Bugle 253 – Lenin in a Dress

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Hello buglers and welcome to issue 253 of the Bugle for the week beginning Monday the Somethings and something something thousand and something team I am Andy Zoltzmann, father of two, husband of one, slayer of zero.

All those are accurate up to and including our recording date of Friday, the 13th of December, 2013.

And joining me from his bolt hole of badinage in New York City, it's the Lancer of Bombastic Boils, the Popper of Zeitgeist Zitz, the squelcher of the cysts of self-interest, and the pricker of the pustulent pimples of political pomposity.

All then beautified with his patented faceback of funny.

It's John, the topical torpedo, Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

hello buglers uh andy cricket is dead yeah it's dead cricket cricket is dead now the buglers who aren't aware that england are playing australia in the ashes series and england are playing the game basically their new technique seems to be to smash themselves in the face with a cricket bat yeah until they fall over yeah that seems to be what they're doing andy would that be fair well i'd say for our american listeners that it's sort of the equivalent the way england are playing of a baseball team all going up to to bat standing at home plate, looking confident at the plate, and then just as the pitcher hurls the ball at them, just smashing themselves in the nuts with their bats.

That's basically what England are doing at the moment.

What makes this different from when I was growing up, John, and through the 80s and then into the 90s?

England will often get thrashed, but then they weren't very good.

Whereas now England actually have a very good team, and they're now getting thrashed again.

Yeah, it's different, isn't it?

I blame the fact that...

I think things move on.

Yeah.

You blame her dying?

Definitely.

I think

they're too grief-stricken.

Ever since Thatcher sadly passed, the England cricket team just hasn't quite been the same.

They scraped together some results in the summer, but I think they just

can't coke.

It's really hit them that she's gone.

Yeah.

Oh, she's gone.

So this is

Bugle 253.

For the week beginning Monday, the 16th of December.

2013, which means it's five years ago on Sunday, in fact, Sunday the 15th.

Five years since my son popped out all over the bathroom floor.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

As long-term buglers

would remember.

Just

it's all coming flooding back.

Anyone thinking of having a child, be warned.

It's probably worthwhile, but it is f ⁇ ing disgusting at the time.

240 years, John, since the Boston Tea Party.

16th of December, 1773.

Another mess.

Yep, just shows the difference between our nations in Britain.

A tea party involved a nice cup of tea, maybe some scones.

The papering over of personal regrets for the sake of polite conversation and some biscuits.

In America, maritime security beach and wastage of valuable consumer goods.

The terrorists attacked our tea, John.

I've got some of the newspaper headlines from the tabloids of the day.

Cup a load of this.

Brew must be joking.

Leave fuss alone.

The, rebels cock snook at king with tea tip terror.

And the Times of London went with large amounts of tea dropped into Boston Harbour as taxation become significant point of difference between Britain and the locals.

Happy birthday Ludwig van Beethoven, 243 years old today.

Very much the Robin Thick of his day, I believe.

Oh God.

Poor Ludwig.

I'm so glad he's both deaf and dead so that he doesn't have to hear that.

Very similar positions of influence within the musical stratosphere.

You know, let's not be judgmental just because Beethoven didn't have,

you know, all his works weren't laced with misogyny.

You know, that's, you know, that's not a

qualitative thing to do with their music, John.

Apparently, when he played Beethoven 6 for the first time, though, Andy, he did have naked ladies just waggle around the piano.

Yeah.

Right.

It was a marketing thing, mainly.

It was not about the music.

It just get people to watch.

Yeah.

Guess that's the way it goes.

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

This week, can audio advent calendar?

Here are all your Audio Advent Calendar openings for this week.

Do play this bit

one day at a time over the course of the week.

Monday the 16th of December, a tree covered in snow.

Tuesday the 17th, a bell.

Wednesday, the 18th, a holly leaf.

Thursday the 19th, a snowman with no visible penis.

Friday the 20th, a Christmas pudding or bomb.

Hard to tell.

Saturday the 21st, a different bell.

Sunday the 22nd, an angel looking Randy.

Or could be looking holy.

it's not very well drawn sorry it's quite a cheap advent calendar next week the 23rd and 24th and your free audio christmas puppy

top story this week mind the wealth gap america's wealth gap has demonstrably andy taken on a grand canyon level to it it is on track to become a natural wonder of the world and anyone who manages to jump over America's wealth gap in the future Andy is almost guaranteed sponsorship by Red Bull.

But according to a Bloomberg national poll, the widening gap between rich and poor is eroding faith in the American dream.

Incidentally, Michael Bloomberg, who owns the company that took that poll, has a personal wealth of $31 billion.

So

he's had not just a hand, but also a huge f ⁇ ing shovel widening that gap himself.

But, you know, that's not the point here.

It's a much bigger, better point, but it's not the one we're looking at.

By almost two to one, 64% to 33%,

Americans say the US no longer offers everyone an equal chance to get ahead.

Now, it is arguable, of course, whether it ever truly did, but I certainly think it's fair to say that the American dream has become even harder to actually dream now without reality creeping in.

Oh, I had this amazing dream.

Sweetheart, I was working in a factory and I was working really hard and I was hoping to get a promotion, maybe up into management of some kind but then I didn't get it but so I worked even harder and then I didn't get it again so I tried dreaming really really hard in my dream to get ahead in life and well it just started to seem impractical in the economic climate so I tried dreaming of flying instead but I couldn't get my feet off the ground and then I woke up sorry did I say I had an amazing dream I meant to say I had a plausible dream

Well, it's become quite indefinable now, the 21st century American dream.

It seems to me to be something that you can't quite remember when you wake up, possibly involving the vague sensation of chasing a shadowy monster down an endless corridor whilst needing a wee and being unable to find your trousers.

Or maybe something about your children asking you something really important, but not being able to

speak and give them an answer, but just moving your mouth up and down, then waking up to find out that they've left home without telling you and emigrated.

That seems to be basically what it is.

What it is now.

Statistics.

The statistics really don't stop being shocking, though.

Last year, the richest 10% of Americans earned more than half of all income.

Andy, those are near revolution-inducing numbers.

If Wall Street bankers had Versailles style ornately clipped hedges outside their penthouse apartment buildings, I think people in this country might actually be waxing the blades on some guillotines right now.

The incredible thing is that the poll goes on to show that American people are less concerned about this wealth gap than you might reasonably expect.

Only 45% of Americans say that new policies are needed in response to this, while 46% say it would be better to allow the market to operate freely even if the gap gets wider.

Wow Andy that is a level of faith in the free market that is almost admirable.

That's like someone dying of cigarette induced lung cancer and smoking even more cigarettes on their deathbed saying oh don't worry doctor I have faith that tobacco companies are just not going to let this happen to me

There was understandably though less faith demonstrated by those making less than $50,000 a year here in America when they were asked 73%

to 24% they said the economy is unfair but still Andy who is that 24%

that is still essentially a quarter of people saying nope I pretty much deserve to be getting screwed right now I've brought this on myself unless Unless those 24% polls were actually being sarcastic saying oh of course the economy is fair what could be fairer about it it's so fair put me down for thinking this is the fairest system in the entire universe that that is the problem with polls andy they just they don't record tone of voice that's why they're fundamentally flawed there is there's an interesting psychological relationship that Americans have with money or more specifically the lack of it the problem is Americans are inherently optimistic people and and that can be a real problem Americans in the top five the top fifth of income make 16.7 times the income of those in the bottom fifth and yet less than half of Americans think the wealth cap is a problem.

The simple psychological explanation, Andy, is that everyone,

even the poorest Americans, have a tendency to assume that one day they're going to be the richest Americans, and they don't want their hypothetical wealth to be taxed in the future.

They're protecting income that doesn't even exist yet.

There's that great quote from John Steinbeck where he says, socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

Americans are just suicidally optimistic, Andy.

Hope is their kryptonite.

And the wealth gap has been in the news a lot recently, partly because President Obama delivered a major speech about the wealth gap recently, highlighting the problem and saying that something needed to be done about it, as if he'd slightly forgotten that he was the current president.

And that's something that he could maybe have a bash at solving were he so inclined.

I wonder.

I actually wonder now how many times a day he says, well, someone should really do something about this, before someone in the same room has to touch him gently on the arm and say, yeah, Mr.

President, that person is still actually you at the moment.

Before saying, God, have you seen that Danish leader?

Man, what a sizzler.

The Pope has waded in.

John,

he wrote just a few weeks ago

in November.

some pretty scathing words about the world's current economic priorities.

He said, just as the commandment, thou shalt not kill, sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life.

Today, we also have to say, thou shalt not to an economy of exclusion and inequality.

Such an economy kills.

And the responses to that are basically to say, A, well, clearly you're not earning enough, Mr.

Pope.

And B, you are letting in a dress.

Well, it's not just that though, Andy, because the problem with that

interesting sentiment, you know, heartfelt sentiment, really looking out for the most vulnerable members members of society.

The problem with that is it's difficult to make points about income gaps, however well-intentioned, from the Vatican, Andy.

It's hard to make nuanced points about the poor when your house is basically solid gold.

And I know it's not his house, Andy.

I know it's not his house.

And I know he's not comfortable with the trappings of the papacy, but that does not remove the fact that there are a f ⁇ of a lot of trappings behind him whenever he speaks.

A f ⁇ of a lot, Andy.

Nice trappings, the Catholic Church.

Nice trappings.

And, you know, he he does seem to be less enamoured of the trappings than some of his uh rather trapping addicted predecessors but and I guess another problem that popes in general as a as a profession have had is that they're they often this message of Christian equality and community gets lost between other messages such as don't put your penis in there don't wrap it up either don't be happy if you like people the same number of ovaries and or testicles as you burn in hell suckers burn in hell

but this uh this pope appears unafraid to bark at uh some of the smartly dressed burglars of the capitalist world.

The London mayor, Boris Johnson, has also been talking about his

the fact that he basically has no problem with super wealth.

But he did say that he wants it to be a little more socially responsible.

He said this, I hope that this time the Gordon Geckos of London are conspicuous not just for their greed, valid motivator though greed may be for economic progress.

Oh, what a happy sentence that is.

As for what they give and do for the rest of the population.

Now, on the previous form of Gordon Geckos of London,

hoping for them to give and give back and do more for the rest of the population is about as optimistic as hoping for a lion to make the skin of the zebra it's just killed into a romper suit for a disadvantaged baby.

It is not going to happen.

It's going to eat that zebra whole and then it's going to shit it and then it's going to look for another zebra.

To me, this is basically expecting this level of economic compassion from these Gordon geckos is like giving Leatherface a new chainsaw and politely asking for him to use it only for gardening.

Now, no massacres, Leatherface.

No, no, not even a bit of a massacre.

Just the topiary.

On the plants, not the people.

Yes, yes.

Not even if you dress them up as plants first, right?

Agreed?

Here you go.

Happy birthday.

Read the manual and make sure you keep the chain well oiled.

Best of luck.

Why are you charging me with that chainsaw?

Ow, that hurts.

Do I f ⁇ ing look like a private hedge?

Ouch.

Evidently I do.

Leatherface, you really disappoint me.

Ow.

Ow.

It is an amazing thing to say that the Gordon Geckos of London could help promote economic growth.

It does seem in listening to it that Gordon Gecko is a hero character to Boris Johnson.

Was he watching a different movie to me there, Andy?

Did he think Wall Street was actually a heartwarming film about people doing their best?

Does he watch It's a Wonderful Life and love it right up until the end where there's a one-man bailout and the system's not allowed to correct itself.

It was

Boris Johnson again for those buglers that don't know he's the current mayor of London and professional buffoon and he delivered this speech in the Margaret Thatcher lecture which should probably already have had people bracing themselves slightly.

You can't act surprised when you hear something horrific when they call something the Margaret Thatcher lecture.

You should have already strapped yourself into your chair and had a vomit bucket nearby.

But even with those parameters, this particular speech was something special.

He argued that inequality is essential to fostering the spirit of envy and hailed greed as a valuable spur to economic activity.

That's not the speech of a politician, Andy.

That is the speech of a cartoon villain.

In fact, it's only the speech of a politician in a Batman movie delivered at an overblown cocktail party before the Cape Crusader comes smashing into the skylight.

That's not the most optimistic view of how humanity and economics works.

It's basically basically saying our system does work sometimes, but it only works when people are.

Or whatever the opposite of refreshing is to hear him actually say it out loud.

He argued that it was...

Yeah, it was defreshing.

It was a deeply defreshing experience.

He argued it was futile to try to end inequality and went on to mock the 16%, I quote, of our species with an IQ below 85, claiming that we should be doing more to help the 2% of the population who have an IQ above 130.

Although, after a comment like that, he may be unpleasantly surprised that he's in fact deep down in that 16%.

He then made a chilling, if slightly baffling, comment when he said, The harder you shake the pack, the easier it will be for some cornflakes to get to the top.

This guy is not a mayor, Andy.

He's a fking sociopath.

Yeah, I don't know what what packets of cornflakes he's been buying either.

That's some that's some weird physics going on in his breakfast cereals.

I did a political discussion at

the glamorous Nottingham Trent University

recently and I got into an argument with a Conservative MP about

sort of taxation of the wealthy and of

big business and he was sort of making the point that those with the broadest shoulders are bearing the heaviest burden and that's that's clearly just an outright statistical lie

but kind of I guess it's like you know, clearly, you know, the rich do maybe pay a greater volume of tax, but in terms of the impact on their lives, it's, you know, it's a pinprick compared to a bullet in the kneecap.

I guess it's like if you take a steak off the tasting menu of a gourmand in a Michelin-styled restaurant, he might be a bit annoyed.

But if you take a few grains of rice off a starving African child, it might starve to death.

Now, the glutton has lost by far the greater quantity of food.

So by the logic of today, he is the one who is bearing more of the burden.

Therefore, he is the one who is suffering true

pangs of hunger.

Partly because the rice child is now dead.

But the point stands.

The point stands, John.

The truth is, Andy, that no one in the US is as poor as their current government anyway, who are up to the wazoo in debt and having to hide behind a couch every time a Chinese person comes to the front door.

It's hard to pick an individual problem that Congress has, Andy.

It's a smorgasbord of dysfunction with each issue more horrendous than the last.

Congress truly is the people's house in that it's slightly falling apart and no one inside it can get along.

But it's hard to even talk about money with Congress as they haven't passed a budget for the government for nearly half a decade now.

And yet, Andy, in a shocking move of basic legislative competence, the House of Congress actually passed a budget this week for the American government for the first time since 2009.

The Republicans and Democrats have been tearing each other apart over this, even shutting down the government completely a couple of of months ago.

But for now at least, there seems to be a fiscal truce.

And Democrat Patty Murray, who led the negotiations with the Democrats, said she hoped that this would heal some of the wounds in Congress.

Oh, really, Patty, heal your wounds?

Because, again, let's be clear, any wounds Congress has have been self-inflicted.

You have been legislatively self-harming like depressed teenagers for the last two years.

And while you're rubbing lotion on your scratches, the rest of the country's been bleeding out after you shot it in the face with a f ⁇ ing bazooka.

It's been so long, Andy, since the American government had a budget.

I'd forgotten that budgets were something that American governments could have.

And

now I can't work out if this is just a basic deal or if it's some sort of witchcraft.

Did each side stand around a cauldron and throw in pages and pages of their demands?

Add eye of toad, tail of newt, mumble something about pentagons, drink the contents of the cauldron and then vote?

Burn these witches, Andy.

Burn them, I say.

This budget deal has been greeted by commentators here as a huge step forward, as this guarantees that the federal government should not shut down for two years.

But does that not really show just how low the bar for success is now here?

Oh, hey, everybody, great news.

The most powerful government on the planet shouldn't collapse for 24 whole months.

The system works!

We did it!

That's the American dream, John.

That is

the cheese-induced American dream.

Both sides, though, have since been complaining that this is not the deal that they wanted.

But isn't that the f ⁇ ing point, Andy?

It's a compromise.

That's what it's supposed to be.

It's been so long since the last compromise, everyone's forgotten what a compromise is supposed to feel like.

And it's supposed to feel slightly shitty.

You know it's worked if no one's happy.

If the feeling of triumph is instead replaced with a sense of, oh, well, I...

guess that'll just have to do.

This deal basically sets US government funding levels at just over a trillion dollars for the next couple of years, slapbag in the middle of what the two sides wanted.

And one report on CBS said, many Senate Democrats are weighing in to say that they don't think the deal is perfect, but that they can live with it.

Exactly, Andy.

That's the point.

It's the same conversation every woman in her late 30s has with herself as she

looks at the man she's on a dinner date with and says, look, he's not perfect, but I can live with it.

Compromise is key, Andy.

It's key to any dysfunctional marriage.

There's no more dysfunctional marriage than Congress.

You might not like each other but you have to live under one roof and you keep it together for the kids.

Congress just needs to understand that America is the kids and it's time they sucked it up and scaled down their dreams.

Queen money news now and nothing will highlight a wealth gap quite like a monarchy Andy.

They literally wear solid gold hats and look the queen loves money we know that there's no point denying it she loves it so much she put her face on it but for someone who has an actual throne to sit on uh she's surprisingly frugal uh with money uh the news the world hacking trial uncovered an amazing story that the police in buckingham palace have been told uh had been told to leave the queen's nuts alone and

This That needs further explanation, John.

Well, because this initially seemed like an absolutely huge story, that the Queen of England has actually been a king in drag for the last half a century.

And I have to say, it wouldn't have been a total surprise to me, Andy.

I could kind of see it.

But

that wasn't actually it.

The story was that the Queen marked the level in bowls of nuts left around Buckingham Palace because she was irritated with police officers eating them.

I mean, that is, what a story, Andy.

Yep.

What an amazing story.

I don't know if that reflects well or badly on Britain.

Shows how far we've declined and advanced as a nation.

Apparently she had a memo sent out to officers in the palace telling them to keep their sticky fingers out.

And that is close to basically just saying, tell these peasants to stop touching my things.

Don't even look at them.

You're making them dirty with your eyes.

This all came out in an email from Clive Goodman, an ex-royal editor at the News of the World.

An email that he sent to his editor, which explained, Queen furious about police stealing bowls of nuts and nibbles left out for for her in apartments in Buckingham Palace.

She has a very savoury tooth and staff leave out cashews, bombay mix, almonds, etc.

Problem is, police on patrol eat the lot.

She started marking the bowls to see when the levels dipped.

She's just an old lady.

That's all she is.

Well, she does have the royal snack majorier who accompanies her at all times around the palace, marking with a special silver quill that was handed down from Charles II on all snack bowls.

It's a position that's existed since George I got annoyed with everyone stealing his cheesy Watsets in the early 18th century.

And of course, these aren't any old nuts, John.

I mean, you know, you might think it's just an old woman getting concerned about some cashew nuts, but it's not, they're not just cashew nuts.

They're not any old.

The Queen's special nuts, John, made from the desiccated testicles of unicorns, the withered husks of triffid seeds, and the fossilized eyeballs of orphan pterodactyls.

They're basically what's been keeping her and her mummy alive so unnaturally long.

87 bullshit.

No one lives that long.

The last thing we want to see, John, is a generation of immortal police officers who've eaten magic unicorn balls.

I don't think Britain can afford that.

And

what else are these thieving coppers stealing from our defenceless old pensioner monarch?

Sorry, from our heavily defended pensioner monarch.

Scepters?

Crowns?

Where will it end, John?

Ceremonial swords, knickers, bras, Queen Victoria's old mechanical f ⁇ ing monkey.

She didn't really have have one of those, did she?

Did she have one of them?

Besides, let's look at who they're stealing from.

If they were stealing nibbles from ordinary Norahs and Norrises in an old people's home, that's one thing.

These old codgers and codgerettes are of no real further practical use to the nation, so that's fine.

But stealing food from the Queen, John, you know, she's on a special nut-only diet.

They have been pumping her with life-giving squirrel DNA, and she needs those nuts to survive.

Let's not forget Edward VI died at 15 in the 16th century because all he could eat was jalapeno-flavoured monster munch.

And some dickhead cardinal used up his entire supply as fuel to burn a Catholic at the stake on.

That's why they're sensitive about snacks, John.

She's more squirrel than woman now, Andy.

Oh, yeah.

This is just an amazing story.

Apparently, when this is...

What are you saying that the Queen is a massive piece of tale, John?

Is that what you're saying?

I'm saying that she has an amazing amount of nuts in her mouth.

And you can take from that what you will, Andy.

Well, that appears that you are never coming back to this country, John.

You can't burn a bridge that's already ash, Andy.

Apparently, when this story was read out in court this week, there was huge laughter, followed by Justice Sanders telling the jury that the claim that officers were stealing was, and I quote, an unproven allegation.

Now, honestly, this whole phone hacking scandal might actually have been worth it, Andy, just so we could find this out.

Because I can no longer look at the Queen's face in photos or on banknotes without picturing it screaming, get your your hands off my fing nuts!

What a story.

Nelson Mandela Memorial sign language bullshit news now and

the

memorial for Nelson Mandela was...

I mean, it's really the whole thing has been overtaken by the controversy over the man who was doing the signing for it who it turned out basically was just signing total and utter gibberish basically

didn't know basically appeared to not know what he was doing

subsequently claimed that he had been visited by angels and was hallucinating at the time and the company from which he was hired basically disbanded and disappeared

and there are various details to this story that are absolutely

spectacular.

Quite aside from the fact that he didn't even know basic signs for thank you or mandela, both of which you would have thought would have been quite useful on that occasion.

Even if you had never done it before, you would at the very least learn those two things.

But it also turned out that

the standard fee for a sign interpreter apparently is between 1,300 and 1700 Rand a day, which I think is, I don't know, about $160, maybe a bit more, maybe $200.

But this guy's being paid around about half that,

$800 Rand.

And ordinarily, you switch your sign interpreters about every 20 minutes to maintain their concentration levels.

This guy was on stage for the entire four-hour long service.

Oh my.

There is a time, I know we're living tough economic times, and there is a time and a place for belt tightening.

But when the entire planet is watching you bid farewell to the greatest citizen your country has probably

I think it's worth stretching the extra 50 quid for at least one person who knows what the f they're doing.

And ideally, stretch a couple of hundred and get two.

That's, I just, I just think, with hindsight,

um, that was worth it.

The deputy minister for women, Henrietta Bogopanezulu, said it was bad, she acknowledged.

Was he a fake?

Oh, okay.

No, does he have the training?

He has only the introduction to the training.

Oh, no.

This, um,

yes.

I mean, it's, it's not, uh,

I mean, it's, it was good for the neutrals, but possibly not what the

not what the occasion demanded.

But, you know, I'm all in favor of giving people opportunities to learn on the job.

I mean, when

I booked John for the bugle, he'd never even done a podcast, but look at him now.

He's doing

doing fine.

Even started doing some puns, I've noticed.

In fact, someone

had a report via Twitter that you did

a full run of puns on the daily show this week.

There's no way that's true.

Really?

There's no way that's true.

There was, I mean, at least on a couple of people suggesting that Madame.

There's no way.

Nope.

Nope.

They have clearly mishearing, Andy.

Right.

Pun free since 83.

You sound like you're

demob happy.

Going out in a deluge of puns.

A blaze of the opposite of glory.

Yeah.

Initially, this story seemed extremely funny.

Someone basically waving their arms around like one of Madonna's Madonna's backing dancers in the Vogue video.

There is something quite appealing about a man claiming he's a sign language interpreter and walking up there essentially saying, don't worry, sign language is 95% confidence.

But the more details that came out, the more troubling this story became.

Because it turns out this man with full security clearance to stand three feet from the President of the United States actually may have experienced a schizophrenic episode during the event and admits that he has become violent during such episodes in the past.

And the agency that employed him, as you say, has since disappeared.

He said he had a breakdown during the four hours of interpreting

and said he started to hallucinate about angels coming down into the crowd, saying, I started knowing that I am not real because it's not something possible.

But believe me, I saw them coming on stage.

From that moment, I was not myself.

He went on to say that he was concerned for the safety of people in the stadium.

He was absolutely aware that he was not signing correctly.

And I have to say, Andy, if that's true,

if he saw angels flying into the stadium, I actually think he signed amazingly well because I'd have been significantly more freaked out in his position.

But also, while Obama was on, and there must have been a load of

deaf tea party members thinking this is the best speech Obama has ever made, ever.

Your emails now.

We have a great email here from Bruce who says, dear Chris et al.

Just thought I'd email in before John's schedule caused another 16-week hiatus.

F you, Bruce.

I've been busy.

On the subject of pig semen and other pricey ejaculates, great start.

That's one email.

I wanted to enlighten you in the world, which absolutely no one refers to as the

douchey-touchy splat-a-ching.

Okay.

I'm a farmer, he says.

Brackets, yes, that's still a thing.

Touchy-touchy splat-a-ching, isn't it?

Rather than touchy-touching.

Yeah, that probably makes that makes a lot more sense.

He says, I'm a farmer, brackets, yes, that's still a thing.

And I'll regularly end up having animals, usually cows and sheep, artificially inseminated.

So I'm fully aware of the cost of one bulgasm.

One serving typically runs to the price.

Yes.

Yes.

He's a farmer, Andy.

He knows better than you.

Runs to the price of about £50 for five millilitres of concentrated top-quality pedigree white gold.

And it's like a high-end vintage whiskey.

And if you work out, he says that

each bovine money shot is around

five cubic litres in volume, which is then diluted by the money.

Five centilitres rather than five columns.

Five cubic litres.

Oh, goodness me.

Milk rat cat.

You don't know who you're dealing with.

Anyway.

I don't know what nature documentary you've been watching from, haven't you?

I don't know if it's a nature documentary.

I just Googled a video.

It's then diluted for sale.

You arrive at the fact that every time your bull does his thing, you can collect over £2,000.

Multiply that by three times a day, four times a week, and you've got a bull earning £24,000 a week and a handsome £1.2 million per year with two weeks off because everyone needs a holiday.

I can't speak for pigs, but I'm sure there'll be a princely sum on their Porcine Swimmers as well.

Yours rurally, Bruce McConachie, Mauratia, Scotland.

That is...

Wow.

Well, there's a lot of information in there alongside

a lot of silliness.

I can see now it's...

You know,

when money, those sums of money are involved, then obviously, you know,

you lower your ethical guard a little bit.

Whilst you're on animals and their balls, I learnt about a horse this week called Samson.

Born in 1846,

renamed in 1848 as Mammoth because he was so big.

He became the biggest horse of all time, weighed 1,500 kilos, 21 and a half hands high, and he was gelded.

at 18 months because his balls were already the size of softballs.

What a horse.

What a horse.

He could have fed half of France by the sound of it.

This email came in from Paul Key.

He writes, dear John and Andy, I wish to complain about your section about the landmark British trade deal to sell pig semen to China.

I think you are out of order to lampoon what is clearly an important deal both for the British economy and for the quality of pork being produced in China, the world's largest pork-eating market.

Just because the story involved pig semen, you two supposed satirists go full reign to the more infantile excesses of your humour, doing little credit to yourselves yourselves or the bugle.

Moreover, you run the risk that if everyone lampoons serious deals such as this one with this level of playground comedy, future similar arrangements could be jeopardised.

This is of particular concern to me because I am a pig.

And I need deals like this to get my rocks off.

I'll get horny as hell coops up in my style day.

And if I wasn't being relieved of my piggy burden in order to make money for my owner, frankly, I don't know what the fk I'd do.

I have hooves, so frankly, anything or anyone that can bring me to my point of personal issue that isn't rubbing my porkine prong against a trough has to be a good thing.

Please bear this in mind in future.

From Paul Key.

Oh, Porkey.

Paul, sorry, Porky.

This actual email came in from Jared in Boston.

Dear Andy, John, and Chris, in order of likelihood to be offended by the below-mentioned observation, I have been repeatedly told by professors that, quotes, brevity is the soul of wit.

I have become concerned that the bugle might not have a soul.

Please discuss.

Well, in response to that, I'd say uh

you're a

moving on

this one came in from ben dear andy chris and john i'm sure it's already been brought to your attention but india has recently banned homosexuality in a worrying judder back towards the middle ages can either of you gentlemen comment on the amusing shape of the Supreme Court building where this legislation was passed.

And he sent an aerial photo of the the Indian Supreme Court, which

of all the buildings we have been sent pictures of, I think arguably could be the most cock and ballsy of the lot.

I think, yeah, because other buildings still kind of look like a group of buildings.

This only looks like a penis.

It's even got what looks like another circular building

beyond the end of the shaft of the main building.

It's incredible.

It's escaped from its tip.

you first see it and you think oh there's a penis then you think are there people living in that penis then you say oh i guess that could be a building

oh it's a supreme court

for officials continues ben who bracket superficially seem to dislike other men's ingorgated swang dongles nice do you think they may merely be displacing repressed feelings in the manner of many people who publicly espouse homophobia but really really love cock

you know i'm not i'm not that familiar with i'm not that that familiar with indian indian politics but it is from what i have seen on my trips there absolutely

crazy so let's not rule anything out but unquestionably the indian supreme court building

is certainly writing checks that its anti-homosexual legislation can't cash

well that's it for this week's bugle do keep your remotes coming in to info at thebuglepodcast.com uh don't forget to check out our soundcloud page, soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle.

And you can get your voluntary subscriptions and your bugle merch at thebuglepodcast.com.

So, John, this is going to be your last week on the

daily show coming up.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Very weird.

Yeah, very strange.

You're going to be ritually sacrificed at the end of it.

That's usually how most correspondents go out.

I've just got to hope that the smoke reassembles itself into a functional human being.

Christmas Carol time, of course.

I had some

carol singers came round singing.

I don't really like Christmas carols, but some carol singing people came round to my house.

It was

a top Chinese snooker player, a mafia boss, Mrs.

McAleese, the former president of Ireland, and the ghost of the revolutionary Marcus Trotsky.

I greeted them all very warmly.

Ding don, Merry Leon.

Hi.

How are you all?

That's it for this week.

Is this on?

Is this on?

That's it.

Just one-off.

Just in and out.

In and out.

John,

I'm not taking any criticism for you on this now, John.

That will teach buglers for listening to the end of this.

You've taught people a key lesson there.

Bail out before the goodbyes.

Bye-bye.

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.