Bugle 214 – A Few Bad Men

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Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 214 of The Bugle, the podcast that has now been running longer than Jesus and the Disciples with the top-selling 13-piece brass band in the Middle East region.

There, a little bit of levity.

That should help the area.

I'm Andy Zoltzman in the slightly less hotly disputed territory of London, promised to Britain by God in the Bible, if you read it backwards in a liverpadian accent, and in New York City, lent to the Americans by Britain in the Bible.

The man who would undoubtedly have been described by Neville Chamberlain as more trustworthy than Hitler.

It's the Shirley Bassey of Chauviz, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

And yes, as we speak, Andy, it seems like the Middle East is about to come up with another reason why President Obama may start to regret winning the election last week.

Because following rockets launched from the Gaza Strip into Tel Aviv, it seems like the area is once more doing what they do best, Andy.

Dancing into disaster, waltzing into war, congering into chaos, muggerainering their way into mayhem.

What they might like to do, Andy, is just look down at their wrists, which hopefully should have some wristbands around them that I sent over recently with the letters CTFD on them standing for calm the f down.

And hopefully they'll pause for thought and heed those letters before doing anything stupid.

I think actually the Bugle should form a charity, Andy, and airdrop wristbands on troubled spots around the world.

CTFD and GTFU bracelets.

Calm the f ⁇ down and grow the f ⁇ up.

There is almost no global flashpoint that cannot be seriously helped by those sentiments.

Well, we suggested in an Edinburgh show eight years ago now, John, that there should just be an aeroplane flying around the Middle East with a giant banner the whole time saying grow up and if only they'd put that into practice now John it'll be a much calmer place today.

They could have at least tried.

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

This week an everyday fitness section how to get fitter and stay in shape just doing everyday activities.

Number one, keep your tea, coffee, milk and sugar in separate rooms and where possible on separate floors in your house.

Necessitating brisk shuttle runs whenever you want a hot drink benefits medium twitch scuttle muscles and your gluteates.

Also when brushing your teeth place your toothbrush facing downwards in a vise then lie on the floor beneath it spread toothpaste directly onto your teeth and raise your head upwards to the waiting brush before waggling your head vigorously from side to side like a Serbian warlord denying something in The Hague.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

I think that might be the single stupidest thing I've ever heard.

This will benefit both your core abdominibles and your jugular flexoids.

And also when waiting for your change in a newspaper shop, stand as far back from the till as possible so you have to wait for your change, stretching your arm out and standing on tiptoes.

This will benefit your quadripleps, your inner pectavials and your dorsal rambulets.

And we also advise that you combine this with swerobics as advised in Bugle 196.

That section in the bin.

Top story this week, a few bad men.

Resignation roundup.

And this week, a hot new trend burst onto the scene, Andy, resigning in disgrace.

Anyone who was anyone was doing it.

Both General Petraeus and the director general of the BBC stepped down with not just clouds, but huge raging typhoons over their heads.

At first, General David Petraeus, the military hero more heavily decorated than a six-year-old's birthday cake, resigned as head of the CIA after it emerged that he'd had an affair with his biographer.

And this was something of a shock here in the US, Andy, as not only is David Petraeus something of a national hero, but he's notoriously formal and disciplined.

The words David Petraeus and sex scandal had, until this week, seemed to go together as naturally as the words Gandhi and street brawl.

The affair was uncovered during an FBI investigation into threatening emails.

What a TV show that would have been.

Mahatma Gandhi street brawl.

Can he train up a team of pacifists?

Violent hoodlums on the streets of India.

You want some?

Do you want some?

The affair was uncovered during

an FBI investigation into some threatening emails sent by Petroeus' biographer/slash mistress to Jill Kelly, a so-called social liaison for the military.

Seemingly, his mistress felt threatened by this other lady and decided to send her harassing messages, intentionally telling her to back off my man.

Well, I say my man, I guess he's technically his wife's man, but and also that my man is technically the husband that I'm currently cheating on, but you get my point.

Back the f ⁇ off, bitch!

And if this if this is already starting to sound like plot points to a daytime soap opera, then you haven't seen anything yet.

In fact, it might be easiest to absorb the torture events of this week in that format.

The story so far.

David Petraeus, the general, married father of two, director of the CIA and retired four-star general, resigned last Friday afternoon after it merged that he had stubbed his biographer, Paula Broadwell, the other lady married mother of two and West Point graduate Paula wrote in an in-depth biography of Petraeus the first draft of which was apparently a 240 page detailed description of the diameter of his penis after considerable publisher's notes it was later changed to a 240 page history of his military service instead Their secret stubbing was concealed by a covert system of saving draft emails and saving them in a joint email account, which was only uncovered when Paula started sending threatening emails to Jill Kelly.

Kelly, the other other lady, married, mother of three, Tampa resident socialite, unpaid military social liaison, party planner, and hot tamale.

When she received Paula's threatening email, she contacted Fred Humphreys, the FBI agent, who launched an FBI investigation, which he was quickly removed from when it emerged that he'd emailed shirtless photos of himself to Jill Kelly.

The other other lady, who it emerged during the investigation, was exchanging thousands of flirtatious emails with General General John Allen, the other, other, other man, four-star general and top U.S.

commander in Afghanistan, a position that he took over from David Petraeus,

the general.

And so, Andy, this whole sordid, although not actually that physically sordid, story comes full circle.

I guess it just proves the old age-old rule, John, as old as time itself, which says, if you are one of the highest-ranking officials in the world's current number one ranked superpower, and one of the most respected former soldiers in the world's biggest military nation, do not, if you can possibly help it, put your penis into the wrong person.

If there's just any way that can be avoided, do try to avoid it.

And I know, I mean, it seems odd, John, but it does seem that it's more difficult to control one penis than an army of 200,000 people, many of whom, ironically, also have penises.

Yeah.

But it's not a problem.

Maybe it's worth writing that on, you know, on his hand so he can read,

or definitely on his penis.

Just so that if he ever gets down there, look down at his penis.

Do you know what?

This was the one thing I was not supposed to do.

Maybe you can go with your wristbands, your CDSC wristbands.

You can have a special

penis band.

That's a great idea.

WWAFSGD.

What would a four-star general do?

That's right.

And

when you become a figurehead in an army, you should be given, just as you're given your fourth star, you should also be given that penis band.

There are penis bands out there on the market, but I think

they should actively encourage sex rather than...

Well, Prince Albert, of course, famously had a wang ring, didn't he?

I mean, that was the original penis band.

That was said, you are now married to the Queen of England.

Don't throw those in anyone else.

That's right.

That's right.

She insisted on that.

Yeah, I mean, the errant wang, prong-drabbling a contraband pluke, has, of course, been responsible for scandals and resignations since the dawn of time, or at least since 2500 BC, when 4th dynasty pharaoh Shepzescaf was caught in Flagrante with a woman called Dawn from the ancient Sumerian city of Time.

He elected not to be buried in a pyramid.

Instead, he was buried in a Mastaba tomb called the Mastabet al-El-Afaroun.

This is the fact.

Hold on, because it doesn't sound like a fact, Daddy.

Nothing is a fact.

It is a fact.

He was buried in a tomb called a Mastabet, whose name does suggest that he learnt his lesson and steered clear of sexual temptation.

In all.

God, this got blue fast this week.

This is not surprising.

In all this mess, there's actually only one confirmed affair, but it's been enough to plunge the military and the FBI into chaos all week with rumours flying around ranging from Paula Broadwell had access to classified documents to the entire Pentagon is a Bacchanalian f ⁇ fest.

Petraeus resigned almost immediately bringing.

Why did Mitt Romney not say that during the campaign?

Yeah.

You know, it couldn't have gone worse for him.

Petraeus, he lost almost all the swing states.

You know,

well, he may as well have thrown one out there.

Petraeus Ryan resigned almost straight away, bringing his long career of public service to a sadly grubby end.

And there are lots of questions that still remain, such as one, what the f was he thinking?

Two, did he expose the US to blackmail or jeopardise any national secrets?

Three, how does the director of the CIA get caught by email?

And four, seriously, what the f was he thinking?

As for General Allen, that is still under investigation and there's no evidence so far of any actual physical affair.

That would be a problem if there was, because under Article 134 of the United Joint Military Code, any adultery could get him jailed for a year, as that article forbids, and I quote, adulterous conduct has a tendency, because of its open or notorious nature, to bring the service into disrepute, make it subject to public ridicule, or lower it in the public esteem.

Andy, when you put it like that, oh, it just sounds so sexy.

I'm going to come over to your apartment and I'm going to expose the military to public ridicule and lower it in the public esteem.

And I'm going to do it all night long.

Damn.

There must have been some quite awkward talk between

General Petraeus and his

biographer.

Are you definitely not writing volume two?

Do you absolutely promise?

Okay, away you go.

Although I'm a bit disappointed already, because he resigned basically before the witch hunt had even got going.

I mean, that is not how you're supposed to let a scandal play out.

This could have run and run for a couple of months before he was finally handed out of office in disgrace.

I think this is a disgraceful case of jumping the gun before the media has had their fill.

Now,

just to reiterate, there is no evidence of a physical affair so far between General Allen and Jill Kelly, but the FBI apparently found between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of flirtatious emails between the two of them in the past year alone that they are currently going through.

Which also raises a lot of questions, such as one, what the f was he thinking?

Two, how the f did he have the time to send 30,000 flirtatious emails in a year when he was overseeing the war in Afghanistan?

Three, how the f does anyone have the time to send 30,000 flirtatious emails in a year, even when they're not overseeing a war?

Four, how does anyone send 30,000 flirtatious emails in a lifetime?

How is it possible there are 30,000 different flirtatious things to say?

And five, seriously, what the f was he thinking?

For all the attention and upheaval this has caused, it is actually a pretty low grade.

and unimpressive scandal as scandals go.

Some of my favorite reactions came from people in Pakistan who were interviewed on the streets of Karachi by the Global Post over the last week.

And many of the people spoken to were surprised by the level of honour showed by Petraeus in resigning.

Or, you know, the fact that they're so surprised by the level of honor of a man who cheated on his wife and used email tricks to try and cover his tracks.

Perhaps that shows more about the morality levels of Pakistani politicians than it does anything else.

But one vendor said, maybe he was just a man who fell in love.

I'd like to see a photograph of his lady.

I don't know quite how that would have cleared things up in his mind, Andy, but he seemed pretty sure that it would help.

Lots of the reaction though was understandably around one particular thing.

Faiz Mumtaz said, we're hopeful that this means less drones.

Now, again,

I don't know how Petraeus cheating on his wife might lead to less drone strikes, but I guess in their position, the Pakistanis, that's pretty much what you're hoping for whenever anything happens.

Oh, Drew Brees has just thrown a touchdown pass in a record 50 second consecutive game.

I hope this means less drones.

Oh, Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez have broken up.

I hope this means less drones.

Oh, President Obama is gonna ceremonially pardon some Thanksgiving turkeys next week in the White House.

I hope this means less fing drones.

Though, you know, that might be a bit of a stretch.

I guess the problem is when you give up hope, you just become numbers on a drone dartboard.

Because just to put those statements in context, in the last four years alone Obama has authorized nearly 300 drone strikes in Pakistan a country that the US is not technically at war with that's pretty impressive droning but it's going to be tough for Petraeus John has got to hand in all the perks of being CIA director salary of upwards of five thousand dollars a year the Bond style car that can project rotating blades from its wheels and fire a plume of flames from its windscreen wipers the personal CIA director's collection of professional rebels that he was entitled to send in to destabilise one government a year of his choice.

And of course, his CIA chair with the words Bertie Big Nut stitched across the back.

It's all about the perks.

It's never about the salary, that job.

It's all about the perks.

It goes right back to Hoover.

It really is extraordinary.

A man who's won so many military medals could lapse in judgment so much.

So he's won more military medals than most people have watched war films.

Although one of his medals was for getting through saving Private Ryan without saying, well, that really tailed off, didn't it?

Four-star general as well.

That's a pretty good review, John.

I mean, I would buy a ticket to see him do some war just on the back of that.

Be guaranteed to get good quality warfare.

Maybe not the brilliance and originality of a five-star general, but certainly much better than a humdrum predictable three-star general.

I mean, of course, you might pay to go and see a one-star general just to see what makes them so bad, or a bit of a laugh just to see some really shit war, but to be honest, that's your own money you're wasting.

Even the Taliban have had a response to the Petraeus petraeus affair because when it was mentioned to a uh quoted stony faced taliban official during an interview with the afp this we need to put those words in there i know i know i know

yeah not the lightest personality uh when it was mentioned to him uh during an interview he and i quote literally laughed out loud

before going on to point out the differences in the response to the scandal that they would have had this taliban official said from a pashtun point of view petraeus should be shot by relatives from his mistress's family.

From a Sharia point of view, he should be stoned to death.

All of that, Andy, is apparently some material from his Pashtuns versus Sharia comedy album.

Pashtuns killed adulterers like this.

Peow, peow, peow!

Whereas Sharia's killed adulterers like this.

Passed me that jagged one.

I'm here all week.

Do not tip your waitresses.

They should not be here.

And even, and yeah, even the Taliban official, Andy, even he did not think this particular scandal was a big deal, saying, and again, I quote, it's quite normal for Americans and Western people to behave like this.

They live in free sex societies where no one cares about this sort of thing.

So what do you expect?

That's the problem, Andy.

All of this, relatively speaking, is pretty tame.

And when you're an empire, when you're leading the world, your scandals are frankly supposed to be better than this.

Caligula turned his palace into a brothel, had sex with his sisters, appointed his horse to be a priest, and once, when presiding over some games, he ordered his guards to throw an entire section of the crowd into the arena during the interval because there were no criminals to be prosecuted and he was bored.

Even now...

There are other countries putting the US to shame with scandals.

In the UK in 1994, MP Stephen Milligan was found dead, partly naked, partly cross-dressed, mid-auto-rotigas asphyxiation, with an electric cord around his neck and an orange in his mouth.

That is a f ⁇ ing scandal, Andy.

All Petraeus did was shut someone who wasn't Mrs.

Petraeus.

America's lost its edge, John.

It's so sad.

And now, a quick David Petraeus quiz.

Question one of one.

David Petraeus is known as Peach's Petraeus.

Why was he so called?

A.

If you don't know the answer, you've clearly never seen him coming out of the shower.

B,

because he's soft and squiddy on the outside with smooth downy skin but has a tough, indigestible core.

C, because he lasts longer but becomes less tasty if he's kept in the fridge.

D, because he's obsessed with Peaches Geldof and has the tattoo of the celebrity daughter on his left buttock.

Or E, because when he was a child, other children found the word Petraeus too difficult to say, very much like baseball commentators finding poo-choles too difficult to say and saying poo-holes instead.

Do write your answers on your own hand and then refer to the internet.

UK resignation news now.

And in the UK this week, the Jimmy Saville scandal has raged on and has indirectly led to the resignation and disgrace of Director General George Entwhistle after just 54 torrid days on the job.

And for those of you who haven't been following this story or don't know who Jimmy Saville is, congratulations, but your innocence is now going to be destroyed, which is something it turns out Jimmy Saville was particularly good at.

It turns out that he was a serial child molester with over 300 people now coming forward and saying they were abused by him.

Jimmy Saville was an iconic figure for the BBC for over half a century famously presenting the popular prime time show Jim will fix it where children would write to him and he would grant their wishes.

Essentially he was a sexually abusive Santa Claus.

Sir Jimmy Saville, because yes, Sir Jimmy Saville, he was knighted and not just by the Queen, but also by the Pope who awarded him a papal knighthood.

Strange, Andy, that the Catholic Church could not spot a predatory sex offender even when he was right in front of them.

It's just not like them, is it?

Sometimes when these things are too close, you don't see them.

Yeah.

Anyway, he died last year, and a BBC investigative programme was pulled off air at the last minute before Christmas, and a tribute.

to Jimmy Savile was run in its place instead.

In the wake of that poor decision, the BBC then ran an investigation into events at a children's home in Wales in the 1980s, and in it, a former senior Conservative politician was wrongly accused of child abuse.

And this, what was already a qualified clusterfuffle Andy, became what the Australians would call a real f ⁇ aroo.

Yeah, the BBC has been engulfed by this veritable controver shitstorm ever since it emerged.

That savile, as you say, one of their star presenters for decades, had got away with being a nuclear-grade sex offender under the clever disguise of dressing like such an obvious pervert that everyone assumed it was an act.

Apart from the people who knew it wasn't but kept stumb, and the victims whose allegations were brushed off, ignored, or kept secret for years due to them not feeling able to report their hideous crimes, a state of affairs which has to be considered a catastrophic and spectacular

social owned goal by Britain as a nation that is slightly getting forgotten about amidst all the furore over the BBC.

But all in all, it's about as unsavoury as news and humanity can possibly get.

So, what better better time, John, for Entwistle to take over as Director General of the BBC than a couple of months ago when this was all about to kick off?

Entwistle undoubtedly inherited this job at a tricky time.

Look at golfer John in a pairs competition whose partner has shanked it off the tee and left the ball in a muddy puddle in the trees 50 yards off the fairway.

Tough lie, tough recovery shot needed and Entwistle assessed the situation, he tested the wind, he plotted his course towards the green, he picked his club, took a couple of gentle practice swings and then smashed the ball as hard as possible 180 degrees the wrong way, sending the ball via an old man's head through a priceless church window before ricocheting into the lion enclosure in an adjacent zoo whilst in his follow-through, smashing himself in the nuts.

Tough shot, badly played, John.

Very badly played.

Because he resigned after one of the most awkward interviews in the history of human communication.

At least since Jesus and God had the you're gonna do what to me, Dad, conversation, in which Entwistle revealed that he'd not been aware that News Nights was about to broadcast his allegations against Lord McAlpine, then that he hadn't actually seen it because he'd been out, then that he hadn't read the media coverage of the foray because he'd been busy doing a speech, also that he wasn't really concentrating during the interview anyway because he was thinking about football, that he didn't watch much tele because he preferred playing World of Warcraft, and that he hadn't seen the news since 2004 because he found it a bit boring, and instead guessed the news by looking at people's faces on public transport.

Now, not all of that is true, but the fact that any of it is true is basically why he had to quit.

And also, I think the BBC could easily have...

I mean, clearly, it's a terrible thing to do.

I don't think I'm going out on a limb here when I say that it is bad to falsely accuse people of being sex offenders.

I mean, I think we're probably all on the same page here.

Chris.

Yes, I concur, Andy.

But they could just.

It's a social don't.

Yeah.

Well, they could just.

It can really bring a party to its knees if you do that.

Conversationally, it's poor form.

They could merely have balanced this out, John, by telling some more lies about him that showed him in a really good light instead.

That he was five-time European bicycle dress arse champion, held the World Pole Vault record for 15 years, and wrote the libretto and score of Exile on Main Street for the Rolling Stones.

Balance these things out, John.

Doesn't allow negative.

The man falsely accused in the programme said it was terrifying to find himself a figure of public hatred overnight, arguing in an interview with the BBC that he should have been contacted before broadcast, which makes you think, wait, hold on, he wasn't contacted.

I think it's basic human politeness to tell someone that you're about to out them as a child sex offender.

I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be labeling you with the worst thing any human being could have attached to their name tomorrow during a programme.

I was wondering if you had any comment on that.

Apparently he was on south, he was in southern Italy at the time, I guess on holiday, and said, I don't have television, I don't get newspapers, we don't have the internet.

To suddenly find out I was mixed up in all this and that and I didn't know what Newsnight was going to say, it really was a horrendous shock.

And that must have been a tough moment, Andy, to turn your email back on and see, you have hate mail.

30,000 messages with the subject line, I am going to kill you.

Another offshoot of this whole sordid story happened on ITV television

when Philip Schofield who presents a daytime show of absolutely no discernible points um

that's

that is a that's a bad review

I mean you get it to scientific fact John

you could say you could say that about that's such a great review for any number of TV shows a program of no discernible point

he had the Prime Minister on the show and the Prime Minister was on the show for absolutely no discernible points.

And Philip Schofield handed David Cameron a list of prominent people who had been implicated online in this pedophilia scandal in one of the most irresponsible pieces of TV presenting in the history of the universe.

And Cameron, to his eternal credit, resisted the temptation to reply by saying, for f ⁇ k's sake, you imbecile.

This is a deeply responsibility.

Be cynically opportunist and C morally reprehensible.

Now f off back to children's television where you belong.

Actually, on second thoughts, that might be an error.

But disappointingly, he also missed the chance to receive this bit of paper, look at it for a couple of seconds and say, Philip Schofield?

You should have read this before you gave it to me.

Breaking resignation news and God has resigned from his post as managing director of the Middle East.

The 13 billion-year-old professional deity cited personal reasons for stepping down and also a desire to pursue other career goals and new planets.

It is thought the self-proclaimed almighty ruler of all has become increasingly frustrated at the continued squabbling in the region where he first built his personal profile and follower base several thousand years ago.

In an emotional press conferences attended by the world's media and gospel writers, God, a single white male of all fixed abodes, expressed regret that he'd been unable to persuade his followers to work with a common purpose to the overall benefit of the religion as a whole.

With hindsight, he said, I've made a significant strategic misstep when I split the franchise in two, then three main sub-franchises who have become increasingly competitive both with each other and internally with themselves, as they have in turn split into sub-franchises which seem insistent on working at cross purposes.

Very cross most of the time.

On the cross, sometimes.

It's been a catalogue of hostile takeover bids that makes 21st century big business look like a cake stall at Village Fate.

As a result, the entire business has eaten into its own profitability and credibility and overall, as MD, the buck stops with me.

God's stint in charge of of the region has not been without controversy itself.

His extramarital affair with Mary H.

Christ just over 2,000 years ago caused considerable ruptions in the area, whose repercussions continue to repercuss to this day.

He's also been accused of complacency in his refusal to communicate with his followers directly for about 2,000 years, as well as of excessive vengefulness and contravening human rights legislation with his obsession with plagues of stuff.

It is not yet clear what God will do in the short term, although he is rumoured to be in talks with various publishers over the long-awaited third instalment of his hit Bible trilogy, which was left tantalizingly unfinished after a disappointing part two, which frankly stretched credibility even more than the already outlandish part one.

Guys living to 960 years old, magicians turning a few fish finger saunas into a meal for 5,000.

Not exactly Ernest fing Hemingway, is it?

Here endeth the lesson.

Divided state of America news now!

And last week, Andy, I pointed out that every single US election ends with just under 50% of the population absolutely devastated.

And that has proven to be even more true this week, as apparently more than 100,000 Americans have petitioned the White House to ask that their states be allowed to secede from the Union after the re-election of Barack Obama.

Wow, and it would, that's not just sour grapes.

Those grapes are so sour, they are a functioning vinegar at this point.

The appeals were filed on the White House's We the People website, which guarantees any petition an official White House response as long as they can gather 25,000 signatures.

And giving the American people a website like that, Andy, is like giving a child a tambourine.

They can't be trusted with it and they're going to make an ungodly noise.

Now, 100,000 signatures may sound like a lot, protesting the president, until you remember that just last week, the US had 60 million people vote in favor of him.

So that should take the sting off it a little bit.

A lot of people have got very, very angry about this, John,

including a pregnant wife who ran over her husband for not voting for Romney.

She said she was

so angry

at the prospect of Obama staying in office and her husband not bothering to vote for Romney that she ran him over with a car.

Now, I love democracy big time, John.

I really, really love it.

But I try not to let it intrude on my marriage too much.

And besides, you know, that is

one of the first things you learn when you're learning to drive a car is do not run people over in a fury about their politics.

Also, I don't know the couple involved personally, Andy.

Let me say that straight away.

But I have to believe that that might be displacement frustration for other issues in that relationship.

I don't believe that was a healthy marriage up to the point

that he did not vote for Romney.

And a Florida man committed suicide after the election and left a note on his body saying, do not revive, f Obama.

Which, well, what a way to peg out that is.

I think that is taking it too hard, John.

Well, most of the 20 states

with petitions for secession voted for Republican Mitt Romney, I guess, unsurprisingly.

And the Texas petition has already reached the 25,000 signature mark, at which point the White House promises a response.

And it must be very tempting indeed for them to respond, all right, f off then.

That is the kind of temptation I would definitely not be able to resist.

And I guess that's one of the many reasons that I am not in politics.

In response to some of this madness, other people in Texas have tried to go a different way.

Because while Texas is petitioning to secede from the Union, Austin, Texas is petitioning to secede from Texas itself.

Their official petition states, we petition the Obama administration to peacefully grant the city of Austin, Texas to withdraw from the state of Texas and remain part of the United States.

I'm not even sure that the rest of Texas would even put up much of a fight over that either.

And the petition goes on to say, Austin, Texas continues to suffer difficulties stemming from the lack of civil, religious, and political freedoms imposed upon the city by less liberally minded Texans.

It is entirely feasible for Austin to operate as its own state within the United States in the event that Texas is successful in the current bid to secede.

It's important for Austin to remain in the Union, as to do so would protect its citizens' standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers.

We would also like to annex Dublin, Texas, Lockhart, Texas, and China, Texas.

Going on to say, seriously, you people have no f ⁇ ing idea what it's like living down here.

We need help fast.

Well, they could do just Texas for Puerto Rico on a kind of one-out-one-in basis, couldn't they?

For some people, the reason to want to secede comes from a very personal frustration.

The petition for Alabama, Alabama secession, was started by a man called Derek Belcher.

And

Believe me, you do not need to see him to know that his name fits his face.

His petition has also already crossed the 25,000 signature mark.

He is furious and blames the federal government for shutting down his former business, which is apparently a topless car wash.

And that is not a car wash specializing in top-down convertibles, Andy.

It's a car wash specializing in top-down ladies.

It was apparently a successful business in Mobile, Alabama, until he was arrested and charged with obscenity in 2001.

He said, the government ripped my business away and now they're choking America to death with rules and regulations.

I guess there's a couple of things that Senor Belcher is getting a little confused about in his anger, Andy.

One, that Obama was not president in 2001.

And two, that all those cars that came to be washed by his whapped-out women all drove there on government-funded roads.

But you know what?

I'm going to leave it there, Andy, because, and I cannot stress this enough, I have no desire to get into an argument with a topless car wash owner called Derek Belcher.

Again.

Again.

Your emails now and well a few of you have emailed in expressing well, I mean a mixture of concern disgust, and admiration about the presidential pun run that closed last week's show.

You've repressed that memory, Andy, so I don't know what they're referring to.

Carl Archer described it as a presidential pun run of biblical proportions.

I say biblical proportions because after I listened to it, I felt as if I was being crucified.

Nailed in place without the ability to use my hands and suffering for the sins of all mankind.

That is wow, nicely put.

so that sounds like a challenge um but i'm gonna try and stay clean for the rest of the year though it's gonna be tough i'm gonna need your help john i'm gonna try and stay clean um and this email came in from michaelie or michelle that could be either couldn't it

let's go with

it's probably michelle let's go with michelle Dear Andy, John, and Chris, I would like to nominate the newly elected governor of Sicily, Rosario Croquetta, for your big brass balls award.

Governor Croquetta is both openly gay and openly anti-mafia, and that is, frankly, a social Molotov cocktail.

At least three attempts have been made on his life.

According to Reuters, Crocetta said he planned a raft of anti-mob measures as well as boosting gay and other civil rights.

He was Italy's first openly gay mayor, seeing no conflict with his strong beliefs as a gospel-quoting Roman Catholic.

It's my fervent hope that Signore Croquetta has a long and successful career and dies of natural causes.

In other words, during sex, which is a natural cause for Italian politicians.

That's right, it's a way to go.

102 and is carried to his grave by a cadre of hot oiled-up Italian men wearing speed-os.

Yes.

Michelle Mantinen.

That is outstanding.

Yeah.

That is what a mayor.

Good for him.

Yeah, I mean, if you're openly, again, openly anti-mafia, if you have any sense of self-preservation, the last thing you do is try to become governor of Sicily.

So you can only admire

its big

brass balls.

Competition time now.

Well, Buglers, some time ago, about a year ago, in fact, we promised you some bugle merchandise.

We've been promising you that intermittently ever since.

And to be honest, we've been a bit disorganized about it.

And it hasn't happened yet.

We've been sort of piddling around trying to finalise a logo for longer than is, with hindsight, credible.

So we're now going to open this out to you, the listeners.

What we're looking for for our logo is basically the font and the letters that you can see on the website or on the little image with the Bugle Twitter feed.

And either side of those letters, we want images or caricatures of me and John, specifically mine and John's faces, to go either side of that.

So this is for our actual logo.

So please bear that in mind.

This is not like the coat of arms competition.

We do not want defecating bulls or penis and testicle combos.

Not this time,

unless you genuinely can't think of anything else.

We want something that we can actually use.

Terms and conditions will be posted on the the bugle websites thebuglepodcast.com you can find it there plus details of the uh what price you'll get for it which we haven't fully finalized but there will be some uh some reward of some kind for doing that the uh we're going to set the closing date um at the seventh or the sixth of december thursday the sixth of December and uh please send any entries to bugle logo at gmail.com that is bugle logo one word at gmail.com and we promise as soon as this is finalized the long-awaited bugle merch this ruthlessly commercial operation that we've become

will be heading your way honestly

sport now and Frankl the recently retired unbeaten super horse has turned down offers to become a Hollywood star test himself by running in NASCAR open a boutique or play the romantic lead in an extremely controversial pantomime and has instead opted to become a prostitute Frankel, who won all 14 of his races, is to become an equine gigolo, servicing lady horses for the princely sum of £125,000 a hump.

His owner and horse pimp, Prince Khaled Abdullah, is expected to whore out Frankl's nag love to 100 horse honeys a year, earning the celebrity quadruped £12 million annually.

That's £6 million annually per horse bollock.

The prince described Frankl as, quote, a sensitive lover, if you're a horse with a terrific butt, and a real horsewives favourite who will do anything apart from kiss on the lips and is, and I quote, hung like a horse.

Frankl himself was unavailable for comments, although he was overheard naying, I'm not a fing piece of meat.

Although that was whilst galloping drunkenly past a French bistro in London's glamorous Soho description, after being seen staggering out of China White's nightclub with fellow celebrity, the actress and humanitarian Kristen Stewart.

As well as costing 125 grand for a straight one-hour rut, Frankl is also available for a cut-price 200 grand for a three-way, but refuses to sell himself for any SM activities.

he nayed I've had enough of my ass being whipped

that's all the sport uh quick forecasts uh we've got a week off next week uh for you to get busy with your uh bugle logo uh entries uh also thanksgiving for thanksgiving thanksgiving in america john what are you going to give thanks for this year apart from the election being over that mainly that andy because you know i really i i'm deeply thankful for it being over i can't overstress that i don't know if that came across last week um

i'm really truly thankful that this election is over.

So that's mainly it.

I'm also going off to India, firstly, to try and cure my Foster syndrome

and also to watch some cricket and to do some gigs.

I'm going to be in Mumbai at the Bonobo next Thursday, the 22nd, and the following Wednesday, the 28th, at the Hotel Bower Continental in the Juhu district of Mumbai, plus a charity gig in the 27th, and hopefully a show or two in Calcutta in early December.

Details will be posted on the at Hello Bugloose and at Zaltz Cricket Twitter feed.

So if you are in India, buglers,

do come along.

Do you happen to be passing through India?

Yeah, or if you happen to be living in India, which I guess is more likely.

We have some Indian buglers.

We do have, yeah, definitely have some Indian buglers.

So we'll be back in two weeks' time.

We're going to have a fill-in show next week.

Chris, I think you've got something pretty exciting planned, haven't you?

It's going to be amazing.

Right.

That's all I'm telling you.

Okay, you haven't told us much about it.

I'm getting slightly concerned.

It's all right.

I won't do any damage to your reputation that isn't already out there.

Wow, that was qualified at the end.

And then the next couple of weeks, Andy is going to be bugling from India.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'll be probably Bombay and then Calcutta for those two bugles.

That's going to be a big, again, three time zones.

Chris will be in London.

John will be in the States.

I'll be in India.

Thank you, Alexander Graham Bell, for inventing the concept of communication.

And don't forget, send your emails to info at thebuglepodcast.com and your logo entries.

Yes.

Basically, images of my face and John's face to go easily.

That is paper over those cracks.

Yeah, good luck with them, Bran.

Too easily caricatured.

Picasso your way out of that one.

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.