Bugle 259 – Sochi Special

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 259 of the Bugle.

If you've not heard it before, it's basically what Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, and Sun Tzu would have come up with if they've been around today and decided to make something exactly the same as this.

I am Andy Zaltman in London, cosmopolitan city of culture, and if the rain and flooding don't stop soon in the south of England, soon-to-be luxury coastal resort.

And joining me from New York City is the man who is not just the real Wolf of Wall Street, he's also the badger of Broadway, the Lemming of Lexington, the angry armadillo of the Avenue of the Americas, the man-eating antelope of Madison Avenue, the tenaciously celibate panda of Tompkins Square Park, the cross-bred whippet hippopotamus of West Houston, fast but socially timid.

I think I've taken this one as far as it can go. No, look out, there's one more.
The eagled with hardened steel feathers of East 165th Street.

It's the one-man menagerie of mirth, the zinging zookeeper himself, the man who feeds penguins to killer whales and makes them puke out a tiger. It's John Oliver.

He's just written 16 sequels for you, Scorsese. At least make five of them.

Hello, Andy. Hello, John.
Hello, buglers. Now, on Wednesday night, Andy, I went to watch the New York Knicks play at Madison Square Gardens.

It's a great place to watch anything, and there's always a moment whenever you go there that they show on the big screen any people who are in the crowds that people might know.

I've seen this happen many times before. So, this time it's very exciting.
They showed Manny Pacquiao, the place went crazy. Then they showed giant Super Bowl-winning running back, Brandon Jacobs.

People went completely nuts. Then they showed singer Ashanti, and there were huge cheers.
And then, Andy, and I think you might know where this is going.

Then I saw a cameraman move towards me, and I thought, oh no, no, this is not happening.

Next thing I know, I'm on the big screen, Andy, and the crowd makes exactly as much noise as they've been making before and after I was on the big screen.

If I was to describe the response, Andy, I would say it was ambient noise.

Neither good nor bad.

Probably with an undertone of muttered conversation, such as, who's that? and was he a smurf it was

it was a beautiful and entirely accurate portrayal of my mathematical place in the canon of celebrity andy manny pacquia

yes brandon jacobs holy shit and shanty wow john oliver

okay

and dominoes pizza yes

well maybe this was the problem that they they needed you to to speak in your Smurfs voice and then you

wouldn't. That's probably the best, isn't it? Whatever my Smurfs voice is, again, I haven't seen it yet.

I don't know if they pitch it up chipmunk style or if they leave it be. I don't know.

So this is Bugle 259.

259, coincidentally. The most consecutive penalties ever missed in a penalty shootout.
It's an interesting story this one, John.

It's a match in 1969, I think in the early days of the NASL in America, when all drawn matches had a penalty shootout, or if they'd lost the balls, a projectile flop off.

Anyway, it was a match between the Cleveland Spankers and the Miami Tammies.

Turned out the Tammy Wine demographic did not cross over to soccer.

It ended one-all after goals from the aging German international Reichstag Schnitzelschnause and the aging World Cup winning Brazilian wizard Pancreas. Man, they chew some odd names over there.

Anyway, the game went to a historic shootout that ultimately ultimately was responsible for ending the NASL practice of allowing teams to use lorries as substitutes in a deal with the league sponsors, who were at that point a drive-your-own road freight haulage company called Go Truck Yourself.

Anyway, both sides subbed a lorry on with a minute to go, then put the lorry in goal for the shootout and let the tires down.

Each team slammed its first 128 penalties against the side of the lorry, whilst the goal mouth became increasingly churned up as the flat-tired trucks drove in and out of the penalty box for each kick.

Eventually, the spanker's truck ran out of fuel leaving Pancras's aging Brazilian teammate Miriam with an open goal from 12 yards to win it for the Tammies.

But he did one of those stupid jittery run-ups to try and send the keeper the wrong way and blasted it over the bar. Then the Tammy's lorry got stuck in the mud so up stepped the Spankers striker.

To finish it off the aging former England centre forward Steve Blumer, early big money signing as the NASL, tried to fill the league with international stars.

Of course Bloomer was then record goal scorer in the English top division and scored more than a goal a game in his international career.

But sadly, he couldn't slot home the winning penalty, having not played since before the First World War and having died in 1938. Still, he brought a bit of media attention to

the league, so decent international signing. Then the Tammy's aging Yugoslavian stars, Donko Blankovic, hit a post

after tripping over Blumer's corpse in his run-up, leaving the spankers high-profile French signing Brigitte Bardot to fire home the winning goal.

Thanks be to God, for he can tell between the shit and the chocolate.

So that's 259 bugles.

Andy, that was a long walk for a go truck yourself joke.

Got to kill you.

I'm not saying the destination did not make that stroll worthwhile.

As always, the section of this bugle is going straight in the bin. This has been the bugle for the 10th of February this week.

Well, it's the beginning of the Olympics, and we have in the bin the Sochi Olympics audio phrase book, helping you to get on with the locals with our bugle Russian guide.

Here are your phrases for this week.

A skiing turtle ate my beautiful wimple.

If you don't give me my bobsled back, I'll come at you with a monkey wrench.

And pushono ochin sobakovchoy, yabalonov dasaye blokin

scream.

So that should help get you through the first few days of the Olympics. That section in the bin.

On that note, top story this week: more cowbell. It's Winter Olympics time.

Look, it's Winter Olympics o'clock, Andy, and let's be clear right from the start, I'm not in favour of the Winter Olympics.

Not just these Winter Olympics, Andy, but any Winter Olympics in fact I've decided that I'm only okay with the Winter Olympics if they are forced to swap with the Summer Olympics every four years so meaning every four years you have your regular summer your regular winter Olympics and every eight years they switch and you have a blistering hot winter olympics and a frozen summer olympics because that would be a wonderful thing to watch Andy a summer olympics featuring swimmers flapping around on the ice on frozen lakes javelin throwers hands sticking sticking to their javelins and sprinters waddling awkwardly through a snowdrift.

And then a Winter Olympics featuring competitors in the luge awkwardly shifting themselves down the track in 80 degree weather on their ass and justifiably terrified looking ski jumpers at the top of a mountain of sheet rock.

These though, Andy, are the most expensive Winter Olympics in history, reportedly costing more than all the other Winter Olympics in history combined, which is a lot to spend on something that very few people give an even chant tangential shit about.

And it's a little hard to see where that money went other than into some frighteningly furry Russian pockets.

There have been multiple photos released this week from athletes and journalists of sub-par accommodations in Sochi, toilet cubicles with side-by-side toilets, other toilets without a flush function, which, and you hate to be a stickler, which seems key to any toilet post-18th century.

I mean, some things are traditions for a reason, John, aren't they?

Right, right, right.

No one likes a maverick 100% of the time.

Other hotel rooms had no bedding or no shower curtains or no running water.

And the Russian government have been quick to push back on this flood of photos, but in doing so, may have inadvertently revealed something even more troubling.

Because Dmitry Dozak, the deputy prime minister who's responsible for all the Winter Olympic preparations, claimed that these are just stories made up by Westerners who are actively trying trying to sabotage the Sochi Games.

He said that, and I quote, we have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turning on the showers, directing the nozzle at the wall, and then leaving the room for the whole day.

Wait, hold on.

So hold on. You're saying, don't worry, we know that the water works fine in your hotel rooms.
And the reason we know that is that we have secret cameras in the showers.

Well, I'm sure, John, when Russia bid for the games, for a start, everyone would have assumed that would happen.

True, that's fair. I think Putin's direct enough.
It would have probably have been in the original bid document anyway.

$51 billion

the cost, apparently. That's four times

the London Games cost.

As you say, more than all previous Winter Olympics combined, including the famous 1924 Winter Olympics in Belgium, when they had to build a 3,000-metre-high fake mountain out of crushed waffles and frozen chocolate coated with icing sugar.

Between a third and a half of that sum has been attributed to corruption and kickbacks, apparently, which are frankly as Russian as vodka dying early of alcohol-related illness and assassinating Tsars.

It was just part of the deal, John.

There's an 18-mile stretch of road between Soshi and the mountain sports base at Krasnaya Polyana. Apparently, this has cost not two, not five, not 10, not 20, but $8.6 billion.

That is over half the cost of the entire London Olympics, just for a stretch of road. I mean, apparently it's got a lovely service station with at least two of those automatic coffee machines.

But you have to ask, is that value for money?

There's an opposition leader called Boris Nemtsov, who, if he'd been around 65 years ago, would not have been around anymore 65 years ago.

And he claimed that you could have paved the road with gold or caviar and it would have cost the same.

Now, it being Russia, it's hard to tell if this is a criticism or a complaint at a missed opportunity.

But also, what Nemsov hasn't taken into account is that neither gold nor caviar function at all well as road surfaces.

Gold gives you a terrible glare on a sunny day, whilst caviar, you pretty much need to resurface it on a weekly basis. It is too damn squidgy.

Although, on the plus side, caviar eggs have been found to have a genetic quirk in which if someone drives over them at more than 110 kilometers per hour, the Russian speed limit, they automatically hatch and baby caviars scuttle off in pursuit, making it much easier for police to tell when people are speeding.

That's another fact for you, John.

This Winter Olympics has been particularly controversial in the run-up, particularly surrounding Russia's brutal laws regarding homosexuality.

This particular law was signed into effect just last July, which bans the promotion of non-traditional sexuality to under-18s, and which is so restrictive and so vague that it effectively bans any public expression of support for gay rights whatsoever, leading to huge numbers of gay and transgender people in Russia living in constant fear of violence.

And according to the mayor of Sochi, where the Winter Olympics are taking place, that particular law is irrelevant to his city as he claims there are no gay people living there. Oh,

okay, then Andy. I guess he wouldn't say that if it wasn't true.

I mean, yes, there are apparently several gay bars in Sochi, but I presume that they're permanently empty and their success as businesses is some form of witchcraft.

It makes perfect sense. Perfect.
When challenged, the mayor admitted that he was not actually certain there were no gay people in Soti, but he did say, I'm not sure, but I don't bloody know them.

And again,

he's right, Andy, because if you don't know someone, they don't technically exist. This is

a man who could...

That's right. This is a man who clearly never got around to learning about object permanence as a baby.

Sure, he once saw a gay person, but then he closed his eyes and that gay person disappeared and therefore no longer existed.

He actually said that homosexuals were welcome at the Olympic Games as long as they respect Russian law and don't impose their habits on others. Hold on.
Okay,

let's just stop right here, Andy. Homosexuals are welcome at the Olympic Games.
Gay people basically invented the Olympic Games, Andy, winter and summer.

If it hadn't been for a bunch of naked, oiled-up ancient Greeks wrestling each other, there would be no finging Olympics.

You don't invite them, they invite you.

Yeah, the Mayor, his name is Anatoly Pakamov, which I think coincidentally was the British Foreign Office's nickname for Joseph Stalin at the height of the purchase.

Oh goodness, looks like another couple of million people have gone missing in Russia. Seems like little Anatoly Pakamov has been hard at work again with his special railway.

Putin has also been very much jumping on the gay horse, warning against gay propaganda,

which and he also said must show terrorists no fear. Clearly finds homosexuals more frightening on a personal level than terrorists, which is a slightly odd choice.
And

it would be a bit of an odd place to promote homosexuality, the Winter Olympics.

I can't quite see how this would work. Hey, see that bobsled? Looks a bit like a Willie, doesn't it? Go on, try homosexuality.
Pairs ice skating, don't like it, then you're probably gay.

Homosexuality, the Connoisseur's choice. Ladies, do you like those beautiful mountains? Yes.
Well, they're nature's tits. Be a lesbian.
It simply is not going to work, John.

There's a reason you have door-to-door window salesmen, door-to-door political canvassing, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the like.

That's because they have some small chance of persuading you over to their cause, whether that cause be buying windows, voting for tax breaks for billionaires, or dying due to a refusal to take a blood transfusion.

But we don't have door-to-door homosexual experimentation persuaders, at least not where I live. Because in essence, it isn't something that you're likely to be sold.

Have you ever considered being sexually attracted to people with the same type of wobbly bits as you?

No, it's not really my thing. Get out of my front door, slam.
Or this isn't a good time. I'm just putting up another shelf.
Slam and don't leave your fing magazine.

People only take it to make you go away. Or maybe, actually, I'm already a subscriber to homosexuality, but if you could have a word with Julio down the road, I'd be very grateful indeed.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe people could be persuaded. Oh, now you mention it, I have been stuck in a loveless marriage for 40 years and find physical contact with my spouse absolutely repellent.

Maybe I'll give it a spin.

It's very odd to be so scared of this, John. I just don't understand it.
Well, he's been, Putin has been trying to put on a friendlier face in Russia over the last couple of weeks.

And he said just last week that homosexuals would be welcome in Sochi, but said, just leave the children alone.

And look, there are so many jokes, Andy, you can do around the fact that Putin himself is so fond of being photographed shirtless on horses that he may be the most homoerotic leader since Caligula.

But the truth is that Russia is a dangerous place to be gay.

There have been some horrifying videos coming out on the internet this week of gay people in Russia being hunted down, humiliated and beaten.

There was an awful documentary on channel 4 called Hunted this week and the IOC has responded to this by not finging responding at all.

And the truth is that the IOC or any major sporting body could seldom give a single shit about human rights when money is on the line.

Their moral compass is permanently pointing towards a dollar sign Andy.

Look at FIFA, They gave the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, where homosexuality is punishable by a jail term, and have only shown any inclination to change the location of the World Cup when people suggested that the players might be a bit too hot.

Not that gay people might be a bit too jailed, Andy. No, that's fine.
But the footballers might be too toasty.

I think maybe it's time for the IOC to change their

slogan to the IOC, overlooking human rights atrocities since at least 1936.

It's a long thing, Putin. He said you can feel free in all relationships, but leave children in peace.
He does seem to be mixing up homosexuals with paedophiles, which is.

I mean, it's

and again, a strange mistake to make.

You could imagine him saying, yes, by all means, eat meat, but don't hack my elderly mother to pieces and cook her up as a stew. It's not on you, animal.

By all means, spend your money in our city, but for f's sake, don't hold up a bank at gunpoint, steal millions of dollars from the safe, and escape in a stolen van while mowing down the coppers and passers-by in a hail of bullets.

It's simply not on.

In his latest attempt to present a friendlier image, Putin staged a photo-op with a leopard cup. A leopard cup this week.

He was

his own son, John.

He was surprisingly shirted in the photograph, presumably as an act of safety, so as not to drive any gay people wild with desire at the sight of his rippling Russian torso.

You brought it on yourself, Putin. Exactly.
You bought it on yourself.

He held the cub in his lap saying, I like animals. It seems I have a feeling for them.
We like each other. Now, the cub, however, didn't seem...

to like the assembled reporters because apparently it scratched one on the hand and bit another one on the knee as Putin tried to calm it down. And that is a classic power move from Putin Andy.

Oh, thank goodness I was here to stop you being torn apart by this wild animal. Of course, next time, if you have angered me, I may find it more difficult to protect you.
Food for thought, anyway.

Another story related to the homophobia of Mr. Putin came from the volunteers at Sochi.
Now, in London, they all wore kind of flammable purple shirts.

In Sochi, they're wearing rainbow-coloured uniforms.

And one of the volunteers asked Putin at a meeting last week if they might be breaching the ban on gay propaganda by wearing these rainbow-coloured uniforms.

Putin replied that he had not designed the uniform. That to me sounds like a yes, you are breaking that ban.

And it's the opening ceremony starting in a couple of hours as we record on Friday.

And people will be on the lookout for any dancing that looks even slightly camp.

It's going to be very interesting to see John the opening ceremony.

It's going to express everything that Russia and the Sochi games are about, including a spectacular routine in which two tons of gold are melted down and poured directly into the pocket of a 50-foot animatronic oiligark.

And another scene reminiscent of the happy singing in the streets of Danny Bohr's London 2012 extravaganza, in which members of a 1950s poetry club are taken to a wood and never seen again before a dog is catapulted into space.

There are also rumours that some of the sports facilities aren't finished despite the $50 billion spend.

In fact, in ski jumping training earlier this week, the first guy down the ramp, the Greek Sri Lankan jumper Eliwele Kanakanamage Polipopopolopodidis, a super little jumper given his parents' nationalities, also winner in the 2010 games of the athlete who most sounds like someone falling down the stairs.

Anyway, Polypopopolopodidis, representing the Seychelles, ironically, flagger conveyance, he flew off the end of the hill only to find that there was no landing area and disappeared down a giant crevice directly into the Earth's core.

Also due to a double booking, the men's men's ice hockey semi-finals and the free programme of the women's ice skating are going to have to take place at the same time.

That will be absolutely unmissable television. There's also a level crossing halfway down the bobsled run where a busy train line crosses over.
That could be absolutely crucial.

Need to get a good start time. Whilst the start and end of the downhill ski run have been put at the wrong ends of the course, which might rather dull the spectacle of the blue-ribboned event.

Be fascinating to watch it all unfold.

In other Russian news, Russian activist and critic of Putin finds massive wooden penis and testicles on her car.

That is a strong headline, a John. Fully engorged tree trunk junk was chained to her vehicle.
It was vainly realistic, and by the looks of it, carved from a Jewish tree.

There is no news yet on who put the Titanic Timber Todger and Leviathan Lignius lumber lumps on her car, but this Xyla bone has certainly grabbed the world's attention.

Spectacular performance.

It was amazing. It just goes to show that, you know, in the run-up to Olympics, any country has to tone down its more violent repression techniques and go with more imaginative forms of oppression.

And Putin has hit the jackpot here. It was Russian activist Katya Romanovskaya, who's an outspoken critic of Putin.

She walked out one morning this week to go to our car only to see that it had a giant 200-pound wooden penis strapped to the roof. Message sent, Andy.
Quite a weird message sent, but sent anyway.

I guess it's like the mafia used to send a dead fish, or, you know, you'd wake up with a horse's head in your bed. In Russia, you wake up with a giant wooden penis on your car.

The message is basically the same as just the means of delivery, which varies. Yeah, there was some dispute over who exactly put it there.

People do seem to assume it was Putin supporters trying to get a message across.

And I guess that message would be, John, as you suggested, if you do not stop criticising our glorious Supreme Leader, we will chain a massive set of wooden genitals to your car.

We cannot be any clearer than that. But it could, not, it could have been something different.
It could have been a possibly a romantic, erotic gift from a lover who just mixed up inches with feet.

Yes, I'm bringing about the wooden penis. You've got my plaster cast.
Good. Well, I want it to be really realistic.
No, no, that is the right seat. I don't want to brag.

And it's not that big. It's just the five and a half feet.
Bit below average. I'm not ashamed.
No, no, no, I don't want it to scale. Just exactly as I ordered it.

um possibly uh an act of god the old russian orthodox god maybe hanging out with one of his uh old randy greek or roman god friends got some ideas possibly though a traffic ward i think it's the most likely explanation who'd run out of parking tickets and just improvised and thought to himself what says you're not allowed to park your car here most clearly well i don't have a paper or pens with me but i do have a tree trunk a chainsaw a chisel a teach yourself wood carving manual and my own woolly and woggles to moggle it on why not plonk a giant woodwang and a pair of Sylvan scrotchlets on her bonnet?

That will teach her, do not park on my yellow lines.

Katya apparently called the local police who came and wrote a report about the gigantic penis on her car.

But

they then said to her that the wooden penis was now hers to keep. So, I mean, look, not too shabby, Andy.
Russian dissidents used to get sent to Siberia for their entire lives. Now they get free

pound wooden penises. Who says that country is not evolving?

That must have been a good one to explain when you got home. How was your day, dear? Oh, it was fine.
How was yours? Oh, I found a 200 pound wooden penis on my car.

The opening ceremony, as you say, is taking place very, very shortly as we speak now.

But if Putin wants any tips regarding showmanship, and apparently there's an earlier report that tattoo apparently the pretend lesbian band are going to be performing in an act of no irony whatsoever but if he wants any tips regarding real showmanship push you should get in touch with the pope andy because last week the pope released two white doves of peace from the balcony in st peter's square surrounded by children and watched gently by tens of thousands of onlookers, the doves were immediately attacked by a seagull and a crow.

It was perhaps the most powerful piece of symbolism in the history of humanity, Andy. Doves of peace attacked and pecked by other birds.

Apparently, one dove lost some feathers as it broke free from the seagull and the crow repeatedly pecked at the other dove.

The doves attempted to escape by flying off but were hotly pursued by the attacking birds and it's not clear what happened to the doves afterwards.

And the best part of all of this, just before the Pope released the doves, he'd he'd appealed for peace in Ukraine. So the protesters must have watched those doves bludgeons

at the Vatican. Those protesters in Kiev must have watched that footage and gone,

oh, f

it doesn't look good, guys.

Maybe that's what Putin should do in the opening ceremony, Addie. Have a selection of journalists and human rights activists say their peace and then have them attacked by leopard cubs.

there's actually an update on the Ukraine situation it's been spiced up even more after a hacked phone call yesterday was released between Victoria Newland and who is the assistant secretary of state here in the US and the US envoy to Ukraine in which Victoria Newland said and I quote f ⁇ the EU now

the the US has said that Newland has apologized for these reported comments. So wait she's apologized just for the reported comments Andy.

That implies that there are some unreported comments that she is not apologising for.

Perhaps she continued by calling the envoy back and saying, seriously, just to be clear, the EU can kiss my finging ass.

And you can tell them that.

In fact, I want you to find an EU delegate and I'm going to text you a photo of my ass and I want you to print it out and I want you to make them kiss that photo and I want you to take a photo of them kissing it and I want you to text that back to me.

Because f the EU. Seriously, I hope somebody's hacking this phone call right now.

And if they are, I hope they release it so that the EU knows that I, Victoria Newland, Assistant Secretary of State, think that they should go f themselves. Seriously,

those guys.

Them. All right, Newland out.

It's good that American diplomacy retained its delicate touch in the 21st century.

Queen bank account news now and well the Buckingham Palace Reserves Andy are apparently down to their last million pounds and how is that possible?

How can the Queen be down to so few of the things with her face on?

The Public Accounts Committee. Did you come out sweary today, John?

The Queen can't.

This doesn't make any sense. The point is the Public Accounts Committee in the UK has criticised the royal household for mismanaging their finances.

They currently get £31 million of taxpayer funds given to spend on official duties.

And those official duties might include things like travel for state visits overseas or more stupid f ⁇ ing weddings or soundproofing the basement in Buckingham Palace so the Queen can have her illegal cockfighting ring, which is when she forces her butlers to dress up in chicken costumes and then bare-knuckle box each other.

The report said that Buckingham Palace had overspent on their grant by £2.3 million last year and had to dip into its reserves, leaving a balance of only £1 million

on the 31st of March last year, a historically low level of contingency.

And the Queen usually wants an emergency fund of at least a million pounds, Andy, so that at a minute's notice she can order it for her to be spread all over her bed and she can jump up and down on it shouting i'm the queen i'm the queen i've never been exposed to the reality of money i'm the queen and i'm gonna go downstairs in a minute and watch some butlers in chicken costumes

fight each other

well she has to have a million because just in case she ever needs to order 100 000 pizzas at a short notice

But the problem is, down to a lot of millionas, one of the wealthiest women in the world, I think she's blown it all on the GG's online blackjack and bling, basically.

She wears expensive hats.

But that's 3% of her annual expenditure, this 1 million. That's basically a week and a half, John, before she is flat broke, living on the streets, busking out of cash and eating food out of bins.

These are dangerous times of this country. And as a result of this, she's managed to haggle a 22% pay rise.

Which so it's going to 38 million a year. Not bad for an oldie.

Most people her age are saving up to buy either a blanket or one of those part work magazines, Build Your Own Coffin in 30 issues, week one, a needlessly flashy handle.

And most other public sector workers are making do with no pay rise, a tiny pay rise, a massive wage slash if they're the wrong type of lawyer, or just a general economic nut squeeze.

But little Betty Baubles, little Betty Baubles is doing all right.

38 mill a year. I mean, I know it's not, it's not technically wage.
She's got expenses, courtiers, and shit like that, but still, her fing hat is worth more than Scotland.

The chairwoman of the public accounts committee, Margaret Hodge, said there was huge scope for savings for the royal household and the Buckingham Palace should be opened to more paying visitors whenever the Queen is not in residence to fund improvements to the royal estate.

To which the Queen said, Yeah, but not in the basement, right?

No one's allowed in the basement except me, right? I'm telling you, Andy, butler fights. Anyway,

the point is, she's got options, the Queen.

She could go with opening the palace to more visitors, or she could just go to Vegas and put the entire annual royal budget on black. If it comes through, she's fine.

And if it doesn't, she has to auction off naming rights to the next royal baby. Which might not be the worst thing, Andy.
We could well be looking in the future at King Snickers the first.

I hope I live that long, John.

As a result of

the shortage of funding, apparently staff at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are catching rain in buckets to protect the arts and antiquities in the palaces. That is bad news, John.

The last royal thing they had to catch in a bucket was Charles I's head. It does not bode well at all.

They also said the Queen's, this is a direct quote from an article article read about it, the Queen's old boilers were contributing to bills of £774,000 a year.

Can she not get some kind of surgery for that?

Oh, dropped another few rungs down the

Knighthood waiting list this week. Oh, boy.
There's not enough time in the world to wait, Andy.

Censoring the faces of pigs news now. And in Malaysia, a newspaper blacked out the faces of pigs in a picture in the International New York Times Malaysia edition.
This happened a couple of weeks ago.

And again, thanks to many of you who sent that in. We had about, I think about 80,000 people emailed us the story about the giant wooden penis in Russia.

There is something so heartwarming about, you know, know, people emailing something saying, you are going to need to see this. Or I saw this giant wooden penis on a car and immediately thought of you.

You go, okay.

Do you know what? I think I'm happy with that.

So the company that prints the newspaper blacked out the pictures of pigs in this article about antibiotic-free meats in America. because of concerns that these pictures might be offensive to

Muslims.

As As if the mere act of looking at a pig's piggy face could make lifelong adherence to the sacred word of Islam suddenly think, oh man, I would love to own that as a pet. I would love to own that.

That's right. You've been taught your whole life that pigs are unclean, but you look at their face and go, hello, hello, hello, Charlotte.
You have caught me in your web.

Frankly, if you've made your religious decisions and not eating piggies is one of those decisions, and probably not hanging out with piggies too much either is another of those decisions.

Then seeing a picture of a pig's snoutily porkine features is only going to make you think, yeah, I definitely made the right call on this one. Definitely the right call.

But the really big question from this, John, the really, really big question is why did they black out the pig's faces when their naked pig butts and braless pig tits were fully on display?

But surely they're either drawing their readers' attention away from the face onto the pig arse and making them think,

what are they trying to hide? These animals must have awesome faces.

But by dehumanising the pigs, the message is these animals are pieces of meat, which is presumably exactly what they were trying not to say. That's right.

You're treating them like pieces of meat, which under Islam they are not.

Absolutely not. And besides, surely, if you don't know what a pig looks like, you need to know what it looks like so you can avoid accidentally eating one on a night out.

The only possible explanation is that these specific pigs had to be facially redacted because they were clearly mouthing the words, eat meat, or don't knock it till you've tried it.

Most religions, as we know, have some pretty crazy rules. And some that might seem crazy now, but are probably pretty sound advice at the time.

And I think no eato piggo falls very much into that latter category.

Of course, these rules were made long before we had the technology to smoke, cure, and refrigerate rashes of pig to make them oh-so tasty for weeks and weeks.

I'm fully in favour of people's right to believe whatever they want.

And if that includes deliberately choosing a lifetime without the succulent, delicacy, and mouth-tinglingly ecstatic depth of flavor of a fine Iberian chamon, then fair play to you.

Fair play if you can turn that down for a lifetime. You have my undying respect.

But I think, in general, if a picture of an animal's face upsets you that much, reading a newspaper is a step too far for you.

And

in fact, the only genuine excuse for this, John, is that this was a special edition printed on edible bacon-flavoured paper. That is the only only possible reason I have for doing this.

Your emails now, this one came from Amy and Josh, who write, on the subject, please name our cat.

Dear Chris, John and Andy, in order of who is least likely to make our cat's name a pun, my wife and I are adopting a second cat and we'd like the bugle to name it for us.

Since this will be the cat's legal name, meaning the one that we say at the vet and around the house.

We'd appreciate it if the name used only as much profanity as is practical.

Also,

if the name were agendered, that would be great. For example, our first cat is named Peppers.
Thanks in advance. Okay.
Amy and Josh. Well, I mean,

that is a brave call to make, giving us that

responsibility. And I think maybe it's time for a bugle cat naming competition.

Oh boy. Andy, be careful what you wish for.
Well, no, no, I'm being careful.

I'm being careful what Amy and Josh wished for.

So try not to make it too profane, buglers. Do email in your suggestions for Amy and Josh's cat should be called

and mark it in the subject box cat name. And well,

we'll have a...

I think we should do this democratically.

I mean, frankly, that is maybe not quite as ludicrous as allowing us to name your child, which

I know has only been done once, and that was by my wife with our second child.

He ended up being called Horace. So, you know,

that is a risk.

That is a risk you take.

And this one came in from Niles, who says, can you explain your bleeping policy? Is it only f

and

f?

it's both of those things because you those were bleeped yeah so I don't know what the what those words were that he was asking about but it is only both of those

a lot of people a lot of people do contact us about bleeping saying we shouldn't we should not bleep

seems to split a split opinion uh amongst amongst people i mean i like a blemish bleep yeah yeah i like a bleep that has a it has a fun rhythm to it

i think if we plus there's that air there's that air of mystery yeah it's like a it's like a tassel on a 1920s burlesque boob. That's right.
You know basically what's underneath.

It's nice to have a tassel. Yeah.

You're a master of simile, John.

Do keep your emails coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com. Don't forget to check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle.

And you can get your bugle merch and take out your voluntary subscription to keep this podcast free and independent at thebuglepodcast.com.

Just time for a quick sports story, the biggest sports story probably of the last 2,000 years, John. England have sacked their star batsman, Kevin Peterson.

This is cricket we're talking about for any American listeners who struggle to understand these things.

Now, Peterson is...

He is a divisive figure. He's been dropped from the team once before for sending uncomplimentary texts about his own captain to opposition players.

He was recalled then a few months after that, but now he's been kicked out basically for good.

And the explanation from the English cricket authorities was basically to say it's time to look to the future, which made absolutely no sense because he's only 33.

So the subtext is, he's just frankly too much of a tool. There was no full explanation, which suggests both sides are a bit embarrassed as to how this has come about.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Peterson, but he has split opinion in English cricket so much that opinion has become a large city in Croatia where everyone performs leg splaying, groin, endangering gymnastics moves and shares the winnings in poker hands whilst eating bananas cut down the middle and doused with whipped cream with a cherry on top whilst listening to a 1971 album by the British blues rock group The Groundhogs.

But on a personal level, and I'll try and take the positives on these things, Peterson's demise is very good news for me because it puts me one step closer to a place in the England cricket team.

And half of the way, their cricket team has been falling apart like a particularly advanced leper this winter.

I only need three or four more injuries or another few players to be Trotskied into retirement in another England Wales cricket ward moral spring clean and I'll be right in there. Right in there.

I think Peterson's greatest problem, rather than anything specific, it just seems a bit vague is that he doesn't always sing off the team hymn sheet. And

sometimes it seems that he drowns out the rest of the team's sweet, sweet harmonies by playing the electric guitar with his teeth, Hendrix style. So it's been a tough winter for English cricket, John.

Tough, tough winter. I think it's the sign of Armageddon.
If you want more on Peterson R, there'll be a video of mine on Crick Info that I recorded yesterday,

including a very high-tech piece of kit called the sub-textricator, which extricates the subtext from

mealy-mouthed words. I'll put a link to it on the Bugle Twitter feed.
Hello, Buglers.

That's it for this week. We are done.
It's Bugle 260. Next week, Valentine's Day special.
We'll be recording on Valentine's.

This could be the, I don't think we've ever recorded actually on Valentine's Day before.

This could get really steaming. This could be very romantic.
It could get really steamy.

Really, really steamy.

Thanks for listening, buglers. Until next time, enjoy watching Vladimir Putin's smug, smug face for the next week.
Goodbye. Bye!