Bugle 258 – Nazis versus Terrorists

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 258 of The Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world for the week beginning Monday, the 27th of January 2014 with me Andy Zoltzman that's my story and I'm sticking with it and joining me in the city that never sleeps must be stressed about money have young children or wracked by existential guilt is New York USA it's the man who can do anything he recently turned a puppy into a dog just by keeping in his flat for a couple of years it's the dock maker general himself John Oliver hello Andy hello buglers that's right Andy I'm the dog Jesus

Water, wine, puppy, dog.

I did the second one.

How hard can the first be?

That's all about confidence, isn't it?

That's right.

Or a very very light coloured Riesling that's that's the key

it's fing cold here in New York Andy I don't know how cold it is where you are or where anyone is but it's not as fing cold as it is here

I think you might have frozen the subway solid this morning right and it's so cold that it could not be melted by people's flaming anger and there was a lot of that wow I mean in New York that is that is saying something

so that seems to be an increasingly common complaint from you, John.

Yeah, because it is, because it's f ⁇ ing cold, Andy.

Right.

I predict that you will change your tune within six months.

I doubt that.

I doubt that.

I'm pretty stuck on this at the moment, Andy.

I think you're probably wrong.

So, yes, the week beginning Monday, the 27th of January, 2014, that marks the 11th anniversary of the creation of the Department of Homeland Insecurity.

Also, it marks 1,973 years since the death of Caligula, the professional emperor, platinum-level horndog, aqueduct fan, Burlusconi inspiration, and five-time Roman pervert of the year.

That was a hotly contested title back in the day, and remains a hotly contested title.

It's one thing to win it, it's another to retain it, Andy.

That's right.

Five times, they should almost have retired it at that point.

Yeah, well, they didn't retire it, as the history of Rome since then can testify.

He is, nevertheless, still a

hall of famer in

Roman perversion, but there have been a lot of pretty impressive challenges from his spiritual descendants in the eternal city, particularly some of the medieval popes.

Cracking band that was, too.

Including a man with a strong claim to being the pissed poorest pontiff of all time, John XII.

He was a 10th century AD pope who was a famous shagger, boozehound, devil worshipper,

occultist, rapist, thief, incestualizer, and murderer.

Wow.

That is not classic Pope materialism.

Pony really ticks the last one in Pope Boxes there, didn't he?

All this is alleged.

I don't want his lawyers to get cranky with us.

But it's alleged that he stole church treasures, slept with his two sisters.

He's alleged to have raped peasants and pilgrims, sometimes in St.

Peter's itself, which I'm pretty sure from my visit to the Vatican is on the list of prohibited activities, along with flash photography, low-cut tops, screaming, and genocide.

Before wrapping up his innings of immorality by being battered to death with a hammer by the husband of a woman into whose supposedly spoken-for spangle crank he was flamboying his popy prongulum.

He was made pope as a teenager, John,

this John XII geezer.

It turns out giving someone that amount of celebrity and influence at that young an age can seriously affect their behaviour.

So very much the Justin Bieber of his day, which I think is why Bieber's followers are called believers.

It's a nod to his papal heritage.

But let's try and be positive about John XII.

Let's see the good in what he did.

He ordained a deacon in a stable.

That's just money money saving.

He consecrated a 10-year-old boy as bishop.

If you're good enough, you're old enough.

And what an inspiration to young wannabe bishops around the world.

That's got to improve kids' behavior.

He drank toasts to the devil.

Buttering up your enemies, keeping the D-Dog on site might calm him down a bit.

He had an awful temper.

He invoked pagan gods when playing dice.

That is surely better than invoking pagan gods when conducting mass.

He maimed and mutilated his opponents.

Cruel to be kind.

He converted a papal palace into a brothel.

Business is business.

And he castrated one of his cardinals.

Well, he probably wasn't going to use them anyway, and it made him more hydrodynamic in nudie swimming races.

Now, that is a checklist of naughtiness that Caligula himself would have been proud of, or at least considered a morning well spent.

John XII was criticized heavily at the time by contemporary pundits, including the prominent monk commentator Alan Schiririus, who said about John XII, he'll be disappointed with that.

When you're Pope, you've just got to do better than that.

So that's,

yeah, indirectly, that's happy death day to Caligula and everything that he inspired.

As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

This week, Bugle Undercover.

We go undercover to investigate your queries about what is really going on in the world, including answering the following questions.

Are British schoolchildren being put through mock executions in school playgrounds to increase discipline in the classroom?

Are the big oil companies stealing stray dogs off the street, pulping them down in an industrial macerator to make a new carbon product, pooch oil, that can make cars run fast and bark at potential car thieves?

And is Barack Obama secretly running an illegal codger fighting ring in which major global figures from politics, industry, and showbiz meet in a Washington warehouse and bet sums of tens of thousands of dollars on bare-knuckle punch-ups between pensioners?

I can reveal the answer to all those questions.

Almost certainly not.

We are now 99% sure that section in the bin.

Top story story this week, all aboard the peace train, destination, hopefully slightly less fighting.

It's the peace summit roundup.

Now, we talked a lot about Syria last week, Andy, which I guess separated us from most comedy podcasts and also the news.

A summit on Syria has been taking place this week in Switzerland, because what says, calm the f ⁇ down to two sides, more than easy access to cuckoo clocks, chocolate, skiing, and an ugly national history of ignoring genocides.

This has been that's that's that is indisputable.

I'm not willing to argue with the Swiss on that.

This has been a long time coming.

Diplomats from the UN, the US, and Russia have been carefully cajoling both sides in the Syrian conflict to come to the table and talk in what has become known as Geneva 2.

It is the blockbuster sequel to Geneva 1 that everyone hoped would not be necessary.

Geneva 1, I'm tired of this shit.

Geneva 2, this time it's even more personal.

As we know, John, that

bafflingly some sequels get made no matter how bad the original was.

Yeah.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it would be unforgivable not to seize this opportunity to end a conflict that has left more than 100,000 people dead and driven 9.5 million from their homes.

Although part of the problem is that it is also unforgivable that 100,000 people have died because of this conflict, and it's going to be very hard to forgive the people directly responsible for it.

That is the tough thing about peace negotiations, isn't it, Andy?

The forgiveness part is a tricky egg to scramble.

That's been proven throughout history.

As a result of this, there was not a great deal of optimism heading into the summit.

Very much the

view to have the same likelihood of success as Leica, the pioneering Soviet cosmodogs prospect of managing a full successful re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and a smooth manual landing.

You try controlling a 1950 space rocket without opposable thumbs whilst trying to read an instruction manual written in Russian.

Peace fans had basically about as much hope as animal fans had of Ian the tasty-looking but socially nervous lamb of managing to talk his way out of the abattoir.

And

it did not start too well.

Any guesses, buglers?

A quick multiple choice question for you now, how the talks on the first day went between the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition.

Were they A, mature, constructive, and mutually respectful?

B.

Understandably tense but conciliatory and productive.

C oddly jovial, occasionally lewd and increasingly drunken.

Or D.

Furiously vitriolic, with accusations thrown around like a frail granny who had wandered into WrestleMania 29 wearing an I Hate Muscly Men t-shirt.

Answers on a postcard.

It was even before day one, the build-up was so tense, especially since there was absolutely no guarantee that either side would even bother to turn up.

And it could very well have ended up with Banki-moon sitting on his own at a massive table in Switzerland, doodling a unicorn on a piece of paper and trying to remember all the words to hear come the hot stepper.

Oh, that is a

killer past.

It's how I kill time.

Word are up, I'm the lyrical gangster.

Word are up.

Excuse me, Mr.

Officer.

Tensions were increased even further when just three days before the conference, President Assad said in an interview that there was a significant chance that he would seek a third term in office in elections due this June in Syria.

And you have to remember, when he says run for office, he means take office.

It's like if there was one scoop of ice cream in a bowl left and Assad said, I'm now going to run a campaign for that final scoop of ice cream.

You know deep down that that ice cream is going into his face and anyone who thinks otherwise is going to end up extremely dead.

As you say, it's been a tough week for the UN Secretary General, Ban Keith Moon, who's wearing the face of someone who's very much had enough of saying, please stop killing each other and he spoke

and said this enough is enough the time has come to negotiate which he's basically been saying now for three years and the fact is enough was enough fing ages ago and the time to negotiate was early in 2011 or at any point subsequently in 2012 or 2013.

We have a difficult road ahead, he said, but it can be done and it must be done, he said, before getting into his car, driving two yards down that road and disappearing into a sinkhole.

Well, Well, he didn't, he maybe didn't help things out because before the pre-talks talks even began, there was a huge surprise when Iran was suddenly invited along too.

And that seemed like a bold move.

That's like taking an already intensely spicy bowl of chili and adding an actual hand grenade to it.

You have to question whether its inclusion is in the best interest of the dish as a whole.

Iran has been a key ally of Assad, but Banki Moon apparently said that he strongly believed Iran had to be part of the solution to the crisis in Syria and he might be right about that but do you introduce it at this difficult early stage when you have a mountain to climb do you release a bunch of lions at the bottom of the mountain as well lions are majestic creatures Andy undeniably but maybe at least get out of base camp first before you're gored to death

it's very hard to know what we what more we can do John because a lot of the debates at Geneva 2 are about the communique issued at Geneva 1 and really what more more can the international community do than issue a communique and ask people to sign it?

There are no other avenues down which we can row the leaking gondola of diplomacy.

And unsurprisingly, this invitation turned out to be trying to calm down a wasp's nest by slamming your head into it whilst dressed as a bee.

And Tehran instantly accepted the offer, pledging to play a positive and constructive role.

At which point, the opposition national coalition firmly announced the entire port peace talks could f the f off until Iran was de-invited.

And a day later, Banki Moon was forced to retract his invitation.

And well, you gotta hand it to BKM Andy.

He must be great at throwing dinner parties.

Who have you invited, dear?

Oh, well, I've invited Tom and Margot

and Michael and Diane.

I thought that'd be nice.

And then I thought I'd invite Michael's ex-wife as well.

And that guy who Margot once went on a date with and said it was the worst experience of her life.

And then I also invited that guy everyone thinks he's responsible for burning the local church down.

Should be a fun evening, right, love?

There are 40 different states in attendance at this conference, which does sound slightly like too many cooks spoiling the broth.

But I guess on the other side of that...

It's a shitty broth.

But the broth tastes like the shit that it's been made with, so you might as well let as many cooks have a look at it as possible and try and learn from the previous cooks' mistakes.

Mexico are there.

That's got to bring, you know,

bring some big hats and overhead kicks to the situation.

And the Vatican

the Vatican City there

are they really?

Yeah, so maybe we're just gonna try and persuade both sides in the conflict to stop using condoms.

Maybe that'll help

They are really hanging in there with condoms are the main problem and the entire world aren't they?

You cannot question their commitment to that concept.

Day one was supposed to just be ceremonial with a sequence of formal speeches without one another in the room, just dipping your toe into diplomacy to test the temperature of the water.

But it turns out that temperature could overboil an egg faster than it takes you to say, wow, that egg boiled quickly.

Wow.

Syria's foreign minister said his country was engaged in a war against terrorist groups, adding that only the Syrian people could decide on Assad's future.

And the opposition leader said that human rights violations in Syria were reminiscent of Nazi Germany and suggested that President Assad leaving was a complete precondition for peace.

So, I mean, you have to hand it to him, Andy.

That's a hell of an opening bid from each side.

One side getting called terrorists, while the other side is getting called Nazis.

If it was a poker game, you'd be getting a lot of other people pushing their cards into the middle of the table saying, yeah, this game's a little spicy for me, before grabbing the coats off the back of their chairs and running home.

Well, just bear in mind, bear in mind, those two men weren't even supposed to be in the negotiating room together until later today when they're scheduled to negotiate in private, and there's no word about whether they're in there or how it's going yet, but I just hope they removed anything pointy and made sure that they screwed the chairs to the floor.

This all explains why Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said that the talks between the

warring sides from Syria will be, quotes, like an overweight, arthritic, and spiritually committed nun.

So, sorry, no, no, he said they'll be neither quick nor easy.

You want to just

celebrate that, Andy?

That's fine, fine.

Are you running around the table, or you just want to tapping that in and picking up the ball and running back to the centre circle?

But perhaps the most constructive contribution came from Tony Abbott, the Australian Prime Minister, who swept to power in last year's election on a platform of, as far as I could make out, being anti-immigrants, anti-women, and anti-scientific fact.

And he weighed into the Syrian debate by saying that it often seems like a struggle that involves baddies versus baddies.

And I guess the best way

an adult said that

are you sure he wasn't overheard explaining it to his three-year-old well I mean it was the Australian people that's you know I guess you could argue that is very much a spiritual three-year-old I wouldn't say that myself I would leave that to you to let me just let me just warn you Andy about what making glib comments on this podcast can do to the nation of Australia

he also said

I guess the best way for them to demonstrate for all of them to demonstrate, if some of them are goodies, is to lay down their arms.

Oh, man.

There we go.

God.

You know, often.

I don't think he understands that in laying down the arms, the other one, it seems, is going to commit ethnic cleansing.

It's hard.

The baddies are real uppercase B baddies in this case.

Yes,

that is.

He explained his use of colloquial language, saying he was trying to explain complex situations to ordinary people.

So

read into that what you will, Australia.

That's your Prime Minister calling it, not me or John.

It gets one step bleaker than that, because just days before the talks were scheduled to begin, Syria's national reconciliation minister, that is the man whose sole job, Andy,

sole job, does he even have an option

to positively drive to find a way to bring anyone together.

He said, don't expect anything from Geneva 2.

Neither Neither Geneva 2 nor Geneva 3 nor Geneva 10 will solve the Syrian crisis.

The solution has begun and will continue through the military triumph of the state.

Whoa.

Is he aware of what his job title is, Andy?

Because he's acting like Syria's national provocation minister and they already seem to have hundreds of those.

Well that's got to be a tough that's a tough brief isn't it?

National reconciliation.

That's I guess like being in charge of the Congolese Congolese Winter Olympic team.

You know, it's, you know, at best you're hoping for quite shit results.

It's not just politicians and business leaders who've been

at Davos.

There have been a lot of celebs there, including charity active actors such as Goldie Horn, Matt Damon, and the late Buster Keaton, plus the South Korean rapper Psy, the originator of the worldwide hit Gang Nam Style.

Why was he there, you may ask?

Is it because the whole thing is just a glorified jolly of no practical use to anyone earning under $500,000 a year?

No, it's not that.

No, it turns out that

if you play Gagnam style backwards, it is a trenchant refutation of Keynesian economics.

He's very much

their poster boy.

Some interesting talks held at the meeting included business and sustainability, managing profit margins in a shrinking marketplace, who needs plebs, does watching people starve give you the horn, and masturbating over the share price page in the Wall Street Journal is perfectly normal behavior.

So, some fascinating stuff going on in the Swiss mountains.

In one of the more jarring juxtapositions of humanity, Switzerland is actually running another summit at the same time this week, and that is the World Economic Summit in Davos.

So, one in Geneva, two blood-drenched sides scream at each other in hopeless rage.

In Davos, billionaires ski around each other on champagne-drenched mountains.

And

that is what you could have had.

It's, you know, that's right, it's the bookends of life on this particular globe in one.

I don't know.

How far is Davos from Geneva?

It can't be that far.

No, I mean, Switzerland

isn't that big.

It takes a while to get around just because you have to just stop and count all your Jewish gold every couple of miles.

I don't know.

In actual distance.

It was ages ago, Andy.

Actually, it wasn't that long ago at all.

In one of the more.

In an effort to assist those billionaires into understanding understanding what the non-snowboarding millionaire life is,

apparently they'll be able to take part in exercises such as a refugee run, where a charity called the Crossroads Foundation is attempting to highlight the plight of refugees by pushing some of the richest people in the world down a street and jostling them a little bit.

It was billed as an attempt to give the rich and powerful an insight into what it's like to be penniless and powerless.

Well, they don't need a refugee run to show them that, Andy, they should just go up to one of their servants, ideally one whose name they think they might be able to guess, and simply ask them how their day was.

That's basically all they need.

The whole location of Switzerland for the Syrian peace talks may be a mistake, especially after there were some developments in the South Sudan.

peace talks this week.

You might remember that last bugle we talked about the fact that after a double booking in a hotel conference room in Addis Ababa the Sudanese peace talks took place on the dance floor of an elite nightclub, the basement of an elite nightclub in Ethiopia.

And we liked the detail of that story because

it was silly.

They were on a dance floor in front of a DJ booth talking about incredibly serious things.

And to get to the negotiation table, we also found out last week they had to cross a big glass bridge and sit in a room that probably still smelt of perfume and margaritas.

And, you know, here's the thing.

It worked.

They officially signed a ceasefire in South Sudan this week.

I knew there was something in it, Andy.

It was too stupid not to work.

Nightclub diplomacy is the future.

Every summit should have a velvet rope at the front, and all delegates should be given glow sticks.

The Secretary General of the UN should not be Banky Moon, Andy.

It should be Red Foo or Will I Am or Skrillex.

And in fact,

Skrillex.

Skrillex, yeah, Skrillex.

Isn't that as some kind of ointment you can use for genital infections?

No, it is a hybrid international DJ and sink cleaner.

My mistake.

In fact, Andy, this is how all nightclubs should now be advertising.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Come on down to the vortex.

We have four floors of hardhouse dance music, all of which also double perfectly as a space to negotiate the ends to an intractable conflict.

Yeah,

nice.

There are phone cannons in the ceiling.

Perfect for taking the party up a notch, and also perfect for injecting a moment of levity into discussions about millions of displaced civilians.

Every Friday night, people are bouncing and reaching for the lasers, but on Saturday afternoons, people can be reaching for lasting solutions to the brutalities of war.

All of this is available for your vortex.

We also do bar mitzvahs.

Women get in free.

Come on down.

Woo-hoo!

Oh, that's a lot of background research has gone into that, John.

I'm very impressed.

That background research is called being 15 at one point, actually.

At one point.

In the middle of last week.

Well, I mean, this does raise some hope if the

nightclub diplomacy has worked in

Africa.

It just seems that just a bit of fun is needed.

We are in Switzerland.

What is Switzerland synonymous with?

Bob Sled runs, John.

Are you telling me that if you put two people from each side in the Syrian conflict in a four-man bob and chuck them down a bobsled run, they will not sort it out within approximately 45 seconds

with the g-forces running through their necks?

They will sort it out.

Has anyone from a major bobsled team ever started a war?

No, almost certainly not.

I mean, it...

Feels instinctively like you're wrong, but mathematically, I think you're right.

Can I just say that there has been some bizarre pop culture thread running through the last 20 minutes?

You've come up, Andy, with your typical slightly odd pronunciation of a pop act.

That's fine.

All right, well, how's it supposed to be?

And I think you're close enough.

It was more silent, but that's...

And then, John, not only have you referred to Skrillex and Rave Knights, you've also done a

terrible misquotation of Inny Comozi's Here Comes the Hot Stepper.

What was it?

Misquotation?

Why is it?

It's famous for the man who studies it in death.

You said they call me unstable, and then what did you next say?

I said, Here come the hot stepper.

I'm the lyrical gangster.

Excuse me, Mr.

Officer.

That's what I said.

I'm sure you said word her up or something like that.

I'm sure you're murderer.

It's murderer.

It's got to be murderer.

I got my teenage years wrong.

Sorry.

No, don't do not apologize.

Listen,

if I've inaccurately quoted

Iine Camozi,

I apologise, Chris, and you're right to pick me up on that.

I do not want Comozzi's lawyers to descend on us like a pack of vultures.

This is a new show.

We need our content to be accurate.

He was one of Quadruplers, Iney Camozi's, brothers Meanie, Miney, and Mo.

Water Cannon news now.

And in an amazing move, the police in Britain are to ask the Home Secretary for permission to use water cannons against protesters across the country.

The argument apparently from police chiefs is that more water cannons are going to be necessary because, and I quote, austerity measures are likely to lead to continued protest.

And this puts the government in an extremely awkward situation.

Andy, because if they sign off on these water cannons, they've essentially said, look, we acknowledge now that there is serious social unrest due to our policies.

So we would like to pacify that unrest by blasting people in the face with water cannons.

Unless unrest is soluble, Andy, I'm not sure that's going to work.

It's an amazing fork in the road.

Do we craft a new policy in the wake of public unrest and attempt to find a nuanced solution to this complicated economic and social problem?

Or

do we shoot shoot people in the face with water cannons?

Let's put it to a vote in the room.

Hands up for nuanced policy.

Anyone?

Anyone at all?

Raise your hand.

Okay, I think I know where this is going, but just to be sure, hands up for water cannons it is.

You don't need an exact head count there, Stefan.

Just put down all and zero.

Critics have warned that this is a step towards the militarization of the police and could be used to stifle the democratic right to protest.

While supporters of the move have highlighted that it is a step towards the militarisation of the police and could be used to stifle the democratic right to protest.

And it does show, John, that I think to serving politicians, the word protest is basically the same as the word riot.

And they basically think to themselves, well, I've seen the highlights of St.

Petersburg 1917, these things never end well.

And

it has two benefits.

If any protesters float on the water, they can also be prosecuted as witches.

The Commissioner of the Met Police, Sir Bernard Hogan Howe, has pledged that water cannon would be like a 19th century child, rarely used and rarely seen.

And many public facilities are like that.

You know, we have to know that they're there, but they won't necessarily be used.

For example, nuclear weapons, the poor, tax avoidance charges for the super wealthy, and morality.

And water cannons are very much in that same political category.

Boris Johnson, writing to the Home Secretary, said,

referred to the interim water cannon solution, which I think is a band he was in at school, as quote, a national asset.

That makes it sound like something we can promote ourselves with as a nation.

Britain, a hotbed historically of industrial invention, democratic freedoms, artistic creativity, an innate willingness to complain about non-extreme weather conditions, and a never-say-die, stiff upper lip attitude that has seen us through wars, plagues, and hundreds of years of a frankly appalling national diet.

We also have water cannons.

Team GB.

God spray our gracious queen.

God splash our soggy queen.

God bathe the queen.

The other irony is that these water cannons would be used in the face of public anger at massive cutbacks, and they themselves are not cheap to buy, Andy.

We would be spending nearly a million dollars, I think, over £600,000

per cannon, which adds serious insults to water-inflicted injury.

The water cannon we've apparently been looking at purchasing around the country is apparently the Ziegler Wassawfer 9000,

And it's not a fake name

Ziegler Wasser Welfer 9000

That sounds like the kind of thing that Hitler would have invented if he'd been born a bit later and got into designing water parks

But it could get I mean, yeah, it would have would have been if only if Yeah, sure, it would have been preferable, but I still think he could have found a way to make them devastated.

And you certainly would not be getting a ticket for the big flume either, Andy.

But it can get through its 9,000 litres, apparently, in just five minutes at full pressure.

Apparently, the water in the tank has to be kept at five degrees centigrade to prevent the onset of medical conditions associated with the shock of being exposed to cold water.

De Ziegler Wassevel for 9,000.

Basically, the subtext of everything Boris Johnson has said is Clean the hippies.

First decent shower that I've had in 20 years.

Exactly.

If we've got any wedge left over from the water cannons, we'll buy some ninjas with those throwing stars to give them a long-distance haircut too.

Oh, Margaret, you did not die in vain.

Sports news now and some wonderful news for the nation of Britain.

Frankl, the former champion racehorse who has reported exclusively in Bugle 214, how sincere time had been earning his living as an equal and gigolo, banging ladyhorses on demand in exchange for suitcases full of cash, has become a father.

His first foal was born this week, and a BBC correspondent described it as being like the birth of a royal child.

Well, it's as important.

Well, it's probably worth more.

We're all going to spend a lot of our time betting on things that it does or doesn't do.

Anyway, I went down to the Coolmore Stud Farm in Horseland, sorry, Ireland, to talk to the five-year-old Horse Thario.

Frankel, unbeaten champion racehorse, two-time European Horse of the Year.

Thank you very much for talking to the bugle.

You're welcome, Andy.

Long-time listener.

Thanks for coming down.

So I hear congratulations are in order.

You and your sometime girlfriend Chrysanthemum have just had a baby.

Yeah, thanks, Andy.

He's a lovely little foal, apparently.

I don't expect I'll get to have much say in his upbringing though.

I don't see his mother much anymore.

Oh, why is that?

Not too impressed that I've also impregnated 125 other horses.

I've told her I can change, but she's having none of it.

Well, those must be some seriously impressive horseballs you've got there, big stuff.

From you, Andy, that means a lot.

You want some grass?

Uh, no, thanks, not really my scene.

Now, it sounds like you must be having an absolutely awesome time in retirement.

What, the serious, f ⁇ candy?

Seriously?

You mean that?

Sure, it was fun at first.

I like a bit of the old giddy up Tonto as much as the next horse.

But after a while, you want a little bit more out of life than coerced casual sex whilst some guy with a clipboard watches on and checks that you leave the appropriate deposit.

I know I shouldn't say I feel like a piece of meat, but a lot of my old horse racing friends are literally pieces of meat.

But I want more out of life than f ⁇ y f ⁇ y horsey horsey.

but uh i've heard the money's really good 15 million pounds you're said to have earned as a horse decute in your first year on the game yeah but you know how the industry works after the bosses have taken their bit i'll be lucky to see three mil of that what am i going to spend it on it's very hard to find nice clothes in my size i don't like fancy food and i'm not allowed to drive a car Right.

Okay, now I don't want to get personal here, Frankl, but after so many conquests, do you have any well, difficulty, you know,

making Percy perky?

Hell yeah.

They have to show me videos of the Australian super horse Black Caviar winning the new market handicap in 2011 to get me even halfway handy these days.

Man, she was a hottie.

Oh yeah, I know she wants it.

I know she wants it.

She's a good horse.

Can't let her get past me.

You see what I mean, Andy?

I've changed.

I've changed.

Frankl, thank you very much for talking to the bugle.

Get me out of here, Andy.

I'll do anything.

Pantomime, donkey rides on the beach.

My horsey dongle needs a holiday.

Not in France, but somewhere.

Well done, Andy.

That was

for getting that, scooping that official interview.

Well done.

Now, just a bit of context.

Frankl was indeed the world's top racehorse.

He won all 14 of his races, and he apparently commands a £125,000 a time stud fee.

Apparently he mated with 133 mares at Banstead Manor Farm near Newmarket between February and June 2013 and has been described as both super fertile and, I quote, a thorough gentleman.

Again, just to be clear, he may be described as a thorough gentleman, but he's still very much an actual horse.

He yielded an estimated £15 million from his first season at stud, 15 million, and could reap a total of more than £100 million from his breeding.

Just his breeding career alone.

But will he truly find love, Andy?

No, and that's the tragic thing.

Not because of the money involved, but because he is, and I think we keep forgetting this, a horse.

He is just a horse.

But clearly...

Economically, this is just the beginning, Andy.

You have to let the market dictate behaviour.

And we should be doing this with athletes.

In Britain, we have great cyclists.

And it is a national economic tragedy that we are not currently putting Sir Chris Hoy out to stud.

It's a waste.

Well I mean surely by now I mean gold the price of gold has collapsed.

There's no real certainties in the international markets these days but you would have thought that

you know the the the sperm and eggs of leading sportsmen and sportswomen really should be the most stable currency there is in the world.

Yeah, Chris Hoy's sperm has never gone down in value.

Never is a true word.

The problem is, you just don't want terrorist groups getting hold of it.

That's

such a good point.

Your emails now, and we just have time for a very quick email.

We have one here from Laura who says, Dear Andy, John, and Chris, I won't come up with a reason for it as you shouldn't cushion the horror that is to come with humor.

Okay.

She says, I present to you three words never previously used together.

Queen-shaped dildo.

And she then provides

a web link, basically seemingly coming off the website

masterpieces.com.

She says, I can't even think of anything funny to say as my mind is still reeling in horror at the fact that someone went to the trouble of making a phallus in the shape of the queen, thinking someone would want to, you know, stick it up there.

Anyway, I felt the need to share this horror with others, and as my friends no longer accept my declarations of, oh, come look at this, I felt you all and possibly the rest of the buglers were the next logical choice.

Yours in disgusted terror and in need of eye bleach, Laura.

Well, wow.

That is

either the ultimate honour or the ultimate insult.

I mean, this is a philosophical issue we've touched on a number of times on the bugle, right back to the early days of whether,

you know,

fantasizing about the spoilers.

I just clicked on the link.

I mean, is that patriotic or treasonous?

I mean, it is such a fine line, isn't it?

That's not safe.

She's wearing the f ⁇ ing crown.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

Let's hope it's not a detachable crown.

Yeah, well.

Oh, no.

I wish I hadn't clicked on that.

I wish I hadn't clicked on that.

Yeah.

Well, I mean,

you cannot unclick on a web page of a queen-shaped dildo.

They call it Her Vajesty.

That's not an acceptable pun.

pun.

Does it not show the esteem in which she is held that a patriotism

would want her

netherables to commune with the almighty monarch?

That surely shows that...

I mean, you do not have a David Cameron-shaped dildo, I assume.

I hope and pray.

Don't ask that, because I'm sure there is one somewhere.

Chris has just shown me from the same company what appears to be a dildo shaped like a rabbi.

Yep.

I mean that's

that's either building bridges across communities or burning bridges.

It's called the rampant rabbi.

We find ourselves, ladies and gentlemen, at the sharp end of capitalism because there would not be supply without demand.

Maybe this

when again this this could be used in Syria, you know, I mean an Assad

pleasure would, you know,

mean, it would sell, certainly, wouldn't it?

Well, thanks for bringing our attention to that.

And

really, that's got to be one of the low points of the 258 episodes.

Arguably matched by this from Sebastian, who wrote, Dear Andy and Chris, in order of whose fault this is, my girlfriend is coming over this weekend, and my manbush needed a good tidy-up.

I thought I would get my regular bugle fix while I do this.

What's the worst that could happen?

All was going smoothly until about minute 22, when the mention of giving Dick Cheney a reach around just to stop him masturbating in front of you for the rest of his life.

At this point, I started giggling uncontrollably, which, when you have what is essentially two blades very close to your junk, is very dangerous.

My self-performed operation now makes me kin floke with Andy.

Do you feel the connection to?

I'm very concerned about the blue direction

emails.

Yeah, you need to raise your game bugles pretty soon.

There's quite enough filth coming in.

Oh, dear.

Yes.

Well,

it's going to be hard to forget that.

Please, can we end this show?

Please, please, can we end the concept of monarchy after that?

Well, do keep your emotes coming in,

preferably

not involving

royalty-related

sexual accessories to info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Don't forget to check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle, and buy your bugle merch and your volunteer subscriptions at thebuglepodcast.com.

There is nothing more to add to this.

Nothing more.

The rest is silence.

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.