Bugle 279 – Chills, thrills and Blatter aches

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 279 of the universe's prime source of reliable lies, The Bugle.

I am Andy Zoltzman, and I have the paperwork to back up that claim live in London, ditto, and joining me from the icy wastelands of America where angels fear to tread.

Largely because they're mostly quite old, the angels, and the cold really gets to their joints.

You know, 85% of all angels suffer wing arthritis once they're more than a millennium old.

Anyway, it is the warming mug of satirical soup in the frozen picnic of frontline politics.

It's John Oliver.

Hello Andy, hello buglers.

Well to start Andy, I did indeed come perilously close to doing this bugle from inside a 15 foot snowdrift because on Tuesday I was supposed to do a gig in Buffalo, which you may have seen on the news as being the recent recipient of an almost cartoonish amount of snow.

I was about to leave for the airport when I heard a news report describing Buffalo experiencing something called thunder snow.

And it's never a good sign, Andy, when you hear about a form of weather you were not previously aware existed.

Buffalo does not get to make up its own weather front, Andy.

Today is thundersnow, tomorrow it's lightning tornadoes with maybe a dash of quicksand fog.

You know, the soupy air that sucks you into it like a vapor.

You've never heard of that.

You've clearly never been to Buffalo.

So I had to cancel the gig,

sadly, but I was then in Denver on Wednesday where I was informed of a spectacular annual celebration.

that I'm angry I was not aware of before Andy and I think you will appreciate this.

It's something called Frozen Dead Guy Day, which takes place in Colorado every March.

And if you're thinking, well, that can't be what it sounds like, then you're wrong, because that's exactly what it is.

The background is that in the late 1980s, a Norwegian man brought his dead grandfather, packed in dry ice, to a town called Nederland in Colorado.

He then cryogenically froze his grandfather and put him in a shed where he remains to this day.

And the Frozen Dead Guy Days are celebrated from Friday through Sunday on the first full weekend of March.

They feature such community events as coffin races, a slow-motion parade, and Frozen Dead Guy Lookalike contest.

I'm appalled, Andy, that this is not more widely known.

And it's not for lack of trying, because the Frozen Dead Grandpa in question is in a tough brand shed and has inspired two documentaries.

The first one is called Grandpa's in the Tough Shed, and then the newer version is called Grandpa is Still in the Tough Shed.

If you're thinking, well, this is all very well, but do they have a special ice cream flavor named after this frozen Norwegian grandpa corpse?

The answer is yes.

It's made by Glacier Ice Cream and it's called Frozen Dead Guy, and it's apparently fruit-flavoured blue ice cream mixed with crushed Oreo cookies and sour gummy worms.

This, Andy, is just the kind of shit that I guess you do when humans live over 5,000 feet above sea level and do not get the recommended amount of oxygen to their brains.

You do great things.

That's what I'm saying.

That also sounds like how religions start in a kind of using modern modern technology.

This would be a good religion, though, Andy.

This is one you would want to take.

If it involves coffin races and blue ice cream, then I think that's something everyone can get behind.

Just one question on this.

Do we know why the Norwegian guy took his dead frozen grandfather to

Colorado?

I think if you even have to ask that question, Andy, you'll never understand the answer.

Right, I mean, was it an accident?

Did he just leave home on his trip to Colorado and think, oh, no, i've brought granddad's corpse with me i'm gonna have to i'm gonna have to work my way around this it's certainly a very ballsy way to walk through the nothing to declare life

but also look i've got no liquids above a certain number of milliliters isn't that what you wanted

well i mean that what was it is it was it his grandpa's dying wish i mean that seems an odd wish for a very old norwegian man to have

what i want is to be the whole thing andy it throws up so many questions.

And yet it turned up the audience mentioned it, and then I seemed shocked, and then they seemed offended by my shock.

It's become so routine to them in two decades.

The fact they have a frozen Norwegian grandpa in a shed.

How come

they've built a holiday around?

The Democrats had their convention in Denver, didn't they?

Was it in 2012 or I can't remember?

2008.

Well, 2008 was it that long ago?

how come Obama managed to do his entire speech without mentioning the frozen dead guy?

I think, again, it's the kind of thing that now makes you question his presidency.

It's a huge thing to leave out.

Yeah, I mean, that just doesn't add up, frankly.

I mean, you've got to chuck in and pick a bit of local colour to these things.

I've also sadly had to postpone a gig due to the snow in Buffalo, and that gig is in Folkestone in England.

Where due to the snow in Buffalo, my gig next Thursday in Folkestone will

no longer be taking place.

Because I think all the people who were going to buy tickets were too worried about the snow in Buffalo to actually buy those tickets.

So

that gig is no longer happening.

So you're not actually fully frozen at the moment.

You're in Anaheim.

I'm in Anaheim, California, where there is 15-foot less snow than there is in Buffalo.

Right.

Because it wasn't.

Although I'm within about two miles of Disneyland as I sit here now, Andy, and I think I'd rather be under 15 feet of snow than there

having to maintain conversation with a six-foot depressed goofy.

Under 15 foot of spiritual snow.

Because we heard on the radio this week that at one point all 50 states were recording a sub-zero temperature somewhere in those 50 states, even even Hawaii, John.

You would have thought that the only ones that would be suffering this meteorological vengeance of the Lord would be the states that had legalised gay marriage.

But obviously,

big fellas going for collective responsibility this week.

Well, I guess they're probably a little warmer anyway, Andy, because they're about to burn in the fires of eternal hell.

I guess that's probably just thought out quickly.

This is Bugle 279.

Of course, that is the number of identical hats owned by Napoleon, who was trying to collect 360 of the hats, his trademark Napoleon hats, so he could have one for each degree of a circle in order to tilt his hat according to his mood, the prevailing political situation,

etc.

Before someone pointed out that he could have just turned his original hat on his head and he stopped collecting them.

279, those hats.

And this is for the week ending Friday, the 21st of November 2014, which means it is exactly 91 days since Albert Einstein, the celebrity scientist, published a paper entitled, Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content?

Subtitled, Should I Have Fed This Dog?

Seriously, someone should have told me to feed this dog.

You know, I'm a busy man.

And a section of the bugle as always going straight on the bin.

The 24th of November, which is Monday next, is the 155th anniversary of Charles Darwin, the original Chuck D, publishing the origin of species.

And to commemorate him laying down his evolutionary action,

we are giving out for every bugler a free genetic mutation to help you evolve into an even better species than the one you currently are.

Choose from a range of options, including a full 360-degree spinning waist, enabling you to turn around to watch something happen behind you whilst running in the opposite direction, Particularly good if you are a regular stuntman in action films.

Gills, save money on that costless scuba diving kit.

Pogo feet, ensure that your evolutionary descendants always arrive where they're getting to happy with the bugle pogo stick foot gene.

And a moral compass, which has never been proven to exist.

This one, accurate to within 120 degrees.

That section in the bin.

Top story this week, the Cold War refrosts itself.

And look, it might be a little early to call this, Andy, it's still just towards the end of November and so much can still happen.

But Vladimir Putin has had himself a banner year.

I believe that 2014 was always supposed to be the Chinese year of the megalomoniacal Russian arsehole, Andy.

But frankly, it's lived up to the hype.

Because Putin has arguably invaded Ukraine, arguably shot down a civilian plane, and inarguably hugged a koala at the G20 this week.

And I'm pretty sure that those were his three New Year's resolutions at the start of the year.

And he's hit the hat-trick with just a month and a half to spare.

Yeah, it was quite a spicy G20.

The world's other leaders lined up to tell the Kremlin crankster that he was a cast iron cockhammer, or words to that effect.

David Cameron claimed he was robust in his comments to the Russian leader.

I mean, I imagine Putin was quite literally shitting himself in his still empty grave.

Whilst the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, told Putin bluntly to get out of Ukraine, to which Putin responded, hang on, let me just look you up on Wikipedia.

Can a what?

Canada, can a Nyetmolike?

Good stuff.

Have a lovely day.

It was...

That was an amazing encounter with Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister.

It was actually even more passive-aggressive.

He apparently said to Putin, well, I guess I'll shake your hand, but I have only one thing to say to you.

You need to get out of Ukraine.

And that is some tough smack talk from Canada, Andy.

Although I think it's a little telling that Canada only ever does this when they're at a summit alongside 18 other world leaders who are also angry with Russia.

You put Stephen Harper alone in a room with Putin, and he's not so much talking shit to him as he is offering him a life-size glass mousse full of maple syrup.

You know, which is not to say that something does not have to be done.

Over a thousand people have been killed in eastern Ukraine since the ceasefire came into place on September the 5th.

That's 13 people killed a day in the eight weeks since a truce was declared.

That is a bold interpretation of a f ⁇ ing ceasefire, Andy.

They really might want to work a little bit on the cease part of that equation because they've definitely got the fire bit down to a fault.

But as I was saying, one of the key images of the whole summit was Putin getting his photo taken holding a koala.

And frankly, if that experience did not calm him down, then nothing is going to.

I think it might actually have been a huge missed opportunity by Australia to bring peace to Ukraine.

Because if they said to Putin, which do you want, Crimea or this koala as a pet, then he's taking the koala back home and he's giving Crimea back.

Because anyone in their right mind would prefer a koala as a pet than a desolate, largely useless peninsula.

Well, if only the native Australians have thought of that when Cook invaded Cook landed

in 1770.

So

he ended up leaving.

He was the first of the G20 leaders to leave Brisbane

and

told reporters that he was the first to go because he had to get back to Moscow to work and, quotes, needed four or five hours' sleep.

So he was...

He was just tired, John.

He was, poor little Vlad, was told, I will give a little bit of advice to Vlad.

Take more than four or five hours sleep.

Try seven or eight.

It's no wonder you're so crotchety the whole time.

Take it from me.

I have frankly appalling sleeping patterns, Vladimir, and I behave like a bit of a tool most of the time.

And you seem to have significantly worse symptoms than I do and in a job in which those symptoms are a significantly more significant problem.

It's been an amazing 2014.

for Vladimir, because let's not forget, he also even hosted the Winter Olympics this year in Sochi, a Russian city that has a subtropical climate and is one of the only places in the entire country where there is no snow in the wintertime.

He's had a hell of a year, Andy.

Putin has spent a lot of time and energy over the last 12 months finessing Russia's relationship with the rest of the world.

And by finessing, of course, I mean f ⁇ ing.

He has been f ⁇ ing Russia's relationship with the rest of the world.

A relationship that was not unf ⁇ ed as soon as he started f ⁇ ing it.

Because their relationship between Russia and the rest of the planet Andy is currently as strained as a 70-year-old sprinter's hamstring by which I mean it is about to snap at any moment.

Just this year there have been tit-for-tat spy expulsions, tit-for-tat ambassador expulsions, gas supply cut-offs and the kind of diplomatic back and forth that range from bitchy to full-on war inducing.

And look We've still got six weeks, Andy, of 2014 yet, but it is hard to know how Russia can escalate their diplomatic dick swinging any further without Putin going in front of the UN, unzipping his trousers, swinging his hips around and getting himself a rhythmic helicopter motion going.

And if you think that this might all be the media overhyping the Cold War yet again, like military industrial Don Kings, then consider this.

A recent report by the European Leadership Network argued that Russia's highly disturbing military strategy has resulted in almost 40 dangerously close encounters with NATO forces and civilian aircraft in just eight months.

That's over one a week, Andy.

That's not good news.

No, these included the most high-risk of them included a close encounter between a passenger plane taking off in Copenhagen and a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, which did not transmit its position.

A collision was only avoided thanks to good visibility and the alertness of the passenger plane pilots.

Joe Biden has waded in and he said it is simply not acceptable in the 21st century for countries to attempt to redraw borders by force in Europe or anywhere or to intervene militarily because they don't like the decisions their neighbor has made.

And that is true.

in the 21st century.

We left that shit behind in the 20th century and the 19th and the 18th and the 17th and most centuries since Europe started existing.

The G20 was hosted by Australia and their entertaining Prime Minister Tony Abbott, entertaining not necessarily in a particularly good way.

And a few weeks ago he claimed that he said these exact words, I'm going to shirt front Mr.

Putin.

You bet I am.

Shirt front.

Now this is, I wasn't aware of the term shirt fronting.

I assume it's an ancient Australian mating ritual dating back to the 1970s in which dominant males resolve disputes by approaching each other whilst wearing shirts and then grinding their chests into each other until the stronger man's shirt has worn away due to friction, hence shirt-fronting, which also explains why Australian men so often wear no shirts or an unbuttoned shirt, to suggest that they have successfully shirt-fronted all other competing males.

So this is what Abbott was

going to do.

The leader of the opposition in Australia, Bill Shorten, described Abbott's shirt-front threat to Putin as a brain snap, which is very promising, John.

That's the first signs of any activity in Tony Abbott's brain since he became Prime Minister.

And also,

as a result of this, there was another story that a convoy of heavily armed Russian warships, including at least one high-powered missile cruiser, was in international waters very close to Australia's northern coastline.

Now, that's I mean, that is very much a man responding to the leader of a country he views as beneath him.

Tony Abbott claimed this is just part of freedom of navigation.

It's nothing to worry about.

The fact that there were some finging massive Russian warships.

And let's bear in mind where this is, John.

These are Russian warships near Australia.

There is not a lot of Russian coastline near Australia, unless they're looking for that bit of the Kamchatka Peninsula that snapped off in the 1950s in a rogue nuclear test.

I'd imagine this was a direct response to the shirt front threat, John.

I mean, shirt fronting versus four heavily armed warships.

And that is a convincing Russian win.

I mean, they were quite close to Papua New Guinea as well, but I'd imagine Putin doesn't have any particular beef to grind with Papua New Guinea or the mighty Solomon Islands.

And that nuclear standoff with mighty Vanuatu that kept Lenny Brezhnev sleepless for 600 consecutive nights in the mid-1970s is mercifully a thing of the past.

FIFA update now and look buglers may well be aware of the existence of FIFA the governing body of global football and a dark stain on the soul of humanity.

FIFA are not so much an organization as they are a misery cartel.

Think of them as a private members club for some of the worst people on the planet.

And yet again, like corrupt clockwork, they have disgraced themselves.

Last Thursday, a report was published that FIFA had ordered, which completely cleared Russia and Qatar of any wrongdoing during the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

What a surprise, Andy, that FIFA's report cleared FIFA and anyone related to FIFA from any wrongdoing.

Who could possibly have seen that coming?

It was truly, truly extraordinary.

FIFA might not be a country, but it does behave like a country, as I think you yourself saw at the last,

oh, well, the 2010 World Cup.

And it behaves like a country whose leaders would love to have regular military parades instead of four yearly football tournaments.

FIFA is unquestionably the king shit in the third bucket of sporting administrative organisations.

And

one of the things that helped it find itself not guilty of corruption was not publishing the vast majority of the investigation into whether or not it was guilty of corruption.

And

it just made even more baffling the decision to hold the world's biggest sporting event in a glorified sandpit populated largely by charlatans and slaves.

It's just unbelievable that this decision happened.

No one believes this, John.

That decision could not have been made properly, honestly, and completely without any suspicious sums of money and or massive coincidental watches changing hands.

It just can't have happened.

The crazy thing is, while FIFA, you know, extrapolating a bullshit conclusion from a bullshit report was not in and of itself remotely surprising, the aftermath did end up being quite surprising, because less than four hours later after the report was released, Michael Garcia, the man who had spent two years investigating and working on the report, criticized FIFA for mischaracterizing what he had written.

He apparently delivered a 430-page report in September of this year.

However, there was already a beautifully flawed system in place to process that report, because FIFA had chosen to split their ethics committee in two like a sociopathic Solomon with an investigation unit headed by Garcia and then an adjudicatory unit with German judge Hans Joachim Eckhart in charge.

So the system was that FIFA would commission an independent report they would own which would then be adjudicated by a completely independent unit they also own who would then rewrite it independently.

The New York Times has described FIFA this week as exhibiting farcically shady behavior.

And the Wall Street Journal has accused Seth Blatter of running FIFA like a third world dictator, which is frankly a little insulting, because he really does run FIFA like a first world dictator.

FIFA is a non-profit organisation with over a billion dollars in the bank.

It creates its own laws and it has a headquarters in Switzerland.

It could not be any more farcically shady unless Set Blatter sat in a gigantic throne stroking a hairless cat.

As you say, you cannot spell plainly a whitewash without, yeah, what a pile of shite.

And it's rebounded on England, who'd be one of the main accusers of FIFA, because in the reports, they found the English FA guilty of dodgy dealings and

some allegedly corrupt activity.

And being accused by FIFA of being corrupt is like being approached by a dolphin who comes up and blows cigar smoke in your face and says, You're not your problem, kid.

You swim too much.

The fact is, top-level football is as as dead on the inside as Lucy, the

celebrity skeleton of the Australopithecus afarensis species of hominid from 3.2 million years ago, is dead on the outside.

In fact, it's fair to say that even now, John, the old girl has a stronger ethical compass than FIFA, in that she has no ethical compass at all, rather than one that points unerringly to dodgy north.

And I don't really give a shit about someone stealing Christmas, John, but I do give a shit about someone stealing the World Cup.

There are alternatives to Christmas.

You have Easter, Hanukkah, Mother's Day, and Ramadan.

But the World Cup, John, is the World Cup.

Is there nothing sacred anymore?

Bus is full of shit news now.

And a great breakthrough, John, here.

We now have a shit-powered bus

running in Bristol.

A bus powered by human excrements.

It's running between Bath and Bristol Airport, I think.

And it was launched yesterday,

the Boe bus, and it's great environmental fanfare.

And the great thing about it, John, is this bus

is which is fueled, as I said, by treated sewage,

is decorated with five sort of double life-size pictures of people having a shit on a toilet.

And this is really

laying its cards of its fuel on the table of its bus.

And

it's good to see a piece of transport being that honest

about where its

fuel comes from.

You wouldn't get a conventionally powered bus that runs on normal petrol with massive pictures of dead Iraqi children on it.

So I mean it's good to have it's good to have this level of honesty.

It's got a picture of

a man sitting reading a newspaper, an old lady knitting, John, knitting

whilst doing her daily business.

She looks like she is booked in for a tough one.

Behind that.

I mean, knitting.

I mean, I know it's nearly Christmas and she's probably got, but I mean, that is, I guess maybe this is just, I mean, this is what happens when you get old.

You start to think, I haven't got that much time before the merciful claw of the Reaper.

I'm going to have to start multitasking.

Then behind that, there is a dark-skinned man holding what appears to be a grenade, which

I don't know what it is.

I think it's possibly a mobile phone, but it does look a bit like a grenade.

And then a young lady, bit far-fetched.

Women don't do that kind of nonsense.

And another bloke sitting reading a magazine, which could be the new scientist or could be something written by al-Qaeda.

We will never know.

But this is a great, it's a great moment for British transport, John.

We have beaten the rest of the world.

The rest of Europe might be able to put

a lander on a comet, but we can power a bus made of shit.

Hugo competition time now, and well, a new competition here, not the one you can win a prize with, but this competition is whose country is the bigger dick?

And we all attempt to find which country has been the biggest dick in any given week.

And the two contests, two countries for the first week of this contest, your country, John, and my country, the USA and the UK.

And the UK's entry this week is a local council that has told a woman she's going to lose about 15% of her housing benefit on the grounds that she has a spare room under the government's so-called bedroom tax that has penalised people for having unoccupied bedrooms resulting in the queen moving out of Buckingham Palace and living in a bed sit in Elephant and Castle after it turned out she had 439 unoccupied bedrooms.

What makes this case different John is that that spare room is a specially fitted secure panic room to protect this woman from a violent ex-partner who has made death threats against her and physically and sexually abused her.

And she's now losing benefits because of this.

I mean, I think that makes Britain quite a bit of a dick this week.

The US entry is a $1 million bill for a Canadian woman who gave birth prematurely in Hawaii and whose baby had to spend two months in intensive care.

So, oh, the wonderful warmth of human compassion.

So, John, we'll let you be the adjudicator for this.

Well, those are two very strong pitches and it's hard to choose between the two.

Couldn't you not just split that award down the middle?

We need a winner John because it's going to operate on a challenge system.

Because if you buglers

it's really hard to punish a panic room.

They really raised the dick bar pretty high there.

I think I'm going to have to rule that Britain was the biggest dick.

Yes, Team GB.

Team GB.

It's another gong.

So, Buglers, this is going to operate on a challenge system, kind of winner stays on.

So you have to challenge Britain.

You have to knock Britain off top spots.

So if you think your country has been a bigger dick than this week's champion, email us proudly with details of your nation's behavioural blooper and see if you can knock Britain off top spots.

And if you are from Britain, do submit your nomination for another example of Britain being a total dick of a nation to see if we can defend our title.

Perhaps you're from Tanzania, want to nominate your country for flogging off the ancestral lands of the Maasai to be used as a hunting reserve for a Dubai-based luxury hunting company to fly billionaires and royalty from the UAE over to shoot some lovely African wildlife.

Not with cameras either, with guns.

Maybe you're from Thailand and aren't too happy with the military jumps you're currently being governed by, or you're from Mexico.

Whatever it is, email us to info at thebuglepodcast.com with the words in the subject box: my country tis a dick.

Your emails now, this one came in from Tim, John.

Just an FYI, writes, Tim, that despite John's slightly aggressive use of the past tense last week, Dame Veralyn is in fact very much still alive and presumably now out for revenge for your blatant character assassination last week.

Watching.

What is true is that she's the dirty fighter, Anthony.

Yeah, keep an eye out for it.

this email came in from Andy Rocher a Brazilian bugler who says he's still not over the fact that Diego Costa plays for Spain

life is full of many cruel twists

hello Andy John and Chris I came across this picture earlier this week and as you can imagine my head almost exploded it is a picture John of Vladimir Putin and Set Blatter holding a football together

and that's it's hard to see where civilization can go from here Andy continues I cannot put into one email all the thoughts that came into my head most of which included profanity.

So I decided to ask you guys a few questions in order to get some clarity about my feelings here.

Question one, John, what do you think is the complete opposite of this picture?

I guess the complete opposite would probably be Mother Teresa and a baby holding a dove.

Well, I mean, Andy offered his own answer from Brazil.

He says, Mother Teresa giving a football to Nelson Mandela.

Okay,

yeah, that's nice as well.

You are on the right lines.

Question two.

What do you think would happen if a mere mortal touched that same football that Putin and Blatter have both touched?

You mean like Ghostbuster style?

It's something terrible.

Probably,

I think two days later you die.

Well, yes, sort of on the right lines with a film scenario, Andy suggested it would be the same situation as happened when the Nazis opened the Lost Ark in the first Indiana Jones movie.

Their faces would melt or something like that.

Larcy, do you think that Blatter and Putin are planning on worshiping this ball as it represents a higher evil of sorts?

It could be the ball used in the Germany v.

Brazil game in the World Cup, and these men now believe in its evil powers.

That is very much a Brazilian view

on their football.

It did feel, in looking at the reaction faces of the crowd during that game, it did look like they were honestly thinking they were watching something evil happen.

It was like seeing a basket full of puppies drowned in front of you, I imagine, for a Brazilian football fan.

Seven puppies in a very short space of time.

We have an email here from Michael regarding the merch, the new merch, who says, Dear John and Andy, I've seen your must-have Christmas jumper, but I'm concerned that the description of the item may be inaccurate.

It's described as a unisex jumper, however, I feel that describing it as a no-sex jumper might be more appropriate.

Well,

for a start, you don't know that.

You don't know.

Is it likely?

Yes.

Yeah.

And I think if anything, we should be selling that, Andy.

This has a, it's an excellent as a contraceptive as well.

Well, we should be, we should, there should be airdrops of these across the overpopulated regions of the world.

Yes.

I mean, I think, would the Pope approve the bugle jumper as a form of contraception?

Because it's not, I mean, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's basically prompting natural abstinence through the application of questionable fashion.

It might be true.

This might be the only way you can convince him to get on the birth control train.

Well, that's how monks work, isn't it?

They wear those rather unflattering brown cassocks and they shave the tops of their heads.

And, you know,

that's basically what it's about, isn't it?

Andy, if you can get the Pope to walk out on the balcony...

in the Vatican wearing a bugle Christmas jumper,

we're going to sell at least 15 Christmas jumpers.

Well, you say that, John, and you had your skepticism last week, as indeed I may have done as well.

We've already sold 65 Christmas jumpers.

And this is despite

ridiculous.

Despite a website malfunction that meant some people who tried to order it in America weren't able to.

But that's now we'd rectified.

65, John.

That is the biggest selling jumper in the history of the northern hemisphere.

Stop buying it.

Now, I know this is a weird sales technique.

Jesus Christ.

Nobody needs a Christmas jumper with our faces knitted into it, Andy.

How many sheep does it take to make 65 bugle jumpers?

Oh, I'd think about, I don't know.

It's, I think it's 100 sheep per jumper.

I mean, this is.

Think about it from the sheep's point of view, as it's being aggressively sheer, thinking, oh,

where's my wool going to?

And then the sheer is like, it's not great news, I'm afraid.

I'm not sure how much sheep wool is in that.

It might be from purist acrylic from the acrylica groves of the Amazon.

Yeah, so only yeah, an acrylic, the acrylic sheep.

I'm not sorry.

I got the prototype, isn't that?

I didn't say what it was made of.

It's toasty and warm, though.

And I mean, it is.

You've done a very, very bad job of selling this out.

It does make it.

I'm essentially saying don't buy it.

And you've stumbled over the back of it.

I mean, obviously, it's not wool, is it?

It's some kind of bastardized chemical.

It might be wool.

I mean, it's for it's an advance.

Space wool.

You know, this is.

It's space wool.

Yeah.

It's the kind of wool you could wear on a comet and not get cold.

And yeah, also, I guess, you know, it's got a lot going for it that it's got R2 faces on it, which means that anyone looking at you wearing a Christmas jumper,

you're probably going to have the most attractive of those three faces.

I mean, that's, so that might, I guess that might counteract the earlier.

I still think with our faces on that jumper as well, you're looking at a 120% guarantee of no pregnancy.

And

one of our backroom staff,

has photoshopped a picture of Rihanna wearing the bugle jumper, John.

Did I send it to you?

I can't remember.

Shined bright like a diamond.

I mean, she was really shining bright like a diamond there, John.

I can see what you're going on about.

She always does.

She always does.

I think she particularly does whilst wearing a bugle Christmas jumper.

Matt's.

Well, I mean, she shines like the normal amount of diamond, which is a lot.

With Rihanna, it doesn't matter what she's wearing, Andy.

Well, I disagree with you on that.

I mean, I think she's at least 8% more attractive in a bugle jumper.

Okay.

So that's a huge claim.

And I think the Pope would be at least 10% more attractive.

Particularly if he accessorizes it with a hat.

He loves his hats.

So you can get the Christmas jumper if you want it, or if you want to

send one to a major religious leader

at thebuglepodcast.com.

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

And keep those emails coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com.

My tour dates this week.

As I said, Folkestone has regrettably been snowed off by the North American weather.

But I will be in Shoreham on Friday, Aldershot on Saturday this week, Saturday the 29th of November, and then the third in Wimbledon, fourth in Aylesbury, and sixth in Reading, and then the eighth in Cardiff, recording my DVD.

So, do come along to all of those.

Thanks to all who have come to the shows

so far.

And thanks to the six of you who had bought tickets for Folkestone.

I'm

very sorry that there were not some more of you.

Next,

people of Folkestone are a passionate people.

I've been to Folkestone and I know that's not true.

That's it for this week's bugle.

We will be off due to Thanksgiving next week, and then we'll be back having given all our various thanks to stuff

in December.

Until then, Buglers, 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.