Bugle 225 – Waffles are forever

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World

Hello

Buglers and welcome to issue 225 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world for the beginning Monday, the 25th of February, 2013, with me, Andy Zaltzmann, live in the certifiably historic city of London, where people have been doing, building, and banging on about stuff for literally ages.

And from the island voted greatest island in the world by things that look like half-eaten chicken legs magazine, Manhattan.

It's the man who is likely as anyone to star in the title role of the not particularly forthcoming movie Arnold the Malfunctioning Toaster and the Slightly Singed Bagel, particularly as Marlon Brando is so tragically dead these days.

It's John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

I'm a heavy pencil for that movie, Andy.

A heavy pencil.

Andy, I was a guest on Jimmy Fallon's show this week, and sitting in with the roots, the house band for the entire show, was the seminal 90s R ⁇ B

singer and the pioneer of New Jack's Wing, Keith Sweat.

Now...

Mr.

Sweat and I were never supposed to have our lives overlap in any way, Andy.

I think that's probably demonstrably clear.

I have literally nothing in common with Keith Sweat.

He is more sexually confident than I'm confident in anything.

For instance, I'm pretty confident that the capital of Portugal is Lisbon, Andy.

But I'm not as confident in that fact as Keith Sweat is in his firm belief that he is reigning mayor of Bone Town.

There are many remarkable things about Keith Sweat, Andy.

One is that he actually wrote the song, Cause tonight,

I wanna get freaky with you.

Which is a classic,

and

the other is that his name is actually Keith Sweat.

He was born Keith Douglas Sweat.

And if you name your child Keith Sweat, Andy, just accept that you are pretty much forcing him to be an RB singer.

That, or a professional wrestler whose character is an RB singer.

The point is, if you stood outside our two dress rooms on Wednesday, Andy, and you saw those two names, John Oliver and Keith Sweat, I think you'd be well within your rights to ask, what the f ⁇ kind of program are these two appearing on?

Also, just in reference to last week, I know we had some fun reading out some of the Iron Sheikh's tweets.

Password Candy.

He's a man with a real skill for Pithy of 70s.

And I was looking at his Twitter feed last night and I stumbled upon one particularly magnificent missive.

He tweeted yesterday, Chris Brown win the Oscar for best, beat the shit out of his girlfriend.

I hope he died.

Now,

one thing you can definitely say about the iron cheek Andy is that you always know where you stand.

He is no fan of the concept of subtext.

So this is Bugle 225.

Coincidentally, five is Archbishop Desmond 22's highest ever breaking snooker.

2-2-5.

Amazingly, that was my first and only time he ever played played the game.

And when from his break-off shot, five reds went in separate pockets, giving him five points.

He took it as a sign from God H Christ, the middle name is a family one, apparently, and devoted himself to the church.

Two, two, five, also the ratings out of ten given by Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill to each other's wives at their impromptu Miss World competition at the Yalta conference.

And also the number of squares on a Scrabble board.

225 squares, John, and not a single one offering quadruple points for rude words.

Shame on you, Scravel.

Yeah.

Shame on you.

Live in the now, Scravel.

What?

You just hate success.

Sweary Scrabble, Andy, is look,

if they just had the confidence in their game, they would know that it could sustain being dominated by sweary Scrabble.

This is for the week beginning Monday, the 25th of February, which means, John, it's 350 years since in 1663, the London diarist Samuel Pepys wrote the following entry in his famous diary.

Oh, yeah.

Today I woke up and then I had breakfast, which was egg and bread and sausage, and then I went to the loo.

And after that, I went to see my friend Peep, but he was dead of the plague, so I saw Mike instead, and he was fine.

And we played with his toy cart, and then his mum cooked us fish fingers.

I went home and found a pencil.

At dinner, I had meat and vegetable, but I can't remember what vegetable, although the meat was brown.

After that, I looked at a wall, which was nice, and then thought about why trees always have erections.

And then I went to bed.

Tomorrow, I will change my name.

Tomorrow, I will be called Samuel Thunderdick.

350 years ago ago on Monday.

Oh,

really, what an elegant diarist he was even back then.

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

This week, a London quiz

in which you can win the DNA of Samuel Pepys.

If you could answer all the questions that are in the bin this week, including this one.

What are London cabbies still required by law to carry in the boot of their cab?

Is it A a sawn-off longbow?

That's a rule that dates back to the 15th century when cab drivers were viewed as London's first line of defence in the event of a French invasion.

Was it B a bale of hay?

This dates back to when cabs were drawn by horses instead of their modern predecessor, internal combustion engines, traces of which will almost certainly be found in unrealistically cheap meat products in 120 years' time.

Cabbies still have to carry a bale of hay for any cab nags to snack on.

Also, they used to have to carry it in case their passengers got frisky in the the back of the cab after a classic London Saturday night outs in the 19th century and wanted something to romp in that was more comfortable than the lead seats.

Or was it sea?

They still have to carry a plaster cast of Queen Victoria's butt.

The Queen's arse was used as a measure by cabbies from the 1840s until her tragic death of natural causes in 1901.

If a cab claimed it could seat six, the cabby had to show it could accommodate six Queen Victoria's butts using the Royal Measure butt.

New casts were issued every three years as the Queen's royal posterials grew sizeablier with age, until eventually a two-person cab was wider than most London roads, leading to the development of the dual carriageway.

Also, the first use of the phrase, does my bum look big in this, is thought to have been uttered by a cab driver checking out the space in the bag for new economy taxi.

A, B, or C.

Any ideas what the answer is, John?

Is it D, Andy, a predilection towards conversational racism?

Well, there is that, too.

Actually, the answer is, in fact, B.

They are still by law required to carry a bail of pain.

Very few of them do and that summons just a slippery slope from that to

racism and assaulting their passengers.

Top story this week.

What time is it?

Hold on, let me check my watch.

Wait, someone stolen my watch.

Oh I get it.

It's crime time.

And we're starting this episode with a bugle crime roundup because it has been a good week for getting away with crimes, Andy.

So bad luck, buglers, if you didn't have the foresight to try and commit any over the last seven days.

Let's start.

That does sound like you're going in hard on the Pistorius case, John.

No, no, no.

No.

I'm going in soft on the Pistorius thing, Andy, in that I was planning on not mentioning at all.

Because...

Before we get into the crime section, which doesn't deal with the Pistorius case, it has proved yet again, John, how efficient trial by media is as a form of justice.

Because much quicker.

With the Pistorios case, we already had an instant verdict, which was definitely innocent.

Then within hours, appeals process, definitely guilty.

And then over subsequent days, another appeal, and it's now probably innocent.

So, you know, that's, that is trial by, that is trial by.

It's going to take months, probably years to get through the courts, John.

And we've already had three different verdicts in a week.

It's streamlined justice, Andy.

as you know as as people couldn't even couldn't even have dreamt of that is the future and when you compare it with the uh the vicky Price case here that some buglers might be aware of, Chris Hune, the former cabinet minister, pleaded guilty to getting his wife to take a speeding offence for him on his licence.

But his wife, the case went through court and the jury was discharged this week and a retrial ordered because they sent some questions to the judge that showed that they all basically didn't have a f ⁇ ing clue what was going on.

These questions basically included questions like, can I decide she's guilty if I think she's got a shifty face?

My mate Ian reckons she's done it, can I use that as evidence?

I've seen pundits on the telepredict the outcome of sporting events by gut feeling.

If that's allowed there, can I do it in a court case?

And if we can't decide by discussion, should we do eeny, meeny, miny, mo or a game of scissors, paper, stone?

And if so, should it be best of three, best of five, or a simple one-off?

So there you go, John.

Bad week of trial by jury, good week for trial by media.

You're winning.

Well, let's start our crime roundup in belgium andy belgium was the scene of a spectacular crime this week which thankfully did not involve a creepy old man locking people in his basement sexually abusing them for decades so they must have been relieved about that the belgians andy because anything less horrific at a crime than a creepy dungeon man has to go into the books as a big win for the waffle wizards uh instead

Belgium was the scene of a spectacular diamond robbery.

Apparently eight masked gunmen took less than five minutes to pull off one of the biggest diamond heists in recent years stealing precious stones worth about $50 million from the hold of a plane bound for Switzerland.

And yes, $50 million to Belgians, Andy.

That is a lot of what.

In fact, I believe that is how it was reported on the news there.

Good evening, fellow Belgians.

We have breaking news, which is not chocolate-related.

related.

A

spectacular diamond heist has taken place at Brussels Airport where police say thieves made off with precious stones worth upwards of 70 million waffles.

Waffles that will now remain uneaten, their sweet goodness unaccented with cream and berries and a choice of syrups.

This is a sad day for waffles and is therefore a sad day for Belgians.

Hold your waffle close tonight, fellow Belgians, and tell it how much you love it.

In other Belgian news, waffles are still delicious.

So let's just eat waffles and be merry.

God bless waffles.

God bless Jean-Claude Van Damme.

And God bless Belgium.

And God bless waffles again.

Good night.

I'm pretty sure that's how it was reported, Andy.

I just don't know how else they'd explain it to Belgians and still have it make sense to them.

Well, it is, as you say, an incredible story.

This gang drove through a hole in the airport's perimeter fence, then heisted the living shit out of a security van, hyper-heisting £30 million worth of rocks whilst the security van driver was distracted,

queuing up for a plate of waffles.

Now, it's just inevitable, John, if you take valuable goods through Belgium.

That kind of thing is going to happen, isn't it?

Yeah.

Police are searching now for eight masked gunmen.

They're also searching for some chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Apparently these armed robbers were dressed in police uniforms, broke through this hole they'd made in the security fence, had a van and a fake police car, drove straight across the runway to a Swiss passenger plane where staff from a security firm had just finished unloading the diamonds.

They flashed machine guns, but no shots were fired as they took 120 parcels from the plane's hold, getting away at high speed through that hole in the fence.

The van was then found later, burnt out just outside Brussels.

And the only possible response to that, Andy, is wow,

that is awesome.

Because for some reason, everyone loves a diamond robbery, Andy.

There's just there's something so romantically authentic about it.

We've become so used to money being stolen through white-collar crime nowadays, insider training, or Ponzi schemes, or dodgy high-frequency trades of derivatives, that the idea of people actually going to the effort of putting on a costume, traveling to steal a physical diamond, it's incredibly appealing.

You root for them, Andy.

They're gentleman criminals.

You just assume that they dress well and that they plan the heist by standing around, looking at scale models of the site, drinking single malt whiskey, smelling incredible, and making wise cracks at each other.

A diamond robbery feels like a victimless crime, even when it isn't.

If you can imagine George Clooney doing something, it just can't be that bad, Andy.

He's too handsome for whatever he's doing to be criminal.

That's just a fact.

Yeah, I don't know if anyone who's seen the film Siriana would necessarily agree with that.

Well, I don't know if criminal is the right word.

It was certainly pretty damn tedious.

But

as you say, those gems were on their way to...

Any guesses, Buglers?

Yes, Switzerland.

Oh, the Swiss.

The Swiss.

Ironic twist on the traditional timeline of stealing valuable stuff.

Maybe it was a satirical heist.

I guess we'll just have to see if any of those jewels end up being distributed around Jewish families in Germany.

Of course, you know, these days you immediately think when something like this happens, that's probably a stunt for a TV reality show.

But this, as you say, was a genuine, old-school diamond heist.

And there must have been some consolation for the security van people as they stared at the machine guns pointed in their faces, contemplating the prospect of an extremely rapid and noisy death, to think, ah, well, this is a bit awkward now, but they're definitely going to make a film of this.

Absolutely, definitely.

I wonder who's going to play me.

Probably, if I get shot, it's going to be a fat guy with a trustable face.

If I get away alive without being shot, just any fat guy.

Awesome.

Hollywood, here I come.

I just...

I love a diamond high standard.

I remember when, you remember it back in 2000, British detectives prevented that diamond robbery at the Millennium Dome, where they were planning to steal, I think, £350 million worth of diamonds that were on show by breaking in with a bulldozer before getting away on speedboats.

And I remember being so disappointed that they didn't succeed.

It feels like diamonds are basically made to be stolen.

Why else would we assign such arbitrarily high value to them?

If it's sufficiently imaginative and it doesn't hurt anyone, I think diamond robbery should essentially be legal.

And this was even the most audacious diamond heist in the news this week, Andy, because Prime Minister David Cameron was in India on a three-day visit to drum up trade and investments and was forced to address a little giant diamond snafu that took place between our two nations in the past.

More specifically, the 105 karat Kohi Noor diamond, which was taken from India in the 19th century, given to Queen Victoria and set in the royal crown.

It was a pretty audacious criminal move from the British, Andy.

For a start, it would be absolutely sensational if the entire British Empire was actually just an elaborate plan to steal that particular diamond all along.

The ultimate Long Khan, planning a century-long heist that involved conquering two-thirds of the world's landmass purely as a distraction.

It actually makes sense when you think about it.

Why else would we have worn such ridiculous costumes?

Who wears a f ⁇ ing pith helmet, Andy, unless they're wanting to distract your eyes from the fact that their hands are stealing India's largest diamond?

And it's even more ballsy to then put that diamond in a crown.

Most jewel thieves would lie low for a while, Andy, not do anything too flashy to arouse suspicion.

Not the British, though.

We immediately wore that diamond on a hat and that is the ultimate f you to India.

Hey, you want your diamond back, India?

You'll have to come and get it from my finging head.

It was in fact one of the terms of the Treaty of Lahore, a legal agreement formalising British occupation of the Punjab.

Just formalizing

which the gem was going to be taken and surrendered to the Queen of England.

So

as you say, it's amazing what you can get away with a smart uniform.

But India's now claiming that it was taken away illegally, and Britain's response has been, yes, yes, it probably was.

Oh, well, mint dulet, please buy and make it snappy.

I've got some history to selectively ignore.

Also, John,

as you said, this diamond was put in a crown, and the crown worn traditionally by the

consort of the monarch.

Now, this belongs to

the Queen Mother, who died allegedly in 2002.

And it's really taking the Finder's Keeper's Rule a little too far.

The cliffy way that you found it was by stealing it via a treaty.

And also, the Queen Mother's Crown, John.

Dead for over 10 years.

When you refuse to give back a bit of a dead woman's hat that she hardly ever wore anyway, you need to take a long, hard bath with yourself and think about what really matters to you in life.

It's classic children's behavior.

Can we have the diamond back?

No, it's mine.

Technically, that's not necessarily true.

It's mine.

Well, you're not using it, so why not let someone else ever go with it?

It's mine.

Did you pay for it?

What?

What does that mean?

It's mine.

Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.

You're right.

Our legal defense for this is basically finders, keepers, losers, weepers.

And when I say finders, I mean takers.

Takers, keepers, losers, weepers.

It doesn't rhyme so much, but it makes everything so much easier.

You're right.

The question posed to David Cameron by the Indians this week was essentially, wouldn't it be a nice gesture on this goodwill building visit to just think about maybe giving that diamond back?

To which David Cameron paused, acted like he was thinking about it before responding, go f ⁇ yourself.

Some Indians, including Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, have demanded the diamond's return to atone for Britain's colonial past.

Good luck with that.

Because if they really want it, Andy, if they really want that diamond, do you know what they should do?

They should try and steal it back.

Because that would unquestionably instantly be the new world's greatest diamond height, Andy.

Stealing that diamond right off the crown in the Tower of London.

Are you kidding me, Andy?

That concept is so incredible.

I now think they pretty much have to try it.

Because if they pull it off, there is not a single British person that would begrudge them that diamond.

Why?

Because we'd already be planning how to re-steal it back.

Maybe they should try and play us at our own game and try and treaty it out of us.

Cheeky.

The central print of a trade deal.

It wants to surrender.

Look at it.

In explaining why there was no way that India was or is getting that diamond back, David Cameron cleverly used a reference of some other stolen goods that Britain is perched on at the moment.

He said, it's the same question with the Elgin marbles, which are the classic Greek statues that Athens would really like back.

He said, the right answer is for the British Museum and other cultural institutions to do exactly what they do, which is to link up with other institutions around the world to make sure that the things which we have and look after so well are properly shared with people around the world.

I certainly don't believe in returnism, as it were.

I don't think that's sensible.

Returnism, Andrew.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

The British Museum is essentially an active crime scene.

Each room in that museum should have yellow police tape across the front of it.

Returnism as well.

I think that's not entirely his party's attitude towards people.

Clearly, they're more

keen on keeping things than

people in this country.

Well, it's a very inconsistent approach to looting, John.

Punitive jail sentences for the looters and rioters of a couple of summers ago.

But as long as it was done ages ago and it's stuck on the Queen's hat, it's fine.

The whole point of Cameron's trip was to tap into India's economic rise, and he was anxious to point out that he wants to focus on the present and the future rather than reach back into the past.

And that is spoken like a man who knows that to reach too far back into Britain's past risks you getting your hand bitten off.

That's right.

Or at least the past spontaneously vomiting history all over your arm.

Another reason why they'll never get that diamond back is, as you mentioned,

you wear that if you're the queen consort, which means that if Kate Middleton, whose husband is currently second in line to the throne, if she becomes Queen Consort, she will apparently wear the crown holding the diamond on official occasions.

And wow, that has got to weigh heavy on your head, that particular piece of headwear, Andy.

You've got the weight of the anger of over a billion Indians glaring at you.

It had better look good.

On his trip, Cameron also visited Amritsar, the site of one of the more notorious glitches in the otherwise smooth sailing of Britain's glorious ship of empire, when the British military opened fire on a crowd of unarmed protesters in a confined space.

Now, this happened in 1919, and even by the standards of the time, it was considered bad PR.

But Cameron stopped short of apologising for it.

He said it was deeply shameful and should never be forgiven, but did not apologise, saying it would not be appropriate as the killings were at the time condemned by the UK authorities.

Now this is true, John, but sorry is not a word that comes easily to British leaders because once you open those floodgates you are going to be absolutely deluged by other bits of sorry you have to be sorry about.

And it's an extraordinary story this.

In 1919, the Brigadier General Reginald Dwyer ordered the shooting without warning the crowd to disperse and fired for 10 minutes on men, women, and children until him and his men basically ran out of bullets.

Some were shot, some died jumping into a well to escape the bullets, and some were then just left to die of their wounds overnight because a curfew had been imposed.

The Indians estimate that over a thousand were killed.

The official British tally was 379.

And

we were cartoon villains back then, Andy.

One, two, three, four, maybe five, six.

I've got my mouth is getting tired from counting.

And 379.

But it gets even more extraordinary.

At the Hunter Commission that investigated it afterwards, Dyer explained, I think it quite possible that I could have dispersed the crowd without firing, but they would have come back again and laughed, and I would have made a fool of myself.

So, oh God, in those circumstances,

saying sorry doesn't seem too much, even at this distance.

I think that gives real context to make Americans feel better about what they've done to the world over the last 10 years, Andy, which is that it doesn't even scratch the surface of what we were able to do.

Furthermore, he stated he did not make any effort to tend the wounded after the shooting.

And these are his words.

Certainly not.

It was not my job.

Hospitals were open and they could have gone there.

Oh my God!

Well, is that not one of the problems of being wounded after being shot, that travel to a hospital becomes a logistical issue?

The investigation

reported that continuing to fire as long as he did, it appears that General Dwyer Dyer committed a grave error.

So you can see why some Indians think maybe the Britons did not react to this in the way that they could have done.

And when he returned home after being relieved of his duties in India,

a benefit fund was started which raised £26,000 for General Dyer, who was greeted as, quote, the man who saved India.

So I really think sorry is not going to break the moral pank on this particular incident.

It is amazing that he's become the first serving British Prime Minister to voice regret about the massacre.

In a visitor's notebook at the Pink Granite Memorial in Amritsar, he apparently wrote, this was a deeply shameful event in British history, one that Winston Churchill rightly described at the time as monstrous.

And it's a tough spot for a leader to be in, isn't it, Andy, having to sign a visitor's book at the site of a tragedy your country was completely responsible for.

I actually feel for him a little bit there, because what's he supposed to write?

Oops, love the gift shop, great trip of a lifetime, David.

Like you say, notably like the queen before him, he did not think it's appropriate to offer up a full apology, a fact that understandably did not go unnoticed by the Indian media.

And my favourite commentary on all this, Andy, came from the New York Times, who wrote, echoing what you were saying earlier, Britain's colonial history is so replete with regrettable episodes that officials have quietly worried that an apology for one episode might lead to an outpouring of demands for serious apologies all over the world.

And that is just a phenomenal excuse for not apologising, Andy.

Look, if we apologise to you, we're going to have to apologise to almost every nation on earth.

And that is just going to be exhausting.

It's like a bank being too big to fail, Andy.

As an empire, we were just too bad to apologise.

I don't know.

Sorry is a difficult word, but clearly you're welcome seems to trot off the tug rather more easily because Cameron, whilst not being able to say sorry, did say there was, quote, an enormous amount to be proud of in the British Empire.

So this is clearly not a two-sided tennis racket.

I don't know if the enormous amount we've got to be proud of includes opening fire on crowds of unarmed locals in confined spaces, or well-executed diamond heists, or even tactically starving millions of people to death by exporting all their food to Britain during a famine, or even by making their farmers grow poppies for opium instead of food for tubbies, or other sundry procedural questionables, some of which were questioned pretty stroppily at the time and answered by the British with a single word bang.

Still, on the flip side, you got cricket.

Diamond fact box now.

So what exactly is a diamond?

Well, in the words of the 60s rockers the kinks, it's a metastable allotrope of carbon.

Oh yes, it is.

Oh yes it is.

The diamond of course has long been associated with love and marriage and it has a number of qualities which explain its romantic links.

It has strong covalent bonding, symbolic of the unbreakable bond between two lovers.

It has very very high thermal conductivity, representing the warmth that flows in a loving relationship.

It's also notoriously hard all the time, symbolic of the

early ardour of the first flowerings of a lustful conflabulation.

It also has relatively high optical dispersion, symbolising how inevitably after a certain amount of time in a marriage or relationship, your eyes start wandering.

It's also remarkably durable, as it bloody has to be to put up with 45 years of ceaseless nagging.

And it's very dense and impregnable, like the withered husks that remain as you sit opposite each other in a nursing home, silently glaring at each other's time-raddled faces, channelling a lifetime of resentment and hoping that you don't die first to give your other half the satisfaction of muttering one-nil, one-nil at your funeral.

So, all in all, it is the perfect gemstone for marriage.

And

it's interesting to think if history had turned out differently, that's really just through the evolutionary quirk that human beings like sparkly, shiny things.

But it could have been very different, John.

It could have been that human beings liked aesthetically muddy, lumpy things, and that potatoes were what diamonds are today.

Do you like my new earrings?

Yes, they're lovely.

Those jersey royals really bring out the colour in your eyes.

Kerbling.

And what about Brenda's new nose stud?

Isn't that great?

Brenda?

Do you mean Wallace Simpson?

Because that King Edward really suits her.

Have you noticed anything else I've had pierced?

To be honest, yes, I have.

Are they Russett Burbanks or Belle de Fontenays?

I can't tell under your t-shirt, but they are certainly a feature.

Do you want to see the Winston on my Winston?

And that's all the facts you need to know about diamonds.

Were you talking about diamonds then?

I can't remember.

It's been a long week.

In other crime news, French illegal trouser news now, and a world-class sentence.

A 200-year-old law forbidding women to wear trousers in Paris has finally been revoked.

On January the 31st, France's Minister of Women's Rights made it officially impossible to arrest a woman for wearing trousers in Paris.

And that means that for the last two centuries, Andy, any woman in Paris wearing an elegantly tailored pantsuit has technically been breaking the law and could have been arrested by not not just the fashion police but the actual police as well.

Which, having been to Paris, I have to say, could easily function as the same thing.

The law required women to ask police for special permission to dress as men in Paris or risk being taken into custody.

In 1892 and 1909, the rule was amended to allow women to wear trousers if, I quote, the woman is holding a bicycle handlebar or the reins of a horse.

That That is a magnificent loophole, Landy.

No wonder so many chic handbags around that time were shaped like bicycle handlebars with horse reins for handles.

Because what an amazing pair of objects to need to remember not to leave the apartment without if you were wearing trousers.

Okay, Jean-Luc, let's go.

Let me check.

Have I got everything?

Keys, purse, phone.

Oh shit, I nearly forgot more horse reins.

I'm wearing trousers tonight and I don't want to have to end up in jail.

Actually be a doll and rip the handlebars off that bicycle over there as well, just so we're doubly safe.

But I went to Paris on honeymoon, John, and I'm pretty sure that

my wife wore some trousers then.

Well, you should have turned her into the police.

Well, I just think I was better sitting on that information until I actually need it.

That's true.

That's true.

The law was kept in place until now, despite repeated attempts to repeal it, in part because officials said that

the unenforced rule was not a priority and part of French a quote legal archaeology.

I'll tell you what else was legal archaeology here in the states Andy slavery and that was still worth getting rid of and incidentally Mississippi only officially ratified the 13th Amendment this week which outlawed slavery.

This was after a clerical error meant the paperwork was not filed when they finally voted to ratify the amendment way back in 1995

Just a century and a half late.

They really wanted to be sure, Andy, that it was the right move for America.

Yeah, you just don't want to jump into these things two-footed and then regress it later when it all turns out wrong.

It actually happened after two men in Mississippi were inspired to check on the status of the amendment in their state after watching the movie Lincoln.

Mississippi was inspired by the movie Lincoln, Andy, not the actual Lincoln.

They just didn't find him convincing enough at the time.

They preferred the fake Lincoln years later instead.

The British guy pretending to be Lincoln who was backed by a John Williams soundtrack whenever he opened his mouth.

Maybe that's the problem with Lincoln at the time.

He just

lacked a bit of quality music behind him.

Of course.

Everyone's more impressive with a soundtrack.

And to be fair to Mississippi, Andy, I think the main reason they took so long to ratify the 13th Amendment is that they just like coming last in things, whether it's education race relations or body mass indexes there's no sturdier place than the foot of the table andy i believe that's their state motto except i believe their state motto actually ends with the n-word as well

In other crime news now, Icelandic names.

And a 15-year-old Icelandic girl, Andy, has won the right to use the name given her by her mother after a court battle against the authorities.

So she's escaped presumably the death penalty and

that's so yeah I think the Icelandics go pretty hard on

basically her name her name Blair

will now be able to use her first name which means light breeze officially and the reason this was a problem is that the country Iceland has very strict laws on names which must fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules.

Blair said after the ruling, I'm glad that this is over.

Now I expect I'll have to get a new some new identity papers.

Finally I'll have the name Blair in my passport.

And yeah, like Germany and Denmark, Iceland has extremely rigid limitations on how a baby can be named.

Names like you know Carolina and Krista

for example are outlawed'cause the letter C is not part of Iceland's alphabet.

Names are not allowed to be unisex either.

And that's you know, that's pretty strict, Andy, especially especially now, you know, around the world, people are choosing to name their children after fruits, vegetables, and spare car parts.

Yeah, I mean, if this kind of legislation comes in in America, it's going to completely destroy American football as a sport.

Other names not allowed in Iceland for being insufficiently feminine include Snout Hammer, Pull My Finger and Missile Defense System.

But

her mother, but also, her mother's name, John, her mother's name was Bjork.

Which, well, how feminine?

That sounds like a vomiting dog.

Or possibly slang.

Oh, dear.

Derek Jeter's gun down hard there.

It looks like he's

capped a nasty one riding his Bjorks.

There are apparently 1,853 officially approved female names on the Icelandic Naming Committee's list.

And, yeah, Bjork

said she had no idea that Blair was not on the list of accepted names.

And as you mentioned, the panel panel rejected the name because they said it was too masculine for a girl.

What?

Hold on.

The name Light Breeze is too masculine.

I don't know if that argument would hold up in most international courts.

And here's the crazy thing, Andy.

They're missing the much bigger point here.

Icelandic names are already ridiculous.

What are they frightened of?

There's nothing they can come up with that's more silly than names they've already got.

Like Arinbjörn, Aminfonurg, Bergilot, Ragnar and Flerg.

Now if

you want everyone to have serious names stop giving your children names that make them sound like Ikea shelving units.

Oh not nice to meet you, Dagstorp.

Now what do you do?

Are you a full-time wardrobe?

Also, reading this story, Sri Lanka must be laughing its head off, John.

They have names like novels.

There's also a little-known aspect to the Conservative manifesto at the last election.

They'd seen a possible hung parliament coming and

thought they might have to negotiate a coalition agreement.

So in their manifesto were various laws that they never intended to pursue but they used as bargaining chips, including passing a law so that only four names were allowed for all British children.

And these names were Brian, Enid, Sopwith and Mork.

Because George Osborne's a massive Mork and Mindy fan.

Massive.

as his tattoos will testify.

So it came to the negotiations and the Conservatives dropped their names demand and the Liberal Democrats gave up their commitment to not charging university tuition fees.

Bit of give and take.

So it worked out for everyone.

In New Zealand, someone was banned from naming their child Sex Fruit.

Really?

Yeah.

Sex Fruit was considered.

They have a committee as well.

Sex Fruit not allowed.

There was an Adolf Hitler case as well, wasn't there?

Some people.

Who would not want to name their child that?

Sadly, that name

was not 100 years ago in Australia.

In Austria.

or Australia anyway here's a tip Iceland spend a little bit less time worrying about what people call their children and a little bit more time stopping your entire banking sector collapsing like a watermelon in a nuclear test zone

your emails now and this one comes in from O'Sheen

who writes dear John Chris and Andy in order of who gives a shit

about what?

Me and the wife drove down to Florida a few weeks ago and spotted this precious gem on a highway billboard.

A picture of US Army tanks, strike helicopters, and soldiers coming right at you, set in a lovely background which appears to be bursting volcanoes, explosions and hellfire.

And in the middle of it all, with his arms outstretched, looking like a cheap redneck actor dressed up like a Jedi.

You guessed it.

Jesus Christ!

Wow.

Seems we know what he's been up to these last 2,000 years.

Yeah.

Building an army and such.

I see he's been making particular use of his mind control powers mentioned in Deuteronomy 23.1.

The top of the billboard reads, I'm still in control.

Dot dot dot.

Jesus.

I'm not sure they really needed the dot dot dot, but for the sake of dramatics, I still think it fits the mood rather well.

Underneath that reads, wait for it, www.iwillbeback.org.

It seems only possible.

It's like Jesus is the Terminator.

Well, that's pretty much how my team views him

in terms of market share.

So, thanks very much for sharing with us, O'Sheen.

Thanks, thanks very much.

That's an extraordinary.

Also, I do wonder if that's true.

Anytime you hear anyone saying, I'm still in control, it usually means they have completely lost control.

So, I think that's what Gaddafi said, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, whilst he was being turned into a human kebab.

Yeah.

Do keep your remarks coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com and do check out the SoundCloud page

soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle.

And don't forget, if you have not volunto subscribed yet on thebuglepodcast.com, please do so to keep this podcast free and independent and alive.

Three things that I think we all hold extremely dear to our hearts.

And otherwise, I'm going to have some pretty f ⁇ ing empty weeks.

So

that's it, Buglers.

Until Bugle226 next week, goodbye.

And if you see any diamonds, just help your f ⁇ ing self.

It's the British and Belgian word.

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.