Bonus: Everything August aka Silly Season

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to Bugle 4037, sub-episode B for Balderash Baloney, Bunkum and Bullshit, the official law firm of the Bugle podcast.

I am Andy Zoltzman.

I'm approaching the end of my holidays now, where, if all has gone according to plan, I will have made it to the quarterfinals at least of the Mr.

Dry T-shirt competition, performed a full 720 air reverse on my indoor surfboard, seen and shot a live pterodactyl and squeezed most of an ancient temple into my suitcase in the traditional British manner.

It is now officially August, the renowned month, which despite claims to the contrary from some people in the southern hemisphere is in the summer.

It's a quality month is August, a terrific 31-day whopper.

It is of course neurosurgery outreach month, so do take advantage of this to reach out and perform some neurosurgery on someone.

The star sign for the earlier part of August that we're currently in is Leo, and the reason for that is because statistically, lions on average slay more zebras from the 22nd of July to the 22nd of August than in any other single week of the year.

Julius Caesar, the former Roman big cheese and slayings monthly magazine's assassination victim of the year in 44 BC, well he whacked a couple of extra days into what's now August.

It was then the piddlingly short 29-day month of Sextilis.

That was August's month's predecessor, so-called, in honour of the Roman sextile industry.

Man, did they make some seriously horn-inducing fabrics.

Oh, Jupiter.

Caesar added those extra days in 45 BC.

The next year, as I said, he launched his famous Involuntary Human Pincushion pincushion impersonation act.

You join the dots people, do not add days to August or your buddies will try to pop you like a balloon.

Anyway Augusta was named after Caesar's adopted son Octavian who changed his name to Augustus because he didn't think that October would be a good name for a month.

Too confusing really.

Anyway let's take a dance back through time to see what the bugle had to say about a world Augustus would ironically never live to see himself.

A world 2,000 years after he popped his imperial clogs in 14 AD.

And let's start back in August 2007.

Here I am with my then co-host, Mr John Oliver.

The bugle did not exist in August 2007.

It began in October of that year, which was, as so often, after August.

Yes, good point.

Let's move swiftly on then to august 2008, the first August in bugle history.

So what the hell was happening then?

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.

Salem 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 Luck.

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 night, John, knowing that the world's number one ranked baddie will have 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 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 Osmond'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 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're 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 Hamdam 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 fing?

What is the fing point in setting up fing 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 even 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 in that you look at him and just say, well, why did they put him in here?

Other news now and a census of supposedly endangered gorillas has shown that populations are actually doing much better than people thought.

Hooray!

Yeah, well done, the gorillas.

We can start eating them again.

Sorry, I just really, really, really feel I have to come down strongly on that.

That is not what this means.

Is that not how it works?

It's been a couple of years since I ate a gorilla, and you know.

I know, I know it has it, but I think you need to push on with that.

It's great.

That two years has been terrific, but don't lapse now.

Don't go back to your old ways.

Just go so well with my banana sauce.

That's all.

I'm not saying it doesn't.

I'm just saying it's a bad idea.

For anyone confused about the bewildering number of primates in the world, monkeys are lady apes, and gorillas are male apes, and the ones with brightly coloured humbadugas are the clever ones.

I hope that clears it all up.

Say that word again:

humbadugas.

I think that's gonna have to become official now.

What a right pain in the humbaduga.

Kiss my humbadooga.

It's 2009 time now, the August that will be forever remembered for this thing that we're talking about here.

I need a hero!

I'm old enough for the hero till the end of the night.

He's gotta be tall, and he's gotta be a two-time president, and his hair's gotta be white.

God, it's almost every other bugle you start singing now, John.

I think I'm settling into a nice rhythm of power rock as well.

I'm wearing spray-on-leather trousers.

It's with the invention of spray-on-leather that's made that possible.

Now, Andy, I think I said a few bugles ago that the key to life seems to be find something that you're good at and do it as much as you can.

So, if you're a good carpenter, make as many things out of wood as you can.

If you're a good pole vaulter, you should carry a long pole with you wherever you go and always be on the lookout for things to vault over, preferably with highly cushioned surfaces on the other side.

And if you happen to be good at flying across the world to negotiate the release of two female journalists before flying back to greet the the world's media looking like he just stepped out of an aftershave commercial, then for f sake, do it.

And perhaps luckily, and definitely unsurprisingly, President Bill Clinton turns out to be just the man for that job.

This week, in a closely guarded move, he flew to the most secretive nation on earth to retrieve two American journalists who'd been captured months ago and sentenced to 11 years in jail.

And this is a North Korean jail that we're talking about, Andy.

Probably not a pool table there.

Although there might be a photograph on the wall of Kim Yong-il's water slide, if you're lucky.

But it wasn't just 11 years, though, John though, was it?

It was reform through labour.

So it wasn't just your standard

Her Majesty's pleasure that you get here.

This is reform through labour.

Now, I reckon if I heard that in my sentencing, I'll start getting a bit jumpy.

I'd start calling in a few presidents, frankly.

You're not a big fan of reform or labour, are you, Andy?

Let alone when they're put together.

Yeah, not really.

No, there's a time and a place, and

neither of those is in a North Korean jail.

The problem was that not only is America still technically at war with North Korea due to the fact that the North Korean war was never really technically declared over, but relations have worsened recently with North Korea's insistence on making very loud bangs even when they've been expressly told not to.

Bill Clinton had apparently agreed to meet with Kim Yong-il just days after North Korea had insulted his wife.

Things had descended to petty name-calling after the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had likened North Korea to an unruly child.

She'd said, What we've seen is this constant demand for attention.

And maybe it's the mother in me or the experience I've had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention, but don't give it to them.

They don't deserve it.

They're acting out.

Now, that might sound true, but is it really?

Because would you actually ignore a petulant child who has a toy box filled with nuclear warheads?

I think you might be inclined to keep an eye on them.

It's all about balance parenting, John.

You know, what you give with one hand, you take away with the other.

I mean, you say that, Andy.

Say Matilda had a few random nuclear warheads in her bedroom.

Now, would you just go, you know, yes, she's threatening to set them off, but, you know, that's just a phase she's going through.

Well, I'd say we can't have them

unless you eat your peas.

So it's about negotiation, isn't it?

If you play around with the nuclear weapons and you're not supposed to, no story before bedtime.

Pretty much what America seems to have done with North Korea.

Also, Clinton, Hillary Clinton, also said that North Korea has no friends left, which really is kind of a playground-level diplomacy, isn't it?

Just kind of teasing, taunting North Korea.

Mateless, you're mateless.

In fact, North Korea did not appreciate that because they hit back saying, sometimes she looks like a primary school girl and sometimes like a pensioner going shopping.

Well, hold on, which,

Kim?

There's not a lot of crossover between those two looks.

She's got a very good makeup artist, though, to be fair.

So the two journalists, Yunale and Laura Ling.

Now, before this week, if someone had said Unilee and Laura Ling to you, you probably have guessed that they were an adverb and a present participle, meaning respectively, in an inevitably one-off manner, he cut off his own head, Unilee, or and also in the process of going off on a tedious and unnecessary tangent in the middle of a long anecdote.

Uncle Frobisher was once again laureling at considerable length when suddenly it became clear that Auntie Javietta had died.

But now we know more about them, John, these two journalists.

And what a story, what a story.

Bill Clinton, as far as I know it, the details of the story, that Clinton,

in a secret undercover mission, stormed into North Korea, posing as a wildlife photographer, and then gradually over the course of several years infiltrated Kim Jong-il's inner circle by giving the leader some really nice photos of insects and tigers and stuff, becoming one of Kim's most trusted confidants and lovers.

And then when he'd been accepted as an honorary North Korean, he busted into the Pyongyang ladies' prison, armed only with a rucksack full of apples, which he then started flinging about with wild abandonment.

abandon in a flurry of fruit as the prison guards returned fire.

Clinton grabbed the two journalists, slung slung one over each shoulder, and used them as shoulder pads as he barged his way out of jail like an American football player trying to get hold of a quarterback who's been swapping his wife.

At least that's according to the first draft of the film scripts of the story.

Still

about as close as Pearl Harbor to the historical account.

It deserves a movie, this, Annie.

It's been an incredible story.

The State Department was unable to sanction an official visit to negotiate, so it did need someone to operate under the radar.

And then you realise, hold on, Bill Clinton is Jack Bauer.

He's become the very TV character he loves so much.

And I do think it's important that we recognize when they do something the world can enjoy.

The Navy SEALs killing the pirates and freeing the hostage, that was impressive.

And Bill's little adventure, pretty cool.

No taxpayer money was used to fund the trip, apart from the Secret Service agents traveling with him.

The plane was an all-business class private jet lent to him by Steve Bing and Shangri-La Entertainment.

All I will say on that, Andy, is this: Bill Clinton plus Shangri-La Entertainment's private jet.

One, there was definitely a hot tub in there.

Two,

it definitely got used.

I'll leave it at that.

You're right.

While I'm sure there were preparations and negotiations done long before they left, I love the idea that he just decided to get in a plane and go and get them.

Well, it was slightly more complicated than that, wasn't it?

Because Clinton was actually on a list of names of people that North Korea apparently said they would be prepared to negotiate with.

That's true.

Alongside the likes of Rhys Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Kirsten Dunst, Michelle Dessler from 24.

Hang on, those are all women that Kim Jong-il fancies.

It was a diplomatic booty call.

Wily old sea dog.

Marilyn Monroe is on the list too, but as we know, news is quite restricted over in North Korea.

August 2009.

August 2010 was the first August of the post-2009 era.

And during it, John Oliver and I talked about this.

In New York, it's the multiple Grammy Award-winning country music legend, Willie Nelson.

Oh, sorry, I'm getting my podcast mixed up.

Sorry, I thought this was financial and bedroom tips with Willie Nelson.

Oh, sorry, it's the buglers, isn't it?

Anyway, it's John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Buglers.

Financial and bedroom tips, Andy.

Yeah, well,

he likes the multitask.

That isn't...

That is two job skills that should never be merged.

But you'd listen to it.

You would listen to that podcast.

I'm not denying that.

That is a good point.

That's a good point.

Andy, I was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the last couple of days, shooting something for the show.

And about 20 minutes after getting into my hotel room the first night, there was a knock on the door.

And a hotel employee was standing there with a bottle of champagne and an ice bucket with strawberries inside the glasses and a card that simply read, the Milwaukee Division of the Bugle Army has your back.

Then, then,

there was a drawing of a heart and underneath simply signed, Gaddafi.

What What a fantastic thing to receive with the way the world is, Andy.

Flooding in Pakistan, fires across Russia, serious threat of a double-dip recession.

It truly restores your faith in humanity that people are doing something that juvenile for one another.

Thank you very much, buglers, whoever you are.

Unless, of course, unless it was actually Colonel Gaddafi who is currently heading over the Milwaukee division of the Bugle Army.

Top story this week: democracy owned gold

As I think everyone in the world knows Andy the Brazilian presidential election is on October the 3rd

I for one have been counting down the days in the traditional way I've had an Advent calendar tattooed on my chest and I have a

removed every morning until I've just left with the central tattoo of Pele doing a wheelie on a motorbike while playing keepy uppy with a rolled up ballot paper

Everyone has their own way of watching the Brazilian election results come in, Andy.

Some like to invite their friends around, use a compass to make sure they face their TV in the direction of Rio de Janeiro.

Some like to take the more traditional approach and shave their bodies, paint them gold, adorn themselves with feathers, and then walk up and down the middle of their street in a one-man drunken carnival before waking up the next morning and just guessing the results.

Or maybe you're more like me and you just phone Rivaldo on the hour, every hour, and ask him if he's heard anything yet.

But the big story, the big early story in Brazil, is that satire has been banned there from now until election day.

A draconian law still inexplicably there 25 years after Brazil's dictatorship ended has gagged anyone from mocking politicians on TV or radio for the next six and a half weeks.

Now, obviously, as soon as we heard this, Andy and I recognised it immediately as a cry for help.

It was like the bass signal, or in this case, the bullshit signal, being projected into the sky, which is why, as an act of entirely selfless charity, we will be donating the top story this week to Brazil by lampooning the shit out of their election for them.

Yeah, I mean, of course, it's interesting, isn't it?

The government banned satar in Brazil in the lead-up to elections.

In Britain, that self-same role is performed by TV commissioners.

Is this on?

Is this on?

And by this, I mean my career.

This anti-joking noise, an odd thing.

I have had audiences in the past that thought I was working under the same restriction.

Not this year, not this year.

It's been a strong show, strong show.

Don't internally heckle me, most of you.

Right.

But I want to, you know,

we had a similar, well, an interesting thing, it's the show we were working on years ago, John, the state we're in, the rightly cancelled state we're in, on BBC3 back in the days when you were still just a humble Brits before you became an American.

And it was in the build-up to the Iraq war.

We were working on this, and I remember writing some jokes criticising the actions of the British and American governments and being told by a senior commissioner at BBC that if we made anti-Bush jokes, we also, for the sake of balance, had to make anti-Saddam jokes as well.

Now, you would have thought we could have taken that as a given.

No.

No, you can't take that as a given.

Right.

You can't take a given.

Evidently not.

Unless you explicitly zing Saddam.

They They just assume that you were a bath party supporter.

Well, we are the people.

We do take our responsibilities very seriously, John, and this world isn't going to satirize itself, is it?

So, yes, as John said, we will be lampooning the Brazilian election.

Now, one of the reasons why this is going to be so painful for Brazil is that the candidates sound incredibly boring.

The frontrunner, Dilma Rousseff, has apparently a lumbering speaking manner, and her main opponent, Jose Sera, is widely considered to be lacking charisma.

Have they found the only two introverted Brazilians in the whole of that bethonged nation, Handy?

Is that what happens in Brazil?

If you're boring, everyone else makes you run the country while they're outside building 35-foot floats out of marshmallows.

Have you ever been to Brazil, John?

No.

Well, I'd love to.

The marshmallow floats sound amazing.

Yeah, you just don't want to eat one in a whole, you know, a whole one in a single sitting.

That's the key.

So, here we go, Chris.

I hope you've unpacked your drum kit and hi-hat, because this shit is about to get zingy.

First, let's deal with frontrunner Dilma Rousseff.

Here goes.

For a start, what kind of name is Dilma?

Sounds like Fred Flintstone calling his wolf while suffering from a cold.

Boo!

Boo!

Chief of staff.

Chief of steph more like.

Boo!

You heard her talk.

She sounds like an articulated lorry slowly reversing onto a rhinoceros.

Here's another.

Hey Dilma, you're a career civil servant never elected to office.

Plus you are and will continue to be in the pocket of President Lula de Silva.

I'm not saying you're a puppet.

I'm just saying I bet you can't speak while President Lula is drinking a glass of water.

Boom!

I know why she's called the Iron Lady, because she makes everyone she talks to feel flat.

Like they've been ironed.

Iron, like an iron.

You can't handle the truth.

By the way, Dilma, Angela Lansbury called.

She wants her entire wardrobe back.

I mean, every item of clothing she's ever worn.

Former Secretary of State for Energy.

Well, she should be fired.

Fired.

Is this on?

Is this...

I'm Dynamite.

Hey, hey, Dilma, apparently, you joined the underground resistance movement during a military dictatorship and were jailed and tortured between 1970 and 1972.

That's an admirable commitment to your beliefs and cause.

Hey, they can't all be winners.

What'd you get if you crossed four decades of political activism when a president was coming to the end of his second term of office?

What?

Delmarusef running for president.

Okay, that needs a bit of work as well, John.

That needs a bit of work.

Okay, well, let's move on to Jose Serra, Andy.

Apparently, Jose Serra, Andy, was an engineering student.

It's a shame he didn't engineer himself a personality.

You're welcome, Brazil.

Donada.

Jose Serra, who's he, Sarah Mulak?

Who's he?

Who's he?

Former health minister, is he?

Well, he didn't make me feel any better this morning.

I tell you, Brazil would be nuts if they elect this guy.

Hey, Jose Sera, your wife, Monica Allende, with a top ballerina with the National Ballet of Chile.

Well, you can both go spin on this.

Jose Sierra's campaign slogan is Brazil can do better.

You're right, Jose, and Brazil can do a f of a lot better than you.

That is a burn.

That is a third-degree burn all over his personality.

That man has the charisma of a long-forgotten apple core slowly rotting in a disused air ray shelter.

Finally, let's deal with the outsider Andy, former Environment Minister Marina Silva.

Marina switched from the Workers' Party to the Green Party a year ago.

I haven't seen such a huge party hopper since Paris Hilton was welded onto a pogo stick.

Brazil, you've been great.

I'm here all week.

Try the polenta.

Isn't that more of an Italian thing?

Apparently, it's also in Brazil.

2011 was without question the most recent year whose digits add up to four.

Only five more of those years to go in the next 7,986 years, so do enjoy them while you can.

And what did an August and a year adding up to four sound like?

Well, it sounded like this.

What's going to happen to Edinburgh after

you leave on Saturday, I leave on Tuesday morning?

Well, I mean, it does not look good at all.

Sweet accent, John.

Thank you very much, Andy.

Casting coming up?

Well, I don't think I need to do casting anymore, Andy.

When you've been in a film which has grossed $370 million.

Do you get daily updates on that, John?

No, I look for them.

I look for them to throw at you.

I'll go to something called Box Office Mojo.

Hold on, hold on.

I've got the internet down here again.

All right.

Boxoffice Mojo.com.

Now, how did I do this last time?

Always quite slow down here.

I guess this pretty much affects whether or not you can afford to feed Hoagie.

Hoagie's going to be in luck.

He's going to get some liver.

Here we go.

Oh, there's some more news.

Smurfs hold off Planet of the Apes overseas.

Should you not be like checking whether Gaddafi's still in power first or

not?

Oh.

Nope.

Okay, let's see.

Yesterday in Glasgow, the Liberal Democrat leader, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, was attacked with a load of blue paints.

And

I mean...

Where were you yesterday when that happened, John?

Listen, viral marketing is a valid valid advertising strategy for any film now not that the smurfs need it as it is 333 million dollars in total hasn't that gone down by 40 million dollars at the last minute yeah I think probably because I'm mentioning it all right

a journalist wrote that's your newspaper that's my home local newspaper Andy if I managed to get back home through the hurricane

the uh

and of course the uh that did that massive had that massive picture of uh of us in it last week Yeah.

So very fine newspaper clearly.

Anthony Shaddid wrote about

Tripoli.

There was unease, there was a sense of the ephemeral, like the last hours of a long party.

Googlers, if you ever get invited to the New York Times Christmas party, politely declare

What what kind of parties does Anthony Shaddid go to?

Yeah, there ain't no party like a New York Times party, Andy, because a New York Times party don't stop.

That is taking partying beyond its logical conclusion.

Brilliant.

Yeah.

I mean, we all love to topple a statue at a party, John.

I mean, heaven knows I've been there often enough myself.

But, I mean, that's...

That is a...

That is a major party.

Didn't you ruin the Queen's 70th birthday party?

I'm pushing over a statue of her mum.

Well.

So so one day, one day, laws of gravity.

Yeah,

she's going down.

Physical satire, John.

And you were right, you were right.

She did die tragically at 101 or natural causes.

Why did she, John?

Did she fake her own death?

Well, because she did look quite a lot like Colonel Gaddafi.

Oh, yeah.

Could it be?

Could it?

Could it be?

Could it be that she lived out the rest of her life as Colonel Gaddafi?

Do call in.

But that's the odd thing.

Andy and I are sitting in a radio studio.

Yeah.

In Edinburgh.

Yeah, in Edinburgh.

It's 10 in the morning, and we've finished our gig last night as three.

I think they can probably tell that by the tone of voice, Andy.

And Andy's even sitting, Andy has access to the faders, which is no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, goodbye, John.

Fade me up.

Goodbye, John.

Fade me up.

Children.

Sorry, Chris.

I just love the feeling of power.

You can't be trusted with a fader, Andy.

Hello?

Look, Look, what makes you say that, John?

Oh, Andy, no!

No!

You see, Andy, this is...

Sonically, this is exactly what happened with Gaddafi.

He basically had the fader of Libya at his fingertips.

And he fed it.

Really?

Well, I'm not sure that that's necessarily true, John.

I guess what...

Oh, shit.

Did you just fade yourself down?

He did.

You see, Andy?

See,

that's really what Gaddafi did, did, John.

That is, that's really what you did.

Oh, you faded himself down.

Oh.

That was a little bit of satirical mixing I did there.

Did you like that?

That was DJ satire.

That was August 2011.

2012 was, of course, the year of London 2012.

And London 2012 in August 2012 was when London 2012 was really right at its Olympian 2012 peak.

I'm Andy Zaltzman, Great Britain, live just a few miles away from where British athletes are going for glory.

If you're working for or watching the BBC coverage, and if you're not, where the world's greatest sporting event is taking place.

And with me this week, it's the former Czechoslovak second scientifically enhanced 800-metre race, Johmila Kratos-Vilova.

And alongside him or her in New York, bugling under the IOC banner for comedians, no longer affiliated to any nation, it's John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Now, if you've been following any of Andy's micro-bugles this week, or indeed his Twitter feed, you'll probably be aware that Andy has come down with a very serious case of Olympic fever.

He's been attending events all week long, frequently more than one a day, and is in fact sandwiching this bugle recording in between seeing athletics before this and then leaving immediately after this to go and see, I believe, fencing and table tennis.

That's right.

This isn't just Olympic fever, Andy.

This is is advanced stage Olympic fever.

And at this point, there's just not much that any doctor can do.

I've just been able to do that.

Yeah, there's no point even sending in a priest to see Andy now, partly because he's Jewish, and partly cause he'd take one look at the cross around the priest's neck and just automatically assume it's a new medal for getting fourth place in the triple jump.

In fact, I believe that if you took an x-ray of Andy's torso right now, you would see his intestines have rearranged themselves into the shape of the five Olympic rings.

When I spoke spoke to you on the phone yesterday, Andy, you sounded as happy as I've ever heard you.

And that absolutely includes both your wedding day and the birth of both of your children.

What were you doing at the birth of my children, John?

I didn't want to interrupt.

I just wanted to be there.

My only concern is that when these Olympics are over, you are headed, Andy, for a spectacularly large come down.

After the closing ceremony, you're going to be like Ewan McGregor in train spotting, lying in the corner of a room, shivering and hallucinating a hammer-throwing baby crawling across the ceiling.

What are you going to do?

That doesn't bear thinking about, John.

How are you going to wean yourself off this level of happiness?

Well, I don't know.

I mean, it's going to be hard, and even more concerning than that, John, is that it looks like it is going to be at least another four years until London hosts the Olympics again.

Probably even more.

So

it's going to be dark times.

I think your best bet might be just to move straight to Rio after this and sit in the unfinished Olympic stadium and just wait for four years.

I think that's your best bet.

So the Olympics is a week in now and after a spectacular Olympics opening ceremony that saw a five-minute Mr.

Bean sketch and James Bond bursting in on the Queen with a look in his eyes that made me think he was about to shoot her in the head.

The Queen, of course, then jumped out of a helicopter and even more spectacularly, managed to scowl her way through the rest of the opening ceremony.

She did look like she absolutely hated it.

She had a face like a bored trout, Abby.

Would it have killed her to smile just once rather than have a permanent expression that seemed to say, I fing hate all of you.

All of you.

I think, and I think I mentioned this in the very first monicro bugle last week, that there was an explanation for this, John, that she just spent 10 minutes in a helicopter with James Bond.

Now, what happens to women when they get in bits of transport alone

with James Bond?

And Romney's horse is called Rafalca, which is a stupid name for a horse that you are asking to do stupid things in a stupid sport.

But Rafalca has become a bit of a touchy subject for Mitt Romney, as you know, its very existence does play into the image of him being a bit of an elitist.

Now, he's claimed that it is not an elitist sport, horse dressage, but let's just look at the cold facts for a moment.

The rider wears a top hat and white gloves and the horse trots in place and performs pirouettes.

A pirouetting horse Anthony.

A pirouetting horse.

I think Mitt Romney is smart enough to know that you do not get elected to the highest office in the land by being associated with a pirouetting horse.

Rafalka's rider insisted that the sport is not just for the rich, saying that it's open to anyone on, on, and I quote, a normal budget.

But that might be stretching the term normal just a bit, because it might be normal to anyone with a large Swiss bank account.

But the horses cost upwards of half a million dollars to buy, and according to their tax according to the tax returns that Romney has deigned to release so far, the Romneys wrote off $77,000 in horse expenses in 2010.

Horse expenses, Andy?

Horse expenses.

And not just horse expenses, pirouetting horse expenses.

And not just pirouetting horse expenses.

$77,000 in pirouetting horse expenses.

Well, that is mostly the

training costs of teaching a horse to pirouette

in a China shop.

and having to pay for all the breakages.

That's how you train them to do it delicately.

But it does cost.

It does cost.

It's been pointed out here that if President Obama wins this election with the economy in this bad a shape, it'll be a huge achievement.

But Andy, if Mitt Romney wins this election with a pirouetting horse,

I think it'll be even more impressive.

In fact, if he does win, I think he should ride onto the stage to give his speech with a top hat and white gloves, with his horse pirouetting all over the place, shouting, You just elected a tax-evading Mormon with a pirouetting horse.

This is the greatest greatest country in the world.

Moving on to August 2013, and there were no Olympics in London then for some as yet unexplained reason.

But there was still stuff happening in the world, and when stuff happens, the bugle has always been there to report on it.

Apart from when we've been on one of our hiatuses or were busy with other stuff or hadn't yet been invented.

But here's 2013.

After all this, I've had enough of Putin.

Really?

He must go.

No.

Still giving arms to Assad.

Millions of dollars worth.

And the rest of it.

No.

I went around to talk to my friend Peter, who has a parrot, but Pete wasn't in, so I spoke to his parrot instead.

So I was saying to Petersburg, got to stop.

Every bell is a dagger to my heart.

It's got to stop.

And the parrot said, well, Andy, why don't you go and talk to Obama?

So I thought, yeah, that's a good point.

So I did.

I went to Washington and I told the President he was being silly.

Don't cancel the summit, I said, you absolute burt.

Ask him to sort out the Snowdenchamuzzle.

That didn't really work, did it?

I hope it picks up.

Andy, Andy, this is the most chilling bell sound since Breaking Bad.

The Syrian business, the medieval human rights glitches.

Oh, no, sorry, sorry, that came in too early.

Kazan, no, he'll listen to you.

And the president said he sure will listen.

He's got amazing hearing.

Incredible.

He seems to understand things in different languages.

I'll tell you, it's not natural.

It's almost like he's got a computer on the side of his head.

He does has it.

That's his cyber ear.

Come on, Mr.

President.

It's almost like you're scared of him.

I am a bit, admitted Obama.

He wears such intimidating clothes.

What was he wearing last time you had talks?

I asked.

Something furry and brown.

Was it a moose pelt?

No, said the President.

No?

Was it bearskin?

No, was it bearskin?

Got it.

Yes, I think it was bearskin, said the President.

And he's got this really unpleasant assistant fresh out of university.

Very rude and uncouth.

A vulgar grad.

Yep, he's vulgar.

Even Kras.

Now I ask...

Krasner, I ask.

Anyway, him to stop being so rude.

But he would still swear and curse because he thought it made him look tough.

Pretty obnoxious.

But he doesn't look tough.

He's tiny, and he looks like he hardly eats.

Very small and skinny.

Anyway, I said to Obama, he needs to bring the other leaders into it to put pressure on Putin.

You've got to get Angela Merkel involved in the deal, I said.

No, you're taking this to Ufar.

Ufar, I'd never even heard of Ufar.

Anyway, he replied, I don't want Merkel in the deal.

Listen, I said forcefully, get Merkel in on the deal.

You cut her in because she's very influential.

Besides, I continued, so many countries owe you in one way or another.

These are the type of favours you've got to be calling in gradually.

Culling in, Greg?

You picked that up.

You're looking confident on that one, Chris.

Okay, conceded the bomber.

You got a number?

Yeah, I said, I think so.

I wrote it down.

Summer I got it.

In a notebook or something.

Then the president's wife came in.

She was wearing tinted goggles and a bobble hat.

Hi, Michelle.

You've been skiing?

Chelyabinska?

Got that?

No.

No, I mean, I did have to look most of these up.

Yes, she said.

I've just got back from skiing with the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack.

The President seemed surprised.

I didn't know Tom skis.

Yes, said Michelle.

It's his big hobby at the moment, skiing.

He actually learnt it as his child from his parents.

He loves it.

Man, it's hot in these those mountain clothes, she said.

Well, take your care of, said the president.

The first lady de-sala petted herself.

Hey, said Barack Small talking.

Have you had your hair done?

It looks curlier than usual.

Yes, she said.

I had a perm.

I looked at the impressive primo feminine coffeeure admiringly whilst chewing a sandwich.

Mmm, vorinosh.

That gave me an idea.

I said to Obama, hey, you know Putin likes outdoor sports.

Why don't you take him fishing?

Good idea, Randy.

Do you want to borrow my fishing kit?

Thanks.

But no, I've got a rod.

No, I've got a rod.

I can't take it anymore.

Do you think he likes cycling too?

I bet he does.

Then lend me your bike.

I'll take him for a ride.

Good idea.

He might like a swim, but in a lake, never in salt water.

Why not?

He's got it into his head that pets urinate in it.

Really?

Yeah, he's obsessed with the idea that dogs and cats pee in the sea.

That was a long walk.

That was a long walk.

That's odd, because he's got a lovely cat.

Oh, he seems so content.

Yeah, didn't he purr?

And he loves skinny dipping too.

Vlad, he was talking.

Vlad, he was talking about it just this morning.

Never.

Yes, but hey, eyes up.

Why?

Because he does this weird thing where one of his testicles twitches.

He can't help it.

It's involuntary.

It's his famous Baltic.

Whew.

Oh, blast.

I actually had quite a few more on that.

For some reason, that last one bothered me more than the other.

Well,

John, I mean, let me...

I don't know what to say, Andy.

No, I'll tell you what.

I'll tell you what.

I'll tell you what you want to say to you.

I've been getting a lot of

messages on Twitter, John.

You've been laying out the puns on the daily show, mate.

No, I haven't.

I've had a lot of complaints about this.

A lot of complaints that you've suddenly been foreign

out.

I don't think that's true.

You don't even notice it, mate.

If ever there has been, and I'm by no means admitting it, Andy, it's either accidental or so germane to the story

that it's harder to not pun.

At no point have I forced a pun.

You don't like natural puns.

You like forced puns.

You Americans, you're all the same.

That's the most I've cried since semifinal Italian 90.

The power is in your hands, Chris, to take that bell and throw it out of a window.

Consider it Don.

So, uh,

gee.

Oh my gosh.

That's right.

Get rid of that bell.

The fact you were sitting on that one like a smug chicken on a foul egg.

I can't relax till you let go.

It's not, he's not.

He's got another one.

I can tell it in the way he's breathing.

He's got another one.

He's got another one.

Just fing do it, Andy.

Do it.

Because it's the suspense.

It's the suspense that's worse.

Do it.

Well, I mean, I had a very difficult lunch today, so I went to a Russian restaurant and ordered the root vegetable soup.

And I said, Do you like it?

I said, hmm, there isn't enough carrot.

Oh no, that really doesn't work.

That was supposed to be Nisni Novgorod.

It just really didn't hang together.

I should have got the lentil curry made by the

made by Susan Sarindon.

Sue's Dole.

It's a little town with some historic churches outside Moscow.

Are you deliberately doing shit ones so so you can correct yourself with a good one or a better one?

That was just a little underpreps.

Anyway,

you sound so happy, and that happiness is so misplaced.

Right,

the way you talk, it's almost like there's been a big crime here.

Oh, sorry, technically, that's in Ukraine.

Oh dear.

What?

Do I have your words that it's over?

It's over, mate.

It's over.

That's his cyber ear.

That's his cyber ear.

That's his cyber ear.

That's his cyber ear.

That's his cyber ear.

That's his cyber ear.

That's his cyber ear.

So this is in fact the end of this compilation show.

I do hope you have enjoyed it.

Please come to see Satirist Verhire at the stand in Edinburgh from the 15th to the 27th of August and send your satirical requests to satirise this at satiristforhire.com.

There are live bugles on the 16th and 27th of August, Political Animal from the 15th to the 17th and the 22nd to the 24th with a different line-up each night.

And don't forget the live bugle that's part of the London Podcast Festival on September the 17th.

Many other radiotopia shows also taking part in the festival, festival, which runs from the 13th to the 17th.

So, that's it.

No further snippets.

Your witness.

Back next week with a full episode.

May the Augusts be with you.

Bye bye.

Hi buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new 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.