Bugle 195 – A drop of Reagan’s Blood

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Hello buglers and welcome to issue 195 of the bugle audio newspaper for this unapologetically visual world with me Andy Zoltzmann live in London within literally a couple of hundred miles of the Olympic torch the beacon of hope for the future for the world man I love that torch I can't believe we ever got by without it in this country in fact I think we should just keep parading around forever it's all this country needs

but in a city left very much in the dark in the unremitting gloom and without hope through the absence of even anything slightly resembling an Olympic torch it's Lord HaHa himself John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, buglers.

What the f ⁇ do you think the Statue of Liberty is holding up?

I don't know what could possibly resemble an Olympic torch more than what that lady's waggling in the air at every ship that goes past.

I always thought it was a strawberry ice cream.

Andy, last weekend, I did a gig at a festival in Brooklyn called Gugamooga.

Unfortunately, Googa Mooga turned out to be a slightly better word than a festival.

It was technically a food festival, but unfortunately, due to poor planning, they ran out of food early in the afternoon, which is basically like a music festival running out of bands.

It's not going to go down well with the mostly drunk crowd.

And apparently, there was nearly a riot at this food festival on the Saturday, with people getting into fist fights outside artisan chicken huts.

It might be a good time for America as a nation just to pause for a moment.

and think about how far they've come because just to reiterate people are about to riot over over a lack of access to free tasting plates of food from high-end restaurants this is a country that rioted over racism over wars over injustice and here was a group of people about to descend into an orgy of violence while screaming where are my f ⁇ ing free Vietnamese sausages

how entitled Do you have to become as a country for that to be a legitimate flashpoint in any way, Andy?

New York itself has experienced the draft riots of 1863, the Stonewall riots of 1969, the Attica prison riots of 1971 and now the Gugamooga lobster bisque riots of 2012.

And I really think that instead of being ashamed, America should be proud.

Because at that point, you have reached the final stage of being an empire.

You've completed it.

You are at the mountaintop.

And the only thing that is left now is to fall down the other side.

But at least enjoy the view while you're up there.

That's what Martin Luther King was talking about when he he said, I have a dream.

It was all about something to do with fusion food, I think.

More an idea for a recipe than a dream, but bear with me.

So this is Bugle 195 for the week beginning Monday, the 28th of May.

As always, a section of the Bugle is going straight in the middle this week.

Well, summer has come to the hemisphere that it once called home.

And the section this week is a summer ethics supplement.

Including, is it ethically wrong or merely Darwinian to spay yourself from unwanted wasps at family picnics by smearing your child with jam and telling them it's a new form of sun cream?

If you have sensitive skin but forgot to put your hat on, is it wrong to protect yourself from the sun by leaning in under someone else's hat?

And how long should you leave it before explaining exactly what is going on?

Should you eat one?

Yeah, that is a trick.

Should you be honest or attempt to talk your way out of it?

Hi, I'm your long-lost grandmother.

Well, I've lost weight and I've lost age.

That's in the bin this week.

Top story this week: vote like an Egyptian.

Andy, for thousands of years, voting like an Egyptian used to mean basically not voting at all, or trying to vote and getting hit with big sticks.

But the Bengals weren't as willing to write a song about that, were they?

Probably because the accompanying dance was a bit less jaunty, as it involves acting like you're being rhythmically beaten down to the floor before being dragged away.

But not anymore.

Because this week, Egyptians have been voting like they're never going to get to do it again, which may be a slight depressing possibility.

But let's be positive, Andy.

Just over a year ago, Egypt began a revolution that would eventually drive Hosni Morak from power, the power that he'd been clinging to like an increasingly angry limpet.

And just to put this into perspective, there was one American commentator this week that pointed out that these may be the first free elections in 7,000 years of Egyptian history.

7,000 years?

That's a long time to be sitting on the bench of democracy, Andy, watching from the sidelines, desperate to rip off your tearaway pants and get in the game.

Put me in, coach.

I can do this.

Give me a ballot paper and I'll shove it in that box so fast you won't have time to check my ID.

Get me in the game, Coach!

Well, they might be waiting 7,000 years, but apparently the turnout has only been around about 50%.

So it's good to see that they've looked at us, John, and they have embraced Western-style democracy, which faked it involves sitting at home going, ah, they're all the same.

So who are the front runners?

Well, there's Mohammed Morsi from the

Freedom and Justice Party.

That's the political prong of the Muslim Brotherhood.

So it's essentially an Islamist party.

Now, to us Westerners, the words Islamist party provoke two reactions.

One is, wow, how do I get an invite to that?

That is going to be awesome.

Or two, ah, we're doomed.

Ah, no, I'm sure it'll be fine.

I'm sure a president from an Islamic party that's already been accused of trying to exploit its democratic power to exert a political stranglehold will be absolutely fine.

Please, please make it fine.

Bring back the fing pharaohs.

Of course, Hosni Mubarak was ousted 15 months ago.

I'm very much an old school leader.

And

I think we talked about the Son of Bugle a while ago, but what the WikiLeaks showed that America thought of Hosni Mubarak.

they they saw him as a flawed leader but a valuable ally

now I think the people of Egypt saw him as a little more than flawed if I can read the subtext of his current trial for murder and and fraud the people of Egypt clearly thought of him as slightly more than flawed if I'm correctly reading the subtext of his current trial for murder and corruption.

So I guess America viewed Mubarak, John, very much as you and I view being smashed in the face with a toy hippo.

Not ideal, could have been a lot worse.

Could have been smashed in the face with a real hippo, or perhaps even a real hippo carrying an anvil.

And it'll be interesting to see how these new leaders shape up, you know, whether it'll be a genuine break from the past, one of his government is running and it potentially could get to the second round runoff.

And Mubarak himself, of course, a very old school leader and very slow to react to the new forces that have been unleashed when the revolution kicked off a year and a bit ago.

When it all kicked off, he gathered his cabinet around him and said, right, has anyone got any ideas?

And as all Egyptian leaders have done, and

someone in his cabinet said,

pyramid?

Yeah, pyramids.

They seem pretty angry this time.

We'd better make it fing pointy.

The Egyptians are very, very new to democracy, Andy, so it's not right to expect that this will go perfectly straight away.

It's like watching a child's first steps.

It's bound to be clumsy at first, and everyone's going to be so busy trying to film it, they might not be paying enough attention to stop the child falling and slamming their head into the side of a table.

That could well happen here.

Now, there are 13 candidates for the Egyptians to choose from, four current frontrunners, and if none of them wins more than 50% of the vote, a run-off will be held on the 16th and the 17th of June.

The quirk there is that it will actually be a run-off.

The two top candidates will race each other across 100 meters dressed up as pyramids, and the winner becomes the president.

Like I said, they're pretty new to this, Andy, and they tend to take terms like runoff quite literally.

One of the other frontrunners is Ahmed Shafiq, a former commander of the Air Force who served as Prime Minister under Mubarak for a month during the protests last year.

His campaign flyers call him the only civilian administrative presidential candidate who has real and successful administrative experience.

Wow.

He might want to work on that slogan a bit, Andy.

That's about as catchy as a John Kale jingle.

Isn't he?

Isn't that what Ronald Reagan got in on in

1980?

Shafiq has also been criticised for working for Mubarak for so long, but he insists that he was always a voice of the opposition within Mubarak's regime.

Pretty f ⁇ ing quiet voice, that's for sure, Andy.

A barely audible voice at all.

Almost a voice that was waiting until Mubarak was leaving the room and then saying, you need to resign and free of fair infections.

I'm sorry, what's that?

Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing.

So I've just got a weird cold.

That's all.

All the candidates will compete in a formal wear and swimwear competition before singing a medley of Michael Jackson songs, then each cooking a meal from a bag of 16 random ingredients before a national phone vote decides the winner.

Like I said, they are new to this, Andy.

They're new to it.

Early reports are that the two days of voting passed off peacefully.

and election monitors seem happy so far.

One American election monitor said, we don't know who will win in this election.

We don't know whether there will be a runoff.

But as one observer of other elections too, like Tunisia, I must say that this process for the last five days since I've been in Egypt was enormously impressive and a tribute to the people of Egypt.

Ouch!

Take that Tunisia.

Little passive aggressive jab there from the election monitors.

Tunisia actually released an official response saying, hey, hey, can't we all just be happy for Egypt without dragging us into this fing hell?

On the second day of voting, Moussa and Shafiq exchanged angry remarks, catfighting all day and each claiming that the other one is losing badly and should pull out immediately.

And I was watching this with a tear in my eye, Andy, thinking, they're getting it.

They're getting it.

They're taking to democracy like a duck to boiling water.

It's like releasing a seal pup into the wild and watching it as it takes its first shuffling waddle steps towards the water before immediately being mauled by a polar bear.

You're just so proud and then so horrified and then so proud again

the the candidates have tight spending restrictions they're each allowed to spend no more than 10 million egyptian pounds on campaigning in the first round which is about 1.6 million us dollars and then only 2 million egyptian pounds in the second round which is just over 300 000 That's just adorable.

And the US candidates are going to spend that amount on balloons alone.

That is the first thing these Egyptians are going to have to work on.

Get rid of those campaign finance restrictions.

It's not about how much you can afford.

It's about how much businesses to whom you'll be compromisingly indebted for your entire time in office can afford.

That's just how it works.

Mitt Romney could get rid of that entire budget in one bout of urination.

Exactly.

Exactly.

President Obama and Baron Mittington Romney will each have raised over $1 billion in campaign funds by the time the election comes around.

So to put it mildly, Egypt has a long way to go before they can compete with that kind of democratic dick swinging.

But it's interesting, isn't it, John?

That, you know, this seems quite a close-run election, and Mubarak, of course, was overthrown.

That does not bode well for whoever becomes the new president.

Because you think back at the last presidential election in 2005, John, Mubarak, this supposedly unpopular despot, polled an amazing 88.6% of the vote.

Wow.

That shows how popular he was, John.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

And in second place was A-Man Noor with a disappointing 7.3%.

Well, you know, you've got to be initial winner.

Well, he must have run a very solid campaign with Barak.

I mean, it was disappointing given that the previous time, in a straight referendum on his leadership, he had 93.8% in favour of him.

There you go.

Whoever the new president is, Andy, he or she, just joking, he will have a smorgasbord of shit to wade through on their first day in office as they will inherit a legacy of corruption, poverty, rampant unemployment and security problems,

as well as the fact that it won't be clear what powers the president actually has as the constitution has not been fully written yet.

The only thing all parties seem to be able to agree on is that presidential powers should definitely be curtailed to prevent, you know, another Mubarak-like nutcase coming into office for the next 70 years, sitting on his power like a chicken on a massive egg full of massive tanks.

And the other problem is that, as one journalist wrote, the sternest test for Egypt's fledgling democracy may turn out to be not the voting process itself, but the business of persuading Egyptians to accept the result even if they don't like it.

Because that truly is the biggest lesson for any democracy, Andy.

When you live under a dictator, you get used to him kicking you in the balls.

Under democracy, you have to get used to half your own population kicking you in the balls instead.

In other North African news now, the Lockerbie convict Abdel Bassett Al-Meghrahi has finally popped his clogs.

He was released two and a half years ago on compassionate release by the Scottish government because he was apparently literally weeks from death and he remained literally weeks from death for a phenomenally impressive number of weeks without encountering death.

And you would have thought the very least he could have done, John, in all that time out of basic politeness was fake his own death.

It's good enough for Elvis Presley, it should have been good enough for him.

And,

of course, America was never comfortable with McGraw-Hee being released on compassionate release.

They don't really

like releasing innocent people in America, so you can see why they had a bit of an issue with it.

And the footage was on the news again this week of the day that he was released back in 2009.

A frail old man walking out onto an airplane wearing a cap that had a Nike swoosh on it.

Now, he must have had the world's most persuasive agent, John, to pull that deal off.

Show,

Nike.

Let's talk.

In your portfolio, you currently have Roger Federer, the greatest tennis player the world has ever seen, a man who makes your heart sing at the joy of existence just by hitting a backhand up the line.

You also have Tiger Woods, one of the greatest golfers the world has ever seen.

Now, remember, this is before it became clear that he had his little little prong control problem.

And you also have the Brazilian national football team, the most iconic brand in the whole of world sports.

It's an impressive lot, Nike.

But what you do not have in your portfolio is a convicted terrorist or a terminal cancer patient.

My guy, two for one.

Do we have a deal?

Let's talk zeros.

Andy, every American actor you do now sounds like it is about to narrate a Mickey Stantanio novel.

You sound like a drunk Colombo.

Well, I didn't have your level of

acting training, John.

Correct, you didn't, Andy.

Which is why you're not in the Smurfs, Andy.

Because you couldn't make it believable.

Well, there's someone that a Bugle Listen did launch an internet petition to try and get me cast in the next Smurf.

I voted.

Well done.

I put my signature down, yeah.

So I think it passed the target of 100 signatories, so presumably that now becomes legally binding, doesn't it?

Yeah, I think so.

I think so.

I'll post the link on the Bugle Twitter feed.

And you can all vote and see if democracy really exists in the film industry.

Reagan blood news now!

A vial of Ronald Reagan's blood was put up for auction this week and bidding reached more than $30,000 until the sale was suspended after the Reagan estate threatened legal action.

Now the item in question is a five-inch glass vial which contains traces of dried blood.

It's said to have been taken from a laboratory that tested Reagan's blood for lead in the days after he was seriously wounded by an assassin in 1981.

And that this really begs the question Andy, what would you do?

With a vial of Ronald Reagan's blood if you bought it?

Would you wear it on a necklace around your neck as a conversation piece?

It would certainly be quite an icebreaker on a first date.

Oh, what's that around your neck?

This?

It's a vial of Ronald Reagan's blood.

That'll either be a great icebreaker or a great ice former.

Either way, you're going to know where you stand very quickly.

She said bidding had reached £19,000 in real money for the blood, which is believed to have magic properties, John, including the ability to rehabilitate a flagging political party, the ability to wear a silly hat without it detracting from your air of authority, and also the ability not to notice dodgy arms deals to Iran whilst having the outgoing

every man kind of personality to make bringing down democratic elected governments seem kind of fun again.

Officials claim the blood was taken after Reagan beat death 1-0 in that famous assassination attempt in 1981.

But it was in fact, well, can reveal exclusively on the bugle, spat out into a hotel basin by Margaret Thatcher when she put her human teeth back in after a summit meeting in Washington in the mid-80s.

It was being bid on by various interested parties.

These included the celebrity chef and culinary experimentalist extraordinaire Heston Blumenthal, who is planning a new dish featuring a presidential blood ketchup alongside a sausage made of.

Well, don't worry who it's don't worry what it's made of, it's the taste that counts.

What did happen to Abraham Lincoln's body anyway?

Also, interest was the celebrity artist Damien Hurst, who wanted to put the vial of blood in a cardboard box, get a school dinner lady to sit on it, and then call it the remorseful sanctity of departed hope.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who wants to touch up the blood spatter mark on his head head from his first meeting with Reagan when they head-butted an argument over a chess game.

And the Chelsea Boston Russian oil plutocrat Roman Abramovich, who's rumoured to be thinking of playing the vial of Ronald Reagan's blood on the left of a five-man midfield next season.

But the leading bid at the time that the auction was cancelled on grounds of basic taste was Mitt Romney, who apparently thinks that a transfusion of Ronnie blood will give him the credibility boost that he needs to win the presidential election in November and start legislating America back to the 20th century.

Credibility boost.

That's a functional word, aren't they?

It is.

Yeah.

I mean it saves you a syllable, doesn't it?

Frees up a bit of extra time.

It is.

If you say that a million times, then that's not an insignificant amount of time.

Other items in the auction of interest included an entire bucket of Nixon's saliva.

Apparently, he would drivel a lot while thinking decisions through in the Oval Office and kept a special bucket next to his desk so as not to completely soak the carpet.

Also 12 pints of Kim Jong-il's tears.

The famous movie buff kept labeled pint bottles of his own tears and which film had made him weep them.

Half a pint on Bridges of Madison County, three pints on Finding Nemo and four pints on the killing fields, but apparently those were tears of laughter.

And

also two and a half tons of Florence Nightingale's toenails.

Apparently she had to cut them every day they grew so fast.

Just one of the details that made her so hard.

Oh, yeah, flono.

Also available, actually, on various auction sites today.

Further bodily fluids, the urine squeezed out of Francis Drake's bowls trousers back in 1588, if I may slightly recycle one of my favourite jokes from the department.

Some drool mopped from Yasser Arafat's chin from the first time he laid eyes on Madeline Albright.

Oh yeah.

And the cold sweat from Neville Chamberlain's forehead from when he read what Hitler had actually written on that piece of paper.

Of course, it's not the first time that President's

blood has been up for sale.

Calvin Coolidge's blood, in fact, is still used as the basis of a homeopathic remedy for an addiction to making chicken noises.

That's a fact.

Here's something I read this week, John, about the Republican

campaign.

One of their advisors is a guy called Grover Norquist.

Are you a buddy of his?

I wouldn't say a buddy.

I'm aware of him, Andy.

He has a famous pledge that he makes people sign, which basically stalls democracy for the next century.

He's a good guy.

He's a good guy.

He said,

salt of the earth, Andy.

Apparently, his stated aim is to make federal government so small that it could drown in a bathtub.

And that, John, is the kind of imagery that could only have been concocted by someone who has drowned something in a bathtub.

Feature section now: Olympics.

And the Olympic countdown is quickening, Andy.

Well, that's not technically true.

It's going at exactly the same pace.

It's just the Olympics is getting closer.

And, well, I mean, where's London at, Andy?

Has the Queen got the Olympic rings tattooed onto her forehead yet?

I guess there's no rush.

She's technically still got time, but she better do it soon, Andy.

Because if Queen Victoria can get those Olympic rings tattooed onto her ass, then this Queen can get them tattooed onto her face.

Represent your majesty, and while you're at it, it might be worth getting a teardrop tattoo for killing Princess Diana as well.

Or not, if you didn't do it, which I'm sure you probably didn't, but if you did, get one.

Well, I don't know, John, obviously, she's pretty busy with impending Jubilee celebrations, which

I mean, it's set to be the greatest day in the history of the history of British history.

We'll have extensive coverage on the Jubilee celebrations on the Bugle next week.

But the main thing at the moment with the Olympics, John, is the Olympic flame, which is

a bit of fire that has been more rapturously received than any other piece of fire since the one that burnt the famously annoying 14th century politician Nigel the k at the stake.

Perhaps even

the most popular bit of fire since Prometheus charged back down from Mount Olympus shouting, hey folks, I've nicked fire off Zeus.

Oh, I think he's gonna get cranky.

And of course, he did get cranky, Zeus.

Firstly, he changed Prometheus to a rock and had an eagle eat his liver out every single day, which was bad news for Prometheus.

That must have been really annoying after a while, especially as he was a very keen ornithologist.

Oh, let me guess.

A fking eagle again.

Great.

Also, quite an ongoing for the eagle.

Oh, I hate liver.

I prefer rabbit carpache.

I've got to have a balanced diet.

And I like the challenge of catching little scuttly things.

This clown tied to a rock is like taking candy from a baby, for f sake.

Zeus Zeus then further punished humanity by inventing women.

Which is an interesting little angle in that

Greek myth.

He should write that Zeus

created Pandora, the first woman, and from her is the race of women and female kind.

Of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble.

No help meets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth.

Well, Hesiod, who got dumped by his girlfriend at the epic poet of the year dinner?

Please fancied Homer more than she fancied you, mate.

The Olympic torch is indeed currently being jogged across Britain, where it's been met with crowds all week, including an organised trunk salute from two elephants in a safari park raising their trunks in respect, as well as an impromptu drunk salute from two guys who happened to stumble out of a pub as the torch went past, both raising their middle fingers in confusion.

Both proud British traditions, Andy.

Will I Am

from the Black Eyed Peas was one of the people who carried the torch for reasons that I think only history will be able to truly understand.

And he received some criticism for tweeting on his phone while he was carrying the torch.

He literally had the Olympic flame in one hand and his phone in the other hand tweeting about how he was carrying the Olympic torch in the first hand and

all the while not looking where he was going.

It would have been poetic justice if he'd just run straight into a tree by mistake, Andy, tweeting all the way.

Just ran into a tree with torch.

Hashtag ouch my face.

Hashtag wrong kind of trunk salute.

Hashtag why the f ⁇ am I carrying this torch?

Was he not in the British 4x400 metre relay team in the European Championships of 1986?

That would make more sense if that was the case, Andy.

He ran a leg in Somerset, and one of his earlier tweets had been, thank you Coca-Cola for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come to Taunton and run the torch I wasn't clear whether he was implying Andy that Coca-Cola was controlling who was running the torch or whether Coca-Cola was controlling who got to go to Taunton

set up strict East German style border crossings into the county town it's been a while since I've been in Britain Andy so I'm not really sure what's going on over there and I had heard that Tewkesbury was currently being controlled by Mountain Jew

The torch was lit in accordance with tradition at the ancient site of Olympia, the home of the ancient Olympic Games.

A very atmospheric place, John, the ruins of where modern sports began to take its current form.

It's a very important place for both you and me in that regard.

And in fact, there are ruins of the earliest verified hot dog van as well.

And Lord Sebastian Coe told the BBC when the flame was lit a couple of weeks ago, he said, Today is the rallying call to athletes, the best athletes of their generation, to come to London.

No, no, they knew the Olympics was happening before that.

That was not the rallying call.

He then continued to say, We are reminded this morning of sports enduring and universal appeal and the timeless Olympic values that transcend history and geography, values which I believe in these challenging times are more relevant than at any time before and particularly to young people the world over.

And those values, let us not forget, are the values of striving for personal perfection, of competition and dignity towards your opponents, of relentless commercialization, of scrabbling around for sponsorship regardless of the dubiousness of its suitability or provenance, and arse-breaking protectionism of what once was a symbol of human endeavour and joy but has now been reduced to a brand to be waggled around in people's faces like a stropping Moses with the Ten Commandments.

Still,

on the plus side, John, when the sport starts, it's going to be finging awesome.

Jack Roger said

the flame is a beacon for the Olympic values of friendship, excellence, and respect, a symbol of fellowship and peace.

And then added, hang on, I've just remembered a couple more values: the political grandstanding, highly scientific cheating, and the brushing under the carpet of minor inconveniences such as massive human rights abuses, and also the rampant profiteering that gnaws away at the solar sport like an atheistic hamster at a wooden pope.

I'm done now.

But the point is, when it starts, it's going to be amazing.

Andy.

It's going to be awesome, John.

There are obviously concerns about security and safety during the games, Andy, even more so, because apparently missile systems are being placed on launch pads around London, including in two residential complexes, as a last resort option to shoot down any low-flying aircraft attempting a suicide mission at one of the Olympic venues.

There is only one problem, Andy.

Well, there's technically two problems, and that is that, number one, the

Ministry of Defence just admitted that the missiles don't work in bad weather, as they rely on the operator being able to see the target which he couldn't in low cloud or rain conditions which actually leads us to the second problem and that is that these Olympic games are in Britain Andy and London without drizzle is like the Queen without the Olympic rings tattooed on her forehead incomplete

well if she did tattoo them on her forehead she would probably be sued by the IOC

for unauthorised use of their copyright

that is a that is a good point, because these London Olympics will feature some very draconian advertising restrictions, especially surrounding branding in the main Olympics area, where there will be a chillingly titled brand exclusion zone where spectators will be prevented from wearing clothing displaying competing brands or bringing in unofficial snack and beverage choices.

Within the zone, the world's biggest McDonald's will be the only branded food outlet.

Athletes are barred from blogging about breakfast cereals or energy bars if they're not an official sponsor and spectators may well be barred from posting photos they take to Facebook as they may be infringing copyright.

Now, you're going to the Olympics, Andy.

And I guess that means that you can't wear a bugle t-shirt unless we sponsor the Olympics to the tune of a hundred million dollars.

No, no, no, and I guess, I don't know, because I guess my face is in the current Bugle logo.

I'm going to have to cover it.

You can't use your face.

No.

Your face cannot be.

You can go, but your face cannot go.

That is chilling.

Absolutely chilling.

The problem with these weapons, John, is that you just.

I just don't want to get them mixed up having these missiles.

I don't want to get them mixed up with a javelin.

As, of course, happened at the Crystal Palace Grand Prix in 1991.

And here comes Steve Backley.

Can he pass Zelesny's 9234 to

take the goal up?

He comes away, it goes up into the London air.

It's coming down, it looks good around the 93-metre mark, I think.

Oh no, he's blown up the southern end of the stadium and large parts of southeast London.

Well, would you believe it?

He's also severed a leg off one of the 5,000-metre runners who was passing at the time.

And unfortunately, that bit of leg has landed at 91.32, so Backley actually misses out yet again.

Can I just ask about these missiles?

Yep.

Right, London's quite busy.

What happens if A, the missile misses, or B, the missile hits something?

Surely something falls to earth.

It's the Olympics, Chris.

There's no place for all this negativity.

No, I mean, it's not just great.

It's going to be great, Chris.

Who cares if people get killed in a missile blooper?

It doesn't matter.

It just doesn't matter with the Olympics.

What better way to do it?

They probably won't notice.

They'll be concentrating on the sport.

You're right.

It was a stupid question.

Shouldn't have asked that.

It's the only way a lot of people get to take part is by being blown up by needless missiles.

There has been a lot of dissatisfaction about the way the ticketing has been arranged.

I don't know if this has reached stateside, John, where by all accounts it was quite a lot easier to get tickets for London if you lived in New York than if you live in London.

The Lowcog organising committee elected to design a ticketing system that basically does not f ⁇ ing work, presumably in an effort to calm national fervor by annoying the living crap out of everyone before it starts.

Otherwise, by the time the opening ceremony starts, it could just be absolute mayhem on the streets.

Maybe they should have done it just on a first-come, first-served basis.

Just have everyone turning up on the day.

I think that would have been made for entertaining television.

There are complaints that Londoners have forked out for the games through increased council taxes over recent years, but have not benefited at all from them, to which the organisers have replied, Have you tried Big Macs?

They're absolutely delicious.

There were also complaints that the ticketing site bafflingly shut down for a 12-hour maintenance lockdown in the middle of a busy ticket-selling window, to which the organisers responded, and what better way to wash those Big Macs down than with a cool, refreshing flagon of Coca-Cola?

When asked about the almost Soviet levels of secrecy used to prevent people knowing what was really happening with the tickets, which was necessary because, well, I guess if people had known, they might have...

Oh, look, a puffin.

The organisers responded, we love Dow Chemicals.

We think they're ace.

Napalm, Agent Orange, purchased responsibility for the Bopol disaster, and yet here they are at the very heart of the Olympic movement.

It just shows how inspirational the Olympic spirit is, that anything, absolutely anything, is possible if you really put your mind to it.

And that's what the Olympics is all about, John.

So I think we should all stop being so negative about all that.

Do you want a torch relay fact?

Yep.

Yeah.

Who introduced the torch relay in the modern games?

That was the Nazis.

It was the Nazis.

It's good.

It's a tradition as old as as time itself.

It was Hitler's idea.

As long as time only goes back to 1936

and the height of Nazi propaganda.

That's what it's all about.

We're basically parading Hitler's one remaining testicle around the country on fire.

There have also been a lot of complaints about the mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville, which to the untrained eye seem to be two amorphous gloops modelled on a combination of a sperm and a penis.

And I would say, John, what could be more British than that?

For what this nation would be without sperms and penises?

Would Shakespeare have written all those highly successful rom-coms and rom-tragies if his parents had not possessed sperms and a penis between them?

Would Faraday have invented electricity or whatever he did without the British sperm whence half of him came?

Would Churchill have won the war without his penis or his father's penis, or his father's father's penis, or all the penises that helped create the heroic men and women who had the balls to fight for freedom?

Would the Queen be queen without her ceremonial sperm and penis, sorry, orb and scepter?

Or would Sebastian Coe have been so inspired and single-mindedly determined to bring these games to London and make these games a glorious success for this nation if so many people hadn't been calling him a penis?

No, for the penis and the sperm are as British as the sausage and the baked bean they're modelled on.

The fish yin to each other's chip yam.

As British as Jane Austen and Isaac Newton getting each other pregnant in their teens whilst talking about the weather and a queue for the January sales.

As British as resenting whatever Brits of Britain you don't come from, or as British as vomiting in the street and shouting as traffic.

As British as the sperm and penis's more feminine counterpart, the ovum and whap.

What a pub that is.

Come on, Jessica Ennis.

Be quite good at seven different events in quick succession so we can momentarily forget that successive governments have pissed this nation's greatest period of plenty up the wall.

You owe us that much.

Do it for Britain and for all the sperms and penises who sail in her.

In Britain, that is.

Look,

I've made my points.

I've made my points.

Your emails now, and there's no time for your emails because we've overrun again.

But keep them coming in and we'll do some more next week, more than naught, that is, to info at thebuglepodcast.com.

Don't forget, you can always also find the podcast on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle.

Good.

I think I've nailed it three weeks in a row.

I'd get to keep it now.

I think you just need to say it quicker as one sentence now.

Quicker and louder.

Just time for a quick sports prediction.

John, tomorrow, Saturday, it is the biggest sporting event in the history of humanity.

Harlequins against Leicester in the Premiership Rugby Final.

This, I mean, this is the humanity's future is resting on this, John.

Yeah.

It just doesn't get any bigger than this.

It's basically the representatives of Beelzebub in the form of Leicester

against basically the rugby equivalent of the Officer.

15 Jesuses.

15 Jesuses crossed with a Gandhi.

I'll report back next week.

Bye-bye, Buglers.

Bye!

Hi, Buglers, it's producer Chris here.

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

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

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