Bugle 291- Resistible force versus movable object

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 291 of The Bugle for the week ending Friday the 24th of April 2015 with me Andy Zaltzman.

And joining me from the silly side of the Atlantic in New York City is the last remaining thread that keeps the moth-eaten woolen underpants of the Transatlantic Special Relationship from completely unraveling.

It's the police sergeant of political shenanigans, the detective chief inspector of dickbags, charlatans and idiots.

It's Superintendent Satar himself, the one-man comedic Colombo that is John Oliver.

Put your hands behind your back and walk away from the punchline.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Andy, this week was a strange one for me.

I was, for best reasons known to them,

named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, which is clearly terrible news for Time Magazine, people, the world in general, and the concept of influence.

My presence on that list, Andy, is a canary in the coal mine for the planet Earth.

And that canary is dead.

And he didn't die recently.

The best...

The best byproduct of this honorary abomination is the fact that on Tuesday night, I've got to attend a dinner for the names on the list.

Now not all the other night and on people were there Andy and I'll tell you why because two of the people on the list were Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

Both of whose, you have to say names still make more sense being on that list than mine fing does but that's not the point.

The point is it's a shame because I very much would have liked to be sitting between them at dinner.

functioning as the very bemused filling in an extremely angry sandwich.

It was a strange night, perfectly and inexplicably capped by a performance from Kanye West, who performed like a man who not only felt comfortable being named one of the 100 most influential people, but who also assumed that he was number one.

After watching him in action, Andy, I think in terms of just self-confidence, I may be the anti-Kanye West.

The anti-Yeezy, if you will.

His wife...

is of course Kim Kardashian and in a moment that I can only describe as brief, she was

walking past me and a photographer asked for a photo of us together.

She gestured with her hand for me to come in with a demure wave that I've only ever previously seen on the Queen at events she had no interest being at.

The photographer took one single photo and at the moment of the flash, I was thinking, this is not an image the world needs.

Now, I haven't seen the photo yet, Andy, but if anyone ever does, that is the thought behind my confused eyes.

It was, to put it mildly, Andy, a strange evening.

So I was also named one of the 100 most influential people living on my road in Streatham.

So it's been a pretty big week for both.

That means as much, Andy.

Both of those things are entirely subjective.

This is Bugle 291.

291, of course, the ultimate best of total in the coin toss series held by Hillary Clinton.

We're deciding whether or not to run for president again.

When she went 146, 145 up, her mind was made.

Also, 291, the number of turkeys who voted for Christmas, the last time such a referendum was held, that was back in 1968, only 248 voted against Christmas.

So Christmas remains to this day.

The rest of the world's estimated 350 million turkeys either didn't register to vote or peck their ballot papers to pieces.

So they can't complain about the results.

And weekending 24th of April 2015, that means it's 25,000 years to the day since a caveman inadvertently invented break dancing whilst trying to maneuver his way quickly out of a slightly undersized cave whilst avoiding being bitten by a pack of scorpions.

So

historic day.

So how is your happy birthday, John?

Oh, thank you.

I mean, that's the most historic anniversary of this week, 23rd, 23rd of April 1977.

The world was introduced to both Mr.

John Oliver and Mr.

John Cena.

Two sides of the same coin for me.

Is he the same age as well?

Exactly the same year, John.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

And he became the World Wrestling Federation's champion of the worlds.

And

then there's also me.

We've taken different paths with our life.

His is a path of physical dominance.

Mine is a path of relentless apologising.

Right.

Did you

tempted to try and pretend at the time 100 most important people in the world party was actually your birthday party, and this was just your

standard guest list?

Yeah, sure, sure.

That's right.

I whispered in a couple of people's ears, of course, it's my birthday in two days, and

they would pretend to hear, nod, and look over my shoulder and move on to someone more interesting.

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

This week, a special historic wearable tech section as we've had the long-awaited launch of the Apple Watch.

It's amazing to think, John, that for 150,000 years now, our species has been waiting for a device small enough to wear on our wrists that finally spares us the logistical tyranny of having to carry around a device small enough to fit in our pockets.

I can only say on behalf of humanity, thank f for the Apple Watch.

It's a massive step forward for the watch.

The Apple Watch has a battery that lasts, check this, for an entire day.

No tedious winding this baby up every two or three minutes, like with an old-style mechanical watch that had broken, but you couldn't bring yourself to throw away for sentimental reasons.

No tedious having to replace the battery every two, three or four years.

Not with the all-new Apple Watch.

You just need to charge it once every 24 hours and always carry your iPhone with you.

This is a massive step change in watch tech.

It has a digital touch feature that allows users to tap their watch face to send customizable buzzes to their friend's wrist or even transmit their heartbeat in real time.

And I mean in terms of social media, this is huge.

You're not going to be able to keep your friends up to date with whether or not your heart is still beating.

Oh no, I think Eric might be dead.

Either that or he forgot to take his phone with him.

Better call an Undertaker just in case.

Of course there's a very great danger in tech like this not working.

We'll investigate that.

They reckon half of all ISIS recruits are just people who set their sat-nav wrong and ended up driving to Homs instead of home.

And there are already stories of a man who spent three years in a swimming pool just because he didn't get a Google alert to get out, but ended up growing gills and marrying a turtle, so it wasn't all bad.

We reported previously on the Bugle on Apple's development of the Apple eyeball.

That's still on course to replace all human eyeballs by the year 2028.

In the station this week, we're also reviewing other wearable tech that is soon to hit the shops, including the Samsung Cravat, modelled on the 19th century gentleman's neckwear of choice.

The Samsung Cravat receives real-time updates from absolutely everything.

and when news breaks that requires your attention it alerts you by constricting around your neck to slightly asphyxiate you.

A warning on fast news days may cause fatal strangulation.

We also look at the Motorola sock, the must-have textessory for today's fitness obsessed fanatic.

The Motorola sock which can be fitted on either a medium-term or permanent basis is programmed to bleep every time you put your foot on the ground so you can keep real-time track of whether or not you're moving and if so, how fast.

And the HyperSOC sends instant updates to your Facebook page so everyone can see whether you're walking jogging sitting around or fleeing for your life and there are plans in place to provide free Motorola socks to anyone who lives within three miles of an active volcano so when more than 30% of those wearers simultaneously start sprinting scientists will know the volcano is most likely erupting and also we review the Nokia Prince Albert the highest tech penile piercing in human history the NPA will automatically alert your

the French term toje le de monsieur with a series of customizable buzzes to keep you and your wang fully up to date with all the latest goings on in the world of news, finance, and sport.

Whenever you receive an email, tweets, Instagram, product release, carrier pigeon message, or stock market updates, the NPL will inform you by mildly electrocuting your, as the Germans call it, flesh and gutrubber splout.

It will buzz 200% more vigorously if that communication comes from a person or commercial organisation that you secretly fancy, and it is fully compatible with Tinder.

That section in the bin.

Top story this week: UK election news: Britain's prepare to go to the polls or not.

Many, many will not go.

Many won't go.

Many are preparing not to do it.

Andy, as you know far better than I, the UK general election takes place in just two weeks.

There's been almost no coverage of it here, and that's understandable because the US media is too invested in their own election, which is taking place just around the corner, albeit that that corner is over 18 f ⁇ ing months away.

But I can only imagine the excited mood over there, Andy.

In fact, let me imagine it now.

Is it a mixture of forced anticipation combined with resentment and pessimism?

Because that's the inspirational atmosphere that I remember.

It's pretty much that.

I'd say this is simultaneously the most and least eagerly awaited election in living memory.

That there is a kind of mixture of total uncertainty as to what is going to happen and complete and utter resignation over whatever the outcome finally is.

Well, that's the interesting thing because this election may genuinely go down to the wire.

I believe the current polling has both the Conservatives and the Labour Party at 34%

with any advantage well within the margin of error.

It could be a photo finish, Andy.

And if so, it would really be the John Oliver and Kim Kardashian version of a photo finish.

Two people neck and neck who in an ideal world would not be the next leader of a country.

Although, the closeness of this election is in many ways what makes it so interesting.

And it also could be what makes it problematic.

Because under the UK system, the election could end up with a hung parliament, which I believe is called that because MPs would just hang around all day getting absolutely nothing done.

Is that a fair reflection, Andy, of what the system would turn into?

Yeah,

that's

basically it.

Politics has found itself in the public eye, and whenever that happens, the public basically just attempts to gouge its own eyeball out with any available implement.

It's by just sticking broach pins into its eye Oedipus style, just anything to stop them having to look politics directly in the face.

What we've got here is a massively unpopular government versus an equally unpopular opposition, the completely resistable force against the easily movable object.

It is a thrilling clash, John.

Thrilling.

As you say, the polls, the polls have scarcely moved at all for the whole campaign, despite the party throwing all their hard-earned and not particularly hard-earned cash at the problem.

And when I say cash, this is not cash in the way that cash is thrown at an American election, John.

I mean, I think the sums involved in British elections, I don't think any American candidate would even break wind for, frankly.

It's incredible.

In Britain, all registered parties are restricted to their spending for the entire year before an election.

They can spend up to £30,000.

I can't even say this without laughing.

£30,000 for each seat they contest, which adds up to around £19.5 million if they fight every constituency.

That, Andy, is adorable.

Political parties here spend that on their balloon budget.

Just balloons.

That in no way counts any confetti cannons.

That is extra and a lot extra.

The last UK election in 2010 cost in total £84.6 million to administer.

That's it.

In America, Andy, I'm pretty sure we spent that much staging half a WrestleMania.

Well, I was reading facts about this.

They reckon the

current, well, the current US election.

Can we call it current yet?

The current US election campaign.

You can say and you can be referring to all elections because they just don't stop now.

Uh, for the rest of time.

Um, and uh, it's uh I do think the way that American campaigning is going by 2028, all it will involve is one Democrat and one Republican standing six inches away from each other, screaming in each other's faces until one of them falls over and a winner is declared.

Um, but uh six billion, I think they're expecting this one to cost the twenty sixteen uh election.

But, I mean, you might think that is a lot.

Every year, America spends $7.9 billion on Halloween.

So,

I think that is simultaneously both extremely uplifting and completely fundamentally terrifying.

There's already a great deal of scaremongering over what a hung parliament would actually mean.

The Conservative Party have argued that it's potentially a lot worse than getting nothing done.

It's Scottish people getting a say in things.

And to the Conservative Party, Andy, giving Scottish people a representational voice in democracy is like giving a horse an iPad.

It just makes no sense.

They have no idea what to do with it, and they'll probably break the thing completely so no one else can use it.

Well, it's the first rule of electoral politics, John.

When the going gets tough, the tough get bullshitting.

And a survey of Britain's leading scare-mongering firms revealed that I think 72% of all scares in the average five-year political cycle are mongered within three weeks of a general election.

And most of them in the past week have involved the apocalyptic scenario of some form of possible Labour-Scottish National Party deal after the election, warnings of disasters, chaos, even coups, John.

It's been a while since we had a proper coup in this country, and that ended up with a monarch with his head on a spike.

So

it's reached the point where our politicians are no longer bothering to encourage people to vote for what they want, but trying to frighten them into voting against what they most don't want.

And short of David Cameron dressing up in a white sheet and trying to haunt people through their bedroom windows with spooky economic projections.

It's hard to see how much more childish it can get if you're a democracy fan.

The Tories are warning that we're all doomed if Labour and the SNP team up.

Labour's warning that we're all doomed if we talk about how we might be all doomed, while the SNP continues to spread.

It's terrifying, apocalyptic scare stories of investment in public services, building long-overdue houses, trying to keep pensioners warm enough not to die, and above all, the truly world-ending scenario of letting women have a go at frontline politics.

It's absolutely terrifying, John.

People can barely sleep in this country at the moment.

There are a few little details of the UK election I thought might be worth mentioning.

One of my favourite things each election is where people get a chance to vote, because polling stations in Britain can be basically anywhere.

Electoral rules state that they should be just accessible, identifiable, and provide the all-important privacy for voters.

They should also be the right size to meet the needs of the local electorate and allow a queue of people to flow through.

And that's pretty broad, and that's a good thing, because it leads to votes being cast in some wonderful demonstrations of electoral eccentricity.

In the village of Little Bardfield votes will be cast at the Cricket Club Pavilion Andy.

That is a pretty English sequence of words.

Voting in a cricket pavilion in a village called Little Bardfield.

Could not get any more English without having Charles Dickens turn up and throw an orphan at you.

But it doesn't stop there.

Other polling stations will be set up at the East Hull Boxing Club

and at the Swerve Table Tennis Centre in Middlesbrough.

You can also vote in pubs which means you can vote and get a simultaneous point at the Dolphin in Gillingham, the Red Lion in Belchamp-Otton and at the Elephant Castle in Rochdale among many many others and if they set up a polling station inside your local pub and you still don't vote at that point I think everyone needs to accept voting is just not for you.

It's not your thing.

I've been to Gillingham, John.

I used to go and watch football there and frankly, you're going to need a stiff drink before voting there because that is a town that democracy and progress has forgotten.

The only thing that could make that process better is if the barman himself takes your vote along with your order.

Thanks, Tony.

Can I get two pints of bitter, a vote for Theresa May and a packet of pork scratch-ins, please?

Actually, forget the vote for Teresa.

I'll just get a third pint instead.

But when it comes to luxury voting, Andy, if you really want to make a day of your democratic duty, you have got to head down to the polling station at the Royal Chase Hotel in Shaftesbury.

Why?

I'll tell you why, Andy.

It has a spa and an indoor swimming pool.

That's why.

Vote with hope in your heart and a pair of cucumbers over your eyes.

That's what the ancient Greeks had in mind.

Although, for sheer convenience, you can't go wrong with, and this is true, the Ace Laundrette on Girdleston Road in Oxford.

They will once again be a registered polling station, Andy.

Vote till it hurts while we clean your shirts is not the slogan there, but frankly, it should be.

But finally, for the intimate personal experience, a boutique voting station, if you will, look no further than

the home of Peter and Christine Hodgkinson in Rochdale, who for the last four decades have turned their cottage dining room into an election booth.

Peter Hodgkinson said, because of the area that we live in, a lot of people come and we have a natter because don't because we do not see them one year to the next so it's like a social gathering.

So there you go.

Just pop round Peter and Christine's and vote and they'll natter at you.

Amongst the Tory stories about the Miliband-Sturgeon conjunction, which ironically was the name of a medical condition that interwars Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin suffered from in the 1930s.

He could barely sit down at times, was that David Cameron, the professional Prime Minister and no-time general election winner, described it as a match made in hell.

Now, I'm starting to think, John, that hell might be slightly losing its edge if this is the best it can produce, a slightly fractious potential negotiation between two political parties on the same side of the political spectrum.

Beating that was an article by London Mayor Boris Johnson in the Telegraph, in which he said, talking about the prospect of allowing the SNP power in Westminster, he said, you wouldn't get King Herod to run a baby farm, would you?

And,

well, no, you wouldn't, Boris, because well for a start Herod has been out of the baby game for quite a long time.

He probably wouldn't be any good at it anymore.

Modern farming techniques have moved on from 2,000 odd years ago when you just had to do a humane cull every now and again.

But besides John, if you are going to run a baby farm, which generally

pretty much frowned on by most legal systems around the world, the very last thing you want is a high-profile celebrity appointment that is going to get you a lot of press coverage.

You want to keep it out of the spotlights.

It might be a heartwarming story of how former celebrity biblical firstborn slayer and king Herod has found redemption growing babies on a farm, but just keep fing stum about the fing baby farm.

It is at best unlikely to get an EU subsidy.

And he continued to say, can someone tell me why in the name of all that is holy that there are some apparently rational people who are contemplating the elevation of the Scottish National Party to a position of effective dominance in the government of the United Kingdom, an entity that they are sworn to destroy?

Well, I can tell you why that is, Boris.

It's because those apparently rational people you have such disdain for are the voting public of Scotland.

And the reason that they want to destroy the UK is because people like you keep telling them they cannot be trusted with a voting pencil.

So

it's a fascinating election.

The SNP said to get a lot of seats, around 8% of the seats in Parliament from about 4% of the national votes, whilst the less than charming UK Independence Party and

the Green Party between them could get about 18% of the vote and less than 1% of the seats.

And what I guess all this screams is that our electoral system simply does not work.

Bugle feature section now and it's St.

George.

It was on your birthday, John.

Of course, coincides with St.

George's Day, the day of our national patron saints.

You share your birthday with them and yet you still abandoned your country in its hour of need.

So, yeah, well done.

Well, if that's what it takes to get in the time to talk 100, I'm not interested.

I'm bound to my country, Andy, in a lasting time of indifference.

We were hoping that St.

George was going to come on the show today, but his PR person said he might not be able to make it, as he was sadly martyred in the year 303 AD after refusing to worship a non-Christian god.

But he's a great symbol for the modern British establishment.

He's from a well-to-do family and he's eligible for non-dom tax status.

But it's interesting looking at the different versions of the St.

George story.

Version one

of his dragon slaying legend is that villagers tried to distract a dragon

so they could reach the spring for which they got all their water.

And they distracted the dragon initially by feeding its sheep.

And then when they ran out of sheep, they started feeding it instead young women,

maidens, basically.

And you have to think, was...

Was that really the best plan B?

I mean, that does show how much it is a man's world, John.

Oh, the dragon's not eating his sheep today.

Any other ideas?

Yes, maidens.

What about cows?

No, maidens.

I reckon he much prefers maidens.

Pigs?

No, he's Jewish.

Jewish dragon?

Yeah, they mostly are.

Give him a maiden.

Are maidens kosher?

Yes, as long as they don't live in a shell.

I'll put the barbecue on.

Now, the maidens were drawn by lots, apparently, according to the story.

No one batted Nylids.

Mrs.

Pankhurst, did you die in vain?

Until a princess was drawn out by lots, and then and only then did St.

George spring into action.

So this is classic British behaviour, obsessed with the monarchy and prioritising the upper classes.

He is the best patron saint.

People complain that

he never came to England,

and also that he spreads himself pretty thin.

He's listed on Wikipedia as patron saint or joint patron saint of 13 countries, including f ⁇ ing Moldova.

Could we not be doing better than this?

He's also the patron saint of skin disease sufferers and syphilis sufferers.

That's just encouraging a benefits culture.

People sitting back and expecting St.

George to cure them rather than getting out there and curing themselves.

Patron saint of archers, which I guess might explain the government's attitude towards outdated military equipment.

Other versions of the story is that he just hated all reptiles indiscriminately, flew into a rage whenever he saw anything even slightly scaly, and the day he killed the dragon, he'd already slain an entire colony of 85 newts and eaten a raw gecko in front of a room full of children.

He just happened to be passing by when he saw the dragon, jumped off his horse, sweetie I think it was called, he inherited it from his sister when she went off horse riding, stripped down to his Bermuda shorts and screamed at the dragon, you and me, Big Liz, manow our mano, mano, before head-butting the confused beast to death whilst it was midway through its morning snack of an onion and sesame seed bagel with cream cheese and maiden.

Other suggestion is that it didn't actually happen, that it's all symbolic, that St.

George was a symbol of the church and the dragon stood for something, not sure what, possibly birth control.

And the other option is that there's a positive spin on a slightly embarrassing story from 279 AD, in which the future saint killed a drag queen.

Your emails now, and this one comes in from Jepa in Denmark, who says,

I recently discovered that Pakistan is the only nation in the world that does not recognise Armenia as a country.

They've never been to war or had any serious disputes.

Pakistan just doesn't feel like recognising Armenia.

If this is something a country can just choose, I don't want Denmark to recognise what used to be New Sweden and is basically a part of Delaware now.

And it turns out there was a Swedish colony along the lower reaches of the Delaware River from 1638 to 1655.

Keep that fire burning, Jepa.

I hope we pronounce your name right.

The official Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia on its website says diplomatic relations between the Republic of Armenia and Islamic Republic of Pakistan are not established.

So, I mean, I mean, are there any countries, John, that you just flatly do not recognise as existing?

That is, well, that is a minefield, that's a diplomatic minefield, Andy.

I've been denying to myself that Wales exists for a long time.

Was that after a tough gig at Cardiff University?

Cardiff was always fine, Andy.

Swansea was a battle.

I remember the battle in Swansea.

I was there fighting by your side against the

five-foot-four-inch LA G impersonator who threatened to do a fight.

It was very nearly a physical battle.

So, if there's any countries that you think should not be recognised, then we as

Oh, darn it.

Yeah.

Chris has got his head in his hands now.

I see that in the Farage era of British politics, that is a dangerous road to go down.

Yeah, the problem, Andy, is you are whacking a wasp's nest with a big stick with his quirk.

I would not throw this question out to buglers because the whole world has a lot of opinions over countries that shouldn't exist.

And sadly.

Sadly, the answers are often very anti-Semitic.

I don't think Andy officially finished that sentence, so we're all right.

I would give this as wide a berth as possible.

I think you're mistaking a comic premise for a declaration of war here.

It's always such a fine line.

Australia, I'd probably go with that,

just for the duration of the English cricketing summer.

Anyway, do get your remarks coming in to info at thebuglepodcasts.com.

Someone sent us in a picture of a poster for Berlusconi the Musical,

which is probably the logical end point of all Western civilization.

So

seen in the streets of Copenhagen.

That's a very

Denmark-heavy letters section this week.

Keep them coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Don't forget to have a look at our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle, and you can get the bugle merch at thebuglepodcast.com.

A quick update now on the Bugle appeal.

Michelle and her family are now hoping that they will be going to Philadelphia in the extremely near future.

We'll have further updates hopefully within a week or two and it's essentially been made possible largely by your donations buglers.

So thanks very much for that and I'll have more details hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

So there will be a sub-bugle next week and we will hopefully be back with a day after the election bugle special in two weeks' time.

In the meantime, to our British listeners, vote hard, vote often.

You can't complain about both apathy and electoral fraud.

It just shows excessive commitment to the process.

So good luck.

Vote as often and as dishonestly as you possibly can.

It is the British way.

Until next time, buglers, goodbye.

Boy!

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.