Bugle 182 – Stockpiling Humanity

This is a podcast from thebuglepodcast.com.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers, and welcome to issue 182 of the Bugle Audio Newspaper for a Visual World with me, Andy Zoltzmann, here in London and in New York City, Mr.

John Oliver.

Hello Andy.

Hello buglers.

Andy I was just talking to Paul the engineer here who was telling me about Peter Cooper who's the guy who owns the University of Cooper Union here and apparently he got his money Andy because he was a glue baron.

He was

so you just you get complacent.

It's sad that we've lost the era of glue barons when you could make your money from striking glue.

People would be in the pockets of big glue, Andy.

It was a simpler time.

The sticky pockets of big glue.

That's right.

Anyway, and all day yesterday, and most of last night, I was shooting an elaborate opening title sequence for the next series of my stand-up show on Comedy Central, a series which you yourself are going to be appearing in, Andy.

That's right.

That's got to be one of the great moments in American culture.

Well, that remains to be seen, but it's good to see that you're going in with some confidence.

Yeah, Zultan hitting the small to medium time.

It basically involved this shooting outside all over New York for many hours.

And it really brought home to you that people in this city are fing lunatics, Andy.

Lots of times, the standard piece of advice for a tourist visitor in New York seems to be just walk around.

Walk around and try and take in as much of the city as you can.

And that's true in a way, Andy.

But if you really want to get the full flavour of what living here is like, go outside into the street and then just stand still and let New York's nut jobs introduce themselves to you, which they will in less than three minutes.

I saw things yesterday, Andy, that could change a mat.

I saw an old Asian lady wearing beats by Dr.

Dre headphones who, when realising that I was standing slightly in her way, told me in broken English to go f ⁇ myself.

This was a tiny 70-year-old woman in Chinatown, Andy, and she spoke from the heart.

Really?

Are you sure that was why she told you that?

Are you sure she hadn't been at that gig we we did in York all those years ago, too?

If so, then I'm afraid I must let that insult stand.

Also, the beauty is that a TV camera is catnip to crazy people.

It's second only to the t-shirt cannon in terms of immediately demanding people's full undivided attention.

And a man walking his cat on a leash, which is already strange enough that it needed no explanation, walking his cat, Andy, walking his cat.

came over and asked me what the shoot was about and whether it was a fashion shoot for New York Fashion Week.

I said, no, it wasn't.

And he said, yeah, I didn't think so because you're not wearing those clothes very well.

What does that mean, Andy?

I mean, I know that isn't a compliment, but what does that mean?

Because I was wearing the clothes at the very least, technically proficiently.

My arms and legs were through the correct holes and the various buttons were done up at least close to properly.

I don't know what more he can reasonably expect of me.

Well, you've always been a notorious fashion icon, John.

Yeah.

Thanks very much to all the buglers who've come to see my show at the Soho Theatre in London.

In particular

to a gentleman called Craig who

after the show on Monday this man just came up to me and said he dropped this on the floor and thrust something into my hand and it turned out it was

some

stunning portraits of the Queen on banknotes and a little note.

saying dear Andy and brackets and John double brackets and Chris Two lots of parentheses for you there, Chris.

Hi.

Please accept this donation

for the bugle.

I love the bugle.

Craig from Ulu in North Finland, home of the World Air Guitar Championships.

What?

Yep, that's where they are, John.

Ulu in North Finland.

So I'd just like to, and by the time I turned around, having realised what was in my hand, he'd left the building.

So I just wanted to say, Craig, if you are listening, thank you very much for your very generous donation.

And let you be

an example of all those who have uh donated uh their voluntary subscriptions to the save the bugle fund andy hold on hold on yeah are you asking that people donate to you directly in cash is that no is that the new system you'd like to put that is very much not the new system although you know always welcome

but it was yeah like i'd done a really good bit of busking

uh but the home of the world air guitar championships yeah that is something did he just disappear in a plume plume of air guitar smoke?

Is that how he left?

Yeah, but it was classical air guitar he was playing.

He was just plucking out some beautiful harmonies.

This is Bugle 182, meaning there have now been the same number of bugles as the number of times that the ace astronaut Neil Armstrong said, hey, Buzz, don't worry, silver medal is not bad.

Not bad at all.

It's not as good as gold.

Before Buzz Aldrin punched him in the face and said, that is the last time I ever asked you to wait a minute while I nip off for a Waz.

And for the week beginning Monday, the 13th of February 2012, meaning this week's section in the bin is a Valentine's Day section, including, if your one-day campaign of anonymous nuisance mail doesn't work on Valentine's Day, how long should you keep it going for?

Top story this week, madness in the Maldives!

And with all the attention that the Arab Spring got, Andy, and is now deliberately not getting, let's spare a thought for the Maldives.

Now, you might ask, where the f ⁇ are the Maldives?

To which I would say, why don't you go buy a globe, cover it in Tabasco sauce, eat that globe, digest what's on it, and ship yourself out an answer?

I'm sorry if that was a little blue, Andy.

I was up very late last night being shouted at by old Asian ladies.

The Maldives are a small island nation consisting of about 1200 islands in the Indian Ocean.

Capital city, Malay.

Official language, Divehi.

Currency, Maldivian Rafiya.

Thank God the Wikipedia strike is over, Andy, or that would have been a significantly shorter sentence.

And who is their president?

Well, I'll tell you who it definitely isn't.

It definitely isn't democratically elected president Mohammad Nasheed.

Because he stepped down from power this week, Andy, after looking a potential coup in the face and saying, No, thank you, not for me.

Mohammad Nasheed is going to make like a tree and uproot himself from power so that his political career breaks down into mulch.

I'm resigning is what I'm saying, people.

What is wrong?

Why don't you appreciate wordplay?

This was never going to work out, Maldivians.

Yeah, Maldives, former holder of the world record for the largest communal scuba dive, which I believe remains the nation's greatest achievement, a tropical island paradise, unless you happen to actually come from there, in which case you probably don't have any money at all.

And are used to living under autocratic regimes and the vague sensation that your home will probably be underwater in a few years' time.

Different kind of paradise.

Different kind.

And you can watch rich people from the West enjoying a tropical island paradise, so you get it vicariously, which is better than nothing, I think.

That was the extra unreleased verse to the Guns and Roses Paradise City, Andy.

Take me down to the Paradise City where the grass is green, the girls are pretty, and the poverty line is absolutely devastating.

Nasheed claimed he was forced to resign at gunpoints.

Of course, not the first leader who's resigned at gunpoint, Adolf Hitler being one, I guess.

And he was a former political prisoner and refugee who took over from a corrupt autocratic predecessor who'd been in in power for three decades.

And magnanimously, Rozov, having been held in solitary confinement, being tortured and forced to eat ground glass, which I'm guessing wasn't particularly elegantly prepared in a jail in the Maldives.

I guess ground glass is one of those things like offal.

You know, if you're going to eat it, John, you want to eat it somewhere really good.

Definitely not in jail.

Unless the Maldives Secret Service has hired Hesdon Blumenthal as a celebrity guest chef for the week.

He had, as you mentioned, he pledged to complete the Maldives' move towards full democracy but faced huge opposition as his parliament was dominated by opposition supporters of the former president.

And that is awkward Andy and when I say awkward I mean dangerous and fundamentally doomed.

He stepped down on Tuesday as you say saying that he was forced to resign at gunpoint by police and army officers in a move planned with the knowledge of his former vice president who's now replaced him and new president Hassan had denied these gunpoint claims saying yeah it wasn't a gunpoint.

No one ever pointed the gun at him.

They just directed his attention to the gun and said that if he didn't resign immediately, the gun would be pointed at him and then fired at him and then carefully placed in his hand to indicate suicide.

The Maldives economy, of course, is based on tourism, which began in the early 1970s.

And the ex-dictator who

Nasheed took over from and who could be set for a return to power, an emotional comeback, like a nasty Elvis.

Mohmoon Abdul Gayoum.

He's probably not quite as well dressed.

He took power in 1978 and tourism boomed up towards the figure of 500,000 tourists per year today, which just shows John that tourists love dictators.

We saw this with Tunisia as well when the revolution kicked off there and the main concern, certainly in Britain, was whether British holidaymakers might be slightly inconvenienced by those annoying locals disrupting their holidays of a lifetime by fighting a life and death struggle for freedom.

And the same has happened with the Maldives.

Where shall we go this year, love?

Oh well, somewhere we can get away from it all, you know, from work, from stress, from family and from democracy.

I want to go somewhere where the local people are oppressed.

Otherwise, it just won't feel any different from home.

Ex-President Nasheed will be missed.

He seemed to be a fundamentally well-meaning man in a near-impossible job who was anxious to move towards a more moderate government and he'll be remembered as a committed environmentalist.

How committed?

Well try this for size.

He once held an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight climate change.

In an innovative move aimed at grabbing attention, he and his ministers were in full scuba gear as they met for about 30 minutes at a depth of six meters just north of the capital in 2009.

Wow.

Andy,

he even signed a bill down there, presumably with an underwater pen.

That is world-class leadership, Andy.

These crazy Maldiviacs, or whatever they call themselves, don't know what they're giving up here.

Because we're not just missing that, Andy.

We're not just missing underwater meetings we're missing what he could have done how is he going to highlight the problems of nuclear proliferation having a 30-minute meeting inside a nuclear warhead before symbolically detonating it in a cloud of mushrooms the guy could have been great fun to watch Andy instead now we're watching him desperately try to slip into Sri Lanka to prevent getting killed

because not the not entirely the first leader to hold cabinet meetings underwater.

Margaret Thatcher famously used to begin all her cabinet meetings as British Prime Minister by shoving her ministers' heads into a toilet, blushing it and saying, who's in charge?

I'm in charge.

Now towel yourself down and say yes, miss.

Yeah, it just seemed so charming when Meryl Streep did it in that movie though, Andy.

Just didn't seem quite as bad.

The problems arose when Nasheed had a senior judge arrested who'd ordered the release of a government critic.

The judge himself had been accused of corruption.

But there was a big backlash against Nasheed for this.

And I guess it shows, John, the eternal rule that when you're a democratically elected leader, fighting against a legacy of institutionalised corruption and religious conservatism and trying to clean up the economic mess left by your predecessors and the general global economic climate, it's probably best not to arrest a judge, even if that judge is a real dick.

British leadership news now and well England is rudderless Andy we are without a leader.

Fabio Capello the England manager has resigned also in a largely bloodless coup.

And England is in chaos.

There's a power vacuum, and that is always when things are at their most dangerous.

What is the atmosphere like on the streets of England, Andy, the troubled streets?

Well, I don't know.

It's probably not been anything like this, certainly, since the Peasants' Revolt in the late 14th century.

People just don't know really where they stand anymore.

You know, there's no England manager.

You know, it's like having no monarch,

no parliament.

You know, we just don't know who we are anymore, John.

We just don't know.

It's

a turmoil.

I think what we're saying to the people of the Maldives is: we know how you feel,

but you don't know how we feel.

Fabio Capello, the England manager, resigned in what has to be described as a classically Italian straw

after the

Football Association sacked his captain without telling him that they were going to sack his captain.

And he threw his Italian toys out of his Italian pram and has flounced off.

He was due to lead England to the Euro 2012 Championships this summer and presumably he thought, well, he thought back to the last tournament that he'd led England to, the 2010 World Cup, and remembered how at that tournament under his stewardship, England had played like an extremely disappointing plate of overcooked and now rotting rattatouille from a low-grade restaurant in a war zone.

And then remembered how the English media had responded to that by power hosing vitriol in his Italian direction and thought, ah sod it, I'll just spend the summer riding my scooter, slicking my hair back and making suggestive comments to passing ladies.

Or whatever Italians do these days.

The FA had stripped the captaincy from John Terry, the two-time winner of the Man You'd Least Like to Break Some Distressing Family News to You awards in British Tool magazine.

Terry is facing a criminal prosecution for alleged racial abuse and this had proved to be the final straw of unacceptability that broke the FA Camel of Tolerance's back.

That camel is currently recuperating in the Royal Hospital for metaphorical animals and vets there have claimed that they'd never seen a camel endure quite so many straws before it back finally gave in.

This was one tolerant camel, they said, and some of those straws were in fact 10-foot long sections of lead piping.

It did amazingly well to last that long.

In fact, when it was complaining of lumbar pain, it probably had several stress fractures.

Mr Terry is also facing charges of metaphorical cruelty to metaphorical animals.

That last section was about football, by the way.

Oh yeah.

In case any of you on civilized jobs in America didn't pick that up, it's about football, real football.

Where you kick the ball with your foot more than once every 20 minutes, like in your silly football.

Syria update now, and well, the update in Syria, Andy, really can be distilled down to this.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy.

Andy, when I say oh, you say boy.

Oh,

boy.

Oh,

boy.

Yeah, that's basically it.

That basically encapsulates what's happened in Syria in the last seven days.

As we predicted last week, China and Russia vetoed the UN resolution to prevent violence in Syria.

So, you know, we were right, Andy.

They vetoed it.

We were right.

It's always good to be right, isn't it?

And what was the prize for being right?

People being murdered on the street in the Syrian city of Homs.

Pretty shit prize, Andy.

That is a bad prize.

Shit prize.

That is like the prize that we had a couple of years ago for two free tickets to my show.

Arguably worse, actually.

One man from Homs quoted in an interview said these words, where is the United Nations?

Where is the humanity?

Where is America?

Isn't America supposed to defend humanity?

Isn't the UN supposed to defend humanity?

Are we animals dying here?

Are we supposed to live like this our whole lives?

heart-rending cry of desperation.

Anyway, I took this on and I've actually contacted the United Nations and I do have some answers to those questions.

Where is the UN?

It's in New York, mostly.

If you meant where the UN was with regard to the slaughtering homes, it's still in New York.

Where is the humanity?

The UN says, we're not sure.

We lent it to the Libyan rebels and they seem to have mislaid it.

If they find it, we'll get back to you ASAP and try to forward what's left onto you.

Or ask the Russians and the Chinese.

They must have quite a lot in reserve.

They certainly haven't been using much.

I think they might be stockpiling the humanity and they're going to splurge you out in one bonanza of humanity sometime.

Where is America?

Answer, none of your business.

It's spending some quality time with itself.

Isn't America supposed to defend humanity?

Answer, yes and no.

Ideally, yes, but no, if it defends humanity the way it's often defended it in the past.

And it depends where that humanity is.

If it's in Rwanda, then no.

Isn't the UN supposed to defend humanity?

Ditto.

But it's hard trying to defend humanity when the Russians are defending, defending humanity themselves.

Are we animals dying here?

Answer, the UN advises that during periods of intense bombing, please keep your pets indoors.

The banks will make them jumpy.

Are we supposed to live like this our whole lives?

Answer, how long is a piece of string?

Oh,

Andy,

that was painfully funny and painful.

I'll take that as a compliment.

Syria certainly did Russia and China and itself no favours.

It was hard enough to justify the veto and Syria even started bombing Homs before the vote was taken.

To which I'm pretty sure Russia responded, Jesus Christ, can you not just wait six hours until this vote has actually happened?

You're killing me here.

Metaphorically, obviously, you're literally killing your own people in their hundreds, which I, Russia, incidentally, have no problem with.

It's just there's an etiquette to doing these things.

Syria, don't start firing until my veto has given you the green light.

What are we?

Barbarians?

Continental pile-up news now, and America and Eurasia, two of the world's most famous mega-continents, are on course for a low-speed smash, which could result in the two merging to form one giant supercontinent, just like the good old days when we all lived on Pangaea.

And there was no racism, no hatred, and no prejudice.

And no people, which, to judge from human history, is something of a precondition for harmonious utopia.

You're right.

America and Eurasia are going to slam into each other in 50 to 200 million years time.

And that is the continental matchup that the fans have been waiting for, Andy.

That is the Tyson Holyfield of tectonic smash-ups.

We're going to bite their f ⁇ ing ear off.

The Yale University scientists.

Whose side are you on?

That's the point, Andy.

I'm beautifully set up in this matchup.

I could just put one shirt on under the other shirt and rip it off at the last minute.

It's a win-win situation.

These Yale University scientists predict that Africa and Australia will join the new supercontinent too,

which will mark the next coming together of the Earth's land masses.

And then what happens, Andy?

Do the two new supercontinents then meet each other in the final?

The Super Bowl of land slams.

Four continents enter, one continent leaves, and then there's also Africa, which continues to be ignored.

They can't even get involved in this game of bumper continents, Andy.

The new supercontinent has already been given the working title of Amazia as it's expected to involve the convergence of the Americas and Asia.

And that's a great name, Andy.

It really pops Amazia.

It sounds like Amazing, and it also sounds like the 90s pop band Erasure.

There must have been some serious money plowed into branding that.

It also sounds like a bit of a disease of some kind, in which you're too easily amazed by stuff.

It just goes to show.

A lot of young people, about 80% of young people, suffer it around the world.

It's a harrowing condition.

It just goes to show as well, Andy, if we can just live for 50 to 200 million more years, we'll eventually be living in the same country again.

Well, this is one of the pluses of it, John, because there's a lot of pluses and minuses.

It's going to happen between 50 million and 200 million years from now.

And what I want to know, John, is what are our politicians doing about it?

This is the problem with having a four or five year electoral cycle.

The politicians just aren't going to plan long term.

Ideally, you want a government in place for 10 or 20 million years that can deal with these issues without worrying about re-election.

Anyway, like I said, there's pluses and minuses.

On the plus side, as you say, it will be lovely to be able to record the bugle on the same landmass.

On the minus side, going from Europe to America naked and a peddler won't be so impressive anymore.

On the plus side, things haven't been working out too well as it is with an ocean between us.

We need a change.

On the minus side, immigration's going to be chaos.

Tarving off surrounded by sea.

On the plus side, it's probably good for the environment as it will cut down on transatlantic flights.

On the minor side, it's going to make winning the European football championships even even harder for England if Europe contains the whole of South America as well.

Oh, that's a problem.

We're going to need a lucky draw, John, and a lot of lucky games.

Really.

I mean, I know we're planning ahead.

I just don't think we'll have sorted out the youth system in 50 million years.

Dickens news now, and last Tuesday was the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, who tragically wasn't able to join in the celebrations on the grounds that he was completely and utterly dead.

He was the man after whom, as we revealed in Bugle 65, the rapper Chuck Dee took both his name and lyrical inspiration.

In fact, if you play the...

Is that something we said, Andy?

That is something we said.

That was a strong joke.

That was a strong joke.

That was a long time ago.

Yeah, well, in fact, I revealed at the time, John, that when Chuck Dee applied for the job as vocalist for Public Enemy, he wrote on his application that the Victorian novelist was an inspiration and someone whose work and beard I hope to emulate in the medium of rap.

And is included with his application a six-hour hip-hop version of Dickens' unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

And in fact, if you play the Public Enemy hit Yo Bum Rush the Show, the title track of their first album, backwards at half speed, it is the first couple of pages of Dickens' hit novel, Dombey and Son.

And track three on the same album, Miusi, weighs a ton, it's basically a five-star review of our mutual friend.

friend.

Dickens, of course, has left a great legacy for this country, and it's reached its apotheosis in Dickens World, a Dickens theme park.

It's true.

In Chatham, in North Kent.

Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Chatham, John.

I have, I have, Andy.

I have been, but incredibly, I didn't go to Dickens World, which was,

I guess, didn't put me alone.

Yeah.

But Chatham is, you know, it's an old dockyard town, but it's in a fairly depressed area of Kenton and the Medway towns.

And on TripAdvisor, Dickens World was ranked fourth out of five attractions in Chatham.

It's a bit like being the fourth most useful finger on Lord Nelson's right arm in the latter stages of his career, or the second best movie a John Oliver has ever stolen.

Oh, f you, Andy.

What the second best movie?

The movie that took in half a billion dollars, Andy.

Did Dickens World do that?

No.

its opening budget was a paltry 124 million please Dickens world please you need to you need to set that aside in advertising learn the lessons of the Smurfs I've got a copy of the Smurfs at home really I don't know what to do with it what

watch it

watch it and enjoy it actually you don't even have to the fact you've got it at home is all people involved in the smurfs cared about

I'm not sure Dickens would have been a bugle fan John a famous quote from his uh Smash It novel, Hard Times.

Now, what I want is facts.

Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts.

Facts alone are wanted in life.

Plant nothing else and root out everything else, John.

I think he might have listened to half an episode and then given up.

I mean,

what would Dickens think of Dickens' world, the theme park Andy?

A Dickens biographer, Peter Aykroyd, wrote of the place, he would be literally sick.

Sick with the smells, sick with the food, sick with the atmosphere around him.

Wow, that must have been a pretty rough Yelp review from Peter Aykeroyd.

But coming from the Medway Towns area of Kent, John,

imagine what Charles Dickens would have been like had he been born in this current era.

Coming from the same area, he'd probably spent most of his teenage years vomiting in rubbish bins and having fights with lampposts.

But on the plus side, he would also almost certainly have been a fan of Gillingham Football Club.

The mighty Jills, the pride of Kent, and he'd probably have had a tattoo of their legendary mid-90s centre-back Richard Greene on his shoulder.

The very rock at the heart of the defence that prevented Gillingham from being the worst team in the whole of English professional football in 1993 by one place.

Legend.

He's an absolute legend, Richard Green.

That's an overused word these days, and I'm overusing it right here.

When Dickens visited New York in 1842, John,

apparently a barber sold scraps of his hair, and crowds followed him through the street, and in Boston ladies with scissors tried to cut off pieces of his coat.

And it's eerie to think that just 170 years later, the same shit is happening to you.

Yeah, where's the John Oliver theme park Andy, complete with Pizza Hut?

Yeah.

Where is it?

Matter of time.

Matter of time.

But, well, I thought it was very interesting how you've approached this dick in storage on a very distinctively...

Very distinctive style, you've brought it.

You really gave it an Oliver twist.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I remember a few years ago

going out to buy a vintage Dickens first edition, thinking, right, I'm going to want to read this by candlelight, give it a bit of authenticity, and I've got loads of wax, but I need to select the right length of cord to go in it.

Anyway, the guy I was going to buy off and have to give a money to was a former newspaper editor who now bafflingly makes his living judging reality TV shows.

So I made a mental checklist, pick wick, pay peers.

And on the way, I stopped in an antiquarian bookshop in a really old building with a tiny entrance you could easily bump your head on.

Yes,

I only had a little door.

It was a real risk.

And has Dickens's legacy not been dragged through the mud with this Dickens theme park enough?

Well, anyway, once I'd squeezed into the shop, it was really crowded with a busload of pensioners.

A busload of pensioners there.

They were really interested in the books and asked loads of questions about them.

But sadly, they had a really bad selection of titles and the staff were rude.

It was a rubbish place.

The old, curious, shitty shop.

I I then thought I'd have a knockout competition to find my favourite 19th century novelist.

I drew the quarterfinals.

Some look pretty one-sided.

Austin is going to hammer Gaskell, I thought, but some of the matchups look really close.

Dickens himself was drawn against Thackeray.

Oh, I thought.

Hard time.

Mmm,

a hard one to call that one.

I think Dickens will probably sneak through.

Anywho, to partly 200th anniversary, are you still listening?

Of Chuck D popping out of his mummy's scrapping flug.

I thought me and the other guys from my football team should get round for a communal reading session.

One of the lads, South African Dave, said he'd bring enough things for everyone to sit on.

Apart from my goalie, he likes to stand.

Then I pointed out to him that it was a really hot day and all his furniture was made of flowers.

I know he said.

Martin Cheselwilt.

Martin Cheselwilt.

Andy, I think Save the Bugle should be renamed Put the Bugle Out of Its Misery.

Martin Chaiselwilt.

Did you get it?

I got it.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

Anyway,

on the way out of the shop, I bumped into an old girlfriend.

What was her her name?

I can't remember.

She just used to sleep with a cleansing face pack made of fried potato snacks, and her parents had rather cruelly named her after Margaret Thatcher's daughter.

That's it, Christmas Carol.

Anyway, lovely lass she was, terrific girl.

It was great to see her again.

Still got a bit of a thing for her, to be honest.

And we got chatting, reminiscing about the old times, and I gave her a multiple-choice quiz question about what her favourite part of my body was.

She looked so pretty as she thought of it and looked me over from top to bottom.

Her eyes went down, down a bit further, then down disappointingly far, and then down a bit more.

Then my great ex picked A shins.

She then asked me what my favourite farm animal was.

Tough one, I said I like them all, but if I had to choose one, uh probably

cows.

Bleed cows, probably.

Andy, why do you sound so happy?

Then the Prime Minister came in, John, for some celebrity Dickens function or other, and he started obviously staring at Chris Moss Carroll's ample decolletas.

He just couldn't take his eyes off them.

Anyway, she's got a thing for powerful men, so she went up to him and said, Go on, David, Copperfield.

Ah, I thought to myself, better off without her.

And that's it.

Sorry.

Some of those weren't great.

It really did tail off to zitty z problem with puns, as Austrian neurology celebrity and joke analyst Sigmund Freud would have said.

Come on, John, pull yourself together.

There's some really original stuff there, some really novel jokes.

Sounds like you're probably thinking about putting out a press release, just a short one saying, Andy Zoltzmann, what a dick, ends.

All done, all done here.

At the start of this feature, Andy really gleefully said he had quite a lot of content, and I couldn't work out why he was so happy that he had so much content.

Do I even

edited out the Barnaby Rudge and the Nicolas Nickleby game?

I think that bit would work at a Guantanamo toy beach.

Normandy, Andy.

Normandy, beach.

Can I play replace this last six minutes with just a pneumatic driller table?

Yeah, that would be good.

That would be so soothing.

Well done, Andy.

Thank you.

Your emails now, and we have an email from Chris Kirk about big brass balls.

You might remember,

we had a big brass balls contest in the past.

And he says, Dear Chris, Andy, and John, in order of likelihood of turning off a nuclear reactor by bludging it with scaffold poles.

Yes.

Wow, I like the way this email is heading.

I am on board with this.

He said I hope it's not too late to make a nomination for the Bugles big brass balls award never too late even if the awards were a few weeks ago and the event I'm referring to took place over 50 years ago.

Like I say never too late.

He goes on to say I would like to nominate Tom Tuhoy Tom Hughes and their unnamed co-workers in mitigating the effects of Britain's worst nuclear accident the Windscale fire of 1957.

He says all this information comes from Wikipedia.

That in this case does not make it untrue.

And he says that these men attempted to fight the out-of-control reactor by battering it with scaffolding poles, which melted, incidentally, as well as Tom Tahoy repeatedly climbing on top of the burning pile to direct operations as water is poured on to control the fire.

Also, one of the inspection hatches was removed, leading to one of the finest examples of British understatement.

This is a direct quote.

He said, I went up to check several times until I was satisfied that the fire was out.

I did stand to one side, sort of hopefully, he went on to say.

But if you're staring straight at the core of a shutdown reactor, you're going to get quite a bit of radiation.

Big bass brawls?

I think so.

Best wishes for the future of the bugle, Chris Kirks.

Thank you, Chris.

That is a brassy, ballsy move.

And if you've ever star stands into the core of a shutdown reactor, please email in to info.

Honestly, Andy, I felt like I was doing that during that last pun run.

Oh, come on, John.

Old Curios.

Old Curios shitty shop.

Oh come on man.

That took hours of crafting at the cold face of jokes.

This email came in on the subject flipping Mitt Romney the bird.

I'm listening.

Dear Andy, John and Chris.

I've edited the two words before Chris out.

As a long-time bugle listener and first-time emailer, I've long thought of what I might share with you.

How could I possibly contribute to this beloved compendion of utter inanity?

Thanks very much.

Take that as a compliment.

And then when listening to your detailed description of Mitt Romney's campaign I remembered a moment from his 2002 campaign for governor of Massachusetts.

I was 17 years old and in attendance at a parade in the Massachusetts town where I grew up with a few neighbours when a smiling waving Mitt walked by.

To my horror my neighbours called him over to tell him what big fans they were and how they planned to vote for him.

He then turned to me and asked if I was going to be voting for him in the fall.

And in a defining moment in my life, I smiled wide and extended my middle finger.

Oh,

being in the middle of a public place and not able to respond in anger to the obnoxious teenager flipping him off before him, Romney simply smiled wide and walked away.

My neighbours were outraged and went back to tell my father of my delinquency.

He listened with a stern expression, and when they finished, turned to me and said, Good girl.

Please, please accept as my nomination of my father for Bugle Perrons of the Year.

Wow.

Today is...

That bird was well said then, Andy, and the bird stands now.

Today, as an adult with a career, I would likely not flip off a politician in public.

But every time I see Mitt Romney, I get a twinkle in my eye and smile.

Thinking of the man who had to take a bratty angsty teenager flipping him off with an expression the same as if a sweet old grandma had invited him for tea.

But every time I see Mitt Romney, I get a twinkle in my eye and smile.

Thinking of the man who had to take a bratty angsty teenager flipping him off with an expression the same as if a sweet old grandma had invited him for tea.

And I give the TV the bird just for old time's sake.

Thanks for all the bullshit, Denise in New York.

Denise, you're a hero.

Have you ever flipped the bird to a prominent politician?

And lived to tell the tale.

Please email us, info at thebuglepodcast.com.

There's a great email here from David Stott who says, dear Andy, Chris, and John, in no meaningful order other than alphabetical.

That is honest.

That isn't honest ordering.

In my random forays into Wikipedia Wonderland, I discovered the following information about the first director of the Secret Intelligence Service, Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith Cumming, KCMG CB, 1st of April 1859, 14th of June 1923.

Now, according to a Wikipedia entry, he pioneered the use of semen as invisible ink.

Let's all just pause to let that fact sink in.

He goes on to say, entirely appropriate giving the last part of his name.

Apparently, his agents adopted the motto, every man his own stylo.

These agents included Augustus Agar, Paul Dukes, John Buchan, Compton Mackenzie and W.

Somerset Maugham.

The idea of these illustrious pillars of the empire desperately beating one off to beat the Hun causes me much amusement.

Apparently, he goes on to say,

the use of Seaman as invisible ink was ceased because of the smell it produced for the eventual receiver.

Oh dear.

It also raised questions over the masturbatory habits of the agents.

Brackets, no shit.

Well, I mean, that is all a piece of history that none of us can really get out of our heads now.

That's probably a fact that's going to stay in there for a while.

So thank you, Sir George Mansfield Smith, coming.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, it's wonderful to know

the part.

that was played by some of the parts being played with of some of our most illustrious citizens.

Everyone did their bit for the war effort, Andy.

It was won by Spitfires and Love Sludge.

Well, it's hard to know how to follow that, so I think we should probably just wrap things up for the week.

Thanks very much for listening.

On that note.

Do keep any emails coming in, preferably not about

the use of bodily fluids in the history of the British Empire.

To info at

thebuglepodcast.com.

I think we're all probably suspicious that there are many other examples.

I'm not opening or touching any letters that get sent to us.

Did you want to know what the Nicholas Nickleby joke was, John?

Nope.

I'm happy living in peace, Andy.

Brilliant.

Why don't we just imagine that you type that on invisible ink?

I'm not sure that's, I think that's probably worse, John.

I'm not sure about that, Andy.

Just before we go, time for the Bugle forecast.

And John, you are off to Gabon

to do some filming.

I'm off to Africa for two days, Andy.

It's a long way to go for a joke.

This joke had better be funny.

Yes, I'm going to be in Gabon for two days.

So hopefully, I'll be back this time next.

I'm due to be here this time next week.

And it's probably worth listening for no other reason of seeing what that level of tiredness does to the human body.

It's going to be an audio case study in exhaustion.

I'd imagine that at least 30% of the population of Gabon listens to the bugle.

Well,

you know, I can't disprove that yet, Andy, but I'm relatively confident I'll be able to disprove it to you next week.

So the forecast is, is John going to be back or is he going to have become a political prisoner?

It's touch and go.

Touch and go.

I just don't know where to put my money on this one.

Tough one.

Yeah, I don't know who you put the spread with.

That's it buglers.

Goodbye from me Andy's ultimate and goodbye from future warlord John Oliver.

Goodbye.

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.