Bugle 294 – The Chainsaw of Futuristic Justice

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers!

Oh, it's nice to say those words again into a microphone rather than into a mirror.

And welcome to season three of The Bugle, audio newspaper for a still unapologetically visual world.

It is the month of March in the year Rio 2016 and I am Andy Zoltzmann in London, which is currently still a city in Europe, but by the end of June could be a Caribbean island if we vote to leave our continent in a very mutual lurch.

And joining me from New York City, USA, a nation presumably bracing itself not only for what it's about to do to itself in its own election, but also for Britain colliding into its eastern seaboard at high velocity if the Brexit campaign triumphs.

It's the FIFA flying Trump troubler himself, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Yes, there's an election happening here, Andy, in every sense of the words.

The circus is in full swing, and this is a strange place to live at the moment.

Yes, and

I mean, I imagine New York is not the most ardently Trump-favouring city in America.

Well, it's not, you know,

there's still more Trump sympathy than, you know, you would think ideal on a human practical or logical level.

Right.

I mean, still, occasionally you see a car with Trump on the back bumper, and, you know, it begs so many questions.

Is that a joke?

Is it serious?

And could a truck just nudge the back of that car?

Right.

And, you know, is there any likelihood that the people of Manhattan will just put a cheeky little email into the Dutch asking if they can buy the f f ⁇ ing island back.

I don't know.

I don't know, Andy.

Look,

I don't know anything regarding this race.

This was not supposed to end up this way.

And it's dangerous to make any predictions, seeing as, you know, Donald Trump is the front runner for the Republican nominee, Andy.

Up is down, wet is dry, birds are swimming, and fish are committing suicide.

All right, Aristotle, turning up.

So, well, we are back, buglers.

It's been a long time, longer than was hoped for and initially scheduled.

But we're back, and we'll see how it goes.

This is issue 294, or season 3, episode 1, whichever way you want to look at it.

And yeah, March 2016.

We are hoping to do monthly

bugles from now.

And this is the anniversary of March 1926, and arguably the dodgiest Nobel Prize in history.

And the Nobel Committee gave gave the 1926 Physics Prize to the German scientist Manfred Squelchenberg for a piece of research of what you have to say is questionable value in which he claimed that a rapidly descending arm applied at the correct angle, velocity and force to a hand placed under the top of that arm could create a noise resemblance of a flatulent goose, hence the underarm Squelchenberg or more familiarly squelchy.

That's 90 years ago that happened.

And as always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week to commemorate the discovery of gravitational waves.

Probably the most important thing that happened whilst we were off the airwaves.

We give you a commemorative gravitational waves section.

John, have you noticed the difference since gravitational waves were discovered?

If I've noticed the difference, I've been more aware of them.

Right.

Andy.

Yeah.

I've been more aware of them, you know, just gravitationally.

Just I guess waving would be the words.

Yeah.

Just through the world and through myself.

Right.

Because

the width of one thousandth of a proton.

Yeah, that feels about right.

Tiny ripples in space and time caused by the movement of celestial bodies.

And

John, you and I, speaking as people with celestial bodies, you know, we have a

great deal of responsibility to be very careful with these.

Tiny ripples is the perfect way of describing it, Andy.

It's just a tiny, tiny, non-discernible ripple that's just, you know, you're occasionally aware of right that's basically a it's very gravitational yeah i was gonna say that's a pretty accurate summary of my career to be honest

um but you know the kind of science that changes everything i mean i've been in bed for the last couple of months because i'm worried about my gravitational waves flying out into space and smashing into a russian satellite causing a diplomatic incident and a possible world war three

um and you have to ask you know do we need gravitational waves i mean if no one knows about them will they still work and in our section in the bin we look at the whole of quantum mechanics and ask, how suspicious should we be of this kind of shit?

Because when you look at the history of quantum mechanics, it has been unequivocally bad for the world.

Invented by Max Planck, the celebrity German theoretical physicist who laid down a cheeky bit of physics in 1900s and thus begun quantum physics.

Then Bertie Einstein stuck his science yore in and then everyone jumps on the quantum horse in particular.

Niels Bohr, the pin-up boy of Danish quantum theory, which is basically like normal quantum theory, but with icing on top.

And that was all in the first decade or so of the 20th century.

And what followed after that?

The biggest war ever, a massive global economic crash and depression, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe, another biggest war ever, then coldest war ever, global famines, disasters, the rise of hardline Islamist terrorism, and some of the silliest wars ever, reality television and Donald Trump.

So thank you, Max Planck, you f ⁇ ing early 20th century idiot.

Leave physics alone.

It's been causing trouble enough ever since the universe went bang.

Andy, we used to call quantum physicians something else, and that was witches.

We had a process for dealing with them.

A rigorous.

We didn't used to give them awards, did we, Andy?

No.

We didn't used to give them Nobel Prizes.

We used to give them a place on a piece of wood with warm feet.

Now, am I saying that we should do it again?

I'm just saying we used to have a process, Andy, and it seemed to work.

And a special feature on

the little cheeky piece of quantum mechanics that is Schrödinger's cat.

Now, Schrödinger famously came up with the idea that you can have a cat that was simultaneously alive and dead, very much like the perfectly cooked steak.

And here at the Beagle, we've managed to get hold of a world-exclusive transcript of the following conversation between Schrödinger and his long-suffering wife.

Erwin, where's Tiddles?

He's alive.

Is he?

Uh, yep.

Is he in your special box?

Uh, yep, he is in the special box.

Let me look in the box.

Don't look in the box.

I'm looking in the box.

He's dead.

Well, he was alive until you opened the box.

Owen, you've just proved your own theory.

You're simultaneously a dick splash and a wanker.

I think you misunderstand my science.

Do some real Sergeant Noben.

Your dinner's in the dog.

Oh, about the dog.

And also a free gravitational wave for every bugle listener.

Here it comes!

There, we're right in your logo if you're listening in the headphones and depending on the angle it passed through your noggin could quite easily have fired out the other side and infected the person sitting next to you with bullshit.

If you're listening on speakers I'm afraid that gravitational wave would just smack you right in the face meaning that the next thing you say will be a lie.

Great to be back.

So since we've been away for such a prolonged period, we thought the best way to come back was to use the holy sainted medium of Twitter, which is now of course officially the source of at least 90% of all news bulletins, for your queries about what has happened in the world or elsewhere whilst we have been off the virtual airwaves, I don't know if the internet works through airwaves, I'm a little bit out of the technological loop.

So, basically, this episode should function as a kind of interactive history of the world chapter four, which covers the fourth epoch in the history of the universe.

Epoch one, of course, was Bertie Big Bang up to the dinosaurs.

Issue two, human history up to October 2007.

Epoch three, known by scientists as the Buglarosine Epoch, which covers the issues 1 to 293 of the bugle, and

epoch 4, the bugle hiatus from the middle of last year up to now.

I think most scientists

accept this breakdown, and if they don't, they can off back to their labs and keep sticking electrodes on rats' testicles until they come up with a better explanation of how we got here.

So let's start with this email, John.

Came in from Joe in Newport, Rhode Island.

Newport, Rhode Island.

That is a retirement home for mobsters, Andy.

A little bit of geographical information for you there.

That's

basically where mobsters go for their final years if they've not been shot in the street.

So this is from retired mobster, Joe,

Newport, Rhode Island.

Who writes, like an eclipse, the world went dark without you.

As in actually dark, Syria is the new cold and hot war simultaneously.

Migrants who have nothing to their name are being stereotyped as terrorists.

The Tories seem to to be harking back to some kind of feudal knights-free peasant system.

That was always just a matter of time.

And American politics has taken a turn for the downright ridiculous, although everyone's favourite angry grandpa Bernie Sanders is making a great attempt to wrestle the conversation back to things that matter.

That, frankly, is too big a risk for democracy.

Good luck in summarising the last year in around 39 minutes.

Well,

I mean, for a start, that does suggest that Joe was expecting us only to get one email in, and that to cover the entire show.

But, John, I mean, how would you express what has happened to the world world in the last nine months or so in a limit of, say, 10 seconds?

Well, it's a good question, Andy.

I think I would probably do it with two syllables, and they would be these.

Oh, f

that, that would basically be it.

I think that's basically going to encompass everything that you need to encompass, and I think historically, that's pretty accurate.

Right.

I mean, everything else is basically just an explanatory footnote to that.

I mean, yeah, exactly.

Everything else is just the Super Bowl.

Now, we'll move on to what's been the, I guess, the big story over here, and that is Europe and Britain's place within it.

Will we leave the continents we have rather reluctantly called home for a while?

And this came in from Dean in Leeds,

who writes, hello, Andy, John, and Tom.

Brackets, it's been a while.

Is it still Tom?

Sorry about that, Chris.

You got quite a lot of emails about how you've been coping

without the bugle.

This has been my first opportunity to say a word since you let me out the box.

I'm still just trying to get used to that bright light above me.

Right.

Hi.

You're nervy on your first touch here, Chris.

Make this pass count.

Just, can I get back in the box now?

Anyway,

Dean in Leeds asks, what is the etymology of the word Brexit?

My phone wants to autocorrect it to breast, but that doesn't seem right.

Well, your phone is taking a very political decision then, isn't it?

It's like the Queen.

Phone should stay out of it.

I don't know what the etymology of Brexit is, Andy.

That sounds like, you know, a tabloid bastardisation of the English language.

Would that be correct?

Well, no, I've done a bit of research into this, John, as you might expect.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Wait, Andy.

When you say research,

are we talking about typing the word Brexit into Google, hitting enter, and then clicking on the first results?

I didn't quite get that far to be.

But for a start, Dean, I don't know if your phone correcting it to breast means it's pro or anti.

I mean, it could be calling for Britain to return to the motherly, nurturing bosom of independence to suckle on the life-giving nipulum of self-determination.

Or it could be suggesting that if we think we can realistically hack it in the 21st century globalized global globe on our own, then we are a tit.

But anyway, etymologically, John, the X is the giveaway, because, of course, Brexit is a Basque word from the Basque, Basque region,

meaning

it was called a lot of X's

in that language.

And the Bre means, that's the Basque word for bull.

Bre.

In Spanish, I believe it's buer.

Is that not all right?

And the shit, as it's pronounced, means shit.

So.

Oh, okay.

I hope we've explained that.

That makes perfect sense now.

It's like you're explaining it to a child on a spelling bee

um it's very yeah be careful where you have a spelling bee on your child because um although they do die if they sting it's um

permanently infects your child with uh accurate word use

this came from morris hauptmann who asks uh do you have any concise comments regarding the impending EU referendum, which is going to be on

June the 23rd,

around about midsummer time, which is the wedding anniversary, interestingly, of another great European partnership, Charles II and Catherine of Braganza.

They were married on June the 23rd in 1661, I think.

And I mean, I'd very much like Britain's relationship with Europe now, basically involved...

Charles II spending most of his time banging other women.

So, you know, basically just trying to make the best of it.

So that's kind of an appropriate date for it.

So, John, I mean, any concise comments?

Well, what do you think the turnout's going to be, Andy, in this seismic election really deciding whether Britain stays in Europe or not?

Do you think this might break 60%, the turnout on this?

Well, as you know, we are a passionately democratic nation to our bootstraps.

So yeah, I mean, 60%...

I think to be honest...

40% of people might just have given up on the entire idea of democracy by then, if the early stages of the debate are anything to go by, people say truth is the first casualty of war, and that is even more so an apolitical war such as Britain is now undergoing.

In fact, basically what happened to truth was both sides frog-marched it out to the nearest woodland clearing on day one of the campaign and got a bit Soviet on it.

So

60%, yeah, I think, I hope we'll touch 60%.

Confident on that.

I mean,

are you still allowed to vote or have you?

No, no, Andy.

You know, President Trump would not allow that.

right that's um you know you you you pick a lane under president trump or pt as uh

he will monogram himself

um

so and uh moritz continues maybe just answer this question who is the bigger twat boris johnson for camp we shall we shall rule the waves uh or david cameron for camp come on guys what was i supposed to achieve in brussels and uh

i mean that's it's kind of hard to say john i mean it's

that is a that is a Sophie's insult.

That's a choice that's very difficult to make.

I mean in terms of raw opportunism

you probably go Johnson but you know in the larger twat in in the in the physiological sense you've got to go Cameron.

That's a tricky question.

Yeah.

I mean it is you know it's a very complex philosophical quandary, isn't it?

Almost a Schrödinger's captain that you know on the one side you've got Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Chris Grayling and on the other side you've got George Osborne and David Cameron.

So you instinctively think both sides are wrong.

I don't know how are we going to think our way out of this.

Much of the early stage was to do with David Cameron's deal with Brussels that he hammered out.

No one quite knows exactly what it involved but it seemed to largely involve arguing over benefits paid to immigrant workers in Britain to pay for their children back in their home countries, which affects I don't know a solid seven or eight people I believe.

Not the most important part of the debate it was basically like planning a mission to Mars and spending the first three years testing out which coffee capsules work best in zero gravity it is important to a small extent but still focus on the big stuff

Cameron has said a number of interesting things

he said leaving Europe would be quotes a leap in the dark

But I think staying would also be a leap in the dark because everything in politics, John, nowadays is a leap in the dark because politicians do everything they can to keep the public in the dark, or at best, to light up the wrong thing with the wrong light.

So we're just leaping, basically.

We are leaping with our eyes shut and hoping for the best, whatever we do.

He also said he would campaign heart and soul for Britain to stay in Europe.

David Cameron said that.

Campaign heart and soul, which is a bit like a king cobra vowing to campaign leg and wing.

Well, it means he's not wrong, though, is he, Andy?

That is going to be reflective of exactly what he said.

Daniel Hannan, the notoriously Eurosceptic MEP,

tweeted, I think on the day that it was announced when

the vote was going to be, it's February and the pale fuzz of blossom is already on the blackthorn.

Ours is a blessed country.

What?

So proud to be British.

There are no plants in Europe.

Look at that, Britons.

Brussels wants to concrete this island over.

Andy, say that again.

What did he say?

It was a tweet.

So, I mean, you shouldn't read too much in tweet.

He said, it's February and the pale fuzz of blossom is already on the blackthorn.

Truly, ours is a blessed country.

I'm sorry, if that's happening in February, does that not mean we might be blessed, but we're also suffering unarguable signs of potentially lethal global warming?

I mean, that's why, like any great poem, you can't understand what the f ⁇ he's talking about, Andy.

don't you think that this country is so full of

we should just vote to leave and just leave europe to it

yeah i i think i'd i'd rather see a compromise where but basically we have alternate weeks on and off or at least get to spend weekends and school holidays that's the thing that's that's the thing rather than a full separation this should be a divorce

exactly so exactly other other every other weekend maybe some holidays and just a lot of passive aggressive tension during that time

uh the economist uh magazine stroke newspaper i don't know it officially calls itself a newspaper it's clearly a magazine well come on make up your one um the point is it's different kinds of a dying industry under yeah it is

that's right um uh said that the most likely outcome would be that britain would find itself quotes as a scratchy outsider with almost no influence and few friends Finally, we can embrace our true national destiny.

It's taken hundreds of years, but we've we've got there.

That's right.

We were always a scratchy outsider.

It's just at some point we were a scratchy outsider that ran two-thirds of the world's landmass.

That's all.

This came from Will Davis

who asks, how would you advise we deal with institutions threatening to leave the UK after a Brexit?

For example, I'm certainly in favour.

But should it come to pass, the middle third of my penis has threatened to relocate to Brussels.

How can I convince it to stay, please?

I am very frightened.

Well, I mean, Will's got to campaign with his heart and soul to keep that middle third of his penis in the country, hasn't he?

Yeah.

Or

he has to campaign with his heart, soul, and the top and lower third of his penis.

Now, as you would probably have expected, we had an absolute deluge of emails about the rise of Trump, including one pointing out, John, that I believe before we went on our break, you said that you quite hoped he would run for president and basically pinning the blame on on you

did I say that Andy I think it was that that might be in the context of thinking it would be fun if he ran for president and I am you know more than happy to say that I was completely wrong about that

you know there are certain things that you wish for in life that you should not be given Andy and it turns out that was one of them you know i was playing with fire and it turns out this country has got singed and it may yet go up in a gigantic inferno.

Your piece from your show on Trump has been a significant success on both sides of the Atlantic and elsewhere.

And what was the hashtag?

Make Donald Trump again.

Yes.

Which was his original family name?

It was, yeah, he's generations ago in Germany.

Surprise, surprise.

The Drumpfs were happily keeping themselves to themselves,

and then they changed their name to Trump and then eventually emigrated to the US.

And, you know, the rest is really depressing history.

The rest is shiny golden history.

Well, if only it were history rather than news and the

that's true.

Yeah, depressing current affairs.

But this email came in from Pat McMorran, who asked, who would win in a fight and why?

One drump-sized penis or 100 penis-sized drumphs?

One drump-sized penis?

Drumpf is not really a unit of measurement.

That doesn't really make.

I know it sounds like it means something, but it doesn't mean anything.

And I guess that's the perfect analogy for Donald Trump in a way.

Because he did refer to his junk, didn't he,

in one of the recent...

He did.

He did.

He said that there was no problem with his penis in slightly different words.

That happened in a presidential debate, Andy.

That's the world in which we live now.

Well, I mean, it was

we're getting so close to the actual idiocracy of just a penis measuring contest.

Flop it on the podium, dumb.

Well,

I think

the gentleman to the left has it by half an inch.

Well, reminiscent of the 1860s, of course, and

I believe Abraham Lincoln said, you know what they say about men with big hats.

This from Darren in Nova Scotia said, have you kept up on the US election while you were away?

I hear Donald Trump may be running.

Is this actually true?

I mean, it does feel like some kind of extended prank.

Well, yeah, it felt like either an extended prank or, you know, like a book tour that slightly got out of control.

And, you know, early on, it felt like he might be looking for, you know, a dignified way out so he could have fun and then just leave and not actually have to be president.

But now

I think he wants it and I think he's, you know,

close to maybe get, it's hard to even say this out loud.

Andy, but yeah, I guess

this is potentially could happen.

So I think we all need to plan accordingly.

Sit by your radios and await further instructions.

Do not.

I mean, I've certainly

put myself out there, Andy.

I don't know if his first first order of business would be to deport me from the country.

But, I mean, he's not said anything after that piece, which is slightly bizarre.

He hasn't threatened any kind of lawsuit, despite the fact HBO has dragon money.

So I don't, I'm kind of waiting nervously for his first response.

And I think it might be once he's sworn into office, he's just pointing to the airport saying, off you go.

Like a cricket umpire on your way back to the pavilion, you little shit.

Well, I'll have a word with the picture house in York, see if they can take us.

Now, it does,

it does, it did initially seem like a prank,

but

how likely is it that America will now extend that prank for four years or even eight years?

Or f ⁇ , he's Trump.

He's not going to be happening until he's done longer than Roosevelt, but both of them put together.

That's a solid 20 years of President Trump.

I mean, can it...

Can it really happen?

Well, that's the question that, you know, everyone needs to wrestle with.

But, I mean, the short answer is, yeah,

this could actually happen.

Right.

Andy,

America could elect its first king.

Right.

And I mean, how much is this Ben Carson's fault?

Because I believe by him running, he's almost made Trump look not

quite as bad.

I don't think you can put it all on Ben Carson, Andy.

I think this really has to land squarely on the feet of people who are voting for him.

I think people are very angry with politics, and they're not wrong to be angry about that, by having candidates foisted upon them.

There's something pretty depressing about the frontrunners being Bush and Clinton at one point, seeing as we have danced that dance before.

But this is an over-correction.

This is swerving to avoid a duck and instead just plowing a car straight into a ditch.

The highlight of the campaign for me was a fascinating discussion.

It seems to be largely amongst the Republicans, over whether or not to kill Hitler.

Because Jeb Jeb Bush was asked whether he would kill the infant Hitler if he had the chance to go back in time and do so.

And he said yes, he would kill the baby Hitler.

Whereas Ben Carson was asked whether he would abort the fetus Hitler and he said no, he was pro-life so he would not abort the fetus Hitler.

So it appeared that the Republican Party's stance on the Hitler issue was to stand over Mrs.

Hitler during childbirth with a chainsaw of futuristic justice.

I don't know how that would have played in the Austrian press in the late 19th century.

But

what puzzled me the most was that neither Bush nor Carson nor anyone else as far as I was aware addressed the more important issue of what they would do to ameliorate the problems of hyperinflation and social dissatisfaction in 1920s Germany that facilitated the rise of Hitler and Nazism that probably would have happened even without the specific figurehead.

of the slaughtered baby Hitler.

And once again, it seemed that the Republicans were going for the figurehead kill rather than addressing the more important underlying issues.

It's what Saddam Hussein all over again, but ages ago and pretend.

It's a less catchy question, Andy, but it's objectively a much better one.

Andy in Washington, D.C.

asks, I'd like to hear your take on this magically recently revealed place, Secret Canada, being the place that all Canadians will move to when the Americans move to Canada to escape Trump.

Is it true the streets are lined with poutine and compliments?

Now,

have you come across poutine, John?

I have.

I have come across it.

Yeah,

that is a heavy snack.

That's a bold choice for a dinner.

For those who are not aware of it,

it's basically a culinary Vladimir Putin in that it is potentially lethal.

Basically, it's fries,

cheese curds, and gravy.

Yes.

Slightly more dangerous to your health than Russian roulette standing on a railway line or playing American football professionally.

That puts it.

Yeah, it's basically a

slightly slow form suicide.

And would you consider relocating to Canada?

I'm staying, Andy.

I'm not running.

I'm staying like the string quartet on the Titanic.

I'm staying.

And one of the last things I'm going to say is it's been an honor playing with you, gentlemen, as America sinks into the ocean.

Do you want to think it's a slight irony that Trump seems to be so hostile towards

external people, despite the fact that he himself is a refugee from fact who found asylum in the comfortingly welcoming lunatic embrace of Republican voters?

On an equally important Democratic issue, this came from JM, who asks, gentlemen, should I vote for Kim Fox in the Democratic primary for Cook County state's attorney?

Thank you for your prompt attention to this urgent matter.

Is that

you say urgent matter?

Has that when is that vote?

Well, I'm not entirely sure, but

I mean,

Kim Fox looks like a pretty strong candidate to me.

So when you look at the other candidates on the ballot paper, former Magnum PI actress Tom Selleck.

Peyton Manning, who just wants something to do to pass the time during retirement.

And Justice Yaks 3.1, the computerized robo-attorney that is surely the future of

law.

I mean, have you not been paying attention to the Cook County State's attorney election, John?

I mean, that seems...

I haven't.

I'm just clicking through the website now through the About Kim page.

And, yeah,

I would say that it doesn't seem, and bear in mind, I've researched this since the time that the word Kim Fox was first mentioned.

So probably about 30 seconds of research, I'd say, yeah, do it, pull the trigger.

This one came in from Jez Smith.

Hello, strangers.

Bacon or spam and why?

Yours in much anticipation.

I've been waiting for this breakfast since the 29th of May 2015.

P.S., please don't leave me hanging, big dogs.

Bacon, Andy.

The answer is bacon.

I'll tell you why, because we're not at war.

Yes.

I mean, if the question was bacon, spam or ham, I would definitely leave you hanging there, Jez, ideally for a solid 18 to 24 months to allow the full flavour.

And referring to us as big dogs, if you meant foot-long hot dogs, I might well go for them.

I recently went to Copenhagen, John, with my family just for a couple of...

Oh, yeah.

And they are not afraid of the foot-long hot dog in Denmark.

And just one quick message for Copenhagen.

Next time I'm walking from the station to a hotel with my family and two young children, is there any chance you could put slightly fewer enormous dildos in your shop windows?

That would be conversationally appreciated.

Well, that's constructive criticism for the capital of Denmark there.

This one came from Jonah on another one of the big issues.

Do you think Germany's open-door policy in the refugee crisis is the right course of action?

I personally think we should transform a lot of historical buildings, for example Schloss, Shansusi and Potsdam, into refugee centers instead of having them sleep in tents.

There's a lot of room and nobody lives there anyway.

The UK has a lot of castles too, doesn't it?

You could probably do the same.

Well, I mean, maybe this is the world's solution.

I mean, I think Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle alone could pretty much take about a third of Syria.

It's been one of the defining issues of politics in Britain whilst we've been away.

I do have a solution, John, for the global migration crisis,

which is a three-step solution.

One is

to change the entire nature of the human psyche.

That's step one.

Yeah, because I mean,

we've always wanted to live somewhere nicer than we do live if we live somewhere shit.

And that's...

Yeah.

So just to be clear,

we can't get to step two without effectively dealing with step one.

Step one is the absolute sine quoi non of this scheme.

Okay, all right.

Change the entire nature of the human psyche to stop people wanting to move away from horrible places.

Two,

I believe we need to ban all history.

Right.

Because that's I mean that

just wind that causes a lot of trouble around

around the world.

And three, from a British point of view, I believe we should build a moat around Britain.

Well, that's

Britain already has it.

You want a moat within the moat?

You want a moat within the English channel?

Okay, I might might not have entirely thought that through, but

it's got to be worth a go.

Another one of the big stories whilst we were away, a number of you emailed about.

This came in from Michael Benson.

It says, Dear Andy, John and Chris, in order of how disappointed in you I am,

how, in capital letters, how in the name of Zeus did you not do a special bugle about David Cameron tea-bagging a pig's head?

Because, he explains, David Cameron tea-bagged a f ⁇ ing pig's head for f sake.

This from Niharika, dear John, Chris, and Andy.

A short summary of what you've missed.

David Cameron fed a pig.

David Cameron fked a pig.

Written out ten times.

David Cameron fed a pig.

well he didn't hold on hold on did he he it that's in the eye of the beholder did he a pig or did he baptize a pig with his penis it is legally it is such an incredibly fine line um the story for those of you who unfortunately missed it cameron piggate which i believe coincidentally is a lovely village in his oxfordshire constituency um

was the claim that uh as a student David Cameron once quotes this is a quoting directly from a newspaper report puts a private part of his anatomy into a dead pig's mouth during a quotes bizarre initiation ritual.

I don't know if the word bizarre was entirely necessary

in that.

But I mean, I guess what I would say to this is let he who has never put his penis in the dead mouth of a pig cast the first

the first stone.

I mean

I mean, do you respect David Cameron less, John, knowing that, I mean...

Well, no, but then again,

the full context there is how much I respect David Cameron.

So

Yeah, my opinion of him is not lower if that's what you're asking.

No, it has not negatively affected my perception of him in any way.

I mean the intriguing part of the story was just thinking that Silvio Berlusconi must have been hearing about this thinking, oh, why the hell did I never think of that?

That is basically the only thing I haven't put it in yet.

Because, well, because for Silvio, you don't think about it.

It's all instincts with that guy.

I mean, I believe there were certain mitigating circumstances.

You know, obviously this is merely allegation, but I mean, let's face it, the entire world thinks it happened.

It's basically just,

you know, it's upper-class, you know, is it from an upper-class background?

And, like, princesses can tell if a pea isn't a pile of mattresses.

So, a true aristocrat has to prove his credentials by showing that he can use his Prongletonk as a meat thermometer.

Was it an aberration or was it nothing more than a kind of German fairy tale?

Yeah,

it's, yeah, only you can be both.

And also, I would say, surely, it is far, far better to have a Prime Minister who has already put his penis into the dead mouth of a dead pig than a Prime Minister who is constantly wondering what it would be like to put his penis in the dead mouth of a dead pig.

Surely that

has to be extremely distracting.

Let's move on to sport, John.

It's been an amazing sport story whilst we've been away.

This came from James Knight.

Hello, Andy and John.

Welcome back.

When the Bugle stopped releasing weekly last March, Leicester were bottom of the Premier League and relegation certainty.

Oh, yeah.

They're now top of the Premier League and favourites for the title.

Yes.

Could you please f ⁇ off again until June?

What misregards, James Knight?

Oh, it's amazing.

Yeah.

It's absolutely amazing.

It's hard to really get across to Americans what...

exactly is happening regarding Leicester because it should be mathematically financially and physically impossible what is happening.

I couldn't want Leicester to win more.

I mean, Chris, you're a Tottenham Hotspur fan, they're second in the table.

You wouldn't mind too much, would you?

No, I mean, I would quite happily take second if we finish over Arsenal, which shows both our lack of ambition

and hatred for Arsenal.

That is a classic British attitude.

It's the same with Europe, I think.

You know, leaving Europe would damage Britain, but it would also damage Europe.

So I think that would be happening.

You say we're like electoral suicide bombers.

Essentially.

Leicester, winning the Premiership, Donovan, I mean, you say it's quite hard to understand, but the whole of Premier League football is basically designed to ensure that things like this do not happen.

It will be basically like the Tour de France being won by Ernie the unicycling clown.

We had various emails about what we've been doing during the hiatus.

I've spent most of it trying to come to terms with England getting knocked out of the Rugby World Cup at the group stage in their home tournament.

Which I took my son to see the England-Wales game, John, at Twickenham

when England lost, and that was basically where it all went wrong.

And

my son spent the last 10 minutes of the match in uncontrollable tears as the United States

defeat.

It hit him.

It was, I think, his first encounter with true sporting heartbreak.

That's fantastic.

The age of nearly seven.

That's what it's all about, Andy.

That is a memory that is going to help him in his life.

Yep.

Like tears of happiness at England winning the World Cup.

That is not setting him up for what life is.

This is the most wonderful, like, character-forming moment you can possibly fathom.

Total devastation through disappointment.

And this, on the subject of our hiatus, comes from James in Boston, who simply writes, what the f ⁇ ing f, you hammers.

Can you not?

Oh, that's nice.

Can you not give your not so loyal now listeners, if any of them still exist, a goddamn morsel of information over the past year?

Seriously, f that.

Thank you, Chris, from James in Boston.

So f you, James.

Well, it's already been away for so long, but um, anyway.

Anyway, I think we should probably wrap it up there for our uh return episode.

We should hopefully be back in about the same time in April.

Um, uh, we will um be seeking your emails on um specific topics topics for future bugles.

So look out for that.

Call to arms on

Twitter.

Do email us in about whatever you want as well.

So that's it.

Until next time, Buglers, thanks very much for listening.

Until next time, goodbye.

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.