The Bugle – Maychive II

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to Bugle 269 sub-episode Enid.

I'm afraid there is no full bugle this week.

John has been briefly back here in Blighty to do some filming for his tele show and to be comprehensively beaten by me at Poole in one of the finest displays of queumanship the modern game has seen.

We're very sorry about the recently disrupted Bugle schedule.

I'm sure you understand it has been rather difficult given John's new show and my,

well,

I've got some new shoes I'm trying to wear in and some shirts to iron.

So not a lot of free time on either side of the Bugle Atlantic, but we will try to get out as many new episodes as we can whilst John's new show beds in.

We should be back with Bugle 270 later on this week.

In the meantime, we've been delving around in the archives again for another this week in Bugle History, beginning in late May 2008.

With this.

Top story this week and abortion.

The abortion issue, Andy, it's the electoral pinada.

Both sides smash it to pieces in a frenzy to get to the sweet, sweet votes within.

In Britain, the upper time limit for abortions will remain at 24 weeks.

That's the big news.

There have been an attempt to cut it down to anything from 12 to 22 weeks so they were willing to be haggled you know they had a 10-week negotiation zone as long as it was a fortnight less andy it's that final fortnight which hurts them for some inexplicable reason In America, there are groups that want abortions stamped out altogether and like to argue this extremely delicate point by petrol bombing the houses of doctors who perform abortions.

But in Britain, we simply like to lobby to have a fortnight knocked off the top.

The Second World War really knocked the fight out of us, Andy.

Well, I think it's great news, John, that the 24-week limit isn't coming down because it's going to help us maintain our cherished and hard-won place near the very top of the European Abortion League.

Because we are really great at getting pregnant without really meaning to.

But those who want the time limit reduced clearly want women to think the decision through a bit less.

Now, they're against a woman's right to choose, or think, or think about choosing, or vote.

I mean, they're probably against that as well.

And they'll get to that issue as soon as they're done with this abortion kerfuffle.

And that is the first time those two words have ever been near each other.

Well, embryos and fetuses, we've all been one, or both.

So I guess we all hold a bit of a candle for those simple days when all we had to think about was splitting the odd cell here and there, or later on in the process, pretending our umbilical cord was a guitar and axing out some fat chops on it in the privacy of our own womb.

I'd love to have seen your first scan, Andy.

Head thrown back, eyes closed.

Doing a version of the wind, cries Mary.

Well, Johnny, it was the 70s.

You know, guitars ruled.

Any cut in time would have contravened any medical or scientific evidence.

But who cares about either of those, Andy?

I don't make decisions based on them.

All my decisions are based on moral grandstanding.

In any medical emergency, I ignore doctors and listen to the person who is shouting the loudest.

If that person is shouting through a megaphone, then so much the better.

But it's not just abortion that the British Parliament, the original original and still the best, has spent most of the last week voting about.

They've also voted overwhelmingly in favour of human-animal hybrid embryo research in an effort to help find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's, whilst also attempting to boost the ailing British film industry by spawning a host of low-budget horror movies featuring half-human, half-goose super creatures escaping from a poorly secured laboratory and flapping rampantly through British high streets, eating breadcrumbs and honking at children.

Now, I don't know a lot about this kind of science, John, but much of the opposition to it seems to be based on the assumption that we don't want our children to have to go to school with a kid who's got the head of a rhinoceros.

And it's also based on the as-yet unproven theory that God wants old people to be able to enjoy the most miserable and hopeless possible ride into the inescapable chasm of oblivion.

If the almighty Lord hadn't wanted us to die slowly of Alzheimer's, he would have sent us a cure by now already.

In fact, Conservative MP Edward Lee said that this was ethically wrong and almost certainly medically useless.

So strong words there from Professor Lee.

Oh, I'm sorry, he isn't a professor.

A Dr.

Lee then.

Well, he's not a doctor either.

Minister Lee then.

He's not even a minister.

Oh, strong words from ex-minister Edward Lee there.

A fully qualified Edward.

That's right, Edward Lee, Tory MP, who has recently voted the British politician most easy to fit into a rap lyric, said that in modern Britain, the most dangerous place to be is in your mother's womb, especially if you've already been born.

But that does sound a bit like a promotional tagline for an action thriller starring Samuel L.

Jackson as an amniotic sack.

That's true, that's all that needs is that voiceover.

The most dangerous place in Britain was his mother's womb.

Cut to Samuel L.

Jackson in a womb with a machine gun shooting his way out.

And also, the most dangerous place in modern Britain, he's clearly never been to Swansea.

Boom!

Boom, Andy!

Take that Swansea!

Boom!

John, that is merely based on the reaction to that gig we did there a few years ago.

That's not a good gig.

Well, actually, the gig was strong.

I stand by the gig.

The reaction was harsh.

One newspaper in Britain described the scene of anti-abortion protests being alongside pro-abortion protests.

Pro-abortion?

I don't think that's the phrase that people like to use.

Andy, I think they prefer pro-choice.

These people aren't for as many abortions as possible.

Abortion's for everybody.

Don't knock it till you've tried it.

They don't look at every happy new mother as a missed opportunity.

There were extremely emotive speeches in the House of Commons because, Andy, that's what this issue needs, even more heightened emotions.

And also, there is nothing quite like hearing white old men pontificating about the rights of abortions.

And Mark Pritchard, another Conservative MP, argued, I believe that terminating a child that's been woven and knitted in the womb should be a choice of last resort, not the latest manifestation of Britain's throwaway society.

I totally agree with him, Andy, but he brings up a far more important point.

How are knitted children getting into the womb?

These poor woollen bastards don't have a hope in life.

Who is getting into women's wombs in the night and knitting woolen children?

It's Al-Qaeda, isn't it?

I know it.

Before we move on to 2009, why not pop online and buy a ticket for my satirist for Hire Show at the stand in Edinburgh 13th through 24th of August?

There is no answer to that question.

There is simply no good reason why you would not do that unless you don't live in the right continent or hemisphere or are legally barred from entering the UK or can't be asked or simply hate the concept of life comedy and or me.

If not, go to edfringe.com, type Zaltzman into the search box and book your seat for the showbiz event of the millennium so far.

And please do send your satirical requests for the show to satirise this at satiristforhire.com, including the date of the show you're attending.

I will also be doing a London run and a UK tour later in the year.

On to 2009 now and something about camping, I think.

Top story this week, Guantanamo.

All together now, Guantanamo.

Just the fellas, Guantanamo.

Now the ladies, Guantanamo!

Remember Guantanamo Bay?

Isn't that how you start your gigsy place?

It is, yeah.

I'm trying to bring a little bit of the stadium spectacular to small comedy clubs.

But you remember Guantanamo Bay, Andy.

Little nook.

Little nook in the corner of Cuba.

Beautiful place, Andy.

You really must go if you ever conspire to commit a terrorist act, or more importantly, look like you might.

Well, Obama pledged to close the not remotely exclusive resorts as soon as his second day in office, saying unambiguously that he would ensure it was closed within 12 months.

Now, the problem with saying things like that is that you then have to do them.

I guess that's why politicians don't often say things like that.

And in a major bipartisan defeat this week, Senate Democrats, that's right, Democrats have said that they will block the move until he comes up with a plan for where to send the detainees.

Obama lost the vote 90 to 6 as the Senate essentially voted to keep the president Guantanamo open for the foreseeable future.

Whilst Obama didn't say this out loud, you could read across his face that he was thinking, what the f?

Anyway, the point is no US senators want Guantanamo inmates in their states.

And Lamar Smith, the representative from Guess Where, that's right, Texas, said, no good purpose is served by allowing known terrorists who trained at terrorist training camps to come to the US and live among us.

Guantanamo Bay was never meant to be an Ennis Island.

Where to begin?

I mean, there does seem to be some kind of confusion here, and no one is suggesting that the inmates are moved from Guantanamo Bay into the bedrooms of America's children.

Perhaps they should have been more specific and made it clear that that had been ruled out as a possibility.

These people will be going to maximum security prisons from from which, to round up, no one has ever escaped.

No one.

One senator even said, you know that they'll be in there trying to tunnel out.

Well, good luck to them.

Have you seen maximum security prisons?

There aren't conveniently placed trampolines next to low fences.

They're not getting out.

You cannot tunnel through a floor with a plastic spoon if it's reinforced with steel.

Well, you say that, John, but when Johnny Cash did his San Quentin prison gig,

people actually used him as one of those pommel horses and tunnelled out underneath Johnny Cash.

It was a great gig though.

Let's not let that affect our enjoyment retrospectively of what was an incredible gig.

Actually, if you listen to the recording, you can just hear the sound of prisoners vaulting over him.

And the terrorists are getting taken straight there.

They're not putting them on charter flights with a map and some money and saying, well, look, when you land in America, please report straight to the maximum security prison.

You really mustn't stop off on the way to do any terrorism, okay?

Can't stress that enough.

Guantanamo, of course, based on the irregular Latin verb, guantanimo, guantanimare, guantanimaxi, guantanamactum, which of course means to wantonly and deliberately flout international law.

Also, the military tribunals, they're back, aren't they?

And that's good news for fans of military tribunals.

Bad news, I guess, for fans of taking legal picnics on the moral high ground.

And Obama, of course, has previously described Guantanamo as a sad chapter in American history.

I guess I think in any book you want a bit of light and shade, don't you?

You know, the chapters in American history, I mean, there's lots of happy chapters and there's quite a lot of sad chapters.

And

I guess it's starting to look like a bit of a mess.

I'm just waiting to see some kind of common thread come through.

Maybe I'll just have to wait for the sequel.

Like the real emotional roller coaster of a novel.

Also with these Supermax prisons, Andy, there are already 347 convicted terrorists in these prisons and they are yet to break out or turn anyone terrorist inside there.

And even if they do convert someone, bear bear in mind those someones are already in a maximum security prison.

That is literally the safest place for any new terrorist to be.

The court has said that America can hold these detainees indefinitely.

And I guess, John, when you think about indefinite detention, objectively, you've got to remember that time is really just a concept and we're all just a bunch of molecules randomly thrown together by fate and science.

So what does it really matter

at the end of the day?

You would make a terrible human rights defense lawyer.

Listen, dudes.

I'll notice.

I'll strap in because I'm about to blow your mind here, man.

I don't know, that's probably not much consolation if you are being held indefinitely.

But then, if you are being held indefinitely, then A, well, you shouldn't be listening to this podcast for a start.

We don't want your sort of associating with the bugle.

And two, you're not in the best position to comment objectively.

So keep out of it.

It's not your business.

Granted, of course.

Grantenum, of course, currently boasts an unimpressive 3 for 775 conviction rate for its inmates.

That's not a good batting average.

So in baseball terms, A is batting 3.8, which I guess in legal terms is tantamount to convicting only three out of 775 possible inmates in a prison camp.

Either way you look at it, it's got could do better written all over its report.

Also, there are 240 residents, or as they were known under the Bush administration, pre-convicts, still lodging at Shade Gitmo, a one-star hotel with inadequate facilities and often rude staff.

And it's just hard to know what to do with them all, John.

I mean, you...

Because letting them go is obviously problematic.

You could, I guess, have a five-aside football tournament with five eight-team leagues, each team with with a squad of six players and a rotating sub.

That's an option.

But once that's finished, it hasn't really solved the overall problem.

And there's a problem also with offloading detainees who have been cleared for release because a lot of them don't want to go home on the grounds that they're scared of being killed.

Albania has taken some in, as guests, but then I guess Albania doesn't have a lot else to do, apart from being a bit mysterious.

So, rumour has actually that Obama is set to start auctioning off these inmates.

In fact, I've got a leaked copy of a US government advert that's due to come out out that goes,

have your own living piece of US extrajudicial history helping out around the house.

Starting at just $299 for a standard inmate caught up unwittingly in a global political power game, up to $899 for a Deluxe inmate who is quite probably an active al-Qaeda member but isn't saying much on the issue.

Never has helping the US government move on from an internationally embarrassing issue been so affordable.

And the running costs are low.

These gentlemen, which come in five different categories of anti-US sentiment, from simmering resentment to thunderingly incandescent fury, have become accustomed to low daily calorie intakes intakes and a limited range of wardrobe choices.

Sign up now for your chance to buy your own diplomatic time bomb.

Obama and Cheney did back-to-back speeches about national security on Friday.

Cheney insisted that his speech was about not looking backwards, but for a speech that was not about looking backwards, he sure as shit used the past tense a lot.

And Obama chose to speak at the National Archive, literally in front of the Constitution.

Not the most subtle move he's ever pulled, but you know, it does seem like we're past subtlety at this point.

He said that national security is the first thing he thinks about in the morning and the last thing he thinks about at night.

And, you know, that sounds good, Andy, and I'm sure he means well, but there is just no way that's true.

I bet that the first thing, the very first thing he thinks when he wake up in the morning is, f ⁇ me, I'm president.

I'm president of the United States.

I live in the White House.

I'm going to take my morning dump in the White House and there's nothing that anyone can do to stop me.

Wow.

And I would imagine the last thing he thinks at night is probably, is it too late to order down to the kitchen for an ice cream?

Because I can have free ice cream whenever I want.

Why?

Because I'm the president.

I'm the president.

Assure as night follows day, decade follows decade, and May 2009 was followed just one year later by May 2010 and a big old oil blooper.

Top story this week, oil slick news.

Well, Andy, when we left the Bugle two weeks ago, oil was pumping into the ocean off the Louisiana coast, and everyone was talking about it.

Well, 14 days later, nothing has really changed other than the human response going from shock to depressed resignation.

The leak is still pumping out oil like John Grisham pumps out novels, indiscriminately and on an almost incomprehensible scale.

There's a time and a place for oil, Andy.

Most of the time that place is under the ground.

It is not, I repeat, not all over a dead fish unless the dead fish in question is a seared tuna and the oil in question was squeezed out of an Italian olive.

Little joke to remind you of last week there Andy.

I say

they don't eat a lot of

seared tuna fish down there John.

Really?

Not a great deal, no.

We've got a little bit of sea bass.

Oh yeah.

But not a lot of tuna going on.

Well next time I do that joke Andy I'll substitute the tuna for the bass.

Do that.

The Obama administration has responded this week to public concerns that they are not doing enough, making it clear that they're trying everything from drilling relief wells to firing in mud, golf balls, and human hair to clog the pipe up, that's true, to sending down a fat scuba diver to sit on top of the leaking well under the strict instruction not to swim away until they've sorted it all out.

And as for the scale of this disaster, it is truly appalling.

One media report here said the leak has grown to nearly 19 million gallons over the past five weeks.

If the oil-filled gallon milk jugs lined up side by side, there would be enough to reach from New York to Chicago and back.

You know what?

You had my attention there at 19 million gallons.

I really don't think a figure like that needs to be put into any further arbitrary perspective.

I think basically everyone understands that 19 million gallons of anything is a f ⁇ of a lot of gallons.

You're not going to find yourself confused when someone phones you up and says, congratulations.

I'm happy to tell you that you just won 19 million gallons of grapefruit juice.

The only confusion there is going to be, well, hold on.

What competition did I enter that had that a surprise?

Immediately followed by thinking, oh shit, what am I going to do with my brand new massive amount of grapefruit juice?

You are not going to find yourself saying, excuse me, but can you give me that information again, but this time in milk jug form?

Because I have absolutely no idea whether what you just said is a lot or not.

In fact, can you please tell me how far my milk jugs of grapefruit juice would go if lined up side by side?

And please express it to me in terms of a round trip, otherwise I'll just get confused again.

See, the milk milk jugs, that's a relatively new form of measurement as far as my mind's concerned.

You'd go with a bottle.

Football pitches.

Oh, okay, right.

Or buses.

Uh-huh.

You know, as tall as a bus.

Yeah.

When I went to a cinema screen the other day that said it was as tall as three buses.

Right, so they could have said like a bus

filled with oil.

Yeah, how many buses filled with oil were that page on?

And how far would those buses go in a trap?

Were they stretching a traffic jam?

Right, there you go.

That might be a whole nother way to do it.

In fact, the report then went on to say, in the worst case scenario, if 39 million gallons are spilled, the oil would fill enough jugs to stretch from the Louisiana marshes to Prince William Sound in Alaska.

That's where the Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, spilling nearly 11 million gallons.

Stop this bullshit now!

That is officially more confusing than the basic facts expressed.

In fact, if you manage to successfully unravel that mystery novel of a metaphor, you suddenly realize that this disaster is now significantly already worse than the Exxon Valdez.

The problem is that by the time you've worked that out, another million barrels of oil have just been shot into the ocean, and another whole team are now working out whether the milk jugs would now stretch to Utah and back or not.

I really do wonder, Andy, whether the manpower put put into coming up with stupid analogies like this would be better diverted into coming up with ways to stop this leak because the complexity of imaginations on show seems to suggest that if successfully harnessed this could all be over by now at the very least they should all take their stupid milk jugs down to louisiana and start scooping some oil out of the gulf with them

uh what are these milk jugs made of well i mean are we are they porcelain i'm guessing a porcelain milk jug andy i'm guessing your classic classic porcelain milk chug because you've got to be looking at some spillages and breakages as well

I just don't think they've factored that in yeah well so I mean if they wanted a more if they wanted a more impressive distance they should have used maybe longer and thinner receptacles that they could have laid end to end right maybe I don't know you know yards of ale

you know you know the other the yard of ale yeah yeah the kind of

Portugal yeah well I think that that would have made me pay more attention

or maybe you know if if they'd frozen it into cricket bat molds,

how many frozen cricket bat oil cricket bats were there?

I don't know if you can.

Can you freeze oil, Chris?

Yeah, I have no idea, I'm afraid.

No, I'm not a scientist.

I can look it up for you if you like.

Oh, that'd be great, Chris.

Can you please ask if

you find out if you can freeze oil and therefore if that oil could be frozen into a cricket bat shape?

If the answer to the first is yes, I'm guessing the second is yes as well.

I'm on to it.

Thanks, Chris.

All this speculation prompted one of our favourite ever Bugle emails the following week.

Comes from Dr.

Mahmood Ahmadinejad, apparently.

Though his email suggests that that might not be entirely true.

He writes, Dear John and Andy, on the subject, cricket bats.

You have my full undivided attention.

I was struck by your question about the size of the oil spill in cricket bats.

Assuming that the cricket bat is 2 inches thick, 4.75 inches wide, and 22.5 inches tall from toe to shoulder, and that the handle is 11 inches on and what 11 inches long and 1 inch in diameter, the volume of a cricket bat is approximately 0.973 gallons.

Thus, using the US Geological Survey's estimate of 500,000 to 800,000 gallons spilled per day, estimate as of May 27th in brackets, we can calculate some vitally important statistics.

For the sake of simplicity, only the higher estimate will be used from now on.

Every day,

822,247 cricket bats could be fashioned out of the oil.

If these bats generated in one day were laid handle to toe, they would stretch 435 miles.

This is enough cricket bats to stretch from London to Paris and back, a total distance of 422 miles.

Or, if you prefer, for our North American listeners, the distance from Boston to Toronto brackets, 430 miles.

Very interesting.

Yeah, or as of May the 1st, 43 days after the start of the oil spill, there would be enough cricket bats to stretch from New York to London 5.4 times, or from Caracas, Venezuela, home of Hugo Chavez, to Pyongyang, North Korea, home of Kim Jong-il, and back.

Or from Tripoli, Libya, home of Colonel Gaddafi, to Harare, Simple away home of Robert Mugarby five times.

I hope this puts this disaster into better perspective for all of the listeners except for the Americans who probably think that a cricket bat is a terrifying flying blood-sucking mammal that rubs its legs together to make chirping sounds at last.

Sincerely Dr.

Maumee Diamond Inajad brackets and yes he does have a doctorate in engineering.

So it could well I guess it could have been from him although his pro style is not quite as inflammatory as you'd expect from I love everything about that email Andy.

Everything about it.

I love the joke at the end about cricket bats.

I love the intensity and the amount of statistics and I love the fact that he even said who it's from.

That is what a great email.

There you go.

Little bit of science.

On to 2011 when someone caught a great big giant rat

Runaway Serb news now.

And if you're one of those people that buys cartons of milk with the photographs of missing European war criminals on the back then one

one face in particular has been staring at you over your corn flakes over the last decade Ratko Mladich

but no more Ratko has thankfully been found and returned to the loving arms of the war crimes tribunal at the Hague Such a heartwarming story Andy they're so glad he's back that's right the man named after his father's pest control business has ironically himself been caught and like a freshly trapped household rodent now faces being extradited to the back garden or The Hague and smashed on the head with a brick or prosecuted for 15 counts of war crimes.

But let's not assume the man is guilty, John, before due legal process has been carried out.

Oh, okay.

I guess, I mean, he doesn't look good, parading around gloring in your own brutality for most of the early 1990s, does raise a few question marks about the man.

But, and I guess even the most ardent RATCO fans would have to admit that his behaviour has been, at best, poor and certainly pretty questionable.

But he has passed a fitness test and

is fit to be extradited to face justice for some of the most abominable actions of the late 20th century.

One thing's for sure, Andy, international fugitives are having a bad, bad year, 2011.

You know, bin Laden, now this, 16 years on the run from Ladic Andy.

Well, not so much on the run as living in Serbia the whole time without really being bothered by the Serbian authorities.

It wasn't even 16 years on the jog, Andy.

It was more 16 years on the pleasant afternoon stroll.

On the running machine.

On the treadmill.

On a slow-moving treadmill.

16 years on the treadmill.

He faces accusations, including a genocide charge over the killing of about 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.

Good luck OJing your way out of that one, Ratko.

Lightning is going to have to strike 7,500 times in the same place for you to dodge this one.

But as you say, it's amazing since the royal wedding, John.

It's just been one unending festival of killing or capturing the world's most wanted men.

First, Bin Laden, then Ryan Giggs, and now Racco Miladic.

What if the what if the what when the magic wears off, though, John?

I mean, that's I think William and Kate are gonna have to divorce and remarry at least once every two months just to keep the world safe.

Well,

you know why I'd be happy about that idea.

Oh,

detonate the A-bomb.

Someone get the codes.

Apparently, Mladic was living under an assumed name in a small village in northern Serbia.

Apparently, he was not in disguise and was very cooperative.

So, no disguise, Andy.

I've got to say, that's slightly disappointing.

Pretty low-grade effort from the Salky Serb there.

I suppose, to be fair to him, Radovan Karadic had set the bar pretty high with his herbal medicine Santa Claus costume.

But if Mladic had put half as much effort into disguising himself as he put into slaughtering innocent people, he might still be on the loose today.

This is undoubtedly a big moment for the Serbian people who've not only been waiting 16 years for this, but who've also had to suffer through him living quite openly in Serbia, especially until as late as 2001, eating in expensive restaurants, even attending football matches, even signing autobiographies called I Am Ratcom Ladic by the actual Ratcom Ladic.

But perhaps the most infuriating moment was in 2009 when a bunch of home videos emerged of him.

In these videos he was singing, dancing, drinking, playing table tennis and even taking part in snowball fights.

And it really has been a big week for the sport of ping pong, Andy.

That just shows that you can have good and bad publicity.

They've got both the President of the United States and a Serbian war criminal both on tape enjoying the sport.

I guess it supports their claim that table tennis really is for everyone, Andy.

Whether you're a democratically elected head of state or a tyrannical military leader who is responsible for the Srebrenica massacre.

It's just a fun game.

Some more details have emerged of the life led by the Belgrade bastards, the Serbian shitbag.

The Yugoslav, you go f ⁇ yourself.

He apparently used to own a goat called Madeline Albright.

Did you read it?

Now.

Please.

That's not true, is it?

This is true, yeah.

Well, I mean, we've all been there, but

I'll Google it,

yeah.

Yeah, he apparently uh named all of his goats after the Western leaders who'd confronted him uh during the uh the war.

And um, uh, it's not entirely clear why, unless he was pretty abusive to those goats.

Maybe he just wanted to wean himself off goat's cheese.

I can't eat this, it's come straight out of Madeline Albright's udders.

Well, I guess that's gonna cut you off your lunch.

But um,

but it's true.

Have you found his

that is weird?

Yeah.

May 2012 was a very exciting time, particularly if your hobby was collecting vials of former American president's blood.

Reagan blood news now!

And a vial of Ronald Reagan's blood was put up for auction this week and bidding reached more than $30,000 until the sale was suspended after the Reagan estate threatened legal action.

Now, Now, the item in question is a five-inch glass vial which contains traces of dried blood.

It's said to have been taken from a laboratory that tested Reagan's blood for lead in the days after he was seriously wounded by an assassin in 1981.

And that, this really begs the question, Andy, what would you do?

With a vial of Ronald Reagan's blood if you bought it?

Would you wear it on a necklace around your neck as a conversation piece?

It would certainly be quite an icebreaker on a first date.

Oh, what's that around your neck?

This?

It's a vial of Ronald Reagan's blood.

That'll either be a great icebreaker or a great ice former.

Either way, you're going to know where you stand very quickly.

She said bidding had reached £19,000 in real money for the blood, which is believed to have magic properties, John, including the ability to rehabilitate a flagging political party, the ability to wear a silly hat without it detracting from your air of authority, and also the ability not to notice dodgy arms deals to Iran, whilst having the outgoing

every man kind of personality to make bringing down democratic elected governments seem kind of fun again.

Officials claim the blood was taken after Reagan beat death 1-0 in that famous assassination attempt in 1981 but it was in fact can reveal exclusively on the bugle spat out into a hotel basin by Margaret Thatcher when she put her human teeth back in after a summit meeting in Washington in the mid-80s.

It was being bit on by various interested parties.

These included the celebrity chef and culinary experimentalist extraordinaire Heston Blumenthal, who is planning a new dish featuring a presidential blood ketchup alongside a sausage made of...

Well,

don't worry what it's made of.

It's the taste that counts.

What did happen to Abraham Lincoln's body anyway?

Also interest was the celebrity artist Damian Hurst who wanted to put the vial of blood in a cardboard box, get a school dinner lady to sit on it, and then call it the remorseful sanctity of departed hope.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who wants to touch up the blood spatter mark on his head from his first meeting with Reagan when they head-butted an argument over a chess game.

And the Chelsea boss and Russian oil plutocrat Roman Abramovich, who's rumoured to be thinking of playing the vial of Ronald Reagan's blood on the left of a five-man midfield next season.

But the leading bid at the time that the auction was cancelled on grounds of basic taste was Mitt Romney, who apparently thinks that a transfusion of Ronnie blood will give him the credibility boost that he needs to win the presidential election in November and start legislating America back to the 20th century.

Credibila boost.

That's a functional word, huh?

It is.

Yeah.

I mean, it saves you a syllable, doesn't it?

Frees up a bit of extra time.

It is.

If you say that a million times, then that's not an insignificant amount of time.

Other items in the auction of interest included an entire bucket of Nixon's saliva.

Apparently, he would drive a lot while thinking decisions through in the Oval Office and kept a special bucket next to his desk so as not to completely soak the carpet.

Also 12 pints of Kim Jong-il's tears.

The famous movie buff kept labeled pint bottles of his own tears and which film had made him weep them.

Half a pint on Bridges of Madison County, three pints on Finding Nemo and four pints on the killing fields, but apparently those were tears of laughter.

And

also two and a half tons of Florence Nightingale's toenails.

Apparently she had to cut them every day they grew so fast.

Just one of the details that made her so hot.

oh yeah

flono

also available actually on various auction sites today further uh bodily fluids the urine squeezed out of francis drake's bowls trousers back in 1588 if i may slightly recycle one of my favourite jokes from the department

some drool mopped from yasa arafat's chin from the first time he laid eyes on madeline albright

oh yeah

and the cold sweat from neville chamberlain's foreheads uh from when he read what Hitler had actually written on that piece of paper.

Of course it's not the first time that President's

blood has been up for sale.

Calvin Coolidge's blood, in fact, is still used as the basis of a homeopathic remedy for an addiction to making chicken noises.

That's a fact.

Here's something I r read this week, John, about the Republican

campaign.

One of their advisors is a guy called Grover Norquist.

Are you are you a buddy of his?

I wouldn't say a buddy.

I'm aware of him, Andy.

He has a famous pledge that he makes people sign, which basically stalls democracy for the next century.

He's a good guy.

He's a good guy.

He said his state of aim.

Apparently, his stated aim is to make federal government so small that it could drown in a bathtub.

And that, John, is the kind of imagery that could only have been concocted by someone who has drowned something in a bathtub.

And just one year ago in hang on let me do the maths, it's 2014 now takeaway, what, 2013, Britain's future was cast headlong into constitutional mayhem.

Top story this week, Rainbow Roundup, it's Gagaga Gay News!

Bigotry, Andy, in all its forms, is by its nature inherently ludicrous, but homophobia seems to bring out an extra spicy level of distilled insanity and it has been a race to the bottom of the barrel this week in terms of fear-mongering of the most fabulous kind.

First on our homophobic hike in Britain a man called Lord Norman Tebbit gave a spectacular interview.

Now if you don't know who Norman Tebbit is, first off, congratulations.

You must have lived such a wonderful life up to this point.

What a shame that that's all about to change.

Norman Tebbit is a man who is the personification of everything that is wrong with the UK's lordship system.

Because if he can be elevated to the title of Lord and have that title be given to him in a non-sarcastic manner, something is tremendously wrong with Britain.

He looks exactly what you think a man called Norman Tebbit would look like.

Do an experiment now.

Picture what you think Norman Tebbit looks like immediately.

Now Google his name, click on images.

See, you're completely right.

Tebbit gave an interview to the big issue in Britain, which was immediately surprising.

It's a paper which was created to give homeless people the chance to earn a legitimate income.

And I believe the only legitimate income that Norman Tebbit believes homeless people are good for is working as logs on his fire.

Anyway, the only way this interview makes sense is if he was either completely wasted or was recovering from a huge concussion or both.

Because otherwise, it seems like he permanently checked into the Hotel Crazy Town.

Now, I realize that

three of those those things actually happen.

I realize I'm giving this quite a big build-up, but Tebbit is about to deliver.

I'm writing checks that he's about to overcash.

He went on a rant about Prime Minister David Cameron's intent to plow ahead with legalizing gay marriage, saying that it opened up the possibility of a lesbian queen giving birth to a future monarch by artificial insemination.

Let me just give you his exact quote, because you're probably thinking,

no way.

There is no fing way he said that.

He said, and brace yourself, when we have a queen who is a lesbian and she marries another lady and then decides that she would like to have a child and someone donates sperm and she gives birth to a child, is that child heir to the throne?

Andy.

I would like to spend just a moment inside Norman Tevit's head just to see what the world looks like from in there.

And then I'd like to get out as quickly as possible.

I'd basically like to bungee jump into his mind, dip my head in there and then get the f out.

I think it's mostly just little people riding around on bicycles.

But I mean, this is the mention.

I think you're being harsh on him, John.

I think this is like a classic philosophical quandary.

You know, when we have a queen who's a lesbian and she marries another lady, they decide to have a child with donated sperm.

Is that child heir to the throne?

That's a philosophical quandary to set alongside things like

Schrödinger's cat, which I think was, if you have a cat and it gets a bit mangy, but it's otherwise fine, whilst next door's cat has kidney, liver and bowel problems but has nice fur.

So you kidnap next door's cat, do a full body fur transplant, so you're basically a healthy cat gets a lovely new coat.

Is your cat still the same cat?

It's uh or Occam's razor, which was Occam, it's a very famous philosophical quantity.

I'm a bit rusty on this, it's been a while since I did any philosophy.

But I think it was that Occam has a beard and suffers a cranial injury that impairs his mental faculties, so he goes out to try and buy a razor, but ends up in a pet shop buying an iguana, which he then teaches teaches to graze the beard off his face and that he keeps in a jar by his basin is the iguana a razor or not so um yeah well it's very much alongside those those great philosophical imponderables but it does also suggest on john that you know why is he speculating on whether or not there is going to be a lesbian queen and i think the reason is he has inside information on Prince William and and Kate Middleton's imminent baby.

Because clearly, I mean, they've probably had, they must have have had scans done on it.

They must know what's coming out.

And clearly, Tebbit's got some insider political gossip that has shown that the royal photatina is, in fact, a lesbian.

Now, I'm sure William and Kate won't mind.

They're seeming pretty modern and well-adjusted, but it is a constitutional pavlova, John.

What are we going to do in this country with our new lesbian baby queen?

There you go, that brings us right up to date.

As I said, we should be back with Bugle 270 this week.

Do check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle.

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

No further questions.

Yours sincerely, Andy Zaltzman, undisputed 2014 Bugle Pool Champion.

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.