Bugle 233 – Baby got hack

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world

Hello buglers and welcome to issue 233 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world.

Take out a voluntary subscription of thebuglepodcast.com now.

And what a delight it is to be here in London.

Seriously, we're not kidding.

Where the sun is shining, the birds are shitting.

Almost certainly, that's just one of the things about London.

Whatever you're up to, you know that somewhere a bird is crapping on someone's car.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

And in bird-free New York City, where the only thing that shits on pavements is Wall Street.

Yeah, take that.

It's the cracker tower of the cracker tower of comedy.

The Mount Pinatubo of Bastiche.

The Santorini of satire.

The Mount St.

Helens of massively striking hilarity.

The Aetna who'll get you with his laughter lava, splurting his magma of mirth all over the Pompeii of pomposity and burying the Herculaneum of hypocrisy with his pyroclastic flow of pointed facetiousness.

It's the vaudeville Vesuvius himself, John Oliver.

Andy, you're writing checks I can't cash.

Ah, hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers, but mainly...

Hello, buglers.

Why?

Because, Andy, the buglers have outdone themselves over the last seven days.

First, the official merchandise went live last week and we got inundated with so many orders.

I think I just presumed it was sarcastic.

But it turns out people actually have a genuine desire for something physically worthless to symbolise their love for this philosophically worthless podcast.

So thank you so much for your interest.

It's definitely going to help keep us doing whatever this is for however long we can.

And secondly, you may remember that we had a brief discussion last week about about dating sites and the bugle being signed up for Christian Minkle.

And we casually expressed a concern that buglers might sign up the Bugle email for another dating site.

Well, if you had any doubts about the sheer caliber of people who listened to this, then doubt no more.

Because within hours, the Bugle email address was almost brought to its knees after being signed up for, and here's the list.

J Date, Atheist Personals, Africa Beauties, TotallyJewishDating.com, Single Book, which is apparently a German dating site called Single Book.

That does not blend with TotallyJewishDating.com, does it?

It's one or the other.

It doesn't.

One or the other.

It sure does.

Well, although I guess totally Jewish dating was kind of what they were going for.

It was not there.

Anyway,

Freethinker Match.

Atheist Passions, which seems

hugely creepy.

Mingle two.

Meet single women in Grozny.

That must have been my favourite.

Clown Passions, until that one became the favourite.

Daily diapers, which is apparently adult fetish wear, Lion Brand Yarns, which is just yarn, but by this point I assumed it was some kind of yarn-based sex cult.

It didn't stop there, though, John.

Really?

Because I can update you on that.

We've now

been signed up not only to a site where we can get all the yarn we could possibly want, but also Amo Latina, which suggests that 62-year-old Lena from Paraguay could be right up our romantic alley.

Okay, Cupid, and we've already had someone try to contact us through that.

Scorpio's love from New York City is big into the bugle.

23-year-old straight man.

Might take a bit of work to wake that one work out for us.

Blackpeople meet.com.

That could have just been...com.

That could have just been you signing up for that one.

The National Institute of Health.

Yep, the American National Institute of Health.

Someone signed us up for

their bulletins.

Possibly.

Maybe it was automatically signed up based on the frenzy of global pansexual carnal activity our dating activity suggests we're about to undertake.

And this will be amishcrush.com.

So that's

clown passions and Amish Crush, very much two ends of the romantic seesaw.

And these ones will be particularly of interest to you.

AussieCupid.com

and rsvp.com, which claims to be Australia's number one dating site.

So maybe it's a chance for us to build bridges.

That is sensational work.

I got an email from Chris about this when I was on a train back from DC with the list of everything that we've been signed up for.

And he just already sounded so tired in the email.

And I laughed out loud on the train so hard that the person next to me asked what had happened.

I couldn't even begin to articulate what indeed had happened, how stupid it was, and why that somehow restored my faith in human nature.

So I just said to this person, I can explain it to you, but I promise that it still won't make sense.

And he actually seemed happy with that answer.

So, well played, buglers.

I doff my cap.

Regarding the merch, it did come up as sold out fairly quickly in what appears to be one of the

less successfully organised commercial launches in history.

But that's now been rectified.

It might take a while for delivery, but you can now order everything theoretically.

If there's any problems, contact us at the infothebuglepodcast.com.

Email address.

and

with our massive range of retail expertise we will

attempt to help out but thanks to everyone who's bought uh bought the merch so far you know it's truly a great day for humanity so um did you go to the correspondence dinner this year john i did how was uh how was that it was you know it was socially awkward i've annoyed a lot of people in that room andy and uh it becomes clear why sometimes it's not a great idea to see the consequences of your jokes in person.

So this is Bugle233

and for the week beginning the 6th of May 2013.

Now on the 5th of May 1953, that is 60 years and a day ago, Aldous Huxley.

the celebrity wordsmith first tried the psychedelic hallucinogen mescaline now in his first trip he hallucinated that he lived in a country where everyone really wanted to own a badger but there were no badgers left then a giant mummy badger came along on a boat and said, hey everyone, I'm full of baby badgers, let me in.

And everyone said, yay, baby badgers.

So the mummy badger was welcomed in and everyone got very excited as the mummy badger built a big nest saying, yeah, they're on their way.

I promise you baby badgers and baby badgers you will get.

Anyway, 10 years later, the mummy badger still sitting there in an increasingly comfortable nest.

Everyone's saying, where the f ⁇ are our baby badgers?

And the mummy badger said, you've already had them.

I quit.

And runs off, her pantomime badger outfit falling off as she goes.

And they shout, you're not a mummy badger, you're a lawnmower on a Kawasaki 350.

Lawnmur revs off into the distance, shouting, You're welcome, everyone, look after my little badger cubs, and it's never seen again.

Bit of a weird trip.

Anyway, the very next day, the 6th of May 1953, Tony Blair was born.

Read into that what you will.

Andy,

when you said at the start of that, Aldous Huckley once took mescaline, did you mean to say I just took peyote?

Not that I'm aware of, John.

But sleep deprivation can very well have the same effects.

233, Bugle 233, in current teenage slang, according to the internet and internet discourse, 233 is sometimes used instead of BFF to abbreviate best friends forever.

The digits correspond to the number keys that would have been pressed on an old-style mobile phone.

And that is very much how John and I view you, Buglers, BFFs, our 233s.

And you can further cement that status by taking out your voluntary subscription at thebuglepodcast.com.

Best friends forever, Buglers.

Well, make go do it before we get to Bugle 439 and have to tell you to GF yourselves.

And as always, a section of the Bugle is going straight in the bin.

This week is a new audio part work series.

This week, the first installment of Celebrities' Secrets of Success.

Number one, Franklin Roosevelt's Bucket of Lobsters.

Roosevelt was renowned as one of America's greatest presidents.

He put much of that success down to his bucket of lobsters.

Roosevelt took the receptacle of crustaceans with him wherever he went, and they became a valuable source of both companionship and advice.

Ironically, as a young man, he used to eat loads of lobsters, but he had an epiphany during a peg out at his favourite lobster bar, Snappy Lionel's Crustacea Carnagerie, in 1913, when he thought he heard the lobsters communicating with him in Morse code.

Don't eat us, they seemed to clack with their claws, we can help you.

He borrowed the restaurant's one remaining bucket, and thereafter, everywhere Roosevelt went, the lobsters went too, and their clickety-clacking helped shape modern America as we know it.

With today's 24-hour meter, of course, he couldn't have got away with it.

People would have been saying, why should I vote for a guy who goes everywhere with a bucket of fing lobsters?

No way would he have been president today.

People might have been prepared to vote in a black man, a lunatic, a philanderer, a lunatic's dad, and a film star, but there's no way they'd vote in a guy with a bucket of lobsters.

But it was the early 20th century, and the lobsters were there to stay.

That's why he delivered his messages to the nation by a crackling fire, so people couldn't hear the clacking of lobster claws as they fed him wise, soothing words to relay to a troubled nation.

The lobsters became increasingly influential in formulating his policies, but it came at a moral price.

The famously prudish Eleanor Roosevelt banned them from having carnal relations with each other in the bucket, as

she found the sound of lobsters humping distressing and distracting from her prime hobby of plait bread.

The lobsters reluctantly consented, until one day their pent-up lobsobsterone boiled over.

Roosevelt didn't want them breeding in case the Russians got hold of one of their offspring, so he said, All right, I'll sort you out a boys' night in with a stripper.

Any other aquatic creature apart from lobsters?

The lobsters, as one, clacked, New Deal, New Deal.

And Roosevelt's plan to rescue America from the depression was born thanks to a bucket of perverted Randy lobsters.

And the reason Stalin always looked so awkward in those photos of him with Roosevelt and Churchill at the altar: well, you try looking relaxed for the camera when you've got a lobster clamped to your Soviet nutsack.

All that in the bin this week.

Andy, go to sleep.

Top story this week, baby got hack.

Over the last week or so, there have been a series of high-profile computer hackings with responsibility claimed by the Syrian Electronic Army, which correct me if I'm wrong, Andy, is exactly the same name as that synthpop band that you were in in the mid-1980s.

If I remember rightly, you wore a fluorescent yellow headband and played the key tar in a pair of tight blue stonewash jeans that had the Syrian flag sewn onto the ass.

I'm pretty sure I'm not making that up.

No, yes, certainly.

The photos are out there somewhere.

Yeah, right.

So the Syrian Electronic Army is a group which is said to have the tacit support of Bashar al-Assad, although that could not be independently confirmed, mainly because Syria is still a total f ⁇ ing mess at the moment.

I mean, an unremitting shit show.

I'm talking about a f ⁇ ing catastrophe of the highest water.

And last week, the SEA managed to hack into the Twitter account of the Associated Press and posted a message that two bombs had exploded at the White House, injuring Barack Obama.

Then, all they had to do was just sit back and watch all hell break loose.

The markets immediately, albeit momentarily, collapsed, temporarily wiping more than 90 billion pounds from the US stock market.

In the space of just three minutes, Andy, after the hack tweet was posted, the benchmark S ⁇ P 500 index, which most people have heard of and almost no one understands, fell nearly 1%, briefly wiping out $136.5 billion of its value.

I think the fact that all of that happened over a single tweet, Andy, should give us all a deep and lasting confidence in our financial system.

It's somehow reassuring to know that the global financial system can be brought to its knees in less than 140 characters.

It's progress in a way.

It's just the same kind of progress that Thelma and Louise made as they drove faster and faster towards the edge of a cliff.

But then of course it bounced back, John.

But was this due to people realising that the tweet was a fake?

Or was it simply the prospect of a looming catastrophe?

Because three minutes, John, as we've discovered on this podcast, is about the market's standard minimum decency period after a tragedy of some kind before they think, well, there's no point crying over spilt blood.

There's money to be made.

It's what the dead would have wanted.

And once again, it does raise the alarming realization that the entire global economic system is not vulnerable so much to the threats of terrorism or natural disasters, Mother Earth's own involuntary terrorism, if you will.

The entire global economic system is vulnerable to a well-placed piece of bullshit, which raises the question:

How the f am I not a billionaire, John?

What the f am I doing wrong?

I should be working this point.

That's a fair.

You are uncut bullshit, Andy.

Well, I guess the word distilled.

But I guess the thing is, the bullshit has to be believable.

You're right, fellas.

It's not about the money, it's about the art.

Point taken, it's also about the honeys.

Yeah, and it's also about avoiding any sense of responsibility, reality, or genuine adulthood.

I stand corrected, fellas.

Have some bacon.

Lobsters don't eat bacon, honey.

A security expert.

It makes them kosher, John.

It cancels it out.

If you feed a non-kosher animal with non-kosher food, it's a double negative that becomes kosher.

Take that up with God, come to the public.

A decent mathematician will tell you that.

Take that up with God.

He might just ask you to just spell Yamaka.

That's all he might require from you, Andy.

A security expert explained why the financial freakout was so instantaneous, saying, High-frequency trading bots are monitoring real-time news sources like press feeds and stock exchange notices.

They then try to analyze whether the news is positive or negative.

They'll automatically buy and sell stock accordingly.

When the SEA hacked AP and posted the single fake tweet, trading bots saw crucial keywords from a highly authoritative source, explosion, White House, Obama, and injured, which was a strong sell.

It took some minutes until human operators interceded and stopped the madness.

There's so much to unpick from that sentence, Andy.

First, trading bots.

There's nothing more bone-chillingly terrifying about the phrase, is there?

It turns out that trading bots, though, are actually a lot like human traders in that they both run on cocaine and prostitutes.

Trading bots work hard, trading bots play hard.

Trading bot heading out tonight to sexually assault stripper bots.

I actually think a trading bot computer trip probably has exactly the same level of conscience as your average Wall Street trader anyway, Andy.

But at least has the integrity to physically have a steely metal heart.

Do you know, if you record the words trading bot

and make a little kind of old-style record out of them and then just drag the needle backwards over it on your record player, it says the words, what could possibly go wrong?

Also, the last line of that guy's answer is the most chilling there.

It took some minutes until human operators interceded and stopped the madness.

That's basically the movie logline for War of the Worlds, Andy.

I think we need to try and extract the positives from this, John, try and find some diamonds in the dung heap.

And

I think, you know,

we can work this to a more positive way.

We just need to spread the kind of rumours that can be relied upon to ensure that the markets skyrocket.

You know, positive rumours rather than rumours like this of a death that could destabilise the entire politics of the world.

Maybe a leaked memo about how the chief financial officer of the international mega bank, Snutterbuckenvawk, has just successfully grown a diamond tree in his garden that grows pure 3,000 karat ready cut rocks as big as a man's ventricle by burying his jewellery loving wife and fertilizing her with decomposing banknotes left over from the Weimar Republic.

By my calculation, that diamond tree would be worth up to $500 billion worth of market capitalisation.

Whatever market capitalisation is.

I think that's when the share price is so ridiculous they have to print it in capital letters.

But

I think, you know, we can work this, John.

We just need to start

spreading lies.

I mean, basically, if the whole of economics is based on bullshit anyway, then you might as well try and fight the bad bullshit with the good bullshit.

That's basically, that was Jesus's message.

That's well.

Again, again, he'll just want you to spell Yamaka Andy.

That's all he's going to want to do.

The FBI are of course...

Spell it if it's on your head, John.

The FBI are, of course, currently investigating.

Could Abraham Lincoln spell stovepipe?

Could he?

There's a screen grab of the tweet online before it was taken down, and you can see that it instantly had 3,063 retweets and 144 favourites.

Now, I don't want to tell the FBI how to do their job, Andy, but they may want to look, spend some time investigating the people behind those 144 favourites.

Because if you are favoriting a tweet about about the president getting hurt in an explosion at the White House, you may be a person of interest at some point in the future.

How's that even an instinct to hearing one of the most potentially shocking pieces of news in your lifetime?

Oh, what's that?

Blast inside the White House.

President Down, put me down for like.

And as it turned out, that particular tweet was just a hacky hors d'oeuvre for a tasting menu of tap tweetery from the Syrian electronic army, leading to all news organisations this week being officially warned by Twitter to tighten their security.

The Guardian newspaper in the UK was hit this week inadvertently sending a hack tweet that read follow the Syrian electronic army follow the truth but my favourite hacking was was when for some reason the SEA decided to attack the BBC weather Twitter theme

and I don't know why they were a target but I'm frankly glad they were.

Here are just some of the messages they posted.

The first one was Edinburgh storm warning station decommissioned after maintenance fund diverted to Syrian opposition.

Okay, you know, I get that one, Andy.

You know, it's topical.

It's got a bit of weather in there too.

But from there, they seem to really settle into a rhythm.

Another one was, earthquake warning for Qatar.

Hamad bin Khalifa about to exit vehicle.

Boom, Andy.

That's got everything they want.

A criticism of Qatar, who they're angry with, another bit of weather, and a fat joke.

Because to be fair, Andy, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa is of the larger persuasion.

That's why it works.

Then, it just got downright weird when BBC Weather tweeted Saudi weather station down due to head-on collision with a camel.

And at this point,

I think the SEA were just mainly having fun and enjoying the fact that for some reason they still hadn't been kicked off the server.

It's pretty amazing.

It's basically the kind of thing that you would tweet, Andy, if you hacked into the BBC weather feed.

If?

That's a kind of terrorism that I think we can all accept.

That's uh

they uh I mean but you know the BBC weather fork I mean that is I think that's you know taking down the pillars of Western society one by one.

That's hitting Britain where it hurts most on the as you know we're a weather-obsessed nation have been ever since the ice caps melted and we ended up separate from France.

That's why we get so annoyed when it's cold.

We just want to make sure the ice caps don't come back.

That's all we've

got.

It's all we've got.

Vice magazine actually managed to conduct an email with someone claiming to be part of the Syrian Electronic army and asked them if there was any particular English-speaking journalist that they don't like, to which their answer was, there are many really, but any media company in the world has to know that it is a target for us when it reports false or fabricated news.

Oh shit, we're going to be a target, Andy, because that is essentially all we do.

And bugles, I hope you realise the self-restraint involved in doing this whole chunk on Syrian cybernots taking over the BBC Weather Twitter account without once saying that there were going to be sunny spells.

And that took determination, sheer determination.

Aloha, let's move on.

CIA have got bags of money news now.

And it emerged this week that tens of millions of US dollars in cash were delivered to the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for over a decade, dropped off in suitcases, backpacks, and plastic shopping bags.

What could possibly go wrong with a planet like that, Andy?

Other than absolutely everything.

I mean, your potential failure rate is only an impressively meager 100%.

How could that scheme be flawed when you're handing those bags of unmarked money to a country whose two main exports are heroin and sadness?

How could it not work?

Karzai told reporters that the Office for National Security has been receiving support for the past 10 years.

Not a big amount, he said, a small amount.

And this is where the words get really interesting, which has been used for, quotes, various purposes.

Now, when Hamid Karzai says money's been put to various purposes, that should set alarm bells ringing, like at the World Campanology Championships.

That is.

He said the assistance has been very useful, and we are thankful to them for it.

Well, that's nice.

Yeah, that's nice.

That's lovely, isn't it?

Absolutely lovely.

The money was supposed to buy influence for the the CIA, but instead, and you're not going to believe this, Andy, it apparently fueled corruption and empowered warlords and undermined any attempted US exit strategy, or as they described those three things in Afghanistan, Wednesday.

But these...

These bags of cash demonstrate a clear new strategy for the US and Afghanistan, Andy.

Rather than just throwing money at the problem, they've moved on to dropping money near the problem instead.

So let's not claim that their strategies have not evolved.

Now, according to Khalil Roman who was Karzai's chief of staff and I imagine literally also his bag man

according to him the Afghans called it ghost money saying we called it ghost money it came in secret and it left in secret and that's not ghost money Andy that's ninja money silently arriving silently leaving completely untraceable ghost money is something that disappears before repeatedly coming back to haunt you oh do you know what he's right it was ghost money

and hamid Karzai actually called it something different, similar to what you heard, Andy.

He called that money multi-purpose assistance, which is like the kind of euphemism that a massage parlor would give for a hand job.

It apparently got so bad that an American official stated this week that the biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan was the United States.

And that is big praise, Andy, because almost any single object in Afghanistan is a potential source of corruption.

Somehow, even their boulders are on the take.

There was a report in August 2011 that said that

as much as $60 billion in American funds have been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 10 years.

So, I mean, you know, it's nice that at least we're giving some directly in cash because the problem with fraud that goes through the books is you lose so much in commissions.

At least it's going directly.

to where it is most needed for the purposes of corruption.

Yeah.

Here's another thing on Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, renowned as a terrific producer of opiate drugs, but until recently it was not actually a major consumer.

But that has all changed in the last 10 years.

More than a million out of the 35 million population are now addicted to drugs, which apparently is proportionally the highest figure in the world.

Now,

where could they possibly have learned this from?

America has one of the world's highest rates of drug-related deaths.

Britain has the highest drug abuse rate in Europe.

So you're f ⁇ ing welcome, Afghanistan.

At least, let's look for the silver lining here.

They've knocked Iran off the top spot.

Yeah.

Take that arm at dinner, John.

An addict was quoted on a BBC report saying, buying heroin in Kabul is as easy as buying yourself something to eat.

Still sounds quite difficult if you're in Kabul.

But at least, John, you know, this is opening up.

Afghan societies, we promise you.

This is giving the consumers what they want.

At least they now have the choice of whether or not to annihilate themselves with lethal drugs.

And women and children account for 40%

of the country's drug addicts.

So

even more than the choice.

We are bringing gender equality to Afghanistan in the post-Taliban era.

And we're bringing families together that have been traditionally torn apart by civil war.

That is really the legacy that we wanted to leave in Afghanistan.

That's a good point.

The entire budget for treating the country's one million drug addicts, and bear in mind that they've lost $60 billion

to corruption in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The entire budget for dealing with a million drug addicts, $2.2 million.

That's just over $2 per addict per year.

So in context, you might argue that isn't quite enough.

Maybe not quite enough.

Well, there's no more money, Andy, because it's being dropped off in cash plastic bags at Karzai's office.

And I imagine also most Afghan drug dealers don't take credit cards, so who knows where that cash is going?

Well, the reason these cash drops started was apparently in 2010, Karzai admitted his office received cash in bags from Iran, but that it was a transparent form of aid that helped cover expenses at the presidential palace.

He said at the time, United States made similar payments.

So what happened was, in December 2002, Iranians reportedly showed up at the palace in a sports utility vehicle packed with cash.

And the CIA then began dropping of cash from them at the palace the following month, and the sums grew from there.

We were like two contestants on the bachelorette, Andy, desperately trying to compete to win the affection of someone who, deep down, we probably didn't even like, definitely don't know that well and who we know we have no real future with, yet whose favor we are inexplicably willing to degrade ourselves for.

America, I have really enjoyed my time with you this month.

Will you accept this opium poppy?

Oh, of course I will, you dangerously corrupt bastard.

Come here.

Someone is definitely getting some multi-purpose assistance later.

It just seems crazy, Andy.

You're giving the money to Hamid Karzai, a man who, if his previous behavior is anything to go by, is just going to spend that money on heroin and hats.

Your emails now and aside from the emails from dating sites that we've been getting which in a quick update we've also been signed up up for Anastasia Date which I presume is dating agency for

people who uh

are allegedly part of the former Russian royal family but disappeared in mysterious circumstances uh and Muslima hooray at

uh and passion networks

so um and it's all happening it is all happening at uh at uh all started by Christian Mingle and that's uh I think that showed how uh a religion doesn't need to divide it can bring people together

And now we've been signed up to two dating websites from most of the world's major religions.

That's

a great day.

I see an amazing rom-com coming out of this where you accidentally double book yourself onto a Christian mingle and Muslima date and have got a pretend to be both in one nightclub with hilarious consequences.

Well, you see, you say that like it's a joke, Chris, but if you say that out loud on the west coast of America, you may find yourself making that movie.

No, you may find yourself making some movies.

Hi, Paul Rudd.

He's so likable.

Perfect casting, Chris.

You've shown you got a good eye.

Yes.

Thanks to Casey, who took it upon herself to make little illustrations for us.

She describes them sexy dating website profile pictures, which is basically women in bikinis with John's and my head superimposed, which is frankly probably the creepiest thing I've ever seen.

It's pretty chilling.

I mean, we definitely look like serial killers.

It's certainly the creepiest thing I've seen since I actually saw John in a bikini.

This one came in from Max in Florida who writes

Andy affecting my love life.

Oh dear, I don't know the way this is going.

Dear Andy, John and Chris, in order of influence on my love life.

My Canadian girlfriend recently came to stay with me.

She needed to exchange some Canadian currency, so I took her to my bank.

When she took out her bills, I couldn't help notice the smoking hot woman staring back at me.

It was the queen.

i tried to control myself but andy's influence on me was too hard i received a very a few very awkward glances while i talked about how hot she was and how the bells were practically made to be sticking out of a stripper's g-string needless to say my girlfriend was not that impressed i may have to switch banks soon sincerely max in florida well you know the queen is what the queen is you know don't fight it

don't when you've got that that kind of branding why not stick it on a banknote that's what they're i mean what are the scots doing not having a queen on their their banknotes?

That is,

I mean, they just clearly don't trust themselves.

We have another email here from Dan, who says, Dearest Chris, John, and Andy, in order of those who would have the potential vanity to use services such as mine.

As a personal trainer, I like to get through my worst and most painful workout on a Saturday by doing my heavy squats to

your splendiferous bugle podcast.

I can't

believe

there's something about the phrase heavy squat, Andy.

Not that kind of show.

It's not that kind of show, listeners.

It's occasionally that kind of show.

Ah, this is high-end satire, John.

Let's not forget that.

Never forget.

It's just that the image of someone doing squats up and down, up and down while listening to this is very, very funny to me.

Anyway, I get through my worst and most painful workout Saturday by doing my heavy squats to your splendiferous bugle podcast to distract me from the focused misery of my workout up and down.

Up and down.

Work it, Dan.

Work it.

Work it.

Come on, Dan.

Squat.

Squat up.

Squat down.

Squat up.

Squat down.

However, a moment of intense hilarity.

I think we've both just demonstrated that neither of us have ever been to a gym or had a personal trainer.

However, a moment of intense hilarity caused by the gigglage, courtesy of the penis de la Mars, caused me to LOL in a moment of maximum exertion, subsequently resulting in a torn muscle in my lower back, four days off work, and

thus far a net loss of over £1,200.

A birthday present was to be a voluntary subscription to yourselves from my mother at a rate of £10 per month.

Therefore, I will now be paying in £2023, no doubts, from a spinal rehab clinic.

Thank you, Bugle, for making me both incredibly happy and yet unable to extricate my 16-stone carcass to perform even the most basic ablutions.

Oh, dear.

That is a problem when you've got some heavy squats to get.

Squat up, squat down, squat up, squat down.

Well, we can only apologise from the very tops of our hearts.

That spine tastrophe was the subject on that email, which is

feel the burn, Dan.

Feel the burn ripping all the way up your spine.

You've hurt it again.

Squat up, squat down.

If it ain't hurting and it ain't working.

And this on a similar...

I think the bugle is economically disastrous on any number of days.

That is the next merch we should do, Andy, is an exercise tape tape that is all just squatting.

Just squatting.

Shouting into a camera, squat up!

Squat down!

You can do that when you're hosting the daily show, John.

It may come to that.

I think lunges and burpees are both quite bugly-y.

Well, we've got to have the Queen's swerobics.

We could maybe.

And f.

And

f and f.

I forgot swerobics.

That is very good.

But we actually could do an exercise tape up there.

We could.

This one comes in.

How the bugle cost me £20,000 a year from Guy.

Dear John, Chris and Andy.

In the order you appear on the assassination list of the nation of Australia.

Well, I'm done quite well with that.

Yeah, you've got to do that.

What have you done to piss them off, Chris?

What are you above me on that list?

I just think it's my general demeanour.

You went out there during the last ashes, didn't you, mate?

I did.

I helped England win the ashes.

A few weeks ago, I was scheduled to attend a job interview, which could have seen my salary increase by £20,000.

As this was clearly an important interview I needed to decide what to listen to on the three hour drive to best increase my chances.

Possibly some learned documentaries related to the field.

Maybe some soothing classical music to make sure I'm fully at ease.

Now of course what you need for a job interview is to ensure your mind is full of premium grade bullshit to ensure you have plenty to spout off when the time comes.

I therefore decided to listen to back-to-back bugles for the drive.

Unfortunately one of the recent bugles I chose was the one where John was reading out tweaks from the Iron Shake, including the ones described as distilling down the essence of marketing.

Well, I thought if it works for selling t-shirts, surely it should work for selling myself.

Thinking a bit more, I decided it probably wasn't a good idea.

But throughout the subsequent interview, the mental effort required to not just stand up and yell, Give me a job or go f yourself

meant I couldn't really concentrate on the questions being asked.

It's now been several weeks, and I haven't heard back from them.

I therefore blame my subsequent failure to get the job on you at the bugle, and I'll be expecting a yearly stipend of £20,000 £20,000 to be coming my way from your overflowing coffers.

So, well, Buglers, if you want us to be able to pay Guy the money he so clearly deserves, then

our coffers are not what we describe overflowing.

So, do keep those voluntary subscriptions coming in at thebuglepodcast.com and check out our SoundCloud page,

soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle.

And the merch is also available via the via the Bugle website.

And, you know, it's hard to imagine a world within a year or so where at least half the people are not wearing a bugle cap.

Makes you think.

Thanks for your emails.

Do keep them coming in.

Info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Well that's about it for this week's Bugle.

Any buglers who are going to over this weekend to the Badminton Horse Trials

do enjoy it.

It's the annual event where Britain's naughtiest horses face justice in the four-day highlight of the Etquine legal calendar offences.

Being prosecuted in a law-studded bill at the trials is here ranged from unlicensed nine via galloping under the influence of sugar lumps to a sexual misconduct suit brought by two actors from a very disappointing pantomime.

That's all, buglers.

Until next week, please stop signing us up for dating sites.

We're already happily married to our beloved audience.

We need no more love than that.

That's a lovely gesture, isn't it?

That's nice.

So stamp up your fing dowry.

And that's it.

Until next week.

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.