The Bugle - The Reverse Raymond Briggs

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

The UK's most exciting election race of all time is ip and running! The Bugle has an exclusive update. Plus, gay animals are attacking our children, apparently. Andy is with Josie Long and Tom Ballard.Become a Bugle subscriber to keep us alive and receive exclusive content, including our subscriber only show 'Ask Andy'.This episode was presented and written by:Andy ZaltzmanTom BallardJosie LongAnd producer by Chris Skinner and Laura Turner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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actually long, weeks away from the uncorking of the sacred milkshake of democratic freedom once again. We will load that milkshake into a water pistol and we will squirt it into the eyeballs of destiny, so to speak, because here in Britain it's election time and joining me to analyse exactly what the ancient Greeks have unwittingly unleashed on us mid-2020s United Kingdomians, I'm joined by two people that I have voted personally onto the bugle this week. Joining me from Glasgow, it's seasoned voter Josie Long. Hello Josie.

Hello, my pencil is ready and my fingers are itchy but that's irrelevant is contact dermatitis. And joining us from Australia to provide the balanced perspective, only possible if you're almost as far away as it's possible to be without getting all Neil Armstrong about it, it's Tom Ballard. Hello Tom, are you excited about our election? Are you going to vote? Are you going to vote here? I'm going to vote early and I'm going to vote often Andy. I've got election fever, although there could just be my long COVID kicking in or perhaps the consequences of the last hours of the UK when I drank some of your shit water. I don't know, it's hard to tell with you. I mean truly, truly thrilling, thrilling times are here.

We are recording on the 24th of May. On this day in 1607 Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America was founded, thus beginning the slow decline of America as a nation. The settlement of course founded by fans of a time travelling British rock band, James, best known for their 1990s hit albums and singles such as Sit Down, but who were also huge on the late Elizabethan circuit and had a massive number one in 1602 with Love Me Like a Potato cashing in on the popularity of the newfangled vegetable. On the 25th of May 1925, the Scopes trial took place in Tennessee. John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching human evolution

in Tennessee, which was not allowed at the time, and fair enough, 99 years on now. Still no confirmed scientific evidence that human evolution has reached large parts of Tennessee. On the 26th of May in the year 946, King Edmund I of England was slain to death in a feast-based scuffle in a place called Puckle Church just off the M4 near Bristol. Disappointing for the lad to be violently de-kinged at the age of just 25 1078 years ago on Monday. Still miss him, still in our hearts, Edmund I. Still in our hearts, Edmund the First. As always a section of The Bugle is going straight in the bin. This week, well after a controversial new portrait of Kate or Catherine, the Princess of, I think, Wales, was criticised for how to put this sensitively, looking like it was done by someone who was shit at painting,

we bring you exclusive audio portraits of the British Royal Family, including King X Prince Charles. Went like the absolute blooming fire he did. Here now is our portraits of Catherine the Dutch Princess of Cornwalles, we're still updating the profiles. And there is a quite tremendous goal by Matthews, dancing in from the wing and kicking the ball into the net. It's 2-0 to Blackpool. Here is our official portrait of Prince Andrew. Redacted. And finally, our portrait of Elsbring Travell, the Duke of Snutterbridge, 215th in line to the throne.

So there you go, those are the portraits. Are they accurate? Are they realistic? Does it matter? Do they express the inner truth of their subjects? That's not for me to judge. That section in the bin. Top story this week, it's election time here in the UK. Rishi Shunak has taken the bold move of taking the cowardly decision to call a general election early. Josie, I mean we've shared general elections together, we were on stage together in I think 2015 when the election result came through.

Oh a great night, we were all so thrilled to see the Labour government we'd expected behind, you know, quite a nice unity candidate to be honest, who probably would have done a good job, be routed unexpectedly by the Conservatives promising Brexit and let me say it's been uphill all the way ever since. We've gone from strength to strength. I mean as you say, history suggests that you can never take a conservative defeat for granted and Labour can always pull some sensational things out of its bag to lose election but with pretty much everything in Britain in a state of some combination of atrophy, mould, stasis and advanced disintegration it's a tough

sell for the Tories, would you not say? It is, and it was very funny to see Rishi Sinath coming out. Firstly, when he goes, it's going to be very sad, those are some small shoes to fill. It's the only joke I've written about him and it's so cheesy and I can't stop myself. To see him coming out, even he had to give a sort of four minute recap of his past glories, like, no guys, no, I mean, some of you will be looking at your bank balance thinking this is not very good, but what you don't know is how much worse things can get. The thing that really, really tickled me, there were two things.

Firstly, at 9am, the government released a new website telling us that what we really need to do is stockpile drinking water and canned food for inevitable emergencies and told us we all should be preparing for threats of multifarious kinds and then at 5pm Richie Seenott came out and said that he'd made us safer than ever before. I don't even know what happened in that day. That's the most successful work day I've ever seen in my life. In the morning we are where the wind blows and by 5pm we're the snowmen. It's a reverse Raymond Briggs. Oh, there we go. It's very simple, Josie. People are criticising this. It's just two very simple messages.

Okay? Message number one was, give us another five years in government, please. Message two was, judgment day is nigh. For the love of God, start stockpiling food or you'll be trapped in your bunk with your children and you'll be faced with a horrible choice. But again, just reiterating message number one, everything's going very well. Let's or you'll be trapped in your bunker with your children and you'll be faced with a horrible choice. But again, just reiterating message number one, everything's going very well, let's just maintain our current course steady as she goes. Tom, can I just ask, is there a chance that I could vote for the bunker instead of Keir Starmers-Laber because then I'm interested.

Well he's just, it'd be just as hollow. Oh! Hey! I would also say the other thing I really loved was there was Steve Bray, Westminster's most famous loud guy. And he was playing very loudly, Things Can Only Get Better, which was Labour's iconic 1997 theme song. And when he was interviewed about it, this is how much people hate the Tories but don't can only get better, which was Labour's iconic 1997 theme song.

And when he was interviewed about it, this is how much people hate the Tories, but don't like Keir Starmer. Even the man outside Parliament playing things can only get better. When asked about it, said, no, I didn't do it to support Labour. I just knew it would annoy the Tories. Like, you're at Westminster playing the song and you're not interested. And then I researched it and I found out that, so I didn't really know this because I was 14 years old in 1997, casting directors, I wasn't even born. And I found out that up until 1997, the election anthem of Labour was the red

flag and Tony Blair, to modernise it, changed it to Things Can Only Get Better. And there's something slightly obscene about that. Like it's so degrading to take something like this very solid, dignified song about the people's aspirations and change it to D-Rim. But I was a bit like, we should change the national anthem to New Rules by Dua Lipa. And just do it next year. No announcement. I mean, I think we should just change the National Anthem to absolutely anything that

it isn't currently. So you know, a bit of Dua Lipa. Why not? You know, it has to be better than what we currently have. I mean, Sunak is not blessed with a gift for communication and rhetoric. So it was always going to be a bit of an awkward speech. But then the fact that he sort of basically sold himself as someone who has a plan compared with Labour, who he claims has no plan, and then making a speech in pouring rain without an umbrella whilst being trolled, as you say,

by a Labour political anthem before turning away and walking away from the cameras drenched and alone. That was not the ideal way to launch this campaign. Tom, I know you are an absolute master of manipulating public discourse and public relations. What did you make of it in terms of the optics of basically showing yourself to be literally the wettest prime minister we've ever had? Well, I think you've got this completely wrong Andy, you stupid idiot. This is an absolute political masterstroke. Announcing a British election whilst being drowned by British rain?

This is genius. This is appealing to the two main traditional British values, miserableness and wetness. Okay? He's really getting in there. The only way Sinead could have better embodied everything that Britain is about is if he'd made the announcement in the rain out in front of them standing atop the Elgin marbles all while under suspicion of being heavily involved in an international human trafficking ring. The blue wall would have absolutely eaten that shit up, but as it is I thought he did

really very well. Yeah. He then went to Wales and asked people if they were looking forward to a football tournament that Wales hasn't qualified for. It's not been an absolutely classic start. It is a difficult sales pitch for Sooner. I know we live in an age of in the moment slaggings off unshiftable cynicism and instantaneous but non-negotiable judgments. But I think 14 years in office is a reasonable body of work on which to judge a government, 14 years in which the main achievements they're trying to market themselves on are a temporary,

partial and barely perceptible economic up-nudge in the last week. The Rwanda scheme, a ludicrously expensive, inefficient, immoral and unpopular policy that won't actually have started by the time of the election anyway and doesn't deal with the issue it claims to be dealing with in the first place, and the somewhat bold claim after this elongated period of reactive chaoticism that the opposition has no plan. Um, it's a tough sell. You know, I've been in positions where I've found myself, you know, knowing that I have nothing to offer to an audience. But I know that I'm going to be offstage in 20 minutes and the echoes of their hostility and boos will soon fade. But Sunak has to try and do this now for six. Six. I mean, how's it gonna... What mixomatotic rabbits are the Tories going to dredge out of their rotten, flea-infested hat, Josie? What are they gonna... How are they gonna try and sell themselves to us? They have nothing, and every time I see Mishy Sunak, I think to myself,

You are so rich. You are so rich. Why are you doing this? And then I just think, like, is this Westworld? Has he paid to do this for love? And of course he's going to fuck the country because if you were paying to do it, you'd be like, I'll poison the water. Like whenever people play the Sims, it's like put them in the swimming pool, get them to walk around, see how it goes. And then I think he's so rich hey is this his humiliation kink like he was like oh I'll be the leader now I won't be the leader when we're thriving get me in and then I think like he's so rich he could literally do

anything with his life he's so rich he could be the Prime Minister of Monaco I mean he could just just walk around the country handing out £20 notes to people. That might be his best. He is that rich! He's so rich that every day of this election he could give away a million pounds to somebody in England and his finances wouldn't really take that much of a hit. It's six weeks. What's that? 46 times seven is 42. His personal fortune, am I right in thinking it's 700 million pounds or is that his wife? Well it's more his wife I think, although I think he's done pretty well. Yeah married! And what's she gonna do? If they give away a million pounds, if they give

away 10 million pounds a day for the next 42 days I'd argue they wouldn't really feel the pinch and I would consider voting to it You know what? If everyone had a chance of ten million pounds every day they could do it for the first three months of office, right? I mean, honestly, it's a good policy. We've had some extraordinary things said on the Google 16 and a half years we've been doing it, but you Josie Long saying you would consider voting Tory, I think we've said that's a new high or low. I'm just saying if Rishi Sunak agrees to give up every single penny of his wealth, every

single day giving away, let's say a million pounds every day for the first two years in office, I would consider that proposal. Okay. And then at the end, Madame guillotine. So it's a good idea. It's a strong raft. Okay. Yeah. The irony being, of course, he won't be rich enough to be guillotined and all the people he's given the money away to. You thought this through to a frankly alarming level. Tom, have you got any advice to the Conservatives on how they can win? I mean, they are over 20 percentage points down in the opinion polls. It seems that they have no cards to play. I mean, what do you think they can do?

What policies could they thrust in our direction? A recent Ipsos poll found that 84% of British voters are dissatisfied with the way the government is running the country and I guess the Tories have decided that they should strike now to drive this wave of popularity to electoral victory. And it makes sense, I've experienced British customer service. I'd say an 84% dissatisfaction rate is pretty good for you guys. That's like... But in that same poll, they found that 10% of voters are satisfied with how this current government is running the country, which really goes to show how bad the mental health crisis is affecting people in your country. 10% of Brits are looking around the country, failing public services, cost of living crisis,

housing crisis, exploited workers, dying high streets, worsening inequality, raw sewage leaking to every available water source and they're thinking, yeah, this is going alright, isn't it? I find this to be satisfactory, thanks. Cheers, Rishi. Well, as you mentioned, Josie, the basic, Sunak said, warning that things could still get worse. And almost suggesting that they'll probably get worse under conservatives, but they might get even worse than that. So it's basically kind of a better the crocodile that's already shat on your carpet and settled down on your sofa or snacking on your poppy, than the lion who might, if he exists, shit on your pillow and eat your granny if you have a granny or buy or rent a granny in future. So it's you know, it's a sort of hypothetical disaster versus a real disaster. Maybe the

reality is more comforting for people. The only other thing they've got I guess is a human curiosity. Given that we are all just dust in the winds of history anyway, why not see what another five years of this will bring just for you know shits and giggles basically that's that seems to be the only the only thing in their favor I hope they don't get back in there is the darkest humor timeline would be these Tories getting back in even they don't think they will. When they get in there, they're like, sorry, I

just thought I booked a holiday to Thailand. So why am I here? I booked him up. I'm just thinking they're broken promises, right? Like when he announced the election, Rishi Sunak said that he'd asked the king to dissolve the UK parliament. And I thought, finally, a Sunak policy that I can get behind.

Unfortunately, that was just a figure of speech and any hopes you and I have of King Charles emptying barrels of sulfuric acid all over Westminster leaving behind nothing but the bubbling remnants of the ceremonial maces and Jacob Rees's bogs stupid glasses will not be realized. I think that is still technically Sinn Fein policy though to do that. It's an option-fame policy though to do that. That's always an option. Keir Starmer said it's a chance to quote, turn the page. But I don't think most of this country wants to turn the page.

I think they want to shred the entire book and then drink a memory wiping serum to erase the book's contents from our brains. On the pop side, 90% of English catwalkers are now memory reducing serious. It's difficult for the conservatives, obviously they are a wartime government, unfortunately that war is the culture war and they're fighting it on too many fronts, so it's not really working in their favor. They have policies just coming out today, greasing the white cliffs of Dover to make it hard for the asylum grunts to climb up it, banning trans people from eating avocados, the ultimate anti-woke policy. And the claim

that Labour actually want to change the National Anthem to push it by salt and pepper. So I don't know how that will split the electorate, but first past the post, you don't need to have a majority of people behind you. Also they're entering the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Kemmy Badanock in the women's singles in Wimbledon, with the hope that she storms into the third round by voting. That will provide a bit of a surge for the Tories in swing constituencies. Rishi Sunak said he wants six debates with Keir Starmer between now and the election, which is an interesting tactic because I think if you did watch six Sunak v Starmer debates, you would just climb

into a cupboard, lock the door shut and not emerge for at least a decade. So that could suppress turnout, which would work in the Tories favour. Oh god, it's so exciting that it's Sunak v Stama, it's a real nail-biter. And by that I mean I'd rather bite and swallow actual nails that spend almost any time at all listening and watching these two vacuous establishment robo-c***s argue with each other over who has the more fiscally responsible plan to banish Jeremy Corbyn to Rwanda. Kill me now Andy! Well we've got six more weeks of this to look forward to. So what can we expect over the next

six weeks other than the inevitable deluge of dissemblance, distractions, disinformation and disparagements? Look out for high viz tabards, performative safety helmets, unnecessarily rolled up sleeves, staged conversations, unconvincing smiles and even more unconvincing serious faces. There will be also appeals to real people, which I often feel very underrepresented politically as a non-real person, but I think I should still count electorally. Appeals to hardworking families, which is absolute nonsense, we get in trouble if we so much as think of sending our children up chimneys these days let alone actually setting them into a solid 40-hour day stitching shoes together or making

matchsticks and of course statistical sorcery the bedrock of modern politics particularly at the moment economic talk about growth which of course is an entirely relative statistic I mean there have been times in my life where I have been accelerating faster than Usain Bolt but that does not mean I am running better than him. Just please remember that people when people talk about growth. You could have said that before I think. Sorry, I can only apologize. Yes so we might only have this and another five bugles under a Conservative government, so that would just be the 490 consecutive bugles

under the Tory since issue 114 of the bugle recorded after the May 2010 election, but before the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had hacked out the coalition deal that began this 1.4 decade long performance art piece entitled Why Why Why. So one of those five bugles will be a live bugle election special show at the Bloomsbury Theatre on Sunday the 23rd of June. We've just as we record put it on sale. It's well a month away so we need you to buy tickets as quickly as possible it's quite a good venue and we've already got a couple of shows in London two weeks before so we're relying on you buglers we will have Nish Kumar and Anubhav Pal and

possibly others at our live bugle election special live bugle special on the 23rd of June at the Bluenfrie do come along for us to answer every single question you may have about the election and address all of the issues that have and have not been raised. 23rd June at the Bluenfri, go to thebuglepodcast.com and find it via the live button, I think, or just look on the internet. There, consider that plugged. Middle East update now. Still not fixed. It's still not entirely fixed. Eight months into the current chapter of catastrophe, still everyone hasn't sorted out their differences for whatever reason. It's also been complicated. It's like they're not even listening to the bugle, Andy.

No. Yeah. I mean, we have been broadcasting it. You know, we've made it available for download across the entire universe. And if people choose not to pay attention to our calls for global peace and harmony, then what more can we do? However, the International Criminal Court has, well, I mean, I don't know if you can you poke a hornet's nest that's already

just, you know, all the hornets already out and fighting anyway, but they have issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders, which you might interpret as being relatively even-handed or you might interpret as being massively anti-semitic or massively anti-Muslim depending on which side of which seesaw you're bouncing up and down in indignation on. I do think if Hamas leaders had a shred of decency they would now just hand themselves over and let justice take its course. Netanyahu and Yoav Galant as well. Tom, I know you've managed to avoid thus far in your life having an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. Congratulations for that. How do you see the ICC's intervention?

One of my tips to Netanyahu and the Mars leaders is to stay out of their grips. Is that your question, Tommy Hatties-Holzman? That is my question to you, Tom. They came close in 2003, I've got to say, but I got away with them once again. Thanks to a very well-timed holiday, shall we say. Look, I think the response to this, to be clear, they haven't actually issued the warrants yet. This is an application for the warrants. There is still a panel of judges to To be clear, they haven't actually issued the warrants yet. This is an application for the warrants. There is still a panel of judges to, the panel of judges, like the X Factor or Australian Idol, to make the decision as to whether.

Pretty talented. That's how they should do it. They should have people in chairs and they should turn around if they think the warrants should be issued. That'd be good. But yes, people, even at the suggestion that the chief criminal prosecutor might possibly issue or apply for some warrants for these people who are, in my view, doing bad things, both Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu, has provoked outrage. Of course, everyone is saying, particularly the President of the United States saying it's outrageous, there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

There is no equivalence, which is true. Israel is putting up way better numbers. I mean, don't get me wrong, Hamas knows its way around a war crime, but Israel, god damn, man. Saying there's no equivalence between Israel and Hamas is like saying there's no equivalence between Serena Williams and Tom Ballard, okay? Yes, we can both play tennis, but one of us has nuclear weapons. That's my position. Yeah, Netanyahu said that Israel is waging a just war against Hamas and whether you agree with that or not, I think even if you think it's waging a just war, you probably also think it's waging that just war not very justly.

The bafflement is the strategy, if you can call it that, of Netanyahu and I guess it's a bit of a factor modern life that when an estimated over 30-35,000 people have died and a million have been displaced and a famine has been inflicted, people whatever they think of the underlying situation might start to question your methods and it seems that Benny is not reacting particularly well to that. However, let's not forget how effective International Criminal Court arrest warrants can be because one was issued for Vladimir Putin in March of 2023 and he instantly handed himself in apologised for everything he's done and committed to doing

everything to foster global peace and cooperation ever since. So you know, these things do take effect. Just give it time. I don't think Putin travels as much as NetYahu, so that's less of a thing I suppose. He's less of a globetrotter, so he might come up a little more. But he was so angry, Baby was so angry and shocked at this news like oh my god I can't believe they're gonna do this to me and hold me to account and it's like dude read your Eurovision contract okay when you sign up being in Eurovision you were

held to the highest standards of ethics and accountability. Australia first performed at Eurovision in 2015 for some reason and since then we've been trying really hard to do absolutely zero war crimes and we've really been very successful. Okay, so it's actually not that hard. If you try and you take the time, you can actually get there. But he got very personal, I think, with Karim Khan, who was the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and he said that he was one of the great anti-Semites in modern times, which is pretty huge. That means Mr. Khan is up there with the greats right list of the greats anti-semitism a lot of times of course include Adolf Hitler Roald Dahl Mel Gibson and Eddie Zoltzman some of the

greats well that's not a list I found myself on very often all concert it was It was also in the shortlist for a very short lived short story prize. Yeah, none of us have played international table tennis. Read into that what you want. Well, we will have full updates of the legal potboiler that is the International Criminal Court versus Hamas and the upper echelons of the Netanyahu government over the next 25 years of global peace. Moving on now, gay animals news and, well, bad news.

I'm right here, Andy. So, it's a good story to do on an issue of The Bugle, in which we have an abomination in the eyes of God as one of our guests, Tom. Yes, apparently a satanic gay agenda is at large with a new documentary series that is going to be broadcast on NBC in America, entitled Queer Planet, which delves into, quotes, the rich diversity of animal sexuality, featuring bisexual lions, clownfish that change sex, and gay penguins. And obviously, this is evidence of a satanic gay agenda. I mean, to be honest, most nature documentaries are ethically questionable. They involve a combination of murder, sexually predatory behaviour, often with at best dubious

levels of consent, and wall-to-wall nudity. So let's not turn to nature documentaries for good wholesome family entertainment. But the reaction to this program, which is going to be on NBC Peacock in America apparently, is predictably hilarious. I mean, you shouldn't delve too far into social media responses, but one in particular that fascinated me was someone who said, so sick of this LGBTQ shit being rammed down our throats. Now, ram down our throats is an interesting term. This is on television. The television is an electricity powered device

with at least three main methods available for switching it off at the remote control, the button on the TV itself and the plug on the wall. Further alternatives to avoid any potential throat ramming include changing the channel, which is on US TV. Most US TVs have hundreds of channels, the vast majority of which will not be broadcasting by curious wildebeest or gender unconventional terrapins. Furthermore, many televisions are also internet enabled, so any viewer wishing not to have the gay animal documentary rammed down their throat can access enough live streamed entertainment to last literally years.

Netflix, for example, has an estimated four years worth of content available at all times, and if that's not enough, if your TV also has YouTube access, well, one estimate suggests that's 95,000 years of content available on YouTube, some of which may involve gay animals, but most of which does not. So if you are really concerned about having this documentary rammed down your throat or eyes, just plonk yourself down in front of your television, change the channel, and by the time you finish watching it in 95,000 years, assuming you don't watch anything added from the moment you start watching it, of course, we should have a clearer idea of whether or not God gets really cross about gay penguins and destroys the planet in his furious vengeance. Or you could just do something that isn't watching telly. Go for a walk in the park, although there is a danger you might accidentally see two beetles locked in a loving,

in sexual embrace and not be sure whether they're heterosexual or not. So there are options not to have this rammed down your throat. Tom, as a spokesman for the LGBTQ and animal kingdom, of which you are a member of both as a human, I mean what's the story is, you must feel deeply ashamed of your people and everything they stand for, that you're broadcasting stuff that might make children believe that this kind of behaviour is natural. Yes. Just as a note, if people do want to see LGBTQI shit being ran down people's throats, that's another documentary that is airing on NBC. But it's after the watershed, so that's a bit later on. Probably don't show the kids that one, I suppose. I don't know why all the outrage is there. We've obviously known the existence of bisexual lions for a very long time, about 80 years ever since the release of The Wizard of Oz,

featuring an extremely camped lion who was cowardly, by that I mean deeply closeted. But it's just a documentary exploring the fact that there is homosexuality behavior in more than 1500 species apparently in the animal kingdom. Hot tip Andy, if you're ever trying to get a straight guy to do a little bit of experimenting, I can tell you from personal experience that citing that statistic does not work. But the outrage... That's worth a go I guess. Oh yeah, it's always good to use some facts every now and again.

The outrage online was pretty amazing. There's a big account called EndWokeness. Of course they shared the trailer saying this is so f***ed up and evil for our youth, describing it as science revisionism for a satanic gay agenda. And it's true. Finally, as I've always predicted Andy, science has teamed up with Satan to turn your children into gay penguins. I'm so glad that all my predictions have come to pass

and I don't regret that tattoo at all. I like that idea of science revisionism too, that idea of like updating our understanding of the world based on new evidence and explanatory theories. You know, you might think that's science, but no, that's science revisionism too, that idea of like updating our understanding of the world based on new evidence and explanatory theories. You know, you might think that's science, but no, that's science revisionism, okay? Science was finished and we figured it out in the 50s, everyone knows this. We've locked in the facts and that's it. Our scientific understanding of the natural world is like God's law or the BBC.

It cannot change. I think we should go back to, you know, science of the four humans, you know? They had a scientific idea then. You're dying, you've got too much bile. You're feeling lightheaded, you've got too much blood. Why revive? It worked for them. Why not?

Yeah, it still works. They are, to be fair, they are totally right. This is all part of the LGBTQI plus agenda. This is how we make children gay and trans. We put together a documentary detailing homosexual activity in the animal kingdom. We screen it on free-to-air television which young people love to watch and then we just sit back and wait. It's the perfect plan. We have a very similar strategy when it comes to trying to get kids to hibernate over the winter and lay eggs as well. Using the same approach on those kind of babies as well.

So fingers crossed. I think it's going to work out pretty well. Yeah. I find it really funny that one of the comments was, they are coming for your kids. And honestly, if a lion is coming for your children, I feel like entertaining its sexuality is very low on the list of priority. There's other options of course, other than, as I mentioned, changing channel or watching

something else. You could just smash your TV to pieces. That's another option. That's, you could smash it with a baseball bat, a golf club, a fire extinguisher, a curling stone, a euphonium, a concrete sculpture of a heterosexual goat or any other large objects or you could just gouge your own eyeballs out. I mean those are all options to avoid it being rammed down your throat so please take one of those but do it safely. I've got a great tagline for my next show from this which is the wonderful world of woke brings us brings us some great let the lunacy You need us to pay a PR More devil news now and tech companies are being urged to get rid of Satan in a very specific way

But people whose names are auto corrected torected to Satan from, for example, Savan or Stan, wanting auto-correct to be a little more sensitive. I mean, this is, I guess, understandable if you're worried about being associated with the devil, but a new campaign called I'm Not a Typo has been launched asking technology companies to make more effort to not auto correct non-traditional Western names to other things. The campaign was initially launched as I'm Not a Potty but then they corrected it. So I mean is this yet more evidence of the kind of... Andy, that was very funny and very clever, well done. I mean, two out of two. Is it out of two? I don't know. So is this yet more evidence of the kind of structural prejudice that permeates every level of our society and could and should be addressed?

Or is it not a big deal that people shouldn't spend too much worrying about because, come on, it's not that hard to work around autocorrect in its various forms. The answers to those questions are yes and yes. So let's get the opinions of Toy Bollard and Juicy Lunt on this. What my name incidentally autocorrects to, sensational human being and fashion icon. Oh god. That is an error. That is a very serious error. Something has gone terribly wrong.

Yeah. Which is pretty much a succinct history of the 21st century so far. Tom, I mean this is obviously probably the top of humanity's agenda and things to fix at the moment. Well, look, I'm similar to you, like I had to say, like, is this, does this deserve a campaign for God's sakes? What with the earth being on fire and the Middle East still having a few issues, as we've discussed and solved on the podcast today.

But then I guess, well, if this was your name, if your name was Savan and every single time you typed it, your device told told you you're Satan. I guess that would get pretty annoying. I mean you might be able to you know make some documentaries for NBC perhaps. Ultimately I think it must be annoying. We've got other names like Druty which is auto corrected to Dirty or Dorito which must be very difficult. But perhaps the most concerning thing out of this whole story for me was some of the stats right. The campaign group wrote an Ogden letter to technology companies which pointed out that between 2017 and 2021, 2,328 people named Esme were born compared with 36 Nigels.

Esme gets autocorrected to Admar while Nigel is unchanged. Now I'm sorry, but is the UK only producing 36 Nigels every five years? What the f*** is going on over there? That's the biggest issue to me. Where are the Nigels? It's been hobbled out. You got a Chinese, you'll see they have a million Nigels a year. It's been outsourced.

We got... Britain doesn't make anything anymore. I think Mr. Lisham said, I really am on the side of this campaign because I think it adds up your time. It's not fair to sort of other people like this. It's so silly. And you know, when you're making technology, the people making the technology build their bias and into it. What I would like to see is every single name auto corrected and ones like Nigel double corrected. You type in Nigel it corrects you to Nigella Lawson. You try and correct that it corrects you to lovely

bone marrow lasagna and that's what happens every time. You put it in Tom it corrects you to Tim you try to correct that it corrects you to Tan you try and correct it again it's just the Tim Tan emoji that's gonna be new. Nobody is going to be able to type their name at all and then we'll see whether it's annoying or not. Yes Queen! We will have more coverage of this campaign here on the Bulge as it develops. One final bit of news, and well, as the world seemingly teeters on the precipice of World War III, some exciting news. The ancient Greek armour has been tested by scientists. Do some real work, scientists. Yet yet again I have to make this call, and it turns out that it actually works better than you think for a load

of clanky metal just plonked over a human body. I mean I've never I've never fought in a battle, modern or ancient, I've never really worn armor beyond what is necessary to play low level cricket so Josie I know you've you've you know you're huge in the Greek armor scene it's exciting exciting news it's exciting news but I'll say rude so rude like such an insult to the Greek to be like we've tried it we're so much better than them and you know what, it actually works. Yeah, no shit, like they fought a lot of battles with it and next you'll be saying, we've had a go at this Euclidean jewellery and oh and that, yeah,

we've done that. They actually, even when they were doing it. And the good thing about this is now they've tested it, obviously there's been big cuts in the British Army, there's been a lot of talk in the recent years that British Army just don't even have the equipment that they need to do their job. You know what we do have? The British Museum. So the British Army is going to be bedet in the ancient farming of the entire world that we've pillaged.

Not just that, we've got some lovely Mesopotamian shields, we've got some Iron Age swords, and we're gonna use a hundred thousand freshest priceless Japanese netsuke as a kind of compound tank. So it's really good news. Alright, I'd be a little less worked up if this is the armoury and weapons that we sent to Israel, ok? Like if this is what the West sends over there, go here, go mates, have a crack at this, you'll look ridiculous out there. At least that'd be more entertaining, it's maybe slightly less destructive. I'd be on board if this is the new stock that we were sending over to the Middle East, I reckon. Well, that's a positive note that we can maintain the arms trade but make everyone safer by

just selling them stuff from the British Museum. There we are! The world is getting better as we speak. You're welcome, Buglers. Things can only get better! We've tied it all together. Well that brings us to the end of this week's Bugle. Yes, interesting collection of stories this week. We do hope you've enjoyed it. Do not, under any circumstances, allow your children to watch any nature documentary whatsoever. Nature, like history, is full of c***s. That is all you need to know. Thank you to both Tom and J Josie. Anything to plug? I think I really do. That's sad, isn't it? Please continue to follow me as I make creative work. Right. There we go. That's a nice broad plug that won't,

that will never date until, until of course, your death sends everything up in value and now none of our listeners can afford to buy anymore. Um, Tom? I would also like you to keep encouraging and supporting Josie Long as she creates creative work. And me too, please. If you'd like you can watch my special It Is I for free on YouTube, just search my name, Tom Ballard and It Is I, that's on 800lb Gorilla, you can watch that no matter where you are

in the world. If you're in Melbourne you can see my show Good Point Well Made at the Comedy Republic on Friday June 21st and that very same show, although it will be changed significantly to make sense to British people, will be coming to the Edinburgh Fringe for all of August and those tickets are terrifyingly on sale now. Also on sale now as I mentioned earlier on, the Bugle Live election special on the 23rd of June at the Bloomsbury Theatre. Buy as many as financially viable. See you all there. We will be back next week.

Hi, it's producer Chris from The Bugle here. Did you know that I have a new series of my podcast, Richie Firth Travel Hacker out now. It's the show where Richie Firth and I talk about how to make travel better in our very special way. In this series we discuss, line bikes, Tesla's, the London Overground and a whole bunch of other random stuff that possibly involves wheels or tracks or engines of some variety. God what a hot sell this is, I mean you must be so excited. Listen now.