Bugle 197 – Singing in the Reign

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 197 of The Bugle for the week beginning Monday, the 11th of June, 2012, with me, Andy Zaltzmann in the city of London where if you breathe deeply you can probably still just about taste some of the carbon dioxide exhaled by Her Majesty as she floated Jesus-like down the Thames last weekend or as the Thames should surely now be known the River Elizabeth.

God rest her soul when it eventually does decide to rest.

And joining me from New York City, the man who fled this country rather than see the simple timeless joy of constitutional subservience on its people's faces for even one more day.

It's the 21st century's Oliver Cromwell, John Oliver Cromwell.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

Andy, last week, I went to a benefit for an organisation that helps young people get involved in service projects.

And a monogamy.

I was meeting some of the amazing kids that were getting awards for foundations they'd set up.

The kind of 11-year-olds that make you feel justifiably terrible about yourself, because they seem to demonstrate a greater emotional maturity and responsibility than you yourself are probably ever going to be capable of anyway i was talking to one eight year old boy called max who had set up a food bank program with his friends in texas to feed hungry children and he said my dad thinks your show's hilarious and i said to him well that's nice max but you can't watch the daily show yet because there are too many bad words in it and he said oh i know lots of bad words i know shit i know f ⁇ i know And at this point, his mother shoved her hand across his mouth as I started convulsing in laughter.

But looking back, Andy, I really want to know what was about to come out of his face.

Because he was escalating pretty fast with his swear words there.

He knew shit.

He knew f ⁇ .

What was about to come out of that eight-year-old mouth?

Is it possible that Max, to go along with the list of other improbable achievements he's accomplished so far in his short life, is it possible that he's invented another swear word?

well i think what this shows john is that clearly there must be a correlation based on this sample of one child between the kind of go-getting kids that the world needs to cure its many ills and teaching your children to swear so i totally agree i would encourage all bugle parents to swear repeatedly and loudly in front of your children from birth or at least buy them a kind of burlit swearing guide so they can be taught by a woman with a posh voice just get them a little you know when they're a baby, you know, a dangle above their cot, a little mobile with the letters C, U, N and T.

Just let it seep in and by the age of 10 they will be either they will be multi-millionaire philanthropists essentially.

Also, Andy, I think we've done pretty well inventing words in our time of doing the bugle.

I think our f eulogy has justifiably stuck its flag in the English language.

And who knows how long we're going to be able to keep doing this podcast for.

But I would like to formally recognise two sensational words that you have coined over the last two weeks, Andy.

Credibiliboost and swerobics.

You are a magician with the English language, Andy, in that if you tried to pull this shit centuries ago, you'd probably have been burnt as a wig.

This is bugle 197, meaning there are now more bugles than the number of different words that the Beatles tried before plumping on paperback to go with writer.

These included hardback, will,

employment contract, pornographic short story, disturbingly right-wing academic thesis, shit, and of course, cucumber.

There's a little joke for all you Indian food fans out there.

And this is the week beginning Monday the 11th of June 2012, meaning it's 50 years, John, since the only successful escape from the celebrity prison Alcatraz, three inmates apparently chiseled their way out.

Seems pretty unlikely to me.

And in fact, papers that have just come to light reveal the embarrassing truth for the prisoners that they just caught the guard off duty by saying, Can we just pop out?

No, you can't.

I got it.

It's Frank's birthday.

Still no.

Oh,

alright.

Just make sure you're back by dinner time.

Alright.

And as always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

Well, in fact, a number of sections this week.

Firstly, an invaluable Are You Denzel Washington guide.

Also, part one of a new week-by-week constructed genuine joke series.

This week, the words, and so I said to him, next week we'll give you part one of the setup, and also a free Jubilee commemoration sound effect.

This week, as recorded exclusively in the Bugle's exclusive coverage of the Jubilee, the sound of the Queen having her Jubilee breakfast treat of toast with peanut butter, strawberry jam, and tartar sauce whizzed in a food processor so she could drink it from her special American-style sports drinks hat during the rather tedious boat parade.

All that's in the bid.

Top story this week, the hangover Diamond Jubilee Edition.

Andy, it was a four-day binge of patriotism that may well have left a trail of devastation in its wake.

Because after the 96-hour orgy of ostentatious nationalism, the British public now has to prepare for the painful come down.

On Wednesday morning, British people across the country woke up groggy with a headache, an empty wallet, and a tangible sense of shame.

Looking around at a bedroom, confused at the bunting hanging down from the ceiling fan and assorted gnomes strewn across the floor, thinking, what the f ⁇ did I just do?

Then it was just a case of trying to piece together memories from photographs and news footage.

Holy shit, it looks like I was on some kind of festooned barge in the rain for some reason.

Then I was at an outdoor concert screaming profanities at Shirley Bassey.

Then I was naked in a fountain.

Then it looks like I might have stolen a corgi.

Then I, holy shit, I think I've got a Union Jack tattooed on my face.

Please say this is face paint.

Please, God say this is face paint.

Well, in fact, judging by itself, some of the British media coverage, I think Union Jack facial tattoos could actually become compulsory by the time of the Queen's 70th Jubilee.

I think, I think that is more likely than not likely to happen.

The Diamond Jubilee celebrations, Andy, though, had everything in the truest sense, in that there was genuinely something for everyone.

If you're a monarchist, you got to see the pomp and ceremony of a four-day-long royal parade.

And if you're an anti-monarchist, you got to see the Queen being miserably forced to stand and shiver in the rain for hours and hours.

That was the beauty of the Diamond Jubilee.

It both celebrated and tortured the Queen.

That's right.

Whether you thought it was Jubilee or Jubilee-ee,

Britain certainly did acclaim the glorious apotheosis of the acceptable wrinkly face of medieval feudalism.

And I think it was a very interesting event, John, that sort of showed Britain sort of alternately celebrating wildly and complaining vociferously to itself.

And I think some questions have arisen that really need to be addressed.

Firstly, could Queen Elizabeth actually be the Messiah?

Because him...

It seemed that way about two days in.

It seemed like that was the only rational explanation.

Because she managed.

The Queen was basically Lady Jesus.

She managed to turn millions of traditionally grumpy, innately complaintative, and historically anti-social British people into a nation of flag-waving, canoe-cheering, street party, biscuit-swapping convivialists.

Which is frankly a fk of a lot more impressive than pitching up at someone's wedding and saying, Don't worry, it's a bugger when the suppliers let you down.

Tell you what, I've got a crate of plunk in the back of my donkey cart.

You can have it, no problems, eh?

Hey, guys, we're pressuring out on this, all right?

Uh, yeah, John Boy, uh, you can get creative on this one if you want.

Matt, Marco, Luca, lay off it.

I don't want to come across as two pro booze.

Ke piece.

Tell you what, you guys work on me giving that itchy skin dude some nive cream, right?

Nice one.

Right, who's for a pint?

Did you see the Queen's face during the Jubilee concert on Monday?

That was not the face of a woman enjoying the experience one bit.

When the band Madness played on the roof of Buckingham Palace, her expression was not, wow, this is incredible.

It was, who are those ghastly ghastly men?

And tell them to put their guitars down and get off the top of my finging house.

The concert also featured performances from artists including Stevie Wonder and Sir Paul McCartney, and it culminated in an appearance on stage by the Queen herself.

Now, if the Queen had any ladyballs, Andy, she would have walked onto that stage, grabbed the microphone, and launched into a high-velocity performance of Guns N' Roses.

Welcome to the Jungle.

Welcome to the jungle!

One's got funny games one's got everything at one anyone knows the names in the jungle welcome to the jungle what you bring it to your shutter no no no no no no

then screaming queen out and dropping the microphone and walking back into the palace shouting up at madness seriously get off my

roof

but she didn't do it did she

i guess you know constitutionally she just has to be that little bit too neutral to pull that kind of stunt off.

I'd have loved to see her sing one sexy, and the BBC knows it.

That's uh that's what I'd like to see.

She is uh unquestionably magic, John.

I had proof of this.

You know, as you know, I'm not I'm not a monarchist, um,

as uh my tattoo of uh what was left of Charles I on my back could testify.

But she is unquestionably

in fact, I guess and I wrote I wrote uh in my uh the uh the Bugles Huffington Post blog, I wrote that my my attitude towards the Royal Family is, I guess, like, you know, if somebody doesn't like football, their attitude towards watching England in a major football tournament, they just basically ignore it, don't really care about it, don't really understand what all the fuss is about, and probably only tune in if it goes to penalties.

And with the Royal Family, the last time I went to penalties was 1649 and the execution of Charles I.

But

she has made, I had proof of how magic the Queen is over the Jubilee weekend because I was feeling hungry.

So I ate a sandwich and

literally within minutes I was feeling fine again and I realized that my miracle cure must have been because that sandwich contained a molecule that was once part of the queen maybe from the royal skin that she sloughs off every spring before a good summer's moniking maybe maybe who knows from a loose hair that's once maybe blew out from under her crown at uh changing of the colour who knows but uh we can't we also can't ignore this john life expectancy in britain has risen whilst the queen has been parking her perfect posterior on the throne.

From around 29 at the start of her reign, that admittedly is judging only by the life of the country legend Hank Williams, who died at 29 on the 1st of January 1953, less than a year into the Queen's reign.

Admittedly, he wasn't British, but still he could have been.

And that has risen from 29 to more than 80 today.

And the reason clearly, John,

is that since the Queen...

came to the throne, they have been spiking this nation's tap water with her breast milk.

You have to wonder why she kept on having children, John.

Because

this nation needed her to keep pumping it out, John.

I mean, it's so powerful, it doesn't need a lot.

It doesn't need, and they're still using some of the reserves from the Prince Edward days.

But, I mean, that just shows what this...

I mean,

I think she should be overlord of all humanity and

king as well.

Andy, how were you not hired as a BBC commentator for one of the days?

Because, you know, there's such, it's that kind of unique patriotic insight that the BBC could have done with even more of.

Well, they got Jimmy Carr instead.

I mean, they did ask me, but I'd said I'd rather watch it on tele, because when you're there, you don't get to see all the

music as well.

And I'm a massive Cheryl Cole fan.

Massive.

The Queen was introduced.

to the Jubilee concert stage by Prince Charles, who referred to her in his speech as his mummy.

And who should immediately have had the crowds take his lunch money from him and been hung up on the gates of Buckingham Palace by his underpants?

Why?

Because he's 63 years old, Andy.

Who says mummy at 63?

He's supposed to be king.

How can you be a king if you've emasculated yourself in front of your entire nation like that?

The only time you can be king if you use the word mummy is if you're four years old, you're in the bath and your crown is made of soap suds.

That's the only time.

And also technically, you know, if we had go by royal protocol, he should have called her

your royal majesty mummy.

That's the technical term.

That is right.

That is true.

But, you know, no one cares about tradition anymore, Andy.

Well, this is the problem.

The queen then pressed a crystal into a pod, igniting a beacon.

on the maw and what a letdown that must have been for the crowd because that's a that's quite a science fiction based build-up andy a crystal into a pod when the queen put it in there that crowd must have hoped that a spaceship was going to come out of the ground in front of Buckingham Palace.

And the Queen say, this is something I've been working on for the last 60 years.

What else did you think I was doing in there?

Or it opened a stargate or maybe a porthole to hell or instantly created a 60-foot hologram of Pippa Middleton.

Oh, Pippa.

Oh, sweet 60-foot hologrammed Pippa.

What is really interesting, John, is that this was not just popular in Britain.

It was popular in other countries as well.

Was there a lot of coverage in America?

There was an absolutely inexplicable amount of coverage here in America, Andy.

Almost a frustrating amount of coverage.

Well, I mean, that's clearly

the pangs of regret that's now been held for about 235 years.

But it's also another country that once had British Britain as its

supplier of monarchs, France.

They had a 25% audience share of the TV audience in France watching the Jubilee celebrations and they don't even really care about seeing Steve Redgrave row a boat anymore.

And I think it's interesting that you put this alongside low voter turnouts and general political apathy.

This is a signal that people are now prepared to just ditch democracy as a nice idea but frankly too much hassle for a busy world.

And after 13 billion years of trying the universe has finally fluked on the ideal head of state.

It's not a rabble-rousing demagogue.

It's not a benevolent dictator.

It's not an earthy man of the people or a woman of the wa people.

It's not even a heroic resistance fighter like Mandela or Aung Sang Su Shi and or a muscular icon like Henry VIII, Genghis Khan or Vladimir Putin.

It's not someone who rules with decisive authority or calm legislative control or who can work a camera or a crowd.

It's an octogenarian granny with literally no power who has basically never said a meaningful word in public, who has no authority to speak her mind on any political issue and has never been known to spell anyone's point or buy anyone a point or put up a tax on anyone's point.

She's not charismatic, inspirational, or suffused with a natural humanitarianism.

She is basically a very smartly dressed cardboard cutout with a natty lining headgear.

And that, John, is what humanity needs and humanity wants.

If only we'd discovered this 10,000 years ago, there might have been about 95% fewer wars than there have been.

Well done, the Queen.

She's finally brought us to our senses, John.

Oh, Andy, I'm telling you, that should have been the speech that introduced her to the stage where it was.

Anyway, don't hold that against her, ladies and gentlemen, Her Majesty the Queen.

That's why the BBC ditched Dimbleby from their coverage.

Well,

the excitement in France was just bizarre.

They had millions of viewers watching a three and a half hour live Jubilee special on Sunday afternoon in France.

And apparently this is part of the trend, because since the royal wedding last year and the success of the film The King's Speech, the British monarchy have been very...

very popular in France.

The wedding, the royal wedding was broadcast live on not just one, but three French television channels, attracting huge audiences.

And it seems that we've exported an incredible amount of enthusiasm for the royal family.

And Britain may now need to be a royal family events-based economy.

It seems especially strange that France be so enthused about the royal family, because the last time they had one, they decapitated most of them.

Maybe getting a bit of executioner's remorse all of a sudden.

But I will say this to the French.

If they ever have any doubts over whether they did the right thing in chopping the heads off their old royal family, then they should just take one day trip visit to Versailles and look around because that is a building that screams out, someone has to die for this.

Well, maybe actually it was misinterpreted and really they just thought that maybe they'd be like hydras that if you chop their heads off they'd grow even more royal heads and you'd have even more to wave your flags at.

But maybe that was it.

It did seem at one point with the reaction of crowds in Britain and around the world, that the only person not enjoying the Diamond Jubilee was the Queen herself.

And if you're wondering why the Queen constantly looked like someone had just slapped her across the face with a wet hat to join the festivities, then consider this.

We basically hospitalised her husband.

After the Thames flotilla on Sunday, Prince Philip was rushed to hospital with a bladder infection.

And listen, I like Prince Philip as much as the next person in that I don't really like him much at all.

But he is 91 years old.

If you saw anyone forcing a 91-year-old man to take a two-hour boat ride in the cold, standing up the whole time in the pouring rain for hours, you would say they were f ⁇ ing sadistic.

Also,

I'm not actually sure that he got sick at all, Andy.

I think he saw the way the first two days had gone, realised they were only halfway through this celebration, and he took a dive.

I think he took a dive, Andy.

I think the other members of the royal family are only angry that they didn't didn't think of that first.

Apparently, Princess Anne tried to fake a heart attack to get her out of the public picnic.

But after five minutes of rolling around on the floor and clutching her chest, she realised that everyone was calling her bluff and got up and said, oh, all right, I'll go, but I'm not shaking anyone's hands and I'm not going to enjoy it.

There was a lot of criticism of the BBC coverage of the boat parade, and it was a sort of curious boat parade.

And I expected something really quite spectacular.

And it was just a load of little boats toodling along the Thames with a million people waving branded flags at them.

And this was another thing.

I went up to the um to Battersea Park where the flotilla started from to do a radio interview uh about sort of three or four hours before it kicked off.

And there was a big queue of people waiting to get in and they were being handed Union Jack flags.

Free Union Jack flags by representatives of the celebrity gossip magazine Hello.

So these were Union Jack flags with the word hello in massive letters across the the middle, which just goes to show that a moment of national pride and communal celebration can, as all things in Britain, be turned into a grotesque marketing opportunity by an organisation of absolutely no worth whatsoever.

But there was another side to this, John.

As you mentioned, the Queen and Prince Philip, you know, are definitely,

I would say, let's say, nearer to death than birth.

Probably.

That is...

That's a very gentle way of putting it.

They are elderly people.

And all these people waving flags with hello in big letters did make it seem like some kind of nursing home situation.

Hello!

Hello!

Are you okay?

Oh, there was okay magazine.

Are you okay?

Hello?

As you say, there were quite a lot of complaints sent into the BBC about its programming.

Nearly 2,500 people complained.

And the press variably criticised the coverage of Sunday's river pageant, calling it inane and tedious.

Now, to be fair to the BBC, Andy, it was a river pageant, which by its nature is both inane and tedious.

Unless the boats were going to start trying to sink each other, it was not going to get exciting.

Even though the rain definitely did help the entertainment, because I've now realised that I never want to see another choir sing the national anthem unless they are drenched to the skin, shivering and seemingly suffering from motion sickness.

And also, you know,

where is an escaped whale when you need it?

We've had one halfway up the Thames on it.

There's nothing there to interrupt.

That could have made that pageant jump.

It would have been so great.

Release a whale in there and see what people do.

Or just a shark.

Just a shark.

Let's see if the Queen really is.

Past queens led the country into battle on horseback, Andy.

If the Queen saw a great white shark in the Thames I would love her to just

put a little a little toothpick in her mouth look straight down the camera and say we're going to need a bigger barge

terrorism update now there's a there's a gear shift

In this terrorism update it's only a gear shift thanks to the sensible precautions that were taken by the British security services.

A good point, Andy, good point.

A report came out this week that Americans are as likely to be killed by their own furniture as terrorism.

Now that's a sentence which needs no explanation but let's give it one anyway but first let's repeat it.

Americans are as likely to be killed by their own furniture as terrorism.

A striking sentence Andy but what does it mean?

Does that show a fall in the cases of terrorism or a rise in the cases of killer furniture?

Let's explain.

The statistic comes from a 2011 report from the National Counterterrorism Center, which is the US government's best statistical analysis of terrorism trends throughout its worldwide incidence tracking system.

So this report is not a joke.

Unfortunately, its conclusion does sound a lot like one, because it states that the number of US citizens, citizens that is, not people working in the military or for government groups abroad, who died in terrorist attacks increased by two between 2010 and 2011 while, and I quote, a comparable number of Americans are crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year.

Are we absolutely sure that this furniture isn't being trained by terrorists to launch those attacks, Andy?

Is Bob's furniture warehouse anything more than a terrorist training camp for radicalized couches?

Perhaps it's time that we flew some armchairs, some coffee tables and some French dresses down to Guantanamo Bay, Andy, to get some f ⁇ ing answers out of them.

Oh, you won't talk, will you, coffee table?

Well, uh, how about I just leave this glass of water on you without a fing coaster and see if that jogs your memory?

Sure, liberals are going to say that's torture, Andy, but and that America should not be lowering itself to engaging in that kind of behavior, but this country is at war and desperate times call for desperate measures.

You've clearly seen Jack Bauer furniture shopping in Ikea.

One report that I found said that there were 176 annual fatalities from falling televisions.

So it just shows that death can be caused by metaphor as well as physics.

And that the Reaper can get you with symbolism as well as embolism.

It is truly extraordinary.

There were 150,000 murders in America over the last 10 years, which means that you've been 630 times more likely to be killed by someone without a political motive as with a political motive.

And that just shows how deeply rooted apathy has become, John.

I think this is a shame.

I think we need to be training our murderers to be killing people for a cause.

And you're also almost 2,000 times more likely to die in a road accident.

But then who has been supplying all the oil that powers those cars?

That's why it's the bin Laden family, the oil magnates from Saudi Arabia.

And roughly,

you are 100,000 times more likely as an American to be assassinated by your own lifestyle choices as by a terrorist.

Now, if only cigarettes and hamburgers had big beards and released occasional threatening videos, they might take their threats to our way of life and death a little more seriously.

And you are still more likely to be run over and killed by a horse-drawn cart than by a terrorist.

That is a fact.

Also, more likely to be killed doing an overenthusiastic Beyoncé impression near a large domestic freezer, or explaining to inattentive schoolchildren how Joan of Arc died, or getting over-competitive in a who can put their tie-on fastest race than you are by a terrorist.

Now, those are facts, John.

False facts, but facts nonetheless.

And this is another fact, in the year 2000, I quote, ignition or melting of nightware caused nine deaths in America.

And that is even before LMFAO released Dumb Sexy Right.

This was the statistic in the report, though, which, though perhaps unsurprising, was still, I think, pretty horrifying.

In cases, this is a quote, in cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82 and 97%

of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years.

That is a pretty useful statistic to combat Islamophobia, Andy.

Next time some bigoted moron is glaring angrily at a mosque somewhere, it might be worth pointing out to him that Muslims are far more likely to be killed by terrorists than actually be terrorists themselves.

Perhaps that might provide some calm to that empty shaved head.

And besides, that bigot might also want to spend a bit less time worrying about threatening-looking Muslims and more time worrying about threatening-looking furniture that statistically might be plotting to kill him one day.

Terrorism is, in fact, as these figures show, one of the least efficient killers of Americans, second only to shark attacks, of which there were only 12 fatalities last year and no American fatalities at all, which rather takes the thrill out of watching Jaws or the Olympic open water swimming race, or indeed, as you suggested, the Queen's Jubilee pageant.

That just isn't a risk anymore.

There were 29 unprovoked shark attacks in the US in 2008, which is an interesting statistic.

None of them were fatal.

But also, that suggests that they are not counting provoked shark attacks.

Nor should they.

Nor should they.

That is the lowest figure since 1998.

Who would provoke a shark attack?

I mean, that is, that is, I mean, that is going too far to impress a girl.

If that's what you've got to do, move on.

That's the lowest figure since 1998.

And it's been blamed, John, on the economic downturn because it turns out that fewer people are now able to afford a day out at the beach, and this has resulted.

So, you know, the global economic catastrophe has some benefits.

Let's stop looking at the negative.

Let's stop looking at the collapse of Europe and endemic unemployment across the industrialised world.

Let's look at the slightly fewer number of shark attacks in America.

It could also, to be fair, be due to sharks living healthier lifestyles and not eating junk food anymore.

We just don't know.

You're right, Andy.

We should be thanking those bankers, those unregulated bankers.

We should be getting on our knees and thanking them that we're not shark food.

Your emails now and we have an email here from Benjamin Hodgson who titles his email China continues its war on bullshit he says dear Chris Andy and John in order of distance evolved from our primate ancestors

hey

he says I'll bring you the news of our latest attempt by the Chinese government to put an end to its lifelong arch nemesis the bugle an article in the International Business Times says that the Chinese version of Twitter Sina Weibo has recently introduced a new rating system for dealing with inappropriate commentary commentary.

Users start out with 80 points and they're gradually deducted for spreading falsehoods on a sliding scale.

Lying to 100 other users will cost you 2 points, while spreading an untruth to over 1,000 users results in a deduction of 10 points and an immediate 15-day ban from the service.

An account that loses all 80 of its points is closed down permanently.

Falsehoods liable to result in the deduction of points include the following: information that is wholly false or encompasses falsified details, using non-conforming or false images, exaggerating events, presenting already resolved events as ongoing, giving incomplete or hidden information and misquoting others.

Given that you are guilty of pretty much all of these offences on a weekly basis, it appears that the system was designed with the express purpose of discrediting the bugle.

I think Cena Vibo's new system should be tested.

Sign up the bugle for an account and see how quickly it gets forcibly closed down, or if the whole website collapses in on itself in a supermassive black hole of bullshit.

In fact, this news cements the bugle in its position as the one world institution standing between China and total world domination.

All the best, Benjamin Hodgson.

It's true, Andy.

I mean,

what would China's service there, how would they react to you implying that the Queen had been tainting Britain's water supply with her breast milk?

How many points is that, I wonder?

It's probably nothing different to what they've been doing in China, I would imagine.

I mean, what I mean,

I mean, how many children did Chairman Mao have?

I don't know, but I mean, all I know is that,

you know, he was regularly milked.

I guess that's another 30 points there.

Chairman Mao was regularly milked.

Bye, China.

Bye.

It's all in this little red book.

And this one on the subject, the 4th of July,

from Danny in Villarica, Georgia.

Who writes, Dear Andy Chris and John, I was talking with a friend recently about doing something on the 4th of July, and it came up that he had a British friend who, quotes, always made sure to wear a black armband on the 4th.

With this little tidbit fresh in my mind, I began to wonder how the rest of the British population thought of it.

Do you take up arms and burn the American flag in the streets, mourn the day you lost control of your little colony, with funeral processions and dirges?

Or do you do something else entirely?

I'll tell you what we do, and you could have seen it on television over the whole of the last extended weekend.

We celebrate our God-given queen, the queen that you

could still have had if you hadn't been some shitty little upstarts in the 18th century.

Too late, America.

You come grovelling back with your news crews with their neatly kemp hair.

You can't have her back.

You cannot have her.

yeah sport now and euro 2012 kicks off uh in a couple of hours in fact as we're recording uh chris is looking quite excited about this uh who's your money on chris uh for the first game or for the tournament the whole thing mate the whole thing uh for the whole tournament germany germany yeah looking good too soon too soon too soon chris yes they've played beautiful football now but it's just not enough it's it's the sort of ground that they're quite confident over i reckon

um

uh I'm

Portugal 20 to 1.

Look, I mean, they've got the custard tarts, and they've got Cristiano Ronaldo.

That's a potentially potent combination.

Michel Platiny, the head of UEFA, has called on the players to entertain, which for most international football teams is like calling on the Queen to break dance.

Basically what John did earlier in this, and it's about as likely to happen.

The Queen, yeah, I guess the, you know, the difference is football fans want a bit of entertainment, whereas the Queen, as we saw with the Jubilee, her crowd is happy with her just waddling around on a boat and waving as if she's stroking a gerbil or trying to collect a semen sample from a sleeping badger without waking up.

But football fans, what do you buy Knighthood?

Football fans.

Oh, my God.

Our comedy cannot deny that.

That is what it looks like.

Or she's just polishing a very small man's head.

But what are England's chances in this Jubilee year, this great year of bread and circuses, in which complaints about the the Olympics seem to be ratcheting up as the days get closer and closer.

The problem with bread and circuses, John, is if you give the British people bread and circuses, people will start complaining about having a wheat intolerance and being allergic to seeing clowns cram into a car.

But what are England's chances in this tournament, John?

I mean, I imagine in America they're talking of little else right now.

Oh, yeah, non-stop.

Yep.

And obviously the recipe for success is to model ourselves on Greece, who won the Euro 2004 championships.

No, it's not.

No.

And

kill the sport.

Just completely kill it for the next five years.

And the recipe for success.

Of course, that tournament is best known for the still untested Oliver Zoltzmann Live Dobble Act being the proud recipient of a 100% walkout in Edinburgh

began three minutes after England had lost on penalties to Portugal.

But Greece's recipe for success eight years ago is the most likely one for English success.

in 2012 be unremittingly testable crushingly negative and unfeasibly lucky be jammier jammier than a child's face at a rodeo donut eating competition, spawnier than a maternity ward for frogs, and flukier than a Georgetown University law student embroiled in a dispute with bile-chundering radio shitbag Rush Limbaugh while suffering from a parasitic flatworm in the liver and eating either of the two horizontally flattened divisions of the tail of a whale, a whale which ironically was killed by the barb of a harpoon fired by the American mystery novel author Joanne Fluke, who coincidentally at the time had been listening to an album by a little-known British electronica band, Fluke.

I think I made the points.

That is what we need, John.

That is what there's we need.

And also, eight years ago, the last time England qualified for Euro Championships, I got engaged during the tournament.

So,

this could be pretty exciting times for me.

Every time in the last 11 years that England have played in a European championships, I've got engaged at some points during that tournament.

And we're doing some commentary on Monday end.

We are, yes.

So, on absolute radio, on their 90s channel, I believe, and on their website, I, alongside Chris and the comedian Alan Cochrane,

long-standing friend of John and mine, particularly from Tuesday, Tuesday Football, the home.

Proud Englishman.

Proud Scottish Englishman.

We'll be doing live commentary on the England-France match.

Sadly, John Oliver, unavailable for selection, having abandoned his country.

But do

tune in.

Are there any more details I need to reveal, Chris?

No, just go and then listen to us and say that you enjoyed it or didn't.

That will do.

Yeah, hold a thread on the number of Napoleon references I managed to cram in.

Andy, you're forgetting the most important news as the Euros approach, and that is that a 180-foot Roy Hodgson has been erected on the Dover coast.

It's unbelievable.

A massive statue of England's manager, Roy Hodgson, quite, you know, similar to the Christ sculpture from Brazil, is currently standing on the cliffs of Dona, and the cliffs of Dover.

And the amazing thing about this is that it makes you think, wow, there might actually be a statue of me somewhere one day.

Because if there's a statue of Roy Hodgson, suddenly the idea of a statue of yourself seems less remote and more achievable.

What I'm saying is, Andy, if there's a 108-foot statue of Roy Hodgson, anything is possible.

Of course, it was built from the wreckage of the 180-foot Neville Chamberlain statue that was basically our main plan for aerial defense in 1939.

So, just quickly, could England be a dark horse for this tournament?

Yes, but unfortunately, our first game is against France.

So we'll take one look at that dark horse and think,

let's go nicely with a little piece of garlic.

We'll have more on the Euros next week, including the slightly difficult problem of racism that seems to have attached itself to the tournament.

So that's it.

Do keep your emails coming in to info at thebuglepodcast.com.

You can follow the at Hello Buglers Twitter feeds where you can also read back the live commentary on the Jubilee parade from last weekend.

And I'll probably be doing some commentary on the football on it as well.

And our SoundCloud page.

soundcloud.com

slash the hyphen bugle that's where it's all going on people it is literally all going on

goodbye buglers

Bye!

God keep saving that goddamn queen.

Continue to save her royal house.

In the words of the BBC.

Oh, yeah.

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.