Bugle 200 – The horn dog returneth!

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Buglers, ladies and gentlemen, citizens of the world in all 12 continents of all three leading genders in the world today female male and old people junior women and micro men or children as scientists prefer to call them welcome to the showbiz event of the post paleolithic era it's issue 200 of the bugle it's the start of a new dawn of hope for human civilization the end of approximately 13 billion years of disappointment and i and these ultimate am just trying to fight my way through the cheering crowds to get to the recording studio here in London 2012.

Literally thousands of well-wishers have lined the streets all the way as I've journeyed in to the recording today from the glamorous Streatham district of London on my open top ceremonial elephant.

Ordinary people as well as more important celebrities including renowned bugle fans, the Queen, former professional Prime Minister Tony Blair, rock legend and jowl enthusiast Mick Jagger, and of course the remnants of Alexander Graham Bell who of course made the bugle possible with his historic invention of the telephone, exhumed and flown in specially for this great, great day in broadcasting history.

He looks very excited for someone who's been dead for 90 years.

It's all a little overwhelming for me here.

Sorry people, no autographs.

After the recording, put your bras away please.

Put your bras.

All of them.

I'm trying to focus.

I've got to satirize stuff here.

Bloody paps.

Let me live my own life.

And I imagine as I fight my way to the door that there are similar scenes of wild communal jubilation in New York as we cross live to the award-winning star of stage and screen, John Oliver, as he prepares for Bugle 200, this historic Shobiz moment.

This coffee's nice, Paul, but could do with an

extra splash of milk or

something.

Andy said he was going to be

a bit late into the studio.

He said his hand was sore from high-fiving.

Sorry about that.

Does he have a medic?

No, he's

self-treats.

He'll be here any second.

I'm sure he's pretty pumped about today.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to the 12th ever bugle, beginning with a number two.

It's Bugle 200 for the week beginning Monday, the 16th of July, 2012.

Just 11 more whinging about national decline days to go before the Olympic opening ceremony.

John, how is New York coping with the fact that it does not have an Olympics less than a fortnight away?

Well, Andy, deep down, New York believes it does have an Olympics because that's what America is built on, American exceptionalism.

So if somewhere has an Olympics, America believes, even though deep down they know it's not a fact, they believe that they have a bigger Olympics also happening somewhere.

I think New York's just presuming that they have one in Midtown somewhere.

So happy 200th, John.

Well, Andy.

Hello, Andy.

Hello.

Hello, buglers, for the 200th time.

200 bugles, Andy.

Shakespeare only wrote 37 plays.

37.

It turns out he didn't have the imaginative ball to get anywhere near how many bugles we've done.

Brazil have only won five World Cups, Andy.

We've done 200 bugles.

Now, those two facts next to each other are completely meaningless.

But you'll notice that one number is definitely bigger than the other number.

And it's our number, Andy.

So suck it, Pele.

Because ask yourself this.

Which was the greater achievement?

Numerically?

Exactly.

It was 200 bugles so why don't you suck it hard P-man

how many prostitutes did Jack the Ripper kill Andy

I believe opinion is split on that but it's generally thought to be between three and six certainly not between three and two hundred though Andy which is how many bugles we've done all piled up behind us over the last four years like bodies of innocent Victorian prostitutes the point is This is a huge achievement, Andy.

200 bugles.

How does it feel?

Oh, well, John, I I mean I mean I would like to pick up on you that if Jack the Ripper was viewed to have killed between three and six he also killed between three and two hundred but you know let's I mean it's at the lower end I think that's I think the point basically stands well I mean John I've had the titles of every single bugle tattooed on my back and you know I'm uh

Running out of space to the fact that I've been having to work out pretty intensively to try and build up a bit of extra musculature for

the next 200 episodes.

But as you say,

what a large time.

This is 100 times more bugles now than installments of the Bible.

And that's including the fake ones.

We've now done the same number of bugles as the total of the following.

The number of 100 metre gold medals won by Madeline Albright.

The number of live Komodo dragons strangled and eaten by Lyndon B.

Johnson at UN meetings to make himself look tough.

The number of times former professional moonlander Neil Armstrong slept with renowned nun Mother Teresa.

I'm going to have to speed this up.

We're only on a total of one so far.

Also, career-ending neck injury suffered by ex-French Queen Marie Antoinette, too, and we're moving.

Plus the number of times Leon Trotsky ever beat Stalin at table tennis.

Coincidentally, that one time was the day before he was turfed out of the old Soviet Union.

And the lesson of that is, if you're going to showboat, showboat in private.

We're going to have to speed this up.

Plus the number of times that Jesus said err before answering the question, is that your donkey, sir?

And if so, what is it doing stuck up that tree with a helicopter blade gaffer taped to its back?

197 before he finally answered, yes, officer, sorry, it's a new trick I've been working on that needs a little fine-tuning.

Tell you what, if you let me off with a caution, I'll make your missus' caboodles two sizes bigger.

Deal?

200, John!

Bugle 200!

Honestly, Andy, when I was three years old, I never thought I'd do 200 anything, let alone bugles.

Because, you know, of course, then I didn't know what a bugle was.

I was, as I mentioned, three years old.

But here is, here's food for thought, Andy.

The Queen had a thousand boat flotilla on the thames because she'd been on the throne for 60 years without dying once we've done 200 bugles without dying physically andy so by my calculations we are owed a thames flotilla of over 3 300 boats but last i checked on the thames there just seemed to be a tour boat a party barge and what looked to be a dead body floating down the river what the f is going on over there

Well, people have no respect anymore, Joe.

No respect.

We have had a number of telegrams from famous well-wishers who sadly couldn't be with us today.

The UN Secretary General Ban Keith Moon has written, Happy Bicentenary, Bugle, and thanks for helping toppling all those tit bags in North Africa last year.

You're very welcome.

But, Mr.

Moon, Hillary Clinton simply says, You make me feel brand new.

Oh, that's nice.

Whilst Mitt Romney, still in the running, of course, to be the 63rd President of America, has written, Je vous en voyeur on c'est occasion joy, mes sentimier les maur pour luis caste de pod, qui sapelle bougul,

et son anniversaire de le two son episode de d'orpus solid et irresistibablement sons,

whose martyrs document the moment of rubish, a sincere content d'etre sur le planet de earth, in citre supreme félicitation de l'époc, modern telephonique, dans la piscine de matente.

And you have to ask yourselves, America, is that the kind of man you want in the White House?

Classic French way of saying, well done, John.

That is why Napoleon screwed up in Russia.

Because by the time he'd finished describing how cold it was going to be, his entire army had frozen to death.

History fact.

More telegrams later in the show.

Top story this week, the horn dog returner.

And look, buglers, we come bearing potentially sensational news on this, this, the first of the second century of bugles.

And the news is this.

Silvio Berlusconi is apparently planning to run for office again in the Italian 2013 elections.

It was like he knew, Andy.

It was like he knew we had this 200th anniversary coming up and he wanted to do something really special for us.

How did you know, Silvio, you leathery sex pest?

How did you know that this was what we wanted the most and what the world needed the least?

I mean, this really would be a hell of a comeback, Andy.

You know that classic scene from the end of so many movies?

You know, just when you think a villain is dead, buried in a grave, suddenly, just when everyone's calm, a hand shoots out of the ground.

Well, imagine that instead of Silvio Berlusconi literally dying, it was his political career that was buried.

And imagine that what's coming through the ground now is not his hand, but is his penis.

That's basically what's happening in Italy right now.

Well, according to reports,

Berlusconi has been persuaded to re-enter the political bordello at the urging of Italy's business and entrepreneurial community, John.

Now, that just shows how dire things are in Europe.

Italy's business and entrepreneurial community are suffering so much in this age of austerity.

There's not much business, not many things to entrepreneurialize themselves over, just nothing much happening.

And there are only so many times you can stand in your office revving an imaginary scooter before you start to wonder what the fk has happened to your career in business.

So what is the solution?

Get Berlusconi back.

Sure it won't make any difference to the economy or anything important.

Sure he's embroiled in more court cases than the number of times you or I have wondered whether snakes like pasta or whether it just makes them feel weird.

But at least he'd make things entertaining, John.

And that's what the world needs.

That's what democracy wants.

And most importantly, that is what democracy needs.

Distraction from the political quagmire it has dived headfirst into without any armbands or breathing

Exactly.

So, the Corriella della Sera reported that he will run,

likely in 2013, when Mario Monte has announced that he will step down.

And it should be an interesting campaign because Berlusconi's speeches to the country are going to have to have generally the same tone that he's had to repeatedly use in speeches to his wife over the years.

Come on, Italy, you gotta forgive me.

We're so good together.

I know I hurt you before, but I'm a different man now.

You know you miss your Silvio.

Now hop on the back of this scooter.

You know you love it.

I think that's literally going to be his re-election campaign slogan, Andy.

Hop on the back of this scooter.

You know you love it.

The most honest campaign slogan in electoral history.

We have to ask, O Yan, what more is there for him to achieve, John?

There can't be that many more things he hasn't yet stuck it into.

But I guess that's the thing with Berluscone.

He sees opportunities to put his 75-year-old Wempel Stiltski into places that no one else would even think of putting it in.

The New York Times came up with this rather delightful understatement.

They said that personal weaknesses tainted his premiership with scandal.

Tainted?

Tainted, John.

Is that tainted in the way that Michelangelo tainted the Sistine Chapel with his paintbrush?

Tainted like the summer of 1916 in the Somme area was tainted by a bit of battle.

Tainted maybe as the Titanic's luxurious voyage to New York was tainted by a minor contretante with little Johnny Iceberg.

And as for scandals, John, well, he's had more scandals than a dyslexic shoe shop owner.

Is this on?

Unfortunately,

is this on?

It is impossible to forget what kind of man you're dealing with with Berluscone and the baggage that comes with the Big B because the reminders are everywhere and not just in the upcoming court records of numerous Italian judges.

Because Berluscone, when I was last night, when I was reading about this story on a news website, they had a sidebar linking to any related stories.

And the sidebar read exactly like this: Related story: Women simulated sex with statue at Berlusconi party.

Related story: Stripper nuns danced for Berlusconi, trial told.

Related story: Judges consider Berlusconi bribery charges.

Related story, map Italy.

That was it.

That was it.

I mean, look, you know what you're getting with him.

That's the beauty.

And, you know, Bert Luscone was, of course, Premier of Italy three times and still currently faces criminal charges in at least two trials.

And you might think, ah, there's no way that Italy are going to take him back.

But I'm really not so sure.

Because I was just in Italy.

Andy on vacation.

And they do not seem to like Mario Monte one bit there.

He is the caring but dour stepdad in the cardigan that they have absolutely no interest in listening to, especially when their real dad is outside in a sports car, honking the horn and promising to take them to go and buy flick knives.

Monty is all about fiscal responsibility, Andy.

And Italians are all about scooters.

So they just fundamentally don't have much in common.

And incidentally, just in case you're wondering how seriously Italy is taking its responsibility to impose austerity measures and make large-scale cuts to their economy at the moment, I was in my hotel in Rome late one night and I was, I stumbled on Italy's most serious political talk show.

It was a group of handsome men in suits talking animatedly in Italian and also with their hands about the proposed austerity measures.

They were talking very fast and I couldn't follow exactly what they were saying until one man brought out from behind his chair an enormous pair of five-foot joke scissors and started waggling them around and everyone burst out laughing.

Now, I don't know what they were saying, Andy, but I think they were implying that the concept of fiscal responsibility is extremely funny.

And I think this, we need to put this in context, John.

I mean, you listed all the things Berlusconi has been involved in.

He's not so much fought the law as been involved in an abusive, dysfunctional relationship with the law, in which both parties clearly hate each other.

But a recent poll showed that without Berlusconi,

the People's of Liberty Party, which is a name for a political party that should set alarm bells ringing big time,

without Berlusconi as leader, currently polling 10%.

With Berlusconi as leader, they would be polling 28%, John.

That shows you not only has that political party laid its cards on the table, but the people of Italy have laid their cards on the table.

And by cards, I mean genitals.

And I guess the conclusions that we can draw from this story are as follows.

One, democracy doesn't work.

Two, as discussed recently on the bugle, if you leave a man unattended in a locked shed with a plugged-in George Foreman grill, at some point he will clamp his testicles in that grill, just for the hell of it.

It's as true politically as economically.

And three, Italy is nostalgic for the days of ancient Rome when it ruled the world, and its leaders were not afraid to use their penises in ways that most modern leaders generally shy away from.

Well, now for this 200th episode special, we're delighted to be joined by a man who played a key role in the development of the bugle, our former producer Tom, who did produce most of the first 108 bugles before fleeing the hemisphere.

Tom,

great to have you back on the show.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

F you, Chris.

F you, Tom.

That's good.

Oh, hello, Tom.

How's Australia?

How's it being upside down?

I'm not going to lie to to you.

The blood in my head upside down is really starting to hurt.

That

living on Greenwich meantime is really doing me mentally in, not very well.

Falling to bits, really.

Well, that's what people go to Australia for, isn't it?

Pretty much, yes.

Australia, of course, a nation in mourning after their cricket team was humiliated by England.

I mean,

have there been protests on the streets, Tom?

No, they're coming to terms with as well being shit at cricket.

They're shit at tennis, as Wimbledon proved.

They're getting shit at cycling, as Cadell Evans is getting beaten by Bradley Wiggins, and they're about to be beaten in the Olympics by Britain.

So yeah, it's a sport-wide collapse, I think.

This sounds like the last days of the Roman Empire.

Yeah, and Australia never even had an empire to start with.

Well, if they ever had anything, it was sport, but they just life's too good here.

The economy is doing well.

They don't really need to invest in sport.

Britain, as they point out, have nothing else but sport.

That is

100% true.

Yeah, but you know, who's getting their priorities right here?

I mean, economies come and go, but sports is immortal.

Australians are looking down, they would give up a healthy economy in a second for sport.

So, Tom,

what are your plans for the future down in

Australia now?

Well, I was sort of thinking of a long life.

It's all a bit,

oh, God.

Uh-oh.

That doesn't sound tall.

I will get you in the next life, you fing poisoned me.

Send your condolences to at right eye on Twitter.

Wow, so

Tom's dead, Andy, the first bugle character to die.

That's a big moment, isn't it?

I think let's all agree, Andy, that the bugle has not just jumped the shark, it is soared over the shark on a flying jet ski.

Well, I guess it is the classic sign of a desperate showbiz franchise kill off

kill off a character.

Always writing's gold, though.

Yeah.

I thought you killed him off ages ago.

That was just insights.

Who killed producer Tom Wright?

Was it an agent operating on behalf of his unloved replacement, Chris?

Was it a vengeful Rupert Murdoch, unable to cope with the guilt of having let the bugle slip unwittingly through his fingers?

Unwittingly, given that he'd never even heard of it.

Was it natural causes?

He's Scottish after all and in his mid to late 30s.

Those arteries can't keep unclogging themselves forever.

Or was it Colonel Gaddafi, who after faking his own death, has been on a worldwide mission to eliminate all those who once mocked him, beginning with Herbert Hauptmann, the American Nobel Prize-winning physicist, who died just three days after Gaddafi apparently had his clogs forcibly popped.

Then the film director Ken Russell, ex-North Korea cahooner Kim Jong-il, and former monkey Davey Jones, all men with whom the Colonel had a deep and undercooked personal beef.

And now, Tom, the man who filled Bugles 35 to 86 with coded messages encouraging a Libyan insurrection.

Who was responsible?

Tune in to Bugle 300 to find out if it was all just a dream.

North Korea update now.

And Andy, North Korea is the most secretive nation on earth.

So anytime any little detail comes out, the world pays close attention.

The bugle has been no different in the past, of course.

Over the last 200 bugles, when we found out that Kim Jong-il had private water slides that he liked to frolic in, or that he claimed that he'd hit 11 holes in one and shot 38 under par on his first ever attempt at playing golf, we devoured every batch of detail.

Sadly, Kim Jong-il, of course, died of craziness late last year, but his son Kim Jong-un is now in power and his apple may not have fallen far from the crazy tree.

Now details are slim on what he's been up to and he's been completely out of the public eye for the last two weeks but he's now turned up on TV in North Korea attending a musical show with a mystery woman by his side.

Now, the best guess of who the lucky and the incredibly unlucky lady is is that she is a married North Korean pop star who Kim Jong-il had previously forbidden his son to see.

I mean, wow, Andy, that is...

That's quite a f you to Kim Jong-un's father.

And I suppose it's an even bigger fk you to the husband of the woman in question as well.

Although, I'm guessing that he's about to be divorced not only from his wife, but from his beating heart as well.

I guess it also shows the fact that their relationship foundered before is that your partner's parents can be a big obstacle in a relationship, particularly when they have have the capacity, A, to kill you, and B, to make you sit watching military parades every day until the spark has really gone from your relationship.

Of course, things haven't been going too well for North Korea ever since really they tanked a three-goal lead in the World Cup quarter-final against Portugal in 1966.

But at last, John, this is some high-profile, romantic intrigue to get the country gossiping, albeit that all gossip has to be officially sanctioned by the ruling Communist Party.

The only allowable gossip currently is, our great leader Kim Jong-un has been seen with a goddess.

No wonder he's a major league dream boat.

To your right, he is the greatest guy in the world.

But at least that's something, John.

That's something that's something.

That's more gossip than no gossip.

So Kim Jong-un's new girlfriend is supposedly Hyun Song-woi.

And she sat next to him during the musical show wearing, and I quote, a dark suit with green piping.

I mean, that's already very fashion-forward, Andy.

North Koreans are used to dark suits with dark piping.

Is she the North Korean Kate Middleton?

And if she is, that begs the question, does she have a sister, Andy?

Is there a North Korean pippa?

Oh, yeah!

Now, here's a little background on Kyon-song-whole, who may be one of the first women ever to have nuclear weapons cited in any prenup agreement.

That really would be an interesting challenge for any divorce lawyer, Andy, negotiating visitation rights over enriched plutonium reserves.

look you can see the nuclear warheads alternate weekends but that will be supervised access and you can see them at Christmas but only after they've had lunch didn't didn't uh tom cruise and casey holmes have that in their uh their

i think so

i know so i didn't even know they were together john that passed me by yeah you didn't know tom cruise was with casey i thought he was with nicole kidman oh my gosh

i'm a bit out of the loop listen there's there's being out of the loop of pop culture andy and there's being concussed.

And I think you might have crossed over to the second one.

Kyon-song-woo was the first, was the front woman.

She was a musician.

This is a little background to her.

She was a musician, a frontwoman for the popular Bonchobo Electronic Music Band in North Korea, who apparently had a string of hits there in the early 2000s.

The most popular hit was,

and I promise I've not made this song title up.

Their most popular hit was a song called, and I quote,

Excellent Horse-like Lady.

I mean, no wonder that was a hit, Andy.

I already love that song, and I haven't heard any of the music or any of the other words yet.

I mean, I would buy that.

I'm buying that just

on the title.

Apparently, the song celebrates the achievements of a pretty young woman in a textile factory.

Oh, yeah!

and refers to the woman's skills at forced labor and how easy the task is of breaking her in.

What a romantic song, Andy.

If your idea of romance is medieval era misogyny and at the end of the day, whose isn't?

I'm not going to see how that could work.

The LMFIO remix is amazing.

Hey, sweet chicks, the way you work those textile machines to make low-quality t-shirts.

You remind me of a horse.

How about dinner?

Dinner?

No, lunch?

Coffee and see how it goes?

Just a phone number?

number oh come on come on what's a guy gotta do

the video of the song is online and uh in it hyon song wall dashes around a factory with a beautiful smile distributing bobbins and collecting swatches of cloth at top speed which american singer has the balls to do a cover of this andy

why not test exactly how popular you are by doing this i will both accept and respect justin bieber andy if he can reach number one in the u.

US Billboard charts by covering excellent horse-like lady.

And only if he does a shot-for-shot recreation of the video in drag as well.

No dancing, Justin.

Just running around a factory in a dress, distributing bobbins.

If he can get people to buy that, Andy, then consider my inoculation against Bieber fever to have expired.

Is it not a lifetime?

Not if he gets to number one covering excellent horse-like lady.

I think it's more of of a Lionel Ritchie song to me.

I can see him carrying it off.

He's got the kind of smooth, seductive tone.

Yeah.

Maybe we should do it as the Bugle Christmas single this year, a cover of Excellent Horse Like Lady.

Hold on.

I've actually found it on YouTube.

Hold on.

No, no.

Let's have a blast of it.

So this is it.

It's got...

It's a little more upbeat than I thought it'd be.

I like that bit.

Obviously, you can westernise the production.

Is communism so bad?

It's pretty jaunty, isn't it?

This is why North Koreans are so skinny.

It's a very upbeat song about a woman whose spirit has been completely crushed by the state.

I guess that's the point.

Well, that's that's a lovely little taster.

Yeah.

I mean,

I can see that being a big hit.

I'm telling you, Andy, put a guitar solo in there from Slash and a rap break from Exhibit, and you have got a hit on your hands.

Apparently,

this mystery woman, who may or may not be Yong Song Wol, accompanied Kim Jong-un on, quotes, a visit to the tomb of his grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

What a date!

Hey, want to go catch a movie?

Sure, why not?

That'd be lovely.

Here we are.

This doesn't really look like a cinema.

There's no popcorn for a start.

Sorry, mix up.

My bad.

I didn't mean movie.

I meant tomb.

I meant want to go catch a tomb.

Come back.

Mind you,

I'm not in a position to talk.

I took a girl to see Gillingham Football Club play out a nil-nil draw away at Wrexham, John, standing on the terraces of the racecourse ground in the middle of winter in freezing fog.

And that Mr.

Lova Lova

was so impressed that she later bore my seed

and mothered my offspring.

So I guess that shows, well, A, that not all dates have to be flowers, champagne, and chatting under the moonlight about snooker.

But what it also shows more importantly is that I am one hell of a guy.

What a catch.

I'm a real catch.

You look skeptical, Chris.

Sorry, that's because I am.

Oh, man, you're fired.

Also, apparently,

it's considered that Kim Jong-un being seen with this young woman is helping him consolidate his image as a virile young man with the same sort of urges as his subjects.

Well, I mean, I'm not a

psychologist, but I'd imagine most of Kim Jong-un's subjects' urges basically involve the urge to live anywhere else in the whole f ⁇ ing world.

Apart from London during the Olympics, which might as well be bloody Pyongyang, the way they're doing it, eh?

Where's my free tickets to see a man fire a gun at a plate?

Isn't it my Olympics too?

Amongst the other contenders for the Mystery Woman are Condoleezza Rice, who fits the romantic bill, single woman, probably looking to settle down after years doing a really tough job.

Rice would also provide a much-needed bridge between North Korean communists and US Republicans.

However, she is known to dislike despots and over-choreographed state-run parades.

Could it be actress Kim Cattral?

Eager for a career spike in the post-sex in the city years, Cottral's agent has reported that she's already turned down offers to be the ceremonial wife of Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as the current Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, and also ex-tennis player Lindsay Davenport, who though happily married, the 6'3 inch former Wimbledon champion, would literally be huge in North Korea and will also probably win quite a few more titles on the North Korean tennis circuit.

So I guess we'll just have to wait and find out who she really is.

A few more telegrams just coming in on this 200th bugle and in fact not all of them are complimentary entirely.

This one comes from baseball star Squirrel von Silico, currently playing for the San Jose Hosepipes in the minor leagues.

He says, I hate the bugle so much that I always imagine John Oliver's or Andy Zaltzman's face on the ball as it flies towards me to give me a greater incentive to hit it.

Fair enough.

Tiger Woods says a very similar thing, but it's film star Lee Marvin's face that he imagines.

No one really knows why, but he certainly hates the song I Was Born Under a Wandering Star.

This comes in from Barack Obama.

Congratulations, the bugle has been a constant companion throughout my term in office, shedding light into the darkness, soothing me in times of trouble, reassuring me that I am doing things right.

I know the bugle is always there for me, and the bugle has always been a wonderful mother to our two lovely children.

Sorry, a bit of a misunderstanding.

How the hell did she get that nickname?

How did that happen?

Banking news now.

And over the last couple of weeks, while we were away on holiday, the LIBOR scandal broke and Barclays and some of the world's leading banks found themselves accused of trying to manipulate one of the most important interest rates in finance.

The LIBOR is the London interbank offered rate and it's the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other.

Basically bankers it seems have been manipulating that so that they can ensure higher returns on certain investments and therefore higher bonuses for themselves at the end of the year.

It's nauseating of course Andy, but that's basically what you expect from banks now in a way.

One of the things that I personally resent most about the various various banking scandals, Andy, is that I feel now that they are forcing me to learn about things that I would really rather not have to learn about.

I don't expect anything other than shady operating practices from the world of international finance now.

But when I was researching the Libor a few days ago, I suddenly got this overwhelming anger bubbling up inside me of, look what you f ⁇ ers are making me do.

I don't want to know what the Libor is.

I shouldn't have to know what the Libor is.

And now you're making me find out.

You are educating me by osmosis with your assholery.

And I do not like it at all.

Well, like you, John, I don't understand it.

And I don't want to understand it.

And this could not come at a worse time.

Because...

I have the Olympics to concentrate on, John.

I cannot afford my brain to be distracted for a second by the lingering suspicion that our entire society is based on greed-fueled financial trickery and economic larceny on a mathematically unfathomable scale.

I just cannot afford to take that on board, John.

As long as the system slightly works, I will take it.

I will take it.

Emails have emerged of bankers and traders working together to manipulate the LIBOR rate.

One such email from a senior trader in New York read, Hi guys, we got a big position in 3M LIBOR for the next three days.

Can we please keep the Lib or fixing at 5.39 for the next few days?

It would really help.

We do not want it to fix any higher than that.

TKS a lot

tks andy

not even thanks

they couldn't even be bothered to type the extra three

letters that would complete that word accurately they you can't even type out the word thanks in full to show gratitude to someone who is illegally helping you to manipulate the world's markets to your own greedy ends andy they are cnts all of them total cnts by which i mean they are.

I'm going to take the time to say that word in full because, frankly, they are worth it.

Libel remains a widely used benchmark, and the mark on that bench is the imprint from where the banking world whacked the real world on the arse with that bench so hard that the outline of its buttocks can be seen from space.

Bugle feature section now, and Olympageddon.

John, as we record, it is two weeks today until the opening ceremony

of the Olympics.

I can't wait that long, Andy.

Well,

we need this.

We need the Olympics sooner than that.

Of course, well, you know,

that is definitely Libor scandal, another massacre in Syria.

We need the Olympics to take us by the hand, anaesthetise us, and ask us to count down from 10 until we slip into the blissful dream state of sport.

And things are really hotting up, John, with just two weeks to go.

If there's one thing that you associate with the Olympic Games, well, it would have to be missiles on roofs, speculatively hoping to shoot down enemy aircraft over built-up areas, whilst thousands of highly trained soldiers rifle through people's handbags to make sure they're not carrying the wrong make of water, whilst thinking, well, it's not what I train for, but I guess it's more fun than the Battle of Passchendaele.

And London is delivering on those dreams, John, and delivering hard.

It's this week,

it turned out that

the security firm responsible for a lot of the security at the Olympics did not have enough people to be at all secure.

Basically, one of the private firms contracted to stop Osama bin Laden trying to enter the modern pentathon from beyond the grave, admitted they hadn't trained enough staff for the job at hand.

And they admitted this, John, with two and a bit weeks to go until the Olympics.

Yeah.

Fair play.

You've got a peak for the Olympics, John.

You can't let these things out too early.

And so the military is being drafted in, and the reaction, as you would expect, has been phenomenal here, John.

There are seem to be an equal number of people in this country, desperate for the Olympics to go well and desperate for it to go as badly as possible, to prove how great or useless Britain is as a nation, because they love sport or hate other people enjoying themselves.

We are an odd country, John, an odd, odd country.

And this Olympic volcano rumbling to a crescendo, and beneath the surface, there are rival magma chambers of enthusiasm and cynicism waiting to erupt.

As you alluded to as well, there has also been the official go-ahead now to place high-velocity missile launchers on the top of residential tower blocks in London to shoot down any potential terrorist aircraft or, if not terrorist aircraft, then at least any rogue skeets that have been missed by Olympic shooters.

And that really would be phenomenal, Andy, if an Olympic rifleman yelled pull, a clay pigeon shot across the sky, and a surface-twear missile suddenly flew across the arena and blew it apart.

So, for the Olympics, Buglers, some very exciting news on this 200th episode.

I will be doing, hopefully, daily micro-bugles from London that will go out on the Bugle podcast feed with all the latest lies and misinformation about the world's biggest sporting events.

So do tune in for them.

Sport,

it's going to be an overload of sport, John.

I've got a lot of tickets to stuff.

A lot of tickets to stuff.

So I'm hoping to be able to give the full picture of quite how great Olympic sport is and the discomforts of spending two hours queuing up to have an x-ray of my balls taken.

But we're not just defending ourselves from thieves and terrorists, Andy.

We're also trying to to defend ourselves against our own weather.

Because as buglers might know, England is no stranger to rain.

We are au fait with the concept of the water droplet and all its close friends.

Now, many of the venues are not fully...

covered.

Even the main Olympic stadium is only two-thirds covered by a roof.

And in fact, three years ago, London Mayor Boris Johnson had queried that saying, I've yet to see a very convincing explanation of what happens if it rains heavily on the night of the opening ceremony.

Well, I'll tell you what you do, Andy.

You shoot the rain with the high-velocity missiles that we've got on the roofs of our surrounding tower blocks.

You send a f ⁇ ing message to the weather.

Orders are being placed for thousands of ponchos so that spectators queuing to get through security checks get to remain dry.

And I mean, it's the classic British poncho, Andy.

I believe, in fact, the plastic poncho was invented by Henry VIII, who used to issue them to the first three roads of anyone in the audience who'd come to see one of his wives beheaded.

I believe that was the first use of the term splash seats.

What was the second use of that term?

I think it was SeaWorld.

It was hundreds and hundreds of years later.

Or it was the comedian Gallagher smashing watermelons with a hammer.

We've all been there.

Some latest injuries news from Team GB as they build up to the big games.

GB triple jump hope Philip Zadohu set to compete in the triple jump after recovering from 0.01% burns to his right middle and index fingers, triple jumping his hand into a bowl of hot broccoli welcomed snail's egg soup.

Cyclist Sir Chris Hoy should be fit for the games despite suffering a slight coat hanger in the eye trying to find out what it would be like to be a shirt.

Long jump spring master Chris Tomlinson looks set to take part after being reassured that the Olympic long jump pit is not a voodoo desert.

Tomlinson said at a press conference yesterday, there have been a load of rumours on the internet and I know Seb Coe is big into the occult.

I've seen his masks and capes, so I'd hate to be responsible for the entire nation of Chad being squished if I nail an 8-metre 30-plus leap in the final.

And also, Zara Phillips's horse, High Kingdom, is rated 97.3 to be fit for the equestrian event after copping a hoof in the snout from teammate Christina Cook's horsey Minus Frolic during a Travolta-inspired rehearsal of Team GB's night fever routine for the dressage event.

Bugle news now, and well I think we mentioned a while ago that we would be launching Bugle merchandise and a new voluntary subscription system for the Bugle in this episode.

Well, that is not happening.

That will now be happening either next week or the week after or the week after that depending on how many more technical fucking glitches we have with it.

So it's not happening, but it will be soon, Buglers.

Not only the merchandise, but a new voluntary subscription system.

We're going to try and keep this podcast free for all 7 billion current and future buglers.

And you've been very generous so far in helping us keep going thus far.

So we're setting up basically a voluntary sub-system so you can basically pay if you want to pay for the bugle.

If the bugle is worth anything to you, then you can pay anything.

between one cent a month and one billion dollars a month.

It is entirely up to you.

That system will be up within a couple of weeks and then we'll see how that pans out for the long-term future of the bugle in its third century.

Your emails now and thanks once again for your emails.

This one came in from Louis Strong who writes, Dear Andy, John and Chris, in order of how easy it would be to draw a recognizable cartoon of you.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's probably fair, I think.

Probably fair.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess I have an easily lampoonable head.

The last few times I've seen Andy doing live stand-up, I've noticed how weird it is hearing him say f and k and bleeped.

I almost wanted Chris to be at the side of the stage doing live bleeping.

I posted this on the Bugle Facebook group and Mark Ward suggested that I bring an air horn to censor the fks and k myself.

So be warned, Andy.

It might be today.

It might be tomorrow.

It might be in months or years, but the next time I I see your gig, you're getting air horned.

All the best Louis Strong.

Well, that's probably quite a good way to go, actually.

Do you think that would put you off your stride?

Possibly.

I could have done with a few air horns in that gig in Lytham.

I think it might have killed off some of the audience.

And this one comes in from Beth in Cambridge.

And she says that is the proper Cambridge, not the craft brand imitation Cambridge you seem to like so much across the pond.

Still not being clear which Cambridge it is.

And Beth has written us some haikus for our 200th birthday, 20 of them, one for every 10 episodes.

And we've selected not all 20 of them.

And here we are, his poetic tribute to the Bugle on its 200th.

Bugle 200, a large feast of pure bullshit.

Our dreams in your hands.

All buglers must hail Zaltor the Merciless and flee from his wrath.

Or flee from his gigs, as some of the old people did in Latin St.

Anne's.

Voice of an angel with a love of 80s hits, J.

Dorg the Diva.

My favourite is

the American rides jet skis and eats eagles because salad is weak.

Cricket bats of oil, just as useful as milk jugs, for those who have time.

And f eulogy, coined by master oliver best word in language

i think that does look set to be your legacy to the planet joe i'll take all your life's works look that's a it was a it was a bigger footprint than i was ever hoping to leave and amongst the uh imminent but not quite as imminent as we'd hoped bugle merchandise um

there will be a f eulogy mug yeah

which I imagine will be the biggest selling single item of stuff in the entire world this year.

It is a conversation starter and stopper.

You'll find out exactly where you are with people.

I'd like to pre-order three of those.

Join the queue, Paul.

Join the queue.

So thanks for your emails.

Do keep them coming into info at thebuglepodcast.com.

And also,

you can check us out on SoundCloud as we head into our third century of bugles

on soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle.

There you go.

I've absolutely nailed that.

Yeah.

And you can follow the Bugle Twitter feed on at Hello Buglers.

And when time allows, I'll be doing live Olympics commentaries on that.

So that's about it for this week's bugle.

Thanks for your company in the first 200s.

and we trust you'll be joining us for the next 200,000, Bugles, and

we will play you out

with

another telegram that has just come in, a very moving telegram, from the director of London's Florence Nightingale Museum.

Dear Bugle, on the occasion of your 200th anniversary episode, I would like to officially register my disgust at the continuing existence of your extremely lowbrow organ, whose only discernible effect on the world has been to transform this museum from

a shrine to one of the great medical pioneers of history into a meeting place for the historically lascivious to stare disconcertingly, longingly at old portraits and 150-year-old uniforms.

Have some fing respect for a national icon.

Regards Dr.

E.M.

Snutteridge.

Well, in response, Dr.

Snutteridge.

Oh, yeah!

Oh, yeah!

She started it with that damn lamp, making those goddamn big old shadows.

Oh, yeah

oh yeah

see you in bugle 201 buglers goodbye

bye

Don't f with me.

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.