Bugle 192 – Uncle Rupert is the real victim

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 192 of the Bugle audio newspaper for a visual world with me, Zaltor the Merciless, here in my dominion where all who dare live tremble in fear of my vengeance.

Give or take.

And joining me from New York, the city that never sleeps, that's not a compliment.

Margaret Thatcher only had four hours a night and you wouldn't want to live inside her.

It's the

Manhattan Mirthman himself, John Oliver.

Hello Andy.

Hello buglers.

Andy, a couple of weeks ago, I got the chance to interview Herman Kane.

And I leapt at that chance, Andy, like a kangaroo.

In fact, more specifically, I leapt at that chance like a kangaroo who'd just be given the opportunity to interview Herman Kane.

Because there's no way that a kangaroo is turning that down, Andy.

Even kangaroos would like some answers as to what the f Herman Kane's presidential campaign was all about and how the f he led in the polls for an entire month.

They'd also like to know why he brought up kangaroos so little on the campaign trial.

It seems like a glaring omission, especially as he seemed to bring up just about everything else.

But it was a very strange sensation to be sitting opposite someone who was, six months ago leading in the polls to be the next Republican presidential nominee.

Now, I've made fun of Herman Kane in the past, Andy, as a view.

I've referred to his presidential campaign as a book tour that got out of hand.

And I stand by that description, especially after having met him.

But it was a profoundly weird experience to be making fun of him to his face, and an even weirder experience for him not to seem to mind about that.

I couldn't work out if he didn't know what was happening, did know but didn't care, or just knew that there were cameras there filming him and was therefore as happy as a clam.

I'm fairly sure it was the third one.

But it is worth looking up on the internet this interview, if only for the final few moments where I asked Herman Kane to deliver a speech as president to inspire the inhabitants of the world if the world was attacked by aliens.

And rather than saying, what?

Or well, no, of course I'm not going to do that.

Instead of those two obvious responses, he f ⁇ ing did it, Matthew.

and his speech was so smooth i couldn't help thinking that this wasn't the first time he played that speech out of his head

and he was just happy that he was finally getting a venue in which to air it in fact i think he may well have spent more time thinking about how he would react if the world was attacked by aliens than anything else during his entire presidential campaign

Did it make you think that he might have been the one that got away for America?

Well, I mean, is the that is the question, isn't it?

I would never want him to be president, Andy, but I always want him to be running for president.

And if the world ever does get attacked by aliens, I can't say he wouldn't be my first choice.

Did you get any good pizza recipes off him, John?

I didn't.

I didn't, Andy, but that's because he doesn't have any godfathers of gastronomic atrocity.

So, this is Bugle 192, meaning we've now done so many bugles that the entire output would take nearly six entire days to listen to.

Meaning that if you transcribe the bugle, it would now be almost twice as long as the Bible and would have almost half the total amount of bullshit of it.

Whoa!

There are Andy.

Whoa.

There are 774,746 words in the Bible.

Presumably, that's only in one specific translation of it, but I'm prepared to go with that.

And those words include the phrase, well, you'll just have to trust on this one, said God, on 83 separate occasions.

But ironically, if you dial that number, 774746, into a telephone, you get through to the Vatican's emergency helpline to report finding an escaped nun.

Oh, that's good.

Yep.

So

read into that what you want.

This is for the week beginning Monday, the 30th of April, 2012.

The 29th of April is Sunday.

What a day for celebrity wedding anniversaries, John.

One year for Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Well Well done.

Well done to the K-Dog.

One year as a princess still hasn't pricked her finger on a spindle and fallen into a hundred-year coma or got funky with a frog or been caught living in a sordid menage away with a load of dwarves or turned up pissed on a stormy night at someone's house, demanded a free room for the night and then complained about the bed being uncomfortable.

So she's done well, John, to avoid falling into those classic traps.

But it's not only their wedding anniversary, John.

But very much their spiritual predecessors as a romantic couple, the 67th wedding anniversary of Adolf Hitler, the professional shared, and Eva Brown, a woman who had, at the very best, a questionable taste in men.

So that's Sunday's their wedding anniversary, meaning that Monday the 30th

is the 67th anniversary of A, them committing suicide, and B, Eva Brown uttering her most famous quotation, which was, worst honeymoon ever.

And her second most famous quotation, is that a gun in your pocket or are are you just pleased to see me?

Oh, oh, it is a gun.

And you are pleased to see me as well.

Oh, that's nice.

And you brought me something.

Oh, Hitler, how romantic.

Thanks, Hitler.

How lovely.

I'll wear it with my new negligee.

Oh, hang on.

I thought it was a pair of silk stockings, but it is actually a capsule of cyanide.

Well, do I like it?

Well, Hitler,

it's not exactly what a girl wants.

I know we're married, Hitler, but this is too kinky for me.

Oh, it's not supposed to be kinky.

Oh, right, okay.

You want me to what?

Because Germany Germany is whatted and the Allies are going to what your what if they catch you alive?

Crumbs, Hitler, you really are majoring on the awful worst bit of those vows.

Man, I should have sorted out a prenup when I had the chance.

And FYI, Hitler.

I know the bunker is atmospheric, but it's not what I wanted for my special day.

Look, I know the other venues were booked out.

Sorry, bombed out.

But come on.

No, I'm not nagging you.

No,

this doesn't always happen when people get married.

No, I don't want to change you.

I just like it if you shave the moustache.

Look, well, it's not all about what you want anymore, Hitler.

Don't try and change the subject.

This is important.

Hitler, do not shoot yourself when I'm talking to you.

Hitler, I'm your wife now.

67 years ago on Monday.

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

A best of the worlds press in our new Bugle digest section, including from the Peruvian Jellygraph, Lima Zoo admits miracle limbless miniature horse is in fact a worm.

From the Minsk Metropologue, a review of the slow-moving hit Belarusian TV drama series set in a rural village entitled The Man Who Ate a Turnip.

And also a feature from the Chicago Groin about cage fighting for the elderly.

That article is entitled Granny Slam.

Sticks and stones can break their bones, but a chair smashed to the head could kill them.

That's in the bin.

Top story this week, Leveson Inquiry Update.

And if you don't live in the United Kingdom, and that's tragically true of literally thousands of people Then you may not be aware of a huge investigation that is taking place called the Leverson Inquiry if you judge the importance of an inquiry by how many cameras are waiting outside with journalists wildly and breathlessly speculating about what's going on inside then the Leverson Inquiry is to put it in legal terms a f ⁇ ing doozy of an inquiry It's been set up to investigate the culture practice and ethics of the press in the UK and the current state of it resembles something that you would irritatedly try to scrape off the bottom of your shoe.

It was set up after the phone hacking scandal when the News of the World admitted hacking the phones of celebrities, the family of dead British soldiers and even the phone of a 13 year old murder victim.

The inquiry has two parts, the first of which is examining relations between the press, politicians and the police.

and the conduct of each.

And that relationship is very similar to the relationship between the Secret Service and Colombian prostitutes.

And there's not supposed to be any relationship whatsoever, but it turns out that there's been a surprising amount of

going on.

And the second part of the inquiry will look at the extent of unlawful or improper conduct within News International and other media organisations.

Lord Justice Leveson is heading up the inquiry and he has had a bucket placed next to his chair for the repeated retching and vomiting that he has suffered from this hearing testimony.

Hey, I've got a joke for you, John.

Oh, that's right.

What do you get if you cross an unregulated media, a slowly putrefying democratic system, the innate human lust for power and influence, and a nation belatedly realizing that it might be worth giving a bit of a shit about those three things?

I don't know, Andy.

What do you get if you cross those things?

Rupert Murdock at the Leveson Inquiry.

Yeah.

It's classic.

I've got another one for you.

I guess that is inevitable.

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Some chickens.

Oh.

Some chickens.

Oh, welcome home, chickens.

I'll get Marjorie to make sure your roosts are ready.

I'll put the kettle on.

We can have a bit of a catch-up.

Alright?

Tough crowd.

Tough crowd.

Right, one more.

I'll just have one more go.

A joke, because I'm a comedian.

I need to have jokes.

Doctor, doctor.

I feel like my democracy is a sham perpetuated by a self-interest political class and a media with interests so vested you could wear them under a shirt on a winter's day to keep warm or pass them off as a waistcoat in North America.

Anyway, doctor, that is how I feel.

Oh, well, f off out of my surgery.

I deal with medical problems, not a creeping sense that everything Britain stood for is being slowly eroded by an unstoppable, commercially driven media political monster.

Oh, can you not at least check me out with a stethoscope?

What part of fk off out of my surgery do you not understand?

Please, do you want me to stick this thermometer up here?

No, I don't, I'll leave.

But this whole issue is affecting your profession too, doctor.

What with the NHS reforms?

I know, I just don't want to think about it.

I just want to cure people with my magic doctoring powers.

Not be a political football.

Is that wrong?

Well, Doctor, if we all gather together, maybe we can knife that political football and kick it over a fence into a disused quarry so the kids can't play with it anymore.

By the way, is this lump on my face normal?

Yes, that's your nose.

It wasn't there yesterday.

Yes, it was.

Fair point.

What about this lump in my throat?

Well, that's just you welling up with emotion about the slow death of the democratic dream.

Can you prescribe anything for it, Doctor?

Have you tried two bottles of vodka?

No, Doctor, I haven't.

Well, give that a go.

It'll only alleviate the symptoms, though.

Okay, Doc, thanks.

Have you got a defibrillator?

Yep, 20 quid a blast.

Extra fiber if you want me to do a ham and cheese toasty with it.

Typical NHS.

I dare you to try that in a club, Andy.

Need a bit of work, maybe.

Was that still the setup, or was that the punchline?

I don't know.

I mean,

let's not be

tied down by definition.

I think you might have to excavate the punchline from somewhere towards the middle of that sprawling sentence.

That's basically what Lord Leveson is trying to do as well.

There's a punchline in there somewhere.

Andy, the point is, is it biologically possible for anyone to listen to what is being said in this inquiry without your ears trying to commit suicide by jumping off the side of your head?

It is hard to overstate the influence that Murdoch has had over British life over the last three decades.

He bought the Times and the Sunday Times in 1981, skirting around monopolies and mergers laws like a figure skating polar bear.

I was born in 1977, Andy, so depressing as it is to say, he's actually been one of the most constant influences over my entire life, Rupert Burdock.

There was just those sweet first four years of my life when his influence didn't seem to hang over Britain like a horrendous stench.

And of course, perhaps arguably his most significant contribution to British culture

was when the Times started the bugle.

So,

you know, I mean, he's got a lot to answer for in a

number of regards.

Probably kept me in a job anyway but um

uh for two days this week uh murdoch the self-styled obfuscating octogenarian the perfunctory pensioner the misremembering mogul has been giving evidence and

um it has been known john for old men sitting alone to be picked on mercilessly it's just that usually Those are confused old codgers who are doing the sitting, not billionaire 80-year-olds who run massive swathes of the global media.

And it's usually drunken nudes who are doing the picking on, not Britain's top legal brains but other than that the similarities are poignant.

The confused old media owning mumbling billionaire Kodger with an amazing memory for some things faced two days of grilling.

During which, John, you slightly got the impression that he had spent the entire time imagining that he was playing a particularly irascible game of angry birds, with the birds replaced by heads of former employees and politicians.

Rupert Murdoch and his son James have been testifying all week.

And as you you say some of the more astonishing claims from Rupert Murdoch's wrinkly face was that the idea that he exerted any kind of power over politicians was a myth to which the entire population of the UK said, wait what mate?

What the f ⁇ did you just say?

Wow it takes balls to say something like that.

Big kangaroo balls that you can retract into your stomach at will.

Rupert Murdoch has desperately tried to appear sorry for the thing that everyone wants him to be sorry about, but which he is demonstrably not sorry for.

He's also tried to appear like a forgetful old man rather than the terrifying media tycoon that everyone assumes he is.

He's like the old man at the end of the Wizard of Oz pulling the levers behind the curtain if that old man at the end of the Wizard of Oz was actually still a terrifying arsehole.

Ruth Murdoch denied that his personal friendship with Tony Blair had led to any favours, thumping the table at one point during the testimony to punctuate his sentence saying, I never

asked Mr.

Blair for anything.

Going on to say, I didn't need to,

because

he just gave everything to me anyway.

Then I would pat him on the head and say, good Tony.

You know, given what Prime Ministers have given him and tried to give him over the years, if he didn't ask them for anything, he must have not asked for that nothing he wasn't asking for in an extremely asky kind of way.

One of the lawyers actually quoted a reported remark from Murdoch when he supposedly said of Tony Blair, if our flirtation is ever consummated, Tony, then I suspect we will end up making love like porcupines very carefully.

Before presumably going on to say, because we are both total pricks.

But

on a separate note.

And also surrounded by more total pricks.

Yes.

On a separate note.

And yet slightly connected, I do think there are a great many people around the world

that would really like to see an actual porcupine have sex with Rupert Murdoch.

And not particularly carefully either.

Well, there are websites.

Murdoch admitted that the phone hacking had left a serious blot on his reputation.

And I guess it has, very much in the same way that a giant pigeon has left a serious blot on his car windscreen.

And it seems that, as a newspaper boss, and he admitted that, he'd not so much taken his eye off the ball as taken his eyes out of their sockets and put balls there instead before saying, I can't see any balls.

And then wandering around saying, do I look scary?

Do I look scary?

Oh, you're sacked.

He stopped just short of saying, I have cast iron proof that from 2003 to 2008, I was on the John doing an unusually tricky Times crossword.

That was basically his defense.

He just didn't know anything about it.

Murdoch even claimed that he'd actually been a victim of the phone hacking scandal himself, saying the senior executives were misinformed and shielded from anything that was going on.

Maybe even the editor, but certainly below that, someone took charge of a cover-up which we were victim to.

Oh, that's right, Rupert.

You are the big victim here.

I can't believe the staggering lack of sympathy being sent your way.

Andy, you know what?

Shame on us.

Shame on all of us.

He took the victim card even further when he claimed that he'd been under duress after being harassed by a horde of photographers and journalists saying, I had another 20 or so outside my apartment this morning.

At which point presumably the entire room went quiet.

and just waited for him to realize what he'd just said.

And I'm hoping that he immediately replied, oh, I'm sorry, I've just realised the inherent irony in me complaining about aggressive treatment from the press.

Scratch that last comment from the records, please.

Faroo!

His strategy so far seems to have been to outright deny something, to cantankerously obfuscate, or to pretend that he doesn't remember at all.

That was how he dealt with questions around David Cameron reportedly flying down to meet him on his yacht in 2008.

He said he wasn't sure about the meeting and then, well, he couldn't remember which yacht they met on, whether it was his yacht or his daughter's yacht.

Well, here's the thing.

No one gives a shit about which yacht you met on.

We just care that you met at all.

You could have met on a pair of jet skis and that would still be a problem, albeit that it would have made a significantly better story.

It showed quite impressive restraint, I thought, that both Judge Leveson and the QC, Robert Jay, managed to do the entire two-day

examination of Murdoch without taking off their glasses, looking Murdoch straight in the eye eye and saying slowly and deliberately,

for f's sake.

But an upshot of Leveson has been that Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, or as he was called by the respected radio journalist James Nochty on the very serious Radio 4 daily news show, the Today programme, a while ago, Jeremy the culture secretary.

No smoke without fire.

No smoke without fire.

Anyway, Hunt is now fighting for his political arse after it turned out that his special advisor Adam Smith had been in rather too close contact with with News Corp during the build-up to their controversial attempted full takeover of B Sky B.

Adam Smith, the advisor, rightly resigned.

Stroke was brutally hung out to dry.

Stroke was obviously scapegoated for something that clearly went well beyond just him, delete according to preference.

Adam Smith claimed he acted without Jeremy Hunt's knowledge and Hunt has defended himself against accusations of wrongdoing by claiming that A, he had absolutely no idea of anything his long-term special advisor with whom he had spent the whole of his working life in close contact with was doing.

B, every time he met anyone from B Sky B or News Corp, he put his fingers in his ears and said, la la la la, so he couldn't hear what they were saying.

And C, he also tearfully admitted that ever since going into politics, he'd been locked in his garden shed whilst his special advisor Adam Smith pranced around in a pantomime Jeremy Hunt outfit.

So I'm sure he's fine, and some now claim that Hunt is only keeping his job as a firewall for Prime Minister David Cameron, whose close links and friendships with top news international people are starting to look somewhere between, well, maybe perfectly normal and patently putrid, depending on your political standpoint.

And the thing is, Cameron had promised a new politics when he came into Downing Streets after the subterfuge and trickery and double dealing of the Labour years.

And it turns out that by new, he meant new in the same way that the New Testament is new, in that it's millennia out of date, full of bullshit, and believed by a decreasing proportion of the British population.

And the greater point in all this is that the sordid workings of the politico-mediacal machine, I believe that's a word, have been laid bare for all to see.

But

I'm sure it's always been this way, John.

I'm sure Jesus, I don't want to keep carping on about him, but I'm sure he had to feed tasty tidbits of gossip to the gospel writers to make sure they gave him good props

in their books.

Jesus predicted his death three times in the New Testament.

And Matthew, Marco, and Luke all had exclusive interviews with Jesus, saying he was going to to pop his magic clogs.

And you just can't help thinking that he was just leaking it selectively to the press.

Even gave Matt the scoop that he was going to be crucified.

And then lo and behold, they all gave him cracking write-ups for his magic tricks and stand-up storytelling.

And then banged on about a miscarriage of justice in Jesus' high-profile court case without really giving all the facts of a very complicated legal issue.

Jesus fed the dogs to bone, John, and the dogs barked at his burglars and pissed on his tree stumps.

And that is how the media has always worked.

It's a dance as old as time itself.

Middle East peace letter news now and there is a charming new written relationship emerging between two pen pals or to be more accurate penemies.

A letter detailing

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's demands for restarting peace talks was recently handed to Israel's Prime Minister.

Palestinian officials gave the document to Netanyahu at a meeting in Jerusalem at which both sides said they were committed to reach peace.

Mr.

Netanyahu is supposedly going to reply within 14 days.

And it must be so exciting, you know, for him to get that envelope and have everyone crowding around saying, oh, what does it say?

What does it say?

It's nice that in a world of email, there's at least some people still taking the time to physically write letters to each other, albeit letters of demands.

Well, it's a bit old-fashioned, John.

You would have thought that, you know, these guys are modern politicians.

They should have used more modern forms of communication and more accessible to the wider public.

I'd have liked to have seen these negotiations take place on Twitter.

Abbas could have written at Netanyahu, let's talk about peace, baby, let's talk about you and me.

Hashtag peace protests, process, hashtag 83rd time lucky.

He could have, Netanyahu could have replied, at Mumu Abbas 13.

Retweets at God Israel can have Israel

hashtag promised land hashtag suck on it

Abbas replies at Netanyahu Sean Jay Ladisk from Netanyahu replies I've just found a picture of a dog that looks like a Willie

I think that would have been the more grown-up way to to do this negotiation

That's a depressingly effective way to sum up the Middle East peace process over the last 50 years

Democracy update now and in France or en France, as they say over there, it looks like President Sarkozy may be up shit creek without a baguette.

He lost, which is just a nightmare for a French person.

Absolutely.

They like to have an emergency baguette with them at all times.

Yeah, because

you never know when you might need to have it on the side of eating some brie.

Well, that's why Napoleon had those funny sideways hats, because they had to be wide enough to hide a baguette in.

Just in case.

You hope you never have to use it but it's there if you do.

Did you know that when they used to chop people's heads off with the guillotine in the basket where their heads fell into they had

some fresh baked baguettes just to

because they're not animals.

Well they're not animals and they'd give the severed heads you know one final whiff of Frenchness before they finally went on their way.

Facts.

History.

The bicycle was

in the first ever bicycle, which obviously is a French invention

as a means for carrying onions more efficiently from place to place.

Was in fact made of

a couple of baguettes and

some wheels, some cheeses, different wheels of camembert.

And French kids learn how to swim using onion rings.

Rubber rings.

That's entirely fine.

That is a fact.

Yep.

Okay, I think we've danced

baseball.

right up to the border of racism there.

The French

French obviously gave America the Statue of Liberty

in the 19th century.

And they also gave him the game of baseball, which was a game originally played in France using baguettes and tomatoes.

The point is, the point is, Sarkozy lost the first round of voting.

in the French election to the socialist candidate François Hollande.

And it's the first time a French president running for re-election has failed to win the first round since the Fifth Republic in 1958.

Mr.

Sarkozy, who's been in power since 2007, said he understood, and I quote, the anguish felt by the French in a fast-moving world.

You see, even in political defeat, Andy, the French can't help but sound like poets.

Sarkozy should have delivered that statement wearing a black polo neck and a beret, smoking a gitan while a jazz cellist plucks strings behind him.

I feel the anguish felt by the French in this fast moving

world.

Merci becourt, thank you, thank you.

My next poem is called, Oh shit, those poll numbers look bad.

Oh shit,

said the man.

No shit,

said the poll numbers.

Thank you, thank you very much.

So, well, the interesting thing was that he lost to the socialist candidate Françoise Hollande.

And if Hollande wins the second round he'll win not only the presidency but also the bonus prize of Carla Bruni for the next five years.

Yeah he should never have put that on as a bonus.

That made no sense at the time.

I know he was just trying to look confident but it seems really crazy.

As well as Hollande coming out on top, there was a very strong performance from the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen of the National Front Party.

So it seems that France, very much like a matador's testicles after slightly misdiving a flash new move on a bull, has simultaneously swung left and right.

And

there's been quite a lot of jockeying to try and win the votes from Le Pen's supporters for the next round between Hollande and Sarkozy.

And Le Pen has not come out in favour of either candidate.

And she said this, she said, I don't change my opinion like I change my shirt.

And that made me think a lot, actually, about my own political views.

And I've realised that I change my opinion like I change my underpants once a year in the local zoo

whilst shouting, now you take off your fur lion face.

In American Democracy News, Newt Gingrich plans to drop out of the presidential race this coming Tuesday, weeks and weeks after it would have already been ridiculously too late to do so.

The three-wived moon colony dreamer put his mark on the campaign, Andy, that mark being the mark of an angry penis.

He is...

He basically announced...

Wasn't that a Sherlock Holmes novel?

The mark of the angry penis.

Sherlock never found it.

Oh, Moriarty.

Why so angry?

Gingrich has basically announced that he is going to announce that he is going to end his bid to be the Republican nominee, thus giving himself one more moment in the sun like a bloated honking seal.

He announced that he will also that he will not drop out, he will merely transition out of the race.

And most reports claim that he will very likely endorse Mitt Romney, although it seems that he will only do that in his own signature angry penis style.

As when asked about it, he said, I think obviously that I would be a better candidate, but the objective fact is that the voters didn't think that.

Wow,

that is a ringing endorsement.

The most attention Gingrich had managed to get while campaigning recently was, of course, when he was bitten by a penguin.

So maybe it's worth him learning from that success and giving campaigning one last go, but this time campaigning while getting bitten by larger and larger animals.

And if it doesn't work, perhaps his final concession speech should be given while his arm is in the mouth of a lion.

You can't say that wouldn't be spectacular.

If a man is talking while 20% of his body is inside a lion, you are listening to that man, Andy.

Well, isn't that what happened to Walter Mondale?

Didn't he do the last of the televised debates with just his feet sticking out of a crocodile's mouth?

I mean, what does the future hold for Gingrich now, John?

Because, I mean,

I guess he'd probably be looking at another wife on the back of this.

Yeah, I think statistically, there's another wife on the horizon.

Yeah.

That's just, you know.

If you look at the calendar, that's long overdue.

More Britain being f news now and it's turned out that we're back in recession after the government's heroic efforts to create an artificial spike in the economy by provoking a petrol buying panic at the end of the first quarter of the year.

That didn't work and technically that's a second quarter of what is euphemistically known as negative growth rather than things being fed.

And that means that we are in what is experts call a double dip recession.

Now, depending on what you read this is the worst state the British economy has been in since the 1970s, the 1990s, the 1930s or the 1870s or since two years ago.

But the fact is it's not going well for the government's attempts to hoodwink the economy into thinking that it's fine.

In fact those attempts have been about as successful as the Titanic's attempts to sink that iceberg.

And one of the great concerns that a lot of people are increasingly raising is the fact that the people dealing with this issue, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, between them have the collective work experience that suggests they would struggle to organise a game of pétonk in a French village

with a baguette in a picnic basket, let alone sort out a struggling British economy.

The government's largely relied on Muriel, the magic private sector, galloping to the rescue, and sadly Muriel has not quite been feeling herself lately.

And it also turns out the sticking pins and voodoo dolls of the post-war welfare state creating Prime Minister Clement Attlee also hasn't worked.

So it's not looking good, John.

The economy is now 4.3% smaller than before the crisis.

Admittedly, this could be worse.

It hasn't entirely led to everyone throwing away all their plasma screen televisions and instead building outside toilets, wearing trilby hats and dying of typhoid.

So things clearly have been

worse in the past.

But of the G7 nations, only Italy has done worse in recent years than Britain.

So once again, the bugle says, thank you, Silvio.

Thank you for everything.

Your emails now, and this one comes in from Jethro Stevenson, who writes, Dear Andy, John and Chris, in the latest edition of the bugle, listener Alan Martin explained that he has the ability to detect imminent pun onslaughts and offered to act as a pun canary.

Yeah.

And

you seem quite keen on that idea, John.

Well, I thought it was a great idea.

Anything that can stop those from happening, I'm for, Andy.

Really?

It's got to be a good idea.

He was just trying to stop fighting nature, John, and also stop fighting the will of the people.

And by the people, I mean one person.

His proposal was that on detecting a pun run, he would start screaming as a warning to the punnaverse.

However, writes Jethro, if Alan is really to be a canary, then for accuracy's sake, his method should be to sit in the studio constantly singing or screaming at the top of his voice until he detects a pun, at which point he should stop and drop down dead.

There you are.

It's good to have a bit of mining history accuracy.

I accept that this is only something that he could do once.

However, it may serve as a lesson to John and Chris.

Puns don't kill, but lack of puns can and do.

Well, that is excellent.

Very exciting, we have another email from Antarctica, Andy.

Awesome.

Antarctican bugler.

Sue O'Reilly says, Dear the bugle, greetings once again from the Antarctic.

I very much enjoyed your recent coverage of Captain Scott's brave expedition and gruesome death.

It was a heartwarming thing to hear as I face long, long months of being trapped in frigid darkness with highly questionable co-workers.

It'll probably be fine.

It'll probably be fine.

Sue goes on to say, I've done two winters at South Pole Station since I last wrote to you.

This year, my podcast queue seems to play the bugle almost every time that I'm climbing on the station's roof to chip urine smelling ice from the bathroom steam vents

is that not what the bugle does for the world

are we not the chipper of urine from steam vents for this planet

She says I draw I draw no correlation from this and goes on to say I would just like to mention that if I fall down and slide off the three-story drop while laughing at you my South Pole death will be entirely your fault.

This is not likely because my work doesn't take me near the roof edge, but Andy's pun runs could quite possibly draw me closer.

Cheers, Sue O'Reilly.

There you go, Andy.

You could be responsible for Sue's plunge into the icy tundra or icy punderer.

Oh, dear.

Oh, John.

Let's kill you.

John!

Oh, shit!

Oh, no!

Oh, no!

The madness is enveloping me!

Sue, don't jump!

Don't jump, Sue!

You quite enjoyed that, didn't you?

I could tell.

You're quite pleased with it.

No, no, I hate myself.

Don't fight it, John.

Don't fight it.

I hate myself.

Sue!

You've been repressing yourself too long, John.

Don't jump!

A number of emails picking up on the discussion of the Austrian village of f ⁇ ing last week,

which I guess we might have f ⁇ ing expected.

And we brought it upon our f ⁇ ing selves.

Oh, no.

And...

We've also been sent a picture of the Austrian politician Andreas Wanker, which which

I don't know if this was part of the deal at the end of the Second World War, that

in exchange for having produced Hitler, Austria had to be cursed with swear words for people and places.

I don't know.

It's probably time to move on.

Probably.

And also,

someone sent in a waffle shaped like a penis.

And

I will put it up on the Twitter feed and on the website.

And I think it's amazing what modern technology can do.

Not only does it enable people to make waffles and then cut them into the shapes of wangs, but it also enables us to share them with you, our devoted listeners.

Do keep your emails coming in to...

Oh, wow.

Oh, this is good.

I'll take every time.

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

and don't forget the soundcloud page

which is which

soundcloud.com slash

the hyphen bugle bang

nice andy easily dunked that my favorite web page of all time

the only web page yeah that's really i mean i've got a tattoo of it the problem is i have the tattoo done on my back so i can't actually see it and read it out but um

the point stands.

Sport now and the hot news from the world of Bugle Sports is that our producer Chris lost the London Marathon.

Not even close.

I watched that.

You were Chris.

Those Kenyans had your ass for grass.

What happened?

No, okay, I got sidetracked.

You guaranteed victory Chris.

I got sidetracked by a girl who was running and hula hooping at the same time,

who during this took a phone call.

How can you not stop and run alongside a girl who is hula hooping 26 miles on the telephone?

Yeah, this is like Steve Ovette of the Los Angeles Olympics all over again.

It would be so great if the winner of the Olympic marathon took a phone call or something.

I can't really talk now.

I'm running in the marathon.

I'll be done in about two and a half hours.

I think if the Olympic 100 meters in 2008 had been another 20 yards long, Usain Bolt would have taken a phone call.

So, I mean, very disappointing, obviously, not only to lose, but to take more than twice as long as the guy who won.

And you've been claiming knee injury.

I have.

Yeah.

I've got a bad toe as well.

Bad toe, the David Hay excuse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But my sings are rather hollow, doesn't it?

I i did finish yeah okay so i finished should it be your lost and and loser

loser yeah put my hands up i'm a loser but but thanks to all the buglers who sponsored a loser by the way very kind of you can still uh sponsor chris at his uh virgin money what's it called oh you know what for a second i thought you're gonna know that

uh virgin money.com forward slash hackney empire virgin giving or virgin money virgin moneygiving.com oh my god i've got your yeah there you go so if you want to sponsor chris for being a total failure,

and I mean they weren't even worried about you by the end, were they?

I mean, I know before

some of those Kenyans were talking about Chris Skinner being a definite potential rival.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know where they got that from.

Who do you think is going to be the next of the three of us to run a marathon, Andy?

I don't know.

I'm guessing it's not going to be me, John, because you know, a lot of sportsmen, you'll see them interviewed and they'll they'll be asked, you know, do you think you've got a chance in this?

Well, and they'll say, Yeah, well, you know, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I could win.

And I take that view with marathons.

I just don't see the point in entering unless I'm going to actually win it.

And I'm not going to actually win it, so I'm not going to enter it.

One reason to win, I got sponsored by two Florence Nightingales, really, yeah, or the same Florence Nightingale twice, and Gaddafi.

That's reason alone.

I think you have to report that income.

And also, this was

the big the dig the treasure up

also uh sent to the bugle twitter feed was a picture of a banner that some buglers had put up at around about the 22 mile mark i think yep a massive banner hanging over building saying you chris

must have been just the psychological boost you needed as you dragged your aching body towards the

so many confused people chris

running in that moment well come on this is a huge achievement.

So I'm very sorry to any buglers who had put money on Chris to win.

I know I've about 10 grand down on that.

But

well done for taking part.

Thanks.

Well done.

Thanks.

Loser.

That's all for this week's bugle.

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

We'll put those pictures up on the at Hello Buglers Twitter feed.

And don't forget the SoundCloud page.

Soundcloud.com

slash the hyphen bugle.

two for two

have a lovely week

please take us back mr murdo please take us back please take don't jump so

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.