Bugle 284 – Too Hot For Print

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 284 of the Living Encyclopediac of Unarguable Truth.

That is the Bugle.

This is Andy Zoltzmann speaking.

Hello.

Alright, don't reply.

Please yourselves.

And joining me from across the big pond, it's the man who puts the are now I see into NYC, the I knew you're silly into New York City.

It's the King Stilton in the satirical cheese shop, shop with a hint of blue.

It's John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Andy, yesterday, I had myself a bit of a roller coaster of emotions.

I think I mentioned around a year ago that there was a billboard of my face just outside my office window and just how weird that felt.

Well, I haven't mentioned it, but unfortunately, it has been there all year.

I can only assume unsettling and unnerving traffic and pedestrians as much as it has been unsettling and unnerving me.

Well, yesterday afternoon, I saw workmen in the morning starting to pull it down and I cannot even describe to you, Andy, the feeling of utter relief that I experienced.

That level of relief was put in sharp contrast, however, by the subsequent feeling of complete horror as I saw them unfurling a new billboard of my face announcing the upcoming season.

I have a 12-year, 12-month aged version of my face re-peering at me through my office window, Andy.

Right.

Happens to everyone at the same time.

It's a little strange.

No one wants it.

That's my argument.

No one wants it.

Definitely no one needs it.

Right.

Apart from your PR team,

they want it.

Yeah,

that's right.

It was

my daughter's birthday last weekend, as I mentioned on last week's show.

And for her party, we took her and her cousins to this indoor climbing place where you can do climbing up walls.

And it was mostly children there.

There was another birthday party there with about 20 kids, plus

the four Zoltzmann children and parents.

And out of those approximately 30 odd odd people, I can conclusively say I was by far the worst climber there.

And I think it was a new psychological low for me, John, when I was about four feet off the ground struggling to get up a climb of minimal difficulty.

And I looked down to see a five-year-old child managing to squeeze confusion, disgust, and pity into the same small face.

Gave me a new respect for Hillary and Tensing.

That is that's Darwinian, Andy.

You've just lost the respect of your children.

This is Matilda now knows she can technically kill you

This is bugle 284 that's the same number of bugles as the average number of curled up worms found in industrial cans of spaghetti hoops and also the number of volumes in the autobiography of Lyndon B.

Johnson for some reason he decided to issue them as children's board books.

This is the bugle for the week ending Friday the 16th of January As we record Thursday the 15th, which means, John, it is exactly 256 years since the British Museum opened on the 15th of January 1759.

One day later, they dropped the words of stolen goods from the title.

The 16th of January 1920, 95 years ago, the first ever League of Nations meeting.

They passed their first resolution.

No more massive global conflicts for at least 20 years.

They came so very close to achieving that.

Wednesday the 14th was the 86th anniversary of the day in 1929 when Inayatullah Khan became king of Afghanistan and Sunday the 17th will be the 86th anniversary of the day also in 1929 when Inayatullah Khan decided to take a permanent reign check on being king of Afghanistan.

He abdicated after three days, John.

That tells you something about Afghanistan.

That you could become king, look at it basically over a long weekend and say, not my thing.

Definitely not my thing.

And probably a good move, the guy who replaced him, executed by firing squad nine months later.

The guy who replaced him, assassinated four years after that.

Monday the 19th will be the 80th anniversary of the same date in 1935, which was the day that briefs were first sold by Coopers in Chicago.

A revolution in underwear in 1935.

Now, you might think that is a bit of an odd way to respond to the rise of Nazi Germany, but

there you go.

Clearly, they had a discussion.

Germany's swinging hard, right?

Kripes.

We better design some underwear that stops testicles from bubbling about.

Good call.

That'll show them.

What's the German word for genital chafing?

Breif.

Okay, we'll name it after that.

How do you spell it?

B-R-I-E-F.

Breif.

Okay, breifs it is.

Print off some labels.

Let's get down to business.

Previously, men's underwear had consisted of one or more of the following, worn 24 hours a day for at least a week at a time.

Hessian micro trousers.

Very itchy for hessian which explained well when you see old film footage everyone walks really really quickly um cast iron crotch greaves uh basically medieval armor adapted for the uniquely contoured male groin two pairs of trousers double up just to make sure the will of god the fact that the decline in religious belief coincided with the invention of uh modern underpants cannot possibly be coincidence.

Hydrogen nut balloons.

They were quite popular for a while to keep the balls elevated during daily business, but a bit of a fire risk, declining popularity, in part due to the invention of the briefs, also in part due to the Hindenburg disaster two years later, and the other alternative, women's panties.

But the invention of the briefs offered in a new era of genitular comfort for the gentleman's poorly designed scrumble dunkers.

And to commemorate arguably the greatest invention of the 20th century, we have delved around in the Bugle archives to find the audio recording of the then British Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald sitting down at Prime Minister's questions in Parliament the week that he first wore briefs.

Now compare this with him doing the same thing the week before briefs went on sale.

Big difference, that was a real step forwards for men, particularly men with Ramsay McDonald's rare condition.

Top story this week, Charlie Hebdo have done it again.

And look, congratulations, terrorists.

If you intended one of the side effects of your nonsensical attack last week to temporarily save the print industry, then job well done.

Because the new edition of Charlie Hepto came out yesterday.

And even after increasing the print order from the regular 40,000 to a million copies, then increasing that order to 3 million, they sold out in the early hours of the morning and are printing at least 2 million copies more.

In perhaps the least surprising cover appearance in magazine history, the Prophet Muhammad made an appearance on the front of the magazine.

And the only thing you do not want the magazine industry to take away from this Handy is the idea that the Prophet Muhammad can really shift units.

You don't want Vogue or Vanity Fair to suddenly think that he is the new Beyoncé.

Just put him on the cover and you're guaranteed to sell out.

This should be a one-off in a specific area for a while, probably.

I can only imagine how difficult a week it must have been in the Charlie Hevdo offices.

Their lawyer,

Richard Malka, earlier in the week revealed that

the Prophet Mohammed would be on the cover, saying, We will not give in, otherwise, all this won't have meant anything.

It's complicated because we have to manage the future.

The funerals that will take place all this week, but it's moving forward and will be completed this evening.

It's an act of life of survival.

Although my favourite response, Andy, of all the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists this week was from Luz, one of their cartoonists who survived and who in fact drew the front cover.

He was asked whether he had been moved by the gigantic solidarity march in Paris and he said that actually his favourite moment was when a pigeon dropping landed on French Prime Minister François Hollande's shoulder just as he was about to talk to him.

He said it made us laugh.

It was the best joke he could have given us, which allowed us to escape the weight of emotion bearing down on us.

And that is a classy move from that French pigeon, Andy.

I like to think that pigeon was perching on one one of the gargles at Notre Dame, looking down at the thousands and thousands of defiant, grieving people, thinking, what can I do?

What can I do to show my solidarity with this cause, with Shali Abdul?

Oh, I know, I'll go and take a shit on the Prime Minister.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Although if you look at the pictures, you can, in the dropping on Holon's shoulder, you can see the face of Moses.

So just a nasty tone of anti-Semitism from that pigeon shit.

But this is the thing, John.

I mean,

was that cartoon...

I'm not sure it was genuinely of Muhammad.

To me, it just looked like a bearded man weeping a tear and saying, toute pardonne, all

is forgiven.

Whether or not this bearded man does or doesn't look like Muhammad is anyone's guess, because there aren't really many authenticated pictures to compare it to, which is clearly part of the issue.

And my granny was the same.

She hated having a picture taken so how do we know what he looked like we know that jesus was a white european with a ripping sex pack because he was painted as such by white europeans only a millennium and a half later so we know exactly what he looked like from roughly contemporary sources but we won't have to wait long to till we can finally clear this up and discover that muhammad looked like a white european man as well

The massive unity march was very inspirational, although for a unity march there were a few incidents that made it not quite as unified as a unity march would ideally be.

First, there was very little in the way of an American presence there.

And while you can understand the president not being able to be there at such short notice, I don't know why Joe Biden was not there, Andy.

I don't know what he was doing, but I guarantee it was less important than being there.

Also, the unity event was slightly de-unified by Israeli newspaper The Announcer, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish paper, and I mean turbo-Orthodox.

We're talking platinum orthodox, this paper.

So orthodox that

when they ran the famous photo of the world leaders at the Paris march arm in arm, they edited major female politicians out of that photo.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was standing at the front, was airbrushed from being there, presumably due to her inadmissible chromosomes in such a situation.

And EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo were also disqualified from appearing in the march that they appeared in by failing to meet the you must have at least one penis standard.

And

yet, the incredible thing.

I don't know if it was that standard, John.

I think you must have at least 0.95 of a penis.

And yet, the incredible thing is that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was left in the photograph.

And in a way, I guess that's a step forward, isn't it?

In a way,

that feels like it might be a positive move.

Yeah, this newspaper, Hamavasa, I don't know if that pronounced that right, the ultra-orthodox, as you say, so ultra-orthodox in fact that it basically doesn't have a sports section,

it photoshopped out Merkel.

Now, as you say, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish paper editing out a German leader.

You could just about understand that given, you know,

what happened, even though Merkel essentially represents an entirely different

I think the point's been made, but they did not crop out Fraulein Frosty because she's German.

As you say, they cropped her out because she is a woman.

Now, why would they do this?

The editor, Binyamin Lipkin, said that the newspaper is a family publication that must be suitable for all audiences, including young children.

The eight-year-old cannot see what I don't want him to see, he told Israel's Channel 10 television station.

And what evidently he does not want the eight-year-old to see is female role models, hugely successful, widely respected women who've earned their place in the higher echelons of public life, because it simply cannot be a sexual thing.

Do you have to edit out Merkel because she's simply too hot?

I mean she did dress a little risque in that black trouser suit and the heavy overcoat under which she was completely naked apart from possibly some underwear.

Filth Merkel!

Utter filth!

Although to be fair, the European Union's foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini, who you mentioned, was also cropped out, but she was wearing thigh-high leather boots, one of Madonna's old pointy bras and bondage kit.

What a day for your work clothes to be laid back from the dry cleaners.

But Merkel, if eight-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jewish boys are having their first crush on Angela Merkel, then frankly, one, there are deeper issues to address, and B, that can only be a good thing for the world, John.

When Jewish kids can healthily lust after a prominent 60-year-old German woman, we will be on a proper path to genuine global unity, building bridges through unattainable crushes.

It's the way forward.

After all, Britain started finally warming towards the French after the Napoleonic Wars, only when Bridget Bardo came on the scene 150 years later.

Buglers, in case you're wondering what this strange knocking sound is in the background,

in Central London at the moment, there's some fairly extensive building works going on, and apparently in the building next door, these are particularly extensive right now.

So I'm sorry if this is affecting your enjoyment of the podcast.

If you like, rather than imagining building works going on, you can imagine that we have a number of hostages walled up in the studio who are asking to be let out.

No, you can't come out.

The editor said,

The editor did seem slightly aware of the ridiculousness of the situation, said, True, a picture of Angela Merkel should not ruin the child.

What a sentence.

I am both glad and appalled that I live in a world where that sentence can be said.

Oh my god.

I mean,

is that what passes for a compliment, Andy?

I mean, I've told you.

Let's just say that your appearance should not ruin a child if you know what I'm saying well that's that's an insult isn't it I mean a picture of Merkel should not ruin a child but can we guarantee that it will not ruin a child I don't know John I've seen so many good kids go bad when they've seen pictures of high achieving female politicians I was at school with this one kid Terry the smartest boy in school lovely lad top of the class good at sport polite school record holder for underarm squelchies

and anyway great kids until Carazon Aquino took power in the Philippines in 1986 and then overnight he was gone.

Just a lust-broken lunatic, unable to

keep his junk in his trunks whenever the world news turned to the post-Marcos era in the Philippines.

Sad to see.

I've lost touch with him over the years.

The last I heard, he had a job cleaning out the bins outside the Brazilian Parliament, trying to catch glimpses of Dilmarusev.

Terrible when that happens.

All in all, this newspaper, I believe, needs to take a long long hard ritual bath with itself.

I know ultra-Orthodox religions tend to have very sensitive, homogenous zones that can be aroused by the slightest hint of non-conformity, But let's call this what it is, John.

Total bullshit.

If you are a newspaper and you cannot bring yourself to print pictures of 50% of the world's population, maybe stop being a newspaper and instead become a publication that is more comfortable printing pictures only of men.

For example, an ultra-Orthodox gay porn magazine.

That is the future for this publication.

That is the only philosophically consistent way for it to go.

It might alienate even more of its core readers than a picture of a fully clothed Merkel at one of the least erotic events in French history, which admittedly is not the most competitive list, but still, this is the future, John.

The presence of so many world leaders at

the march in Paris was, in one way, a great show of global unity, and in another way, one of the greatest displays of concentrated hypocrisy in the history of grandstanding.

And this was detailed in particular by a British student, Daniel Wickham, on his understandably stroppy Twitter feed, pointed out,

for example, that Bahrain does not have the most

progressive attitude towards freedom of the press.

Saudi Arabia is also there, a nation which is currently busy flogging a blogger.

Only 50 lashes, to be fair.

Sorry, 50 lashes at a time until he's done 1,000.

Still, whilst they're doing that, they've also found time to issue a fatwa against snowmen.

Snowmen, John, that they've been haunting Saudi Arabia for too long, those shamelessly overweight poster boys of Western decadence.

And

many other names.

Russia, Putin wasn't there himself, probably busy flicking through his catalogue of Russian journalists to see which one he wanted quietened down for a bit this month.

But there were many nations there, John, which are to press freedom what Jaws was to quiet days out at the beach.

Short of having a representative of Boko Haram giving a speech saying this kind of thing is unacceptable, it was about as hypocritical as the world could have got.

There was something of a media kerfuffle and a teacup this week when Stephen Emerson, a self-diagnosed terrorism expert, appeared on Fox News to discuss the broader problems of

extremists in Europe.

And he claimed that non-Muslims do not go to Birmingham in England, which he claims had become a totally Muslim city.

His exact quote was, in Britain, it's not just no-go zones, there were actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in.

And

I was born in Birmingham, Andy.

You're on a watch list, John.

You're definitely now on a watch list.

That's right.

I mean, either he's wrong, Andy, or he's right.

And I've been a very bad Muslim over the years.

That might explain why Joe Biden didn't make it to Paris.

It was just

300-odd miles from Birmingham.

I don't know.

I mean, that's that's within Musliming range, isn't it?

The Prime Minister, David Cameron,

responded saying that this man was a complete idiot, arguing, when I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fool's Day.

This guy is clearly a complete idiot.

Choking on my porridge, Andy, just shows he's a man of the people.

That sounds like the kind of thing someone in a big hat would do in a Dickens novel in a large mansion.

I choked on my porridge when I heard the child was stuck up the chimney.

Then I soon forgot him and lit a fire.

Fox News, in its retraction the next day, partially defended themselves, saying that as much as 21% of Birmingham is Muslim.

Oh, that's okay then.

And he said, What he said was close.

He just said that Birmingham was totally Muslim, so perhaps he got to that 100% simply by rounding up from 21.

In issuing an apology himself, he actually made it even worse, saying, I have clearly made a terrible error for which I'm deeply sorry.

My comments about Birmingham were totally in error, and I'm issuing an apology and correction on my website immediately for having made this comment about the beautiful city of Birmingham.

Wrong again, Andy!

I was born in Birmingham, I love that city, and I'd be first to admit it is by no means beautiful, Andy.

At most, it is 21% beautiful.

He can't be rounding up from there.

Cybersecurity now, and President Obama gave a major speech this week about cybersecurity, unveiling proposals to strengthen security after a string of attacks against US targets.

Sony Pictures was memorably hacked just before Christmas, revealing everything from bitchy comments about Angelina Jolie to misogyny's pay scale evidence concerning Jennifer Lawrence to the upcoming James Bond movie script, which once again, Andy, does not feature me as a seductive Bond girl.

Look, I know I'm never going to be Bond, Andy.

I've accepted that.

That's That's just how Hollywood works.

So I've settled on ambitions to become the next best thing, his slightly socially dated piece of arm candy.

Let me in.

Give me a chance.

The point is...

The President argued we have got to stay ahead of those who would do us harm.

Cyber threats are an urgent and growing danger.

He said that recent hacks like that of Sony Pictures reminded America of enormous vulnerabilities for us as a nation and for our economy.

It was a strong message, Andy sternly delivered, But embarrassingly, at the exact moment that the president was giving this speech about the importance of online vigilance, the US military's CENTCOM Twitter feed was hacked by people claiming to be ISIS.

And that's not ideal, Andy.

And yet, when you go in so hard on something to do with the internet, you can almost guarantee that someone is going to f ⁇ with you immediately.

If you'd really thought ahead, the President's speech would have been, cyber threats are an urgent and growing danger.

There are enormous vulnerabilities for us as a nation and for our economy.

we have to stay ahead of those who would do it they're hacking me right now aren't they

they're doing it right this second aren't they mother fers one of the tweets they sent out while in control of centcom's twitter for around 30 minutes was in the name of allah the most gracious and most merciful the cyber caliphate continues its cyber jihad i mean it's all right isn't it it's all right as a message but you know if you're hacking in and you're pranking someone you feel like you could do better than that really it should have said, dah, we hacked your Twitter account.

Ah!

Or maybe, Andy, go with, well, in the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, ah,

we hacked your Twitter account.

Hashtag, ah.

Presuming there must have been some conservative TV stations who just assumed it was Barack Obama tweeting himself, weren't they?

All I will say, Andy, all I will say on this is that, yes, CENTCOM's Twitter feed has been hacked, which seems compromising

to who knows what extent.

I'll just point out no one has hacked the Bugle Twitter feed, Andy, and that can only mean the Bugle Twitter feed is more secure.

And the natural conclusion to that is that the Bugle Twitter feed should take over all US government feeds until further notice.

I'm happy to do that.

That's just basically one plus one

equals three.

I'm happy to pick up that button and run with it in a series of messages of up to 140 characters long.

Oscar's build up now, and well, we're waiting for the nominations to come up.

Is Smurf 3 up this year, or was it last year?

I can't remember

times.

Well, I think they should, it's probably safest for them just to nominate it before it's been made.

That would be having criminally overlooked the last two.

Sorry, I did mean Smurf two, but I just, you know, they've kind of blended into three by now.

Even though it's a good thing.

I don't understand.

It makes sense.

The whole system must be corrupt.

Otherwise,

John Oliver as Vanity Smurf would be the bookie's favourite.

I think my voice was a bit higher, Andy.

Oh, that's acting, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, that's acting, basically.

So, could this finally be the year for the Oscars that a major Hollywood star takes the prize?

I don't know.

We'll have to wait and see.

But we always hear about the biggest awards: best actor, best best film, best supporting hoaxer, or actor, potato, potato, flashiest and most gratuitous special effect, worst fashion faux pas.

But what about the less glamorous but equally deserving awards, such as least necessary remake, so hotly contested these days.

And in particular this year, a lot of attention on the least authentic biopic category.

A lot of biopics are striving for this this year, including some big budget productions such as Julius Weezer, an exploration of how Julius Caesar's chronic asthma contributed to his eventual downfall, Eunuch at the Door, and I'll let you in, the story of Dwight Eisenhower's early years as a castrated travelling salesman, Elvis in the 80s, pretty self-explanatory, and Adolph the Magic Turnip.

So it would be very interesting to see which of those comes out on top.

New Bugle charity appeal time now and buglers we are launching a charity appeal this week.

In the past we've appealed to you to help save the bugle.

This is

a slightly more important cause.

Michelle Carvalho has been a classmate of my daughter for the past three and a half years and for most of that time she's been fighting various cancers, lymphoblastic lymphoma in her kidneys, then leukemia.

That is not acceptable cancer.

Pick on someone your own size.

No one they call you the big C.

Michelle is an absolutely delightful girl.

She's had chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, stem cell treatment and has managed to stay

almost unbelievably cheerful and charming throughout, which I find massively impressive.

I still get angry about a dodgy penalty decision in a game of under-11's football I played in more than 30 years ago.

Michelle has borne her rather more sizable misfortunes with considerably more grace, albeit that it was clearly never a penalty.

Now Michelle is currently in remission but needs to have immunotherapy which she has to have overseas in Germany or the USA.

It's not available to her here in Britain.

So there are some costs involved.

Big costs, buglers.

Immunotherapy, it turns out does not grow on trees unless those trees are certain hospitals in Germany or the USA and unless you pay those trees for the immunotherapy.

So this is where you come in.

We are appealing to you buglers to come together to help give Michelle the chance to have this immunotherapy treatment that could save her life.

You've helped save this podcast.

Now help save one of the podcasters daughter's friends.

Admittedly that is not the most catchy of charity slogans, but the point stands.

Our SoundCloud page suggests that there are hundreds of thousands of you out there for some slightly unaccountable reason.

And this is our collective chance to do something more than our usual routine of bringing governments crashing to their knees, talking about jet skis and puns.

The fundraising page is gofundme.com slash this-is-Michelle.

M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E.

Get a pencil and write that down or a pen or some chalk or a typewriter or a medieval monk.

Just write it down.

GofundMe.com slash this-is-Michelle.

I will post links on the Hello Buglers Twitter feed and on the Buglepodcast.com our website.

F it, I might even go on the Facebook page for the first time in three years, which I've slightly forgotten about and that Chris mostly deals with.

So come on, Buglers.

Whatever you can give, whatever you want to give, could make a huge difference to my daughter's friend.

GofundMe.com/slash this-is-Michelle.

And let us see if the power of the podcast can make a big difference in a small part of the world.

That is all for this week's Bugle.

Thanks for listening.

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

And once again, do please, if you can, contribute to Michelle's fundraising.

And we will be back next week with Bugle 285.

Until then, goodbye.

Bye!

Hello, buglers.

It's producer Rich here in lieu of producer Chris.

And he's asked me to add the audio from a video on the London Live website.

In this, you'll hear Michelle's mother give a description of the situation.

Michelle firstly was diagnosed with lymphoblastic lymphoma to both her kidneys, which is very rare.

It got up to a point that she was getting up in the morning and she was really tired and saying that she couldn't go to school because she wanted to to sleep.

I still remember the day, time,

and exactly what was said.

It was like someone has taken the floor off my feet, and I remember saying, I hugged Michelle's godmother, and I said, I didn't ask God to give her to me, but I don't ask Him to take her away.

Michelle is now suffering from B-cell acute lymphoblastic lymphoma, which is a type of leukemia so it's in her bloodstream.

It's been quite hard especially when the first time around I said to Michelle that's it we've done it and then she said mummy you've lied to me because it's come back.

So now there's no promises that I don't say we've beaten it.

We know another transplant she might not make it out of it so we need to do something that doesn't involve chemo or radio.

that just involves playing around with her cells, which we found the doctors recommend the car trial in America.

I've researched into it and it has made a difference to many families where chemotherapy has not.

So that's our option now but that's half a million pounds which it's ridiculous amount of money.

Time is not with us it's actually against us.

For us it's a lot of money but there are some people out there that for them you know they do have it.

I can save her life with that money.

I know I can.

If you're able to help, the address to visit is gofundme.com slash this hyphen is hyphen michelle and that's a double le

the links should also be found on the bugle soundcloud twitter and facebook

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.