Bugle 219 – 5th versus 1st

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 219 of the Bugle for the week beginning Monday the 14th of January 2013 with me Andy Zoltzman live in London the city which has had a triumphant start to the new year beating Aleppo in round one of the world's most relaxing city to live in knockout competition and live from the epicentre of one of the pips in the big apple it's the self-styled acceptable face of 21st century humanity John Oliver Hello Andy, hello buglers, it's Flew Mageddon here Andy.

The New York Post in one of their classically witty headlines went with Flew York City.

Bit of fun.

Bit of fun to have.

I thought.

Really takes the edge off the fact that everyone is sick in this entire city.

Oh, really?

America is under attack with a flu outbreak at the moment, Andy.

I've been partially taken down by it for the last couple of weeks.

And it just shows the weakness of the Obama administration, Andy.

Where's the response?

If this had been Bush...

It'd have been putting this type of influenza on the list of terrorists by now, capturing a strain of it by finding someone who looks a bit sick, putting a hood over their head and interrogating the shit out of that virus, pouring water all over it, demanding answers for how people can get better.

Would it have done any good?

Of course not.

Might it have actually spread the flu further?

Possibly.

But at least he'd look like he was doing something, Andy.

Honestly, if President Obama can't solve a problem by firing a drone missile at it, he's just not interested.

Has he not tried firing drone missiles at it?

I don't know.

At least try.

Try.

Try and carpet bomb New York City with drone bombs.

Just to try and attack the flu.

Don't try.

Do something.

Right, when you said flu Mageddon, I thought that

there were just loads of log flumes that had been installed to try to get a bunch of things.

Oh, no, that's

all in how you pronounce that word.

Flu Mageddon is a very, very different.

That's phenomenal.

And New York is yet to be hit with flu Mageddon.

Really?

Have you put that in as a film pitch to your Hollywood buddies?

Oh, mentally, I've already done it.

I just did it about a second and a half ago.

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

And this week marked 150 years of the London Underground.

The first train ran in January 1863.

And to commemorate this, this issue of the bugle can not only be listened to on the underground by any bugler in London over the next week, but can also be recited word for word to your fellow passengers on that journey.

absolutely free of charge.

We'll be examining in our special commemorative section how, in the 150 years since the first tube ran, swearing in London has increased by 8,700%.

We also look back to the early fears about the tube from when it opened, that the gases would prove overwhelming, that trains would be derailed by giant subterranean dinosaur rats that were still assumed to live under the capital, and that the disturbed ghosts of dead Londoners would haunt the trains after having the tranquility of their post-death perma sleep ruined.

And 98% of modern-day commuters still fear this happening, judging by the looks on their faces.

And also we reveal some little-known facts about the Underground, including that Queen Victoria, who was the first celebrity to be named after where she was conceived, owes her name to Victoria Underground Station.

Her parents, Prince Edward of Kent and Prince Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saulfeld, got bored waiting for Victoria Underground station to open in 1818 and got frisky behind an upmarket Cornish pasty stall.

The station, disappointingly, did not open for another 50 years, by which time Victoria herself had become queen and tried to pass it off as a tribute to herself.

And also, the London Underground is famous for its rudely named stations, including Cock Foster's and Shepherd's Bush.

And these are a legacy of the days when the famously fun, loving, and frisky King Edward VII was king and insisted on all new stations on the tube network having entertaining and suggestively suggestive names.

Now defunct stations from this era include Dick Shunt on the Central Line, Dangle Longwillie on the District and Lady Away South and Jiggleswick on the Hammersmith and City.

That section in the bin this week.

Top story this week, Political Hump Week.

And this week the British government reached its halfway point, and as did the Obama administration, who, after the inauguration in just over a week now, is staring at a countdown clock of four years before it is constitutionally fired.

And unless they can make Obama a pretty convincing disguise, he is never going to be president again.

So it's time for both countries' administrations to look back at what they've done and forward at what they hope to do.

There's been a lot of talk in the UK over an audit that the British government has released on itself.

And right away, that put up a little red flag for me, Andy, because you're not really supposed to do your own audit.

And if you do do it, it really has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

And when I say pinch, I mean mountain of salt.

It's like doing your own tax return, pronouncing it perfect, having someone called bullshit, and in response to you saying that you'll take care of it, and doing your own audit as well before pronouncing that audit perfect too.

I would like this idea, Andy, only if it came before an independent evaluation as well.

If this essentially was the British public acting like the boss at an end of year performance evaluation saying, before we tell you what we think, how do you think the first half of your time in power has gone?

So, how they evaluate themselves, Andy?

Let me guess.

Have they said that they've done very well in the circumstances, and has the opposition said that they've done very badly?

And has everyone else taken issue with it as well?

And have they then said, But weren't the Olympics great?

And has everyone then said, Yeah, they were great, weren't they?

And then forgotten what everyone was talking about.

That is basically

what has happened.

Uh, and

it's quite an interesting,

revealed a lot about the nature of politics.

That the coalition released a kind of halfway report saying how, you know, as you said, it was doing pretty well in the circumstances.

But then later, a number 10 advisor was photographed carrying a restricted document warning of broken pledges in the coalition agreement.

And the coalition was then kind of railroaded into releasing this audit of all the things that it hadn't done.

So it kind of just sort of showed how modern politics now is not about telling the truth, it is about appearing to tell the truth when you absolutely have no choice but to try to appear to be telling the truth.

At the halfway stage the coalition government is, as most governments around the world are, quite unpopular because governments, when you're in government, all you basically have to do is try not to f things up so badly that you don't get re-elected.

And the best way to do that is to f things up quite badly and then tell everyone that it could have been much worsely f ⁇ ed up if the other c had been in charge.

The difference with a coalition is you can say, well, it is worse because some of the other c have been in charge alongside us.

So if you let us have a go without those albatrosses shitting all over our necks next time, we will make you so happy you'll be sleep talking sonnets about how great Britain is.

One of Cameron's more annoying traits is puking out lines from television advertisements.

He did it in Parliament a while ago, which I think we talked about on the bug, when he quoted a car insurance advert by saying, calm down, dear, to Labour MP Angela Eagle, slightly giving the impression that he thinks Mrs.

Pankhurst was the worst fing thing to happen to Britain since the plague.

And now he described the coalition as being a Ron Seal deal.

Now, I'm sure our British listeners will be only too depressingly familiar with the Ron Seal advertising slogan.

It does exactly what it says on the tin, which has been on television for almost 20 years now.

He'd also said that the report on the coalition was a full, frank and unvarnished report.

So he was basically saying that the coalition was both unvarnished and like a tin of varnish.

Now, a psychologist interpreting this would probably suggest he is thinking of varnishing something.

Now, I think the conclusion to draw here, John, is that David Cameron is thinking of wood panelling his wife, giving her a more classic kind of old school look.

I think that is the kind of guy we're dealing with.

The key debate that's getting thrown up about the second half of the coalition government seems to be around the welfare state in Britain.

The government won a crucial vote in Parliament this week on plans to limit annual increases in benefits to 1%

for the next three years.

That is crucially behind inflation, which is pretty bad news for some of the most vulnerable members of society in the UK.

And I guess the government's response to that would probably be, eh, yeah,

who gives a shit?

Instead, they've tried to reframe the debate, saying that the benefits should not be going up faster than wages currently are.

The Liberal Democrats' business secretary, Vince Cable, who truly, let's just pause, Andy, and repeat the fact he has a sensational name, Vince Cable.

You shouldn't be a business secretary with a name like that.

You should be a professional wrestler or a porn star.

Anyway, he said, it seemed fair to us to distribute distribute some of this pain in a more equitable way.

Wow, he sure has a way with work, Andy.

Redistributing pain.

I think we'd like to redistribute some of this pain down to the poorest members of society, as they have proven over the years that they really are able to take a punch.

Well, I mean, it is interesting, the way that they've they've framed this.

You say it's not about it being you know, fair or the best use of resources.

It's about the fact that they've already been unfair to a number of large swathes of the public sector having their wages kept well below inflation.

So they're trying to unite the country in an equality of unfairness.

And as you say, you can share the pain throughout society unless, of course, you are lucky enough to be able to afford the extremely high power financial painkillers that seem to exist at the top end.

But everyone else, John, we're all together in a gloriously harmonious unity of unfairness from the top.

And that's, I don't think Britain's ever been happier than it is at the moment.

Those against this have said that it is unfair to equate a 1% limit on benefits worth less than £100 a week with a 1% pay rise for someone on a salary of say £25,000 a year.

And the debate has even been described as Skyvers versus Strivers.

And I don't know if that's the best way to put it, Andy.

I mean it's it's definitely the best way to make it rhyme and if that's the most important thing to you then you've pretty much nailed it there.

But in terms of fairly representing the debate it's at best misleading and at worst fing stupid.

That said, it does rhyme.

So, you know, it has a certain power.

An ex-government minister, Sarah Tether, has accused the government of playing playground politics with welfare and has said that using terms such as

strivers and scroungers was unworthy of the coalition and risked creating envy and division between different groups.

And that's basically true, Andy.

They're essentially trying to turn low-wage earners against the unemployed.

They're trying to make working-class people fight each other.

It's like a much less spectacular Roman Games.

George Osborne

previously justified the move by saying fairness is about being fair to the person who leaves home every morning to go out to work and sees their neighbour still asleep living a life on benefits.

Well, I mean there's a number of things that arise from this.

For a start, don't peer in through your neighbour's window in the morning.

It just looks creepy.

Now the Tories have claimed that they're standing up for hard-working people, which is one of the more commonly used phrases in British politics now.

In reality, the benefit cuts are going to affect millions of those hard-working people.

Seven million workers will lose an average of £165 a year.

And also not only hard-working people, but a lot of people who do work but don't work particularly hard.

Now this is an almost forgotten but electorally critical chunk of the British public.

When you think how close the last election was, John, I think people who work but not very hard are basically the kingmakers in modern Britain.

So I think the politicians need to be doing a lot more to attract these people who are lucky enough to have a job but don't really give a shit about it.

Yeah, you never hear that crucial voting block mentioned, Andy.

It's an absolute tragedy.

Chancellor George Osborne has also been criticised for some of the language that he has used over welfare, particularly when he sought to draw a distinction between those going to work early in the morning and others whose curtains were closed.

What the f is that, Andy?

He sounds like a Dickensian villain.

It's clear that George Osborne would ideally like to be wandering around London whacking poor people with a stick.

Here in America, Andy, President Obama is preparing for his inauguration in a week to a very different atmosphere than last time.

He was, of course, swept to power four years ago on a wave of expectation that he was going to change the world with a wave of his magic ears.

But four years on, those limitless dreams have been replaced with a much more achievable hope that he'll at least not be legislatively crossrated over the next four years and might manage to squeeze out a bit of gun control, maybe a slice of a new immigration bill over the next year or so, and at least prevent his healthcare plan from being taken into the forest and shot.

Economically, it's well known that the president inherited an enormous sack of shit and has been desperately trying to find ways to get America to eat that shit for the last term.

But a new plan, which is circulating, is...

A plan that I haven't actually heard before.

In an effort to circumvent the upcoming debt ceiling debate and all the political grandstanding and bickering that comes not just hand in hand with that but handcuffed to it as well there is a suggestion the president could just mint a one trillion dollar platinum coin and boom debt ceiling solved essentially the government could mint this coin and the treasury department that could then use it to cover the nation's debt obligations and i mean it's so simple it couldn't possibly work right

right because The idea has gained traction here all week.

New York Representative Nadler argued that it was actually a much better option than another fight over raising the US debt ceiling that could result in America defaulting.

Even Paul Krugman in the New York Times has announced his support for this idea.

He said that if it looks like America is about to default, it should do it, saying they will, after all, be faced with a choice between two alternatives.

One that's silly but benign and the other that's equally silly but both vile and disastrous.

The background is, it turns out there is actually a legal loophole which allows the Treasury to mint platinum coins in any denomination the Secretary chooses.

It was intended just to allow commemorative collectors' item coins, but the law does not technically restrict it to just that.

So by minting a trillion-dollar coin, you could then essentially just wander over and deposit it at the Fed, meaning the Treasury could then get enough cash to avoid the debt ceiling while essentially not doing much harm at all.

And Andy...

The thing I love the most about this is that it might be the most childish solution to the most childish problem in human history.

Well, it just shows, John, it's the age-old rule of economics.

You have to fight the problems caused by idiotic economics and gambling on stuff that doesn't exist with idiotic economics and gambling on stuff that doesn't exist.

It is the only language global economics understands.

And it's a very attractive option, John.

It's so much more convenient than, for example, creating a stable and more equitable global economic system, which is frankly a pain in the ass.

And we just, it could solve all of America's economic problems.

The only snag being, it's going be very tough to find anywhere that is you can use that coin, John.

You know, to be able to get change for it, you're gonna have to buy something that costs close to a you know a trillion dollars.

And you know, basically, all you're looking at there is a space program or a massive arms deal, and that's just repeating the cycle of overspending on needless shit that got us into this mess in the first place.

Try giving that to a cab driver.

I can't take this.

You have to take it.

You have to take it.

It's legal tender.

You have to take it.

Also, it's going to be very hard for whoever has to deliver that coin to the Federal Reserve to to walk around with it in their pocket trying to look normal, knowing the weight of what they've got.

Hey, Rico, nice to see you.

How are you doing?

I'm fine.

Get out of my way.

What's up?

You seem a bit edgy.

I'm f ⁇ ing fine.

Get the f ⁇ out of my way before I call the cops, Dad.

Keep your helmet on, son.

Why are you wearing a helmet?

No reason, I just like helmets.

Are you okay, son?

You've been a bit distant since that guy from the mint came round with that delivery.

I'm f ⁇ ing fine.

I'm f ⁇ ing fine.

Why are you hobbling around with both hands over your pocket?

Why is there a razor wire all over your trousers and three guard dogs poking out of your belt?

And what's with the armed security escort?

Are you trying to hide something?

Are you trying to f ⁇ ing hide something?

And the beauty of this story is, Andy, even the White House is currently refusing to completely rule out the idea.

And of course they're doing that, Andy, because it's a phenomenal suggestion.

Who doesn't want a trillion-dollar coin to exist?

For a start, one thing is for damn sure...

Nicholas Cage is going to try and steal that coin.

And if he does, I for one will be watching.

And in fact, that brings up a key point.

How would you protect the coin?

Would they stash it in Fort Knox or would they make a special platinum wallet to carry it around in?

And whose face do you put on the coin?

It's probably got to be a president, in which case...

I think you have to go with William Howard Taft, Dandy, the fattest president for the fattest unit of currency in American history.

And they should also use that coin for the coin toss each year at the start of the Super Bowl.

It would add some much-needed pizzazz to that usually dour reserved affair.

Just imagine how dramatic it would be.

A referee visibly nervous, sweating, knowing that he has multiple guns on him should he try and run away, looking to the team captains, flicking the coin in the air and shouting, Taft or Tails.

And to show just what a mess the American economy is in and just what President Obama is up against for the next four years.

In one of the ballsiest imaginable moves, a group of AIG shareholders here is launching a lawsuit against the US government over the terms of their bailout in 2008 and AIG themselves spent the first half of this week seriously considering joining it.

Now, on the official corporate ballometer, Andy, the scientific instrument that gauges the size of a corporation's testicles during any given action, you will see that those are some pretty gargantuan balls.

On the scale, I believe they rank somewhere between regulation-sized basketball and space hopper.

Just to be clear, the American taxpayer, which now includes me, Andy, saved IIG from what was almost certain bankruptcy.

And now AIG is going to thank us by suing us.

That is like someone robbing your house, slipping and falling on the way out, and then suing you for breaking their leg.

When they came up with that lawsuit, there must have been jumping up and down in the conference room, Andy, and high-fiving, as well as a deep clanging sound everywhere in the room, made by their giant titanium testicles slamming together.

I mean, I think this has been a strong start to 2013 for America, John.

We had the

we see the

hitting baseballs off a warship into a crowd of jet skis last year, but the trillion-dollar coin and suing the government for bailing you out.

I mean that's when that's really taking Americanism to a whole new financial level.

That is the claim.

The claim is that they're doing this really in the most American possible way.

Because it turns out they're claiming that the terms of the bailout deal forced AIG into a loan with a high interest rate, which was unfair to its shareholders, as it deprived them of tens of billions of dollars in extra profit, and, crucially, violated the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the taking of private property for public uses.

So, AIG is going to use the Fifth Amendment to sue us, Andy.

In that case, allow me to use the First Amendment to tell them to go f ⁇ for themselves.

Because how thoughtless it was for us to have saved AIG's ass for them, Andy.

Did we somehow not save it enough?

Could we have saved it better?

Would they have preferred us to save their ass, then polish that ass up, slip a 20 between its cheeks, and then bake their ass a cake to thank them for letting us save it?

Now, on the plus side, Andy, this lawsuit has done the impossible and fully united America for the first time in decades.

This country cannot agree on anything at the moment, apart from how much everyone now thinks that AIG is a bunch of grade A platinum-grade dick satchels.

They've become a lightning rod for hate, and sadly, not not a lightning rod for actual lightning.

Well I mean you know talking about the trillion dollar coin I mean that could be you know something in you know all future bailouts being you know in billion dollar banknotes slapped on the asses of the managing directors of failing banks.

I think we have a far more honest relationship between the government and the banks that have got them into that trouble.

The only person in America who publicly stated that this lawsuit was a good idea was a man called David Boyes, who wrote an op-ed in USA Today.

But it turned out that David Buies is actually the ex-CEO of AIG's lawyer who is the man behind the whole lawsuit.

So the only person stating that they're in support of this is literally being paid to say that.

And luckily the op-ed was only in USA Today.

So people aren't going to read it so much as they're going to step over it in the morning when exiting their hotel rooms.

Boom.

Paper slam, Andy.

Paper slam.

And all this is happening at the same time that AIG are running national TV commercials announcing that they've successfully paid off the entire bailout loan and thanking America for its help pulling them out of bankruptcy.

The current ad says, we at AIG said we were going to turn it around and we did.

We're helping Joplin, Missouri come back from a devastating tornado.

And now we're helping the East Coast recover from Hurricane Sandy.

Yeah, and you know why you're doing that, AIG?

Because you're a f ⁇ ing insurance company.

You're not doing any of that out of charity.

You're doing it because you're contractually obliged to.

And even then, you're trying to wheedle out of some of those claims.

Anyway, the ad goes on to say, we're now leaner and focused on what we do best.

We've repaid every dollar America lent us.

We turned it around.

Thank you, America.

Thank you, America.

Thank you, America, for the freedom to ensure a brighter future.

And yet, Andy, they very nearly joined this lawsuit, which is going ahead now anyway.

So were those thank yous sarcastic?

Am I mishearing the tone of voice there?

Was that the first ever sarcastic thank you commercial?

Because one thing is for sure, at the end of the world, when this planet is just a pile of smoking rubble, the only things left standing are going to be cockroaches and AIG.

That's Darwinism, John.

Yeah.

I actually think,

at the very least, Andy, is appropriate for America to now make some commercials to send a message back to AIG set to similarly cloying music.

AIG said they were going to do it, and they did.

They paid back their bailout fund, but only after giving hundreds of millions in bonuses to executives.

They've paid back every dollar America lent them while bitching and complaining every step of the way, and then considered suing the people that helped them in the first place.

They did it.

They actually did it.

F you, AIG.

F you.

Seriously, go f yourself.

No, seriously.

Seriously, AIG.

Seriously.

F ⁇ you.

USA.

USA.

Kim Jong-un News now.

And there was a surprise televised New Year's address in North Korea from Kim Jong-un, the first of its kind in North Korea for 19 years.

And in his speech, delivered...

conspicuously without a swivel chair and a hairless cap, despite recommendations from his top advisors, he spoke of the need to improve the economy and also to reunify the Koreas, warning that confrontation only led to war.

And that's a little bit rich, Andy, coming from someone who has spent the last 12 months conducting rocket tests that have pissed off the entire international community and that have been tantamount to him waggling his penis around saying, look at this.

Everybody, look at this.

I'm pointing my penis at South Korea.

Look.

I'm pointing it at them.

Nobody can stop me.

Ha ha ha ha.

Am I gonna fire it?

You just don't know, do you?

But it's pointing at you.

Ha ha ha ha!

My penis is pointing at you.

Ha ha ha ha.

That's essentially been his behavior in recent months, Andy.

You're gonna make such a great dad, John.

When their time comes, also, he's been getting a bit

old school with his leadership as well.

I mean, if we've had the trillion-dollar coin in America, Kim Jong-un's getting even more real than that, John.

He has been literally giving candy to children,

one kilogram of free candy for every single child in North Korea, which apparently is a tradition started by his grandfather and previous lunatic North Korean leader.

Must be something in the genes there.

And

people are criticising for this.

To me, it's just basically introducing North Korean children to how adult politics works.

bribing people with sweet stuff that they don't really need to get them to ignore other stuff.

And this happens with many things in childhood.

You get a lightened, sanitized version to prepare you for the harsh realities of reality you know you you feed babies with lukewarm what milk you know that's that's yeah that that's really just a sanitized version of beer you read them stories goldilocks a lesson about mankind's exploitation of the natural kingdom sleeping beauty a story about how some men will exploit wealthy but vulnerable women for personal gain even if they've been in a long-term coma i i think i think kim joggin

he's really just playing the long game with his citizens john he's just weaning them on to the way the world works.

It was a spectacular plan, this.

It was to celebrate his birthday on Tuesday, and he announced his intention to send this kilo of sweet, basically 2.2 pounds of candy, little sugar bombs to every dangerously malnourished infant in the country.

And just to make sure that the sugary goodness reached its destination, he even mobilized aircraft to ensure that each child in the country, aged 10 or under, received the candy gift in time.

A radio report by the North Korean Korean Central Broadcasting Station said that villagers in outlying islands exploded with joy at the confectionery airlift.

I think exploded in joy might have been a mistranslation, Andy, because surely they meant to say died of malnutrition.

And when that candy was delivered, I think the starving villagers would be entirely entitled to react by saying, Oh, so you do know we're here then?

Oh, how about that?

I just presume that you weren't aware of our existence and suffering, but it is possible for you to get supplies through through to us if you choose to.

How about that?

Will we be seeing you again anytime soon?

What's that?

Oh, you've already gone.

Some North Koreans are using his birthday as an opportunity to start bravely mocking him, according to a North Korean news blog, because they have become annoyed at some of the other birthday activities planned, such as street cleaning for the leader's birthday and compulsory apple picking days.

Face it, Andy, this guy knows how to party.

If you go out with him you're gonna wake up with a stomach full of apples on a very clean street.

The mocking is coming from the fact that January the 8th is pronounced in Korean as Ilpal 1-8.

But the Korean word for 18, sepal, happens to be a homophone of the swear word fing.

So Pyongyang residents have decided to take advantage of this pun and they are referring to Kim Jong-un's birthday as the f ⁇ ing birthday celebrations and compulsory apple picking days as f apple picking days and possibly even further refer to Kim Jong-un as f ⁇ ing comrade, fing Marshall or Kim III.

Look, it's early days in terms of mocking their leader Andy.

Sure, it isn't the most sophisticated stuff yet, but they are showing some early good talent there.

One of the final strange things that has emerged regarding North Korea concerns their Twitter account.

They often link to weird videos on this Twitter account, including a deserted theme park, a video featuring soldiers playing the kazoo, a cartoon for kids about ants, and a 40-minute long synchronized swimming video.

But the Twitter account only follows three people, and it turns out one of them is a 25-year-old investor from Austin, Texas, who has absolutely no idea why they're following him.

His name is Jimmy Dushku, and his profile describes him as just a young guy trying to make the world a better place.

And he said of this bizarre circumstances, people always ask me how it happened and I honestly can't remember It started sometime back in 2010 I wasn't initially surprised but I always try to make friends with people from all different locations and backgrounds So it seems like the North Korean Twitter account is exactly as weird as you'd expect Andy

Google feature section and technology now love it or hate it technology is here to stay just a few thousand years ago.

It's amazing to think that recently we were all still living in caves, eating dinosaur eggs and entertaining ourselves by seeing how annoyed woolly mammoths would get if you climbed onto their backs, ruffled their fur and shouted giddy up trunky.

Then technology didn't really get much more advanced than sticking stuff in your mouth and seeing if you died, or grunting in binary, the very much the forerunner of modern computer programming language, or maybe communicating with other humans by hitting them on the head with a big stick and seeing how angry their friends and relatives got.

That's basically how Twitter works, but in a more direct way.

Eventually, civilisation civilization snook up on us, and before we knew it, we were living in cities, drinking stuff out of cow's tits, reading the back cover of long novels, and opening S ⁇ M clubs.

Was that progress?

Well, as an offshoot of all this, every year now there's the Consumer Electronics Show that showcases the latest new gadgets and gizmos that are going to revolutionize and dominate our lives.

Unless you're one of the world's poor, in which case, better luck next time, and sorry about wasting all that food and stuff.

So this week, the world has been watching excitedly the show in Las Vegas, the spiritual home of human pointlessness, for a glimpse into how we will live our lives in the near future.

And wearable technology has been a big thing this year, John, including the stick and find electro sticker that you whack on your cat so that if it FROs at an inconvenient time you can find it and either drown it or put it back in its cage or whatever you do with cats these days.

I'm a bit out of the loop.

And the Pebble Watch.

Now it's a watch that tells the time.

and can be read in daylight and doesn't need to be laboriously wound up or fed every day.

That's That's an incredible breakthrough for human technology.

It also alerts you to when you have to be alerted to something.

It's almost like a small e-reader on your wrist that can receive emails.

And the chief executive of the company said, we've seen firsthand that there is a huge demand for mobile companions that make email notifications, messages and alerts more easily accessible.

Now this is an amazing moment for humanity, John, that we've reached a stage where putting your hand in your pocket has become too time-consuming.

We live in blessed times or cursed times.

It's pretty hard to tell which, possibly both.

Now, the email internet enabled watch could already be obsolete, could have been superseded even before it's come on the market, because frankly, what losers have so much downtime that they can afford to look at their wrist to see if they've had a time-critical email telling them how much prongier their woolly could be, or that Mike's bespoke sock emporium is having a 4% off all luxury winter under sock wear until midday on Friday.

No one I know has that amount of of time to spare.

So we need devices that permanently bombard information updates, alerts and other assorted hyper-necessary shit directly into our eye sockets.

And also at the show there's been smart eyewear developed with a widescreen micro screen directly in front of the wearer's eye that appears to hover in the user's field of vision.

Now the chief executive of this company, one of the companies that developed this, Voozix, explained, say you like Guinness and you're in New York.

You could say to your glasses, is there stout around here?

The app kicks in, the camera feeds out and you see an arrow showing you which way to go now again this is the greatest use of technology John it is helping you to find alcohol to drink away the loneliness of a world increasingly devoid of genuine human contact or even drinking away the collective guilt that we've developed a device that can tell your eyeball where to buy Guinness before we've developed a cure for malaria or a means not to waste half of the world's food But in turn, this technology could also be obsolete before it's been released.

Who these days has time to wait for the images to be transmitted at the speed of light from a device an inch from your eye, actually into your brain?

And Apple is rumored to be on the verge of announcing its ambitious new project, the Eyeball, a wireless 6G enabled multimedia opticosphere that will replace the human eyeball and provide, quotes, the ultimate entertainment and gaming experience.

The eyeball will be able to stream all kinds of vacuous shit straight into your optic nerve and includes an app so that using the pupil-shaped aperture on the front of it, you'll be able to choose to be able to see what is in front of you using its 800-megapixel 4D video socket cam, as if you are still using your original eye.

Special electro lashes, which will replace conventional eyelashes, will act as micro aerials to receive Wi-Fi and 3, 4, 5 and 6G mobile internet signals.

There will also be an add-on which will turn the right ear into an old-fashioned dial-up socket in case you don't have the internet yet, or to phone someone to tell them all about your new eyeball, and the left ear into an HDMI output so your loved ones can share exactly what you're seeing with your eyeball.

The eyeball will use magic to access the unused capacity of the human brain, thought to be equivalent to 256 megabytes in some people, to store all visual images during a person's lifetime.

And its new PegMe Out app, one of a number of moment of death apps coming onto the market to enable users to enjoy a fully interactive death, will auto-edit the memories into a PowerPoint-style commemorative presentation, which will be triggered by the user's central nervous system to flash before the user's eyeball in moments of extreme peril or illness.

Apple's acting chief executive techno-wizard Lowin Snutterbuck III, a former pantomime cow partner of Steve Jobs from his days struggling to make a living as a stage actor in Britain, commented, The Apple eyeball is so much more flexible than the human eyeball.

It can do everything a human eyeball can do as long as it doesn't crash or freeze or suffer some kind of firmware failure, whatever that is.

But it can also do so much more to prevent you having to interact with the real world, which as history shows is often a pile of crap.

And it looks so much cooler than the human eyeball, which frankly is a veiny, globulous mess.

The Apple eyeball is smooth, cool, and above all, it looks expensive, and that means it's good.

Mr.

Snutterbuck declined to say how consumers would be advised to remove their own eyeballs and he did not confirm or deny rumours that Apple would provide a dedicated high-tech gouging service to do so using technology developed by French rugby players over several decades.

Nor did he clarify whether the eyeball would require endless updates or become essentially obsolete within a few years with the advent of the eye brain.

He did, however, say that you would be able to quote pop the eyeball in and out like a pickled onion, and that if you use two eyeballs simultaneously, you would get quotes a full 3D mind f of the highest caliber.

The eyeball is set to retail at $999 or a special one-off, $17.99 for a pair of eyeballs.

Your emails now, and this one comes from Alex.

Dear Andy, Chris, and John, in order of who will find this most amusing.

I was recently listening to Radio 4 and learned that green card holders can be drafted into the US military.

John, are there any troubled spots that you'd be particularly interested in visiting?

I hear Mohamed Morty wants a word with you if you end up in Egypt.

All the best.

Alex.

Well, Andy, you know, I've always felt that I would thrive in a military situation.

You know, I'm good with positions of authority.

I respect authority.

You know, I'm mature.

I'm a mature thinker.

You know, I don't get distracted by childish things.

And, you know, more's important, I have an incredible core power in my body.

So, yeah, you know, I've got no problem with that.

Yeah.

Unless they don't want to call me up, in which case, fantastic.

And this one came in from Lily.

in New York who writes, I'm a female listener and supporter and can't decide from week to week which bugler I love best.

Some weeks it's Chris, others John or Andy.

I've had fancies of loving you all at once, but the fancy gets kind of noisy.

My revolving crush on you all is paradoxical because funny isn't actually sexy, funny is appealing and seductive all the way up to the bedroom door.

Once disrobed, jokes and

ensuing hearty laughter break the mood.

That's a fair point.

Which gets me thinking about your actual wives.

Yes.

What?

What?

What?

Actually, what the f are they like?

Are they freaks?

Supermodels?

Freak supermodels?

Do they like it when you joke around in the sack?

Do they have problems?

Curious female listeners.

I would really like to hear something about this.

Big kiss.

Okay.

Lily from New York.

I guess they have problems in the sense that they have husbands in the form of us.

Yeah, I mean, those are pretty significant problems.

That's not your average female fantasy.

Is freak supermodel a compliment to a wife or not?

I don't know.

I don't know.

You know, we're not conventional sex symbols.

No.

To put it in the mouldest possible way, Andy.

No,

you're throwing in the word conventional there, John.

I mean, that's

bold.

That's bold as you are.

Yeah.

Well, I think in baseball or cricketing parlance, I think

we're batting above average.

I think that's fair.

I think that's fair.

My wife's a far better woman than

I could ever dream of being.

I would agree with that.

Absolutely.

So, anyway, I guess the answer to that, Lily, is butt out.

None of your fing business.

Let us live our own lives.

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

Just time for a quick bugle forecast.

John,

next week we've got the Lance Armstrong versus Oprah Winfrey

showdown.

And

what's your forecast for that?

Who's going to to rumour first?

Yeah, the rumors are they're both going to admit to massive juicing.

So,

yeah, we'll see.

It's going to be a real race to see who can admit a colossal steroid abuse first.

And next week, we'll have full world-exclusive results from the Winfrey versus Armstrong heavyweight showdown.

No other news outlet in the world is going to be

covering that.

Only on the Bugle will you hear what's happened.

Thanks for listening, buglers do keep your remarks coming in and don't forget our soundcloud page soundcloud.com slash

hyphen bugle and we'll be back with bugle 220 next week and hopefully john will have recovered from his terminal case of massive influenza probably not yeah

yeah probably not i mean it's been a couple of weeks so there doesn't seem um this might just be how i am from now on resign yourself to that that's

there you go

enjoy the sound of that cough, buglers.

That is going to be accompanying you for the next 50 years of this podcast.

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.