Bugle 224 – Papal Proton Packs

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This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 224 of the world's leading and only audio newspaper for a visual world for the week beginning Monday, the 18th of February 2013, the first day of the rest of your lives, as indeed is every day.

I am Andy Zolsom, the acceptable face of 21st-century lapsed Jewish, 38-year-old father of two South London-based podcasters.

And joining me from the biggest of all conceivable big apples, into which he has steadily eaten his way over the last six and a half years.

That's right, it's the human fruit moth, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

First things first, Andy.

Happy New Year!

Yes, it's late, but not as late as you think.

Because, of course, it was Chinese New Year this last week, and we are currently in the year of the snake.

And that makes sense, Andy.

It definitely felt an extra bit snakey over the last few days.

I think everyone agrees about that.

Cobras must be feeling fantastic about themselves right now.

They hung in there all through the down years, and all of a sudden, boom, they're relevant again in a big way.

It's snake o'clock, andy synchronize your watches to snake now you might be thinking buglers come on how is this relevant to my everyday life and to that i'll say this guess what if it's relevant to 1.3 billion people it is relevant to you if one fifth of the entire world's population say it's snakey then you just nod your head and you say it's snakey as well 2014 for instance is the chinese year of the horse andy and i'll tell you right now i'm already feeling horsier now in anticipation.

You just got to accept it.

That's the world we live in now.

Well, with more horse than they used to be.

Just a prospectively horsier place.

As the European food chain can testify.

Well, nothing much exciting happened to me this week.

Just spent most of the last couple of days desperately trying not to get hit by falling asteroids.

But

no, Piggy.

This is Bugle224.

As we record, Friday, the 15th of February, 10 years, John, since the Stop the war protests aimed at preventing the war in Iraq 10 years ago today.

All worked out in the end.

Took a while to get there, but got there in the end.

In 1952, on this day, King George VI was buried in the grounds of Windsor Castle.

And on February the 16th, 1952, King George VI died.

I can't believe no one ever investigated that timeline.

1493, Christopher Columbus wrote an open letter describing what he'd found on his 1492 spring break trip.

He came back saying, Guess what, losers?

The big CC has just been to Asia.

To which the King of Spain replied, What mate?

You sure it definitely wasn't America?

No, mate, it was Asia.

Definitely Asia.

I've been to bloody Cuba, haven't I?

And that's in Asia.

Cuba, by the way, bigger than Britain.

Hispaniola, bigger than the Iberian Peninsula.

Those are all the things he said.

King of Spain, are you sure about this, Chris?

Definitely sure Hispaniola isn't like about one-eighth as big as the Iberian Peninsula.

Yep, been there, seen it, stuck a fing flag in it.

That makes it mine.

Sorry, King.

That makes it ours.

Yep, it's big.

Real big.

Okay, Columbus, any chance on your next void, you might take slightly fewer barrels of cheap Portuguese vodka.

To which Columbus replied, I need a bucket.

Quick, I need a bucket.

Spring break.

That was 520 years ago today.

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

This week, a commemorative section to mark 42 years since the day, on the 15th of February 1971, the decimalisation of British currency was completed.

And we got the hundred pence in a pound system that we know and love so well today.

And we look back in our commemorative section and explain how the British monetary system used to work.

Before then, there were four farthings in a penny, twelve pennies in a shilling, which you could make with a penny, a tuppence, a thruppeny, and a sixpence.

There were two shillings in a florin, one and a quarter florins in a half crown, two half crowns in a crown.

That one does make sense.

Four crowns in a pound, which was called a sovereign, whilst a guinea was made up of £1.05

or 21 shillings, or a crown, two half crowns, three florins, four shillings, five sixpences, four thruffences, three tuppences a penny, and 44 farthings.

So, if anyone got the impression that Britain used to be a bit of a stroppy nation, you can kind of understand why.

And we explain how this in turn explains why Britain stood up to the blitz so well.

So, Mrs.

Pigshank, the stuff you just brought of me weighed in total £2, £0, 8 drams, and 35 grains, right?

Yeah, and you gave me in monetary terms £1,3c, £2 florins, and £6p halfpenny.

And you owed me a total of a guinea, three half crowns, four shillings and eight and three quarter farthings which means i now owe you changed the value of uh let me work this out uh yeah take that away from that add a bit of that carry over a bit uh less that

uh concentrate nigel concentrate uh minus that and nine twelfths of that

and focus i'm losing my train of thought uh eight sixths of twelve and a quarter uh lots of two and a half uh where we got to we owe owing you three half florins a slightly melted shilling is Is there such a thing as a fifthpenny bit?

Oh, f you, Hitler.

I'm going to have to start again.

Much simpler now.

Now, one pound is simply worth absolutely nothing.

Thank you, successive governments of the international economic system.

Is this on?

Andy, I think the problem with listening to your bullshit over the years on the bugle is I think I might be genuinely losing my grip on parts of history.

top story this week: the audacity of Pope.

And big news out of the Vatican this week, Andy.

Well, straight away, a sentence like that understandably puts people on edge nowadays because, in recent times, no good sentence has started with those words.

But Pope Benedict, Johnny Ratz, to his old friends back in Germany, and Heratinga to his postman.

Beautiful language, Andy, just beautiful.

Pope Benedict, in a shock move, resigned as pope this was a particular surprise because this was the first papal resignation for 600 years the last pope to step aside was Pope Gregory XII who resigned in 1415 amid a schism within the church so he resigned because of the Western schism Andy this guy looks like he resigned because he got a bit tired

It's all we're getting soft as a species John.

We're getting soft.

And it's making everything a little confusing.

Usually, if you see an ex-pope walking around, you know that you're looking at a ghost.

And you need to get your proton pack quickly and suck that ghost pope into a storage container so you can take the ghost pope on tour all over the world.

Now, after this resignation, you need to be a lot more careful because it may not be a ghost pope after all.

You may instead be blasting an old man and trying to force him to get into a little box.

Life has got a lot more complicated all of a sudden.

That's right, John.

The Pope said nope.

He went popidope.

He's taken a look at the Holy See.

He's seen it and he's thought that I cannot anymore.

So he's quats, as you say, the first Pope to chuck in his mitre for almost 600 years since Pope Greg XII hung up his chasible, as you said, in 1415.

And he cited his increasing age and decreasing physical and mental powers as a reason for quitting the ring.

Rumours suggested that he wanted to get out before anyone could clonk him on the head with a hammer to check if he's alive or not.

Or, more pressingly, before anyone could crucify him upside down, like happened to some popes, I could mention St.

Peter.

Now,

a new pope

is going to be elected at a papal conclave, John, before Easter.

You got tickets for that?

Well, I love a conclave, Andy.

You know, I'm certainly in there for the ballot.

I was hoping I might get a vote.

I might really spice that thing up a bit.

I mean, who would you, who would you, I mean, if you were choosing the Pope, John, who would you?

Beyonce.

Beyonce, Andy, yeah, for me.

I mean, I know that that's unlikely for a number of reasons, but that doesn't mean I'm not going Beyoncé with my first ballot anyway.

Well, I think

it could be time for someone from outside the Catholic Church to

take over.

You know, we've had foreign football managers managing the England football team.

You know, maybe it is time for a non-Catholic Pope to try to re-energise the brand.

Yeah.

I mean, for example, I mean, the obvious candidate is the freakishly evangelistic Microsoft boss, Steve Ballmer.

I mean, he could give the Catholic Church the kick up the backside it so desperately needs.

Someone to get out there and aggressively sell the brand.

Besides, Microsoft is the perfect grounding for a Pope.

In the beginning, was the word.

And the word was good until they needlessly pissed around with how the menus worked in words.

And then the word became incomprehensible and deeply counterintuitive.

So there's some parallels to the development of religion.

That would be such a ballsy move, Andy, if they appointed someone who was not religious in any way, just an absolute CEO marketer, saying, look, we are tired of pretending that this is something it isn't.

We are a gigantic, immensely successful corporation.

And it's about time we started running ourselves as such.

I mean, there have been talk that Jose Mourinho, the legendary football manager, could be leaving Real Madrid this summer.

And, you know,

he's a proven winner.

He's got a high profile around the world.

He's tactically cautious.

That's got to play well with the conclave.

Prone to making deliberately incendiary comments.

I mean, it's all fitting into place, John.

And also generally only sees his own highly subjective version of reality.

He is a Pope in waiting, John.

The news of the resignation seemed to surprise everyone, from governments to Vatican experts to the Pope's closest aides, who seem to react with much more authentic surprise than they did during the recent child sex abuse allegation.

Pope Benny XVI has only been Pope for eight years, taking over in 2005 after John Paul II's death.

He'd apparently been looking forward to a piano-playing retirement before the Pope died back then and has stated that he never wanted to be Pope.

And I mean, wow.

You can see from that how that smooth talker aced the Pope interview, Andy.

I don't want to be Pope.

You can stick your papersy up your ass.

Now, when do I start?

So

he's not the first Pope uh to have resigned after not wanting to be pope not many popes have resigned and one of the previous ones was celestine the right in the late 13th century now he was a hermit who had never wanted to be pope he then refused to take the job and ran away when he was offered it before being coaxed into accepting it despite saying no i'm going to be shit at this job then did the job shitly for five months and then pissed off for a long walk in the mountains so

there's a bit of previous john what is this pope's legacy going to be well he was a strong theological conservative before and during his time as primo passenger in the Pope Mobile.

And he's taken very conservative positions on issues such as homosexuality and women priests, while also urging abstinence and continuing opposition to the use of contraceptives in the face of all evidence that suggests it may fly in the face of what is traditionally considered a good idea.

That's the nicest way I can possibly think of putting that.

And he's maintained a strong line against all his critics for these actions, essentially saying to them, don't hate the prayer, hate the game.

And Pope Benedict, or uh

Pope Benedict or uh B unit, as he's known to absolutely nobody, uh stated that he is fully aware of the gravity of his decision.

And that really brings it home, this news Andy, because I don't think the Catholic Church fully acknowledged gravity as a concept until relatively recently.

I could be wrong, but even if I am, I'm still less wrong than is ideal.

In his official announcement, the Pope said, I'm leaving now so I can spend more time with my son.

I mean, the son of God, Jesus.

Jesus.

Not my son.

He's called Darren.

And he also doesn't exist.

I don't mean also doesn't exist.

Jesus did exist, of course, until the Jews killed him.

I mean the Romans.

I mean mankind.

We all killed him.

Oh boy, this is not going as well as I hoped it would.

His reign as Pope has not been without controversies.

He said some quite bizarre things.

When visiting Brazil in May 2007, he sparked controversy by saying that native populations have been, quotes, silently longing for the Christian faith that was brought to them by colonisers.

Yeah.

They just didn't say anything out loud about it, but they felt it.

So, yeah, I mean,

that silent longing might not have extended as far as being genocidally slaughtered as well.

But, you know, it doesn't mean it wasn't there, John.

It doesn't mean

Catholic Church has always been good at reading body language, unless that body language is trying to say no.

I guess one of the big questions is, what does God make of this decision?

Does he accept the resignation, or does he basically scream at the Pope, what part of appointment for life were you finging struggling with?

Jesus Christ!

What?

Sorry, son, I wasn't calling for you.

I was just blowing off some steam.

Well, judging by God's behaviour for most of the last 2,000 years, he's probably just playing solitaire on his computer and not really paying attention.

Well, there may actually be a clue as to God's response, Andy, as video quickly hit the rounds on the internet

just hours after the news broke of a lightning bolt hitting the dome of St.

Peter's Basilica.

And, I mean, wow.

I guess you can take that either way, really, but I've never heard in classic literature of a celebratory lightning bolt.

I mean, you know much more about this than I do, Andy.

Did Zeus ever send down a complimentary lightning bolt to a Greek that he was particularly pleased with?

You know, just give him a friendly jolt, like a slap on the back, except a billion volts of electricity tearing through his body.

Well, that's basically what the US justice system does to its most talented murderers, I guess.

Yeah, you could look at it that way.

I don't know.

I mean, Zeus.

I mean, he had some pretty strange seduction techniques.

I don't know if any of them involved throwing thunderbolts.

But I mean, a more pressing thing for God is, you know, I mean, it's 600 years since he last had to get a Pope a leaving present.

True.

Because that's always awkward when you leave a job.

You know, you know what to get for the person leaving.

I mean, what would you give?

I mean, what'd you give a Pope who leaves office?

I mean, that's one of the eternal questions.

I guess obviously you get him a flash new dressing gown because he's going to miss his old ones, a set of golf clubs.

Maybe you think he needs some pampering, you know, weekend at a luxury spa, a bit of quality me time, or one of these new experience days, driving a Formula One car car or burning a witch

maybe a big frame photograph of him with all the cardinals or just a really really nice bottle of vintage Jesus blood I don't know I don't know what you're getting

there are of course also conspiracies as to what has happened because the idea of an old man being too exhausted to do an inter internationally draining and demanding job such as this was clearly not enough for the internet which is particularly unsympathetic considering the fact that we were all forced to witness the final few years of John Paul II's popacy resembling weekend at Bernie's.

So what were...

You made Leonid Brezhnev in his later years look like Usain Bolt.

So

that's quite the analogy, aren't you?

So

what were some of the conspiracies?

Well, first, early rumours were of ill health, possibly Alzheimer's or heart trouble, neither of which would be particularly surprising in a man who was only appointed pope at 75 years old.

And also, are those not qualities that the Catholic Church has traditionally looked for in its pope's?

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

It also turns out that the Pope has actually had a pacemaker for years, which does seem to be cheating God a bit, you know, correcting a design flaw, but I'm sure he spoke to him about it and got the okay.

Oh, right.

You don't need to

just mean a Kenyan athlete running ahead of him into St.

Peter's.

You're right, actually.

I didn't look into that, I mean,

that might be the the case.

Just make sure he gets to the altar on time.

Some conspiracies.

Some conspiracists thought that maybe God fired the Pope.

And if you think about it, that's possible.

God is a capitalist.

He may not have liked some of the figures that he was seeing across his desk as he gazed out the window of his corner cloud.

And if that happened, I guess all that's left is to tidy up the Pope's severance package, which I believe he is promised an eternity in heaven, a future saint bonus, and to keep some of his ropes.

Other conspiracy theories are whether this resignation had anything to do with a new HBO documentary, Maya Maxima Culpa, which apparently indicts Benedict and the Vatican he presided over in institutional cover-ups over child sex abuse.

I doubt that would have made him resign, Andy.

Pretty demonstrably didn't put that much of a level of importance on that particular issue.

Some thought the Knights Templar were involved, because some people always think the Knights Templar are involved in anything that happens.

Amazingly, I haven't seen anything blaming the Jews for this yet, Andy.

Which is incredible.

I think you may have got away with this one.

No, that's just got to be in the pipeline, hasn't it?

I think that was a Jewish meteor that landed in Russia.

A Vatican spokesman stated the Pope was not stepping down because of any specific illness.

And then also announced that the Pope's last public appearance will be his final mass in St.

Peter's Square on the 27th of February.

And I mean, come on, Andy, that is going to be a big concert.

Good luck getting a ticket for that one.

What does he go out with?

Is it a favorite Bible passage, a prayer wishing the next Pope health and happiness, or does he strap on a guitar, play Stairway to Heaven, and throw himself off the balcony into the basilica and stage dive his way out of Vatican City?

It's up to him.

But I would go with option C.

But as you say, I mean, there have been a lot of speculation about what caused this very sudden, unexpected resignation, which to me suggests that he did already have something lined up, possibly the Manchester City job.

Maybe in a swap deal with Roberto Mancini becoming the new Archbishop of Naples.

And of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury only stepped down in January of this year.

So inevitably, there's rumours that the resigning Pope and the recently departed Rowan Williams are going to jointly head up what sources suggest is a major new Christian franchise that promises to be, and I quote from the press release, an exciting and glamorous new brand for Christianity's many fans to follow.

These sources have suggested that Pope Ben and Rowan Williams will be the figureheads of the new JX3K franchise, which is going to be bankrolled by Abu Dhabi oil money, and introduce six new apostles to the Bible to appeal more to younger and female readers, including one who has a skateboard and three 20-something apostle disciples who share a flat in Bethlehem.

More signings for the JX3K franchise are imminent, including Denzel Washington, the Reverend Pippa Middleton, Tony Blair, always available for the right price, Billy Graham, to me that is a short-term signing for my money.

Tim Tebow, he's going to be the backup quarterback for the franchise's in-house American football team.

And the Olson Sisterhoods, who will front a new range of hip and trendy nuns.

So who is going to be next as Pope?

Analysts almost immediately turn to speculating about who is most likely to replace him.

And the Catholic Church are up against the clock here.

They need to find a new Pope and have him fully trained by Easter.

And I do mean trained.

Andy, sure, it's a spiritual position, but you still have to have your body in shape.

All popes have to have a 12-pack, one for each disciple.

This core strength gives them the strength to bless thousands of people a day, swing that metal ball of smelly stuff around like a Russian hammer thrower, and deny all the allegations of institutional abuse.

That takes stamina, Andy, and it's all possible through the patented fitness system in the Vatican, Pope 90X.

It's an intense workout.

So let's take a look at...

the popular names.

It's a big opportunity for the church to show that Catholicism isn't just for old white people anymore, especially when you consider the sheer numbers of Catholics in Africa and Latin America.

The Vatican's been very bad at dealing with minorities in the past, especially by using the term minorities when they're in fact numerically majorities.

They've left them ignored, unrepresented and dying of AIDS in horrific numbers.

All of those things are at best irritating.

So let's look at some of the current top candidates.

One of the big names being thrown around Andy is Cardinal Angelo Scola, 71, maybe a little old, but he's still got plenty of prayers in the tank.

He's the most prominent Italian candidate and has been referred to by one Catholic newspaper as the crown prince of Catholicism.

In 2010, at the height of the abuse allegations against the church, he called the media's attacks on the Pope an iniquitous humiliation that may hurt him in the eyes of the world and help him in the eyes of the cardinals tasked with selection.

Next up, there's Cardinal Schoenborn, the Austrian Archbishop with a penchant for the pastoral.

Rumoured to have a lovely pastoral touch, probably the strongest non-Italian candidate from inside Europe.

Intellectually conservative, and in 2010, he caused controversy by suggesting it was time to re-examine the issue of priestly celibacy.

That could be a vote winner.

And any floating voters among the cardinals may be swung over by his offer not to essentially outlaw priest boners.

Then,

of course, there is the godly Ghanaian and possible favourite to take the pointy hat Peter Turkson.

He's the head of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace as everyone knows Andy

which released a document in 2011 calling for radical economic reforms to deal with the global recession.

The document condemned the idolatry of the market and Turkson expressed support for the Occupy Wall Street protest movement.

Theologically moderate, Andy, signaling openness to the argument that condoms may be appropriate for couples where one partner is HIV positive and the other is not, which you would hope you would think, Andy, as a man coming from a continent where AIDS has, to put it mildly, not been on the endangered list.

And then...

Finally, there's Odio Sherrer from Brazil.

Brazil Andy, 65 years old.

Classic Brazilian flair with communion.

Also, as a young parish priest in Brazil, he was apparently caught in the crossfire of an armed robbery where bullets perforated his lungs, intestines and an eye.

Some bullet fragments remain lodged in his body.

He's my Pope, Andy.

That's my Pope.

A bulletproof Pope.

That is hard to say no to.

Bernardel Popal Dinho.

Just news breaking now that US entrepreneur Donald Trump has reportedly claimed he's not interested in running the Catholic Church.

He says it's not the direction I want to go in at this stage of my career.

Whilst the Vatican has ruled out Silvio Berlusconi as a candidate, a cardinal cardinal has told the bugle, Berlusconi is about 500 years too late.

Otherwise, he would have fitted seamlessly in, him and his uncontrollable drongle rod.

I'm amazed, Andy, that Donald Trump does not want to be pope because that's the only organisation that likes gold more than he does.

I mean, there have been some.

It's interesting reading about other popes to have resigned.

As I mentioned, Celestine V earlier on.

Also, three-time Pope Benedict IX.

Now, he was a real record record-breaker, was Benny IX, 11th-century pontiff and pin-up, the youngest pope ever, probably 18 to 20, but some sources suggest he was as young as 11 when he came.

Wow.

Wow.

And I think it'd be great if the Catholic Church tried to pick up on this example.

I reckon one of David Beckham's kids could probably do a job for them.

You know, high-profile, wealthy family, no real qualifications for the job.

Let's get the papacy back to its roots.

Benedict IX, also the only man ever to reach number one in the Catholic rankings on more than one occasion, the only man to sell the papacy.

Sounds like George Osborne's kind of pope.

Personally, I think it's free market economics gone mad.

Yeah, he sold the papacy, apparently.

For how much?

I'm not sure, actually.

Well, it doesn't give the exact sum on the font of all knowledge that is Wikipedia, but

basically sold the Pope, the papacy, to his godfather, who became Pope Gregory VI.

So, I mean, you know, that's

you've got to, I guess you've got to make a living.

You've got to make a living.

And also, reputedly the Pope who held the most orgies and the first homosexual pope.

So he really crammed a lot in, so to speak.

But he got some

very bad reviews.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, a disgrace to the chair of St.

Peter,

feasting on immorality, St.

Peter Damian.

A demon from hell in the disguise of a priest, says Ferdinand Gregorovius.

His life as a pope was so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it.

Pope Victor III.

Those are one-star reviews if you're a pope, John.

And another pope to resign was Pope Rabbi Yitzhak Lebitsevic, who was appointed in 1979 due to a clerical error and stepped down immediately after walking into the Vatican on his first day in the job, saying, So, you losers have come to your senses after almost 2,000 years.

And to mark this historic occasion, for the first time in almost 600 years, a resignation of a pope means that the Pope is having a leaving party, and we can offer you an exclusive plus-one ticket to the Pope's leaving due at the Prancing Caesar Nightclub in Rome's glamorous Trust Everey District.

If you

complete these challenges, firstly, finish this sentence.

If I was Pope, I would explain the institutionalised cover-up and effective condonement of decades of widespread child abuse by dot dot dot, and also provide a punchline for this joke: how many popes does it take to change an anachronistic teaching on birth control?

So, do send your entries in to info at thebuglepodcast.com, and the winner will be on the first plane to Vatican City Airport.

And a coincidental story emerging just this morning, John, the latest in the European food chain scandal, after it's emerged that contamination of beef products with horses spread across the entire continent, it has now been revealed that communion wafers used in many leading Catholic cathedrals have been found to contain not only the body of Christ, Christ but also the bodies of some of his apostles.

A wafer from Milan Cathedral has tested positive for containing the leg of St.

Bartholomew, whilst others have been found to contain traces of Simon the Zealot, Phil, Tommy, and Andy.

Well, that's probably all the fault of a Romanian disciple meat plant, Andy.

Judas.

So I think, John, after that section, I think we've probably added another 3 or 4% to our eternity in hell that we've built up over the years.

Once you get past 100%, Andy, the numbers are just meeting.

Oh, that's.

There's just no deterrent anymore.

Iran's space monkey news now.

And look, a couple of weeks ago, Andy, Iran sent a monkey into space.

Let's all just take a moment now to enjoy that sentence.

It's worth taking that extra time to allow you to spit out whatever you are eating in hilarity or dive away from the heavy machinery you're operating out of fear for laughing yourself into it, or just simply to drive a truck over a cliff in hysterics.

Iran sent a monkey into space.

The monkey travelled in a Pishgam rocket, which reached an altitude of around 120 kilometers, 75 miles, for a suborbital flight before returning its shipment intact.

Intact, the Iranian Defense Ministry said.

And Iranian state TV showed images of the monkey, which was strapped into a harness, being taken to the rocket, with a look in his monkey eyes that said,

What the f is happening to me?

I swear, I was thinking just yesterday, life as an Iranian monkey could not get much worse than this.

And then these guys turned up and put this stupid helmet on my head and said something like, Do you want to go to space?

And I thought they'd said, Do you want some nuts?

So, of course, I said,

Which obviously is monkey for yes, I'd love some nuts.

And they said, Great, and they put me in a fing rocket, which which begs the question where are my fing nuts

So I think the monkey's vengeful mother might have turned up on that asteroid that crashed in Russia this morning But there were some claims that this was a fake

right John Photos published by the official state media before the monkey launch showed a monkey with a distinctive mole above its right eye and yet when they showed footage of the creature after it returned from space it seemed to be a different monkey altogether.

One without a mole and with darker fur and a different face.

And, well, to me, John, that just shows that this is true, because that is what happens in space.

Why do you think Neil Armstrong wore that helmet?

Do you think he wanted to wear that helmet?

You know, would you, you know, you're in showbiz, John, would you not want to play to the camera on an occasion like that?

Biggest

TV audience in world history.

Of course, you would.

And again, Andy, you're right.

To be fair, you know, if you were shitting yourself in fear as you hurtled through the air, that might change the colour and complexion of your fur too.

Spaceflight can really change a monkey, Andy.

That monkey's landing back on Earth saying, I've seen things, I've changed.

I'm not the monkey that I used to be.

It's not just the mole above my eye that's different.

I'm different.

I've got a whole new perspective on the world.

And not to labor a point, but where are my fing nuts?

NASA apparently say that the effect of space on a person's face is a similar effect to missing a penalty on an Italian footballer's face.

And that's basically why Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins came down to earth in that capsule, John, to give them time to knock each other's faces back into shape with a large wooden NASA spatula.

If you turn up the volume on the news footage of the moments just before they were picked up, you can hear a little bit of hammering, a little bit of drilling, some loud slapping noises, and three men saying ow.

This is far from Iran's first space adventure.

In 2010, Iran successfully sent a rat, turtle, and worms into space.

Andy, that's not an astronaut program, that's a spell.

Or a sitcom.

The US State Department also would not confirm any aspect of the allegation of this space launch.

Victoria Newland said, neither monkey nor launch is confirmed, nor launched monkey.

And that is

a beautifully constructed sentence.

This is like having Dr.

Seuss as your spokesman.

I would not trust space monkeys, sir.

Space monkeys are not what I prefer.

The Iranian officials insisted the monkey launch was genuine and said that they'd just simply chosen a different monkey for the actual flight.

The monkey in the pre-launch footage was switched because...

That makes sense.

Yeah, basically, it...

Clearly, it just cracked up under pressure.

You know, it could have been a problem that at the end of the countdown instead of flicking an ignition switch, he just started started jumping around the cabin and eating his own feces.

I mean, these things happen when you send monkeys into space.

Maybe it couldn't learn the lines for when it was supposed to land on the moon or wherever it was going.

One small step for monkey, one giant leap for...

Oh!

Oh!

One giant leap for firing monkeys into space.

Or maybe simply, John, they found out when they were strapping this monkey into his monkey space diaper

that the monkey was in fact Jewish.

So,

well, that's

a possibility.

The animal rights lobby have complained that it was cruel, uh and uh to that I would reply, well, to an extent, but at the same time, that fing monkey went to fing space.

Yeah.

I mean it might have cut into its daily masturbating in a tree schedule, but it went to fing space, John.

Food news now, and there's been another opening in the world of fine dining uh by the New York-based celebrity hyper gastronomist Scluton Malvain.

We reported in uh Bugle 170 on the culinary genius behind uh such world-renowned restaurants as Chicago's Testiculates and of course the screaming shithead in Buenos Aires.

And now he's opened another high-profile scoffery.

Hot on the heels of last year's successful launches of uh Los Angeles' Knife Fork Gob and Paris's Antarctico French fusion can canteen, the Barking Peanid, comes Malvane's latest in Manhattan, called Murder Plate.

Claiming to use only animals that he has himself personally murdered on site, Malvaine admits that most of the vegetables used will be slain off-site by his crack squad of crop hitmen.

He also says that his much-hyped new restaurant will use only molecule-based foodstuffs.

All the dishes will contain nothing but molecules, he boasted, and fing loads of them.

The signature dishes at Murder Plate include starters, a steroid-infused bicep of peer-pressurized racing pigeon, and a farewell tartare of goat child with an emotionally raw carpache of much-loved vegetapets smooched in a sauce romantique of deservedly stabbed lamb guts.

And main courses include tennis-tweaked hamstring of straight-sets defeated pork calf served in its own re-gravy of sweated headband, sheltered by a battle-hardened husk of dehumanised veal shell, and a micro-ocean of soup of grief-wept tears of fresh bereaved shrimp, droused onto a faux coral seabed of crustified crab semen, served on a non-floutonte U-boats of German eel ribs, immediately scuttled with a ruccola-propelled subsurface corn pedot.

And of course,

there's Malvain's signature disc that he serves at all of his restaurants, the sausage Jesus, fresh nailed to a crucifix of chips.

Bring your own desserts, wine by order of the management, no talking between courses.

Bill for you paid at knife point.

Your emails now, and here's an email from Robert who says, as you may have heard, the IOC recently dropped wrestling from its core 25 sports for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.

While to many this is quite an unremarkable news story, it's the reaction it has gotten from one particular Iranian that makes the story utterly hilarious.

WWE Hall of Fame professional wrestler the Iron Sheik, best known for his battles with Hulk Hogan in the 80s, but also competed in the 1968 Iranian Olympic wrestling team and served as assistant coach to the USA team in 1970.

He took to Twitter to voice his displeasure with the IOC.

He posted the following tweets.

Strap in,

tweet number one, IOC, I f you up.

No disrespect the legend My Only sport wrestling.

They have no dick.

They make new sport of go f yourself.

Right.

Strong tweet.

Straight out of the gate there, Annie.

That's what the format was invented for, that kind of concise expressing of opinion.

No, you would think he would then put his computer or phone down and think that I did, that was perfect.

Well, I just communicated everything I needed to say about this thing.

This upset me.

But you know what?

Then he picked it up again and he typed this.

Tweet too.

You see the legend.

You know I break the ICO back, make them humble.

Go f the badminton and the walking.

They are not sports like wrestling.

The ICO.

But I think

he clearly typed these in something of a rage, John.

Well, that's right.

That's not a problem.

Tweet number three.

New Olympic sport is who has smaller dick than Hulk Holbert.

Hashtag save Olympic wrestling.

I don't know if

I can say that.

That would get quite big TV viewing figures.

And it's also definitely something that Britain would have a live

medal chance in.

Other tweets he sent were: Good night and IOC, go f yourself.

Don't ever insult the legend Iron Sheikh or I break the Olympics back and make you humble.

I'll tell you one thing he also hates, Andy, and that is punctuation.

The Iron Sheikh did not just save, this the email goes on to say, the Iron Sheikh did not just save his weird brand of vitriol for Twitter either, offering up the following quotes in an interview with TMZ.

After a thousand years, they take away the best sport in the world.

This is the first time the dumb motherfuckers have no balls, for they make the walking an Olympic sport.

He really hates walking.

He really hates walking.

He really does.

If I see anybody on the street that worked from the IOC, I swear to Jesus that I suplexed them, put them in camel clutch, break their back, make them humble.

And finally, is that really humility?

Having a broken back?

The hashtag, the hashtag Team Sheiky, respect the Olympics now.

They could all go f themselves and make the curling Olympic sport.

That's the Winter Olympics, but you don't want to argue with him when he's this angry.

Because they're also the biggest piece of no-good shit, and I never watch the Olympics again.

Also, buy my t-shirt on my website or go f yourself.

Buy my t-shirt or go f yourself.

Nike, if you had any balls, that would be your slogan.

Buy my t-shirt or go f yourself.

Damn it.

Let's just distils marketing down to its elemental forms.

He's run that through a focus group, John.

Oh, God, that's good.

This guy's not to be trusted, though, because after he was the Iron Shake,

where, because that was when America had a problem with Iran in the 80s.

Then when the war of Iraq happened, he renamed himself Colonel Mustafa and teamed up with Sergeant Slaughter and said he was from Iraq.

Yeah.

Really?

So

this guy is not to be trusted.

He's a cheat.

Chris, Chris, I would say everything we've learned over the last few minutes, I would be very, very careful irritating the IG.

Otherwise, you're about to get it.

I'm going to buy one of the t-shirts just to protect us.

Otherwise, Chris, I think you're lucky to get a direct message on Twitter saying something like, Chris, I break your back.

Go f yourself.

Triathlon, not sports.

ICO, mother f.

ICO could either be a mistyping of IOC or it could be the Illinois Illinois Chamber Orchestra.

The latter.

We don't know.

We just don't know.

But I mean, to be, he has got a point.

You know, ditch wrestling out of the Olympics.

Of course he's got a point.

I mean, wrestling, it's not the most accessible spectator sport.

There's just not enough chairs smashed over people's heads or contestants dying at a tragically young age due to decades of steroid abuse.

But still, it's one of the few links to the ancient Olympics.

You know, or wrestling then a few more plums waggling about.

But bearing in mind that golf is becoming an Olympic sport and wrestling is being body slammed out, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that the Iron Shake is right and the IOC have absolutely no soul whatsoever.

Which is basically what he was saying, albeit in slightly more fruitful language.

This email also came in on the subject of Twitter from Carlos Chiquete in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Who writes, Dear Chris Andy and John.

Brackets in order of who is most likely to land Pippa.

Well, I don't know, guess depends, you know, who is most likely to be flying Pippa at the same time.

I happened to peruse a certain John Oliver's Twitter account and was shocked to find that he's only tweeted 17 times.

17.

Tupac Shakur has more tweets than this, and he is dead.

Fair point.

I just wanted to register my disappointment.

And honestly, some anger.

John has 40,000 followers, while I've amassed a measly 22.

And I'm pretty sure that my follower at Cheap Computers 3 is not a real person.

All the best.

Carlos Chiketi.

I'll try more, Carlos.

In my defense, I'm quite busy, but I'll try.

I'll try.

You're quite busy, and you don't give a shit.

That's it.

Yeah.

The first one's not really important.

The second one is key.

Tired of being told to go eat a bag of dicks as well.

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

And this week's email section was brought to you by Zingle Toes, the Foot Spa with Chutzpa, the world's leading waterless foot spa.

Give your feet that freshly electrocuted feeling after a long day at work, whilst also saving water for the dolphins and Africa.

And it was also brought to you by Slumbercumbers, the Mogadon Infused vegetable, to help you get to sleep at night and keep your butt diet balanced.

Now, buglers, is that how you want the bugle to sound in the future?

No, then take out a bugle voluntary subscription at thebuglepodcast.com.

Do keep your emails coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com and check out our SoundCloud page at soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle.

Just a quick bit of sports, latest in the horse meat scandal.

Sources have claimed that jockey Tony McCoy won the 2010 Grand National riding a cow.

McCoy's mount, don't push it, was ostensibly a horse, but tests over the past week have suggested that it was, in fact,

a cow.

Where will it end, John?

Where will it fing end?

That's it for this week's bugle.

I hope you're not

obliterated by any more

falling meteorites or asteroids or anything like that, buglers.

If you are, well, I mean, what a way to go.

What a way to go.

That footage is sensational.

It is phenomenal.

It's pretty much a visual representation of what my gig in Leicester this Sunday is going to be like.

17

crashing down to

February.

Just a ball of

just inexpressible light.

Blowing out windows in a five-mile radius.

And upsetting the Russians.

So if you want to come and see that, Buglus, 8pm in Leicester on Sunday.

That's it, Buglers.

You're going to have to leave us now.

Bye.

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.