Bugle 227 – Farewell Bush’s Muse

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Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 227 of the universe's most popular newscast, The Bugle, for the week beginning Monday, the 11th of March 2013, with me, Andy Zoltzman, 48-time nominee in Great Guy Magazine's Husband of the Year awards.

Shh, don't tell my 49 wives, one of them is going to get cranky.

And I'm live in London, the city that houses, amongst other world-famous attractions, the Queen's House, the Prime Minister's house, and my house.

Coincidence, you decide.

And joining me from New York City, it's the Manhattan Mirthster himself, the man who, later this year, will become the first co-star of the Bugle ever to host the Daily Show.

Bad luck to

all the buglers who put their money on me in that little race.

It's the self-styled pneumatic drill of Unavoidable Truth himself.

It's John Oliver.

Hello Andy.

Hello buglers.

I'm in a hotel in Maryland and we've been shooting a piece down here about gun control for the last couple of days.

Most of America wants more gun control Andy.

A smaller part of America wants less gun control than they have now.

And an even smaller part of America wants to have their hands surgically removed and replaced with guns.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is gun control is a very complicated issue here.

But you're right.

Just we should probably get something out of the way before we get going.

As buglers may or may not have heard or just heard, Jon Stewart who I work for has written a movie and he's going to be directing over the summer and so for the couple of months that he's away I am going to be hosting the daily show and believe me buglers it is even weirder for me to say that out loud than it is for you to hear it.

Essentially, I've got just eight weeks to destroy everything that that man has spent 14 years getting in the building.

It won't be easy, but I think it can actually be done.

Now, his are obviously extremely big shoes to fill.

It's like wearing comically oversized clown shoes.

You just have to hope that it's at least funny when you inevitably fall over and land on your face.

And I tell you what did not calm me down at all, Andy.

And that was sitting at home the evening after it was announced and seeing it talked about on the nightly news here, which was a quick way to have my balls take a one-way trip into my stomach especially when it came with an inbuilt zinger from Brock Williams who said that I was going to be guest hosting the show with my and I quote thick British accent now

to that I say this you back off Williams you watch your mouth because you haven't seen anything yet you have no idea how much I've been holding this accent back don't make me turn it up to somewhere between a Ken Loach movie and a Victorian chimney sweep, because I can and I will.

Wait until I open the first show by welcoming people without using any consonants.

Oh, an elbow and a healy o.

The point is it's going to be a simultaneously fun and terrifying summer and you are all welcome to tune in and witness the strangest weeks of my life.

Well, you've had certain exciting weeks really.

John, I had a cricket stat that I'd dug up and tweeted, quoted on the BBC's commentary of the New Zealand v England Test match.

So I guess we've both taken a little step into the showbiz big leagues this week.

We're both taking W's away from this week, haven't you?

What was the stat?

The stat was that actually it wasn't one of my best ones, but it was that England have been bowled out for under 200 in their last four first innings of the series away from home.

That's good.

And when you heard that read out on the radio, Andy, were you just moodwalking around the room, high-fiving yourself?

Well, to be honest, I just got into bed.

It was quite late at night.

I'd been working on some stuff.

I just put the radio on to check the score, and within a minute, they said, there's a stat from Andy Saltzman.

Well, there we go, that's it.

I've made it.

I can now die happy.

That's what it's all been building up to, John.

So we're recording on the 8th of March.

It's happy 196th birthday to the New York Stock Exchange.

Have a lovely day.

Treat yourself to some wild speculation on something.

It's your special day.

And it's 50 years on Tuesday,

the 12th, almost 50 years since Lee Harvey Oswald bought the rifle used to kill John F.

Kennedy.

Oh, that's nice.

That's a lovely anaverse.

Yeah, which means that on Wednesday, it's exactly 50 years since the CIA bought that rifle off him and it's sued for a lifetime supply of Hershey's chocolate.

What a bargain.

Top story this week: Hugo, he go.

Oh no, no, Joco, cuz Hugo, he no no.

Now look, is that the most respectful thing I've ever done, Andy?

No.

Is it in bad taste?

Yes.

Do I regret it?

Absolutely not.

Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan leader, socialist and occasional clown, died this week.

He was 58 years old, but had the energy of a three-year-old and the ingrained eccentricities of a 94-year-old.

And I know that there's been some push out there from buglers for Hugo to receive an official f ⁇ k eulogy.

And I just want to say that that will not be happening.

You have to understand what the qualif what qualification requirements for f ⁇ eulogy membership are.

It's not easy to deserve one.

And we have to keep the bar high.

That's right.

So far, they've been issued to the likes of Bin Laden and Colonel Gaddafi.

Let's not dilute the term by flinging it around to anyone who's even slightly annoyed us.

Because is Hugo Chavez a first ballot Hall of Fame arsehole?

I don't think so, Andy.

Could Could he be irritating?

Yes, but in many ways, that was one of his greatest charms.

Yeah, you've got, as you say, you've got to keep that bar high, otherwise, you end up putting Robert Plant in for his 1980s album, Now and Zen.

And that just doesn't seem right, does it?

You've got to keep

this tendency.

He didn't kill anyone.

It might have been disappointing, but he didn't murder hundreds and hundreds of people.

That's right, Crackers from Caracas.

The Venezuela railer has flung his final barb.

He's cracked his final pot.

Barked his final woof of defiance stroke idiocy.

Delete as you see fit.

Gone for 58.

A spectacular and often controversial innings, as John has suggested.

And indeed, as the title of his forthcoming biography suggests, Hugo Chavez, hero or ⁇

He did not...

He did not just split opinion, John Chavez.

He slathered opinion with whipped cream and popped a cherry on top.

Was he a progressive trying to right the wrongs of social and economic history in favour of the poor and disenfranchised, to carve an independent course for a nation away from the control of oligarchs and outsiders, raising living standards for those whom capitalism often forgets?

Or was he a lunatic megalomaniac who further restrained his own people beneath the retrograde dogma of his own self-mythology?

Or was he just a regular guy doing an extraordinary job with a funny hat and away with words?

Starring Vin Diesel as Chavez, Anne Hathaway as love interest Eva Perron, James Cromwell as Barack Obama and Peyton Manning as himself,

bit revisionist.

That's the point, Andy.

I know that global opinion on hugo is divided but i think there's one thing that everyone can agree on and that is that he had a commitment to the beret

even the french had long since given up on the beret andy but hugo he he hung in there with the beret to the very end and i think that's something you you simply have to admire it's not an easy hat to wear andy the beret you have to be confident because if you're not extremely careful that beret can end up wearing you that's a fact.

The funeral for Hugo Chavez is today and it caps a week of mourning in Venezuela.

Earlier in the week his coffin was taken in procession through the streets to the military academy where he's been lying in state.

Chavez supporters in Caracas have been telling the media all week that he is not dead to us.

And well that line is not just emotionally blurry because it's about to be physically blurry too.

Because Chavez's body is apparently going to be embalmed and permanently displayed in a glass casket so that, as the current acting president said, his people can always have him.

Andy, that is a little bit creepy.

I mean,

I get that it sometimes happens.

That doesn't make it any less creepy.

When the Queen Mother died, we didn't have her stuffed and mounted to the door of Buckingham Palace, did we?

Even though we knew that would be awesome, we knew it would be a huge way to attract tourists, but we didn't do it.

Well, I don't know, John, we're going to have to wait for the statute of limitations on the documents to expire on that before we know for sure.

Just saying, it's just got a bit of a thud when you knock on the door.

I mean, you'd expect more of a woody sound.

Just it could just be a heavy coat,

but it could be a hundred and one-year-old woman's corpse.

We just don't know.

We just will never know.

Yeah, so now he's gonna be on permanent display at the Museum of the Revolution, close to the Presidential Palace, where of course he ruled for 14 years.

But they shouldn't just have him lying down, Andy, his body.

He was a colorful character, and he deserves to be remembered that way.

They should have him in a pose.

He was a man who loved baseball, Andy.

Maybe he could be wearing a baseball glove, diving to catch a line drive, or riding a motorbike while firing a crossbow in the air.

It's up to them, but let's not remember him as being just asleep.

Let's remember him as being crazy.

Now, of course, you know, the death of a

58-year-old man from a disease as rare as cancer has set alarm bells ringing, and there have been suggestions that Chavez was, in fact, bumped off by any guesses.

Chavez himself had already accused the CIA of giving him cancer.

Venezuela's acting president, Nicolas Maduro, made the same suggestion, as did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian number one, who also claimed

that, like in the build-up to a sardine-themed fancy dress party, something fishy was going on.

Amongst the

that's three people, John.

You know, no smoke without a fire.

That's what I was saying.

Uh amongst the other things that Chavez had accused the CIA of doing to him uh changing the temperature on his oven so his frozen pizzas always came out slightly undercooked.

That's really annoying.

And hacking into his World of Warcraft account and changing his player name to Signor Smallballs.

There are also allegations by the Venezuelan authorities that the CIA put a remote-controlled fart machine in Chavez's coffin to discredit the former leader whilst he was lying in state.

These have been strongly denied by the acting CIA boss Mickey Morrell, who said, yeah, it's awesome.

We can set it it off from Langley.

We did the same for Brezhnev.

Problem was, people thought he was still alive, so we actually stayed in power for five years after his death just because we kept setting him off from here.

We started doing it in Morse code.

I think that's how Gorbachev got the idea for Peristryka, subliminal fartvertising.

Yesterday, Chavez didn't know it, but he told his people to suck his big ones from beyond the grave.

But no, we definitely did not put a Flachulenzia X8F-Tech fart machine in his coffin.

Absolutely not.

Do you want to go on it?

But yeah, I think this conspiracy theory of his death is entirely appropriate, Andy.

The most fitting way to mourn such a crazy life is to imply an incredibly crazy death.

Because, as you say, Nicolas Maduro, the vice president, said, we have no doubt that a scientific commission would find that Commander Chavez was attacked with this illness.

And that is exactly what Hugo would have wanted, Andy.

If he could have just gone on to say that he had concrete proof that George W.

Bush had a cancer cannon, that he'd been firing at Hugo from his ranch in Texas, that's the only way that he could have given a Hugo a more touching tribute.

I'm pretty sure that if you watched Chavez's dead body at that exact moment, the corners of his lips would have slightly turned up.

So there's going to have to be a new election in 30 days or less.

And one Caracas resident was quoted in a newspaper saying, the opposition has to consider that winning an election in 30 days or less against the state machine would be like winning an election against Jesus Christ.

But you have to ask, I mean, would that actually be so difficult?

I mean, Jesus, no, I mean, Jesus never actually ran for public office, and you can understand why.

I mean, it's typical for political figures like him.

He largely maintained his popularity because he avoided the responsibility of having to make tough executive decisions.

You know, resurrecting the dead, nifty magic trick, economically, absolutely disastrous as a political policy.

And besides, when people are actually in the ballot box, John, they're going to be thinking about the nuts and bolts, the practicalities of government and their bottom-line personal finances they're not going to vote for an illusionist with a natty line in storytelling and all his lovey-dovey be nice to people and don't be a dick shtick it's not going to cut it when hard political decisions have to be made and as for his hundred percent tax on earthly possessions Frankly, he'll be lucky to get his f ⁇ ing deposit back.

Even Christians would not actually vote for Jesus.

And the meek inheriting the earth, where is the reward for hard-working families who've slaved away trying to earn a living when the meek were mostly unemployed because they traditionally are useless in job interviews get the lot no way mate where are your costings let's see the numbers it's all very well getting a load of free booths for your buddies at a wedding but when are you gonna fix the potholes in my road

good point andy yeah take that jesus i am not voting for you on a number of levels

Chavez's death was of course by no means a surprise as he'd been seriously sick for more than a year now and perhaps it's time to look back at some of his more memorable moments in power.

He was a bugle favourite, Andy, and he earned that title with some top-level whack jobbery.

He was famously, of course, a staunch critic of the US, particularly of George W.

Bush.

Who can forget his phenomenal speech at the UN when he famously described him as the devil, saying, the devil is right at home.

The devil.

The devil himself is right in the house.

And the devil came here yesterday.

Yesterday, the devil came here, right here, and it smells of sulphur still today.

He then flashed the kind of smile of someone who knows that he just won a bet for saying that.

You didn't think I'd do it.

I said he smelt of sulphur.

You owe me three burritos and now you have to get a Hugo Isnumero Uno tattoo on your arse.

He went on to say, yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the President of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owns the world, truly, as the owner of the world and you realize andy that in many ways president bush was chavez's muse but he never quite seemed the same after bush had gone all his best work was inspired by him they they hated each other but they spurred each other on to newer crazier heights they were like late period lennon and mccartney andy it's like borg and mcenrow all over again Yeah, in a nationally televised speech in 2006, Chavez described Bush like this.

You are in ignoramus.

You are a burrow, Mr.

Danger.

Or to say it to you in my bad English, you are a donkey, Mr.

Danger.

You are a donkey, Mr.

Bush.

You are a coward, a killer, a perpetrator of genocide, an alcoholic, a drunk, a liar, an immoral person, Mr.

Danger.

You are the worst, Mr.

Danger.

The worst of this planet.

A psychologically sick man.

I know it.

He seemed to be on the edge of breaking down at that point, Andy.

And don't you ever leave me, you bastard.

These have been the best, worst years of my life.

Ahmed Dinerjad said another quite amazing thing.

He said Chavez would return on Resurrection Day.

He said he had no doubt that Chavez will return to Earth along with Jesus and Imam Mahdi, the most revered figure among Shia Muslims, to help establish peace, justice and kindness across the planet.

So um

Chavez is in pretty illustrious company there, aren't he?

That's right.

He better wear his best beret if he's going to be between those two guys.

I like a politician who talks faster than he thinks, Andy, and who's not afraid to take a linguistic flight to Wakjobistan.

And Chavez, of course, in another highlight, once referred to Condoleezza Rice as little girl, saying, remember, little girl, I'm like the thorn tree that flowers on the plain.

I waft my scent to passers-by and prick he who shakes me.

Don't mess with me, Condoleezza.

Don't mess with me, girl.

That doesn't sound like an insult, Andy.

Those literally sound like song lyrics.

This is from my new song, Don't Mess With Me, Girl.

Remember, little girl, I'm like the thorn tree that flowers on the plain.

I waft my scent to passers-by and prick he who shakes me.

Don't mess with me, Condoleezza.

Don't mess with me, girl.

well I think we've had a little glimpse into what the daily show is going to be like this summer

the songs of Hugo Chavez

I like what your person in your hotel room next to you must be thinking right now

I was I was expecting them to be bangs on the wall long before this happening so I'm presuming someone's dead

or it's Condoleezza right

and she's just holding her hand on her heart saying the wind he's singing to me on the wind

also I mean who can forget the time at the Ibero American summit in Santiago when King Carlos of Spain looked at Chavez and said why don't you shut up

to which Chavez could have entirely fairly replied because I can't

just can't

shut up I'm about to say something about you now I can't help myself I think there's something wrong with me but there's no way I'm going to try to fix it so uh yes the body is going to be permanently displayed in a lovely glass crystal casket.

So, uh, in the words of uh Maduro, his people will always have him, he belongs to you,

he told uh the Venezuelan people.

And that, John, that is an awkward present.

Uh,

our thanks very much, Mr.

Maduro.

What a very thoughtful gift, a corpse.

Uh, as it happens, I was just saying to my wife how much we needed a corpse, darling, we're gonna have to get that mantelpiece widened, or it's gonna topple off onto the dog.

Chavez, in one of his uh, more incredible moments, even declared a war on Halloween.

In 2005, he issued an attack on Halloween, telling his countrymen that it had no place in Venezuelan society, saying, what they've implanted here, which is really a gringo custom, is terrorism.

They disguise children as witches and wizards, and that is contrary to our culture.

And that's, look, that's easy for him to say, Andy, and he's playing to his base.

And it's...

It's politically useful, I get it, but it's easier to say that before he's seen Americans dress up their pets too.

Because it's so easy to take a hard line like that.

It's much harder after you've seen a dog dressed up like a bumblebee.

At that point, you find yourself having to say, you know what, this gringo custom is actually incredible.

Would you absolutely get involved?

I think I'm going to dress my cat up like a washing machine.

But also, trick or treating is the foundation of all international trade and diplomacy.

That is 100% true.

The international community has sent in warm tributes to Chavez all weekend.

And when I say international community, I mean basically everyone apart from the United States.

Arthur Dinajad announced a day of mourning in Iran, as you say, describing Chavez as a martyr.

I'm guessing that statement didn't get America any closer to buying a with sympathy card for Chavez and popping it in the post.

Nor did the fact that Bashar al-Assad also sent a telegram from Syria saying the death of the fighter, President President Hugo Chavez is a big loss for me personally and for the people of Syria, as big as it is for the people of sisterly Venezuela and for the noble and free among the peoples of the world.

And I think the telegram must have mistakenly cut off there, Andy, because I'm pretty sure that it must have gone on to say, I mean, obviously, take all this with a pinch of salt, because I'm a total arsehole.

And I should also say that the people of Syria may have to put off mourning for Hugo for a while, as they're a bit preoccupied at the moment with watching Syria tear itself apart.

Something which is entirely my fault by the way.

Anyway, at times like this I like to think of the words of my favorite band, LMFAO, who said, when I'm at the mall, security just can't fight them off.

And when I'm at the beach, I'm in a speedo trying to tan my cheeks.

This is how I roll.

Come on, ladies, it's time to go.

We headed to the bar, baby, don't get nervous.

No shoes, no shirt, and I still get service.

I think that says it all.

Godspeed, Hugo.

Shine on, you batshit diamond.

Italy news now, and well, the papal conclave is about to be underway, Andy, with the cardinals in the Vatican about to play the official game of Roper Pope to try and pluck themselves a new pontiff.

But it's not not just the Vatican which is in the midst of political upheaval.

Italy itself is politically f ⁇ ed with a pH.

The Italian general election last week produced a stalemate result between centre-left and centre-right blocs with the centre-right block headed up by, by,

by, yes you've guessed it, the star of the horn identity, Silvio Berlusconi.

Berlusconi's political career, Andy, is just like his penis.

Just when you think it's finally down and will stay that way forever, somehow it gets back up and ends up rising to a place it has no business being.

Must be artificially stimulated.

It cannot be natural anymore.

Global markets reacted very badly to the news of uncertainty in Italy as it emerged that there is almost no fathomable way that they are going to be able to form a coalition government.

France and Germany urged continued reform, while Spain described the result as a jump to nowhere.

It's basically a bungee jump, Andy, and there are some serious concerns about the strength of the cord.

I think it was the Spanish foreign minister who described his lead election as a jump to nowhere with positive consequences for nobody.

And wow, that is a lot of negativity in one sentence from a foreign minister, Andy.

Tell us what you really think, Senor scowls a lot.

Extraordinary effort from Berlusconi, although he didn't win, that's

a terrific performance from someone who

just in October of last year was sentenced to four years in jail.

So, I mean, that's a remarkable electoral performance.

He himself said that everyone should now reflect on what to do next so that fresh elections could be avoided, saying Italy must be governed.

Everyone must be prepared to make sacrifices.

Berlusconi then paused before saying, for instance, why don't you sacrifice that bikini top, ladies?

Do you know what I'm saying?

And then dropping the microphone saying, it's no good.

I can't change.

I just can't do it.

It's your fault for continuing to try and elect me.

I'm taking no responsibility for this.

The main issue emerging from the Italian election was the performance of the five-star movement led by a comedian and satirist Bepe Grio,

whose party had become the biggest in the Italian parliament just three years after they were founded.

Now

it's called the five-star movement, John.

Truly this man is a genuine comedian.

He's clearly obsessed with reviews.

You know, it's it's one thing putting them on your poster, another thing creating a whole political party to flash them about.

But um it's it's it feel feels like quite a sort of landmark moment for uh European uh democracy, it's a whole movement based on the internet.

Candidates were picked in online primaries, it has no headquarters, no local offices and uh basically running on a

redistributing wealth, attacking privilege and cutting spending on defence and boosting public schools and healthcare.

And clearly the European political establishment is shitting an entire house full of bricks as a result of this.

Griot capitalised on public despair about recession and unemployment and poverty.

That's sort of a common theme across the democratic world, a kind of dissatisfaction with conventional politics, with the outdated customs, parties and structures of the the past, and the sense that mainstream political parties are doing little more than urinating on each other's deck chairs as the Titanic goes down.

And you have to ask, you know, this kind of more egalitarian type of democracy with the youth fully involved based on direct participation, is this what we fought World Wars for, John?

Or in Italy's case, is this what we fought world wars for and against?

So people could do more than just waggle a pencil at a piece of paper every five years.

No, it is not.

As Mitt Romney so eloquently inferred in last year's US election, voters are essentially interfering little shits who seem intent on screwing things up for people whose tax returns prove they are inherently superior and for the poor little markets who, as you said, John, are absolutely terrified by the instability that this has created.

But it does it just feels like European democracy is about to burst into some kind of new form of flower.

It might be a shit flower, but it will at least be a new flower.

It was pretty remarkable.

Bepe Grio never gave a single interview to Italian TV during the election run-up, and yet he has nearly 170 seats for this protest movement, receiving 25% of the vote, and has now become the single largest party, the largest single party in the whole country.

That is how pissed off Italians are with their government, Andy.

They voted in a huge number for a comedian who ran on a platform of basically telling current politicians to go themselves.

There's a lot to be said for that though.

There is a lot to be said.

It is an entirely legitimate point.

And Bernasconi's miracle comeback came partly as he presented himself as the anti-austerity candidate, giving an extremely seductive platform, pledging not only tax cuts, but talking of actually handing back some tax already paid, which, for a country in the kind of economic mess that Italy is in, is one of the single stupidest things that I think I've ever heard.

And in response to all this, a Germany opposition leader last week made waves by claiming that Mr.

Bescrib

Griot and Berlusconi as clowns.

And

I've got to say though, Andy, they're pretty good clowns, to be fair.

They're some pretty high-end clowns.

And it's even more impressive that Berlusconi is still in the running, especially because in his latest legal snafu, he was sentenced to another year in jail this week over an illegal wiretap.

He was accused of arranging from a police wiretap concerning a political rival to be leaked and published in a newspaper run by his brother.

Classic Silvio Andy.

He's going to appeal, so he'll remain free in the meantime, but that is by no means the end of his legal sagas, because let's not forget that, as you mentioned, he was sentenced to four years recently.

He's currently appealing against a different year-long jail sentence for tax fraud and faces a verdict in his sex trial in mid-March, where the allegations are that he, a 76-year-old, paid for sex with an underage prostitute.

So you can really see where Bepe Grio was coming from with his just all of you go f yourselves argument.

Yeah, it's

another twist in the fascinating tale of Silvio Berlusconi, who has not been quite as much in jail as someone sentenced to four years in jail might have been over the last six months.

And you have to think after this, John.

If Silvio Berlusconi had been the Roman Emperor, he clearly has always dreamed of being, by now he would have been assassinated at least 18 times by his own bodyguards.

So, I guess, swings and and roundabouts for living when he does live.

Bugle feature section now, Animal Slaughter.

Animal Slaughter, not just the name of the death metal band Walter Cronkite fronted for 15 years in the 1960s and 70s.

Not just the third most popular name for baby girls, according to attention-seeking celebrity magazine, and not just the major league third baseman who played in the 1890s franchises, including the New York Vomiteers, the Boston Imbeciles, the the San Diego Snouts.

But also, animal slaughter is one of humanity's all-time favourite hobbies from working out how damn tasty you can make a goose if you feed it 25 three-course meals a day, whether it likes it or not, via formulating indispensable new shades of eye makeup by electrocuting monkeys to death, or whatever they get up to in labs, to realising how heroically fun it is to be out in the midst of Mother Nature fighting mano our mano with her most magnificent beasts, armed only with a massive gun.

Now, it might sound unfair, John, but to be fair, the animals have home advantage, so you know, 50-50.

But humanity has always found that whilst animals can be fun to play with, there are even more fun to slaughter, animal slaughter.

And if there is one thing that this famous species has devoted more time to than developing ways and reasons to kill each other, it's developing ways and reasons to animal slaughter.

God, it's like Tronkites backwards that have got the band back together, Andy.

Animal slaughter!

And now here's the latest from Richard Nixon.

In British animal slaughtering news, around half of this country's growing deer population is going to need to be slaughtered, John.

It's going to be shot every year to stop the devastation of woodlands and bird life, according to a group of scientists.

A colour of 50% of Britain's 1.5 million deers

is necessary to ensure that Britain's supply of venison is sufficient to keep the nation fed with succulent gaming oh no sorry no I've read the wrong version of that story a colour 50% of Britain's 1.5 million deers is necessary according to scientists to ensure that at least 750,000 households can be fitted with a pair of decorative antlers for people to hang oh no hang on up no sorry I've just read the wrong

I'm not saying that anyway the point is you cannot move in Britain for deers now charging around antling stuff out of their way there are now more deers in Britain than at any time since the last ice age, and those are just the ones that have filled in their census forms.

So um the question is, how do you go about slaughtering 750,000 animals with weird pointy shit on their heads that could have your eye out?

Will the government pass this buck to the people and say, go on, knock yourselves out, kill half of the deers that you see?

Or will you have to trick the deers into coming to an open-air screening of Bambi on a giant screen in Hyde Park and then unleash a load of football supporters who've been told that the deers support a team geographically close to the team they support and just let nature take its course.

To be honest, it's crying out for a TV game show.

Celebrities and bandanas charging through the undergrowth, trying to bring down a deer with their bare hands, with that slightly hollow look in their eye that says, I really hope this does for my career what my agent said it's going to do, before eating the deer whole and saying, I really wanted to win this task.

It's easier than you make it, Andy.

Drones.

Deer drones.

That's the American.

Take a tip from the Obama administration and rain the pain from the sky.

Get those deer with drones.

drones i guess the other option is uh deer adoption now you uh famously john adopted a dog yeah uh year and a half ago or so are you interested in uh having a herd of deer as well

but i'm certainly at the very least interested in getting a pair of antlers to put on my dog's head

i'm interested in a dog deer does that count

Well, it's a possibility.

I mean, it's a good hook, John, if you're,

you know, with your new daily show gig.

You know, who's who's that guy hosting the daily show uh I don't know but I've heard he keeps a herd of deer in his flat well in that case he has my undivided attention he's he's pretty eccentric I've heard I've heard there's 16 deer in his house

and he's got two stags it makes no sense he's not getting any sleep they're just fighting all night

so buglers if there's any animals you'd particularly like to see slaughtered uh do let us know info at thebuglepodcast.com

and john will will slaughter them live on the daily show.

Well,

you've got to carve your niche, John.

Yep.

So, uh.

Well, it's a crowded marketplace late by television, Andy.

So, one, you have to mark yourself as an eccentric and, you know, living with 16 deers in a small apartment.

That's definitely going to help that.

But also, live animal sacrifice,

that is going to be controversial.

And, you know, controversial means ratings.

That's right.

I guess what we've learned from working this out loud is that I just need to kill animals live on television and live with deer.

You could ride your deer to work

and then kill it.

Well, that is an almost sadistically well thought out plan, Chris.

I think that says more about you than it does me.

So you want to kind of impose your own distinctive twist on the show, John.

I know it's a very well-established formula, but you know, a section called John Oliver's Live Abattoir.

That is, well, that is going to get people talking, John.

Well, I guess, because it's all about, as well, especially on American television, Andy, it's all about advertisers.

Now, then, I guess, if there's like a barbecue source that would like to buy some advertising times during that break, it would kind of make sense.

That's right, carpet cleaning products.

That kind of thing.

But you don't have to be better than Jon Stewart.

You've just got to be different.

That's the key.

That's right.

Thanks, Andy.

Yeah, you know what?

Before I start in a few months, if you could give me a kind of

a psychop talk like that, that would be great.

All right, yeah.

Because, you know, I've been in showbiz now for what, now, for sort of 14 years, you know?

Yeah.

So my unbroken run of successes on British television proves that I know what I'm talking about.

So yeah, well, we'll workshop a few ideas on the bugle before you start.

Your emails now and well a lot of people have picked up on the exciting news John about about your new gig,

or your upgraded gig.

This came in from Chris in London, who says, Dear John, Chris and Andy, in order of who will be most personally affronted by this news,

I work for a newspaper in London, and part of my job is to trawl our competitors' websites to see what big stories they're covering.

When I was able to prize myself away from reading about Justin Bieber and Kin Kardashian on Mail Online, imagine my surprise to see the Times feature an article on Jon Stewart taking a hiatus from The Daily Show and how he will be replaced by, quotes, an unknown British comedian.

Oh, come on.

Come on.

I thought.

We were on your payroll for years.

I thought this puzzling, says Chris, considering your podcast used to feature quite prominently, I say quite, I mean, it was just there, on the very same website.

John, I think it means that at long last, you've arrived.

What a zing from the Times, John.

I think it proves they were never listening.

That's the only way of explaining how we were with the times for so long.

I don't think they knew we were there.

And we have an email here from Jim Vickers with the title, Do Molecules F?

And saying, dear Chris, John and Andy, in the order I've listed you,

fair literal point.

I was listening to Bugle221 regarding a science section that was in the bin.

I'm a graduate student of chemistry and at the time I was weighing out a sample of sodium tunstate when the question was presented, do molecules f ⁇ I believe I have a definitive answer to this from a paper published in the real and reputable journal inorganic chemistry in 2004 see attached in this work and see in the figure a molecule which is clearly dick shaped this is a graduate student handy a molecule which is clearly dick shaped brackets complete with tip is inserted into a ring molecule that i believe your culture would refer to as a fanny you may also wonder what that funny double-sided arrow means between the two and well basically it means that this was going in and out repeatedly.

Also worth noting, and not surprising, is that the work was done by a research group in Brazil.

They can make anything sexy.

I guess whoever said chemistry is hard was right.

And a million other dicks.

Jim Vickers, graduate student.

Well done, John.

There we go.

Well done.

So we have an answer.

Molecules do indeed.

Do keep your scientifically informative emails coming in to info at thebuglepodcast.com.

and don't forget to check our SoundCloud page soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle and also don't forget to take out your bugle voluntary subscription at uh thebuglepodcast.com and win yourself a lifetime supply of justified satisfaction.

Oh, and the merch, the long-awaited launch of the bugle merchandise,

is it even more imminent than it has been for the last year and a half?

Well, that's not hard.

That's not hard to be more imminent than

basically

not happening.

We've cleared the first batch of products, and

it'll be available hopefully

in a week or so in Britain and a little bit after that in America.

And that's going to be the fashion event of the year, I think.

Well, that's very exciting, Andrew.

Yeah, it's absolutely,

absolutely sensational.

So that's all we've got time for in this week's Bugle 227.

We'll be back next week with Bugle 228.

John, any other shows that you've got your eyes on to take over as interim host for in the next

week?

Well, I mean, yes,

it all has to be part of a much broader plan, Andy.

So anything from America's funniest home videos to Rachel Ray's cooking show, I want to be Rachel Ray, basically.

What about Bill O'Reilly?

He's got to take a holiday every now and again, hasn't he?

Uh, does he, Andy?

I mean, he could really do with taking a long holiday, a permanent holiday, if you will, but I'm not sure that's going to happen.

Anyway, thanks for listening, Buglers.

We'll be back 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.