Smurfs, Kashmir and other August classics

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to Bugle issue 4237.

Schools Out for Summer, brackets Northern Hemisphere only, and Bugle is also out for summer, sub-episode C.

This is the third of our summer hiatus.

Those podcast feeds aren't going to feed themselves bonus extra sub-episodes.

Not long now until we return at the end of the month for our world-exclusive coverage of the latest death rattle of hope in the choking moor of the United Kingdom.

Sorry, for the coverage of the exciting appointment of a marginally less dreadful Prime Minister for this democracy-loving country, selected by the least representative electorate that money can possibly buy.

Ahead of next week's Best of the Bin, and do tweet us your request for that.

Here is a Bugle Best of August.

August is traditionally the month where we take a few weeks off because it's holiday time or it's a bit hot or both exhibit one now.

But we've still churned out enough purest comedic gold to present these highlights of the world's eighthiest month.

After you've listened, do go online and buy tickets to the Bugle Live 15th anniversary shows, coming to a city near you soon if you live near Birmingham, Glasgow, Dublin, or London.

And if you consider October stroke, early November to be soon.

There are also Saturdays for High shows I'm doing in November.

Come to them too in Leeds, Bath, Brighton, Tunbridge World, Cardiff, and Worcester, 13th to the 18th of November.

And do submit your request to satirise this at satiristvaha.com details at my website andyesaltsman.co.uk.

Right, here is your sub-episode for this week.

Top story this week, Cold War II.

This time it's chilly.

The US and Russia are fighting again, Andy, and it's great to see such a classic international rivalry at each other's throats once more.

It's what scuffle fans around the world have been waiting for.

This is the Yankees-Red Sox marquee match of passive aggression.

It's the Ross and Rachel relationship of will they, won't they, destroy each other and the entire planet with their electrifying chemistry.

This this latest psychological snafu has of course been brewing up since Edward Snowden, the official Sir Leexalot, moved into the Moscow airport terminal, checking in with a large amount of diplomatic baggage.

Russia has apparently given him temporary papers, meaning that he can leave the airport, where I'm sure he'll be free to go wherever he likes, Andy, and that Putin in no way will be watching every time he so much as thinks about blinking.

Well, as you say, much to everyone's relief, the Cold War is back on after Barack Obama threw his diplomatic toys out of the presidential pram about Snowden.

And And they are once again at each other's throats like two top surgeons in a one-on-one emergency tracheotomy competition.

And this has been a kind of result of some kind of growing tension.

At the recent G8 summit, Obama and Putin seem to get on like a house after a fire,

smoldering without nearly as much warmth as they used to be, and nothing solid to build on, with everyone having to tread extremely carefully around them.

Well, that kept working that analogy, Andy.

I like that analogy at the start of it because it was stupid.

Then it seemed to work.

It was stupid, then it seemed to work.

That's basically been the story of our careers, hasn't it?

Really?

That's the story of your career, anyway.

I'm still on phase eight.

All this has led to the US government cancelling its forthcoming meeting between President Obama and Putin in St.

Petersburg.

And there's only one problem with that, and that is the fact that the president is going to be in St.

Petersburg at that time anyway for the G20 summit.

That is going to be awkward.

Obama may have found the only way to make their next meeting even more tense than the last one.

How is he possibly going to negotiate that emotional minefield?

Oh, I'm sorry that you could not make our scheduled meeting tomorrow, Mr.

Obama.

Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

It's just I'm busy doing

something else in St.

Petersburg.

Oh, yeah, it's always been a dream of mine to visit the Peterhof Fountains.

You know me.

Always been a fan of high velocity projected water.

Love it.

Can't miss it.

The last time an American president

quit a summit with the Russians, of course, is when Ronald Reagan got pissed off with Michael Gorbachev.

for allowing Sergei Bubka into some arms talks in 1986.

And Reagan stormed out with the words, I cannot concentrate with a guy pole vaulting over my head.

I don't care how f ⁇ ing good he is.

But

the White House said about the postponement of the summit, we believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda.

To which the translation into plain English is, go f yourselves, commies.

And when it's become more constructive to do nothing and publicly publicly create a diplomatic incident, you know that there is about as much construction going on as there is on a Greek government building site.

Take that, the Greeks.

Take that.

Pluses and minuses to this.

On the plus side, it frees up Barack Obama's September.

And, you know, it's a great time of year to clean up a shed.

And last year, of course, he was busy with the election.

So

that's probably good news.

On the minor side, it shoves the world closer to a full resumption of Cold War frostiles.

On the plus side, gives both countries more time to see other nations.

Maybe America can patch things up with Venezuela and Russia can hammer out some kind of more progressive deal with Syria.

On the minor side, the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation is back.

On the plus side, the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation definitely helped the movie industry.

And on the minus side, most importantly, a real dampener on this week's World Athletics Championships.

Oh, it's just such a shame, John, that so many of those athletes are going to be preoccupied by international political tension.

Just think it could probably knock a tenth of a second off some of their times.

But while Putin, John, he seems to be loving it.

He loves these kind of retro style Cold War spats.

He's always given the impression, John, of a leader who slightly regrets that he wasn't born 70 odd years earlier and with a massive unshavable moustache already on his face.

He's always slightly hinted that he kind of wished he had slightly more control of who goes where, on what railways, how cold the destination should be and how long they have to wait to get a return ticket.

And I imagine John looking at him and always kind of Cold War fetishism.

When he was having breakfast as a child, he'd put half a tomato on his plate and waggle his finger above it and say to his mother i'm not afraid to press this boom

top story this week britain tightens its belt and immediately considers buying bigger trousers andy britain has finally had to accept that it has to do something about the size of his budget deficit.

Why?

Because Britain's budget deficit is fat, Andy.

It's not just that the current economy makes it look fat, it is fat.

Fat with a pH and with three capital Fs.

It's f ⁇ ing fat.

How fat exactly?

Try £149 billion fat.

That is undeniably overweight.

In fact, it's morbidly economically obese, so much so that Britain is about to go on a fiscal diet.

Reducing a deficit is very much like losing weight.

You don't want to do it too quickly or you'll just pile it all straight back on, but you have to be committed to it and not go secretly binging on defence spending in the middle of the night when you think no one's looking.

And you can't cheat either and go stand next to Greece's deficit just to make yours feel thinner.

Yeah, we are tightening our belts, John, and we are tightening them around the neck of public spending whilst kicking the chair of social justice from underneath its twitching feet.

So, yeah, we all need a little bit of austerity now and then.

I've not had a lot in my life, to be honest.

The closest I've come to austerity was when I was only allowed one armband on a sponsored swim as a kid.

One width turned into a 28 hour marathon as I swam round and round in circles.

But to be fair, over the years John, successive governments,

we've not really faced up to the truth of our public spending.

Successive governments have spoon-fed us so much sugar to make the economy go down that Britain has now developed weapons-grade diabetes.

But I've been doing my bit here in Edinburgh, John.

I've actually cut 25%, well the government's going to cut 25% off

public spending.

I've cut 25% of the best jokes of my show out.

So it's very, very good.

Yeah, well, the show's nowhere near as funny as it should be, but that is for valid satirical reasons.

But it is going to be a painful diet, this, and just like any diet, it's not going to be any fun for Britain at all.

People need to be convinced also that this is actually going to work and that the country is one day going to be standing triumphantly on a billboard somewhere, proudly holding out our fat pants from our waist, showing just how much budget deficit we've lost, and doing long testimonials at the World Economic Forum about how we feel centuries younger now and that any country can do it if you just believe in yourselves.

But how are people reacting to the first round of cuts there, Andy?

Well, with, I think, justified terror generally, John.

But

I think the government's plan is to cut absolutely everything.

Right.

On the grounds that we don't really need anything these days from the government.

I mean,

we don't need schools.

You know, in the age of Wikipedia.

Just take schools are obsolete.

Take Britain off the grid.

We don't need the health service, John.

There are too many people in the world as it is.

And, you know, I think in many ways,

we don't need pensions.

We need to be disincentivising longevity, not financially rewarding it.

Government also closing down or stopping a lot of playground building schemes.

And this is part of a scaling back of all playtime for children.

And there will be jail terms for kids caught playing hopscotch with marbles.

Listen, they've got to contribute too, Andy.

It's their future, not ours.

That's right.

That's the thing, everyone knew this was coming, these cutbacks, but it definitely doesn't make them any easier to stomach.

Just last month, the British government abolished the UK Film Council, the Health Protection Agency, and dozens of other groups that regulate, advise, and distribute money in the arts, healthcare industry, and other areas.

The aim is that by shrinking down to its bare bones, the government can cut expenditures by $130 billion

over the next five years.

It is said to be the longest, deepest, sustained period of cuts to public services spending since World War II.

And at least then Andy, we knew we were funding the mother of all fireworks displays.

We were getting some pretty loud bangs for our devalued bucks back then.

People in England are already seriously feeling the pinch, but the truth is that this is just fiscal foreplay, getting everyone ready for the real budget banging that's going to be taking place in October.

Because when the government issues its next long-term budget, analysts have estimated that that around 600,000 public sector jobs could be lost nationwide.

That is terrible.

We may be looking at a future of huge public sector strikes.

Even the chief executive of the UK Supreme Court said she did not know whether it would be able to function at all if its budget were cut by the proposed 40%.

So we may have no Supreme Court, which might work out well because as you mentioned, it'll mean there's no court to deal with the numerous lawsuits that are going to come from the fact that thousands of planned playground upgrades in England are being immediately frozen.

It means that little Timmy is going to get halfway down the slide before plummeting headfirst into the ground.

Well, I mean, you know, it's quite a major thing, the cutbacks that are affecting the

already beleaguered criminal justice system.

And I guess it's all part of an efficiency drive because, you know, law courts are pretty inefficient.

And surely it's time now for us to embrace either mob justice, which is pretty efficient but often wrong, or trial by media, media, which is even more efficient and

usually wrong.

So I think you can pretty much get the results by the time the newspapers come out the following day.

And why would three tabloid newspaper editors know any less about justice than 12 randomly selected members of the public?

Exactly.

These are all perfectly legitimate cutbacks.

Also, I believe the government are long-term looking to phase out women.

and old people and children.

And I guess that's what you can expect from a largely male cabinet.

That's just the way it goes.

A lot of people pretty queasy about George the Human Chainsaw Osborne's gross out slasher budget that is either going to save Britain from becoming Albania or make it become Albania, depending on your view of these things.

They did actually warn us of this, John.

They said,

I think we talked about this on the Bugle before, they had an advert just before the election.

warning, or well not warning, basically lying and trying to terrify people about what would happen if there was a hung parliament after the election.

And one of of the things they said was that a hung parliament would bring the British economy to its knees and looking at this cuts programme at last we have some politicians who are trying to make good on their pre-election promises.

Let's cut them some slack John.

That's all I say.

It does seem that the government are now only one step away from insisting that 75% of the British population go into hibernation and don't come out again until the spring of 2015.

Also the problem is of course Britain still has to host an Olympics in two years and perhaps it's time that someone suggests a full austerity Olympics.

The athlete's village will be replaced by an athlete's campsite and all the swimming events can take place in the river.

And finally instead of gold, silver and bronze the medals will be copper, tin and cardboard.

Still Andy, this is Britain.

Let's remember that.

There is nothing that the Brits cannot handle stoically.

We invented the stiff upper lip.

We survived the blitz with the rallying cry of keep calm and carry on.

In other words, just ignore the Gestapo.

They're merely showing off.

There is nothing that could break our resolve and make us lose our collective cool apart from Prime Minister David Cameron cracking down on low-cost alcohol in supermarkets.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what he's doing.

And I fear that he could end up in Trafalgar Square next week with his head on a spike.

I'm not...

I'm not even saying that he's wrong.

Something clearly has to be done about Britain's attitude towards alcohol.

And David Cameron wants to stop people, as he puts it, pre-loading and getting off their heads on cheap shop-bought alcohol, going on to say that action is needed to stop Britain's town and city centres resembling the Wild West.

The difference being, of course, that the Wild West is looked back upon with a romantic tinge, whereas Britain's town centres on weekends cannot conjure up any image other than just people vomiting into bins.

And of course, all that behaviour that Cameron has just described, if you put it in black diet at a bow tie, it basically becomes the Bullingdon Club, which, of course, is what he was in at Oxford.

Please give it up for Nish Kumar.

Right, what the f is that?

But I mean, what

we just got out of the BBC archives.

I'll be honest with you, it's not as inaccurate as I would hope.

What I will say is that that body, so for buglers listening at home, Chris has photoshopped a picture of my face on the naked body of a gentleman who shares a skin tone with me and whose hands are tastefully covering his penis and testicles.

However, what I will say is that man is hairless and if I was sat in that exact pose for a photo, it would look like I was wearing a sweater all over my body.

That's noted for next time.

Chris made that on the train and he said, you know, it's weird.

You get a lot of strange things when you Google Naked Indian Man.

And

all I will say to that Chris is I really feel like you should have seen that coming also are you now banned from the train from London to Edinburgh

so give us a cheer if you want to hear Brexit first

and give us a cheer if you'd rather hear the Kashmir crisis first

let's hear about something fun like cashmere

Aditi,

it's an awkward subject for a

British person to

just

because

yesterday was the the anniversary of

India gaining independence.

Yeah, 73 years of India's independence from you guys.

And you're welcome.

So grateful.

All children have to fly the nest at some point.

I would like to say that from my perspective, this is like when England plays India at cricket.

Win-win.

Chir, chill, cher, chill, nah, ru, nah, ru.

Those are your safe words.

Sorry.

And I told you to keep that secret.

Sorry.

So when the British left India, they treated India kind of like a Sunday roast.

They would just like cut it in any way possible

and then watch the juices leak out.

And

now

the gravy has come home, right?

Now the gravy has come home.

And

when Kashmir joined India, it was given special state, special status, which was

Article 370 in the Constitution,

which made it have its own constitution and its own flag and everything.

And then last week, we sneaky bastards,

we are now living in what is a fascisto-democratico-democratic yeah we know

dictatorship uh so he is sort of uh uh prime minister narendra modi who is kind of known as um uh the strong man of india um

he is has been sort of building himself in the most putin-esque image not the sauce but uh

putin and uh

and so uh he used article 370 to

abrogate Article 370,

which was kind of like just paying your mom money to put you in jail.

And so that's what happened.

And

there's been a complete communications blackout for the past 10 days.

But they're still trending Modi with Kashmir for some reason.

I don't know how.

If nobody in Kashmir is on the internet, I don't know what they're tweeting in support of.

And

I mean, I think they did the communications blackout to sort of prevent any kind of unrest.

But I think they discounted taking away Twitter from the average millennial.

And so there have been protests across the state and over a thousand people have sort of been taken police action against in the past 10 days.

So in summary, exactly how close are we to a massive catastrophic global conflagration?

So, you know, isn't it wonderful that it is also one of the most sort of fragile geopolitical boundaries in the world right now?

But India has a no first use policy when it comes to nuclear power, which is also how most Indian men function in the best.

And

family show.

For the purposes of that joke, cha-chill, cha-chill.

And so, yeah, so unless, but Imran Khan has come out, the Prime Minister of Pakistan has come out and said he will give an appropriate response,

which I don't want to imagine what is

but this is happening this is happening we're telling we're 10 days into it and

well based based on what Imran Khan has done in the past his appropriate response will be unplayable in-swinging Yorkers

who ping in from way outside off stump so

it's so frustrating to me that he is heading up Pakistan's government at the moment because this is exactly the sort of situation where I'd be like Andy can you not bring cricket into this but it's literally impossible

Modi is I mean

for the diaspora speaking as a representative of the Asian diaspora Modi is a complicated and divisive figure and I'm yeah he's been accused of like genocide.

Yeah yes.

I am actually my mother has banned me from my family WhatsApp group because

she says that the fighting that happens on there over Modi is so unbelievably vicious that she will not let me on there.

And what I will say is in terms of my family, I am slightly surprised that half of them, particularly some of the younger members, have swung so hard in favor of Modi.

Because in terms of like our Hinduism, we are a very specific type of Hindu and that type is shit.

Like

we're shit Hindus.

We're Shindus, right?

How shit are we at Hinduism?

I'll tell you how shit we are.

We all eat beef.

Hang on, Nish.

Hang on.

This could get very competitive.

Listen, Andy, it has not escaped my attention that my family is to Hinduism what you are to Judaism.

And

what former bit of your body have you had sewn back on?

Andy, I never thought I would say this.

Where did you have your foreskins sewn back onto?

Which incidentally is also a game show format I'm trying to sell at the television festival next year.

Top story this week and safety update.

So how do you feel?

Do you feel safe?

Do you feel safe where you are?

I suppose that really does depend on where you're listening to this.

If you're listening to this, say, halfway up a staircase trying to move a piano, then you're clearly not particularly safe.

You're in danger of something at worst life-threatening and at best hilarious happening.

But aside from slapstick, I'm really talking about the kind of safety that only governments can provide us with.

And you should feel safer because this is the week that the mastermind behind 9-11 was finally brought to justice.

Well, yeah, I mean, maybe not the mastermind, but certainly the man who drove them around a bit.

This really isn't so much of a terrorist as a man guilty of a traffic violation.

And the point is, you should feel a lot safer.

Salim Hamdan, who was Bin Laden's driver from 1997 to 2001 and did it for $200 a month, about £99,

said he worked for wages, not to wage war on the US.

I suppose the war on the US was just a tip, Andy.

Pretty generous one as well, kind of a Christmas bonus.

I guess that works out at more than 15% as well.

That's a pretty good tip.

Yeah, not bad at all.

He's a generous man, Bin London.

That is as far as we've got.

in the war on terror.

Seven years after the attacks on New York, Andy, the driver, and not even the get-away driver, the get-around driver.

Well, I guess we can all sleep much easier in our beds at at night, John, knowing that the world's number one ranked baddie will have to get another person to chauffeur him around.

It makes me feel much more secure.

And to be fair, John, he was slightly more guilty than people have made out.

He was convicted of supporting terrorism and also of having one of those in-car air fresheners hanging from his rearview mirror in the shape of bin Laden hitting Abraham Lincoln on the head with a baguette.

That is very provocative.

Prosecutors had wanted a 30-year sentence to deter would-be terrorists, to be more accurate, to deter people from driving them around.

And it's now going to be virtually impossible for bin Laden to get a cab.

That's what we've achieved.

Let that monster stand in the rain with his thumb out as cows with their lights on just drive past.

And let him use that time to think about what he's done.

Bin Laden's going to have to walk if he wants to get somewhere, or learn to ride a bike, which I'm sure is very difficult in those mountains.

So yes, I think we can all agree Al-Qaeda is officially on the run.

Quite literally, on the run.

The court took a massive one one and a half hours of deliberation to come to the conclusion that, including time served, he should probably be released in around five months.

And how did this evil, hardened killer of none react?

Well, Andy, he smiled as he left court, said thank you to those in the room and then bye-bye in English.

Bye-bye!

That is not how I pictured the first sentence at Guantanamo going down.

That place just keeps throwing up surprises.

I thought that whoever it was would be dragged out by the hair screaming death to the West, not thank you and bye-bye.

It sounds more like the end of an Osman's concert.

Well maybe America could try and build bridges with the al-Qaeda community by employing this man as the president's new driver to show that you know he can be converted from driving terrorists around to driving the leader of the free world around.

I think that'll be a message of hope for everyone.

Well in terms of rehabilitation the judge said I hope the day comes that you return to your wife and daughters and your country and you are able to be a provider, a father and a husband in the best sense of all those terms.

I'm not really sure what the negative sense of all those terms is but haven't responded God willing and I've always thought it must be tempting in that situation if you're the judge to say no not God willing me willing I am the judge you will be released if I will it I don't want to be a dick about this and you know I'm not saying I'm God I'm just saying that this is genuinely my decision it does conjure up a rather lovely image of Dick Cheney watching the sentence come through and just kind of throwing his remote control at his television saying, What the f

what is the fing point in setting up f military trials if they go soft at the first sign of a defendant not being guilty?

What the f's the point of that?

That is a compelling mental image Andy and I appreciate you putting it in my head.

Good.

He probably had his wang out as well while he was doing it.

And okay, now you've ruined it.

His wang out ready to celebrate.

And I want you've done this.

You started this.

I'm angry with you.

Not I.

I never said anything about celebrating.

I was merely suggesting that he might have just had a shower and rushed out of the shower to see the result come through and not had time to put his jock strap on.

In terms of how important a figure this man was, a CIA officer admitted that in the wanted terrorist deck of playing cards, he'd be the two of clubs.

But that's not even true.

He wasn't even on those cards.

He didn't make it to the deck.

Instead, he'd be the joker and that you look at him and just say, well, why did they put him in here?

In Australian Go Back to Where You Came From news, Deputy Prime Minister and all-round loud cockhead Barnaby Joyce has been outed by the New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English for being a secret New Zealand citizen.

So Australia has a law requiring elected representatives not to hold dual citizenship, which is a terrible idea in a country that makes a hobby of seeing how quickly it can get rid of its people in charge.

So someone outed a Green Senator for having a dual citizenship, and since then it has been like a bloodbath, because Australia is a country where everyone's a relatively recent immigrant.

You have toilets here that are older than the first building in Australia.

So we've had five prime ministers in three years and now it's just a game of dual citizenship dominoes.

dual citizenship dominoes in the Senate.

Two Greens had to resign and then there was like great scorn and mockery by the Conservatives and then people started checking with their mums and found out that a One Nation senator and also Barnaby Joyce, our current deputy prime minister, is potentially in the firing line.

He's a man who up until now was most well known for charmingly flushing a toilet during a radio interview

and using his maiden speech to call abortion the slavery debate of our time.

So

I have to go back on some of this.

He flushed a toilet during a radio interview.

Allegedly, yes.

Right.

Was this in a radio studio?

Does he.

Does he.

So now is a picture of.

Is that a llama, Chris?

Yes, it is, yes.

That is.

That's Barney Smith.

So the next Prime Minister, we think.

He's looking at it like that because he's a New Zealander.

So, so, so, you're.

So, you're not allowed to be.

Is it you're not allowed to be an MP or a government minister?

You're not allowed to be a senator, yeah, for dual citizenship because they worry that you might be a sneaky spy for New Zealand.

Without wishing to be too cynical about it and acknowledging that I do come from Britain, is it not a bit late to start worrying about whether white people in Australia are real Australians or not?

Is that not

shooting the horse after the door has bolted?

Quick fact now: an acrobat is an ancient Greek flying rodent that's been nailed to a hill.

Thank you.

It's fashion news time now.

Alice, you're also our fashion correspondent.

Oh, am I?

Good.

Well, it's not going to be me, is it?

Let's be realistic about this.

We've managed to get through the first eight years of the bugle with no fashion correspondent.

Well, in telling women how to have bodies news, New South Wales Australian Medical Association President Dr Brad Frankham has claimed that the use of overweight models in a sports illustrated catwalk show sends an unhealthy message to women.

I presume the message is that women are allowed to be fat while walking a short distance in spandex underpants, as long as they're still unfeasibly good looking.

He likened the use of overweight models to sending women down the runway while smoking cigarettes, claiming the brands are using overweight models for shock value, which is totally true, of course.

The last time I saw a fat woman on the beach, I was so shocked I had to have a lie down and then a nice swim and then reapply my sunscreen before some more lying down and then some fish and chips.

Modern model Robin Lawley has weighed in on the debate about runway size by saying she knew the models and they were all very healthy and that Dr.

Brad was a dick bag.

I mean,

she didn't say the last bit, but she was thinking it very loudly.

Lawley, who's a plus-size model, which is to say about normal size for a human lady, except more marketably proportioned, has said, It's nice to have a range of different bodies on the runway, completely missing the fact that models are meant to look like grumpy teenage coat hangers with a heroin addiction.

I think models are very inspirational.

They inspire the youth to stare blankly into the middle distance while covered in oil, relaxing their mouths and looking half like they're about to fall asleep and half like they want a fing car.

Basically just

you've just summarised the life and career of Dick Cheney there, haven't you?

Andy with the troubling news abounding over the last couple of weeks it's important to focus on the truly positive things when they occur And right at the top of that has to be the Smurfs was the number one movie in the US, Andy.

I woke up a couple of Sundays ago and boom, the Smurfs had demolished the Jon Favreau-directed blockbuster Cowboys and Aliens.

Number Smurfing one, Andy.

$75 million at the US domestic box office alone.

Worldwide, $131 million and counting.

And you know the Belgians and the Spanish are going to keep coming back for more.

It's a smurfing miracle, Andy.

All the doubters out there can stick it up their smurf.

Were the reviews good?

No, of course they smurfing weren't.

But were the box office receipts good?

Smurf, yes.

Smurf, yes, they were.

You've changed it.

It has.

And I quote, Andy, overperformed in every market.

Holy smurf!

Apparently, Andy.

Even a sequel is already being planned for 2013.

Now, I'm not sure if I'm going to be allowed to be in it after almost all of the comments that I've made publicly about this particular one.

But that's not the point.

I've got box office gold on my hands Andy and I have to believe that my three lines or whatever it was cut down to to be honest I haven't seen the movie and have absolutely no intention of seeing it they they had to help turn this into box office gold and look I just hope that this news can bring some calm to the streets of the United Kingdom.

It's something that can really bring everyone together.

The Smurfs movie has already made its money back.

Put down your bricks, youngsters.

Pick up your brooms.

Everything's going to be okay.

Smurf, yeah!

And I guess if the success of the Smurf shows one thing, it is that democracy doesn't work.

So

this is this is the week beginning.

I'll tell you what I'll do with it.

I'll try and get the Smurfs on

my digital video recorder at home, John, and store it up for three years without watching it like I have with the guru.

So when we have our big showbiz bust up, John, then I'll watch him, then I'll watch him.

But while I still need to respect you, I've got a stickler.

So that's very wise.

So this is Bugle 164, which is, of course, how the Scots say 2.14pm.

And this week, a section of the 164, is this on?

Is this on?

Is this on?

This week, in the bin, a special Edinburgh Festival supplements, in which we review the new theatrical modern dance adaptation of the 1985 Belgian Grand Prix, entitled Vroom Vroom, yeah, Vroom, Vroom,

and look out for Tom Cruise as Ricardo portraitsy.

And we also review Busty Belinda's Baptown Boogie, a moving play based on the early life of US President Lyndon Johnson, based on recently declassified papers.

Don't judge him, it just took him time to figure out who he really was.

And in music, the exciting new John Oliver tribute act, Mickey Plonka and his incredible musical wang.

Doing all the classics, including, of course, Silent Knight.

That's the

closing.

And an in-depth feature on the

cutting-edge British comedian Andy Zoltzman, who's doing a very, very, very, very funny one-man show at 4.25 p.m.

every day at the stand.

Plus reviews of the cutting-edge political stand-up show, Political Animal, on Monday to Thursday at midnight, also at the stand, hosted by the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Bugle Best Comedian of the Fringe award winner, Andy Zaltzmann, which is some achievement given that I didn't even do a show in 2009.

But anyway, I heard an interesting snippet of conversation, John, on the train.

I did a gig in Glasgow, and on the train on the way there, I heard this girl just got this snippet of conversation floating down the carriage.

These words: I've been electrocuted that way so many times.

What are the possible explanations?

Maybe we should have a bugle competition for this.

What is the explanation for that?

What what

will she say?

I mean, it slightly defies belief.

I mean, I mean, it shows determination, if nothing else, and a refusal to be cowed by technology.

Yeah.

Could it be cooking a Pop-Tart in a toaster whilst having a bath?

Yeah.

Thinking that you are the Pop-Tart and climbing into the toaster.

So, yeah, I don't know what the price could be.

I can't keep giving away three-year-old copies of my book.

So, yeah.

Anyway, just email him what you think it was, and if it's good, then

we'll send you a copy of the Smurf movie in the post.

We'll scratch it so you don't actually have to watch it.

You can just own it.

Number one,

you've changed, John.

You've changed.

Hi, Buglers.

it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.