Bugle 238 – Inprismed

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 238 of The Bugle, the world's leading audio newspaper for a visual world for the week beginning Monday the 17th of June 2013.

I'm Andy Zoltzmann, five-time South London Lawnmower Describer of the Year.

It's like a little trolley that cuts grass.

Competition hasn't been great to be honest, but a win-to-win.

And joining me from New York, it's the 21st Century's Walter Cronkite, the host who'll have you on toast, the anchor who'll outflank you, the interviewer who'll zing right through you, the comedic kebab stick himself, skewering the meaty topics and cooking them on his skill grill.

It's John Oliver.

Hello Andy.

Hello buglers.

On a side note Andy I'm currently drinking out of an official f eulogy bugle mug.

Oh there we go.

This is the first actual mug I've physically seen and it's a beauty Andy.

Can you get Paul to take a picture of that and we can

sure why not?

Why not

I'm going further than that John.

I've got a bugle mug, hat and t-shirt combo on.

Yeah, I'm going the whole hog.

You're a company man to the core.

That's true.

I'm all about the

company loyalty.

You couldn't even say it, let alone me that.

You couldn't even understand how to phrase those words in your face.

Anyway,

I'm one week down as temporary guest stand-in summer host for Jon Stewart, and it has been, without exception, the strangest week of my life.

The whole thing has been a blur, but there was a couple of moments I thought you might like to know about.

Andy, Mavis Staples was on on Wednesday singing.

I love Mavis Staples, Andy.

She's an incredible singer, incredible person.

On the occasions that we've met, we've always got on great, even though we have close to nothing in common.

You've got to think about it.

She is a legendary 74-year-old African-American gospel R ⁇ B singer and civil rights activist.

I, Andy, on the other hand, am a 36-year-old white British mid-to-low-range comedian.

And yet, she's always been extremely kind to me.

There was this amazing exchange when I went to see her backstage before the show started and she gave me this big hug.

And she's a good hugger, hugger, Mavis Staples.

It's like a grandmother's hug in a good way.

I don't know what a grandmother's hug in a bad way is.

Anyway, the point is it's a good hug.

And she looked at me and she said, John, the angel sure kissed you on both sides of the face.

And I paused and said, Mavis, I don't know what on earth you're talking about.

And she said, you're dimples.

That's not an expression I've heard, Andy.

Angel kissing for dimples.

And it's not an easy one to carry off without sounding intensely creepy.

But

Mavis Staples is one of the few people in the world who can carry it off beautifully.

Anyway, it's been a fucking weird week.

It does sound like that might have been some kind of mafia threat.

Angel has kissed you on both cheeks.

Like insult your goal.

Don't insult that.

The angel is disappointed in you.

And I received some very positive feedback from

buglers in particular.

That's nice, Andy.

But with respect, that doesn't really count.

If buglers don't like what I'm doing in that, I'm in trouble.

Well, I just suggest that maybe one day, if I ever take a holiday, you're ready to step up to hosting this as well, John.

One step at a time, Andy.

That's too big a chair to fill.

Yeah, to be honest,

I'm a bit out of shape.

Fair point.

But

so this is very much the first week in

the first week in part two of the history of Showbiz.

I see it's very much like the New Testament.

You've taken over at the Daily Show.

Oh, yeah.

That's a hell of a claim.

Are you going to back that up or you're just going to leave it there?

Yeah, like John the Baptist.

Preparing the ground for a Jew whose views some may find controversial.

So

just biding my time.

I also started a new anchoring job on the Greatest Test, Chris, our producer, Chris's

new Ashes podcast

that

I've tweeted a link to on the.

Can we put links on the Bugle site as well?

Yes, consider it done.

If any of you buglers give a shit about cricket, which I know some of you do,

it's been a momentous week in the history of broadcasting on both sides of the Atlantic, John.

Are you basically starting a new media empire, Chris?

Are you going to become the new Rupert Murdoch?

Well, he is my role model and occasional employer.

So, yeah.

What do you know about the divorce?

I mean,

have you got anything to do with that or not?

Well, you know, he only has eyes for me these days.

Oh, right.

Guess that one.

So, this is Bugle 238.

Now, uranium-238 is, of course, the most common isotope of uranium.

Over 99% of all natural uranium is the classic 238 isotope.

What an isotope.

And it has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

So, if Bugle 238 is anything like uranium-238, this show is still going to be moderately funny in 9 billion years time, after which, probably wise to give it a miss.

Uranium-238 also, of course, used a nuclear weapon, so do feel free to threaten to play this podcast to people you don't like or who've been giving you hassle, safe in the knowledge that they'll probably leave you alone rather than risk having to listen to it.

We're recording on Friday, the 14th of June.

The 15th of June, 75 years ago.

1938 saw the patenting of the ballpoint pen by Laszlo Byrow.

And that's a fact.

The idea came to him when he got a Brussels sprout jammed in a bottle of tomato sauce and in his efforts to dislodge the vegetable accidentally drew a rudimentary ketchup woolly and baubles and thought to himself, hang on, there's something in this, an edible pen.

So he began using pure squid ink in a razor clam shell pen shaft with a baby whelk as the ballpoint.

But after retailers proved resistant to selling pens that had to be refrigerated or would swiftly become poisonously fatal, he fine-tuned it over the years into the non-edible pen we all know and love today.

But does the Byro still have a future in a world where supplies of blue ink from genuine blue-blooded aristocrats stockpiled when they decapitated them all during the French Revolution are now running dangerously low.

We may never know.

To market, there's a new exhibition in London called Byron's Byros, a display of the Byro pens that ace 19th century poetry superstar Lord Byron might have used if he hadn't sadly died 114 years before the celebri pen's invention.

And also includes some of the poems that he could have written with a Byro, including this one that he would have written in the mid-70s.

There lived a certain man in Russia long ago.

He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow.

Most people looked at him with terror and with fear, but to Moscow chicks, he was such a lovely deer.

Rah-Rah Rasputin, crappest golfer there has been.

His driving and his short game were really quite bad.

Rah-Rah Rasputin, couldn't get it on the green.

And to see him try to putt, that really was sad.

So, um,

turns out Byron would have been obsessed with golf if he'd been around in the mid to late 20th 20th century.

And can I just stop you there?

Yep.

Just in the interest of the last remaining fact on earth committing suicide.

I would really love to see Ken Burns'

documentary version of your sense of history just be an elegant pan shot past a gigantic mountain of bullshit.

I'll put that on my poster.

An elegant pan shot past a gigantic mundane of bullshit.

Two stars, the Scotsman.

Monday also marks 128 years since the Statue of Liberty arrived in the Big Apple, New York City.

Big Bronze Babes magazine's hottie of the year on no fewer than 127 occasions in those 128 years, beaten in 1971 by US First Lady Pat Nixon, though some suspect vote rigging by her husband Richard.

Was there nothing that man wouldn't stoop to?

Even fictional stuff.

He spotted a really nice story about the Statue of Liberty.

What a fucking shit.

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

Midsummer is next Friday.

So this week, we have your full solstice guide.

All the tips and pointers for making your midsummer one of the greatest of the year, including our Are You a Druid quiz.

Take our simple multiple-choice Druid Diagnosis test to find out whether you could be an Iron Age pagan priest.

Task one, you've moved house to somewhere with a slightly bigger garden than you're used to having.

How do you decorate it?

A.

Concrete it over and paint it green, so much easier on the upkeep.

B go to the local garden centre and buy some ornamental pots and a couple of fing shrubs.

C, build a World War I trench down the middle of it to help you appreciate the progress the world has made in the last hundred years.

Or D, buy a load of massive rocks, plonk them up like giant croquet hoops, make sure they align with the sun one day a year or something, smear your face in weird paint and start trying to prophesy the future by poking around in the entrails of freshly killed rabbits or whatever the f they did.

Task two.

A door-to-door salesman rings your doorbell.

He is trying to convince you to switch your electricity supply.

You tell him you're happy with your current supplier and move to close the door.

He hastily states that 90% of customers could save money by switching to his company.

What do you do next?

A.

Politely say you're still not interested and tell him that Nigel from next door really loves talking about electricity prices, so why not try him?

Do you B, slam the door in his face shouting, get a proper job?

Do you C, make an excuse such as sorry I'm really busy right now, my kids are about to be born in a couple of years or perhaps sorry, I'm halfway through an emergency tracheotomy on a friend in the kitchen, I better get back to it, or he'll probably die.

Or do you D, start declaiming strange ritualistic incantations, summon your priest to seize the man, take him into your back garden, place him in a giant wicker man, and sacrifice him?

If it's mostly D's, you are a druid, mostly A, B, or C, possible Seventh-day Adventist, partial Jew, or unqualified Zoroastrian.

That section is going in the bin.

And for our southern hemisphere buglers, for whom midsummer is still six months away a commemorative audio penguin

Top story this week hide and go leak

The huge story

was that a pun

was that like a pun on hide and screen no it sounded like it sounded like a pun, but it definitely wasn't a pun

it was a rhyme.

It wasn't a pun it wasn't a pun.

It wasn't a pun.

You're absolutely sure of that, John.

Definitely wasn't a pun.

Definitely was a pun, Andy, because if it was a pun, there'd have been some physical reaction in my body.

It could have been a pun.

It was a rhyme, not a pun.

Oh, you're sure.

No pun.

No pun.

The huge story of this week, Andy, concerned Edward Snowden, the leaker, who, incidentally, Edward Snowden, doesn't mean it sounds like the name of a British mountaineer.

Edward Snowden successfully scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, only killing 32 Sherpas in the process.

He planted a photograph of Her Majesty the Queen at the summit before killing one more Sherpa for good luck.

Well done, Edward.

Good climbing.

Edward Snowden was the whistleblower behind the allegations that the NSA and the US government have dramatic powers of surveillance over the US population, both those under suspicion of committing crimes or plotting terrorist acts and also those who have done absolutely nothing.

He leaked the allegations to the Guardian newspaper after fleeing to Hong Kong and Andy let's pause for a moment and appreciate the fact that it is nice to have a British newspaper expose invasions of privacy rather than outright committing them

what a nice little twist to this story that is

I mean it's this was predicted by some people if I may quote you are being watched the government has a secret system a machine that spies on you every hour of every day the machine was designed to detect act of terror but it sees everything you'll never find us but we'll find you not my words the words of whoever wrote the opening voiceover for the mid-range American TV crime drama Person of Interest, which turns out to have been an act of incredible prophecy, following the honourable tradition of other TV shows and becoming basically a fact, such as Battlestar Galactica 24, Spartacus and Match of the Day.

Prism

is a government code name, the word PRISM,

for a data collection effort officially known as US-984XN,

which, John, that chilled me to the core because that is my password for my knitting patterns for beginners.com account.

How did they know, John?

The point is, this goes really deep, Andy.

Why are they interested in that?

Why?

Well,

it's not that they're interested in that, Andy.

They're interested in a terrorist who might also be part of a knitting circle to try and find the map of his

friend.

It's complicated, Andy.

I don't understand.

They're doing it for your safety, so shut up.

I think that is what i do understand do you know why it's called prism as well uh no because um it was intended to make little things appear much bigger than they actually were you know a frog not behind a prism looks like a frog a frog behind a really good prism dinosaur

dinosaur frog uh there were some amazing allegations in this story uh snowden claimed that not only did the u.s government store details of the duration and location of every single uh cell phone call made in america in a huge facility in utah but that the nsa also had access to emails and other online transactions from basically everyone who lives in the States.

At one point during his interview, he even claimed that he and other contractors had the ability to hack into the president's email if they were so inclined.

And that is one hell of a claim, Andy.

It's basically coming from someone who the media here rather pointlessly revealed was a high school dropout.

But isn't Isn't that really the American dream right there, Andy?

America is a country where a kid can drop out of high school and grow up to become the president of the United States'

email hacker.

That's a big dream.

Yeah.

Greatest country in the world, Andy.

But people seem much more worried about this this kind of intrusion than kind of corporate spying, you know, companies like Amazon basically reading our minds.

You bought Justin Bieber's My World 2.0.

You also bought Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

You also bought a porcelain figurine of a duck going shopping.

You might also like a Slashmeister 3000x chainsaw.

We're more interested in how to be a serial killer.

We don't mind that.

And the justification, I guess, is, well, you know, if you've done nothing wrong, you haven't got that much to worry about.

Probably, it'll almost certainly be fine.

Nothing like this has ever or could ever go wrong.

The story has formed some very strange alliances as people pick sides as whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, you know, a justifiable thing or an aberration.

People who have come out in support of Edward Snogan include Glenn Beck and Michael Moore.

And that just shows how alarming this story is, Andy, when those two actually f ⁇ ing agree on something, something

really strange is happening.

The response from the White House has been spectacularly disingenuous as well with President Obama choosing to spin this into a positive saying, I welcome this debate.

Oh, oh, really?

You welcome it.

You welcome welcome the debate, do you?

We're just waiting for the perfect time to have this debate.

And it turned out that the perfect time, out of pure coincidence, was immediately after an illegal leak that was picked up by a national newspaper and made the rounds of the world.

That's what you've heard from the administration here all week.

The president welcomes this debate.

This discussion is absolutely one that we should be having.

It's healthy for us to be having this discussion as a country.

Every administration in the end has their tells, Andy, like their poker tells.

And I think we have just found the Obama administration's one.

Bush administration's was, you know, I don't recall.

I do not recall or I can't comment.

The Obama administration is clearly, let's definitely have that discussion.

This is a talk we should absolutely be having.

What a good conversation to have.

And we should have it in the near future.

It's basically just a different way of saying, shut the f ⁇ up.

Shut up.

I guess it's hard to know exactly where this story lies.

It's probably somewhere between, well, it's either monitor everything or you might as well buy the entire population of Islamistan one-way tickets to Washington and tell them to dismantle the White House brick by brick and make the president into a meringue, which they then stamp on, eat, and shit.

Or, you go the other way, it's the government wants to know exactly how many minutes I'm playing angry birds for every day so they can work out if I'm likely to throw actual birds at a building in a terrorist attack.

It's very hard to know exactly where this lies, John.

And what exactly does PRISM record?

I mean, I'm a bit concerned it might record how much our listeners laugh at the bugle.

That sounds like the kind of thing that is going to be going straight up their tubes like a ferret after a testicle.

It's going to snoop on how many tins of beans you buy, then match it up with the amount of empty tins you throw away and work out whether you might be stockpiling tins to buy to build a giant tin robot pterodactyl to fly over America caught and laying eggs.

Where does it end, John?

Where does it end?

Well, it ends before what you just said.

That's definitely.

Oh, that's all right then.

That's fine.

There is a slight element of hypocrisy to our outrage around this as well, because it is strange to hear people talk about the value of privacy when so many people, as part of their daily lives now, volunteer up so many details of their personal lives to the public, putting up baby photos on Facebook, talking about the colonoscopy they just had on Twitter, and literally giving up their exact location and the location of others on Foursquare.

It just, it seems to be that, no, as long as we volunteered, it's fine.

If you take it from us, that is an overreach.

It's a grey line, but it is a line.

I guess, you know, it's the problem.

People don't trust the government with this kind of information.

And I guess the government has a bit of a boy who cried wolf issue arising.

They've not always proven to be throwing darts of honesty into the treble 20 of truth on issues such as this.

But I guess if the boy who cried wolf had been laying it down today, people wouldn't have been sucked in.

by me as the government would have picked up on the lack of wolves in his local area from some Google Wolf tracker app, cross-referred it with all his tweets, like, oh shit, I'm going to be eaten, hashtag wolfy, hashtag sharp teeth, and checked his Facebook status updates, about to be eaten by a wolf, and called him out for it.

You know, so I mean, this is progress, John.

Obama

last weekend said, you cannot have 100% security and also then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience.

This is basically an update on little Tommy Jefferson's famous catchphrase, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

And it turns out that we actually got behind on our vigilance payments bit of complacency about that the interest kicked in the bailiffs were looking menacing the price of liberty has consequently gone up to avert eternal vigilance plus state intrusion and it will only actually buy you a reduced version of liberty that doesn't actually have full functionality and once you get behind on your payments it is so tough so tough to get back I think that's what we've learned from this this prism story and again I think we need to look for the positives because you know this could really I think as you know this could really help people out you know have the state knowing knowing your day-to-day schedule and everything that's going on in your life.

I mean, it does raise the chance that the FBI will,

the CIA could launch dawn raids in suburban Minneapolis, smash down the front door of a family's house, burst into their teenage son's bedroom, pin him to the wall at gunpoint and say, we've been monitoring emails from you and your social group.

We know exactly what's going on.

And we're delighted to report that Bridget from your drama class quite fancies you as well, if her instant messaging with her bestie Michelle is anything to go by, but Michelle isn't sure you're right for her.

So if you want us to bump her off on some trumped-up rumor that she's Che Guevara's Iranian niece, just say the word.

We'll all benefit from it.

It's a great day for freedom.

James Clapper, who did you cover him on the daily show?

Yeah, we did.

He

said that this extraordinary thing in March, asked at an open congressional hearing whether the National Security Agency collects any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans, replied, No, sir, not wittingly.

Which that's wanted to be one of the ballsiest pieces of bullshit in political history, or

one of the most impressive acts of unwitting mass surveillance ever undertaken.

It is possible that he misheard the question, and what he thought, what he thought he heard the question from Senator Ron Wyden as being was, have you ever heard a song by the 1970s klezma funk disco fusion band DJ Jacob and the Yamilcos,

Not Wittingly.

Then you could understand that

answer.

Or perhaps in what English village did novelist GK Chesterton vomit in a hedge after eating what he thought was a bowl of spaghetti hoops, but was in fact a bowl of worms answer, the village of Not Wittingly.

Or perhaps it was his answers to the three questions: A, which England wicketkeeper made 269 dismissals for England in his 95-match Test career?

B, brevity is the soul of what?

And C, how does your penis feel after you dip it in a gin and tonic?

Not wit tingly.

Oh.

But Andy,

you think the not wittingly use of

eccentric language is the ballsiest thing he said.

You clearly didn't hear his follow-up statement because when asked about what he had said in that congressional hearing, he said he had just tried to give the least untruthful answer possible.

That is some linguistic jiu-jitsu, Andy.

He's wanting the English language to tap out before he breaks its neck.

Yeah,

that is a quadruple Salco.

In your hosting debut

on Monday, you also picked up on the filter the NSA used to make sure they don't peer into the emotional cervix of the wrong people.

That they have to have a 51% confidence that the subject is foreign and pointed out this is basically tossing a coin plus 1%.

percent um well i've got a follow-up on this for you john i have a coin uh and i have been tossing it and it is currently returning 100 fact

uh because um at the start of the current cricket tournament in england the champions trophy uh i decided that uh to predict the tournament i'd just toss a coin to get the to predict the results of all 15 games in the tournament we're eight games in currently I've got seven out of eight rights, and the one that wasn't right was reined off, so I didn't actually have a result.

so i'm basically seven for seven with my magic coin there's only two options there andy either you or that coin are a witch

or heavily in uh involved in some indian betting syndicate um yeah well i actually have the magic coin with me now uh the copper deity adorned with a holy

lascivious face of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Can I just see both sides to

this numismatic nabob, this one pence powerhead who knoweth all things and and speaketh only truth.

So I thought we could maybe find out what the world should do about the big

issues using this coin of truth.

So, I mean, are there any questions you particularly want to ask the coin about the world or your own your own career, John?

Sure, Andy.

Does Kashmir belong to India or Pakistan, Andy?

I know that was a grey area when we British drew those lines.

Okay.

So we'll go with...

So does...

Yeah, go on.

We'll go with.

Okay.

Well, it's heads.

So that is that's the answer there.

That is the answer.

That's basically the answer that we British gave in China.

It's heads.

So um sort sort that out yourselves and sleepy.

I'm not making that mistake again, John.

I once uh during when I was out at the Cricket World Cup in India and India were playing Pakistan in the World Cup semi-final, I put what I thought was a little light-hearted tweet up about how the winner would uh get to keep Kashmir.

And I had some of the most concisely worded abuse hurled at me on Twitter that I've ever been the

honoured recipient of.

I'm not going to make that mistake again.

I'm going to go with, is Prism right or wrong?

Heads for right, tails for wrong.

It's tailed.

It is wrong.

It is

the coin of truth was spoken.

But does this mean that I am actually a terrorist?

Heads for yes, tails for no?

I'm not a terrorist, so that that's that just goes to show.

So this whole handy.

Is Kate Middleton going to have a girl or a boy?

Okay.

So a boy heads, girl tails.

Actually, let's flick that around.

That's crazy.

Yeah, you can.

Girl heads, boy tails.

Okay, right.

It's a boy.

It's a king.

King!

King.

We have a king.

Norman Tebbit, rest easy.

We will not have a lesbian queen being artificially inseminated to create an heir to the throne.

Andy, what's the freakiest thing about rats?

The what?

The freakiest thing about rats.

What?

Their heads or their tails?

yeah okay right

heads rats

I'm not that freaked out by their tails it's just a bit of mankey string isn't it but their their heads that's like looking into the very soul of the devil himself but miniature

Syria

still rumbling on a balding man's head of an issue an increasing distance between the two sides increasingly hard to attract attention and allegations that chemicals have been used and the Russians want to cover it up so

should we arm the rebels in Syria?

Heads for yes, tails for no.

It's tails.

We should not arm the rebels.

Well, I guess the coin is saying it's a complicated issue.

We don't know exactly who the rebels are.

It's quite a nebulous concept.

I think that's what the coin is saying.

They seem too fractured.

Yeah, I mean, look, there's an argument to be made either side, and the coin clearly says...

Give it time, look for some kind of political solution.

It's difficult.

It's a very nuanced coin, this, as you'd expect from something with...

It's not a neocon coin, is it?

No.

Do you expect with a Queen's face on it?

She's a very wise woman.

She's very diplomatic, and I think the coin has

lived up to that as well.

And finally, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said something extraordinary this week.

They've revamped the GCSE system to try and make it tough.

And he says that he hopes this will equip British children better.

to, quote, win in the global race.

Which, as a view of education, I think is one of the most chilling things things I've ever heard a British politician say

so but so this is is the purpose of education to win in the global race or is it personal improvement and spiritual fulfillment heads for winning in the global race is gove right he is right Michael Gove is actually correct it might have sounded like the lunatic rantings of a deranged madman but the coin of truth has proved

that govian education is the way forward that is all we are now we are just cogs in michael gove's plan for british economic control of the world we can't build our empire again we can educate our children to win in this hypothetical global race thank you coin the coin has spoken that was a tough one to stomach that one let no man gainsay it

Your emails now, and this one comes in from

oh, I should you probably don't I probably shouldn't use the name given the content of the email password Wow, this sounds good.

Password is the topic.

Gentlemen, brackets, ladies at the weekend of tabloid reports are to be believed.

Well, you're going to get this level of intrusion, John.

Now

you're a

Jobiz A-lister.

Of course.

My internet service provider recently insisted that I change my password.

After having a dozen attempts rejected because they were, quote, recognizable words, including 1Q2W3E4R, in sheer frustration and childish protest, I typed in f eulogy, inspired by the bug on my desk.

Imagine my dismay when this was accepted as a suitable password.

F eulogy, not a recognizable word.

What the f?

Someone needs a word with the OED.

Samuel Johnson must be spinning in his grave.

So, regards,

I don't want to give away your name, Mr.

GC, just in case people can

guess what obvious passwords you clearly go for.

And this

came in from Random Bloke,

who writes

on the subject, subject, Mrs.

Vladimir Putin II.

Dear Chris, Andy, and John, in order of likelihood to actually pay attention to this email rather than letting the contents skid off the surface of your mind while you ponder cricket stats or the crushing pressure of all those people wondering why that Jewish presenter is looking somehow both younger and more Jewish,

I would like to tender my application for being Mrs.

Vladimir Putin II.

Whilst, yeah, because we've not

covered as many stories since

because,

well, we've both been pretty busy.

But yeah, Putin is getting divorced, and I would not like to be Vladimir Putin's ex-wife.

I think that is one thing that I would not like to be in the world.

I wouldn't want to be Vladimir Putin's ex-wife, current wife, or future wife, Andy.

He seems like a handful as a husband.

Whilst it is true that I am a man and in a long-term relationship, I believe this does not put me out of the running.

In fact, it occurred to me as I listened to last week's bugle that if there is any reason why I've taken so much shit from my missus for the last 20 years,

and I'm in a tsunami of shit at regular intervals with the intimidating tidal lapping at the shores of my unconscious every day, as if to remind you, don't relax, mate, there's another force ten gale of misery squits on the way.

I do hope your wife doesn't listen to this.

Then it could only have been to prepare me for the onslaught of abuse at the hand of one of the world's most dangerous and deluded leaders.

You think you scare me, Putin?

Bring it the f gone!

I have sometimes, and prepare yourself for this, guys, sometimes forgotten to do or buy something for my missus.

You can threaten me all you want with your poison umbrellas, polonium and interrogation so enhanced you sometimes forget to even ask the questions.

It means nothing to me.

Perhaps it's a common sensation that long-term male partners feel this way that that young Rob Stark was, in fact, the luckiest character in Game of Thrones.

So, what if sex will be an unwelcome and possibly violent encounter from a man who leaps onto me from the back of a rampaging tiger?

It will at least be sex.

For the possibility.

This is basically

just send it direct to your lawyer.

For The unlikely possibility this communication might cross the Politburo desk of my current overlord.

Maybe you shouldn't read out any of my identifying information.

If you see me in the street, you'll know it's me.

The desperate stare of a lost soul awaiting the sweet release of death.

Keep up the good work, chaps.

Yours, random bloke.

There we go.

So, I mean, that's a pretty strong application.

You know, if I mean, any.

Can any woman truly tame Vladimir Putin?

If you had to choose between being Mrs.

Putin and Mrs.

Berlusconi,

what to.

Oh boy.

Boy.

That's one of the ultimate philosophical questions, isn't it?

It sure is, yeah.

That's right.

I think Buddhist monks have been up mountains for decades trying to figure that out.

That's probably the best place to be.

What happens?

Before finding the answer when they throw themselves off a mountain screaming, neither, it's neither.

So thanks for all your emails and your kind words of praise and congratulation for John's hosting efforts on the daily.

So, do keep your emails coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle.

You can buy merch and take out your voluntary subscription if you haven't done it yet.

And I'm sure you all have, all of you, at thebuglepodcast.com, where Chris will also post a link to our new cricket show.

So that's about it for this week.

John, best of luck for

the difficult second week.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Don't go too experimental.

Save that for week three.

John's Dogman star.

And we'll be back next week with Bugle 239.

Until then, from the centers of Shobiz on both sides of the Atlantic.

Goodbye.

Bye.

Thought it fruitful to flee from.

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.