Bugle 251 – Nailing the truth to the floor

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 251 of the Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world, for the week beginning Monday, the 18th of November, 2013.

We are now fully into our seventh year of certified satirico-infantilism with me, Andy Zaltzman, the renowned

biped.

That's about all I've got left.

Still here in London, 2012, never forget.

And in New York City, tracheotomizing truth from the esophagus of events with his well-sharpened scalpel of scurrilousness, shocking the lies from the barely beating heart of politics with his defibrillator of destiny.

It's the satirical surgeon himself, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Well, this has been a very weird week for me, Andy.

A little bit of background for Buglers.

My wife has been in the Philippines all week as part of an emergency response unit since Sunday.

She flew out at late notice with an amazing group called Team Rubicon, and she's been doing triage out there ever since, operating under some truly horrific conditions.

And in a monumental clash of what should be celebrated, rather than what is celebrated.

On Monday, I myself was due to attend a dinner for GQ's men of the year issue which apparently has something in it about me hosting the daily show over the summer so let's just pause to drink in that particular juxtaposition and the one person on the other side of the world selflessly helping strangers and another person you know the gq dinner thing and i couldn't go and i just i couldn't go without feeling like a platinum arsehole so I asked them if it would be okay not to come and they were both very understanding and also I think justifiably surprised that I'd been invited invited in the first place.

I just didn't think it was going to be physically possible to sit there making small talk about how tricky my job in the summer was while my wife was away assisting in roadside amputations.

So

if buglers would like to help out, Team Rubicon is a truly incredible organization.

They're a veterans group who specialize in disaster response.

They drop everything in their lives and they go to help wherever they're needed.

And in the seeming vacuum of a response from the Philippine government, they are doing amazing work.

So if you do get a moment moment today, maybe check out their website or at least keep them in your thoughts because they are objectively better people than most of us.

So the website is teamrubiconusa.org.

And yeah, they're an amazing group.

And I'm very proud of all of them.

So check it out.

And ironically, John, the platinum arsenal is in fact the trophy for GQ's Man of the Year, I believe.

I can't tell you how much I needed that laugh.

Also,

as you may have heard, and again, it's very hard to transition off something that is objectively important to something significantly less so.

But I don't know if bugles have heard, I'm going to be doing a weekly show on Sunday nights on HBO starting sometime next year, which means I'm going to be leaving the daily show at the end of this year.

But the bugle will still parp.

It will still toot.

It will not be silenced.

The bugle will be going on.

So, yeah, sorry for that information dump, but

yeah, it's been a tricky week.

Yes.

Well, I've also had some big career news, John.

I've bought a new paper recycling bin for my shed this week.

Oh, that's great, Andy.

Let's do it.

We've all had things, you know, just nudging us up to the next level.

We've all had a lot to cope with.

It's the bugle for the week beginning Monday, the 18th of November, which means it is 706 years to the day since in 1307 the Swiss folk hero William Tell shot an apple off his kid's head with a crossbow.

Those 14th century parenting manuals had some pretty weird shit in them.

Is your child struggling to sleep at night?

Then try putting them in a near-death situation with a piece of fruit.

Is your child still persistently wetting their bed?

Then strap them to the underside of a horse and ride it at breakneck speed into a swamp.

Sunday the 17th will also be 40 years since Richard Nixon claimed, I am not a crook.

He later clarified this to say, no, I said cook.

I'm not a cook.

I cannot even scramble an egg.

Ask the missus.

And I wouldn't know a ratatouille if it came and shat on my head.

251.

Also, Bugle 251, it's the number of times Neil Armstrong had to refilm the moment when he first stepped on the moon because he kept riffing his first line.

Outtakes included, thank f I've got my space suit on or I would be dead as a nut up here.

Can I just say hello to everyone who knows me?

If you're watching Janet, can you get some more petrol for the lawnmower if you have time?

Holy shit, I've just seen JFK over there.

Just kidding, folks.

He is genuinely dead.

And yay, first, suck it, Buzz.

Suck it big time.

And of course, the one that nearly was broadcast when he said, f ⁇ , there's nothing here.

There's literally nothing here.

All that f ⁇ ing training, and this is it.

Just f ⁇ ing rocks and shit.

F this.

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

This week, the latest Bugle Audio Part Work Series, Build Your Own Personal Anthem.

Our countries all have their own catchy little national anthems, their little theme tunes to pet them up and boost their confidence.

So, why shouldn't you follow suit?

Your bugle Build Your Own Personal Anthem kits will enable you to gradually construct a simplistically worded and musically unadventurous, self-aggrandizing microhymn to make you feel better about yourself and gloss over all the things you've failed within your life.

Part 1: The Opening Drum Roll.

Next week, the first line of your anthem.

Probably something about how pretty your garden is.

Top story this week.

Clearly, the aftermath of the typhoon in the Philippines, but I'm too emotionally strung out to talk about that at the moment.

So, top story this week, Russian testicle update.

It's best of this place, isn't it, Andy?

Best of this place when you're struggling to cope.

Here's the story that I needed, Andy, this week.

A performance artist has has been detained in Moscow after stripping naked and nailing his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square in a protest.

Oh,

that's better.

That's better.

I mean, the world seems rough.

If his aim was to get people's attention, Andy, then I can only presume that that worked.

Mission accomplished.

I mean, balls nailed, sure, but mission accomplished.

The report stated that Piotor Pavlensky, 29 years old, reportedly sat for an hour and and a half on the square on Sunday afternoon with a nail driven through his genitals into the ground.

And I think saying that he sat was probably unnecessary in that report.

I don't think anyone might have imagined that he was standing up unless

he used the longest of nails or indeed possessed the longest of balls.

He...

See, I can still do this.

He had faced a custodial sentence of 15 days, but was freed on Monday, which I think, I mean, that probably makes sense.

I'm sure his lawyers could have made a pretty good case for him having suffered enough.

He is an artist, as I say, and he called this fixation,

this

physical installation piece, installing himself into the ground.

And said that it was an act, it was a metaphor for apathy in Russia.

Fixation is definitely an enigmatic title, Andy.

Personally, I'd have called it simply man versus balls.

And I will say that he might have intended it to be a metaphor for apathy, but that is probably the single least apathetic thing that's ever happened in human history.

If you're nailing your own balls to the ground I think you're entitled to claim you are active in politics.

Well it just goes to show John how hard it is to find the perfect metaphor.

You know the creative mind search for the most opposite metaphor for me is a hunt for a leopard painted green in a supermarket coated with guacamole.

And I think that just proves the point.

But when working out how to express the problem of political apathy in a nation which is essentially sleeping sleepwalking its way back to totalitarianism if I was an artist I'm just not sure that I would have the same thought processes as this man had I'm not sure I would think to myself right there's only one thing to this I'm gonna have to nail my bollocks to something the only problem is what

a a voting booth a scale model of the Russian parliament a voodoo doll of Vladimir Putin oh no I'll nail my bollocks to red square oh what shall I wear I hate choosing clothes best just go with nothing and even if i did come to that conclusion john that that was the best way to express my artistic and political points i think i probably think

there must be a plan b that there must be an almost as good way of doing this that does not involve whacking a nail through my scrotum

he timed his act apparently deliberately to coincide with police day and he said in a statement when the authorities turn the country into one big prison openly robbing the populace and channeling funds to increase and enrich the police and other security agencies society accepts arbitrariness and having forgotten its advantage in numbers brings the triumph of the police state closer through its inaction going on to say ah my balls

oh

my balls really hurt does anyone have any ice for my balls what the what the police are doing is wrong and vladimir pung oh god that

it hurts slightly more than i know this seems crazy it hurts more than i thought it would and seems insane

But once the adrenaline wears off the the the pain kicks in

oh I regret nothing I regret nothing

This I mean of all good points that he made in that speech John as he you know communed with his own personal testicular Jesus but um

I just still don't see you know they're all artistically and all satirically and politically valid points but I still don't see how he could say all that and then tag on the words and therefore I've nailed my scrolling to a place of historical interest.

I just don't see how it follows.

And you kind of feel sorry for his mother, you know.

It's always difficult, I guess, if you're a parent, if your child decides to become an artist.

It's a very precarious profession.

You obviously worry about them and wonder whether they'll be able to make a go of it.

And

I guess when his mother, you know, when he said, Do you want to come and see my latest work, Mum, and she turned up to find him with his nutsack nailed to a cobblestone?

She must have said to him, Can't you just do nice paintings like that Claude Monet chap?

He did such lovely flowers.

But

I'm not saying

it wasn't a valid way of making the point about political apathy.

I'm just saying there were other options that and also he had to explain it.

And I think this is a problem when an artist has to explain his work.

To me, you know, the artist should should produce the work and then allow others to interpret it.

But I'm not sure this would necessarily have worked with this particular piece of installation art.

Because I mean how do you how do you interpret a man nailing his nutsack to a cobblestone in in Red Square I guess it could be a protest against the gender-based tyranny of DIY but the artist feels emotionally emasculated by the social expectation that he has the capability to use a hammer and nails to put a shelf up so he physically emasculates his own

masculates by nailing them to the ground where no shelves can be put up very much a physical poem poem of 21st century sexual identity and societal angst.

Alternatively, it could be a rebellion against religion.

You know, where Michelangelo painted naked people's testicles on the ceiling of a chapel in an artistic hymn to the wonders of almighty God, this man, Mr.

Pavlensky, in a world so broken as to render the existence of a benevolent God inconceivable, nails his own testicles to the ground, which is, of course, the opposite of a ceiling and

not in the chapel.

Perhaps, looking at the way he did it, it was a call for Russia to modernise.

You know, he's using old-fashioned equipment, a hammer and a nail.

The hammer, of course, redolent of communism, the nail a bit like a sickle in in some ways, and the cobblestone, very much an old road surface.

He's saying, Russia, you must modernise, or you will end up like me with your economic testicles nailed to some old-fashioned road.

Perhaps even it's a savage attack on the irresponsibility of the anti-environment lobby.

We are inescapably tied to this life-giving planet, says Pavlensky, which he expresses by inexplicably nailing his life-giving balls to that planet alternatively it could just be a nutcase nailing a scrotum to some cobblestones it's very open to interpretation john as an artwork it his uh i mean i guess look we're talking about it andy we probably wouldn't have been talking about the you know creeping institutional abuses of russia first this week if it wasn't for him nailing his balls into the ground and me being anxious to talk about anything other than what I'm thinking thinking about at the moment.

His graphic act outside

took place outside the Lenin Mausoleum and there were clips of it that made their way across the internet and Russian arts figures praised him in comments on the internet.

One calling it a powerful gesture of absolute despair and another a manifesto of powerlessness.

And another said, ooh, that must have hurt.

Ooh,

I'm getting sympathy pangs in my balls with that problem.

Ooh, ooh.

Well, I hope it was a new nail.

Ooh.

Ooh.

Just the latest in line of some very curious protests and performance art pieces in Russia.

The performance art group Voina constructed what can only be described as an extremely post-Renaissance performance canvas in which a woman stole a chicken from a supermarket by inserting it up her well up her Madame Haven.

Oh God.

I mean that is I guess a slightly more obvious artistic message than nailing your scrotum to Red Square.

And that message, John, for me, shoving a chicken up where arguably it doesn't necessarily need to be shoved, that message is that if you, a human being, are going to eat eggs, then logically you should be prepared to shove a chicken up your plinkster.

I think that's what the message from that is.

Right.

I mean,

I think there's a leap there.

Maybe it's just something to do with not wanting to be charged extra for shopping bags like some shops do now,

using natural facilities.

I don't know.

That seems to fit better.

All I know, John, is I'll never have this problem with Rembrandt's art.

He saw it.

He painted it.

He didn't make a big fuss.

Of course, around the world, protesting has become very much the new tennis.

Everyone dabbles in it now and again, but not everyone makes makes it to the top or nails their testicles to the court.

But there's always an opportunity to profit from the increased global awareness of major geopolitical issues.

And onto this bandwagon this week has jumped the celebrity American celebrity chef Scluton Malvain.

He is of course the culinary genius, beloved of the bugle, behind such multiple Michelin-starred scofferies as London's Gobbledycook, the Los Angeles's urinating octopid power snout in Berlin, and the Parisian all-you-can-eat shellfish seducto-brasserie moule-vous buffet avec mois a soi.

And in New York City, he's just opened the world's first protesterant, a protest-themed restaurant where you can go and stick it to the government whilst enjoying high-end cuisine.

On arriving at the new protesterant called La Demonstratory, diners are forcibly kettled into their seats by riot shield-wielding waiters.

Starters then include an ethical crusade of crudetés, rioting riets of duck tissue, a real grouse, and placards of Icelandic elk ham vitrioled with squiddink slogans and brandished on a Soviet-influenced sausage stick.

Main courses then include beefs from around the world served either overdone or under-reported, force-fed opinions of sheep driveled in an evangelified source of resentment and a half-baked tomato motto, pan-speared spleen of conviction-driven guinea fowl served hot under a collar of repressive pastatoes, picketed by striking worker beans, or the restaurant's signature dish, Octupie, a pastry-fenced occupations of octopus, riot-pleased with carrot batons and swayed by a propagandeur of lefty lettuce.

Then for desserts, you can have an awareness of overstated strawberries rallied in a passion-fruitedly chanted promulgator of concerned rhubarb accompanied by banana banners, or plum grumble, or you can go for the cheese option, which is Bri Demo.

Brie, Bri Demo.

Oh, thank you very much.

Come on, Anne.

Or you can just have the issue of the day.

Meals are served with an accompanying campaign of champagne blasted into the diners' faces from a high-pressure water cannon, whilst a satirical sommelier will talk you through the wine list, that's with an H, of all the day's leading if-issues made with vintage gripes.

Waiters take the customer's orders by chanting through a megaphone, what do you want?

Then when the diner has announced his or her choice of dish,

when do you want it?

Malvaden claims that he hopes to open branches of the new protesta in Cairo, Bahrain and Damascus by the end of the 21st century.

The 33 Times of Michelin-starred food ace added, every single successful protest movement in history has been driven by people who ate food.

This restaurant will either save or destroy the planet.

That's a world exclusive on the bugle.

You know, you said before we started recording you had a lot of of bullshit today.

Yep.

Was that it?

That was it.

He's writing checks he can comfortably cash then.

Step right up for the redaction jamboree.

The Conservative Party in the UK has taken the bold, sweeping and slightly creepy decision to delete any speeches and press releases published on its website between 2000 and the 2010 general election in Britain.

Now, you might think can they do that both legally and physically and it turns out the answer is a slightly surprising yes to both of those.

The archive has also been hidden from all search engines.

In a moment of delicious if nauseating irony, the deep fried snickers of irony if you will,

one of the speeches removed was delivered by Prime Minister David Cameron addressing the Google Zeitgeist conference in 2006 in which he made the argument that you have begun the process of democratizing the world's information.

By making more information available to more people, you are giving them more power.

That's right.

That speech, Andy, that speech about the importance of internet transparency has been deleted from the Tory Party website and archive.

They literally might have created an irony wormhole in doing that, sucking all meaning and logic around it deep into its ridiculous nothing.

Well, I think, you know, he's saying that, you know, the need to make more information available to more people.

I guess by removing all these Tory speeches and press releases from the internet, he's just freeing up more time, John, for British people who would otherwise waste their days reading political speeches from the likes of Ian Duncan Smith, the self-styled Prep Grinder General, rather than getting on with more important things in their lives.

You know, if Albert Einstein had spent all day, John, reading press releases from Oliver the human Gherkin Letwin, which was his old wrestling name, I think,

and would he have discovered physics?

I don't believe he would.

He'd probably have ended up with a tattoo of Lenin on his face, but that's neither here nor there.

We would all be, thanks to this kind of thinking,

we would otherwise all be floating through space wondering what the hell to do, I think.

I haven't entirely thought that through.

The irony involved in deleting things from the internet when you are campaigning for transparency is, I mean, it's almost installation art again.

Maybe it's their equivalent of the Russian guy nailing his balls into the ground.

They have said that their explanation for this is that this keeps their revamped website, and I quote, up to date.

That's like Stalin saying he was just trying to keep Russian photos up to date when he started removing Trotsky from them.

They're much more timely now because that guy, of course, tragically tripped and fell upwards onto an iceball.

Computer Weekly, the group who discovered what had happened, said the effect of the changes were, and again, I quote, as alarming as sending men in black to strip history books from a public library and burn them in the car park what

doesn't make any sense Andy that is a fundamental misreading of the men in black franchise I will not stand idly by as people misreference blockbuster science fiction movies the men in black wouldn't need to strip history books and burn them Andy they could simply erase everyone's memory with their weird pen-like things if you were intent on stealing and burning books you don't need the incredible technology that the men in black provide.

You don't need the men in black at all.

You could just as well use a group of common street thugs.

Get your references right!

Man, Hollywood has really got into your soul, John.

That's very dangerous.

The problem is what has been deleted includes a bunch of stuff dating back to when Cameron was trying to detoxify the Tory brand after they had deliberately spent most of the previous three decades being as toxic as humanly possible.

They appear to have decided, however, that as Aristotle said, a leopard will never change the way that it shits, and that as long as a significant minority enjoy watching leopards shit on other people's picnics then they might as well stick with it and try and sneak into office by the back door and also John let's give him credit we all go back on things that we say we'll do as evidenced by the fact that I did not put my son in a rocket and fire him into space when he didn't eat his broccoli the other day that as so often what seems like a sensible thing to say at the time ends up getting caught up in logistical red tape and legal restrictions you know let us not let us not be too judgmental computer weekly then went on to say Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne campaigned on a promise to democratise information held by those in power so people could hold them to account.

But did they?

Did they?

I mean, good luck finding any reference of that promise for a start.

I mean, I know they did make that promise through their mouths, but the proof seems to have been deleted off the face of the finging earth.

And now we very much find ourselves in a they said, they said situation.

And the way in which they were able to do this is perhaps the creepiest of all, because they used a file apparently called robots.txt.

And bear in mind that I do not understand anything that's about to come out of my face, but using robots.txt

means that website owners can apparently, and I quote, tell computers that automatically scan the internet called crawlers which parts of their sites to access.

At the same time as the speeches were removed from the Tory Party site, the Conservatives' robots.txt file was updated to prevent crawlers from visiting the pages the speeches have been stored on.

And the Internet Archive, which maintains the world's largest archive of old and defunct web pages, deletes its records of any site blocked by robots.txt.

So, I mean, is that clear?

No.

Does it even make sense?

Of course not.

But does it sound slightly unsettling?

Yes, absolutely.

I can't get the image

out of my head of Tron-like robots zooming around inside people's computers, grabbing files and crushing them between their robot hands, maniacally bleep-blopping the whole way.

I mean, I just bring back memories, John, of, you know, back in our days at the Times, when they decided to change the way that they did their website.

And to me, this smacks of the Tories putting the whole of Conservative politics behind a paywall.

And, you know, I mean, will people be prepared to fork out for their access to the...

I mean, a few probably wealthy individuals will be, and maybe that is their target audience.

There's an

interesting choice of words there.

Not everyone would agree that they are necessarily clearing up Labour's economic mess or even taking the right right difficult decisions or at all standing up for hard-working people.

So basically what they're doing here is justifying an act of propaganda with another piece of propaganda.

Classic politics, John.

Absolute classic.

Stalin was pretty good at helping people quickly and easily access the most important information he provided, usually in the form of a massive picture of himself and possibly a postal death threat.

But at least he knew how to get his message across to the voters, John.

A Conservative spokesman said, We're making sure our website keeps the Conservative Party at the forefront of political campaigning.

These changes allow people to quickly and easily access the most important information we provide: how we are cleaning up Labour's economic mess, taking the difficult decisions, and standing up for hard-working people.

Going on to say, Read this statement quickly because it's going to get deleted.

Oh, God, it's happening.

Oh, the robots are coming.

They're bleep-blopping.

Oh, God.

Your emails now, and this one came in from Ross, who writes,

Hi, folks.

I've heard in several places that to become expert at something takes 10,000 hours.

With a landmark of 250 bugles, I thought I'd have a look and see how you guys were getting on.

Totalling up my complete bugle collection, a collection that must surely be worth something in its completeness, just like my school friends all assumed our Panini football sticker albums would be.

It came to 181.5 hours.

Oh no.

First of all, well done for filling well over a week of continuous bugling.

I think that's eight days now.

If you listen to the whole output back to back.

I mean that's a lot but not when you're looking up at 10,000 hours before you know you can claim that you're doing it properly.

Well Ross continues.

Well done for filling over a week of continuous bugling.

And secondly, well done for

being nearly 2% of the way towards being expert at presenting the bugle.

At this rate, the magic 10,000 hour mark will be reached somewhere around bugle 12,500 in about 300 years' time.

So that Scott

puts it in perspective.

10,000 hours for...

I always found that I didn't generally need more than about 15 minutes to completely master something.

But, you know, that's just the kind of guy I am.

There's another email here from Theo who says, dear Andy, John and Chris, I spent a few minutes trying to formulate a funny intro to this story, something about the artist listening to one of Andy's pun runs before driven to the act.

Then I realised that man nails his own scrotum to Red Square, doesn't need a funny intro.

We did it, Theo.

I mean, I appreciate you sending that along, but if you didn't, if there wasn't part of you that thought we were already going to lead with that anyway, then I'll take that as a personal insult.

Well, it's good that, you know, us and our listeners are in

such...

intellectual harmony on such issues.

They're just providing a safety net, so just in case maybe your internet was down all week, just want to make sure that you don't look this gift horse in the scrotum yes well we did have a lot of people emailing in about the iron shake calling out toronto mayor rob ford as well um which unfortunately because we were off last week we didn't get to cover but i think i think that is a story that will

that i don't believe we've covered that adequately on the bugle the uh the toronto mayor story i think maybe that'll be uh

next time This email comes in from Wag Wag Oops.

Who writes, dear Chris, John and Andy, I'm a producer at the internationally famous BBC Radio One.

As you might expect, people at Radio One drink a f ton of tea and coffee.

That's f done T-O-N-N-E, British f done as opposed to the American fk done, he points out, helpfully.

So there are a lot of mugs in Radio One, probably about 200.

Most of them are plain white, with the occasional children in need mug.

But now there is one that stands out from the rest.

I brought a bugle fk eulogy mug and surreptitiously smuggled it in amongst the bland BBC

standard issue mugs at Radio One.

It's safe to say from your action so far that there aren't many many bugle listeners at Radio 1.

That's even better.

It makes even less sense.

That's right.

I think, judging by how they treated our radio series in the past at the BBC, that

you probably get fired if you express any positive, positive emotion towards us.

I'm now making it my mission to get at least one bugle mug into every BBC radio station.

The ones with numbers anyway.

No one cares about BBC London.

I might miss out five live too because Manchester is quite far away from me.

Plus, the bugle mugs are £6 each, he complains.

How much much do you think the BBC pays me?

Not much is the answer.

They gave all the money to paedophiles and rich people.

Anyway, I thought you'd like to know that people in the BBC know your name.

They just don't know why they know your name.

Yours ever lovingly.

Wagwack Oops.

Please don't read out my name.

Nobody at Radio One knows I put the mugs there.

Name redacted.

Redacted like a conservative website.

Redacted name.

That's the way we do things in this country, John.

You're welcome.

Wagwack Oops.

No,

on the subject of

merch, there will be, I think I might have mentioned this last week, or the week before, there, there.

I've seen the new tranche of merch, buglers.

We're hoping it will be ready in time for Christmas.

In great bugle tradition, we're cutting it pretty fine, and I imagine that we'll probably miss the Christmas shipping dates.

But hopefully, in

next the next bugle, we'll have full details of

some outstanding new products, some of the

great objects that are purchasable in the international marketplace, including Bugle Socks.

Bugle, Bugle Socks.

That's it for this week's Bugle.

We may or may not be back with a full bugle next week.

That very much depends on John's filming schedule because he is now predominantly an actor.

No, don't say that.

After having been rudely fired from the daily daily show this week.

No, don't say that.

Don't say that.

No.

I've got this genuine pain in your voice there, John.

I feel guilty.

I've got coping well this week.

I feel guilty.

Too soon.

Too soon.

Too soon.

Yeah.

Well, hopefully, we'll be back.

We'll have a

bit of a

broken schedule of late, but hopefully we'll be back more regularly come December.

Thanks for listening this week.

Don't forget to check out our SoundCloud, paid soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle and keep your emails coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com and enjoy the ashes which

start this week.

John, I mean, I imagine the tension is building in

stateside.

Yeah, I guess it's going to build.

They like last-minute tension.

They like to ignore it until it starts and maybe finishes.

The problem, John, is that we know teams look for a psychological edge.

Now, the Ashes, England against Australia, the oldest rivalry in international cricket.

And you have basically given the Australians something to pin on their dressing room wall before they go out to face England with your broadside against their nation and

its

comfortable racism.

So

if we lose the ashes, John, it's your fault.

It's your fault.

Thanks for listening, Buglers.

Until next time, goodbye.

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.