The Bugle – The Complete 2012 – Part 2

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The Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello buglers and welcome to Bugle 217 sub-episode beta.

You notice I've switched the Hebrew alphabet last week to the Greek alphabet this week.

That's

very much to do with Christmas, John, the

Old Testament written in Hebrew.

Yeah.

And the New Testament

written in English,

which, of course, was heavily influenced by Greek.

Written in English, yeah.

That's right.

So, I mean, I think they were both written in English and the other ones.

Well, how would anyone have understood them?

Yeah, but they translated, because not a lot of people spoke English then, so they translated it into Hebrew for the people in the Holy Land.

Chosen ones, my team.

Can you

say you're on a team, Andy, if you don't know any of the other players on it

or how to pronounce their names accurately?

Well,

yeah, I mean, well, team there's teams and there's teams.

I don't know if you're a good team player, Andy.

But you know, we don't

it's not r completely about you know knowing all the names, you know, there's a kind of subconscious understanding, understanding, isn't there?

Sure.

That's really what teamwork's all about.

A little nod of the head, drop of the shoulder.

We're on the same page.

Yeah, wink of the eyelid.

So happy Christmas, buglers.

We're recording this before Christmas, so for all we know, might have been a disastrous Christmas all around the world.

But let's hope your own personal Christmas was a good one.

This will be going out New Year's Eve, I believe, officially, Monday the 31st of December 2012.

The last day of the year.

Definitely been one of the top years of the decade.

Well, it's certainly been a great year for Britain with the Olympics, hasn't it?

Great year for British sport.

Yeah.

I mean, that was.

There's a lot of people in London now, as I am, there's a lot of people still talking about what a great job Britain did with the Olympics.

Well, that's the reason why they're still talking about that is twofold.

One, because we did a great job with the Olympics.

And two, because since then, it's just been disaster after disaster.

It's emerged that Britain has been swimming in a sea of moral shit,

cover-ups, and

just a horrific story.

So we need to cling on to the Olympics, John.

That was when this nation was great.

It was great.

It was great.

People talk about Great Britain, and

that's why, John, because I think it was 2012.

2012.

In the month of August.

Yeah, when the entire nation forgot about all elements of reality

and embraced the glorious goddess of sport.

Thanks be to sport.

Yeah, thanks be to sport.

Sport is the Aphrodite of the modern age, but more so.

If sport wills it, as the Muslim sort of stuff.

I mean, can you still feel, now coming back, you haven't been back to London for a couple of years

before your trip this Christmas, can you feel how different it is with the Olympics still in the air?

Well, you can feel the echo of complete triumph.

Yeah.

It sounds a lot like the echo of the British Empire, it's just it's it's a little more

close.

A little closer and with slightly fewer people shouting f you in the range of accents from around the world.

My family.

Why did you steal our food during a famine?

And kill us with it.

We didn't steal it, we sold it.

So

yeah,

it's been lovely to see you back.

It's been great to see you, Andrew.

Yeah, absolutely sensational.

I'm going to go back to the only country where I'm welcome

I might do the same makes it I could be going back to India

so here we are with some more highlights of 2012 to see you into the new year 2013 that's uh

is there anything happening in 2013?

I don't know.

No, it's just more more chance to remember the Olympics of 2012.

Yeah, it will probably be remembered as the year that Britain really remembered the Olympics a lot.

That's right.

Better than it ever had been.

Well, it's the best Olympics to remember.

I mean, you can remember LA 84, but all you think of is Daly Thompson and a guy in a jetpack.

But London Olympics, you think of humanity really hitting the heights.

Greatest ever.

It's like as if Mozart and Beethoven and Shakespeare and Dante had all got together and

played table tennis.

I mean, we're joking about it, but we're also super sad.

so uh do enjoy the best of the bugle 2012 bugles and we'll be back next week uh in uh in january 2013 believe it for 2013 yep

unless the minds were right in which case

this is being played and echoing around

a dusty wasteland

a shard of rock hurtling through space

into nothingness so which is basically what we are are anyway.

I mean, let's

stop ending each intro, Andy, with a bleak piece of nihilism.

It just makes the rest of the show seem more entertaining.

Enjoy the highlights, beardless.

Goodbye.

And

that's the end of the intro.

So I just realised I didn't really have an end of it.

Big finish, Andy.

Big finish.

Big finish.

Like the women's javelin competition of the 1983 World Athletics Championship.

Won by a large Finnish lady with the final throw at the finish of the competition.

That worked on two levels.

Okay, stop, Andy.

Let's get this bugle started.

So I'm sorry this week.

Obama is killing it right now.

And by it, I mean people.

Obama is killing people right now.

And it emerged this week that President Obama personally oversees a kill list of insurgents who could be taken out with drone strikes if the opportunity arises.

And look, we've all got a kill list.

And

married couples often each draw up a list of the names of five people that they'd love to murder if they get the opportunity, without the other partner getting angry or turning them into the police.

It's the backbone of a healthy marriage.

You're allowed to kill Jessica Simpson if I'm allowed to kill Tom Brady.

Okay, deal.

Now,

the fact that the president has a lot of people.

That's a little snippet from John's speech at his own wedding.

I just wanted, there was just one of the contractual terms that needed to be going over before that final bullet was played.

The fact that the president has this list isn't as surprising as the details that come with it.

The New York Times reported that there is a secret nominations process to designate terrorists for kill or capture by drones during high-level discussions.

And first, let's be clear, kill or capture.

Now, you might think, kill or capture?

How the f does that work?

How do you capture an insurgent with an unmanned drone thousands of feet up in the sky?

Well, what happens is this.

The belly of the drone opens up and a fairground grabber comes out and reaches down to try and scoop up the insurgents in its claw.

Unfortunately, the insurgents have now got wise to this and they've been covering themselves in butter so that they just slip out of the claw just as it's tantalizingly close to lifting them off the ground.

The US military usually tries a few times before getting frustrated and just launching hellfire missiles at those pesky buttering insurgents instead.

There's only one thing that can make this secret presidential kill list more chilling and that's if it was actually a secret presidential f marry kill list along the rules of the f marry kill game where you have three names and those three actions and you have to decide who gets what.

One of Obama's lists had the names Bin Laden, Newt Gingrich and Silvio Berlusconi on it.

It looks like he chose to kill bin Laden.

He probably had sex with Silvio Berlusconi which would put him in a group that includes 64% of the world's population, which only leaves one thing, and that is that we might be about to have a new Mrs.

Gingrich on our hands in the future.

Oh, President Obama, you're about to become the least happy woman in the world.

Other sport news now and Olympics news.

Listen, Andy, if we know one thing about the Olympics, it's that it is a transcendent celebration of humanity, of excellence and of human competition and also that you do not f with it

because if you f with the Olympics Andy they will f with you right back in fact those five glorious Olympic rings stand for do not f

with us

the the US Olympic Committee uh this week sent out a cease and desist letter to a knitting based social network for hosting a knitting Olympics remember what those rings also stand for Andy we ain't about fucking knitting.

The incredibly popular knitting social network Ravelry hosted a Rave Olympics, a knitting competition for users that included events like an Afghan marathon and a scarf and scarf hockey.

The knitters were supposed to basically compete in each event whilst watching the actual games on TV.

So you can see why they posed a clear present threat Andy to everything that the Olympics stands for.

Here is a quote from the actual cease and desist letter.

And if you are operating heavy machinery or mending a tile on a roof, I must warn you, this gets very funny very fast.

This is how it begins.

The athletes of Team USA have usually spent the better part of their entire lives training for the opportunity to compete at the Olympic Games and represent their country in a sport that means everything to them.

For many, the Olympics represent the pinnacle of their sporting career.

Over more than a century, the Olympic Games have brought athletes around the world together to compete at the Olympic Games and represent their country in a sport that means everything to them.

So far so good Andy, but here we go.

We believe that using the name Rave Olympics for a competition that involves an Afghan marathon, scarf hockey

and sweater triathlon among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.

In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country's finest athletes and fails to recognise or appreciate their hard work.

But here's the thing that you also need to know Andy.

You don't f with the Olympics, sure, we all know that, but you definitely don't f with knitters.

Knitters don't mess around, Andy.

And if you ever step up to them, you would better have a pair of high-end needles in your hand and you better have come ready to knit.

Because they also have five knitted Olympic rings in five different coloured wools.

And those rings stand for knitters don't play that shit.

because apparently these knitters were extremely offended by the tone of the letter and they mobilized.

Members of the knitting network left a huge amount of messages on the US Olympics team's Facebook page, nearly melted down Twitter and bombarded them with a deluge of emails.

They went in so hard that, and you are not going to believe this, the USOC backed down.

In a statement posted recently on their website, a spokesman said, and again, if you're using a power saw or flying a light aircraft at the moment, you may want to be careful, because this statement could cause you to buddy holly yourself into a mountain.

The statement said, thanks to all of you who have posted, tweeted, emails, and calls regarding the letter sent to the organisers of the Rover Olympics.

Like you, we're extremely passionate about what we do.

The letter sent to the organisers was a standard form cease and desist letter that explained why we need to protect our trademarks in legal terms.

Rest assured, as an organisation that has many passionate knitters, we never intend to make this a personal attack on the knitting community or to suggest that knitters are not supportive of Team USA.

We apologise for any insult and appreciate your support.

Holy shit, Andy, the IOC wouldn't back down to India over the Bhopal disaster which killed thousands of people and the USOC just caved to a bunch of knitters.

Yes,

yes, Andy, what else?

The Olympics.

They're here.

They're finally here.

The eyes of the world are upon London, Andy.

If you look up at London's majestic clock, Big Ben, you can see that its two hands read sport o'clock.

Bong.

Cycling, bong.

Wrestling, bong.

Gymnastics, bong.

Hockey, bong, that weird speedwalking thing that sometimes happens.

Can't remember if it's happening this time.

Bong!

The creepy synchronized swimming thing that gives you nightmares.

Bong!

Horse dancing!

Bong!

Sport!

The main excitement around the opening ceremony is surrounding who is going to light the flame.

There's been a lot of guessing.

Will it be Steve Redgrave?

Will it be Roger Bannister?

Will it be David Beckham?

Will it be the Queen?

Will it be David Beckham dressed as the Queen?

Will it be the Queen dressed as David Beckham?

No one seems to know for sure.

But the pressure is on, because you've got to compete with Muhammad Ali lighting the flame in 96, the Barcelona archer firing the flame into a cauldron in 92.

It's an iconic moment.

And I actually have a few suggestions, Andy.

I'll realise it's late in the day, but I think these might work.

Number one,

the queen sets a swan on fire and throws it 50 feet into the cauldron in an intimidatingly unforgettable display of viciousness and strength.

Two, we use the two-pack shakur hologram that took Coachella by storm.

He lights the flame while singing Shorty Wanna Be a Thug.

Three, we use the technology from the two-pack hologram, but we use it to create a Princess Diana hologram.

She magically lights the Olympic flame while also singing Shorty Wanna Be a Thug.

Apparently you can't have the hologram without that song for some reason.

Four, Judy Dench in a specially made safety burn suit sets herself on fire and runs around in a circle on a podium for the duration of the games.

And finally, five, Margaret Thatcher walks slowly but surely up to the Olympic cauldron and then sets it on fire just by looking at it.

I think all of those are pretty powerful suggestions Andy and I'd love to see any of them.

What happened in the badminton if you missed it was that four women's doubles teams were disqualified from the Olympics after deliberately trying to lose their final group games to secure an easier draw in the knockout round.

It looks bad when one team in a match tries that.

It looks terrible when both teams are simultaneously doing it.

It's not not technically cheating, but it did turn the crowd on them and did cause a badminton scandal.

And you don't often hear those two words anywhere near each other, Andy, badminton scandal.

In fact, there hasn't been a badminton scandal since 1986, I believe, when for a couple of days the then world champion Park Jubong was briefly thought to have caused the Chernobyl nuclear disaster with an Aaron Shuttlecock

until the investigation eventually blamed electrical engineering equipment and the use of graphite in construction materials.

But for 48 hours, it looked to have been the single worst combined badminton and nuclear reactor disaster in decades.

Badminton scandal used to open the bowling for Jamaica in the 1980s.

There was a great feature on the BBC Olympic website this week, which gives you a chance to find out, and I quote, your Olympic athlete body match.

Now, you can put your height and weight into the programme, and it will tell you which Olympian's body you most resemble.

So, So you know I'm about six feet and around 175 pounds so I put that in and it turns out that I'm most like Stefan Feck

the German Olympic three meter springboard diver

and also Ian Lewis the British men's team hockey player.

Now this means I technically have the body of an Olympic diver Andy.

That is a numerical fact.

It's not a visual fact but which do you trust more your eyes or numbers?

Exactly.

Without numbers, you wouldn't even have two eyes to see things with.

You just have some eyes.

That's my point.

So it turns out that I have the body of an Olympic diver, Andy, and I'm as pleased with that fact as I imagine Stefan Feck is angry with the fact that after a lifetime's dedication to carving his body into its perfect sleek form, he numerically has the body type of a 35-year-old British comedian.

Well, I did the same on that same test, John, and it turns out that I have exactly the same body

as the 15-year-old British gymnast, Rebecca Tummy.

Are you shy?

I mean, I haven't measured myself for a while, to be honest.

So I was just going on my last recorded

measurements from six months ago.

But, you know, then I was six stone

and four foot ten.

The point stands.

Interestingly, American politics and the Olympics combined on Thursday through Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee.

He's had a special connection to these games, not just because he seemed to imply that the London Olympics last week would be a bag of shit before they began,

but also because he actually owns one of the competitors in the Olympics.

His wife Anne had a horse competing in this Olympics in the sport of horse dressage, otherwise known as horse ballet, otherwise known as the single stupidest thing in the history of the world.

Not so stupid though, that there were not 23,000 fans who turned up to watch the horse dancing in Greenwich Park on Thursday.

Kudos to British sports fans, Andy.

They will turn up to watch anything, whether it's a sport or not, as long as it's called a sport.

If you called an old lady crossing the road a sport, Andy, you would have thousands of people turn up to watch her and millions more people complaining that there weren't any more tickets left to see it because they'd all been given away in corporate deals.

Well, that was basically the Jubilee, John.

And also, in the Beena Special Picnic Accessory Offer for the summer, we're offering you a free semaphork.

Eat your sandwich food on a scenic clifftop and communicate with passing shipping with the new semaphork.

Feature section now: Jubilee!

Oh,

party in the UK!

It's party time, Andy.

P-A-R-T.

Why?

Because the Queen has been on the throne for 60 finging years.

That's fing why.

England is about to embark on a four-day holiday weekend to celebrate the Queen sitting on the throne for 60 years and not dying once, Andy.

Not even once.

Well, it's very interesting, actually, the origin of bunting.

It course goes back to another very significant royal occasion, Queen Victoria,

when she got married.

And Bunting is in fact based on her wedding night knickers and bra and Prince Albert's posing pouch which after a rumbustious night of newly married royal mutual concrotulation and passionate du slouberage were seen dangling from the curtain rail of a Buckingham Palace window the following morning.

People instantly assume that the triangular pieces of fabric were a celebration of their happy nuptials rather than the result of the hamorous rending and hurling of undergarments during the matrimonial scrample stiltering.

And bunting became a standard part of all British royal celebrations, which is lucky because if they looked in the window on the other side of the bedroom, today's bunting would, instead of nice little triangles of material, look eerie like a gimp mask, whip, riding saddle, water machine gun, and roast chicken.

BQ also said that he has sold 3,100 Jubilee gnomes.

I know this is hard for other world citizens to understand, but British people like to commemorate any event with a gnome.

Who can forget the beautiful Queen Mother open gnome coffins that your gnome could lie in state for as long as she did?

So beautiful, Andy.

Also, the new line of Leveson Inquiry gnomes have proven very popular this year, so you can have your own parliamentary media investigation at the bottom of your garden.

on the campaign trail.

I met a family in Delaware who were concerned about their taxes.

I met a teacher called Wes, who asked me to keep fighting for my healthcare plan.

I met a woman called Brianna, who had benefited from my back-to-work issues.

I met a squirrel called Keith, who agreed with my policy on Syria.

I met an antelope called Barry, who hates my opponents' views on stem cell research.

I sat on a bench called Christine, who talked about her belief in traditional marriage.

I ate a piece of cheese called Kyle, who wants to serve in Afghanistan.

Whether or not these people actually exist is debatable, Andy, they seem to merely function as hypothetical human shields.

Also, you never hear the negative.

You never meet anyone with a kind of negative story.

You never hear the negative.

That's true.

I was on the campaign trail in Delaware, and I met Mike and Cindy, who saying they're having trouble getting permission to build their fing dungeon.

and I said to them Mike Cindy that doesn't seem to be anything that I can do anything about and they said you're right Mr.

President it's just it's on my mind at the moment anyway good luck I won't be voting for you I don't know why I brought that up now but the truth is Mike Cindy

good good luck with the f dungeon I guess I shouldn't have mentioned it correct

boosting the local economy would people pay to go to the f dungeon how how how how did that boost the local economy well haven't it built.

Right, okay.

Yeah,

restrictive planning is destroying the American dream.

It is

strangling the small businessman.

Mike and Cindy's dungeon is emblematic of everything that is wrong with the Obama administration.

Actually, you see, there is that thing that, look, banks need to have enough collateral to be able to issue loans for f ⁇ ing dungeons.

That is trickle-down economics in its purest form.

You've got the builders building the f ⁇ ing dungeon.

You have the decorators decorating the fing dungeon.

You have Mike and Cindy inviting people around.

You have caterers catering the f dungeon.

We have to get the system moving Andy.

I'm going to build one.

We need to get America humping in dungeons again.

I think I saved myself there, right?

It's saying the f part that's a problem.

What a shame, because my point is valid.

Romney became YouTube's latest victim, putting him in another exclusive club in his life, this time one that includes Kramer from Seinfeld and the testicles of thousands of errant skateboarders.

He was caught on camera at a $50,000 a plate fundraiser back in May, which is already a little awkward in terms of optics in the current economy here in the US,

unless part of that meal is a check for $49,000.

The point is, during his speech...

Or a raw unicorn testicle.

During his speech, no one would begrudge that.

He was recorded talking about poor people with the tone of a Dickensian villain, saying, and I quote,

There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.

There are 47% who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them, who believe that they're entitled to health care, to food, to housing.

My job is not to worry about those people.

I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Wow, Andy.

I don't think I've ever heard a sentence that feels more like it featured the word peasants, even though it technically didn't.

He sounds like a French aristocrat.

He should be wearing a powdered wig and a beauty spot and standing next to a topiary kangaroo.

Well, he's hit back at the video saying that he stands by its contents, although he admits that his sentiments were not elegantly stated.

But here's the problem, problem, Andy.

He's never sounded more comfortable than he did in that video.

He's notoriously a stiff man who has struggled to emotionally connect with people.

But in that video, for the first time I've ever seen him, his shoulders were relaxed, he sounded completely at home, and you realize that is where he's truly happiest.

At dinners where each person is paying $50,000 and you get to whine about poor people.

As a result, his poll numbers have been sinking like a lead octopus, and his popularity has not just gone through the floor, but he's personally kicked it down the stairs into a special dungeon.

It does seem, John, that socially, Romney has the delicate touch of a Randy rhinoceros in a china shop full of figurines of hot lady rhinoceroses.

And he's about as empathetic as a vicar at a funeral, jumping up onto the edge of his pulpit, wearing a replica Grim Reaper kit, sticking his arms in the air, and shouting, Woo!

You're dead!

You can't breathe.

You can't sing.

You can't do a fing thing.

Ah!

Underground.

Underground.

You're lying in a box and you're going underground.

Underground.

Where's your pals gone?

Where's your pals gone?

Stand up if you're not a corpse.

Stand up

if you're not.

You're cold.

You're stiff.

Your family's quite miffed.

You're dead.

Eye oi oio.

Up to the cemetery you go.

You were someone's granddad.

They're crying tears of woe.

But you'll be gobbled up by worms or else you'll decompose.

E-O-E-O-L-E.

Rickomochis.

Rickomochis.

Holy, ooh, eh, holy.

Amen.

We will now sing hymn number 216.

You're dead and you know you are.

He's like that vicar, John.

That is what he's like.

Oh my god.

Andy, you may just have made the next funerals that all of us go to a little awkward.

But I know what I should not shout now.

So, I should definitely not shout that, even though every pulse in my body wants me to.

The second of three presidential debates.

This took on an extra importance after it seemed like President Obama had fallen asleep for moments before the first one and accidentally sleepwalked onto the stage, only to wake up a couple of hours later saying, I just had the strangest dream.

I dreamt that Mitt Romney handed me my own arse in a debate.

I must have eaten way too much cheese before taking that nap.

Amazing what fed up things your mind can conjure up.

Anyway, what time does the debate start?

This second debate, or formal argument, was here in New York, and it was town hall style, meaning that the questions were posed from the audience, and a moderator was on hand to make sure that everything went smoothly.

But rather than smoothly, it went aggressively instead.

And that is hardly a surprise, because town hall style essentially means just removing the podiums and leaving the candidates free to wander around the stage.

But as so often happens with these type of debates, the simple act of removing the podiums seems to make the candidates want to kill each other.

Podiums seem to be the great pacifier and so it'd be interesting to see if it worked in reverse.

If two sumo wrestlers were about to fight Andy and you pop two podiums in front of each of them I think they'd instinctively just spend the entire bout arguing with each other instead.

And we should take it one step further.

Let's be airdropping podiums Andy into trouble spots around the world.

Let's airdrop them onto the Syrian army and force them to stop their tanks, get out and just shout at rebel towns instead.

It's got to be worth trying.

Romney said that Obama and his campaign team had been trying to characterise him, quotes, as someone who's very different than who I am.

And you can see why Romney's upset about that, because that is exactly what he himself is trying to do.

We've seen exactly the man he is on the hidden camera footage.

And he knows that the real Mitt Romney is electoral kryptonite.

He frankly should should be thanking Obama if they're showing him as someone different to who he actually is.

Some extraordinary things that he said, in particular the binders full of women comment.

Yes.

Which, I mean, it's always an electoral risk, John, I think, to pass off one of the world's leading genders as slightly annoying paperwork, or maybe as a catalogue to be perused on the toilet while you're having your Sunday shit.

It's a slightly dehumanising collective noun, that term.

It could have been worse.

I mean, he could have said

that they brought us whole trailers full of women whom I now keep chained up in my special Romney dungeon

that would make him more interesting than I think he has the capacity to be lastly because 13 days from the election a new national poll has given Romney a lead of 50 to 47 among likely voters now it's a poll Andy so as such it's at least 60% bullshit but even so that sound you might be able to hear is the sound of my balls crawling up into my stomach at the prospect of Willard Romney in the White House, one of the smallest houses he's ever lived in.

Top story this week, America is in electoral labor and is about to shit out another president.

Push America!

Push!

Andy.

A presidential election in America is a marathon.

You know, it goes on for a ridiculously long time.

There's a lot of shouting of support, and we're now approaching the point towards the end where the body is threatening to shut down completely.

There's a lot of questioning of why the country has put itself through this and everyone is about to lose control of their bowels and exhaustion.

That's basically the mood here Andy and it's going to take more than an isotonic sport string to replenish the souls that have been destroyed by the tone of this campaign.

Top story this week, the election is over.

It is over Andy and Barack Obama was re-elected president.

But more importantly, the election is over.

It's over.

Free at last.

Free at last.

Thank God Almighty, we are free of this bullshit at last.

Well, Andy, despite Florida's best efforts in finally finishing counting their votes two days after they were supposed to, this election is now fully over.

A winner has been declared in every state and President Obama has been re-elected as America's new old president.

And that whooshing sound was the bullets that almost every country in the world dodged with a Romney presidency.

Unless you live in Pakistan, in which case that whooshing sound was an Obama drone strike whizzing past your house.

Either way, we all got lucky.

Also, good news for Mitt Romney, because being president is frankly a really shit job, and I would not wish

on my worst enemy, which explains why I've never voted for either Osama bin Laden, never already got on with him, the former Al-Qaeda frontman and professional scripture misinterpreter.

And I've also never voted for Sam Taylor, the former comedy critic from the Observer Observer newspaper.

Grindingly mediocre.

I was only on for 20 minutes.

He can't grind in 20 minutes.

And he went on to give the kind of fantastic speech that just made you wish that he could govern as well as he talks about governing.

Because when you listen to him deliver the kind of speech that brings a lump to your throat, you find yourself thinking, why can't someone like him ever be president?

Before reminding yourself, oh shit, he is president and he has been for the last four years except that guy on the stage giving the speech Andy has not been president it's been just a very tired man who looks a lot like him and has been trying to negotiate the bullshit minefield of DC politics I don't know if you can tell from the tone of my voice Andy or read between the lines but I am so so glad that this election is over This has been an incredibly expensive, incredibly cynical and incredibly depressing election.

Having said that, watching Herman Kane run for president was like watching the most entertaining car crash that I've ever seen.

If only it could have gone on longer.

2016.

Kane for 2016.

He has the official Bugle endorsement.

Don't rule it out, Andy.

He is as interested and as qualified then as he is now.

Also, lest we forget, this election has actually made US history, Andy, because it has never, ever before cost so much money to not become president.

Well, it's just the latest efforts to shovel out some of the financial shit from the Orgean stables of the European banking sector.

Basically, try to shovel it out with a kid's plastic bucket and spade.

And the problem is the feeling persists, John, that even if Hercules could clean all the horse shit from these particular Orgean stables, all he would find underneath is some stables made of horseshit and a load of horses cryptic crosswords tucked under their forelegs looking a bit pained in the stomach and saying oh that's gone right through me excuse me i may be sometime

basically europe as a continent which seems an inappropriate title for it in this this these circumstances as a continent europe has behaved financially like a man who got one testicle stuck in a george foreman grill

and rectified the situation by buying another george foreman grill with money it didn't have and slamming it shut on his other testicle so at least he looked vaguely symmetrical before saying, Help, help, I really need your help.

Lend me some money so I can buy a George Foreman grill to put my penis in.

Andy, I don't think I've ever understood the complications of what's happening in your economy better than after that sentence.

You may have just stumbled on the most incredible economic analysis that's been written over the last five years.

Literally, minutes after sending my first tweet, I mean, literally a handful of minutes, I got a message saying, You're terrible, go eat a bag of dicks.

That's democracy, John.

That is democracy.

You know, that is exactly the warm welcome that I was expecting, to be honest.

It's quite nice to get out of the way so soon.

I felt baptized in bile, but it was the speed of of it that most impressed me.

It was like the person involved had been waiting for six years since Twitter began, sitting up at their keyboard, fighting sleep, thinking he's gonna join Twitter.

I mean he's just he's going to and when he does I'll be there.

I'll be there with my bag of dicks comment swift as the wind.

Why don't you try and get a couple of hours rest, darling?

I'll watch the computer screen for you.

No,

it's too big a risk.

This is personal.

After that, Andy, I am truly sorry that it took me so long to join.

I just feel sorry for the false excitement that individual must have felt a few years ago when they thought I joined, only to realize they just sent a message saying go eat a bag of dicks to Jamie Oliver instead.

Something I'm sure he'd consider if the bag of dicks in question was nutritionally rich and well seasoned.

So, also, very good way to get right up to the minute death threats as well.

That's nice.

That's nice.

I haven't checked it recently, Andy, but I've got some of those to catch up on.

Just look up the world's leading troubled spots and make a little off-hand joke about them.

And within seconds, people will be telling you that you deserve to die or to crawl buck up your mother's caboodle.

I can't understand why I found it over these years so repellent, Andy.

It's clearly wonderful.

That's why that's one to me in the

made one little cricket-related related quip about Kashmir and that

unleashed a small amount of Twitter hell.

Thanks to you two I get told to f ⁇ myself every day on Twitter.

Yeah, I do.

So welcome to the pain.

I never think through the consequences of that, Chris.

I just think it's funny.

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.