The Bugle – The Baroness bows out

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Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 230 of The Bugle with me and his altsman in London, the United Kingdom, a nation in mourning after the death last week at the age of 87 of one of Britain's greatest and most influential figures of the late 20th century who from a breakthrough in the late 1970s changed life for individuals and societies in many ways and changed the way people look at life arguably for all time in this nation who this person was recognized on the international stage as well as domestically fated by the right-wing newspaper the Daily Telegraph as one of the world's greatest contemporary geniuses.

This great British figure, a pioneer who overcame hostility and scepticism scepticism to become an inspiration, in particular to women, the importance of whose work reverberates to this day in Britain and around the world.

Sorry, I'm getting a bit emotional.

I know 87 is old, but it doesn't make it any easier for the nation to cope with this loss.

Sir Robert Edwards, the Nobel Prize-winning physiologist who developed in vitro fertilisation, passed away last Wednesday.

Other than that, everything's been fine.

And joining me from New York City, it's the crankshaft of comedy, the fan belt of funny, the cylinder head of satire, the piston of the particularly amusing, chunking out out 750 brake horsepower of badass hilarity the comedic car engine that is john oliver hello andy hello buglers i'm back andy back from a whirlwind trip down under to australia where i ended up not just in sydney but also in some of the most ludicrously named places i've ever set foot in places like wagga wagga and wodonga come on andy those aren't town names they're just funny funny noises

australia is a sensational place, and it really begs the question, Andy, why the f ⁇ did we make that our penal colony when it's nicer than where we live?

We should have said to criminals at the time, Andy, you're all staying here, we're off to go live in paradise, or be it a coastal paradise around a rocky hell.

But point is we made a huge technical geographical error.

In my time upside down, I also got to interview ex-Prime Minister John Howard there.

An experience which, shall we say, say, he didn't seem to enjoy to his maximum capacity.

I also just want to say a quick hello to all the buglers that I met down there.

Australia turns out to be a sensational place, albeit, Andy, I don't know if you found it this way, one of the most comfortably racist places I've ever been in.

They've really settled into their intolerance, Andy, like an old resentful slipper.

And you can say what you like about Australian racism, Andy.

It is undeniably specific.

I had a couple of Australians, more than one, complain to me about all the Lebos in the country, referring apparently to the Lebanese.

Now, who the f ⁇ is annoyed by Lebanese people, Andy?

Again, let me reiterate, in a way you have to admire the attention to detail.

Not just all those Arabs, but the Lebanese.

That's like saying, you know who I can't stand?

Sri Lankans.

Malaysians, no problem.

Bangladeshis, lovely people.

But Sri Lankans, I've got no time for them, Jose.

Now,

how many Lebanese people, Andy, can there actually be in Australia?

There's only just over 4 million Lebanese people in finging Lebanon.

And the one thing that Australia cannot argue is there's no room here in this country because that land is fing gigantic.

That aside, fantastic place, Andy.

Can't wait to go back.

That's basically been the government's immigration policy for quite a long time there, is to just stand on the coast by any large harbours and ports, trying to make themselves look big.

Saying, no, no no we honestly there is no space for you people

so this is bugle 230 um no i'm going to resist that it's the reason 230 um

uh the reason uh pope benedict xi said he didn't have any posters of the jamaican sprinter merlinotti on his bedroom wall in the vatican the jamaica athlete won no olympic goals but six bronzes to go the seven bronzes she won at the world championships making her in the pope's view 230.

and uh also

230 was the answers to a special Margaret Thatcher-themed quiz in the House of Commons bar this week.

The questions of which were: what was Margaret Thatcher's favourite part of a shark?

Which of her cabinet ministers was Margaret Thatcher reported to have had most different recipes for cooking?

And what vowel did Margaret Thatcher use most often in her speeches?

Tooth, herd, E.

So it's a very

appropriate number for this week.

Also, the week beginning Monday, the 15th of April, 2013, meaning it's it's 148 years, John, to the day since Abraham Lincoln had his clogs forcibly popped, literally went out with a bang.

Also, 258 years since the publication of the first English dictionary by word fan Sammy Johnson 258 years ago, doesn't time fly.

And amongst the words in his dictionary then, but now seldom used include scroffle jick, that's a person who trains his dog to defecate on his neighbour's lawn rather than his own.

Flanotti, that is the debris left on the wall of a urinal after a particularly vigorous sneeze.

Coal miner, yeah, Maggie, yeah, where's that one gone?

As well as

assorted words for the male reproductive adjuntament, including Membrilliard, Thunkatrunk, Grobelton, Fatalatch, and Prongdong Doodle.

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

This week, Can Audio History of the Thatcher years.

Part one, Margaret Thatcher is born.

Ah, ah,

ah,

ah.

Oh, darling, it's a beautiful little Tory.

Just what we always wanted, darling.

Why is she crying?

I think she wants some boo-boo, Alfred.

Well, she can't have it, Beatrice.

She's got to learn to be self-sufficient.

I'll explain a few things.

Next week, the school years.

Margaret gets hit in the head with a lump of coal during juggling practice.

Top story this week.

You die if you want to.

The lady is not for dying.

Oh, hold on, scratch then.

I think I'll give it a go.

It's Maggie Thatcher, Death Catcher.

Well,

what an emotional week it has been for Britain, Andy.

The 87-year-old former Prime Minister and political juggernaut, Margaret Thatcher, has died.

And it may be very hard for people around the world to understand the kind of strange emotional roller coaster that Britain has been on over the last seven days, as many people are forced to navigate some complicated feelings regarding how to justify feeling slightly less than sorrowful over the death of a frail vulnerable old lady.

It's been halfway between a celebration and a memorial this week.

It's essentially been a celebrorial.

And if you saw some of the scenes on TV of impromptu street parties over the death of Margaret Thatcher you might understandably think people in Britain are a bunch of heartless

and To some extent, you'd be right.

Seeing 18 year olds dancing around after the death of a woman whose time in power they never directly experienced, albeit the aftershocks of which they undoubtedly felt, is not an entirely heartwarming experience and it's only going to get more complicated from here.

The official full ceremonial funeral is going to take place on Wednesday.

in London at ironically high cost to the taxpayer, a final hypocrisy haiku in a controversial career.

Now, apparently, Andy, correct me if I'm wrong, it's not officially a state funeral, although it's going to be f ⁇ ing difficult to tell the difference because there's apparently not going to be a military flyover, but there's going to be pretty much everything else.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's basically it.

It is a state funeral in all apart from name, including specifically, as you say, in price tag.

And

it's been, I think it's fair to say, more than a little bit controversial because she was a woman who didn't just split opinion, but slathered it with ice cream and popped a glasse cherry on top.

And also, interestingly, within minutes, John,

of her death being announced,

there was a great debate on how it should be commemorated, not just in society in Britain as a whole, but also amongst buglers, particularly through the bugle Twitter feed, with a lot of people asking whether or not she would get, or demanding that she should get, a f eulogy.

And, you know, it's

a tough philosophical question to address, John.

Because,

as you know, you set the bar pretty high for f ⁇ eulogies.

And we try to maintain that in this franchise.

We don't just hand them out to anyone.

You've got to really earn them.

And you might say set alongside Bin Laden, Gaddafi, and Kim Jong-il.

There's no way a woman even as divisive as Thatcher deserves a f ⁇ eulogy.

But you would also say set alongside Churchill, the Duke of Wellington and Isaac Newton.

She sure as f ⁇ doesn't deserve a state funeral, which is, as you say, essentially what she's got.

Funded by the taxpayers, a large percentage of whom would only be happy to contribute if if their money was being used to pay for a giant 50 metre high middle finger made of coal to be paraded 10 yards behind her coffin.

Also, Parliament was recalled to pay tribute to her a few days earlier than it would otherwise have done.

Would that have made many difference?

Was she going to get any more or less dead in those intervening days?

Perhaps she was.

Apparently, Tory Central Office was reportedly disappointed and surprised that as of three days after her death, there had still been no resurrection.

They issued a statement saying, we assume it's just been some kind of administrative holdup.

According to precedent, it should have happened by now.

It's probably to do with paperwork.

Thank you, Brussels.

So

a very good suggestion was sent in by a bugler called Don from New York, who suggested that while she maybe doesn't warrant a full state f eulogy, she is definitely worthy of a ceremonial f eulogy.

No one knows exactly what the difference is, says Ton, but it looks like you're taking the controversial nature of the relevant corpse into account in arriving at a middle position.

Very statesmanlike.

That is a very good way to straddle that that problem, Andy.

Yeah, so I don't know what your view on this, John, as the man who created the term

the institution that is the f eulogy.

Yeah, well, it's important

to withhold it, Andy.

Right.

And, you know, is dismantling society over a decade enough?

I'm afraid the bar is higher than that at the moment.

Who knows?

Someday it may be watered down, but I don't think.

I think it's cerebrarial time, Andy.

It's not full f eulogy.

There is going to be blowout media coverage on Wednesday, regardless of this not quite state with a uppercase S funeral.

And maybe this has actually come at a good time for Britain, Andy.

Last year we had the Royal Wedding, we had the Olympics.

We've been looking for another reason to put on a show for the world, and I guess this will have to do for now.

The problem is going to be how to produce the spectacle necessary when everyone's feelings regarding the person in question are so complicated.

British people are notoriously not particularly well in touch with their emotions.

So how are we going to fake our way through a funeral Andy?

Maybe we need to get in some of those professional mourners or some of those terrified looking crying people who were lying the streets at Kim Jong-il's funeral.

That's when you will know officially as a member of the world if the British people have decided we're not up to publicly grieving, Andy, because we won't have enough tears in the tank.

If all the shots, you will know if all the shots of the procession in London on Wednesday feature hordes of frightened North Koreans.

That's how you'll know that we've basically given up and gone to Plan B.

The scale of the funeral will reportedly be along the same lines as those for Princess Diana and the Queen Mother and the public cost, as we're mentioning, has raised some eyebrows, as it doesn't seem to sit well for someone who in her lifetime was so against public spending of any kind that she said about privatising the living shit out of everything.

Surely it would be far more appropriate, Andy, to find a way to have the private sector take care of this, have sponsorship up the side of her coffin like a race car, and have product placement join the eulogy.

Yes, it would be slightly inhuman, but

what more appropriate way could there possibly be to bid farewell to one of the most calculating politicians in recent memory?

And also Andy, that would open up the potential for us to pay for a much more spectacular ceremony than the one we're currently able to, which might satisfy both sides.

It would mean we could have a giant inflatable Belgrano, the Argentine ship that was shot in the back during the Falklands.

We could then have her coffin in the shape of a pointy torpedo and carry it into the back of the inflatable ship, puncturing it and deflating it as a hologram Ronald Reagan cheers and then bursts into tears and attempts to throw himself into Thatcher's grave before her.

Again, yes, it would be tasteless, but isn't that what she would have wanted?

She was, as you say, an incredibly

divisive figure in this country.

She polarised this nation like a celebrity chef smearing a grizzly bear in cream cheese and buying it a one-way ticket to the North Pole.

And

she was a sort of a political medusa that if if you looked into her policies, it would simply turn you to stone.

She was a dominatrix in a parliament of submissives.

And if you want to know the relationship between Thatcher and her party, anytime you see footage of her talking in parliament, imagine all the grey men sitting behind her wearing gimp masks.

And I think

that will show you

exactly what Britain was like in the 1980s.

Andy, I guess this bugle's going to probably be about half an hour, but really you only need to listen to that sentence to perfectly evoke what Britain is going through this week.

To indicate some of the complications that are ahead of us, the Premier League did not ask clubs to observe a minute silence at any football games this weekend, which upset a number of people, especially Thatcher's former sports minister, Richard Tracy, who said, Frankly, I think it's rather cheap that they decided not to show any sort of respect for her because, to be honest, she really did deliver what football is today.

And exactly, Andy, he's not wrong about that.

She really did deliver what football is today, an unregulated commercial nightmare.

Plus, let's not forget her and her government's response to the Hillsborough disaster, which guaranteed that if you asked football fans to observe the life of Margaret Thatcher, you might get a minute of something, but it sure as shit wouldn't be silence.

In fact, there might actually be something in that, Andy.

Maybe they should have suggested a minute's noise across the country.

Just so you could make any primal sound that you wanted in relation to Margaret Thatcher.

It might have been cathartic for the whole of Britain.

Some could cry, others could cheer, many could cry at the others cheering, some could moo, but all could find a way to process their feelings.

Well I think uh it could be even simpler than that, it could just have a compulsory pantomime booing, I think.

Minutes silence and then a minute's pantomime booing, punctuated by shouts of he's behind you, referring perhaps to the way she was ousted from power by being stabbed in the back by her own party, the same party that has effectively, politically canonised her this week.

I don't know if you saw any of the parliamentary debate in which parliament was recalled just to pay tribute to Lathatch.

I don't know if were you in Australia for that or were you glued to your title?

I think I was probably on my way back.

I didn't see it.

You probably could feel the reverberations in the aeroplane as she flew around the other side of the world.

But I don't know probably some buglers might have seen it, some probably didn't.

But if any buglers out there who've ever been wondering what it would look like to see 300 Tory MPs simultaneously masturbating I think that is probably as close as we will ever get in this world

there is there have been some pretty objectively distasteful responses to her death this week.

There were impromptu street parties and an internet campaign to try to get the song Ding Dong the Witch is Dead to number one on the British singles charts.

The problem is that the time for celebration at Thatcher being gone was probably November 1990 when she left office and was no longer relevant.

The problem with that problem is that she hasn't really stopped being relevant at any point since.

Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, perhaps a little nervous about the future response to his passing, criticised those people who'd held street parties to celebrate Thatcher's death, saying that they were in pretty poor taste.

And I don't think there's any denying that that is true.

The only argument is whether that lack of taste is appropriate or not.

He then urged the critics to show some respect.

And I think there has to be a balancing feeling to people's responses here, Andy, because I think there's just bound to be an inclination to push back against some of the eulogising of her time in office that you just mentioned.

I felt that way, Andy, and I haven't been in Britain this week where I'm sure you've been taking a saccharin shower in Iron Lady lionising.

And that can't have been easy to take.

Yeah, John, it has been

difficult difficult to take and some extraordinary things have been

said.

There's just been the kind of extremes that she has provoked throughout her career and now after death have been extraordinary.

David Cameron said on the day, she saved our country, by which he meant she saved.

David Cameron's bit of the country.

And as he said those words, more television sets were smashed in Britain than at any point in British history since Chris Waddle blazed a penalty over the bar in the World Cup semi-final against Germany in 1990.

And it was interesting for me, John.

I grew up in the southeast in Tunbridge Wells.

It's about as Tory as a town can possibly get without just flying off into orbit and looking down at the world saying, well, we are far better than you lot.

And at my school, John, there were 600 teenage boys.

That was the contents of my school.

We had a school general election in 1992 to coincide with the real general election.

And 550 of those boys voted for the Conservative candidate, which shows the independence of spirit that was fostered

in places like that.

And it was, I guess, only when it was sort of when I sort of saw a bit more of the world than that small bit of Kent and Thatcher land that maybe I began to realise what, you know, that she wasn't quite the goddess that she'd been presented.

If you left a pile of 600 copies of Playboy magazine, and 600 copies of a glossy magazine tribute to Margaret Thatcher at my school and said to the boys, you could take one magazine each, then 600 of those boys would take the Thatcher magazine, and the same 600 boys would then also take Playboy.

But it just kind of shows the way she was viewed at that school.

And then they would just rifle through Playboy, looking to see if there are any bunnies of the month with buffonte hair and an aggressive looking handbag.

Yeah, I mean,

the problem with this week is there's a natural emotional process to go through, balancing what she did with who she was.

And yes, she was the first female prime minister in the UK which is unquestionably a landmark achievement but she also blocked sanctions to South Africa during apartheid and famously took milk out of schools which led to her nickname Maggie Thatcher milk snatcher or as some people rhymed it Maggie Thatcher total.

Maybe though she's best remembered through some of her own words too.

One of her most famous quotes came from 1987 when she said, there is no such thing as society.

There are individual men and women, and there are families.

She didn't just talk the talk, Andy, she walked the walk.

She didn't just believe that there was no such thing as society, she said about dismantling it in front of everyone's eyes to make sure that she was right.

And that tonal whine of hers pairs perfectly with a slightly earlier quote where she argued that nobody would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions.

He had money as well.

What?

Oh, that's right.

That's the message to take away from the parable of the Good Samaritan, Andy, that the Samaritan was a successful small businessman.

It was a parable in private enterprise.

Say what you like about Thatcher, Andy, and this week you can't.

But she was nothing if she wasn't a free market theologian who listens, who listens to the story, Andy, of the Good Samaritan and thinks, wow, thank goodness he'd walked past so many needy people while building his business that he was able to help this poor wretch.

I just hope hope that he leaves his welfare instincts at that because at the end of the day, his first responsibility is to his shareholders.

Always a way that both sides have reacted, this is kind of impossible to separate the truth from the myths, the facts from the fictions, and the shit from the chocolate.

But if the nation that we live in today is indeed part of Thatcher's legacy, then frankly, her legacy is f ⁇ ing mental.

and you cannot deny that she also inspired great adoration as well as condemnation during her life and career Andy ex-French president Francois Mitterrand once said she has the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe Which might be one of the creepiest sentences spoken about anyone ever Andy I know he was French Andy but that sentence proves that there is such a thing as being too French

in her defense how the f was she supposed to respond to that at the time, Andy?

Yes, thank you, Francois.

Now, why don't you call your jets a second, mon putty chouffle, and take it down at least a couple of notches?

While I was in Australia, Andy, their foreign minister Bob Carr made headlines after describing some comments that Thatcher had made to him in her retirement as unabashedly racist.

And as I mentioned at the start, you know that that must have been spectacular as it came from an Australian.

Praise from Caesar is praise indeed.

He claims that during a conversation she had warned Australia against Asian immigration, arguing that if they allow too much of it, they'd see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants.

For a start, Andy.

I don't think you could accurately describe the European settlers as the natives of the land in Australia.

I don't think even Australians would claim that.

Yeah, that is taking the find us us keepers rule a little bit too far.

Bob Carl went on to say that he was particularly astonished at the comments because she made them while his Malaysian-born wife, Helena, was standing not far away, but was fortunately out of earshot.

He said, I was so astonished, I don't think I could come up with an appropriate reply.

And if in doubt, Andy, you always go with shut the f ⁇ k up.

I don't know why that stuck in his throat.

I've never known an Australian person be too far away from that particular phrase.

So it's going to be interesting to see how Britain manages to cater to a divided nation over the issue of Thatcher's legacy this week and beyond.

Perhaps the easiest thing to do might be to have one single eulogy extolling the virtues of her as a person and her time in office, but have it read twice.

Once sincerely and once sarcastically.

That might be the only real way of satisfying everyone.

Or

just care you could just use carefully crafted euphemisms.

That used to be the favoured technique in obituaries.

There was a great interview this week with Bob Choundy, I think his name is, who used to be the obituaries editor at the BBC.

And he said that there used to be a tradition in obits of never, ever speaking ill of the dead, and that went by the wayside in the 1980s.

I wonder what could have happened during that decade to facilitate that societal decline, Andy.

Maybe it was something to do with society being told that it didn't exist and having a truncheon slammed into its balls.

But he said, it's gone out of fashion a bit now, but euphemisms used to be an obituary tool to soften the blow.

The Telegraph in particular became famous for them.

A crashing bore was a tireless raconteur.

An old windbag relished the cadences of the English language, he said.

So with that in mind, I'll present a euphemistic eulogy of the great Margaret Thatcher.

Margaret Thatcher was a steely figure whose time in office was unshackled by by compassion.

She demonstrated an uncanny knack of multitasking opinions, having a fiery commitment to thrift while simultaneously unleashing the undiluted nuclear power of casino capitalism.

Her diamond-cut voice could charm a tumor out of a rhino, and she possessed an icy focus that well complemented the general temperature of her heart.

Her love and respect for the common man was poorly documented, and she will forever arouse powerful memories in the minds of all those who experienced her essence.

Plus, lest we forget, she had the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Munro.

Oh yeah!

Oh no!

Oh yeah!

Oh no!

Well there's a great argument over her Her legacy.

She was been trumpeted as a champion of freedom.

Some of the Chileans might might disagree on that after her support for General Pinochet in her defence.

Apparently the people that his regime murdered didn't feel as much pain as the victims of other dictators, so it was fine.

And besides, has Britain been invaded by Chile in the last 25 years?

No, that is all the justification I need, John.

Judge the record, Andy.

Yes, she unquestionably left a legacy, John, but to many it was the kind of legacy that your dog leaves when you take it to legacise in the park.

But what Britain did she leave behind?

Well, John, I think it's a Britain that's realised that in business, anything is possible.

But unfortunately, it was also a Britain that realised that in business, anything is possible.

And the unregulated markets have proceeded since then to defecate noisily through our national letterbox ever since.

At first, perhaps we were excited just to have some exciting new bits of post, but now we just have a house full of shit.

Since Thatcher's time...

The United Kingdom has been sort of fracturing off, devoluting in all different kinds of directions.

Scotland spinning perhaps towards independence after the decade of Thatcherism in which large parts of the United Kingdom were essentially used as something like a cross between a urinal and a laboratory monkey.

Perhaps even a laboratory monkey in a urinal.

We're now left with an economy based on vapour and on financial witchcraft.

And the whole impression is that the management of Britain's transition away from the industrial was managed with the same delicacy as Anne Boleyn's transition to becoming the former Mrs.

Henry VIII.

As you said, Ding Dong the Witch is dead is rocketing up the charts.

We're recording this on a Sunday afternoon

and

we don't yet know if it's going to reach number one.

The BBC's been put in an awkward position, put under a lot of political pressure, and apparently has come to the decision to only play five seconds of the song, presumably for the sake of political balance, only be showing five seconds of the funeral as well on Wednesday.

And some people say, well, what's, you know, it's offensive, this song.

And, you know, they've probably got a football busy said earlier on.

It's undeniably offensive, Andrew.

Undeniably offensive.

You cannot make a coherent case that it's not offensive.

It's offensive, but at the same time, when you balance it out against all the other TV coverage, it's got a point.

Yes, sure.

Sure, sure.

But it's

you can't say it's not offensive.

No, I'm not saying it's not offensive.

You can argue it's funny.

You can't say it's not offensive.

Is it childish?

Yes.

Is it funny?

Arguably.

Is it offensive?

It just is.

It just is.

In a way, that's why it's funny.

I know some people say, well, what if the family are offended by it?

Well, John, I don't know how many families are sitting around the coffee table on a Sunday afternoon, handkerchiefs in hand, sniffling and sobbing at the merciless inevitability of death, and say to each other, you know what?

The only way to assuage our grief at the passing of our dearly beloved matriarch is to listen to the top 10 singles in the pop chart.

It's what she would have wanted.

So the BBC has set to play an explanation of why the song is in the charts, including a statement on how, under the Wicked Witch, the West actually experienced some boom economic times, particularly in the frog farming industry.

Whilst deregulating the financial markets was a necessary strategic move at the time that would have worked out fine if it hadn't been for Tony Blair.

On the subject of

tasteless but arguably philosophically justifiable reactions, I don't know how you found out, John, about the

the death of the immortal Mrs.

T.

But the way I found out, it was on Monday and I'd been working on my weekly cricket article, so I hadn't been watching or listening to the news, and I got an email from a friend of ours that just had a link to a website that was www.isthacherdeadyet.co.uk.

So I clicked on it and there in big letters was the word yes, with the ladies not returning.

Now,

unquestionably, John, this is not in the most sensitive of tastes.

This is the website I think has been there for a while now.

But it has 195,000 likes on Facebook, a number that has been steadily rising all week.

And I think that really expresses the dichotomy of opinion that Thatcher has generated after death, just as she did in life.

God rest and or punch her soul.

Margaret Thatcher Fact Box!

Some Conservatives believe that a Margarita cocktail served in a Conservative Association bar actually contains the real bile of Margaret Thatcher.

Others believe it is just symbolic of her bile.

The Conservatives have been trying to clone Mrs.

Thatcher since 1989, using a strand of hair from when she head-butted a young Tony Blair in a fistfight by the bins out the back of the Houses of Parliament.

So far, they've just managed to create Princess Eugenie of York, Jessica Scheele, the 2010 Miss Guatemala, star quarterback Robert Griffin III and actress Dakota Fanning.

Margaret Thatcher famously needed only four hours sleep a night.

That is not enough sleep.

Let me tell you, I've been getting a bat on average of four hours of sleep a night ever since I had a child.

It's not enough.

That is not a job you should be doing without proper rest.

I don't even have a job and I cannot cope on four hours sleep a night.

That is not something to be praised.

If she'd had more sleep a night, for a start, she'd have been awake less long and done less work.

That might have benefited a few people.

And secondly, she might have been more awake.

Well, that's it for this week's

Thatcher departure memorial bugle.

We'll be back next week with a world exclusive on the funeral.

No other media organisation will be covering it.

You will only be able to hear what happens

at the Bugle.

John, where are you going to be watching it from?

Is the Daily Show flying you over here?

No,

I don't believe so, Andy.

Let's hope not.

Right.

I've had enough of planes, to be honest, for a while.

It's quite a long flight to Australia.

And by quite long, I mean fing long.

So, yeah, I could do with being, you know, on the ground for a while.

Right.

Yeah, so I'll watch it from here, Andy.

And if I don't watch it, I'll certainly feel it from here.

So, whilst South East England mourns and much of the rest of England barely tries to conceal its celebrations, until next week, Buglers, goodbye.

We will play you out with

what the people of Britain on the streets have been telling us this week about the woman who has defined the modern nation of Britain, according to some, destroyed it, according to others.

It's very much two sides of the same slap.

It's not my opinion.

It's two sides.

It's a normal opinion, Andy.

You're free to think either.

The freedom that she fought so hard for.

It's two sides of the same slap in the face.

Of course, Margaret was the first Prime Minister who was magic.

Herbert Asquith could turn an egg into a chicken, but he needed to roost on it for ages first.

She rescued this country from communism, fascism, poverty, typhoid, the plague, monsters, asteroids, aliens, Diego Maradona, and Arthur Scargill.

The only real black mark against her is that under her rule, the England cricket team returned the lowest win percentage that it has under any Prime Minister who's been in charge for more than 10 tests.

And I'm afraid even the most dyed in the balls Thatcher fan must acknowledge that that was a serious weakness in her otherwise flawless reign.

Before Thatcher, everyone was lovely.

Now they're all.

I'm a fk.

And that's Thatcher's fault.

She made me a f.

If it wasn't for Margaret, we would all have been speaking Soviet by now, or Belgian, or Northern.

Is that the Britain you wanted to grow up in?

There is absolutely no evidence that Margaret was actually a witch.

She just loved cauldrons and had a lifelong fascination with the broomstick.

And she found wearing a pointy black hat just made her think more clearly.

She was quite clearly not a witch.

I should know I was in her cabinet for ten years.

Rivet, rivet, rivet, rivet.

Most of the unemployed were absolutely thrilled to have their diaries cleared and to be able to spend a bit more quality time with their families, whilst city boys like myself were working eighteen hour days and barely had time to even think about the hundreds of thousands of pounds we were making from turning London into the world's biggest casino.

Margaret was wonderful.

She was like the lady in red in the Krista Berg song, but in blue.

Well, of course I remember the day when my dad came home and he said that his factory had to close.

And well the next thing we knew Mrs.

Thatcher chucked a brick through the window and jumped in.

Cecil Parkinson's standing right next to her with a cudgel in his hand.

And she goes up to my old man, she rips his shirt open, she looks him in the the eye and she tears his heart out clean as day and she says to parkington put it in your satchel sis we'll feed it to the dog she gobs on the floor and then whoosh she's gone while my dad bleeds out on the carpet that's the kind of woman she was she did what she believed was right whether that was shutting the factories or ripping my dad's heart out of his thorax and letting him die on the floor look i'm not saying i agreed with it but you had to admire her she didn't even have a dog you wouldn't get cameron doing that he'd sit back and wait for big society to do it

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.