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Hello and welcome back to The Bunker's new smash hit monthly special,

the compendium of columns, omnibus of opinions and party pack of platitudes that we call hot take time machine. In the spirit of the dearly departed paper cuts, we thought we'd round up

the worst, weirdest and occasionally best work by the columnists of the month.

I'm Jacob Jarvis, and here with me, I've got Miranda Sawyer. Talk Night is to me presenter, podcast host. Hi, Miranda. Hello. And I've also got John Ellage, who is the author of a history of the world in 47 Borders. Is that right? I mean, actually, it's not the correct number. In the paperback, there are 48 and also its chapters, not borders.

Okay.

But, you know, no one fucking cares.

Yeah, yeah, well, you know, I've got border guy, John Ellage here, who's also a new statesman columnist and can make a story of just anything. He's already introduced himself, but John, hello. Hello, really delighted to be here making a funny podcast about the news, the most hilarious possible

topic this week.

Well, yeah, the dominant news story of recent weeks has been, of course, the war in Iran.

And given how serious this situation is, you'd imagine all the papers handled it very

sensibly and reasonably.

You'd have imagined wrongly if you did imagine that.

There's been widespread horror across the Middle East in recent months,

and the tabloids focus instead has in large part been on

why won't somebody think of the influencers and expats?

Miranda, there's a story here about someone who was stranded in Dubai because of all of this,

...