0:00

AAAAAAAH! The

0:10

Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual

0:13

World Hello Buglers and

0:15

welcome to issue 4312 of

0:17

The Bugle, the

0:19

world's leading and only audio newspaper for

0:21

a world which, whilst at least 99.94%

0:23

visual, still can't actually see what it

0:26

has become. I'm

0:28

Andy Zoltzmann and on today's show, amongst

0:30

the infinite number of things we will

0:32

not be talking about, we'll

0:35

be steering clear of the history

0:37

of tablecloths, great controversies in 1930s

0:39

motorcycling, whether the Bible contains hidden

0:41

messages revealing that roller blades were

0:43

invented in Babylon in 628 BC,

0:45

Leonardo da Vinci's characteristically avant-garde plans

0:47

for an inflatable helium-filled bouncy castle

0:49

that could float around Italy for

0:52

both military and recreational purposes, and

0:54

the musculoskeletal structure of the snot-a-varian tree lobster.

0:58

But still, plenty of other stuff

1:00

to talk about with my two wonderful guests,

1:02

returning to The Bugle from here in London,

1:05

Tiffany Stevenson. Hello Tiff, how are you? Hello,

1:07

hi, for my sweltering little

1:09

book nook, not a euphemism.

1:18

Yeah, it's been a pretty damp, cold

1:21

summer, so can we use the term summer? Yeah,

1:23

but it is currently a little bit toasty. Loosely,

1:27

I will not complain actually about this because

1:29

I've been complaining about the lack of sunshine,

1:31

so the fact that we have anything,

1:33

even vaguely resembling heat, is very pleasing

1:35

to me. This is the weather I

1:38

thrive in, I thrive in this kind

1:40

of, I grow, there's a lot

1:42

of growth for me in this, I'm like mould. Joining

1:47

us from all the way

1:49

over there, and I'm pointing towards the west

1:51

coast of the USA in the city where

1:54

summer never sleeps, Los Angeles. Welcome

1:56

to The Bugle for the very first time,

1:58

Jackie Cation, hello Jackie. Hello,

2:01

I'm coming from in front of my husband's

2:03

Hot Wheel Collection. Is that

2:05

something? Is that? He

2:08

likes a character car. He likes a car. That

2:11

means that the car is representing

2:13

not the car that Spider-Man

2:15

would drive, but the car that Spider-Man would

2:18

be if he were a car. It

2:20

is such a niche Hot Wheel Collection

2:22

I can't even express. I would like

2:24

to be here. Thank you for having me.

2:26

I don't think we've ever had someone who's recorded

2:29

in front of a lot of

2:31

Hot Wheels before. So this is a landmark

2:33

moment in broadcasting. And

2:36

Anita asked what the weather's like in Los Angeles in

2:38

July. Oh, yes,

2:40

it is when we are closest to

2:42

the sun. And so it is 9

2:44

a.m. and it is already 87 degrees.

2:48

Too much. Warm, physically

2:50

very warm, you guys. But

2:53

you have this magical thing called air conditioning

2:55

there, which we don't have here. So that's

2:58

that's weird. You guys are older. You would have

3:00

thought that you would have invented it earlier. Getting

3:04

involved. Well, I think that's the

3:06

design of Stonehenge was essentially just to get a

3:08

nice breeze going through. But we haven't really progressed

3:10

in the last four and a half thousand years

3:12

since we built it. That's classic

3:14

British. We are recording on the 23rd of July,

3:16

2024. On

3:20

the 23rd of July, 1926, Fox

3:22

Film bought the patents

3:24

of the Movietone sound system, which

3:26

enabled sound to be recorded onto

3:28

film. And with hindsight, we

3:31

can say that it was at this point

3:33

that the release of Smurfs 2 became inevitable

3:35

rather than merely probable. And now 98 years

3:39

later, I do think it's fair to ask,

3:41

has humanity benefited from that deal 98

3:44

years ago? I mean, there's been ups

3:46

and downs, pros and cons for sure. The sheer

3:48

normity of podcasts, I think, speaks to the negative.

3:52

I have two. I have two. It's

3:54

not OK. Only two? That's

3:57

below the global average for all people,

3:59

I think. I think we're just

4:01

about to go through the 20 billion weekly podcasts.

4:04

The number of podcasts should supersede the

4:06

amount of relationships you've been in. I

4:09

think that's the technical gauge. Oh,

4:11

okay, then I'm doing good. I'm

4:15

not socially great. Well,

4:19

I've topped out at one, which

4:21

is entirely appropriate. I

4:27

think putting sound on film clearly has

4:29

overall made us less productive as a

4:31

species. And to prove this, let's look

4:33

at the life of Benjamin Franklin, writer,

4:35

inventor, printer, publisher, scientist, diplomat, politician, philosopher,

4:38

founding daddy, a stroke father, depending on

4:40

how familiar you are with the USA.

4:44

Independence Declaration draft, the musician, fire safety

4:46

pioneer, chess player, librarian, relationship guidance counselor,

4:48

and mullet sporting hairstyle trendsetter. He got

4:50

shit done, but he didn't have the

4:53

option of watching 34 consecutive episodes of

4:55

Celebrity Stockholm Syndrome or antique

4:59

vase smashes go large or my favorite rabbi or the

5:01

real Alvin and the chipmunks. So, you know, have we

5:03

benefited? I'm not sure we have. He

5:06

was the first guy to collect stamps. So

5:08

I guess he founded the postdoc. All right.

5:11

He's the OG nerd. Is that what you're

5:13

saying to me? Oh, for sure. Are you

5:15

kidding me? He was the OG nerd who

5:17

was also grooming people. And

5:19

he is the founder of the

5:21

reason for the Me Too movement here in the

5:24

United States. He crammed a

5:26

lot in. I know he lived a long time,

5:28

but he still crammed a lot in. That's what

5:30

she said. That's what she said. Fabulous show, Jackie.

5:32

Fabulous show. Fabulous show. As

5:37

always, oh no, I haven't written a section in the

5:39

bin. Would you believe? Oh, I forgot. Well, the section

5:42

in the bin is going in the bin, Bugler's. This

5:46

is the last episode of Before Our Summer

5:49

hiatus and it appears I've slightly run out

5:51

of steam. So there we go. The

5:53

section in the bin is having a week off. It's

5:56

in the bin. Top

6:01

story this week, the passage of

6:03

time one, Joe Biden nil. We've

6:09

finally seen the culmination of Joe Biden's define and

6:11

in many ways, heroic struggle against the passage of

6:13

time. I'm not a fan of it either, Joe,

6:15

but it tends not to negotiate.

6:17

And Biden has finally announced that he will

6:20

step aside from the presidential campaign to

6:22

spend a bit less time being accused of being too

6:24

old and too mad by an old and mad man.

6:27

Into the breach to try to win

6:29

the election and to

6:32

take a minimum of four months of

6:34

unrelenting partisan personal abuse. Vice president Kamala

6:36

Harris, who is now set

6:38

to try to defeat Donald Trump, Jackie,

6:40

as our American politics correspondent on your

6:42

first first time on the show. Can

6:45

she do it? Well, he is a felon

6:47

and she is a cop. So

6:50

I think I think there's hope. She's

6:52

a prosecutor. It's a match made in heaven. And

6:55

I always, you know, to go back to the

6:57

to the UK, I always think of him, Captain

6:59

Knob job as the witch king. And

7:02

so remember what the witch

7:04

king said. No man can kill me. Die

7:06

now. And she

7:08

is no man. So she's got a

7:11

shot. She's got a shot. And

7:13

so she is a win. And I

7:15

call cops murder hornets myself just

7:17

because we had murder hornets for a

7:19

while. But

7:21

I think that she is the kind of cop that

7:23

can be a murder her but she could also be

7:26

a social worker. Be she can be a caterpillar of

7:28

community. She got a lot of bugs inside of her.

7:30

And so I just think that with

7:33

what she's done with the with the

7:35

police in California, I think

7:37

that there's there's hope. I think she's got

7:39

a shot is what I'm saying. But she

7:41

will always be black and she will

7:43

always be a woman. So there's

7:45

trouble. I'm glad that she's only got

7:48

four months, though, because I'm like just

7:50

making a finite amount of time for

7:52

the the lies and the vitriol. Women

7:56

can multitask. You can get a lot done

7:58

in in four months as a woman, I

8:00

think. Yeah, this is promising. I

8:03

mean, the bugle is not in

8:05

a position to criticize anyone or anything for going on way

8:08

too long, given we are a podcast

8:10

and having gone nearly 17 years. But

8:13

quite what it took until late July 2024 for Biden and

8:17

the Democrats to realize that by late July 2024, Biden

8:20

would be struggling to convince anyone that he would

8:22

be a viable president in, for example,

8:24

late July 2028. Well, I

8:27

mean, let's just describe that, Tif, to America being

8:29

America with its unerring and unshiffable instinct towards acting

8:31

against its own best interest. Is that a fair

8:34

assessment? You've spent a lot of time in America,

8:36

Tif. I think so. I mean, I like that

8:38

when it finally came down to it, he was

8:40

at the beach house, and he

8:42

had his bestie come over to lay it all out to

8:44

him. So it was like the plot of the film Beaches

8:47

with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. That's very much how

8:49

I imagined it. And then he

8:51

basically gave a one-minute notice

8:54

of his exit. And Missy Elliott always

8:56

warned us about the one-minute man. And

8:59

we shouldn't respect the one-minute man. But as someone

9:01

who's been through a long and protracted Brexit, I'm

9:04

in favor of a quick withdrawal. Let's

9:06

get it done. When you're out, you're

9:08

out. So basically, it's a bit confusing, though,

9:10

because obviously, they haven't invoked the 25th. So

9:13

he's still fit to run the

9:15

country, but not run the country in a

9:17

little while. So I'm trying to sort of

9:19

work out. It kind of feels like Biden's

9:21

alive, but simultaneously, his hope of running is dead.

9:23

So he's shroding as president at the moment.

9:25

Yeah, well, that's got a nice way of

9:28

putting it. I guess he's just hoping maybe

9:30

just like a car, like an electric car

9:32

that's got, I don't know, 12% battery left.

9:36

You've just got to manage it through to the end

9:38

of the journey. So hopefully, he can

9:40

make it to January. You might spend that last

9:43

12 minutes going through the drive-thru at McDonald's. You

9:45

don't know. What he does with these last

9:47

four months, I mean, if you

9:49

think about it, what Donald Trump did with

9:51

his four years and the plethora of executive

9:53

orders, he could create justice on

9:55

his way out. He's like, oh, by the way,

9:58

everybody's going to be even freer. Could

10:00

you do an executive order to say

10:02

a criminal can't be president? A convicted

10:04

felon like with Trump. Could you do

10:06

that? Unfortunately, the third branch of the

10:09

United States is broken. They

10:11

have decided to become kingmakers. And while

10:13

I am OK with a little

10:16

bit of capitalism and a little bit of socialism,

10:18

I'm not good with any monarchies. You

10:21

just didn't give me enough time, Jackie. Right.

10:24

Well, I think she's got a good shot as I'm

10:26

going to say speaking as a stepmother. I'm

10:29

excited by the fact that Kamala is in

10:31

it. I mean, she's been criticized for that.

10:33

But I think stepmom as president

10:35

is an excellent solution. You know, she's

10:38

used to dealing with challenges. She's going

10:40

to be an expert diplomat, the

10:42

ability to be fully present and loving, yet

10:45

also realistic. Imagine this scenario

10:47

like you've got a teenager who wants

10:49

their biological parent to come for Christmas

10:51

dinner. That is basically a UN summit

10:53

where everyone hints at their grievances through

10:55

gritted smiles. She's going to

10:58

be used to these scenarios playing out

11:00

for her. You know, it's it's it's

11:03

it's it shouldn't be viewed as a negative. It should

11:05

be viewed as a positive that she has this role

11:07

in people's lives. And like I say, she's women. She

11:09

can multitask. She can get a lot of stuff done,

11:12

you know, because we do spend a lot of time

11:14

stepmoms in our castles talking to our enchanted mirrors. So

11:17

that's probably where she'll get most

11:19

of her advice from during this. But I know

11:22

that that is going to be some be interesting

11:24

to see how I feel, because that's going to be used

11:26

as a real stick to beat her with

11:28

over the next sort of four months or so.

11:30

The greatest thing about Stem Brothers is that while

11:32

someone is screaming, you're not the real president, she's

11:35

also putting dinner on the table. Yes.

11:40

Oh, such valuable life experience. Exactly.

11:43

What's going to say to talk about the the

11:45

enchanted mirrors? I mean, I think if she does

11:47

get into the White House, she wants to put

11:49

some new mirrors in because those mirrors will

11:52

have seen some truly appalling things between 2017 and 21.

11:58

The thing that they've come up with so far. as

12:00

the main attack on her seems to be a cobbled

12:03

together video of her laughing? Yes. And is

12:05

this who you want as president? What

12:08

someone that can experience joy? I

12:10

don't understand. It's so

12:12

different. Yes. Well, as

12:14

you can imagine, the way the Republicans are

12:16

responding to this, it's there's going to be,

12:19

you know, obviously the respect for the office

12:21

is going to be very prevalent and

12:23

they're just going to be incredibly mature

12:25

now that she's actually in the race.

12:27

I can't believe. Yeah, I've seen

12:29

some of the attacks already and they are, A,

12:33

not true. And of course, B,

12:36

have the maturity of a five-year-old with

12:38

a handgun. So they've grown up

12:40

a little bit. Yeah. In

12:46

terms of who has come out

12:49

to support Kamala Harris, the

12:52

Democrats very rapidly sort of

12:55

coalesced behind her. There had been some talk, there

12:57

might be a sort of micro speed primary, but

12:59

that isn't going to happen. She's

13:02

raked in over a hundred million dollars

13:05

between Sunday and Monday evening, over a million

13:07

unique donors, over 60% of the first time

13:09

contributors, which

13:11

I guess has given that

13:14

campaign a bit of early momentum.

13:16

Clearly, it's going to be difficult to

13:18

beat Trump, the undisputed DaVinci division,

13:20

the Caravaggio of cantankerousness, the Vincent

13:22

van Gogh of viciously vituperative goading,

13:25

the Pablo Picasso, provocative beave, the Egon

13:27

Sheila of egotistical showboating, the, I don't

13:29

know, I've got to end it there.

13:31

I have to end it there before

13:33

more figures of art are betrayed. A

13:37

lot of celebrities have come out in favor of

13:40

Kamala Harris as well. Charlie

13:42

XCX, is

13:45

that pronounced Charlie 90-10 or Charlie

13:47

10-110? I

13:49

like that you're like a lot of celebrities, so

13:51

then you name someone I've never heard. Awesome,

13:54

also some people I've never heard of have also

13:57

come out in favor of him. Beyonce

14:02

has given Kamala Harris permission to use

14:04

her song, Freedom, for her presidential campaign,

14:06

which contrasts with the number of musical

14:08

acts who have told Trump not

14:12

to use their out, which include,

14:14

and this is by no means

14:16

an exhaustive list, The Beatles, The

14:18

Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Aerosmith, Bruce

14:20

Springsteen, Creedence, Clearwater Revival, Sinead O'Connor,

14:22

Leonard Cohen, Pharrell Williams, Chasandave, Rod

14:24

Jane and Freddie, Most Wales, All

14:26

Nightingales, and pretty much everyone else

14:28

in the musical universe, I think, but Beyonce

14:30

is on board. Cardi

14:32

B is also on the Kamala

14:35

train. She tweeted, well, I'm not sure actually what

14:37

outlet this is on, she said, let's go. I

14:40

told you all Kamala was supposed to be the 2024 candidate.

14:43

So that's some big figures from

14:45

contemporary music and also

14:47

some very prominent young women.

14:49

And this is something that

14:52

might be a real strength for Kamala

14:54

Harris is how she's been in

14:56

favor. And I know we have many old

14:59

male Republican listeners on the bugle. So

15:02

key target demographic. And it might be quite

15:04

hard for those of you who are an

15:06

old male Republican bugle listener to understand. But

15:09

Kamala Harris has been in favor of women

15:11

being allowed to choose what to do with

15:13

their own bodies. Interesting. Here's what I do

15:15

know is that this might be the last

15:18

time we get to vote as women, Project

15:20

2025. So get out the vote, ladies. Please

15:24

register to vote. Well, there was a lot

15:26

of that that sort of went down around

15:28

the Republican convention as well. It

15:30

feels like it's been three years

15:32

in terms of politics. Did you guys

15:35

watch any of the RNC? No, I'm

15:37

from Milwaukee. So I can't possibly, I

15:39

couldn't possibly watch them walk through my

15:41

town. And then there was the big

15:43

outage and they were all trapped there.

15:45

I was myself weaned on a nice

15:47

logger at a ho ho. But

15:50

all the bars right around the convention

15:52

center had drag shows so

15:55

that they wouldn't come in. Well,

15:58

I watched a bit of it and it was like

16:00

bonkers. Peak USA. So the bits that I saw was

16:02

Hulk Hogan ripping off

16:04

his vest to excitingly reveal another

16:06

vest underneath like the world's shittest

16:09

stripper. J.D. Vance's

16:11

wife, Asha, watching Kid Rock, and

16:13

you could literally see her soul

16:16

leaving her body as

16:18

he was singing. And one of the

16:20

lyrics apparently was, smell the aroma, check

16:22

my hits, it stinks in

16:25

here because Trump's the shit. Old

16:27

people do fart a lot, so I guess there's that. Because

16:30

now that Biden's out, Trump

16:32

looks so old, right? He looks so old. Well,

16:34

I mean, this is one of the interesting things

16:36

with Kamala Harris, not only could she become the

16:38

first woman to be president

16:41

and only the second person of

16:43

colour to be president, but even

16:45

more extraordinarily for America, she could

16:47

be only the second person born

16:49

after 1946 to be president. Is

16:51

America ready for another

16:55

young person under the age

16:58

of 78? Gen X. A Gen X president

17:00

is exactly what we need. A

17:03

Gen X or that I'm sort of not millennial,

17:05

I'm in that bit in between, which I call

17:07

the taint, because I'm not

17:09

quite generation gooch. But

17:11

I think we should have a Gen X. So that's exactly the

17:13

kind of energy we need. Push things

17:15

forward. I will say this. My father, when

17:18

I asked him who he was going to

17:20

vote for, it was Hillary and Agent Orange,

17:23

I asked and he said, well, she's

17:25

not hot, but she's overqualified. And in

17:30

this case, Kamala is both hot

17:32

and overqualified. So

17:34

I haven't checked in with him yet, though. Because

17:38

Biden was willing to step aside and

17:40

let Kamala take over, it reminded me,

17:42

I hope it reminds me of George Washington

17:44

more than Jimmy Carter, quite honestly, but it

17:47

reminds me a little bit of both. But

17:49

George Washington was the first one who ever

17:51

initially that's what made the United States so

17:53

unique is that he stepped aside. I mean,

17:56

the Republican Party, the

17:58

idea is that the Republican

18:00

Party is no longer interested in a representative

18:02

Democratic Republic, which, you know, in the long

18:04

run is fine because the good news is,

18:06

is that it's just going to lead to

18:09

World War III. And finally, the

18:11

Germans are going to get to be the good

18:13

guys. Right? I mean, based on a

18:15

very real thing of mine, where I think if you admit

18:17

the worst thing you ever did, you get to be the

18:19

hero in the sequel. So good for the Germans, I say.

18:22

Good for the Germans. Talking

18:24

about Nazis. Trump's own running

18:27

partner is his pick, his VP. Isn't

18:29

he on record calling Trump a Nazi?

18:32

He compared him to Hitler, for sure. And

18:35

in a positive way, which is rarely

18:37

done. And

18:39

we think about J.D. Vance or J.P.

18:42

Morgan, whatever his name is. I

18:44

thought he was a romance writer. If that

18:47

was, I'm in airports and I see

18:49

that name. That

18:52

guy, 39 years old and already just

18:54

full of hate all the way up

18:56

to his nose. I was like,

18:58

how did it happen? Who raised that? Congratulations.

19:01

I think it started with when

19:03

they named him after

19:06

an off brand budget whiskey. That's

19:08

what he sounds like. But

19:11

apparently he was very liberal. And

19:13

so what he said about Trump in the beginning was he

19:16

described him as an artsy, described him as

19:18

cultural heroine, offering false promises to

19:21

the white working class. And

19:23

then apparently met up with Trump, you

19:25

know, a few years down the line when he

19:27

was running for Senate, I think, and said, and

19:30

Trump explained to him that Trump actually understood

19:32

more about the struggles of white working class

19:35

people than someone who was born and

19:37

raised in a white working class community.

19:39

And J.D. went, oh, OK, yeah. Will

19:43

you endorse me? Yeah. So oh, my

19:45

gosh. It's I love it

19:47

when people say, well, I used to be

19:49

a liberal. And I was like, no, no,

19:51

you weren't. It turns out you were absolutely

19:53

you because that should lead

19:55

quite honestly to you going, nobody's

19:58

as liberal as I am. he

20:00

wants and because you do make compromises

20:02

and as you go through life and

20:04

you're just like oh well I guess

20:07

I do believe in I mean granted I don't want

20:09

to get pushed down by a pile of 14 year

20:12

olds that have them steal my bag so that doesn't

20:14

make me soft on crime

20:16

but there's there's no way he was ever

20:18

a liberal not a chance um

20:20

but he wrote the book hillbilly elegy didn't

20:23

he which contains now if you don't

20:25

know this contains this piece of dialogue it's in

20:27

the book it's in the film uh

20:29

everyone in this world is one of three

20:32

kinds a good terminator a bad

20:34

terminator or neutral now

20:38

I don't think you've seen the terminator films I

20:41

don't think poor Glenn Close had

20:43

to say that in a bad wig

20:45

and Deirdre Barlow glasses good

20:48

terminator bad terminator or neutral and

20:50

there is no neutral terminator

20:52

or is he talking about abortions is that

20:54

what he's talking about

20:57

by terminator because because

20:59

I know he's obsessed with that which is

21:01

an interesting dilemma isn't it to pose to

21:03

those kind of people you know anti-choices like

21:06

would you have bought a fetus if you

21:08

knew it was going to grow

21:10

up to be a doctor who performed abortions uh

21:12

I saw a clipboard camel I actually asked him

21:14

she said are you interested

21:16

in any legislation that would control a

21:18

man's body and he goes um I

21:22

would answer a specific question about

21:24

that in other words no is

21:27

that it yeah not even which

21:30

hand you're jerking off with and no one can

21:32

even think of an example because it doesn't exist

21:36

when they asked him if abortion laws

21:38

should allow exceptions for rape and incest

21:40

he said because we just need to

21:42

know what we're what we're

21:44

dealing with here what like the type of person they

21:46

said when if abortion laws should allow exceptions for rape

21:49

and incest he said two wrongs don't

21:51

make a right oh okay do

21:53

you support the death penalty jd yes

21:55

oh with no

21:57

exceptions oh well that seems

22:00

inconsistent. I understand that

22:02

you want to either control or kill women.

22:04

There's a lot of legislation around the United

22:06

States right now at a state level that

22:08

describes what I am as just a couple

22:10

of holes in a haircut and

22:13

it starts bitches man, they just don't

22:15

listen. And then it goes into how

22:17

they want to control. So being anti

22:20

IVF, which is again,

22:22

make it make sense. It's baffling because obviously

22:24

if you're saying like, you know, religiously, you

22:26

know, you talk about your religion

22:28

and part of that is go forth and multiply,

22:30

but not like that. Not with health. We

22:33

must have no IVF. And he

22:35

also said, and this

22:38

for me, I think, I think the Democrats

22:40

can really flip this to their

22:42

advantage. But a couple of years ago, he said,

22:44

we are effectively run in this country via the

22:46

Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of

22:48

childless cat ladies who are miserable at

22:51

their own lives and the choices they've made. And

22:53

that's just a basic fact. He's

22:55

gone full speaking as a mother there. But

22:58

they did a study at the LSE London

23:00

School of Economics here and found that unmarried

23:02

child free women were the happiest population of

23:04

all. Women

23:07

stay joyful by a cat. Facts don't care

23:09

about your feelings, magga. It's interesting because that

23:12

only seems to apply again to liberals, not

23:14

any of the people in the, the magga

23:16

base who are also child free. I know

23:18

that magga have they want to be anti

23:21

elite or JD Vance, at least wants to

23:23

be anti elite, which I always

23:25

find baffling to kind of go Trump's not the elite.

23:28

If you go by the strict definition of

23:30

the elite as being the most powerful in

23:32

society, capable of taking away your freedom of

23:34

thought and decision making. So why are you

23:36

trying to take away choice from

23:39

an individual, you know, or take away choice from

23:41

a woman over what she wants to do with

23:43

her own body? That's the ultimate elitist act is

23:45

for you to take choice away. And obviously, I

23:47

get quite passionate about this, but this is what

23:49

I think this is how I think the Democrats

23:51

can turn this to their advantage. I

23:53

think all of the cat women and

23:56

men of America should

23:58

rise up we had in the We had

24:00

dogs at polling stations. US

24:02

need to have cats are casting. Cats

24:06

are off to cast their ballots. Cats are

24:08

casting. Well, we will be providing

24:10

globally exclusive coverage of the rest of the

24:12

presidential campaign. I think we're the only media

24:14

outlet that will be doing that once

24:17

we return after our sub-iators

24:19

to see if Donald

24:21

Trump can indeed bring people together.

24:24

That claim to me, he will

24:26

unify America, that I

24:28

think is objectively fair to say as

24:30

a claim is up there with the

24:32

Marvel franchise claiming that the only motivating

24:35

factor in their movies is

24:37

an incorrigible love of

24:39

art house cinema. It just

24:41

doesn't stack up for me.

24:47

Fragility of all human existence news

24:49

now. And it turns out that

24:52

humanity is basically held together by

24:54

basically looking at all the computers

24:56

in the world with our fingers

24:58

crossed saying, please don't destroy

25:00

us. We've just witnessed

25:02

one of the greatest IT failures in the

25:04

entire 13 billion year history of the universe

25:07

or 6,000 year history of the world, delete

25:09

according to the number of loyalty points you've earned from

25:11

your local creationism society. Now

25:14

obviously, IT failures are a relatively modern

25:16

entry into the annals of human chaos.

25:18

But still, even if Charles

25:20

Babbage and Ada Lovelace had invented the ZX

25:22

Spectrum in 13 billion BC

25:24

rather than 1982 or whenever

25:26

it was, this would still be right up

25:29

there. It was a botched software update. Is

25:31

there any other kind? Well,

25:34

yes, but you tend not to notice them. So effectively,

25:36

no, there is no other kind. By

25:39

the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, it

25:41

crashed Microsoft Windows computer systems around the

25:44

world last Friday. Thousands of businesses were

25:46

affected, including airlines and airports, thousands of

25:48

flights cancelled. It was mayhem

25:50

at Westworld. But still, no confirmation on

25:52

whether British train services were affected. It's

25:55

so hard to tell. So hard to tell. But

25:58

for me, the main lesson from

26:00

this is if you are

26:02

a cybersecurity firm, do

26:05

not give yourself a name that sounds

26:07

like you are without question a group

26:09

of teenage hackers. Crowdstrike. You're

26:12

just asking for trouble. Can

26:14

I call it that? Can I call it the great

26:16

IT crash of 24? Yeah, why not? Because my mum

26:19

rang me very, very concerned. She was like,

26:22

the banks are offline, flights can't go, you

26:24

know, the Dow Jones is down. I said

26:26

the Dow Jones is down. That's just Welshmen.

26:28

They're a bit depressed anyway. Boom.

26:31

I can't. David

26:33

Weston, the vice president

26:35

of Crowdstrike said, it's a reminder

26:37

of how important it is for

26:39

all of us across the tech

26:42

ecosystem to prioritise operating with safe

26:44

deployment and disaster recovery using the

26:46

mechanisms that exist. And

26:48

these were not reassuring work. For

26:51

example, there's a

26:53

vague suggestion that mechanisms that

26:55

don't exist are an option

26:57

at times. But also, I

26:59

just don't think you should need a reminder.

27:02

That seems like it should be

27:04

the default setting, operating safely and having a

27:06

backup plan for when things that shouldn't need

27:08

a memo. It's like, you don't write up,

27:10

do not run head first into an industrial

27:12

welding machine. Don't eat the sausage if

27:14

the pig is still alive. You don't need to

27:17

arrive at that. Remember to take off your zebra

27:19

outfit when going into the lining closure. And even

27:21

beyond that, remember not to go into the lining

27:23

closure. We shouldn't need memos for things like this.

27:25

Could you imagine being the person who had done

27:28

it? They pressed send all. All

27:30

they can do to that person is

27:32

fire them. That is it. Because all

27:34

the lawsuits that will come from Delta

27:36

and all the airlines, that person should

27:38

be like, oh, I got to get

27:40

a job. And because they're

27:43

in cybersecurity, they will get

27:45

another job by Thursday. I

27:49

guess it's worrying for me because I think

27:51

the computers are taking over. I'm

27:53

just sort of wondering, are we heading towards

27:56

singularity? Is that what is happening

27:59

here? that the computers are overtaking us in

28:01

terms of their capabilities, what they're able to

28:04

do, are they coming for us? And if

28:06

they are, the big question, I guess, is

28:09

then are they good terminator? Other

28:19

technology ruining humanity news

28:21

now. And well,

28:24

football fans in Norway have

28:26

finally taken a stand on

28:28

behalf of humanity against technology,

28:30

specifically the VAR system

28:32

in football, video assistant referee system, I

28:34

think that's what it stands for, which

28:37

brought anguish and agony to football fans around

28:39

the world for its, I don't know, technological

28:41

pedantry, I think is the right term. There

28:44

was a game between Rosenberg

28:46

and Lillestrom in Trondheim, which

28:49

fans protested against VAR.

28:52

And let me describe how they protested and

28:55

let me emphasize also that I'm

28:57

reading this directly from a news

28:59

report. They protested with a two

29:01

minute bombardment of fish cakes. I

29:05

mean, there's, there's a lot going

29:08

on in that phrase. So many questions.

29:10

Where do you buy fish cakes in bulk?

29:12

And how do you get them into the

29:14

stadium? That's a good question. Do you know

29:16

when to start throwing them? It started just

29:18

after the kickoff. But that question of how

29:20

they got them into the state, you would

29:23

have thought, I don't know, you know, I

29:25

don't know how much stadium security there is

29:27

at the Rosenberg V. Lillestrom, actually, Norwegian top

29:29

division. But you would have thought if

29:31

a lot of the security personnel saying, says

29:34

someone else who's just come in with five bags of

29:36

fish cakes, they might have thought that maybe

29:38

there was something, something

29:41

fishy going on, you might even say. What

29:43

I do like is that they then

29:45

also later on, after half time, through

29:48

smoke bombs, and I'm going to say this

29:50

one thing, if I know Scandinavians, if there's

29:52

going to be fish, it's going to be

29:54

smoked. What

29:57

I thought was interesting is that they did it for

29:59

two. minutes. And then they did it just

30:02

because it took less time than one of

30:04

the virtual referee breaks. Yes. Yeah. They're like,

30:06

we're not even going to take as much

30:08

time. This doesn't even matter, does it? But

30:10

I will say with the way AI is

30:13

growing by the end of the season, it's

30:15

going to take 30 seconds. And

30:17

then by next year, there won't

30:19

be any football because they'll know who won

30:21

before the game. It won't even matter. It just

30:24

it'll be fun. I

30:26

mean, football refereeing has become, you know,

30:28

technologies got involved. And for

30:30

decades, people have been complaining about

30:32

human referees making mistakes. Now they're

30:35

complaining about technological referees either making

30:37

mistakes or taking too long to

30:39

rectify a mistake. There's no way

30:41

of winning in football. Football fundamentally

30:43

exists to give people something to

30:45

complain about that doesn't fundamentally matter.

30:47

And let's not forget, sport is

30:49

supposed to be a metaphor for

30:52

life. And VAR basically

30:54

lets technology strip all

30:56

the joy and hope from

30:59

existence. So what greater metaphor could there

31:01

possibly be? But

31:03

this idea that VAR is ruining

31:05

football, I mean, to me, football

31:07

is ruining football with the sports

31:09

washing, the self perpetuating plutocracies, the

31:11

managers, and their defensive tactics, the

31:13

laws, the constant whinging, the cheating, the dawning human realization

31:15

that maybe there is more to life than sports. Shit,

31:18

I think my script has been hacked. 17 days

31:20

of distraction from all

31:29

reality news now. And the Olympic Games

31:31

is about to start in Paris in

31:33

just a few days time. The

31:35

Olympics are returning to Paris for the first time since since

31:37

1924. There's some new events, breakdancing.

31:41

Various events have been updated.

31:44

The modern pentathlon now I think is

31:46

essentially just a Liam Neeson film in

31:49

which the participants have to do I think it's

31:51

a car chase. There's something involving swimming across something.

31:54

There's some shooting. That's that's what modern pentathlon

31:56

is now. Jackie, are you excited

31:59

about the the Olympics? I am excited about

32:01

the Olympics. The Paris Olympics, very interesting because

32:03

it's going to be taking place in

32:05

the city of Paris, which if

32:07

you have been to the city of Paris,

32:09

it's not big enough. There's a lot of

32:12

cobblestones. We're going to get a lot of

32:14

ankles that are turning and running. They're

32:17

going to play beach volleyball at the base

32:19

of the Eiffel Tower. If the ball gets

32:21

stuck, who do we talk to? Mr. Burns,

32:23

Mr. Potter, who do we talk to? Beach

32:25

volleyball, it's too much. And I

32:27

will say there's going to be swimming in

32:29

the Seine, the Seine. How am I pronouncing

32:32

it? It's not my river. But

32:34

they've... Hashtag not my river. I

32:37

didn't vote for this river. Never said.

32:39

They've been cleaning it since May.

32:41

They've been trying to clean it. And then the

32:43

mayor jumped in to prove that it was perfectly

32:45

good. But did she drink from it? She did

32:47

not. There's a couple of things that

32:49

made me laugh. The break dancing, the fact that that

32:51

is now a sport. Second Olympics where it's a

32:53

sport. Weirdly enough, this

32:55

is the first time I realised they don't

32:57

get to pick their music. As

33:00

opposed to like gymnastics and ice skating

33:03

and everybody else gets to pick their

33:05

music. They're just like, go.

33:08

And it's like it would be

33:10

like if improv were a sport

33:12

in the Olympics and somebody just

33:14

yelled out random countries in Africa,

33:16

Togo, do the accent. And

33:19

you're like, no. The

33:22

last Paris Olympics were still at the time

33:24

where there were a lot of non-sporting events.

33:26

I think there was sculpture and... I

33:30

might even have been poetry competitions and

33:32

things. It was sport plus culture.

33:34

And then I don't know, soon

33:36

after that, it became more only

33:39

sports. But, you know, there's other things coming in.

33:41

The javelin is now one against one. Survivor

33:44

stays on. LAUGHTER The

33:48

speed climbing is using the Eiffel Tower, but she's

33:50

been specially greased up to make it more difficult.

33:53

So that should be quite entertaining to me. Can't

33:55

we bring back the medieval like jousting? We've already

33:57

got javelin. We've already got dressage. That's

34:00

just the perfect combination of dressage and javelin.

34:02

I was looking for new events to keep

34:04

the Olympics modern and relevant to a younger

34:07

generation, so to try and replicate the world

34:09

that we live in there amongst

34:11

the new events are speed

34:14

misogyny and freestyle pessimism. Speed

34:16

misogyny. It's just someone

34:18

sat at a table with a bell while

34:20

a woman sits down and they go, Hawke,

34:22

next. Well, I

34:25

think that's probably a good place to finish. Right.

34:33

Well, that brings us to the end of not

34:35

only this bugle, but this run of bugles. As

34:37

I said, we

34:39

are having a few weeks off. We'll be

34:41

back for the run up to the November

34:43

election and also November, my stand up tour,

34:45

which begins on the 1st of November, just in

34:48

time for me to have to rewrite the whole

34:50

thing as soon as the American election happens a

34:52

few days later. All

34:54

the dates are at my

34:56

newly revamped website, and he's

34:58

also been.co.uk do come along

35:00

to every single possible show.

35:06

My sister, Helen's, Altzman, who many of you

35:08

will know from both the bugle and infinite

35:11

number of other wonderful works, including the

35:13

illusionist podcast, is doing some live illusionist

35:16

shows in the UK

35:18

through August and September details at the

35:20

illusionists website. So do go to see

35:22

that. Do go to support all the

35:25

bugle co-hosts at the

35:27

Edinburgh festival in August. Tiff,

35:30

you will be there, will you not? I will

35:32

be there. My show is at lunchtime at the

35:34

monkey barrel and it's called husband material. And it's

35:36

because I want to wear my husband like a

35:38

suit. That's

35:42

midday at the monkey barrel. I'm

35:45

there all month. And I think

35:47

I have one preview left Thursday

35:49

in London. So yeah, or

35:51

if you want to follow me on any of the social

35:54

media things or check out House of Games in

35:56

autumn, which I've just done, that'll be out.

35:59

I did say last. we've got have a full

36:01

list of all the bugle co-hosts who are doing

36:03

Edinburgh. I have not achieved that

36:05

goal. Nish. Nish is there.

36:08

Tom Ballard. Tom Ballard is there. There

36:10

will be others. But I

36:12

can't remember. I'll tell you what, I'll

36:14

tweet it. I'll, I'll, I'm going to

36:16

embrace social media finally. But anyway, do

36:18

go to see all their, all

36:21

their shows. Jackie, do you have anything to plug? Nothing

36:24

anywhere near Scotland. Right. I

36:27

will say that if you

36:29

go to jackiecation.com or familypetancestry.com, which

36:31

I bought because that's funny,

36:33

it points to jackiecation.com. familypetancestry.com is

36:36

just in case you wanted to

36:38

know if your cat came over

36:40

on the Mayflower or your family

36:43

pet ancestry.com or your dog

36:45

is eligible to join the dogs of

36:47

the American revolution. familypetancestry.com. But

36:49

anyway, jackiecage.com, you can watch the kind of standup

36:51

I do, all of my specials, a bunch of

36:54

clips from, from Conan and all the things. And

36:56

I have a couple of podcasts, one called

36:59

the dork forest, where I interview people about

37:01

what they love. Everybody's welcome to be on

37:03

a podcast of my level, a tan will

37:05

go. I have a podcast with Lori Kilmartin

37:07

about standup comedy where we bitch and celebrate.

37:13

Thank you very much for listening. Buellers, we

37:15

will have some sub episodes for you over

37:17

the next few weeks. We'll put out something

37:19

Olympic themed at some point soon.

37:21

And then we will be back in full

37:23

swing in, I'm

37:26

going to say six weeks, a

37:29

date to be confirmed. Anyway, see

37:31

you all then have a phenomenal summer

37:33

or if you're in the Southern hemisphere,

37:36

summer it's still summer, it might be

37:38

cold, it's summer, but

37:40

7 billion people can't be wrong. Thank you for

37:43

listening. Goodbye.