Bonus Bugle – Some Andy and John classics

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello and welcome to Bugle 4076 sub-episode B.

This is part two of our three-part summer break.

This week we're going to delve into the archives.

The next full bugle will be 4077, a number which is considered lucky in absolutely no cultures.

However, we are going to delve into the archives and look at classic bugle episodes, which ended in the numbers 7 and 7.

There are three of those: 77, 177, and let me think 277.

And also in bugles that began and ended in 4 and 7 without any other numbers more than 0 in between.

So that's 47 and 4007.

So there,

five shows to pick the best from.

Away you go.

Bugle 47.

Top story this week and the VP debate.

I was at the VP debate last night, Andy, and you know, it was the most anticipated debate of all.

Now, why would that be, seeing as the VP debate is historically an utterly meaningless charade?

Well, it was largely due to the fact that Fox and other channels described it as a potentially gaff-filled gaff fest.

That was Fox specifically.

A gaff-filled gaff fest which which led to this atmosphere of people anticipating a mixture of ultimate fighting championship and the Hindenburg.

And did it live up to that, John?

Well it's hard to say Andy, depends what you judge these things on.

I mean in terms of flag pins, I don't know if you noticed there was absolutely no contest.

It was Palin all the way.

Hers was bigger than Biden's, a lot shinier than Biden's and quite a lot more flamboyant than Biden's.

If you judge a vice president by their flagpin, and incredibly some people do here, then it was Palin's night, Andy, all the way.

I had a particularly awkward moment in the spin room afterwards, Andy, when Fred Thompson, the ex-presidential candidate and current actor, said those who make fun of Sarah Palin should be absolutely ashamed of themselves if indeed they have the capacity for shame.

And then he and everyone around him turned and looked at me.

Hold on, I do have the capacity for shame.

Certainly it's not large enough to include any of my behaviour surrounding that.

What I was fascinated by, John, was it only took Sarah Palin 15 seconds of her first answer to talk about sport, mentioning a kids' soccer game, saying if you turn to parents on the touchdown of a kids' soccer game and ask how they feel about the economy, I betcha, quotes, you're going to hear some fear in that parent's voice.

Well, no, Governor Palin, you're not going to hear fear.

What you're going to hear is annoyance.

You're probably going to hear them say, butt out of it, Governor Palin.

I'm watching my kid playing football.

Knock it long, son.

Knock it long.

What do you mean, how do I feel about the economy?

Oh, Ref!

Ref!

Are you blind, Ref?

What now?

Yeah, I'm a bit worried about it, but I don't fully understand the issue.

For f sake, Jimmy, kick the f in the air!

Mad or bull, either will do.

Ref!

Ref.

Okay, I'll vote for you now, Petal.

Please leave me alone.

Offside, ref.

That.

That is what Sarah Palin would hear were she to ask someone on the touch zone of a kid's football match about the economy.

She did use an extremely, let's say irritatingly folksy style and using expressions like doggone it and saying at one point oh say it ain't so Joe.

She wasn't just like a folksy candidate she was more like a folksy child.

In fact I'll only take folksiness like that from a candidate if they're a candidate from the 1920s.

At one point she said of oil company CEOs bless their hearts.

What heart Sandy?

What heart is she referring to?

The ornate rusty cages in their chest cavities that house long long-dead canaries.

Did she mean those?

I'm nauseated even repeating this.

Joe Six packs and hockey bombs across the country that they needed to say never again to Wall Street Chiefs.

So it's no from Palin to another economic holocaust.

Oh,

what a lovely reference to bring up.

Also, she kept banging on about John McCain being a maverick, which is that necessarily a quality that America seeks in its presidents?

I think perhaps she's been watching too many films, perhaps those cult films where they're mavericks but they get results.

Or perhaps even Tom Cruise in Top Gun as Maverick.

And he really flew on instinct and wasn't really concerned about the mechanical aspect of how the aircraft works, which to me would mark him out as a dodgy president to have, although I would want Kelly Migulus as my first lady.

But he wasn't really what you call bipartisan.

I mean, you think about the atmosphere in that changing room with Iceman.

It was, you know, it was either angry or extremely homoerotic, and possibly both.

That's kind of like George Bush's relationship with Armadina, Johnson.

It's true.

It's true.

They've both got oiled chests.

She also played the I'm Not a Politician card pretty hard and pretty often, almost like she had a whole pack of those cards and not many other cards.

I don't really understand this desire to have someone like you representing you in politics.

That seems to be her appeal.

Because, you know, when I look at politicians, Sean, I want someone who is completely unlike me.

I want someone who is cleverer, better informed, more highly motivated, less prone to be distracted by finding a new sport to watch on television, who doesn't fall asleep on the sofa in the afternoon, who doesn't take Tuesday afternoons off to play football, who knows what he's doing, and who doesn't have a congenital inability to take things seriously.

I want someone the polar opposite of me in politics.

I want not to be able to relate to them on any level.

Can you just remind me, John, where is Sarah Palin, Governor of?

Alaska, Andy.

No, tell me yourself, John.

You must know.

I mean, come on, there's no need to ask her.

Talk me through how you're feeling about yourself at the moment, Andy.

Just the kind of instinctive emotions that are flooding through me.

Bugle 77.

Hussein news now and Barack Hussein.

Obama travelled to the Middle East this week, Andy, to deliver a major speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.

And that middle name, which had looked like political kryptonites all of a sudden became an astonishingly useful tool.

Now this speech was designed to reach out to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims and the eyes of the world were truly on him.

Incidentally that's prime advertising space right there Anthony.

He must have had offers very attractive offers.

Just to pause mid-speech and maybe take a bite of a Snickers bar.

So pardon me, it's just this bar really satisfies.

Or maybe God,

Just last week I was listening to the bugle and listen

It wasn't for want of emailing Andy

Maybe could have taken a drink before holding it up and smiling awkwardly into the audience, but you know in his defense he didn't do that He began his journey in Saudi Arabia and before he'd even landed everyone's favourite giant kidney patient bin Laden opted to release his latest audio tape.

He hasn't had one out for three months.

So you know clearly there's been some creative clashes in the studio.

Hotly anticipated this andy i was hoping it might signal a change of direction for the big lad maybe some strings backing him or some more experimental sounds that he'd been working on but no no once again he's just sticking to the formula that got him famous just one man talking some hateful shit into a microphone don't overthink it andy that has been the motto for his entire life He's kind of like the ISIS of international terrorism.

Don't overthink it.

He argued that Obama is continuing Bush's policy of antagonizing Muslims, but he's gonna have to come up with some better stuff than that now.

He's been able to sit back for the last eight years and let Bush sow the seeds of anti-Americanism around the world but now he's gonna have to get off his bony ass and make a case that it's better than oh just listen to what that Texan lunatic who isn't actually a Texan is saying and in this message he said

Obama and the administration have sown new seeds of hatred against America.

Let the American people prepare to harvest the crops of what the leaders of the White House plant in the next blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

But he has completely run out of ideas.

It's like doing a cover version of Chris DeBerg's Don't Pay the Ferryman.

The original was already terrible, you've managed to make it worse.

It was a very striking speech, John.

I particularly enjoyed the moment at the starts when there was obviously quite a large reception, but certainly on the feed I was watching, there was no audio coming through from the crowds.

And a bum was standing there just going, Thank you, thank you.

And it really sounded ironic.

That That would have been great

if we'd already had that planned out and just thought, I'll just do it anyway into absolute silence.

We'll add the applause in later.

Thank you.

I love you too.

Well, you complain about Bin Laden having the same shtick over and over again, but all I heard from Obama was the same old freedom, justice, peace, hope, bicycle, you know, changé ledisque.

We've heard it all before.

There was instant engineered controversy, Andy, when Obama first landed, when he met King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, as the the american press debated whether or not he was going to bow to him now he'd apparently bowed when he when they two men met at the g20 that the white house insisted i like this excuse he was actually just shaking hands with a different shorter man

it's just say he dropped his keys come on

the other sticking point was that he'd said shukran after the initial meeting the arabic for thank you and apparently that was tantamount to kneeling on the floor and begging for mercy

is that really a shocking gesture?

Or is that just above the base level of politeness and what you would think would be the minimum level of diplomacy?

He actually got to stay on the king's horse farm, Andy Obama, where the king keeps 260 Arabian horses in air-conditioned comfort.

Horses do not need air conditioning, Andy.

I'll tell you why.

Because they're f ⁇ ing horses.

I don't know, John.

You know, if you want them to be tasty, eventually, you've got to keep them well.

Otherwise, they're not good for much more than stewing.

Obama was very careful to lower expectations, saying one speech is not going to solve all the problems of the Middle East.

Expectations should be somewhat modest.

Well, too late, Andy.

And also, it's not entirely true.

This may well be the biggest opportunity in our lifetimes for anyone helping over there, an American president with Muslim connections in power.

We'll probably never see such scenes of excitement greeting a U.S.

president's arrival.

People shouted, I love you, during his speech.

He was like he was one of the Osmonds about to launch into a rendition of Puppy Love.

One of the Osmonds.

Who am I kidding, Andy?

It would be Donnie.

There'd be a riot if anyone else tried to pull that off.

Yeah, I've seen the tattoo on your back.

You're a big fan.

He's so likable.

Street vendors were even selling souvenirs.

I don't know if you saw them, there was this one plaque that said, Obama, the new Tutankhamun cardoon of the world.

Presumably, they want to pull his brains out through his nose and bury him with his cats.

How Obama, you know, he did challenge the Muslim world quite a bit during the speech, and particularly on the subject of women's rights, John, which is clearly a big issue

around the world.

And I think, you know, we're in a bugle, we need to look at ourselves here because we're not really an equal opportunities employer when it comes to gender equality.

And I think if we're going to represent the world that we purport to represent in this podcast, then one of us is going to have to be a woman.

Or each of us is going to have to be half a woman.

It's more than that, Andy.

One of us would have to be a woman, and the other one would have to be 1% woman.

Alright, well, I'm already that.

But I'm prepared to act.

Obama told the people of the world we have to act.

It's not just up to politicians, up to the people.

And well, I'm prepared to act.

Tom, can you pass my mini chainsaw, please?

Uh-oh.

Andy, think this through.

Ouch.

Well, it's a start.

Tune in next week for the official unveiling of John's Hooters.

Bugle 177.

Can you feel it in the air?

Can you feel it in your balls?

Can you feel it in that sick sensation in the pit of your stomach?

The U.S.

presidential election is finally upon us.

Come with me

and you'll be

in a world of purest desperation.

What you'll see

will defy

explanation

thanks John.

You're welcome another vocal audition.

There's nothing better than wonkering your way into a new year.

Andy, barely had the new year been blasted in in a series of spectacular fireworks displays that very few nations on earth can technically afford at the moment.

Barely had the ball descended in Times Square onto a crowd of people people thinking, there are way too many people here.

This was a terrible idea.

Not even Lady Gargoyle was worth this.

Barely had any of that happened that the people of Iowa stepped up to usher in the presidential primary season.

Now, if you're not familiar with US politics, you might think, who gives a shit about Iowa?

And you'd be right to ask that.

That's a rock-solid, entirely understandable question.

Unfortunately, the answer is that almost the entire country of America does care about Iowa for one day every four years.

And if you've lived here at all, or even for some of your life, you realise that the question should actually be phrased, why does anyone give a shit about Iowa?

And the answer is that there is no reason, no logical reason at all.

They are technically the first primary, and that is it.

That is literally all they have to offer.

That is all those cornballs bring to the table.

That and a folksy system of caucus voting where you can turn up to a neighbour's house and discuss who you're going to vote for before writing a a name on a piece of paper and having it counted by a local volunteer.

It's so steeped in old-fashioned Americana, Andy, that it couldn't be any more wholesome if Huckleberry Flynn turned up with an apple pie and started dropping the N-word.

Of course, Iowa, a very appropriate place to start an election in these tough economic times, are states named after the reaction of most Americans when looking at their personal finances.

Iowa!

And slightly sort of unexpected results, particularly from Rick Santorum, who I have to confess,

I don't have that many posters of him up around my house, but maybe

I'll have to invest in some.

And it was described, his performance was described as a Cinderella story by the Iowa Secretary of State, Matt Schultz.

And I guess that is right in the sense that the literature for the entire campaign might as well have been written hundreds of years ago.

The first two primaries of Iowa and New Hampshire also forced the candidates to interact closely with local people, something that candidates claim to love doing, but which their faces suggest might not be the case.

Because whenever you see Mitt Romney in a diner trying both desperately and unsuccessfully to pretend that he has several hundred million dollars less than he actually has, and then you see him being forced to make painful small talk with a group of old people eating pancakes, you can clearly see his eyes pleading, somebody, anybody, get me away from these peasants.

I think one of them may have just touched my tie.

Please burn it as soon as we get out of this godforsaken trough.

Rodney always bursts into diners in the same way, Andy.

He kind of waddles in with a forced smile on his face, attempting a folksy, wow, wee, what have we got here?

He literally says that.

He keeps walking into diners saying, what have we got here?

But there's part of you that's always thinking that he's actually asking that for real.

What have we got here?

What on earth am I looking at?

Who are these people and what are they doing?

Do people really live like this?

How many more of these human pigs do I have to touch before I can be president?

Please don't say it's more than five.

Mitt Romney is the clear frontrunner to be the nominee of a party that seems it can't stand him, which is why it was somehow fitting that he won the Iowa caucus with a landslide majority of eight votes.

Eight votes, the actual number eight, the one between seven and nine.

He won by eight votes, proving that it is technically mathematically possible to both win and lose at the same time.

It was close, Andy.

So close that one commentator referred to the results as, and I quote, tighter than a new tube sock on a cow.

Which is both beautifully put and completely meaningless, Andy.

In fact, you could have said it.

And I don't know what higher praise and more withering insult you can give a sentence than that.

I'm touched and offended.

But Santorum has said some slightly odd things in the past.

According to one report I read, he achieved national notoriety by claiming that homosexual marriage would lead to bestiality and child rape.

That's correct.

Yeah.

I guess, I mean, let's not judge him on that because we don't know whether or not that's true, and we won't know until the end of all time.

Right.

And we can tot everything up and work out what led to what.

He also claimed that Jesus led to the Holocaust on the same reasoning.

Now, I'm not saying that he did, I'm just saying Jesus did not come out as strongly against it at the time as he might have done, or at least some of his senior spokesmen didn't.

Santorum summed up his position on homosexual marriage by saying this, God made man and women, and men and women come together to have a union to produce children, which keeps civilization going and provide the best environment for children to be raised.

Which is the kind of sentence that basically makes absolutely no sense

when you actually analyse with the words in it.

But I think you'll also find that it is adults that keep civilization going, not children.

I mean, not all adults, but some adults.

If children had their way, John, civilization would be replaced by balloons, fairies, jelly, and cartoons about robots.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, it is depressing, the campaign trail, Andy, but only if you pay attention to it.

If you don't, it's actually fine.

Oh, right, that's good.

Mitt Romney spent over $4.5 million in Iowa alone to get 25% of the vote.

At around $156 per vote, which seems like a lot, especially in this economy.

In fact, Romney could probably have just handed each Iowa voter $100 each for their vote and saved a fortune.

Perhaps he's not quite as good with money as he claims he is.

What did Santorum spend?

He spent slightly less than that, I believe.

The same number of votes minus eight.

Yes, exactly.

As the Republicans embark upon the infantile circus of state primaries to determine a candidate, it might be a good time for us all to look back, Andy, and be grateful to the grand old party for the smorgasbord of crazy candidates that they put on offer.

In a time of economic uncertainty, the Republicans saw America suffering and they stepped up with a tasting menu of bat shittery for every palate.

You don't have to vote for any of the candidates, buglers, but you do have to enjoy them.

That is your responsibility as a human being.

We were lucky to have Herman Kane run for president for as long as he did.

Not in your wildest dreams or most vivid nightmares could you have thought that a godfather's pizza CEO would have the self-confidence to run for the highest office in the land.

But Herman did.

And not only did he do that, but he did it with a series of sex scandals in his past that he just presumed wouldn't come up.

Oh, and he also said, Andy, in response to a relatively open question from a journalist about his response to gotcha questions, he said, and I quote, well, when they ask me who the president of Uzbeki Becky Becky Stanstan is,

I'm going to say, you know what, I don't know.

Do you know?

And you know what, Andy?

I have to admit, I don't.

I don't know the president of Uzbeki Becky Stanstan.

I know that the president of Ubekistan is Islam Karimov.

So, and I'm only guessing here, the president of Uzbeki Becky Stanstan might be Islam Carry Carry Mov Mov.

But I could be wrong.

I could be wrong, Andy, and I'm embarrassed to say that I've never actually heard of the country that he mentioned.

But then I'm not running for president.

Bugle 277.

An Australian man decided to surf a dead whale while sharks were circling around it.

He jumped off a boat, climbed onto the whale, and started surfing on it.

There's only one even potentially stupider thing to do, Andy, and that is to attach small wheels to the front and back of the whale and skateboard that dead whale instead.

But it was all worth it if just for this single detail from one Australian news report which said, and I quote, A 26-year-old Australian man who risked his life by diving into shark-infested waters to climb onto a rotting whale carcass has confessed that even his parents think he's an idiot.

Do you know what?

I might be ready to call it Andy.

I think that could be my favourite sentence ever uttered in the English language.

Shakespeare could not have imagined that.

Let's just recap that again.

A 26-year-old Australian man who risked his life by diving into shark-infested waters to climb onto a rotting whale carcass has confessed that even his parents think he's an idiot.

There's so much going on in that sentence, Andy.

There's a dead whale, there's shark-infested waters, there's an idiot, there's surfing, and there's ashamed parents.

That sentence is like a 34-word novel.

It's like the sequel to Hamlet, but more so.

George Mallory, the early 20th century British mountaineer, was famously asked why do you want to climb Mount Everest?

And he replied, because it's there.

And I guess this Australian guy, Harrison Williams, applied a very similar logic when presented with a dead whale carcass.

Why?

Do you want to climb on a dead whale carcass and surf it whilst surrounded by a hungry-looking shark?

Because it's there.

And because my mates are watching, and I think it'll be pretty funny.

Oh, do you know what, Andy?

I'm glad he did it.

And you know, also, I hate to harp on about this, but the only way it could have been better, a cape, Andy, because a man surfing a dead whale on his own is irresponsible.

A man surfing a whale carcass on his own in a cape, that man is going somewhere in life.

Now, he may be going inside a rotten whale or inside the stomach of a shark, but the point is, he's going somewhere.

Carl Wollander from the Wollander family, here's something he said.

Being on the tightrope is living, everything else is waiting.

And once again, I guess Harrison Williams might think, surfing a dead whale carcass while surrounded by a shark is living.

Everything else is waiting to tell my buddies I just surfed on a dead whale carcass while surrounded by sharks.

He did miss an opportunity though, John, to climb on the whale and start giving it CPS.

I think that would have been a lovely gesture

with half of its side already eaten off by sharks some gesture from humanity to the beleaguered whale community which has suffered so much the slings arrows and harpoons of outrageous fortune stroke the Japanese fishing fleet that's the point because as you say even while he was doing it Andy there were several tiger sharks and a great white shark circling the whale but he said he did not feel in danger saying the sharks were too busy chomping on the whale so it wasn't too bad.

But unfortunately that was the dead whale that you were surfing on, you glorious idiot.

Well, we do hope you enjoyed that journey into the happy history of humanity.

There'll be more from the archives next week.

Don't forget to book your tickets to the Edinburgh shows of me and my bugle co-hosts.

Details online.

A couple of live bugle shows in Edinburgh, the 15th and the 22nd.

Also, some shows in London coming up, the 13th of September and 14th of November at the Leicester Square Theatre.

And there are still a few tickets left for Salford on the 7th of October.

I'm hoping to be able to announce very shortly a live bugle in Dublin on the 8th of October.

I'm not sure that's 100% confirmed, but hopefully it is.

So, do check.

I'm recording this a couple of weeks before it goes out, so by then, either it will have been confirmed or it won't be happening.

But do check until next time, goodbye.

If you've enjoyed a bugle and would like to support the show, please click the donate button on the Bugle website.

Thanks!

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.

now.