The Bugle - NATO commits to committing to Ukraine, one day

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Nato, sort of, commits to Ukraine, it's Zuck v Musk and major India news as high speed trains take on goats. Plus, a reading from D'Ancey LaGuarde!Listen to the latest Bugle Ashes Zaltzcast and buy our new book: http://thebuglepodcast.comThe Bugle was presented and written by...Andy ZaltzmanAlice FraserAnuvab PalD'Ancey LaGuardeAnd produced by...Chris Skinner and Laura Turner 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. The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Bugalers, and welcome to issue 4,270 of the Bugal audio newspaper for a visual world with me and his ultimate recording this week back where it all didn't begin, but

where it carried on for quite a while, in the something else studio, in London's Glamorous Old Street area, just yards from where I once had an actual job. My first and in the last actual job sub editing articles about stop markets and securities, intimately wondering whether I should at some point try to find out what securities actually were and also wondering if it was normal to end every working day thinking that all human life was futile. I lasted nearly a year in that job, the highlights of which were A, an excellent sausage from the now defunct cafe around the corner, B, the morning where two pigeons started humping on the roof of the building across the road, and C, resigning,

and casting myself into the fickle winds of free-lancery. But what would have happened if I'd stuck at it? If I'd stuck with sub-editing, well I've got an alternative career simulator on my laptop, so let's run out what I would have been doing almost a quarter of a century on. Well I'd have been Senior Features Editor at the Fashion Magazine Vogue, viewed and I'd have been viewed across the world as one of the leading style icons of the century. Oh, the life I could have had. Well I guess you've got to accept the card you've been dealt. One of which in a rare time I get between being contractually obliged to watch every single ball of cricket available is introducing our two co-hosts on this week's

Bugle. First of all, it's a great pleasure to welcome the literary agent for the prominent author, Donzilla Guard. It's Alice Fraser. Hello Andy, hello Bugleers. The vision of you as the editor of Vogue is the wind tour of my discontent Andy. Also, I like Old Street London. I like coming to Old Street because it is one of those places in London that has a name that could belong to anywhere in London. Yes, it's all degrees of oldness. How are you, Alice? Well, it's been, you know, we've been in the same physical studio. Yeah, it's delightful to be back in the Zolt Salzman Musk. It feels inspirational I feel I feel back driven to create good set-iron growing people's lives. Salzman Musk also one of the outside tips for the

Wimble and Men's doubles title this week. Also joining us also here in three full dimensions back in the UK to negotiate the return of East Anglia to India. They're renowned agriculturally productive and resolutely un-mountainous region of England that new research suggests was taken by the East India company in 1742 from Bengal towed back to Britain by a squadron of special boats and attached to the English mainland using special ties fashioned out of Indian rubber. So you're here to claim it back, Anavab. Welcome Anavab pal to the Beatles part of the special and an envoyery from India. Thank you, Adi. I wasn't hoping to start with talking about return-ip switch to Calcutta as my political model, but here we are. And I mean, I mean, I'm privileged to be across from somebody who

could have been the future editor of Bloomberg News. Mutual funds, are they here to stay by Andy's old suit? I didn't think that those are the articles we'd read instead of about English opening batsmen. But I have to say, Alice, and it's pleasure, we're meeting up after a long time. I didn't want to be in London this time, but I had to rush here because I don't know if you guys know, but yesterday it was announced that we're in a new geological epoch. All right. Yeah, we're now as of Wednesday in the Anthropocene period, which is a period defined by climate

change and humans doing things to climate change. So I had to fly here immediately to discuss this new epoch. Apparently, I realized once I got here, that an epoch is not a geographical thing. I just didn't want to be in a different epoch. I thought being in Mumbai had been a different epoch, but apparently it covers the whole thing. Yes. So it's not like a shengen visa.

No, no, we're all in it. I, what do you say that? But I think, you know, in Britain, we'd like to be, we will have a referendum on whether we remain part of the Anthropocene epoch or if we go our own way and go back to, I don't know what came before the Anthropocene epoch, what did British people do? Well, this is what worried me. We were in the holocene epoch. 1700 years ago, that began and I didn't want to be the only bugler left in the Hall of Seen epoch. But then I realized that it's fine all over the place it's the same. Till of course, Andy leads Britain out on the Anthropomacy Deepok.

I mean, as of Wednesday, I didn't know why I was feeling so uncomfortable on Wednesday, but I was straddling an epoch, something that was on my bucket list. I'm worried. And I'll be honest, I said to the guide immigration that I'm here for this epoch thing, he was confused. And that's just because his views on epochs are different than mine. There we go. We will have full exclusive coverage of the Anthropocene epoch as it unfolds over the next 40,000 years of human history here on the Bugle. We are recording today on the 12th of July 2023 on this day in 1543. Henry VIII, King of England, married his sixth and final wife,

Catherine Paar, an occasion that Hampton Court Palace famous for the most awkward father of the bride's beach in human history. Well, we first got to know Henry shortly after he'd had his then wives head chopped off for the second time. Not the second time that wife had a head chopped off, of course. I mean, the second wife to have a little joke that tough crowd. Of course, though, we're all very excited to see what happens to RKT, probably something that rhymes with died, divorce, beded, died, divorce, bedded, fried, you've got a new execution method, you're suspiciously puffy sleeve, how, pied, but may be a bit of slapstick custom pie in the most, I think we'd all take that, hide,

good idea, looks like I'm about the only way to get through a raw marriage these days, I'm joking of course, it's lovely to welcome Henry and to our family. I'm just waiting where everyone could smell his leg apparently. Oh really? Yeah, apparently it was really smelly leg. By that point. Well he was massive and quite ill by that point. Yeah, he'd sort of gone putressant from the knees now.

What's the only thing about Henry VIII? We sort of think he was famously athletic in his youth and then famously unathletic in his later ladies. But actually, he crammed in five of his six wives to the last 15 years of his life. Yeah, probably the smelly leg. The smelly leg era. I mean, it was advanced gout

and by that age, he was eating a whole goose for dinner. But it was a love marriage. And I don't know what you guys think of this, but I think if you're honest with your partner, there's a lot of things they'll forgive, like gout and beheadings. Right. Let's not forget Osama bin Laden's fourth marriage was a love marriage, and it was after 9-11.

So I think if you confess to your partner that you've been up to no good, you'll forgive things. It's all about open lines of communication. On this day in 100 BC, Julius Caesar, Roman superstar was born. Happy birthday to Julius, the celebrity ancient Roman war monger, diarist, despot, populist, salad inventor, month pioneer, boxing venue architect, knife crime victim. Born on this day, as I said in 100 BC, at the age of minus 55, died at the age of naught in March 44 BC. That's how age worked in those days as the years went down.

Oh, man, that's... As always, the section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week. As we enter the... well, we're now almost halfway through. The second week of Wimbledon, we have a Wimbledon Facts section for you to leave through as you watch no fact joke of its preceding ever to breathe towards yet another title. Fact one, if you ticked all the strawberries sold at Wimbledon every year into a quarry for the next 100 years, then covered it over in just 2 million years you would have fossilized jam.

If you took all the players who have ever played at Wimbledon in the men's women's and various doubles tournaments and stood them on each other's shoulders, they would reach part of the way to the moon, but not back. The stack of tennis players would in any case collapse due to the high number of corpses involved as many players in the 19th and early 20th central Wimbledons are dead. A cliff-rich would famously sang a vomit inducing medley with his own god-awful fucking songs doing a rone-break at Wimbledon in the 1990s. But he wasn't the first rock actor belt out in prompt to karaoke session. American heavy metalers Man of War entered the crowd on court 14 in 1982 with a quote's ear bleeding rendition of their battle hymns album after hooking up the umpire's microphone to a spare amp they had with him in their picnic box.

Fact 4, is this 4 or 5? Fact 4, in the days or 5, I hope. Fact 4, in the days when only amateur players were allowed to play, the person at the front of the overnight queue on the first day of the championships was invited to enter the single straw. This practice was abandoned after the young professional wrestler and tennis obsessive giant haystacks

ended up in a feisty first round against the Eraspel American principal Sprott in 1967, which ended when the 6 foot1,430-pound hastaxe thought he'd won by a submission before Sprott whacked him around the head of the Umpire's chair. That's why Umpire's now sit on big high chairs, and why Wim would have allowed professionals the following year. Fact 5. Former World No. 43. Blancshard Ferretier of France was disqualified from the 1992 tournament, after turning up for his first round match with German qualifier Flastern Hoffel-Klaust, a wearing a Hannibal Lecter mask.

The Frenchman explained that he was unable to remove the mask after a pre-tornament session with his sports psychologist, aimed at making him feel like a more intimidating opponent, and even though his coach painted it white to comply with Wimbledon clothing regulations, he was kicked out. And finally, fact 6, the first recorded fist bump in Tennis History was performed at Wimbledon in 1886 by the Honourable Strevel Hamstead Watsbury, although it's now thought that rather than celebrating a well-won rally, he was in fact trying to punch an imaginary dolphin after a long night in an Elspield opium den. Those are your Wimbledon fats in the bin.

Top Story Time! It's the most wonderful time of the year. If you love NATO summits and the general awkward sense that the world is teetering on the precipice that may lead to another precipice, which if we fall off that one as well, onto the third precipice, we will be on the precipice of nuclear war. Much discussed at the summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, including the future membership of Ukraine, the NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said, Ukraine will join NATO when allies agree and conditions are met, eerily reminiscent of the negotiations before I and my now wife got engaged. He also announced that Ukraine's pathway to joining NATO was changing from a two-step

process to a one-step process, albeit that one step is now twice as long. I think that's how it works, I haven't grouped with the details. I know you're massive fans of all international summits, both of you. So what have been the highlights for you from the NATO chinwag? Well, I mean, it's the heightened feelings, you know, that makes this kind of incredibly boring bureaucracy seat grippingly exciting. A lot of me as a landscape's been quite mean about NATO not properly inviting Ukraine to join the party

after the leaders signed off on declaration that did not give a firm timetable or clear conditions for the eventual membership of the Ukraine. So you've got to love a declaration that avoids declaring anything. It's like someone getting down on one knee and saying they love you so much and makes them weak in one knee and they want to spend the rest of this $50 gift card at Costco with you. I mean, I can understand why he's frustrated. He's accused all of the

other leaders of showing disrespect and saying there wasn't any readiness, but the other leaders did their best. They malved platitudes of support and kept one wary eye on the extremely unpredictable and nuclear-powered feelings of crazy ex-girlfriend Russia while making commitments to commit to definitely think about one day thinking about inviting Ukraine to brunch. So I feel like everyone's walked away with their pride intact.

That's an important thing. I went a little off topic, Alessendi, I googled weird shit you can do in Villeneas. I always feel like when the conference is over, where do these NATO leaders, what do they do? They have the evenings free and one of the coolest things you can do in Villeneas is go to the KGB Museum. It's a couple of Lithuania and they have a KGB Museum and they're reviewed. No, no wonder they didn't invite you to crime. The Google Review for the KGB Museum of Validia says not very revealing. I don't know what to think of that.

The other thing you can do is go to a tower of a massive tower sits in the middle of the city called the Dominious Tower. And it was named after the founder of Villeneas, the Grand Duke Chidiminus from the 14th century. And he thought of building this tower after it showed up in a dream where he saw an iron wolf howling on top of a tower. When he woke up he realized what was missing in that dream was the tower and so I suppose if he built that the wolf would come right so that's exactly so there's a tower I assume at that point Litoa and Dildo Manifactures, all, all, all, all, yeah fair enough, fair enough. Same beliefs, I think you got to have dream in the Dildo of Manufacturing Business. I think the iron wolf is a product in that.

I guarantee you it is. So yes, the Lensky Describes, unprecedented and absurd, the fact that Ukraine did not yet have more detail on exactly when it could join Club NATO. So everyone's agreed that it will, but it's just a question of when they will be allowed to join and get the free members goodie bag, including branded stationary set, bumper sticker, personal engraved picnics, fork, and collective security agreement promising military aid in the event of being invaded by someone else. Ukraine is currently a partner to NATO, sort of a bit on the side status, and the reason

the state of our NATO for not currently fast-tracking Ukraine, two former member status, well they were five of them, one, it's really awkward right now, two, C1, it's still really awkward, three, there's a bit of an issue with having too many countries beginning with the letter U, and four, there are 31 member states now and they've just agreed with Sweden to make it 32 with the accession of Sweden. So finally they've reached a nice easy format for the NATO Summit, table tennis and breakdancing competitions, eight groups of four, four groups of eight, a five round knockout, so many options and you just don't want to spoil it by adding a 33rd country. It just leads to, I don't know, some kind of repercharge or playoffs. No one wants that. And reason five,

yikes. So we will keep you updated on whether Ukraine is eventually allowed to join. Turkey has backed Sweden's NATO membership, which is exciting for if you're Sweden, I guess, and you want to join. Either of you thinking of, obviously you're looking on from Australia and India, and you're just, you're not in the Atlantic. There's not enough of a feature of your coastlines. Do you feel excluded by this? Is this just geographical prejudice of the highest water? You know, Erdogan, as we know, leader of Turkey is a great believer in democracy and freedom. In the same way, Maradona was an advocate for no drugs and football. Turkey isn't properly in Europe, but it's always a key player because of their geographic influence. There's a gateway to confidence, phosphorus, river,

NATO can't do anything without a gateway, right? So, Turkey's like the HTTP of Europe. It swings its its weight around a little bit more than it may be sure. It's a bit of a bit of an Istanbul-y, if you will. But that's why I think this is why I realize that Turkey knows how to come to a party. It goes to show that when you go to a party it doesn't matter who you are or how you're dressed. It's where you stand that matters. And just Turkey always stands in the right place to be. Well, it's genuinely good that it's changed its mind because up until this point it's been constant and open to Sweden's...

I'm sorry. This is the pun run I've been reading. No, no, we're done, that's it. Because then it's just is done well again and then constant. I was the same, just goes round. Very catchy. Maybe some of a writer's song about this. Well, I might be able to of lingering ill feeling because the Vikings did make

it all the way to what was ent-isantium, didn't they? They tuddled off down Berris Rivers. So I don't know if it's just taken Turkey, I don't know, this week was the week that they finally got over it. And then, you know, fell over 1200 years on, I don't know. [♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING AND CHILDREN MUSIC PLAYING Technology news now. Well, you mentioned this earlier, the Zuck V. Musk latest.

The launch of the Twitter alternative app Threads by Mark Zuckerberg. Threads presumably named after the 1980s British TV series that people in my generation were forced to watch at school about what happens if there was a nucleus strike on the north of England. And basically every single person of my age in this country haunted by nightmares from the TV series Threads and the absolute devastation of, I think it was Sheffield. Obviously that was very, very harrowing for me because it meant, you know, there was a

world in which the world's snooker finals wouldn't happen. So you could see why it was so traumatic. So he's lost threads named after some kind of fictional nuclear hologost. Or possibly the parasite that falls from the sky in the Dragonriders of Pern series by Ann McAfry. I'll take your word for that. Yeah, it's through human flesh and stuff. Right, I'm a bit behind on...

But lucky they have the dragons to fight it, so that's nice. Yeah, so... And also the power of banging, if I recall correctly. It's always a power. So, I mean, what are we to interpret in terms of the... The battle between Zuckerberg and Musk? It's super fascinating. Zuckerberg's really bullish on it. He says the new app reached 100 million users of the weekend. What he didn't mention was all the users were people with

zero commitment to the product just showing up to kick the tires and see if it's really going to be the Twitter rival. I signed up. It is the easiest on-boarding process I have ever been privileged to participate in, but just sets itself up without you touching it like like an Apple computer, and it is immediately the worst user interface, the most unusably cluttered feed, the most unpleasant experience that I've ever had online. It's just horrendous. It's immediately completely swamped with influencers' brands, ads, weird forning, clout farmers trying to artificially juice engagement by saying things like,

the 10 best single exposed boobs in film history, go! It immediately lets you import all of your Instagram followers, which feels like a good idea until you remember that you follow people on Instagram to look at their pretty pictures. You follow people on Twitter to follow their thoughts and pretty pictures are the opposite of thoughts. Do you have immediately populated your feed with the most vapoured people you could possibly imagine? And then it just says a lot about how much good will Elon Musk has lost in the social

media sphere that people are running willy-nilly back into the arms of Zuckerberg. He's responded to the launch of Threads, Musk has, by threatening to sue Metta over the copycat app. But I feel like once you threatened and then backed down from a cage fight you've got nowhere else to go. You've backed yourself into a metaphorical octagon. So the cage fight is that's not going to happen anymore. No, Elon's mum called it off. All right. There's talked the AI robot versions of Musk and Zuckerberg could be set to hack each other to pieces with giant sores and pneumatic hammers and a new addition of the TV series Robot Wars, which I think

really will be the end point of all human civilization. And if I were you excited about this, this new... It's quite sad it's not happening. I mean I know Alice has been following Elon Musk very closely for many years and when the fight was announced I thought this would be sort of the crowning moment Alice of all the things you've been following. But let's settle this once and for all, is a really good idea. You know, I think we've lost it somewhere in history. We lost single combat, yeah. Single combat, exactly. Exactly. See, that's why English is my second language. I didn't have the word for it, but that's it. Single combat. And I made a little list of who else I'd like to see in

battle, just a single combat battle because their thing was what's the best social media app in the world. And I'm willing to fight you in the Coliseum to prove that mine is better than you. When threads came out, I just want to see slightly different battles. For example, these are three battles I think we could benefit from. One is the philosopher Bertrand Russell versus Bruce Lee. That would be to solve where the mathematical pacifist logic could win over the one two-kick and the nut punch. That's one battle I think we want to see. I'd really like to see Mahatma Gandhi versus Roger Federer on where the what's better better nonviolent revolution or a furious backhand and finally Delay Lama versus George Osborne to just see who does

austerity better you know Buddhism or the Chancellor of the Xiecri I mean if we are going to do a settle once and for all and the Colosseum is available yeah why just do one fight to settle only one thing I just want to hear Federer against Gandhi on how each of them feels about cows. Wasn't Federer given a cow? He was given a cow, yeah. Yeah, he wanted, I think it was a his home tournament in Basel, he got given the more nurturing, I think, the more get the most out of him.

And he took that cow with him for the rest of his career, every tournament. And he took that cow with him for the rest of his career every tournament. Well that would be, they turned up to be the cut to the place box and this is a wife, coach, manager, price cow. I mean look, in Bandro where I live there's a Starbucks and often times on Wednesdays there are about three cows sitting there and we have to sort of leap across to get the double espresso. So, I mean, you know, it wouldn't be that, I mean, I know it's shocking for you guys. On the bright side, if they haven't put enough milk in your coffee. I mean, you can get it from the outside.

Yeah. I mean, there's somebody's cows, you can't just start milking private property. Yes. So, the next developments in social media set to further crowd this crowded marketplace after threads include builds, which is a new automated AI driven service that makes up things that users might make up themselves if they could be asked, then post them to the build platform where other AI bots on behalf of other AI users who also can't be asked respond with a mixture of ill-informed counter arguments and personal abuse, basically just taking into its logical endpoint.

The new social media platform, ah! When all you can post is a link to another thing on the internet in the word, ah! I'm not sure anything else is needed anymore. And Elongate, in which you post an idea and AI technology transforms it into the most dystopian possible version of that idea as it would become where Elon Musk to develop it and also suck it up, which is similar to Elongate, but marginally less mad and marginally more depressing. At some point there is going to be a start-up division of the bugle. There is start-up ideas would be launched. Yeah.

India news now and well, Anivam, there's a tomato crisis in India due to a bad weather causing crisis to rise 400%. And I mean, I guess the eternal question with tomato is is it a fruit? Is it a vegetable? Answer is a vegetable because it goes in salads, but not in desserts, that is all. That's the only defining characteristic of fruit and vegetables. Anyone who says anything else is a liar. But I mean, this is quite, it can look as if it is fundamental to a lot of Indian cookery.

Prices have gone up 400% in recent weeks. It's too hot and too cold in India. The rain has ravaged the crop. Things are so bad that McDonald's has decided it's not going to use tomatoes in its burgers. So I mean, I don't know what's going to mean I'm a McDonald's burger in India because beef is bad and you can't have a tomato. So you're just getting bread, really. Bread and a gorken.

That's good enough. And I think India is just going to have to stop watching, you know, bolologna's recipes on Instagram because all this tomato requirement has to come to an end. Basically, in India, we used to get four months of rain. And we look to the heavens around May as all developed countries do. And hope it rains and all our crops come out fantastic. And, you know, we feed the country. It's all gone off. I mean now it rains in February, in July there's been in some parts of India drought in other parts of India just entire highways being washed away and tomato needs a calm sort of environment with predictable rains and I think that's it for us in tomatoes, really. Right. We may have to export it from Spain.

Well, I remember stories back in the early 2000s about people crossbreeding tomatoes for additional robustness. I mean, surely you could crossbreed a tomato with a fish for drought, you know, flood resistance or... So it can just grow under water? Yeah. Why don't you see why that can't happen. Yeah, that should happen. Yeah. I mean, I'm surprised how in tropical countries you now get fruits and vegetables that just there's no logic by which they should be there. Like, how are there strawberries in Mumbai? But these things are all happening now.

It's funny that at the amount of energy it takes to store three to Mumbai is about as much energy as it goes into ruining the atmosphere so that a tomato can survive. This is the choice of the one that will have to be. One to one. Yeah, lose a tomato get a strawberry. In other Indian news, well, I mean, there have been many rivalries that have shaped this planet, humans versus nature.

We've talked about, but trains versus goats could be one that really decides the future. And there's been, well, a landmark showdown, and if I've been in India this week, in the trains versus goats battle to bring us up to date. I mean, this is the main debate, the world is facing and you're right. You know I think a lot of people talk about economic development versus fossil fuels. You know like should developing countries give up economic development because they're not allowed to use gold that's what I think that's the wrong debate. I think the big debate is high speed rail versus goats.

So the Prime Minister of India has a pet project and high speed rail is a pet project. Short distances between Indian cities covered by high speed trains that India hasn't seen. We've had long distance trains for a long time. You'd be familiar with those because the British put them there. And we've at most repaired an engine or two but essentially we're still running on last Weegean engines and doing Mumbai to Delhi in 24 hours. You're making me jealous now. I know you want to be on those trains and a lot of English people would love to be on those trains. I think it's in the Monsons, it's 48 hours actually on that train to get from Mumbai to Delhi an hours flight. Prime Minister Modi wants to change all that.

He started a train called the Vande Bharat Express. So you can do Delhi to the Taj Mahal for example, now in two and a half hours. We used to take seven hours. Now high speed rail comes at a cost in a developing country because it goes through a lot of farmland. And this is the fourth incident where livestock have been killed, have been run over by high-speed trains. This time it was a train from Delhi to Lucknow, ran over four goats.

And clearly the proprietor of that, a man from Uttar Pradesh called Mr Manu Paswan, and his sons were very upset at the loss of their livestock. So they decided to take the best legal recourse available which was throwing stones at the train and they damaged the windows of the Vandeparath Express after their goats got mowed down which I think is natural justice in some way. They have been arrested and there's a big debate in India as to what is more important goats versus trains and I want to know where you guys stand on the debate really.

Well, I mean, it's the betrayal of the trains really, because it used to be, obviously, that the goats would be aware of the train coming for, you know, up to 16 hours before it actually arrived. There'd be a small toddler walking in front of the train to warn anybody that it was on its approach. And, you know, it was kind of a gentleman's agreement that if the train happened to be coming up to the goats and the goats were still on the track that the train would stop for up to three weeks until the goats decided to leave. So all of a sudden to change the rules on the goats feels unfair.

Yeah, and India's not ready for your CNA for Talgo or the French train talus, you know, we're not ready for that kind of speed. I have often been on the Mumbai Delhi train where people have walked much faster or cycled much faster to the next station. And the whole point of it was a sort of lumbering, Victorian, lackadaisical, mode of transport. Right. Now, I realize Prime Minister Modi wants to change that, but it's going to come at the cost of a lot of wild animals. Well, I mean my answer to this would be to try to find out which is better, goats or trains.

So we're going to do it in five categories, category one. As a means of transport, trains are faster and with a wider choice of seating options, goats more reliable. It's close, the trains can take more people. So trains, Edgit, one-neil trains. Range of drink options. Well, when you're on a goat, you're pretty much restricted to goat milk, unless you want to go really off-peaced. Whereas on a train, you can get a range of hot and cold beverages,

including tea, coffee, and alcoholic and soft drinks. Train, two-neil to trains. Edibility. Well, goat, carry a classic dish in many parts of the world. Boiled goats, I had in Greece once, which was literally a bit of goat, that have been boiled. Trains, however notoriously hard to cook. Goat gets a point, it's two-one to trains. Ability to negotiate, a passage through mountains.

That's a big win for goats. They can do it without years of advance planning and millions of pounds of funding for infrastructure. So goat pulls it back to two all, it's like the ass is all over again Chris. How many goats are the decider? Usability is a motif in blue songs. Oh shit, trains take the decider, trains coming in and going out of the station as a metaphor for human emotions and relationships. Well, that's pretty tough to beat. Goats trotting into the goat pan

just doesn't quite do it. So trains better than goats. There we are. I have to say I wasn't expecting this analysis, but the many things I was expecting. So I'm just, I think I'm going to go back to my burner, God, now. UK news now and the British immigration minister has painted over some cartoon murals at a children's asylum center because it's not enough to have an in-human answer to a human problem. It's not enough. You have to have performative poultry alongside it and that is pretty much the only strand of the government immigration policy that they've shown any aptitude for all willingness to properly fund. This is an extraordinary story, the Robert Generic immigration minister, ordered an asylum centre to paint over cartoons of Mickey Mouse

because that was viewed as too welcoming to children who have been dragged across the world and risked their life. I don't know if he's replaced it with a mural of Nigel Farage saying f*** off instead. But certainly the Mickey Mouse has gone. I mean, you'd call him a cartoon villain, but he's clearly an anti-cartoon villain. He's had these murals painted over, and I clarify had them painted over. He didn't paint them over himself. His hands are two full of appearing cat and a blueprint for how he he's gonna blow up the moon to actually pick up a paintbrush. He then apparently spat at a picture of Dolly Parton, said he thought David Addenborough was overrated and then did a poo next to the toilet on the floor just to get his mornings busy f***ing quota up to level. I'm a bit worried here, it's not enough to imprison unaccompanied

children running from war zones, you also have to make sure they're underpants are extra itchy. It's like, I worry that he's got body dysmorphia for horribleness. He's looking in the mirror and going, no, I'm not enough of a just need. And you don't know where that'll end. It's dangerous. I want to ask you guys, what do you think would be welcoming posters that gives a summary of the United Kingdom to children? I was thinking thinking would it be a mixture of the film Omen and a poster of the Battle of Algiers? I was thinking what if it wasn't Disney what what films would you choose to put posters up? Well I guess I mean he could still use Mickey Mouse but after he had finally been caught and savaged by a cat, that's just like the remnants of Mickey Mouse's corpse That would truly

Sticking these children's minds forever Am I C K E Y? I mean it does raise the question of That does our government think that there are children around the world badgering their parents to come to Britain for the Mickey Mouse murals and that if they know there are no cartoon murals they will persuade their parents not to make this death-defying journey. Will it dissuade a single asylum seeker from risking everything to come to Britain? Well maybe they think well I'm

wavering should we relocate our entire existence to a not especially welcoming place for a series of very ill advised means of transport in the hands of some of the world's most exploitative shitheads? Well that doesn't sound like a great idea, let's just have a look at the brochure. Oh look there's a picture of Daffy Duck playing football on the wall at the processing centre, count us in! I'm not sure that's part of the thought process. No, and I mean, the decision, I mean, these unaccompanied children. They're not just going to walk in and be like, well, it's a bit grim and turn around. This is the last gasp of their safety on a journey that has to have been incredibly devastating. I mean, I don't know, maybe the cartoons, a little bit, a little bit not enough, but taking the cartoons away is way too much. Hahaha. You know, the UK consulate in Calcutta has posters

to define Britain, and it's got a B-feet, it's got the Queen, and it's got Alan Partridge. Hahaha. I don't know if that's, I guess it's a tough decision to say this is Britain, kids. You know, it's, I guess it's a tough decision to say this is Britain kids. It's, which posters you choose are always tricky. Well I guess that shows that generally when people try to define Britain, certainly on that side of the physical spectrum, they make up an absurd largely frictional version of it,

because the reality is quite hard to express in a single image. The visa processing centre in Australia went to get my anti-stri-visa. They have a sort of a series of icons that I meant to represent Britain and it's all of the things that it has to offer. And you sort of go the thistle. And then the two of the icons are different versions of a cup of tea and then a tea pot. And then three of them are just different shapes of sport ball. I definitely was probably representative. In other Britain dealing with asylum seekers news there are plans to house asylum

seekers on a barge to reduce the reliance on housing them in hotels. But it turns out that this scheme will only save 10 pounds per person per day and basically involves imprisoning people on a barge, which... Yeah, I mean, the decommissioned warships angered in the mud off Woolwich, and their dark and damp and verminous and very few prisoners managed to escape. Sorry, that's the notorious Victorian prison prison hulks which were your solution to unwanted types a couple a hundred years ago just before you invented Australia. Not my personal solution. From being blindfolded.

It seems like your home secretary is quite keen on these people not touching the UK mainland. Yes. There's something about the soil, I think, that is morally... I'll British soil, yes, it was given to us by God. Yeah, it's fair enough. So Rwanda floating hotels, you know, like various options, just as long as they don't touch terrifers. Yes, well I mean it's possible that your father was an inspiration this, because he, we thought about this, but he used to own and run a floating hotel in Kolkata. He was a marine architect and spent his whole life designing floating hotels and now he's

84 and blind and thank God he doesn't have to see that they're mostly used for refugees who are not allowed into countries. Ten pounds per person per day sounds like it's not a huge saving, but it will all add up because let's not forget when it comes to asylum seekers, as pointed out by Sir Willa Bravaman, there are millions, perhaps billions of potential illegal asylum grants out there, heading towards 8 billion now, I think people who are not currently in the United Kingdom might want to come here. So if we even get 1% of them, that's million 10 pounds a day that's 800 million that's 300 billion pounds a year. This is a tidy little money spinner

Finally in other Britain news well the Empire could be entering its final stages of total collapse Obviously, we've lost most of our former partner territories. I believe that 50,000 over the last 100 years or so. But in the latest blow to the Empire, Orkney, the Scottish archipelago, could be jumping the sinking shark and joining Norway. They're looking at proposals to become a Norwegian territory. Now, obviously we've talked about East Anglia being returned to India. I mean what next, if Orkney goes, could London itself be bought by Saudi Arabia, or even relocated

to the Gulf as a backup Dubai, in case Dubai itself gets blown away in a sand storm, or collapses under the weight of its own hypocrisy, in which case London would be a viable like for like in that regard. I mean what's, where is this going to end? Well, I mean, where did it begin? I feel like this is the victory of the Vikings. After many, many hundreds of years of trying to nick Orkney and various other associated bits of England in some ways, succeeding and, you know, into breeding and becoming part of it, etc, etc. But I mean, this is, I worry that we're giving the Vikings exactly what they have always wanted.

Right. You know, and then, you know, what is Orkney? Is it more of a nation statement or is it more of a nation question mark? We have to deal with these issues in terms of self-definition. It's very complicated. Orkney was under Norwegian control until very recently, the year 1472. It is very recently as far as the history of Britain goes, which was 13 billion years ago that Britain was invented as part of the Big Bang. And in 1472, the Scottish Parliament absorbed Orkney into the Kingdom of Scotland

because the family of Margaret of Denmark had failed to pay her dowry when she married James a third of Scotland. So basically, he was just nicked in you of a wedding debt. So that's... I mean, that sounds like a fair cop. Rickon got a lot of stuff in dowries mumby. Yes. Was the child's dowry... Are you suggesting that Margaret was not worth Orkney. Exactly, or Charles I shouldn't have had my neighborhood.

I like how this represented Orkney said, we were part of the North Kingdom for much longer than we were part of the United Kingdom. And my favorite thing about this story is that I did not know citizens of Orkney are all Cadians, which means that they're also a cluster of killer whales, apart from being human beings. We learnt, we've all learnt, I hope you have as well, but from the unrelenting deluge of facts we are presented to you this week. Before we go this week, a very exciting moment in literary history is imminent with the publication

of the Dancing Lagarde book. Alice's Dancing Lagarde's literary agent just tell the bugle listeners exactly what they can expect from it. Well, the Dancing Lagarde reader will be coming out soon. It's 170% funded on Unbound, so if you want to preorder your copy, you can go on Unbound and do it. Dancilla Guard, as you know, operates in something of a different dimension and not a lot of the work of Dancilla has leaked into this dimension, but what work there is I and the curator of, and so it is my great privilege and pleasure to bring you some of these extracts, book covers, moments of great achievement in the work of

of Dan C. LeGarde, which as you know is about one book every four to five days over an unquantifiable period of time. So for example I can I can advertise the most recent release, a new novel is out by self-published romance maven and online bestseller, Dancing a Guard. Out of time and in his arms is the fifth in the 24 book, Time Travelers Mistress's series. And A historical romance with a supernatural twist out of time in his arms is a swashbuckling frenemies to lovers romp through a sexy steam punk universe full of excitement, boners, and rogue dinosaurs. Dr. Raffesamantik is a young professor of time travel recently recruited into the secret time spies league of improbably hot brothers

in arms, passionately devoted to saving the world from chronoterrorists he has all the time in the world, but none for love. Diantra is an eccentric, but devastatingly beautiful half-library and half-time wizard at the Academy of Time until a chronoteric kidnapped her, her encyclopedic knowledge of encyclopedias, her sexy time travel skills and her massive rack. Rescue, rescued by wrath! Their time vessel damaged by a laser gunfire, they are cast a drift together on the seas of time with no option, but to use diantra's special ability to navigate through time only while in states of heightened passion they are forced to bang it out constantly but professionally while trying not to fall in love.

I mean look, I know that this is from another dimension but this is sounding like my family history. They must solve the mystery of the missing pyramid, get a pivotal to teraedactyl back to the late triassic period and capture the sinister head of the Chrono anarchists whose dangerous obsession with Dianna threatens the very fabric of time, all while fighting the passion they feel rising between them with a small but pivotal cameo from Isambard Kingdom Brunel, out of time, and in his arms is the feel good hit of this and every summer. When you have a sexy librarian, you know it's only a matter of time before her glasses

and the wheels and her pants come off. Find your copy just in the corner of your eye or in all de-consecrated bookshops. That's a dance of the guard for this week. I've never heard the erotic librarian as a genre and Amazon. How can people pre-order their copies? You can go to thebeaglepodcast.com, there's a link there to fund it, or if you go to Unbound.com and write Alice Fraser, because I guarantee you will not spell Danseela Guard correctly the first time round. Well that brings the end of this week's bugle. Don't forget if you are a cricket founder, even if you're not, but are

cricket curious. Tune into the bugle ashes Zoltzcast coming to you every morning of every men's ashes test this summer, the series, tantalisingly poised at two tests to one. Despite Australia breaking every single law of justice. I want you aside Andy, can not a simple English gentleman go for a gentle country straw from behind the crease while the ball is still alive without being cruelly stumped from behind by an etto Brute on the other team. That also sounds like a plot of a dancey lego. Once you get your eye and everything sounds like a plot, a lot of a fancy like that. I do like how this has escalated into a prime ministerial level conflict between your two countries. Yeah. With them trying to outdo each other with photographs of injustice on the Cricket field.

So, yeah, Anthony Albanese gave Rishi Sunak a photo of the controversial Kerry Burstow incident. And Sunak made a little jive about sandpaper, which just goes to show that, you know, cricket mirrors life in the sense that everyone can be fucking childish. Zinger-based politics is my least favourite form of international relations. Alice, you also, aside from your overseeing the publication of the works of Dance of the Guard, you are doing the Edinburgh Festival correct? I am, my show Twist will be in Edinburgh at 8.30pm at the Underbelly Bristow Square. We've also got live goggles, two live goggles.

There's no other representative from the Bugleverse there, so I figured I should step up and do these live goggles. You can get tickets again on thebuglepodcast.com and you can come to Twist. I think it's a good show. I think it's my last show for a while. So come along and watch it. And you will also be at the fridge. I will. I am, and hopefully I'll see.

I'll start there. I'm doing the last two weeks, Andy. But this is a different kind of show. It's not just straight standup. I am on a mission to promote Britishness. I feel like that's sort of a dying thing in the world. And I started out with India where I live and I've been having great success. I mean people have been beating me up, but that's not important. The point is I feel, I hope you guys feel as well, that Britishness needs to be spread. So my show's called the Department of Britishness. It just says how we need more British things in the world.

And I'm just looking for supporters really, not really an audience. Okay. Well, I've got three different shapes of sports ball that you could really deploy well. We've just secured a date for a bugle live show in London, the 16th of September at Leicester Square Theatre ticket details will be available on the internet very soon. If you are part of the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme you will get the ticket link first, or I happen to also have some further dates soon, and I will be on tour next year details to be confirmed in the next couple of months. So keep an eye for that, that's a lot to keep it vague. well the next couple of months. So keep an eye for that, that's a lot to keep it vague. If you wish to join the Bugle Voluntary subscription scheme to keep the Bugle and its stable of

shows free, flourishing and independent, go to the BuglePockast.com and click the donate button. And if you take out a premium voluntary subscription, you will get a place on the Bugle Wall of Fame for your contribution to human civilization. Alongside these people. Mike DePrest was instrumental in the development of shaving foam. After realizing that humans as a species have an evolutionary defense mechanism, whereby if they think they look like an ice cream, they will attempt to remove the stuff that is making them look like an ice cream in order not to be eaten.

Andrea Scholler formulated a theory that states that the reasons humans like ice creams is because of a collective, deep-seated, shared memory of the last ice age because of which eating ice cream helps us feel we are connecting with our prehistoric selves. But mostly run a simulation of the future which prove that if and when a new ice age ever begins running down non snowy mountains will become just as popular as skiing down snowy mountains is now. Keith Waters is working on a gravity assisted roadway that functions like a downhill slope, even when it is in fact an uphill slope. If successful, this will enable people to ski everywhere, whether permitting, and thus

save the environment by stopping people using cars or going on skiing holidays. Niel Shah is working on a new form of Slalom pole to spice up professional ski racing. The new poles will pop up from beneath the snow just before the skier arrives, forcing them to make frantic last second off the cuff moves to stay in the race. Skieracing should be like life says Neil, unpredictable and liable to end face down in a pile of snow. Since we're on the subject of ski racing, Elwin Ainsworth was instrumental in the evolution of the sport by suggesting using timing devices to work out how long it takes skis to make it from the top to the bottom of the course. Previously, they were just asked to estimate their time and

asked to confirm the shape of a snow sculpture halfway down the course to prove they'd actually done it. Michael Bertwistle has developed a form of artificial snow that functions at all temperatures up to and including 52 degrees Celsius, enabling the regions of the world that don't have a proper winter to get some variety into their lives. Michael explains waking up to an entirely different-looking landscape, fosters not only creativity, but also sledging. And Derek Matthews has conducted a feasibility study into the logistics of making everyone in the world

move to a different region of the world every three years, so we can all know what it is like to live in different places with different climates. It's feasible, says Derek, and it would make us all more tolerant and understanding, but it would also cost around $1 billion per person, so it's probably a non-starter. Thanks to all our voluntary subscribers who've made it onto the wall of fame this week.