Bonus Bugle - He's the greatest diver

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to Bugle 4114 sub-episode CWCF.

I am Andy Zoltzmann but if it wasn't for this microphone right here, I would be...

So I count myself very fortunate.

So what does CWCF stand for?

Well it is not, as you might very reasonably think, an acronym describing the two candidates in the Tory leadership race, the President of America and the state of global democracy in general.

A good guess though.

Nor is it a Welsh village, nor is it the sequence of animals eaten by Henry VIII at a bog standard working lunch in the 1530s, written again in acronym form, chicken, wildebeest, crocodile, flamingo.

No, in fact, CWCF stands for Cricket World Cup Final, which happens tomorrow as I record, quite possibly today as you listen to this, maybe even right now or yesterday or in the dim and distant past when hope still lived in the hearts of humanity.

Delete as applicable.

It's England versus New Zealand at Lords in London with me in the BBC commentary box trying very hard to suppress the urge to shout, Holy shit!

If you'd told the 10-year-old Andy Zaltman he'd be doing this, he would have dissolved instantaneously into a pool of quivering incredulity.

So England, and here's another bit to delete according to when you're listening to this, are strong and rightful pre-match favourites, or are romping to a glorious victory as ordained by Almighty's using the Magna Carta, or are screwing things up royally in the grand tradition of English sport, or are having their crowning defining moment drowned out by some granite-souled shit-for-brained formulaic musical vomit parped out into the stadium at air-melting volume at almost all sporting events in an effort to crush any sense of genuine authentic atmosphere for reasons no one in the universe can adequately explain, or have just won the World Cup and sparked a national celebration so joyous that it has spontaneously reversed Brexit and led to every single child in Britain becoming a lifelong obsessional cricket fan thus solving all problems in the world.

So anyway, I have been somewhat preoccupied with my other job this week, so instead of a full bugle, in which I would have been up to 120% distracted by cricket, which of course is 8% more than in the average week, and fretting nervously about one of the highlights of my career, with all due respects to the gig I did with Nish Kumar at the Andover Lights about 10 years ago, instead we have a sub-bugle cornucopia of buglic treats from the recent past, the not so recent past, and the unending bottomless well of lies about our voluntary subscribers.

Let's start with these bits from the holy sanctuary that is the bugle cutting room floor for chunks that were too damn hot to be broadcast at the time.

In other animal news, Anuvab, India has a new football star.

That's correct, Tandee.

That is correct.

In the state of Goa,

some kids were playing football.

And as the Indian Express reports,

as kids play football on the streets of India, the ball accidentally found itself near a cow.

We've got a bunch of children who play football in India, and we've got a bunch of cows.

Now, apparently, this cow

was an excellent football player and did not let the ball go and became a viral sensation.

Yeah, Indian viral sensation is not as worrying a sentence at this point in history as it might have been pre-internet slang, where Indian viral sensation was usually accompanied by a rash and/or vomiting, like Japanese encephalitis or Spanish flu.

Exactly, exactly.

If this podcast was going out before penicillin, there would be a lot of problems.

The Indian football coach, P.

Chatterjee,

while watching the video of the cow playing football, said he's an excellent dribbler.

It's impossible to tackle him.

And in many ways, I'd say for Goa, he's better than Ronaldo or Messi.

Probably the most famous footballer ever to have come out of India.

Put him sideways in the goal.

Yeah.

A real veritable Karl Heinz ruminanter.

There's a little niche restaurant.

We've been having a really hard time, as you guys know, qualifying for the World Cup with humans.

And perhaps we've got more cows than any other country in the world because we worship them.

So I think we have an equally valid chance with 11 cows.

Yeah, well, the cows are sacred creatures, so it would be very much like Messi playing in the Spanish league.

Apparently, the cow is very good in the penalty area and is going for a lucrative move to Real Madrid.

But the manager might question: has it got the stomachs for the fight?

But I do worry.

I worry where this is going, to be honest.

I mean, in five years' time, there's going to be phone-ins with cow football fans moaning on about how Ermintrude isn't up to it and the herd would be better off with Daisy in the holding midfield role.

It's not going to end well.

Archives time now, it's 13th of July today as I record and the year is 2019.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that, but it could so easily have been 13th of August 2012, as it once was, of course, and that date coincided with the end of another big sporting event in London, the London 2012 Olympics of London 2012.

Never forget.

And here are some of my reflections from Bugle issue 204, recorded that very week.

Hello, buglers, Andy, I fear that the curse of the bugle has struck again.

Because previous to last week, I had compared myself to zero Olympic divers in my life.

Last week I compared myself to one Olympic diver the German Stefan Feck who according to the internet is the same height and weight as me my point being that I technically have the body of an Olympic diver.

Just a throwaway comment Andy.

Just a joke, no harm meant or done and the first and only mention of Stefan Feck in the history of the bugle so far.

If I'm completely honest, I wasn't ever imagining bringing up his name again.

However, days later Andy, literally days later, I witnessed Stefan Feck jump off a three-meter diving board, spin in the air, lose control of his legs and land flat on his back in what one outlet described as, and I quote, a devastating backward belly flop, which

as far as I'm personally concerned, Andy, is a compliment because It was spectacular.

As a dive, Andy, it was a feast for the senses because it wasn't just how it looked, it it was how it sounded.

The crack of a near-naked body smashing into the unforgiving surface of the water is a gift to the ears, especially when you add the ooze of the crowd and the wind being physically smashed out of Stefan Feck's chest.

It was a symphony of pain.

And what score did he get, Andy?

He got 0.0s across the board from the judges.

Are you f ⁇ ing kidding me, Andy?

Were they watching the same dive that I I was?

Because I saw a man reinventing the sport of diving before my eyes.

What are the judges looking for?

I know in general they're looking at grace through the air and entry into the water with as little splash as possible.

But what if someone gives you the opposite of that?

You cannot say that that has no value, Andy.

Well, I mean, I think also we've got to say, clearly, Stefan Feck is a big bugle listener.

He's heard last week that, you know, you and he have exactly the same bodies,

so he has now dived like you would have dived.

That's

that's true.

I think he probably got an extra one and a half turns in there, but still, you in terms of the entry, you're basically right.

I really think what are you wearing a what would John Oliver do bracelet?

I didn't see.

I'll look it up on YouTube again.

It's definitely worth a look.

I do think it raises the point that the IOC needs to seriously look into changing the judging requirements for diving now because there should be points available for the funniness of a dive.

It's just as subjective as any of the other judging criteria.

The Chinese divers, for instance, have been absolutely magnificent this year, but not very funny at all.

I would love to hear commentators say, Well, Tobias Chantel of Belgium up next.

He's going to be attempting a half-somersault with a single panicked leg kick, followed by two and a half screams of, oh shit, before landing face first into the water.

This dive potentially has a high degree of funniness.

And here he goes.

Oh, he's nailed it.

Outstanding dive.

The judges are in hysterics.

I can see one pounding the table in laughter as Tobias is helped semi-conscious out of the water with one of his testicles now visible out the corner of his speedos.

Tremendous stuff from the Belgian.

Of course it rise.

It'd be nice to see a kind of cartoon someone just charging off the end of a board, hanging in midair, looking downwards, and then just plummeting straight into the water.

Let's get diving back to its roots.

Well, I think Stefan Feck has given the world one of the most memorable moments of the 2012 Olympics, Andy, and we should all be grateful.

His very name should become a descriptive term in the English language from now on.

Doing a Stefan Feck should describe failing at something so spectacularly that you actually do something more incredible than the thing you were originally intempting to do in the first place.

Of course, look, his name did not help with a story like this, Andy.

One British newspaper ran with the headline, old Feck, with the photo of him hitting the water at a perfectly horizontal 180 degrees.

They, in doing so, passed up the opportunity to go with, holy Feck, or German diver in huge Feck up, or Fecking Hell, that must have hurt like Feck.

Amazingly, not everyone has had as instinctively joyous a response to this as I did, Andy.

The German swimming legend and four-time gold medalist medalist Roland Mattis heavily criticized Feck, called him shameful and unworthy.

Well, f you, Roland.

Let me tell you how many dives I remember from this Olympics.

It's one, Roland, and it's Stefan Feck's dive.

And let me tell you how many dives I remember from your entire career, Roland.

Zero.

In fact, I didn't even know you were a diver until I read that quote from you about Stefan Feck, who I have heard of, because he's the guy that did the funniest dive in Olympics history.

With all due respect to Greg LeGarnis.

Yeah.

That's right.

He just pimped him at the

good point Andy.

I just don't think Greg LeGarnis was just too horrifying.

It's because it was concrete.

It was just too horrifying.

He wasn't on the springy dive.

It was a springboard.

It was the three metre springboard.

It was a springboard.

Was it really?

Yeah, I think it would have been a concrete one.

I'm not sure he'd have recovered in time to take part in the final.

The point is,

I'm truly proud that we trumpeted Stefan Feck even before he'd done anything worth trumpeting.

And I would like to now declare formally Stefan Feck the official three-metre diver of the bugle.

In fact, I would like to offer Stefan Feck, I think the Bugle should try and sponsor him at the next World Diving Championships, Andy, on the sole condition that he do exactly the same dive again.

Also, in the micro bugle on Thursday morning, I predicted that Usain Bolt would win the 200 in 19.33 seconds.

And what did he 19.32?

Whoa.

Pretty close.

You're the Colin Jackson of the bugle there.

That's right.

So, but more so, arguably.

And I've never screwed up an Olympic final like he did.

No.

Not once.

Not once.

That loser.

That multiple world title winning loser.

Ironically, there was also a 13th of July in 2009, which of course was exactly 10 years ago by coincidence.

And there was a bugle then too.

Bugle 81 to be precise, which contained this.

It's certainly the most appropriate ever number for a bugle, John, because as I'm sure our millions of Turkish-speaking listeners will be able to tell us, 81 in Turkish, well, it's still 81, but it's pronounced Sexenbeer.

And Sexenbeer, what's what we're all about, hey, John?

You know, it's about

so we started cornering the audio lads mag market.

Oh no, I don't want them.

I don't want them, Andy.

They're not welcome here.

Saturday the 11th of July this year.

It's of course the 205th anniversary of the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.

Yep.

Just in New Jersey, just across the water from where you are right now, John.

They've been bitching at each other for years, of course, Burr Man and the H-Dog, until finally they laid it all out one July morning in New Jersey, where dueling, I believe, was still legal.

It was already illegal in New York City by then, thanks to the Liberal left.

It's pretty much legal now.

It's tolerated now.

There's a lot of street fighting in Jersey, that's what I'm saying.

It's quite an odd hobby, I think, dueling, but you know, if it's what people enjoy, who am I to tell them how to live and end their lives?

But I think we should put this duel in perspective, the Burr Hamilton duel duel, and that's the sitting vice president and a former Treasury Secretary.

That's the modern equivalent of Joe Biden and Hank Paulson dressing up in jockstraps, squaring up in a cage, and smacking each other on the head with kitchen chairs until one of them conks out.

I think they both benefit from that.

See there's a recently discovered transcript from the original TV commentary of the Burr Hamilton jewel from 1804.

It reads like this.

Hello and welcome to Burr vs.

Hamilton Pistols at Dawn 04 and what a contest we have here, the little 48-year-old vice president from right here in New Jersey and a 49-year-old one-time Treasury Secretary and Federalism fan who has riled the VP with some real trash talking recently.

That's what broke this big show down and the whole world will be tuning in to watch it.

Jim Pooke, the former New England dueling champion, is with me in the combox this fine New Jersey morning.

Hello Jim.

Hello Tony and what a pleasure it is to be here for what promises to be an excellent duel between these two very eminent gentlemen.

So Jim, what are the tactics going to be?

Well let's see if that happens.

They're walking away from each other now and Hamilton, well he looks like he's going to be the first to shoot.

Oh bit of an upset there.

He's fired it.

Well not right at Burr by the looks of things but quite close to him.

Well Burr's not going to like that Tony.

No, Hamilton could live to regret that or not.

Good point.

Good point.

That's going to depend on Burr's shot.

He's lining it up now.

The failed Governor of New York candidate.

Let's go down to Julian on the dueling ground.

Tony, there's a bit of an east-to-west crosswind down there, so I think Burr will be looking to aim just to Hamilton's left and just let the breeze drift the bullet back in towards the torso.

So here comes a shot.

Yes, he's got him.

Yes!

Hamilton's gone down quicker than a plate of pickled herring in a bottom its fer.

And that looks like a pretty serious injury there, Jim.

Yes, a terrific shot from Aaron there.

He's run it beautifully, and that looks like it could be a fatal one for Alex, if I'm not much mistaken, Tony.

Yes, and that could rule Hamilton out of the running for future political office.

And that 0-1 record in his head-to-head with his old rival, Burr, is really going to sting.

And Burr's going to check going over now to check how Hamilton is.

Well, it's been fought in a tremendous spirit, this duel, Jim.

Oh, lovely moment there, as Burr fled the scene, Tony.

He leant over his longtime enemy, put his thumb on his nose, waggled his fingers, stuck his tongue out, and blew the guy a raspberry as he lay mortally wounded.

Super stuff.

He demanded satisfaction, Burr.

And boy, did he get it.

And of course, Hamilton's death, on which while still awaiting confirmation, will be doubly ironic, of course, as his son also died in a duel just three years ago.

Jim, it's been a pleasure calling this one with you, and do join us at the same time next week for President Tommy TJ Jefferson against the guy who felt up his wife at the White House disco last week.

Andy, you make history, you know, so accessible and inaccurate.

That's right.

On the AJP Taylor Dino Jour.

In commemoration of the famous Burt Hamilton duel, we are giving you, the bugle listeners, one half of an audio dueling kit.

Team up with a fellow bugle listener and fire this sound sound effect at each other.

Slag each other off a bit first, challenge each other to a duel and meet with your bugles at 6 a.m.

on some open ground.

As always, some section of the bugle going straight in the bin this week, a summer sunburn fashion section.

Sunburn, of course, cheaper than a tattoo, less permanent, but still painful.

And we tell you the best cut-out shapes to put on your body this summer while sunbathing to give you a funky but interesting pale patch on your otherwise burnt torso.

Designs available include popular tattoo style favourites such as a bird, a little star, some oriental text of absolutely no relevance to you, a naked woman changing the crankshaft on a vintage Mercedes, a hyena scavenging the carcass of a gnu, the opening troop arrangements from the First Battle of Ypres, Sherlock Holmes lighting his pipe whilst chewing a mouse, and a silhouette of the rock legends white snake looking at a menu outside a Chinese takeaway.

And also in the bin, a special Bugle Street Talk section.

New words to drop into your hip conversations this summer.

These words are gravelic, fluke, fluke, hackman, scoopsy, tremending, and pheasant.

Use them as you see fit as nouns, adjectives, verbs, or simple expletives.

See how people react and then work out what they mean.

Also, back in exactly 10 years ago, would you believe the world was squibbling and squabbling about global warming, as reported exclusively in that self-same episode of The Bugle?

Top story this week, G8 to the rescue!

No, you're probably right.

This week, as if in tribute to him, but crucially not, the G8 leaders of the world gathered together in Italy to discuss how to improve the planet.

That's right, in Italy.

Meaning that the host of the G8 was none other than bugle favourite, slapstick politician and a man who, to put it mildly, is simply not fit to govern, Silvio Berlusconi.

And I know what you're thinking, Berlusconi's hosting the G8, there is definitely going to be a stripper pole.

Sadly not this time.

Andy Silvio had to curb his caligula-like instincts due to the recent controversial press linking him to sleeping with prostitutes.

And incidentally, in response to these allegations, Silvertongue Silvio gave an interview to a magazine he owned and said that he would never have done a thing like paying a prostitute because, and I quote, I've never understood what satisfaction there is other than that of conquering a woman.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

His poor, poor, soon-to-be ex-wife.

He is treating 51% of the world's population like his own personal white whale.

He's a sexually aggressive Captain Ahab trawling the high seas looking for the next conquest.

I think we should be thankful though, John, because of course his ancestor and predecessor Julius Caesar you know wasn't so much interested in conquering women as conquering continents and maybe it's good that Silvio was slightly just drawn in his sights to the fairer sex.

You might have a point there.

You don't but you might.

Naturally of course Berlusconi's opinion polls amongst the Italian electorate have remained high through the latest prostitution scandal.

Of course they have Andy because Italians are their own worst national stereotype.

This particular G8 summit was notable for a number of reasons, chief amongst them being that this was Obama's first G8.

Again, Berlusconi chose to make him feel at home by getting him a private basketball net outside his private quarters at La Cuilla.

That should be nothing other than a lovely gesture.

He knows that President Obama likes to play basketball every day and he's providing an outlet for that.

But why is it that because it's coming from Berlusconi, you just assume that it's a bit racist?

That's the thing with Berluscone.

He does kind of distract attention away from the real business, John, which wasn't banging prostitutes, but was attempting to stop global warming.

If you can indeed separate the two philosophically, I still don't know whether prostitution contributes to or detracts from global warming.

I'm not sure.

It's not an either-or situation we're looking at here.

I don't think so.

I don't know if

there are better ways to sleep with a prostitute in a more green manner.

Am I just saying before prostitution existed, the environment was actually much better than it is now?

That much is better.

I don't know if there's ever been a scientific research paper.

They say it's the oldest profession in the world, Andy, so you're going back quite a long way.

Yeah, but it's still a fact.

Yeah.

You can't argue with facts.

Well, you can.

Well, the fact was going to bite you in the face, John.

Andy, once again, you are confusing facts with EMUs.

So once again, you are walking into an EMU enclosure with peanut butter on your face.

But so they've set new global warming targets to attempt to heat the world up by two degrees by twenty 2050 I believe is the new target or limits that heating I don't know if they're aiming to heat it up by two or setting that as a maximum you know when it comes to saving the world I guess most of us would say is it worth it well I suppose it is better than a javelin in the neck you know nice to have a world to live in these days just one of those things isn't it the world can't live with can't live without it but we have set quite an ambitious target of getting carbon output down by 80% by 2050 for developing countries but there'll be no interim targets set John And as we know, the human soul is programmed to work to deadlines.

So if the world is anything like me, and given that I am part of the world, I see no reason why it shouldn't be exactly like me.

That is reluctantly the case, I know.

If the world is like me, it will probably wait until October 2049 and then start frantically charging around cutting any emissions it can find in a desperate effort to get somewhere near its target.

Having spent the previous 41 years thinking about doing some stuff, checking its emails, seeing if it can make a profit gambling against itself on coin tossing,

and just generally trying on its slippers over and over again.

Knowing you have a problem is not making strides to resolve that problem, I think.

So this was Andy Obama's first experience of being a full member.

of the G8 and you know they do sound like superheroes the G8 albeit that if that were the case they would be the most inactive superheroes ever created they'd be superheroes with undeniably impressive powers but who choose to sit around all day with each other at remote summits talking about how they definitely intend to use their powers for good one day, but how it is impractical to put a date on when that day might be at this time.

The main thing you need to be able to do at these summits is, well, first, talk a good game going in, then resolve absolutely nothing in the ludicrously short time provided, and then most importantly, pronounce the whole thing afterwards a huge success.

And by that yardstick, Obama did very well at his first attempt.

He went in determined to build a consensus on reducing carbon emissions, came up against China and India telling him through slightly politer translators to basically go f ⁇ himself

and came out with a commitment that global temperatures should not rise more than two degrees Celsius above 1900 levels.

There you go.

So often Andy, it all comes down to words.

They should not

rise more than two degrees Celsius.

They should not.

No, obviously they should not.

And I don't think anyone disagrees with that.

But that does not mean crucially that they cannot, must not, or indeed will not.

I should not attempt to juggle with three pineapples that I've soaked in kerosene and set fire to.

I should not do that for many reasons.

But you notice there, I've been very careful not to promise that I definitely won't.

Well, Gordon Brown had some big words for the world.

Yeah,

he said these words.

The world has now agreed that the scientific evidence on climate change is compelling.

So we've made it.

That's the important thing.

You've got to accept that you have a problem, as you say, John.

Set achievable goals.

That's right.

That's what he's done there, and he's even failed to meet them.

10 years on, and it's all sorted.

Right, that's your sub-bugle for this week.

Also, a quick note, my Edinburgh Festival show will now be Satirist for Hire.

The planned Control-Z show that I was planning to do, well, I've Control-Zed it until an unspecified future date due to time constraints.

Instead, I will be taking your commissions for a special run of Satirist for Hire, Blindfold, Cliff Edge, Unicorn, Brexit, Britain, Bogus, Prime Minister, Democraged and American Elections, Cricket World Cup, General State of the World Specials.

Please send your requests to the usual Satirist for Hire address.

Satirise this at satiristforhire.com.

The show will be on at the stand from the 13th to the 25th of August.

There will also be political animal shows, most nights, plus two live bugles.

Do come to see all of those shows and the shows of my bugle co-hosts who will also be at the fringe.

Until next week, may the cricket be with you.

Unless you're from New Zealand, in which case, I wish you nothing but heartache and pain.

Sorry, I mean, may the best team win, which is England.

Time to play you out in the time-honoured tradition with some lies about our voluntary subscribers.

To join them and support the bugle to remain fully independent and advert-free, go to the website thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Chris, music, please!

Adam Brown reckons Antarctica should be split equally between all the people of the world.

With over 7 billion people currently residing on this planet, that works out at a bit under half an acre of Antarctica each, which Adam thinks we really ought to be able to look after ourselves.

Phil D.T.

once tried to demonstrate a triple Salco ice skating manoeuvre in a china shop, causing £2,500 worth of broken porcelain and a six-month ban from anywhere selling crockery or figurines.

Time and a place, Phil.

Live and learn.

Derek Willis has only ever managed to bench press two benches at the same time.

There was one occasion in his local park when he was pressing two benches with his hands and reached out to touch a third bench with his toes, but he doesn't think he got enough downward pressure for it to count as a bench press and was told to piss off by an angry grandad.

Matthew de Cost took a tree back to a garden centre 15 years after buying it there because the leaves kept falling off around October-November time, only to discover that his tree was out of warranty.

Trees, of course, only come with a standard 10-year warranty.

Phil Pell admires what the Roman army achieved, but reckons they would be vulnerable to today's more advanced military hardware, even with their their trademark turtle formation.

But then again, thinks Phil, would today's air forces cope with Roman-era fuels?

Nope.

Thomas Arnold reckons if all cars had lawnmower attachments of some kind, we wouldn't need roads.

We could just drive across freshly mown fields instead.

Claire Fletcher thinks that the next time Britain has to choose new Prime Minister, it might like to consider one of the following options.

A public vote of some kind, hiring in someone from overseas who might bring some objectivity and expertise to the job, not bothering, or just using tennis presenter Sue Barker.

I mean, why not?

Ben Follett is perplexed by how excited everyone gets about birds being supposedly descended from dinosaurs, given how much shitter they are than the T-Rex and or the Stegosaurus.

Anonymous donor, Initials MR, who is famously one of several women who has never been to space, also designed the world's first soluble submarine, but has yet to find a use for it.

It is, however, technically very impressive.

And finally, John Gilfillon is unconvinced by the theory, often espoused by sports pundits, that the winning team simply wanted it more, a conclusion he reached after losing a swimming race against a dolphin whom he reckoned, quotes, didn't really give a shit, but waltzed to victory anyway.

Here endeth the lies.

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.