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The Bugle

Iran tries to buy time, Trump outbids them

04 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

10.814 - 30.437 Andy Zaltzman

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 4,381 of The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. I'm Andy Zaltzman here in London, in the shed where dreams come to die. Sorry, where I go when I wake up in the morning. Potato, potato. It's the 2nd of June, 2026, as we record.

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30.878 - 50.464 Andy Zaltzman

But insert the date on which you are actually listening to this here by the time you yourself are listening, proving once again that... Either time remains unchangeable and the one constant in our otherwise fluid world, or that time travel has finally been invented. Delete according to whether you were listening to this after or before the 2nd of June, 2026.

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50.564 - 59.998 Andy Zaltzman

Anyway, joining me, resolutely sticking to the present where we all belong, frankly, I'm delighted to welcome back to the Bugle, Rialina and Mark Steele. Hello. Hello, both of you. How are you?

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60.439 - 65.526 Ria Lina

Good morning, afternoon, night. Insert here what time you're listening to this.

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66.755 - 73.923 Mark Steel

I'm fine, Andy. I've been to Germany to watch my football team win a contrived cup.

74.284 - 92.064 Andy Zaltzman

Yes. Oh. I mean, it's an odd sponsorship tie-up, contrived as a concept. But, you know, I guess you've got to sell it. So this was the mighty Crystal Palace. Their first European... Was it the conference league?

92.124 - 99.396 Mark Steel

Which conference league? It's called the Conference League, but it doesn't really matter. You know, it could be called the Round 3 Fruit Pastel Conference and it would be fine with that.

99.416 - 110.034 Andy Zaltzman

In what form did the conference element of this come about? Was there a sort of, you know, a special selection of speakers with PowerPoint presentations before the game?

110.054 - 118.108 Mark Steel

The players all have to get voted and then there's a big row on the floor. And of course, you know, some of the trade unions had a block vote. So that's how...

Chapter 2: Are we still paying attention to the Iran war?

1852.045 - 1858.715 Mark Steel

You need Duolingo to play in cricket.

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1859.716 - 1876.941 Andy Zaltzman

So, yeah, well, the World Cup starts in, well, just about a week or so's time, as I mentioned earlier on. Like I said, I'm not as interested in football as I used to be. And this particular World Cup, I'm really struggling financially. to find any enthusiasm for.

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1877.162 - 1895.029 Andy Zaltzman

It feels to me, Mark, that basically this World Cup is going to be a combination of exhausted players, stifling heat, tactical caution, rubbish format, joy-sapping, officiating, aggressively overpriced everything, organised by a travesty of an organisation in a country headed by a complete charlatan. Is this the beautiful game anymore, Mark?

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1895.954 - 1915.317 Mark Steel

Well, all of those things, plus one of history's great psychopaths making sure that he's in the centre of all of it. And then are they actually going to do this like a half hour, half time for the final so that they can have one of their stupid shows like the Super Bowl?

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1915.758 - 1942.262 Mark Steel

Like they're embarrassed that it's a game of football and they've got to get Coldplay to come and do some shite in the middle of it. And just as if there was any lingering, lingering hope in it for me that it would be worth watching, Adam Walton from Crystal Palace wasn't picked by Thomas Tuchel. So f*** the whole thing. I'm going to be watching badminton on Sky Sports 7.

1942.529 - 1964.892 Ria Lina

I think that half-hour show is going to really backfire on all of the cities that implement it. Because if we've learned anything from this week, it's what football fans can do with a city in half an hour. Look at Paris. If you give them half an hour, they will go out, they will ransack your town, and then they'll come back for the second half. But they're not going to stay.

1964.872 - 1977.193 Andy Zaltzman

I guess in America also, if there is sort of football-related violence like we've seen this week, it would be quite hard to tell who are the football fans and who are the ice agents. And it could be very, very complicated.

1977.258 - 1995.283 Ria Lina

That's a game I would watch. Football fans versus ice. That I would totally show up for. All right. But we need to be very clear what we mean by a penalty shootout at the end of that match, because that could be deadly.

1996.165 - 2001.392 Mark Steel

What a deportation from the plucky little agent from Minneapolis.

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