0:00

Hello Googlers,

0:02

and welcome to issue 4275

0:07

of the world's foremost

0:11

source of reliably unreliable

0:21

half-truth speculation and analysis

0:23

of the latest developments in the human race's fierce

0:25

battle with itself in the evolutionary

0:28

race. I am Andy Zaltzman, lord of all I

0:30

survey, albeit that the only surveys

0:32

I do are of me, and it's time to

0:34

do this week's survey right now in fact. Here's

0:37

the first question of the survey, do you think Andy

0:39

Zaltzman should remain as host of the Google podcast?

0:42

I think I'll put down don't know, no change

0:44

in the polling on that one. It is

0:46

the 25th of September 2023 and today I'm

0:49

joined from the unremittingly utopian harmony

0:51

fest and glittering beacon of mutual tolerance

0:54

and respect that is the United States of America

0:56

by Josh Gondelman. Josh, welcome back

0:58

to the Bugle, how are you? I'm

1:00

well thank you, happy to be a utopian correspondent.

1:04

And also joining us here in London in the enduring

1:06

land of grudgery and recriminational stroppledom

1:09

that is the UK, it's the one last

1:11

best hope for a brighter future, Ian Smith.

1:13

Ian, can you live up to that hype? Oh I don't know,

1:15

it's a lot of pressure isn't it? It

1:18

is. I think you're up

1:20

to it. What worries

1:22

me is why no one, I've only just

1:24

found out about this now. Right, okay, yeah.

1:27

I'm on the committee and we've picked you as our last, one

1:30

last best hope for a brighter future.

1:32

Oh right, I'd better start doing some prep. Um,

1:37

Josh you join us on, well, an exciting

1:39

day, it seems that the... Yonkipore!

1:41

Oh yes of

1:43

course, thanks for the reminder. Um,

1:47

the writers strike is coming to an end,

1:49

can you just fill us in on what's happened and

1:51

why?

1:52

It seems that way, it seems like the Writers

1:55

Guild of America and the AMPTP,

1:57

the Alliance of Studios, has come to

1:59

a tended...

1:59

of agreement. So there aren't a ton

2:02

of details yet but it is really

2:04

exciting news and hopefully more good

2:06

news to come. It's been 146

2:10

days and so I think people are

2:12

really excited to hear that we've

2:15

reached this tentative agreement. SAG-AFTRA

2:17

is still on strike and hopefully that will get resolved soon

2:19

as well and then I'm excited to go back to being just

2:21

regular unemployed and that's what's on the horizon

2:23

for me. And

2:27

I mean how do you think this is going to change writing

2:29

because people have been you know they've

2:32

got 146 days of pure

2:34

quality backed up in them. This is going to just all come

2:36

splurging out into the greatest television

2:39

ever created. That's right. It's going to be

2:41

like uncrimping the garden hose for

2:44

just 11,000 writers brains all

2:47

at once and it is going to be yeah

2:49

it's going to be a geyser of excitement

2:51

and quality. Ian

2:54

since you were lost on the bugle you've been to the

2:57

Edinburgh Festival where you lost

3:01

the festival. Yeah. Hard

3:03

luck. I mean you announced as one of the

3:05

near runners up so congratulations for that

3:08

but I mean how has that defeat weighed

3:10

on you?

3:11

Yeah well because

3:14

I guess it's quite good. I was nominated

3:16

for

3:17

three varying

3:19

quality awards and didn't

3:22

win any of them so there's

3:24

a moment where you feel very proud of yourself

3:26

but you know that there's an inevitable crushing

3:29

defeat coming not once but three

3:31

times. So it's quite

3:34

a testing month a bit of a roller

3:36

coaster. Well writing on

3:38

the bugle as a serial loser that's why

3:40

we have you on this show. In

3:42

more positive news though I got

3:45

a text message from my voiceover agent today

3:47

saying I might be able to audition for

3:49

a role in the CBB's

3:52

animated series Dog Squad. So

3:56

yeah maybe in a few months time I'll be too big

3:58

to be coming on this. podcast.

4:03

Who's the real winner now? Ian's

4:06

last performance in The Shed, Andy,

4:08

in DMA featured Ian

4:11

Panicking about what he should

4:13

do for his Edinburgh show this year. It's nice

4:15

to see the full narrative after that show. Well,

4:20

yeah, congratulations on doing so well. And we

4:22

will give you a chance to plug your imminent run at Soho

4:25

Theatre later in the show. But first,

4:27

as I said, we are recording on the 25th of September 2023. On this

4:30

day in 1690, the first

4:33

ever newspaper to appear in America

4:36

was published. Public occurrences,

4:38

both foreign and domestic, lasted

4:41

one issue in 1690, before it was closed

4:43

down by

4:46

the British colonial authorities. Very unlucky

4:49

for public occurrences, both foreign and domestic,

4:51

to launch on one of the very few

4:53

momentary micro periods of British history

4:56

when a remorseless commitment to free speech has

4:58

not been on the British core values list.

5:00

It was shut down for reasons

5:03

that the 1690s

5:06

could probably share with us at some point. It

5:08

does raise an interesting question. Should all newspapers

5:10

be restricted to a maximum of one issue?

5:13

Would that lead to a healthier

5:16

media landscape if they weren't allowed to

5:18

kind of just keep festering the

5:21

society from within? I'd be in favour of that.

5:23

But the problem with only ever having one issue

5:26

on the 25th of September 1690 was that we never found

5:29

out the answers to the daily quiz in

5:31

that first issue. But luckily I can share them

5:33

now, the answers to the quiz. Question

5:36

one, Ferdinand III preceded

5:38

Leopold I as Holy Roman Emperor. It

5:40

was, of course, the New York bunny-wangers

5:43

who won the inaugural 1689 season

5:45

of the American Rabbit-Hirling Championship.

5:48

Question three, she was his cousin. Question

5:50

four, probably a witch. Question

5:52

five, definitely a witch. And

5:54

question six, the best-selling children's book of 1689 was,

5:57

of course, that's not my pope. So

6:00

that on this day in 1690, the only

6:02

ever issue of the greatest newspaper of all

6:04

time. As always, while we're on the subject of newspapers,

6:07

a section of this audio newspaper is going straight

6:09

in the bin and it's featuring

6:12

a man who's published a lot of newspapers,

6:14

Rupert Fox Murdoch, so

6:17

called because of the stench he leaves behind in the

6:19

detritus of public discourse after he's rummaged

6:21

around with it, is stepping down as

6:23

the boss of Fox and News Corp

6:25

and our section in the bin looks at where now for

6:28

Rupert Murdoch. What next for

6:31

him? He did say as he stepped down the bottle for freedom

6:33

of speech and ultimately the freedom of thought has never been

6:35

more intense and he can certainly take a lot of credit

6:37

for quite how intense that battle

6:39

has become. And you can

6:41

decide what side of that battle you think he was on. Murdoch,

6:44

of course, is best known for being in charge of News

6:46

Corp when Times Online launched the Bugle podcast.

6:50

Rupels didn't have a particularly hands-on role though,

6:52

as I remember. But what

6:54

next for him? Well, of course, he has been linked with the

6:56

Man United job with Eric Penn Hargun, the

6:58

pressure and experienced leader such as Rupert Murdoch

7:00

could be what the Red Devils need to turn round

7:02

their faltering season. Alternatively, he might

7:05

open a coffee shop and or fair trade sustainable

7:07

fashion boutique. Option three,

7:09

to pursue his childhood dream of a career in interpretive

7:12

dance. He is apparently working on a solo ballet

7:15

based on the Australian mythological frog Tiddelik,

7:17

one of the star amphibians of Aboriginal creation stories,

7:19

teaming up with tennis star Pat Rafter

7:22

to save a distressed platypus called Mildred from

7:24

being kidnapped by aliens. Can't wait to see

7:26

that. Option four is that he could be put

7:28

out to stud to breed the next generation of democracy

7:31

skewing media billionaire truth splatter as

7:34

some suggest that might already have happened. Another

7:36

option is to start a new news empire from scratch.

7:39

Rupert apparently looking at starting up a local newspaper

7:41

in the rural Bolivian town of Bermako.

7:44

Good challenge for Rupert. See if he's still

7:46

got those skills at the age of 92. Another

7:49

option is to run for elected office. Not

7:51

particularly efficient way of wielding power. In fact,

7:53

let me do the math. It's 0.03% as effective

7:56

as what he's done previously. So he might not be interested in

7:58

that. And of course the most. is

8:01

the belated formation of his prog folk

8:03

band of quite literal 90s music

8:05

with fellow non-agenarians Buzz, honestly

8:07

the moon israel, Aldrin, Henry, Kissy,

8:09

Kissinger and retired monocons

8:11

celebrity own death faker The Queen. Tour

8:14

dates imminent. Well,

8:16

I mean whatever he does, he's

8:18

really been in an intense position for

8:21

a long time. He's really just probably whatever

8:23

it is going to take a step back and enjoy a

8:25

little period of transition before his, what

8:27

clearly is his ultimate goal of hell, eternal

8:30

hell. Yeah,

8:33

I mean I guess you don't want to rush into that, do you? No,

8:36

you don't want to move from one big thing right into the next

8:39

big thing.

8:41

But I mean maybe that's what hell needs. We

8:43

will actually touch on hell

8:46

later in the show Ian Smith and Chris about hell

8:49

correspondence. We'll have

8:51

all the latest from there. What

8:58

sort of a swoop

8:59

opening gates use? Well, life

9:02

is in many ways if you want it to be. All about opening

9:04

gates, closing gates and choosing whether or not

9:06

to open or close gates. Both literal

9:09

and of course metaphorical gates and if you're a surgeon

9:11

specialising in tech billionaires, Bill Gates is too.

9:14

But one gate I've generally been sceptical of

9:16

opening is the gates of hell. But

9:18

it turns out they have now been officially opened

9:21

according to the UN Secretary General, Antonio,

9:24

go with your guterres. Humanity

9:27

has opened the gates of

9:29

hell. Ian, I mean generally

9:32

people have been opposed to opening the gates of hell. Do

9:35

you think this is a good move or not on behalf of humanity?

9:38

Well, I think I just assumed this must have happened ages ago.

9:41

Right. It

9:43

doesn't feel like a shocking

9:45

development, just more like a reminder.

9:51

Yeah, he said as well that we're heading

9:53

towards a dangerous and unstable

9:55

world and we're not in that now. what

10:00

is coming

10:03

up. To say something that's going to make us

10:05

feel scared, it would have to

10:08

get to sort of Cormac McCarthy,

10:11

the road levels. They

10:13

have to come on stage and say, we're

10:17

heading towards a world where we're carrying

10:19

all our possessions around in a trolley trying

10:21

to protect our children from cannibals. And

10:25

I think even then some people would see that as quite

10:27

an aspirational lifestyle.

10:31

There's two sides to that, right? Some people

10:33

might hear that and go, I'm going to have to protect my children to be a cannibal.

10:36

And then other people might think, I'm going to get

10:38

to eat a kid. Two sides to every coin. Yeah,

10:44

that's that. That's that. Positive America and Astid you

10:46

bring, Josh. Yeah, that's right.

10:49

Yeah, America, opening the gates

10:51

of hell is pretty much a

10:53

summary of American politics 2016 and

10:55

following years. I mean, are people concerned

10:58

about what might come out of the gates of hell or are they hoping

11:01

for an improvement if the forces

11:03

of evil from within the bowels of hell actually

11:06

come out and start working in American

11:08

politics? Will this improve things for

11:10

America as a nation? Well, I do

11:12

think there is about half the country that

11:15

is against opening the gates of

11:17

hell pretty firmly, or like we should

11:19

at least means test what it would do to

11:21

open the gates of hell. And then we've

11:24

got the other half that wants to kind of kiss the

11:26

end of the world right on the apocalypse. And

11:28

I, I do

11:31

think that climate change, right? It

11:34

is hell is an apt metaphor

11:36

for what's happening, because if it gets warmer,

11:39

it will be spring break everywhere

11:41

all the time. And I can't imagine

11:44

a more torturous set of circumstances

11:47

under which to live other than Cormac

11:49

McCarthy's spring break. His last novel.

11:55

Yeah, so he was, Gutierrez was specifically

11:57

referring to the environment. I

12:00

don't know what you think of the environment if you're for

12:02

or against it, but it's proved to be a very irritating opponent

12:05

for us humans. And particularly now as we find

12:07

ourselves forced into

12:10

cowtowing to the woke agenda of wanting the planet

12:12

to remain inhabitable beyond the economically

12:14

crucial next five to 10 years. And

12:17

obviously there's those who think the environment is a hoax

12:20

or that the reason we get one-to-the-millennium weather events about

12:22

once every three months is not because the environment

12:24

has changed, but because time has changed and millenniums

12:26

are in fact only 12 weeks long these days, or

12:29

even who think there was the point of having a planet to live on in 200 years

12:31

time if your course of the economic figures don't

12:34

start improving now. So I mean it's

12:36

not quite as clear cut an issue as

12:39

destroying the environment and the planet is

12:41

bad. And you know maybe the UN

12:43

needs to have a little more flexibility on

12:45

that. It is alarming to hear

12:48

diplomats invoke biblical

12:50

imagery, right? That's not their purview. That's

12:53

truly like if a priest is like you

12:55

have a 0.7% chance of survival

12:57

and you're like whoa you really shifted to paradigm

12:59

father. And

13:02

he made these comments at a one-day

13:05

climate summit and I was

13:07

very relieved that there was a one-day

13:09

climate summit because I think what the world needs in these times

13:11

of global boiling is another summit.

13:14

Not just any summit but a one-day summit

13:16

that is preparing for another summit later

13:18

in the year because there is no problem too

13:20

big than it cannot be solved by throwing

13:22

good summits after bad to get it

13:24

fixed at some point in the next 300 years. The

13:27

next summit as well COP 28 is in Dubai. So

13:32

they're worried about things getting hotter. Just

13:34

hold it in Norway. What would make things seem better? That's a

13:36

good thing. It would feel cooler. Right. Yeah.

13:40

I think I've had a good work. I was

13:43

going to say

13:45

how do you get a climate summit in Dubai? That

13:48

feels like a World Cup level of

13:50

bribery must have been involved. It's

13:54

not that obvious place to

13:56

have it, is it? And I was always with climate

13:58

summits. It will involve A lot of people

14:01

feel I'm not doing a long way for not very

14:03

much time and not doing a great deal with it. I

14:05

did feel a little sorry for Guterres. I mean his face,

14:08

as you'd expect I guess from the UN Secretary General, his

14:10

face very much says, I hate my job.

14:13

And there must be a day when he just thinks, can

14:17

we just talk about something less depressing

14:19

than all the stuff I have to talk about? So I

14:21

do feel a bit sorry for him. Do

14:23

you think at the UN conferences they have a

14:26

silly story at the end, like on the

14:28

news? What

14:31

would you, if you were a delegate

14:34

at the UN conference, and that's surely just a matter of timing,

14:38

what kind of thing would you tag onto the end just

14:40

to perk things up? Usually it's

14:43

like a record-breaking size

14:45

bit of food. You have

14:48

to crowd please it to come on and say,

14:50

well, we've made the world's longest

14:53

baguette, so it can't be all

14:55

bad. Speaking

14:58

of warming, this

15:01

world record sized pizza was cooked in an oven

15:03

that kept you 550 degrees. There

15:08

was an article here about the

15:11

impact that these things are having on

15:13

the younger generation. And a survey for

15:15

the Prince's Trust in the UK found that young people

15:18

are now abandoning their

15:21

dreams and ambitions because of a range of factors

15:23

including the cost of living crisis, but also the doom-laden

15:25

state of the environment. And

15:28

this was presented as a bad news story. And

15:31

to me, this is one of the few silver

15:33

linings

15:33

from this because it used to be that

15:36

it took, I don't know,

15:38

a decade, two decades, sometimes even

15:40

three decades for society

15:42

in life to crush the spirit of the young until

15:45

they just give up all hope. But now we're getting

15:47

it done by the time people are in their mid-20s. It's

15:50

just a rare example of efficiency

15:53

in the modern economy and I'm absolutely right

15:55

on board with it. I agree. I think the last

15:57

few generations have been encouraged to live their

15:59

dreams. And that's what got us into this mess, right?

16:02

Agree? In

16:07

Britain, there's been, well,

16:10

interesting moods in the environment

16:12

debate. Ian Ritchie-Soudnak, the

16:14

interim prime minister, has jumped

16:17

once more into the burning breach and chucked some more

16:19

soothing matches into the fire. He's

16:21

announced various rollbacks

16:24

of British environmental commitments. He's

16:27

delaying the phase-out of gas boilers and petrol

16:29

cars. And he also announced

16:31

he was scrapping a lot of things that weren't

16:34

going to happen anyway, but had kind

16:36

of been mentioned so that if they were

16:38

to happen, which they never were going to happen,

16:41

then they could easily have happened.

16:43

And he's presented this as him jumping

16:46

to the defence of ordinary British people and

16:48

stopping things that weren't going to happen happening to

16:51

them. And with the Conservatives riding so

16:53

low in the poll, Soudnak clearly is jumping

16:55

between environmental bandwagons in an effort

16:57

to steer his government's Titanic to a slightly

16:59

less deep and soggy section of

17:02

the electoral seabed. Do you think this will

17:04

prove effective? I mean, he

17:06

is relying on people just ignoring

17:08

the fact that he is making shit up that

17:11

he's going to stop from happening that

17:13

wasn't going to happen. Like people being forced to

17:15

have seven different bins in

17:18

their homes, which wasn't going

17:20

to happen. Do you think

17:22

this is the way for politicians now

17:24

to just make things up that

17:26

weren't going to happen and then present themselves as heroes

17:29

for stopping them happening? It probably is

17:31

the best way to get an electorate

17:33

enthusiastic because I mean,

17:35

most people don't lock these things up. Most

17:39

people don't fact check anything. So if you say

17:41

a thing happened and I stopped it,

17:44

you're probably just going to believe someone. I

17:48

think if I told my friends, I

17:50

saw a woman getting her handbag

17:53

stolen and I chased after the person

17:55

I gave her a handbag back, my

17:58

friends aren't going to be checking the seat. TV cameras

18:01

of the area I said it was going to happen. They're

18:05

just going to believe me. I'll maybe give myself a black eye,

18:07

just punch myself in the face.

18:11

So yeah, it's very – I believe

18:13

it's seven bins. I can't think of

18:15

seven categories of waste

18:18

that could go in bins. I

18:20

tried to list it and I got recycling

18:23

food waste, garden waste, human

18:25

waste. Then

18:28

all I could do was miscellaneous and

18:30

then I've gone whites and yolks. It

18:37

doesn't feel right. I mean

18:40

that's a lot of bins, isn't it? Seven

18:43

different bins that we'd have been forced to

18:46

have. Similarly, there were other suggestions.

18:50

The number of passengers you were going to be allowed

18:52

to have in your car. These weren't so much concrete

18:55

proposals. They were things that have been vaguely

18:57

floated as ideas for

19:00

putative moments in the future. But

19:03

it was presented by Sue now because if we were going to be forced to share

19:05

cars with people we'd never met who were going in completely

19:08

different directions to us and were legally entitled to sit

19:10

in the back seat, threateningly revving

19:12

a chainsaw. So

19:14

I mean it's a weird thing, isn't it? I mean

19:16

you can't scrap something that wasn't going to happen and say, well I can't

19:19

and would not accuse the Prime Minister of losing credibility

19:21

or authority or legitimacy. I

19:23

mean similarly on those grounds, I couldn't say that. I

19:26

mean Josh, I don't know if you've been following

19:29

this story over

19:31

here. But again, the environment seems to become

19:33

this sort of political issue

19:35

where it's almost

19:37

sort of being performatively

19:40

wrong on the environment seems

19:42

to be electrically effective. Oh

19:44

yeah. I mean you're talking about this is the

19:47

future and I'm saying this is last year's

19:49

old news for us. That's classic.

19:53

Although I do think there's

19:55

no better way to fulfill

19:58

campaign promises than to promise to solve

20:00

problems that don't exist. That's,

20:03

you're batting a thousand, easy, right? Oh,

20:06

hey, no extra-chorustrials

20:08

are gonna come down to earth and launch

20:10

nuclear weapons at our heads

20:14

of state.

20:15

Done,

20:16

done, 100% done. Joe

20:18

Biden, interestingly, we got some

20:20

good climate news over here. Joe Biden

20:23

started a climate

20:25

core, the American climate core, which will employ 20,000

20:28

Americans in green energy and environmental restoration

20:31

jobs. And on one hand, I am happy

20:33

to see any concrete step

20:35

in the right direction, but on the other hand,

20:39

by employing 20,000 people

20:41

in this climate core, it's like saying, oh, you want

20:43

a livable climate? You can do

20:45

it. What do you think about that? Sunak

20:49

also said, for too many years, politicians

20:51

and governments of all stripes have not been

20:54

honest about the costs and

20:56

trade-offs. And he was talking about the environment,

20:58

but in a country that voted for

21:01

Brexit, in which he supported Brexit,

21:04

and it was entirely founded on

21:06

not being honest about costs and trade-offs. It was

21:09

the heroic levels of hypocrisy

21:11

that the politicians reach for now. In a way, you

21:15

have to admire it. It's like watching Armand di Planteis

21:17

do the pole vault. You think, I mean, he shouldn't be

21:19

able to go as high as he does, but somehow he keeps

21:21

finding, well, he stood in front of a lectern,

21:24

as he made this speech, with

21:26

a new slogan on the front, saying, long-term

21:28

decisions for a brighter future. I

21:31

don't know if that was the first instance of a party managing

21:33

to get two screeching U-turns into one

21:35

pithy slogan, or just

21:38

to show the dangers of lecterns not being wide

21:40

enough to fit the whole slogan on, and

21:42

that they missed off the words at the end, long-term

21:44

decisions for a brighter future, are absolutely not on

21:46

the f***ing agenda, or are the kind

21:48

of woke shit we won't have any truck with, to

21:51

ram the final nail into the coffin of the future.

21:54

Also, I think when they'd be being unfair,

21:56

because when, I think

21:59

a conservative, leader doesn't

22:02

mean what we mean when they say long term

22:04

because the life expectancy

22:07

in that job is about three months. So

22:10

they're probably saying long term is like a six-week

22:12

plan. Right, butterfly policies. Right,

22:16

they're on the Andy Salzman 12-week millennium.

22:19

I can't tell you the concept of time.

22:24

And it wasn't just Sunak, still surprising after

22:26

all this time, home secretary, Suella Bravman in

22:29

a rare shaft of honesty and accuracy said, we

22:31

are not going to save the planet. And then spoiled it all

22:34

by carrying on and finishing the sentence

22:36

by bankrupting the British people, which is

22:39

a real shame that that is not an option for

22:41

saving the planet. Because if you could save the planet

22:43

by bankrupting the British people, we

22:45

would have people in our government who are

22:47

genuinely world leading environmental

22:50

superheroes. And we would have to reinterpret

22:52

this prime ministership as an effective

22:55

if extreme just stop oil protest. And

22:57

I'm not saying I

22:59

agree with the technique she chose to

23:01

use. She shouldn't have inconvenienced ordinary people to make

23:03

that point as much as she did. But at least it

23:06

got the message across. And Bravman

23:08

also said that net zero targets were

23:10

goals, not straight jackets.

23:14

But let's not forget, you don't need to score a goal to win a

23:16

football match. And really, we just need

23:18

to grind out our nil-nil draw against the environment,

23:20

take it to a replay, maybe try and force it to penalties,

23:22

hope the environment bottles under pressure. And

23:24

if you're in a game it knows it should have won, it is the British way.

23:28

I'd also love to see a football game where

23:30

the team have to wear straight jackets. Just

23:34

trying to see someone get up after

23:36

a foul. Right. We would do away

23:38

with those controversial handball calls, wouldn't it? She's

23:40

really writing off the potential

23:42

joys of straight jacket. You and

23:45

straight. Yeah, I don't know if there's a single

23:47

sport that wouldn't be more entertaining

23:49

to watch if everyone involved wasn't wearing a

23:51

straight jacket. Oh, snooker? I

23:55

don't know. It'd be funny. It's

23:58

always good to look to. for ways to improve

24:00

sport. The chair of Ford UK

24:03

said she wanted only three things from the British government,

24:06

ambition, commitment and consistency,

24:09

which is a request which, based

24:11

on the record of this government, has as much chance of

24:14

successors asking your pet anaconda

24:16

for legs, well-researched tennis punditry

24:18

and a fine baritone voice. Anacondas

24:22

really, they only make a singular demand

24:25

and that's buns, huh? I was a

24:29

P. McWharstons who had a, so it

24:31

makes a lot of reference, well, Lord makes a lot now, of course,

24:34

I think he's an oldie.

24:40

On a related topic,

24:43

we've talked a bit about the HS2 rail line over the

24:45

years on the view of a flagship new

24:47

rail line that was supposed to revolutionise

24:49

transport across the nation, in

24:52

particular across the north of England, where

24:55

there's been so little investment in the rail network

24:58

over recent decades, and it was going to revolutionise

25:01

rail transport in the north of England by

25:03

making it about 10 minutes quicker to get from London

25:05

to Birmingham. Now, I know

25:07

Ian, you grew up in the north of England, you must

25:09

have been hugely excited about the prospect

25:12

of the slightly shorter time, train times to

25:15

Birmingham, just absolutely

25:18

rocketing the northern economy into

25:20

another dimension. But it turns out now that

25:23

this rail line will not reach

25:25

either end of its planned

25:28

route, it's not going to reach as far as the north,

25:30

and it's not even going to reach all the way into central

25:33

London, they're now talking about stopping it, but

25:35

old oak common and then people have to get

25:37

on the tube. So basically

25:39

take just as long, but

25:42

with tens of billions of pounds

25:44

wasted for no fucking reason. This, I mean, obviously,

25:47

as a representative of the north of England,

25:49

you must be honoured and delighted that

25:52

this has been bequeathed to your people. I mean, yeah,

25:54

the slight consolation of it

25:57

not going to the north is that

25:59

it's not going to be. that also isn't going to

26:01

London. The

26:05

thing of like when you

26:08

realise when you live in London that the further

26:10

out a train stop is, the

26:13

more obscure and like

26:15

a sort of children's book the

26:17

train station names become. So

26:20

although common you're like right

26:23

that's not central at all. Some

26:26

of the ones on the outskirts there's Chalfont

26:29

and Latimer on

26:31

the Metropolitan line which sounds like a kind

26:34

of ITV2 detective drama. Or

26:38

they become sort of vaguely sexual innuendos

26:40

like Northwood, Bushey, Bellsized

26:43

Park and Rodding Valley. But

26:47

also so I read that... Well

26:49

by the way for not bringing cock fosters into that list

26:51

that was remarkably disciplined. Yeah

26:53

well I've sort of... I see it

26:56

as a mark of becoming a Londoner when you can

26:58

hear cock fosters on the tube and you don't giggle

27:00

anymore. You

27:03

can spot the tourists by people who are

27:06

like... But I'm still

27:09

there, I'm still giggling. I

27:12

mean yeah I'm not happy that that joy

27:14

has gone from my life. But

27:18

they're going to come into all that common and then

27:20

they're going to have to get the Elizabeth line.

27:23

And there was an article that said that's going to put an

27:25

unbelievable amount of strain on the Elizabeth

27:28

line. And it just made me think

27:31

we can't have the Elizabeth line dying

27:34

in the same way that Queen Elizabeth

27:36

died. Being ridden by far too many people

27:38

from Birmingham until she stops working.

27:43

Family showing.

27:47

I

27:51

think that might be the most revolting thing anyone said in the

27:53

entire history of the beautiful. Well done. I

27:58

rushed it down. I felt I

28:00

felt giddy. I had to say it. No, I

28:03

thought it was beautiful It's

28:07

like mathematically like I saw all

28:09

the pieces to that joke hovering behind

28:11

my head Just as a beautiful

28:14

mathematical equation and was like he's

28:17

done it. He's cracked it Yeah,

28:21

and and the I think the funniest

28:23

thing about them Kind of doing this to

28:25

the north is like a big part of how they won

28:28

The last election was getting that the red

28:30

belt of Northern Previously

28:33

labor voting towns and then we've

28:36

not long For a general

28:38

election to go they're sort of announcing

28:40

basically we don't care about the north And

28:44

the conservatives are doing this immediately

28:46

before they have their conference in Manchester

28:49

They're gonna cancel the trains to

28:51

Manchester and then go to

28:54

Manchester Seems

28:57

I mean if you're gonna sort of do that to them You

28:59

think surely a clever person would have the conference

29:01

in Manchester Tell them the cat worked

29:04

for HS2 to come and then the next week go.

29:06

Oh, no, actually we're not gonna do it They're

29:08

not even timing their lies The

29:12

way they're doing it now they're they're basically

29:14

banking on like well, how are you gonna catch us when

29:16

we leave You

29:19

know, there's no transportation because

29:22

I do think this is Andy hit on this I think this

29:24

is an environmentally friendly move,

29:27

right? What's more? environmentally

29:29

friendly than getting across the country

29:32

on Rapid widely

29:34

available green public transportation and

29:36

that's staying still not going

29:38

anywhere And I think by

29:40

encouraging the public to this stay where you

29:43

are initiative the kind of a

29:45

shelter in place Indefinitely. I think

29:47

that is gonna be huge for carbon

29:49

emissions. Yeah, it's very

29:51

very exciting time Also, you said this this

29:54

HS2 line now, I think has become that

29:56

rare Infrastructure projects

29:59

that better all parts of

30:01

the United Kingdom equally, all the different

30:04

countries, all the different regions of the United

30:06

Kingdom are getting as much from

30:08

this HS2 project as all the

30:10

others because it's going to be absolutely

30:14

useless to everyone and that is the kind of equality

30:17

we've been asking for for years. It

30:19

feels a bit like the,

30:22

if I'm getting the name right, the Sagrada

30:25

Familia in Barcelona, the

30:29

unfinished cathedral, that it might

30:31

become a tourist attraction where people

30:33

will just come and look at the HS2

30:35

tracks and

30:37

go, well the architect said this was going to reach

30:40

Manchester and we keep

30:42

chipping away at it over the years and

30:45

none of us are going to admit that it

30:48

does look terrible to be honest. Another

30:56

positive environmental story, one animal

30:58

that is doing very well is rhinoceroses,

31:01

which have roared, if indeed a rhinoceros

31:03

can roar, back up in population

31:06

to 27,000, which is way more

31:09

than the half a million that were

31:11

at large in the 20th century, if I've

31:13

done the maths right, before people decided

31:15

that it might be a good idea to see if

31:17

killing almost half a million rhinoceroses would be fun

31:20

or not. And of course Lego started

31:22

their luxury rhino horn limited edition.

31:27

I know they did the hippo toger edition, I don't know if the

31:29

rhino horn one got canned or

31:31

not but well there has been a

31:34

bit of a recovery in the

31:36

rhino population, is this

31:38

good or bad? I mean it's because they are an evolutionary

31:40

threat as discussed, we discussed with

31:42

a number of species that we're supposed to be excited about being

31:45

safe but the rhino is one of our

31:47

competitor species, they could easily horn

31:49

us into submission and now

31:52

we're actively helping them climb back up the ranking.

31:54

Yeah I think 27,000 feels

31:56

like plenty. Right.

31:59

Totally agree. Right. You say you want a global rhino

32:01

quota, but you cannot go. A

32:05

one child policy. That's

32:08

kind of how many people – that's about how many people

32:11

live in the town that I grew up in, and that's

32:13

plenty. Right, okay. I don't need

32:15

more rhinoceros than people I grew up around. But

32:20

I mean, what if – so you're saying

32:22

should we put all 27 rhinoceroses in

32:24

a single town and see

32:27

if that helps, or would they just

32:29

all want to leave like you and you end up with a

32:32

New York full of rhinoceros?

32:35

Rhinoceros is pursuing their dreams because we all

32:37

know it's environmentally catastrophic. Well,

32:40

this is it, right? Our good environmental

32:42

news is like, hey, there's more monsters.

32:45

Big horned monsters are making you come back. She's

32:49

like, oh, it couldn't be something fluffy? I

32:51

guess the message of this podcast is the rhinoceros

32:54

is for the good of society and the environment.

32:58

I don't think they're really back until we

33:00

know what one tastes like. Right. That's

33:03

when I think we'll know that they've like – they're

33:06

back enough that we don't have to worry, and you

33:08

can casually be like, oh, this tastes like rhino. And

33:10

I mean normal people because

33:13

I think Jeff Bezos knows what rhinoceros tastes

33:15

like. But

33:18

I don't think they're back enough

33:20

until regular people, like

33:22

until Burger King has a rhinoceros

33:25

whopper called the Rhy-Woper-us.

33:29

Right. So this now

33:31

is a goal. For the conservationists, you

33:34

will not have succeeded until

33:37

the rhinoceros – what did you call it? The rhinoceros? The

33:41

rhinoceros is on the menu at Burger

33:43

King's. You would have failed rhinoceros

33:46

conservationists until – and to aim for

33:49

that, reach for the stars. Burger

33:53

King, reach for the stars. American

34:00

news now and what's been a bit of a tough week

34:02

for Joe Biden, the president,

34:05

who's, well, had a, well, what seems

34:07

to be most of his weeks now in which various

34:09

things have not gone quite as well as they would

34:11

ideally have gone for a president,

34:14

raising the question, is he too old?

34:16

To which the answer is, is the Pope a Catholic? And

34:19

the answer to that is yes. And both

34:21

are that way because their followers have chosen them to

34:23

be so, because American politics

34:25

has struggled, it's fair to say, Josh, to embrace

34:28

the new, as we mentioned on the bugle before.

34:31

Since Bill Clinton was born, the only person to

34:33

be born who's gone on to be president is Barack

34:35

Obama. And it's now heading towards

34:37

a quarter of a century since Clinton was president.

34:42

It is in an extraordinary state,

34:44

American politics, and it's

34:46

quite hard to look ahead to the next, what,

34:49

year and a bit without feeling

34:51

that humanity

34:54

is entirely doomed. So, I mean,

34:56

how do you see the, well, the week Biden's

34:59

had and what that tells us about American politics

35:01

now? It's

35:04

bad, right? Because our choices are Joe Biden,

35:06

who spent the week, he bumped into a flag, he's getting

35:08

people's names wrong, he's forgetting to shake hands with

35:10

foreign leaders. And as the president,

35:13

you have to do, for in America,

35:15

you have to do one of two things. You can be right, right?

35:17

You can get things right, you can be astute, or you

35:19

can do what Donald Trump has always been doing

35:22

and been wrong on purpose. He just

35:24

says whatever. And even if he

35:26

accidentally calls someone the wrong name, he just

35:28

rolls with it and decides that's their name now. And

35:31

it's Bob DeSantis. Doesn't he look more like a

35:33

Bob? He'd be right at home in a bucket full of apples

35:35

on Halloween going up and down, wouldn't he folks?

35:38

And so I think Biden's going to

35:40

pick a lane. Is he going to keep

35:42

it sharp, right? Do a couple crossword puzzles, memorize

35:45

the clock, or is he going

35:47

to do what Trump does and just say whatever

35:49

and lean into it? Biden does seem

35:51

like kind of normal for a man of his age, but the

35:53

problem is when you're relying on your peers

35:56

and you're 80 years old, there is an enormous

35:58

likelihood that space out

36:00

and write in Jimmy Carter or Howdy Duty for

36:02

president and that's going to take your whole campaign.

36:06

So you're just walking

36:08

into flagpoles, getting people's names wrong, forgetting

36:10

to shake people's hands. I mean, I would say

36:12

that's probably the worst things an American president has

36:14

done in living memory. I would say that

36:17

is way worse than encouraging insurrection and

36:19

an attack on the heart of American democracy. He

36:21

walked into a flagpole. For f*** sake

36:23

gosh, are you going to accept that? So

36:25

there's a new poll, right? It feels like it's

36:27

making an undue impact, Andy. The

36:30

same poll has been widely criticized. There's

36:32

a new poll that says Biden's approval rating

36:35

is 37%, which is definitely a

36:37

bad sign when you're a sitting president's approval

36:39

rating is less than the half of their age.

36:41

That's terrifying. But

36:44

the same poll has been criticized for using an

36:46

unrepresentative sample of Americans.

36:49

It showed that Trump's leading Biden by 10% nationally,

36:52

which seems highly unlikely considering

36:55

what a huge percentage of Trump's supporters

36:57

are now in jail for storming the Capitol.

37:00

You'd think that would tip the scales

37:02

a little bit. There's

37:04

no chance, right, that Trump wins by that big

37:06

a margin. Our elections aren't usually

37:08

that divided in the U.S. If Trump

37:11

retakes the presidency, it'll be the old fashioned

37:13

way that his Republican predecessors did. In

37:15

fact, he did himself, losing by millions

37:17

of votes and taking power because of a map for

37:20

cheating, creating flavors 250 years ago.

37:23

I don't know if

37:26

you're planning to vote in the American election next

37:28

year. I

37:30

know you'd love democracy and you vote as often as you can

37:32

in as many different places as possible. Would

37:35

you be wary of voting

37:37

for a man displaying quite

37:40

such noticeable signs of age? Which

37:44

one? Well,

37:50

Trump said that there's quite a lot of electoral

37:52

fraud. So

37:54

according to Trump, who I always believe,

37:57

I should be able to vote quite easily. my

38:01

fake American passport Jose

38:04

Rodriguez will be casting his votes. I was trying

38:06

to look up

38:10

because I'm always really fascinated

38:13

by the US elections and

38:16

so with the last one I guess it was

38:18

during lockdown I was

38:20

going to stay up and do like an all-nighter

38:23

and I baked a cheesecake

38:26

and made some sort of like

38:29

American food and

38:31

I was like this is going to be fun man we're going to watch

38:35

Trump get ousted and

38:37

then I couldn't stay at work

38:39

any longer and then it was

38:41

still like four or five days before it was confirmed

38:44

and at that point the cheesecake had long gone. I

38:48

think it started off as like jokes about him

38:50

being old and now

38:53

it's hard to make those jokes because he's

38:55

doing stuff that just makes you genuinely

38:57

worried. Like

39:01

there was a thing I read that he told

39:03

the same story twice at

39:06

the same event like in a speech

39:09

and I was mortified when I

39:11

apparently did that on the first and second

39:14

dates with my girlfriend. I

39:16

started telling a story and she had to tell me

39:18

that I'd already told her that

39:21

and we'd only met once before. But

39:25

are you still together with that girlfriend Ian? Yes

39:28

and I've told her that maybe ten times. Four

39:31

more years. More and more

39:33

years of blueprints. In

39:40

more exciting news from America, NASA

39:42

has had a huge success this week by stealing a bit of

39:45

an asteroid. It

39:47

filched a bit of the Bennu asteroid as it flew

39:50

relatively close to Earth and has brought the samples

39:53

back. I mean this is very

39:55

exciting news for fans of little bits of asteroid

39:57

Josh. I mean how has it been received in the past?

40:00

on the streets of New York. Oh, this is huge. People

40:03

are out on the streets. They're chipping up little bits of

40:05

the sidewalk, holding them up

40:08

as mock asteroids. Asteroid

40:10

fever has swept New York City. This

40:15

is a seven year mission that resulted in the biggest

40:17

sample of an asteroid ever being removed

40:19

from space. And I think that's so great, but

40:22

I do think it was a huge missed opportunity

40:24

to call this mission Apollo 13's 11. I'm

40:32

worried about the scope of this honestly, because you've got to worry

40:34

about what you bring back when you go out into space,

40:37

right? Because the professor from the National

40:39

History Museum in London said that she was feeling quite emotional

40:42

and tearful about this mission, which made me

40:44

pause because a British professor feeling tearful,

40:46

I'm like, oh no, she's for sure been replaced

40:49

by an alien body double. But I do, I love,

40:51

I mean this so much. I

40:57

love that we still let NASA

40:59

solve space problems. There's

41:02

so many people whose job is just like, how

41:04

do we land a thing on a thing? And

41:06

it's so complicated and they work so

41:09

hard at it. And then they come back with this little

41:11

piece of asteroid and we, like

41:13

America just reacts like they just saw the coolest

41:16

skateboard trick. Like it's so

41:18

amazing that there's a department of our

41:20

government employing the most qualified

41:22

scientists and their mission statement

41:25

is just like, sick, brah. I

41:27

mean, it is, you know, with

41:31

the stories we've looked at today with regards

41:33

to America, they sort of sum up America as a

41:35

nation. This incredible scientific

41:38

achievements and the most inane,

41:40

insane politics that

41:43

you could devise, strange place.

41:46

Ian, were you excited by this

41:49

asteroid story? And what else would you like to see hauled

41:51

in from space? I

41:53

was very nervous for them about,

41:57

they had to keep it sort of completely uncontaminated.

42:00

So I was kind of worrying that

42:02

there'd be like a crack or something. But

42:04

I think it would be funny if when

42:06

they looked at the sample and amongst

42:09

the dust there was like a half a

42:11

like Kinder Bueno wrapper or

42:14

something like that and they're just like, ah, for God's

42:16

sake. Well,

42:19

the remnants of like of a Soviet space dog. Thank

42:22

you. Well, do you know, I mean, this is like a real big

42:24

undertaking to keep it uncontaminated. You know how hard it is

42:26

with those big astronaut gloves to roll the

42:28

condom all the way over the asteroid? I'm

42:34

just worried that, you know, the asteroids, you

42:36

know, parent is going to be obviously as you've

42:38

seen any any film like this,

42:41

it's going to be bigger and angrier. It's going to come together.

42:43

I think that's probably what

42:45

we've brought upon ourselves and that's like the dinosaurs all over

42:47

again. It'd be horrible if an

42:50

asteroid was coming towards Earth and you just

42:53

looked up at it and everyone's like,

42:54

I said, this is for my son.

43:08

Well, that brings the end of

43:09

this week's bugle. Thank you

43:12

for listening. Thanks to Ian and Josh for joining

43:14

us. Ian, tell us about your Soho Theatre run of

43:16

your very nearly a triple

43:18

award winning show. Yeah,

43:21

there's such a fine line between it winning so

43:23

many awards and absolutely

43:25

nothing. Yeah, I'm

43:28

on it. So from

43:30

the second to the seventh of

43:33

October at 9

43:35

15 in this very cool fancy

43:38

kind of downstairs cabaret vibe room.

43:42

But yeah, I'd love you to come along. I think I shout

43:44

consistently for 55 minutes. What

43:47

more could you want in a show? I

43:50

am also going on tour like

43:53

a little sort of UK tour as well. So I'm coming

43:55

to a number of places that

43:57

I probably won't be able to remember. Things

44:00

like Manchester, Glasgow,

44:05

you know, that sort of vibe. Yeah, okay.

44:08

If you're in a place like Manchester or Glasgow,

44:11

do go and see Ian's show. Josh,

44:14

what have you got coming up? I'm on

44:16

the road a little bit. I've got all

44:18

my tour dates you can find in my weekly

44:21

newsletter, That's Marvelous. That's joshgondelman.substack.com

44:24

or if you don't want to hear from me every week,

44:26

just joshgondelman.com. I

44:29

am this weekend, depending on how fast

44:31

they go back to work, I might do a couple

44:34

of dates opening for Frenemy

44:36

of the Bugle, John Oliver. Oh, yeah,

44:39

yeah. In Milwaukee and Bloomington,

44:42

Indiana. And then the next weekend, I'm

44:44

back out in that same part of the country

44:47

in Cincinnati and Indianapolis, Indiana on

44:49

the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me stand up tour. And then a few

44:51

more scattered dates, Rhode Island next week

44:53

with Adam Pally, Pittsburgh

44:55

coming up, hopefully some more dates

44:58

soon, or maybe at some

45:00

point in the future, I will be employed again. So

45:03

we'll see. Well, say hello to John

45:05

if you do those shows. I will for sure.

45:09

You can hear me on the News Quiz. Ian will

45:11

be doing another one or

45:13

two of the News Quiz of this series, I think. Yeah, I

45:15

think at the end of the month, yeah. Well,

45:17

end of October, yeah. Do

45:19

tune in for that. That's available on

45:21

BBC Sounds and eventually after

45:24

a cooling off period

45:26

on other podcast platforms. Don't

45:29

forget that you can join the Bugle voluntary subscription

45:31

scheme. We have a new offering for our Premium Revel

45:33

voluntary subscribers. There will be a monthly

45:36

Ask Andy show. You can find

45:38

me any questions that you want answered

45:41

and I will answer some of those

45:43

questions. The first one we

45:45

are going to record next week with questions

45:47

submitted by the audience at the live show

45:50

we did in London that was last week's

45:52

Bugle. But you will be able to submit

45:54

your questions for Ask Andy as well via

45:57

an email address. What's the email address, Chris?

46:00

Hello Buglers at the buglepodcast.com

46:03

Alright there we go. Maybe we should set up

46:05

an ask Andy at the buglepodcast.com Oh

46:07

don't make me do that. Alright. Ha

46:10

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I'll

46:12

ask Andy in the subject line. Yeah,

46:14

OK, that's a good idea. Put ask Andy in the subject line

46:17

and we'll find them better. So, do

46:19

join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme. To

46:21

give a one-off or a current contribution, go to

46:23

the buglepodcast.com to help keep

46:25

this show free, flourishing and

46:28

independent. Until next week,

46:29

goodbye.