Bugle 191 – A secret servicing

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, buglers, and welcome to issue 191 of the Bugle the World's primary news franchise with me, Andy Zaltzman, live in London.

Hello, how are you all?

Good, a formality's out of the way.

And in New York City, USA, it's Jackie Joke Machine himself, John Oliver.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Buglers.

Andy, it's 4.20 today, April the 20th.

So have you been celebrating accordingly?

4.20.

Yeah, 4.20 is apparently a very big day in cannabis subculture, Andy.

So I'm guessing that you either didn't know that or you did know it, have acted on it, and have now forgotten it again.

yeah i've just i've just i've just eaten my way through it john isn't that what people do with cannabis i've forgotten i do worship the ancient egyptian god canubis who's the uh god of tedious conversation but other than that i'm a bit out of the loop

and how are you marking uh 420 john well basically by bringing it up with you andy and then then that's it i think i'm done i think i've i've done all that i need to do you're not gonna toe com debifter at work

I wasn't going to, but now you've said it like that, Andy, I feel like I should.

I assume everyone at the daily show will be marking the occasion of that one.

I think, Andy, by saying tokon debifter in that tone of voice, you may have just single-handedly put an end to the cannabis drug trade around the world.

You can't have supply if there's suddenly no demand.

This is Bugle 191 for the week beginning Monday, the 23rd of April.

As we record Friday, the 20th of April 150 years exactly since little Louis Pasteur finished his first dicking around with milk experiments and concluded that from then on you'll be better off playing Russian roulettes with a loaded pistol rather than six glasses of milk as people had done up till then.

Certainly Pasteur we've got a lot to thank him for but he has made taking your kids out for a milkshake a bit less exciting than it used to be, albeit considerably safer.

Terrific little scientist Pasteur, all credit to the boy, pops up with some crucial bits of science at key moments.

And

also a hundred years to the minute since the first pitch was flang at Fenway Park, Boston, home of the Red Sox in 1912.

And it was thrown by John F.

Kennedy's granddad from the top of a mound, or was it a book depository?

I forget.

Either way, a little bit ironic in hindsight.

And 191 means we've now done the same number of bugles as the number of consecutive times that US President Gerald Ford's left hand lost to his right hand at scissors, paper, stone.

He kept thinking his right hand would change from scissors to stone, so we just kept going with paper

with the left hand, but he'd just forgotten that his right hand just loved making finger shadows of baby crocodiles.

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

Now, this week, a very special section of the bin, it's a London marathon section.

Because on Sunday, the 22nd of April 2012, Chris,

our much loved and hated producer, is going to run the London Marathon.

But not just run it, he's going to sprint it.

He's going to be standing on the start line with one leg in the air, cocked like a cartoon character, before going on the B of Bang.

Is that your tactic?

Well, if you can do like the 100 meters in 10 seconds,

assuming you can keep that up, how long is it going to take me?

That's not long, is it?

Not long.

Fatigue is a state of mind, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

I feel I'm ready.

I feel I'm ready to do it.

Anything short of shattering the world record, Chris.

Don't come back to that.

That's a catastrophic failure.

The world record will change hands this weekend.

The absolute key is getting over the line quickly, isn't it?

Because historically,

if you're stuck in that mass of people trotting over the line 10 minutes after the gun goes off, you're not going to catch those Kenyans, Chris.

No.

So you've got to be out of your blog.

You've got to be out of your blocks like a prescient pig out of a sausage factory.

Chris is valiantly raising money to ensure that the empire stays in existence and gets back to its former glory.

There can be no nobler cause which a British man can run.

That's almost true.

What empire is it?

It's the Hackney Empire, Andy.

Not the British Empire?

No, it's it.

Imagine East London then formed its own empire

and then filled it with loveys.

I think a lot of people did call the British Empire the Hackney Empire at the time, or hackneyed.

Anyway, the Romans had done it all before, to be fair.

And if any bugler can beat Chris in the marathon, or indeed during the race, tell him to f himself, they will win this week's Star Prize, which is 10 years off the eternal damnation and hell that you will all probably get for listening to this show.

In this section of In, we commemorate the first ever marathon, all began in the year 490 BC when Greece nailed a terrific win over the bookie's favourites Persia at the Battle of Marathon, changing the entire course of European and world history.

And as anyone who's seen the historical documentary 300 knows, Greece also ensured that we're recording this podcast not slathered in Persian-style makeup and perfume and wearing bizarre androgynous clothes and jewellery.

At least Chris and I aren't.

We can't see John and it's none of our business how he chooses to live his life now he's stuck.

Chris and I are just going Greek style, oiled up with sandals and shields.

Oh yeah, eyes up Chris.

Eyes up.

I'm not a piece of meat.

Anyway after the battle ended the pro runner and fitness fanatic Phydipides legged it the 26 miles back to Athens with a final score.

But he was exhausted after having pounded out 150 miles each way from Athens to Sparta and back to us, the Spartans, to help out.

And so we arrived in Athens after the battle with only enough energies to say, Greece won, before dropping dead.

A nervous silence followed before someone asked, Greece won, Persia, what?

Did they sneak it away goal?

He's really building up the tension here.

Oh, he is actually dead.

So he popped his clogs before he could even get his commemorative medal, free Miles Bar and tinfoil cape, or be told that the guys in wheelchairs had got there half an hour before he did anyway.

And Chris is commemorating Phydipides' heroic feats, hopefully without the last bit,

and also without the 300-mile round trip up and down mountains and late summer Mediterranean heat.

It's not that authentic, mate, is it?

It's not really that authentic.

I do have to run through southeast London.

That is probably psychologically worse.

And also, Phydipides

didn't even have the advantage of being able to keep cool by running in the shadow of a guy in a rhinoceros outfit, raising money for people with erectile dysfunction who simply can't get the horn.

Boom.

Good luck.

What's, I mean, top three, podium finish?

Definitely.

Yeah.

In all seriousness, I've got a chance.

Everyone's got a chance.

Because the Bugle podcast franchise is associated only with winners, and we do not want a loser coming on and producing this show.

That is true.

I guarantee I'll finish ahead of Tom.

That is probably correct.

Top story this week, sex scandals!

I've come to fix your photocopier.

I don't have a photocopier.

Ah, no.

Oh,

yeah.

What a shame, Andy, that we left the Times and News International because this kind of tabloid bottom feeding is all they ever wanted for us.

There have been some outstanding sex scandals around this week, diverting attention from some of the incredibly serious things happening all over the world.

Breakdown of the tenuous ceasefire in Syria, the looming war between North and South Sudan, the testing of India's first nuclear-capable missile.

We could focus on those stories.

We could.

Or we could, like the rest of the media, focus on titillating sex scandals.

So,

which is it to be?

Oh,

yeah.

You know how I do it, baby.

I focus on the wrong thing all night long.

Oh my god.

I think I need a bath.

You can't wash your insides, Andy.

Secret Service scandal news now.

Last weekend, it was the Summit of the Americas hosted in the beautiful Colombian city of Cratagena.

Arima!

Are you wearing a

nearly racist but not racist, Andy?

Am I wearing one?

Yes.

Well, I don't know.

It just sounded like you had that kind of

trill in your voice that suggested you.

Yeah,

I've got castanets in my hands.

Good boy.

What's the problem?

The theme of this year's summit was connecting the Americas in order to become partners in prosperity.

But there was also some very tough topics for President Obama to negotiate, including U.S.

opposition to the presence of Cuba, the effectiveness or lack thereof of the war on drugs.

On that subject alone, in the run-up to the summit, Guatemalan President Perez Molina said, We have seen the strategy has been pursued in the fight against drug trafficking over the last years, and it has failed.

He's not alone in that concern, Andy.

Many Latin American countries feel they're paying a disproportionate price for the war on drugs, often in blood.

Being a major drug trafficking route has turned Central America into the most violent region in the world.

The relationship between the US and Latin America is tricky and delicate at best.

What you don't want to happen, Andy, let me reiterate: what you don't, what you do not want to happen

is for your secret service to cause a scandal just before you arrive in the host city by banging a bunch of prostitutes.

You don't want that to happen.

Definitely don't.

I mean, was that written down anywhere in advance?

That is a secret service do not, not a secret service do.

Okay.

Andy.

You would have thought that, you know, when you are a secret service agent, one of the very first things you're taught at Secret Service school is that whilst on duty protecting the leader of the free world,

do not bring a gaggle of prostitutes back to your hotel yeah that unfortunately is that not

item one on that checklist unfortunately that happened andy there seems to have been a very key misunderstanding over the code of conduct required to be a member of the secret service i think they may have taken out a copy of their contract before going out that night and read it saying well it says here um protect and serve the president blah blah blah protect his life above all else blah blah blah blah blah honestly i can't find anything that says don't sleep sleep with local prostitutes while scouting presidential visits.

And I feel like if it was that important to them that we didn't do it, it would have said that specifically here.

Okay, that's a weight off my mind.

Let's go out and get some prostitutes.

That's a green light as far as I'm concerned.

Well, it's at least greenish.

It's got a greenish hue, and that is good enough for me.

Are we sure, John?

Because there was, what, 20-odd staff involved in this, both Secret Service and military, and apparently about 20 women involved.

Were they not just trying to find a way of ensuring they could stick with the traditional American boy girl-boy girl seating plan at dinner?

Is that just the easiest way to do that?

They're a stickler for formality, Andy.

We know that.

Now, prostitution is not a crime in Colombia, and in fact, this whole thing might have remained secret, which is supposedly an area that the Secret Service specialises in,

were it not for the fact that one of the agents seemingly attempted to shortchange one of the prostitutes the next morning, and that is when all hell broke loose.

The exact details are not entirely clear.

One thing for sure is that the group of military and Secret Service agents were partying at Catagina's Play Club which has been described as a high-end strip club in an industrial part of the port city.

Now if I could just stop right there

it seems that a group of Secret Servicemen partying in a high-end Colombian strip club is at the very least not a great idea.

Unless you're pitching it as the plot for a new movie featuring Zach Efron as an American Secret Service agent agent and Antonio Banderas as Maria, the Colombian prostitute with a heart of gold and a nose full of cocaine.

Also featuring Carlos Valderama as the strip club owner and the voice of Chris Rock as his wisecracking pet dog.

Now.

I would pay to see that, John.

This is.

Particularly Valderrama.

If he can pass dialogue as well as he could pass a football, that is going to be one fluent film.

This is where it gets a bit hazy.

The members of the Secret Service apparently then paid $60 each to take between two and 20 women back to their hotel.

Once they were back at the hotel, they did what God intended.

If God was a low-budget porn script writer,

the next morning, a woman claimed,

in a way, let's look at the first scene of his whole magnum opus job.

A guy and a chick, stark bollock naked, in a garden with an extremely phallic-looking animal in a tree.

You're right, Andy.

Let's look at how the Bible begins.

In the beginning was the word.

Oh,

yeah.

Take them fig leaves off, baby.

Y'all don't need that shoes.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was, oh, God.

So,

the next morning, this woman claimed that she's not been safe.

We just put another 50 years on our eternity in the house.

Drop in the ocean, Andy.

Dropping a fiery ocean now.

She argued with two Secret Service agents, then went to the Colombian police who reported the matter to the US Embassy.

There are two versions of the dispute.

The first is that the argument was over between $40 and $60 when the woman got angry with the two agents after they refused to pay her full price for servicing both of them.

Instead, they only agreed to split her price.

That is, at best, cheap, Andy, and at worst, gross professional misconduct.

The other version was that the woman actually asked for $800 the previous night to sleep with one man.

he agreed, and then renewed on that deal the next morning, instead offering $30 instead.

That is some aggressive haggling, Andy.

And it makes sense of the Secret Service's motto, worthy of trust and confidence.

And then, of course, in tiny letters, and also relentless in pursuing low, low prices from prostitutes.

The problem is not merely that the Secret Service were secretly servicing, but that the agents were alleged to have, quote, brought foreign nationals in contact with sensitive security information, which is either an odd euphemism, a strange fetish, or as you say, gross, gross misconduct.

And as a result of this, the agents were quickly relieved for the second time in a matter of days.

And

Republican Senator Peter King said it seems that the Secret Service had, quote, really lucked out.

And if the women had been working for a terrorist organisation, they could have had access to information about the President's whereabouts or security protocols in the agents' rooms.

Which, I mean,

it would seem a slightly odd way to go about it if you're a top-level terror organisation to send 20 agents to work in deep cover as Colombian prostitutes.

That is not the most targeted use of your resources.

You're right.

Peter King's exact quote was that he said, so far, there is no information that any of them were involved with any narco-terrorist group or any organised crime.

Oh, that's good, Andy.

So they were just good, honest, trustworthy prostitutes.

It does look like the Secret Service have a PR disaster on their hands now as an investigation begins as to the depth of this scandal, which may involve, as you say, as many as 20 women, 11 agents, and some other military personnel.

Senator Susan Collins, who was briefed by the Director of the Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, said that he was, and I quote, rightly appalled.

by the agents' actions and is pursuing a vigorous internal investigation.

I think that's all that the Secret Servicemen were trying to to purchase, wasn't it?

Boom!

The bugle goes blue!

That's right!

You can't spell bug!

Take the headphones off your kids' ears!

You can't spell.

It's adult time.

You can't spell bugle without B-L-U-E.

Senator Collins said that she'd asked Mr.

Sullivan a number of questions during her phone briefings, such as, who were these women?

Could they have been members of groups hostile to the United States?

Could they have planted bugs, disabled weapons, or jeopardised the security of the president or our country?

And those are all legitimate concerns and also show that Senator Collins may have been watching slightly too many James Bond movies recently.

Did any of the girls come iconically out of the ocean in slow motion and wearing white bikinis?

Did they try to snap any of your necks with their powerful legs?

Did they have amusing double blanc trendre names?

Were you at least able to fire them out of the ejector seats on your cars or shoot them with your pens that actually become machine guns if you click them 14 times?

I do hope so.

Not everyone is so fussed about it though, John.

The mayor of Catagenia, Cambo Elias,

said on Tuesday, it doesn't bother people at all.

First, because adults were involved, and second, because here it's normal.

So, John, is there not an alternative explanation to this?

That's like all good spies, these secret servicemen are merely trying to blend in with the locals.

Let's cut them some slack, John.

Cut them slack.

Also, we don't know their intentions.

You're right, Andy.

We need to wait until the results of this investigation.

Maybe the agents just wanted to save the prostitutes, like Richard Gere.

Why is it that when he does it in Pretty Woman Andy is heroic, when they do it in Columbia, there's a congressional investigation.

All we're asking for is some consistency.

So 12 agents have now been relieved of duty and sent home.

And former Washington Post reporter Ronald Kessler calls this clearly the most embarrassing scandal in Secret Service history.

I don't know if it's the most embarrassing, Andy.

Wasn't that time a bit more embarrassing when, you know,

the president got shot in the head?

Was that not a little more embarrassing?

Or, you know, when Reagan got gunned down in the street?

Those two snafus seemed a little more embarrassing than this.

Well,

I don't know.

I don't know what their tolerance level for embarrassment is.

Maybe it's higher.

Italian sex scandal news now.

Oh, hang on.

Hang on.

We're doing a sex scandal section.

It's Italian.

Can I guess?

Can I guess who's involved in this?

Sure, yeah, sure.

Is it

the former Italian football manager, Arrigo Sacchi?

Oh, it's not him, Andy.

It's not him?

It's not.

It's a good guess.

Is it the Italian 19th century national hero, Giuseppe Garibaldi?

I'd actually heard something about him, but that hasn't been verified yet, Andy, so it's not him.

Okay, last guess.

Berlusconi?

You know it is, Andy.

It would be wrong, Andrew, and not just wrong, borderline impossible, to talk about political sex scandals without mentioning mentioning Silvio Berlusconi it's like talking about Michelangelo's David without talking about his penis

yeah you can do it and people do try to do it but should they Andy because you can't have one without the other

Silvio Berlusconi is currently on trial and I really want you to speak yeah I really want you to host a series of art documentaries at some point in your career yeah yeah I'll take it in a different direction

now we look at this Rubens picture and...

Oh my word, will you look at those?

Oh.

Oh my word.

Don't say a thing.

Just enjoy it.

I mean, for Crikey's sake.

Silvia Berlusconi is currently on trial and there is a phrase that has been used hundreds of times over the years.

That phrase is so overused, Andy, it slightly squeaks when you speak it out of your mouth.

And a witness at one of the current trials has said that strippers dressed as nuns performed for the Italian Prime Minister, former Italian Prime Minister, at a party that he hosted.

So, I mean, how's that news going to go down in a predominantly Catholic nation, Andy?

Well, it'll probably go down like all the rest of Berlusconi's antics did over the years, inexplicably well.

I mean, again, I like to see the positive in these things.

And maybe this is a sign that Berlusconi is trying to work himself towards respectability.

He's trying to wean himself off strippers and prostitutes by getting the women to dress as nuns so he could bring himself closer to the Almighty Lord.

It's just a step-by-step process.

He starts with strippers dressed as strippers, then he moves on to strippers dressed as nuns, then he will eventually get to nuns dressed as nuns.

Perhaps via nuns dressed as strippers who could try to convert him to celibacy, which would be a Herculean task converting Berlusconi to celibacy.

I imagine that years after he dies, he will still be trying to get it on with the lady worms.

Or the lady end of the worm, whichever way that works.

The woman alleges, and

we can assume that she's probably telling the truth from this past history, that the first night that she went, she saw two women in nun costumes stripping for the Prime Minister.

One, she said, was Nicole Minetti, now a regional councillor for Berlusconi's People of Freedom Party in Milan.

Oh, Silvio, nobody does it better.

Nobody does it half as good as you.

Silvio, you're a douche.

Now, hold on though, Andy, because you're right.

To be fair, what did she actually see?

Let's deal with the facts, Andy.

Women dressed up as sexy nuns taking their clothes off.

Well, hold up.

Could it be, perhaps, that he might have just seen them in nun costumes and said, that's very offensive to me and to the Italian nation.

Please take those offensive garments off immediately and then told them to do it slowly so he could be sure that they were doing it right is that possible no you're right it isn't berlusconi is a scumbag

the italian newspaper corriella della cera reported last week that berlusconi had paid 127 000 euros to three female witnesses including uh miss minetti since the trial began last year

he's paying off witnesses

no john no of course he's not doing that as his lawyer explained explained he denied that they were an attempt to influence the women

thank goodness said that they were entirely legal and merely reflected and i quote berlusconi's unusual generosity

why must we always be so cynical about him john

that's right oh he's a he he's a he's shown himself a man who loves women arguably a little too much

So why would he not pay them 127,000 euros during a trial?

I mean, that's...

Yeah.

Well, why would he not do that?

Go get yourself something nice, like, I don't know, a nun costume or something.

He's been involved in cases now relating to underage sex, bribery, prostitution, tax fraud, violating official secrets.

This guy is the daily Thompson of being implicated in scandals.

There is nothing he cannot do.

Aircraft sex scandal news now and NASA have announced that one of their jumbo jets is pregnant

after being quote covered by the retired US space shuttle Discovery in the skies above Washington DC.

If NASA's ambitious, if controversial breeding program bears fruits, and one assumes the renowned space agency will have taken care to select a lady jumbo, which was ovulating at the time of the mounting, the Schlumbo jet could revolutionise long-haul travel for everyone.

But apparently, the reason they had to do it over Washington is because the shuttle, like so many spacecraft, can only perform to its best ability when it knows it has the attention of leading politicians.

That's always been the way with spacecraft.

Andy, be honest, was your only interest in that story the fact that you came up with the term Schlumbo jet?

Not the only one, John, but yeah, I mean, that was certainly a factor.

You just came up with that phrase and worked backwards from there.

Just watch that footage again with that music that you put on under John earlier on.

It just looks entirely different.

Elephant slaughtering news now and elephants have been slaughtered by the great and famous in alarming numbers recently.

The sons of Donald Trump appear to have been slaughtering elephants.

Donald Trump Jr.

issued a statement saying, I have no shame about the pictures showing him with dead elephants.

I hunt and eat game.

I'm a hunter.

And for that, I make no apologies.

Now, there is a young man who really wishes he'd been born a hundred years before he actually was.

And could he not hunt something more useful than elephants, like injustice or his father's dignity?

This is the most disappointing Trump hunting news I've ever heard.

Because whenever I hear the phrase Trump hunting, Andy, I wonder if my proposed competition has been taken seriously of releasing Donald Trump into Central Park once a year in a raccoon costume and giving New Yorkers 25 minutes to hunt him down.

Bad idea?

Maybe.

Popular idea?

Indubitably.

Now, you're right.

This refers to the fact that photos have emerged of Donald Trump Jr.

and Eric Trump, Donald Trump's two sons, and living proof that the Deuce gene is indeed hereditary.

Photos with most of them smiling on a big game hunt in Africa with various animals they killed.

In one of the photos, Donald Jr.

holds the tail of an elephant and in another, Eric Trump props up a dead leopard.

Now, you might look at that photo and think, oh, f those guys.

But ask yourself this.

If you removed the elephant tail and the dead leopard from the photos, Wouldn't you still think exactly the same thing?

So have they got any worse or have they got the same amount of loathsome just in a slightly different way?

I think one of the arguments here is, you know, aside from, I mean, they defended them saying that, you know, the kills helped feed local villagers with their traditional delicacy of leopard Carpaccio, presumably.

Right.

But at least, you know, in shooting an elephant, have some balls, John.

Now, if you're shooting an elephant, in terms of difficulty of target, that is like beating Captain Smith of the Titanic in a pancake-eating contest.

He has been in the sea for the last hundred years.

Take on a genuine opponent, and he's had the guts to kill it with a ceremonial sword, or by spiking its water hole with some lethal poison, or by wrestling it mano a trunco, as God intended, or by dressing up in an elephant suit, making it fall in love with you, then leaving it for another elephant, prompting it to commit a Romeo and Juliet-style romantic suicide.

You have to work for your kill, Trump.

Don't just shoot it with a gun.

Yeah, Donald Trump Jr.

said, I can assure you it was not wasteful.

The villagers were so happy for the meat which they don't often get to eat.

Well, f you, Donald Trump Jr.

We should, and you can take the junior off the end of that as well for good measure.

So we should actually be thanking the Trump douches for their charitable leopard burgers and their elephant chop butchery for the poor business.

Now, if they cared about those villagers as much as I'm sure they don't, maybe they'd like to donate one of their dad's stupid gold bathtubs to charity to help them out instead.

Incredibly, Donald Trump himself is not a hunter, saying, well, I'm not a believer in hunting, and I'm surprised they like it.

Andy, if you find yourself less classy than Donald Trump, you've got a big, big problem in front of you.

You need to take a long, hard bath with yourself and think about where your life's going.

One of the arguments is that hunting these elephants stops poaching.

I guess, in the same way that chainsawing someone's leg off does stop them kicking you in the shins.

and infanticide stops children being noisy on trains.

I guess, you know, there's two sides to every coin, John.

And another argument, as we said, is that it's good for the local economy.

But again, so would either Donald Trump's gold bathtub being donated to that local economy or altering the structures of international trade and finance.

That argument might be more effective at waving a gun around in the IMF than in an elephant's face.

Newt Gingrich being bitten by a penguin news now.

Let that sentence wash over you for a second.

Just enjoy it because that happened.

That happened.

Newt Gingrich was bitten by a penguin.

Let your ears taste that beautiful sequence of words.

A penguin looked up at Newt Gingrich and without knowing what it was doing, and yet simultaneously somehow knowing for sure that what it was doing was right,

it bit him.

It bit him on the finger.

Would it have been better if it had bitten Newt Gingrich in the face or on the penis or on the ear?

One of his oversized jowls then happily swinging there for several seconds?

Sure.

Sure, it would have been better.

But we have to be happy with what we received because one thing is for damn sure, Newt Gingrich being bitten by a penguin on the finger is a f ⁇ of a lot better than Newt Gingrich not getting bitten by a penguin at all.

Yeah, some vengeance for the animal kingdom in this week.

Exactly.

We've taken a lot of hits from the human kingdom.

And, you know, penguin eats new.

Not necessarily a headline that would grab your attention, other than to wonder who exactly was in charge of that zoo.

But interestingly, the penguin in question gave a press conference to explain his actions afterwards, and we have some exclusive footage from that press conference on the bugle this week.

I was thinking oh Mr.

Gingrich,

you fing numbskull,

you have debased the very concept of democracy with the tone of your nomination campaign

and since you are campaigning like a sardine I will be treating you like a sardine

snap, snap, snap,

snapity snap.

And by the way, Mr.

Gingrich, this is also vengeance for my people for Captain Scott eating my granny.

No further questions.

Gingrich, just to give you the background, you don't need any context for this story, frankly, buglers.

You just need to know that it happened.

But if you want context, this is it.

Gingrich was in St.

Louis to speak to the National Rifle Association's annual meeting.

And during his visit to a local zoo, he was treated to a behind-the-scenes visit with two penguins.

One of them nipped him on the finger a zoo spokeswoman said a small bandage was all the medical care required just a small bandage andy and a number of high fives for the penguin

that was all that was required

town name news now and listen buglers There are town names and there are town names and one town in Austria has a name so good that they're scheduling a vote to change it.

The town in question is called fing and the 104 residents of the village of fing will cast their votes later this week to decide whether or not to alter the name and if they touch even a letter of it Andy they are idiots.

The village's mayor sorry the f ⁇ ing village's mayor Franz Meindel said in a TV interview people are now willing to discuss changes to the spelling of the name, but first all f ⁇ ingers

have to agree on whether they want to change it or not.

Now all right, all right.

I thought I was against this being changed before I learned that the villagers are actually called f ⁇ ingers.

Now this is a cause that I'm willing to die for Andy.

Well I mean it's gonna make this be quite a difficult episode for you to edit here Chris because these f ⁇ ing idiots do do bleep that one.

Cannot treat this f ⁇ ing village, leave that one in, with the with the f ⁇ ing respect, bleep that, that f ⁇ ing deserves.

Leave that one.

No wonder the poor mayor leave that one is so annoyed.

Leave.

No, no, no, bleep.

Because

the problem is British tourists, John.

They cannot see a fking sign leave without

leave that.

That's without as in outside.

That the sign is outside the village of

confused now.

But without it, the f up for the residents.

Bleep, bleep, leave.

For centuries, apparently, the tiny village in northern Austria lived happily in obscurity, blissfully unaware of how f ⁇ ing incredible their name was.

But life changed when US troops stationed in the area at the end of the Second World War discovered it.

And since then, the village's name has been a constant source of amusement and joy for tourists and irritation for locals.

At least 13 road signs bearing the village's name have been stolen recently.

And the sight of semi-naked women posing for photographs beside signs has become a a common sight.

Now, what's the problem here, Andy?

Sorry, let me be journalistically accurate.

What's the fing problem?

Because as far as I can see it, there is no fing problem.

Experts say that the town's name is derived from Foco,

a 6th century Bavarian nobleman, and the modern spelling was adopted in the 18th century.

In an attempt to curtail the fun at the village's expense, some locals want to readopt its 16th century spelling and replace the CK with a single or double G.

So hold on.

It would be fucking.

No fucking way, Andy.

Those selfish motherfuckers need to understand that this isn't just about them.

The only allowable changes that I will be willing to stomach if they insist on changing the name is to this.

Foxville.

Fucktown.

F ⁇ ing Norton.

Fucks Burg.

Or the village of Bleepington upon f ⁇ king.

The village has apparently been particularly popular with British tourists, proving once again our nation's hard-won and proudly guarded status as most infantile country in the world.

A local tour guide explained: the Germans all want to see Mozart's house in Salzburg.

The Americans, when they come to Austria, want to see where the sound of music was filmed.

The Japanese want Hitler's birthplace in Braunau.

But for the British, it's all about finging.

That is not a great reflection on us, Brits, John.

We come off second worst in that list.

Only second worst.

What is up, Japan?

Let it go.

I'm not a fan of Mozart.

I thought that's where you were going there.

Your emails now, and this one comes in from Ed in Ithaca,

New York, elevation 530 feet above sea level, who writes on the subject, the highest point in Holland.

Dear John, Chris, and Andy.

I just finished listening to Bugle 190 in which Andy very neatly compared the moral high ground of American politics to the highest mountain in Holland.

I enjoyed the humour of the metaphor, but I couldn't leave it there.

I had to find out what, in fact, is the tallest mountain in Holland.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, I learnt that the highest point in Holland is the Volzeberg, standing a majestic 332 meters above sea level, which officially classifies it as a hill rather than a mountain.

So in fact, technically, that does mean that metaphor stands.

That means it is impossible to take the moral high ground in American politics by that definition.

So, the satire never sleeps.

However, the best fact about the Wolseberg is that only one-third of it is actually in the Netherlands.

The top of the hill is the point where Holland, Germany, and Belgium meet.

Just a few steps from there, and you're taking a lazily downhill walk into the magical land of beer and waffles.

So, it's hard to see why anyone would stay at the top very long, but even more vexing, why they should walk back down to the Dutch side, unless maybe they forgot to bring their passport.

Love from Ed.

So glad we've cleared up that little factual backup.

There's a great email here from Alan Martin saying, Dear John and Chris,

that's it.

Brackets in order of those most likely to benefit from my offer.

Whilst listening to last week's bugle, I realised at long last what my talent in life is.

I have a sick sense as to when someone is about to enter into a series of torturous puns.

I instinctively felt that Andy was about to start punning a good 30 seconds before the first troubled words escaped his lips.

I have a gift and I want to offer my services.

I suggest I sit in on all future podcasts and offer a canary in the mind service.

As soon as I sense that Andy's about to start another crushing string of tenuous puns, I will start screaming uncontrollably, allowing yourselves time to forcibly remove Andy's headset.

Budget permitting, you can also equip me with a cattle prod so I can take the law into my own hands.

I look forward to hearing from you, Alan Martin, London.

Alan, I'll be in touch immediately after this.

Well, I mean I mean come on John I mean that's I know I know the pun's not everyone's everyone's cup of tea um or everyone's cup of tea he but um

it's split opinion John you know the the response on Twitter some people saying it was you know the greatest cultural achievement in the history of the human race most people on email I saw seem to think that you're seriously mentally ill Andy suffering from either Forster's or vitriol sucks

yeah

yeah well I mean that's I mean it's easy to categorize it as a a medical condition.

I like to think of it as, you know, I'm striving to take comedy to new levels that

were previously not thought possible.

Potato potato.

One of those levels.

Potato potato, in that there's only one accurate one there.

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

And don't forget, you can listen to us on our SoundCloud page.

Boom.

The underscore bugle.

bugle

This is this is

almost impressive the hyphen bugle

cutting this out don't no one uses an underscore you can listen to us on our SoundCloud page yeah soundcloud.com slash the hyphen bugle

that was pretty slick was pretty slick

Sport now and we had quite a lot of sport lined up but we've uh overrecorded yet again so it's gonna have to wait.

Do enjoy the Bahrain Grand Prix.

I mean, sure, sport and politics shouldn't mix,

say some people, other than the fact that sport and politics do clearly mix from soup to nuts.

So, best of luck if you're a protester in Bahrain.

Do just focus on the sport and the quality of competition, and not on the fact that your government is brutally repressing you.

That's just sport, sport can cure all things, and let it cure that.

And if you want to hear my exclusive interview with the Grand National winning horse that I did on the radio last Sunday, it's on the Seven Day Sunday podcast and was a world exclusive.

I think it's probably

worth hearing.

Very, very moving testimony of what it was really like to be there.

That's all for this week's Bugle.

We'll be back with Bugle 192

next week.

The double century is in sight.

It's in there, getting the yips.

Can we make it?

Thanks for listening.

Goodbye.

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.