Bugle 4008 – Citation Needed

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 4008 of the Bugle, the week by week, weekly seven-day installment by seven-day installment, live encyclopedia of the 21st century.

I am am andy zoltzmann doctor of truth sorry doctorer of truth that is a key syllable i missed out there and i'm live in london the spiritual home of the slightly resentful glance and i am joined this week back for his second crack at the controls of hms bugle to see if we can titanic it into an iceberg it's nish kumar hello andy hello buglers i'm back Welcome, welcome back.

So I should just point out, I know Titanic was not an HMS.

What was Titanic?

What was Titanic's initials, Chris?

You're our maritime shipping expert.

BS?

BS.

I thought that would be an appropriate.

RMS.

RMS.

RMS.

RMS.

Anyway, that was a needless diversion, but

I mean, really, if I start picking up on minor factual inaccuracies.

Yeah, I was going to say, Andy, given that the previous,

however many episodes there have been, if they were on Wikipedia, would have a giant asterisk with the word citation needed in 78-point font.

I'm not sure sure we want to open this particular Pandorica.

Maybe we should I think we should get that citation needed on the next range of bug on birch.

Anyway, so Nish, last time you were on this newscast...

Yeah, I've held on to a job.

Absolutely.

No one is more surprised about that than me.

A rehire for Kuma.

You were just about to fly off to Mongolia.

That's right, I was just about to leave for Mongolia.

And how did Mongolia treat you?

Andy, last time we spoke, I was a man who had not milked a horse.

And now, as we speak, I'm a man who has still never milked a horse.

I failed to milk a horse.

That's what I'm saying.

Did you attempt to

milk a horse, yeah?

I was in Mongolia making a travel program, which hopefully Bugles will be able to see later on into 2017.

Mongolia is a, it is a really spectacular country.

It's really interesting and amazing.

There's a lot of space going on out there.

A lot of space.

I met some incredible people.

They were really friendly.

And when we arrived there on one of the first days, we met a lady who said, the key thing you need to know about Mongolians is they don't hate you as much as it looks like they hate you.

She said that the Mongolians traditionally have good hearts but angry faces.

And that was exclusively my experience of Mongolia.

You'd walk in and think, well, I've really messed up here.

And then actually be treated really warmly.

It's absolutely lovely people.

um and on one of the uh one of the first days we went to stay with a family in a tent out kind of in what they call the steppe which is kind of this kind of desert really one of the most beautiful places i've ever been uh we were in staying in with this family who were really sweet to us when we arrived there obviously there's a huge language barrier and so we were all just kind of sat there sort of in silence kind of smiling at each other and then a small child walked in uh who belonged to the family she wasn't just roaming the mongolian steppe and uh she sort of took a look at the situation and uh then did what I can only describe as an almighty fart the kind of fart that you do not associate with three-year-olds the kind of fart you associate with 56 year old alcoholic man it was absolutely astonishing all of us started laughing and that broke the ice right nothing

breaks the ice better than a farting child

Never a truer word spoken on this podcast.

That's what I learned from Mongolia, basically.

Okay.

So, I mean, how talk us through the failing to milk a horse i mean how how spectacular i mean did you end up with one presumably very angry horse i ended up with a string of very angry horses andy it's uh they they milk horses and they uh ferment the milk and make a sort of beer called agar which uh i mean we ate a lot of great stuff in mongolia but uh drinking that was the closest i've ever felt to death like it really was it was a it's a it's a unique bouquet

and uh so in order to do that they obviously have have to milk the horses.

And this lady did it, and she did it just so easily, just knelt down, milked the horse.

But I approached the horses, and those things looked at me like, please keep your hands away from my nether regions.

I've never seen such anger in an animal's life.

Would you definitely pick a lady horse?

Oh, now we're getting close to the problem.

Anyway, this is.

Hindsight is 2020, Andy.

This is Bugle issue 4008 for the week beginning Monday, the 12th of December, 2016.

Can you believe, Nish, it is already 608 years since the foundation of the Order of the Dragon.

I absolutely cannot.

A monarchical chivalric order founded by King Sigismund of Hungary.

Are you a member?

I am not.

Right, so you're not concerned about fighting the enemies of Christianity?

You're not one of those trendy dragons' rights campaigners.

Are you a commentator on one of my Guardian articles, Andy?

and on this day on in 1901 Marconi received the first transatlantic radio signal the letter S in Morse code history does not report the following three letters

and on December the 10th so I mean Saturday that'll be this this year in 1868 the first ever traffic lights were installed outside the Palace of Westminster in London

and that's just a mile from where we're recording today.

And of course, we at the Bugle are honoured and privileged to have exclusive access to the British National Audio Archives, containing all the sound ever generated in this country since 1519, when, of course, Henry VIII invented shouting.

And we have the audio recording of the first ever use of a traffic light, which took place, as I said, here in London 148 years ago this weekend, just a mile away from here.

Gentlemen,

the red signal means you must not go.

The green signal means you may go.

I will now turn the signal from red to green.

Move me, you fing asshole!

You got a fing accelerator pedal on that horse!

Shift it, you cop!

So, what the first ever used for the traffic light in London?

What did I say last time, Andy?

Your accent work is undervalued.

That was like watching Eddie Murphy in Norbit.

On the 2nd of January 1869, just three weeks later, that traffic light exploded.

But interestingly, you know, in, I don't know if we've talked about this before, in athletics,

if you...

A full start is if you go within 0.1 seconds of the gun going off.

Because that is considered the fastest possible human reaction.

And they measure that based on the time between a traffic light turning green in London and someone honking a horn.

That's as fast as the human brain can work.

Also, it's 80 years this weekend since Edward VIII abdicated.

And

this was an interesting quote from his own private secretary nine years before the abdication.

Well, he became king and abdicated in the same year, 1936.

I can't help thinking that the best thing that could happen to him and to the country would be for him to break his neck.

That's not a ringing endorsement from someone

employed by you.

That historical event also inspired the film that Madonna directed.

I think there was a biopic of Wallace Simpson.

Oh, right.

And arguably that movie was so bad, it is a worse consequence of his abdication than the constitutional

crisis that followed.

As always, a section of the bugle is going straight into the bin.

This week, as we continue our exclusive build-up to Christmas 2016 world exclusive coverage, we have the latest pre-Christmas injury gossip.

And, well, it's not looking too good, actually, for Santa this year.

Prancer looking doubtful for the big night after rupturing an Achilles in training.

There has been a lot of injuries in the reindeer squads this year.

Dasher down with a touch of moose flu.

He's touched and go.

Vixen reportedly pregnant and well the boss manager is furious according to reports.

So no prizes for guessing who the father might be after Rudolph was relegated to the back of the lineup.

And Donna

after an administrative mix-up currently having a large metal spit removed from his body and treatment for all over burns to his fur.

Also, in the Christmas in the Bin section, Christmas apps, new apps to help you through Christmas this year, including Present and Correct, an app that enables you to share with your partner, your romantic partners, the amount of money you've each spent on each other's Christmas presents to make sure you can either match up, beat, or deliberately undercut your loved ones.

And Manger Danger, that's an app that analyzes how securely large Christmas scenes in churches are made so that you know whether a manger may or may not collapse.

And you're right, I just didn't think of the term manger danger there.

Top story this week, party time.

Andy, it's December.

Yep.

We got Christmas.

We got New Year's.

You know what that means?

It means party time.

And it's big partying across Europe because there's been some good news.

Some good news coming out of European politics Alexander van der Baelen won the Austrian election defeating Norbert Hoffer of the far-right Freedom Party party time Andy

it's party time yes the far-right party did win 45% of the vote but it's still party time We need to hold on to this.

Some people are saying that this isn't necessarily good news.

We shouldn't be celebrating that Nazis have not won a major election.

But given the all-you-can-eat buffet of utter feces that has been 2016's political news, it is a sweet relief to know that Cobben says has prevailed and a far-right party has not won an election in a major European country.

Particularly Austria.

Yeah.

Just, I guess, come to that democratic conclusion.

I guess better late than never, I suppose.

Listen, they're learning from their mistakes, Andy.

A Green Party politician, Werner Kogler, I don't know if I've pronounced that right, but let's go with that.

And Van der Bellen, he does sound like a name that we've made up, but is

his actual name.

He was formerly in the Green Party running as an independent.

A Green Party politician described the result as, quote, a small global turning of the tide in these uncertain, not to say hysterical and even stupid times.

Well, I don't know if it's I mean is this a turning of the tide?

I mean it might be one of those turnings of the tide where the tide goes out a bit before a massive tsunami comes comes in instead but we'll we'll take it it has been it has been a wet year on the beach nish

party time yeah it might not even be it might just be someone throwing a bucket of water into the sea but we'll take we will take it we've got to take what we can get it uh it would have been a absolutely disastrous result uh if he'd won and um there's sort of been some some commiserations across the kind of far right of europe um this slightly extraordinary claim uh from one of his supporters uh who said that if Hoffer had won, he would have proved he wasn't a Nazi if he had been elected.

Now that is a very dangerous game to play, especially given that he is the leader of a party who was founded by a group of ex-Nazis.

But that is still a very dangerous claim.

If somebody said to you,

go and stick your dick in that lion's mouth and that will prove that the lion will not bite your dick off.

You'd probably think, who is running this zoo?

and also you look at the track record of people who have you know run as nazis and then got into power i mean for example adolf hitler ran as a nazi and then if anything became much much more of a nazi absolutely after winning the election much much more and he was pretty much 120 nazi

yeah he went full nazi power really teased the nazi out of

Interestingly, Hoffer has had a pop at Nigel Farage, who

enjoying himself after interfering with British democracy and now fiercely trying to interfere with everyone else

as well.

He was being blamed by someone in the Freedom Party for

the defeat because he claimed on Fox News that Hoffer would hold a referendum on Austria leaving the EU.

And

Hoffer described these comments as a crass misjudgment,

which I think Farage probably took as a compliment.

I'm adding that it does not fill me with joy when someone meddles from outside.

The ultimate insult to Farage.

Especially because that's what he accused Barack Obama of doing earlier in the year with the EU referendum.

He said that it didn't help that Obama came and intervened, and he's not learning his own lessons now, Farage.

Well, his whole political career is based on the idea that people come in and meddle from the outside, isn't it?

we've got to take the positives from this situation and it does seem to be sort of one in the eye for right-wing populism but 2017 as bad as 2016 has been could be limbering up to be a sequel in the vein of the matrix sequels and it could be longer and even more painful

but um because there are major elections happening uh in france and germany next year and the sort of hope is that this is kind of one in the eye for the right-wing populists and my the thing that i find most interesting about this is the way that these people brand themselves, like calling themselves the National Front.

In Italy, they're called the five-star movement.

Even the fact that they're called populists is a real victory of branding.

Because if you walk around calling yourself popular, there is a chance people will go, well, they must be pretty popular.

It's like the ultimate confidence dream.

And I'm still not sure why we've all gone along with that idea.

When Prince changed his name to the artist formerly known as Prince, we just laughed at him and then kept calling him Prince.

It's very strange.

I've got some possible suggestions for alternative names to stop calling them right-wing populists.

My suggestions are dickheadism, Woodstock for shitbags, nutcase enablers, the dark side of the force, assholes, and Anne Hathaway.

Because

for whatever reason, I'm a fan of Anne Hathaway, but people seem to really hate Anne Hathaway.

Is this the one that married Shakespeare?

Well, that is what I've...

Are they blaming Shakespeare's romantic comedies on the fact that he was...

I think they might be slightly confusing too, Anne Hathaway.

Well, in France,

Marine Le Pen,

who is the daughter of one of France's biggest ever shitheads, is

she could be president by this time next year.

Very scary.

She's behind in the polls, but that is generally a pretty sure-fast sign that she's going to romp to f fing victory.

This week she caused some controversy with these comments.

I've got nothing against foreigners, but I say to them, if you come to our country, don't expect that you'll be taken care of and that your children will be educated for free.

And then followed up by saying it's the end of playtime,

which is contradictory messages, isn't it?

Saying that your children will not be allowed to go to school, but then also won't have playtime either.

Sure, if they're not going to school, playtime is all they've got left.

She did try to...

um

there's going to be playtime 24-7, which coincidentally is Nisha's name on the comedy circuit.

But anyway, um

she tried to claim either that or NK-47.

She tried to clarify matters by saying that she meant only illegal immigrants, not all foreigners.

So everyone assumes that what she really meant was all foreigners.

That is basically what she said.

Oh, it's uh it it's it's it's worrying.

She she has, many articles said, worked very hard to detoxify the Front Nationale Party's extremist image, but not entirely detoxify.

Because I guess if you're a right-wing leader, you need what 2016 has shown is you need to have an effective level of electable toxicity.

You don't want to be completely detoxified.

You want to have enough toxicity to poison people, to make them feel sick and angry, but still leave them just alive enough to vote.

That is the absolute key.

Electable toxicity is Andy's name on the UK.

It does seem that fascism has had a rebrand because I thought we were all under the impression collectively that it was a bad thing.

It is definitely a tainted brand.

It definitely is.

I thought it was a tainted brand, but it seems like...

everybody's sort of cool with it now.

Trump was openly endorsed by the KKK.

Nigel Frog sort of seemingly co-opted fascist propaganda for Brexit.

And what I'm worried about is where does this leave Indiana Jones?

Because...

Why are these questions never asked in the mainstream?

Classic MSM bias wake up people.

Indiana Jones, I always thought was the story of a sort of plucky archaeologist and his buddy Sala, who

were trying to keep the Holy Grail out of the hands of Nazis.

And then it has a happy ending when the Grail doesn't get stolen by fascists.

But now in 2016, we have to redo that entire film.

because

it's now a horrible story about a group of outright activists who were trying to get hold of the Holy Grail for reasons of economic anxiety or to keep it out of the hands of Islamic fundamentalists.

And then, some liberal elite academic comes along from the establishment with his Muslim friend and tries to interfere because of political correctness.

And actually, the ending is very sad because the outright activists drink from the wrong cup.

And they could have consulted the academic given that he was actually an expert in biblical history.

But I think we have all had enough of experts.

Testify.

When was that?

How old is Indiana Jones now?

They're from the 80s.

So, I mean, he's, well, he must be, what, 70 now?

Yeah.

If he's a day,

those films out there.

So he's probably swung right anyways.

That's the very dark fifth Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Change of Heart.

I've traveled the world.

I know what these people are like.

Italy, which you mentioned, had its own little bout of democracy, a referendum,

which resulted in an overwhelming thwacking for the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who resigned and was replaced by caretaker Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who then resigned again, as far as I can work out.

It seemed to resign twice in three days.

There's some uncertainty over who's going to take over.

I think it goes back to the beginning of the rotation now, because everyone in Italy has had a go.

And he had this referendum now I think a lot of the problems with Brexit came from the wording of the question which was quite vague it basically just asked us a kind of loose opinion question should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union which is a kind of vague half-asked question not you know we will leave the European Union we will not it's kind of a bit like asking should Mike ask Trina out on a date should we be playing 442 or should I wear this shirt with these trousers a question which in my experience tends to lead to the answer no.

But in Italy, they went the other way.

And they managed to have like a 65% turnout for a referendum, the question of which was, do you approve the text of the constitutional law on, quotes, provisions for exceeding the equal bicameralism, reducing the number of MPs, the containment of operating costs of the institutions, the suppression of the CNEL and the revision of Title V of Part 2 of the Constitution, close quotes, approved by Parliament and published in the Official Gazette number 88 of 15th of April 2016.

And 65% of Italians turned up to vote for that.

That is a victory for democracy, regardless of the result.

Remsi was trying to introduce sweeping reforms to Italy's notoriously slow, cumbersome, and costly government and lost 59% of 41.

Because, Nish, I think what happened here is that in this age of blurring national identities, of global consciousness and fracturing communities, Italy has to hold on to at least some of its defining features.

You know, everyone eats pasta, everyone eats pizza now, a lot of countries play negative football, you know, but nowhere has as notoriously slow, cumbersome and costly government as Italy.

They cannot let that go.

This was the people rising up saying, no, you cannot take it away from us.

It was an incredibly complicated referendum.

And it seems like the Italians take the same approach to their democracy as they do to their churches.

Spectacularly flamboyant.

Really, really flamboyant stuff

in the pulpit and the ballot box.

And the concern now is with Renzi stepping down, it may lead to something that's been described in Italy as a period of uncertainty, which is not a great description for a major European democracy.

To be honest, in Italy, the period of uncertainty began in about 410 AD, didn't it?

When the Visigoths got a bit leary on a night out.

Oh, there's nothing worse than a Lary Visigoth.

The period of uncertainty is how I describe the 24 hours after I eat a suspect kebab.

That's not what you want.

It's not what you want for any country, let alone Italy.

The five-star movement, which is sort of a, that's a kind of more left-wing populism.

I mean, Italian politics is as baffling as any other, any other nations.

And it was basically founded on ending Italy's notoriously slow, cumbersome, and costly government.

And they were the main drivers behind defeating the referendum to

do exactly that.

And it essentially became a referendum on Renzi.

He's been a king of Italy for two and a half years.

Massive banking crisis, 40% youth unemployment, sluggish economy.

Frankly, he could have written anything on that ballot paper and he would have lost.

He could have asked people if they wanted free ice cream forever and he would still have lost by at least 10 points.

That does seem to be the way that the Italians have simplified the whole thing down is instead of this incredibly complicated question, question, it's essentially a piece of paper that says, do you like this man or not?

David Cameron was wise to sort of take remove himself largely, especially the weeks leading up to Brexit, to not turn this into a plebiscite because if he had done that, I think it would have been 100%

go f yourself, Cameron.

I mean, it does raise the question if Renzi is gonna has the time come

for the return of Silvio.

I mean, one of the reasons Renzi

has been unpopular is that he has simply not put his penis in enough things.

When you compare his popularity with Berlusconi's over many years,

that's the only conclusion you can possibly draw.

Two words.

Bunger, bunga.

Renzi, you've made a huge mistake.

Brexit news now, and well Nish, you just mentioned David Cameron.

He has made his first kind of major public appearance this week since

catapulting himself into the chasm of history.

He said, the rise of populism cost me my job.

No, David, it was you calling a snap referendum on a hugely complicated issue without giving anyone the chance to really think about it properly or telling them what was actually going to happen if they did vote either way

just because you've got a bit bored of newspapers saying referendum, referendum, referendum, and then campaigning.

for the side you claimed that you were heart and soul in favour of with the impassioned zeal and rock-solid conviction of a frozen chicken at a rally for the compulsorization of badminton in school.

That is why you lost your job.

Wasn't just populism.

It does seem like David Cameron is following in a lot of his predecessors' path and just moving on to the lucrative American lecturing circuit.

Yeah, apparently, Osborne's on 26 grand a gig now.

Yeah,

that's nearly your race.

Very close.

They're getting close to your corporate race now.

I do bar mitzvahs as well.

So

the highlight of the whole Brexit schemuzzle this week, we've had the Supreme Court talking about it very seriously in a way that an issue like Brexit is not supposed to be talked about.

It's supposed to be left to simple headlines and people shouting at radio phone-ins.

And we have 11 of the country's leading legal minds looking at it objectively, and we cannot cope with this in Britain.

Theresa May luckily has jumped into the breach with these wise words.

People talk about the sort of Brexit there is going to be.

Is it hard or soft?

Is it grey or white?

I mean, is that based on the hair colour of the most influential voters in the decision?

I don't know.

It does sound like she's describing a meringue.

Actually, she said, we want a red, white, and blue Brexit.

Now,

A,

holy shit, Teresa, where the f did that come from?

B, who is telling you to say these things?

And B, part two, why have you you not either sacked them or locked them in a soundproof safe?

I've got one spare if you need it.

And above all, C, congratulations on achieving the seemingly impossible.

You have said something even more meaningless than Brexit means Brexit.

The linguistics expert said it could not be done.

You looked them square in the face.

You shoved a thesaurus in your mouth.

You chewed it, swallowed it, and chunded it back up again whilst eyeballing in the face.

And you proved them wrong.

Fair play, Teresa.

I'm guessing she wants the kind of Brexit that would suit Panama or Paraguay.

Guadalupe.

Yeah.

Well it just shows what a global nation we're becoming.

This is exactly what we want Daniel Hernan has been saying.

We want a Brexit that suits the French, the Russians, the Americans, the Guadalupeans, the Paraguayans, the Buffalo Bills NFL team.

It has to suit them.

Any others you want to throw into the mix?

Dominican Republic?

Yep.

Wallace and Fortuna.

Oh, last.

Someone is thinking about what Brexit means for Wallace and Fortuna.

I mean, Fortuna always struggled

with replacing Grommet.

Primea?

Primea.

Yeah, that could be incendiary.

Yeah, I mean, if we're suggesting to be what's a Crimea in Brexit, that doesn't imply Vladimir Putin is about to elect himself dictator of England.

I'm trying to think of this more charitably.

I think what she means is that she wants a Brexit based on the influential 1990s film trilogy Three Colours, Colours,

directed by

the Polish cinema legend Krzysztof Kiszlowski,

which if you play them backwards, the red, white, and blue films, I can't remember which order they were in, they contain coded messages about capping immigration to Britain at 43 people per year, how easy it is to make a trade deal with China in under an hour, and wanting to have cubic British apples again like they were before Brussels made them all round.

I hope that you two are right.

Because at the moment, if she's not referring to either Britain or any one of the other countries or film trilogies that have been mentioned here it does imply that we're going to emerge from Brexit bruised covered in blood and all white

I think I think you might be a close

I mean it's it's become a you know an issue of uh it's an issue of Patrick I mean I bleed red white and blue which is largely a dietary issue and something I should probably have looked at by a hematologist

I think maybe it's that what she's referring to is the three phases of the post-Brexit face.

Red being either embarrassment, guilt or continued fury.

White, blanching with worry about what we've just done.

And then blue, the language used to describe.

But we weren't told there were options of colour schemes.

No.

Red, gold, and green.

I'd have liked a Brexit based on the colour of Boy George's dreams

in the hit 1983 song Karma Chameleon.

I'm assuming black or brown is not one of the options

on this particular colour chart.

But it wasn't just Theresa May that was thrown this out there.

The aforementioned Alexander van der Bellen, the new incoming president of Austria, said that the Austrian flag will be a red, white, red signal of hope for Europe.

So,

yeah.

That's what I always think of when I look at the Austrian flag.

Just screams hope.

Last time I was here, we talked about the fact that the Brexit vote has sort of enabled some of the kind of previously thought to be lunatic fringe of British politics to come into prominence.

And in the intervening weeks, that has just got truer and truer and truer.

And a couple of weeks ago, Jacob Reese Mogg was interviewed on Newsnight.

Now, for buglers not from Britain or who may be unaware of who Jacob Reese Mogg is, it's very difficult to describe him.

He is a sort of kind of affable but sinister posh guy who turns on.

He's basically like a prequel to Boris Johnson, essentially.

And it's hard to believe that he is a real person.

It only really makes sense if 10 years time, if in it only really makes sense if in 10 years time it turns out he's being played by Sasha Baron Cohen the entire time and his entire career as a sort of barat-like prank.

But he weighed in because there's been some findings recently for the Institute of Physical Studies that Brexit is going to mean that we're going to have sort of slower growth and it's going to directly impact people's wages.

It's going to be a freeze in people's wages over the next sort of couple of years.

And he then said that experts, soothsayers and astrologers are all in much the same category and dismissed their opinion.

By then, and I know you're a fan of the classics, Andy, he then weighed it in by quoting Cicero and he said, there's nothing so absurd that it hasn't been said by some philosopher.

And I thought it was interesting that he was such a, he was dismissing that kind of reasoned-based opinion.

Because if he's such a fan of Cicero, there's two other key quotes I think that he's missed out on here.

One is: the wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity, and the brute by instinct.

And the other, zing.

And the other is, do not listen to Jacob Reese Mogg.

That guy is a total asshole.

Very wise man, Cicero.

I think I had that in my GCSA

text.

Yeah, that was in my year seven copy of A.K.

Romani.

If you haven't seen him, Buglers, Jacob Reesmog.

Essentially, just imagine

the 1870s boiled down in some large saucepan and then sprinkled with some special aristocracy powder to create a human form.

In 2016, you don't generally expect to encounter people who look like they could have colonized my ancestors.

And it is a concern because a lot of the findings seem to be suggesting that it's going to impact on the poorest people and after all this talk that we're sort of taking back the country for ordinary British people to suggest that Brexit at least in the short term is not going to be great for the poorest people in society and I know this isn't the most important thing but what did not help is that Nigel Farage recently had a banquet thrown for him by a group of powerful millionaires at the Ritz Hotel.

And they were all drinking champagne and being served tables of Ferrero Roche, which again, for people who are not from ignorant, is a chocolate that's associated with the ambassador's reception because of a 1980s advertising campaign.

It was a jokey reference to Trump's suggestion that Farage become the UK's ambassador to America.

Now, this is the thing.

Far be it from me to lecture anyone on patriotism, but if Nigel Farage had a shred of loyalty to this country, he would not have held it at the Ritz and been drinking French drinks and eating Italian sweets.

He would have held it in the car park of a travel lodge with a bunch of disgruntled football flans complaining about the recent appointment of Gareth Southgate, while everyone drunk cans of special brew.

And instead of Ferreira Roche, they'd have all been eating Terry's chocolate orange and not in segments, they'd have been biting into it like an apple.

That is what we fought two world wars for.

God save the Queen.

I know I started that by explaining British references to American buglers and then ended it in an absolute hail of

very specific.

Well, you'll just have to trust me.

That was a very good joke.

Google it.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, on this week's bugle, it is time for the Trumpist.

Well, it's been a big week for Trump, Nish.

He's been voted Time Magazine's person of the year for 2016.

Now, we should emphasise this is not Time magazine thinking this guy is the greatest thing,

the greatest guy ever.

Yeah, I mean, it's not for being a

top geezer.

No, I mean, given that past recipients include Adolf Hitler, you would hope that it isn't Time magazine's ringing endorsements.

Because I think they went straight from Hitler to Stalin, which is really,

you know, admiring certain character traits, but different wings of the political spectrum.

It's really hedging your bets, isn't it?

And Roosevelt won it three times.

I think, in fact, in consecutive years, they had

Roosevelt, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill.

That is really hedging your bets.

There have been some pretty vague ones recently.

You,

2006, you won the...

That was just awarded to you.

Meaning, basically anyone who'd ever done anything online

was person of the year.

The American Fighting Man in 1950.

American Women in 1975, The Computer in 1982, The Endangered Earth in 1988, Enid the Magic Foal in 2004, The Letter Q,

People Who Like Brunch and Drunk Men on Trains.

All previous winners of person of the attraction.

It's not the first award Trump's won.

Not the first person of the year award he's won either.

Also similar awards from other magazines, including Today's

Knuckle International, Opportunistic Chanceller and Macrame for the Clinically Insane.

He

beat off competition for Man of the Year.

Personally, I say Man of the Year was called Man of the Year up till 1999.

That is

subjectively too late.

It does seem too late because that is 87 years after women were scientifically proved to exist and be the same species as men.

So it does seem we're in a new age of insult diplomacy with Trump and everything else that's happened together, the sort of fury politics and grudge mockracy that seems to be informing the way people vote.

And

therefore, Boris Johnson is the most appropriate foreign secretary we could have.

Couldn't be a better man for the time.

For the insult age.

And he was

told off by his boss, Theresa May, for accusing the Saudis and Iran of manipulating religion and conducting proxy wars.

Now, this is a rare brush with something approaching the truth.

He said there are politicians who are twisting and abusing religion and different strains of the same religion in order to further their own political objectives.

Now twisting and abusing say facts or economics is of course fine if you're Boris Johnson.

Religion is beyond the pale.

The government has been accused by the shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornbury of shabby hypocrisy and I for one think we need to get back to the proper honest above-board straight down the line unashamed hypocrisy with which we traditionally conduct our business with Saudi Arabia and

Prime Minister May had just returned from a visit where she'd had dinner with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

But it was fine.

She had her husband's permission so they were all

well she's been accused this week by Boris's supporters of being part of an orchestrated campaign to embarrass Boris Johnson, which is very unusual because normally he is very much the conductor of that orchestra and it very much takes care of his own embarrassments.

But yeah, I mean, he's not, it's not, he's not expressed himself ideally,

but you know, a stopped clock or indeed a total

is right twice a day.

While we're briefly touching on the subject of contentious remarks about another nation and also on Twitter, New Gingrich,

who is, by my understanding, a full asshole,

took to Twitter this week to really celebrate in quite a strange way the anniversary of Pearl Harbor he tweeted this 75 years ago the Japanese displayed professional brilliance and technological power launching surprises from Hawaii to the Philippines now that is not what I was expecting from Newt Gingrich.

I did not expect Newt Gingrich to take Pearl Harbor as an opportunity to praise the Japanese soldiers.

Yeah, that is left field.

I mean,

that is left of the left field.

That is a very strange turn of events.

And

you're trying to imagine a world in which if, say, a Democrat had decided to take the opportunity of the anniversary of Pearl Harbor to praise the Japanese army for skillfully blowing up a load of Americans, I suspect if he wasn't at the front, he would certainly be in the front third of the line to call those people out on that.

It was a very strange move from Newt Gingrich.

Did he follow it up by saying so what you like about Stalin?

He got the trains to run on time.

I've heard that Newt Gingrich is angling for a position in Trump's government.

Maybe he thought this was the way to get the ambassador to Japan job.

Your emails now, and this one comes in from someone known only as Rotation North, who writes, there's been a lot said about American elections recently, but there is one important question that has yet to be answered, so I turn to the paragon of virtue that is the bugle.

Can you still donate to Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign?

And

well, I think you can't anymore, but it does seem like he could well be in the front line of Trump's administration.

So you could just send him

some loose change

to Washington.

What happened to all that money?

Because presumably people were still donating after 2008.

I can't imagine.

Well, we tracked him, and it was still up for at least three years afterwards, possibly even through the 2012 campaign.

I mean, I still, you know,

in hindsight,

It would have been good had more people donated if he'd won that election in 2008.

I don't believe Trump would have won in 2016.

Is that possibly because America would have ceased to exist in 2009?

Well, possibly.

I would take that at this juncture.

Well, the door's not shut to Giuliani now because Trump's really opened the door for, I mean, Giuliani has some political experience.

Trump has no political experience.

Doesn't seem to know anything.

Trump has opened the door for anyone, Rudy Giuliani, Mickey Mouse, Donald Sutherland, just anyone at this point.

Donald Sutherland would be a...

he's he'd be a great president.

Yeah, he'd probably get Kiefer in to do a job for him as well on national security.

If you can get him back off the who kidnapped, was it the Chinese or the Russians?

I can't remember.

I can't remember how series they finished.

And this came from Brian in Houston, Texas.

It says, Dear Andy Chris Nish and the metaphysical remains of John Oliver that linger in the airways

breathe it in.

What do you each want for Christmas this this year?

As for me, I'm asking for Santa for a Minnie Mussolini's fascist startup kit.

Because, once again, all the other kids in the world are ahead of me when it comes to today's trendiest toy.

Nish, I mean,

are you a big Christmas fan?

Oh, I'm a big fan of the festival I refer to as Honky the Vali.

Big fan of the old HD.

Well, this year for Christmas, I'm hoping for one thing and one thing only, and that is the ability to become white.

I'm just hoping that if I can somehow get a sort of X-Men superpower to remove all the melanin from my skin, I might stand a better chance of making it through 2017.

We will have, I'm not going to answer that question because we will, in two weeks' time, we have a full Christmas special.

We'll be unveiling all the must-have Christmas gifts for you.

I'll be doing that with my sister, Helen.

Next week on the Bugle, we have Anuvabh Powell reporting in from India again as our rest of the world correspondents.

We will leave this week's Bugle.

If you want to keep sending your emails in, the address is hellobuglers at thebuglepodcast.com.

Don't forget to buy yourself and all your friends and relatives tickets to my Christmas stroke New Year show at Soho Theatre from the 20th of December to the 7th of January with a few breaks for things like days when absolutely no one will turn up, rather than just most people won't turn up.

And my UK tour starts in February.

Do check out the internet for that.

Nish, anything to plug?

You've got to be ruthlessly self-promotional to stay on this show.

Yeah, yeah, I've really got it.

I've still got some loose tour dates.

My tour is almost over, but there's some dates in January, the 30th and the 31st and the 1st.

That is a Scottish run.

So that's Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen,

respectively.

And then there's some other dates as well, but I can't really...

can't find them.

You're fitting right in.

Right in.

Nishkumar.co.uk.

I want to say.co.uk, but it might be.com.co.

Just Google Nishkumar tour.

Nishkumar, a graduate of the

exclusive Andy's Altsman University course of public relations.

I think I've spent too much, too many, I spent too many hours listening to this podcast to have any sense of how to self-promote thanks for listening buglers we will be back next week and Nish will be back in January until then goodbye bye

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.