Bugle 221 – Do EU really love Us?

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello Buglers and welcome to issue 221 of the Bugle, the Thinking Person's Guide to 20th Century Life, broadcasting live from the renowned planet Earth.

I'm Andy Zoltzmann and I'm live in London and joining me from across the Atlantic Ocean in New York City.

It's John Oliver.

Yes,

yes, it is me, Andy.

And it is cold as balls here, Andy.

And not even as human balls.

It's cold as snowballs.

Snowballs attached to a human being where their balls used to be before they froze off.

And these snowballs are not melting, Andy, due to the fact that the humans they're attached to are so f ⁇ ing cold.

It's so cold Andy that I was walking to work yesterday and I heard someone set foot outside of their apartment, feel the cold hit their face for the first time and instinctively shout out, oh f you.

That is a tremendous piece of New York style defiance Andy basically telling the weather to go itself.

Hey you temperature get warmer you icy fall it's been a bit chilly here as well John.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I've spent, it's been so cold here that I've been wearing a hat all week.

And it doesn't get any colder than that.

This is Bugle 221, a special commemorative issue to mark the results of the 1988 South African Archbishops best of three snooker tournament.

2-2-1, 2-2-1.

And we're recording on the 25th of January, meaning tomorrow will be exactly 150 years since football manager Jose Mourinho was first born.

Took one look at the planet and thought, this place ain't ready for me yet, and popped back into his cocoon for another 100 years.

And as always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week.

A science section, and yet another week in which science has impacted on our lives on an almost daily basis without even asking permission.

We answer your science queries, including, is it possible for a horse to be male?

Do we need the equator?

Gravity, fact or fiction?

Has a human ever urinated on the moon?

Can you truly love a volcano?

How come, if electricity always flows from left to right, is the on-off switch on my telly always on the right-hand side?

Doesn't that waste my time?

If, as physics claims, opposites attract, why can't I marry my lawnmower?

If the sun is going to run out of fire at some stage in the future, what's the fing point of doing anything now?

And also, do molecules fall?

Those questions answered in our special science section in the bin this week.

Top story this week, friends, Romans, Americans, British people, general countrymen, lend me your ears.

It's the Bugle speech roundup.

Who doesn't love a speech?

Andy, from Lincoln's Gettysburg address to Al Pacino's locker room halftime speech in any given Sunday.

Speeches have the ability to lift our hearts, to inspire us, and also to be overly long and incredibly boring.

But forget about those.

There have been some major speeches delivered over the last week.

First, on Monday, America was celebrating a truly historic day the inauguration of the 44th consecutive white vice president that's right andy 44 in a row the streak continues we did it woo

of course that wasn't the only historic moment america also swore in its new president although to be honest he looks quite a lot like their old president sure his hair's a bit greyer looks Pretty exhausted.

Frankly, I think we might have broken him.

The point is, it was a huge moment in history, historically swearing in the first African-American president for the first time twice.

Or to put it another way, swearing him in for the second time once, whichever way you like to look at it.

The point is, I was there, Andy.

And when future generations say, where were you?

Where were you, Granddad, when President Obama was sworn into office for the second time?

I'll be able to say, I was there.

I was right there.

And I was making fun of it.

And future generations will say, hold on, why, Granddad?

Why would you make fun of such a solemn occasion?

And I'll say, I mean, just because it was funny.

I mean, I guess that's what I've spent my whole life doing.

And they'll say, but why, Grandad?

That moment must have meant so much to people.

And I'll say, yeah, I mean, I suppose that was one of the things I was making fun of.

And they'll say, so let me just get this clear, Grandad.

You travel down to a moment of history to mock it.

And I'll say, yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much.

And they'll look down and say I don't understand granddad I don't understand how you could just waste a lifetime making fun of things and then we'll sit in awkward silence for a while and then another grandchild on the other side of the room who is busy shaving a penis into the fur on the side of the cat will look up and say hey granddad just for the record I totally get it

in a dance as old as time itself

So, I mean, how was the atmosphere different to the wild excitement of four years ago, John?

Because you were there four years ago as well.

Well, yeah, I mean, it was historic, but slightly less historic.

It was excited, but slightly less excited.

Hopeful, but slightly less hopeful.

You know, it was still, it was good, but not great.

That was basically it.

Sequels are so tough, aren't they?

It's tough.

It's tough when you come in so strong.

It's tough.

As I'm sure Smurfs 2 will prove later in the year.

Let's hope this second term is not his Smurfs 2.

Let's hope that it is.

Let's hope that it is, because Smurfs 2 is looking good, Andy.

I was quite impressed that Obama resisted the temptation to just say, ah, let's just keep chugging on for the next four years and see where we get to.

I mean, he said a lot of big things, Johnny.

He loves a speech, as we know, and he quoted from the

Constitution.

I'm sorry, I'm not very good at impressions, but he said, we hold these rights to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and amongst these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Tail there, Andy.

Moving close.

Tail them.

Moving close.

All men created equal.

Women, took them a while to get there, but they've caught up, to be fair.

They've caught up.

And by all men, he meant some men.

They meant some men at the time.

And it took a a while.

Took a while.

It took a while to get there.

But John, America has

got there now.

That all men being created equal stick took it took a while to filter through the intro as we discussed last week.

And there are a number of things that Obama sort of tried to suggest that America, from these principles of its foundation, have learnt by painful process of trial and error to modernise and adapt.

He said, together we discovered that a free market...

Sorry, he said, together we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play

discovered very much in the same way that Icarus it's like being back there again on Monday aren't they

do you know that is the voice that his internal monologue works in

I believe that

we need health care we do

I think America discovered that the free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play, very much in the same way that Icarus discovered that wax plus heat times gravity equals splosh, or the same way that chew-faced Pete learned that lines do not necessarily differentiate between zebras and people in zebra costumes.

President Obama's second inaugural speech turned out to be, as you say, a soaring, inspirational call for unity and hope, and as such

was treated as a divisive, aggressive call to arms.

For a start, like you, I was...

incredibly impressed that he didn't start the speech with an enormous audible sigh before launching into the opening line, Okay, here we go again.

I don't think that history could have blamed him for doing that.

Right, everyone, take two.

Yeah.

Instead, instead, okay, scratch that.

Start again.

I'm taking the mulligan.

Instead,

he made an argument for the importance of unity, saying, my fellow Americans, we are made for this moment and we will seize it so long as we seize it together.

And that sentence was immediately followed by the noise of America as one squabbling, saying, I'm seizing it.

No, no, I'm seizing it.

Let go.

I seized it first.

Bullshit.

He told me to seize it.

No, he didn't.

He told me to find something else to seize.

I seize this moment first.

He then elaborated on this point, criticising the current state of politics, saying, we cannot mistake absolutism for principle or substitute spectacle for politics or treat name-calling.

as reasoned debate.

And that's clearly a laudable sentiment, Andy, but it did make you want someone to ask him, hold on, Mr.

President, did you see the last election you just won?

Because that was about the most vapid, spectacular 18 months of nothing that there has ever been.

And I'm not saying he was the most guilty of it, Andy, far from it.

But he did run big birds commercials, use the pun Rhomnesia multiple times, and spent millions upon millions of dollars on attack ads.

So let's not pretend that he didn't contribute to the fact that spectacle is and shall remain politics now.

Well, we all learn from our mistakes, John.

I mean, he said some, he's always been a fine orator, Obama, and

some really inspirational things said in this speech.

And the words that really struck me most that I think stand up there with some of the greatest things said by some of the greatest orators of all time were these words: we must revamp our tax code.

I could feel America swelling with pride and thinking, yes, we must revamp our tax code.

In one truly phenomenal moment, though, he explicitly called for gay rights, saying, Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.

For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

And it's not like that is a particularly radical statement nowadays, Andy, but it is fing radical when it's coming from the mouth of a president during his inaugural address.

And the truth is, everyone has a checklist of things that they want in a presidential speech, like an ideological bingo card.

And one of the many baseless criticisms of this particular president is that he's running a secular administration due to the fact that he doesn't answer every question with a Bible verse and doesn't have a cross tattooed on his forehead.

But I have to say for a godless president, he sure as shit seems to mention God a lot in his speeches, Andy.

He said the word God five times during the inaugural address and you know he's not alone alone in that of course that the word God has become like religious Tourette's for American presidents.

They just can't help blurting it out in the middle of any sentence.

In fact every US president in modern times has mentioned God in their inaugural addresses apart from two Teddy Roosevelt and Rutherford B.

Hayes.

And that's probably because Teddy Roosevelt worshipped the god of shooting things with big guns and Rutherford B.

Hayes, I believe, was a witch.

So that explains those two.

He also said this, John.

No single person can train all the math and science teachers will need to equip our children for the future or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.

And that is only true, John, because America did not take the chance to vote Donald Trump in.

If they'd done that, they'd have had that single person, John.

Yeah.

And he also said, now, more than ever, we must do these things together as one nation and one people.

Or as the Republicans heard him say it, now, more than ever, we must do these things together as one nation and one people.

Smozzima Bolshoi.

Have more range of accents coming on, John.

I'll tell you what, Andy, you are flexing your vocal muscles today.

That's right, John.

Maybe.

Smurf three, put in a word for me.

Yeah, no shit.

Crazy Smurf.

That's just been cast.

EU speech now, and another major speech took place in Britain with the long-promised address on the EU from Prime Minister David Cameron in which he was planning to announce a potential referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU where Britain was basically going to have the choice to go to relationship counselling to work through the problems or just to just to cut loose so that both sides could be free to bang other economic unions.

But it's worth pointing out that for Bowl's speech it was pretty f ⁇ ing vague, Andy.

He announced that if re-elected, there would be a referendum on a hypothetical new agreement that he would have hypothetically successfully negotiated, but he didn't identify what powers he would have hypothetically negotiated the UK taking back in the new settlement or what would happen if the negotiations did not go his way, which are two relatively key details, it seems to me, Andy.

I know I'm outside the process now, but that seems like a major omission or two.

Yeah, there was a very interesting press and political reaction to the speech, and if I can try and summarise it for buglers who've not been following it here in Britain, basically, the summary of the interaction is that David Cameron nakedly put party interests first, selflessly striving for a deal that was in Britain's national interest, revealing himself to be staunchly anti-Europe and confirming his immovable commitment to his all-time favourite continent, Europe.

In seizing the moment, he has delayed any real decisions and inevitabilised five years of political, commercial, and diplomatic uncertainty that will further destabilise an already fragile economy that looks certain to be boosted and stabilised by this brave, patriotic act of cowardly political partisanship.

He was naively idealistic and soundly pragmatic, whilst his recklessness, caution, cleverness, and outright stupidity showed a man who has seized his chance to be both the national hero and the penis he has always seemed destined to be.

He was talking with characteristic steadfastness of political principle from a platform of patent political opportunism, in what will come to be seen as a career-defining decisive gamble and the kind of typical half-assed fudge that has defined his career.

He's preserved centuries of British history and tradition and signed the death warrant for the great British sausage, ensuring that in future we'll be able to eat nothing but paellas and pasta.

In short, he has seen this eternally smoldering political hot potato.

He's picked it up, he's looked at fulling the jacket, he's buttered it and he's thrown it over the nearest fence in hope that it doesn't set fire to anything or take seed and grow into a giant burning potato.

So all in all, bonjour, f you.

Well, it's good that the press have got an objective grasp on what's going on, Andy.

At least they've got a handle on it.

Cameron said that the referendum would be a decision on the UK's destiny, and if he secured a new relationship he was happy with, he would campaign heart and soul to stay within the EU.

So that's good to know.

And he's getting clearer now.

He'll maybe campaign heart and soul over this possible agreement that he'll probably get sometime in the future.

At least we all know where he stands going into this process.

Also, is destiny not something that's already been decided?

You can't decide on what your destiny is.

That's a fair point.

Yeah.

That's a fair point, Andy.

There were some moments of slightly surprising self-awareness, though.

At At one point, he said, I know that the United Kingdom is sometimes seen as an argumentative and rather strong-minded member of the family of the European nations.

We have the character of an island nation, independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty.

Basically saying, look, we're arsholes.

We know that.

We've always been arsholes.

But here's the thing.

We're not changing.

We're going to stay arseholes.

We like it this way.

So you better find a f ⁇ ing way of dealing with us.

Also, this point about us us having the character of an island nation, independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty.

No other nation has those qualities, John.

None.

None at all.

Apart from maybe America, according to Obama's inauguration speech, the famous island of the USA.

And Venezuela probably might think of themselves as independent, forthright, and passionate in defence of their sovereignty as well, at least when

Hugo Chavez was telling them they were.

When they're not technically an island yet, but give it time, they clearly have the character of an island nation.

Afghanistan, some of them seem a bit too independent,

forthright and passionate in defense of their sovereignty.

Sure, they are landlocked, but one man's land is another man's sea, as the old saying goes.

And the Vatican City, but definitely too forthright in some way.

An island nation.

Yep.

Legally an island nation, Andy.

So I guess what all that proves is that the entire world is basically British.

The response to the speech has not been entirely positive, especially anywhere other than selected parts of Britain.

The UK Independence Party, the inexplicably and depressingly influential political party stocked with cantankerous, dusty old white men, were generally pleased with the announcement, but only wished that the referendum could have come sooner and could also come with a side order of a massive war with the French, saying it's been too long.

It's just been far too long.

What is the point in having this longbow unless I'm going to fire it at some baguette chomping Frenchie at some point?

Why do I?

Why do I?

UKIP also released a statement saying that the genie was out of the bottle about a possible exit from the EU.

That may be true, Andy, but if it is true, it's going to be a pretty f ⁇ ing annoyed genie.

I'll give you three wishes.

Anything that you want.

Okay, I'd like Britain to leave the EU, but retain access to the European single market.

Okay, I don't think you can have heard what I just told me.

I can grant you anything that you want.

Well, that's all we do want.

We're tired of getting pushed around by Brussels.

Okay, I'm getting back in the f ⁇ ing bottle, and I'm not coming out until someone rubs me who is not a complete idiot.

See, we've had a slightly up-and-down relationship with Europe.

It's just basically a marriage between us and Europe.

And

our chance of geography has thrown us together.

And David Cameron said these words.

For us, the European Union is a means to an end,

not an end in itself.

And I guess it's not a sign of...

A particularly healthy relationship when you describe your wife as a means to an end.

She might not always take it as a compliment.

The European Union is of course one of the most ambitious social and political projects ever undertaken.

In some ways the first voluntary collaborative empire and it's proved that you can build a giant political entity without turning all the people, animals and the things in your way into museum exhibits.

But Europe as a continent has been in a fairly continual state of strop with itself for most of the last roughly 200 million years since the people of the single global mega-continent, Pangaea, voted to split into seven different continents to try to make qualification for World Cup more exciting.

So it remains a very emotive issue and there's been some interesting reactions.

The French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius

said

you can't do Europe a la carte.

I'll take an example which our British friends will understand.

Let's imagine Europe is a football club and you join but once you're in it you can't say let's play rugby.

Now I know politicians are paid to say f ⁇ ing idiotic things, but this guy's really picked up that ball and hammered it into touch.

You can't say, I mean he's right to a point.

You can't join a a football club, join, and then once you're in it, say, let's play rugby.

But you can say,

let's stop playing football so shitly.

Let's try to kick the ball to each other and then towards the goal.

And why are eight of our players referees?

That is too much bureaucracy.

Or you could also say, if you joined this football club, say, hang on.

When we joined, you told us it was a rugby club.

You definitely said it was a rugby club.

You've still got tape around your head and your fingers in my eye and your hand squeezing my scrotum.

I don't mind.

That's a part of rugby but you definitely said it was a rugby club.

Please stop biting me.

As you say France, France argued that a la carte membership of the EU was not on the table.

To which my response Andy is, okay, we get it, France, you're good at cooking.

But every single metaphor does not have to be gastronomy-based.

The crisis in Syria is like a poorly made souffle.

We need to give it constant attention or the whole thing is going to collapse.

It also does appear that the EU isn't exactly breaking down in tears begging us not to leave.

An online poll in Le Figaro in France suggested that many French people would be happy to see Britain the fk off.

With more than 15,500 votes cast, 70% favoured the UK leaving, over 30% who disagreed.

Come on, France.

Don't give up on us like that.

We just want to be seduced once in a while.

You're supposed to be the great romancers.

Make us go weak at the knees and we'll come running back to Europe.

The German foreign minister Guido Vestevel said, Germany wants the United Kingdom to remain an active and constructive part of the European Union, but cherry picking is not an option.

Well, cherry picking is not an option, John.

That's a common agricultural policy for you.

Boom!

He then went on to say, Cherry picking is not an option, or at least it isn't in Eastern Europe, because all their manual workforce has f ⁇ ed off to Western Europe to pick the cherries there.

And he concluded by saying cherry picking is not an option.

That's because the former Leeds in England fullback Trevor Cherry retired from professional football in 1985.

Oh my god.

I'm done here.

Cameron says that he's pro-EU and also claims that he's already preparing the ground for the potential upcoming debate saying, I understand the appeal of going it alone, of charting our own course, but it's a decision we will have to take with cool heads.

Proponents of both sides of the argument will need to avoid exaggerating their claims.

Oh really?

Good luck with that Cameron.

Good luck.

Just get ready to hear the phrase brie chomping brioche heads by the anti-EU side for the next five years.

Because by suggesting a referendum David Cameron is essentially trusting the British people to make the right informed choice and that is demonstrably a misplaced trust Andy.

If the British people were capable of making that choice, for a start David Cameron probably wouldn't be Prime Minister right now.

Besides, the key European story in Britain at the moment concerns an odorous gas which has drifted across the English Channel from France.

Apparently, it smells of cabbage, rotten eggs, and diesel, and is a harmless gas leak from a chemical works in the northern French city of Rouen.

Now, the smelly cloud has blown across the channel into Kent and Sussex in the southeast of London.

And newspapers, amidst a shower of flatulence jokes, have labelled it Le Pong.

So

that is the level of the current debate, Andy.

Good luck, Cameron.

Good luck.

Things have really moved on since 1066.

Hugo feature section now and lying.

And obviously, this is a subject extremely close to the heart of this truth-obsessed podcast.

We will not allow any lies

to sully the 112% facts quota that we aim for every week.

We are

we sleep with the sword of truth very much

under our pillows and in our hands and pointed at our own throats.

But with the revolver of bullshit

certainly within reach as well.

Just in case there's a break-in.

And there's a story here that

I was absolutely appalled by as

a bugler and as a parent.

A story that scientific research has shown that most parents tell lies to their children as a tactic to change their behavior.

Now, admittedly, this is only a study of families in the United States and China, not in the notoriously truthful country of Britain.

So, you know, it doesn't really apply to me as a parent.

The most frequent example of parents lying was them threatening to leave their children alone in public unless they behaved.

Or the Chinese parents threatening them to enroll them in an art class unless they behaved.

This new study was published in the International Journal of Psychology, which I know you read every night before you go to sleep, Andy.

Usually about 14 seconds before you fall asleep.

Anyway, this new study has found that, as you say, both United States and Chinese families lie to their children.

Persuasion ranges from invoking the support of the tooth fairy to telling children they will go blind unless they eat particular vegetables.

Especially how the Europe debate has been conducted.

Yeah, that's true.

But that last one's a slightly more aggressive twist on an old classic than I've heard, Andy.

I've heard, if you eat carrots, you can see in the dark.

I've not heard, if you don't eat your parsnips, you'll go f ⁇ ing blind.

They're both good, I guess.

They're both good.

Yeah.

I mean, well, I mean, it is true if those carrots or those parsnips are dangling above your children's eyeballs on a time device to fire them at high velocity straight downwards if they're not eaten within five minutes.

I guess there's a difference between saying you'll go blind if you don't eat those vegetables and I will blind you if if you don't eat those vegetables.

You know, there's different parenting manuals.

I think that's in the Gina Ford book somewhere for any parent.

The most, like you say, the most frequent example was leaving children alone in public unless they behaved.

Another strategic example was apparently that was beautiful piano playing.

Now, with respect, I'm guessing that one came more from China than America, Andy.

I don't know how many Americans are lying about the beauty of their children's piano playing.

I could be wrong.

The study examined the use of instrumental lying and found that tactically deployed falsehoods were used overwhelmingly in a majority of parents.

And you see, Andy, it's the one thing that binds the whole world together.

No matter nationality, religion, race,

we all lie to our children.

Another lie that was common in both countries was apparently the false promise to buy a requested toy at some indefinite time in the future.

And that's not just good child rearing, Andy.

That is the cornerstone of modern politics.

That's how you get elected to office now.

Promising something that fails to materialise and then pacifying the disappointed by repromising it for some indefinite time in the future.

That's political strategising 101.

But every single part of this report is basically some kind of political strategy, you know, threatening to alienate people, leave them alone and exposed.

The tooth fairy, some kind of fictitious, benevolent force threatening medical ill health, telling them how great they are, beautiful piano playing, you're the greatest nation in the world.

It's all there, John.

It's all there.

And this beautiful piano playing, the problem with that is, as a parent, that is always vulnerable to the retort, well, it's not supposed to be beautiful, dad.

It's supposed to sound jagged, broken and harsh in response to the fractured and angry planet you've brought me into.

And if it has any beauty in it, it comes in spite of its own sound, from the revelation of the truth about the ceaseless strivation of humankind towards the fulfillment of an unreachable and often inexpressible dream, to which the sound parents' reply is, who wants to watch Toy Story?

And this is another one.

I've never heard a parent say this.

If you don't behave, I will call the police.

I think that must be...

Yep, that's...

That must have come more from the giant side.

And if you don't quieten down and start behaving, the lady over there will be angry with you.

Now that's just, that's just an old Catholic one, isn't it?

That's pointing to the picture, the lady over there holding the oddly old-looking newborn baby.

Were there any others on the Chinese side?

If you don't behave, I'm going to pretend that you're a girl.

And we all know what happens to those here.

I had a quality parenting moment this week, John, when my kids were having supper, and I did something I periodically when I jump out from behind the door pretending to be a monster.

And my daughter, who's now six, just sighed, turned back to her food, and said, just so annoying.

I think I'm going to need to read a new chapter in the parenting manual.

She should have threatened to follow the police.

You want to come up with some heckle put-downs for those.

Say that again, and the tooth rabbi will not come.

in other line news outsourcing as a concept is nothing new Andy the concept of companies laying staff off and moving those jobs overseas where labor is much cheaper but there is a new twist in that concept as of a couple of weeks ago because a security check at a US company apparently revealed that one of its staff was outsourcing his own work to China.

This software developer, apparently in his 40s, is thought to have spent his work days surfing the web, watching cat videos on YouTube and browsing Reddit and eBay.

Wow.

He did it, Andy.

This man somehow managed to make capitalism climb up its own ass while sitting back and celebrating in the traditional way by watching cat videos.

I wonder if it was around the time of his 16th straight cat video without being caught that he thought, holy shit, I think this is going to work.

I think I may have just completed the final level of capitalism.

Well, clearly, he sat down and he thought, I'm in my 40s, I'm okay at what I do But there are people in this world who will give much more of a shit will probably do it more quickly cheaply and enthusiastically F ⁇ I've got it.

I'm a one-man metaphor for the post-Cold War Western world.

Let's roll with this

Sadly the tragic thing is he's been fired despite the fact that this seems to have been a mutually beneficial situation.

According to his performance reviews, he consistently received excellent marks.

In fact, quarter on quarter, he was the best developer in the building.

He reportedly paid just a fifth of his

six-figure salary to a company based in Shenyang, China to do his job for him.

And it was all discovered when the company discovered the existence of an open and active connection from Shenyang to the employee's computer that went back months.

Apparently, it's shown that the computer was being worked on as they were looking at it, despite the fact they could see the man sitting at his desk and not in China.

And it didn't even stop there.

The report said evidence even suggested he had the same scam going on across multiple companies in the area all told it looked like he earned several hundred thousand dollars a year and only had to pay the chinese consulting firm about fifty thousand dollars it's incredible andy he successfully both fired and franchised himself the guy's amazing

basically how the british empire works i think yeah well

i could still do if we get out of europe

Apparently from the computer logs, his typical workday looked like this.

9 a.m., arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours.

Watch cat videos.

11.30, take lunch.

1 o'clock, eBay time.

2 o'clock, Facebook updates, LinkedIn.

4.30, end of day update email to management.

5 o'clock, go home.

So let's be clear, Andy.

Let's be fair.

He wrote that email update himself.

That is a solid...

That's a solid five to eight minutes of work he was doing himself right there.

I guess he hadn't quite perfected outsourcing that element of his job as well before he was found out.

And obviously, Andy, this took balls, this.

Balls, so powerful, they develop sentient thought themselves.

But I'm not sure how I feel about him being fired for this.

It doesn't seem 100% fair.

Because the rule in modern capitalism now seems to be exposed as your job can be outsourced by the company, but you cannot outsource it yourself.

If we had the brains that that guy had, Andy, we'd have outsourced the bugle years ago.

Have a couple of guys in Shenyang talk shit to each other for an hour while we just sat in these studios watching cat videos.

Have you not been doing that on your end?

Well, I don't think there would be a discernible drop in quality were that to have happened.

Your emails now, and this one comes from Jason, who writes, Concerning the assertion in podcast 220 that the U.S.

Constitution was written whilst drunk, well, there is a drinks bill from the Continental Congress preserved as a prized relic of Americanian dipsomaniacal history, which reads in part as follows: 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 of whiskey, 22 of porter, 8 of hard cider, 12 beer, and 7 bowls of alcoholic punch.

Holy shit!

That being among 55 delegates to the Congress and only for one night.

Wow.

There we go.

So, whilst I think you were making a cardic point, the laughter was made all the more sweet by the knowledge that the point was also true.

The founding fathers were smashed.

Oh my god.

That is a phenomenal window into history.

Yeah, I do hope that.

Just write it.

Write it down.

Pursuit of happiness.

That was my put my bit in about the happiness bit.

We have another great email here from Simon

concerning LMFAO in Bolivia.

He says, Dear Andy, John and Chris, in order of most likely to accidentally join a political protest rally in Bolivia, I'm currently traveling in South America and last week flew into the remote town of Ruran Baca in the Bolivian jungle.

You have to fly here this time of year as the usual 18-hour bus journey to La Paz can take anything between three days and a week during rainy season as the road frequently gets washed away or blocked by landslides.

The flight here was slightly nerve-wracking as the 20-seat plane we were on had no door in the cockpit.

So you could see, oh my god, so you could see the pilot plunging the plane towards thick jungle before a small landing strip appeared at the last minute.

The airport itself consisted of a strip of tarmac next to a dirt track surrounded by thick green vegetation.

In fact, the only way you knew it was an airport was that there was a plane on the tarmac and a sorry-looking windsock nearby.

As we stood on the tarmac waiting for our bags to be put on the roof of a bus to take us to town, we admired the relative peace and simplicity of the situation.

We then climbed into the bus and the driver fired up the engine, kicking the stereo into life, bringing the unmistakable tones of LMFAOs, I'm Sexy and I Know It, blasting from the speakers.

Surely this was a one-off.

Some kind of coincidence.

No, the next song was Champagne Showers by LMFAO.

That's right, the crazy bus driver was playing the whole album.

By this time the bus was moving and it was too late to get off.

I had to trust this guy with the same musical taste as Bashar al-Assad to get me into town safely.

Given that he did this without doing anything else crazy or starting a bloody civil war, this has led me to challenge everything I thought I knew about LMFIO.

Has a band ever had such broad appeal as Bashar al-Assad and a bus driver in the Bolivian jungle?

These are actually the greatest band ever.

Well, that's a fair point.

Yeah, fair point.

Yeah.

Broad appeal, Andy.

Broad base of fans.

It's not all about killing, it's also about people getting people from A to B through a jungle.

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

Check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle.

And don't forget, if you've got pangs of guilt that you haven't yet taken out your voluntary subscription to the bugle, you can do so at thebuglepodcast.com.

And if you do not do it, we will hunt you down and kill you.

Sport now and next weekend it's the Super Bowl and so I imagine America is very excited.

But are you doing the halftime show this year, John, or not?

Well,

I think it's Beyonce, but I don't know if this miming thing is a problem.

So, what I might do is just five minutes before her, just to kind of warm the crowd up.

Is she not doing it with a backing of Smurfs?

Well, she doesn't know that she's doing it with a backing of Smurfs.

Anyway, we have exclusive

broadcast rights to the Super Bowl this year here at the Bugle.

Wow, that must have cost a lot.

Well, you know.

And as such, we can bring you the breaking minor injuries injuries news ahead of next weekend's big showdown for the Baltimore Ravens.

Quarterback Joe Flacco has ruptured an earlobe when a pair of homemade sonar-capable headphones exploded whilst he was trying to eavesdrop on his goldfish to see if they were talking about him behind his back.

Should be fit for next Sunday's game, whilst the wide receiver Anquan Baldeen is recovering from a Grade 0.2 psychological trauma after 25 minutes stuck in a hotel elevator that broke whilst he was dicking around in it pretending to be Neil Armstrong blasting off in a space rocket.

Grope tackle La Beagle Ponch is definitely ruled out for the Ravens after suffering 99% skin wrinklage following spending 72 hours in a bath waiting for his lucky towel to come through the wash.

And sweet end Dromelli Scutteridge cannot play as he has a piano lesson.

Meanwhile for the 49ers, linebacker Navorro Bowman could be out of contention after getting stuck trying to solve a misprinted Sudoku that has no actual solution.

He considers it bad luck to take to the field with an unfinished puzzle on his mind.

While safety Darcelle Macboth should be available

from a mild glute bump after falling off a chair trying to explain the evolution of manned flight to tight end DeMarcus Dobbs.

Punch Returner Schlockman de Atour, he's touch and go after chaining himself to an oil rig in protest against the socially corrosive impact of the Industrial Revolution.

While snap growler de Gerald Bisquiet is off the roster after checking into a rehab clinic for treatment on his addiction to 17th century Dutch painting,

Coach Jim Harbor said, there's no point even trying to tell him what the next play is going to be.

He'll have that faraway look in his eye and I'll just know, yup, he's thinking about finging Rembrandt again.

And head referee Jerome Boger is understood to be reconsidering his position in the game after accidentally swatting a fly to death whilst playing ping pong.

He said, I don't want my own personal crisis to overshadow Super Bowl XLVIII.

It's best for everyone if I step aside and concentrate on helping the insect community recover and heal the wounds between them and the human race.

So it's all set for a titanic showdown next weekend, John.

Thanks for bringing us up to speed, Adley.

Anytime.

So that's it for this week's Bugle.

We'll be back next week with any more inauguration speeches that President Obama has or hasn't given.

Until then, buglers, goodbye.

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.