Bugle 218 – Cliff Diving

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Hello, buglers, and welcome to a brand new year of bugling.

It's hang on, what was it?

Thirteen years ago, two thousand, add three, add ten.

It's 2013!

I'm Andy Zoltzman live in London 2012.

Well, oh no, it really has gone so strong.

Let's look on the positive side.

One year closer to a next London Olympics.

And joining me from New York City, which is still, as we speak, part of the USA after a last-ditch deal between Republicans and Democrats, not to launch it into space, vaporize it, decommission it, or sell it back to the Dutch.

Were they coming together for the good of America, or was it essentially electoral self-interest?

Who knows?

Does it really matter?

In New York, it's the man who put the greats into emigration.

That's what his audiences in Britain said when they heard the happy news.

It's John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Happy New Year, Buglers.

Whether you celebrated by sleeping through it or strapped yourself to a firework and were shot spectacularly from Sydney Harbour Bridge, I hope you had a phenomenal time.

I myself was in San Francisco, Andy, and I spent New Year's Day, the first day of 2013, on a flight back to New York, watching a man who was clearly still on drugs from the night before get booted off the plane.

How the hell he got on board in the first place is beyond me, Andy, but I heard the poor old lady who was sitting next to him go up to the flight attendants just before the flight took off and say,

The man next to me keeps kissing my hand and telling me I look like his mother.

I don't know what's up with him.

He doesn't smell of alcohol.

And thankfully, they didn't have the heart to say, does he smell of ecstasy at all?

Because that's clearly what's still pumping around his fried head due to the fact that last time I saw him Andy, he was in his seat dancing to the sound of the engines as the plane taxied back to the gate.

So, happy new year, buglers, and happy new year to the drugged-up lunatic that I nearly had to spend five hours in a confined space with until he was unceremonially tossed from the flight like a fed up pancake.

What a way to start the year, John.

What a start!

Start as you very much mean to go on.

We are in a new year, one year closer to the merciful claw of death for us all.

And as always at New Year, we start to look for how to improve our lives.

And this week's section in the bin is New Year weight loss regimes, how to help yourself lose extra pounds, and also, in this case, how to help others do so too, with a new insulting weight loss regime, in which you have to insult people in public spaces, properly as well, a full stream of unprovoked invective.

You'll then burn off your excess Christmas calories, fleeing for your life through crowds of bemused onlookers with sidesteps and swerves.

Required to also improve your core musculature and gymnastic flexibility.

When finally corners by your insultee, avoiding his or her flailing fists, feet, handbags, and heads will sharpen out your fast twitch fibres.

Estimated weight loss, 20% of body mass per 10 public slaggings off.

We also suggest that you eat wearing a medieval suit of armour.

The hassle of shoving the food through the slit in your helmets will soon prove too much, and you'll just drink a fruit smoothie through a straw and be done with it.

Estimated weight loss, 40% of body mass in the equivalent of half a 12th-century crusade.

And also, we review the new range of psychologically provocative weight loss foods from dieting specialists Dwindleguts, their new Anthropomore Foods ranger, implanted with a special chip, like you get in those birthday cards that play tunes when you open them, so that when your fork skewers, for example, a little sausage, the injured sausage squeals, begs for mercy, and heart-rendingly pleads for its life with tales of how its aging mother relies on it for financial and practical support and has already seen 465 of her sausage children die the same way.

Top story this week, America goes cliff diving!

And well Andy, at midnight on New Year's Eve America technically went off the fiscal cliff, majestically Thelma and Louising itself over the edge of basic human reason.

Sadly it wasn't a full economic bungee jump as an agreement was in place hours before the deadline.

It's just that they didn't then vote on that agreement because

they're assholes.

Andy, that's the only reasonable explanation I could come up with.

I looked at the timeline of negotiations, I crunched the numbers, and that seemed like the only plausible justification for not voting.

Sure, we could vote on this agreement that we've finally reached.

There's just one problem: I am an asshole, which is really going to get in the way of us getting this done in time.

I'd apologize, but I'm not going to because, you know,

I'm an asshole.

Well, John, this is surely surely part of America.

You know, it's written into the Constitution that no American should ever allow the common good to interfere with partisan grandstanding or being an arsehole.

So, I mean, you can't argue with this, John.

If it was valid 225 years ago, it is valid today.

Instead, they voted two days later, and the vote passed both houses, meaning that although America technically went off the cliff, it somehow managed to snag its underpants on a branch on the way down, hung there for a day or so and then managed to scramble its way back up.

The discussions went right up to the wire.

The president was forced to come back early from his vacation in Hawaii, as were the rest of the leaders of both parties, all complaining about being forced to come back as if anyone but themselves had put them in this position.

And the run-up to the deal was, to put it mildly, fing tense.

At one point on Friday, things got so heated that John Boehner, Speaker of the House, reportedly told Harry Reid to go f himself.

They were apparently in the White House lobby just outside the Oval Office, and with no agreement in sight, multiple sources reported that Boehner apparently pointed at Reid and said, Go f yourself.

Harry Reid then said, What are you talking about?

Which is, you know, clearly not the greatest comeback.

Yeah, exactly.

To which Boehner replied again, go f yourself.

I think, unfortunately, you just have to give that snaps battle to Boehner, I'm afraid.

Well, I mean, that is basically just

a condensed concentration of American politics.

Yeah, well,

it does really go to show the depth to which the tone of the political discussion in America has sunk, Andy, because that was some low-linguistic limbo dancing he was performing.

And Harry Reid himself was not immune to throwing infantile tantrums, because when the White House sent him a list of suggested concessions for the next offer to Republicans, Reid apparently read them, crumpled up the paper, and then threw it into a fire.

Into a fire.

Who the f does Harry Reid think he is, Andy?

Does he think he's in Lord of the Rings?

There is only one way to destroy this offer, and that is to toss it into the fires of eternal doom.

Or you could just say no, Harry, because Harry Reid clearly thinks he's a some kind of toll kid character, Andy, in a state of constant war with conservative orcs.

And I'm not saying that he doesn't have a slightly hobbit-like appearance.

I don't think anyone would be that surprised if it turned out that Harry Reid lived in a tiny house in a hillside with a giant wizard.

But none of that justifies him throwing things into a fire because that is unearned drama, Andy.

If he was a naturally flamboyant character, then fine, throw things into fires.

But he is possibly, in fact, definitely one of the most boring human beings currently breathing on earth.

So he doesn't get to throw anything into a fire.

He just gets to file things carefully in his no-pile.

So the Democrats, viewed by many Republicans, as essentially the political wing of al-Qaeda, and the Republicans, did finally reach this deal.

But, John, was it a deal that hid the problem under the carpet, or was it more that they were just grinding the problem into the carpet, partly because there are already so many problems under the carpet already that the carpet is only a few inches from the ceiling?

I think they just paint problems to look like carpets now.

It's much easier.

Then you can leave the carpet exactly where it is.

So having narrowly avoided this plummeting off this fiscal cliff, America is now nervously caneveling its way over a fiscal Grand Canyon with its fingers crossed, hoping that it can somehow crash on the other side without too many fatal injuries or broken limbs, or failing that, that someone can find a cure for gravity before it plummets to its doom.

Obama has said that he hoped after this that future negotiations will entail, quotes, less drama, a little bit less brinkmanship, and not scare the heck out of folks quite so much.

Now, I'm not American, John, but that to me seems like probably the most unpatriotic thing a president has said since Ulysses S.

Grant was overheard saying that he preferred a good camembert to a slice of Monterey Jack.

That is what American democracy is all about, John.

And not just American democracy, but all democracy, needlessly contrived drama, irresponsible brinkmanship, and scaring the shit out of people so they let you get on with defusing the poisonous snake you've just bought, annoyed and waggled in their faces.

And Republican Lou Barletta told the Washington Post, I don't know if playing chicken with the American people at this point is in the best interest of the people.

Well, I guess the thing to do, John, if you don't know something like that, is to find out by testing it.

You cannot have that uncertainty hanging over politics and hanging over the people of America.

You need to play the chicken, see what happens, and work out whether or not it is in the best interest of the people, and more importantly, whether or not you, as a politician, give a shit either way.

So, what was the agreement?

Well, in short, it seems to have pissed everyone off.

The agreement seems to be essentially, let's find some almost impossibly intricate balance of trade-offs that will infuriate literally everyone involved in this negotiation because it seems that everyone has walked away from this angry Andy and I don't know how that's even physically possible.

In short, the Bush era tax cuts have been kept for everyone earning $400,000 or less and taxes will go up on couples earning $450,000 or more or at least they should go up until various tax accountants start limbering up for some fiscal yoga twisting deductions into what look like legally impossible positions before walking away having somehow paid even less than before.

The Democrats at least won tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.

In return, the Republicans managed to get the administration to agree to just a two-month extension of the sequester,

automatic cuts to defence spending and domestic programs that were supposed to be triggered January the 1st.

And all this essentially sets up another colossal showdown in just eight weeks.

What the f is wrong with these people, Andy?

Is it any wonder that Congress has a lower public approval rating than most serial killers?

Well yes John as you said to get to this deal there was more horse trading than at a French food market and the only people who seemed pleased with this in the end were the global markets which rallied strongly after the deal was reached but as we know John

global markets as recent history and not so recent history has proved time and again are platinum grade shysters, amoral dickbags with a vacuum for a soul whose relationship with ethics is similar to the relationship between polar bears and penguins.

They have no idea that they exist, but if they did, they would eat them.

Then they would vomit them up and eat them again before belching and saying, oh, we're down a treat.

After the deal was reached, both sides posed for the commemorative photographs as if they had nice new Christmas scarves that they'd given each other around their necks, scarves that looked suspiciously like boa constrictors.

And I guess time will tell whether this deal has put the promise into compromise or the uh into furge.

Will it solve the problem?

Or will it prove the economic equivalent of having a car with severed brake cables and fixing it by installing a louder sound system so that you can't hear the other harsh honking at you as you plummet down a hill?

Will it prove to be a great escape?

Or will it be the equivalent of zebras having just avoided a hungry pack of lions by hiding in an abattoir in pantomime cow outfits?

Will it be a success?

Too early to say.

Was Captain Scott's expedition to avoid suffering from heat stroke in 1912 a success?

Well, of sorts, it was, but at some cost.

And is it a short-term fix?

There's been a problem with short-term fixes throughout history, ever since dinosaurs tried to see off the rising threat of Raquel Welsh in a Burkina by calling in an asteroid strike.

I guess it's just

too early to say.

Egypt news now and you remember Egypt Andy

country with the pointy houses slightly creepily fond of cats the Bengals like the way they walked you know the place well they were of course one of the highest profile participants in the Arab Spring last year a spring which hasn't been quite as bouncy as many Egyptians would have liked especially as it currently seems like they're currently boinging their way back towards dictatorship and as we talked about before Mohammed Morsi has given himself sweeping new powers calling them an early Christmas present to himself, which was extra suspicious considering the fact that he is definitely a Muslim.

And

he's a card-carrying Muslim.

Sorry, did I say card?

I meant Quran.

He's a Quran-carrying Muslim.

2013 is shaping up to be another spicy year for Egyptians, with Tahrir Square looking more and more like a permanent campsite.

Life is set to be increasingly difficult for Egypt as a decline in the value of their currency is causing widespread inflation.

And Mohammad Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government may pay quite a political price for that.

Weeks of political turmoil and violent protest had already damaged the Egyptian economy, which was not in the best shape of its life in the first place.

The Egyptian economy is essentially like the Sphinx, Andy.

It looks remarkably good from a distance, but when you get up close, you realise that half its face is falling off.

Panicked investors and ordinary Egyptians have rushed to switch their Egyptian pounds into foreign currency, and Morsi's big problem is that he's faced a huge backlash over his fast-tracking of the new Egyptian constitution, which many see as being more repressive than a Victorian parent.

And his current unpopularity means that he now can't afford to introduce the tax rises that he can't afford not to.

He has postponed tax increases, which were believed to be part of an austerity package vitally needed to secure an IMF fund loan of $4.8 billion.

So essentially, he's got a choice, Andy.

The IMF loan is viewed as vital to dig the country out of its financial crisis, but to get the loan, he'd have to almost certainly press Ed with massively unpopular measures.

So he's starting to understand what freedom is all about, Andy.

You see, that's what being a modern leader in a democracy is like.

Your job is essentially to choose between eating a shit kebab or a shit souffle.

Isn't democracy fuck?

And

the poor of Egypt are once again getting a little bit

exercised about the impact of these problems on them because it is they who get hit hardest by this this inflation, John.

Yet again, the silly old poor never seem to learn their lesson from economic history and the poor, very much in Egypt and around the world, remain the world's testicles in any economic smash in the balls.

It must be very frustrating for Morsey because if you're a dictator and people start to get all testy about trivial issues such as the price of food, you just roll a few tanks through a marketplace and boom, problem solved.

And if not problem solved, then at least problem silenced, which is basically problem solved.

But he mustn't forget that there is a genuine plus side to running a country in a democracy.

And that is that when you lose an election, you're generally not murdered and your body isn't dragged through the streets.

So, you know, swings and roundabouts.

And it does seem that the powers that be in Egypt are responding to this uncertainty by going back to doing what they do best, restricting freedom of speech.

That is a club they've always got in their bag, Andy.

Whenever they get into trouble, they can just pull it out, swing it around a bit, and problem solve.

solve or you know problem silenced and you know what they say about that but a popular egyptian comedian called pasem yousf is uh currently being investigated by prosecutors for allegedly insulting the president now i happen to know this guy andy he's come to new york a few times and i see him whenever he's here and knowing him he probably did insult the president andy but guess what morsey that is another shit sandwich that you have to learn to chomp down because when you're a democratic leader people are going to to call you an arsehole, and you just have to take it.

At least in this case, you were actually being an arsehole, so it shouldn't hurt too much.

It's when you're not being an arsehole and you get called one anyway,

that is when it really can bother you.

And it's by withstanding that level of baseless abuse that is where truly great leaders are forged.

So, what are the reasons behind Egypt's economic problems?

Well, I guess you've got to look at 30 years of dictatorship, the ensuing social and political unrest and upheaval, uncertainty about the future, not enough sphinxes anymore, having blown everything it once earned, building great triangular tombs to plonk dead pharaohs in, and the lingering ripple effect of the various plagues God sent to the Egyptians all those years ago.

I mean, they've never fully recovered as a nation from the locusts or the frogs or the deaths of an entire generation of firstborn potential wage earners, entrepreneurs, and taxpayers.

Particularly not after that all enabled their imported foreign workforce to skip the country.

I mean, that's a big economic upheaval, John.

That's going to take you at least 10,000 years to recover from.

And this, John, harrowingly puts everything into economic perspective.

Data showed that Egypt's five-year credit default swaps jumped from 27 basis points to four and a half month highs from the previous close to 515 basis points.

And

that's terrible unless it's good.

I couldn't have put that any better myself.

I don't know how to feel about that.

Oh, I do.

It's confused.

Confused and slightly irritated.

A formal complaint was brought against Basem Youssef for undermining the standing of President Morsi in his television show by an Islamist lawyer and a gaggle of angry Sheiks.

I think that's the collective noun for a group of angry sheiks, isn't it, Andy?

I can't remember.

It's either that or a squawk.

A squawk of angry sheiks.

Anyway, after Basem made fun of them for their complaints, they came back at him even harder, accusing him of sexual immorality and poor hygiene.

Now, I don't know

which of them is worse, Andy.

Together, they're certainly unforgivable.

Yeah, I mean, it's quite quite impressive to be able to do the one whilst also suffering from the other, I guess, isn't it?

Exactly.

They've called him Bassem Zipper, the varmint, and claimed that he doesn't know how to wash after he uses the bathroom.

Listen, Andy.

That's a big allegation.

And it happens to be one that I have a little personal information on.

Because I've been close to Bassem on more than one occasion, certainly well within sniffing distance.

And I can tell you, he smells divine, Anne.

Like a wet forest or a puppy wearing high-end aftershave.

So those chics shouldn't be lashing out in anger unless they've got the fragrance evidence to back that shit up.

Well, it's good to see

this level of playground insults

in kind of life and death political arguments.

Yep.

Yep.

These things too easily get too serious.

Look, in response to all this bullshit, and you know, in case Bassem does get taken in for questioning, we as a bugle are going to step up.

We've stepped up to make fun of Mubarak in the past.

We can step up again to make fun of Morsi.

Honestly, their names are so similar, we could probably just switch them out and use the same jokes and no one would notice.

But we're not going to do that.

So for Basem, and the people of Egypt, and to ensure that Andy and I are never going to be able to take a trip to see the pyramids, let's do this.

When he was a child, Mohamed Morsi says he can remember riding to school on a donkey.

That's strange, because that donkey remembers riding to school with a douche on his back.

Boom!

Mohamed Morsi has a PhD in material science from USC.

That's interesting, because I have a PhD in...

Shut up about your PhD, Mohamed Morsi.

No one gives a shit.

Boom!

He apparently titled his dissertation, High Temperature Electrical Conductivity and Defect Structure of Donor Doped AL203.

He subtitled it, otherwise known as The Reason No Girls ever want to have sex with me.

Boom, boom, boom.

Hey, Mohamed, how do you spell democracy?

I'll give you a clue.

It's not spelt YOU.

Boom!

Hey, Mohammed, what's black, white, and red all over?

Your country's budget.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Hey, how many Mohammed Morsi's does it take to change your light bulb?

None.

He gets sevens to do it.

He's completely out of touch with his people.

Boom!

Boom!

What can you say about a man who's admired, loved, and respected by everyone?

You can say that that man is not Mohammed Morsi.

Boom, Andy, boom, boom, boom.

And, John, do you think is this helping your friend Bassam Yusuf?

Do you think?

I guess time will tell, Andy.

Yeah.

I've just got one more joke.

And

let's see if this will calm the situation down.

Mohamed Morsi is actually married to his cousin.

I don't need to say anything about that.

By Western values, it's a bit weird.

Boom!

It can't have hurt, can it?

Well, it can.

Oh, shit.

God news now, and there's trouble in Germany, John, after family minister Christina Schroeder suggested that God

might not have a gender, that he might not be the straight-up guy that religious types have always assumed that he was, John.

Now, I mean,

this has caused a lot of trouble in Germany, and as we know from history, Germany doesn't always need that much provocation to trouble itself with stuff,

particularly not when a God of some kind or other is involved.

But it's very interesting to suggest that God is not necessarily a guy.

And I can see why people have got worked up about this, John, because when you look at God, you look at his tendency to do something adequately, then kick back before he's properly finished it and ironed out all the kinks, then rest on his laurels, expecting everyone to carry on giving him big props for shit he did ages ago.

That's that's definitely a male trait for me.

He's so proud to bouts of a rational temper, he finds compromise difficult, likes to get his own way, didn't really take a hands-on role in this kid's upbringing, but started to interfere once he got older.

And also a tendency to be either domineering or aloof in conversation.

God is a guy, John, 100%, because guys are different for women.

Now, I've got that.

I've got it now.

I've got it.

Your career is just about to go through the roof.

That is big time.

It's a big time.

There has been a huge political outcry in Germany over this.

Not quite as big an outcry as when they, you know,

God is awful.

But well, in fact, the outcry wasn't that huge at the time, was it?

That's how we got away with it.

You know what?

It was ages ago.

We can move on past that now.

There's been a huge political outcry in Germany over this.

Christina Schroeder suggesting that God may not have a gender.

In German, the language has three definite articles for nouns to indicate gender.

Der, Die, und das.

Beautiful language, Andy, just so melodic, isn't it?

The noun der Gott or God is masculine, but in an interview with De Zeit, Schroeder argued that the article for God should not matter, and it could just as easily be the gender-neutral das Gott, claiming that the article doesn't mean anything.

Big mistake, Andy.

Big mistake.

Not quite as big a mistake as when Germany,

you know, it was just unforgivable, wasn't it?

But this was a pretty big mistake, too.

What was she thinking, Andy?

Trying to make a nuanced linguistic point.

There's a time and a place for that kind of talk, and it's nowhere and never.

She's received wave after wave of criticism from fellow German conservatives, Bavarian social minister Christine Heidegger.

She goes so such a beautiful,

so sonorous, isn't it?

I start listening to birds tweeting of a morning.

Yeah,

she said, I find it sad when our children, due to blatant insecurity and political correctness, have the strong images that are so important to their imaginations taken away.

What strong images are they exactly, Andy?

An old man in a white beard sitting on a cloud.

Oh, that's right.

That's far too important an entirely subjective image for children to lose.

If they can't imagine an old Caucasian man sitting on a cloud above them, pulling the strings of the world, how are they going to keep not thinking about how else the world might work?

But sadly, this gender Nazi, whoops, probably can't use that term, this gender Hitler hasn't stopped there.

Kestroda has also criticised in the past the sexist gender roles in classic children's books such as the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.

She said they are often sexist.

There are seldom positive female figures in there.

Here's the thing, that would not be my first point of contention, Andy, Andy, with German fairy tales.

So many of them in Germany seem to end with children having their hands cut off for a start.

Struhlpeter alone, which of course written by Heinrich Hoffmann for his three-year-old son, has some of the following stories in it.

A violent boy who terrorizes animals and people.

Eventually he's bitten by a dog who goes on to eat the boy's sausage while he's bedridden.

There is the dreadful story of the matches where a girl plays with matches and then burns to death.

There's the story of the black boys.

Nicholas, Saint Nicholas that is, catching three boys teasing a dark-skinned boy to teach them a lesson.

He dips the three boys in black ink to make them even darker skinned than the boy they teased.

Good lesson, Germany.

There is also the story of the wild huntsman.

In it a hare steals a hunter's musket and eyeglasses and begins to hunt the hunter.

In the ensuing chaos, the hare's child is burned by hot coffee and the hunter falls into a well, presumably to his death.

Sleep well, children.

And of course, there's the story of the thumbsucker.

A mother warns her son not to suck his thumbs.

However, when she goes out of the house and he resumes his thumb sucking, a roving tailor appears and cuts off his thumbs with giant scissors.

Well, I guess that does explain, John, why through history some German children have grown up to be rather twitchy German adults.

All I'm saying is, the gender bias of German fairy tales is the tip of a psychotic idea.

There we go.

Historians discuss.

I'm about to start learning German.

Are you?

Yeah.

For what, Chris?

Well, I just thought I wanted to get these storylines truly in my head in their native tongue.

I think that'll have a more poetic ring then.

Because I'm sure those terrifying stories sound so much more soothing when they're barked at you in German.

Yeah, because

another story apparently which you'll be able to read in the native German, which I'm sure will just be beautiful.

One of the other stories is that Diegeschifte von Zupperkasse, the story of the soup, Casper.

As Casper, a healthy, strong boy, proclaims he will no longer eat his soup.

Over the next five days, he wastes away and dies.

Fwechtbar!

Ashtung!

Still, none of those are quite as harrowing as the story of the German football team winning the 1954 World Cup against the vastly superior Hungarians.

Feature section now, and happy new year!

Well, what a new year it was for the world, John.

And just some amazing things happened over the Christmas New Year period.

The Queen, for the first time ever,

was in 3D

actually and for her Christmas message.

During filming, she was so fascinated by the technology that it took 25 takes for her to recite her seven-minute message without touching the end of her own nose just to see if it was real.

That's right, Andy.

The Queen, old crown head, old money face herself, has set a new high bar for Christmas and New Year speeches.

Non-British buglers may not be aware that the Queen famously does a Christmas message to the nation on Christmas Day afternoon, and the nation traditionally gathers together as a family to drunkenly fall asleep in front of it.

To the point that I believe in 1987, she actually set off an air horn in the middle of her speech to wake everyone up.

In the past she's talked about the importance of service, of the pride she has in her country, and of how she definitely didn't have Princess Diana killed.

This year she brought up,

she took a little twist as you mentioned and for the first time she did the message in 3D.

That's right, if you had 3D glasses at home it was like the queen was in your living room looking down her nose right at you and they even had some background footage uh of the broadcast of her watching the message back wearing specially made 3d glasses adorned with swarovsky crystals forming the letter q on each side that's a power move andy that is that's basically a crown for the eyes that is well that's that is basically the queen embracing hip-hop culture isn't it worth blinging up i think it is andy they're the kind of sunglasses so ostentatiously obnoxious that they would make kanye west go shit why do i not have a pair of those?

In many ways.

And changing his name to Kwanye West.

The Queen really does live the life of a rapper, Andy.

Ludicrously big house, likes to wear her wealth, and has a song about how great she is.

And all, actually,

that does add up, actually, because throughout the Christmas message this year, Prince Philip was in the background grabbing his nuts.

During her message, the Queen said, As London hosted a splendid summer of sport, all those who saw the achievement and courage of the Olympic and Paralympic Games were further inspired by the skill, dedication, training and teamwork of our athletes.

In pursuing their own sporting goals, they gave the rest of us the opportunity to share something of the excitement and drama.

Oh, so hold on.

She did enjoy watching the Olympics.

Would she like to go back in time and tell her fing face about that?

Because she seemed to sulk her way through the entire Olympics as if she was furious that she was being forced to watch a bunch of sweaty peasants run around and occasionally throw things without one of them getting eaten by a lion.

I was at least expecting her to mention in the message, oh, by the way, sorry about sitting through the Olympics opening ceremony looking like a slapped trout.

Well, I can tell you why she looks so annoyed by that, John, because she knows how the honour system works now.

Any Olympian who gets a medal, who basically basically does the job that their vast public funding suggests that they should do, now gets an honour.

And she's clearly thinking ahead to having to hand out all these honours, thinking, oh, for f's sake, I've got to give 15 MBEs to fing rowers.

That is going to test even my royal conversational gambits.

She obviously had quite a year, the Queen, from jumping out of a helicopter during the opening ceremony, to getting spectacularly rained on during the Jubilee flotilla, to having her granddaughter-in-law's whap splashed all over European papers, to now expecting a great-grandchild.

But the biggest disappointment regarding the 3D Christmas message was the criminal underuse of the 3D technology.

Andy, I wasn't expecting CGI.

I wasn't expecting the Queen to deliver the message riding a fully armoured giant pigeon across the skies of London.

But at least throw some peanuts at the camera or something.

Waggle a scepter around so you can reach out and touch it.

Don't just sit there so motionless that people are having to lift their 3D glasses up and down to check whether it's actually working or not.

She did say a number of other interesting things in the speech.

Amongst them, 86 years young, free boat rides down the Thames, still got my bonds on the bank notes, crown still fits, can't complain.

She also commented how she would chop, quotes, chop any of you fers heads off, get peace.

Added, the Olympics were top sausage, eh?

James Bond, I can confirm, all man.

And as for you, Saint Bolt, if I was 60 years younger and or not queen, well.

She also said, some of us in the royal family this year heroically managed not to be photographed with our crunk letter mahoopies dangling all over the place.

Some of us clearly didn't.

And concluded, oh, those sprouts have gone right through me like a Chinese dissident through the legal system.

Pardon me.

Mystery, of course, surrounds exactly what the royal family do at Christmas, John.

Windsor Castle is, of course, one of only five houses at which Father Christmas actually stops for a chat and a drink.

He firsthand delivers his presents to the excitedly giggling monarch, gifts which this year included a full-size replica Lamborghini countatch made of parts of real Lamborghini countatches, but with a pair of Shetland ponies under the bonnet for a more regally paced ride, plus a chemistry set, something the Queen has always wanted but never had the courage to ask for, and a bouncy castle modelled on Windsor Castle made of a special triple sprung inflatable granite sandstone alloy, described by experts as the comfiest, bounciest stone-based substance in the universe.

Then, once the glorious Magisteriette has finished opening the gifts and those in her stocking, the Queen grants Father Christmas a 10-minute personal audience to find out what British and Commonwealth children have been asking for that Christmas.

And it's this that's enabled her to remain her emotional bond with her subjects for the entirety of the first six majestic decades of her glorious 200-year reign.

They then down a slug of sherry each, fist bump in accordance with the old tradition, and she personally chooses one of Father Christmas's reindeers for Prince Philip to hunt down, capture, interrogate, torture, and shoot on Christmas morning.

Your emails now, and this comes in from Eric Glazer, who writes:

To John, Chris, and Andy.

In the days before this Christmas in the US, there were hundreds of flight cancellations and reroutings due to bad winter weather.

Exhausted at 10pm on Christmas Eve, I found myself stranded roughly 300 miles from my final destination near New York City, and it was beginning to snow.

Rather than admit defeat, I decided to rent an SUV equipped with four-wheel drive and kick nature in its face.

Yeah, it's about time we did more of that on this planet.

For too long.

If Nature's going to fight you with snow, fight back with a vehicle.

That's right.

With a vehicle that will also contribute massively to the global warming that will melt all future snow.

Yes.

Take that, Meggy, you little shit.

Having flown for thousands of miles leading up to the start of this stressful all-night drive, I decided to take some precautions against impending physical and mental exhaustion.

That's what Christmas is all about.

The solution for my physical exhaustion was obvious.

Copious amounts of Red Bull, overcaffeinated cylinders of piss water in hand.

I believe that is their official advertising slogan now.

I consider my options for combating my already considerable state of mental fatigue.

Perhaps I should take a leaf out of the CIA's book and blast Metallica through the sound system to forcibly prevent slumber.

Well, that's it.

It was Norri Eager they tried that with, wasn't it?

Why not?

Why not?

Did he drive very far?

I don't know.

Perhaps listening to an engaging book on tape.

No, in order to ensure that I arrived safely for Christmas instead of surely ending up as a flower-covered makeshift memorial on the side of a snow-covered highway overpass, the answer was clear: the bugle, the wellspring of bullshit provided by six and a half straight hours of non-stop bugles, kept me coherent enough to safely negotiate the snowstorm.

That is very dangerous.

Save for a few of Andy's longer-than-average pun runs, during which I found myself gazing wistfully off the side of the road into the inky blackness of the frozen tundra, or should I say, pundra.

I must give credit to Chris here as well, treating Chris's intermittent but rather regular vocal interjections as a sort of college-style drinking game.

Down it, down it, take me away to pace my consumption of Red Bull properly.

So, all in all, the bugle saved my life, sort of, but it definitely saved my Christmas.

Many thanks, Eric Glazer.

Oh, it's great to know that we are

a driving aide, as well as

the world's last best hope of freedom.

There's There's another email here from Vic, who said, Dear Chris, John and Andy, in order of who would get the best presents from Santa,

I have discovered the easiest Christmas presents.

Instead of giving gift cards that will almost definitely get lost down the back of the Christmas tree, I've been giving donations to the bugle.

The reaction is quite beautiful, especially if they do not know what the bugle is.

I normally have to follow the opening of the card where I've scrawled, a donation has been made in your name to the bugle, with it's a very worthy cause, whilst nodding with a sincere expression.

All the best for Bugley in the future, Vic.

Thank you very much, Vic.

And thank you for the image in my head that you've just placed every,

oh, thank you.

Just

happy to contribute, happy to help.

I hope they're okay.

And don't forget, you can always give presents of

voluntary subscriptions to the bugle and the bugle websites, thebuglepodcast.com.

And don't forget to check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle,

which will hopefully this week be updated with the new logo, which we told you about before Christmas.

I'll stick it on

the Twitter.

We're just waiting for the high-res version to come through from the

designer.

Should

hopefully not take another 12 months.

But anyway, we hope you like it when you see it.

Well, that's all we have time for in this first bugle of 2013.

What a year it's been so far.

John, any

New Year's resolutions for yourself or the planet for the year ahead?

Just to keep on keeping on, Andy.

You know, just a resolution so broad it's literally meaningless.

Well, I think that's ask us what's what New Year's resolutions and all other forms of religion.

Achievable goals aren't it.

That's what resolutions and all other forms of religion are all about.

Personally my New Year's resolution is to cling on to the Falkland Islands.

From our cold dead hand Argentina.

That's right.

I've made another request to have it back,

President Kirchner, the other day.

Could end up

going through the courts as Britain has finally offered some concessions.

They've offered to settle the matter once and all with a leader versus leader wrestle.

Now, Kirchhner has claimed she'd have to fight the monarch,

that's the 86-year-old queen, whereas British Prime Minister David Cameron insists that he, as the head of the political executive, should be the one oiling up in his underpants and vaulting into the ring and securing the future of the islands of Britain with his trademark belly splash off the top turnbuckle.

Now, that is a phrase, John, that I learned that I think you used in a bit of stand-up about 10 years ago, and it remains the extent of my wrestling terminology.

Well, you know,

that is some knowledge, Andrew.

Some knowledge.

Not all knowledge.

No, some knowledge.

I'm not saying that, but it is some.

Yep.

So that's Keep the Falklands.

And which, you know, I mean, it has not really anything to do with me.

But, you know, I'm sure they're lovely at this time of year.

That's it for this week's Beagle.

We'll be back with Bugle 219

next week.

Until then, 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.