Bugle 199 – This is an ex-president!

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The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 1099 of The Bugle for the week beginning Monday, the 18th of December, 2034, with me, Andy Zoltzmann, live from Wandsworth Prison in the Chinese colony of London and John Ingrie from Manhattan Island, Giulianiville.

It's the former United Nations Secretary General Joanna Oliver.

Just kidding folks, it's Bugle 199 of course.

For the week beginning Monday the 25th of June 2012.

199.

Just one to go until the big one with me Andy Zaltzman live from Olympics Town and in New York City.

It's Brigadier Showtime himself, John Oliver.

So Andy, I think you've lied about eight times before I've even said a word there.

That is, that might be a record.

Before we've even said hello.

Even before we've begun properly, you've already lied an astonishing amount of times.

Well, that's, you know, I've found that work with my marriage.

Why not with this beautiful?

Andy, I know there are concerns around the world that America has lost some of its spark.

Well, after reading about something that happened last week, I'm really not so sure anymore.

What is the most American thing that you can think of?

Maybe an American flag leather jumpsuit?

Maybe George Washington having sex with an apple pie?

Or is it this, Andy?

A Class A South Atlantic Baseball League recently held a home run derby on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

That's right, Andy.

They hit home runs off an aircraft carrier into the Charleston harbour.

Is that American enough for you?

Hitting baseballs off a warship?

How about if I add the fact that they hit those dingers from the deck of the warship while inside an inflatable batting cage.

Why inflatable, you ask?

No reason.

The very fact that you asked in fact shows that you will never fully understand.

Surely, anyway, it couldn't get any more American than that, correct?

Surely it couldn't get any more American than home runs being hit off a warship from a pointlessly inflatable batting cage.

Right?

Wrong!

Because those balls were then scooped out of the water by volunteers on jet skis.

Now,

if you're an American and you're hearing these words for the first time, you're probably already in tears by now.

But let's recap all that information from the top.

Baseball players hit home runs from an unnecessarily inflatable batting cage from the top of an armoured aircraft carrier while volunteers chase their balls on jet skis.

Those should technically be the new words to the American national anthem and

oh say can you see

the home run I just hit

from the top of this ship that is filled with explosives from an inflated volcanic out into the sea.

My bullet did fly past a bunch of jet skis.

Oh, say, is this the most American thing that has ever happened

in the land

of the free

and the home of Jetskies.

I've choked up.

Number one.

Number one.

Were they all dressed as Elvis while they did it?

Oh, that was the one thing they missed.

The one thing.

All dressed up as fat Elvises.

The really American Elvis, the one close to

complete self-destruction, the one who epitomised everything that nation is about.

So this is Bugle 199.

199, of course, the words famously spoken at the 1938 Berlin Snooker Open when Adolf Hitler potted his first red, then demanded he be given eight extra points for being Führer.

One, nine, nine!

And for the week beginning Monday, the 25th of June, meaning it's exactly 200 years to the day.

Since in 1812, Marshall Ney inadvertently invented the game of Sherards whilst trying to warn Napoleon that he was about to be bitten on the leg by an escaped locust.

Historic moment.

Top story this week, Hosni Health Update.

Well, what a week it has been for the health of Hosni Mubarak, Andy.

If you had money on whether or not he was going to be alive over the last week, then it was a real roller coaster of emotion for you.

Because first he was alive, then he was reported dead, then reportedly only nearly dead then pronounced clinically dead then pronounced alive again and now no one seems to know exactly where he is he's been like a yo-yoing Jesus Andy with only slightly more expensive looking sunglasses it's been a classic as the South Africans would say a Hosni Hosni saga and

well you know he's always split opinion like a cheap banana John and this week as you say the 29 time former Egyptian president of the year has had the world bickering over whether or not he he is or isn't dead just as for so many years he had the self-same planet squabbling over whether or not he was or wasn't a goodie or a baddie is he dead isn't he dead if so how dead is he is he irreparably dead fleetingly dead spiritually dead or merely facing just a little bit of a blip in his political career time the persistent and insufferable smug shitbag that she is will tell

initial reports from his doctors were that he'd had a heart attack then that he'd had a stroke then that he'd had a heart attack and a stroke.

Reports swirled that he had no pulse, that he'd been defibrillated.

He was then brain dead, clinically dead, or to put it in Monty Python terms, he was dead parrot dead.

This dictator is no more.

He has ceased to be.

He's expired and gone to meet his maker.

He's a stiff.

He's kicked a bucket.

He's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the bleeding choir invisible.

This is an ex dictator.

But then, after the doctor's reports, came statements from his lawyers saying that actually he was very much alive.

Classic lawyers, Andy.

Yeah,

they're the ones that have made the money out of this, aren't they?

I guess

that is the fundamental tenet of the legal profession.

And you have to explore every argument.

Is he dead?

You have to posit the other side powerfully and strongly.

So they said he was very much alive, and in fact, just wanted to be moved from prison to the military hospital that he'd been in before.

So it just depended who you believe, Mabarak's doctors or his lawyers.

And then came the rumors.

You started wondering whether he had indeed died, but they were going to try and keep him alive like a human puppet, or whether he hadn't died at all, but had pulled off an Elvis.

He'd faked his own death and was currently working in a Starbucks in Arizona.

It's hard to know how to react, Andy.

You know, I don't want him to be around to hear his own f ⁇ eulogy.

That doesn't seem right.

So it feels like we kind of got to hold our fire on this one.

Well, I mean, there was a lot of talk on the Bugle Twitter feed of people wondering whether there would be a f ⁇ k eulogy this week which obviously you know didn't just come down to whether or not he was alive or dead but whether or not he he actually merited it because let's not forget John he was a man good point good point who he certainly had flaws but Tony Blair the self-appointed stepson of God described Mubarak as quote immensely courageous and a force for good and this was about the same time that there were thousands and thousands of people from Egypt on the streets being slightly less complimentary towards the man.

And Blair saying that, saying that he was immensely courageous and a force for good, immediately, instinctively, as a citizen of the nation of Blair was prime minister of, make you think that Mubarak was a born coward and probably a criminal.

The Egyptian people, as I said, had a slightly less complimentary view of the big H.

Maybe they didn't know him as well as Tony did.

Maybe you've got to see his softer side.

And the Egyptian legal system also didn't agree with Blair, if I can correctly read the subtext of his recent conviction for corruption and basically murder.

And it just shows a show, John.

One man's crackpot dictator is another man's bulwark against regional chaos.

And in fact, one man's crackpot dictator is often the same man's bulwark against regional chaos that we just have to put up with being a crackpot dictator or we'll get regional chaos.

And the conflicting reports are not helped by Mubarak's own Twitter feeds at Hosni Mubu

in which he wrote, what happened?

I just woke up in a skit with the remnants of a Donica Babble over my trousers.

Hashtag.

Whose stag night was that anyway?

And then another one saying, docs saying I might be clinically dead.

Bummer, I am having a bad month.

Hashtag, no wimbledon for me this year.

Oh, very good.

Besides, Andy, there now seems to be much more important things going on in Egypt than the debatable beatings of Mubarak's debatable heart.

Egypt's election.

Your debatable heart.

Egypt's elections came and went and they currently find themselves in a depressing democratic limpo.

They voted once, Sunday, they voted twice.

And then when it looked as though Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were about to win, the army swooped in and basically told everyone to go f themselves.

It's a tango as old as time.

The results of the runoff have been officially delayed now by the election authorities.

In Egypt, they had been due to be announced on Thursday, Thursday, but the Election Commission said it needed more time to look into complaints presented by the candidates.

The Muslim Brotherhoods, Mohammad Mursi, and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, both claimed that they won last weekend's vote.

Basically, they were like two boxers at the end of a fight, both raising their arms in victory, both battered and bruised, with no one noticing that someone in a military uniform had just run off with the scorecards.

So, a year and a bit on from the revolution last year, the situation is not quite optimal democratically.

The gloriously peaceful transition to a smoothly functioning democracy that everyone hoped would happen has not quite happened yet, which is, you know, we in Britain, we did that easily, John.

I mean, admittedly, it took us around 700 years to do it, but we still did it, and the Egyptians might have to just tuck in for the next seven centuries.

But as you say, was this a military coup?

The military taking power.

Was it a military coup?

A coup light?

A bit of harmless fun?

Or just a bit of nostalgia for a simpler time?

Because it is a fact, John, that things were so much easier in Egypt when everyone knew where they stood socially purely by how big and pointy a pyramid they were going to be buried in.

Maybe that's a lesson that we all need to take on board.

After the second round of voting, a group of election monitors headed up by ex-president Jimmy Carter voiced concerns about the political and constitutional context of the vote.

President Carter said, I'm deeply troubled by the undemocratic turn that Egypt's transition has taken.

Egypt hasn't so much taken a democratic turn, Andy, as slammed on the democratic handbrake, dived out of the car and watched its election hurtle over the side of a cliff.

And America itself is in a tricky spot at the moment because America loves democracy.

Andy, they love democracy as much as they love hitting baseballs off aircraft carriers and almost as much as they love chasing after those baseballs on jet skis.

They love it so much that their own elections once every four years just aren't quite enough for them.

They've got a wandering electoral eye, Andy, and they love meddling in other people's elections too.

They've had an itchy medal finger for a while where Egypt's concerned.

They covertly and explicitly supported Mubarak for three decades, then when the relationship started souring, fell in love with democracy again and got so excited at the scenes from Tahrir Square last year.

But now it seems that the Egyptian people may have actually democratically elected Mohammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who could form a regime more hostile to the United States, their medal fingers seem to be throbbing a bit again, Andy.

You can sense them just salivating, oh, I shouldn't, but the fact I shouldn't makes me want to even more.

But it has been an amazing time for democracy in Egypt.

They apparently have voted 25 times in the past 15 months.

using an extremely complicated parliamentary system.

John, that is too much democracy.

I mean, here in Britain, and I know this is similar in America,

we struggle to muster the arsenist to vote once every four or five years.

They've been doing it almost fortnightly, although in the process they did accidentally manage to elect Tutankham Karman back into office for an afternoon, in which time the long-dead boy king ruled that Bastet, the ancient cat goddess, was the hottest of all the goddesses.

And turnout in the second round of the presidential election was down to 50%, with the winning candidate getting just a whisker over 50%

of that.

Now, does that sound at all familiar with an American presidential election coming up?

Welcome to our world, Egypt!

Welcome to our world.

It's the classic pattern.

Fight and die for democracy, then get rapidly industrially disillusioned by it.

But looking at the situation now, this runoff between an Islamist and a relic of the Mubarak era, is this what the protesters wanted?

15 months ago.

I guess it only goes to show, John, that democracy is like a puppy.

It looks all sweet and fluffy when you're looking looking at it in the shop window but one day it will crap all over your carpets, whittling your favourite slippers before proving disappointingly simplistic in conversation, increasingly attention-seeking and expensive, and then eventually it will die.

Tax news now!

Tax Andy, can't live with it.

Can't go to schools, hospitals or drive on roads without it.

For lots of wealthy businessmen over the years, tax has always been about the thrill of the chase, coquettishly leading the inland revenue on, playing increasingly hard to get, then blueballing them every fiscal year.

Accountants for some of the richest people in the world have traditionally become like fiscal escapologists, able to contort their way around laws and squeeze their way through loopholes barely visible to the human eye so that they file tax returns which look like they have to be illegal at first, second and 48th glance, but somehow turn out to be inexplicably allowable.

And this, of course, all came to the head this week in England, Andy, did it not?

It did.

In fact, Jimmy Carr, our comedic contemporary from the late 90s open mic circuit.

In fact, I'm recording near Tottenham Court Road tube station, literally yards from where I first met Jimmy Carr doing a gig at Cool Eddie's Comedy Club.

Do you remember that?

A gig.

Terrific gig.

Underneath a Chinese restaurant, wasn't it?

That's right, yeah.

And his career has been a raging success commercially, almost from day one.

But he's been revealed by the Times newspaper to be using one of the many widely used tax aversion schemes.

This one was called K2.

And I think the K2 scheme involves climbing the notoriously treacherous second highest mountain in the world, then leaving your bank card at the top and pretending you have no money at all.

I think that's right.

There you go.

It's a little joke for all you fans of mountains over 8,500 meters high.

Now you can all ever rest.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Hey, don't worry, don't worry.

There are only four mountains in the world over 8,500 meters high, so there won't be lots of more puns this week.

Back to the story about the Times newspaper catching Jim Carr.

Catching Jungar, that's the that's one of those four.

I mean, I thought that was technically quite quite well crafted.

Yeah, it's great.

Yeah, it's just a shame that no one really knows about that mountain.

It doesn't get a lot of

publicity.

I have to confess that in a company that was once closely related to the bugle, in their lift, they have a TV screen and the image, the only images that you ever get are pictures of the highest peaks in the world.

But it starts at Mont Blanc upwards.

So I actually was, for once, I understood you, Andy.

I guess your attitude to puns, Andy, is the same as so many mountaineers' attitude towards the greatest mountains on Earth.

Why do you do puns, Andy?

Because they're there.

I guess that's your only

rationale.

I don't mind if there is a 38%

chance of death.

I'm going to take it on.

But whatever the K2 scheme involves, and basically it seems to involve sacking yourself, then loaning yourself loads of money on the sly understanding with yourself that you don't have to pay it back.

But anyway, Prime Minister David Cameron heroically stepped into the breach and slammed Jimmy for this, calling the scheme...

very dodgy and he thus became the first comedian for a considerable while to be heckled by a sitting Prime Minister.

And when David Cameron slams you for having dubious tax affairs, well, you know bloody well that he knows bloody well exactly what he's talking about because he is the leader of the f ⁇ ing Conservative Party.

And under his government, the inbound revenue basically let off Vodafone from a multi-billion quid tax bill, allegedly.

The tycoon Philip Green, boss of the adequate quality clothing giant Top Shop,

and was appointed a government advisor despite being a man who is to paying tax what Marie Antoinette is to hat modelling these days.

Lord Ashcroft, former Tory Party Deputy Chairman and Treasurer, well, he's been less than entirely patriotic in his tax affairs.

And the list of wealthy tax averse with links to the Tories goes on and on and includes, according to some reports this week, David Cameron's own late father.

So when David Cameron tells you that your tax arrangements are very dodgy, perhaps he means it as a compliment and an incentive.

So when you do go that extra step further and upgrade them from very dodgy to f ⁇ ing dodgy, then you are in line for a knighthood.

Now, you know, in full disclosure, Jimmy Carr is a lovely man, Andy.

I like him very much, and I'm also simultaneously not in the least bit surprised to see that he was involved in something like this.

Now, he has not broken the law.

What he did was depressingly fine.

But as you mentioned, there has been a media tornado afterwards that the Prime Minister tried to jump on top of and ride all the way to public approval.

As you said, he criticised Jimmy, calling his tax arrangements morally wrong, which is a little rich coming coming from someone who oversees the morally wrong tax laws that make what he did morally possible.

That's like the owner of a bakery that sells only shit pies, saying it's absolutely disgusting when someone chooses to eat one.

I mean, sure, you're right.

Technically, it is disgusting.

But if you check your receipts drawer, you may find that you have something to do with that.

But it all goes to show.

that tax

basically in this country has become the marginally less popular of the two renowned inevitabilities of life, narrowly behind its friend, rival, and colleague, death.

As you say, the wealthy have always had a well-hung nose for sidestepping tax, and it does make you think that they probably have a pretty good shot at evading death as well.

It would not come as a surprise if, somewhere on the Cayman Islands, there are a colony of 250-year-old death exiles sitting on a verandah sipping a mint julep and stroking their pet liars on the head.

And again, the great and the good are just not setting an example, John.

The Queen's own mother, what was she called again?

The Queen

Mother?

Queen mother.

q tip the q tip right yeah yeah

uh she was quite openly living in death exile for years in this country but she could get away with it because of who she was and whom she knew typical john absolutely typical

Jimmy Cara said he made a quote a terrible error of judgment over using this tax avoidance scheme well yeah I mean that depends Andy because financially he made a tremendous judgment he played the system and he won morally he made a personal judgment that is a grey area the only black and white issue here is that as a comedian, he made a spectacularly hypocritical judgment.

Because earlier this year on the TV show in England, 10 o'clock live, he did a sketch poking fun at Barclays, paying a 1% tax rate, in a sketch that referred to aggressive and amoral, blood-hungry tax lawyers.

That is...

Just the one thing that you don't get to do, Andy.

It seems that he can shadily avoid all the tax that he's legally, inexplicably allowed to.

That's fine.

What he can't do is do that and tell tell that joke as well so he can either avoid all that tax or tell that joke making that one fing expensive joke I haven't seen the joke Andy but I can only presume that it was incredibly funny well yeah I mean for three million quid a year or whatever it's worth that's a that's a pretty amazing fun that's a that's a great joke

Chancellor George Osborne recently claimed that he was left shocked after finding out the extent to which multi-millionaires are exploiting tax loopholes and vow to take quotes action.

What the f?

You're the fing chance of the exchequer.

You shouldn't be shocked by that.

That is like a heart surgeon being shocked by how much blood splurts everywhere only hacks or someone open.

The problem is our tax systems have more loopholes in them than a barbed wire fetishist's woolly jumper.

And so once you're beyond a certain level of income and with a tax lawyer who not only knows his onions, but also knows how not to have to pay for those onions and how to make sure other people therefore have to pay proportionately more for lower quality onions, then tax essentially becomes a voluntary act of philanthropy.

And the wealthy basically live in this jacuzzi of amorality.

And it just proves that the law is an ass, John.

It is an ass.

And what an ass is not very good at?

They're not very good at running fast enough to catch someone driving a Lamborghini.

So all you're left with is an ass standing on the side of the road trying to hitchhike a ride from someone in a Lamborghini without thumbs.

It's no wonder it doesn't work, John.

It's no wonder it doesn't work.

And it is certainly a problem.

That's if famous people, or not as importantly from a media traction angle, not famous people, shirk their taxes, then in effect, a bin man ends up subsidising a millionaire's yachting habit and a nurse ends up in effect helping keep a tycoon's love child secret.

This is not as much of a problem as it might be because we are a very generous nation when it comes to giving to charity, which makes up the tax shortfall.

You know, take the Help for Heroes charity, a charity for injured ex-service personnel.

Now, there wouldn't need to be a Help for Heroes if the government spent more money helping heroes or at least splashing out onto that functioning military equipment.

So they didn't have to be quite so f ⁇ ing heroic in the first place.

And if there is a solution to this, John, it comes in shame.

Because if there is one thing a British person hates and fears more than anything else, it is an awkward social situation.

Now, if a hypothetical Lord Cockstorm shelters 500 million pounds a year in a tax haven on a rubber dengue somewhere in the mid-Atlantic or wherever, then he should be forced to turn up to the funeral of a soldier who has died because the Ministry of Defence could only afford to give him a plastic Star Wars helmet instead of a real helmet.

And he should have to say, I'm very sorry, at least let me pay for the sandwiches.

And if you can do that and live with it, then frankly, good luck to you.

You have earned your free bonus millions.

Lighter news now, Syria update!

And in an act of impressive bravery, a Syrian fighter pilot defected this week after landing his plane at a military airbase in the north of Jordan and asking for asylum.

It is a pretty spectacular way to defect, Andy.

Let's remember, Rudolf Nureev slipped away by evading KGB agents at an airport, and that was impressive at the time.

But this guy has really raised the bar.

Now, if you turn up to a country in anything less than a fully operational MiG-21 fighter jet, it's just going to look like you don't really want to be there.

Syria has condemned the pilot as a traitor and

this really is fantastic and has asked the Jordanian government for the return of its plane.

Those, listen, those are some balls, Andy.

Those are some big, loathsome balls.

Are we sure this plane doesn't have some baseball dents in it?

The rest of the news in Syria is absolutely brutal.

It's hard to even know how to to begin to address this out.

I'm going to have to interrupt you there, John, because Syria does not matter anymore.

Because England are the greatest football team in the world again.

Yes!

Sports team!

Sport team!

Come on, England!

Come on, England!

After a quite glorious with-the-odds victory over the mighty footballing mega gods of Ukraine, one goal to nil.

Now, I mean, it was, I mean, this has got to be, this is a beacon of hope for citizens and the oppressed all around the world, John.

I mean, you you do not beat the 52nd-ranked national team in the universe with a single lucky goal and some crackpot officiating without being heroes for all humanity, John.

Three lions, Andy.

11 lions.

There are 11 lions on the pitch, and there were eight lions and substitutes on the bench.

There are a lot of lions, that's what I'm saying.

Lions do traditionally have a bit of a heavy first touch and find a passing game notoriously difficult.

But they put the yards in, John.

They put the yards in.

They care.

Look, I mean, sport has come through again, Andy.

When the world yings, sport yangs.

Whenever

life gets too painful, let sport be the emotional anesthetic to numb you to your very bones.

Euro 2012, for those that are unaware, is taking place at the moment, and England are still in it, despite playing a style of football which is not easy on any of the five human senses.

But who cares about that, Andy?

It's our sport.

We invented it, and we'll ruin it if we want to.

The press reaction here has been gently hysterical, I would say.

They've basically come to the conclusion after these three group games in which England have done a bit better than expected, that England are basically now doing right everything they've previously always done wrong.

And this will remain true at least until they lose on Sunday to Italy, when it'll turn out that they've actually been doing the same things wrong all along.

Or, if they sneak past Italy, maybe on penalties or with another fluky goal, they'll have been doing what what they should have been doing all through history, a combination of caution, discipline, opportunism, and bare-bald luck that has seen us through heroically to the quarter-finals.

The tournament has not been without some controversy.

The Ukrainian Prime Minister, Mikola Azarov, has walked into trouble over a bet he made with a Sweden fan.

He had bet this Swedish fan a beer that Ukraine would beat Sweden in their opening match.

And when they did, he invited the Swedes to have a beer with him at the government offices in Kiev.

A widely distributed photograph showed the apparently usually dour prime minister smiling broadly with a football scarf around his neck, raising a pint of beer with his Swedish guests.

That sounds like a nice gesture, doesn't it, Andy?

The leader of a country reaching out to a guest in his country and offering hospitality whilst simultaneously singing, 2-1,

2-1,

you're not singing anymore, you're shit,

and you know you are.

Cheers, cheers, by the way.

It's a heartwarming story until you find out that Ukrainian politics is exactly as petty as politics anywhere else in the world.

In fact, even more so, because one opposition presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, actually got poisoned less than 10 years ago.

But the opposition party in Ukraine jumped into action, criticizing the Prime Minister for drinking alcohol, which is apparently strictly forbidden on official premises.

They said it is shameful and inadmissible when the leaders of the country contradict the law and the principles of defending morality by beginning to publicize consumption of strong drinks during work hours and on state premises.

To which I guess the outsider looking in

really has to say, you f ⁇ ing poisoned someone.

You've poisoned someone.

Let the man have a stop poisoning people.

Then get to the drinking on public on government premises.

Maybe that's what the poisoning was all about.

It should merely raising awareness of the dangers of putting toxic substances into your body or merely accelerating that process by putting in a fatal dose.

Well, that's just that is responsible politics, John.

UEFA has been criticised for

various fines it's given out.

It's fined various countries, football associations,

in the reason of sort of £60,000, I think, for their fans indulging in racist chanting of quite appalling dimensions.

And yet, it fined the Danish centre-ford Nicholas Bentner £100,000 for wearing some sponsored underpants.

Oh, my God.

And it does.

I mean, clearly,

Bender is a tool.

I mean,

let's not beat about the bush here.

He's a power tool, Andy.

He's a powerful power tool.

But the argument is not about whether finding him £100,000 or not is right or wrong.

It's these fines for racism being so much less than that.

UEFA in mitigation did issue a statement condemning Adolf Hitler as quotes a naughty man who had a tendency towards impoliteness.

So

you can see where they're coming from.

Uh the Germany Greece match tonight's as we record has been overshadowed by the financial niggle between uh the nations over the bailout deal.

And I just hope John that's uh the football comes through and it doesn't spill over into ugly scenes where Georgios Karagunis of Greece and Messer Ozil of Germany have a stand-up row in the centre circle about the fiscal dangers of punitive bailout sanctions.

And some quick injury updates ahead of England's big clash with Italy on Sunday, which you can hear me commentating on on Absolute 90s radio and their website as well.

And there'll be a highlights package.

It's not available outside Britain, I think, as a stream, is it, Chris?

Not legally live, no.

But there will be a highlights package that you can download after I'm doing with Russell Howard.

That's great.

Yeah, which should be a hoot.

Selfish footballer, though, to be fair.

He's got skills.

Well, beyond, well, yes, but beyond selfish, Andy.

Beyond selfish, because you know, if you

have to deliver, the premium is on delivering if you're going to keep the ball that much.

And I just think that glitter doesn't do that.

So do tune in on Sunday at 7:45 UK time if you can.

Can I play Russell this clip?

There's nothing I've not said.

He flatters to deceive Chris.

Injury news, England's Andy Carroll luckily is fit for the rest of the tournament despite being trapped for two minutes under a hotel carpet.

He said, I thought I heard a guinea pig calling for help, but it was in fact manager Roy Hodgson listening to Mariah Carey on his headphones.

Goalkeeper Joe Hart also set to be fit despite grazing an earlobe trying to hear what concrete sounds like.

And Stephen Gerards is fit despite pranging a car filming the chase scene for Goalslayer, the forthcoming Hollywood biopic of the former one-cap England striker Michael Ricketts.

Big lad.

Also, bad news, England's brilliant striker Steve Blumer is out of the Euros after dying in 1938 at the age of 64.

And his chosen replacement, Dixie Dean, has also been ruled out dead.

Meanwhile, who's Italy's key man, John?

Well, it would have to be the midfield maestro, Andrea Perlo.

He's represented his nation, of course, at every age group level, from the under-3s up to the under-100s, which we're seeing him play in these days.

Amongst Perlo's many hobbies he likes to guess how old trees are and owns a portable tree x-ray to check after he's made his guess.

As a baby he was bitten by the early 1980s Italian midfielder Giancarlo Antonioni and from this Perlo got his amazing passing powers.

He's a shy man, so so shy in fact that if anyone draws a face on a football in training he cannot bring himself to kick it.

But he's also a scientific experimenter and once tried to mate his cat with his neighbour's dog to see if he could create the perfect hybrid pet.

He ended up with a guinea pig and a court case.

And he also once had an argument with his neighbour about the trimming rights of a hedge that was resolved with a best of 101 game of scissors, paper, stone.

So he's the man he'll need to keep their eye on, John.

He can pick a pass.

So what you like about Andre Apilo, he can pick a pass.

Other sport news now and Olympics news.

Listen, Andy, if we know one thing about the Olympics, it's that it is a transcendent celebration of humanity, of excellence, and of human competition.

And also that you do not f with it, Andy.

Because if you f with the Olympics, Andy, they will f with you right back.

In fact, those five glorious Olympic rings stand for do not f

with us.

The US Olympic Committee this week sent out a cease and desist letter to a knitting-based social network for hosting a knitting Olympics.

Remember what those rings also stand for, Andy?

We ain't about

knitting.

Now the

incredibly popular knitting social network Ravelry hosted a Rave Olympics, a knitting competition for users that included events like an Afghan marathon and a scar and scarf hockey.

The knitters were supposed to basically compete in each event whilst watching the actual games on TV.

So you can see why they posed a clear present threat, Andy, to everything that the Olympics stands for.

Here is a quote from the actual cease and desist letter and if you are operating heavy machinery or mending a tile on a roof I must warn you this gets very funny very fast.

This is how it begins.

The athletes of Team USA have usually spent the better part of their entire lives training for the opportunity to compete at the Olympic Games and represent their country in a sport that means everything to them.

For many, the Olympics represent the pinnacle of their sporting career.

Over more than a century, the Olympic Games have brought athletes around the world together to compete at the Olympic Games and represent their country in a sport that means everything to them.

So far so good Andy, but here we go.

We believe that using the name Rave Olympics for a competition that involves an Afghan marathon, scarf hockey

and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.

In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country's finest athletes and fails to recognise or appreciate their hard work.

But here's the thing that you also need to know Andy.

You don't f with the Olympics, sure, we all know that, but you definitely don't f with knitters.

Knitters don't mess around Andy and if you ever step up to them you would better have a pair of high-end needles in your hand and you better have come ready to knit because they also have five knitted Olympic rings in five different coloured wools and those rings stand for knitters don't play that shit

Because apparently these knitters were extremely offended by the tone of the letter and they mobilized.

Members of the knitting network left a huge amount of messages on the US Olympics team's Facebook page, nearly melted down Twitter and bombarded them with a deluge of emails.

They went in so hard that, and you are not going to believe this, the USOC backed down in a statement in a statement posted recently on their website.

A spokesman said, and again, if you're using a power saw or flying a a light aircraft at the moment, you may want to be careful because this statement could cause you to buddy holly yourself into a mountain.

The statement said, thanks to all of you who have posted, tweeted, emailed, and called regarding the letter sent to the organisers of the Rover Olympics.

Like you, we're extremely passionate about what we do.

The letter sent to the organisers was a standard form cease and desist letter that explained why we need to protect our trademarks in legal terms.

Rest assured, as an organisation that has many passionate knitters, we were never intend to make this a personal attack on the knitting community or to suggest that knitters are not supportive of Team USA.

We apologise for any insult and appreciate your support.

Holy shit, Andy, the IOC wouldn't back down to India over the Bhopal disaster which killed thousands of people and the USOC just caved to a bunch of knitters.

It's the American dream, John.

Yes.

That is why as a nation, you can hit baseballs from an inflatable batting cage off an aircraft carrier into a crowd full of jet skiers.

Bugle feature news now and fossil humping.

Scientists in Germany have caught a pair of 50 million year old turtles.

Hard at it, John.

Hard mid-hump at it.

Caught 50 million million years ago, John, as one turtle said to a turtlett, all right, Shelley, you look lovely.

Want to do in a volcanic lake?

Oh, yeah.

And they reckon that they were killed by volcanic gases as they sank in the water as mating turtles have an erotic tendency to do.

And I guess, John, in a way, This is the ultimate form of exhibitionism.

These turtles have decided to do it where they're going to get fossilized

And viewed by people 50 million years from now.

David Cronenberg is going to make a film about these turtles, John.

The dirty bastards.

Dirty, dirty bastards.

Scientists in Germany, as you say, have unearthed the first ever fossilized instance of copulating animals with backbones.

To put that in layman's terms, what they essentially found was the fossilized remains of two turtles banging.

And

as you say,

these turtles sank 50 million years ago to deep layers of a lake where they perished due to deadly volcanic gases or other toxins in the lake's lower layers.

Mmm.

Deadly volcanic gases and other toxins.

Oh, yeah!

Let's call this what it is, Andy, fossil porn.

Let's not pretend that that announcement wasn't made by German archaeologists with huge bonus.

The turtles were preserved in a turtle-style sexual position, and the female turtle is 20% bigger than the male, who is thought by scientists to have been into big shells.

And the male turtle...

Ah, like big shells, and I cannot lie.

The male turtle's been credited with having maintained the world's longest-ever continual staunchy pole.

And he has now been offered work in the animal pornography industry, or wildlife programming, as they're rather euphemistically known.

More emails now, and this one comes in on the subject: Disastrous Consequences of the Elvis Hologram from Marco Begovich in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dear John, Andy, and Chris, the Elvis hologram, whilst an impressive technological feat, brings with it some potentially serious consequences.

It could drive Elvis impersonators out of business.

Per one estimate, Elvis impersonators number 200,000.

Is our fragile economy ready to take the hit of that many people suddenly out of work?

Also keep in mind, many of these are fat Elvis impersonators who must have an expensive weight-related healthcare cost.

If that wasn't scary enough, let me remind you that Elvis knew karate.

How many of these Elvis impersonators know karate?

And what would they do if they were suddenly deprived of an ability to earn a living?

We may have to deal with roving gangs of violently vindictive Elvis impersonators.

Please help stop the hologram.

It's a very dangerous thing for the world.

We have another great email here from John Drummond called Bugle198 Causing Another Social Faux Pas.

He says to Andy, Chris, and John in order of the level of blame for the following embarrassing incident.

You guys get a lot of emails detailing how laughing at your podcast in public at inappropriate times have caused very awkward moments for the listener involved.

Well, here's another for the pile.

Just today I was on the bus on my way home from work looking very businesslike in my suit while reading the paper and listening to my iPod.

Said iPod was playing Bugle 198.

When Andy likened Eurozone economic policies to someone slamming a series of George Fulfin Fulkman grills onto his nads, I began laughing hysterically.

My newspaper was open to the sports section of the time, which under normal circumstances would have raised no attention at all.

Unfortunately, as proclaimed by the full-page headline easily visible to my fellow riders, I was at this very moment reading the latest testimony in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse trial.

Oh dear.

Oh dear.

Needless to say, there is little humour in a college football coach abusing his power and influence to indulge in serial paedophilia.

I took a quick glance around to see if I caught anyone's attention.

The bus was full, so that was a distinct possibility, especially from the two people sitting directly behind me.

No, I didn't turn around and say, it's not what you think.

That would only have made it worse.

Thank God I was within a few stops of getting off.

Hopefully, none of these people will ever see me again, and if they do, they'll just think, there's that freak who thinks sodomizing kids is funny.

Thanks a lot, boys.

Yours, John Drummond.

Listen, Andy, it was a great joke.

You've got nothing to be scared of.

And remember, buglers, if you are going to bugle, please

bugle safely.

Bugle safe.

Bugle safe.

Bugle safe.

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

And don't forget to check out our SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle.

And, well, we've got a couple of weeks off

before the historic moments of Bugle issue 200.

I know, nearly 200, nearly the double century.

That's right, so we will be putting out supplementary bugles in those two weeks, containing we're not entirely sure yet, depending on whether or not we can get access to some somewhat better catalogue.

But

with Bugle Issue 200, some very exciting developments for the bugle, hopefully we will have the launch of bugle merchandise.

Yes.

Arguably a very exciting

after we could have done it.

Well, that's the kind of business acumen, Andy, that we've become famous for over the years.

We're a machine, John, we're a commercial machine.

Singularly failing to capitalize on anything.

Says Mr.

Sequel to the Smurfs.

And we'll also be launching a new sort of voluntary subscription scheme where you can help contribute to the ongoing life of the Bugle.

That will come up in three weeks' time on Bugle 200, which will be unquestionably possibly the showbiz event of the millennium.

It's going to be so huge.

It's going to be absolutely massive.

Huge.

In the meantime, you can listen to my football commentary on Sunday.

I'm going to plug some gigs, John.

Are you going to come to any?

He's busy in America.

Possibly and possibly not.

Wednesday in Litham St Anne's, the 27th of July?

No.

Yes, I'll be at that one.

I'll be at that one.

Also,

Durham Gala on the 30th inverness

on the 1st of July.

And

Derby Assembly Rooms on the 7th.

Oh, dear.

Come on, come on, Buglers.

I've got kids to feed.

And then Stockton and Salford on the weekend of the 14th and 15th of July.

Roll up.

Roll up for the show of the century and Political Animal on the 28th of June, this Thursday, with me, Al Murray, Richard Herring, Josie Long, and the magnificent Simon Murray as Alan Parker, Urban Warrior.

That is a good.

That's a good bill.

Strong bill.

That is a good bill.

Possibly.

Shit.

Possibly clashing with England's Euro semi-final against Germany.

We'll just have to wait and see.

Thank you, Buglers.

Goodbye.

We'll see you in the next century of bugles.

Bye-bye.

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 review literally anything.

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