Maychive

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to what is sadly only a sub-bugle.

This week, week beginning Monday, the 5th of May, 2014, Mr.

John Oliver is preoccupied with his new HBO show Last Week Tonight, in which he aims to become the man and Coulter always dreamed of being, re-establish British rule in America, wangle himself a gig as stadium announcer for the New York Murgatroyds in the 2015 National Hopscotch League season, and become the new face of Chanel.

So instead we have a supplementary alterno bugle featuring a special beginning of May quiz to test your knowledge of the history of the first few days of one of the year's most famous months.

Plus another delve once more into the Bugle Archives, the only archives worth using in this day and age, I'm sure you'll agree, to find out what happened this week in Bugle history, including from three years ago, the sadly belated death of little Nigel Naughty himself, Osama bin Laden.

But let's begin our look back at human history as charted by the Bugle by returning to the first May we ever chronicled, May 2008.

Top story in this week's Bugle Beach Party, China.

And there is a time in the not too distant future when China is going to be the one and only story.

And when that is the case, Andy, I want to be ready.

So this week I say not only hello and welcome to the bugle, I also say, Miu Hua Ha Huang Da Chiha.

China announced this week that it intends to increase its military spending by 18% to 417.8 billion yuan.

That's a lot of yuan.

In fact, that's $59 billion worth of yuan.

So now you know it's a lot of yuan rather than just assuming it was because it sounded like a lot.

Well, it sounds like a lot of money to people like you and me, John, but we don't have our own private army and therefore we spend commensurately less on our defence budgets.

But it's still quite a fair whack.

We're around about $60 billion.

And America has complained that the real figure is actually around twice that.

America itself actually only spends a fraction of what China forks out.

Is that the right term?

Chopsticks out.

On its military.

Just a fraction of what China spends, America spends, quite a big fraction, in fact, quite a big collection of fractions.

About 20 halves, in fact, of China's spending.

So, America is leading from the front, telling China off about its defense spending, very much like a naked Catholic priest diving into a crowded paddling pool, telling everyone to leave the children alone.

That's right.

The US military budget last year was $440 billion.

So, let's just check the maths on that.

They're angry at China spending $59 billion,

yet the US spends 440 billion dollars a year.

No, that can't be right.

I mean that that sounds ridiculous.

I must have made a miscalculation with the figures there, Andy.

My mistake.

If those figures were true, the Pentagon would be massive hypocrites, and I know they're not that, so the fault must be mine.

Tell you what, I'll crunch these numbers again and I'll get back to you.

Just before this announcement, the US had released a statement criticizing China's military spending.

That's like taking criticism for eating too much from someone who has five doughnuts wedged in their mouth.

In fact, I can't say for sure that that statement about military spending was not issued by someone who did have five doughnuts wedged in their mouth.

Well, that's how the Pentagon give most of their statements nowadays.

It's just to take the edge off things.

Try and distract the world from the impending doom by looking at someone with five doughnuts in their mouth.

Also, in China, police in the south of the country have apparently discovered a factory which has been manufacturing free Tibet flags completely unaware.

The factory workers claim they thought they were just making happy, colourful flags and didn't realize their deep political meaning.

As Aristotle himself said, one man's colourful flag is another man's desperate plea for international humanitarian and political support.

It's such a fine line.

I'm sure Andy that the Chinese police recognise that this was an honest mistake and I'm sure that they're laughing about it now back at the precinct over the howling screams of the factory owner.

I tell you what you do not want to get caught with in China at the moment Andy and that is a box full of Tibetan flags.

I'm pretty sure there's no worse thing to be caught with in a box.

If I was a Chinese factory owner, which I nearly am, I just need to wait for the paperwork to go through.

I would make absolutely sure that what we were producing was not Tibetan flags.

Even if I did have no idea what Tibetan flags look like, that would be my first and only question when taking any job.

We need you to produce 200,000 shower nozzles, okay?

And these shower nozzles are definitely not Tibetan flags.

No, they're shower nozzles.

Okay, you have yourself a deal.

But it was good to be sure.

Before we move on to May 2009, here is question one in the beginning of May Quiz.

Pencils up, pay attention.

Who first met in early May 1904?

Was it A, Rolls, and Royce?

Charles Rolls and Henry Royce bumped into each other at a party when they were both running up and down the upstairs landing making vroom vroom noises.

The rest is needlessly expensive history.

Was it B, Bill Medley and Jennifer Warrens?

The music sparks flew so intensely at the meeting of these two pop meteors that they had to be cryogenically frozen for 81 years before being released to record their mega hit I've Had the Time of My Life, which has recently been officially sanctioned as the global anthem that will be played whenever Earth plays another planet's at sport.

Was it C, Mickey, and Minnie Mouse?

They had a torrid affair in the back of a food cupboard apparently before they each got tired of each other defecating and urinating all over the place and nibbling stuff.

Or was it D, me, and John?

And you have one second to complete your answer.

The answer is A, Rolls, and Royce.

You could also have had E, Czech composer Antonij Zvorzak and the Grim Reaper.

We'd always been a big fan of the Czech maestro and sneaked in to see him do a secret recital, lifelong ambition for the Reaper, but of course, in doing so, he unwittingly killed Zvorzak at the age of 63.

On now to early May 2009 in the Bugle Archives, and this.

So the week beginning Monday, May the 4th, 2009.

If we'd been recording this exactly 383 years ago, John, in 1626, and you'd been recording it where you are now on Manhattan Island, you would have been interrupted by a load of Dutch guys landing on Manhattan Island saying, we'll have that, we'll bloody have that, and we'll have that as well.

A little Dutch explorer Peter Miniot would have got his wallet out and said to you, hey kid, what say I buy this little island off you?

How about you shut up with your jokes and your quips and we can reach a little arrangement?

Do you get my drift?

I get the island, you get, hang on, let me see, let me count it out.

$24.

we got a deal let me answer that kid yes we have a deal nobody takes on the mighty dutch not with this accent 24 bucks kid now go back to britain and buy something nice for that lovely queen of yours what elizabeth yeah that's the one she died 23 years ago she did i've been had by that girl i saw last week andy the way you said mighty dutch made it sound like the mighty ducks well that's where they came from

celluloid that's where the new york accent comes from from the dutch whereas the dutch accents as mutated over the subsequent 400 years, the New York accent is in fact how the Dutch used to speak.

So imagine Rembrandt talking.

He would have spoken like a New York Jew.

Do you like my painting?

A painter, a painter.

What are you going to do?

My face is getting old.

Of course, John.

30 years ago today, the 4th of May 1979, a darkness descended over Britain, casting gloom across the entire nation from the tip of Cornwall to the top of Scotland, enveloping the entire country in a smothering, lightless pall as a long night began.

Well, in fact, it was just the standard end of your average day, really, your basic night time.

But coincidentally, on that same day, Mrs.

Thatcher became Prime Minister.

Read into that what you will.

Also, 12 years since the Labour Party marched into Downing Street with a big smile on its face, and exactly one year from now, they will march back out again with a big smile on their face.

And just as 12 years ago, both the Labour Party and the nation will join arms and say, thank f that's over.

As always, some sections are of the bugle going straight in the bin, even though the bin is especially disinfected this week.

This week in the bin, bin, part one of the Bugle Audio World Atlas.

This week's audio map, South America.

Big and wide at the top, but on a bit of a slant, then tapering off to a pointy bit at the bottom.

South America has a fewer nobbly bits sticking out than, for example, Europe, one of its rivals as a continent, and it is the world's most aerodynamic continent.

From space, it looks a bit like a tapir wearing a turban.

Next week, Antarctica.

Obama news now and Obama has been in power for 100 days which I believe means he gets a card from the Queen.

I think that's right.

The yardstick of 100 days was first suggested by FDR and has now haunted every president since.

For the first month at least, Obama could happily ride the not being President Bush train and what a train that was.

It's still not a bad train.

But now he does need something more.

And one thing he may need to work on is luck because in just a hundred days he's been dealt some pretty rough guards a global economic meltdown and now a borderline pandemic he may want to get a different rabbit's foot to carry around because the one he's got looks like it went bad after it got him elected as a congratulations present on his 99th day andy arlon specter of the republicans wrapped himself up in a bow and defected to the democrats thus potentially handing them the filibuster-proof majority that they want once minnesota finally accepts that the 2008 election is over and decides on a senator.

And the news here went crazy.

And you know how excitable they get when nothing happens.

So imagine how they react when something actually does.

Usually they're the boys who cry wolf.

And Wolf Blitzer on CNN is the wolf who cries news every afternoon.

News, news, there's some news outside.

Oh, ignore Wolf.

He just wants attention.

It does mean though, John, that Obama has now become the first black president to serve 100 days.

Oh, wow.

I hadn't even thought.

Yet another milestone for the young man.

He's really doing incredible things, isn't he, with the amount of days he's in power.

Has cynicism set in yet in America?

His poll numbers are still pretty positive.

He's had the odd howler, Obama, hasn't he?

Mostly in appointing people who hadn't told him about their own howlers.

But at least his howlers do not happen every single time he opens his mouth.

And I think that is the real step forward.

The bar still seems so low.

I'm sure he'll disappoint soon.

Amida had all claimed that Spectre's defection was a seismic event in Washington.

One even said that the ground was literally shaking underneath my feet.

That, I think, was not true.

And, you know, if it was true, it was almost certainly not connected to the story they were supposed to be reporting on.

It's a news tornado here in DC.

A tornado, I tell you, picking up the cow of history and slamming it through the windshield of America's truck.

I've lost all sense of perspective.

Back to you in the studio.

Well, there you go.

It's time for question two in our early May quiz.

What was first published in early May 1611?

Was it A, the King James Bible, topped the 17th century bestseller charts, of course, the King James, conclusively establishing Jesus' reputation as a well-educated British man with a strangely formal way of speaking?

Was it B, the alternative King James Bible, hot on the heels of the official King James Bible, a hilarious parody featuring a Jesus whose miracles kept going wrong and a hell of a lot of needless swearing?

Was it C, Shakespeare's flop buddy comedy, Hamlet and Othello get the munchies?

Or was it D, the joy of plague?

How to make the most of your agonizing death?

One second to answer.

Correct, the answer was also A.

The King James Bible.

Super little tomats, if that is your bag.

On now to early May 2010, when Britain was in the grip of election fever.

Admittedly, it was not the most contagious of fevers, and mostly just meant people wanted to lie in bed with the curtain shut and not have to interact with the outside world.

So, much like any other fever, I guess.

More powerful than any time in the last 10 years.

Where once the fear was that turnout could be around 50%, now surely we can dare to dream that two in three people may actually vote.

I'll tell you what we have to thank for this, Andy.

The same thing we have to thank for game shows and omelette whisk infomercials, television.

Who'd have thought that TV debates would have shaken British democracy to its extremely dusty foundations?

I think

what's become clear from across the pond, Andy, is that Clegg has gained the most.

Cameron has lost some of the mathematical inevitability that he had coming into the campaign, largely due to making the mistake of occasionally saying things he actually believes.

And Brown hasn't really lost anything as he didn't really have anything to lose in the first place.

It's like a man sitting in an empty house.

There's only so much a burglary can hurt him.

Yeah, well the final prime ministerial debate took place last night, Thursday, as we record here on Friday, just six days away from Voter Gedden and the entire future of Britain, John, the nation, the business, the brand, was on the line as the public sat down in front of their TV sets in eager anticipation before realising they were watching the wrong channel and switching over to watch Britain's stupidest teacher or shoot me I'm a nincum poop or my aunt thinks Hitler was a horse or whatever else was on before checking the news headlines at 10 o'clock to find out who'd won apparently and therefore who deserves to own Britain.

And frankly, John, I think the reaction from most people

is that the novelty has now worn off after three debates.

Yeah, it was pretty dull last night.

Democracy was fun for the first debate, John.

It was okay for the second, and it's now a bit passe

by the third.

And, you know, I'm more than averagely tolerant of democracy.

But this was like having concentrated bullshit milkshake blasted into your face at point-blank range.

I lasted about 11 minutes of what had been billed as one of the most significant moments in our democratic history before I started thinking, what was wrong with the old system of just voting for who your father told you to vote for?

It never did Britain any harm.

But the whole point, Andy, of having three debates is that you're supposed to learn in PR terms as you go.

So you look down the camera, you try and smile more, you try and engage with a viewer.

Now, by the third debate, at least one of them should have realised the key to winning televised elections is the t-shirt cannon.

It just takes one of them, Andy, just to pull it out and say to the assembled crowd, who wants a free t-shirt?

Everyone will go crazy, just start unloading t-shirts into the crowd.

Everyone's going to think, look at that, he gives out t-shirts.

I want, you can have it on your bus, Just an open-top bus, just shooting t-shirts around key marginal constituencies.

I'm telling you, it'll work.

People love t-shirts.

Yeah, but it was one of these 76 rules that they had.

Governing this device.

No t-shirt cannons.

No nut grabs.

What about t-shirt machine guns?

No, that is definitely out.

Right.

That is definitely out.

And no cross-dressing.

All of those three.

Not allowed.

In summary, though, for those of you who didn't see it,

all three leaders are are basically in favour of getting the economy moving, which is good, I guess.

So it looks like that crisis is going to be averted, whoever wins.

They don't really like each other, that much came across.

And they're also not afraid of repeating stuff they've said over and over again, word for word, until the nation just gives in and votes.

And Cameron has been criticised for crapping on...

kind of nebulously about change a bit too much in this campaign.

And to be fair, he did rein himself in a bit last night.

Change was only the 11th word that he said.

So he held it back quite a lot longer than usual.

Wow.

And he also pulled off a clever subliminal trick to emphasise the need for change by doing a rapid off-screen costume change between each question.

Although he didn't really notice it because he changed into 12 versions of the same suit and tie that he'd been wearing at the start.

So the change was barely perceptible.

Did that reveal something, John?

No, because it didn't happen.

But if it had happened, it might have revealed something.

And that's the most important thing to remember.

Now, Cordon Brown has had an undeniably bad week culminating in him being overheard on a live microphone calling an old lady a bigot having just had a conversation with her that suggested nothing of the sort.

Now calling a member of the electorate a lifelong Labour voter no less a bigot is probably even worse than when John Prescott actually punched a voter in the face.

It's even worse than that.

The thing is that in isolation

probably isn't that terrible.

It's just that it plays into a widely held belief that Gordon Brown hates people.

Now

if he doesn't hate them, he certainly has an active dislike for them.

He'd have been a great 19th-century politician, Andy, when you could govern from a wood-paneled room with a fireplace in it and you never had to touch any peasants.

That's right.

But he has been handicapped in this campaign by things like the invention of television and the invention of photography and the development of human speech.

And they've all kind of conspired against him.

And he's struggled to convey his very important message of, yes, we're fed, but we'll be even more fed if you vote for these losers.

Happy times.

Question 3.

Now, in early May 1640, King Charles I of England dissolved what was known as the Short Parliament.

But what was the Short Parliament?

Was it A, three weeks of stroppy parliamentary squabbling about how much pocket money to let King Charles have, which might explain why Charles himself ended up one head short of the full monarch nine years later?

Was it B, a short-lived democratic experiment in which MPs were restricted to a maximum height of 5 foot 3 inches tall?

It was thought at the time that being being tall made people unnecessarily cocky to the detriment of their political effectiveness.

However, the short parliament soon became inundated with chirpy, cheeky chappy banter and never got anything done.

Was it sea?

The short parliament was Charles' nickname for his drongle plunker.

He thought his captain Trousarius looked like Big Ben and he loved wearing loose-fitting shorts with no underwear.

Hence, his Royal Protuberact became known as the Short Parliament.

He accidentally dissolved it in a jar of sulphuric acid that his long-term adversary Oliver Cromwell had labelled labelled as Perkinson's soothing wang barman given to him as a Valentine's present.

Or was it D, an avant garde prog rock band that Charles was the bass guitarist in?

He wanted to be lead singer, but unfortunately his voice sounded like a rabbi chanting a prayer about chainsaws.

As king and therefore owner of the record label, he split the band up.

One second to answer The answer was again A.

And we're on to twenty eleven now and the not very widely mourned involuntary death of one of the twenty first century's most tedious dickheads marked by the birth of arguably the finest word in the English dictionary or technically not yet in the English dictionary

top story this week ding dong the c is dead but a boom boom boom another bites the dust shot in the eye and you're to blame you give

a bad name

This is not so much a tribute episode to bin Laden as a special f eulogy to the big man

Andy

I'm glad you enjoyed that yeah I did thoroughly enjoy it

I expect to see that in a dictionary near me within two years

Andy, you ended the last bugle by saying that after the royal wedding the world had nothing to look forward to anymore.

And while yes, Saturday in itself was quite boring, apart from Chelsea tightening the gap on the Premiership title race, you have to admit that Sunday really delivered.

What with that whole killing of the most wanted terrorist on the planet thing?

That's right.

Osama bin Laden, the former leader of al-Qaeda and former living inhabitant of the planet Earth, was forced to surrender both of those titles around the time that a bullet developed a very strong attraction to his face.

And he was a tall, handsome man, bin Laden Andy.

But I have to admit that I always thought that he'd have looked even better if he'd considered getting his left eyebrow pierced with a bullet.

And I think I was right about that.

I think his face was successfully accessorised with a piece of high-speed, pointy metal jewelry.

It's funny how well though, isn't it, John?

Because last week, most wanted man in the world.

This week, a seriously malfunctioning submarine.

And fish food.

So, yeah, it just goes to show.

upon a slender thread.

So, you know, he's gone from, you know, he's the leader of the world's most tedious minority interest pressure group, a man five times voted least cuddleable dude by Touchy Feely Monthly magazine, a man commonly known as the rowdy Saudi, Terry the Terrorist, the Mighty Douche, the Tora Bora Law Ignorer, and the Angry Turnip.

He had his clogs forcibly popped by American Special Forces.

And I do wish that Barack Obama had used those words.

Yeah, we have popped his clogs

It It certainly feels like a much more pleasant globe to live on this week without bin Laden living on it too It's like when a terrible neighbor moves away and Property prices in adjacent properties automatically go up by dying bin Laden has effectively gentrified this entire planet To prove this upon news of his death the stock market went up and oil prices went down as if collectively everyone agreed that things had just got slightly better as if the world breathed a a sigh of relief and together muttered oh good that is good now i don't know where you were when you found out andy i'm guessing you were asleep but i just finished watching 60 minutes and was checking in with the mets phillies game when it became clear that something very important was about to happen and the president was going to address the nation and After watching him announce that America had successfully located and killed bin Laden, I started watching the news and then well I flicked through the channels a couple of hours later to see that the Mets were still playing the Phillies.

It was the 14th inning and they had resumed the game and most of the crowd was still there.

And not only were they still there, they were watching the game with complete concentration.

And I've got to say, as a sports fan, I find that so impressive.

Remember, this is a meaningless game at the start of May between one team which will challenge for the World Series and one that will not make the playoffs.

To care about that at all is a challenge.

To care about that when it's just been announced that bin Laden has been killed is f ⁇ ing incredible.

The CIA's most wanted man has literally just been assassinated, and you are rooting for Raul Ibanez to get a base hit.

I think my favorite reaction from all this actually came from the Mets manager after the game because you know people in sports just cannot help themselves but speaking clichés and that's never more exposed than in moments of deep genuine significance and in the post-game press conference Terry Collins said this he said

well this is a good win for us and obviously, a huge win for America tonight.

He should have carried on that thought.

You know, I think America really answered the critics tonight.

Many have said that, you know, to go on a nine-year streak of not killing bin Laden was a slump we were never going to get out of.

But I, for one, had nothing but faith in us as a team, and I knew if we just kept swinging, kept focused, we'd get that hit.

As for the future, who knows where that holds?

I'm just concentrating on a home series against the Giants next week.

Thank you.

No questions.

I think as well, Al-Qaeda had had a press conference at which they say, well, there's a lot of positives we could take away from this.

Obviously, we're disappointed to lose Aussie, but we like to see it more as an opportunity for someone else to step up to the plate and deliver.

Of course, the best place to have heard the news would undoubtedly have been Tampa, Florida, in the middle of the crowd of a live WWE wrestling event.

How do I know this?

That's a fair question.

Because I saw a clip on YouTube of a shirtless John Cena addressing the Tampa crowd to deliver the news at the end of a bout, saying, I'm extremely proud after 10 months of being your WWE champion.

I walk out every night with hustle, loyalty, and respect on my sleeve.

It's worth pointing out that at that point he was sleeveless.

He went on to say.

The president has just announced, he went on to say, that we have caught and compromised to a permanent end of Sama bin Laden.

Andy, that is magnificent rhetoric from the four-time tag team champion, inventor of the twisting belly-to-belly suplex and self-styled doctor of thugonomics.

In fact, all of those things are true.

In fact, if I'm honest, I prefer what John Cena said to the president's speech.

Caught and compromised to a permanent end, that is linguistically sensational.

In fact, that phrase is not all that the president should have borrowed I think he should also have walked into the east room of the White House and said I walk out every night with hustle loyalty respect on my sleeve I think he should also have done that shirtless in a pair of cut off jeans holding a wide microphone before leaving to rock music and fireworks I don't think anyone would have begrudged him that

And that was that.

And question five now, a simple one.

This, why was there no question four?

Please answer that in fewer than 2,000 words.

And so on to 2012, early May 2012, and well, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that this was a year on from early May 2011, which meant that Bin Laden was still dead and had been dead for one year.

But not only have they found his last words, but also the US government this week has released a computer simulation of bin Laden's final thoughts as a conscious human being.

And we at the Bugle have got exclusive access to this exclusive coverage of Bin Landen's final conscious thoughts.

Well, Summer, the game is up.

I, the self-styled rowdy Saudi, the Tora Bora Lorignora, I'm done for.

Slice me into soldiers and dip me in an egg.

I am toast.

Just a few moments to assess what I've done with my life.

There are so many things I haven't done I really wanted to do.

I never quite fully got around to destroying America and all it stands for.

Oh no, that was career goal A.

I haven't even come close.

Maybe with hindsight I could have gone about it differently.

The whole acts of mass violence perpetrated on the innovation stick didn't really catch Western public imagination.

Still, if I've learned one thing from that, it is never trust a focus group.

Or at least, never trust a focus group made up entirely of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.

Live and learn.

Maybe we should have tried to convert people door to door, Jehovah's Witness dial.

Hello, have you ever thought about indiscriminate slaughter, institutionalized misogyny, and the destruction of civilization as we know it?

Okay, I see you're busy right now.

Should I come back next week?

There's no need to slam that door in my face.

Ah, hindsight Schmeinsite.

Never got around to wiping his head off the face of the globe either.

Never fulfill my lifetime ambition of breaking the 755 mile-an-hour barrier on a unicycle.

I guess when I look back at things, I have to say, I've never been very good at setting achievable goals.

Oh well, that's the 21st century for you, I guess.

So, how to make time for your career these days?

Particularly when you got a wife and kids, and even more particularly when you got six wives and 22 kids like I have.

Silly, silly, Aussie.

I shouldn't have burdened myself with such a big family if I wanted to be so focused on my own career.

How was I supposed to destroy the West, Israel, and capitalism if every other fing weekend, birthday party?

Ah, I guess that's genetics.

I'm like my dad.

22 wives, 57 children.

An indecisive man, but a randy one.

Maybe I've been in the terrorism game too long.

Should have moved jobs.

I could do loads of other stuff.

Sure, I'm getting on a bit, but I have I have proven organizational and communication skills.

People might quill with what I've organized and communicated, but still, a good employer should look beyond that.

My lifestyle has felt so restricted recently.

My life insurance premiums are absolutely f ⁇ ing ridiculous.

Right, they're cooking their triggers.

Man, I could really do with some quality me time right now.

There must be a way out of this.

Think, Ozzy, think.

Oh, shit, these aren't real wings.

I'm never buying anything off eBay again.

Right, come on, a summer.

At least go down with some unforgettable last words.

They're to the south.

No, just kidding, the west.

Oh, you guys.

Do I want something people are are going to remember for eternity to look back on in centuries to come and say, What an unbelievable thing for a man to say as he departed this world.

Something like, There was an old man from Nantucket who dangled his balls in a bucket.

No, no, that's not really me, is it?

How could it?

Don't shoot me.

I'm allergic to lead.

If you shoot me, it's health and safety violation.

No, it might work.

Right, go randifiant or summer, looking at where they're aiming.

This is gonna be, at best, a career-ending eye injury.

Clear your head now.

One final thought.

Oh, oh dear.

No, no, I cannot die with this in my head.

I can't die with this tune in my head.

I, Osama Minan, the baddest bastard in the world, can't die with this tune going around my head.

Why now?

I gotta stop watching kids TV.

If anything good comes out of this, it's that.

Bloody Western infidels.

Think of something.

Think of another tune.

Think of any other tune.

Think of something else.

Oh yeah, I can die to this.

No, no, I don't really like moving it that much.

No, no, no, no, something else, something else.

That's completely inappropriate.

No, no, no.

Grudging respect, but uh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Oh, that's even worse.

No, I'll take Fifi in the flowerpots.

I'll take Fifi in the flowerpots.

Okay, that will have to do.

Okay, I'll reconcile myself with that.

Okay, one final conscious thought before meeting my presumably quite unimpressed maker.

Oh,

Prepper.

Hey, Prepper.

Wanna be wife number seven?

What way of firing that?

What way of firing that thing?

My house.

Oh, not a squeaky duck.

Have you no compassion?

Ow, Peppa.

I'm gonna miss you too, squeaky.

Yeah, she back down.

What are you doing here?

Well Andy for a start

This this is for you for me

for me

congratulate the Pentagon they're the ones that got it what you got hold of it Andy I don't know how you did it I'm guessing the fact you did get it is a huge crime all I'm saying is me and Condoleezza Rice go back a long way

And now seems a good time to move on to question six in the early May quits.

In early May 1871, the first professional baseball league began with the catchy acronym NAPBBP.

But which of the following teams actually appeared in that league?

Was it A, Mrs.

Elizabeth Resolutes?

Was it B, the Strange Men of St.

Louis?

Was it C, the Brooklyn Wingers?

D, the Oklahoma Cat-Drowners, E.

The Florence Nightingales?

Or F.

The Tampa Bay Schmucks?

Answer one second.

It was A.

The Elizabeth Resolutes, admittedly without the Mrs.

on the front.

And so we're on to last year, 2013, when it turned out that the FBI had been using rather old-school methods of paying Hamid Karzai his secret pocket money.

CIA have got bags of money news now and it emerged this week that tens of millions of US dollars in cash were delivered to the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for over a decade, dropped off in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags.

what could possibly go wrong with a planet like that and

other than absolutely everything i mean your potential failure rate is only you know an impressively meagre 100 percent how how could that scheme be flawed when you're handing those bags of unmarked money to a country whose two main exports are heroin and sadness how could it not work

uh karzai told reporters um that the Office for National Security has been receiving support for the past 10 years.

Not a big amount, he said, a small amount.

And this is where the words get really interesting, which has been used for, quotes, various purposes.

Now, when Hammond Carlos says money's been put to various purposes, that should set alarm bells ringing, like at the World Campanology Championships.

That is that.

He said the assistance has been very useful, and we are thankful to them for it.

Well, oh, that's nice.

Yeah, that's nice.

That's lovely, isn't it?

Absolutely lovely.

The money was supposed to buy influence for the CIA, but instead, and you're not going to believe this, Andy, it apparently fueled corruption and empowered warlords and undermined any attempted US exit strategy, or as they described those three things in Afghanistan, Wednesday.

But these bags of cash demonstrate a clear new strategy for the US and Afghanistan, Andy.

Rather than just throwing money at the problem, they've moved on to dropping money near the problem instead.

So let's not claim that their strategies have not evolved.

Now, according to Khalil Rahman, who was Karzai's chief of staff and I imagine literally also his bag man,

according to him, the Afghans called it ghost money, saying we called it ghost money, it came in secret and it left in secret.

And that's not ghost money, Andy.

That's ninja money.

Silently arriving, silently leaving, completely untraceable.

Ghost money is something that disappears before repeatedly coming back to haunt you.

Do you know what?

He's right.

It was ghost money.

And Hamid Karzai actually called it something different, similar to what you heard, Andy.

He called that money multi-purpose assistance, which is like the kind of euphemism that a massage parlour would give for a hand job.

It apparently got so bad that an American official stated this week that the biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan was the United States.

And that is big praise, Andy, because almost any single object in Afghanistan is a potential source of corruption.

Somehow, even their boulders are on the take.

That brings us right up to date.

And also brings us to the final question of the early May quiz.

Question 7 in early May 1865.

What happened for the first time ever in the USA?

Was it A, the first train robbery on American soil?

At North Bend near Cincinnati and Ohio, a gang of naughty little blighters stole hundreds of thousands of bucks worth of loot whilst apparently saying things like, hey, no one's ever done this before.

This is kind of cool.

Is there a buffet car?

Was it B?

For the first time ever, someone shouted, USA, USA, and whooped before shouting, Go Lincoln, Go Lincoln.

Bit inappropriate at the man's funeral.

Was it C, the first ever jet ski ride, a steam-powered jet ski travelled at 1.5 miles an hour in Chesapeake Bay, designed, of course, by the Polish immigrant and entrepreneur Słobyslav Wiszkuszzzetski, after whom the vehicle was, of course, eventually named?

Or was it D, the first recorded use of the term too soon?

Was on the 5th of May, the evening after Lincoln's funeral in the game of Shiraz to try and lighten the mood at the White House.

New President Andrew Johnson opened up, and people reacted to his mimes by saying three words, it's a play too soon, AJ.

Too soon.

The answer in one second,

A.

Yes, all of the answers were A apart from questions four and five.

If you got them all right, you have won the right to vote in every single election around the world for the next five years, but you do have to take your own pencil.

So I hope you've enjoyed this sub-bugle.

We will hopefully, almost definitely, be back with, hopefully definitely, Bugle 268 next week.

In the meantime, if you are coming to my Satirist for Hire show in Edinburgh, 13th to the 24th of August at the stand in London at the Soho Theatre in September or on my UK tour from September through to December, do email your satirical requests to satirise this at satiristforhire.com with the date and venue of the show you're coming to and your beef with the world plus any supporting material you feel may be relevant.

Or if you're not coming, whether through reasons of geography, principle, religious devotion, or simply a lifelong hatred of me, my work and everything I stand for, do email anyway with the kind of thing you think you might have wanted me to talk about had you been asked or able to come to the show.

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

Send your emails to info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Follow the Twitter feed Hello Buglers, which has been a little bit dormant of late.

And as I say, we'll be back next week, hopefully.

Certainly, probably, with Bugle 268.

Until then, 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.