Bonus Bugle – Jet Skis, lawyers and donations

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to a not particularly special Bugle 240 sub-episode Aleph.

I'm Andy Zoltzman live in my special shed in London.

This is for the week beginning beginning Monday the 8th of July 2013.

We're off this week because of a combination of destiny and fate and John being on holiday and me trying to toilet train next door's tortoise.

Not on the path, the lawn is just acceptable, the flowerbeds, knock yourself out Shelly boy.

So on this day, the 8th of July 1497 Vasco de Gama, the little Portuguese exploring celeb, got pissed at lunchtime and thought, Dan, I could murder a curry.

He wandered round Lisbon in the afternoon, not a single curry house to be seen, so he promptly popped in one of his special sailing round-the-world boats, and nine months later, he'd become the first European to sail to India.

He staggered onto the shore, and his first words were, uh, one chicken dan sack, uh, pilau rice, garlic naan, uh, aloo gobi and a pint of lager please.

Oh, this is going to be good.

For future reference, do you deliver?

Uh, no, I'm not within three kilometres.

Well, exactly how far?

Well, are you going over land or by sea?

As the crow flies, about nine thousand kilometres.

You don't have a crow?

Oh, never mind.

Gonna have a puppet on whilst I'm waiting.

On this day in 1947 a UFO landed in Roswell, Texas and was hastily hushed up.

The UFO, which recently leaked documents suggest contained, amongst others, Amelia Earhart, Hitler, Abraham Lincoln and the young Margaret Thatcher, was quickly impounded by US boss Harry S.

Truman.

The S, incidentally, got into his name because he used to respond to any surprising news by shouting, SLEP DEDDIE!

The volume giving away quite how concerned the President was by the news he'd just been given.

Anyway, you can console yourselves in your full bugle-less grief by taking out your volunto subscription at thebuglepodcast.com, where of course you can also buy the Bugle merchandise, the must-have accessories that will instantly turn you from a lifelong loser into a champion of all you survey.

It's amazing what the right hat can do, as the Pope would no doubt testify.

Big pointy mitre, everyone's listening.

American football helmet.

Probably out of a job.

In the meantime, we have some priceless bits of bonus bugle for you.

Sorry, not priceless.

Free, that's the word I'm looking for.

A bit more of our world exclusive interview with The American from last week and some other bits of stuff that were too damn true to be broadcast when we recorded them.

So we let them ferment in a barrel for a while and now they're absolutely safe for public consumption.

Well this of course a major rising power in the global economy and this was shown when President Rousseff said that thousands of doctors would be drafted in from overseas to improve the Brazilian National National Health Service.

And that shows when you have made it, John, as an economic power.

When you start stealing doctors from countries that need their doctors even more than you do.

That is a rite of passage.

I think we always complain about

people complaining about immigration here.

And I know it's been a big issue in the States.

this week as well.

But you also, if you look at the doctors that we've stolen from overseas, I think most illegal immigrants only come to Britain to see their local GP.

But I think John, as you say, there's

a lot of dissatisfaction about these millions, billions being spent on sport whilst education and health are in such a state there.

But well, we're Brits, John, and Brazil, take it from us.

Education and health can wait.

You can always come back to learning and not dying.

But the World Cup and the Olympics only come round once in a lifetime.

You already have to seize the opportunity because there are plenty of people who've been to school.

You probably don't need any more.

But, you know, the World Cup, you know, the last time you had it was 1950.

Health, schmelf.

You know, personally, I can tell you I've been well, I've been ill.

As long as there's sport on, there's basically no difference between the two.

And just look at the Olympics.

That was the happiest Britain Britain has ever been.

There's eight weeks in which you, Brazil, won't have to think about anything like institutionalized corruption, grotesque and deliberately exacerbated social inequalities, the essential theft of your nation's natural and financial resources, the fact that you logistically can't move on your roads or afford to eat.

Forget all those ephemerum.

Ephemerable.

Let's stick with that.

Micro quibbles.

There's water polo to watch.

And man, those guys and girls are seriously ripped.

You cannot put a price on that, Brazil.

Well, you can in many ways, and the problem seems to be that you have put a price on that.

But don't take any notice of that price.

It's not relevant.

It's not just

let sport reign.

And let happiness follow.

This one comes from John in Hong Kong.

It says, while listening to Bugle podcast number 239, I was interested to hear the heartwarming account of the Frenchman whose life took such a sudden turn for the better following his Bugle podcast donation.

I thought it was a French woman, wasn't it?

I was wondering if you might, my acting skills let me down.

I was wondering if you might let me know the amount the said Frenchman donated.

I, on the other hand, made my first donation to the Bugle and was quickly rewarded by being run off the road on my bicycle, collecting any number of broken ribs, wrists and various contusions, as well as a crash introduction to the Hong Kong medical system, which I believe may have been another gift of Empire.

I don't know if it's been updated since then or not.

Admittedly my donation was small, a mere five US dollars.

Should I have donated more?

Please let me know the minimum donation required for a more positive outcome.

Thank you, Brackett, and please try to do a better job of motor vehicle training when you next close up shop at another Empire.

From John in Hong Kong.

Well, I mean, I guess

this goes to show that if you uh donate as little as five US dollars to uh

to the uh the bugle, then you will rightly suffer a very, very severe injury.

I'm not saying you know, we definitely hunted him down and

injured him, but just saying clearly, that's I mean, there's a definite correlation there, isn't there?

I'd say.

I mean, that's what we've learned from those two emails, Andy.

You know, you could do that, and also, if you listen to the bugle, there's a chance you could get away with murder.

That's the power this podcast wields, John.

There's a deep question here from Harry Mason.

Philosophically, what is life like outside the USA?

What do you mean by that?

I mean,

what is life outside the USA?

You know what I mean?

I think, again, I don't want to be in the USA.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's life.

My guess is it's not full of joy.

I would say that, you know, from what I've seen on the news, it seems like all people do is dance in the streets, burn flags.

I don't know.

You know, there's some good countries, I guess, out there.

I just feel like when you're in a country that has the best of everything, it really seems silly to even bother go anywhere else to find it.

You know, if I want good Italian food, I can get it right where I am.

If I want a good falafel, not that I would eat that, but if you want them one, you got them here.

You know, we got everybody comes here, so we don't have to go there.

That's kind of the beauty of this country.

This one came in from

Tom Troughton, who asks, if you could, like your president, drone drone the f out of anyone without the risk of legal retribution, who would you drone the f out of and why?

Good question.

Good question.

That is a very, that's a heady question.

It is a heady question.

No, I guess he means a country.

I don't know if he means an individual.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of NFL coaches that have been driving me nuts, but I don't know if it's drone level, you know, drone level stuff.

You know what I mean?

Drone level.

I mean, that Bill Belichick, I mean, oh, Jesus, I don't even get me started.

I don't.

I'm not going to.

I'm going to try and move your mind away from him as much as possible.

So

let's talk countries.

Well, right out of the gate, I go Russia, right out of the gate.

See, I'm old school with my enemies.

I don't let things go so fast.

Everybody's, oh, let's forgive and forget now.

I don't forget, and I barely and rarely forgive.

Okay.

All right.

And Russia has...

You guys remember that movie, Rocky 4?

That's still true.

That's still how they think.

They're the kind of people that would use steroids against a fight.

And then, well, our guy didn't need steroids.

It wasn't true then.

Absolutely true.

I mean, just look how they fought in that fight.

That's how they fight in the world.

That's a metaphor for the world domination, right there.

They want it.

But when the Russian people saw Rocky winning, all of a sudden they jumped on our bandwagon, didn't they?

And guess what happened right after that?

Tear down his wall.

Yeah.

So that was the Rocky movies.

Then the wall came down.

Well, yeah.

I mean, you know, Hollywood

gets it right sometimes.

Let's be honest.

Hollywood rarely does, but every now and then they get it right.

And incidentally, Reagan, great president or greatest president ever?

Or greatest president in our lifetime.

In our lifetime.

Yeah, I mean, probably the greatest president ever is Washington.

Okay.

And Washington didn't have the Rocky movies to back him up, did he?

No, he didn't.

That's why, I mean, look.

If you take the Rocky movies away.

If he did, he'd really beat it.

Yeah.

What's Reagan got left apart from Rocky?

Oh, geez, come on.

Reagan.

He's got all that stuff.

He's got the, first of all,

he's a handsome guy.

You know, he looks...

Look, he looks like the way you think a president should look.

Like, if you had to imagine a president, he's what he will look like, right?

Okay.

Then you got the fact that

he was brave and he looked at what he did with the economy.

Everybody was making a ton of money in the 80s.

Everybody?

Yeah.

Everybody.

Across the board.

No,

not across the board.

Not across the board.

I'm pretty sure across the board.

I'm even more sure not across the board.

But we'll have to agree to disagree.

I'm pretty sure the country was in a boom, not a bust.

Okay, so

you mentioned on the way in that you have the, as you I can see you waggling it around now, that Italian sausage in your hand.

Yep.

There's a question question here from Elliot R.

saying, why do Americans put corn syrup in their Italian sausage?

Why?

Exclamation, Mark.

Question mark.

Exclamation mark.

I don't know, because corn syrup is delicious.

But is it, though?

I mean, is sugar not better for you?

It's not good for you, but corn syrup seems horrendous.

Yeah, but you got to understand.

By eating corn syrup, you're supporting the farmers of this country.

Anyone could eat sugar coming in from Jamaica, one of these other foreign lands.

But you eat corn syrup, then you you got a guy in America who's working his ass off to grow corn the old-fashioned way in his, you know, in his yard, and he's and he's got a tractor and he's mowing his corn and he's trying to feed his family.

And they don't want to eat corn because that's all they eat over there.

So he's got to make money by selling his corn so they make syrup out of it.

Then we eat it.

It's all part of the circle of life.

I mean, you do understand that that's not how farms work in America now.

Usually it's Monsanto genetically modified crops.

And

it's really industrial farming.

But look, look, you can break this down down all you want.

Monsanto, big business, hires a lot of people.

Yes.

That creates jobs.

They're going to genetically modify crops.

You got to have scientists, the best scientists, American scientists, figure out how to make the chemicals to make that corn so good.

And what's the big deal about eating chemicals?

Chemicals all came from nature at some point anyway.

Everything started.

What do we start with?

We didn't have a special bin, you know, that guy left here that said not natural.

Everything's natural, right?

You just mix it together and then they say it's unnatural.

Bullshit.

You break it down, it's just what is it, sugars and carbohydrates, or whatever.

It's all natural, it all everything came out of the earth.

Oh, my gosh,

that sounds like a stump speech.

Listen to me.

I had a couple of moments out there in my jet ski when I was stuck just drifting in the Atlantic.

I bet, yeah, I bet.

And I got to tell you, you know, you think about life in a different way.

You know what I mean?

Hey, water, water, everywhere, right?

But nothing to drink.

You know, I mean, I did have, I did have a second jiki.

I had a second jet ski full of Gatorade

next to me.

Why did you do that?

Why did you do that?

Why didn't you have fuel in that jet ski?

Why are you figuring them to get thirsty?

I mean, like you're out at sea, you're going to get thirsty.

I had the sail, you know, but why would you drink it out of the jet ski?

That makes no sense.

I don't know.

You know, it just seemed like the best way to store it.

You know what I mean?

Because that way it's not in the sun.

And I don't, you know, I don't know.

At the time, it made sense.

I did on paper.

If you look at it on paper, it makes sense.

It's tough to explain just like out of offhand.

Well, I'll tell you what I'm looking for when I look at the pillars of society like the legal system John I'm looking for a fing bargain and another problem with this is that the these reforms are essentially completely irreversible once you have basically destroyed an entire industry you can't just magic it back up if it turns out to be terrible mistakes but I guess throwing babies out with bathwaters is what human progress is all about.

People throughout history have said we wouldn't be able to live with without indispensable parts of everyday life like tobacco pipes, witch dunking, slaves, golden defecating out of windows.

But we've found a way.

And we're sure we might like the idea of a functioning legal system, but how often do most of us actually use it?

It's like that Christmas bagel machine we've all got tucked down the back of the sofa.

It's nice to know it's there, but we only get it out when we're in trouble with the police.

I think.

Anyway, the point stands.

We need to make savings.

Otherwise, some significant employees are going to relocate to India or somewhere.

And if you're looking for sacrificial lambs to dress up in fishnet stockings and push-up bras and pimp out to the highest or lowest bidder, then the legal system is is going to be the first of those lambs that you're going to train to talk dirty to a businessman.

Even the government's own website

says it acknowledges some of the problems with it.

The removal of choice may reduce the extent to which firms offer services above acceptable levels.

This is from their own consultation programme, John.

And John, I'm not sure we've even fully scratched the surface of this issue and everything that it shows about our national priorities and the workings of our politics.

But it really leaves me feeling about as reassured as being told not to panic about the escaped man-eating tiger in a zoo by a furry, stripey-faced zookeeper in a blood-splattered, ill-fitting zookeeper's uniform who belches, roars, and says, Man, he was surprisingly chewy for a fat lad.

Sorry, what was the question?

When is the penguin feeding session?

Roar!

This will teach you for turning my grandparents into home furnishings.

Well, there you go, pump that into Cairo, and everything will be fine.

Uh we're off next week as well which is probably a good thing.

There's simply too much sport on for us to be able to satirise real stuff.

There's the Wimbledon Finals.

Can Andy Murray finally reward the British people for their 77 years of doing everything possible to win a Wimbledon Men's Championship?

He better after everything we've done for him, watching him from our armchairs and complaining about him with his incredible work ethic and skills.

Then there's the deciding test in the Lions Rugby Series in Australia.

It's one all after two as I'll record if you're a non-rugby initiated bugler tuning in for the decider.

Look out for rugby's trademark Molotov cocktail of institutionalised cheating whizzed together with baffling, almost fetishistic technicalities that help rugby disappear up its own fundamental where it seems mostly comfortable.

Plus occasional outbreaks of unmatchable sporting majesty when the sport suddenly, often accidentally, breaks free from its own complexity.

It's like a cross between chess, cage wrestling without the cage and international tax law.

No one really understands it but you can be pretty sure that the big guys are probably doing something naughty.

And then on Wednesday the world will get much more important.

Even more important than it already was as a planet because on Wednesday England and Australia play cricket against each other.

You can take your Egypts, you can take your global economic crises, you can take your Syrias and your covert surveillance programs undermining the principles of Western democracies.

Nothing is more important this summer than the ashes.

Nothing.

And the Anglo-Australia cricket clash begins on Wednesday and lasts for five lots of five days over the next seven weeks.

Strap in, it's going to be sensational, or it might be adequate.

Anyway, you can hear more about the ashes on the Greatest Testy podcast Chris and I have been doing, some of which sounds like this.

Just had some news coming in on the wires.

Following a year-long slump in the test arena, in which his run scoring and strike rate have plummeted, England batsman Ian Bell has announced plans to rebrand himself.

Things have not been going so well for me as Ian Bell lately, explains the Warwickshire man, so from now on I wish to be known as the Sledgehammer of Everlasting Vengeance.

Bell, who will be listed on the scorecards this summer as TSE Vengeance, hopes the rebranding exercise will make him more intimidating to bowl at.

Although he has been refused permission by the ICT to walk to the crease brandishing a flamethrower.

There's nothing in the laws against it, muttered Bell angrily.

I feel like Dennis Lilly's aluminium bat all over again.

That's just it.

Most of it also has other people talking as well, so do tune in for that.

Soundcloud.com slash the hyphen greatest hyphen test.

Funnily enough you can also find the bugle on SoundCloud too at soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle.

If you enjoyed that and want to see more of me or even if you didn't enjoy that but think you might enjoy enjoy it more if I wasn't talking about cricket, then do come to Political Animal on Thursday the 11th at the Udderbelly on London's South Bank.

I'm hosting it and the guests are Paul Sinha, Matt Ford and Mark Thomas.

Tickets available on the internet.

Bugle merch available in the Udderbelly ticket office.

So this could quite possibly be the greatest night of your lives.

We'll be back with some more Shameless Villa next week with Bugle 240 sub-episode Betty.

Until then, 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.