HS2 Train Project and Infrastructure Failures

Hugle, audio newspaper for a visual world Hello Buglers. I'm Andy'Zltzman and welcome to the Bugle Audio newewspaper for AVisible World. This is issue four thousand three hundred eighty of the bugle so numbered because that is the approximate temperature here in London in Fahrenheit or Celsius. it's It's hot. It's damn hot, real hot. So hot that the pigeons are falling from the sky, fully roasted, spontaneously served with a summer s salad and a blackberry cooling. So hot But other cities that have never really been that into London 've been asking it out on a day. so hot that the statue of Horatio Nelson on top of the conveniently named Nelson's cololumn in Trafalga Square has stripped down to his underpants and smred all the bird shit over his face to use his suncream. So hot that the city's many sinners have been having second thoughts at the prospect of spending an eternity in the fary Bels of hell, because frankly a couple of days at this level of hotness is too much for us here. So hot that the rule of three has simply ceased to apply. So hot that a journey on the tube basically turns you into a nice hot cup of tea. so hot But the words of sentences start melting into our out that that the mhensible becomeomished sludg in. In other words hot Luckily we're in quite a cool basement that in a studio because I am joined in three dimensions in person by my two guests who grew up in Australia and India Wh it's obviously never been as hot as it is in London right now. Felicity Wards and Anu Vab Pal. Hello to both of you. Lovely. A bit chilly actually. I'm about to get to grab a cardigan thirirty three though. thirty three degrees I mean, it's really days on like this. I've been in London for thirteen years now And it's on days like this that I go, Maybe I could live here An if I've he popped over again from from What will be the temperature in Mumbai right now? Mumbai iss cooler, right? It's stuffy cooler than this look, I was looking at the Economist magazininees biggest Indian exports to the United Kingdom in the last ten years And there's food and yoga up there I'm going to put weather in there as well because the tropics are here. This is what I didn't realize that, you know, I've comevered different times of the year. I have never seen a nation collectively lose its mind. When the I saw a man,'m Abian being in Norbury, I saw a man with a lampshade on his head That's needs must to the extreme. Yeah. I mean, that could be the weather or could be someone who just Rates positive their ideas so highly and Casey has blinding light bulb moment. he needs to shade the rest of the world.icard. London is also an absolute pinnacle of fashion and you don't know what's around the corner. Lambshades could be the next pie I hadn't even looked it yet. It's called fashion. You heard of it? Clearly not. you've known me al long time. I. I need to clean my glasses. I've forgotten who I was sitting with. Thank you And trains kind of decide where they want to go on warm weekends, like I was trying to get a southern train, but it was heading in the northernly terrag. They just make especially bank holiday, trains, heat. Have they imported that from India too? It like the trains are optional. That makes me really comfortable because I was once on a Mumbai Bangalore that was forty eight hours late. And there were no announcements. So once it gets there, then I'll be really at home Yeah sure U anyway, it has been it has been hottest, I think hottest M day ever in the I This is very embarrassing. I fucking love talking about the weather. I love talking about the weather. and I know when it is hot, everyone wants to talk about the weather. So not only am I enjoying just the heat itself, but also the inane chat. It really I like I am neurod divergent, but I feel like weather is a specialist subject for me. I' really tap in and have a hyperfoccus and talk about the weather Is it like this elsewhere? like when it gets this hot, the BBC newews lady She makes it really personal. L last night, she was like, lookook, I know you can't sleep. And I was like, Wh I' so angry. I'm sorry. It's like I can sleep in Yeah At some point we'll learn to live with it as the. do on. Why do the British people ever learn to live with? N? Yeah Yeah that is a fair point. We've certainly not learn to live with ourselves. We are recording on the twenty sixth of may, twenty twenty sixth, on the twenty seventh of may, seventeen ninety eight Well, this is a story that if you think our politicians are strrange and idiotic now In seventeen ninety eight and the twenty seventh of May, there was a duel between the prime mininister William Pitt the younger and the effective leader of the opposition George Tiiany, following a bit of a disagreement in the House of Commons. And So Because their honest couldn couldn't be possibly be seen to be slighted, they decided to have a duel which they had on Putney Heath, but fortunately they were both abbsolutely useless at shooting pistols they survived. Wake markarkman. Yeah. What was the temperature that day? It doesnt It doesn't say something let's say it was forty degrees. Yeah, that s. Why can't they do that now? Isn't there some sort of a prime ministerial Contest done now. Yeah. Why can't they bring that out? Well, look, it's that kind of sensible logical thinking that this country this country needs. You know, there's a lot of talk about getting going back to our glorious past You know, in our glorious past, Prime mininisters quite often had jewels. the Duke of I think we talked about theuke Wellingon had a duel We talked about a little while ago in the bugle, I think. When he was Prime Minister p the younger, two of our more famous prrime Ministers. so bring back duling and see this country fly. There is something I don't know if I'm naive or dumb. but when you said jewel, I thought swords. Right. I thought fencing. No. pistols. Pistols. sick. Yeah Less knife crime, more pistol g. That's right. it not qualify. Yeah. Yeah. Sortfight is even better. And if nothing else in two hundred odd years' time, you'll get a decent hip hop musical out of it. where are the negative point. Old Andy silver lining glots My high school was on a road called Dolali. It still is. No it giv up. It moved after you left couldn't deal with a great burned out. Yeah. And for the years we thought it was called Dolali, but it's actually called dual Ally because two British goovernor generals fought over the affections of a French lady. All right. And it's called dual Alley because One guy lost and came back to England And then spent fifty years plotting the downfall of the other guy who ended up with the French war. Right. So And Rinces. Did she have any sight in the mas? She just wased. Historically now. It was seventeen eighty,. What was a woman back then They're only recently been discovered by scientists Jm just happy to be here As always, a section of the Bugle is going straight in a bit this week we have a books section I went to the Hay Festival last week to record the news quiz. Clang Drop something Ey? Very intellectual. how big a clang that was? Amongst the middle class listeners, that is a massive flex. Yes, I came away with a tote bag. So well actually I did a reading on the kids book I've written a new selection of M realistic children's books because current kids books generally give a hopelessly unrealistic vision of the world. so I've taken upon myself to write Stories for children that show moreore accurately the realities of life And I've gotve got a few books out at the moment. Karen the Kangaroo Nil freight train one V Vicky the virus mutates again. A tula piglet learns about sausages Plato the Platypus learns what a monotreum is and is frankly disgusted. Molly the Mosquito gets a taste for blood, Larissa the Lamb's first Easter, and the lacest in the Sammy the Seal series, Why did the Shark eat Mummy So I had a full house for my reading at the Hay Fest, D didn't have aull house by the end of my reading. quite few angry parents and crying children I say they have to learn Also in our book section, the world's most pointointless history books, we review From buubbs to bicycle crashes, all theays Queen Victoria didn't die by Dr. Princess. Carlon Blanche Morbury's The Wong Brothers, why Orville and Wilburright were incorrect about the possibility of engine powered flight Professor J. M. Snodder's Dinoas, prostitution in the Mesozoic era and Sir Lionelus Freakshite two Aes and a babe, a hypothetical counter history in which Abraham Lincoln pioneering psychoanalyst Carl Abraham and multi sport legend Mildred Babbee Dickridson replace Neil Arstrong Buz Aldrin and Michael the other guy Collins on the Apollo eleven mission but go off peast and fly into outer space to found a new human colony. all totally pointless books. I reckon I got words into that last book before my brain went Bye everybody. I'm out story this week, politics is now so annoying that it chemically changes the entire human body. We talk a lot about politics on the show, obviously, and generally it's the kind of politics that makes you ' furious at the failures of your entire species. To be fair, you picked the stories. I I did I did pick the stories You very much control the narrative of these experience. But An anyway, scientists. doing something useful for ones in their lives rather than dicking around trying to find out if worms find spaghetti sexually attractive or how many shark exs it takes to change a light bulb, or whether the moon would look different if it was a cabbage. They have discovered that politics angers us in a different way And with greater intensity compared with other sources of fury irritation crank. This is now scientifically proven U I mean, I think I this is a big step forward for us as a species that now we know, you know, quite Essentially, politics is changing, I'm reading between the lines of it here. It's changing the entire makeup of human DNA. that's how much of a Donald Trump is ot not enough is my argument. Okay. I read the article and their basic argument is The thing we've all heard Dinner table, left and right Politics can't get along, peopleople get angry, start throw things at each other I think we can take it a step further. You know, like when you hear the word lenin, you start throwing up that kind of thing. You know, so like can specific things trigger you? Yes I had very similar thoughts. So there are different emotions that you feel in different parts of your body if it's politically charged. So like non political disgust is felt more in the guts, whereas political disgust is felt in the upper body. Non political depression, you can feel as like physically deactivating, whereereas political depression, you can feel from the beginning to the end of watching an entire series of the West Wing Non political anger you also feel in the upper body, but political anger, like if you look at a picture of JD Vange, you can feel anger in your vagina. I'll say a word for that. I read the full st I mean there was quite interesting stuff I think was on the new scientists where generally, I'll be honest I look at the headlines, I think that looks really interesting. I don't get that much further in. But the link to another article on the new science is that apparently ancient Mesopotamiums Mesopotamians felt anger in their legs Um getting that info. That I think was too far down the article. They then they also felt sexual arousal in their ankles and disgust in their shins. Um It is a kind of chain of events heading right up there from sexual arousal, disgust to anger, that kind of narratively. You a lot of things make sense now. People vote with their feet. Yeah makes sense.ase m make sense. Ankle is sexual arousal What was the shin? In Victorian times it used to be The shin was disgsed. The shin was disgcussed. mesopotamia, sexual arousal in the ankle. Right. So is it like an Achilles boner? What do you get Why do you Yeah, I think so. There go. I kick my shins all the time. Right. Maybe I'm just overly aroused all the time and that is a way to calm m. Right. Yeah, it's possible. It moves it up to the shin and it makes a bit anger. Ancient Mesopotamian ancestors, which have s on ancestry. com and I haven't. I bought it years ago and it's been sitting on my shelf because I've ADHD Now there are conflicts that Like I didn't do anything to oil prices Right I'm just trying to, you know, get through a joke, which is hard enough. And on top of that, there are six or seven different elements because of some lunatic that's in charge.'s going to drop them on in some other part of the world which is going to cause twenty three percent inflation in my neighborhood. My orange is going to be one hundred and fifty rupees higher. I didn't sign up for this, you know, Like Yeah I much preferred prehistoric man. Yeah It was at least inflation was under control. He didn't have to worry about the straits of Formmz He threw a thing at a thing. it died as a family Yeah.opefully He had a meal, he went to sleep. He wasn't worried about the other side of the world. To be fair, we don't have woolly mammoths got There is a payoff. There is You've got to youve got to a choice. Do you want to Wlly Mammoth? Do you want inflation? Yeah I mean, I'd take the mammoth I think. wouldould you? Id take the mam. I women take the bear. R Can I just say the ten years of the this has be the greatest conundum of all time. Mamal versus a manitight Well, life boils down to these false binary choices. It's a new round on the bugle. That's right. Boly mammoth or inflation U Answer the question. I can't, I can't, need to I need to run the stats He's an economist deep down. Yeah I'm a published economist albeit with a book of Bllshit Right, Well, I mean, one of the ways in which we find escape from news, obviously is is sport Um And well this is another sort of science related story. The enhanced games have been taking place. Fabulous. In Las Vegas, which is essentially sport but with cheating alloued. Yeah. It's had a lot of publicity. It's been such a weird event as a sports fan It's disgusting as a fan of human beings as a species. It's kind of disgusting. as yeah And yah, it's sort of hard to ignore what it what it sort of tells us about the state of oures of our species. that this thing This thing exists. So drugs cheating predominly was the one that was most encouraged, which personally I felt was bit un ambitious just to focus on drugs rather than rocket boots for the runners or flippers cyborg outboard motors instead of kneecaps for the swimmers, forklift trucks for the weightlifters when they branch beyond those three sports that were in this initial ennhanced games, know, anti gravity suits for gymast, would you not? you know, who doesn't want to see a sixty su assault Bolt I know I do. You say that as a joke, but I'm like, that's sick. Yeah, yeah. I would love that so much. I'm like Watching them in the air What'song? Kwasaki three hundred fifty in the BMX. The tech is there. Fabulous. Machine guns in the archery. let's, you know Trpedoes in Rome, but only one per team per race I would spice up. What is essentially a tactically inflexible biomechanical discipline. Look, I'm very glad this is happening because the Romans ask this question. It all starts it's from improv comedy. What if And you gott to ask, right? Che Yes and Yes and. Cheetah versus spprinter. Let's see what happens. D've done it before. Yeah. What I'm really enjoying is the non taking Olympic athtes have been tissing These ones on Twitter, elsewhere becausecause no records have been broken. Yeah. So they're like, A, with all that drugs, you can't dr. Which I like. I think it's petty beutiful. Yeah. Well there was one world record broken in a fifty meter swim Greeks were a Christian Golomev There then claims that the timing device was wrong and that he appeared to touch the wall after his time had already flashed up Fabulous on the screen. The Enhanced Games has denied this claim calling it interternet drivel, which is essentially What the whole event is, so imagine a complimentary tip of the hat. But you know the way I look at it is if he's allowed to use performance enhancing drugs, he was wearing a swimsuit that is not allowed in regular swimming events. Did it have like a little propeller at the back? Well, let's assume so.. I think it might have been made out of an actual shock So if they stop the clock early, so fucking what? I mean that's just another element of It's a performance enhanance clock. Exact Exactly. Yeah. You know what I love? I love thinking about how much of a loser you are if you lost even when you could take all the performing enhancing drugs in the world. Like why take them and remove all doubt?t least if you're a regular Olympian, you can go, well, I'm you know I've trained my whole life. I'm doing this naturally and these jumps have gone I'm an alpha male and taken drugs and they're still lost. Absolute losers, love that so much. It's like, would you rather be left for someone else in your partnership or specifically because of your personality? You know what I mean? It's one or the other And if you had the opportunity to take drugs at the Olympics Don't take Don't take ones that like take cocaine And then on the starting line, pitch a new business idea. You know what I mean? Or drop some MDMA just before the rhythm gymnastics, and then you watch someone rolling around on the max giving themselves a nice hug with a ribbon stick. Or just don't waste your time with steroids. becausecause what do you get as a meento? justust a t shirt that says, I competed in the Enhanced games and all I got was acne and impotence icity is absolutely correct. It should be all drugs. It should be drus. It should be mushrooms. You know, who says hundred meters has to be one hundred meters You know like you know, I'm justance is a concept actually. that. It's exactly. false. Yeah. You know, I'd love to see some completely. up on MTMA' running around in circles Wh there' a guy dressed as a shark. I mean just make it a thing then, you know? It's in Las Vegas Crazy enough So I mean, that's one of the aspects of this is that sports like athletics and swimming are Sortph K kind of vulnerable in terms of competition because they're the kind of sports where Nothing new can really be done. You can't suddenly start coming up with new tactics for the long jump other than trying to jump as possible or you know, a hundred meter breast stroke. you can't really do it in a interestnteresting, innovative kind of way. So everything' sort of be done. You can actually get your breasts out while you I guess you make it a proper breast Yeah. yeah, yeah. For them get one for them. One for them. Y. So might That that's how Scorsesei makes this movies. That's what I same sort ofv It might help TV ratings, I guess. It depends how much of a sporting purist you are So it's got to look for ways to improve improve the spectacle. But this event does seem to be just another on the list of Fucking stupid things that overrich self star anti work billionaires will splaff away money on in an effort to sell something else get talked about more themselves and chip away the remaining light in the collective human soul. So it's it's hard as a sports fan to Yes to get excited about it, but it is in terms of like a human morality tale, it's It's sort of u sort of fascinating. I think that they could do a non illicit performing enhancing drugs. So like you do the fifty meter freestyle, but when they fire the starter gun, your momum's standing behind them behind you and you have to tell her, she looks fat in those js and just like the fe that drives you or you do the hundred meter sprint and you're at the startter line and the other end is your car and there's a parking ticket inspector driides it. So just different motivations to enhance your performance. that's a nice le way around it. It's a really good end. fact I think Felicity based on that, the people coming up with the sports need to be on drugs as well Yeah. You' de need to be. I start from the top. Yes. I want to see you know a lot of sports, including some that I'm very attached to. I think that might have happened when they were being developed in the first place, But we've got used to new ones. They took smelling salts then and came up with golf or whatever. It's fair Now. it's two hundred years it's established.. I want to see I really want to see mastiffs versus Danish people You know what, R hand to hand gotght that. What happened Is it boxing Is it biting? we don't know. don't Is it both? Is it both Why are we ruing put see, we're already putting limitations on ourselves because we're not on mushrooms One swimming website described the enhanced games as mostly an infomercial parading a sporting spectacle which to be fair is about ninety nine percent of professional sport anyway. And the conversation website asked the enhanced games Dangerous clown show or a wake up call for traditional sports, to which the answer is obviously one hundred and ten percent both. bothoth of those things U The Dangerous Clown show sounds something I'm going to see at the Edinburgh F. tryry to avoid anyway. But List, in the sixteen hundreds, when a bunch of Scottish farmers would have calls to each other to up It must have sounded absolutely mad. Yes. And you know L If you moon bent at the end Yeah Sall ball, very far distance. Dig a hle, Dig a hole. If you were given blank sheet of paper and you came up with the laws of Rugby Union Yeah now from scratch. Yeah people would probably want to scientifically examine b it happened every moment of your life since but Yeah Yeah. What's the maddest rule? I don't know union rules very well. I know NRL, well, AFL is nobody knows the rules to that. everyone cheering button. The thing is it's kind of hard to say what is the most complicated law in rugby because it's essentially sort of like international tax law mixed with medieval hand to hand combat. your lose on top of your If you slightly press a finger on the wrong bit of grass, then You can lose a match. Okay. But if you Borderline takeakes someone's head off, that's fine if you do it in the right way the right look in your face.. I think that's it.. sounds like. Isn't there one, which has nothing to do with the ball or the point Thisn ist the one where like a group of men, It if it's called sccrum? Yes, where they can just charge towards you. With violence as the end goal. Well, I mean, that's basically the whole game. Let's move on to other science news. We talked a lot about our struggles as a species U but maybe there could be some hope of salvation in the form of bringing back species that have previously failed and gone extinct that we could maybe ask about, you know, where did it all go wrong for them? And one such species that could be on the way back is the South Island Giant Ma from New Zealand a large, flightless bird Another one. Yeah. that u I mean, you might think in terms of Darwinism If you're too big and too flightless and you're a bird You go where you You lost me. Yeah, yeah. Like go to the performance enhancing games. Yeah cannot survive because your wings don't work and you're big and now you're dead. So essentially they're using chicken eggs to bring back the giant mower. I don't quite know exactly how. I mean, in terms of, you know, the technology and, you know things that we could produce I'm not sure do we really want to be bringing back things that have failed rather than coming out with more useful animals like the self nuggeting chicken the raft fish which could so useful in my maritime pause on a sel nuggeting chicken. Is that the greatest sentence that's ever been uttered on this podcast? You just honestly just opened up a warehouse door in my brain that was shut and Can you imagine? Yeah, sorry. Is that a chicken that makes its own nuggets? Yeah, yeah, by the way. yeah, yeah. Wow. it does it break off into nuggets or does it give birth to its own nugget? I guess the thing is with a chicken and it's very well designed for this, it creates the egg. Yeah Im makes another exit we just do that with nuggets Eggs are in the nuggets? I mean, think the nuggets are in the eggs. Look, I've not reallyready srought this through. I think it's time to flesh this out. genu Yeah I mean, flesushing it is basically what it would be Fing it out. Mbe its maybe it's the same like in like in uteruses where every month it's lined with a uterus lines itself to prepare for a child.. And if it doesn't happen, then it sheds. we don't have any proof of that yet There has not been enough research, I can tell you that much. Maybe it lines itself with a lightly breaded bit of breast and then gives birth to it and then you just need to deep fry it I think that's possible to engine. Like It's a chicken, but it's also a veing machine. Yeah own chicken. I mean, what are women but not vending machines? Fair enough Also the moral wasp, which is you know DNA has been adapted so it only stings people who deserve to be stung. Yes. This is mean, our wasted income We've already brought back the Wooy mamm an ago Here's the thing though, I was reading about this and they said this is the first and many birds they want to bring back And they want to bring back the dodo. Yes. clan. That's science versus the English language because then what happens to dead as a dodo as a free right. And where are we going to see that? Well, word dodo' very dumb. Yes. u Beause I think of a you call someone a dodo if they're an idiot. Yeah. Why are we bringing back dummies? Yes Bring back smart things, not things that can outsmart us, obviously. Yeah the T rate Oh no. That sounds bad. Yeah. I don't know if you've seen there's a movie called Jurassic Park and the murder. Yeah yeah, notot ideal is how it turned out Um The olephant as well. is half easastter bird and half a natural source of reennewable fuel Does that come out the trunk? Yeah comes out the trk. You can' come up with stupid ideas if you don't want stupid questions to follow. Okay?'ve Tickled my pickle here and I'm very excited. The world would be grateful for an oil elephant right now. I think would really want it. Inflation would be down as wouldill Willy Mammoth need. India newews now? well, Aniab What This is a slightly unexpected story Tension between Norway and India based on Classic pairing py. Norwegian journalist asking some provocative questions at a Narendra Modi press conference. Yeah, so Modi is on a World tour And he gave a big speech. Did he drop a new album? or Yeah White album more of the sentimentalist. But He made this big speech saying Indians shouldn't travel abroad this summer Oil prices are very high, and after he said that, he immediately left for a European tour like all good world leaders do. And he went to a country that is number one on the press freedom indndex And a nineteen year old journalist F Why Narendra Modi hasn't done a press conference since twenty fourteen At which point Nin Modi, like all good democratic leaders, walked out, leaving the head of the Ministry of External Affairs to give this nineteen year old journalist who was basically, I think, probably her first press conference. She was just looking for some viral clips And she basically said, Wh doesn't Eim Mudi do press conferences? What will India do for rights of minorities M sure you just wanted some coverage And Indian uncle just basically giveave her a three lecture on why India is G. And I realized that after this, I think all Indians just basically realized the moment You brring up India any contxt. Like Hey, I was in Delhi and this kebab roll was really spicy An Indian uncle will just take that as a personal affront on a two thousand year old cl. And then this little girl got trolled. lotots of people jumped on our social media saying India's great. India' this She's like, I'm more interested. just asked him why there's no press freedom And just goes to show I don't think we can take criticism A all Not well, not at all. Yeah. And how old do you think India will respond to the criticism that They can't take criticism And that's This could become quite circulular. This is going to be a loop. This is because the first way they reacted to this young Norwegian woman was to say she's a spy But then they couldn't figure out who she'd bep. att least they didn't call a fat That's progress That's progress. I didn't call her fat, they didn't call it ugly. It's like when I online, if anyone calls me unfunny. I'm like, Oh my go, they say me. Like a no, you're too old to fuck. You know they're just like, Oh, you're not funny. I'm like, Thank you. Thank you so much. He sees me as a comedian.s okay He's keeping it to the profession.'s paradise. It's faradise. A win is a win I read some of those comments and there were not that many personal things, but there was because The Indian insult is peculiar because it to directly like an agenda related thing. they're trying to figure out if the person has an agenda So one guy wrote, how much money do you have? L went there. And then his mum went, No, but actually, how much money you have? Yeah Yeah. It was an actual inquiry, Are you single? Are you aailable for marriage? Yes, exactly. So there's a lot of bizarre things, but the point is Um it's it's a delicate time, I think Pakistan has been a key negotiator. trying to get the Iran and American water stopped So India sort of feels like every time Pakistan does something, India feels like it must do something. It do. We're going on to it boys. Well Like anytim an index comes out, my friend Rich Nich is a comedian, he talks a lot about this. Every time there's an index of some kind that comes out It says Pakistan is as the best mid tier hotels in the world. Indians like to go and see where they are in that g. Yeah. So now that now that, you know Things are a bit frusty between Modi and Trump He's now gone on this world tour B stop was Norway, this happened So maybe it's not a very good idea that he leaves the country. I don't look, I'm going to plead ignorance here. I don't know too much about India's human rights violation. But which country's leader is answering questions about their human rights violations? Letenah h? Trump No. The fart I did last night after eating a creamy chicken pasta knowing full well IBS? No. Everyone's getting very strong about human rights violations. This is true. What Amoti does very cleverly is he gets a lot of people who are veryery fond who are big fans of his to do interviews before any Mmhm but They ask very specific questions. like there was one where He was just asked about mango H favorite kind of ango You know, just for an election. What's his favorite kind of mango And he said, Oh it's to pick one in my village. You don't get that anymore there was a whole hour on mangoes.ays thank you very much. Please vote for him. And I think that's a good way to do democracy. You give the hour. You still do the hour.. But just don't talk about the things people want to talk about.. atch an hour mango. I'm interested. what is his favorite mango? Do you remember? I think it was the Alfonso, which is actually Cacco. Portuese mango If they get into it, but I don't think he wants to get it. I think that's the last thing he wants to get into So then Mody would then went to Italy And u I met Georgia Malononey, the Italian leader And there was a kind of weird I'm And there was kind of weird of toffee based. I got which bring you guys up to speed on this. and I don't know if you've been reading about this, but Hm Ever since Georgia Maloney separateated. I don't really know what her current Personal thing is Every time she's met Prime Minter Modi, who has been single his whole life There were some rumors that he was married, but He single for all intents and purposes The internet has gone crazy. They've met like ten or twelve times The interternet has gone crazy suggesting a romantic relhip What a plot. It began when she visited India and Mordi was pointing to different Historical Indian things and she pointed And somebody coined like Brexit coin the term melody Oh Joh. exact I need toment ofn. Thank you Again, what a lovely word. Um So now most people would forget about it and move on especially if you're the principle involved in But Modi decides I'm going to raise the stakes Actually, Georgie Maloney started it because in some conference with Geneva she says Hello from the melody team. What it to rain now The internet explodes Next time the meeting Last week at the Coliseseum. Mm Georgge Maloney is giving Me a tour of what happens, you know, when you let all your history remain and don't tear it down. This is what it looks like This is Julia Cesar. this is all this other stuff And in return, Prime Minister Modi presents her a box of very famous Indian chocolates called melody Um read into it what you will But your perspective of this is far more important than mine. I'm just stating the facts here did and then Georgeie Maloney held it up. The B both of them held it up and it said melody on it. And there is a very popular Indian chocolate called melody. It's a coffee. The When we were kids, they ad ran melody is chocolatey And then used to sing it as kids. It's a chocolatey thing. Right. George Maloney suang it. Right Oh veryy similar to an Australian song about bananas that went ban no no no no no no no, no no no no no no make us bies sing I bananas now. This is very good. It's a good one. It's a great song. We should exchange jingles. You want this Melod is ch te. This is the love this one. Yeah. this one ramps up, then it goes ban,, no. People get pumped in this byy people, I mean me. I fucking love that song. And did it lead to a massive increase in the rate of banana eating? Probably Probably I mean, I still remember it and that must have been like the early nineties. I also remember the flooding of twenty thirteen where banana prices went up to do seventeen dollars a kilo, whereas they're usually about six dollars a kilo Look, tropical fruit plays a big part in the Australian news and the economy. has a big impact on us. So basically reading between the lines, Mody and Maloney are the new. Burton and Tylor, That' what're saying. That's what I think ye Indians will have you believe. The next day they Brangelina. Yeah. they are Brangelina of world politics. G point. Maker of the chocolate is a cupee called Parleis The big Indian company, the big competitors to Catbury in India.. they ran a full page ad the day after this happened, saying forever meelody. with the two of them on the cover Yeah. afterfter which there was a tweet from the Italian consulate in New Delhi saying we don't endorse this c. What I really love is how much you know about this chocolate. I've really gotten into I love melody. as in like I can tell. Yeah. In fact if you said I don't like this melody chocolate, I would be absolutely shocked. This whole diplomatic track has ruined me. because I grew up in socialist India, where what we do is basically steal formula You know, So later in England I found out, oh, this is what this is really called. It's called a gym jam. We just had a different name for it because it was stolen U Well, you're getting your own back, aren't you? Yeah UK newews now there's been an update on the HS two train line, which of which After now, what is it? aboutbout fifteen years since they started planning it. St not a single inch of track has been laid I think. They now it's going to cost over a hundred billion pounds. It's going to come in moreore than double the cost what it was originally planned to do with slower trains and much less track. This is If any single project can exemplify the failures of British politics. more than this, It I don't think it exists Um Yeah, at least we now So the transrport Secret Hardy Alexander gave an update on HS two which was you know began under the Cervatives.' essentially a vanity project to build a fucking massive train that went really fast and it's going to end up with a not particularly massive train not going not that quickly. So at least we know what the HS and HS two stands for. It stands for Holy shit, have you seen how much it is going to c? Felistia, I know you're a massive fan of of pend on infructure project. Oh I love it. Look. I'm a big fan of the British railway network system, all of it the approach. Am I wrong or have they published this article every six months for five years I just updated the f? Like in twenty twenty, the article was, We've got an idea for a train. The people say, no thanks twenty twenty one. good news. We're pushing ahead despite all the warnings. twenty twenty two It's going badly! twenty twenty three! Despite the fact that it's against our very culture and nature, we are remaining ignorantly optimistic. twenty twenty four! Oh, twenty twenty five. It's nearly finished. We may as well twenty twenty six. That's every six months, that's what it's been It's double the cost, it's slower trains at half the size. The question is asked, what went wrong? Have you caught a British train lately? You are held hostage in an oven box with broken airc. Every second toilet doesn't work. They sell more tickets than seats, inadequate bag space on trips that can take five hours. You wait at the station for thirty five minutes To be told ninety seconds before which platform you have to run to, and the doors close sixty seconds before it leaves. Trains break down because it's too hot, too cold, too wet, a single leaf has hit the tracks. They're understaff, the keys don't work, All for the pleasure of one hundred fifty pounds for an on the day ticket. What went wrong? Nothing. They followed the blueprint exactly Now just out of curiosity, where was it supposed to start and where was it supposed to end? Was it Manchester to London? Well, it was Manchester to their dream. Yes Sly I think Yeah, it was matched to London, then the idea was to then sort of extend it up north. If they'd spent a hundred billion pounds just improving transport in the north of basically anywhere other than London to Birmingham. which is basically the country's most efficient rail route anyway. They could have trans time Yes. wasn't it supposed to go Manchester to like Leeds in York Yeah. Be Manchester to well, basically Liverpool to hull, say, on the opposite coast in the north takes I think something like four and a half months, although I did go I did leave Liverpool the wrong way. and end up going B where the point stands.air Ferry did a UTbe came back in When I was on tour, I took a thing called the Transpenine Express. Y, which sounded very continental.es. But it sound like there was going to be a murder mystery It sounded so grand. It sounds a very hercule for all, But that didn't got cancellled. I had take a bus. But I was so looking forward to a thing that sounded Listen, don't feel bad about infrastructure projects. There's a bridge in Mumbai U Began in the mid seventies when I was two. This is a and I don't I'm not m make this up even for humour. it's just what happened if they were building two ends of it so they could meet above the Arabian Sea, it would cut down a parallel highway so you would have commuting time saved They got both the ends of the bridges complete in thirty years, but they didn't meet. So Oh that's some good stuff. Yeah. So you know, it's I mean, you think you have problems. Yeah. thirty years and they they're just off by a bit. It doesn't sound like you have a problem. It sounds like you have an unfinished roller coaster waiting to happen. That is I would never go with that Little dirt bikes. way jum at them. I'm saying Felicity wward for Mumbai Municipal Commissioner That's what I'm suggesting For one hundred billion poundses, we could have had a solid eight to nine consecutive Olympicses. Or we could have played for Nigel Farage's security for the next sixty thousand years ity missed. It does. that sounds like a much better investment Right that brings us to the end of this weeks this week's bugle. Thank you very much for listening. for listening Anything to plug Yes, I'm doing the Edinburgh French Festival. I should update my website, but I just keep getting emails saying your website has bugs. So you can come and see my gigs on Instagram. I usually advertise them. I just finished an Australian tour. It's too late now, mate. You can w you see several bugle cohosts at Edinburgh, Alice Frase will be there, Tom Ballard ' be there Tiff Lams and will be there Relena, I think is going Notall We check. And if are you notin? I'm not doing any this y year, but I highly recommend you Felicity Ward. Thank. I was I have seen her show in Edinurgh a number of years ago It was night. I used ago it was the last time did it. It Sold out. It was brilliant. It was a great night out It was a bugle reunion. Nish was there. It was it was fantastic Um I fifte and sixth of June I'm doing I think on the boat show, I'm just doing some new material on a boat, in embankment Details are on my website. and we might even be on the same gig. I'm doing the boat show in the next couple of weeks There we go. that's Yeah. And come to that. Yeah I will be talking about cricket on Test Match spepecial from Th Well consider yourselves plugged. we'll be back next week with Hari Kondoabolu and R Lina. If you want to join the buugle Voluntary subscription scheme to help keep this show free, flourishing and independent and devoid of advertisements other than plugs for the buugle itself, go to buuglepodcast. com and click the donate button