Chapter 1: What is the context of Bugle issue 4378?
The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world. Hello, Buglers. I am Andy Zaltzman. This is Bugle issue 4378, sub-episode A, for at this very moment, the UK might be about to ditch yet another prime minister as it continues its headlong pursuit of full national failure, but we'll be back with a full episode next week to try to make sense of it all.
For this week's sub-episode, we have some choice satirical ramblings and rumblings saved up from the last few weeks. In our first bonus clip,
Chapter 2: What happened at the White House Correspondents' Dinner?
Hewn from the last few days of the little-missed month of April 2026, I was joined by Nish Kumar and Alice Fraser, and we discussed the White House Correspondents' Dinner that thankfully did not end up how it might have ended up. Another attendee at the dinner was UFC President Dana White.
Yes, because it's for journalists, Andy! No one is doing more to further the cause of American journalism than Dana White. He's basically Woodward and Bernstein.
Wrestling, as God intended, in an oxygen. Oxygen? Hexagon? I can't remember. Oxygen, isn't it? Yeah. He described the experience of the press dinner as... Awesome. Which is not the words that most people would use about an attempted assassination of a head of state. Now, look, I love sport, but UFC is not a sport I've added to my overladen platter.
Wow. Wow. We finally found a sport Andy Zoltzman can get interested in.
Aesthetically, it seems to be a cross between two people scrabbling around on the ground trying to find a pen lid. They both claim to be theirs. The mating rituals of an extremely violent species of mongoose and an incel's internal monologue. If Trumpism was a sport, if Trumpism was a sport, which it basically is, it would be UFC. But I'm describing... An assassination attempt is awesome.
Even by the standards of modern linguistic flexibility, it's kind of deeply unpleasant.
No, and Andy, I agree with you. UFC is not a sport. There's no, unless it goes very badly wrong, there's no ball skills, you know.
LAUGHTER
I mean, listen, I saw the Dana White interview. I saw a few people who had been at that event be interviewed afterwards. And yeah, listen, if you're in a room where someone was shooting a gun, that is, you know, that's deeply frightening. If they're shooting a gun at a head of state, that also has another layer of being deeply frightening.
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Chapter 3: How does UFC President Dana White relate to journalism?
But very little of that fear, which I imagine... we would all have expressed, everyone on this recording right now, had we been there, did not seem to be present in any of the people who were actually in the room. And I mean, I can't explain why that is.
I just know that there have been times where I've been at a party where some of the people at the party have been doing things that might lead them to not be able to express fear healthily.
LAUGHTER
I can't prove this. This is based on absolutely nothing, but I imagine the bogs at the White House Correspondents' Dinner looked like they'd been a heavy sneezing fit by Tony Montana.
I thought you meant they'd been praying particularly hard.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They're men of the cloth, just like all the stockbrokers in the 1980s. Those people were praying really fucking hard.
Similar body posture in some ways. Trump has also managed to anger, well, I mean, almost half the world's population in one social media repost, in which he reposted something from Michael Savage, the right-wing podcast host and provocateur, or as they used to be called in more simple civilized times.
Trump reposted Savage saying, a baby here in America becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family in from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet. So, actually, as well as China and India, it's everywhere else as well. The entire planet there. Trump also posted a video of Savage saying these things, these comments.
Indian foreign ministry spokesperson described the remarks as obviously uninformed, inappropriate, and in poor taste, the triple 20 of social media, and added, they do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests. Well, Mr. Foreign Ministry spokesperson, you might want to click refresh all on that one. Times have changed.
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Chapter 4: What controversial comments did Trump make about immigration?
I mean, there's a Dogecoin, which is based on a dog. There's Shiba Inu, which is a Japanese cat. These are all variations of blockchain currencies. Why can't we do money to cricket?
Well, yes. I mean, there is a sort of a version of that, which is that you can exchange your money for tickets to my tour shows currently. Dates and details available at andysoltsford.co.uk. Another denial this week is by a long-dead octopus. formerly renowned as the earliest known octopus, has now denied, or had it denied on its behalf, that it is actually an octopus at all.
Annabab, you are our fossilised cephalopods correspondent. Is it unclear exactly how they worked out it was not an octopus? Maybe it just didn't taste quite so perfect with paprika? I don't know. What's the story behind this?
Well, apparently, the University of Reading did a study where they found that this octopus that's been on display, which is supposed to be the world's oldest octopus, is actually a very different animal. It's related to a modern animal called a nautilus. which is a multi-tentacled animal, a cephalopod with an external shell.
So it's not an octopus, but apparently they're saying that that's also Banksy. It's this... And also the founder of Bitcoin. So it's basically all part of the same scam. So for years and years, people were going to see the world's oldest octopus and now realize that it's this animal that lives deep underwater, which looks like an octopus, but isn't an octopus.
And I don't know if people ask for their money back. I don't know how it works.
Was this just not a case of someone making a mistake and counting to eight incorrectly? I genuinely, with these stories of things that are like, how old is this thing? Was it like 400 million years? It's like, I can't do it. I get excited for the story. Ooh, an octopus. And you think, oh, that'll be like nice.
That'll be like a nice palate cleanser as we read about war, death, the far right, and destruction. Oh, an octopus. And then it's like 400 million years and my brain is like, I can't, I can't. It's like when you go to museums and they're like, hey, want to look at a meteorite? And you're like, no, I can't take this.
But you know, again, this throws a lot of things into a bit of a tizzy because, you know, pub quiz questions, for example, what is the oldest octopus in the world? And they always refer to this one. And you're absolutely right, Sarah. It's some three, 400 million years old. And the biggest problem is the Guinness Book of World Records called this the oldest octopus. Now, who do they apologize to?
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Chapter 5: How did the Indian foreign ministry respond to Trump's remarks?
Where are they going next? They need to diversify because everyone's going to lose their faith in the fact checking here now.
And there are so many knowing ones. They always say, you know, seven wonders of the world. And someone will always say hanging gardens of Babylon. And it's never correct, you know, because it's not been one and stuff. So now world's oldest octopus, this was holding for a long time.
Now, if this is just some rubbish, you know, cephalopod without a shell, for some reason, this cephalopod decided to take off its shell. And now for all these years, we're all confused. Um, then what is really holding? The ground is shifting under our feet. If Mount Everest is not the tallest, I mean, what record can we believe in?
What can we trust? I would have liked this story more if it was like, we've discovered actually octopuses didn't evolve until the 1990s. That would have been interesting.
And finally for this sub-episode, more from Nish and Alice and a special extended director's cut version of the Bugles biopic review section in the bin, including a quick piece of bullshit fact-checking from someone whose factual accuracy I have been quite sceptical of for over 50 years now. Me. This week we have a special biopics section reviewing all the latest biopics.
So this is after the controversy around Michael, the Michael Jackson biopic that critics seem to suggest does not cover all aspects of the former pop star and no-time world snooker champion.
So we review The First Lady on Mars, which is a new biopic of Amelia Earhart, a bold, if revisionist, retelling of the story of pioneering aviator Earhart, which claims that the reason her missing plane was never found was that she flew it to Mars. The First Lady on Mars has been criticised, like Michael, for a lack of scientific accuracy, both in showing...
Amelia on the Red Planet without breathing apparatus and for claiming that she was first lady at the time, having secretly married Franklin Roosevelt.
The director, Drellard Buck Clark, said, well, we did take some creative wiggly room with the historically acknowledged story of Amelia, but we wanted to tell the truest story of her spiritual adventure, which in many ways is more true than the actual true story. Besides, what are facts? No one gives a flying fuck about facts anymore.
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