Bonus Bugle - England are rubbish

Hello buglers and welcome to a sub-episode of The Bugle, but not just any sub-episode, this specific sub-episode.

In fact, it's Bugle 4113 sub-episode A.

There's no full bugle this week because of my life being entirely taken over by being forced against my will by the BBC to go to 31 cricket matches in six weeks.

Still, I don't want to make a fuss so I'm just going along with it.

Later on we will delve into the Bugle archives with the episode numbers chosen based on England's three dispiriting defeats at the Cricket World Cup so far.

As I record tomorrow on Sunday the 30th of June England will be playing India so they might have pulled it out of the bag by now or they might have pulled it out of the bag and dumped it straight in the canal we don't know.

Also later on in the show there will be lies about our premium-level voluntary subscribers, interspersed throughout the show.

Like this one, Diana Patterson once made an origami camera in 2001.

The next day, the Polaroid Company folded.

She has never done origami ever again.

She fears her own power.

And this one, Sam Cray, reckons that if the Roman Empire had put a bit more effort in, they could have probably developed the Sega Mega Drive by the year 650 AD, and who knows where we would be now in the world of gaming.

But first, here are some more bits from last week's live bugle at the Underbelly in London with me, Nish Kumar, and Alice Fraser, or as she is known to people who hate using the first letters of people's names, Lice Razor.

Now, everyone loves noise.

You all enjoy that.

And some terrific noise news rounds.

Stage rough.

I really enjoyed that.

I don't know why.

I think I enjoyed the performance chops that you've displayed there.

That's what I'm all about.

Touch me, I'm real.

Please don't touch Andy.

Once bitten.

You just prodded a Jew.

Looks bad.

It's all right, I'm allowed.

Screaming

has been scientifically analyzed.

I mean, once again, I mean, if scientists have time to analyze screaming and dogs' eyebrows, it does make you think we are doomed as a species.

But who in this world does not enjoy a good scream, whether it's letting out all your frustrations about the state of the planet, or a bad refereeing decision, or alerting your fellow humans of the presence of a ghost, or a monster, or a lion, or a wasp, or an asteroid, or a tax bill,

or a priest, or a pun, or a brilliant gull, or Nigel Farage,

or simply opera.

Which is basically a combination of the above two.

But it's

screaming is one of the most elemental tools of human communication.

But research has showed that things that sound like screams are considered by people listening to them to be screams, and things that sound less like screams are not.

And this finding can be crucial to our understanding of screams as a species moving forward in a confusing world.

Jay Swartz of Emory University said, evolutionarily, screams originally functioned to startle attacking predators.

Well, I mean, is that a surprise for science to find that out?

Personally, assumed it was more to do with a primeval realization of the

tragedy of mortality and the inevitability of suffering and grief.

But you know, if it's attacking predators, fair enough.

And they did some research on telling the difference between a whistle and a scream.

And 70% of those listening to screamy sounds thought they might be whistles.

And it turns out they were all football fans.

That's a fact.

Well,

I just wonder who these people are, the scientists who, like, who goes home and is like, yes, darling, I study screaming.

Are they training to be a team of baddie scientists in a horror movie?

I've had to recuse myself from this entire conversation because, according to various people on the internet, and indeed friends and family, my voice and laughter sounds like one long scream,

resulting in me in a flat share in 2009 receiving a letter via my landlord from our neighbor complaining of a loud hyena-like sound

emerging from our flat which was just me laughing at my friend because I scored against him on FIFA.

Interestingly

Scream sursize is increasingly popular as a keep fit

technique.

There are classes ranging from advanced caterwalling to shrieking for the over 50s.

Yoagahami, the scream-based oriental martial art.

And there are competitive squawk-offs coming up between clubs in the National Screeching League in America.

The Boston Blarers are playing the St.

Louis Squeals and the NSL finals

starting on Monday.

And screaming in culture has been hugely influential.

The 1970s classic book, The Joy of Screaming, which had pencil drawings of people bellowing their lungs out with a varied array of high-pitched squawks.

And Edvard Munk, Teddy Chompchomp himself,

famously painted the scream, also now known in American galleries as OMG.

No one is exactly sure what the original subject of the scream was for Munk, but they have recently discovered the original working title of the painting was The Man Who Just Accidentally Smashed a Priceless Ming Vase with a Golf Club and then turned to see a one-pound golf ball sitting on his mantelpiece.

Okay, fair enough.

Let's agree to disagree on that one.

I'm still laughing at Teddy Chompchomp.

I didn't really listen to the rest of anything you said, because it took me a second to go, Edvard Munch, munch, Teddy Chobchom.

God, that's funny.

Thank you, Mish.

He seems to have stopped speaking.

More important signs.

Apparently honeybees let out a whoop when they bump into each other.

This is true.

Well, I mean,

they're calling it a whoop.

So they put out a vibrational pulse when they bump into each other.

And the scientists have called it the whoop-whoop signal, presumably because that sounds like a fun thing to call something, and they're bee scientists, so they're not sure what fun sounds like.

But

these bees scream all the time.

They whoop when they headbutt each other.

They waggle dance to convey information, and they whoop when another bee bumps into them.

And these scientists found out that the whoop signal, previously thought to be either an inhibition warning or a request for food, actually happens much more commonly than previously thought, with the accelerometer picking up around six or seven whoop-whoops a minute from just a small area of the honeycomb, mostly at night.

There is no way, says Ben Sik, one of the scientists, there's no way a bee was trying to inhibit another one that frequently, and there's no way a bee would request food that frequently, showing he has no idea how often I request food or try and inhibit people at night.

There are more articles on this in the

influential bee magazine in the bonnet.

Some terrific

articles in...

I would have called it staying a hive.

Some articles this week in the magazine include Coming Out in Hives, Do Gay Bees Make the Best Honey?

On a Wing and a Prayer, Are Beehives Actually Temple to the Bee God Strypor?

Honey Makes the World Go Round.

Is the fact that bees always flap their wings in a westward clockwise direction responsible for the Earth spinning the right way?

And beeswax, could Soviet-trained bumblebees have been responsible for a string of Cold War assassinations?

I think,

how are we doing for time, Chris?

Yeah,

we've done our hour.

I mean, everything that people here now is free.

That's now a bonus.

So, anything that works from now on until

I've wanted to be able to do it.

I pay for 60 minutes of entertainment.

A contract is a contract.

I will not even take one smilly second more than this.

We could,

you've got a few things that I think you probably wanted to do.

We should do a QA.

Yeah.

Everyone's favourite bit of the show.

Quick audience QA.

Can I ask the audience a quick question?

Yeah, we'll do an A and Q.

I'd like to cue.

I've got a cue that I'd like to wait.

Has the lady in the front row been painting us for the entire time?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, cool.

So

I did know about that.

Oh, did you know about that?

Oh, Oh, right.

Okay.

So

I didn't the first time she came to one of my gifts, but I did this time.

If you don't know it's happening, if you know it's happening, more power to you, and I look forward to seeing the painting.

But from my position, I didn't know it was happening, and it was quite alarming.

Yes.

Well, the thing is, Nish, what this has actually been is a courtroom.

You have.

I'm afraid you have incriminated yourself rather badly in that various.

So many handing out so many sentences.

Come on.

come on.

We'll be going even further into the past than a week ago shortly, but first some more lies about our premium-level voluntary subscribers.

Chris Parsons narrowly missed out on the role of controversial gastronomist Erskine Grammock, the inventor of the now illegal Kitty Corpsicle, an iced dessert on a stick made of roadkill cat carcass, in the celebrity chef biopic, Malvain, Spatula of Fury.

Robert Pemberton Pemberton does not sing in the shower.

Robert plays the air piano in the shower, and makes piano noises, really realistic ones.

He even makes the piano start sounding a bit weird as it gets wetter and wetter.

And Sarah Roberts would argue that the time has come to accept that we may never know exactly why King Harold played a flat back four against the Normans at the Battle of Hastings rather than going three at the back and try and exploit the width of the battlefield with wing backs with his brother Leofwin Godwinson in a free-roll playing off the big number nine up front.

Archive's time now, based based as I said on England's heroic defeats so far in the Cricket World Cup.

Usually England begins Cricket World Cups about as hotly tipped as little Johnny Plankton in his one-on-one eat-off against a whale.

This time, however, they began the tournament as justifiable favourites, which is never an easy burden to shoulder, so England have skilfully taken the pressure off themselves by losing three games already and still having two of the best teams left to play, leaving their hopes and dreams hanging by a gossamer thread.

The wheels have fallen off.

Well, three wheels have fallen off, if you'd count one wheel as each defeat, so there is still some hope that England could unicycle their way to victory.

Of course, if they lose to India on Sunday, which may well or will not have already have or have not happened by the time you listen to this, they'll have to skid to victory on a now wheellish chassis of broken dreams.

But to commemorate England's three defeats so far, we'll delve into the Bugle archives for nuggets from the past linked to each of England's losses.

Starting with Bugle 150, 150 being the number of runs conceded in England's defeat to Pakistan by their two opening bowlers.

And you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that that is the most runs ever conceded by England opening bowlers in a World Cup cricket match.

Here is Bugle 150.

Top story this week, f everything else that's happening in the world.

The wedding is nearly here!

Andy, I know I'm not alone in thinking this because the sheer number of news crews that have been descending all week on London, the 32 time capital of the entire world,

but the upcoming royal wedding is the only thing that anyone in their right mind should be giving a shit about at the moment.

I think most international news organisations are going to be sending a very coherent message over the next seven days, and that message is Yemen, f it.

Syria, f it.

Fukushama nuclear plant, f it.

Royal weddings, f yeah.

The scene of elaborate media centre construction outside Buckingham Palace is really a sight to behold.

If aliens were to land on Earth and were to park their ship on the mall leading up to Buckingham Palace and saw the sheer amount of media trucks, camera positions and broadcast satellites built on the side of the road, they would think, well, this must be the most important thing happening on the planet right now.

There can clearly be no bad things happening anywhere else at this one time.

So focused are these humans on this single event.

These must be the two most important people on Earth.

And you know what?

They'd be right, Andy.

Because as we've said before, the world is in such a precarious, troubled place at the moment that it seems that we're all using this event as an emotional anesthetic just to dull the pain of life on Earth.

In fact, the most appropriate song for William and Kate to walk down the aisle to after the wedding would be Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd.

And the crowds of people lining the streets shouldn't be shouting and cheering.

They should be blissfully muttering to themselves like someone who was just

injected with methadone.

Oh,

congratulations on the wedding.

Oh, that felt so good.

Oh, shit.

I think it's already wearing off.

When I was a child, I want a reason.

Well, just to get to the studio and whopping today, John, I had to fight through crowds thirty or forty 40 deep

along the roads, already queuing up for the wedding in seven days' time.

And estimated crowds of 1.75 billion royal worshippers will line the streets of London to wave hands, fists and middle fingers at the happy couple.

And, you know, it is, as you said, it's clearly,

I think, you know, the greatest,

most important thing ever.

Probably since maybe since the Big Bang or more important than the Big Bang.

So I don't know.

All I know is that in a few million years' time, there'll be a particle accelerator in Switzerland trying to recreate the royal wedding.

They won't quite manage it, but you know, it'll be worth a go.

I know lots of people, especially in England, are uncomfortable over the amount of coverage that this story is getting.

But I say to them, give in to it, shut up, and give into it.

Royal fever is in the air, Andy.

Let's all go out in the cold without wearing a hat and catch it.

But moving on to the rest of the world now and Libya news.

And the situation in Libya continues to descend into a seemingly irretrievable slough of chaos as casualties mount and the bloodshed spreads.

With NATO caught in a seemingly intractable problem of having.

Shut up, Andy!

Shut up, Andy!

That has nothing to do with the wedding.

Royal wedding news again now!

And Prince Charles has apparently just become a record holder, Andy.

What is that record?

Is it the largest number of grapes one man can fit in his mouth?

No.

Is it the number of cartwheels done across the room?

He broke that six years ago, John.

83.

Is it the number of cartwheels done across the roof of Windsor Castle?

Nearly, but not quite.

Prince Charles has just become the longest-serving heir apparent in British history.

And that's no mean feat, Andy.

That is some achievement.

You have to do nothing for a really, really long time.

I'll say that I've been waiting for 33 years to become King of England and I don't know if I'll be able to wait as long as 59 years like he has to become king.

I just don't have that kind of patience.

I think I'll snap and try and overthrow the crown long before then.

It really is a long time to not be doing the only thing that you're actually supposed to be doing though.

He has been riding the bench for nearly six decades.

He's beaten the previous record that was held by his great-great-grandfather King Edward

Edward VII.

I nearly said King Kong.

King Edward VII.

Not King Kong II.

And

I've got a sense that Charles is going to end up setting a record that is going to be so huge, it's going to make Edward VII look like a pushy little shit.

I know, to be fair to Edward VII, he did spend most of the time he was waiting, banging anything that moved, by all accounts.

So I don't know if

he might have enjoyed his waiting time a little bit more.

Amazing to think.

That's almost 4,000 bugle episodes ago.

More lies now, James Ryden is starting to think that Zeus is not all the ancient Greeks cracked him up to be, and if his next sacrifice of 100 head of oxen to the famous deity does not make his orchids grow better next year, he's going to try one of the Aztec deities instead.

Anonymous donor Initials CB reckons zip wires could solve many problems of urban transportation as they don't take up much space and don't require fuel.

Also, they would boost the economy by making people really happy when they arrive at work.

And Martin McMaster thinks turkey twizzlers would taste better if the turkeys have twizzled a lot whilst alive, voluntarily and humanely of course, rather than merely being twizzled posthumously.

He's even prepared to run evening twizzling classes for both humans and turkeys.

Back to the cricket memento bits from the Bugle archives now.

England's paltry victory target against Sri Lanka was a mere 233, which even non-cricket fans would acknowledge is not very big if you told them that in a convincing manner and explained why, which is what I'm doing now.

England dismally failed to achieve this target after batting with all the calm assurance of two actors in a pantomime horse outfit who've decided to celebrate the end of their theatre run by going to a French restaurant before realizing they've forgotten to take their costume off.

But one 233 that did happen was Bugle issue 233, including these bits.

This week, the first installment of Celebrities' Secrets of Success.

Number one: Franklin Roosevelt's Bucket of Lobsters.

Roosevelt was renowned as one of America's greatest presidents.

He put much of that success down to his bucket of lobsters.

Roosevelt took the receptacle of crustaceans with him wherever he went, and they became a valuable source of both companionship and advice.

Ironically, as a young man, he used to eat loads of lobsters, but he had an epiphany during a peg out at his favourite lobster bar, Snappy Lionel's Crustacea Carnagerie, in 1913, when he thought he heard the lobsters communicating with him in Morse code.

Don't eat us, they seemed to clack with their claws.

We can help you.

He borrowed the restaurant's one remaining remaining bucket and thereafter, everywhere Roosevelt went, the lobsters went too, and their clickety clacking helped shape modern America as we know it.

With today's 24-hour meter of course, he couldn't have got away with it.

People would have been saying, why should I vote for a guy who goes everywhere with a bucket of finging lobsters?

No way would he have been president today.

People might have been prepared to vote in a black man, a lunatic, a philanderer, a lunatic's dad, and a film star, but there's no way they'd vote in a guy with a bucket of lobsters.

But it was the early 20th century and the lobsters were there to stay.

That's why he delivered his messages to the nation by a crackling fire, so people couldn't hear the clacking of lobster claws as they fed him wise, soothing words to relay to a troubled nation.

The lobsters became increasingly influential in formulating his policies, but it came at a moral price.

The famously prudish Eleanor Roosevelt banned them from having carnal relations with each other in the bucket, as she found the lob as she found the sound of lobsters humping distressing and distracting from her prime hobby of plait bread.

The lobsters reluctantly consented, until one day their pent-up lobsobsterone boiled over.

Roosevelt didn't want them breeding in case the Russians got hold of one of their offspring, so he he said, All right, I'll sort you out a boys' night in with a stripper.

Any other aquatic creature apart from lobsters?

The lobsters, as one, clacked, New Deal, New Deal!

And Roosevelt's plan to rescue America from the depression was born thanks to a bucket of perverted Randy lobsters.

And the reason Stalin always looks so awkward in those photos of him with Roosevelt and Churchill at the altar.

Well, you try looking relaxed for the camera when you've got a lobster clamped to your Soviet nutsack.

All that in the bin this week.

Andy, go to sleep.

Top story this week, baby God hack.

Over the last week or so, there have been a series of high-profile computer hackings with responsibility claimed by the Syrian Electronic Army, which correct me if I'm wrong, Andy, is exactly the same name as that synth-pop band that you were in in the mid-1980s.

That's right, Dony.

If I remember rightly, you wore a fluorescent yellow headband and played the key tar in a pair of tight blue stonewash jeans that had the Syrian flag sewn onto the ass.

I'm pretty sure I'm not making that up.

No, yes, certainly the photos are out there somewhere.

Yeah, right.

Somewhere.

So the Syrian Electronic Army is a group which is said to have the tacit support of Bashar al-Assad, although that could not be independently confirmed, mainly because Syria is still a total f ⁇ ing mess at the moment.

I mean, an unremitting shit show.

I'm talking about a f ⁇ ing catastrophe of the highest water.

And last week, the SEA managed to hack into the Twitter account of the Associated Press and posted a message that two bombs had exploded at the White House injuring Barack Obama.

Then all they had to do was just sit back and watch all the hell break loose.

The markets immediately, albeit momentarily, collapsed, temporarily wiping more than 90 billion pounds from the US stock market.

In the space of just three minutes, Andy, after the hack tweet was posted, the benchmark S ⁇ P 500 index, which most people have heard of and almost no one understands, fell nearly 1%, briefly wiping out $136.5 billion of its value.

I think the fact that all of that happened over a single tweet, Andy, should give us all a deep and lasting confidence in our financial system.

It's somehow reassuring.

to know that the global financial system can be brought to its knees in less than 140 characters.

It's progress in a way.

It's just the same kind of progress that Thelma and Louise made as they drove faster and faster towards the edge of a cliff.

But then of course it bounced back, John.

But was this due to people realising that the tweet was a fake?

Or was it simply the prospect of a looming catastrophe?

Because three minutes, John, as we've discovered on this podcast, is about the market's standard minimum decency period after a tragedy of some kind before they think, well, there's no point crying over spilt blood.

There's money to be made.

It's what the dead would have wanted.

And once again, it does raise the alarming realization that the entire global economic system is not vulnerable so much to the threats of terrorism or natural disasters, Mother Earth's own involuntary terrorism, if you will.

The entire global economic system is vulnerable to a well-placed piece of bullshit, which raises the question:

How the f am I not a billionaire, John?

What the f am I doing wrong?

I should be working on this.

That's a fact.

You are uncut bullshit, Andy.

Well, I guess the words are distilled.

But I guess the thing is, the bullshit has to be believable.

You're right, fellas.

It's not about the money.

It's about the art.

Point taken, it's also about the honeys.

Yeah, and it's also about avoiding any sense of responsibility, reality, or genuine adulthood.

I stand corrected, fellas.

Have some bacon.

A uh...

Lobsters don't eat bacon, honey.

A security expert.

It makes them kosher, John.

It cancels it out.

Well, after losing to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, England knew that it would be really useful to beat Australia.

Instead, they lost to Australia, which was not a good tactic, if you ask me.

So here's a bit from Bugle 64, 64 runs being the margin of defeat England suffered that day, or the margin of inverted victory, to give its more positive, trendy, modern term.

Promised land news now, and Andy, you in particular shouldn't have had to read or watch the news to find out what happened in Israel this week you should have just felt it

you should have flipped your judar on and felt a disturbance in the force because Israel staged an election this week which came to a satisfactory non-conclusion with both Netanyahu and Livny claiming victory perfect that is just what that region needs more arguing that whole area bottles things up way too much Won't somebody just say what they really think?

It is starting to look though that Israeli politicians just like a squabble.

Any squabble, and this one, I guess, this election squabble is rendered slightly more difficult than the recent squabble in Gaza because God didn't make the squabble result clear several thousand years ago.

So I guess that just muddies the waters slightly.

Complex.

God should have made another promise.

The governing Kadimah party and right-wing Likud party are neck and neck in the proportional representation system, leaving the balance of power in the clenched, angry hands of some of Israel's more right-wing and perhaps peace-averse political practitioners, such as Avid Ghor Lieberman of the nationalist Yisraeli Beitainu Party, who are what might be described as Arab sceptic.

What does this result herald for the peace process, John?

Well, I think we can be pretty sure that whoever ends up in government will probably resolve any lingering niggles residing from the recent Gaza Shamuzzle and other outbreaks of armed bickering that have poxed the reason over the last, say, six thousand years.

That's the official UN definition of it.

It wasn't a war, it wasn't an incident, it was a shamozzle.

Yeah, that's that's right.

Don't blame me.

Blame the UN.

It was Peresta Kway are aborting these definitions.

So they're all going to live happily ever after, John.

That's my prediction.

What do you think?

Yeah, why not?

Yeah,

I'll come in on that.

Yeah, I'll put two bucks down on that.

Yeah, but I'm quite a peace fan.

I think peace is ace.

I love it.

I can't really stand war, mate.

I'm just not interested.

I'd rather kick back in a hammock for an afternoon reading the 1950s sports magazines I've just bought on eBay than waste a day engaged in a savage gunfight in a shattered urban landscape of devastation and sorrow.

Don't say that, Andy.

Don't knock it till you try it.

That's just so much more relaxing, John.

You know, peace is like a nice, long, relaxing day at a health spa without getting shot at by a helicopter.

And if peace was a cake, I'd eat it.

Yeah, but if war was a cake, you'd eat that too.

You'd just like cake.

Tsippi Livney narrowly won victory, but may lose out anyway to Netanyahu, who may argue that he's in a better position to create a coalition government.

Mr.

Netanyahu said that with God's help, he would lead the next government.

You know what?

Why doesn't God just sit this one out, Andy?

I think he's helped that region out quite enough, what with his constant promises.

One thing is clear, and that is that the Kingmaker will now be third-party Israel-Baytainu leader, Avidor Lieberman.

And you couldn't hope for a nicer kingmaker.

If that is, your only two choices were him or Stalin.

Because amongst other inclusive policies, he is for loyalty oaths and the execution or expulsion of Arab Israelis.

Well, I can't see any reason why he shouldn't have a very positive effect on Israel's prime ministerial selection if, again, he's willing not to vocalise any of the thoughts or opinions inside his head.

One possible suggestion, I don't know what I'm going around, is that each person gets to be prime minister for two years, rotating midway through the four-year term.

What?

This isn't the cake that kids need to share.

Is this a kind of political attempt at the wisdom of Solomon?

Well, you can each have half of it.

Oh, well, I don't want it then.

Valentine's Day News and the British Library has published a love letter from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, who later became his second wife.

And in this letter, John, he pulled out all the stops to get into Foxy Anne's corsetery.

This is some of the things that he wrote in it.

The demonstrations of your affection are such that they really oblige me to honour, love, and serve you forever.

For my part,

I will outdo you if this be possible, rather than reciprocate in the loyalty of my heart and my desire to please you.

I assure you that henceforth my heart will be dedicated to you alone, and wishing greatly that my body was so too.

He then

drew a little heart with her initials in, John.

But of course, what he didn't say in that letter was, but if you so much as look at another man or fail to provide me with a son and air, I will lop your fing bonce off.

Do you get me, Anne?

With an axe.

I don't care how peachy your bloopers are.

I'm the fing king.

See that neck of yours?

Do you want to keep it in one piece?

Or would you prepare to be whacked in half and splurting blood all over the front three rows of the crowd at your execution?

Whoosh!

I want a one-chop shop!

Whoosh!

Where are you heading off to?

Whoosh!

Oh, look, your scarf doesn't fit so well anymore, does it?

Whoosh!

Executey!

Oh, yeah, she was pretty fit.

Whoosh!

What's my favourite type of oriental noosele soup?

Alexa!

Whoosh!

Alexa?

Never mind.

What do you mean there's no next time?

This is no next time!

Whoosh!

Does that work logically?

Near enough.

Whoosh!

One portion of amber in, please, mate.

Certainly, sir.

Salt?

Yes.

Vinegar?

Yeah.

Head.

No, thanks.

Whoosh!

Lots of love, Henry.

P.S.

I love you so much, I'll split the Christian church in two.

I'm not just saying that, I'll do it.

That man had a way with words.

He sure did.

Well, there you go, that's all from this week's Bugle sub-episode.

Two final lies about our voluntary subscribers to keep you going.

Nick Beresford would like to see a foot race between Bob Dylan, Meryl Streep, former World Snooker Champion Steve the Nugget Davis, and the hippopotamus, although he is not entirely sure exactly what it would prove.

And anonymous donor, Initials EZ, thinks the Tour de France would be a much better event if the cyclists were just let loose in Paris and had to return to the French capital three weeks later with as many different regional cheeses as possible, the winner being judged by the number of cheeses multiplied by a coefficient based on tastiness.

No cheating.

And that's it.

Don't forget to buy up all the tickets to my Edinburgh Festival show at the stand, and the live bugles there and Political Animal late at night at the stand as well.

And also all the shows of all the Bugle co-hosts who will be entertaining the Matters in Scotland in August.

To join the voluntary subscription scheme and give whatever you want on a one-off or recurring donation, go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button.

Until next time, goodbye.

Hi, Buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted 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.