Bugle 206 – The President is not a gremlin

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome a little belatedly to issue 206 of the Bugle for the week beginning Monday, the 24th of September, 2012, with me, Andy Zaltzman, in London 2012.

Shh!

Shh.

Can you hear that soft, sweet sound?

That is the echo of Jessica Ennis' stomach breathing.

It's not over yet.

And joining me in New York City, a man who has been to two more party conventions than he had since he last spoke to you, so could well be a broken shell of a human being who can no longer see the good in people or understand the concept of hope.

It's the horned helicopter of Hilarity himself, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

We are back.

Or, to be more specific, I am back.

I understand that Andy has been laying down micro-bugles like an incontinent hen over the last couple of weeks.

But we're back.

The dream team is back together.

Andy, we're like Goering and Himmler.

You might not like what we do.

You might not like what we do, but you cannot fail to be impressed with the extent to which we're getting away with it.

Oh, dear.

That could be the final straw that seized my aged grandmother off this planet.

Buglers, I apologise for my absence over the last few weeks.

As Annie mentioned, I was with the daily show at both political conventions here, both the DNC and the RNC, desperately trying to keep my soul alive whilst simultaneously being aware that there was a dead canary in the center of my chest.

And then last week I was at Kristen Scharles' wedding in the Colorado mountains, which was absolutely fantastic.

It is the first time I've been at a wedding in the mountains and it's even more the first time I've seen the wedding party flanked down the aisle by two actual llamas in bow ties.

Nothing says, I'm about to get married more than two llamas in formal dress, Andy, or at least it doesn't from now on as far as I'm concerned.

Now, it was um It was a really happy day and was basically the perfect antidote to the previous two weeks of political skullduggery and grandstanding known as the party conventions, otherwise known as economic proof that America spends way too much on elections.

Why, Andy?

Because they are a hugely expensive, two-week extravaganza of next to nothing.

It really is incredible how much passion, money, and balloons go into presenting that nothing.

It's like if, in the Emperor's new clothes, the Emperor wasn't just naked, but had painted his penis in gold paint and was swinging it around to the cheers of the crowd.

That's what being at the conventions felt like, Andy.

Well, it seemed to me that just watching from afar, I mean, I guess what I could pick up from it was that the Democrats seemed really big fans of Barack Obama, but the Republicans less so.

They seemed to prefer Mitt Romney, but only just.

I was actually in the arena at the RNC when Clint Eastwood began talking to an empty chair, and it was a strange feeling as thousands of people around me started whooping and laughing and cheering.

It was a pretty odd feeling to be seemingly the only one thinking, hold on guys.

I think this might be f ⁇ ing awful.

I think this might actually be one of the most embarrassing things I've ever witnessed firsthand because it actually made even less sense in person than it did on TV, Andy.

But you wouldn't know that from the reception in that arena because as far as they were concerned, they were witnessing a Gettysburg address to furniture.

Perhaps the biggest letdown of the whole two weeks was the fact that President Obama's stadium speech on the last day of the DNC was cancelled due to weather.

Instead, they held it indoors in a much smaller arena.

Now that's a huge climb down, Andy.

Americans gave up just because they didn't want to get their president wet.

I think they're mistaking the president for a gremlin, Andy.

He'd have been fine.

In fact, what would have been more majestic than seeing Obama delivering a speech soaked to the skin?

Did we back down when a monsoon struck the Queen's Jubilee?

Did we f

Andy, we made her stand outside during a tropical storm because we know there is nothing funnier than a wet queen.

And if the queen can get wet, if an 86-year-old woman can stand up to reign, then so can a 51-year-old president.

Shame on you, America.

Does this go back to the whole William Henry Harrison debacle, John?

It must do.

It must do.

1841, when he spoke for so long at his inauguration that he got a cold and died a month later.

Yeah, he was assassinated by temperature.

It's clearly what Obama's worried about.

Well, John, I saw Clint Eastwood a lot more positively than you, but then I spent quite a lot of my career, particularly at the Edinburgh Festival, talking to empty chairs, so I couldn't see what he was going going through.

This is Bugle 206.

206, of course, the number of consecutive table tennis matches won by Vice President Millard Fillmore in the White House in 1850 before he finally reported that President Zachary Taylor had died.

I reckon he was still alive for the first 10 or 15, said Fillmore at his inauguration, and he had no answer to my slice.

206 also the number of decoy breasts that Queen Elizabeth I had to prevent her real breasts being painted by a hidden Eason portrait at so.

Very sensible precaution.

And this is for the week beginning Monday the 24th of September 2012.

John, on this day in 1664, centimeters away from where you are currently sitting on your special bugle recording throne, the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to us British, its rightful owners, who soon did a decent thing and renamed it New York City and opened a hot dog van.

And the rest is history.

Are there big celebrations, John, in New York to mark the historic handover of New York to the Whites?

Absolutely, Andy.

People are setting fire to ceremonial clogs in the streets.

The Dutch!

That's the

triumphant cry goes up across the tri-state area today.

F the Dutch!

Because there was so many, obviously a great day for New York,

but very bad day for American soccer.

As always, a section of the bugle going straight in the bin this week.

Smartphones!

Reviews of the latest smartphones to hit an increasingly competitive marketplace, including the HTC Dunk Nugget.

Modelled on a cross between Steve McQueen's fist and Lucy Lawless's elbow, the Dunk Nugget is designed to be semi-immersible in boiling liquids, enabling you to make calls and do interactive gaming whilst having a cup of tea.

Impress your friends by calling them from a steaming mug of Lapsang Sushong using sub-aquatic audio technology modelled on a dolphin snout.

The HTC have corrected the bug in last year's Fontleroy PN22, widely reviewed as an unnecessarily arrogant Uber smartphone, which resulted in the Irish recognition software only working with eyeballs that have been removed from their owners' heads.

Also the Apple iBrick 4BS, very much like a normal brick but wireless and smooth.

The iBrick cannot be used for telephone calls and has no internet capability, but it's very useful for building walls or houses and unlike most smartphones is actually enhanced by being smeared with mortar.

Big enough not to fit in most pockets, the iBrick is both more solid and more fire-retardant than either the Samsung Plank of Wood 3.2 or the Nokia Wattledorb 54i.

The iBrick comes in at a bargain £99 per unit, or £399.99 for a palette of £500.

Also, we review the Motorola Yum Yum.

Motorola's first fully edible phone, the Yum Yum, has been described by the Sunday Times food critic A.A.

Gill as a tasty post-prandial bonus to chomp on once you've ordered your taxi home, reminiscent of a top-end fig roll or a melted croissant.

Although at £35 per month on most tariffs, you won't want to eat it until the last month of your contract.

And finally, the Samsung Elvis Phone 6.8 Comeback Special, an eagerly awaited return for the Elvis Phone after several years in the wilderness.

Now, with enhanced croon technology and reduced hip swivel, the 6.8 promises to outsell the BlackBerry Tony Bennett 5, but question marks remain over its durability and firmware longevity.

Do not use on the toilet.

That's section in the pin.

Top story this week: US election news, Demokapalooza 2012.

Yes, Andy, the US presidential campaign has begun.

Now, you might be thinking, well, hold on.

Wasn't the first Republican candidate debate back in May 2011?

So hasn't this already been going on for 16 months?

Well, technically, yes.

But that was just electoral dry humping, Andy.

This is where things get really hot and heavy.

And Mitt Romney has had a bad, bad week on the campaign this week.

Now, on the one hand, he's probably very upset about that.

On the other hand, luckily, he still has a personal fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

So that should help make the pill a little easier for him to swallow.

He doesn't so much have a safety net as a safety mattress stuffed with 300 million single-dollar bills.

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 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, 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 are 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.

He might have been holding up a great big placard saying, I didn't really want to move to Washington anyway.

So I guess he's a little politically indelicate, Mitt Romney, in a kind of eating babies at a christening way.

But it seems that he's also...

kind of delusional and possibly entirely unhinged because there didn't seem a great deal of factual background to this as he wrote off the poor, the old, the sacked, those left jobless due to the financial shittery of people like him higher up the economic food chain, the disabled, war veterans, people who've bafflingly chosen to devote their lives and careers to something other than the generation of mega wealth.

That's quite a large chunk of American society to basically just completely write off.

Now, it's either very stupid or extremely confident, because when there's only 53% of the population left, he must be pretty damn sure he can get at least 50% of those 53%.

So, you're right.

In less than 30 seconds, he managed to insult at least 47% of the population.

That's pretty good going.

And any presidential candidate who wanted to torpedo their campaign would be happy with a number like that.

But did Mitt Romney stop there?

Well, as the Mormon himself would swear, Andy, did he heck?

He also managed to insult the vital Latino and Jewish voting blocs.

Two blocks you off.

There you go.

You hadn't even got to the shh of Jewish there, Andy, before you pavloggedly responded.

Oh, no.

I was blowing the Latino.

I did a classic degree.

It's more the Latin.

The Latin thing.

Those are two blocks that you are, frankly, going to need if you're going to win Florida, which, electorally speaking, you pretty much fing have to.

Of Hispanics, he said, my dad, as you probably know, was the governor of Michigan and was head of a car company, but he was born in Mexico.

And had he been born of Mexican Mexican parents I'd have a better shot at winning this but he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico

I mean I say that jokingly but it would be helpful to be Latino well no it wouldn't Mitt it wouldn't be helpful to be Latino for you at all and that's partially down to people like you because if Mitt Romney was born to Mexicans he'd technically already be asking himself to self-deport right now

now of Palestinians he said that they and again I quote, have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace and then suggested that he would not press for a two-state solution saying we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately somehow something will happen and resolve it.

I mean

on one hand Andy that might be the most honest answer any American politician has ever given for a long time.

His policy on the Middle East is essentially, ah, f it.

It's pretty much f ⁇ ed anyway.

What's the kind of clear-eyed precision you want from a president, Jonathan?

Also, I mean, it does raise question marks about how he would do as an American football coach.

All right, boys, kick it and then just wait around.

I hope for the best.

One, two, three, go, team.

This last two months has basically featured Mitt Romney insulting everyone.

When he insulted the Olympics, British people were up in arms.

Little did we know that we would only be the first line on the back of his Insult Tour 2012 t-shirt.

They should actually get some of those t-shirts made, Andy.

Insult Tour, July 2012, Britain and Poland.

August 2012, poor people.

September 2012, Latinos, veterans, old people, Jews, Palestinians, people in wheelchairs, and at least 47% of the American population.

I can't wait to see what his October tour dates are, Andy.

He is coming for you, the Amish.

It's very difficult for Romney to be seen to share the concerns of ordinary Americans.

I guess the closest he can claim to have come to understanding the difficulties faced by ordinary Americans stems from having seen the looks on their faces when he sacked them.

And that that's possibly not quite enough, John, to see him through.

I mean I guess it's a tough situation that he can either claim with this this video taken at this very expensive fundraising day, he can claim that he didn't mean it, in which case he looks like a feckless tool to say anything to anyone if he thought it would benefit him, which actually isn't actually a bad quality to have as a president, or he can claim that he did actually mean mean it, which just makes him look like a.

So

I guess maybe he's just appealing to core Republican voters.

I don't know.

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, 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,

You're dead.

Ah!

Ah!

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.

E o E o e o yo.

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 oly

rickabotis,

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.

Well, 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 point is, campaign season has begun and you'd all better brace yourselves for six weeks of premium grade bullshit.

I'm talking platinum nonsense and it can get a bit confusing at times so let me help you.

You're going to see and hear a lot of things over the next month and a half that sound a lot like lies and you might find yourself wondering about how the hell these campaigns can get away with some of them.

But the truth is that not all lies are the same.

There is a hierarchy of lies.

Some are allowable, some are not.

There's actually a scientifically measurable scale of fibs that ranges from utter and total bullshit, that's the worst, and descends down through whoppers, whoppers junior, lies, white lies and Santa.

Now that last one of course is the most acceptable form of lie available.

It's a lie to children to help make the world a bit more bearable, like the tooth fairy, where we lie to children by saying that a magic fairy is going to leave you money under your pillow for your tooth, rather than telling them the actual truth, which is of course that a tooth fell out of your head and one day everyone you know will die

white lies the tooth found that's basically been the foundation of the european economy for the last 20 years

White lies,

that's the next step up, are lies that people will look the other way for.

Things like padding out your CV to get a job and claiming or not claiming fart ownership.

Stuff that everyone does.

Actual lies are lies that could really hurt somebody.

Stuff like she's just a friend or the facts in a Texas textbook.

A whopper junior is a big lie, but one which no one really cares enough to do anything about.

Something like, I'm sorry, officer, but that hobo was dead when he climbed into the boot of my car.

As far as the police are concerned, on one hand, yes, someone is dead.

On the other hand, it's just a hobo.

Then you have actual whoppers, a lie big enough that the collective unconscious accepts something like multivitamins or anyone can be president.

And then finally, there is total bullshit, something that is completely devoid of anything resembling a fact, but that is still somehow hugely entertaining.

Think of something like an Oliver Stone biopic, where you find yourself thinking, wow, I'm pretty sure that Lyndon Johnson did not strangle John F.

Kennedy to death, but I definitely enjoyed watching it.

And what does Paul Ryan fit on this

scale done with his claim to have broken the World Marathon record?

Yeah, well, I guess, you know,

that would probably come around the,

yeah, it, that would probably go down, you know, around your Whopper Jr.

Right.

Around there, that and the fact that he also said he had 6% body fat.

Which, yeah, I mean, that's a lie, but who gives a shit?

And whose body was that fat taken from?

That's all I want to know.

But, um...

Has Romney got any chance, John?

I mean, it seems that his only real hope of...

Yes, he does.

Yes, he does.

That is the most terrifying thing, Andy.

This election is still going to be close, even though he's doing everything in his power to not make that the case and

how was Obama live in in the flesh John well he was funny he had to tamp it down a bit you know because he wasn't in his stadium where he should have been

but and also because people's lives in America are quite a lot tougher than is ideal when you're delivering what's supposed to be an uplifting speech speech.

So he had to, it's the kind of thing where he he will deliver a better speech than that when he's not president.

You kind of you're working with a handicap when you're president.

There's some interesting things that you said.

You said, I never said the journey would be easy.

Fair point, but

you did at least suggest that it would be partially paved.

The road is longer, but we travel it together.

Well, you know, by a map.

And Providence is with us.

Well, that may be so, but Providence clearly is not what she was.

She's a bit cranky and senile.

Doesn't seem entirely sure what she wants from life anymore.

Frankly, it's probably best for everyone if Providence just popped her clogs and stopped interfering.

Nudity news now and Andy when we went on break the royal family was on a pretty impressive run of not being caught naked in public ever since Queen Victoria was caught flashing her ass on the Buckingham Palace balcony after losing a bet and now Prince Harry has been caught stark bollock naked in photos in Vegas and Kate Middleton has had her waps splashed across the magazines thanks to a French cameraman with a long lens and statistically a tiny penis penis, catching her sunbathing topless.

The photographs were taken when she was sunbathing on a private holiday at a French chateau in Provence.

And here's the problem, Andy: these things always come in threes.

So who's next?

Is Prince Philip going to be photographed with his balls hanging out of his trunks as he climbs out of a swimming pool?

Because I would really rather that that did not happen.

Really?

Really, John?

You have changed.

You since you went to America.

You've changed.

There's an elemental curiosity that wants to see what they're like.

It has been an extraordinary media story.

It could have been a really unremittingly depressing news month with institutionalised cover-ups of the truth of Britain's worst sporting disaster, tax evasion, just a series of deeply joyless stories.

Britain not just plumbing its moral depths, but installing a fully fitted bathroom complete with the world's most advanced moral B-day to wash away the shit.

And on top of all that, a woeful lack of any more Olympic medals.

But luckily, the furore of the future Queen's Royal Lapettes has saved the media day, John.

And I would have to say, this probably...

This story of a happily married young couple spending some time together.

Unquestionably the biggest sex scandal to hit these shores since a caveman from Wiltshire was caught trying to have it off with Stonehenge in July 2460 BC.

And the

Duke and Duchess were left to try to douse the international media inflagration with the traditional petrol of PR and lawsuits, whilst on an extremely private tour of the Pacific Islands, where they would have been left completely alone but for the fact that by unlucky coincidence, all of the world's media's royal correspondents happened to be on a trip to the same places to make a wildlife documentary about the endangered Pacific beaver snake.

And the royal couple just happened to keep getting in the way of their cameras.

The prince and his alleged wife, has that actually been confirmed yet?

I never trust anything I see on the telly these days carried out important official functions such as watching local people dance, being carried around on litters like the 18th century imperial supremacists, all of us Britons still secretly dream that they are, and smiling in an array of pretty dresses.

On the tour they encountered local dancers who were unashamedly and ironically topless as they waggled their whaps in Kate Middleton's recently whapped face.

By contrast with the princess, they seemed perfectly happy to be filmed with their chester tomicles out, given that they are, as scientists now believe, fairly common appendages on the female Homo sapiens.

Here in London, John, a city that is rumoured previously played host to at least one and probably two of Princess the Duchess of Her Royal Cambridge Highness Kate Middleton's bloops, clothed mostly, but at times unclad.

I mean, there's been talk of

little else.

Rumours now suggesting that she will in fact have her breasts encased in stone cladding to ensure this does not happen again.

Good idea.

I mean it was historically inevitable John that this would happen in France, that the Waparazzi would get her the

French of course have preferred their royalty topless ever since the late 18th century.

Kaboom!

Take that Marie Antoinette.

The royal family immediately launched legal action over the French photographs, but they seem to have forgotten that there is something called the internet now, which means that getting something banned in print is close to meaningless.

And magazines in other countries have gone ahead with reprint of the pictures anyway Swedish celebrity magazine Sey Ochoya

have published the topless photos I know that you yourself have had problems with Sey Ochoya as well haven't you Andy?

Didn't they publish topless shots of you on holiday in Spain last year?

Yeah they did.

I'm gonna

one of these bloody Swedes let me live my own life.

Eating a ham.

After everything the Vikings did on these shores.

I think it was through those pictures.

That was when the world found out that you have a very intricate architectural drawings of the Brooklyn Bridge tattooed on your back and a huge tattoo of Tina Turner in concert on your stomach.

Yeah, but that does not affect...

That does not affect me as a human being, John.

That's all my business.

Mine and Tina Turner's business.

She was less happy with having Andy Zoltzmann tattooed on her chest, to be honest.

Tit for tat.

It was the hair transplant that really got the alerts.

The Danish edition of the same magazine was set to publish the photos as well yesterday.

A three-page spread, including 11 pictures, including one which shows Kate Middleton Middleton partially removing her bikini bottoms.

And the editor-in-chief, Karina Lerkquist, said, this is nothing unusual.

These are quite nice pictures if you compare them with the other celebrity pictures that we publish all the time.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, Karina, except this isn't just a celebrity picture, is it?

It's a member of the royal family.

She's not Lindsay Lohan falling out of a car with no underwear with her vagina pointed towards the heavens.

She's married to the future King of England.

The only way this might possibly be news was if the photos showed that it turned out she had a penis and that she was set to become Britain's first official drag queen.

Or, John, I mean,

I think clearly it was a massive invasion of privacy, but I think they've overreacted and have made it much more of a story than it needed to be.

And I think they're trying to hide something.

And I think when we see higher es pictures and those sort of grainy, sordid long-range shots we've seen,

she must have some kind of embarrassing tattoo.

But

it could be of a profit.

I mean, we don't, I'm not saying which profit, but I'm just saying if that is the case, that would be a story.

That would be an issue.

Yeah.

That is why they're trying to suppress these pictures.

In fact, the editor-in-chief of the Danish magazine said that the pictures will show Denmark what these photos are all about.

And, you know, it's not like the Danish have a history of bad judgment when it comes to inflammatory publishing, is it?

So I'm sure that's fine.

But I tell you what this situation needs, Andy, and I am Spartacus moment.

The Brits need to step up, step up.

We need to defend our princess and mobilise ourselves as a nation.

All British people should head straight to Provence now and start waving our genitals around at any photographer that moves.

Genitals, John?

I think

you might need to

consult a biology textbook there, mate.

I'm talking about taking it up a notch, Andy.

Fair enough.

You go.

Distraction.

Distraction tactics.

That's right.

They've come at us with swords.

We need to fire back at them with bazookas.

Well,

also, it does mean, let's put this in perspective.

I mean, there are a lot of photos of the Princess of Cambridge,

and the vast majority do show her with her clothes fully on.

So on balance, she is still ahead of the eight ball, or at least ahead of Prince Harry's eight balls, which was a genetic mutation revealed by those Vegas photos caused by centuries of royal inbreeding.

But we don't like to think of princesses having anatomicals like ordinary human women do.

But Kate Middleton actually, according to scientists, shares more than 70% of the same DNA as ordinary British women.

And of course, she's not the first royal to sports a pair of,

what I believe technically, biologically known as Mamarianike glandioli.

Amongst other royal figures confirmed or assumed to have had breasts include the 17th century Charles II consort Catherine of Braganza, between four and six of Henry VIII's known wives, newsreader Anna Ford, Queen Mary II and the girl with one eye from Future Armour who is of course a direct descendant of 19th century King William IV.

Can we go back a second?

Yeah.

Beaver snake.

Wow.

That's not going back a second, Chris.

That wasn't supposed to be a sound.

You're going through a mountain of bullshit to get there.

That wasn't supposed to be a.

That does sound quite sexual, doesn't it?

I have to say, I haven't listened to any of the last six or seven minutes since then.

It has also been suggested, John, that this whole story shows continuing misogyny in the media, that the sexual objectification of women continues deep into the supposedly more equal and enlightened 21st century.

And in response, I would say to that, well, if Eve hadn't eaten that apple, none of this would have f ⁇ ing happened.

Wow, that's the misogyny double down, Andy.

But also, it does rather suggest, John, I mean, there's been a lot of criticism of the media in this.

But I think we need to point some more fingers here, John, because those magazines have been flying off the shelves.

Yes, quite.

So, I mean,

the public is not entirely blameless here.

It turns out the public might like princesses, but they also like breasts.

And maybe that relationship is doomed to end in pain.

Because also we all have regrets.

Maybe Kay Milton now regrets disrobing.

You know, anyone could have seen, anyone could have seen her from a public road if they happen to be passing with an industrial strength telescope.

Literally anyone.

Maybe she regrets that.

And I think Barack Obama probably regrets after bumping off Osama bin Laden that he did not use the words, America, we have hit the crackpot jackpot.

Because if he said that, John, he would now be moonwalking back into office.

And the question is...

you know, will these lawsuits, will it stop the Waparazi trying to photogle princesses in future or attempting to get Lecivi snaps of the great and famous flobbing around with their frontispieces and back accessories outs.

Well, is the Pope a professional dance instructor?

By which I mean almost certainly not.

Middle East protests now and protests are continuing to spread across the Middle East like a combustible smear of peanut butter across a very angry bagel.

The trigger seems to have been partially due to a crass anti-Islamic YouTube video produced here in America called The Innocence of Muslims.

Now, is this video offensive?

Yes.

Is the person who made it a monstrous dick bag?

Indubitably.

But is this reaction way, way over the top now?

I would argue yes, because the pointless waste of human heartbeats behind this project is a man called Nakula Basali Nakula.

And you can say what you like about him, and that is literally true, as America is a country with freedom of speech, a freedom of speech that he's personally shitting up the wall at the moment with his crappy video.

So let's say a few things about him now.

He is a myopic motherfer of the highest level, a numb nuts of legendary proportions, a cock blaster with a bone-chilling range.

But you have to say that he knows how to cut an eye-catching trailer because the horrendous trailer alone for this depicts the Prophet Muhammad and his followers as killers, looters and extortionists.

In one scene, the Prophet sanctions the sexual abuse of children.

In another, he announces that he is gay.

Wow.

You do not need to flash up a commercial afterwards telling people to turn off their mobile phones after that, Andy.

You have their full undivided attention.

And in a BBC interview, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the film was wrong and offensive, but also laughable as a piece of filmmaking.

And while he's technically right about that, Andy.

What film was he talking about, John?

How about not using the word laughable?

How about having Blair not basically implying, to be fair, it was very fun,

To be fair.

Mind, of all the crimes against filmmaking perpetrated by the US Film Industry, is this really the one most worth getting fired up about?

What are you trying to say, Andy?

Nothing, mate.

Nothing.

Is that a pointed comment?

No, nothing, mate.

No, nothing, mate.

No.

No.

I'm sure you'll make up for it in time.

Don't.

That is a misplaced confidence.

Almost no leader with hostile persuasions has missed the opportunity to jump on this bigotry bandwagon and ride it all the way to Fisticuff Town.

The leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon says the US faces very dangerous repercussions if it allows the full video to be released.

In a very rare public appearance, he told a rally in Beirut that the world did not understand the breadth of the humiliation caused by, and I quote, the worst attack ever on Islam.

Whoa there.

Whoa there.

I hate to call you up on a minor historical quibble, but have you ever heard of the f ⁇ ing Crusades?

I seem to remember them being significantly worse than a YouTube video with low production values made by a f ⁇ wit.

I think some of the thousands and thousands of people killed during the Crusades might have a problem with you comparing the physical horrors they experienced to a video on a website that mostly features cat videos and backyard dunk contests.

Bugle feature section now and the future of the bugle.

Now, Buglers, as you're well aware, at the start of this year, we were divorced by Times Online after four years of marriage,

the last couple of which we couldn't have the most communication

of relationships.

Little tempestuous.

I'm more of an absentee husband, I guess.

And your contributions helped save the Bugle then and keep us going through this year so far.

Keep the holy hydrant of bullshit spraying its cleansing nectar all over the world.

Well, now we need to plan beyond the short term for the future of this certificate cast

for the next one, maybe 2,000 years of Bugles, give or take.

Now a while ago we contemplated charging for the podcast and a highly scientific online poll suggested that 80% of the world's population, that's almost 6 billion people, were willing to pay for the bugle.

I have extrapolated that figure from people who voted on the Bugle Facebook page.

Well, we're not actually going to charge for the Bugle, but we are going to ask you to voluntarily charge yourselves with the new Bugle Volunto subscription scheme.

You can follow the link on the webpage, thebuglepodcast.com, and set up a recurring voluntary subscription of whatever weekly or monthly sum you think the bugle is worth to you, maybe $300,000 a week.

You know, if it's worth as much to you as having baseball at Alex Rodriguez or football with Lionel Messi just knocking around your house.

Doesn't need to be that much, though.

Whatever you think is appropriate.

And you can also still pay one-off voluntary payments.

So the show will hopefully remain free for all 7 billion potential listeners.

If enough of you 7 billion, help fund the podcast so it can remain both free to download and free editorially and commercially.

So thank you in advance for your staggering generosity, Stroke.

Well, I suppose that's better than nothing, Stroke.

Screw you, does five years of free hobbash mean fing nothing to you?

Audio delete is applicable.

Yes.

Very nice.

Yeah, please, please do help out, buglers.

We would love to keep producing this absolutely valueless form of entertainment for the future.

Let's try and...

This bizarrely expensive way to produce nothing.

This is the podcast equivalent of the conventions I was at for the two weeks.

What do you mean, John?

We've seen off in our almost five years, coming on to our fifth anniversary next month.

Wow.

And we've seen off some of the world's worst despots.

True.

Yeah, several of them.

You know, there's hardly any left standing from when we were.

Yeah, I mean, you know.

Let us continue our killing spree.

I haven't even released the balloons yet

your emails now and we have a phenomenal email here from kate who writes dear the bugle in homage to the bugle i named a fake horse in a simulated horse game after the podcast she

She turned out to be very successful, winning four stakes races and $175,000 in fake money.

Now she has a son who needs to be named.

If he's successful, he will get to be a stud horse.

If he isn't, he might be frustrated.

We've all been there.

Who or what do you think is up to being the namesake for this fake horse?

Listen, Andy, I just claimed that this was valueless and I don't think anything proves that better than this email.

That is a complete and yet glorious waste of time.

I don't know.

I mean, if you want someone that's going to end up as a stud horse.

Yes.

Without one, he's a blow my own trumpet.

I am two for two.

But

Berlusconi.

Scoring here.

Berlusconi's not a bad name for a stud horse.

Berlusconi's bull knacker.

That's quite a good name for a horse.

Waparazzi.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

What's that first one?

Berlusconi's ball what?

Ball knacker.

Berlusconi's ball knacker.

Yeah.

I mean, it's pretty.

No one's castrating that horse.

Even if that is not a successful horse, you're just not castrating it you couldn't bring yourself to do it

uh so buglers do email in uh the names for

for the fake horse yeah and uh we will announce them next week and we will relay them to kate a fake randy horse yeah

and do keep your emails coming out buglers

let us continue to waste each other's time before swan diving into the chasm of death that awaits all of us Two and a half thousand years of civilization have

led to this.

Please name my fake horse.

Actually, this one comes in from Tim, a loyal listener, although not a paying one.

He says, Dear Andy, we can rectify that now.

Dear Andy, John, and Chris, a team of Italian scientists claim that the average size of male genitania has been shrinking over the past 50 years and named environmental pollution as a possible contributing factor.

Rush Limbaugh got hold of this story after misinterpreting environmental pollution as necessarily only meaning global warming and speculated that the feminist agenda was a more likely culprit than this ridiculous straw man of the researchers' actual suggestions.

There's nothing about this bullshit study or Russia's bullshit analysis of it that isn't right up your alley.

I hope you find time to comment on it in the coming weeks.

Well, I think, I mean, that's one of the stories that, you know, in our weeks off, we've not touched upon.

Also, Vladimir Putin,

John, we've uh i'm sure it was massive news uh in america but vladimir putin uh

really surpassed himself uh john by um

he uh tried to help some endangered cranes migrate by leading them in their migration flying a hang glider yes uh sadly he did not wear the prosthetic beak that rumor had suggested he was going to wear but i think he should have worn the prosthetic beak and I think he's he's really set an example for world leaders.

I want to see David Cameron do do the same John.

I want to see David Cameron dressed up like a pantomime salmon

heroically swimming upstream shouting come on little fishlets snuggle up with your uncle Dave.

Then and only then will I consider I want to see Mitt Romney knee deep in the Okavango Delta screaming like a wildebeest and having a go at zebras for turning up every year expecting there to be free water for them.

That's what I want to see from my leaders John.

God, I would love to see David Cameron dressed up like a salmon leaping out of the water into a grizzly bear's mouth.

I guess the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme is basically it's like Romney's attitude towards tax.

You know, it's, you know, if you can be asked and if you could afford it, basically.

That's right.

It's the most American way of funding anything.

Well, that's it for this week's Bugle.

It's great to be back, Buglers.

We'll be back next week with Bugle 207.

Goodbye from me and goodbye from John.

I'm just going to throw that in there on your behalf.

Oh, thanks, Andy.

That's right.

That saves me.

That saves me two syllables.

Yeah, good.

And we're going to play you out with this little offering from Chris, the producer.

In January 2012,

the bugle became an orphan.

Cast adrift, homeless and alone.

It was saved by you.

Without your support,

there would be more pun runs.

I wouldn't want to be Sinoiju in public.

Sinuiju, that's another North Korean city.

More singing.

Oh

yeah!

And less high-class satire.

Let's get rid of this horse.

This horse is an arsehole.

There may even be no bugle at all.

Oh boys.

Oh boys.

Imagine a world with no bugle at all.

Welcome to the Producer Chris podcast coming up triathlon, but first let's kill puppies.

So help save the bugle visit thebuglepodcast.com and click on the support icon

what are you cheap

Hi buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast Mildly Informed which is 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.