive
its trophy. Well, I guess not. Sharks can't stop. But the base, I think one of
the most interesting features of this quitting is that it's being seen as, or it's being characterized
as mucus that his ex colleagues are bad mouthing him after he's gone. Have you seen this story, Andy?
Yeah.
I don't know.
If I were a Tory, I wouldn't be a Tory, but if I were a Tory, I'd quit being a Tory, but
if I were a Tory, I'd be relieved, Johnson were gone.
It's not mutiny to badmouth your bad boss after he's been fired from his job and then
quit his other job and is now living in a mansion in the countryside with tens of bedrooms
presumably to house the many, many more children he intends to have, but not count.
I think it's not like bad mouthing your ex-cult, husband in front of the kids when you have
to share custody, where we're in a yelp culture. Johnson is lucky they're not leaving Airbnb
style reviews, you know, wasn't informed that the facade concealed toxic damp problems
arrive to find the toilet full of poo, open brackets, not even human exclamation mark, close brackets, noise pollution and bad communication from the host one star.
Just a quick question. I've asked this before Andy, because I think Boris Johnson often
has referred to himself as Giacillian. He said he compares himself to Winston Churchill.
Now, it is true Winston Churchill lost elections.
And then he went after a right at home. He wrote history of the world, I think in 10 volumes.
My question is, let us say if Marish Johnson did gracefully disappear and went after
right a book because he is a giant intellectual. What would it be? Would it be the history of the Peppa Pig World?
What is the volume we can expect?
Well, I mean, he has written a book about Churchill.
He's supposed to be writing a book about Shakespeare,
which got slightly delayed by the fact
that he became Prime Minister.
I mean, if it's as truthful as his general output,
I guess we can expect to find that Shakespeare was a third century Patagonian queen.
So I mean, I don't know quite what's going to happen now.
I mean, he might just carry on resigning from other stuff.
He could just quit as a member of the human race, quit as from living as a living breathing
warning sign about the days of allowing your democracy to rot itself from the inside. Because that's
the only thing he, he, that he's really good at now is complaining about being forced to
resign. That's, that's all he's got. I mean, it's his, now that he's no longer in power.
Yes, I find creative ways of undermining democracy and basically slamming a report before it's even come out,
that's the main club in his bag now. But again, being forced to resign is such a
a disingenuous way of talking about this. Like, you're not forced to resign if you get fired
for wanking into the popcorn at the cinema, like... I mean, we should say the report has not come out, so we don't know that he definitely
did that, Alex.
So let me just cover our backs, League.
And also depends on the cinema.
I've been to some cinemas here.
It's very, certain things are allowed in certain police show.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Also, that's just a quick question.
There seems to be now some brewing discontent between your current Prime Minister, Rishi
Sunak and Boris Johnson.
Yes.
Do you seem to have been friends and cordial throughout all of this, till now?
Not entirely cordial.
There's been a certain amount of tension.
And the current tension is that we have this strange tradition here.
That's a departing Prime Ministers can issue an honest list, people to be given
national honours, OBCBs and to be appointed to the House of Lords. Now you might ask,
why is it that a prime minister is allowed to appoint people to sit, and I don't know how to put
this delicately, in fucking parliament for fucking ever in a democratic
country. And I mean, that's the kind of question that you, you can't really answer. I mean, you don't
need to ask a constitutional expert, you don't need to ask a democratistian parliament,
a parliologist or a political officer. You will get as logical and valid an answer if you ask
a bucket of eels, a puddle of shit, or indeed a former prime Minister. It's one of the many ways in which we
like to preserve our democracy undermining heritage as I said. And we've passed, we of course,
passed on these innate nation-shaping skills to some of our imperial, there are foster countries
like the USA with its presidential pardons and so on. But some of Boris Johnson's proposed
honorees is that the term have been rejected by the committee that oversees these things?
And now, barely a month, currently in the House of Lords, we already have, alongside occasional
useful experts, we have time-service career licks, battles, convicts, bribers, also known
as party funders, highly questionable plutocrats, hereditary embarrassment, bishops, knights,
rooks, and political pawns, to be rejected from entry to the House of Lords. That, I mean, that is a low bar that you've
failed to get over.
Well, yeah, given that the original qualification for being in the House of Lords was to not
have a chin and to have a cousin for a mother.
Yes. So, yes, so there is some, yes, bad blood between Johnson and Sunak over the fact that Johnson is trying
to get some of his cronies permanently baked
into the heart of our democracy.
But as I said, when it comes to our own democracy,
we are complete f***ing idiots.
Well, it seems like I just read something
pretty soon today where he said that there were a lot
of not
qualified people like you guys are describing, presented for the House of Lords.
For example, I was surprised to see my name on that list, and I don't even live there.
So he said that Rishi Sudak said he wasn't prepared to do that, Boris Johnson had given
him this list, and he wasn't prepared to approve it verbatim.
And I don't know about you guys, but for the first time of all these years, I actually heard
Rishi Sunak say an actual thing that didn't sound like it was generated by a meal Amazon
Alexa.
It sounded like a thing.
And I guess there's a rebuttal from Raj Jansson saying Rishi Sunak is talking rubbish.
So this is, do you think this will get to hand to hand combat?
Where do you think this is gonna go?
Well, I think most people in the Conservative Party
would like to see that, whatever side they're on.
Maybe jousting to decide the forever leader.
I mean, it's a bit rich coming from Sunaik,
bearing in mind that he has Suola Bravaman
in cabinet as home secretary.
So when he's lecturing
you about appointing unsuitable people to public office, and well, you know, you need to
take it with a salt mine of salt or you need to take a long hard bath with yourself. I
do it both simultaneously. Speaking of hard baths, Andy, the water here is so hard.
Yeah, you're complaining before it's it's playing havoc with your hair.
Yeah, I feel like every time I come to the UK, there's a month of transition period where
my curly hair just goes, what are you doing?
Why is there minerals in the water?
Right.
I've had that for 48 years.
Speaking of Swela Brevaman, I have a quick question.
Again, I have a lot of questions being
sort of from another culture. What exactly is a Walker R.T.? Oh, well that's a good question.
A Walker R.T. I think it was some ancient martial art, wasn't it? The Waakera and the Waakera
R.T. were the grand masters of Waakera. Also there's suggestions that it is some kind of
crossbreed animal between a a wookie and a seen this creature. Yeah. It's a lot of tofu. I've
seen it. Also, also someone who lives simultaneously in the United Arab Emirates and the Surrey town of
Woking, so the woke are out of it. We don't know. We just don't know.
I should say, as I said, the report into Johnson hasn't been published yet. He
resigned having been shown the report and I say that it wasn't so much
jumped before he was pushed, but pushed himself because
he was being pushed by himself and his own actions, his own actions basically pushed
him.
But we don't know what it will actually say, and it is possible that it will reveal that
Johnson did absolutely nothing wrong legally or morally.
It may equally reveal that all of the Rolling Stones 50 greatest hits were written by Martin
and Everettel over and featured London's ooos keep the flatulent porky pine on backing vocals.
It may reveal that Britain has been invaded by opera-loving aliens who are about to install
a reanimated Pavarotti as Emperor with 19th century warble star Jenny Lind as his Empress.
It may reveal that former Prime Minister Liz Truss has set to join Harry Styles, Joni Mitchell,
George W. Bush, Jermaine Gear and Kermit the Frog, as lead singer in a new supergroup called Cockchafers
of the Grumble Pit.
All of these are equally possible as finding out that Johnson did nothing wrong.
We just don't know.
We will have to wait to find out.
I just don't think we're considering one of the possible scenarios, which is that they
handed him this report.
He went, ah-ha, exonerator of all fronts, I quit. LAUGHTER
MUSIC
Moving across the Atlantic to another political horn dog, and obviously even the worst
Burisian junsonings that we can master in the UK are as a mosquito in the pajama trousers
compared to the crocodile in the underpants that is eating away an American democracy. Donald Trump is, well, he's still favorite to get the Republican
nomination for next year's presidential election. Despite the unending slew of court cases,
including allegations that he kept nuclear secrets in his bathroom amongst the various
confidential documents that he was not supposed to have that ended secrets in his bathroom amongst the various confidential documents that he
was not supposed to have that ended up in his in his nuclear secrets in his bathroom, sheaves and
sheaves of other classified documents in his and that conjures up perhaps the most unsettling image
in American history. Boris Johnson sitting in his bathroom with nuclear. Let's not think about that.
I mean, to be honest, it wouldn't be entirely surprising if that found an actual
nuke in his living room, perhaps as a conversation starting coffee table or an obstacle on his golf course,
perhaps even as a piece of equipment in one of his dungeons, who knows? I wouldn't be surprising if
they found the nuclear football and his memorabilia cupboard alongside the desk from the Oval Office, an original and
now-soiled copy of the US Constitution with multiple unsettling stains, a sex doll that looks
eerily like his own daughter, Rudy Giuliani, and various former Miss Worlds. I mean, there's
nothing that can surprise in terms of what he's pilfered from the American people and state.
Well, I think nobody is surprised,
but I think people are maybe shocked by
the, maybe the blatantness of this whole thing.
He was sort of, it wasn't just the head
that the documents had forgot about them,
and he was hustling them around
and hiding them from people in various
really bad hiding places as well,
in a ballroom, in a bathroom,
in order to sort of keep them for himself, some odd thing.
And then he was talking, he did this on the record in an interview.
He shared unauthorized information about his desire when he was a president to attack a certain country.
And he, he had this conversation with a writer and it's on the record.
He said, look, look what I found.
This was the senior military officials, a plan of attack, read it and it's interesting.
I could have declassified it, he said.
Now I can't, you know, but it's still a secret.
I just, as an ex-loyer, I have to admire somebody
who just covers every angle of a crime
and confesses it to an in writing,
in like two sentences, extraordinary efficiency of words, truly,
a poet of self-incrimination.
I just, genuinely, and it's an achievement
to do that much to damage your own defense
in so short a time.
That's absolutely true.
And also, I think, it definitely breaks ground in home decor.
You know, if you're doing up your Mar-a-Lago house, you've just retired as president, you've
got your Dickens, you know, you've got, you know, your collection of great American writers,
then you have all the countries you want to bomb and have a classified document in each
of them. You know, I think it's not very many people can boast off that bookshelf.
And also, if you're a visiting world leader, doing business with Trump, many years post
his presidency, you go to the toilet, just right under the vogue or the architecture digest
is a new document about how he's going to take you out. It's a good thing to keep around
the house, not all of us have that privilege.
I guess not. Yeah. And I mean, you say a list of countries that he wanted to drop nuclear bombs on.
I think that's just a world atlas.
I mean, there are rumors that he also had the actual big red button that presidents are
known to have in, and then he took it from the White House when he left,
but had written the words, pull my finger on it in Marker Pen.
I don't know, normally when there's nuclear secrets in my bathroom andy, it's just because
I ate too much hummus.
And even then, I have the like dignity to deny it. Hahaha. In other American news, Republican Senator Tom Tillis has been reprimanded by his party.
Now, you know, why might a Republican be reprimanded?
You might think why might a political figure be reprimanded for some kind of wrongdoing, corruption,
for stealing funds or stealing secret documents.
No, in this case, he's been reprimanded for supporting LGBTQ rights and advocating gun control.
And he's been reprimanded. But as a result, in North Carolina, because of these, so essentially,
what the Republicans are saying is they are against human happiness and all life
unless it's still in the womb now that might not sound like a vote winner but this is America we're
talking about and republicans are staunchly sticking to their principles of trying to make as many
people as f***ing miserable as possible and helping Americans achieve their second amendment dream
of being shot dead while going about their daily business. I mean, this really kind of shows, I think, where the Republicans are now, that supporting
human rights and wanting fewer people to die is no longer acceptable.
And my broad majority, it's about 1,000 senators voted to condemn him, although it's not
like universal, there's a few people who've made, you know,
I think quite good points of like, you know,
why are we attacking our own?
Although state senator Jim Bergen said,
I don't think we need to be attacking our own.
You don't shoot our own elephants,
which says to me, how many elephants do you have,
but this is a saying.
Yes, well, I mean, it also does highlight the Republican attitude, doesn't it?
Because a normal human being might think, well just don't shoot any elephants these days,
we know that now.
But the Republican thinks we're not going to win an election without offering people
ivory cudgles to whack each other with.
In a country that supports freedom, the whole thing is meant to be freedom, sort for good or ill, it's important to move in ideological lockstep with your political
affiliates, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, because also, I mean, I guess you've got to protect the freedom to stop other people
having freedoms.
I mean, that's, is that not the ultimate form of freedom itself?
In other Trump news, Trump has been criticized by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's production
company after he used audio from their recent film, Air, which tells the story of the creation
of the Nike Air Sports shoe and the role of Michael Jordan in that.
And Trump's used it in a campaign video.
I mean, I guess they do you have to ask,
if Donald Trump can't steal audio
from a film involving Matt Damon,
what is he gonna be able to steal?
I mean, he's very unlucky that Damon could remember the film.
It was one of six that he filmed on the 12th of July last year,
post-lunch, and it's his, I think,
500th film of the decade so far.
So he's a bit unlucky.
And also, I mean, you know, you're complaining about him nicking audio
from a film. He's stolen nuclear secrets. I mean, lying from a film, there's not going
to waggle the needle on his completely non-existent moral compass.
Is it?
Well, you know, I have a slight screenwriting issue here.
Okay, right, Alice. You know, I saw the film a couple of days ago. Now, their issue is
with the monologue that Matt Damon's
character Sony Vicaro has just when they're about to sign Michael Jordan. So, Michael Jordan
has a choice between a number of shoe companies and Nike is the worst chance of getting him.
And then, Matt Damon comes out with this great speech. And the speech is about how Michael
Jordan is going to change the world. He can't even foresee the things he's done yet, et cetera.
And it ends with this line, a shoe is just a shoe
unless someone steps in it.
Now Donald Trump uses this entire speech out of context
to talk about how unfair his indictment is.
Now, in screenwriting terms, that's like me using Jack Nicholson's,
you can't handle the truth speech every time I take a shit.
It just, there's got to be a context in some screenwriting terms to use something.
I mean, not to shoot the elephant that's on my side here, but a show is just a show
until somebody steps into it.
It's still a show once somebody's stepped into it.
I mean, arguably it's just a foot-shaped box until somebody steps into it.
And this is what I'm realizing, Alice, there's a screenwriting strike and I think you can fill an important gap here in Hollywood with this sort of thing. And I don't know how it works
in his indictment. I mean, of course,
it works for Michael Jordan, because he changes the future of the Nike Air shoe and the
world and everything else. I took quite, I mean, what's the context of a man who's got
a good jail for selling secrets? Are these shoes of corruption? I don't know what shoes
these are. Well, I guess, you know guess they are big shoes to fill with confidential documents before you
fit it in the mouth of the White House.
Moving on now to the horn dog that has sadly barked his last, Silvio Burlescorni.
I don't know if I pronounced that right.
Has gone, as I said, to the great
Bunga Bunga party in the sky. Maybe proof of the existence of gods, or at least the type
of god we see in Renaissance paintings with angels for looking on the clouds, because
we have had entirely cloudless skies in London since Burlescorni died, which makes me think
that the angels have f***ed right off, so they don't have to deal with Silvio turning
up and trying
to grope them on the ass. I mean, if there is an afterlife, the women in it are being
quietly warned about the new arrival. And I mean, well, the Scania was manufactured a lot
in the early years of the bugle. He was, I think it was 2011 that he was last Prime Minister
of Italy. He's been, I've managed to be involved in more corruption scandals than I've
had hot dinners, and I'm averaging close to four hot dinners a day. And a man to whom
a sex scandal is like a 50 mile bike ride is to produce a criss, even when he's actually doing one,
he's thinking about his next one, an age and injury cannot stop him from doing it.
As a man who saw his ancient Roman predecessor as a colligula not as a warning from history,
but as a life coach, spiritual guru and inspiration. And in his age of the strangely orange political leader,
and the media celebrity turned flesh-eating national parasite, Burlusconi was very much a trailblazer.
He catapulted himself from football club owner to and media mogul to straddle that always
got some a fine line between leader of a country and liar thief and lecturers sex pest
It's quite the legacy that Berlusconi has left both in Italy where his his political right-wingery lives on and
In the global trend for people like him to become national leaders. How will you both remember?
Sylvia National leaders. How will you both remember Silvia?
I mean, how can you forget the leathery sex pest and human incarnation of the abstract, if slightly greasy concept of Sleeze, Silvia Bolasconi will leave an odd-shaped and
indelible mark in all of our hearts? I think the thing that strikes me so much about him was,
he did just, he was such an iconic figure, You know, his complexion was unusual in that it was sort of an unheimlich combination of
surgeons, art, makeup, drug use, and sun exposure.
And when he smiled, you know, it looked like you were finding a face in a tree.
I don't know who's Tithy had, and I'd like to believe that I can't be sure that neither
did he.
A political giant in the landscape of Italy's politics, which historically has included
a lot of grifters and maniacs.
He's going to leave a mark on Italy's collective memory somewhere between Emperor Nero and the horse he made a senator.
And he's going to be remembered fondly by all of his kind of political colleagues and all over the world.
He's been getting these tributes coming in, variously ambivalent and carefully worded tributes
from Vladimir Putin called him a true friend
and said he admired Berlusconi's wisdom
and ability to make balanced, far-sighted decisions.
And on the other end of the spectrum,
the French president, Emmanuel Macron,
described Berlusconi as a major figure in contemporary Italy
at the forefront of the political scene for many years
from his first election as a member of Parliament in 1994 to the Senate or a mandate he held until his
final days, which is as neutral a tribute as you possibly, like it's essentially running
Burlesconi's Wikipedia entry through chat GBT.
I like a comment from his first ex-wife. I'm gonna mispronounce her name.
I think it's Carla Dalolio.
And when news came, she said,
what did you think about your married years?
And he said, well, he was here sometimes.
That's a...
So few of us could talk about marriage so fondly.
We will have more on Silvio at the end of the show.
Another figure from the past years of the bugle also died this week.
The iron shake, the former professional wrestler,
and grandmaster of the insultative tweet also popped his clogs this week.
We'll no doubt be calling Silvio a f***ing jabroni as we speak.
His Twitter account became rather legendary, whether or not he actually wrote
it himself or not seems to be slightly disputed.
But there's a pinned tweet left, even as he has left the mortal realm.
There is still a tweet pinned at the top of his Twitter feed that I think sums up what
the iron shake was to humanity.
It simply says, take a minute of your day to be nice to someone
you dumb son of a bitch. I mean, in many ways, those words encapsulates everything about humanity
and the third millennium so far. It's perfect. Well, is it extraordinary, is it extraordinary figure
that sort of a divisive person playing this kind of caricature of Arab nastiness
at the same time as, you know, providing a recognizable figure for people who might
not otherwise encounter any Arab stereotypes.
It's such an extraordinary role that he played both in the WWE and in the broader American
political landscape, that it feels weird because you don't know what
kind of a person he actually was.
Sometimes I think when I looked at the Iron Shake, I wondered whether the current regime
in Saudi Arabia, the Iron Shake has nothing on the current regime in Saudi Arabia.
Like far more menacing.
I mean, no matter what the Iron Shake does, I think the real shakes
are still winning in the wrestling arena.
In many ways, I think you can see the influence of TV wrestling, which was previously viewed
as rather over the top and contrived. Essentially essentially that is what mainstream politics has now become.
So, I guess, in many ways, he's a figure that straddles different eras of human civilization.
We will play you out at the end of this week's episode with some excerpts of
Burlesconi and the Iron Shake from Bugles long past.
We will end this week's Bugle there. As I said, we will play you out now with some classic excerpts in the Bugle archives dealing with Sylvia Birlis-Goni and the
Iron Shake, who have both departed this planet for whatever comes next. Thank you very much for
listening. Alice, anything to plug? So I just want to say if you're going to have an iron shake, you also want to have some vitamin C shake.
So they can absorb it better.
I have a podcast called The Guggle, which is the Glossy magazine to the Bugles Audio and Newspaper for a visual world
that goes out weekly. Also patreon.com slash Alice Fraser, I have weekly writers meetings if you want to come and write with me
and we also have a workshop afterwards and that's available for everyone who signs up to the Patreon at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser.
And you are doing the Edinburgh Festival this year?
I am doing the Edinburgh Festival. My show is called Twist. If you're in Edinburgh, come see it. It's at the underbelly Bristow Square
and it's like sometime in the evening, you know.
like sometime in the evening. You know.
And you have your, are you doing
Edinburgh this year?
Just for two weeks, Andy, I am at the assembly last two weeks
of Edinburgh 14 to 28.
And I think I mentioned this once before, I'm not doing
comedy this year.
I'm coming as a representative of a new department in the
British Foreign Service called the Department of
Britishness.
And I've been hired to spread Britishness in India,
which seems to be losing its value.
Oh, yeah, it's not just India that's happening, to be honest.
You can listen to me talking about cricket for
a potential 25 days in the next six weeks as the ashes begins.
There is no unbelievable ashes this year because Felicity Ward is busy filming some stuff in
Australia. However, there will be a daily bugle ashes Zoltzcast with the stats of the day and
with the stats of the day and assorted other purely truthful nonsense that will be available via the internet in an exciting
new addition to the Bugle stable. As a result of the cricket we are having a week
off next week we will be back in two weeks to go through until our summer break
in August. We will now play you out with some classic archival bugle about Silvia Berlusconi and the
Iron Shake.
Goodbye.
My favourite song solt this week came from Silvia Burlusconi and the Prime Minister of Italy
in career criminal.
Never let you down.
Who described Obama after his victory as young, handsome and even-tanned?
Oh, Silvio.
Whether that was an opinion or a joke, either of them would be from the 1950s.
Well, you can always run Burlusaskone to come up with the goods. I mean, that's what
you want in Italian politics, John. I mean, you can't make jokes about the lira anymore
and we almost them. And they don't change government quite as often as they used to.
And it has been a while since their tanks only had a reverse gear. But burlaskone will
always be there for us, John. He will always say
something genuinely appalling, but at the same time, quite funny. He said some amazing
things over the years. He suggested that a Chinese used to boil babies under mouth. This
caused a bit of a rumpus with the Chinese. And then Berlusconi clarified his comments
by saying that they didn't eat them. They just boiled them in order to use them to fertilize
the fields. Also, he told a German member of the European Parliament that he'd be perfect for a film role as a
Nazi camp guard. Also described himself as the Jesus Christ of politics. I'm a patient victim,
I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone. And he also said that if he was talking
about why a company should invest in Italy, he said another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries.
Oh God.
He's the worst human being in the world.
Yeah, but he's great value for the neutral spectator.
There have been some admirable and unusual protests from members of 51% of the world's population this week.
The wife of Silvio Berlusconi, poor woman.
And he... Well done. Poor woman, yes. in this week the wife of Silvio Burlusconi poor woman and the well done poor woman yes but not
only is she his wife but she's still his wife so you can kind of understand her marrying him by
mistake but she stayed married to him Silvio Burlusconi Italian Prime Minister and spectacular crook
That's a spectacular crook. That's hard.
Is that going, is that staying in?
That's going, that is legally rock solid.
It's a fact, that is a legal fact.
It is a fact, he has shaped like a shepherds crook.
That's right.
It's wife has criticized he and his party's plan
to field attractive young women as European election candidates.
Are the awkward relationship new? party's plan to field attractive young women as European election candidates.
Other awkward relationship news now and Andy never mind Nick Clayg and David Cameron being
thrust together.
Bugle favourite Sylvia Burlescoanie has been quite by his standards recently and he's not
getting his in the face with any more miniature cathedrals
nor sleeping with any more teenage models who he momentarily and repeatedly mistook for
his wife. Perhaps it was little snaffos like that that have caused him getting divorced.
Now Burlesconi's wealth was estimated by Forbes at $6.5 billion in March, putting him at number
70 in the rankings of the world's billionaires. Pretty good. He's taxable earnings in 2007.
To that taxable earnings. This is hypothetical, of course. That's right.
Total 14.5 million euros. Still actually a huge drop on the 139 million euros. He declared in
2006, but that is also just why he
declared because
as i think we both know deep down all of us know
you have to understand that paying tax for burlis goonies like bungee jumping
he can understand in theory why people do it it's just not something he can
ever see himself personally being interested in trying. LAUGHTER MUSIC
Bala Skoney to Architect apparently said there are two philosophies of restoration.
One is just to clean the work and leave it as it is.
The other involves making the work whole again, without damaging it,
to provide an image of the work and it was originally conceived.
Well that sounds great, very handy.
I just don't know exactly
where I detach more magnetic penis fits into that philosophy.
Next week, Bolascoanie attaches detachable magnetic massive tips to the Venus de Milo.
Here we are, Bolascoanie News now, and well he's been charged since we last did a
duge all who's been officially charged with being very, very naughty indeed.
But this is the latest in his spectacular 17 years in and out of power, allegations of
wild sex parties, prostitution, bribery, tax evasion corruption and much much more and
yet the poll show that his public approval rating is still high and if an
election would be held tomorrow he would win it
and what do these people want John
and my
the thing is prostitution he's been accused of paying for sex with a 17-year-old
a Moroccan exotic dancer
he's called the
charges groundless and the thing is prostitution is not illegal in Italy and the age of consent
is 14 but a prostitute must be 18 or older. So in Balaskone's defense he might be a 75-year-old
man banging a 17-year-old but legally it's just a technicality. It leaves a man alone, letting his own life.
Strapping.
Gigglers.
Twin number one.
IOC.
I f**k you up.
No disrespect to the legend my only sport wrestling.
They have no dick.
They make new sport of go f**k yourself.
Right. Strong tweet.
That's right out of the gate there, aren't you?
That's what the format was invented for,
that kind of concise, expressing of opinion.
No, you would think he would then put his computer or phone down
and think, that I did that was perfect.
Well, I just communicated everything I needed to say about this thing that's upset me.
But you know what, then he picked it up again.
And he typed this, tweet two.
You see the legend, you know I break the ICO back,
make them humble.
Go fuck the badminton and the walking,
they are not sports like wrestling.
The ICO, I think he clearly typed these
in something of a rage, John.
Well, that's right, that's not a problem.
tweet number three, new Olympic sport is who has smaller
Dickland Hog Holder, that same Olympic wrestling.
I don't know what he's talking about. To be honest, say that.
That would get quite big TV viewing figures.
And it's also definitely something that Britain would have a
live metal chance in. Other 20 said, well, good night.
And IOC go fuck yourself.
Don't ever insult the legend, IOC.
Or I break the Olympics back, make you humble.
I tell you one thing, he also hates Andy,
and that is punctuation.
The island she did not just save,
this email goes on to say,
the island she did not just save his weird brand
of virtual for Twitter either, offering up the following quotes in an interview with TMZ
After a thousand years they take away the best sports in the world
This is the first time the dumb mother f***ers have no balls for they make the walking and Olympic sports
He really hates walking he really does
If I see anybody on the street that worked from the IOC, I swear to Jesus that I suplexed them, put them in camel clutches, break their back, make them humble.
And finally, is that really a humility?
Having a broken back?
The hashtag team Sheiki respect the Olympics now, they could all go f**k themselves.
And make the curling Olympic sport, that's the Winter Olympics, but you don't want to argue with him when he's this angry
Because they also the biggest piece of no good shit, and I never watch the Olympics again
Also also buy my t-shirt on my website or go fuck yourself
Buy my t-shirt or go fuck yourself
If you have any bull, that would be your slogan.
By my t-shirt or go f*** yourself,
let's just distilled marketing down to its element performs.
He's run that through a focus group, John.
God, that's good.
This guy's not to be trusted though,
because after he was the iron shake
that was when America had a problem with Iran in the 80s. Yeah, then when the war of Iraq happened
He renamed himself Colonel Mustafa and teamed up with Sergeant Sulta and said he was from Iraq
Yeah, really so this guy is is not to be trusted. He's a chief Chris, I would say everything we've learned over the last few minutes.
I would be very, very careful in reflecting the odds.
He, otherwise you're about to get in.
I'm going to buy one of the T-shirts just to protect us.
He posted the following tweets, message on Twitter saying something like,
Chris, I break your back, go fuck yourself.
Try out a lot not sports.
I see oh mother