Bugle 290 – Love Letters

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 290 of the Bugle the audio newspaper for a visual world that has charted the evolution of the planet Earth and its most famous species, human beings, since 2007.

I'm Andy Zaltzmann reporting to you from Hamilton, New Zealand.

If New York is the city that never sleeps, then Hamilton is the town that never fully wakes up.

Occasionally mumbles something incoherent and then just starts snoring and dribbling again.

But from that city that never sleeps and isn't doing itself any long-term good by not getting at least three or four hours a night of downtime.

It can't last New York.

You're not Margaret f ⁇ ing Thatcher.

It's the one-man espresso shot that keeps that sleepless city at least partly functional.

It's the comedic caffeine, the satirical stimulants, the jolting Java himself, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

You're back upside down again, Andy.

You've been right side upside down.

Right side, upside down.

You've been like an egg timer.

A human egg timer.

Can I put that on my poster?

A human egg time.

What's it like having blood in your head again?

Oh, it's awesome.

It's, I don't know why.

Just simply being in the southern hemisphere is worth any psychotropic drug that you could care to name.

So which games are you watching down there now?

Well, today I've been to New Zealand versus Bangladesh,

which obviously is a rivalry as old as time itself.

I'll tell you what I won't be watching, John, and that is any England matches, because England have been humiliatingly knocked out in what is not only probably the low point in English cricket history, but possibly the low point in the history of British civilization.

We have been knocked out of a World Cup of a sport we invented, which we didn't spread to too many places to make sure we could always at least get to the quarterfinal.

We have failed to get to the quarterfinal, John.

We lost to Bangladesh and everyone else by humiliating margins.

Although today we did beat Afghanistan in a glorious victory over a nation that didn't play cricket 15 years ago.

It's,

yeah, I mean, it's

dark times, John.

Dark, dark times.

We invented the game, Andy.

We should just take all the equipment with us so that there's nothing for them to play with in the quarter-finals.

Wickets were our idea.

Stumps are our idea.

We have the intellectual property over stumps and balls.

Yeah, I mean, it's like America losing to another nation at unnecessary spying on its own citizens.

It is that bad, John.

It is that bad.

Tomorrow I get a train to Wellington at

the southern tip of the North Island.

I've got my gigs there on Sunday, still a few tickets available for the 6pm show, as there are for Adelaide on the 21st, as there are inconsiderable numbers for the slightly over-ambitious second extra shows in Sydney on the 25th and Melbourne on the 27th.

Details at satiristforhire.com.

On my train journey, John, I'll pass through some classic New Zealand towns, including Pukin in a Car,

Koyua Pakinanoozi, Belch and Wama Edinagooi.

So it's going to be a fascinating journey through the beautiful island.

And there's some big news here in New Zealand this week, John.

The government has just announced plans to flight the Kiwi, the notoriously flightless national bird of New Zealand.

The government's announced plans to affix 20% of all Kiwis to drones to give them the chance to feel what it's like to be a real bird.

Prime Minister John Key explained, after everything the Kiwi has done for New Zealand in terms of our global brand, we thought it was time to give something back.

And it's symbolic.

If the Kiwi can literally fly, that sends a message that any New Zealander can metaphorically fly before he returned to dyeing his hair and being accused of having different coloured pubes by opposing politicians.

That's what New Zealand is, John.

It is politicians suggesting in parliament that the colours do not match the cuffs.

That is the height of politics in this glorious nation.

This is Bugle 290.

We've now done the same number of bugles as the record number of consecutive screwed-up bits of paper thrown into a waste bin by a world leader in his or her office, recently broken by the Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who got bored just because she has absolutely nothing to fing do as Prime Minister of Norway.

Breaking the record set by the notoriously indecisive President Franklin Pierce of the USA in 1856 when he was trying to write a speech about ducks to give it a new Washington bird sanctuary.

We're recording on Friday the 13th.

And well, I mean this is a high-risk bugle, John, to be recording on this most unlucky of all days.

Did you know that more people are likely to die on Friday the 13th this year than died on any Friday the 13th in the 19th century?

That cannot be coincidence.

The power of this day is getting greater and greater.

Here's an extraordinary quote from Donald Dossi, the founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, talking about Friday the 13th.

It's been estimated that $800 or $900 million is lost in business every Friday the 13th because people will not fly or do the business they would normally do.

That's that's a lot of money, John.

And you wonder why people do not respect America as a nation anymore.

It's not the decades of dubious foreign policy interventions and economic prong-plonking.

It is the fact that Friday the 13th costs America almost a billion dollars every time it happens.

Of course, it's not an unlucky day.

It's just hocus-pocus bullshit.

It's just a normal.

I've just electrocuted myself on a grape.

Ah, maybe there's something in it.

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

A free massage.

We're not actually giving you a free massage, but we will advise you on where you can get one this week.

Just lean on the rumbling engine of a bus in a traffic jam.

That section in the bin.

Top story this week, the lost art of letter writing has been found.

Now will someone please lose it again?

It's the bugle letter roundup.

Andy, there are so many forms of letter writing.

Love letters, ransom letters, letters of complaint and resignation, letters written in calligraphy, green ink, blood, or just from letters of the alphabet cut out of magazines.

Humanity has truly mastered the art of physical correspondence.

And of course, once you've mastered something, there's no greater thrill than completely destroying it.

And let's begin with the fact that this week saw a spectacular letter written from Senator Tom Cotton and co-signed by 46 fellow Republican senators to the leaders of Iran.

And if you're thinking, well, why the f ⁇ are they trying to strike up a pen pal relationship with the regime they claim to despise?

That is an entirely fair question.

The letter seemed to be designed to undermine the White House in their current nuclear negotiations with Iran.

But I cannot, for the life of me, see who thought this would be a good idea, why they thought it was a good idea, or what the f ⁇ they were thinking about when they were thinking it would be a good idea.

Because the tone in this letter lies somewhere between conspiratorial and breathtakingly patronizing.

At one point they suggest that Iran's leaders may not fully understand our constitutional system.

They then attempt to describe that system but in doing so don't get things completely right.

They claim in the letter that the Senate ratifies treaties but that's not in fact true.

Members give advice and consent but the President signs off.

Now that's a minor point but it's the kind of minor point you really really want to get right when you're lecturing foreign governments about constitutional intricacies.

It's also a bit presumptuous to assume that the Iranian president would not understand the concept of term limits, especially because the Iranian president is himself term-limited.

That's like trying to explain to a tortoise what living inside a shell is like.

Iran has been reacting unimpressively to the letter.

Its supreme leader hit back at the Republican senators, claiming he was worried because the United States was known for, quotes, backstabbing.

And I think what this letter shows, John, is that America is not just known for backstabbing, it is built into its very constitutional framework.

And what the Republicans seem to be doing here is not merely stabbing Obama in the back, but stabbing him in the back whilst leaning round the front and saying to his face, I am stabbing you in the back.

It is truly extraordinary politics.

Ayatollah Ali Khameni, the ultimate authority on all Iranian matters of state, that is one catchy tagline,

said added at a meeting that whenever negotiations made progress, the Americans became like a pair of 1920s underpants.

So he didn't actually say that, he used the words harsher, tougher and coarser.

Some very old Spanish letter news now, and the Spanish government has ruled that a letter written by Christopher Columbus to his son in 1498 cannot leave Spain.

The aristocratic Alba dynasty has been trying to sell the document to raise money for its vast collections of old shit.

But the court has ruled it cannot leave Spain.

If only they'd done the same with Columbus himself in 1492, the world might be a very different place today.

It'd be very different for you, John.

You'd be hosting a TV show in Madrid.

The letter has been valued at £15 million.

There are rumours that Real Madrid are interested in purchasing the letter for £35 million.

It's not entirely clear how they're going to use the letter, but I'm sure they'll find a spot for it.

But the cultural ministry have blocked the sale of the letter because the letter is, quote, an intrinsic part of Spain's national heritage.

But it's very hard to quantify these things, John.

I mean, if the letter was sold, no doubt there would be people across the notoriously tasty nation stumbling to work thinking, oh no, the House of Alba has sold that letter.

It now has only 20 of its 21 letters written by Columbus left.

I just don't know who the f ⁇ I am anymore.

Am I Spanish?

What is Spain?

Why am I eating so many little things on plates when I could be eating two or three big things on one big plate like everyone else?

I just don't feel the urge anymore to writhe around in tomatoes, let alone go debull to death in front of a crowd.

What am I doing on this planet?

Sure, I'll still chuck a donkey off a church if it needs doing, but I'll give the failed horse a parachute.

The useless beast has

suffered enough, and I just don't know what Spain means.

Columbus, of course, one of the defining figures in Spanish history, although he was, of course, Italian, who explored for Team Spain on a big money contract.

It really didn't help young Spanish explorers coming through to get into the top jobs.

And it's very much like modern-day British football, but more so and for a discernible purpose.

At the same time, John, once you open that dam, that cultural dam, and let things leave, where will it end?

Once a dam is opened, as the old saying goes, all the dolphins are going to swim through it to freedom.

And if Spain flogs off Chrissy Columbus's letter to his son, where will it end?

Within a few years, they will have flogged off the Alhambra to Dubai, and Pedro Al Modavar will be making tourism adverts for Abu Dhabi.

And we have very much the same problem in Britain.

We have to fight to hang on to our great pieces of cultural heritage: the Parthenon marbles, Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks, the Royal Koheno Diamond, still adorning the Queen Mother's crown long after the Queen Mother herself ceased adorning the concept of being alive.

All these things of crucial importance to our national identity, more so than, for example, the railways, the energy sector, the media, and airports.

I mean,

we can do without them, but we cannot do without a stolen diamond in a dead woman's hat without losing our entire concept of Britishness.

The late Duchess of Albert owned vast amounts of things like this, John, including an art collection, including paintings by Frankie the Palette Man Goya and Diego Velázquez, the golden easel himself, a first edition of Don Quixote by Mickey Cervantes, the self-styled Danielle Steele of early 17th century Spanish literature, Christopher Columbus's first map of America, and the last will and testament of Ferdinand the Catholic.

Well, that is a real showstopper at dinner parties.

He was the father of Catherine the Arrogant, or as Henry VIII came to know her, Cranky Kate.

So she owned all these things, John, this Duchess.

She must have been hard to buy Christmas presents for.

A coffee table book of pictures of the Earth from space.

Whoopee f ⁇ ing shitted he do?

I've got Columbus's first map of America.

I think I'll look at that instead.

Stick it on the par with the book of classic motorbikes you got me last year that I haven't read because I've been too busy telling everyone that my copy of Don Quixote is 400 fing years old, which coincidentally is the same number of fingers since Mickey Cervantes wrote the fing thing.

Next, oh, a novelty apron with the body of Da Vinci's Vitruvian man on it.

I'm pretty sure I own the original of that.

Maybe I don't on reflection, I cannot remember because I'm too busy looking at all my Velasquez's.

Oh, look, that's a good one.

He was really fing good at painting.

It's time now for a Bugle QA.

Once again, you've sent in your questions on Twitter, and we've set ourselves up very much as your

satirical, political, personal agony aunts, a role we've been really destined for ever since birth.

And some very, very searching questions came in, including this from

Dan J.

Webster, who asks, what is the appropriate number of kitchens to have in your house?

Should I feel kitchen envy that I only have the one?

Well,

that depends what century you're in, doesn't it really you know if you if you're going to take the down and abbey approach to that then you need multiple kitchens to separate the class contained in the house so

it depends whether you live in a classless society or not you very much need big kitchen for the peasants to service you in and uh you know luxury kitchen upstairs basically ornamental yeah well i mean i think in many ways it's good to have this kind of envy because envy is very much the piston engine of capitalism without us thinking I want that shit we would all grind to a to a steaming halt this came in from at come on ace who asks John if you were to rank global leaders on the basis of the likelihood that Vladimir Putin will assassinate them who do you think would be at number one well I think anyone in Ukraine

really has a should have a justified sense of panic whenever they hear a Russian accent on the TV phone or especially in the room

yeah they they do have to be pretty high up uh high up this unless he just gets a bit creative and just tests the water by you know bumping off the president of Burundi or something just to see what he can get away with I think a possibility is that he might assassinate himself just to see how he reacts to it I feel he might be reaching that level of boredom with his own provocations

this came from the metal hipster It's a very important question this you might be able to answer it John the question is what is the circumference of andy zoltzmann's head

that's i'm not sure it's ever been circumnavigated has it andy you

you need uh

you need a 13th century spaniard in a wooden ship to do it

well i'm not sure you can measure it anyway john you can't measure the circumference of my head it's not a distance it's a concept you can you can feel it

you cannot make you can't you cannot put a numerical value on the circumference of my head and I resent the implication that you even think it's possible, the metal hipster.

John, this comes from Tim Lawrence, who asks, will you appear in the televised leaders' debates?

And if not, why not?

Which televised, what's he talking about?

Well, in the run-up to the general election in the country that you used to be a citizen of the world.

Oh, laughing.

Oh, no, laughing.

No place, yeah.

Sure, I'll happily appear.

Can I do a song in the middle of it?

Well, I thought I might spice things up a bit.

I mean, you've got a lot of influence in television these days.

I think, you know, if David Cameron won't appear on it, you could appear as his official spokesman.

I think,

in fact, that could win the election for the Tories, I think.

Tim also asks, could sledging the opposition in pun form improve the England cricket team's results?

Because, well,

for non-cricket aficionados, sledging is the noble art of abusing the living f ⁇ out of opposition players in an attempt to distract them and make them fail.

Well, sure, but

sledging in that sense and sledging in the other sense might improve it as well.

You know,

getting a sledge and hurtling down a hill and trying to smash into the opposite...

Anything would improve the England cricket team's performance, wouldn't it?

Self-harm would improve it.

Eating a pizza would improve it.

I'm not sure anything can make it worse.

Nothing could make it worse, John.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And you're right.

We are good at sledging.

The Lizzie Yarnold recently won a World Championship in

the Skeleton.

So we are literally better at sledging.

This came in from Raws, who asked, will the bugle be sued by Marvin Gaye's estate?

John did once on a bugle sing, Let's Get It On.

So I don't remember that particular one, but I do tend to blank these things out for psychological purposes.

Well, I'm guessing they won't because, you know, unlike Pharrell, I sang a Marvin Gaye song and I think probably attributed it to Marvin Gaye, or at the very least didn't claim that I'd written it.

So

I think that's probably the legal distinction there.

That is the absolute key difference.

Also with blurred lines, obviously big in the news, this week they actually copied the video as well from the original video of Perry Como's Magic Moments, which featured nude women and a stuffed dead sheep.

So of course it was a 1950, so it was never fully broadcast.

Death to the West asks,

that's a striking Twitter handle, how can I convert my friends and family to communism?

Well, you know, there's

some historical lessons there.

Usually that's probably suppressing your friends and family violently

over a series of decades.

It's not really converting them, it's forcing them.

That's really how it works.

And then seizing their property from them

under the guise of collectivising.

There is a blueprint, but it does involve a lot of blood.

Alternatively, you could just get them a job in 1950s Hollywood and they will automatically become comments.

That's the way it worked in those days.

Does that still happen, John?

When you've spent a bit of time in

show whiz land

over in LA, I mean, that's right.

You fit little self- If you say no to any note that anyone gives you, they'll say, What are you, a communist?

with a glint of their eye.

Caroline James asks, I've got an ice skating date tomorrow.

What should I wear to look attractive whilst minimizing my chances of breaking a bone?

Now,

that's a very I mean it's a tough question that I mean that's a strange date yeah for me the ice skating date

I mean sequins

a suit of armour so yeah

there simply are not enough sequin suits of armour in today's ice skating world I mean the great thing is you know it's got it's a talking point on a date you know why are you wearing a sequin suit of armour I'm just trying to impress you I mean that has to that's an icebreaker liter I mean literally an icebreaker.

And also, it does also depend on how attractive you are to start with, I guess.

Whether you want to go with a full medieval helmet or not.

But anyway, best of luck.

Do report back on whether your ice skating date in a full suit of armor proves romantically successful.

This one comes from the real S.

O'Neill, who asks, can dogs look up?

Can dogs look up?

What was that question?

Can dogs look up?

Yes.

Can dogs look up?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's.

Yeah, physically, dogs can look up.

That is, that's something they could have just googled or just stood above a dog and made a noise.

Right.

It could be that this man's dog is dead and it just wants some indirect way of confirming this.

But I mean, you have a dog, and you've noticed it definitely

looking up.

Yeah, she definitely...

She definitely looks up when there's something above her she wants.

Or just out of general curiosity.

Yeah,

she's looked up repeatedly across her lifespan so far, and I imagine she'll continue to do it.

That's definitely a weapon in her arsenal, is looking up.

It's up there with barking.

Okay.

I think you might be mixing, Sean, you might be mixing dogs up with carpets, which of course always look down.

This comes from Beau Jacobs.

How is Margaret Thatcher doing in heaven?

Did Sean, did he stop typing there?

Did he say, can

dogs look up things on the internet?

Because that's a more difficult question.

Yes.

Mostly just pictures of humans saying sausages, I think.

So what was the next question?

So Beau Jacobs asks, how is Margaret Thatcher doing in heaven?

I guess that depends how effectively she's hiding.

Yeah, I was going to say, if she's there, she's doing finging well, frankly, and she's just got to be happy with it.

This comes from Josie Bobski, who asks, why have you not addressed the Dwight Howard penis grab?

Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about.

Are you familiar with the Dwight Howard penis grab, John?

I'm not familiar with that.

All right.

All right, okay.

Well, let's

do some.

We've We've only just this one only just came in.

So I'm now going to type

Dwight Howard penis grab into Google.

And

you're going to deal with the consequences of that.

I'm going to deal with the consequences of that and the any legal cases that may arise.

Oh, Dwight Howard grabbed his teammate's penis.

That's the first thing that comes up.

He's

it appears

he's grabbed Isaiah Kanan's penis.

Very much, yeah.

I mean, who is Dwight Howard, John?

I mean, that's

a special bit of a

it does does look

it does look like it might have been.

I mean, in terms of so, what sport does he play, Dwight Howard?

I'm not sure.

Dwight Howard plays basketball.

I mean, I don't think there's maybe he's just found a loophole that that's not technically a foul.

You can grab another player's penis during the game to to get leverage.

Right.

I've not played as much basketball as you, John.

You tell me, I mean,

is that strategically valid?

The penis grab?

I guess it depends if you want the person not to jump as high.

So, I mean, but it's not something you do for your teammate.

Of your teammates.

What is the tactical advantage of...

Yeah.

I mean, why would you grab your own teammates?

Maybe you're trying to fling him higher, like in rugby at the line outs.

Maybe you're trying to help him up well kind of slingsh s slingshot him round your head that's I mean that's possible I mean basketball players notoriously have extremely elastic members so I mean it is it is possible that this was some uh attempt at a at a at a sort of a a Hail Mary magic shot in the in the last few seconds of a game anyway thanks for bringing our attention to that Josie Bobski

and uh we'll finish on on on this one it comes from uh Sari Gamp name the actors who will play each of you in the eventual Bugle film.

Vin Diesel for me, Andy.

Always Vin Diesel.

Oh, I wanted diesel.

I think I'd go for...

I'm trying to think of someone who's

most like me

spiritually and physically.

I'll probably...

I think I'll probably

have to go for

Scarlett Johansson.

Nice.

Very much P's in a physical pod for me, me and

SJ.

And then Chris, Chris, you probably want Meryl Streep, don't you, Chris?

Yeah, maybe Merrill, but I quite like Liza Manelli for me as well.

Well, that would be great.

Oh, actually,

well,

there is actually

a couple more we should probably address.

Stephen Buckley asks, on a scale of one to ten, what is your favourite colour of the alphabet?

I just like that collection of words.

What's the question?

On a scale of one to ten, what is your favourite colour of the alphabet?

Colour of what?

Colour of the alphabet.

You get it right.

Colour of the alphabet.

Yep.

I think he's gone.

He's gone indirectly.

Oh, I see, I see.

I think if you read it, Stephen is having a bit of fun with words there, isn't he, Stephen?

Good for him.

He's having a bit of fun or possibly calling in a terrorist strike.

We don't know.

That could be co.

And finally, Amira Ames asks, should I get a bugle tattoo?

Oh, God, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Well,

I would say yes.

I mean,

you know, you want to, you want to, I mean, this is, it's more than just something to listen to, it's something to have imprinted on your skin for the rest of your life.

You know, and hopefully

in many millennia to come, your embalmed corpse will be dug up.

and people will look upon the cartoon images of me and John and think that you must have been some form of god or king.

So I'd say get it.

So thanks very much for your questions for the Bugle QA.

Do keep your emails coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Don't forget to check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle.

Sport now, and we got knocked out the fing World Cup, John.

Oh, God.

It's

it was England's worst ever Cricket World Cup campaign, which is a very hotly contested title, alongside, for example, most ostentatious dictator, my worst ever gig, least necessary film sequel, nothing personal John, and deadest pterodactyl.

England just kept kept making the same the same mistakes, using the same kind of outdated tactics.

And as I said, the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again while smacking yourself in the plums with a watermelon, or it's something along those lines, or doing the same thing again and expecting Abraham Lincoln to come back from the dead and sort things out.

But basically, England did exactly the same thing.

There was one period in this game with Bangladesh when they needed to keep scoring at a decent rate, but they got very defensive and they played out lots of balls with no runs.

That's basically a point for our American listeners to score.

And when a ball has scored a no-run, it's described as a dot ball.

That's how it's marked in the scorebook.

And at one point, there were three dots in a row, and then a further four dots.

So dot, dot, dots, dot, dot, dot, dot.

then two more dots and then a player had a bit of a flash at the ball what you might call a dash of a shot so it was basically dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dash and in Morse code that spelt shit and that was very much the summary of England's glorious Cricket World Cup campaign

That is it for this week's Bugle.

We will hopefully be back next week or it may indeed be the start of the bugle Easter break for this year.

Thanks very much for listening.

Do come to my gigs in Wellington this Sunday if you listen to this in time or in Australia details at satiristforhire.com and send in your satirical demands to satirise this at satiristforhire.com.

And the Australian

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, your old friend John, is

giving plenty of ammunition at the moment.

There was a comment he made when he basically suggested that

Aboriginal Australians living far away from cities is a lifestyle choice, and that they cannot expect state benefits.

It's almost like the man is trying to

become so much of a

that Australia re-elects him just to see what he does next.

He's truly extraordinary, so I'm sure there'll be plenty of abbots at the gigs.

Until next time, Buglers, thanks very much for listening from the wrong side of the world.

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.