Bugle 201 – Dirty bankers

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 201 of the Bugle.

We are into our third century of Bugles, audio newspaper for this increasingly visual world, with me, Andy Zoltzmann, still unconfirmed as we record, as the man who will be lighting the torch at the Olympic opening ceremony next Friday, but not explicitly ruled out by the organisers as yet either.

So, hope springs eternal, John.

And in the hauntingly unolympic city of New York, it's the Jesse Owens of jokes, the Nadia Komenech of nice comedy, the Carl Lewis of creating laughter, the Mark Spitz of massive satire, the Alberto Juantarina of Huisecracks, the Emil Zatopek of expert zingers.

That's one for fans of 1950s Czech distance runners.

You're quite into that, aren't you?

Yep, Chris, yep.

It's John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Now, I forgot to talk about this story last week, Andy, but fame, both small and large, is a strange donkey.

It seems to not be without some kind of tangible use, but it also has the capacity to kick you in the balls and shit on your face.

Now, as you know, I was in Rome a couple of weeks ago on holiday, and I went to visit the Vatican while I was there, Andy, and I was, I think, understandably worried upon entering Vatican City that I might immediately feel a burning sensation in the middle of my forehead.

Surprisingly, that did not happen.

I guess I just slipped through.

Anyway, the point is, I went to see the Sistine Chapel, which was pretty incredible as interior decoration goes.

I was standing looking at the back wall, which Michelangelo opted to completely cover with his Last Judgment mural, rather than going with the more traditionally popular wall paint, a neutral eggshell white.

And it was truly mind-blowing, Andy.

I was standing there trying unsuccessfully to take it all in when someone came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder and said, are you on TV?

Can I have my picture taken with you, please?

Which wouldn't be a problem necessarily, Andy, if we weren't standing in the sistine f ⁇ ing chapel looking at one of the most incredible things that a human being has ever done and then she said can we get a photo standing in front of that and pointed at the last judgment and i instantly thought wherever michelangelo is right now i hope he can't see what's about to happen here because because otherwise i think he'd be entitled to say hey who is that arsehole standing in front of my f ⁇ ing painting having his photo taken oh he must be very important to be standing directly in the way of my greatest work directly obstructing that camera's view of a human masterpiece who is he's He's what?

A comedian?

Oh, is this some kind of practical joke then?

No.

That woman actually wants her photo taken with him more than she wants to look at something that took me four f ⁇ ing years to paint and that nearly drove me crazy.

Well f ⁇ that guy, a Michael f ⁇ ing Angelo.

I hope he's ashamed of himself.

He's what?

He's already thinking about how he might try and tell a humorous story about this incident.

Will that story be remembered hundreds of years after his death as being a landmark achievement in exploring the nature of human spirituality?

I guess it's too soon to say.

But if he ever tries to tell this on stage, I'm coming back as a ghost.

I'm going to sit in front of him while he's telling it.

I'm going to go paint a picture.

Let's see how he likes it.

Prick!

Well, I'm saying it's an amazing place, Andy.

It's an amazing place.

Another appearance on the bugle for Michelangelo or Little Mickey Paintbrush, as he was known, of course.

The full story of Paintbrush told in Bugle 34 for anyone with uh long memories and an inability to forget bullshit

so this is bugle 201 which coincidentally is what the professional wartime british king Edward VI whose magic royal testiculosos of course helped produce our glorious current monarch what he said to the French boss Charles de Gaulle after Britain helped expel the Nazis from France 201

And this week beginning Monday, the 23rd of July, 2012.

And who'd have thought, John?

Just seven years on from the day that you and I were watching the telly at my flat where they made the announcement that London would host the 2012 Olympics.

That just seven years later in 2012, London would be on the verge of hosting the Olympics.

You couldn't have dreamt it.

It's truly

beyond our wildest expectations.

And 23rd also, the 50th anniversary of the day in 1962 when Simon and Garfunkel began writing the Sound of Silence, which began with the lyric, Hello Darkness, you old,

and

took a few revisions before they finally hit it big in the mainstream.

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

It's more Olympics audio memorabilia for your commemorative audio sticker album of the 2012 Olympics.

Including this week, Ben Johnson whazzing into a test tube in 1988.

The next piece of audio memorabilia is from the press conference given by Princess Anne and her horse Goodwill at the Montreal Games in 1976.

Goodwill, Goodwill.

What's it like to have a royal ass bouncy up and down on your back?

This is what Michael Phelps listened to at the 2008 Games to get himself in the mood before winning all those gold medals.

And finally, this is the exchange recorded in 1948 between Fanny Blankers-Cohen, the Dutch housewife, after winning the 100m gold medal and being greeted by her husband.

Yes, yes, I won the fing Olympic final.

I'm the f ⁇ ing Olympic champion.

Did you see it, darling?

Did you see it?

Top story this week.

If you have any anti-nausea medication, take it now, because you may be about to wretch into a bucket.

Banking update!

And Andy, last week we talked a little about the LIBOR scandal, the manipulation of the key banking rate by a handful of complete arseholes, or to give them their numerical term, multi-millionaires.

It turns out that the entire city of Baltimore is now launching a lawsuit after suffering huge losses due to the manipulation of LIBOR.

So luckily, it seems like the victims of the LIBOR scandal are mainly going to be restricted to people, places, and things.

Just nouns, basically.

So as long as you don't fall under the noun group, you're going to be walking away from this scandal as happy as a clam.

And I remember last week thinking that I was disappointed with myself to think that the behavior of banks had bottomed out only for the LIBOR scandal to prove I was wrong.

And did I learn from that?

No, Andy, I did not.

Because I thought, well, LIBOR will be the depth of it now, at least for a few months.

How wrong I was.

Because just one week later, it has emerged that HSBC Bank has been found to have among other things laundered a huge amount of money for Mexican drug cartels.

Is this the bottom Andy?

Have we at least bottomed out now or are we going to find out next week that banks have been kidnapping children and harvesting them for fuel?

Because if we did I would be surprised, sure, but I guess not that surprised anymore.

Because if it turned out that Barclays was operating secret orphan fuel factories, it would at least seem morally consistent.

And also, you know, if it knocks a quarter of a point off my interest payments,

who am I to criticise them, John?

I mean, it's a good question.

Let the market design.

Let the market desire.

Let the market desire, Andy.

Unleash the market.

She's hungry.

Well, as you say, as the old saying goes, the darkest hour is right before the dawn.

So

could this actually be the exciting new dawn of a new era of morally infused banking?

Well, the fact is, it does appear that global megafinance actually really likes being in the darkest hour.

It makes them feel all horny.

And they've also spent a lot of money developing an industrial blindfold so they can just keep it going that extra bit longer.

Also, it's worth noting it wasn't just Mexican drug cartels that were funneling money through HSBC.

HSBC were also apparently channeling money for rogue nations such as Iran and Syria.

Apparently, from 2001 to 2007, MSNBC affiliates sent almost 25,000 transactions involving Iran worth over $19 billion through HB US and other US accounts while concealing any link with Iran in 85% of those transactions.

It also emerged that they may have been dealing with a Saudi bank known to have channeled money for al-Qaeda.

Now, you see, that is going to hit a bit of a nerve here in America, Andy, where the relationship with Iran and terrorists has been, at best, strained, and dates such as 2001 are at best poignant.

But I mean, the other side of looking at at this, John, is that if we don't let drug cartels and rogue nations and international terror groups use mainstream banking facilities, well, then we're just going to push them underground, John.

This is all clearly part of a trap to lure them in with promises,

like banks do with new customers.

Lure them in with promises of like a free sports hold-all or a £20 record token if they open a new student savings account.

And bang, next thing you know, you've got Mahmoud Armadinajad's address, phone number, mother's maiden name, and the name of his first pet.

And then you've got him by the balls, John.

You've gotten him by his financial balls.

Ahmadinejad's first pet was a little goldfish called Lucy.

You can't say that, Andy.

That has just completely ruined all his password encryption now.

He's a bad man, Andy, but he deserves some kind of internet secrecy.

On Tuesday at a US Senate hearing, the HSBC's head of compliance, David Bagley, resigned in the middle of the questioning.

But let's not make that a noble act.

Let's not mistake it for a noble act, Andy.

Falling on your sword is only noble if you are someone who doesn't fully deserve to have a sword inside your stomach.

And announcing that he's leaving at a hearing into HSBC's wrongdoing, Andy, is like the captain of the Titanic saying he's going to take a sabbatical from sailing for a while after suddenly hearing a crunching sound outside the ship.

What was more after suddenly realizing that 90% of a ship is underwater?

That's true.

You're right.

I got the timing all wrong there.

Senator Carl Levin described it.

It's after seeing a violinist float past.

It's when you're standing in the bar trying to order a drink next to a shop.

You know

you've left it too long.

Senator Carl Levin described HSBC's lack of controls at its US and overseas units as a recipe for trouble.

And this is not just any recipe, John.

This is a recipe as reliable as my Carbonara recipe for guaranteeing that you get exactly the dish you want, bang on the banana every time.

I'm describing a lack of controls, this kind of thing, as a recipe for trouble.

Well, yes.

It generally is.

That's why we have controls on things.

For example, we have controls on strangling people with cheese wire if they annoy you during a snooker match.

Controls on the number of babies you're allowed to try to throw through a basketball hoop, generally set at zero currently in most countries.

And controls on whether or not you're allowed to dip your testicles in a cathedral font during midnight mass and shout, I've got magic sperms now.

These are the kind of controls that the human being needs, John, because we have an innate human impulse to be a dick.

I mean, look at the ancient Greek gods.

No controls, wandered around doing all kinds of extremely naughty and deeply perverted stuff.

It's the same with big banks, John.

Watch and learn, the banking sector, on your barely regulated Mount Olympus of amorality.

Watch and learn, because you might be able to turn yourself into a shower of rain and hump someone, but it doesn't mean you have to do it.

The chief executive of HSBC's US

department, Irene Dorner, who must absolutely love going into work at the moment,

she apologised to the Senate committee, I quote, for the fact that HSBC did not live up to the expectations of our regulators, our customers, our employees, and the general public.

You see, you got that wrong, Irene.

HSBC didn't just live up to everyone's expectations nowadays.

They vastly exceeded them.

I now am just wired to expect bank to be duplicitous crooks, but to be in league with Mexican drug cartels.

Oh, bravo, HSBC.

I don't think anyone saw that coming.

And the fact that that is so true is clearly part of the problem.

And as always with deep regretting in the mega business world, I think what Irene Dorna probably meant was that she deeply regretted HSBC being found out and made public.

And you can be pretty sure, John, in any controversy involving banking banking ethics that the financial moral compass is pointing directly at the Cayman Islands.

Yes.

The islands that put the hay into tax haven.

And in this case, John, it emerged that HSBC did not even have customer information on 41% of the accounts held with it in the Cayman Islands.

That to me, John.

That shows a certain lack of curiosity on behalf of HSBC.

Roughly equivalent to being a parent and having a baby baby and not bothering to find out whether it's a boy or a girl until it's 34 years old and you have to ask it whether it's very, very pregnant or has just put on a bit of weight in the last nine months.

Having no customer information whatsoever for 41%

of your customers, Andy, is not just a red flag.

That is a red flag attached to an alarm bell attached to a dead canary.

I just don't know how many more signs you need.

The bank has said it's in the process of closing down 20,000 accounts in the Cayman Islands as a result of the investigation.

And this is yet another case, John, of a bank trying to shoot the horse after the door has bolted, in the immortal words of the West Indian cricket legend Viv Richards.

Clearly a man with his finger on the global economic pulse.

That's such a great quote.

Clearly, there are big questions also about regulation and oversight.

As the report also implicated the US Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency which is supposed to police things like money laundering and they were indicted for not for failing to step in earlier.

Senator Tom Coburn said that the OCC had acted as I quote a lapdog not a watchdog by failing to catch HSBC of the Act.

But again,

they're not seeing this the right way Andy.

The OCC haven't just been a lapdog, they've been a lap dancer grinding on top of bankers in the hopes that they'll stuff some money into their fiscal G-strings.

One interesting side note to these banking scandals at the moment, Andy, is that they all have one thing in common.

The LIBOR scandal based in Britain.

The HSBC scandal based in Britain.

This is a high-end low point for Britain Andy.

We should be proud of the amounts that we should be ashamed at the moment because with the banking scandals, the BP oil disaster and the phone hacking scandal, you could make a very coherent case that British businessmen are the most cartoonishly evil people in the whole world.

And you know that the US is going to respond in every way they can, Andy.

And you can expect Hollywood to once more make British people the villains in all their movies.

Put it this way, Alan Rickman is about to get a lot of job offers.

You're going to see both of us in a lot of movies with us twirling our moustaches in a swivel chair with a hairless cat in our lap and a bazooka over our shoulder before Vin Diesel bursts bursts in and kicks both of us in the face.

All I'm saying is these scandals have real-world consequences, Andy.

And the problem with this, John, is, you know, we've got the Olympics now as we record on Friday.

The opening ceremony is one week and a few hours away.

That the logistical problems that inevitably arise with the transport around the city are going to be further exacerbated by the fact that the entire city of London has basically become the world's biggest crime scene and it's going to be surrounded by police tape while they bag and label it and pack it off to forensics.

I think to get trust back, at least some trust, HSBC are clearly going to need to increase their transparency.

So when you go to a cash machine in the street and you type the amount of money that you want onto the screen, it should then flash up saying, you'll be charged $3 for this transaction.

Would you still like to continue?

Uh, yes.

That three dollars might end up in the hands of a Mexican drug cartel.

Would you still like to continue?

Uh I guess, yes.

Even though the Mexican drug cartels are are routinely murdering law enforcement officials and turning parts of their country into a war zone, still want to continue?

Ah, I want to say no, but yes.

What about if part of the $3 ended up in Iran?

Continue?

Yes.

Which will be illegal.

Continue?

Yes.

How about Syria, who are, as we speak, murdering their own people in the streets?

Continue?

No.

Really?

Don't you want this money?

Yes.

Exactly.

Shut up then.

Here's your $20.

Would you like a receipt to remind you of this conversation?

No.

Didn't think so.

Goodbye.

I guess in an industry driven by money and therefore in large parts by human greed or tax havenality, if you will, this behaviour is hardly surprising.

And I guess we just have to wait to see what excuses HSBC can come up with apart from the classic, sorry, my dog ate all the account details of everyone we bank with.

To what we...

Hang on.

Ah!

Let's try this again.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what excuses HSB comes up with apart from the classic sorry, my dog ate all of everyone's account details and what happened, we were busy fixing a broken cash point between 2002 and 2009, did something go wrong somewhere.

And of course, the more traditional banking excuse of, sorry, you'll have to say that a bit louder, I just don't give a f.

Syria news now and the descent of that benighted country into the full horror of war continued amidst continuing thumb twiddling from the international community and rampant bloodsheds all over.

So oh stop it Andy, we have important breaking news.

Mermaid updates now.

Oh few.

And yeah

just let this wash over you.

The US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has officially come out and made a statement that mermaids are not real.

Now,

your first response to that buglers might be now?

Only now have they done that.

Well, hold on, perhaps they were just waiting to be absolutely sure.

You know, America is a very litigious country.

You don't want to officially announce that mermaids aren't real and then get sued by a bunch of offended mermaids.

You don't want the first time you see a mermaid, Andy, to be in a water tank on the steps of a courthouse announcing a huge out-of-court settlement victory.

I think, John, this is yet another story that tells you everything you need to know about America as as a nation, all its glory and its idiocy.

Now this might not be quite as American, clearly, as hitting baseballs off an aircraft carrier into a shoal of jet skis.

But still, for a government agency to feel it has to issue a statement denying the existence of mermaids proves that America as a nation, A, believes innately and unstoppably in the concepts of infinite possibility, of dreams coming true, that every man should be free to have the possibility in his life to get it on with a topless chick who's half made of fish.

It proves that B, America as a nation is unremittingly silly and C, that it's willing to devote government resources to the most ludicrous possible things.

What a country, John.

What a country.

I'm choking up, Andy.

I'm choking up with pride at being a legal permanent resident of this great nation.

This great stupid nation.

They were actually apparently forced to make this statement.

It gets even better.

After a documentary-style science fiction program on the Discovery Channel's Animal Planet channel here,

after this program suggested in May that the body of a mermaid had been found on a beach, and in response to this show, they received a huge deluge of inquiries from the public.

And that has to be a tough day working the phones at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Andy.

Hello?

No.

No, I don't think mermaids are real.

No?

No,

I honestly don't think you did see video evidence.

Well, okay, I'll turn my TV on right now.

No, that just looks like an actress with half a CGI haddock attacked to her.

No, no, I'm pretty sure that's not a mermaid.

Excuse me, I have to go.

I've got another caller on the line.

Hello, National Oceanographic.

No, I don't think mermaids are real.

Hold the line, please.

Got another call coming in.

Holy shit, Darren, we have a real problem here.

The show was called Mermaids, the Body Found.

So they hadn't even found a real live mermaid, Andy.

They'd found a mermaid corpse.

And that is a lot less sexy.

The little mermaid?

Huge hit for Disney, Andy.

The dead little mermaid, that would have been box office poison.

And coming from you, John,

those are strong words.

Of course, it is the 100th anniversary of the last time that scientists tried to breed a mermaid in captivity.

1912, of course.

And it went disastrously, horribly wrong.

It was an experiment at the National Aquariansemuseum in Berlin, in Germany, in 1912, and they tried to mate Kaiser Wilhelm with a captured dolphin.

And they came up with the walrus, which was then released into the wild and flourishes to this day.

Came up with a walrus and a Kaiser with a big old smile on his face.

Dirty old hound.

But you have to ask, John.

I mean, we're being pretty cynical about this, just assuming that there really is nothing that's worth covering up here.

But then I followed a link to a website, John, a website entitled BelieveinMermaids.com that claimed to have proof of the existence of mermaids.

So I type that into my browser.

And what comes up from BelieveinMermaids.com is the badge of the Department of Justice.

the badge of the Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent badge.

And the words, this domain name has been seized by DOJ Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a US district court.

Is that true?

Yeah.

Oh my god.

What am I hiding, John?

What are they hiding?

It's Roswell all over again.

Release the files.

Bring out the fish lady.

In election year as well.

I mean,

how much more are we not being told, John?

It is suspect.

The official statement.

Have you ever seen Hillary Clinton's legs?

That's all I'm asking.

Was that your go-to woman for the mermaids?

The first image you have.

Oh, yeah.

The official statement read, I quote, no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.

And I really think if you ever find yourself typing the words aquatic humanoids as part of your daily job, you've done very well.

Very well indeed.

and it's interesting you mentioned that because even the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency got sucked into this after a number of people contacted them a spokesman for the immigration agency Ross Feinstein wrote in a statement it is not our agency's position to judge whether or not mermaids exist or don't exist our agency has no open investigations into any issues regarding mermaids see trust a bunch of whack jobs Andy to see a story about mermaids and somehow find a way to make it into an immigration issue.

These bloody mermaids swimming over here, stealing our kelp.

They should grow legs and learn to speak English.

I did.

You will feature section now, and it can only be one thing.

Again, the Olympics.

One week away, John.

One week today, the opening ceremony.

In fact, in five days' time, the first sport begins with a

keenly anticipated double header in the women's football competition at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

And I'm delighted to be able to say that I will be covering that exclusively for the Bugle.

Oh,

I'm going down to Cardiff on my own to watch

to watch women's football.

You're doing the right thing.

For the Bugles,

for the special daily

bugle bulletins I'll be doing during the games.

So on the spot coverage.

It's going to be at the absolute cutting edge of sports reporting.

What's the game?

Well, it's Great Britain against New Zealand is one of them.

And the other one, I think, is Brazil against someone else.

So

it doesn't get any bigger than that.

That is when it all kicks off.

But you're right, Andy.

It's one week before the eyes of the world are on London for our opening ceremony in which we have been promised real live sheep.

Did Did you have real live sheep in your ceremony, Beijing?

No, I don't think so.

And it's so exciting, this for Britain, Andy, and for good reason, because it is always exciting when you buy something that you can't afford.

It's just a natural rush.

Now, the big story in the build-up to the Olympics here has been the complete failure of one of the security companies to recruit sufficient security guards.

G4S admitted last week that it did not have enough people and as a result, thousands of extra military troops have been drafted in.

Now, this is obviously quite an exciting moment.

The biggest deployment of the armed services personnel in this country to take care of stewarding a sporting event since we went in very big on making sure there were no safety and security issues at the 1944 Normandy Beach Volleyball Championship.

And people are understandably disgusted that G4S, the company involved,

have completely failed to deliver on their extremely lucrative contract.

And

G4S's boss, Nick Buckles, did as all people in news stories do these days.

He appeared days later at a government select committee to say sorry and be grilled by politicians who seem to spend an increasing amount of their time John being appalled by stuff that they did absolutely flee to prevent happening when they had the chance.

What?

Are you telling me the financial sector is immoral?

But but how?

How?

Newspapers power drill their way through the bottom of the barrel in the search for a competitive edge in an increasingly unprofitable marketplace.

But no, I just thought they made up all those stories for fun whilst having a picnic in a petting zoo.

We had better get to the bottom of this.

So British politics has sprung into action once again to complain about this.

Buckles has said that the firm will not be waiving its £57 million

management fee despite its total failure to do what it was supposed to do.

and I guess that is because John you cannot spell mismanagement without management it's true and you also can't spell go f yourselves without the letters F E and E from the word fee so you can see why they are clinging on to it John

and the MPs tore into buckles like Henry VIII into the latest edition of single European Princesses magazine and as the old saying goes John you can't spell held someone to account without using all the letters from he's a k

in the right order as well.

So you can read into that whatever you want buglers

There is a there's actually some controversy here in America over the Olympic uniforms that have been made for their athletes the outfits which cost close to two thousand dollars each were designed by Ralph Lorraine and managed to make some of the fittest most athletic people in the world look relatively silly like a bunch of country club douchebags or private jet flight attendants.

But that's not the point.

The real controversy here is not how silly they may or may not look, it's the fact that apparently the outfits have been made in China.

And this fact has prompted bipartisan outrage here.

But perhaps the most angry remarks came from the normally mild manner to the point of medically comatose Harry Reid, the senior Democratic senator from Nevada.

He said, and I quote, I'm so upset.

I think the Olympic committee should be ashamed of themselves.

Okay, strong words from Harry Reid there, but you know, I can see why he's not happy about this.

Nothing outrageous yet.

But then he went on to say, I think they should take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them, and start all over again.

Well, that seems fiscally sound.

A pile of outfits to dress the entire US Olympic team at $2,000 a pop, dosed in kerosene with Harry Reid smoking a cigar before flicking it over his shoulder onto the pile and saying, I love the smell of polyester in the morning.

He then went even further into the centre of Crazy Town and said, I hope they wear nothing but but a singlet that says USA on it, painted by hand.

What?

Hand-painted outfits?

Do you know what?

I think I'm behind him again, Andy.

I think every Olympic athlete should have to make their own outfit from vests, paint and ribbons.

There was outrage everywhere here over these outfits and Fox News got their knickers in an intense twist over the fact that the headgear designed by Ralph Loren was a beret and this got them so mad that they had a viewer poll question during Fox and Friends that read, should the American team be wearing a beret?

Question mark.

Why not a baseball cap?

Question mark.

And the host of Fox and Friends, which is, you know, a kind of non-entertaining human circus, went on a verbal rampage suggesting that the wearing of berets is completely unpatriotic and un-American, seemingly forgetting that most of the United States military wear berets and the looks on their faces when someone in the control room suddenly pointed that out to them in their earpieces was a thing of complete beauty.

In other Olympic news, there was an early snafu regarding transporting Olympic athletes around when the first foreign athletes to turn up were taken on a ludicrous four-hour bus trip from Heathrow Airport to the Olympic village, also in London.

A trip that should take less than one hour.

Competitors from Australia and the US were stuck on these buses despite supposedly being able to use the new Olympics lane on the M4 and American Karen Clements, a world 400-metre hurdles champion, apparently tweeted, we've been lost on the road for four hours.

Not a good first impression, London.

Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee.

Could we get to the Olympic village, please?

Well, no, Karen.

You'll get there when we f ⁇ ing decide you can get there.

This is the point, Andy.

This is how it starts.

We are hosting the Olympics.

There has to be an advantage to being on home soil.

And that advantage is that you get to f ⁇ with people.

The Olympics might start next week, but the mental Olympics have already begun.

Winning a gold medal is 97% mental, Andy.

And they had better pray that that completely unnecessary four-hour bus trip is the worst thing that happens to them.

Because we have got a lot of other stuff planned for them this week.

There's going to be drilling outside their bedroom windows.

There's going to be live deer released into their rooms in the middle of the night.

And there's going to be poison in their food.

Also, John, you know, the Olympics is about embracing the culture of the host nation.

And part of British culture is getting lost and getting stuck in traffic and needlessly queuing up for stuff.

They should be enjoying it, John.

It's all part of the experience.

Like, you know, when for the competitors in Beijing, it was all part of the experience to completely ignore human rights for a couple of weeks.

You have to give yourself to the experience, John.

A couple of quick Olympic minor injuries updates now.

Jamaican sprint sensation Johan Blake will be fit to challenge Usain Bolt for his 100 and 200 meter titles, despite a mild writhing industry to the abdomen sustained during a team bonding game of Sherad's, in which he foolishly chose to mime snakes on a plane.

American water polo star Tony Azavedo is fit despite suffering a perforated eyelash trying to find out whether the world would look more melancholic if he used a blues harmonica as as a pair of binoculars.

And rowing legend Sir Steve Redgrave, undisputed Nebuchadnezzar of sitting in a boat and waggling his arms backwards and forwards, could be ruled out of his rumoured role lighting the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony after accidentally squeezing mayonnaise into his eye from a plastic bottle whilst trying to explain how rockets work to his former boatmate Matthew Pinson.

We'll keep you fully up to date with all the latest injury news throughout the games on the Bugle.

Now for the latest, possibly even the first, in a bugle series of classic Olympic commentary moments from the archives and this goes back to Paris 1924 and the men's javelin final back of course in the days when the javelin was a head-to-head knockout contest with one athlete at either end of the arena as God intended hurling spears straight at each other's faces.

Thank you David and you join me and my colleague Albert Porton Hinchcliffe here at the Stad Olympique de Colombe, just in time for the final of the men's javelin and British interest, of course, in the form of young Ernest Wadleyhorn.

Well, yes, Harris, it will be tough for young Wadleyhorn.

He'll be throwing against the wind, and that could be crucial.

And the man he'll be trying to skewer is the highly rated Spaniard Emilio Mucha Bueno, who, of course, killed the reigning Olympic champion Pollock Straveen of the United States of America in the semifinal.

Yes, it was quite brilliant throw that and an extremely clean clean kill.

Well that's what we've come to expect from Mucho Buena and the flag is down.

They're off.

Wadleyhorn scooting around at the far end trying to take cover between behind the Italian shot putter I believe I'm writing saying Mucho Buena trying now to coax him out in the open to take a clean shot at him.

Yes, I tell you Harris it looks like young Wadleyhorn's shoulder hasn't completely healed up from being harpooned by a Bagner Fleur of France in the first round on Tuesday.

No indeed it hasn't but he's winding up now that 23 are all from the Nantwitch Racist Athletics Club and the Spaniard is now running on a left-to-right diagonal to try to open things up.

He's vulnerable here.

Wandihorn throws.

Oh, that was so close.

So close.

Very close.

Very close indeed.

I think he might even have snicked the Spaniard here, but the context goes on.

And Muchabuena hurls one high and wide and into the crowd again.

They're running for their lives up there, Albert.

Oh, yes, Harris.

Not quite fast enough.

I think there may well be another spare seat for the 400 meters final later.

Goodness me.

Bit of fun.

They're sizing each other up up now and they're both thrown.

And goodness they've both been hit.

No plate sir.

Both two men down.

Mucho Pueno with a lovely shot straight into the British man's torso but Wadleyhorn got his one away just in time too and it looks like Mucho Pueno has taken that foot in the abdomen.

Just wonderful stuff from these two highly skilled warriors.

Well Albert, this could now all come down to who bleeds out first.

Well quite Alison, I wouldn't like to have to judge this one.

Well the medics are gathered around now, both men prostate and whimpering on on the Parisian turf.

And what a contest this crowd have seen today.

I think Mucha Buena just called for his mother.

This could be turning in Wadleyhorn's favour.

Yes, indeed, Albertan.

Yeah, the Spanish child doctor is shaking his head.

Let's go!

I think, I think they've lost his pulse.

Yes, he's been

dead.

Let's go!

Gold for Britain!

Gold for Britain!

And the almost motionless Wadleyhorn takes gold for this nation just as he passes away not very peacefully with a final triumphant shake of the fist and what a way for this young man to leave this mortal coil an Olympic champion.

God rest his gold medal winning soul and after that I tell you I cannot wait for the shot put.

Yes and of course with the imminent change in the rules this will be the last ever Olympic shot put competition which the competitors are allowed to launch their shot puts from the traditional naval cannons.

Well that is a damn shame.

And as the pullbearers prepare to dump Watleyhorn's body onto the podium for the medal ceremony, it's back to David Coleman in the studio.

Golds for Britain!

Your emails now, and we've overrun again, and John's got to do some interviews because he's in Shobis.

So no emails from you this week.

Sorry.

No emails.

No emails.

We beg your eternal forgiveness.

My interviews are the fact that my Comedy Central stand-up show, which you are a part of, Andy.

Hell yeah.

Starts tonight on Comedy Central and for the next six Fridays at 11pm in America.

But you probably can't watch it if you don't live in America or even if you do live in America and have direct TV.

This is the single worst time, Andy, to be starting a TV show in the middle of a gigantic cable.

provider strike and against one of the most hotly anticipated movies in the world.

Still, the point is, it starts tonight, Andy.

Comedy Central, Friday night, 11 p.m.

It's going to be my big break, John.

My big break.

Do keep your emails coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com.

And don't forget to check out our SoundCloud page,

www.soundcloud.com/slash the hyphen bugle.

And that's it until Olympics time.

Next week, we'll be back with a full bugle next week.

Then daily Olympic bugle bulletins throughout the games the showbiz events of the year until then goodbye and may the sport have mercy on your soul may the sport be with you bye

Hi buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.