Bugle 187 – The President’s Playlist

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to Bugle issue 187.

With me Andy Zaltzman still live in the city where gorillas keep climbing up skyscrapers, New York.

And with me, also in New York, it's John Oliver.

Hello, buglers.

It's party time in the words of Pink.

I'm waking up, so we better get this party started.

It's our second and final New York bugle.

Andy, you've been here for a week.

I can see that the city...

has been getting into your system a bit every time we cross the road you shout at traffic i'm walking here i and these altman, I'm literally walking here.

Even in your sleep, you've been murmuring about coffee and donuts.

And it's interesting that all your children seem interested in seeing over Skype is yellow cabs.

Have you pointed out to them that this is actually a historic city with a great melting pot of culture and it's not all about

yellow taxis?

I don't know, I believe the yellow taxis are really, you know, that's the only thing holding New York together.

I mean, that doesn't sound true, but I guess it could be.

Yeah, it could easily be.

Have you ever tried New York without yellow taxis?

Again, that's my point.

I haven't.

No one's had the courage to do that.

That's good.

Not even Giuliani, John.

Not even Giuliani.

Not even the great Rudy.

Yeah.

Now, my dog has been also eating some of Andy's possessions while we've been here.

And just for the record, Andy, she's never done anything like that in her whole life before you came to stay.

So my only guess is that you've been smearing all of your personal belongings in bacon.

Just cat blood, actually.

Yeah, I mean, your dog has got through a wooden coat hanger.

Yes.

A copy of the Lapham's Quarterly magazine.

Yeah.

And also a notebook containing some of my jokes.

Right.

Ever since when, your dog has just been unbelievably f ⁇ ing funny.

To be fair to her.

She's particularly interested in books.

Before she ate your books, Andy, she ate last week most of the first chapter of my copy of Risa Aslan's book, How to Win a Cosmic War, God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror.

And I can understand why she did, Andy.

Risa Aslan's a phenomenal writer and it could barely be a more relevant book right now.

She ate the first chapter, fully digested it, and seemed very anxious to eat the rest of it afterwards.

So it's a tremendous review for Risa Aslan's book from my dog.

Did she not review it in a coiled pile in the park?

I guess that was kind of her online cellar rating at the end of it.

Well, that's what I think of that.

Turgid.

Now pick it up and put it in that bin.

Thanks to all the buglers who've come to my New York gigs and who came to the recordings of John's TV show last weekend.

I've had a fantastic, fantastic time.

It turns out I seem to sell better on continents I don't live on, which I'm not sure is necessarily economically viable.

Let's be clear about where the bar is there though, Andy.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And apologies if you did try to get into my my solo shows this week but in defiance of more than a decade of carefully guarded tradition I did miraculously sell out so thanks to everyone who came along

This is the bugle for the week be any Monday the 19th of March 2012.

As always a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin this week a personal fitness section how to keep fit when doing everyday activities we suggest that you deliberately forget your wallets or purse whenever you leave your house if you live on the sixth floor of a block of flats forget your wallets twice a day if you live on the first floor forget your wallets 12 times a day preferably six times in quick succession twice but do be open with your family or flat mates because returning six times in succession could make it seem like you're spying on them.

If you live on the ground floor, make sure you've walked at least 200 yards from your house before remembering you've forgotten your wallets.

This exercise works better if you are running slightly behind schedule, so have to sprint back at top speed.

And if you're with a spouse who will berate you for your forgetfulness, running when annoyed burns 27% more calories than normal running.

Also, comb your hair with a 19th-century iron pitchfork.

You will have to fork your capillaries at arm's length, strengthening your triceps and flaprist wrap muscles.

And the weight of the pitchfork should also work out your core torsal musculator, including the pectoriax, the diaphragm, and of course the clertiary dorceps.

And whenever travelling on public transport, travel in the front or rear carriage of a train every time the train stops, sprint manically to the other end of the train, and within six weeks, you will be an Olympic athlete.

Chris, that's basically how you train for the triathlon, isn't it?

Religiously, every day, yeah.

Andy, that last passage, was that one of the passages that Hoagie ate and regurgitated and you're able to put together?

How many of those words are actually in the English language?

And how many times did you just fall asleep on your keyboard?

I don't know, but I definitely did tweak a clergy doorstep the other day.

Top story this week, Syria update.

And Andy, you don't really think of murderous dictators as human beings, and that's generally for a pretty good reason because they tend to lack any of the behavioural qualities that qualify you for humanity.

Things like conscience, mercy, and kindness are not high on dictators' personality profiles.

But, you know, you don't want to humanize them.

But sometimes it is worth it when that humanizing turns them out to be not so much intimidating monsters but rather pathetic little dweebs who in another life will be having their lunch money taken from them and hung from coat hooks by the back of their underpants Hitler for instance was removed rumoured to only have one testicle of course which you know does help in a way to slightly demystify him even if it also makes you slightly concerned about what he would have been capable of doing with the power of both testicles intact

so Assad of Syria has been been very busy over the last 12 months doing some intensive interior decorating of his own country in the form of bombing his own cities and murdering his own people.

He's a flawed human being, Andy.

He really puts the cock into that man is a total cock.

But we now have quite a lot more personal information about him than we did this time last week, because the Guardian newspaper in London has published more than 3,000 documents.

The Syrian opposition claims are emails downloaded from private accounts belonging to Assad and his wife.

It's basically a glimpse into the internet history of a tyrant and a Mrs.

Tyrant.

And you can't help but juxtapose what they were doing online with what they were doing in the real world.

For instance, in February, when the siege of Homs was taking place and Syrian citizens were being killed in the streets, Mrs.

Assad was apparently browsing the internet for luxury shoes and writing to her friends about six-inch high heels that cost more than $5,000.

That's a little let them eat cakey andy just a touch that's a little let them wear three inch heels it'll be easier for them to run away from tank bombardments they're about to receive also she is really screwing up the customer recommendations for other people who buy those shoes andy if you like these six inch high heels you may also like firing on unarmed groups of civilians oh i'm not sure about that but i do love those shoes so maybe i'll give it a go customers who bought these shoes also tortured political dissidents for information.

Well, that does sound fun.

It'll be much easier to do that in a flat-soled pump like this one.

Do you think there's a correlation between the height of her heels and the murderousness of her husband?

Because didn't she always used to wear pumps in the old days?

Just flat-soled pumps.

Or before he just started unloading tanks on people.

Yeah.

And then the higher her heels got.

So are you appealing for Mrs.

Assad to

lower your heels?

All I know is that Mrs.

Pol Pott was a professional stilt walker.

That's a fact.

That is a fact.

Also in February, at the outset of the assaults on Homs,

Assad sent

Mrs.

Assad the lyrics of a song by the country star Blake Shelton.

Are you, I wasn't really, I'm not aware of Blake Shelton's Urboro.

He's quite a big star here, isn't he?

He is a big star, yes.

If you like country music.

Yeah, and does he wear massive hats?

Bad bad country music?

He's no stranger to the massive hat.

That's good.

I mean, he'll not wear a hat as well, but he will also wear a hat.

It's that an acoustic thing with country singers.

What?

The massive hat.

Does it like keep the vocal tonature

angled downwards to get a more

constant timbre?

But it's more than just angling it downwards, it also projects it skywards because of the rim of the brim towards God in heaven.

Yeah.

So that he can hear

some of the worst sounds that his creations have ever created.

So anyway, I went online to find some of Blake Shelton's songs and played them backwards to see what coded messages they contained that maybe Assad's had been influenced by.

And his 2009 hit Hillbilly Bone, a duet with Trace Adkins, John, 21st century's Wilfred Owen, and of course the creator, overlord behind the unofficial US national anthem Honky Tonk Badonka Donk.

That song, Hillbilly Bone, contains this lyric.

We all got a hillbilly bone down deep inside.

No matter where you're from, you just can't hide it when the band starts banging and the fiddle soars you can't belt help but hollering ye haul

when you see them pretty little country queens man you got to admit that it's in them jeans ain't nothing wrong just getting on your hillbilly bone ba bone bone

now very moving moving lyrics yeah as they are but played backwards in arabic what it says is show no mercy to those who would overthrow you but visit upon them devastation from the sky and from the ground as a hail of holy pain rains upon their infidel heads until the streets run crimson with the blood of the unfaithful and the echoes of your vengeance reverberate through the corridors of the Syrian soul such that none shall dare again raise hand or voice against your powerhead for all eternity yeehaw

Now this, another song, Old Red, one of Shelton's breakthrough hits from about 10 years ago, cover version.

Now, old red, he's the damnedest dog that I've ever seen.

Got a nose that can smell a two-day trail.

He's a four-legged tracking machine.

If you translate that into semaphore but use the wrong flags, it says, Suck my big ones, international community, and suck them hard.

What are you going to do?

Put one hand on your hip and waggle your index finger on the other hand in an admonitory fashion.

Good luck with that, girlfriend.

If you need me, I'll be on the phone to Russia reminding them how much money I pay them every year for their fireworks.

Toodle pip.

And, of course, Shelton's 2011 solo hit Honey Bee, if you record it onto a wax cylinder and then melt the wax cylinder and pour the molten wax into cold water, it solidifies into the shape of a Kalashnikov pointing at a child.

So I guess we can see the influence that Blake Shelton has had on the oppression of ordinary Syrian people.

Well, there's no question that's true.

Yeah.

And what has Shelton got to say about that?

Well, he's been ominously quiet about it, hasn't he?

As has Garth Brooks.

Is he still alive?

In fact, Blake Shelton and the city of Damascus have never been seen in the same place, handy.

Is that coincidence?

Assad's email was reportedly Sam at Al-Shaba, which is pretty unspectacular email address.

I was hoping it might be bigguns22 at Syria.net or Bashar al-Assad3 at Mac.com just because he hadn't moved quite quickly enough to get his name first.

And the emails do offer a great window into his state of mind.

At one point, he's found to to be swapping amusing links to videos with his aides and his wife.

One video is a YouTube clip featuring a reenactment of the siege of Homs with a child's toy car and a pile of biscuits.

That's like Paul Potts making a video reenacting the killing fields with rice krispies for skulls.

It's possible, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a particularly good idea to do it.

Assad linked to the video in an email to his media advisor saying, check out this video on YouTube in an email she replied this is a quote ha ha ha ha ha ha ha OMG three exclamation marks this is amazing they're high school girls Andy high school girls with somehow an even worse grasp of humanity and in another video Assad linked his wife to a clip from America's Got Talent in which an illusionist appears to saw his assistant in half.

I mean, maybe that was a metaphor for what he was planning on doing to the opposition in Syria Andy, or maybe he just thought it was a truly incredible piece of magic and it was making him rethink his relationships with the West.

Dear sweetheart, watch this clip, my wife.

It turns out that America really does have talent.

We may have misjudged the great Satan.

What sorcery is this that can saw a person in half and then put them back together?

I'm going to Google Israel's Got Talent Now.

If it turns out that a Jew can juggle 14 bagels to Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On, then I might have to seriously rethink my anti-Semitism.

Anyway, hope you're having a good day.

Lots of love.

Bash.

Have you got Paul?

Have you got the Celine Dion track there?

Because I've got 14 bagels here.

I'm feeling confident.

Let me check.

John, so he watched this on YouTube of the kid being sawn in half.

Yes.

Which bit of that did he like best?

Did he like was it just the soaring in half?

It was the middle like.

It was the middle bit he liked.

He found that the start took too long, and the ending he just found it inexplicable.

He just didn't want the kid put back together.

It was the middle bit.

It was the middle bit he saw.

He was the slaughtering of the child.

That's really what he goes for.

It was what looked like an entertaining snuff movie with a woman in a bikini.

Well, maybe that's what he's going to do.

Maybe that, you know, this is all some elaborate setup.

And then he's going to suddenly go Abrakadabra and everyone in Homs is going to be fine.

And Syrian society is going to be put back together in perfect harmony just as well.

Maybe that's it.

This is just the biscuit.

This is the misdirect.

Yeah, this is...

He's like the David Copperfield of Arabic politics.

Get ready for the prestige, UN.

But perhaps the mother load of information, as you alluded to, came from his iTunes account, specifically what purchases of music he'd been making.

And for a start, it's frankly incredible that he actually paid for the downloaded music.

What a strange point to start suddenly taking an interest in international law, Andy.

He has absolutely no respect for human life, but he will not mess with iTunes' terms and conditions.

Do you think he's, has he read all 63 pages of it?

I think it's every chance he has.

We all have a line we will not cross.

Yes, I've ordered the murder of innocent civilians, but I personally am not comfortable with what is, to all intents and purposes, stealing from Lionel Ritchie.

It's...

Let Carrie Underwoods eat her rightful bread.

It's the songs that he's been buying themselves that are incredible.

When you think of a dictator's music taste, you probably go with either Metallica or some other death metal, or you go with opera.

You know,

for your classic hairless cat-stroking dictator, Hitler, of course, big Wagner fan.

Colonel Gaddafi, as we know, was no stranger to the musical charms of Nelly Furtado, but he was only human.

But Assad may have really taken the musical biscuit here.

There's no point in guessing, Bueopless, what Assad downloaded, because you'll never get it right.

The press has been describing his musical taste as eclectic, and I guess it is eclectic for a 12-year-old girl.

Because his collection of music records may be even worse than his records in human rights.

Try this for size.

Wright said Fred.

That's right, Andy.

Wright said Fred.

The two men who became famous for their I'm too sexy song and who may have been the gayest music artist of all time.

But it wasn't even the I'm too sexy single that he bought.

It was their less popular Don't Talk Just Kiss song.

Well, there's an explanation for this, John, because it came down to a linguistic confusion

because kiss is, in fact, the Syrian word for be brutally oppressed.

Oh, that makes a lot more sense.

Don't talk, just be brutally oppressed.

Yeah.

Oh, I need to make a catchy slip.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Well, try these.

I don't know what Assad's record on gay rights is.

I'm imagining that were right, said Fred, to tour Syria, they might not get the warmest official reception.

I don't want to judge his book by its violently oppressive cover, Andy, but I'm guessing he's not particularly progressive in his views on equal rights in that department.

I met the Fairbrass brothers recently.

Did you?

Yeah,

it's impossible.

It's impossible to go 30 seconds of conversation with them without sexual innuendo dominating.

They're phenomenal.

They know what they do, they know what they do well, and they do it all the time.

I admire that.

They also hate Shears, so it's ironic.

The Assad also added to his

extensive musical collection, Ordering Hurt by Leona Lewis, Look at Me Now by Chris Brown, the R ⁇ B musician and wife batterer, featuring Lil Wayne and Buster Rhymes.

And on New Year's Eve, he bought a tribute to Cliff Richard.

I think that last one might actually get him shot in the street, Andy.

The Syrian people can only take so much humiliation before they'll just rise up and tear his administration to pieces.

Actually, could that be the final straw that gets the international community to fully commit to toppling Assad?

I think it might be.

Because what's clear from the last 12 months in the news is that none of this music has succeeded in calming him down.

Not even mistletoe and wine.

Not even mistletoe and wine.

And that's usually the great pacifier.

Now, perhaps my favourite purchase, Andy, on the 5th of February, just before Valentine's Day, Assad sent his wife an iTunes file of who else but Blake Shelton, the US country star, singing God Gave Me You.

And I guess that makes sense in a way because he's clearly a fan of atrocities, Assad, and that song is a musical human rights abuse.

It also shows that he has a sensitive side because the lyrics to the song show a tortured soul just a day before the shelling of Homas began.

I've been a walking heartache.

I've made a mess of me.

The person that I've been lately ain't who I want to be.

But you stay right here beside me.

Watch as the storm goes through.

Andy, this is just the final evidence to add to your evidence that Blake Shelton should be immediately arrested and taken to The Hague.

Because that song is clearly sending a message appealing to dictators to violently clamp down on their people.

And let me just give you a blast of it, Andy.

Oh, yeah.

Who I want to be, but you stay

He's human, Andy.

Oh mum.

If you cut him, Andy, do you not bleed?

John, I think, you know, we might not have found a sad cut-off point, but we've found yours because you've been prepared to sing pretty much any form of music on the bugle.

It turns out, country, is one step you're not prepared to take.

Well,

let me just take this one step further.

Because in January of this year, this year, when he'd already done so many terrible things and was about to do so much more, he bought a number of songs by the inexplicably popular US dance group LMFAO, including their hit Sexy and I Know It.

And there's a chilling message in that song for the international community, Andy, where LMFAO say, this is how I roll.

Animal print.

Out of control.

I got passion in my pants and I ain't afraid to show it.

I'm sexy and I know it.

Now,

I know that Assad as a figure is a terrifying prospect with the full might of the Syrian army at his disposal.

And I know that for people in Syria, you know, in Homs and in Damascus, he's an intimidating presence to stand up to.

But instead of picturing him like that, Andino, with an army of tanks and soldiers in front of him, just imagine him dancing around in his compound.

in his underwear when he thinks no one is around to this side.

With a hairbrush as a microphone.

That's right.

Just imagine Bashar Asad dancing around

nearly naked to this song.

It's just not as intimidating.

He's an idiot, Andy.

He's a complete idiot.

I'm not going to say that the fact that that is the case makes anything better, but it is a fact.

Oh, dear.

I'm not sure.

Stop, stop.

You know, this is the way I roll.

Clearly, he's referring to his tanks.

Yeah, exactly.

Look at that body.

I think that's just too soon.

Andy, what I'm saying is, just imagine this beat just thudding through a ceiling in the palace in Damascus.

Imagine his wife banging on the ceiling and shouting at him as the music stops.

Bishop, turn that shit off.

And imagine there being a pause.

And then imagine this again.

I'm sexy and I know it.

All I'm saying is,

yes, he's frightening.

Yes, he's a terrible person, but he's also a fing moron.

And also, to be fair, LMFAO does stand for the League of Muslims for Authoritarian Oppressors.

So, you know.

He also downloaded a song by a New York group called The Cover Girls from the late 1980s called We Can't Go Wrong.

I do hope he's aware that citing the lyrics of late 80s New York urban girl groups is not considered a legal exculpation in the International Criminal Court.

And as you said, Look at Me Now by Chris Brown featuring Lil Wayne and Buster Rhimes.

And it's, I mean, it's great, I'm sure you'd agree, John, to see Wayne and Rhimes back together, building up to another tilt at the Wimbledon Men's Doubles title.

I mean, you've got to ask, have they got the all-round game to beat the Brian brothers?

I mean, I'll be confident they could take on Lodra and Ziminich.

Maybe not on grass, but certainly on a hard court.

Lodra's got a lovely touch at at the neck, but I think Buster Rhimes' urban groove could knock him off his game, whilst Lil Wayne has such variety off his backhand that I think even an experienced dumps practitioner such as Zimenich

could find it hard to cope.

I go for Wayne and Rhymes in three sets, John.

Okay.

If they do win, of course, they'll be the first hip-hop pairing to win a Grand Slam tennis title since Terminator X and School ED teamed up to beat McEnron Fleming at the US Open in 1985.

UK invasion news now, and Andy has not been the only Brit invading the self-styled greatest country in the world this week.

Prime Minister David Cameron has been here on a state visit.

A visit that's been largely ignored by the majority of the US press.

I'm not even criticising them for that Andy.

The UK is arguably not what it was.

You know, we were taken over just last week for the sixth biggest economy in the world by Brazil.

You know, they did to our economy what they did to our football team, Andy.

They outclassed us with their vibrant, attractive-to-watch economy, making ours look sluggish and old in comparison.

Besides, Andy, it's not the size of your economy, it's what you do with it.

Besides, economic conditions are very cold at the moment.

Our economy has shrunk a bit, but it'll grow.

We're not in the mood.

Anyway, no, no, that's the point.

The point is that the special relationship between the UK and the US is still blazing hot, Andy.

So much so that President Obama opened with some pretty ballsy jokes during a welcoming ceremony at the White House on Wednesday, specifically about how in 1814 we British tried to burn the White House down.

He said, and I quote, it's now been almost 200 years since the British came here to the White House under somewhat different circumstances.

They really made an impression.

They lit up the place, but we moved on.

Holy shit, Andy.

Can world leaders joke about that now?

Maybe next time Cameron comes over, he should give the president a fake smallpox-laced blanket as a gift.

Everyone will roll around laughing.

It's funny because we did it.

Cameron replied to the the joke by saying, well, I'm a little embarrassed to think that 200 years ago my ancestors tried to burn this place down.

You've got the place a little better defended this time.

I mean, that's fine, Andy, but it's a slightly half-assed retort.

If he had any balls, he'd have gotten out a box of matches and started flicking them around saying, I'm here to finish the fiery job.

Hold on, I've got a marshmallow on a stick.

I'm going to toast this baby up a treat.

Cameron was sort of paraded around by Obama, kind of like the Romans used to parade captured chieftains around.

He took him to a basketball game, which obviously is not something that British people are emotionally attuned to do.

They went to see Mississippi Valley State play Western Kentucky in, I believe it's called March Madness.

That's correct, Andy.

Yeah.

Which

also the title of

Napoleon's autobiography, if I recall correctly.

And it made me think, John, you know, this was obviously a very important meeting between, you know,

our Prime Minister, my Prime Minister

since you left the country.

I don't care about Prime Minister anymore.

I cut off cold turkey.

But does him going to a basketball game mean that the government's NHS reforms are going to work or not?

I mean,

it's hard to read the subtext of that, isn't it?

Yeah.

I mean.

Does the Prime Minister then chilling out with some A-list celebrities at a gala dinner mean that the cuts programme's going to work fine?

And if Obama gave the Cameron's children personalised beanbag chairs, does that mean he's looking to increase American investment in British manufacturing?

I mean, you can only speculate.

Was it just grandstanding?

Yeah, you can only speculate, Andy.

Or you can not speculate and just report on facts.

But why would you do that when there's speculation to be had?

There were a lot of gifts exchanged, not only the beanbag chairs, but a table tennis table

and various other bits of completely pointless and unnecessary tap.

And of course this goes back a long way.

Teddy Roosevelt famously gave Edward VII a book on how to shoot big game animals at point blank range, whilst in return Edward VII gave Roosevelt a burlesque dancer called Lupi Lapouc.

Lapouch lived with the Roosevelts until Teddy's death in, I believe, 1919 from complications resulting from having shot more than 10,000 animals to death.

There was, as you mentioned, there was a state dinner to which neither of us were invited.

For f ⁇ ing Can you believe that?

Oh, f ⁇ .

Sure, Warren Buffett gets an invite.

He's not even British and it's pronounced buffet.

Unbelievable.

And as you mentioned, the only part of this trip that got any real attention here was when David Cameron joined the president, caught side at a basketball game in Ohio, and never has a man looked more out of place.

David Cameron looks awkward, Andy, when he's trying to pretend that he enjoys his own country's national sport, let alone somebody else's.

And they were said to be scheduled to watch the game and then talk about Afghanistan and Syria afterwards.

But why wait until afterwards, Andy?

Why not start talking while you're watching the basketball?

There is no better place to have two world leaders discuss major issues than while watching sport.

A two-state solution seems like the only practical way forward, right at the...

Holy shit, that was a sick windmill jam!

Anyway, I think history proves that Afghanistan is impossible to occupy and rebuild, as it's barely a functioning state in the first referee wake-up out there!

That's a f ⁇ ing travel!

In fact, I believe that Neville Chamberlain and Hitler discussed the fate of Europe while watching a horse polo match, Andy, which was so exciting that Chamberlain got a bit overengrossed and wasn't aware until afterwards that during a key part of the match, he somehow promised Jackson Mackie to Germany.

We've all been there.

Whilst Cameron's been away though, John, and to be fair, Cameron, it's quite brave of him to come here because he is exactly the kind of British person that provoked the War of Independence.

But while he was away, the White Cliffs of Dover have collapsed.

What?

Well, a little bit.

Thousands of tons of chalk fell off the White Cliffs of Dover and crashed into the sea.

And, you know, as soon as

Cameron goes away, the country starts literally crumbling.

Probably something with Brussels saying the edge of cliffs are illegal.

But if the White Cliffs of Dover do carry on eroding at this rate, John, by the year 2082,

that's just 70 years from now, all Britain will consist of is a server station on the north coast of Scotland.

That's uh

don't want to bring the mood down, but that's uh what you just did.

I think you made the right choice in getting out.

Oh, there's not well, there was still something to get out for.

There's no question that was the case.

Bugle feature section now, dead animals.

And it's been an interesting week for dead animals, and most particularly, tragic news from Germany,

not for the first time,

it was ages ago, and the death of a little rabbit born without ears, or a rabbit born without ears, or all sorts of creatures are commonly known as a rat.

And if

you don't believe me, catch a rat, stick two long fluffy ears on it, and see how much sweeter it looks and tastes.

The earless rabbit was named Till, or to give it its full German name, Till!

And was born with a genetic defect.

Always funny.

I mean, it's always funny.

I mean, what they did, I know it was a lot of what they did was wrong.

Anyway,

I mean, let's move on.

Till was born with a genetic defect that left it without the rabbit's signature physical feature, the long waggly ears that have made it famous.

And it became a celebrity on German TV, John, this little earless rabbit.

I mean, how you think they had more, you know, more interesting things to watch on television.

I guess they just don't watch as many history documentaries as we do but anyway that's understandable but the earless rabbit uh that's followed in a long line of freakish animals including the trunkless elephant or hippopotamus the neckless monochrome giraffe or goat the brainless tiger or carpet and of course the four-legged snake or dog and the eerless rabbit met its end at the tragically unexploited age of 17 days when a tv channel was

preparing to film it to launch it into the consciousness of the world and an earless rabbit oh thank almighty fing juice we can forget about Syria for a bit.

There's an earless rabbit on the telly.

But with Stardom beckoning and a role in Hollywood buddy movies within its furry reach, you were in talks, weren't you?

You were in talks.

Yep.

A cameraman stepped backwards, trod on it, and squished it.

Thus, in the words of the day, compromising it to a permanent end.

Now, Till had snuggled down in some hay, the cameraman didn't see him, and squished that was it.

So

eerily reminiscent of how Scott Bio died during filming for Series 2 of Charles in Charge.

It's a tragic story.

You've only been here a weekend.

Where do you dig a reference like that?

That was on British Telly.

Was he throughout the 1980s?

I don't remember.

That was what we watched when we got home from school.

That's my entire view of America as coloured by Charles in Charge.

Of course, it was Charles in Charles very much a waspish satire on the Taft years of America.

But it's a tragic story.

Poor little Tild died so young, left so many carrots unnibbled, so many wheels unspun, so many nose twitches untwitched, so many boings unbanged.

It's an irregular verb, never knew that.

So many rabbit shits, unrabbit shats, and so many lady rabbits unhumped.

They love breeding the rabbits.

They absolutely love it.

And I think, you know, it's been treated differently all its life, Tild, just because it was different to all the other rabbits.

And we've been through that story before, you know.

First Jesus and now this.

I had a rabbit when I was young, John, and it also died tragically.

It was being converted to Judaism in a ritual bath and eating a bit of unleavened bread, but the food got stuck in its throat.

It retched repeatedly, but choked to death on its own vomits.

Tragic.

Yet another rabbit that died of mikfam at 06.

Do you know what, Andy?

It turns out your puns are even worse at point-blank range than they are 3,000 miles away.

Yeah, welcome to my world.

Andy just laughs so hard

his headphones just fell off his head.

In other dead animal news, the owner of the world's ugliest dog has announced the death of his 15-year-old prize-winning pet.

I mean, this is a heart-rending story, John.

I guess, you know, all dogs die in the end.

I know, you know, probably you're not the right person to say this to with a

dog.

But in one day, she's going to be dead.

No, not true.

Dead as a nut.

No, I'm going before her.

That doesn't negate my initial point.

I guess death is the great leveler when it comes to canine looks.

It's all about what's on the inside.

But to be fair from the look of it, this dog probably had f ⁇ ing ugly insides as well.

But then all, you know, even Scarlett Johansson's insides are probably pretty rank if you slice her open.

But you have to ask John, how extensive was the research to find the world's ugliest dog?

And more to the point, how much taxpayers' money was spent finding the most repulsive pooch on the planet and couldn't that money not have been better spent on schools or weapons or jailing some criminals

and it does raise the question you know what why do we own dogs if a dog is going to be so ugly that it becomes the world's ugliest dog i mean

what why do you own your dog john Because you know, it is a single moment of uncomplicated pure joy in

life, Andy.

Right.

Sorry, is that was it White for dog?

Was that which which one was that referring to?

Oh shit.

Landed yourself in trouble there.

And uh in other dead animal news, the US network HBO has cancelled the horse racing drama Luck after a third animal, a third horse had to be put down during production.

There's a lot of inconsistency in this, John.

What about other TV programmes that have, for example, killed the human soul?

Isn't that more important than a horse?

And you know, if this keeps going, there aren't many going to be many cookery programmes on French television.

In fact, there aren't going to be any cookery programmes on any television if animals dying in the name of entertainment is deemed off-limits.

In fact, I just heard that the latest series of MasterChef has been cancelled after producers admitted that a monk fish, three scallops, and some of a pig were put down during the making of a monk fish and scallop brochette with a panchetta scrint.

And also, John, you have to ask, what about the proportion of the infinite number of monkeys who died whilst writing the script for Downton Abbey?

What about them?

What about them?

Take that, Downton Abbey.

Take that.

Your emails now.

And we have an email from Eric in Missouri.

It says, dear Paul, Chris, John, and Andy, in order of presumed mathematical aptitude.

Oof, Andy.

You came out of that very badly.

Is that not increasing?

Oh,

that's a nice way of looking at it.

I just made my donation to Save the Bugle earlier today after pondering the precise moment of my life that went so wrong that I was now paying to be fed bullshit.

Isn't that what taxes are?

I decided to poke around the bugle website to see what else my hard-earned dollars had wrought.

I can tell you that I was very disappointed to discover the complete absence of offensive math problems for me to use

maths plural.

When are you people going to learn about this?

To use it, give it just be here for one more week, Andy, and that'll go away.

To both educate my children in mathematics and prepare them for the horrors of the world they'll one day inherit.

I could see that the bugle needed more help than simple financial support, so I decided to create some math problems for potential use of other buglers looking for bullshit-based educational resources.

John is taking a Delta flight from New York to Chicago.

While waiting to board, a terrorist sets off a bomb in the airport.

Oh dear.

Killing 15 million people, entering 20 million more and utterly devastating a Cinnabon store.

John fortunately receives only minor injuries.

I can take a hit, Andy.

And after being released from treatment, decides to take a bus to Chicago instead.

Assuming that the bus maintains an average speed of 60 miles per hour, 96.5 kilometers per hour for lazy people who use easily convertible units, how much earlier will John arrive in Chicago than if there had never been a bombing?

Okay,

bear that question in mind, Andy.

Question number two, assuming John's soul has 500 pieces and two pieces die with each of Andy's puns,

how long a pun run will it take to turn John into an emotionally dead husk if Andy starts making British general puns at a rate of 10 puns per minute?

Well, excellent question.

And finally, question number three: if Chris can f write off two times in every odd-numbered bugle and fk right off three times in every even-numbered bugle, then how many times can Chris f right off between bugles 179 and 1787 inclusive?

I hope this helps, Eric in Mizori.

And the answers?

Yep.

Question one: three hours earlier.

That's a good answer.

Question number two: 25 minutes, totaling 250 British general puns.

And question number three: Chris can f right off 22 times.

22.

That's on the assumption that I f right back.

That's true.

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

Sport now and just time to tell you that Sachin Tendulka, the legendary Indian batsman, this morning, just hours before we recorded, reached his hundredth international hundreds.

And here in New York, there's been spontaneous bunting across the city as America rises as one to acknowledge one of the greatest achievements in the history of sports, John.

I mean,

America's really taken this to its heart, hasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

People are huge Tendulka fans here, Andy, and they're huge fans of round numbers.

And to see the two together at last is just a thrill.

I know, just people all over the streets being in tribute buying a bologna.

That's a sausage, isn't it?

Yeah.

And two bagels and holding it on next to each other to make the number 100 in tribute to Tendorker.

It's something it's just,

I'm blessed that I'm in a

cricketer city such as New York for this

momentous occasion.

Well, that's it for this week's bugle.

We are having a week off next week but there will be a supplementary bugle involving a bugler's question and answer session.

Don't send your question and answers in because by the time you listen to this we'll already have recorded it.

So just ask yourself the question and answer it yourself in John's or my voice.

And before we leave Andy in an effort to significantly improve Syrian-Israeli relations there is a bag in front of you with 14 bagels.

Okay.

Take them in your hand and do your best.

Keep your eyes on it, Andy.

Shave your eyes.

Keep your eyes.

Check the situation,

I'm done.

I should not have set these things on fire before starting to do this.

Keep going, Andy!

Keep going!

I'm gonna catch him on my head.

One, two,

three.

Oh,

oh no, I've lost it.

I just didn't practice enough, that's the thing.

Well, it seems like it's a more complicated situation that can be helped with bagel juggling, Andy.

Goodbye, bugers!

Have a great week.

Go on.

Oh, John, you've sunk to a new low.

Oh, dear.

Strangely moving.

Yeah, Andy, you talk a big game.

Why is this not one of those?

The UN's national anthem.

I just feel if Assad listened to a little more of this and a little less of LMFAO, he might kill at least five less people.

Listen to those panpipes.

If that isn't killing spree music, I don't know what is.

Yeah, it probably is quite hard to go on a killing spree whilst panpipe music's a playing.

What What they need in Syria is more Peruvian bands.

Bye!

Bye-bye, Buglers!

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.