Bugle 213 – Free At Last!

Speaker 1 I will be in Australia for the next few weeks, hoping that the cricket can provide the distraction for everyone that it has so successfully provided for me since I was six years old.

Speaker 1 If you want to come to my shows, there is a Bugle Live in Melbourne on the 22nd of December, where I'll be joined by Sammy Shar and Lloyd Langford.

Speaker 1 And I'm doing the Zoltgeist, my stand-up show in Melbourne on the 23rd of December. And we've just added a possibly optimistic extra show in Sydney on the 3rd of January.

Speaker 1 The 2nd of January show is sold out, but please, please, please come on the 3rd. My UK tour extension begins at the end of january all details and ticket links at andysaltzman.co.uk

Speaker 3 this is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

Speaker 2 the bugle audio newspaper for a visual world

Speaker 2 hello buglers and welcome to issue 213 of the bugle audio newspaper for a visual world for the the week beginning Monday, the 12th of November 2012, with me, Andy Zaltzmann in the multi-cathedral city of London, and joining me thanks to the technology that has put carrier pigeons out of business.

Speaker 2 From the land that was this week freed from the yoke of democracy for at least the next two and a half years until the whole rigmarole chunders back into life for the controversial 2016 Schwarzenegger vs.

Speaker 2 Lawrence Armstrong election.

Speaker 2 It's the Virgil of vote analysis, the Sophocles of syphology, the Plato of president picking, the Euripides of you'll never believe how much that cost, and the Homer of how much, and the Thucydides of Thank f for that.

Speaker 2 It's John, the human ballot paper, Oliver. Hello, Andy.
Hello, buglers. You're right, Andy.
I'd never considered that, you know, the early podcasts were probably carried by pigeons. Yep.

Speaker 2 And there would have been some pretty suicidal pigeons carrying forth your bullshit puns across the Atlantic.

Speaker 2 Constantly tempted just to dive down into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and let the cold, unforgiving water take them.

Speaker 2 I'm indeed here in New York.

Speaker 2 I'm indeed here in New York. Let's just hope you don't have to pay for that at some point during this show.

Speaker 2 In New York, no sooner had we started to recover from the hurricane, Andy, than a massive winter storm blew in, meaning that most people had to walk home from work on Wednesday through a fing blizzard.

Speaker 2 An early November blizzard. It was the day after the election, Andy.
There should have been rainbows, not fing ice storms. There is some grade A weather bullshit going on in this city, city, Andy.

Speaker 2 This is either God's fault, or Al Gore's fault, or humanity's fault, or the planet's fault. Either way, one of those fkers owes this city an apology.

Speaker 2 This is the Bugle for the Week being Monday, the 12th of November, 2012, meaning it is 120 years since William Pudge Heffelfinger became the first ever professional American football player.

Speaker 2 In 1892, setting in train a tradition of pro-footballers having frankly ridiculous names. A trailblazer.

Speaker 2 And 85 years since Trotsky was giving his marching orders out of the Communist Party in Russia and spent the rest of his life trying not to be assassinated.

Speaker 2 And it worked, but unfortunately, he was eventually killed when a thirsty KGB operative mistook him for a block of ice.

Speaker 2 Top story this week, and obviously in this week of all weeks, there is only one place to start with the news that came out.

Speaker 2 Everyone around the world's awake through the night at historic moments in social history. Good news for some people, viewed as a disaster by others.

Speaker 2 And that news, of course, was the news that coffee is extinct. Well, what? Or could be extinct in 70 years' time.
That's Arabica coffee, wild Arabica coffee.

Speaker 2 But Boffins in laboratories have claimed the entire genetic sustainability of coffee as a species is under threat, John, and that coffee could be dead by this time next century.

Speaker 2 That's all coffee, John. See, here's the thing, Andy.

Speaker 2 Now, especially now with the level of tiredness i feel at the moment the very notion of the possibility of coffee going extinct is so alarming that i cannot even joke about it this does not seem like a subject for comedy andy no that's that's my really my second complaint the first complaint is that that cannot be a top story andy because what the f are you talking about andy top story this week the election is over

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 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 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 now the truth is Andy that this election ended like any other American election ends with just under 50% of the electorate absolutely devastating

Speaker 2 because that's the way it goes here in this country under a two-party system America has become as divided as one of King Solomon's babies. Unhealthily, straight down the middle.

Speaker 2 There is no doubt that, like Florida, this is not a good state for American democracy to be in.

Speaker 2 Because, not to labour a point, I'm not sure what the f Florida thought they were doing, Andy, because this is all over, no thanks to them. The result was announced before midnight.

Speaker 2 on Tuesday, which was surprisingly quickly and certainly a lot earlier than most Americans had braced themselves for because when you have a presidential election, Andy, that involves the state of Florida, which unfortunately is most of them, you have to prepare yourself for the worst.

Speaker 2 I wasn't just ready for a long night. I was ready for a long few weeks.

Speaker 2 I'd stocked up on canned goods and candles in the office just in case Broward County decided they wanted to start f ⁇ ing with the rest of the country again.

Speaker 2 Well, it just seemed the,

Speaker 2 well, clearly the American people are split, but the American media also seems split on, as you say, whether America had in fact dodged a bullet or whether it had deliberately stood in the way of a bullet and head-buttered it while shouting bang.

Speaker 2 And it's very,

Speaker 2 you know, it's a bit too early to say, you know, who this is good news and bad news for. I guess an Obama victory is very good news, as you suggested, for the Pakistan roofing industry.

Speaker 2 Also good news for Mitt Romney, because being president is frankly a really shit job, and I would not wish it on my worst enemy, which explains why I've never voted for either Osama bin Laden, never really got on with him, the former al-Qaeda frontman and professional scripture misinterpreter.

Speaker 2 And I've also never voted for Sam Taylor, the former comedy critic from the Observer newspaper.

Speaker 2 Grindingly mediocre. I was only on for 20 minutes.
You can't grind in 20 minutes.

Speaker 2 The point is, Andy, this election has left me an empty husk. This election season and this election week took what was left of both my energy and my will to live.

Speaker 2 And if the result had gone a different way, it might have taken the rest of my faith in human nature as well.

Speaker 2 And so, once more, President Obama walked out onto a stage in Grant Park in front of an adoring crowd who gave him a messianic response despite having four years of pretty hard concrete evidence that this was far from a perfect president, let alone the Messiah.

Speaker 2 And he went on to give the kind of fantastic speech that just make you wish that he could govern as well as he talks about governing.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 This has been an incredibly expensive, incredibly cynical, and incredibly depressing election. Having said that,

Speaker 2 watching Herman Kane run for president was like watching the most entertaining car crash that I have ever seen. If only it could have gone on longer.
2016. Kane for 2016.

Speaker 2 He has the official Bugle endorsement. Don't rule it out, Andy.
He is as interested and as qualified then as he is now.

Speaker 2 Also, lest we forget, this election has actually made U.S. history, Andy, because it has never, ever before cost so much money to not become president

Speaker 2 that is something it's well what does he spend it was almost what it was almost two billion dollars was it or I've seen various figures bandied around between two and six billion dollars on the overall cost of the campaign I mean I guess you know I mean that's pocket money for Romney but um you know it does seem like they could possibly have spent it on better things maybe just you know a giant

Speaker 2 50 meter high statue of Herman Kane dressed as Abraham Lincoln perhaps

Speaker 2 well I think I think it's a fair point, Andy.

Speaker 2 You know, if it was, each side spent over a billion dollars in the course of this campaign, and Americans might well find themselves asking, well, what could that $2 billion

Speaker 2 have been better spent on? And I actually think I have a couple of key suggestions. One, they could have just set fire to it.

Speaker 2 I think that literally might have been a better use. For a start, you don't get any of the poisonous campaign media that the money was used to buy.

Speaker 2 So you're already up on the deal by getting nothing plus you know burning two billion might actually in a small way help reduce inflation slightly or two they could have just simply put the money in a glass box so that the American people could look at it and appreciate what both campaigns had not spent the money on thus putting the approval rates of most American politicians in general up around 10,000 percent

Speaker 2 Obama in his victory speech said some very interesting things. He said,

Speaker 2 we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people. Has he not been watching the news for the last 150 years?

Speaker 2 Also, he said, we know in our hearts that for the USA the best is yet to come. What? Better than the moon landings? Better than muddy waters? Better than Teen Wolf?

Speaker 2 Strap in, world, this is going to be awesome.

Speaker 2 And he said, I know, and this is possibly the most outlandish thing Barack Obama has ever said. I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even silly.
Not your campaigns, Obama.

Speaker 2 In fact, not anything to do with American politics. They seem not small and silly, but big and f ⁇ ing ludicrous.

Speaker 2 It's quite hard to spend $2 billion and for it to be small and silly unless you're buying one of Damian Hurst's artworks. But other than that, it's pretty much out of the game.

Speaker 2 He added that democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated.

Speaker 2 And that is correct, particularly if the entire system is geared towards it being noisy and messy and complicated.

Speaker 2 Other noisy, messy and complicated things include war, American football, childbirth, life, cooking a dog souffle, and running a breeding program at a zoo for polar bears with anger management issues.

Speaker 2 I see American politics very much closest to the last in that list.

Speaker 2 He also said, we want our children to live in an America that isn't burdened by debt, that isn't weakened by inequality, that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.

Speaker 2 Before pausing with a look at his eyes saying, we want them to live in that America, but let's be f ⁇ ing realistic. They are not going to live in that America.

Speaker 2 So what are the challenges ahead for a new re-precedented Obama? Well, the most...

Speaker 2 imminent issue is probably the fact that America is facing a fiscal cliff followed by a potential budgetary base jump at the end of this year.

Speaker 2 As if Congress does not compromise on tax and spending rates, which it has shown no evidence of having either the will or the ability to do, then America's economy is essentially going to explode.

Speaker 2 So, you know, he's got that to look forward to over the next seven weeks. And in the meantime, and I do not blame him for this, Andy, he is getting the f ⁇ out of here.

Speaker 2 Going on a three-legged diplomatic tour, making stops in Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma, where in a major moment he will become the first ever US president to make a visit and will meet both President Sein and also opposition leader Aung San Su Shi, two people who, to put it mildly, hold differing views on life as well as differing views on the best place for Aung San Suu Shi to live.

Speaker 2 His trip is all going to be built around attending the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia, where leaders from China, Japan and Russia will also be attending.

Speaker 2 So that won't be too tense for him either, Andy, fending off Russia asking about Syria and also China asking where their f ⁇ ing money is.

Speaker 2 So, what I'm saying is, it doesn't seem like Obama has a whole lot to look forward to over the next week, month, or four years.

Speaker 2 As you say, he's facing a looming fiscal cliff, and specifically the task of trying to work out a way of avoiding that fiscal cliff to see if he can work with the Republican-controlled House before they blast off that fiscal cliff like a grumpy Thelma and a resentful Louise, growling at each other and holding each other's foot on the accelerator pedal.

Speaker 2 Also, can he break the logistical gridlock of the Senate and House working together as harmoniously as a seagull and the engine of a light aircraft? Gridlock

Speaker 2 in which they've been crawling along as if they're in the latest sequel to the film Speed, in which they were on the bus of progress.

Speaker 2 And if they allow it to go above one mile an hour, a bomb will go off, starring Gianno Reeves as a 90-year-old man with a lung condition who's scared of the noise of engines.

Speaker 2 And also he's got that challenge, John.

Speaker 2 as you suggested, of how to live up to those inflated expectations of 2008, expectations that have been dampened by an unending parabola of piss from the penis of political practicality.

Speaker 2 In the words of Oscar the Grouch from an episode of Sesame Street, brought to us by the letter P.

Speaker 2 Well played, Andy. Thanks.
Well played. But it's a tough job, John.
Good sentence, Andy. Good explanation for that sentence.
Thanks.

Speaker 2 It's a tough job running America, John, as you know, having lived there now for, well, two-thirds of a decade as a nation that is glorious, ludicrous, magnificent, grubby, innovative, reactionary, funny, extremely unfunny, athletic, fat, tolerant, paranoid, united, obviously not united, progressive, stuck, a land of opportunity, a land in which the wealthy hold sway to an almost ancient Roman extent, and above all, a nation enchantingly obsessed with sporting statistics.

Speaker 2 That is a tough job for anyone, John. And the home of the

Speaker 2 and also the cowardly. Yeah,

Speaker 2 and the downright lazy. The point is,

Speaker 2 as for Romney, Andy, where now for him? Well, I guess the main thing is that no one needs to worry about him.

Speaker 2 He has a personal fortune of several hundred million dollars, so he's going to be just fine. He doesn't just have money under his mattress, Andy.
He has entire mattresses of money.

Speaker 2 And if it's only consolation, he still looks like a president.

Speaker 2 And also, he can probably pay people to pretend he's president around him for a while, which might take the edge off the initial disappointment. And how will history remember this campaign, Andy?

Speaker 2 I think that's a key question. I think history may, like with any traumatic memory, try and bury and suppress it and may only be able to retrieve it with quite intense therapy.

Speaker 2 The only way it may just come out is that

Speaker 2 a human sense of smell can accidentally trigger even deeply held memory.

Speaker 2 So in the future, Americans may find themselves suddenly remembering the Romney campaign whenever they walk past a sewage plant or past a slaughterhouse after a three-day power cut.

Speaker 2 I guess, you know, in any situation like this, the obvious next step for him is to go into some kind of

Speaker 2 reality TV show. Of course, the Kardashians went into it after their failed attempt to gain the Republican nomination in 1996.

Speaker 2 History could have been very different, John. I think keeping up with the dolls would have been a much more entertaining program.

Speaker 2 I think most likely for Romney, though, is that he will just buy a secret island and install a nuclear warhead on it. I think that's really what this was all about.

Speaker 2 Here's the thing, though, Andy. Romney is a businessman.

Speaker 2 That's a fact that he's been ramming down America's throat for nearly a decade of presidential campaigns now.

Speaker 2 And I think he should be held accountable for what he's done, just like oil companies are held responsible when they spill a bunch of toxic liquid into protected wetland.

Speaker 2 He has pumped out some of the most noxious, disingenuous, and outright untrue statements imaginable over the course of this campaign. And it should frankly be his responsibility to clean that shit up.

Speaker 2 And this absolutely goes goes both ways.

Speaker 2 The president and his campaign have some cleaning up to do as well through all kinds of poisonously negative advertising as well as using infantile wordplay like romnesia for no clear human reason.

Speaker 2 Even though relatively speaking, relatively speaking, the president's responsibility isn't really near the oil slick of bullshit that Romney pointed out.

Speaker 2 This campaign from both parties, Andy, has caused a huge amount of emotional pollution. And I actually think this should be the only responsible end to any election now.

Speaker 2 Both candidates after the results are announced should spend the following week in hazmat suits touring the country taking down campaign signs peeling stickers off cars and babies and apologizing for everything they just said.

Speaker 2 There were around one million campaign ads on TV in America during the campaign Andy. One million.

Speaker 2 You can't scrub the memories of those ads clean like you scrub an oily seagull's wing with a toothbrush.

Speaker 2 Presidents and their opponents after the election should stand in front of a landfill site as it is filled with their detritus of mugs, t-shirts, badges, bumper stickers and attack ad scripts and in an officially televised apologising ceremony they should publicly apologise to both the flag and a blow-up Benjamin Franklin.

Speaker 2 But I think

Speaker 2 one interpretation, John, you could say Romney's campaign was possibly the greatest and most successful in electoral history.

Speaker 2 Bearing in mind, he himself himself said that 47% of Americans would never even consider voting for him. And he still got around, was about 48%

Speaker 2 of the vote. He got 90%

Speaker 2 of the available vote, John. That man is an electoral genius.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, with the amazing way that American democracy is set up, Andy, that's not nearly enough. I mean, it's nearly enough, but it's not nearly enough.

Speaker 2 And that might make no mathematical sense, but the electoral college system would disagree with you there.

Speaker 2 This election did teach us a few things about the USA in 2012. For a start, we learned that one of the only things it manufactures successfully anymore is elections and election-related paraphernalia.

Speaker 2 Because president elections are never just about electing a president, Andy. That's what you never really get to hear about abroad.

Speaker 2 Once they've got you in the booth, there is a lot of other stuff that they want you to vote on too. If you live in some states, the ballot papers can run for pages and pages.

Speaker 2 In California, for instance, you'd better put half a day aside to vote because their elections are a five-hour tasting menu of democracy. Their ballots alone can look like the menu at a Greek diner.

Speaker 2 They should come leather-bound with laminated pages so the California voters can say, ah, okay,

Speaker 2 ooh, so much choice. I think I'd like Obama for president.
I'll also take gun control, gay marriage, and can I also get the bluefish omelette with a side of sweet potato fries?

Speaker 2 Some major legislation was passed on Tuesday through these extra ballot referendums. Maine, Washington State and Maryland, whose state motto is, I believe, Omar Coming, yo.

Speaker 2 One for you Wire fans.

Speaker 2 All those states legalized gay marriage and did it by popular vote.

Speaker 2 Not by lawmakers, but by popular vote, which was a very quick and very immediate way to actually make you feel slightly better about your fellow human beings.

Speaker 2 And how could this news get any better for some of the residents of Washington State?

Speaker 2 Well there they didn't just legalize gay marriage they also legalized marijuana Andy making weddings there about a thousand percent more fun even the Neanderthal citizens the most Neanderthal citizens of Washington State have got to see a positive in that hey thanks for the invitation

Speaker 2 what's this We are going to get high and then two women are going to make out with each other. Put me down for we'll be attending

Speaker 2 Strong accent work, John. I don't know what that was, I'm just saying.
It's like seamlessly rubble. Yeah, seamlessly blending.
Yeah,

Speaker 2 it was a little Barney rubble-ish. It definitely wasn't anywhere near Washington State.
It had a whiff of Jersey about it, with, I guess, with a kind of whiff of gold rush era.

Speaker 2 But it's, I mean, it's an interesting moment for the Republicans, Johns. As you say, there was a lot of votes that

Speaker 2 really suggested that they are barking very much not only up the wrong tree with their conservative views, but at a series of wrong cats as well.

Speaker 2 And also a tree that died 20 years ago.

Speaker 2 Because is America changing, John?

Speaker 2 Because I mean, I know a lot of Americans still believe that stopping gays being happy, stopping women choosing how to live their lives and encouraging people to shoot each other could create around 150 million jobs and make the economy flawless.

Speaker 2 But perhaps they no longer hold the balance of electoral power. This could be a seismic shift in American politics.

Speaker 2 There were a few electoral disappointments as well. CNN were strangely restrained in their coverage, Andy, after they'd bust out their inexplicable hologram of will I am last time.

Speaker 2 I was fully expecting them to present the electoral results in 3D because that seemed like the only logical next step for their technological pointlessness. But they didn't do it.

Speaker 2 And it was bizarrely restrained. Well, it was an interesting chart in the press reaction, ranging from the predictable thank f for that

Speaker 2 to the even more predictable, oh, f, not a f ⁇ ing game, depending on where on the political spectrum they were.

Speaker 2 ESPN, their headline was Romney and Ryan claim silver medal in men's pairs electioneering. The Daily Nut Job went with Caliphate consolidates power in Washingtonistan.

Speaker 2 Fox News led with Texas farmer bitten by squirrel. They were really confronting the reality of the situation.

Speaker 2 Whilst the Southern Squirrel newspaper led with the lead headline, Squirrel gets food poisoning.

Speaker 2 Some of the talk in the aftermath of this election was already about what this meant for the election in 2016, which is absolutely incredible. On election night, Andy, they were talking about this.

Speaker 2 Before Florida had even declared a winner, they were talking about 2016, which was pretty conclusive proof that America has developed a fairly self-destructive addiction to its own profoundly flawed political process.

Speaker 2 The names being bandied about for 2016 are already Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton. You might recognize both of those surnames.
Andrew Cuomo, Chris Christie, and who knows, Andy, maybe Mitt Romney again.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Third time to charm, Andy, and he could run under the slogan, I'm going to keep doing this until you elect me. You have the power to make this stop.

Speaker 2 You know, I have the resources to keep throwing money at this, so give me what I incorrectly assume that I deserve. Romney 2016, then 2020, then 2024.

Speaker 2 Whatever it takes, you fing assholes, give it to me.

Speaker 2 Also, rumours that Axel Rose could be running, and also the ghost of FDR could be conducting the first ever Ouija presidency. Wow.

Speaker 2 Wow. He could be tough to beat, he'd be very tough to be.
He had a very, very strong record in staying in power, didn't he? Can I just ask a question?

Speaker 2 The Grim Reaper finally tipped him out, wasn't it? On a one-to-one count.

Speaker 2 A million adverts. Yep.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Okay. I think some of them must have run concurrently.
They can't have been consecutively.

Speaker 3 Okay, I'm no mathematician, but according to my calculator and my iPhone,

Speaker 3 assuming they're 30 seconds long, that's 347.2 days.

Speaker 2 Yes? Like nearly a year.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, it's even worse than that, Chris, because bear in mind that most of those adverts are going into a handful of states. So

Speaker 2 to imagine what it is like living in Ohio and Florida at the best of times. Wow.
Let alone during election season is a little tough to take.

Speaker 2 They must need a spiritual fumigation like Nagasaki in 1945. So

Speaker 3 is this ticking time bomb of the electorate simply because so many people of a certain demographic are now killing themselves? Well,

Speaker 2 I think people just,

Speaker 2 it just doesn't feel good. No, you keep getting told

Speaker 2 this is the best thing. Democracy is such a wonderful feeling.
And you just end up feeling nauseous at the end of one of these shallow, pathetic campaigns. You're sounding like Armadina, Jad, Johnny.

Speaker 2 Had a pop at American Democracy this week. I think you might be on the same team.
I think most Americans are having a pop at American democracy. It fundamentally should not work like this.

Speaker 2 It's too expensive.

Speaker 2 You've never, I'm not sure in the history of finance and currency, people have ever got less for their money than this.

Speaker 2 Well, from this,

Speaker 2 I'm an outsider, John, but watching the election and the map of how the states voted, it seems that the northern states and the southern states do vote very differently. And it just made me think:

Speaker 2 why don't they just become separate countries?

Speaker 2 I mean, has this idea ever been floated at all?

Speaker 2 Well, it has been floated, Andy, until, you know, if you take this argument, one of the worst presidents in American history decided to try and keep the country as one. Right.

Speaker 2 F you, Lincoln.

Speaker 2 It's about time someone said that.

Speaker 2 For those of you wondering how a Romney president might have panned out, we were given a tantalising little taster of it when his victory website was accidentally made live on the internet.

Speaker 2 The website that was... Would that true? Yeah, yeah.
Would have come up had

Speaker 2 Romney won. And it just came up with

Speaker 2 various things, including U47%ers, suck it, look at it, measure it, and then suck.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 it was overwhelming that rather

Speaker 2 moving little relic of a shattered dream,

Speaker 2 including the words smaller, simpler, smarter, believe in America. Those kind of classic political words that mean absolutely nothing.

Speaker 2 Obama littered his victory speech with as well. Smaller, simpler, smarter.
That sounds more like a chart of how to improve American children.

Speaker 2 The 21st century can and must be an American century, said this

Speaker 2 website. I don't know what an America is an American century just 25% longer? Or is it just much more expensive? And he also said the torch America carries is one of decency and hope

Speaker 2 without adding and overwhelming military firepower and economic imperialism and prolonged dietary suicide and high-class DVD box sets and CIA plots to overthrow democratically elected leaders.

Speaker 2 And in admitted, that's a button on that torch that hasn't been used for a while, but it's still there if we need it. And of drone attacks.

Speaker 2 That torch has drone attacks albeit drone attacks carried out with decency and hope if not always with accuracy but it does hurt less if you're bombed hopefully and decently in fact we britched on we were absolute masters at slaughtering indigenous populations with decency and good manners i'm terribly sorry to inconvenience you um and i hate to intrude but uh I am going to have to kill you, then enslave your people and steal your natural resources.

Speaker 2 I just thought it would be good manners to be open about that from the start and let you know. It won't hurt much.

Speaker 2 I have an extremely expensive gun with very nicely polished bullets, and we'll pop your kids on a rubber plantation, so they'll be fine.

Speaker 2 And what's left of your tiger will pop on the back of the sofa at home, and your granny's going in a museum. Cheerio.
Big smile. Bigger smile.
And bang.

Speaker 2 It also featured this website's pictures of Paul Ryan benching 340. Well, actually, he was just benching Chris Christie.
Also, a video tour of the Spanish. Taboo! Take that, Christie!

Speaker 2 A video tour of the 16th century Spanish galleon that Romney keeps on his own private reservoir stocked with 100 captive children.

Speaker 2 Footage of Romney in a wizard's hat turning toads into $20 bills and cackling to himself. And a controversial recipe for how to cook an orphan.

Speaker 2 Also accidentally leaked was a video of Barack Obama practicing his loser speech, in which he would have said,

Speaker 2 oh, bollocks. Can I do that again, please? Not the speech, the last four years.
And will people please stop trying to stop me doing everything I'm trying to do? And can I keep my drones?

Speaker 2 I love my drones.

Speaker 2 T-shirt cannon update now.

Speaker 2 And Andy, last week you mentioned the spectacular invention of Big Bella, the 600-pound monster of a t-shirt cannon unveiled by the basketball team Philadelphia 76ers that can fire 100 t-shirts in just 60 seconds.

Speaker 2 I made a glib comment during that brief discussion, Andy, joking that it might start in an arms race. Well, less than a week later, that has actually happened.

Speaker 2 Step forward, the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas, and take a bow as a t-shirt fires over your head. Because they just came up with a rival invention, Andy, the world's first taco cannon.
Now,

Speaker 2 let me give you some details from an article about it. I quote, based on the same technology that propels t-shirts, Fun Fun Fun's tortilla weapon is a 12 cham

Speaker 2 is a 12 chamber.

Speaker 2 Those are two words that do not appear next to each other often enough. So good.
Tortilla weapon. Well, unless it's got digestive tortilla weapon in front of it.

Speaker 2 Fun, fun, fun's tortilla weapon is a 12-chambered CO2 canister-powered Gatling-style ordnance that will be on the festival's various stages at least twice a day, shooting off an assortment of tacos.

Speaker 2 Just like in a war movie, one guy fires the cannon with two more taco soldiers on hand for reloading.

Speaker 2 The arms race is on, and the adventures of this taco cannon are not f ⁇ ing messing around I'll tell you more thought went into the design of this than you'd expect by which I mean some thought went into the design

Speaker 2 apparently Each chamber of the cannon is big enough for two tacos and then they're then wrapped together in sturdy paper tied with rubber bands and then wrapped up again in a bandana or a t-shirt exactly Andy it's a t-shirt cannon too and a taco cannon as well your move big bella your move The inventor said, and this is a spectacular quote, Andy, the idea is to keep the taco tight, but also treat it like a lady.

Speaker 2 Treat it like a lady? What? Fire it into a crowd? They obviously went to your wedding, John.

Speaker 2 Now, you might think, you might think, why don't they just fire hot dogs? Wouldn't that be easier? Yeah, they must have good ballistic properties.

Speaker 2 Well, they've already thought of that, Andy, because again, the inventor said, and I quote, the taco has a greater carrying capacity than a hot dog.

Speaker 2 The cylindrical shape of the tortilla provides a stabilised cartridge for a more advanced trajectory. The caliber of a taco is simply superior.

Speaker 2 In that case, I stand down with my hot dog suggestion, Andy. Clearly, they've already put in a lot more thought into this than I have, by which, again, I mean any thought.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the Chinese are developing duck pancakes that can fly 500 miles an hour and feed an entire crowd of 80,000.

Speaker 2 And in case you're worried about people getting hit by a flying tarco projectile, don't be worried, Andy, because they've thought of that too.

Speaker 2 Saying, and here's the final quote: We've actually had a couple of people hit in the head, and we know there's been no pain involved.

Speaker 2 The victims were more like, oh man, I got hit in the head by a taco. It was great.

Speaker 2 Andy, I know this is a gruesome 18 months in America enduring a campaign of this cynicism and this complete waste of money in a time when resources are badly needed elsewhere.

Speaker 2 But it's things like a taco cannon

Speaker 2 that make you believe that this truly is the greatest country in the history of the world.

Speaker 2 And if this President Obama was the president that we and he want him to be, he would have ended that speech in Grant Park by wheeling out his taco cannon and just firing them into the crowd.

Speaker 2 And also, for all you pacifists out there, you tree-hugging pacifists, this is trickle-down technology, John. Yes.

Speaker 2 If it hadn't been for all the billions of dollars that have been invested in military hardware, this kind of technology would not be available to us.

Speaker 2 Give it another couple of years, there will be a nacho nuke being detonated

Speaker 2 in a stadium.

Speaker 2 Hugo feature section now, and as I said before, coffee is nearly extinct

Speaker 2 Wow

Speaker 2 I'm not gonna let this be brushed under the carpet John you might think this this this election was important but what what's changed realistically absolutely nothing has changed the world is the same as it was one week ago same president the same balance of power in American politics but coffee could be extinct from the stuff that grows freeze-dried in jars to the weird stuff that's been eaten and crapped out by monkeys what's that called again that kind of coffee The cappuccino.

Speaker 2 It's the Capuchin monkeys that make it. Or was it the Capuchin monks?

Speaker 2 Not quite sure, actually, but that would explain why it's so frothy. It's a weird Christian cult.
Capuchin monks that believe in trampolining on a full stomach.

Speaker 2 Anyway, but this is all due to rising temperatures due to climate change, John. Thanks once again to those scientists for discovering that.

Speaker 2 It could mean that wild Arabica coffee is extinct in 70 years, as I said earlier on. Now, I'm going to be 108 in 70 years' time.

Speaker 2 It is going to be difficult enough for me to wake up in the morning in my long-forgotten grave as it is. And without coffee, I'm going to be staying very dead indeed.

Speaker 2 You cannot understate the importance of this.

Speaker 2 The people who depend on coffee in this world range from the president of America, whoever he or she may be by then, but let's be honest, it will probably still be he.

Speaker 2 Anyone with a job, anyone with children, anyone with a need to get out of bed before 4 p.m. These social groups by 2082 will encompass more than 17% of the world's population.

Speaker 2 Arguably having no coffee is more serious for the world than having no oil, no food, or no water. There will be coffee wars, John.

Speaker 2 Our economy in Britain, and it's presumably the same in America, is now roughly 92% dependent on people buying coffee in coffee shops, or at least in Britain buying overpriced buckets of warm brown milk in coffee shops.

Speaker 2 And it is a verifiable fact. proved by years of extensive scientific research that humans as a species cannot function without the bean.

Speaker 2 Albeit that is years of extensive research carried out by one scientist, one unqualified amateur scientist, me. But the point stands, John, and this is why dinosaurs died out.

Speaker 2 Not a single fossilized espresso machine has ever been found dating back 200 million years.

Speaker 2 And this is all caused, as I said, by rising world temperatures, those smug, self-centered hypershites who want to ruin our lives and economic traditions, which could result in a destruction of a massive proportion of the areas of the world that are suitable for growing Arabica beans.

Speaker 2 Somewhere, the research suggests between 99.7% and 38%.

Speaker 2 Now, that is quite a wide range. But that's somewhere between all and a bit in layman's terms.

Speaker 2 But these are dark days, buglers. Dark, rich, smooth, aromatic days.
And we need to wake up and smell the coffee before it is no longer possible to wake up and smell the coffee.

Speaker 2 The two being mutually exclusive.

Speaker 2 Stay strong, buglers.

Speaker 1 Stay strong.

Speaker 2 Your emails now and just time for a quick email here. And this one is from Chiaki saying, hello, Andy, John, Chris, and Paul.
I am a Japanese bugler.

Speaker 2 Today I chose to subscribe to the bugle, paying $10 a week, because yen is stronger than dollar for now.

Speaker 2 As English is my second language, I'm afraid that I can't fully understand what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 That really might be a boon.

Speaker 2 I can't fully understand what you're talking about, especially Andy's puns, obviously. Yes, exactly.
Honestly, the highest form of English still cannot.

Speaker 2 It's not so much understanding Andy's puns as understanding why they are happening.

Speaker 2 He says, Nevertheless, I enjoy your show every Saturday morning. Hope you can continue the show until the next Olympics in London.
That is a beautiful way to sign off an email, Andy.

Speaker 2 Best wishes, Chiaki Kurahashi. Well, sir, thank you very much, Chiaki.

Speaker 2 Don't forget, you can join Chiaki by subscribing to your volunteer subscription to the Bugle bugle at our website, thebuglepodcast.com. Don't forget also to look at our SoundCloud page,

Speaker 2 soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle.

Speaker 2 And do keep your emails coming on to info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Speaker 2 So, just time for a quick bugle forecast. John, how do you think Obama's second term is going to pan out?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, that is a very, very broad question. And, you You know, I think

Speaker 2 he'll get healthcare finished, which will be a fantastic thing.

Speaker 2 Everything else is up for grabs.

Speaker 2 And by being up for the grabs, I mean out of his reach, probably.

Speaker 2 In a Republican-controlled house. I guess at least, John, he's bought himself time, and that is a crucial commodity in politics.

Speaker 2 That's

Speaker 2 not a problem.

Speaker 2 Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I've just heard something in your voice I don't like.

Speaker 2 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I heard that.
You don't even need to stop. I don't like where this is going at all.
You've got to trust me on this.

Speaker 2 Time is a crucial commodity.

Speaker 2 That's true, man. I see now a man cannot do everything.

Speaker 2 I see now a man cannot do everything at once, John.

Speaker 2 And now the president needs to take his time because if he panics and gets everything wrong, it'll be disastrous for the whole country.

Speaker 2 He's got to take his time, no matter how hostile the Republicans are, Regan.

Speaker 2 Jackie, this doesn't mean anything. This is going to sound confusing.
This means nothing. No matter how hostile the Republicans are, Reagan,

Speaker 2 and you can be sure they will be, to drive an economy that's

Speaker 2 been in a bit of a pickle into new happier times, really go for it and aim for greater things to bang that drum, thump that tub, push the envelope, set a bar much higher.

Speaker 2 So there was nothing on.

Speaker 2 Oh, that was completely accidental. I think I just did an accidental pun run of

Speaker 2 all the post-war presidents in chronological order. Well, all the post-war election winners in chronological order.

Speaker 2 I'm so sorry that just happened. I have a condition.

Speaker 2 Oh, that is a stony silence. You sound like a John Oliver who's felt his will to live draining away.
Who very much didn't enjoy that. Gave it a distinctly cooledge reception.

Speaker 2 Chin up, I know it's hard, incredibly hard, but we'll soon move on to another topic. And if you didn't like it, tough titties.

Speaker 2 I don't care who's at fault for this. I don't care who's at fault.
Who's at fault?

Speaker 2 For this awkwardness. It's making the rest of the show very awkward indeed.
We better move on. Oh,

Speaker 2 you've got to go now, haven't you, John? You've got a show in Cleveland tonight, haven't you?

Speaker 2 Better wear your best tweed suit. You've got to put your harris on in Cleveland.

Speaker 2 I thought you might like that one. Winning a second term, though, that's Scarfield damn good.

Speaker 2 Hey, it's the end now, John. And now you can link into the next bit if you want.

Speaker 2 Actually, we're out of time. So you can't do your Bon Jovi impression this week.
You can another time.

Speaker 2 I think he's gone. Oh, piss.
I'm going to have to fill more time.

Speaker 2 Well, it was a tailor-woe for Romney as the poll counts came in. Romney had a bad night, I'll assume,

Speaker 2 after spending a year and a half harassing people to vote for him. Say something, John.

Speaker 2 Van Buren Semple, he got well beaten. Jack's enough to make a man give up and make a damn sure it doesn't happen again.

Speaker 3 Say something.

Speaker 2 Come on, Romney.

Speaker 2 There's nothing to say. Come on.

Speaker 2 Romney must understand why people didn't go for him. He had a crazy wife and an even madder son.
Although, to be fair, Tag had four brothers. And I think Romney would have lost whichever son.

Speaker 2 Started mouthing off about the president. A damn shame, we must have thought.
Washington night unfold.

Speaker 2 I'll stop talking.

Speaker 2 Andy's Osman, father of two.

Speaker 2 I'll stop talking. George joke making abilities match up to that.
Oh, hang on. Oh, that was King George.
Oh, we're back to Britain running the gun.

Speaker 2 Might as well carry on and see where it ends up. I'll admit, I can feel a bit of a fing George earning these puns out.
That's another King George. Oh, Balzo are three King Georges.

Speaker 2 I think there are three King Georges. I think King George of the colonies.
Oh, there's another one. Phew.
That's them done. We can never get back.
We can never get back back. I'm too tired, Andy.

Speaker 2 I don't have the capacity to feel anymore. You're punching an empty vessel.

Speaker 2 We can never get America back as part of the UK, can we? Nah,

Speaker 2 Queen Anne. Was that too much of a stretch? Chris, you're vomiting.
Look, when you've stopped chucking, William make me a cup of tea.

Speaker 2 I want to talk about my old auntie Ethel now. And as she got older, her heart problems got worse and sure enough, Julius Caesar almost killed her.
But then she rallied a bit.

Speaker 2 And she'd had real problems with her joints and her blood disorder. Yes, her knee and her thallas,

Speaker 2 her knee and her thalassemia were really playing up.

Speaker 2 And then after that, then of course we had to put her in a home. Oh, erect us financially.
It did. Completely ruined us.

Speaker 2 Very Very difficult times. And she'd been bedbound for so long she just wanted to die and her sores were terribly painful by then.
It was uh horrible to see.

Speaker 2 She was very vulnerable to persuasive insurance salesmen from small Mediterranean islands, you know, for multi-cellular low-life insurance premiums.

Speaker 2 You can see why she fell for it.

Speaker 2 M multi-cellular life. She eventually passed away on her birthday uh with all those trombonists and trumpeters and drummers and saxophonists there.
She died when the Big Bang gave her the bumps.

Speaker 2 Put your hands in the air and move away from the microphone.

Speaker 2 If you've kept listening this long, that is on you.

Speaker 2 All American presidents in two minutes, John. I mean, that's, I mean, technically, that's a high-tariff maneuver.

Speaker 2 I mean, it might be a pointless high-tariff maneuver, but it's a high-tariff maneuver. I'll tell you what else is a high-tariff maneuver, Handy.
Genocide.

Speaker 2 Too soon, John. Too soon.

Speaker 2 Bye, buglers. Oh, you've already gone.