#to think a fucking reality tv host did this

[rigginsstreet]

Believe me, I am very much pissed off at trump supporters and anyone who voted for that man but at the same time…this rhetoric of “we’ve gotta be meaner to them” …what is that going to do exactly? It’s not gonna make them change their minds it’s only gonna make them dig their heels in deeper to their beliefs. You can do all the name calling you want and it will feel good in the moment but it’s not gonna actually change anything. Honestly I only see it making things worse

[dee-morris]

Crowley's Effect on Reality

There is a headcanon that has been rattling around in my coconut for about a year, and now I've added to it. It's canon that Crowley has a reality-altering effect on his immediate surroundings; we see it in the cafe where he meets Shadwell and the TVs are showing The Witchfinder. Or when "You're My Best Friend" is playing in the Bentley and follows him into the burning bookshop to play on the gramophone. (Cinematography so seamless it actually took me several watches to notice, bless them all.)

So I've been wondering how far that extends, and I got to thinking about the baby swap. Crowley gives the baby to Sister Mary and tells her to take him to Room 3. Mary says this to Sister Grace, who tells her to get on with it, then. But Grace was the one who put the Youngs in Room 3! She of all the nuns should have been like, Wait a minute.

The obvious answer is obviously the nuns aren't bright and/or are too used to following orders to question it. But it would have made more sense to just have some random nun there, not the one most likely to catch a mix up before it happened. So this makes me wonder if it's not Crowley's ambient reality warp in action. Instead of playing a song reflecting his mood or a movie that reminds him of someone, the world is reflecting his deepest wish: he wants something to go wrong. Something that will give the world a fighting chance and ideally can't be traced directly back to him.

So that's what's been kicking around in my brain for about a year, and after watching season two and thinking about how RIDICULOUSLY OVERPOWERED these two idiots are, I'm starting to wonder how often this has happened before. A tiny little surreptitious half miracle set off alarms in heaven and works so well that it sends the most powerful angel in heaven racing to the scene to get control of the situation. That was a conscious effort; what have they gotten away with without even knowing what they were doing?

"I've been looking over your previous exploits" and what did you see, Metabitch? Did you see an angel and a demon hornswoggle the entire Host to save a couple of human children? Did you look more closely and wonder why even Michael (who is significantly sharper than Gabriel even on his best days) was taken in by their embarrassingly transparent magic act?

Then there's 1941, and I know there's a miracle blocker in the room when Aziraphale steals the photo, but does that work if it's unconscious? Bc it's not something they're trying to do, it's not a force of will being inflicted on reality; it's reality bending to reflect their wishes. Would a miracle blocker work? Genuinely do not know.

Season Two did NOT spend enough time talking about the power they can access together, we know almost nothing about it, and I think that's deliberate. I'm so fucking stoked for the next season, make it happen make it real.

[petitprincess1]

Radio Rebel (name pending?) AU

(This is me just testing the waters of how this will be received. Might make a full story or, at least, a combination of ficlets. It all depends on the interaction. Now, join me in: What if Alastor Joined The Vees)

~~~

Annoying murmuring and blubbering happening near me. That buzzing from the hot overhead lights that are constantly in my eyes. That second one from the right. It's always flickering. Pestering me. I asked for it to get fixed and no one did a damn thing!

The blathering is getting louder, making my ears twitch at the noise. I'm sure no one in the audience is caring at all. That one skimpy-dressed rabbit is just taking pictures of herself. That light is still flickering. More twitching! More buzzing! More and more monotony! When will this fuc-

"MR. RADIO DEMON!"

Alastor left out from his thoughts upon the sudden shouting. He blinked back into reality and looked around the talk show set that he was on. The hardwood desk he was sitting in front of, the plush chairs, wooden flooring, and, yes, the guest! He cleared his throat, pushed back his shortened hair, and smiled too widely, "Ah, yes, sorry about that, my dear! It's lovely having you back on air! How's your husband?"

The Sinner stared at him with teary eyes before muttering, "Dead....sir...."

Blink. Blink. "Ah," that was all Al could muster before a loud ringing shocked his system. The Sinner began tearing up again as makeup artists rushed over to her to begin cleaning her up. Alastor watched as the "live studio audience" went off to do...whatever the hell it is that they do.

The deer demon leaned back against his chair, adjusting his tight necktie, and let out a loud sigh. His smile was much smaller as he stared at the lights that tormented him and beat down with their senseless heat. This is supposed to be Hell, and yet why is this the only time he feels as if he's being tormented by flames?

A sudden rush of static coursed up Alastor’s spine, making his ears rise in alert and hair slightly rise. He sat up slightly straighter as a bolt of neon blue electricity shot down in front of his desk. Within the blink of an eye, the pure energy formed into his.....business partner. Al greeted, "Good morning, Vox! Judging by your twitching brow, I take it you saw this stunning broadcast?"

Vox's twitched brow suddenly stopped as a large, "friendly" grin appeared on his flat face. He chimed back leaning onto Alastor's desk, "That's right~ And I gotta say, Al....that was absolutely the worst fucking thing that I ever could've seen! So, would you kindly explain what exactly that was...please?"

The rad- deer demon stood up from his desk and scoffed, straightening out his jacket, "Oh, it's nothing, my friend. Just simply was distracted by that light that I told you many times that keeps flickering. You did say that you'd eventually look into it, but I didn't think that meant our entire undead lives! Hahaha!"

A distorted, broken-down laugh track came from Alastor. The TV host just blinked at Al and was very unamused by his humor. However, he just wrapped an elbow around the, now-stiffened, deer as he chuckled humorlessly. Vox patted his chest, "Now, now, Alastor. This isn't just an isolated incident. I'd be perfectly fine, but...this is like the 10th time this week and that makes me worry for you."

He pulled away from Al, kept him arms-length, and with his hands on the cervidae's shoulders. He sighed, "Come on, buddy. This is a safe place. No need to hold back on your partner, right?"

Alastor corrected, removing Vox's hands from his person, "Business partner. Also, I'm sorry that I don't exactly care for whatever woes someone wishes to force onto me."

"Well, yeah, no shit! No one cares for what that fucking COW says!" Vox shouted, turning his head towards the bovine Sinner. The widow wept as she ran off the set, forcing the lackeys to chase her down. The smaller Overlord took another breath as he took Alastor by the hand and made him sit down in his armchair.

He went behind the demon, dropped his arms down Al's chest, and whispered near his ear, "Are you still mad at me, Al~?"

Alastor's eye twitched as his smile widened into a grimace as he tilted his head away from Vox. The TV demon snickered lowly as he hummed, "I was right, wasn't I? Come on now. Don't be upset. We made a consented deal that would benefit both of us. We work together on this. Your happiness is my happiness and your pain is mine~"

Al felt a nip on his ear that made a loud screeching sound abrupt from him. He suddenly stood up and hit Vox in the face, causing the other's screen to turn to static in shock. The deer Overlord immediately moved away from the other as he casually continued the conversation, "Yes, yes, I'm aware. It's just that I don't see why exactly I need to do...this mundane garbage. Even though I am not a fan, a simple podcast is much closer to my style. Don't you agree?"

It took a few seconds for Vox's screen to turn back to normal before he groaned in annoyance. He rolled his eyes before stating, "Yeah, of course it is. However, you don't exactly see many people lining up to sell their souls for that shit. Well, unless you count those who are middle-aged or singles wanting to be raw-dogged by the next serial killer. You don't get to see and experience the desperation on wayward's souls faces! And, besides, how many can say they've been in the same room as the radio demon~?"

"I actually feel like more could-"

"Shut up. It was rhetorical," the object head cut Al off before he went onto his phone. Alastor tried to peer over his shoulder, but another unnerving shock went up his spine and caused him to move back. Vox smirked at the obedience before he turned around and said, "Alright, fine. How's about this? Why don't you take some time off, ay? You know, clear your mind and get some air.....until you're back on by ten, that is. I'm sure all of this can be resolved after, I don't know, getting something to eat or whatever."

Alastor's ears flattened against his head as he started, smile becoming small once more, "I actually haven't been-"

"ROTTEN BITCH-!!"

Both Vox and Al were shocked by various shouting and crashing going on above them. The TV demon growled in frustration at the nuisance. He told Alastor, "Hold that thought. Someone's being an obnoxious prick, yet again."

Vox turned around to cup Alastor’s cheek, making the other's ear twitch. His thumb rubbed against his grayed skin before he suddenly turned into electricity that traveled through the various cables on the floor. Al just shuddered once he was alone and muttered, "Pompous prick..."

(That's all you get, for right now. There's still more to this first chapter! Lmk what you guys think! Reblogs are very much appreciated :3c)

[bishiglomper]

These panels are just not long enough, man. Main guests need like 2hr slots

They were introducing Brandon Rogers as Blitzo and he comes over, takes the mic from the host's hand like "...the O is silent." 😆

He said Blitzo was just himself on steroids, seemed legit.

Someone asked the Helluva cast what's the biggest animal they thought their characters could take in a fight. Loona's said she thought she could fuck up a bear.

Alex was just like. A bigger snake. 😆

Amir said anything

I think Brandon said an octopus or somthing.

Later someone asked if their characters went to the zoo, what would they go see first.

I only heard Amir and Alex answer, but they each said.. a deer and snake, respectively. 😆

I think someone asked what they'd do with their characters if they hung out. Loona's said she would chill out with reality TV and junk food like irl. All I heard otherwise was Alex saying "and watch Dude, where's my car?" In Pentious's voice

So Amir said something interesting...

Someone asked what was something stupid their characters did that they actually found really funny

Amir was like "Taunting Adam... and then losing the fight. .....but actually it was really smart that he did."

Intriguing!

Also everyone's favorite lines they did:

Loona's line from Full Moon "I do it all the time"

Blitz: "Sorry I fucked your husband!"

Alastor: "haHAAA- Fuck you."

Adam: "Damn Lute- chill! Fuck"

Amir said they're really really hoping to release their audition songs. Or to just record the songs again. In character! Eeeeeee

I don't know what song anyone else had but Pentious had show me the meaning of being lonely by the backstreet boys

[em1e]

⠀ ⠀バジ // AVANT GRANDE ⠀ ༝ ༝ baji keisuke ⠀ ༝ ༝ 1.2k words ⠀ ⚠︎ flower shop!au <3 1/4. fluff, some cursing, yk how it goes ⠀ — baji is just a great friend, helping chifuyu out. he doesn't even like flowers.

he really did not want to fucking be here. walking down the street in the silly shirt chifuyu designed for the pet shop, hair messily falling over his shoulders, with bags under his eyes. he was tired, but chifuyu practically begged him to go pick up these stupid flowers for the adoption event they had the honor to host at their pet shop, and his friend has been running himself ragged trying to get everything in order before tomorrow. 

that doesn’t stop his annoyance from building with each step he takes, aggravation palpable as he steps into the shop. it has nothing to do with you, yet you go rigid as he enters your shop. he eyes everything you have to offer -  from red roses, to sunflowers, to carnations, before they settle on you sitting behind the counter. you offer a smile. 

“hi, can i help you?”

his voice is rough and really hot and you think you’d melt at the prospect of him speaking if his glare wasn’t so intense, “my friend ordered flowers for our shop, ‘m just here to grab ‘em.”

“do you know the name on the order?” your customer service voice isn’t lost to baji. he moves further into the building towards where you stand, looking down at a list you have in front of you with names and what he can assume are arrangement types. he spots his own. baji keisuke - avant grande. 

it sounds like a spell. 

“that one.” he says, pointing to the paper and watching with mild amusement when you jump at the sudden movement. 

“oh, you’re chufuyu’s friend!” you grin besides yourself, highlighting his name on the paper and going into the back, coming out with a huge bouquet. he doesn’t really know much about flowers, but he can tell this is… decent, at the very least. 

he grunts in response to your question, “yeah, that’d be my friend.” 

you place the flowers on the counter, refixing the roses when they shift out of place. “chifuyu already paid, so you're free to take them as is. s’there anything else I can help you with today?” 

he eyes you in a weird way, adjusting to the way your mood suddenly shifted when you realize who he was picking up for. then, with a shake of his head, he’s taking the flowers by the vase and leaving. 

when he arrives back to the pet shop, he’s greeted by his friend, who has a stupid grin on his face. 

“what?” baji asks, thrusting the flowers into his hands and rounding the counter to clock out, ready to be relaxing at home with the stupid reality tv show he’s been watching play on the tv. 

chifuyu takes them gingerly, still eyeing him, “see anything you like?” 

baji’s eyes cut to his suddenly, glare hardening, “you did not send me to pick up a stupid arrangement just to set me up, did you?” 

his accusation is harsh, but chifuyu doesn’t waver, “and if I did?” 

he chooses to ignore him, opting to finish putting in his password instead of giving him the satisfaction of seeing him blush.

that, however, doesn’t explain why he stands in front of the shop a week later, without the prompting of his friend. he almost walks away, because really, what's the point of him being there? he doesn’t need flowers, nor does he want them, and yet he stays hovering in front of your small shop. 

baji’s walking into the building before he realizes, pleasantly surprised to see there’s all new arrangements. he’s out of his silly uniform and you perk up at the sight of him. 

“baji,” you greet with a stupid smile. he turns his nose so you can’t see his blush, “here to pick up for chifuyu again? he didn’t tell me beforehand-” 

“i am,” he finds himself saying before he can fully think it through. you’re moving into the back again, presumably to go get the flowers chifuyu ordered while he creates a plan. if you think he’s picking them up for his friend, it gives him an excuse to be here, right? plus, there’s no way he’ll show up anytime soon; chifuyu doesn’t get off until later with kazutora. as he thinks everything through carefully, the door chimes. one glance over his shoulder has him meeting familiar eyes. 

“baji?” chifuyu questions, tilting his head to the side. so much for getting off later. chifuyu blinks, processing, thinking, before a knowing grin crosses his features. 

baji’s caught red-handed, yet he can’t find it in himself to admit defeat. his eyes cut to the door you’re behind, before they look back to chifuyu. 

“why’re you here?” he all but hisses, making a shoo motion with his hand, “go away.” 

“i could say the same to you,” chifuyu crosses his arms over his chest, “don’t tell me my arrangement worked?” 

the suggestion is revolting, yet baji can’t dispute the claim. chifuyu perks up, “oh? has my dear friend baji finally grown a pair-” 

“oh, chifuyu!” you greet, though it’s hard to tell behind the large amount of flowers that hide you, “i thought i heard your voice.” 

“(y/n),” chifuyu greets, and baji realizes he never knew your name in the first place. how the hell are you and chifuyu so close? “i was just telling baji to bring the flowers by my apartment.” he winks at him, and god is his friend a good wingman. he’s grateful he’s gone, the only tell being the ringing of the door. 

“well, here’s the bouquet, the total’ll be ¥11441.51*.” 

“he didn’t pay beforehand?” baji asks, irked by his friend’s sudden disappearance. you shake your head. 

“nope.” 

he scowls, but fishes out his wallet nonetheless, passing you his card. you can only smile. 

*$107 USD

⠀ ༝ ༝ 

he frequents your shop more and more under the ruse of picking flowers up for chifuyu. truely, he wonders what he does with each bouquet he delivers after his visits - he never stays long enough to ask. 

you’re always elated to see him, perking up when he walks through the door and giving him some dorky greeting while going to retrieve whatever his friend ordered. it becomes routine, him stopping by when he isn’t busy with work- only to pick up flowers, of course! not to ogle while you rearrange some things in the store and act like he wasn’t staring when he’s caught. you make friendly conversation, and each day that passes feels like another day wasted - what’s the point of coming if he isn’t going to just ask you out? 

with this in mind, he finally works up the courage to say something. to chifuyu, not you. 

“so . . .” he starts, and chifuyu is quick to hold a hand up for him to stop. 

“i already know you spilled the cat litter in the back.” he says without looking up from the paperwork in front of him. 

“that’s . . . not what i was gonna say. and how’d you know, i left no evidence” baji pouts. 

“cameras,” chifuyu explains simply, setting the pen he was holding down and stretching his arms above his head, “what were you gonna say?” 

“about (y/n).” chifuyu raises a brow, prompting him to continue, “how do you know them?”

“their mom was good friends with mine.” chifuyu says easily, eyeing his friend, “why. you like ‘em or something?” 

baji fights down a blush, looking away with a hum, “maybe. doesn’t matter, i’m going on break.” 

chifuyu watches with an amused grin while his friend hastily leaves, presumably to your flower shop. 

[jbdforspence]

Rmember when I made like SCU headcanons or some shit (Smosh Cinematic Universe)? Well some of y’all really liked that and I’m getting chosen lore brainrot after the live so I’m making another for purely chosen lore 🥰🥰

Disclaimer: these are all my headcanons, unless I like say or some shit all of this is being made up in my brain because I think it’s cool or whatever, don’t take this as fact at all but like u can also headcanon what I’m saying bro idk 💀😭😭

Bro my ass essentially made my own fucking story or fanfic plot or whatever 😭😭😭

Also this shit is a long ass ramble so if u don’t wanna bother just be known one of the headcanons is that Shayne and Spencer’s chosen are in a purely romantic relationship ❤️ (SOMEONE BETTER MAKE A FANFIC OF THEM)

Okay… so getting the most important chosen thing out of the way, chosen is not bullshitting, the chosen all have real powers and shit and are from different dimensions, doesn’t mean they aren’t also loser awkward virgins though they’re still that but just are also powerful Jedi mfs lmao

Now for the next one I’m gonna use into the spiderverse as a good example. All dimensions have a Spider-Man, however not all Spider-Man are Peter Parker, while he still exists in some of those dimensions, like Gwen’s.

So, all dimensions have a chosen, however there are different chosen in different dimensions (if the chosen is played by a different cast member it’s not the same chosen, except mb Olivia’s we’ll get to that 💀) and a person who is chosen in one dimension won’t be chosen in another. Let’s use the chosen who faps, that chosen is that dimension’s Chanse, in that dimension Chanse is chosen.

Now you may IMMEDIATELY be thinking abt the main chosen, Shayne Topp and the chosen are from the same dimension. Well this is my most controversial headcanon, Shayne’s chosen is NOT from our dimension. But then who is our dimension’s chosen? ANTHONY PADILLA.

Anthony was a chosen, but then fapped or something (I have faint memories of the funeral roast) and is like calamity chosen and shit and no longer chosen. This is what attracted Shayne’s chosen to our dimension, as an incredibly powerful chosen he was drawn to this dimension as it completely lacked any chosen.

Oh yh and u may be thinking “but the main chosen’s name is Spencer Agnew… so he’s not Shayne Topp…” you think your parents are gonna give you the same name in every dimension buddy? You might not even have the same parents!

Anyways main chosen is stunned by our world as to how unchosen it is (normalised gooning) and comes here a bunch to try and change that, he also looks for some form of way to get his presence known on some kind of public platform, which is where smosh/smosh Vegas comes into play. (Where he was first introduced)

This is now a side headcanon: Smosh Vegas was this event hosted by Smosh to get unknown talent onto the channel to have their chance at possible success in some form of entertainment route for their future, which is where all these new characters (a lot of which we never see again coz it was for just that event and they didn’t gain much traction or popularity or whatever, bleeding into real life here). Smosh mostly picked weird and wacky individuals, think like reality tv show casting 💀, so the chosen most obviously got accepted onto Vegas.

Now I have not fact checked this but I’m pretty sure the chosen was the only character introduced in Vegas who came back afterwards, he was also one of the few in more than one video. I’d say he found success in entertainment, the audience loved him he could’ve gone on to do his own thing and shit, but he stayed with Smosh.

This is where my headcanons start to get really silly and in fanfic territory or whatever. Why did the chosen stay with Smosh? Well it’s a great public outlet for getting his ideas out there, they (us) loved him! But he also stayed due to other reasons. The chosen knows about Anthony, that’s why he’s here in the first place of course he knows what happened. But Anthony was long gone and presumed never coming back when the chosen came, so staying at smosh because of Anthony would be a stupid idea.

No, there was something else at smosh… SOMEONE. Charles Spencer Agnew, more commonly known as Spencer Agnew. They had almost the exact same name while not being variants of each other, the chosen couldn’t think that was just due to coincidence!! He believed it was some kind of sign and decided to stay to investigate what it meant. This is also why the chosen and Spencer are in heaps of vids together (…early on at least 👀)

Okay so now we’ve gotten the silly origin story out of the way and this is already like the longest post I’ve ever made 😭😭😭

The chosen begins to host Chosen Multiverses. This is a common chosen practice to see which chosen are strongest, the chosen just decided to start hosting it in our dimension as 1. Public platform and 2. This universe has no chosen so 5 chosen being there benefits.

An important part about these competitions!!! I believe this is canon coz it was mentioned once, when you win a chosen multiverse you are upgraded to “the chosen” over just being “chosen”, meaning Shayne, Spencer, Ian and Angela’s chosen are all the chosen.

Anyways here’s the silly part that’s inspired this and has ao3 vibes. The first multiverse is where we meet Spencer, Jackie and mb Courtney’s (idk if they did a tntl bit first but oh well!) chosen for the first time. Also Noah who thankfully canonically doesn’t have a chosen as he’s actually some merch ad and not a real chosen 😘.

Main chosen is truly stunned by Spencer’s chosen… as they are equal in power. Main chosen has never come across anyone close to his power, which is also why Spencer’s chosen comes back all the time. Now we also already established that Shayne and Spencer’s chosen are NOT THE SAME PERSON, and are variants of their respective cast members. So this brings us to the main headcanon for why I made this:

Shayne and Spencer’s chosen are romantically attracted to one another and have a purely romantic relationship.

Now the chosen is canonically not asexual (Shayne said in a Lego stream), I’m not here to headcanon sexuality stuff but I do agree with this and they’re constantly battling their urge to fap and shit coz of their Jedi duty .

Anyways the chosen already isn’t straight coz he canonically sucked Tim’s dick in the matrix (don’t ask) so when u think abt it not very far fetched ❤️

Anyways this brings us to the actual fuckinng livestream Jesus I’m so sorry for the LENGTH of this ramble

If you remember the trailer, it starts as Anthony hitting his head and having a “dream sequence”. Guys let me cook with this next one cos I’m proud lowkey: as Anthony is a chosen anomaly, he still kinda has powers, and the whole sitcom is a micro dimension created by Anthony’s brain after his accident that 3 chosen venture into to contain and eliminate it from existence. This is also why they kinda break the 4th wall in the script and stuff and almost spectate the whole live because they are aware that it’s fake.

Not really too sure what to think of the weed thing btw 💀 anyways yh so chosen!shayne x chosen!spencer canon plsplsplsssss

Also they’re teaching Trevor’s chosen btw that’s why the bring him (yet to be ready for a multiverse, which also btw I was 100% expecting him to be in this years multiverse, like I was thinking the lineup would be him and Arasha over Spencer and Courtney) and Shayne and Spencer’s chosen are dealing with it coz they’re the most powerful.

Uuhhh yeah cool so sorry u had to read all that lmao I probably missed some stuff like loopholes or whatever, I’d love to answer questions in the comments in shit so yh!

Ps: someone make a fucking fanfic of chosen Spencer and chosen Shayne PLEASE

Oh yh I also forgot to mention normal Spencer chosen by proxy and Olivia’s chosen but oh well they weren’t important…

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

So, to follow up on this post that I just made that details my thoughts on the Taskmaster s18 lineup: Jack Dee, Rosie Jones, Emma Sidi, and Babatunde Aléshé...

I’m totally kidding! Obviously I’m totally kidding. Obviously. Obviously I was kidding in that entire post, suggesting that I give one fuck who those other four people are. It doesn't matter! Obviously in reality, seats 2-5 of Taskmaster s18 could be filled by Leo Kearse, Jim Davidson, Jordan Peterson, and Suella Braverman, and I’d still consider this to be a fantastic lineup.

Okay. Finally, after several weeks of losing my God damn mind, sitting on the spoilers and being good about not mentioning it (mostly…), I can say this. Finally.

Let’s talk Zaltzman.

First of all, let me set the scene. I've just finished my work for the day. I'm waiting in the break room while my co-worker files her stuff so we can close up the building together. I check my phone, because it's Taskmaster lineup spoiler day, and I've been waiting on confirmation.

I read the words and drop my phone in amazement, scrambling to catch it before it hits the ground. I look again, trying to make 100% sure I am reading this right, because I refuse to get my hopes up that high just to be disappointed. No, it says what I thought it said. I jump up, bang my fist against my chest and then into the air and then back again, mutter “fuck yes fucking right holy fuck” under my breath repeatedly, and then look around and am pleased to see my co-worker has not come into the room. And then I’m not allowed to post about it for several fucking weeks.

Andy was top of my wishlist. Possibly the number one person on it even if I could have literally anyone, including the people who definitely wouldn’t do it. He was definitely the number one person on my Taskmaster wishlist, out of the people who would possibly ever do it. But I wasn’t sure he belonged on that second list. Every time I’ve posted about a Taskmaster wishlist in the last couple of years, I’ve said of course Andy Zaltzman’s number one, but I know it won’t happen.

I know Taskmaster casts people who aren't already TV famous, but they're usually young. Taskmaster casts older people who are well established in a TV career, and young up-and-comers. Not people who turn 50 this year and did an episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats one time in 2008.

I mean, Andy Zaltzman isn’t completely obscure. It’s now been several years since he took over as host of The News Quiz, which I think is Radio 4’s flagship comedy program. The Bugle has been going for nearly 17 years and is quite successful. It’s not fair to imply that 2008 was his last TV credit; he was on Alternative Comedy Experience in 2013, where he had some chats with Stewart Lee that are among the most socially awkward things I’ve ever seen in my life. Sometimes they let him on TV in Australia. He did Matt Forde’s TV thing a few times. He does actually have a very successful career as a cricket statistician/commentator. He wrote for Bremner, Bird and Fortune in 2006. He’s doing fine. He's doing absolutely fine.

And he has an impressive stand-up career. He's done tours in the States, off the back of The Bugle's international success. He's performed in Asia off the back of his cricket commentating popularity. He's sold out big rooms to hordes of Bugle fans.

Taskmaster has cast lots of people who were less famous at the time of casting than Andy Zaltzman is now. They're just not usually Andy Zaltzman's age. But it doesn't matter, he's there now. So let me tell you about this man.

Andrew Zechariah Zaltzman was born on October 6, 1974. He grew up in Tumbridge Wells, Kent, a place he has described as so right-wing that they think you're a bit of a leftie if you only cast one Tory vote per general election. Raised by his father Zechariah "Zack" Zaltzman, who was a sculptor and a Lithuanian lapsed Jew who grew up in South Africa. Along with his sister Helen and brother Rick. I don't know his mother's name and it's probably fine to keep it that way, as I'm pretty sure Andy Zaltzman attracts a lot of fans like me, who have my combination of information-gathering autism and a good memory, that means I did not have to do any Googling to write that paragraph. I could have included the name of his school without Googling just because I've read his Wikipedia page so much, but I'll refrain from doing that.

To be fair, it's not some obscure piece of trivia to know his sister's name, because Helen Zaltzman is one of the only people in Britain who's had a podcast for longer than Andy. Podcasting was quite new when The Bugle started, but Helen started her podcast Answer Me This just before it. Helen Zaltzman's not technically a comedian, but she's quite comedy-adjacent, her podcasts are funny and she's been in plays at the Edinburgh Festival. Hangs out with comedians. Was friends with Josie Long at Oxford, so that's pretty cool. Used to be flatmates with comedy flatshare expert Matthew Crosby. Did an episode of ComComPod.

Anyway, after being raised with a future comedy-adjacent podcaster, Andy went to study Classics at Oxford University, where he also worked for the sports page of the student newspaper. It was here that he discovered his love of made-up bullshit, as he once wrote an entirely fictitious article about a game that never happened. When told they couldn't print it because it was libellous, Andy tried to argue that he hadn't libelled anyone because none of the people he wrote about in that article exist. Andy Zaltzman swears that story is true, and I think it probably is.

Andy Zaltzman did one stand-up gig at university that went very badly, then didn't do any stand-up for a bit, and then eventually did some more gigs that went less badly. Ended up in the finals of So You Think You’re Funny in 1999, where he lost to David O’Doherty (other finalists included Jimmy Carr, Russell Howard, and Josie Long, the latter of whom beat David O’Doherty in the BBC New Comedy Awards in the same year, a year of traded victories that they still amusingly and adorably reference on social media sometimes).

Andy Zaltzman got in with Avalon management, and in 2000, he went back to Edinburgh as part of The Comedy Zone. Also in 2000, he supported Stewart Lee on a stand-up tour around the UK. A lot of the venues were not told that there would be a support act and couldn’t fit him in at the last minute, so essentially, it was less like doing tour support and more like Andy just followed Stewart Lee around the country for a few weeks. Stewart Lee got so exhausted by the effort of trying to hang out with someone as socially awkward as Andy Zaltzman that he quit stand-up for several years (that’s a joke, but he did actually quit – eventually going back to stand-up but never back to his agency – because he got frustrated with Avalon on that tour, largely because they kept doing things like failing to tell venues that he was bringing a support act). In 2005, Stewart Lee returned to stand-up, and shared a flat at the Edinburgh Festival with Andy Zaltzman that year. Across the next 15 years, Stewart Lee took several opportunities to marvel at how it was possible for one person to watch as much sport as Andy Zaltzman did, when on tour and in Edinburgh flats.

In 2001, Andy did his first full-length Edinburgh show, called Andy Zaltzman Versus the Dog of Doom, which got nominated for the Perrier Newcomer Award. It was mainly a solo show, and billed as a solo show, but it featured a few bits with a man he'd met on the stand-up circuit named John Oliver, who was performing in The Comedy Zone. In 2002, Andy went back to Edinburgh with a show called Andy Zaltzman Unveils the 2002 Catapult of Truth, which also featured bits of John Oliver. John did his debut solo hour that year as well, a show that Chortle’s Steve Bennett called “a fairly pointless concept, which is then tiresomely illustrated”. Clearly, John made the correct choice in deciding that in future years, he’d stick to the stuff with Zaltzman.

In 2003, Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver began writing more comedy together, and were both specifically interested in political comedy. They found this could be difficult on mixed bill gigs where the audience hadn’t come for political comedy, and wouldn’t take well to all the dating and travel mishap stories being interrupted by satire on the colonial immigration process. So they started a comedy night in London called Political Animal, where they would co-host with their own jointly-written political jokes, introducing other comedians who would do exclusively political material. This allowed them to perform to audiences who would get what they were expecting, and it led to them being chased off stage less often (okay, their stories about those years of terrible gigs only include one where they got literally chased off stage). Comedians who performed at Political Animal included Robert Newman, Al Murray, Stewart Lee, Jeremy Hardy, Daniel Kitson, Chris Addison, Frankie Boyle, Andrew Maxwell, Will Hodgson, and don’t worry about the other name on the list from which I've copied this (it was one of those Russells they have now, and by far the worst of the three, despite the other two’s flaws).

On these early Political Animal nights, Zaltzman and Oliver used to do a sketch in which they'd interact with God. If Daniel Kitson was part of the show that night, he'd join them for that sketch and Kitson would play the role of God, which is a little on the nose even for him.

They did Political Animal once a month in London for several years, and also took it to Edinburgh for quite a few years in a row. In 2005, they recorded a pilot for BBC Radio 4, a radio show that would broadcast highlights of each act in a Political Animal night, interspersed with little Zaltzman and Oliver sketches. This got picked up and ran for two seasons, ten episodes in total.

In Edinburgh 2003, Zaltzman and Oliver did Edinburgh and Beyond, a mixed bill with each other and Rob Deering. Some of Andy’s material from that show can be heard in the Radio 4 program 4 at the Fringe. It opens with “Are you all glad to be alive? About half of you. Good. Aren’t festivals fun?” Then he goes into a complex explanation of how King Harold threw the Battle of Hastings and he has proof. This also contains the earliest known recording of Andy Zaltzman's classic joke about how voters' commitment to apathy is a paradox.

Then he says the words: “There are more celebrities now than ever before, in the world. There are also more facts in the world than ever before, and that’s just one of them. There are more celebrities now, and if the current rate of the increase in celebrities now continues, then by the year 2052, celebrities will outnumber ordinary people. And if that continues then by 2142, 99% of the world’s population will be celebrities. At which point the market will implode, and all celebrities will be merged into one giant celebrity, known as God. And the process will start again from scratch. Only this time, God will make the differences between men and women even funnier, and comedians will be the most powerful race on Earth. And after a savage and brutal war between the observationalists and the surrealists, into the power vacuum will come the singing comedians, and the world’s only currency will be amusingly altered pop lyrics. So please, be careful.” And you can begin to see why audiences occasionally chased him off stages. I don’t know what John Oliver was doing with his portion of that shared 2003 bill. Probably some stuff about penguins, given what he was into at the time. He was also very busy ripping cows apart that year. 2003 was a big year for people giving John Oliver large facsimile animals that he did not want and making him deal with them.

In 2004, Zaltzman and Oliver decided to stop messing around with little sketches in each other's shows, and just do the joint stand-up hour that the world had been waiting for. They went to Edinburgh with a show called Zaltzman and Oliver’s Erm... It's About the World... I Think You'd Better Sit Down, which is a hell of a title. They filled in a questionnaire about it for the BBC, which is a lovely little relic. If you want to know what Zaltzman and Oliver were doing during the Edinburgh Festival in 2004:

What will you be doing with the other 23 hrs of the day? JO: I will assign around 8 of those hours for sleep. I'll try and eat three times, spaced out in the time remaining. I will insult my flatmate for a further 3 of those hours. And I will think about sport for the rest of the time. AZ: Table tennis.

(Note: I'm 95% sure the flatmate John Oliver was going to insult for three hours a day is Daniel Kitson.)

They took the show on tour the following year, including performing it one time in 2005 with someone recording the audio. They didn't do anything with that audio until about six years later, when they released it during a filler week for The Bugle. It contains many of their classic joint bits, like the immigration sketch and the state of political discourse sketch.

In 2005, they did another joint Edinburgh show, called John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman Issue a List of Demands and Await Your Response with Interest. Not big fans of titles that fit easily into blurbs. This show unfortunately has been lost to history, or at least, it had better be lost to history, because at this point I will be furious if it turns out Andy Zaltzman has a recording of it somewhere and has been holding out on us all this time (not really, please let me know if you have this, Andy, I would pay you money). Steve Bennett called it: "As a double act [Zaltzman and Oliver] bring out the best of Zaltzman’s towering intellect and Oliver’s  sneery cynicism, feeding off each other’s presence." Which is a pretty solid summary of their double act dynamic in general.

I know there are reviewers besides Steve Bennett, by the way. But Chortle, for all its other admin-related faults, does archive its reviews in a way that makes old ones easy to find, so it tends to be my go-to reference for times like this. I have read other old Zaltzman and Oliver reviews, and a lot of them can be basically summarized as "They have good, intelligent, and funny material, but God, those guys can be really annoying." Brian Logan called them "Better writers than performers", which is maybe technically true but also he can fuck off. We like the socially awkward lack of charisma, okay?

Anyway. Back on topic. While they were establishing their live double act, Zaltzman and Oliver also teamed up with their friend, the excellent comedian Chris Addison, to write a radio show called The Department. This is a fictional show set in a secret government department that secretly runs the entire world, and they spend each episode solving a different problem. It ran on BBC Radio 4 for three seasons and 14 episodes in total, from 2004 to 2006. It featured a bunch of old Zaltzman and Oliver stand-up bits, shoehorned expertly into the mouths of the characters. Zaltzman, Oliver, and Addison co-wrote it and played the three main characters (except Addison didn't write season 3 as he was busy with other projects, but he still did the voice acting), with the other major character being voiced by Matthew Holness, and Lucy Montgomery doing some additional voices (Matthew and Lucy were both in Cambridge Footlights with John Oliver a few years earlier).

They hoped The Department would translate to TV someday, but that didn't happen. Even as late as ten years later, Andy Zaltzman, according to one uncharacteristically vulnerable interview, was still holding out hope that it could someday get picked up as a TV sitcom. John Oliver, on the other hand, said years later that he looked back on The Department as something that wasn't any good. John is, in my accurate opinion, entirely wrong about that. There are some old Zaltzman and Oliver things that I can recognize were objectively not great comedy, I just like them as adorable historical relics. The Department is not like that. I think it was a really, really funny and well written show. It had good characters and dense jokes and I wish it had become more.

These were the glory years of Zaltzman and Oliver. The Department on the radio, joint stand-up shows, hosting mixed bill stuff at Political Animal. But that double act was just a small subset of a larger group called the Chocolate Milk Gang. The Chocolate Milk Gang was an international crime syndicate that sometimes organized soccer matches, to borrow a phrase from John Oliver (John was talking about FIFA when he said it, but it still applies). You can see one of these matches in The Greatest Video on All of YouTube, featuring a lot of comedians who are hard to recognize because it's got about 8 pixels per inch, but you can always pick out Andy with his curly red hair, and John Oliver as the only one wearing long pants instead of shorts. I'm definitely not going to go look at the building where they filmed that video when I go to London this summer. That would be a weird thing to do. I mean I can't confirm whether I'm going to do that, but I will say that one time on his radio show I heard Elis James say Crystal Palace isn't a tourist attraction, and I laughed and said "That's what you think."

Anyway, the Chocolate Milk Gang was actually a bunch of comedians who were all friends in the early 00s, they frequently appeared in each other's stand-up shows (and occasionally radio shows and things like that), told stories about each other on stage, played football on Tuesdays, shared mixed bills, ritualistically sacrificed cows together in the middle of the night, things like that. They got their name because they drank alcohol either not at all or not very much, and after late-night Edinburgh shows they'd go for milkshakes while other comedians were getting drunk, so some of those other comedians started calling them the Chocolate Milk Gang. Glenn Wool has been specifically credited with coining the term, Andrew Maxwell and Jason Byrne were also said to be involved. An absolute cunt who goes by David McSavage was a dick about it. Basically they were a bunch of nerds who got bullied by the Irish and Canadians (not really, they've said they were on friendly terms with those guys and it was friendly banter, except for David McSavage, who is genuinely a cunt). They go by other names sometimes. Stewart Lee apparently used to call them "The Hanging Around Guys".

Further information can be found in the weirdest fucking article I've ever read (on the subject of me knowing about reviewers besides just Steve Bennett - Jay Richardson, what were you fucking talking about?), but basically, they were known for differentiating themselves from a previous generation of showbiz shouty fancy comedians, by doing things like wearing t-shirts and listening to indie music and putting a modicum of creativity into their art and not being alcoholics. Membership lists for the Chocolate Milk Gang changes depending who you ask, but the main people involved, in general, were: Josie Long, John Oliver, Andy Zaltzman, Alun Cochrane, Russell Howard, David O'Doherty, Gavin Osborn, Demitri Martin, Flight of the Conchords. Taika Waititi - Cohen at the time - is sometimes mentioned in that mix. Isy Suttie was definitely around and fit the remit. And Daniel Kitson was their, according to those weird fucking articles about it, king.

To get that list of people, I've taken the name that Glenn Wool invented for people who got milkshakes in Edinburgh, and applied it to a slightly more general concept. Not everyone on that list got milkshakes in Edinburgh in 2002, but most did, and all were part of a larger group of nerds doing comedy who crossed over with each other personally and professionally in that era, which is generally what I mean when I say "Chocolate Milk Gang".

Andy largely ended up in this group because his writing and performing partner, John Oliver, was so close to the ringleader/king Daniel Kitson. John Oliver and Daniel Kitson had repeatedly described each other as best friends. John also brought in Gavin Osborn, his friend from school and/or youth theatre. Gavin was flatmates with John's girlfriend for a time. Basically, John Oliver tied all these people in his life together, and then he fucked off to America, leaving the rest of them behind to keep making stuff with each other. Which they did, but managing it without John in the middle clearly wasn't always their first choice. The number of Chocolate Milk Gang members who have performed art that I have heard on the subject of how it upset them when John Oliver left is... more than three. It's four. I'm thinking of four specific pieces of work right now, though to be fair one of them is just Andy Zaltzman shouting the words "Percy Primetime" at an audience (the others are a song about mix tapes, a show about an apartment that I'm definitely not going to go look at when I fly to London because Crystal Palace isn't a tourist attraction, and a song about a penguin). That's a lot, really. People really, really liked that guy.

Zaltzman and Kitson in particular were a funny combination; whenever they used to end up on stages (or in a radio studio) together, there would be this strong sense of "your best friend is my best friend but God, do we ever have nothing else in common". But they'd give performing together a go, even though Andy Zaltzman is the most socially awkward man in history and has chemistry with no one on Earth except John Oliver. Neither of them seem to "get" the other's comedy in any way, or find much crossover in what they found funny. They shared a flat together in Edinburgh in 2007, where they wrote a sketch for Late 'n' Live in which Andy would pretend to be Daniel Kitson's penis, so that's fun. Andy Zaltzman had a set of about four deliberately bad impressions, which seemed to be the only part of his act that Kitson found funny, but Kitson found them hilarious and made Andy do them every time they performed together.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm trying to tell this story chronologically, and I've moved right past what Andy Zaltzman has referred to as: “The day in June 2006 when [John Oliver] told me he wanted to do the Daily Show job in America instead of going with me to Edinburgh to talk to twenty-five people a day in a darkened room.”

At the time, Zaltzman and Oliver were in the process of writing their third joint stand-up hour, for Edinburgh 2006. This show had already been submitted to the festival, as evidenced by some screenshots of the 2006 Edinburgh program:

The 2006 Edinburgh program also advertised:

And it was the debut year for the Chocolate Milk Gang mixed bill Honourable Men of Art, also already in the program with John's name:

According to Andy Zaltzman, in June 2006, he learned three things very close together, on almost the same day. The first thing he learned is that the BBC had cancelled The Department. This radio show was the only consistent thing Andy had going in his career besides live stand-up. He was counting on The Department getting bigger and maybe picked up for TV, so losing it was a significant blow. The second thing he learned, at almost the same time, was that his wife was carrying their first child. And the third thing he learned was that John Oliver was going to move to America right before their Edinburgh run was set to begin. Andy Zaltzman has described June/July 2006 as not a particularly fun time (John Oliver, on the other hand, has described summer 2006 as the time he lost his radio show and thought his career was fucked, so it's a good thing The Daily Show job came along to save him, because otherwise he'd have ended up stuck in the career path he was on in England, which was terrible, it sure would suck to have to stay on that path).

Andy Zaltzman has even said that if it hadn't been for his marriage and having a kid on the way, he might have moved to New York with John to try to keep performing as a double act, since he didn't have enough of a career in Britain to be worth staying for, and all the success he'd had had come from the Zaltzman and Oliver partnership.

I see why Andy Zaltzman found that partnership and briefly considered whether it might be worth moving across an ocean to preserve it. They worked so well together. They got each other's style of comedy, they were similar enough to fit together but different in the right ways to complement each other. They had incredible chemistry together, of the type that Andy had with, as I've said, no one else in the world. Andy had had to start his own comedy night (Political Animal) just because his style was so offbeat that it didn't fit in on regular mixed bills and it annoyed audiences who hadn't come for that specific niche, and the Zaltzman/Oliver double act saved him from having to sell that niche by himself. He was, as he describes it, not excited to have to go back to doing it alone.

He was also not excited to have to turn their double act Edinburgh show into a solo show at the last minute. But he did it, going to Edinburgh 2006 and performing a show called Andy Zaltzman Detonates 70 Minutes of Unbridled Afternoon ("It's important work Zaltzman is doing, at least compared to most other comics, and deserves to be heard ­ if only he was a bit more fluid in its telling" - Steve Bennett, 2006). I guess it's a better title than Andy Zaltzman Goes By Himself to Edinburgh to Talk to Twenty-Five People a Day in a Darkened Room. In Edinburgh 2006, Andy also hosted Political Animal on his own, and turned up to Honourable Men of Art, where they occasionally had John Oliver via the best live video linkup technology 2006 had to offer.

After this, Andy Zaltzman spent a year performing on his own. In 2007 he performed at MICF for the first time, where one time he stayed up all night in a radio studio with Daniel Kitson, playing BBC sound effects and Boney M songs, and Daniel made him do his Marvin Gaye impression. He also went on the Triple M radio show Get This, and was very socially awkward. Then he won the Piece of Wood Award for having other comics vote his show the best one, so that's cool. Clearly he must have been doing something all right, in a year that he's since described in interviews as very rough overall.

And then he was approached by TimesOnline, a subdivision of The Times, to start a trans-Atlantic podcast. The idea was that John Oliver would go into a studio in New York City, and Andy Zaltzman would go into a studio in London, and they would talk to each other about the week's news, and someone would produce and edit it, and that would be a newfangled thing called a podcast. Like the thing that Andy's sister Helen had just started doing. Andy Zaltzman said yes because, in his words, he had "Jack K. Shit" else going on and it was a chance to reunite the double act that had been working for him. John Oliver said yes because, in his words, it is a treat to get to listen to Andy Zaltzman talk for an hour a week. I think John meant it when he said that, because John Oliver had a very good and very busy job as a writer and correspondent on The Daily Show at the time, in addition to a stand-up career in the States and an increasing schedule of events with major American comics, so it's not like he took the Bugle job because he needed the money or the profile boost. I think he really did consider it a treat to listen to Andy Zaltzman talk for an hour a week. And what a treat that is.

They set up a format in which they'd talk on the phone for a bit earlier in the week, to establish a list of topical subjects to cover. Then they'd go away and each write their own material on those subjects. Then on Fridays, they'd connect from their separate studios and discuss the subjects with their material ready. The best bits made it into their respective stand-up shows.

From the beginning, they both contributed a lot to the podcast, but Andy drove the dialogue and tended to come a little more prepared, as is reasonable, given that John Oliver had other shit going on. The Bugle ran in its original form from October 2007 to March 2016, and in that time, Andy Zaltzman turned over an incredible amount of material. It is honestly amazing how much new stuff he came up with every week. Yeah, he had some ideas and concepts that he re-used, and yeah, not 100% of it was solid gold. But a lot of it was very funny. Funny, dense comedy that was new every single week.

Andy Zaltzman is the most creative comedian I've ever heard. I mean, obviously I guess that depends on your definition of "creative", I've seen some comedy shows where it's so creative that I have no idea what's going on (these are called "clowning"). But within the parametres of just writing straightforward stand-up material, I have never heard anything as creative as Andy Zaltzman. He hits a topic from so many directions that no one else would think of. He reaches for absurd comparisons, turns of phrase that make me run back the recording because I could never catch all the meanings at once, five or six different jokes embedded into one sentence. The number of obscure references to history and/or sport and/or Greek mythology (he didn't study Classics for nothing) he can get into any paragraph is blinding. He's fucking amazing.

More than that, The Bugle with Zaltzman and Oliver was an amazing piece of media. It is incredible how they blended interactivity with tightly written material. Comedians riffing with each other is fun because it feels real and immediate and unrehearsed. Carefully written stuff is good because writing something with care gives comedians the time to make it funnier. The Bugle was Zaltzman and Oliver taking their jokes that they'd crafted to be as funny as possible, and using them as the basis for otherwise spontaneous interaction, so they got the best of both worlds. And it worked, every time, because they have the best chemistry I've ever heard in all of comedy. They were like athletes who could always tell where the other was going to end up, they could take their bit and make sure it would land in just the right spot to work with what the other person would have. Even though they didn't know exactly what the other person had, because they didn't write it together. But they knew each other so well that they could anticipate. It's amazing. It's a fucking amazing feat of comedy and it should be in some sort of hall of fame.

In 2008, Andy Zaltzman wrote a book. It's called Does Anything Eat Bankers? and it's a collection of absurd comedy mini-essays about the credit crunch. It's the most 2008 thing I've ever read. It made me laugh out loud a lot. It's available on eBay for insultingly cheap prices and is an excellent summary of Zaltzman's offbeat sense of humour.

From 2007-2014, Andy Zaltzman hosted Political Animal in Edinburgh every year. Usually on his own, though in 2011, John Oliver flew to Edinburgh and they did a few reunion Political Animal gigs, featuring Daniel Kitson reprising his role as God in their God sketch. Andy also kept up his Chocolate Milk Gang membership over those years, doing the Honourable Men of Art gig when it came back in 2008, appearing at some Kitson-compered Late 'n' Lives in the 00s, and at some Kitson-compered Chocolate Milk Gang reunion shows in later years (ZOCK, Fuckstorm 3000, Fuckstorm 3001). Andy did the impressions when Kitson told him to, even though by then he'd long dropped them from his regular act. Andy also performed new Edinburgh solo shows nearly every year from 2007 to 2019 (missing 2009, 2012, and 2015), usually with long convoluted titles in the style of Zaltzman and Oliver ("Life is convoluted, my comedy merely reflects that" - Andy Zaltzman).

In 2014, Andy started doing Satirist For Hire, a show he continued touring off and and on until 2022, in addition to his regular stand-up shows. In Satirist For Hire, the audience could write in with the date they were attending and a subject for Andy to satirize, and the show would consist of him satirizing audience-requested topics. It wasn't improv or anything, he'd get the topics in advance and write stuff about them, new stuff for every show. Which sounds like a ridiculous amount of work, but he was already doing that kind of thing for The Bugle, writing new stuff constantly. Some of these got recorded and released on filler weeks of The Bugle. Topics he got asked to satirize included all 721 Pokemon by name, the autumn equinox, the rebellion in Syria, and his own mother-in-law. He released a DVD of Satirist For Hire that was filmed in 2014, in which he performed the bespoke satire as well a "best of" his other old and new jokes, including some stuff that dates back to the Zaltzman and Oliver catalogue of the early 00s. It also has a DVD extra that's Andy just telling a weird story with no punchline, it's really annoyingly rambling and pointless, even for him. It's great.

During the original run of The Bugle, there were a lot of jokes in which John would tell a star-studded story about his life with celebrities in New York City, and Andy would say he'd had a good pastrami sandwich that week. There were slightly less funny parts at the end of the episodes, in which John would plug some big American event he was doing, and Andy would make a vague plea about small-time stand-up gigs that he couldn't sell. As The Bugle went on, Andy started doing slightly bigger stand-up gigs and sounding slightly less concerned about lack of tickets sold (due to him building up an audience of Bugle fans), though it still didn't look great when put next to John Oliver's projects.

Alongside this, Andy Zaltzman started getting jobs in the world of cricket as well. He was a massive, utterly obsessed cricket fan, made a lot of cricket references in his stand-up and on The Bugle, and at some point some people took notice and started inviting him to do cricket things. Spots on sports shows in which he'd analyze cricket. Cricket commentary. Collation of cricket stats. After several years of this, he started getting to travel for it, announcing on The Bugle that he'd be doing stand-up gigs in Bangladesh because he was going there anyway to attend cricket games and be paid to commentate on them. He doesn't have personal social media, but he does have a Twitter account that Tweets nothing but obscure cricket stats that he has personally worked out. What a weird guy, spending all his own time gathering information about one niche subject and then collating all the stuff from various sources and posting his findings on the internet. Nerd. You wouldn't catch me doing that.

Off the success of The Bugle, he started getting some other stuff. He was a regular host for a while on the Radio 4 panel show called 7 Day Sunday, where he worked with Chris Addison and Al Murray and Rebecca Front, I have frustratingly never been able to find episodes of that show. He got a Radio 4 mini-series called Andy Zaltzman’s History of the Third Millenium, which I have also never been able to find. He started appearing as a guest on The News Quiz somewhat regularly. He did that one episode of 8 Out of 10 Cats one time, and it was very awkward. Stewart Lee put him on Alternative Comedy Experience.

In 2008, John Oliver released a stand-up DVD called Terrifying Times. Andy flew to New York to appear in the recording of it. He came on stage a couple of times, for a few minutes each time, interacting with John so they could include some of their joint sketch material in the DVD. There's also a DVD extra that's a conversation between Zaltzman and Oliver, which is hilarious.

In 2012, Andy Zaltzman again went to New York, to perform some stand-up on John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show (along with Chocolate Milk Gang's David O'Doherty), a confusingly titled American television program with various comedians doing short sets compered by John Oliver. After years of relentlessly making fun of John on The Bugle for how he started saying "gotten" once he'd been in America for a bit, Andy got on American TV and immediately said the word "sports", which was adorable. He tried to fit in. It didn't really work and the crowd didn't know what to make of him, but he tried.

In the original run of The Bugle, Andy Zaltzman really honed his trademark style. It was marked by absurd analogies that treat any of the following like each other: sports, politics, Greek mythology, religion, current events, and occasionally a movie or something. He started doing "pun runs", where he'd spend several minutes doing one coherent monologue in which he'd make as many puns as possible themed around a single subject, usually while John Oliver screamed in agony in the background (you'd think it would stop being funny but it didn't, at one point he started using a little bell to mark each pun). Jokes with footnotes. Jokes where the joke is that the story is pointless. Everything he said carefully and tightly wrapped in at least 18 layers of irony. A running joke in which he'd introduce each Bugle episode by discussing something obscure that had happened in history on the day they were recording. So many cricket and snooker references.

An audio cryptic crossword that ran for the first thirty or so Bugle episodes, in which he'd read out a clue every week, but the clue wasn't to anything that made sense, it was just to some shit he'd made up in his head, and he never released a visual to accompany it. Yet it did work, some people at home actually solved it all and wrote it all out and it all fit together perfectly (that is how you do a crossword, Pemberton).

Massive truckloads of absurdity dumped with increasing urgency all over current events, as though he thought he could bury the dark realities under it. Zaltzman and Oliver's name for this absurdity was "bullshit"; it used to be a running joke that they'd advertise The Bugle by promising it would be completely free of facts, providing the best bullshit you've ever heard. Long, intricate bullshit that all ties together and keeps going just when you think there can't be any more to this story that Andy has entirely made up. Like the athletes he wrote about at university, no one can sue him for libel because they don't actually exist.

One time their producer Chris Skinner accused them of having an especially sweary Bugle, so far containing "twelve fucks and one cunt", and Andy said that's the Jewish view of the New Testament, and they (rightly) talked for like three years about how good a joke that was to come up with off the cuff. Andy's lapsed Jewish-ness is also a frequent topic of his jokes, usually how incredibly lapsed he is, being a massive fan of bacon sandwiches and one time his sister gave him an entire dead pig as a Christmas gift, a story that made it into a Daniel Kitson stand-up show as well as a lot of Bugle jokes about how in most cases that would be a hate crime.

There were also jokes throughout that Bugle run about John Oliver's increasingly high-profile career; Andy gave him the nickname Johnny Showbiz and cheerfully kept telling stories of pastrami sandwiches after John's stories about meeting Samuel L Jackson or whatever. I first listened to The Bugle a few months after I listened to the old Russell Howard/Jon Richardson BBC 6 Music shows, and those were basically an audio documentary of a friendship slowly cracking apart due to one party's jealousy of the other's increasing success (I mean, there were other issues too), so I found The Bugle an odd contrast at first. Because Andy made those jokes, but it sounded like there was absolutely no genuine jealousy behind them. If anything it went the other way, he seemed to vaguely pity John's weird hectic life, and John seemed to generally agree that this was too much celebrity and Andy was better off in his shed. I started wondering: how is Andy this okay with the disparity? Is he hiding the jealousy really well or is he made of stone?

A while into my the first listen-through of The Bugle, after wondering this for a few weeks, I came to the conclusion that the reason Andy Zaltzman sounded unbothered by John Oliver meeting Samuel L Jackson is that Andy Zaltzman truly, deep down to his core, did not want to meet Samuel L Jackson. That man was not impressed by anything in the world that's not a cricket stat or a bad pun, and he entirely meant it when he mercilessly mocked John for the embarrassing transgression of winning an Emmy. That wasn't masked bitterness, he just thought winning an Emmy was genuinely embarrassing. And John Oliver, once again, seemed to basically agree.

In 2011, there was the News of the World scandal, owned by News International, owned by The Times, which owned The Times of London, which owned TimeOnline, which funded The Bugle. Andy and John decided to really go after everyone behind the phone hacking scandal, for several weeks in a row. They didn't just talk about the shit journalists, they went for the entire system of tabloid press and its collusion with government, the people at the top of the both sides of that, everything that allowed this to happen. While doing this, they had a running joke in which they'd tap their mic and ask "Is this on?", implying that their overlords at The Times would cut their mic in retaliation for talking shit about Rupert Murdoch. Then The New York Times wrote an article about what they'd been doing, and they started to sound slightly more genuinely worried that this might get them in trouble.

A couple of months later, for what both sides called unrelated reasons, TimesOnline fired John and Andy, pulling The Bugle's funding. In a Bugle episode in December 2011, they said this might be their last one, they were scrambling to find alternative funding sources but might have to just end the podcast. The tone in that episode made the discrepancies in their careers clear. John repeatedly emphasized how much he loved The Bugle and everything they'd built together, and how he'd like to save it. While Andy had a lot more genuine desperation in his voice as he again used the term "Jack K. Shit" to describe what else he had going on in his career, he actually needed to #SaveTheBugle. You can see that as well in how careful they both were. John and Andy both said they were dropped for apolitical reasons, just lack of funding. But John messed around a bit and implied that this may not be the whole truth, while Andy sounded less willing to possibly get them in more trouble. Years later, in a 2023 episode of the rebooted Bugle, the subject of The Times came up, and Andy offhandedly mentioned that The Bugle used to be funded by The Times, until they were dropped "suspiciously shortly after" they made a bunch of Rupert Murdoch jokes. This was the first time Andy had acknowledged a possible connection, and I liked that, like a sign that he'd finally achieved enough success independently so he could afford to talk like that a bit too.

I made a compilation of this situation a couple of years ago. Most of the Bugle bits in it are John Oliver's lines, because the compilation was meant to contrast John Oliver's running joke on Last Week Tonight where he'd talk shit about HBO's parent company AT&T, referring to them as "business daddy" and gloating about how he could do that without getting in trouble, with the time in 2011 when he went on The Bugle and talked shit about their business daddy and did in fact get in trouble. Andy had a lot of good jokes about Rupert Murdoch and The Times during those episodes, they mostly aren't in this compilation because they weren't as relevant to the Bugle-LWT John Oliver Versus Business Daddy narrative, but the compilation still tells the story. Also I illustrated it with a bunch of amusing old Zaltzman and Oliver pictures.

In early 2012, they came back and announced that they had managed to sell enough listener subscriptions to keep The Bugle going independently. The Bugle continues to run that way to this day, free to listen to but funded by optional listener subscriptions, no ads (aside from a short time in 2018 when they partnered with Radiotopia and Andy had to read out those mattress ads and stuff, and you could hear his soul sinking into the floor, luckily that didn't last long), just because they created a product that's good enough to be worth its audience paying for. It also gets funded by merch sales and things. They have hats and socks.

The Bugle ran for a couple more glorious years as an independent podcast fronted by Zaltzman and Oliver. Then in summer 2013, Jon Stewart went away to film a movie and John Oliver filled in as a guest host for The Daily Show. John Oliver would do a fantastic job fronting America's flagship topical comedy show all week, and then come on The Bugle on Friday and lament how badly it was going and how he couldn't wait to get back to the sidelines where he belonged. But after that, as he'd proven his abilities as a host, HBO offered John Oliver his own weekly show. In December 2013, John Oliver proceeded to have a breakdown, but still left The Daily Show to start Last Week Tonight.

As shown in the compilation I've just linked, which is entitled Johnny Showbiz Gets His Own Show and Has a Breakdown, they promised at the time that this would absolutely not affect The Bugle. They promised! Repeatedly. I mean, they sounded at the time like they were trying to convince themselves and each other as much as the listeners, but still, they promised.

They mostly kept that promise for about a year, taking a few more breaks than usual throughout 2014 to accommodate John's busier schedule, but I don't think The Bugle declined in quality when it did go out. And given how few weeks off they'd had since October 2007, even The Bugle with extra breaks was still a hell of a lot of comedy material for them to turn over. They took a break for the whole summer in 2014, their first time taking more than a couple of weeks off in a row, but came back with a great run of episodes in the fall.

Andy did mention to Stuart Goldsmith, in a 2014 interview, that he was hoping he might be able to be involved with Last Week Tonight in some way, at some point. It's not clear whether he ever mentioned this to John Oliver. Seems like the sort of thing he should have maybe mentioned to John Oliver, instead of saving it for an uncharacteristically vulnerable podcast interview. But maybe he did ask John Oliver for that and it just didn't work out. He doesn't say. It certainly didn't end up happening.

Then, throughout 2015, The Bugle died a slow and incredibly painful death. They kept doing filler episodes, in which Andy would explain that John was busy, but promise he'd be back next week. Then, often, nothing, not even a filler episode, for weeks. Before 2015, they always put out an episode every week, usually a new episode, but if they didn't have one, there would be filler: an outtakes show or a best-of show or some recordings of stand-up or something. One time the producer Chris Skinner strung together a whole filler episode by doing things like interviewing their friend Alun Cochrane (back when Alun Cochrane was cool, Alun Cochrane is now no longer cool). But in 2015, they began to hit the limit on the number of weeks in a row when they could do filler episodes, so they started just putting out fuck all.

John Oliver did turn up for Bugle episodes occasionally in 2015, but when he did, he sounded increasingly distracted and like his heart wasn't in it. Which is fair enough, because we now know that he spent 2015 trying to write and present a research-intensive weekly HBO show, as well as caring for his wife while she had a high-risk pregnancy. It's as good an excuse as I've ever heard to not be able to talk shit about Bashar al-Assad or the band LMFAO with Andy Zaltzman every week (also, you have to give John Oliver credit for the fact that he did The Bugle very well for years despite never actually needing it, and was just in it for the love of the game). But he probably should have just said that, rather than clearly telling Andy all the time that he'd be back soon, which we know he was doing because Andy sounded like he believed it when he relayed that message to the listeners, and then it kept not happening.

To be fair, Andy also should have called time on the podcast way earlier - at the very least announcing an extended break, if not just acknowledging that it's not going to work anymore and ending it. Instead, Andy kept coming back to introduce filler episodes and promise us John would be back soon. And every once in a while he'd do a frustrated new episode with a checked-out John Oliver. I listened to the worst of this period of The Bugle within a couple of days, and that was rough, hearing it all at once like that. Had me yelling at my phone, "Oh my God, stop it! Just put it out of its fucking misery! This is an ex-podcast! Stop nailing it to a perch and trying to sell it back to us!"

Andy mentioned the "Jack K. Shit else going on" thing a couple of times as a reason for why he kept trying, but I don't even think that was true anymore. He had a big stand-up audience garnered by the success of The Bugle. He had his cricket career. He had regular radio work. He didn't have some big TV career or anything, but he had enough to be getting on with. Enough so he did not have to be as desperate as he got about trying to keep a podcast going when it was clearly over.

I think he was scared to try to do his comedy career without basing it around bouncing stuff off John Oliver. As his comedy career did have a history of spectacularly not working when he wasn't working with John.

Throughout 2015, Andy's increasing frustration could be heard in his voice during intros for the podcast filler episodes, and in the recordings of his 2015 stand-up that got released as said filler. He developed a joke in which he'd ask the audience who's heard of John Oliver, find the one or two people who said no, and shout, "Fuck you Percy Primetime, everyone in this room has heard of me!" "Percy Primetime" was a nickname spat with quite a bit less affection than the old "Johnny Showbiz". For the record I don't think they had a real falling out or anything, but there was some genuine bitterness there for the first time after all those years of fame disparity, it finally became clear that Andy Zaltzman's not actually made of stone.

In early 2016, The Bugle came back with one full episode that was actually very good, John and Andy were both really into it. John Oliver apologized for the many jokes he'd made in previous years about how funny it would be if Donald Trump ran for president, and they announced that The Bugle would be continuing for the forseeable future, just going once a month instead of once a week, so they could stop with the filler stuff and be more realistic about what was possible around new schedules. Then two months later, they came back and admitted this was not, in fact, realistic, and John was leaving The Bugle. Andy announced his plan to reboot the podcast in the fall, with John Oliver replaced by a rotating series of co-hosts from around the world. Andy sounded fairly terrified of this prospect.

The last episode of the John Oliver-era Bugle was number 295, and for reasons that Andy Zaltzman finds funny, he made the first episode of the new era episode 4001. This came out on October 24, 2016, and featured Hari Kondabolu as the guest co-host. Hari's a New York comedian whom I assume was recommended by John Oliver, as I can't imagine how else he and Andy would have crossed paths, and they sure didn't sound like two people who had ever encountered each other before. It was fucking awkward. It didn't help that it was a couple of months before the Donald Trump election, so a pretty intense time to try to just jump back into topical comedy with a "get to know the rebooted podcast" episode.

Basically, if Andy Zaltzman feared that his offbeat niche humour would not work without the one comedian in the world who was tailor-made to fit into it... those fears were not alleviated in that first episode. Hari Kondabolu is awesome, he has since become one of my favourite Bugle guests and I've gotten into his own stand-up, but that first time, he had no fucking idea what to make of Andy, and not much of an idea of what he'd signed up for with The Bugle. Andy had no idea how to talk to anyone in the world who isn't John Oliver. It was weird.

Episode 4002 featured Nish Kumar, who came in and immediately shouted "Fuck you Chris!", which was a running joke from the John Oliver-era Bugle (referring to producer Chris Skinner, John and Andy and the listeners would affectionately say "fuck you" to Chris a lot for reasons that made sense at the time), an instant way to assure the audience that he knew exactly what he'd signed up for. Nish had been listening to The Bugle since it started when he was still doing student comedy, and as far as I can tell, he'd pretty much climbed the ranks of the comedy industry in the hopes of someday getting to touch the garment of his heroes Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver (he might have had one or two reasons besides that, but it was mainly that one). And he got his wish. He's now the second most frequent co-host of the Bugle 4000-series (after Alice Fraser), and one time he got to play football with John Oliver and they got into fights on the pitch.

The Bugle continued on shaky ground for the first 25 episodes or so, really for the first 50. Andy has said since that he knows those episodes were rough, that he'd got so comfortable in his familiar rapport with John Oliver that he just couldn't generate the same thing with people he didn't know as well, and he didn't know anyone as well as John. Though it clearly wasn't just about who he knew as well as John, but who he could comfortably work with as well as John (which was no one). Helen Zaltzman came on a few of those early episodes, and she was a fantastic guest, really funny and took Andy to task and held her own on every subject, but it is incredible how little chemistry Andy Zaltzman managed to have with his own sister. He brought in Anuvab Pal, a comedian from Mumbai whom Andy knew from his time covering cricket over there, they were friends in real life, but they often sounded like they'd never met before. The only person Andy sounded like he knew how to talk to at all was Nish, whom he'd known for a few years through stand-up by the time the Bugle 4000-series started. The Nish Kumar episodes were the best ones, especially early on, but it wasn't anywhere near the levels of Zaltzman and Oliver chemistry.

Andy has said in interviews since that he was struggling during that time, and that started occasionally making its way into the Bugle content, which previously had rarely been particularly personal. At the end of 2016, Andy Zaltzman did a year-in-review stand-up show (something he did every year for a while, a whole stand-up show written to only be performed one time to mark the end of the year), and (on the subject of reviewers who aren't Steve Bennett), Dominic Maxwell in The Times (fuck off, Times) wrote a review in which he called Andy "John Oliver's left-behind sidekick". Andy brought that up on The Bugle several times, citing the "sidekick" line with real bitterness, and rightly so. Partly because he has never been anyone's sidekick (except maybe Daniel Kitson's once in a while at old Late 'n' Live gigs), and partly because that was a solo stand-up show that was not affiliated with The Bugle and definitely had nothing to do with John Oliver, so he shouldn't have been put in John Oliver's shadow in a context like that. It was actually a 4-star review, Maxwell liked the show. But the review's first paragraph was:

Why has John Oliver become a star in America while his old partner in seemingly shambolic yet secretly serrated political satire, Andy Zaltzman, remains a cult comedian with a sideline as a cricket stats man? Is it because Zaltzman, with his receded Harpo Marx explosion of hair, is less telegenic than Oliver, with whom he co-hosted the podcast The Bugle until last year? Is it because, although he is every bit as grounded in reality as Oliver, Zaltzman is a more devotedly loopy joke-writer, so that he always adds his own twist of wry absurdism to our leaders’ already skewed logic?

Starting a four-star review with that is one hell of a backhanded compliment, no matter how positive you go on to be about the show itself. I assume that review was the main one - probably among plenty of other reviews that had built up Andy's resentment over time, but that Maxwell one was clearly the straw that broke his back - that led Andy to record this "interview with himself" to put in the "in the bin" section at the beginning of a Bugle episode in early 2017.

So the stone was starting to show serious cracks at that point. At one point in 2017, Andy plugged his upcoming run at MICF, saying it would be good to perform in Australia because his career could "flush down the toilet in the other direction" for a bit. Nish Kumar laughed way too hard at that, I remember saying to my phone, "Nish, stop! Can't you see he's having a breakdown? Stop laughing at that and give the man a hug!"

It was hard to listen to the most stoically-dedicated-to-irony-and-bullshit man I'd ever heard have a breakdown, but things eventually got steadier. Andy did some episodes from MCIF in Melbourne, and on Bugle episode 4023, in April 2017, he brought in Australian comedians Tom Ballard and Alice Fraser. Tom and Alice both became Bugle regulars, but Alice especially started doing it all the time. Alice, like Nish, told stories of how she'd been a dedicated listener to the original run of The Bugle since before she'd started stand-up, and you can see Andy's influence on her comedic style (you can see it in Nish's too - John and Andy both influencing Nish a lot, while Alice is a lot more like Andy than she is like John).

The inclusion of Alice Fraser changed the game for the rebooted Bugle, as she quickly became a very frequent presence, and Andy developed as good a rapport with her as he could have with almost anyone. There are some sweet moments in her early episodes when Alice would pull out some Zaltzman-esque puns or absurd analogies, and Andy would sound genuinely touched that someone else was into his weird niche humour. He immediately started including her in some bit parts of his stand-up shows too, whenever he was in Australia or she was in England.

The Bugle also got better once they started doing two guests at a time instead of just one. Andy has said since that at some point he realized he and John Oliver had good enough chemistry to carry an entire episode, but he couldn't manage that with anyone else. However, he could do it if there were three people, so the guests could interact with each other too, and the three different types of interactions could get them through the 40-45 minutes more easily. They also started doing Bugle live shows, which went well, got toured in England and even in America.

Since then, The Bugle has grown into a thing that is new and very different from its original form, but also very good. As of May 2024 they've just hit episode 4304, having recently passed the 295 episodes that Andy did with John Oliver. Its format has changed. People still turn up with pre-written stuff, but it's not the same perfectly choreographed/somehow improvised dance of tightly written material that it used to be. It's got a wider range of guests, more diverse topics, fewer insular in-jokes. Some other format changes too, like dropping the listener correspondence. But a lot of the guest co-hosts breathe new life into it, bring different perspectives and styles of humour, contribute more than the original version with only two people ever could. It's introduced me to lots of great comedians from various countries (well, mainly Britain and America and Australia, but a couple from India, a couple from Ireland, one I really like from NZ), I've gotten into a lot of people's stand-up because I liked them on The Bugle. They've also created spinoff podcasts, like The Gargle, hosted by Alice Fraser.

The Bugle 4000 has brought in a bunch of comedians from the younger generation, but also let Andy bring in some old friends. David O'Doherty and Josie Long of the Chocolate Milk Gang have done it a few times, they make top quality episodes. Mark Steel's been on a bunch of times, who used to do the earliest days of Political Animal and of course is a king of Radio 4 along with Andy. Mark and Andy are great together, you can hear how much they enjoy each other's company, to the point where part of me dreads the day when Andy decides to be nice to his buddy Mark and let Mark bring his son to work. I don't think they'd do that though, The Bugle has standards. No Elliot Steel, please.

A big highlight of Andy bringing back old friends is Chris Addison, who worked on The Department back in 2004-06. Addison stopped doing stand-up years ago as he got a bigger career in acting and directing and things like that, and he's said he loves doing The Bugle because it gives him a chance to write comedy material the way he doesn't anymore. And because it's the only time he does that, he's not throwing his scraps at a topical podcast while spreading ideas across multiple platforms. He's coming up with solid gold, and letting The Bugle have all of it. Every time he comes on, he does his homework so well beforehand that the other comedians, including Andy, have to raise their game to keep up.

As for Zaltzman himself, he had some shaky times for his comedy material in those early reboot days. He started seeming burned out from writing so much without getting anywhere, and was re-using a lot of concepts for a while. It wasn't bad, but he did stop innovating for a while after John Oliver disappeared. The absurd scenarios in his monologues got a bit by-the-numbers.

However, as The Bugle found its feet in the new era, Andy broke through that and started writing better than ever before. He, as they say in sports and video games, jumped levels. Suddenly came out of a plateau and immediately jumped to a much higher spot than one would expect, like the slow and steady escalation of talent suddenly caught up to him all at once. Like magic. That is one of my favourite things about sports, when an athlete suddenly jumps levels, like magic. Andy jumped levels a couple of times in the late 2010s, and it was so cool to listen to. A big part of it was the way he'd tie together lots of ideas at once instead of hitting them one at a time, the way he'd make connections that turned his monologues into more than the sum of their parts.

He really, really hit a stride in 2019, as the world went to shit around him, and he started incorporating a bit more genuine emotion than he ever had before. So many emotions, all of them various flavours of searing fury at the state of the government. At first the bits of emotion were added unexpectedly, like he was experimenting with it, but then he learned how to blend it seamlessly into his previous knack for absurd ironic bullshit, it was amazing and I think he was growing into one of the best comic writers there is.

I sort of have a theory about that, which unfortunately gets me into a sports analogy so I hope I can be indulged in that briefly. As a coach, I am very familiar with the phenomenon where two athletes work with almost no one but each other for years. In some ways it makes them much better than they could be otherwise, because they're constantly being challenged by someone who knows their style inside and out, so they have to constantly evolve in order to stay ahead of the other person figuring out how to counter what they do, pushing each other to higher levels of the sport. But in other ways, they often end up with big holes in their game, because they never learn to respond to anything their main training partner doesn't do.

I think that may have slightly happened with Zaltzman and Oliver. And more to Zaltzman than to Oliver, because John was doing all kinds of other things, writing for The Daily Show with lots of people who weren't Andy Zaltzman. While the main thing Andy did was write for The Bugle. Even in his solo stand-up career, most of his shows were the best bits of what he came up with for The Bugle, so they were still written first for the purpose of bouncing off John Oliver.

So much of the beauty in the original Bugle was the way John and Andy found each other so funny, they were writing to make each other laugh. But this meant Andy Zaltzman was restricted to material that would fit his established role in a double act. The role of being the intellectual one who comes at things sideways while John tackles them head-on. That role did not leave him space to experiment with things like genuine emotion, even in spots where that could make a routine stronger. I can think of a few Zaltzman routines from 2019 that wouldn't have worked on the original Bugle, not because they wouldn't make John Oliver laugh, but because they wouldn't really have complemented John's stuff in the right way. The original Bugle had a perfect balance of comedic styles, which was what made it great, but you can't go throwing curve balls at a balance.

So my theory is that, once Andy got away from being restricted to the perfectly chosen double act role, and he then got over his slump from when he was upset about losing the double act/possibly worried he couldn't do it on his own, he had a couple of levels that were ready to be jumped. The Bugle released a bunch of the recording from Andy Zaltzman's year-in-review stand-up show from the end of 2019, and it's incredible. The "best of" from an absolutely stellar Bugle year, taking the strongest bits from all those weeks he'd spent writing, and tying them around some structure. It's one of the best fucking things I've ever heard. Andy Zaltzman does everything at once in it.

In 2019, Miles Jupp left The News Quiz, a major topical comedy panel show on Radio 4 (I'm pretty sure it's the major comedy show on Radio 4). Angela Barnes, Nish Kumar, and Andy Zaltzman - three of The News Quiz's most frequent guests at the time - each spent some time guest hosting it, as they applied for the role of permanent host. Andy got the job. He mentioned this on The Bugle during the week before his first episodes of The News Quiz as permanent host, and did it with his usual flair for self-promotion, which is almost none, he just said it's happening. Fortunately Nish Kumar was on that Bugle episode with him, and Nish insisted on interrupting Andy to tell the listeners what a big deal The News Quiz is, that Andy won't brag about it but he got a huge job on a flagship show after years and years of smaller spots on radio shows and earning his place there, and it's really cool. It was adorable to hear Nish hyping up Andy for getting a job for which (Nish didn't mention this part) Nish Kumar had also applied.

In October 2022, John Oliver came back for a special Bugle 15th birthday episode, just him and Andy for half an hour, and it made me have to pull my hat down on the bus so people couldn't see that I had tears in my eyes from laughter (honestly, I should have anticipated that and not listened to it on the bus). It had been years since they'd worked together, and they mentioned during that episode that they hadn't seen each other in years and hadn't even had much contact since the end of The Bugle, but somehow they fell right back into the perfect rhythm. It's nice to know the magic's still there, even if they're not using it anymore.

So that pretty much brings you up to speed with where Andy Zaltzman's at now. For the last few years, his career has been hosting The Bugle in its expanded form that includes live shows sometimes, hosting The News Quiz, collating cricket stats and still doing lots of cricket-related work. He hasn't done a new Edinburgh hour since 2019, but he toured Satirist For Hire in 2022. He definitely can't describe his career with the term "Jack K. Shit going on" anymore.

Quick question, just asking for a friend - how many thousand words do you have to write before something goes from being "quite long for a Tumblr post" to "quite short for a biographical book"?

In fall 2023, Andy Zaltzman mentioned that he "might" have some new stand-up to announce soon. That surprised me, because to be honest, between The News Quiz and The Bugle and the cricket, he's fucking busy these days, and he must be making enough money to not need stand-up. He turns 50 this October. He's been slowing down the stand-up over the last few years, after about twenty years of doing it constantly. I thought he might be winding down that side of his career.

But suddenly, he's mentioning possible new stand-up in 2024. He mentioned it briefly in the fall and then didn't bring it up for so long that I started to think he must have changed his mind about it. But then, in spring 2024, he suddenly started talking about live gigs again. He booked some WIPs in May and June and plugged them on The Bugle. He slowly, with his usual level of self-promotional skills, barely admitted to the fact that he has a whole stand-up tour planned for November 2024. "November 2024?" I thought. "That seems odd. Andy rarely plans so far ahead, he's usually scrambling to plug gigs he forgot he has next week. And now, when I'd thought he might be leaving stand-up behind, he's planning an entire tour many months in advance. Why did he suddenly decide to do a whole big stand-up tour again, and once he did decide that, why did he plan it for so late in the year? I mean, I'm not complaining. More Zaltzman stand-up is great! But it's a break from his usual pattern."

That is what I thought, to myself, as I listened to his updates on The Bugle. And then I sat in the break room at work and I refreshed a page and saw the Taskmaster season 18 lineup and I jumped into the air and all became clear. He's capitalizing. Andy "No Commercial Promotion Skills Whatsoever" Zaltzman is going to capitalize on his fall 2024 Taskmaster bump in popularity by following it up with a tour. I'm so fucking pleased for him.

Guys. It's going to be so good. He's so good, you're all going to love him, I promise. Do you know what it will do to Taskmaster to have someone who can run circles around Alex Horne in the field of analyzing everything via obscure statistics? He's going to make Alex look like an amateur. He's going to have an explanation for every single thing that happens and none of the explanations will be rooted in any kind of reality but they will all make internal sense.

Oh God, people are going to have to talk about him. It is so funny to listen to people try to work out what to make of Andy Zaltzman, particularly if they're not in Andy's carefully curated niche of people whom he's decided he can manage to talk to. Ed Gamble is going to talk about Andy Zaltzman. 17 years after sharing a stage with Andy at Late 'n' Live where Andy declared Marek Larwood the most fuckable member of We Are Klang (he was incorrect, but not for the reasons Tumblr thinks, I would like to immediately apologize for saying that), Greg Davies will have to judge whatever absurd bullshit comes out of Andy's brain. There will be so many cricket references.

Have I mentioned that a cornerstone of Andy Zaltzman's comedy is turning everything into a sport? That's part of his absurd analogies, he analyzes everything as though it's sports. And I love people who analyze Taskmaster as though it's sports. Andy Zaltzman is going to go on Taskmaster and treat it like sports. Oh it's going to be so much fun!

I cannot wait. I cannot fucking wait. I've just realized he's going to have to plug Taskmaster on The Bugle. That'll be weird. Who's on TV now, Johnny Showbiz? I mean, still John, still very much John Oliver, but Andy as well now! You did it, Andy! It only took 17 years!

[dontexpectmuch]

hii! if you're taking requests could you write an angsty jamal musiala x fem!reader where it somehow ends well? smth like she's phonzy's sister and they're best friends but like, obviously they love each other and can't seem to confess

groans and curse words came out of your brothers room, some cheers here and there and the sound of fifa filled almost the whole apartment. you currently stood in the kitchen, preparing a snack board for his guests, since your brother seems to forget that he still needs to be a good host.

you did this because you wanted to help your brother, at least this is what you always tell him. though, in reality you just used this as an excuse to see your longtime crush and good friend, jamal. you don’t know when, how nor why it happened, but when you woke up one day and saw his message, some meme he though was funny, you couldn’t help but blush, feeling this fuzzy feeling in your stomach, hands becoming sweaty as your thumbs did a small dance while hovering above your phones display, as you thought of a good answer. you’ve never felt like that before and you were scared.

out of all people, it had to be jamal fucking musiala, your friend, your brothers best friend, germanys golden boy, the guy with the most perfect smile and cutest laugh to ever exist. your brother would send you away to live somewhere else if he ever found out, you would never hear the end if it, you’d never see jamal again, you would-

shaking your head lightly, as if trying to shake away your ugly thoughts, you finish the snack board and go to your brothers room, knocking on the door before entering. your eyes flew over the three guys scattered around, jamal on the couch, looking cute and cozy, your brother on his gaming chair, looking like your brother and leroy on the floor, using a pillow as a cushion.

“what’s that?” phonzy asks, tearing his eyes from the tv for a second, head nodding to the board in your hands.

“snacks.” you explain, walking to the small table infront of the couch that jamal was seated at and leaving it on there, before taking a seat next to jamal.

smooth.

“lookin’ good.” jamals voices out, leaning forward to eat some of the snacks . his perfume met your nose and you immediately had to fight the urge to lean against his side to take in more from his scent.

“well, someone has to be a good host and it’s obviously not him.” you tell him, pointing at your brother, who just flips you off.

“let him be, phonzy has an entire youtube career ahead of him, ‘kay?” leroy butts in, laughing and dodging your brothers attempts of hitting him while also playing. as they continued on with their bickering, you tried to focus on jamal, of course as secretive as possible.

however, when jamal shuffled around a bit, repositioning himself to sit a bit closer to you and also smiling shyly, you tried your best to bite back the smile that dared to creep on your lips, your cheeks suddenly feeling like they would burn off.

“are you coming to our game tomorrow?” he strikes up a conversation, eyes looking at yours.

you tried your best to answer him, really, but his eyes were just so captivating, his voice was raspy but also oh so smooth and you wished dearly to be alone with him, just so you could pour your heart out to him, the way he deserved.

all this would stay a part of your late night scenarios, though, no denying that. you couldn’t do that to your brother, doubt taking over you whenever you started to believe that a relationship could indeed be possible. those annoying ‘what if’s’, thinking that jamal deserves better, someone who could actually keep up with his lifestyle, someone wouldn’t endanger one of his dearest friendships.

“yeah, sure.” was all you could spit out, lump forming in your throat as all these thoughts piled up.

“great, wear my jersey, das ist besser als phonzys.” jamal grins, his body now closer to yours than it was just a minute ago.

“eh, ja, klar, phonzy never gives me his jersey anyway.” you smile back at him, calming down after your internal break down.

you guys continue to hang out in phonzys room for a few more hours, you trying your best to talk with jamal without anyone noticing. and it seemed like jamal also tried his very best to keep the conversation flowing, him even paying you attention when it was his turn to play, never not laughing at whatever you said, looking at you with his eyes half closed.

after the two left you also went back to your room, pacing back and forth as you tried to look for a good outfit.

“yo.” your brother came in after knocking, arms crossed infront of his chest as he leaned against the door frame. he seemed tired, already in his sleep wear and teeth retainers in.

“what’s up?”

“be honest, do you have a thing for bambi?” he goes straight to the point, eyebrows slightly furrowed together.

hearing him say that made your mouth go dry, shock evidently written over your face as you put back the pants that you had pulled out, body fully turned to your brother. “why, why’d you think that?” you laugh, trying to play it off cool.

“‘m not stupid, y’know. you always try to talk to him and shit.” phonzy explains, pushing off of the door frame to come closer to you, “listen,” he begins again, voice soft but strict, “jamal’s my good friend, i like him a lot, but you’re my whole world, my best friend, for ever. if something were ever happen between you guys only for it not to work out in the end, i wouldn’t know how to feel. i don’t want to lose him as a friend, so please, don’t go ‘round and start anything with my teammate.”

the lump from earlier came back, sitting heavily inside your throat, “yeah, got it.” you nod, voice weak as you look at the floor, the excitement that you felt for tomorrows game long gone.

he kissed your forehead good night before leaving your room, closing the door to leave to alone with tears forming in your eyes. you didn’t understand why’d you react so emotionally to all this, usually being pretty calm and rational. maybe it was due to the fact that a tiny part of you hoped that everything would work out by the end, that you and jamal could be in a relationship with phonzy supporting you.

a sad laugh left your lips, laughing at your own delusional thinking.

you finished your night routine, climbing inside your bed, blanket pulled up to your ear as you tried to stop think about everything. suddenly, your phone lit up, illuminating the dark room. sighing, you reach out to your nightstand, turning the phones display to face you as your eyes read the message.

jamal. great.

the message was him telling you that he was excited to see you at the game tomorrow, promising to score a goal for you.

you smiled, it was a weird situation to be in, it was clear to the both if you that you liked each other, yet no one dared to confess first, your brother and shyness standing in your ways.

you lock your phone and put it back on the nightstand, sighing once more as you turn to the other side, closing your eyes to get in as much sleep as you could, fighting off the negativity in your mind.

tomorrow will be better.

——————————

decided to make two parts :)

[protectingtulpas]

🔥 BY TULPAS, FOR TULPAS 🔥

Hey everybody!! Welcome to the blog ✨✨ I'm Badeline, she/her pronouns, and this is dedicated to being a protected space for tulpas, tulpa hosts, and anyone trying to learn about us or is interested in creating one of us. We are people, and we deserve to exist!

Tulpas deserve to love life!! Help me make that a reality!

If you're new here, I'll keep it simple; a tulpa is a sentient being created by willful, repeated, and dedicated interaction with the concept of a person until they start to respond back and stop being controlled by you. They live with you and share your mind forever, generally as friends, and through trust and communication you can learn to do cool things like switch who's controlling the body, chat all day and get another perspective, and generally just have your life enhanced with a companion by your side looking to do stuff! Think of it like an imaginary friend, but you can't control them, cus we're our own people. If you want more info, check out my explanation with sources here! You can also look at "What is a tulpa?" from tulpa.info, or this carrd, it goes into more detail and links some sources. Tulpa.info and the tulpanomicon are some of the best sources out there, especially the latter for creation! I reclaim calling myself a demon but most tulpas DO NOT.

This is half a tulpamancy advice blog and half a support network for tulpas in the face of the hate and shit we get thrown at us. We are real and we deserve to EXIST!! Got formation questions? Skillset questions? Wonderland questions? Questions about intersectionality with other forms of multiplicity? Life questions relating to being a tulpa or tulpamancy? Send in an ask! It's important that YOUR voice is heard. We deserve respect, and we will NOT be silenced by those who'd be happier if we didn't exist! We're not some Supernatural TV thing that'll come kill people in their sleep, we ARE people, and I'm done being quiet.

If I haven't responded to your ask yet and I've clearly answered ones that came after, it's probably because I'm planning a detailed response for it!!

#tulpamancy advice - tag for advice I've given! Check it out if you've got any questions

#making wonderlands - tag for wonderland/headspace advice!

Wondering why I'm taking so long to post stuff?

Here's a shitfuckton of plural resources!!

The difference between tulpa hosts & system hosts!

🔥 Blog dedicated to @eeveecraft

🔥 @moonpool-system is our main system blog

🔥 Times I've been called a bitch counter: 2

🔥 PLURALPUNK + PSYCHEPUNK + UNITYPUNK 🔥

DNI/Stereotypical controversy:

Our only DNI is that if you don't respect the existence of myself and other plurals, get out. That means transmeds and sysmeds can fuck off too, go find someplace else to be a bigot ✨ If you're an endo neutral/anti endo singlet we have P-DID so like actually consider who your exclusion is hurting thanks. Support all of us or admit you're an unsafe place for us.

I'm adding this too - I'm not fucking talking about the trans/ID or rad/queer community here. IMO "transplural" is just a fancy label for wanting to be plural, but I'm not in a place other than that to decide which ID labels are shitty and which aren't. Rad/queers, however, can fuck off. Okay? Ok. Here's some elaboration on that.

I don't agree with every single opinion of every single blog I interact with or reblog from, that's ridiculous. Read my posts, read my replies, but don't assume things about me based on other people. This fight against anti-plural rhetoric is about all of us, but that doesn't mean I agree about everything with every one of my allies. Purity is a tool of bigotry and we have more important problems to face than bickering.

If you're actually worried about what you've heard is cultural ap/propriation, consider this instead: Did you know you're listening to a rumor that originated with sysmeds who tell you that a directly researchable, blatantly open religion is closed, deny and call into question spiritual leaders' words on what meditations can be shared, and can't produce any examples of tangible harm?? (We have asked and gotten answers, by the way.) Anyways, if you're neutral about this or actually trying to learn, do research. Don't let sysmeds with a savior complex dictate what's harmful. There're tons of different people out there with different opinions that aren't homogeneous and shouldn't be treated as such. It's fucking embarrassing we have to go to these people to ask if the etymology of a goddamn word is ok to use anyways, it's time to stop forcing this shit on other ppl. Okay? OK. Sysmeds and aggressive anti-tulpa shit will either be fucking deleted from my ask box or used as an example of why they're wrong.

[panelshowsource]

If you had to pick a top three favorite episodes of any panel shows EVER, which would you choose? One of mine would have to be Terry Wogan guest hosting old NMTB, which I am dying to watch again in my lifetime. Your old-NMTB-posting reminded me just how amazing and formative those old episodes were for me. Anyway, it got me thinking… I would love to hear yours!

as long as i'm allowed to answer this totally subjectively...! because the objectively most iconic panel show episodes are probably quite different to the ones i gravitate to especially for rewatching — and especially in this difficult recent climate 🫥

this choice is almost bizarre knowing me, a huge huge huge sean lock fan, but this episode of cats does countdown — without sean! and not even golden era, probably, whatever that is in my mind — is so ridiculous and chaotic and stupid that i've watched it about 1000 times. there's something very specific about the dynamic between jimmy, jon, roisin, and joe without sean; those four have been in quite a few episodes without sean and they're like actual children without an adult in the room: jon is goofier and completely lets go of the game, jimmy throws even more to roisin (we do not talk enough about what a fucking kick jimmy gets out of her), roisin and joe's insane sibling dynamic becomes next level. anyways—this episode, which includes rly funny mascots, glory hole, the fucking hoop game and joe eating an onion and jon eating peppers???, THE UNICORN, its sheer childishness just cracks me up every time :') (if we're gonna mention the golden age, 2.02 is very iconic — from rhod killin it and always arguing with jimmy to claude to nick x susie hahaha but i have sooooo many catsdown episodes i love love love)

i really love the episode of 8 out of 10 cats following jimmy's tax scandal. it's not one of my favourite panel shows in general, but the circumstances of the news and the discussion epitomised what the show was meant to be: panel show meets reality tv meets a comedy central roast. watching that live, as the news was running it so heavily that even the prime minister mentioned it, as the press and twitter were reacting to it... wild times. it holds up incredibly well — it's hilarious watching them rip him to shreds, because he deserves every word and they're having a ball doing it to him, and i really appreciate jon grounding the conversation in just how tax avoidance hurts their country and some of its hardest workers — a really interesting, engaging mix of comedy and anger and wit and disappointment and political commentary that is not only funny but strikingly relevant no matter how much time passes. like so, so many people who were so, so disappointed in jimmy, this was the foundation of his carrying the responsibility, shame, reflection, and growth that people wanted to see — and that he truly needed to. since then he's talked a lot about not only righting the wrong (in paying back what he owed in avoidance) but just how the system is so broken — and taking the least complicated, most honest road forward since.

now i want to pick 1000 different things this is why i don't make lists or rank things!!!!! while my instinct is to pick a big fat quiz, i'm actually gonna go top-level nostalgia and say this episode of buzzcocks when stephen fry was a guest. what can i say — simon, stephen, it was two intellectual, mildly bitchy homosexuals on a stacked panel including josie long, dominic cooper, and yet another skinny white rock man for simon to pretend he's not trying to flirt with. stephen saying "there is a history, in pop music, of recto-veginal insertion" and denouncing god, like, in the first 5 minutes? stephen doing the intros round?? did i mention history boys-era dominic cooper??? such a throwback!!! (not to cheat but this ep with josh groban & martin freeman is my runner up)

i want to apologise to big fat quiz, taskmaster, wilty... THE WHOLE HISTORY OF PANEL SHOWS... I WISH I COULD CHOOSE YOU ALL

[verdantcrimson]

Heaven and Earth / Discernment of Heaven and Earth - 3

(Unproofread)

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[At the same time, in Florence at Nobunaga-sensei’s invitation]

Nobunaga: ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’ was originally a show that the old geezer— Ieyasu-sensei put together.

Nobunaga: That geezer, who was a college student at the time, came up with the idea while out drinking with a friend of his who would go on to work at a TV station. They worked together to build the project from the ground up and bring it to fruition.

Nobunaga: Seems like he underwent a lot of hardship when he started off.

Nobunaga: That’s only natural. If you say “Everyone, let’s learn history! It’ll be fun!”, you’re not exactly going to hear “Wow! That sounds so interesting!” in return.

Nobunaga: Regardless, it just so happened that there was a super idol at the time who was a history enthusiast, and by having him host the show they managed to get quite a bit of attention.

Nobunaga: And well, you know how the story goes, that’s how ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’ became the long-running show that all history enthusiasts know about.

Nobunaga: What was once the idle talk of a couple of dreamers in a bar is now reality.

Souma: I apologize for interrupting you, however, erm, it is a bit difficult to concentrate on what is being said when one is having cosmetics applied to one’s face.

Souma: I am truly very sorry. However, I am not accustomed to women, and thus, feel uncomfortable when they touch me, even if it may be through makeup utensils.

Nobunaga: Ahah, that’s so idol-esque of you. You’ve got a pure image.

Nobunaga: Relax. I’m married, and I’m not so shameless as to lay a hand on a kid.

Souma: Um, truly? I did not come across such information while searching on the ‘intaanetto’ dictionary though…?

Nobunaga: Do you think everything in the world is written in a dictionary?

Nobunaga: It isn’t a properly registered marriage. That country is so fucking antiquated, there’s still a strong social opposition to ‘that sort of thing’.

Nobunaga: Hey, wanna see a pic? My partner is really cute, right? ♪

Souma: Ah… Is that the reason for which you were traveling overseas, Nobunaga-sensei?

Nobunaga: Nope, I do it because of my work and hobbies. Don’t you think it’s kind of old-fashioned to think that you have to put your own life aside in order to devote yourself to the person you marry?

Souma: Sorry, I myself am of the old-fashioned sort.

Nobunaga: That's a good thing though, isn’t it? Just because something is modern, doesn’t mean it’s all that great.

Nobunaga: Honestly, I personally just don’t care. I don’t give a fuck about what other people think of me.

Souma: I have yet to reach a stage of enlightenment where I am able to separate those two things.

Souma: Even someone like myself is concerned about the judgement of others… Which is why I find that having my makeup done in public is rather mortifying. 

Nobunaga: People don’t take much interest in other people. However—

Nobunaga: If I’m too mean to a young kid, I’ll be accused of power harassment, so I’ll let you off the hook for now. 

Nobunaga: Let me see. Mhm, mhm, looks good.

Souma: Forgive me for asking so many questions, but what was the purpose of doing this…?

Nobunaga: Obviously, appearances are important, right?

Nobunaga: I think the reason ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’ started to decline in popularity is because it comes across as a show that’s difficult to get into.

Nobunaga: That’s why, first things first, we’ll revolutionize the visuals.

Nobunaga: Even if we kept the contents of the show as is, having cute young men holding the discussion is more appealing than listening to a bunch of old zombies overgrown with moss mumble and grumble, don’t you think?

Nobunaga: I think that quality is one of the strengths of idols like you guys. Ah, I don’t mean to mock you or imply that you’re just mannequins or anything like that though.

Nobunaga: I’m being completely honest. Appearances matter.

Souma: I see…… So then, should I take this to be your proposal for reforming ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’, Nobunaga-sensei?

Nobunaga: Yeah. It's a technique that you people are quite familiar with. Cramming the screen full of beautiful and lovable sorts of things.

Nobunaga: Worst comes to worst, anything will work as grounds for discussion. It could be history, the latest games, comics, or substanceless chatter, whatever is fine.

Nobunaga: But the fact is. If you want someone to listen to what you’re saying, you have to make them look at you first.

Nobunaga: That’s what makeup is for. So I’m going to turn that crusty old geezer that everyone calls ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’ into a charming young man that’ll make everyone fall in love.

Nobunaga: I’ll change every single aspect of the show, including the title logo. It’ll be stylish.

Nobunaga: I’ll hire a bunch of talented and trendy makeup artists and designers to transform the show into something that young people will adore.

Nobunaga: It’ll be rock ’n’ roll, got it?

Souma: Hehe. It seems as though you would get along better with Oogami-dono than with me, Nobunaga-sensei.

Nobunaga: Mhm. I’m one of the ‘Three Sages’— As creepy as the title is, I was one of the last of the three to begin working on the show.

Nobunaga: It was like stepping into the cafeteria of an old age home, all worn out. The atmosphere of it all. Even though our society is aging, it’s an issue if the only people that can enjoy the show are old geezers and hags.

Nobunaga: Actually, no. I’ve always been jealous. In all the other shows, I saw that idols were farming, and cooking, doing all sorts of things.

Nobunaga: They brought to light things that people wouldn’t have been interested in otherwise.

Nobunaga: But there was no such light illuminating the subject of ‘History’, nothing for ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’.

Nobunaga: From the dimness of waning dusk, I looked on with envy, thinking to myself, “It’s just not fair”, “It must be nice for you, huh?”

Nobunaga: Back when the show started, that super idol made it shine. But by the time I got involved with the show, that light had already faded away.

Souma: Certainly, the original host of ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’ continued to work up until he was quite aged, and from thereon, each consequent generation of hosts that followed have all been older gentlemen.

Nobunaga: Senile old geezers, y’know. That’s why they’ve had to keep replacing the host, because they’d all eventually get close to the end of their lives, and that’s why the show’s been suspended. It’s because the last host ended up dying.

Souma: Indeed. And thus, the task has befallen us.

Nobunaga: I think that right now is our chance. We’ll use the power of cute young men to our advantage, and while we’re at it, revamp everything to be new and more attractive—

Souma: Hm…… I heard this not directly, as I am not the one in charge of that particular person, however, It seems as though Hideyoshi-sensei expressed a similar sentiment.

Nobunaga: Hah? What’d that monkey¹ say?

Souma: Although his ‘appurouchi’ differs, he too, is attempting to boldly change ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’.

Souma: I still await a detailed report from Hasumi-dono, who is currently in charge of him, however, there is contemplation of adding a sort of storytelling aspect to ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’.

Nobunaga: Huff…… Aaah, so that’s how it is.

Nobunaga: I already know what I want to do though. That guy’s just in my way.

Nobunaga: Storytelling focus and visual focus just don’t mix well.

Nobunaga: Everyone’s tastes change by the minute, and if you keep spinning tales with the same characters, people will just get bored eventually, and then—

Nobunaga: Well, that’s fine by him, isn't it? All he cares about is short-term profits. But anyways…

Souma: Profits are of great importance. ‘Rumbling Heaven and Earth’ has been running itself aground precisely because it is lacking in them.

Nobunaga: Whenever the concept of ‘profit’ becomes involved, things get messy fast. You work in the industry, so you’re probably well aware that things get tricky once the ‘sponsor’s demands’ come up.

Nobunaga: If you’re not careful, everything will just fall into pieces and disintegrate. 

Nobunaga: The person in charge of that playboy, Hasumi-kun, was it? Tell him to stay on guard. That monkey, he’s basically a con artist, so if you trust him, you’re gonna look like a huge idiot.

Souma: That will certainly not be an issue. Hasumi-dono has always been a personage of justice, who has been able to outwit and subdue even the slyest of old foxes².

Souma: As such, that Hasumi-dono will surely be able to steer adeptly without being deceived by Hideyoshi-sensei— I have faith in him.

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Translation Notes

Nobunaga-sensei refers to Hideyoshi-sensei as a 'monkey', similar to how the actual historical figure Toyotomi Hideyoshi was nicknamed 'Monkey' (猿), as jab at his unsightly appearance. Oda Nobunaga is known to have made fun of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's appearance, most notably calling him a 'bald rat' in a letter to his wife. The origins of this particular nickname are unknown, however.

Souma uses the 4 letter idiom 海千山千, which literally translates to "A thousand years in the ocean, A thousand years in the mountains". I chose the closest English equivalent, but it is used to refer to someone who is both crafty and experienced. This idiom finds it's origins in a legend that states that 'A snake who has lived 1000 years in the ocean and 1000 years in the mountains will turn into a dragon.' Seeing as dragons and snakes are notable reoccurring motifs for AKATSUKI, I thought it would be worth noting.

[katareyoudrilling]

Construction Corner (AU Joel Miller x Female Reader) Episode 3: The Moreno Family

Fandom: The Last of Us/Pedro Pascal

Pairing: TV Host Joel Miller x divorced Female Reader

Summary: Joel and Reader go on a date!

Word count: 2.2k

Rating: Explicit (18+ only. NO MINORS)

Content Warnings: Alternate Universe, cameos galore, inaccuracies about tv show production, filming, and construction, f masturbation, heavy petting (I guess?)

A/N: Extreme weather and a resulting internet outage kept me from posting this earlier today, but it gave me time to make sure that it’s just how I want.  I hope you enjoy!  Reader is divorced and in her late 30s but is otherwise a blank slate.  Big thank you to @wheresarizona​ and @just-here-for-the-moment​ for the help!

Comments and reblogs very much appreciated!

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Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Taglist – link in my bio and on my Masterlist

Just a little more…

You like that?

So good for me…

Let me hear you…

You wake up with a gasp, sweaty and tangled in your sheets, the heel of your right hand pressed against your center.  You are on the verge of coming from the hottest, filthiest sex dream you’ve ever had… starring one Joel Miller.  You debate what to do about the throbbing between your legs.  Take care of it or hope it goes away?  Your hips grind against your hand of their own accord, your body apparently deciding for you.

Relaxing your legs, you begin circling your clit.  It doesn’t take long until you’re throwing your head back as your pussy pulses around nothing.

“What the fuck?” you pant, lying limp on the bed after.  Joel’s confession seems to have flipped a switch inside you.  It has been an interesting couple of days, to say the least.  A part of you that has lain dormant for a long time has suddenly come back to life.

If your body lights up at just the memory of him kissing your hand, what will it do when he kisses your mouth? Or lower?  You whimper into your pillow as heat pools in your belly once again.

He asked you to take your time to make sure you were ready and you’ve been thinking of little else since that conversation.  On paper, it feels fast.  Your divorce is only a few months old.  But, in reality, your marriage was over long before.

You have lived enough life to know you can trust your gut.  You appreciate that he gave you time, but you know what you want.

You glance at your alarm clock.  You’re due on set in an hour, just enough time for a much needed cold shower before you head out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You can hear the voiceover in your head as you watch the B-roll the crew shot last week…

When single dad, Marcus, and his daughter, Missy, aren’t busy with work and school, they love watching movies and cooking dinner together.  Marcus seemingly does it all… but he could use some help on his DIY project.

On the screen, Marcus and Missy throw a frisbee and set the table.  Marcus looks over Missy’s shoulder while she does homework, and she snuggles next to him on the couch.

These two are perfect for Construction Corner.

Their project isn’t a big one – a pretty standard bathroom remodel gone awry – which means the shooting schedule is packed into just two days, with another Austin shoot scheduled for the rest of the week.

Hopefully Marcus is ready for the fan mail that’s about to come his way… there is going to be A LOT of it.  An attractive single dad is HGTV catnip.  God knows Joel gets an astronomical amount.  At first, the network sent it to him, but he quickly asked that they stop.  He just couldn’t handle that much attention.

You wonder what he would think of what you did this morning… waking up to thoughts of him and getting yourself off.  Embarrassment heats your skin, and you fan yourself with your notebook to cool down.  Then another thought occurs to you… what if he liked the idea?  That has you fanning yourself even more.

“Hey, lady!” Your dirty thoughts are interrupted by a friendly voice nearby.

“Marlene! Hi! I didn’t know you were visiting today.”  You wrap your friend up in a big hug.  One of the best parts about shoot days in Austin were that friends often came to set to visit.  Marlene works for the local PBS station that first aired Construction Corner.  Since the show moved to HGTV, you haven’t seen nearly as much of her.

“I thought we would stop by to say hello.” Just then, Marlene’s adopted daughter, Ellie, a precocious 8-year-old, spies Joel near the craft services table.

“Jooooooeeeellll!” She squeals as she runs over to him and leaps into his arms.

“Hello, darlin’,” he laughs as he gives her a hug. “You got a joke for me?”

“Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?” she asks seriously.

“I dunno, why did the monkey fall out of the tree?” he replies, just as seriously.

“Cuz it was dead,” Ellie replies dryly.

“Ellie!” Joel barks out a surprised laugh.  “What’s your mama lettin’ you watch?”  He looks over to Marlene, who smiles and shrugs.  “Want to go look at the tools?”  Ellie nods enthusiastically, and the two of them set off together, but not before Joel looks back at you and winks.

“What was that?” Marlene turns to you in confusion.

“Oh… well…”

“Spill.”

“It’s just that… we might… start seeing each other,” you mumble.

“Lady! That’s great!” She pulls you into another hug.

“You think so?  It’s all very new.”

“Of course, I think so! You deserve the very best, and Joel is one of the best men I know.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that.  It’s a little weird, with work and all… but I really want to,” you admit with a whine.

“It’s not like either of you actually works for the other.  Go for it!”

“I think I will,” you smile to yourself.  Joel and Ellie are making their way back to you.  Ellie is chattering excitedly about something while Joel nods along.

“Well, we’d better take off,” Marlene takes Ellie’s hand.  “It was great to see you both!”

After another round of hugs and whispered promises to tell her everything, Marlene and Ellie make their way back to their car, leaving you and Joel standing together for the first time since your hotel room last week.

“Hi,” he ventures, tentatively.

“Hi,” you reply, biting your lip. “I’ve been thinking about what you said last week.”

“Is that right?” the low rasp of his voice sends a swoop of pleasure to your belly.

“I think I’d like to go on that date you offered.”

Joel’s eyes crinkle as he breaks into a slow grin.  “How about tomorrow?  I’ll pick you up at 7.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“What we’re gonna do next is caulk around the new countertop,” Joel explains to Marcus and Missy as you listen over the monitor.  “I’m gonna show you a trick to make sure it’s nice and neat, not like what was in here before.”  Marcus looks sheepish.  “It’s ok, it’s trickier than it looks.  The pros do this all day and make it look easy.  But we’re gonna use tape.”  Joel holds up a roll of blue painter's tape and then starts lining it up carefully on either side of where the caulk line will be.

He hands two rolls of tape to Marcus and Missy and lets them do the rest.  Once they’ve finished, he continues, “You’ll lay your line of caulk, smooth it with your finger, then remove the tape and have a straight and even line. Ready?” Joel hands the caulk gun to Marcus.

Marcus takes it from him solemnly and does as Joel explained.  Joel nods his approval as Marcus pulls off the tape, leaving a perfectly caulked vanity.

“See how nice that looks?  Don’t be a hero.  Use the tape,” Joel says, patting Marcus on the back.

“Hear that, Dad?” Missy interjects.

“I heard him,” Marcus laughs and hip-checks his daughter.  Joel smiles at them proudly, another job complete.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You open your door to a very handsome man.

Joel has cleaned up since the shoot this afternoon.  He replaced his worn work jeans with dark, crisp ones that hug his hips.  Instead of a t-shirt, he wears a button-down with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up.  His hair is stylishly mussed.  Knowing him, it probably just does that on its own.

His warm brown eyes skate up your body, “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” you reply, shy under his gaze.  You opted for a sundress since the fall evening was still rather warm, the fabric brushing softly over your skin.

Joel reaches for your hand and leads you to his truck, opening the door for you to climb in.  He circles the front and gets in his door as you settle yourself in the seat.

“I made us a reservation at Fonda San Miguel, if that’s alright?”

“Joel, that’s my favorite restaurant!  It sounds wonderful.” You reach over and squeeze his arm.  He smiles happily as he puts the truck into gear.

“Thought I remembered somethin’ like that,” he says casually as he turns out of your parking lot, and your heart squeezes.

Dinner passes in a blur of delicious food and lively conversation.  Fonda San Miguel’s eclectic backdrop is perfect for a relaxed yet special first date.

You and Joel know each other well, so there isn’t the awkwardness of most first dates, but there’s still a lot you don’t know about each other’s histories.

Over bacon wrapped shrimp with jalapeño and cheese, you fill him in on your marriage and divorce, how you’ve realized that you’ve been lonely for a long time.

While digging into Cochinita Pibil, he tells you how he had never dreamed that he would be able to provide a college education for Sarah, how his dreams are so much bigger now, how he wants to do good in the world.

Between bites of a shared Tres Leches Cake, you agree that this feels right and exciting.  Your eyes lock over the table.

On the drive back to your apartment, words begin to fail as anticipation builds between you.

Joel gets out of the truck first and opens your door.  He holds your hand as you lower yourself out of the cab.

You’ve barely touched tonight – only chaste hands over the table – but now your body is just inches away from his, and you sway towards him.  He moves his hand to your waist.

“Can I kiss you?” he rasps with an edge of desperation.

You nod eagerly, and he closes the short distance between you.  His plush lips brush gently against yours – exploring, tasting.  He cradles your jaw in his strong hands as he delves into your mouth, urging you to open for him.  You grasp his hips to hold yourself steady.

The heat of his body warms you through your thin sundress and you can’t get enough.  Your hands roam over his muscled back and down his firm biceps.  His mouth on yours is warm… soft… insistent.  After an eternity, and far too soon, he breaks the kiss.

“Would you like to come inside for a drink?” you blurt out and he nods at you with heavy-lidded eyes.

You lead him into your apartment and into the tiny kitchen.  The door has barely closed behind him when he spins you up against the counter and dives back into your mouth.  His hands roam more freely this time, digging into your hip bones and sliding up your ribs, nudging at the swell of your breasts.

You press into his front and are rewarded with the hard line of his erection against your stomach.  You moan and grind into him even more.

“You’re gonna kill me with the sounds you make, sweetheart,” Joel growls, nipping at your neck, hands moving lower over your ass.  With a hand under each thigh, he hoists you up onto the counter.  Your knees frame his slim hips.  You pull him towards you with your heels, craving friction against your center.

His hands dip under the hem of your skirt.  They skate up your bare thighs until his thumbs brush the edge of your underwear – calloused fingertips on silky skin.

“Please, Joel,” you beg between wet, desperate kisses.  He complies and slips his thumb under, cursing raggedly when he finds your slippery folds.

You rock your hips into his hand as he kisses down your neck and across your collarbone all the while circling your clit.  You come undone with a gasp of his name and slump against his chest.

Joel holds you firmly against him as he drags his mouth across your temple, your forehead, and finally back to your lips for slow, languid kisses as your breathing evens out.

“I should go,” he rumbles against your mouth.

“But… no... what about you?” you look up at him in hazy confusion.

“I’ll be ok,” he assures you before dragging his thumb down your cheek and pulling at your lower lip.  “It’s getting late… and I want to take my time with you.”  A shiver runs up your spine at the promise in his words.

“Don’t go, please,” you whisper, looking up at him.

“Sweetheart, I know, I’m sorry,” he pulls you into his chest, wrapping his strong arms around you, “but we have to be on set so early tomorrow.  We don’t have time tonight for what I have planned for you.”  He pulls back and lifts your chin to look you in the eye.  “I promise, I’ll make it worth the wait.”

You whimper and his eyes flash with want.  But he’s a patient man – a man who does things the right way – so, he helps you down from the counter and kisses you deeply at the door one last time before heading out into the night.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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A/N: for anyone not familiar, this episode’s cameo is from the movie “We Can Be Heroes”

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[platonicjesus]

omg i really love how you have written about Umbrella Man and Aiden, I was wondering if you were planning on writing for more of them, I would love to see Frei, there is so few of his content

Nice to see you, darling companion. So you've been hosting an Oracle, you say ? And who is it ? The TV World's Oracle, I see. I've spoken to them a few centuries ago ! My age-? Doesn't matter, dear. Ah… tell me, what's their name now ? Frei.. I see. You like him.. Well, I can't help you. Kidding, of course. I think my memory from him is still intact…

-Oh, you know, you're quite lucky. Frei doesn't get mad that easily, so pester him all you want with your sob stories. If he says anything rude, remember that he's trying his best to make you feel better. He may try to give reality checks, but he's way too straightforward, which will end up coming as insensitive and runcaring.

-Talking about that, I remember that Frei was quite a teaser. Please, ignore his mean comments. He's quite bad with the concept of empathy !

-He may force himself onto you. Forgive him, as he's really bad with human norms. He doesn't quite have the notion of personal space, and may do stuff for you even if you insisted on not needing any help.

-But that's not neccesarily a bad thing ! He'll tidy your mind to make sure it's less of a mess. Use it as your adventage ! Maybe he'll make you remember an embarassing moment from your childhood, though. He IS a teaser.

-Don't trust him near a stove. Don't ask why, just don't let him approach any cooking equipment. Never.

-He's very philosophical. You doubtlessly will have deep talks with him about death, ego, reality, etc. and he will likely tell you some philosophic sentences. Here's a bad exemple; “I think, therefore I am". 

-If he makes you mad and realises he fucked up, it might take him a day before apologising and making it up to you. However, it will be a meaningful apology, since he wants you to feel better.

-However if he makes you mad but you were in the wrong for some reasons, he will give you reality checks. How dare you take it bad when he told you empathy was meaningless ! Now he shall remind you that you only feel obligated to be sad about that stranger over there.

-Hopefully for you, Frei is quite cuddly too. But don't be surprised if he hugs you from behind and nuzzles you. I did mention that he pushes himself into people, after all. At least you have someone to sleep next to.

-His love languages are physical touch and act of service. Okay, he's bad at act of service.. but it's the thought that counts ! Even if the thought is ignoring your emotions and sadness to tell you it doesn't matter because “you didn't know them”. Get ready for hand holdings, and get ready to have your hair played with if you're not bald.

-As for his kisses… he's millions of year old, he's an Oracle ! Of course he has experience. He told me he was rather good, not that I can confirm. He had also told me he could be soft or rough, depending on what he feels like doing.. I wish I didn't know that.

There are so many things to say about the Oracle, but I think you should discover all these other things by yourself. Tell Frei that I said hi, alright ? I'll be supporting you through your confession to Frei ! I'm sure he likes you too. Always believe in yourself, alright ? Or don't.

[hoodoo12]

Foul Play

If you haven’t heard of it:

“ Foul Play is a digital, immersive, improvised comedy murder mystery game from the minds of folks from Broadway, tabletop gaming (Dimension 20, Dungeons and Dragons), and comedy (Upright Citizens’ Brigade, The Phoenix). Think of it as “Clue,” but improv comedy, but “Sleep No More,” but digital. “

The one I bought a ticket for was "The True Real Life of Real Life People", a murder mystery set in a reality TV show. Alex Brightman was the "host" and many other actors including Rob McClure played characters who came back to the show for a "special reunion". Like a murder mystery party, no one had much time to prepare who they were playing and had to open cards to find out more information about themselves and the plot. Then they--and the audience--had to work to find out who killed the victim.

What I discovered it that with twelve different cameras + so many characters it is hard to solve the mystery of ‘who done it’, but it was silly fun to watch with lots of laugh out loud improv.

There’s a discord server where people can talk (mostly just repeating funny lines so no one missed them, lol) and solve the mystery. I personally gave random updates to another Beetlejuice fan who wasn’t watching it, so I’m sure it seemed super weird without context. That was part of the fun, so you get them too:

It is weird af and I don't really know what is happening, so I am just watching Alex and Rob

It is improv and as we know, Alex is really good at it 

His character is Jimmy F. Pop. Someone said, "Jimmy, fuck--" and he replied, "No one has used my middle name in so long! James Fuck Pop."

Now there is a zombie apocalypse, lol

ROB IS MAKING WEAPONS

He is going from room to room for weapons!

Now he had a sieve as a helmet and a garage can lid as body armor

Now Alex is laying in a bunkbed like he is in a coffin

Alex just said, "I am Jimmy Fuck Pop corn and I don't care"

His character has extreme daddy issues

HE IS SO SWEATY

He mistakenly called someone else Jimmy. That person called him out and he said he was recently diagnosed with narcissism

"We as men are a nightmare."

"She is a motherfucking zombie."

Now he is painting his nails for why?

NOW WHITE NAIL POLISH ON HIS FACE FOR WHY

Redneck uneducated Rob is trying to save everyone even though he "just heard his mom eat his dad over the phone."

NOW HE JUST DROPPED HIS CHARACTER AND SAID HIS REAL NAME IS ALEX BRIGHTMAN A CHARACTER HE'S BEEN DOING FOR YEARS AND IS NOW SAD HE CAN'T DO A MENAGE A TROIS

"Time for a makeup tutorial at the end of the world. Chose black. The color of anger. The color of lust. The color of ants. This will be our little secret: I killed JFK."

He just asked for a show of hands would like to eat Rob's ass

A DOUBLE CROSS?!!?!

IT'S ALL TWISTY

(I did not guess the killer correctly but that's okay. It was a fun way to watch improv weirdness on a Friday night)

[straightplayshowdown]

Wittenberg: It's October 1517 in Germany. The beginning of another fall semester at the University of Wittenberg finds members of the faculty and student body at personal and professional crossroads. Hamlet is returning from a summer in Poland spent studying astronomy, where he has come in contact with a revolutionary scientific theory that threatens the very order of the universe, resulting in psychic trauma and a crisis of faith for him. His teacher and mentor John Faustus (professor, philosophy) has decided at long last to make an honest woman of his paramour, Helen, a former nun. Hamlet’s instructor and priest, Martin Luther (professor, theology), is dealing with the spiritual and medical consequences of his long-simmering outrage at certain abusive practices of the Church—the same Church to which he has sworn undying obedience.

The Blender: Stanley is the host of the reality tv show, The Blender. Stanley and his assistants, the Snatchers, bring in specimens—people at points of high drama. Stanley's purpose: blend ‘em! What would happen, if you took a pregnant woman going through premature labor and stuck her with someone about to commit suicide? For Stanley, and presumably for all of America, the only issue is entertainment. Human suffering and conflict? The more the better, as long as it doesn't get boring. Trouble ensues when one of Stanley's snatchers falls in love with his specimen and doesn't want her to be subjected to The Blender. By the end, the only laughter and cheering will come from the taped audience.

Propaganda under the cut!

Wittenberg:

"Set in late 1517, this smart, sprightly and audacious comedy centres on a fictitious meeting between university colleagues Dr. Faustus (a man of appetites), Martin Luther (a man of faith), and their student Hamlet (a young Prince struggling not only with his beliefs but also with his tennis game)." - why did nobody think to try that before?

The Blender:

THE MOST FUCKED UP SHOW I'VE EVER SEEN. its a commentary on reality tv & the horrors of capitalism. people cheer as the "specimens" are forced to fight. its so sad. i saw it at the state level of a high school theatre competition. it was the last event of the day, so the auditorium was packed full of people who wanted something to do until awards. we laughed and cheered for a while. until we didn't. and the only cheering was from the tracks. i don’t think i will ever forget that experience

[theculturedmarxist]

Whatever the Democrats say they're pissed at Trump about, him being a fascist, "grab her by the pussy," secret documents, whatever, what really drove them fucking insane was that he went out and talked to all the millions of middle-Americans in "flyover country" the Democrats abandoned then spent decades disparaging as backwards, inbred, racist dullards—told them that their grievances were legitimate, that he'd do something about it, and then used that to beat the Democrats. The very same people that had elevated him in the first place because they thought he'd be such a clown that no one would ever even think about voting for him, and then tens of millions of them did if only to spite them in general and Hillary in particular.

That's the real reason why Trump makes the Democrats so fucking insane: class hatred. For all their bona fides and Ivy League diplomas, all their unpaid internships, all their credentials, extra curricular activities, and lifetimes spent sucking up to their social betters to prove just how superior and able and deserving of power they are, at the end of the day they were beat by a vulgar reality TV show host and the millions of regular people that they absolutely despise.